Education of the countryside at a crossroads: rural social movements and national policy reform in Brazil

This contribution explores the strategies used by popular movements seeking to advance social reforms, and the challenges once they succeed. It analyzes how a strategic alliance between the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST) and the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG) transformed the Ministry of Education's official approach to rural schooling. This success illustrates the critical role of international allies, political openings, framing, coalitions and state–society alliances in national policy reforms. The paper also shows that once movements succeed in advancing social reforms, bureaucratic tendencies such as internal hierarchy, rapid expansion and ‘best practices’ – in addition to the constant threat of cooptation – can prevent their implementation.     

National identity-building and the “Ustaša-nostalgia” in Croatia: the past that will not pass

Most scholarship on post-Communist Croatia claims that the first Croatian president, Franjo Tu?man, intentionally rehabilitated the legacy of the World War II (WWII) Croatian Usta?a and its Nazi-puppet state. The rehabilitation of the Usta?a has been linked to Tu?man’s national reconciliation politics that tended toward a particular “forgetting of the past.” The national reconciliation was conceptualized as a joint struggle of both the Croatian anti-fascist Partisan and the Croatian WWII fascist Usta?a successors to achieve Croatian independence. However, the existing scholarship does not offer a comprehensive explanation of the nexus between national reconciliation and the rehabilitation of the Usta?a. Hence, this article will present how “Usta?a-nostalgia” does not stem from Tu?man’s intentions, but rather from the morphological gap occurring in Tu?man’s nation-building idea. Namely, Tu?man’s condemnation of the entire idea of Yugoslavism and Yugoslavia eventually brought about the perception that any historical agent advocating the idea of an independent Croatia is better than any form of Croatian Yugoslavism. Finally, the article will present how contemporary Croatian society is still seeped in “Usta?a-nostalgia” due to the hesitation of the post-Tu?man Croatian politics to come to terms with the legacy of his national reconciliation politics.     

The mioritic nation – an alternative approach to Moldovan national identity

Moldova has been widely argued to be a failed nation-building project, with two national identity discourses coexisting within Moldovan society and amongst Moldovan elites: Romanianism and Moldovanism. Challenging the dominance of these discourses in the literature, this article argues that in spite of its absence from the nationalism debate in Moldova, the ballad Miori?a is a key element for the Moldovan articulation of national identity. The analysis employs a discursive approach focused on language as a constituting phenomenon and draws from Miori?a's appeal to the grass roots level, its banality in day-to-day life, and, more importantly, its promotion by Moldovan cultural elites. This latter part focuses specifically on the writings of novelist Ion Dru??. Dru?? places Miori?a at the very center of his construction of Moldovan national identity. He highlights its links with Moldovan history, culture, religious thinking, and geographical space, both reproducing a structure similar to the two national identity discourses, Romanianism and Moldovanism, and building on their similarities. But more importantly, Dru??'s representation of national identity sheds light on the possibility of an all-encompassing Moldovan identity, overcoming the existing cleavage, and a series of mechanisms that can be employed to achieve this.     

The legacy of subalternity and Gramsci’s national–popular: populist discourse in the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Drawing on Laclau’s concept of populist discourse and Gramsci’s ‘national–popular collective will’, and using the case of Iran, this article puts forward the idea of the legacy of subalternity in the context of post-revolution governments. The concept of ‘national–popular collective will’ facilitates an understanding of how the popular subject is constructed and the meanings embedded in that process. It is argued that Islamic Republic elites articulate a populist discourse that constructs the ‘self’ (the Islamic Republic) as synonymous with ‘the people’. Embedded in this discursive construction is a legacy of subalternity that goes back to the 1979 Revolution’s populist discourse.     

浅谈落实党的工人政策——学习党的十八大工作报告的体会

党的十八大报告,是夺取中国特色社会主义新胜利和全面建成小康社会的纲领性文件,是代表人民、为人民谋利益的政策指南。报告就实现好、维护好、发展好工人劳动者的积极性和创造性方面重申和提出了许多方针和政策性要求。改革开放30多年的实践中,我们在依靠工人阶级方面也出现了一些杂音和问题。贯彻落实党的十八大报告精神,必须坚定不移地贯彻宪法,切实落实工人劳动者的主人翁地位;必须进一步贯彻党的"依靠"方针,更好地形成"劳动光荣"、"尊重劳动"、落实工人劳动者合法权益的良好社会环境,积极推进工人劳动者逐步实现自身的现代化;同时还要重视和发挥工会组织代表维护工人劳动者合法权益的职能作用,使党的工人政策真正落在实处。     

How migration policies moderate the diffusion of terrorism

There is an ongoing debate among practitioners and scholars about the security consequences of transnational migration. Yet, existing work has not, so far, fully taken into account the policy instruments states have at their disposal to mitigate these risks, and reliable evidence is lacking for the effectiveness of such measures. This article addresses both shortcomings as whether and to what extent national migration policies affect the diffusion of terrorism via population movements are analysed. Spatial analyses report robust support for a moderating influence of states’ policies: while terrorism can travel from one country to another via larger migration populations, this only applies to target countries with extremely lax regulations and control mechanisms. This research sheds new light on the security implications of population movements, and it crucially adds to our understanding of governments’ instruments for addressing migration challenges as well as their effectiveness.     

