scholarly journals Lithuanian public opinion and the EU membership

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-312
Author(s):  
Elena Dragomir

During the early 1990s, following the restoration of independence, Lithuania reoriented in terms of foreign policy towards West. One of the state’s main foreign policy goals became the accession to the EU and NATO. Acknowledging that the ‘opinion of the people’ is a crucial factor in today’s democracy as it is important and necessary for politicians to know and take into consideration the ‘public opinion’, that is the opinion of the people they represent, this paper brings into attention the public support for the political pro-West project. The paper is structured in two main parts. The first one presents in short the politicians’ discourse regarding Lithuania’s accession to the EU and its general ‘returning to Europe’, in the general context of the state’s new foreign policy, while the second part presents the results of different public opinion surveys regarding the same issue. Comparing these two sides, in the end, the paper provides the answer that the Lithuanian people backed the political elites in their European projects. Although, the paper does not represent a breakthrough for the scientific community, its findings could be of interest for those less familiarized with the Lithuanian post-Cold War history, and especially for the Romanian public to whom this journal mainly addresses.

Author(s):  
Markus Patberg

This chapter deals with the question of whether the public narrative of ‘We, the people of Europe’, which claims constituent power for a cross-border demos composed of EU citizens, can be justified in terms of a systematic model. To that end, it draws on the political theory of regional cosmopolitanism, which holds that even though the EU is not a state, it has its own political community. The literature on regional cosmopolitanism offers two possible strategies of defending the idea of an EU-wide constituent power: a first-principles approach and a reconstructive approach. The chapter argues that only the latter proves viable, and then goes on to examine the merits of the model that it gives rise to. While regional-cosmopolitan constituent power plausibly responds to the fact that the EU has created a new group of addressees and authors of the law, it neglects the continuing importance of the member state peoples and fails to explain how an EU-wide constituent power could be reconciled with the compound and dependent nature of the EU polity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-25
Author(s):  
Khadija Murtaza ◽  
◽  
Dr. Mian Muhammad Azhar ◽  

Politics is all about power in a democratic form of government. In a democracy, agitation is the part of politics in the developmental stage of human rights. Agitational politics is a kind of politics which urge the public demands and utilize the public opinion for the sake of specific issue. Sometimes, it would make public violent who acts as attacking the police and damaging the official establishments. Protestors cover the specific area and refuse to move on until their demands are measured by authorities. It affects the working of government institutions and also creates political instability. The main reason behind this, agitational politics, have lack of stout and genuine leadership in Pakistan. Agitational politics is a strategy used by the opposition that indirectly creates a weak situation for democracy. In agitational politics, parties and groups make use of speeches and public opinion to gain public support. This article discusses the dharna politics of 2014 arranged by the rising political party Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf which directly disturb the political activities and also the reason of cancelation of the visit of foreign officials of different countries. This research paper will cover the impacts of agitational politics on the working of the institution. This work also explains that, how sit-in politics damage the state working institutions and also destabilize the democracy. Sometimes it strengthens the political system but most of the time it creates uncertainty in the political environment. It is the utmost scuffle that weakens the civil and national institutions and democracy faces a lot of dares.


Author(s):  
Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha

Presidential persuasion is a central feature of presidential power and leadership. Although originally conceived of as essential for bargaining with and influencing Congress and later the bureaucracy, the rise of television and polling science—along with the constraints imposed by legislative gridlock and divided government—afforded presidents regular opportunities to appeal to the public to achieve their policy goals. Despite some scholarly allegations that presidents should persuade the public, the White House’s own expectations that presidents can do so, and the extent to which the modern White House polls and attempts to influence news coverage and public opinion, the predominant conclusion of the literature is that presidential persuasion is unlikely to change public opinion. Even evidence that supports presidential persuasion may be marginal, mixed, time bound, or vary by domestic and foreign policy. At times, presidents may not be able to lead public opinion because they have responded to it. And even the act of speaking, as expressed by scholars of the rhetorical presidency, may puff up unrealistic expectations for the occupant of the office. Nevertheless, presidents may be able to influence the public’s agenda on issues not previously salient to the American people, prime favorable aspects of their policies through speechmaking, and act strategically to parlay existing public support into legislative victories.


Author(s):  
Katimin ◽  
Syukur Kholil ◽  
Yusfriadi

The political journey of Aceh's traditional dayah ulema before, did not succeed in gaining public support in the two election periods, namely the 2009-2014 period and the 2014-2019 period. Supposedly, the politics of the Dayah ulema had the full support of the people of Aceh which incidentally were a majority Muslim. This phenomenon is influenced by various factors, including political communication. Regarding scholars as political communicators, ethics is the most important thing in determining political success. Therefore, it will be examined regarding the ethics of political communication of traditional Acehnese dayah scholars. This study uses a qualitative approach with reference to ethnographic principles. The purpose of this study is to reveal the ethics of political communication in Aceh's traditional dayah ulema in Bireuen District.The results showed that the ethics of political communication of Aceh's traditional dayah ulema in the district of Bireuen generally referred to efforts to preserve their religious status as heirs of the Prophet in the morality of al-karimah. The spirit of the cleric who made them a public figure and public opinion to attract public empathy, is considered to have used religion for political purposes. The assumption of using da'wah pulpit as a campaign media indicates that there is justification for the absence of ethical communication politics.


