bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Haskamah of History or Why Did the Dutch Wissenschaft des Judentums Spurn Zunz’s Writings?
Authors: Zwiep Irene E.
Published: February 2014

Abstract

According to common opinion, nineteenth-century Dutch Jewry never developed a follow-up to the German Wissenschaft des Judentums. This paper makes a case for the opposite: Dutch Jewish intellectuals not only were avid readers of Wissenschaft publications, they also used them extensively as sources of inspiration and information. The result, however, lacked the academic dimension of the German tradition. Instead, Dutch Jewish scholars consistently merged the results of critical scholarship with the edifying content of the traditional treatises they were translating and annotating. Time-bound historical truth thus served to affirm the timeless truth of Jewish ethics. It is further argued that this indeed somewhat derivative strategy was more than a mere sign of conservatism or scholarly mediocrity. The Dutch Wissenschaft soon became one of the key instruments in formulating a new Jewish civic identity in the decades following the Emancipation Decree of 1796. Working from rather than towards political equality, the Dutch Jewish scholars could afford to ignore the radical content of Jewish national philology as developed by Leopold Zunz and his German colleagues.
The Concept of Preventive Diplomacy and Its Application by the United Nations in Central Asia
Authors: Jenča Miroslav
Published: February 2014

The century-old concept of preventive diplomacy has grown in prominence since the end of the Cold War, and was strengthened by the failures of the international community to prevent the violence in places such as Rwanda and Yugoslavia. The United Nations has undertaken a range of preventive activities in Central Asia, including in partnership with relevant regional actors. This paper considers the role of the United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA) in terms of transboundary threats, domestic developments in Kyrgyzstan, and the management of common resources.
Youth and Democracy: The Promotion of Youth Participation by the International Community in Kosovo
Authors: Feltes Tilmann
Published: February 2014

Kosovo is a good example of the successes and failures of international efforts to promote democratization. From 1999 to 2008, the territory was an UN-protectorate and democracy promotion was largely in the hands of the international community. Even today, five years after the self-declaration of independence and the acquisition of full sovereignty in September 2012, the influence of the international community is still tremendous. Hopes for the democratic development of the country are largely invested in the young generation. This paper, based on interviews with local and international experts, and a survey of students in Pristina, examines whether the criticisms of the international community also apply to the promotion of political participation by the young generation. It also considers the co-ordination of activities between international organisations and local organisations.
Norm Contestation and the Responsibility to Protect
Authors: Welsh Jennifer M.
Published: February 2014

Drawing on international relations theory, this article seeks to both account for and analyze the contestation that continues to surround the norm of R2P. It begins in Section I by arguing that while the 2005 Summit Outcome Document – as an example of ‘institutionalization’ – provided greater precision about the source, scope, and bearer of the responsibility to protect, there is continuing debate about when the international community’s remedial role in protection can and should be activated. In order to understand this reality – which is a challenge to positivist and linear accounts of normative change – we must embrace the intuitions of post-positivist constructivist scholars about the intersubjective nature of norms, and their emphasis on analyzing norms’ ‘meaning in use’. Section II demonstrates in more detail the two kinds of contestation surrounding R2P: procedural contestation concerning who (which body) should ‘own’ its development as a norm; and substantive contestation about its content. R2P is particularly susceptible to contestation, given its inherently indeterminate nature, and the erroneous tendency to measure its impact in terms of whether or not military intervention occurs in particular cases. To respond to these issues, it is argued that the norm of R2P is best conceived as a responsibility to consider a real or imminent crisis involving mass atrocity crimes - what in legal literature is sometimes called a ‘duty of conduct’. Whether or not international action actually occurs - particularly action involving military force - depends on a series of other factors. The final section addresses the challenge to constructivist scholars to be more transparent about the normative commitments that underpin their empirical studies of normative change. It argues that the contestation surrounding R2P can be better understood by giving greater attention to the normative underpinnings of contemporary critiques of the principle – most prominently those which stress the importance of sovereignty equality.
Water Pricing and Cost Recovery in Water Services in Portugal
Authors: Aragão Alexandra
Published: February 2014

The European water directive forced the Member States to rethink the regulation of water services. Water pricing is now guided by the cost recovery principle. The costs to take into account are manly the environmental and resource costs, but also the financial ones. Portugal was no exception. The evolution from a heavily subsidized activity to a business bound by the polluter pays principle required fast changes and a somewhat difficult adaptation both of economic agents and households.
Disaster, Communication and Legitimization of Power in Russia: The Case of the Forest Fires in Summer 2010
Authors: Bertrand Eva
Published: February 2014

