Listening to the numbers of those killed, wounded, and forcibly displaced became part of everyday life during the genocide in the Gaza Strip. The killing of civilians pointed to the profound weakness of a number of international institutions built to prevent war and punish war crimes. It also pointed to the incredible willingness of the West, and especially some of the European Union members, to passively or actively support war crimes.
For more than a decade, the Croatian public has been bombarded by the media with a distorted image of the alleged low quality of Croatian public universities. In addition to the excessive exploitation of individual scandals, mostly selectively related to the universities of Zagreb and Osijek, most of this often deliberately placed disinformation about poor quality was based on incorrect “analysis”, i.e. the alleged poor placement of our largest universities in some world university rankings.
A recent article titled "Will the regime fall, as the roof fell?" by my dear colleague Stefan Gužvica was published on the website of the Annals of the Croatian Political Science Association (Gužvica, 2025). While I am a great admirer of his—unfortunately, still insufficiently recognized—sense of humor, I believe that, in this article, his sharp irony has taken up too large a share of his analysis of the socio-political situation in Serbia over the past three-and-a-bit months.
Ovaj tekst je odgovor marksističkog povjesničara iz Srbije na upit kolege iz Turske u kojem ga je zamolio da mu prenese svoje dojmove trenutnih antivladinih prosvjeda u Srbiji te širih implikacija ovog pokreta. S obzirom na to da su i autor i njegov izvorni sugovornik marksisti, što znači da je njihov primarni politički cilj globalna […]
Profesor Allan Lichtman razvio je 1981. inovativan model predviđanja rezultata američkih predsjedničkih izbora, koji se temelji na 13 „ključeva“. Oni daju odgovor na pitanje o stanju američke politike te sukladno tome pokušavaju predvidjeti pobjednika izbora. Prema njegovim riječima, ključevi sagledavaju širu sliku politike i ne ovise o anketama i događajima tijekom kampanje. Ključevi analiziraju kratkoročno […]
Neugodni susjedi Kada se Republika Irska prvi put pridružila Općoj skupštini Ujedinjenih naroda 1955. godine, irsku delegaciju srdačno su dočekala njihova dva susjeda, Irak i Izrael. Budući da su zemlje u Skupštini UN-a bile poredane abecednim redom, Irci su brzo shvatili da su svojim prisustvom uklonili vrlo neugodnog susjeda i za Iračane i za Izraelce. […]
U svojoj reakciji na moju recenziju knjige Rade Dragojevića o Stipi Šuvaru politolog Marko Grdešić s Fakulteta političkih znanosti, iznio je 13. IX. 2024. na blogu Anala HPD-a niz kritika na moj račun za koje smatram da su činjenično netočne, ideološki tendenciozne i argumentacijski neuvjerljive. Imajući u vidu jednu Grdešićevu bojovnu referencu iz njegove reakcije, […]
Ove je godine novinar Rade Dragojević pod naslovom Šuvar: politička biografija, u izdanju Srednje Europe, objavio knjigu o tom komunističkom političaru (Dragojević, 2024). Riječ je o prvoj knjizi koja je posvećena Stipi Šuvaru i njegovoj političkoj karijeri. Jednu od prvih recenzija napisao je Josip Pandžić, sociolog s Filozofskog fakulteta u Zagrebu (Pandžić, 2024). Pandžić je […]
Jedan relativno novi političkoteorijski pojam zaokupio je pažnju istraživača – autoritarni liberalizam. Dvije recentne knjige daju nam osnovu za njegovo razumijevanje – The Ungovernable Society: A Genealogy of Authoritarian Liberalism (2018/2021 engl. prijevod) filozofa Grégoirea Chamayoua i Authoritarian Liberalism and the Transformation of Modern Europe (2021) teoretičara prava Michaela Wilkinsona. Oba autora korijene autoritarnog liberalizma […]
Nedavno se dio medija u Hrvatskoj pozabavio navodnom ideološkom divergencijom mladih žena i muškaraca, popularizirajući narativ o tome kako su prve sve liberalnije, a drugi sve konzervativniji. Tako Jutarnji o toj temi piše kao o "ideološkom ratu mladića i djevojaka u 20-ima", odnosno, ideološki jaz se tumači kao "prava društvena revolucija s nesagledivim posljedicama", a […]
