Institutional History Research Articles

Information and communication technologies in the research of reading rooms and libraries of Lemkivshchyna

The purpose of the work is to research and study innovations, information and communication technologies, as an important aspect of contemporary historical and socio-communicative studies, as well as the development of library and archival affairs. The research methodology encompasses a set of general scientific methods such as systematization, generalization, forecasting, comparison, and structural-functional analysis, conducted to analyse the current development of technologies in the library field and the needs of information and communication support. The scientific novelty lies in the comprehensive and systematic analysis of information and communication technologies. The importance of information and communication technologies in library and archival affairs, the implementation of progressively new means of processing, preserving, and analysing sources is determined. Their integration into library affairs, prospects, development paths, and applications are explored, particularly in the study of reading rooms and libraries of Lemkivshchyna. Conclusions. The development of information and communication technologies is an important aspect of societal development, particularly science. The result of innovative development in archival and library affairs is information and communication technologies (including software and hardware), as well as the improvement of product and service quality formed by them, forms, methods, and management technologies. Thus, we can argue that the development of information and communication technologies is one of the key aspects of the development of library and archival affairs because transforming them into consolidated sources of information allows for a new approach to studying the history of Lemkivshchyna and re-evaluating the history of information institutions in the region. The study of library and archival affairs of Lemkivshchyna involves the development of an information system based on innovative ICT, which will enable the formation of a consolidated information array

Beyond COVID: Reframing the Global Problematique with STiP (Systems Thinking in Practice)

Since 2019 humanity has been subjected to the perturbations of pandemic, economic disruption, war, civil unrest and changes in whole-Earth dynamics associated with a human-induced Anthropocene. Each perturbation is like a wave-front breaking on the shore of our historical ways of thinking and acting, increasingly unfit for our human circumstances. This challenge to humanity is not new. In 1970 the French term 'problematique' was coined to refer to a set of 49 interrelated global problems; the classic description of wicked and tame problems was published soon after, yet little progress has been made towards answering the question: what purposeful action will aid human flourishing, create and sustain a viable space for humanity, in our ongoing co-evolution with the Anthropocene-Biosphere? A case for innovation in our ways of knowing and doing is made based on arguments that our social world is constrained by: (i) explanations we accept that are no longer relevant to our circumstances; (ii) outdated historical institutions (in the institutional economics sense) that contribute as social technologies to a broader human created and ungoverned technosphere; (iii) inadequate theory-informed practices, or praxis, and (iv) governance-systems no longer adequate for purpose. Practitioners of knowledge science and systems science are urged to act reflexively to critically evaluate the traditions-of-understanding out of which they think and act.

ASEAN, COVID-19 and Myanmar crisis: Dealing with critical juncture

Explaining how international institutions develop is the significant contribution of historical institutionalism (HI) to the study of contemporary world politics. HI offers two important concepts, critical juncture and path dependence, demonstrating dynamics within the institution, leading towards continuity and change. The case of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Myanmar democratic crisis tells us about the impact of the crucial moments on the regional organisation and its responses. Yet, ASEAN is resistant to change. What makes it possible is the question that cannot be answered by using the HI approach. Hence, we explain by employing a theoretical framework founded upon the link between diplomatic culture and institutional legitimacy, adopted from the English School (ES) theory of International Relations (IR). This article argues that ASEAN's diplomatic culture ensures member countrie’s compliance with the Association's code of conduct and prevents external power intrusion into Southeast Asian affairs and interests. Therefore, ASEAN's institutional legitimacy can be maintained. The Association deals with the critical juncture without undertaking any fundamental change.

Democratic Revolution or Coup D’etat: Government of Fan Noli in Albania

The aim of this paper is to study closely the political developments of June 1924 in Albania to bring convincing facts, that the priest Fan Noli, did not come to power in a democratic way as formulated in the text of the History of State and Law in Albania, but with a coup d’etat, which interrupted the democratic and institutional processes that began with the establishment of all powers of the rule of law by the National Assembly of Lushnja in January 1920. The descriptive and comparative method was used in this study to understand the evolution of institutional culture since the founding of the state. The historical method of well-known sociologists and political scientists, Max Weber, David Easton, and Norberto Bobbio, it was worth looking at the political system as a set of institutions and political processes, in mutual interdependence, arising from free democratic elections. The study hypothesis is confirmed through the analysis of historical variables provided by archival sources and publications and memoirs of serious authors, domestic as well as foreign. The study results bring to the conclusion that the history of political institutions must be written with scientific objectivity, according to the Latin maxim, history is the teacher of Leibniz's life and method, that the present is full of the past, and charged with the future.
 
