bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
International Security in Latin America
Authors: Bitar Sebastian , Long Tom
Published: October 2019

Latin America exhibits some of the world’s most worrisome patterns of insecurity. Homicide rates have reached alarming levels in dozens of cities in Mexico, Central America, Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia. Drug and other illicit trafficking generate massive income for criminal organizations. Fighting among these organizations, and between criminal groups and the state, threatens human security in zones of production and along transit routes. Refugee crises—especially an exodus of 4 million Venezuelans by 2019—could increase substantially. Receiving countries struggle to respond.

Insecurity in Latin America cannot be fully understood through comparison of the domestic challenges of each country in the region. The sources of contemporary insecurity are not contained within countries, but extend to transnational criminal networks, flows of illicit goods, and human trafficking and displacement. Likewise, isolated state responses are insufficient to respond to transnational dynamics; although some coordination has been achieved, intergovernmental responses have produced limited gains and substantial unintended consequences. Thus, we consider security challenges in the region as a “security complex” that includes Latin American and Caribbean countries, but in which the United States remains significant.

On the other hand, international conflict and civil war, as traditionally defined, have almost vanished from Latin America. Threats of military coups and politically motivated violence have declined after being a key security issue for decades. However, some troubling cases and trends complicate this positive trend. Venezuela’s governing civilian–military alliance eroded basic democratic institutions and produced an economic, political, and humanitarian crisis. In response, the United States has raised the specter of military intervention or coup sponsorship. Honduras and especially Nicaragua have turned to authoritarianism, accompanied by alarming levels of repression of protesters and civil society activists. U.S. policies under the Trump administration toward migrants from Central America and Mexico are creating great tension in the region and fear of reprisals. Although most border disputes have been settled a few still are unresolved or contested and could generate tensions between countries in the region.

The academic literature about international security in Latin America reflects the complex dynamics described above, covers historical and contemporary security challenges in the region, and presents debates and developments on Latin American security at the international and national levels. Despite its wide scope, the existing literature presents areas where more work is needed to account for emerging trends of (in)security.
El Salvador’s FMLN and the Constraints on Leftist Government
Authors: Young Kevin A.
Published: October 2019

The 1992 Salvadoran peace accords ended a 12-year civil war and forced modest democratic reforms on a state long dominated by a ruthless oligarchy and military. However, the new system represented a shallow version of democracy that remained largely unresponsive to the population. For two decades the far-right Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Nationalist Republican Alliance [ARENA]) party held the presidency and used it to enact pro-business economic policies of austerity, privatization, and deregulation. In 2009, the left-wing opposition party, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), won the presidential elections for the first time. Yet despite winning some notable progressive reforms, the FMLN did not seek, much less achieve, a radical break from the neoliberal policies of previous administrations. FMLN leaders opted to continue a number of pro-capitalist policies while pursuing reforms to ameliorate the worst symptoms of the system, not overthrow it. The FMLN’s shift away from revolutionary socialism is attributable to several factors: a political and media terrain that still heavily favors the right, the continued influence of the United States government, and private investors’ control over the economy. These constraints were vitally important during the tenures of FMLN presidents Mauricio Funes (2009–2014) and Salvador Sánchez Cerén (2014–2019). El Salvador’s political trajectory since 1992, and especially during the FMLN’s decade in the presidency, offers insights into the constraints facing various left-of-center governments elected across Latin America in the early 21st century.
Political Parties and Regime Outcomes in Multiparty Africa
Authors: LeBas Adrienne
Published: October 2019

Since the early 1990s, most African countries have experimented with multiparty elections, but the building and institutionalization of political parties has proven difficult. In many countries, parties—including those holding power—are fluid, volatile, and lack grassroots structures. In others, the party landscape remains surprisingly similar to Van de Walle’s assessment: “[consisting] of a dominant presidential party surrounded by a large number of small, highly volatile parties.” As Van de Walle points out, ruling parties—including the ex-single parties that continue to rule in many of Africa’s hybrid regimes—have advantages that mean that elections are not fought on a level playing field. Ruling parties may use repression against challengers, or they may manipulate voter registration, constituency redistricting, and other aspects of electoral administration. Incumbents can also take advantage of state resources, and a decline in patronage resources has been a powerful driver of electoral turnover in regions. But differences in election competitiveness in Africa are not only a function of repression, manipulation, or access to patronage. Differences in both ruling party and opposition party organizations have independent effects on parties’ ability to win elections, on the loyalty of mass constituencies, and on the conduct of election campaigns. New scholarship has started to take these differences in party organization seriously, and this will enrich our understanding of how voters in sub-Saharan Africa navigate political choice. Research on parties and party systems highlights the degree to which these factors differ across countries and over time, complicating standard narratives that often privilege clientelism and ethnicity as the primary—and largely uniform—influences on voter behavior and government accountability on the continent.
The Politics of Public Broadcasters in Africa
Authors: Arndt Corinna
Published: October 2019

