bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
German Corporate Convergence to a Market Based System
Authors: Berger Matthew 
Published: July 2010

AbstractGermany has implemented several legal reforms in an attempt to attract international investment. Commentators proclaimed that a transition from a bank-based system of corporate governance to a market-based system was required in order for Germany to attract international investors. Debates still transpire regarding the success of the legal reforms implemented in an effort to make this change. This analysis explains Germany's previous corporate governance system and the new laws implemented to transform it to a market-based system. Empirical data is recited concerning the changes in foreign direct investment, German household investment decisions, and the German financial markets. The paper concludes that an analysis of this data reveals an increase of foreign investment in Germany and a substantial movement towards a market-based system throughout the duration of the legal reform.
The "Good Governance" Crusade in the Third World: A Rich, Complex Narrative – Magic Wand or Smoke Screen?
Authors: Maogoto Jackson Nyamuya 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThe project of governance, which has been heralded as a contemporary advance in the development of international law, has a very old lineage. Since the beginnings of the modern discipline of international law in the sixteenth century, international law has devised a number of doctrines directed at shaping and reforming the government of the non-European State. This Paper argues that good governance exerts an extraordinarily powerful influence on the thinking of the international community in part because it is connected with human rights, the universal language in this "age of rights". The link suggests that the Third World State is the focus of concern: it is the aberrant Third World State which both violates rights and engages in bad governance. The Paper critiques the stance that the problem of addressing international justice can be largely achieved through the project of good governance which would reform the Third World State. It seeks to argue that democratic experimentalism, not the so-called "McDonaldization" (globalization as homogenization) of the world, is important. This is based on the premise that "McDonaldization" minimizes the complex way in which the local interacts with the international.
A Third World Approach to Debating the Legality of the Iraq War
Authors: Natarajan Usha 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThe international law discipline engaged in vigorous debate over the legality of the 2003 Iraq invasion. However, once the furor over the invasion died down, and attention turned to management of the ongoing reality of Coalition occupation of Iraq, the legality debate risked seeming redundant. While the mainstream debate answers questions as to whether the invasion was legal, its usefulness is limited if it does not answer other important legal questions. What role has international law played in the Iraq invasion and its aftermath? What role will the invasion play in the evolution of international law? Taking a Third World approach to the Iraq invasion can help better answer these questions and shed light on legal aspects of the war that were ignored or obscured by the mainstream debate. The first and larger part of this paper will discuss some of these issues. The latter part of this paper will consider the potential limits of Third World approaches as a critical methodology.
The Dominant Voices in Double Taxation Agreements: A Critical Analysis of the “Dividend” Article in the Agreement between Uganda and the Netherlands
Authors: Kangave Jalia 
Published: July 2010

AbstractIn a bid to attract foreign investment, Third World countries are increasingly concluding Double Taxation Treaties with capital-rich countries, based on either the UN model treaty convention or the OECD model. Using the example of the dividend Article in the Uganda-Netherlands treaty, the discussion in this article illustrates the increased use of tax treaties to shift income from developing to developed countries. By essentially reducing the tax rate on dividend income to nil, that treaty significantly erodes Uganda's tax base. Such agreements raise concern, especially when one takes into account the fact that investment decisions are often driven by factors external to tax, meaning that reduced tax rates do not guarantee increased investments. Worse still, because developing countries are net capital importers, the benefits accruing from such treaties are often one-sided. The paper calls for a rethinking and redrafting of the UN model convention to ensure that the taxing rights of Third World countries are strengthened. In addition, since the practical reality is that developed countries often base their agreements (even with developing countries) on the OECD model, there is a need to amend the latter model to take this reality into account.
Reflections on the ECOWAS Community Court Protocol and the Constitutions of Member States
Authors: Enabulele A.O. 
Published: July 2010

AbstractOnly recently, the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States, which was hitherto opened only to Community States, was expanded to allow direct human rights violation claims by individuals. Though the court has since started to function, its impact is yet to be felt ‐ citizens of recalcitrant Community States still live in wanton violation of their rights in most of the States, where national courts are weak and effective remedies for rights violations largely nonexistent. This is consequent upon the failure of Community States to align their national laws with the new legal order represented by the Community Court; national laws and indeed national courts are still very hostile to the court and its judgements, thereby discouraging citizens from attending the court. This Article takes a look at the relevant provisions of the constitutions of Community States and advocates an urgent need for the cooperation to be forged between national legal systems and the community legal system through the amendment of hostile laws, as a prerequisite to the achievement of the virile community legal order.
Two Dogmas of Contemporary Philosophy of Action
Authors: D'Oro Giuseppina 
Published: July 2010