 Received: 7 September 2022 / Accepted: 24 December 2022 / Published: 5 January 2023

Transgressing theory/practice divides through collaboration.

This article contributes to discussions of transmethodology by drawing on experiences from conducting practice research aimed at the development of theory and practice through research collaboration. We analyze efforts to build research communities where researchers and professionals work together to perform analyses and develop knowledge. A collective research project exploring children’s possibilities for participation in school is used as a case for exploring how a research problem develops through such collabora-tion. This research project was designed to explore school life from the perspectives of children, parents, teachers, school leaders, and psychologists, and to analyze conflicts situated in everyday practices while considering political struggles concerning the school as a historical institution. The article emphasizes the often intangible and overlooked processes involved in research collaboration and details how we worked to build a re-search community comprising researchers and professionals that enabled collective mul-ti-perspective analyses. Building on a dialectical approach, we conceptualize conflicts as part of historical processes and as an immanent potentiality that arises from people’s engagement in common but contradictory matters. Hence, the different perspectives of those involved in children’s school life can be seen as linked through common matters, while also being differentiated by their allotted tasks in relation to children’s school life. This approach continuously challenged the researchers to analyze everyday conflicts grounded in the different perspectives of those involved, the different forms of reasoning, understandings, and standpoints, as well as how the different perspectives are connected through the participants’ engagement in a common matter – providing good schools for children. The article concludes by arguing that the discussed approach to theory devel-opment can be linked to a situated concept of generalization.

Introduction: exploring the International Statistical Institute, 1885–1938

ABSTRACT This introduction does two things. On the one hand, it explains why investigating the history of the International Statistical Institute is of interest not only for students of the history of statistics, but also for those tackling more general questions like the relationship between power and knowledge; the scope and development of globalization; or the closely entangled genesis of ‘the national’ and ‘the international’. On the other hand, it introduces the individual papers of this special issue and highlights how the authors contextualize the organization in the outlined more general historiographic framework.

A reappraisal of Marx’s Ethnological Notebooks: family, gender, individual vs. state, and colonialism

ABSTRACT Between December 1880 and June 1881, Marx’s research interests focused on a new discipline: anthropology. He began with the study of Ancient Society (1877), a work by the U.S. anthropologist Lewis Morgan. What struck Marx most was the way in which Morgan treated production and technological factors as preconditions of social progress, and he felt moved to assemble a compilation of a hundred densely packed pages of excerpts from this book. These make up the bulk of what are known as The Ethnological Notebooks. They also contain excerpts from other works: Java, or How to Manage a Colony (1861) by James Money (1818–1890), a lawyer and Indonesia expert; The Aryan Village in India and Ceylon (1880) by John Phear (1825–1905), president of the supreme court of Ceylon; and Lectures on the Early History of Institutions (1875) by the historian Henry Maine (1822–1888), amounting to a total of another hundred sheets. Marx’s comparative assessments of these authors are fundamental to have a clear idea of the main theoretical preoccupations of the “late Marx” and suggest an innovative reassessment of some of his key concepts.

Humanitarian Aid as Global Governance: The Architecture of the Red Cross’s Relief Operations after the 1976 Guatemala Earthquake

This paper analyses the disaster relief operation that was set in motion immediately after the 1976 Guatemala earthquake through the activities of the Guatemalan Red Cross Society. Already in the emergency phase, “Guatecruz” built field offices in the disaster region to manage both the relief efforts as well as to set up forty-three tent cities. By taking a seat in the disaster zone, as opposed to coordinating from a distant headquarters, Guatecruz became the main governing body in a large network of different national and international state and non-state actors. This paper sets out to elucidate the non-governmental logic behind the making, financing, building, and operation of Guatecruz’s field offices and introduce it as an early example of contracting out services that were previously controlled by the government to non-governmental organisations. Untangling a large-scale humanitarian crisis from these field offices, this paper introduces a specific institutional history that uses decentralisation as a method to plan, develop, and build an “architecture of global governance.”

