Search

—

The breakthrough of 1989 and implementation of the "Balcerowicz’s Plan’’ resulted in raising hope for determined and fast reformation of the Polish economy and state administration. From the beginning of transformation these two problems became basic for programs created by parties and political groups. This paper is an analysis of only the programs which concern projects of political transformations. Therefore, the attention is focused on such political formations as the Liberal-Democratic Congress, the Union for Real Politics, Democratic Union (Union for Freedom) or Social Democratic Party of Poland (Democratic Left Alliance). It is also worth noticing that regarding the existence of different types of liberalism. an attempt was made to describe a variety of the doctrine characteristic for a given party or a political group. Considering the role of the state in relation to the individual and the public, there were differentiated: neo-liberalism, conservative liberalism and communitarism.

The paper tries to sum up a few years' experiments concerning the participation of local communities in the programs of local development strategy creation. The conclusions and notices are made by the author although they have been drawn on the basis of papers and discussions carried out with a lot of people. Their inspiring output made the author formulate some generalization. The base of the paper is the author’s direct participation in working out local development strategies or a dozen or so communities in the Kujawy and Pomerania Districts, and particularly in Piotrków Kujawski (1996-1997), Mrocza (1998 and 2000), Czersk (1998-2000), Dobrcz (1999), Białe Błota (1999-2000) and Koronowo (2000). One of their key methodological assumptions was organizing and supporting active participation of local communities in the process of building the development strategy. The public opinion poll was carried out on larger and smaller groups of people in all the communities. The author was personally engaged in the polls and their analyses, and in at least a few programs he was also both an expert and animator ("facitator”) of the events and activities in a local community. Therefore, basing on practice and experience, the author points to the need of reflection on the usefulness of social science - its engagement and objectivity, and, on the other side, he shows an ambiguous role of an expert, e.g. in the process of formulating the mission of development and strategic aims by local communities. The paper is also based on more and more numerous specialist literature and on derivative reflection on realizing the idea of the local development strategy.

Article 12 of the press law ordering journalists particular care and reliability while collecting and using press materials as well as protection of personal goods and chattels determines the limits of freedom for journalist comments. Journalist reliability and care are strictly connected with the question of truth in the related issues. The paper contains analyses of the situations in which journalists of the Bydgoszcz press broke their duties. The presented here considerations are made on the base of the law courts’ decisions in Bydgoszcz. The investigated source material concerns acts of 37 civil matters and 9 criminal cases including the years 1984-2000. It can be stated that the described period is characterized by cohesion and uniformity of views. The assessments issued by appeal instances prove undoubtedly objectivity and clarity in judging. It may head towards stabilizing the judiciary’s views on the matter of journalist freedom.

The paper deals with an assessment of implementing the postulates of stabilizing policy in Poland in 1992-2001. A special attention is drawn to difficulties in maintaining the rate of unemployment at a natural level and to the reasons of high rate of unemployment established in 1998-2001. Basing on the carried out research, the author designs models of auto-regression which are used in the assessment of the future rate of unemployment. In this paper, there are widely applied quantitative methods, such as: Snecodor’s F-tests of significance, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, and models of auto-regression including a multiple one.

The paper deals with comparative analysis of the two historic moments in which cosmopolitism was a certain recipe for life. The moments were distinct from each other of about 2500 years, but with some common characteristic features. The question concerns Asia Minor in the 4,h and 3rd centuries B.C. and the Old Continent of the late years of 2O'h century. The matter regards the Hellenic world based on the idea of Alexander the Great and the united Europe based on Shuman’s idea. Despite a large difference in time, astonishing historical and ideological similarities may help not only to analyze the present reality but also to forecast the future of the European community structure which is now being created. According to the author, the contemporary European countries have to decide fast what political form the integrated organism in statu nascendi may assume. Otherwise, the countries will share the fate of Hellenic world, a beautiful stoic blow of cosmopolitism that finished very fast and suddenly.

The subject of this paper is transformation of the Democratic Left Alliance from an election organism focusing a wide range of post-communistic groups into an organizationally uniform political party. The election coalition could start to exist as a result of transformations in the political system of the state after the breakthrough in 1989 when the political life was submitted to plurálisadon. The paper presents the main actors of the election coalition of the Democratic Left Alliance: the parties and political and social groups with a special dominant role of the Social Democratic Party of Poland, and the relations between them. Besides, it presents the development of the coalition and its election and parliamentary activities. There are also presented the ideas of a new political formation with the process of its foundation. The decade of the nineties is characteristic for foundation, development and transformation of the Democratic Left Alliance as well as for working out a partnership with a left party of a different origin, i.e. the Union of Labour, which enables us to define these years as a stage of the Social Democratic Camp formation in the Republic of Poland. It was the stage of bringing closer together and uniting different subjects of the left within its main stream focused around the Social Democratic Party of Poland, and then its internal institutionalization. Preservation of a wide formula of the Left consolidation still made its ideological-policy identification difficult, which is, as it can be predicted, a challenge for the new decade.

