Language and politics in Spain's Basque provinces

Since its inception in the 1890s, the Basque nationalist movement has put great emphasis on the Basques’ distinctive language, Euskera, to draw clearly the dividing line between Basque and Spanish political interests. This article discusses the extent and patterns of Euskera usage today, and analyses factors affecting contemporary usage of Euskera. The article concludes with an analysis of the four post‐Franco elections in the Basque country. It would appear that the Basque Nationalist Party is growing only slightly in areas where Basque is widely spoken, but is making significant gains in areas of low usage, a fact that seems to portend a reversal in traditional Basque political patterns.     

Political mobilisation and place‐specificity: Radical nationalist street campaigning in the Spanish Basque country

The political context of Spanish Basque nationalism has changed dramatically during the last decades. As a consequence, moderate and radical nationalist groups have turned bitterly against one another. The internal power struggle is fought most visibly in the street, which is traditionally the central place of Basque political mobilisation. Particularly the radical nationalists use graffiti and mass demonstrations to question the legitimacy of the existing power structures. This paper examines the radical nationalist methods of mobilisation in the changing overall context of Basque politics. It is argued that the campaigns ought to be discussed as both instruments and expressions of local discontent, relevant at several geographical scales. The aim is to demonstrate the significance of local political activity for politics at regional, national and continental levels. Exactly this connection makes local public resistance an important subject of geographical study.     

Popular Environmental Education: Lessons from the Labor and Civil Rights Movements

This paper provides a historical account of the main public education tactics used in the early American labor and civil rights movements, and draws a number of lessons for the contemporary environmental movement. Broad - based public education is defined in terms of raising public awareness, changing worldviews and engaging citizen participation. Revisiting earlier, vibrant, progressive social movements for lessons for the present is justified by the continual drawing of ideas, tactical experience, activists and non - governmental organizations across social movements in practice. The paper finds that both the early labor and civil rights movements relied on a rather similar mix of societal learning tools, including informal schools, independent media and/or communication networks, mass meetings, and protest songs. The environmental movement needs to develop these public education tools much more fully if it hopes to revert the global environmental crisis.     

Organizational interlocks between new social movements and traditional elites: the case of the West German peace movement

Abstract. This paper deals with the question of whether the concept of elites is a fruitful category for the analysis of new social movements. It is proposed that mobilizations of new social movements are to be understood as dynamic interaction processes between mass constituencies and movement entrepreneurs, mediated by organizational communication networks. Taking the case of the West German peace movement, it is shown that such leadership roles can be identified as parts of the movement's internal division of labour. Furthermore, it is shbwn that movement entrepreneurs of the peace movement are also linked to established elite sectors.     

互动与双解:"电视艺术"辩证

电视是一类大众传播媒介;电视与艺术是互动的且密不可分的;电视艺术是一个带有非确指性的“双解”的概念。     

Conceptual art and language: introducing a logico-semantic analysis

This article suggests a logico-semantic analysis of Keith Arnatt's Trouser-Word Piece and Victor Burgin's Room, based on Ludwig Wittgenstein's examination of the logical relationship between propositions and the world and M.A.K. Halliday's discussion of social semiotics. It reconsiders the use of language in conceptual art practices from a wider sociological and interdisciplinary perspective, and aims to show how their juxtaposition of different voices within a public context negotiates the space of art as a social space. Focusing on how artworks communicate in context, the following discussion presents the historical as well as the discursive environment in which Arnatt's and Burgin's works are situated and received; moreover, it examines how these works critically manipulate viewing and reading regimes, frameworks of evaluation and patterns of communication in order to create a situation of particular tension between perceptual and conceptual apprehension. In wider terms, this article demonstrates how critically engaged artworks manipulate the conditions of communication by utilizing loan rhetoric (a rhetoric external to the art context) and displace associate meaning in order to challenge the institutionalization of art's production and function. In doing so, they critically stage and contest the power structures that support corresponding hierarchies across producer, audience and mediator, and bring art's social modality into focus. Investigating the manipulation of language in conceptual art, this article proposes a method of analysis that becomes fundamental in studying contemporary multi-modal art production, and in understanding the dialectics of art'But the difficulty is to remove the prejudices communication and critical potential.     

