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AbstractThis article explains how the National Catholic Rural Life Conference (NCRLC), from its founding in 1923 to the present, applied basic Catholic principles in response to a succession of changes in American rural society. In doing so, it proposed a middle way between capitalism and socialism and between the Democratic and Republican parties. In the 1920s, the Reverend Edwin V. O'Hara founded the NCRLC mainly to bolster the demographically weak rural Church. In the 1930s, the NCRLC turned to economic concerns in response to the Great Depression. It supported many New Deal programs that helped farmers as well as cooperatives and a "back‐to‐the‐land" movement. The Conference consistently supported the family farm as the basic institution of a morally and economically sound rural society. In the 1940s and 1950s, the Conference entered the realm of international affairs under Monsignor Luigi G. Ligutti and addressed problems of world hunger, land reform, and underdeveloped countries. Under Monsignor Edward W. O'Rourke, who became director in 1960, the NCRLC joined in the movement for social justice and campaigned for the rights of the rural poor and migrant farm workers. Starting around 1970, the Conference became increasingly interested in environmental and energy issues. The NCRLC is in harmony with the 21st‐century pope, Francis, on rural and ecological issues.

Tens of millions of peasants died during the Great Famine in China from 1959 to 1961. Numerous Chinese peasants remained silent during the famine while others staged resistance. This article explores how peasant resistance was possible in a communist regime and how the government contained such resistance. It finds that resistance was considerably affected by the availability of protest leaders. Chinese peasants were organized into rural collectives controlled by the party-state through local cadres. Sympathetic rural cadres played crucial roles in facilitating peasant resistance. However, government control generally deprived rural communities of protest leaders. When collective resistance did occur, the government contained its influence through accommodation and repression. Effective control rendered the government insensitive to the famine suffered by the vast rural population of the country.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review the four large and two small fluctuations in China's economic growth since the reform and opening up, which can be further divided into five periods of economic upturn and six periods of economic downturn.


Design/methodology/approach
This paper also analyzes the performance, causes and practical countermeasures of these fluctuations and summarizes the experience and lessons from the eight aspects of dealing with economic downturn and stabilizing growth since the reform and opening up.


Findings
At last, the paper puts forward some measures to cope with economic downturn and stabilize growth under the new normal in the new era.


Originality/value
Any country's economic growth is a tortuous process with many fluctuations. The rate of economic growth cannot rise or go down straight for a long time, and China's economic growth is no exception. The drastic fluctuations of economic growth can lead to serious overproduction, waste of resources, increased unemployment, decreased income or supply shortages, rising prices and decline of living standards.

This paper raises important questions about the nature of governance in Finland with a view to the difficulties of the Sámi minority, and in the same time in this study we present our comparative approach to investigate how Finland and Turkey are able to solve internal ethnic conflicts related to their national minorities. The article provides a comparative analysis of the democratic order in a consolidated democracy (Finland) and in a weak democracy (Turkey). The democratic experience of these countries is of reasonable importance, as a considerable number of countries worldwide are at various stages during the democratic experiment. This study outlines the role of democratic order in conflict prevention in these two states.

Packed with insight into contemporary issues and analysis of the latest developments in UK and US Politics, including the 2019 UK General Election and 2020 US election, this textbook is specially designed to help your students perform to the best of their abilities in the AQA Politics Paper 1 and Paper 2 exams. This Student Textbook: - Strengthens your students' understanding of comparative politics through dedicated comparative politics chapters and synoptic links throughout - Builds your students' confidence by highlighting key terms and connections between different topics in the specification - Develops your students' skills of analysis and evaluation through activities, debates and exam-style questions - Provides answer guidance for exam-style questions online at www.hoddereducation.co.uk.

This article aims to discuss the intersections of the anti-feminist and anti-immigration agendas in the Portuguese far-right through critical discourse analysis of the PNR and Chega's positions. These political actors convey nationalist, racist and anti-multiculturalist messages at the same time that they show their hostility towards gender equality policies, using racial, cisgender and heteronormative categories as criteria to define whose citizens are worthy of defense/protection. Recently, they have also co-opted gender equality agendas to justify anti-immigration positions, specifically opposing the hosting of refugees, depicted as a potential threat to the imagined Portuguese and European white and Christian community. The latter representation, apparently disruptive of their own conservative ideology based on protecting the traditional family/nation, is thus re-oriented in order to simultaneously attack "gender ideology". The article shows how the mobilization of gendered and racialized tropes in the construction of Europe and Portugal as at risk from 'external' forces re-inscribes racist and xenhophobic securitarian discourses in the political sphere.

