Mass Politics and the Techniques of Leadership: The Promise and Perils of Propaganda in Weimar Germany

This paper traces the development of ideas about ‘professional’and ‘scientific’ publicity during the Weimar era,and their gradual absorption by mainstream politicians and officialsfrom the late 1920s onwards. The unprecedented wartime effortsto influence domestic morale and the scandalous revelationsof misinformation afterwards greatly increased popular awarenessof the ability of élites to manipulate public opinion,and generated intense interest in the problems of communicatingwith mass publics. Nowhere was this fascination greater thanin Germany, where many attributed their defeat primarily tosuperior enemy propaganda. The result was a wide-ranging postwardiscourse about the power of this modern ‘weapon’and its unavoidability as a part of modern political and commerciallife. Far from learning the so-called ‘lessons of thewar’, government self-representation efforts were steadilycriticized by journalists and advertisers as both quantitativelyand qualitatively inadequate. Whereas most republicans regarded‘propaganda’ as mendacious and unstatesmanlike,many of the radical parties’ publicity efforts clearlyreflected the basic tenets of the concurrent propaganda discourse,in particular the emphasis on emotional appeal and ritualisticsymbols. During the crisis of the early 1930s, amidst the visiblesuccess of the Nazis’ advertising-inspired campaigning,the spread of this discourse across the political spectrum helpedto hollow out democratic conceptualizations of leadership andpublic opinion from the very centre of Weimar political life.     

Migrant fertility differentials in Ecuador

The effects of migration on fertility in Ecuador were analyzed by subdividing migrant categories into permanent-, return-, circular-, and non-migrants, and context factors into 6 socioeconomic and agrarian variables. The study is introduced with a conceptual framework that explains personal intermediate variables and their influence on fertility in terms of demographic transition theory, and then defines the influences of selection for fertility, disruption of marital unions, and socialization into fertility norms at the origin vs. assimilation of norms at the destination. Migrants are usually better educated, younger and upwardly mobile, all selecting for lower fertility. Migration disrupts formation of marital unions, and causes separation of spouses, lowering fertility. Data for this study were from the 1974 and 1982 Ecuadorian Population Censuses. The contextual variables analyzed were urban/rural; manufacturing/agricultural; mineral extraction/economic recession; long/recent agricultural settlement; domestic/export crop; and large/medium sized farm. The analysis of personal attributes showed that fertility increased over the range on non-migrants through circular-, return- to permanent-migrants, a finding explained by degrees of disruption of unions. Higher fertility was associated with less education, lower economic participation, higher prevalence of marriage, longer residence and older ages. Regression analysis also showed that personal attributes outweighed contextual factors: thus age, marriage rates, residence time, education and economic activity were significant. Contextual factors were important only for non-migrants, except for destination variables which affected return-migrants and origin variables which affected circular-migrants. Low fertility was associated with urbanization, industrialization, mineral extraction, large farms, recent farm settlement and export crops. The results indicate cear influences of modernity and place influences on fertility of migrants.     

The Mississippian Site of Origin for the So-Called Moundville Spider

For 60 years, the origin of an iconographically significant example of Southeastern Mississippian symbolic art has been enmeshed in error and ambiguity. A trail of sleuthing over 25 years provides information used to assess museum curation records and published clues from 1887 to the present, contextualizing the mystery and finally allowing identification of a specific Mississippian period cemetery of origin for the so-called Moundville spider.     

The comfort of the river: understanding the affective geographies of angling waterscapes in young people’s coping practices

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on ethnographic research with angling intervention programmes working with ‘disaffected’ young people in the UK to demonstrate how young people use the affective geographies of waterscapes to regulate their feelings and escape stressful lives. But rather than interpret the restorative or therapeutic quality of waterscapes as the consequence of (passive) immersion into green/blue spaces, we argue that ‘comfort’ is derived from an ongoing, active engagement with(in) the world. Drawing on works influenced by phenomenological theories and relational understandings of the more-than-human world, we illustrate how the affectual qualities of waterscapes are continually ‘woven’ into being through the material and embodied practices of young anglers. However, understanding why waterscapes ‘matter’ to young people also requires accounting for those assemblages originating in the past that shape these co-experienced worlds.