Constitutive Role Research Articles

Life and Death in Hegelian Judgements

Abstract Hegel contends that judgements are contradictory, finite and untrue. Prominent scholars argue that Hegel’s issue with judgements is resolved in the later stages of his Logic. Specifically, Ng suggests that this solution is found in Hegel’s discussion of life. In this article, I argue that not only does life fail to resolve Hegel’s problem with judgement—death highlights its insolubility. To support this claim, I examine Hegel’s discussion of judgements in the Logic, showing that judgements are inherently contradictory because they both unite and separate individuals and universals. Instead of being resolved retrospectively, I demonstrate that contradiction, finitude and untruth are intrinsic to judgements. Moreover, since judgements play a constitutive and determinative role in Hegel’s metaphysics, they pass their contradictions, finitude and untruth onto the objects they constitute. Specifically, I argue that for living beings, judgement is literally a matter of life and death, because the contradiction of judgements implies the finitude of the objects they constitute—namely, the perishability of things and the mortality of organisms.

Courting controversy? The constitutional implications of the Court of Justice of the European Union’s involvement in the resolution of disputes after Brexit

Abstract The article sheds light on the under-discussed, but nonetheless constitutionally significant issue of the changing landscape for dispute resolution between the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) post-Brexit. This pertains, in particular, to the Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) likely involvement in the resolution of disputes between the two parties across the arrangements governing both the UK’s withdrawal from and future relationship with the EU. The authors explore the dispute resolution mechanisms under the Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), as well as the Court’s ‘legacy role’ in relation to (former) EU law concepts beyond the confines of the two Agreements. This article thereby evaluates the constitutional importance of the future role of the CJEU as a dispute settlement forum in these contexts, including the relationship between sources of ‘norms’ and the extent to which the UK will remain subject to its jurisdiction, or at least its influence, in the long term, whether directly or indirectly. It is argued that the CJEU’s influence, as well as the authority of EU law in the UK more generally, is now mediated through domestic law concepts, such as the recently devised concept of ‘assimilated EU law’, which replaces ‘retained EU law’, and which have the capacity to obfuscate the constitutional origins and thereby the constitutional legacy of EU-derived concepts. The article further contends that the ostensibly restricted involvement of the CJEU in the UK–EU relationship after Brexit must be appraised through the prism of the Withdrawal Agreement and TCAs’ provisions, which possess uniform legal force in both jurisdictions. The Agreements indicate a more expansive and enduring constitutional role for the CJEU and EU law concepts broadly speaking, than the one the then UK Government has publicly conceived. Consequently, a notable dissonance emerges between the political objective of ‘taking back control’ and the reality created by the legal framework governing the UK’s cooperation with the EU including the mechanism for resolving future disputes. Despite Brexit, the CJEU will continue to shape the constitutional contours of the relationship between domestic and Union law as well as between domestic sources of law, for many years to come.

The Neutrality of the Romanian Head of State

The Constitution of Romania, republished, expressly enshrines, in art. 1 para (4), the principle of separation and balance of powers in the state. The possibility of respecting this principle is outlined by constitutional provisions relating to public authorities, their powers, as well as the relationships between them. In the 1991 constitutional configuration, maintained even after the 2003 revision, the President of Romania was placed in the sphere of executive power, the constitutional functions recognized to him being placed between the other authorities, especially between the Parliament of Romania and the Government, ensuring the balance between them being one of his missions. Analyzing, through specific methods of interpretation and research: logical, systematic, respectively comparative, in this article we aim to show that, by virtue of its constitutional role, as well as in order to exercise it responsibly, neutrality is one of the essential conditions that it must respect.

Discourse Theory and Strategic Communication

Abstract This contribution explores the nexus between Discourse Theory and Strategic Communication. Traditional positivist and rationalist approaches to business, economics, politics, and management often marginalize strategic communication as merely instrumental; whereas discursive approaches, and Discourse Theory in particular, recognize its constitutive role in shaping social realities. This contribution therefore argues for the development of a discourse-theoretical approach to Strategic Communication, highlighting its potential to offer new insights and understandings. It first examines existing uses of the notion of discourse in Strategic Communication, before discussing Discourse Theory’s potential added value to its study. Next, it emphasizes the importance of Discourse Theory scholars engaging with Strategic Communication topics. Finally, two examples contrasting non-discursive and discourse-theoretical approaches are presented, focusing respectively on populism and authenticity in corporate marketing campaigns. Overall, this paper advocates for a deeper integration of Discourse Theory within the study of Strategic Communication.

