General Ideology Research Articles

International Experience, Principles and Conditions for the Transition to a “Green Economy”

Proceeding from the general ideology of the sustainable development concept, the issues of determining the long-term social and environmental consequences of modern economic development are fundamental, and the success of implementing the ideas of economic modernization and energy efficiency depends on the active position of state and regional authorities. To move to the path of sustainable development, carefully coordinated actions in all spheres of the economy are needed. It requires a model of an organizational and economic mechanism that would ensure the transition to a "green economy", the reorientation of economic, environmental and social institutions to priority areas. Clearly, at the moment, there is an urgent need for moving to an economic model that will improve human well-being, while preserving resources and not exposing future generations to significant environmental risks. To conduct an effective environmental policy and to assess the overall effectiveness of “green” growth, it is proposed to develop a model for ensuring a transition to a "green economy", which will allow understanding the level and coordination of activities, the scale and boundaries of their impact, and most comprehensively process information on possible projected risks and possible negative effects (pollution, degradation of ecosystems).

Dabaodao: the planning, development, and transformation of a Chinese (German) neighbourhood

ABSTRACTDabaodao is an old city district located in the heart of the historical centre of Qingdao (north-eastern China). It was created over 100 years ago as a segregated ‘Chinese town’ under German colonial rule. This article embarks upon a journey into the past, reviewing the continuity and change of Dabaodao and its courtyard-style houses known as Liyuan over last century of socio-political turmoil. It discusses how they have evolved and transformed under different city administrations, beginning from the early colonial years, to the Republican era, the Maoist years, all the way into the reform period. Specifically, the article illustrates how city-planning, laws, and regulations as well as a general urban development ideology during one time period conditioned and shaped those of following periods, eventually turning Dabaodao into what it is today: a dilapidated and poor inner-city neighbourhood with an uncertain future whose historical significance and preservation value remains highly contested and under debate. This article reviews colonial city planning and its impacts in Qingdao, an under-represented city in the English language literature on colonial China; moreover, the article links Dabaodao’s diverse history to current contestations over urban renewal, hereby engaging the complex issue of using the past in the present.

Division at the Water’s Edge: The Polarization of Foreign Policy

Severe party conflict, not a high-minded suspension of politics, now prevails “at the water’s edge.” Democrats and Republicans fight pitched battles over foreign affairs. But are the two parties polarized in their substantive preferences on foreign policy, or mainly jockeying for partisan advantage? Are they polarized on foreign policy less sharply than on domestic policy? What are the sources of party polarization over foreign policy? Using a new measure of senatorial foreign-policy preferences from 1945-2010, we explore party polarization over foreign policy. We find that foreign-policy preferences have had varying relationships with party politics and general ideology. Since the 1960s, however, the parties have become increasingly polarized on foreign policy. Using a multilevel analysis, we show that foreign-policy polarization has developed in response to partisan electoral rivalry, foreign-policy events, and general ideological polarization. The analysis indicates an increasing influence of domestic politics on foreign policy.

