Corporate social responsibility research has burgeoned in the past several decades. Despite significant advances, our review of the literature reveals a problematic gap: We know little about how culture, practices, and interactions shape CSR. On further investigation, we discover that limited research utilizes ethnography to understand CSR, which may provide some explanation for this gap. Thus, the purpose of this article is to illustrate the utility of ethnography for advancing business and society research via a multistage framework that demonstrates how (...) three different types of ethnography may be applied to the exploration of CSR. We specifically focus on the alignment between stages in the research process, or methodological fit, as a key criterion of high-quality research. In doing so, we provide researchers embracing different worldviews a tool they may utilize to conduct and evaluate ethnographies in business and society research. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of how concepts pertinent to legal contracts can influence certain aspects of their digital implementation through smart contracts, as inspired by recent developments in distributed ledger technology. We discuss how properties of imperative and declarative languages including the underlying architectures to support contract management and lifecycle apply to various aspects of legal contracts. We then address these properties in the context of several blockchain architectures. While imperative languages are commonly used to implement smart contracts, we (...) find that declarative languages provide more natural ways to deal with certain aspects of legal contracts and their automated management. (shrink)

This article explores ‘the politics of sentimentality’ with specific reference to the documentary film Sick, which represents the narrative of a young lesbian woman, Ana, who was confined in a psychiatric hospital in Croatia and ‘treated’ for her homosexuality. We consider the ways our most intimate emotional relationships and states, such as pain and suffering, articulate with a wider context of familial citizenship and critically examine the political limits of compassion within the sentimentalised public sphere. In this analysis, we problematise (...) the film’s emotional logic, which presents an individualised narrative resolution at the expense of dwelling on the political question of institutional violence. We examine the role that politics of sentimentality plays in neutralising the film’s political critique of the state apparatuses that enforce heterosexual norms. (shrink)

The present research examines how children’s time spent online is associated with their perceived life satisfaction accounting for their age, gender, socio-economic status, emotional problems, country, and family environmental factors. This article is based on the data of the large scale cross-sectional EU Kids Online survey from 16 European countries with nationally representative samples of children aged 9–17. The results indicated that the time children spent online appeared to have no considerable negative effect on their self-reported life satisfaction. Comparatively, the (...) positive effects of children’s SES and family environment accounted for 43% of the overall 50% of the variance in children’s SRLS scores. Considering that children’s SES alone accounted for 42% of the variance, children’s emotional problems, country of residence, and enabling parental mediation accounted for the remaining 3, 4, and 1% of the variance, respectively. In line with previous studies that urge caution when discussing the negative influence of time spent online on children’s mental health and overall wellbeing, the current findings suggest that social-ecological characteristics and how children use the Internet, need to be examined further. (shrink)

Combat sports and martial arts are often associated with aggressiveness among the general public, although data on judo and/or martial arts and aggressiveness seem to be unclear. This research aims to compare athletes who have trained judo for a prolonged time and athletes from various team sports, primarily regarding the manifestation of aggression, but also regarding personality traits, emotional intelligence, and self-efficacy. Also, the potential predictive value of personality traits, emotional intelligence, and self-efficacy for aggression within subsamples of judokas and (...) team athletes was tested. The research findings showed that professional judo athletes are characterized by a low degree of aggression, especially low indirect and physical manifestations of aggression. In addition, the personality traits Honesty-Humility and Openness to experience are well expressed, contrary to Emotionality and Extraversion, which are less pronounced. They are also characterized by moderate general self-efficacy. On the other hand, members of team sports produced the opposite results, as they are characterized by increased aggression, pronounced traits of Emotionality and Extraversion, somewhat less pronounced traits of Honesty-Humility, Openness to new experience, and less pronounced general self-efficacy. The percentage of explained variability of aggression is slightly higher in the subsample of team sports and constitutes 49.9% of the variability, while in the subsample of judokas it constitutes 47.8% of the variability of the criteria. Practical implications, limitations, and future research directions were discussed. (shrink)

