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Living in a communist dictatorship for 50 years is a challenge for society, its development and more over for the relationship with thinking and self-expression. A dictatorship attaches great importance to language and this goes beyond a superficial attention, since it is very clear the strong connection that exists between thinking and language, it tries to enter the thinking process of the individual in order to program them according to its principles. The politicization of language and the intervention of the dictatorship in it is the opportunity that the dictatorship has to manipulate people's minds, to condition even thinking, the only opportunity that individuals had in the dictatorship to "speak", since freedom of expression was completely denied. Each dictatorship has its own specifics, so in this paper we will stop concretely and study the case of Albania, a country that for 50 years has experienced among the most savage communist dictatorships, as it went as far as completely denying God and punishing anyone who said otherwise. After a long study in this field, we will identify the path followed by the dictatorship to manipulate people's minds through language in Albania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effect that the transfer of fiscal competences from the central to the regional governments has on economic growth. We use a panel of budget data from 17 Spanish regions to identify the major episodes of fiscal decentralization occurred in Spain during the 1984-2013 period. The analysis is based on the data of the Comunidades Autonomas' Budget Series from the General Secretary for Local and Regional Coordination (Secretaria General de Coordinacion Local y Autonomica). The database offers yearly consolidated series of 9 income categories and 9 expenditure categories from 1984 to 2013 for every Spanish region and we will focus on 3 series: direct taxation income, indirect taxation income and spending. The last series is a composite of expenditure on public wages and public consumption. Spain offers a unique example of fiscal decentralization due to historical reasons. The dictatorship that ruled the country for almost forty years until 1975 imposed a very centralized fiscal system on a very heterogeneous country. One of the main pillars of the Spanish transition to democracy involved transferring autonomy back to the regions. Some regions with stronger regional identities moved quickly to approve their regional Constitutions (Estatutos de Autonomia) and started the transfer of prerogatives right away, while other regions lagged behind and only received these prerogatives after nationwide agreements. The heterogeneity on the timeline and its predominantly political nature offers a natural experiment on fiscal decentralization that we exploit to measure its impact on economic growth. The paper explores the exogenity of this process and concludes that the process of decentralization can hardly be considered to be the consequence of underlying economic conditions in the regions. We employ a narrative approach similar to Romer and Romer (2010) and conclude that fiscal decentralization only has a positive effect on growth when decision power is also transferred to the regions. We find economically large and statistically significant positive effects from the decentralization of direct taxation, and, to a much lesser extent, from indirect taxation and government spending on regional GDP growth. Part of the positive effect on output growth can be attributed to a reduction in income tax rates, and is likely to be attributed to tax competition between regions. The findings of this paper offer support to standard theories of fiscal federalism like the Leviathan hypothesis or the principles of the second generation fiscal federalism, which emphasizes the importance of fiscal incentives for promoting local economic prosperity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the questions of legality and dictatorship as demonstrated in the Philippine case under the regime of Ferdinand Marcos. Focusing on the events of 1972 to 1973, this paper specifically questions the legal basis of the martial law as implemented by Marcos and how the presidential emergency power was further utilized to establish a regime that was contrary to the principles that a democratic constitution aims to purport. I examine the basis for the proclamation of martial law and the legal maneuverings employed by Marcos to usurp power and how this power was also used to establish and implement a new constitution under his dictatorship. I also examine the legality of this constitution which was drafted and promulgated under martial law. Overall, this paper looks at how legality can pave the path for a dictatorship in a constitutional democracy using the Philippine case. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1930s, the colonies of British Malaya and US Philippines were beset by labor uprisings. In both cases, political administration lurched toward bonapartism, when the deadlock between imperial capital and native labor was resolved in the dictatorship of the colonial state. The formation of colonial bonapartisms however diverged. In Malaya the British governor embodied a dictatorship softened by institutional-racial compacts, while the US delegated the dictatorship to an autonomous Commonwealth state. This paper explains the divergence in terms of class formation and ethnographic ideology. British capitalist ownership made it difficult to conciliate the demands of the Chinese proletariat, while lack of US capitalist investment allowed it to withdraw from direct rule and support a client state against land-starved peasants. Ethnographic ideology determined the British policy of support the traditional Malay elites against the economically preponderant Chinese and the US policy of supporting Filipino mestizo elites as civilized guardians of a client state. This comparative analysis suggests that colonial bonapartism influenced the variable constitution of post-colonial states. Strong bonapartism (Philippines) leads to a weakly institutionalized state dependent on patron-supported coercion, while weak bonapartism (Malaya) leads to a strongly institutionalized state dependent on racial consensus to maintain the class status quo. