As the world continues to urbanize, some cities are fast becoming the focal point of the global economy. These cities are competing to attract talent and investment, deemed necessary for their growth on a global scale. The organization of these flows of financial and human capital has resulted in the constitution of a network of global cities whose power has transcended their national borders.It is in this competitive context, and under the "futuristic vision" of its Ruler, that Dubai has striven to become a leading city and a global key player since the turn of the 21st century, far from the oil economy image usually associated with Gulf cities. This competitive vision has resulted in the completion of a series of mega real estate and infrastructure projects fueled by a synergistic relationship between global and local powers in a particular historical and geographic context. Dubai's ruling elite has invested in an entrepreneurial strategy to promote the city, representing its ultra-capitalist economic vision but at the same time producing a rather fragile and complex urban environment to manage. Thus, the urban development of the city is overtaken by its economic development based on real estate, mass tourism and services, leading to a strong socio-spatial polarization between its different social groups and, inevitably, to its fragmentation, making Dubai a series of cities within the city.However, if Dubai has worked itself onto the global trade network through its infrastructure projects, in particular its Jebel Ali port and its international airport, it seems that the emirate has not yet mastered all the required elements for it to access the club of global cities. In fact, Dubai continues to attract an unskilled labor force as well as a large Arab population seeking refuge from the political and economic instability of their home countries. The same goes for its human capital. The emirate continues to build its economy and reputation by importing knowledge and expertise instead of investing in its core components, namely higher education and research. Thus, this land of freedom for "starchitects" and urban development professionals coupled with the abundance of financial resources of its ruling elite facilitates the "spectacularizing" of real estate megaprojects, which have become symbols of a semblance of urban policies outcomes.The apparent success of Dubai's urban development model, driven by the transnational circulation of knowledge and urban policies, continues to inspire other cities, especially in the Arab world. Yet this model, seen as a simple investment tool, underpins a number of multi-scaled geopolitical objectives. It acts, primarily, as a tool for marketing the emirate beyond its mere status as an oil state. It also aims to support certain Arab political regimes to strengthen the growing role of the United Arab Emirates in the power politics of the Middle East. Lastly, it serves as a soft power tool to facilitate the acceptance of its ruling elite as the vanguard of knowledge on a global scale ; Alors que le monde continue à s'urbaniser, certaines villes deviennent les points de convergence de l'économie mondiale. Ces dernières se font désormais la concurrence pour attirer talents et investissements, jugés nécessaires à leur essor à l'échelle mondiale. Cette organisation de ces flux de capitaux financiers et humains a abouti à la constitution d'un réseau de villes globales dont leur pouvoir a dépassé leurs frontières nationales.C'est dans ce contexte concurrentiel et sous la « vision futuriste » de son souverain, que Dubaï s'est efforcée de devenir une ville de premier rang et un joueur incontournable sur la scène mondiale depuis le début du 21ème siècle loin de son image de ville pétrolière habituellement associée aux villes du Golfe. Cette vision compétitive s'est traduite par la réalisation d'une série de projets immobiliers et d'infrastructure démesurés alimentée par une relation synergique entre forces mondiales et locales dans un contexte historique et géographique assez particulier. L'élite dirigeante de Dubaï s'est investie dans une stratégie de promotion entrepreneuriale de la ville représentant sa vision économique ultra-capitaliste mais en même temps produisant un environnement urbain assez fragile et complexe au niveau de sa gestion. Ainsi, le développement urbain de la ville finit par être dépassé par son développement économique reposant sur l'immobilier, le tourisme de masse et les services, conduisant à une forte polarisation socio-spatiale entre ses différents groupes sociaux et, inévitablement, à sa fragmentation, faisant de Dubaï une série de villes dans la ville.Mais si Dubaï s'est forcée sur le réseau mondial d'échange à travers ses projets d'infrastructure, notamment son port de Jebel Ali et son aéroport international, il nous semble que l'émirat n'a pas encore maitrisé tous les éléments nécessaires pour son accès au club fermé des villes globales. En effet, Dubaï continue à attirer une main d'œuvre peu qualifiée ainsi qu'une population Arabe à la recherche d'un refuge loin de l'instabilité politico-économique de leur pays d'origine. De même pour ce qui est de son capital humain. L'émirat continue à construire son économie et sa renommée par l'importation de la connaissance et de l'expertise au lieu d'investir dans ses composantes de base, à savoir, l'enseignement supérieur et la recherche. Ainsi, cette terre de liberté pour les « starchitectes » et les professionnels du développement urbain couplée à l'abondance des ressources financières de son élite dirigeante facilitent la mise en spectacle des mégaprojets immobiliers, devenus symboles d'un semblant de résultats de politiques urbaines.Enfin, le succès apparent de ce modèle de développement urbain à Dubaï conduit par la diffusion transnationale de la connaissance et des politiques urbaines continue à inspirer d'autres villes, notamment dans le monde Arabe. Pourtant, ce modèle, aperçu comme un simple outil d'investissement, sous-tend des objectifs géopolitiques à plusieurs échelles. Il agit, principalement, comme un outil de commercialisation de l'émirat au-delà de son simple statut d'État pétrolier. Il vise également à soutenir certains régimes politiques arabes renforçant le rôle grandissant des Émirats arabes unis dans la politique des puissances au Moyen-Orient. Enfin, il sert d'outil de puissance douce facilitant l'acceptation de son élite dirigeante comme avant-gardiste de la connaissance à l'échelle mondiale
Стаття присвячена систематизації висновків існуючих наукових досліджень з виявлення макроекономічних ефектів військових витрат, і зокрема їхнього впливу на потенціал економічного зростання з тим, аби довести їхню обмеженість на сучасному етапі розвитку міжнародних відносин та фундаментальних змін у способах підтримки миру і інформаційно-технологічної домінанти політики в сфері безпеки і оборони. В разі, якщо витрати на оборону фінансуються через зростання податків, це призведе до зниження приватних заощаджень і відтак збільшить внутрішню (національну) відсоткову ставку, що витіснить приватні інвестиції. Порівняно підходи представників класичної і неокласичної шкіл, а також кейнсіанців на питання впливу військових витрат на економічне зростання. Встановлено, що при виявленні макроекономічних ефектів військових витрат: класики апелювали до проблеми інвестицій-заощаджень (з акцентом на ролі процентної ставки); неокласики — до сукупної пропозиції, наслідків витіснення приватних інвестицій, проблеми зайнятості у взаємозалежності із проблемою скорочення випуску; кейнсіанці ставили в центр наукової дискусії проблеми стимулювання сукупного попиту, а відтак розглядали військові витрати як такі, що здатні стимулювати попит, збільшувати купівельну спроможність і національний випуск. Встановлено, що серед наявних досліджень превалюють ті, хто стоїть на теоретичному базисі неокласиків. Відтак найрозповсюдженішими є висновки про те, що: витрати на оборону негативно впливають на зростання економіки; за ситуації, коли витрати на оборону фінансуються за рахунок запозичень, відбувається зростання внутрішньої (національної) відсоткової ставки, оскільки попит на внутрішні кошти, величина яких є постійною, збільшиться; таке витіснення приватних інвестицій призводить до скорочення сукупної пропозиції, а відтак і до скорочення зайнятості та випуску. Проілюстровано механізм прийняття рішень на національному рівні щодо використання обмежених ресурсів та технологій за допомогою кривої виробничих можливостей для оборонної продукції (для потреб національної безпеки) та цивільної продукції (державне та приватне споживання та інвестиції). Визначено, що щойно робиться спроба вийти за межі встановлення простих причинно-наслідкових зв'язків у термінах «зростання-скорочення», «посилення-послаблення» шляхом включення до теоретичного моделювання розгляду питання підтримки миру та форм реалізації воєн нового покоління з врахуванням цілого комплексу їхніх випливів та продукованих ними ефектів — від демографічних до екологічних, що, за різних комбінацій останніх результуються в проблемі продовольчій (проблемі голоду), проблемі бідності й соціальної поляризації (з посиленням загрози зростання потоків мігрантів, спричинених як військовими конфліктами, так і продукованими ними екологічними катастрофами, що позначаються, серед іншого, на загостренні проблеми санітарії, а відтак — зростанні витрат на превентивні заходи щодо стримання розповсюдження хвороб та епідемій), проблемі технологічного розриву та проблемі інформаційної безпеки, питання встановлення макроекономічних ефектів військових витрат постає комплексною проблемою, що вимагає крос-дисциплінарних досліджень. Встановлено, що в умовах деформації формального й фактичного наповнення поняття «війна», а відтак способів її упередження й зростання витрат на підтримання миру, розглянуті підходи не відповідають сучасним запитам на достовірність отриманих теоретичних висновків. ; The article is devoted to systematization of the conclusions found in the existing studies aiming to identify macroeconomic effects from military spending, in particular their impact on the potential of economic growth, in order to demonstrate its limited capacities at the present-day phase of the development of international relations, the radically changing ways for support of peace and the dominance of information technology in the security and defense policies. When military spending is financed through tax increase, the private savings will be reduced, entailing growth in the internal (domestic) interest rate, with the subsequent crowing out of private investment. The approaches of classical, neo-classical and Keynesian schools to the issue of impact of military spending on economic growth are compared. It is revealed that in identifying macroeconomic effects from military spending, the classical school focused on the problem of investment and savings (with emphasis on the role of interest rate); the neo-classical school puts emphasis on the total supply, effects from the crowing out of private investment, the problem of employment in relation with the problem of reduction in the output; the Keynesians who build scientific debate of this problem on stimulation of the total demand consider military spending as one capable to push up the demand, increase the purchasing capacity and the domestic output. It is revealed that the existing studies are dominated by arguments built on theoretical foundations of the neo-classical school. Hence, the most widespread research conclusions are as follows: military spending has negative impact on economic growth; in the situation when military spending is financed by loans, the internal (domestic) interest rate is growing, because the demand for internal funds, which stock is constant, will increase; this crowding out of private investment, shrinking the total supply, will reduce the employment and the output. The mechanism for national decision-making on use of limited resources and technologies is illustrated by the curve of production capacities for defense products (for needs of national security) and civil products (government and private consumption and investment). It is shown that once an effort is made to move beyond setting elementary causalities in terms of "growth-reduction" or "strengthening-easing" and includes the problem of peace support and forms of new generation of warfare with due account to the array of their impacts and effects – from demographic to environmental ones, various combinations of which bring about the food problem (starvation problem), the problem of poverty and social polarization (with the increasing threat of the waves of migrants, caused by military conflicts and environmental disasters generated by them, which, inter alia, aggravates the sanitation problem, boosting thereby expenditure on preventive actions to contain deceases or epidemics), the problem of technology gap and the problem of information security – the issue of indentifying macroeconomic effects from military spending appears as a complex problem requiring cross-disciplinary studies. It is revealed that in the conditions when the formal and actual meaning of the notion "war" is distorted, with methods of its prevention deformed and peace support spending boosted, the analyzed approaches will not meet the modern demand for reliable theoretical conclusions.