Danas započinje Nacionalna konvencija Demokratske stranke, koja će se održati u Chicagu u saveznoj državi Illinois. U četiri dana trajanja konvencije Demokrata, službeno će se potvrditi predsjednički i potpredsjednički kandidati stranke, te će se izglasati program stranke na nadolazećim predsjedničkim izborima. Nacionalna konvencija stranke prilika je da se okupe nacionalni delegati i čelnici stranke, kako […]
U drugom krugu prijevremenih parlamentarnih izbora, naizgled se dogodio šokantan obrat – Nacionalno okupljanje Marine Le Pen, koje je s trećinom glasova u prvome krugu bilo relativni pobjednik palo je na treće mjesto iza Macronove centrističke koalicije i prvoplasirane Nove pučke fronte koja okuplja široki blok od lijevog centra do krajnje ljevice. Je li se […]
Protekle izbore za Europski parlament u javnosti se, ali i među pobornicima pojedinih europskih stranačkih federacija i oprečnih vizija ujedinjene Europe, opisuje emotivno nabijenim jezikom. Dok je jedni govore o sumraku demokracije i povlače paralele s 1930-im godinama, drugi govore o danu kada je svanula zora slobode. Nešto trezveniji pogled bio bi da je, usprkos […]
Nedavno održani parlamentarni izbori potaknuli su u hrvatskoj stručnoj javnosti analize i rasprave o brojnim pitanjima vezanima uz izborne procese i ishode. U ovom tekstu usredotočiti ću se na dva takva pitanja. Prvo od njih vezano je uz odaziv građana na izbore. Naime, u stručnim raspravama koje su se odvijale prije izbora, pojedini analitičari, uključujući […]
„Čovjek je problem.“ Ove riječi prožimaju diskurs FinTech industrije, poslovnog sektora koji se odlikuje društveno disruptivnom kombinacijom financija i tehnologije. „FinTech“, skraćenica pojma „financijska tehnologija“, predstavlja tvrtke koje koriste tehnologiju za poboljšanje, digitalizaciju ili automatizaciju financijskih usluga i procesa. Ova brzo rastuća industrija, koja nominalno teži služiti i tvrtkama i potrošačima, nudi lepezu aplikacija koje […]
U ljeto 2020. godine hrvatske su politike za mlade po prvi put iz različitih ministarstava ukalupljene u tijelo državne uprave koje u svom cilju ima formulirati i koordinirati ne samo politiku za mlade, već i demografsku politiku. Kao što je navedeno o Uredbi o osnivanju, ali i u Zakonu o ustrojstvu i djelokrugu tijela državne […]
Iznenadni napad Hamasa 7. listopada 2023. godine na Izrael u kojemu je ubijeno oko 1.200 i oteto oko 250 ljudi te odvedeno u Pojas Gaze doveo je do nerazmjernoga vojnog odgovora Izraela i humanitarne katastrofe. Procjenjuje se da je dosad u Gazi poginulo preko 30.000 ljudi. Oči svjetske javnosti ponovno su se usmjerile na središnji […]
Goran ima 28 godina i završio je FER. Nakon što je godinu dana produžio studiranje, radio je nepune dvije godine u jednoj IT firmi u Radničkoj i prije 10 mjeseci preselio u Dublin, u sličnu firmu. Regrutirali su ga putem LinkedIna. Nije puno dvojio: nova prilika, nova država, a uvijek se može vratiti, iako mu […]
Objavljene su nominacije za ovogodišnju nagradu Oscar. U nedjelju 11. ožujka u Dolby Theatre na Hollywood Boulevardu bit će održana 96. po redu dodjela najprestižnije filmske nagrade. Nominirani filmovi, glumci, redatelji, scenaristi i ini filmski umjetnici ne odskaču pretjerano od onoga što se očekivalo. Ovaj tekst prigodno nastoji stati u obranu smisla jednog od nominiranih […]
Pored rata u Ukrajini i rata između Izraela i Hamasa, jedva da je bila zamijećena nova kriza na Južnom Kavkazu koja je izbila krajem ljeta 2023. Azerbajdžan je 19. rujna započeo vojnu ofenzivu na Nagorno Karabah koja je trajala manje od jednog dana. Vlasti u toj separatističkoj regiji brzo su kapitulirale pred nadmoćnim neprijateljem i […]
In many ways, 2016 was a political turning point. That year the wave of populism achieved two significant victories – the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s victory in US presidential elections. Panic unfolded in the socio-political establishment of liberal democracy. Answers, explanations, and culprits were sought for what was considered the twilight of the democratic political order and the beginning of the post-truth era. Eyes were focused on social media platforms...