Das Parlament in der Mediengesellschaft — Verschränkungen zwischen parlamentarischer und massenmedialer Arena

The assumed decline of parliaments’ power in the political decision making process is blamed on a complex social and political transformation. Among others, changes in the structures of the public space, especially the emergence of mass communication, represent a crucial challenge for parliamentary representation. Parliaments depend on a functioning external communication, since their relations to the public are a central source of parliamentary legitimacy and power. In two fields one can observe an evident overlapping between the systems of parliament and mass media: in parliament’s management of communication and in parliament’s procedures of opinion forming and decision making. In a case study of the German Bundestag, processes of adaptation to the structures of the mass media system can be found in these areas. Adaptation comes to its limits where it collides with the necessity to provide space for bargaining processes. Furthermore, the processes of adaptation illustrate how political actors realize and structurally actualize the ambigious relationship between publicity and power.     

警察公关礼仪与警察形象的塑造

在现代社会中,任何一个社会组织都要处理好与自身发展密切相关的内外公众关系,树立良好的组织形象。充分重视和发挥公关礼仪的功能和作用是警察组织的形象塑造的一个重要方面。本文对警察公共关系工作中礼仪的功能、原则、意义和养成等方面进行了探讨。认为公共关系是一门塑造形象的艺术,人民警察外在的行为、举止等表现,在人民群众心目中形成的形象、地位、信任和支持程度构成了人民警察的形象。而公关礼仪正是塑造形象这一艺术的起点。     

When school meets the Other: intercultural policies in the Basque inclusive school

ABSTRACT

Gatti, Irazuzta and Martinez address the intercultural public policies implemented in the education system of the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country (Spain). Focusing on the education system allows them to reconstruct the historicity of identity-alterity production in a region in which language has been central for the establishment of ethnic frontiers. More specifically, they examine the implementation of these policies in three pre-school and primary educational institutions in a multicultural neighbourhood of the city of Bilbao. They look at Euskara—the Basque language—as a key element of the us-them distinction. The various education models regarding language and the teaching in/of Euskara or Spanish pave the way for the specialization and spatialization of the schools analysed. ‘Integration’ policies are implemented in ethnically marked schools only, based on a rhetoric of interculturality that assumes that any ‘racial or ethnic discrimination’ can be overcome through knowledge of the Other. Moreover, the assessment of public policies through ‘interculturality figures and best practice’ developed to address the so-called ‘immigration issue’ promotes a protectionist intervention on behalf of the assumed social vulnerabilities of immigrant schoolchildren and their families, which are read as ‘problematic characteristics’. The article argues that, as a result of the approach based on the social conditions of immigrant children and their families in the Basque Country, the race issue evaporates.     

Making citizenship public: identities,practices, and rights at Woodsquat

The common conception of citizenship is that of belonging to a political community, with the ensuing rights and responsibilities of membership. This community tends to be naturalized as the nation-state. However, this location of citizenship needs to be decentred in order to investigate current modes of democratic participation. This paper investigates current sites and practices of citizenship through reflection on a tactical housing squat of an empty department store staged by an urban social movement in Vancouver in 2002, known as ‘Woodsquat’. It uses a social movement perspective to look at citizenship, emphasizing the identities, practices, and locations of democratic engagement over the collective question of how we will live together in these places. From this point of view Woodsquat shows current limits of national citizenship, conceptually and practically, and suggests alternative possibilities for future citizenship practices located in multiple identifications with (political) communities. Moving from this analysis of political participation at Woodsquat attention is brought to the importance of spaces of democratic communication for possibilities of citizenship, where there seems to be a reinforcing relationship between public spheres, social movements, and democracy. Ultimately, then, actions at Woodsquat are argued to be a form of citizenship that emerged within a democratic public.     

Toward a Psychology of Framing Effects

Framing is the process by which a communication source constructs and defines a social or political issue for its audience. While many observers of political communication and the mass media have discussed framing, few have explicitly described how framing affects public opinion. In this paper we offer a theory of framing effects, with a specific focus on the psychological mechanisms by which framing influences political attitudes. We discuss important conceptual differences between framing and traditional theories of persuasion that focus on belief change. We outline a set of hypotheses about the interaction between framing and audience sophistication, and test these in an experiment. The results support our argument that framing is not merely persuasion, as it is traditionally conceived. We close by reflecting on the various routes by which political communications can influence attitudes.     

