One of the most fundamental and yet challenging issues in the philosophy of criminal law is understanding the relationship between morality and law, and determining the limits of the moral legitimacy of criminalization. In this context, Aristotelian moral philosophy—centered on concepts such as eudaimonia, virtue, and justice—provides important theoretical resources for grounding the principles of criminalization. However, common interpretations of Aristotle often suggest that he advocates a complete overlap between individual morality and legal regulation. A careful examination of his works, particularly within the framework of justice theory, reveals a clear and essential distinction between moral faults and legal faults.This study critically reexamines Aristotle’s conception of justice as a form of virtue, to clarify this distinction and explore its implications for the foundations of criminalization. The central question of this article is to investigate Aristotle’s theory of justice in relation to virtue, and to derive its implications for criminal law. The objectives of the study are: first, to explore the relationship between individual virtue and social justice within Aristotle’s ethical-political system; second, to analyze the role of key Aristotelian ethical concepts—such as good intention, the mean, practical wisdom (phronesis), and justice—in determining the limits of legislation; and third, to clarify the fundamental distinction between moral faults and legally punishable acts from Aristotle’s perspective. Ultimately, the study aims to establish the criterion of “harm to others” as the cornerstone of the legitimacy of criminalization in the Aristotelian framework.The research employs an analytical-critical methodology, drawing primarily from Aristotle’s key texts, particularly the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics. The methodology involves conceptual analysis of virtue ethics, logical deduction of its implications for criminal law, and critique of reductionist interpretations of Aristotelian justice. An interdisciplinary approach, bridging moral philosophy and the philosophy of criminal law, is also utilized.The findings indicate that Aristotelian ethics, with its emphasis on eudaimonia as the ultimate goal of human life, conceives virtue as a dispositional state grounded in conscious choice and situated within the mean between extremes. The full realization of virtue requires the simultaneous presence of good intention and right action, meaning that ethical judgment ultimately depends on the agent’s motivation. Key concepts in this ethical system—such as the mean, which is context- and person-dependent, and practical wisdom (phronesis), the capacity to discern the right course of action in particular circumstances—are inherently agent-centered and situational. Consequently, Aristotelian ethics cannot directly provide a basis for fixed legal rules, since determining the right action requires the judgment of a virtuous agent (phronimos) in a specific context, and cannot be reduced to universal principles.Justice, in this framework, serves as the bridge between virtue and law. Aristotle distinguishes between general (universal) justice and particular (specific) justice. General justice refers to complete virtue in relation to others and conformity with the law, thus defining the scope of legislation and criminalization. Particular justice, on the other hand, is divided into distributive justice—concerned with the allocation of resources and positions based on merit—and corrective or rectificatory justice, aimed at restoring balance after harm has occurred. Crucially, from Aristotle’s perspective, the domain of law is defined by the criterion of “harm to others.” In other words, legitimate legislation is not intended to guide individual morality, but rather to preserve collective well-being and prevent harm to others. This criterion establishes a clear boundary between moral faults—concerned with individual character—and legal faults or punishable acts.The study demonstrates that Aristotle does not conflate individual morality with law. Certain acts, such as murder, theft, and adultery, may be regarded as “pre-legal” or “intrinsically wrong” because they inherently disrupt human relations, regardless of positive law. Therefore, the central criterion for criminalization in the Aristotelian framework is objective harm to others, or the undermining of the common good and the conditions necessary for societal flourishing. This perspective explicitly rejects legal paternalism, which involves government intervention solely for individual welfare without harm to others.Although practical wisdom is an individual attribute, mechanisms can be devised to institutionalize it within legislation and adjudication. The legislator, acting as a phronetic agent, can identify and criminalize public vices—collective patterns of behavior harmful to society—while considering the common good and citizens’ flourishing. Likewise, judges can assess intent, conscious choice, and situational factors through practical wisdom to determine the extent of criminal liability. Thus, virtue theory informs not only the definition of criminal acts but also the assessment of legal responsibility.In conclusion, Aristotelian virtue ethics, despite being agent-centered and context-sensitive, provides a coherent moral foundation for criminalization through the lens of justice and the central criterion of “harm to others.” In this framework, legitimate criminal legislation rests on two pillars: first, the criminalization of intrinsically harmful pre-legal acts, such as murder and theft; and second, the criminalization of public vices that objectively undermine collective welfare and citizens’ potential for flourishing. This approach, by avoiding both moral relativism and legal paternalism and by clearly distinguishing between individual ethics and law, offers a balanced and coherent solution to the problem of criminalization. In this model, the practical wisdom of legislators and judges replaces rigid, inflexible rules without leading to subjectivism or arbitrariness in law.
