12/2017

Marek J. Malinowski
The Clash of Civilizations. Political, Social, Economic, Ideological and Cultural Aspects. Personal Reflections
Keywords: civilization, conflict, politics, culture, ideology.
The article introduces issues relating to the concept of the clash of civilizations and contemporary socio-political processes, which are its image, presenting their various aspects.

Anna Fligel
What Social Ethics? Reflections on the Ethical and Political Views of Isaiah Berlin and Leszek Kołakowski.
Keywords: social ethics, social values, liberal democracy, political philosophy, Leszek Kolakowski, Isaiah Berlin.
The purpose of the article is to reflect on the issue of social ethics within liberal democracy. An important and auxiliary element of the article is a comparative analysis of the thinking of Isaiah Berlin and Leszek Kolakowski. This analysis was carried out on selected essays of the indicated philosophers. The main method used for the research was my own interpretation of these philosophers’ work and I attempt to make a synthesis.    
The result is a list of social values, together with definitions, deemed essential for the political system of liberal democracy. These are: pluralism, tolerance, freedom, openness, rational communication, humility and responsibility (all taken in conjunction). The method of "balancing the claims" (Berlin) and the method of "balancing the opposing dangers" (Kołakowski) should be a fundamental bulwark against making a principle absolute, especially the principles of tolerance and freedom. Openness and rational communication constitute the key to the acceptance of the principle of social pluralism, which must always go hand in hand with a sense of responsibility.

Kaloyan Smilkov
The Archaeology of Power Relations
Keywords: Power, political forms, political anthropology.
Power аnd Man. Politics and the risk of a fatal outcome for the individual constitutes the framework within which to present, interpret and conceptualize the mix of categories discussed in the text, namely:  man, freedom, war, relations of power, knowledge, culture and political forms. The article presents the interactions between these elements, showing the human being as a political animal whose politics are not necessarily humane.

Anna Nieszporek Trzcińska
Between Past and Future - Man as Judge
Keywords: Hannah Arendt, judgment, amor mundi, gap, imagination, beauty.
The article focuses on the presentation of Arendt's theory of judgment with particular emphasis on its function of merging the past with the future. The author enumerates two parabolas as motifs of judgement: the first being Kafka's, which defines judgement as an interstice in time, the second Pythagorean – referring to that which has been lost. By treating the present time as the domain of judgement - after the age of antiquity, during which reason was triumphant, and of the Middle Ages, when willpower was in command - Arendt seems to convince us that breaking the linear continuity of our intellectual tradition is an opportunity. In the era of globalization, in which the end of great narratives has been announced, man  is particularly called upon to pass judgement on himself and on (the beauty of) the reality surrounding him (amor mundi). His role as an arbitrator becomes even more necessary when tradition, religion or authority no longer offer clear guidelines for thinking (the famous Arendtian motto Denken ohne Geländer). The potentially understood ability of generating one's own judging criteria is, according to the author of the article, the emanation of man's divine element and testimony of his political (non) engagement in matters of evil.

Piotr Ahmad
Religion, law, and politics. The unresolved riddle of contemporary Islam(s)
Keywords: Europe, Islam, Islam and democracy, religion and politics, Islamisation.
As Europe faces the fact that it will have to accommodate a growing population of Muslim citizens, I decide to return to the complex question of the relationship of politics and law in contemporary Islam. In doing so, I reject the notion that Islam is somehow a monolithic and timeless, ahistorical bloc; rather, while agreeing, in principle, with the fact that Islam is nowadays heavily politicized, I argue that it is the radical interpretation and lack of modernization of Islam, and its attitude to God and law, that is the main obstacle to the prevention of the "clash of civilizations". I also point to certain institutions in the Islamic world which potentially could form the basis of future modernization.

Artur Niedźwiedzki
The problem of human rights protection in the era of the war on terror
Keywords: Human rights, terrorism, liberal democracy, multicultural citizenship.
Basic human rights are aimed at public institutions, and, for the well-being of the individual, the power of these institutions should not be unlimited. For obvious reasons, rights tie the hands of authorities. In order to protect the rights of victims of terror, states must struggle with those who use civil liberties to attack innocent civilians. There may be extraordinary temptations for state units to implement harmful selectivity which may abuse the fundamental rights of certain groups. Due to such selectivity Europeans often seem to forget that immigrants and refugees who are fleeing to Europe because of the experience of violence in their home countries, are human rights holders as well.

