The communitarian revolutionary subject: new forms of social transformation

Abstract

The hope for a unique revolutionary actor in the twentieth century evaporated as a result of the weaknesses of social organisations. This paper examines the potential of an almost-forgotten group of revolutionary actors – collectively organised and deliberately involved in processes of social and productive transformation with a legitimate claim to territory – whose present-day activities involve them in concerted processes to consolidate a different constellation of societies on the margins of the global capitalist system. Indigenous and peasant communities throughout the Americas are self-consciously restructuring their organisations and governance structures, taking control of territories they claimed for generations. They are also reorganising production to generate surplus, assembling their members to take advantage of underutilised resources and peoples’ energies for improving their ability to raise living standards and assure environmental conservation and restoration. These communities are not operating in isolation. They coordinate activities, share information and build alliances. Hundreds of millions of people are participating in this growing movement; they occupy much more than one-quarter of the world’s land area. There is great potential for others to join them, expanding from the substantial areas where they are already operational. Global social networks are ensuring that this dynamic accelerates.     

Coordination and control in Russia’s foreign policy: travails of Putin’s curators in the near abroad

Abstract

This article seeks to challenge the conception of the Russian state as being centred on Vladimir Putin by looking at the actors implementing Russia’s foreign policy in its near abroad. In particular, it explores the activities of curators (kuratory), a term applied in Russia to describe officials tasked with making things work often bypassing, and sometimes competing with, formal institutions. Following the state transformation framework, the argument put forward in the article is that curation (kuratorstvo), as a practice of coordination and control in Russia’s system of governance, can be seen as a manifestation of fragmentation and internationalisation of Russia’s foreign policy making. The empirical basis for this article is a case study of Russia’s policy towards Abkhazia, which Russia officially recognised as a sovereign state in 2008. This article addresses the involvement of curators in their attempts to exert political influence as an expression of fragmentation as well as emerging institutionalised curation in development assistance as a part of internationalisation.     

From Renascer to Velho Chico: negotiations between cordiality and modernity in the Brazilian telenovela

ABSTRACT

This article takes as its focus the main Brazilian cultural and media product, the telenovela or soap opera, to discuss the characteristic of the Brazilian personality referred to as the homem cordial (“cordial man”). The article analyses two telenovelas: Renascer (1993) and Velho Chico (2016), which, written by the same author, but in very different historical contexts, sought to recover the trait of cordiality in its essence. In its comparison of the two telenovelas, this study presents and discusses the changes, permanencies and negotiations of a cordial tradition in the face of a particular aspect of modernity represented by both the process of urbanisation and by television itself.     

Japan's foreign aid: old and new contests

Abstract

Domestic and international contests explain the transformation of Japan's foreign aid programme begun in the early 1950s. Through contests between domestic players, Japan has streamlined its aid processes by introducing institutional innovations, accommodating new actors in aid policy and delivery, and responding more sensitively to public opinion and independent advice. At the international level, contests have come from the Development Assistance Committee/Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (DAC/OECD), the USA, and China. Through these contests, Japan has emerged as a more rounded aid donor. Its new aid model blends Western principles with concepts of ‘self-help’, favouring large infrastructure projects that serve both Japan's and recipient countries’ interests.     

女性学与女性研究的原创性、时代性探析

在学习和理解习近平总书记在哲学社会科学工作座谈会上重要讲话精神的基础上,对女性学和女性研究的原创性与时代性问题展开讨论。研究结果表明,尽管女性学和女性研究在原创性与时代性建设方面取得了一定成绩,但仍然存在学科地位边缘化、原创性力作偏少等不足,需要进一步提高对这些问题的思想认识,并建构新的评价与激励机制。     

Imagining the modern city: Miyamoto [Chūjō] Yuriko in Moscow and London, 1927–1930

After her life-changing sojourn in the Soviet Union and Europe in the late 1920s, Miyamoto [Chūjō] Yuriko (1899–1951) devoted herself to the cause of communism. Her ideological conversion was rooted in the context of the modern city – in particular, Moscow and London – and the close interrelation between literary and filmic modernism and the modern city is evident in two key articles she wrote during her time abroad. In this article I will analyse how Yuriko represented her profoundly political experience and interpretation of two cities embodying alternative, opposed modernities – communism and capitalism – through modernist literary techniques and the new artistic technology of film.     

“Us” and “Them”: Ulster Loyalist Perspectives on the IRA and Irish Republicanism

This article draws on data from one-to-one interviews with members and former members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, Ulster Defence Association, Red Hand Commando, Ulster Political Research Group, and the Progressive Unionist Party to explore the dynamic and fluid perceptions of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Sinn Féin among Ulster loyalists. The article will explore how attitudes and perceptions are influenced by the shifting political landscape in Northern Ireland as Ulster loyalists come to terms with the new realities created by the peace process, security normalization, decommissioning, and the rise in the threat of dissident republican violence. The article will also demonstrate that these perceptions are not purely antagonistic and based on the creation of negative, stereotypical “enemy images” fuelled by decades of conflict, but pragmatic, bound to societal and local events, and influenced by intragroup attitudes and divisions, in addition to the expected conflictual ingroup vs. outgroup relationships. Finally, the article will explore how loyalists employ republicanism and the transformation of the Provisional IRA in particular, as a mirror or benchmark to reflect on their own progress since 1994.     

中国崛起与全球安全治理转型

中国崛起与全球安全治理转型是21世纪初国际关系领域两个备受瞩目的全球性现象。文章以全球安全治理体系中的安全制度安排和安全规范设定为主要分析路径,以全球政治安全治理和全球经济安全治理为主要分析单元。一方面,自二战结束以来全球安全治理体系可分为"单边全球主义"和"全球单边主义"两个阶段,并且每一阶段的全球安全治理体系均可分解为政治制度、经济制度、政治规范和经济规范四个领域;另一方面,运用比较研究法,对各个时期全球安全治理体系在上述四个领域所体现出来的差异性进行剖析,可以发现,这种差异性集中表现为正在进行中的全球安全治理体系转型,崛起的中国在此次转型过程中开始发挥参与者、建设者和贡献者的作用。在传统全球安全治理体系陷入危机之时,中国崛起在相关领域所带来的制度效应和规范效应正在逐渐潜移默化地嵌入到全球安全治理体系中,中国的政策和实践也将相应日益形成规范化的趋势。     

European Law Beyond ‘Ever Closer Union’ Repositioning the Concept,its Thrust and the ECJ's Comparative Methodology

The article investigates competing understandings of European law. It supports, against the prevailing EU‐centred understanding, an ecumenical concept that embraces EU law, supplementing international instruments, the European Convention on Human Rights and, importantly, various domestic laws enacting or responding to such transnational law, as well as European comparative law. To keep the concept in sync with European politics, it posits a new idea that binds the parts together: to provide for a European legal space rather than further European integration (the ever closer union). This idea can also serve as European law's functional equivalent to forming one legal order. European law thus conceived grasps the puzzling complex of interdependent legal orders, sets a common frame for corresponding reconstructions (European composite constructions, legal pluralism, network theories, federalism or intergovernmentalism) and allows forces with diverging outlooks to meet in one legal field, on one more neutral disciplinary platform. Within this framework, European comparative law finds a new mission as well as a sound legal basis.     

日据时期旅行文学论述：身份认同与现代性

日据时期旅行文学研究在台湾方兴未艾。台湾文论界通过对旅行日本、欧美、中国大陆的不同游记的论述,探讨日据时期台湾人身份认同的暧昧两难。台湾社会特殊的历史际遇造成其现代性具有多种不同的表现形态。