Institutional History Research Articles

Practical Witchcraft

This article argues for the usefulness of collaborations between academic and public libraries for community outreach and engagement. After an overview of the problematic history of special collections institutions as inaccessible gatekeepers of culture, the article argues that in the twenty-first century, special collections must become members of public communities and actively involve themselves in community work in order to foster mutual understanding and values. A case study of a shared event, a witchcraft lecture that went viral on the internet, is described.

What's in a Name? Archives and Special Collections at American Research Institutions in the Middle East: Repositories at the American University of Beirut, the American University in Cairo, the American Center of Research in Jordan, and New York University Abu Dhabi

ABSTRACT In today's Middle East, a number of institutions of research and higher education have American origins, and several maintain archives and special collections. This article offers case studies of repositories at four of these institutions: the American University of Beirut (AUB), the American University in Cairo (AUC), the American Center of Research (ACOR) in Jordan, and New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD). The article traces the origins of these archives and how those were shaped by the development of each one's parent organization as an American-inspired institution, as well as by the historical, social, and cultural framework of their host countries. The authors also consider the landscape of archives in the nations where these institutions are based: Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. The evolution of the collecting program of each repository is outlined, with strategies and key acquisitions and collections mentioned. Access and dissemination methods, including digitization initiatives, are also covered. In presenting such activities, the ways in which American traditions and standards of archival practice contrast with or complement those of local archival traditions are examined. A central theme is the way that the archives at AUB, AUC, ACOR, and NYUAD go about documenting not only institutional history but also the heritage of their host countries and the challenges and opportunities inherent in that work.

The Evolution of China’s Environmental Protection Inspection System

The environmental protection inspection system has undergone four stages of evolution: the initial cultivation phase of "bureaucratic transmission", the trial period of "regional corporate monitoring", the mobilization and transitional phase of "national government oversight", and the accelerated transitional phase of "party and government co-inspection". Examining the environmental protection monitoring framework through the lens of historical institutionalism, it has been discovered that the inspection system in my country has been impacted by broader changes in history. There are four crucial junctures of institutional transformation, including the passing of the "Environmental Protection Law" and the establishment of regional monitoring centres. The maintenance of system stickiness is reliant on factors influencing the paths of sunk cost and internalization. Drawing on historical experience, the environmental protection inspection system should adopt an active approach to exploring both "bureaucratization" and "de-bureaucratization" bi-regulation coupling mechanisms, while simultaneously enhancing relevant legal safeguards and the external inspection and participation systems.

CHALLENGES FOR THE POLITICAL COMPETENCE OF CITIZENS IN THE CONTEXT OF UKRAINE'S EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

The article aims at identifying the latest challenges for the political competence of Ukrainian citizens in the context of European integration. Russia's large-scale aggression is certainly becoming a major challenge for citizens, those who are forced to save their lives under daily cruise missile attacks launched from a terrorist country. At the same time, the war leveled differences between the regions on the issue of European and Euro-Atlantic integration, consolidated Ukrainian society around democratic values and democratic choice. Political competence of citizens is defined as a complex socio-political phenomenon that allows assessing the rationality and effectiveness of government actions and exercises the right to change government. Applying the institutionalism of rational choice, it has been determined that it is the ability of citizens to make democratic choices in difficult conditions that is a convincing evidence of a high level of political competence. Based on the method of historical institutionalism, the completion of the post-Soviet transformations stage is noted. Ukrainians have made their choice in favor of democracy. At the same time, new challenges arise for the citizens’ political competence. They are institutional in nature and are associated with the activities of such institutions as elections (electoral campaigns at the national and local levels), mass media, the institute of political education, civil society, and so on. It is proved that the political competence of citizens is manifested in the electoral process, but is not limited to just participation in voting. It consists in the implementation of a control function – a critical and rational assessment of the actions of public authorities and the opposition. This is the reason for the role of mass media and civil society. The challenges to the activities of the mass media institute are the mediatization of politics (media shows, media scandals) and, at the same time, attempts by the public authorities to restrict freedom of speech. Such restrictions, which are absolutely justified under martial law, potentially pose a threat minding a return to the authoritarian model in the relations "Power – Mass media – Society". Special attention is paid to the role of the institute of public intellectuals in the process of forming the political competence of citizens.