The political aspect of Muhammad’s activity in the age of islam creation was no less important than its mission and religious ones. Muhammad’s actions which in the paper were categorized as political secured him the possibility of spreading his dogmatic-religious ideas on vast areas of the Arabian Peninsula in a record short time. Muhammad’s emigration from Mecca to Yatrib had a decisive influence on the future of islam. It was a limit line between the two great stages in the history of the religion. Only after comparing the Prophet’s life in Mecca, where he was a missionary surrounded by enemies and danger, with that in Yatrib after immigration, where he was a leader and head of the state, we can learn how significant the immigration was for the Muslim religion and how important its political creation - a state was for its founder. The paper registers step after step Muhammad’s actions heading for creating the first in the history Muslim country starting from choosing the seat to sketching foreign and home policies through economy and an administrative structure. Not omitting education and science, Muhammad was conscious how significant these aspects of social life were.

The paper presents man as a human being who must cope with ethical problems every day and who faces new bioethical challenges. Since everyone has a right to derive his ideas and views from different systems of values, it seemed indispensable to present the controversial issues in broad outline in order to concentrate on common problems. As far as the particular ethical issues are concerned, the paper starts from analyzing the beginning of human life and its threat which is abortion. Then the author focuses on the problems concerning man’s life and its dangers that, at the same time, may save other people’s lives due to transplanting organs. Finally, the problem of euthanasia and the challenges it poses for the contemporary communities cannot be treated indifferently. The analysis of particular issues tried to show the significance of systems of values in some religions widespread and also attempted to point to legal solutions characteristic for international law and the one functioning in a given country. Finally, analyzing the problem of abortion, the paper subjects to the European judicial decision about human rights.

The paper touches on the up-to-date problem concerning the role of the public opinion in politics. The process of democratic transformation causes and must cause an increase in the role the citizens play in coping with various matters and making appropriate decisions. The thing is that those who decide should take the public opinion into consideration. Specialised institutes carry out polls pointing in this way at the atmosphere and the opinion of the pubic. Spokespersons also play their important role. In fact the efficient governing is hardly possible without knowing the public opinion, which particularly matters during the election campaign. The author takes up a number of problems regarding the poll and moulding the public opinion.

So far no thinker has seemed to define the idea called "freedom of communication” being a syndrome of contemporary times and the future society of computer science in which information tends to be the most important “matter”. No one has defined either what freedom of communication is to become or what it consists in. What are its conditions and restrictions, not mentioning its essence? The paper tries to outline the contemporary comprehension of freedom including justice and equal rights, as well as their ethic relations to communication. Freedom, justice and equal rights are currently very distinct and intensive on the Internet which is becoming more and more popular. The Internet is a comparatively new means of social communication and extremely different from others known so far. Its technological possibilities give everyone a chance of sending information to people all over the world making it generally available. However, these new possibilities bring into existence moral dilemmas not occuring before. Lots of them have already appeared with great sharpness. We should expect further problems to emerge the more so as the access to the Internet is being widespread and technological restrictions concerning the capacity of the network system seem to be gradually removed. As it results from the undertaken considerations, the problems of freedom, justice and equal rights on the Internet are very significant and current. The relations and mutual dependences occurring among the three ideas and appearing during analyses seem to be very interesting. Freedom and equal rights are supposed to be dependent on justice which, in turn, is subject to law and truth. Hence, the conclusion is that ethical reflection is of minor significance while searching for solving ethical dilemmas regarding the Internet. These problems must be regulated according to the law. It is also worth noticing that there exists an urgent need of further studies on the problem of communication ethic, particularly in the new future society of computer science.

The paper outlines the process of creating institutions of political pluralism in Turkey and discusses the origins of the present state of Turkey and political parties operating in it. The author deals with the limits of political pluralism which are practically created by the Turkish Constitutional Tribunal that has rights to solve political groups propagating postulates or acting not in agreement with the Constitution of 1982. It should be admitted that the limits of the pluralism shaped by the interpretation of the law and the judicial decisions of the Turkish Tribunal are narrowed down. Within the latest years, 15 political parties were dissolved. Four groups appealed against the decision to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The present paper presents reasons of dissolving the parties and the Strasbourg Tribunal’s assessment concerning the legitimacy of the decision. In case of the three suing parties, the Tribunal stated that the solution was not in accordance with the European Convention of Human Rights. Only one party was dissolved complying with European standards of human rights, although in this case the judges detected a series of imprecision (the sentence was voted 4 to 3).Turkey has been trying to become a member of the European Union for many years. A large team of opponents who object to integration of this state exists within the structures of the EU. One of the crucial arguments against membership of Turkey in the European Union is its failure to comply with the law. Therefore, in order to become a rightful member of the European Community, Turkey must adjust its law and, first and foremost, its practical application to the standards of human rights. This also concerns political pluralism and freedom of organizing which seem to be the most significant matters.

