Scaling just transitions: Legitimation strategies in coal phase-out commissions in Canada and Germany

Climate change mitigation triggers both spatial and moral complexities, as demonstrated by the contentious issue of phasing out coal power. The success of the Paris Agreement depends on, among other things, the acceptability of climate policy measures and thus, from a moral perspective, on the ability to organize transition processes in ways that do not damage the livelihoods of workers, communities, and entire regions. Spatially, the unequal distributions of burdens and advantages of both climate change and respective mitigation measures provoke struggles over their legitimacy in contexts ranging from local to global. Phasing out coal mining and the respective power generation capacity thus triggers processes of structural transformation that cut across geographic scales, vertical levels of policy and politics, as well as sectoral boundaries.In light of the urgency of the climate crisis, countries such as Canada and Germany have established stakeholder-driven commissions to develop proposals for just transition pathways for phasing out coal production and consumption. We argue that these commissions are arenas in which spatial, moral, and sectoral (re-)negotiations materialize. Comparing the Canadian and German stakeholder commissions through expert interviews with their members, the article traces how governments use commissions to legitimize their transition policies. Expectations at different levels and from different actors in turn place commission members under pressure to justify their involvement and the outputs of the commissions. We find that the Canadian task force showed greater commitment to collecting and reflecting the needs of communities in its coal regions, and to communicating these to the federal government. In the German coal commission, legitimation strategies focused mainly on a broad representation of interests, and on government spending for affected regions, workers, and industries. In that case, a compromise was reached that satisfied most, but not all, of the diverse requirements.     

章太炎《春秋》学三变考论——兼论章氏“六经皆史”说的本意

经学消亡,其所述历史"神话"被否定,经学作为史料寄身于史学门下。按照中国学术"古今之变"的这一大线索来看,章太炎的"六经皆史"说对于中国学术、思想的现代转型具有里程碑式的地位和意义。自新文化运动以来,后世学者基本上按照这一线索将章太炎以"六经皆史"为要义的"古文经学"进行一分为二的评说:一方面肯定章太炎破除由经见道、通经致用的经学思维,将"六经"历史文献化,使儒家六经从神圣宝典下降到了古史资料地位。另一方面,又批评其"六经皆史"之说终未能脱离儒家经学的羁绊,仍为尊经崇圣的观念所困。这样一种以"传统/现代"为框架的二分法往往使我们忽略章太炎"古文经学"形成发展的内在轨迹和自身意图,从而造成对章太炎学术思想的割裂和简化。章太炎的《春秋》、《左传》学是其"古文经学"的主干,最能表现其"古文经学"形成发展的内在自身的思想轨迹。本文试图追迹章氏《春秋》学的变化发展,并以《春秋》学为中心,考察其"六经皆史"说的本意,提示其中值得重新审视的思想内涵。     

《晋书》的评价与研究

本文在揭示唐修《晋书》的真正原因和指导思想等问题基础上 ,指出《晋书》的五条史学价值和三条不足之处。历代对《晋书》的研究 ,清代为校勘、正误和补表、志的开创时期。民国为《晋书》研究的阶段性总结 ,以及补表、志的最后完成时期。新中国为《晋书》校勘、注释和研究的集大成时期。史家在深入研究两晋十六国历史时 ,对《晋书》所载各类史实典制作了进一步的厘清 ,并对《晋书》的整体性认识上有了进一步的发展     

Sovereign Bodies: Ancestor Cult and State Legitimacy among the Incas

The worship of dead Inca kings, because it aimed at preserving the deceased's bodily integrity, reveals constituent aspects of royal personhood. Underpinning these practices was the conception that the dead's agency was conveyed through corporeal substances, which therefore required constant acts of sustenance. This paper examines the bodily practices and material substances that shaped the king's physical person during his lifetime, as well as after his death. These data show that the royal body was made conspicuous through a series of ritual and symbolic actions devised to display the king's faculty to infuse vital force to all living creatures under his rule he thus stood as the source of prosperity for his subjects with which he was engaged in reciprocal obligations of life sustenance. I argue that these “embodied technologies of power” shaped a system of representations that legitimated the king's appropriation of state resources.     