МОДЕЛИ МОЛЕКУЛЯРНОЙ ДИНАМИКИ: ОБЗОР EAM-ПОТЕНЦИАЛОВ. ЧАСТЬ 1: ПОТЕНЦИАЛЫ ДЛЯ ОДНОКОМПОНЕНТНЫХ СИСТЕМ

This article is the part of the review devoted to the description of modern approaches to the construction of interatomic potentials based on the embedded atom method (EAM) for various one-component materials. We consider the general ideology of the molecular (atomic) dynamics method and outline the shortcomings of the approach to modeling atomic systems using the classical pair-interaction potentials. The basic ideas and relations of the embedded atom method are presented, as well as various modifications of the method, including MEAM. The algorithm for numerical implementation of EAM potentials in calculations of molecular dynamic systems is considered, as well as the ways to improve the efficiency of the computational algorithms, including those related to the introduction of the cut-off radius and the justification of its choice for various materials. The review focuses on the methods of construction and types of embedding functions for a variety of materials, as well as the physical and mechanical properties of materials, which are well described in some kind of potential. A brief review of the methods for obtaining potential parameters is given, e.g. by using the quantum mechanical calculations (often referred to as first principles or ab initio) or using experimentally determined properties (diffraction, X-ray methods or electron microscopy), as well as a list of physical and mechanical properties that can be determined for a material using molecular dynamics methods with the application of modern potentials constructed by EAM. The authors have considered in detail the works which offer those potentials that (at present) most accurately describe the properties of such difficult (for forward modeling) materials, such as beryllium, iron, tungsten, niobium, titanium, uranium and others. The relevance of studying the structure and properties of these materials is largely due to the prospects of its application in materials for nuclear power engineering, aerospace industry, and biomedicine. Also, this review is devoted to the construction of EAM potentials capable for describing the structure and properties of a number of metals (lithium, nickel, copper, aluminum, etc.), which are considered both in the melt state and after crystallization.

Confirmatory factor analytic investigation of variance composition, gender invariance, and validity of the Male Role Norms Inventory-Adolescent-revised (MRNI-A-r).

Confirmatory factor analysis of responses to the Male Role Norms Inventory-Adolescent-revised (MRNI-A-r) from 384 middle school students (163 boys, 221 girls) indicated that the best fit to the data was a bifactor model incorporating the hypothesized 3-factor structure while explicitly modeling an additional, general factor. Specifically, each item-level indicator loaded simultaneously on 2 factors: a general traditional masculinity ideology factor and a specific factor corresponding to 1 of the 3 hypothesized masculine norms for adolescents: Emotionally Detached Dominance, Toughness, and Avoidance of Femininity. Invariance testing across gender supported metric invariance for the general factor only. Although item loadings on the general factor were similar across boys and girls, the specific factor loadings varied substantially, with many becoming nonsignificant in the presence of the general factor for girls. A structural regression analysis predicting latent variables of the Meanings of Adolescent Masculinity Scale (MAMS), the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, and the Discipline, School Difficulties, and Positive Behavior Scale (DSDPBS) indicated that the general factor was a strong predictor of MAMS for both genders and DSDPBS for girls. Findings indicate that the MRNI-A-r general factor is a valid and reliable indicator of overall internalization of traditional masculinity ideology in adolescents; however, the specific factors may have different meanings for boys as compared with girls and lack validity in the presence of the general factor. These findings are consistent with a developmental perspective of gender ideology that views adolescence as a time when a differentiated cognitive schema of masculine norms is beginning to develop. (PsycINFO Database Record

Different patterns for different conditions

Purpose– Using data from the European Social Survey, the purpose of this paper is to examine the individual-level determinants of the attitudes toward the use of medicines to treat common conditions such as hair loss and weight gain.Design/methodology/approach– The authors estimate ordered logit models in which the five conditions inquired about in the survey are the dependent variables.Findings– The variation in the average approval scores for medicine use implies differing degrees of medicalization for the five conditions inquired about in the survey, and the associations observed in the multivariate analysis reveal that part of the subjectivity in attitudes can be attributed to basic personal characteristics, namely age, gender, and education. Self-evaluations of general health, happiness, religiosity, and political ideology are also found to influence people’s attitudes in predictable ways.Research limitations/implications– The examinations point to the shortcomings of the available data sets in sorting out the roles of different factors – such as the presence of effective treatments without side effects – in reaching the observed attitudes for medicine use.Social implications– The empirical findings suggest that the overuse of medicines can become a more serious problem in the near future in aging European societies.Originality/value– The authors demonstrate that higher approval scores among younger and more educated people on the whole and among women with respect to hair loss suggest that more medicalized attitudes are not necessarily found among groups the most likely to have the condition in question, but those who find it the most difficult to imagine themselves being in that situation.

