The research focuses on the system of coastal towers in Sardinia, the realization of which spans more than five centuries (XIII-XVIII sec.) and reaches its peak between the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth under the impulse of the Spanish monarchy. The coastal fortification process seems well documented in archival sources thanks to the establishment, starting in 1583, of the Reale Amministrazione delle torri This institution managed the system and produced a copious technical and administrative documentation. This made possible the philological dating of construction phase and historic restorations works referring to several towers. From this awareness comes the desire to investigate, in reference to these buildings, the structural and material characteristics, with particular emphasis on building techniques with the aim of defining an abacus with chrono-typological value. The choice of subject was also influenced by the awareness of the absence of studies, referring to Sardinia, oriented to the knowledge, documentation and chronological definition of construction praxis adopted for the construction of the masonry structures. So, with the awareness of the influence that Spain exercises in the definition of the architectural types and construction techniques in the countries that were under his dominion (direct or indirect), the ongoing study opened to the comparison between Sardinia and other Mediterranean contexts. Considering the high number of buildings investigated, the study was structured in homogeneous districts also taking care to safeguard all-embracing perspective that takes into account the specificity of the system. Starting from a systematic investigation in situ, eight representative cases-study were identified, selected from the towers belonging to a precise chronological range (16th-17th centuries). Specifically, the study focused on the following towers: Porto Giunco (Villasimius-Sarrabus Area), Mezza Spiaggia (Cagliari Area), San Macario (Teulada-Chia Area), Capo San Marco (Oristano Area), Ischia Ruggia (Bosa Area), Airadu (Alghero Area ), Trabuccato (Stintino-Asinara Area ) and Isola Rossa (Gallura Area). The need to ensure a systemic approach to the subject, and then to detect a large number of buildings, determined the decision to integrate the classic relief tools with innovative survey methodologies, based on photogrammetric techniques. This made it possible to acquire, in a short time, a satisfactory number of data related to the volumetric characteristics of the investigated buildings, allowing you to check and sometimes refute the previous typological classifications. At the same time, the processing of the product derived from "photomodeling" process provided a detailed basis on which to conduct analytical studies. With the objective to evaluate the many aspects of the subject, a multidisciplinary and integrated protocol was adopted: the towers were studied from a historical point of view, architectural and typological, technical and mineral-petrographic favoring a stratigraphic approach tailored to the peculiarities of the topic. Cataloging, georeferencing and insertion into a geographic information system made it possible to establish a multi-layer dynamic comparison and thus to reach a critical synthesis of the results obtained. This methodological approach has led to interesting results and represents a small advancement in the knowledge of these artifacts. In general, while taking into account the number of persons who commissioned the construction, all the towers analyzed shared the choice of a type of easy to build, with technical and architectural solutions far from modernity that characterized other similar systems. The adoption of these solutions, however, meets the basic military requirements. It is strongly influenced by the scarcity of population and economic resources and the need for shorter construction times. Indeed, a low population density in the island coasts and the constant shortage of financial resources, always aggravated by lack of interest by the central government, justified the adoption of a particularly expensive model. Similarly, in the realization of masonry structures, the short construction times and lower construction costs represent common imperatives. These aspects have influenced the quality of the mortar, often not optimal, and the choice of the stone material. Also the masonry technique most commonly adopted, a cantieri, was an expression of the same needs. It used the most of the available materials, responding to structural requirements. The systematization of the dimensional data relating to the cantieri revealed the recurrence of certain values such as to identify invariants of great interest for the chronological definition of masonry structures. The texture appears almost always irregular, with extreme heterogeneity in dimensions and morfhology of the stone elements. It was conditioned, as expected, by the level of workability of the material. The data obtained in the analytical phase converge in the project guidelines, aimed at providing methodological ideas and cultural references useful for restoration works. In addition, the multidisciplinary approach, supported by the integration of technological and innovative technical tools, reveals a spendable methodology in other contexts, and to a larger scale. Finally, the typological classification of a wide repertoire of masonry techniques, referred to a specific chronology can be an important basis of comparison for the dating of contemporary buildings.
В 2014 г. вышел 4 том «Истории татар», посвященный татарским государствам XV-XVIII веков. В нем нашли отражение современные тенденции историописания как собственно отдельных татарских ханств и орд на значительном пространстве позднезолотоордынского мира, так и ключевых моментов их культуры, религии, экономики и внутренней структуры. В 13 разделах книги 10 авторов представили и многообразный материал по истории сибирской татарской государственности XV-XVI веков. В рецензии рассмотрены лишь вопросы периодизации и хронологии этих государств, а также их место на внешнеполитической арене рассматриваемого периода, которые в том числе были сформулированы в очерках А.Г.Нестерова. Для понимания этих процессов пришлось остановиться на вопросе применимости к сибирским государствам различных политико-правовых терминов (ханство, юрт, улус, вилайет, земля). На различных этапах государственности и в зависимости от происхождения автора источника они явно имели различное значение, что требует постоянного объяснения сущности применения этих понятий авторами для создания корректного понимания сущности его концепции. Авторы рецензии предлагают во избежание недоразумений вернуться к уже имеющемуся концепту «ханства» применительно к соответствующим образованиям с центрами в Чимги-Туре и Искере. Одновременно с этим требуется еще раз пересмотреть сущность политического статуса этих городских центров в кочевых политических традициях шибанидской государственности, где хан был чаще привязан к кочевой ставке. Не менее важное значение имеет понимание этапов развития сибирской государственности, в том числе хронологии ее распада и прекращения существования. Авторы очерков так и не пришли к единому выводу по этому вопросу, предложив по сути две противоречивые концепции: краха Сибирского ханства после поражения Кучума в битве на Оби в 1598 г. и продолжения его существования в первой половине XVII века. При этом, рассматривая историю этого ханства, они отстаивают три тенденции, которые в полной мере уже могут именоваться «историографическими мифами»: Шибаниды пришли к власти как захватчики, уничтожившие местную законную княжескую династию Тайбугидов, они опирались на помощь бухарского хана Абдаллаха II и Сибирское ханство было частью Шейбанидского государства. Однако, эти тенденции не находят отражения в синхронных источниках, на основании которых может быть построена иная версия событий. Очевидно, что в рамках дискуссии о сибирской татарской государственности необходимо прекратить тиражировать эти и другие мифы и вернуться к изучению источников.The fourth volume of "The History of Tatars" dedicated to the Tatar states in the 15th-18th centuries was published in 2014. Modern tendencies in historical writing of separate Tatar khanates and hordes in the late Golden Horde period as well as the key points of their culture, religion, economy, and internal structure found reflection in this book. 10 authors in 13 sections also presented varied material on the history of the Siberian Tatar statehood in the 15th-16th centuries. This review only concerns the periodization and chronology of these states and their place at a foreign-policy arena of the given period. Essays by A.G. Nesterov also contain information on this topic. To understand these processes we have to consider a question of applicability of some politico-legal terms (khanate, yurt, ulus, vilayet, land) to the Siberian states. At different stages of statehood and depending on the descent of the author of every source, the terms stated above had clearly different meanings, which is why we need to constantly explain the necessity of using these terms by the authors in order to understand their conceptions correctly. The authors of the review suggest the returning to an already existing concept of "khanate" in respect to administrative formations with the centres in Chimgi-Tura and Isker in order to avoid misunderstanding. In the meantime the political status of these city centres has to be reconsidered in the nomadic political traditions of Shibanid statehood where the Khan was attached to the horde. Equally important is to understand stages of the Siberian statehood development and the chronology of its dissolution and extinction. The authors of the essays didn't work out a single conclusion on this question and suggested two contradictory conceptions instead. The first conception suggests the disruption of Siberian Khanate after Kuchum's defeat in the battle at the Ob in 1598 and the second conception suggests that Siberian Khanate continued to exist in the early 17th century. At the same time while considering the history of this khanate they have got three points of view, which can be called "historiographical myths": the Shibanids took power as invaders who destroyed the local legal princely dynasty of the Taibugids. Bokharan Khan Abdallah II helped them and Siberian khanate was a part of Shibanid state. But these standpoints are not fixed in the sources of the same period, so that another version of events can't be provided. It is obvious that it needs to stop spreading myths in respect of the Siberian Tatar statehood and return to studying the sources.
1. Prilog razmatra mogućnost i potrebu da se standardni regionalni sastav Republike Hrvatske na panonski, središnji (gorski) i primorski dio dopuni i modificira na način da se središnji dio tj. Gorska Hrvatska definirana dvojni način: Gorski kotar kao izraziti planinski i Lika kao izraziti kotlinski prostor, što sve čini jedinstvenu Gorsku Hrvatsku. 2. Umjesto termina regionalna podjela Hrvatske bolji je termin regionalni sastav, jer pojam podjele nosi u sebi politička i geopolitička opterećenja. Države su obično sastavljene od pojedinih regija, dok je podjela nešto drugo: sastav je geografski aspekt, a podjela nosi u sebi politički/geopolitički naboj. Tako je Hrvatska sastavljena od regija i županija, a nije na njih podijeljena, Švicarska isto tako nije podijeljena na etnikume, nego je od njih sastavljena. Međutim, ima i onih koji svjesno ili nesvjesno uzimaju u obzir "podjelu" Hrvatske na način: Istra i "Hrvatska" umjesto Istra i ostala Hrvatska. Za razliku od navedenoga, Belgija jest podijeljena (Valonci i Flamanci), Ukrajina jest podijeljena (unijati i pravoslavni). 3. Za razumijevanje nekog prostora prijeko je potrebno povijesno i geografsko poznavanje, tj. povijesno senzibiliziranje geografije i obratno, što znači da je riječ o historijskoj geografiji, a ujedno i o geografiziranoj povijesti i historiziranoj geografiji. 4. Glavnina je rada posvećena problemu gografske i funkcionalne lokacije. Tako je regija izrazito locirana u središtu Hrvatske, ali nije preuzela i središnje funkcije, zbog niza geografskih, povijesnih i geopolitičkih razloga. 5. Položaj regije može se, dijelom, izjednačiti s položajem u prostoru "hrvatskog praga", koji se savlađuje tek u 21. stoljeću. Iako centralno locirana u Hrvatskoj – nakon što je u 15. st. definitivno izgubljen hrvatski prostor između Une i Vrbasa (kasnija Turska Hrvatska) – regija nije preuzela i ulogu funkcionalne središnjosti. Ostaje, dakle, stalni kontrast između središnje lokacije i izostanka središnjih funkcija. U povijesnom i geografskom smislu regija je, dakle, imala diobeno značenje i zbog reljefnih i povijesnih i geopolitičkih razloga (visina reljefa, diobena uloga Vojne krajine). Na taj način uočava se bitna osobina razvitka hrvatske državnosti – ona se začela na primorju, u trokutu Nin – Knin – Cetina, a od 15. i 16. st. nova regija jezgre postaje zagrebačka regija. ; 1. The contribution considers the possibility and need for the standard regional structure of the Republic of Croatia divided into Pannonian, central (mountainous) and maritime part, to be supplemented and modifiedin the way that the central part i.e. Mountainous Croatia is defined in the dual way: The Gorski Kotar region as specially mountainous, and Lika as a special mountain depression (or mountain-encircled valley) space, thus making the undivided Mountainous Croatia. 2. Instead of the expression regional division of Croatia the better expression is regional structure, because the concept of division has in itself political and geopolitical burdens. Countries normally consist of particular regions, whereas the division is something else: structure is a geographical aspect, and division has in itself political/geopolitical tension. Thus Croatia consists of regions and counties, and it is not divided in that way; Switzerland in the same way is not divided into ethnic groups, but it consists of them. However, there are those who consciously or unconsciously acknowledge ''division'' of Croatia in the way that: Istria and ''Croatia'' instead of Istria and the rest of Croatia. Unlike the mentioned, Belgium is divided (the Wallons and the Flemish), Ukraine is divided (Uniates and Eastern Orthodox). 3. To understand a certain space it is necessary to have knowledge in geographical and historical sense, i.e. to perceive geography in a historical manner, and vice versa, which implies that it is the matter of historical geography, and at the same time about geographized history and historized geography. 4. The major part of the work is devoted to the problem of geographical and functional location. Thus the region is specially located in the central part of Croatia, but has not taken over its central function due to many geographical, historical and geopolitical reasons. 5. The position of the region can be, partly, equalled with the position in the space of "Croatian threshold", which is conquered only in the 21st century. Although centrally located in Croatia – after the Croatian space between the rivers Una and Vrbas (later Turkish Croatia) had been definitely lost in the 15th c. – the region did not also take over the role of functional central position. Consequently, the constant contrast between central location and absence of central functions remains. In historical and geographical meaning, the region, as a result, had a divisional meaning also because of relief and historical and geopolitical reasons (height relief, divisional role of the Croatian Military Border). In that way essential characteristic of the Croatian development of sovereignty is observed – it started in the maritime region, in the triangle Nin – Knin – Cetina, in this way the Zagreb region became the new region of the nucleus from the 15th and the 16th c.
Jordan Branch on Google Maps, State Formation, and the International Politics of Cartography
The territorial underpinnings of international politics are as familiar as they are contested within the discipline of International Relations. While the presumed 'territorial trap' of the discipline has been attacked from many sides (see, for instance, Theory Talk #4), Jordan Branch is more interested in turning the question around.
His work has carefully addressed the historical constitutive effects of mapping practices and technologies on the subsequent transformation of practices of, and ideas about, rule and the international system. In this fascinating Talk, Branch, amongst others, discusses the significance of cartography for international politics, explores the effects that contemporary digital mapping might have on political spaces, and illustrates how innovations in mapping impacted on rule with the historical example of France.
Print version of this Talk (pdf)
What is according to your view the most important challenge facing global politics and what is/should be the central debate in the discipline of International Relations (IR)?
While there are many different debates going on at the same time within the discipline, the one that has interested me most is the relationship between ideas and practical or material factors. There is a very simplistic version of this dichotomy that has been debated to death in the constructivist versus rationalists debates, particularly in the American field of IR—an over-drawn distinction, as many have pointed out. I am more interested in actual explanations for the process, outcome, or phenomenon we're looking at. Rather than separating them out, I am interested in how the ideational and material relate to one another, how they fit together.
This relationship poses questions for my specific interest in technological change. We are experiencing fast-paced technological changes—for example, the information technology revolution—which can yield a natural yet incorrect assumption, namely, that this change will inevitably have some kind of major effect on, or interaction with, politics and, specifically, with international relations. This may be true, but it is too often assumed. Indeed, this raises another problem. Even if there is such an effect, is it something we'll be able to observe, let alone predict or explain, as it is happening? From my historical work on the role of maps in state formation, for example, it is quite evident that for people at the time, there was no way to see the impact maps had on the political/spatial/ideational constitution of the state.
The information technology (IT) revolution is the most obvious current example of dramatic technological change. Although it has been playing out for the last 20 or 30 years, it only continues to accelerate. Over the past couple of years, a lot of discussion has focused on 'big data' and what it implies for business, financial analysis, and the like. Of course, it also presents possibilities as a new tool for social science. But there is a danger here. There is a tendency of seeing new technological phenomena only in their material contexts, specifically focusing on possibilities for measurement, for example, thereby neglecting to think about the ideational. How do ideas about collecting and using data actually play into the collection and analysis itself? So while they are in practice always entangled, analytically, I find the distinction between the ideational and the material a very fruitful one, not so much as a debate between opposing fields, but as way to think about technological change.
How did you arrive where you currently are in your thinking about these issues?
It is funny—people often ask this sort of question, and I did not necessarily see a natural trajectory for my thinking or work until I began to look and think back. This interest in connecting technological and political change goes as far back as my undergraduate time at Stanford University, where I initially majored in mechanical engineering, and later switched to International Relations. While technology remained an important preoccupation, I became more interested in politics, history, and theory. So the interest formed into questions about the political implications of phenomena like technology. But this didn't happen instantly. Just before beginning my PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, I was planning to do comparative work on regime change and democratization. Then my older brother (Adam Branch), who is also a political scientist, gave me a copy of Hendrik Spruyt's The Sovereign State and its Competitors (1994), and he said: 'Hey you might like this!' So, I literally read that on a beach the summer before starting grad school—which may sound funny, but I sat down, read it, and found it fascinating. Yet I didn't immediately start thinking about these questions then. It took a year or two, when I started really thinking about what I wanted to work on. I came back to this work and realised these were the kind of questions I was interested in: the origins of the territorial state and its characteristics.
