Political Dilemmas Research Articles

Christianity and Culture in the Middle Ages. Essays to Honor John Van Engen ed. by David C. Mengel and Lisa Wolverton

Reviewed by: Christianity and Culture in the Middle Ages. Essays to Honor John Van Engen ed. by David C. Mengel and Lisa Wolverton Miri Rubin Christianity and Culture in the Middle Ages. Essays to Honor John Van Engen. Edited by David C. Mengel and Lisa Wolverton. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. 2014. Pp. xiv, 522. $68.00. ISBN 978-0-268-03533-4) The chapters assembled in Christianity and Culture in the Middle Ages explore European history across centuries and regions. The volume’s coherence and charm arise from the hommage offered by each contribution to an inspiring historian and teacher—John Van Engen. Van Engen’s work has treated diverse areas of medieval religious life, as the list of his publications offered on pages 501-506 shows. He has impressively studied twelfth-century monastic life and thought, as well as religious initiatives developed by and for lay people—often women—in the cities of north west Europe in the later Middle Ages. He also wrote an influential article „The Christian Middle Ages as an Historiographical Problem”1 which forms the volume’s leitmotif. Part I, “Christianization,” includes four ‘think pieces’ which cut across the centuries: R I Moore offers a masterly historiographical survey of the term ‘cathar’ since 1849; Lisa Wolverton combines historiographical reflection with analysis of written and material sources to support a new reading of the Christianization of Bohemia, highlighting regional influences on religious culture; Catherine Caldwell Ames reflects historiographically on the emergence of a diverse “medieval religion,” especially through attention to what used to be called “popular religion,” in the later twentieth century. Part II, “Twelfth Century Culture,” opens with three nicely honed lessons in reading texts and images. Maureen Miller calls for the discipline of context to be applied in the treatment of twelfth-century art, as against the search for “art of reform”; Jonathan Lyon observes the use by Otto of Freising of classical language—especially the term “tyranny”—to describe new institutional and political dilemmas in the twelfth-century Empire; Rachel Koopmans nicely identifies networks of influence and patronage in the testimonial letters incorporated into collections of Becket miracles. The section ends with two chapters based on broad themes: Dyan Elliott explores how bold intellects imagined counter-factually in fruitful ways, while Giles Constable shows-often in similar communities—the continuing centrality of the Cross in devotional and liturgical lives. Part III, “Jews and Christian Society,” is made of three chapters each demonstrating a fruitful approach to the study of Europe’s Jews. Susan Einbinder juxtaposes a Hebrew lament and a cantiga to compare their treatments of the fall of a court Jew in 1279; William Jordan reminds us how much work is yet to be done in the interpretation of images contained in private books like the [End Page 107] Christina Psalter; and David Mengel develops a detailed analysis of Charles IV’s attitude to Jews through a comparative study of urban communities. Particularly strong is the fourth and longest section, “Late Religious Medieval Life.” Here authors are inspired by Van Engen’s article “Multiple Options: the World of the Fifteenth Century,” published in 2008.2 Close studies of interesting texts show institutions in constant flux and change: Walter Simons introduces the Count of Flanders’ petition to John XXII on behalf of “his” beguines, long-established and orthodox; William Courtenay extracts from the register of bishops evidence on the uptake of university study by parish priests and its possible effect on religious instruction; James Mixson evaluates the Observant Giovanni Dominci’s polemic against classical learning, the elegant The Firefly, penned in response to Salutati; Marcela Perett introduces the vernacular polemics developed by John Pribram against Hussites. The apocalyptic mood of the fifteenth century is discussed in a text introduced—and edited—by Daniel Hobbins, while Roy Hammerling concludes the volume with a tale by Luther for his Augustinian brothers, in which he encouraged them to become “spiritual beggars.” This rich and well-written volume offers something of interest for every medievalist. It also reminds us how often good medievalists are at creating graceful and learned “emotional communities.” Miri Rubin Queen Mary University of London Footnotes 1. American Historical Review...

