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In the long course of human evolution and political experimentation, liberal democracy, especially after the events of 1989, has come to be seen as the best political system. In fact, we seemed to have reached the only system compatible with liberty, after the dreadful experiences of Communist and Nazi totalitarianism, and its twin in the economic realm - capitalism. But is liberalism really conducive to freedom? I argue that evil - or totalitarianism - arises from the combination of both the Platonic and Augustinian views: ignorance of values and the pursuit of one's egotistic desires. Evil has an essentially private nature. In this sense, totalitarianism may arise from a utilitarian culture that sees people - or some forms of knowledge - as worthless and disposable objects.

AbstractLife Cycle Assessment of Energy Systems: Closing the Ethical Loophole of Social SustainabilitybyNikolaos SakellariouDoctor of Philosophy in Environmental Science, Policy, and ManagementUniversity of California, BerkeleyProfessor Alastair T. Iles, ChairThis dissertation investigates the historical and normative bases of what contemporary engineers consider to be the embodiment of sustainability: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). It explores the interplay among technology ethics, energy systems, and how engineering cultures foster sustainability by adopting normative assumptions and problem-solving practices—particularly LCA—as part of their professional identities. Specifically, I provide a broad conceptual analysis of "sustainability engineering" in the US (1989-present) to unpack its history, epistemology and politics. I first show that the 1990's produced two distinct engineering ideologies of sustainability—one emphasizing engineering creativity and innovation, and the other emphasizing normative ethics and socio-cultural change. I find that the dialectic between sustainability and engineering has been defined largely by an ideology of technological change. I argue that engineering ideologies of sustainability not only affect how professionals imagine LCA as a medium of technological and environmental transformation, but also how they conceptualize sustainability as a vehicle to renegotiate engineering knowledge and identity in addressing some of the most pressing existential dilemmas facing their discipline. Next, I investigate the politics of engineering identity formation in relation to social, political, regulatory and community pressure to reshape the ethics and boundaries of LCA. I show that starting around 2000, a small group of engineers and, vitally, companies and consulting firms with an eye to addressing technology's "social impacts" have laid a basis for developing an interesting sustainability tool called Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA). SLCA, I argue, is an ideological hybrid where there are many spots of dissent and disagreement but also some surprising fundamental alignments between those who see engineering as technics and those who believe that engineering needs to be socially contextualized. SLCA attests to a messy, ongoing tussle between different viewpoints, where the dominant engineering ideology and culture begins to morph into a more open-ended approach. Finally, I focus on two case studies of sustainable energy system building—solar and wind project development in California's West Antelope Valley (WAV)—to understand in more detail the politics and ethics of LCA in energy systems. I describe how LCA became embedded in narratives and decision-making concerning renewable energy in the US—in their design, as well as in their regulatory, economic and environmental planning. California's inaugural utility scale solar and wind projects were trumpeted as conforming to principles derived from LCA. At one level, I show, the siting of solar PV projects in the WAV was predicated on a mechanism linking legitimacy and life cycle thinking. At another level, along with projects' contentious permitting and pre-construction phases, the interrelated questions of legitimacy and sustainability emerged from the LCA shadows and became central issues in rural renewable energy project development. I explore the tensions between technical expert and lay expert knowledges that swirl around the deployment of LCAs in solar project development and I argue that LCAs enabled disembodied and context-less decision-making. Seen through my ethnography in the WAV, I present material on the internecine politics of renewable energy project development that took place locally and at the Los Angeles County level—a local-regional scale perspective that is often not seen in the literature. I describe how the fractured relationships between stakeholders and the disparity between rural and urban mechanisms of governance facilitated the diminishing fairness and participatory democracy in renewable energy project dispute resolution.

