Deblockierung durch Kooptation? Eine Fallstudie zur Aufnahme der Katholisch‐Konservativen in die schweizerische Landesregierung 1891

Kommt die Regierungsmehrheit in einer halbdirekten Demokratie gut organisierten Minderheiten nicht entgegen, riskiert sie, dass der Gesetzgebungsprozess mittels Volksrechten blockiert wird. Nach Neidhart (1970) ist die Aufnahme politischer Gegner in die Regierung eine mögliche Strategie zur Annäherung und Deblockierung. Die vorliegende Fallstudie untersucht, ob die Kooptation der schweizerischen katholisch‐konservativen Opposition in die vormalige Einparteienregierung des Freisinns 1891 die erwartete Wirkung gezeigt hat. Der behauptete Annäherungs‐ und Deblockierungsprozess zwischen 1874 und 1914 wird anhand quantitativer und qualitativer Daten zu 62 Volksabstimmungen und anhand von 100 Namensabstimmungen aus dem Nationalrat untersucht. Zusätzlich wird das damalige Schlüsseldossier der Eisenbahnverstaatlichung einer Analyse unterzogen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Aufnahme der Opposition in die Regierung nur einen schwachen unmittelbaren Effekt auf die Annäherung und die Deblockierung hatte. Die beiden einst verfeindeten Lager haben sich bereits vor 1891 angenähert, sei es im Parlament oder an der Urne.     

赫鲁晓夫时期的“反宗教运动”及其教训

赫鲁晓夫的"反宗教运动"持续了6年,直到赫鲁晓夫被赶下台为止.赫鲁晓夫的"反宗教运动"从其规模、破坏程度和后果看,与以前相比有所不同.这场"反宗教运动"的失误,在苏联历史上留下了深刻的教训,为社会主义制度国家如何处理好政教关系和宗教问题提供了宝贵的借鉴.值得关注的是,宗教与民族关系的和睦息息相关,民族和宗教问题都是十分重要的问题.对宗教极端主义者尤其是打着宗教的幌子企图分裂国家的不法分子,要加大打击力度,维护国家安定和民族团结,促进社会和谐发展.     

俄罗斯对叙利亚政策中的东正教因素

俄罗斯在叙利亚乱局中的表现,近期再次成为国际热点。自2011年介入不断升级的叙利亚危机以来,俄罗斯目前已经成为主导叙政治进程的主要外部力量。在俄罗斯此次应对叙利亚危机的外交中,东正教因素起到了重要作用。早在帝国时期,俄国就持续介入叙利亚事务。俄罗斯与叙利亚自古以来的东正教文化交往,影响着沙俄对安提阿教会和叙利亚东正教徒的情感,成为沙俄加入中东大国角逐的突破口。此次介入叙利亚危机,是历史的延续。俄罗斯东正教会领导人的公开发言、其附属机构在国际组织对叙基督徒问题的宣传以及提供人道援助,起到了公共外交的效果,一定程度上使俄罗斯的介入和军事行动合法化,获得了俄罗斯国内外民众的理解与支持。东正教因素的上述多重影响,是俄罗斯介入此次叙利亚危机、并成功实现其外交策略和目标的重要因素之一。     

Établissements d’enseignement et de santé confessionnels,espace public et agency à Ouagadougou (1987–2010)

Abstract

In response to the significant urbanisation and the demographic expansion of Ouagadougou, the Catholic Church and Islamic associations are diversifying their operations, which were already significant in terms of health and education at the end of the 1980s. This social engagement is at the heart of humanitarian, proselytising, socio-economic and political challenges and influences the position of these actors in the public space. This article intends to contribute to consideration of the relations between these religious actors and the State in Burkina Faso with the aim of analysing the sectors of secondary teaching and health in Ouagadougou. It will be demonstrated that the operations of these actors (Muslim and Catholic) made their legitimacy evolve differently in the public space from 1987 to 2010. The Catholic actors have had a greater influence than the Muslims on the decisions of the State. Subsequent to the challenges and the political context, the capacity of agency (capacity to act) of the actors of the two denominations has modified.     

