Isaiah Berlin and the totalitarian mind

One of the important—yet often underestimated—dimensions of the intellectual legacy of Isaiah Berlin is his contribution to the demystification of the totalitarian temptation in the twentieth century. This paper starts with an apparent paradox: Berlin is described as a major figure of the anti‐totalitarian camp, yet his writings nowhere touch explicitly on the totalitarian regimes of his time. Nonetheless, it is argued that Berlin's notion of “monism,” and his unique insight into the totalitarian mind, are an indirect yet valuable contribution to the understanding of the appeal exercised by totalitarianism within the modern political imagination. Despite Berlin's highly contestable account of the origins of monism—which he situates in the Enlightenment movement—it is asserted that Berlin's denunciation of utopias remains very much pertinent in light of the emergence of new fundamentalist utopias in a post 9/11 world. Consequently, there are grounds from which to dismiss those claims according to which Berlin's work belongs to an age—that of the Cold War—unfamiliar to the present.     

The history of econometric ideas. Historical perspectives in modern economics

This article presents a comparative analysis of the concepts of totalitarian democracy and positive liberty in the work of Jacob Leib Talmon and Isaiah Berlin. Its main purpose is to show that a combined analysis of Talmon and Berlin's biographical relationship and their individual texts demonstrates that Talmon's idea of totalitarian democracy may have had a greater influence on Berlin's notion of positive liberty than Berlin seems to have ever acknowledged. The article first summarises the intellectual and biographical relationships that tied these two authors together in a personal friendship and an intellectual fellowship that lasted for more than three decades. In the second part, the insights drawn from the investigation of the authors' intellectual and biographical relationships are linked to an analysis of their texts, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy and Two Concepts of Liberty. Finally, in the third part of the article, three crucial aspects of Talmon's definition of totalitarian democracy are considered: the interpretation of the Enlightenment and Rousseau's thought, the view of the French revolution, and the possible impact each of these has on subsequent Marxist and socialist reflection, to see how they are addressed in Berlin's idea of positive liberty.     

Location and Political Choice in Post-Unification Berlin: Explaining the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) Vote, 1999 and 2001

A paper examining the factors contributing to the growing electoral support for the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) in post-unification elections in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) uses detailed data for Berlin's electoral districts to elucidate the micro-geography of the East-West divide in the PDS vote. Using two methods of ecological inference, King's and entropy maximization, the authors show that the explanation of the PDS support in Berlin elections in 1999 and 2001 can be attributed to the "Mauer in den Köpfen" (wall in people's heads) that is coincident with the division of the city along the former Berlin Wall. This geographic division far exceeds any socio-demographic explanation of the PDS vote. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H10, O10, R10. 9 figures, 4 tables, 98 references.     

Performing Development in Street Markets: Hegemony,Governmentality, and the Qat Industry of Sana’a,Yemen

Abstract: A legal drug commonly consumed in Yemen, qat is often a flashpoint over development and business practice. Qat markets are sites for exploring the interaction between cultural economic practices surrounding qat production, urban politics, and broader questions of development in Yemen. Given the weakness of the Yemeni state relative to other institutions, this context is particularly helpful in theorizing localized forms of governance. Using interviews with various members of the qat industry in Sana’a, Yemen's largest city, this paper discusses the spatial and discursive strategies of qat vendors as they seek to produce and regulate their economic spaces. Central to this discussion is an exploration of Laclau's framework of hegemony and Foucault's ideas of governmentality, in the context of struggles for control over economic space playing out on the streets of Sana’a.     

Where East meets West: The German—polish border region in transformation

There is growing interest in the German‐Polish border area's future status in the changing regional structure of Europe—contrasting scenarios contain, on the one hand, a vision of the region as a new ‘tiger’ region, and are seen at the other extreme as a ‘drainage area’ on the outskirts of the EU. In this article, border areas are treated from a point of view that pays more attention to the regions’ system of production and regulation. The first part deals with some general characteristics of border areas; the second part outlines in more detail the specific developmental conditions of the German‐Polish border area, especially the region between Berlin and Poznan along the middle part of the River Oder (comprising the Euro Region Pro Europa Viadrina). Three aspects of the border region's developmental conditions are emphasized: the region's quality of location within Europe and the respective national territories; the permeability of the border; and the economic structure in the border area, whereby forms of trans‐border economic linkage and cooperation are of particular interest. The last section discusses new challenges for European border areas as posed by economic change and the restructuring of the European spatial fabric.     

