Historical Commitment Research Articles

Freedom of Expression's Crisis of Interpretation

ABSTRACT: Over the course of 2023, an epidemic of Koran burnings convulsed Denmark and Sweden. Denmark responded by criminalizing the practice on diplomatic and security grounds. This infuriated free-speech campaigners who saw the move as a betrayal of Scandinavia's historic commitment to freedom of expression. In the process, Denmark missed an opportunity to explore Koran burning as a problem for democracies and identify tools other than criminalization to address it. This essay places the Danish response to Koran burning in its domestic and international context, showing how it fits into a broader global crisis of interpretation concerning the human right to free speech.

Explaining Brazil's Stance on the Ukraine War

Brazil's diplomatic stance on the Ukraine War should be understood within the context of broader geopolitical tensions. Brazil's position goes beyond geopolitical hedging and represents a strategic alignment with the global South based on a vision aimed at stimulating economic development through cooperation. This article highlights Brazil's reluctance to criticise Russia, articulates its grievances with the West and explains the Brazilian government's conviction that a stronger alliance with the global South can result in economic gain. Ultimately, Brazil's new foreign policy is shifting from its historical commitment to non‐alignment and pragmatism and reveals a growing inclination to challenge liberal international norms.

Nuclear Disarmament in Latin America: Unveiling the Impact of Humanitarian Perspectives and Advocacy Campaigns on the TPNW

This essay explores the evolution of the humanitarian disarmament initiative toward the TPNW and the links and influences from Latin America civil society efforts. Shifting away from traditional military objectives, humanitarian disarmament integrates civil society organizations, prioritizes Human Security over State security, and emphasizes the humanitarian impact of weapons. The paper examines key campaigns, including the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), the Control Arms Campaign, the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), elucidating their advocacy strategies. It highlights the unique features of humanitarian disarmament, stressing obligations beyond elimination, addressing challenges in multilateral forums, and presenting Latin America’s distinct approach. The essay concludes by discussing the status of nuclear disarmament in the region, emphasizing universalization efforts and contextual challenges, including the rise of alt-right movements and the region’s historical commitment to nuclear disarmament.

New Challenges for Long-Term Investors: Navigating a Dynamic Financial Landscape

Long-term investors are integral to fostering stability and promoting growth in financial markets, embodying a historical commitment to patient and strategic investment approaches. However, the contemporary financial landscape is undergoing a paradigm shift, presenting long-term investors with unprecedented challenges. This paper delves into the multifaceted challenges confronting long-term investors in today's dynamic environment. Technological advancements stand out as a pivotal factor reshaping the investment landscape. The rapid integration of automation, artificial intelligence, and big data is altering traditional investment paradigms, compelling long-term investors to recalibrate their strategies. Concurrently, regulatory changes are introducing increased complexity, demanding a meticulous understanding of evolving frameworks to ensure compliance while adhering to long-term objectives. Environmental considerations are emerging as a critical aspect, with the growing emphasis on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors. Long-term investors now grapple with the necessity of integrating sustainability into their decision-making processes, aligning financial goals with broader environmental and social responsibilities. Furthermore, shifting market dynamics marked by geopolitical uncertainties and economic fluctuations amplify the challenges faced by long-term investors. The paper also delves into strategies for mitigating these challenges, underscoring the indispensability of adaptability and foresight. Successful long-term investment management in this dynamic milieu necessitates a proactive response to technological shifts, adept navigation of regulatory changes, and a commitment to integrating ESG considerations into decision-making processes. As the financial landscape evolves, this paper asserts that long-term investors must embrace innovation and strategic flexibility to ensure their continued role as stabilizing forces in the financial markets. Keywords: Long-term investors, Financial markets, Stability, Unprecedented challenges, Technological advancements, Regulatory changes ,Environmental considerations ,Shifting market dynamics, Economic fluctuations, Decision-making processes