Focusing on Vladimir Putin’s communication during the summer fires of 2010, this article questions the process of political legitimization in times of natural disasters. The reinsurance of stability and legitimacy is one of the key challenges for political power, and its leaders, after a natural or technical disaster. After the fires of 2010, this process of legitimacy restoration has resulted in an overexposure of the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the media. This article argues that the process of power legitimization in the Russian state consists in a communication, which is based on the idea of a leader’s protection of, or proximity to, the population; on the idea of power euergetism, or donations, and on the definition of a reestablished normality.
Late Soviet Responses to Disasters, 1989-1991: A New Approach to Crisis Management or the Acme of Soviet Technocratic Thinking?
Authors: Elie Marc
Published: February 2014

Under Gorbachev, the Soviet government proved unable to face the dismantling tendencies that led ultimately to the collapse of the Soviet Union as a political regime and a territorial state—the awakening of nationalism, the loss of state legitimacy, ecological disaster, and financial crisis, to name only a few. This article reveals that the Soviet government was acutely aware of these growing risks and of the need to address them in a new way. It analyzes how emergency management developed in the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s and draws attention to the activity of the State Commission for Emergency Situations (GKChS), a little-known, but influential governmental agency created in July 1989 to respond to the disasters plaguing the country, be they industrial, natural, ecological, or social.
Hegemonic Relationships: Donor Countries and NGOs in Western Balkan Post-Conflict Reconstruction
Authors: Tzifakis Nikolaos , Huliaras Asteris
Published: February 2014

The impact of Non-Governmental Organizations’ reconstruction activities in Bosnia and Kosovo was largely determined by the nature and content of two dominant relationships. The first is the donor countries-International NGO (INGO) relationship. To grasp the importance of this relationship, it suffices to mention that, at the global level, donors give around five times more funds to INGOs (and more precisely to their own national NGOs) than to Local NGOs (LNGOs). The second is the International NGO-LNGO relationship. With respect to the first relationship, donor countries had a clear hegemonic position vis-à-vis INGOs. In turn, INGOs developed a hegemonic position towards LNGOs. These hegemonic relationships undermined the quality and effectiveness of aid disbursed and failed to promote the development of an open and democratic civil society. More interestingly, although most donors and INGOs got involved in the post-conflict reconstruction of both countries, very weak learning processes seem to have operated in the region. A comparative examination of the two reconstruction efforts reveals that the manifestation of many inefficiencies and failures was indeed even more acute in Kosovo than in Bosnia.
International Assistance Programmes and the Reform of Vocational Education in the Western Balkans: Sources of Policy Failure
Authors: Bartlett Will
Published: February 2014

Over the last twenty years, numerous international assistance programmes have aimed to provide support for reconstruction and assist the policy reform process in the Western Balkans. In this context, concerns have arisen that poor government policies and inadequate donor coordination have reduced the effectiveness of such assistance. The paper discusses the sources of policy success and policy failure of such international assistance programmes within a principal-agent framework that models the influence of misaligned objectives, differing incentive structures, asymmetric information and moral hazard facing the different actors in the institutional structure of assistance programmes. In this political economy approach the varying influences on multiple principals and agents are key determinants of the effectiveness of policy. The paper takes a sectoral view in examining assistance programmes in the vocational education sector, where large donor effort has been applied in the Western Balkans over the last decade to modernise and reform the education system. The specific focus is on secondary vocational education in Serbia. The paper identifies causes of policy failure in EU pre-accession assistance in this key policy area.
An Ambiguous Institution: Slavery, the State, and the Law in Colonial Massachusetts
Authors: Ross Hardesty Jared
Published: February 2014

This essay examines the impact the state had in shaping slavery in colonial Massachusetts. Like other parts of the early modern English-speaking world, there was no legal precedent for slavery, meaning that positive law had to enforce and define the institution. Even more problematic for Massachusetts, however, the colonial assembly passed few statutes regarding slavery, leaving it to the courts and town selectmen to govern slavery on an ad hoc and informal basis. As opposed to strict slave codes in the Southern colonies, the legally ambiguous status of slavery in Massachusetts allowed slaves to make use of a legal system that granted them the right to a fair trial and full legal recourse. By using the courts, then, African-Americans created an innovative and effective path to freedom by the late colonial period.
How distant is gurbet? Refik Halid’s representation of Arabs in Gurbet Hikayeleri — with a note on Ottoman and Turkish Orientalisms
Authors: Karateke Hakan T.
Published: February 2014

This article explores Refik Halid’s (Karay) reflections of his time in exile in Bilad al- Sham and other localities on the Arabian peninsula, as collected in semiautobiographical short stories written during the 1930s and published as Gurbet Hikayeleri (Exile Stories), and compares Refik Halid’s views of the Arab locals with the attitudes described by Ussama Makdisi and Edhem Eldem as “Ottoman Orientalism” and “Turkish Orientalism” respectively. However, I am inclined not to restrict such belittling attitudes towards the subjects who lived in the cultural peripheries of the empire to the nineteenth century. It seems necessary to develop a definition of Ottoman Orientalism that does not restrict the term to the age of reforms, one that can place the perceptions and tensions between groups of people within the empire in their historical perspective.
Fakhri (Fahrettin) Paşa and the end of Ottoman rule in Medina (1916-1919)
Authors: Strohmeier Martin
Published: February 2014

