Maximum Working Class Unity? Challenges to Local Social Movement Unionism in Cape Town

Joint political mobilisation between trade unions and community groups, often referred to as ‘social movement unionism’, has been upheld as a way forward for organised labour in a neoliberal world economy. Analysing the interaction between unions and communities is critical for understanding the potential and actual roles played by trade unions in voicing the concerns of marginalized workers and poor communities. This article examines the efforts of organised municipal workers and urban social movements trying to unite their forces in post‐apartheid South Africa, by looking at the politics of the Cape Town Anti‐Privatisation Forum (APF). While the participants of the APF have in common their opposition to commercialisation and privatisation of service delivery, their political unity is fragile. By contrasting the ‘ideal‐type’ social movement unionism depicted in the contemporary literature on labour and globalisation with the findings of this particular case, we uncover some main dimensions along which this organisational cooperation is challenged. In contrast to the political unity experienced during the anti‐apartheid struggle, the APF initiative operates in a restructuring post‐apartheid economy where bridging internal organisational differences and confronting the hegemonic position of the African National Congress (ANC) in civil society have proved particularly challenging.     

Men’s History,Gender History,or Cultural History?

Books reviewed in this article: Shawn Johansen, Family Men: Middle–Class Fatherhood in Industrializing America Martin A. Berger, Man Made: Thomas Eakins and the Construction of Gilded Age Manhood Matthew Basso, Laura McCall and Dee Garceau (eds), Across the Great Divide: Cultures of Manhood in the American West     

Civic or ethnic nation? Two competing concepts in interwar Latvia

This article examines the historical development of the two different concepts of the Latvian nation: the one that included the equal participation of all ethnic groups residing in Latvia, and the one that put them at the margins of the new state. In 1919, citizenship was granted to all Latvian residents irrespective of their ethnicity, while the Law on Minorities' Schools established a framework for cultural autonomy. National unity was perceived as being crucial to state independence, and remained central to political debates in the first republic. However, similarly to elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, the creation of the political nation faced a number of serious domestic and international challenges. The worldwide economic depression and the parliamentary crisis of the 1930s finally tipped the scale in favour of the ethnic version of the Latvian nation. Nevertheless, even seventy years later, the brave multicultural experiment in this small Baltic country resonates with modern debates on nation‐building and minority rights.     

The Evolution of Biotechnology in Three Continents: Schumpeterian or Penrosian?

This Editorial introduces the Special Issue on ‘Biotechnology Clusters and Beyond’. Drawing on the interventions of five commissioned articles from Canada, Germany, Israel, the UK and the US it suggests that biotechnology clusters are interesting and important intellectually and for policy deliberation. They pose questions about basic cluster theory because localized networks, though intense, may not be as extensive as global ones in firm practices, especially as these evolve over time. Moreover, innovation is more deeply embedded in the publicly funded science base than for ‘Porterian’ clusters. Regarding innovation, biotechnology is also less obviously Schumpeterian, there being little market-driven ‘creative destruction’, and is arguably, with its strong emphasis on both large- and small-firm ‘capabilities’—Penrosian—an emphasis in clustering research and applications that warrants further investigation. Finally, at the specific technology-exploitation phase, market interactions assert themselves over milieu characteristics because scientists know the value of their discoveries and there is accordingly high appropriability associated with such knowledge capabilities.     

Continuity or Discontinuity in the Recent History of the Australian Labor Party?

Recent characterisations of the Australian Labor Party as a ‘cartel party’ suggest that there was, after the 1970s, a fundamental discontinuity in Labor's history. We assess this contention not only in terms of the ALP's policies but also the mechanisms which link it with different classes and social groups: Labor's electoral support, membership and local branches, the backgrounds of the Party's parliamentarians and leaders, the role of trade unions inside the ALP, and its sources of funding. While there have been some quantitative changes in these characteristics, we conclude that Labor remains, on balance, a ‘capitalist workers party.’     

Spaces of Uneven Development and Class Struggle in Bolivia: Transformation or Trasformismo?

This article engages with the politics of class struggle and state formation in modern Bolivia. It examines how current forms of political contestation are shaped by the legacy of the Revolution of 1952 and the subsequent path of development. In so doing, we therefore explore spaces of uneven and combined development in relation to ongoing transformations in Bolivia linked to emergent class strategies of passive revolution, meaning processes of historical development marked by the overall exclusion of subaltern classes. With this in mind we argue that state formation in Bolivia can be read as part of the history of passive revolution in Latin America within the spatial conditions of uneven and combined development shaping the geopolitics of the region. However, the expansion of passive revolution as a mode of historical development has been and continues to be rigorously contested by subaltern forces creating further spaces of class struggle.     

One Origen or Two? The Status Quaestionis

It has generally been assumed that there were two Origens in the early third century, both of whom were taught by Ammonius Saccas, the Alexandrian teacher of Plotinus. In recent years, it has become more common to maintain that there was only one Origen. Hermann Dörrie's theory that there were two Origens, each taught by a different Ammonius, has enjoyed little favour, and some have denied the existence of the peripatetic Ammonius, proposed as a possible tutor for the Christian Origen. The first part of this article shows that the existence of two Ammonii is accepted by all scholars who are familiar with the evidence of Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists 2.27. The second points out that the identification of the two Origens raises chronological difficulties which are not always recognized in modern treatments of this question. The rest of the paper, responding to recent studies by Tobias Böhm and Ilaria Ramelli, argues that the teachings ascribed to “Origen” by later Neoplatonists are not sufficiently convergent with those of the Christian Origen to justify the conclusion that there was only one man of this name.     