The Role of Constitution of Pakistan in Promoting International Peace and Strengthening Bonds with the Muslim World

Pakistan İslam Cumhuriyeti Anayasası uluslararası barışın nihai destekçisidir ve Müslüman dünyasındaki ilişkileri güçlendirmeye yönelik misyon ve teorileri her zaman desteklemektedir. Pakistan mevzuatında Müslüman dünyasında dayanışmayı sağlamaya yönelik çok sayıda araç bulunmaktadır. Pakistan İslam Cumhuriyeti 1973 Anayasası’nın 40. Maddesinde belirtilen politika ilkelerinden biri bunun kanıtıdır. İkinci olarak, Pakistan’ın kurucusu “Muhammed Ali Cinnah” da devletin kuruluşunun başında Pakistan’ın diğer devletlere yönelik stratejisinden bahsetmiştir. Bu anayasal direktif, Pakistan’ın diplomasiye, barışçıl çatışma çözümüne ve Müslüman dünyası ile işbirliğine dayanan bir dış politikaya bağlılığını göstermektedir. Pakistan bölgede eşsiz bir jeopolitik konuma sahiptir. Hem uluslararası hem de bölgesel barışı tesis edebilecek nükleer güce sahip tek Müslüman ülke statüsüne sahiptir. Pakistan’ın Birleşmiş Milletler’in barışı koruma misyonlarına katılım göstermesi, küresel barış ve güvenlik için gösterdiği çabaların delili niteliğindedir. Pakistan ayrıca farklı bölgesel çatışmalarda barış görüşmelerine ev sahipliği yapmış ve kolaylaştırıcılık da sağlamıştır. Bu çalışma, Pakistan’ın attiği uluslararası barış ve uyumu korumaya ve Müslüman devletler arasındaki bağları güçlendirmeye yönelik tarihsel ve güncel adımları incelemektedir.

A Modal Ontology of Imagination

Everyday aesthetics has been accused of being ontologically and systematically juvenile for a variety of reasons, such as the rejection of some major claims of Kantian aesthetics, its relative newness, its disparate methodologies, and the theoretical and ethical difficulties of outlining a systematic apparatus without reimposing rationalist and colonial perspectives. While it is untrue that everyday aesthetics as a new sub-discipline lacks systematic rigour, another ontology of the everyday will be introduced here. Calvin Seerveld’s aesthetic theory will be outlined and then offered as a resource for understanding the constitutive role imagination plays in analytical and other kinds of thinking. His notion of ‘allusivity’ as the common quality of all aesthetic expression suggests that art, craft, design, and everyday aesthetic appreciation all emerge from the same subjective function of imaginative ‘nuance’. Additionally, his thought comes from within an established tradition of modal ontology begun by 20th century Dutch Continental philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd.

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This paper examines three distinct but closely related issues of contemporary media freedom. The first of these is the elements of the “traditional” concept of media freedom and how it differs from freedom of expression. The paper introduces the question of the additional rights granted to the media, and discusses the prevailing approach in Europe to the constitutional role and social responsibility of the media and its regulatory implications. The paper also deals with the similarities and differences between online platforms and traditional media, the ways in which these platforms restrict freedom of expression and media freedom, and the implications for European regulation. European legislation forces platforms to take action against illegal user content. It also allows them to create private speech codes, and enforce them against their users (private regulation). The prioritisation activity of platforms is also a key determinant of how users perceive the content that is potentially available to them. The activities of platforms and traditional media differ in a number of respects, but given their similar characteristics, in particular their role in the public sphere, the regulation of these media should also have similar objectives, in order to ensure access to information, equality of speakers, and equality of opinion. The paper also presents legislative responses to the direct conflict between platforms and media freedom. This occurs when platforms apply their moderation activities against a media outlet.

“Do good and talk about it”: informal representation and migrant-led civil society organizations’ mediation between low-wage labor migrants and state institutions in the GCC countries

Low-wage labor migrants experience major human and working rights abuses in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries despite national labor laws and signatures to various human rights conventions. On paper, India has established an institutional framework of transnational social protection for its officially estimated 5.5 million low-wage workers migrating to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, e.g., financial emergency support, repatriation services, and walk-in centers. However, migrants in low-wage employment often cannot access substantive social rights in practice. Indian upper/middle-class migrant civil society groups mediate their access to Indian embassies’ services and the destination countries’ state institutions. The realization of social rights via informal, third-party representation stems from a representational disjuncture between low-wage labor migrants and the Indian state, which is rooted in their historical socioeconomic marginalization, limitations of the formal political system, and the constitutive role of informality in shaping and structuring citizen-state interactions in India. Through the lens of Piper and von Lieres’ (2015) concept of mediated citizenship and based on data from semi-structured interviews and participant observation of migrant support networks in the Gulf countries, this article examines why mediation takes place and how volunteers speak and take action for marginalized migrants in low-wage employment and consequences of mediation. It argues that migrant volunteer organizations and individuals are powerful stakeholders in the migration governance in the GCC region, as they possess leverage over who has (better) access to state institutions and the provision of social and human rights. Their status as intermediaries underlines the disaggregation of Indian citizenship along class and caste lines, which can be (mis)-used by mediators to pursue their interests, resulting in ambiguous effects. The article contributes to perspectives on migration governance in the GCC region, transnational social policies, and migrant volunteering.

