The exclusionary side of (women’s) social citizenship in Southeastern Europe: childcare policy development in Bosnia-Herzegovina and gender,social and territorial inequalities

ABSTRACT

The article explores the shifts in (women’s) social citizenship in Bosnia-Herzegovina and its effect on the development of childcare policy in the 1945–2019 period. Gendered, selective childcare policy, which was inherent in the socialist notion of social citizenship and aimed to emancipate women as ‘worker-mothers’, deteriorated in the transition period when ethnicity became prioritized over gender and class. Exclusionary citizenship practices increased with the post-1990 reforms as gender and social inequalities incorporated into childcare policy design become intertwined with inequalities based on ethnicity and/or locality. The post-1990 period is characterized by discontinuity, retrenchment and weak implementation of childcare-related rights.     

Was It Worth It? The Territorial Reform in the Canton of Glarus

This paper examines the financial impact of the 2011 reform of the local governments and jurisdictions in the canton of Glarus. After a popular vote 70 public entities were reorganized to form three large uniformed communes. Previous research showed that amalgamations do not automatically lead to savings in public expenditures and economies of scale. We empirically apply the synthetic control method and show that the territorial reform realized some savings in public expenditure. However, the effect of the reorganization of tasks and responsibilities between the canton and the communes was more influential. The reform must be understood as a horizontal and vertical venture that encompasses both the communes and the canton, much more far‐reaching than a pure local territorial reform.     

Defining the nation in Russia’s buffer zone: the politics of citizenship by birth on territory (jus soli) in Moldova,Azerbaijan, and Georgia

Citizenship by birth on territory (jus soli), versus by blood (jus sanguinis), is associated with liberal democracies and the Americas. Yet Azerbaijan and Moldova, part of the “buffer zone” between Russia and the West, have used unconditional jus soli. No such law exists in Europe or elsewhere in the post-Soviet space, including in Georgia, a third country that is part of this “buffer zone.” The three countries cannot forge closer links to the West due to Russia’s support of “frozen” separatist conflicts on their territories. The article finds that territorial citizenship in Azerbaijan and Moldova, as well as its absence in Georgia, are linked to territorial integrity concerns, a multi-century historical context that had thwarted or facilitated ethnic collective identity, and geopolitical fears of dual citizenship. Both authoritarian (Azerbaijan) and liberal-democratic (Moldova) states have used the resulting territorial concept of national identity to combat ethnic separatism, whereas Georgia remains an ethnocracy with difficulties integrating ethnic minorities.     

Macro-regional strategies of the European Union (EU) and experimentalist design of multi-level governance: the case of the EU strategy for the Danube region

Placed within EU Cohesion policy and its objective of European territorial cooperation, macro-regional strategies of the European Union (EU) aim to improve functional cooperation and coherence across policy sectors at different levels of governance, involving both member and partner states, as well as public and private actors from the subnational level and civil society in a given ‘macro-region’. In forging a ‘macro-regional’ approach, the EU commits to only using existing legislative frameworks, financial programmes and institutions. By applying the analytical lens of multi-level and experimentalist governance (EG), and using the EU Strategy for the Danube Region as a case, this article shows that ‘macro-regional’ actors have been activated at various scales and locked in a recursive process of EG. In order to make the macro-regional experiment sustainable, it will be important to ensure that monitoring and comparative review of implementation experience functions effectively and that partner countries, subnational authorities and civil societies have a voice in what is, by and large, an intergovernmental strategy.     

Language territorial regimes in multilingual ethnic territorial autonomies

Ethnic territorial autonomy (ETA) is an institutional way to ensure simultaneously the integrity of the state and the rights of ethnic minorities through preferential policies in certain ethnically sensitive spheres. Language preferential policies differ greatly across multilingual ETAs and can be analyzed through the concept of “language territorial regime” (LTR). In this paper, we examine LTRs along two dimensions: (1) the scope of state regulation of language use and (2) the way language rights are perceived and used. The first considers the depth and universality of state regulation of language use – “strong” or “weak.” The second concerns whether the community’s approach to language rights is symbolic or pragmatic. The combination of these two dimensions allows the categorization of LTRs into four main classes: “strong parting-regime,” “strong pooling-regime,” “weak pooling-regime,” and “weak parting-regime.” A comparison of South Tyrol, Vojvodina, and Wales allows conceptualizing LTR as a system of de jure institutional arrangements of linguistic issues and practice of self-organization and perpetuation of multilingual communities.     

