European Nation-states Research Articles

ESTRUTURA E AGÊNCIA NAS RELAÇÕES INTERNACIONAIS: CONSTRUÇÃO DO ESTADO E A EVOLUÇÃO DO SISTEMA POLÍTICO INTERNACIONAL

Conflicts are intrinsic to social systems and constitute an irreducible part of their development. This article analyzes the conflict between states and its effects on the evolutionary dynamics of the international political system. We discuss the ontology of each object of analysis and the causal mechanisms that connect their respective evolving trajectories. Then, the analytical model is evaluated regarding to the processes of formation of the Qin Empire in China and the construction of Nation-States in Europe. The working hypothesis is that the interactions among the strategies chosen by the agents to cope with the structural constrains and competition conditions they encounter cause changes in the international political systems, as well as on the actors themselves.

The Introduction of Mapping Cultures in European Archaeology - Time Meets Space

Prehistoric archaeology derives its roots from various practices and sciences: antiquarianism, natural history, geology, philology etc. The key conceptual tools of archaeology, including its “basic bloc” – archaeological culture, were formed by the end of the 19th century. Identifying the spatial dimension of archaeological cultures is largely linked to the innovations in adjacent disciplines, such as anthropogeography and its founder Friedrich Ratzel, but also with the general developments in cartography, perceived as a useful and “objective” tool for mapping the European nation states and various ethnic and linguistic communities. Ratzel based his ideas upon the ones of Moritz Wagner, geographer, traveller and researcher, and his work Law of the Migration of Organisms, conceived as an extension to Darwin’s theory of evolution. The innovative method of mapping cultures, as well as migrationism, have both remained permanent traits of Ratzel’s anthropogeography and the school of “cultural circles”. The examples from German-speaking archaeology demonstrate beyond doubt the ways in which the visualisation of archaeological cultures influenced the interpretations of European prehistory.

Working towards diversity with a postmigrant perspective: how to examine representation of ethnic minorities in cultural institutions

ABSTRACTThis article presents ways for researchers and cultural workers to find and examine versions of representation in cultural institutions through a postmigrant perspective. The starting point is Denmark—a European nation state with, like many others, a diverse composition of citizens. This diversity is, however, poorly represented in Danish cultural institutions and the problem is difficult for many cultural workers to discuss due to the hesitation large segments of the Danish population feel about using terms associated with race and religion. Since much of the research regarding representation is strictly critical in its approach, it is also challenging to find the proper tools and language to discuss and correct the current skewed situation. This article is intended to provide balance in representation, first by presenting a model of four levels for potential positioning of diverse representation in cultural institutions and, secondly, by addressing the problems of access and depiction in regards to representation.

JOÃO MELO: IDENTIDADE NACIONAL E MASCULINIDADES EM CRISE

O desenvolvimento dos estudos de gênero possibilitou a investigação específica das masculinidades hegemônicas e subordinadas, pondo em evidência a relação entre o exercício da masculinidade e do poder. A sociedade burguesa enfatizou a masculinidade em função da identidade dos estados nacionais europeus e, para isso, construiu paradigmas que se representavam em suas literaturas nacionais. Tendo em vista a crise contemporânea das identidades de gênero, a obra do angolano João Melo, no alvorecer do século XXI, reconhece o estado de crise experimentado pelas masculinidades que recusam continuamente as predeterminações que aproximam o gênero e o poder.

Investigating the Role of International Law in Controlling Communicable Diseases

International law globally plays a key role in the surveillance and control of communicable diseases. Throughout the nineteenth century, international law played a dominant role in harmonizing the inconsistent national quarantine regulations of European nation states; facilitating the exchange of epidemiological information on infectious diseases; establishing international health organizations; and standardization of surveillance. Today, due to changed forms of infectious diseases and individuals' lifestyles as well as individuals' proximity caused by increased air travels, communicable diseases are in an international and cross-border form. In this regard, binding regulations and inconsistent rules adopted in international multilateral institutions like the World Health Organization, World Trade Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization can be of great use in surveillance and control of communicable diseases. With the globalization of public health, international law can be used as an essential tool in monitoring global health and reducing human vulnerability and mortality.

