How Do Non-Democratic Regimes Claim Legitimacy? Comparative Insights from Post-Soviet Countries

The analysis using the new Regime Legitimation Expert Survey (RLES) demonstrates that non-democratic rulers in post-Soviet countries use specific combinations of legitimating claims to stay in power. Most notably, rulers claim to be the guardians of citizens' socioeconomic well-being. Second, despite recurrent infringements on political and civil rights, they maintain that their power is rule-based and embodies the will of the people, as they have been given popular electoral mandates. Third, they couple these elements with inputbased legitimation strategies that focus on nationalist ideologies, the personal capabilities and charismatic aura of the rulers, and the regime's foundational myth. Overall, the reliance on these input-based strategies is lower in the western post-Soviet Eurasian countries and very pronounced among the authoritarian rulers of Central Asia

Democratic legitimacy in the era of fiscal integration

While several countries still struggle to return to sustainable growth and Euroscepticism has shown growing strength ever since the 2014 European Elections, Europe is slowly advancing on the path of fiscal integration. This paper reassesses how legitimacy is provided and why the advancing economic and fiscal integration constitutes a ‘genetic change’ of the Union. The second section discusses the functional deadlock emerging from the interaction between demos democracy and redistribution, which invites the EMU to make a fundamental choice between ‘convergence of the identities’ and ‘convergence of the economies’

Hannah Arendt, Foucault e a reinvenção do espaço público Hannah Arendt, Foucault and the reinvention of the public space

O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar algumas convergências entre o pensamento de Hannah Arendt e o de Foucault. Minha tese a respeito é, que no fundo, ambos os autores visam a um pensamento do aberto e do não determinado, uma alternativa política que vai além de uma política partidista e que aponta para recuperar o espaço público. Política como atividade de criação e de experimentação. A teoria política de Hannah Arendt representa uma tentativa de pensar o acontecimento, de afrontar a contingência, de recusar as imagens e metáforas tradicionais oferecidas para imaginar o político, como uma vontade de agir, de transgredir e superar os limites.<br>The object of this article is to show some convergences between the thought of Hannah Arendt and of Michel Foucault. My thesis is that both authors aims a thought of the openess and not determined, a political alternative that goes beyong the party politics and aims to recover the public space. Politics as activity of creation and experimentation. The political theory of Hannah Arendt represents a tentative to think the event, to affront the contingency and to deny the traditional images and metaphors offered to imagine the political. It is a will to act, to transgress and overcome the limits

Are the short-term cost savings and benefits of an early psychosis program maintained at 8-year follow-up?

This study aims to identify correlates of vocational functioning in a first episode psychosis (FEP) sample 7.5 years after presentation at a specialized early psychosis treatment service. The study involved a prospective, naturalistic follow-up of FEP patients commencing treatment with the Early Psychosis Prevention & Intervention Centre (EPPIC) in Melbourne, Australia, between 1995 and 1997. At treatment entry the Royal Park Multidiagnostic Instrument for Psychosis was used to assess duration of untreated psychosis (DUP), age at onset of psychotic disorder, and premorbid work/social functioning. At 7.5-year follow-up measures included the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (Thinking Disturbance subscale), Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (Alogia subscale), WHO Life Chart Schedule (to assess course of illness, treatment history, and duration of receipt of a disability support pension (DSP)), and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (to derive Axis I diagnoses). Analyses involved 180 participants. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to estimate the effects of demographic, clinical and treatment variables on two outcomes: current employment; and durable employment (employment for more than 6 months in the past 2 years). The sample was primarily male (72%), with a mean age at follow-up of 29 years (sd=3.4). 45% reported current participation in competitive employment at 7.5 year follow-up (28% full-time, 17% part-time), and 53% reported recent durable employment. Multivariate analyses showed that, after controlling for other variables (including positive and negative thought disorder, premorbid functioning, and recent psychiatric treatment), current employment was negatively associated with continuous or episodic illness course characterized by worsening trajectory or incomplete remissions, disrupted education, and receiving a DSP for longer than 2 years. Lifetime diagnosis of schizophrenia, receipt of a DSP (regardless of duration) and disrupted education were negatively associated with durable employment. Educational attainment appears to be an important predictor of vocational outcome in the Australian labor market, although its relationship with premorbid functioning requires further investigation. The inverse relationship between DSP and employment, after controlling for symptom levels and course of illness, supports evidence from US studies that such payments may act as a disincentive to employment