Between class and nation: Ideology and radical Basque ethnonationalism

This article uses the case of the Basque country as an example of the apparently ironic situation where, in the face of the demise of Socialist regimes in Europe after 1989, ethnic nationalist movements pursue an avenue of continued radicalism. These movements, which include political parties, trade unions, youth movements, and other organizations, try to combine a leftist appeal to the working class with a call to support the nationalist demands of a given ethnic group that the movements claim has been oppressed by other groups. The article explores how these movements justify their ethnonationalistic appeals to the working class. It also examines the relevance of these movements to their respective regions and the support that they find within these regions. Lastly, the paper speculates on what direction the politics of their respective regions might take in the future.     

Political Mobilisation and Discourse Networks: A New Youth and the Breakdown of the Soviet Union

The disintegrating discourse about youth during the perestroika period conveyed the fading legitimacy of the Soviet political order. During that era (1985–1991), media reports about young people’s discontent and political disillusionment questioned the very legitimacy of the Soviet system. Youth took to the streets early, contributing to the conditions needed to conceive of a possible failure of the USSR. This research uses a recent methodological development in text analysis—discourse network analysis—which allows for an analysis of the shifting paradigms of speaking about youth. I draw on a sample of newspaper articles to capture the variation of the heterogeneous Soviet discourse.     

Status Shift and Ethnic Mobilisation in the March 1956 Events in Georgia

The large-scale demonstrations that took place in Georgia in early March 1956 following Khrushchev's criticism of Stalin at the 20th Party Congress were the first significant expressions of public protest and civil disobedience in the Soviet Union for decades, and they also bore a clearly nationalistic character. Based primarily on materials from the Georgian KGB and Party archives and interviews with former Party officials and participants of the events, this article examines potential interpretations of these events derived from elite incorporation and ethnic mobilisation theories.     

On Japan and China: Taking a Stand,Not Taking Sides

In 1990, right after the Berlin Wall fell, NPQ published our Spring edition, titled “The New World Disorder,” about the nationalistic chaos and up‐in‐theair sensibility of that fraught new historical moment. Nearly a quarter of a century later, the regime of globalization that had supplanted the Cold War world of blocs is itself coming apart at the seams. Even Henry Kissinger these days says “the world order is crumbling.” Will this New World Disorder 2.0 revert to a system of conflicting blocs, as during the Cold War, or will we be mature enough to save the interdependence of plural identities that is the foundation of a new global civilization? In this section our contributors offer their perspectives on what the future holds.     

Democratic Representation and the National Dimension in Catalan and Basque Politics

This paper contributes to the research strand within empirical democratic theory dedicated to operationalizing representation and measuring levels of responsiveness. It discusses the merits and limits of the criterion of responsiveness for assessing the functioning of representative institutions. It builds on comparative findings about the susceptibility of party hierarchies to capture by relatively privileged segments of society, and on comparative findings about the consequences of policy packaging. It posits these as two crucial mechanisms that help account for the propensity of the democratic arena to become a relatively autonomous, privileged site for the construction of ideological hegemony. Furthermore, it presents original data from an elite survey of members of regional parliaments in Spain to illuminate the role of representative institutions and parties in recent efforts to forge and consolidate a particular type of ideological hegemony—micro-nationalist hegemony—in Catalonia and the Basque Country. It contrasts and explains the political dynamics operative in the two regions, emphasizing the divergent trajectories of left-wing party construction. In so doing, it contributes to the literature on nationalism as well, by honing in on the neglected arena of democratic politics as a critical site where the struggle for the success of nationalist hegemonic projects takes place.     

The Challenge of Administrative Internationalization: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead

The study of the processes and effects of internationalization has become a major field of inquiry in the social sciences. This article takes stock of corresponding research efforts in the field of public administration (PA) to understand the internationalization phenomenon by analyzing studies that were systematically sampled from major PA journals over recent decades. After delineating, sampling, categorizing, and subsequently examining the scholarly production of PA regarding what can be understood as the internationalization of domestic PA, three major themes of PA-related debates are identified: diffusion, resistance, and the transformation of bureaucratic power. The article concludes that PA has developed neither genuine research questions nor a coherent theoretical framework able to come to grips with the internationalization challenge. It ends with an appeal for PA to become aware of this deficit and recommends PA scholars liaise more intensively with other social sciences to overcome the current state of affairs.     