Dorota Utracka
Otherness/Strangeness - A stigma or privilege? Between the anthropology and the axiology of dialogue in the postmodern culture of excess and hybridization
Keywords: Other, Otherness, axiology of dialogue, hybridization, heterology, globalization, cultural identity,   transcultural discourse, ‘new diasporism’, multiculturalism, postcolonialism, Ryszard Kapuściński.
The text raises questions concerning the epistemology of Otherness/Strangeness as a component of  postmodern humanist discourse. The anthropologic-axiological perspective unveils the problem of dialogue with the Other in the sociological-ethnic, transcultural, postcolonial and globalistic dimensions. The ethical current of interpretation of the Other is discussed based on the writings of Ryszard Kapuściński, for whom the Other becomes the "main actor of the global stage of the multicultural world". Corresponding to this conceptualization is the notion of heterology and the cognitive triad of Other-Dialogue-Experience (encounter). Supplementary to the discussion are the problems of identity discourses as interpreted and categorized in the context of the processes of globalization and "dismantling of geography"  (A. Appadurai), and as related to the concepts of "deterritorialization of cultures", "new diasporism”, "peripheralization of the centre", "neotribalism" and the spatial dislocation of the cultural base. Otherness as the ethical problem of postmodernism is explained and defined by phenomena associated with the formation of quasi-structures showing the hybrid nature of the global cultural economy.

Monika Ksieniewicz
Comfort Women as an example of Gender Inequality in Japan
Keywords: inequality, comfort women, gender.
The issue of comfort women is a unique example of the inequality women face in Asia, especially in Japan. Despite it being over 70 years since the end of the Second World War, the issue has not been resolved on a diplomatic level, despite the large amount of evidence that during the war women were forced by the government to be sex slaves for the Imperial Army. The article aims to prove that this is strongly connected with Confucianism, and constitutes an example of the greatest incidence of human trafficking in the history, which should be resolved by the state.

Edyta Pietrzak, Karolina Mirys, Agata Szkopińska
International Cooperation for Rehabilitation and Social Integration of Refugee Women in Turkey and Europe. Preliminary outline
Keywords: Migration, Refugees, Women, Law, Social Integration.
The article presents the tenets and activities of the Erasmus+ program realized by partners from Albania, the Czech Republic, Greece, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Turkey. The project aims to develop and disseminate solutions to problems encountered by refugee women and to create an innovative model of social integration. Therefore, in this paper we present a comparison of the situation of refugees in partner countries, as well as the strategies and policies directed at them, using a data triangulation method. It is the starting point for further stages planned for the identification of the problems of refugee women and for finding optimal solutions to enable them to integrate with the target group.

Magdalena Lachowicz
RUSSKIY MIR – cultural progress, cultural tricks or culture on the attack? Russian soft power strategy as an element of Russian political culture
Keywords: Russian culture, public diplomacy, historical policy, extremism in Russia, soft power strategy.
The Russian Federation implements tools described as "soft power” and “smart power" in its foreign policy towards partners on a global scale. The desirability of the notion of the “Ruskiy Mir” community is determined by cultural and linguistic factors, strengthened by elements of an economic and military nature. Foreign policy is created in a complementary way and is processual and dynamic in time. The proportions of the measures applied depend only on the region of the world and the condition of bilateral relations. Since 2000, the Russian authorities have shown a lot of determination to create a network of effective institutions which will ensure that Russia has an audible voice in international debate in the context of information warfare and the political game for domination in the world.

Justyna Kłys
German attitudes towards the integration of Visegrad Group countries with the European Union
Keywords: European Union, Federal Republic of Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Visegrad Group, EU enlargement, public opinion polls, German press.
The article attempts to present the role and place of the Federal Republic of Germany within the difficult and complicated process of integrating the Visegrad Group countries – Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia – with the European Union. The article discusses the position of political elites, the attitude of society and of selected, influential German press. Analysis has been conducted on the basis of selected problems arising in mutual bilateral and multilateral relations in the context of EU enlargement. The analysis is supplemented by an evaluation of research on public opinion as well as of reports which have appeared in printed media. The article focuses on the period from 1998 to 2004. The purpose of the article is to give a comprehensive account of the fact that the idea of EU enlargement with the Visegrad Group countries, except for differences in negotiating positions, was generally accepted in the Federal Republic of Germany by political elites; however, the position of German society was different. German society expressed reluctance and held extremely sceptical and suspicious attitudes towards EU enlargement. These views were based on prejudices and concerns which were, to some extent, derived from the political and economic weakness of candidate countries. The analysis of selected published reports showed that the influential press focused on the costs and threats related to the accession of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia to the EU structures, and failed to provide accurate and complex information about opportunities and benefits. This proves that there are problems with the social legitimisation of the enlargement process.