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"The family" has long been a focus of cross-party
attention. While family is perceived as foundational to
society's success, how parents rear their children is perhaps
the most conservative or persistent part of concern. While
Chinese immigrant families and Chinese families in Asia –
in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, mainland China, and
elsewhere – are struggling with a socialization process that
has emphasized support for traditional values, they are also
simultaneously being confronted by modern ideologies and
technologies. Professionals have a growing interest in
addressing the culturally diverse needs and the gender issues
of Chinese families.
The theme of this issue of The Open Family Studies
Journal, then, is "Gender, family and parenting in the
Chinese context". The heart of this special issue lies in a
concern for families, in particular for the challenges posed to
families and parenting practices in a changing world. The
family, like any social group, is a product of history, culture
and context. Because of economic and technological
changes, and the increasingly pluralistic nature of our
society, both gender relations and family structures have
undergone tremendous change, and many challenges await
elucidation. The seven papers in this special issue thus
feature new perspectives on family, gender and parenting
issues.
The issue opens with a paper on scale validation. Since
intimacy is a construct that has received limited attention in
the Chinese context, the first paper, "Intimacy as a distinct
construct: validating the intimacy scale among older adults
of residential care homes in Hong Kong", aims to develop a
valid measurement for the quality of the relationship
between older adults and family caregivers in the Hong
Kong Chinese context. The study results demonstrate the
reliability and validity of the instrument across samples of
older adults.
Paper 2 and 3 that follow are qualitative studies adopting
cultural perspectives to understand Chinese American
immigrant adults and older female survivors of intimate
partner violence in Taiwan. In paper 2, "Understanding
family connections and help-seeking behavior in Chinese parental lives. These findings illustrate how existentialism
provides a new frame of reference and new practice
directions for conducting parent-education programs.
The final paper titled "Internet supervision and parenting
in the digital age: The case of Shanghai" echoes the
technological advancement and its impact on parenting. In a
changing world, and in a society permeated by the Internet
and by nearly instantaneous communication, families
constantly need to adapt to different and changing ways of
parenting. The paper explores the issue of parenting
confidence in supervision of children's Internet use in
Shanghai, China. Multiple-regression models are used to
identify factors affecting parents' confidence about their own
parenting. The findings suggest that efforts to assist parents
should help them review their attitudes towards the Internet. American immigrant adults who attempt suicide", the
authors investigate beliefs, values and norms in the Chinese
family culture and examine Chinese cultural influences on
attitudes and beliefs about mental health and mental health
services in the immigrant context. Paper 3, "Older female
survivors of intimate partner violence in the Taiwanese
cultural context" examines the needs of older female IPV
survivors in another Chinese cultural context. The findings
of both studies reflect the importance of family and the
influence of Chinese family culture; they make it clear that
traditional family beliefs are still highly valued and hold a
prominent position in Chinese culture. The authors of these
two papers question the efficacy of service-delivery models
based on Western cultures, and they call for ethnically
sensitive intervention approaches that incorporate cultural
premises into developing viable options for service
recipients.
Paper 4 is titled "The Macau family-in-transition: the
perceived impact of casino employment on family
relationships among dealer families". This paper draws on
findings from a qualitative study to explore the impacts of
casino employment on family life and family relationships.
The family, like other social group, is a product of culture
and context, and the specific socio-economic context of
Macau poses challenges to dealer families and casino
workers in performing their parental role. The paper sheds
much-needed light on our understanding of Macau dealer
families.
The final three papers in this special issue all address the
issue of parenting. Paper 5, "Reflective inquiry on
professionals' view on parents and about parenting",
examines professionals' views of parents, their attitudes and
beliefs about parenting, and the values underpinning their
practice. The study's findings on the theme of parent
blaming provide an impetus for professionals to reflect on
the attitudes and assumptions they hold, and their impact on
parents. The paper calls for reflection on parenting work to
recognize the difficulties and challenges faced by
contemporary families.
Paper 6, "Reviving parents' life momentum: A qualitative
evaluation of a parent education program adopting an
existential approach", reports the results of a qualitative
analysis of the participants' perceptions of a parent-education program. The findings of this study demonstrate
that a program of this nature can make parents aware of the
existential dimensions of being a parent and help them
understand the significance of creating meaning in their
In fact, family, parenting and gender are vastly contested
terms which encompass a range of topics. The seven varied
papers recommended for publication in this special issue
reflect the considerable attention that we have placed on
family, parenting and gender, and also the vision of this
special issue. These papers add to the growing body of
research and literature, and they provide both food for
thought and a platform for discussion.
In the last, I offer both my sincere thanks to the authors
who have contributed to this special issue, and my gratitude
to those who have participated as blind peer reviewers. Their
thoughtful comments and criticisms have certainly improved
the quality of each and every paper in this special issue.

La antropología del Estado, mediante los conceptos de los subaltern y de los postcolonial studies, considera al Estado desde una perspectiva constructivista y performativa.Se distancia de la idea de que el Estado-nación occidental es el ejemplo universal que cualquier sociedad humana debe imitar. Por ello, los antropólogos del Estado no lo examinan como objeto prefigurado o predefinido, sino que analizan el continuo proceso de su formación. La delimitación entre el Estado y la sociedad civil es uno de los aspectos más importantes de la formación del primero. La constitución de un Estado legítimo frente a determinada sociedad civil puede llevarse a cabo de manera pacífica, a través de elecciones, consultas populares, debates parlamentarios o de las reivindicaciones de los movimientos sociales, si son tomadas en cuenta por el Gobierno. Sin embargo, Holden (2004) advierte que los procesos de formación muchas veces son violentos e implican el uso de la violencia física por parte de los grupos paraestatales, como los define Waldmann (1991), y de los actores antiestatales, en el campo de la fuerza y del poder estatal que Holden conceptualiza. Retomando los conceptos de la antropología del Estado, el artículo analiza procesos violentos de formación del Estado durante los primeros gobiernos del Frente Nacional en el departamento del Tolima, Colombia. Con base en fuentes escritas de diferentes archivos, tales como periódicos, expedientes judiciales y memorandos del Gobierno, el artículo investiga las luchas armadas en contra de la oposición política de izquierda en el Tolima y las zonas fronterizas. Se demuestra que los gobiernos liberales y conservadores —a pesar de sus intentos de pacificar el país y de tener un carácter democrático de manera formal— no renunciaron a los grupos irregulares, con el fin de que el Estado existiera en sus márgenes. Al recurrir, tanto directa como indirectamente, a grupos de exguerrilleros liberales para defender el sistema político de la época, los procesos violentos de formación del Estado se perpetuaron hasta el presente. ; The anthropology of the State, using the concepts of the subaltern and postcolonial studies, understands the State from a constructivist and performative perspective. It moves away from the idea that the Western Nation-State is a universal example that otherhuman societies should emulate. Thus, anthropologists of the State do not examine it as a prefigured or predefined object; instead, they analyze the continual process of its formation. The delimitation between the State and civil society is one of the most importantaspects of the formation of the former. The constitution of a legitimate State with respect to a particular civil society may occur in a peaceful manner through elections, popular consultation, and parliamentary debates or through the demands of social movements, if they are taken into account by the government. However, the processes of State formation are often violent and involve the use of physical violence on the part of para-state groups, and anti-state actors in the area of State force and power. Using the concepts of the anthropology of the State, this article analyzes the violent processes of State formation during thefirst governments of the National Front in the department of Tolima, Colombia. Based on written sources from various archives, in addition to periodicals, court records, and memoranda of the Government, the article investigates the armed strugglesagainst the political opposition of the left in Tolima and border zones. It shows that liberal and conservative governments —in spite of their intent to pacify the country and formally maintain a democratic character— did not renounce irregular groups, with the goal of causing the State to "exist" at its margins. In both directly and indirectly making use of groups of liberal ex-guerrillas to defend the political system of the period, the violent processes of formation of the State were perpetuated into the present. ; La antropología del Estado, mediante los conceptos de los subaltern y de los postcolonial studies, considera al Estado desde una perspectiva constructivista y performativa. Se distancia de la idea de que el Estado-nación occidental es el ejemplo universal quecualquier sociedad humana debe imitar. Por ello, los antropólogos del Estado no lo examinan como objeto prefigurado o predefinido, sino que analizan el continuo proceso de su formación. La delimitación entre el Estado y la sociedad civil es uno de los aspectos más importantes de la formación del primero. La constitución de un Estado legítimo frente a determinada sociedad civil puede llevarse a cabo de manera pacífica, a través deelecciones, consultas populares, debates parlamentarios o de las reivindicaciones de los movimientos sociales, si son tomadas en cuenta por el Gobierno. Sin embargo, Holden (2004) advierte que los procesos de formación muchas veces son violentos e implican eluso de la violencia física por parte de los grupos paraestatales, como los define Waldmann (1991), y de los actores antiestatales, en el campo de la fuerza y del poder estatal que Holdenconceptualiza. Retomando los conceptos de la antropología del Estado, el artículo analiza procesos violentos de formación del Estado durante los primeros gobiernos del Frente Nacional en el departamento del Tolima, Colombia. Con base en fuentes escritas de diferentes archivos, tales como periódicos, expedientesjudiciales y memorandos del Gobierno, el artículo investiga las luchas armadas en contra de la oposición política de izquierda en el Tolima y las zonas fronterizas. Se demuestra que los gobiernos liberales y conservadores —a pesar de sus intentos de pacificarel país y de tener un carácter democrático de manera formal— no renunciaron a los grupos irregulares, con el fin de que el Estado existiera en sus márgenes. Al recurrir, tanto directa como indirectamente, a grupos de exguerrilleros liberales para defender el sistema político de la época, los procesos violentos de formación del Estado se perpetuaron hasta el presente.