Immigration and the welfare state: A cross-regional analysis of European welfare attitudes

A growing body of research connects diversity to anti-welfare attitudes and lower levels of social welfare expenditure, yet most evidence comes from analyses of US states or comparisons of the United States to Europe. Comparative analyses of European nation-states, however, yield little evidence that immigration – measured at the country-level – reduces support for national welfare state programs. This is not surprising, given that research suggests that the impact of diversity occurs at smaller, sub-national geographic units. Therefore, in this article, we test the hypothesis that immigration undermines welfare attitudes by assessing the impact of immigration measured at the regional-level on individual-level support for redistribution, a comprehensive welfare state, and immigrants’ social rights. To do this, we combine data from the European Social Survey with a unique regional dataset compiled from national censuses, Eurostat, and the European Election Database (13 countries, 114 regions, and 23,213 individuals). Utilizing multilevel modeling, we find a negative relationship between regional percent foreign-born and support for redistribution as well as between regional percent foreign-born and support for a comprehensive welfare state. Objective immigration, however, does not increase opposition to immigrants’ social rights (i.e. welfare chauvinism). We discuss the implications of these results and conclude that traditional welfare state attitudes and welfare chauvinism are distinct phenomena that should not be conflated in future research.

National Models of Physical Education and the Sokol Gymnastics in Russia

The article examines the issue of national models in physical education, which stands in an apparent opposition to the globalizing tendency in sport. It also describes the place of pre-Revolutionary Russia on the world map of physical education. The emergence of nation-states in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was marked by the creation of national models of paramilitary and/or physical training, including the German Turnen, the Swedish Gymnastics, and the Sokol Gymnastics. The last was invented in Prague in 1860’s with the beginning of the Czech national revival against Austrian rule. The movement united Slavic peoples across Central and Eastern Europe; at the beginning of the twentieth century, Russia joined in. The nationalists developed a special system of exercises named “Sokol”, (after the bird, “falcon”), destined to train Slavic youth. The Sokol gymnastics system quickly replaced the German system in the Russian Army and military schools. In the first decade of the twentieth century, the Russian Sokol Union, a voluntary organization promoting paramilitary physical education, was founded. After the Revolution, the Sokols suffered repression on the basis of their monarchism and nationalism. Yet some elements of physical training survived as part of artistic gymnastics. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were attempts to revive the Sokol physical training as “truly Russian”. The case demonstrates that the issue of nationalism in physical education has not entirely vanished amidst the globalization of sport.

Riflessi della crisi dell’eurocentrismo nella frammentazione geografico-politica del continente

After the Congress of Wien, the XIX century saw a rise of nationalism that united people that were joined by a common political project and territory in the formation of European nation states. The end of the First World War was followed by the fragmentation of large multinational empires that created additional nation states. After 1945 and even more so at the end of the Cold War however, this process was followed by the formation of ever-smaller states. These states prevailed to maintain a new identity toward the process of globalisation of politics and the world economy. The last decades have also seen an increase in micro nations, virtual bodies without international recognition and often without a territory. This is the project of a few individuals trying to circumvent the rules of international law and to start financial activities at the margins of the law. They are also alongside a dozen microstates that survived the process of aggregation of the XIX century. Today, they have created tax havens, which is a reason for the destabilisation of traditional sovereign states and the spirit of solidarity that created the European Community in the second half of the “short twentieth century”.

Calderón’s Theater of the New World: Historical Mimesis in La aurora en Copacabana

Lope de Vega, in the dedicatoria to La campana de Aragon , included in the Parte XV de las Comedias , famously pondered historical drama as an effective means to “renovar la fama desde los teatros a las memorias de las gentes” (qtd. in Case 203–04). Due to its eminent ability to make history come alive before the eyes of the audience, the emerging historical drama was certainly the most popular instance of what may be termed the contemporary obsession with history, and thus the most important aesthetic vehicle for the formation of collective memory and cultural identity during this crucial period of nascent European nation states. Examining the case of Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s juxtaposition of orthodox Catholic religious practice and parallel Amerindian rites in La aurora en Copacabana , the present essay proposes a novel approach to his often misunderstood play about the military and religious conquest of Inca Peru, introducing the concept of “historical mimesis” to describe the universal or philosophical, plausible but not veristic, creative and performative staging of history.

A new 'European story'? - The rise of the knowledge-based economy, 1870-1913

The rise of the science-based knowledge-based economy took place during the last third of the 'long' 19th century. And although this era is known for the rise of the European nation-state, most European countries were virtually forced to establish a system of cooperation that ensured stability, scientific and economic progress as well as healthy competition. Consequently, it is here where the roots of European integration are to be found. The paper argues that the growing importance of human capital and R&D - in conjunction with the emerging world market - put the European countries in a difficult position. While growing competition put prices under pressure, growing demands on the quality of human capital required salaries and investments in labour-protection and social policy to rise. Moreover, growing investments in research and development made the matter of protecting innovations on an international level necessary. European cooperation of that time was thus driven by a common experience. As the examples of Germany and France show, the set of rules that characterised European integration was established during the era of internationalism.