Erasmus

This essay seeks to examine the history of the intellectual comradeship between J.L. Talmon and the philosopher, political thinker, and historian of ideas, Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997). The scholarly dialog between the two began in 1947, continued until Talmon's death in 1980, and is well documented in their private correspondence. I argue that there were two levels to this dialog: First, both Berlin and Talmon took part in the Totalitarianism discourse, which was colored by Popperian terminology, and thus I claim that their ideas should be examined as part of the Cold-War political discourse. The second level stemmed from their similar East-European origin, their mutual Jewish identity, and their attitude towards the Zionist movement.

At times the two levels of discourse conjoined commensurably, but in other cases the juxtaposition of the two created conceptual tensions. Examining Berlin and Talmon's thought from this dual perspective, I argue, can shed new light on the inner conflicts and conceptual tensions that each of them had to face. In particular, I claim that both thinkers tried to integrate their Anglophile liberal heritage with their support of National movements in general, and the Jewish National movement in particular. Nevertheless, the different approaches of Talmon and Berlin present two concepts of liberal Nationalism: While Talmon assumed that Zionism solved the Jewish individual's dilemmas by making Jews members of a commune attached to soil; Berlin sought to preserve the individual in an inviolable sphere and thus was more ambivalent in his attitude towards the state of Israel. In conclusion, I offer to see Talmon as a classic Zionist liberal and Berlin as a supporter of what I call “Diaspora Zionism”, an approach, which would later provide the grounds for Berlin's celebrated pluralism.     

Anti‐cosmopolitan liberalism: Isaiah Berlin,Jacob Talmon and the dilemma of national identity

ABSTRACT. The debate between contemporary cosmopolitans and advocates of nationalism is hardly new. Nevertheless, much of it is based on the erroneous assumption that cosmopolitanism should be seen as an outgrowth of liberalism, and that both should be considered as the complete conceptual opposites of nationalism. In this article I focus on two of the post‐war Jewish anglophile intellectuals who took part in this debate during the Cold War years: the Oxonian liberal philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909–97) and the Israeli historian Jacob L. Talmon (1916–80). I use their examples to argue that the dividing line between cosmopolitans and advocates of nationalism should not be regarded as signifying the distinction between liberals and anti‐liberals; in fact, this debate also took place within the camp of the liberal thinkers themselves. I divide my discussion into three parts. Firstly, I examine Berlin's and Talmon's positions within the post‐war anti‐totalitarian discourse, which came to be known as ‘liberalism of fear’. Secondly, I show how a sense of Jewish identity, combined with deep Zionist convictions, induced both thinkers to divorce anti‐nationalist cosmopolitanism – which they regarded as a hollow, illusionary ideal associated with impossible assimilationist yearnings – from the liberal idea. I conclude by suggesting that, although neither man had ever developed a systematic theoretical framework to deal with the complex interactions between ethno‐nationalism, liberal individualism and multiculturalism, Berlin's vision of pluralism provides the foundations for building such a theory, in which liberalism and nationalism become complementary rather than conflicting notions.     

Neoliberal Urbanity and the Right to the City: A View from Beirut's Periphery

Drawing on Lefebvre's theorization of space in order to examine the compatibility of neoliberalism and the right to the city, this study investigates how the formation of informal settlements since the 1950s had provided low‐income dwellers in Beirut (Lebanon) a means to conceive of and engage in city making (neighbourhood production, management, and organization) at a time when state regulations and/or market constraints would have excluded them from the city. It also examines how the prevailing neoliberal ideology of the 1990s, as translated through Lebanon's sectarian‐clientelist regime, is curtailing these possibilities. Evidence for the article was drawn from interviews with dwellers, developers and public officials, as well as from archival searches and aerial photographs.     

The work that parks do: towards an urban environmentality

Cities today are typically framed as sites of capitalist development, while the urban park is theorized as an indirect response to the emerging hegemony of industrial production in the nineteenth century. Yet, this historical framing tells us little about the process through which our notions of ‘the city’ and of ‘nature’ are produced, or how this knowledge affects the formation of urban people's identities. The discursive formation of the capitalist city can be traced to specific historical moments, one of which is the construction of urban parks during the mid- to late-nineteenth century, which I argue was instrumental in producing a new knowledge of the capitalist city by creating a boundary between the social space of the city and the natural space of the park. Using Philadelphia's Fairmount Park as a case study, I draw on archival photographs and annual park commission reports to explore the formation of park subjects during this period and shed light on diverse economic practices that were once widespread in and around the city but whose erasure was ultimately a prerequisite for the successful formation of an urban discourse organized around the construction of the city/nature boundary.     

