RECENZE NA KNIHU: TERORISMUS A RADIKALIZACE V ČESKÉ REPUBLICE: MOŽNOSTI DETEKCE RIZIKOVÝCH OSOB

Z pohledu politologie i bezpečnostních studií lze konstatovat, že radikalizační tendence se projevují nejenom v on-line prostředí, ale i v české sociální realitě, kde již byly zaznamenány reálné trestné činy, které skončily odsouzením pachatelů (např. podle 312d financování terorismu, nebo 312e podpora a propagace terorismu dle Trestního zákoníku č. 40/2009 Sb.). Kolektivní monografie se snaží představit bezpečnostní hrozby radikalizace a terorismu nejenom z hlediska multidisciplinámě teoretických poznatků, ale i na základě zkušeností bezpečnostní praxe. Další komplikace při analyzování konkrétních motivů může být způsobena odmítnutím pachatele vypovídat a spolupracovat nejen s vyšetřovateli, ale i psychology/psychiatry. Ideologická rovina může být jen součástí celého komplexu vlivů, přičemž k dalším lze považovat osobnost pachatele, situační faktory, ale i představy a bludy (např. o postmortální slávě, blíže s. 16). Šestá kapitola, kterou napsala J. Mottlová, se zaměřuje na možnosti detekce radikalizace a extremismu z pohledu Probační a mediační služby (dále jen PMS). PMS je představena jako organizace zajišťující výkon alternativních trestů a opatření, týkající se trestní politiky ČR (dohledu nad obviněnými nebo odsouzenými osobami atp.). Autorka považuje PMS, především pak dohled probačního úředníka, za podstatný institut umožňující detekci radikalizačních procesů, resp. opatření v rámci deradikalizačních a nápravných opatření. Představeny jsou mechanismy, které obecně používá PMS, například dohled nahrazující ochranné léčení. Zajímavá je i uvedená kazuistika (s. 166 - 168), která blíže představuje procesy PMS u konkrétního pachatele (včetně výkonu ústavní léčby, ambulantní psychiatrické léčby, nepodmíněného trestu odnětí svobody atp.). První z obou zmiňovaných kapitol mj. popisuje polarizaci české společnosti v důsledku pandemických opatření, ale také uvádí nárůst tzv. dezinformací. Následně jsou popsány rekrutační praktiky na sociálních sítích, ale i teroristické činy v pandemickém období (Francie, Rakousko). Na základě zahraničních studií je diskutován vliv konspiračních teorií, propagandy (např. džihádistické, oslavující Covid-19 jako zbraň proti západním společnostem), nenávistných komentářů na sociálních sítích, ale také konkrétní aktivity, včetně demonstrací.

Assistência Social no ajuste fiscal: pandemia e gestão da força de trabalho

O presente artigo objetiva discutir aspectos recentes da política de assistência social brasileira, considerando a incidência da radicalização do projeto neoliberal sobre seus serviços e as características de sua intervenção no contexto da pandemia da Covid-19. Elegemos como mote de análise central a relação entre a referida política e a gestão da força de trabalho mais precarizada e empobrecida, que no geral têm composto o público-alvo deste campo de proteção social. Tomando como base os fundamentos da crítica marxista da política social, a abordagem da assistência social procura desvelar as contradições inerentes a esta política de seguridade social, problematizando os principais elementos do endurecimento do ajuste fiscal no Brasil. Essas reflexões sedimentam as bases para a análise acerca da condição dessa política na gestão da força de trabalho mais empobrecida a partir das determinações da pandemia da Covid-19. A pesquisa, de natureza qualitativa, se assenta em revisão bibliográfica e análise de dados empíricos de fonte primária e secundária.Alternate :This article aims to discuss recent aspects of Brazilian social assistance policy, considering the incidence of the radicalization of the neoliberal project on its services and the characteristics of its intervention in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. We chose as a central analysis theme the relationship between the aforementioned policy and the management of the most precarious and impoverished workforce, which in general have made up the target audience of this field of social protection. Based on the foundations of the Marxist critique of social policy, the approach to social assistance seeks to reveal the contradictions inherent in this social security policy, questioning the main elements of the tightening of fiscal adjustment in Brazil. These reflections solidify the bases for the analysis about the condition of this policy in the management of the most impoverished workforce from the determinations of the Covid-19 pandemic. The research, of a qualitative nature, is based on a literature review and analysis of empirical data from primary and secondary sources.