La Nueva Gestión Pública (NGP) es un programa de reforma del sector público que ha inspirado numerosos procesos de reforma educativa a nivel internacional. En el campo de la educación, la NGP ha cristalizado en políticas como la autonomía de centro, la profesionalización de las direcciones escolares, la evaluación estandarizada y los sistemas de rendición de cuentas de los docentes. En este artículo se analiza cómo y por qué la NGP ha sido adoptada y re-contextualizada en un escenario educativo del sur de Europa, como es Cataluña. Este artículo muestra que las razones por las que se ha adoptado la NGP en Cataluña no son tan diferentes de las existentes en otros países en los que estas políticas se han aplicado con anterioridad. Contra-intuitivamente, aunque la NGP es un programa de reforma del sector público históricamente vinculado a fuerzas conservadoras, en Cataluña, como ocurrió previamente en otros países del Centro y del Norte de Europa, la NGP ha sido aprobada y regulada con un gobierno de corte socialdemócrata. En todos estos lugares, los socialdemócratas han tendido a aproximarse a los postulados de la NGP como un intento de hacer frente a la crisis de legitimidad del Estado de bienestar y de los servicios públicos en particular. Sin embargo, la reforma educativa de NGP se ha promulgado y regulado de forma irregular en Cataluña. Razones de naturaleza política, institucional y económica, junto a las múltiples representaciones y reinterpretaciones que los policy-makers locales hacen de las políticas de NGP, explican por qué estas políticas han seguido una trayectoria que se podría calificar de errática y a momentos paradójica en el contexto analizado. A nivel empírico, el estudio se basa en, por un lado, entrevistas con responsables políticos y actores clave del sistema educativo catalán y, por el otro, análisis de informes oficiales, comunicados de prensa y marco normativo. El estudio de caso ha sido estructurado siguiendo el método del process-tracing, el cual nos ha guiado en la sistematización de la información recogida en la observación empírica y nos ha permitido vincular los sucesos clave del proceso político con su consiguiente impacto en el sistema educativo. ; New Public Management (NPM) is a public sector reform programme that has inspired numerous education reform processes internationally. In the education sector, NPM has crystallized in policies such as school autonomy, professionalization of school principals, standardized evaluation and teachers' accountability. This article analyses the way NPM has been adopted and re-contextualized in a Southern European context such as Catalonia. This article shows that the reasons for embracing NPM there are not so different from those prevailing in other countries where these policies have been implemented before. Counter-intuitively, although NPM is a reform programme historically initiated by conservative forces, in Catalonia, as previously happened in other Central and Northern European countries, NPM has been adopted and regulated within social democratic governments. In all these places, social democrats have tended to embrace NPM as an attempt to address the legitimacy crisis of the welfare state and of public services in particular. Nonetheless, the NPM reforms have been enacted and regulated unevenly in Catalonia. A combination of political, institutional and economic reasons, together with the multiple representations and re-interpretations of NPM policies by local education stakeholders, explain why these policies have followed an uneven and at points paradoxical trajectory in the analyzed context. Our arguments are based on intensive fieldwork that include, on the one hand, interviews with key education policy-makers and stakeholders and, on the other, document analysis of policy briefings, press releases and legal documents. The process-tracing method has guided us in the systematization of the data obtained through empirical observation, and has enabled us to link the key events in the policy process with the resulting impact it has had on the education system. ; La Nouvelle Gestion Publique (NGP) est un programme de réforme du secteur public qui a inspiré de nombreux processus de réforme de l'éducation au niveau international. Dans l'enseignement, la NGP s'est matérialisée dans des politiques telles que l'autonomie des unités scolaires, la formation professionnelle des directeurs d'école, l'évaluation normalisée et les systèmes de reddition de comptes pour les enseignants. Cet article analyse les raisons et la manière dont la NGP a été adoptée et ré-contextualisée dans un cadre éducatif en Europe du Sud, tout comme en Catalogne, soulignant que les raisons pour avoir adopté la NGP ne sont pas si différentes de celles dans d'autres pays où ces politiques ont été précédemment appliquées. Contre-intuitivement, même si, historiquement, la NGP est un programme de réforme du secteur public promu par les forces conservatrices, en Catalogne, elle a été adoptée et réglementée par un gouvernement social-démocrate, comme il est arrivé précédemment dans d'autres pays d'Europe Centrale et du Nord. Dans tous ces endroits, il fallait que les sociaux-démocrates s'approchent des postulats de la NGP comme une tentative de répondre à la crise de légitimité de l'État de bien-être et des services publics en particulier. Cependant, en Catalogne, la réforme éducative de la NGP a été promulguée et réglementée de manière irrégulière. Des raisons de nature politique, institutionnelle et économique, ainsi que les multiples représentations et ré-interprétations que les policy-makers locaux font des politiques de la NGP, expliquent pourquoi ces politiques ont suivi une trajectoire qui pourrait être décrite comme erratique et parfois paradoxale dans le contexte analysé. Sur le plan empirique, l'étude est basée d'une part, sur des entretiens avec des responsables politiques et des acteurs clés du système éducatif catalan ; d'autre part, sur l'analyse de documents officiels, communiqués de presse et législation. L'étude de cas a été réalisée sous le modèle de la méthode process-tracing, qui a fourni les outils pour la systématisation de l'information obtenue à partir de l'observation empirique et qui nous ont permis d'établir des liens entre les événements politiques et ses impacts sur le système éducatif.

AbstractGovernor Decision-making: Expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care ActByRobin FlaggDoctor of Philosophy in Health Services and Policy AnalysisUniversity of California, BerkeleyProfessor Ann C. Keller, ChairThis is a study of factors that influence gubernatorial decision making. In particular, I ask why some governors decided to expand Medicaid under the Accountable Care Act (ACA) while others opted against it. Governors, like all chief executives, are subject to cross-pressures that make their jobs challenging. Budgetary pressures may differ from personal ideology and administrative infrastructures may not allow for decisive moves. Add to the equation political pressures - in particular the pressure to align with partisan positions - and a governor is faced with a myriad of opposing and interrelated factors, each requiring attention, when taking a particular position. The calculation required of a governor when deciding upon a salient issue is thus extremely complicated and nuanced. Although interesting in its own right, governor decision making is of additional significance because it may shed light on how the effects of increasing party strength and polarization are playing out at the state level. Partisan gridlock has dominated Congressional decision-making for much of the last decade. In Washington today partisan ideology dominates decision making. In particular, Republican elected officials increasingly espouse conservative policies and vociferously denounce any attempt at compromise. This study asks whether this ideology driven decision-making also exists at the state level. Specifically, I assess whether Governors are susceptible to the same partisan influences as elected officials in Washington and whether partisan politics and/or ideological polarization dominate governor decision-making as they do congressional actions. In particular, I study the factors involved in the decision-making process of each governor when deciding whether or not to support Medicaid expansion in his state. The focus of this study is the governor's calculations and considerations prior to "going public" with his position, irrespective of his success in getting his position adopted by the legislature. Specifically I explore the role the governor's party, the governor's personal ideology, the electoral results from the 2012 presidential election, the state's policy heritage, advocacy by state stakeholders, and the state economy played in the governor's calculations. A mixed method research design is used, with each component (the quantitative and the qualitative) addressing a different level of question. The first part of this study is a descriptive and statistical quantitative review of all governors, assessing the various weights the 50 governors appear to give each of the seven factors discussed above. This in turn provides a context for the second part of the research, an in-depth case study providing a comprehensive analysis of how two governors made this politically salient decisionThere are two main findings from this study: First, Mayhew's conclusion that congressmen legislate in a manner that promotes their reelection appears to apply in this case of governor decision-making. The partisan salience of the Medicaid expansion decision is a particularly strong test of this idea given that electoral pressures may influence less nationally prominent decisions, but weaken when partisan pressures are present and decisions are highly visible. And secondly, when studying variation across states, a mixed methods approach offers enhanced and nuanced findings as compared to a more quantitative model. This study has found that many factors influence governors' decision-making. However, electoral pressure was not only the most significant in the general model but also appeared central to the case study portion of this research. While other factors (e.g., economics, existing institutions, the role of stakeholders, and the governor's religion) were found to be statistically significant in the general model, data from the qualitative portion of this research suggests that many of these factors may have played a role not in taking a position, but rather as justification for the position taken. In both cases, the underlying driver for the decision appears to be electoral interest: both governors studied were primarily concerned with ensuring that their decision on this highly salient issue was consistent with what they believed the majority of their electorate would support. As necessary, they used other factors to help frame their final decision in a manner that they believed would appease their electorate. This study also highlights the power of a mixed method approach. While many of the findings of the general model are upheld by the case studies, without the rich information gleaned from the qualitative data augmenting the general model, the conclusions would have been too simplistic. The case study data portrays a number of examples in which the macro model over simplified the outcome and ultimately led to an incomplete or even erroneous conclusion. First, existing state political institutions (i.e., commissions, ballot initiative processes) and previous policy decisions render each governor's decision unique despite the fact that each maintains the same ultimate goal of political survival. Specifically, in Ohio the entire process of moving the decision out of the budgetary process and to the Controlling Board in Columbus was an attempt to avoid a polarizing vote and to allow otherwise ideologically opposed legislators to remain silent on expansion and ultimately retain party cohesion. This was clearly spearheaded by party leaders in support of their governor and instead of the internal party division projected by the general model. Overall, this study affirms that small "d" democracy is alive and well. Because governors, like congressmen, are profoundly concerned with how their position presents to their constituents and thus their political futures, they ensure that their position on salient and visibly issues is either consistent with that of their voters or at least can be explained to their voters in a manner that neutralizes any divergence from the majority position. In the end, all politics is local and politicians must maneuver a frame to address their situation. In order to accurately assess how a governor manages the sometimes opposing pressures of ideology and politics, an in-depth case study is called for.

