Introduction

The original goal of socialism in Britain was to supersede “politics” and achieve a non-governmental form of collective life. This Introduction argues for approaching the period between 1817 and 1918 as a “socialist century,” demarcated, respectively, by Robert Owen’s introduction of his first socialist “Plan” and the Labour Party’s adoption of its first constitution and party program. Adopting this approach brings into view a tradition of anti-political socialist activism that spans the century. But the particular purpose of Imagining Socialism is to disclose and elucidate the role the aesthetic concepts and modalities play in subtending the heterogeneous anti-political experiments it investigates. In so doing, this study reveals unexpected commonalities between what are often treated as discontinuous and even antithetical stages of socialist activity. The Introduction also elucidates this study’s central theoretical terms and defines its central object of study by distinguishing socialism from several adjacent traditions (including liberalism, civic republicanism, and Marxian communism). Finally, it argues that socialism is best conceived as a goal to be imagined, rather than a readymade ideological program to be imposed.

Almost Magic

As a teenager growing up in the Minneapolis suburbs in the 1990s, I believed the economy was strong, that liberal democracy, after the Cold War, was the final governmental form, and that the future was a place of unlimited growth. But this self-congratulation obscured the persistence of the long downturn and capitalism’s structural limits. Finance was an engine for creating personal debt and harvesting profits from America’s debtors. Neoliberalism collapsed the citizen into the consumer. David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest satirizes this America. It reveals addiction as a general condition within the debt economy. In anticipation of collective self-destruction, it hopes to save its readers from the pains of addiction and loneliness, but proves incapable of resolving the tension between the personal (addiction) and the structural (the economy), and so, instead, spills out toward infinity.

CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES IN UKRAINE IN SHERE OF DECENTRALIZATION: DO WE NEED THE FRENCH EXPERIENCE?

The experience of the French Republic in the sphere of state construction has influenced significantly on the development of state and municipal institutions of the independent Ukrainian state. It was in 1996 when the Constitution of Ukraine accepted the French municipal governmental form as a mixed (presidential-parliamentary) republic. The existing system of regional governance in Ukraine largely calqued the French model of regional governance. Of course, it can`t be insisted that Ukraine has borrowed fully the model of cooperation between local authorities and state authorities, but we can undoubtedly see many features in common. Mention should be made that the process of decentralization and municipal reforms is being continuing both in Ukraine and France. We consider it to be a natural process of searching of an optimal and effective model of regional governance, the purpose of which is to find a harmonious balance between the local self-government and public administration. Therefore, we find it important to investigate and analyze the evolution of the formation and development of local self-government institutions in Ukraine and France in the context of decentralization reform and municipal reforming. France has gone a long way of searching an effective model of regional governance, where powerful and effective local self-government occupies a key position today. Systemic and comprehensive reforms in France in this sphere are characterized by logical changes and understandable reform paradigm - from centralization of power to its decentralization (after the reform of 1982). In Ukraine, on the contrary, there doesn`t exist a systematic approach and there are no strategic approaches to understanding the algorithm for the implementation of decentralization processes and the reformation of the local- government system. Therefore, in this context, the positive experience of France should be taken into account in Ukraine on its the way towards self- government decentralization and implementation of the municipal reform in order to become a reliable foundation for the development of a democratic and legal Ukrainian state. France has a considerable experience in the activities of prefects as state representatives in regions, while the legal status of the prefect has changed significantly since the reform of 1982. The introduction of the institution of prefects in the constitutional field of Ukraine has a lot of nuances, taking into account the concern regarding the establishment of possible total control over the activity of local self-government bodies and officials.

Delegation Policy Implementation Model of Regent’S Authority to District Head (Camat) on Local Autonomy in Nias Regency North Sumatera Province

Recent policy has an orientation into national policy for find the pattern of regional development acceleration by minimalizing chance of budget leakiness that assumed to be unefficient, then lower governmental form learns to find a synergy to the upper governmental. While the upper government still on autonomy implementation until today rectified over and over again about authority in autonomy or institution aspect and controlling resources from regency to village. National Act Number 23 in 2014 about Regional Government only reaches the border of regional government affairs that also become a reference for regency to teach lower government, which is village. Besides, village and its governmental implementation has been guaranteed judicially through National Act Number 6 in 2014 about Village. Both national acts have consequences to guarantee realization of good governance of regencies/cities and/or villages so they can perform their autonomy to control and arrange each area of it. The data analyzed as qualitative phenomemologically.Based on research results and discussion, we conclude that (1) Delegation policy implementation model of Regent’s authority to head district at Nias Regency not fully has meaning that the head district acts the regional affairs. This assumed that the delegation of authority to head district from Nias’ regent has not reached the truly authority that actually need to be handed over to head district for decide the fastest people’s sake. (2) Some factors impede the delegation of regent authority to head district at Nias Regency which are: district’s apparatus were classified less than good even form quantity and quality, the budget also classified as could not fulfilled people’s demand about maximum services, and there were no sincerity from technical agency to hand over the job authority to head district, which is, in this case, impressed as a long and compicated process then affects the lateness of law production that became head district’s standard to maximalize service to the people as a realization of authority devolution regent to head district at Nias Regency; (3) Created model in this research was an answer to implementation of authority delegation from regent to head district by looking people substances, regional headman and insitution aside.

