Contemporary Political Developments Research Articles

International Lawyers: Handmaidens, Chefs, or Birth Attendants? A Response to Philip Alston

This article responds to a paper Philip Alston published in a recent issue of this Journal. Alston gently chided international lawyers for not having paid greater attention to the possible impacts on international law of globalization. The timeless of the wake-up call would be hard to dispute, but Alston's discussion of globalization serves to highlight the difficulty international lawyers face in assessing contemporary political developments given the inadequacy of dominant frameworks within which to understand how international law relates to the political and economic context in which it operates. International lawyers will need to be able to enunciate just what part international law has played in the globalization process as it has taken place to date before they can play a meaningful role in policy debates regarding the future of globalization.

On The Decline of Contemporary Political Development Studies

This study argues that the self-described “malaise” in the study of political development theory is in part the product of the early attempt to strip judgments of value from those of fact in the interests of a more scientific comparative politics; that the resulting science has been inclined to ignore or neglect what may be the most fundamental difference between the modern and premodern worlds, namely the elimination of all religious concerns from those of politics proper (the “separation of church and state”); and that this neglect is in turn linked with the crisis in self-confidence characteristic not only of the science of comparative politics but of science or rationalism simply.

The short Oxford history of English literature

The Short Oxford History of English Literature provides in a single volume a comprehensive beginner's guide to the literature of the British Isles from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present day. Now established as the leading introduction to English literature, separate chapters trace the development from Beowulf to the `post-modern' fictions of Seamus Heaney and Angela Carter. The History provides detailed discussion of Old and Middle English Literature, the Renaissance, Shakespeare, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Romantics, Victorian and Edwardian literature, Modernism, and post-war writing. Discussions of key writers and works from Anselm and Chaucer to Spencer and Bunyan, and from Swift and Johnson to Dickens and D.H. Lawrence, are combined with analysis of the impact on literature of contemporary political, social, and intellectual developments. The History looks again at the canon of English literature and provides a fresh assessment of the distinctive contribution of Scottish, Irish, and Welsh writers, and it asks about the future of the canon in the light of the fragmented condition of British writing in the post-imperial period. This revised edition includes for the first time detailed, chapter-by-chapter guidance on further reading. Lively, accessible, and up-to-date, The Short Oxford History of English Literature will be an invaluable source for general readers and a key textbook for sixth-form students, first year undergraduates, and foreign students of English literature.

The computus and the Annals of Ulster

This paper demonstrates that the chronological framework of the Annals of Ulster is a combination of two different systems: one based on January AD dating (nativity era), the other based on March AD dating (incarnation era). This discovery explains the discrepancies in the dates, and vindicates Ussher’s analysis of the dating criteria against Bartholomew Mac Carthy’s later critique. The introduction of March AD dating is pinpointed to the eleventh century, and is related to contemporary political and ecclesiastical developments. The original chronological apparatus is restored and some of the literary sources are also identified. The date and place of compilation for the original are identified as Iona, c.AD 740.

State and Society in Thailand: How Fragile the Democracy?

The full consequences and implications of the crisis of May 1992-widely labeled in Thailand as Black May-may still be unfolding. The political challenge posed by popular demonstrations against General Suchinda Kraprayoon's premiership was met with military force, resulting in the worst case of civil strife in the history of the capital city. The period since those bloody events, however, may be sufficient to permit a more or less sober examination of the crisis in the context of Thailand's past and present democratic experiences, as well as a reasoned prognosis of what the future holds for the kingdom's political development. One can argue that one of the processes, if not the process, central to contemporary Thai political development is the evolution of relations between state and society, and that the crisis of May 1992 and its aftermath is a crucial turning point in the evolution of the relations between state and society, and hence also a crucial turning point in the development of Thai democracy.

Caroline Schlegel and Rahel Varnhagen: The Response of Two German Women to the French Revolution and its Aftermath

Caroline Michaelis-Bohmer-Schlegel-Schelling and Rahel Levin Varnhagen are two remarkable German women who, at the end of the eighteenth century, achieved a degree of personal autonomy and renown unthinkable for most other women. Even more notable are their interest in contemporary political developments and their concerns for social justice in the larger sense. Their progressive views positively influenced the Early German Romantic movement with which they were associated. This article will examine the ideas and attitudes of Caroline and Rahel 2 as revealed in the letters and diaries they wrote during a period that witnessed the momentous changes resulting from the French Revolution, the Napoleonic reign, and the period of Reaction. In order to assess the significance of these women in the German and the larger European context, it will be helpful to sketch briefly the situation in France and the role French women played in the revolutionary events of the 1790s.

Red Queen or White Knight? The Ambivalences of Bogdanov

Truth is not a simple copy of the facts, not a petty and exact representation of them: it is an instrument for gaining control over them. The author of these words would have appreciated the reasons for the current interest in his ideas. As Lenin's only serious rival for political and intellectual leadership before 1917, Bogdanov's importance in the history of the Bolshevik party has never been in dispute; nevertheless, he was consigned to obscurity until, in an attempt to respond adequately to complex developments in contemporary Soviet politics, revisionist historians like Stephen Cohen began to question the totalitarian paradigm of orthodox sovietology. Questions of alternatives are being reopened, figures like Bogdanov and Bukharin reexamined, not as a wistful backward look along avenues closed by history, but as an analysis of the implications of choices that have contemporary programmatic significance. The current Soviet involvement in this discussion gives those of us devoted to the study of history's failures a new and heady sense of being at the center of things, and imposes an unfamiliar responsibility: the question of whether such figures represented genuine alternatives is no longer academic (in the popular sense of irrelevant). On this question recent scholarship on Bogdanov is sharply divided, as illustrated by the two most recent books on the subject. Zenovia Sochor, like Jutta Scherrer in her study of Vpered's party schools,' sees the main significance of Bogdanovism in a grassroots challenge to the authoritarianism of the monolithic Leninist party, an attempt, highly relevant to current debates, to create a socialism with a human face. But Robert Williams sees a symbiotic relationship between Bogdanov's collectivism and Lenin's authoritarianism.2 Surprisingly, there has been very little discussion between these two opposing points of view. Sochor notes that Williams' study appeared too late for her to discuss, but she refers to my interpretation of the Lenin-Bogdanov dispute (radically different from

