北魏前期汉族士人的社会交往初探

在中国中古门阀政治的背景下,士人之间的社会交往对于维护和提升其政治地位具有重要作用。北魏前期的汉族士人虽然在政治上受到较大的限制,但他们仍然试图在现有政治状况之下,通过社会交往建立社会网络,从而形成相互间的身份认同并获得有效的政治资源。乡里社会是汉族士人展开社会交往的基础,他们也十分重视。随着仕宦于平城的汉族士人逐渐增多,平城就成了北魏前期汉族士人社会交往的中心。以崔浩为中心的社交网络和青齐地区的汉族士人的交往成了这一时期较为明显的两种社会交往形态。当然,汉族士人之间的社会交往往往受到政治的牵连。     

Demagoguery as Pathology: Interpreting European Politics Today

The End of Europe by James Kirchick and The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray evince many of the very same political and discursive pathologies which they successfully diagnose in European politics. Both authors have discovered that Europe’s current situation is as much a result of irresponsible public policies and mismanaged crises as of a decay in European political thinking, a decay manifested in Europe’s ever-more simplistic, anti-deliberative—in a word, demagogic—public discourse. And yet, Europeans of today find themselves in a social, political, and economic crisis in part because they lack the discursive means to recognize and deliberate on the very crisis they are in. The result is a damaging political state of affairs which makes escape from itself nearly impossible—a political pathology. Kirchick and Murray do a fine job of capturing the true character of this discourse in their books, yet they do so by unwittingly reproducing it themselves, thereby revealing the difficulties inherent in reforming a political culture from within.     

The Applicability of Human Rights: A Voegelinian Interpretation

ABSTRACT

The human rights discourse is prevalent in our contemporary social and political setting. In large part it determines the way we understand justice and therefore plays a crucial role in shaping the way we think and act. But despite its prevalence and widespread acceptance, this discourse is not without its difficulties. One of the more persistent, significant, and well-documented problems associated with human rights is whether they are universal or relative in their application. The following essay attempts to confront this question from a novel and more informative perspective than the ones offered thus far. Analyzing the debate concerning the universality or relativity of human rights from within the intellectual framework of Eric Voegelin's philosophy of history, this essay endeavors to uncover the essence of human rights and thus bring to light their true function lest we burden them with tasks that are beyond their scope.     

The 2011 uprisings in the Arab Middle East: political change and geopolitical implications

The Arab uprisings of 2011 are still unfolding, but we can already discern patterns of their effects on the Middle East region. This article offers a brief chronology of events, highlighting their inter‐connections but also their very diverse origins, trajectories and outcomes. It discusses the economic and political grievances at the root of the uprisings and assesses the degree to which widespread popular mobilization can be attributed to pre‐existing political, labour and civil society activism, and social media. It argues that the uprisings' success in overthrowing incumbent regimes depended on the latter's responses and relationships with the army and security services. The rebellions' inclusiveness or lack thereof was also a crucial factor. The article discusses the prospects of democracy in the Arab world following the 2011 events and finds that they are very mixed: while Tunisia, at one end, is on track to achieve positive political reform, Syria, Yemen and Libya are experiencing profound internal division and conflict. In Bahrain the uprising was repressed. In Egypt, which epitomizes many regional trends, change will be limited but, for that reason, possibly more long‐lasting. Islamist movements did not lead the uprisings but will benefit from them politically even though, in the long run, political participation may lead to their decline. Finally, the article sketches the varied and ongoing geopolitical implications of the uprisings for Turkish, Iranian and Israeli interests and policies. It assesses Barack Obama's response to the 2011 events and suggests that, despite their profound significance for the politics of the region, they may not alter the main contours of US foreign policy in the Middle East in a major way.     

VISUALIZING FINLAND: POSTAGE STAMPS AS POLITICAL MESSENGERS

ABSTRACT. Postage stamps are a very political, territorially grounded and yet overlooked part of visual culture. We argue that the mundane omnipresence of stamps gives them considerable nation-building power and makes them exemplary tools of what Michael Billig calls 'banal nationalism.' By focusing on the socially constructed visual qualities of stamps, we argue that their 'reading' as political, socioculturally and territorially specific texts offers valuable insights into the evolution and outlook of the issuing state and the 'imagined community' within its boundaries. Our examination of 1 457 stamps issued in continental Finland between 1917 and 2000 shows how the desired visual representation of the Finnish state, nation and society has evolved over time, along with the changing outlook of the national elite, its relationship with ordinary citizens and the country's geopolitical context. The stamps illustrate how the state's focus shifted from war to peace, Finland's economy diversified and specialized, and the Finns reached a relatively high level of social welfare and equality. The myth of Finland's cultural homogeneity remained strikingly strong despite dramatic changes in Finland's cultural make-up, suggesting that not only presence but also absence of a narrative from a visual scene can be strongly meaningful. Over the course of the twentieth century, Finnish nationalism grew increasingly 'banal' and inclusive in character, but the stamps maintained their central role in citizenship education. Our findings promote the use of postage stamps in the teaching and research of political geography and identity-political iconographies.     

