Sovereignty in Islam: A reflection of tradition and contemporariness in modern political systems

Sovereignty in Islam means hakemia in Arabic and it is related to a holder of supreme power in a society, called hakem. In Islamic political and legal theory, a holder of sovereignty is God. God is a holder of supreme power, and above all, a legislator. Thus, in Islamic countries, a secular concept of a state regulation and having nation as a holder of sovereignty, man's rights and freedom of political organization is unacceptable. Moreover, when there is such a regulation in legal and political acts, it contains the previous fact that the sovereignty holder is God, and a nation's sovereignty is limited. Despite numerous changes that have happened in Islamic world during history, this view and understanding of sovereignty has not changed. Until recently, Islamic countries have not had any laws except those regulated by religious authorities. Even when the leaders used their power to proclaim regulations of a laic character, they had to give religious legitimacy to those regulations, and God has been and still is the only holder of sovereignty. Having showed how traditional Islam has treated sovereignty, the aim of the authors is to show how it is treated today. In fact, the autors' intention is to examine whether the idea of God's sovereignty is still present. As previously said, in essence, nothing has changed. Or more precisely, the theory on God as an exclusive sovereignty holder has not changed in almost the entire Islamic world. However, something else has been done, and it is contained in the fact that this view has been wrapped in contemporariness. The paper analyses the issue of sovereignty in Islam through two approaches: the first approach represents a thesis on unity of religion and politics in Islam, while the second one deals with the analyses of political praxis of Islamic states. On the basis of the analyses of Constitutional texts and practice, it is possible to divide Islamic states into three groups. The first group is the one where, by the Constitution, is clearly determined that God is a sovereignty holder; the second one, where a nation or a state has been determined as sovereignty, either as independent holders of sovereignty or in a community with its leader. The third group of states is the one that determines its sovereignty and holder in a similar way as it has been done in Europe and America. According to the Constitutional provision of these states on Islam as a state religion, conclusions on sovereignty of nations and borders have been drawn

Migration management – the cases of Germany and Hungary

The authors of the paper deal with immigration policies, migration management, migration management policy via case study based on the example of two purposefully chosen countries which have diametrically opposite immigration policies. The aim is to see up to which extent and whether these countries are interested into integrating immigrants into their social, legal, political and cultura lspace, through their institutional capacities, by the means of comparative analysis of German and Hungarian immigration policies, their social, demographic and economic structure, and their cultural and security policies. By defining concepts of migration, immigration, integration, immigration policy, migration management, immigration border management, the authors precisely pinpoint the differences, and the causes of those differences, in the policies towards migrants in these two countries

Orthodox Christians and democracy in Serbia

In a significant part of scientific literature and popular works intended for a wider audience, the relationship of Orthodoxy and democracy is often posed as a discussion of two opposing concepts. We can call this 'the thesis of incompatibility', which contains the view that the Orthodox Church has formed dominant Orthodox societies, so that it now faces difficulties in democratization and democratic consolidation. In order to understand the real impact that the membership of Orthodoxy has on democracy, it is necessary, in our opinion, first of all to pay attention to the attitudes of the Orthodox people themselves or to their value orientation, and on that basis consider the proposed explanations (in) compatibility of contemporary interpretation of Orthodox learning and democracy can really be applied to the context of a majority Orthodox society. In this case, we will consider the situation in Serbia, the multiethnic and multiconfessional majority Orthodox state. For our considerations, the parameters of religiosity (religious belief, attitudes towards religious confession and personalized religiosity) are important, as well as the attitude towards various proposed forms of organization of the political community. Based on the data from this study, we have defend four models of political culture. Although the thesis of incompatibility based on our results can be questionable, the data we analyzed still can not draw a clear conclusion that the Orthodox in Serbia have a strong preference for a democratic model of political culture and an appropriate level of participation. They can also be interpreted by a system of values that has been left behind by a society in which much space in the public sphere was left to Orthodox religiousness

Impact of social and security factors on the intensity of integration of immigrants to the EU

The subject of the paper seeks to investigate the influence of social factors on the intensity of immigration of immigrants to the EU. Among the social factors that significantly influence immigration policies in the European Union, the authors singled out the following: demography, identity-culture, economy, socio-political and security factors. The main goal is to see how these social factors affect the intensity of immigration. The authors opt for MIPEX as an instrument for measuring immigration policy, which expresses political tendencies towards the integration of migrants. Based on the findings from the regression analysis, which determined the regression factor of the participation of indicators in correlation with MIPEX, the authors concluded that all indicators have a positive correlation, which indicates that the indicators were chosen correctly. In addition, the degree of regression factor is higher than 5%, which indicates a significant correlation

GROWTH MECHANISM OF KDP CRYSTALS FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTIONS

The results of the effect of the growth history on Potassium Dihydrogen Phosphate (KDP) crystals growth mechanism are presented in the paper. Crystals were grown in temperature range of from aqueous solutions, saturated at . Two types of the experiments were performed. In both types, after the nucleation at  crystals were grown at the same temperature for about 1.5 hour and then dissolved at temperature  for about 15 min. After refaceting, in the first type, the crystal growth started at , followed by the temperature increasing in steps of  to . In the second type, after refaceting the crystal growth started at , followed by the temperature decreasing in steps of  to . Obtained results indicate that KDP crystals growth mechanisms do not depend on growth history. They are discussed in accordance with the current theories

Misuse of psychologically active substances of convicts being in prisons and their treatment

© 2016 Safuadan Plojovic, Slavica Dimitrijevic, Andrijana Maksimovic, Sabina Zejnelagic, Adem Hurem, Muamer Muraspahic. Due to the data of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Serbia, over 70% of persons being in prisons and serving their sentences are drug addicts, and 50% of them are drug users. In the European prisons, the percentage of persons using drugs in the entire prison population is 20-70%, and in the USA 70-80%, in the Australian prisons between 50 and 80% of the convicts in prisons are addicts of psychologically active substances. The results of our survey are pursuant to official statistics data for Serbia, the European countries, USA and Australia, since 80% of our convicts in prisons have misused psychologically active substances during the period of 30 days, the previous period before coming to these institutions. More than a half of our examinees (60%), misuses narcotics and alcohol occasionally or permanently, the alcohol users only 12.7%, and only narcotics 7.3% of the ones, meaning that a treatment of addiction disease should have a significant role in prevention of recidivism