Journal of Liberty and International Affairs

9

Authors: Vesna Poposka and Abdulmecit Nuredin

Recent challenges in international security posed by two terrorist organizations, Al Qaeda and ISIS, have highlighted an urgent domestic and foreign policy challenge. Terrorism has been, for more than a decade, top headline in the world media, and the cost of terrorist activities is expressed in numerous human lives and enormous material damage. Yet to date, international organizations and governments have not been successful in the attempt to find a common definition or uniform approach. Up to now, the approaches towards terrorist activities differ from case to case. There is no single legal regime to deal with terrorist activities, and the legal regime is what gives the answer and the framework for the counterterrorist activities of the security forces, in order to be able to deal with the threat. This paper will attempt to answer at least some of the dilemmas.

12

Authors: Ibrahim B. Anoba

The persistent resentment towards classical liberal principles especially individualism and free market in contemporary Africa, represents an outcome of decades of ambush against the ideology despite its clear connections with traditional African philosophy and relevance to the prosperity of modern African states. This work attempts to draw comparisons between social and economic organisation in traditional Africa and classical liberal principles. Contrary to literatures that portray the community as the real and only end in traditional African societies, elements like free trade; market economy; consensus; anarchy and limited governance negates this position. While tracing the cause of Africa’s cling to socialism and communism, this paper presents an ideological transition from pre-colonialism to nationalist and post-independent Africa. It concludes by demystifying the arguments of individualism as antithetical to African morality. It also justified the inevitability of classical liberal principles in modern Africa.

17

Authors: Rossen Koroutchev

In this paper we analyze the effect of the current refugee crisis in South-Eastern Europe by making an emphasis on the Bulgarian migration policy. After discussing the legal part, concerning the migration processes in the country, we present the most recent statistics, related to the refugee’s panorama in Bulgaria. Several current problems are analyzed such as the dynamics of the detainees at the borders and inside the country, the trafficking, the asylum applications and the corresponding decisions, as well as other aspects related to the specific migration policies and their management. Finally we discuss some recommendations for a better sustainability as well as some important geopolitical issues, related to the disadvantageous position of the country as a entry gate to the EU and the concern regarding the EU-Turkish agreement in migration and resettlement.

11

Authors: Ljupco Ristovski

Morality and ethics are among the most influential factors affecting society’s development throughout history. There is a slight difference between the terms ethics and morality. Ethics derives from mankind’s experience throughout history and in actuality it represents the essence of the ethical rules and principles derived from the human understanding of the differentiation between good and evil. Whereas morality defers from this definition of ethics in the sense that morality has its origin in religion and theology. Morality in politics or the Moral politics has gradually succeeded in conquering the public scene. The contemporary world that we live in today is facing many challenges that have a moral auspice; humankind needs more answers. An adequate academic approach is needed and further public discussion entails. Societal involvement is crucial in any attempts of finding the most appropriate response to the challenges of the modern world encumbered by ethical and moral issues.

14

Authors: Francesco Trupia

This paper aims to lead an overview on Nagorno-Karabakh rivalry between Armenia and Azerbaijan in order to highlight the frozen state of affairs through an alternative prospective left currently out within the peacekeeping operations. Therefore, main attention is not paid to OSCE-Minks attempts to unfreeze the ethnic conflict, however to the role of collective trauma and historical imaginary to point out the Other question that will be performing a structural role when the two-decades-war will be hopefully over. Hence, what is to be forgotten from wrenching past? How will the figure of the Other – no matter Armenian or Azerbaijani – affect the post-conflict scenario currently negated by cultural prejudices and political propaganda?