论GATT第24条对RTAs与区域经济一体化的规范

GATT24条及其谅解明确了RTAs和区域经济一体化在WTO体制下的合法性,并对其中的关税同盟和自由贸易区以及导致关税同盟和自由贸易区形成的临时协定作了较为具体的规范.但仅就这些条款而言,在一些关键和细节问题上依然具有很大的不确定性,需要结合其他条款和立法背景进行正确理解,并在实践中灵活运用.通过对GATT第24条的深入剖析,本文对一些较为模糊的认识进行了澄清,认为区域经济一体化应理解为GATT最惠国待遇的例外,所有区域经济一体化的形式都有可能在GATT取得合法的地位,GATT对关税同盟与自由贸易区的规范持续到其建立之后.     

崭新的维度与异域的陷阱——论毕淑敏《蓝色天堂》的范式开拓与审美缺陷

《蓝色天堂》的出版可谓一个文化信号,它昭示着中国知识分子的思考从大陆文化转向海洋文化,从被动开放走向主动开放,在思想空间、写作范式和审美内容上均开辟了崭新的维度。作品以化抽象为具象、化晦涩为生动的表述方式,突破了文学传统对情、景、理关系的定义,思考所及既有人与神的关系,也有人与自然的关系,更有人与人的关系,融合了多种文明的特点,是开放的中国在文学上的映照。然而,《蓝色天堂》也存在显而易见的缺陷:对异域风情的渲染流于浅表,且多有失度。     

Wounds that won't heal: cartographic anxieties and the quest for territorial integrity in Georgia

This paper examines the role of territorial integrity narratives in the Republic of Georgia, which currently features two separatist territories – Abkhazia and South Ossetia – which are de facto independent and have begun to receive limited international recognition. Political rhetoric is further buttressed by various government policies and practices that help transmit the message of territorial integrity to the Georgian public. Cartographic anxieties, or the preoccupation and fear of a country's loss of territory, is a central feature of Georgian nationalist discourse. Referring to the loss of territory as amputation exemplifies the cartographic anxieties displayed in Georgia. Specifically, I will focus on the role of political discourse, maps, patriotic youth camps and billboards and other elements of the landscape, documenting how they help to reproduce the discourse of territorial integrity. It is precisely these discourses and practices that reproduce territorial integrity narratives and construct the entire Georgian territory (including Abkhazia and South Ossetia) as integral to Georgian national identity, enabling the separatist regions to be understood as wounds that won't heal.     

实质和平的条件比较:当代东亚与战后西欧

在关于国家间战争(或非战争)原因的一般研究中,有两项最重要的论断,即领土争端的重要性以及政权类型的重要意义。前者在文章中的术语表述为"领土和平"假设;后者在一般文献中经常归纳为"民主和平"论题。作者致力于探讨的主要问题是:彼此有过战争历史的国家之间建立"实质和平",是否以上述两项议题的解决为前提条件。相关结论将用于分析第二次世界大战之后的西欧经验,其后将联系当今东亚形势展开分析。同样,文章还指出其中存在的、具有关键意义的不同之处。其中,东亚区域在向更持久的积极状态迈进时,必须考虑领土主权议题具有的特殊含义,后者构成"实质和平"的关键要素。此时,对于"现实政治"的关注也将加入相关国家的考量与平衡过程之中。     

新时期城市社区文化品牌的价值维度和构建路径

在新时期，社区文化建设是实施文化强国战略的落脚点，要搞好社区文化建设，就必须创建或塑造社区文化品牌。社区文化品牌的创建或塑造具有多方面的价值，集中体现在文化资源配置、社区认同培育和文化软实力构建三个维度上。基于转型期社会结构和传播方式的转变，社区文化品牌建设应当遵循新的构建路径，在内涵凝炼、过程重构、渠道拓展三个方面进行积极而有效的探索。