Violence and terror and the extreme right

The author begins by examining Sprinzak's theory of ‘split delegitimization’ and finds that although it provides a persuasive account of why some extreme right groups become so radicalized that they perpetrate acts of terrorism and political violence, its major weakness is that it fails to explain the emergence and long‐term survival of mass parties of the extreme right. The article briefly surveys some of these mass parties and finds that there is no clear correlation between the electoral success of extreme‐right mass parties and the level of terrorism and political violence from small extreme‐right groups. However, the evident ambivalence of mass parties of the far right towards violence, and intensification of the propaganda of violence, racisim and xenophobia are clearly conducive to violence and Terrorism and Political Violence.     

Reflections on the Cold War: A comment

For mutually reinforcing cultural reasons, the study of international history at American universities has declined. Nevertheless, opportunities for multinational research on the Cold War are greater than ever. Much innovative work takes place abroad or outside conventional history departments. This article appraises the contributions of three leading scholars in the field. It adumbrates the failure of the Roosevelt administration to formulate a coherent policy for postwar Germany and emphasizes the fitful process through which the Truman team despaired of accommodation with the USSR. It intimates that Marc Trachtenberg's elegant structural analysis may make that process seem clearer than the truth, and underscores the findings of Klaus Schwabe and Georges Soutou, who show that Europeans had their own concerns and did not view the Cold War through the optic of the bilateral Russian-American relationship.     

The sublime and the cultures of the extreme: An exploration

Abstract

The article traces the relationship between the concept of the traditional sublime and the contemporary cultures of the extreme and their fascination with unlimitation. It is asked to what degree the aesthetic category of the sublime, generally defined as a ‘formlessness’, can assist in exploring and making sense of the cultures of the extreme. The cultures of the extreme are analysed by means of three tropes, namely the ecstasy of speed, the immersion into immediacy, and the shrinking of the natural landscape. By utilising these three tropes or hermeneutical tools, the author attempts to show how these events typify the contemporary obsession with extremes, and can indeed be likened to a pseudo-sublime or kitsch sublime.     

和平进程中的非洲妇女安全 ——以布隆迪和利比里亚为例

在非洲和平进程中,妇女成为实现和平的非暴力力量,女性在建设和平中发挥了重要作用,维护了自身的安全。梳理布隆迪和利比里亚两国内战对妇女的影响、妇女在结束内战过程中的作用以及战后重建中妇女的角色与面临的挑战,可以发现,布隆迪和利比里亚妇女既是两国内战的主要受害者,也是当地实现和平与建设和平的决定性力量：布隆迪妇女发展存在“社会性别主流化已成为现实”和“社会性别不平等”之间的巨大差距;利比里亚则仍然处于由战争到和平的过渡期,精英女性参与决策与妇女低代表性并存;发展问题是两国和两国妇女发展面临的首要问题,将社会性别平等纳入发展主流至关重要。     

Women,gender, and conflict: making the connections

This review essay explores the need to make the roles of women and of men visible in order to understand the different ways in which they are involved in, and affected by, armed conflict; and also to examine the ways in which gender roles, the relations between women and men, are changed during and as a result of such conflict. The author reviews current literature on the political economy of conflict, and feminist writing on women in conflict, noting that the former tends to be gender-blind, while the latter generally fails to take into account an understanding of the wider Realpolitik. The author focuses on five recent feminist works that have attempted to do this, and hence contributed to moving the debate forward.     

