Capitalism and the emergent world order

The two‐centuries‐old hegemony of the West is coming to an end. The ‘revolutions of modernity’ that fuelled the rise of the West are now accessible to all states. As a consequence, the power gap that developed during the nineteenth century and which served as the foundation for a core–periphery international order is closing. The result is a shift from a world of ‘centred globalism’ to one of ‘decentred globalism’. At the same time, as power is becoming more diffuse, the degree of ideological difference among the leading powers is shrinking. Indeed, because all Great Powers in the contemporary world are in some form capitalist, the ideological bandwidth of the emerging international order is narrower than it has been for a century. The question is whether this relative ideological homogeneity will generate geo‐economic or geopolitical competition among the four main modes of capitalist governance: liberal democratic, social democratic, competitive authoritarian and state bureaucratic. This article assesses the strengths and weaknesses of these four modes of capitalist governance, and probes the main contours of inter‐capitalist competition. Will the political differences between democratic and authoritarian capitalists override their shared interests or be mediated by them? Will there be conflicting capitalisms as there were in the early part of the twentieth century? Or will the contemporary world see the development of some kind of concert of capitalist powers? A world of politically differentiated capitalisms is likely to be with us for some time. As such, a central task facing policy‐makers is to ensure that geo‐economic competition takes place without generating geopolitical conflict.     

Urban,Suburban, and Exurban Sprawl in the Rocky Mountain West: Evidence from Regional Adjustment Models*

Abstract. This article adapts a regional adjustment model to examine land use change in the Rocky Mountain West region of the United States. Three interrelated questions motivate the research. How does the proliferation of urban, suburban, and exurban sprawl in the Rocky Mountain West relate to the population and employment growth process? Are population and employment endogenously determined there? And what does this imply for the sustainability of economic development in the region? Through a series of regional adjustment models, the empirical analysis links population and employment growth in the Rocky Mountain West to explicit spatial outcomes and delivers substantive evidence of endogeneity between the two. The results suggest that the long‐term prosperity of the region depends on the preservation of the high quality of life it offers, and that greater intergovernmental coordination, careful infrastructure planning, and attention to the character of its economic structure may help to accomplish this. Future research should focus on looking deeper into certain explanatory variables used in this analysis and on developing a better picture of what the spatial equilibrium that regional adjustment models emulate may look like.     

Global and local methodological and ethical questions in researching football academies in Ghana

Do Western researchers in non-Western countries face special situations that require adopting a unique research methodology and ethics when conducting research with children? Are methodological and ethical rules, common in the West, also valid for research with children in non-Western countries? The present article addresses methodological and ethical questions that arise when conducting research with children in football academies in Ghana. The article focuses on five main issues that raise methodological and ethical questions: access to children, informed consent, power relations, reciprocity and the use of interviews as a research tool with children. Examples derived from my fieldwork in Ghana illustrate that universal ethical guidelines may restrict Western researchers to a far too rigid framework that does not take into consideration the local context. Thus, there is a need for culture-related methodology and ethics when we conduct studies with children in non-Western countries.     

Sustainable cities—who put the civil into civilisation?

Abstract

How do we define civilisation? Who created the conditions for the quality of life we now enjoy? Who have been the greatest civilisers? What are our key life support systems and who provides the skills which create them? What do we want from our urban environment and who can give it to us? Are our cities in the prime of life, or are they geriatric? Are they sustainable? These and other challenges are considered and addressed in this review of the infrastructure of modern society and of the choices we face as we embrace the twenty-first century, with the emphasis on the urban environment.     

Populism and nationalism in a comparative perspective: a scholarly exchange

The purpose of the Exchange feature is to publish discussions that engage, advance and initiate new debates in the study of nations and nationalism. This Exchange article is on the subject of ‘Populism and Nationalism’. Each contributor addresses the following four questions on the subject: (1) What is populism and what role does it play within the context of democratic politics? (2) Does populism cut across left–right lines? (3) What is the relationship between nationalism and populism? (4) Are contemporary populist movements across Europe and the West comparable? Our aim is to generate a thought‐provoking conversation with regard to the rise of populism in Europe and the West.     

A Context for Concealment: The Historical Archaeology of Folk Ritual and Superstition in Australia

Are there traditions of folk ritual practice in Australian historical contexts, and are they observable in the archaeological record? Studies from the US and UK have documented a range of practices suggesting the persistence of British and European traditions of folk magic well into the twentieth century and previous historical work has identified numerous examples of ritual concealments in Australian buildings. In examining over 4,500 Australian historical archaeological sources, however, we found very few examples of possible folk ritual practices. This raises the question of why such practices are not being captured by current archaeological recording methods. As counterpoint, a general model is constructed from US, UK and Australian work that raises intriguing possibilities for the situating of superstitious behavior in Australian historical archaeology, including the contexts in which people might be more prone to practise such behaviors and how they might be materially identifiable.     