The latest war in the Middle East revealed a multitude of ideological, political and worldview attitudes and emotions that had been hidden for years. Actors in public life suddenly started showing empathy towards the Palestinian people...
Recently, a book by Ivo Bićanić, entitled The Economist Has Two Hands, was posthumously published. It is a set of columns and accessible essays edited by Željko Ivanković, with whom Ivo Bićanić worked closely in recent years on the Internet portal Ideje.hr.
In early 2024, regular presidential elections will be held in Taiwan. Presidential and parliamentary elections on that island always revolve around the issue of relations with Beijing and Taiwan's statehood. They are not just a competition for power between different political options...
The government majority, led by the Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ), revised the boundaries of electoral units, declaring their solution an appropriate response to the Constitutional Court’s decision from February 2023. The way they did it raised a lot of clamor in the media, academic community and the opposition...
Lepoglava is the oldest prison in the region of former Yugoslavia. It was founded in 1854 in a Catholic Monastery, and has run continuously until the present day. It is located in attractive hills in Varaždin County in the very north of the country. Since its foundation, it has existed under Habsburg, royal Yugoslavian, wartime collaborationist, Communist, and finally democratic Croatian jurisdictions.
Mirjana Kasapović’s essay, "Goodbye to Post-Yugoslavism!", published by the Annals of the Croatian Political Science Association on May 2 nd this year, resonated loudly in the Croatian public space and beyond. In the weeks after the publication of the article there were dozens of reactions to the essay, some positive and some negative. Even though the issue of the normative attitude towards Yugoslavia is already considered by many to be a worn out, tiresome and boring topic, the discussion in this case turned out to be lively and epistemically stimulating.
This short piece* is an attempt to open the question about the meaning and reach of the concept of metapolitics today. Apart from Rancière, in the contemporary French thought on politics and the political this term is explicitly used by Alain Badiou.
On February 19, the 40 th International Carnival Parade was held in Rijeka, which once again attracted a huge number of visitors (91 carnival groups paraded through Rijeka's Korzo). After a forced two-year break – In 2022, a summer carnival parade was held, but it was only a poor alternative to the real carnival – caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the carnival parade returned to the “scene of the crime”. Rijeka, the locus delicti, once again sent impressive images of the carnival colorfulness of the most important masquerade dance in Croatia (and beyond) to the world.
Croatia's entry into the eurozone has proven to be more turbulent than expected. However, the real problems will be long-term. Should we have joined? Of course, the question is largely rhetorical since the choice has already been made. On the one hand, political elites in Croatia, elected politicians as well as the country's monetary authorities, never really tried to articulate an alternative.
Another successful year lies behind the Annals of the Croatian Political Science Association. Our "main product", the nineteenth volume of the Annals, was officially released two weeks ago. With seven original scientific articles, six book reviews, two reactions, two overviews, one review article, one preliminary communication, one editorial and one conference report all together – 21 texts), this volume is somewhat more modest than the previous, eighteenth volume (with its total of 30 texts). Our goal was to compile a more concise and therefore more concentrated set of texts that presents the results of political science and related sciences in 2022.
In the parliamentary elections in Sweden in September 2022, the majority of votes were taken by four parties announcing the formation of a conservative, non-socialist government. These are the Moderate Party (M), the Christian Democrats (KD), the Liberals (L) and the Sweden Democrats (SD). The latter won the largest number of seats among the parties of the conservative bloc.
“Wild construction” is the term for a construction site with an active heterogeneous group of unregistered workers who perform demanding “physical” field work – which others have given up on for whatever reason. We are paid salary – “on hand” after the day is completed or the work done. The hardened boss would add to us “...and if you don't like the amount, here, take a sledgehammer and feel free to break what you’ve done, you'll just have to collect it yourself.”
As the sweat dripped from my forehead onto the twenty-kilogram concrete blocks, I wondered if other political scientists were doing this, for how long, and if this was even for us? There were two currents of thought back then at the Faculty of Political Science – the pessimistic (“unfortunately, you will work as waiters in the summer, as seasonal olive and grape pickers in the fall, and sit, smoke and drink tea during the winter”) and the optimistic (“once we enter the EU, the labor market will demand at least 2,000 of our political scientists, and lawyers will no longer take away our work”). At least in my case, life confirmed the pessimistic forecast.
