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Conflicts and democracy: Considerations on political conflicts and the need of their delimitation
8-24Views:51According to our common experience of political life, the relationship between politics and
conflicts seems to be obvious. However, it is also common to think about delimiting the intensity
of conflicts in a democratic context. This kind of complexity of the relation of democracy and
conflicts can be cexplained from two theoretical perspectives. First, in order to protect democratic
order, conflicts may lose their relevance in comparison to the value of consent or compromise. Second, even if we accept the importance of conflicts, we also should take into account the limits
of their intensity. These theoretical problems arise in the context of contemporary politics which
nature is eminently public and in which every announcement is open to discussion. This is what
discourse as a theoretical horizon means. The core concept for theorizing the conflictual character
of politics in a discursive manner is political debate. The article explores three kinds of debate
and communicative conflicts: John Stuart Mill, as a classical nineteenth century liberal, sheds
light on the importance of debate in issues of collective truth-seeking and emotional devotion
to our personal values. Márton Szabó, a leading theorist of political discourse in Hungary, also
treats debate as a core concept of political discourse studies, and theorizes debate not only as
a series of singular acts in the realm of politics, but as a mode of existence of politics itself.
Contrary to other contemporary ideas of communication and politics, discourse is therefore
inherently conflictual in its character. Similarly, but more embedded in contemporary debates
over democracy, Chantal Mouffe, one of the eminent theorists of agonism, interprets conflicts
in the context of democratic order, and emphasises the democratic conditions for constructing
democratic identities. Her ideas on agonistic democracy can fathom the relation of valuable
conflicts and their limits in a democratic regime. -
The Controversy Surrounding the Intercountry Adoption
79-96Views:43The purpose of this article is to identify characteristics of the legal framework of intercountry
adoption. This study is specifically concerned with the international and Hungarian legislation.
In the first part, the international conventions and the Hungarian rules are presented. These
show that a considerable progress has been made in the last century in law-making.
A short statistical analysis illustrates the role of Hungary in intercountry adoption.
The final section considers possible risks and abuses in the process: exploitation, family
tracing, loss of cultural heritage, over-representation Roma children, debate over closed or
open adoption and adoption agencies.
On the basis of the results of this study, it can be concluded that the intercountry adoption
gives rise to a great debate and serious cause for complaining about abuses which weaken the
children’s rights.
This dissertation hopes to offer a comprehensive view on the advantages and challenges of
intercountry adoption. -
Representations of induced abortion in the Hungarian online media
121-152.Views:72This study focuses on how induced abortion is represented in the Hungarian online media in
relation to the reception of the public debate on the new Polish abortion law. The study was aimed
at revealing the major themes, the embedding conceptual network and the framing of induced
abortion in the online press. Since the press is an essential influencing factor of public opinion
due to its broad publicity, research should focus on the characteristics of the discourse in whose
space the concerned individuals form their views and make decisions on abortion. A thematic
analysis of relevant press releases revealed eight major themes that framed abortion in a specific
manner: thematization of induced abortion as a social/demographic issue; legislative issues of;
and attitudes towards, abortion; abortion as an act of (physical) self-determination; contents
related to the abortion decision; to its causes and consequences; and depiction of women
choosing abortion. Furthermore, the analysis revealed the themes most frequently associated
with abortion and potentially related themes typically not associated with it. -
An Old-New Group on the Labour Market: the Precariat
3-40.Views:69The Precariat as social class is a core issue in social sciences. The authors contribute to this debate by introducing two approaches to measures the size and the social charateristics of the Precariat using two quantitative database. They estimate the size of the Precariat as a group on the labour market, and compare its social position with two other labour groups of the seg-mentation theory (the secondary and the lower primary). They found that while the standard of living condition of the Precariat is more akin to the secundary segment, the values and the level of satisfaction is more similar to the lower primary segment.