En el contexto posterior a la Guerra Fría, una creciente conciencia mundial sobre las violaciones de los derechos humanos ha captado la atención de la comunidad internacional más que nunca. El desplazamiento forzado ha creado un desafío sin precedentes y la cuestión de la protección humana se ha convertido en un asunto grave de controversia en la agenda humanitaria, que implica repensar el significado de la soberanía estatal con respecto al suministro de ayuda en crisis humanitarias y el concepto de la Responsabilidad de Proteger, así como la cuestión sobre los criterios fundamentales a los que se recurre para justificar una intervención humanitaria. En el marco de la presente tesis, por lo tanto, será señalada la necesidad urgente de reformas en numerosos ámbitos para poder suministrar el apoyo humanitario a las internally displaced persons (IDP) de forma eficaz y duradera. Asimismo, se mostrará que es imprescindible efectuar cambios en cuanto a una restructuración interna de las Naciones Unidas, en la esfera jurídica y económica, así como en las medidas de protección y seguridad in situ para los desplazados. Será crucial identificar las circunstancias interdependientes entre una intervención humanitaria llevada a cabo en nombre de los derechos humanos y la protección civil, y el impacto que conlleva sobre el desarrollo de una crisis migratoria. Con el ejemplo de Libia, se demostrará cómo se condicionaron la intervención militar por la OTAN en 2011 y la crisis de desplazamiento que ha desencadenado progresivamente tras la caída del régimen de Gadafi y el estallido de la guerra civil en 2014. Partiendo de los orígenes de la crisis humanitaria en Libia, se investigarán las normas vigentes en las relaciones internacionales, el desarrollo de una obligación normativa internacional de protección e intervención humanitaria, los criterios de evaluación de una intervención militar (just cause), la adecuación de la intervención en Libia, así como las causas de la guerra en el país más allá de los motivos oficiales de la seguridad humana y la protección de la población civil. La investigación de los crímenes de guerra cometidos por las partes beligerantes involucradas en el conflicto libio desde 2011, así como el significado de la justicia transicional y la reconciliación nacional para el futuro de la nueva Libia constituyen otros temas centrales. Asimismo, será de interés fundamental examinar la aplicación del sistema internacional de protección y del apoyo humanitario en el caso real de Libia. A este respecto, el análisis práctico del Global Protection Cluster y de los Principios Rectores de los Desplazamientos Internos, así como su implementación sobre el terreno es un aspecto clave. La Libia post-revolucionaria se está enfrentando a desafíos enormes como polarización política, anarquía y la guerra civil continua. Con el fin de alcanzar la paz, seguridad y estabilidad duraderas, Libia todavía deberá emprender amplias reformas legales, judiciales y políticas, fomentar el diálogo nacional y comprometerse a respaldar procesos inclusivos de reconciliación nacional mediante el apoyo de la comunidad internacional, ONGs, las autoridades nacionales y locales, así como la sociedad civil, mujeres y tribus. ; In the post-Cold War context, growing global consciousness of human rights violations has captured the attention of the international community as never before. Forced displacement has created an unprecedented challenge and the issue of human protection has become a serious issue of controversy in the humanitarian agenda. This involves rethinking the meaning of state sovereignty with regard to providing assistance in humanitarian crises, the concept of the Responsibility to Protect and the question of fundamental criteria used to justify humanitarian intervention. Therefore, in the context of this thesis, the urgent need for reforms in many pertinent areas will be demonstrated in order to ensure the provision of humanitarian support to internally displaced persons (IDP) in an effective and enduring manner. Furthermore, the necessity of essential changes in terms of an internal restructuring of the UN, as well as in the legal and economic field, and in the protection and security measures on site for the displaced will be shown. It will be crucial to identify the interdependent circumstances between a humanitarian intervention carried out in the name of human rights and civil protection, and the impact it has on the development of a migratory crisis. Based on the example of Libya, it will be demonstrated how the NATO-led military intervention in 2011 is interrelated with the displacement crisis progressively triggered by the fall of the Gaddafi regime and the outbreak of civil war in 2014. Starting from the origins of the humanitarian crisis in Libya, the following will be explored: the existing standards in international relations; the development of an international regulatory obligation to protect and to intervene on humanitarian grounds; the assessment criteria of a military intervention (just cause); the appropriateness of the intervention in Libya; as well as the causes of the war behind the official reasons of human security and protection of the civilian population. The investigation of war crimes committed by the warring parties involved in the Libyan conflict since 2011, as well as the significance of transitional justice and national reconciliation for the future of the new Libya are further central aspects. In addition, another major concern is to examine the application of the international protection system and humanitarian support in the actual case of Libya. In this regard, the practical analysis of the Global Protection Cluster and the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, as well as their implementation on the ground constitutes a key aspect. Post-revolutionary Libya is facing enormous challenges, such as political polarization, anarchy and the ongoing civil war. In order to achieve durable peace, security and stability, Libya must undertake extensive legal, judicial and political reforms, encourage national dialogue and engage in inclusive processes of national reconciliation with the support of the international community, NGOs, national and local authorities, as well as civil society, women and tribes.
Spaceborne and airborne remote sensing systems are commonly dedicated to maritime monitoring by either the governments or companies. Specifically, this activity is focused on the detection of hydrocarbons at sea to manage environmental incidents but also on the prospection of new oil resources. Currently, synthetic aperture radar is the main mean to achieve this mission since it provides a 24/7 service and it is not impacted by the weather conditions. However, the detection process remains timekeeping and, oftenly, false alarms occur. Furthermore, depending on the origin of the film (either mineral or biogenic), the action taken will be drastically different. Classically, this identification is achieved thanks to hyperspectral imaging but it remains unsuitable in an operating environment. Then, the characterization of oil-films thanks to radar signals would be a great improvement. This study is about the detection of oil-covered ocean surfaces and the identification of the detected oil film through the radar signals. This work is divided in three axes : the ocean surface modelling, the electromagnetism modelling and the experiment. A generator of oil-covered (or not) ocean surfaces has been implemented to perform realizations of large sea surfaces with very thin sampling interval. The electromagnetic part is dedicated to asymptotic models for electromagnetic wave scattering from random rough surfaces. These models are well-adapted to the context : the complexity of the scene and the efficiency of the processing. From this implementation, a study about backscattered electromagnetic field has been achieved to access the valuable information provided by radar signals. The modelling is supported by an experimental database which is composed of radar measurements and surface elevation estimations from multiple oil-covered sea water surfaces. This experiment has been realized in a controlled environment : a sea water pool, known oils, fan-generated wind waves and controlled oil spill. The developed methods about detection and characterization are tested on these real data. This study has shown that the characterization of oil film on the ocean surface is possible thanks to multi-frequency radar signals. Moreover, the cumulative distribution function of the amplitude of the radar backscattered field is relevant to detect an oil-covered ocean surface and the optimal measurement conditions for film detection and characterization –such as the incidence angle, the radar frequency, the polarization and the sensor sensitivity– have been detailed. At last, the implemented simulator can compute signals from real aperture radars by considering large sea surfaces with a very thin sampling on a common computer. ; Les systèmes de télédétection satellitaires et aéroportés sont classiquement utilisés pour la surveillance maritime par les gouvernements et les entreprises. Cette surveillance est en particulier dédiée à la détection d'hydrocarbures en mer afin de prévenir les déballastages illégaux et de gérer les accidents environnementaux. Elle trouve également une pertinence dans le domaine de la prospection offshore afin d'identifier des réserves naturelles d'hydrocarbures. Le radar à synthèse d'ouverture représente actuellement le moyen principal de détection de films surfaciques puisqu'il opère quels que soient l'horaire et les conditions météorologiques. Le processus de détection demeure néanmoins perfectible car nécessitant un temps de traitement conséquent et induisant encore régulièrement des fausses alarmes. De plus, la détection n'est pas suffisante car la diversité des films surfaciques rencontrés implique une gestion propre à chacun. En effet, selon leur origine (naturelle ou anthropogénique) et leur nature (hydrocarbure, phytoplancton ou encore huile de poisson par exemple), l'ampleur de l'intervention engagée peut drastiquement évoluer, allant d'une vaste opération de nettoyage à une simple surveillance. Cette identification est classiquement réalisée à l'aide d'images optiques hyperspectrales mais cette méthode reste peu adaptée dans un contexte opérationnel. Caractériser la nature des films surfaciques détectés à l'aide des signaux radar représenterait donc une grande avancée dans le domaine de la supervision océanique.Cette étude consiste à distinguer une surface océanique contaminée par un film surfacique d'une surface océanique propre et de détailler la nature du film détecté à travers les signaux radars.L'étude se divise en trois domaines principaux, à savoir la modélisation de la surface océanique, la modélisation électromagnétique et l'expérimentation. La simulation de la surface océanique doit considérer l'existence ou non d'un film surfacique. En outre, elle doit permettre de générer numériquement une surface de vaste superficie –correspondant aux dimensions d'une image d'un radar à synthèse d'ouverture– tout en conservant une résolution restituant la complexité de la géométrie. Un simulateur de surfaces océaniques contaminées ou non a donc été développé. La partie électromagnétique est basée sur l'utilisation de modèles asymptotiques de diffusion des ondes électromagnétiques par une interface rugueuse. Ces modèles sont particulièrement adaptés au contexte de l'étude, alliant complexité de la scène et efficacité du traitement, mais nécessitent des hypothèses pour être appliqué. L'intégration d'un tel modèle a permis l'étude du champ électromagnétique diffusé par la surface océanique afin d'accéder aux informations contenues au sein des signaux radars.La modélisation est complétée par des données expérimentales associant mesures radars et mesures d'élévations d'une surface d'eau de mer tantôt propre tantôt contaminée par différents produits. Cette expérimentation a été réalisée dans un environnement maîtrisé : bassin fermé, produits connus, vagues générées à l'aide d'un souffleur caractérisé et déversements contrôlés. Ces données permettent de valider la modélisation et de tester les méthodologies de détection et de caractérisation des films surfaciques développées.Ces travaux ont permis de montrer que la nature d'un film surfacique est identifiable à l'aide de signaux radars multifréquences et que ces films surfaciques sont détectables à l'aide de la fonction de répartition du champ électromagnétique diffusé par la surface. En outre, les conditions de mesures optimales (angles d'incidence, fréquences radar, polarisation, sensibilité du capteur) de détection et de caractérisation d'un film surfacique ont été détaillées. Enfin, le simulateur développé permet de générer des signaux de radars à ouverture réelle en considérant de larges surfaces océaniques ayant une résolution très fine sur une machine conventionnelle.
This collective monograph, titled Kosta P. Manojlović and the Idea of Slavic and Balkan Cultural Unificaton (1918–1941), is the result of research by fourteen scholars from Russia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Portugal, Great Britain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia, which were partly presented at an international conference organized by the Muzikološki institut SANU [Institute of Musicology SASA] in November 2016. Kosta P. Manojlović (1890–1946) is one of the most important Serbian musicians and musical intellectuals of the interwar period. His musical activities were diverse and fuitful. As a composer, he was a proponent of the "national style", which was primarily reflected in choral music. In this domain he left pieces of lasting value, such as Sever duva [The North Wind blows] for the mixed choir. His melographic and ethnomusicological work dedicated to Serbian musical folklore is of great significance. He was a pioneer of Serbian musical historiography and a proliferous critic who collaborated with numerous journals and dailies from Yugoslavia and abroad. Kosta Manojlović was also a long-standing Choirmaster of the Beogradsko pevačko društvo [Belgrade Choral Society] and the Pevačko društvo "Mokranjac" [Mokranjac Choral Society]. An important part of his activities was devoted to the administration of musical organizations and institutions. For instance, Manojlović was one of the founders and the Secretary-General of the Južnoslovenski pevački savez [South-Slav Choral Union]. Among his most important achievements in this respect was the opening of the Muzička akademija [Music Academy] in Belgrade in 1937, where he served as the first Chancellor. Research on Kosta Manojlović is scant. In 1990, the Faculty of Music in Belgrade published an anthology titled U spomen Koste P. Manojlovića, kompozitora i etnomuzikologa [Kosta P. Manojlović, composer and ethnomusicologist. In memoriam], comprised mostly of students' papers dedicated to the investigation of his various activities. Insights on Manojlović's contributions can be found in a number of studies by Serbian musicologists and ethnomusicologists, but a detailed monograph devoted to his life and works has not yet been published, nor has a complete bibliography of his writings. For that reason, scholars from the Institute of Musicology SASA in Belgrade resolved to organize an international conference and to prepare a collective monograph focusing on Manojlović's diverse accomplishments. Traces of dominant and less influential ideological and political currents of the first half of the 20th century can be observed in Manojlović's work. As such, the editors decided to bring to light the historical and cultural settings in which Manojlović acted, and more thoroughly examine his numerous activities. This volume is divided into five parts, an introductory section and four thematic units. The introduction comprises one study: Ivana Vesić (Belgrade) and Vesna Peno (Belgrade) have given an overview of Kosta Manojlović's social "networking" and ideological horizons in Yugoslav public and musical spheres from 1919 to 1949, focusing on less well-known facts from his life and the biographies of his fellow composers and musical intellectuals. The first thematic part, titled Balkan and Slavic peoples in the first half of the 20th century: Intercultural contacts, contains three studies. Olga Pashina (Moscow) explores cultural relations between Slavic peoples on the example of the concert tours of Ivan T. Ryabinin, a famous Russian story teller, to Serbia and Bulgaria in 1902. Stefanka Georgieva (Stara Zagora) analyzes the presence of the idea of Slavic cultural unification in Bulgarian musical culture of the interwar period, concentrating on collaborations of various kinds between Yugoslav and Bulgarian musicians, including Kosta P. Manojlović. Ivan Ristić (Kruševac) examines Manojlović's work on Yugoslav-Bulgarian cultural rapprochement, taking into consideration the political and cultural relations between the two countries during the 1920s. The second part, made up of four studies, is titled The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes/Yugoslavia between ideology and reality. As Secretary-General of the South-Slav Choral Union [SSCS] (1924–1932), Kosta Manojlović was faced with the complex issue of creating an internal institutional arrangement of this national organization. Strong disagreements over the Union's structure and authority indicate the marked polarization of views on the national question in the Kingdom of SCS/Yugoslavia. Biljana Milanović (Belgrade) discusses Manojlović's contribution to the foundation and policies of the SSCS, while Nada Bezić (Zagreb) focuses on relations between the Hrvatski pjevački savez [Croatian Choral Union] and the SSCS from 1924 to 1934. Srđan Atanasovski (Belgrade) investigates Kosta Manojlović's research into musical folklore from the perspective of interwar narratives on "Southern Serbia". Ivana Vesić (Belgrade) centers on Manojlović's collaboration with the Balkanski institut [Institute for Balkan Studies] (1934–1941), taking into account his views on the unification of Balkan and Slavic peoples. The third part, titled Kosta P. Manojlović and church music, contains three papers. Vesna Peno (Belgrade) examines Manojović's role in the construction of theory of Belgrade church chant. Bogdan Đaković (Novi Sad) brings this composer's ecclesiastical choral music into focus, along with his compositional procedures and style. Ivan Moody (Lisbon) considers the approach of Serbian and Bulgarian composers of church music to problems of tradition and modernity in the early 20th century. Finally, the fourth part is comprised of papers that deal with Kosta P. Manojlović as choirmaster, critic and pedagogue. Verica Grmuša (London) explores Manojlović's various activities during his studies of music at Oxford University from 1917 to 1919. Predrag Đoković (Sarajevo) discusses Manojlović's performance and analysis of early music in the interwar years. Aleksandar Vasić (Belgrade) explores Manojlović's achievements in musical criticism, concentrating on his writings published between the two wars in Belgrade's music journals. The final years of Manojlović's life, including his position in newly founded communist Yugoslavia, are surveyed by Ivana Medić (Belgrade). This monograph is the result of interdisciplinary and multifocal research into Kosta Manojlović's life and works. We hope it will stimulate further investigation into the invaluable contributions of this Serbian composer and intellectual to music production, education and research. ; This collective monograph, titled Kosta P. Manojlović and the Idea of Slavic and Balkan Cultural Unificaton (1918-1941), is the result of research by fourteen scholars from Russia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Portugal, Great Britain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia, which were partly presented at an international conference organized by the Muzikološki institut SANU (Institute of Musicology SASA) in November 2016.