The siege of Medina (1916-1919) is one of the more significant events in the Near Eastern theatre in World War I. Fakhri Paşa (Fahrettin Türkkan, 1868-1948), the legendary figure of the siege, resisted several demands of the Sharif of Mecca, Husayn ibn ʿAli, and the British to surrender and even ignored orders from Istanbul to hand over the city but was eventually forced to surrender. The events in Medina have not gone unnoticed by historiography, although a full appreciation has still to be given. Eye witness reports by officers of the Ottoman garrison in Medina have constituted the basis for the narrative of the siege of Medina. British documents have added to our knowledge. Other sources used are the partially unpublished papers of Fakhri Paşa and German material.
Some Central Elements of Socratic Political Theory
Authors: Morrison Donald
Published: February 2014

The fundamental concepts of Socratic political theory are statesmanship or the art of politics, and the good of the city. Important scholars have denied that, on Socrates’ view, statesmanship as such is possible. But Socratic intellectualism does not commit him to the view that the methods of politics, such as legislation and punishment, are useless. The Socratic tradition in political theory is rich and varied. Among the dimensions of variation are: the relationship between statesmanship and other arts of rule; what are the limits of reasonable human ambition; and the relationship between the well-being of the city and the well-being of its parts. At the core of Socratic moral and political theory is a commitment to choose what is truly good. Varieties of Socratic value theory arise from the different ways in which this commitment is interpreted, and the range of realms to which it is applied.
Socrates and Democracy
Authors: Yonezawa Shigeru
Published: February 2014

The aim of this paper is to reveal Socrates as a thorough democrat. In the first section, I will disprove the credibility of Xenophon’s Memorabilia, a common source for scholars who view Socrates as an antidemocratic thinker. I will then argue, in the second section, that the views of a few scholars who portray Socrates as a prodemocratic thinker represent a far-from-satisfactory depiction of his political views. In the third section, I will then demonstrate that Socrates’ criticism of democracy is not of democracy itself nor of Athenian laws, but instead a criticism of a particular sort of democracy seen in the period of Athenian imperialism, and that it derives from his fundamental recognition of human ignorance. After pointing out Socrates’ special preference for the democratic laws of Athens, seen in the Crito, I will establish, in the fourth section, a preference in his philosophy showing him as a staunch democrat who upheld the concept of the rule of law.
Aristotle and Aeschylus on the Rise of the Polis: The Necessity of Justice in Human Life
Authors: Angell Bates Clifford
Published: February 2014

Aeschylus’ Oresteia supports Aristotle’s claim about the naturalness of the city and the city’s role in shaping justice for humans. In the Oresteia, Aeschylus shows how the city’s justice is the only way to control the wrath of the Furies (which symbolize the power of blood ties and the family bonds). Aeschylus shows that the city and its justice tames the Furies and provides for the only way by which the husband-wife relation, which is not a blood tie but provides the basis for which the family (the source of blood ties) is even possible, can be preserved and be secure from the passions the Furies release in their quest for revenge. The Furies and their desire for vengeance for the violation of the blood bond, threaten to undermine the very basis on which the family is founded: the husband-wife bond. Thus Aeschylus gives support and aids Aristotle’s position that the husband-wife bond is a political bond and rests within the realm of the city and the political.
Was Attic Tragedy Democratic?
Authors: Carter D.M.
Published: February 2014

This article begins with a detailed response to Simon Goldhill's paper in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, 107 (1987), on the civic ideology surrounding Attic tragedy. His view, that the Dionysia was a festival promoting the values of the democratic polis, requires substantial qualification. I then suggest my own interpretation of the evidence Goldhill cites for ceremonies at the Dionysia, referring also to several of the dramas. Tragedy at the Dionysia was presented in front of an audience from all over the Greek world. As a result, (1) political ideas in tragedy for the most part are relevant both to democracies and to other cities; (2) where Athens appears in tragedy, it tends to be presented more as a benevolent imperial power, and less often as a democracy.
Aristotle on the Rule of Law
Authors: Wexler Steve , Irvine Andrew
Published: February 2014

In Politics III.10 and IV.4, Aristotle discusses the difference between governments that are regulated by the rule of law and those that are not. Although he concludes that the rule of law helps guard against arbitrary and injudicious government action, Aristotle is also sensitive to the fact that in a democracy it is essential for the people to remain sovereign over the law. His discussion is helpful for understanding, not only the tension between the ‘rule of law’ and the ‘rule of men’, but also the complex role the rule of law plays in any modern democracy.
Politics and Method in Plato’S Political Theory
Authors: Klosko Klosko
Published: February 2014

