The Embedding of Russian State-Sanctioned Multipolarity in the Post-Soviet Conjuncture

This article demonstrates the manner in which key Russian officials engaged with and propagated the notion of multipolarity in the wider post-Soviet conjuncture—first in the 1990s and intensively during Vladimir Putin's first two presidencies. I argue that this demonstrates an earlier disarticulation of neoliberalism, globalisation, unipolarity, and hegemony than that offered in the nascent ‘multipolar turn’ in the sub-disciplines of International Political Economy and International Relations. Embedding understandings of multipolarity that cohere to state strategy, key Russian officials invite us to efface the divide between academic and political practice when understanding how world order concepts are propagated and normalised. A multifaceted treatment of multipolarity does not render it analytically dubious; rather, it cements its importance as a common sense and ‘polysemic’ understanding of global political affairs serving an explicit political function.     

以生态理论为基础建设职业高校生态图书馆

随着社会的不断发展,生态概念已经从生物学发展到整个人类社会科学,近10年,图书馆也开始研究如何建筑生态图书馆的问题。图书馆人也应该立足于人类的长远和可持续发展,注重生态保持,建设"绿色"、"低碳"、"环保"、"节能"的生态图书馆。文章从图书馆的建筑生态、环境生态、资源生态、人文生态等诸多方面分析了如何建设生态图书馆的问题。     

Mobilisation strategies of individual and institutional actors in Brussels’ artistic and cultural scenes

Though sharing a common territory, the cultural spaces of Brussels are divided according to a complex structure where Francophone and Flemish Communities play a dominant role. These two language-based communities set separate cultural policies and programming for their residents in Brussels. Within this fragmented structure, local socio-cultural actors have mobilised promoting cross-Community collaboration towards a shared vision for the Brussels-Capital Region (ex. Cultural Plan for Brussels). Further, individual artists themselves have developed strategies to participate in Community-defined cultural programming and to gain recognition for their talent as local (Bruxellois) artists regardless of their ethnic, linguistic or migrant background. This article explores how socio-cultural actors and artists have mobilised to reframe ‘culture’ in Brussels, and to gain access to cultural venues particularly in the case of migrant and migrant-origin artists whose engagement and recognition in Brussels’ cultural scenes have been little studied.     

Pathways to European identity formation: a tale of two models

This article argues that there are two distinct logics that underlie existing studies on European identification. These are grounded in models of collective identity formation that stress either messages inscribed in discursive processes or practices situated in socio-spatial relations – respectively, the “culturalist” and the “structuralist” models. The first of these models considers identification as a direct outcome of the exposure to content-specific symbols, narratives, and messages; the second, as an emerging property of socio-spatial interactions that are content-free of identity references. The first is logocentric, while the second is democentric and topocentric. This article focuses particularly on the second and less-developed research tradition which explores the effects of cross-national practices. The limits and potential of this model are discussed, setting an agenda for empirical research aiming to better elucidate the causal dynamics of European identity formation and adjudicate between these competing explanations.     

Impression Management,Super PACs and the 2012 Republican Primary

Super Political Action Committees (PACs) are new organizations within American politics allowing for unlimited donations to candidate campaigns. Super PACs helped make the 2012 Republican primary the most well‐funded primary in American history. Both candidates and Super PACs spend much of their money on televised campaign ads. My study of the 2012 Republican primary expands existing literature concerning political impression management by examining advertising imagery in the era of Super PACs. I developed a typology of performance types from a qualitative content analysis of television advertisements for both candidates and Super PACs. The significance of Super PACs as they interact and overlap with the images of candidate ads calls for analysis of the changing front stage in the political realm.     

Violence and political culture in Mozambique

This article is an attempt at developing a lens through which political culture in Mozambique can be analysed, described and interpreted. It is based on the notion of a political teleology that emerged out of the conditions within which the country fought for its independence. The paper argues that violence in a symbolic and physical form played a central role in the constitution of this political teleology by, on the one hand, allowing the liberation movement to produce an account of Mozambican history which both gave legitimacy to its own struggle while at the same time undermining alternative accounts and, on the other, set the scene for the implementation of a national project that came to be primarily concerned with the reproduction of the claim to power of the liberation movement. Forty years of independence in Mozambique offer an ideal time frame to attempt the construction of such a lens.     

The arrival of critical citizens: decline of political trust and shifting public priorities in China

Political trust has been in decline in China. In this article, we capture this decline as reflecting the modernization of Chinese political culture. While the government managed to deliver a sustained period of rapid economic growth, the public's trust in it is diminishing through two mechanisms. On the one hand, Chinese citizens are acquiring stronger liberal democratic values, which make citizens more critical toward government institutions. On the other hand, changing political culture is also shown in the citizens’ shifting of their priorities toward the expansion of freedom and empowerment of citizens. Decades of socioeconomic modernization, therefore, meant that the era of critical citizens has arrived in China.     

Cruel Pessimism and Waiting for Belonging: Towards a Global Political Economy of Affect

Recent theorizations of affect have focused largely on Western historical, political and aesthetic contexts to distinguish between affect and emotion. Notably, these interventions offer new imaginaries to reinvigorate analysis of politics in the face of shrinking possibilities. However, much of this literature views affect as autonomous from emotion, while overlooking the political history of development and the differentiated relation to affect under colonial capitalism in other historical contexts. This paper studies subaltern engagement in activist performance in India to address these issues. It thinks through Lauren Berlant's account of the aesthetic genre and affective structure of cruel optimism, and her focus on historical contexts where people have recently lost the vision of a good life. By contrast, focusing on the historical present of those born into a pervasive and intractable sense of marginality and insecurity, I ask: what is the subject's relation to affect and activism in contexts where the loss of vision of a good life is not new under neoliberalism, but rather, reworks long-standing violence and inclusion/exclusion of colonial capitalism and nation-state histories. I argue that it is useful to understand Berlant's ‘materialist context for affect theory’ in light of uneven global histories of colonialism, development and neoliberalism. The affective experience of time is different across different spaces. As such, this paper contributes a global materialist context for affect theory, by focusing on activist theatre by a tribe called Chhara, designated ‘born criminals’ by British colonial law – a status legally denotified in 1952, but that is practically still effective in postcolonial India. Competing affective structures – sentimental optimism, cruel pessimism, betrayal and ordinary regard – shape and are shaped by Chhara negotiations with branded criminality. Ultimately, for the postcolonial subject, surviving in the neoliberal present involves vacillating among competing affective structures, only some of which generate sustained political critique.     

The political economy of targeting – a critical review

The political economy models of targeting postulate that going universal is a win‐win situation, for the poor and the middle class, as well as those who are in power. This article critically discusses the assumptions behind the political economy arguments of targeting and tests whether a universal mechanism is bound to politically excel in a low‐income country context. On the basis of attitudinal surveys with the urban, rural and student population in Zambia, we do not find any support for the predictions of the political economy models. We discuss the assumptions of the political economy models in the light of these findings and consider potentially decisive parameters that the models currently do not incorporate.     

多元智能理论在《思想道德修养与法律基础》课教学中的应用

多元智能理论认为,人的智能是多元的,每个正常的人都在一定程度上拥有其中的多项技能,人类个体的不同在于所拥有的技能的程度和组合不同。借鉴这一理论,有利于充分发挥高职院校《思想道德修养与法律基础》课的思想政治教育作用,形成科学的教学观、学生观、师生观和评价观,促进学生的全面发展,增强教学实效性,提高教学质量。