This dissertation investigates how well political parties, especially those holding executive positions, achieve policy congruence by translating voters' redistributive preferences into consistent social policy outcomes. It addresses this topic by conducting large-N studies with the aid of quantitative techniques. It is made up of six chapters. Chapter I provides the theoretical background. In detail, it defines the meaning of the elusive concept of political representation; it discusses the expressive and the instrumental functions that political parties are expected to perform in contemporary representative democracies and recalls party government theories formulated from the 1970s. This literature review allows reorganizing the core stipulations for party government to emerge in a unified theoretical framework. Chapter II begins the journey along the ideal chain of responsiveness from voters' redistributive preferences to actual social policy outcomes. In detail, it focuses on the first link of this ideal chain by verifying whether and to what extent the economic conditions people experience in their everyday life, which are largely given by the position they occupy in the labor market, determine their redistributive preferences and political behaviors. Combining individual level data from the European Social Surveys for 23 OECD countries with party level information from the Comparative Manifesto Project Database, this chapter demonstrates that individuals tend to feel closer to political parties which express in their electoral manifestos social policy supplies consistent with their redistributive preferences. These results are obtained trough discrete choice models, instrumental variables and matching statistical techniques. Chapter III deals with the second link of the chain of responsiveness, addressing a perennial question for students of parliamentary democracy, namely how do coalition governments build their policy proposals. In detail, chapter III explores the degree of correspondence between declared cabinet position and the weighted position of cabinet parties as expressed in their electoral manifestos on two separate issues: the traditionally employed left-right scale and a more policy based welfare scale. Results obtained through a time-series cross-section methodology suggest that "the owners of the agenda setting power" over the two scales are different. In particular, on the traditional left-right scale, declared cabinet position is strongly driven by the weighted position of cabinet parties and by that of the formateur party. Conversely, on the welfare scale, declared cabinet position is also affected by the position of the party holding the median legislator in Parliament and by those of the parties expressing the labor and social affairs ministers. In addition, declared cabinet position on the welfare dimension shows a marked tendency to drift rightward with adverse economic conditions. Chapter IV investigates the last link of the chain of responsiveness between governing parties' long lasting ideological preferences and actual social policy outcomes. In particular, it employs panel data on 19 OECD countries from 1985 to 2011 and tests alternative hypotheses on cabinets' ability to shape social policy outcomes through an Error Correction Model. Results demonstrate that the ideological position of the executive on the left-right scale is unable to affect social policy outcomes in the short run, when economic control variables prevail. However, governing parties acquire relevance on the long run. Specifically, when the government coalition moves to the right, there is a negative impact on social expenditure as a whole, on public spending in active (ALMP) and passive (PLMP) labor market policies and on the net unemployment replacement rate. Chapter V zooms in on the last link of the chain of responsiveness. In detail, it develops a single country study on the Italian case over le last 70 years to address two shortcomings affecting comparative works on this issue. The first limitation comes at the empirical level and concerns the ways in which governments' partisanship uses to be operationalized. The second limitation, instead, is rooted at the theoretical level and refers to the over-simplified idea of political parties as unitary actors. In particular, chapter V takes advantage of two datasets: the first one provides data on the positions of Italian Prime Ministers and parties; the second one reports the policy positions expressed by factions inside Italian parties. Results demonstrates that declared cabinets' positions on welfare state expansion as expressed in Prime Ministers' investiture and confidence speeches are strong determinants of social expenditure. However, results prove also that the "agenda setting power" enjoyed by the cabinet is strongly weaken by party politics dynamics (the majority the governing coalition enjoys in the lower chamber and the ideological distance between the actual and the previous government) and, more interestingly, by intra-party dynamics. In particular, the ability to shape social expenditure according to the content of the coalition agreement proves to be strongly undermined by the degree of internal polarization inside the major party of the governing coalition. Finally, the last chapter reviews and discusses the main findings of the thesis. It underlines how the doomsday scenario according to which democracy at the national level has been hollowed out has yet to come. Of course, exogenous socio-economic processes and the complexities of politics weaken parties' responsiveness toward their voters. However, this thesis reveals that parties still play a role, at least in the social policy domain. Moreover, this chapter has a last look on the overall chain of responsiveness, from voters' redistributive preferences directly to governmental social policy outcomes, to understand whether citizens' preferences manage to overcome all the obstacles identified in the previous chapters so that they can be translated into consistent spending choices. In particular, controlling for a complete set of potential external confounders and, more interestingly, for the position of the median legislator in Parliament and for that of the ruling coalition, this last chapter demonstrates that median voter's preferences in the year t-1 are related to the change in social expenditure in the subsequent year. Finally, to contrast popular frustration with political parties, this chapter proposes a learning model of party government, which sees both voters and parties as able to alter, respectively, their policy preferences and their electoral promises according to the contingent constraints imposed by external reality.
While interplay between BRCA1 and AURKA-RHAMM-TPX2-TUBG1 regulates mammary epithelial polarization, common genetic variation in HMMR (gene product RHAMM) may be associated with risk of breast cancer in BRCA1 mutation carriers. Following on these observations, we further assessed the link between the AURKA-HMMR-TPX2-TUBG1 functional module and risk of breast cancer in BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carriers. Forty-one single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were genotyped in 15,252 BRCA1 and 8,211 BRCA2 mutation carriers and subsequently analyzed using a retrospective likelihood approach. The association of HMMR rs299290 with breast cancer risk in BRCA1 mutation carriers was confirmed: per-allele hazard ratio (HR) = 1.10, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.04 - 1.15, p = 1.9 x 10(-4) (false discovery rate (FDR)-adjusted p = 0.043). Variation in CSTF1, located next to AURKA, was also found to be associated with breast cancer risk in BRCA2 mutation carriers: rs2426618 per-allele HR = 1.10, 95% CI 1.03 - 1.16, p = 0.005 (FDR-adjusted p = 0.045). Assessment of pairwise interactions provided suggestions (FDR-adjusted p(interaction) values greater than 0.05) for deviations from the multiplicative model for rs299290 and CSTF1 rs6064391, and rs299290 and TUBG1 rs11649877 in both BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers. Following these suggestions, the expression of HMMR and AURKA or TUBG1 in sporadic breast tumors was found to potentially interact, influencing patients survival. Together, the results of this study support the hypothesis of a causative link between altered function of AURKA-HMMR-TPX2-TUBG1 and breast carcinogenesis in BRCA1/2 mutation carriers. ; Funding Agencies|National Cancer Institute [UM1 CA164920]; Lithuania (BFBOCC-LT): Research Council of Lithuania grant [LIG-07/2012]; Hereditary Cancer Association (Paveldimo vezio asociacija); LSC grant [10.0010.08]; ESF [2009/0220/1DP/1.1.1.2.0/09/APIA/VIAA/016]; Liepajas municipal council; Cancer Association of South Africa (CANSA); Morris and Horowitz Familes Endowed Professorship; NEYE Foundation; Spanish Association against Cancer [AECC08, RTICC 06/0020/1060, FISPI08/1120]; Mutua Madrilena Foundation (FMMA); COH-CCGCRN: City of Hope Clinical Cancer Genetics Community Network from the National Cancer Institute and the Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health; Hereditary Cancer Research Registry from the National Cancer Institute and the Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health [RC4CA153828]; Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale Tumori; Cancer Research-United Kingdom grant [C12292/A11174, C1287/ A10118]; NHMRC Program Grant; DKFZ; European Union (European Social Fund-ESF); Greek national funds through the Operational Program "Education and Lifelong Learning" of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF)-Research Funding Program of the General Secretariat for Research and Technology: ARISTEIA; European Social Fund; Cancer Research United Kingdom Grants [C1287/A10118, C1287/A11990]; National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) grant; NIHR grant; Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust; Cancer Research United Kingdom Grant [C5047/A8385]; University of Kansas Cancer Center [P30 CA168524]; Kansas Bioscience Authority Eminent Scholar Program; Chancellors Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Sciences Professorship; AKG [5U01CA113916, R01CA140323]; German Cancer Aid [109076]; Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC); Ligue National Contre le Cancer; Association "Le cancer du sein, parlonsen!" Award; Canadian Institutes of Health Research; Fund for Scientific Research Flanders (FWO); National Cancer Institute grant [CA 27469]; GOG Statistical and Data Center [CA 37517]; GOGs Cancer Prevention and Control Committee [CA 101165]; Intramural Research Program, NCI; ISCIII (Spain) [RD12/00369/0006, 12/00539]; European Regional Development FEDER funds; Helsinki University Central Hospital Research Fund; Academy of Finland [132473]; Finnish Cancer Society; Sigrid Juselius Foundation; Dutch Cancer Society grant [NKI1998-1854, NKI2004-3088, NKI2007-3756]; Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research [NWO 91109024]; Pink Ribbon grant [110005]; BBMRI grant [NWO 184.021.007/CP46]; Hungarian Research Grant [KTIA-OTKA CK-80745]; Norwegian EEA Financial Mechanism [HU0115/NA/2008-3/OP-9]; Spanish Ministry of Health ISCIII FIS [PI10/01422, PI12/01528, PI13/00285]; RTICC [RD12/0036/0008]; Ramon Areces (XV) Foundation; Eugenio Rodriguez Pascual Foundation; Roses Contra el Cancer Foundation; Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC); AGAUR Generalitat de Catalunya [2009-SGR290, 2009-SGR293]; Polish Foundation of Science; Icelandic Association "Walking for Breast Cancer Research"; Nordic Cancer Union; Landspitali University Hospital Research Fund; Canadian Institutes of Health Research for the "CIHR Team in Familial Risks of Breast Cancer" program; Canadian Breast Cancer Research Alliance-grant [019511]; Ministry of Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade-grant [PSR-SIIRI-701]; Ministero dellIstruzione, dellUniversita e della Ricerca and Ministero della Salute; Liga Portuguesa Contra o Cancro; National Breast Cancer Foundation; National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC); Queensland Cancer Fund; Cancer Council of New South Wales; Cancer Council of Victoria; Cancer Foundation of Western Australia; Cancer Councils of Tasmania; National Institutes of Health grant [CA128978]; NCI Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in Breast Cancer [CA116201]; United States Department of Defence Ovarian Cancer Idea award [W81XWH-10-1-0341]; Breast Cancer Research Foundation; Jewish General Hospital Weekend; Quebec Ministry of Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade; Cancer Councils of South Australia; European Regional Development Fund; State Budget of the Czech Republic (RECAMO) [CZ.1.05/2.1.00/03.0101]; MH CZ-DRO (MMCI) [00209805]; Niehaus Family Genetics Research Fund; STARR Cancer Consortium Grant; NAROD [1R01 CA149429-01]; NCI Intramural Research Program, National Institutes of Health [NO2-CP-11019-50, N02-CP-65504]; Westat, Inc, Rockville, Maryland; Clalit Health Services in Israel; Israel Cancer Association; Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF), New York; Russian Federation for Basic Research [11-04-00227, 12-04-00928, 12-04-01490]; Federal Agency for Science and Innovations, Russia [02.740.11.0780]; Canadian Institutes of Health Research for the "CIHR Team in Familial Risks of Breast Cancer" program and grant from the National Cancer Institute [UM1 CA164920]; Breast Cancer Family Registry (BCFR); United States Government or the BCFR; Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center; Isreal cancer association; Israeli Inherited breast cancer consortium; Swedish Cancer Society; Ralph and Marion Falk Medical Research Trust; Entertainment Industry Fund National Womens Cancer Research Alliance; National Institutes of Health (NIH) [R01-CA102776, R01-CA083855]; Rooney Family Foundation; Susan G. Komen Foundation for the cure, Basser Research Center; American Cancer Society Early Detection Professorship [SIOP-06-258-01-COUN]; SAF2010-20493; [PBZ_KBN_122/P05/2004]