Національне питання в Російській імперії тісно пов'язане з релігійною ситуацією, а конфесійний аспект займав важливе місце як у внутріполітичних, так і зовнішньополітичних концепціях, ставленні до національних меншин. Особливо яскраво це проявилось у роки Першої світової війни.Автор поставив перед собою мету окреслити основні напрямки діяльності Руської православної церкви у Галичині, як складової окупаційного апарату під час першого захоплення краю у 1914­1915 рр.Діяльність РПЦ у Галичині була невід'ємною складовою реалізації державної політики. Геостратегічне значення цього регіону було не надто істотним і не потребувало таких зусиль, спрямованих на його здобуття та утримання. Основні причини спрямувань Російської імперії у Західну Україну лежали якраз у національній площині. Та результати антиукраїнської діяльності представників руської православної церкви в Галичині виявились прямо протилежними очікуваним.Високий рівень релігійності суспільства був однією з характерних особливостей Російської імперії, що вказувало на значимість державно­конфесійних відносин і потребувало особливої до них уваги. Державна система управління не допускала можливості атеїстичних переконань, а права особистості були невіддільними від прав конфесії.Православне духовенство було повністю інтегроване в самодержавну систему влади, поряд із релігійними, виконуючи і окремі функції державних чиновників. Це і фіксація актів громадського стану, і участь в адміністративній діяльності губернських правлінь, і відмічена відомим ученим­релігієзнавцем Борисом Кандідовим участь у правоохоронній діяльності. З початком ХХ ст. практичне завдання священиків усіх конфесій розширилось до функцій стабілізації життєдіяльності населення в межах парафії й підтримання довіри до влади. В останнє десятиліття існування царизму політична роль церкви ще більше зросла. Посилились тенденції її змикання з консервативними політичними силами.Антиукраїнська діяльність РПЦ зазнала краху. Нав'язані царською адміністрацією структури Російської православної церкви в Галичині скоро припинили своє існування – духовенство втекло, а тих, хто перейшов на православ'я, кому не вдалося відступити з російського армією, репресувала австрійська влада.Український рух не лише не вдалось знищити, він зміцнів. Серйозно дискредитованим виявився і весь москвофільський рух, котрий невдовзі припинив існування. ; Національне питання в Російській імперії тісно пов'язане з релігійною ситуацією, а конфесійний аспект займав важливе місце як у внутріполітичних, так і зовнішньополітичних концепціях, ставленні до національних меншин. Особливо яскраво це проявилось у роки Першої світової війни.Автор поставив перед собою мету окреслити основні напрямки діяльності Руської православної церкви у Галичині, як складової окупаційного апарату під час першого захоплення краю у 1914­1915 рр.Діяльність РПЦ у Галичині була невід'ємною складовою реалізації державної політики. Геостратегічне значення цього регіону було не надто істотним і не потребувало таких зусиль, спрямованих на його здобуття та утримання. Основні причини спрямувань Російської імперії у Західну Україну лежали якраз у національній площині. Та результати антиукраїнської діяльності представників руської православної церкви в Галичині виявились прямо протилежними очікуваним.Високий рівень релігійності суспільства був однією з характерних особливостей Російської імперії, що вказувало на значимість державно­конфесійних відносин і потребувало особливої до них уваги. Державна система управління не допускала можливості атеїстичних переконань, а права особистості були невіддільними від прав конфесії.Православне духовенство було повністю інтегроване в самодержавну систему влади, поряд із релігійними, виконуючи і окремі функції державних чиновників. Це і фіксація актів громадського стану, і участь в адміністративній діяльності губернських правлінь, і відмічена відомим ученим­релігієзнавцем Борисом Кандідовим участь у правоохоронній діяльності. З початком ХХ ст. практичне завдання священиків усіх конфесій розширилось до функцій стабілізації життєдіяльності населення в межах парафії й підтримання довіри до влади. В останнє десятиліття існування царизму політична роль церкви ще більше зросла. Посилились тенденції її змикання з консервативними політичними силами.Антиукраїнська діяльність РПЦ зазнала краху. Нав'язані царською адміністрацією структури Російської православної церкви в Галичині скоро припинили своє існування – духовенство втекло, а тих, хто перейшов на православ'я, кому не вдалося відступити з російського армією, репресувала австрійська влада.Український рух не лише не вдалось знищити, він зміцнів. Серйозно дискредитованим виявився і весь москвофільський рух, котрий невдовзі припинив існування. ; The article discusses the national component in the missionary activity of the Russian orthodox church during the first occupation of Galicia in the 1914­1915.The national question in the Russian Empire closely associated with the religious situation, and confessional aspect occupied an important place as the domestic policy and foreign policy concepts, attitudes towards minorities. Especially brightly this is manifested in the First World War.The author should aim to delineate the main activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in Galicia, as part of the occupation apparatus during the first capture edge in the years 1914­1915The Russian Orthodox Church activity in Galicia has been an integral part of the state. Geostrategic importance of the region was not too substantial and did not require such efforts to obtain and maintenance it. The main reasons aspirations of the Russian Empire in Western Ukraine were lying precisely in the national plane. And the results of anti­Ukrainian activities members of the Russian orthodox church in Galicia appeared opposite expected.The high level of religious society was one of the characteristic characteristics of the Russian Empire, suggesting the importance of church­state relations and require special attention to it. Government management system did not allow the possibility of atheistic beliefs, and individual rights are inseparable from human denomination.Orthodox clergy were completely integrated into the autocratic system of government, along with religious and performing certain functions of state officials. This fixation of civil status acts and participation in administrative activities provincial boards, and marked by a well known scientist and religious studies Boris Kandidovym participate in law enforcement activities. Since the beginning of the twentieth century. practical task priests all confessions expanded functions stabilization of the population within the limits the parish and maintaining trust in government. In the last decades of the tsarist political role of the church has increased. Trend have become stronger its closure with conservative political forces.Anti­Ukrainian activities The Russian orthodox church failed. Imposed by Tsarist administration structure of the Russian Orthodox Church in Galicia soon cease to exist ­ the clergy escaped, and those who switched to Orthodoxy who failed to withdraw from the Russian army repressed the Austrian authorities.Ukrainian movement has not only failed to destroy, he was strong. Seriously was discredited and the entire Russophile movement, which soon ceased to exist.

Modern democracy is impossible without political parties. They are necessary in the process of the construction of the political class and building of relations between politicians and 'ordinary people'. So, in Poland in the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries the significance of parties is also very important. Their history is older than the history of the reborn Poland. Especially in Galicia, an autonomous province of the Hapsburg empire, we can see the activities of many politicians. A part of them in 1895 declared the birth of the Popular Party which is a constant element of the Polish political scene. The second traditional current is the socialistic movement, which is also always legally active in Poland. These two camps represent, in simplification, the 'two Polands'—the first more traditional, conservative and provincial, and the second more progressive, 'European' and urban. Actually, in the typical consciousness of a Polish citizen, the political representation of the 'black' country is the party Law and Justice of Jarosław Kaczyński, and the 'red' country admires the Citizen Platform with Donald Tusk as a leader. But probably the idea of a twoparty system, like in the Anglo-Saxon world, is still very distant to reality, because in the European continent, the tradition of pluralism in a policentric version is still very significant. In Poland, even in the period of the 'real socialism' this conception of the organization of political life was realized, though naturally in the specific version. There were three legal parties and the Polish United Workers' Party (the PUWP) was the most important. From 1976, the PUWP in the light of the Constitution had the official hegemony in the Republic. It is possible to compare this situation with the period 1926–39, when, after the coup d'état by Marshal Piłsudski, the Government still won in the election and the official elite wanted to create a stable political force with a perspective of permanent rule. But we must remember that between the wars opposition always was legal. In our times of demoliberalism, this is quite normal (though under the Constitution, unconstitutional parties, for example, communist or fascist, are unacceptable); however, interesting is the fact that when you observe sine ira et studio the evolutional trend of the Polish political system, you easily find the tendency of the 'stabilization' of the party system in the way of legal operations. From 1997, the laws concerning political parties have changed the possibilities of the conquest of seats in the Seym. Actually, only the parties having 5 per cent (or 8 per cent in coalition) of votes can gain the representation in the Diet. So it is possible to claim that the little parties today are in a more complicated situation than in the first years after the 'operation of Round Table' in 1989. The contemporary system is maybe more stable, but less liberal. There are theoreticians who note the danger of the alienation of the political class in the situation of the renewal of the alienation of the political elite, which de facto is more connected with the state than with the society. Many theoreticians emphasize that in the future the role and the character of political structures will be profoundly different from today. Maybe they are prophets, but we can expect that the Polish political parties or 'post-parties' and also political structure as a whole will have many similarities with their actual equivalents, because the mentality of the Polish nation, including the politicians, is more or less enduring. ; Modernioji demokratija neįmanoma be politinių partijų. Jos būtinos formuojant politinę klasę bei santykius tarp politikų ir "eilinių" žmonių. Taigi Lenkijoje XX ir XXI a. partijų reikšmė taip pat yra labai didelė. Jų istorija yra senesnė nei atgimusios Lenkijos. Ypač Galicijoje, autonominėje Habsburgo imperijos srityje, galime stebėti daugelio politikų veiklą. Dalis jų 1985 m. deklaravo įkuriantys Populiariąją partiją, kuri nuolat dalyvauja Lenkijos politinėje arenoje. Antroji tradicinė srovė yra socialistinis judėjimas, kuris Lenkijoje taip pat visada yra aktyvus. Šios dvi stovyklos atstovauja, paprastai tariant, "dviem Lenkijoms". Viena iš jų labiau tradicinė, konservatyvi ir provincinė, o kita – progresyvesnė, europietiška, miestietiška. Iš tiesų, tipinio Lenkijos piliečio sąmonėje kaip politinis "juodosios" šalies atstovas yra įsitvirtinusi Jaroslavo Kaczynskio Teisės ir teisingumo partija, o "raudonoji" šalis – Donaldo Tusko vadovaujama Piliečių platforma. Vis dėlto anglosaksų pasaulyje vyraujanti dvipartinės sistemos idėja Lenkijoje, reikia manyti, visiškai įsigalės dar negreit, nes Europos žemyne policentrinė pliuralizmo tradicija yra labai reikšminga. Lenkijoje netgi "tikrojo socializmo" periodu ši politinio gyvenimo organizavimo samprata buvo įsitvirtinusi, nors ir kaip natūraliai specifinė versija. Buvo trys partijos, o Lenkijos jungtinė darbininkų partija (LJDP) buvo svarbiausia. Nuo 1976 m. pagal Konstituciją LJDB oficialiai viešpatavo šalyje. Šią situaciją galima palyginti su 1926–1939 m. periodu, kai po maršalo J. Pilsudskio perversmo vyriausybė vis tiek laimėjo rinkimus. Tuomet oficialusis elitas norėjo sukurti stabilią politinę jėgą, esant nuolatinio valdymo perspektyvai. Tačiau reikia prisiminti, kad tarpukario laikotarpiu opozicija visada buvo įteisinta. Dabartiniais demoliberalizmo laikais tai yra pakankamai normalu (nors Konstitucijoje yra straipsnis, draudžiantis nekonstitucines partijas, pavyzdžiui, komunistines arba fašistines), tačiau įdomu tai, kad, kai sine ira et studio stebime Lenkijos politinės sistemos plėtros tendencijas, aiškiai išryškėja partijų sistemos "stabilizacijos" teisiniais procesais tendencija. Nuo 1997 m. su politinėmis partijomis susiję įstatymai pakeitė galimybes laimėti vietas Parlamente. Iš tiesų tik partijos, gavusios 5 proc. (arba 8 proc. koalicijoje) balsų, gali patekti į Parlamentą. Taigi galima teigti, kad dabartiniu metu mažųjų partijų situacija yra sunkesnė negu po "Apvaliojo stalo darbo" 1989 m. Dabartinė sistema, ko gero, stabilesnė, bet mažiau liberali. Yra nuomonių, pabrėžiančių pavojų, jog, kai politinis elitas de facto yra labiau susijęs su valstybe nei su visuomene, gali atitolti ir politinė klasė. Daugelis teoretikų pabrėžia, jog ateityje politinių struktūrų vaidmuo bei požymiai bus visiškai kitokie nei dabartiniu metu. Galbūt jie yra pranašai, tačiau galima tikėtis, kad Lenkijos politinės partijos arba "postpartijos", taip pat ir visa politinė struktūra bus labai panaši į dabartinę, nes lenkų tautos mentalitetas, įskaitant ir politikus, daugiau ar mažiau yra patvarus.