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to 1989, comparing with the other Communist countries, Romania was in a special situation. The main characteristics of the Ceaușescu dictatorship were the autarchy and the isolation. The situation was even worse in the cultural life and in the education. After the fall of the dictatorship there was a turn in the education and also in the higher education. It changed both its structure and the legal regulation. The approach to the western model was significant, but, mainly because of the lack of financial resources and of the poor human resources, this process was very slow and unsettled. The integration into the European Union radically changed this process, as, similarly to the other members, Romania joined the Bologna Process. One of the main objectives of the process is the increase and promotion of student mobility. In this field Romania, like most Central and Eastern European countries, Romania belongs to the 'exporters'. As a result, Romania joined the Erasmus and the following Erasmus+ programmes. The aim of our paper is to present the characteristics of mobility in the Romanian higher education in the Erasmus programme between 2007-2013 in the light of statistics. At the same time we would like to touch upon the internal and external factors that determine the processes. In the analysis we used national and European Union official data, unofficial estimates of professional circles and our experience of many years in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like every other Central and Eastern European country, Albania overthrew the communist dictatorship in 1990 and went on building a democratic country. The Albanian transition period towards democracy was multiple: political transition - from a party - state to political pluralism; economic transition - from centralized to market economy; social transition - from a closed and controlled to a free society; national safety transition - from isolated to a country working towards the European integration. It came out to be a long, difficult process with many ups and downs. Despite deep changes and obvious achievements in every aspect of life, there is still work to be done. This study aims to describe and analyze the democratic processes in Albania and its accompanying issues, determining as main objectives: the analysis of the establishment of the rule of law in Albania, political polarization, election issues and political debate. The study relies upon archive sources of Albanian and European institutions such as: The European Commission, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Venice Commission, the Albanian Parliament, the press, scientific surveys and monographs of Albanian and foreign researchers. The methodology of the study is concentrated on descriptive, analyzing and comparative method of democratic processes in Albania as compared to those in the Balkans and Central and Eastern Europe. The expected results of this paper are the identification of difficulties hindering the democratic processes in Albania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the modern world there are quite a few different interpretations of the notion of "head of state", varying to a wide degree: from a ruler who has absolute power and is not elected in a democratic manner to a leader who has a mere ceremonial role and who is subject to universal suffrage. There appear to be five main types of states in the modern world, each one with its own type of head of state: states in which the ruler wields absolute power, states in which the ruler wields a considerable amount of power but still shares it with another body not necessarily elected in a democratic fashion, states in which the head of state wields power but within a balance with the other powers of state, states in which the head of state holds little power, fulfilling the general role of mediator between the other powers and finally states in which the head of state has a mere ceremonial capacity. In this short paper we strive to briefly define the modern world with its complexities, to analyze the different types of states and how the role of the head of state is still carried out in these complex times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It presents an analysis of the origin and development of Sociology in Spain, focusing on the situation after 1990. It includes a discussion of the history of this discipline during the last century, and especially under Franco's dictatorship (1939-1976). It distinguishes schools and generations with a model of different fourteen schools. The paper presents hypotheses about the relationships between sociology and dictatorship, and the possibilities of developing a serious social science under a non-democratic regime. There is a discussion about the influence of the State. The basic content of Spanish sociology is described differentiating between theoretical and practical (research) approaches. It defines eight main areas of research, and about thirty main themes. The final objective is to describe the impact of Spanish sociology in the world, especially through the work of a score of prominent international sociologists. On the whole, it is an optimistic analysis, which demonstrates how Sociology can survive under dictatorship, being original and creative; also, how Sociology can contribute to the transition from dictatorship to democracy. Many sociologists were responsible to help bringing democracy into the country. Internationalization of Spanish sociology has been slow, but consistent thanks to the role of some academic, cosmopolitan, and imaginative sociologists. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition periods that succeed totalitarian regimes are characterized by the efforts of new governments to recognize the violations of human rights that were committed in the past, to implement legitimate mechanisms to clarify the causes but also the consequences of the violation of human rights by the previous regimes, both at the individual and community level. The truth commissions represent one of these mechanisms, concentrating on the testimonies of the victims and on the recognition of their suffering. Depending on the case, the recommendations of the truth commissions have the role of generating judicial and non-judicial effects, of contributing and completing the bringing into effect of the penal justice, of facilitating the processes of restoration, of preventing the re-iteration of new abuses. The present paper proposes to analyse the limitations and the transformative potential of the recommendations included in the report done by the Presidential Commission for the analysis of the communist dictatorship in Romania. We will analyse whether the information contained in this report has been useful in the judicial procedures (prosecutorial indictment and judges' motivation) which resulted in the conviction of Ioan Ficior and Alexandru Vişinescu, but also on other two civil sentences. The research approach imposes the use of a content analysis of the official and public documents, a comparative analysis and a historic analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the role that the political regime type plays on the current account. We find that democracies tend to run (larger) current account deficits relatively to autocracies. Our main argument is based on the different incentives faced by democratic and autocratic leaders. More precisely, according to Anderson (1998), we expect that dictators are immune from public pressures relatively to democratic elected politicians and thus they are more able to temporary increase taxes or reduce government expenditures without facing severe opposition by the general public. The latter implies that current account consolidations are achieved more easily in an autocratic environment. Our study also relies on additional theoretical arguments. According to Kalyvitis and Vlachaki(2012), increased holdings of capital by foreigners in autocratic environments, will result into pressures on the dictator for democratization. Consequently, dictators that fear such pressures will try to use policies that keep the current account balanced in order to decrease the reliance on net foreign assets. Furthermore, following Rodrik (1999) we expect democracies to pay higher wages than autocracies. Therefore increased workers' income implies more imports (or imports of higher quality goods (Malley and Moutos, 2006)) relatively to exports and thus an increase in the current account deficit. In order to empirically examine the above arguments so as to establish a causal relationship between democracy and the current account balance, we estimate a Fixed Effects panel model. Our sample consists of 121 countries over the period 1980-2012. All variables are expressed in five year averages in order to eliminate short run fluctuations and examine more the long run causal effects of the political regime. The dependent variable is the current account balance as percent of GDP and the rest of explanatory variables are similar to Chinn and Prasad (2003). The main proxy of democracy is the Polity IV index of democracy. We also provide a series of robustness checks so as to verify the validity of our results. The most important however is the IV model we employ in order to eliminate the existence of possible endogeneity/reverse causality among democracy and the current account balance. Such a reverse relationship is reasonable even according to our theoretical reasoning: For example higher exposure to international markets, which may be associated with increased current account deficits may also lead to greater democracy. To take into account this possibility we use as an instrument the share of Christian adherents in each country. According to Huntington (1993) Christianity played a key role on the democratization process during the previous years. This is evident from just the simple correlation coefficient of the instrument with democracy (almost 65%). At the same time our data reveal a virtually zero correlation coefficient with the current account balance (correlation coefficient 0.0001). In the first stage of the IV we find that there is a positive relationship between Christianity and the polity variable while in the second stage the negative relationship between Polity and the current account remains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political changes since the fall of communism have created greater variation between the extremes of democracy and dictatorship. Post-socialist countries provide an opportunity to compare such trajectories of regimes with relatively similar historical legacies. We adopt a structural-institutional framework to explain the different paths of post-socialist regimes. The comparison reveals that post-socialist regimes at the extremes of democracy and dictatorship entered stable path dependent trajectories consonant with their initial structural-institutional conditions. By contrast, post-socialist regimes between those extremes became sensitive to minor alterations in structural-institutional conditions. We argue the difference between path dependent and contin-gent trajectories is whether power was successfully transferred at the critical juncture between the old and new polities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a structural analysis of international conflict from a communication perspective. It is inferred that global conflict and world peace is an unexplored area in communication. The article postulates that interdependence caused by international communication can reduce the possibility of conflict between nations while internal variables of each nation such as political transition from dictatorship to democracy could lead to ethno-political conflict.

