Strategic competence and agency: individuals overcoming barriers to change in South African higher education

Social relations, institutional arrangements and cultures bequeathed by South Africa’s system of apartheid continue be felt in the present despite the country’s formal transition to democracy 25 years ago. Race, class and gender inequities continue to structure South African society in ways that have proven intransigent to change, leading to growing frustration and widespread public dissatisfaction expressed in multiple arenas including worker strikes, service delivery and university student protests. While it is clear that social structures inherited from the past are difficult to change, it is also the case that change does happen. In this paper, we discuss the findings of a hermeneutic phenomenological study with 10 academics at one historically White university in South Africa, who have been agents of change within their particular context. We show how participants engaged in struggles to counter resistance to their efforts. In doing so they demonstrate what we call ‘strategic competence’ – the ability to act in ways that not only draw on personal resources but recognise the resources, contradictions and opportunities offered within the existing limitations of the social structure. Strategic competence thus emerges as a central feature of agency, enabling individuals to stretch the boundaries of what is possible.     

Economic Liberalisation,Changes in Governance Structure and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka

The last four decades have seen considerable economic, political and cultural changes in Sri Lanka. Among the dominant themes and discourses of the period are economic liberalisation, changes in governance and the conflict between the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (portrayed as an ethnic conflict). The economic liberalisation policies of the centre-right government that came to power in 1977 opened up the country to foreign capital and relaxed emigration rules and import restrictions. This government also introduced changes to the Westminster-style democratic system by instituting a centralised governance structure headed by a directly elected executive president. These changes and their implementation imposed significant restrictions on human liberties and rights. These changes are considered as a context for the emergence of conflicts between various central governments and Tamil militants in the early 1980s. This topic has been relatively under-researched. The article attempts to grasp the complexities surrounding this topic on the basis of a review of relevant literature and the underlying meanings of the war, particularly in relation to the maintenance of patron-client relations and a globalising economy. In concluding, the article reiterates the importance of a peace process and political reforms related to national identity and allegiance to an inclusive nation.     

FORGETTING DOES (NOT) HURT. Historical Revisionism in Post-Socialist Slovenia

After the fall of socialism, besides the attempts to reach national reconciliation, radical reconfigurations and reinterpretations of the past were used to negotiate local, national and transnational identities and strengthen national agendas. In most of the formerly socialist countries, the historical interpretation significantly resembles the struggle over the legitimacy and authenticity of this representation. The author argues that in post-socialist Slovenia instead of the anticipated democratization and break with ideologically predestined historical work after 1989, at least three competing politically contaminated ways of interpreting the past gained momentum: the so-called liberal-conformist position, which insists that we have to look at the future and forget the traumas of the past; the revisionist standpoint which, at least in Slovenia, is the most aggressive one; and the objectivistic approach practiced by most Slovenian historians after 1991. To do that the author investigates how collective memories are mobilized in general, formal and in particular more personalized and/or emotional narratives and traces the changes in Slovenian memorial landscape divided into categories: the authoritarian type, defined by a desire for direct colonization of the interpretation of the past related to the Second World War; the conciliatory type that tries to achieve “reconciliation”; the conflicting type that clashes with the iconography of an existing partisan monument as an alternative interpretation.     

Islam and resistance: Hamas,ideology and Islamic values in Palestine

This article investigates the historical evolution, values and Islamic reference points of Hamas. A product of fieldwork in the Middle East in 2009–2010, it allows Palestinian Islamists and their supporters to explain their views on Islam, whilst analysing the implications of these in regards to Hamas’ wider programme of resistance. Interviews and surveys, as well as Hamas’ ongoing use of Islamic terminology and the Islamisation of the Gaza Strip, reveal that religion remains intertwined with the movement’s political and social activities. Secular analyses clearly demarcating political and religious spheres in such cases are inadequate. The interpretation of Islamic values is not immutable, however, but rather part of a dynamic process subject to evolution and change.     

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.     

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.     

逻辑与机理：社会抗拒的刑事路径考察——以两个个案为样本的分析

通过对钱明奇事件和胡文海事件的考察，我们发现：为了利益博弈，矛盾双方以表达与打压为基本手段展开对立性互动，在强势方持续打压与表达方顽强坚执的拉锯战中，伴随敌意累积、强化和扩散并最终导致以刑事犯罪为手段释放敌意。从正常的利益抗争演进到非现实性冲突性质的刑事社会抗拒，打压为其提供了原动力，打压所输入的风险能量与合法性状态、相对剥夺感的强弱、改变被剥夺境遇的可能性和边缘化人格等因素交互影响、彼此“型塑”共同铺设了社会抗拒的刑：事路径。     

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。     

复方"连黄"对金黄色葡萄球菌耐药基因femA的影响

采用聚合酶链式反应(PCR)扩增金黄色葡萄球菌耐药基因femA;通过耐药基因失活试验,研究了中药复方"连黄"对金黄色葡萄球菌耐药基因femA的影响,探讨了中药"连黄"降低金黄色葡萄球菌对β-内酰胺类药物耐药性的作用机理。结果显示,中药"连黄"作用前后金黄色葡萄球菌的耐药基因femA在23~72碱基区发生较大改变,对应的氨基酸序列也发生改变,从而导致femA基因失活。     

行政行为无效理论探讨

行政行为无效理论是行政行为理论中的一个重要问题。它是一个具有特定内涵的范畴,其存在的理论依据是行政行为公定力的有限性,并以公民权利抵制行政权力为它的价值背景。可以通过对行政行为无效的界定、其法理基础及其价值目标的探讨,来说明行政行为无效理论在行政法中的重要地位。