Earth Power in the New Geopolitics

The best way to think about the climate emergency is to imagine humanity has just arrived at a new planet somewhere in a distant galaxy. After all, as scientists tell us, our planet Earth will soon look like a new planet, with conditions radically changed from the 'climate niche' of the past 10,000 years, during which human civilization developed. Once settled on the new planet, our task is to terraform it, to build a new natural environment fit for human life and human flourishing. My general approach to the politics of climate change thus differs from the most common view among environmentalists. I do not believe we can speak of climate change as a product of the Anthropocene, the human-built world. Our inability to control the consequences of climate change shows this is still at heart a natural process, one triggered by human beings or, more specifically, by our limited ability to control natural processes and therefore by our incapacity to control the unintended consequences of our actions and choices. The solution to the climate emergency is not to exit the Anthropocene but, intriguingly, to enter it for the first time. The world building is a task significantly full of existential meaning and urgency.

SENTIMIENTOS Y NECESIDADES DE LA PERSONA ADULTA MAYOR DURANTE LA PANDEMIA COVID-19. UN ANÁLISIS DESDE LA TEORÍA DE AGNES HELLER

El artículo explora los sentimientos y las necesidades de una persona adulta mayor durante el confinamiento por la pandemia de Covid-19 en México. El estudio de caso se reflexionó a partir de la propuesta de Agnes Heller sobre la vida cotidiana, las necesidades y los sentimientos. La investigación es cualitativa y fundamentada en el método fenomenológico-hermenéutico. Como resultado es posible observar un cambio en las necesidades de la persona adulta mayor durante la pandemia;pasaron de necesidades alienadas al surgimiento efímero de necesidades radicales.Alternate :This article explores feelings and needs of an elderly person during the confinement due to the Covid-19 pandemic in Mexico. The case study was reflected from Agnes Heller's proposal on daily life, needs and feelings. The research is qualitative and based on the phenomenological-hermeneutical method. As a result, it is possible to observe a change in the needs of elderly person during pandemic;they went from alienated needs to the ephemeral emergence of radical needs.

Introduction to the Symposium: Parasitism and the Logics of Anti-Indigeneity and Antiblackness

The more recent crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the contemporary protocols of the Western European-American parasitic paradigm. As any scholar of the Black Radical Tradition have argued, the emergence of global capitalism is indelibly tied to the emergence of the transatlantic slave trade and is constitutive of the emergence of Black(ness)/racialization of Black people. Furthermore, the underlying assumptions of Western modernity's so-called scientific paradigm for comprehending the world, facilitates the justification of the ascendancy of whiteness in a hierarchy of being. Both racial capitalism and coloniality of being embodies the parasitism of the modern world-system that results in the dynamics of the pandemic.

Understanding the Context of Global Health Policies: Their Post-Colonial

The systemic inadequacies of models of health systems propagated by the advocates of global health policies (GHPs) have fragmented health service systems, particularly in middle- and lower-income countries. GHPs are underpinned by economic interests and the need for control by the global elite, irrespective of people's health needs. The COVID-19 pandemic challenged the advocates of GHPs, leading to calls for a movement for "decolonisation” of global health. Much of this narrative on the "decolonisation” of GHPs critiques its northern knowledge base, and the power derived from it at individual, institutional and national levels. This, it argues, has led to an unequal exchange of knowledge, making it impossible to end decades of oppressive hegemony and to prevent inappropriate decision-making on GHPs. Despite these legitimate concerns, little in the literature on the decolonisation of GHPs extends beyond epistemological critiques. This article offers a radically different perspective. It is based on an understanding of the role of transnational capital in extracting wealth from the economies of low- and middle-income countries resulting in influencing and shaping public health policy and practice, including interactions between the environment and health. It mobilises historical evidence of distorted priorities underpinning GHPs and the damaging consequences for health services throughout the world.

