Abstract

The authors of this book, scholars from Germany, Austria, the United States, Kirghizia and Poland, seek an answer to the challenges posed to social sciences by the globalization epoch. The challenges apply to such problems as the establishment of rights and rules and institutions governing the existence of supra- and international communities, the development of a common system of ethical values, moral standards and norms (or even the creation of a system of entirely new values, standards and norms) supporting the unification process, as well as the legitimacy and validity of transferring the values and standards and the models of economy and politics characteristic of European culture to other cultures and civilizations. This book raises the questions that are particularly significant to the present-day political practice in its European and global dimensions: the questions of place, role and dimension, as well as topicality or transformations in the post-modern order of the world, of such moral values, standards and norms present in politics as human rights, freedom, justice, responsibility, solidarity, tolerance, forgiveness, peace, security, education, modernization or democracy and law.