National broadcasters are a standard feature across Africa. Set up by colonial regimes, they dominate media landscapes with their unrivaled geographic reach. Radio continues to be the main—and often only—source of information outside urban centers, where commercial media struggle to survive and illiteracy remains a challenge. Although access to new media has risen exponentially, use of mobile technology continues to be prohibitively expensive.

Some national broadcasters are official state broadcasters: owned, run, and editorially controlled by government. However, many claim to be public broadcasters. By definition, these are accountable to the public rather than the government of the day: accessible to a universal audience, inclusive of a wide range of views; and fair, balanced, and independent in their journalism. This aspiration is reflected in national and supranational policy such as the African Charter on Broadcasting and the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa.

In reality, these broadcasters lack de jure independence, the basic condition for them to be considered “public.” They are, in law and in practice, state broadcasters—owed to a range of historical, social, financial, and political determinants despite attempts by journalists and civil society to change this. Principally, the political will has been lacking—in colonial as well as postcolonial elites—to relinquish control of newsrooms and open up space for dissent.

There is one exception: the South African Broadcasting Corporation was granted de jure independence following apartheid and enjoys unrivaled (though contested) legal guarantees and journalistic freedom. Its ongoing difficulties to fully meet its public broadcasting mandate despite this relatively conducive environment demonstrate that de jure independence is a necessary but not sufficient condition for successful broadcasting transformation, and that organizational culture is an important variable to be taken into account.
On the Paradox of State Religion and Religious Freedom
Authors: Elkins Zachary
Published: October 2019

This essay explores the well-known tension between the commitment to a state religion and expressions of tolerance for other religions. The background question concerns the consequences of state religion, the more suspect of the two commitments, at least with respect to intergroup relations. A useful conception of state religion is as a central part of an identity regime, which can take several forms in national constitutions. It seems likely that state religion—and other exclusive elements of identity regimes—threaten the national attachment of ethnic minorities in ways that unwind many of the benefits of tolerance provisions. A simple typology helps to understand the variation in these provisions across jurisdictions and over time, and original historical cross-national data on national constitutions describes this variation in some detail. The evidence suggests that the world’s constitutions are moving in strikingly divergent directions with respect to their provisions on religion.
Networks and Public Administration
Authors: Lemaire Robin H.
Published: October 2019

The term “networks” is a broad concept that encompasses many streams of research in the public administration literature. This article focuses on organizational networks as systems in order to bring to light the challenges in researching organizational networks that result from the obscure nature of networks. Three challenges are highlighted: nomenclature, dynamism, and effectiveness. Given how little discernible there is to networks, naming networks often relies on normative assumptions (i.e., collaborative governance) or the outcome of the network (coordination network). With the dynamic nature of networks, it is difficult to study networks because ties are temporally dependent, and latent ties may not be captured. Networks are also fluid, and participants come and go. Finally, networks work in the shadows of agencies and produce intangible and often indirect effects, so assessing effectiveness is difficult. In view of these challenges, the research focuses on topics that render the network visible, like structure, governance, and tasks. Structure illuminates the invisible connections; governance provides a tangible representation for the network; and tasks elucidate what the network does. However, all three of these research foci are plagued with issues, and the focus on these topics may further obscure the less discernible elements of networks. Recognizing the challenges involved in studying the complex, obscure phenomena of networks is warranted; otherwise, the network literature will continue to be confused and lack consensus.
Professionalization of Psychology in the Nordic Countries
Authors: Pietikainen Petteri , Vaczy Kragh Jesper
Published: October 2019

The history of psychology in the Nordic countries has distinct similarities among the countries. For centuries, close cultural and scientific ties have existed between the five countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden). Almost without exception, early Nordic university psychologists were inspired by German experimental psychology of the late 19th century. It became an almost mandatory part of their training to study psychology in Wilhelm Wundt’s laboratory in Leipzig or at similar institutions in Germany. The German model also served as an inspiration for psychological laboratories, which were established in the Nordic countries from the late 1880s onward. The first chair in psychology was established in Denmark in 1919, when Alfred Lehmann was appointed professor at the University of Copenhagen, and during the next decades Sweden, Norway, and Finland, respectively, followed suit.

