Gender,Politics and the State: What Do Middle Eastern Women Want?

The essays that follow are drawn from invited presentations of the Conference Group on the Middle East, which meets annually in conjunction with the American Political Science Association. The essays published here were presented in San Francisco, August 29-September 1, 1996, on one of three panels dealing with gender, politics and the state. Thanks to the continuing generosity of the Ford Foundation, five scholars from the Middle East were able to participate. The contributors would like to thank Farhad Kazemi, Deborah Gerner and Jean Lecafor their excellent comments at the panels. Louis J. Cantori, who has shepherded the Conference Group since its creation by a group of University of Chicago graduates more than a decade ago, deserves special thanks for his tireless commitment.     

General Election 2015 in Singapore: What Social Media Did and Did not Do

Abstract

The online buzz leading up to the 2015 Singapore general election (GE2015) favoured opposition parties and personalities, encouraging perceptions that the opposition would garner more votes than in 2011. Instead, the ruling People’s Action Party won and saw an increase in their vote share from 60.1% in 2011 to 69.9%. What role, then, did social media play in this election? This study shows that, against prevailing assumptions, GE2015 was not a social media election. Through an online survey of 2,000 respondents conducted after polling day, it was found that mainstream media and their online counterparts were used most frequently and were trusted more as sources of information about the election. Online and offline political participation was also low. However, social media users were more interested in election issues, were more likely to discuss politics with others and participated more in offline political activities than non-users.     

新冷战,怎么办?

新冷战与其"原型"存在本质区别."新时代"的主要内容是试图维护既得利益或是收复失地的西方展开反攻,力图阻止刚刚开始的对世界的重新分割.这一正在展开的对抗,其实质正是为了遏制对老西方不利的历史进程.俄用自己的行动和姿态"助长"了新冷战的开端.既然冷战即将揭幕,只能遵从其逻辑.但在面对种种挑拨离间时,俄应当时刻想着更长远的事情、更可怕的未来.     

Accomplices with Reservations: German Diplomats and the Preparation of the Polish Campaign of September 1939

This paper examines the role of the conservative foreign policy establishment in the decision-making process leading to the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939. Post-war statements by German diplomats portrayed the conservative elite as reluctant participants in Hitler's drive to war. However, an examination of the foreign policy views of German conservatives reveals a significant degree of convergence with Nazi goals in their desire to revise Germany's post-Versailles borders with Poland. In order to understand the role of the German diplomatic elite, it is also necessary to understand the degree to which foreign policy was subject to the same "polycracy" of decision-making instances that characterised the structure of the "Third Reich" in general. While Hitler had relied on the conservative elites, including the Foreign Ministry and the military, their influence on decision-making was waning by 1938–1939.     

Work and Family Life among Migrant Factory Workers in China and Vietnam

ABSTRACT

Through on-site interviewing, a comparative study has been carried out about migrant factory workers in industrialised parts of China’s Guangdong province and in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City. Even though China and Vietnam possess similar legacies of socialist transformation and have household registration regulations that restrict rural migrants’ access to urban social services and impede their settlement in cities, there exist marked differences in Guangdong and Ho Chi Minh City in migration patterns, factory work conditions and migrant worker family livelihoods. In particular, migrant families in Ho Chi Minh City largely stay intact and tend to settle there permanently, while married migrant workers in Guangdong normally need to split up their families and remain trapped in circular rural–urban migration. As shall be seen, the national and local governments play important roles in determining the inclusion or exclusion of migrants from urban life, the wages they are paid and their standard of living and, most important of all, their children’s access to education. Each of the two countries’ differences in implementing policies is examined and comparatively analysed.     

Shahs,Doctors, Diplomats and Missionaries in 19th Century Iran

By the mid-nineteenth century the impact of the West was felt in many walks of life in Persia, ranging from the intellectual, cultural, political, social to the economic sphere. In general it was the ideas and ideologies emanating from the West which finally affected every social institution and outlook on life. One of the fields affected was that of traditional medicine. The main agents of this impact were the European doctors of the Qajar Shahs and the nobility, the doctors assigned to diplomatic missions, medical members of Christian missions and the students who were sent abroad to study medicine and who returned to Iran to practice it. This paper will explore some aspects of the history of the introduction of Western medicine to Persia and simultaneously it will also examine the hypothesis that the role of the foreign powers and missionaries in introducing Western medicine into Persia was not entirely altruistic but related to non-medical objectives.     

The Organization of the Executive Branch in Latin America: What We Know and What We Need to Know

This article proposes a research agenda for the organization of the executive branch in Latin America by reviewing the literature on the U.S. and Latin American presidencies and outlining the research gap between them. The study finds that while strong, regionwide patterns have been established about cabinets in Latin America, research is lagging behind on the presidential center, presidential advisory networks, and their effects in policymaking. The article sets forth a series of research questions and suggests a combination of quantitative, social network, and case study strategies to address them.     

Collecting the World: The Life and Curiosity of Hans Sloane

Collecting the World: The Life and Curiosity of Hans Sloane . By James Delbourgo (London: Allen Lane, 2017), pp.xxxi + 504. Illustrated, 42 plates and three maps. £25.00 (hb).     

The Middle East: What is Our Long-Term Vision?

The following is an edited version of a discussion held by the Middle East Policy Council on September 23, 1994, at the U.S. Senate Hart Building in Washington, D.C. The Council's president, former Senator George McGovern, was the moderator.