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In recent years, there has been a rise in social movements and organizations that challenge the very foundations of liberal democracy on a global scale. Discrepancies of interests, ideological or worldview contradictions, and identity differences are more likely now to transform into destructive conflicts, and violence is used as a legitimate method for attaining political and economic goals. Drawing on the knowledge accumulated in social and political psychology, this book scrutinizes these phenomena and provides an even deeper understanding of the nature of these conflicts. The book also addresses the imperfections of liberal institutions, which can exacerbate these divides, providing crucial context for understanding contemporary political tensions and their effects on the world's democracies.
Understanding Social Change - Political Psychology in Poland
This book contains essays in honour of Melvin J. Lerner, a pioneer in the psychological study of justice. The contributors to this volume are internationally renowned scholars from psychology, business, and law. They examine the role of justice motivation in a wide variety of contexts, including workplace violence, affirmative action programs, helping or harming innocent victims and how people react to their own fate. Contributors explore fundamental issues such as whether people's interest in justice is motivated by self-interest or a genuine concern for the welfare of others, when and why people feel a need to punish transgressors, how a concern for justice emerges during the development of societies and individuals, and the relation of justice motivation to moral motivation. How an understanding of justice motivation can contribute to the amelioration of major social problems is also examined.
Based on extensive original research, including interviews with key participants, this book investigates the sudden and unforeseen collapse of communist power in Poland in 1989. It sets out the sequence of events, and examines the strategies of the various political groupings prior to the partially free election of June 1989. This volume argues that the specific negotiating strategies adopted by the communist party representatives in the Round Table discussions before the elections was a key factor in communism’s collapse. The book shows that on many occasions, PZPR decision-makers ignored expert advice, and many Round Table bargains went against the party’s best interests. Using in-depth interviews with major party players, including General Jaruzelski, General Kiszczak and Mieczyslaw Rakowski, as well as Solidarity advisors such as Adam Michnik, the text provides a unique source of first-hand accounts of Poland’s revolutionary drama.
Moral Leadership brings together in one comprehensive volume essays from leading scholars in law, leadership, psychology, political science, and ethics to provide practical, theoretical policy guidance. The authors explore key questions about moral leadership such as: How do leaders form, sustain, and transmit moral commitments? Under what conditions are those processes most effective? What is the impact of ethics officers, codes, training programs, and similar initiatives? How do standards and practices vary across context and culture? What can we do at the individual, organizational, and societal level to foster moral leadership? Throughout the book, the contributors identify what people k...
This book was inspired by an intimate, stimulating, intellectually enrich ing conference that took place in Poland. However, the book is not a conference report. Rather, at the time of the conference, participants agreed that it would be worthwhile to create a volume representing the international state of knowledge in pro social behavior, and many of them agreed to write chapters. This volume is the outcome. The book contains chapters by outstanding researchers and scholars who have made substantial contributions to some aspect of scholarship about pro social behavior-helpfulness, generosity, kindness, coopera tion, or other behavior that benefits people. The book concerns itself with how p...
This volume works explores a transferable theory of a specific social-psychological infrastructure, based on the work of Dr. Daniel Bar-Tal, that develops from cultures immersed in intractable conflicts. The book's approach to this issue is different from approaches that are predominant in social psychology. This is because an important inspiration of many scholars that contributed to the book is their everyday experience of living in a region where intractable conflict shapes the life's of everybody who lives there. On the basis of this experience and on the basis of extensive research, an elaborate theory of intractable conflict was developed that deals with the origin of such conflicts, t...
In five country-specific reports, senior scholars provide detailed accounts of the talks in Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the German Democratic Republic. These essays capture the historical circumstances of these countries - their traditions, customs, and the balance of influence between competing factions - that often took precedence over constitutional ideals.
This book is a political history of democratic elections in Poland from the first fully competitive parliamentary elections in 1991 to the unexpected, most recent election in 2007. Until now, there has been no equivalent study covering similar developments in this, or any other, post-communist country; this book fills the gap and provides a detailed electoral perspective on the trajectory of political development in the context of post-authoritarian change. It also provides an invaluable account of the evolution of electoral processes and institution-building in the context of democratic regime development. The major themes of the book centre on the complex, problematic development of Poland...