Izvanučionička nastava poveznica je života i škole i neizostavna sastavnica suvremenog odgoja i obrazovanja. Obzirom na njezinu iznimnu pedagošku vrijednost, cilj je ovoga rada analizom školskih kurikuluma dobiti uvid u zastupljenost i oblike provedbe izvanučioničke nastave u osnovnim školama. U tu svrhu analizirana su 73 školska kurikuluma osnovnih škola na području Osječko-baranjske županije. Analiza sadržaja kurikuluma obuhvatila je različite oblike provedbe izvanučioničke nastave, njihovu zastupljenost u okviru razredne i predmetne nastave i u odgojno-obrazovnim područjima propisanim Okvirom nacionalnog kurikuluma. Ovim se (...) radom ukazuje na prednosti i nedostatke različitih oblika izvanučioničke nastave koji se ostvaruju unutar pojedinih odgojno-obrazovnih područja. Detektirana su odgojno-obrazovna područja u kojima je potrebno unaprijediti planiranje i realizaciju izvanučioničke nastave. Zaključuje se kako je didaktičko-metodička rješenja za unaprjeđenje potrebno tražiti unutar pojedinih odgojno-obrazovnih područja u kojima su uočene različitosti u učestalosti integracije izvanučioničke nastave. Outdoor education is a link between life and school and an indispensable component of modern education. Considering its exceptional pedagogical value, the main goal of this research is to get an insight into the presence and form of outdoor education implementation in elementary schools. For that purpose, seventy-three school curricula from Osijek-Baranja County were analyzed. The analysis of curriculum content includes not only different forms of outdoor education, their presence in one teacher education and subject teaching but also education areas prescribed by the national curriculum. The thesis points out the advantages and disadvantages of different forms of outdoor education within particulars education areas. Also, education areas in which improvements in planning and realization of outdoor education were detected. It is necessary to look for didactic methodical solutions in education areas in which diversity of outdoor education integration is noticed. (shrink)

Outdoor education is a link between life and school and an indispensable component of modern education. Considering its exceptional pedagogical value, the main goal of this research is to get an insight into the presence and form of outdoor education implementation in elementary schools. For that purpose, seventy-three school curricula from Osijek-Baranja County were analyzed. The analysis of curriculum content includes not only different forms of outdoor education, their presence in one teacher education and subject teaching but also education areas (...) prescribed by the national curriculum. The thesis points out the advantages and disadvantages of different forms of outdoor education within particulars education areas. Also, education areas in which improvements in planning and realization of outdoor education were detected. It is necessary to look for didactic methodical solutions in education areas in which diversity of outdoor education integration is noticed. (shrink)

Recent discussions of theorigins of the thermodynamical temporal asymmetry (thearrow of time) by Huw Price and others arecritically assessed. This serves as amotivation for consideration of relationshipbetween thermodynamical and cosmologicalcauses. Although the project of clarificationof the thermodynamical explanandum is certainlywelcome, Price excludes another interestingoption, at least as viable as the sort ofAcausal-Particular approach he favors, andarguably more in the spirit of Boltzmannhimself. Thus, the competition of explanatoryprojects includes three horses, not two. Inaddition, it is the Acausal-Particular approachthat could benefit enormously (...) from dissociationfrom fanciful ideas of low-entropy futureboundary conditions entertained by Price. Novelrevolutionary developments in observationalcosmology, as well as in the nascentastrophysical discipline of physicaleschatology, have obliterated such hypotheses.Also, the Acausal-Anthropic approach wepropose, offers another clear instance ofdisteleological nature of the anthropicprinciple. (shrink)

Sandžak has the largest Muslim Slav (Bosniak) community in the Balkans outside Bosnia–Herzegovina. In 1990, Sandžak Bosniaks organized a branch of the Party of Democratic Action (Alija Izetbegović’s party) and began to agitate for regional autonomy. During the 1990s under Slobodan Milošević’s regime, local Bosniaks became the victims of state terror that saw widespread official discrimination and the ethnic cleansing of entire villages. In spite of having a high birth rate, the Bosniak population of Sandžak declined by 7.88% in (...) the years 1991–2002 entirely because of the Milošević regime’s policies. Since the overthrow of Milošević, however, the Belgrade government has begun investing in the region’s infrastructure and economy. As a result, the situation for Bosniaks of Sandžak has improved since 2001. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDespite their differences in age, professional career and political background, Milošević and Putin share similar views on one of the main consequences of the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the USSR: the involuntary dispersal of Serbs and Russians into different foreign states. This is a study of the segments of Milošević’s and Putin’s speeches referring to Kosovo and to Crimea respectively. The study analyses their rhetorical devices and thematic content, using the analytical framework and instruments for the analysis of (...) nationalist discourses developed by the Vienna School of Critical Discourse Analysis. The speeches, it is argued here, share a topos of sacralisation of the land based on the ancestors’ holy or glorious deeds which proclaims the land to be sacred to the chosen nation. This creates a ‘national entitlement’ to the land in a depoliticised and highly personalised setting. (shrink)

