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Last year was the year in which the biggest migration in recent history happened, with more than 1,000,000 new migrants coming to Europe alone. The European Union and many single member states faced the question of whether to accept or reject migrants for the first time. This paper should answer the dilemma of whether migrants will be accepted or refused and how it is handled by the European Union and member states in particular. The paper discusses the differences between the push and pull factors and how they influence countries' decisions in whether to accept or refuse migrants. It will underline the fact that state signatories of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees have an obligation to take in refugees and cannot deport them to a place where their liberty and life will be put in danger. Push and pull factors determine the character of the border between acceptance and refusal which is currently under serious consideration. Taking into account the recent developments within the European Union, the paper will attempt to answer whether the border is visible or invisible and how migration policies are shaped among the EU members, by presenting several countries through case studies. The main point will be to present a clear understanding of the different approaches and state policies involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse markers are elements of the language that have grammatical-syntactic, conversational-pragmatic and cognitive function. The first function is evident in the different parts of speech used as discourse markers and their position in the context, the second one explains that these elements aim to start and sustain conversation as one of their basic roles, and the last function requires the markers to fill in slots that naturally exist in language, by using the cognitive abilities about which elements would suit the discourse nature of the language slots. Since discourse markers are rarely found in prepared or rehearsed speeches, but are almost never absent in conversations, spoken English has been chosen for analysis. In this paper, we will concentrate on the English discourse marker so in a corpus of oral presentations given in English by Macedonian and Albanian native speakers at a university in Macedonia. The main aim is to first give a perspective on the extent to which this English discourse marker is used by students who learn English as a foreign language, and then analyse its function when it is used in spontaneous speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter evaluates three different types of e-democracy initiatives at the local level in the Republic of Macedonia, classified by the elements of the democratic process which they work to enhance: transparency, participation, and deliberation. This chapter also attempts to compare e-democracy initiatives at the local level in the Republic of Macedonia with e-democracy initiatives in Estonia and Hungary, which are both EU Member States. For the purposes of our research we have chosen Estonia and Hungary as EU Member States on the one hand and the Republic of Macedonia on the other, as an EU candidate country for the following reasons: all three countries recently left their communist past, with weak democratic institutions and a low level of trust in government and a strong commitment to e-democracy. The methodological approach used in the Comparative Project on Local e-democracy Initiatives in Europe and North America, served as the basis for our research, which means that this research relies on a tripartite typology of e-democracy initiatives in order to provide a framework for classification as well as comparative analysis of e-democracy practices in the Republic for Macedonia, Estonia and Hungary. In the first stage of our research we analyzed the web portals of the units of local-self government in the Republic of Macedonia in the period of 2013-2014, with a special emphasis on e-democracy initiatives. The second stage of our research was a comparative analysis of the existing types of e-democracy initiatives at the local level in the Republic of Macedonia and e-democracy initiatives in Estonia and Hungary. Our investigation discovered that there are many outstanding local e-democracy initiatives in all of the three countries mentioned. However, there is a little evidence that these initiatives have done much to ameliorate any of the aforementioned problems that all three countries are still facing. The paper also provides some recommendations for improving e-democracy initiatives at a local level and their performance in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

E-democracy refers to using new Information and Communication Technologies in order to increase and enhance citizen engagement in democratic processes. Different e-democracy tools provide different levels of citizen involvement, such as: informative, consultative and cooperative public participation. This paper will evaluate the e-democracy strategy and levels of citizen involvement in the Republic of Macedonia while attempting to compare the Macedonian case with e-democracy strategies and citizen involvement that may be found in EU Member States today. The questionnaire used in the EPACE project (Exchanging good practices for the promotion of an active citizenship in the EU) served as a basis for our research and it was distributed to all the ministries within the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, focusing on the following issues: strategies related to e-democracy and their main objectives; and, e-participation tools and projects for the future. Relevant officials from the Macedonian Ministry of Information Society and Administration were contacted for more detailed information about strategy and cases. In order to gain an insight into e-democracy at a local level, we analyzed the web portals of local governments, with a special emphasis on the e-tools used. As the findings suggest, both EU Member States and the Republic of Macedonia have a document which can be considered as part of a National Strategy which refers to the development of an Information Society as a whole whilst paying only modest attention to e-democracy. In contrast to the EU Member States, where more or less all three levels of citizen involvement are present, the findings in the Republic of Macedonia suggest that only citizen involvement at an information and consultation level is currently in existence. Further research on this topic should be undertaken in order to investigate the extent to which the applied e-tools in the Republic of Macedonia provide communication and feedback in both directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]