Suchergebnisse

China has witnessed huge economic growth in recent decades. The growth has come with its own challenges, namely the desire for more resources to not only sustain the growth but to attain greater heights. Many media houses abroad have faulted China's approach towards meeting these demands. To many media houses, China is bullying its neighbors in pursuit of water and associated mineral resources. Its diplomatic and economic maneuvers in Africa have also attracted criticism from a section of international media who see the move as neo-colonialism and an attempt to entrap African countries with irredeemable debts. Most of the criticisms have come from western media that have heavy influence on Nigerian media. With its debt profile to China estimated at USD 10billion and Chinese firms handling multi-million dollar projects, Nigeria is one of the African countries where China's presence has come under scrutiny. Using quantitative research method and content analysis of 420 editorial materials, this study assess the image portrayal of China in the online editions of Nigeria's leading newspapers in 2017. But, did the studied newspapers see China as a positive force in Nigeria's economic, social and political firmament or represent China negatively? Our findings show that Nigeria newspapers perceive China as a force for good.

This essay responds to various questions and criticisms that have been articulated regarding my book, Creating a New Medina, over the last nearly four years since its publication. It locates the book in the field of Partition studies and clarifies its arguments and contributions to the debates on Partition and Pakistan. It then addresses the most prominent criticisms—be they methodological, historiographic or political—by choosing four reviews by scholars in the field. These reviews have appeared in a variety of venues- an online news portal, a long form narrative journalism magazine, and a literary journal devoted to reviews of books in India, besides a professional scholarly journal in the U.S. In the process of replying to critiques, the essay also indexes a range of extensive and thoughtful comments by scholars in various fields thus pointing to the nature of conversations that have happened in the aftermath of the book. It concludes that arguments on the Partition are by no means over and bound to continue. It consequently calls for a civil debate based on careful historical research that is communicated in clear writing, to keep up the robust conversation on what remains a compelling subject in which not just scholars but the general public at large in the subcontinent along with its far-flung diaspora remain passionately interested and invested.

Technokratie ist heute nahezu allgemein übel beleumundet. Ein Gutteil politischer Fundamentalkritik (insbesondere an der Europäischen Union) ist Kritik an technokratischem Entscheiden. Gleichwohl macht man sich mit dem Vorschlag, die Regierung hauptsächlich oder gar ausschließlich mit "Expertinnen und Experten" zu besetzen, im Wahlvolk eher beliebt als unbeliebt. Und prominente Ökonomen beklagen den Mangel an Sachverstand, wie er sich in Austeritätspolitiken manifestiere, die nicht zuletzt von genau denjenigen Instanzen verordnet werden, die unter Technokratie-Verdacht stehen. Manche bezweifeln auch explizit, dass wir an zu viel Technokratie laborieren würden. Um den Widerspruch zwischen Technokratie-Kritik und Technokratie-Leugnung (bzw dem Wunsch nach mehr Expertise in der Politik) aufzulösen, schlage ich den Begriff der Posttechnokratie vor. Einiges an heutiger Technokratie-Kritik, so meine These, bezieht sich eigentlich auf die Posttechnokratie. Im Folgenden unterscheide ich Technokratie und Posttechnokratie, indem ich ihr jeweiliges Verhältnis zu Bürokratie, Hierarchie, Partizipation und ideologischer Vielfalt näher betrachte. ; Technocracy has a rather bad reputation. A large part of radical political critique (particularly of the European Union) amounts to criticism of technocratic decision-making. At the same time, political campaigners have a good chance to make themselves popular with the electorate by suggesting filling the government with "experts." And prominent economists deplore the lack of expertise manifest, they think, in austerity policies that have been prescribed by supposedly technocratic authorities. Some of them explicitly doubt that we suffer from too much technocracy. In order to dissolve the apparent contradiction between technocracy critique and technocracy denial (or the desire for more expertise in policy making) I propose the concept of posttechnocracy. Much of today's criticism of technocracy, I claim, actually applies better to posttechnocracy. In this paper I roughly distinguish ...