Liberté, égalité, fraternité?: Views from the far‐right fringe in France (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The current financial, economic, social, and political crisis is widely thought to benefit far‐right parties in many European states. The Front National party, a fixture in French politics for more than two decades, achieved its best result ever in the 2012 presidential elections. This article explores far‐right voters’ accounts of their political life‐stories, analyzing the factors that trigger people's “conversions” to the right, and examining the ways in which this increasing, yet diverse minority views French history, society, and politics. Far‐right supporters legitimize their political convictions and actions in different ways. Some believe that they are part of a “resistance movement”, others draw on what they believe to be sociological or anthropological insights. Many pretend to advocate Republican ideals such as equality and freedom. Democracy stands to gain from drawing this growing part of the population back into mainstream debate, and social scientists may have a role to play in this effort.     

The Paradox of the Earned Income Tax Credit: Appreciating Benefits but not Their Source

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is widely recognized as the United States’ most effective contemporary policy for reducing poverty, and scholars have found that it elevates recipients’ sense of social inclusion. This raises the question of how it influences recipients’ civic engagement, namely their attitudes about government and political participation. We draw on policy feedback scholarship to consider expectations. Then we use a unique dataset to compare recipients of the EITC, Aid to Families With Dependent Children/Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and nonrecipients of either policy in order to identify how policy features are related to political attitudes and behaviors. We find that despite the benefits they receive, EITC recipients experience low external political efficacy, but are more likely to be politically active than their peers.     

NARRATORS OF THE ARCTIC: IMAGES AND MOVEMENTS IN NORTHLAND NARRATIVES

While the use of public policy to construct a Canadian identity has been established in the literature, what is less well understood is whether national identity, once established, might shape Canadians' feelings about these same public policies. This article examines the extent to which citizens' national identities influence their pride in Canada's social security system, and how this relationship may be changing over time. Using data from the International Social Science Programme's 1995 and 2003 National Identity Modules, the article argues that citizens' national identities help explain the contours of social security attitudes in Canada, and that this relationship persists despite significant policy change in the field. Additionally, the paper suggests that political actors may successfully increase public support for their social security policies by “framing” them in ways that appeal to citizens' definitions of Canada.     

元初江南儒士的处境及社会角色的转变

宋元更替,使原先在江南社会中占统治地位的儒士阶层受到很大的冲击。在客观环境与元政权笼络政策的共同作用下,江南儒士阶层迅速分化。有的仍以遗民自居,敌视元朝;有的拒绝仕宦,归隐民间;但大多数江南儒士开始承认元朝的统治,接受元政权任命的学官,于是江南社会中逐渐形成了一个由学官组成的社会群体．儒士阶层完成了社会角色的转变。     

Unrest in the Arab world: why the 2011 uprisings still matter

This article reviews the current state of analysis of the 2011 Arab uprisings. It argues that valuable literature on the uprisings is emerging just at a time when the international policy agenda has moved away from 2011's flirtation with visions of a democratic Middle East. This literature presents a timely reminder that the uprisings were part of long‐term processes of political change, rather than isolated phenomena. Understanding the very different post‐uprising trajectories of different Arab countries requires comparative analysis of the political economy, state institutions, the role of the security sector and strategies of opposition movements, among other factors. Moreover, comparative experiences from transitions in other regions indicate that the conflicts, economic problems and social polarization that have ensued in most of the transition countries are not evidence of an Arab exception, but, rather, have parallels with political transitions elsewhere, which have rarely been peaceful or simple. Compared to 2011, the perceived costs of political change are higher today, while the gains remain uncertain. But the drivers of unrest remain unresolved; and a small minority will seek change through brutal and violent means. Western policy‐makers need to understand what is driving these movements. Yet they also, crucially, need to understand what is motivating and preoccupying the larger publics in the Arab world, in order to build broad‐based relations with these countries, and avoid inadvertently empower violent groups by allowing them to set the political agenda.     

