Between Disagreement and Consensus: Unravelling the Democratic Paradox

The idea of a rational consensus has become an increasingly controversial dimension of recent democratic theory as radical democratic theorists have challenged the ways in which liberal democracies deal with political disagreement and contestation. As a result, several theorists within the liberal tradition have attempted to incorporate models of dissent in their democratic arguments but this paper contends that they tend to result in forms of majoritarianism or proceduralism which reflect the original limitations that inspired the radical democratic critique. A more useful approach is one that recognises that contestation is inherent to democratic politics and understands that the paradox of democracy is the need to embrace the impossibility of establishing rational consensus in democratic practice.     

Linguistic Archaeology

This chapter addresses the essential issues in evaluating works that use linguistic evidence in reconstructing the past. Linguistics has its own well-developed body of theory and practice. Its evidence is subject to rigorous validation. Any work claiming to infer history from linguistics must validate its evidence against a systematic phonological reconstruction, and it must provide that validating apparatus or else direct the reader to where that apparatus is to be found. Scholars do not get to pick and choose among the archaeological data to support their ideas. Neither does one get to pick and choose or to engage in special pleading to make the linguistic evidence fit one’s prior notions. The chapter illustrates the requirements of linguistic reconstruction by laying out the system of the Eastern Cushitic language group and showing how to apply the system, step by step, to reconstruct the presence of a particular component of the proto-Eastern Cushitic economy.     

Disaster Capitalism and the Quick,Quick, Slow Unravelling of Animal Life

Sea otters have barely survived centuries of colonial and capitalist development. To understand why, I examine how they have been oriented in capitalist social relations in Alaska, and with what effects. I follow sea otters through three overlapping political economic episodes, each of which shapes the next: colonial expansion and the fur trade; petro‐capitalism and the negligent neoliberal state, culminating in the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill; and finally, spill cleanup and “green” capitalism, when sea otters are produced as data points and spectacle. In each episode, I describe (1) sea otters’ orientation in relation to capitalism and the state, and (2) the nature and temporality of violence and ecological loss that attends their orientation. In conversation with theorisations of extinction as a “slow unravelling”, I suggest animal life can unravel less slowly than haltingly—quick, quick, slow—and that the unravelling and animals’ orientation in capitalism are co‐constituted.     

Canada and the North Atlantic Atomic Triangle Summary of Findings

Abstract

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Sir George Foster was one of the most ardent Canadian proponents of imperial economic organization. For years he and other Canadian and British imperialists tried to persuade the British government to abandon its traditional freetrade policies in order to extend tariff preferences to the Empire. But their efforts were futile, and by 1911 only Foster and a few other dedicated imperialists were still actively pursuing the issue.     

Nation-Building and the Linguistic Situation in Upper Silesia

Language became the basis of nation-building in Central Europe at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During the same period Czech, German and Polish nationalists had contested Upper Silesia as a multilingual region before the nation-states of Czechoslovakia, Germany and Poland took over this role. In the first half of the twentieth century, this land was divided and redivided among these nation-states. Each change entailed an alteration in language policies aimed at ennationalising Upper Silesia's inhabitants into one nation or another. Standard national language being the yardstick of nationality, the local non-standard language forms were earmarked for eradication because they could spur further emergence of Upper Silesia's ethnic groups or serve as a springboard for new nationalism(s). The Central European strain of ethnic nationalism steeped in language clashed with other loci of identity such as religion, the monarch or state. Sometimes this helped ethnic groups to survive despite ennationalising pressure exerted by the established nation-states. Officially, during the communist period, Warsaw managed to homogenise Upper Silesia into an indistinguishable part of the Polish nation-states. After 1989 it proved an illusion, as Upper Silesia seems to be the most ethnically and nationally diversified region in post-communist Poland.     

Lithuanian Linguistic Nationalism and the Cult of Antiquity

Abstract. To a large extent, the Lithuanian nationalist movement of the late nineteenth century was founded on language. Although this is typical of many nationalist movements, the Lithuanian case was special because of the amount and type of attention that was focused on the Lithuanian language, and the qualities that were ascribed to that language. This article discusses the influence that scholarly research into the Indo-European language family, in combination with the romantic nationalism typical of the nineteenth century, exerted on Lithuanian nationalists, and considers the symbolic importance of the Lithuanian language for this movement as a whole.     

Sails in the North: Further Linguistic Considerations

The Indo-European root * seĝh -, encompassing notions of 'holding, seizing', possibly 'harnessing power', and its derivative * seĝhlos are proposed as etyma for a northern Gaulish word for 'sail' that then spread, with the attendant technology, to adjacent Celtic and Germanic dialects.     

Urban evolution in the USA

On a sustained basis, cities are of non-uniform relative sizes.This paper addresses three basic issues which arise from thissimple observation by examining the size distribution of UScities over the period 1900–1990. First, we explore thereasons why there is a wide distribution of city sizes. Second,we characterize the evolution of the size distribution of cities,documenting growth in sizes and numbers of cities. We ask whetherthe relative size distribution of cities has remained stableover time, or if it has displayed, instead, a tendency to collapse,flatten, or otherwise change its shape. We also examine evidenceon whether the size distribution obeys Zipf's Law. Third, weexamine the degree and determinants of mobility of individualcities within this distribution, asking to what extent citiesare moving up and down in the distribution and how this movementis influenced by cities' geographic characteristics. We usea newly constructed data with consistent metropolitan area definitionsover this century, discussing the issues and linking our resultsto the relevant literature.     