[spa] En el presente trabajo se analiza la relación existente entre la democracia y las políticas educacionales, desde la perspectiva del discurso oficial, pues es desde esta cúpula política que se intenta crear una forma de pensar común a toda la sociedad. La lógica para desarrollarlo es conceptualizar la democracia en términos de real e ideal, luego verla en su contexto histórico, Chile, para entonces conceptualizar los elementos relevantes de las políticas educativas. Todos estos elementos teóricos se desarrollan en los tres primeros capítulos y nos ayudaron a desarrollar los siguientes dos capítulos que son los resultados de la investigación cualitativa de análisis de discurso (oficial). Con este objetivo el concepto principal, democracia, fue dividido en dos acepciones fundamentales: real e ideal. Se analiza la democracia a partir de lo real, influida por el contexto, pero motivado por la concepción de lo que se cree debe ser la democracia idealmente. Las políticas educativas se ven influidas por estas ideas, y en el caso de Chile, evolucionan de acuerdo al desarrollo de la democracia. La democracia real corresponde a lo que la democracia es, abarcando desde elementos políticos hasta económicos- sociales. En tanto, por democracia ideal entenderemos los criterios de evaluación de lo que es la democracia, y cómo debe ser y operar en la realidad, e incluye a los valores y principios que la sustentan. Estos principios constituyen lo que denominamos el triangulo valórico que se compone de igualdad, libertad y fraternidad, junto con los derechos humanos. El contexto también influye en ello. Cronológicamente se inicia con la polarización a partir de los proyectos excluyentes, que termina con el colapso del sistema que desemboca en un golpe de estado y posterior dictadura. Luego se retorna a la democracia donde se generan los procesos de memoria y olvido, donde se busca la construcción de una memoria colectiva. Y es allí que la educación es vista como un vehículo de consenso, se depositan allí las esperanzas. La transición en Chile es un pacto que a veces se enjuicia críticamente. Surge un complejo equilibrio entre gobierno y oposición. Esto se traduce también en la educación, en donde cualquier cambio necesitó un acuerdo, creando políticas contradictorias; se mantiene el modelo y se intenta reformar. En materia educacional se ha continuado evolucionando y se configura el derecho a la educación. Fruto de lo anterior la equidad y la calidad se han ido incorporando en discursos y políticas. Ello se ha traspasado a la sociedad, lo que le ha llevado a plantear diversas críticas. La democracia y los derechos humanos han surgido desde la transición como puntos fundamentales, tanto en la discusión general como en la de la educación. De forma práctica se intenta en educación dos cosas, lo primero, la democratización de la estructura; las preocupaciones por ser una sociedad democrática se plasman en la educación. Por ello se gestan programas específicos de calidad y una mayor inversión en educación para el logro de una estructura escolar que evite la desigualdad existente en el país. El segundo ámbito relevante es el logro de la democracia al interior del aula, tanto en las políticas de convivencia como en los planes y programas, incorporando el tema de la democracia y la formación ciudadana en los temas transversales. Los discursos de los Presidentes van evolucionando en este sentido, incorporando las nuevas demandas de la sociedad a la democracia y lo que exige en sí misma la educación. Ese fue el foco en nuestra investigación, la democracia real e ideal plasmada en una construcción que buscaba generar cambios y continuidades y donde las políticas educacionales contribuyen a este fin. ; [eng] The aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between democracy and education policies, and in terms of the official discourse, as it is from this political standpoint that an attempt is being made to create a common way of thinking throughout the whole of society. The logic used to develop this analysis is to conceptualize democracy in terms of that which is real and ideal, taking into account the historical context (Chile), to then conceptualize the relevant elements of educational policies. All these theoretical elements are developed in the first three chapters, also helping to develop the following two chapters, which are the results of the qualitative research of discourse analysis. Democracy is analyzed on the basis of what is real, influenced by the context, but motivated by the concept of what is believed to be an ideal democracy. Educational policies are seen to be influenced by these ideas and evolve according to democratic development. Context also plays an influential role. The time line starts with polarization (1950s) up until the return to democracy (from 1990 onwards), seeking the construction of a collective memory. And it is here that education is seen as a vehicle for consensus. The transition in Chile is an agreement involving a complex balance between government and opposition. This is also observed in the area of education, where any changes need a consensus, so creating conflicting policies. The area of education has continued to evolve, taking the form of the right to education. As a result of the above, the equity and quality have been incorporated in speeches and policy, which has been transferred to the society. At a practical level there is an attempt to introduce two elements in education: first, structural democratization, and second, the establishment of democracy within the classroom. The speeches of Presidents have evolved in this context, incorporating the new demands of society in terms of democracy and education. This was the focus of our research: a real and ideal democracy embodied in a construction that sought to generate changes and continuities, and in which educational policies contributed to those goals.
Over the past twenty years, biotechnologies have raised enormous expectations as well as passionate political controversies, paving the way to a strong polarization in European society and to an on-going debate on how should these technologies be assessed. Mainstream approaches have been focusing on risk-assessment procedures. According to this perspective, new technologies should be assessed in terms of their potential risk of negatively affecting human health and in terms of the environmental risks, such as cross-contamination and biodiversity preservation. Yet, the large majority of riskassessment studies on GMOs mainly focus on animal trials, trying to detect biological or medical anomalies among the animals fed with GM products. Although many of these studies have repeatedly claimed that no significant health impact could be detected, their independence and reliability has been contested not only because they have been carried out by the same multinational corporations that produce the tested GMOs but also because the original data have not been released to the academic community for the studies to be replicated. Moreover, independent studies on GMOs have raised serious doubts about health safety in a number of different occasions (Le Curieux-Belfond et al. 2008; Seralini et al. 2009; Seralini, Cellier & Spiroux de Vendomois 2007; Gasnier et al. 2009; Heinemann & Traavik 2004; Traavik & Heinemann 2007). Independently of whether GMOs constitute a direct threat to human health and the environment, risk-assessment approaches have reduced the evaluation of GMOs merely to a question of how much risk can a society bear for the introduction of these new products in the face of their claimed benefits but there is much more to GMOs than the risk/ benefit relationship suggests (Ferretti 2009). Many reasons lay behind the emergence and diffusion of risk-assessment approaches. On the one hand, these approaches support and strengthen the technological fix attitude that affects post-industrial societies. Problems that may have a number of different social, economic or political origins are framed and addressed in terms of a technological solution that allow for a quick, effective fix that does not call into question these non-technical origins. A clear example maybe retrieved in the Syngenta website, where the issue of water scarcity and water supply all over the globe is reduced to a technical question, whose solution is offered through GM crops with reduced water absorption (www.singenta.com, "Bring plant potential to life" campaign). On the other hand, these approaches positively resonate with the tendency to delegate essentially political decisions to expert committees, which effectively divert responsibility from political actors to techno-scientific networks (Jasanoff 2003). In turn, this process de facto de-politicizes a number of controversial issues, which could otherwise threaten political consensus and stability. As a consequence, the growing momentum of risk-assessment approaches has encouraged a technocratic twist in science and technology policy, which has been criticized on a number of political and sociological grounds (Weingart 1999; Funtowicz & Liberatore 2003; Nowotny 2003; Felt at al. 2007; Levidow 2009; Ferretti & Pavone 2009). First, it has been argued that risk-assessment approaches take the technology for granted, addressing public opposition to GMOs as a problem in itself. Instead of considering public arguments against GMOs as an opportunity to reconsider the technology from a different perspective, producing a wider and more robust assessment of GMOs' implications, the public has been addressed as the problem, calling for solutions that aimed at reducing this opposition rather than at learning from it (Felt et al. 2007; Levidow 2007). Second, risk-assessment approaches address GMOs potential impact merely in terms of their human health-related and environmental risks. However, GMOs have also an important impact not only on the existing economic, political and social arrangements but also on the developmental trajectory of the areas selected for implantation. Technology shapes society and it is shaped continuously by it, in a mutually constitutive process that has been elsewhere described as co-production (Jasanoff 2005; Ferretti & Pavone 2009). In this co-production process, science and technology and social order emerge side by side. Third, it has been pointed out that these technologies cannot be evaluated in abstract terms, independently of the juridical, social and economic context in which they will be implemented. Local institutional rules and practices shape technology innovation and implementation and cannot be considered equal in each and every corner of the world. Power relationships, economic interests, lack of transparency, weak rule enforcement may strongly affect not also the trajectory of implementation of a technology but also the actual repercussions that GMOs are likely to produce (Goven 2006b). Last but not least, approaches focusing on risk do not call into question the actual trajectory that a technological innovation has followed to emerge, and the visions and imaginaries that came along with it (Mcnaghten et al. 2006; Felt et al. 2007). In other words, technological products are no neutral objects. They have been produced by specific actors, in specific contexts, in order to address a specific problem, which has been framed in such a way that a given technology makes sense as a solution. As a result of the very process triggering their emergence, technologies are loaded with social and political values. Technologies materialise certain paradigms, in fact, they "re-construct" social paradigms (ideas and assumptions about functioning) into physical matter – this is what could make the utility of a technology. It has to "fit" to the social structures managing it, and resembles the material support a social setting organises to stabilise and proceed itself, which will remain completely undetected as long as the focus of technology assessment concentrates on their risk implications. Yet, a thorough analysis of the ethical, social and political load of values and principles that each technology carries in the visions and imaginaries it promotes is a fundamental step towards a social and political assessment.
