Understanding Russia’s energy turn to China: domestic narratives and national identity priorities

This study investigates whether, as part of a broader “Asian Energy Pivot,” Russia’s energy giant Gazprom refashioned its export strategy away from Europe, and what impact such a reorientation might have on the EU–Russia gas relationship. It uses four empirical cases to emphasize the domestic movers underlying Russia’s eastward shift in energy trade, developing a constructivist theory rooted in the dynamics of Russia’s dominant public narrative and the contours of domestic politics. It argues that Russia’s national interests changed as a result of how Russian policy-makers interpreted and reacted to the stand-off with Europe, in response to what they perceived as Europe’s attempt to isolate it economically and geopolitically. Russia’s Eurasianists, who had advocated the notion of a necessary turn to the East for a long time, positioned themselves as norm entrepreneurs and their new interpretation of the preexisting material incentives shaped the future course of action.     

Oasis in the steppe: health and masculinity of Kazakhstani miners

ABSTRACT

This article studies the masculinities of Russian-speaking miners in Kazakhstan through an ethnographic study conducted in a miners’ sanatorium, a place of heightened sociality. Studies of gender in Central Asia have mostly focussed on women, and both masculinity and femininity are studied in relation to Islam and the nation-state. This article aims to make a contribution to the study of working-class masculinities in Northern Kazakhstan, arguing that labour and professional identities are important in performing masculinities. Kazakhstani miners wish to show that they are good colleagues, good drinkers, sexually capable and providers for the family. New economic pressures and deteriorating work conditions challenge the miner’s body and make it hard for miners to live up to the hegemonic masculinity.     

The dog that did not bark: the army and the emergency in India

In June 1975, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency rule, capping off a decade long process of the ‘deinstitutionalisation’ of the founding Congress party, increased social mobilisation, and political instability – factors generally considered conducive to military intervention in politics. Organisational factors encouraging military praetorianism, such as military involvement in internal security missions and the growth of ‘rival’ paramilitary institutions, accompanied this process of political decay. But the Indian military did not exploit this window of opportunity. This article offers an institutionalist explanation of the military’s political restraint based on two factors. First, institutionalised mechanisms of civilian control, forged during the critical juncture following independence, insulated the military from politics and the politicians from the military despite the weakening of the political system under which these were created. Second, military internalisation of the norm civilian supremacy, continually reinforced via professional socialisation processes, acted as an internal barrier to military role expansion.     

Uruguay’s long transitional decade and a new era of gendered activism

This article examines the nature and type of women’s activism before, during, and after Uruguay’s dictatorship, arguing that advocacy during the latter part of the country’s military rule paved the way for an increased role for women in society after democracy was restored. Focusing on the female-led movement to place the 1986 Ley de Caducidad (Law of Expiry or amnesty law) before a national referendum, it analyzes how women marshaled a gendered identity that had been effective in campaigning against the military. Through examining connections between earlier women’s movements and the 1980s, the article explores how challenging a key piece of legislation in the recently restored democratic environment ultimately forged a new era of activism for women in post-authoritarian Uruguay. The article ultimately rethinks the process of Uruguay’s transition, the continual negotiations over what is included in human rights discourse, and the importance of gendered activism in transitional societies.     

Black is Beautiful: cuerpos negros en Triunfo

Spaniards and African-Americans share significant cultural memories forged by the profound impact that various artistic and historical events had on each other during the twentieth century. To contribute to an exploration and understanding of these shared memories – which have received relatively little scholarly attention – this essay focuses on the presence of Black America in the 1960s, that is, the period of Late Francoist Spain. More specifically, it intends to initiate the study of the impact of the Black Civil Rights and Black Power movements on Spain’s progressive press. Focusing on a selection of articles published in the iconic leftist magazine Triunfo, it examines how the traditional European fascination with blackness manifests itself during the 1960s. In Triunfo’s articles we encounter suffering, violent, and degraded bodies, as well as revolutionary, political, and eroticized bodies. This combination reveals the problematic coexistence of solidarity and inspiration with an ethnographic and voyeuristic gaze that perpetuates the spectacularity of black bodies for global consumption. While foregrounding the challenges posed by writing and representing the Other, this study is also an attempt to reconstruct more fully the 1960s cultural and intellectual history of Spain and to approach the black liberation struggle from a transnational perspective.     

试析“人的自由发展”的两个领域

马克思关于“人的自由发展”的命题,是科学社会主义的重要组成部分,在此基础上形成的马克思主义自由观,极大深化了人类对自由的认识,为人类的全面发展实践提供了理论武器。区分“人的自由发展”的两个不同领域,是准确理解马克思主义自由观的前提。     

毛泽东对中国社会主义现代化建设道路的开拓性探索——纪念毛泽东同志诞辰115周年

毛泽东在探索适合中国国情社会主义现代化道路的过程中,既提出了许多有价值的思想,积累了成功的经验,也发生过较大失误,付出了沉重的代价。总结这些经验和教训,对于弄清楚邓小平建设有中国特色社会主义理论的历史地位,指导我国的社会主义现代化建设有重要意义。     

罪犯权利保护现状及其发展趋势

罪犯权利是罪犯法律地位的重要内容,切实保障罪犯权利的实现,是国际人权保护与国家社会稳定发展的需要。转变观念,完善立法和执法,唤起全社会的广泛重视,是实现罪犯权利的重要途径。     

The Modern Meaning of Ancient Heroes：On the Emotion and Teaching in William Butler Yeats‘ On Baile’s Strand

Yeats’On Baile’s Strand is an important work in the Irish Literary Revival. On Baile’s Strand is a thought-provoking ethical tragedy, and also a play that reflects the ideology of cultural nationalism of Yeats. In this play there is staged development from natural emotion, free emotion to ethical emotion and moral emotion. Cuchulain is motivated by his natural emotion and free emotion in most cases. He fails to take the ethical responsibility as a husband, father and little king, which aroused the jealousy, revenge and incrimination from Aoife and Conchubar. After killing his own son who he has never seen, Cuchulain regains his ration. His ethical emotion and moral emotion makes it impossible for him to withstand his guilt, even though he fights bravely in hundreds of wars and has killed numerous people. Finally, he goes to madness, and throws himself into the sea to fight against the waves. With Cuchulain’s tragedy of filicide and madness in On Baile’s Strand, Yeats warns Irish people of improving their morality and education, so as to promote the Irish national independence and national liberation.     

Multiple femininities in two Russian women’s magazines, 1970s–1990s

In both the late Soviet and post-Soviet periods, femininity and beauty were traits often attributed to the ideal working mother portrayed and promoted in state media. But with greater exposure to global beauty ideals in the post-communist era, the sexualized and beautified female body acquired a social value that was independent of its role in the reproductive process. In this paper, I analyse changes in the way care for the female body was represented in two Russian women’s magazines Rabotnitsa and Krest’yanka (1970s–1990s). Over this period, the ideal of the working mother figures less prominently and there is an increasing focus on the ways that women-consumers ought to work on their individual body-projects. This might appear to be a radical change. But by analysing the representations of women more carefully, I show that the move towards the privatization of the body project was already under way in the late Soviet period, but only for some categories of women. That is, non-Slavic women of various ages could be working mothers, but individual consumption was a realm reserved for their Slavic countrywomen.