A new 'European story'? - The rise of the knowledge-based economy, 1870-1913

The rise of the science-based knowledge-based economy took place during the last third of the 'long' 19th century. And although this era is known for the rise of the European nation-state, most European countries were virtually forced to establish a system of cooperation that ensured stability, scientific and economic progress as well as healthy competition. Consequently, it is here where the roots of European integration are to be found. The paper argues that the growing importance of human capital and R&D - in conjunction with the emerging world market - put the European countries in a difficult position. While growing competition put prices under pressure, growing demands on the quality of human capital required salaries and investments in labour-protection and social policy to rise. Moreover, growing investments in research and development made the matter of protecting innovations on an international level necessary. European cooperation of that time was thus driven by a common experience. As the examples of Germany and France show, the set of rules that characterised European integration was established during the era of internationalism.

‘Why not make films for New York?’: the interaction between cultural, political and commercial perspectives in Swedish film policy 1963–2013

During the last two decades, film support, film policy and the public financing of audiovisual production in Scandinavia and particularly Sweden have undergone extensive change. These transformations may be seen as responses to globalisation, to increased sub-national regional independence as well as to the emergence of ideas related to the nurturing of the ‘creative industries’. They may also be seen to be a consequence of the increasing permeability of the borders of European nation-states. This article traces a history of film policy in a geographically marginal part of Europe that has been characterised by a range of tensions as a result of competing definitions of film as art and commerce. These tensions are traced back to the 1960s when film support were first introduced and the first seeds of conflict – still discernible in the present situation – were planted.

Transnational History: A New Paradigm for Anti-Fascist Studies?

Anti-fascism – a hallmark of the left since the 1930s, and a vague term for active opposition to Italian fascism, German Nazism and similar movements in the interwar period – used to be studied as a brief episode in the history of European nation states. The available syntheses read like collections of national studies with a clear European or Western focus. However, methodological nationalism may soon become a thing of the past – the last few years have brought a transnational turn in anti-fascist studies, which this special issue tries both to illustrate and to discuss.

Translanguaging in mainstream education: a sociocultural approach

ABSTRACTDue to the monolingual self-understanding of European nation-states, migration-induced multilingualism and the language mixing practices it triggers are not usually acknowledged as resources for learning within mainstream classrooms. The term translanguaging has recently been put forward as both a way of describing the flexible ways in which bilinguals draw upon their multiple languages to enhance their communicative potential and a pedagogical approach in which teachers and pupils use these practices for learning. However, little research has been conducted in how the translanguaging approach can be used in mainstream education to enhance knowledge. This study draws on videographic data recorded in 59 10th grade (15-year-olds) subject-matter classes in 4 secondary schools. Applying sociocultural discourse analysis to peer–peer interaction and therefore considering how learners scaffold one another as they participate in collaborative talk and in the co-construction of knowledge, results describe several functions of translanguaging for ‘exploratory talk’ leading to content-matter learning. Multilingual adolescents in naturalistic settings thus use their multilingualism to cognitively engage with content-based tasks and produce high-order speech acts embedded in complex talk.

Venligboerne: A Case of Polarisation

The post 2008 European national state is best characterised by one term: political polarisation. In this paper, the mentalities behind the growing divisions between various social groups are explored through the use of a Danish grassroots movement as an example. The paper examines the group called Venligboerne, an activist Facebook group, and the extent to which they are the result of growing political divisions in Denmark. The findings are that groups of this sort as well as their reactionaries, in form of the growing nationalist right-wing movements, share the same precarious relationship to the labour market. The two conflicting mentalities are both reactions to the same reality, and therefore valuable policies could potentially arise from acceptance and compromise, rather than outright dismissal from the outset.

Professional encounters with the post-WWII immigrant: a privileged prism for studying the shaping of European welfare nation-states

This introductory article argues that practices of professional thinking and acting on the presence of the immigrant offer a privileged analytical prism through which to study how post-WWII European welfare nation-states have been shaped and crafted. As such, study of the formation of post-WWII welfare nation-states where one usually does not look for them is suggested: that is, beyond the bureaucratic logic imposed by the state itself. Consequently, a wedge is driven into the mundane professional practices embedded in the immigrant/welfare nation-state nexus, through which may be observed the very heterogeneous production of problems and solutions with immense effect on human lives, communities, and societies. These practices demonstrate the boundary work of the welfare nation-state that shapes it and gives shape to the construction and reconstruction of immigrant children and their families as problems and, thus, objects of integration and professional intervention. In this sense, the prism offers a new approach to writing histories of immigrant children’s education and the shaping and crafting of welfare nation-states that displaces both objects of study to professional practices of their making. In the first part of the article, the privileging of this analytical prism is substantiated historically and theoretically. In the second part, the four contributions constituting this themed issue are introduced. Finally there is a discussion of how the four contributions demonstrate the analytical prism’s cross-national relevance and historical sensitivity, adding new histories of how immigrant children’s education has been caught up in the immigrant/welfare nation-state nexus.