AbstractDavidson's seminal essay "Actions, Reasons and Causes" brought about a paradigm shift in the theory of action. Before Davidson the consensus was that the fundamental task of a theory of action was to elucidate the concept of action and event explanation. The debate concerning the nature of action explanation thus took place primarily in the philosophy of history and social science and was focussed on purely methodological issues. After Davidson it has been assumed that the fundamental challenge for the theory of action is to answer not the conceptual question "what does it mean to explain something as an action?", but a metaphysical question, namely, "how is causal over-determination by the mental and the physical possible?". I argue that the two main considerations Davidson provides for construing the question posed by the action/event distinction in metaphysical rather than conceptual terms are inconclusive and that much is to be learned from the conceptual approach championed by Collingwood and Dray in the context of their philosophy of history.
Troubles with Mechanisms: Problems of the 'Mechanistic Turn' in Historical Sociology and Social History
Authors: Norkus Zenonas 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThis paper discusses the prospect of the "new social history" guided by the recent work of Charles Tilly on the methodology of social and historical explanation. Tilly advocates explanation by mechanisms as the alternative to the covering law explanation. Tilly's proposals are considered to be the attempt to reshape the practices of social and historical explanation following the example set by the explanatory practices of molecular biology, neurobiology, and other recent "success stories" in the life sciences. Recent work in the philosophy of science on these practices by Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden, Carl Craver and others is used as the foil to disclose the difficulties of Tilly's project. Most important among them is the dilemma of specification: if diagrams (standard forms of the representation of mechanisms) are intended as representations of robust causal processes, they cannot be specific enough to provide complete mechanism schemata, and are bound to remain mechanism sketches. If mechanism sketches are elaborated in detail by tracing particular causal processes, they provide representations of fragile causal processes, which cannot be considered as mechanisms comparable to those in advanced life and other special sciences. Tilly's work on the explanation of mechanisms can be considered as symptomatic for the recent trend to visualize the forms of historical representation. As far as diagrams seem to be able to communicate stories in a direct way (without narrative discourse), this trend is a challenge for the theory of historical representation. The new theories of scientific explanation focusing on the explanatory practices of the life sciences can provide examples and be the source of inspiration for the work on the theory of historical and social explanation, going beyond the confines of the received framework of the covering law model of explanation.
Esotericism and Modernity: An Encounter with Leo Strauss
Authors: Bevir Mark 
Published: July 2010

AbstractStrauss championed a philosophy of history according to which philosophers characteristically hide their actual beliefs when writing about ethics and politics. This paper begins by suggesting that an esoteric philosophy of history encourages a set of specific biases when writing histories of philosophy. Proponents of esotericism are liable to be far too ready to conclude that philosophers intended to hide their beliefs; they are likely to be insufficiently attuned to the varied contexts in which philosophers write; and they are likely to be too ready to assimilate the beliefs of philosophers to a norm. Thereafter the paper considers the presence of these biases in Strauss's account of modernity. Strauss allows for waves of modernity but he defines these waves as part of a single, monolithic project that is defined in contrast to the esoteric character of ancient philosophy and that leads inexorably to nihilism. Once we correct for the biases mentioned above, however, modernity appears as a series of projects located in specific contexts and confronting particular dilemmas. Again, where Strauss presents our own era as one of crisis, this revised account of modernity suggests that we merely confront the more local issue of how to forge a community out of self-governing individuals.
National Histories: Prospects for Critique and Narrative
Authors: Bevir Mark 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThe classic national history narrates the formation and progress of a nation-state as a reflection of principles such as a national character, liberty, progress, and statehood. Today there appears to be a growing nostalgia for them, and with it for the role that history once played in the life of the nation. This paper argues that such nostalgia is justified insofar as it expresses skepticism about the philosophical assumptions of much social science history. In doing so, it defends the use of concepts such as narrative and tradition. Yet this paper argues that such nostalgia is not justified insofar as it sides with an analysis of these concepts in terms of given principles of nationhood and statehood. Rather, the paper argues for a shift from developmental historicism to radical historicism. Radical historicism would treat traditions as pragmatically constructed and narratives as contingent. It would thus lead to denaturalizing accounts of the nations as dispersed, discontinuous, and disrupted, and arguably to histories of networks of peoples rather than nations.
Danto's Philosophy of History in Retrospective
Authors: Ankersmit Frank 
Published: July 2010