刑事被害人当事人化的反思与制度重构

刑事被害人当事人化的实质是犯罪损害追诉方式的公私合一,该制度设计混淆了公益和私益两种不同性质的诉讼,导致两种权益保护相互冲突进而对刑事司法结果公正造成负面影响。公私分离是刑事被害人去当事人化的当然制度选择,其立法对策主要包括在刑事立法中确立被害人为特殊诉讼参与人、废除被害人在刑事审判中就定罪量刑发表意见的权利、废止被害人刑事自诉权和切断其引起刑事二审、再审的程序路径。同时需要完善相关配套举措,如允许被害人对其物质和精神损害单独提起民事诉讼、完善精神损害赔偿制度、建立刑事被害人国家补偿制度等。     

新中国70年国家安全观的演变:认知、内涵与应对

新中国成立以来,面对国内外安全环境的变化,中国实现了由传统安全观向总体国家安全观的演变,显著体现在安全环境研判、安全内容认知和安全维护手段三个方面。中共十八大以来,中国在安全方面频繁推出新理念、新方案和新举措,中国的安全能力不断增强,国际安全影响日益增加。在安全观方面,中国先后提出了总体国家安全观、亚洲新安全观、亚太安全观等理念,实现了安全观的变革与创新。安全环境研判方面,对国内安全的认知更加全面系统、对周边安全的认知更加统筹协调、对国际安全认知更加注重“中国作为”;安全内容认知方面,认知内容日益丰富,兼顾传统安全与非传统安全,统筹国家安全与人民安全;安全维护手段方面,不断完善国家安全体系、加强国家安全能力建设和推进国际安全合作。回顾新中国七十年国家安全观的演变,历经安全实践的锤炼,已经形成了一些基本经验,主要体现在安全环境研判需考虑内外因素并注重其联动性、坚持核心安全需求的底线和安全维护手段要以和为贵、文攻武备。展望未来,其重要启示在于中国的国家安全观要注重安全需求与安全能力之间的平衡,将安全能力建设视为至关重要的任务,不断促进安全维护手段的多样性和灵活性。     

Repackaging national identity: Cool Japan and the resilience of Japanese identity narratives

‘Cool Japan’ is an instance of Japanese government's nation branding exercise as part of its soft power projection in which the unique selling point is identified as Japanese national identity. In this paper, I examine the relationship between Cool Japan and Japanese national identity and highlight a tension in the construction. Cool Japan is about emphasizing Japan's attractiveness for public diplomacy, while the top-down nature of the branding undermines the imagery that the branding is designed to convey. I show that policy elites resolve this tension by invoking the traditional Japanese identity narratives that construct Japan into both a non-Western and an un-Asian entity, reproducing the myth of Japanese uniqueness. I argue that the elite narratives surrounding Cool Japan readily replicate the language reminiscent of prewar identity construction. Despite the contemporary popularity of manga and anime, the purported ‘coolness’ of these products are framed within older constructions of Japanese Self that can trace their pedigree back to the nineteenth century. Using the minutes of committee meetings, policy documents, as well as media interviews given by policy- and business elites, I show that Cool Japan is effectively a twenty first century rendition of the familiar Japanese identity construction.     

Defending the Egyptian nation: national unity and Muslim attitudes toward the Coptic minority

This article discusses the Muslim discourse concerning the Coptic Christian minority since the 2000s in Egypt. Emphasizing the effects of the January 2011 uprising, the paper analyzes the role of nationalism and the national unity discourse in suppressing the debate regarding discrimination against the Copts. Despite the fissures that were created in the discourse, which rejects any reference to discrimination against the Copts, the Coptic issue remains trapped among the contested interpretations of national unity. All narratives of national unity and Egyptian essence, whether the official one pursued by the regime or the one promoted by pro-democracy activists, require the Copts to suppress their demand for rights for the sake of national unity. Adherence to the national unity discourse by all forces precludes the possibility of developing a form of nationalism or a national culture which embodies pluralism of identities and cultures and reinforces the role of nationalism as a tool for stifling pluralism and democracy for all Egyptians, whether Muslim majority or minorities.