The paper tries to define the concept of affirmative action presented against the background of other instruments (such as positive discrimination and the politics of equal opportunity) that overcome marginalisation of social groups based mainly on racial criterion. The author also portrays a historic evolution of affirmative action from non-discrimination to preferences and compensating treatment, as well as from displacing accents from colorblindness towards race-conscious remedies. Simultaneously, the considerations have been shown in the light of present discussion on the usefulness of this kind of solutions, which, in the author’s opinion, is based on dissimilar views regarding socially significant values.

The process of civilization and cultural development at growing ecological crisis requires pro-ecological comprehensive changes in all spheres of public life. Their base should become an idea defined as “balanced development” whose essence is aspiration for harmonizing social and economic spheres of man’s life with nature. The result of the harmony comprehended in this way may influence the quality of life increasing its natural and cultural values and steering it towards justice within species, generations, and regions.The balanced development include transformations in economy, society, technique and space, all aiming at securing welfare for the present and future generations, as well as durability and variety of nature including each aspect of human life. All the processes may take place due to securing a demanded quality of environment and people’s health, nature conservation, understanding pro-ecological trends in politics and economy including rational using of natural resources (renewable and nonrenewable). The mentioned above issues in the context of the balanced development idea arc quoted by signatories of final documents at the Earth Summits in Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg.The paper presents an outline of methods of realising and achieving aims in spheres of society, politics, economy, and nature - according to the idea of balanced development included in the Declaration from Rio on Environment and Development (the Earth Charter). the Global Program of Action - Agenda 21, Political Declaration of Johannesburg on the Balanced Development, and the Scheme of Action pointing at fighting against poverty not destroying natural resources of the Earth.

It is nowadays clear that Hebrew tradition must have received its material for biblical account of the Flood from some Mesopotamian sources. The XI Tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic is acknowledged by most scholars to be the prototype of biblical account, but also other opinions were presented. The paper deals with interrelationship between the biblical account and Mesopotamian document (tablet) from Nippur The Flood Story. There is shown detailed correspondence – as well as difference – of the two to proof the hypothesis that the author of Yahwistic (J) version in Genesis has adjusted the data of the document to his own needs and concepts.

The late eighties and early nineties, despite other transformations, engendered an interest in liberal ideas as far as their intellectual and practical aspects were concerned, which was affected by both subjective and objective conditions. One should emphasize that the renaissance of liberalism was perceived in the latter part of the 20th century. After a long period of crisis, its ideas and their application became of great interest with politicians as well as political philosophers and the ideologists. At the same time, liberalism, in its classic interpretation, has never been a trend strongly existing in the consciousness of the Polish society. It was mainly a historical background that decided about such an opinion: a weak development of capitalism, political culture of the fight for the nation’s independence, and Poland’s dramatic history in the 20th century. The interest in liberalism also found its reflection in programs of political parties set up after 1989, and particularly those of "oppositional genesis”. The leading parties were: the Union for Real Politics and the Liberal Democratic Congress. It ought to be emphasized that liberal ideas were also reflected in program proposals of those political parties who identified themselves with such political ideas, e.g. the Social Democracy for the Republic of Poland and the Democratic Left Alliance. One should also pay attention to the fact that liberal ideas are differently interpreted, which may reflect global discussion on liberalism. On one hand, there could be noticed some tendencies to follow its neo-liberal character (e.g. the programs of the Liberal Democratic Congress), and on the other, one may perceive a tendency towards applying liberalism to the Polish conditions and social expectations. The evolution of the idea in the programs of the Democratic Union may illustrate this fact, which has been presented in this paper.

The paper presents the participation of the united Germany in the process of building the inner society of the European Union, included into the third pillar after the Treaty of Maastricht. The first part presents the achievements of the Community, and the other - the Union. The paper concentrates mainly on initiatives and activities of Germany who strongly promotes this kind of co-operation. To the most important belonged: projects on establishing Europol and Eurojust, the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the EU, and other initiatives concerning common policy of visa, asylum and immigration. The Treaty of Maastricht, the Treaty of Amsterdam and two German presidencies in the nineties are assumed by the author as points of reference in the characteristic of the German Federal Republic’s involvement into the spheres of the Union co-operation.

The church from the beginning of its missionary work tried to substantiate it. Among other things, missionaries kept in their archives artifacts which proved the culture of peoples or nations they evangelized. Not only did they try to preserve local culture but also supported its development. The treasures of culture they collected and kept, in time proliferated and created impressive collections, the cataloguing and exhibiting of which served missionary education. The paper commences with showing the contribution of the church to the preservation of culture of evangelized nations, then it elaborates on the animation and educational role of missionary exhibitions and closes with formal and educational aims which should be accomplished by museums and missionary collections.