SHORT-TERM FORECASTING OF COAL AND OIL PRODUCTION IN UKRAINE

In this study the problem of short-term forecasting for coal and crude oil production in Ukraine within the period of 2008–2012 is considered. Linear autoregressive and autoregressive moving average models as well as optimal filtering algorithm for linear systems (Kalman filter) based upon autoregressive model of second order were constructed for short term forecasting. The Kalman filter was successfully applied for generating optimal estimates of states and short-term forecasts. The state noise covariances were estimated recursively with new data coming what corresponds to the general ideology of adaptation. The best forecasting results for coal and crude oil production were received for autoregressive models with optimal filter and for ARMA models.

Attitudes of Swiss veterinarians towards pain and analgesia in dogs and cats

A survey was performed to evaluate the use of perioperative analgesia in dogs and cats by veterinary practitioners. Questions were grouped in seven sections recording personal data, education in veterinary analgesia, general ideology regarding treatment of perioperative pain, personal experience, assessment, and use of main analgesics to treat perioperative pain. A total of 258 received forms were analyzed. Based on 5 questions, 88 % showed excellent motivation to use perioperative pain therapy. The main reason declared for the use of analgesics was to relieve the patient from pain (64.1 %). Most veterinarians reported to routinely administer analgesics before (71 - 96 %) or after (2 - 23 %) surgery. The most used analgesics were non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (carprofen, meloxicam) and opioids (butorphanol, buprenorphine). Animals were routinely evaluated for pain after recovery. Only 43.8 % of veterinarians declared to use loco-regional anaesthesia. Swiss veterinarians appear to recognize well the need for perioperative pain treatment. However, weakness was shown in evaluating pain severity, distinguishing between opioid classes, and using loco-regional anaesthesia.

Language policy from below: language choice in student project groups in a multilingual university setting

Internationalisation is a buzzword in European higher education, and many universities work hard to devise and implement strategies that will help facilitate increased transnational student mobility. In this context, English is commonly seen as the ‘natural’ choice for university internationalisation, and English is accordingly promoted as the ‘obvious’ language of instruction for international education in many university policies. This article argues that the idea that university internationalisation should equal the exclusive use of English as a lingua franca is essentially misguided. Not only is it at odds with the available empirical evidence, it also puts unnecessary constraints on the potential that transnational education holds for cultural and linguistic exchange and development. The article is based on a case study where the patterns of language choice of three student project groups at an international study programme in Denmark were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The analysis shows that although there is a quantitative preference for English in the three groups which matches the general pro-English language ideology at the programme, the groups have nevertheless, to varying degrees, developed practice-based language policies ‘from below’ that allow for alternating and sometimes syncretic use of English and Danish.

From deracialization to racial distinction: interpreting Obama's successful racial narrative

While many scholars attribute Barack Obama's success in the 2008 presidential election to his so-called deracialized campaign strategy, I argue that Obama constructed a persuasive message strategy that was fundamentally based on race. I argue that in pursuing what I call a racial distinction strategy, Obama mobilized race differently than previous Black candidates running in White-voter electoral majorities. Specifically, Obama's racial distinction strategy constructed a seamless racial narrative – deployed through constellations of subtle racial language and imagery – incorporating Obama's own personal biography within a broader narrative of the nation, specifically a narrative of American progress. The fact that Obama employed a racial distinction strategy, and the fact that he succeeded in doing so, sheds new light on, and leads us to reconsider the veracity of popular political theories such as post-Blackness, post-racialism and deracialization, along with the general ideology of colorblindness.

"All for Faith": Profiles, Engagement Chronicles, and Perceived Implications of Adherents to Indic Faith-Based Organizations

1. Samta P. Pandya[1][1] 1. 1Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India 1. Samta P. Pandya, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Deonar, Mumbai 400088, Maharashtra, India Email: pandya.samta19{at}gmail.com This article is based on a study of a sample of 481 member adherents across nine Indic faith-based organizations (IFBOs) in India. Findings revealed that higher socioeconomic status, socially privileged ethnicity grouping, and fairly higher end religiosity and spirituality scores characterize IFBO adherent profile. Adherence is a way to strike the tradition–modernity balance and fill in the moral spiritual vacuum. Engagement chronicles entail factors initiating association, duration of involvement, time devoted, nature and view of work, training, and factors motivating sustenance. In general ideology, teacher charisma, faith communitas, and familial connections serve to initiate and motivate. Levels of identification propel longer involvements, and work is of the nature of altruism–philanthropy–seva as also routine maintenance activities. Perceived self-implications are a combination of transcendental gains, faith orientations, and network–communitas formation. On a larger scale, member adherents perceive that in an environment of existential uncertainty, IFBOs’ message/epithets contain practical elements for social change/development. [1]: #aff-1