Following the strong ethos of governmental social planning that was emphasized all over Western Europe in the postwar decades, Nordic psychologists aligned themselves with the state in general and with the formation of the (social-democratic) welfare state in particular. Throughout this era, applied psychology occupied a major role in psychology. At first, psychologists were engaged in “psychotechnics,” including aptitude testing, personnel selection, and vocational guidance and counseling. Then, in the postwar decades, clinical psychology became an increasingly important part of applied psychology. One could say that psychology was heavily engaged in the adjustment policy in working life, education, and counseling in all Nordic countries. At the turn of the millennium, Nordic psychology appeared to have more research into psychological disorders and psychophysiological and neuroscience research than the rest of the world, and less on educational psychology. Within the Nordic countries, Finland and Sweden form one cluster with higher proportions of psychophysiological studies, and Denmark and Norway another cluster with higher relative proportions of psychological articles dealing with health treatment and prevention. All the Nordic countries have a very high number of psychologists in relation to their populations, and psychologists have a visible societal role as “architects of adjustment” who help individuals to find their place in society.
Residues of (Post-)Kantian Philosophy in Early Scientific Psychology and Hermann von Helmholtz’s Idealism
Authors: de Kock Liesbet
Published: October 2019

German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) is widely acknowledged as one of the leading intellectuals and scientists of his time. Originally trained as a physiologist, Helmholtz contributed substantially to the fields of mathematics, physics, acoustics, ophthalmology, and the emerging science of psychology, amongst others. Not only did Helmholtz’s research interests cover a vast array of different topics, he furthermore paired his scientific endeavors with a continuous philosophical reflection upon the nature of science and knowledge, and of human cognition in general. Helmholtz’s philosophical interests were especially salient in his theory of perception, in which he attempted to reconcile his empirical viewpoint with insights derived from the idealist philosophies of Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottlieb Fichte. This dovetailing between empiricism and (transcendental) idealism has fascinated philosophers ever since the publication of Helmholtz’s work. Although Helmholtz famously rejected Kant’s theory of space, he considered his own theory of perception as a further elaboration and empirical confirmation of Kant’s and (to a lesser degree of) Fichte’s philosophical systems. Notwithstanding the abiding philosophical interest in the nature and extent of Helmholtz’s allegiance to German Idealism, the philosophical dimension of his work has not received the attention it deserves in the historiography of psychology. Revisiting Helmholtz’s intellectual relation to transcendental idealism, however, could not only help correct and enrich simplified accounts of his psychological and epistemological position, it furthermore provides a highly interesting illustration of the hitherto poorly understood relation between (neo-)Kantianism and the dawn of scientific psychology in 19th-century Germany.
Education of Refugee and Asylum-Seeking Children
Authors: Bunar Nihad
Published: October 2019

There is an increasing interest in policy and research regarding the educational experiences of refugee and asylum-seeking children. In many countries across the globe these children constitute a growing segment of the student population. Like other student categories, refugee and asylum-seeking children have rights to an equal and meaningful education. Nevertheless, numerous research contributions have proven that these children are, from the outset, in a disadvantaged position that has been further exacerbated by poorly educated teachers, a lack of resources, the absence of appropriate support, exclusion, and isolation. There is far less evidence of positive examples. Three distinct perspectives have been widely discussed in the literature: a) inclusion and exclusion through organizational spaces; b) pedagogical practices and classroom-based interventions; and c) relations between schools and refugee and asylum-seeking parents.

A review of the literature suggests that refugee and asylum-seeking students or, for that matter, other migrant students with poor socioeconomic status in a host country will never have equal educational opportunities unless their previous experiences are properly assessed, understood, and recognized and unless their first language is acknowledged as a vital vehicle for learning. Furthermore, scaffolding must be provided by language support teachers, and students must be granted access to inclusive spaces on the same terms as other non-migrant students. Finally, parents ought to be provided with platforms for active involvement and a tangible opportunity to advocate for their children’s educational rights.
Problem Solving
Authors: Mayer Richard E.
Published: October 2019

