Religion,Religiosity, and the Attitudes Toward Homosexuality—A Multilevel Analysis of 79 Countries

Although attitudes toward homosexuality have become more liberal, particularly in industrialized Western countries, there is still a great deal of variance in terms of worldwide levels of homonegativity. Using data from the two most recent waves of the World Values Survey (1999–2004, 2005–2009), this article seeks to explain this variance by means of a multilevel analysis of 79 countries. We include characteristics on the individual level, as age or gender, as well as aggregate variables linked to specificities of the nation-states. In particular, we focus on the religious denomination of a person and her religiosity to explain her attitude toward homosexuality. We find clear differences in levels of homonegativity among the followers of the individual religions.     

Review essay: on Mamdani’s mode of thought

This essay tracks the formation of a global intellectual, perhaps the only one, whose work moves across Africa, America and Asia. Mahmood Mamdani has been a central figure engaging in explaining the most controversial issues such as refugees, popular versus state nationalism, mass killings (Rowanda), settler versus native, colonial citizenship and its governed subject, September 11, the Dafur movement (and its self-indulgence), Imperial Human Rights, decolonizing university and knowledge production (the US as the first and never decololinzed), settler colonialism, etc. Fearless and thoroughly grounded, Mamdani’s mode of thought is to historicize the conditions of the existence of the problematics in question with a theorization emerging out of the analyses. As a whole, Mamdani’s political practices as educator and public intellectual and the body of brilliant work have been inspirational. The essay is written as an introduction to Decolonizing the World: A Mahmood Mamdani Reader, a collection of his selected work, to open the channel of interaction between Asia and Africa.     

“I bled like you,brother, although I was a thousand miles away”: postwar Yiddish sources on the experiences of Polish Jews in Soviet exile during World War II

ABSTRACT

An estimated 230,000 Polish Jews escaped Nazi persecution during World War II by flight or deportation to the interior of the Soviet Union. This article examines early postwar Yiddish and Polish sources on their survival in Soviet exile such as poems, newspaper articles, and witness testimonies. Two sets of sources are analyzed in-depth, testimonies written by young people in Jewish Displaced Persons (DP) camps in occupied Germany and Yiddish poetry from Poland and the DP camps. The author argues that many former exiles were eager to write down their experiences. In doing so, they were aware of the complex nature of deportation and flight that characterized the experiences of Polish Jews in the Soviet Union. In their testimonies many young witnesses express their understanding that they too were “marked by the khurbn.” Whereas Yiddish poetry from the same period helps us understand how writers dealt with their own story of wartime survival outside the realm of German persecution. In their poetry they seek meaning in their own suffering and express their desire to establish a dialogue with other survivors.     

伊盟、伊合与中国中东人文外交

伊斯兰世界联盟与伊斯兰合作组织是泛伊斯兰主义制度化的产物,伊盟主要通过朝觐平台间接对伊斯兰国家政治施与影响,伊合则通过推进议题的方式直接对伊斯兰国家政治产生影响;我国历来重视发展与这些泛伊斯兰国际组织的友好关系,并取得了宝贵历史经验与良好的成效;在明确我国与泛伊斯兰国际组织开展人文交流与合作的资源优势、基本目标及其实现途径的基础上,探索我国对中东国家开展“全方位、多层次、宽领域”人文外交的应对之策,旨在进一步提升我国对中东伊斯兰国家的人文外交能力.     

Jewish power and powerlessness: Prague Zionists and the Paris Peace Conference

This article explores how perceptions of Jewish power shaped the negotiations between Czechoslovak leaders and Jewish minority representatives at the time of the Paris Peace Conference. In the aftermath of the First World War, Prague-based Zionists embarked on a mission to convince Czechoslovak elites that attacks on Jews were detrimental to the internal stability of the new state and to Czechoslovak interests abroad. As Edvard Bene?, the head of the Czechoslovak delegation in Paris, worked to cultivate an image of the new state as more “Western” and “civilised” than other successor states – a strategy meant to garner international support for Czechoslovak territorial demands and its projected absorption of large minority populations – Jewish activists encouraged his uncertainty with regard to Jews' influence on Western audiences and statesmen. They did so in order to convince him to accept their demands for special protection clauses for the new country's Jews. The paper thus shows that the unprecedented victimisation of Jews and the upsurge in antisemitism during and after the war coexisted with a new bold and public Jewish activism. Yet, Jewish leaders did not in the end have the ability to convince Bene? and his colleagues to give in to international Jewish demands for special protection. Instead, they sought to cultivate a strategic alliance between the state's Czech elite and the Jewish minority which centred on the claim that Czechoslovakia was a particularly welcoming and tolerant place for Jews, an image that would evolve into a significant component of the myth of Czechoslovakia as an island of democracy in Eastern Europe.     