海湾妇女：历史、现状与未来

历史上海湾妇女在社会、政治、经济等方面地位低下。自20世纪50年代以来，由于政府倡导及社会经济发展等原因，海湾妇女的社会地位有了很大提高，经济独立性增强，也取得了一定的政治权利。虽然受伊斯兰传统影响，海湾妇女状况仍存在诸多问题，如妇女就业仍受限制，享有的经济、政治权利仍不容乐观，但展望未来，相信跨入新世纪的海湾妇女必将展示出新的风采。     

Democratic reform between the extreme makeover and the reinvention of tradition: the case of the Netherlands

Democracy in the Netherlands, like in so many other Western countries, is under substantial reform pressure. The problem with the democratic system in the Netherlands, according to democratic reformers, is that it is out of step with the fast and major changes taking place in modern society. Champions of democratic reform in the Netherlands mostly look to sweeping, large-scale, and all-encompassing plans for democratic reform, achieving, however, little success. Major structural changes have been planned time and again, but eventually the institutional structure has remained largely the same. This article presents a critical analysis of the standard recipe that democratic reformers often prescribe – radical makeover – and outlines a viable alternative that can also be derived from the Dutch case – reinventing tradition. Reinventing tradition implies a mixture of change and preservation, of movement and counter-movement. It is, arguably, the only way for democratic reform to go, at least in a consensus democracy like the Netherlands. Dutch history demonstrates that large-scale blueprint reform runs a serious risk of non-implementation, and that small-scale adaptive tinkering, part of the incremental ‘reinvention of tradition’, can be significantly more successful as a reform strategy.     

试评俄罗斯人权全权代表制度

俄罗斯采用的"人权全权代表"(уполномоченныйпоправамчеловека)制度,西方国家称作监察专员制度。1997年生效的俄罗斯联邦宪法性法律——《俄罗斯人权全权代表法》确定的人权全权代表制度是俄罗斯为落实"人权"宪法原则而作出的"最明确"、"最清新"的选择,是俄罗斯行政救济制度的一大特色。俄罗斯人权全权代表有着与其他各类实施行政救济的权力主体不同的法律地位,特别是其享有的审查和申诉权。借鉴俄罗斯的人权全权代表制度,对中国的信访制度进行改造,不失为完善中国行政救济制度的有益之举。     

试论国际金融危机对中东欧国家的影响

本文在对国际金融危机对中东欧国家影响的路径探讨的基础上,分析国际金融危机对中东欧国家经济的影响。文章强调中东欧尽管具备发生区域性金融危机的条件,但是中东欧国家的危机处在可控范围之内,中东欧国家不会发生经济崩溃,也不会诱发新一轮的金融危机。     

No class! A comment on Simon Bromley's American power and the prospects for international order

This intervention argues that Bromley's account of American power underplays some of the structural weaknesses in the US-made liberal order. These weaknesses are not principally the result of relative economic decline, but chiefly the product of a political insistence among US ruling classes in getting their own way (that is, for the immediate American interests to prevail) regardless of their longer-term socio-economic or political consequences. It is the quest for American primacy, not the pursuit of a liberal international order that is the chief driver of US external relations. Likewise it is the more volatile dynamics of class antagonism and alliances both within and outside the USA—not the rational calculation of states as Bromley suggests—that tend to determine the success or failure of American primacy. I flesh out these claims by looking successively at the ideology of post-war American Empire, the contradictions of its actual implementation and the forms of socio-economic and political instability it generates. Bromley's sanguine view of the future of liberal order, it is argued, is only persuasive with a very narrow, inter-statist conception of world order and one which therefore underestimates the social origins of geopolitical disorder.     

突尼斯妇女法律地位浅析

突尼斯在保障妇女权益方面有丰富的经验。在维护妇女法律地位方面,突尼斯是非洲和阿拉伯国家中取得最大成就的国家之一。主要原因有三:第一是历史原因,突尼斯改革运动为社会解放和知识分子的意识形态变化奠定了良好基础。"凯鲁万婚约"的适用亦有利于国家独立以后执行一夫一妻制;第二是政治原因,妇女解放是突政府最重要的现代化与发展政策之一;第三是社会原因,20世纪80年代以来突尼斯妇女组织对妇女社会地位提高的推动作用。当前突尼斯面临的经济与社会问题可能对妇女现有地位构成一定的挑战。