Between Athens and Jerusalem: Western otherness in the thought of Leo Strauss and Hannah Arendt

In understanding the meaning of the West, twentieth‐century political philosophers Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss called for a return to “Athens” (classical political philosophy) in order to address the “crisis of the West,” a loss of a sense of legitimate and stable political authority which, in their view, constitutes a nihilistic threat to Western democracy. The only way for the West to escape this nihilistic crisis is to return to Plato and Aristotle. Implicit in this critique is the belief that the other tradition of the West, “Jerusalem” (the Bible) has contributed to this nihilism, by undermining the authority of the Greeks. Is Jerusalem, then, the fatal “Other” for the West? Which tradition—Athens or Jerusalem—is best prepared to alleviate the crisis of the West, especially the survival of democracy? As I address these questions, I shall contend that it is Jerusalem, not Athens, which is the true source of Western democracy.     

Famines past, famine's future

Famine, like poverty, has always been with us. No region and no century has been immune. Its scars — economic, psychological and political — can long outlast its immediate impact on mortality and health. Famines are a hallmark of economic backwardness, and were thus more likely to occur in the pre-industrialized past. Yet the twentieth century suffered some of the most devastating ever recorded. That century also saw shifts in both the causes and symptoms of famine. This new century's famines have been "small" by historical standards, and the threat of major ones seemingly confined to ever-smaller pockets of the globe. Are these shifts a sign of hope for the future?     

Missionaries,Evangelical Identity,and the Religious Ecology of Early Nineteenth‐Century South Carolina and the British Caribbean

This article examines a critical question that fraught contemporaries throughout the Atlantic system in the early nineteenth century: could slavery be ameliorated and, thus, by implication, could slaves be ‘improved’? Despite strong eighteenth‐century connections through trade and as provincial outposts of the British Empire, South Carolina and the British Caribbean differed markedly on this issue by the early 1800s. But the reasons for this divergence cannot be adequately explained by the effects of the American Revolution. South Carolina slaveholders believed that slavery could be ameliorated through the adoption of evangelicalism. West Indian proprietors, however, believed that the introduction of evangelical religion among their slaves would only incite them to rebel. Thus, evangelical missionaries were often crucial figures in defining the character of slaveholding societies in South Carolina and the West Indies. These missionaries illustrated South Carolinians' paternalistic, benevolent sense of a permanent slave society, while itinerants in the West Indies described a violent, lawless, and temporary society beyond the pale of British standards of civility and humanitarianism.     

Something for posterity or hostage to fortune? Archiving anthropological field material (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

What do anthropologists do with all the data (both primary and secondary) they accumulate while doing fieldwork? Most continue to draw on it for many years, but there is increasing pressure (e.g. from the ESRC) to place much of it in archives, usually in electronic form. What kind of material could be deposited? What use may be made of such material by others? What are the ethical dilemmas which face anthropologists in depositing confidential data? Are there differences between paper and electronic archives and between textual and other forms of material, such as photos and sound recordings? How can anthropologists best protect their sources? Does anthropology become a form of historiography when its raw data are archived? What forms of ‘knowledge’ are created by archiving?     

Selling is Poverty,Buying a Shame: Representations of Work,Effective Leadership and Market Failures on Wallis

This paper seeks to answer the question why there is no central market on the Polynesian island Wallis, and relates the answer to indigenous representations of work and to cultural constraints on leadership. The title of this paper ‐ Selling is Poverty, Buying a Shame ‐ contains the answer in a nutshell, requires contextualisation in relation to the main cultural, socioeconomic and political features of the society on this island. More specifically, it raises the following questions: What do we mean when we speak about a market? Have there been markets in the past? Are there (other) market‐like structures today? And what do we mean by representations of work?     

The persistence of palazzi and intra-urban structures in Tuscany and Sicily

The persistence of old buildings in historic town centres raises important questions for urban geographers. Do they obstruct changes in function dictated by economic forces? Are they redeveloped when the capital invested in them has been amortized? Can descendants of the original owners afford to live in them, maintain them in good repair and adopt them to new uses? Are new owners willing to take them over, preserve their appearance and find profitable uses for them? A study of palazzi in Florence and Catania discusses differences in the changing utilization of former upper-class residences. In Florence a large number of palazzi built by merchants in the pre-industrial period have persisted in the present town centre. While many are still lived in by upper-class families, most have added new central urban functions. In Florence palazzi retain a dominant role in the intra-urban structure. In Catania palazzi built by feudal landowners have been abandoned by upper-class occupants and have failed to attract high-ranking urban functions. The historic town centre has decayed while central functions have moved to expensive modern buildings mostly situated on the outskirts. Different economic ideas and attitudes held by the upper classes in Tuscany and in Sicily account for contrasts in the roles of palazzi in the two towns.     

