Bridging Rhetoric and Practice: New Perspectives on Barriers to Gendered Change

ABSTRACT

This article presents a new methodology, Gender Knowledge Contestation Analysis, and uses it to examine the processes under way when transformative gender equality policies, such as gender mainstreaming are implemented. Drawing on data gathered in the European Commission, the findings show the processes linking high-level rhetorical policy statements, strategic policies, and daily working practices. This analysis enables exploration of the mechanisms through which indifference to and nonawareness of gendered policy problems are collectively constituted and methods through which they can be challenged. Findings thus deepen our understanding of barriers to the implementation of gender mainstreaming and the steps required for its effective implementation.     

A life of one’s own: republican freedom and disability

This article outlines a republican perspective on disability. We argue that a commitment to ensuring the republican freedom of disabled citizens offers a promising account of what disabled citizens are owed as a matter of justice. A republican perspective offers a particular diagnosis of the injustice of disability disadvantage, both in relation to individuals (dominium) and the state (imperium), that is congenial to prominent concerns voiced by the disability rights movement. This article also offers a brief outline of three republican remedies: the right of social participation, the right of opportunities for civic contribution, and the right of democratic contestation. These remedies constitute key guidelines for the robust institutional protection of disabled citizens’ republican freedom.     

Linking Disconnected Spaces or Venue Shopping? Trade-Offs in Participatory Opportunities in the EU

This article discusses why national civil society organisations (CSOs) use or abstain to use the participatory opportunities that the EU has developed in the last years. This is done by analysing the role of French and Spanish civil society groups in the debates on participatory democracy during the drafting and the referendum debates of the European Constitution (2002–2005). The paper departs from existing assessments of the role of national civil society in the Convention and demonstrates that national organisations built on their expertise on certain EU policies, on access to EU-level political actors and on contacts and alliances with other CSOs. It also differs from previous studies in finding that participation does not entail sharing the interpretive frame promoted by the EU. The finding that access opportunities do not fundamentally influence the frames of the organisations is related to their ability to strategically choose to participate in European and national venues. The paper finds that because of their scepticism on the constitution's participatory framing, French organisations preferred a stronger role at the national level, whereas Spanish organisations did not have real incentives to develop a campaign at the national level. While it is expected that dialogue with CSOs can contribute to bridging the gap between the EU and its citizens, this paper finds that the institutional setting provided incentives for national organisations to get involved only in one of the levels rather than to link them.     

The politics of neoliberalism in Latin America: dynamics of resilience and contestation

Over the last two decades, academic debates around neoliberalism in Latin America have shifted from evaluations of the drawbacks and virtues of the application of neoliberal policies for achieving socioeconomic development, towards discussions imagining and implementing alternatives. After thirty years of neoliberal reform, even neoliberal advocates have increasingly recognised the pernicious effects that the process of neoliberalization have had on people's lives. The fleeting left and centre-left moment brought renewed hopes and expectations of a post-neoliberal future. However, post-neoliberal states could not solve the contradictions of neoliberalism and told us much about its resilience and adaptability. This article offers an overview of the dynamics of neoliberalism's resilience and contestation in Latin America as treated by extant literature as a way to account for the politics of neoliberalism in the region, its rise and its current status.     

Public life in Bangkok's urban spaces

The paper examines public life within Bangkok's urban spaces on the premise that user needs and satisfaction should play an integral component in the design of these spaces. An ecology-culture-behaviour paradigm is introduced to appropriately rationalise the relationship between urban design, ecology and sociology. Bangkok, a canal- and river-based port city, echoes the urban morphological processes of early Southeast Asian coastal settlements, but differs in its social and physical construct because of its lack of exposure to colonial dominance. Only in the latter part of the 19th century, when Western influence was introduced and became stronger, a change in its physical form was manifest, but the city still retained the social construct within its urban spaces and activity nodes (i.e. informal, commercial and religious spaces). Bangkok street users and their corresponding activities within the contemporary urban street space are also examined through field observation and survey to paint an overall picture of the behaviour and attitudes of the street users. The Bangkok experience presents a case of a dynamic city with competition between its traditions and the Western contemporary influences on its urban spaces. Finally, the paper reiterates the significant need to reconsider the intrinsic relationship between ecology, culture and behaviour to better understand the life between structures to create an urban space that satisfies its end users.     

马叙伦与民国初年北京大学的新旧之争

马叙伦与北京大学早期历史有着相当密切的关系。民国初年,马叙伦不仅在治学的领域和方法属于旧学一路,而且学术思想上仍带有明显的国粹主义取向。因此在这一时期的新旧之争中,马叙伦以"旧派"学者的形象出现。他的这一倾向不仅受到支持新派的学生的挑战,而且面临来自新派同事的压力。不过,马叙伦的"旧派"形象主要是就其治学情况而言,在政治思想及人际交往方面他则偏于趋新势力。正因为如此,马叙伦在五四运动后不仅没有消极避世,反而在几个重要历史时期均占据教育界要津。     

日本、中国大陆和台湾学界的“皇民文学“研究述评

就“皇民文学”研究这一课题,对日本、中国大陆和台湾学界的研究方法、研究心理及研究成果进行述评,并由此提出关于这一文学现象研究中存在的问题,以求达到学术上的相互理解和通融,促进三地的文学互动和文学批评的发展。     

竞争与认同:从历日颁赐、历法之争看宋与周边民族政权的关系

颁布正朔是古代王朝治权实现的重要象征,接受正朔则是认同这种统治秩序的标志。10-13世纪,华夏地区有宋、辽、金等几个相互竞争、边界变动的正朔颁布中心,这是由当时民族竞争融合的特殊政治格局形成的,历法的颁受折射出民族政权间政治、文化的复杂关系。这一时期是我国统一多民族国家形成的重要阶段,历法颁赐为我们提供了一个新的视角认识华夏认同、朝贡体制形成和维系的一些细节。     

道德新名词的价值考问及其启示

在现代社会转型的时代语境下,人们总在道德焦虑中面临深刻的道德困惑。“委屈奖”是道德宽容还是道德妥协,“次道德”是道德还是不道德,“见义巧为”是道德应然还是道德功利？这些问题都需要在论争、解读与再思考中进行。只有增强道德自信,提高道德自觉,才能走向道德自由。