Constitutive Form Research Articles

Racing Religion in the Palestine-Israel Discourse

Race is a Western political project. Religious freedom is a Christian political project. The linkages between the two enabled European nations and their settlers across the globe to condemn natives, slaves, and non-European immigrants to inferior status, and in turn legalize control of their lands and bodies.1 The consequent race-religion systems of power and privilege, which inform Rabiat Akande's thesis, offer valuable insights into the racialized boundaries of contemporary Palestine-Israel discourse in the United States.2 Specifically, the racialization of Muslims and Arabs as terrorism supporters and presumptively anti-Semitic subjects them to censorship, harassment, and discrimination when they advocate for the human rights of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. This essay argues that infringements on Muslims and Arabs’ dissenting speech and political activism is another way in which the racialization of religion produces a mutually constitutive form of discrimination.

지방교육자치발전을 위한 교육감선출제도의 발전적 모색

Introducing the “running mate system of governors and superintendents of education” has now become a big issue in relation to the superintendent of education election system. The government seems to be in favor of legislating into this system and is rushing to introduce it. However, what is overlooked in this movement is “consistency of a system”.
 The current direct election superintendent of education system was introduced in 2006 after identifying the successful results of the direct presidential election system introduced in 1987 by the current Constitution. However, as political party intervention was prohibited due to the “political neutrality(or impartiality) of education” stipulated in Article 31 of the Constitution, an unpopular and problematic form of election system was established as it is now.
 In terms of constitutional theory, the political neutrality of education stipulated in Article 31 of the Constitution, does not necessarily seem to provide inevitable reasons for a political party intervention to be banned in the election of the superintendents of education.
 First, in comparison with the adjacent constitutional provisions such as the political neutrality of the military(Article 5) or the political neutrality of public officials(Article 7), and second, in light of the Article 37 (2) of the Constitution, which stipulates the proportional principle of maximum guarantee of basic rights, proportional and stepped constitutional approach could be justified. In other words, the superintendents of education are in charge of educational affairs based on the ideology of decentralization, and if the governors do not have a big problem in realizing local autonomy and political neutrality of public local officials despite party intervention of elections and their political party memberships, the superintendents of education could be understood in the same way. In this regard, the current superintendents election system, which restricts party intervention, is wrong in terms of system setting, (1) party intervention in election process should be permitted logically, and (2) if the party's return into election cannot be recognized, the system should be extensively improved by considering its alternative functions, especially through ① reform of campaign methods or ② redistricting. On the other hand, the current move to the city and provincial governors and superintendents' running mate system aiming only at resolving conflicts between governors and superintendents, without deep analysis of the cause of the problem of the present system, could cause concerns about local education autonomy by creating institutionally ‘weak superintendents of education’.
 Nevertheless, the current process could offer a good opportunity to supplement the problems of the present system and come up with developmental alternatives by reviewing the meaning of the constitutional provisions that have been justifying party exclusion in superintendents of education election.

Integrated Care Systems in England: Progress towards forming new multi-stakeholder partnerships to develop quality.