Issues of musical identity during the foundation of the turkish republic (1923-1950)

In the early years of the Turkish Republic, music was a central topic in the cultural reforms that aimed to guide Turkey in the modernism and progressivism that defined the first half of the twentieth century. Several issues were involved, including the “change of civilizations” from an Ottoman and Eastern identity to becoming more like a Western European nation-state. This was a period that saw the establishment of Western-style music conservatories and the employment of musicians and musicologists to help establish a national classical music based on Turkish folk elements. At the same time, media outlets such as radio helped to shape and disseminate a national folk musical style. Private music making and cultural exchange with the West also played an important role in shaping a new Ottoman style. All of these elements worked together to form a rich and complex fabric of musical identity during the early days of the Turkish Republic.

Habermas on the European crisis

Based on a critical reading of Jürgen Habermas’s journalistic writings on the European Union, the article argues that Europe’s current crisis is also a crisis of its narratives, and hence a crisis of meaning. The German philosopher has revised his political vision of a united Europe but has done so without abandoning his neo-Kantian ‘soft revolutionism’. The EU of the future is not only envisaged as an alternative to the allegedly defunct European nation-state, but also as the antithesis to US-style federalism and to what is called ‘post-democratic executive federalism’. What is more, Habermas no longer fully trusts in the power of the better argument, as championed in his critical social theory. Instead, his hope of normative progress towards a socially and politically more integrated Europe is founded on a belief in the power of the crisis itself – aided by a convincing pro-European narrative – to drive us in the same direction as that indicated by reason. The conclusion contrasts Habermas’s utopian Europeanism, which has failed to find favour with the wider European public, with a less utopian alternative inspired by the highly specific, non-universal situation of the Old Continent.

Europeanness: A Path To Unity Within The European Union

The postwar experience has shown that the implanting of European consciousness, or Europeanness, calls for coordinated efforts among the European institutions, national states, and NGOs. Such consciousness, a key pillar of the European integration, is necessary for the EU to effectively function and motivate member states’ – also the EU’s – citizens. And yet European institutions and EU governments show little interest in promoting the formation of this European consciousness. Pro-European social movements are weak, while anti-European ones gain strength. This désintéressement of the EU countries probably results from the conviction that the goal has been reached and that there is no more need for a widespread pro-European education of their societies. However analysis of the problem, and in particular of the interaction between European and national identities, shows that this is not the case. We fear that this lack of proactive measures mobilizing EU citizens to keep on struggling for a common Europe will lead to the erosion of existing achievements of integration within the EU, and undermine European values. It may threaten the future of the EU, which is not an ordinary integration grouping but a great peaceful, civilizational, social and economic project. Our hypothesis – positively verified in this article – is that the promotion of Europeanness in the EU societies is urgently needed to maintain the unity (and even membership) of the Union, and to avert trends unfavorable for all of Europe and therefore for the West as a whole.

Social work education in a time of national crisis in Greece: educating the workforce to combat inequalities

Since 2010, Greece has experienced an unprecedented economic and humanitarian crisis, which continues to have tremendous social impact. Austerity measures and policy cuts have included a dis-investment in social work and social care and more recently the abolition of one of the four national Social Work Departments providing qualifying social work education. In this context, this study addresses the following question: how does pre-qualifying social work education in Greece influence students' ability to manage value tensions in relation to anti-oppressive practice? Using a case study methodology, the research was based in one Social Work Department (subsequently abolished). Data were collected through semi-structured interviews from social work students at the beginning and the end of their professional education (n = 32) and once from academic staff/placement supervisors (n = 10). Data were analysed drawing on grounded theory techniques. In this paper only one particular dataset is considered in detail: the attitudes and experiences of final year students. The main findings indicate students' narrow understandings and individualistic approaches towards oppression, reflecting an urgent need to redefine social work education and practice in Greece according to current social justice concerns. Specifically, social work education needs to give greater weight to a structural perspective on the dynamics of oppression. Although focussed on Greece, the paper offers a critical debate of contemporary relevance for social work education in many European nation states.