21

Authors: William Barclay

This essay demonstrates that, although modern liberals incessantly promote the EU as a living exemplar for the virtues of contemporary liberalism and basic, unrestrictive, migration policies, the experiences of innumerable contemporary EU states, such as France, contradict these spurious claims, since, instead of becoming enriched or improved, countless EU states have deteriorated and become fraught with social conflict, insecurity, and instability, as a result of their minimally restrictive, liberal, migration policies and consequent penetration with foreign, inherently contradictory ideology. Furthermore, this essay demonstrates that, despite the ignorant exclamations of modern liberals, the inviolable patriarch of liberalism, the Baron de Montesquieu, in addition to the pre-eminent, indispensable, paterfamilias of realism, Niccolò Machiavelli, explicitly confirm that, if any state fails to adequately restrict the migration of people and ideas across its borders, then that state will inevitably become penetrated by a foreign, inherently contradictory, ideology, and, consequently, eviscerated by an unrelenting insecurity.

9

Authors: Ljupco Ristovski

The European idea of uniting the countries of the European continent is the impetus for attracting and transformation of post communist societies. The process of harmonization of legislation is a systematic attempt at regulation of relations in society through the establishment of valuable principles and adoption of established standards in the management of states and economies. The dilemma is whether it is possible a sustainable development transformation by simply copying the institutional and legal system solutions from Europe, without involving moral value body of principles and standards in ruling the states? The purpose of the paper is to offer a reasoned response on ways how this collision to be resolved, whether the transition can be performed only in a systematic manner, institutionally and legally, or must go in parallel with social intervention in the cultural set and moral value corpus based on verified and approved ethical values, principles and standards.

10

Authors: Katarina Jonev, Hatidza Berisa and Jovanka Sharanovic

The authors of this paper deal with the role of the USA in the post-Cold War world and their position from the standpoint of relevant indicators and theoretical considerations. This work also refers to path that the United States took from isolationism to the world domination and considers justification of the position of the USA in the period after the Cold War from the point of hegemonic stability theories, while at the end indicates the diversity of understanding of contemporary thinkers regarding the position of the United States as the hegemon or rather “just” a global leader. This paper does not prejudge the final definition of the position of the USA in international relations, but aims to launch discussions on the necessity and justification of the existence of such vision on a global scale.

17

Authors: Hamid Bouyahi

Most of the analysis of the Arab spring revolved around the immediate causes of the events and the role of social media in spreading the protests, in countries that succeeded in toppling their regimes. For this reason, this study adopts a different approach to tackle the long-term development of the Political opportunity structures that set the grounds for the emergence of these movements. To avoid the bias of focusing only on movements that succeeded, the paper compares the conditions of the emergence of the Egyptian movement that toppled the Mubarak regime in eighteen days, to the Moroccan movement that faded after a year of weekly protests. Instead of discussing the immediate context in which the movements appeared, or the course of events that the movements followed, the paper adopts a historical approach to review the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial historical, economic and political developments that created different structures of opportunity and threat in each of the two countries.

11

Authors: Vesna Stefanovska

Extradition as an act of international cooperation for the repression of criminal activities of the criminal offenders is one of the various models whereby one sovereign state delivers up the alleged accused criminals found within its jurisdiction, on demand, to another sovereign state, so that they might be dealt with according to the penal laws. Extradition has evolved among states because they are vitally interested in the repression of crimes and punishment of criminals who violate their national laws and thus disturb the general peace of the society. This article aims to describe the problems with which extradition is faced, especially with the obligation to extradite and with the obligation to take care of her own citizens in situations when the Constitution does not allow extradition of own nationals and in the absence of an extradition treaty.

15

Authors: William Barclay

Unfortunately, modern liberals have long misrepresented and misused the foundational principles of liberalism, in order to claim that the fundamental function of every democratic state is the pursuit of its citizens’ liberty, as well as to viciously attack all states and leaders that do not consider liberty to be sacrosanct. Via an appeal to the essential works of liberalism and realism, this paper has thoroughly contradicted the claims of modern liberalism and has definitively argued that security, not liberty, is the fundamental purpose of every state. Furthermore, this paper has comprehensively analyzed the USA, in order to demonstrate that, if a state sacrifices the liberty of its citizenry in order to maintain its national security, then the state’s actions are not merely just and ethical vis-à-vis its citizenry, but, rather, fulfill the state’s fundamental, protective, function and are, in fact, an inevitable, benevolent, aspect of the state’s existence.