Background: Health and social care services in England have been restructured to 42 Integrated Care Systems (ICS). ICSs are responsible for delivering integrated services in their local area to prevent illness; identify and treat illness effectively; and provide support to improve quality of life for people with long-term illness or disability. Under the umbrella of ICSs, previously siloed organisations need to work together to deliver quality care. This study aimed to understand how these new ways of working impact on the development of their quality agenda.
 Methods: Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with senior representatives in demographically and geographically diverse ICS. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed in NVivo using a thematic framework approach. Two Patient and Public Involvement team members contributed to the study design and data analysis. The study is conducted at two points in time; the data reported here is the baseline collected shortly (November 2021 to May 2022) before the ICSs’ formal constitution in July 2022.
 Results: Sixty interviews across four ICSs were conducted with senior representatives (e.g. ICS CEO, chief nurse, quality leads, director of social services, director of public health, the public and local communities). Across all ICSs, progress had been made with creating ICS specific committees, with new roles created and leaders appointed, and new partnerships emerging. Positive learning on collaborating with diverse partners had occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic and through previous local initiatives to integrate services. In two ICSs, there was less history of such collaborative work and their new partnerships were emerging more slowly. 
 Generally, it was agreed that strong leadership, supported by broad and effective system partnerships, was essential to develop the ICSs’ structure and to deliver quality. Key partners to support the leadership were senior partners in acute hospital trusts, primary care, social care, public health, Healthwatch (the health and social care champion for service users), voluntary services, and patient representatives. 
 Some concerns were raised that made collaborations more challenging, including differences in language and work culture between the key partners, and health dominating the quality agenda. Overall, it was felt that social care, public health and voluntary services were heard less. They were being consulted, but rarely had leadership roles and leaders from these communities often felt that they were not equal partners. Most participants highlighted the importance of consulting patients and the public and acknowledged that this was not done effectively yet with too few people, who lacked diversity, consulted; and an overreliance on Healthwatch. 
 Discussion: This restructure of the health and social care system shows that new partnerships can be formed between previously siloed organisations but that these take time to develop. In particular, organisations or people who have traditionally been less consulted such as social care, public health, and patients and the public still need to become more equal partners in developing the quality agenda. Follow up interviews will bring greater clarity on how this restructure will maintain and promote quality across services. 

The Practice of the Slovak Constitutional Court Concerning Migration and Refugee Affairs

The judicature of the Slovak Constitutional Court concerning migration and refugee affairs after the accession of the Slovak Republic to the EU has been diverse, covering several important issues. Remarkably, in 2023, the Court took a new turn on its ‘self-restraining approach’ in a case related to migration and refugee matters. The article concludes that the Slovak Constitutional Court has not linked migration or asylum issues to the issue of constitutional identity in its case law. From the material viewpoint, the case law of the Constitutional Court forms four key areas: 1) fundamental right not to be tortured or subjected to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; 2) detention of foreigners; 3) an applicant’s right to comment on evidence; 4) right to respect for family and private life. The article features a summary of the main thrust of the flagship judgments with developmental arch (where possible). Finally, the study showed that the Slovak Constitutional Court regularly refers to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and of the Court of Justice of the EU.

Organisation of local self-government in the Republic of Azerbaijan

The relevance of the study lies in the fact that local self-government is the foundation of the life of the citizens of the Republic of Azerbaijan and one of the main foundations of any democratic system. The purpose of this study is to establish the constitutional and legal content and forms of interaction between the state authorities and local self-government at the present stage of development of the Republic of Azerbaijan. To achieve the research objective, the author used general theoretical and special legal methods. The main result of the study is the argumentation of the position that interaction between public authorities and local self-government should be considered as a joint activity based on the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan, its laws and by-laws, and carried out in certain directions and forms. Achieving this goal involves setting and solving such a research task as analysing the main trends in the development of local self-government at the present stage, forms, and mechanisms of interaction between local self-government bodies and the bodies of the state power structure of a subject of the Republic of Azerbaijan, on the one hand, and the local population at the regional level, on the other. The study used both general scientific methods of research (logical analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, abstraction and descent from the abstract to the concrete, and the method of identification) and private (so-called traditional) methods of social sciences (the method of structural and functional analysis, and the institutional method). The conclusion of the study is the argumentation of the position that in Azerbaijan, as in other post-Soviet countries, the problem of relations between state and municipal authorities is quite relevant since local self-government has always been an attribute of a democratic society and a form of self-organisation of the population to solve local problems. In addition, local self-government in Azerbaijan is recognised as an equal and independent form of government, which is also confirmed by the results of the study. The study also substantiates specific proposals for improving the functioning of the local self-government system in the Republic of Azerbaijan, which will contribute to increasing the efficiency of its implementation at the regional level.

