CONSTITUTIONAL COURTS IN THE FORMER COMMUNIST COUNTRIES ACROSS EUROPE. A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN

Cristina MANOLACHE, PhD. Candidate

Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest

Romanian Association of Young Scholars, President

ABSTRACT: The aim of the present study is to empirically examine the constitutional provisions and regulatory acts regarding 20 Constitutional Courts in Central and Eastern Europe – the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, the Russian Federation, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus, in an attempt to identify a potential model of institutional design. In order to do so, I took into account two main elements: the judges and the competences. With respect to the judges, I was interested in examining 1) their number, 2) the length of their mandate, 3) the manner in which they are appointed (including the special position requirements) and 4) special revocation procedures (if they exist). With regard to the court’s competences, I used the indexing method and grouped them into the following categories: 1) constitutionality control of the laws (abstract or concrete); 2) binding interpretation of the constitution; 3) solving the conflicts of competence between authorities (vertical – between authorities of the same rank and/or horizontal – between central and local authorities); 4) involvement in the suspension/ impeachment procedures of the President; and finally 5) consultative powers in referendum/ electoral matters.

KEYWORDS: Constitutional Courts, institutional design, comparative analysis, Central and Eastern Europe.

FUNDAMENTE BIBLICE ȘI CORANICE ÎN DOCUMENTELE CONSTITUŢIONALE. CAZUL EUROPEI POST-CREŞTINE ȘI AL ORIENTULUI ISLAMIC

Oliviu-Petru BOTOI, PhD. Candidate

Faculty of Orthodox Theology, "December 1st 1918" University

ABSTRACT: The consecutive rise of the two main monotheistic religions, the Christianity and respectively the Islam, brought profound changes in both the history of ideas and mentality and the historic evolution of the human society.  Both religions contributed to a curt and shocking social change that generated new approaches in the whole arias of the life: belief, politics, education, art, a.s.o. Each cultural and geographical area, both the occidental Christian and the oriental Islamic,  found beneficial the effects produced by these paradigmatic changes,  provoked by each religion, in the history of both religions  existing an absolute acknowledgment of these evolutions. Definitely, the Bible represents the authentic expression of the thesaurus inherited by Europe, while the Qu'ran represents the expression of the legacy that the Islam offered to the Orient. The new structure and social order of the first two millennia was guided by legislative regulations including the most important Biblical principles for Europe and respectively Qu'ranic for the Near and Middle East. A closer examination of the contemporary constitutional documents, demonstrates a flagrant difference. On the one hand, the European totally detached from the Christian values, stated over the time in its legislative texts, on the other hand, the Islamic area reached an exacerbation of the Islamic doctrine principles in the sphere of the legislative texts.

KEYWORDS: constitution, Bible, Qu’ran, religion, state.

MYTHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS AS SYMBOLS OF THE RECENT GERMAN FAR-RIGHT

Irina-Maria MANEA, PhD. Candidate

Faculty of History, University of Bucharest

ABSTRACT: Nordic mythology has always been characterized by a long and fruitful history of reception. The 20th century stands witness to a massive recycling of mythological figures, objects or events, as the far-right trends recovered them to fit their own political and cultural agenda. In this short contribution we will try to point out the importance and possible purposes of this recovery, which actually stands in a line of tradition dating back to 19th century nationalism. Which elements and to what extent are they reused or misused? What could they symbolize? What is their role in shaping the identity of such groups that are so obsessed with origins, land or history? Where could they fit in this renewed image of Germanentum? These are the few questions guiding our investigation which includes both general occurrences in the language of the far-right and a more specific case, that of the music scene.

KEYWORDS: far-right, Norse mythology, ideology, völkisch, Germanic.

CONSTRUCȚIA DISCURSIVĂ A IDENTITĂȚII EUROPENE – ANALIZA MARCATORILOR IDENTITARI ÎN DISCURSUL ACTUAL AL LIDERILOR EUROPENI

Maria-Corina  POPA, PhD. Candidate

Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest

ABSTRACT: Identity in discourse is a complex issue which goes beyond the question of both the social or personal identities of the participants. This article focuses on the discursive construction of European identities at the supranational level of European Union politics, investigating how the two notions of identity markers and social practice, both of which are central in critical discourse analysis (CDA), can be drawn on in the analysis of collective identity in discourse. The first section will outline the theoretical framework for the present paper by defining the notions of identity and discourse, and by showing how the discourse-historical approach in CDA can be applied to analyze collective identity. The second part of this article analyses the linguistic devices employed to construct national sameness differences to other collectives and how identities are constructed and reconstructed through social action.

KEYWORDS: discourse markers, collective identity, discourse analysis, social actor, discourse-historical approach.

