“熊通困境”：国际体系中的身份政治与安全两难

“熊通困境”是指国际体系中的崛起国家,因“异质身份”而面临现行国际体系强烈敌意、因实力相对增长而受到霸权国家及其附庸集团权势压制的双重难题。西周乃至春秋时期楚国的历史经验表明,由于特定国家与霸权国家及其附庸集团大不相同的国际政治身份,受到体系敌视、压制的状况,具有长期的国际政治效应。而此类国家实力增长及由此导致的权势对比变动,较一般崛起国家而言,往往将激发起现有体系内更为强大甚至远超常规的敌对性反应。崛起国家突破“熊通困境”存在两种方式与效应皆有所不同的路径：一是主要通过武力强制,力求最终颠覆现有国际体系,这意味着紧张局势的持续加剧乃至最终爆发大国间战争;二是致力于推动促进现有国际体系身份共识的瓦解,这意味着长期的、连贯的、灵活的、坚定的非军事与军事手段的战略组合运用。当前,在中国国家实力快速增长的背景下,霸权国家及其附庸集团对中国施加愈发强大压力的主要原因之一,便是美国等部分西方国家将中国视为与之“对立”的“他者”,并对这种国际政治身份存在根深蒂固的不信任乃至显著敌意。笃行和平与发展的当代中国,突破“熊通困境”的主要战略路径,在于逐步构建并推广新的国际体系“身份共识”,为此需要以改变他国意图和行为为目标,需要付出较长时间的努力、采取灵活的方式以及抱定锲而不舍之态度。     

The fundamental characteristics of the Kurdish nationhood project in modern Iraq

The protracted Iraqi-Kurdish conflict has plagued the country since the creation of Iraq in the 1920s. Iraqi-Kurdish relations are dominated by the clash of two contradictory nationhood projects: Kurdish and Iraqi. The Kurdish nationhood project was constructed with the perspective that the Kurds as a nation, could qualify for but is deprived of, achieving nation-state status. Based on the Kurdish project, Kurdistan and Iraq consist of two separate homelands: the Arab part of Iraq, which is part of the greater Arab homeland, and Iraqi Kurdistan which is part of the Greater Kurdistan region.     

Post-colonial folk dancing: reflections on the impact of stage folk dance style on traditional folk dance variation in Soviet and post-Soviet Estonia

ABSTRACT

The focus of this article is on traditional folk dance in Soviet and post-Soviet Estonia. Dance variation is analyzed through the prism of postcolonial theories to reveal the sequential effects of the colonial situation developed during the Soviet period. Specific causes and characteristic traits of the Soviet influence are explored. Colonialist echoes of the Soviet regime within contemporary Estonian culture are reflected in two trends in the variation of traditional folk dance: first, “contamination” of traditional folk dance with stage dance elements promoted during the Soviet era and, second, a regular search for “genuine” folk dance as a reaction to Soviet colonial heritage.     

Russia and its supporters in Europe: trans-ideology à la carte?

The impact of crisis in Ukraine on EU–Russia relations appears twofold. On the one hand, it revealed the high degree of disdain all across Europe to Moscow's neo-imperial approach. On the other hand, it unveiled a great deal of affection and sympathy to Kremlin's policy among a number of non-mainstream but significant groups within the EU. In this article, we mirror the major troubles of today’s Europe, as seen from Moscow’s perspective, with four nodal points of the Kremlin’s hegemonic discourse: social conservatism, nation state-based policies, independence from the US influence and the glorification of Russia’s self-inflicted mission of fighting contemporary neo-fascism. Our analysis of non-mainstream political parties in EU member states, sensitive and responsive to the Kremlin’s agenda, suggests that Putin's regime and Russia sympathizers in Europe pragmatically use each other, thereby challenging the classical ideological paradigms. This translates Russia’s policies into a trans-ideological repertoire of different discourses that differently resonate among the groups of Russia sympathizers.     