The aim of the analysis is to present a development of the human rights idea in the common legal system that is being created. The analysis concerns the Charter of Fundamental Rights proclaimed in 2000, being a document providing compliance with basic rights in the European Union order. Particular chapters emphasize that the Charter does not create new regulations but only gathers the existing ones, those already respected or at least observable, and puts them in one document. The paper also shows a significant role of general commissioners who are able and have courage, validating their opinions, to apply rightful solutions, though not in force officially. Another problem concerns issues which, in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, seem to be innovative or may become controversial in the future. As a summary, it was pointed that the birth of the Charter was justifiable, even if it is only journals of laws formulated in other legal acts.

The problem of social justice is presented as one of the most frequently analyzed issues in the political philosophy of the mid-20th century. Different opinions on this subject amount to interpreting fundamental relations between liberty and equality. Both classics and many representatives of modern liberalism take the analysis of the above issues as a point of reference for their further philosophical investigations. In this paper, the author considers the category of social justice to be a form of fundamental ethic judgment, applying to the effect the community and their political organization have on the situation of social subjects. The essence of the judgment is correlated with axiological partiality of the subject estimating the situation. However, political philosophy assumes boundary criteria which determine the specificity of individual dimensions on the axis: social justice . social injustice. The aim of the analysis is an attempt to present such circumstances in the prospect of representative philosophies of modern liberalism.

The second part of the present paper begins with the description of Poland's Liberation Day - 22nd July. Both the 1st of May and the 22nd of July were celebrated nationwide according to precise guidelines made by the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party. One should not forget that a serious of events also took place in particular regions of the country, including Bydgoszcz and its surroundings. Therefore, the next chapters describe anniversaries and jubilees characteristic of our Province. They were, among others, the celebrations of ten centuries of Włocławek and a hundredth anniversary of Julian Marchlewski's birth, as well as the quincentenary of the 2nd Toruń Peace Treaty. In this way, the decision-makers of that region wanted Julian Marchlewski - a great revolutionist - to become widely known. The example of Toruń shows clearly what methods the communist authorities used: the celebrations of the 2nd Toruń Peace Treaty were appointed at the time when the Church celebrated a Millennium of Poland.s Baptism. The final chapters of the paper concern the Millennium of Baptism in Bydgoszcz Province and how the Church prepared to this celebration. It can be clearly seen that the city's authorities made the realization of the plans difficult for the Church party. A refusal to crown the painting of Heavenly Mother with a Rose in the Old Town Square in Bydgoszcz seems to be an explicit example. Another problem concerns "Te Deum" of the parishes. According to the Episcopate.s plans, each parish in Poland was to celebrate the jubilee as a thanksgiving for Poland.s Baptism Millennium. The celebrations were called "Te Deum" and usually took place on the day of the annual church fair or the church consecration. The paper gives a wide description of the two Bydgoszcz parishes: Mother of Incessant Help and the Parish Church. The study ends in describing central celebrations of Poland.s Baptism Millennium in 1966 which were held in Toruń and Włocławek. Yet again the ceremony proved the organization success of the Church party and, most of all, showed the Church.s strong position in the then communist Poland.

A membership in the European Union was a strategic aim of Poland on the turn of the last century, an expression of an aspiration for the greater part of a society to the participation and attendance of Poland at the European structures, which decided on our civilizing future. A role of the media and education in preparing the Polish people for the membership in the European Union was a case of priority. The issues concerning the EU were an important and exposed subject of the transmission in the national media, especially in the period of accession and referendum negotiations. In the years 2000 - 2004 only few terms made such a career as a term "Europe" in a public discussion. As a result of poor information about the costs and benefits of the accession to the EU structures, the media took a key role in informing the society. Together with nation-wide press, it was the local press that was shaping the European consciousness of citizens in an expressive way. It constituted a factor of integrating the local societies. It also often emphasized the values integrating the local community, being a counterweight to potential alienation in the future European structures. The press tried to create the citizens conscious of their role in making decisions on joining the EU or staying out of it. Its image was presented in this paper on the basis of two newspapers issued in the West Pomeranian Province. To sum up, it must be admitted that only some of the media carried out the profound analyses concerning the European topics. It seems that the media did not make the whole use, for different reasons, often beyond their control (e.g. financial), of the possibilities of bringing nearer and interpreting the process of European integration to the Polish public opinion.

