Chick lit politics in a post-truth era: tricksters,blessees and postfeminist girlpower in Angela Makholwa’s The Blessed Girl

The possibility of an emancipated politics in chick lit novels remains a contested question among postfeminist critics. Drawing on definitions of postfeminism as a transnational sensibility, this article examines South African chick lit in relation to what has been termed post-truth or trickster politics in the context of the rise of politicians, such as Donald Trump. I read Angela Makholwa’s novel The Blessed Girl as an example of African chick lit that features a blessee narrator, a young woman who lives a luxurious lifestyle financed by older men, who is deeply influenced by a Trumpian mode of self-making. By employing a trickster aesthetic and narrative strategies, such as unreliable narration and reader address, the novel, I argue, however also unsettles established parameters of neoliberal girlpower, moving beyond its assumed anti-politicalness, as well as a simple understanding of the blessee figure through either a lens of victimhood or amorality.     

The limits of agency: Emily Hobhouse’s international activism and the politics of suffering

Abstract

This article pieces together the activism of the British welfare worker and feminist-pacifist Emily Hobhouse (1860–1926) during two largely unrecorded episodes of transnational activism: firstly, her ministry of Cornish miners in Virginia, Minnesota, in the United States; and secondly, her interventions during the period of reconstruction following the South African War (1899–1902). The article endeavors to contextualize Hobhouse’s activism and offer a broader understanding of the limitations and restraints on her actions. Ultimately, her activism required a platform that was in the gift of political actors and establishment figures, and dependent on fluctuations within specific political and bureaucratic situations. Based on close inspection of undocumented material in both South African and British archives, the article investigates Hobhouse’s repertoire of missionary and philanthropic roles within a wider context of humanitarian politics. It demonstrates how women’s activism and their behind-the-scenes politicking informed political decision-making in modern imperial and international affairs.     

Marooned time: disruptive waiting and idleness in Carpentier and Coetzee

This article develops a framework for reading the maroon in literature, drawing on the maroon’s historical and contemporary significance in the Caribbean, as well as its continuing resonance for writers and thinkers. The maroon’s separateness or withdrawal, I argue, is characterized by a spatial distance that also engenders a challenge to the authority and temporality of the colonial regime or the apartheid state. I turn to Alejo Carpentier and J.M. Coetzee to offer readings of their novels through the lens of marronage, analyzing their protagonists’ flight, labor, and “idleness” as newly legible dimensions of resistive waiting. The strategies of marronage encourage new readings of the formulations of freedom and unfreedom, resistance and refusal in the literary texts, and create a “line of flight” between the Caribbean and South Africa.     

浙江争创应对气候变化“重要窗口”的机遇与路径

气候变化是人类社会面临的严峻挑战。在共同应对气候变化的国际共识业已形成,中国日渐成为全球气候治理引领者的大背景下,应对气候变化理应成为浙江建设“重要窗口”的核心组成部分。为此,浙江必须持续推进产业、能源和运输等领域的结构性减排,实现高质量碳达峰;采取超常规措施挖掘自然碳汇和人工碳汇潜力,尽早谋划碳中和实现路径;完善碳排放权和碳汇交易机制;建立健全气候治理的领导机制、市场机制和社会机制,为争创应对气候变化“重要窗口”提供制度保障。     

中国反贫困进程中的福利制度建构——基于“社会中国”的视角

中国政府为何在大力推进社会保障制度建设的同时,实施大规模的反贫困战略与行动?立足于这一战略追问,从社会政策学的视角,回顾、比较早期中西福利制度建设中的基本理念、基本概念与内涵的差异,提炼中国反贫困政策实践中的福利元素,以此理解中国福利制度建设中存在的理念、政策与对象等几大困惑,并在此基础上论述"社会中国"视角下反贫困机制的福利制度建设框架。研究认为:(1)中国的反贫困政策中包含了大量的社会福利元素,体现了科学社会主义而非社会民主主义的战略安排、中国共产党的"初心"理念、全民参与的政策特征、每家每户的对象特征;(2)从"社会中国"的福利框架对反贫困政策的实践进行理论整合,可以建构以社会公民权为基础的福利理念、具有整合性的跨越地域与身份差别的社会福利体系、以无差别的社会公民身份为识别对象的社会福利建设模式。     