<p>This article analyzes the origins and evolution of public administration by framing it as collective action aimed at achieving common goals. It highlights cooperation and purpose as the defining features of administration and shows how administrative systems develop in response to environmental, geographical, and political challenges. Drawing on historical examples, the article illustrates how different contexts have produced distinct forms of state organization. A key component of the analysis is the theory of the social contract as articulated by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Their ideas offer contrasting justifications for political authority, ranging from the need for security and order to the protection of natural rights and the assertion of popular sovereignty. The article also examines the practical and normative limits of these theories. Finally, the study compares major European administrative models, particularly the Napoleonic and Germanic traditions, emphasizing differences in centralization, legalism, federalism, and bureaucratic professionalism. It concludes that public administration is shaped by a persistent tension between state effectiveness and democratic accountability.</p>
Many Indonesian literary works contain gender narratives, particularly violence against women. This study explores intersectional violence in a comparatively within the short stories “Penguburan Kembali Sitaresmi”, “Jemari Nayla”, and “Leteh”. By combining Galtung’s theory of violence and Crenshaw’s intersectionality, this research conducts a close reading to interpret the data in accordance with the theory, comparative analysis, as well as the socio-political context that allows the depiction of such violence. The findings are as follows. In the first short story, direct violence (murder) and structural violence (marginalization) are depicted. In this violence, gender intersects with class of occupation and political identity constructed by the military and the state toward women. In the second short story, Nayla experiences ongoing violence in both the past and present. The sexual violence in the past, which intersectionally occurs due to power relations of position and age, produces traumatic memories. These memories lead to a bad identity, causing her to experience future violence in the form of marginalization by her husband. In the third short story, structural violence (stigmatization) takes place. Intersectional identities do not appear in the narrative, but link gender relations to development. The intersectionality in this story shows that there are structures, processes, and institutions that position women as passive and non-contributory to development. From the comparison of the three, similarities can be drawn, but in general, violence against women is heterogeneous, emerging within specific socio-political contexts.
Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology, Philosophy. Psychology. Religion
Although platform work is becoming increasingly important, and increasingly present in the public discourse, its representation in the media remains insufficiently researched. In Poland, the simultaneous changes brought about by platformisation and the growing diversification of society due to immigration are evident, with many migrants choosing platform work for various reasons. Media functions as a site where competing meanings of platformisation and migration are articulated, contested, and potentially normalised. This research paper examines how migrant platform workers are represented in Polish online media between 2022 and 2024, a period marked by significant changes in migration flows and platform labour regulation. Drawing on a corpus of 80 news articles published across outlets of diverse political orientations, the study applies a qualitative framing analysis informed by social constructionism and media theory. The analysis identifies three dominant frames – neoliberal, portraying migrants as flexible entrepreneurs and economic assets; solidarity, emphasising precarity, exploitation, and empathy; and securitisation, constructing migrants as sources of risk or threat. The findings highlight how narratives about platforms and migration are fragmented and often contradictory, oscillating between inclusion, protection, and exclusion. The study contributes to debates on platformisation and migration by showing how Polish media discourses not only reflect but also participate in the production of “common sense” understandings of digital labour, mobility, and worker rights.