The Popes as guardians of human dignity

The text emphasizes the significance of a Christian philosophy of life in guiding a society towards human rights and the dignity of individuals. It underscores the Church’s prophetic role, asserting that followers of Christ are called to uphold justice and oppose oppression. The text also highlights the interconnectedness of eternal salvation and temporal well-being, rooted in core Christian convictions. It explores the Church’s responsibility for the common good and the autonomy of earthly realities, advocating for the respectful stewardship of creation. The text addresses the contemporary challenge of protecting human life at all stages and emphasizes the Church’s historical commitment to the value of every individual. Drawing on Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclicals, it asserts that the Church is inherently charitable and actively engaged in promoting human development, education, and well-being. The text rejects the notion that the Church should merely react to global issues, arguing for a proactive role in shaping the future by emphasizing humanity’s vocation within God’s creation. It critiques ideological pluralism that rejects moral truths, highlighting the emptiness and lack of true hope in a worldview without God. The text asserts that the Church’s antidote to this vision is to focus on the beauty and dignity of the human person, emphasizing the individual’s dual nature of soul and matter. It acknowledges the challenges within a secularized society but stresses the need for human rights to be rooted in an authority beyond human consensus for lasting universality.

Spectres of Marx in the Lacanian Left: Between Melancholia and Mourning of Marxism

Moving into the space of tension and contradiction between philosophy and psychoanalysis, I reflect on the spectral way in which Marx and his legacy appear in the Lacanian Left. I explain this spectrality through the impossible mourning of Marxism. I bring in three authors who prescribe mourning here and ignore its impossibility: Özselçuk, Stavrakakis and Alemán. I resort to Benjamin, Lacan, Allouch and Traverso to problematise the Freudian distinction between mourning and melancholy in its application to Marxism. Instead of mourning with its post-Marxist bet, I defend an openly melancholic position based on the militant historical commitment to the dead and what Lacan has represented as the insurmountable directions indicated by Marx. I distinguish three great idealist attempts by the Lacanian Left to overcome the materially insurmountable directions: Laclau’s anti-essentialist discursive postmodernism, Žižek’s pessimistic Lacanian Hegelianism and Badiou’s Jacobin political Platonism. I contrast the Laclauian democratic populist concessions with the Badiouan-Žižekian fidelity to Marxism and communism.

Beyond the Constitutional Architecture:An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and familiesat the Supreme Court of Canada

AbstractIn December 2022, the Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments in a reference case about the constitutionality ofAn Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families(the Act). At issue is whether the Act infringes on provincial jurisdiction and changes the constitutional architecture by giving First Nations law governing child welfare the force of federal law. In this short Currents article, we argue that the Supreme Court's consideration of the Act marks a critical juncture in the ongoing relationship between Canadian and Indigenous law. Through an examination of the arguments made before the Supreme Court, we assert that it is essential that the Court move beyond its historical commitments to protecting the Constitution and umpiring jurisdictional disputes and toward a recognition of the failures of the constitutional framework to account for an expansive understanding of inherent rights and inherent jurisdiction, including child welfare.

Child Vulnerabilities in Nigeria: What is the Nature of Our Work as Child Protection Social Workers?

Terms like child abuse, child labour, street children, child trafficking, and child marriage underscore the vulnerability of children worldwide, and underpin the imperative of affording them holistic care. Such services must address the underlying factors that elevate their vulnerability as is consistent with the person-in-environment focus of social work. Given our historical commitments and top-notch values, the social work profession, more than any other, is most concerned with the well-being of children. Yet, not much is known of our professional action in Africa, a region near the pyramid's pinnacle in child rights violation. This article presents the findings of a qualitative study, involving five voluntary organizations, which explored the nature of social work services to vulnerable children. Drawing on a constructivist framework, semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather data in Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria, and the results were then thematically analyzed. Findings indicate that social work services for vulnerable children require strengthening, since it does not address the root causes that exacerbate their vulnerability. Suggestions for navigating these challenges are explored.
 
