Rethinking public policy in agriculture: lessons from history,distant and recent

This article reviews the histories of agricultural policy in 11 of today's developed countries between the late-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth century and in 10 developing and transition economies since the mid-twentieth century. After discussing the theoretical limitations of the prevailing orthodoxy, the article discusses the history of a wide range of agricultural policies concerning issues like land, knowledge (e.g., research, extension), credit, physical inputs (e.g., irrigation, transport, fertilizers, seeds), farm income stability (e.g., price stabilisation measures, insurances, trade protection), marketing, and processing. The article ends by discussing the policy lessons that may be learned from these historical experiences.     

Securitization,history, and identity: some conceptual clarifications and examples from politics of Finnish war history

This article shows how we can use the securitization framework to study extreme history politics. Securitization refers to a speech act or discursive process in which an actor makes a claim that some referent object, deemed worthy of survival, is existentially threatened. If successful, securitization justifies the use of extraordinary measures to counter the threat. After introducing the concept of securitization in detail, the article presents three ways in which history and securitization can be connected: history can serve as a facilitating condition of securitization; history can be explicitly used to strengthen a securitizing move; or history, or a particular interpretation of it, can be the referent object of securitization. The second half of the article is devoted to a discussion on the role of history in the securitization of national identities. Historical myths are the standard building blocks of national identities; challenging these myths can be presented as threats to the survival of the nation. The article also discusses potential forms of resistance against securitization of history/national identities. Illustrative examples from the political use of WWII history in Finland will be used to show the practical consequences of various conceptual choices.     

All the labor problems fit to print: the New York Times and the cultural production of the U.S ‘labor problem’, 1870–1932

The period that spanned the Gilded Age to the onset of the Great Depression saw the rise and relative decline of the US labor movement. The salient events of labor movements over these years undoubtedly shaped public perception about labor issues, and some scholars have been attempting to unpack the mechanisms through which depictions and characterizations of the ‘labor problem’ were produced in authoritative venues that could have shaped the future of the movement. This study goes beyond the standard practice of explaining news report volume to feature the political valance of the reports on the labor problem over a 63-year time period. The aforementioned period also saw significant changes in news reporting practices, with the rise of objective informational writing and the embrace of journalism as a profession. The change within journalism itself could potentially shape the depiction of the labor problem, yet such change has been overlooked by existing literature pertaining to the topic. This research makes a theoretical case for integrating social processes central to the labor movement and journalism from 1870 to 1932 and explains patterns in the cultural production of the labor problem in the New York Times by analyzing these two tracks of history in conjunction using both qualitative and quantitative data.     

Interview with AbbyTC5: a pioneering ‘HomeGirl’ in Hip-Hop herstory

Jessica N. Pabón interviews graffiti artist Abby Andrews, a.k.a. AbbyTC5, about her canvas painting Queens, the image on the front cover of the special issue.     

How the West was Won: A Deconstruction of Politicised Colonial Engineering

History has taught us that the Global North's attempts to ‘civilise' the rest of the world's population, both now and in colonial times, have been fraught with difficulty. This paper argues that this difficulty is mainly owing to the political standpoint and positioning of our perceived engineering and technical superiority. A failure to recognise this viewpoint and to change the way in which we work together—in a global sense—to solve issues such as climate change, threatens our ability to survive as a species. Political standpoints on such issues still assume a superiority of governments in the Global North. This paper retraces colonial engineering projects, mainly directed from the UK, that failed to consider the development of other populations in the world, and their needs. It is also posited that our exploitation in the Global North, which assumes historical superiority as a basic premise, will fail in tackling major issues. Change is needed through a decolonisation of engineering projects, and western engineering curricula that are used to train future professionals. Evidence of the impact of decolonisation on the engineering discipline itself is scarce, but nevertheless, a response is needed to ensure that a more inclusive curriculum and narrative is developed.     

Turkifying Poverty,or: the Phantom Pain of Izmir’s Lost Christian Working Class, 1924–26

This article shows that ‘Turkification’, a term widely used by historians of modern Turkey to refer to the forced transfer of property from Christian into Muslim hands, ought to be conceptualized not only in the sense of ‘enrichment’ but also, with regard to the working classes, as a process in which Muslim people inherited the poverty of their Christian predecessors. Taking ?zmir as a case in point, the article first describes the plight of the overwhelmingly Christian working class prior to 1922. It then studies reports and editorials that discussed the economic and social situation in ?zmir in the years 1923 to 1926, after the Turkish victory and forced migration of her Christian population. Over the course of these years, ?zmir experienced a serious economic crisis, and bread prices reached levels that led to widespread undernourishment and hunger among the city?s poor. Agricultural production was lagging behind pre-war levels, and positive effects of ‘Turkification? policies were failing to materialize. By analyzing the contemporary journalists? attempts at explaining the crisis, but also pointing out national and transnational factors that they were probably unaware of, the article makes an original contribution to the economic and social history of early republican Turkey.     

书写与歧视——"夜郎自大"现象与少数民族历史的异化

近年来,"夜郎自大"所体现的对于夜郎君主的误解开始引起学者们的广泛关注。然而,误解并非是偶然的,司马迁的历史记载以及成语贬义的形成,凝聚着深厚的传统的文化偏见,反映了在古代民族中心主义语境下,少数民族历史书写所遭受的一种普遍命运。     

龙勃罗梭在中国——一个犯罪学史的考察

龙勃罗梭及其学说在中国之命运变迁,是中国犯罪学发展历程的一个缩影.中国犯罪学以译介龙勃罗梭著作和理论为开端,其夭折也以批判和否定龙勃罗梭及其学说为先导,而其再生与发展同样是以对龙勃罗梭的肯定和客观评价为重要标志.因为龙勃罗梭,犯罪学始成为科学.遗憾的是尽管龙勃罗梭的学说传入中国已逾百年,但是当代中国犯罪学总体仍然处于形...     

理性对待企业社会责任——兼评我国《公司法》中的企业社会责任条款

通过对我国《公司法》中的企业社会责任条款的实证分析表明,企业社会责任不是空洞的宣言,它的价值理念蕴涵在《公司法》中,通过相关的条款予以体现.对企业社会责任不应该只进行纯理论性的法条解读,有必要将其与实体意义上的惩罚权联系起来,做到理性的对待企业社会责任,以推进企业社会责任在我国的实施.     

论邓小平对我国政治体制改革的理论贡献

政治体制改革是一项关系中国前途命运的复杂而艰巨的战略性任务。邓小平以无产阶级革命家的远见卓识和革命胆略在政治体制问题上突破禁区,更新观念,阐明了我国政治体制改革的必要性、根本目标及改革的原则和方法等。这是邓小平对我国政治体制改革的杰出理论贡献,它成为我国政治体制改革的行动指南。