The paper shows the current debates about globalization with special emphasis on the most controversial issues such as the impact of that process on the global welfare and economic development of the individual countries and the rise of transnational corporations which have become in some spheres more influencial than nation states. It focuses on not only one, positive aspect of globalization while entirely neglecting the negative one. This article examines various approaches to globalization and various definitions of that concept. The enormous number of such definitions and the mounting volume of literature on globalization has brought about such a paradoxical situation in which the more we read about globalization, the less clear we seem to be about what is means and what it implies. There are various types of globalization which are discussed in this paper including economic globalization, cultural and political one. While economic globalization refers mostly to changes in capital and labour flows, production systems and trade in goods and services, so political globalization refers to the changing global context of political awareness, processes and activity. It also can be perceived as a growing tendency for managing globalization and finding global solutions for the global problems which creates globalization. The open question is to what extent globalization can be considered as a process which has weakened nation states due to the growth of economic power of transnational corporations and other alternative international organizations and movements. The effects of globalization are the most visible in trade and capital flows, but they go beyond. Unfortunately they are evaluated not only on the basis of available historical experiences, facts and statistical data but also depend on the ideological background of a given author. There is no doubt that globalization has removed many barriers hindering the economic development in the global scale and has a huge potential to expand freedom, democracy, innovation and social and cultural exchanges. However, globalization has reinforced mostly the strong countries and societies and further weakened the weak ones. Therefore it should be reformed or humanized in order to secure sustainable economic and social development if not for all people in the world so for the majority of people.

Muslim fundamentalism is not only a religious but also a social and political phenomenon. Political science considers it both a political ideology and a social movement. Since we have been observing an increase in its popularity for a few dozen years, it is worth considering what makes a lot of Muslims follow this fundamentalistic ideology. The author tries to answer the questions: who an average fundamentalist is, what education he obtained and what attracts him to the fundamentalistic movement. The author also describes the social basis of fundamentalism, which will permit us to find why this ideology is so popular. The author considers poverty as a catalysing factor but he also points to transformations in Muslim societies concerning modernity, such as globalisation, political centralisation, urbanisation, massmedia widespreading, or migrations. Neither does he miss antiAmericanism as an important mobilising factor. The other part of this paper concerns the so called "Muslim terrorism" and its relationship with fundamentalism. The author takes note of the necessity to differentiate between the both concepts and presents the two streams of fundamentalism: terrorist (salafijja dżihadu) and "peaceful".

Retrospective consideration of the priest Józef Tischner.s writing permits us to describe him as a philosopher of liberty. He considered this idea as a determinant of humanity and a basis of creating a new political realty during the political system transformation. At the same time the idea of liberty as a fundamental value shaping a sense of a human being.s dignity was a subject of lively discussions. Concepts clashing with each other presented this idea in different ways. There appeared opinions absolutising a human being.s liberty with reference to individualism which derived from the tradition of J. Locke.s classical liberalism. In turn, others indicated that man should restrict his freedom for the sake of communitaristic superiority of common good over the individual one. Other opinions warned against freedom as an unfortunate gift that would destroy a human being. Tischner based his view of freedom on personalism and courageously propagated a necessity of using it to form institutions of a democratic legal state. His critical look at new political subjects and institutions as well as on a changing role of the Catholic Church is essential in this paper. The timeless character of Tischner.s proposals or suggestions in the issues of institutions or political systems is still open and may be used as an important voice in a discourse concerning the directions of political transformation.

The contemporary state has evolved from the ancient Greek Polic and Roman civitas through the latter transformations of feudal state. At present due to the progressing globalization the state has been weakened and has been losing some of its vital functions and prerogatives. Some of those functions have been taken over by the transnational corporations and the international organizations such as the World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund. The decline of the contemporary state is also reflected in its inability to fulfill the aspirations of its citizens and to defend effectively the interests of the nation.There are various definitions and concepts of the desired role of the state. All of them shape a highly idealistic picture of the state which is incompatible with the existing reality.There also are some controversies over the tasks,which the shate should perform vis a vis the market as well as to what extent the state power should be decentralized or centralized.There are also discussions whether the state should be weak or strong. The fact is that an increasing number of the contemporary states are on the brink of bankruptcy. This paper tries to explain the reasons why some states are declining dechining and what should be done in order to stop that decline.

This paper was presented at a conference organized by Conférence Permanente Européenne de la Probation (CEP) together with the Ministry of Justice of Estonia which took place in Tallinn, on September 27th-29th this year. The title of this conference was 'Unity and Diversity in probation.' This was the reason and the angle of this article: to propose a matrix for the assessment of probation which is relevant to most of the EU countries. The model starts with an assessment focusing on the mission statement. According to these criteria, EU countries could be divided into four main categories: probation services based on promoting alternatives to incarceration model, probation services based on the model of assisting the courts in giving the best sentences, probation services based on the rehabilitation model, probation services based on the public protection model. Evaluating probation services according to these criteria has its strengths and weaknesses. Some of these are presented in this paper.