Twenty years ago, Slobodan Milosevic uttered a sentence which was afterwards repeated in the literature about the Yugoslav tragedy innummerable times. The sentence "Niko ne sme da vas bije" was directed to the Serb demonstrators in Kosovo. In this text, the author analyzes the ways this sentence was translated in factional literature and shows that different versions, apart from being different lexically and semantically, influence the political interpretation and understanding of the Yugoslav conflict. This text poses another, maybe even more (...) important question: are unprecise and wrong translations of Milosevic's words a proof of what Georg Johannesen claimed - that faction is fiction.. Pre dvadeset godina Slobodan Milosevic je izgovorio jednu recenicu koja je ponavljana nebrojeno puta u literaturi o jugoslovenskoj tragediji. Ta recenica je izgovorena u neposrednom kontaktu sa demonstrantima srpske nacionalnosti na Kosovu i glasi "Niko ne sme da vas bije". U ovom tekstu autor istrazuje nacine na koje je ova recenica prevodjena u strucnoj literaturi i/ili faktivnoj prozi i pokazuje kako njene razlicite verzije, osim sto se odlikuju velikim jezickim i semantickim razlikama, usmeravaju politicko tumacenje i razumevanje jugoslovenskog konflikta. Ovim tekstom postavlja se jos jedno, mozda i vaznije pitanje: da li je neprecizno i pogresno navodjenje Milosevicevog iskaza potvrda onoga sto je o faktivnoj prozi i/ili strucnoj literaturi govorio Georg Johanesen - da se radi o izmisljanju - fikciji sklopljenoj od reci.. (shrink)

U Rusiji, dve decenije nakon urusavanja Sovjetskog Saveza, Staljinova popularnost je po anketama javnog mnjenja ogromna, posto se mnogi prisecaju nekadasnjeg ugleda zemlje i svog osecaja sigurnosti. Slicno tome, mnogi Srbi, koji su bili najveca grupa u bivsoj Jugoslaviji, s nostalgijom su gledali na vreme nacionalnog ponosa i materijalnog komfora. Nasuprot tome, potcinjene etnicke zajednice u isto to vreme osecale su frustraciju u teznji za nacionalnim ponosom. Svaki politicki poredak ima jednu pripovest sacinjenu od odabranih i povezanih dogadjaja koji promovisu (...) nacionalne interese. Iako se zavrsila oruzana borba, u bivsoj Jugoslaviji ostala je podeljenost koja je perpetuirana konkurentskim narativima o tome sta se i zbog cega dogodilo. U Rusiji,?nevidiljivi staljinizam? u porastu jos jednom je omalovazio iskustvo zrtava represije. Ovaj clanak pruza preliminarna razmatranja o razdvajanju narativa u Rusiji i Srbiji i pokusava da objasni jednu od kljucnih prepreki u pomirenju s prosloscu. (shrink)