For much of the past century, Barker and other scholars took Plato seriously as a political actor, and so considered his political activities and those of the school he founded in interpreting his political works. As a result, these scholars viewed the Republic and Laws as bearing on practical politics, perhaps as blueprints for intended political reform. Although I do not argue for the strong thesis that the works should be accepted as blueprints, I believe they should be read against the backdrop of Plato’s political activities. Doing so allows us to recognize strong connections between Plato’s political aspirations and the views advanced by his main characters in the Republic and Laws. Consistency of views represented by Plato’s political activities and the overt content of his political works support non-ironic, essentially non-literary, readings of these works.
Socrates and the Politics of Music: Preludes of the Republic
Authors: Long Christopher P.
Published: February 2014

At least since the appearance of Aristotle’s Politics, Plato’s Republic has been read as arguing for a politics of unity in which difference is understood as a threat to the polis. By focusing on the musical imagery of the Republic, and specifically on its compositional organization around three ‘preludes’, this essay seeks an understanding of Socratic politics that moves beyond the hypothesis of unity. In the first ‘prelude’, Thrasymachus and his insistence that justice is the self-interest of the stronger threatens to subject the harmony of the community to the tyrannical whims of the individual. In the second, the perfected justice of Adeimantus’s city threatens to destroy the erotic rhythm of difference that is the very condition for the possibility of the polis. It is only in the song of dialectic, which itself is called a ‘prelude’, that the tension between the rhythm of plurality and the rational homophony of unity is dynamically tuned in such a way that both the anarchic politics of self-interest and the totalitarian politics of rationalized oppression are equally muted. This conception of politics is embodied in the relationship that emerges between Glaucon and Socrates. Ultimately, the true political community is established here, between rational, erotic individuals seeking justice in concrete, living dialogue.
Plato’S Chimera: The Transitional Polis in Republic
Authors: Mahoney Paul O
Published: February 2014

This article examines the significance of the image of the Chimera which Socrates invites Glaucon to mould in Book IX of Republic. It argues that the image, when explicitly intended to represent the just and rationally autonomous individual soul, must also, in keeping with Socrates’ methodological procedure in the dialogue, correspond to a political structure. We argue that, as it cannot correspond to or represent the structure of the Kallipolis, the city this soul would correspond to would be the approximately just polis from which the Kallipolis could emerge. The question thus arises as to what kind of individual or which class of persons each part of the tripartite soul can be assigned in a political context. We conclude that the answer supplied and best supported by the dialogue is a rule of the philosopher over a demos or tyrant through the intermediary aid of a rhetorician.
Platonic Myths and Straussian Lies: The Logic of Persuasion
Authors: Royce Moore Kenneth
Published: February 2014

This article undertakes to examine the reception of Platonic theories of falsification in the contemporary philosophy of Leo Strauss and his adherents. The aim of the article is to consider the Straussian response to, and interaction with, Platonic ideas concerning deception and persuasion with an emphasis on the arguments found in the Laws. The theme of central interest in this analysis is Plato’s development of paramyth in the Laws. Paramyth entails the use of rhetorical language in order to persuade the many that it is to their advantage to obey certain laws. It does so without explaining in detail why a given law is ethically correct and its use assumes that the audience, on the whole, is not capable of understanding the finer philosophical underpinnings of the law. The so-called ‘noble lie’ of the Republic is also considered in this context. The crucial issue, for Plato if not for Strauss, is whether or not an instance of falsification, however minor, for the purposes of persuasion contains ‘truth-value’, that is, whether it is morally justifiable in terms of ends and means. In terms of Strauss’s reception of Plato, such issues as ancient Hebrew mysticism, Medieval Jewish and Islamic scholarship and Heideggerian Phenomenology figure in the argument. Ultimately, the article finds that Strauss and his followers have constructed a particular view of Platonic ideas that, while unique, is not compatible with their original signification.
Big Boys And Little Boys: Justice And Law In Xenophon’s Cyropaedia and Memorabilia
Authors: Danzig Gabriel
Published: February 2014

Xenophon’s anecdote concerning the exchange of clothes between a big boy and a little boy in Cyropaedia (1.3.16–18) offers a valuable framework for understanding his conception of justice and the problematics of administering it. Interpreters have erred by assuming that Cyrus’ teacher, as well as Socrates in Memorabilia, simply identifies the just with the lawful. Rather than identifying the two, both characters argue that the law is just; but they differ widely in their explanations of what makes the law just. For Cyrus’ teacher, the obligation to observe the law rests on a universal pre-legal ban on violence; for Socrates statutory law is to be obeyed for utilitarian reasons. Socrates’ view thus justifies both the teacher’s insistence that Cyrus obey the law—since the law is of benefit to the community—and also Cyrus’ decision to violate the law to achieve a just and beneficial redistribution. But it offers no justification for a universal ban on violence. In conformity with the Socratic principle, Cyrus avoids violence as far as possible, but only for the prudential reasons expressed by his mother. Once he acquires the power to coerce, Cyrus uses it to enforce the principle of proportional equality and meritorious redistribution he had approved in his judgment of the actions of the big boy.
Politics and Medicine: Plato’s Final Word Part I: Sphilosopher-Rulers and the Laws: Thing of the Past or (Un)Expected Return?
Authors: Levin Susan B.
Published: February 2014