A Dilemma of Consensual Politics - focused on the third grand coalition government in Germany -

A Dilemma of Consensual Politics - focused on the third grand coalition government in Germany -

Principled Agents: The Role of Service Culture in American Civil-Military Relations

This article joins a robust literature in confronting an enduring dilemma of organized politics: who guards the guardians—and how? Building on an agency theory of civil-military relations, this article introduces a new way to think about the American military and its civil-military relationships. Traditional agency theory offered a strong and flexible approach for evaluating the relative strength of civilian control over the military. A principled agent framework takes the argument further by expanding the scope of when, what, and who. A temporal expansion reveals the subtle bargaining interactions between the advising and executing phases of a policy. A contextual expansion shows the importance of considering the broader policy ecosystem when evaluating the quality of military compliance. And a service-level expansion demonstrates the powerful impact of service culture on American civil-military outcomes. The four services tend to act as principled agents, making sense of policy ambiguity through their own cultural logic. After explaining the mechanics of the argument and summarizing the core cultural beliefs of the four services, the article uses two historical vignettes to illustrate elements of the framework in action. It concludes by highlighting implications for practitioners and citizens alike.

Born in the USA: Breeding Political Violence in Héctor Tobar's The Tattooed Soldier

Born in the USA:Breeding Political Violence in Héctor Tobar's The Tattooed Soldier Dale Pattison (bio) In the summer of 2014, the national news media began reporting on the sudden influx and subsequent detention of migrant women and children crossing the U.S./Mexico border. Fleeing violence and poverty in Central America, these migrants quickly found themselves at the heart of an ongoing debate on the nation's responsibility to care for, or to reject, migrants in need. In addressing the emerging humanitarian crisis, pundits and politicians all too often failed to probe the underlying causes for the sudden increase in immigration from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras—all economically disadvantaged countries ravaged by gang violence and long histories of political unrest. Although many commentators would focus on the conditions of violence and poverty in these countries, seldom did the conversation turn to the history of Central America in the twentieth century and the United States' involvement in creating and sustaining a state of political instability in the region.1 What few in the media were willing to acknowledge was that the political dilemma created by these undocumented migrants was in fact a product of the United States' foreign policy in Central America decades earlier. The crisis on the border that occurred in 2014 is in many ways anticipated and foretold in Héctor Tobar's 1998 novel, The Tattooed Soldier, a work that at first glance has little to do with immigration politics or American foreign policy. In presenting a revenge narrative centered on two Guatemalan refugees—enemies in their home country—who bring their blood feud to the streets of Los Angeles, Tobar offers a subtle and prescient critique of the ways in which the United States' foreign policy in Central America in the latter half of the twentieth century—rooted in an emerging doctrine of neoliberalism in the Americas—produced political violence that would ultimately return to haunt the U.S. [End Page 113] at the turn of the twenty-first century. Irrevocably scarred by the human consequences of U.S. economic and military intervention in Guatemala, both characters deliver the political violence that created them, so to speak, to its place of origin: the United States. This article uses Tobar's novel to examine the ways in which political violence—like that experienced by the people of Central America in the latter half of the twentieth century, and embodied in those migrants crossing the U.S./Mexico border—can be neither contained nor repelled by national borders. Once created, political violence moves within and among bodies, and nations that export political violence, Tobar's novel suggests, render themselves susceptible to its inevitable return. The novel's revenge narrative concerns the lives of two Guatemalan refugees, Antonio Bernal and Guillermo Longoria, who meet each other in a Los Angeles city park seven years after their initial confrontation in Guatemala, during which Longoria, a member of the Guatemalan government's elite Jaguar Battalion, ruthlessly murdered Antonio's wife and child. Having escaped Guatemala after experiencing this violence, Antonio struggles to establish himself in Los Angeles, where he has difficulty holding jobs and securing stable living spaces. The novel opens, for instance, with Antonio being evicted from his apartment and thereby entering the state of homelessness that will carry him through the duration of the novel. Believing himself to have escaped the political violence of his past, Antonio is shocked when he stumbles upon Longoria playing chess in nearby MacArthur Park, and all of the repressed memories of his family's murder come flooding back to him. Challenging our inclination to read Antonio as the representative victim of political violence, Tobar focuses more explicitly on situating Longoria, the monstrous ex-soldier indoctrinated by a brutal military regime and trained by the U.S. government, as the unacknowledged victim of political trauma. By providing lengthy narrative detours that develop Longoria's character, Tobar situates him, in addition to Antonio, as paradoxically deserving of our sympathy. In both cases, Tobar concerns himself explicitly with addressing how victims of political violence—particularly those severed from their homelands as a result of political upheaval—process trauma in an environment that denies...

