Tocqueville and the End of History

Abstract

We argue for the relevance of a contemporary return to Shakespeare because his work prompts thinking about the “Body Politic,” perhaps the most vivid and enduring image in speech describing political community ever proposed. Shakespeare's meditation on this image invites us to reflect on the conditions under which a body politic can be made whole; that the constitution of any formal commonwealth requires a self-conscious articulation of the body politic and that this articulation could not happen without the parts themselves being aware of their partial character within the whole political order. The need for the consent of those parts in the political order to which they would belong thus becomes suddenly more evident. Shakespeare's plays show that this need for consent always emerges within discrete political communities. As such, the constituent parts of those communities must grant consent, exercise and enjoy their rights, and participate in the whole within the limitations circumscribed by their political boundaries and borders. His dramatic works thus help us reconsider contemporary attacks on the nation-state and illuminate the body politic as an essential means for bringing into being the preconditions and framework required for healthy political life, including liberal democracy, to flourish.     

Guanhua,Guoyu, and Putonghua: Politics and “proper names” for standard language in modern China

ABSTRACT

Guanhua (official language), Guoyu (national language), and Putonghua (common language) are generally regarded as different names for the same thing in different eras, but from the perspective of cultural history, there are many subtle semantic differences between these three concepts, symbolizing how different social classes and political groups defined their particular experiences, expectations, and efforts to take action. Guoyu, which replaced Guanhua in the late Qing Dynasty, is closely bound up with the construction of modern nationalism. In the 1930s, leftist intellectuals imbued Putonghua with strong proletariat attributes and overtones of indigenous and ethnic equality, wielding it as a tool for critiques against Guoyu. Although Putonghua returned to certain key positions of Guoyu after the mid-1950s, it putatively emphasized the legacy of the leftist language movement, and represented a new political identity. Through these “proper names” for the standard language, it was possible not only to launch a political and social “revolution,” but also to smooth over the historical rifts that this engendered, by repeatedly revising the concepts of “written” and “standard” to form a linear national narrative.     

20世纪初年西藏历史研究中学人的民族国家意识探析

20世纪初年,民族主义成为中国最主要的社会思潮,与此同时,中国史学的话语权也发生了变动,以"史界革命"相号召的"新史学"渐成主流。具有近现代意义的西藏历史研究也于此时启动,体现了现实救亡图存的政治诉求,在历史思想方面实践传统的藩属话语体系向近现代民族国家话语转变,在西藏历史研究文本中近现代民族国家观念得以初步确立。     

Hans Morgenthau and the Tragedy of the Nation-State

The cardinal role of tragedy in Morgenthau's theory of international politics has hardly gone unnoticed. Indeed there is now a considerable corpus of literature that established the importance of tragedy as a central concept around which Morgenthau's theory revolved. This paper builds upon this already developed framework and employs tragedy not as an analytical category but as a metaphor employed by Morgenthau to approach the nation-state. It is claimed that the idea of tragedy underpinned his notion of the nation-state inasmuch as it did his view of individual human beings. As such the notion of tragedy informed consistently Morgenthau's analyses of national tragedies that were like the self-defeating nationalism of Germany. It also informed his efforts to avert potential national tragedies from materialising as his attempts to influence US foreign policy demonstrated. It is finally claimed, that far from a descent into despair, Morgenthau's realism signified a conscious effort to go beyond the tragedy of the nation-state.     

Citizenship,property rights and dispossession in postwar Poland (1918 and 1945)

After both the First and Second World Wars, the Polish state used nationality law as a tool for ethnic de-integration and dispossession, albeit in varying measure and with differing impact. After 1918, legislation and implementation focused less on economic interests than on those of the nation-state. Through the liquidation of private property against compensation, the German population, especially in Western Prussia, Poznań and Pomerelia, were to be persuaded to leave Poland voluntarily. These measures were within the legal framework set by the Versailles Treaties and the national tradition of civil law.     