MYTH,TOTEMISM AND THE CREATION OF CLANS

This paper considers the relationship between two component types or categories of myth from the Yirrkala region of north-eastern Arnhem Land, which I define respectively as those of inheritance and creation. I argue that the existence of the two components of myth reflects conceptual problems associated with the transfer of power from the ancestral past to the present, in these clan-based societies in which the structure of the clan system is believed to be ancestrally preordained, yet the creation of clans is part of a continuing political process. The paper places Yolngu totemism in the context of the politics of group relations, and focuses on the tension between autonomy and exchange which provides much of the underlying dynamic to Yolngu social organisation. The totemic/mythological system has the flexibility to enable ancestral precedence to apparently underlie group organisation despite the latter's inherently imminent and contextual nature. The structure of the mythological system, and the particular way in which it articulates with the politics of group organisation, enables the network of ancestral tracks associated with the myths of creation to be perpetuated in a way that makes them both distal and protected from the disorderly changes of the present, yet an integral part of the process of social reproduction.     

Pratiques culturelles et circulation en Europe

In the present study the author examines the migratory practices of movement between France and Portugal of young French of Portuguese ancestry, as well as of young Portuguese living in France. The study of these practices from an ethnological point of view sheds light on the interaction of material resources and the multifaceted symbolic resources associated with them. Besides the economic and political dimension in which these practices are grounded, the identity — forming process of which they are a part raises a number of questions — especially in the context of the European Union. The author shows how, by using elements drawn from the family migratory history, natural history and Portuguese culture, the descendents of Europeans who migrated for economic reasons are now trying to go beyond the dilemma of an identity posed by their «double culture», as well as the social and cultural constraints imposed on them by their elders.     

‘Quacking like a duck’? Bush II and presidential power in the second term

It seems a truism of American politics that second presidential terms are destined to be less successful than the period of office which they follow and yet there is very little academic analysis as to why this is the case. Whether there are inherent or structural features of the US political system that unduly affects second-term presidencies and what impact these features might have on the remainder of the Bush administration is the subject of this article. While the impact of this phenomenon is analysed in general, particular attention is focused on the effect of American foreign policy since the Bush presidency, because of Iraq, this subject will ultimately determine the success or failure of the second term. This focus also reflects the fact that second-term administrations tend to be dominated by a focus on foreign policy. The article argues that despite being returned to power with a considerable number of political advantages compared with previous presidents at this stage of their tenure, the Bush administration is already displaying many of the characteristics of an underachieving second term. The article consists of three sections: part one examines the presidential record and analyses the contention that second terms are somehow different; part two sets out the reasons that might account for this factor; and part three applies these factors to the Bush administration to see which of these features apply to the present incumbent and thus what can be expected for the remainder of his second term in office until January 2009.     

论1740～1800年英格兰食物骚乱

1740~1800年是英格兰历史上食物骚乱爆发最频繁的时期。谷物供给不足和跨地区谷物流通的兴起是这一时期食物骚乱丛生的主要原因。食物骚乱是民众在一套关于谷物流通的传统价值观念促发下的仗义行为,是在现有的政治结构之内与当局进行讨价还价的一种形式,也是当时社会调节机制的组成部分。作为一种集体行动,食物骚乱通常开始于小规模的自发行动,然后,最初聚集起来的核心分子走上街头,沿路召集同盟者加入,逐渐发展成大规模的行动。骚乱者努力争取地方官员的支持,在现有的政治结构之内与当局进行讨价还价。地方当局竭力安抚骚乱者,充当民众与中间商人之间的调停人。食物骚乱总是以和平的方式平息下来。     

The meaning of historical terms and concepts: New studies on begriffsgeschichte

A contribution to the liberalism-republicanism debate from a political historian's point of view, this essay focuses on Britain in the mid-Victorian period—arguably the golden age of modern liberalism. The first part argues that the writings and political ideas of the leading liberal thinkers were imbued with ‘neo-roman’ values, including participatory citizenship, civic virtue and concern for the common good. The second part discusses the dissemination of ‘neo-roman’ ideas among the rank and file of the Liberal party, focusing on popular celebrations of the right to bear arms. The essay concludes that, despite the methodological claims of some scholars, the liberalism-republicanism debate has tended to ignore the context within which ideas and traditions were developed by their leading interpreters. Moreover, it argues that if we really are interested in the context of political thought we must go beyond traditional concerns with the ‘canonical’ texts and look at its social environment.     