Listening to People with Intellectual Disability about Institutions

Despite the ongoing impacts worldwide of institutionalisation on people with intellectual disability, the public knows little about large-scale disability institutions that have been the focus during the late 20th century of deinstitutionalisation efforts (historic institutions) and the people who lived there. An interdisciplinary team of researchers (including those with intellectual disability) undertook research with people with intellectual disability to explore what and how the public should learn and remember historic institutions. The project found that people with intellectual disability support community engagement with histories and lived experiences of historic institutions, in order to repair past wrongs, end contemporary practices of institutionalisation, segregation, and exclusion, and realise transformative equality and inclusion. People with intellectual disability should lead these initiatives, with appropriate support in recognising the very live memories and traumas associated with them. This article provides a model of inclusive research for turning the harms of past institutionalisation into an educational and reparative experience.

The Worlds of UCL: teaching, learning and institutional histories

This article discusses an undergraduate module which introduces students to the study of the history of education through the lens of our own institutions – UCL (University College London, UK), founded in 1826, and the IOE (Institute of Education, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society), founded in 1902. The module critically examines the close, but often hidden, connections between British education and empire, asking what impact these imperial legacies have today. After outlining the module’s origins and relationship with the history of UCL and the IOE, the article sets its creation in the wider context of initiatives that seek to critique and reimagine institutional histories within higher education for a variety of purposes. The article also explores the developing role of the IOE Archives team in teaching, and explores how academics and archivists work together to teach institutional histories, and how this work can prompt change.

The Religious Institution, its Origin and Significance in the Mesopotamian Society: A Study in the History of Institutions in Ancient Iraq

The Religious Institution, its Origin and Significance in the Mesopotamian Society: A Study in the History of Institutions in Ancient Iraq

A critique of the concept of critical juncture: the question of change in Historical Institutionalism

RESUMO Introdução: Este artigo aborda as divergências em torno da definição e do uso do conceito de “conjuntura crítica”. Aponta para a necessidade de avançar no seu desenvolvimento teórico-conceitual para ampliar a capacidade da noção em identificar a ocorrência de conjunturas críticas. Materiais e métodos: A partir de uma revisão detalhada da literatura do Institucionalismo Histórico, considerando os textos e os autores de referência dessa corrente nos repositórios acadêmicos nacionais e internacionais, apresentamos uma crítica das potencialidades e das limitações do conceito de conjuntura crítica para explicação dos momentos de mudança. Resultados: Buscando superar a causalidade pressuposta entre conjuntura crítica e mudança, este artigo propõe reinterpretar o conceito de conjuntura crítica a partir da ideia de contingência, caracterizando-a como um período de redução dos constrangimentos institucionais em que mudanças significativas são possíveis, ainda que não necessárias. Discussão: Em um contexto marcado por crises político-institucionais, pela transformação nas formas de interação social e pela crescente instabilidade em várias partes do globo, é cada vez mais importante identificar e compreender períodos de crise de expectativas e incerteza sobre o futuro. Argumentamos que o conceito de conjuntura crítica, desde que redefinido, tal como feito neste artigo, amplia a capacidade do modelo teórico em identificar a ocorrência de conjunturas críticas, bem como constatar se ela ocorreu, está ocorrendo ou irá ocorrer. Ao mesmo tempo, essa operação ajuda a explicar quais seriam as causas necessárias para que ocorra ou não uma mudança institucional.

Changes in China's Vertical Intergovernmental Relations and the Logic in the Project into the Village—Analysis Based on Historical Institutionalism

Changes in China's Vertical Intergovernmental Relations and the Logic in the Project into the Village—Analysis Based on Historical Institutionalism

Областная организация РКП(б) Вотской автономной области в 1921-1923 гг.: трудности процесса становления. По архивным материалам

