‘What is the meaning of the bearded wire on the Slovenian border’ was a question addressed by TV show Tarča of the first national program of Radio Television Slovenia. Bogomil Ferfila, Janja Hojnik, Dimitrij Rupel and Ivan Štuhec were guest in broadcast. Bogomil Ferfila stressed that there is no need to panic. Ivan Štuhec is convinced that a wire at the Schengen border is not the end of Europe, but unfortunately, its necessary protection. Researchers have with the application of their expertise addressed current key topics in the Slovenian society and offered some answers and thoughts to citizens. This is an example of the practical value of the research program and places the research work also in the public sphere. In comparison to large global financial crisis, which we have just left somewhere behind, the refugee crisis is minor, also stressed Dr. Ferfila. At the same time he pointed out that the present refugee crisis has attracted a lot of negative and positive, religious, cultural and ideological feelings.
F.30 Professional assessment of the situation
COBISS.SI-ID: 4992555The national radio broadcast Intelecta hosted D. Fink Hafner. Together with two other participants she particiapted in a discussion on iliberal democracy. She pointed out that the notion that liberal democracy is deeply rooted in some western countries like United Kingdom, France, Germany, USA and Kanada is not unqestionable. Rather, the current situation is pessimistic. For example, the USA, which declares that it disseminates standards of democracy world-wide and then evaluate other countries by theses standards is currently actually a plutocracy – the government of a rich elite. This is obvious from the socio-economic and political indicators and academic research. It is obvious that a liberal character of democracy is currently not only threatened by authoritarian political aspirations of some politicians in Hungary and other peripheral countries, but also some factors in frame of western civilization.
F.30 Professional assessment of the situation
COBISS.SI-ID: 33790557In January 2015 researchers from the Centre of political science research organised a stakeholder meeting Democratisation and efficiency of processes of forming national positions towards EU policies. Meeting was organised in collaboration with representatives of nongovernmental organisations, economic interests, representatives of professionals in parliament and representatives of the ministry. Researchers represented their research findings. National positions towards EU legislative proposals are formed based on administrative and bureaucratic level and based on directive proposal. Key institutions in coordination of EU affairs in Slovenia are the lead ministry and the Permanent representation office of the Republic of Slovenia in Brussels. Parliament offers access to the information but is at the same time closed as access point for interest organisations.
F.30 Professional assessment of the situation
COBISS.SI-ID: 33357405The academic profession was traditionally understood as a safe haven in increasingly hostile labor market conditions. However, at least from the late 1960s in the West, and from the transitional late 1980s in Central and Eastern Europe, the situation began to change radically. The academic, once perceived as a privileged member of society and an enlightened torch of progress, who held in the educational sphere the highest possible benefits along with the highest responsibilities, became more and more drawn into the inexorable current of precariousness. As a result, once solid and stable academic positions are dissolving into uncertain and flexible work arrangements that no longer promise any sort of academic utopia, but rather an ‘atopia’, a non-place of non-existence.
F.30 Professional assessment of the situation
COBISS.SI-ID: 33216349The lecture addresses the question of how the predispositions and circumstances of participatory culture within the institutional politics are (un)related to the expectations and practices of users and what opinions young citizens generate in relation to the political digital culture. The answers are given through a quantitative analysis of Slovenian political websites and in-depth interviews with a pilot sample of young internet users. The study follows the thesis that the necessary condition for participatory potentials of digital culture is intertwining of interactive communication paths between political actors and citizens in a form of cooperation, opinion exchanges and co-production of content. However, following the results it seems that within the digital space of Slovenian politics the more realized is a group of young whose political participation relates to the conventional forms of activities, such as elections or polling, and who understand the citizenship as a duty, while the more activist, opinionated and inclusive forms of participation of young are in the digital political culture less present or even neglected.
F.30 Professional assessment of the situation
COBISS.SI-ID: 33746013