The current collection “Developments in political, legal, societal and cultural thought: articles in social sciences and humanities” aims to represent the best results of the research in the field of social sciences and humanities done at International University Audentes during the last couple of years. In addition, this collection as were the previous issues of the Proceedings of European Studies was open for contributions from other universities – our closest cooperation partners in the field of research. The editor-in-chief of the collection was Prof. Peeter Müürsepp.
The scope of the current collection is unexpectedly wide. It addresses such diverse issues as political philosophy, theory of area-studies, EU legislation, economics, human resources management and the development of institutions, the principles of library financing and even film theory. In his article, Associate Professor James Thurlow has paid special attention to different interpretations of Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative. He finds a link between the universal and humanist on the one hand and the nationalist interpretation on the other of this universally recognized principle in the views of French nationalistic socialist Maurice Barrès. Professor Thomas Pedersen (Aarhus University, Demark) deals with the problems of inter-relations between empirical area-studies and general theory often confronted in EU studies. He believes that the conceptualization of the area-studies might contribute to the development of general, explanatory theory, on such complex issues as i.e. the European Union and its various theoretical models of integration.
Several papers in this collection are dedicated to legal issues. In his paper PhD student of University Nord Riho Viik tries to reveal the basic elements of the formal structure of legal acts and contracts and has found some astonishing parallels between seemingly ‘remote’ phenomena. That should give new impetus to this disputable area. A lengthier article by Katarina Pijetlovic is also a pioneering paper, which addresses the issues of the application of EU laws in such seemingly distant area as sports. Ranno Tingas deals with the problems of contradictions between Estonian legislation and European Court of Justice case law in the field of taxation.
Associate Professor James O’Neil continues his critical approach to the modern views in economics, which he started in the Proceedings of Audentes University, No. 7 (2005) and the Proceedings of the Institute for European Studies, No. 3 (2007). This time he takes advantage of the well-known metaphor of Plato’s Cave to explain the obscurity of the some influential views in modern economic thinking. In their joint article PhD student at the Estonian Business School (EBS) Tõnu Kaarelson and EBS Professor Ruth Alas give an overview of the development of the human resources management in Estonia. The article summarizes the results of the main surveys conducted in this field and gives a better understanding of the entire concept and related trends and developments.
The concluding contribution of the collection is an essay-style work by Professor Alec Charles (University of Bedfordshire, United Kingdom), which is dedicated to the movies of Alfred Hitchcock - a British-born American film director. Analyzing Hitchcock movies the author refers to a wide range of psychoanalytical and poststructuralist interpretations of Hitchcock’s symbolism. Let us hope that the readers of the current collection will find it both knowledgeable and full of fresh ideas.
MAIT TALTS
Researcher
Institute of International Relations
Tallinn School of Economics and Business Administration
Tallinn University of Technology