Costituzione, ieri e oggi

Constitutions represent an answer to a problem that derives from the nature of human beings and from their co-living together in a common social and political space. The root of the “constitutional problem” can be summed up with the following double question: how to create a stable and safe human/political community for zoon politikon, inside of a given territory, under a political organization flexible enough to adapt to internal and external changes which can threaten stability and security of collective coexistence? And how to do it between order and freedom, between power and law, between consent and dissent, between majority and minority? The present essay examines conceptual, empirical and historical profiles concerning the constitutional matter which has engaged the Ancients as well as the Moderns and Contemporaries. The essay emphasizes, on one side, the transformations of constitutions, on the other side, the intrinsic nature of constitutions in terms of “sociopolitical contract” and the normative telos that characterizes them. In contemporary societies, the Occidental ones in primis, the constitutional telos stay wrapped up, more than in the past, in an intimate (and conflictual) interweaving between formal (or encoded) constitution and “material” constitution “practiced” in social, cultural and political life. One might say that men do their constitutions, but not at will: systemic dynamics and structures (social and cultural, economics and technological, juridical and political) matter.

The Duties that Bind Us

This article aims to draw out some of the key continuities between Confucian and Reformed natural law traditions, the latter represented by John Calvin (1509–64). It seeks to undermine contemporary academic definitions of Confucianism and constitutionalism, which are premised on misinterpretations. The first misinterpretation occurs where Confucian moral theory is viewed overly prescriptively, as being synonymous with legalist orthodoxy. The second misinterpretation occurs where constitutionalism is defined exclusively in terms of its dominant liberal conception. These problematic definitions of the two core concepts reduce the space of convergence between Eastern and Western constitutional frameworks, giving rise to the misleading narrative that they are fundamentally incompatible. With these issues in mind, the article adopts a dialectic interpretive method to read both traditions in light of their historical context and authorial purpose, to see whether such a reading can support some form of duty-based constitutionalism. Ultimately, the article examines Eastern and Western natural law ideas to reveal deeper themes common to both and highlight the normative continuities of two prominent, albeit culturally disparate, constitutional foundations.

A recurrent ACTA1 amino acid change in mosaic form causes milder asymmetric myopathy

We describe three patients with asymmetric congenital myopathy without definite nemaline bodies and one patient with severe nemaline myopathy. In all four patients, the phenotype had been caused by pathogenic missense variants in ACTA1 leading to the same amino acid change, p.(Gly247Arg). The three patients with milder myopathy were mosaic for their variants. In contrast, in the severely affected patient, the missense variant was present in a de novo, constitutional form. The grade of mosaicism in the three mosaic patients ranged between 20 % and 40 %. We speculate that the milder clinical and histological manifestations of the same ACTA1 variant in the patients with mosaicism reflect the lower abundance of mutant actin in their muscle tissue. Similarly, the asymmetry of body growth and muscle weakness may be a consequence of the affected cells being unevenly distributed. The partial improvement in muscle strength with age in patients with mosaicism might be due to an increased proportion over time of nuclei carrying and expressing two normal alleles.

Early Initiation of Oral Therapy with Cyclosporine and Eltrombopag for Treatment Naïve Severe Aplastic Anemia: Interim Results of a Phase II Trial

