When Art and Commerce Collide: Colorization and the Moral Right

ABSTRACT

This article challenges the dominant framework that drives US public diplomacy initiatives and insists that, short of major structural changes, US public diplomacy lacks ethical legitimacy. Based on a review of past US public diplomacy practices, the article finds that these efforts were mainly characterized by a one-way flow of information and an emphasis on image management. Using the theories of hegemony, American exceptionalism, Orientalism, and cultural imperialism, the author lays a theoretical framework for analyzing public diplomacy. The author suggests that, for public diplomacy to move beyond propaganda, it needs to incorporate two-way communication and symmetry.     

Reinventing political subjectivities: studying critical documentaries on the war on terror

This paper casts a look on media aspects of the anti-war-on-terror struggle in western countries. A peculiar warfare, the “war on terror” that officially begun in 2001, is a low-density global warfare, fought in different internal and external fronts . Within a liberal, increasingly post-political social terrain, where social affairs are objects of expert management lacking public accountability and legitimacy, the role, status and the identity of the contemporary citizen is in decline. New media “affordances” offer critical possibilities for challenging hegemonic political discourses, and addressing political alternatives for a broad range of social problems; a re-invention of citizenship through the construct of a new (collective) political subject is central in the reinvention of democracy today. Discourse analysis, drawing reflexively on post-structuralist discourse theory and critical discourse analysis, is deployed in the study of counter-war-on-terror discourses in different documentaries critical to the “war on terror”. Analysis looks at different constructions of “us” and “them” in the context of counter-hegemonic discourses today. Identity is central in the engagement, participation and orientation of citizens today. Identity is central in organising a collective centre and in initiating subjectivity to fragmented liberal, postmodern individuals.     

The Common Security and Defence Policy as an act of American hegemony

Abstract

The financial crisis endangers the security of NATO's members and partners. As such, NATO has a formal obligation to mobilize its resources to aid members in overcoming current economic challenges. NATO can play a valuable role on three levels. First, NATO can aid members in rationalizing their military procurement and manpower systems, thus reducing the fiscal burden of maintaining adequate defenses. Second, NATO can press the ECB and the EU to modify arrangements governing the Euro so as to minimize the risk that EMU will collapse. Finally, NATO has a “soft power” role in vigorously defending the liberal economic order and democratic political institutions of the Western Alliance from the ideological attacks that inevitably follow financial crises.     

面对文化歧视的加拿大华人

加拿大华人社会从19世纪中叶至今,经历了巨大的社会文化变迁,老移民团体在制度性种族歧视下受到了各种限制与压迫。新移民团体在不平等法案法规废除以后,通过社会流动取得了一些改善与进步。“唐人街”(中国城)的产生、发展及加拿大华人群体面对文化霸权所进行的各种适应性改变,体现了他们在面对白人社会主流文化涵化与融合的过程。加拿大华人自身对于苦难的承受力也促使他们形成新的文化身份,争取到更加有利的发展空间。     

工人阶级要携手共建困难保障安全网--关于中国职工互助合作保险模式及困难保障机制的设想

保障职工困难群体基本生活是国家社会保障制度的重要内容.在我国的多层次保障体系中,在国家基本保障的法定责任之外,重要的社会团体--工会组织借鉴国际成功经验,适应市场经济要求,应大力发展职工互助合作保险,并以此为依托,建立困难职工生活保障机制,使工会的扶贫济困送温暖工程规范化、制度化,在维护社会公平、推进社会发展中发挥更大作用.     

“文化霸权”话语的本土实践与反思

“文化霸权”成为1990年代以来人们谈论东西方文学与文化关系时所使用的关键词之一，开创了在中国文论语境下的“理论旅行”。它从思维模式的“二元对立”、话语领域的西方霸权、民族情结的强烈诉求与传统文化的回归和高扬等四个方面展开其话语实践。在其话语实践中，重新陷入了“文革话语”的历史圈套，遮蔽了我国文论发展的历史与现实以及所面临的问题，对西方进行想象化的本质处理与传统文化的异化塑形，彰显出本土权力的运作机制。我国文论应该在世界文论体系的观照下实现自身的现代化，为世界文论的发展做出特有的贡献，促进文论知识科学有序增长。     

中国与国际秩序笔谈:观念与战略

国际秩序是世界政治中最具全局性、长期性和战略性的重大问题。国际秩序的走向本质上是“世界向何处去”的问题。习近平主席指出:“当今世界处于百年未有之大变局”“人类又一次站在了十字路口。合作还是对抗?开放还是封闭?互利共赢还是零和博弈?如何回答这些问题,关乎各国利益,关乎人类前途和命运。”对此时代之问,追求民族复兴并已深度融入世界的中国,理应做出自己的回答。正值新冠肺炎疫情肆虐、大国竞争加剧、国际秩序“分”“合”未定之际,南京大学亚太发展研究中心会同《国际问题研究》《外交评论》和《国际展望》三本杂志,以“中国与国际秩序”为主题,邀请近二十位学者分别从历史与理论、观念与战略、议题与实践等不同路径和维度尝试进行跨学科、全方位讨论,旨在聚焦中国在国际秩序进程中的地位与作用,思考中国与世界之关系,鉴往知今、展望未来。     

‘There Can Be No Revolution without Culture’: Reading and Writing in the Bolivarian Revolution

Under Hugo Chávez's ‘Bolivarian Revolution’, the government made itself present in all stages of literary production, applying the official idea of reading and writing as ‘socialist practices’. The Bolivarian government envisaged a popular counter‐hegemony, courting popular support while delegitimising cultural elites and reinforcing class tensions. Bolivarian cultural policy is anachronistic in an age of global literary markets, while the emphasis on a national collective of writers over internationally promoted representative writers of the revolution is particularly radical.     

Securing security through prosperity: the San Francisco System in comparative perspective

The integrated system of political–economic relations that has prevailed in the Pacific since the September 1951 treaty of peace with Japan, known here as the San Francisco System, is distinctive in comparison with subregional systems elsewhere in the world. This paper outlines key defining features, such as (1) a dense network of bilateral alliances; (2) an absence of multilateral security structures; (3) strong asymmetry in alliance relations, both in security and economics; (4) special precedence to Japan; and (5) liberal trade access to American markets, coupled with relatively limited development assistance. After contrasting this system to analogous arrangements elsewhere, especially in the Atlantic, it explores both the origins and the prognosis of this remarkably durable political–economic entity. Complementary domestic political–economic interests on both sides of the Pacific, reinforcing a brilliant original Japan-centric design by John Foster Dulles, account for persistence, it is argued, while forces for change center on the dynamic emerging role of China.     

Approaches to Defining "Empire" and Characterizing United States Influence in the Contemporary World

The militant unilateralism of the George W. Bush administration has revived interest in such closely related and contested terms as "superpower,""hegemon,""empire," and "imperialism." This article identifies four different but somewhat overlapping approaches to defining "empire": ideal type, self-consciously empirical, constructivist, and overtly normative. The author's personal view is that any notion of American Empire or indeed U.S. hegemony or even superpower is profoundly misleading. Although the United States still ranks high on the scale of most traditional realist power factors, United States capabilities appear to be gravely waning today and its exercise of both hard and soft power has recently been so inept as to limit its current influence and possibly future role in global politics.