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ABSTRACT. This essay focuses on the process of 'rebuilding' the Armenian nation in the newly constituted states of the Middle East (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq) in the immediate aftermath of World War I. These efforts were centred on the two largest sectors of the population to have survived the Catastrophe, orphans and familyless (or widowed) women. The essay examines the ideology of 'national reconstruction' and some of its internal contradictions. It pays particular attention to both Armenian women who married Muslims during the deportations and the children born of these marriages, as well as to Armenians who turned to prostitution to survive in the complex conditions prevailing in this period. The author makes use of extensive, previously neglected archival material: for example, correspondence by some of the principal actors, reports written during the process of locating and rounding up Armenian orphans, and documents that shed light on life within the walls of orphanages and women's shelters. The author assembled this archival material in Paris, Beirut, Aleppo, and Cairo, after surveying the contents of various archives.

Charles Taylor argues that recognition begins with the politics of 'self-image,' as groups represented in the past by others in ways harmful to their own identity replace negative historical self-images with positive ones of their own making. Given the centrality of 'self image' to his politics of recognition, it is striking that Taylor, himself, represents disabled people in language that is both limiting and depreciating. The author argues such negative self-images are not unique to Taylor but endemic to modern political thought from John Locke to John Rawls, as the disabled ('irrational' and/or mentally disabled/ill people) are constituted in direct opposition to the rational person and/or citizen. Using contemporary social theories of disability, as articulated by disabled scholars and advocates, the author concludes that such negative self-images (and the binary of autonomy/justice and dependency/charity underpinning them) must be purged from political theory and replaced with an alternative theory of personhood/citizenship rooted in the image of interdependency. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2009.]

The essay sheds light on Aristotle's understanding of friendship and its relation to political life.The author challenges the usual view that Aristotle postulates three distinct kinds of friendship. Instead the author argues that Aristotle understood there to be only one kind of friendship, and that other "friendships" were to Aristotle "unfinished" and thus not friendship at all. Aristotle shows that the relation between friendship and politics is grounded in friendship's possibility for human beings, and not as something cherished for its actuality. By looking at proper friendship as possibility and not actuality, we could only ever interpret the infamous statement attributed to Aristotle—"my friends, there are no friends"—not as illuminating of what friendship is but rather as a nostalgic diagnosis of the decay of the possibility of friendship, and hence of politics. By extension, and more poignantly, interpreting Aristotle's work on friendship in this light, we stand ready to reinterpret the mobilization of Aristotelian friendship for contemporary understandings of democratic practice.

The article analyzes the impact the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and other trade agreements have on access and medicines in Canada and Colombia. The authors main argument is that the U.S. requires the approval of international trade agreements in order to confront competition from other industrialized countries, which is especially the case in times of recession. Then the author provides an introduction summarizing the goal of open markets; discussing the emergence of the World Trade Organization (WTO); and Western Hemisphere free trade agreements. The article is divided into five sections: the role of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in WTO nations and application to medicines; the importance of free trade agreements and IPRs for the U.S.; an overview of the international pharmaceutical sector; the effects of NAFTA re IPRs in Canada; an analysis of the Colombian Trade Promotion Agreement (CTPA) regarding the aforementioned and the Canadian Colombian Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA); and at the end of the article, the author provides some comparative conclusions of the two cases, and excerpts from the respective, corresponding documents throughout the article. Adapted from the source document.

The author characterizes philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's phenomenology as consisting of two epistemologies corresponding to the pre-modern and modern ages. Pre-modern epistemology focused on the unknowable divine, whereas the modern age privileges an empiricism which enshrines a division between the perceiving subject and the object perceived. Modernity's analytical powers break down and cast aside all previous traditions and customs. Hegel's 'Phenomenology' is largely an attempt to reconcile Romanticism's privileging of feeling and the empirical claims of rational science. The work attempts to prove that the unified knowledge of the world sought by science is intimately connected with the scope of faith, and the intelligibility of religion within science. Romanticism contains a revival of a classical perspective, in fact, in its erotic yearning for completion through union with the good and beautiful, which is also found in Plato as the motive for both wisdom and aesthetic and emotional fulfillment. The author explains that Hegel's teleology of historical progress reflects Plato's doctrine of 'recollection.' The 'Phenomenology' is an attempt to regain the naive enchantment of classical philosophy that has been lost to modern rationalism. Adapted from the source document.

Two books at the end of the Blair era—by Michael Barber and Julian Le Grand—offer to redeem the 'third way'. Both authors explore the political case for public sector reform and the means by which it can be accomplished. They explore a similar range of reform models: command and control; quasi‐markets; and devolution and transparency. But the circle between efficiency, client service and continuous improvement must be squared. Neither author considers the 'learning by doing' alternative. No less fundamentally, neither author addresses the political and technical challenges in developing strategy. How are issues to be aired in advance so as to expose evidence and perspectives? How are interests to be engaged and supporting coalitions formed? How are these processes to occur without executive commitment? How are unconventional ideas to be aired without being over‐ruled by populist or media sensationalism? These are the practical dilemmas that confounded Blair's efforts. These books invite a strategic conversation that is badly needed. But where in the political system can it be pursued?

AbstractThis article looks into the situation of human rights activists in Kazakhstan, the challenges they face and the role of international organisations, in particular the OSCE. The article maintains that in the mid-nineties significant change of policy took place and the 'war on terror' put further challenges on human rights defenders and civil societies. In view of the author the advancement of democracy and human rights in the modern world has had four main adversaries: oil, gas, war on terror and geopolitics. These issues increasingly determine decisions taken at all levels, including those related to the ability of the international community to influence the countries where human rights violations happen frequently. Concerning Central Asia, the governments have ratified a number of international treaties on human rights and have joined the United Nations and the OSCE. However, they have failed to meet the majority of their obligations under the ratified international treaties and faced no major consequences for this failure. Internally there is a host of challenges that civil societies face and the author points to a number of frustrations on their part.