ABSTRACTS/ROMANIAN REVIEW OF POLITICAL SCIENCES AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS NO. 2/2007

ROMANIAN REVIEW OF POLITICAL SCIENCES AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

NO. 2/2007

ABSTRACTS

 

 

 

GLOBALISM AND CULTURAL IDENTITY

 

JAMAL EDDINE BENHAYOUN

 

 

 

Abstract. This new context of globalism and internationalism has made the question of space more pressing today than ever before. Identity is no longer the privileged and most appropriate site for posing the question of culture. Throughout history, the world has been mapped and remapped ad infinitum. Obviously, these “worlds” complicate our perceptions of the world and remind us of the cultural, imaginative, and ideological foundations upon which are based all the descriptions that claim to be at a relational position with the world.

 

 

THE ROMANIAN DIPLOMACY DOWN ON ITS KNEES

 

 

DANIELA IONESCU

 

 

 

Abstract. After 1990 Romania behaved on the international arena in a way, which in my opinion is unique among its fellow European countries. This behavior has much to do with its self-perception. The scope of this paper is to single out this strange mentality and to evaluate its consequences on the national interests. In order to exemplify this assumption I chose        to focus on some aspects of the Romania-EU relationship: the Accession Agreements; the Association Treaty (with a focus due to its importance on the Common Agricultural Policy); on some aspects during the negotiations for the Justice and Home Affairs chapter and on the affair of the Romanian Commissioner.

 

 

 

THE DECISION POWER

WITHIN THE EUROPEAN UNION INSTITUTIONS

 

LUCIAN JORA

 

Abstract. Relatively little data are known about the exact division of power of the European Commission in legislative affairs apart from case studies. This paper presents analyses of qualitative and quantitative data to estimate how powerful some experts consider the Commission to be and to see how influential it actually is.

 

 

 

LA DÉMOCRATIE ET LES DÉFIS

DU MONDE CONTEMPORAIN

 

ADELA DELIU

 

 

 

Abstract. The study proposes an analysis of the perspectives of development and consolidation of democracy, within the context of quick transformations marking contemporary world. It concerns especially the recent challanges, underlining the fact that democracy should adapt and redefine itself continuously in order to overcome its own limits.

 

 

AXEL HONNETH: HINWEISE AUF DIE KRITIK DER MACHT

 

VIORELLA MANOLACHE

 

 

 

Abstract. The hypothesis on which Axel Honneth’s study, Kritik der Macht. Reflexionsstufen einer kritischen Gesellschaftstheorie, is built restricts to the fact that one should make public a series of invariants of political and sociological aspects identified with the concept of power. Following the route of anthropological philosophy, Axel Honneth’s study focuses on social-political and moral philosophy, especially on the relationships dominated by power, recognition, and respect. Beginning with Adorno or Horkheimer and ending with Habermas or Foucault’s theories, for Honneth, the unfolding of social and moral political perspectives requires to be de-centered in conformity with the de-centering of the world understanding. In such analytical context, Honneth’s critical adaptation of these philosophical and social perspectives is the basis of a dynamical critical social theory, which attempts to remedy the deficits of previous critical and theoretical approaches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IN MEMORIAM RICHARD RORTY (1931–2007)

 

 

 

 

PRAGMATISM AND IRONISM

AS THE RORTIAN CONTRIBUTION

TO THE PROBLEMATIC OF POLITICAL POWER

 

HENRIETA SERBAN

 

 

 

Abstract. The author approaches the Rortian problematic of political power. It is an attempt to recapture it in a correlation with the perspectives Rorty opened on ironism and pragmatism, describing a particular type of pluralism. At the same time, his vision represents, a soft vision of political power, interpreted so that it emphasizes the importance that Rorty gives to the ironist individual and to solidarity within the contemporary democratic society. Also, the author underlines that the Rortian vision of political power is a postmodern development on the power of the individual, seen in a Foucaultian perspective.

 

 

 

THE CONCEPT OF “HEGEMONY”

WITHIN CONTEMPORARY DEBATES

 

GHEORGHE LENCAN STOICA

 

 

 

Abstract. The study approaches the present debates concerning the concept of hegemony as well as the search of the appropriate definition for the present connotation of hegemony. Within the contemporary political thought  two understandings of the concept are emphasized: hegemony as dictatorship, force or coercion and hegemony as democracy. The former is followed with theoreticians as Dahl, Chomsky, Negri and Hardt, etc., and the latter — introduced by Antonio Gramsci — at Cornel West, Ralph Miliband, Robert Cox, Edward Said, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POWER AND SENTIMENTS

INTRODUCTION TO A RESEARCH

ABOUT THE POWER OF NOSTALGIA

 

ANA BAZAC

 

 

 

Abstract. The paper starts by dotting the place of  sentiments in Aristotle, Descartes and Machiavelli, three great representatives of the Western thinking. In the pre-modern era, the practical philosophy was rather normative than functionalist, so the rational characteristics of the political management was more important than the discussion about the means of the social influence, thus the control of sentiments. In the second part are shown the changes made by the French post-structuralism in the conception of power. The third part reviews the birth of a modern feeling, nostalgia, as well as its involvement in the process of political change.

 

 

 

 

CATEGORIES OF THE LEGITIMATE POWER (I)

 

GABRIELA TÃNÃSESCU

 

 

 

Abstract. This paper aims to specify some meritorious renewals in the approach to the legitimacy and legitimating power. As such, it comprises the situation of the legitimacy in the present research of the political power, in comparison with its place within the chief modern contributions to the conceptual founding of the theme. It involves the present analytical categories of legitimacy in the way they appear in the last decades in some referential sociological and political works.

 

 

IL CONCETTO DI POLITICA NEI

QUADERNI DEL CARCERE

 

 

CARLOS NELSON COUTINHO

 

 

 

Abstract. Concepts like globalization and historic bloc, north and south, Orient vs. Occident, have been consistently distorted. In order to rediscover Antonio Gramsci, this study extend the discussion about the state, rethinking the idea of democracy. In the case of the theory of democracy, Gramsci was able to articulate his insights by engaging not only with the work of Marx and Lenin but also with the nonliberal contributions of Rousseau and Hegel, developing new ideas to move beyond the limits and aporias of their work.

 

 

 

POWER INTEREST GROUPS AND POLICY-MAKING

IN THE EUROPEAN UNION — THE CASE OF BIOTECHNOLOGY

AND PHARMACEUTICAL BUSINESS INTEREST ASSOCIATIONS

 

IRINA STOICA

 

 

 

Abstract. The extent to which interest intermediation has triggered off the process of European integration still divides theorists; what is even more uncertain is the extension of their influences in day to day European policy and decision making. The matter under concern here is the extent to which interest intermediation generates new styles of politics and policy-making or builds up new patterns of interaction between civil society and supranational organizations. How much do business interests matter to the process of integration and how do they relate to other type of interests currently acting in the EU arena, particularly to public interests? Is their impact upon integration only confined to areas of ‘low’, sectoral politics? I have chosen to treat here two apparently similar policies, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, but utterly different in what regards their outcomes, resources and modes of action. Are these two types of interests already granted a certain privilege when coming to influence legal drafting and decision making procedures in the EU? If so, why? Which are their preferred channels when exerting influence at the EU level? I mainly use the concepts of risk, uncertainty, lack of direct causal link as explanatory variables used in biotechnology policy formulation (i.e., present in the early phases of biotech policy-making) and concepts such as policy networks, transaction costs, embeddedness, high membership densities or collective action problems to help explaining patterns of public and private interest articulation.