Drylands cover about 40% of the earth's land surface and provide the basis for the livelihoods of 38% of the global human population. Worldwide, these ecosystems are prone to heavy degradation. Increasing levels of dryland degradation result a strong decline of ecosystem services. In addition, in highly variable semi-arid environments changing future environmental conditions will potentially have severe consequences for productivity and ecosystem dynamics. Hence, global efforts have to be made to understand the particular causes and consequences of dryland degradation and to promote sustainable management options for semi-arid and arid ecosystems in a changing world. Here I particularly address the problem of semi-arid savanna degradation, which mostly occurs in form of woody plant encroachment. At this, I aim at finding viable sustainable management strategies and improving the general understanding of semi-arid savanna vegetation dynamics under conditions of extensive livestock production. Moreover, the influence of external forces, i.e. environmental change and land reform, on the use of savanna vegetation and on the ecosystem response to this land use is assessed. Based on this I identify conditions and strategies that facilitate a sustainable use of semi-arid savanna rangelands in a changing world. I extended an eco-hydrological model to simulate rangeland vegetation dynamics for a typical semi-arid savanna in eastern Namibia. In particular, I identified the response of semi-arid savanna vegetation to different land use strategies (including fire management) also with regard to different predicted precipitation, temperature and CO2 regimes. Not only environmental but also economic and political constraints like e.g. land reform programmes are shaping rangeland management strategies. Hence, I aimed at understanding the effects of the ongoing process of land reform in southern Africa on land use and the semi-arid savanna vegetation. Therefore, I developed and implemented an agent-based ecological-economic modelling tool for interactive role plays with land users. This tool was applied in an interdisciplinary empirical study to identify general patterns of management decisions and the between-farm cooperation of land reform beneficiaries in eastern Namibia. The eco-hydrological simulations revealed that the future dynamics of semi-arid savanna vegetation strongly depend on the respective climate change scenario. In particular, I found that the capacity of the system to sustain domestic livestock production will strongly depend on changes in the amount and temporal distribution of precipitation. In addition, my simulations revealed that shrub encroachment will become less likely under future climatic conditions although positive effects of CO2 on woody plant growth and transpiration have been considered. While earlier studies predicted a further increase in shrub encroachment due to increased levels of atmospheric CO2, my contrary finding is based on the negative impacts of temperature increase on the drought sensitive seedling germination and establishment of woody plant species. Further simulation experiments revealed that prescribed fires are an efficient tool for semi-arid rangeland management, since they suppress woody plant seedling establishment. The strategies tested have increased the long term productivity of the savanna in terms of livestock production and decreased the risk for shrub encroachment (i.e. savanna degradation). This finding refutes the views promoted by existing studies, which state that fires are of minor importance for the vegetation dynamics of semi-arid and arid savannas. Again, the difference in predictions is related to the bottleneck at the seedling establishment stage of woody plants, which has not been sufficiently considered in earlier studies. The ecological-economic role plays with Namibian land reform beneficiaries showed that the farmers made their decisions with regard to herd size adjustments according to economic but not according to environmental variables. Hence, they do not manage opportunistically by tracking grass biomass availability but rather apply conservative management strategies with low stocking rates. This implies that under the given circumstances the management of these farmers will not per se cause (or further worsen) the problem of savanna degradation and shrub encroachment due to overgrazing. However, as my results indicate that this management strategy is rather based on high financial pressure, it is not an indicator for successful rangeland management. Rather, farmers struggle hard to make any positive revenue from their farming business and the success of the Namibian land reform is currently disputable. The role-plays also revealed that cooperation between farmers is difficult even though obligatory due to the often small farm sizes. I thus propose that cooperation needs to be facilitated to improve the success of land reform beneficiaries. ; Semiaride (halbtrockene) Savannen bedecken große Teile der Erdoberfläche und sichern die Lebensgrundlage von vielen Millionen Menschen. Die häufigste Form der Landnutzung in diesen Trockengebieten ist die Produktion von Vieh in extensiver Weidelandbewirtschaftung. In Folge klimatischer Veränderungen und als Konsequenz aus der teils intensiven Beweidung dieser Trockengebiete kommt es häufig zur Degradierung derselben in Form einer Zunahme von 'unerwünschter' holziger Vegetation auf Kosten von futterverwertbaren Gräsern. Dieser als Verbuschung bezeichnete Prozess hat schwere negative Auswirkungen auf die betroffenen Ökosysteme und ist die Ursache für einen zunehmenden Rückgang der ökonomischen Leistungsfähigkeit der betroffenen Betriebe. In meiner Dissertation befasse ich mich mit den Auswirkungen von Klimawandel und politischen Veränderungen auf die Savannenvegetation im südlichen Afrika und auf die Möglichkeiten für die Nutzung dieser Ökosysteme in Form von Viehwirtschaft. Hierbei möchte ich sowohl das allgemeine Verständnis der ökologischen Zusammenhänge verbessern, als auch Strategien für die nachhaltige Nutzung der Savannen identifizieren und bewerten. Da nicht nur ökologische, sondern auch ökonomische und politische Einflussfaktoren, wie zum Beispiel die umfangreichen Landumverteilungen im Rahmen der Bodenreform im südlichen Afrika auf die tatsächliche Landnutzung wirken, habe ich im Rahmen der Dissertation zudem untersucht, nach welchen Umwelt und Kapitalvariablen sich die Farmer, welche Ihr Land im Rahmen der Bodenreform zugeteilt bekommen haben, bei Ihren Entscheidungen richten. Methodisch verwende ich verschiedene Simulationsmodelle, welche zur Untersuchung der langfristigen Veränderungen von verschiedensten Szenarien (Klimawandel, Landnutzung) geeignet sind. Hierbei habe ich teilweise bestehende Modelle angepasst, aber auch ein neues Modell, welches zur Befragung von Farmern in Namibia verwendet wurde, entwickelt. Meine Dissertation führt im Wesentlichen zu vier Erkenntnissen: Erstens, zeigen meine Ergebnisse, welche große Bedeutung die spezifischen ökologischen Eigenschaften der Bäume und Sträucher in semiariden Savannen für die Vorhersage der Entwicklung dieser Systeme unter Klimawandel hat. Hierbei zeigte sich, dass insbesondere die Sensitivität der Keimlinge gegenüber Trockenheit und Feuer eine entscheidende Rolle spielt. Daraus folgt die zweite wesentliche Erkenntnis: Feuer eignet sich in herausragender Weise, um halbtrockene Savannen vor der Verbuschung zu bewahren. Drittens haben die Rollenspiele mit Farmern in Namibia gezeigt, dass deren Entscheidungen im Wesentlichen von finanziellen Schwierigkeiten und nicht von Umwelteinflüssen getrieben werden. Dennoch zeigten meine Ergebnisse, dass diese Farmer mit Ihrem derzeitigen Verhalten wahrscheinlich nicht zur weiteren Degradierung der Savannenvegetation beitragen. Die vierte, und mit am bedeutendste Erkenntnis aus meiner Arbeit ist, dass konservative Beweidungsstrategien mit geringen und konstanten Viehdichten notwendig sind um semiaride Savannen dauerhaft in ökologisch und ökonomisch nachhaltiger Weise zu Nutzen.

