Crisis ideology and the articulation of fascism in interwar Japan: the 1938 Thought-War Symposium

In early 1938, the newly formed Cabinet Information Division (Naikaku jōhōbu) held a closed-door Thought-War Symposium (Shisōsen kōshūkai) in Tokyo with over 100 bureaucrats, military officers, media executives and academics in attendance. While the ostensible purpose of the symposium was to discuss propaganda following Japan's full-scale invasion of China in July of 1937, the presentations had very little to do with the practical coordination of information. Rather, the symposium participants brought their specific areas of expertise to bear on elaborating the curious term ‘thought war’ (shisōsen), a term that had only recently been used with any regularity but which had become invested with critical urgency following the invasion of China.

In the conventional literature, the term ‘thought war’ is understood as marking a new modality of state propaganda as Japan moved towards a total war system. However, this reading overlooks the ideological investments in thought war discourse, as well as how ‘thought war’ inherited a multivalent sense of crisis that had crystallized around thought and culture earlier in the 1930s. In this article, I explore how the 1938 symposium reveals a combined sense of historical crisis and an urgent call for the total overhaul of Japanese state and society, a combination which, I argue, underwrote the development of fascism in Japan. I trace how three earlier discourses of crisis – the ‘Manchurian Problem’, the ‘thought problem’ and the ‘movement to clarify the kokutai’ – converged within thought war discourse, thus investing it with fascist urgency.     

中国共产党早期马克思主义战略观的形成

中国共产党早期战略观形成的理论基础,是马克思主义战略思想.中国共产党早期战略观形成的国际因素,是共产国际的战略思想.中国共产党是在共产国际的帮助和指导下建立起来的,党的二大又决定加入共产国际,二者的这种密切联系决定后者对前者的影响是巨大的,其中包括共产国际战略思想的影响.中国共产党早期战略观形成的实践沃土,是党自身的革命实践,这一点具有决定性意义.党成立后对中国近代革命实践进行了深刻的战略反思,对党领导的革命实践不断进行战略上的思考,从而逐步形成了具有中国特色的马克思主义战略现.     

An integrated crisis communication framework for strategic crisis communication with the media: A case study on a financial services provider

Abstract

In order for organisations to survive in an ever-changing milieu in the current business environment, sufficient crisis communication and management practices need to be in place. Despite this, organisational crises are often inefficiently managed, which could be ascribed to the lack of strategic management of crises (Kash & Darling 1998: 180). This article explores the lack of strategic crisis communication processes to ensure effective crisis communication with the media as stakeholder group. It is based on the premise that the media are one of the main influencers of public opinion (Pollard & Hotho 2006: 725), thereby necessitating the need for the accurate distribution of information. Furthermore, the study focuses specifically on the financial industry, which is arguably more sensitive and thus more prone to media reporting because financial services providers manage people's money (Squier 2009). A strategic crisis communication process with the media is therefore proposed, facilitated through an integrated crisis communication framework, proposing a combination of integrated communication (IC) literature, with emphasis on Grunig's theory of communication excellence, to build sustainable media relationships through two-way communication; and a crisis communication process that has proactive, reactive and post-evaluative crisis communication stages, thereby moving away from seeing crisis communication as a predominantly reactive function.     

Towards a new model to describe the organisation–stakeholder relationship-building process: A strategic corporate communication perspective

Abstract

Successful organisations depend on stakeholder perceptions to address changes in turbulent organisational environments, report on the social and environmental impact of activities, the prevalence of public activism, globalisation, emerging issues and crises, and the need to be good corporate citizens through ethical and socially responsible behaviour. Despite the current emphasis on stakeholder relations and management, a lack of research exists on how to build these relationships. This article aims to report and discuss the findings of a study that explored the lack of organisation–stakeholder relationship (OSR) building models, to emphasise the elements and development of an OSR and highlight the need for a generic, strategic, integrated approach for sustainable OSR to contribute towards organisational effectiveness. This will be done using an exploratory literature review to constitute a conceptual framework for OSR building, of which the principles of the framework will be measured among leading Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed South African organisations, by means of a quantitative web-based survey and qualitative one-on-one interviews. The dominant focus on organisational stakeholders has provided added impetus and importance to the role of corporate communication, hence, this article will simultaneously endeavour to highlight the importance of practising corporate communication strategically, by emphasising its role in OSR.     

