R/EVOLUTIONSNEW VIEW ON

POLITICAL SCIENCE

The title of this journal refers to the changing nature of reality. While de-fining trends as revolutions or evolutions is often premature at the time of the events themselves, this journal attempts to grasp change and mold it into something tangible, something we can analyze. In every edition R/evolutions will focus on a current, global trend that requires a closer look from an international perspective. On the other hand, the journal chooses one burning, regional issue that affects and changes the world in its own way.

THE WORLD IS CONSTANTLY IN CHANGE. FOR CENTURIES SCIENTISTS AND RESEARCHERS HAVE BEEN TRYING TO CAPTURE THESE CHANGES IN CYCLES, MODELS, THEORIES OR DATA. WE CAN LEARN FROM THE PAST, BUT DOES HISTORY REALLY REPEAT ITSELF? THEORIES ARE ALWAYS A REDUCTION OF REALITY. MODELS INCARNATE IDEAS WITHOUT CONTEXT. AND DATA LET US ONLY GUESS WHICH CAUSAL LINKS ARE TRUE. BUT WITHOUT THESE, CHANGE WILL SLIP US BY AND LEAVE US WITHOUT ANY GRASP OR GRIP.

EVERY EDITION SHOULD OFFER A BUNDLE OF INTER-DISCIPLINARY

INSIGHTS IN EACH TOPIC, SO IT COULD BE USED AS A FOUNDATION FOR

FUTURE RESEARCH AND PRACTICAL ISSUES. EVEN THEN, WE GO FURTHER

The Political Journal R/evolutions is a two-yearly English online publica-tion. Each edition contains two topics (one Global Trend and one Re-gional Issue). Each topic consists of an introduction, different authors’ Trends or Issue reports and a meta-scenario. Trends/Issue reports differ from traditional articles that they are shorter (about 5000 words), focus on key variables and are future-orientated. Their conclusion is in the form of a scenario trying to cover the next 5-7 years. The idea behind R/evolutions is based on three inter-related concepts: quality, networking and its choice in topics.

To provide quality, international cooperation and contacts are indispen-sable. Without scientific input from different regional perspectives qual-ity will diminish and peer-review will be less effective. Therefore we want to build out a global network of academic contacts, which can offer in-sights from different disciplines and diverse scientific backgrounds. Be it as authors, advisors or reviewers.

Regarding the number of topics, we opted for only two in each edition: One global trend and one regional issue. From experience we know that handling more can harm in-depth research. Every edition should offer a bundle of inter-disciplinary insights in each topic, so it can be used as a foundation for future research and practical policy-making. The topics are chosen in such a way, that their analysis will benefit most from an international perspective.

Even then, we go further.

THE TIME TO STOP A REVOLUTION IS

AT THE BEGINNING, NOT THE END“ADLAI E . STEVENSON

“ WHAT IS R/EVOLUTIONS?

WE ENVISIONED R/EVOLUTIONS AS A FUTURE-ORIENTED PROJECT GROUNDED IN SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND THEORY. OUR GOAL IS NOT ONLY TO PROVIDE UP-TO-DATE POLITICAL ANA-LYZES OF EACH CHOSEN REGION AND GLOBAL TREND, BUT IN ADDITION WE WANT TO OFFER PROGNOSES ON HOW THESE MIGHT EVOLVE. EVERY ISSUE/TREND ENCOMPASSES SEVERAL REPORTS: EVERY REPORT ATTEMPTS TO IDENTIFY THE MAIN VARIABLES WITHIN ITS LIMITED SCOPE; AND ITS CONCLUSIONS ARE THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE META-SCENARIOS SUMMARIZING EVERY ISSUE/TREND. THEY PROVIDE A GENERAL FORE-CAST FOR THE NEXT 5-7 YEARS, CREATED BY EX-PERTS FOR BOTH GIVEN TOPICS.

Scenario-building is not a way to predict the future, but to present a spec-trum of possible futures, which are plausible and can come true. There are often used to create strategies or formulate policies. This journal does not go that far, since we describe and analyze change, but do not take part in the decision-making process. This still does not diminish their usefulness for researchers and analysts. By creating ‘memories of the fu-ture,’ paraphrasing the famous Swedish Neurobiologist David Ingvar, one can grasp changes, connect discerned trends with uncertainties, and pour them into clear, consistent narratives.

