Political science and digital society: some issues of modern education in higher education (experience of the EU countries)

Author(s):  
Elena Stepanovna Ustinovich

The course of political science in higher education is often read, to a large extent, as a theoretical course and affects the study of issues and problems of the formation and development of political institutions, processes and technologies. The focus is usually on the history of politics, the state as the central institution of the political system, political parties, political consciousness, culture, political relations, etc. However, it is very important that, when studying a course in political science, listeners understand the current political processes taking place around them. Some of them are well established, democratic processes, such as the electoral process. Others are associated with the impact of modern innovation processes on the political sphere of society. And in this case, political science as a science once again demonstrates its value in an applied format. For a deep understanding of this kind of political processes, additional aggregated information is needed, knowledge that should differ in such characteristics as relevance, novelty, compliance with modern development. In the modern digital era, it is necessary to additionally acquire knowledge about the digital transformation of political institutions, processes and technologies, including types of state policy, the most important of which is social. And it's not just the digital economy. This, first of all, digitalization of public administration (State-web) — Big Date management, blockchain, etc., as well as digitalization of business — the emergence and development of digital enterprises, etc. It is obvious that the use of digital technologies will become possible for the development of predictive political science. This article is largely a translation of German publications by scientists dealing with the development of modern political science education in the countries of the European Union, in particular, in the Federal Republic of Germany. The focus is on the impact of digitalization on the teaching of theoretical and applied political science.

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (9) ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Oksana Bashtannyk

The relevance of this study is explained by the need to find out the heuristic parameters of one of the segments of the institutional analysis of Ukrainian political science - sociological institutionalism. At the present stage of world development of institutional research in politics, it is no longer enough to turn to the formalized aspects of the essence of political institutions, which is still a fairly common approach - in contrast to the general theory of the new institutionalism. Also, there is a widespread view that the latest models of research strategies can be offered only by foreign political science and it is among its developments that the necessary analytical tools should be sought. Due to certain historical aspects of the political development of our country, political science research has not been able to develop synchronously with global trends for a long time, but it is possible to assume that today this situation is gradually changing. Therefore, the purpose of our study was to concretize in domestic political science the analytical field of such research areas of the new institutionalism as sociological institutionalism and systematize the main parameters of its research strategy. As a result of the study, it was found that the provisions of sociological institutionalism of political science are based on more normative-formalized approaches compared to other types of institutionalism because its formation was significantly influenced by the theory of organizations. Most Ukrainian scholars use the methodological tools of this area of institutionalism for a comprehensive analysis of the nature of the political institution as a research unit, which is close in its characteristics to the latest world examples and requires an appropriate research methodology. The group of specific issues considered by domestic scholars on the basis of the provisions of sociological institutionalism is opened by the normative aspects of the functioning of international politics (for example, humanization), which in this dimension is in the center of attention of foreign scholars as well. A more interesting area of research is the peculiarities of the process of European integration, the analysis of which also begins in the works of foreign scholars, but we are interested in this question given Ukraine's European ambitions - whether its regulatory Europeanization will have appropriate prospects. Another important aspect of research using the methodology of this area of institutional analysis, and again - important for our country, are the socio-political processes in transition societies, where democratization has begun, but the achievements in this way are difficult to call sustainable.


Author(s):  
Alesha Doan

The impact of morality conflicts on the political landscape is widespread. These debates have involved political institutions at every level of government, impacted electoral outcomes, shaped agendas, and occupied significant space in citizen discourses. However, despite the historical and modern regularity of these debates, scholars have been slow to consider belief-laden conflicts within the purview of political science research. This chapter explores the development of the morality politics literature. Attention is given to the initial research in this field, as well as the studies that refined and challenged several of the early assumptions underpinning morality politics scholarship.


The existence of a political executive is a key feature of any political system: from eminently democratic regimes to totalitarian dictatorships, and every shade in between. In recent decades the long-term trend of putting constitutional and democratic constraints on the political executive is reversed. In addition to an autocratic turn in some countries, internationalization, securitization and a growing need for coordination shift the balance between governments and other political institutions. This re-empowerment of the political executive has contributed to its rediscovery in political science. As the 37 chapters in this volume demonstrate, the past two decades have seen an impressive outpouring of research on political executives. Edited and written by 49 of the most distinguished scholars in the field, this Oxford Handbook of Political Executives combines substantive stocktaking with setting new agendas for the next generation of political executive research. The book is organized around five themes. Part I, Theorizing and Researching Political Executives is devoted to the theoretical and methodological approaches in the study of political executives. Part II looks at The Composition and Life Cycle of Political Executives, from the formation to the termination of successive governments. Part III discusses The Dynamics and Developments within the Executive, such as hierarchical relations and internal political processes. Part IV focusses on The Dynamics and Developments between the Executive and the Broader Political Context, including interactions with the bureaucracy and parliament. Part V is devoted to Political Executives Beyond the Democratic Nation State, such as the European Union and autocratic regimes.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ирина Юдина ◽  
Irina Yudina

This work is an attempt to explain the political roots from which banking systems have evolved in different countries and how they have evolved at different times. For this purpose, materials and analysis tools from three different disciplines were used: economic history, political science and Economics. The main idea that is set out in this paper is the statement that the strength and weakness of the banking system is a consequence of the Great political game and that the rules of this game are written by the main political institutions.