This article is a critical engagement with the work of Axel Honneth and his significance for contemporary Critical Theory, social explanation, and emancipatory politics. I begin by exploring Honneth's sympathies for, and criticisms of, both first generation critical theory and Jürgen Habermas's emphasis on communicative action. I then consider Honneth's turn to Hegel's early work on recognition and his emphasis on the underlying forms of mutual recognition, along with the accompanying forms of self-relation/realisation, disrespect and the potential for moral development and resistance. I explore these alongside Honneth's 'formal conception of ethical life' which he hopes can successfully mediate between formal Kantian morality and substantive communitarian ethics whilst also providing him with both a philosophical justification for his normative position and a standard of moral development for evaluating forms of, and struggles for, recognition. I also briefly outline his recent work on reification and recognition before then considering a number of critical responses to Honneth's project as a whole. Whilst sympathetic to his focus on recognition, my criticisms of his work emphasise his tendency to idealise the notion of recognition, his lack of a sufficient conception of misrecognition, the ideological role that recognition often plays, and ultimately the abstract and procedural nature of his 'formal' conception of ethical life.

© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the German History Society. All rights reserved. Using a case study of the Protestant churches in the British zone in occupied Germany after the Second World War, the article explores church responses to an often-neglected aspect of the Allies' purge of post-Nazi Germany: their mass internment of German civilians. Whereas the literature is critical of church support for former Nazis and opposition to Allied measures, the article argues for differentiation. Church assistance for internees was even more extensive than previously recognized and erred on the side of assisting undeserving former Nazis, while also being somewhat selective and discerning. Much church activity was in opposition to the British, yet there was also a degree of cooperation and negotiation. The article argues that ecclesiastical criticism of civilian internment was not merely a symptom of a refusal to confront the past or an expression of nationalist ideology. Internment was a genuine object of criticism in its own right and a source of wider church objections to denazification. Ultimately, Allied internment policy, pressure from below, interconfessional rivalry, national solidarity and the lack of a German government all contributed to the Protestant churches becoming outspoken critics of the Allies and advocates for those members of the German people who found themselves in civilian internment camps.

This paper investigates non-governmental organisation (NGO) involvement in policy processes related to Norway's International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) comparing four countries: Norway, Brazil, Indonesia, and Tanzania. Based on documents and interviews, NGO involvement is mapped using a conceptual framework to categorise and compare different roles and modes of engagement. NGOs have co-operated with government in policy design and implementation, albeit to varying degrees, in all four countries, but expressed relatively little public criticism. Funding seems to have an influence on NGOs' choices regarding whether, what, when, and how to criticise. However, limited public criticism does not necessarily mean that the NGOs are co-opted. They are reflexive regarding their possible operating space, and act strategically and pragmatically to pursue their goals in an entrepreneurial manner. The interests of NGOs and NICFI are to a large extent congruent. Instead of publicly criticising a global initiative that they largely support, and thus put the initiative as a whole at risk, NGOs may use other, more informal, channels to voice points of disagreement. While NGOs do indeed run the risk of being co-opted, their opportunity to resist this fate is probably greater in this instance than is usually the case because NICFI are so reliant on their services.

This article is a critical engagement with the work of Axel Honneth and his significance for contemporary Critical Theory, social explanation, and emancipatory politics. I begin by exploring Honneth's sympathies for, and criticisms of, both first generation critical theory and Jürgen Habermas's emphasis on communicative action. I then consider Honneth's turn to Hegel's early work on recognition and his emphasis on the underlying forms of mutual recognition, along with the accompanying forms of self-relation/realisation, disrespect and the potential for moral development and resistance. I explore these alongside Honneth's 'formal conception of ethical life' which he hopes can successfully mediate between formal Kantian morality and substantive communitarian ethics whilst also providing him with both a philosophical justification for his normative position and a standard of moral development for evaluating forms of, and struggles for, recognition. I also briefly outline his recent work on reification and recognition before then considering a number of critical responses to Honneth's project as a whole. Whilst sympathetic to his focus on recognition, my criticisms of his work emphasise his tendency to idealise the notion of recognition, his lack of a sufficient conception of misrecognition, the ideological role that recognition often plays, and ultimately the abstract and procedural nature of his 'formal' conception of ethical life.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is a multilateral environmental agreement which aims to protect global biodiversity. With its more than 195 contracting parties by now, the treaty, which entered into force in 1993, is the heart of the legal program for the conservation of the earth´s natural resources. However, the agreement has been the subject of widespread – especially legal – criticism since its establishment. It is often doubted that the treaty possesses sufficient legal effects.The author of this book examines this criticism and – for the first time ever – he comprehensively and precisely analyzes the legal content and effects of this agreement including its protocols. The legal effects of the treaty regime on various actors are analyzed on the basis of the following aspects: the certainty and definiteness of the contractual obligations, the question of the legally binding nature of COP decisions, the possibilities of judicial assertion for the relevant actors as well as the content and legal effects of the contractual compliance system. The analysis reveals that the sweeping statement of an absolute legal weakness of the CBD regime's steering effects has to be denied.The book is a contribution to international environmental law as well as to the general discussion on compliance in international law.