Quarrying African indigenous political thought on governance: A case study of the Ndebele state in the 19th Century

African indigenous political thought on governance and human rights has remained victim to mythology, Western stereotyping, colonization as well as African romanticization. The net effect has been that African styles of governance have either been stigmatized and reduced to a long night of savagery and violence or celebrated as a golden age of freedom and equality. The reality lies somewhere between these two erroneous views. This article re-examines the debate on governance in Africa by means of a case study of the Ndebele state. Of special interest in this study is the kind of governance style that the Ndebele constructed, the values that underpinned it, how it was operated and articulated, as well as the general political ideology of the Ndebele in the 19th century.

From Popular Justice to (Revolutionary) Humanism: Ideological Shifts in Femi Osofisan

Every writer grows in ideological perspectives, whatever his vision is. This growth is usually a result of, or response to, societal becoming. The paper discusses some major plays of Femi Osofisan, the leading figure of the second generation dramatists in Nigeria, as part of the dramatic responses to the shifting environment of the Nigerian state within the postcolony. The paper is of the view that the insistence of the dramatist on the social function of art and the artist in society is responsible for his own ideological mutation from what the paper terms popular justice to revolutionary humanism. This is also a result of the dramatist‟s own artistic maturation over time as it is common to every writer. Again, for art to remain relevant and ideologically verdant, it must continue to respond to the inconsistencies in society. It is on this note that the paper concludes that in any epoch, authorial ideology shifts consistently with the mutation of the general ideology whether at the acquiescing or conflicting levels of social experience.

FAME AND FAILURE IN THE SPECTATOR

This paper explores the peculiar contradictions between the content of The Spectator and its ostensible ideas. These include the narratorial stress on solitude and independence of thought, and its contrast with the intended sociability and community of the journal's dissemination; and the difference between the intangible value of knowledge and wisdom gained for its own sake, and the Whiggish enthusiasm for trade, wealth-creation or fame. Moreover, it's most popular character, Sir Roger de Coverley, is both venerated for representing a nostalgic form of pastoral, and gently satirized as a symbol of a way of life that is necessarily in the past. All these distinctions between the general ideology of the journal and its actual message are a useful way of both understanding its appeal, and the specific nature of its cultural and historical politics.

Witchcraft and war: The ritual fragment Ki 1904-10-9, 18 (BM 98989)

War, and imminent battle in particular, put any Babylonian or Assyrian king, whose rule and security very much depended on successful campaigns, in a precarious situation. While careful military planning certainly helped to defeat one's enemies, victory in the end was determined by the gods. Before entering battle, oracles were consulted to make certain that the king's decisions had the gods' favour, and a number of other rituals could be performed to ensure that the gods supported the king's cause. These rituals — dubbed “war rituals” by modern scholarship — are not very well known, and the texts attributed to this group are a rather mixed set of royal rituals related to the king's campaign and to potential aggression by enemies. They include traditional Babylonian rituals to be performed before setting off on a military campaign or immediately before a major battle, as well as specifically Assyrian rituals for the same purpose. It is not suprising that two of these texts include the performance of divination rituals, while others focus on the binding of substitute figurines representing the enemies and also use figurines representing the king himself. In line with the general ideology of war, the rubrics of the rituals clearly indicate that the reason for the king's military action is the enemy's aggression against his land, and that the king himself only acts in defence of his own land's borders. It seems that all these texts, apart from the Assyrian rituals in the narrow sense, were assembled in a “series ‘battle’” (iškar tāḫāzi) that is mentioned in the famous letter of an Assyrian king demanding the collection of various scholarly texts from the Ezida and scholars' houses in Borsippa. The same text refers to rituals (or a ritual) “So that in Battle Arrows do not Come Near a Man” that are also known from the catalogue of exorcistic texts (KAR 44 //). Apparently they were not thought to be part of the iškar tāḫāzi; but in the letter the two text groups are named together within a longer list and they were certainly closely associated with each other. Special namburbi rituals could be performed on campaign to avert evil indicated by accidents of the king's chariot, but there is no reason to assume that they belonged to the iškar tāḫāzi too. Other namburbi rituals were used to protect the land's borders when an earthquake had signalled an imminent invasion of the enemy.