The author draws on archival materials of the State Archive of Social and Political History of the Udmurt Republic and Central State Archive of the Kirov Region to study formation and development of the Votyak (Udmurtian) regional organization of the RCP (B) in 1921–23. The article is to analyze the process of formation of the Votyak regional organization of the RCP (B) and to identify its specifics. The author reveals specific features of the process of organization formation and analyses the conflict between “Glazovites” and “Izhevskites,” “locals” and “appointees.” The novelty lies in the fact that it is the first attempt since 1991 to analyze objectively the process of formation of regional organization of the RCP (B). The article is written on archival material using principle of historicism and historical institutionalism. The Votyak regional organization of the RCP (B) was formed in January 1921, shortly after the autonomous region emergence. The specific features of social and national development of the region sprang from the fact that Izhevsk population was proletarian (mainly Russian), while Glazov population was non-proletarian and Udmurt. It was on this basis that the two opposing groups were formed. Lack of trained party workers in Soviet structures manifested itself in lack of trained Udmurt party workers. The Central Committee circulars demanded their participation in order to be mindful of local specifics. The situation worsened due to famine in many regions of the country and negative results of the New Economic Policy. Shortage of trained party workers resulted in greater responsibility of local party elite from the Udmurt intelligentsia. In 1921, a conflict between “Glazovites” and “Izhevskites” broke out, paralyzing the work of the party organization in 1922–23. The Central Committee repeatedly and vainly tried to resolve the conflict. The situation was defused by transfer of the party workers. Analysis of formation of the regional organization of the RCP (B) has shown that from the very beginning it faced great difficulties, as it consisted of two parts: one part was peasant in its social composition and ethnically Udmurtian, second part was workers and predominantly Russian. Having removed most active and irreconcilable supporters of both groups from leadership, the Central Committee replaced them by loyal party workers. The new party leadership, headed by Grigory Aronshtam, started the policy of korenizatsiya or rooting regional Soviet and party apparatus in 1924–26, in fact, implementing many of the proposals put forward by Trofim Borisov and his supporters.

От научных сотрудников II разряда к аспирантам: подготовка кадров высшей квалификации по медиевистике в Ленинграде (1920-1930-е гг.)

This article is based on unpublished materials from the collections of A.E. Presnyakov (St. Petersburg History Institute RAS Archive), I.M. Grevs (St. Petersburg Branch of RAS Archive), and O.A. Dobiash-Rozhdestvenskaya (Manuscripts Department of the Russian National Library). Despite the revolutionary events of 1917 and the abolition of academic degrees and ranks in 1918, the Medievalist training system established at the I.M. Grevs School worked and yielded results throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Medievalists were first concentrated in the Historical Institute at Petrograd University, then in the Leningrad branch of the RANION Institute of History, and finally, from 1934, in the Department of Medieval History at Leningrad University. The new institutions were adapting previous procedures for the education of scholars to the changed conditions, while the content of the training remained unchanged and focused on mastering the methods and techniques of historical research, the study of sources and the range of auxiliary historical disciplines. This was achieved through participation in seminars on reading and commenting on medieval sources (usually on the history of Florence in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries), and by making reports on highly specialist subjects. Young researchers continued to see the debate (necessary to obtain the right to teach on universities) as a means of self-realisation and self-presentation, a way of entering science, especially in a situation where there was virtually no possibility of publication.

Historical Diversity in Credit Intermediation: Cosignatory Lending Institutions in Europe and North America, 1700s–1960s

AbstractThrough a close reading of scattered, disparate, and largely unconnected secondary sources, supplemented with the analysis of primary sources, and backed by economic theory, this paper explores the origins, development, and socio-economic impact of so-called cosignatory lending institutions. These historical institutions were designed to issue small loans to small businesses and households and shared a reliance on cosigners to secure loans and on weekly instalments to repay them. Their shared lending format was flexible enough to display regional variations and this enabled cosignatory lending institutions to operate in societies characterized by notable differences in wealth and economic structure. It also allowed cosignatory lending institutions to fare better in a more urbanized, heterogeneous context than the more well-known credit cooperatives. As such, this systematic overview helps us better understand how credit markets were made more inclusive in urban contexts, which historical circumstances played a role in this, and perhaps even whether and how the success of cosignatory lending institutions may be replicated in present-day developed and less-developed economies.

The development history of China's government informatization and its logical analysis—based on historical institutionalism

With the continuous integration of information technology and government administrative practice, digital government has gradually become an important tool to promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, so it is necessary to return to the development and construction of government informatization, especially from which the experience of government informatization construction is extracted and summarized. China's digital government development has gone through the preparatory stage of government informatization: exploration and preparation period, the budding period, the e-government construction period and the digital government construction period. The information technology implementation structure and institutional basis increased perfectly throughout the four periods. After the 18th National Congress of the CPC, under the guidance of people-centered thinking government informatization construction strategy, the government's information construction strategy has changed from "one-way perspective" to "interactive perspective" which means citizen-centered participation of multiple subjects with more specific and clear construction goals. In the future, digital government will further integrate with new governance models such as agile governance, continuously release digital development dividends, and help to promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity so as to enhance people's happiness and satisfaction in life.