Driving change in troubling times: Security risk and the state in global production networks

Abstract This editorial revisits the state – global production network (GPN) nexus in times of multiple crises affecting the global economy and society. Setting the scene, we first reflect on the role of geopolitics in transforming GPNs under conditions of increasing uncertainty before turning our attention to the ways in which states deal with questions of security and navigate risk. It also highlights the increasingly overt role of strategic state strategies vis-a-vis GPNs. In a second step, we discuss the central, constitutive role of the state in processes of strategic coupling, decoupling and recoupling, before presenting some concluding thoughts.

Принцип верховенства права в конституційному праві

Abstract. The principle of the rule of law is a fundamental element of constitutional law that ensures stability and justice in the legal system. This article explores the historical development of the rule of law, from its origins in classical legal systems to modern interpretations and implementations. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of key aspects of the rule of law, such as its importance for the protection of human rights and freedoms and the role of constitutions in ensuring it. Taking into account the content of Article 8 of the Constitution of Ukraine and the practice of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, the rule of law should be understood, in particular, as a mechanism for ensuring control over the use of power by the state and protection of individuals from arbitrary actions of the state authorities. The rule of law is seen as a normative ideal that every system of law should strive for. And as an integral and universal principle of law, it should be considered, in particular, in the context of the following fundamental components: the principle of separation of state power, the principle of democracy, the principle of legality, the principle of popular sovereignty, the principle of fair trial, and the principle of legal certainty. The article discusses the current challenges facing the implementation of the rule of law in different countries. In particular, the problems of corruption, political pressure and crisis of justice, which may hinder the effective implementation of this principle, are analyzed. Specific examples of violations of the rule of law and their consequences for society are studied, allowing for a better understanding of the importance of adhering to this principle. The article also contains a comparative analysis of the implementation of the rule of law in different legal systems, highlighting successful models and practices. The role of international organizations such as the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the European Union in maintaining and promoting the rule of law at the global level is explored. This allows us to draw conclusions about the impact of international law on national constitutional systems and emphasizes the importance of international cooperation in this area. Keywords: rule of law; constitutional law; protection of rights and freedoms; international organizations; justice; legal system.

Opening the Black Box of ‘Convergence’ in the European Monetary Union: A Discursive Analysis

Abstract‘Convergence’ stands out as a prominent signifier in discourse about the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), recently also gaining prominence in debates within Comparative Political Economy (CPE) studies on the Eurozone crisis. However, these studies neglect the concept's endogenous deployment in EMU discourse and, therefore, how it influences capitalist restructuring efforts within it. This article tackles the latter by providing a critical policy discourse analysis of key texts throughout the Union's history, linking the use of the term to the institutional development of the EMU. By doing so, not only does it identify the concept's constitutive discursive role as a frame and problem of monetary integration, but it also showcases its limitations from a CPE perspective, specifically by combining insights from the aforementioned studies with those of Europeanisation research and by subsequently criticising the neoclassical and neofunctionalist assumptions guiding ‘convergence’ efforts in EMU.

The Role of Constitutions in the Legal Status of Indigenous Peoples (Examples of Arctic Countries)

In this article, based on the examples of four Arctic states (Russia, the United States of America, Canada and Finland), the role of constitutions is determined and described how the basic state law forms legal systems and ensures the legal status of indigenous peoples. It is revealed that indigenous peoples are presented as a constitutional and legal phenomenon in the largest and most developed states of the world. The characteristics of indigenous peoples differ, since they are influenced by both the processes of state building and society development.According to the author, the role of the constitution is that at the level of the main law, indigenous peoples are distinguished as a special ethnic community that has political, cultural, and economic significance for the state. At the same time, the characteristics of indigenous peoples are not constant — they are significantly influenced by external conditions: political, legal, social, and economic, forming or changing them. This requires constant revision and updating of approaches to the study of indigeneity and determining the prospects for the development of indigenous peoples.Within the framework of this article, the author examines the terminology associated with indigenous peoples, enshrined at the constitutional level, and proposes to use a special term in constitutional law — “indigenism”, i.e. a set of unique characteristics that distinguish indigenous peoples from other ethnic groups, and in accordance with which these characteristics peoples are endowed with special collective and individual rights.

