The Politics of the Past in Dagestan: National Unity and Symbolic Revolt

Abstract

Dagestan is inhabited by numerous ethnic communities with their own languages, cultures and histories. However, despite its ethnic and cultural diversity, the republic’s authorities have consistently sought to promote a unified concept of Dagestani identity. This policy has been challenged by local ethnic nationalists concerned about the future of their ethnic communities, which they saw as being endangered by assimilation and marginalisation. This struggle to secure political and social benefits began in the Soviet period and reached its height in the early 1990s. Resentment was particularly widespread among the Kumyks and Lezgins. Their dissatisfaction with the status quo resulted in a competition between inclusive (national) and exclusive (ethnic) approaches, which in turn manifested themselves in debates over historiography. This essay analyses the development and outcomes of this struggle from the 1950s through to the early 2000s, with an emphasis on the early 1990s.     

倏然十载飞逝 未来十年可期

跨入新世纪时的激情犹在,不觉十载倏然飞逝。过去的十年喜忧参半,辉煌与祸殃同在,创新与危机并存。这是变革频仍的十年,纷乱丛生的十年,治理注力的十年,世界史上将赫然书写“变”、“乱”、“治”三个大字。     

以绿色共赢为核心的中国能源环境外交

面对能源环境成为关系到世界和平、区域稳定、国家与公共安全面的新威胁,中国的对外战略进行了调整。随着中国综合国力在全球舞台上有了质的飞跃,中国开始在全球能源环境领域扮演负责任的大国角色。中国政府一直从战略上高度重视能源环境问题,坚持把资源节约和保护环境作为基本国策,把可持续发展作为国家战略,努力落实各项国际承诺,积极参加未来阶段国际应对能源环境安全体系和全球治理的构建,为建设全球能源环境新秩序发挥积极作用。     

The Politics of Infrastructural Projects: A Case for Evidence-Based Policymaking

Many developing countries currently face tightening fiscal constraints as a result of the global financial crisis and associated reduction in both credit and demand. Policymarkers therefore have less fiscal space within which to undertake projects, so the opportunity cost of any misallocation of resources will be correspondingly higher. There is therefore an increasing need to rely more on evidence-based policymaking (EBPM). The is particularly so for large infrastructural projects, as these tend to be costly, and especially for transportation projects as these are particularly prone to result in sub-optimal outcomes. This paper examines the policy process for the implementation of the Jamaican Highway 2000, one of the largest and most costly infrastructure projects in Jamaica in recent years. A number of primary and secondary data sources were explored to ascertain the extent to which the decision to implement the project reflects a case for evidence-based decision-making in practice. This made it clear that the decision was taken at least partly on political grounds, largely in the absence of any supportive evidence, and on the basis of over-optimistic and unrealistic assumptions, and that this has created a number of serious, long-term challenges for Jamaica.     

从德国看欧洲政党政治制度的危机与改革前景

近年来,西欧政党政治出现了严重危机.当前德国各个政党的普遍问题主要是缺乏一个明确的领导核心,政党政治危机首先体现在思想理论方面.为适应新形势,必须进行革新.     

Terrorism Research: Past,Present, and Future

Research on terrorism and counterterrorism draws on many disciplines, including Politics, History, Sociology and Anthropology. Yet there are concerns about scope, methodology, impact, and the level of public debate. An agreed definition of terrorism is unattainable: there should be more focus on particular acts rather than labelling whole movements. The threat of terrorism should be kept in proportion. Understanding its causes, and associated belief-systems, is crucial to conducting effective counterterrorist operations. Evaluations of the effectiveness of both terrorism and counterterrorism need to encompass more factors, including terrorism's deadliest legacies: wars on terror that fail, and a habit of violence.     

Transitional Politics of Memory: Political Strategies of Managing the Past in Post-communist Romania

Abstract

The article develops a typology of political strategies of coming to terms with the past as a theoretical frame of reference against which it assesses the transitional politics of memory pursued in Romanian post-communist society. It argues that after an initial ‘elusive’ strategy based on a politics of amnesia gave way to a confrontationist stance promoting a politics of anamnesis, the communist past was both politically criminalised and symbolically demonised. The article concludes by arguing that the failure of the ‘mastering the past’ paradigm epitomised by the 2006 Tism?neanu Report needs to give way to a ‘normalising’ paradigm of remembering Romanian communism.     