山东省泰安市农业空间生产资本化特征及模式研究

农业生产空间是农村基本功能的载体。从资本“三重循环”视角出发,将“空间的生产”理论引入农业研究,提出并构建农业空间生产资本化的作用逻辑及其特征表征,并以山东省泰安市村庄为研究单元,研究其农业空间生产资本化特征、模式表征及空间规律。发现,泰安市农业生产具有资本投入集约化、空间生产集中化、组织分工专业化等特征;农业空间生产资本化模式共有四种,在空间上呈现出以中心城区为圆心,圈层式向外拓展的规律性,农业空间生产资本化度和三重特征都表现出由内向外先增后缓降的格局。在乡村振兴背景下,识别村庄农业发展模式,根据要素条件,分类指导农业种植结构调整,有利于促进农村多功能有机融合,实现乡村农业产业兴旺发展目标。     

后福特方式下城市产业空间格局和结构的演变——以广州服装产业为例

随着生产方式由福特制向后福特制演变,城市产业空间呈现出特有的格局变化,进而影响城市空间结构的变化.文章在构建后福特生产方式下城市产业空间格局和结构变化的理论框架的基础上,利用2008年和2018年广州服装企业数据,探究其空间格局和结构演变.研究结果表明:①广州服装产业空间格局演变符合后福特生产影响下的产业空间变化特征,...     

Anarchy,Geography and Drift

Abstract: The consumerist economies of the late modern city, in combination with contemporary models of urban policing, operate to close down the public spaces of social life. In response, social groups dedicated to democratic urbanism utilize anarchic tactics of “dis‐organization” and direct action to reopen public space and to revitalize it with unregulated activity. Complicating and animating these spatial conflicts is the issue of drift. On the one hand, consumerist economies and contemporary policing strategies exacerbate urban drift, spawning the very sorts of spatial transgression they seek to control. On the other hand, many of the progressive movements that battle for open space and alternative economic arrangements themselves embrace a culture of drift, and explore drift for its anarchic and progressive potential. In this context drift can usefully be investigated as an emergent form of epistemology, community, and spatial politics.     

Globalising Economic Governance,Political Projects,and Spatial Imaginaries: Insights from Four Australasian1 Cities

This paper explores how territorial economic governance is discursively constituted in a globalising and neoliberalising world. It acknowledges both the increasingly recognised formative role of spatial imaginaries in economic interventions and the workings of co‐constitutive political projects that link particular imaginaries with political ambitions and policy strategies. Embracing recent calls for comparative ethnographic urban research at the local‐global interface, it explores currently dominant spatial imaginaries across the four Australasian cities of Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth. Based on multiple qualitative methods, this study claims that a considerable number of actor's spatial associations and reference points can be related to particular city‐specific governmental projects; Auckland's Super‐City, Sydney's Global and Green City, Melbourne's Liveable City, and Perth's Vibrant City. It is demonstrated how discursive governance techniques such as ‘story‐telling’, benchmarking, and policy transfer have been pivotal in the activation, circulation, and performance of those spatial imaginaries and their transformation into temporarily dominant visions for strategic urban interventions aimed at repositioning urban actors, spaces, and activities. While spatial imaginaries can be related to differently framed global aspirations, the effects of spatial political projects on urban governance and investment trajectories differ significantly across space. Theoretically, the paper stresses the importance of particular conceptions of territorial relations and time‐ and place‐specific institutional mediation in shaping context‐dependent discursive material governance alignments.     

基于空间三元辩证法的城市周边旅游型乡村公共空间生产研究——以西安地区清水头村为例

旅游消费文化的入侵导致了城市周边乡村发展中社会与空间的巨大变革,使其公共空间面临社会公平与空间正义缺失,进而出现异化。为深入剖析该类型乡村公共空间的生产机制,本文引入列斐伏尔的空间生产理论,运用其三元辩证法理论框架,以西安市长安区清水头村为例,从“空间实践—空间表征—表征空间”三个层面对其进行解构,深入阐释城市周边旅游型乡村公共空间的生产机制和内在逻辑,最后从乡村公共空间生产的作用力、目标形态、机制保障等方面给出了相关优化建议。研究发现,旅游型乡村公共空间在地方政府空间表征过程中,其“使用价值”被压制,而“交换价值”被凸显,但是村民在表征空间过程中的“抵抗”态势并不明显,反而“内化”趋势更多。本文的机制分析和优化建议有助于引导城市周边旅游型乡村公共空间的健康发展,最终达到促进乡村经济发展和优化社会生态的两重目的。     