This is the history of a remarkable multilingual university and university town on the edge of Europe under four different states: the Swedish Empire (1632-1710), Russian Empire (1802-1917), National Republic of Estonia (1919-1940), and Soviet Union (1944-1991). In every incarnation Tartu University was founded in the throes of a war that reconfigured political boundaries, intellectual ideals, and languages of Europe: the Thirty Years War, the Napoleonic Wars, World War One, and World War Two. Tartu's ever changing political and linguistic identity makes the University that once held the most powerful telescope in the world a good observatory upon the history of Europe and Russia as well as the globe and the cosmos. But ultimately, this is as much a tale of continuity as transformation. At a skeptical distance from all the metropolitan capitals that founded and funded it (Stockholm, Saint Petersburg, Tallinn, Moscow), Tartu stood for an ideal of Europe that was at once more universal and more particular than that of any state that laid claim to its academic culture. In fact, its actual role approximated the Biblical myth of the Tower of Babel: intended each time to help build a new state in a new language (both literal and ideological), Tartu University ended up cultivating other languages for remembering the past, understanding the present, and imagining the future. This was especially true of the Soviet period--the focal point of my dissertation--when Tartu taught Bolshevik ideology in two official languages (Estonian and Russian), but became known throughout the Soviet Union as an "oasis of Europe" with numerous communities of linguistic and cultural study that seemed to stand apart from the state, but from each other as well, each in the bubble of its own literal and academic language.The most famous of these communities was the "Tartu School of Semiotics" led by the Professor of Russian Literature, Yuri Lotman. By situating Tartu University's most famous scholar of the twentieth century against the background of his everyday life among Estonian-speaking strangers rather than his scholarly ties with Russian-speaking friends, I want to show what Lotman's theory of culture--especially the binary divide between Europe and Russia at its core--owes to Tartu. Lotman's idea that universal knowledge cannot be found in any one universal language, but must be sought in translation between particular ones, is thus both my method and my argument. Juxtaposing numerous perspectives composed in multiple languages, I show how Tartu University's uncomfortable position in space and time between languages and states (rather than firmly embedded in any one) allowed its scholars to see the world in terms (and languages) well beyond those imagined by any official ideology or discourse. Thus, Tartu became for them--as it can be for us--an excellent observatory on the relationship between the particular and the universal, the national and the cosmopolitan, and Russia and Europe.

Intro -- Contents -- Chronology -- Part I Hayek's Luck -- 1 'I Have Been Lucky in This Game' -- 1 'Von' Hayek's Luck -- 2 Producer Sovereignty -- 3 Property: 'Reflections on Becoming an Austrian Economist and Staying One' -- 4 The Four Gospels -- 5 Chicago and Their Austrian 'Other Half': Repulsive Attraction -- 6 Volume Overview -- Archival Insights into the Evolution of Economics (and Related Projects) -- 2 The Tobacco, Obesity and Fossil Fuel Lobby-'As Happy as Hell' -- 1 An Overview of the Argument Plus Indirect Test (1) -- 2 Indirect Test (2) -- 3 Indirect Test (3) -- 4 Indirect Test (4) -- Archival Insights into the Evolution of Economics (and Related Projects) -- 3 1-15: Residual Reverence Towards the Second Estate -- 1 Recruitment to the London School of Economics -- 2 'Free' Market 'Intellectuals': Recruitment Through 'Specious' Visions -- Bibliography -- 4 16-20: Loyal 'Intermediaries' -- 1 Robbins and Machlup, Knight and Viner -- 2 Knight: A Second Chicago Oral Tradition? -- 3 Schmidt and Berger -- Archival Insights into the Evolution of Economics -- 5 21-24: 'I Desire to Preserve Correct Relations in Public' -- 1 Kaldor, Scitovsky and Thomas -- 2 Galbraith and 'Knowledge' Communities -- 3 Keynes, Sraffa, Kahn and Joan Robinson -- 4 Friedman's Prediction of Stagflation -- 5 Slum Dwellers -- 6 'Not a Matter of a Simple Defence of a Liberal System of Society': Austrians and the Eternal 'Merit' of 'Fascism' -- References -- 6 25: Suppression, the Dogs That Didn't Bark and the Emerging Chicago School of Economics -- 1 Suppression -- 2 Dogs That Didn't Bark -- 3 Non-recruitment to the University of Chicago Department of Economics -- 4 Hayek Mark I and Hayek Mark II? -- Archival Insight into the Evolution of Economics (and Related Projects) -- 7 31 Conclusions About Hayek's Nineteen Thirty-One 'Prediction'.