The Scapegoat: Establishing a Genre

MARY LEE SETTLE'S LITERARY LEGACY The Scapegoat: Establishing a Genre Thomas E. Douglass The writing of history is of course more complex than figuring out what side you are on and then adjusting things accordingly. For sides have sidestothem, obviouslymade clearinnarrativehistories andmade even more complex in narrative fiction. Mary Lee Settle's 1980 novel The Scapegoat enters the complexity of historical forces, Appalachian culture, and personality. It is no straight road-jack polemic that sets out to right the wrongs of the past, as the temptation may be there to do. The novel is book four of Settle's epic Beulah Quintet and advances the family evolution of people living in the Trans-Allegheny into the 20th century—the Lacey's, the Catlett's, the Neill's, and the McKarkle's— amid the seminal 1912 Paint Creek-Cabin Creek mine struggle. In part, the novel tells history and chooses rightly a significant moment in West Virginia history and the history of the nation—the coalescence of an inexorably successful labor movement at the precise moment that industrialized America was emerging into a world power. Settle knew she was making the right choice as she told Jennifer Howard in a 1995 interview published in The Southern Quarterly : "I've always been fascinated with where history has a turning point, and that turning point is very seldom recognized." It was a moment in history when the rub of wealth and power in the land of the free and home of the brave often resulted in painful and often abusive inequities among its own people. As David Corbin notes in Life, Work and Rebellion in the Coal Fields (1981): "The Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike was fought not for narrow reasons of higher wages and shorter hours, but for justice, fraternity, and liberty, principles that were born of the miners' local experiences rather than a general ideology. The dynamics of the strike sprang not from the Socialist party, nor the UMWA, but from the rank and file." What better subject for an American fiction, and with only a few predecessors, Settle's The Scapegoat established an archetypal genre that is fundamentally American, yet specifically Appalachian. The Scapegoat tells the tale of a day and the night of June 7th 1912, near the violent beginning of the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike of 1912-1913, that by its conclusion on May 1, 1913, would by some 78 estimates claim the lives of 50 people and involve Gatling guns, grenades, automatic rifles, shotguns, handguns, an armored train mounted with a machine gun called the Bull Moose Special which would be used in the Holly Grove Massacre, thousands of rounds fired and hundreds arrested for sedition. For this novel set in 1912, Settle's personal history overlaps withthe historical record. She was born in 1918 in Charleston, West Virginia, her mother's ancestral home, and her father was an engineer in the coal industry, an owner and operator, the likes of the novel's Beverly Lacey the father of Althea, Mary Rose, and Lily. The details of clothing and place and rhythms of language were more accessible to her memory and imagination. As she told George Garrett in Understanding Mary Lee Settle (1988) "My mother and her sisters were girls in 1912. By now historic memory was getting to be personal memory. In a way I already knew the language. So I began to find The Scapegoat." The image and the question that emerged as a result of her memory and research is found in the opening sequence of the novel—the Gatling gun on the Lacey's front porch. The narrative question: "What are three pretty girls in white and a Gatling gun doing on the front porch of what looks like a house in the country?" For the most part, the novel was written in 1976 and 1977, and in that year she traveled to Italy to complete her empathetic research of the past so she could tell the story of young Eduardo Pagano and his motherAnnunziata, and Carlo Michele, who would play the scapegoat in the ritual pattern of the mine wars novel. A scapegoat or blood sacrifice is a plot element...