Dynamics of Islamic Unity Education Institute

The purpose of this study was to find out the history and dynamics of Persis educational institutions. The research method uses library research with data sources in books form and scientific journals related to the dynamics of educational institutions, and data analysis techniques use content analysis. The study results revealed that Persis birth began with a Tadarusan formation (Islamic religious study) group in Bandung city led by H. Zamzam and H. Muhammad Yunus. Persis has been led by several figures who have their own characteristics of thought, including KH. Zamzam as Persis founder. Ahmad Hasan is the main teacher and founder of Persis. Mohammad Natsir is a political scholar. KH. E. Abdurrahman was a great scholar and a humble legal expert. Persis gives great attention to the education field. In this education field, Persis has established educational institutions ranging from early childhood or kindergarten to tertiary institutions, both in madrasas form, schools, and Islamic boarding schools. Apart from that, Persis also organizes courses and discussion groups. So it is necessary to continue to maintain this spirit, especially in eradicating stupidity context, backwardness, superstition, heresy, and superstition, as well as Indonesian people colonization by carrying out enlightenment among Muslims.

Back to Heraclitus: What Contentious Politics Looks Like When Everything Is in Flux

This article examines the Dynamics of Contention research program against the backdrop of political science’s emergent concern with institutions during the 1990s. By the time Charles Tilly had developed his mechanism-based explanatory framework for understanding contentious politics, the study of institutions had come to dominate political science. Although the contentious politics framework has some similarities with historical institutionalism, I argue that the two approaches are incompatible, precisely because of the latter’s focus on institutions. The contentious politics approach requires historicizing everything, including institutions, in such a way that anything analyzable becomes a process. Historical institutionalism relies on historical fixedness and some understanding of equilibrium, both of which Tilly came to reject for the study of contentious politics, in favor of open-ended political conflict and causal mechanisms as explanatory building blocks. To probe the tension between Tilly’s mechanism-based approach to understanding contentious politics and historical institutionalism, I conduct a close reading of two books that Tilly wrote using the contentious politics approach to explain matters of concern to historical institutionalists: European Revolutions, 1492–1992 on revolutions and Contention & Democracy in Europe, 1650–2000 on democratization.

Siting Islamic feminism: The Indonesian Congress of Women Islamic Scholars and the challenge of challenging patriarchal authority

ABSTRACTThis article takes the first ever Indonesian Congress of Women Islamic Scholars (Kongres Ulama Perempuan Indonesia, KUPI), and its methodology for formulating religious opinions, as an entry point for analysing the challenge of challenging male, male-centred, and patriarchal authority in Islam. Although a recent initiative, KUPI must be understood in the context of a long and often contentious history of Indonesian secular activists and Islamic scholars (men and women) sounding each other out and seeking common ground in their efforts to reinterpret religious sources and develop new ideas about the position of women in society. Studying the event ethnographically as a site of public communication and exchange – of religious knowledge, views, and experiences – , and contextualizing it in the history of Indonesian Islamic practices and institutions, we argue that the main significance of KUPI lies in the way in which it expands the global Islamic feminist project from a scholarly and intellectual movement into a locally resonant and potentially impactful social movement.

Critical Political Economy Meets Historical Institutionalism in the Study of Asian Precarity: Assets and Liabilities of a Methodological Hybrid

Critical Political Economy Meets Historical Institutionalism in the Study of Asian Precarity: Assets and Liabilities of a Methodological Hybrid

Between Political Constraints and Professional Historical Writing: Three Decades of Croatian Historiography (1990–2021)

Like most European historiographies, modern Croatian historiography was founded in the second half of the nineteenth century. It coincided with the appearance and spread of nationalism – what is more, it was one of its essential components. Nonetheless, the number of historians in Croatia remained small for a long period of time (In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, approximately twenty historians worked in universities, museums, and archives), and historiographic production was modest and methodologically traditional. The number of historians and institutions dedicated to historical writing increased significantly in the decades following the Second World War, reflecting the importance placed on history by the communist authorities. Approximately one hundred historians were employed in Croatia at the time of its independence in the early 1990s, principally at the country's two universities and a number of historical institutes. Today, Croatia – a country with a population of less than four million – offers up to eight undergraduate and graduate history programs, as well as several doctoral programs. More than 300 professional historians work in faculties, institutes and other institutions such as archives, museums or non-governmental organisations.

Institutional Inertia and Change: Explaining the Czech and Portuguese Engagement in European Defence Market Integration

AbstractThe Permanent Structured Cooperation in Defence (PESCO) and the European Defence Fund (EDF) constitute another attempt to consolidate the European defence market. In this article, we explain the different engagements of Czechia and Portugal in the two initiatives until 2021 through the evolution and reform of the domestic institutions governing their defence industrial policies. We trace how the institutions were established, how they contributed to the national position on PESCO and EDF and how the two countries' defence industries became involved. The article shows how the different institutionalisation of the defence sector allowed Portugal and its companies to participate more than their Czech counterparts. We contribute to historical institutionalist scholarship by evidencing the critical role of ideas in promoting and preventing policy change. We also offer an insight into the practice of European defence co‐operation and identify processes that challenge further integration.

