On Myth,Considered as a Method for Legal Thought

The textual form of law relates to language and not to narration but to myth. Law's text does not develop in the temporal sequence of past-present-future, but spreads by analogy of concentric circles. If ‘normal’ myth is a folklore of people then the law is a myth retold by lawyers. For the sake of separation of legal myth from mythology as a whole, law creates its own rituals. In post-modern societies the mythologization of law becomes even more important as the boundaries between legal and lay communities are challenged. Classical legal theories cannot deal with this change and Kafka's The Trial is as good a jurisprudence as any other legal theory. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Heart embolization with the Kirschner wire without cardiac tamponade

The case of the heart embolization with the Kirschner wire that was used for shoulder trauma fixation, 2 years previously in a 67-year-old female, is reported. This case is unique; although embolization of foreign bodies to the heart is not a novel occurrence, heart embolization with non-broken Kirschner wire with a total length of 13.5 cm without cardiac tamponade was not described in medical literature so far.     

Ethnic Discrimination and the Discourse of “Indigenization”: The Regional Regime, “Indigenous Majority” and Ethnic Minorities in Krasnodar Krai in Russia

King Alexander's dictatorship in Yugoslavia (proclaimed in January 1929) was an expression of a real political need for consolidation in the country; however, in essence, it was an autocratic and repressive regime. More decisive moves toward a return of democracy did not occur, even later, after the replacement of his regime in June 1935. The political methods in the internal political life followed the pattern from the first half of the 1930s to the very eve of World War II. Such a situation also defined the relationship between the Slovenes and Yugoslavia. Slovene politics continued to look at the state from two angles – a unitary/centralist angle on the one hand and an autonomist/federalist angle on the other. Both camps (as well as other Yugoslav political players), however, failed to create an environment that would enable truly democratic compromises. The state was stuck at a “standstill,” but in spite of all its flaws, in the view of the Slovene political groups it represented the most suitable environment for the political and national life of Slovenes. Any serious political calculations that would go beyond this framework hardly existed.     

Transnistrian strategy in the context of Russian–Ukrainian relations: the rise and failure of ‘dual alignment’

Abstract

The diversification of allegiances with several more powerful states is seen as a way for minor actors to improve their strategic position in the international system. The result, however, could become less than desirable when these relations are both essential and contradictory. This article intends to examine the challenges for Transnistrian foreign policy through the concepts of bandwagoning and balancing. It uses alternative neorealist perspectives to identify various types of alignment and then examines how this landlocked territorial entity attempts to use relations with Russia and Ukraine to protect its statehood and identity in the context of the ongoing threat from Moldova. This article identifies that twice in the last decade (after the Orange Revolution and Euromaidan), the strategy of ‘dual alignment’ failed. It claims that recent attempts by both the EU and Ukraine to weaken Russia’s position in the region by isolating Transnistria has led to a further strengthening of ties between this actor and Moscow.     

Russian Central Government Budgeting and Public Sector Reform Discourses: Paradigms,Hybrids, and a “Third Way”

ABSTRACT

This study explores how public sector reform discourses are reflected in Russian central government budgeting. Through the lenses of institutional logics, Russian central government budgeting is considered to be a social institution that is influenced by rivaling reform paradigms: Public Administration, New Public Management (NPM), the Neo-Weberian State, and New Public Governance. Although NPM has dominated the agenda during the last decade, all four have been presented in “talks” and “decisions” regarding government budgeting. The empirical evidence illustrates that the implementation of management accounting techniques in the Russian public sector has coincided with and contradicted the construction of the Russian version of bureaucratic governance, which is referred to as the vertical of power. Having been accompanied by participatory mechanisms and a re-evaluation of the Soviet legacy, the reforms have created prerequisites for various outcomes at the level of budgeting practices: conflicts, as in the UK, and hybridization, as in Finland.