Charismatic female leadership and gender: Pia Kjærsgaard and the Danish People's Party

ABSTRACT

Research on the leaderships and electorates of populist right-wing parties emphasizes that most of these parties are charismatic and male-dominated, both as regards their leaderships and their voters. However, while studies about the gender gap focus mainly on demand-side factors, such as electoral support, socio-economic characteristics and the voters’ attitudes towards issues such as immigration, those that analyse the role and position of gender issues are still rare. Similarly, or even more, overlooked is an analysis of the rhetoric, style, charisma and discourse of populist female leaders, such as those representative of two now well-established Scandinavian populist right-wing parties: the Dansk Folkeparti (DF, Danish People’s Party) and Norway’s Fremskrittspartiet (FrP, Progress Party). Both parties have long been led by women although Pia Kjærsgaard of the DF recently stepped down, leaving the party leadership to Kristian Thulesen Dahl, a man of the younger generation of party members; Siv Jensen in Norway smoothly followed the long-term and charismatic leadership of Carl I. Hagen in 2006. The main focus of the paper, however, is on Pia Kjærsgaard, discussing the role gender plays in relation to her style, rhetoric and/or discursive strategies, but also in the gendered constructions featured in the Danish mainstream media. In the article, Meret also refers to the case of Marine Le Pen and the Front national (FN) in order to consider whether the Nordic cases represent a specific framework for female leadership, highly influenced by context and opportunity.     

“笔部队”中的“两点红”:吉屋信子和林芙美子的小说与战地报告

吉屋信子和林芙美子是名噪一时的流行作家,有多次前往中国战场的经历,并作为女性杰出代表入选1938年第一批"笔部队",被称为"笔部队"的"两点红"。吉屋信子在海军班一如既往地扮演"女性"角色,突出自己作为女性的价值和作用;林芙美子则用激烈的方式在中国战场演出了一场新的放浪记。两人用不同的方式自觉地将女性话语和人生诉求融入军国主义话语中,成为侵略战争的协助者。与普通女性不同,她们成为战争协助者并不是受制于国策话语而做出的完全被动的选择,其文学创作反映出的思想缺陷和浅薄认知与她们的战场报告意趣相投,是她们在战争爆发后与军国主义话语一拍即合、轻易地滑落到战争协助陷阱中的本质原因。     

孔子：中国的苏格拉底，还是塞涅卡？--拉莫特·勒瓦耶、费内隆、李明的中西哲学比较研究

在17世纪法国学者了解和研究中国哲学的过程中，有三本书值得关注：一是1642年出版的拉莫特·勒瓦耶的《论异教徒的道德》，认为孔子和苏格拉底在哲学史上的地位相同，但孔子对中国的影响比苏格拉底对西方的影响更大，由儒家领导的中国乃是柏拉图“哲学王”理想的实现；二是费内隆在1687—1689年撰写的《死者的对话》，其中有一篇题为《苏格拉底与孔子的对话》，论述了苏格拉底与孔子的思想分歧，既不同意把孔子比作中国的苏格拉底，也完全不相信孔子的“圣王”理想或柏拉图的“哲学王”理想具有哲学学理上的合理性和实现的可能性；三是1696年出版的李明（勒孔德）的《中国近事报道》，该书不再将孔子与苏格拉底对举，而是把他比作古罗马斯多葛派哲学家、一位致力于培养“哲学王”式的统治者却并不成功的“帝王师”塞涅卡，并认为在研究中国哲学时应把孔子思想与宋明理学区分开来。这三部文献在一定程度上反映了17世纪法国思想界对中国哲学认识的过程。     

The French secular hypocrisy: the extreme right,the Republic and the battle for hegemony

ABSTRACT

The success of the extreme right in France in the past two decades has not been limited to its electoral rise. A more long-lasting victory has taken place in the ideological field, where the discourse of the extreme right now occupies a prominent place in the mainstream liberal democratic agenda. Increasingly, its ideas are seen in the media and in the platforms of mainstream parties as ‘common sense’ or at least acceptable. The growing acceptance of this ‘common sense’ is the result of very carefully crafted strategies put in place by extreme-right thinkers since the 1980s. For over three decades now, in order to change perceptions and renew extreme right-wing ideology, New Right think tanks such as the French GRECE believed it was necessary to borrow the tactics of the left and, more specifically, the Gramscian concept of hegemony: cultural power must precede political power. With the use of contemporary examples, Mondon's article demonstrates the continuing impact these ideas have had on the Front national and French politics and society, and how this change originated in the association of populist rhetoric with the neo-racist stigmatization of the Other.     