Learning from Mistakes: Reflective Planning, Simple Junctures, and Institutional Change

This article examines how planners move from reflection to action in pursuit of institutional change. Building on the literature on reflective practice and historical institutionalism, and using Medellín as a case study, I build a framework for analyzing how planners go from reflecting on a problem and identifying its institutional origins to devising solutions based on experience, knowledge, or innovation. Those solutions are then mobilized through “simple junctures,” which are opportunities distinct from everyday processes. The findings, based on interviews, documents, and observations, show the importance of training planners to reflect on institutional factors and of leveraging simple junctures.

ГОРОДСКОЙ ГОЛОВА: РЕТРОСПЕКТИВА В КОНТЕКСТЕ СЕМЕЙНОЙ ПЕРЕПИСКИРЕЦЕНЗИЯ НА КНИГУ: МАРГАРИТА АГЕЕВА. УФИМСКИЙ ГОРОДСКОЙ ГОЛОВА АЛЕКСАНДР МАЛЛЕЕВ:ИСТОРИЯ В ПИСЬМАХ. УФА: ИНФОРМРЕКЛАМА, 2020. 448С.: ИЛ.

The new book by Margarita V. Ageeva presents the family correspondence of the Ufa mayor A.A. Malleev and studies his biography. The epistolary finding and the specific historical context of the story introduce different aspects of the history of urban administration and the everyday life of the provincial nobility in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. The book has become an original contribution to regional historiography, and its author has revised some of the conclusions of his predecessors, based on a metahistorical narrative. Information about the origin and genealogical relations of the family surname sheds light on the formation of the official elite in the eastern provinces as a result of the industrial development of the region in the 18th century and the reforms of local government and the court system in the post-reform period. The epistolary material recreates a portrait of personal qualities of the modernizers and testifies to the formation of new personnel in the provinces – the carriers of a genuine democratic culture. The author analyzes the influence of ethical views of officials on managerial decision-making as a central problem poorly developed in institutional history. The author traced it on the example of the events of the 1905 revolutionary crisis in Ufa. The discourse of private correspondence contains a lot of valuable evidence on the family life of the Malleevs, their religious identity and methods of raising children, on cultural and everyday life of the urban elite of a provincial town. The style and spelling of the letters, as well as the turns of phrase and the accepted spelling of certain words at that time, have remained unchanged, which increases the value of the source. The literal capture of the smallest details of everyday history make the book a practical tool for museum workers, fashion historians and other professionals.

Demographics and Characteristics of Orthopaedic Surgery Residency Program Directors: A Cross-sectional Review.

To determine the objective characteristics of orthopaedic residency PDs by analyzing their demographic characteristics, academic backgrounds, institutional histories, research productivity, and professional leadership affiliations. Data for each PD were collected by searching publicly available curriculum vitae, LinkedIn, Healthgrades, Doximity, and/or institutional biographies and consolidated into a database. Research productivities were collected by searching PubMed and Scopus. Of the 210 PDs, 188 (89.5%) were male and 22 (10.5%) were female. One hundred seventy-four (82.9%) were non-Hispanic White, 14 (6.7%) Asian American and Pacific Islander, 12 (5.7%) Black or African American, 4 (1.9%) Hispanic or Latino, and 6 (2.9%) other/unknown. Twenty-four (11.4%) PDs had a military affiliation. Moreover, the most common subspecialties among orthopaedic PDs were orthopaedic traumatology (19.5%, n = 41), sports medicine (15.7%, n = 33), and hand surgery (11.9%, n = 25). The mean Scopus h-index, total number of publications at the time of data collection (June 2022), and total number of citations for all orthopaedic residency PDs were 10.5 ± 9.5, 33.9 ± 51.0, and 801.9 ± 1,536.4, respectively. Among all PDs, the mean tenure in the position was 8.9 ± 6.2 years to date, and the mean time from completion of residency to appointment as PD was 10.0 ± 6.2 years. Among orthopaedic surgery residency PDs, there is sparse female and minority representation. Overarchingly, orthopaedic PDs are White men in their early 50s. Moreover, 59.1% of PDs were appointed at an institution where they completed medical school, residency, or fellowship. orthopaedic traumatology (19.5%), sports medicine (15.7%), and hand surgery (11.9%) were the subspecialties most represented in current orthopaedic surgery PDs. This study outlines important demographic characteristics among orthopaedic surgery residency PDs. III.