Ali Shariati was one of the major intellectual forerunners of the Islam revolution in Iran who as mastering both Islam and Western philosophy has almost single handedly crossed the line between political Islam and the (secular) Left. His intellectual heritage begs for the question: may a credible Islam Left be formed/revived or political Islam becomes the servant of reactionary and imperialism supporting forces for good.

In a world of lost hope the political-intellectual search of Hugo Chavez and the development – or maybe the sheer existence – of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is a peculiar challenge for social analysis. The article reviews the political history of Venezuela in the past 20 years "from fact to fact" centred on the social, domestic and foreign policy achievements of the decade long presidency of Chavez full of vicissitudes.

According to the author, nationalism can gather support from a broad range of groups in society, because it attracts very different groups on very different grounds and ways: for instance it provides political capital to the elite or gives the hope of integration to the middle and working classes – as answers to exclusions featuring the neoliberal social change. This argument goes beyond the superficial statement that Serbs had been polarised between two strong identities: the EU friendly democratic and the closed cycles of a radical national one.

It was the great surprise of the 2007/2008 football season that CFR – a not well known and relatively unsuccessful team before – won the Romanian National Championship and the Romanian Cup beating the 'traditional' and most prestigious team of the same city. The author gives an account on the history and present of both clubs and – in the era of new capitalism – presents the reconfiguration of the ethnical and class splits traditionally dividing the population of the city putting the Romanian/Hungarian-majority/minority divisions in social context.

More than 15 years have passed since the 1989 events draw the attention of the global public to the minders' movement but events developed since then put them into a different aspect. The frame of the analysis is the continuous interaction between actors (this approach emphasizes choice, spontaneity and indefiniteness) and circumstances or structure (the recurring patterns in thinking and behaviour that limit free actions of individuals). The study emphasizes that events developing between these two poles are not determined and are in a flux.