Lumpers and Splitters: The Public Opinion Information that Politicians Collect and Use

Are the decisions of American policymakers informed by general trends in the public’s ideology or by the public’s policy-specific preferences? In this article we discuss two explanations for the types of public opinion information that politicians collect and use. Using a unique data set of private polls from the White House of Richard Nixon, we find that when opinion data on specific policies were available, the president relied on them and not on general ideology data. On less important issues, however, we find that the president often chose not to collect policy-specific data and instead relied on general ideology data. The differential collection and use of information by policymakers reflect varying strategic calculations. They also have profound implications for representative democracy and the demands placed on citizens and governors.

The Performativity of Performance Documentation

Consider two familiar images from the history of performance and body art: one from the documentation of Chris Burden’s Shoot (1971), the notorious piece for which the artist had a friend shoot him in a gallery, and Yves Klein’s famous Leap into the Void (1960), which shows the artist jumping out of a second-story window into the street below. It is generally accepted that the first image is a piece of performance documentation, but what is the second? Burden really was shot in the arm during Shoot, but Klein did not really jump unprotected out the window, the ostensible performance documented in his equally iconic image. What difference does it make to our understanding of these images in relation to the concept of performance documentation that one documents a performance that “really” happened while the other does not? I shall return to this question below. As a point of departure for my analysis here, I propose that performance documentation has been understood to encompass two categories, which I shall call the documentary and the theatrical. The documentary category represents the traditional way in which the relationship between performance art and its documentation is conceived. It is assumed that the documentation of the performance event provides both a record of it through which it can be reconstructed (though, as Kathy O’Dell points out, the reconstruction is bound to be fragmentary and incomplete 1 ) and evidence that it actually occurred. The connection between performance and docu ment is thus thought to be ontological, with the event preceding and authorizing its documentation. Burden’s performance documentation, as well as most of the documentation of classic performance and body art from the 1960s and 1970s, belongs to this category. Although it is generally taken for granted, the presumption of an ontological relationship between performance and document in this first model is ideological. The idea of the documentary photograph as a means of accessing the reality of the performance derives from the general ideology of photography, as described by Helen Gilbert, glossing Roland Barthes and Don Slater: “Through its trivial realism, photography creates the illusion of such exact correspondence between the signifier and the signi fied that it appears to be the perfect instance of Barthes’s ‘message without a code.’ The ‘sense of the photograph as not only representationally accurate but ontologically

Methods Used by the Hippocratic Physicians for Weight Reduction

In classical antiquity, particularly in the Hippocratic Corpus, obesity was considered the cause of disease and, in the extreme, death. This attitude mirrors the general ideology of the times where any deviation from the norm and from logic was unacceptable. The image of balance and of the ideal body weight was clearly depicted in ancient Greek art. The same attitude is reflected in the Hippocratic texts where obesity is again condemned as a deviation from the norm. The cause of obesity refers to the surplus of one of the liquids circulating in the body. Thus treatment points mainly to restoring the balance of liquids. This is accomplished by diet, drugs, and most importantly exercise. Walking, running, wrestling, and other practices are advised together with baths, massage, rest, and the "appropriate" life style.

Ligeti in Fluxus

During a brief period in the early 1960s, Fluxus, a neo-avant-garde group active in the United States, Europe, and Japan, engaged the unlikely participation of Gyorgy Ligeti. Ligeti's three contributions to Fluxus publications-the Trois Bagatelles for David Tudor (1961), Die Zukunft der Musik-eine kollektive Komposition (1961), and Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomes (1962)-proved both compatible with and divergent from the general ideology and aesthetic of Fluxus. Central to the consideration of Ligeti's Fluxus pieces is the contentious relationship that existed between experimental and modernist branches of new music at the time. Ligeti's flirtation with more experimental forms of composition not only reflects the general dynamic of this relationship but also illuminates how Ligeti positioned himself within the field of European contemporary music ca. 1960 and in subsequent years.