Daniel Bensaïd between Marx and Benjamin

Daniel Bensaïd (1946–2010) was a leading figure of May ’68, a Marxist thinker and an influential French public intellectual. His theoretical and political trajectory is divided into two distinct periods separated by the historical turn of 1989: the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of theussr. This also coincided with an existential turn due to his contractingaids, which brought him close to death. After this turn, he played the role of a ‘border-crosser’ between generations, intellectual currents and geopolitical areas within the radical left. In the 1990s, he began a critical rereading of Marx and tried to transcend Trotskyism, confronting its legacy with other currents of critical thought, notably the Frankfurt School. Since this pivotal moment, his writings reveal a permanent and intense dialogue with the work of Walter Benjamin, which he reinterpreted in a contemporary, political perspective, rethinking the political dilemmas of the twenty-first century through a Messianic vision of history. This article emphasises the affinities between two historical constellations – 1939 and 1989 – which, in spite of their obvious differences, were equally shaped by a feeling of defeat, and allowed a fruitful ‘encounter’ between French and German philosophers.

Moral Dilemmas of Transnational Migration

Given that care duties are central to the definition of motherhood across contexts, an extended separation from the woman’s family due to migration presents a major threat to her social identity as a mother and wife. Drawing on West and Zimmerman’s notion of “doing gender” and ethnographic research on Vietnamese low-waged contract workers in Taiwan, I provide vital insights into the discursive processes and everyday practices that underlie migrant women’s negotiations of motherhood and femininity. Specifically, I examine the various ways migrant women perform and negotiate meanings of hy sinh (self-sacrifice) and chịu đựng (endurance) that are core values of Vietnamese womanhood. Combating the stigma of bad motherhood and failed femininity, I emphasize, is not just about reasserting one’s sense of gendered self but also about reassuring her access to the future support and care of the family. The study emphasizes intentionality and pragmatism in women’s social doings of gender and highlights moral dilemmas in gender politics.

Emerging relationships between religious education and citizenship education: teachers’ perceptions and political dilemmas in Cyprus

This article explores the ways in which a group of primary school teachers in Cyprus interprets the relationship between religious and citizenship education. The contextualisation of the meaning of religious education shows the extent to which social, historical and political elements shape teachers’ perceptions about the entanglements between religious and citizenship education. In particular, the present study reveals two important findings – one concerning the conceptualisation of each school subject and their perceived relationship and the other concerning the contextualisation of this relationship in the cultural and political contexts of Cyprus. The findings also reveal important constraints and political dilemmas for the possible trajectories of ‘religious citizenship education’ in Cyprus. The article discusses the implications for curriculum and policy deliberations, as well as further research on ‘religious citizenship education’ in specific cultural and political settings.

Judgement and Ambivalence in Migration Work: On the (Dis)appearance of Dilemmas in Assisting Voluntary Return

Street-level bureaucrats implementing nation states’ migration policies increasingly find themselves in a structural tension between providing social assistance and regulating the flows of people entering and leaving the national territory. As a result, doing migration work involves a wide range of difficult, ambivalent situations. This article examines how and under which conditions these tensions translate into moral and political dilemmas in street-level bureaucrats’ everyday work. In doing so, it draws upon original qualitative research with street-level bureaucrats working in the Belgian programme for assisted voluntary return. The article concludes by proposing an approach centred around the notion of immunisation so as to understand the social context in which ambivalence and its contraries are produced.

The encounters that compose the research craft

This paper discusses ethical and political dimensions of research, which is taken as social practice. To perform this research, with two teams in different regions of Brazil (Northeast and Southeast), building a truly collaborative work was an imperative task. The work process is problematized in a research involving women activists of two Brazilian social movements. The research process is discussed in four specific encouters. The first concerns the process of co-elaborating the project and the challenges of gathering distinct research interests. The second focuses on the daily challenges of staff in working with the theme of death, but also the synergy needed to work remotely. The third encounter discusses the relationship between researchers and participants, highlighting ethical and political dilemmas. The fourth and final encounter to be discussed the constraints posed by working with the theme of death, echoing among the participants and another researchers.

Las necesidades mundiales de agua y la Antártida como reserva natural: ¿puede explotarse el agua Antártica?

La carencia de agua potable es cada vez más sensible para satisfacer las crecientes demandas mundiales. En ese escenario, la Antártida, una de las mayores reservas de agua, puede jugar un rol muy importante, especialmente por la creciente tendencia de creación de instrumentos internacionales e interpretaciones de los mismos para que los Estados garanticen el derecho al agua potable. El presente artículo tiene como objetivo analizar, mediante un método cualitativo, si jurídicamente sería posible explotar agua antártica, pese a las prohibiciones contenidas en el Protocolo de Madrid. Para ese fin, se estudiarán los instrumentos internacionales que pretenden obligar a los Estados a satisfacer las necesidades de agua potable a sus ciudadanos. A reglón seguido, se estudia la estructura del Sistema del Tratado Antártico y cómo la Antártida podría ser una solución para satisfacer las crecientes necesidades del recurso hídrico, particularmente por lo acordado en el Acta Final de la XI Reunión Consultiva Especial del Tratado Antártico, que puede ser la llave para la explotación de agua antártica, en forma de hielo, pero que los dilemas políticos que esa práctica conllevaría requieren de un consenso muy difícil de lograr, salvo que sea por situaciones excepcionales que lo permitan.