Introduction: Severe aplastic anemia (SAA), a life-threatening bone marrow failure disease, is treated with allogeneic bone marrow transplantation or immunosuppression (IST). Pancytopenia meeting “Camitta” criteria and an empty bone marrow (<30% cellularity) establish the diagnosis of SAA. However, neither diagnosis nor therapeutic interventions are straightforward, resulting in delays of therapy. SAA must be differentiated from hematologic malignancy, and constitutional forms should be excluded by functional or genetic testing. Administration of IST usually occurs at a tertiary care center, and in younger patients' evaluation for BMT is first required. Ongoing immune mediated destruction of stem cells further depletes marrow reserve and increases regenerative stress with such delays. In this phase II study, we tested the feasibility and safety of early initiation of cyclosporine (CSA) to block T cells and eltrombopag (EPAG) to stimulate hematopoiesis followed by standard of care therapies to expedite treatment (NCT04304820). Methods: Twenty-six patients with treatment-naive SAA were enrolled since 2020. Patients were 3 years or older and median age was 35 years. Exclusion criteria included a diagnosis or high clinical suspicion for inherited disease or evidence of myeloid neoplasm. To ensure rapid initiation of therapy, enrollment was not dependent on pending specialized tests (telomere length, chromosomal breakage, cytogenetics, or genomics). Lower dose CSA (2mg/kg) and full dose EPAG were initiated after confirming eligibility. Upon completion of evaluation and confirmation of acquired SAA diagnosis, all subjects received standard IST (horse ATG, CSA, and EPAG; Figure 1A). Primary feasibility endpoint assessed a composite measure of misdiagnosis, non-compliance, and treatment-related serious adverse events (TRSAE) during oral therapy. Secondary endpoints were efficacy at 6 months, relapse, clonal evolution, and overall survival. Results were compared to a historical cohort of 139 patients treated with hATG, CSA, and EPAG initiated the same day (NCT01623167). Results: All patients completed the protocol-defined treatment period, with median time on oral therapy of 17 days (range 0 - 86 days). All subjects ultimately were confirmed to have acquired SAA (no misdiagnoses), all tolerated oral treatment well without any TRSAE, and patients were compliant with local and study-site follow-up. Thus, there were zero events for the primary feasibility endpoint. A single SAE during oral treatment occurred in subject #1, enrolled at the height of the COVID pandemic and was severely ill with persistently positive COVID-19 PCR and recurrent ileitis requiring hospitalization care; his time to standard IST was the longest (86 days). There was significant increase in absolute neutrophil count (ANC; median 0.315x10 3/mL vs 0.570, p=0.041) in a brief interval of oral therapy prior to receiving hATG. There was also a trend towards improvement in absolute reticulocyte count (29x10 3/mL vs. 35.8) and a decrease in absolute lymphocyte count (1.5x10 3/mL vs. 1.3; Figure 1B). Compared to historical cohort, less patients (19% vs 52%) had very SAA (ANC <200 K/uL); age, sex, race, and pre-treatment blood counts were similar in two cohorts. Hematologic response occurred in 68% at 6 months with 45% complete responses, rates similar to the historical cohort (80% and 40%, respectively). Time to platelet and red blood cell transfusion independence was 43 and 51 days, respectively. Only age (18-40 years) was predictive for 6 month response. With median follow-up of 396 days, the cumulative incidence of relapse at 2 years was 17%, lower than in the historical cohort (27%). Clonal evolution to secondary myeloid malignancy was not increased compared to historical cohort; one subject had myelodysplastic syndrome with excess blasts 1 with deletion 20q, and two had transient trisomy 8 without dysplasia. Overall survival was 96.2%; no deaths occurred during study treatment period of oral medications only. Conclusion: Early initiation of CSA and EPAG is a feasible and safe approach to rapidly treat patients with SAA as a bridge to standard therapies and it may lead to improved blood counts, in turn, decreasing early infectious complications. Hematologic response was comparable to our historic cohort. Rates of long-term complications need to be confirmed in a larger cohort with ongoing study enrollment.

The Best Constitution for the Flourishing Lives: Aristotle’s Political Theory and Its Implications for Emancipatory Purposes

The aim of this paper is to discuss the issue of the best constitution given Aristotle’s account of human flourishing articulated in the Nicomachean Ethics. There, Aristotle claims that monarchy is the supreme form of constitution. A similar claim is repeated in Politics. The paper argues that these claims sit uneasily with Aristotle’s teleological accounts of the polis, the citizen, and his discussion of the virtues of the citizen and the good man in Politics. Given Aristotle’s philosophical definition of the state as “an association of equals for the sake of the best possible life” and his notion that “the best is happiness, and that consists in excellence and its perfect actualization and its employment”, and Aristotle’s argument on the relationship between the good man and the good citizen, this paper concludes that the best constitution is politeia. Yet, simply to argue so is not enough if we are to rescue Aristotle from his inconsistencies and his claims on “natural inequalities”. Finally, a more radical interpretation of Aristotle is outlined, which rejects Aristotle’s separation between the oikos and the polis and argues that the verticality of the former is philosophically arbitrary and contradicts the revolutionary implications of Aristotle’s normative teleology.