The interest in the state as a concept had been with me for slightly longer. As an undergrad my first introductory course to IR was taught by Stephen Krasner (Theory Talk #21). Krasner has strong views, and the class was very rigorous. A lot of his work focuses on the state and I think his framings influenced me early on. I don't entirely agree with some of Krasner's arguments about sovereignty, but these disagreements are more about the specifics of salient time periods or cases. Other work which influenced me early on was that of John Ruggie on territoriality. Indeed his approach became central as I was developing these questions myself. I also discovered a host of literature in political geography that turned out to be very interesting and useful.
So, one could say that my trajectory was really more focused on understanding the historical outcome of the territorial state than on what role technology, specifically maps, played in this process. The focus on technology, while existent from my engineering days, really began to materialize as a link missing from existing explanations of state formation. I was thinking about how we might be able to find some additional traction on these questions by including technology more prominently. It has certainly been part of some scholarship on state formation, as in Charles Tilly's work or William McNeill's on technological change and warfare. Surely, technology has always been in there, but the discussion has been centered on war fighting technology and maybe on transport, and only to a lesser degree on communication technology in the broader sense.
Another piece of work which triggered my focus on the relationship between the ideational and the material was Ron Deibert's book Parchment, Printing and Hypermedia (1997, read the 1995 PhD thesis that became the book here, pdf). He talks about internet communication technology but also about the printing press and the impact it has on the global distribution of power. Yet, only when I read this book for the second or third time just as I was finishing up my dissertation did I realize how much his framing had shaped how I formulated my thesis. He does touch on the role of mapping, but it is his elaboration on the way in which media informs how people think about the world which was spot on for me. For me, maps as a medium very importantly framed how people thought about and imagined the world in the past—but of course these questions about technology and its role in constituting the international political system, states, territorial boundaries, and so on are still relevant today.
What would a student need to become a specialist in global studies or understand the world in a global way?
I think it is important to be really excited and interested in your topic and what you want to do. The key thing is to enter a grad program that fits you in terms of your interests and to be willing to do whatever methodological training ends up being needed for your research project.
I think there's a tendency to look for a 'one size fits all' graduate training model, which does make sense at the initial level. Everyone should get a certain amount of background in a variety of methods, whether they'll end up using those or not. For example, I have not used quantitative methods in my own research, but I'm glad that I had to take classes on those methods in grad school. They give you the ability to understand work which may connect to your own but comes at it from a different angle. And you should always be open to a variety of methods. The key is to be able to understand a broad array of approaches, otherwise you won't be able to engage in broad conversations.
I also feel I gained a lot from exploring, and reading widely, from other disciplines such as history and sociology. I already mentioned political geography, which is really not too distant but, nonetheless, in the U.S. it sits in a different department. You might think that some work is 'on the other side of the fence' but it is important to be able to bring that work into your thinking.
The final thing is to be open and ready to change your mind, whether it is about the answer you're expecting to get to your question, or even changing the question itself. Obviously there is a certain point when you're almost done with a project where that might not be a good idea…. but if it is early on and it works and you can do it logistically, I think it is important to be willing to do that. Five years later you're going to be a lot better off.
So far, your work has been mainly historical. Can you explain the importance of 'looking back' for understanding contemporary international relations?
I think it is extraordinarily important and useful. A lot of us in this and other fields do see strong connections between today's politics and past events, institutions, and ideas. There is an important notion that we cannot engage meaningfully with the present if we do not understand its genealogy. That is certainly a driver for me in thinking about the origins of the state and territorial boundaries. It may help us to observe patterns we might see replicated or appear in some kind of altered yet recognizable form today. Indeed, it can help us think about where were might be headed.
Although I also hesitate here slightly: always looking to the past for the answers can be problematic. History can help us to observe patterns, dynamics, and maybe relationships that might tell us something about other periods or about contemporary international relations. But we should never do so thinking that the patterns are definitely going to be the same or are deterministic. I think one can look for patterns or relationships without automatically assuming that they have to apply everywhere.
Historical analysis can be problematic in its own right, because there is no way to discover or absorb the past 'as it really was.' All history is some kind of construction, whether it is based on contemporary or historical sources. Additionally, in the social sciences we often have to rely on secondary sources. That is not inherently a problem; this fact just introduces more variables to think about. Pure narrative purporting to capture 'what really happened' can be very problematic.
Given these disclaimers, it is useful to consider the past. I think what should be emphasized is that, specifically at the grad school level, students should be encouraged to dig a little deeper historically. They shouldn't hesitate to do that excavation work.
IR, it has been argued, rests firmly on a spatial or territorial understanding of politics. What constitutive role does territorial space play in IR and is that role based on historical fact or is it myth?
I like that question. I think it is actually both—sort of a myth and sort of a fact. In one sense, territory informs at least the state ideal (i.e., states as we think of them): it informs what the state is, the interests of states, and of course how we distinguish one state from another. And yet, while this is all inherently territorial, we also know that this is far from an accurate description of a lot of regions and places in the world. There are many different spatial ideas, practices, and organizations with political agency that are non-state or non-territorial.
But regarding the myth of state territoriality: I think it is important to point out there is a lot of detail in the 'conventional narrative' of the state, such as timing of when territoriality came about as pinpointed in Westphalia, that has been quite effectively debunked by a number of scholars in the last 10 or 20 years (scholars like Andreas Osiander or Benno Teschke, from different theoretical perspectives). This is a strongly supported finding. But it really hasn't penetrated the mainstream narrative very well. While we can gradually see a little more nuanced discussion in IR textbooks in the U.S., they more often than not will still start with 1648 and Westphalia.
We can now confidently say that states—states as we think of them now—did not appear in 1648, let alone earlier. This is especially true if we look at the specifically territorial or spatial aspects of statehood, which again are so central to how we think about the state internationally. The focus on defending cleanly demarcated linear boundaries and the idea of asserting absolute sovereign authority within those lines; this is really not consolidated until at least the 19th century. So, part of the myth is the timing and the how and why we have states.
But there still is a factual quality to territoriality in this story we tell ourselves about the foundation of the international system and the supposed creation of sovereign states. In a certain setting and for a certain period I think this describes the ideas and practices of international politics quite well. The most obvious example of this is 19th century Europe. While there are still ways in which it diverges from the ideals of the typical state system, in a lot of ways it actually did fit that. This happened at the same time as the development of modern Western historiography, and it was the setting for some of the traditional foundation of political science and IR. So we can see how one shaped the other: history-making and state-making. The singular territorial ideal of statehood from the 19th century has subsequently been applied to other issues, actors, and areas. Even if it does not fit exactly, it is applied today still and it is made to fit retrospectively much earlier periods, where it applied less well.
Ultimately, it is a powerful myth which has informed how we think about international relations to such a degree that we shouldn't just throw it out. Instead, we should think about exactly how it actually informs the way that international relations is understood and practiced. Practitioners and officials don't exactly read IR journals and base their decision-making on our knowledge production, but the basic ideas of states, boundaries, and territory which inform the practice of international relations—as well as the study of it—should be our concern.
You have looked specifically at how mapping has contributed to imagining and formation of the modern state system. Could you elaborate more on how something as technical as cartography matters for international politics?
I've argued in my recent work that early modern mapping technologies were really essential to the consolidation of the territorial state, particularly the specific territorial features of states today. Maps, which have been a popular medium over the past few centuries, really do shape how people understand the world and their place in it. This gets us back to the connection between the material and the ideational.
In early modern Europe a revolution took place, first in mapmaking technologies and, slightly later, in the ideas and practices of political rule, especially as it relates to territory. I argue this was really not a coincidence. How rulers and subjects conceived of rule and how rulers conceived of their realms was really altered as they increasingly used maps that depicted the world in this one particular way. The key characteristics of modern statehood – at least of the ideal of modern statehood – such as linear boundaries between homogenous territorial claims, really appeared first in maps and only subsequently in political practices on the ground. Of course, there were existing authority structures, but these were not particularly spatial or were not spatial in this linear demarcated way. Subsequently, however, these authority structures were ignored or sometimes even actively renounced in favor of the kind of authority which could be literally shown and drawn on a map.
It is interesting because initially, maps were not predominantly produced by rulers, states, or officials. They were certainly involved in sponsoring some mapping projects, buying maps, and using them, but mapmaking was more of a commercial private scientific enterprise, if we can apply the label 'scientific' in the 16th and 17th centuries. These map-makers certainly didn't have any articulated goal of changing politics, at least not on this broad level. They were really concerned with making money, maybe creating art, and advancing what they thought was a growing science of cartography.
We can however see that the map, as a technological artifact—maps as actual things—had an impact on the practices of rule both between rulers and between rulers and their subjects. I argue that this process occurred quite broadly across the European development of the international system at that time. And you can see this sequence really clearly in a case like France.
Let me illustrate that. Here are three maps of 'France' ranging from the 1400s to the 1700s—the quotation marks are necessary because the notion of there being one entity called France across this whole period is more a matter of us labeling it as such rather than it being one recognizable entity.
The first map is from a 15th century manuscript about royal and noble genealogy in France. The image is purported to represent 'all the realm of France' and shows the country as a collection of what I would call places rather than a single linearly demarcated space. You do have the notion of spatial boundaries here, in terms of rivers as means for demarcation. Yet, very clearly, the visual language of this map focuses on towns. And this is how rule was practiced and operationalized as well: negotiations would be over places, or maybe collections of people based on identity, jurisdiction, or where they were allowed to reside, but not in term of linear demarcations between claims.
Now look at the second map, which is just from about 150 years later, from the 1590s. It is from an atlas by a follower of Mercator, and its label Gallia is the Roman designation for France. From our modern perspective we can recognize something that looks a lot like a modern map of France. Maybe even a state, although the boundaries are not exactly like we would expect them to be. But this is the visual language of mapping that we are familiar with: longitude, latitude, spatial expanses colored in, homogenous territorial claims—there is something about the space depicted that argues that it is all the same, that is all France.
And despite this familiarity, it was actually far from an accurate depiction of French rule. Not just in the actual placement of the boundaries, which are contestable, but in the discrete nature of the boundaries themselves. Along these frontiers, so clearly demarcated on this image, the claims of the French king were often unclear and overlapped with those of other rulers. This was even true for the interior of France during this period.
The third map is another 150 years later, from the 1740s. This is from a map showing the triangulation of the realm, undertaken by a group of geographers, known as the Cassini survey, as several generations of the Cassini family headed up this effort. The realm is being mapped explicitly using geometric tools with the important emphasis that the image is actually meant to represent reality. It is understood that way: it's supposed to measure reality, in order to enable the French king to better understand what he rules. Moreover, this mapping took place at the same time that rule was being implemented in practice on the ground in terms of spatial expanses as we think of them, in the form of demarcating boundaries with neighbors which had previously been unclear, overlapping jurisdictions.
Although maps of the second generation (i.e., the map from the 1590s) were 'inaccurate,' they were extremely influential. They were widely distributed and purchased by the elite, both inside and outside of government. Using these maps provided rulers with this particularly new territorial meaning to their centralizing and bureaucratizing efforts. As a consequence, the use of these maps as material tools of governing and negotiation really changed the language of rule. Rule becomes cartographic, at least in part. When two opposing sides come to the negotiation table, for example, they at the very least have already agreed, implicitly, that the division should be a linear boundary—it is just a question of where.
By the time the third map is produced, the government is much more directly involved in map production using accurate geometrical measurement. Yet the very desire for this mapping was shaped by the earlier use of those commercial maps that built up the visual grammar of geometric space. The French case is useful because it is very well documented, but we do see the same sort of process repeated either simultaneously or later throughout Europe and also elsewhere. In fact, there is a lot of interesting scholarship on the introduction of mapping and modern geographic thinking into regions outside the West. Siam Mapped (1994), a book by Thongchai Winichakul, is a fantastic study that I found really useful for my thinking about Europe, even though it deals with Siam (Thailand) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This is my story about mapping and territory, but I think there is a broader frame to your question: do we want to bring in these sort of technical factors into explanations in International Relations? And while we don't want to be technologically determinist, there is some useful thinking around technology and its effects we should consider. The impact of maps has been so strong, and yet they are such common artifacts that they are largely conceived of as 'unremarkable' outside of geographic-oriented disciplines.
So can we juxtapose this insight that mapping practices precede the practice of rule and state formation to the anthropological present, that is, what do the contemporary, some say radical, shifts in mapping techniques entail for international politics?
Absolutely. When I initially present my work, there is often an assumption that I use GIS in my study. Instead, my work focuses on analyzing mapping itself—maps as historical artifacts, their effects and their interaction with political identities, interests, and organizations. But I think the ways in which methodology and the subject of study overlap on subjects like technology could potentially contribute to stretching the boundaries of IR. The big data question is both a question of studying what big data means for politics but also how we can use big data to study politics. The way in which new technologies can simultaneously play into our methods and into our answers or questions is a pressing and fascinating issue.
For instance, there has been a lot of back and forth on the question of whether more open-access mapping techniques entail some sort of democratization. While I think we have seen that more participatory forms of mapping are possible, we shouldn't think that this type of mapping is completely open, as no technological system is completely open to anyone and everyone at all times. But, indeed, there is a democratization of mapping under way. Authorship in a whole host of domains, including mapping, is opening up where there used to be a single authoritative voice or at least a single type of authoritative voice. So maps are an example of this opening up and collective authorship. At the same time, accommodating more voices also means that a lot of information is being shared without authority or attribution or what we think of as a legitimate source… When you open a map from Rand McNally or National Geographic, you know that specific cartographers thought this was accurate and you can blame or praise them. But when you open up a layer of Google Earth that has been crowd-sourced you don't know who put that pin there, and you don't know why.
It's really interesting to explore a bit further how this is different from the recent past. In the 19th and first half of the 20th century, mapmaking was essentially state-led. The U.S. geological survey, the Ordnance Survey in Britain, or large mapmaking geographical institutions such as National Geographic represented the owners and producers. Mapping was so technical, so obviously technical that the everyday person would not be able to make a map to Rand McNally's standards. This has changed, and quite importantly so. Not only do we have the technology to do this, people are aware that they can use it as easily as opening a smartphone app, thereby incorporating more points of view. This is not necessarily good or bad. Politically, it does open up new possibilities. Maps have always been political, both implicitly and explicitly. It certainly opens up the possibility of some kind of broader shift in ideas about territory. Let me illustrate with an example. I haven't necessarily come across specific maps that present some completely novel visual grammar potentially reshaping the way we think about the world. But, an interesting example I like to bring to my students: there was a September 2011blog post on Google's Lat-Long blog (which is the company's blog about Google Maps and Google Earth). Its headline read: 'South Sudan is now official on Google Maps,' and it displayed a screenshot of the new boundary.
They changed their base layer by adding a boundary between South Sudan and Sudan. This of course followed the referendum and the UN's recognition, and all the traditional precursors to official statehood. South Sudan became a recognizable entity on that blog. Google Earth, a non-governmental actor, indeed a huge corporate actor—and thus not necessarily democratizing—becomes part of the discourse of declaring South Sudan's official existence.
This is an example of how things might be going. Interestingly, the whole enterprise of mapping today actually resembles more closely that of the 16th and early 17th centuries then that of the 19th or early 20th century, not technologically but organizationally. The state-centric view of the world was enforced by the state-authored mappings of the 19th and 20th centuries. Now, by contrast, there is a kind of shared or unclear authorship, there is crowdsourcing, there are multiple sources of conflicting and quite openly unreliable or uncertain information. This environment of rapidly increasing distribution and use also describes the creation of the early atlases in the late 16th century and early 17th centuries, which involved the collation of all kinds of information from multiple sources.