2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen McLarney

AbstractThis article analyzes in depth four main writings by the pioneeringnahḍaintellectual Rifaʿa Rafiʿ al-Tahtawi, who drew on classical kinds ofadabto articulate new kinds of political subjectivities. He especially draws on the image of the body politic as a body with the king at its heart. But he reconfigures this image, instead placing the public, or the people, at the heart of politics, a “vanquishing sultan” that governs through public opinion. For al-Tahtawi,adabis a kind of virtuous comportment that governs self and soul and structures political relationships. In this, he does not diverge from classical conceptions ofadabas righteous behavior organizing proper social and political relationships. But in his thought, disciplinary training inadabis crucial to the citizen-subject's capacity for self-rule, as he submits to the authority of his individual conscience, ensuring not only freedom, but also justice. These ideas have had lasting impact on Islamic thought, as they have been recycled for the political struggles of new generations.


1984 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Stephen Weatherford

Declining trust in politicians and political institutions is one of the most dramatic and well-documented trends in American public opinion. Confidence in religious, educational and other institutions has also waned, but emphasis has focused on diminished political trust, both because it may summarize a wide range of diffuse grievances and because it might indicate an increased potential for disruptive action, political violence and instability. In the decade from 1968 to 1978, the level of political trust (measured by the conventional five-item CPS/NES index) was halved, the proportion of the public expressing moderate or high levels of trust falling from 64 to 33 per cent. The greatest decline in the index level (a drop of 14 points) occurred between 1972 and 1974.


Author(s):  
Markus Patberg

This chapter addresses the public narrative of ‘We, the people and peoples of Europe’, which presents constituent power in the EU as shared between a European demos and the national demoi, and examines whether it amounts to a systematic model that withstands critical scrutiny. For this purpose, it draws on the political theory of split popular sovereignty, which interprets the EU as a federation (Bund) based on the democratic pillars of European citizens and European peoples. The chapter argues that Jürgen Habermas’s hypothetical notion of a pouvoir constituant mixte, which projects constituent power into the past, can be developed into a future-oriented model for actual decision-making in EU constitutional politics based on Habermas’s own idea of a permanent founding. Assessing the plausibility of this view, the chapter argues that the idea of dual constituent power avoids some of the shortcomings of regional cosmopolitanism and demoi-cracy, but also entails a problematic pre-commitment to the preservation of the EU member states, perplexingly stratifies constituent power across national and supranational levels, and blurs the procedural-institutional line between constituent and constituted powers.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Paulina Matera

In 2014, the new Ukrainian authorities decided to adopt a pro-Western foreign policy course. The EU supported this ambition: an Association Agreement with Ukraine was signed. This paved the way for the use of economic incentives, conditioned by the introduction of specific reforms. Besides acting within the EU, the Polish government also proposed independent support, mainly in the form of development assistance. Thus, this article aims to evaluate the efficacy of the Polish economic incentives, as well as to identify the factors that either strengthen or weaken such effectiveness. In this process, multiple variables are applied in the contexts of Polish policy goals and the situation in Ukraine. The article concludes that the applied incentives are properly aligned with the objectives that have been set. They could be effective despite the political obstacles in both Poland and Ukraine.


Author(s):  
Marco Brunazzo ◽  
Bruno Mascitelli

The dominant narrative about the virtue of European integration is no longer the mantra of Italian politics. Alongside those parties who inherited the traditional ‘Europhile’ position, one can find parties whose support toward the EU is uncertain (like Forza Italia) or openly questioning the integration process (such as the Lega, Fratelli d’Italia and the Movimento 5 Stelle). Moreover, Euroscepticism in Italy reflects a deep change in the public opinion towards the EU: the consistent traditional supportexpressed by the Italians has of recent become more volatile and even critical. This article provides a brief look at changes in Italian positions on European integration, with a focus on the sentiments of both public opinion and the political elites, particularly after the Italy’s entry into the Eurozone in 1998.


2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 266-273
Author(s):  
Ivan S. Palitai

The article is devoted to the modern Russian party system. In the first part of the article, the author shows the historical features of the parties formation in Russia and analyzes the reasons for the low turnout in the elections to the State Duma in 2016. According to the author the institutional reasons consist in the fact that the majority of modern political parties show less and less ability to produce new ideas, and the search for meanings is conducted on the basis of the existing, previously proposed sets of options. Parties reduce the topic of self-identification in party rhetoric, narrowing it down to “branded” ideas or focusing on the image of the leader. In addition, the author shows the decrease in the overall political activity of citizens after the 2011 elections, and points out that the legislation amendments led to the reduction of the election campaigns duration and changes in the voting system itself. The second part of the article is devoted to the study of the psychological aspects of the party system. The author presents the results of the investigation of images of the parties as well as the results of the population opinion polls, held by the centers of public opinion study. On the basis of this data, the author concludes that according to the public opinion the modern party system is ineffective, and the parties don’t have real political weight, which leads to the decrease of the interest in their activities and confidence in them. The author supposes that all this may be the consequence of the people’s fatigue from the same persons in politics, but at the same time the electorate’s desire to see new participants in political processes is formulated rather vaguely, since, according to the people, this might not bring any positive changes.


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