Becoming patriots in Russia: biopolitics,fashion, and nostalgia

The article seeks to explore the common ground between biopolitics, fashion, patriotism and nostalgia. Taking off from the Foucauldian notion of biopolitics as a control apparatus exerted over a population, I provide an insight into the modern construction of the Russian nation, where personal and collective sacrifice, traditional femininity and masculinity, orthodox religion, and the Great Patriotic War become the basis for patriotism. On carefully chosen case studies, I will show how the state directly and indirectly regulates people’s lives by producing narratives, which are translated (in some cases designers act as mouthpieces for the state demographic or military politics) into fashionable discourses and, with a core of time, create specific gender norms – women are seen as fertile mothers giving birth to new soldiers, while men are shown as fighters and defenders of their nation. In the constructed discourses, conservative ideals become a ground for the creation of an idea of a nation as one biological body, where brothers and sisters are united together. In these fashionable narratives, people’s bodies become a battlefield of domestic politics. Fashion produces a narrative of a healthy nation to ensure the healthy work- and military force.     

Managing the difficult past: Ukrainian collective memory and public debates on history

This article analyzes the status of difficult historic events in Ukrainian collective memory. Difficult elements of collective memory are defined as those which divide society on basic matters, such as identity and national cohesion, and events which are being actively forgotten because of the role of Ukrainians as perpetrators. Three such issues were analyzed: World War II and the role of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the Holocaust, and the ethnic purge of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1943–1945. Utilizing data from quantitative and qualitative studies, the author showcases the significance of these issues for contemporary Ukrainian identity and Ukraine’s relations with its neighbors. In particular, the evaluation of World War II and the role of the UPA in Ukrainian history polarizes Ukrainian society to a great degree. At the same time, this element of national history is used to construct a common, anti-Russian identity. The difficulty of relating to the memory of the Holocaust and the ethnic purge in Volhynia is of a different character. These events are problematic for Ukrainian collective memory because they demand a painful settling of accounts with the past. At present, only Ukrainian elites are willing to work on these subjects, and only to a limited degree, while the common consciousness either denies or ignores them altogether.     

The Design and Execution of Performance Management Systems at State Level: A Comparative Analysis of Italy and Malaysia

This comparative study analyses the experience of Italy and Malaysia in the design and execution of performance management systems at the state level. The article investigates how performance management systems have changed over the past decades, the motivations behind their metamorphoses, their common elements across the two countries, and what accounts for the respective progress. It also investigates the role that the institutional framework plays in making performance management systems robust. The study presents policy recommendations on how governments can create more robust performance management systems for enhanced accountability and transparency in an age of resource constraint.     

A nexus between labour movement and labour movement: the Knights of Labor and the financial side of global labour history

The rise of global and transnational labour history has revolutionised the study of working-class movements and individuals and the global forces that shaped them. Some of the more mundane considerations of these movements, however, have so far been neglected in this rapidly growing field. One of the most important of these considerations was money, or in other words the financial affairs of transnational movements such as trade unions and political parties. This article is a call to write the financial side of global labour history. It focuses on a global working-class movement that is itself often neglected in the historical literature, the Knights of Labor, and their outposts in Britain and Ireland. It examines the history of the British and Irish Knights through the prism of their financial history, so far as we can reconstruct it from the scanty sources that are available. This article argues that their financial ties with the United States and a series of embezzlement cases became major causes of their decline and, ultimately, their dissolution. Finally, this article draws conclusions from the financial misadventures of the British and Irish Knights of Labor that are relevant to the study of other international working-class movements and to the writing of global labour history in general.     

Direct democracy and subjective regime legitimacy in Europe

While much research focuses on the causes and consequences of direct democracy and regime legitimacy, little attention has been paid to the potential relationship between them. In an attempt to fill this void, this paper focuses on the legal provisions for direct democracy and its use. The key argument is that possibilities for the public’s direct involvement reflect high importance given to citizens, openness of the regime towards different modes of decision-making, and ways to avoid unpopular institutions. Consequently, citizens are likely to accept and support the regime, improving or maintaining its legitimacy. The cross-national analysis includes 38 European countries ranging from transition countries to established democracies. It uses bivariate statistical analysis and country-level data collected from legislation, secondary sources, and aggregate surveys.     

