Dan O'Meara's Afrikaner nationalism

Volkskapitalisme: Class, Capital and Ideology in the Development of Afrikaner Nationalism, 1934–1948 by Dan O'Meara, Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1983 xvi+ 281 pp, bibliography.     

Nationalism and democracy in post‐communist Central Asia

The paper evaluates misconceptions of the so‐called transitologists in terms of the relationship between nationalism and democracy in the post‐Soviet Central Asian context. The analysis looks at only four of the five Central Asian republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The paper puts forward two main arguments. First, contrary to the argument by some political scientists that nationalism is compatible with, and indeed is the same as, democracy, the author argues that there is a significant degree of trade‐off between nationalism and democracy. Second, contrary to the transitologists' assumptions that an incipient trend would enforce a regime change from communism to liberal democracy in all post‐communist cases, the author argues that it is indeed nationalism, not liberal democracy, that is the real successor to communism at least in Central Asian countries. The paper provides evidence indicating the pervasiveness of ethnic nationalism and the deficiencies of liberal democracy in post‐Soviet Central Asia.     

The “Crimean Sonnets” of Adam Mickiewicz—A New Translation

The collapse in 1989 of so-called “really existing socialism” in Poland affected the population in a profound way. The purpose of this essay is to establish how Polish films reflect and assess these changes. I am interested in the representation of society, especially the situation of young people, families and the functioning of institutions, such as education, the police and the church. I limit my analysis to a representative handful of films, which are set in contemporary Poland and have been praised by Polish critics for “catching the spirit of the time.” The films are: Nic (Nothing, 1998), directed by Dorota Kedzierzawska; D? ug (Debt, 1999), directed by Krzysztof Krauze; Patrz? na ciebie, Marysiu (I Look at You, Mary, 1999), directed by ?ukasz Barczyk; Cze?? , Tereska (Hello, Tereska, 2001) directed by Robert Gliński; and Portret podwójny (Double Portrait, 2001), directed by Mariusz Front. The observations contained in these films and the conclusions one can draw from them can be extended to other films made in the same period. The films presented in this paper were all made at the end of the first decade following the collapse of communism—not immediately after 1989. I chose them because they were part of a broader upsurge of high quality films about contemporary Poland, sharing a concern for style, and suggesting that filmmakers needed a certain temporal distance before engaging with the new Poland in novel ways.     

Studying the Sent-Down Internet: roundtable on research methods

This article discusses the transformation of the media system in three countries moving away from the classical “communist” model: Poland, Russia and China. Despite very significant differences, all three of these societies displayed similar starting points in terms of economics, politics and media. The dominant political science tradition has discussed post‐communism as part of a more general theory of “transitology”, seeing the processes involved in these cases as examples of a world‐wide transition from dictatorial regimes towards western‐style democracy. An alternative is to see the shift away from communism as an example of “elite continuity”, in which the former bureaucratic ruling class attempts to restructure itself as the owners of private capital. The article tests the two theoretical views in these three cases. It is demonstrated that transitology gives very little insight into the prevailing situations, and that the theory of elite continuity accounts much better for major features of the media systems.     

“Oh,language of exile – woven of sorrow and mockery”: the Kalevala centennial jubilee as a bone of contention between Hebraists and Yiddishists

The article explores contacts between eminent Jewish Zionists and the Finnish cultural and political elite using the Kalevala centennial jubilee as a case study. The article shows how Finnish nationalists sympathised with the cause of Zionists propagating the use of modern Hebrew: members of the Kalevala Society warm‐heartedly invited the Hebrew poet Saul Tchernichowsky from Palestine to the centennial jubilee in 1935. The article also deals with the exclusion of the Yiddish representative, Hersh Rosenfeld, recommended by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in Vilna, and discusses the possibility of anti‐communism and anti‐cosmopolitanism behind his omission from the centennial jubilee. The Jewish community of Helsinki, which was experiencing a rapid Finnification process, was involved in inviting the Hebrew representative to Finland. The article ends by analysing a Yiddishist poem that can be interpreted as an individual’s protest about the exclusion of the Yiddish language from the Kalevala centenary.     

DEMOCRACY AND GROWTH: A PERSPECTIVE FROM DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE

This article investigates the impact of democracy on growth by simultaneously considering a country's secular‐historical experience of democracy and current political regime. The results obtained show that the effect of democracy on growth exhibits an asymmetrical pattern depending on the country's democracy stock. Only in “democratic countries” with “prolonged experiences of democratic rule” can democracy promote growth. This claim stands in contrast to the earlier literature in which there is either no consistent relationship between growth and democracy or perhaps a nonlinear relationship. This conclusion provides circumstantial support for the claim of the “democracy promotes growth” hypothesis. (JEL O43)     

Gender and Power: Sex Segregation in American and Polish Higher Education as a Case Study

This article presents a comparative case study of the manifestation of sex segregation in higher education in the United States and in Poland from the end of the 19th century to the 1930s. The study is guided by a theoretical framework, which is organized around a concept of power and derived from The Sources of Social Power by Michael Mann (1986). In the United States, well-developed capitalism, democracy, and the ideology of separate spheres underlay the high collective power of men, their distributive power over women and—consequently—high levels of sex segregation in higher education. Contrastly, in Poland, weak capitalism and lack of democracy meant less collective and distributive power of men, which produced lower levels of educational sex segregation.     