No Moscow stooges: identity polarization and guerrilla movements in Donbass

Abstract

The paper argues that the grounds for the conflict in Donbass were prepared when different sections of Ukraine’s population developed conflicting perspectives of the past, the role of Russia in Ukraine’s history, and of how relations with the West should evolve. These differences lay the foundations for what became polarized identities and mutually exclusive ideologies. The study goes on to explore a changing political landscape of a leaderless uprising and formation of a protest movement out of locally available ingredients, the emergence of armed militias in unfolding security vacuum and the developments on the battlefield. As the rebel-held territories drifted away from mainland Ukraine, their new identity was formed by the war. The paper argues that understanding the internal dynamic of the guerrilla war and population’s survival has been key to the resolution, which is increasingly unlikely.     

Human Identification Using Automatic and Semi‐Automatically Detected Facial Marks

Continuing advancements in the field of digital cameras and surveillance imaging devices have led law enforcement and intelligence agencies to use analysis of images and videos for the investigation and prosecution of crime. When determining identity from photographic evidence, forensic analysts perform comparison of visible facial features manually, which is inefficient. In this study, we will address research efforts to use facial marks as biometric signatures to distinguish between individuals. We propose two systems to assist forensic analysts during photographic comparison: an improved multiscale facial mark system in which facial marks are detected automatically, and a semi‐automatic facial mark system that integrates human knowledge within the improved multiscale facial mark system. Experiment results employ a high‐resolution time‐elapsed dataset acquired at the University of Notre Dame between 2009 and 2011. The results indicate that the geometric distributions of facial mark patterns can be used to distinguish between individuals.     

Identities,Boundaries, and Accounts of Women Methamphetamine Users

Drug users often define themselves as functional users and depict others as dysfunctional (i.e. junkies). Previous research on the social identities of drug users has focused on the symbolic boundaries they create to distance themselves from stigmatized others. Investigators have yet to focus on how users account for their own boundary violations. Here, we examine the narratives of 30 former women methamphetamine (meth) users to determine how they make distinctions between functional and dysfunctional meth users (i.e. “meth heads”). The distinctions they make are based on users’ abilities to maintain control of their lives and to hide their use from outsiders. Those who saw themselves as functional but who engaged in behaviors inconsistent with this image accounted for these behaviors to maintain desired identities. We show the complexity of drug users’ identities and illustrate how anti-drug campaigns that provide grotesque caricatures of drug users may prolong drug using careers.     

我国古代社会提升政治合法性的路径探讨

政治合法性对于政治体系具有极为重要的价值。历史和现实证明,任何一种政治权威,其要想拥有长久的政治生命,就必须解决政治合法性问题,我国古代的历代封建帝王也深知此种奥妙。为了强化人们对其政治统治的认同,他们借助学校、家庭、地方官吏宣传自己的政治意识形态,完善机制,提升官僚的道德品质,采取措施,促进社会各方面的发展。     

Imposing Identity against Social Catastrophes. The Strategies of (Re)Generation of Meaning of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Argentina)

This article explores the processes of definition, construction and social management of collective identity in situations of social catastrophe such as that defined in the Southern Cone of Latin America following the grave human rights violations that occurred in the 1970s, especially those deriving from the forced disappearance of persons. This form of repression creates deep wounds in the social fabric affected and, besides this, produces what could be called a ‘catastrophe’, that is, a permanent confusion of the mechanisms of social construction of meaning and subjectivity within which one lives. In this case, the catastrophe affects several collective goods and, principally, the social bases of modern identity construction. In order to manage these catastrophes, the subjects that inhabit the social spaces formed around them – in this case those who live in the field of the detained–disappeared – develop very different strategies, with the most widespread in the Argentinean case being what I will call the ‘narrative of meaning’. This is a hard and conservative strategy that confronts the catastrophe of identity by employing identity constructions supported on old narratives of the family and biological heritage. This article is dedicated to an analysis of this socially successfully strategy and studies the form it adopts in the work of constructing identity of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo.