Pleasures of Late Socialism in Soviet Lithuania: Strategies of Resistance and Dissent

This paper deals with popular perceptions of Soviet ideology during the period of Late Socialism. On the premises of colonial theory, mass communication and pop culture studies, the author argues that even totalitarian ideologies are subject to active consumption, excorporation and interpolation. While the official Soviet media provided a rather stable picture of the Soviet citizen, loyal to the Soviet authorities and the Soviet ideals, this paper reveals, on the basis of multiple interviews, how ideology operates at the level of everyday life and popular consciousness.     

The Rise and Fall of Paid Maternity Leave Policy in the Years of the Keating Government

In 2010, Australia finally introduced maternity leave, making it one of the last OECD nations to do so. Yet this policy had been announced by the Keating Government some sixteen years earlier, only to be watered down and then ultimately scuppered by subsequent governments. How, then, do we make sense of the rise and fall of this policy in the 1990s? This paper examines this question, arguing that while effective mobilisation by women in the labour movement was crucial to placing this issue on the Keating Government's policy agenda, the continued dominance of a male breadwinner model ultimately served to provide powerful impediments to policy implementation. The paper draws on interviews with key actors and analysis of policy debate to make this case, employing the concepts of policy windows and path dependency to make sense of the opportunities and impediments to policy change respectively. While an important and neglected story of maternity leave policy in Australia, this analysis has important implications for understanding policy‐making, policy trajectory and even gender roles in Australian politics and society.     

危机的理论与理论的危机

本文介绍正统派与其他各种不同经济学派关于1997年东亚金融危机的生成根源的观点,展示各种经济学派对IMF休克拯救方案以及东亚经济复苏政策的不同看法,探索东亚金融危机对经济发展理论的影响。     

On the borders of the Turkish and Iranian nation-states: the story of Ferzende and Besra

Following the First World War, empires were replaced with nation-states for good and the map of the Middle East was redrawn. Traced back to the final decades of the nineteenth century, Kurdish nationalism did not result in a nation-state in the modern Middle East. Therefore, the Kurds inhabiting the borderlands of the four nation-states of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria came to be perceived as ‘trouble’ by these nation-states. Through the use of a wide array of published and unpublished Kurdish, Turkish, Persian and French archival documents, memoirs and oral and written literary pieces, this article unearths the role of a Kurdish tribal chief by the name of Ferzende in Mount Ararat Revolt in the late 1920s and early 1930s against the Turkish and Iranian nation-states. An exceptional contribution of this study is its exploration of the petition submitted to the Iranian Parliament by Ferzende's wife Besra. This study thus is a fresh contribution to the study of social history of the Middle East from the margins.     

"统一俄罗斯"党的理论与实践评析

"统一俄罗斯"党目前是俄国第一大党。它自称人民党,是代表俄罗斯全民族利益的政党。它的思想基础是"政治中派主义",宣称采取介于左翼和右翼之间的中间立场;反对"政治激进主义",主张"保守主义";对苏联历史在批判其消极因素的同时肯定其积极成果;全面支持普京总统的路线政策;主张建立强有力的国家,保护人权和生态环境;要求把温和的自由主义与俄罗斯的传统价值观结合起来;外交上支持普京总统推行多边务实政策。俄国政党制度目前虽然保持多党制形式,实际上出现了一党独大的格局。"统一俄罗斯"党与普京总统结盟使它的影响迅速扩大,但也造成了对总统的高度依赖性,出现了"强势总统、弱势政党"的局面。     

Seyyid Bey and the Abolition of the Caliphate

The Gentile Zionists: A Study in Anglo‐Zionist Diplomacy, 1929–1939 by N. A. Rose. London, Frank Cass. Pp 242, £3.75

The Egyptian Economy, 1952–1972 by Robert Mabro, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1974, pp. xii + 254, Bibliography, index, £1.50.

From Encroachment to Involvement: A Documentary Study of Soviet Policy in the Middle East, 1945 – 1973 by Yaacov Ro'i. John Wiley and Sons New York, Toronto. Israel Universities Press, Jerusalem. 1974. Pp. xxxix + 616

Oil and World Power by Peter Odell. Harmondsworth, Penguin, Pp. 233, 95p.

The Western European Energy Economy: Challenges and Opportunities (Stamp Memorial Lecture) by Peter Odell. London, Athlone Press, Pp. 40, 90p.

The Mahdist State of the Sudan, 1881–1898, by P.M. Holt, Second Edition. Pp. xvi + 295. Maps. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970. £2.75.

Iraq and Syria 1941 by Geoffrey Warner. London: Davis‐Poynter, 1974; Pp. 180, map, bibliography, index; £3.50     

An Historical and Political View of the Reserve and Guard Forces of the Baltic States at the Beginning of the Twenty-first Century

Abstract

The changes that have occurred in Europe since the end of the Cold War might be the most significant since the middle of the medieval period. With Poland and other nations of Central Europe, including the three Baltic states, joining the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) the political and cultural shape of Europe is rapidly changing. For the first time since the death of Charlemagne over 1,000 years ago, all of Central and Western Europe has a genuine chance of uniting. Even though this integrated Europe will be under the flag of the EU, the key that is making this possible is the military and economic power of the United States. The organization that brings the protective umbrella of the US is NATO. For nations to be taken seriously as members of NATO, they must have credible military forces. For all countries this includes the reserve and guard forces, but for small countries with conservative budgets the reserve and Home/National Guard become the most important forces. Since the Baltic states are three small countries building their militaries from zero since the end of the Cold War, the importance of the reserve and guard cannot be overemphasized. This article examines the reserve and Guard forces of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania from the end of the Cold War to the beginning of the twenty-first century.     

Coal Miners and the Transformation of the USSR

A specialist on Russian local and regional government examines relations among levels of political authority within Tyumen' Oblast'. Russian-language publications and on-site interviews constitute the base of evidence. Issues examined include challenges to the region posed by dissolution of the USSR, legal and political conflicts among levels of government, relations with federal authorities in Moscow, the role of oil companies in the region, and the impact of changes introduced under President Putin.     

Indonesia and the implementation of the bogor goals

At APEC’s second “summit” meeting, in November 1994, President Suharto of Indonesia steered the leaders of the eighteen member countries, or territories, to accept the vision of “free trade in the region” by 2020, with the developed economies achieving the goal by 2010. Six months later, Indonesia introduced a package of liberalization measures that combined its commitments in ASEAN, the Uruguay Round agreements, and the APEC process. It has hoped thereby to show others what might be done to achieve “the Bogor goals.” Arifin M. Siregar, the Indonesian ambassador to the United States, was Indonesia’s minister of trade in 1988–1993. He was previously governor of the Bank of Indonesia (1983–1988). Before joining the bank as an executive director in 1971, Dr. Siregar was an economic affairs officer at the United Nations, New York (1961–1963); an economic officer at the United Nations, Beirut, Lebanon (1963–1965); and a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC (1965–1971).     

DJnomics and the transformation of the developmental state

Since the Asian financial crisis, the Korean state under Kim Dae Jung has witnessed significant challenges from foreign capital as well as from organized labor. Regime transition has influenced the social and political relations between the state and big business (chaebol). The traditional developmental state has gradually eroded as the power and capacity of the state was increasingly affected by economic globalization. The Korean economy has been transformed from a traditional developmental state model characterized by a hierarchical and authoritative relationship between the government and conglomerates into the market-oriented economic model.