Development Journalism and Its Potential Contribution to The State Building: The Case of Somalia

Development aspect is a key target and agenda for all governments in the world. The concept embraces different facets of development including political, social, economic, infrastructure, societal, environmental, and intellectual aspects. Numerous factors contribute to the achievement of the above goals. Among these is a communication policy factor; an effective and comprehensive policy can help the state accelerate development success rate. In underdeveloped countries, the mass media play an essential role in mediating the development in the country. Systematic and comprehensive communication policies are greatly needed in these countries compared to developed and developing countries. In Somalia, where there was no effective and functioning state since 1990s, the need for such policies is great. The country has been in chaotic and unstable political situation, where the media has negatively contributed to hostility and conflict. In this paper, the author discusses the concept of development journalism and its evolution and relevance particularly to the newly independent states in Asia and Africa since 1960s. Although some people may argue that, the concept is out of date; this author believes that it is more relevant in today’s current political dilemma in Somalia. The paper provides numerous rationales for adopting the development journalism and how it can contribute to the state building efforts. Implications for policy and decision-makers were also discussed along these lines. For media practitioners, the paper recommends to follow peace journalism when covering tribal and political conflicts and to fully participate in current development projects.

Moral Performance and Cultural Governance in China: The Compassionate Politics of Disasters

AbstractThis article examines the Chinese state's moral performance during several major disasters, including the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, the 1998 Yangtze River floods, and the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. Drawing on the theatrical theory of symbolic politics, I argue that the Sichuan earthquake marked a turn in the state's moral performance. While the Chinese state continued to project an image of a secure, heroic state, it endeavoured to construct a sympathetic image through leaders' displays of compassion and sorrow, a mourning ritual for ordinary victims, and narratives of response and rescue. This shift towards a more compassionate performance can be explained by the state's deployment of cultural resources to respond to societal challenges since the new millennium and its effort to repair its image amid the crises of 2008. The compassionate performance was temporarily effective because it found common ground with the traditional political culture of disaster, which still shapes the public's expectations of the state's moral conduct, and the new public culture that values equality and dignity of human life. Nevertheless, the political dilemmas of the compassionate performance became evident. Its efficacy largely relied on the presentation of suffering at the scene, which, however, led to public demands for the state to address the causes of the suffering. When the state failed to construct an “accountable state” image, this “dilemma of scene” had repercussions for its legitimacy. The efficacy of paternalism was also limited because it was less appealing to the growing urban middle class. By addressing moral performance, this paper contributes to the literature on politics of disaster and advances the important research agenda on cultural governance.

Conceptual, pedagogical, cultural, and political dilemmas of implementing a constructivist workshop approach to teaching literacy

Approached as an epistemology, implementing a constructivist workshop approach to literacy can challenge the traditional paradigm of teacher-focused instruction and transform to one where students construct knowledge together and learn through active engagement in authentic reading and writing. This study illustrated how two third-grade teachers managed the conceptual, pedagogical, cultural and political dilemmas they encountered when they began implementing a constructivist workshop approach to literacy. This study validates the disquiet and discomfort teachers may feel as they utilize new curriculum, illustrates that a workshop approach requires an understanding/articulation of personal and curricular pedagogical and epistemological foundations, and encourages administrators to recognize that teachers need time and space to take risks and reflect on their work.

Crisis of Legitimacy in Palestine

Palestinian society is geographically separated and politically fragmented. This is attributed to partisan affiliation and alignment, absence of conceptual and professional framework of civil society, unethical approach of Palestinian political leaders, and unconstitutional political institutions. Such polarization and division have created political antagonism within elites and between factions. The broad objective of this research is to investigate the legitimacy crisis in Palestine, the current political dilemma in the Palestinian Authority, and the public response to the situation. The research introduces direct and thorough understanding of the developing political context surrounding these issues; taking into consideration that growing deficit in legitimacy could create potentially dire consequences, particularly if present trends on the ground continue. The research promotes an analytical perspective based on legitimacy theory and exploring recent public opinion polls.