Decentralised Governance in India: An Evaluation in Context of Panchayati Raj Institutions

The world’s largest democratic system of governance is a main feature of India. Democracy requires that there should be public participation, transparency and accountability in governance. Governance is a process in which ‘full benefit of democratic government could not be realized unless the society admits and believes that all problems in their incidence require decision at the place and by the people, by whom the incidence is most deeply felt’. The process of ushering in social change and economic development in a developing country like India requires adequate dissemination so that local committees and individuals could participate and bring local energy, enthusiasm, initiatives and resources under ideal local conditions to work out local developmental activities. The form of democratic decentralisation in India is visible in Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs). These institutions have been given a constitutional form by the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992. The Panchayati Raj (PR) system in its present form has been in operation for the last over 70 years which is sufficient time to evaluate the objectives of its implementation. Therefore, it is pertinent and necessary to do an analysis of democratic decentralised governance in India in respect of PRIs. The present paper is an effort to highlight and understand constitutional provisions vis-a-vis reality of democratic decentralisation and PRIs in India. What are the main constraints in realisation of the constitutional obligations before these bodies of democratic governance and how can these be overcome?

Autoimmune Atrial Fibrillation.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is by far the most common cardiac arrhythmia. In about 3% of individuals, AF develops as a primary disorder without any identifiable trigger (idiopathic or historically termed lone AF). In line with the emerging field of autoantibody-related cardiac arrhythmias, the objective of this study was to explore whether autoantibodies targeting cardiac ion channels can underlie unexplained AF. Peptide microarray was used to screen patient samples for autoantibodies. We compared patients with unexplained AF (n=37 pre-existent AF; n=14 incident AF on follow-up) to age- and sex-matched controls (n=37). Electrophysiological properties of the identified autoantibody were then tested in vitro with the patch clamp technique and in vivo with an experimental mouse model of immunization. A common autoantibody response against Kir3.4 protein was detected in patients with AF and even before the development of clinically apparent AF. Kir3.4 protein forms a heterotetramer that underlies the cardiac acetylcholine-activated inwardly rectifying K+ current, IKACh. Functional studies on human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived atrial cardiomyocytes showed that anti-Kir3.4 IgG purified from patients with AF shortened action potentials and enhanced the constitutive form of IKACh, both key mediators of AF. To establish a causal relationship, we developed a mouse model of Kir3.4 autoimmunity. Electrophysiological study in Kir3.4-immunized mice showed that Kir3.4 autoantibodies significantly reduced atrial effective refractory period and predisposed animals to a 2.8-fold increased susceptibility to AF. To our knowledge, this is the first report of an autoimmune pathogenesis of AF with direct evidence of Kir3.4 autoantibody-mediated AF.

Development of the legislation on constitutional and legal forms of citizens' political activity that are implemented by information and communication technologies: the experience of Ukraine

Introduction. The article examines the evolution of the national legislation of Ukraine during the years of independence from the point of view of the formation of the legal basis for the implementation of forms of political activity of citizens, which are implemented with the help of information and communication technologies (ICT). The main regularities of the formation of national legislation in the researched area are identified, the main stages and directions of its development are highlighted, and the factors that influenced the content and dynamics of the relevant reforms are outlined. Summary of the main results of the study. The process of building an independent, democratic, legal state in Ukraine is directly related to the formation and development of the legal foundations of the information society, participatory democracy (democracy of participation) and e-governance, and in the context of the foundations of the legal status of an individual - with ensuring the right to participate in the management of state affairs and access to information. The legislative design of the newly proclaimed independent Ukrainian state took place in the conditions of the rapid transition of the world community from an industrial to an information society, which opened up new opportunities for democratic transit. The formation of the regulatory framework for the implementation of constitutional and legal forms of political activity of citizens, which are implemented with the help of ICT, had a consistent and progressive character, was carried out taking into account the existing technological level and features of the political system, as well as the foreign policy obligations of our state. Electronic democracy tools introduced in accordance with the constitutional legislation of Ukraine today include electronic voting in elections and referenda, electronic petitions, as well as consultations with the public, public hearings and discussion of draft legal acts of public administration bodies with the help of ICT. Conclusion. The conclusion that the process of formation of a regulatory and legal basis for the implementation of political activity of citizens with the help of ICT can be divided into four stages is justified: 1) preparatory stage (1990-1997) - the stage of formation of the constitutional and legal basis of political activity of citizens of Ukraine in the conditions democratic statehood; 2) the initial stage (1997-2007) - the stage of formation of the constitutional and legal foundations of informatization and development of the information society in Ukraine; 3) the central stage (2007-2018) - the stage of formation of the constitutional and legal foundations of "open government" and "electronic democracy"; 4) the modern stage (2019 to the present) is the stage of intensive development of legislation on legal forms of political activity of citizens using ICT under the leading role of the Ministry of Digital. The development of constitutional and legal foundations for the implementation of political activity of citizens in Ukraine took place and is taking place on a clear doctrinal and conceptual basis, taking into account Ukraine's international obligations and the real state of development of ICT and information relations in the public sphere. As a result, Ukraine is currently at the forefront of democratic states in the world in terms of the use of ICT in the implementation of "open government" and "participatory democracy".