 Received: 2 November 2022 / Accepted: 30 December 2022 / Published: 5 January 2023

The School Food Solution: Creating a healthy school food environment with Canada's Food Guide

In 2021, Canada’s federal government made a historic commitment to develop a national school food policy. Among overlapping challenges of increasing food insecurity, rising food costs, and the impact on food systems from climate change, there is now an opportunity to create a school food environment that ensures universal access to nutri­tious foods and supports sustainability in food sys­tems. A universal school food program can ensure that all children, regardless of income, access the recommended nutritious foods and can promote climate-friendly diets. Such school food programs can also support local farmers and regional econo­mies. In this paper, we outline the policy context for the new Canada’s Food Guide and the researched benefits of school food. We argue that Canada’s Food Guide can support a healthy school environment that is equitable and that promotes sustainability in the food system by embracing founding principles of diet equity and sustainabil­ity. Our concluding discussion outlines issues to be addressed in implementation.

Editors’ Note

Approaching its golden anniversary volume, newly affiliated with Penn State University Press, fully digitized and available through the Scholarly Publishing Collective, under the direction of a fresh pair of coeditors, and with its purview expanded to include Victorian and Edwardian literature, art, and culture, the Victorians Institute Journal is well positioned for its second half century of publication.The present volume features articles with a chronological range from the late eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries, a geographical scope from Britain to Persia to China, and a generic array that includes cartoons, fiction, nursery rhymes, poetry, and travel narratives. It also highlights the journal’s investment in the intersection between research and pedagogy and, with one rare and one set of previously unpublished texts, VIJ’s historical commitment to expanding the canon of materials available for research and teaching in years to come. The volume’s concluding reviews offer summative evaluations of five recent books in the field.Readers will also find an entirely new section, “Digital Deliverables,” focused on current digital humanities research. With one essay from the general editor of an established and highly visible project, the Collaborative Organization for Virtual Education (COVE), and the other from the founding directors of an initiative, the Digital Dickens Notes Project, that is just taking off, these two pieces offer complementary perspectives on the exciting payoffs and potential of such computationally enhanced work in the long nineteenth century and beyond. We hope to replicate this format in future volumes, perhaps from those inspired by the work featured here to expand their own skills and approaches.Finally, we would like to recognize the generous and dedicated contributions of retiring editor, Don Richard Cox (Emeritus Professor of English, University of Tennessee). Since 2014, Don has brought to VIJ an invaluable depth of knowledge and experience and has worked tirelessly to enhance the quality and scope of the journal. Don was also key in negotiating our current publication contract with Penn State University Press. We are indebted to Don for his devoted and myriad labors and are most pleased that he will continue to be involved in the journal as a member of the Advisory Board.

Effect of Resource Productivity of Maize-Based Farmers on Poverty Reduction in South West, Nigeria

The ability of Nigerian agriculture to perform its role in the development of the economy has been on the decline in the last three decades. Therefore, the 2030 Agenda’s historic commitment to rid the world of the twin scourges of poverty and hunger cannot become a reality if nothing is done about improving resource productivity so as to reduce poverty. This article examined the effect of resource productivity of maize-based farmers on poverty reduction in South-West, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 180 respondents and data were collected with the aid of a structured questionnaire. The stochastic frontier production function, poverty index and probit regression model were used to analyze data from the study. Results showed that age, farming experience, cooperative membership, credit, extension visits, farm distance, and land ownership were significant determinants of efficiency of maize-based farmers. The poverty incidence, poverty gap and poverty severity were 42%, 50% and 11.2% respectively. Results further showed that efficiency and other variables were significant determinants of poverty among respondents in the study area. Policies that facilitate increased production of maize, increased level of education, increased cooperative membership, and access to credit are essential to help reducing poverty among maize-based farmers and among the rural poor in general. Keywords: Maize-based farmers; Poverty; Probit regression; Resource-productivity, Stochastic frontier analysis. DOI: 10.7176/JESD/13-20-09 Publication date: October 31 st 2022