This study analyzes, according to the structural model, the functioning of the fundamental elements (phonemes, tonems and syllable) of the phonology of Mboxó, a language of the Bantu family of the area, spoken by the Mboxó, a population who inhabit Mbomo, in the north-west of the Republic of Congo. In addition, this study analyzes the functioning of the syllable by identifying its different structures and the number of syllables per item in this language. Finally, this study addresses aspects related to syntagmatic phonology such as assimilation and vowel elision.
Sumegha Asthana, Sanjana Mukherjee, Alexandra L. Phelan
et al.
Summary: Background: Decision-making during health crises differs from routine decision-making and is constrained by ambiguity about evolving epidemiological situations, urgency of response, lack of evidence, and fear. Recent analyses of governance and decision-making during COVID-19, focusing on leadership qualities, involvement of specific stakeholders, and effective resource management, do not adequately address a persisting gap in understanding the determinants of decision-making during health crises at the national level. Methods: We undertook a study to understand the processes and characteristics of decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore. We used a case study approach and collected empirical evidence about public health decision-making, using a combination of key informant interviews and focus group discussions with stakeholders from government, academia and civil society organizations. Findings: We argue that administrative centralization and political legitimacy played important roles in agile governance and decision-making during the pandemic in Singapore. We demonstrate the role of the Singapore government's centralization in creating a unified and coherent governance model for emergency response and the People's Action Party's (PAP) legitimacy in facilitating people's trust in the government. Health system resilience and financial reserves further facilitated an agile response, yet community participation and prioritization of vulnerable migrant populations were insufficient in the governance processes. Interpretation: Our analysis contributes to the theory and practice of crisis decision-making by highlighting the role of political and administrative determinants in agile crisis decision-making. Funding: This study is funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through a Cooperative Research Agreement (NU2HGH2020000037).
Colombia and Venezuela share a geographical border of 1,274 miles. Although both countries have historically had contentious border crossings, the antagonistic nature of migration across the borderlands has increased following Venezuela’s current internal political crisis. The article argues that Venezuela’s political climate has led to further securitisation of migration across the Colombian-Venezuelan border. It supports this argument in three ways. First, the article discusses the border as both a geographical and a man-made border. It also examines the similarities and differences that exist across the Colombian-Venezuelan border. The countries share the same language, Spanish, which unites the region and its diverse peoples with a shared history. Nevertheless, socio-economic, environmental and cultural differences widen the dividing lines between these two nations.
Second, the article explores the border crossing (migration) trends. The article further discusses the effects and reasons for such border crossings. Third, it explains the securitisation theory and uses it to discuss how the border has become increasingly securitised by local and international actors. Finally, the article calls for a de-securitised approach to cross-border migration. In this regard, the article supports greater bilateral, regional and international cooperation to address the plight of people crossing the border and living in border regions
Jacob Yarassoula YARABATIOULA, Kiswendsida Paul Ismaël NANA
Since the 1950s, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been used in virtually every field of activity, ranging from sectors such as health to agriculture, banking, finance, armaments, etc. Thus, the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) are not on the sidelines. This ICC-IA filiation has grown over the years in advanced ecosystems such as the Americas, Europe and even Asia. In light of the revolutions they generate, the uses of Artificial Intelligence in the Burkinabe cultural and creative industries are grounds for several apprehensions and questions. This article aims to immerse ourselves in the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and Cultural and Creative Industries in Burkina Faso, which is marked by upheavals in the processes of actors in the links of the different value chains, resistance on the part of conservative actors, socio-political, economic, technical-artistic issues as well as many challenges to be met.
Abstrak - Apakah Penghindaran Pajak Disebabkan oleh Koneksi Politik dan Karakteristik Eksekutif?
Tujuan utama – Penelitianaini bertujuan untuk mengkaji peran koneksi politik dan karakteristik eksekutif faktor dalam penghindaran pajak.
Metode - Analisis regresialinear berganda dan moderasi digunakan sebagai metode analisis. Perusahaan manufaktur yang tercatat dalam Bursa Indonesia selama periode 2017 hingga 2019 merupakan sampel pada penelitian ini.