“When the overseas provinces are called by the Constitution” (About the constitutional status of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, 1837-1898)

ABSTRACT This article discusses the relationship between constitution and colonies in Spain. Since 1837, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines were expressly excluded from the formal constitutions of the metropolis. Differently to the type of constitutionalism from which they were expelled, the colonies, however, seemed to retain a real and material constitution, defined by geographers with geographic criteria, which ultimately served to uphold the whole political discourse concerning the particularities of nations overseas as well as to justify, in constitutional terms, their exclusion from the series of Spanish constitutions until the final collapse of their colonial regime in 1898.

Continental Constitutionalism, Systemic Legitimacy, and Judicial Review

Abstract This article elaborates on the justification and legitimacy of judicial review in continental constitutionalism. After the Second World War, continental constitutionalism shifted from a Kelsenian conception of constitutional courts to a strong model of judicial review whose legitimacy requires maintaining distance both from the U.S. model built around checks and balances and from the model embodied by the New Commonwealth constitutionalism. I suggest that the legitimacy of continental judicial review should not depend on the degree to which it resists the countermajoritarian objection, but rather that it should follow a logic of protective efficacy that takes a systemic perspective. On this basis, I propose coordinating judicial review in terms of a weak form of constitutionalism that I call “cooperative constitutionalism”, whose three main axes are: a democratic culture of justification, a conception of fundamental rights as qualified mandatory goals and a systemic approach to the proportionality test.

Knowledge Institutions and Democratic Erosion: The Invaluable Contributions of Tom Ginsburg

The work of Tom Ginsburg, a leading scholar of comparative constitutional studies, is influential around the world and spans a very wide range of topics. He has played an absolutely essential role in establishing a database of constitutional provisions, both around the world and over time, that has fueled his own research, including his co-authored book on the endurance of national constitutions, and the research of other comparative constitutional scholars. He has contributed important insights about many different areas of comparative constitutional study. In much of his work he has been concerned with the relationship between political forces and political life on the one hand, and constitutional forms of law on the other. Whether on judicial review in new democracies, or on the role of courts and constitutions in authoritarian societies, his work is always interesting and reflects his terrific instinct for important and fruitful topics of inquiry.

Republican Freedom and Committees of Safety: Notes on Historicization in Critical Security Studies

AbstractThis paper discusses the historical case of committees of safety and their role in three republican revolutions in early modern western political history in order to conceptually contribute to the historicization of critical security studies. These committees were significant in amalgamating republican understandings of public freedom with demands for security from tyrannical oppression, thus highlighting the constitutive role of security considerations in the formation of republican polities and republican political constituencies. Yet, they also pointed to the seemingly self-defeating effects of those committees’ practices in situations perceived as revolutionary, which regularly involved clandestine, self-legitimating, and oppressive force against “enemies of the revolution” and potential internal opposition alike, and hence undermined normative notions of republican freedom. The paper introduces an analytical triad, consisting of definition of security situation, interpretative frame, and security repertoire, which allows analyzing historical situations of securitization in full complexity while at the same time allowing inter-comparability and the modeling of dynamic invocations of security by interdependent actors. Applied to the historical narrative, two interrelated conceptual consequences for a historicization of critical security studies are derived. First, prominent strands in critical security studies will profit from studying securitization as a politically constitutive, as opposed to a merely transformative, act, precisely as securitization crystallizes in historically specific, politically constitutive organizational forms, such as committees of safety. Second, the paper complicates accounts concerning the security/freedom nexus inherited from conceptual history, analyzing the entanglement of republicanism with security reasoning from the perspective of historically situated practices.

