The Media,the Peace Dividend and ‘Bread and Butter’ Politics

In December 2007, Northern Ireland's newly elected First and Deputy First Ministers, Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness, were pictured sitting happily together on a read leather sofa at the new IKEA superstore in Belfast. It was an image that served as a powerful symbol of the region's political transformation and economic optimism. Yet, within months of this photo opportunity, global financial crisis and economic recession shattered hopes that a meaningful, economic ‘peace dividend’ would underpin the new political dispensation. This article takes a critical look at the media's role in conflict transformation in Northern Ireland; how they projected new and more positive images of life in the region and chronicled the daily business of ‘bread and butter politics’. However, it also identifies chronic decline among some sections of the regional media, particularly Belfast's daily newspapers, just when they are needed to monitor and debate political decision‐making in a time of austerity.     

The Media in Northern Ireland: A Stormont Correspondent's View

During the troubles, the role of a Northern Ireland correspondent evolved from ambulance chaser to peace process ‘Kremlinologist’, keeping an eye on the subtle shifts within the political negotiations. Now the interest of the international media has waned and reporters have to generate fresh stories relevant to the local audience, against the backdrop of an adverse economic climate. Some stories may be Northern Ireland specific, dealing with the legacy of the troubles. Others involve economic and social issues common to other areas of the UK or Ireland. Knowledge of the conflict remains a prerequisite for covering Stormont politics, dissident republican attacks, or loyalist violence. However journalists should be mindful of the concerns of a younger generation who increasingly regard the paramilitary ceasefires and peace deals as history.     

Pockets of resistance to globalization: the case of the Lega Nord

ABSTRACT

From its inception, the Lega Nord has been a populist social and political movement obsessed with the Other. In the world-view of the Lega Nord, the Other is anything that threatens the cultural and regional identity of Italians in the northern part of the country, particularly the Northeast. In the early 1990s the Other was constituted by corrupt politicians in Rome, Italian economic monopolies and southern Italians. By the late 1990s the Other had increasingly become the forces of globalization that, according to the Lega leadership's shrill arguments, threatened the economic and social fabric of what the party now refers to as ‘Padania’. Woods explores the manner in which anti-globalization became the dominant ideological Other in the rhetoric of the Lega Nord.     

从侗族北部方言区玩山歌看侗族大歌的保护

侗族大歌面临的真正危机,是现代文明的冲击致使其失去了生存的土壤;多声部纷杂的保护措施,并没有解决侗族大歌的保护问题;侗族北部方言区传统情歌以我为主融摄汉文化元素而创造的玩山歌,向我们显示了侗族大歌保护的新思路。     

‘Irish Republic’, ‘Eire’ or ‘Ireland’? The Contested Name of John Bull's Other Island

One of the less visible consequences of the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement of 1998 was that it finally put to rest a fifty year dispute between Ireland and the United Kingdom about the names of the respective states. This article begins by outlining the constitutional background to this complex terminological dispute, and then examines it from three perspectives. The first is that of the Irish state itself, which in recent decades has opted unambiguously for 'Ireland'. The second is the British government, which until the end of the twentieth century preferred the labels 'Eire' or 'Irish Republic'. The third is the militant nationalist republican movement, whose terminology was designed to deny the legitimacy of the existing state. The article concludes by examining the political significance of this issue, arguing that while its most obvious importance is symbolic, it has also had real meaning for the identity and for the geographical definition of the state, as well as for the British-Irish relationship.     

建构安徽省和谐政治生态环境研究

政治生态揭示了政治活动的主体、客体和互为主客之间的相互制约、相互影响、相互促进的关系。政治生态的生态层级可分为省市层级、县域层级和乡村层级，政治生态的几个层级间是相互联系、相互作用的。政治生态环境往往受到文化、制度、社会监督、民主力量和社会转型等因素的影响。因此．建构和谐的政治生态环境，需要有制度制定的无知之幕，需要培养民众的政治认同，需要营造法治的大环境，需要发扬网络民主的力量。     

论北洋军阀政府时期的报刊立法活动及主要特点

袁世凯当政时期及其死后的北洋军阀政府在报刊方面开展了一系列立法活动.这些立法活动表现出来的主要特点是政权性质改变而名号照旧、报刊法制成果主要集中在袁世凯当政时期、字面上"民主自由"和实质上封建专制手段共用等.     

Women’s equality in Northern Ireland’s transition: intersectionality in theory and place

Women are invisible in mainstream analyses of the Northern Irish conflict. The prodigious literature is uninformed by gender analysis. These absences have discursive and material implications for tackling women’s inequality in a society in transition from armed conflict. Feminist intersectional theory counters and complicates essentialist constructions of identity. It aids understanding of the Northern Irish context by bringing into view issues of gender, sect and class. The tentative intersectional theoretical framework developed in this article is tested in an empirical study of women’s poverty. This supports the argument that intersectional analysis is required if the policy approach to women’s equality in Northern Ireland is to benefit the most marginalised women and thereby improve the prospects of building a more stable and peaceable society.     

泰国北部的云南穆斯林--秦和人

“秦和人”一词 ,是泰语对历史上形成并生活在泰国北部清迈、清莱一带祖籍云南的回汉两族侨胞的统称 ,19世纪后 ,被当时旅居东南亚地区的西方殖民官员、探险家和传教士按泰语北部方言拼写成Cin -Ho/Chin -Ho ,或简称为Ho/Haw/Hor,大量进入其日记、札记、信函和旅行报告中。但由于云南回族马帮商人前往泰北的时间最早 ,商贸活动最频繁 ,移居时间最早 ,所占人数最多 ,因此西方文献和今天泰语中惯称的所谓“秦和人” ,又主要专指云南籍回族穆斯林。清迈府县城乡共有 9个秦和穆斯林区 ,阿拉伯语和汉语是他们的主要语言 ,清迈府城的王和街浓缩了云南籍的秦和人移居泰国北部的历史 ,现已成为以云南籍回族穆斯林为主的秦和人在今日泰国社会存在的一种文化象征。