AbstractDanto's Analytical Philosopy of History is one of the undisputed classics of post-war reflection on the nature of historical writing. Upon its publication in 1965 it was immediately recognized to be a major contribution to contemporary historical thought. Strangely enough, however, little effort was made by philosophers of history to penetrate into the depth of Danto's argument. The explanation is, perhaps, that there was more than a hint of historicism in Danto's conception of historical writing and for which philosophers of history at that time were not yet prepared. This explanation is all the more plausible since German philosophers of history – most notably Hans Michael Baumgartner – were far more sensitive to the book's message than their Anglo-Saxon colleagues. The result is, however, that the book still awaits its proper reception in contemporary philosophy of history.
Texts as Performances: How to Reconstruct Webs of Beliefs from Expressed Utterances
Authors: Reiner Toby 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThis paper argues that historians of ideas must, when seeking to reconstruct webs of beliefs, interpret texts as though they were performances. As this is particularly the case with dialogic texts, the paper focuses on Plato's dialogues to show that the arguments expressed therein cannot be taken as expressions of Plato's beliefs. Rather, such arguments seek to prompt thought in their readers and thus reveal beliefs indirectly. We must therefore revise Mark Bevir's account of the reconstruction of webs of beliefs so that we construct a consistent web and then assume that to be the web of the author in question, rather than assuming that the web we construct is a consistent one. Consideration of Leo Strauss's argument that philosophers have often had to hide their meaning for fear of persecution, the paper concludes that its argument may apply to treatise-based writing as well as to dialogues. All texts include an element of the performative.
Anti-Dualism in History and Nature: A Study between John Dewey and Josrtega y Gasset
Authors: Binder Marnie 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThis paper argues that a principle manner in which Spanish philosopher Josrtega y Gasset’s historicist maxim ’man has no nature, what he has is history’ can be understood is through a pragmatist basis of anti-dualism, in part inherited from American philosopher John Dewey. The thesis here is that it is not that man has no nature, per se, rather that history is his nature because the two are anti-dualistic concepts; history is our nature because it is comprised of, as famously posited by Ortega, “myself and my circumstance”. Hence, neither philosopher negates that “preparedness”, or “nature”, influences our being and behavior, rather they are arguing, more importantly, that “plasticity”, or nurture, plays a greater role given that this encompasses “nature” when we relate Ortega’s application of “history” to Dewey’s use of “experience”. Our “experiences” create our history, and interpretations as to the nature of them are not only potentially infinite, but they are primarily just that - interpretations, which can also change over time. Hence what we truly are is our history. Although these two philosophers are not frequently linked, there is a clear connection in this basic, Deweyen pragmatist anti-dualism as an elder of Ortega. And even though Dewey, unlike Ortega, wrote little on specifically the discipline of history, much of it was indeed fundamentally historical.
Jesus and Faith: The Doctrine of Faith in Scripture and the Reformed Confessions
Authors: Congdon David 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThis article examines the complicated relationship between church confession and Holy Scripture as it manifests itself in the doctrine of faith expounded in the Reformed confessions of the sixteenth century. I first locate the problem historically in the conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism. I then summarize the New Testament witness to faith, examine whether the Reformed confessions do justice to this witness, and conclude by suggesting some theological possibilities for a fresh doctrine of faith within the context of a confessional and biblical Reformed theology. Along the way, I raise questions about the relationships between divine action and human action and between Son and Spirit in the event of faith.
Becoming a 'Faith Community': British Hindus, Identity, and the Politics of Representation
Authors: Knott Kim 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThis article offers an historical perspective on the process by which British Hindus have sought to become a 'faith community' in response to local civic pressures and the intensification of government rhetoric on harnessing the capacity of religious bodies in support of public policy, and also as an expression of Hindu nationalist and ecumenical interests. I review my earlier analysis of Hindus in Leeds, noting the four processes of institutionalisation, retraditionalisation, standardisation, and the production of community, and, through Hindu ephemera, consider these same processes for Hindus elsewhere in Britain in the period 1980 to 2006 in the context of the rise of identity politics and the return of religion to public prominence. Although these processes remain relevant, others have emerged, notably the public representation of 'Hinduism,' and the impact of a diasporic politics of Hindutva.
'But We are Concerned with a Greater Imperium': The New Zealand Protestant Missionary Movement and the British Empire, 1870-1930
Authors: Morrison Hugh 
Published: July 2010