Origin Legends and Linguistic Relationships

The paper begins by discussing a number of Aboriginal legends, referring to geographical events, that have a clear historical basis, before giving a number of legends about the direction from which ancestors came into contact-time territory. A final section shows how some origin legends correlate with the direction in which the closest linguistic relationships are found, and speculates that other legends may suggest hypotheses for where to look for genetic relationships between languages.     

Unravelling Washington's Judgement Calls: The Cases of the Malaysian and Chilean Capital Controls

While the option of constraining cross-border financial flows to emerging markets (capital controls) has taken a backseat in the official policy debates about strengthening the global financial architecture, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has ceded that certain temporary measures to limit the inflow of hot money may be beneficial in achieving some breathing space for governments. In this sense, capital controls are only to be used as a means to reach the larger end, namely, the proper (neoliberal) management of financial liberalisation. Indeed, by sanctioning a particular type of capital control it is engaging in a political judgement call, which is based upon certain material interests, as opposed to mere economic logic. This becomes evident when we juxtapose two different types of capital controls: the Chilean unremunerated reserve requirement, which was endorsed by the Fund, and, conversely, the IMF's rejection of the Malaysian currency control. I suggest that the IMF's opposition to Malaysian controls stems from its perception that capital restraint on outflows threatens the imperative of free capital mobility, which benefits both the US and transnational financial capitals.     

长三角地区国有文物商店产业联盟之构想

文物艺术品市场多元格局的形成,国有文物商店所处的市场竞争环境愈发激烈,凭借原有的运营模式已难于获得新的发展空间,实施产业联盟是国有文物商店在现有市场环境中赢得竞争、获得发展的有效路径。长三角地区有国有文物商店12家,丰富的文物藏量、相似的组织机构、繁荣的文物市场,为建立和实施产业联盟提供了有利条件。产业联盟既可以整合各个个体的资源,充分利用各自的有利因素,又可以避免相互之间的恶性竞争,从而产生最优的协同效应和规模经济效应。     

三角缘神兽镜的学术源流

本文旨在梳理三角缘神兽镜在日本古代史研究和古代中日关系史研究中的学术源流,结合中日学术界的相关研究,集中探讨三角缘神兽镜的定义、三角缘神兽镜与邪马台国论争、"魏镜说"、王仲殊先生的三角缘神兽镜研究、三角缘神兽镜与日本早期佛教的传播等问题,为相关研究的继续深入奠定基础。     

Unravelling the Relationships between Used‐Clothing Imports and the Decline of African Clothing Industries

African clothing industries have declined since the implementation of economic liberalization policies in the early 1980s whilst used‐clothing imports to Africa have increased. The general effects of economic liberalization on African clothing industries are well documented, although little research has been conducted on the particular impact of increased imports of second‐hand clothes on the local manufacturing sectors. Whether these two processes are causally related is difficult to determine due to limitations in official data sets. In this article, the used‐clothing trade is explored in detail and a broad range of cultural and local economic processes are investigated. Trends such as declining local purchasing power and the opening of African markets to cheap new clothing imports, as well as imports of used‐clothing, are examined, along with the converse boost to African clothing export production resulting from preferential trade agreements in the 2000s. With respect to the differential legal and illegal imports of second‐hand clothing to selected African countries, it is demonstrated that official trade data sets often fail to capture the nuances of contemporary social and economic processes.     

美国铁路与经济现代化

铁路既是美国工业革命和技术发明的结果 ,也是促进美国工业革命、技术发明和现代化的重要因素。“铁路时代”把铁路建设推向快速发展阶段。 1 888年 ,美国铁路里程已经超过全欧洲的铁路里程。在美国实现了现代化和进入后现代化时代后 ,这场规模宏大的运输革命证明 :铁路的修建带来了经济结构的变化、技术的创新、大企业的产生、政府对经济的干预、社会结构的变化、城市化的加快、农业的资本主义化、广告业的大发展、生产模式的转变以及美国经济在其他方面战略性的变化。铁路至今仍在美国经济生活中发挥着应有的作用     

Linguistic boundaries as barriers to exchange

Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) data are used to explore the structure of obsidian acquisition for groups in the King Range National Conservation Area of northern California. The data indicate that, contrary to a distance-decay model, obsidian from more distant sources in the Medicine Lake Highlands, dominates the obsidian found at sites in the area. Furthermore, metric data indicate a positive relationship between size and distance to source with more distant sources represented by larger flakes. It is suggested that this pattern is the result of culturally mediated exchange relations under which Athabaskan speakers concentrated trade relations with one another to the exclusion of trade with linguistic groups to the south, with longer histories in the area, such as the Pomo and Yuki. Additionally, the use of redwood dugouts on rivers in northern California and the importance of northeastern Californian obsidian in ritual practices of California Athabaskan groups may have further encouraged the use of more distant, northeastern Californian, sources.     

James Cowles Prichard and the Linguistic Foundations of Ethnology**

This article examines the English scholar James Cowles Prichard's attention to language and comparative philology within his wider project on the natural history of man. It reveals that linguistic evidence was among the most important elements for Prichard in his overarching scientific aim of investigating human physical diversity, and served as the evidential foundation for his ethnology. His work on Celtic comparative philology made him not only one of the earliest British adopters of German comparative grammar, but a comparative philologist of European stature in his own right. More generally, linguistic evidence helped Prichard to keep his magnum opus, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, as logically ordered as possible, and therefore to turn ethnology into a discipline with analytical aspirations on a global scale.