Prof. Mirosław Kofta, a psychologist from the University of Warsaw’s Faculty of Psychology and Institute for Social Studies, discusses political change in Poland, authoritarian personality, and civil society.

Asst. Prof. Piotr Osęka from the PAS Institute of Political Studies explains what groups are being depicted as enemies in the eyes of the Poles and what purposes such propaganda serves.

“Isolation would be most unfortunate. We would be doing science in our own company, completely indifferent to what is happening outside our own universe. This would be totally self-destructive and I hope it will never happen,” says Professor Michał Głowiński in an interview with Grzegorz Wołowiec, titled “A Time Unexpected,” a fragment of which is presented below.

Attitudes, or a person’s internal/mental beliefs about a specific situation, object or concept can greatly influence behaviors. This truth also applies to linguistic choices made by second language students. Their low level of knowledge of cross-cultural differences as well as pragmatic competence intertwined with inner norms and attitude towards politeness can result in producing the discourse which could not be considered appropriate. The fact of using and learning a second language (being bilingual or multilingual) may influence the level of politeness. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the differences existing in the scope of politeness revealed in the written, contrastive (Polish-English) discourse. The corpus under investigation encompasses seventy six emails written in the two languages by English philology students of teachers faculty. The analysis focuses on the level of politeness as exhibited through various forms of hedges and mitigations used both in the Polish and English language.

For at least two centuries Europeans, in particular the political elites of Europe, have assumed that modernity and the rational character of the civilization require a marginalization of religion. A separation and juxtaposition of reason and faith, sci-ence and religion or the state and the church are regarded as almost obvious. Gradual-ly the legitimate principle of religious freedom has started to be understood as a pos-tulate of “purification” of public life from any references to sacrum and religion itself as an area of irrational and random opinions has been located in the private sphere. This has led to the conviction that religion (Christianity) does not have or should not have any significance in social life, the public order, the legal system or the widely understood political sphere . The central issue of the paper, which is the possibility of reversing the direction taken by European civilization, is conditioned not only by making the secularist policy of the West more friendly towards Christian tradition (for instance by grounding it on natural law) but still more by the revitalization of religious life of the Churches and Christian communities.

The article provides a general overview of environmental protection and conservation practice in the Antarctic Treaty area, with special reference to the stipulations of the 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection and its Annexes.

Freedom of research is one of the fundamental principles upon which the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) was founded. Its scope is defined by the limitations imposed by relevant legal rules. They provide among other for prohibition of scientific investigation of military character and declare that no activities — including research — shall constitute a basis for territorial claims in Antarctica. Of particular importance are limitation;' imposed on freedom of research for the benefit of environmental protection. But, contrary to some views, most scholars consider that the freedom of research and the protection of the environment and ecosystems in Antarctica are equally important principles central to the whole ATS. They are inter-dependent and neither one should be attributed priority over the other. In the best interest of science, Antarctic research needs to be controlled to the necessary minimum of environmental impact and risk.

“We can see that all the recent predictions of a better future for the world are largely misguided. It is no longer certain even that the Cold War is definitively a thing of the past,” says Jerzy Szacki, a historian of ideas and sociologist, a professor emeritus of the University of Warsaw, and an ordinary member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Who discussed Polish politics centuries ago, and how? What was the language of that discourse? What values did it invoke? What kind of state did it describe?

This article focuses on the original writing strategy of Elfriede Jelinek in the period of her political commitment (around the year 2000) as a form of artistic protest and positioning in the literary field. Particularly important in this context seems to be the question of the aesthetic criteria of committed literature, that is, the way writers use their linguistic capital to create valuable and important literary texts or essayistic discourses.

The article presents the author’s considerations relating to the current and common problem of multiculturalism. Nowadays “multiculturalism” can be defined as co-existence – in the determined physical, social and political sphere as well as in a concrete historical period of time – of many ethnic groups representing different axiological and normative systems. The social created by multiplicity of ethnic groups is very often a result of migration processes which totally formed such states as Canada or Australia. The sources of the European multiculturalism were, on the one hand, the officially accepted workforce as Federal Republic of Germany, on the other one – immigration being the effect of the colonial past of such states as France, Holland or Britain. All these countries took up more or less advanced actions towards being able to deal with the deepening ethnic diversification. There appeared political project – multiculturalism.

In contrast to Antarctica, the Arctic was for a long time deprived of an adequate system of multilateral international scientific cooperation. That gap was filled in 1990 by the foundation of a non-governmental International Arctic Science Committee (IASC). In this article, the origin, structure, operation and perspectives of that Committee are presented.

Ice constitutes physically, but not legally, a separate element of polar regions, alongside with land, water and air. Lack of clear legal regulations in this respect compells the practitioners to apply often inadequate analogies. The specific status of polar permanent and floating ice calls for urgent and comprehensive legal regulation under general international law, the law of the sea and the law of polar regions, on the ground of the principle of Arctic sectors in the Northern Hemisphere and the Antarctic Treaty System in the Southern Hemisphere, with reference to the relatively rich legal doctrine, discussed in detail below.

Polar stations became subject of keen interest of law-makers as the most effective manifestation of human activities in Antarctica. Legal procedures governing the establishment and regulations on operation and decommission of Antarctic stations are presented in this paper.

The study consists of three parts. The first comprises the characteristic features of social politics strategy. They include the basic assumptions and functions of the social politics strategy in the field of the development of education and aid activities at the level of local units of territorial authorities. The essence of the study is the second part. It consists of the own research results – an analysis of the aims and tasks associated with inclusive education (also with preparing local communities for creating inclusive culture), comprised in strategies. The whole is completed with final conclusions. The study is aimed at the qualitative analysis of the development strategy of 17 communes (3900 pages of documents) as regards the issues of disability. The research interest was to find out whether the slogans promoting the equal access to education, elimination of barriers and preparing mainstream schools and local community for inclusive culture had been reflected in any way in the social politics strategies of local authorities – in the documents which, at least in the assumptions, constitute the starting point for generating good practices, also in the field of social support and education for disabled learners.

While the number of forced migrants moving out of conflict-ridden or otherwise troubled regions into rela-tively stable and safe parts of the world is higher than ever, the countries of destination are increasingly trying to prevent migrants from reaching their territories. Given the scale of forced displacement and current trends of tightening immigration policies, it should be expected that tragedies at the borders, similar to that recently witnessed in Europe, will become the norm rather than the exception and that new discourses and practices will continue to emerge, transforming territorial borders in various parts of the world into highly conflictual and politicised ‘borderspaces’. This article is a contribution to the understanding of borders through a case study of the recent policy of ‘closed doors’ that Poland has adopted towards Russia’s North Caucasus asylum seekers at the country’s eastern border with Belarus, preventing them from entering the territory and claiming protection. It demonstrates that, through the process of ‘bordering’, power is no longer exercised only by the border guards at the crossing point in Terespol from where asylum seekers are being returned and that it is increasingly to be found in social practices that occur on both sides of the border, away from the clearance points. The article examines the various practices of resistance undertaken by the asylum seekers and other actors on several different levels in response to the changed reality at the border. It also analyses the meanings and discourses developed by Polish state actors in order to legitimise restrictive migration policies.