Trilateral regulation, based on relations among trade unions, employers (or their associations) and governments, is one of the main mechanisms of socio-economic regulation in Western countries since decades, as well as a cornerstone of the so-called European social model. Notwithstanding, work regulation without trade unions' involvement is an increasingly widespread reality, especially within innovative workplaces. This outcome gives credit to the "race to the bottom" and "globalization theories", which predict a general convergence towards a neo-liberal institutional setting, where there is no space for labour and work regulation is unilaterally set by firms. To examine what underlies trade unions' inclusion or exclusion from regulatory processes, this research focuses on an innovative business like the Factory Outlet Centre, a huge retailing complex with almost one thousand workers, mostly shop assistants. Actually, from an Industrial Relations perspective, it might not be the appropriate unit of analysis to test trilateral regulation's survival, given that its features, like being a greenfield and a multi-employers workplace full of several micro-firms, are usually associated to labour's under-representation. But the context matters too, and here Italy is the setting of analysis, which is a particularly fitted context, because it shows an "organized" system of industrial relations, where labour representation is traditionally rooted. Moreover, Italian legal framework on commerce has been recently reformed, moving several competencies to regional and local administrations. Within this frame, field work deepens eight Factory Outlet Centres evenly spread in four regions (Toscana, Emilia Romagna, Lombardia and Veneto), allowing the emergence of regional varieties, as the ones related to political sub-cultures. The working hypothesis is that innovative businesses rely on new ways to coordinate socio-economic activities that, challenging the old features of regulation, allow the first-mover to act as a rent-seeker, unless involved entrepreneurs, politicians and trade unionists reach a new compromise. So there are only two kinds of actors, "first-movers" and "subordinates", and three kinds of actions, unilateral, negotiated and cooperative. As far as our case-studies are concerned, first-movers are entrepreneurs who promote and develop retailing complexes such as Factory Outlet Centres; as well as local governments, which hold the legal authority to give planning permissions and retailing licenses to make them operate. Instead, subordinate actors are trade unions, firstly worried about the way to reply to others' strategies. As far as cooperation and opportunism are concerned, the former targets to positive-sum games, while the latter always conceives at least a loser. Thanks to an extended review of policy documents, sentences, local newspapers and twenty-two interviews, this research explains precisely why in few cases trade unions have been involved in the work regulation, while in the others such a triangulation has not been feasible, letting employers and local politicians set the rules. Indeed, a clear finding emerges from the empirical analysis. Whenever work regulation is decentralized at local level, employers and local administrators join together to exclude, unilaterally, trade unions from the deal, exchanging mutual favours and acting as perfect rent-seekers. On the contrary, insofar as a more centralized public actor actively intervenes, such as regional policy-makers or judges, cooperation permeates work regulation, including trade unions along with employers and local administrators, as also leading to positive repercussions on workers' well-being without undermining company's profitability. A straightforward demonstration of this dark side of decentralization comes from the Sunday openings issue. On one hand, Sunday openings and the related extension of working time have been allowed by local government and then imposed to workforce by management. On the other, whenever a regional control is still effective, the issue has been solved through an innovative form of industrial relations: collective bargaining at the "site" level, where the workers' counterpart is not their employer, usually a shop-keeper, but it is their workplace's manager, that is the Factory Outlet Centre's director. Here the deal is stroke because trade unions accept a flexible working time arrangement in return for compensations like wage increases and a space for unions' local section. Besides, the ways unions approached these innovative workplaces shed light on the Italian version of "trade unions' revitalization", which encompasses a mix of both organizing and servicing strategies. Basically, despite site-bargaining renovates unions' actions preserving their ability to mobilize workers, its fragility clearly stands out, due to the need of an increasingly rare supportive state. Once said so, the spread of bilateral agencies, despite often judged as a unions' failure and a betrayal to their collective mission, might be the best results currently achievable, at least to keep some power to influence counterparts and institutions. It goes without saying that such a line of reasoning assumes that these two efforts are not seen as mutual exclusive but, adequately set, self-reinforcing. Despite this research zooms a narrow phenomena like Factory Outlet Centres, it aims at contributing to the huge academic debate regarding institutional change, here interpreted in relation to regional models of industrial relations. Among the four regions observed, Toscana and Veneto are in line with their institutional paths, respectively, a neo-corporatist and a neo-conservative one. Vice versa, Lombardia and Emilia Romagna are getting ahead of an institutional change: a bit more labour-friendly the former, in respect to its pluralist point of departure, and a much less labour-friendly the latter, a counter-intuitive outcome considering its progressive tradition and its actual approach inspired to social dialogue. The results open to further researches, specially on different workplaces within the context already considered, Italy, in order to confirm or to controvert such trends; as well as on different contexts but within the same workplace, Factory Outlet Centre, in order to find out similar or different outcomes. As demonstrated in this work, business innovation has strong implications for the future of trilateral work regulation, whose directions are not predictable, depending both on actors' strategies and institutional settings. Obviously, any further deepening of such mechanisms is welcomed.

The end of the Cold War represented an apparent victory for NATO, capitalism, free enterprise, and democracy over the Warsaw Pact, Marxism-Leninist communism, and the Russian-Soviet empire. In 1991, five newly independent republics of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) emerged from the wreckage of that watershed event. Each new government proclaimed its commitment to free enterprise economic systems and democratic governance. Western democracies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and human rights groups lauded that commitment to democratic mass media systems as stabilizing, modernizing, and nation-building tools. Unfortunately, significant obstacles remain to functional and effective press systems able to maintain economic, editorial, and political autonomy. Because Russian and Soviet-era press conventions still strongly influence the press in Central Asia, this article begins with a brief overview of the Russian colonial and czarist press system from the 1860s to the Russian Revolution of 1917. It then presents a brief history of press controls under the Soviet Union. Thus, forms of Russian domination of Central Asian journalism persisted for almost 130 years, leaving deeply entrenched czarist-Soviet press methods, controls, and traditions. The study then summarizes significant arenas of contemporary research on Central Asian mass media, including detailed evidence of the complexity, diversity, and depth of barriers to free and effective press systems. It establishes that imposed Soviet-era journalism philosophy and practices remain much of the foundation for current professional ideology. Although there were some positive aspects to the Soviet press system, inherited professional habits, conventions, ideology, and socialist economics still obstruct adoption of aspects of Western models hallmarked by independent journalism and advocacy of a more operative form of social responsibility to audiences. The article then outlines the conflict between external and internal pressures to establish free and democratic press systems where regimes actively resist such efforts. That resistance includes formal and informal policies of censorship and repression that restrain journalists and the mass media they serve. Despite outside efforts to promote democratization of the press, these repressitarian governments remain highly authoritarian and exert varying but high degrees of direct and indirect censorship and content control. Among them are onerous libel laws, fabricated criminal charges against journalists, unfair tax audits, license terminations, and pressure on advertisers and printing houses when media content is deemed overly critical and adversarial. Recent murders of journalists further chill independent reporting. This synthesized examination of recent mass media research makes clear that five separate systems have replaced the unitary Soviet one, but with such shared attributes as official or quasi-official censorship; self-censorship; lack of free-market sustainability; constraints on independence and professionalism; and a press ideology that values service to the state above independence, fairness, balance, and accuracy. Distinctions among the systems include the presence or absence of independent and opposition media outlets; degrees of public access to the Internet and foreign media; and availability of university and professional education and training. Collectively, this research illustrates the limited success of external forces in furthering media pluralism. Those forces are foreign governments and multi-governmental entities, international media-building and civil society-building NGOs, Western journalism trainers and professors, and foreign media outlets that disseminate print, broadcast, and Internet content. In addition, these studies summarized demonstrate how regimes and elites use—and abuse—the law to control news and information about public affairs, controversy, and public issues and how they disregard constitutional and statutory assurances of press freedom. Democratization of the press will also require changing journalists' widely accepted role as acquiescent or reluctant—let alone enthusiastic—apparatuses of the state. The impetus and energy for developing free press systems in Central Asia are primarily external. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the region has been under pressure, mostly from the United States and Western Europe, to create and sustain "free press" systems essential to civil society. To a great extent, such external advocacy manifested the neo-conservative U.S. foreign policy ideology promulgated by former President George W. Bush and his advisors. Their interest was to democratize authoritarian nations when politically and economically expedient, as in oiland mineral-rich Central Asia. Intensive Western efforts to encourage marketor advertising-supported media in former communist nations generally succeeded in Eastern and Central Europe. Such efforts failed in Central Asia, where media generally lack mass audiences and economic resources to attract advertisers and support the free market concept of news as a commodity. Supporters and funders of democratic press projects in the region include the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars; British Broadcasting Corporation; Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; Civic Education Project (Soros Foundation); International Research and Exchanges Board; Cable News Network; Freedom House; Internews; and the International Center for Journalists. Other NGOs, such as the Committee to Protect Journalists, Amnesty International, International PEN, Reporters Sans Frontières, and Human Rights Watch do not directly engage in journalism education and training but monitor press freedom and advocate against harsh restraints. Some regimes recognize advantages of modernizing media content, even while controlling it, by allowing journalists to learn Western news writing and reporting styles and conventions. Professional writing and reporting skills are useful to journalists, even if they are not permitted to report in an unfettered manner, and to propagandists. Western educators have taught in otherwise tightly controlled newsrooms and universities because of donor nation and funder pressure; allowing democratic journalism trainings to take place presents at least a façade of a commitment to free press systems. Yet it remains relatively easy for authorities to censor media content that is too reflective of Western news values and reporting conventions. That is particularly true if content criticizes the regime or other powerful interests. Journalists are often punished for stories they print or broadcast. Not surprisingly, self-censorship remains a domineering force, even in the absence of official censorship. We now discuss the Soviet colonial period and its influence on contemporary Central Asian media.

