Americans at Armageddon

Eric Cline’s Digging Up Armageddon tells the story of an archeological team from the University of Chicago that began digging at Megiddo in the mid-1920s. Drawing upon an assemblage of diaries, letters, cablegrams, and other archival sources, Cline provides an authoritative guide to the Chicago project during the interwar years, its internal politics, and its fascinating cast of characters.

The Integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina Into the European Union

This chapter focuses on the analysis of the EU integration process of Bosnia and Herzegovina, dealing with the internal and external political challenges that country is facing on its path towards aspired EU membership. As one of the main internal challenges, the authors recognize a very pronounced ethnocracy and leaderocracy that captures democratic process, making the country unstable and unable to fulfill criteria even to achieve the status of candidate for EU membership. Furthermore, there is a strong influence of the neighboring countries, which were involved in the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and continue to play very often an obstructive role in internal politics of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As the authors argue, in BiH, the issue of Euro-Atlantic integration is less a matter of political and economic transition, and more, it is not primarily an issue of stabilizing the peace and creating fundamental preconditions for overall development.

„Mimowolny stabilizator”. Kościół rzymskokatolicki jako gwarant bezpieczeństwa wewnętrznego PRL

We see the Roman Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of Poland as a victim of a totalitarian and authoritarian system. This is understandable. However, as a subject of internal politics, during the system’s construction or later in periods of unrest, the Church played an important role in defusing social problems and tensions. This was something the communist authorities very much counted on. Such actions also legitimised usurpers who had no real social support. This was the case both in the first years after the end of the war, when, for example, there was the complicated problem of settling the acquired lands, and in the years of political turmoil and breakthroughs. The Church, as an institution headed by the Primate and the Episcopate, tried to calm social moods in these critical moments. This resulted from a sense of responsibility for the nation and the state, whatever it might be. In this way, he contributed to stabilising the country’s internal security in times of crisis.

The Beginnings of the Cooperation of Free Royal Towns in the Kingdom of Hungary in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

The study presents the possibilities and framework for cooperation between towns in Hungary through the operation of the Town League of Upper Hungary. The cooperation of towns in the Kingdom of Hungary happened primarily through regional relations. At first, the basis for cooperation was provided by common economic interests, but this area broadened considerably in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. After the battle of Mohács (1526), the towns of Hungary became full members of the Hungarian Estates. The Kingdom of Hungary, which was part of the Habsburg Monarchy, gained considerable autonomy in internal politics. This was based on a compromise with the Habsburg rulers to ensure protection against the Ottoman Empire. The free royal towns were the least influential members of this country that had strong Estates. Nevertheless, cooperation between the towns became nationwide. The diets provided the forum for all free royal towns in the country to represent their common interests in a coordinated way. There are traces of this nationwide cooperation as early as the mid-sixteenth century, but it was from the early seventeenth century that it was the strongest. The reason was that in those decades state taxes were becoming heavier and more burdensome for towns. This nationwide cooperation was not only manifested in the field of taxation, but from the first quarter of the seventeenth century onwards, it increasingly extended to religious matters. In the background, there was the increasing recatholization of the Habsburg Monarchy. In this special matter, close links were forged also with the otherwise strongly anti-urban lower nobility.

THE INTERNET AS A COMMUNICATIVE TECHNOLOGY AND ITS POLITICAL VALUE

The work presents some results obtained in the process of implementing two sociological studies of the consciousness of students in the South of Russia, conducted by the research team of the Southern Federal University in the period of 2014-2016 and 2018-2019. Methodologically, both studies included a series of free group interviews, questionnaires and focus groups. Analysis of the data obtained shows a significant shift in the sentiments of student youth towards greater opposition to the current government: if in 2015 less than two-thirds of the respondents (60.6%) believed that radical changes in Russia were impossible, then in 2019 more than two-thirds of respondents expected serious shocks (72.4%). Among the key reasons for the growing tension in Russian society, students name socio-economic (42.2%) and internal politics (50.0%). But the greatest resonance in the student mind is caused by the attempts of the Russian authorities to control the Internet. Thus, according to a survey conducted in 2019, 37.4% of respondents consider the Internet the most important source of information, and another third (29.5%) point to the anti-constitutional nature of these laws. Therefore, Internet restrictions may well become an annoying factor: 39.7% of those surveyed declared their readiness to take part in protests, if there are any. The analysis shows that the communicative value of the Internet is at a much deeper level of the cognitive structures of student consciousness than traditional political values. The value of Internet freedom turns out to be one of the most basic values for today's youth, comparable to fundamental values such as social connections, recognition, identity, etc.