Khumdan为唐长安外来译名的新证

本文以西安新发现北周史君墓中有明确纪年的粟特文与汉文双语对应题刻,证明Khumdan确为长安外来译名“胡姆丹”,是继敦煌粟特文古信札和唐代《大秦景教流行中国碑》中记载后的又一确切证据,针对长期以来关于Khumdan所引发的众说纷纭、歧义杂乱的谜团,作了回答,并对有关文章的推测失考和不符合史实之处进行了商榷。     

A Thematic Analysis of “Love” and “Truth” in Caritas in Veritate

Abstract

The encyclical Caritas in veritate uses love as its guiding theological theme, and this innovation exposes the encyclical to critical reflections from some of the greatest theological minds of the mid-twentieth century. This article attempts to revive these critiques in order to analyze Benedict XVI’s use of caritas. Does Benedict’s use of love differ from his predecessors, and is it in any way more adequate? Are the critiques leveled against a social ethic of love merely the product of a hopelessly cynical age, or is love merely a species of interpersonal amity-inapplicable to broader social contexts? Does the fusion of love with the fundamentally contested notion of truth clarify what the Pope means by caritas, or is this conceptual marriage fraught with imprecision and inconsistencies?     

Transport Geography: A bit of a caveat here and there1

But you must also be aware of another distinct bias nearly all of the examples are from the United States, Canada, Britain and Sweden. Is it fair? Are the new ideas to be found almost exclusively in these four countries —what the French call les Anglo-Saxons. Is this where the explosion in modern geography started, and continues to gather its strength? Now I am probably going to make myself extremely unpopular around the world but I am going to answer Yes to those three questions with a bit of a caveat here and there—which is the Latin word for a loophole you can wriggle out of if you have to     

Thèses de sociologie et romans à thèse

Are the rhetorical markers in sociological discourse specific and of a «scientific» nature? To tackle this delicate question, let us start by drawing up the generic characteristics of sociological texts. Let us compare these characteristics with those of a literary genre: the French «roman à thèse» from the beginning of the XX^th century. This old-fashioned and decried literature will serve as a driving bolt in order to demonstrate that a formalism sometimes asserted as scientific, does not guarantee scientific character, but just conformity to editorial requirement. To conclude, if the difference between sociological these and novel is not embedded in the text itself then, what eventually make its «scientific nature»? May be just the fragile conditions of its production and reception: debate and criticism of the sources if effectively implemented. But is this always the case?     

Economic Integration and the Politics of Independence

Abstract. Are nationalism and international economic integration irreconcilable? This paper explores the theoretical connections between these two phenomena and develops a framework to assess the implications of international economic integration for nationalist movements in the developed West. We focus upon the structural context of nationalism in democratic societies, emphasising the impact of changes in the international political economy and the influence of domestic institutions. Although the demand for secession may not stem from economic calculations, the expected costs and benefits of independence are constraints to nationalist mobilisation and are conditioned by the structure of the international political economy. We identify three ideal types of international structures and discuss how the strategies and prospects of nationalist movements are shaped within each of them. We find that a structure of ‘institutionalised interdependence’ is most conducive to nationalist mobilisation in a liberal democratic context, but the impact of economic integration depends largely upon conditions defined by domestic institutional structures.     

The Eighth Argument. Identity,Ethnicity and Political Culture in Sixteenth-Century Scandinavia

What was a Swede in the 16th century? How did people identify themselves and others, and what political role did collective identities play before the coming of modern nationalism? One would perhaps expect that there exist many works proposing answers to such questions. Within the humanities, there has been a steadily increasing interest in culture and identities in the last few decades. Nevertheless, few have asked such questions. When dealing with medieval and early modern Europe, historians have put the questions rather in this way: Was the Swede of the 16th century Swedish in the modern sense? Did nations and/or nationalism exist before the end of the 18th century? The discussion of medieval and early modern identities has been severely limited by "the nationalicistic trap". Identities before the late 18th century have been studied in order to look for the roots of modern national identity, to find out where nations originate, or to argue that nationalism is a purely modern phenomenon. I intend to fall into that trap myself later in this article, discussing why nationalism and national identity are less fitting concepts when dealing with the 16th century. But basically, I seek to uncover and conceptualize the identities of the time in their own right.     

The West Saxon boundary clause in context: Celtic and Continental connections

The perambulatory boundary clause in England originated as a West Saxon phenomenon in the eighth century, most likely through connections with the early Celtic church, and spread with the rise of the West Saxon kings. Vernacular perambulatory charter bounds occur throughout England after the tenth century – but before 800, they appear only in Wessex, and on the Continent where West Saxons were initially installed as missionaries, in an early Latin–vernacular form. The West Saxon roots of Boniface and his followers may thus explain the presence of early perambulatory bounds in Frankish archives.     

Giuseppe Mazzini and the democratic logic of nationalism

ABSTRACT. This article brings the thought of Giuseppe Mazzini back into the field of nationalism studies, from which it has been largely missing for a half century. It suggests the following: that Mazzini is much more modern and secular than he is usually portrayed; and that his commitment to liberal policies while rejecting liberal principles suggests that the distinction between civic and ethnic nationalism has been misconceived. Nationalism, to Mazzini, was not an end in itself but a means to an end – government of, by and for the people. The demand for such a government was manifested in three popular demands in nineteenth‐century Europe: in the West as democracy, in the East as national sovereignty (the precondition for democracy) and in both East and West as social democracy. Thus nationalism may be instrumental rather than an end in itself, and it may be attributable not to ethnic groups' natural striving for autonomy but to the pursuit of democracy.