The aim of this paper was to separate the social and behavioral profile of the young population from the eight development regions of Romania. Poll data and statistic methods of variation comparison and factorial analysis allowed us to describe in comparable terms the young population from the development regions. The most differentiating dimensions between the eight regions are those related to the endowment of the young people with ITC goods and to their behavior in their spare time. The paper presents social and behavioral "portraits" of young people in each region.

The paper studies the manipulation on comments from generalist online newspapers. It is analysed the contexts of interactivity between online media and public. The forums media are an alternative to tendencies of manipulation exerted by media. At the same time, some comments create an image or argument that favours their particular interests. The tactics of commentators may include the use of logical fallacies and propaganda techniques.They promote a manipulation of opinions, atitudes and behaviours from outside of media. The are arguments regarding the control of media forums by political, economical, religious, mediatic power.

The article analyses the work of a Frankfurt School, founded by Felix Weil family in 1923 in Frankfurt. Main author's intention is to make the critical theory of practical use in contemporary political analysis. The author tries to explain, how Max Horkheimer's theory (and critical discourse analysis) can be a practical tool, which can describe possibility of making a social change. The author stresses the theory's emancipation role, and demonstrates that critical theory can be an explanatory, practical and normative mode of social inquiry. Debunking and demystification of contrasts between the possible construction of life and its present state is the critical theory's main objective. To present contemporary methods of political analysis the author uses Klaus von Beyme's proposal. The author suggests that Paul K. Feyerabend is right, when he writes about science. Feyerabend's point of view is completely different from traditional theory. He has got a new idea which means for him anything goes in science, especially in social science. This article proves that immanent critic is a part of interdisciplinary studies, an idea that was regarded as a method to achieve the goal of Frankfurt School. This paper uses theoretical and analytical resources to explore processes and conflicts over efforts to present tragic events as spectacles, focusing on a case study of Hurricane Katrina. It shows who is real victims, and who is responsible for one of the biggest disaster in USA history. The author is confident, that critical analysis discourse is a very useful methodology in politics analysis. The article is used by the author in his research focused on answers to the question "How do you think, why Donald Tusk is a PM"?

I believe that recent theoretical developments on corruption from the field of social anthropology can shed light on various processes that communities confront in different areas. This paper focuses on practices related to forestry, trying to show different mechanisms by which corruption might be performed, as well as the way in which the villagers' definitions of a corrupt act relate to morality. In Romania, 50% of the forests were privatized and a huge number ofcommunity-based institutions were established in the forest areas. A dense net of forestry institutions is beginning to work in rural Romania for managing and regulating forest-related issues in a decentralized way. Parallel with this process, storytelling about illegal logging and forest depletion is becoming a routine. How is it possible to perform corruption in the context of privatization and decentralization, which are among the anticorruption panacea promoted by international development agencies? - this is a question which will be answered in the article.

Within the English common law tradition, there is a principle which prohibits property of the human body. Taking property to be a protean concept, this paper examines how property is defined and applied in recent legal disputes in the United States over "potential life" entities, such as embryos and fetuses. A brief genealogy of theoretical and common law approaches with respect to property of the body highlights an analysis of six U.S. legal cases in which sperm, zygotes, embryos and fetuses have become new legal subjects of property against the background of assisted reproductive technologies. This paper concludes that property can operate not just in order to privatize, commodify and circulate, but in order to bring "potential life" entities closer to people and deeper into relational networks.

This paper deals with the methods of expressing deontic modality in statutory instruments. The author analyzes three pure meanings that is to say; (i) obligation, (ii) prohibition and (iii) permission. Within those three meanings three sub-meanings are distinguished. Within the meaning of obligation, the author distinguishes the following sub-meanings: (i) unlimited duty, (ii) conditional duty, and (iii) external duty. Within the meaning of prohibition the following three sub-meanings may be distinguished: (i) unlimited prohibition, (ii) conditional prohibition, and (iii) external prohibition. Within the meaning of permission we have distinguished three sub-meanings: (i) unlimited permission, (ii) conditional permission, and (iii) external permission. The exponents of deontic modality are presented in the tables and compared in order to show potential translation equivalents.

Th is paper willfocus on the converging and diverging elements of the idiosyncratic legal regimes of federal Canada and of the supranational European Union. The methodology applied in Canada in terms of the stages in identifying the points of contact between the diff erent legal systems and languages in relation to the procedure adopted in cases of conceptual and terminological non-correspondence, as well as the draft ing techniques employed and the justifi cation for choice in each particular instance, will be highlighted. The Canadian approach to terminological issues in the ongoing process of harmonizing federal legislation will be considered as a possible model for felicitous solutions regarding current pressing diffi culties in the translation of legal terms in the European Union.