Attempts to Expand the Competencies of External Public Auditors into the Area of Consultancy — Case of the Romanian Court of Accounts

This paper examines the potential effects of legislative proposals aimed at amending Law No. 94/1992 on the organization and functioning of the Romanian Court of Accounts. Primarily, it is observed that if these initiatives were adopted, they would allow public entities to request information, methodological clarifications, or detailed answers to various questions from the regional Chambers of Accounts. The responses would need to be provided in writing, in the form of an opinion, within 30 days. If the applicant finds the opinion unsatisfactory, they would have the right to challenge it, with justification, within 10 days of receiving the document. Subsequently, a specialized court would resolve the challenge within 10 days of its registration, either upholding or annulling the opinion, in whole or in part. However, the Legislative Council, in its advisory opinion, pointed out that assigning the Court of Accounts the obligation to provide periodic consultancy to interested parties contravenes its constitutional role. Such a mandate would diminish the institution's primary function—control—thereby questioning the balance and efficiency of its activities. Other opinions, discussed in the paper, also highlight delays in legislatively transitioning the Romanian Supreme Audit Institution from financial control to specialized consultancy. The structure of this study includes: (1) Introductory considerations on the creation and functioning of the Romanian Court of Accounts, (2) An analysis of parliamentary efforts to orient the Court's activity toward providing specialized consultancy to public entities (2.1 - An initial initiative focusing on guidance/prevention and discouraging auditor misconduct; 2.2 - Attempts to introduce provisions in Law No. 94/1992 establishing consultancy as a task for auditors), and (3) Conclusion.

Asian Inclusion and the Racial Pedagogy of Allyship in James A. Michener’s Cold War Novels

Abstract: This essay examines the Cold War cultural politics of Asian inclusion through the Cold War novels of the popular mid-twentieth-century American writer James A. Michener. An analysis of his Korean War novel, The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1953), and his historical novel, Hawaii (1959), draws out the transnational dimension of his representation of Asian inclusion and the constitutive role that US militarism plays in this. Michener’s novels show a cultural vision of an American way of life for Asians built from the sites of combat and war ruins. By tracing what it calls a racial pedagogy of allyship in Michener’s cultural construction of East Asian subjectivity, the essay queries how a flexible and dynamic hierarchy of developmentalism guides Asian inclusion in postwar US imperial formation. Contending with the limits of Cold War racial liberalism for Asians entails an active rethinking of ideals such as freedom, justice, and equality against Cold War militarism.

The quantum gravity seeds for laws of nature

We discuss the challenges that the standard (Humean and non-Humean) accounts of laws face within the framework of quantum gravity where space and time may not be fundamental. This paper identifies core (meta)physical features that cut across a number of quantum gravity approaches and formalisms and that provide seeds for articulating updated conceptions that could account for QG laws not involving any spatio-temporal notions. To this aim, we will in particular highlight the constitutive roles of quantum entanglement, quantum transition amplitudes and quantum causal histories. These features also stress the fruitful overlap between quantum gravity and quantum information theory.

Monumentality and Its Discontents

Connoting immensity of scale, the aura of power, and the ambition to create a highly visible presence and lasting legacy, monumentality was a cardinal attribute of British India's scopic regime and the self-legitimization of imperial rule. From the 1850s onward, monumentality was central to colonial photography, whether through the archiving of precolonial edifices or, increasingly, through the visual representation and reproduction of colonial public works and engineering projects. In focusing on hydraulic engineering, especially canal building and bridge construction, and by citing the work of Samuel Bourne and other colonial photographers including engineers, this article argues for the constitutive role of photography in the making of colonial monumentality, in the creation and circulation of monumental imagery, in pacification and memorialization, and in the exercise of hegemonic power and scalar authority. It assesses the practical as well as the polemical uses of monumental image-making, the transmissibility of images, and the scope photography allowed for, or denied to, monumentality's multiple “discontents” (its obstacles, antitheses, and subversions) and for alternative readings of monumental power.