On 25 May 1993 the United Nations Security Council took the extraordinary and unprecedented step of deciding to establish the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia as a mechanism for the restoration and maintenance of international peace and security. This was an extremely significant innovation in the use of mandatory enforcement powers by the Security Council, and the manifestation of an explicit link between peace and justice - politics and law. The establishment of ad hoc tribunals for the former (...) Yugoslavia and Rwanda was followed by the adoption of the Rome Statute of the ICC in July 1998, the arrest of General Augusto Pinochet in London in October 1998, and the establishment of ad hoc tribunals in Cambodia, Sierra Leone, and East Timor, all of which pointed to an emerging norm of international criminal justice. The key to understanding this is the relationship between the political mandate and the judicial function. The Tribunal was established as a tool of politics, but it was a judicial, not a political tool.This book provides a systematic examination of the Tribunal, what it is, why it was established, how it functions, and where its significance lies. The central question is whether an international judicial institution, such as the Tribunal, can operate in a highly politicized context and fulfill an explicit political purpose, without the judicial process becoming politicized. Separate chapters chart the origins of the court, the process of establishment, jurisdiction, procedure, state co-operation, including obtaining custody of accused, and the role and function of the Chief Prosecutor. This last element is the key to the Tribunal's success in maintaining a delicate balancing act so that its external political function does not impinge on its impartial judicial status, and instead enhances its effectiveness. The book concludes with an assessment of the conduct of the Milosevic case to date. (shrink)

[1] If asked to name career diplomats who have tackled some very difficult international crises, many foreign policy makers would put Richard Holbrooke near the top of the list. Not many negotiators have wielded moral principle, power, and reason as well as Holbrooke. His book on the Bosnia negotiations leading up to the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement is timely, given the ethnic cleansing that is being carried out in Kosovo, a southern province of Yugoslavia's Serb Republic. Once again we are (...) faced with unrest in the Balkans. We have seen the daily newspaper headlines change from "24 Albanian Men Killed in Kosovo" and "Hopes Fade for New Kosovo Talks" to "NATO Air Campaign Expanded" and "Chinese Embassy Bombed in Belgrade." Although talk of "Bosnian Muslims," "the Bosnian Army" and "Srebrenica' has been replaced with "Kosovars," "the Kosovo Liberation Army," and "Rogovo," two of the main actors in the Bosnia negotiations have returned to put their stamp on the Kosovo negotiations: President Slobodan Milosevic and U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke. Unfortunately, Holbrooke's words that begin the last paragraph of his book seem to have come true: "There will be other Bosnias in our lives." With that in mind, Holbrooke's book will best he appreciated as a harbinger of things to come in Kosovo and elsewhere. (shrink)

Velvet revolutions, continued-. The strange toppling of Slobadan Milošević ; "The country summoned me" ; Orange Revolution in Ukraine ; The revolution that wasn't ; 1968 and 1989 ; 1989! ; Velvet Revolution in past and future -- Europe and other headaches. Ghosts in the machine ; Are there moral foundations of European power? ; The twins' new Poland ; Exchange of empires ; Why Britain is in Europe ; Europe's new story ; National anthems ; "O chink, where (...) is thy wall?" ; The perfect EU member -- Islam, terror and freedom. La Alhambra ; Islam in Europe ; The invisible front line ; Against taboos ; Respect? ; Secularism or atheism? ; No if and no buts -- USA! USA!. Mr. President ; 9/11 ; Anti-Europeanism in America ; In defence of the fence ; Zorba the Bush ; Warsaw, Missouri ; Dancing with history ; Liberalism -- Beyond the West. Beauty and the beast in Burma ; Soldiers of the hidden Imam ; East meets West ; The brotherhood against Pharaoh ; Cities of no God ; Beyond race -- Writers and facts. The brown grass of memory ; The Stasi on our minds ; Orwell in our time ; Orwell's list ; Is "British intellectual" an oxymoron? ; "Ich bin ein Berliner" ; The literature of fact -- Envoi. Elephant, feet of clay ; Decivilization ; The mice in the organ. (shrink)

Belgrade University student demonstrations, 1996-97, represent a turning point in the emergence of a democratic civic culture and civil society in the former Yugoslavia. Large-scale student demonstrations were triggered by the regimens cancellation of the November 1996 municipal election victories by the united opposition, Zajedno, in more than a dozen cities throughout Serbia, Demonstrating independently of political parties, student demands concerned not only narrow issues of university education, funding and governance, but also much larger society-wide issues concerning democratic prospects for (...) Serbia Student demonstrations helped achieve several important goals, including the reinstatement of the 1996 opposition victories, and hastened Milošević's departure. Belgrade students sought consciously to transcend Serbian nationalism, effectively challenging the regime, while distancing themselves from all political parties. Crucial in terms of overcoming the virulent nationalisms, exploited by political leaderships throughout the Balkans in the 1990s, was the students' quest for universal human rights, democracy, pluralism, tolerance, and an open society. Following Milošević's demise, the studem movement became institutionalized in Otpor as a genuine civil society public-interest group and unofficial watchdog. (shrink)

