Over the Iron Curtain: the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia Meets the West

Abstract

This article examines the international relationships of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia after 1945, and puts them into the context of the Cold War. Although church contacts were meant to support the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, they also offered Church leaders an opportunity to re-establish historical relationships with Lutheran Churches in the West. Contacts between Churches in the East and West were considered to be highly controversial by all the institutions concerned. Nevertheless, Lutherans from the both sides of the Iron Curtain engaged themselves in a form of cooperation which promoted the development of the Soviet Lutheran churches.     

Book Reviews

The increase of multiculturalism in European societies poses challenges to citizenship education, which, in formal education, relies on national values and neglects the emergence of cosmopolitanism. This article compares the patriotic and cosmopolitan values of Russian-speaking students in Estonia, Latvia and the Russian Federation using the data of two large surveys. The analysis revealed that Russian-speaking adolescents in Estonia and Latvia demonstrate higher support of cosmopolitan values than the Estonians, Latvians, and students in the Russian Federation. A worrisome finding is that students in the cosmopolitan cluster do not firmly favor democratic values and are not interested in improving their civic knowledge.     

Progress,power, and violent accumulation in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's recent travails have challenged the concept of progress as it is popularly conceived, as they have forced social scientists to revisit many of the verities of nationalist history and the initial euphoria of Zimbabwean ‘liberation’. Critics of ‘fast-track’ land reform and patriotism, however, have been as simplistic as the regime's academic praise singers, and often simply turn celebratory scholarship upside down. Historically rooted and specifically applied concepts of primitive accumulation can assist the understanding of the development of Zimbabwe's coercive networks of accumulation and their more recent manifestations, but they do not solve the problems of how to lessen violence and deepen democracy in the short term.     

台湾新电影三十年:乡土与本土的纠结

作为20世纪80年代以来台湾地区最具代表性的文化现象,新电影表征了当代台湾社会思潮的巨大转向:由乡土转为本土,由中华认同转为台湾认同。反帝反压迫、反思殖民现代性等批判性向度,是早期台湾新电影的乡土意识的主要内容;而继起的本土意识则失去了乡土意识的开放性与批判性,其以族群对立、省籍区隔为基础的电影叙事,反映了一种"反外省"、"去中国化"的台湾民族主义意识形态。乡土与本土是重估台湾新电影的两个重要概念,它们分别代表了两种不同的思想类型、身份认同及国族想象,二者在台湾新电影中的对立纠结,也显示了"中国结"与"台湾结"在当代台湾社会之差异互现的结构性在场。     

Contested Discourse,Contested Power: Nationalism and the Left in Paraguay

Nationalism has been a key, but generally overlooked, component of twentieth‐century Paraguayan politics and an important explanatory factor in the country’s political outcomes. Indeed, it has been central to the struggle for political power, most significantly to the continuing hegemony of the Colorado Party. This article traces the development of the Paraguayan Left, highlighting its structural and functional weaknesses, and analyses its relationship with nationalism, in particular with the dominant Colorado nationalist discourse. It argues that an important failure of the Left – and indeed other political parties and movements – has been its inability to produce a successful challenge to this hegemonic discourse.     

从社会认同的视角看“愤青”的批判取向

“愤青”指网络舆论中对外表现为网络民族主义，对内表现为网络批判现实主义的青年群体。从社会认同理论角度看，“愤青”所具有的对外网络民族主义、对内网络现实批判主义的倾向，是社会认同作用的结果和表现形式。     

Colonization with Chinese characteristics: politics of (in)security in Xinjiang and Tibet

ABSTRACT

China as a victim rather than a proponent of modern colonialism is an essential myth that animates Chinese nationalism. The Chinese statist project of occupying, minoritizing and securitizing different ethno-national peoples of Central Asia, such as Uyghurs and Tibetans, with their own claims to homelands, is a colonial project. Focusing on China’s securitized and militarized rule in Xinjiang and Tibet, the article will argue that the most appropriate lens through which this can be understood is neither nation-building nor internal colonialism but modern colonialism. It argues that the representation of Uyghurs and Tibetans as sources of insecurity not only legitimizes state violence as a securitizing practice but also serves contemporary Chinese colonial goals.     

“国粹”与“种姓”：章太炎与连雅堂“语文”思想之比较

在二十世纪初期文化民族主义的大背景下比较了章太炎与连雅堂的语文思想,指出了章太炎"以国粹激动种姓"的语文思想与连雅堂"发扬种姓"、"继绝存亡"的文学观的相同思想背景,并结合大陆与台湾语文运动的具体语境分析了章、连二人与大陆及台湾新语文运动的互动关系.     

试论缅甸近代历史上的“1300运动”

"1300"运动是缅甸近代民族主义运动中影响最大的一次运动,这次运动由以下三部分组成1938-1939年仁安羌和稍埠石油工人大罢工和"饥饿进军";1938年的反穆斯林运动;以及1938-1939年的学生抗议运动."1300"运动促使缅甸人民更加团结,民族主义意识空前高涨,缅甸近代民族主义运动进而跨入了一个新的发展时期.     

Islands of the Mind: New Labour's Defensive Engagement with the European Union

This article reviews the cumulative development of New Labour's attitude and strategy towards the EU since the late 1980s and argues that the first two New Labour governments' approach to the EU represented a distinct retreat from the 'constructive engagement' and social democratic philosophy of Tony Blair's early modernising phase, moving steadily to occupy a much more traditional British position of 'defensive engagement', mixing national preferences with Atlanticism, and resisting further political integration in favour of traditional 'intergovernmentalism'. It is further argued that New Labour's prioritisation and preferencing of a UK institutional and political economy based upon economic liberalisation, the preservation of key aspects of national sovereignty, and maintaining Atlanticism as the bedrock of Europe's external foreign and defence policies have left Britain almost as far from the true 'heart of Europe' as when Blair inherited office from John Major in 1997.