Map of Central Asia,Western and Eastern Sectors

After first outlining the notion of anti-Semitism, the predominant survey method used for researching it, and the history of the presence and the current (near) absence of Jews in Poland, this article gives the results of different surveys of various kinds of anti-Semitism in this country, including the authors' own, and discusses the findings of their qualitative study – focus group interviews with members of three different Catholic communities from three different cities. The qualitative study confirmed the hypothesis that imagined and stereotypical rather than real Jews are the objects of modern anti-Semitism in Poland, while real historical and stereotypically perceived Jews are the objects of its religious and post-Holocaust variants. The roots of religious anti-Semitism lie in the not entirely absorbed teachings of the Catholic Church on the Jewish deicide charge. Religious anti-Semitism supports modern and post-Holocaust kinds of anti-Semitism. Modern anti-Semitism is rooted in poor education, lack of interest in the Jewish history of Poland, lack of inter-group contact, and persisting stereotypes of Jews. Among the various Catholic communities of Poles, there are considerable differences in attitudes to Jews. The qualitative study also revealed a methodological deficiency in the standard survey questions intended to measure anti-Semitism, which are sometimes understood as questions about facts rather than about opinions.     

English population statistics before 1800

The first national census of the British population was organized in 1801; the civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths commenced in 1837; and the first tentative attempt by the state to compile statistics on migration was included in the census of 1841. Prior to 1801, the chief source of information on the demography of the country was provided by the clergy's registration of baptisms, marriages, and burials that had occurred in their parishes, supplemented by information on mortality in the Bills of Mortality that were published for certain large towns and by inferences drawn from various counts of taxpayers. The article focuses on the reliability of the parochial registration system and the way in which it was exploited by the state as measured against the state's objectives for establishing it in 1538. These objectives were rarely achieved. By the end of the 18th century, the parish registers were falling short of providing a national system of registration. Neither had the registers at any time provided the requisite detail to allow the verification of age, lineal descent, or right of inheritance. They had not been used as a way of raising revenue except briefly between 1694 and 1705. Moreover, the Anglican Church was extremely lax about the enforcement of its own regulations regarding the appropriate time for registering baptisms, burials, and marriages.     

Godparenthood: driving local solidarity in Northern France in the Early Modern Era. The example of Aubervilliers families in the sixteenth–eighteenth centuries

This article studies the choice of godparents in Aubervilliers, a French catholic rural parish near Paris, during the Early Modern Era. At the turn of the sixteenth century, godparenthood essentially served to extend social ties. Vertical godparenthood was quite visible, at least with regards to ‘elite’ local residents. The shift toward kin godparenthood happened over the long term, with a clear acceleration in the second half of the eighteenth century. A second evolution was the result of the Council of Trent. In the north of France, shifts from the ternary model of godparenthood to the godmother/godfather system at the beginning of the seventeenth century increased the proportion of elites amongst the godparents selected. This would indicate a strengthening of the clientele model of godparenthood in the seventeenth century, as suggested by Alfani's works on Italy. Finally, godparenthood was gender-sensitive. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, godmothers from the maternal side were greater in number than those from the paternal side, while godfathers from the paternal side were greater in number that those from the maternal side. Above all, the sex of the christened child took on a decisive dimension at the time when choices became more family-focused in the eighteenth century. This new consideration of the child's gender would seem to indicate a shift in the concept of the tie created at the time of the baptism. The intergenerational link between godchildren and godparents would take on new significance, in contrast to the relationship between parents and godparents that proved so crucial at the beginning of the Early Modern Era.     

Unfinished business: the Catholic Church,communism, and democratization

Although history has shown us that the church plays a role in the political liberalization of non-democratic countries, the nature of the church's role and how it participates in politics has yet to be fully revealed. By revisiting the Polish Church's historic role in the collapse of communism, I argue that we have overestimated the church's effect on political liberalization in that case, which has led us to neglect or be prematurely disappointed in its role in the remaining communist countries such as in Cuba. Drawing from the Polish case, I conclude that the church's moral, self-limiting, and transnational character needs to be recognized and incorporated into a general theory of democratization. It is this aspect of the church that has helped it to remain active within remaining communist societies, and provide the moral support that is an integral part of political liberalization processes.     

The social factory of democracy in underdeveloped Spain

This article aims to analyse the contribution made by Christian movements towards constructing a democratic citizenship in an authoritarian context in the backward province of Albacete. Our study attempts to analyse the efforts made by grassroots Catholic sectors to foster democratic enclaves free from the interference of the Francoist state in 1960s and 1970s Spain. These alternative social spaces enabled new habits of civil resistance that confronted the socio-cultural hegemony of authoritarian values. As a result, throughout these years, various social groups started to challenge the sense of the regime's impregnable unity. This grassroots experience with the “power of the powerless” laid the foundations for negotiations among the political elites during the transition to democracy in Spain.