And of course it was in the 16th and 17th century when this sort of non-state-controlled mapping presented innovative images of the world—those images that ended up shaping and consolidating the state form of territory. And so it was these new tools for understanding and acting on the world which gave the state its territorial shape. As key information-producing activities are being opened up, some forms of power are being redistributed. This certainly means that we need to widen our scope in terms of whom we consider to be a stakeholder or what sort of actors we want to study. We know that the dichotomy of state versus non-state is not sufficient. We need to be subtler in our inquiries. In IR, of course, the stereotypical over-emphasis on states is being questioned, and this is really just one more sign that a piece of the power of the state, in this case map-production and distribution, is shifting elsewhere.
I recently had a conversation with students in my undergrad seminar on technology and international politics. I went into it saying: 'Hey, all this mobile mapping and GPS and Google Earth is totally revolutionary. This may change how we think about the world.' And they were all completely unconvinced, since they use these technologies all the time—to a bunch of twenty-year-olds these tools seem unremarkable. And maybe that is actually a more accurate analysis. But it is interesting how it is such a different analysis from that of my generation and anyone older, all of us who have spent a lot of time, for example, driving around without GPS. It is partly this perception and the 'unthinking usage' which make the relationship between technologies and social and political outcomes so difficult to observe. Our ideas may be changed, and especially the ideas of younger generations may be changed, without anyone particularly noticing how dramatic the changes might be. This also means that the connections, because they are 'unthinking,' can be quite foundational to people's ideas of social identities or political practices. They are tacit and embodied. That makes it both hard to observe but also an interesting puzzle. But it is worthwhile mentioning that the images presented by Google Maps and other digital mapping tools, particularly satellite imagery, might carry a greater legitimacy in terms of depicting 'the truth'. It looks like a picture of the world and therefore whatever is on it, even layered on data (like a new international boundary), must be true. It represents another apex of the scientific trajectory of mapping.
If it is just about adding a data layer on a base map that remains the same, does that then mean that ontologically this kind of mapping technology actually doesn't challenge territoriality?
That gets to an interesting point, which entangles with a lot of the more careful discussions of globalization and the state. One version of that is that the state is not dying, is not being destroyed. It is just that other things are being layered on top of it, and the state and its boundaries still remain and still matter for certain things. In this case, maps are perfectly capable of showing state boundaries—they look very fixed, very strong—but one can layer on top other types of information, maybe transactional flows or particular places that are connected in different ways.
I think that could be an interesting argument: these new mapping tools can really show so much, and it is matter of selecting what you want to show and unselecting things you don't want to show. Thus they don't do anything to undermine one particular view of the world. Now that is not necessarily a good or bad thing. If we look at the history of mapping and the origins of state territoriality, a key part of that was that it was really hard to depict medieval jurisdictional and personal notions of rule on early modern maps. Printing technology and mapping tools prescribed depiction in a certain way—drawing lines and coloring in spaces. Maps made it harder to show and thus think about the other forms of rule. If digital maps are still perfectly capable of showing states and their boundaries, they may do very little to undermine that notion of territory.
Finally, if we are interested in the politics of maps, to what extent do we need to study not only the maps as political artifacts but the mapmakers as political actors as well?
I think it is extremely useful to do both, and obviously if we study mapping today, we can do both. In terms of historical work, we can only rely on very limited sources, such as what mapmakers themselves wrote about what they were doing. We don't know a lot about their goals or ideas about politics. I would have loved to have been able to read exhaustive memoirs by mapmakers such as Ortelius and Mercator. Of course, they might not have said anything about the questions we are interested in. On the other hand, a lot of map-makers today are involved in mapping for explicit political reasons: for example, Ushahidi-type collaborative mapping (www.ushahidi.com), or humanitarian and relief mapping. Here we can dig into the question of how the maps produced relate to specific objectives. That is a great way to get more analytical leverage on a lot of these questions.
Jordan Branch joined the Political Science department at Brown as an Assistant Professor in summer 2012. He received his PhD in Political Science at UC-Berkeley in 2011, and spent 2011-2012 as the Hayward R. Alker Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California. His interests include international relations theory, the history of the sovereign state system, contemporary challenges to statehood, and the intersection of technological and political change. In 2014, Cambridge University Press published his book, The Cartographic State: Maps, Territory, and the Origins of Sovereignty. His research has also appeared in International Organization and the European Journal of International Relations.
Related links
Faculty profile at Brown University Read Branch's Mapping the Sovereign State: Technology, Authority, and Systemic Change (International Organization 2011) here (pdf) Read Branch's Colonial Reflection' and Territoriality: The Peripheral Origins of Sovereign Statehood (European Journal of International Relations, 2012) here (pdf)
Print version of this Talk (pdf)
0 0 1 5331 30391 School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg 253 71 35651 14.0
D'après l'étude du mobilier archéologique, une datation radiocarbone et les textes, la ferme médiévale « en dur » de Laquenexy est occupée du XIIIe s au XVe s. Son implantation, sur un terroir occupé en continu depuis le Néolithique, témoigne d'une qualité certaine des terres exploitées (terre fertile, bonne exposition, proximité de deux cours d'eau…). Ce type d'exploitation agricole est encore peu connu tant au niveau régional qu'au niveau national. La particularité de la ferme de Laquenexy est d'avoir été appréhendée dans son intégralité, ce qui permet d'avoir une vision globale de son organisation (agencement et équipements des bâtiments) et de la vie quotidienne de ses occupants à travers le mobilier archéologique (céramique, métal, faune). ; This type of isolated agricultural farm, which was occupied during the 13th–15th centuries, is still little known both regionally and nationally. The distinctive quality of the farm at Laquenexy is that it was discovered entire, giving an overall understanding of its structure (the fittings and amenities of the buildings) and the daily life of its occupants through study of the archaeological goods (crockery, metal objects, fauna and vegetable macro-remains).If we accept that it is indeed the excavated farm that is described in text sources, it is mentioned in archives from the 13th till the end of the 17th century. It would have gone under the name Loixy or Loixey and was first cited in 1234 in the cartulary of Abbey Saint-Vincent in Metz. In 1518 the nearby fortified manor-house of Villers and the farm of Loixy belonged to seigneur François de Gournais. The last mention of the seigneurial farm is made in a deed of acknowledgement and census written in 1681. The farm must have originally been used by the owner before being transformed at an unknown date to a system of mise à ferme.The excavation data have enabled other deductions to be made and show that we are dealing with an agropastoral farm.The various phases of construction and reconstruction of the seigneurial farm are demonstrated by different types of masonry and mortar, wall trenches, and posts embedded or cut in two by the walls.The pottery at Laquenexy is distinguished by technical (turned pots, glazing) and morphological characteristics (pots, jugs, pitchers, terrines, casks) typical of production during the 13th and 14th centuries. Four technical groups have been identified. In order of quantity they are : pottery with conchiferous limestone inclusions, glazed pottery, stoneware and grey fluted pottery. The two principal facies have forms similar to those that came out of the pottery workshops in Metz Pontiffroy, dated 13th–15th century, notably the identical highly decorated pitchers, jugs and a cask found on the two sites. The crockery on Laquenexy farm is similar to those from rural sites in Lorraine from the same period, notably the sites of Vitry-sur-Orne ZAC de la plaine and VR 52 in Moselle.The growing of cereals and grapes are well represented by metal goods: a fragment of a sickle, a small anvil for beating scythes, a billhook and pruning knives. The discovery of a lead guarantee seal engraved with the word Metz crowned by a fleur de lys is indicative of trade between the farm and the town of Metz.The overall corpus of carpological remains, featuring 1403 macro-remains, represents the agriculture of a farm in the period between the 13th and 15th centuries : 1344 macro-remains are cereals, or 95.8 % of the total assemblage during the Late Middle Ages. The most common cereal is common wheat (Triticum aestivum s.l./durum/turgidum, the grains all very probably belonging to wheat or bread wheat Triticum aestivum s.l. The second most common types are equally oats (Avena spec.) and wild barley Hordeum vulgare fo. vulgare. The leguminous plants cultivated total 27 carbonised seeds, just 1.9 % of the total assemblage during the Late Middle Ages, including vetch Vicia sativa agg., peas Pisum sativum, lentils Lens culinaris and horse beans. The fruits cultivated are rare : a fragment of wild plum or damson Prunus domestica, and the shell of a common walnut Juglans regia. Picking plants are only represented by a fragment of a hazelnut Corylus avellana.The study of the fauna shows a predominance of cattle (37.5 % of MNI) followed by goats and/or sheep (25.01 %), pigs or boar (21.88 %), horses (9.38 %), domestic chickens (3.13 %), greylag geese (1.56 %) and dogs (1.56 %).Indications of violence were found in and around the farm. Traces of redness on many walls are evidence of one or several fires. The discovery of a sword and the bolt from a crossbow might possibly be evidence of an attack against the farm and might be linked to one of several known historic events: for example, on 14 September 1404 comte Philippe de Nassau-Sarrebruck and his allies burned and destroyed a number of Messin villages in the Nied Valley, notably Villers-Laquenexy, during manoeuvres carried out against influential financiers of the Messin territory. Other acts of violence are mentioned in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. These belligerent acts took place against a background of economic recession, which began in the second half of the 14th century. The political and economic crisis sounded the knell for the isolated farm of Laquenexy. ; Dieser Typ eines isolierten vom 13. bis 15. Jh. bewirtschafteten landwirtschaftlichen Betriebs ist sowohl auf regionalem als auch auf internationalem Niveau noch wenig bekannt. Das Besondere an der Studie des Hofs von Laquenexy ist, dass er in seiner Gesamtheit untersucht wurde. Die Funde und Befunde vermitteln uns eine globale Vorstellung seiner Organisation (Anordnung und Ausstattung der Gebäude) und des Alltags seiner Bewohner (Geschirr, Metallgegenstände, Fauna und Makroreste von Pflanzen).In den Textquellen, den Archiven vom 13. Jh. bis ans Ende des 17. Jh., wird der landwirtschaftliche Betrieb eingehend beschrieben. Er taucht unter dem Namen Loixy oder Loixey auf und wird zum ersten Mal 1234 in den Chartularia der Abtei Saint-Vincent de Metz erwähnt. 1518 befinden sich das nahe Feste Haus von Villers und der Pachthof von Loixy im Besitz von François de Gournais. Zum letzten Mal findet der Ritterhof in einem Gerichtsakt und einer Aufzählung aus dem Jahr 1681 Erwähnung. Der landwirtschaftliche Betrieb muss zunächst vom Eigentümer selbst genutzt worden sein, bevor er ab einem unbestimmten Zeitpunkt verpachtet wurde.Die Grabungsergebnisse ergänzen diese Informationen und zeigen, dass wir es mit einem Hof zu tun haben, auf dem Ackerbau und Viehzucht betrieben wurden.Unterschiedliche Mauerwerke und Mörtel, Mauergräben, eingemauerte oder von Mauern überlagerte Pfosten zeugen von mehreren Bau- oder Wiederaufbauphasen des Ritterhofs.Die technischen (scheibengedrehte Keramik, Glasur) und morphologischen (Töpfe, Krüge, Terrinen, Tönnchen) Eigenschaften der Keramik von Laquenexy weisen auf eine typische Produktion des 13.-15. Jh. Folgenden vier technische Gruppen wurden unterschieden ; die Aufzählung erfolgt in absteigender Reihenfolge : Keramik mit Einschlüssen von Muschelkalk, glasierte Keramik, Steinzeug sowie kannelierte graue Irdenware. Die beiden wichtigsten Fazies weisen Formen auf, die denen der Produktion der Werkstätten von Metz Pontiffroy im 13.-15. Jh. nahestehen, insbesondere auf beiden Fundstätten identische "reich verzierte" Krüge, Krüge und ein Tönnchen. Das Geschirr des Hofes von Laquenexy ähnelt dem der ländlichen Fundplätze derselben Periode, insbesondere der Fundplätze der Mosel Vitry-sur-Orne ZAC de la plaine und VR 52.Mehrere Metallobjekte können dem Getreide- und Weinanbau zugewiesen werden : ein Sichelfragment, ein kleiner Amboss für die Bearbeitung von Sensen, eine Hippe sowie Rebmesser. Die Entdeckung eines bleiernen, mit einer Lilie bekrönten Gütesiegels der Stadt Metz zeugt von den Handelsbeziehungen zwischen dem Hof und Metz.Der karpologische Korpus mit seinen 1403 Makroresten ist bezeichnend für die Landwirtschaft eines Hofes des 13.-15. Jh. 1344 Makroreste stammen von Getreide, d.h. 95,8 % der gesamten hoch-und spätmittelalterlichen Samenreste. Das häufigste Getreide ist der Triticum aestivum s.l./durum/turgidum, die Körner gehören wahrscheinlich alle zu Weizen oder Weichweizen Triticum aestivum s.l. Den zweiten Platz teilen sich der Hafer Avena spec. und Gerste Hordeum vulgare fo. vulgare. Die Hülsenfrüchte vereinigen 27 verkohlte Samen, d.h. nur 1,9 % des gesamten hoch- und spätmittelalterlichen Samenbestandes mit Futterwicke Vicia sativa agg., Erbse Pisum sativum, Linse Lens culinaris und Ackerbohne. Obstanbau ist selten, es wurden nur der Rest einer Pflaume oder Zwetschge Prunus domestica und der Schale einer Walnuss Juglans regia geborgen. Gesammelte Pflanzen sind nur durch das Fragment einer Haselnussschale Corylus avellana vertreten.Die Untersuchung der Fauna zeigt, dass das Rind im Viehbestand überwiegt (37,5 % de NMI), auf ihn folgen Ziege und/oder Schaf (25,01 %), Schwein/Wildschwein (21,88 %), Pferd (9,38 %), Haushuhn (3,13 %), Graugans (1,56 %) und Hund (1,56 %).In und um den landwirtschaftlichen Betrieb wurden Anzeichen von Gewaltanwendung verzeichnet. Zahlreiche Mauern weisen Spuren auf, die von einem oder mehreren Bränden zeugen. Die Entdeckung insbesondere eines Schwertes und eines Armbrustbolzen mag von einem bewaffneten Überfall auf den Hof zeugen. Diese Indizien können mit historischen Ereignissen dieser Zeit in Verbindung gebracht werden, ohne dass eines namentlich identifiziert worden wäre. Zum Beispiel haben der Graf Philipp von Nassau-Saarbrücken und seine Verbündeten während einer Expedition gegen die Familien der großen Metzer Finanziers eine gewisse Anzahl von Metzer Dörfern im Niedtal und insbesondere Villers-Laquenexy zerstört und niedergebrannt. Doch Ende des 15. Jh. und zu Beginn des 16. Jh. werden weitere Überfälle erwähnt. Zu diesem Kriegskontext kommt seit der zweiten Hälfte des 14. Jh. eine wirtschaftliche Rezession. Diese politische und wirtschaftliche Krisensituation läutet das Ende des isolierten Hofes von Laquenexy ein.