This report addresses a fundamental question facing policy makers in Tajikistan: is the current level of worker skills hindering employment outcomes? Using a unique household survey, the study finds that skills are valued in Tajikistan's labor market, yet skills gaps persist. Jobs have been created in more knowledge-intensive occupations and in the service sector as opposed to the more traditional manual jobs, and employment outcomes are stronger for workers with better skills. Analysis of worker skills shows that workers with better cognitive and non-cognitive skills are typically more likely to have the highly sought-after formal sector jobs; and in fact make more frequent and intense use of mathematics and reading skills on the job. Furthermore, workers with better non-cognitive skills tend to become supervisors. The study finds that there are large variations in observed skills among those with the same level of educational attainment, indicating that formal education is failing too many people even though skills are developed during different stages in the life cycle and a host of actors are involved—families, for example, play a central role. The report's conclusion is that the government could shift the focus from providing access to educational institutions and instead focus on providing the skills (cognitive, non-cognitive, and technical) students need to succeed as adults. The government can also do more to get children off to the right start by investing in early childhood development programs, where rates of return to investment are generally very high and important soft skills are learned. Finally, more can be done to match worker skills with employer demand by improving the use of information in matching skills to jobs in the labor market.

"In this book, David MacDougall, one of the leading ethnographic filmmakers and film scholars of his generation, builds upon the ideas from his widely praised Transcultural Cinema and argues for a new conception of how visual images create human knowledge in a world in which the value of seeing has often been eclipsed by words. In ten chapters, MacDougall explores the relations between photographic images and the human body-the body of the viewer and the body behind the camera as well as the body as seen in ethnography, cinema, and photography. In a landmark piece, he discusses the need for a new field of social aesthetics, further elaborated in his reflections on filming at an elite boys' school in northern India. The theme of the school is taken up as well in his discussion of fiction and nonfiction films of childhood. The book's final section presents a radical view of the history of visual anthropology as a maverick anthropological practice that was always at odds with the anthropology of words. In place of the conventional wisdom, he proposes a new set of principles for visual anthropology. These are essays in the classical sense--speculative, judicious, lucidly written, and mercifully jargon-free. The Corporeal Image presents the latest ideas from one of our foremost thinkers on the role of vision and visual representation in contemporary social thought."--

Success in today's globalized business environment requires deep knowledge of varied areas, and the willingness to engage in commerce not just across geographic areas, but cross-culturally and environmentally as well. Doing Business in Latin America offers an in-depth look at a complex region, integrating practitioners and scholars ideas to examine business conducted in Latin America through the lens of international business and globalization. The book introduces, discusses, and explains in detail the historical, economic, cultural, political, and technological impacts of globalization and business conduct in Latin American countries. It also considers the contemporary business environment of the area, looking at how current country and regional factors have affected the process of starting and operating businesses. Finally, it looks forward to the emerging trends that portend the future of business in these countries. With its combination of contemporary analysis and historical discussion, this book is a vital tool to all scholars and practitioners with an interest in the opportunities offered by the current Latin American business environment."--Provided by publisher

This paper examines my journey from activist, to educator, to researcher, and back, and the implications the journey has for developing effective anti-hate collaborations and educational practices. After being notified that my name and contact information had been posted on a white supremacist's website, I re-considered my role as an anti-hate activist and turned to teaching. Combining my activist experience with my anthropology background, I developed a course, "Hate Across Cultures." Using multi-disciplinary academic resources and featuring guest lectures from representatives of various government agencies, this class provides a space for students to learn and talk about the origins of hate, hate across cultures, and hate in their own region. Students apply their knowledge and develop strategies to combat hate in their everyday lives. This has inspired me to begin a research project on local hate practices with the ultimate goal of developing and implementing more effective local anti-hate strategies.

The way war is waged is evolving quickly - igniting the rapid rise of private military contractors who offer military-style services as part of their core business model. When private actors take up state security, their incentives are not to end war and conflict but to manage the threat only enough to remain relevant. Arduino unpacks the tradeoffs involved when conflict is increasingly waged by professional outfits that thrive on chaos rather than national armies. This book charts the rise of private military actors from Russia, China, and the Middle East using primary source data, in-person interviews, and field research amongst operations in conflict zones around the world. Individual stories narrated by mercenaries, military trainers, security entrepreneurs, hackers, and drone pilots are used to introduce themes throughout. Arduino concludes by considering today's trajectories in the deployment of mercenaries by states, corporations, or even terrorist organizations and what it will mean for the future of conflict. The book follows private security contractors that take on missions in different countries with a variety of challenges. First-hand data and intimate knowledge of the actors involved in the market for force allow a fully grounded narrative with personal input. Through this prism, readers will gain a better understanding of the human, security, and political risks that are part of this industry. The book specifically reveals the risk that unaccountable mercenaries pose in increasing the threshold for conflict, the threat to traditional military forces, the corruption in political circles, and the rising threat of proxy conflicts in the US rivalry with China and Russia.