War is Not Over

This article offers a brief introduction to the institutional history of the Church of Scientology in France (1959–present) before turning attention to the current state of Scientology in relation to state-sponsored anti-cultism and laïcité. In France, groups regarded as “sectes” (cults) are monitored by the French government’s MIVILUDES (Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires, the Interministerial Mission of Vigilance and Combat against Cultic Deviances). As of late 2022, MIVILUDES is overseen within the French government by Sonia Backès, Secretary of State (Deputy Minister) for Citizenship. Backès, a former Scientologist, was raised in the Church of Scientology, completed Scientology courses, and attended a “Study Tech” school that made use of the educational methods of L. Ron Hubbard, among other aspects of participation, before ceasing activity in the group as a teenager. Backès has become a vocal opponent of Scientology, claiming she escaped from the group in an exit narrative that is disputed by family members. Backès’s apparent transformation from an “ordinary leave-taker,” “defector,” or “invisible former member” to a highly vocal “apostate” serves as a case study of a new expression of Scientology ex-member identity that is not well examined in the NRM literature on apostasy and disaffiliation—that of a second-generation (former) member in a position of political power. In a country like France, this form of political power can be operationalized and weaponized against new or minority religions such as Scientology, all with the backing of the state.

Third-party arrangements between private and public colleges in Ontario: benefits, threats, implications for policy

ABSTRACT Ontario’s Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAATs) were established as an alternative public postsecondary choice for students to provide vocational education programmes to serve Ontario’s labour market. In the past 20 years years, neoliberal policies have pressured CAATs to be more entrepreneurial, efficient, and fiscally sustainable. Declining funding and enrolment and burgeoning demand from international students led some colleges to enter third-party arrangements (TPAs) with for-profit private career colleges (PCCs). This research used a qualitative research design to examine the development, growth and impact of TPAs between 2005 and 2019. Two overarching theoretical frameworks grounded the research: historical institutionalism (Streeck & Thelen, 2005) and Principal-Agent Theory (Mitnick, 1973; Ross, 1975). Document analysis and 25 semi-structured interviews were used to elucidate the trajectory of the formation, growth and cementing of TPAs into the Ontario college system. Inflection points were conceptualised to explain how decisions and conditions contributed to the trajectory. Competition, marketisation of higher education, economics, demographics and policies were seen as contributing to the formation, growth and formalisation of the TPAs. TPAs were perceived to introduce strategic risks to public colleges concerning future funding and enablement of PCCs, which have implications for system design, including further privatisation of Ontario’s public college system.

The EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility: An Exceptional Borrowing Instrument?

ABSTRACT The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) authorises the European Commission to borrow up to €672.5 billion to aid member states’ economic recovery from COVID-19. Some scholars see such funding as unprecedented. Others see a tight link with earlier borrowing instruments. By comparing the EU’s pandemic facility to eleven such instruments created between 1952 and 2021, this article shows that the RRF is familiar in some respects but novel in others. Viewed through a historical institutionalist lens, the RRF shows signs of layering, but limited evidence of displacement or path dependence. Over the last seven decades, member states have added to earlier instruments, we show through process tracing, but they have rarely been locked into institutional choices. The RRF’s strict time limit is consistent with this finding. The RRF will not become permanent, our analysis suggests, but borrowing is now part of the EU’s toolkit.

Political mobilisation and institutional layering in urban regeneration: Transformation of land redevelopment governance in China

This research explores the pattern of institutional change and its underlying logic in China's recent land development governance. China's central government has been issuing national policies since 2012 to promote urban regeneration to improve land use efficiency and sustainability. Through the lens of historical institutionalism, this paper analyses the making and implementation of Shanghai's new urban regeneration policies since 2014, which was a response to the central state's mandate. Results show that the redevelopment mode encouraged by the municipal governments is financially unattractive to district governments and market entities. Pro-growth development governance maintains strong inertia since it has been embedded in interlocking institutional arrangements. However, the top-down campaign temporarily changed the power distribution among different levels of government and cultivated incremental institutional layering. A small range of redevelopment projects were implemented through political mobilisation of the state-owned enterprises' financial resources and the local cadre's attention. This paper concludes that the transformation of China's land development governance is an inevitably arduous top-down process, characterised by constant rescaling of the distribution of power and constant adjustments to reconcile the pro-growth inertia and the state mandate toward sustainability.

