Not quite as British as Finchley: the failed attempt to bring British Conservatism to Northern Ireland

In a previous issue of Irish Studies Review I examined the unanticipated emergence in the late 1980s of a series of Conservative associations in Northern Ireland. In this follow-up article, I will seek to account for the subsequent swift and ignominious decline in the early 1990s of the Northern Irish Conservatives. While the fortunes of the Ulster Tories were undermined by a number of contingencies – the vagaries of parliamentary arithmetic and their own lack of political judgement foremost among them – their fate was sealed primarily by certain rather more structural concerns. In particular, the rapid decline of the Conservative associations in Northern Ireland owes its origins to the historically “loveless marriage” between Ulster unionists and the British state. The unionist community simply refused to vote in meaningful numbers for a political party at the centre of a Westminster establishment deemed hostile to the cause of the Union. In addition, the Conservative hierarchy would inevitably prove unwilling to nurture their own party associations in Northern Ireland as this “integrationist” project ran precisely counter to their own longstanding political ambitions for the region. This conflict of interests and intentions would in short order ensure the demise in all but name of the Northern Irish Conservatives. There can be few more dramatic illustrations of the mutual distrust that conjoins Ulster unionists and the British state than the string of lost deposits incurred by Conservative candidates running for office in Northern Ireland.     

Privatisation of Russian industry

Privatisation is the final, and perhaps structurally most demanding, leg of the shock therapy sequence introduced to Russia at the beginning of 1992. It has been pursued with dogged determination, although the general approach and specific procedures have changed considerably over time. This article surveys the relevant decrees and legislation and summarises the approach eventually adopted: a mixture of workforce ownership, citizens’ ‘vouchers’ and ‘sell to the highest bidder’. Taking workforce ownership and management control as currently the most common outcome of privatisation, the implications for Russian industrial performance are examined, using the Western corporate governance literature as a guide.     

Privatisation of Italian Cultural Heritage

Italy is home to much of the European cultural heritage, including artistic, archaeological, architectural and environmental heritage. Articles 7 and 22 (now 33), introduced in the Financial Act 2002 (now Law 112/2002) by the current Italian government, are privatising part of it. Already, objects from the mediaeval period to the 20th century have been sold to international investment firms and private investors for amounts that many Italian experts consider well below the median market price. Hundreds of other objects, among them temples, old cities, medieval palazzos, archaeological sites, museums, beaches and islands, are waiting to be sold. Currently, this case is not only a source of division in Italian politics but is also the subject of heated public debate. It highlights crucial social and cultural problems relating to global privatisation that the world community will have to face in the coming years.     

任可澄先生的教育思想及实践

任可澄先生早年参加护国运动,曾任摄政内阁的教育总长,他以教育兴国的思想及其实践,对贵州教育的发展作出了重要的贡献.     

试论《庄子》的畸人意象

畸人是《庄子》中极具代表性的意象之一,有心理、思维、社会的多元背景。浓重的感情色彩、大幅度的变形和多种艺术技巧的运用使畸人意象呈现出浪漫主义的学特征,这是齐化和楚化双重作用的产物。畸人意象体现了庄子对人之美的看法,即重视精神美而不偏重形体美。     

关于中华帝国晚期心态史的探索

Some elements of Puritanism in Chinese tradition are obviously different from the well-known intellectual phenomenon in the West; in the Neo-Confucian ambit the key question concerns “order-disorder,” “harmony-disharmony” in society and inside one’s personality, rather than “sin” and “purity” in personal morality. Yet we also find that chastity is involved in the contrast between the two concepts of purity and pollution and the idea of “obscene” (meaning “inauspicious,” “ill-omened,” “profane”) allows us to uncover a darker side to sexual representation. Death seems another source of active or passive pollution: this effect occurs after contaminational contact with human or animal remains. Thus death is the source of “desecration,” or of “contamination,” especially when it is the consequence of violence. This means that in Chinese culture, a sense of impurity seems to be driven by the horror of death and the fear of being overwhelmed by the passion of love; respectively, thanatos and eros. Other topics may also be associated, such as mental insanity referring to what is different, abnormal, strange, and socially subversive. The clean-unclean distinction originally responded to a basic visceral feeling—horror and repulsion/disgust—that is typically associated with hygienic worries and matter that is perceived as repugnant and inedible. But these basic ideas seem to have been symbolically extended to cope with the subconscious and metaphysical spheres: the horror of death and the fear of being overwhelmed by passion, the mysteries which lie behind these emotions, and the attempt to sublimate such fears into an impulse to transcend the red dust of our limited existence.     