软实力视阈下的日本动漫外交

近年来,日本在经济持续低迷与少子老龄化的背景下,努力寻求通过文化"软实力"来提高国家影响力的新途径。受美国学者约瑟夫·奈的启发,日本政府认识到"动漫"是日本的软实力资源之一,并实施了一系列动漫外交。日本政府的动漫外交促进了日本文化产业的发展,对构建国家形象和提升国家软实力发挥了重要作用。     

‘Black letters’: problems and issues in the research,dissemination and reception of literature by Afro-Argentines and on Afro-Argentines

Afro-Argentines of colonial descent constitute one of the lesser known minority groups in the country. While scholarly research on this particular group is still scarce, recent studies account for the diversity of its past and current cultural practices. Aside from some exceptions, Afro-Argentine literature is virtually unknown to academia and, as it is usually the case regarding Minor Literatures, it has been excluded from the national literary canon. Towards the end of the twentieth century there was a resurgence not only of studies on Afro-Argentine literature, but also of the presence of Afro-Argentines themselves in fictional writing. This paper will chart the process of retrieval, analysis and dissemination of Afro-Argentine literature, examining some of the issues that arise both at the epistemic and editorial policy levels. We will account for the revival of a literature on Afro-Argentines, in order to explore whether they reproduce a ‘master narrative’ that, through the historical novel, relegates Afro-Argentines into oblivion and/or reduces the group to its stereotypes; or if, on the other hand, these voices can subvert Argentine historiography by positioning this group in a leading role that mirrors the vitality of their present-day social movements.     

浅谈落实党的工人政策——学习党的十八大工作报告的体会

党的十八大报告,是夺取中国特色社会主义新胜利和全面建成小康社会的纲领性文件,是代表人民、为人民谋利益的政策指南。报告就实现好、维护好、发展好工人劳动者的积极性和创造性方面重申和提出了许多方针和政策性要求。改革开放30多年的实践中,我们在依靠工人阶级方面也出现了一些杂音和问题。贯彻落实党的十八大报告精神,必须坚定不移地贯彻宪法,切实落实工人劳动者的主人翁地位;必须进一步贯彻党的"依靠"方针,更好地形成"劳动光荣"、"尊重劳动"、落实工人劳动者合法权益的良好社会环境,积极推进工人劳动者逐步实现自身的现代化;同时还要重视和发挥工会组织代表维护工人劳动者合法权益的职能作用,使党的工人政策真正落在实处。     

Local Government and Local Governance: 1944–2011

Abstract

Since the establishment of the tri-partite system of state education after the Second World War, the once simple relationships between central government and local government and the individual school have become increasingly complex. This article considers the key governance issues for schools and colleges in England and how they have been affected by the redistribution of power between central government and local government. The principal foci are the main legislative changes and the impact they have had on the respective powers and responsibilities of central government, local government and schools and colleges. The radical developments since the formation of the coalition government in May 2010 have accelerated the shift of power to central government from local government and by the end of the first term of the coalition the local authority will have little more than a vestigial role in the provision of secondary education and a diminishing role in primary and special education. As academy status becomes the norm (as it already is for secondary schools in some authorities) central government will be dealing directly with autonomous schools and academy chains. With more schools directly employing staff and with funding levels set nationally, the pattern and nature of public education will have been irrevocably changed.     

浅析计算机犯罪取证与反取证

计算机犯罪取证主要围绕证据的获取和证据的分析。主要过程包括保护和勘查现场、获取物理数据、分析数据、追踪源头、提交结果等。计算机反取证就是删除或者隐藏入侵证据,使取证工作无效。反取证技术主要有数据擦除、数据隐藏等,数据擦除是最有效的反取证方法。从取证与反取证两方面分析计算机犯罪的特征,研究反取证技术的根源,可有效地保护国家信息网络安全,打击犯罪。