(Un)Doing Constitutionalism: The Cases of Liu Xiaobo and Xu Zhiyong

Based on the cases of Liu Xiaobo and Xu Zhiyong, this article reviews the Court judgments and discussions about the criminal charges of “inciting subversion of state power” and “disrupting public order” used against Liu Xiaobo and Xu Zhiyong respectively. Through a review of the discourses of Chinese legal scholars surrounding the two cases, we focus on the conflicting arguments regarding the Chinese Constitution and the Constitutional right to freedom of expression. This article concludes with an analysis of the political meaning of the two cases by revisiting the debate about the implementation of a Constitutional review and by reflecting upon the political contention between the government’s recent re-ideologisation of the Constitution and the growing calls of Chinese citizens who advocate Constitutionalism as a proxy for political reform.     

Kinetics of Stone Degradation of the Castle of Chambord in France

A multidisciplinary approach combining scientific and historical data is developed in order to identify the environmental factors that cause degradation of stones and to attempt to date the onset of degradation and assess the time needed for its development. The method is applied to the Castle of Chambord, a prestigious monument in the Loire Valley in France. The genesis of the two main types of degradation (spalling and flaking) and the kinetics of their development are identified and analysed. The correlation between the different mappings and iconographic documents reveal that flaking develops on any type of fine limestone and can appear less than 60 years after the stone is placed on the castle for Richemont limestone, and less than 10 years for tuffeau. The other main type of degradation, spalling, is limited to tuffeau, but it is more difficult to quantify the kinetics of its development.     

Do local needs matter?: the relevance of women’s NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa

This article focuses on the potential of women’s non-governmental organizations (WNGOs) for effectively addressing gender inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa. As the mainstreaming of gender and women’s issues continues to pervade global governance, scholars, and practitioners have questioned whether local WNGOs are capable of formulating projects that are relevant to the communities in which they work. One important challenge is local WNGOs’ dependence on external funding and agendas. The extensive literature on women and development indicates that there is a critical need to develop a more radical, transformative feminist agenda for women’s empowerment. The objective of this quantitative study is to test the association between WNGOs’ emergence and measures of gender inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that while there is evidence that WNGOs’ formation represents a legitimate response to African countries’ challenges in terms of gender inequality, the institutionalization of gender within NGOs does not automatically translate into greater gender equality and women’s empowerment. This article identifies some of the gaps and limitations of gender mainstreaming initiatives within African WNGOs. Examining the heterogeneity of women’s organizing and WNGO formation in the region and gaps in development activities, this study highlights the importance of place and space in developing a progressive feminist agenda. The quantitative analysis used in this study, which highlights the uneven geographies and scales of WNGO intervention in Sub-Saharan Africa, contributes to, and calls for more geographic studies on development and gendered activism.