Ispitivanje dokumenata vezanih za rad Jovana Rajića na polju retorike u Pokrovo-Bogorodičnoj školi, na prvom mestu još neproučenog rukopisa udžbenika koji je napisao za ovaj predmet, pokazuje da je on napustio priručnike iz retorike barokne, jezuitske i kijevske tradicije, i oslonio se na postbarokna retorička dela nemačkih protestantskih autora s početka XVIII stoleća. To su pre svega ona J. G. Hajnekea i H. Frajera, predstavnika racionalizma u retoričkoj teoriji, u prvom slučaju klasicističke, u drugom pijetističke provenijencije. Time je Rajić nastavu retorike reformisao u duhu ranoprosvetiteljskih intelektualnih i literarnih strujanja. Pored izbegavanja tipičnih baroknih retoričkih fenomena, to je konkretno učinio tako što je u svoj udžbenik, pisan na latinskom, uneo slovensku retoričku terminologiju i primere iz moderne književnosti i usmene tradicije služeći se ćirilicom koja je vrlo bliska građanskoj, pa i za navode iz crkvenih tekstova. Predavanja iz crkvene retorike nemačkog prosvetiteljskog propovednika J. L. fon Mozhajma koja je predvideo za ovaj segment nastave, deo su iste Rajićeve koncepcije. Budući da je prosvetiteljstvo u delima Rajićeve zrelosti bilo zapravo hrišćanski klasični humanizam, za to vreme konzervativno, ova njegova delatnost pokazuje da je u on u svom ranom, civilnom periodu bio blizak i mnogo avangardnijim prosvetiteljskim konceptima. Ona takođe svedoči da on nije bio bezuslovno rusofilski kulturno orijentisan. ; This paper is based on analysis of previously non-researched documents of work of great Serbian theologian, historian and poet Jovan Rajić (1726-1801) in the field of rhetoric from the time when he was professor and director of Serbian-Latin high school in Karlovci called Pokrovo-Bogorodična. These documents are in the first place his rhetoric textbook Brevis et succinna manudictio in universam oratoriam, written in 1761-2., as well as his reports of lectures and of exams. Rajić's frequent messages of importance of education in the works of his maturity were in fact expression of his Christian classical humanism, not of contemporary secular enlightenment, ideas of which he, as a cleric, could not accept, but in this rhetorical activity, in his early, civil period, he showed openness to more avantgarde enlightenment concepts. Writing his rhetorical textbook Rajić didn't take the road of Kievian rhetorical textbooks, as it would be expected with regard to confessional factor. He inclines to classicistic avoiding of baroque rhetorical ideas and phenomena (as emphasizing the role of tropes and figures, particularly of metaphor, as well as of poetic principle of acumen) and also of typical expressions of baroque culture (symbols, emblems, hieroglyphs etc.). Post-baroque character of Rajić's rhetoric textbook comes from his main models and those are Prussian and Protestant, as well as recent and untypical. In the circumstances when Habsburg government tried to impose to the Serbs Roman Catholic educational system and to ruin their educational links with Russia, it is quite clear the choice of these models as by the author himself, who was Russophile critically oriented toward Roman Catholicism, as by archbishop-metropolitan Pavle Nenadović, great supporter of improving Serbian education, who ordered this work. Before he started to write his rhetoric manual, when he had already taken on the teaching of rhetoric, Rajić put out of using the widely spread textbook of Jesuit Cipriano Suárez (Soarius) and also Kievian textbooks, primarily leant on it. As it shows Rajić's teaching report, instead of those, he introduced the textbook which would be for him one of main models for writing his own. It is Fundamenta stili cultioris of Johann Gottlieb Heineke (alias Heineccius). Beside this work Rajić used also two another - Oratoria in tabulas compendiarias redacta of Hieronymus Freyer and Elementa oratoria of Johann Friedrich Burg. By taking Heineke as model Rajić gave classicistic character to his rhetoric textbook because this very famous rhetorician in XVIII century first of all insists on linguistic and stylistic ideals of purity, especially in respect of using tropes and figures. Burg is much dependant on Freyer, but he is more conservative because his textbook conforms to some baroque rhetorical customs (great space for tropes and figures) and has ecclesiastical orientation (examples from Bible alike those from classical and modern profane literature). Rajić follows Burg in these specific elements, but on the other side he leans Freyer who is the most modern of his models and exerted the most characteristic influence on him. As one of representatives of educational reforms in Prussia Freyer promoted using the maternal (German) language in teaching rhetoric instead of Latin by translating rhetorical terms and giving examples also from domestic literature. Rajić translated in Serbian literary language of that time, Russian-Church-Slavonic, some of basic rhetorical terms and in the same language gave majority of examples from Bible and some from other sources. Moreover, he put in his manual some examples in the vernacular Serbian language from oral tradition. In regard to this Rajić's rhetorical work belongs to the early enlightenment rhetoric textbooks. Besides, the leaning on these recent Prussian models made Rajić's rhetorical manual advance guard of educational reforms in Habsburg Empire which would start in next decade under the influence of Prussian recipes. As former Russian student Rajić certainly had to know such important rhetorical work as Ritorika of Mikhail V. Lomonosov, but in translating rhetorical terms he was independent, although in some details it is possible to see Rajić's closeness with Lomonosov, particularly in using civil Cyrillic letters, even in the Biblical quotations. In regard to this Rajić went on furthest in enlightenment orientation of his rhetoric textbook because of Serbian reserve concerning reform of Cyrillic letters in that time and also because the next Serbian rhetoric textbook, written by Avram Mrazović in Russian-Church-Slavonic six decades later, was printed in old, ecclesiastical Cyrillic letters. Rajić's reform of teaching of rhetoric in Pokrovo-Bogorodična school in the direction of early enlightenment rhetorical theory also covered the field of Church rhetoric. Instead of writing about this topic in his textbook, or in another separated textbook, he planned to use the lectures of Church rhetoric that he had noted during his high-school days and so he made the new, clean copy of them in the same manuscript with his rhetoric textbook. These lectures were based on the rhetorical theory of the first great German enlightenment Church preacher J. L. von Mosheim.

AbstractIntroduction: Hard Rock Miners Phthisis in 19th and Early 20th Century Britain: From Diagnosis to CompensationByFredric MintzDoctor of Philosophy in HistoryProfessor Thomas Laqueur, ChairThe development of new technologies and new patterns of working were indispensable to the accelerated economic growth, which characterized most of nineteenth century Britain. For much of that period the demand for raw siliceous containing materials increased sharply. In this process, equipment, which was ever more sophisticated, generated increasingly fine and more harmful siliceous dust, increasing early disability and death in mines and quarries as well as in numerous other industries. The present study examines the elaboration of silicosis, the disease, and the development of social policy directed at its prevention and compensation from the 1830s until 1918. I concentrate mainly on the nineteenth century and the twentieth century until 1907. In 1907, the law recognized that an occupational disease was a notional injury and a few became compensable. Others, including silicosis were certain to follow. Both the etiological elaboration and prevention of silicosis, and, ultimately compensating its sufferers occurred over a very long period. My major subject is the causes of this time lag. While this study emphasizes mining and quarrying, workers in siliceous industries outside of these occupations had the same issues.Others have reviewed the nature of medical practice in the nineteenth century but medical interest or disinterest in occupational disease during that period has only received cursory coverage. Indeed, this is characteristic of the slighting of occupational disease as opposed sanitation by historians during most of the period I have studied. While some investigators have alluded to the early public health emphasis on worker well-being, I also address how occupational health became a secondary consideration for most of the nineteenth century, despite its promise of achieving as much as ―Chadwickian‖ sanitation, at much less cost. In this, Chadwick and his coterie of second-generation utilitarians with their stress on engineering as opposed to medical investigation were largely responsible.The government created commissions and committees to learn more about occupational health conditions. However, it appears that it offered these, without much intent to follow through, but rather, as a temporarily sop to placate those with a special interest in the subject. This work studies in more depth than others of which I am aware, the 1862-64 Commission of the Condition Of All Mines In Great Britain To Which The Provisions Of The Act 23 & 24 Victoria Do Not Apply (coal mines). During those proceedings, I found that the etiology and partial prevention of silicosis were clearly established. This information was relegated to the blue books for reasons that I also investigate. When interest in silicosis revived, there was little or no reference to this work.2Students of the subject have noted that in the 1880s British medicine was anecdotal and derived from experience in private practice. I have attempted to show how this influenced the elaboration of a specific disease, silicosis. In addition, medical teaching, membership in societies and with an interest in some aspect of medicine, (very likely, what submissions were accepted to medical journals as well) were controlled by a metropolitan medical elite with little or no scientific, social or pecuniary interest in the diseases of miners. This view was transmitted to general practitioners as well. Another aspect of the present work, different from most, has involved a careful reading of all the issues of The Lancet and The British Medical Journals from 1864 through 1906. I found relatively few articles relating to silicosis, confirming that the readers` level of interest was not very great. In addition to demonstrating a paucity of articles about miners` lung disease, these journals also reported on the controversial role of tuberculosis in the elaboration of silicosis. Failure to scientifically address this debate significantly delayed compensating for and preventing silicosis. Additionally, I show that the journals revealed a terminological obfuscation that made the understanding of what silicosis was, very difficult. Various authors commented on this confusion but their criticism does not appear to have resulted in any editorial attempt to rectify the problem (assuming that any editorial intervention existed). The science of statistics was in advance of other medical tools and did provoke some interest in silicosis but the journals and reports of the commissions also show how statistics were manipulated to minimize the incidence of silicosis.Moreover, organizations presumably having a keen interest in the etiology and prevention of silicosis (and its compensation) were often, themselves, a source for the lag. These included unions, mine and quarry owners, both the Liberal and Conservative Parties, the public health establishment and, to a lesser extent, the mining and quarry inspectorate. Most work on this subject studies the post-WWI period. This work shows that these organizations had distinctly different attitudes about compensation legislation than they held the in the twentieth century. In the process of arriving at the correct etiology of silicosis, and, as a result, whether it should be indemnified, all interested parties picked through what was on offer to patch together some commonality of position that had little to do with any adherence to an overall structure, coherency or rational knowledge. Inevitably, their motives were an admixture of highly parochial and shortsighted deliberations and considerations that were more altruistic. Any attempt on the part of various parties to act in unison was a material and a practical matter and had little to do with systematic logic. The authority of the interested organizations related to the power that sustained them and to what was required to disrupt them and bring about fragmentation. In this process, as Bruno Latour has pointed out, the content of what was achieved, always involved fusion with the context. This work concludes that when problems resist timely solutions, the reasons are always multiple and that they shift over time without result until a reconciliation of various social and cultural differences becomes possible. In fact, reconciliation did occur despite the fact that the motivations of the negotiating parties were contradictory.