Revitalizing Ethiopia and Russia’s Bilateral Relations

Since its successful establishment in 1898, the diplomatic relations between Ethiopia and Russia were interrupted gently, but instantly revived in 1943. The two countries have traditionally enjoyed fruitful political, social, and economic ties over the past 100 memorable years. Russia has undoubtedly made significant strides in public relations, education and medicine since the modernization of agriculture in the economic sector, it has generously helped Ethiopia by progressively expanding the guiding principle of a mixed economy. In the modern political arena, the former Soviet administration had typically offered its necessary support for Ethiopia through ideological and military expansion. And even so, Russia has repeatedly demonstrated its historic commitment in various international forums. This relationship is growing more causal. They have presently developed into scientific cooperation and reached an agreement to establish a nuclear power plant in Ethiopia. What constitutes the official status of diplomatic relations between the two countries? In what areas is the cooperation more effective? And what represent the determination of the governments? The study examines the historical relationship between the two countries, studies cooperation agreements, and checks actual records to explain these fundamental questions. The analysis is typed in the qualitative method and uses secondary data as a reference.

Selective Compassion: Public Memory, Persona, and “The Early Years” of the Southern Baptist Convention

ABSTRACT Founded in 1845 to defend the appointment of slaveholders to missionary posts, the Southern Baptist Convention’s origins complicate its efforts to communicate its history to its members. Developing a public memory-based approach to persona criticism, this essay analyzes a 2006 documentary entitled “Forged by Faith: The Early Years.” By selectively narrating SBC history to construct a “legacy of compassion,” the documentary offers a harmful post-racial ideology to its auditors. The video’s substantive claims and stylistic tokens construct Southern Baptist commitments to personal freedom, church autonomy, and cooperation while minimizing historical commitments to slavery and negating African American history. This essay proposes persona criticism as an innovative method for critiquing the ideology-shaping work performed by audiovisual memory texts such as documentaries.

ESG Poster ESG10: Key lessons in planning for proactive decommissioning – a review of the Thevenard Island decommissioning project

Poster ESG10 Chevron Australia Pty Ltd (CAPL) has operated an oil and gas production facility on Thevenard Island (TVI), a gazetted Nature Reserve, since 1988 on behalf of the TVI Joint Venture. CAPL is currently decommissioning the asset following cessation of production in 2014. Decommissioning activities include plugging and abandonment of onshore and offshore production wells, decommissioning onshore infrastructure and facilities, decommissioning offshore platforms and pipelines, and remediating and rehabilitating the terrestrial environment. CAPL is currently undertaking decommissioning and retirement of its facilities on TVI, including remediation and rehabilitation activities. CAPL is committed to progressing the decommissioning and rehabilitation activities in a timely manner to deliver positive outcomes for environment, local community and other users of TVI. Delivering on historical commitments and applying best practice to ensure the lease area can be relinquished as a functioning and sustainable ecosystem is key to being a responsible operator and maintaining social licence to operate. This paper will provide an overview of decommissioning activities and progress to date, with a focus on onshore operations, and discuss challenges encountered as well as lessons learnt from decommissioning planning and sequencing, implementation of the regulatory framework and in-field execution. To access the poster click the link on the right. To read the full paper click here

At Penpoint: African Literatures, Postcolonial Studies, and the Cold War

At Penpoint: African Literatures, Postcolonial Studies, and the Cold War

Key lessons in planning for proactive decommissioning – a review of the Thevenard Island decommissioning project

Chevron Australia Pty Ltd (CAPL) has operated an oil and gas production facility on Thevenard Island (TVI), a gazetted Nature Reserve, since 1988 on behalf of the TVI Joint Venture. CAPL is currently decommissioning the asset following cessation of production in 2014. Decommissioning activities include plugging and abandonment of onshore and offshore production wells, decommissioning onshore infrastructure and facilities, decommissioning offshore platforms and pipelines, and remediating and rehabilitating the terrestrial environment. CAPL is currently undertaking decommissioning and retirement of its facilities on TVI, including remediation and rehabilitation activities. CAPL is committed to progressing the decommissioning and rehabilitation activities in a timely manner to deliver positive outcomes for environment, local community and other users of TVI. Delivering on historical commitments and applying best practice to ensure the lease area can be relinquished as a functioning and sustainable ecosystem is key to being a responsible operator and maintaining social licence to operate. This paper will provide an overview of decommissioning activities and progress to date, with a focus on onshore operations, and discuss challenges encountered as well as lessons learnt from decommissioning planning and sequencing, implementation of the regulatory framework and in-field execution.