试析叙利亚现代民族国家构建的阶段与特征

叙利亚现代民族国家构建可分为三个历史阶段:法国委任统治阶段(1920—1946年)、独立的探索阶段(1946—1963年)与复兴党统治阶段(1963年至今)。其构建过程有三大特征:其现代民族国家构建与中东的民族思潮及民族独立运动紧密相联;其民族国家构建过程中族群、部落、区域冲突等问题错综复杂;复兴党的统治为其民族国家构建带来了极大的独特性。     

塔列朗与法兰西近代民族国家的建立

法兰西近代民族国家建立的进程,开始于1789年的法国大革命,结束于1830年的七月革命。塔列朗的政治活动贯穿于这一进程的始终。他在大革命期间,推动教会资产国有化,参与起草《人权宣言》;在督政府时期,以较新的外交理念促成法国外交部的改革;在拿破仑帝国时期,参与了重要条约的谈判,并力图遏制拿破仑的称霸政策;在波旁王朝复辟时,起草了“1814年宪章”,尽力维护大革命的成果;在七月革命中,抛弃了复辟王朝,支持承认大革命现实的路易.菲利浦登上王位,并出任驻英大使出席伦敦会议,为解决欧洲重大外交问题付出了努力。事实证明,他并非如一般史家所描述的那样,是一个以自身利益为行为准则,没有信仰的政治变色龙,而是一个以法兰西民族国家利益为行为准则的政治家。他为法兰西近代民族国家的建立做出了重大贡献。     

National maps, digitalisation and neoliberal cartographies: transforming nation-state practices and symbols in postcolonial Ecuador

The paper explores the connection between computerised techniques of mapping and the role of maps in modern nationhood, interrogating the ways that maps are naturalised and deployed in postcolonial neoliberal statecraft. A case study of Ecuador demonstrates how the relationship between cartography and the nation-state is being both altered and reaffirmed by new mapping practices and institutional processes. Despite neoliberalising moves to decentre state cartographers and the technological advances supporting the proliferation of national maps and map-makers, Ecuadorian cartographies are still authorised by the nation-state, as explored in relation to spatial information about the country, and in relation to the processes of land-titling. Under neoliberal governance and with advanced mapping techniques, land-titling produces small territories that replicate – in miniature – the jigsaw-like and modular quality of national territories. As such, mappings of individual private properties produce the reality of neoliberal statecraft.     

论新加坡民族国家创建的基础

新加坡民族国家的创建有着曲折的历程和独自的特色,这源于开埠后新加坡的社会发展特征.20世纪20年代以后,新加坡逐渐由移民社会向普通社会过渡,建立现代民族国家已成为其历史发展的内在要求.新加坡社会由三大族群构成,各族群在职业、文化、传统等方面有着很大的区别,族群关系复杂.因为商业与贸易的发展,到1900年时新加坡已经具备了现代化城市的多个特征,商业城市使新加坡社会具有较高的理性;英国的殖民统治给新加坡留下了法治精神、有限责任政府和文官制度等殖民遗产,使得新加坡具有"强国家"的潜质;地狭人多、经济模式单一、族群关系复杂,这些因素增加了新加坡民族国家创建的艰巨性.     

民族国家形成时期英国殖民思想的发展

在从中世纪封建社会向近代资本主义过渡的历史转折时期,即民族国家形成时期,英国殖民思想经历了一个从盲目到自觉、从感性到理性的发展过程。殖民思想与民族国家思想合流,是英国民族意识觉醒的反映,对英国海外殖民扩张活动产生了积极影响,它们共同推动着海上活动的蓬勃发展。托马斯·莫尔从人文主义道德观出发,提出建立海外殖民地的最初设想。理查德·哈克卢伊特是英国早期最重要的发现史学家,他为英国的北美殖民活动进行辩护。在海外殖民扩张问题上,弗朗西斯·培根竭力赞成英国拓展海外殖民地,建立新英格兰帝国。