18

Authors: Josipa Rizankoska and Jasmina Trajkoska

The myth that the Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA) can be the ‘cure’ for fragile heterogeneous societies has been debunked shortly before its 10th anniversary. The general research question of this article is how political parties in Macedonia assess the role of the OFA in building functioning multiethnic society, while the specific puzzle is what accounts for the radicalism of the nationalistic rhetoric of the political parties in Macedonia? We argue that the assessment of the successfulness of the OFA implementation would depend on the parties’ position of power and the type of ethnic community (majority, majority minority or non-majority minority). We find the bad economic situation and the exclusion from government to be the most perceived radicalizers of nationalistic party rhetoric in Macedonia. This case study uses qualitative analyses of thirty semi-structured interviews with high representatives of 26 most important political parties in Macedonia.

10

Authors: Giovanni Brancato, Alessandro Ricci and Melissa Stolfi

This article investigates the migrants’ representation in the Italian talk shows and how new reading frames are developed after the Paris terrorist attacks in November 2015. The theoretical framework is composed by studies on migrants’ representation in media. After recognition of all the primetime Italian talk shows that have been broadcasted in the period between 14 November 2015 and 14 January 2016, we have chosen three: Ballarò, Quinta Colonna e Piazza Pulita. The selected corpus has been analyzed using the typical tools of the content analysis as investigation applied to the narrative-conversational structure of talk shows.

11

Authors: Hatidza Berisa, Katarina Jonev and Igor Barisic

The region of Middle East has been for centuries space of interweaving of interests of power holders, both within the countries of the region and major world powers. The favorable geographical position and significant reserves of natural resources, principally oil, make the Middle East, in terms of security, very sensitive. Clash of civilizations and religions in the region and the locations of the most important holy places for both Christianity and Islam were historically a stumbling rock and a great obstacle to peace and prosperity. The aim of this article is to point out and to attempt to answer the question how Islamic State can influence on a global security. Considering the complexity of the security reality in the Middle East, it can be said that the importance is reflected in the fact that it provides a contribution to its knowing the aspect that arises from the problem issues.

20-29

Authors: Bistra Netkova

Discrimination against women based on the fact that they are women is a deeply rooted practice in all societies. However, the level of discrimination varies greatly with the level of development of the given society and strongly influences and vice versa it is influenced by the status of women in a given society. Addressing this gender-based discrimination is a difficult task because it is closely linked to the concept of equality, and state’s action and inactions. The article establishes that the States parties’ obligation is to ensure that there is no direct or indirect discrimination against women in their laws, sanctions, and other remedies and those women are protected against discrimination in the public, as well as, in the private spheres.

45-54

Authors: Iryna Sukhorolska

Public diplomacy is an effective, steadily evolving foreign policy tool used all over the world. In the context of current global trends promoting one’s own values and the way of thinking as an objective of public diplomacy is of special interest. Democracy and human rights are among the main values of the Western countries and are promoted by them through a wide range of measures aimed at foreign country’s authorities as well as foreign public including different target audiences. This paper addresses the foundations of public diplomacy activity aimed at democracy promotion abroad. It states that the value of democracy is advantageous to public diplomacy of the West and allows it to hold leading positions offering an attractive model of development for the rest of the world. Democratization measures in conditions of gradual development of democratic institutions as well as in crisis situations are considered.

69-83

Authors: Mohamed Belamghari

Security has on a continuous basis posed multiple challenges to so many countries around the world over the past few years. The attempt to maintain world order has been a prerequisite for quite many countries, headed by the USA, especially as challenges of terrorism accrue day by day. Therefore, the present paper is set on a venture to question whether such attempts are to be met and whether there might rise a world power that can turn over all conventional understandings of world security paradigms.