Abstract
Applying a well-known argument of Karl Menger to an insurance version of the St. Petersburg Paradox (in which the decision maker is confronted with losses, rather than gains), one can assert that von Neumann-Morgenstern utility functions are necessarily concave upward and bounded below as decision-maker wealth tends to negative infinity. However, this argument is subject to two potential criticisms: (1) infinite-mean losses do not exist in the real world; and (2) the St. Petersburg Paradox derives its force from empirical observation (i. e., that actual decision makers would not agree to an arbitrarily large insurance bid price to transfer an infinite-mean loss), and thus does not impart logical necessity. In the present article, these two criticisms are addressed in turn. We first show that, although infinite-mean insurance losses technically do not exist, they do provide a reasonable model for certain large (i. e., excess and reinsurance) property-liability indemnities. We then employ the Two-Envelope Paradox to demonstrate the logical necessity of concave-upward, lower-bounded utility for arbitrarily small (i. e., negative) values of wealth. Finally, we note that recognizing the bounded, sigmoid nature of utility functions challenges certain fundamental understandings in the economics of insurance demand, and can lead to vastly different conclusions regarding the bid price for insurance.

El siguiente artículo se aproxima a los caminos recorridos por las políticas feministas en distintos momentos históricos, con la intención; por un lado, de generar posicionamientos en relación a la actualidad de un movimiento feminista plural que ha provocado críticas y autocríticas; por otro lado, reexaminar conceptos claves, de múltiples modelos de lucha contra la desigualdad y de la configuración de un sujeto del feminismo para nada homogéneo. En este sentido, se proponen reflexiones dirigidas a resaltar aquellos núcleos comunes que han sido y siguen siendo continuidades en un ambiente de rupturas, reconociendo la validez política que conservan hoy como compromisos compartidos y la pertinencia que tienen en las realidades latinoamericanas. ; The following article approaches the paths traveled by the feminist policies through different historical times; with the intention, on one side, to create statements related to the present of a plural feminist movement that has caused criticism and self-criticism; on the other hand, to re-evaluate key concepts from multiples fight models against inequality and from the composition of a non-homogeneous feminism subject. In this sense, reflections aimed to highlight those common nuclei that have been and remain being continuities on a broken environment, recognizing the political validity that preserves nowadays such as shared commitments and the relevance they have in Latin American realities

This paper examines a song criticizing the phenomenon that occurs in the body of the government of Indonesia nowadays. Lyric of a song ABC (Ada Banyak Cara) by Trio Bimbo that becomes the focus of study in this paper is interesting to be studied, considering the Trio Bimbo is famous musicians who focused on religious themes, voicing out his heart in criticizing the government.The discourse theory of Michel Foucault,in which his discourse of language is closely related to who is in power in the region, is used to analyze this song.The result founds that the discourse of language in the ABC song is representation the mercy of the people, in this case represented by Trio Bimbo sound, such as naikkan gaji sendiri, duduk sidang terus mimpi, jaksa hakim wiraswasta, and other discordant expressions that criticize the government. Trio Bimbo does not hesitate to cast his criticism of the government by voicing the discourse of language which is considered as a direct criticism, without the subtle innuendo. If this happens in the Orde Baru era, the discourse of language must be prohibited by the government, because they were in power at that time. However, after the fall of Orde Baru, resime people have the power to create their own linguistic discourse.