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Many health, environmental, and social challenges across the globe - from diabetes to climate change - are regularly discussed in terms of imbalances in biological, ecological, and social systems. Yet, as contributions to this collection demonstrate, while the pressures of modernity have long been held to be pathogenic, strategies for addressing modern excesses and deficiencies of bodies and minds have frequently focused on the agency of the individual, self-knowledge, and individual choices. This volume explores how concepts of 'balance' have been central to modern politics, medicine, and society, analysing the diverse ways in which balanced and unbalanced selfhoods have been subject to construction, intervention, and challenge across the long twentieth century.Through original chapters on subjects as varied as obesity control, fatigue and the regulation of work, and the physiology of exploration in extreme conditions, Balancing the self explores how the mechanisms and meanings of balance have been framed historically. Together, contributions examine the positive narratives that have been attached to the ideals and practices of 'self-help', the diverse agencies historically involved in cultivating new 'balanced' selves, and the extent to which rhetorics of empowerment and responsibility have been used for a variety of purposes, from disciplining bodies to cutting social security. With contributions from leading and emerging scholars such as Dorothy Porter, Alex Mold, Vanessa Heggie, Chris Millard, and Natasha Feiner, Balancing the self generates new insights into emerging fields of health governance, subjectivity, and balance

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that a socialist ethics should be discussed within the epistemological thinking in general and in the field of communication, in particular. Intends to do so, bringing to the debate authors who point the deep linkage between the theoretical, methodological, historical and political elements of any conceivable epistemology. That does not mean neglecting the relatively autonomous development of scientific knowledge, but to emphasize precisely this relative character. Finally, careful not to blur the boundaries between these fields, the study aims to (re)open a dialogue between them. ; O objetivo geral deste artigo é defender que uma ética socialista pode ser racionalmente formulada e deve ser seriamente considerada hoje em dia. Seu objetivo específico é investigar se essa ética pode revelar-se útil para o debate contemporâneo sobre epistemologia em uma abordagem global e sobre a epistemologia da comunicação, em particular. Pretende fazê-lo, trazendo para o debate, entre alguns autores mais presentes em nossas bibliografias, como Morin, Bourdieu e Martino, alguns pensadores menos citados entre nós, como Mészáros e Zizek, ou mesmo não conhecidos de todo, como Ilyenkov, que apontam a profunda ligação entre os elementos teóricos, metodológicos, históricos e políticos de qualquer epistemologia concebível. Isso não significa negligenciar o caráter relativamente autônomo do desenvolvimento do conhecimento científico, mas destacar, precisamente, este carácter relativo. Finalmente, tomando o cuidado de não borrar as fronteiras entre esses campos, o presente trabalho pretende (re)abrir um diálogo entre eles, acreditando na fertilidade heurística desta perspectiva e ao mesmo tempo temendo as consequências sociais da ausência desse diálogo.

