Shura council election in Qatar: Influences that shape how voters select candidates

Qatar, a small Gulf Arab nation with a de facto absolute monarchy, held its first general elections ever for 30 Shura Council seats on October 2, 2021. This marked the first time in Qatar's history that citizens played a more direct role in government, moving beyond symbolic elections. This study aimed to examine the factors likely to have influenced voters' selection of candidates, the key issues that are significant to Qatari citizens, and the possible characteristics of candidates that are deemed essential. While informal conversations are the main method of data collection for this study, social identity theory, specifically group-based models, was used to understand the influences that shape Qatari voters' choices of candidates. Findings indicate that tribe-related and family-connected attributes constitute important influences on voters' choice decisions. Moreover, voters were concerned about candidates' characteristics and the issues and policies candidates deemed important. Discussion and recommendations are provided.     

The Post-Colonial Constitutional Order of the Commonwealth Caribbean: The Endurance of the Crown and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

ABSTRACT

Amongst Britain's former colonies the independent countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean represent something of an anomaly in so far as the majority of them remain constitutional monarchies and continue to retain the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) as their final appellate court, even though the region has had its own final appellate court – the Caribbean Court of Justice – since 2006. This is in marked contrast to Britain's former colonies in Africa and South Asia, the majority of which switched to republicanism soon after independence and at the same time abolished rights of appeal to the JCPC. This paper seeks to uncover the reasons for this anomaly by examining how the path that led to independence was shaped by a particular conception of Dominion status and by the willingness of nationalist leaders to embrace a dual identity: equal parts West Indian nationalist and Empire loyalist. It will also examine the phenomenon of the ‘postcolony’; being the persistence of the colonial order following the acquisition of constitutional independence. The paper has three aims. Firstly, to contribute to a better understanding of the impact of Dominion status and all that it symbolised in a region which is often overlooked in the scholarly literature on this topic. Secondly, better to understand the competing political forces that led three countries in the region to adopt republicanism, but inhibited its adoption elsewhere in the region. Thirdly, and finally, to enhance discussion of the complex nexus between republicanism and the abolition of rights of appeal to the JCPC where political and juridical considerations do not neatly align.     

建国初期闵行镇归属问题研究

明代中后期,闵行镇凭借其便利的交通条件与繁荣的棉花种植业,成为上海县重要的商业市镇。近代以来,随着上海城市的发展,闵行镇与上海城区间经济联系不断密切,政治地位也日趋重要。新中国成立初期,优先发展重工业的国家政策与华东沿海地区的战略地位,使得民国时期奠定重工业基础的闵行镇备受各方重视。在国家政策、经济体制、地方利益等因素的综合作用下,闵行镇最终由江苏省上海县划归上海市。     

1900年上海及江南的恐慌--兼论“东南互保”的社会氛围

义和团运动时期的北方战事,给包括租界在内的上海及江南民众日常经济生活带来巨大恐慌。身处纷乱的惊惧不安和经济萧条的切实威胁,社会各界普遍企望北方战事早日平息,不致蔓延到南方,这种社会心理氛围,是"东南互保"得以产生和推行的重要原因。     

The Model Arctic Council: Simulated Negotiations as Pedagogy and Embodied Diplomacy

This article draws on the perspectives of students and organizers involved in recent iterations of the Model Arctic Council (MAC), an experiential learning simulation designed to expand students’ knowledge and understanding of the Arctic and its governance. While much of the discourse related to simulations such as the MAC emphasizes its pedagogical and networking benefits, this article leverages participant-based ethnography to argue that the MAC also affects multi-track diplomatic outcomes in addition to serving as a site for diplomatic engagement. Applying an interpretive approach driven by the onset of practice-tracing in international relations, we demonstrate that the MAC both produces and constitutes diplomacy. Such a reimagination elevates the diplomacy of non-state actors and exposes false binaries between state diplomacy and non-state diplomacy.     

从上海与北方关系的演变看环渤海经济崛起

上海开埠以后,在成为全国最大对外贸易口岸的过程中,把北方变成了它的间接经济腹地,带动了北方经济的外向化。进入20世纪以后,环渤海港口城市的直接辐射作用得到加强,促使该地区的直接对外贸易迅速发展,经济现代化水平迅速提高,并迫使上海的有效辐射范围从北方逐步向长江流域退缩。直接龙头取代间接龙头,是近代区域经济发展的内在规律和必然结果。它加速了环渤海经济的崛起,不利于上海经济的更好发展。     

二十世纪二三十年代“上海模式”对重庆的冲击

民国重庆城市现代化起步于刘湘“军人干政”时期。而川江航运的繁荣,城市精英的觉醒以及刘湘政权的若干举措,为“上海模式”输入重庆提供了重要条件。作为后发外生型条约体系城市,重庆的现代化不仅依靠西方现代性要素的刺激,而且更直接地受到“上海模式”的辐射和拉动。“军人干政”的负面效应致使以“上海模式”为蓝本的重庆城市现代化呈现畸变态势。在“上海模式”的冲击下,在本社会还缺少现代性因素积累的情况下,重庆城市现代化于20年代末期启动。     

Local territorial attachment in times of jurisdictional consolidation

Many European countries are changing political boundaries at the local government level. Reforms consolidating local jurisdictions have recently been implemented in a number of countries, and more mergers/amalgamations are ongoing. We examine whether citizens' attachment to their local political unit is affected when municipal maps are redrawn. Our study is based on a dataset from Danish local governments with survey data from before and after a major reform of municipal mergers, and the traditional endogeneity problems are thereby circumvented. Drawing on Scannell and Gifford's tripartite model of person, place and process, we find that person characteristics affect local territorial attachment as well as the intersection between places of residence and the processes leading to the new jurisdiction. It is not an increase in the absolute size of the municipality (i.e., place) or the amalgamation as such (i.e., process) that affects the level of attachment, but rather the relative size of the former municipality compared to the new municipality and thereby the specifics of the redrawing of boundaries. When smaller municipalities are amalgamated with larger municipalities, the local territorial attachment decreases among citizens living in the smaller municipalities but not among citizens living in the larger municipalities.     

The New View of Makeup and the Consumption of Cosmetics among the Women of Shanghai in the Modern Age

Under the pressure of the national crisis in modern China, millennia-old traditional concepts have been broken and adjusted, and new trends and ideas have emerged in large numbers. In order to defeat local cosmetics, from the moment they entered China foreign cosmetics companies attacked the traditional Chinese cosmetics of eyebrow pigment (dai), lip pigment (gong), rouge (zhi), and face powder (fen). Corresponding to the enlightenment ideas of the early twentieth century, women could no longer pursue beauty in a way that harmed their bodies. In the movement to liberate women’s bodies in the 1920s, radical intellectuals developed a severe criticism of the bad habits of using corsets and applying powder, and the concept of “healthy beauty” came into being. However, in the context of the development of the women’s liberation movement and the respect for women’s consumer rights, the healthy beauty theory failed to suppress women’s consumption of beauty products, and “natural beauty” and “artificial beauty” ultimately coexisted in lifestyles of women in the modern era of Shanghai.