La aportación de la mujer al ensayo cervantino de principios del siglo XX apenas ha merecido atención. En este trabajo se analizan las diferentes perspectivas desde las que las mujeres intelectuales enfocan tanto la obra de Cervantes como a su autor, al hilo de los centenarios cervantinos (1905-1916). La crítica literaria estricta convive con la recreación de los personajes principales del Quijote en los ensayos de María Lejárraga, Matilde Ras, Concha Espina y Carmen de Burgos. Varias de las autoras estudiadas incluyen en sus textos sus preocupaciones sociales, como el feminismo, y dejan su opinión sobre los conflictos políticos y doctrinales que marcaron el fin de siglo. ; Women's participation in Cervantine criticism at the beginning of the twentieth century (1905-1906) has barely received recognition. This paper analyses the different perspectives women authors used to approach both Cervantes and his work. Strict literary criticism coexists with the exploration of Don Quixote's main characters in the philosophical and literary essays of María Lejárraga, Matilde Ras, Concha Espina and Carmen de Burgos. The authors studied include intheirs texts their social concerns and feminist ideology and give their opinion about key political and intellectual debates affecting society at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Our paper draws on research in two sites where large goldmining projects are located - Misima and Lihir islands in Papua New Guinea. We examine the socio-economic context in which criticisms of environmental degradation arise. We discuss the social and political meanings embedded in local demands for compensation for environmental damage, drawing attention to the disparities between local Melanesian conceptions of the environment and global, Western ideas that inform international environmentalist criticisms of mining. We dispute the 'romantic primitivism' of some environmentalist discourse, using the work of ethno-ecologists and case studies of specific incidents on these islands, contesting the view that there is a natural conservationist ethic in Melanesia. The image of the 'noble primitive ecologist' that some environmentalists appeal to, would in most circumstances be rejected by Melanesians as racist and paternalistic, but is embraced as a strategy in conflicts with mining companies and when making legal claims for compensation. Alliances formed between landowners, environmentalists and western lawyers against mining companies such as BHP and Rio Tinto are based more on shared political ends than on the epistemological consistency of their perceptions of environmental damage from mining. Local Melanesian communities claim sovereignty over all resources and their compensation claims for environmental degradation constitute a new form of resource rent.

Chicana literary work is predominantly characterized by poetry. Lyrical poetic phrases are interwoven into Chicanas' short stories, novels, theoretical, and critical essays. Why poetry? What is distinct about poetry as a literary genre or the process of writing poetry that facilitates Chicanas' self-expression? Various Chicana writers refer to the process of writing poetry as essential to the (trans)formation of identity and society. Poetry allows Chicanas to transform their own identities and to re-define the contours of the world by creating a new or distinct reality from which to act. Collectively, Chicana writers produce a corpus of literary work that is characterized by the commingling of poetry, theory, and criticism. In this article I illustrate that these three phenomena are inextricably linked and that theoretical and critical essays written by and about Chicanas often grow out of and through their more creative, poetic literary work. My analysis focuses primarily on two Chicana authors, Pat Mora and Ana Castillo, and examines how their poetry exemplifies and contextualizes some of their abstract claims and critical theories, as well as how the blending of poetry, theory, and criticism functions as a powerful tool to create socio-political change both in the academy and beyond.

The World Health Organization (WHO) occupies a central place in the system of global health governance and plays a key role in the control of epidemics and pandemics. The 2014 Ebola crisis in West Africa, however, saw widespread and sustained criticism of its performance, leading many to call for its reform and even replacement. This article moves on from initial analyses of the WHO's 'failure', to argue that the crisis has led to a shift in its authority as a global governor. It argues that the WHO's traditional basis of authority was largely expert and delegated; that it provided technical advice and normative guidance, and that its authority was 'on loan' from member states, who exerted considerable influence over the WHO. Its actions during the West African Ebola outbreak remained consistent with this, but it was unable to cope with what the outbreak required. The criticisms both of the WHO and the wider system of global health governance, however, have opened up a space where the balance of authority is shifting to one based more heavily on capacity-the ability to act in a crisis. If such a shift is realized, it will create different expectations of the WHO which, if they are not fulfilled, may lead to trust in the organisation declining and its legitimacy being compromised. (International Affairs (Oxford) / SWP)