Everybody imagines he knows about working conditions in Victorian England, particularly the excessively long hours resulting from the use of machinery to which the workers became increasingly enslaved. In the famous words of James Philip Kay, "Whilst the engine runs the people must work – men, women and children are yoked together with iron and steam. The animal machine – breakable in the best case, subject to a thousand sources of suffering – is chained to the iron machine, which knows no suffering and no weariness." It is equally well-known that the worst aspect of employment was the exploitation of women and small children in textile factories and mines. Factory conditions were causing disquiet as early as the 1780's, and the revelations of the witnesses before a succession of committees and commissions in the early part of the nineteenth century are too familiar to need repeating here. The same may be said of conditions in the mines. Who has not been moved by that description of girls at work in the mines of the West Riding – "Chained, belted, harnessed, like dogs in a go-cart, black, saturated with wet, and more than half naked […] they present an appearance indescribably disgusting and unnatural"? Yet it is also common knowledge that factory and mine workers were only a minority among the working classes at the mid-century, numbering about 1¾ millions compared with the 5½ millions employed in non-mechanised industry. Agriculture and domestic service, in fact, employed twice the number of those working in manufacture and mining at this time.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the historical memory development dynamics, which has a complex, contradictory nature, linked to changes in the government and the corresponding changes in the memory policy, regional and age characteristics of the population. The methodology of the research is based on the theory of scientific knowledge and general philosophical provisions concerning the dialectical interconnection and interdependence of phenomena and processes in society; the specific historical approach and the principles of integrity and objectivity. The article uses primarily the search-bibliographic, historiographic and comparative methods in order to characterize the multifaceted approach of Western scholars concerning the historical memory problems related to the events of World War II. The scientific novelty is that for the first time in the historical science of Ukraine, the most recent English historiography on the historical memory problems in our country concerning the devastating years of World War II has been analyzed from a critical point of view. The Conclusions. Thus, the experience of World War II, which was the greatest tragedy for the peoples of Europe, became the most complex and ambiguous in terms of interpretation. For Ukraine, which was not an independent state at the time, it was more complicated because of the two totalitarian regimes domination: the Communist and the Nazis. The conflicting interpretations of the past, which took place in different regions of Ukraine, were systematically used by politicians during the electoral race, which hindered the creation of a national consensus. Analyzing the historical memory development in modern Ukraine, Western analysts tend to isolate such issues as the collective memory dependence on the regions' historical path peculiarities, the population's pre-war and military experience, and changes in the memory politics by the authorities. And these changes in our state were extremely difficult due to the historical science politicization by the ruling elite. The history nationalization, which also took place in Russia, formed the basis for the formation of pro-Soviet historical myths, the "The Great Patriotic War" glorification and, at the same time, the distortion of the Ukrainian experience during 1939 – 1944. The "memory wars" became one of the major causes of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict. ; The purpose of the article is to analyze the historical memory development dynamics, which has a complex, contradictory nature, linked to changes in the government and the corresponding changes in the memory policy, regional and age characteristics of the population. The methodology of the research is based on the theory of scientific knowledge and general philosophical provisions concerning the dialectical interconnection and interdependence of phenomena and processes in society; the specific historical approach and the principles of integrity and objectivity. The article uses primarily the search-bibliographic, historiographic and comparative methods in order to characterize the multifaceted approach of Western scholars concerning the historical memory problems related to the events of World War II. The scientific novelty is that for the first time in the historical science of Ukraine, the most recent English historiography on the historical memory problems in our country concerning the devastating years of World War II has been analyzed from a critical point of view. The Conclusions. Thus, the experience of World War II, which was the greatest tragedy for the peoples of Europe, became the most complex and ambiguous in terms of interpretation. For Ukraine, which was not an independent state at the time, it was more complicated because of the two totalitarian regimes domination: the Communist and the Nazis. The conflicting interpretations of the past, which took place in different regions of Ukraine, were systematically used by politicians during the electoral race, which hindered the creation of a national consensus. Analyzing the historical memory development in modern Ukraine, Western analysts tend to isolate such issues as the collective memory dependence on the regions' historical path peculiarities, the population's pre-war and military experience, and changes in the memory politics by the authorities. And these changes in our state were extremely difficult due to the historical science politicization by the ruling elite. The history nationalization, which also took place in Russia, formed the basis for the formation of pro-Soviet historical myths, the "The Great Patriotic War" glorification and, at the same time, the distortion of the Ukrainian experience during 1939 – 1944. The "memory wars" became one of the major causes of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict.