History of Israelite religion or old testament theology? Jewish interest in biblical theology

Abstract

Both branches — the “history of the Israelite religion” and “Old Testament theology” — are significant and have equal merit. However, there are also distinct demarcations and deep differences between them. Thus, the research of each must be separate and follow unique clearly defined methods so as to avoid confusion. It is interesting to discover the theological guidelines of the Biblical authors, editors and canonists. There is also a necessity to be aware of the theological guidelines that control the Biblical corpora; to read the Bible for religious messages and moral values which may be derived from it. Nevertheless, it is impractical to look for or to impose one sole idea on the whole Bible. Christian theologians should not introduce any sort of anti‐Semitic or anti‐Jewish theology. Jews are interested in the theology of the Hebrew Bible and in Biblical theology. The main reasons for the limited interest of Jewish scholars in Biblical theology is inherent in the youthfulness of scholarly Jewish Biblical research; the focus of Jewish‐Israeli interest on Biblical research in the last generations; and in the formation of higher educational institutions first and foremost in Israel as well as in some Jewish institutions in America.     

Regional Responses to the Southeast Asian Financial Crisis: A Case of Self-Help or No Help?

The currency-cum-financial crises of the 1990s, particularly that which hit Southeast Asia after the devaluation of the Thai baht on 2 July 1997, are suggestive of the relevance and pervasiveness of contagion or negative spillover effects that are largely regional in scope. As such, one of the mantras since the onset of the Southeast Asian financial crisis has been the need for 'regional solutions to regional problems'. Given that the two focal institutions in Southeast Asia, namely the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), were perceived as being successful in their past attempts in problem-solving, there were high expectations that such regionalism would be the key in finding solutions to the Southeast Asian financial crisis and mitigating the aftershocks. Accordingly, this paper evaluates the regional responses to the crisis, taking stock of both preventive and curative initiatives of significance. While the focus is on ASEAN and APEC, consistent with the concept of 'loose' or 'non-institutionalised' regionalism in Southeast Asia and the larger Asia-Pacific regions, other ad hoc unilateral or bilateral initiatives of significance by other Asian member countries in APEC are also examined, particularly those by the region's dominant economic power, Japan. Current regional responses have not been very successful. This has led to a shift in the emphasis to unilateral and bilateral arrangements. Japan's contribution has been by far the largest relative to others. The crisis and the responses to it have revealed that unless there is greater institutionalisation, ASEAN countries would continue to look outside the region for assistance to facilitate their recovery.     

Holy Organ or Unholy Idol? Forming a History of the Sacred Heart in New Spain

In the eighteenth century, Novohispanic painters produced some of the most innovative and visually complex images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. While they are based in part on European printed frontispieces of books about Christ's heart, the paintings are not mere copies or derivatives of European artworks. This article explores the reasons for the particular pictorial strategies of Novohispanic paintings of the Sacred Heart. I argue that the visual strategies employed by Novohispanic artists were intended to argue in support of the legitimacy and historicity of the cult of the Sacred Heart; the cult was under attack in the eighteenth century for, among other reasons, being too new and thus lacking historical roots, making it potentially heretical and apocryphal. Novohispanic depictions, like religious texts produced to defend the Sacred Heart, champion the cult, thereby attempting to shape perception through the power of the images.     

'Pomorze' or 'Preussen'? Polish Perspectives on Early Modern Prussian History

The attitudes of Polish historical scholarship towards the historyof early modern Prussia has been deeply marked by the partitionsof Poland and the anti-Polish coalition between Prussia, Russiaand Austria, which denied Poland its own statehood for wellover a century. In contrast to nineteenth-century German ‘Landesgeschichte’,which focused on local research and archival resources, historiansfrom Poland have usually opted to stay more within patternsof national history-writing. When the Polish state was reconstitutedafter the First World War, hostilities built up between Germanand Polish historical schools on Prussia, expressed in the NationalDemocratic-influenced myl zachodnia (Western thought) on thePolish side, and a not less expansionist Ostforschung on theother side of the border. It was only after the catastropheof the Second World War, the redrawing of national borders ineast central Europe, and under the influence of Marxist historicalconcepts in the People's Republic of Poland that nationalistapproaches as well as the ‘black legend’ of thePrussia's past were temporarily suppressed and finally replacedby a more research-led scholarship. During the second half ofthe twentieth century, Polish historiography was in fact muchquicker and more thorough than its German counterpart to forgethe history of Prussia into a major academic subject. Sincethe 1980s, if not earlier, an extremely fruitful dialogue hasdeveloped between scholars—a dialogue which does not alwayspenetrate journalistic and public awareness, as recent polemicssurrounding the controversially planned ‘Centre for Expulsions’in Berlin have shown.