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International Conference on Political Sciences
At the political science conference, we will dive into the most recent trends and discoveries, as well as the most pressing matters in various fields and subfields of political sciences. Attendees will listen to the fascinating presentations by esteemed speakers, participate in roundtable discussions, contribute to the buzzing atmosphere of the networking floor, and inspire the next generation of academics.This is an opportunity to deepen and broaden your knowledge about key concepts and subjects in political science as well as to meet with a sea of important academic and professional experts from diverse disciplines. More
Homo (Sapiens Sapiens) Digitalensis
After a flourishing era, in which humankind discovered the steam engine, standardization and electricity, a new beginning was on the horizon. Even though society reached unbelievable levels of productivity and new levels of wealth throughout the world, we were missing the last piece of the puzzle. The beginning of the Third Industrial Revolution has brought us a new way of communication that enabled us to send and receive data instantly. We have to look back to the 1950s when the base of the digital was laid and, after that, the world, as we know it, changed forever. Fast forward to the 1990s, the “.com” phenomenon reached its first all-time high, and new ways of interaction were created. We are talking about Google, Amazon and many others. The 2000s brought more core services through Facebook and YouTube, social media and streaming respectively. After people started consuming more and more digital content, technology needed to keep pace with demand; as a result, 4G communications (fourth generation data transfer speeds) are now a very common thing, 5G is becoming the new standard and we already see how 6G is ramping up its marketing drive in countries like China, Japan, South Korea and more. More
The Symphony Strikes Back
During a military parade, nothing is more eye-catching than the expensive hardware that is brought in order to display the nation’s capacities and ambitions, which are calibrated in a rigorous manner to eventually self-defend itself, a desirable scenario that is. A sense of pride and marvel usually engulfs the audience in what can cynically be described, in the words of the heavy metal band Pantera, as a “vulgar display of power”.However, the audience rarely, if ever, questions the aspect of value, and if they do so, the numbers skyrocket to a degree where they no longer become palpable. The bread is cheap, while the circus is as expensive as ever.The event that the world witnessed a few days ago may have been a coup, a travelling circus accompanied by the music of a reputable German composer, a rebellion, a display of power or a combination of all of the above. The nature of the event is still uncertain, but it manages to give us another example of why economic privileges can lead to complications. More
“To Know” – That’s the Essence of Journalism!
The daily journalist is the professional who doctors us against informational nightmares – the wordplay I prefer to use in order to summarise this vocation (which is vocal in both a literal and a figurative sense). And I use that metaphor because, paradoxically, it is “in broad daylight” when “the night of the mind” acts with a most uncommon ferocity. This saying applies with particular accuracy to the so-called science journalism. This specialised form of journalism only managed to become its own thing starting in the second half of the twentieth century, occupying today a significant portion of the written, audio-visual and online press. Science journalism must be produced and consumed as something more than a mere form of entertainment. Sure, it diversifies our field of understanding of the world and of life, but its purpose is not to delight – even though it has curiosity (and curiosities) at its core –, nor is it to distract – though it successfully deviates from the trivialisation of reality and, equally so, from its vulgarisation. One of the harsher “stress tests” it was confronted with was the Covid-19 pandemic, which consisted of a mix of fake news and pseudoscience that oscillated between (or was even maintained by) “occult conspiracies” and “official statements”. More
Growth, Degrowth and Greening
Although discussions about the relationship between economics and the environment are no longer confined to scientific forums and have in fact become an inspiration for a variety of popular movements, it is often difficult to grasp the core issues at stake. The public agenda is literally flooded every day with news regarding the trade-off between preserving industrial jobs and averting climate change; supporting urban development and preventing environmental degradation; ensuring living conditions for an increased human population and avoiding biodiversity loss; but the average citizen is often unable to see how all these worrisome, dire, even catastrophic events and proposed solutions fit together in a coherent way and could therefore be addressed in a rational manner. More
