Archive 1/2006

Abstract

The article aims to present the three-level model of the EU, from the perspective of regional actors. The article analyzes the mechanisms of interaction among regional actors in reference to the level at which they are realized. Whereas the third level (regional level) is based on regional cooperation (cross-border, interregional and transnational) and regional partnership (realized by regional management), the state level and European level are based on the aggregation and articulation of regional interests. The third level follows the interest of a region. Mechanisms at the first and second levels follow the interest of a regional actor.

Key words

Three levels of the EU, Multilevel governance, Euroregionalism, Regional cooperation, Cross-border cooperation, Transnational cooperation, Interregional cooperation, Regional actors, Political dialogue

Abstract

The article tries to evaluate the Europeanization research agenda from the point of view of a politics-sphere and actor-centered approach. The authors postulate that the concept of Europeanization is lacking in regards to problems of political process and its dominant actors – political parties and interest/pressure groups. The article consists of several parts. First, a critical examination of existing Europeanization conceptualizations is provided. Second, the impact of democratic transition and consolidation upon Europeanization in new member countries of the EU (and in potential candidate states) is examined. Third, ways of necessary adaptation suitable for analyzing politics in terms of Europeanization are suggested and discussed. The article concludes with sections devoted to agenda-setting for research about the Europeanization of political parties and interest groups. The overall tenor of the article is to point out the necessity of integrating Europeanization-related issues, methodological, and research tasks into a broader framework of comparative politics/comparative government; and that the theoretical basis of actor-oriented Europeanization research should be drawn more from this area of political science than it has been in previous research.

Key words

Europeanization; Political Parties; Pressure Groups; New EU-Member Countries; Politics

Abstract

Contemporary normative debates about justice increasingly revolve around the problem of extending the principles of justice (and corresponding theories) beyond the level of the nation-state, to which they have been for a long time confined. The article below discusses several authors from the wide and heterogenous politico-philosophical current of liberal egalitarianism, which can be considered one of the leading contemporary schools of thought, or the mainstream. There are two interrelated goals in this enterprise: First, to show how varied and cross-cutting the normative landscape of justice is, even within this specific current. Second, since I concentrate on the problem of extending the principles and theories of justice to supra-state levels, the universality (or the „cosmopolitan reach“) of these ideas stands out as one of the most interesting features of these discussions. The work of Brian Barry, David Miller, Onora O’Neill and John Rawls exemplfy many crucial issues that any theory of justice with cosmopolitan ambitions must cope with. The article concludes that the concept of (universal) human rights seems to be the only value that can buttress any cosmopolitan theories of justice; however, the normative debate over (1) their grounding, scope and corresponding obligations and (2) their connection to a comprehensive account of a good society, i.e. liberal democracy – and therefore, the acknowledged danger of ethnocentrism – is still far from being resolved.

Key words

theories of justice, universalism and particularism, nation-state, global justice, liberal egalitarianism

Abstract

The article discusses the normative responses of the tradition of Rawls’s political philosophy to the fact that globalization is not working according to the principles of distributive justice and that the existing global distribution of income and wealth is highly unjust. The first section presents the cosmopolitan theories of Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge, both of whom draw their concepts from Rawls’s masterpiece “Theory of Justice”. These advocates of the Rawlsian approach see our world as forming one basic global structure that entails complex economic, political and cultural relationships across state borders. These relationships have important distributive implications that require the application of Rawlsian principles of justice at the transnational level. In the second part, Rawls’s work developed in “The Law of Peoples”, which is the extension of his own approach to the transnational domain, is critically examined. Its major notions (Society of Peoples, liberal and decent peoples, outlaw states and burdened societies, etc.), as well as the reasons for rejecting this approach from a cosmopolitan point of view are closely analyzed. In the third part, globalism and statism are conceived of as two main paradigms of current debate on global and international justice. The article concludes with the thesis that Rainer Forst’s conception of transnational justice may provide the possible transcendence of this opposition.

Key words

political philosophy, globalisation, justice, cosmopolitanism, law of peoples, statism, globalism

Abstract

This article presents a comparison of three approaches to international justice. The first part of the article focuses on the realist paradigm, the second section analyzes various liberal approaches, and the third part presents the basic ideas of neomarxism. The largest part of the article is devoted to a critical discussion of existing liberal approaches – liberal institutionalism (R. Keohane), political liberalism (J. Rawls), democratic liberalism (J. Habermas), globalist utilitarianism (P. Singer), globalist egalitarianism (Ch. Beitz, T. Pogge), and liberal impartialism (B. Barry). The article concludes by synthesizing the insights of the three broad normative positions into a realist, yet at the same time critical, liberalism.

Key words

global justice, international justice, realism, liberalism, neomarxism, internationalism, globalism

Abstract

The article discusses Jason D. Hill’s conception of cosmopolitan democracy as an expression of morally paternalistic Western policy. Hill’s analogy between “burdened societies” (nations, states, cultures) and children is considered to be very questionable. There is no set of pre-given premises on which we could based judgments of the history and “civilization maturity” of human societies. Since the consequences of our social actions are always determined by an image of us in the eyes of others, it is necessary for us to recognize that any conception of the supremacy of Western civilization might be perceived through the “eye-glasses” of the unfortunate history of colonialism and imperialism. The conception of paternalistic global governance presupposes a decision-making process whose legitimacy is freed from any need for consensus. Therefore, there is a danger of ignoring the side effects of paternalistic intervention which might produce new and even worse burdens than those we strive to relieve. We must consider that there is no reasonability without feedback from those affected by our actions. Last but not least, I argue that J. D. Hill’s conception belongs to the tradition of hate for the human body; that body, linked with culture and differentiation, always subverts the full realization of possibilities for the (good) human soul.

Key words

Global justice, cosmopolitan justice, cosmopolitan democracy, moral cosmopolitanism, liberal democracy, global democracy, global governance, paternalism, western civilization, Abu Ghraib, human body

Abstract

Marek Hrubec (ed.). 2004. Demokracie, veřejnost a občanská společnost, FILOSOFIA, 15. svazek řady Filosofie a sociální vědy, Praha, 268 pages.

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Marek Čejka. 2005. Izrael a Palestina: minulost, současnost a směřování blízkovýchodního konfliktu, Brno: Centrum strategických studií, 312 pages.

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Michel Perrotino. 2005. Francouzský politický systém, Praha: nakladatelství SLON, 335 pages.

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Petr Černý. 2005. Politický extremismus a právo, Eurolex Bohemia, Praha, 208 pages.

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