Тhe Russian statehood. 2017

The subject. The author's research methodology of social processes is represented, by establishinga bond between the ways of property organization and governmental form – especiallyits political regime.The analysis of methodology is based on the historical materials devoted to Russian statehoodin terms of its transition states during the appropriate industrialization of domesticproduction.The results, scope of application. Since 1861, the Russian statehood during its existence hasexperienced a number of important transitional states, where the successful process offorming the traditional foundations of the corresponding society in different periods (pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet) in terms of the author's methodology was and still is untenable.The basis of this methodology is the existing relationship between the concrete wayof property organization and its social function. Thus, a private way of property organizationreproduces the function of social development. A mixed (corporate) way provides a functionof social compromise (convergence). Finally, the common (collective) way of propertyorganization can be determined by the function of social security. A concrete way of propertyorganization arries out only a specific social function. An attempt to change this dependenceleads the corresponding society to the destruction of the foundations of its existence.Thus, the liquidation (abolition) of the private way of property organization objectivelyforms the impossibility of realizing the functions of social development and the functionsof social compromise (convergence) in the society by the common (collective) way ofits organization. There is another aspect of the relationship between a particular way oforganizing property and its social function. Each of the above methods of property organization,reaching a monopoly state that goes into rent, provides for self-destruction andtransformation of its social function as opposed to: from development to degradation, fromcompromise to confrontation, from social provision of society to the provision of clans. Abrief historical digression in the article makes it possible to disclose the content of thismethodology when analyzing the facts of life of Russian statehood, including its latest historyuntil 2017.Conclusions. The modern post-Soviet statehood in its various foundations: economic, political,social and cultural, when realizing the appropriate tendencies of segregation of theprivate way of property organization and the growing monopolization of state property,largely casts doubt on the future development of our society.

The system paradigm revisited

The term paradigm was introduced to the philosophy of science by Thomas Kuhn — he used this term to denote the specific approach applied by a school of reasearch to examine its subject matter. Researchers using the same paradigm seek answers to similar questions, and employ similar methods and concepts. In an article published in 2000, the author of this essay introduced the term system paradigm, which focuses on the systems functioning in a society. This study develops the theoretical considerations outlined in that earlier article on the basis of experience on post-socialist transition. The first part compares the socialist and capitalist systems, describing their main characteristics, and concludes that the capitalist system has become established in former socialist countries, except for North Korea and Cuba. The second part analyzes varieties of capitalism within a typology which classifies prevailing forms of politics and government. Three markedly different types are identified: democracy, autocracy, and dictatorship. Huntington wrote about the “third wave” of democratization. This study concludes the third wave has dried up: for the 47 post-socialist countries, only a tenth of the population live in democracy, while autocracy or dictatorship prevails in all other countries in this group. The third part of this essay applies the conceptual and analytical apparatus to Hungary, where capitalism exists, and autocracy is the prevailing politico-governmental form — here we can find important characteristics common to other capitalist countries or other autocracies. This finding is compatible with the observation that there are some, less fundamental, characteristics unique to Hungary, or “Hungarica”, which differ from the characteristics of all other countries.1

Fear and Faith: The Founding of the United States

This chapter examines the ambiguous role played by democracy in America’s founding. The revolutionaries thinking was heavily shaped by classical interpretations of democracy, illustrated through a pre-history of the concept. The result was what may now seem like a rather odd arrangement: the attempt to base the United States on popular sovereignty and establish a government that was answerable to the people, while refusing to label it a democracy. The chapter explores how the founders sought to reconcile these contradictory aims through instituting a representative form of popular rule. While the founding of the United States did not significantly alter conceptions of democracy as a governmental form, popular sovereignty was asserted in a very powerful manner and in so doing, the Americans helped introduce a new, and revolutionary, conception of sovereignty into international society.

The Slovak National Library

The origins of the Slovak National Library lie in the programme for national awakening elaborated by Enlightenment figures, such as Anton Bernolák, at the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. The article describes the private libraries that eventually, under the care of the cultural institution Matica slovenská, came to form the basis of the national library's collections. The national library itself, although it existed in a non-governmental form from 1941 to 1953 and its functions were then subsumed within Matica slovenská, finally was established as an autonomous state institution in 2000. The library has assumed a leadership role in relation to Slovakia's library network and has prepared for the Government the Strategy for Development of Slovak Librarianship for 2007–13. Having obtained extensive extra-budgetary funding it is driving a number of projects aimed at building and supporting the Information Society in Slovakia.

Islam in Uzbekistan: Why Freedom of religion is Fundamental for Peace and Stability in the Region

This paper is dedicated to the people in Uzbekistan, known and unknown, whose future depends on peace and stability in the region. I wrote this paper with two different readers in mind: for the first reader, this paper provides an introduction to the current struggle in Uzbekistan between the traditional values of the non-governmental form of Islam and the modern values of the secular government; for the second reader, who is familiar with this struggle, this paper presents and defends one side of the debate—the traditional values of the independent form of Islam. A discussion of the dilemma posed by this struggle, which is common in many emerging nations, is beyond the purpose of this paper. In the interest of fairness, however, a response would be in order on the problems faced by a newly emerging government with a predominantly Muslim population with the different trends and the varying degrees of fervor and activism one is witness to in such populations. In other words, the current Uzbek regime should also be evaluated in terms of realpolitik. In this way, both sides of the Uzbek question might be revealed for all interested readers.