Temuan utama - Hasil penelitian ini mengungkapkan bahwa karakteristik eksekutif merupakan faktor pendorong perusahaan untuk lebih berani melakukan penghindaran pajak. Tindakan penghindaran pajak semakin meningkat apabila eksekutif bersifat risk taker. Sebaliknya, koneksi politik bukan faktor penyebab penghindaran pajak.
Implikasi Teori dan Kebijakan - Buruknya kontrol dan pengawasan dari principal selaku pemilik perusahaan membuat agen cenderung melakukan tindakan berisiko. Prinsipal dan pemerintah harus memberikan pengawasan yang lebih optimal dan transparansi yang tinggi dengan mengaplikasikan tata kelola perusahaan yang baik.
Kebaruan Penelitian – Penelitian ini menawarkan solusi tata kelola perusahaan yang baik untuk mengurangi kecurangan akuntansi (khususnya pada aspek penghindaran pajak) yang dilakukan pihak eksekutif perusahaan.
Abstract - Is Tax Avoidance Caused by Political Connections and Executive Characteristics?
Main Purpose – This study examines the role of political connections and executive characteristics of factors in tax avoidance.
Method - Multiple linear regression and moderation analysis was used as the method. Manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2017 to 2019 are the sample.
Main Findings - The results of this study reveal that executive characteristics are a motivating factor for companies to be more daring to do tax avoidance. Tax avoidance measures increase if the executive is a risk-taker. On the other hand, political connections are not a factor in tax avoidance.
Theory and Practical Implications - Poor control and supervision from the principal as the company owner makes agents tend to take risky actions. Principals and the government must provide more optimal leadership and high transparency by applying good corporate governance.
Novelty – This study offers an excellent corporate governance solution to reduce accounting fraud (especially in the aspect of tax avoidance) by corporate executives.
The present article aims to identify stylistic figures, providing intertextual connections of American presidents’ inaugural addresses with other texts which are of great importance to the USA and the American nation. Stylistic figures are figurative and expressive means of connecting texts of the past with texts of the present. The stylistic figures “allusion”, “application”, “paraphrase”, and “citation” have been analysed in the inaugural addresses delivered by four American presidents (2001–2021) – George Bush Jr., Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joseph Biden. These stylistic figures determine intertextual contacts of the inaugural addresses with the texts which characterize the country’s historical and modern development – the United States Declaration of Independence, John Page’s letter to Thomas Jefferson, the Constitution of the United States, the past Presidents’ speeches, patriotic songs. Inaugural addresses form a well-established genre in political discourse, and this genre is aimed at integrating and inspiring the people as well as at performing and establishing President’s and his administration’s general policies. The analysis of the genre of the “inaugural address” is an integral part of political discourse research. Political discourse is perceived as a system of communication that has real and virtual measures. The analysis of stylistic figures which provide intertextual connections belongs to the study of the virtual measure of political discourse – its semiotic area. The analysis conducted in the article is based on political discourse research, intertextuality theory, critical discourse analysis theory as well as on practical papers on presidential communication. This article’s methodology includes methods of observation, deduction, induction, controlled sampling, and the method of discourse analysis. Having analyzed the inaugural addresses and having identified the stylistic figures which incorporate other texts into the inaugural addresses, the author concludes that, firstly, the ideas and principles formulated in the past and implemented in the country’s development concept are sacred and unshakeable, and secondly, these ideas and principles have a great impact on the American nation’s consolidation and integration.
Theory and practice of education, Philology. Linguistics
Recently, there has been apprehension in the society about expressing ideas, particularly on political concerns. As a result, public figures such as comedians tend to use sarcasm as their primary weapon in exposing political leaders' weakness, incompetence, or corrupt behavior, as well as government officials' actions. The goal of this research is to look at the form, meaning, and function of sarcasm on the TikTok account @Podcastkeseaje. All of the utterances said by the narrator or speakers in the video recording from the TikTok account @podcastkeselaje are used as data sources in this study. Indirect observation was used to obtain data, which was then followed by recording and note-taking techniques. The data were examined using Camp's (2012) theory for the form of sarcasm, Chaer's (2009) theory for the meaning of sarcasm, and Chaer's (2009) theory for the meaning of sarcasm.