Author(s):  
Tracey Raney

This paper is about the ways that citizens perceive their place in the political world around them, through their political identities. Using a combination of comparative and quantitative methodologies, the study traces the pattern of citizens’ political identifications in the European Union and Canada between 1981 and 2003 and explains the mechanisms that shape these political identifications. The results of the paper show that in the EU and Canada identity formation is a process that involves the participation of both individuals and political institutions yet between the two, individuals play a greater role in identity construction than do political institutions. The paper argues that the main agents of political identification in the EU and Canada are citizens themselves: individuals choose their own political identifications, rather than acquiring identities that are pre-determined by historical or cultural precedence. The paper makes the case that this phenomenon is characteristic of a rise of ‘civic’ identities in the EU and Canada. In the European Union, this overarching ‘civic’ identity is in its infancy compared to Canada, yet, both reveal a new form of political identification when compared to the historical and enduring forms of cultural identities firmly entrenched in Europe. The rise of civic identities in both the EU and Canada is attributed to the active role that citizens play in their own identity constructions as they base their identifications on rational assessments of how well political institutions function, and whether their memberships in the community will benefit them, rather than on emotional factors rooted in religion or race. In the absence of strongly held emotional identifications, in the EU and Canada political institutions play a passive role in identity construction by making the community appear more entitative to its citizens. These findings offer new theoretical scope to the concept of civic communities and the political identities that underpin them. The most important finding presented in the paper is that although civic communities and identities are manufactured by institutions and political elites (politicians and bureaucrats), they require thinking citizens, not feeling ones, to be sustained.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v2i4.179


2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (01) ◽  
pp. 124-126

The Political Science Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) announces it awards for basic research support and dissertation improvement grants for fiscal year 2011. The Program funded 25 new projects and 44 doctoral dissertation improvement proposals. The Political Science Program spent $5,234,470 on these research, training and workshop projects and $483,822 on dissertation training grants for political science students. The program holds two grant competitions annually —Regular Research, August and January 15; Dissertation Improvement, September 16 and January 15— and constitutes a major source of political science research funding as part of fulfilling NSF's mission to encourage theoretically focused empirical investigations aimed at improving the explanation of fundamental social and political processes and structures.


2021 ◽  
pp. 479-496
Author(s):  
Effie Fokas

This chapter considers the relationship between ‘Orthodoxies’ and ‘Europes’, highlighting the multiplicity of Eastern Christian Orthodox approaches and attitudes towards Europe, from one majority Orthodox national context to another and one historical period to another, ranging from anti-Europeanism (and anti-Westernism) to Europhilism. It also draws attention to differences in Orthodox stances on the idea of Europe, on the one hand, and the political reality of the European unification project, on the other. A temporal perspective is particularly relevant in changing attitudes to the European Union. Special attention is paid to external perspectives on the relationship between ‘Orthodoxy’ and ‘Europe’, often politicized and influenced by the political turmoil in the Balkans. The chapter closes with reference to the situation of flux characterizing contemporary conceptions of Europe, and the impact of the latter on ‘Orthodoxy’ in relation to ‘Europe’.


2021 ◽  
Vol 562 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-23
Author(s):  
Władysław Bogdan Sztyber

The article presents the impact of the level of education of employees on their income in various terms. One of them is a study based on the OECD data from 2004–2005, which shows the differentiation of incomes of employees with different levels of education on the basis of the relative differentiation between them, assuming the income level of employees with upper secondary education as 100 and referring to it respectively the income level of employees with higher education and the level of income of employees with lower secondary education. The article then presents a more elaborate study of the impact of the level of education of employees on their incomes in the European Union, included in the Report “The European Higher Education Area in 2015”. This survey shows the impact of the education level of employees on the median of their gross annual income in the European Union and in the individual Member States. The article also compares the income differentiation depending on the level of education, based on the OECD data for 2004–2005, with the results of surveys on European Union Member States in 2010 and 2013.


2020 ◽  

The authors of the book analyze domestic political processes and international relations in the post-Soviet space. They examine the balance of political forces in Belarus after the presidential elections in August 2020, and transformations of political systems in Ukraine and Moldova. The main features of formation of the political institutions in the countries of South Caucasus and Central Asia and the latest trends in their devel-opment are analyzed. Attention is paid to the Karabakh and Donbass conflicts. The book examines the policy of major non-regional actors (USA, EU, China, Turkey) in the post-Soviet space. The results of develop-ment of the EAEU have been summed up. The role in the political processes in the post-Soviet space of a number of international organizations and associations (the CIS, the Union State of Russia and Belarus, the CSTO etc.) is revealed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-38
Author(s):  
Wolde Mikhael Kassaye Nigusie ◽  
Natalia Viktorovna Ivkina

The article is devoted to the features of the formation and development of Africa in the postcolonial period. The authors study such fundamental issues as the formation of modern States in Africa, the formation of the ruling elite and its influence on the political and socio-economic system, the role of the army and ethnic conflicts in the process of state formation. The relevance of the research is due to the fact that Russian and foreign historical science has not yet formed a common opinion on how to assess the consequences of the colonial period for Africa. Pluralism of opinions, on the one hand, generates the discussion for research, on the other, introduces a destructive imbalance in the representation of the region. As a novelty of the study, it’s necessary to note the neo-patrimonial approach to studying the features of the postcolonial period in Africa. It identifies separate thematic blocks that help assess the impact of colonization on the development of countries on the continent. The article also considers the correlation between the traditional and westernized elements within African political culture. The borrowing of political institutions and statehood theories is also considered not only as a consequence of the colonial past, but also as the political choice of the first national leaders of Africa, in the framework of their aspiration to choose an effective development way and to find a balance between the tradition and modernization. The main purpose of the study is to assess the results of decolonization in the context of ethnic, military and political aspects of the formation of African States. The polemic nature of the principles of understanding the postcolonial period of African development has led to the need to use a functional approach as a methodological basis. This is due to the need to study the principles of functioning of the political system of the region, rather than individual states. The neo-patrimonialist approach also gave rise to the use of a comparative method to compare the main theoretical postulates with the real situation in Africa. A vast array of sources and literature in Russian and English is needed to reflect the multi-vector possibilities of research on African issues.


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