These different pictures of the future are most useful tools for re-searchers. They structure uncertainty in different internally coherent outcomes, which allows the analysis of day-to-day changes to be cat-egorized in this or that scenario. The cause-and-effect of an event is no longer isolated, but integrated in a narrative that links them with other variables and presents the possible impact or implications within or outside this dimension. A direct causal link is often easy to spot, but the indirect consequences of a choice or an action are most clearly presented in the form of a narrative, a scenario.

The aim of this method is to present our readers with a clearer un-derstanding of which factors shape the political, socioeconomic or security r/evolutions of our world. We hope to achieve this by offer-ing a fan of peer-reviewed, inter-disciplinary articles with up-to-date background analyzes and by providing scenarios, which can inspire policy-making and further research.

NO ONE MAKES A REVOLUTION BY HIMSELF; AND HERE

ARE SOME REVOLUTIONS WHICH HUMANITY

ACCOMPLISHES WITHOUT QUITE KNOWING HOW,

BECAUSE IT IS EVERYBODY WHO TAKES THEM IN HANDGEORGES SAND

“ “

BEYOND ANALISIS

WE HOPE TO ACHIEVE THIS BY OFFERING A FAN OF PEER-REVIEWED, INTER-DISCIPLI-NARY ARTICLES WITH UP-TO-DATE BACK-GROUND ANALYZES AND BY PROVIDING

SCENARIOS, WHICH CAN INSPIRE POLICY-MAKING AND FURTHER RESEARCH.

ADAM MICKIEWICZ UNIVERSITYSINCE ITS FOUNDING IN 1919 THE ADAM MICKIEWICZ UNIVERSITY HAS BEEN AMONG THE LEADING ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS IN POLAND. IT HAS BEEN RANKED AMONG THE TOP-3 UNIVERSITIES IN POLAND. AMU IS A MEMBER OF: EUA - EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATION, EUCEN - EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY CONTINUING EDUCATION NETWORK, THE SANTANDER, RAMIRI CONSORTIUM, AND MANY OTHER NETWORKS

The University currently employs nearly 2800 teaching staff, including 318 ten-ured professors, 454 AMU professors and 1514 doctors and senior lecturers. Our professors coordinate and participate in 18 research projects funded by the Eu-ropean Union Framework Programs 6 and 7. AMU researchers are currently im-plementing 451 projects funded by the Polish Ministry of Science. Currently our university teaches nearly 50 000 students (among them 1300 PhD students).

WHO ARE WE? BEHIND THE JOURNAL R/EVOLUTIONS STANDS A CREATIVE GROUP OF YOUNG RESEARCHERS FROM THE ADAM MICKIEWICZ UNIVERSITY IN POZNAN, POLAND. WE CAME UP WITH A CONCEPTION FOR A POLITICAL JOURNAL IN 2012 THAT WOULD TRANSCEND REGIONAL OUTLOOKS AND PERCEPTIONS ON INTERNATIONAL ISSUES. DURING THE CREATION OF THE JOURNAL, WE HAVE RECEIVED FULL SUPPORT FROM OUR FACULTY AND ITS STAFF. THE EDITORIAL TEAM EXISTS OF FOUR PHD STUDENTS, WORKING IN DIFFERENT RESEARCH AND STUDY FIELDS:

Agnieszka Tamara Filipiak is a PhD researcher at the Political Culture Department at AMU. She obtained a master degree i two disciplines: Political Science and Spanish Philology. During her studies she studied also at Malaga University (Faculty of Communication and Faculty of Humani-ties). Her main research interests encompass the role of alternative me-dia centers in social movement processes, gender studies in the field of New Media, the analysis of audiovisual journalistic material and Spanish-lan-guage communication culture. The title of her upcoming doctoral thesis is The mass commnication in light of the sociopolitical reality: Indymedia as the media of new social movements.

Eliza Kania is a PhD student at the Department of International Economics at the Faculty of Political Science and Journalism (AMU). She specializes in collective memory studies (master thesis topic: Russia and Russians in the collective memory of Poles - a historical and contemporary perspective) and theories of social movements . Her research interests also cover social aspects of capitalism and gender studies. She is a member of the faculty’s collective memory research group coordinated by prof. Anna Wolff-Powęska and one of the founders and active participants of Gender Studies Study Group oper-ating since 2010. She is a passionate of communication graphic design as re-flected in R/evolutions. Fascinated by its history she loves travelling through the former Soviet Union territories.