《吴越春秋》说略

《吴越春秋》是一部很有特色的古代史学著作。是书有很高的史料价值,在编纂体例和历史文学方面都有一定成就,对于了解春秋时吴、越争霸历史,增长人们有关历史知识,从历史中吸取智慧是很有用的。作为汉代史著能流传到现在,这个事实本身似乎也可以说明它确有其存在价值。     

《晋书·载记》的正统观及其成因

《晋书》以"载记"之体记述十六国史,融伪史入正史,蕴涵着史家对十六国历史的肯定。它以东晋为正统,这一书法的形成,与其史料来源大有关系。唐初所存的十六国史,不少出于南北朝史官之手,尤其是《十六国春秋》和《三十国春秋》,皆黜十六国为僭伪,但同时又在书法上肯定其历史地位,其褒贬对《晋书·载记》正统观的形成都产生了重大影响。另外,《晋书》不以前凉、西凉二政权入"载记",其理据颇可怀疑,但它打破了正统与僭伪的界限,折射出南北统一、民族融合后的历史心理。     

The debate on the principle of legitimacy of power in France and Italy between 1815 and 1821

After the revolutionary storm, which had exported Jacobin democracy on the tips of its bayonets and after the epic deeds of the Napoleonic era, which, in the midst of remarkable contradictions, had asserted a number of principles and values of the French Revolution, the moderate or conservative liberal thinkers who wished for the introduction of a representative government and of personal freedom in France and in Italy were faced with the return of the old regime and with attempts of the Restoration to eradicate the reforms of the previous period. The only way these thinkers could save or restore parliamentary institutions and civil rights was to link their efforts to the destinies of the ruling dynasties. In both countries, this move was fiercely opposed, especially by reactionary writers. Hence, this essay will deal with the structure and contours of a debate which set two alignments in opposition, from the time of the Congress of Vienna to the Revolutions of 1820-21 and hinged on the principle of monarchic legitimacy and on the foundations of political authority which, for the first time, were being openly questioned in the midst of the American and the French revolutions.     

《春秋》“天子之事”发微

孟子说:"《春秋》,天子之事也。"这一说法对探讨先秦中国学术发展意义重大。西周时期的王官之中,史官至关重要,甚至被称为"天子之左右手",史官所记录的"史记旧闻"则是孟子所谓"天子之事"的重要载体。然而,在"礼坏乐崩"的春秋社会,史官的职责及其命运都遇到前所未有的挑战。在"王命不行"的背景下,孔子作《春秋》,他是以布衣身份代史官行"天子之事",这标志着由史官到史家的转变。     

血腥中现温情 自制中求合法——电影《教父》三部曲中的“黑帮哲学”

好莱坞青年导演科波拉执导的《教父》三部曲,以黑帮为题材,描述了黑手党产生、发展的全过程,体现了他们在行为、处世上的法则,带有一定的哲学意味,我们称之为“黑帮哲学”。在血腥的争斗中,他们更渴望“温情”,企图通过家族亲情、群体友情来笼络人心;在非法买卖中,他们追求“合法”。然而,走上正道的梦想对他们来说只是一场空幻。     

Pluralising political legitimacy

Does the Australian state exercise legitimate power over the indigenous peoples within its borders? To say that the state’s political decisions are legitimate is to say that it has the right to impose those decisions on indigenous peoples and that they have a (at least a prima facie) duty to obey. In this paper, I consider the general normative frameworks within which these questions are often grasped in contemporary political theory. Two dominant modes of dealing with political legitimacy are through the politics of ‘recognition’ and ‘justification’. I argue that in order to address the fundamental challenges posed by indigenous peoples to liberal settler states today we need to pluralise our conceptions of political legitimacy.