In Moskau wurden 1994 zwei Richtungen in der russischen Tschetschenienpolitik verfolgt: Die eine Richtung vertrat der Nationalitätenminister und Stellvertretende Regierungschef Sergej Sachraj, der den Abschluß eines russisch-tschetschenischen Vertrages nach dem Muster der Verträge Rußlands mit Tatarstan und Baschkortostan anstrebte, unter der Voraussetzung, daß in Tschetschenien freie Wahlen zu allen obersten Staatsorganen abgehalten werden und Moskau Gespräche mit allen politischen Kräften Tschetscheniens führt. Die anderer Richtung wurde von Vladimir Sumejko, dem Vorsitzenden des Föderationsrates, verfolgt, der eine Sonderbehandlung Tschetscheniens ablehnte. Mit der Entlassung Sachrajs als Nationalitätenminister wurde die Verhandlungsoption immer mehr in den Hintergrund gedrängt. Das Hauptmotiv für die militärische Invasion in Tschetschenien war die Präsidentschaftswahl 1996. El'cin wollte in Grosnyj ein Exempel statuieren und sich als entschlossener Führer erweisen, um wiedergewählt zu werden. (BIOst-Mrk)
Issue 32.2 of the Review for Religious, 1973. ; Review ]or Religious is edited by faculty members of the School of Divinity of St. Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copy-right (~) 1973 by Review ]or Religious. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.25. Sub-scription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year; $11.00 for two years; other countries, $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should" be accompanied by check or money order payable to Review ]or Religious in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent Review ]or Religious. Change of address requests should include former address. R. F. Smith, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor March 1973 Volume 32 Number 2 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to Review for Religious; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts, books for review, and materials for "Subject Bibliography for Religious" should be sent to Review for Religious; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. Religious and Social. Security William Quinn, F.S. . Brother William Quinn,F.S.C., is the Assistant to the President of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men of the USA; Suite 114; 1330 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W.; Washington, D.C. 20036. For some years the Internal Re~)enue Service of the U.S. Government has recognized that religious with the vow of poverty require a specific treatment under the law. In virtue of their vow of poverty, religious have no income in the sense in which this word is used by Internal Revenue Service. What-ever salary they might earn is in reality earned as an agent of their order, not for themselves personally. Because of this, religious have been exempt from the federal income tax; when the Social Security System was begun in 1936, .religious were excluded for the same reason: They had no income upon which to base the Social Security tax and which would serve to determine the level of benefits upon retirement or disability. In 1967 the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress passed legislation extending Social Security coverage to members of religious orders under a vow of poverty. However, when the matter was considered in the Senate, representatives of religious orders requested time for further study of the effects of coverage. The provision was not included in the Senate: passed bill which went to conference, and th~ conference agreed to post-pone the matter pending study of the orders. The status of religious under Social Security was not changed in the Social Security Amendments of 1967. The 1972 Provisions The provision for extending coverage to members of religious orders that is contained in the 1972 Amendments to the Social Security Act is based upon recommendations submitted to the Congress by a joint Social Security study committee, established by the two conferences of religious superiors in the U.S., LCWR and CMSM. 210 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 On October 30, 1972, President Nixon signed into law the Bill, H.R. 1, entitled Social Security Amendments of 1972; this Bill is now known as P.L. 92.603. The Bill provided many modifications in the existing Social Security legislation, but Section 123 is of particular interest to religious since its heading is: Coverage for Vow-of-poverty Members of Religious Orders. Religious orders are given the option of electing coverage under Social Security for their members under a series of rather well-defined conditions. The option is open-ended, that is, there is no time limit for when this option must be exercised, but it is irrevocable once it has been made. It will then be binding upon all present and all future members of the order. This new legislation recognizes the special situation of religious with the vow of poverty by creating for the purpose of Social Security coverage a unique definition of "wages": "The term 'wages' shall include the fair market value of any board, lodging, clothing, and other perquisites furnished to such member." Two things might be remarked about this definition: First, it is in no way related to the salary a particular religious might be receiving, and second, every religious in the order has an assignable "wage." The services performed by the religious might actually be carried out in an institution such as a school or hospital, but for the purposes of this Bill these services are deemed to be performed by the religious as an employee of the religious order. The obligation of paying the Social Security taxes members of the order falls upon the order, and not the particular institution for which the religious might be working. The effect of this legislation is to allow religious orders (or an autono-mous subdivision, such as a province or an independent monastery) the option of entering the Social Security system. The rates of taxation, the conditions for claiming disability, and the requirements for old-age benefits are the same for religious as all other participants in the Social Security pro-gram. A retroactive feature is built into the legislation, to allow the order to make the effective date of coverage any time'up to five years previous to the date of election of coverage. The order must pay the accumulated back taxes for all of its members, starting with the chosen effective date, but in so doing a number of older religious Will qualify immediately for old-age and Medicare benefits. The answers to specific questions about eligibility, tax rates, and bene-fits must be found in publicatigns of the Social Security Administration, or by consulting local offices of the Administration. These questions and answers are part of the daily routine of these offices and should not present any great difficulty. Special Questions Some questions, however, do pertain directly to religious, and some of these present rather difficult technical considerations. Examples of these Religious and Social Security might be: What is an autonomous subdivision of an order; are alien mem-bers of the order living in the United States covered; what about U.S.A. citizens, living and working in a foreign country; when is a religious retired? It is relatively easy to know when a lay worker in a business enterprise is retired. The case of one who stops working and who is no longer paid a salary is rather obvious, but even with the layman there may be some diffi-culty in establishing the fact of retirement. This would occur, for example, in the case of a self-employed person who would substantially reduce the time devoted to employment. In the case of a religious, where the "wage" is calculated on the basis of room and board and other perquisites furnished to him by the order, the question as to when the religious is to be considered as retired becomes more difficult. Retirement, for a religious under Social Security, is defined in the new legislation as the situation in which the religious no longer performs the duties usually required (and to the extent usually required) of an active member of the order. In spelling out the interpretation of this definition for the benefit of the religious superiors who will have to make the certification of retirement, the Social Security Administration calls attention to two con-siderations: a comparison of the nature of the work being performed before retirement with that performed after, and the amount of time devoted to this service. Should a sister, for example, be assigned to the motherhouse after fifty years of teaching and there devote herself to monitoring the phone, it is clear that she has retired. The case is more difficult, say, for a con-templative sister who gradually grows more feeble with age and who is not able to keep up the pace of former years. She is considered to be retired, for Social Security purposes, when the religious superior certifies that she is no longer able to perform the services required of active members. A Typical Illustration The operation of the new Social Security legislation could perhaps best be appreciated by considering a particular case as a typical illustration of how the law would work out in practice. Suppose, for example, that Brother John Doe, born in 1917, has taken a vow of poverty as a member of a re-ligious order. Suppose further thai the prov.ince of his order elects to partici-pate in Social Security by filing the appropriate Certificate of Election, with an effective date of January 1, 1973. The tables of eligibility for retirement benefits and for hospital insurance (Medicare) indicate that 31 quarters of coverage are needed in order to be fully insured; this means that Brother John Doe must have paid Social Security taxes on his "wages" for 31 quarters, at least, in order to be fully insured. An important parameter in the discussion is the amount of "wages" on which Brother John Doe pays the tax. This is an amount arrived at by the religious superior of his province as a result of considering the fair market 212 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 value of the board, lodging, clothing, and other perquisites furnished mem-bers of the province. Suppose for the sake of our illustration that this figure is $2,500 per year. The province, beginning in 1973, must pay a Social Se-curity tax for Brother John Doe at a rate of 11.7%, or $292.50 per year. The tax rate will remain at 11.7% until 1978, when it will increase to 12.1%. This rate will continue through 1980; from 1981-85 it will be 12.3%; 1986-1997 it will be 12.5%. This tax must be paid until Brother John Doe becomes disabled or until he retires. Brother John Doe will reach the age of 65 in 1982. At this time he may apply for old-age benefits. By 1982 he will have earned 36 quarters of coverage, and he will therefore be qualified for both retirement and Medi-care benefits. The amount of Brother's retirement benefits are calculated on the basis of his average "wage" over a period of 26 years (this number is given in a Social Security table, depending on date of birth and whether the person is a man or woman). In Brother John Doe's case his total earnings are 9 × $2,500 or $22,500; this divided by 26 gives his average yearly earn-ings as $865, or $72 a month. The Social Security Administration table of benefits indicates that Brother John Doe qualifies for the minimum benefit of $84.50 per month, or $1,014 per year. American Experience of Mortality Tables show that, on the average, men who reach age 65 will live another 15 years. Applying this figure to Brother John Doe gives his total old-age benefits as $15,210. Medicare Provisions After reaching 65, Brother John Doe automatically qualifies for Medi-care, Part A, the hospital insurance part of the health insurance program. This provides payment for services received as a bed patient in a hospital, or in an extended care facility, or at home as a patient up to 90 "hospital days" or 100 "extended care days" or 100 "homeohealth visits." The details of these benefits are spelled out in Your Medicare Handbook published by the Social Security Administration. After reaching age 65, Brother John Doe may elect to participate in Part B of Medicare which is a medical insurance program that helps pay for doctors' services, medical services and supplies, and other health care services. The cost of this insurance is reevaluated by the Government an-nually, but was $5.60 per month for the period July 1971-July 1972. Again, the details of this insurance program are contained in the same Handbook referred to above. Brother John Doe may continue to work after reaching age 65; should he do so, he will continue to pay Social Security on his wages. Further, the first $2,100 of his wages do not influence the old-age retirement benefits he receives, but the $400 beyond $2,100 (recall that our example set Brother John Doe's wages at $2,500) reduces his benefits by a proportion of one dollar for each two dollars earned over $2,100, or, in our example, by Religious and Social Security $200. Upon retirement, Brother John Doe would receive the full amount of his retirement benefit and would no longer pay the Social Security tax. Upon his death, a cash benefit of $251 is paid the beneficiary of Brother John Doe. However, for Social Security purposes Brother John Doe has no dependent survivors; after the deathbenefit is paid, no further benefits are paid on Brother John Doe's account. The Question Facing Each Religious Order Each religious order is now faced with a rather complex question-- what would be the economic consequence of exercising the option of joining the Social Security system. The order becomes liable to the Social Security tax on all its present members add all future members; it also gradually qualifies its members through quar.ters of coverage for the benefits of the Social Security program, chiefly disability, retirement, and Medicare. The order must make a careful evaluation of its age profile, its wage level, and its health and mortality experience.', to arrive at a prudent judgment as to lhe advisability of joining the Social Security program. The retroactive feature of P.IS. 92.605, Section 123, requires special consideration. This will allow religious who have recently retired, or those who will retire in the next several years, to qualify for full coverage, but the price that must be paid is the back Social Security tax for all members of the order who were active at the effective retroactive date. This date may be any number of quarters up to '~a maximum of 20 prior to the date of election of coverage. The effect of not choosing the retroactive feature is that some of the present older religious will not qualify for Social Security benefits, nor will they be eligible for Part A of Medicare after reaching age 65. Detailed information on Social Security matters is contained in the .publications listed below. Also, more specific reference to Social Security as it affects religious with a vow of poverty is given in the series of questions and answers that follow. Critical Social Security Questions Question 1. For purposes of the law relating to the Social Security coverage of religious (P.L. 92.603), what are considered wages? Answer. Wages for the purpose of this law shall include the fair market value of any board, lodging, clothing, and other perquisites furnished to a member by the order or autonomous subdivision thereof or by any other person or organization pursuant to an agreement with the order or subdivi-vision. Question 2. Does the law provide for a minimum or maximum amount for evaluated maintenance? Answer. The legislation specifically provides that the evaluated mainte-nance shall not be less than $100 per month. The maximum of course 214 / Review [or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 would be $10,800 under the 1972 amendments. The committee reports emphasize that the evaluation shall be on a reasonable basis. There is no indication that cost accounting principles must be applied. The committee reports also emphasize the understanding that there will be one established or evaluated wage for all of the members of the order regardless of the position which they occupy. Question 3. Are religious subject to both Social Security and income taxes? Answer. This law does not affect the vow of poverty but rather confirms it. Therefore, there would be no income tax liability on evaluated board and lodging. The Social Security taxes imposed on wages are limited by the law to orders which waive their tax exempt status for the limited purpose of Social Security coverage. Question 