How to deal with migrants and the State’s backlash – Polish cities’ experience

Over the last decades, Poland has witnessed a relatively dynamic increase in the number of immigrants. At the same time, current Polish central authorities, politicians of the ruling party and the majority of the population perceive migrants mostly as a threat and a challenge. Municipal authorities lack complex support from central authorities. However, the situation is slowly changing. Some Polish cities are adopting migration policies or including migration issues in the local development strategies. Considering this, the article aims to examine migrants’ integration policies in selected Polish cites considered leaders in this field: Lublin, Gdańsk, Kraków and Wroc?aw. The main research question is: how do Polish cities deal with the backlash from the national government and absence of clear legal regulations on their role and competences in the area of migrant integration? The research method is that of a legal-institutional analysis and case study. The former is used to interpret the legal acts and other documents. Its application is justified by the fact that this paper examines strategic documents adopted at the level of urban governments regarding the integration of migrants. Case study methods made it possible to examine the migrants’ integration policy in four Polish cities.     

Policy Coherence and Component-Driven Policymaking: Arctic Policy in Canada and the United States

This research extends theorizing about the implications of political environments to the content of policy areas. We consider the case of Arctic policy in Canada and the United States as an example of what we label as component-driven policymaking. We show how the lack of a clear constituency and the lack of a stable policy subsystem for the Arctic create a policy environment for which the politics of particular issues dominate Arctic policymaking. The result is a policy space labeled Arctic policy that lacks policy coherence. We suggest that similar features of component-based policymaking help explain limited policy coherence for a variety of policy areas such as policies for children, families, rural areas, urban areas, and women in the United States.     

Norwegian and Soviet/Russian World War II Memory Policy During the Cold War and the Post-Soviet Years

Abstract

World War II has played a significant role in using “memory” in all kind of “memory politics” in Europe as well as in the USA. Using examples from Norway and the Soviet Union, later the Russian Republic, this article shows how successfully, but also how contradictorily, historical events can be used as memory politics. We will also see what “memory culture” and “memory policy” is predominant in circumpolar Norway and the Soviet Union/Russia after World War II. We are introduced to the concept of “memory agents”, the producers and directors of “memory politics”. The case is first and foremost the battle of Narvik in Norway in the spring of 1940. We also take a look at the circumpolar borderland between Norway and the Soviet Union during World War II, where the German “Gebirgsjäger” from the Narvik front regrouped and continued their assault on Soviet Union in Murmansk County from the summer of 1941. In what way were the war events useful in the post war era, and how could they directly affect Soviet–Norwegian relations during the Cold War? In addition we ask how memories contributed to the justification of different approaches to the foreign policy in both countries. Besides, the article demonstrates how the memory policy of World War II was affected after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union in Norway and Russia, respectively.     

建国前夕英美对华政策的分歧及其原因

新中国建立前夕,鉴于英美在华的利益侧重点、外交传统以及与国民党及其政府的历史关系存在不同,两国在对华政策上出现分歧,最终在诸如是否撤出中国、是否对新中国实施贸易管制以及是否打破国民党对上海的封锁等系列问题上立场迥异,争执激烈,并最终各行其是。根本而言,这是英美经通盘考虑后从自身利益出发所做出的政策抉择,同时也是两国不同的外交传统在对华政策层面上的集中体现。     

Public intellectuals as policy makers: the democratization of culture and Sean O’Faoláin’s Arts Council, 1956–1959

ABSTRACT

This article examines the brief tenure of the writer Sean O’Faoláin as Director of the Arts Council of Ireland. The article notes the generational similarities and shared outlook between O’Faoláin and André Malraux, the Minister of Culture for France from 1959 to 1969. However, O’Faoláin’s tenure in office was shorter, less successful, and marked by a bitter dispute with the administration and artists of the Royal Hibernian Academy. This dispute serves as a useful case study for examining competing conceptions of national culture, the purpose of cultural policy, and the role of the cultural elite as arbiters of taste.     

The Fabulous Tales of the Common People,Part 1: Representing Hadrian’s Wall

Abstract

Hadrian’s Wall is one of the most instantly recognizable ancient monuments in the UK. This paper explores the historical and contemporary visualization practices which have created this iconic image. Moving between the disciplines of archaeology, cultural geography, and heritage and tourism studies, the paper draws upon a variety of data sources such as paintings, photographs, models, and reconstructions to consider how the Wall is visually represented within contemporary public discourse. The paper focuses on digital photography and considers the ways in which images create and sustain particular readings of the Wall’s function and significance. These contemporary representational practices demonstrate strong continuities, and earlier images are used to provide historical context. Emphasis is placed on the monument’s landscape setting in visual representations and the importance of this environmental context for readings of the Wall’s cultural and political significance. The present paper deals primarily with representations of the Wall, but it is argued that these representational practices are also fundamentally embodied. The physical encounters of visitors and archaeologists will be considered in greater detail in the second part of this study (Witcher, forthcoming).     

Funding the ‘nation’ in the national theatre of Scotland

The National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) is a an innovative and ground‐breaking, non‐building‐based, commissioning and producing cultural institution, established in the wake of the devolution of the Scottish Parliament. This article sketches the contours of this new model of a national theatre, exploring the complex dialectic between various economic, political, social and artistic choices, forces and factors that have influenced, and continue to influence, the formative years of the NTS. The article charts changes to the company during these early years and, most significantly, notes the potential effect that the change from arm’s length to direct government funding might have on the company’s long‐term development. It is argued that direct funding aligns the arts too closely to political agendas rather than supporting artistic freedom and expression.     

The Late Palaeozoic brachiopod genus Jakutoproductus Kashirtsev 1959 and the Jakutoproductus verchoyanicus Zone,northern Yukon Territory,Canada

Shi, Guang R., 1994:03:28. The Late Palaeozoic brachiopod genus Jakutoproductus Kashirtsev 1959 and the Jakutoproductus verchoyanicus Zone, northern Yukon Territory, Canada. Alcheringa 18, 103–120. ISBN 0311-5518.

The familial and subfamilial position, species composition, and geographic distribution of the Late Palaeozoic productid genus Jakutoproductus Kashirtsev 1959 are reviewed. Jakutoproductus is placed in the subfamily Plicatiferinae Muir-Wood & Cooper 1960 of the family Plicatiferidae. Eighteen described species from the Russian Arctic. Mongolia, northeast China, and northern Yukon Territory, Canada are assigned to Jakutoproductus. The Jakutoproductus verchoyanicus Zone of late Sakmarian to Artinskian age, most likely early Artinskian (Aktastinian), here established is based on material from the Jungle Creek Formation, northern Yukon Territory, Canada, and is correlated with the following horizons in Russia: the Osennin Horizon in the Verchoyan Mountains, the lower Munugudjak Horizon of the Kolyma-Omolon Massif, the Hipkhoshin Suite of east Zabaikal, the lower Bhang Horizon of Taimyr, and an unnamed sandstone-shale unit on the north island of Novaya Zemlya.