Recently the view that Plato moves from optimism to pessimism concerning the best sociopolitical condition has come under attack. The present article concurs that this disjunction is too simplistic and finds emphasis on the regulative status of the Republic’s ideal of unity to be salutary. It diverges, however, on how to interpret it thus construed and the implications of its status as regulative for the Republic’s tie to the Laws where human governance is concerned. While unity through aretē remains the guiding telos of Magnesia, the route through which it is sought diverges substantially from that of Kallipolis. This article demonstrates that it stretches the notion beyond all reasonable limits to call the Laws’ unity an approximation of the Republic’s and its infrastructure for communal maintenance, above all, the nocturnal council, the approximation of philosopher-rulers for which the earlier dialogue calls.
Thucydidean Answers to Nietzschean Questions: What is Religious?
Authors: Patrick Newton Benjamin
Published: February 2014

Questions of nature’s role in politics — what constitutes a people, justice, necessity — thread together into a singular significant problem: what is religious? This essay begins with the aim of defining religiosity—to say what it is. Thucydides serves as an invaluable educator. With Thucydides’ History we can analyse human nature writ large: we see the rise of a people, observe their division, note the dissolution of their ‘ancestral’ and finally question the cancer of self-doubt that sets in as to the justness of their Justice — that is to say: their crisis of faith. But how to question Thucydides? The questions Nietzsche raised in his ‘On the Use and Abuse of History for Life’ aremost relevant and revealing to the topic at hand. What is Religious? examines the nascent emergence and mature decline of a people, it strives to grasp the modus operandi behind it, it seeks a forward philosophy.
Laughing to Learn: Irony in the Republic as Pedagogy
Authors: Fine Jonathan
Published: February 2014

Although recent commentators have attended to dramatic and ironic aspects of Plato’s Republic, a more sustained examination of the relation between irony and the exchanges of Socrates and Glaucon is required because a crucial purpose and presentation of the irony have largely gone unnoticed. This paper argues that Socratesemploys irony in part to parody Glaucon’s extremism and that he does so to exhort Glaucon to think critically. First, it examines how Socrates uses the term makaria (blessedness) primarily ironically and pedagogically. Then, a possible reason for this use of makaria is advanced: aspects of Kallipolis are a parody of Glaucon and that the parody aims to instruct Glaucon intellectually. This paper hopes to show that such a reading deserves further articulation and examination.
Democratic and Aristocratic Aristotle: An Aristotelian Response to Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach
Authors: Inamura Kazutaka
Published: February 2014

This paper addresses the problem of how to make ‘democratic’ elements in Aristotle’s political philosophy compatible with his aristocratic framework for distributing political authority. To this end, it is argued that in Aristotle’s framework, the idea of aristocratic governance is justified, because it contributes most greatly to the achievement of the well-being of people in a city (Politics III.9), or the common benefit of a wide range of free individuals (Politics III.6 and 7), and that Aristotle’s argument for the wisdom of the multitude (Politics III.11) is actually not democratic, but rather aristocratic to the extent that he proposes integrating the multitude into the deliberative and judicial processes by identifying their ‘virtuous character’ as a group, not by offering an idea that human beings are created equal. The paper also offers a more constructive criticism of Nussbaum’s capabilities approach by arguing that Aristotle’s aristocratic idea of distributive justice provides more useful insights into the problem of popular participation than Nussbaum’s emphasis on people’s capacity for choosing their own way of life.
Analysis of Tibetan Language Prints Produced During the Yuan Period (hor spar ma)
Authors: Sangpo Kawa Sherab
Published: February 2014

This article presents newly discovered Tibetan prints that were produced at the Yuan court in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. These finds contribute substantially to a new understanding of the history of Tibetan printing and highlight the role of the Yuan imperial family – and its female members in particular – as promoters and sponsors of printing projects.
The Fight Against Piracy and the Law of the Sea
Authors: Treves Tullio
Published: February 2014

This article presents some reflections on the impact on the law of the sea of the Security Council resolutions on piracy off the coasts of Somalia. Although they extend the powers concerning the repression of piracy all States enjoy on the high seas under UNCLOS and customary international law to the territorial sea of Somalia, these resolutions explicitly exclude that such extension modifies the customary rule that limits piracy to the high seas. As such exclusion does not encompass other general rules of the law of the sea relevant for piracy, the resolutions may be read as relevant elements illuminating the meaning of these rules. The rules of UNCLOS on which the Security Council resolutions shed light include Article 3, setting 12 miles as the maximum width of the territorial sea, Article 77, which, read a contrario sensu, states the requirement of express proclamation for the exclusive economic zone, Article 105, second sentence, as regards the States that may establish judicial proceedings against pirates. The peculiar situation of ineffectiveness of governmental authority in Somalia and uncertainty about the maritime zones of this country explain many aspects of the Security Council’s attitude.
Prior Exhaustion of Internal Remedies in Cases Involving the International Responsibility of the European Union
Authors: Vezzani Simone
Published: February 2014