Problem solving refers to cognitive processing directed at achieving a goal when the problem solver does not initially know a solution method. A problem exists when someone has a goal but does not know how to achieve it. Problems can be classified as routine or non-routine, and as well-defined or ill-defined. The major cognitive processes in problem solving are representing, planning, executing, and monitoring. The major kinds of knowledge required for problem solving are facts, concepts, procedures, strategies, and beliefs. The theoretical approaches that have developed over the history of research on problem are associationism, Gestalt, and information processing. Each of these approaches involves fundamental issues in problem solving such as the nature of transfer, insight, and goal-directed heuristics, respectively. Some current research topics in problem solving include decision making, intelligence and creativity, teaching of thinking skills, expert problem solving, analogical reasoning, mathematical and scientific thinking, everyday thinking, and the cognitive neuroscience of problem solving. Common theme concerns the domain specificity of problem solving and a focus on problem solving in authentic contexts.
Gender and Social Life in Imperial China
Authors: Lu Weijing
Published: October 2019

Social life in imperial China was structured on the Confucian gender principles of the separation of male and female and the division of “inner and outer” spheres. Homosociality prevailed while heterosociality was limited. Homosociality dominated the forms and manners of social interaction. Men moved around freely and faced little constraint in forging relationships and networks, while women were largely homebound and secluded. In general, women enjoyed more physical freedom in earlier imperial times than in late imperial China, when seclusion of women intensified thanks to the rise of the female chastity cult and the spread of the practice of foot-binding. But even in the late imperial period, women were able to form networks and communities, in person or by means of writing. Local traditions and stages in the life cycle influenced women’s lived experiences of socialization, and class also played an important part in social life for both men and women. For example, education and a government career provided main venues for elite male socialization but for the men in lower social classes, their networks were built around localized institutions such as temple associations, sworn brotherhood, secret societies, and native place association.
Ethnic Groups of Manchuria
Authors: Janhunen Juha
Published: October 2019

Ethnic groups of the geographical region of Manchuria can be understood in relation to their cultural, demographic, and linguistic differences and similarities; historical formation; and modern status. Manchuria is a macroscopic entity, Greater Manchuria, which comprises areas administered by China (the People’s Republic of China) and Russia (the Russian Federation) as well as, until recently, by Japan. Geographically Manchuria is closely associated with the maritime dimension formed by the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Islands as well as the island of Sakhalin.
International Solidarity with FRELIMO in Mozambique during the Liberation Struggle
Authors: Tornimbeni Corrado
Published: October 2019

Nationalism in Mozambique was characterized by a plurality of leaders who competed for influence both within and outside the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO). Each of them tried to gain political support at a continental and international level, and, eventually, the leadership that rose to power within FRELIMO by the end of the 1960s and early 1970s prevailed over other components of Mozambican nationalism both on the field of the liberation war and at the diplomatic level. This leadership was highly cosmopolitan and implemented a vibrant diplomacy within the mechanisms of the Cold War worldwide.

FRELIMO was supported by newly independent African governments that were active in promoting the independence of African people in countries still under colonial rule (e.g., Tanzania, Algeria, Zambia), and then by governments from the Eastern bloc of the Cold War as well as by solidarity committees in the West (e.g., United States, Sweden and Nordic countries, United Kingdom, Italy). Within these contexts, FRELIMO secured a key political legitimacy as the genuine liberation movement of Mozambique, joined by other movements of the Portuguese colonies, South Africa, Namibia, and Southern Rhodesia—and opposed by a rival group of liberation movements from those countries. This status was also recognized among such important international organizations as Conferência das Organizações Nacionalistas das Colónias Portuguesas (CONCP), Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organisation (AAPSO), World Peace Council (WPC), Organisation of African Unity (OAU), and, eventually, the UN. Probably, the networks of solidarity with FRELIMO that developed in the West played a key role in the defeat of the Portuguese regime and in establishing the independence of Mozambique, since a number of Western European countries were formally allied with Portugal within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance.
African Feminist Thought
Authors: Mama Amina
Published: October 2019

African feminist thought refers to the dynamic ideas, reflections, theories and other expressions of intellectual practices by politically radical African women concerned with liberating Africa by focusing women’s liberation, and as such cannot be easily defined or captured. However, the conditions out of which Africa’s feminist movements form, and the intellectual labor that they carry out in the pursuit of women’s rights and freedoms can be explored and discussed. African feminist thought is the potentially limitless product of movements that are themselves constantly in the making, succeeding in changing the conditions of their formation by their very existence. African feminist political thought can be traced to the world’s women’s movements that formed in the context of transnational liberal and emancipatory political discourses of the late 19th and 20th centuries of European empire. Out of these liberal emancipatory reformist, international labor, communist, socialist revolutionary, and Pan-African Diasporic and African nationalist movements were all formed.