INTERSEMIOTICI PREZIDENȚIALE. ÎNTRE TRADUCEREA SEMNULUI ȘI COERENȚA SEMNIFICAȚIEI ÎN CAMPANIA ELECTORALĂ DIN 2014

Vasile HODOROGEA, PhD. Candidate

Faculty of Journalism, University of Bucharest

ABSTRACT: The continuous democratization of the access to information implies consumers that are more and more sophisticated, critical and reluctant to the public discourse, demanding from its creators coherence and transparency. The electoral discourse, influenced by the communication contract of the candidates and by the Americanization of the political communication, must be adapted to its consumer even from inception, using techniques and instruments from well established theoretical areas, such as intersemiotic translation and social semiotics, and of more recent fields such as multimodality and intermediality.  This paper researches the ways in which intersemiotic coherence in between the textual-verbal and visual levels of the discourse is achieved during the 2014 campaign for the Romanian Presidential office. The discourses of the two finalists are in focus. These will be studied from the context, expression and content perspectives, using the contextual model theory and applying concepts from the field of intersemiotic translations in order to observe if and how the meaning of the messages was constructed according to the context of the audiences and how its construction was influenced by the principles of intersmiotic translation in various forms of communication, from print to TV and digital presence.

KEYWORDS: intersemiotics, political discourse, social-cultural context.

POLITICIANUL ROMÂN ÎNTRE NARCIS ȘI PYGMALION. O LECTURĂ FUNCȚIONAL-SEMIOTICĂ A RAPORTULUI DINTRE OPERATORII “A VORBI” ȘI “A FACE” ÎN DISCURSUL POLITIC ROMÂNESC

Nicolae-Sorin DRĂGAN, PhD. Candidate

Faculty of Communication & Public Relations, National School of Political Science and Public Administration

ABSTRACT: The present study tested functional theory for an analysis of the President's debate in November 2014. Also, we’ll see which are the particularities of the functional theory in the analysis of electoral debates in Romania compared to other cultures. TV debates are a perfect motivation for candidates to impose control and symbolic representations on the definition of the political situation. Consistency required between 'speaking' and 'doing' (central themes in the theory of speech acts) is the force of language and has representation in political action. Other variables that can guide decisions of citizens are: adequacy of discourse to 'reality', authenticity of the performance, character traits, empathic ability, etc. The political discourse of the Romanian public space appears more like a epidictic (demostrative) than a deliberative construction. Politicians' communication itself does not communicate about reality, which may lead to the collapse of political construction. In this way, the Romanian politician is somehow between Narcissus, a victim of self-referencing and Pygmalion, a victim of the simulacrum. Speaking with purpose (conveying a cultural content) and understanding the semiotic of place (constructing meaning) represent requirements to be assumed in the political discourse. 

KEYWORDS: presidential debate, functional theory, political communication culture, Pygmalion effect, Narcissus effect.

ABANDONUL ŞCOLAR ÎN TRANZIŢIE. EVOLUŢII RECENTE ALE POLITICILOR PUBLICE ÎN CONTEXTUL DEZVOLTĂRII SISTEMULUI DE ÎNVĂŢĂMÂNT ROMÂNESC

Rodica – Cristina LISEANU, PhD. Candidate

Faculty of Sociology, University of Bucharest

ABSTRACT: This article adresses the failures of the Romanian education system in 2015, with a particular focus in observing and analyzing school dropout, which is intimately connected to failure and absenteeism. I summarize and analyze social inequalities following a timeline that starts from the communist era, dominated by massive literacy, to the period following the Romanian integration into the European Union. In this context, I identify the causes of school dropout and its associated risks. Simultaneously, this article takes into consideration the methods to prevent and reduce school dropout phenomenon, accounting for the noticeable and, more importantly, unnoticeable school dropout, unreported in official school documents. Contemporary society aims to promote equality in terms of equal opportunities, nourishing the creative mission of socialization, the democratization of access to school, the development of complementary structures in mandatory classroom activities, and the development through innovation. Its scope extends to diminishing standardization in education, and school segregation in what has frequently been described as an unsettled sociopolitical context. In recent years, inspired by the American movement towards positive discrimination, numerous compensatory educational policies have risen, emphasizing the existence of difficulties in sensitive, vulnerable environments. School dropout is an elaborate social problem, and even if researchers have accounted for its causes and sometimes proposed solutions, the materialization into concrete plans of actions has yet to be adopted. This delay postpones the achievement of the process to prevent, reduce, and correct school dropout, ignoring its sociopolitical, psychological and cultural implications.

KEYWORDS: school dropout, school absenteeism, school failure, social inequality, educational policy.

LECTURA ÎN PERCEPŢIA ADOLESCENŢILOR

Assist. Prof. Simona FORTIN, PhD. Candidate

Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest

ABSTRACT: Following the very low results obtained in recent years by students at the baccalaureate exams, the effectiveness of formal education is again in the spotlight. The article aims to cover the issue of reading, as it is perceived by high school students. For this study, questionnaires were developed with closed questions. The questionnaires were answered by 100 students from two high schools in Bucharest: an Economic and a Technical College. There were chosen schools with different rankings, as the intention was to discover if the differences perceived in education are actually a reflection of the academic curricula and textbooks, or reside in the interest to study shown by students. To better track the coherence of responses, and also to check if there is consistency in answers,  numerous correlations between the statements and the questions can be made. This article focuses on two of them: the attitude for and against reading. In Romania, when it comes to reading, the school cares too little about values such as ethics, aesthetics etc., so that reading skills are still confined mainly around the linguistic code.

KEYWORDS: reading, adolescents, school, tests.