Holy mountain and supreme council: Mount Athos at the beginning of a new era

Abstract

The establishment of the Supreme Council of Judicious Ordinances, itself a product of modern Ottoman reform begun by Mahmud II (1808–39), added to the establishment of a new framework for an increasingly centralised concept of ‘Beneficient Re-Orderings’ (tanzimat-i hayriye) in the Ottoman Empire. Created on 27 Zilhicce 1253 (24 March 1838) as part of Mahmud's strategy to dismantle the Grand Vizirate and shift the locus of power closer to himself, the Meclis-i Vala-yi Ahkam-i Adliye consequently figured prominently also in the famous Hatt-i ?erif (imperial decree) of Gülhane of 3 November 1839, by which date the Tanzimat are usually understood to have begun 'officially’.     

The legal (de)construction of geography: race and political community in supreme court redistricting decisions

This article examines the different conceptions of racial identity and ‘geography’ in two landmark Supreme Court decisions, Shaw v. Reno (1993) and Easley v. Cromartie (2001). Both decisions evaluated similar Congressional redistricting plans in North Carolina, but reached opposite conclusions. In Reno, the Court based its reasoning on the ‘objective’, ‘natural’ and ‘rational’ geography of North Carolina. Such geographic relationships create political communities and constrain the way in which state legislatures can draw electoral districts. In contrast, the Easley decision based its reasoning on voting behaviour, and makes an implicit appeal to deliberative democratic principles. From this perspective, political relationships create the geographic relationships defined by Congressional district boundaries. Where the Reno decision treats race as an arbitrary social distinction that the state should not use as the basis of political representation, the Easley opinion argues that the state can consider differences in racial voting behaviour during the redistricting process. More fundamentally, the Easley decision implies that racial identity is formed by deliberative political communities, rather than being an objective, static characteristic. This suggests that disputes over spatial relationships are critical to the construction of hegemonic racial identities, and that space is fundamental to the conception of racial difference.     

The U.S. presidential election and the Bush v. Gore supreme court decision

The 2000 presidential election produced over two dozen different law suits including two separate decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court. The purpose of this essay is to examine the most important of these decisions, George W. Bush v. Albert Gore, Jr., highlighting its logic and geographic implications     

The governmentalities of infrastructure and services amid urban conflict: East Jerusalem in the post Oslo era

Urban conflict in Jerusalem has mainly been studied through the lens of spatial and functional segregation and discriminative fragmentation between Israeli and Palestinian localities. This article adopts a governmentality approach to the study of the politics of urban infrastructure and services in urban conflict, and argues that a governmentalization process of East Jerusalem by Israel has evolved in the last two decades that has been enacted mainly through the control and management of Palestinian urban infrastructure and services. Since, as manifestations of resistance to Israeli occupation, many of the Palestinian urban functionalities historically operated separately from Israeli state apparatuses, this new development and its consequences indicate an increasing dependency and forced adaptation of Palestinians in Jerusalem to Israeli rule. Based on analysis of Palestinian public transport and education systems, the article demonstrates how the “soft” power of governmentality – mediated through the control and management of urban infrastructure and services – diffuses among the Palestinian population and in space, restructuring them as objects and subjects of Israeli administration and governmental order. In this light, urban infrastructure and services appear in the course of urban conflict as an arena of governmentality and counter-governmentality. On the one hand they serve as a site where identities are practiced and defended; on the other, they may mediate and facilitate the restructuring of political subjectivities and normalization of political structures and hierarchies.     

Not suitable for children: the politicisation of conflict-affected children in post-2001 Afghanistan

The 2001 conflict in Afghanistan has attracted a great deal of international controversy. The impact of the conflict on Afghanistan's children has been no exception. The research conducted by the United Nations and child protection organisations on the experiences of Afghan children throughout the conflict paints a bleak picture. Accounts of children being directly targeted, accidently killed, abducted, actively fighting in armed groups, denied humanitarian assistance or simply struggling to be healthy, happy, educated and secure amid this conflict are a reminder that conflict devastates children's lives. However, while this research demonstrates that children are often war's innocent victims, the ways in which this research is narrated, particularly by belligerent parties to the conflict, are far from innocent. This article examines the political manipulation of research on Afghan children affected by armed conflict. It argues that Afghan children and their experiences have become a powerful moral symbol that is used by belligerents to advance political, military and strategic agendas.     