Unter dem Einfluss des Agrarstrukturwandels reagieren gemischt land- und forstwirtschaftliche Betriebe mit sehr individuellen Lösungen um neue Einkommensquellen zu erschließen. Deren Eckpunkte werden einerseits durch die Aufgabe des landwirtschaftlichen Betriebsteils und andererseits durch die Vergrößerung der Nutzflächen markiert. Zwischen diesen "Extremen" hat sich eine große Bandbreite von Bewirtschaftungsformen und Eigentümerzielen herausgebildet. Vor diesem Hintergrund liegt die Intention der vorliegenden Arbeit darin, Muster für verschiedene waldbäuerliche Strategien zu erkennen und darzustellen, um daraus Hinweise für die Gestaltung differenzierter forstpolitischer Instrumente der Förderung im bäuerlichen Privatwald abzuleiten. Die Datenbasis der vorliegenden Untersuchung wird durch das Testbetriebsnetz Kleinprivatwald der Forstlichen Versuchs- und Forschungsanstalt Baden-Württemberg bereitgestellt. Für die Jahre 1998 bis 2002 konnten Daten von 148 konstant teilnehmenden Forstbetrieben zwischen 5 und 200 Hektar ausgewertet werden. Diese Kennzahlen lassen sich in die drei Hauptgruppen "betriebliche Strukturdaten", "Naturaldaten" und "finanzielle bzw. operative Daten" einteilen. Hierauf aufbauend greift der methodische Ansatz der Clusteranalyse den Grundgedanken einer strukturierenden Typisierung der vielfältigen Erscheinungsformen bäuerlicher Waldbewirtschaftung auf - das Ergebnis: eine Gruppierungen von Betrieben, die in wesentlichen sozialen, strukturellen und ökonomischen Charakteristika eine so weitgehende Übereinstimmung aufweisen, dass sie von anderen Gruppen unterschieden werden können. Durch dieses Verfahren konnten vier Gruppen (Cluster) identifiziert werden, die sich in der Mehrzahl der untersuchten Variablen signifikant voneinander unterscheiden. Diese Gruppen werden daraufhin im Spiegel einer soziologisch ausgerichteten Befragung zu den motivationalen Einstellungen der Waldbesitzer zusätzlich diskutiert und validiert. Zur Ergebnisdarstellung wurden die Cluster mit Kurzbezeichnungen wie "Forstprofis", "konventionell landwirtschaftliche Betriebe", "ideell interessierte Landnutzer" und "naturräumlich begünstigte Betriebe mit überdurchschnittlicher Nutzungsintensität" versehen. Für das Cluster der "Forstprofis" spielt das Einkommen aus Waldbewirtschaftung eine herausragende Rolle. Die Forderung nach Liquidität gestattet den "Forstprofis" auch bei schlechter Holzmarktlage keine Einschlagszurückhaltung. Sie haben ihre Bestände in den letzten 40 Jahren vermehrt mit Mischbaumarten verjüngt. Die "konventionell landwirtschaftlichen Betriebe" verfügen über das Potenzial, um als landwirtschaftliche Haupterwerbsbetriebe bestehen zu können. Mit dem höchsten Anteil forstlicher Eigenarbeit weisen sie eine günstige Kostenstruktur auf. Das waldbauliche Verhalten dieses Clusters ist eher konservativ. Das Kollektiv der "ideell interessierten Landnutzer" zeigt eine hohe Bereitschaft zur Abwanderung aus dem primären Sektor. Sie verfügen nur über beschränkte Einschlagskapazitäten und weisen eine ungünstige Ertrags- und Kostenstruktur auf. Durch die - noch vorhandene - hohe emotionale Verbundenheit mit ihrem Waldbesitz bestehen für dieses Cluster - noch - gute Beratungsmöglichkeiten für die Umsetzung von Maßnahmen des naturnahen Waldumbaus. Das Cluster der "naturräumlich begünstigten Betriebe mit überdurchschnittlicher Nutzungsintensität" findet gute Wuchs- und Bewirtschaftungsbedingungen sowohl im land- wie auch im forstwirtschaftlichen Betriebsteil vor. Auf "Hochleistungsstandorten" erbringt die Baumart Fichte hohe Erträge und bleibt auch unter den verjüngten Baumarten die Nummer eins. Die familiären Arbeitskapazitäten konnten die "Begünstigten" ihren hohen zufälligen und planmäßigen Nutzungen entsprechend anpassen. Eine Gegenüberstellung der durch die Clusteranalyse ermittelten Gruppen mit verschiedenen univariaten Typisierungen bestätigt die Ausgangshypothese, dass der Einsatz multivariater statistischer Methoden ein Bild der bäuerlichen Waldwirtschaft zeichnen kann, das der Vielfalt an Erscheinungsformen und den veränderten Rahmenbedingungen besser Rechnung trägt als univariate Typisierungen. Eine grundsätzliche Folgerung hieraus lautet, dass forstliche Förderung effizienter sein kann, wenn sie sich noch mehr als bisher an den spezifischen Erfordernissen ihrer Zielgruppen orientiert. Diese lassen sich nicht durch einzelne Merkmale wie Betriebsgröße, -form oder regionale Zugehörigkeit bestimmen. Auf Basis der identifizierten Cluster werden abschließend differenzierte Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten von aktuell existierenden Instrumentarien forstlicher Förderung aufgezeigt. ; Under the impact of the ongoing agrarian structural transformation process, the mixed farm forest enterprises reacted with very individual solutions in order to develop new sources of income. The extent of these solutions is marked by abandonment of the agricultural part of the farm on the one hand and by expansion of the production area on the other. A large spread of management techniques and owner's objectives has established itself in-between these two "extremes". Against this background, the objective of this study lies in identifying and describing patterns of various farm-forest strategies, in order to derive information about the design of differentiated forest policy promotion instruments in smale-scale private forestry. The data base of the present research is provided by the Small-Scale Forestry Accountancy Network of the Forest Research Institute of Baden-Württemberg. For the years 1998 to 2002, data was evaluated from 148 consistently participating forest enterprises managing between 5 and 200 ha of timberland. These data can be divided into the three main groups of "structural data of enterprise", "natural data", and "financial or operational data respectively". Based on these groups, the methodical approach of a cluster analysis takes up the basic idea of a structuring classification of the varied appearances of farm-forest management. The analysis establishes groups of enterprises that show such large similarities in essential social, structural, and economic characteristics so as to be distinguishable from other groups. In this way, the present study identifies the Clusters of "forest professionals", "conventional agricultural farms", "idealistically interested land users" and "geographically favoured enterprises with above average utilisation intensity". These groups are then discussed and validated through an independent interview about the motivational attitudes of the forest owners. Income derived from forestry plays an important role for the "forest professionals" cluster. The requirement of financial liquidity does not allow the "forest professionals" to restrain their timber harvests during poor timber market conditions. In the last 40 years, they have increasingly regenerated their stands with mixed species. The "conventional agricultural farms" have the potential to subsist as farms whose primary income is derived from agriculture. Having the highest proportion of active forestry work, they show a favourable cost structure. The silvicultural behaviour of this cluster is rather conservative by comparison. The collective of the "idealistically interested land users" shows a high willingness to drift away from the primary income sector (agriculture and forestry). The "idealists" have limited timber harvest capacities as well as an unfavourable yield and cost structure. Good consulting opportunities for the implementation of close-to-nature forest conversion measures still exist for this cluster because of the owner's remaining strong emotional ties to their forest property. The cluster of the "geographically favoured enterprises with above average utilisation intensity" displays good growing and management conditions both in the agricultural as well as the forestry parts of the enterprise. Norway spruce provides high yields and remains the number one regenerated tree species on "high performance sites". The "favoured enterprises" were able to adapt the family's labour capacity in correspondence with their high levels of incidental and planned timber harvests. A comparison of the cluster analysis groups with various univariate classifications confirms the initial hypothesis that the application of multivariate statistical methods can paint a picture of farm-forest management that better accounts for the diversity of appearances and the changing general conditions than univariate classifications. A fundamental conclusion derived from this is that the promotion of forestry can be more efficient, if it is more closely oriented towards the target groups than before. These target groups in turn can no longer be solely classified along such characteristics as enterprise size, enterprise type, or regional affiliation. For this reason, differentiated development potentials of currently existing instruments of forestry promotion are shown in conclusion.

This thesis investigates two important and related aspects of Roman history during the period 217 B.C. - A.D. 70. Salient types of social legislation, in particular the leges sumptuariae, funerariae, aleariae, marital and sexual laws and magisterial edicts, form one element of the inquiry. The reasons for, and the extent of, the public regulation of the personal expenditure and private behaviour of citizens are explored under the changing political circumstances of the period. Another concern is to analyse the development of a prominent theme in the classical writers and historians, namely, the perspective of moral decline. The deep-rooted and pervasive pessimism evident in the historiographical tradition during a period of exceptional prosperity and imperial expansion is critically examined. The interaction between law and morality is a principal focus of this thesis. In chapter 1 (10-30), the general themes of the work are introduced. A review of the relevant scholarly literature is followed by a brief exposition of my methodology and objectives (11-13). Then a chronological survey of the important social regulations passed during the Republic and early Principate is provided (13-17). Chapter 2 (31-72) probes the ways in which legal enactments were presented both within governing circles and to the populace at large. The public interest was frequently invoked. Paternalistic concern, it is argued, was often advanced for that which was essentially self-regarding (31-36). A succinct account of the debate on decline in classical authors leads to a consideration of the mos maiorum (ancestral custom) and the role of myth in Roman historiography (36-46). The contemporary dispute between liberal and radical scholarship on the nature and function of law in society is summarized (46-50). In Ancient Rome, it is contended, the governing order's preferential access to the channels of public discussion was of decisive importance. It facilitated the expression of an ideological perspective which served to promote widespread acceptance of its legislative needs, as is exemplified by the passage of sumptuary controls so necessary for the well-being of the senatorial aristocracy in the second century B.C. (50-52). The socio-economic significance of Roman sumptuary laws is examined in chapter 3 (73-163). The main discussion is prefaced by a typology of sumptuary laws, designed to account for the existence of expenditure restraint in widely differing political systems (73-75). The inquiry proceeds, firstly, to investigate those regulations (esp. the iura and 1eges theatrales) which had a direct bearing on the structure of Roman society and, then, to explore the complexity of problems that the maintenance of this formal framework entailed for the authorities in periods of rapid social and economic change. A consideration of powerful social pressures and forces such as envy, emulative consumption and mobility, is complemented by a discussion of the diverse strategies employed by the Roman authorities to uphold hierarchical distinctions (75-107). Profit-capping, price-fixing, monopolies and rationing form diverse topics of an inquiry into the economic objectives of sumptuary restraint (108-119), Status requirements and the spiralling cost of political competition are held to account tor the divorce between the attitudes and practice of the members of the governing order with regard to luxus and Hellenistic practices (119-128). A detailed inspection of the sumptuary legislation passed during the Republic provides the core or chapter (164-210). The laws are assessed under separate categories, e.g. leges de sumptibus et de luxu mensae, funerariae, de habitu et tuitu, viariae (164-182). The techniques by which the aristocracy endeavoured to preserve cohesion amongst its ranks and thus to uphold its collective rule are scrutinized 182-2. In chapter 5 (211-259), attention is focused on how the Roman authorities attempted to compel obedience to these measures. The operation of extra-legal constraints is discussed c 211-2l4). A hypothesis of the development of Roman criminal law from its origins through to the early Principate is advanced with particular emphasis on the significance of senatorial participation in the juridical process and on the need to define accurately the competency of individual magistracies (214-239). The use of private informers (quadruplatores in the Republic, delatores in the Empire) is critically assessed (239-243). In chapter 6 (260-288), opinions and actions at variance with the conservative orthodoxy on historical development are evaluated. Resistance to sumptuary restraint surfaced in a variety of ways: in the formal abrogation of a measure; in technical dodges; in outright defiance (260-268). The ambivalences between publicly expressed ideals of conduct and actual practice came to a head in the adjudicative processes of the court. The mechanisms of forensic practice served to provoke maturer reflections on social change (269-273). Roman attitudes towards change are surveyed. It is argued that divergent opinions on ancestral tradition and on the propriety of innovation were often advanced in opposition to overzealous attempts at sumptuary restraint or in pursuit of specific political goals (269-279). Chapter 7 (289-329) concludes the work with a historical appraisal of the coincidence between the passage of sumptuary legislation and the debate on moral decline. Three major developments in the functioning of this coincidence are outlined: (1), its use as a regulatory device by the senatorial aristocracy from the early 2nd century B.C. onwards; (2), its use as a crucial source of legitimation by the aspiring politician-generals of the 1st century B.C.; (3), its use as a key disciplinary tactic by the imperial regimes from Augustus onwards (289-307). Finally, serious governmental incursions into central areas of social life during the early Principate - the suppression of criticism, legal scrutiny of knowledge and belief, restrictions on assemblage - are examined, and interpreted as evidencing the autocratic tendencies of the period (308-315). Four short appendices follow (330-361): the first outlines the major theories of decline (330-333): the second explores the terminology of inequality (334-339; the third surveys the major perspectives on social change (340-342); the fourth documents the manifestations of luxury in Roman society (343-361).