Reinventing government through on‐line citizen involvement in the developing world: a case study of taipei city mayor's e‐mail box in Taiwan

Since the 1980s, a global administrative reform movement is reshaping the relationship between citizens and state. A major concern is how government can be more responsive to the governed through citizen participation. However, the more citizens participate, the more costly it is to govern. And the application of new information and communication technology (ICT) seems to be a cure for this limitation. In this research, authors take the Taipei City Mayor's e‐mail‐box (TCME) in Taiwan as a case to illustrate the complex relationships among citizen involvement, e‐government and public management. After a series of empirical investigations, the authors show that although ICT can reduce the cost of citizen involvement in governing affairs, it cannot increase citizens' satisfaction with government activities without reforming the bureaucratic organisation, regulatory structure, and managerial capacities of the public sector. The results could be helpful to public managers in planning and evaluating online governmental services in the developing countries. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Linguistic polarization and conflict in the Basque Country

This paper investigates the relationship between linguistic polarization and conflict in the Basque Country. During the 40 years of Franco??s dictatorship the use of the Basque language was banned. Therefore, there may be some linguistic roots underlying the conflict in the Basque Country. We show that at the municipality level, linguistic polarization reduces the level of conflict. This finding is robust to various ways of measuring linguistic and ideological polarization and the inclusion of other covariates. In addition, we find that a high level of the stock of human capital is beneficial for reducing conflict intensity.     

线路治安管理的群众工作六法谈

做好群众工作不仅是一门学问,更是一门艺术,需要讲究方式方法。面对蓬勃发展的高铁事业和高要求、高标准的线路治安工作,必须深入群众调查走访,知民情、懂民意,掌握沿线社会治安状况;必须宣传教育、提醒警示,提高沿线群众爱路护路意识;必须广交朋友、建立感情,调动群众安全防范积极性;必须外联内控、综合治理,严控线路安全危险源头;必须灵活运用、区别对待,教育群众、打击犯罪,提升公安机关威慑力;必须加强学习、苦练内功,提高线路民警做群众工作的能力和水平。     

Exploring Public Sector Communication Performance: Testing a Model and Drawing Implications

Despite its importance to agency effectiveness, communication performance is an understudied topic. This is partly attributable to the "performance predicament," which arises because costs of communication are easier to measure than its benefits. In this study, we develop and test an exploratory model of public sector communication performance that is synthesized from the literature on public–private differences and organizational communication. This model is statistically significant and explains the variation in interpersonal, external, and internal communication performance. This is perhaps the largest empirical study on public sector communication to date. Our findings have two key implications for public managers. First, the constraints of red tape on communication performance can be overcome if key performance-enhancing conditions—goal clarity without rigidity and a culture that supports communication—are in place. Second, external communication poses more challenges and may require additional effort.     

政府公关传播沟通探析

政府公关传播沟通与行政传播、企业传播有所不同。它使用非行政、法律、经济制裁等手段 ,在实现政府职能上有着突出的、不可替代的作用。政府公关传播沟通在我国具有良好的实施条件。建立有中国特色的政府公关传播沟通的理论已迫在眉睫。     

抗战文艺运动述略

抗日战争爆发后党所领导的文艺运动呈现出新的时代特点.围绕"抗战"主题,与民族解放运动同步发展,运用文艺形式进行抗日救亡宣传成为抗战文艺运动的中心内容.探讨抗战文艺运动,得出的结论是:文艺不能脱离现实,文艺必须宏扬时代的主旋律、文艺不能没有党的领导.     

Public Opinion, Political Communication and the Internet

In contemporary society public opinion is generally mediated by the mass media, which has come to encompass the Habermasian 'public sphere'. This arena is now characterised by the conflict between market and democratic principles, by competing interests of politicians and the media. The presentation of information for debate becomes distorted. The opinion of the 'public' is no longer created through deliberation, but is constructed through systems of communication, in conflict with political actors, who seek to retain control of the dissemination of information. The expansion of the internet as a new method of communication provides a potential challenge to the primacy of the traditional media and political parties as formers of public opinion.     

Backlash and Legitimation: Macro Political Responses to Supreme Court Decisions

This article is a first attempt to develop and assess the competing predictions of the thermostatic model of public opinion and legitimation theory for the responses of public mood to Supreme Court decisions. While the thermostatic model predicts a negative relationship between the ideological direction of Supreme Court decisions and changes in public mood, legitimation theory predicts that changes in mood should be positively associated with the ideological content of the Court's actions. I assess these rival expectations by modeling the dynamic relationship between mood and cumulative judicial liberalism. The model estimates indicate a complex interaction between the Court and the mass public characterized by short‐term backlash against Supreme Court decisions in mood followed by long‐run movement toward the ideological positions taken by the Court. The results emphasize the legitimacy of the Court in American politics and point to a unique role for the Court in shaping public opinion.     

Lessons from the new public management in commonwealth nations

The New Public Management (NPM) is unlike any other public sector reform for the simple fact that it is practitioner-driven as well as a global movement. However, what works in one public sector circumstance may not work in another political, social, or economic setting. By surveying the Commonwealth countries I find that NPM reforms are taking place in all Commonwealth countries regardless of their various stages of economic and political development. This evidence confirms that the administrative reform of NPM measures is truly a global public sector reform movement.