What is the nature of the armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo? Is it a civil war, as constantly reported by the international media, or is it a war resulting from foreign aggression, as indicated by the authorities in Kinshasa? Irrespective of what one may think of the regime set up by Laurent-Désiré Kabila in the DRC, the legitimacy of his position needs to be recognised, especially considering that rebel groups only became active after the country was invaded by Rwanda and Uganda on 2 August 1998. Why did the war break out in the DRC? How is it that a country the size of an entire continent was invaded, occupied and exploited by much smaller states such as Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi? This article attempts to answer these questions.

During its long history, Denmark was able to pursue dominant foreign policy in her historical great power roles, while balancing normally was linked with her roles as a medium power. Until the 17th century, a policy of moderate dominance was the prevailing foreign policy mode, to be followed by a balancing mode, which lasted till 1864. The stunning defeat in that war reduced Danish option to a difficult choice between acquiescence and quiescence. Both are typical small state postures because of the lack of influence, but they differ on the sensitivity variable. The sensitive small state must adapt actively or passively to outside pressures, while the less sensitive small state may succeed in dodging situations where acquiescent adaptation would be required.

This paper attempts to understand the phenomenon of so-called 'unnatural' voting (right-wing voting by lower-status groups). Most scholars explain this phenomenon with cultural motives, such as working-class authoritarianism, yet they assume that it contradicts their economic interests and motives. Although my findings corroborate the importance of working-class authoritarianism, I contend that a working-class vote for the right can also be explained by economic attitudes. Drawing on the theory of populism, I will examine the relationship between cultural attitudes (including authoritarianism and ethnocentrism) and economic rightist attitudes concerning social policy and the welfare state. Economic populism is characterised by egalitarianism as well as anti-welfarism. By addressing economic populism, right-wing parties are able to reconcile their discourse with the economic attitudes of lower status groups. The empirical relevance of this hypothesis is tested on the case of Flanders (Belgium).

This article presents RCT as a way for interpreting reality. In order to demonstrate this, we present four political events from Israeli domestic and foreign politics and examine them from a rational choice approach. The first case presents an account of the variations in the ideological positions of the right-wing and the left-wing parties regarding policy in general and particularly regarding the unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip that took place in the summer of 2005. In the second case we examine the rational assumptions (defined here as "Lies") that affected the political actions of Israeli Prime Ministers since the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. The third case includes a discussion on the relevance of the "democratic peace" assertion in the context of foreign policy. Finally, we analyze the centrality of the High Court of Justice in the Israeli political and social domains. We conclude this article with a discussion of the issue of 'reality acceptance' and the difficulty entailed in affecting it - from the perspective of the rational choice theory.

The study of ethnoregionalist parties, therefore, allows us to explore an aspect of the Western European party systems that is of primary importance but to which so far the academic literature has not paid due attention. Specifically, as it will be illustrated more thoroughly over the next few pages, the image that these parties are bound exclusively to their function as representatives of a peripheral ethnic minority is utterly inadequate, whichever way one defines it. A closer look at their recent evolution and programmes will show instead that ethnoregionalist parties are much more dynamic and ready, on many occasions, to review their collocation in the political space as well as objectives, short and long-term strategies. This results in frequent raids on political territories normally under the control of major parties and in the taking away of a portion of disaffected or disappointed voters, with varying degrees of success. In other words, we will show that ethnoregionalist parties act (at least in specific cases, at specific moments) as protest or challenging parties as they provide an alternative to the traditional established ones.

The aim of the article is to disclose a possible view held by Kant towards the solution of the Königsberg problem after World War II. Nowadays philosophers usually show little interest in debates on so-called "Kaliningrad Puzzle". This is a kind of misunderstanding. As one of the most prominent representatives of the idealistic paradigm of international relations, Kant may be a competent participant of the debates on the future of the Kaliningrad region. His political philosophy contributes towards a better understanding of certain important aspects related to the Kaliningrad problem.