The Performativity of State Non-Recognition in Sports: The Case of Spain over Kosovo

This article focuses on the use of sport by the Spanish Government to perform its non-recognition of Kosovo’s statehood. Our main goal is to analyse the practices and narratives through which Spain’s public authorities have carried out this policy in the sporting arena. Likewise, we set two specific objectives: to examine the administrative measures adopted by the Spanish government when a Kosovan team has participated in an event hosted in Spain; and to describe the policies and discourses regarding the display of Kosovo’s national symbols in these competitions. The study is based on a qualitative approach of five major tournaments that have taken place (or due to) in Spain between 2018 and 2019. The documentation has been mainly gathered through desk-research. The three major data sources have been media press releases, Spanish Government’s communiqués and sporting federation’s statements. We underline that the policies adopted by the Spanish authorities respond to a systematic strategy to give no room for a potential understanding of Kosovo as a sovereign state. Likewise, we highlight that Madrid’s attitude towards the Balkan country must be understood keeping in mind its own internal politics, specifically the nationalist claims from Catalonia and the Basque Country.

Postwar statebuilding in Burundi: ruling party elites and illiberal peace

The widespread enthusiasm for internationally-supported liberal statebuilding since the 1990s has become much more tempered, due in part to the mixed record of postwar liberal statebuilding. Over time, many postwar countries have adopted more authoritarian statebuilding trajectories, despite the fact that negotiated peace agreements tend to reflect liberal principles. This is often attributed to ‘liberal’ international actors encountering resistant ‘illiberal’ domestic elites. The postwar statebuilding trajectory in Burundi appears to fit this dominant narrative, with the ruling party, the Conseil National pour la Défense de la Démocratie-Forces pour la Défense de la Démocratie (CNDD-FDD), deviating from some of the liberal principles that underpinned the Burundian peace agreement. Drawing on a detailed analysis of the internal politics of Burundi's ruling party, we show that this account is flawed. We question overly simplified accounts of ‘illiberal’ ruling party elites and we argue that tensions, competition and fragmentation within the ruling party were decisive in Burundi's statebuilding path. Rather than seeing Burundi as an inevitable failure of liberal statebuilding, we highlight how there was some commitment to liberal principles even within the ruling party. Internal struggles within the ruling CNDD-FDD led to current outcomes in Burundi, which should not be interpreted as predestined or definitive. We show that understanding the complexities, diversities and contingencies within ruling parties opens new spaces for thinking about the creation and recreation of political orders after war.

Theoretical Approaches to the Fragility of States: Proposal for a Comprehensive Model from Political Legitimacy in Statehood Construct

In the academic agenda and in international organizations, the strength or fragility of states is a relevant thematic, especially in light of geopolitical changes and security issues in recent decades. While the concept of state refers to the methods of control that a government employs to manage a given territory, which refers to regimes and forms of government, the fragility of states, as well as concerns of the international community motivated by incapacities, generates a loss of legitimacy internal politics, leading to possible regional collapses and instabilities, the capacity for action is then seen as linked to political legitimacy, which is nourished by the confidence conferred on the internal and external levels. In this context, this work seeks to articulate some theoretical propositions in an attempt to broaden the view on the phenomenon of statehood and its relations with political legitimacy, such propositions are then guiding to a comprehensive model at the end of the article. In this sense, this essay presents as a general proposition: Political Legitimacy, constituent of Statehood, in its relations with regimes and forms of government, and with the trust attributed to political actions, is an intervening factor in Fragility manifest in the States.