However, following the flag independence of over fifty nation-states, women who joined the anti-colonial freedom movements have had to pursue further struggles in independent nation-states, because Africa’s new states often hesitated or reverted to conservative patriarchal views when it came to extending freedom and equality to African women. It is as citizens of new nations that 20th century African women have formed independent feminist movements that continue to demand freedom, equality and rights, for example, by seeking freedom of movement, political representation, educational and economic equality, and perhaps most commonly of all, freedom from sex and gender-based violence.

Contemporary publications and writings by African feminists are the primary sources consulted here, because of the need to correct the spurious mis-representation of African feminism as “un-African,” a position that hinges on the definition of feminism as exclusively Western. This view is advanced by conservative African men and women who seek the restoration of pre-colonial cultures, as well as in some of the early scholarly literature on the subject.

African feminism is a radical proposition: it refers to the liberatory political philosophies, theories, writings, research and cultural production, as well as the organizing work of the transnational community of feminists from Africa. These respond to objective conditions of global systemic inequality that have led African women to resume the struggle for freedom and liberation. African feminists in 2019 identify with earlier generations of women freedom fighters but enunciate visions of a future in which the women of Africa will be afforded human rights and freedoms, on a continent liberated from a global neoliberal capitalist system that continues to marginalize the vast majority of the world’s peoples and exploits natural and human resources to a degree that now threatens planetary survival.
The Planetary Boundary Layer of Mars
Authors: Spiga Aymeric
Published: October 2019

The planetary boundary layer of Mars is a crucial component of the Martian climate and meteorology, as well as a key driver of the surface-atmosphere exchanges on Mars. As such, it is explored by several landers and orbiters; high-resolution atmospheric modeling is used to interpret the measurements by those spacecrafts. The planetary boundary layer of Mars is particularly influenced by the strong radiative control of the Martian surface and, as a result, features a more extreme version of planetary boundary layer phenomena occurring on Earth. In daytime, the Martian planetary boundary layer is highly turbulent, mixing heat and momentum in the atmosphere up to about 10 kilometers from the surface. Daytime convective turbulence is organized as convective cells and vortices, the latter giving rise to numerous dust devils when dust is lifted and transported in the vortex. The nighttime planetary boundary layer is dominated by stable-layer turbulence, which is much less intense than in the daytime, and slope winds in regions characterized by uneven topography. Clouds and fogs are associated with the planetary boundary layer activity on Mars.
Business Anthropology
Authors: Jordan Ann T.
Published: October 2019

Business anthropology is a fast-evolving field. Social sciences such as sociology, psychology, and anthropology each have a unique set of constructs and theories for studying human behavior and each brings special insights to understanding business. Anthropologists are skilled in observing and learning from the rich interaction of social beings in their environment. With methods based in techniques for first-hand observation and interviewing of participants, and with theoretical knowledge gleaned from studying human societies across the world, anthropologists are the social scientists uniquely situated by training to analyze the social milieu and group-patterned interaction in any human setting.

Simply, business anthropology is the use of anthropological constructs, theory, and methods to study its three subfields: organizations, marketing and consumer behavior, and design. Organizational anthropology is the study of complex organizations from an anthropological perspective to solve organizational problems or better understand the nature and functioning of the organizational form within and across organizations. In marketing and consumer behavior anthropology’s methods allow one to get close to consumers and understand their needs, while anthropology’s theoretical perspectives allow one to understand how human consumption plays out on the world stage. In the design field anthropologists use their methods to observe and learn from the detailed interaction of social beings in the designed environments in which we all live. They use their theoretical perspectives to develop a holistic analysis of the rich data to develop new products and evaluate and improve existing ones whether they be refrigerators or office buildings.

The field of business anthropology is difficult to define because the moniker “business anthropology” is a misnomer. This field, as most anthropologists practice it, is not limited to work in for-profit businesses. Business anthropologists work with for-profit organizations, but also non-profit ones, government organizations and with supranational regulatory bodies. In addition to working for a business, an organizational anthropologist might be working in a non-profit hospital to improve patient safety, a design anthropologist might be working for an NGO to develop a less fuel-intensive cooking system for refugee camps and an anthropologist in marketing might be working in a government agency to develop ways to advertise new vaccines.
Banking and Finance from the Revolution to the Civil War
Authors: Murphy Sharon Ann
Published: October 2019