Conceptualising European Privatisation Processes After the Great Recession

A wave of privatisation is unfolding in Europe in the wake of the financial crisis, but it has yet to receive serious scholarly attention. This paper examines the case of Ireland, where an austerity strategy and European Union International Monetary Fund bailout conditionality have given impetus to the transfer of public assets to the private sector. Theoretically, the paper explains the roots of the phenomenon with reference to a reformulated concept of “accumulation by dispossession” whose usefulness lies in emphasising the politico‐economic drivers of privatisation, which have been neglected in the mainstream literature. A typology is presented that argues that accumulation by dispossession manifests itself, in practice, through four main processes: (1) private repossession of assets nationalised during the financial crisis; (2) restructuring of state‐owned enterprises; (3) commodification of assets and services hitherto located outside the market; and (4) privatised stimulus through public–private partnerships. The paper's framework should be useful to conceptualise ongoing privatisation processes in other European countries.     

An attempt to estimate firing temperature using OSL pre-dose sensitization of quartz

The estimation of firing temperature of ceramics using methods based on pre-dose sensitization of the 110°C TL peak of quartz have yielded incoherent results. Recently the fast component of the CW-OSL of quartz has been observed to have pre-dose characteristics similar to that of the 110°C TL peak. The motivation for this study has been to look into the feasibility of this signal, the OSL counter part of pre-dosed TL emission, for the firing temperature identification. The variation in the sensitization ratio of the TL and OSL emissions with different heating temperatures was also utilized to unveil the firing temperature mark of the specimen.     

An attempt to derive electron energy spectra for auroral daytime precipitation events

A set of quiet daytime electron density profiles is established on the basis of EISCAT measurements. This set is used as a background correction in the CARD program [Brekke A., Hall C. and Hansen T.L. (1989) Ann. Geophysicae7, 269] in order to derive the energy spectra of precipitating electrons at daytime.For disturbed daytime events on 25–26 June 1985, we find that the particle precipitation typically consists of small fluxes (10⁵ el/cm² sster keV) of high energetic particles (20–30 keV). The Hall: Pedersen conductance ratios for such events are found to be meaningless as an indicator of the energy of the particles, in contrast to nighttime precipitation.     

An attempt to correct for the fading in million year old basaltic rocks

The use of feldspar for luminescence dating has been restricted because of anomalous fading. This has made its application to several important geological problems such as volcanic terrains difficult. Presently, two correction procedures are used to correct for anomalous fading. The present study tests these correction procedures using volcanic samples of known ages spanning the time period of 400 ka to 2.2 Ma. These correction procedures provided grossly underestimated ages (up to 60%). The possible causes for the underestimation are discussed.     

An attempt to identify the obscured paths of water cluster ions build-up in the D-region

Existing ion-chemical scheme has been applied to reproduce the positive ion composition measured on 30 June 1973 by a rocket-borne mass spectrometer flown from Wallops Island. It is found that reactions analogous to the conversion of NO⁺ to NO⁺·H₂O are able to reproduce the observed densities of NO⁺·(H₂O)₂ and NO⁺·(H₂O)₃. The theoretical values of O₂⁺ and O₂⁺·H₂O are found to be about an order of magnitude higher and lower respectively than those measured. The direct hydration rates of H⁺·(H₂O)_n ions given by Good et al (1970) yield much less hydrates for n > 2. To properly reproduce the observed positive ions we need the following:

• 1.(a) a reaction which will convert O₂⁺ to O₂⁺·H₂O in the form
  O with U1 = 10⁻³¹[M]²(300/T)^4.4s⁻¹ and U2 = 10⁻⁹[H₂O]s⁻¹; and
• 2.(b) formation of hydrated protons via intermediate ions in the form
  with S=10⁻⁹[H₂0]s⁻¹, F = 8 × 10⁻³²[M]²(300/T)^4.4s⁻¹ and B increasing from 10⁻³ to 10²S⁻¹ as n increases from 2 to 6.

     

Why conventional wisdom on radicalization fails: the persistence of a failed discourse

Politicians, the media, and some academics are getting it wrong about radicalization. Relying on simple narratives to explain how an individual departs from point a (‘a good Muslim boy’) to point b (‘a suicide bomber’), too many recent contributions to academia rely on assumptions and ‘conventional wisdom’ rather than testable and falsifiable empirical research and methods. Through specific cases, this article seeks to demonstrate how the over‐simplification of ‘conventional wisdom’ privileges convenient political narratives over the complex realities of such situations. In light of this failure to account for reality, this article seeks to challenge current thinking on radicalization by exposing its limitations, as currently being used, as a meaningful basis and departure point for rigorous social science research. The article concludes by showing how the current persistence of this ‘conventional wisdom’ approach to radicalization ultimately betrays the normative political assumptions of those who insist on using this term, and how this adherence to ‘conventional wisdom’ now deprives radicalization from being a relevant and useful academic or policy discourse. This is because radicalization as an area for study has been corrupted by its instrumental political application.