Over the last few years the idea of civil society in Poland have grown substantially. This increase allowed local communities to influence the legal and administrative changes leading to a gradual shift in the decision–making processes of local governments. The article presents system of public participation in spatial planning, Revitalisation Statute and Participatory Budget to show how legal changes increase possibilities of local community participating in Poland. 

The modern world is very complex and complicated matter. New communication technologies have changed perception of time and space, the states and their governments are no longer the main actors on a public life stage. Unimaginably rapid progress of science and technology has been the main reason for which more and more people do not understand or have clear difficulties in assimilating and using the achievements of civilization. Economy based on knowledge and development of innovative society forced modern homo sapiens to faster absorption of changes, flexibility in action and much greater mobility than ever before.

The annotation of historical and literary texts in the age of social media

The annotation of historical and literary texts is approached differently by traditional philologists and digital philologists. The former are concentrated on the detailed study of a given text (close reading) while the latter are focused on the study of large quantities of texts (distant reading). A structured and collaborative annotation makes it possible both to add information to particular passages of individual texts, as in a traditional linear comment, and to connect data from entire textual collections through rigorous protocols. However, the standards developed by digital philologists are not highly appreciated by traditional academics, since the effort necessary to apply the proposed technologies allegedly diverts researchers’ attention from the object of study. As opposed to this objection, we intend to highlight that it is indeed possible to maintain the precision requisite for the application of computational tools to digital resources without renouncing the annotation practices established in traditional contexts. In support of the method, we report a number of case studies of digital scientific editions whose goals include both reconstructing respective texts and encouraging the dissemination of contents and public participation in the academic debate. In particular, we will discuss the following projects: a) the stylistic annotation of three different editions of Giacomo Leopardi’s translation of the Batracomiomachia; b) the scientific edition of Bellini’s letters; c) the multi-level annotated edition of Bassani; and d) the comparison of Umberto Eco’s variants of his Il nome della rosa.

The political transformation in Poland, initiated in the first half of 1989, was the beginning of deep, systemic changes in all mechanisms of collective life and public authority. The transformations were characterized as complex and multifaceted, which generated new conflicts and socially perceptible costs. However, such deep changes were necessary because they opened the way for Poland and Polish society towards European standards of organization and activity of all entities of public life. The most important principles on the basis of which the new constitutional model of the state was built were deconcentrating the authority mechanism and decentralizing its powers. This meant that the administration alsobecame a very important area of transformational changes. In this regard, a special role was played by actions aimed at reconstructinglocal government which was to become an integral part of the new public authority system and to carry out a significant part of public tasks.

Self-Government And Decentralisation In The Political Thought Of Hans-Hermann Hoppe

The aim of this article is to reconstruct and analyse the ideas of self-government and decentralisation present in the thought of a leading representative of anarcho-capitalist libertarianism, Hans-Hermann Hoppe. In the previous research on the history of political thought concerning local government, there is no study that would concern the attitude of libertarianism to local communities. In the study of libertarianism, in turn, as well as in libertarian thought itself, the issues of self-government, decentralisation or local government are rather a side issue, absent in the course of the main considerations. The counter-intuitive nature of libertarianism as a doctrine that advocates an anarcho-capitalist order, which excludes the existence of state institutions, also argues in favour of addressing the title topic. Contrasting the anarcho-capitalist view of self-government and decentralisation with the contemporary dominant understanding of local government may contribute to enriching the discussion within normative local government theory with new conclusions and perspectives. This article, due to the limited scope of the research, is only a contribution to further studies on the problem of self-government and decentralisation in libertarian thought.