The problem of disarmament and the attitude of austrian statesmen to it in the 1960s and 1970s

The article is devoted to international security problems in the Second Austrian Republic in the 1960s and 1970s. The aim is to consider the policy of neutral Austria, which was an active struggle for the preservation and strengthening of peace in the international arena and not flight to isolation. The topic's relevance lies in the fact that Austria's leading interests during the period under review were to ensure that all European problems were resolved peacefully and, therefore, nuclear weapons were not placed near its borders. It has been very active in the international arena, based primarily on its own interests, and has supported the solution of such problems as ensuring European security and disarmament. The study is based on the Austrian Government's materials containing resolutions on the cessation of nuclear weapons testing. Austrian politicians recognized the importance of a peaceful solution to this problem. The author pays special attention to the German question. His decision was of great importance for Austria since the country's vital interests demanded that a new hotbed of danger should not arise on its borders in the center of Europe. Until 1966, the Austrian Government had not expressed its attitude to ensuring European security while referencing the country's neutrality. In conclusion, it is noted that Austria, as a neutral country, could not be isolated from the initiatives of the socialist camp countries on security and cooperation at the Pan-European conference in connection with the emerging trends in the second half of the 1960s to defuse tensions.

Authoritarian Liberalism and the Transformation of Modern Europe

<Online Only>This book recounts the transformation of Europe from the interwar era until the euro crisis, using the tools of constitutional analysis and critical theory. The central claim is twofold: post-war Europe is reconstituted in a manner combining political authoritarianism and economic liberalism, producing an order which is now in a critical condition. The book begins in the interwar era, when liberalism, unable to deal with mass democracy and the social question, turns to authoritarianism in an attempt to suppress democracy, with disastrous consequences in Weimar and elsewhere. After the Second World War, partly on the basis of a very different diagnosis of interwar collapse, and initially through a passive authoritarianism, inter-state sovereignty is reconfigured, state-society relations are depoliticized, and social relations transformed. Integration is substituted for internationalism, technocracy for democracy, and economic liberty for political freedom and class struggle. This transformation takes time to unfold, and it presents continuities as well as discontinuities. It is deepened by the neo-liberalism of the Maastricht era and the creation of Economic and Monetary Union, and yet countermovements then also emerge: geopolitically, in the return of the German question; and domestically, in the challenges presented by constitutional courts and anti-systemic movements. Struggles over sovereignty, democracy, and political freedom resurface, but are then more actively repressed through the authoritarian liberalism of the euro crisis phase. This leads now to an impasse. Anti-systemic politics return but remain uneasily within the EU, suggesting that the post-war order of authoritarian liberalism is reaching its limits. As yet, however, there has been no definitive rupture.</Online Only>

Restraining State Sovereignty: Imagining a ‘European Germany’

<Online Only>This chapter examines how post-war Europe was reconstituted through a new regional geopolitics of inter-state relations, an acknowledgement of the interdependence of internal and external domains of state action, and a change in the abstract meaning of sovereignty. Materially, inter-state relations in Europe were reconstituted through the response to the ‘German question’, extraneous factors of Cold War superpower rivalry, and the project of European integration. This was supported by constitutional developments. Domestically, these developments involved commitments to internationalism and Europeanism and the turn to counter-majoritarian institutions, disconnecting state sovereignty from popular sovereignty. Regionally, they involved the constitutionalization of the European Economic Community (EEC), cementing a functionalist ideology and depoliticization through juridical and technical avenues.</Online Only>

Restraining State Sovereignty or the Return of the German Question?

<Online Only>This chapter examines how the geopolitical constitution of Europe developed after Maastricht, in ways both continuous and discontinuous with the founding era. It discusses the continuities in inter-state constraints on the exercise of sovereign powers, now structured, however, through a ‘new intergovernmentalism’ rather than traditional forms of supranationalism. In conjunction with the move towards differentiated integration, this signalled the end of the ‘federal dream’ of European unification. The chapter concludes by discussing the return of the ‘German question’. It analyses how the reunification of Germany, and its increasing influence through the Eastern enlargement of the Union, raised the spectre of stark asymmetries, and even the prospect of semi-hegemony.</Online Only>