Functional analysis of the constitutive role of temperature in compacted bentonites

Functional analysis of the constitutive role of temperature in compacted bentonites

Music – Recording – Aura: Marginal Notes on the Debate between Adorno and Benjamin and on Adorno's Fragmentary Theory of the Gramophone Record

AbstractThere is hardly another Frankfurt School treatise on art theory today which is as much discussed and quoted as Walter Benjamin's notable “artwork”-study. This text has become a mandatory reading; however, it has been largely overlooked by musicologists. Benjamin developed his theory in connection with the visual arts: it is only the image that carries the aura, traveling through time and space and is saturated with historical substance. Benjamin remained seemingly uncertain about the place and role of the sound (and the music) in the historical process of losing the aura. Among the three surviving versions of his study, the first one posited a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the reproduction of sound and the paradigm shift that affects art as a whole, while in the third version, this connection is vanishing. It is generally known how challenging Benjamin's study was to Adorno's ideas on art theory. Adorno tried to deny the positive value of the change that Benjamin described. He raised doubts about the constitutive role of “reception in the distraction” in his famous “Fetish-Character” study. The “distracted perception,” the “atomistic hearing” dissociates the unity of the work. Adorno wanted later to preserve the validity of the “auratic work” and its derivatives that he called “critical works” (for example, in the famous footnote 40 of the “Philosophy of New Music,” or in the 1950s, when he faced efforts aimed at the radical erasure of the musical context, and for example, he classified Křenek's works written in the 1920s as productive forms of loss of aura). According to these, it is difficult to place the technical work of art on Adorno's aesthetic value horizon. This makes his writings on gramophone recordings or the relationship between music and mediality so interesting. Focusing on the discussion of Benjamin and Adorno, this presentation tries to find an answer to the following questions: how can the paradigm shift in art history (and art ontology) described by Benjamin be interpreted in relation to music? And what does this imply about the relationship between the “artwork of music” and the sound recording?

Sex Workers’ Psychodynamics of Work

Objective: The research aims to analyze the contextual dimensions that permeate the experiences of sex workers in nightclubs through the lens of Psychodynamics of Work. Theoretical Framework: The choice of the Psychodynamics of Work aims to expand its application field by providing new insights into the relationship between the work context of sex workers and their health and/or illness perspectives. This approach views work as a central element in human life, recognizing its constitutive role in the identity of individuals, with a significant influence on their subjectivity. Method: This is a descriptive and qualitative research, the semi-structured interview was the chosen tool for data collection. The research field was the work context of female workers in nightclubs. The data were analyzed using Bardin’s Content Analysis, with a specific focus on the enunciation analysis technique. Results and Discussion: The results indicate variations in the quality of working conditions, work organization, and social relations within the work context of sex workers in nightclubs. Research Implications: It is crucial to address these issues and give visibility to this work context, promoting a better understanding of the experiences surrounding this labor activity. Originality/Value: This study also reinforces the connection between Business Administration and studies on human-work relationship in non-traditional sectors, demonstrating the potential of administrative science to broadly address issues of objectivity and subjectivity in work.

Competition law through the lenses of national constitutions: connecting competitive markets with socio-economic and environmental values

Abstract This article analyses competition legislation through the lenses of national constitutions, given that these constitutions establish the foundational structures of national legal systems to which competition laws inherently belong. Building on existing constitutional literature, it posits that competition laws should be construed in accordance with the values promoted in national constitutions. The analysis is situated within the contemporary discourse surrounding the ongoing ‘just transition’ towards a carbon-neutral economy, i.e., a process in which socio-economic values (pertaining to the right to work, right to healthcare, and right to food) and environmental values (pertaining to a clean environment, biodiversity, and reducing emissions) constitute guiding tenets. Such a context invites the question of whether competition laws should be built and interpreted in a manner that facilitates the enhanced integration of socio-economic and environmental values enshrined in national constitutions. These contemplations are pivotal, since law plays a constitutive role in designing socio-economic structures, with the structuring of competitive markets being no exception. In light of this, the paper conducts a review of how national constitutions across the world safeguard competitive markets, socio-economic values, and environmental values. Specifically, the article categorizes the regulatory frameworks identified within all 52 national constitutions that explicitly protect competitive markets alongside socio-economic and environmental values. Subsequently, the paper transitions to an examination of two countries—Poland and South Africa—to elucidate how national competition laws reflect constitutional choices. It demonstrates that their constitutions and competition laws were shaped in a manner that offers a different space for incorporation of socio-economic and environmental values in the interpretation of competition laws. The article relies on an analysis of the texts of national constitutions and competition statutes, as well as selected case law of constitutional courts and ordinary courts. Overall, the article seeks to incite an academic discourse regarding the significance of national constitutions in the realm of antitrust. At the same time, it expands upon the literature concerning economic constitutions, especially regarding the European Union and its Member States.