The paper involves three main fields of linguistic analysis: the pragmatic theory of speech acts, cognitive linguistics and legal language. Its main aim is to demonstrate the relevance of the cognitive framework to the analysis of speech acts and especially the deontic use of the modal verb shall in the legal context. The focus is on the use of the modal, which is mainly used to impose obligations or to confer rights. Thus, its meaning seems to be in most cases a combination of both assertive and directive illocutionary forces when approached from a pragmatic perspective, and a combination of deonticity with futurity and prediction in traditional grammar terminology. The discussion is illustrated with a variety of examples retrieved from a corpus of legal documents drafted in English and translated into Polish. It is argued that the meaning of most instances of shall in the legal domain, due to its context-sensitivity, can be best accounted for in terms of a cognitive blend, which integrates various aspects of its meaning. These aspects are believed to be inherently vague and possibly an instance of ongoing processes of grammaticalisation, which can only be grasped with reference to the context of a particular expression, thus pragmatic in nature.

The paper presents a comparative study of "classical" and legislative definitions referring to the same concept in the field of law, which reveal multidimensional nature of these concepts. The author focuses on one hand on typology of definitions and on the other on their structure, coherence and applicability. The aim is to decide, on the basis of this comparison, which type of definition is to be used to represent concepts in the domain of law in the Slovak Terminology Database, addressing not only lawyers but also lay public, so that definitions included in this Database can facilitate and enhance knowledge acquisition.

Th is paper discusses the main sources of ambiguity in Chinese-Polish translation of the contract legal language. Legal Chinese is very often the same as ordinary formal Chinese and that fact causes ambiguity in Chinese contracts. Th e author focuses on polysemy and homonymy which make the interpretation of legal language diffi cult and ambiguous. The meaning of Chinese characters depends on the textual context. However, when an interpreter does not know the background information of translated legal texts, it is very diffi cult to achieve a high quality legal translation. The abundance of homophones in Chinese language also poses a problem, especially in the case of contracts concluded in words, not in writing. The paper further presents different grammatical functions of Chinese terms encountered in contracts without a morphological change. Such linguistic features of Chinese language as: the absence of distinction between singular and plural nouns, lack of infl ection, no grammatical categories of tense and aspect cause ambiguity and vagueness in interpreting the Chinese agreements. Moreover, the understanding of such texts is sometimes incorrect due to omissions and elliptical sentences. The author also shows the diff erences in the meaning of terms, which apparently signify the same entities and concepts in Polish and Chinese legal languages but in fact diff er signifi cantly.

The paper examines the organization of background knowledge structures in legal language and related incongruities of legal terms. The cognitive linguistics methodology, in particular its findings on the nature of meaning, is applied. Terms serve as prompts with a semantic potential to activate various levels of knowledge structures, such as domains, scripts, scenarios, cognitive models and frames. In most cases organization of knowledge will differ in the SL and TL. The final part analyses translation strategies and techniques in terms of their potential to activate relevant knowledge.

The paper deals with legal themes used by al-Hariri (1054-1122) in his Maqamas, which portray various social situations typical of the Arab world of the author’s time. This genre, characterized by ornate form and jocular contents, is a good tool of criticism of social phenomena like Islamic law or its language. Al-Hariri bases some of his Maqamas on the ambiguity of the language of law, by which he consciously shows that such ambiguity exists. He also presents some cases examined by judges, including a charge of plagiarism, which at that time was not considered a legal matter.

The present paper concerns Arabic in certifi ed translators’ work. The paper contains a selection of examples translated from Arabic into Polish from a large domain of translation studies. I would like to underline that the present examples concern Polish language, with the English version not being a primary focus. Th is paper will deal with two important points (i) suitable words which express exact meanings and terms and (ii) the correctness of administrative style in some Arabic documents. Th e author will also examine the composition of Arabic texts and selection of information during the translation process.

The paper deals with the plain language movement in Sweden from the Polish perspective. Plain Swedish is endorsed by law as an objective of state policy and there is a state body responsible for the quality of public language. The concept of plain language belongs to speech and language planning and is considered to be a central part of Swedish language policy. Polish law only provides protection for the Polish language. As a result, there is neither Polish speech and language planning to promote simple and comprehensible use of official language nor any state body dealing with these issues.

In about 9% civil and criminal cases that are settled in Swedish District courts every year, i.e. in roughly 10 000 court hearings, an interpreter is employed when at least one of the involved parties speaks another language than Swedish. In this paper, aspects of interpretation in the courtroom are discussed in general, and examples from court proceedings are used to analyse disfluent situations. The role of the interpreter is viewed, and compared to that of other participants’ in the discourse. Aspects of legal rights for the individual are discussed in relation to examples from other language communities. The results show that the confusing situations and misinterpretations are not only dependent on the decisions made by the interpreter. The attitudes and the linguistic behaviour of all discourse participants may contribute to the disfluencies.

