Bearing Witness: Methods for Researching Oppression and Resistance—A Textbook for Critical Research

This paper forecasts a “fictional” methods textbook for researchers interested in studying social oppression and resistance. The volume moves between historic and contemporary writings on methods, with particular interest in questions of objectivity and subjectivity, history and psychology, relations among units of analysis, expert and construct validity, and the ever-thorny ambition of generalizability. Crafted with inspiration from Kurt Lewin, Carolyn Payton, Ignacio Martín-Baró, and many contemporary critical writers, the book is designed to provoke conversations about social research, asking—For what? With whom? and If not now, when? The essay is written to incite a re-membering, and re-thinking, of critical methods for the social psychological study of oppression and resistance.     

In Search of Alternatives: The Making of Grassroots Politics and Power in Argentina

This article analyses ethnographically the reconfigurations of the state and relations of power through their dynamic interactions with subaltern alternatives that emerged in the 2001 uprising in Argentina. In this regard, it counters influential interpretations of these events articulated within John Holloway’s framework of ‘anti‐power’, which ignores the reconstruction of the state, and rank and file trade unionism. The article concludes that intensified class and political struggles in the region offer new spaces for contesting hegemonic reinventions of populism and ‘top‐down’ socialism in Latin America.     

正当业务行为概念辨析

正当业务行为概念是正当业务行为理论研究的基础和前提。界定正当业务行为的概念，应当综合考虑其法律归属、行为属性和规范要素。本文重新审视并界定了正当业务行为的概念，揭示了其基本特征。     

略论酌定情节法定化——以最高人民法院《关于依法做好抗震救灾期间审判工作切实维护灾区社会稳定的通知》为切入点

最高人民法院《关于依法做好抗震救灾期间审判工作切实维护灾区社会稳定的通知》实质是对酌定情节的具体运用。为使我国的最高司法机关从几乎事事解释、案案指示的费心劳力工作中解脱出来,且最大限度地制掣法官刑事自由裁量权之行使,最大限度实现刑事个案正义,我国的刑事立法应参酌域外刑事立法,将较为成熟的酌定情节予以法定化、明晰化。     

Political ontology,constituent power,and representation

In this piece, I discuss some aspects of the tension between democracy and constitutionalism in light of Pettit’s attempt to think popular control of government by way of a mixed constitution and the introduction of an alternative concept of representation.     

Beyond the literary veil – Women writing Africa: The northern region (2009)

Abstract

Whenever African literature is discussed there is an articulated incorrect assumption that this relates to all the regions of Africa, except North Africa. A related further assumption is that only men in North Africa write. Female writers from the North barely receive critical attention, although they have been writing creative works. The aim of this article is to dispel the notion of literary drought when describing North Africa. Using the text, Women writing Africa: The northern region, the article demonstrates the different sensibilities that female authors in North Africa have created and manifest, when writing against patriarchy as well as against ideological philistinism within their communities. It is argued that female authors from North Africa – African-Arab women – are versatile in their imaginations as they engage with social reality from the perspective of creative art as well as political discourse. The article concludes that this assertion removes the literary veil so that North African female authors can begin to be appreciated artistically, more than has been the situation up to now.     

Conflicts of preferences and domestic constraints: understanding reform failure in liberal state-building and democracy promotion

This paper challenges the common explanations that failures of external state-building and democracy promotion are the result of a lack of domestic capacity or a lack of domestic willingness against an externally set liberal agenda of state-building and democratisation. Studying political decision-making on a micro-level, we argue that both explanations fail to capture the multi-faceted motivations and interests of domestic actors that go beyond mere ‘resistance’ against externally induced liberal reforms. Rather, criticism of reforms might be rooted in ideas of social justice and claims to socio-economic security. Furthermore, these explanations tend to overlook the need for domestic elites to bargain with various domestic stakeholders. A case study of Croatian public administration reform illustrates that failure of externally promoted reforms remain an option when significant international resources are available for liberal state-building and the target of reform is a relatively mature bureaucracy.     

中国船舶抵押权登记之对抗效力

中国船舶抵押权登记对抗效力问题除应适用《中华人民共和国海商法》外,还应当在《中华人民共和国海商法》没有特别规定的情况下适用《中华人民共和国物权法》《中华人民共和国担保法》《中华人民共和国民法通则》及其司法解释中关于动产抵押权的相关规定。对《中华人民共和国物权法》《中华人民共和国担保法》及司法解释中关于抵押权和抵押登记的规定适用于船舶抵押权时存在的问题加以探讨,并提出如何在《中华人民共和国海商法》进行修订或制定相关司法解释时对船舶抵押权与其他物权冲突时何种权利优先等问题加以规定和完善的相关立法建议。     

论构建我国无效行政行为制度

目前,由于我国行政活动的多样性、人的认识能力的有限性等方面的原因,导致行政权力行使者超越权力、滥用权力等违法行政行为时有发生。因此,为保障行政相对人的合法权益,构建无效行政行为制度已成为当务之急。     

The social factory of democracy in underdeveloped Spain

This article aims to analyse the contribution made by Christian movements towards constructing a democratic citizenship in an authoritarian context in the backward province of Albacete. Our study attempts to analyse the efforts made by grassroots Catholic sectors to foster democratic enclaves free from the interference of the Francoist state in 1960s and 1970s Spain. These alternative social spaces enabled new habits of civil resistance that confronted the socio-cultural hegemony of authoritarian values. As a result, throughout these years, various social groups started to challenge the sense of the regime's impregnable unity. This grassroots experience with the “power of the powerless” laid the foundations for negotiations among the political elites during the transition to democracy in Spain.