A recent Supreme Court ruling clarified why the Court
allowed Louisiana fall congressional elections to continue under a map declared
unconstitutional, and increased the chances this will be the only such
election this decade that will have a two majority-minority district map.

In Alexander v.
South Carolina State Conference, the Court ruled that a congressional
map that otherwise didn't violate traditional principles of reapportionment,
such as compactness and contiguity of districts, did not have to have the proportion
of M/M districts somewhat equivalent to the proportion of minority race (almost
always black, but sometimes others) residents in the state if the legislature wished
to draw districts to maximize partisan advantage even if incidentally related
to racial division in voting. This launched panic among leftist
and far
left commentators because it signaled that in reapportionment disputes the Court
no longer would permit the left's and Democrats' shadow agenda to remain in the
shadows.

That is, those forces try to gain partisan
advantage in reapportionment by equating maps that give them that as necessary
to prevent racial discrimination, made possible because for the past half-century
blacks typically have voted overwhelmingly for candidate of the left, almost
always black candidates. This has been tolerated because courts for decades had
made the presumption that racial prejudice against a minority group had to lay
behind any reapportionment decision that did not draw district majorities roughly
proportional to that group's proportion in the population, and so to do this
required satisfying certain criteria that didn't include partisan advantage as
a mitigating factor.

But with this most recent decision, not only does partisanship
become a mitigating factor, it becomes the base assumption that henceforth
challenges to maps must demonstrate doesn't apply in order to be successful;
so, now it's not a matter of the defense disproving that race influenced the map-making
process, but that the plaintiffs disprove partisanship didn't play a role. Or,
another way of looking at it, it short-circuits reliance on the Voting Rights
Act by sending claims first through the Fourteenth Amendment, which the
judiciary (after decades of dancing around the question) has determined doesn't
address partisan gerrymandering.

That well may have an impact on Callais v.
Landry, which dumped the two M/M map Louisiana had offered up to replace
the one M/M map put on preliminary hold by another district court, because that
other court said the state's population of one-third black-identifying needed
to be reflected as two M/M out of six districts. Even though that case has
declared the two M/M map enacted earlier this year as unconstitutional and
speedily enough to impose a remedy that may have been a one M/M map, citing
previous cases the Court said it was too late to switch to a one M/M map with
fall elections looming.

At the time, the left
seemed somewhat perplexed at why that invocation was done at the behest of
the six Republican-appointed Court justices and opposed by the three appointed
by Democrats; after all, this locked in a two M/M district map when a one M/M
map might have been the product of continued lower court scrutiny on a fast
track. It couldn't see, or perhaps couldn't admit publicly, that this meant the
Court would use this case over the next year to review and circumscribe the
Voting Rights Act insofar as it has been interpreted to give race a privileged
position in evaluating the legality of plans.

Now we know exactly why: the Court majority – the
same one that stayed Callais against the same minority that objected –
was days away from reconfiguring the precedence of partisanship and race in the
scheme of evaluating claims about maps. It didn't want the lower court to make
decisions without the input of Alexander or even have that opportunity,
as it has become clearer now that the Court wants to have a say in this matter.
Indeed, not only could Callais become invoked as part of a case, if not
the case, that invalidates the part of the VRA that is called upon to elevate
race above all criteria, it could (if
Assoc. Justice Clarence Thomas has his way) junk the entire law.

(The whole reliance of race as proxy for partisanship
may have had its run anyway. With Republican former Pres. Donald
Trump for this fall sloughing
off minority voters unprecedented for a Republican candidate in over six
decades, VRA arguments about black but especially Hispanic solidarity in
preferred candidacies become less convincing to elevate race's status in
reapportionment and adds fuel to Assoc. Justice Brett Kavanaugh's hint
to bring a case that results in declaring this impact of the VRA timebound.)

So, the far left has gone ballistic because it
knows it no longer can dress partisanship up as anti-racism to win rulings
favorable to increasing the number of Democrats in elective plenary offices.
Instead, it has to win elections, in order to control the institutions that
could produce partisan gerrymanders that don't lapse into racial
gerrymandering, which it increasingly has come to recognize it can't as it is
disarmed intellectually compared to conservative appeals and must sustain any success
using highly emotive appeals backstopped by institutions that attempt to filter
information so as to support leftist agendas.

Ironically, had Louisiana not ditched the 2022 single
M/M map that never had a trial over its merits it could defend much more easily
that map today and it well may have been the one in effect for this fall's
elections. In response, it at its earliest opportunity the Legislature should respond
to Callais
as it had previously in the similar situation: say the map didn't withstand
judicial scrutiny – in fact, this time as a result of a trial on the merits –
trash it, but this time produce a single M/M map based upon partisan
considerations and then dare challengers to produce a map without five
majority-white districts that doesn't also tip the scales towards electing five
Republicans, as
by Alexander.

Ignore the left's caterwauling over a decision
grounded firmly in stare decisis and logic. Forge ahead with a plan to
make Louisiana's congressional districts commonsensical given its demography –
a single M/M map – that reflects voter preferences.

Several key architects of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq 21 years ago are presenting a plan for rebuilding and "de-radicalizing" the surviving population of Gaza, while ensuring that Israel retains "freedom of action" to continue operations against Hamas and Islamic Jihad.The plan, which was published as a report Thursday by the hard-line neo-conservative Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, or JINSA, and the Vandenberg Coalition, is calling for the creation of a private entity, the "International Trust for Gaza Relief and Reconstruction" to be led by "a group of Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates" and "supported by the United States and other nations."With regard to Palestinian participation, the report by the "Gaza Futures Task Force," envisages an advisory board "composed primarily of non-Hamas Gazans from Gaza, the West Bank, and diaspora." In addition, the Palestinian Authority, which is based on the West Bank, "should be consulted in, and publicly bless," the creation of the Trust while itself undergoing a process of "revamping."In addition to granting Israel license to intervene against Hamas and Islamic Jihad within Gaza, the plan calls for security to be provided by the Trust's leaders and "capable forces from non-regional states with close ties to Israel," as well as "vetted Gazans." The Trust should also be empowered to "hire private security contractors with good reputations among Western militaries" in "close coordination with Israeli security forces," according to the report.The task force that produced the report consists of nine members, four of whom played key roles as Middle East policymakers under former President George W. Bush and in the run-up to and aftermath of the disastrous Iraq invasion in 2003. The group is chaired by John Hannah, who served as deputy national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney from 2001 to 2005 and then as Cheney's national security advisor (2005-2009), replacing Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who resigned his position after being indicted for perjury. Libby, who was later given a full pardon by former President Donald Trump, is also a member of the Gaza task force. Another prominent member of the task force is the founder and chairman of the hawkish Vandenberg Coalition, Elliott Abrams, who served as the senior director for Near East and North African Affairs in the National Security Council under Bush from 2002 to 2009 and more recently as the Special Envoy for Venezuela and Iran under Trump. Ironically, Abrams, who also served as the NSC's Senior Director for Democracy under Bush, played a key role in supporting an attempted armed coup by Hamas's chief rival, Fatah, in 2007 after Hamas swept the 2006 Palestinian elections. The coup attempt sparked a brief but bloody civil war in Gaza, which eventually resulted in Hamas' consolidation of power in the Strip.Amb. Eric Edelman (ret.), a fourth member of the task force, served as Cheney's principal deputy national security adviser from 2001 to 2003 and then as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the number three position at the Pentagon, under Rumsfeld and his successor, Robert Gates, from 2005 to 2009, as U.S. troops struggled to contain the mainly Sunni resistance to the U.S. occupation in Iraq.In addition to their collaboration during the Bush administration, the four men have long been associated with strongly pro-Israel neoconservative groups, having served on the boards or in advisory positions for such organizations and think tanks as the Hudson Institute, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the ultra-hawkish Center for Security Policy, as well as the Vandenberg Coalition and JINSA. Indeed, such groups have promoted policies that have been generally aligned with those of the Likud Party led by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.Thus, the report's "key findings" prioritize as considerations: [these are quotes]restoring the deterrence and security needs of Israel, both for its own people and its standing as a powerful regional ally and essential component of resisting Iran's ambitions; and dismantling Hamas as a military and governing force and protecting against its reconstitution through Israel's continued freedom of action against it and against Palestinian Islamic Jihad; and by de-militarizing, de-radicalizing, and improving conditions in Gaza such that major terrorist attacks like October 7 can't and won't happen again…Its proposed Trust, according to the report, should involve the United States and concerned states that accept Israel's role in the region" and "should provide the humanitarian assistance and help to restore essential services and rebuild civil society in Gaza as intense combat and over subsequent months. Its activities should be governed by an international board composed of 3 to 7 representatives from the key states supporting the Trust, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others. At least one notable omission from the list is Qatar, which has provided tens billions of dollars in assistance to Gaza over the last decade.In an echo of Washington's disastrous de-Baathification campaign in occupied Iraq, the report puts special stress on "deradicalization" efforts. "The Trust, recognizing that years of radicalization by Hamas has complicated the task of reforming and restoring Gaza, should focus on a long-term program for deradicalizing the media, schools and mosques," according to the report which adds that "Gazans and the Gazan diaspora should play an active role in developing and implementing these plans, alongside the Trust's Arab members who have hands-on experience in successful deradicalization efforts in their own societies." Such efforts in Gaza, it goes on, could "serve as a model to encourage a similar program there that will be essential if a credible two-state solution is to be revived."The task force urges the Trust to coordinate with other states' efforts and with those of NGOs and international organizations, including the United Nations. But, in an echo of a key Likud talking point, "it should recognize that the activities of UNRWA serve to perpetuate and deepen the Palestinian crisis." The report said UNRWA's immediate assistance in providing relief may be necessary, but "plans to replace it with local Palestinian institutions or other international organizations committed to peace should be developed and implemented."All of these efforts should be pursued within the more general context of countering "Iran's aggressive campaign to derail regional peace efforts, including by constraining the threat posed by Hezbollah and resuming progress toward normalizing Israel and Saudi Arabia," according to the report.