The Calibanisation of the South in the German public ‘Euro crisis’ discourse

This article highlights the renaissance of the essentialist topos of the ‘lazy and irrational’ ‘Südländer’ (Southerner, Southern countries, South) in the German political and media discourses during the ‘Euro crisis’. It argues that it served to legitimate the political and economic measures taken in Southern European countries that pushed them into still more peripheral positions within the European Union (EU) and deepened the cleavage between North and South. Culture, or better culturalism and racism as its political ideological version, thus were used as a trap, as an intellectual battleground for justifying extremely complex economic and political decisions in a simplistic fashion throughout a crucial period of European history. The article furthermore demonstrates how a postcolonial reading may productively decode the processes of Othering taking place within Europe itself, especially between the so-called core and peripheral countries.     

A connectivity model as a potential tool for smart specialization strategies

The article contributes to the smart specialization literature by presenting a new approach, connectivity analysis, where Triple Helix (TH) relations (involving universities, companies and government) are at the centre of the entrepreneurial discovery process. Relations between helices may be seen, from the point of departure of proximity, as preconditions of connectivity, or interaction, measured through expectations and experiences. This offers potential solution to two limitations of proximity approach: its static nature and narrow focus on dyadic relationships. The connectivity analysis reveals the extent of mutual expectations, as well as tensions, or gaps. Based on this analysis, the article presents a policy model that is used to map structures of networks and gaps between TH actors. It may also identify strengths, weaknesses and problems. This analysis is used as input to structured dialogues between actors in leading positions in the TH and in smart specialization policy-making and implementation. This approach may lead to policy interventions supporting entrepreneurial discoveries. The model has been developed in partnership with researchers and the Regional Council of Ostrobothnia. The article also presents this case study and demonstrates the use of the connectivity model in practice.     

Hegel,Analytic Philosophy’s Pharmakon

In this article I argue that Hegel has become analytic philosophy’s “pharmakon”—both its “poison” and its “cure.” Traditionally, Hegel’s philosophy has been attacked by Anglo-American analytical philosophers for its alleged charlatanism and irrelevance. Yet starting from the 1970s there has been a revival of interest in Hegel’s philosophical work, which, I suggest, may be explained by three developments: (1) the revival of interest in Aristotelianism following Saul Kripke’s and Hilary Putnam’s work on natural kinds, and Elizabeth Anscombe’s, Philippa Foot’s, and Putnam’s opposition to the fact-value distinction; (2) the rehabilitation of Hegel’s theories by various philosophers, including Robert Pippin, Terry Pinkard, Fred Beiser, Robert Stern, and Stephen Houlgate; and (3) the Sellars-inspired philosophy of mind of John McDowell and of Robert Brandom. The first and third of these reasons, I argue, have led several analytic theorists to cast Hegel in a more positive light as the “cure” for analytic philosophy. The combined outcome of these changes, both ironic and fitting, is that the Hegelian principle of internal critique has played a significant role not only in analytic philosophy’s rapprochement with Hegel’s philosophy but also in overcoming the Analytic-Continental philosophical divide.     

In/visible: the inside story of the making of Arts at CERN

ABSTRACT

This is a personal account of the setting up and first five years of CERN's first institutionalized arts programme, in which artists from different art forms were invited to engage with scientists with no requirements for any outputs. The focus instead was on the creative process, the exchanges between the artists and scientists and their shared knowledge-making. Paradoxically, given this freedom, even by the end of the initial phase of the programme they had produced a range of artworks and performances, some of which were to go on to attract international acclaim. The paper identifies some of the key issues and challenges faced when undertaking an arts programme within a science institution. These issues are rarely openly discussed and written about, yet they are vital for shared cultural learning in this rapidly evolving and increasingly popular field.     

The Rejected Candidate: John III Vasa,the Polish-Lithuanian royal elections (1573/1575) and early-modern political decision-making

This article analyses the candidacy of King John III Vasa in the royal elections of Poland-Lithuania in 1573 and 1575. Although the ‘Polish-minded’ policy of John Vasa is commonly known in earlier historiography, Swedish and Finnish historians have not given much attention to John III’s election campaigns in Poland-Lithuania in the 1570s. This article contemplates John III’s candidacy and rejection from the perspective of Poland-Lithuania. The royal elections are analysed as a political decision-making process by the Polish-Lithuanian estates. Thus the article emphasizes the existence of past alternatives and conditions of decision-making in early-modern history.     

"中国"与"天下"的重合——古代中国疆域形成的历史轨迹

“The Central Kingdom” is pregnant of political implications as well as of geographical and cultural significance. It was believed that whoever controlled Zhongguo (the Central Kingdom or China) would be the legitimate ruler over Tianxia (the realm under heaven or all under heaven). It was the contention for “the Central Kingdom” among the varieties of dynasties, notably those established by the Han-Chinese and the various ethnic groups in the northern borderland, that lead to the alternation of disintegration and unification of the territory. It was not until the Qing Dynasty that the unified “Central Kingdom” composed of a variety of ethnic groups turned into the ideal “realm under heaven” with “the Central Kingdom” at its core, which naturally put an end to the formation of territory in ancient China. Translated by Chen Dan from Zhongguo Bianjiang Shidi Yanjiu 中国边疆史地研究 (China’s Borderland History and Geography Studies), 2007, (3): 1–15     

Policy Change: An Advocacy Coalition Framework Perspective

One purpose of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) is to explain policy change. Previous holistic reviews of the ACF by Weible, Sabatier, and McQueen (2009) and Pierce, Peterson, Jones, Garrard, and Vu (2017) of the framework have not explicitly analyzed all the concepts and their interactions in a systematic manner. To address this gap and inform scholars and practitioners about past findings, strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for future research, this article analyzes how the ACF's theory of policy change is applied to 148 policy processes among 67 journal articles from 2007 to 2014. Similar to Weible et al. (2009), this research finds the frequent use of multiple primary pathways to policy change, infrequent use of many of the ACF's concepts, a plurality of applications in the environment and energy domain, comparison of subsystems, and a need for greater clarity and transparency among applications. Unlike Weible et al. (2009), this article explores associations between primary pathways and policy domains, the frequency of associations between primary pathways and secondary components, policy change and stasis, and identifies threats to internal validity of key ACF concepts.     

《曹真碑》新考

曹真是曹魏名将,《曹真碑》历来为世所重。本文据故宫博物院藏《曹真碑》初拓本补正了故宫藏《曹真碑》实物的部分阙文;又据碑文否定了《三国志·魏书·曹真传》裴注中一条谓曹真本姓秦的注释;并从曹丕临终委托曹真辅政的史实入手深入分析了曹丕与曹真特殊的政治关系及其形成过程。     

Convergence space: process geographies of grassroots globalization networks

This paper considers grassroots globalization networks, which comprise a diversity of social movements working in association to engage in multi-scalar political action. Drawing upon David Harvey's notion of militant particularism (regarding the problems of effecting politics between different geographical scales), and recent research on networks and their relationship to places, the paper analyses People's Global Action, an international network of social movements opposing neoliberal globalization. From an analysis of the process geographies of People's Global Action, the paper proposes the notion of convergence space as a conceptual tool by which to understand and critique grassroots globalization networks. The paper argues that contested social relations emerge in such convergence spaces and considers the implications of these for theorizing such networks, and for political action.