Otpor is discussed in the text as a complex and contradictory new type of social movement, whose members attempted to contribute to the tradition of enlightened reform of social and political life in Serbia, simultaneously in a highly pragmatic and in a creative, possibly even irresponsible manner. After the introduction, analyzed are popular and media narratives on the characteristics of the movement, dilemmas concerning the founding of the movement and meaning of its key symbols, and the Faustian question of goals (...) and consequences of foreign, in particular American influences. Following is a discussion of strategic and tactical roles of Otpor in the coordinated project of ousting Milosevic. Otpor?s role is then re-interpreted in the frame of the?electoral revolution?, developed by Valerie Bunce, Sharon Wolchik and Michael McFoul. An assessment of the transformation of Otpor from an active social movement into an exportable blueprint for non-violent political revolutions is offered in lieu of a conclusion. U radu se o Otporu raspravlja kao o slozenom, pa cak i kontradiktornom drustvenom pokretu novog tipa, koji je na krajnje pragmatican, a istovremeno i veoma mastovit, stvaralacki nastrojen, na trenutke cak neozbiljan i neodgovoran nacin pokusao da nastavi tradiciju prosvecenog reformisanja drustvenog i politickog zivota u Srbiji. Autor zapocinje analizu razmatranjem medijskih i narodskih narativa o Otporu. Potom se prelazi na pitanje nastanka pokreta i mogucih znacenja njegovog imena i kljucnih simbola. Sledeci odeljak bavi se "faustovskim" pitanjem vrsta i posledica stranih uticaja na nacin funkcionisanja Otpora. Zatim se prelazi na razmatranje specificnih strateskih i taktickih uloga Otpora u koordinisanom projektu rusenja Milosevicevog rezima. Sledi pokusaj teorijskog odredjenja politickog projekta ciji je konstitutivni deo bio i Otpor, a koji pociva na modelu izborne revolucije koji su razvili Valeri Bans, Seron Volcik i Majkl Mekfaul. U epilogu se razmatra kako je pokret, iako politicki mrtav, zahvaljujuci projektima nekadasnjih aktivista uspeo da preraste u jedan od poznatijih srpskih izvoznih "brendova". (shrink)

As the world watches the current crisis in Kosovo unfold through intensive daily media coverage, particularly by major networks in the US and Europe, one can only wonder why the same attention is not given to the crises in Africa. The military intervention by NATO allied forces, including the United States, to avert Milosevic ’ s genocidal campaign towards the Kosovo Albanians, can only be characterized as an exclusive European mission to resolve Europe ’ s problem. This is not, by (...) all means, to subvert or undermine the suffering of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo but to give some perspective as to how the super powers are responding to other similar crises in the world. Today, any crime against humanity, in any part of the world, regardless of this nations political or economic interest, should not be tolerated. Most Americans, perhaps most of the world, do not know about the mass genocide that took place in Rwanda and the civil war in the Southern Sudan that has left more than a million and half people dead. And now we can add to this list, the recent border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea that has emerged into a full - scale war. The most recent conflict has already claimed thousands of lives while world superpowers are watching si -. (shrink)