4. Will the religious be required to file any income tax forms? Answer. No, this law is not based on the self-employment concept as in ~the case of ministers. The only form filed is that which is required of tile employer; that is, the order or a subdivision thereof. Question 5. Who determines the level of income for a particular religious order or autonomous subdivision thereof? Answer. This is determined by the religious super:,or, based on a study of the actual situation existing with the members of the order or subdivi-sion thereof. Question 6. The order or subdivision thereof decides whether or not to come into the Social Security System; how is this decision made? Answer. The law does not specify how the decision is to be made. The provincial may get to~ether with the council and make the decision. Alterna-tively, the entire membership might be polled on the question. Question 7. If the order elects to come under Social Security, is this election irrevocable? Answer. Yes. Question 8. How many quarters of coverage are necessary in order to be fully insured under Social Security? Answer. Ultimately, the answer depends on the date of birth of the person being considered. It is necessary to go to a table supplied by the Social Security Administration to find the answer to this question. It should be observed here that, depending on the age of the individual, it may not be necessary to have as many quarters of coverage to secure Medicare coverage. This too depends on Social Security Administration tables. Question 9. Is it economically advantageous for a religious order to participate in Social Security? Answer. It is difficult to give a generalized answer to this question. It must be determined for each individual order. Three of the most signifi-cant factors are: the level of wages of the members of the order, the age distribution of the members of th+ order, and the benefits which would be Religious and Social Security / :215 receivable, that is, old age and survivors benefits, Medicare coverage and disability insurance and death benefits. Question 10. What retirement benefits are paid to a retired religious who has been fully insured under Social Security? Answer. This depends on the level of "income" on which the religious paid Social Security taxes during the years he was acquiring the necessary number of quarters of coverage; however, there is a minimum benefit paid to everyone who has the requisite number of quarters. At present this minimum is $84.50 per month or $1,014 per annum. Question 11. What is the situation with respect to a religious who pays Social Security taxes for ten years and then leaves the order? Answer. The credits a religious earns toward Social Security coverage belong to him/her as an individual; should the religious leave the order he takes the earned eligibility with him into secular life. Question 12. A religious man with sufficient quarters of coverage to be fully insured reaches age 65 but continues to work; that is, he is not retired in the technical sense of the term. What is his status under Social Security? Answer. Upon reaching the age of 65 the religious who has earned the required quarters of coverage may apply for Social Security benefits and he would be entitled to the same. If he continues to work, that is, he is not retired, the order must pay the Social Security taxes on his wages even though he is receiving old age benefits. If his wages are $2,100 or less, there would be no reduction of his old age benefits. If, on the other hand, they are in excess of $2,100 there would be a reduction of one dollar for every two dollars in excess of $2,100. The above answer would apply to a member of a religious order of women with the exception that she would be eligible for Social Security at the age of 62. Her benefits, however, would be somewhat reduced. Under the 1972 amendment a man may likewise be retired at 62 but his benefits would be reduced. Question 13. Is there any significant difference in the Social Security law as it applies to men or to women? Answer. The age at which women may receive benefits, and is the nor-mal retirement age for women, is 62, whereas it is 65 for men; however, men may retire at 62 and receive i'educed benefits. The required quarters of coverage to be fully insured differs for men and for women. The exact details should be checked with table~ supplied by the Social Security Administration. Question 14. Is there any time limit in which to elect coverage? Answer. No, an election may be made at. any time the order so desires. Question 15. Is there any time limit for electing retroactive coverage? Answer. No; however, if. the order defers the election of retroactive coverage for a significant amount of time it will be more costly when the order does elect to come in on a retroactive basis. The rate for the retro-active purchase of coverage is determined by, existing tax rates during the :216 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 five year period. For example, if an order elected five years retroactive cov-erage in December the tax rate for 1967 and 1968 would be 8.80%; for 1969 and 1970 it would be 9.60 and for 1971 and 1972 it would be 10.40. In 1973 the rate will be 11.70 and by 1978 it will rise to 12.10. In addi-tion to the increased costs it is possible that some religious will not be covered if the retroactive buy-in is deferred for a substantial period of time. Some members, for example, may retire and, consequently, will not be cov-ered in the retroactive purchase. Question 16. Must one elect for a retroactive period of five years or may one elect for a lesser number of years? Answer. The order may elect to "buy in" for any number of years it wishes, the maximum being five. Question 17. If a religious is active during the retroactive period and alive at the time of election but no longer a member of the order should he be counted in determining retroactive coverage? Answer. Yes. Question 18. When must the order pay for the retroactive coverage? Answer. By the end of the quarter in which the election is made. This payment must be made in a lump sum; there is no provision for an install-ment buy-in. Question 19. May an order elect coverage before the forms and regula-tions are finalized? Answer. Yes; notification of election of coverage may be sent to your district Social Security office. Question 20. When should a religious secure a Social Security number? Answer. As soon as possible. It is not necessary to have Social Security coverage in order to acquire a number. Acquisition of a number might speed receipt of benefits when an election is finally made. Question 21. If a religious subject to a vow of poverty performs ser-vices not required by the order but merely with the approval of his or her superior may he or she receive the benefit of this law? Answer. No, the services performed must be at the requirement of the religious order or subdivision thereof. Question 22. If a religious receives board and lodging from another organization (parish) how shall the wages be determined for Social Se-curity purposes? Answer. The tlat rate which is adopted for all religious shall prevail. Question 23. How much would it cost to buy in retroactively for a five year period at an evaluated wage of $100 per month? Answer. It would cost $612 per member who was active during the five year period and alive at the time of election. Some Available Literature 1. Social Security Handbook (SSI 135). This is available from the Religious and Social Security / 217 Superintendent of Documents and provides o]~erall ~nformatlon but nothing more recently than 1969. It will be 3 to 6 rrionths, before anything like its counterpart will be brought out. The volume c~sts $2.25. 2. Your Medicare Handbook (DHEW ,Publication; SSA 72-10050). This is available from the Superintendent of Documents at 35 cents in bulk rate, free for a few copies. The Handbook is available to anyone entitled to Medicare. 3. Your Social Security (DHEW SSA 72-10035). This provides gen-eral information and is available free from the Superintendent of Documents. 4. If You Become Disabled (SSA 73-10029). Available free even in bulk. 5. Your Social Security Earnings Recordi (DHEW 73-10044). Avail-able from the Superintendent of Documents. 6. How Medicare Helps You When You Go to the Hospital (DHEW 72-10039). This may be free in bulk. 7. Estimating Your Social Security Retirement Check (SSI 47). Avail-able free. Theological Reflections on the Ordination of Women Committee on Pastoral Research and Practices The Committee on Pastoral Research and Practices is a committee of the' National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Foreword This report prepared by the Committee on Pastoral Research and Practices has been approved for publication by the Administrative Committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. The report is not definitive. It deals only with the question of ordination to diaconate and priesthood, leaving aside the question of installation of women in ministries of lector and acolyte. It is a contribution to the con-tinuing dialogue on a subject of great importance. Its purpose is to encour-age further study and discussion while making honest efforts to identify the major questions which must be examined in depth before conclusive answers can be given. We are conscious of the deep love for the Church which underlies the growing interest of many women in the possibility of ordination. Our own appreciation of their indispensable contribution to the life of the Church underlies this effort at honest dialogue. Other churches are also engaged in a study of this question. While their reflections have been helpful to us, we hope ours may be helpful to them. Theological Reflections on the Ordination ot Women The question of ordaining women is an old one in the Church, but it has not yet been thoroughly researched for Catholic theology. There is no explicit authoritative teaching concerning the ordination of women that settles the question. The topic should be given exhaustive study. The theological reasons for and against the ordination of women need to be developed in careful and 218 The Ordination of Women / 219 objective fashion. A thorough study is required not because of sociological trends, but because of developments in the Church within the past decade. The encyclical Pacem in terris (no. 41) in 1963 listed the emancipation of women as a positive development of modern times. The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (nos. 9, 29) in 1965 rejected any discrimination based on sex. The admission of women as auditors to the last two sessions of Vatican II (1964-65), the proclamation of St. Theresa of Avila as Doctor of the Church (1970), the discussions on this subject in the Third Synod of Bishops (1971)--these trace a considerable recent development concerning woman's role in the Church. The revelation given in Galatians 3:28 shows the equality before God of every Christian: "There does not exist among you Jew or Greek, slave or freeman, male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus." In the Church then there is no distinction of persons: Discriminatory lines have been erased by Christ. In the Church there can be no discrimination. The basic text and basic teaching, however, do not mean that there are not different ministries in the Church, or that one ministry is to be pre-ferred over another--as the same St. Paul taught in 1 Cor 12:4-14: 1. In spite of this doctrine of the equality of all in Christ, no woman has ever been pope, bishop, or priest. At the present time it cannot be proven or disproven that women were ever ordained deacons. It is Church law (Canon 968) that women are not eligible for orders. Several scriptural and theological justifications have been proposed to explain why women are not eligible for ordination. They are here listed-- in a general order of increasing importance--with some brief comments. 1. In the Old Testament, authentic priesthood was limited to males. The Aaronic priesthood and the levitical service (a service somewhat analogous to the diaconate) were similarly limited to males (cf. Exodus 28, Leviticus 8). This was in keeping with the strongly patriarchal Hebrew society. Be-cause we accept the law as invested with divine authority, we accept this limitation of Old Testament priesthood to men of one family within one tribe of Israel as expressing God's will-for the Old Testament. The exclusion of most males and of all females was then also God's will. This entire presen-tation, however, seemingly has no direct bearing on the issue at hand. We of the New Testament are studying the will of God concerning the New Testa-ment priesthood of Jesus Christ. 2. In the New Testament there is mention of a woman who was called "deaconess" (Rom 16:1) and of other women serving as deacons (1 Tim 3:11). Similarly in the early centuries of the Church, and especially in the East, there were deaconesses. Unfortunately no clear conclusions can be drawn from this information. There is no way at present to determine whether these women were called by this title in a formal or an informal way, whether the women in scripture were wives of deacons .who aided their deacon hus-bands, whether they were ordained, whether any ordination they received 220 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 was sacramental, etc. The uncertainty of Scripture scholars concerning an "order" of deaconess is illustrated in the Jerome Biblical Commentary, 53: 136; 57: 21. A similar uncertainty seemingly exists concerning the deaconess in the early Oriental Church. This deaconess tradition is helpful in approach-ing the present question. However, we must beware of constructing a case for or against the sacramental ordination of women on such fragmentary and indefinite information. 3. Saint Paul repeatedly directed that women hold to a subordinate posi-tion in the Church, keep silence in the Church, keep their heads covered, tend the home and family, etc. (cf. 1 Cor 11:2-16; 14:33-36; Eph 5:22-24; Col 3: 18; Titus 2:5; cf. 1 Pet 3: 1-7). There seems to be little question but these texts are of Pauline authority alone. The developments of the past decade in the Church listed in this letter, and the authorized functioning of women as lectors and commentators, further demonstrate that these Pauline texts should not be cited as arguing against the ordination of women. 4. The New Testament doctrine on "headship" as reflected in the order of creation is given to justify the leadership of men and the subordination of women in the Church (cf. 1 Cor 11:3-12; 1 Tim 2:8-15). This same reasoning is advanced to explain the ordination to the priesthood of men but not of women. This doctrine of the dependence of woman on man is seem-ingly the teaching of Genesis (cf. JCB 2:18) as well as of Saint Paul (cf. supra). However, much further study is needed before conclusions can be drawn. 5. The incarnation is given as a reason for the ordination of men only. The word of God took on flesh and was made man--as a male. This then was the divine plan. It is stated that this divine plan is expressed in the person of Christ (cf. Decree on the Ministry and Li]e o[ Priests, no. 2). It is argued that a male priest is required to act in the person of the male Christ. 6. The selectivity of Christ and of the early Church presents another ap-proach. It is known that Jesus did not hesitate to contravene the law and sociological customs of his time. Yet Jesus selected only men as his apostles and disciples. Further, the replacement for Judas was to be specifically one of male sex (Acts, 1:21 in the Greek), even though women who fulfilled the other conditions were present and available. Similarly the seven assistants to the apostles (Acts 6:3) were all men, even though the work was to be that of serving widows. This limitation to men, it is argued, goes beyond socio-logical conditions of that day and points to a divine choice. 7. Revelation is made known to us from tradition as well as from Sacred Scripture (cf. Constitution on Divine Revelation, nos. 8-10). It is then necessary for theology in this question to look to the life and practice of the Spirit-guided Church. The constant practice and tradition of the Catholic Church has excluded women from the episcopal and priestly office. The-ologians and canonists have been unanimous until modern times in con- The Ordination of Women / 221 sidering this exclusion as absolute and of divine origin. Until recent times no theologian or canonist seemingly has judged this to be only of ecclesiasti-cal law. It would be pointless to list the many authorities and the theological note that each assigns to this teaching. However, the constant tradition and practice of the Catholic Church against the ordination of women, interpreted (whenever interpreted) as of divine law, is of such a nature as to constitute a clear teaching of the ordinary magisterium of the Church. Though not formally defined, this is Catholic doctrine. These seven approaches have been used to document the exclusion from ordination of women. From them we attempt to draw six somewhat tentative conclusions: 1. Reasons no. 5 and no. 6 call for considerable further study in order to measure their validity. 2. Reason no. 7 is of ponderous theological import. Its force will not be appreciated by those who look for revelation and theology in Scripture alone, and who do not appreciate tradition as a source of theology. Because of rea-son no. 7 a negative answer to the possible ordination of women is indicated. The well-founded present discipline will continue to have and to hold the entire field unless and until a contrary theological development takes place, leading ultimately to a clarifying statement from the magisterium. 3. This question is extraordinarily complex. It is influenced by the indi-vidual's point of departure, viewpoint, and choice of terminology. Even in this study some helpful distinctions have not been spelled out for the sake of brevity. It would seem that neither Scriptural exegesis nor theology alone can give a clear answer to this question. The ultimate answer must come from the magisterium, and the current question is whether the magisterium (as reason no. 7 explains) has already given a definite and final answer. And at this level of doubt, only the magisterium itself can give" ultimate clarification. 4. It is possible to draw distinctions between the diaconate and the epis-copal- priestly order, and within the diaconate itself. Assuming that the diaconate is of ecclesial and not divine, institution, and that it can be sep-arated from the sacrament of orders, it would seem possible that special study be given to the possibility of a diaconate of service, non-sacramental and non-liturgical, which would be conferred on women. It has been noted that Pseudo-Denys in the 5th century made such a distinction within the diaconate. 5. Some contemporary writings on this subject approach priestly ordina-tion as "power" rather than service, and speak of a "right to ordination." Such views appear to overlook the clear doctrine that priestly ministry is service to the People of God, that no Christian has any right to ordination, and that it involves the mystery of God's free election. One who is not an ordained priest is not thereby, a lesser Christian, a lesser minister, or a victim of discrimination. In the Church there are many ministries, but all Christians do not have all charisms, and the hearts of all should be set on the greater 222 / Review ]or Religious, l/olume 32, 1973/2 gifts of God's love (1 Cor 12:4-13:3). Further, all Christians share in the common priesthood of the faithful (cf. Constitution on the Church, no. 10); from among these some are chosen by God to minister to the others by priestly service. In such a context should this question be presented. 6. Beyond the question of theological possibility is the further considera-tion o~ what is pastorally prudent. For the present, however, we can see from theology only a continuation of the established discipline. Considering the strength of that discipline and the numerous uncertainties detailed in this paper, the needed study on this question is now just beginning. As is evident, every one of the points listed in this report calls for a major study. The German theologian Ida Friederike Gorres reminds us that it is God's will and plan that must be determinant in this question: The Catholic priesthood is a unique phenomenon, springing solely from the faith, the doctrine, the history, the growing self-consciousness of the Church: not from the religious needs of the Catholic people, certainly not from any principles or theories concerning the rights of men and women, nor yet from the necessity of particular functions which could be assigned at will to various persons. The one and only exemplar of the Catholic priest is the living person of Jesus Christ, in his relationship to the Church: in the mystery of the one, perfect, indissoluble life he leads, with her (Catholic Transcript, Dec. 17, 1965). Pluralism in the Works of Karl Rahner with Applications to Religious Life Philip S. Keane, S.S. Philip S. Keane, S.S., is the Vice Rector of St. Patrick's Seminary; 320 Middlefield Road; Menlo Park, California 94025. As a working theologian moves from place to place, he finds himself being asked questions on a wide variety of subjects and his interests tend naturally to move towards those questions which he is asked over and over again. In the past twelve to eighteen months there is no question which I have been asked about more frequently than the theological meaning of pluralism. The question has come from virtually all segments of the Christian community, but it has been asked with special urgency by the members of religious communities, with at least one religious community having enough concern about the issue that it has called for a serious study of pluralism in its newly adopted constitutions.1 Pluralism a Perennial P~oblem In a certain sense I have found the repeated questions about pluralism amusing. My amusement has come from the fact that my questioners (sisters in particular) so often seem to be presupposing that pluralism is a brand new issue, perhaps even a .brand new toy, which theologians have just lately discovered. Some of the questioners seem very excited about this new issue as if it will solve all their community living problems while others are quite frightened by it, but they all seem to have the idea that pluralism is a totally new problem. This I find amusing inasmuch as pluralism is a perennial problem which theologians have .wrestled with for centuries; it is hardly a new issue. Many of today's older theologians such as Karl Rahner aConstitutions o] the Sisters o] St. Joseph o] Carondelet, a Congregation o] Pontifical Right, St. Louis, 1972, p. 29. 223 224 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 have been working with pluralism for 30 or 40 years, that is, since before a number of my excited questioners were born. Thus perhaps the first point to be made to those who are either nervously or excitedly asking about theologi-cal pluralism today is that it is anything but a totally new theological concept. Nonetheless, theological plurfilism is a most important issue for the whole Church today and for religious communities in particular. Also, it is an issue which is not well understood especially from the theological view- . point. Hence, the goal of this article will be to aid our understanding of pluralism as a theological reality by presenting the concept of pluralism found in the works of Karl Rahner and by applying this concept to the situation of the religious community today. In the past 10 or 15 years Rahner has written very extensively and incisively on pluralism'-' and his work on the theme should surely be a help to us in forming a workable theological concept of pluralism. Divisions and Presuppositions Our reflections on the theology of pluralism will be divided into five parts: first, pluralism as a basic theological reality; second, the unique character of pluralism today; third, some consequences of today's pluralism for the Church as a whole; fourth, pluralism and the oneness of our faith; and finally the implications of pluralism for religious community life. The first four parts will gather and coherently organize Rahner's ideas on plural-ism. The final section will move beyond what Rahner says explicitly, but it will seek to be faithful to his views on pluralism. An important note before beginning the explanation of Rahner's writings on pluralism is that, as with any Rahnerian topic, the vastness and.depth of Rahner's total theological synthesis are such as to render the treatment of a particular Rahnerian theme such as pluralism somewhat difficult without at least some grasp of the whole of Rahner. In our particular case, for example, Rahner's metaphysics of human knowing as bipolar (explicit and implicit), his concept of God as indescribable mystery, his explanation of Christianity as an openness to all that is genuinely human, and his concept of man as ~Rahner's major articles on pluralism include "The Theological Concept of Con-cupiscentia," Theological Investigations (hereinafter T1) [8 volumes 1961-71; vs. 1-6, Baltimore: Helicon; vs. 7-8, New York: Herder and Herder], v. 1, pp. 347-82; "The Man of Today and Religion," TI 6, pp. 3-20; "A Small Question Regarding the Contemporary Pluralism in the Intellectual Situation of Catholics and the Church," ibid., pp. 21-30; "Reflections on Dialogue within a Pluralistic Society," ibid., pp. 31-42; "Philosophy and Philosophizing in Theology," Theology Digest, Sesquicentennial issue, 1968, pp. 17-29; "Philosophy and Theology," Sacramentum Mundi (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968-70), v. 5, pp. 20-4; "Theological Reflections on the Prob-lem of Secularization," Theology o] Renewal (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), v. 1, pp. 167-92; "Pluralism in Theology and the Oneness of the Church's Profession of Faith," Concilium, v. 46 (1969), pp. 103-23; and "Glaube des Christen und Lehre der Kirche," Stimmen der Zeit, July 1972, pp. 3-19. Pluralism in Rahner / 225 a future-oriented being whose most fundamental virtue is hope are all themes which form a substratum for his theology of pluralism? These themes will be given brief explanations as needed and the reader less familiar with Rahner is advised to consider them carefully when they occur. Pluralism as a Basic Theological Reality First of all then, what is the basic theological meaning of pluralism? Rahner began to develop his thinking on this matter in his well known 1941 article on concupiscence.4 Therein while discussing Heidegger's distinction between human person and human nature, Rahner makes the point that the human person, the source of human freedom and human longing for God, can never fully dispose of himself in a single action. Instead, man's person finds himself limited by man's nature as a material or incarnate spirit. Man cannot make a total act of movement towards God, an act which is uni-formly effective in all the aspects of human nature. For man's person which freely seeks God lives in an insuperable tension with his nature which limits his ability to move towards God. Some years later (1959) Rahner explained this kind of thinking further in another context when writing about the mystery of God) Here the point is that the mystery of God so totally tran-scends human knowledge that no concrete human experience or human expression can ever fully encapsulate the mystery of God. This mystery which is at the very root of man's being constantly eludes man's efforts to grasp or formulate it. At the level of concrete human knowing man does not have a total understanding of God. Rather man in his materiality and there-fore in his limitation has only partial knowledge of the mystery of God. The more he learns about God the more there is to learn, for God will always be the mystery who exceeds the depths of our understanding.~ Our life then is a day by day effort to see, follow, and love God more clearly, nearly, and dearly as the popular song from Godspell puts it. All this of course is no new insight. St. Paul said the same thing centuries ago: "Oh, :~Good background reading on these themes includes "Dogmatic Reflections on the Knowledge and Self-Consciousness of Christ," TI 5, pp. 199-201; "The Concept of Mystery in Catholic Theology," TI 4, pp. 36-73; "Anonymous Christians," TI 6, pp. 390-8; "On the Theology of the Incarnation," T) 4, pp. 105-20; and "The Theology of Hope," Theology Digest, Sesquicentennial issue, 1968, pp. 78-87. ¯ ~"The Theologi~:al Concept of Concupiscentia," TI 1, pp. 347-82. For what follows see especially pp. 368-9. In recent articles Rahner has explicitly shown how his present thinking on pluralism is rooted in his early writings on concupiscence; for example, "Theological Reflections on the Problem of Secularization," Theology o] Renewal, v. 1, pp. 187-8. 5"The Concept of Mystery in Catholic Theology," TI 4, pp. 36-73, especially pp. 46-8. 6Rahner pushes this position about God as absolute mystery to its ultimate radicality when he argues that God will still be m. ystery for us in heaven (ibid., pp. 53-60), and that in God all the mysteries of our faith are ultimately one (ibid., pp. 61-73). 226 / Review ]or Religious, Vohtme 32, 1973/2 the depths and the richness of the wisdom of God; how incomprehensible his judgments are, how unsearchable his ways" (Rom 11:33). Unavoidable Pluralism Putting these ideas together, we can see that both man's unlimited desire to choose God in freedom and his ceaseless yearning to know God with his intellect are limited in such a way that in actual fact man only chooses and knows God through a series of particular or partial acts of choice or knowledge. His choice of God comes through a multiplicity of human choices, his knowledge of God comes through a multiplicity of human acts of knowing.; All this leads Rahner to a basic dictum of his religious or theological anthropology, namely, that the inherently limited and seriated character of all human choice and knowledge of God means that all human experi-ence of God has about it a necessary and unavoidable element of multiplicity or pluralism. Since man cannot fully embrace the mystery of God in single actions, he must experience God through many actions. Pluralism thus be-comes a basic or fundamental element of man's relationship to God. Rahner states this in many ways in his works. He states that man is ever subjected to the agony of pluralism,s and even more strongly he calls pluralism a radical or irreducible fact of human existence.'~ Because God made man as a material or embodied spirit, man cannot escape from pluralism, from the fact that he must learn about God, and indeed about all of life bit by bit, part by part. There just is no other way for the human spirit. Any form of mysticism which tries to escape from man's bodiliness and multiplicity is a pseudo-mysticism in the opinion of Rahner?° It is particularly important to note that since Rahner's concept of plural-ism is founded upon man's way of knowing and choosing God, it is a radi-cally theological concept, that is, a concept asserting a basic aspe.ct of man's relationship to God. This is significant today because very often pluralism is bandied about as a sociological or political concept, whereas Rahner's idea of it is much deeper. The trouble with those who limit their concept of pluralism to sociology or political science is that, whether they like pluralism or not, they can very easily look upon it as a fad which will pass away. In :Rahner uses both Scotist approaches (the limitations of our freedom) and Thomist approaches (the limitations of our knowledge) in explaining pluralism theologically. In later years he tends mostly towards knowledge oriented or Thomist examples, perhaps most celebratedly with his concept of "gnoseological concupiscence" ("The-ological Reflections on the Problem of Secularization," Theology o] Renewal, v. 1, p. 187). But both ways are possible for him. Slbid., pp. 190-1. :"'Philosophy and Philosophizing in Theology," Theology Digest, Sesquicentennial issue, 1968, p. 22. 