Rafał Wiśniewski graduated political sciences at Adam Mickiewicz Univer-sity (master thesis topic: Great powers of Asia in the 21st Century Main prob-lems and issues). He did an intern at the National Security Bureau, Republic of Poland in 2009. He is an active participant of the Tripartite Young Lead-ers Study Group on the Future of Europe 2011-2013. Currently he is doing a PhD at the Strategic Studies Department, FPSJ at AMU. His research in-terests revolve around international relations in Asia, issues of international security (with an additional focus on international arms trade) and national security studies (especially defense policy and defense economics). The title of his upcoming doctoral thesis sounds: Rivalry and state cooperation as an influencing factor of international security in North-East Asia at the beginning of the 21st Century.

Jeroen Van den Bosch is Belgian national, who started his studies at the Catholic University of Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, KUL), Bel-gium. He first studied Slavonic studies, before moving on to the realm of international relations. During his studies he did research in Odessa, Ir-kutsk (IGLU, Russian Federation), Cracow (UJ), and Moscow (Pushkin Institute). He obtained both degrees at the KUL in 2008 and 2010. After his studies he remained two years at AMU as a researcher, where he cur-rently stays on as a PhD student at the Department of International Re-lations since 2012. His various research fields cover identity theories, democratization, political regimes, Sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia.

check our website:

www.r-evolutions.

amu.edu.pl

At present we teach over 4200 students in four majors: Political Science, International Relations, Journalism and Social Communication and Na-tional Security. The faculty employs over 80 re-searchers and lecturers, who work in such fields as: contemporary political history, European integration research, German studies, interna-tional economic relations, journalism, local gov-ernment research, political science methodology, political culture, political marketing and socio-technics, political systems, press systems and press law, social and economic policy, strategic studies and political theory.

FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

AND JOURNALISMOUR FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND JOURNALISM IS ONE OF THE YOUNGEST AMONG THE 15 FACULTIES OF ADAM MICK-IEWICZ UNIVERSITY (IT OBTAINED SEPARATE STATUS IN 2008). HOWEVER IT PROUDLY CONTINUES TRADITIONS OF THE INSTITUTE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND JOURNALISM, WHICH HAD OPERATED SINCE 1967.

POZNAŃ-A FEW FACTS ABOUT OUR

Its most valuable monuments, including the unprecedented in Europe Renais-sance building complex in the Old Market Square, are located within three areas, namely: the Cathedral Island district, the Poznań Old Town and the City Centre. Particularly impressive is the huge mass of the newly renovated Imperial Castle in Poznań, the last of its kind in Europe. Many visitors are also attracted by nu-merous examples of Art Nouveau architecture as well as remains of the city’s 19th century Prussian fortifications.

CITYPOZNAN IS LOCATED IN THE CENTER OF GREATER POLAND (WIELKOPOLSKA), THE POL-ISH CRADLE OF STATEHOOD. IT IS HERE THAT THE BAPTISM OF POLAND TOOK PLACE OVER 1,000 YEARS AGO. THE CITY’S RICH HISTORY IS REFLECTED BY ITS MANY GREAT MONUMENTS REPRESENTING NUMEROUS ARCHITECTURAL STYLES RANGING FROM THE ROMANESQUE TO THE ART NOUVEAU STYLES.

Modern Poznań now offers many theatres and musical institutions including a philharmonic, a number of choirs and orchestras such as the prominent Amadeus Polish Radio Chamber Or-chestra conducted by Agnieszka Duczmal, or the Poznań Nightingales choir, as well as plenty of museums, several dozen galleries and exhibition halls. The city’s cultural centre is the ‘Zamek’ Cultural Centre located in the Imperial Castle in Poznań. The castle is home to some permanent galleries and on a regular basis various performances, concerts and discussions are held, while every summer concerts and film screenings are organized in the castle’s courtyards. The ‘Zamek’ Cultural Centre is also the organizer of St John’s Fair and the Day of St. Martin.