Gramsci, the Relativity of the Integral State-Society, and the COVID-19 Interregnum

Gramscian scholars have engaged with Gramsci's leitmotif (‘rhythm of thought') and the stato integrale (integral state), a concept he introduced in Autumn 1930. This represents remarkable progress in the Marxist community. But what requires further attention is the interconnection between an integral state and a totalitarian one, two of the three expressions of state-society formations that Perry Anderson identified as Gramsci's antinomies. This article argues that the integral state is fragile but hegemonic if it can be sustained. Otherwise, it can degenerate into a totalitarian state. The article refigures the ‘integral state' as the ‘integral state-society'. It exists relatively, depending on whether the ‘integral momentum' or the ‘totalitarian tendency' prevails in a dynamic interaction between radical Left, Far Right, and those currents in between. Identifying this relativity helps to formulate a deeper understanding of Gramsci's thought and show how his legacy supports a class struggle perspective on the COVID-19 interregnum.

Development, the Politics of Change, Contestation, and Adaptation in Contemporary Southeast Asia

El futuro de toda el área estará muy influenciado por el Sudeste Asiático, que se encuentra en el corazón del continente y tiene la economía más vibrante del mundo. El sudeste asiático también ofrece una ventana a algunos de los temas políticos más importantes de nuestro tiempo. Las doce páginas que siguen ofrecen una descripción completa de la asombrosa variedad de estructuras gubernamentales, prácticas culturales y formas de vida tradicionales del Sudeste Asiático, todas las cuales están experimentando de manera uniforme una serie de cambios importantes. El futuro de toda el área estará muy influenciado por el Sudeste Asiático, que se encuentra en el corazón del continente y tiene la economía más vibrante del mundo.Alternate abstract:The future of the entire area will be greatly influenced by Southeast Asia, which is at the heart of the continent and has the most vibrant economy in the entire world. Southeast Asia also provides a window into some of the most important political themes of our time. The twelve pages that follow give a comprehensive overview of Southeast Asia's astounding variety of governmental structures, cultural practices, and traditional ways of life-all of which are uniformly undergoing a number of important changes. The future of the entire area will be greatly influenced by Southeast Asia, which is at the heart of the continent and has the most vibrant economy in the entire world.

The pandemic politics of cultural work: collective responses to the COVID-19 crisis

The scope, unevenness, and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on cultural work has been widely acknowledged. This article turns to how sections of the cultural industries responded to the onset of this crisis. Our account is based on document research completed during the first wave of the pandemic. We gathered news reports, impact survey results, policy recommendations, open letters, event announcements, and other grey literature generated by a range of organizations in the cultural sector, including trade unions, professional associations, and activist groups, among others. Framed by the concepts ‘labouring of culture' and ‘policy from below', our thematic analysis of this material reveals that cultural workers responded to the pandemic by surfacing the idea of cultural production as work;by enacting practices of care and mutual aid;and by proposing policy changes. These collective responses are marked by multiple tensions, particularly between rehabilitating the status quo in the cultural sector and radically reimagining it for a post-COVID-19 world.

Activism in the time of COVID-19

In many countries, COVID-19 has amplified the health, economic and social inequities that motivate group-based collective action. We draw upon the SIRDE/IDEAS model of social change to explore how the pandemic might have affected complex reactions to social injustices. We argue that the virus elicits widespread negative emotions which are spread contagiously through social media due to increased social isolation caused by shelter-in-place directives. When an incident occurs which highlights systemic injustices, the prevailing negative emotional climate intensifies anger at these injustices as well as other emotions, which motivates participation in protest actions despite the obvious risk. We discuss how the pandemic might shape both normative and non-normative protests, including radical violent and destructive collective actions. We also discuss how separatism is being encouraged in some countries due to a lack of effective national leadership and speculate that this is partially the result of different patterns of social identification. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Venezuela en tiempo de pandemia Covid-19: Representaciones sociales y la estrategia de mitigación multi-nivel. La economía local emergente en el municipio Caroní, Estado Bolívar

