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From Liberal Values to Democratic Transition
The book contains twelve essays by Stephen Holmes, Frances M. Kamm, Mária Ludassy, Steven Lukes, Gyorgy Markus, András Sajó, Gáspár Miklós Tamás, Andrew Arato, Timothy Garton Ash, Béla Greskovits, Will Kymlicka, and Aleksander Smolar. The studies explore a wide scope of subjects that belong to disciplines ranging from moral philosophy, through theory of human rights, democratic transition, constitutionalism, to political economy. The common denominator of the studies collected is their reference to the scholarly output of János Kis, in honor of his sixtieth birthday. János Kis is a distinguished political philosopher who, after many years spent as a dissident under the Communist regime, emerged as an important political figure in Hungary's transition to democracy. Currently he is University Professor of Philosophy at Central European University, Budapest.
Politics as a Moral Problem
In a world where politics is often associated with notions such as moral decay, frustration and disappointment, the feeling of betrayal, and of democracy in trouble, Kis examines theories about the morality of political action. Amending the two classical theses of realism and of indirect motivation in politics, Kis argues for a constrained thesis of realism and a wide thesis of indirect motivation. By these means the place of moral motivation and common deliberation can be identified, and political agents can be held morally accountable. The analysis refers to a broad range of classic and contemproary literature as well as to recent cases from international politics which call for moral judgment. The Appendix is dedicated to Vaclav Havel's seminal essay on "The Power of the Powerless," which sheds light on the diversity of approaches dissident intellectuals have taken to politics.
Thinking Through Transition
This book is the first concentrated effort to explore the most recent chapter of East Central European past from the perspective of intellectual history. Post-socialism can be understood both as a period of scarcity and preponderance of ideas, the dramatic eclipsing of the dissident legacy?as well as the older political traditions?and the rise of technocratic and post-political governance. This book, grounded in empirical research sensitive to local contexts, proposes instead a history of adaptations, entanglements, and unintended consequences. In order to enable and invite comparison, the volume is structured around major domains of political thought, some of them generic (liberalism, conservatism, the Left), others (populism and politics of history) deemed typical for post-socialism. However, as shown by the authors, the generic often turns out to be heavily dependent on its immediate setting, and the typical resonates with processes that are anything but vernacular.
Constitutional Democracy
Janos Kis outlines a new theory of constitutional democracy. Addresses the widely held belief that liberal democracy embodies an uneasy compromise of incompatible values: those of liberal rights on the one hand, and democratic equality on the other. Liberalism is said to compromise democracy, while democracy is said to endanger the values of liberalism.
Rethinking Open Society
The key values of the Open Society – freedom, justice, tolerance, democracy, and respect for knowledge – are increasingly under threat in today’s world. As an effort to uphold those values, this volume brings together some of the key political, social and economic thinkers of our time to re-examine the Open Society closely in terms of its history, its achievements and failures, and its future prospects. Based on the lecture series Rethinking Open Society, which took place between 2017 and 2018 at the Central European University, the volume is deeply embedded in the history and purpose of CEU, its Open Society mission, and its belief in educating skeptical, but passionate citizens.
Constitution for a Disunited Nation
More than two decades after the post-communist constitutional transition, Hungary got into the spotlight again. As a result of the 2010 elections, the governing majority gained two-thirds of the seats in parliament, which made constitutional revision exceptionally easy, bypassing extensive political and social deliberations. In April 2011, on the first anniversary of the 2010 election, a brand new constitution was promulgated, named the Fundamental Law. This collection is the most comprehensive account of the Fundamental Law and its underlying principles. The objective is to analyze this constitutional transition from the perspectives of comparative constitutional law, legal theory and political philosophy. The authors outline and analyze how the current constitutional changes are altering the basic structure of the Hungarian State. The key concepts of the theoretical inquiry are sociological and normative legitimacy, majoritarian and partnership approach to democracy, procedural and substantive elements of constitutionalism. Changes are also examined in the field of human rights, focusing on the principles of equality, dignity, and civil liberties.
The Making of Dissidents
Before Hungary’s transition from communism to democracy, local dissidents and like-minded intellectuals, activists, and academics from the West influenced each other and inspired the fight for human rights and civil liberties in Eastern Europe. Hungarian dissidents provided Westerners with a new purpose and legitimized their public interventions in a bipolar world order. The Making of Dissidents demonstrates how Hungary’s Western friends shaped public perceptions and institutionalized their advocacy long before the peaceful revolutions of 1989. But liberalism failed to take root in Hungary, and Victoria Harms explores how many former dissidents retreated and Westerners shifted their attention elsewhere during the 1990s, paving the way for nationalism and democratic backsliding.
The Democracy Reader
This book is an all-in-one introduction to both the theory and practice of democracy, aimed at upper-level high school and university students, as well as civic-minded adults in both old and new democracies. Portions of the book are extracted from the Democracy is a Discussion handbooks.
The Dilemmas of Dissidence in East-Central Europe
"In addition to the huge list of written sources from samizdat works to recent essays, Falk's sources include interviews with many personalities of those events as well as videos and films."--Jacket.
