East sees east: the image of Jews from Islamic countries in the Jewish discourse of interwar Poland

This article explores travel pieces on Jews in Islamic countries published in the Jewish press (in Yiddish and Polish) in interwar Poland. It argues that many of the strategies of representation that Polish–Jewish journalists employed to describe the Jews of Islamic countries during this time borrow from the way the Jews of Eastern Europe were perceived. Turning the Western gaze on the Orient served Eastern European Jewish intellectuals as an act of multiple redemption. Finding themselves in between modern and traditional identification, Polish–Jewish journalists decided to ensure their belonging to the world which they saw as civilised by transposing concepts they knew from home.     

The future Germany and the future of NATO

The events of 1989 have raised questions about NATO's future and purpose. Two different views are held by Germany and the USA. The Germans seek the political and economic unification of the EC, the construction of a European pillar within a demilitarised NATO, and a pan‐European collective security system. In contrast, the Americans seek to preserve NATO as a military alliance responsible for western European security under American leadership and to equip NATO with competences extending beyond the NA TO area. Whilst insisting on greater western European burden sharing and security coordination, the Americans see the roles of the CSCE and the WEU as complementary to NATO's.     

A Quest for Feminist Space and Time

Abstract

This article offers an investigation of practical and political aspects of new materialism on the basis of texts accepted for publication in Women: A Cultural Review. The authors emphasize various political strategies that appear in the collected essays; above all they stress the practical aspects of theory itself. Theory as praxis is a concept inspired by contemporary philosophers such as Georges Canguilhem, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and Donna Haraway. It can also be the basis for a politics of location and it highlights the importance of being situated in specific sociocultural, historical, local and geographical contexts. The authors raised the question of the potential alliances between their specific, Polish context and the possibility of participating in and creating a broader feminist movement, which proves to be possible thanks to a variety of perspectives that are considered important and worth considering in new materialism. In the article, the Polish Kongres Kobiet (‘Women's Congress’) initiative is presented as a platform for feminist activity which combines various kinds of political, social and cultural interests, concerns and goals. Along with the importance of space for feminist politics, the authors consider time as a crucial constituent of feminist activism. Both rethinking the past—tradition, heritage, history—and directing reflection towards the future hopes, possibilities, politics and theories, constitute important characteristics of the new materialism approach. The authors conclude by introducing the notion of the ‘politics of squatting’, which serves as a metaphor for a feminist quest for space and time.     

Governing Cocaine Supply and Organized Crime from Latin America and the Caribbean: The Changing Security Logics in European Union External Policy

The logics of the European Union’s policy and practices against narcotic drugs in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have undergone a substantial shift the past decade: from development to security. Based on an empirical mapping of the EU’s drug-related projects in LAC, this article argues that an ‘integrated and balanced’ approach to drugs policy is being replaced by a bifurcation between the broader domains of development policy and security policy. Questions are raised as to how the EU’s projects on development and security might counteract one another, and how the Union’s programme aimed at dismantling transnational organized crime along the cocaine trafficking routes to Europe might have unintended consequences. While keeping in mind the shifting tectonics of the international drug prohibition consensus, the article goes on to analyze the increasingly salient security rationale in EU external drugs policy against the backdrop of the EU’s emerging role as a global security actor. In doing so, it touches upon the intrinsic tensions between human rights and (supra) national security.     

Self-Control and Racial Disparities in Delinquency: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

The purpose of the present study is to examine the racial disparities of offending within the context of self-control theory. The study utilized data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), to examine this effect. All concepts within self-control theory are examined: parental management, low self-control, and delinquency. Results from the study show partial support for Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) self-control theory. The structure of the theory remained stable when controlling for both race, as well as peer pressure. Both theoretical and policy implications are given.     

Political Parties and Higher Education Spending: Who Favours Redistribution?