Jean Thiriart in Cairo and Bagdad

ABSTRACT

In the ‘poor’ result achieved by Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2007 presidential elections, many commentators saw the demise of the Front National. However, when asked by a journalist whether it was the end of her father's political career, Marine Le Pen smilingly replied: ‘I don't think so. In any case, this is the victory of his ideas!’ In this question and answer lies the whole story of the Front National and its impact on mainstream politics in the past two decades. First, Le Pen's defeat was exaggerated, the same way his victory had been in 2002. What Mondon argues in this paper is that the 2002 presidential elections did act as an ‘earthquake’ within French politics. However, this ‘earthquake’ did not trigger a tsunami of support for Jean-Marie Le Pen, but rather a tidal wave of misinformation and misunderstanding as to the real significance of the election results. By concentrating on the 2002 and 2007 presidential elections, Mondon highlights how this reaction led to the consecration of right-wing populist politics, best exemplified in the landslide election of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. He also provides an insight into the slippery slope Sarkozy's government took after its election, leading to an extremely rightward-leaning 2012 presidential campaign and new heights for the Front National.     

明清之际中越关系的演变与抉择

明清更替之际,安南王国作为中国传统的藩属国,面对新朝与旧朝残余分治的局面,其主政的中兴黎朝先是出于恢复"王爵"的要求,与南明政权频繁互动,互相支持。后因南明衰败无望,清朝实际控制了全国局势,加之在其国内对手武氏、莫氏割据政权先后归顺清朝,并获得了封号,中兴黎朝为了确保其于安南国内统治的正当性,无奈地归顺清朝。     

Political Communication and the Unexpected Outcome of the 2002 French Presidential Elections

ABSTRACT

The results of the first round of the 2002 French presidential election were a profound shock. Prime Minister Jospin did not make it to the final round run-off, beaten as he was by the far right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen who claimed second place. This article argues that use (and misuse) of modern campaigning methods proved decisive to this outcome. Paradoxically, Jospin's overtly professional approach actually hindered him. His flawed strategy failed to target crucial voters, and assorted tactical decisions compounded this error. Nor did the media coverage and distorted public opinion polls help a beleaguered Jospin candidacy. In this election the cautious would be the main beneficiaries.     

Models of Public Service Provision—When Will Knights and Knaves Be Responsive to Pawns and Queens?

This article extends the framework of Le Grand (2003 Le Grand, J. 2003. Motivation, agency and public policy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 2010 Le Grand, J. 2010. Knights and knaves return: Public service motivation and the delivery of public services. International Public Management Journal, 13(1): 56–71. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) to encompass responsiveness, and the main argument is that the combination of employee motivation, user capacity, and models of public service provision potentially has serious implications for responsiveness across service areas. Although research on employee motivation thrives, especially in the public service motivation (PSM) literature, few studies have investigated user capacity empirically, and we know little about the combination of PSM, user capacity and models of service provision. Analyzing four central service areas (day care, schools, hospitals, and universities), we find variations in both user capacity and PSM. Taking this variation as a point of departure we discuss what implications different combinations of employee motivation, user capacity, and models of public service provision may have for responsiveness.     

City of Illusions,layers of deceit,and the sterility of isolation

Ursula K. Le Guin frequently uses the genre of science fiction/fantasy to explore power relationships between cultures. This paper examines an early and neglected work, City of Illusions, within the context of post‐colonial criticism to show that the novel is in fact a highly sophisticated political parable. The novel depicts a colonized Earth under the control of an extragalactic power which employs many of the strategies for control used by the hegemonic powers of the past and present. Essentially, the novel explores how these methods of manipulation and control work, the effects they have on the colonized societies, and colonized peoples' strategies of resistance. The novel makes use of a series of metaphors to convey these ideas.     

The Filmmaker's Triage: The Doctor Figure and Images of Trauma

ABSTRACT

While writing a fictionalised feature film screenplay set around the character of a South African doctor during his year of compulsory community service in a rural hospital, I began researching how this figure has been represented in other narrative films, particularly those stories told in an African setting. A number of films and television dramas, some made by African filmmakers and others by filmmakers from outside of Africa, have been produced around the medical encounter. My interest lies not in assessing the health messaging found in these films and programs, which is better left to the health educationalists and medical sociologists, but in examining the fictional doctor figure as the main protagonist in these films. While the sociocultural and political dimensions of medicine, health and illness are relevant, I refer to them only in passing while exploring the fictional imagery of the doctor figure within the imagined filmed-Africa as it appears in the films The Last Face, Beyond Borders and Le grand blanc de Lambaréné.