Although former Yugoslavia constituted what was widely held to be the most "promising" communist country in terms of potentials for economic reform and political democratization, Serbia remained the only East European country in which the former communist elite managed to defeat its opponents in a series of elections and preserve important elements of institutional and ideological continuity with the old system. Moreover, its regime played a conspicuous role in Yugoslavia's violent collapse. In the specialist literature, the "Serbian exceptionalism" thesis has (...) been elaborated in a number of forms. These are critically reviewed in the first part of the paper, classifying the paradigms according to whether they emphasize: 1) Serbian traditionalist, authoritarian, and collectivist political culture, 2) the affinity between traditional Serbian national populism, Russophile anti-Westernism, and communism, 3) the exclusivist and assimilating character of Serbian nationalism, or 4) the appeals of the contemporary Serbian political elite led by S. Milosevic. In the second part of the paper an alternative explanation is presented that seeks to be both interpretively adequate and causally plausible. It rests on five basic factors: 1) historical legacy ; 2) institutional analysis ; 3) ideology ; 4) leadership and social base ; and 5) the role of the Diaspora.. Iako se pre 1990. smatralo da bivsa Jugoslavija medju svim komunistickim zemljama ima najbolje potencijale za ekonomsku reformu i politicku demokratizaciju, Srbija je ostala jedina istocnoevropska zemlja u kojoj je nekadasnjoj komunistickoj eliti poslo za rukom da porazi svoje protivnike u nekoliko uzastopnih izbornih nadmetanja i da ocuva znacajne elemente institucionalnog i ideoloskog kontinuiteta sa starim sistemom. Stavise, taj je rezim igrao krupnu ulogu u nasilnom raspadu SFRJ. U specijalistickoj literaturi, teza o "srpskoj izuzetnosti" razvijana je u razlicitim formama, cijem kritickom razmatranju je posvecen prvi deo rada. Identifikovano je nekoliko paradigmi, u zavisnosti od toga da li osnovni naglasak stavljaju na: 1) tradicionalisticku, autoritarnu i kolektivisticku politicku kulturu Srba, 2) afinitet izmedju tradicionalnog srpskog nacionalnog populizma, rusofilskog antizapadnjastva i komunizma, 3) ekskluzivisticku i asimilacionisticku prirodu srpskog nacionalizma, ili pak 4) odlike savremene srpske politicke elite na celu sa S. Milosevicem. U drugom delu rada izlozio je alternativno objasnjenje, ciji su glavni oslonci: 1) istorijsko nasledje, 2) institucionalna analiza, 3) ideologija, 4) osobine vodja i drustvena baza i 5) uloga dijaspore.. (shrink)