A nation's endowment with human capital is an important source of economic prosperity, yet education systems as well as the amount of public spending differ both between and within industrialised countries. Traditional approaches in comparative political economy explain education spending from a perspective in which leftist parties favour human capital formation. In contrast, recent approaches claim that – with regard to public financing of higher education in stratified education systems – the basic assumptions of partisan theory rather lead to the opposite hypothesis. In such systems, a pattern of reverse redistribution emerges, under which electoral incentives let right-wing parties favour increases in higher education budgets. This article tests both claims within the decentralised German education system. Its encompassing empirical strategy provides clear support for the latter hypothesis in the 16 German states between 1992 and 2003. The results imply that the partisan composition of government and preferences for redistribution continue to matter.     

The failure of the participatory democracy in the Czech republic

Following the breakdown of the Soviet system, the new East European elites faced the problem of defining and building democratic institutions. This problem was not a purely institutional one, however. During the transformation process, different conceptions of democracy appear and often become critical issues for political competition. Based on the Czech case, this article aims to understand how and why one particular conception of democracy becomes dominant during a process of regime change. Personified by the two ‘Vaclavs’ in the Czech political arena (Havel and Klaus), divergent perspectives on democracy exist in the Czech Republic, having concrete consequences for the practice of politics. These conceptions (referred to here as ‘participatory’ and ‘majoritarian') dramatically differ in their perception of the role of the citizen in a liberal democracy. This article identifies and describes these two different conceptions of democracy in the present and past Czech Republic. It explores the sociological conditions of their emergence in order to understand the failure of the participatory model of democracy with respect to the alternative, majoritarian, vision of democracy.     

Nonprofit Cultural Alliances: Initiatory Qualitative and Empirical Examinations of an Emergent U.S. Phenomenon

This study examines the recent spontaneous emergence of nonprofit cultural alliance organizations in the U.S. Cultural alliances are community-based associations, formed by arts/cultural organization members, which provide member interaction, collaboration, networking, resource sharing, and professional education opportunities. This research accomplishes three objectives: (1) generation of a body of knowledge about cultural alliances, (2) development of a cultural alliance member satisfaction model, and (3) quantitative analysis of member survey data to assess services provided, service quality, and member satisfaction. The results indicate that the survey instrument is an important assessment tool for use by association boards of directors and executive directors.     

FIFA’s Hegemony: Examples from World Cup Hosting Countries

The hegemonic power of FIFA over countries hosting its capstone World Cup tournament is worth examining in the context of hegemony theory in International Relations literature. To understand FIFA’s hegemonic role on the global stage, it is best to place it within the context of two major shifts in the international system—power transition and diffusion. This study provides an insight into the dispute between transnational and national law in sports, which FIFA has used to strengthen its hegemony. This has empirical support as seen in four World Cup cases: previous Cups in Brazil (2014) and South Africa (2010) and the forthcoming tournaments in Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022). These cases reveal FIFA’s hegemonic power both through the overruling of national law in favour of transnational law, and by the questionable bidding processes to host the games in Qatar and the Russian Federation. In addition, this study examines whether Switzerland is capable of regulating or restricting FIFA’s hegemonic power. While removing FIFA’s legal status as a non-profit organisation seems not to be an option, the executed amendment of the Swiss anti-corruption law is a step forward. Furthermore, FIFA needs to continue its recently initiated internal reforms.     

Valencian parliamentary assemblies and the voting of servicios to rescue slaves. Duties and tax incomes in the eighteenth century

The Nueva Planta decrees (1707–16) caused an important change on the institutional and legislative map, not only in the Crown of Aragon but also in the Crown of Castile. The call for only one parliament within a ‘new institution’ – the General Courts of the Monarchy – was one of the consequences of this process of abolition undertaken by the representative institutions of each kingdom. This process deserves special attention because of the significant changes in its functions. The functions and duties of this ‘new parliament’ mainly revolved around the interests of the absolute monarchy, and the calls made during the eighteenth century – in 1713 and in 1789 – were thus intended for the oath of the heir to the throne. Among the various functions given to the parliament, the voting of servicios (a subsidy or petition) – usually a donation request – certainly stood out from time immemorial. The funds from petitions were used for different purposes, but they usually served to cover the expenses of the king and his kingdom.