Sosio-histories een sosiologie se interpretasie van die nuwe Testament*

Contemporary social and political developments on a global scale prompted a renewed interest in the study of the social facets of the New Testament d u r in g the past decade or so. The purpose of this article is to give an overview of the progress made in this line of questioning . More specifically, the article has as its aim to propose a set of categories in terms of which the two main approaches within this branch of New Testament studies can be clearly and consistently distinguished - a matter on which there is currently much confusion. These two approaches are (i) a description of social aspects of the New Testament based on historical-critical methodology, and (ii) an interpretation of the social data thus collected, based on modern social-scientific methodology (specifically Sociology and Anthropology ) . It is argued that there is ample room as well as a need for the practice of both these approaches, despite the disagreements between the proponents of the two schools. An important aspect of my argumentation is to give relatively elaborate illustrations of each approach.

Authoritarian Capitalism: Brazil's Contemporary Economic and Political Development. Edited by Thomas G. Bruneau and Philippe Faucher. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1981. Pp. xvi + 272. $26.00, cloth; $12.50, paper.)

Authoritarian Capitalism: Brazil's Contemporary Economic and Political Development. Edited by Thomas G. Bruneau and Philippe Faucher. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1981. Pp. xvi + 272. 12.50, paper.) - Volume 77 Issue 4

Brazil in the International System: The Rise of a Middle PowerPower and Ideology in BrazilAuthoritarian Capitalism: Brazil’s Contemporary Economic and Political Development

Brazil in the International System: The Rise of a Middle PowerPower and Ideology in BrazilAuthoritarian Capitalism: Brazil’s Contemporary Economic and Political Development

Authoritarian Capitalism: Brazil's Contemporary Economic and Political Development

Authoritarian Capitalism: Brazil's Contemporary Economic and Political Development

Authoritarian Capitalism: Brazil's Contemporary Economic and Political Development

Authoritarian Capitalism: Brazil's Contemporary Economic and Political Development

Political hoplites?

It was once a commonplace of early Greek history that a major factor involved in the demise of the aristocratic regimes of the dark ages was the adoption of the hoplite form of warfare: that the rise of the early tyrants and other contemporary political developments were brought about at least in part by the inability of aristocrats to maintain their monopoly of privilege in the face of demands from non-aristocratic hoplites for political power commensurate with their new military importance. But in an important article in this Journal (lxxxv [1965] 110–22) Snodgrass challenged this view. He first argued that the hoplite phalanx was unknown in Greece before c. 650, and that its adoption can therefore not have affected the rise to power of the earliest tyrants. Similarly, if the Spartan rhetra is to be dated to the early seventh century, it cannot have been the result of demands made by a hoplite class. His case was not, however, merely chronological, for he suggested that it is in any event difficult to believe that the hoplite reform had immediate political consequences. The reaction to his case has been mixed, but his arguments have not been subjected to the careful examination they deserve.

Culture, History, and Grass‐Roots Politics in a Northern Cameroons Kingdom1

PREDICTIONS of the results of two plebiscites which took place in Northern Cameroons in 1959 and 1961 were almost wholly wrong, and postballoting analyses proved equally erroneous. They failed because relevant cultural data were not considered. Political events take place in a cultural and historical matrix, and if this fact is ignored, prediction or even general understanding of political developments is impossible. This paper attempts to relate such political episodes to their matrix in an important kingdom of the area. Though many of the details of analysis are peculiar to this particular kingdom, the dominant currents of history and culture in much of Northern Cameroons are similar enough that this example possibly affords broader understanding of contemporary political development in that area.

Labor and the Theory of the Mexican Revolution under Lázaro Cárdenas

Since Mexico now seems to be the key nation in Latin America in the implementation of President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, it becomes even more pressing that we in the United States understand the nature of the Mexican social order. As a point of departure for this effort, one might well begin by considering the basis for contemporary industrial and political development of Mexico as formulated in the years 1934-1940 under Mexico'sNew Dealof Lázaro Cárdenas. Sanford Mosk noted, “… what went on during the time of Cárdenas has had an indirect effect on the subsequent industrial development.” Or, as the United States Tariff Commission claimed, the reorientation of Mexico's economic and social policy has been an important part of her political life since 1910. The new program was given impetus by the Constitution of 1917, which contained important provisions for agrarian reform and for the protection of labor. Yet, aggressive implementation of the new policy began under president Lazaro Cardenas with the inauguration of the Six-Year Plan in 1934.

Courts, Lawyers and Trials under the Last Three Tsars.

An exposition of the Russian judiciary, lawyers, and jury of the 1864-1917 period, it begins with the great judicial reform of 1864 and treats subjects within the framework of contemporary political and social development in Russia.