The Issue of Citizenship for the Bidun Minority in Kuwait after the Arab Spring

Kuwait is a country in which there are many tribes but it is the al‐U'zam tribe which is very dominant and influential in local politics and the economy, in contrast to the other tribes in Kuwait who are recognized by the state as being equal, but have little influence in these things. The Bedouin tribes, such as the Bidun society in Kuwait, who have been excluded from nationality and citizenship and thus have no influence, are an exception. The Kuwaiti government claims that the Bidun themselves gave up these rights so as not to be part of the Kuwaiti state and this has resulted in the Kuwaiti government not granting them any formal economic, political, or social rights. Because of this, the Bidun have had to fight for their rights for decades since the formal establishment of an independent Kuwait in 1961. This article wishes to discuss whether the question of the Kuwaiti refusal to recognize the Bidun as citizens is because of geostrategic reasons, because of the fear of creating a precedent that might lead to the inclusion of other tribes into the Kuwaiti state, or because this is a traditional political strategy for dealing with politically weak tribes.     

The Allocation of Excepted Political Positions: What and Whose Executive Priorities Do They Serve?

Abstract

Scholars have only begun to examine the roles played by non-career SES and Schedule C personnel in managing the bureaucracy. This, despite the fact that these individuals help to establish, communicate, and implement policy, and despite the broad discretion presidential administrations have in appointing them, defining their duties, and allocating their positions across the federal government. As an effort to redress this neglect, we first provide an overview of what lower-level political personnel do and of the processes and constraints that determine how they are distributed. We then examine how changes in presidential administration have affected the allocation of political SES and Schedule C positions across departments. Although dramatic infusions of these personnel into some agencies can be tied to policy objectives, they appear to be idiosyncratic and driven more by the preferences of agency leaders than by the White House. As such, they provide little support for positive theories that frame the administrative presidency in terms of centralized strategic planning.     

Planning Analysis and Political Steering with New Public Management

Interviews with members of the Norwegian national assembly's Standing Committee for Transport and Communications were conducted in 1995, 1997, 2001 and 2004. The politicians were asked about the usefulness of analytic input that planners contribute to national plans, first the Norwegian Road and Road Traffic Plan and later the National Transport Plan. Questions related to steering, coordination, delegation and the inclusiveness of the planning process were also posed. Changes in the politicians' attitudes to types of analytic planning input are outlined. Furthermore, the last round of interviews sheds light on the apparent paradox that parliamentarians accept delegation of highway investment decisions despite their profound scepticism regarding the cost–benefit analyses and impact calculations that are essential to management by objectives and results (MBOR), which was to give them continued political control despite delegation. Another conundrum is the parliamentarians' willingness to renounce the right to decide over most highway projects, even if these were seen as politically important, in order to obtain a strategic overview which they have been unable to use for changing the priorities set by the Government. The political concentration on strategic steering, the concomitant delegation, and MBOR are central components of New Public Management.     

印度农民政治文化变迁和现代民族运动的兴起

印度社会精英对英国统治态度的改变是20世纪上半期印度群众性民族运动兴起的一个关键性政治变量。但是,在印度这样的农民社会里,农民(包括农村手工业者)一直是主导的社会群体,他们的政治态度不能不影响整个印度政治社会的发展。传统上的印度农民是政治冷漠主义者,他们对村社之外的全国性政治过程并不关心,但是在英国的统治下,一系列的经济、社会和政治变迁却使印度农民和全国性政治过程有了密切的利害关系,他们和印度的社会政治精英在反对英国统治方面具有了共同利益。这正是使得他们积极响应以甘地为首的印度政治精英的号召,参加印度现代民族运动,为印度民族独立和解放做出巨大历史贡献的根本原因。     

Social Protection and Class Relations: Evidence from Scheduled Caste Women's Associations in Rural South India

This article argues that the labouring class poor are best able to access social protection when they have sufficient economic autonomy from their village's dominant class to allow them to act politically. To this end, the article analyses the capacity of associations of scheduled caste female labourers in rural Karnataka (south India) to access social protection through collective action. It identifies links between modifications of the material conditions of the labouring class, their capacity to take political action and the social and institutional forms that reflect the social relations of production. Three important variables are identified: the extent of economic autonomy from the dominant class, support from class‐conscious social movement organizers and the political configuration of the local state. The former variable in particular is something that the mainstream social protection policy agenda fails to prioritize.