Extremists are people whose ideas or tactics are viewed as outside the mainstream. Looked at this way, extremists are not necessarily twisted or evil. But they can be, especially when they are intolerant and violent. What makes extremists turn violent? This 2006 book assumes that extremists are rational: given their ends, they choose the best means to achieve them. The analysis explains why extremist leaders use the tactics they do, and why they are often insensitive to punishment and to loss (...) of life. It also explains how rational people can be motivated to die for the cause. The book covers different aspects of extremism such as revolution, suicide terrorism, and global jihad. The arguments are illustrated with important episodes of extremism, including the French Revolution, the rise of nationalism in Yugoslavia under Milosevic, and the emergence of suicide terror and Al Qaeda today. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 31.1 (2001) 73-90 [Access article in PDF] The Leader's Two BodiesSlavoj Zizek's Postmodern Political Theology Claudia Breger Over the course of the last decade, Slavoj Zizek and his "Slovenian Lacanian school" have gained renown in the Western theory market. Academics are fascinated not only by Zizek's performances as a speaker, his nondogmatic approach to issues of genre and (inter)mediality, 1 and the "literary" character of his theoretical texts (...) [Laclau, Preface xii], but also by the political turn given to psychoanalysis by the "Slovenian school." Already in his preface to Zizek's The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989), Ernesto Laclau wrote that this school's work made Lacanian theory "one of the principal reference points of the so-called 'Slovenia spring'—that is to say the democratization campaigns that have taken place in recent years" [xi]. More than ten years later—after a decade of authoritarian rule, war, and genocide in former Yugoslavia—recent revolutionary events in Serbia once more allow one to hope for a thorough democratization of the region. In a newspaper article evaluating the uprising, however, Zizek warned that these hopes might be premature: while Milosevic could find his new role as "a Serbian Jesus Christ," taking upon him all the "sins" committed by his people, Kostunica and his "democratic" nationalism might represent "nothing but Milosevic in the 'normal' version, without the excess" [Zizek, "Gewalt"]. 2Zizek was not alone in warning that the new government in Yugoslavia might not bring an end to Serbian nationalist politics. The pessimistic scenario Zizek evoked on this occasion, however, was not simply the result of his evaluation of the current political constellation in Serbia. Rather, the fantasy of the necessary return of the leader is connected to his political theory—a theory that does not allow for more optimistic scenarios of democratization and the diminution of nationalism in society. My reading of Zizek's work thus argues for a reevaluation of his theory in terms of its implicit authoritarian politics. The need for such a reevaluation is also suggested by Laclau toward the end of his recent exchange with Judith Butler and Zizek when he admits that "the more our discussions progressed, the more I realized that my sympathy for Zizek's politics was largely the result of a mirage" [Laclau, "Constructing Universality" 292]. Laclau now criticizes Zizek's radical Marxist rhetoric by suggesting that he "wants to do away with liberal democratic regimes" without specifying a political alternative [289], and describes Zizek's discourse as "schizophrenically split between a highly sophisticated Lacanian analysis and an insufficiently deconstructed traditional Marxism" [205]. On [End Page 73] the other hand, he also problematizes Zizek's "psychoanalytic discourse" as "not truly political" [289]. My argument primarily starts from this latter point: the antidemocratic—and, as I will argue, both antifeminist and anti-Semitic—moment of Zizek's theory is to be located not only in the way he performs Marxism, but also in the way he performs Lacanian psychoanalysis. While, in other words, Zizek's skepticism vis-à-vis democracy is obviously informed by, and inseparable from, Marxist critiques of "liberal," "representative" democracy, his failure to elaborate alternative visions of political change towards egalitarian and/or plural scenarios of society cannot be explained solely by his Marxist perspective. Rather, it is Zizek's reading of Lacanian psychoanalysis that does not allow for revisions of the Marxist paradigm toward, for example, a "radical democracy" as suggested by Laclau and Chantal Mouffe in their Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.In a chapter entitled "Formal Democracy and Its Discontents" in Looking Awry (1992), Zizek notes that "Lacan predicted a new rise of racism for the coming decades" as early as the 1960s [162]. 3 Zizek interprets this statement in the context of a "fundamental impasse of democracy" [162] created by the fact that the abstraction proper to democracy can never dissolve the "substantial ties"—of ethnicity, nation, and so on—that it negates [164]. 4 According to Zizek, "this constitutive paradox" has to be assumed: "The democratic attitude is always based upon a certain fetishistic... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 31.1 (2001) 73-90 [Access article in PDF] The Leader's Two BodiesSlavoj Zizek's Postmodern Political Theology Claudia Breger Over the course of the last decade, Slavoj Zizek and his "Slovenian Lacanian school" have gained renown in the Western theory market. Academics are fascinated not only by Zizek's performances as a speaker, his nondogmatic approach to issues of genre and (inter)mediality, 1 and the "literary" character of his theoretical texts (...) [Laclau, Preface xii], but also by the political turn given to psychoanalysis by the "Slovenian school." Already in his preface to Zizek's The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989), Ernesto Laclau wrote that this school's work made Lacanian theory "one of the principal reference points of the so-called 'Slovenia spring'—that is to say the democratization campaigns that have taken place in recent years" [xi]. More than ten years later—after a decade of authoritarian rule, war, and genocide in former Yugoslavia—recent revolutionary events in Serbia once more allow one to hope for a thorough democratization of the region. In a newspaper article evaluating the uprising, however, Zizek warned that these hopes might be premature: while Milosevic could find his new role as "a Serbian Jesus Christ," taking upon him all the "sins" committed by his people, Kostunica and his "democratic" nationalism might represent "nothing but Milosevic in the 'normal' version, without the excess" [Zizek, "Gewalt"]. 2Zizek was not alone in warning that the new government in Yugoslavia might not bring an end to Serbian nationalist politics. The pessimistic scenario Zizek evoked on this occasion, however, was not simply the result of his evaluation of the current political constellation in Serbia. Rather, the fantasy of the necessary return of the leader is connected to his political theory—a theory that does not allow for more optimistic scenarios of democratization and the diminution of nationalism in society. My reading of Zizek's work thus argues for a reevaluation of his theory in terms of its implicit authoritarian politics. The need for such a reevaluation is also suggested by Laclau toward the end of his recent exchange with Judith Butler and Zizek when he admits that "the more our discussions progressed, the more I realized that my sympathy for Zizek's politics was largely the result of a mirage" [Laclau, "Constructing Universality" 292]. Laclau now criticizes Zizek's radical Marxist rhetoric by suggesting that he "wants to do away with liberal democratic regimes" without specifying a political alternative [289], and describes Zizek's discourse as "schizophrenically split between a highly sophisticated Lacanian analysis and an insufficiently deconstructed traditional Marxism" [205]. On [End Page 73] the other hand, he also problematizes Zizek's "psychoanalytic discourse" as "not truly political" [289]. My argument primarily starts from this latter point: the antidemocratic—and, as I will argue, both antifeminist and anti-Semitic—moment of Zizek's theory is to be located not only in the way he performs Marxism, but also in the way he performs Lacanian psychoanalysis. While, in other words, Zizek's skepticism vis-à-vis democracy is obviously informed by, and inseparable from, Marxist critiques of "liberal," "representative" democracy, his failure to elaborate alternative visions of political change towards egalitarian and/or plural scenarios of society cannot be explained solely by his Marxist perspective. Rather, it is Zizek's reading of Lacanian psychoanalysis that does not allow for revisions of the Marxist paradigm toward, for example, a "radical democracy" as suggested by Laclau and Chantal Mouffe in their Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.In a chapter entitled "Formal Democracy and Its Discontents" in Looking Awry (1992), Zizek notes that "Lacan predicted a new rise of racism for the coming decades" as early as the 1960s [162]. 3 Zizek interprets this statement in the context of a "fundamental impasse of democracy" [162] created by the fact that the abstraction proper to democracy can never dissolve the "substantial ties"—of ethnicity, nation, and so on—that it negates [164]. 4 According to Zizek, "this constitutive paradox" has to be assumed: "The democratic attitude is always based upon a certain fetishistic... (shrink)