世界城市全球化空间的演变与重塑模式——以柏林波茨坦广场为例

全球化空间的产生与发展是世界城市以及发展中的世界城市具有普遍意义的空间议题。运用问卷分析、半结构访谈及文本分析相互佐证的数据,借助三角验证法,对柏林波茨坦广场全球化空间的形成动力与影响因素进行了系统研究。研究表明：①柏林波茨坦广场全球化空间形成的核心动力是跨国政治的作用,以一种历史层累的模式,不断杂糅、混合进生产性服务业集聚的经济动力和世界性艺术文化设施集聚的文化动力。②不同时期全球政治局势、国家及城市发展历史、政府作用、城市重建是波茨坦广场全球化空间形成的影响因素。这些因素在不同历史时期作用于波茨坦广场,综合了跨国政治、跨国经济、跨国文化的空间形态要素,引发波茨坦广场数次地景变迁与功能重组,最终形成了世界上“独一无二”的全球化空间。③波茨坦广场的重建是其全球化空间重塑的关键环节,其空间重塑模式为由单一要素主导转向多种要素融合的国家主导发展模式。对中国世界城市全球化空间的建设与治理具有启示作用。     

皖江城市带空间经济联系的网络特征及优化方向研究

基于社会网络分析的视角,分析了皖江城市带城市空间经济联系的网络特征,提出了其经济联系的优化方向。结果显示:从网络密度看,空间经济联系网络还处于弱联结状态;就点度中心度来说,芜湖的点出度最大,合肥的点入度最大;由接近中心度与中间中心度可知,合肥、芜湖、马鞍山等城市的经济联系最紧密,但网络中还存在不均衡。通过凝聚子群分析得出,网络中存在四个子群,其中芜湖、马鞍山联系最紧密,边缘区城市间经济联系较少。结合皖江城市带空间经济联系的网络特征,从内、外两方面,抽象出其经济联系的优化方向。     

长江三角洲地区城镇空间组织模式的结构与特征

本文基于产业结构升级与城镇空间组织模式协同的视角,运用主成分和聚类分析方法,对长江三角洲地区城镇空间组织模式的结构与特征进行了探讨,以此为长三角城市群规划编制提供科学依据。本文认为:①长三角城市群实际上涵盖了7大都市圈,各都市圈之间的边界存在有许多重叠的部分;②根据上述结果与断裂点分析,城镇空间组织模式的结构实际上是由5大不同等级、不同范围、相互交叉、大圈套小圈、圈圈相扣的都市圈所构成的"多元圈层"结构,并由核心区内圈向外呈分指状发散性分布,核-缘拓展的特征比较明显。     

(Re)constructing borders through the governance of tourism and trade in Ladakh,India

This paper analyses how everyday life, the state and nationhood are regulated and organised in a conflict-affected borderland space through economic activities. It focuses on two elements that are often overlooked when scholars discuss spatial governmentality: tourism and trade. Both are commonly declared to be elements of peace, peacebuilding and cosmopolitism. However, the spatial governance of tourism and trade can also profoundly shape how national belonging and the limits of territory are perceived and experienced by borderland populations and visitors. These dynamics can be acute in conflict-affected border zones, where state sovereignty may be under existential or territorial threat. This paper exposes such dynamics in the Indian conflict borderland area of Ladakh, a part of Jammu and Kashmir State until October 2019. Building on scholarship that has analysed cultural and social dynamics of “bordering” in the region, this paper argues that it is possible to read (socio-)economic boundary-making in Ladakh through the state's influence in the organisation and experience of trade and tourism for Ladakhis and visitors. The paper highlights how their spatial organisation, in part, underwrites difference and separation, and aids in framing the contested territory as ‘Indian’.     

Convergence and Divergence in the Australian Space Economy

Australia's space economy has changed rapidly since the 1970s through processes of globalisation, economic restructuring and demographic change. Trends in population distribution and patterns of employment and investment in economic activity highlight both spatial diffusion and concentration. Migration to ‘sun belt’ regions and suburban growth in the mega metro regions is creating population-led demand for production and services, thus creating investment growth and new employment in some consumer-oriented economic activities. However many internationally linked and national market serving economic functions are increasingly concentrated in the two largest cities at strategically located old and new nodes of agglomeration. No longer can population growth be equated directly with increased economic activity, and there are significant spatial mismatches between the outcomes of demographic and economic processes across the nation's cities and regions.     

大连市城市空间结构形成与演进机制

大连城市空间最初在沿海平原形成,然后圈层扩展,面积逐渐扩大,最后跨越形成组团发展模式。大连经历了从商贸港口城市到工业城市,再到综合性现代化城市的演变。城市内部空间结构则随城市功能定位和城市规划而不断调整。在影响城市空间结构的因素中,环境因素带来发展机遇的同时形成约束,政治因素主导了大连城市空间结构的演化过程,经济因素的影响越来越大,社会因素作用还不明显。