Official Statistics and the Colleges for the Orthodox Clergy Daughters in the Late 19th – Early 20th Centuries

The article has systematized and analyzed the digital indicators of the evolution of the eparchial women’s colleges, which existed in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries on the basis of the reports of the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod. This made it possible to distinguish the main characteristics of the women’s education level, both secular and religious, as well as to go far beyond the study of the history of separate educational institutions of the spiritual ministry, to avoid a regional approach to the coverage of eparchial women’s education. The analysis of the digital indicators and the corresponding calculations gave the possibility to reveal the dynamics of the increase in the number of women’s colleges in eparchies throughout the country and the increase in the number of students in eparchial colleges. The general development of women’s religious education has shown that the Kyiv eparchy had the highest rates in this sphere. Furthermore, eparchial women’s colleges in Kyiv were more open to representatives of other social classes.

What Is “Postmedieval”? Embedded Reflections

Abstract This essay explores the issue's topic, “The ‘Medieval’ Undone: Imagining a New Global Past,” by asking what it has meant, and what it could yet mean, to be postmedieval. It does so by telling a specific institutional history, that of postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies, which launched in 2010 and continues to the present. The article adopts a decidedly embedded perspective, from the point of view of a current coeditor of postmedieval, previously an author and book reviews editor. Ultimately, the article argues that postmedieval's attachment to the “medieval” works to keep its readers in conflicted contact with the Eurocentrism, global flows of capital, dominance of English, and politics of time that cannot be escaped merely through critique or shifts in representation.

Institutional Historical Acknowledgement: What Does It Hurt to Embrace the Past?

In this commentary, Purdy calls independent schools to grapple with their complicated and full institutional histories. Offering examples of schools and individuals doing this work, Purdy contends that independent schools need histories of diversity, equity, and inclusion that span the entirety of United States history, like those being uncovered by higher education institutions that are delving deeply into the relationship between their institutions and legacies of enslavement. Purdy presents a concise history of what we know now about how independent schools have reflected the racism embedded in United States society, how the civil rights movement pushed independent schools to desegregate and admit more Black students, and how Dr. William Dandridge, the first director of Minority Affairs for the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) in the 1970s, challenged independent school leaders on their thinking about race. This commentary concludes by encouraging independent schools to ask the hard questions, because even with all the progress that has been made to make independent schools more diverse, inclusive, and equitable, Black students continue to shed light on the institutional and interpersonal racism that they contend with today.

The Multiannual financial framework 2021–2027 and Next Generation EU - A turning point of EU multi-level governance?

ABSTRACT The agreements on Next Generation EU (NGEU) and the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021–2027 (MFF 2021–2027) are extraordinary milestones for the EU integration process. Not only do both regulations have important redistributive effects within a defined timeframe, but both regulations shape the hierarchy of objectives and instruments of EU budgetary policies. This is particularly true for cohesion policy, which has been characterised as the model of EU multilevel governance (MLG). Drawing on historical institutionalism and Peter Hall’s classification of policy change, this text examines the dynamics of change in MLG. In particular, this research looks at the timing and scope of changes in EU cohesion policy since the 1980s. We ask whether or not the adoption of NGEU and the MFF 2021–2027 is likely to represent a critical juncture for the MLG and to what extent both regulations modify objectives and instruments of cohesion policy.

Transforming Church Strategies in a Changing Social Landscape: Sunday School Statistics from a Swedish Diocese, 1920–1990

This article offers a reconsideration of religious mobilisation in the inter- and postwar periods. It focuses on how the Church of Sweden gradually altered its catechetical activities aimed at children to meet changing needs. Built on a range of statistical sources, this article calls for a reconsideration of the ways in which larger Protestant denominations adjusted to meet declining religious practices. With a focus on how laypeople became involved in these efforts, it is argued that institutional history, rejuvenated by the introduction of a gender perspective, is essential for our understanding of postwar religious mobilisation in north-western Europe.

Globalizing from the inside out: national responses to international soft law in Latin America’s banking sector

Building from historical institutionalist contributions, this article explains why domestic regulators implement global rules to govern their banking markets. Although this question is not new, this paper tackles it with a novel approach. It frames regulatory globalization as an inside-out process in which domestic coalitions leverage international soft law’s power resources to advance their local agendas. The article highlights how local players utilize Basel’s power resources to build state regulatory capacities and market compliance conditions and, subsequently, strengthen those capacities and conditions to prompt regulatory convergence. To test this argument, the author conducts comparative case studies with Brazil, Chile, and Mexico, which challenge the conventional wisdom on rule harmonization. While the literature correlates convergence to externally driven, market-based economies and divergence to state-led, crony economies, case studies show the highest rate of convergence in Brazil’s state-led economy and the lowest rate in Chile’s market-based economy, with Mexico in between. The article concludes that regulatory politics is an iterative institutional process that does not necessarily coincide with a country’s variety of capitalism. It also points out that local policymakers are not merely standard followers but political players who mobilize global resources to further their interests while governing finance.