Machiavelli, Epicureanism and the Ethics of Democracy

Abstract Recent scholarship on the political thought of Niccolò Machiavelli has demonstrated the extent to which the latter's republicanism is of a populist type, and a potentially important resource for contemporary democratic theory. Although work has been produced on the constitutional form of the Machiavellian republic, less effort has been made to articulate the theoretical assumptions upon which the advocacy of such a republic is ethically grounded. Here, I attempt to locate the democratic ethical imperative in the affirmation of a fundamental human difference. Influenced by the Epicurean tradition, Machiavelli's natural philosophy considers material entities as absolute singularities lacking internal teleological direction, their movement the productive result of contingent encounters. One cannot assume a natural or pre-social identity of desire between persons. Democracy is the ethically preferred regime because it is the one that is capable of facilitating the expression of this human uniqueness.

Constitutive and induced forms of membrane-bound proteinase 3 interact with antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies and promote immune activation of neutrophils

Proteinase 3 (PR3) is the main target antigen of antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCAs) in PR3-ANCA-associated vasculitis. A small fraction of PR3 is constitutively exposed on the surface of quiescent blood neutrophils in a proteolytically inactive form. When activated, neutrophils expose an induced form of membrane-bound PR3 (PR3mb) on their surface as well, which is enzymatically less active than unbound PR3 in solution due to its altered conformation. In this work, our objective was to understand the respective role of constitutive and induced PR3mb in the immune activation of neutrophils triggered by murine anti-PR3 mAbs and human PR3-ANCA. We quantified immune activation of neutrophils by the measurement of the production of superoxide anions and secreted protease activity in the cell supernatant before and after treatment of the cells by alpha-1 protease inhibitor that clears induced PR3mb from the cell surface. Incubation of TNFα-primed neutrophils with anti-PR3 antibodies resulted in a significant increase in superoxide anion production, membrane activation marker exposition, and secreted protease activity. When primed neutrophils were first treated with alpha-1 protease inhibitor, we observed a partial reduction in antibody-induced neutrophil activation, suggesting that constitutive PR3mb is sufficient to activate neutrophils. The pretreatment of primed neutrophils with purified antigen-binding fragments used as competitor significantly reduced cell activation by whole antibodies. This led us to the conclusion that PR3mb promoted immune activation of neutrophils. We propose that blocking and/or elimination of PR3mb offers a new therapeutic strategy to attenuate neutrophil activation in patients with PR3-ANCA-associated vasculitis.

Classification of constitutional and legal forms of political activity of citizens, which are carried out by information and communication technologies

The Paper is devoted to the study of the concept of constitutional and legal forms of political activity of citizens, which are carried out by information and communication technologies and their classification.It is considered the concept of political and legal activity of citizens on the Internet, which is interdisci- plinary and includes such practices as online consultations, e-elections, e-participation, online polls, e-pe- titions, online chats, group decision-making online, etc. It is noted that the above list applies only to those social activity of citizens that has a political and legal nature and are implemented through ICT, and this list tends to expand. The Paper highlights the criteria for the classification of constitutional and legal forms of political activity of citizens, which are carried out by information and communication technologies. The di- vision takes into account the form of democracy, the degree of mandatory use of certain ICT tools, the degree of mandatory decision-making based on the use of ICT tools, functional purpose or scope of review of the issue, which becomes the subject of citizen participation.It is emphasized that the political activity of citizens, implemented through ICT, is an element of e-democ- racy, but its implementation takes place within the framework of representative and participatory democracy, due to the features of use of computer-mediated communication.