Todays' approaches to the role of archives and their functions in society as well as requirements to them as social institutions and to professional archivists have changed essentially. Traditionally closed, difficult to access and self-oriented archives do not seem to be popular and promising anymore.World archives are more oriented towards the dissemination of information and satisfying the information needs of society and not only to the preservation of historical heritage.The European Union supports an integrated approach to memory and heritage information institutions, their interactions, related research and educational programmes. In addition, the archives of institutions and organizations co-exist with historical archives. They require information organization and management skills. Therefore, modern archivists need a high information competence, good knowledge of foreign languages and communication skills.The goal of the study was to analyse the development of the archival study programme, to explain the curent situation and to outline the future perspectives in the improvement of the programme. The author presents her insights developed while working with this programme from the very beginning of its development.The Faculty of Communication at the Vilnius University was the first in Lithuania to prepare and start implementing the bachelor study programme in archival work in 1999. The programme was created after winning the competition announced by the government of the Republic of Lithuania for the academic archival studies at the Lithuanian universities. The first study programme was compiled as a common programme run in cooperation with the Faculty of History at the VU.Archivists have been educated at the Faculty of Communication for fourteen years. The content of the study programme is being constantly modified, and this helps to improve the education. A permanent analysis of archival study programmes at foreign universities allows us to understand the study programme from multiple perspectives.Graduates of the archival study programme acquire skills in the organization and management of information in different cultural, scientific, business, governmental and media institutions as well as in special information services. They learn how to provide information to communites, create and implement information policy, carry out information and communication research.The goal of the programme is to provide the basic education of archivistics on the university level, knowledge of information and communication needed for professional activity in knowledge management and communicating with the professional environment and society from within archives of different types.The study options are implemented using the experience of lecturers at the Faculty of Communication and other departments, acquired in teaching the subjecs of documentary communication, history, humanitarian culture, foreign languages, etc. Contacts with state archives have been established, the cooperation with institutions in public and business sectors is going on. Agreements regarding the teaching of several courses on the basis of their activities have been reached, and professionals are providing specific teaching modules.There are advanced quality ensurance and environmental scanning systems implemented in the study programme. They should be improved using criteria accepted on the international level. ; Vilniaus universitetoKnygotyros ir dokumentotyros institutasUniversiteto g. 3, LT-01513 Vilnius, LietuvaEl. paštas: julijazinke@gmail.comŠiandien požiūriai į archyvų vaidmenį, jų paskirtį visuomenėje, reikalavimai archyvams kaip socialinėms institucijoms ir juose dirbantiems profesionalams iš esmės pasikeitė. Tradicinis – uždaras, sunkiai prieinamas ir savitikslis – archyvas nebėra populiarus ir perspektyvus. Be to, greta istorinių dokumentų archyvų egzistuoja šiandienos įstaigų ir organizacijų archyvai, kuriems tvarkyti reikia specifinių informacijos valdymo įgūdžių. Todėl šiandien archyvarams reikalinga specifinė informacinė kompetencija, geros kalbų žinios, komunikaciniai įgūdžiai.Straipsnio tikslas – išanalizuoti Vilniaus universiteto Archyvistikos studijų programos raidą, aptarti esamą padėtį ir numatyti ateities perspektyvas tobulinant programos turinį. Čia pateikiamos autorės įžvalgos, sukauptos dirbant su šia programa nuo jos sukūrimo pradžios 1999 metais iki 2012 metų.

Ancient buildings face today normative, environmental and patrimonial issues which foster their renovation and engage a great diversity of actors. This multiplicity initiates a debate around knowledge, professional worlds and attachments which are woven around existing buildings. This thesis delves into these dynamics focusing on the case of ancient rammed earth building (raw earth compressed into an external formwork) in the French department of Isere, France. It aims at describing how and by whom rammed earth buildings are involved in retrofitting projects, considering both their physical and representational improvement. We make the hypothesis that retrofitting projects, through the multiple ways of engagement they imply, help to free the experience of this buildings from an ordinary experience. Indeed, they put on trial the attachments developed by the actors around existing buildings and earthen material as much as the building knowledge and practices. These trials bring out collectives that weave a political meshwork. At different scales, this meshwork composes spaces for dialogue and appropriation of uses, practices and futures of existing buildings.The exploration of this hypothesis follows an interdisciplinary perspective that connect theoretical resources and methods developed in architecture, ethnology and sociology. It develops a pragmatic anthropology of building cultures composing a common problematic for these disciplines to discuss ancient building retrofitting. The investigation is based on multi-sited qualitative ethnography. Following projects paths carried by different actors (inhabitants, professionals, institutions), it describes the retrofitting worlds in action. First, the thesis describes the various forms of engagement in retrofitting projects, from the intervention on a specific building to its evaluation as heritage. These experience draw attention on different qualities of the buildings and bring them out of their ordinary status. Ancient rammed earth buildings are therefore engaged ...