The Arab Spring: last episode of the Cold War

Using the Regional Security Complex Theory and developing its regime-related dimension, this article analyses the involvement of external powers in Arab Spring conflicts. Libya, Syria and Bahrain are used as case studies showing that Western support for the incumbent regime or for its adversaries was not based on a choice between democracy and authoritarianism. Rather, it was motivated by a pattern of amity and enmity inherited from the Cold War period. The surprising survival of this pattern was due to the three authoritarian regimes’ inability to reform; to the ensuing preservation of their Cold War era perception in the West; and to Russia's new availability as an external patron. Consequently, the article argues that the Arab Spring can be perceived as the last, belated episode of the Cold War. However, its political consequences put an end to the last features inherited from the pre-1989 period and open a new Middle Eastern era.     

Excursionismo: An Anthropological and Anarchist Methodology for Exploring the Past

In this essay, I describe an excursion I made to castle ruins while doing field research on the Spanish anarchist movement. I offer some insights into the processes through which I was able to discover and construct the past in which that castle was built. To do so combined the conventional participant-observer approach used in anthropological research with the Spanish practice of excursionismo , albeit in its radicalized anarchist form. I also relied on the heuristic character of the flaneur that was advocated by culture historian Walter Benjamin. Such an approach allows an observer to linger over historic sites in order to more closely examine what these sites commonly mean, what they mean to some members of the local community, and what else they could mean. Excursionismo is a valuable methodology for rescuing the personal as well as global histories of the past while engaging in what I call "historical loitering with contemporary intent."     

Social Constructionism and Criminology: Traditions,Problems and Possibilities

Over the last twenty years, the prison system, border controls, crime prevention programmes, anti‐terror measures and private security companies have expanded within Europe. This article discusses some of the implications. It will be argued that we are witnessing a paradigmatic shift in the manner in which state‐sanctioned force is employed. The distinction between what is criminal, to be dealt with by the justice system, and what creates a ‘perception of security’—formerly to be dealt with by social policy—is being eroded at both macro‐ (‘war on terror’) and micro‐ (‘public order’) levels. The rule of law is giving way to a security mentality, where force is employed on the basis of risk assessments. Social problems are re‐interpreted as security threats, and met with measures recreating the original threats. This gives the policy field a distinctive rationality of its own.     

Leader Incentives and Civil War Outcomes

This article examines the influence that rebel and state leaders have on civil war outcomes, arguing that incentives to avoid punishment influence their strategic decision making during war.  Leaders in civil war face punishment from two sources: internal audiences and opponents. I hypothesize that leaders who bear responsibility for involvement in the war have a higher expectation of punishment from both sources following unfavorable war performance, and thus, have incentives to continue the fight in the hope of turning the tide and avoiding the negative consequences of defeat. These incentives, in turn, make leaders who bear responsibility more likely to fight to an extreme outcome and less likely to make concessions to end the war.  These propositions are tested on an original data set identifying all rebel and state leaders in all civil conflict dyads ongoing between 1980 and 2011.  Results support the hypothesized relationships between leader responsibility and war outcomes.     

Modernist art in the service of Nazi culture: Baldur von Schirach and the Junge Kunst im Deutschen Reich exhibition

ABSTRACT

Maertz's essay offers a history of a modernist art exhibition that opened in Vienna's Künstlerhaus under the patronage of Baldur von Schirach, the Führer's personal representative in that city, the second largest in Nazi Germany. The significance of the 1943 Junge Kunst im Deutschen Reich (New Art in the German Reich) exhibition lies in its assertion of a modernist variant of ‘official’ National Socialist art that clashes with the orthodox aesthetic system typically associated with the Third Reich.     

美国智库对华战略构想的新内涵——以《更长电报:走向新的美国对华战略》为例

拜登执政后美国对华战略如何调整备受瞩目,美国一些智库则积极"兜售"相关政策主张,其中大西洋理事会发布的《更长电报:走向新的美国对华战略》匿名报告受到广泛关注。该报告反映出美国智库对华战略构想中区别于传统冷战思维的新内涵,在战略认知上更新涉华判断,臆想当前中国战略"脆弱点",批判特朗普政府对华"政治惯性",主张从外部瓦解中国;在战略目标上力推拓展核心利益、重塑国际秩序,强调"共同威胁"以重振霸权体系,旨在护持冷战后美国霸权地位;在战略布局层面,提出振兴国家权势和加强对华威慑、明确与华竞争合作界限并煽动意识形态斗争,以全面遏制中国。该报告肆意抹黑中国,错误界定中国国家利益,对中国充满恶意偏见和误判,其战略布局根本无法撼动中国大战略根基。值得警惕的是,该报告的部分战略与政策构想在拜登政府近期政策实践中已有体现,暴露出美国政治精英与知识群体在涉华政策方面具有很大程度上的共同认知。在中美战略竞争常态化下,必须厘清两国关系的"常量"与"变量",做好应对各种风险和挑战的准备,尤其维护好国家意识形态安全。     

鸦片战争后福建海洋航运业的变化

鸦片战争后,西方航运业侵入福建,压倒了福建传统的航运业,不仅垄断了福建的远洋航运业,而且还控制了沿海航运。尽管旧式的帆船业出现了凋零,但是福建的海洋航运业并未因此消亡,新的民族轮船航运业应运而生,顽强地生存、发展。     

略论抗战时期各根据地的农村文化建设

抗日战争时期,随着各根据地的建立,农村的文化建设和发展成为各根据地巩固和发展的重要课题。各根据地的农村文化,以民主和抗日为主题,适应了全国占主导地位的抗战文化。抗战时期的各根据地农村文化建设,对打败日本侵略者、解放中华民族发挥了积极的作用,对当今社会主义新农村建设具有借鉴意义。     

陕甘宁边区拥军优属运动述评

抗战时期陕甘宁边区在党中央的直接领导下,为进一步促进军民团结和军政团结,开展了轰轰烈烈的拥军优属运动,取得了显著成效,不仅为各抗日根据地开展拥军优属树立了典范,也为最终夺取抗战胜利和新中国的建立创造了重要的条件。     

一场“滥用”法律的反恐战争--读Power and Constraint：The Accountable Presidency After“9·11”

美国“9.11”之后的反恐行动以各种法律为支撑。前“9.11”时代的战争后遗症与对战争失败的舆论批评促成了政府行政机关内部法律制衡权力滥用与司法制衡的双重管道。“9.11”后初期的反恐战争虽然放大了总统拥有的行政权,但是在一系列司法裁判和之前形成的内部制衡机制的共同作用下,美国反恐战争的宏观与微观层面均被法律“统治”。制度的改革惯性、法律阶层的特殊地位以及舆论监督是解释法律何以在反恐战争中被“滥用”的可能动因。