元认知模型在心理治疗中的应用研究

元认知的观点在临床心理学中具有重要的应用价值,其理论建构的特色是强调元认知对情绪状态的监控。这种理论的认知框架的核心是：个人对自己的情绪状态作出标签,它被看成个人对特定事件、关系或对象的一种本能反应方式,生理唤起与认知评价之间的密切联系和相互作用决定着情绪。个人将其与目标状态相比较并通过实际行动让自己的情绪状态更加接近目标状况并加以监控。近年来,心理学家对精神分裂症和对不适当的过度愤怒研究的成功案例,证明了元认知模型在心理治疗中的应用价值。     

Between Reality and Illusion: Re-Examining the Diversity of Media and Online Professional Journalism in the Baltic States

This article addresses the relationship between the size of media markets and content diversity online. In the Baltic countries, the Internet offers new channels with a greater diversity of information; at the same time, the increasing presence of hybrid discourses (PR-based news, promotional writing) on online media channels is creating an illusory impression of news diversity: the same sources and the same story frames are dominating online. The authors argue that new concepts (quality of information processing, media literacy) need to be taken into account to adequately assess online journalism professionalization (the changing identities and functions of journalists) in a small country.     

Age and family structures among the Jews of Mitau,Kurland, 1833–1834

The article analyzes an 1834 listing of the Jewish inhabitants in the city of Mitau in the province of Kurland, one of the Baltic provinces (the other two were Estland and Livland) of the Russian Empire. From Catherine the Great's reign onward, the Jewish population of the Baltic provinces rose steadily throughout the 19th century, but microstudies of Jewish communities in the region are virtually nonexistent, especially for the first half of the century. The Mitau list shows that the Jewish population there was very young, with about 45% being in the age group 0–14. Age at first marriage for males was about 24 years, and for females 21. From about age 35, 93% of males and 97% of females were married. The mean size of the family group was 5.8 persons, and about a third of all families were either extended (containing unmarried relatives beyond the nuclear family) or multiple (more than one kin-linked conjugal family unit). Judging by kinship terms in the source, the kin system tilted toward patrilineality, as would be expected. These characteristics need to be compared to other Jewish communities before and after 1834—in the Baltic area and surrounding regions—but the paucity of local studies suggests that some time will pass before the Mitau findings can be placed in an adequate comparative framework.     

Imperial governance,sovereignty and the management of chronic instability in Africa

An important political consequence of the crisis of capital in the 1970s has been an increasing intensification of informal imperialism within Africa. This paper argues that the advanced capitalist countries again confronted the endemic problem of overcapacity alongside a decline in the rate of profit and that the major neoliberal reforms foisted upon the African continent were part of the spatio-temporal fix that followed. The quotidian management of many African states was not an intended consequence of structural adjustment, but the subsequent perturbations that beset many developing countries after following such policies has led to such a degree of institutional instability that a new form of imperial governance has come into being. Juridical sovereignty has been maintained, but political sovereignty has been severely compromised through the emergence of this neo-imperial governance. Today an array of external actors is embedded in the sinews of these states, setting the general parameters of state policy to such an extent that one can no longer speak of these countries as possessing de facto independence. The rise of these so-called ‘governance states’ and the new emphasis on ‘governance with government’ constitute a new non-territorial, political form of imperialism.     

Fiscal Stress Management During the Financial and Economic Crisis: The Case of the Baltic Countries

The Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—were severely hit by the global financial and economic crisis in 2008–2011. In response to the crisis, all three states chose to undertake extensive fiscal consolidations. This article examines the strategies adopted by the Baltic governments for managing fiscal stress and consolidating their budgets in the light of the existing literature on cutback budgeting. In all three countries, the governments combined expenditure and revenue measures, with a larger share of adjustment taking place on the expenditure side. Among expenditure measures, a mix of across-the-board and targeted cuts was adopted, though the importance of targeted cuts increased over time. The case studies also indicate that although the theoretical propositions of the cutback budgeting literature point to the correct directions overall, further refinement is needed in several theoretical issues.     