Introduction

<Online Only> This book recounts the transformation of Europe from the interwar era until the euro crisis, using the tools of constitutional analysis and critical theory. The central claim is twofold: post-war Europe is reconstituted in a manner combining political authoritarianism and economic liberalism, and this has produced an order which is now in a critical condition. Through a passive authoritarianism, inter-state sovereignty is reconfigured after World War II, state-society relations are depoliticized, and social relations transformed. Integration substitutes internationalism, technocracy replaces democracy, and economic freedom stands in for political freedom and class struggle. This transformation takes time to unfold, and it presents continuities as well as discontinuities. It is deepened by the neo-liberalism of the Maastricht era and the creation of Economic and Monetary Union, and yet countermovements then also emerge: geopolitically, in the return of the German question; domestically, in the challenges to the EU presented by constitutional courts, and informally, in the rise of anti-systemic political parties and movements. Struggles over sovereignty, democracy, and political freedom resurface, but are then more actively repressed through the authoritarian liberalism of the euro crisis phase. This leads now to an impasse. Anti-systemic politics return but remain uneasily within the EU, suggesting the post-war order of authoritarian liberalism is reaching its limits. As yet, however, there has been no definitive rupture.</Online Only>

«После признания и торжества национального начала многие общечеловеческие вопросы разрешаются»: европейский опыт и российский национальный проект в работах А. Д. Градовского.

The purpose of the article is to study the researches by A. Gradovsky, dedicated to the problem of nationalism as a phenomenon that manifested itself in the 19th century Western Europe. The author studies how the scholar correlated the above-named phenomena with the situation in the Russian Empire. N. Venger has found out the place of Gradovsky in the context of the general polemic about the Russian national project. Being rather a scholar, teacher and observer than a politician and publicist, Gradovsky reflected the European experience through the prism of the Russian Empire`s history. His Eurocentricity was important due to the fact that the dominant conservative ideology had rejected the western pattern of development for a long time. Most of Gradovsky's articles on national issues were created in the 1870s – at the beginning of 1880s. The scholar was never able to propose a global national project for the Russian Empire. However, projecting European phenomena onto the Russian Empire`s future development, Gradovsky paid attention to the most painful points of the society, which impede the progress of the national project`s formation and required reforms. The author created his own concept of ethnicity and nation, discussed the issue of the language unification and state religion role as well as advocated freedom of conscience. The topics of serfdom remnants overcoming, the elimination of estates, the emancipation of the peasantry were of great importance for the scholar. Gradovsky also touched on the problem of choosing Russia`s national idea, which he associated with Slavism. Supporting decisive actions in Polish uprising suppressing, Gradovsky insisted on keeping a dialogue with the Poles. While solving the German question, he demanded to avoid Russian xenophobia regarding the Russian Germans. It was not clear what the scholar thought about the possibility to create a national state from the totally heterogeneous Russian empire.

The interaction of question particles and negation in embedded contexts: the case of alles

The German question particle alles (Reis 1992; Zimmermann 2007) is characterised in the semantic literature as imposing plurality and exhaustivity requirements on the answer space. We report on novel experimental probing the interaction of alles and negation in embedded questions. We investigated alles with three embedding predicates: vergessen 'forget', wissen 'know', and überraschen 'surprise'. The data show that alles may be focussed and contributes to at-issue propositional content, on the basis of its interaction with negation.

The German Question in the Foreign Policy of the Austrian Empire in 1850—1866

For centuries, the House of Austria (the Habsburgs) maintained its leadership in the Holy Roman Empire, and later in the German Union. But in the middle of the 19th century the situation changed, Austria lost its position in Germany, lost to Prussia in the struggle for hegemony. The article examines what factors influenced such an outcome of the German question, what policy Austria pursued in the 50—60s of the 19th century, what tasks it set for itself. The paper traces the relationship between the domestic and foreign policy of Austria. Economic weakness and political instability prevented the monarchy from pursuing a successful foreign policy. The multinational empire could not resist the challenge of nationalism and prevent the unification of Italy and Germany. Difficult relations with France and Russia, inconsistent policy towards the Middle German states largely determined this outcome. The personal factor was also important. None of the Austrian statesmen could resist such an outstanding politician as Bismarck.