Suchergebnisse

Fluid and viscous landscapes -- Landscape, identity, and estrangement -- Landscapes and the city: event, knowledge, representation -- Landscapes and theatricality -- Landscapes and bodies -- Contested landscapes.

The chapters in this volume canvass political change and development across the Pacific Islands from a variety of perspectives, each contributing to the analysis of a region growing in complexity and in confidence. They fall neatly into three sections: Oceania and its Inheritance; Oceania – Current Needs and Challenges; and Oceania and its Wider Setting. The new states of the Pacific have demonstrated considerable resilience, and in many cases, an extraordinary capacity to bounce back from difficulty and to maintain optimism for the future. The continuing professionalisation of public management across the region is building on that tradition. The growth of civil society organisations is also beginning to play a positive role in policy and implementation. Donors are becoming more coherent in their strategies, more attuned to the realities of generating development outcomes in small island states, and are beginning to acknowledge and map progress.

This book explores these themes of governance, development and security that signal both continuity and change in the Pacific's pattern of islands.

Discusses two kinds of question: (a) problems which Brazilian society experiences in striving to consolidate a democratic political order, and which to some extent are problems shared with other Third World nations; and (b) universal dilemmas which confront democracy in the relationships between politics and bureaucracy. (PFB)

The chapters in this volume canvass political change and development across the Pacific Islands from a variety of perspectives, each contributing to the analysis of a region growing in complexity and in confidence. They fall neatly into three sections: Oceania and its Inheritance; Oceania – Current Needs and Challenges; and Oceania and its Wider Setting. The new states of the Pacific have demonstrated considerable resilience, and in many cases, an extraordinary capacity to bounce back from difficulty and to maintain optimism for the future. The continuing professionalisation of public management across the region is building on that tradition. The growth of civil society organisations is also beginning to play a positive role in policy and implementation. Donors are becoming more coherent in their strategies, more attuned to the realities of generating development outcomes in small island states, and are beginning to acknowledge and map progress. This book explores these themes of governance, development and security that signal both continuity and change in the Pacific's pattern of islands.

Although the politics of fear is not a new tool used by governments for political gain, it's application to asylum seekers reaching Australia has been intensified since the 1990s. This article broadly traces the use of the politics of fear between the late 1990's and 2001 and its negative impact on asylum seekers. Between this period, the Australian government has negatively portrayed asylum seekers as people who associate with 'criminals' and/or 'potential terrorists' and who are not worthy of Australia's compassion and assistance. Through the creation of a sense of anxiety and insecurity against the arrival asylum seekers, substantial changes were made to Australia's asylum polices, which continue to provide a significant barrier for asylum seekers to overcome. It is argued that such a negative portrayal of asylum seekers are convenient images that are used to 'justify' the governments' intention of curbing the rights of asylum seekers.

This article describes the narratives and projections that shaped the contested character of Hardwar and the river Ganges as symbols par excellence of the Hindus&rsquo ; claim to India&rsquo ; s sacred geography over the last two hundred years. It deliberates on the tactics and practices through which Hardwar&rsquo ; s ancient and legendary status has been employed to assert Hindu identity and territorial claims vis-à ; -vis the colonial administrators, but also to exclude the country&rsquo ; s Muslim and Christian populace. The purifying, divine land of Hardwar enabled the nationalist imagination and struggle for a Hindu India, even as it was instituted as a site for the internal purification of Hinduism itself, to mirror its glorious past. The article describes the contests and claims, based on religion and class, as well as the performance of socio-economic and existential anxieties that the sacred quality of Hardwar and the river Ganges continues to authorize and enable in post-colonial India. For this, we draw particularly on the Kanwar Mela, an annual event in which millions of mostly poor young men carry water from the river Ganges on foot, and often over long distances. We deliberate on the significance of the sacred water, rituals, and the journey in reinforcing these pilgrims&rsquo ; perceptions of the self, and their moral claims over the nation and its territory.

The rôle of consumption cleavages in influencing political behaviour has received a great deal of attention in recent years. This paper argues that some critics have misunderstood the approach as a theory about the direct influence of social circumstances on behaviour, rather than as a theory about the way in which people's perceptions of one another's positions in relation to the means of consumption are articulated by political parties to become bases for political action. Dunleavy has argued that ideas about self-interest in state and private consumption in relation to other people are of the greatest importance in this, while Saunders suggests that the security associated with private property rights has stronger influence. Both these claims are tested with data from a recent national survey. 'Consumption sector' is shown to play a minor but significant rôle in influencing ideas. Part of this influence appears to lie in the social meaning of private property, as Saunders claims. Comparisons of relative advantage across sectoral cleavages, however, contribute little to the explanation of political ideas.

Peter Mayo has a distinguished reputation in the critical sociology of education. In this interview he shares his thoughts on mediocrity and the challenges it poses to political thought and educational principles, particularly in terms of securing a balance between social equity and the kind of quality learning that can play a role in emancipative action. He reflects on the capacity of the work of Antonio Gramsci and Paulo Freire to motivate such action and the potential of Adult Education and truly democratized higher education to secure enhanced "reading [of] the word and the world", while also speaking with candour about the damaging nature of some of mediocrity's processes and effects. ; peer-reviewed

In 2009, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and the OSCE Academy established the Central Asia Data-Gathering and Analysis Team (CADGAT). The purpose of CADGAT is to produce new cross-regional data on Central Asia that can be freely used by researchers, journalists, NGOs and government employees inside and outside the region. The project is managed and the reports are edited by Kristin Fjaestad and Indra Overland at NUPI. ; publishedVersion

The nine essays in this volume by Elizabeth Brown deal with the development of representative institutions and monarchial power in Capetian France. One topic covered is that of the evolution of central assemblies, with case studies of the assemblies held between 1316 and 1321 illuminating the impact of theory on practice. A second topic is that of the moral implications of fiscality and of the attempts by French monarchs to regulate their policies by the teachings of moral philosophy. A particular theme is the Capetians' insistence on reform as a central theme of good government, and their successes and failures living up to their principles. The articles also examine the realm's reactions to the monarchy's ideals and principles, emphasizing and attempting to account for the differences in attitude to government on the part of the ruler and ruled that distinguished medieval France and England.