Cuba’s involvement in and against the Eritrean liberation struggle: a history and historiography

ABSTRACT The growing availability of previously declassified material on the Cold War has allowed scholars to revisit old questions with new, more decisive, evidence. In this paper, we draw on this archival material to address the unresolved question of what Cuba’s involvement against the Eritrean Liberation struggle consisted of in the late 1970s, and importantly why they engaged in this way, given a historical commitment to the Eritrean Liberation movement’s goals. While a seemingly minor point in a protracted 30-year struggle for Eritrean independence, we argue that clarifying this matters for several reasons, not least that Cuban support for the Ethiopian offensive against the Eritreans was seemingly pivotal for temporarily reversing the fighters’ major gains in the late 1970s, meaning fifteen more years of fighting until Eritrea’s de facto independence was secured. Drawing upon excerpts from the first author’s original book manuscript on this topic, we also suggest that the effects of Havana’s and other government’s denial of Cuba’s involvement in suppressing the Eritrean struggle contributed to the sense of betrayal and distrust that still haunts Eritrean politics and its leadership, as well as those Eritrean liberation fighters who experienced their staunch ally turn into an ideological and material adversary.

Personality coherence: Advances in theory, assessment, and research

This special issue of the European Journal of Personality, entitled Towards conceptualizing and assessing personality coherence and incoherence, was designed to call for new approaches to the understanding and assessment of personality coherence. Seven papers have been brought together as a result: three theoretical and four empirical Although these papers are devoted to portraying novel or expanded existing conceptual and methodological approaches to personality coherence, they also share a historic commitment to studying this phenomenon. Based on those contributions, I refer to the four topics: (1) novel, extended, validated models of personality coherence, (2) personality coherence and related constructs, (3) functional/adaptive meaning of personality coherence, and (4) assessment-related issues that help display advances in the theory, measurement, and research on personality coherence. In addition, I present four areas that have been identified as avenues for future research: (1) potentials for further developing the personality coherence field, (2) personality coherence, self, and character, (4) personality coherence and development, and (4) personality coherence across different cultures.

Anti-Japanese Sentiment and Action in Texas during World War II

Abstract: Relations between Texas's citizens of Japanese and European descent were largely peaceable before World War II (WWII), but the state's historical commitment to segregation and the racial ideology supporting it created a fertile ground for racialized propaganda appeals following Pearl Harbor. In the wake of the attack, the US federal government and the Texas state government cooperated in detaining Texas's Japanese-descended population and in destroying sites of cultural exchange between Japan and the United States. This study broadens the historical understanding of the WWII home front by examining the cultivation, function, and aftermath of the wartime anti-Japanese sentiment in Texas.

Southern middle powers and the liberal international order: The options for Brazil and South Africa

The current challenges facing the liberal international order suggest there is greater need for reassessing the roles that different categories of states may perform in support of this order. Middle powers appear as leading candidates for a supportive role to the liberal order due to their historical commitment to internationalism, coalition building with like-minded democracies and activism within multilateral institutions. Such orientation, however, is questionable for Southern middle powers that often appear ambivalent in their foreign policies, restricted in their collaboration with other democracies and selective in their multilateral initiatives. This article discusses the cases of Brazil and South Africa to examine the current options for Southern middle powers and concludes that despite certain limitations, South Africa is, overall, closer to assuming a supportive stance towards the liberal international order and its institutions.