在“人间天堂”里畅游

<正> 8月8日下午4点,我们和本刊华东工作站的李巍乘坐旅游大巴从无锡赶到苏州,住进了由苏州市旅游局事先安排的苏州饭店。苏州市旅游局与苏州饭店同在一个大院内,没过多一会儿,市场处的周处长一行就赶来了,我们很快进入了话题。"以前来过苏州吗?"周处长问。"10年前到过,但记不清具体时间了"。他又问,"苏州的主要景点都去过了吗?"去过,但印象不深了,我们这次来主要是想看一看苏州有特色的和新开发的景点。"他想了想,"那就去山塘街和陆巷吧。"第二天上午9点,在苏州市旅游局田坤的陪同下,我们驱车从苏州饭店出发,穿越繁华的市区,很快就到了山塘街。     

Regulating interpersonal debt in the bishop's court of Carpentras: litigation,litigators and the court, 1486 and 1487

Using notarial records, this article explains who sued whom at the bishop's court at Carpentras, why they did so and how the court managed people and their debt disputes. In 1486 and 1487, creditors pursued 240 suits over unpaid loans (about three-quarters of the court's business). Litigants spanned the social spectrum and included both Christians and Jews, suggesting that the court was well embedded in the local economy. This diversity, as well as the predominance of ‘horizontal lending’, matches regional trends. Drawing upon anecdotal evidence and quantitative work, the court's procedures, functions and appeal are explained. Since most loans were made orally, proving their existence was difficult. Cases rarely reached rulings and creditors could not expect from ecclesiastical judges the coercive innovations adopted by secular courts. Yet, this church court was a popular forum to authenticate debts, pressure debtors into confession and encourage peaceful, private concords.     

Selling Paradise and Adventure: Representations of Landscape in the Tourist Advertising

The representation of Australia is explored in the visual and verbal texts of the Australian Tourist Commission's 1992 international advertising campaigns. The advertisements employed representations of Australian landscape to signify tourists' desires for either paradise or adventure. By providing the potential visitor with a range of cultural tools enabling the construction of fantasy, meaning, and identity, these advertisements attempt to attract international tourists. My critical reading suggests that these representations of landscape help maintain a myth of Australian national identity originating from oppressive colonial and patriarchal relations. These representations are not only regressive but conflict with articulations of national identity emanating from other Australian institutions.     

魅力江南:中国人的天堂

公元506年,建都建康(今江苏南京)的梁朝发动北伐,主帅萧宏命令手下乌程(今浙江湖州)丘迟给镇守寿阳(今安徽寿县)的北魏将军、睢陵(今江苏盱眙一带)人、原梁朝降将陈伯之写了封信,伯之得信,于是拥众八千来归。这是一封怎样的书信呢?古往今来,大家都以为信中的这几句最为感人:暮春三月,江南草长,杂花生树,群莺乱飞。见故国之旗鼓,感平生于畴日,抚弦登陴,岂不怆悢……     

Decentralization, democratization, and health: the Philippine experiment

In 1991, the Philippines joined a growing list of countries that reformed health planning through decentralization. Reformers viewed decentralization as a tool that would solve multiple problems, leading to more meaningful democracy and more effective health planning. Today, nearly two decades after the passage of decentralization legislation, questions about the effectiveness of the reforms persist. Inadequate financing, inequity, and a lack of meaningful participation remain challenges, in many ways mirroring broader weaknesses of Philippine democracy. These concerns pose questions regarding the nature of contemporary decentralization, democratization, and health planning and whether these three strategies are indeed mutually enforcing.