“Academics for Peace” in Turkey: a case of criminalising dissent and critical thought via counterterrorism policy

ABSTRACT

On 11 January 2016, 1128 academics in Turkey and abroad signed a petition calling on Turkish authorities to cease state violence in mainly Kurdish populated areas of the country, which had been under curfew and an extended state of emergency. The petition received an immediate reaction from President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, who accused the signatories of treason and terrorist propaganda. He subsequently demanded that public prosecuters launch an investigation. Criminalisation of the petition has been exacerbated by disciplinary action by universities against many of the signatories. Many have suffered insults, arrest, detention or suspension as a result of the ensuing smear campaign. This massive crackdown on academic freedom has been masked by discourses of counterterrorism, which have also been deployed to criminalise dissent more generally in Turkey as a part of a process of rapid “democratic retrenchment” since 2013. This article is an attempt to put the criminalisation of academics within the larger framework of human rights violations, increasing curtailments of academic freedom and rising authoritarianism in Turkey. It argues that the prosecution of the signatories of the petition is an extension of an established tradition of targeting academic freedom in times of political crisis in Turkey but is also a product of growing authoritarianism under the ruling party and President Erdo?an. It shows that counterterrorism laws can be extended far beyond eliminating security threats by instrumentalising them to suppress dissent in a declining democracy.     

Criminalising Academia: The Protection of State Information Bill and Academic Freedom

This article assesses the implications of the controversial Protection of State Information Bill for academic freedom in South Africa, specifically for communications, media and journalism studies. The Bill requires the security cluster to classify sensitive documents on national security grounds. Academic teaching and research can help citizens to understand whether the security cluster is acting in the universal interest, rather than the interest of a political elite; it can also be used to assess media performance in reporting on national security matters. Using a critical approach to the concept of national security, I argue that the Bill favours secrecy over openness, and South Africa’s embrace of the human security definition of national security has contributed to the problem. This overemphasis on secrecy is likely to reduce the few spaces that exist in academia for critical, emancipatory work on security issues, which could hobble the sector’s attempts to understand the deeper processes at work in the security cluster. If such enquiry is marginalised, then the higher education system risks becoming an instrument for continuity rather than change in South Africa’s existing, highly unequal power relations: relations that are being maintained increasingly by force.     

习近平人类命运共同体思想的建构逻辑与价值外延

党的十八大以来,习近平总书记在众多国际外交场合以及国内重要会议上,反复阐述人类命运共同体思想,并进行了深刻论证。它是建构在共同国际权益观、共同利益观、共同可持续发展观的价值基础之上,以马克思共同体思想为来源,以中国优秀传统文化为动力,以历代党的领导人的思想为基础,面对当前世界性发展难题提出的中国国际秩序观。此外,它的价值实现了外延,为世界走向和平、走向共同发展、实现全球治理提供了现实可能的“中国方案”。     

Asset Ownership and Future Orientation of Youth and Their Parents: Evidence From Ghana

Although future orientation influences a variety of desirable behaviors, few studies have examined the relationship between economic resources and future orientation. In this study, we investigated whether and how asset ownership influences future orientation. We analyzed survey data collected from 3,007 Ghanaian youth and their parents. We used factor analysis to determine the psychometric qualities of our instruments, and propensity score analysis to examine the relationship between asset ownership and future orientation. Results suggest that asset ownership influences future orientation of youth and their parents. However, the direction of the relationship depends on the type of asset. Ownership of household possessions, including televisions contributes to higher levels of future orientation, but livestock ownership has a negative effect on future orientation. We discuss implications for future research, as well as programs for youth and their families.     

论学术期刊对学术论文剽窃的防范

学术期刊在防范学术论文剽窃中具有不可替代的作用,但在具体工作实践中会遇到思想观念、法律层面、技术层面及与学术失范行为的区别等方面的问题。学术期刊一般均有自己的一套稿件审核程序与组织．防范的重点在于预防、关键在于审稿环节。     

批判的学问——《关于惩罚的哲学——刑罚根据论》前言

学术需要批判。学术批判是一种极其严肃的事业、一种建设性的事业与一种承先启后的事业。     

关于未来五年甘肃发展的思考

随着科学发展观的全面落实与和谐社会建设的不断加强,甘肃未来五年的发展将迎来许多难得的机遇:经济全球化为利用两个市场、两种资源提供了更大的空间;甘肃产业结构与全国性的新一轮消费结构升级相吻合;国家的农村政策有利于甘肃转换二元经济结构矛盾,解决“三农问题”;产业梯度转移的势头越来越强劲,聚集生产要素的能力将进一步提高;新能源建设将得到长足发展;劳务经济将最大化拓展……只有敏锐地捕捉机遇、夯实基础、创造条件、改善环境、突出重点、推进体制机制创新,处理好经济发展和社会发展的关系,处理好基础设施建设和培育特色优势产业的关系,处理好政府推动和市场机制的关系,处理好改革发展稳定的关系,把中央精神和甘肃实际结合起来,把研究现实情况和总结历史经验结合起来,深化认识,统一思想,自觉地以党的十六届五中全会精神为指导,着眼于关系经济社会发展全局重大问题的研究,努力掌握工作的主动权,才能有力地推动甘肃经济和社会事业更快更好地发展。     

Taking Your Academic Expertise Public: Lessons Learned Responding to the 11 September Crisis

The advantage of academic life is that society allows us to spend years reading things no one else reads, writing articles and books almost no one else reads, and traveling to places no one else travels to. But in times of crisis, when the totally unexpected becomes reality, society understandably expects that we serve our communities with knowledge, explanation, insights, and policy alternatives. The days, weeks, and months following the attacks of 11 September were such an occasion and many academics experienced sudden demands for public commentary and analysis. As international studies scholars, we have insights and knowledge that our communities require and desire, most notably in times of crisis. By responding to the best of our abilities, we are able to return something to society and help people understand more clearly the world in which we live. In this essay, we discuss how we handled this challenge in the wake of 11 September and the lessons we have learned through that process.     

高校管理的创新意识

高校教育管理要改革,就需要有创新意识。创新意识的形成,有两个关键的问题需要解决:第一,教育信息系统的形成;第二,知识结构的完善。卡内基-梅隆大学、南开与天津大学等,正是由于其创新的思路,使学校产生了飞跃的发展。     

Christian Wolff and the classics of“scientific socialis”

The paper analyses the reception of Christian Wolff in the work of the founders of scientific socialism. It is discussed how Marx, Engels and Lenin thought about a leading representative of German Enlightenment. The author argues that the classics of scientific socialism knew about Wolff in an off-handed and secondary way. As the case of Wolff shows their studies regarding philosophical, legal, sociological and economic theories and those who represented them were strongly influenced by thinking with the logic and in the categories of class antagonism and struggle. The Wolff treatment by Marx, Engels and Lenin determined his reception in the philosophy and economics of the state socialism.