As recognised by the International Law Commission in the 2011 Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organisations, the rule of the prior exhaustion of internal remedies also applies to cases where the international responsibility of international organisations is invoked, be it in the field of diplomatic protection or human rights. This essay focuses on the application of this rule to the European Union (EU). The author maintains that the legal remedies available to individuals alleging injury as a result of an internationally wrongful act of the EU include both direct remedies before EU courts and remedies before domestic tribunals. He then scrutinises whether each remedy is capable of providing individuals with accessible and effective means of redress.
What fascism is not and is. Thoughts on the re-inflation of a concept
Authors: Griffin Roger
Published: February 2014

This new section of the journal is polemical in intent and sets out to stimulate debate. For submission of your contributions (max. 800 words) please visit the website (brill.com/fascism). The journal’s consultant editor Roger Griffin sets the ball rolling.
Fascist Ideologues. Past and Present
Authors: Copsey Nigel
Published: February 2014

This international conference, organised by Teesside University in conjunction with the University of Cambridge (John Pollard), offered a variety of perspectives on leading fascist and far-right ideologues over the course of the twentieth (and into the twenty-first) century. Focusing upon the historical impact and contemporary influence of key far-right figures and intellectual trends (such as transnationalism and meta-politics), the conference brought together speakers over two days of academic discussion. The conference served several purposes: to examine the continuities and changes in fascist ideology; to present a report on the turn to online anti-Muslim hate by the contemporary far right in Britain; and to mark the formal launch of a new Centre for Fascist, Anti-Fascist and Post-Fascist Studies (CFAPS) based at Teesside University.
Uranium Mining in Nunavut
Authors: Göcke Katja
Published: February 2014

Abstract

The Inuit in the Canadian Arctic have fought uranium mining on their ancestral lands for years. In 1993, after decades of negotiations, the federal government and Inuit representatives signed the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (“NLCA”), which not only provided for the creation of the Territory of Nunavut as new political entity within the Canadian federal system and the establishment of a public territorial government, but also transferred land and resource ownership over vast areas of the newly-created territory, as well as considerable co-management rights, to the Inuit of Nunavut. To govern these special rights and benefits on behalf of the Inuit of Nunavut and to watch over the implementation of and adherence to the NLCA, the NLCA established the Inuit-organization Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (“NTI”). Initially NTI banned uranium mining. In 2007, however, NTI reversed its stance and adopted a pro-uranium policy without prior Inuit, community or public input. Following the adoption of the new policy, several uranium mining companies have started to negotiate agreements with NTI to open mines on Inuit-owned lands. NTI’s decision to lift its ban on uranium mining has not only initiated a public debate on the safety and desirability of uranium mining in Nunavut but also calls the legitimacy of the political system of Nunavut into question. This paper will look at the different stakeholders involved in the uranium controversy and their powers to take and influence decisions regarding uranium mining. It is argued that the uranium controversy has revealed a democracy deficit that needs to be addressed.
The Shape of Things to Come: The Russian Federation and the Northern Sea Route in 2011
Authors: Franckx Erik
Published: February 2014

Abstract

The Arctic has recently been catapulted from the back burner of international attention to the forefront of the global agenda. The dissolution of the Soviet Union as well as climate change seem to be responsible for a marked heating up not only of its physical environment, but also of the political tensions concerning the exact legal regime to be applied there. While the universal 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has been accepted by the five Arctic rim countries as the applicable legal framework, on the regional level these same states have tried to ward off possible external interference as much as possible by means of the Ilulissat Declaration of 2008. Shipping has been at the heart of these developments, especially in view of the fact that the year 2007 was characterized by the most extensive summer melt ever since satellite measurements started in 1979, which in turn undoubtedly enhanced the attractiveness of Arctic navigation. It will be argued that the increased interest in promoting Arctic navigation, as evidenced by a thorough analysis of the 2011 shipping season along the Eurasian continent, stands in stark contrast with the applicable Russian legal framework, which in essence dates back to the 1990s, a time when this route had not yet been used for international commercial trade linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (the secrecy still surrounding the icebreaking fees at present being a case in point).
Evaluating Espoo: What Protection does the Espoo Convention Offer the Arctic Marine Environment?
Authors: Johnstone Rachael Lorna
Published: February 2014

Abstract

This article reviews the extent of the duty of States to conduct a transboundary environmental impact assessment (TEIA) prior to activity in the Arctic Ocean as part of the customary law principle of prevention. Examples are drawn from the offshore hydrocarbon industry. The paper examines in detail the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (Espoo Convention) and its application in the High North, reviewing its utility as well as deficiencies in the comparative light of alternative frameworks, such as the voluntary guidelines of the Arctic Council, the Convention on the Law of the Sea, and the Nordic Environmental Protection Convention. The consequences of a TEIA report are discussed in light of customary international law.
The Impact of the Ban on Seal Products on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: A European Issue
Authors: Cambou Dorothée
Published: February 2014

Abstract

A ban on seal product for animal welfare concerns had been adopted by the EU Parliament in 2009. This article examines whether the ban can be contested on the grounds of its effect on indigenous rights. It will first be determined whether the directive encroaches on the rights of indigenous peoples, as proclaimed by the UN Declaration. Despite the clause that exempts the purchasing of seal products, of which the Inuit are benefactors of; it is still believed that the Declaration has been breached, and thus constitutes a violation of their cultural and economic rights. The second section examines how the Inuit have challenged the Directive Regulation on Seal product. Overall, through the examination of this case, the goal of this article is to highlight the legal challenges facing Europe vis-à-vis the development of indigenous peoples’ rights.
Securing the Rights: A Human Security Perspective in the Context of Arctic Indigenous Peoples
Authors: Hossain Kamrul
Published: February 2014

Abstract

In today’s world the state-centric approach of security has been extended to includea human-centric approach. Since individuals are the ultimate victims of any securitythreats, a state is not secure if insecure inhabitants reside within it. The insecurityof individuals arises from various sources of threats, such as from “fear” aswell as from “want”. While often the concept is confused with that of human rights,the concept of human security embraces policy choices in order for the better implementationof human rights. In a sense therefore, it complements both the conceptsof traditional security and human rights. This article addresses the concept in thecontext of the Arctic and its people, particularly in the context of its indigenouspeoples. Obviously, because of differing meanings of the concept, the human securitythreats of the Arctic cannot be seen as similar to those of the other regions ofthe global south. This article nevertheless explores various human security concernsfaced by the Arctic indigenous communities. In addressing the concept of humansecurity in the context of the Arctic, the article affirms the normative developmentoccurred relatively recently in the human rights regime – which today includes a setof group rights called third generation human rights. These broadly include amongothers; the right to environment and the right to development. The presence of thesecategories of rights are therefore argued to ensure human security for which in theArctic perspective a right to self-determination plays a pivotal role, particularly forits indigenous communities.
The Status of Unrecognized Indigenous Communities and Rural Old-Residents of the Russian Arctic
Authors: Zadorin Maxim
Published: February 2014

Abstract

Russian law on indigenous issues has been developing over the last 20 years. The process of liberalization in the indigenous legal sphere changed after 2000 when the State proclaimed a new energy policy. A critical problem for indigenous communities in Russia is an inflexible system of quotas for natural resources, an absence of private property rights to land for indigenous communities, and the procedure for a concrete indigenous group to obtain the official status of an “indigenous numerically- small people”. The article is dedicated to the problem of unrecognized indigenous communities and Arctic rural old-residents. Pros and cons of federal and regional policies are presented and analyzed.
A revision of the genus Diopsina Curran (Diptera, Diopsidae) with description of a new species from Guinea-Bissau
Authors: Feĳen Hans R. , Feĳen Cobi
Published: February 2014

An updated diagnosis is given for the genus Diopsina and a key to the seven species presently recognised. From Guinea-Bissau, Diopsina fluegeli sp. n. is described. Based on new material and on earlier described specimens, updated diagnoses are given for all Diopsina species. Additional descriptive information is presented, especially for abdominal structures and on sexual dimorphism in relation to eye span. Photographs illustrate some earlier described species. Biometrical data are presented which support the earlier division of the genus into the Diopsina nitida-group and the Diopsina africana-group. Several morphological characters and the phylogenetic position of Diopsina are discussed. Only limited information on the ecology of Diopsina is available, but for species of the Diopsina africana-group a close relation with clumps of Cyperaceae appears confirmed.
Tax Law Bans on Political Campaign Speech by Houses of Worship: Inappropriate Government Censorship and Intrusion on Religion
Authors: Crimm Nina J. , Crimm Nina J. , Winer Laurence H.
Published: February 2014

To ensure their legitimacy, western liberal democracies depend on the fullest protection for freedom of political and electoral speech. Governments should not interfere with or chill these fundamental rights of democratic participation without sufficiently compelling reasons to do so. In the US, however, despite the majestic protections of the First Amendment, anomalously there remains a large class of nonprofit entities that are statutorily precluded from this type of crucial political involvement, and this exceptional restriction on speech is incongruously based in the federal tax code. In particular, spiritual leaders who feel theologically compelled to speak out on critical moral and political issues of the day risk the tax-exempt status of their houses of worship if they cross an amorphous line into explicit or implicit political campaign speech. Both freedom of expression and religious freedom are at stake, and the tax system is a particularly inapt and inept mechanism for restricting speech and influencing the political activity of houses of worship.
Political Risk Insurance and Bilateral Investment Treaties: Making the Connection
Authors: Ginsburg Robert
Published: February 2014