While contemporary social capital theory traces the propensity to form local-level associations to ?civic traditions? laid down centuries ago, associational life in the Dominican countryside is in fact the product of the concerted effort of varied actors over the course of at least four decades. The institutional actors that have been the ?partners? of local peasant organizations since the end of the Trujillo dictatorship (1961) include the Dominican state, the Catholic church, political parties, transnational non-governmental organizations and even private firms. Each of these organizations has its own definitions, objectives and strategies for rural development. Grassroots organizations in the Dominican countryside arose as the result of political mobilization of the 1960s and 70s. In the 1980s, such activities ceased because of economic crisis, political repression, the transformation of clientelism and the evolution of the development project itself. The overt de-politicization of development processes in the last two decades has served to create precisely the sorts of local organizations that the Putnam/World Bank school of social capital theory espouses. An institutional approach to understanding organizational life allows us to develop a dynamic and fluid model of local social forms. Putnam?s approach, based on cultural scripts and dispositions, emphasizes the stability of such forms and blinds us to other influences on their development and transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1977, Pakistan's 9th Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was ousted by a military coup and later hanged. Protest poetry and art that was being created by regulars of the Pak Tea House, an iconic salon for Lahore's art, literary, and poetic movements, inspired resistance. But the tea house denizens framed their protest not just against the military dictatorship, but also against the hegemonic ideologies of US imperialism. In so doing, I contend, Pak Tea House regulars not only offered a counter-ideology against the hegemon, but in the process, the political subjecthood of Pak Tea House regulars was remade. To make this macro-micro link, I read Louis Althusser's concept of the Ideological State Apparatus on a global scale using Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony, Frantz Fanon's postcolonial class structure, and World Systems Analysis to show the role of development ideologies in the establishment of hegemonic ISAs which created concrete subjects to the hegemony. Then, by examining the tension between Walter Rodney and Frantz Fanon's views on the ideal role of the postcolonial artist or intellectual, along with Althusser's concept of interpellation, I show how the artistic and literary work that was created by regulars of the Pak Tea House undid what the ISA had created by offering a form of resistance but also remaking the political subjecthood of the participants in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diaspora mobilization is a dynamic process by which political entrepreneurs deploy resources, frames and identities in response to opportunities to make claims about homeland issues. Using the case of Filipinos in the United States who mobilized to oppose the dictatorship of Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, I show how the changing demographic of the Filipino migrant population defined the available social relations and discourses into which political entrepreneurs could tap and thus shaped the master frames and collective identity of the anti-martial law movement. Waves of migration and parallel processes of assimilation and return continuously transform the protest infrastructure, which provides material and symbolic resources for mobilization. A collective identity is also constantly constructed and negotiated within the discursive field of the changing migrant community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mobilization of black intellectuals and activists was essential for the insertion of social and political demands aimed at addressing the issues of the black population in Brazil after the end of the Vargas dictatorship (1937-1945). In the historiography of the political unrest of the period, the work of black women, have received little scholarly attention. As a result, the reconstruction of their ideas has been a hard task. A focus on black women activists of the time such as Arinda Serafim and Sofia Campos Teixeira, specifically an examination of their speeches, provides a complex understanding of their interlocking articulation of race, class and gender. To investigate the thought of black women involved in racial mobilization in the late 1940s goes beyond removing these important leaders from the historical invisibility in which they languish, which at face value would be a great achievement. The performance of these women restores the role of the struggle of black women, who were not passive agents in asserting their rights. In the labor arena, the defense of domestic workers reveals characteristics of the condition of black women in that context. The participation of women such as Arinda Serafim and Sofia Campos put significant pressure on the burgeoning women's movement. The search for female autonomy as driven by black women could not ignore their intersectional character, and actively questioned the different social positions that white and black women held in Brazilian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the end of the Second World War the West has been considering liberal democracy as the unavoidable precondition for the legitimacy of governments: Government is legitimate if it stems from the liberal democratic rules that have been developed in the West. The waning hegemony of the West and the expanding strategies of the leading autocracies of China and Russia suggest a recasting of the concept of political legitimacy. The USA and Europe should come to terms with the great autocracies by softening the western concept of legitimacy. A new concept of responsable government could be better accepted worldwide along the lines of the concept that political legitimacy is not based on how governments came to power but whether a government fullfills the needs of the people that is being governed. The Westphalian concept of state sovereignty is being menaced by the forces of globalisation. States are pressured from above by forces which governments are no longer able to control, such as: global financial dynamics, environmental problems, international organised crime, uncontrolled waves of immigration, and terrorism. Moreover the concept of the Responsability to Protect has weakened state sovereignty altogether. The concept of sovereignty should be restored. Any further weakening could undermine the effectiveness of a future multipolar world order where western democracies would share world governance with autocratic powers. A strong demand to restore the full sovereignty of the state is under way in Europe as well. The crisis of 2008 and the subsequent fiscal and budgetary measures unleashed strong criticism against the EU and fuelled growing pressure to hand back to the State some of the sovereign powers that had been transferred to the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many contemporaries consider that unconditional integration in the Euro-Atlantic family of the Balkan countries is the only possibility to overcome the retrograde policies of autocratic rule. However, beside the current functional needs and external financial and moral support of the regional cooperation in the Western Balkans, the actual progress leaves space for further improvement. The reason for that probably is the lack of regional identity, a necessary component in order to transfer the necessary loyalty to the region of any social group or community. Another reason is the constant negative connotation associated with the term Balkans. The popular and political discourse and perception of the Balkans as opposite of Europe contributes to the unwillingness of political elites and the population to identify with the Balkans, which makes the regional cooperation less probable and effective. Moreover, the approach of the western institutions and organizations to the process of enlargement based on individual progress contributes for the regional cooperation to be viewed only in instrumental terms and as a temporary state before the end goal of acquiring full membership in the European Union (EU) and NATO. On the one hand, EU and NATO have invested considerable resources in the region and continually confirm the enlargement efforts. On the other hand, non-integration means significant negative political, economic and psychological perceptions and implications that reflect as consequences on the regional cooperation of the respective countries, and beyond on the relevance of the Euro-Atlantic integration processes. Hence the ambiguity comes from an actual issue: "If status quo for some means limbo and unsustainability", why is it that for others the same would mean extended association. Regional cooperation is understood merely as a station to the full membership and political elites in the region join regional initiatives provided that they support the final integrative goal. Nation states sometimes perceive the region as a competition arena, and at other times for convergence of national interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the increase of the physical and political distances between Brazil and Africa. It highlights the history of involvement in Africa which features its progress in the cultural, economic, and political realms. It also cites the political system in Africa including colonial legacy, foreign political manipulation, poverty and dictatorships.