Local Politics,Central Power: The Future of Representative Local Government in England

When Labour took power in 1997, local government was battered and bruised, but it had survived, and indeed retained much of its vitality. What would happen next? Where the Conservatives had used the language of competition, New Labour promoted its policies around an ideology of modernisation, and rapidly introduced a new legal framework, new powers and strong incentives to improve performance. But by 2004, in the run-up to another general election, Labour increasingly emphasised the rights of consumers to choose providers of services, and the value of involving the private sector in public sector provision. There were proposals to take the finance for education and social services out of local authority control. A complex geography of partnerships and networks had developed, which required small executives of salaried councillors, far fewer than the large numbers needed by the committee system. But turnout in local elections remained low, and membership of both Labour and Conservative parties declined. The paper uses a simple stakeholder analysis to show how councillors and local activists were marginalised. It suggests that the government has a choice: it could either accept that the era of multi-skilled councillors responsible for the multi-purpose local authorities is ending, or it could radically rationalise the present quangos, partnerships and other governance structures to re-create it.     

美国气候变化政策演变特征和奥巴马政府气候变化政策走向

美国气候变化政策发展大致经历了四个阶段,主要表现出如下特点：从地位上看,美国气候变化政策经历了从一般性程度上升到战略性高度的过程;从内容上看,美国气候变化政策是变化性与延续性相结合的产物;从政府首脑来看,其党派属性对气候变化政策影响重大。奥巴马政府任期内,“积极应对”将会成为美国气候政策的主旋律,但是其国内政策能否有效推进取决于多重因素的相互制衡。美国依旧会继续避免作出实质性的减排承诺,并且会继续要求发展中国家也参与到全球温室气体减排中来,只是形式将会更加间接化和多样化,同时会加强与主要发展中国家的合作力度,并有望打破小布什退出《京都议定书》造成的僵局。     

Markets,Politics, and Learning: Explaining Monetary Policy Innovations in Brazil

An increasing number of developing and emerging economies have adopted an inflation targeting framework for monetary policy during the last two decades. This article investigates the politics of inflation targeting by focusing on the case of Brazil. I argue that the decision to implement an inflation targeting system in 1999 did not only reflect the concerns of political leaders with maintaining electoral support and external credibility. In addition, the choice of this new policy approach was informed by a shift in the technical consensus among Brazilian economists about the most effective way to tame inflationary pressures in a context of high capital mobility. The shift to inflation targeting thus reflected a process of social learning among technical elites, facilitated not only by the failure of the previous policy but also by the successful experience of other inflation targeting countries. Moreover, the evidence presented here suggests that, as the first country to adopt inflation targets in the context of an IMF-supported program, Brazil became a test case and a natural experiment for the redefinition of IMF conditionality and surveillance mechanisms. The paper thus sheds light on a process of reciprocal learning, whereby the IMF not only contributed to collective learning but also learned from the Brazilian case, subsequently becoming an active promoter of inflation targeting among developing countries.     

Risk,Reflexivity and Sub-politics: Environmental Politics in Hong Kong

Increasing attention has been drawn to the risk posed by air pollution, a risk that has wide-ranging effects (on the environment, health, the economy, culture, urban design and politics). New environmental movements and political agendas have emerged in the past 10 years. A growing number of social groups have been formed to express their concerns and challenge established laws and rules. This paper will borrow Ulrich Beck's concepts of risk, reflexivity and sub-politics to analyse the new social movement that addresses air quality in Hong Kong. While previous environmental problems were considered manageable, air pollution is a risk that seems to defy solution. As a result of the institutional failure to deal with this risk, there has been a new alignment of interests and the emergence of a new form of politics—a sub-politics that leads to a sharing of power between established and informal politics, and the government and society. Although established political institutions have been receptive, altering the rules and increasing public participation, the extent of sub-politicization is still limited. This is due, in part, to the overall absence of reflexive self-regulation among individuals in the society, which might lead to a state of ‘disorganized irresponsibility’.     

The Impacts of Differential Armed Dominance of Politics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Across the Americas, from Northern Mexico to Colombia’s mountain valleys and Brazil’s shantytowns, escalating armed violence and the growing power of criminal organizations has generated immense public concern about the breakdown of the rule of law. While some policy makers and journalists write about state failure and the emergence of ungoverned spaces, the evidence presented in this article will show that far from a lack of governance or a failure of the state, criminal organizations often collaborate with a variety of state actors to create varied systems of localized order that perpetuate criminal power and undermine most policy efforts to control crime and violence. In contrast to past scholarship’s reliance on single case studies to analyze the efforts of armed actors to build localized orders, this article offers a systematic comparative analysis of a police-connected protection racket and a drug gang operating in two Rio de Janeiro neighborhoods under similar political conditions. Analysis of the evidence shows that variation in the organizational structures of the armed actors and, in particular, their proximity to state officials, poses varied consequences for local development, including the dynamics of politics and policymaking, associational life, and violence and security.