In creating a new nation, the United States also had to create a financial system from scratch. During the period from the Revolution to the Civil War, the country experimented with numerous options. Although the Constitution deliberately banned the issuance of paper money by either Congress or the states, states indirectly reclaimed this power by incorporating state-chartered banks with the ability to print banknotes. These provided Americans with a medium of exchange to facilitate trade and an expansionary money supply to meet the economic needs of a growing nation. The federal government likewise entered into the world of money and finance with the incorporation of the First and Second Banks of the United States. Not only did critics challenge the constitutionality of these banks, but contemporaries likewise debated whether any banking institutions promoted the economic welfare of the nation or if they instead introduced unnecessary instability into the economy. These debates became particularly heated during moments of crisis. Periods of war, including the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War, highlighted the necessity of a robust financial system to support the military effort, while periods of economic panic such as the Panic of 1819, the Panics of 1837 and 1839, and the Panic of 1857 drew attention to the weaknesses inherent in this decentralized, largely unregulated system. Whereas Andrew Jackson succeeded in destroying the Second Bank of the United States during the Bank War, state-chartered commercial banks, savings banks, and investment banks still multiplied rapidly throughout the period. Numerous states introduced regulations intended to control the worst excesses of these banks, but the most comprehensive legislation occurred with the federal government’s Civil War-era Banking Acts, which created the first uniform currency for the nation.
The Vietnam War in American Memory
Authors: Hagopian Patrick
Published: October 2019

The meaning of the Vietnam War has enduringly divided Americans in the postwar period. In part because the political splits opened up by the war made it an awkward topic for conversation, Vietnam veterans felt a barrier of silence separating them from their fellow citizens. The situation of returning veterans in the war’s waning years serves as a baseline against which to measure subsequent attempts at their social reintegration. Veterans, as embodiments of the experience of the war, became vehicles through which American society could assimilate its troubled and troubling memories.

By the 1980s, greater public understanding of the difficulties of veterans’ homecoming experiences—particularly after the recognition in 1980 of the psychiatric condition, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—helped accelerate the efforts to recognize the service and sacrifices of Americans who fought in Vietnam through the creation of memorials. Because the homecoming experience was seen as crucial to the difficulties which a substantial minority suffered, the concept emerged that the nation needed to embrace its veterans in order to help restore their well-being.

Characteristic ways of talking about the veterans’ experiences coalesced into truisms and parables: the nation and its veterans needed to “reconcile” and “heal”; America must “never again” send young men to fight a war unless the government goes all-out for victory; protesters spat on the veterans and called them “baby killers” when they returned from Vietnam.

Strategists debated what the proper “lessons” of the Vietnam War were and how they should be applied to other military interventions. After the prevalent “overwhelming force” doctrine was discarded in 2003 in the invasion of Iraq, new “lessons” emerged from the Vietnam War: first came the concept of “rapid decisive operations,” and then counterinsurgency came back into vogue. In these interrelated dimensions, American society and politics shaped the memory of the Vietnam War.
The Cultural Cold War
Authors: Iber Patrick
Published: October 2019

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union each sought to portray their way of organizing society—liberal democracy or Communism, respectively—as materially and morally superior. In their bids for global leadership, each sponsored “front” groups that defended their priorities and values to audiences around the world. These campaigns frequently enrolled artists and intellectuals, whose lives, works, and prestige could be built up, torn down, exploited, or enhanced through their participation in these groups. Alongside overt diplomatic efforts, the United States funded a number of organizations secretly through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). These efforts are often described as belonging to the “Cultural Cold War,” although the programs in fact supported overlapping networks that did anti-Communist work among labor unions, students, and others in addition to artists and intellectuals. The major CIA-sponsored group of intellectuals was the Congress for Cultural Freedom, established in 1950, and the “freedom” in its name was the major concept deployed by United States–aligned propagandists, to emphasize their differences from totalitarianism. The Cultural Cold War, as a program of psychological warfare conducted by the US government, grew out of the intersecting experiences of the left in the 1930s and the security apparatus of the United States at the dawn of the Cold War. The covert nature of the programs allowed them to evade scrutiny from the US Congress, and therefore to engage in activities that might otherwise have been stopped: working with people with radical political biographies or who still identified as “socialists,” or sponsoring avant-garde art, such as abstract expressionist painting. The programs spanned the globe, and grew in scope and ambition until their exposure in 1967. Subsequently, the United States has developed other mechanisms, such as the National Endowment for Democracy, to promote organizations within civil society that support its interests.
The Book of Ecclesiastes (Qohelet)
Authors: Bolin Thomas M.
Published: October 2019