Como es sabido, el segundo milenio d. C. del estudio y praxis del Derecho en Occidente viene a coincidir con el primer milenio de la institución universitaria (Studium Generale – Universitas Studii – Universitas Studiorum). De ese milenio, ochocientos años aproximadamente corresponden al estudio universitario del utrumque ius, es decir, del Corpus iuris civilis del emperador Justiniano (527 d- C. – 565 d. C.) y del Corpus iuris canonici (siglos XII al XV). Corpora iuris a la luz de los cuales se interpretan y aplican los derechos propios (ius proprium – iura propria) de toda la Respublica Christiana o Christianorum. Así, pues, el estudio, interpretación y aplicación de los iura propria a la luz de aquellos dos grandes corpora iuris da como resultado el ius commune de la Respublica christiana. Por tanto, el término ius commune es de carácter relativo: lo común -los dos grandes corpora iuris- frente a lo que no es común: los múltiples iura propria que, para cada reino, comprende tanto el ius saeculare proprium como el ius canonicum particulare. Por tanto, correlativamente, al universal Corpus iuris civilis se corresponde el ius saeculare o ius patrium y al universal Corpus iuris canonici se corresponde el ius canonicum particulare, también ius patrium. De ese milenio de cultura jurídica Occidental –excepción hecha del Common Law, que no ha tenido solución de continuidad-, ochocientos años aproximadamente corresponden al ius commune, y doscientos años –los siglos XIX y XX- corresponden al estudio universitaro y praxis de los Derechos Nacionales Codificados y formulados en lenguas vernáculas. En nuestra opinión, realmente se trata del ius commune atomizado y formulado en lenguas vernáculas. Nos encontramos así con la paradoja de que mientras la Baja Edad Media en lo político se caracteriza por la "atomización" de la potestad política, en lo jurídic se caracteriza por la "unidad jurídica" de la Respublica christiana. En cambio, con el Estado Moderno (de los siglos XIX y XX) se va a dar lo contrario: la unidad política (estatal) y la relativa "atomización jurídica". Para el Nuevo Mundo Hispanoamericano la enseñanza del utrumque ius abarca desde el siglo XVI, concretamente a partir del 28 de octubre de 1538, fecha de la bula In apostolatus culmine, del Papa Paulo III, de erección del Convento-Universidad de Santo Domingo de la Isla Española [República Dominicana] –decana de las del Nuevo Mundo, de todo el Nuevo Mundo- hasta el siglo XIX, inclusive. No así para Brasil en donde la metrópoli portuguesa no erige universidades, sino que la juventud brasileña debe ir a formarse a la Universidad de Coimbra / Lisboa (1290). Naturalmente, Brasil vive el ius commune. Así, pues, la categoría utrumque ius (uno y otro derecho) es absoluta en el sentido de exclusivamente académica, mientras que la de ius commune es relativa y presupone aquélla ineludiblemente. Por tanto, la vigencia del ius comune se prolonga hasta la adopción de los Códigos Civiles Nacionales para cada uno de los Estado-Nación europeos continentales y del Nuevo Mundo Iberoamericano. El presente trabajo trata de dar respuesta a las siguientes dos preguntas: Presupuesta la historia universitaria hispanoamericana desde el siglo XVI hasta el XIX, inclusive, ¿cuál es el ius commune (privatum) para Iberoamérica? ¿cuáles son sus fuentes seculares propias y canónicas propias?. ; As its is known, the second millennium of the study and practice of Law througouht the western world practically coincides with the first millennium of the university as an institution, that is, the so-called Studium Generale, Universitas Studii, Universitas Studiorum. Out of these last millennium, the latter eight hundred years habe been devoted to the study of the utrumque ius, i. e. to the study of Justinian's (527 – 565 A. D.) and the Corpus Iuris Canonici (12th – 15th centuries). These two Corpora iuris were the referent to the construction and application of the different national legislations (ius proprium – iura propria) of the whole Respublica christiana or Christianorum. The construction and application to each national legislation of the principles of both the Corpus Iuris Civilis and the Corpus Iuris Canonici brought about the ius commune of the Respublica Christiana. Yet the name ius commune is relative, in the sense that there is a duality between the common elements of the two Corpora on one side, and each national legislation (iura propria) on the other; this latter comprising for each kingdom both the civil law (ius saeculare proprium) and the domestic canon law (ius canonicum proprium). Excluding the UK, were the common law has maintained its predominance during the last thousand years, the last of the Western legal culture has shifted from the first eigth hundred years of the last millennium in wich the focus was the ius commune into the study during the last two hundred years of the national laws that were codified and written in the different national languages. In the paper it is sustained the these different national legislation are no more than an ius commune that has been fragmented and translated into the national languages. The paradoxis is that while the late Middle Ages Respublica Christiana meant, at the same time, a politica disaggegation and a legal uniformite, the Modern State born in the 19th and 20th centuries stood for the opposite, political unity and legal dispersion. In the World, the study of the utrumque ius officially started on October 28th 1538, when Pope Paulus III issued the decree In apostolatus culmine setting the Convento-Universidad de Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, the first university there, all the way to the 18th century. The only exception was Brazil, where the Portuguese did not set up any university and the Brazilian lawyers had to go to study at Lisboa / Coimbra (founded in 1290), yet Brazl also received the ius commune. The term utrumque ius is absolute (exclusively academic) but the term ius commune is relative and assumes the latter. Therefore, the ius commune survives till the adoption of the different civil codes in each nation, both in Europe and in Spanish America. This paper addresses the history of universities in Spanish Amercia from the 16th through the 18th century, and takes up the following questions: What can be considered ius commune privatum in Spanish America during this period? What are its particular secular an canonical sources?.
Como es sabido, el segundo milenio d. C. del estudio y praxis del Derecho en Occidente viene a coincidir con el primer milenio de la institución universitaria (Studium Generale – Universitas Studii – Universitas Studiorum). De ese milenio, ochocientos años aproximadamente corresponden al estudio universitario del utrumque ius, es decir, del Corpus iuris civilis del emperador Justiniano (527 d- C. – 565 d. C.) y del Corpus iuris canonici (siglos XII al XV). Corpora iuris a la luz de los cuales se interpretan y aplican los derechos propios (ius proprium – iura propria) de toda la Respublica Christiana o Christianorum. Así, pues, el estudio, interpretación y aplicación de los iura propria a la luz de aquellos dos grandes corpora iuris da como resultado el ius commune de la Respublica christiana. Por tanto, el término ius commune es de carácter relativo: lo común -los dos grandes corpora iuris- frente a lo que no es común: los múltiples iura propria que, para cada reino, comprende tanto el ius saeculare proprium como el ius canonicum particulare. Por tanto, correlativamente, al universal Corpus iuris civilis se corresponde el ius saeculare o ius patrium y al universal Corpus iuris canonici se corresponde el ius canonicum particulare, también ius patrium. De ese milenio de cultura jurídica Occidental –excepción hecha del Common Law, que no ha tenido solución de continuidad-, ochocientos años aproximadamente corresponden al ius commune, y doscientos años –los siglos XIX y XX- corresponden al estudio universitaro y praxis de los Derechos Nacionales Codificados y formulados en lenguas vernáculas. En nuestra opinión, realmente se trata del ius commune atomizado y formulado en lenguas vernáculas. Nos encontramos así con la paradoja de que mientras la Baja Edad Media en lo político se caracteriza por la "atomización" de la potestad política, en lo jurídic se caracteriza por la "unidad jurídica" de la Respublica christiana. En cambio, con el Estado Moderno (de los siglos XIX y XX) se va a dar lo contrario: la unidad política (estatal) y la relativa "atomización jurídica". Para el Nuevo Mundo Hispanoamericano la enseñanza del utrumque ius abarca desde el siglo XVI, concretamente a partir del 28 de octubre de 1538, fecha de la bula In apostolatus culmine, del Papa Paulo III, de erección del Convento-Universidad de Santo Domingo de la Isla Española [República Dominicana] –decana de las del Nuevo Mundo, de todo el Nuevo Mundo- hasta el siglo XIX, inclusive. No así para Brasil en donde la metrópoli portuguesa no erige universidades, sino que la juventud brasileña debe ir a formarse a la Universidad de Coimbra / Lisboa (1290). Naturalmente, Brasil vive el ius commune. Así, pues, la categoría utrumque ius (uno y otro derecho) es absoluta en el sentido de exclusivamente académica, mientras que la de ius commune es relativa y presupone aquélla ineludiblemente. Por tanto, la vigencia del ius comune se prolonga hasta la adopción de los Códigos Civiles Nacionales para cada uno de los Estado-Nación europeos continentales y del Nuevo Mundo Iberoamericano. El presente trabajo trata de dar respuesta a las siguientes dos preguntas: Presupuesta la historia universitaria hispanoamericana desde el siglo XVI hasta el XIX, inclusive, ¿cuál es el ius commune (privatum) para Iberoamérica? ¿cuáles son sus fuentes seculares propias y canónicas propias?. ; As its is known, the second millennium of the study and practice of Law througouht the western world practically coincides with the first millennium of the university as an institution, that is, the so-called Studium Generale, Universitas Studii, Universitas Studiorum. Out of these last millennium, the latter eight hundred years habe been devoted to the study of the utrumque ius, i. e. to the study of Justinian's (527 – 565 A. D.) and the Corpus Iuris Canonici (12th – 15th centuries). These two Corpora iuris were the referent to the construction and application of the different national legislations (ius proprium – iura propria) of the whole Respublica christiana or Christianorum. The construction and application to each national legislation of the principles of both the Corpus Iuris Civilis and the Corpus Iuris Canonici brought about the ius commune of the Respublica Christiana. Yet the name ius commune is relative, in the sense that there is a duality between the common elements of the two Corpora on one side, and each national legislation (iura propria) on the other; this latter comprising for each kingdom both the civil law (ius saeculare proprium) and the domestic canon law (ius canonicum proprium). Excluding the UK, were the common law has maintained its predominance during the last thousand years, the last of the Western legal culture has shifted from the first eigth hundred years of the last millennium in wich the focus was the ius commune into the study during the last two hundred years of the national laws that were codified and written in the different national languages. In the paper it is sustained the these different national legislation are no more than an ius commune that has been fragmented and translated into the national languages. The paradoxis is that while the late Middle Ages Respublica Christiana meant, at the same time, a politica disaggegation and a legal uniformite, the Modern State born in the 19th and 20th centuries stood for the opposite, political unity and legal dispersion. In the World, the study of the utrumque ius officially started on October 28th 1538, when Pope Paulus III issued the decree In apostolatus culmine setting the Convento-Universidad de Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, the first university there, all the way to the 18th century. The only exception was Brazil, where the Portuguese did not set up any university and the Brazilian lawyers had to go to study at Lisboa / Coimbra (founded in 1290), yet Brazl also received the ius commune. The term utrumque ius is absolute (exclusively academic) but the term ius commune is relative and assumes the latter. Therefore, the ius commune survives till the adoption of the different civil codes in each nation, both in Europe and in Spanish America. This paper addresses the history of universities in Spanish Amercia from the 16th through the 18th century, and takes up the following questions: What can be considered ius commune privatum in Spanish America during this period? What are its particular secular an canonical sources?.
INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF SCIENTIFIC UNIONS - ICSU SCIENCE INTERNATIONAL Newsletter No. 63 December 1996 Code Number:NL97004 Sizes of Files: Text: 168.8K Graphics: No associated graphics files CONTENTS MEETING REPORTS 25th General Assembly of ICSU and Associated Meetings Julia Marton-Lefevre, Executive Director, ICSU The 25th General Assembly of ICSU was held in Washington D.C. from 24 to 27 September 1996, twenty years after the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the United States had hosted ICSU's 16th General Assembly. The Assembly was preceded by a number of ICSU related meetings organized in Washington. Resolutions of the 25th General Assembly of ICSU 1. The need for Radio Frequency Spectrum for Radio Science 2. ICSU Statement on Principles for Use of Animals for Research and Education 3. Science in the 21st Century 4. COBIOTECH/COGENE 5. Assessment of ICSU 6. Freedom in the Conduct of Science 7. Electronic Publishing 8. Capacity Building in Science 9. Environment 10. DIVERSITAS 11. Ethics 12. Science in Developing Countries 13. Access to Data and Information 14. Agriculture and Food Security 15. History of ICSU 16. Finance 17. Conference on the Discovery of Polonium and Radium 18. Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology 19. Expressions of Appreciation Workshop. on the Financing of Basic Research in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union Christine Glenday, on detail to ICSU from NSF, USA As a result of a recommendation ICSU's Special Committee on Science in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (COMSCEE), ICSU hosted a two day "Workshop on the Financing of Basic Research in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union" at the ICSU headquarters in Paris on July 15-16, 1996. GETTING TO KNOW Introducing new Members of the ICSU Executive Board and General Committee (1996-1999) Werner Arber Yola Verhasselt Peter John Wyllie Thomas B.A. Senior Albert E. Fischli Jan S. Nilsson Bruno Messerli Philip Coppens Shigefumi Mori Robin Brett Gery d'Ydewalle Siegfried J. Bauer Juri Engelbrecht Horst Kleinkauf Anne McLaren Hideo Ohashi Qian Yi Michael O. Rabin Jana Slotova Shem Oyoo Wandiga David L. Hawksworth New Activities at World Resources Institute Walter V. Reid, Vice President for Program, World Resources Institute, Washington, D.C. Introduction The World Resources Institute (WRI) was established 14 years ago as a policy research center seeking to help governments, international organizations, and private business address a fundamental question: How can societies meet basic human needs and nurture economic growth without undermining the natural resources and environmental integrity on which life, economic vitality, and international security depend? WRI seeks to move human society to live in ways that protect Earth's environment and its capacity to provide for the needs and aspirations of current and future generations. Because people are inspired by ideas, empowered by knowledge, and moved to change by greater understanding, WRI provides -- and helps other institutions provide -- objective information and practical proposals for policy and institutional change that will foster environmentally sound, socially equitable, development. WRI's particular concerns are with globally significant environmental problems that are ubiquitous or affect the global commons, and their interaction with economic development and social equity at all levels. SPOTLIGHTS ON SCIENCE Symposium on Science and Human Goals in the 21st Century National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Washington DC 24 September 1996 Sophie Boyer King, Environmental Science Officer The Symposium on Science and Human Goals in the 21st Century preceded the 25th General Assembly of the International Council of Scientific Unions. Synopsis F.S. Rowland, the Foreign Secretary of the National Academy of Sciences, opened the Symposium by noting that the Academy had hosted the ICSU General Assembly twenty years ago, and was one of ICSU's rounding members. The objectives of the Symposium were to demonstrate the Inherently international character of science and its contributions to knowledge and to practical solutions to problems facing humanity in the 21st century. Opening remarks by invited speakers at 25th General Assembly of ICSU Bruce Alberts, President, US National Academy of Sciences It is an honor to welcome all of you -- delegates and guests - - to our home in Washington. And I have the pleasure of sharing this podium with my fellow speakers tonight -- two outstanding leaders in the US scientific community: Dr. Jack Gibbons, Science Advisor to President Clinton, and Dr. Neal Lane, Director of the National Science Foundation. And, of course, the distinguished President of ICSU, James Dooge. John H. Gibbons Science Advisor to President Clinton I. Introduction Good evening. I am delighted to be here with so many of my colleagues and to have the opportunity to speak to you tonight. I understand that this is the first time in twenty years that the International Council of Scientific Unions has held its General Assembly in the United States. I join Dr. Rowland and Dr. Alberts in welcoming you to Washington and in congratulating you on the twenty-fifth meeting of the ICSU General Assembly. Neal Lane, Director, National Science Foundation What Einstein said that we did not hear Members of the ICSU General Assembly and invited guests, it is an honor to participate in these opening ceremonies. It is an honor, also, for the United States to host this 25th General Assembly. As I look out across this representation from so many of the world's nations, I am reminded of the comment of the American Secretary of State, Dean Rusk. He said, "The world is round. Only one-third of its people are asleep at any one time. The other two-thirds are awake and causing mischief somewhere". NEWS IN BRIEF Trends in Science and Technology Careers: Report of an International Conference Sherburne B. Abbott, Director, Committee on International Organizations and Programs, U.S. National Research Council In 1990, the 23rd General Assembly of ICSU passed a resolution noting concern about the apparent declining interest of younger generations in science, and calling on ICSU to examine the magnitude of the problem. The