伊拉克哈希姆王朝的"民主实践"

目前国外学术界流行着一种观点,即伊拉克存在着威权主义的政治文化,历史上没有民主实践.伊拉克历史被叙述为威权主义的延续,其政治动员依赖中央权威的巩固与加强,国家机构是鼓动民众支持政府的工具.实际上持此观点的学者只是关注了1958年以来的伊拉克历史,忽视了1921-1958年伊拉克哈希姆王朝的历史事实.本文[1]认为,伊拉克哈希姆王朝的"民主实践"表现为政党政治的发展与议会生活的变迁."民主实践"虽然随着哈希姆王朝的终结而失败,但在伊拉克历史上占有重要的地位.     

The Kirkuk Problem and Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution

This article will discuss the issue of Kirkuk and its development, going back to its historical roots and development. The Kurdish and non‐Kurdish arguments will be presented. Also, the issue will be analyzed in the light of the current situation in Iraq. Some solutions to the problem will be proposed, to help keep Iraq intact as a federal state.     

Raman analysis of ninth-century Iraqi stuccoes from Samarra

Six ninth-century stucco fragments from Samarra, Iraq, and now part of the Victoria and Albert Museum collections, were analysed non-destructively and in situ in the Museum by Raman microscopy in order to determine the identities of the pigments thereon. Carbon black, haematite, gypsum, indigo, lazurite, lead white, orpiment, pararealgar, red lead, vermilion and the As₄S₄ χ-phase were detected. The detection of several arsenic-containing pigments (orpiment, pararealgar and the As₄S₄ χ-phase), known to be poisonous and carcinogenic, has prompted strict health and safety protocols to be used when the objects are handled by museum staff or displayed in the galleries. This scientific study is the first to be carried out on any of the Samarra finds.     

Iraqi Kurdistan: challenges of autonomy in the wake of US withdrawal

In August 2010, the United States officially ended the combat mission of its military forces in Iraq and withdrew all but 50,000 of its troops from the country. Iraqi Kurds now contemplate the implications of the looming withdrawal of the remaining 50,000, scheduled for the end of 2011. While Arab–Kurdish relations in Iraq face the risk of serious deterioration, the US military withdrawal will probably not greatly affect the internal politics of Kurdistan. Given the de facto autonomy the region has enjoyed since 1991 and the Kurds’ resulting experience with self‐rule, Iraqi Kurdistan never suffered from the post‐2003 security and political vacuums plaguing the rest of the country. As a result, no more than a few hundred coalition troops were stationed in Iraqi Kurdistan (and no coalition casualties have occurred there since 2003), with governance and security remaining completely in the hands of the Kurdish authorities. While important centrifugal tendencies do exist in Iraqi Kurdistan and are discussed here, the region will most likely continue to deal with Baghdad and the rest of the outside world with the united voice it cultivated after 2003. US civilian personnel and advisers will also remain in Iraq after the military withdraws, which offers the possibility of assisting Iraqi Kurdistan to overcome obstacles in order to achieve better, more transparent governance. A continuing American diplomatic engagement in Iraq also offers the possibility of helping Kurdistan further institutionalize its autonomy vis‐à‐vis Baghdad and neighbouring states.     

The Children of Africa in the Colonies

British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion 1688–1914 by P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins. London and New York: Longman, 1993. Pp. xv + 504, tables, maps. £38 (hardback); £16.99 (paperback). ISBN 0–582–49175–4; 0–582–491762.

British Imperialism: Crisis and Deconstruction 1914–1990 by P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins. London and New York: Longman, 1993. Pp. xiv + 337, tables, maps. £30 (hardback); £11.99 (paperback). ISBN 0–582–20966–8; 0–582–20965‐X.     

The Use of Electric Models in Geography

The use of electrical models, such as conducting sheet analogues, in geography is based on the fact that a wide variety of problems, say, the flow of groundwater and an electrical current, are founded on the same set of differential equations. The technique of electrical analogues is found to be useful in the solution of a number of geographical problems that cannot always be handled effectively by electronic computers. For example, conducting sheet analogues can be used to obtain map transformations in which area is proportional to the magnitude of a particular mapped feature, for example, equidemic projections in which countries or continents are mapped on the scale of their population density. Other problems that may be suitable for analogue simulation include those involving population potential as well as those in which optimization calls for least cost or least effort.     

Counting the Children: The Role of Children in the Production of Finger Flutings in Four Upper Palaeolithic Caves

Children and young adults are believed to have represented up to 40 per cent of Upper Palaeolithic populations, yet little is known of their engagement in deep caves besides evidence of their hand and footprints. In this study we examine finger flutings, lines drawn with fingers in soft surfaces, in 12 Franco‐Cantabrian Upper Palaeolithic caves to look for forensic evidence of unique individuals. We find evidence of children as finger fluters in four caves (El Castillo, Las Chimeneas, Rouffignac and Gargas). We discuss the types, locations and frequency of their flutings, as well as the relationship between their flutings and those made by non‐children in the same caves and chambers. The small number of participants calls into question past theories of children's engagement in ritual and initiation in these particular caves.     

The Use of Money in Early Modern Norway

In previous Finnish collection studies, early Finnish art collections have mainly been observed through European examples, using German or English collecting or museum‐historical literature. The history of art collecting in Russia identifies several identifiable phases of art collecting, and breeds of art collectors, that coexisted in Finnish early art collecting. In this study, the prevailing circumstances and the collectors' archetypes of Imperial Russia, of which Finland was an integral part in the period of autonomy, are considered through previously unapplied literature of Russian collecting and museum history in Finnish collection studies. Central to this are two case examples from early Finnish art collecting, with related unpublished archival material. On the whole, some of the current Finnish paradigms of the initial stages of art collecting in Finland are questioned, emphasizing, for example, the meaning of the social network, pivotal for the maturation of the collector and for the selection of subjects for collecting.     

Managing gendered expectations upon resettlement: the experiences of Iraqi Kurdish Muslim women in the UK

This article discusses research surrounding the migration experiences of Iraqi Kurdish Muslim women migrants who have settled in the UK. Looking at some of the important and influential works by post-colonial feminist writers, what is revealed are arguments that provide some false senses of separation between different women. These writers' concepts provide for a stagnation of extreme oppositionally based models of power that fail to recognise the existence of current and future transgressive, positive and empowering relationships of power which exist between women; and that happen in ways that remake the process, whereby transnational feminisms reach out, speak to, touch and reject each other – often all at the same time – and yet, in fresh and reconstituted forms. Considering both oppressive and transgressive relationships of power revealed complex combinations of often contradictory and simultaneously negative and empowering experiences. The Kurdish women practise strategies of Othering, of distance and of proximity corresponding to a variety of different concepts held within several different forms of feminism; they demonstrate an eclectic approach to their self-determination and to the development of rethinking forms of transnational feminism.