Is architecture relevant for political theory? That is the key question that structures this excellent collection Political Theory and Architecture, although a number of essays fit a broader formulated theme better, namely, concerning the political relevance of the organization and design of our built environment more generally, including architecture but also spatial planning and urban design. The collection demonstrates that our build environment is not merely a passive backdrop to a political community, but actively shapes aspects of our common political life. This constitutive nature of our built environment figures in many different guises throughout this volume. In this review article, I discuss some of these and conclude that concerns about the ‘common good’ and hence about the discipline of political theory should take reflections on urban design, planning, and architecture into account.
The interaction between society and literary work dates back to antiquity. Over time, various ways of approaching the literary text through the prism of sociality have emerged, starting with positivist criticism and culminating in sociocriticism. Sociocriticism, however, through the analyzes it proposes, at the semantic, syntactic and narrative levels, is an attempt, at a higher level, to return to literarity, ensuring an global text analysis. In terms of approaches, sociocritics knows several schools and individual researchers. One of them is Pierre Zima. Zima distinguishes a sociology of the text whose task is to examine the representations of social problems at the linguistic level. According to him, the work is at the intersection of literature and social languages. In Zima’s vision, the sociology of the text aims to reveal the collective interests, the social, economic struggles and political, starting from the study of the lexical, semantic, syntactic field, the intertextual reading of literary work, decipherment of sociolects and discourses, etc. Thus, sociocriticism becomes a reinventory of the theory of Bahtinian dialogism.
تناول هذا البحث تحليل واقع إنتاجية العمل في قطاع الخدمات في الجمهورية العربية السورية خلال السنوات (1985- 2010)، وتقدير العوامل الأكثر تأثيراً في مستوى هذه الإنتاجية باستخدام أساليب القياس الاقتصادي الحديثة متمثلةُ بمنهجية ARDL؛ وذلك بهدف استخدام هذه التقديرات في وضع السياسات و الخطط المناسبة لاسيَّما المرحلة القادمة من البناء وإعادة الإعمار والتنمية لرفع مستوى إنتاجية العمل في الاقتصاد السوري بشكل عام، وفي قطاع الخدمات بشكل خاص.
توصّلت الدراسة إلى وجود علاقة توازنية طويلة الأجل بين إنتاجية العمل في قطاع الخدمات السوري ومحدداتها قيد الدراسة من خلال تقدير نموذجين؛ ظهرت فيهما إسهام رأس المال المادي والانفتاح والتعليم بمؤشريه (متوسط عدد سنوات الدراسة، ونسبة الإنفاق على التعليم إلى الناتج المحلي الإجمالي بشكل موجب وفعّال في دالة إنتاجية العمل في القطاع المدروس، في حين كان تأثير الاستثمار الأجنبي المباشر في هذه الدالة سالباً ومعنوياً.
This article shows that how we look at political rent and rent-seeking depends on our position on state interference in the economy and which theory of regulation we are familiar with. Although the theory of rent-seeking is in accordance with the paradigm of the private interest (economic) theories of regulation, the researcher also needs an insight based on the public interest theories of regulation if he wants to judge the impact of rent-seeking and the creation of political rent on social well-being properly. The paper is also a conceptualization of political rent. It describes forms of rent-seeking and economic systems most amenable to it.