Assembly reasoned that because the science and technology enterprise depends on the continuing flow of new talent into the field, declining student interest could have a significant and devastating long-term impact on the size and quality of the workforce in any nation and on the global pool of scientists and engineers. Conclusions and Recommendations from the UN/Norway Conference on Alien Species Trondheim, Norway, 1-5 July 1996 Peter J. Schei, Conference Chairman Article 8 (h) of the Convention on Biological Diversity calls on each contracting Partner to, as far as possible and as appropriate, prevent the introduction of, control or eradicate those alien species which threaten ecosystems, habitats or species. Scientists, managers and policy advisors from 80 countries and representatives from several UN bodies, institutions and organisations gathered in Trondheim on 1-5 July 1996, at the invitation of the Government of Norway, against the background of the challenges related to the implementation of relevant provisions in article 8 of the Convention on Biological Diversity related to alien species. Assessment of ICSU R. Schmitt, Chair of the Panel to Assess ICSU, set up by the 33rd meeting of the General Committee, attended the General Assembly of ICSU at which time the Report was officially presented to ICSU. According to the General Assembly Resolution on this matter, the Executive Board has been asked to formulate a strategy for responding to the recommendations of the Assessment Panel Report and to present its suggested actions for approval by an Extraordinary General Assembly of ICSU to be held before the end of 1998. The full text of the Report has since been sent to all ICSU family members and partners with a request for their written input by 30 April 1997. The following are excerpts from the Final Report of the ICSU Assessment Panel, copies of which are available from the ICSU Secretariat. Summary of Assessment Panel Recommendations We make recommendations in five areas: core activities and priorities, science policy, voice and outreach, governance, and membership. PUBLICATIONS NEWS New Edition of "Understanding Our Planet" The 1996 edition of "Understanding Our Planet", was launched at the 25th ICSU General Assembly in Washington D.C. This brochure is an overview of ICSU's programmes and activities on Global Change, and is an update of the first "Understanding Our Planet" published in 1993. Science International: A History of the International Council of Scientific Unions by Frank Greenaway Science International is the first history of a worldwide organization of scientists, now involving thousands of participants, which was started a century ago when a few visionaries rounded the International Association of Academies (1899-1919). This was succeeded by an International Research Council, which, in 1931, became the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). This history describes how national academies and International Unions of scientists from specific disciplines learned to work together, and shows that from these alliances sprang great cooperative projects, such as the International Geophysical Year and the International Biological Programme, as well as the creation of a global scientific organization directed to the study of the entire planet and prospects for the human race. The History of ICSU: an author's reflections Frank Greenaway When I was asked, in November 1992, to write an official history of ICSU I hardly expected it to turn out to be an adventure in personal recollection. But it did. FUTURE MEETINGS Achievements, Benefits and Challenges WMO/ICSU/IOC Conference on the World Climate Research Programme H. Grassl, Director, WCRP The international sponsors of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), announce an important Conference from 26 to 28 August 1997 in Geneva. Scientists, policy makers and advisers alike will have the opportunity to review the achievements of the WCRP, and to shape the course for the next decade. OBITUARY Professor Arne Magneli Professor Abdus Salam CALENDAR OF FORTHCOMING MEETINGS Details of Events Form Jan 1997 - June 1997
Inhaltsangabe: Introduction: The question of how and if children acquire language has long been of perennial interest: is language innate or not? If it is, what then is the proto-language? The first phylogenetic 'study' was conducted as early as the 7th century BC: pharaoh Psammetich I. undertook to determine what the proto-language is by giving two infants to a foster father who was not allowed to talk to them. After two years of no linguistic input they could only speak one word – 'bek' – which was assumed to be the Phrygian word for bread (bekos). In the 16th century Akbar the Great initiated the first ontogenetic study. By having two infants raised by a mute woman he proved that children do not learn to speak if they do not hear anyone speak. Since then ample questions concerning first language acquisition have been faced and replied to in detail and at great length. Yet, there are still some left unanswered or even unasked. One of the topics that have not been of great interest so far is the acquisition of interjections not only in first language but also in foreign language learning. In fact, interjections play an important role in communicative as well as non-communicative contexts, and their actual linguistic value and role were underestimated and misjudged for quite a long time: Interjections are among the most little studied of language phenomena; as one looks for references to them in the works of linguists, one is struck by the fact that they are very rarely mentioned, and where they are mentioned, it is usually only briefly and cursorily. Only recently have linguists delved into the subject of interjections and discovered that this particular linguistic phenomenon provides in fact ample opportunity for study and research. Moreover, with the interest in interjections the problem arose to determine what actually defines an interjection. As we shall see, opinions on this point differ considerably and attempts at agreeing upon the definition of interjections have been unsuccessful so far. Yet, there are some general tendencies which will form the basis for how the term interjection is used in this paper, and discussion of this point will be postponed until part II. Now, this M.A. thesis aims at gaining an insight into the acquisition of interjections in early childhood. This field has been neglected so far but merits in fact extensive and thorough inspection. This paper consists of three main parts, with the first two parts forming the basis for my study in part III.: in the first part I will provide a brief overview on child language acquisition, focussing particularly on phonological development. The second part consists of a theoretical disquisition on interjections to illustrate what characteristics they have and what peculiarities they show. In the third and final part I will come to my study on the acquisition of interjections in early childhood.Inhaltsverzeichnis:Table of Contents: 0.Introduction1 I.Part I. - Child Language Acquisition3 I.1Preliminary Remarks3 I.1.1Why Do We Learn to Speak at All?3 I.1.2Anatomic Implications4 I.2Basic Principles5 I.2.1The Neonate5 I.2.2First Vocalisations5 I.2.3The Babbling Period6 I.2.4Prosodics7 I.2.5Early Word Comprehension and Production8 I.3Phonology9 I.4Grammatical Acquisition13 I.5Semantics14 I.6Summary: Child Language Acquisition14 II.Part II. - Interjections17 II.1What Is an Interjection? Approaches and Introduction17 II.2Brief Overview: History of the Study of Interjections18 II.3Primary and Secondary Interjections20 II.4Features of Interjections21 II.4.1Why Are There Similarities across Different Languages?21 II.4.1.1The Pooh-pooh Theory22 II.4.1.2Physiological Determinants23 II.4.1.3Formal Constraints24 II.4.2An Attempt at Classifying Interjections25 II.4.2.1Tesnière's Classification of Interjections26 II.4.2.2Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's Classification of Interjections28 II.4.2.3Ameka's Classification of Interjections29 II.4.3Parameters of Interjectionality31 II.4.3.1Functional and Pragmatic Features32 II.4.3.1.1Emotivity and Expressiveness32 II.4.3.1.2Non-referentiality33 II.4.3.1.3The Role of Interjections in Speech Acts33 II.4.3.1.4Monologicity36 II.4.3.2Formal Features38 II.4.3.2.1Prosodic and Suprasegmental Characteristics40 II.4.3.2.2Phonotactics and Syllable Structure41 II.4.3.2.3Phonology42 II.4.3.3Orthography43 II.4.3.4Morphology44 II.4.3.5Lexical Structures44 II.4.3.6Syntax45 II.4.3.7Semiotic Structures47 II.4.3.8Semantic Properties48 II.4.3.9Summary: Features of Primary and Secondary Interjections54 II.4.3.10The Linguisticality of Interjections55 II.5Interjections in the English Language55 II.5.1Interjections of Disgust56 II.5.2Interjections Containing an Element of Surprise57 II.5.2.1Oh!57 II.5.2.2Wow!58 II.5.2.3Whoops! and Oops!58 II.5.3Interjections of Pain58 II.5.4Other Interjections58 II.6The Acquisition of Interjections60 III.Part III. - Study: The Acquisition of Interjections in Early Childhood62 III.1Introductory Remarks62 III.1.1Definition of Interjections62 III.1.2Previous Studies66 III.1.3Purpose of Present Study66 III.2Criteria for Selection and Detailed Description of the Interjections for Analysis67 III.2.1Interjections of Pain68 III.2.1.1Function68 III.2.1.2Usage68 III.2.1.3Degree of Linguisticality70 III.2.1.4Origin70 III.2.1.5Form70 III.2.1.6Affiliation to Words and Phrases71 III.2.2Interjections of Disgust71 III.2.2.1Function71 III.2.2.2Usage72 III.2.2.2.1Ugh!72 III.2.2.2.2Yuck!73 III.2.2.2.3Phew!74 III.2.2.3Degree of Linguisticality75 III.2.2.4Origin75 III.2.2.5Form76 III.2.2.6Affiliation to Words and Phrases76 III.2.3"Spill Cries"78 III.2.3.1Function78 III.2.3.2Usage78 III.2.3.3Degree of Linguisticality79 III.2.3.4Origin79 III.2.3.5Form80 III.2.3.6Affiliation to Words and Phrases80 III.2.4Preliminary Thoughts and Hypotheses about the Outcome of My Study81 III.2.4.1Interjections of Pain81 III.2.4.2Interjections of Disgust81 III.2.4.3'Spill Cries'82 III.3Database and Method82 III.3.1Source and Format of Data82 III.3.2Characteristics of Data82 III.3.3Method83 III.4Results84 III.4.1Interjections of Pain84 III.4.1.1Ow!84 III.4.1.2Ouch!93 III.4.2Interjections of Disgust94 III.4.2.1Ugh!94 III.4.2.2Yuck!96 III.4.2.3Phew!97 III.4.3'Spill Cries'97 III.4.3.1Whoops! and Its Variants97 III.4.3.2Whoopsadaisy! and Its Variants102 III.5Discussion103 III.5.1Order of Acquisition103 III.5.2Uses and Their Developmental Change105 III.5.3Comparison of Study Results: Asano - Stange105 III.6For Further Study108 III.7Conclusion110 References Appendix App. 1 IPA symbols used to transcribe the speech sounds in this thesis App. 2 Reasons for the production of Ow! - interjectional usage only App. 3 Deutsche Zusammenfassung der ArbeitTextprobe:Text Sample: Chapter II.4.1.1, The Pooh-pooh Theory: Wundt claimed that primary interjections represent the transition from the imitation of animal sounds to language, i.e. from natural animal sounds to inarticulate exclamatory sounds to articulate emotional sounds. According to Wundt, language evolved in such a way that the articulate emotional sounds used to express moderate emotions were replaced step by step by language, and were henceforth used with intense emotions only Similarly, the interjectional theory – also nicknamed pooh-pooh theory – claims that 'language is derived from instinctive ejaculations called forth by pain or other intense sensations or feelings'. This theory was also put forward by the abbé Regnier, quoted in Beauzée: 'l'interjection … est peut-être la première voix articulée dont les hommes se sont servis'. Hence, interjections may open up the way for an ontogenetic and phylogenetic approach to the development of language. Sapir, however, negates the possibility of interjections being instinctive: he claims that '(interjections) are only superficially of an instinctive nature' and that their phonetic shape is conventional – using this as evidence that 'all of language is conventional, and no part of it instinctive'. Jespersen's also objects to the Pooh-pooh theory but he bases his assumption on a different argument: he maintains that 'the usual interjections are abrupt expressions for sudden sensations and emotions; they are therefore isolated in relation to the speech material used in the rest of the language'. Thus, his argument is that since interjections are not part of language proper, they cannot be a precursor of language. At any rate, it has been suggested that interjections represent some kind of protolanguage, which could explain the similarities between interjections across different languages. We should keep in mind, however, that although interjections are universal to all languages, they are not the same in all languages: it follows that interjections must be (at least to a certain extent) language-specific – they might show formal and/or functional similarities in some cases, though. Physiological Determinants: So let us assume that interjections are not some sort of protolanguage – how then can we account for the cross-linguistic similarities? Although de Brosses claims that interjections are not learnt but are natural expressions of a man's emotions, he also puts their universality down to physiological causes: 'toutes (interjections) tiennent immédiatement à la fabrique générale de la machine organique et au sentiment de la nature humaine, qui est partout le même dans les grands et premiers mouvements corporels'. In The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, Darwin also gives an explanation for interjections based on purely physiological reasons: As the sensation of disgust primarily arises in connection with the act of eating or tasting something, it is natural that its expression should consist chiefly in movements around the mouth. … With respect to the face, moderate disgust is exhibited in various ways: by the mouth being widely opened, as if to let an offensive morsel drop out; by spitting; by blowing out of the protruded lips; or by a sound as of clearing the throat. Such guttural sounds are written ach or ugh; and their utterance is sometimes accompanied by a shudder… Extreme disgust is expressed by movements round the mouth identical with those preparatory to the act of vomiting. … As the sense of smell is so intimately connected with that of taste, it is not surprising that an excessively bad odour should excite retching or vomiting in some persons, quite as readily as the thought of bad food does; and that, as a further consequence, a moderately offensive odour should cause the various expressive movements of disgust. Note that gestures, facial expressions and body language are biologically determined, hence universal. This fact might account for the resemblance between interjections of different languages, for there is a close link between gestures and the like and interjections. Taking the above extract into consideration, I can assuredly claim that the sounds produced in these circumstances can indeed resemble the English interjections of disgust, namely Phew! and Ugh!. Later on in the same work Darwin notes the following on the expression of surprise: '… whenever astonishment, surprise or amazement is felt …, our mouths are generally opened; yet the lips are often a little protruded… As a strong expiration naturally follows the deep inspiration which accompanies the first sense of startled surprise, and as the lips are often protruded, the various sounds which are then commonly uttered can apparently be accounted for … One of the commonest sounds is a deep Oh; and this would naturally follow … from the mouth being moderately opened and the lips protruded'. Oh! is the most common interjection in the English language, and it is also frequently used in many other (if not all?) languages, e.g. in the Romance languages, in German, Welsh, Russian, etc. For further comments on Oh! see chapter II.5.2.1 below. So basically, some of the primary interjections can indeed be explained by physiological attributes. These are by definition not language-specific because they are biological, hence universal. This phenomenon elucidates why interjections might have been misconceived as some sort of protolanguage. Formal Constraints: A third explanation for the similarities between interjections across different languages refers to formal constraints. To clarify this point I need to go a bit farther back. Even though interjections might not elicit a response from the hearer, they do serve nonetheless a communicative purpose: they do mean something, and this meaning is expressed orally. Now, the usage of interjections and especially which interjection is used depends on the context or circumstances and the mental process in the speaker. Different interjections have different functions which concern the hearer. Thus, interjections are an important communicative means for the processing of the common communicative system of speaker and listener. The communicative function of the interjections requires an extremely economic form: the phonetic units of interjections are of minimal complexity due to the shortness and the simple forms. Besides, their prosodic features facilitate their identification in the ongoing discourse. The argument that interjections are similar because of formal constraints is as follows: Aufgrund der formalen Erfordernisse, die durch die funktionalen Zwecke des Gesamtbereichs der Interjektion bedingt sind, bieten sich bei der Sprachbildung nicht beliebig viele Arten von Mitteln an, die diesem Zweck optimal genügen. Die Verwendung kleinster Einheiten und deren Kombinatorik ist optimal geeignet, den funktional geforderten Ökonomiebedürfnissen Rechnung zu tragen. So ist es nicht erstaunlich, dass Sprachen unterschiedlichsten Typs und ohne Rücksicht auf die Bildungsformen zu diesem Mittel der Interjektionsbildung gegriffen haben. Somit ergibt sich eine Erklärungsweise für die Übereinstimmung von Interjektionen in den verschiedenen Sprachen, die nicht auf deren 'Vorsprachlichkeit' zurückzugreifen braucht. So in principle their universality is traced back to formal constraints due to economic reasons. Tesnière observes with regard to the semantic complexity of interjections: 'certaines interjections arrivent même à exprimer des états d'âme et d'esprit si nuancés et si complexes, qu'elles en disent à elles seules plus qu'une phrase entière, et qu'il faut de longues périphrases pour en analyser et en définir le contenu sémantique'. This is another criterion for the economic aspect of interjections: they express in a clear and brief manner what is going on in the speaker's mind, and the listener can understand easily and without delay what is being expressed. All the above mentioned efforts to account for the quasi-universality of (some primary) interjections make sense to a certain extent, and I presume the truth lies somewhere in a blend between all of them. Nevertheless, I need to stress that, for the most part, interjections differ considerably cross-linguistically and are often among 'the most characteristic peculiarities of individual cultures'.
