Models of Discourse and Hermeneutics in Octavio Paz's El Laberinto de la Soledad

This article explores how certain presuppositions govern our interpretations of this canonical text by Octavio Paz. I trace its biographical and textual origins, the book's peculiar reception, some of its multiple intellectual sources, and the problem of genre and how these hermeneutic discourses and epistemological tools interact. Structure (the relationship between psychology and history), rhetorical strategies and central symbols and metaphors that give the book its unity and complexity are also discussed. I conclude that we can read this hybrid work simultaneously as essay, narrative text, autobiography and modern epic myth: it is both an analytic or ironic deconstruction and an imaginative, symbolic construction of individual and collective identity.     

Policy Narratives across Two Languages: A Comparative Study using the Narrative Policy Framework

The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) focuses on the role of narratives, drawing from a rich scholarship in narrative, language, and culture. Despite the understanding that narratives are constructions of language and that narrative construction differs across languages, NPF studies have not focused on policy narratives in languages other than English. Language characteristics of narratives are important to assess the stability of policy narratives when there are multiple dominant languages in a political system. This study investigates the use of narrative elements in policy narratives in agricultural biotechnology policy in India across Hindi and English media coverage to examine the NPF assumption that narratives have generalizable narrative elements irrespective of variation in linguistic context and, specifically, tests the transportability of narrative elements. Findings validate the transportability of narrative elements in Hindi narratives, indicate variation in the use of narrative elements over time, and have implications for applying NPF across languages.     

Venue Preference and Earthquake Mitigation Policy: Expanding the Micro‐Model of Policy Choice

Seismologists have reported that a majority of recent earthquakes in Oklahoma have been triggered by the activities of oil and gas companies. Despite this fact, there is evidence of strong opposition toward earthquake mitigation policy. In this article, we argue that how individuals define issues affect their policy choice. Furthermore, we incorporate the concept of venue shopping from the literature on macro theories of the policy process to investigate the effect of problem definition in shaping individual venue preference for policy choice. Using unique survey data, we find that problem definition, particularly issue causality and issue image, is strongly related to individual support for earthquake mitigation policy. However, a more nuanced relationship between individual problem definition and venue preference is observed. Our findings contribute to scholarly endeavors to understand the politics of problem definition at an individual level, which may be the precursor of understanding policy choices at the institutional level.     

论民间法研究的犬儒主义色彩

改革开放之后,政治权力尽管对学术的控制全面放松了,但其仍然时刻保持着侵入学术的可能。法学学术面对这种政治情势形成了一种既试图回避政治禁忌又试图迎合学术体制的犬儒主义生存策略,而民间法研究正好满足了这样一种生存策略,民间法研究者无疑对当下中国的政治现实有着一种清醒的意识,但其仍然回避了关键的政治性法律实践问题,而在比较安全的去政治化的法律实践领域大力挖掘学术资源。民间法研究者还在既中立客观而又具有现实意义的绝佳外表下不恰当地将这种片面化的学术研究放大到法治建设的全局性地位,为其进行精致的正当化辩护。民间法研究者最终通过各种似是而非的理论策略能够达到一种犬儒主义效果:对学术无能的不自知、对逃避政治现实的自我说服、对学术繁荣的自我陶醉。     

碰撞交融扬弃 --对借鉴西方文化的几点反思

经济全球化带动了文化的全球化,东西方文化的相互激荡、碰撞、交融、扬弃愈加凸现。在研究借鉴西方文化的态度上,有三种倾向影响我们正确解读、借鉴、研究西方文化:一是惟我独尊,二是防范戒备,三是斗争哲学,应该引起反思。在借鉴西方文化上,一概排斥不可取,全盘吸收不可能,借鉴扬弃不可少。     

Personalist Politics, Clientelism and Citizenship: Local Elections in El Alto, Bolivia

The article investigates the citizenship practices of urban Aymara in a neighbourhood of El Alto, Bolivia, through an examination of the municipal elections of December 1999. Using ethnographic methods, I focus on the instrumental and affective sides of clientelism, a central feature of Bolivian elections. I argue that clientelism is a part of citizenship practice, a means of engaging with the state in the person of the politician. A majority of the Bolivian population are marginalised from the oligarchic mestizo system of government, as represented by the traditional political parties. However, at local level, and especially during election campaigns, there is more permeability, and this article sees clientelism as a set of strategies through which citizens attempt to make politics, and politicians, more representative and responsive.     

Medical Practice in Early Colonial Spanish America: A Prospectus

This paper outlines the current state of research on medical practice in early colonial Spanish America. It argues that medical practice in Spain was more diverse than generally supposed, and that this complicated the exchange that occurred between Native American, African and European medical traditions in the Americas. Control of medical practice in Spanish America was exercised not through the establishment of state institutions, but through the close working of the state and the Church that on the one hand promoted medical care as a charitable activity and on the other sought to suppress practices that were incompatible with Catholic beliefs. However, due to the shortage of trained medical practitioners, the authorities were relatively tolerant of alternative medical practices and this enabled a process of exchange and fusion. The paper illustrates these processes with respect to medical practice in Cartagena de Indias in the early seventeenth century. It concludes with suggestions of avenues for future research.     

关于对现行犯适用先行拘留的思考

现行犯是指正在预备犯罪、实行犯罪或者犯罪后即时被发觉的人。刑事诉讼法规定对现行犯可以适用先行拘留。对刑诉法所规定的"先行拘留",理论和实践中众说纷纭,诸如立案前拘留、逮捕前拘留、无证拘留和有证拘留等等。这些观点均有违立法精神,造成了司法实践中对拘留的适用无所适从。先行拘留和拘留是有区别的,对现行犯可以先行拘留,应当理解为"先抓获后拘留"。     

论我国破产法中管理人的法律地位

2007年企业破产法典的颁布确立了我国破产程序中管理人中心主义的结构模式,但法律对于管理人制度的规定较为原则。正确认识管理人的法律地位,并通过配套立法进一步明确管理人的选任机制、报酬、责任承担、监督机制等相关问题,对于破产实务工作具有重大意义。     

Lost Imperium: the European Liberation Front (1949-54)

In 1947, just two years after the fall of Nazi Germany, an American expatriate living in Ireland named Francis Parker Yockey wrote Imperium, a massive tome that advanced a new strategy for post-war European fascism. Yockey insisted that fascists abandon their narrow nationalist viewpoint and, instead, fight for a new European-wide fascist empire, which he dubbed the 'Imperium'. In 1948 Yockey and his closest collaborators left Oswald Mosley's Union Movement and founded the European Liberation Front (ELF), a British-based groupuscule that lasted until 1954. Rejecting the possibility of building a mass fascist movement in post-war Europe, the ELF defined its primary task as ideological: namely, the advancement of the 'Imperium' idea inside the ranks of Europe's 'fascist elite'. The ELF soon ran into stiff opposition from Mosley over Yockey's controversial identification of the United States, and not the Soviet Union, as Europe's 'main enemy'. The ELF also met with fierce resistance from Hitler worshippers inside the British right like Arnold Leese, who rejected the ELF's emphasis on 'culture' over 'race'. Despite the ELF's relatively brief existence as a groupuscule, its introduction of a new kind of 'Eurofascist' thinking has recently led to its rediscovery by contemporary European New Rightists now searching for a new political strategy following both the end of the Cold War and the emergence of the United States as the world's sole 'superpower'.