En marzo de 2020 fue declarada una pandemia por la COVID-19 y los gobiernos del mundo implementaron la cuarentena. Partimos de la premisa de que todo dependería de las representaciones sociales sobre la pandemia, variable que impactó también la economía en todas sus escalas. En Venezuela el 16 de marzo de 2020, el gobierno decretó una cuarentena radical que fue reestructurada a un método denominado 7+7. El artículo muestra la acción colectiva multi-nivel de los actores socio-institucionales con énfasis en el Estado Bolívar, de importancia económica nacional e internacional por su vinculación fronteriza con Brasil. El trabajo de campo fue en el municipio Caroní entre marzo 2020 – diciembre 2021, con un enfoque de investigación en tiempo real sobre los procesos de interacciones entre los actores involucrados y las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC). Como resultado se tiene que las acciones colectivas emprendidas;entre los niveles de gobierno y sus instituciones, el sector privado y la sociedad civil fueron significativas para contener la propagación del virus y mantener la subsistencia de la economía local. Se concluye en que fueron determinantes: el esquema de cuarentena 7+7 y las acciones a nivel local producto de los acuerdos entre la mayoría de los segmentos de la sociedad. Por último, resaltan la forma y el método para el manejo de la información y comunicación que permitió hacer explícitas las normas, los acuerdos y reglas funcionales en pandemia en medio de complejas y confusas representaciones sociales.Alternate abstract:In March 2020, a pandemic was declared by COVID-19 and the governments of the world implemented the quarantine. We start from the premise that everything would depend on the social representations of the pandemic, a variable that also impacted the economy on all its scales. In Venezuela on March 16, 2020, the government decreed a radical quarantine that was restructured to a method called 7+7. The article shows the multilevel collective action of the socio-institutional actors with emphasis on the Bolívar State, of national and international economic importance due to its border link with Brazil. The field work was carried out in the Caroní municipality between March 2020 - December 2021, with a real-time research approach on the processes of interactions between the actors involved and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). As a result, the collective actions undertaken;between the levels of government and its institutions, the private sector and civil society were significant in containing the spread of the virus and maintaining the subsistence of the local economy. It is concluded that the 7+7 quarantine scheme and the actions at the local level resulting from the agreements between most segments of society were decisive. Finally, they will highlight the form and method for the management of information and communication that made it possible to clean up the norms, agreements, and functional rules in a pandemic in the midst of complex and confusing social representations

Do pandemics spawn extremism? Spanish flu deaths and the Ku Klux Klan.

Scholars and journalists connect pandemics to a rise in support for radical political movements. In this study, we draw on this insight to investigate the relationship between the 1918-1919 Spanish influenza pandemic and political extremism-here, the rise of the second Ku Klux Klan-in the United States. Specifically, we ask whether U.S. states and cities with higher death rates from the Spanish flu also had stronger Ku Klux Klan organizations in the early 1920s. Our results do not provide evidence of such a connection; in fact, the data suggest greater Klan membership where the pandemic was less severe. This provides initial evidence that pandemic severity, as measured by mortality, is not necessarily a cause of extremism in the United States; power devaluation as a result of social and cultural change, however, does appear to spur such mobilization.

Policy learning from crises: lessons learned from the Italian food stamp programme

Advancing learning is a central tenet for improving public action. Recent calls for agility, robustness, prototyping and other strategies for coping with crises imply continual learning and improvement. This article contributes to challenging this ideal interpretation of the learning process. It provides conceptual and methodological tools to investigate the relationship between policy learning and policy change and sheds light on the diverse dynamics and types of learning that can emerge from crises. At the conceptual level, the article presents a learning matrix that classifies the possible outcomes in the relationship between learning and change. On methods, our research design includes process tracing, binary comparisons, and an innovative real-time approach to the study of learning. The article investigates three municipal case studies from the Italian food stamp programme implemented during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The repetition of the programme over a short period of time offers the opportunity to investigate inter-crisis learning, the process by which lessons from the first wave of implementation contributed to reforms in the second delivery. The coronavirus crisis magnified the acquisition of knowledge and provided radical inter-programme lessons – long-term, non-incremental learning beyond the management of the emergency. Yet, the findings also highlight how this window of opportunity for learning quickly closed and how certain lessons learned may be lost in the process of reform, hard to implement or are unlikely to be extrapolated across contexts.