Unlike a lot of other taxes value-added tax (VAT) has an impact on most people, who are either tax bearers or taxpayers. Taxation should be considered the sign of independence of the state. Taxation is also a part of the general fiscal and economic policy of the state. Tax collection into the state budget makes it possible to fund public expenditures and redistribute income. Taxation forms an economic measure as well. It can be used to affect consumption, increase saving and develop the structure of the business sector. Knowing the principles of taxation is an essential factor in expanding entrepreneurship. As to taxation, the legislation in Estonia does not provide the agreements with tax authorities and the neglect of the taxation conditions may cause irrecoverable loss to the economic agents. Tax policy makes it possible to influence the welfare of different social groups. Tax application can bring about essential social differentiation, but its purposeful and rational application, which is based on comprehensive studies, may relieve it. The aim of the present paper is to study the value added tax, one of the bestregulated taxes in the European Union, and some practical aspects and problems of its imposition in Estonia. The paper as a whole is innovative as it includes a survey of the history of VAT, the analysis of the terminology and most essential problems in imposing the VAT and the methodology used in making special arrangements. The paper also comprises formulas devised by the author and combined into integrated computing methods. These methods are used for calculating VAT in travelling services special arrangements. The novelty of the current paper is emphasized by the analysis made by the author concerning the possibility of VAT rate reduction for food and non-alcoholic beverages and its impact on the household welfare in Estonia. The current paper is compiled as textbook – monograph. In order to perform the analysis, the author has set the following objectives: • study the theoretical basis of taxation and consumer taxes and the historic development of VAT imposition; • analyse the terminology used in VAT Act and some practical problems in imposing the VAT; • analyse the impact of a decrease in the VAT rate on the household welfare. The present paper analyses the history of VAT as a general consumption tax in two different economic regions in the world — in the United States of America and the European Union. The author of the paper has also analysed different factors that have an essential impact on taxation. The concurrence of political decisions and legislative acts on the taxation policy as well as on the taxpayer's well-being was under observation. The paper presents an analysis of the changes induced by VAT reduction on the income of the households as compared to alternative variants. As an alternative, the impact of an increase in the basic exemption on the household income has been studied. The paper has a practical value for the standpoints presented in the paper are not restricted only to the explanations in the problematic areas but offer a practical solution as well. Practical problems are illustrated with explanatory drawings and examples, which make it possible to get a consistent overview of the principles handled. Opinions of recognised experts and researchers on VAT have been taken into account when compiling the paper. Legislative acts regulating the application of VAT or having an essential importance in its application have been looked into. In order to draw up the comparative and empirical analyses, data on the structure of household expenditures from Estonian Statistical Office, United Kingdom Government Statistical Service, Latvian State Statistical Bureau and the Lithuanian Department of Statistics were studied. In order to achieve the objectives set the following steps have been taken: 1. the theoretical basis of taxation in general and consumption taxes was studied; 2. the history of VAT and the reasons that influenced its application or its deferment were looked into; 3. the terminology used for VAT, as well as the practical problems of VAT levy were analysed; 4. the impact of a decrease in VAT reduction and an increase in the basic exemption on the well-being of households was analysed. There are three chapters on this paper Chapter I of the thesis gives an overview of taxation as a sign of an independent state and a part of general economic policy. The overview mostly draws upon taxational and legislative acts regulating taxation and standpoints of taxation experts and researchers. It also expands on the history of VAT imposition in two different economic regions –the United States of America and the European Union. It is analysed why VAT in the given region has been levied or its imposition has been postponed. Chapter II concentrates on the terminological analysis and on solving some practical problems concerning the VAT. Terminological analysis mostly elaborates on the necessity to rename the name of the VAT and Value-Added Tax Act valid in Estonia at present (käibemaks and käibemaksuseadus, respectively) pursuant to the taxation principles derived from the conception of added value. When studying the problems concerning VAT imposition the author of the present paper has paid attention to the bottlenecks encountered in practice. The paper also provides explanations to preclude causes of its origin in the future. In Chapter III the author has studied the effect of tax reduction on the household income. In course of the study a comparative analysis was carried out where the pecuniary savings derived from tax reduction formed a basis for the analysis. As an alternative, pegging basic exemption to the bottom rate of gross earnings and its impact on the household income was studied. The brief summary of the conclusions is as follows: History. The taxation of consumption was first paid attention to in Europe in the 16th century. A counsellor to the Spanish king, Duke Alba, had an idea to levy a tax on the local commodity exchanging. In addition to the price, an obligatory sum was to be imposed on all goods that the vendor would transfer to the state (e.g. tenth penny tax). But such suggestions caused a riot among the people and were never put in practice. At the beginning of the 20th century, in 1918, the United States discussed the possibility of consumption tax introduction, but consumption was first taxed only in 1930s. The introduction of a common VAT system in the European Union can be explained by a number of reasons, which include: the harmonisation of indirect taxes and the avoidance of the cumulative effect of progressive taxes, guaranteeing independent taxation both in national level and between the member states, the formation of a common basis which forms a basis for pooling capital for the common budget. An essential factor that would disfigure the administration of the budget of the EU by the member states is the destination-based taxation of consumption valid at present. Pursuant to this principle those member states whose import of goods surpasses export have a heavier burden in implementing the budget. Transition to the 'country-of-origin' principle is very difficult because it would mean a substantial increase in the tax burden of exporting countries and smaller countries that import most of their commodities would lose an essential part of their present sales tax revenues. Harmonisation is still going on as a system for tax revenue payments satisfying all member states has not been worked out yet. Till then the relatively complicated and full of exceptions transitional provisions that are constantly being changed will be valid. The common value added tax imposed in the European Union as a consumption tax makes it possible for the member states to establish common rules, which might, in some cases, injure the interests of the member states. One of such example might be the imposition of common VAT from January 1, 2006. In the United States of America the most widespread consumption tax (in 45 states) is retail sales tax. The biggest industrial country in the world has not imposed VAT on the central governmental level. This can be explained by both political reasons and the federal system of government: • VAT imposed by the central government would restrict the member states in collecting sales tax • The levy of VAT may establish a new "money machine of the central government" that would make it possible for the central government to spend more money on governance and increase tax rates. Terminology and practical problems The term 'turnover tax' is misleading because turnover tax is a cumulative tax, whereas VAT is not a cumulative tax. The term should be harmonised with the principles of the tax. It is also necessary to harmonise the terminology applied in legislation with the actual content of the term. 'Turnover' tax should be renamed value added tax, in short VAT. Opposition to the change in the name of the tax is not justified. David Williams, a Professor at the London University, seeing the rapid development of the VAT suggested already in 1996 for the states imposing VAT that they should harmonise the term with the concept of the tax. When talking about taxation objects, the term 'turnover' cannot be interpreted as an alienation transaction. In case of VAT 'turnover' can be interpreted as a result of an action or a deed. It can be the thing or the value that is taxed. The term 'turnover' in the form of a VAT differs from the revenue from sales applied in accounting. The objects of VAT are not transactions but the passing of a good in the process of transaction. Professor Williams acknowledges that naming the transaction VAT has caused several problems. In English the word «supply» is used. Its translation into Estonian, when bearing in mind VAT would be 'tarne' (supply, delivery) which quite often does not foresee passage of ownership or title. The moment of delivery marks the moment of handing over the goods. In sense of VAT the sale of basic assets and other irregular transactions that the accounting office handles as sundries may qualify as turnover.There are two foundations that determine the time for the formation of turnover and rendering a service: • dispatch of goods, providing a service • total or partial payment for the goods or services. Time for "intra-community supply" and "intra-community acquisition" differs from the principles mentioned above because intra-community supply and acquisition are considered being originated on the 15th of the month following the dispatch or arrival of the goods or services, or on the date the invoice was issued, if it the latter was performed earlier than the 15th. In this case there are two criteria for determining the time for turnover generation: • dispatch of goods • or issue of the invoice. In practice, the date on which the invoice was issued should form the basis for the determination of the intra-community turnover generation. The invoice should be issued within seven days from the dispatch of goods. Dispatch of goods and rendering them accessible will form a basis on the occasion only when the invoice has not been issued by the 15th of the following months. Tax levied on travelling service as a special arrangement is quite new in Estonia and the common methodology in some aspects is still being elaborated on. Special arrangements in the taxation of travelling services are imposed on the end-customers Following the principles of special arrangements the turnover of the travel agencies offering the service is only the add-on percentage or marginal of the price the travel agency has added to the goods or services when reselling to the traveller. The author of the present paper has explained the main principles in the introduction of the special arrangements and given guidelines and formulas devised by the author for the application of integrated computing methods. The impact of the VAT reduction on the household welfare In order to examine the impact of the VAT rate reduction for food and nonalcoholic beverages on the household income the author of the paper has carried out current analysis in two stages. In the first stage the author has examined which would be an alternative variant that would influence the most households in Estonia if amendments are made in income tax. In the 130 second stage the result of first stage is compared with the expected result of the VAT rate reduction for food and non-alcoholic beverages. The author of current paper is on opinion that the VAT rate reduction for food and non-alcoholic beverages in Estonia is not argumented when alternative variants are applied. The author finds that one of the possible alternatives could be binding the basic exemption in Estonia with the minimum gross wage established by Estonian government. In addition to the application of alternative variants there are other counterarguments to the reduction of VAT on foodstuffs: • the proportional expenditure on foodstuffs in the household consumption expenditures would decrease; • the consumption expenditures structure in the household would change and the relative importance of foodstuffs in the total consumption expenditures would decrease; • the VAT underpayment to the government budget brought about by a decrease in the VAT rate imposed on foodstuffs in the essential part would remain for the retail sales to cover. The reduction of VAT rate on foodstuffs could be considered when alternative variants cannot be applied. The topicality of the problem might increase when in connection with the introduction of the Sixth Council Directive of 17 May 1977 in the Member States the VAT rate in Estonia would increase. The author of the present paper is on an opinion that he has achieved the set objectives and solved the questions raised.
La presente ricerca indaga sul trasferimento di europei a Lima, tra gli anni Trenta e la fine degli anni Sessanta del Novecento, e si interroga sull'influenza di questo fenomeno sull'evoluzione architettonica e urbanistica nella capitale peruviana. La partecipazione di europei nella pianificazione della cosiddetta Ciudad de los Reyes, principale centro amministrativo per i territori del subcontinente americano dominati dalla Corona spagnola tra il XVI e XIX secolo, si è mantenuta nel secondo dopoguerra. Tale caratteristica, frutto dei rapporti plurisecolari tra il paese andino e la penisola iberica, non è ancora diventata oggetto di interesse da parte degli storici di architettura. La ricerca ha tentato di colmare questa "lacuna" storiografica analizzando le modalità di migrazione della cultura moderna occidentale nel Novecento nella regione latino-americana. Al fine di comprendere la diffusione del modernismo in Perù, si sono innanzitutto analizzati gli storici rapporti tra Vecchio e Nuovo Continente, che hanno stabilito un'egemonia culturale europea e che hanno influenzato notevolmente i cambiamenti novecenteschi nella città di Lima. Successivamente, la ricerca si è focalizzata sullo studio dei progettisti europei più attivi in Perù, il tedesco Paul Linder, l'italiano Mario Bianco, lo svizzero Theodor Cron, le cui biografie documentano le motivazioni politiche, economiche e culturali di espatrio. Nonostante le molteplici esperienze peruviane di queste figure, nei campi della docenza universitaria, dell'urbanistica e della progettazione, la loro cospicua opera costruita resta l'influenza più incisiva sugli architetti locali. La loro eterogenea produzione progettuale presenta diversi casi di edifici riconducibili alla tipologia multipiano, la cui realizzazione ha agevolato l'introduzione di una nuova scala architettonica nel tessuto urbano di epoca vicereale. Sono dunque state indagate le circostanze economiche, politiche e culturali che hanno portato questi tecnici a progettare tali edifici nel centro storico di Lima, dalla emanazione della normativa in materia urbanistica, alla presenza di committenze e imprese costruttrici di origine europea. Gli edifici multipiano limegni rappresentano la materializzazione del progetto economico e politico messo a punto dal governo e dai suoi consulenti per il centro della capitale peruviana. Ad un periodo di auge e di ampio riconoscimento delle loro qualità architettoniche ne è seguito uno di obblio, durante il quale molte di queste costruzioni sono state ristrutturate, demolite o, nel migliore dei casi, abbandonate. Per questo motivo, sono stati indagati i temi della tutela, della conservazione e della valorizzazione del vasto patrimonio costruito nel XX secolo in Perù, con particolare riguardo agli edifici multipiano ideati da progettisti esteri e locali. L'approccio dell'indagine ha seguito un modus operandi che coniuga la ricerca archivistica e l'analisi delle fonti testuali, iconografiche e orali allo studio diretto degli edifici, caratterizzato dall'esame delle tecniche costruttive e dei materiali. Il progetto di co-tutela siglato tra Sapienza Università di Roma e l'Università della Svizzera Italiana è stato fondamentale al fine di inquadrare la ricerca nel quadro storiografico italiano e svizzero. ; This research studies the migration of Europeans to Lima between the 1930s and the late 1960s and analyses their influence on the evolution of architecture and urbanism in the Peruvian capital. The so-called Ciudad de los Reyes was the main administrative centre of the South American territories dominated by the Spanish Crown between the 16th and 19th centuries. The participation of Europeans in its urban planning has continued into the 20th century. This characteristic is the result of the centuries-old relations between the Andean country and the Iberian Peninsula and has not yet been a topic of interest for architectural historians. This research aims to fill this historiographical "gap" by analysing the channels through which Western modern culture migrated to the Latin American region. In order to understand the diffusion of modernism in Peru, firstly the historical relations between the Old and the New Continent have to be analysed. These relations have established an European cultural hegemony and have greatly influenced the changes of the last century in the city of Lima. Secondly, the research has focused on the study of the most active European architects and engineers in Peru. These are the German Paul Linder, the Italian Mario Bianco and the Swiss Theodor Cron, whose biographies document the political, economic and cultural motivations for their emigration. Despite the multiple Peruvian experiences of these figures in the fields of university teaching, urban planning and architectural design, their influence on local architects occurred mainly through their built work. Their heterogeneous design output includes examples of high-rise buildings whose construction has meant the introduction of a new architectural scale in the urban centre, originally mainly an example of the viceregal era. For this reason, the economic, political and cultural circumstances that led these architects to create such buildings have been investigated, from the emanation of urban norms to the participation of clients and construction companies of European origin. The high-rise buildings in Lima embody the economic and political project developed by the government and its advisors for the centre of the Peruvian capital. After a period of boom and widespread recognition, a period of neglect has followed in which many of these buildings have been remodelled, demolished or, in the best of cases, abandoned. For this reason, research has been carried out on the issues of protection, conservation and valorisation of the vast heritage built in the 20th century in Peru, with special attention to high-rise architecture designed by foreign and local architects. The approach of the present research has followed a modus operandi that combines the study of archives, textual, iconographic and oral sources with the direct analysis of buildings, characterised by the examination of construction techniques and materials. The co-supervision agreement signed between the Sapienza Università di Roma and the Università della Svizzera Italiana has been fundamental in giving the present work the Italian and Swiss historiographical framework. ; La presente investigación estudia la migración de europeos a Lima, entre los años 30 y finales de los 60, y analiza su influencia en la evolución urbana y arquitectónica de la capital peruana. La participación de europeos en el planeamiento urbano de la llamada Ciudad de los Reyes, principal centro administrativo de los territorios sudamericanos dominados por la Corona española entre los siglos XVI y XIX, se ha mantenido en el siglo XX. Esta característica, fruto de las relaciones seculares entre el país andino y la Península Ibérica, no ha sido aún tema de interés para los historiadores de la arquitectura. La investigación se propone llenar este "vacío" historiográfico analizando los canales a traves de lo cuales la cultura moderna occidental ha migrado hacia la región latinoamericana. Para entender la difusión del modernismo en el Perú se ha analizado en primer lugar las relaciones históricas entre el Viejo y el Nuevo Continente que han establecido una hegemonía cultural europea y que han influido en gran medida en los cambios del siglo pasado en la ciudad de Lima. Posteriormente, la investigación se ha focalizado en el estudio de los arquitectos e ingenieros europeos más activos en Perú, el alemán Paul Linder, el italiano Mario Bianco y el suizo Theodor Cron, cuyas biografías documentaron las motivaciones políticas, económicas y culturales de su emigración. A pesar de sus múltiples experiencias en Perú, en los campos de la enseñanza universitaria, el urbanismo y el diseño arquitectónico, su cuantiosa obra construida ha sido la influencia más importante en los arquitectos locales. Su heterogénea producción proyectual presenta ejemplos de edificios en altura, cuya construcción ha significado la introducción de una nueva escala arquitectónica en el casco urbano de época virreinal. Por ello, se ha investigado las circunstancias económicas, políticas y culturales que llevaron a estos diseñadores a crear tales edificios, desde la emanación de las normas urbanas, a la participación de los clientes y empresas constructoras, con particular atención a la presencia de inmigrantes europeos. Los edificios en altura limeños representan concretamente el proyecto económico y político desarrollado por el gobierno y sus asesores para el centro de la capital peruana. A un periodo de auge y de amplio reconocimiento ha seguido otro de olvido en el que muchas de estas construcciones han sido remodeladas, demolidas o, en el mejor de los casos, abandonadas. Por ello, se han investigado los temas de protección, conservación y valorización del vasto patrimonio construido en el siglo XX en Perú, con especial atención a las arqutitecturas en altura diseñadas por arquitectos extranjeros y locales. El enfoque de la presente investigación ha seguido un modus operandi que combina el estudio de archivos, fuentes textuales, iconográficas y orales con el analisis directo del edificio, caracterizado por el examen de las técnicas y los materiales de construcción. El acuerdo de co-supervisión firmado entre la Sapienza Università di Roma y la Università della Svizzera Italiana ha sido fundamental para dar al presente trabajo el marco historiográfico italiano y suizo.