In this article, the author discusses whether the general transitological case to the mass media can be extended in context to Latin America. It highlights the dominant conception of democracy in the transitological tradition, which is derived from the work of the Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter. It mentions that the replacement of brutal military dictatorships meant radical institutional changes in political governance in the region.

While the rebuilding of democracy upon the former site of a bloody dictatorship continues to be a work in progress in contemporary Chile since 1990, the importance of Villa Grimaldi and other key cultural sites like it cannot be overlooked as mere side-shows to the "real business" of democratic state-making. The conversion of a former torture complex to a peace park raises a number of provocative questions both around the function of cultural memory and memorialization: What is the role of a former concentration camp turned memorial park in Chile's process of democratization? Can the memorial site offer the possibility for collective healing and social reconciliation? What are the limitations of the memorial? Does the constitution and management of the Peace Park develop new measures of citizenship and modes of democratization? Public memorials like Villa Grimaldi stand in stark contrast with the "official" liberal democratic project of forgetting and deferral. Such sites provide important forms of sociability (including mourning, remembrance, and witnessing) that deepen the reach of the democratization process, especially at the sites and social spaces where truth commissions and institutional democratization have not been able to reach. Villa Grimaldi's status as a locus of torture and terror operates to clarify the harsh truths of the dictatorship as well as to provide a window onto the inner workings of authoritarianism. At the same time, however, the real and symbolic resuscitation of the site of torture, as a space for truth telling and a direct reckoning with the past, addresses the still-unsettled human rights violations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical research based on movements in nondemocracies has underscored the "repression paradox" as a major limitation on the political opportunity structure (POS) thesis, where repression has been shown to both facilitate and discourage mobilization. Departing from current efforts to reconceptualize the POS to reconcile contrary findings, however, I argue that a movement's internal characteristics require a central place in assessing its outcomes, particularly in relation to movement ascendance and its impact on the activation of protest cycles and on the wider polity. Analyzing the rise of a particularly militant movement that seriously contested state power during Taiwan's transition from dictatorship from 1991 to 1992, I contend that the interplay between strategic framing and high-risk protest tactics not only enables movement survival under state repression; it also crucially mediates the movement's capacity to develop a "master frame" that can generate a broader protest cycle in support of political change. In particular, the Taiwanese nation-building movement's framing of antiauthoritarian resistance coupled with the activists' willingness to die collectively in pursuit of their goals gave rise to a human rights master frame that ultimately led to the amendment of the Sedition Law and the restoration of civil liberties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article revisits the 1973-1979 period in Chile when labor rights activists framed their campaign against the Pinochet dictatorship's repression of labor unionists as a human rights campaign. It contributes to scholarly discussions regarding the efficacy of the human rights turn on labor rights through social movement theory. The article concludes by hypothesizing that a human rights turn has limited impact when the targeted state violating labor rights responds to its challengers by addressing rights traditionally understood as human rights -those related to life and liberty--while not addressing claims related to violations of freedom of association, such as forming unions, collective bargaining and striking. The article also hypotheses that states may even respond to human rights critics by reforming labor rights through a neoliberal, individualistic frame resonant with the individualism of human rights, making it more difficult for activists to restore and defend collective labor rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the course of American history there has been a constant struggle between civil rights and national security. This poster examines the constitutionality of the United States Patriot Act with respect to civil liberties. Select provisions of the Patriot Act are contrasted with the US Constitution to demonstrate the Act's direct violations of individual rights. Actual cases and the opinion of the court show that the Act is a real threat. Despite the commonplace comparisons of the United States to other democratic nations, the Patriot Act is more closely related to the practices of historical fascist dictatorships like Soviet Russia and the SS. Historical examples include the Alien and Sedition Acts as well as the use of secret police by the Soviet Union and other states. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]