Multiple questions surrounding the book of Ecclesiastes (Qohelet or Qoheleth in Hebrew)—including the identity of the book’s author and how it fits with other biblical texts—have long fascinated and confounded readers. In regard to authorship, scholarship since the late 19th century has dispensed with the tradition that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, but exactly who is responsible for the present form of the text and why he chooses to call himself “Qohelet” remains unknown. Multiple voices in the book appear to compete over theological and religious questions concerning divine justice and the efficacy of ethical behavior. The voice that frames the words of Qohelet both cites Qohelet’s teaching with approval and appears to undermine them in the book’s epilogue. The linguistic and lexical features of the book are late biblical Hebrew but contain several repeating keywords, each with connotations whose meanings shade into others and which cannot be understood with facile one-to-one renderings. Ecclesiastes contains no undisputed allusions or citations of other biblical material, despite its being one of the latest compositions in the Hebrew Bible, but it does reference material found in the Old Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, a work over a millennium older than Ecclesiastes. The book resists the attempt to reduce its message to coherent themes, and modern critical scholarship sees in Ecclesiastes a mirror that shows the field’s own methodological flaws. The book’s aphoristic quality, vivid description of life’s joys and sorrows, and unflinching engagement with the limits of religion have insured its influence as a cultural touchstone.
Buddhism in Colonial Contexts
Authors: Ober Douglas
Published: October 2019

Scholars have long recognized the transformative impact that colonialism had on Buddhist institutions, identities, thought, and practice. The period marked the rise of politicized identities linking Buddhism to anti-colonial nationalist movements alongside boisterous discussions about reforming Buddhism to its “innate” humanistic, scientific core. For many decades, histories of Buddhism under colonialism generally subscribed to a singular narrative in which colonial forces leveled such monumental changes that almost all forms of modern Buddhism were seen as derivative of ideologies introduced by Western colonial regimes. These narratives, however, only tell some of the story. Beginning in the last decades of the 20th century, scholarship has increasingly shown how Buddhists responded in a multitude of ways to colonial influence. There was resistance and collusion as well as instances where colonial systems had only minimal impact. Numerous ideas about Buddhism which for most of the 20th century were taken for granted—that the text is closer to “true” Buddhism than contemporary practice, that texts composed in “classical” languages are more authoritative than those in the vernacular, that Buddhism is not really a religion at all but more like a science of the mind or philosophy, that Buddhism is less ritualistic and more rational than other religious traditions, and so on—have their roots in the colonial encounter with Buddhism. Any student wishing to understand the place of Buddhism during the colonial period must consider the multiple trajectories and plural histories rather than singular, monolithic narratives.
The Kadampa: A Formative Movement of Tibetan Buddhism
Authors: Roesler Ulrike
Published: October 2019

The Bka’ gdams pa (pronounced “Kadampa”) emerged as a distinct tradition of Tibetan Buddhism in the 11th century ce. The most common understanding of the name in Tibetan sources is that this tradition taught the complete word of the Buddha (bka’) as explained in the instructions (gdams) of the Indian teacher Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna (982–1054). This is sometimes specified as referring to his instructions on the graded path (lam rim) toward Buddhahood that were later adopted and propagated by the Dge lugs pa (pronounced “Gelugpa”) school, beginning with Tsong kha pa’s (1357–1419) influential Lam rim chen mo. It is commonly assumed that during the 15th century, the Bka’ gdams pa were absorbed into Tsong kha pa’s reform movement of the “new Bka’ gdams pa” (bka’ gdams gsar ma), later known as the Dge lugs pa, but further research is needed on this issue.

Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna, also known by his Indian honorific title Atiśa[ya] or Adhīśa, was invited to western Tibet by its rulers and arrived there in 1042. At the request of King Byang chub ’od (984–1078), he composed his famous “Lamp on the Path to Awakening” (Bo-dhi-pathapradīpa; Tib. Byang chub lam sgron), which became an important model for Tibetan works on the graded path to awakening. He then accepted an invitation to central Tibet where he spent the rest of his life. He passed away in Snye thang near Lhasa in 1054.

