Spain: No Country for the Populist Radical Right?

Although there is growing research interest in populist radical right (PRR) parties in Western Europe, little attention has been paid to the case of Spain – a country where these parties are almost non-existent or irrelevant from an electoral and political point of view. In a nutshell, we maintain that in contemporary Spain there is real demand for PRR parties, but three supply-side factors are impeding their electoral breakthrough and persistence: the cleavage structure of the country, the strategy of competition of the mainstream right and the electoral system. At the same time, we postulate that at least in the case of Spain the Great Recession has not improved the electoral odds of the PRR as such but rather facilitated the emergence of leftist populist forces.     

浅议魏晋南北朝时期女性出家之现象

佛教自西汉末传入中国,在魏晋南北朝时期已出现兴盛的局面。女性出家在此时期遂成为普遍的社会现象,这是苦难的社会现实使然,又决定于妇女这一社会群体的生活特点,同时又有相应的社会风尚的因素在内。反过来,妇女出家的普遍对社会经济、社会生活又有着一定的影响,是认识这一时期历史变迁的重要方面。     

Determinants of the Psychosocial Adjustment of Southern Sudanese Men

Our study examines the psychosocial adjustment of 164 SouthernSudanese men who are resettling in a western Canadian city.Special emphasis is placed on the role of financial and emotionalstrain associated with their sending money to relatives in Africa.Key findings point to the importance of religiosity in predictingtheir psychological adjustment, and social support and reducedfinancial role strain in predicting their social adjustment.Findings serve to guide the provision of culturally appropriateservices and policies for African immigrants and refugee claimantsin Canada.     

闽南与琉球

在交通不发达的古代,闽南与琉球地缘相近,顺风顺水,很早就有了接触。到了明清之季,由于政治,经济发展的需要,两地交往更为密切。在开发琉球历史上做出巨大贡献的“闽人三十六姓”中就有善于驾舟航海的闽南人。随着中琉封贡关系的发展,两地通过互救飘风难民,护送贡使进京,发展商品贸易,派遣闽南册使,交流情报信息等途径,增进了了解。现今,我们仍处处可见闽南文化对琉球的深远影响。     

Media and the politics of belonging: Sudanese Australians,letters to the editor and the new integrationism

Nolan, Burgin, Farquharson and Marjoribanks focus on media as a significant site through which a politics of belonging is played out, focusing particularly on coverage of Sudanese Australians. To this end, they analyse letters to the editor that concern Sudanese Australians in three Victorian newspapers in 2007, a highly significant year in which this group became the focus of significant levels of (predominantly negative) media coverage. Through textual and thematic analysis, the authors demonstrate how such letters worked to reiterate and extend a politics of ‘integrationism’ that, without entirely departing from Australia's commitment to multiculturalism, has rearticulated the latter along neo-assimilationist lines. In doing so, they show how, in many letters, Sudanese Australians are problematized for their failure or refusal to ‘integrate’ in ways that involve an explicit or implicit process of racialization. In the process, the article also critically considers the important role performed by media in the politics of belonging, particularly through their reiteration and contestation of the politics of race and multiculturalism in Australia. Rather than simply a matter of reproducing a hegemonic politics, it shows how such processes, despite the marked limitations of their framing within a ‘race debate’, also serve to demonstrate significant fault lines in the politics of belonging.     

试论塞西尔·罗得斯与南部非洲政治格局的形成

塞西尔·罗得斯是19世纪中后期在南部非洲疯狂推行殖民扩张政策的英国殖民主义代表人物之一,其殖民行径在客观上对于南部非洲政治格局和政治版图的形成具有一定影响。在南非联邦的建立问题上,他提出通过加强与布尔人的经济关系和交通联系,以及向布尔人让渡部分权力的办法,换取布尔人的支持,用和平、渐进的新路径推动了两个白人民族和解和南非联邦的建立。另外,罗得斯及其领导下的英国南非公司的殖民行为还推动了津巴布韦和赞比亚两国政治地理版图的形成,并引进比较科学的行政管理模式,从而在客观上对当地无意识地起到了一些"建设性"的作用。但这全然不能掩饰殖民主义在人类文明史上的罪恶和破坏作用的本质。     

台湾南部的社会政治环境与民进党的政治版图——兼对“南方政治”定义的探讨

台湾的政治版图已出现所渭"北蓝南绿"的格局,台湾学界有人将南部稳定支持绿营政党的情形命名为"南方政治"。实际上民进党在南部的政治版图从1990年代中期就已经显形,台湾南部由于本省人占多数的"省籍-族群"分布、具有更厚重本土味的性格与社会经济状况等的耦合,再加上绿营耕耘多年,引导和激发了较浓厚的"本土"价值,目前民进党在南部的政治版图虽收缩,但这种社会政治环境使其仍有一定的根基。不过,研究者多数从民进党或泛绿在南部的得票率和政治版图等来分析"南方政治",这种定义是狭义性的,就"南方政治"与南部的社会政治环境相关性,从广义上其更应定义为地域意识或地方性在政治上的表现,它虽与民进党的关联颇深,但在蓝营方面也会有所体现。     

15 STR loci frequencies in the population from Santa Catarina, Southern Brazil

Allele frequencies for 15 short tandem repeats (STR) loci were determined with a sample of 3000 unrelated individuals from the population of Santa Catarina, Southern Brazil. The loci are most commonly used in forensic and paternity testing, being analyzed by the Powerplex 16 (Promega) commercial kit. The data shows that most polymorphic loci were Penta E and FGA. The distributions of the genotypes in the evaluated loci are in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. Comparative analyses between our population data and other Brazilian populations are presented. The calculated forensic parameters showed that the loci are useful for the solution of forensic problems in Brazilian Southern region.     

Guns,Southernness, and gun control

Southerners have been found to have higher levels of gun ownership than persons who reside elsewhere. This may be due to cultural factors peculiar to the Southern region. If so, this would have interesting implications for gun control initiatives. Although the differential in gun ownership has been linked to varying support or opposition to gun control, the relationship between this variable and specific types of gun control has not been examined. With this in mind, we investigate how specific types of gun ownership interact with Southernness, controlling for the effects of other variables, to determine preferences for three different types of gun control. We use 1975 data collected by DMI on a stratified random sample of 1538 noninstitutionalized adults in the United States. An analysis of several logistic regression equations indicates that a cultural component, related to Southernness, affects attitudes toward gun control. Southerners, in general, were the most opposed to permits and handgun bans. Southern shotgun owners, in particular, were found to be the most opposed to gun registration. These findings point to the need to consider region, culture, and gun type when addressing the issue of gun control.We would be happy to supply the interested reader with an electronic copy of the data set.     

Winning Against the Trend: Labour’s Victory in the 2017 Maltese Parliamentary Election

The re-election of the Labour Party with an increased majority in the 2017 Maltese national election bucks the trends of incumbent punishment experienced in most South European countries during the ‘Great Recession’ and of the decline of social democratic parties in Europe in the past 50 years. This Maltese ‘exceptionalism’ is explained by the Labour Party’s centrist shift, the country’s pure two-party system, and the economic prosperity which encouraged voters to opt for continuity. These factors allowed the governing party to win, despite corruption allegations deriving from the Panama Papers. Although a third party entered parliament for the first time since 1966, the fundamentals of the party and electoral systems have not changed and this development may not be long-lived.