从中国国情看马克思主义中国化的文化背景

马克思主义的中国化,意味着马克思主义必须有机地融入中国文化及其传统。因此,从中国国情的角度了解并把握中国文化的特质,对于深入阐释马克思主义中国化在学理上的可能性具有重要的前提意义。土地、农民、儒学,既是中国国情的特点,又塑造着中国传统文化本身。从明清之际的"西学中源"说,到晚近的"马克思主义中源"说,虽然是特定历史语境中的某种文化心态的反映,但也从某个侧面折射着马克思主义中国化的可能性。以毛泽东为代表的中国共产党人之所以能够创造性地实现马克思主义中国化,其重要原因之一就在于他们熟谙中国国情。由中国国情所塑造的中国文化背景,在自觉和无意识的双重意义上,决定了马克思主义中国化的可能性。     

Does the UK Have Influence in the EU Legislative Process?

The UK has influenced some major EU policies, such as the creation of the single market and enlargement. But how influential are the UK government and British MEPs in the day‐to‐day EU legislative process? To answer this question, this article analyses recent data from the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament. The evidence is mixed. In the Council, in recent years the UK government has been outvoted more often than any other EU government, yet UK officials remain well connected ‘behind the scenes’. In the European Parliament, British MEPs are now more likely to be on the losing side than are the MEPs of any other member state, yet British MEPs still win key committee chairs and rapporteurships. The evidence suggests that if the UK votes to remain in the EU, Britain's political elites will need to re‐engage with Brussels politics if the UK is to avoid becoming further marginalised from mainstream EU politics.     

中国行政体制改革的进展及其重点

当前中国的行政体制改革,在推进行政审批制度改革、商事制度改革、政务公开、政府重大决策科学化民主化和法治化、政府工作的第三方评估和社会评价、公正有效地提供公共产品和公共服务、地方政府的权力和责任清单制度改革、公车制度改革、公务员职务与职级并行制度改革、贯彻中央八项规定深入反腐倡廉等十个方面,取得了显著进展。推及未来“,十三五”期间的中国行政体制改革将重点围绕推动简政放权、放管结合、优化服务改革向纵深发展,大力推行“互联网+政务服务”、推进政府信息化建设,推进大部制改革、优化行政层级和行政区划设置,推进事业单位制度改革,加快和加大力度建设“四个政府”,推进政府廉洁履职和反腐败斗争,坚决处理为官不为、克服庸政懒政怠政,推进国家治理体系现代化,提升国家治理能力,加快各项行政制度的更加成熟定型等十个任务展开。     

国家治理现代化与执政方式的完善

执政者是国家治理中最为关键的能动者,其执政方式的合理与否直接决定着国家治理的效果,也关系到执政者的地位。中国共产党是国家治理现代化的倡导者和推动者,也因应着现代化的需要不断进行着自身的现代化。党的执政方式有很强的历史传承性,深受党的革命历程和成功经验的影响。党建立新中国后,开始在自己创建的国家治理体系中进行执政方式的现代化探索,当下正进行第三次现代化的探索,要根据国家治理体系和治理能力现代化的总要求抓住关键环节,加以改进和提高。     

Managing conflicting ‘Truth Claims’ – ambiguity in the diplomat's toolkit in East-Asian Island conflict

The article is a study of managing interstate relations via ambiguity and secrecy. At the focal point of the article is the different constitutive logic of domestic politics and diplomacy in conceiving and managing social reality; with the former implying the notion of community and the latter separateness – the difference that allows for diplomatic conduct to rely on tacit agreements and ambiguity for managing contradictory ‘truth claims’, as China and Japan did in the case of the Ryukyu and later the Senkaku Islands. Such successful management is conditional on the parties' ability to control domestic narratives avoiding contradictions in their ‘truth claims’ becoming too blatant. Yet, modern technologies increasingly undermine states' capacities for this. The leaking on YouTube of the collision of a Chinese trawler with the ship of the Japanese Coast Guard in 2010 offers a perfect example. The incident aggravated the conflict and triggered intense debates on secrecy in Japan. The article concludes by arguing that once ambiguity and tacit agreements break down, leaders should turn to their public – recognize that noisy nationalist are frequently but a minority – and attempt to renegotiate ‘truth claims’ domestically to create the basis for a compromise.