Islamophobic conspiracism and neoliberal subjectivity: the inassimilable society

O’Donnell analyses the confluence of Islamophobia and anti-government conspiracy theory in the works of the far-right think tank, the Center for Security Policy (CSP). He argues that, rather than only being a contemporary form of the religious and racialized demonologies that code ‘Islam’ as being the constitutive outside of ‘the ‘West—irrational, religious and authoritarian versus rational, secular and democratic—Islamophobic conspiracism should also be examined in the context of anxieties over the erosion of personal and state sovereignty under neoliberalization. Mobilizing an Islamophobic demonology that constructs ‘Muslims’ as inassimilable to ‘American’ subjectivity, the CSP's Islamophobic conspiracism projects this construction of absolute alterity on to American social and state systems. In doing so, O’Donnell contends, Islamophobic conspiracism takes neoliberalization's estrangement of the state and its citizens to its logical conclusion, transfiguring the societal processes that impact on the freedom of the individual—notably the state and civil society—into something inassimilable to that individual's claims to self-ownership and self-mastery.     

Semiotising the student perception of learning outcomes in British higher education

This article presents a semiotic analysis of the student perception of learning outcomes in British higher education. It centres on three annotated images in Frank Furedi’s article “The Unhappiness Principles”, published in Times Higher Education in 2012. Drawing upon Peircean semiosis and iconicity, it provides a rhetoric-infused interpretation of the word–image complementarity exhibited in student participants’ written commentaries on the three images. This leads to a dialectical view of formative and summative assessment, in which process and product create each other through the same continuum of learning and teaching. In highlighting intellectualism as central to the ethnography of university life, this article argues that learner autonomy and the potential for transformation is deemed essential to the student experience in higher education.     

Senior Public Managers’ Engagement: A Person–Situation-Interactionist Perspective

This article examines the engagement of senior public managers by developing a person–situation-interactionist perspective. It integrates the literature on social exchange theory and person–organization fit to explore the effects of decision autonomy and shared vision on the engagement of more than 2,000 senior public sector managers in the central government agencies of three continental European countries: France, Germany, and The Netherlands. Then, it examines whether the locus of control of those managers moderates the decision autonomy–engagement and shared vision–engagement relationships. The structural equation modeling results suggest that there are positive relationships between both decision autonomy and shared vision and employee engagement. Further analysis revealed that an internal locus of control strengthened the decision autonomy–engagement relationship, but that it weakened the shared vision–engagement relationship.     

The heritage of autonomy in Carpathian Rus’ and Ukraine's Transcarpathian region

As the Soviet Union disintegrated and eventually dissolved in 1991, many of its peoples, both so-called titular nationalities and national minorities, put forth demands for independence or, at the very least, self-rule for territories that were said to represent the national patrimony. Among the many peoples who put forward such demands were Carpatho-Rusyns, who, together with fellow citizens of other national backgrounds, demanded autonomy or self-rule for the region (oblast) of Transcarpathia in far western Ukraine. This essay examines from a historical perspective the question of autonomy or self-rule for Carpatho-Rusyns and for all or part of the territory they inhabit, historic Carpathian Rus’. The autonomy question in Carpathian Rus’ is hardly new, but one that goes as far back as 1848.     

Quality Management in Public-Sector Organizations: Evidence from Six EU Countries

Although there is considerable evidence for the hypothesis that an efficient use of management techniques is the key to a good public service delivery, a lot of studies come to the conclusion that there is only partial, reluctant implementation or even a general lack of the use of such techniques by public managers. This paper examines the determinants for the use of quality management techniques in public sector organizations from six EU countries. It turns out that especially more organizational autonomy and result control appear to be of importance while, surprisingly, the combination of these variables leads to negative results.     

Fighting on behalf of the state—the issue of pro-government militia autonomy in the Donbas war

This study investigates the degree of autonomy the Ukrainian volunteer battalions had from the regular forces during the war in Donbas. The findings indicate that the degree of autonomy was high and that in particular, three initial conditions were decisive for this outcome: (1) the relative level of militia military strength in the initial states of conflict; (2) the degree of agenda overlap; (3) the degree of bottom-up organization. The empirical evidence further suggests that the three factors produced the identified outcome through the mechanisms of “institutional lock-in,” “performance interdependence,” and “entitlement.” Consequently, the Ukrainian state and regular forces ended up accepting a higher degree of autonomy, in terms of command and control, on the part of the volunteer battalions than they otherwise probably would have preferred. This outcome contributed significantly to saving the sovereignty of the Ukrainian state in 2014–2015, but may also have created conditions for challenges to the same state further down the road.     

物业管理的立法完善

物业管理与百姓的生活息息相关,随着房地产的升温,物业管理中的纠纷也日益增多。然而我国目前尚无一部专门的物业管理法律,应加强理论研究工作,出台专门的《物业管理法》,并建立物业纠纷处理系统,以解决物业管理实务中的问题。     

19世纪前欧洲国际私法学说重述

19世纪以前欧洲的国际私法学说对国际私法的实践和理论发展有着不可或缺的重要作用,但是目前国内对这些学说的解读,由于各种原因,并没有展现学说的原貌。鉴于此,同时抛弃非理性偏爱,本文对传统的各个学说进行了尽可能的再现,希望能对学说的学习和研究有所帮助。     

试论清末民初时期国家权力在乡村的渗透——基于小说《白鹿原》叙事的考察

清末民初,＂国权不下县＂的状态被打破,国家权力开始向乡村社会下沉,中央政权通过建立区乡制度、重建保甲制度以及通过国家法和民间法的博弈攫取乡村社会的统治权,对乡村社会进行官治。     

社会管理创新中的社会自治

社会管理创新中的社会自治是经济社会发展的必然要求。对社会自治认识的局限性、长期的计划经济条件下的政府管理体制的惯性思维和社会自治组织的自身缺陷是社会自治面临的障碍。促进社会自治需要政府向社会自治组织放权放手和培育、扶持社会自治组织以及建立健全相关的制度和法律。