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Title edit
Open Society Institute - Assistance Foundation
Description edit
The Open Society Institute - Assistance Foundation (OSI-AF) Azerbaijan is a non-governmental, non-profit organization established in 1997 to develop and promote an open society in Azerbaijan. The main source of funds for OSI-AF/Azerbaijan comes from investment entrepreneur and philanthropist George Soros.
George Soros took an active interest in the concept of Open Society in the 1940s, when he was at the London School of Economics. He survived the Nazi occupation of Budapest and left communist Hungary for England, where he graduated from the LSE. While a student of LSE, Soros became familiar with the work of philosopher Karl Popper, who had a profound influence on his thinking and later on his professional and philanthropic activities. Soros saw Popper as his philosophical guru. Karl Popper was a committed follower of French philosopher Henri Bergson, a founder and most significant exponent of logical positivism. In his works, Bergson posited the reality, not the illusion, of freedom, as embodied, above all, in constructive diversity and based on the rule of law.
In 1945, Karl Popper published his famous book Open Society and Its Enemies, which he called his contribution to the war effort. He defines an "open society" as one which ensures that political leaders can be overthrown without the need for bloodshed, as opposed to a "closed society," in which a bloody revolution or coup d'etat is needed to change the leaders. Democracies are examples of an "open society," whereas totalitarian dictatorshpis and autocratic monarchies are examples of a "closed society”.