AbstractUsing a largely 'non-metropole' perspective, this article seeks to shed further light on New Zealand's Protestant missionary movement in the decades of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. It argues that New Zealand missionaries and their supporters, in the period of 'high imperialism', held a range of both positive and negative positions towards the Empire. The article outlines the general contours of New Zealand Protestant missionary thinking about the British Empire, contours that reflected wider 'British' opinion of the period. However, it also argues that patterns of geographical and organisational affiliation both supported and confounded this thinking, which was complicated by the intersection of localised and globalising influences. The article considers certain missionary 'sites' of operation and influence as well as denominational and other factors. It situates its argument both in the context of debate over historiographical paradigms for settler societies like New Zealand, and in recent attempts to locate discussion of mission and imperialism within more discretely defined temporal and geographical parameters. En partant d'une perspective largement «non-métropolitaine,» cet article vise à éclairer d'une lumière nouvelle le mouvement missionnaire protestant néo-zélandais durant les dernières décennies du 19e siècle et le début du 20e siècle. Il montre que les missionnaires néo-zélandais et leurs soutiens adoptèrent, durant la période de l'«impérialisme triomphant,» une série d'attitudes à la fois positives et négatives en relation à l'Empire. L'article dessine les contours de la pensée du mouvement missionnaire néo-zélandais par rapport à l'Empire, et montre en quoi elle était le reflet de l'opinion «britannique» de l'époque. Cependant, l'implantation géographique et les affiliations organisationnelles des missionnaires, si elles étaient parfois en adéquation avec cette pensée, la contredisaient également, à l'interface entre influence locales et globales. L'article considère enfin certains «sites» missionnaires d'activité et d'influence ainsi que des facteurs confessionnels et autres. Il se situe à la fois au sein de débats historiographiques a propos des sociétés de colons comme la Nouvelle Zélande, et dans les tentatives récentes de recentrer la discussion à propos de la mission et de l'impérialisme dans une temporalité et un espace définis par des paramètres plus fins.
Prophètes, Missionnaires et Mariages au Kenya
Authors: Morovich Barbara 
Published: July 2010

AbstractHow can one be Christian whilst remaining Kikuyu and reproduce in a socially legitimate manner? Focusing on akurinu Prophetic Churches in Kenya, this article analyses the diff erent stages of akurinu marriage in order to understand its individual, moral and social meanings. Akurinu marriage is seen as a new set of rules, organised and managed by the religious community. One of its most striking features is that the wedding is not paid for by the families of the husband and wife. is is an important change in the social structure of the Kikuyu and it shows that Prophetic Churches can be seen as groups which adapt to social change within Kenyan urban society. Moreover, the hope of finding a spouse is one of the reasons for changing to this type of religious community. Comment être chrétien, demeurer Kikuyu et se reproduire légitimement ? En se penchant sur le cas des Eglises prophétiques akurinu au Kenya, cet article retrace les étapes du mariage akurinu afi n d'en comprendre les enjeux individuels, moraux et sociaux. Le mariage akurinu est analysé comme un nouvel ensemble de règles, organisé et géré par la communauté religieuse. Un des points les plus remarquables est que les frais des cérémonies de mariage n'incombent plus aux familles des époux, ce qui introduit un bouleversement fondamental dans la structure sociale kikuyu, et permet de considérer les Eglises prophétiques comme des groupes qui répondent aux changements sociaux de la société urbaine en cours au Kenya. De plus, l'espoir de trouver un conjoint demeure une des raisons de la conversion à ce type de communauté.
“Long, Long Will She Be Affectionately Remembered”: Gender and the Memorialization of an American Female Missionary
Authors: Lindner Christine 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThis article traces the transformation of gender within nineteenth century American Protestant missions, through comparing the life and post-humus memorializations of Sarah Lanman Smith, a missionary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Ottoman Syria during 1830s. Through examining the ways that Sarah defined her own identity and gender in relation to different commemorations of her life and work, this article demonstrates that 'Sarah' was increasingly read through the lens of an narrowed binary of gender. This was done through selectively editing her history in a manner that focused upon the education of women and girls, thus affirming the emerging concept of 'women's work for women'. In so doing, this article re-introduces the life of Sarah Smith, deconstructs the way that she was remembered, and presents a new perspective on the dynamic and ever-changing culture that supported and defined nineteenth century Protestant missions. L'article retrace la transformation du genre au sein des missions américaines au 19ème siècle au travers d'une analyse de la vie et des mémorialisations posthumes de Sarah Lanman Smith, une missionnaire de l'American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, qui travailla en Syrie ottomane durant les années 1830. L'article montre, au travers d'une analyse de l'identité et du genre de Sarah et de l'analyse de commémorations de sa vie et de son travail que « Sarah » devint avec le temps de plus en plus comprise au travers d'un prisme binaire du genre. Cette réduction s'opéra par l'édition sélective de son histoire qui se centra dorénavant sur l'éducation des femmes et des filles, confirmant ainsi le concept émergent du « travail de femme pour les femmes ». Ce faisant, l'article restore la vie de Sarah Smith, déconstruit la manière dont on en vint à se souvenir d'elle, et présente une perspective nouvelle sur la culture dynamique et changeante des missions protestantes du 19ème siècle.