"The American frontier is one of our most cherished and enduring national images. We think of the early settlers who tamed the wilderness and built the bones of our great country as courageous, independent--and white. In this groundbreaking work of deep historical research, Anna-Lisa Cox shows that this history simply isn't accurate. In fact, she has found a stunning number of black settlements on the frontier--in the thousands. Though forgotten today, these homesteads were a matter of national importance at the time; their mere existence challenged rationalizations for slavery and pushed the question toward a crisis--one that was not resolved until the eruption of the Civil War. Blending meticulous detail with lively storytelling, Cox brings historical recognition to the brave people who managed not just to secure their freedom but begin a battle that is still going on today--a battle for equality."--Provided by publisher

Aristotle's conception of the politeia (regime, constitution) as a distinctive feature of the historical experience of the polis is a key aspect in his treatment of politics. Part of this discussion deals with Aristotle's attempt to locate and define the qualities of the politeia as the most valid criteria for a historical account of the polis. These are the qualities I intend to address in this chapter. In section 1 I consider the role of the politeia in Aristotle's account of the history of the polis after it deviates from the monarchic model of government. In section 2 I tackle the problem of the politeia's intelligibility inside the polis understood as a "community of interpretation". Finally, in section 3 I address the politeia as an expression of the unity of the polis and discuss its quality to unify actions (praxeis) aimed at a common goal. Here I argue that it is the politeia's "unifying quality" that highlights the causal connections underlying actions that regard the polis. Within the context of the politeia, the historical account of the polis connects actions which outside the framework of the politeia do not appear to be so closely related. ; La idea aristotélica de la politeia (régimen, constitución) como característica distintiva de la experiencia histórica de la polis constituye un aspecto clave de su estudio de la política. Parte de esta discusión tiene que ver con el intento de Aristóteles de establecer y definir las calidades de la politeia como el criterio más válido para elaborar un relato histórico de la ciudad. En la sección 1 tomo en consideración el papel de la politeia dentro del relato de la historia de la polis desde que esta última se aleja de la forma monárquica. En la sección 2 me ocupo del problema de la inteligibilidad de la politeia en el contexto de la ciudad entendida como "comunidad de interpretación". Por último, en la sección 3 analizo la politeia como expresión de la unidad de la ciudad y discuto su condición de elemento unificador de las acciones (praxeis) que miran a un objetivo común. Aquí argumento la "calidad unificadora" de la politeia que destaca las conexiones causales que subyacen a las acciones vinculadas con la polis.

The collapse of this economy in August 1914 and its subsequent restructuring, therefore, created extremely testing conditions for peripheral countries. These conditions and the way in which they were dealt with help to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the variants of the primary-export-based capitalist development which had taken root here. Also, as had happened in Europe, the war witnessed far-reaching political and social changes in the region, associated in the main with the emergence of a more vocal urban middle class and a more combative working class. By considering within a fully comparative perspective some of the main elements of both economic and socio-political change in four major Latin American countries during the war years, this study provides many important new insights into the nature and limitations of pre-war growth as well as the significance of the many changes brought by the war

Uses qualitative data to explore how contemporary religious beliefs mark conceptions of work, particularly with regards to the beliefs of conservative protestant women. Compares liberal protestant women and men as well as conservative men against this group. States that conservative women consider motherhood as their most important work yet they are also most likely to feel "called" to their paid work. Cites that this has important implications for the sociological literature on gender and work. Builds on the original work of Max Weber.

The research objectives aim at analyzing the institutional organization evolution of the public sector resources management supervising function, as well as the development and role of the external public audit in Romania. Although the external public audit has a quite short history in Romania, related to the country's accession to the European Union and the requirements that had to be met, our research horizon is much wider, being delimited by the institutional history, for over 150 years, of the supervising function of the public sector resources use. Thus, the research also addresses the financial control, as a precursor to the external public audit. The research methodology is qualitative and interpretive. Following the research horizon, the institutional history, the evolution and the role of the external public audit in Romania are addressed by reviewing the relevant literature, the normative (constitutional and regulatory) framework, as well as the publications portfolio of the Romanian Court of Accounts. The research is useful and relevant as it offers a panoramic image on this important activity in the public funds management and reveals the historical landmarks, which generated significant transformations in the field.

As recently as one year ago, the European Union was seemingly on a direct path toward its avowed goal of "ever closer union." In numerous publications, EU authorities asserted that they had the confidence of European peoples desirous only of further integration. In the wake of the failed referenda for a European Constitution, however, enthusiasts of European Union can no longer be certain that their enterprise will succeed. The European Union, once strong and united, seems now an entity teetering on the edge of collapse. The reasons for such a dramatic shift are, of course, wide-ranging. Yet I would suggest that a great part of the general European disillusionment with European Union has come about as a result of the actions of the Europeanists themselves. Over the last decades, European officials have exhibited a frightfully high incidence of revisionism in their literature. This practice, I argue, has caused many Europeans to question the integrity of the project of European Union. For my presentation, I intend to undertake a close study of a selection of documents published by the European Communities. In this endeavour, I will compare and contrast the messages imparted in different editions of these works and consider the semiotic significance of the textual and non-textual language appearing therein. In this manner, I hope to achieve two aims. First, I mean to add a corrective element to a literature that, guided by a teleological interpretation of integration, endows integration with"logic" to be found only in hindsight. Second, I intend to examine the many meanings that the EU has had over its history and assess how closely policy has adhered to the ideological goals of prominent Europeanists. In sum, I hope to shed light on the fundamental disconnect between advocates of Europe and the "man on the street" and help establish a dialogue which may contribute to resolving the current impasse within the European Union. Full text available: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v2i4.178