Renegotiating the empire, forging the nation-state: The Georgian case through the political economic thought of Niko Nikoladze and Noe Zhordania, c. 1870-1920

This article begins with an observation of a contemporary and yet reoccurring political dilemma that small nation-states face with respect to larger states in being either inside or outside of supranational political entities regarding political and economic asymmetries. Employing an intellectual history approach, the article explores this dilemma with reference to the Georgian nation in late-nineteenth century Tsarist Russia and the early twentieth century, when that territory briefly became a nation-state: It explores this through the language of political economy articulated in the thoughts and actions of two founding Georgian national intellectual and political figures, the statesman Niko Nikoladze and Noe Zhordania, who was one of the first prime ministers. It argues that conceiving of the nation(state) primarily in economic terms, as opposed to exclusively nationalist ones, was more conducive to the option of remaining inside a supranational space.

South Africa’s Economic and Fiscal Quagmire: A Political and Insurrectionary Dilemma as Rating Agencies Downgrade the South African Economy and Minister of Finance Fired by the President Without any Tangible Reasons

<p>This narrative attempts to deal with the title of the paper in terms of the South Africa’s economic and fiscal quagmire and crisis. In no way is the paper all inclusive because, it cannot capture all of the subtle nuances that encompass this vexing issue, nearly two decades after the dawn and road to democracy, post 1994. The Finance Minister is in a no win situation and has to play the tune of his political masters. The Ministers mid-term review tabled to the nation in October, 2015 shows that he has to walk a very tight rope because of the current account, fiscal deficit and points to the reality that the business outlook is bleak. The reality question is, is it economic power or political power? The downgrade risks that the country faces on the part of rating agencies makes Minister Nene’s Job even more trickier and therefore, faces a near impossible balancing act’ to appease rating agencies. Can the Minister keep the credit agency wolves from the Treasury door? South Africa is in an economic and fiscal turmoil as it dips into savings to pay its monthly bills and therefore, reserve funds are being diverted into bureaucrats’ salaries. It is not only the question of the prolonged economic meltdown, but in reality it has to do with the mismanagement of the economy by the ruling government. The very high levels of corruption, cronyism, a mismatch in policy imperatives, the failure to action holistically the National Development Plan (NDP) and, a number of variables that have placed South Africa in this extreme quagmire, exacerbated by increasing unemployment, depressing poverty levels and rising inequality. The only solution is to deal decisively with corruption and to generate rapid growth by means of policy certainty. Against this background the paper will attempt to discuss these and other scenarios that confront South Africa.</p>

Achieving the Way: Confucian Virtue Politics and the Problem of Dirty Hands

Confucian virtue politics is premised on two fundamental assumptions. First, a good government founded on the Way is predicated on the political actor’s personal moral virtue, and there is no qualitative difference between the ruler’s virtue and the virtue(s) that people are ultimately to embody. Second, since there is only one single and holistic Way and the political is extended from the ethical, there cannot be two separate political and moral standards, which implies the impossibility of what Michael Walzer calls “the problem of dirty hands.” After examining how early Confucians such as Mencius and Xunzi rationalized the ostensibly problematic actions taken by their ancient moral heroes in politically critical moments, this essay concludes that early Confucians’ absolutist commitment to the Way enabled them to deal with moral dilemmas in politics with great moral flexibilities without invoking dirty hands.

The transformation of island city politics: The case of Macau

: This paper focuses on the island city of Macau as Europe’s last Asian colony and one of China’s special administrative regions (SARs) that enjoys a high degree of autonomy. The author traces the root cause of the current social discontent and political dilemma in the face of Macau’s post-colonial casino boom and economic miracle. The study finds that Macau’s islandness, smallness and geographic location significantly affect the island city’s urban political culture. While Macau shares similarities with other island cities across the world, as a Chinese casino city under Portuguese administration for more than 400 years, certain unique features have also developed.

Political Dilemma of NK Kim Jeong-eun Regime Reflected to ‘TV Dramatization of Original Novel’

Political Dilemma of NK Kim Jeong-eun Regime Reflected to ‘TV Dramatization of Original Novel’

The Outcome of Presidential Elections in Afghanistan and the Future of Political Transit

This article is devoted to one of the most complicated issues of the regional politics in the Central and South Asia – the presidential elections in Afghanistan in 2014. The article studies the outcome and results of the presidential elections, political and juridical dilemmas around these results, the consequences of so called «political transit» in Afghanistan.