The Atlantic Challenge: How Political Science Understands Canada’s Smallest Region

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how Canadian political science portrays Atlantic Canada, along with some of the consequences of persistent misrepresentations. I first explore traditional portrayals of Atlantic Canada as well as arguments challenging those conceptions, demonstrating that it is no longer appropriate to treat Atlantic Canada as primarily defined by either economic processes or common political culture. I then survey the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Canadian Public Administration and Canadian Public Policy to determine the extent to which discussions of Atlantic Canada still, (a) emphasize economic phenomena, and (b) assume a common Atlantic political culture. I find that, while political scientists are now less likely to study the region in terms of economic phenomena, they still perpetuate outdated depictions of Atlantic political culture. This tendency results in a certain degree of methodological imprecision and reinforces problematic assumptions about Atlantic political life.     

Anton Dumitriu,the ‘Axiomatic Culture’ and the ‘Crisis of the West’

Anton Dumitriu (1905–92) was a Romanian philosopher and logician who attempted to develop the more or less consistent theory of an ‘axiomatic’ tradition, referring to culture and civilisation in the ‘East’ (defined actually as Far East) vs. the ‘West’ (mainly Europe, both Western and East-Central) especially in the inter-war and post-war periods. Dumitriu's essays on Romanian culture or on Eastern vs. Western culture as published in his book Eleatic and Heraclitic Cultures (1987) will make the object of this study. This work is a revised version of his East and West (1943). It should be noted that most of the material discussed here is actually still available only in Romanian since Dumitriu's work on Logic is already translated into English, but his musings on culture and civilisation are available only in Romanian and are, consequently, almost unknown outside the country. This study attempts to make up for that and also to connect Dumitriu's views on culture and civilisation or East and West both to earlier Romanian views and currents in defining culture as well as to contemporary general European trends, while also taking into account the context of the Communist regime in which the second edition of his book was issued.     

新时期我国地理信息资源开发利用途径

文章阐述了我国地理信息资源开发利用的现状及存在的问题,并进行分析探讨。指出:传统的地理信息利用方式存在着信息不能共享,传输速度慢,工作量大,收藏成本高,信息利用率低等严重问题。认为,新时期地理信息资源的开发内容主要是开发大众化地理信息产品的建设,即广度上对地理信息资源进行电子化和有序化建设,改善地理信息资源的可获得性和共享性;地理信息精品的建设,即从深度上对地理信息资源进行开发建设,提高地理信息产品的附加值和建立完善的基于网络环境下的地理信息数据库联机检索服务体系。在此基础上,还要重点开发地理信息的智力性资源、预测性资源和提高对地理信息资源的利用能力,以及提高地理信息资源的创新机理,加快地理信息资源的数字化进程。重点提出了新时期我国地理信息资源深层开发和利用的途径。①加强对信息资源的宏观调控;②尽快建立地理信息网,加强地理科学数据库建设;③实现文献载体的多样化,增强文献的时效性;④加强信息人才培养,转变服务职能;⑤重视基础研究和应用研究。