世界科技创新趋势与启示

现阶段"现代化进程强大的客观需求"和"知识技术体系的内在矛盾"正孕育着新一轮科技革命,世界正处在第六次科技革命的前夜。200多年的工业化进程催生出一系列问题。经济发展的客观需求迫切需要开发新的资源能源,创新发展模式和发展途径,创建新的生产方式和生活方式。"基础科学领域""能源和资源域""信息网络领域""先进材料和制造领域""农业领域""人口健康领域"这六个方面孕育着重大的创新突破。科学问题的重大突破和技术的变革将深刻影响人类的生产和生活方式,影响社会发展的进程,影响国家的国际竞争地位。把握新一轮科技革命的战略机遇,将大幅提升我国自主创新与规模产业化的能力。     

关于“中国道路”争论中的两个问题

近年来,随着中国经济的持续快速发展,关于中国模式、中国道路的问题引起了人们的广泛注意,也存在着巨大的分歧和争论。其实,讨论中国道路,需要有一种世界历史的大视野,需要从中华民族走向现代化的历史大尺度来审视。基于这种大视野和大尺度,有利于对我们所取得的成绩,所走过的曲折道路、所处的历史阶段、所面临的诸多难题及其成因,进行冷静的反思和理性的考察,形成清醒的认识和科学的定位,从而能够合理地科学地谋划中国的未来发展。     

欧洲主权债务危机与欧洲中央银行制度上的缺陷

中央银行最后贷款人职能是现代中央银行的一个重要职能,尤其在经济下降并发生市场恐慌时期,中央银行发挥这一职能是维持金融体系安全稳定的重要保障。由于欧洲中央银行缺乏这一职能,欧元区主权债务危机很难在短期内被彻底平息。欧盟只有进行改革,赋予欧洲中央银行这一职能,才能让其在解救欧元区高负债国家的债务危机中发挥更大的作用。同时,现代中央银行履行最后贷款人职能时,还必须遵循应有的原则以及处理好与中央银行货币政策目标的关系。     

世界·中国·长三角——未来二十年浙江经济社会的发展环境研究

本研究报告从世界经济康德拉季耶夫长周期、中国经济发展跨越“中等收入陷阱”和长三角区域经济发展三个方面的研究视角,研究了浙江经济社会发展在未来20年可能处于的大环境.研究的初步结论表明:未来20年期间,世界经济将处于康氏长周期的衰退一萧条一复苏期;中国经济将跨越“中等收入陷阱”,成为世界第一大经济体;长三角地区的上海都市经济圈有可能发展成为仅次于美国纽约都市经济圈的世界第二大都市经济圈.浙江经济社会的未来发展环境将处在一个不确定性增加且多变的时期,正视危机,抢抓先机,对浙江经济社会发展非常关键.     

"大上海国际化都市圈"的整合与建构——中国长三角城市群差序化格局创新研究

纵观世界城市化的发展,城市群正在成为国家与区域经济发展的主要动力要素之一。中国正处在城市社会来临的社会变迁过程中,城市群的总体发展一直未能突破传统的体制性障碍,形成具有国际化功能大都市圈,更没有形成具有中国本土化特色的城市群发展关系。面对全球化的城市竞争,城市群的发展及建构关系到国家现代化的发展战略和模式选择,中国的城市群要想在世界城市全球竞争的关系中占居世界经济价值链的高端区位,必须创造合理的、跨行政区域的、有内在市场机制关系的“城市群差序化格局”,并通过构建新型的城市群结构体系,直接参与城市全球化的竞争,创造中国区域现代化示范区。