Ruska se politika verbalno približila tipičnoj genocidnoj retorici, koja je prethodila uništenjima cijelih naroda. Svi su oni prije pokolja i uništenja bili svedeni na bacile, viruse, mikrobe, žohare, crve, štakore… – na gamad koju treba istrijebiti s lica zemlje.
Pirates are a scourge. John Locke condemned tyrants by comparing them to those enemies of the human race who rob other people’s property. And what about the undeclared sailors who seasonally sail the Adriatic and serve tourists on cruises? Guided by Locke’s logic, we could say that a pirate is any sailor who illegally works on a ship and deprives the state of taxes.
Many political scientists happily and honorably work, as they say, "in the profession". A few academic and research careers aside, this implies a wide range of managerial, administrative, analytical and activist positions in the public sector and civil society: ministries, local authorities, political parties, NGOs, think tanks and the media. For many other political scientists, however, for various reasons, this does not work. This does not mean that they are unhappy and that their hard-earned knowledge in political science does not at least in some way help them cope with life experiences more easily. In the general tumult of the labor market, these brave individuals honorably perform various jobs for which the Faculty of Political Science did not specifically qualify them.
For the radical right, it is important to attract new members on the Internet, presenting itself as bigger, more influential, more powerful, and more entertaining than it actually is. In order to achieve this, it is important for its adherents to maintain and perpetuate a specific perception of themselves – outwards, to attract new users, but also inwards, in order to maintain existing identity structures and indoctrinate new users. The recent fiasco with the publication of the Handbook of Hate Memes is a shining example of how radical right-wing digital communities, such as the one on 4chan's /pol/ (Politically Incorrect) subforum, are doing just that through mythologizing.
Strah je konstanta ruske vanjske politike. Počevši od saveza s Francuskom i Britanijom prije Prvog svjetskog rata zbog bojazni od Njemačke i Austro-Ugarske, preko iskustva sa stranim vojnim intervencijama na svom tlu tijekom građanskog rata, do sovjetskog podčinjavanja Istočne Europe poslije Drugog svjetskog rata kako bi služila kao tampon-zona prema Zapadu, Kremlj se nikad nije […]
Nakon duge kampanje i dramatičnoga prvog kruga u kojemu je čak troje kandidata osvojilo preko dvadeset posto glasova, Emmanuel Macron, nesuđeni junak našeg doba, reizabran je za predsjednika sedmoga najvećeg gospodarstva u svijetu i jedine nuklearne sile među državama članicama Unije. Pa ipak, Macronu u ustima ostaje okus gorči od pastisa, popularnoga galskog anisovca koji […]
Poznata izreka iz 1990-ih u naslovu teksta upućuje na možda i najveći problem Bosne i Hercegovine a to je razlika između pravno proklamirane i stvarne konstitutivnosti triju naroda na cijelom teritoriju BiH. Konstitutivnost triju naroda u praksi ne postoji, kako pokazuju i posljednji politički događaji u toj zemlji čija se nestabilnost nažalost sve češće spominje […]
U godinama prije same odluke Vladimira Putina da naredi potpunu invaziju na suverenu državu Ukrajinu 24. veljače 2022., njegov režim snažno je nastojao izvršiti potrebne pripreme kako bi osujetio učinkovitost svakog budućeg kruga ekonomskih sankcija Zapada. Doista, ekonomske sankcije uvedene kao reakcija na rusku aneksiju Krima i njezinu prešutnu potporu separatistima Donbasa 2014., na kraju […]
Two weeks before the outbreak of protests in January 2022, Kazakhstan marked three decades of its independence. After the collapse of the USSR in December 1991, it faced a triple transition. All three were painstaking, but only the one concerning the building of an independent state can be said to have succeeded.
Just when we forgot for a moment about the fiscal belt-tightening, it may be brewing again. Not so long ago we were still recovering from the effects of the 2007/08 financial crisis and the deep recession of 2009. Fiscal responsibility has emerged as a key issue and the EU has highlighted it as an indispensable part of any stabilization. We have been accustomed for years to hearing about wasteful Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, and Croats – about their inflated public debts and unsustainable budget deficits. Today the situation is even worse, but no one is upset about it. At least not yet. Why is that so?
The Lancet recently published an editorial commentary on how COVID-19 cannot be defeated by vaccination alone. A neologism was introduced to explain this position. The corona crisis is not a pandemic but a “syndemic”. It is about networking and mutual reinforcement of biological-medical and social factors that negatively affect human health. Pandemics of a number of noncommunicable diseases and health-related conditions, such as obesity, diabetes, thyroid disease, tumors and various chronic diseases, make the population more susceptible to the most severe consequences of corona infection.