How to study ideas in politics and ‘influence’: a typology

The influence that ideas have (or do not have) in political life is widely regarded as a problematic issue – across many fields of study. Reservations about the possibilities for assessing ideas' influence can be shown to differ, however, in quite revealing ways. Apprehension rests neither on a single, shared reservation, nor even on a core set of reservations. Moreover, many of the reservations lack cogency. A more useful way of addressing the ‘influence-problem’ is by employing a typology. This typology would seek to capture the full range of modes in which influence might be exercised. The article therefore proposes one, as a heuristic framework for investigation and analysis, with the intention that it might be applied to the study of ‘real-world’ cases.     

Displaying the Worldview of Japanese Fascism: The Tokyo Thought War Exhibition of 1938

ABSTRACT:

This essay explores an imperial state exhibition held in Tokyo in 1938 and explains how the exhibition displayed a fascist worldview of historical crisis and national regeneration that was taking shape in Japan in the late 1930s. The exhibition – entitled the Thought War Exhibition (Shisōsen tenrankai) – was curated by the Japanese state's newly formed Cabinet Information Division (Naikaku jōhōbu) and held in Takashimaya Department Store in downtown Tokyo. Comprised of materials related to the Communist International, the Spanish Civil War, the national liberation struggle in China, and the communist and anticolonial movements inside the Japanese Empire, the Exhibition portrayed Japan's invasion of the Chinese mainland in 1937 as an extension of a global thought war against communism, requiring all imperial subjects to purify themselves of foreign influences and mobilize for national thought defense. While on the surface this Exhibition was an example of prewar state propaganda, it also expressed a fascist worldview that was coalescing in the Japanese state in the late 1930s. This essay investigates how this fascist worldview was exhibited in a sequence of displays, including dioramas, panoramas, illuminated maps, and display cases, and how these displays revealed constitutive contradictions that underwrote the formation of fascism in Japan.     

Criminal heterarchy and its critics: governance and the making of insecurity in Colombia

ABSTRACT

The FARC, Colombia’s oldest and biggest guerrilla organisation, has long been constructed as the country’s public enemy number one, an enemy that is increasingly portrayed as an outright criminal actor who abandoned all political ambitions. This image of the FARC as a criminal threat to the Colombian state and society is central to a broader turn towards criminalisation in Colombian politics. Through the lens of a critical governance perspective and the notion of the state’s discursive selectivity this article analyses turning points during which the construction of Colombian society’s criminal enemies became a driving force in the country’s security governance. Which social forces support the implementation of criminalising forms of security governance and how? What are the social and political consequences of the latter? In answering these questions, the article argues that the war on (guerrilla) crime assumes a ‘productive’ role for Colombia’s formal democracy.     

人口较少民族人力资源开发的战略选择与现实路径

人口较少民族人力资源开发必须有明确的战略选择,包括战略定位、战略依据、战略重点和具体的战略对策。目前学术界对此研究不多且存在分歧,主要集中在人口较少民族人力资源开发是以经济目标为导向还是以文化目标为导向,以往的研究大都基于前者,而不同的目标导向带来的结果是不一样的。为此,强调以文化本位为基础的人力资源开发战略对人口较少民族而言更具本质意义和战略实施的可操作性。     

教育模式创新在罪犯科学矫正中的具体运用--基于福建省某监狱罪犯思想现状的调查研究

随着社会的不断发展,《刑法修正案（八）》的颁布,监狱内的形势也日益严峻,在押犯的构成也随之发生变化,同时罪犯矛盾也呈现出多样化和复杂化的趋势。由于受传统观念影响,监狱在刑罚执行中忽视了“治本”功效。因此,监狱作为刑罚执行的主体,一方面应及时化解狱内矛盾,确保监管安全;另一方面为贯彻落实监狱工作的“首要标准”,应切实提高罪犯的教育改造质量。     

探寻心中的“桃花源”

本文首先通过分析陶渊明的文学作品探寻其人生哲学,进而从陶渊明的身世和所处时代透析其思想成因,最后分析了儒道文化对"中国士"的影响及现实启发。