Ethnic diversity and its spatial change in Latvia, 1897–2011

Utilizing data from five census enumerations of Latvia (including the most recent 2011 census), this study analyzes temporal and spatial trends in ethnic diversity in the country at the national and municipal levels. The measure employed, the ethnic diversity index (EDI), makes possible a more sophisticated interpretation of the dynamics of ethnic diversity than an analysis of the changing percentage shares of Latvia's various ethnic groups over time. At the national level, a trend of declining ethnic diversity prior to Latvia's incorporation into the Soviet Union was followed by a rapid increase during the Soviet period, before the onset of gradually decreasing diversity during the post-Soviet period. These national-level trends obscure a number of trends evident at the municipal level, including salient (depending on the period) ethnic diversity gradients Rīga–Latvia, cities/towns–countryside, and the east–west. Latvia remains one of the most ethnically diverse countries of Europe, and the study outlines some of the implications of the recent stagnation of regional EDIs at rather high levels for the economic and political life of the country.     

Good governance and democratic leadership for an African Renaissance: A reflection on AU member states’ compliance with the AUCPCC

Abstract

After decades of corrupt post-colonial governance, African leaders collectively acknowledged that good governance was a prerequisite for African renewal and required an unprecedented fight against corruption prevailing on the continent. The Constitutive Act of the African Union (CA-AU) features good governance among its objectives and principles. Good governance was stressed further in subsequent AU instruments adopted within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and its African Peer-Review Mechanism (APRM). AU leaders’ commitment to fighting corruption culminated in the adoption of the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (AUCPCC).

As Africans prepare to commemorate the first decade since the adoption of the AUCPCC, this article reflects on AU member states’ compliance with this instrument, the challenges, and the prospects for a successful fight against corruption. It argues that despite some progress made, this scourge remains unabated and has even aggravated. Most African states have failed to comply fully with the AUCPCC. However, the fight against corruption should be strengthened with the participation of all the stakeholders at national, regional and international levels. Partnerships have to be built and consolidated without neglecting the crucial contribution of the people under a democratic leadership committed to good governance in order to achieve an African Renaissance in the 21^st century.     

Representing minorities in the city. Education policies and minority incorporation in the capital cities of Estonia and Latvia

This article explores the relationship between minority city-level and state-level political representations through the analysis of the contested implementation of state education policies in Tallinn and Riga. Referring to the US debate on this issue, the article asks what role minority incorporation into city-level power structures can play for its substantive representation. The comparison between Tallinn and Riga reveals two potential answers to this question. The case of Riga illustrates how city-level representation can be an alternative representative channel through which the minority can put pressure on state government and magnify its political voice within the country's democratic space. On the contrary, the case of Tallinn illustrates how a municipality can be an alternative locus of representation, which does not guarantee minority empowerment but rather entraps the minority at the local level within the implicit understanding that the minority (or at least the parties that get the minority vote) can “have its share” locally, but it cannot hope to influence state policies. The comparison between the two cases reveals different levels of legitimacy of the minority's voice in the democratic debate of Estonia and Latvia, and shows the risks and opportunities linked to the two models of minority city-level incorporation.     

The continuing relevance of Germany's engine for CEE and the EU

The article looks first into the nature of the relations between Germany and the CEE countries a decade since the accession of the CEE countries to the EU. The relations are characterized as normalised and intensive with diverse levels of closeness and co-operation reflecting of the conceptual and ideological compatibility/differences.Next, the article focuses on the German attitude to the euro zone crisis. Germany has become a hegemon in the rescue effort aimed at stabilisation and economic invigoration of the euro zone. However, German hegemony has developed by default, not by design: her leading position is linked with considerable political and financial costs. Germany moved central stage and took the position of a reluctant hegemon. However, German role is contested internationally (it has not the support of the French government in key areas) as well as internally (particularly by the Federal Constitutional Court and the Bundesbank).The article argues that the new situation makes the German–CEE relations increasingly relevant for both sides. The German leadership of the EU increasing split along the north–south divide requires backing by the Northern group countries to which the CEE in general belongs. Given a number of reasons the CEE countries implement three distinctive strategies of co-operation with Germany in European politics. Also military co-operation, which remained rather limited so far, may receive new impulses, given the financial austerity.     

Toward the Year 2000

To adapt and renew today's fraying international order, the West must partner more closely with democratic rising powers that remain ambivalent about existing international arrangements. There are four such ‘global swing states’: Brazil, India, Indonesia and Turkey. An effective engagement strategy will need to adjust the order's main pillars to enhance their appeal without transforming the fundamental character of the system in the process. It will need to influence what global swing states want through outreach to publics and private sectors. And it will need to make the case that all four can best manage China's rise by strengthening international rules of the road. If the West can enlarge the circle of countries that uphold the global order to include these rising democracies, the system that has long safeguarded international security and prosperity and promoted human rights will be able to endure.