Maternal Health in Post-Soviet Georgia

ABSTRACT

During the post-Soviet economic and political transformation, underprivileged social groups frequently experienced economic instability, financial insecurity, and lack of political representation. During the transition from communism to democracy Georgian women with low social status experienced not only economic hardship but also deterioration of health. Among the negative outcomes of post-Soviet transition were unsafe motherhood, increased cigarette and alcohol consumption, unsafe sex, increased gender violence, and a decline of maternal health. This article analyzes maternal health conditions of Georgian women after the collapse of the Soviet Union.     

Associations of Childhood Religious Attendance,Family Structure,and Nonmarital Fertility Across Cohorts

This article considers associations among childhood family structure, childhood religious service attendance, and the probability of having a nonmarital first birth before age 30 for non‐Hispanic White women born 1944 to 1964 using data from the 1988 and 1995 waves of the National Survey of Family Growth (N = 5,995). We found that attending religious services weekly during childhood and growing up in a 2‐biological‐parent family were associated with lower odds of having had a nonmarital first birth. These associations were quite stable across cohorts, although religious attendance was less associated with nonmarital fertility for the youngest cohort. We estimate that changes in these childhood experiences account for 22% of the increase in nonmarital first births across these cohorts.     

Toward a ‘paideia of the soul’: education to enrich America’s multicultural democracy

What role might education play in the reinvigoration of a robust American democracy? We argue that common understandings of democracy, citizenship, and democratic education are too anemic to right the political inequalities and stagnancies that have deadened American democracy. Instead, we look to notions of paideia and an educated, enlightened citizenry to shape a multicultural democratic education. Multicultural democratic education cultivates the full and flourishing lives and minds of all citizens in American democracy rather than focusing on narrow preparation for voting. It does this through the practice of critical and authentic caring, the cultivation of community across difference, the connection to a global context, and the opportunity for social action. Most importantly, multicultural democratic education takes as its starting point equity and justice in a pluralistic society by committing to the cultivation of the minds and intellects of all students – in stark contrast to the unequal and mind-numbing education that most marginalized and minority students receive.     

The Importance of Trust-Building in Transition: A Look at Social Capital and Democratic Action in Eastern Europe

This paper looks at various civic organizations in Poland during the period of transition from communism. It offers an analysis of representative groups of Civil society Organizations (CSOs), proving that they bear features of the socialist past. The paper demonstrates that the popularity of the re-legalized Solidarno ?? has been steadily declining since 1989. In fact, no former dissident movement plays an important role in contemporary Poland. Moreover, the revitalization of organizations dissolved during the communist period cannot be read as a success story. Administrative dissolution and repression turned out to be effective tools in dismantling CSOs. The renewal of Catholic organizations has also largely failed. However, organizations established during the communist period still play a leading role in civil society. The communist era, in short, was decisive in shaping contemporary CSOs. Associational life after 1989 displays considerable inertia and while it is difficult to determine whether it actually retards the process of systemic change, it surely is not the sphere of social life that can currently accelerate it.     

Work as Total Reason for Being: Heidegger and Jünger’s Der Arbeiter 1

This article examines Heidegger’s reading of Ernst Jünger’s 1932 Der Arbeiter by making appeal not only to Heidegger’s remarks on the work (and its associated text “Die totale Mobilmachung”) scattered in various texts, but by concentrating on Heidegger’s now‐available seminar notes and marginal notes to his actual copy of the text. Heidegger held two seminars on Der Arbeiter, one shortly after its publication and one in 1938, which show his close confrontation not only with Jünger’s reading of Nietzsche, but also Heidegger’s own Nietzsche examination. The article shows how Heidegger distinguishes himself from Jünger by, on the one hand, seeing Der Arbeiter as very much a product of its time and, on the other, identifying a prescience in Nietzsche of a Europe and planetary phenomenon (globalisation) yet to come. This is accomplished in the naming of the triad of Bolshevism, fascism (Nazism), and Americanism metaphysically as the singularity of “world democracy”, and as an entirely nihilistic phenomenon. The article therefore relates the confrontation of these two thinkers with the third (Nietzsche) to issues of the demand for justice, democracy, and the will to power in contemporary economic and political developments, as well as to wider themes in Heidegger’s thought of the end (or consummation) of metaphysics, the will to power, and valuation.     

Christ vs. Communism: Communism as a Religious Social Problem in Finland's Proto‐Fascist Lapua Movement in the 1930s

This article traces the emergence of religious anti‐communist discourse in Finland's proto‐fascist Lapua Movement in the 1930s. Applying constructionist social problems theory, it discusses the constructions of communism as a religious social problem, Christian piety as a solution to the problem of godless communism, and the religious legitimation of violence. The article argues that by identifying Christianity with the Finnish nation the construction of communism as a religious problem—itself an outcome of the influence of revivalist Lutheran ministers in the leadership of the movement—resonated with the broader audience, but that this indigenous religious nationalism lost support with the increasing belligerence of the movement.     