1. Areas de actividad y contextos en el Noreste Mexicano: caracterización de sitios de recolectores - cazadores mediante el uso de la Tipología Espacial / Gustavo A. Ramirez Castilla -- 2. Ubicación espacial de sitios arqueológicos en el municipio de Dr. Gonzalez Nuevo Leon / Efrain Flores Lopez -- 3. Sedentarismo en las adaptaciones de los cazadores y recolectores del bajo Rio Bravo / Martin Salinas -- 4. Permanencia de grupos cazadores - recolectores en respuesta a condiciones topográficas y naturales / Iran Roxana Dominguez Rodriguez -- 5. Un campamento-taller a la orilla del río Salado / Victor Hugo Valdovinos Perez y Iran Roxana Dominguez Rodriguez -- 6. Consideraciones sobre la arqueología de Reynosa, Tamaulipas / Carlos Vanueth Perez Silva -- 7. Tatuajes en las rocas: El lenguaje rupestre Chiquihuitillos en la region de Burgos, Tamaulipas / Diana Radillo Rolon -- 8. "Líneas de horizonte" un locatipo del arte rupestre de Nuevo Leon / Manuel Graniel Tellez. Segunda parte - Poblamiento y resistencia = Parte II - People and resistance: 9. Indian responses to New Santander colonizing process / Gerardo Lara Cisneros and Fernando Olvera Charles -- 10. La redencion de cautivos en el septentrión novohispano en la postrimería del siglo XVIII / Limonar Soto Salazar -- 11. Pames y otras etnias en Rioverde, Santiago de los Valles y Nuevo Santander, siglos XVII - XVIII / Jose Alfredo Rangel Silva -- 12. El poblamiento de la frontera de la Nueva Galicia: Mazapil, siglo XVI / Juana Elizabeth Salas Hernandez -- 13. El poblamiento entre Texas y Louisiana, durante las Reformas Borbonicas / Luis Arnal Simon -- 14. Uso y función de los bienes materiales de las misiones franciscanas: San Juan Bautista y San Bernardo en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII / Diana Ramiro Esteban -- 15. El rio Bravo y la conformación de la frontera entre Texas y el noreste mexicano entre 1824 y 1848 / Antonio Guerrero Aguilar -- 16. Los trabajos científicos de la Comision de Limites en Tamaulipas y Texas, febrero - mayo 1828 / Erika Adan Morales -- 17. La propiedad rural en el sur de Saltillo, siglos XVI al XX. Las haciendas de Buenavista, El Nogal y Santa Elena de la Punta / Juana Gabriela Roman Jaquez -- 18. "Diles quien eres." Honrando a las familias pioneras del Rio Bravo del Norte / Antonio Noe Zavaleta Reid y Câesar A. Munoz Garcâia -- 19. Las redes sociales en la migraciâon indígena al Noreste de Mexico / Carlos Lemus y Ana Maria Châavez. Tercera parte - Conflicto y adaptaciâon = Parte III - Adaptation and conflict: 20. Spanish plans for the reconquest of Mexico and the invasion of Tampico (1829) / Catherine Andrews y Leticia Dunay Garcâia Martâinez -- 21. Repercusiones del asentamiento colonial en el valle de la Mota evidencia material de trapiches / Araceli Rivera Estrada y Tehua Osnaya Rodriguez -- 22. Freedom's eagle loudly calls: the misinterpretation of the Battle of Resaca de la Palma / D. Clark Wernecke -- 23. La transformación del espacio y arqueología de la Batalla de la Angostura / Carlos Recio Davila -- 24. Revealing the ephemeral: finding traces of 18 critical minutes and their aftermath at San Jacinto / Roger Moore -- 25. Batalla de Monterrey en el Fortin de la Teneria (1846): hallazgos arqueológicos de las fuerzas en combate / Araceli Rivera Estrada -- 26. Con un pie en cada lado: ethnicities and the archaeology of Nuevo Santander rancho communities in South Texas and Northeastern Mexico / Mary Jo Galindo -- 27. Washington, La Habana y Matamoros: los vertices del triangulo transitorio de pertrechos para los constitucionalistas, 1913-1914 / Indra Labardini Fragoso. Cuarta parte - Sociedad e ideas = Parte IV - Ideas and society: 28. La presencia liberal en el periódico El Tulteco / Thelma Camacho Morfin -- 29. El taumaturgo de Espinazo. Breve historia de Jose Fidencio de Jesus Constantino Sintora, mejor conocido como el Nino Fidencio, 1898-1938 / Jose Oscar Avila Juarez -- 30. Gendering the making of a borderlands: women's work in the garment industry / Sonia Hernandez -- 31. From conflict to consensus: Fort Brown becomes the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College / John B. Hawthorne. Fuentes de information = Sources of information: A. Siglas, abreviaturas, acrónimos y signos -- B. Repositorios documentales consultados -- C. Fuentes documentales -- D. Fuentes primarias publicadas -- E. Reportes arqueologicos de campo -- F. Fuentes bibliográficas secundarias -- G. Fuentes hemerográficas -- H. Fuentes electrónicas. TRANSLATIONS: 1. Activity areas and contexts in the Mexican Northeast: characterization of gatherer-hunter sites using the Space Typology / Gustavo A. Ramirez Castilla - 2. Spatial location of archaeological sites in the municipality of Dr. Gonzalez Nuevo Leon / Efrain Flores Lopez - 3. Sedentarism in the adaptations of hunters and gatherers of the lower Rio Bravo / Martin Salinas - 4. Permanence of hunter-gatherer groups in response to topographic and natural conditions / Iran Roxana Dominguez Rodriguez - 5. A camp-workshop on the banks of the Salado river / Victor Hugo Valdovinos Perez and Iran Roxana Dominguez Rodriguez - 6. Considerations on the archeology of Reynosa, Tamaulipas / Carlos Vanueth Perez Silva - 7. Tattoos on the rocks: The rock language Chiguihuitillos in the Burgos region, Tamaulipas / Diana Radillo Rolon - 8. "Lineas de horizonte" a locale of rock art from Nuevo Leon / Manuel Graniel Tellez. Second part - Population and resistance = Part II - People and resistance: 9. Indian responses to New Santander colonizing process / Gerardo Lara Cisneros and Fernando Olvera Charles - 10. The redemption of captives in the northern part of New Spain in the late eighteenth century / Limonar Soto Salazar - 11. Pames and other ethnic groups in Rioverde, Santiago de los Valles and Nuevo Santander, XVII - XVIII centuries / Jose Alfredo Rangel Silva -- 12. The settlement of the border of Nueva Galicia: Mazapil, sixteenth century / Juana Elizabeth Salas Hernandez - 13. The settlement between Texas and Louisiana, during the Bourbon Reforms / Luis Arnal Simon - 14. Use and function of the material assets of the Franciscan missions: San Juan Bautista and San Bernardo in the second half of the 18th century / Diana Ramiro Esteban - 15. The Rio Grande and the formation of the border between Texas and Northeast Mexico between 1824 and 1848 / Antonio Guerrero Aguilar -- 16. The scientific work of the Boundary Commission in Tamaulipas and Texas, February - May 1828 / Erika Adan Morales - 17. Rural property in southern Saltillo, 16th to 20th centuries. The estates of Buenavista, El Nogal and Santa Elena de la Punta / Juana Gabriela Roman Jaquez - 18. "Tell them who you are." Honoring the pioneering families of the Rio Bravo del Norte / Antonio Noe Zavaleta Reid and Câesar A. Munoz Garcia - 19. Social networks in indigenous migration to Northeast Mexico / Carlos Lemus and Ana Marâia Chavez. Third part - Conflict and adaptation = Part III - Adaptation and conflict: 20. Spanish plans for the reconquest of Mexico and the invasion of Tampico (1829) / Catherine Andrews and Leticia Dunay Garcâia Martâinez - 21. Impact of the colonial settlement on the valley de la Mota material evidence of sugar mills / Araceli Rivera Estrada and Tehua Osnaya Rodriguez - 22. Freedom's eagle loudly calls: the misinterpretation of the Battle of Resaca de la Palma / D. Clark Wernecke - 23. The transformation of space and archeology of the Battle of Angostura / Carlos Recio Davila - 24. Revealing the ephemeral: finding traces of 18 critical minutes and their aftermath at San Jacinto / Roger Moore - 25. Battle of Monterrey in Fortin de la Teneria (1846): findings Archaeologists of the forces in combat / Araceli Rivera Estrada -- 26. With one foot on each side: ethnicities and the archeology of Nuevo Santander rancho communities in South Texas and Northeastern Mexico / Mary Jo Galindo - 27. Washington, Havana and Matamoros: the vertices of the transitory triangle of supplies for constitutionalists, 1913-1914 / Indra Labardini Fragoso. Fourth part - Society and ideas = Part IV - Ideas and society: 28. The liberal presence in the newspaper El Tulteco / Thelma Camacho Morfin - 29. The thaumaturge of Espinazo. Brief history of Jose Fidencio de Jesus Constantino Sintora, better known as El Nino Fidencio, 1898-1938 / Jose Oscar Avila Juarez - 30. Gendering the making of a borderlands: women's work in the garment industry / Sonia Hernandez - 31. From conflict to consensus: Fort Brown becomes the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College / John B. Hawthorne. Sources of information = Sources of information: A. Acronyms, abbreviations, acronyms and signs - B. Consulted documentary repositories - C. Documentary sources - D. Primary published sources - E. Field archaeological reports - F. Sources secondary bibliographic - G. Hemerographic sources - H. Electronic sources. ; https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/digitalbooks/1001/thumbnail.jpg
En los albores del siglo XV se dio inicio en el continente europeo a una transformación tecnológica que habría de afectar las más diversas disciplinas humanas: en 1494 una nueva y poderosa arma batió rápidamente -de manos de las tropas francesas- las hasta ahora muy sólidas murallas italianas: se trataba del cañón accionado con pólvora. Con él, un novedoso conjunto de conocimientos especializados comenzó a estructurarse; la investigación y la experiencia obtenida en las acciones bélicas permitió conocer los efectos de las nuevas armas, la valoración de los ángulos de tiro, el efecto de las minas, e incluso procedimientos clínicos para la atención de los heridos en el campo de batalla .; pero fue sin duda en el arte de construcción de fortificaciones en donde se produjo un cambio realmente significativo que tiró por los suelos -junto a los muchos recintos amurallados de las ciudades medievales-, todo un conjunto de saberes que hasta ahora se había servido del cuerpo doctrinal de dos remotos autores romanos: Vitruvio y Vegecio. No fueron pocos los hombres del siglo XVI que dieron inicio al esfuerzo por lograr un mejor entendimiento de la aplicación de los materiales en la construcción de cortinas y baluartes, del asiento y espesor de cimentaciones y muros, de la profundidad y ancho de los fosos, de la inclinación de taludes, de la resistencia de las bóvedas y forjados, del suministro y evacuación de las aguas, e incluso de la aparentemente mágica relación que se establecía entre el trazado hecho sobre polígonos regulares y el perímetro perfecto capaz de resistir el peor de los asedios . Portadores de ese extenso conjunto de conocimientos, se llevaron a las imprentas europeas un número indeterminado de libros dedicados al tema de la arquitectura y la ingeniería militar: los llamados tratados de arquitectura militar o tratados de fortificación, los mismos en donde todavía es posible apreciar el encomiable esfuerzo de sus autores por construir y reglar una técnica: la del ingeniero militar, la del arquitecto. Tal proceso no fue fácil: él demandó una transformación en los métodos de elaboración de ideas y conceptos, tal y como lo expresan los muchos autores en las formas de sus discursos, en el uso de las palabras, en el orden en que se exponen las ideas, en la manera de relacionarse con las ciencias . Y es que tuvieron que apropiarse de saberes ajenos inscritos dentro del marco común de las acciones propias del arte de construir y guiarse por la explícita necesidad de definir unos límites propios de su actividad con el fin de conformar un corpus doctrinal autónomo. Esta Tesis da cuenta de ese proceso a través de un estudio detallado de los tratados de fortificación impresos en Europa (siglos XVI - XVIII) y de sus contenidos de construcción. ; The dawn of the 15th century, saw the beginning of a technological transformation in the European continent; one which would affect the most diverse human disciplines: in 1494, a new and powerful weapon, at the hands of French troops, quickly defeated the, till then, very solid Italian defense walls - it was the gunpowder-activated canon. With it, a novel set of specialized knowledge began its structuring; investigation and experience gathered in war actions allowed for knowledge in the effects of the new weapons, the assessment of the launching angles, the effect of land mines, and even clinical procedures to aid the wounded on the battle field .; but it was without a doubt in the art of fortress construction where a truly significant change came about, toppling - along with many walled installations in medieval cities - a whole set of previous knowledge, which till hence had availed itself of the doctrinal corpus of two remote Roman authors: Vitruvious and Vegecious. Many men since then have given start to the effort of reaching a better understanding of the application of materials in the construction of rampart curtains and bastions, the settlement and thickness of foundations and walls, the depth and width of moats, the inclination of taluses, the resistance of vaults and mortared cements, the supply and evacuation of water, and even to the apparently magical relationship established between the tracing from regular polygons and the perfect perimeter capable of withstanding the worst of attacks .Bearers of that vast set of knowledge, an indeterminate number of books dedicated to the issue of military architecture and engineering were brought to European printers between the painfully long years between 1500 and 1800: the so-called treatises on military architecture or fortification treatises, the very same that can today still be appreciated in their authors' praiseworthy effort to build and regulate a technique: that of a military engineer, that of an architect. Such a process was not easy: it called for a transformation in the methods of elaborating ideas and concepts, just as it is expressed by many authors in many ways through their discourse, in the use of words, in the order ideas are presented, in the manner of relating to science. And it is that they had to appropriate themselves of the knowledge of others inscribed within the common scope of the very actions in the art of building and guiding themselves by the explicit necessity of defining the limits appertaining to their activity, in order to conform an autonomous doctrinal corpus. This thesis reviews that process through detailed study of the fortification treatises and their construction contents printed in Europe from the 16th to the 18th centuries. ; Postprint (published version)
En los albores del siglo XV se dio inicio en el continente europeo a una transformación tecnológica que habría de afectar las más diversas disciplinas humanas: en 1494 una nueva y poderosa arma batió rápidamente -de manos de las tropas francesas- las hasta ahora muy sólidas murallas italianas: se trataba del cañón accionado con pólvora. Con él, un novedoso conjunto de conocimientos especializados comenzó a estructurarse; la investigación y la experiencia obtenida en las acciones bélicas permitió conocer los efectos de las nuevas armas, la valoración de los ángulos de tiro, el efecto de las minas, e incluso procedimientos clínicos para la atención de los heridos en el campo de batalla .; pero fue sin duda en el arte de construcción de fortificaciones en donde se produjo un cambio realmente significativo que tiró por los suelos -junto a los muchos recintos amurallados de las ciudades medievales-, todo un conjunto de saberes que hasta ahora se había servido del cuerpo doctrinal de dos remotos autores romanos: Vitruvio y Vegecio. No fueron pocos los hombres del siglo XVI que dieron inicio al esfuerzo por lograr un mejor entendimiento de la aplicación de los materiales en la construcción de cortinas y baluartes, del asiento y espesor de cimentaciones y muros, de la profundidad y ancho de los fosos, de la inclinación de taludes, de la resistencia de las bóvedas y forjados, del suministro y evacuación de las aguas, e incluso de la aparentemente mágica relación que se establecía entre el trazado hecho sobre polígonos regulares y el perímetro perfecto capaz de resistir el peor de los asedios . Portadores de ese extenso conjunto de conocimientos, se llevaron a las imprentas europeas un número indeterminado de libros dedicados al tema de la arquitectura y la ingeniería militar: los llamados tratados de arquitectura militar o tratados de fortificación, los mismos en donde todavía es posible apreciar el encomiable esfuerzo de sus autores por construir y reglar una técnica: la del ingeniero militar, la del arquitecto. Tal proceso no fue fácil: él demandó una transformación en los métodos de elaboración de ideas y conceptos, tal y como lo expresan los muchos autores en las formas de sus discursos, en el uso de las palabras, en el orden en que se exponen las ideas, en la manera de relacionarse con las ciencias . Y es que tuvieron que apropiarse de saberes ajenos inscritos dentro del marco común de las acciones propias del arte de construir y guiarse por la explícita necesidad de definir unos límites propios de su actividad con el fin de conformar un corpus doctrinal autónomo. Esta Tesis da cuenta de ese proceso a través de un estudio detallado de los tratados de fortificación impresos en Europa (siglos XVI - XVIII) y de sus contenidos de construcción. ; The dawn of the 15th century, saw the beginning of a technological transformation in the European continent; one which would affect the most diverse human disciplines: in 1494, a new and powerful weapon, at the hands of French troops, quickly defeated the, till then, very solid Italian defense walls - it was the gunpowder-activated canon. With it, a novel set of specialized knowledge began its structuring; investigation and experience gathered in war actions allowed for knowledge in the effects of the new weapons, the assessment of the launching angles, the effect of land mines, and even clinical procedures to aid the wounded on the battle field .; but it was without a doubt in the art of fortress construction where a truly significant change came about, toppling - along with many walled installations in medieval cities - a whole set of previous knowledge, which till hence had availed itself of the doctrinal corpus of two remote Roman authors: Vitruvious and Vegecious. Many men since then have given start to the effort of reaching a better understanding of the application of materials in the construction of rampart curtains and bastions, the settlement and thickness of foundations and walls, the depth and width of moats, the inclination of taluses, the resistance of vaults and mortared cements, the supply and evacuation of water, and even to the apparently magical relationship established between the tracing from regular polygons and the perfect perimeter capable of withstanding the worst of attacks .Bearers of that vast set of knowledge, an indeterminate number of books dedicated to the issue of military architecture and engineering were brought to European printers between the painfully long years between 1500 and 1800: the so-called treatises on military architecture or fortification treatises, the very same that can today still be appreciated in their authors' praiseworthy effort to build and regulate a technique: that of a military engineer, that of an architect. Such a process was not easy: it called for a transformation in the methods of elaborating ideas and concepts, just as it is expressed by many authors in many ways through their discourse, in the use of words, in the order ideas are presented, in the manner of relating to science. And it is that they had to appropriate themselves of the knowledge of others inscribed within the common scope of the very actions in the art of building and guiding themselves by the explicit necessity of defining the limits appertaining to their activity, in order to conform an autonomous doctrinal corpus. This thesis reviews that process through detailed study of the fortification treatises and their construction contents printed in Europe from the 16th to the 18th centuries. ; Postprint (published version)