The September elections were certainly the most exciting in post-war German history. The Greens experienced a huge rise, in some polls they even broke out in the first place, only to be grounded by a series of clumsy moves in the campaign of Annalene Baerbock, who was the first official green candidate for chancellor. In the end, they went far below the expected twenty percent of votes or more.
The global power is shifting from the Euro-Atlantic area to Asia-Pacific. This structural transformation was noticed as early as the 1990s, but at the time America could not resist the intoxicating post-Cold War triumphalism and hubris of its supremacy. Only when pax Americana succumbed to the burdens of exhausting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the global recession of 2008, did the immediate geopolitical importance of the Pacific became fully apparent. By then, China already emerged as a rising power and a major regional rival.
The extent of political change in the local elections held in May this year can be analyzed in different ways. To begin with, we can apply to the election results a relatively simple model developed by the German-American economist Albert Hirschman. In his study Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, originally published in 1970, Hirschman uses the terms ‘exit, ‘voice’ and ‘loyalty’ to describe the ways in which members of businesses, organizations, and states, or political systems, behave in situations of coping with problems or crises in their communities.
Shortly before the end of his 12-year term as the High Representative of the International Community in BiH, Valentin Inzko intervened in state penal law by banning the denial of the genocide of Serbs against Bosniaks in Srebrenica in 1995. Although it has several dimensions, the essence of Inzko’s decision, based on the invasive Bonn powers of the High Representative, is the legal sanctioning of the denial of the Srebrenica genocide. One can speculate as to why this pale and insignificant Austrian diplomat did so. Is Inzko a political idiot who did not understand the potential consequences of his act for the fate of BiH, since neither the Republika Srpska nor the Republic of Serbia recognize the genocide in Srebrenica and will not accept his decision peacefully?
The division of political parties and ideological programs into Left and Right is so ingrained in our perception of political reality that it is difficult to find an alternative. The reasons for this persistence have long been a mystery to political theorists and scientists. Why does this particular spatial metaphor occupy a central place in our understanding and configuration of the political landscape? What is so essential in these terms that it has given them so much mobilizing and affective power for centuries?
Last year, Kyrgyzstan experienced the third big protests in 15 years which resulted with the change of power. After the removal of presidents in the Tulip Revolution in 2005, and the Melon Revolution in 2010, the new protests erupted over the fraud in the October 2020 parliamentary election. Protesters occupied the office of the president and the building of the parliament and released the former president Atambayev from prison. The Central Electoral Commission annulled the elections. President Jêênbekov could not stop these actions and resigned after being less than three years in office.
If we were to capture what happened in the 1152 local elections in Croatia in one word, no, it would not be that the new ones won. It would be more accurate to say that the different won. For the most part, they’re new, too, but that doesn’t fully describe what happened.
After a fierce campaign between two election rounds, and the first change of city government in two decades, it is a good time for a glance into the past of the turbulent last hundred years of elections in Zagreb.
As a short retrospective of the local elections, we an overview of public appearances and comments by political scientists who have offered their expertise to understand these unusually important elections.
Richard succeeded because he threw in front of the people what the people love the most – the people themselves, as the only remaining opium for the people. And this love is greater because it is personified by Richard, as a kind of people’s character who puts the people in a position of safe distance. That is, the people prefer to recognize themselves in the figure of someone else because it also means that the character takes upon himself every ridicule or reproach that can be addressed to them.
Politics in Croatia is usually perceived in a reductionist way – as a mere struggle for power. Once the elections are over, voters become unfree again and some other persons decide upon their fates, persons more “qualified” to decide what’s good for the citizens than citizens themselves. To paraphrase
In a recent interview for Globus on the occasion of the publication of his book Transition to Nowhere, philosopher Boris Buden described post-Yugoslav ethnic nationalisms as those that “destroyed the social substance of the nation” and left it as an “empty identity shell without any ...
We are currently in a period of two cheerful weeks within which it is necessary to submit candidacies for representative bodies and executive bodies in counties, cities and municipalities. At the end of that period, when the full inventory of all the lists and running candidates is published, there will certainly be those that the public has not yet had a chance to hear about during the pre-campaign, and it will also turn out that some have stumbled already on the first step, since they haven’t managed to collect the minimum number of citizens’ valid signatures.