The paper contains a retrospective of the thesis that 'social learning' may be deployed as analytical framework to understand political change in Serbia, first proposed in 2001. The thesis contends that the events immediately before and after the toppling of Milosevic's regime in 2000 may be interpreted as outcomes of a process of collective learning by Serbian citizens. On the basis of the findings of three-wave qualitative study 'Politics and Everyday Life', as well as other research, the paper seeks to (...) answer the question whether the idea of 'social learning' stands or falls when confronted with the developments taking place in Serbian political life between 2001 and 2008. U clanku se izlaze retrospektivan pogled na tezu o 'socijalnom ucenju' kao analitickom okviru za razmatranje politickih promena u Srbiji, prvi put iznetu 2001. godine. Prema toj tezi, dogadjaji neposredno pre i posle smene Milosevicevog rezima 2000. godine mogu se protumaciti kao ishod jednog procesa kolektivnog ucenja, ciji su subjekt gradjani Srbije. Na osnovu nalaza tri talasa kvalitativne studije 'Politika i svakodnevni zivot', te rezultata drugih istrazivanja, u tekstu se pokusava odgovoriti na pitanje da li ideja 'socijalnog ucenja' opstaje ukoliko se suceli sa zbivanjima koja su obelezila politicki zivot u Srbiji u razdoblju od 2001. do 2008. godine. (shrink)

Tema rada su vestacenja drustvenih naucnika u procesima vodjenim pred Haskim tribunalom, ciji se doprinos sagledava u svetlu dugog razvoja ove prakse. Sire diskusije o sudskoj upotrebi naucnog znanja ukazuju na niz problema u regulisanju vestacenja. Analiziraju se mehanizmi kojima se u razlicitim pravnim kontekstima obezbedjuje naucna pouzdanost i procesna relevantnost vestacenja, kao i primenljivost tih mehanizama na forenzicke doprinose razlicitih drustvenih nauka. Regulisanje vestacenja u Haskom tribunalu se posmatra kao osobeno resenje cije se posledice prate kroz ucesce vestaka u (...) postupcima i kroz javnu percepciju angazmana drustvenih naucnika u tom svojstvu. Cilj ovakvog pristupa je nijansiranje dominantnih predstava o ulozi drustvenih naucnika u Haskom tribunalu i stvaranje preduslova za razumevanje specificnog karaktera njihove vestacke uloge. (shrink)