布什这八年

时光匆匆,布什总统在白宫的日子已进入倒计时,人们开始盘点他留给美国、留给世界的政治遗产。小布什将是美国历史上颇具争议的一位总统。当被问到感到最失望的事时,他也毫无掩饰地说,自己可能成为美国历史上最不受欢迎的总统之一。     

王某盗窃案：对刑事和解的主持者及和解后处理方式的探讨

未成年犯罪嫌疑人王某伙同他人潜至某建材市场，拉开某店面的玻璃门，钻门缝入室，窃得被害单位的新缆牌单芯电线38卷、熊猫牌单芯电线12卷，共计价值人民币6490元。犯罪嫌疑人王某后在转移赃物过程中被人赃俱获。     

Taking Hand-Outs or Going It Alone: Nationalization versus Privatization in the Funding of Islamist Terrorist Groups

This article explores the consequences for the funding of Islamist terrorist groups of nationalization, in the form of state sponsorship, versus privatization, in the form of autonomous financing. The article begins by examining the evolution in terrorist groups’ sources of funding from state sponsorship to autonomous activity, then turns to the benefits and costs to terrorist groups of relying on state sponsors. The article then analyzes the benefits and costs of procuring funding autonomously. Finally, the article weighs those benefits and costs in relation to a terrorist group's emphasis on enhancing its constituency versus pursuing its agenda. The article's central conclusion is that nationalization tends to boost a terrorist group's constituency while privatization tends to bolster a group's agenda. Determining which advantage takes priority depends on the relative importance to a given terrorist group at a particular time of enhancing its constituency versus advancing its agenda.     

着眼大局互谅互让--中欧妥善解决纺织品贸易纠纷评析

2005年9月5日凌晨,中欧双方主管贸易的部长级官员经过36小时的紧张谈判,终于达成协议,解决了僵持一个多月的中国纺织服装产品在欧盟的滞港事件,为当天举行的中欧第八次首脑会议献上一份礼物.这也是今年年初以来双方解决的第二次纺织品贸易危机.     

全天候友谊推向新高度——祝贺中巴建交55周年

今年是中国和巴基斯坦建交55周年,两国领导人在互致贺电中对两国关系作出了很高的评价,胡锦涛主席指出:中巴建交55年来,在和平共处五项原则基础上,两国建立了全天候友谊,开展了全方位合作,给两国人民带来了实实在在的利益,也为地区和世界的和平、稳定与发展做出了积极贡献.     

Bandera: memorialization and commemoration

This article examines the current heroization of Ukrainian nationalist leader, Stepan Bandera, as manifested in monuments and commemorative practices. It offers a topographic survey that reveals the extent and variety of modes of Bandera heroization. It examines the esthetic and historical controversies that surround Bandera memorialization. It enquires into the personal motivations and political strategies that underlie the effort to project the chosen image of Bandera upon the public space in highly visible terms. It suggests that the campaign in favor of memorializing Bandera can best be understood in performative terms. It is in depicting Bandera as a hero of Ukraine that Bandera becomes a hero of Ukraine.     

Palestine: Myths and realities

Dispossessed: the ordeal of the Palestinians 1917–80 David Gilmour, London: Sidgwick and Jackson. 1980. 237 pp. £12.50

The Soviet Union and the Palestine Liberation Movement: an uneasy alliance Galia Golan, New York and London: Praeger. 1980. 275 pp. £12.25     

Decentralization: Conceptualization and measurement

Decentralized government institutions are doing more of the work of government than ever before, but there is little agreement about 1) what decentralization means, or 2) how it should be measured. To overcome this confusion, this article builds on standard definitions of decentralization that include three core dimensions: fiscal, administrative, and political. The article offers an empirical test of that definition using factor analysis of data from 1996 for sixty-eight countries. Factor analysis confirms these three core dimensions and generates a score for each case in each dimension, allowing countries to be measured according to their type and degree of decentralization. In future work, these scores can be used for hypothesis testing about the causes and effects of decentralization on important social outcomes. This exercise demonstrates that conceptual confusion need not hamper research when empirical tests can help verify conceptual categories. Aaron Schneider is a political scientist at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. His research interests include comparative politics, public finance, and methodology. His current research projects include studies of federalism, decentralization, party systems, budgeting, and taxation. He has conducted research in Brazil and India, and plans to apply the measures derived in this article to study the impact of decentralization. Tel:+44 (0)1273 678270; fax: +44 (0)1273 621202; email: a.schneider@ids.ac.uk. For valuable comments and suggestions, the author would like to thank Mick Moore, Arnab Acharya, Marcus Kurtz, Benjamin Goldfrank, and anonymous reviewers from Studies in Comparative International Development. Financial support was provided by the Department for International Development. All errors or omissions are the author’s own.