Several of Atiśa’s Tibetan students played an important role in the development of Buddhism on the Tibetan plateau. However, it is his student ’Brom ston Rgyal ba’i ’byung gnas (pronounced “Dromtön Gyelway Jungnay,” 1004–1064) who is traditionally regarded as the founding father of the Tibetan Bka’ gdams pa lineage since his students became instrumental in spreading the Bka’ gdams pa teachings in central Tibet. In addition to the lam rim, they became famous for their instructions on “mental purification” or “mind training” (blo sbyong, pronounced “Lojong”), which is meant to free the mind from attachment to the ego and generate the attitude of the “awakening mind” (Skt. bodhicitta). Lam rim and blo sbyong became highly popular doctrinal and didactic genres and have had an impact on Tibetan Buddhism far beyond the Bka’ gdams pa and Dge lugs pa traditions.

The Bka’ gdams pa are often perceived as a tradition with an emphasis on monasticism and Mahāyāna ethics, rather than on yogic and tantric practice. However, it should be kept in mind that Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna himself had grown up in the tantric traditions of Bengal. His work on the stages of the path to awakening includes instructions on tantra, but states that tantric practice may not contradict the vows taken (thus excluding antinomian practices for monastics). The early Tibetan Bka’ gdams pa masters take the same stance and promote the idea that Pāramitānaya (i.e., non-tantric Mahāyāna Buddhism) and tantra have the same validity and lead to the same goal, thus trying to strike a balance between the two approaches.
Pardos, Free Blacks, and Slave Rebellions in Venezuela during the Age of the Atlantic Revolutions
Authors: Soriano Cristina
Published: October 2019

During the last decades of the 18th century, Venezuela witnessed the emergence of several popular rebellions and conspiracies organized against the colonial government. Many of these movements demanded the reduction or elimination of taxes and the Indian tribute, the transformation of the political system, and fundamental changes for the social order with the abolition of slavery and the declaration of equality among different socio-racial groups. While demanding concrete changes in the local contexts, many of these movements reproduced the political language of republican rights enshrined by the American, French, and Haitian revolutions. Obsessed with silencing and containing local echoes of Franco-Caribbean republican values, the Spanish Crown and colonial agents sought to defuse these political movements, which they viewed as destabilizing, seditious, and extremely dangerous. This proved to be an impossible task; Venezuela was located at the center of the Atlantic Revolutions and its population became too familiar with these political movements: hand-copied samizdat materials from the Caribbean flooded the cities and ports of Venezuela, hundreds of foreigners shared news of the French and Caribbean revolutions with locals, and Venezuelans of diverse social backgrounds met to read hard-to-come-by texts and to discuss the ideas they expounded. During the Age of Revolutions, these written and oral information networks served to efficiently spread anti-monarchical propaganda and abolitionist and egalitarian ideas that sometimes led to rebellions and political unrest.
Brazilian Universities and Politics in the 20th Century
Authors: Sá Motta Rodrigo Patto
Published: October 2019

Recently Brazil reached the mark of eight million university students, which represents around 4 percent of the population. Although this level is less than those in developed countries, it signifies an advance in relation to the country’s starting point.

Unlike Spain, the Portuguese Empire did not create university institutions in its colonies. Following the Independence of Brazil in 1822, the new governing elite established some higher-level courses (initially medicine, law, and engineering), but these functioned in isolation, in other words, university institutions were not created. The first universities emerged only in the 1920s and were regulated during the Getúlio Vargas administration (1931). Since then, higher-level education has been the object of greater public attention—as well as political conflicts—due to both its role in development projects and its capacity to produce leaders. Between the 1940s and 1960s, university students became a relevant political force, having engaged in debates for university reform and also in favor of social changes, contributing to the process of political radicalization abruptly ended by the 1964 military coup. The dictatorship led by the military implemented an authoritarian modernization of the universities, repressing and purging the “undesirables” at the same time that it increased investment in research and graduate studies. The results were paradoxical, since although the dictatorship created a better structured university system, it was a more authoritarian and socially elitist one.

The first post-dictatorial governments maintained the university structure inherited from the previous period, but they deteriorated due to a lack of public resources caused by hyperinflation and also by the intention of reducing public expenditure on higher education.

The country managed to improve its higher-level institutions during the 20th century, which became strategic spaces for political battles and, for this reason, targets of constant state intervention. Despite the reforms and the expansion, universities were marked by elitism and social inequality, like Brazilian society itself, problems that only recently have started to be addressed. Only in the 21st century did Brazilian universities undergo a new expansionist phase, led by the center-left Brazilian governments which, in addition to expanding the public system, also invested in the inclusion of social sectors that previously had no access to higher education. It appears that this process may be interrupted, thanks to the “right turn” experienced by Brazil since 2016–2018.