An unexpected Socialist majority: the 2022 Portuguese general elections

The Portuguese elections of early 2022 took place during the most severe wave of COVID-19 infections in Portugal. Nevertheless, the pandemic was not the most important issue in the campaign. Although opinion polls forecast a narrow election, the Socialists gained their second absolute majority in history. The electoral results marked a breakthrough for the radical right and Liberals. Every other traditional party had its worst electoral night in democratic history. The Christian Democrats and the Greens ended up exiting the parliament. The 2022 general elections saw the Socialists rise to dominance and the end of the Portuguese exceptionalism in keeping the radical right at arm's length.

Vaccine hesitancy and refusal during the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy: Individualistic claims or repoliticization?

The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted new (or renewed) forms of conflict within a longer path of distrust and dissatisfaction towards politics and growing scepticism towards 'official truths' and 'official science'. Italy was the first European and Western country in which the pandemic spread in February 2020, and also one that adopted particularly stringent measures to contain the virus. In this scenario, a country in which political distrust was particularly diffused experienced an increase in institutional trust, accompanied by a strong demand for security from above. At the same time, radicalisation and distrust have grown among larger strata of the Italian population, leading to a significant polarisation of the public sphere. This essay critically embraces the perspective of the vast and plural universe of vaccine hesitancy and refusal (VHR) and, more generally, the materialisations of conflict concerning vaccines and policies aimed to address the Covid-19 pandemic. In the media and public debate, these protests have been mainly regarded as populist, driven by individualistic claims nurtured by indifference towards the collective good. We specifically explore whether VHR should be viewed exclusively as a sign of selfishness and populism or also as a form of repoliticisation around new issues and, in particular, as an expression of critical citizenship manifesting doubts about the decisions made by politicians, affirming a critique of the model of instrumental rationality, and advocating a pluralist debate on complex issues which directly affect individual life-choices and the body. Our study is based on 67 qualitative interviews with VHR citizens and a focus group with four key figures of the 'Movimento 3V' (3VM), a minor Italian party advocating freedom of choice in relation to vaccines.

Regaining power: How feelings of exclusion during COVID-19 are associated with radicalism among critics of containment policies.

Past experimental research has shown that social exclusion can be linked with radicalism. During the COVID-19 pandemic, feelings of social isolation and loneliness rose, just like protests and violence against national anti-COVID-19 measures did. Based on these observations, we hypothesized that feelings of exclusion induced by measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 were associated with radicalism intentions to illegally and violently fight COVID-19-related regulations among critics of the containment policies (Hypothesis 1). Moreover, we expected that radicalism intentions against COVID-19-related regulations fortified needs deprived by social exclusion (Hypothesis 2). Studying a sample of individuals who opposed the measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 (N = 171), we found evidence for both hypotheses: Results revealed that feelings of social exclusion induced by COVID-19 containment measures predicted radicalism intentions. Moreover, the relationship between exclusion and radicalism was associated with fortifying power issues. Political opinion did not moderate these effects. These data replicate the exclusion-radicalism link in the COVID-19 crisis and add one more factor that may have promoted radical developments during that time. Fortifying feelings of power, radicalism appeared to foster well-being, though at a high political price.