Throughout the past two decades there has been a resurgence of the concern with the rise of new great powers and its thematic cousin, American hegemony's challenges and challengers (a resurgence that must be seen, of course, as relative to the static preoccupations of Cold War/bipolar International Relations theory). However, scholarly production has not been particularly enlightening. Not because the subject there considered is unimportant. On the contrary, rises and declines –be it of states, empires, civilizations, inter alia- and the potential to restructure world politics inherent to preeminent or hegemonic political units are powerful engines in international relations. This is why a critique of the epistemological, methodological and empirical aspects of this literature and a quest for more productive avenues of research is necessary.Neither a comprehensive critique of the literature nor a complete proposal for an alternative research project can be the goal of the present short essay. For the time being it will suffice to open some paths of discussion by way of putting forward certain challenges to this literature and sketching some notes (in a not un-Gramscian way) on alternative paths of research.By now the reader might reasonably be wondering what does Gramsci has to do with all this. Gramsci's concept of hegemony, but also his ideas on war of position vs. war of movement and passive revolution could eventually be employed, I will argue, as one of the building-blocks of, as Gramsci would have expressed it himself, a counter-hegemonic narrative on the phenomenon of the rise and fall of great powers and international hegemony. (1) A note on the use of Gramsci: As with most of the work of the Italian Marxist, coming up with a circumscribed definition for these critical concepts and ideas is an arduous, and probably unfruitful exercise. The Prison Notebooks, (2) Gramsci's magnum opus, is in itself just notes; ideas dispersed in short chapters that do not claim to be a coherent project (at least in the way we tend to think the argumentative organization of books). Thus Gramsci's own work allows for a not rigidly structured use of his ideas (e.g. there is no need to follow him all the way down in his unorthodox Marxism). Even more, one of the central points of Gramscian thought centers around the notion of a pragmatic understanding of theory. In other words, the search for a "real theoretical truth" is not nearly as relevant as the search for a "useful truth". With this spirit is that I approach the issues of hegemony and rise and fall with the Prison Notebooks behind the arm.* * * * * * The most diffused argument on the rise and decline of the great powers (3) can be summarized, grosso modo –and avoiding existing differences between schools and theorists- as following: the international system, against what balance of power theorists would argue, tends to have a hegemonic power (Spain in the 16th centuries, Portugal in the 17th century, the Netherlands in the second half of the 18th century, Great Britain in the 19th and beginnings of the 20th century, and, from then on, the United States) that establishes a certain international order. But the system is not immutable, the difference in the rates of growth between states will generate competitors to the hegemon, which, if dissatisfied with the present order, will try to bring it down (4) -even if this entails the use of force (i.e. a hegemonic war, in the words of Raymond Aron). (5) Not surprisingly, and in some ways understandably, the literature has an obsession with transition periods and war. In social scientific terms then, the whole phenomenon of rising and declining ends up as the explanandum to explicate the explanans (i.e. transition and war). By doing this it obscures an array of phenomena that cannot be studied in a dichotomy of hegemon and challenger. Methodological and empirical issues (e.g. How do we measure power? Is economic rise a sufficient cause for a change in the system? How many cases are historically relevant? etc.) are part of the problem (more on these difficulties below). Moreover, this approach seems to be propelled by an anxiety generated by the prospect that there will be no huge transformations in the world. In the words of John Gray: "paranoia is a protest against unimportance." (6) In Gramscian vocabulary: people need to think they are living in changing "epochal" times (especially academics that make a living out of "explaining and predicting" these "epochal changes"). The result has been an anxious expectation for the arrival of a challenger to the hegemon and the plausibility of a hegemonic conflict in the process of transition. First came the USSR from the 1950s to the 1970s. When the Soviets proved to be a pathetic challenger, the time came for Japan, the "rising sun." Japan's challenge was dismissed before the end of the 20th century. However, this was not a cause of distress for students of power transitions, now they had China.As I have showed elsewhere, (7) serious contemplation cannot but conclude that there is little use for the kind of futurology contest that this literature has turned into. Of course, the central question then is: acknowledging that this is a topic that should be seriously studied, how can the discipline go forward?Diversifying the questions we have been asking is one way. For example, the problématique should be not so much what will happen when a state rises, or even which are the states currently rising, but why have so many states failed to rise -a necessary(!) counterpart to understand the deep reasons for "successful" rises. Working on the "rise of the West" in a comparative-civilizational line, Jack Goldstone comments on the tendency to uncritically accept a "winner" bias: "Because all too often, we view world history in terms of 'winners' and 'losers,' elevate to prominence much in the 'winners'' history, and obscure or lose sight of similar items in the history of retrospective 'losers'." (8) Until we have a good grasp of why the great-powers-that-could-have-been -or as I call it elsewhere, "failed rises"- (9) follow different trajectories from those considered "successful" rises (while sharing similar departure points) our understanding of rises, declines and hegemony will stay worryingly incomplete.On the other hand, increasing the complexity in the concept of hegemony (and thus, of power) promises to be a profitable enterprise. And here is where Gramsci enters the scene.The most convincing Gramscian in International Relations theory has defined the Italian's concept of hegemony in the following way:"Antonio Gramsci used the concept of hegemony to express a unity between objective material forces and ethico-political ideas in Marxian terms, a unity of structure and superstructure- in which power based on dominance over production is rationalized through an ideology incorporating compromise or consensus between dominant and subordinate groups…. A hegemonial structure of world order is one in which power takes a primarily consensual form…"(10) One of Gramsci's biggest challenges was how to devise the creation of a new hegemony in Western Europe –that is, an alternative to western capitalism/democracy. The classical methods of frontal and violent attack, essence of the Russian Revolution, or what Gramsci calls "war of movement," were of no use in the West. While it was just a government that the Bolsheviks had to overthrow in order to install a new regime, the proto-Modern Princes (i.e. Communist Parties) in Western Europe would have to confront a much more robust complex represented in the formula "civil society plus state." In this context a "war of position" would be the best option. The core of this notion is that, confronted to such a resilient organization, one must win the battle from within; create a new hegemony before taking power. According to Gramsci: "A social group can and indeed must, already 'lead' before winning governmental power (this indeed is one of the principal conditions for the winning of such power)"(p. 47, Prison Notebooks). A simple power battle -a new October 1917- was not enough. This is why Cox talks about a "consensual form" and the primacy of ideology.Going from mainstream IR "thin" to a "thicker" version of hegemony (using Geertzian concepts in a slightly unorthodox way) would problematize the issue of rises and declines in interesting ways.To begin with, the preeminent place currently occupied in the literature by rates of growth would seem laughable to Gramsci. (11) Both in the analysis/futurology of possible challengers to US hegemony and for the more general dynamics of rises and declines -see especially the libraries of (naïve?) scholarly and journalistic production on the so-called "BRICS". Even if these trajectories of growth could be accurately predicted (a dubious assumption), inferring a new international historic bloc or a new great powers configuration would depend on a leap of faith. Extrapolating Gramsci's historicism, it could be argued that an essentially material account of power might have been plausible during, let's say, Habsburg preeminence in the 16th and part of the 17th centuries. This has not been the case for a long time. Just as Gramsci devised a qualitative change in European politics, in which civil-society/state and ideas/material-forces were inevitably intertwined, there is case to make that the present international order is too complex to be seen just through ratios of economic growth and other material variables. (12) A counter-hegemon would need to do much more than surpass the US materially (however this is defined). But the point is also that the general phenomenon of the rise of great powers is likewise much more complex than devising future scenarios under the bewilderment generated by the BRIC's growth rates. Several paths follow the critique of "thin" hegemony. One is to give a more relevant place to discourse, recognition and legitimacy. Achieving great power status or building a hegemonic order is in many ways a discursive affair. In the 19th century recognition as a great power might have been identified by, inter alia, studying who participated in the diplomatic arena as a legitimate great power –e.g. who was sitting as a peer at the table during the Congress of Vienna. This discursive dynamic is probably more complex nowadays –e.g. who is identified in the cover of the Economist as "rising"- but is still an essential element and it should be studied carefully.(13) In a word, achieving a certain status in world politics is not the automatic effect of material variations but the recognition by an Other(s) that a political unit has become part of a particular club or class because, among other things, such a variation in material capabilities has occurred. This mutual empowerment aspect could also be useful in explaining the aforementioned phenomenon of "failed rises" (the development of this idea, however, must be saved for another occasion).It should be clear that this is also a call to historicize the sources of power. Since, as Gramsci assumed, hegemony –but any order in general- changes its basic attributes and dynamics with time, likewise the variables that explain how agents interact with those structures should also change. Social scientists tend to be weak against the temptation to over-generalize; a Gramscian outlook could work as an antidote to the follies inherent in the excesses committed in the name of social scientific "laws."Another interesting possibility lies in the elucidation of the resilience American hegemony seems to be presenting. Neorealism has been left in an uncomfortable place under the unwillingness of American preeminence to give place to a multipolar or bipolar world (since unipolarity is an anomaly for neorealist theory). A "thick" notion of hegemony would help explain this. Even if material change is continuously going on, "thick" hegemony, as explained before, does not depend exclusively on it. There is an ideological aspect that reinforces path dependence trajectories that might turn hegemony more resilient even when the US might be losing ground in terms of its material preeminence (this could be paired with neoliberalism's focus on institutions as central to an hegemon and its order). Hegemonic path dependence does not mean that we have arrived to the "end of History and the last Hegemony", to paraphrase an excessively well-known title. It is, however, an acknowledgment that change in international politics is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon.* * * * * * It is certainly possible that one day –probably a long time from now- China will replace the US as the most powerful state, eventually –but not necessarily- building a new international order. It is also possible that the "BRICS" (or any other creation from the armies of acronym-chasers) will rise to great power status conforming a multipolar world. The problem is that it is also very possible that 30 years from now no one will remember the "rise of China" or the "rise of the BRICS." These are unknowns we cannot escape. As with "Japan's rise" in the 1980s, the infinite paper, ink, and time wasted could end up in the most embarrassing dustbin in the history of the discipline. This should not be interpreted as a call to stop studying these dynamics, but as an emphatic request to critically think about the best way(s) to do this. Though engaging in futurology is definitely the correct approach if the goal is selling books and being published in well-known journals, I argue that the best way to do this if the purpose is building knowledge is: a) increasing the complexity in the use of variables and concepts such as power, hegemony, rise and decline, etc. b) avoiding a "winner bias" and understanding the cases of "failed rises", c) historicizing structural dynamics and properties and the sources that explain how agents interact with those structures, d) engaging with history in the search for clues on how to think about the present and not in an attempt to come up with historical "laws", e) finally, and probably the most important, accepting the complex nature of profound change in international politics instead of escaping to the triteness of futurology that rather than educating fosters misunderstanding. (1) This is not an unprecedented line of work. There is a substantive body of scholarly work on Gramscian IPE. It must be said, however, that I will not attempt to engage in a rigorous Gramscian analysis of international relations, but just use some of his ideas as building blocks.(2) Gramsci, Antonio, Selections From the Prison Notebooks, International Publishers, New York, 2010.(3) See: Gilpin, Robert, War and Change in World Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1981; Organski, A.F.K. and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger, Chicago University Press, 1980; and Kennedy, Paul, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, Vintage, 1989.(4) Though some argue that it is the fear of the hegemon to lose its current position that brings about hegemonic war.(5) Nota bene: Aron worked on the concept of hegemonic war as part of his studies on "total war", and not in the transition framework. This point is pertinent since he should not be included in the group of scholars conforming this literature –being his oeuvre of a sophistication and scope not matched by them.(6) Interview at The Browser, available online: http://thebrowser.com/interviews/john-gray-on-critiques-utopia-and-apocalypse(7) Castro, Guzmán, "Measuring the Future: Rises, Failed Power Transitions and the Problem of Systemic Change," unpublished manuscript, University of Pennsylvania, 2011.(8) Goldstone, Jack, "The Rise of the West – or Not? A Revision to Socio-economic History", Sociological Theory, 18:2, July 2000.(9) Castro, Guzmán, "The (Intellectual) Costs of Hegemony: Hegemonic Bias and the Poverty of the Theories of Systemic Change," unpublished manuscript, University of Pennsylvania, 2012.(10) Robert Cox cited in Keohane, After Hegemony, Princeton University Press, 1984, p. 44.(11) See here to laugh with Gramsci.(12) Gramsci is clear on this: "The analysis of these propositions tends, I think, to reinforce the conception of historic bloc in which precisely material forces are the content and ideologies are the form, though this disctintion between form and content has purely didactic value, since the material forces would be inconceivable historically without form and the ideologies would be individual fancies without the material forces" (p. 377).(13) There is some encouraging new work on the subject. See: Zarakol, Ayse, After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West, Cambridge UP, 2011, and Suzuki Shogo, "Seeking 'Legitimate' Great Power Status in Post-Cold War International Society: China's and Japan's Participation in UNPKO," International Relations, 2008 22: 45.Sobre el autorProfessor, Ph.D. student.Department of Political ScienceUniversity of Pennsylvania.