<p class="p1">In a search for appropriate theory, this essay inserts drug trafficking, the world’s largest illicit economic activity, within a wider analytical frame called the ‘covert netherworld.’ Through the convergence of three factors—covert operations, illicit commerce, and social milieu—such netherworlds can form at regional, national, and international levels, thereby transforming social margins of crime and illicit commerce into potent sources of political change. By deftly playing upon this netherworld’s politics and illicit commerce along the Burma-Thai borderlands, a regional ‘drug lord’ amassed sufficient local power to dominate the global heroin trade for over a decade and simultaneously sustain an ethnic revolt for nearly 15 years. In the Philippines, the illicit traffic in synthetic drugs developed a parallel power to influence the character of national politics, compromising three presidential administrations and shaping the moral economy of political life. For the past 40 years in Afghanistan, an illicit commodity, opium, has shaped the fate of military intervention by the world’s sole superpower, allowing it an initial success and later contributing to its ongoing failure. Through the sum of these cases, the essay concludes that the covert netherworld can serve as invisible incubator for a range of extralegal activities and has thereby attained sufficient autonomy to be treated as a significant factor in international politics.</p>
Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology, Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
Este artigo trata dos principais partidos que representam a tradição stalinista em nosso país: o PCB e o PC do B. O Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB), fundado em 1922, foi hegemônico na esquerda brasileira durante décadas e se constituiu no tronco principal do marxismo em nosso País. Este partido incor-porou a concepção de partido marxista-leninista e a teoria e cultura políticas pre-valecentes no movimento comunista internacional com a vitória de Stálin contra Trotsky no seio do Partido Comunista da URSS e da III Internacional. Evidente-mente, há outras organizações e grupos permeados pela tradição stalinista. Aqui, nos limitaremos à análise do PCB e o PC do B, procurando apreender suas mu-danças políticas e ideológicas e reações ao impacto dos acontecimentos no Leste Europeu, isto é, os elementos de superação e manutenção da tradição stalinista.
Abstract: This article discusses the two principal parties representing the Stálinist tradition in our country: PCB and PC do B. The Brazialian Cmmunist Party (PCB), established in 1922, was hegemonic among Brazilian leftists for decades and was the hardcore of Marxism in our country. This party embodied the concepts of a Marxist-Leninist party and the prevailing theory and political culture of the inter-national communist movement when Stálin defeated Trotsky within the URSS Communist Party and the Third International Socialist Association. Evidently there are other organizations and groups pervaded by the Stálinist tradition. Our analysis, however, will be restricted to PCB and to PC do B, trying to understand their political and ideological transformations and their reactions to the impact of the events in Eastern Europe: the overcoming or the maintenance of the Stálinist tradition.
Latin America. Spanish America, Social sciences (General)
H. G. Wells’s The Rights of Man (1940)—which provided the groundwork for the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights—has been re-released with a new Introduction by novelist Ali Smith, who reminds us of Wells’s political prophetic call for “a real federation of mankind,” and of the fact that we have still failed to meet the future he envisioned. If we are to catch up with Wells, we must, however, examine the foundations of Wells’s “cosmopolitan” vision, which requires examining both his scientific non-fiction and his scientific romances. Looking to Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau in particular, and the influence of Wells’s early scientific essays on Moreau’s narrative, we get a picture of Wells as a writer and a man who is anxious about the identity and future of the human species, but who nevertheless puts his faith in the “apparatuses” of “education and moral suggestion,” which are held together by “common faith.” Much like Charles Taylor and Simon Critchley, Wells calls for more than a political reconstitution, or institution, of right: he calls for a new cosmic imaginary, or supreme fiction, that has the potential to redeem and preserve the human species.
State audit institutions constitute a very important part of the contemporary model of state. Auditors (people employed by state audit institutions), being professionals, should fulfill many duties which are customarily assigned to them by the society. In their daily work auditors should observe statutes and codes of ethics. The ethics of auditors of the Supreme Audit Office (Najwyższa Izba Kontroli) is held in high regard among rules of conduct for auditors. It serves a model for ethics in other state audit institutions, such as the National Labour Inspectorate (Państwowa Inspekcja Pracy) or Regional Chambers of Audit (regionalne izby obrachunkowe). Ethics of auditors is a special kind of ethics expected from public administration employees.
Jurisprudence. Philosophy and theory of law, Political science (General)