A Walking Encyclopedia: Revisiting Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, an Austrian aristocrat who lived in the United States with his family for a decade after the Anschluss, was a journalist, linguist, novelist, encyclopedist, political scientist, theologian, and student of the human character who reported – on site – and bore even-handed witness to many of the great events of the mid-twentieth century, including the Ukraine famine, the Nazi revolution, the Spanish civil war, and Congolese independence. The first part of this retrospective appreciation is drawn from the first part of a review of Leftism Revisited published as “Yes, but…,” Modern Age, 34 (Spring 1992): 241-45.[1] More
Inflation: A Well-Known Phenomenon
Over the past two years approximately, inflation has resurfaced in Romania. Initially, price increases appeared to be temporary and due to purely external causes: international commodity market tensions and supply difficulties in a context of strong recovery of the global economy after the end of the pandemic restrictions.[1] Thereafter, inflation was found to be persistent and fueled by domestic factors, both on the supply and demand side.[2] In the short term, the most recent and possibly the most important cause of inflation has been the increase in energy prices exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. In the medium to long term, inflationary pressures are likely to increase as a result of structural factors such as imbalances in the Romanian economy, stagnating investment, demographic decline, a shift to (more expensive) green energy etc. The way these factors act and combine is specific to the Romanian economy, and, as a result, a monetary policy adapted to indigenous realities is necessary. The monetary policy decisions taken by the Fed, the ECB and the other central banks in the region that are not part of the euro area will also be of particular importance. These external decisions are important in view of the evolution of the interest rate differential and the orientation of international capital flows into which the Romanian economy is inserted. More
Adam Smith’s 300th Birthday
We know very little about the man Adam Smith. We do not even know the famous Scotsman’s birthday. All we know is the date of his baptism, June 5, 1723 (Julian calendar), which means that, according to our Gregorian calendar, he was baptized on June 16. He never knew his father, a customs official, who died at the age of 44, just a few months before Adam Smith was born. More
The Limits of Merit as the Diverging Point between Economics and Moral Philosophy
The compatibility between the moral and the practical has always been a key issue for many philosophies and schools of thought. When it comes to Economics, advocates of certain systems have, more often than not, tried to argue that it isn’t only their primary interest in said system that makes it superior to all the others, but also the secondary ones. For instance, economists who advocate for a free-market economy will not only tell you that Capitalism is economically more efficient than its alternatives, but that it is morally superior, too. Alternatively, it is not unusual for someone whose moral outlook on life makes him prefer a certain system to also end up believing that that system is also the likeliest to lead to material prosperity. More
Geopolitical Perspectives and Technological Challenges for Sustainable Growth in the 21st Century
The world today is vastly different than what it was even a few decades ago, as a result of advances in technology, globalization, and societal changes. Recently, a particular attention was given to sustainable development, raising the question of how to drive economic growth in a responsible manner by harnessing technology’s potential while accounting for diverse national perspectives. In 2015, the United Nations agreed upon 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aimed to transform our world by 2030. However, without the support of stakeholders from the government, business and civil societies, the SDGs are only aspirations. More
Preparing for OECD – Responsible Reforms and Policies
Joining the OECD and embracing its values, especially in the current context, will allow Romania to achieve a better alignment with the OECD motto: “better policies, better lives”. The preparation for accession is not an easy task, but Romania will benefit from the advantage of international expertise, which must be accompanied by determination and consistency in achieving the set objectives. The progress made since the Roadmap for Accession and up to the present is evident, but more is needed.About these advances of Romania, as well as about the challenges regarding necessary reforms and policies, I spoke today [N.B. May 3, 2023] at the opening of the conference “Romania in the OECD: toward the club of the good international economic practices”, organized at the National Bank of Romania, in company with the Prime Minister of Romania, the Governor of the National Bank of Romania and the chief economist of the OECD, Álvaro Santos Pereira. More
One Fifth of Young Romanians, Neither in Employment Nor in Education or Training
Last year, one fifth of young Romanian people were neither in employment nor in education or training (NEET), according to data compiled and published by Eurostat. It is the largest proportion in any EU Member State, well above the European average and the situation deteriorated in the last ten years, as opposed to the progress recorded in neighboring countries.*In 2022, 11.7 % of 15-29 year-olds in the EU were neither in employment nor in education and training.* The proportion of 15-29 year-olds in the EU neither in employment nor in education and training in 2022 ranged from 4.2 % in the Netherlands to 19.8 % in Romania. More
