Volume 11 (2023): Issue 1 (June 2023)

This paper offers a reexamination of Aristotle’s Politics 4, chapter 12–13—the so-called account of polity or the mixed regime. Aristotle suggests that the forthcoming discussion delves into either the optimal governing system in general or the most prevalent form of governance across various cities. However, upon closer examination of Politics 4.12–13, a distinct perspective emerges. Working off the account of the meso (the middle) of Politics 4.11, in 12–13 we are not offered an account of the best practical regime, that is of a specific regime form. Instead, Aristotle presents an account on how regimes can achieve moderation and harmony—that is stability. So instead of an account of a specific regime type, we get an account of what moderates and stabilizes regimes generally.

Early socialism from the second half of 19th century Romania is experiencing a systematic comeback among historians and social scientists. The works of Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, the founding father of Romanian Marxism, occupy a central place in this newfound attention towards the origins and struggles of socialism in Romania. This paper addresses Gherea’s interpretation of anarchism on par with his doctrine of ‘legal socialism’. Its purpose is to prove how anarchism acts as a more than tactical catalyzer for legal socialism, placing the latter not necessarily on a new ideological perspective, but further on the terrain of Romanian political status-quo of late 19th and early 20th century Romania. Although more principled than tactical, Gherea’s repudiation of anarchism in progressively unsubstantial Marxist terms has also led to tactical shortcomings. This was the case of the first Romanian socialist party, which was dissolved and absorbed after only six years of existence within the ascending liberal party.

This, mainly conceptual, paper concerns the democratic backsliding process, focusing on specific and understudied actors whose actions (or non-actions) unintentionally contribute to the undertakings of autocrats or “would-be autocrats,” instead of concentrating on often analysed incumbents. The authors propose in this regard a concept of “unintentional backsliders,” including its definition, typology, and model of mapping actors who, due to recklessness or negligence, unintentionally support democratic backsliding. The spectrum of such backsliders has been additionally outlined in the case of Poland, the fastest de-democratising country recently — in order to demonstrate that the proposed conceptual framework can be translated into a political reality and has a potential to be applied in empirical studies.

Development of cycling infrastructure is becoming a global trend in urban policies. High congestion, mitigating smog and CO2 reduction have led to the re-birth of cycling as a significant mode of urban mobility. The article aims to present the response of medium-sized Polish cities (ranging from 100.000 to 200.000 residents) to these challenges, which are among the most important problems to solve within the next decades. The study analyses the cycling policy of Polish cities, showing the dynamic increase in kilometres of cycle paths constructed (often built alongside street renovation projects), as well as the boom in bike-sharing programmes. Shortcomings such as the lack of consistency in realisation and varied implementation in different cities and culturally ingrained preference for cars, related to historical experiences of post-communist cities, are also outlined. The Polish approach is the cautious policy of carrots without sticks, in which solutions facilitating bicycle travel are not followed up by deterrents against using cars. As a result, there are no political conflicts and opposition regarding this issue, but the numbers of cyclists (although increasing) is still lower than in the world’s leading bicycle cities.

The goal of this study was to test the result presented by Stolee and Caton (2018) that former President of the United States Donald Trump primarily addressed his devoted electorate via Twitter. In the empirical setup, we referred to the theoretical concepts of a politician’s base and of an ‘echo chamber’ and the theories of populist leaders’ communication. The regression techniques were applied to determine the relationship between the popularity, measured as the number of “favorites” and “retweets”, and the frequency of words representing 16 topics. The topics connected to Trump’s self-praise, critique of opponents, the issue of immigration, and dealings with rival countries increased the popularity of the tweets. Surprisingly, tweets including the topics connected to crucial issues for the American public did not attract much interest. These results are in line with the theory of Stolee and Caton and may indicate that followers were not interested in the substantive content of the President’s posts. The results also confirm our hypothesis that while Trump’s message had a populist character, he primarily addressed his devoted electorate, not the wider audience.

The paper will explore the significance of the role cities play in transnational institutional bypass of nation-States. The authors provide examples of cities playing the role of a transnational institutional bypass of nation-States and indicate the circumstances that may compel cities to act as such a bypass and fulfil the nation-State functions. The aim of the paper is to show that cities may successfully bypass nation-States in specific circumstances, including some cases of nation-States being unwilling to act in order to achieve a greater good that is in the interests of people living in a given nation-State or, even on a broader scale, in the interests of mankind. To best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to introduce the concept of an institutional bypass to cities and to construe conditions applicable in such a case.

The East African Community (EAC) is a regional intergovernmental organisation founded in 1999. It has proved to be successful in improving the economic growth of its member states; it also supports the security of individual member states and the stability of the entire region. The stabilisation capabilities of the Community have been tested through the accession of South Sudan in 2016. The experience of the past six years indicates that the decision to admit South Sudan into the community should be assessed positively, especially in terms of the peacebuilding process in this state. On the 8th April 2022, the Democratic Republic of Congo was admitted to the EAC. Anchoring in a regional block that has been proving its stability for over a dozen years can reduce poverty and spur development in the DRC, both in terms of its economic and political dimensions. This, in turn, in a favourable political environment, can in the future translate into good governance and the building of civil society. For the East African Community, however, the accession of the Democratic Republic of Congo poses a major challenge. The DRC brings a number of unresolved political problems, raising questions about whether the potential gains will outweigh the threat to the stability of the region and the maintenance of the current pace of integration processes. The aim of the article is to try to answer questions about the causes and potential consequences of the decision to carry out this surprising accession process. The analysis presented, a brief case study, attempts to explain that the political rationale behind this decision is not justified by geographical and historical considerations.

This paper is the analysis of the repeated participation of the 1990 and 1994 elections candidates in the following 1998–2014 elections. The interest in the long-standing candidates is dictated by the need to better understand which type of political background and political strategy gravitate more to the commencement of a political career at the very beginning of democracy building in Ukraine. The paper hypothesizes that in 1990 having a Communist Nomenklatura background was the determining factor, whereas in 1994, unaffiliated candidates who originated from the „party of power” were the main contenders. The hypotheses are tested using the data on the background and electoral results of the candidates, who started in the 1990 and 1994 electoral campaigns (8,898 candidates in the EAST PaC database). In this study both successful and failed candidates are studied because they all acquire experience of political professional activity. It was found out that the Communist party officials and managers of the state enterprises, who had won in 1990, competed in the following electoral campaigns less often, while unaffiliated directors more often. The affiliation with the left-wing parties in 1994 predicts higher odds that a candidate will repeat his/her attempts to get a seat.¹

Dominiak (2022) takes the position that, according to the libertarian philosophy, there should be no such thing as unjust enrichment. If there is, the beneficiary should be legally obligated to jettison his gains in favor of the benefactor. The present paper takes issue with that stance; it maintains that while there is indeed, of course, unjust enrichment, and in many cases the beneficiary must indeed give up his benefits, there are also counter examples in which this is not indicated.