Welcome to the Metaverse: Social Media, the Phantasmatic Big Other, and the Anxiety of the Prosthetic Gods

In Algorithmic Desire: Toward a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media, Matthew Flisfeder develops an alternative structuralist theory of social media. As a Žižekian analysis of social media, this book is an important contribution to the field of Žižekian studies. While Flisfeder theorizes social media in relation to Slavoj Žižek’s idea of the big Other, he nonetheless proposes an unorthodox understanding, importantly choosing not to engage Žižek’s analysis of technology, which develops in the context of his discussion of artificial intelligence and virtual reality in relation to Freud’s “prosthetic God” and Lacan’s lathouses. The present essay suggests that Žižek’s analysis of technology has radical implications for understanding social media, providing an important perspective that shifts the emphasis of theorizing social media from desire to anxiety in a zone “beyond the pleasure principle,” an analysis that Žižek situates in the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the big Other.

Stronger Together: Coalitions as Interventions Against Intersectional Stigma

In response and in a show of solidarity, global community-led networks- MPact Global Action for Gay Men's Health, the Global Network of People Living with HIV, the International Network of People Who Use Drugs, Global Action for Trans Equality, and the Global Network of Sex Work Projects- joined forces to cocreate HIV2020, the first alternative, community-led global HIV conference.7 Although most HIV conferences have narrowed their focus to treatment, clinical care, and other biomedical solutions, HIV2020 articulated a vision for and by key population communities. HIV2020 elevated necessary blunt discussions about sex and drug use from the points of view of communities engaged in these practices rather than encasing them in public health discourse, which can often be focused on disease and risk rather than identities and pleasure.8 The community-led conference endeavored to create a radically different global gathering in which intersectional coalitions and solidarity movements could be envisioned and formed to counter divisive agendas. [...]this was the first major conference to have done so, demonstrating yet again ingenuity and flexibility. People living with HIV, gay and bisexual men, people who use drugs, sex workers, and transgender people united in open recognition ofthe overlap between their communities and a common understanding about the synergistic and compounding effects of stigma faced by individuals with multiple community memberships and identities.

Pension systems in south-eastern Europe: what worked and what did not

Many south-east European states made the transition from socialist to market economies. All described here had to reform their pension systems to match the new context in which these operated. The experiences of 10 countries are reviewed – seven of which were once part of Yugoslavia. Some countries’ reforms were more radical than others. Five of them merely adapted the Bismarckian systems they had inherited;four others adopted the “three pillar” model that the World Bank had been propagating. One went further than that. The four who followed World Bank model were often forced to backtrack. Whatever the longer-term benefits, they generated their own shorter-term fiscal problems. Nonetheless, the most radical reformer gives some indications of possible ways forward. The south-eastern European states do not have financial markets that can support capitalised/funded pension systems. Nor do they have the resources to pay proportional pensions that, at the same time, keep retired people out of poverty. The article suggests that their governments should concentrate upon improving economic performance to satisfy longer term aspirations and on ensuring that pensioners are able to live properly if not luxuriously by using tax-financed transfer measures. Provision above this level can be secured through savings plans, but it must be accepted that the investments to secure those savings will have to be made abroad.

Health policies during COVID 19 pandemic in Kosovo

Public policy in democratic societies aims to create public value by providing quality public services, regulations and state-organized activities with the ultimate goal of creating a better service towards its citizens. Since policy failure has always been a concern for various scientists and researchers, this paper aims to contribute to improving the quality and efficiency of public policies by providing expertise to state institutions to ensure effectiveness, transparency, inclusiveness and accountability of the entire process.The health system is one of the main pillars of public policy of every country today, and this is especially noticeable after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the world, a problem which radically changed public policies and how are they percept. Kosovo as a new state faces various political and state-building challenges. The functioning of the health system is one of those challenges, which bared the main responsibility in dealing with pandemic.Therefore, the main focus of this paper will be to analyze the public policies introduced by health institutions and government bodies as response to the COVID 19 pandemic. In this regard we will try to answer some questions which are going to be raised within the paper such as how satisfied were the citizens with health policies in Kosovo, the readiness of the institutions and the professional staff engaged, knowledge and use of best practices.In order to obtain the information needed to justify the main objectives of the thesis, beside the content analysis and comparative methods, we are going to conduct a survey with officials and various institutional experts that were engaged in planning and implementation of the policies in time of Covid19 pandemic, as well as with people from private sector and that of civil society.