The Goals of History Teaching

Abstract

The following article is an excerpt of a speech given by Larry Diamond to those participating in the 1996 Civitas Panamericano Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In his speech, Dr. Diamond included a comprehensive survey of the state of stable, liberal democratic government in the Americas. He outlined the multiple levels of development required to achieve stable, liberal democratic institutions, but he focused the major portion of his address on that one level “indispensable for a stable, liberal, and effective democracy”—the individual citizen. At that level, civic education, both formal and informal, is required. The editors of The Social Studies offer readers Dr. Diamond's concept of educating for democracy, hoping that the excerpts will result in our readers' critical reflection on the revival of civic education in the United States and in other parts of the Americas.     

WHY DID UNIVERSITIES PRECEDE PRIMARY SCHOOLS? A POLITICAL ECONOMY MODEL OF EDUCATIONAL CHANGE

Universities were first established in Europe around the twelfth century, although primary schools did not appear until the nineteenth. This paper accounts for this phenomenon using a political economy model of educational change on who are educated (the elite or the masses) and what is taught (general or specific/vocational education). A key assumption is that general education is more effective than specific education in enhancing one's skills in a broad range of tasks, including political rent‐seeking. Its findings suggest that specific education for the masses is compatible with the elite rule, whereas mass general education is not, which refines the conventional association between education and democracy. (JEL O10, O40, P16, N10)     

Domestic Disappointments: Feminine Middlebrow Fiction of the Interwar Years

ABSTRACT

This article explores the relationship between gender, romantic love, domesticity, and disappointment in four examples of feminine middlebrow fiction of the mid-twentieth century: Rose Macaulay's Crewe Train (1926), E. M. Delafield's The Way Things Are (1927), Lettice Cooper's The New House (1936), and Mary Renault's The Friendly Young Ladies (1944). Building on the work of the literary critic Laura Quinney and the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, it investigates the ways in which disappointment is implicated in the reproduction of domestic femininity in particular. Exploring the female protagonists' ambivalence towards domesticity, the article traces the ways in which the prospect of disappointment is embedded within the impossibility of their situations, the irreconcilability of their competing desires, and, more generally, in their sense of their own diminishing potentiality.     

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

ABSTRACT

Progressive muscle relaxation [PMR] was first identified by Jacobson in 1934 as tensing and releasing of 16 muscle groups. Wolpe adapted it for use with systematic desensitization in 1948 and Bernstein and Borkovec in 1973 studied adjustments to the technique to fit cognitive behavioral stress management. Some of these adjustments are: 7 and 4 muscle groups, relaxation through recall, recall and counting, and counting. Empirical evidence supports the use of PMR in high level tension responses and mind body techniques such as: reducing tension headaches, insomnia, adjunct treatment in cancer, chronic pain management in inflammatory arthritis and irritable bowel syndrome. This article analyzes the development of PMR, reviews current research, and discusses the implications to social work practice.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article: Re‐Imagining the Nation: Debates on Immigrants, Identities and Memories. By Mette Zolner Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth‐Century Europe. By Norman Naimark Debating American Immigration, 1882‐Present. By Roger Daniels and Otis L. Graham Namasté America: Indian Immigrants in an American Metropolis. By Padma Rangaswamy Trend in Ethnic Identification Among Second‐Generation Haitian Immigrants in New York City. By Flore Zephir Patriarchal Structures and Ethnicity in the Italian Community in Britain. By Azadeh Medaglia Whatever Happened to Asylum in Britain? A Tale of Two Walls. By Louise Pirouet “We Built Up Our Lives:” Education and Community among Refugees Interned by Britain in World War II. By Maxine Schwartz Seller Integral Outsiders: The American Colony in Mexico City, 1876–1911. By William Schell A Gathering of Fugitives: American Political Expatriates in Mexico, 1948–1965. By Diana Anhalt     

Norms and Survival in the Heat of War: Normative Versus Instrumental Rationalities and Survival Tactics in the Blockade of Leningrad1

When war challenges civilian survival, what shapes the balance between normative and instrumental rationalities in survival practices? Increasing desperation and uncertainty can lead civilians to focus on their own material interests and to violate norms in the name of survival or gain—to the detriment of the war effort and of other civilians. Do norms, boundaries against transgressions, and considerations of collective interests and identities persist, and, if so, through what mechanisms? Using diaries and recollections from the 872‐day Blockade of Leningrad (1941–1944)—an extreme case of wartime desperation—this article examines how three forms of cultural embeddedness shape variation in the strength of norms against calculative, instrumental rationality. Proximity and empathy with others, the structure of norms and analogies to legitimate instrumental practices, and reflexivity vis‐à‐vis war and others’ response interact dialectically with the war context to shape variation in violating norms and rationalizing transgressions. Theft of food and cannibalism, which involve tactics of survival or gain that also risk the well‐being of victims (theft) or violation of a powerful taboo (cannibalism), demonstrate the weakness of norms on the margins but their power when core norms or other real, visible individuals are threatened.