While corpus linguistics has existed since the 1960s, Forensic Linguistics is a relatively new discipline, involving both linguistic evidence in court and wider applications of linguistics to legal texts and discourses. Computer corpora of natural language may be marked up in various ways, grammatically tagged, parsed, lemmatised and analysed with concordance, collocation and other specialist soft ware. In the relatively short history of forensic linguistics, its exponents have oft en employed corpus linguistics techniques in order to throw light on questions like disputed authorship. However, the corpora employed have been general ones such as the Cobuild “Bank of English”, rather than purpose-built databases of language used in legal contexts, with the result that such research sometimes raises more questions than it answers. Conversely, corpus linguists have from time to time incorporated data from legal settings into their collections; but they have tended to use these resources as the basis for sociolinguistic or historical linguistic research rather than as a means of exploring topics in language and law. This paper makes a plea for these two fi elds, which are both already cross-disciplinary, to join forces and create a purpose-built corpus for forensic linguistics. It illustrates how corpus techniques may be successfully applied to questions of disputed authorship, citing both hypothetical and actual examples. It ends with an outline of the kinds of texts which a proposed new corpus for Forensic Linguistics should contain and the tools required to exploit it eff ectively.

In this paper I propose a multidisciplinary model of urban development which goes beyond the notion of ecological sustainability, by building on the concept of eco-anthropic compatibility. First of all I will sketch the historical development of human aggregations and I will underline the difference between ancient and modern aggregations. On the basis of this analysis, I will take into consideration the notion of sustainability and its possible application to present conurbations. I will underline several limits of the notion of sustainable development and I will propose a multidisciplinary model grounded on a broader and new notion: the eco-anthropic compatibility. Using this notion, which includes the idea of sustainability, it is possible to handle, within the model, the human factors and human living conditions inside an urban aggregation. Finally, I will state that the actual urban model is decaying and therefore, sooner or later, we will have to face the end of urban civilization; for this reason we can start imagining new future ways for human aggregations on the planet based on the notion of eco-anthropic compatibility.

The active publics issue and the question of the construction of publics are relatively recent in communication studies. After an initial period, when mass communication was seen as aiming at a holistic public, massified and passive and, thus, supposedly influenced via "targeted" messages, now the views on what "publics" mean is becoming diversified and nuanced under the influence of literary theories, cultural studies and what was later called "reception studies". Thus, from the "mass public" we got to the concept of "publics". However, in some recent studies, the mere existence of these publics is being questioned.In this paper, we detail the history of theories on the "public" - from the perspective of the public-as-spectator which later became public-as-audience and public-as-actor - and we set ourselves to show how, from theories on the re-active publics, we arrived, through the transformation of television and the emergence of the new IT&C, to the concept of publics as pro-active as a result of media efforts to build this activism.

The paper analyzes the 9th century liturgy of the hours on the basis of the Liber officialis by Amalarius of Metz. The main issue is focused on reconstruction of order and prayers that may be found there. In each hour described by the author of the Liber officialis it is possible to find identical elements: explanation of prayer time, listing psalms, verses or other prayers, aim of each prayer and behavior of priest and congregation. Amalarius gave to all mentioned elements the allegorical interpretation.

The article analyzes the evolution of incidence and prevalence rates of child sexual abuse recorded in the statistics of different states and regions of the world, including the United States of America, Canada, Australia, Central America and South America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. The paper also discusses the conclusions of the main international reports and assessments on the extent of the child sexual abuse phenomenon and it emphasizes certain distinct characteristics of child sexual abuse perpetrated by women against minors, mainly against teenagers.

The paper starts from the theoretical perspective opened by the culturalist approach, that introduced the so-called break from the end of '50s in cultural studies, and took into consideration the meaning of the concept popular culture not as opposite to that of elite culture or high culture, but as a term which refers to the cultural products, practices and artefacts produced by and for people, also with a special focus on their complex relationship with the political and economic agenda of the period. The research focuses on the popular culture in the communist Romanian society between 1947-1989. The general objective of this larger study was to outline the main aspects of the popular culture in the communist Romania and to identify the popular culture practices and artefacts and their roots. In this paper there will be presented the results regarding the folk culture as a distinct part of the popular culture. I analyzed both the practices of folk culture (what is included in the term of lived culture) and the products and artefacts of folk culture (as a part of the larger concept of lifestyle). Besides this, because these issues have been little explored from this perspective in Romania, I also paid close attention to unanticipated themes that could arise from the empirical research. The method used for accomplishing the objectives of the research was the social biography (in the form of life histories). More exactly, I used the technique of ‘multiple autobiographies', understanding the term in its classic sense, as subjects' narrations about themselves, about their own lives. This method allowed me to obtain ‘subjective' data about the ‘lived culture', and also about the existence, evolution, appropriation, negotiation, resistance or rejection of the popular culture products, which in the end could lead us to outline the situation of popular culture elements in Romania in the communist epoch.