Although political risk insurance polices and bilateral investment treaties are two of the most effective ways to manage political risks, most professionals in the international investment community do not incorporate either into their risk-reward analysis of cross border projects in emerging markets. Moreover, those investors and their advisers who do consider protections in one risk management do not explore protections provided in the other. The failure to contemplate how either or a combination of both tools can mitigate exposures to political perils often forces companies to make investment decisions based on incomplete information. By considering the different ways in which these tools respond to different loss scenarios, foreign investors and their advisers can establish a clear risk tolerance level and maximize their opportunities for growth in developing countries.
Considerazioni preliminari sul ruolo della mousike nel santuario di Demetra Malophoros a Selinunte a partire dalle testimonianze archeologiche
Authors: Gasparri Laura
Published: February 2014

Abstract

Il presente contributo riguarda lamousikenella sfera sacra del rinomato santuario di DemetraMalophorosa Selinunte (Sicilia occidentale). Le testimonianze archeologiche di interesse “musicale” edite ed inedite, riunite per la prima volta in un corpus unitario, si presentano estremamente eterogenee sia dal punto di vista qualitativo che cronologico, inglobando tanto resti di alcuni strumenti musicali che la loro rappresentazione nel repertorio iconografico della ceramica e nelle tipologie della coroplastica votiva. Lo studio di questi significativi materiali offre dunque l’occasione per iniziare a delineare e a discutere il rapporto fra la musica ed i culti e i riti, ancora parzialmente noti, caratterizzanti il celebre luogo sacro.
Commentary On Ausland
Authors: Sanday Eric
Published: February 2014

In this response I take issue with Professor Ausland’s use of the account of the soul in Republic 4 as a basis for reading Republic 8-9. I believe that the method and assumptions of Republic 4 are pre-dialectical and that Books 8-9 should be read in light of the digressive Books 5-7. By placing greater emphasis on the asymmetry between Book 4 and Books 8-9, the basic assumptions governing the decline of regimes will show themselves to tell a different story of moral experience and moral decomposition than we find in Professor Ausland’s instructive and insightful reading of the dialogue.
Commentary On Graham
Authors: Mourelatos Alexander P. D.
Published: February 2014

The comment endorses and reinforces Daniel W. Graham’s highly original and attractive proposal that early Greek cosmology develops in two stages. In what Graham calls the “meteorological stage” of the sixth century BCE, celestial objects are explained as formations either from fire or from watery exhalations in a roughly planar model of the cosmos. In the “lithic stage” of the mid- and late fifth century introduced by Anaxagoras, the model is that of a central earth around which solid stone-like celestial objects revolve held aloft in a vortex. The change to the lithic stage comes about, according to Graham, as the implications of Parmenides’ epoch-making discovery that the moon is illuminated by the sun (heliophotism) come to be understood and are then theoretically exploited. The present comment also proposes that the false explanations of lunar phases and lunar and solar eclipses in the meteorological-stage cosmologies, respectively, of Xenophanes and of Heraclitus may have played a helpful heuristic role in the theoretical breakthrough to heliophotism.
Commentary On Vasiliou
Authors: Madigan Arthur
Published: February 2014

This commentary welcomes Prof. Vasiliou’s adoption of an “objects first” method for the analysis of nous in Aristotle as well as his suggestion that there are three distinct levels of nous for the essences of material things, mathematical things, and immaterial things. It queries his claim that nous is not to be understood as a faculty, citing texts in which Aristotle uses “that by which” language to describe nous. It suggests that ordinary human beings have what may be called a functional grasp of essences, and that, while some of Aristotle’s uses of nous and noein may be highly technical, his aim in De Anima III 4 is to explain an operation that is widely shared among human beings. The commentary concludes by expressing the wish that Prof. Vasiliou had said more about the case in which nous is its own object.
Commentary On Byrd
Authors: Press Gerald A.
Published: February 2014

I agree with the substance of Prof. Byrd’s argument, that what she calls ‘summoners’ are to be found in supposedly ‘early’ as well as supposedly ‘middle’ dialogues and that this serves to undermine the strong Vlastos thesis of a radical difference between those groups. But Vlastosian and other forms of developmentalism have been in retreat for some time. I think the term παρακαλοῦντα is better translated as ‘provocations’; and I would argue that they are to be found in all of Plato’s dialogues and that their presence supports a more deeply uni-tarian approach than Byrd explicitly offers here. On the other hand, provocation is only a pedagogical strategy and, although its presence constitutes a kind of unity across the Platonic corpus, the problem developmentalism was intended to solve—apparent inconsistencies and contradictions between views apparently asserted in various dialogues—remains in need of solution.