1°Hearers o] the Word (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), pp. 77-9. Pluralism in Rahner / 227 particular those threatened by pluralism will wait for it to pass if they view it as a fad. But pluralism is not a passing fad. Its basic point is that no two of us ever experience and formulate our approach to God in exactly the same way. We are truly moving towards the "many mansions in our father's house." Ultimately then we must see pluralism as a theological issue. Problems of Pluralism Rahner's language in describing the fundamental phenomenon of pluralism raises some interesting questions. Why does he describe man as "subjected" to pluralism? Why does he call pluralism agonizing? Why did he begin to develop his treatment of it in the context of a theology of con-cupiscence? The answer to all these questions is that in Rahner's view it is man's irreducible pluralism which makes it possible for man to sin. It is precisely man's ability to explicitly grasp only partial goods or values which enables him to sin, to sin by absolutizing one or some of these partial values and thus shutting himself up in the finite,~1 closing himself to the unfathom-able mystery of God. The agony for man is that he experiences or perceives value only in partial and thus plural realizations. His very way o~ being drives him towards the multiple or plural values. The temptation to ab-solutize such values is the temptation to sin. Rahner's whole theology of hope, of man as a being who must be open to the future, a being who must refuse to absolutize the partial values of the present, is, of course, echoed here.l~ These thoughts bring up another problem. Do pluralism's close connec-tions with concupiscence, and hence its status as the occasion which renders sin possible make pluralism a bad or evil thing? Definitely not! This rejection of a condemnation of pluralism is one of the most emphatic rejections in Rahner's entire theological system. His whole reason for beginning to write about man's concupiscent movement after multiple and partial values was to insist that such movement cannot be called fundamentally evil?:' Rahner holds that it was the all good God who made us .as material and pluralistic beings and that, therefore, we must accept ourselves as we are in faith, in hope, and in love. Rahner is determined to teach that we should love the nature God gave us and this means that we must openly embrace our radi-cal, God-given pluralistic state. We simply cannot flee from it, agonizing though it may be. Are we ready to accept Rahner's challenge on this point? The Unique Character of Pluralism Today Our reflections so far have shown us that pluralism is a basic constituent of man's experience of God affecting all men at all times. But another vital 11,,Thoughts on the Possibility of Belief Today," 7~1 5, p. 10. V-'For a position similar to Rahner's on this point see Wolfhart Pannenberg, What is Matt? (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), pp. 68-73. ~:t"'The Theological Concept of Concupiscentia," TI 1, pp. 369-71. 228 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 point needs to be made. Why is it that pluralism, always a part of man's situation before God, has become such a particularly pressing concern in our times? Why are so many in religious communities suddenly talking about it? Why has a man like Rahner written so much on pluralism in recent years? To put all these questions more precisely we should ask the following: Is there something specifically unique about pluralism in the 20th century? Are there new factors today which further complicate man's fundamentally pluralistic situation? In answer, the first assertion to be made is that Rahner very definitely feels that 20th century pluralism is a specifically unique phenomenon in the history of the human race. He explains the uniqueness of 20th century pluralism by referring to the tremendous, historically unparalleled explosion in human knowledge which is taking place in our century.TM Man has prob-ably learned more (and therefore appropriated more multiple or plural values) since the beginning of our century than he learned in all the previous centuries combined. Thus, specialization has become the byword of our age. Each individual human being is learning more and more about less and less. Human communication is becoming harder and harder. In the 19th century those who went to college or graduate school could be rela-tively certain that their studies would include a good deal of the "liberal arts" and that they would arrive at basically similar value systems. Even in the early 20th century this was still so. Today, however, people are sent away to school to study various disciplines (art, sociology, psychology, literature, mathematics, and so forth) and they come home with such varied value systems that for all practical purposes they are speaking in different languages. Many segments of society experience this problem in-cluding religious communities. The situation is especially burdensome for persons in authority insofar as persons in authority are never again going to be able to learn enough to understand all the varied value systems and languages of the people under them. A Qualitatively New Situation Rahner gives his position on the uniqueness of 20th century pluralism a deeply radical meaning when he refuses to explain today's pluralism on a merely quantitative basis, that is, on the basis of the increased number of plural values which different men are learning about today. Rather he holds that the numerical increase in man's knowledge of pluralistic values has placed mankind in a qualitatively new situation,x'' The qualitative l~"Reflections on the Contemporary Intellectual Formation of Future Priests," T! 6, pp. 114-20; "Reflections on Dialogue in a Pluralistic Society," ibid., pp. 39-40; and repeatedly elsewhere in Rahner's works on pluralism. ~z"Pluralism in Theology and the Oneness of the Church's Profession of Faith," Concilium 46 (1969), p. 104. Pluralism in Rahner / 229 difference is this: In the past the number of insights and values known to man was limited enough that it was at least possible in principle for one person or one group of persons to gather together the known human insights and values in such a way as to formulate one coherent worldview or philosophy of life which could be accepted and embraced by all men at least in a given part of the world. Further, in the past, the world's great civiliza-tions (Western, Oriental, African, American) were so insulated from one another by "cultural no-man's lands" that the fact of one civilization's philosophy of life not including the values known to other civilizations made no difference in practice,a'~ Today, however, the whole world is different; the barriers between the great civilizations are collapsing, and the number of pluralistic insights and values has so increased that it is simply impossible for any person or group to embrace all known values and thus establish a worldview which can attain anything approaching a universal acceptance by a civilization or civilizations.1~ This is why Rahner says that 20th century pluralism has put man in a qualitatively new situation: man can no longer thematize universally acceptable worldviews. 20th century pluralism is therefore radi-cally new. The adjectives which Rahner uses to describe it become stronger and stronger as the years pass. He describes today's pluralism as irreduc-ible, indomitable, unconquerable, unsurpassable, and so forth,as Another way of describing the qualitative difference between today's pluralism and that of the past might be to say that in former times the plural values perceived by man could be conquered by inclusion within one philosophical worldview so that they were reduced to diverse aspects of that worldview, to diversities within one philosophical system. But the differing values of today cannot be conquered or reduced to one system; thus we no longer have diversities within a system but instead we have something much more radical, we have a pluralism which is in Rahner's words unconquerable and irreducible. Rahner never precisely uses the words diversity and pluralism to characterize the old and new aspects of human multiplicity, but such a terminology certainly seems to fit in with his description of the qualitative difference between today's pluralism and that of former centuries. In any case the point is that pluralism, while ~"Philosophy and Philosophizing in Theology," Theology Digest, Sesquicentennial issue, 1968, p. 22. ~r"A Small Question Regarding the Contemporary Pluralism in the Intellectual Situa-tion of Catholics and the Church," TI 6, p. 22, and in a number of other places in Rahner's works. ~SAmong many examples of Rahnerian language of this type are: "Theological Reflec-tions on the Problem of Secularization," Theology o] Renewal, v. 1, pp. 188-90; "Reflections on the Contemporary Intellectual Formation of Future Priests," TI 6, p. 117; "The Man of Today and Religion," ibid., p. 20; "Pluralism in Theology and the Oneness of the Church's Profession of Faith," Concilium 46 (1969), p. 107. Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 always a fact for man before God, presents us with a new series of problems in our times. Consequences of Today's Pluralism for the Church What should be the attitude or response of Christianity towards the qualitatively new phenomenon of 20th century pluralism? Six different aspects of Christianity's response to today's pluralism can be distinguished. The first of these aspects is a general picture of Christianity's response to pluralism; the remaining five are specific consequences of the new pluralism for the Church. First then and in a general way, it can be said that throughout his writings Rahner comes across very strongly as a man who is deeply con-vinced that one of Christianity's most vital and essential tasks for our times is to accept and embrace the pluralistic situation which God has given us today just as all men in ages past have had to accept the experience of pluralism which God gave them. This open thinking is found in Rahner's works on non-Christian religions,19 on the secularity and godlessness of today's world (which Rahner says we must bravely and courageously accept because it has a positive meaning and challenge for us),-°° and on the pluralistic sciences which he espouses and encourages.21 Even the shrinking of the Church in today's pluralistic world must be accepted ~vithout fear and loved by the Christian as part of God's plan for us, part of salvation history?-° Definitely, theret~ore, Rahner sounds a clarion call to the 20th cen-tury Church to face without fear or escapism the task which God has given us of coping with the new pluralism. I have little doubt but that in future centuries, Rahner's brilliant and insightful challenge to the Church on this matter will be one of the things for which he will be most remembered. In so many ways it can be said that for Rahner the name of the game for the Christian today is to be open. The whole thrust of Rahner's thinking on anonymous Christianity suggests this. Specific Consequences Secondly and more specifically, Rahner holds that in the light of modem pluralism Christianity must give up the idea that its entire message and value system can be embraced in any one philosophical system and in par: ticular it must give up the idea that the Thomistic philosophical system can continue to be the one decisive dialogue partner in which all Christian in-ag" Christianity and the non-Christian Religions," TI 5, pp. 115-34. =°"The Man of Today and Religion," TI 6, pp. 1 I-2. '-'1"Philosophy and Philosophizing in Theology," Theology Digest, Sesquicentennial issue, 1968, p. 27. "-'~"The Present Situation of Christians: A Theological Interpretation of the Position of Christians in the Modem World," The Christian Commitment (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), pp. 3-37. Pluralism in Rahner / 231 sights can be expressed to the world. Rather in the future Christianity will simply have to accept a who~le host of diaiogue partners (the arts, the be-havioral, social, and pure sciences, Oriental philosophies, and so forth) in expressing the Gospel messa'ge to the world. Rahner says this explicitly at least twice~3 and gives many other hints of it as well. For instance, he says that we must study all the great philosophies of the world because in an anonymous way they may be,' as much or more Christian than our explicitly Christian philosophy. In other words we are moving into an age of Christian philosophies and worldview!, instead of an age of a univocal Christian philosophy and worldview. Note carefully that Rahner who is a Thomist never says that Thomism sl~ould be abandoned as a philosophy. What he does say is that Thomism can no longer be given the absolute, monolithic status ascribed to it in the 15ast by the Church. Instead it must constantly criticize itself, realizing that it can never express the fullness of the truth of God. It must relentlessly op.en itself to the lns~ghts of other philosophies, which must in their turn be~ open to it. No longer will there be any one philosophy of life (in the sense values) upon which the Chu~rch or communities within it can operate.~' Thirdly as a consequence of pluralism for the Church Rahner holds that since theology depends on philosophical thinking for its mode of ex-pression, the fact that there can no longer be only one exclusively Christian philosophy suggests directly that there can no longer be one theology in the Church. Instead there Will be many theologies, a fact that the Church I ¯ " must bravely accept as Rahner puts it. no way denies our oneness of faith (Rahner calls it credal oneness) but it does demand that in the future our expressions of the one faith will be plural, in accord with the plu~iformtty of human experience. Next, and closely related to the idea of many theologies, Rahner argues I . that the magisterium or teac, hmg office of the Church finds itself cast into a whole new situation by tod.ay's pluralism.-oG Rahner points out that on rare occasions the teaching office[of the Church will have to continue to operate in the traditional mode, that [is, by rejecting this or that theological formula-tion as inconsistent with the faith,z7 Much more often, however, Rahner holds that in today's plurahst~c world the magisterium will have to take on z~"Philosophy and Philosophizing in Theology," Theology Digest, Sesquicentennial ~ssue, 1968, p. 18; 'Phdosophy ~nd Theology" Sacramentum Mundt, v. 5, p. 23. ~4This position does not deny the underlying unity of our faith, a matter we shall consider later. '-'SIbid., pp. 23-6. Rahner does speak herein of a sense in which there is still one theology, but this will emerge in our forthcoming consideration of our one faith. "-'Glbid., p. 26; "Pluralism in Theology and the Oneness of the Church's Profession of Faith," Concilium 46 (1969), pp. 112-3. ~7"Pluralism in. Theology and the Oneness of the Church's Profession of Faith," Concilium 46 (1969), p. 113. 232 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 a new function, a function which can be well described as a challenge func-tion rather than a judgment function. The idea of this challenge function of the magisterium is that no longer can the teaching Church understand all the formulations of all the theologians as it did in the past. Thus the Church will often not be in a position to judge the works of an individual theologian. But she can challenge him. She can urge him to be certain that his formula-tions are faithful to the Christian tradition. By so doing the teaching Church can render real service to the individual theologian and to the Christian community as a whole. Obviously a magisterium which challenges more than it judges will have to be more trusting of its theologians, trusting that they are faithful to our traditions even when the magisterium is not totally clear on how the new formulas of theology relate to the faith. Rahner states that this new challenge aspect of the Church's teaching office is already occur-ring. 2s The whole situation also suggests to Rahner that today's magisterium will generally refrain from proclaiming new dogmas, as it refrained at Vatican II. A fifth consequence of pluralism for the Church today is a fact which we previously alluded to, namely, that persons bearing authority in the Church (including bishops, pastors, religious superiors, and so forth) are placed in an extremely difficult but still very important position by con-temporary pluralism. All of us, therefore, should be deeply sensitive to the burdens of those who hold ecclesial office. Rahner points out that at times such authorities may have to exercise authority traditionally, saying no to this or that.-09 In most cases, however, office bearers in today's Church will follow the style of the new magisterium by challenging their subjects rather than judging them. In this context a particularly important task for Church authority figures will be to maintain openness, that is, to keep any of their subjects or groups of subjects from so locking themselves to a partial set of values (whether liberal values or conservative values) that they fail to be genuinely open to the mystery of God and thus commit the ultimate human sin of absolutizing finite values. Need for Constant Dialogue The last and perhaps most important implication of contemporary plural-ism is that in our times Christianity must engage in a constant and genuine dialogue with itself and with the world around it. Since today's man realizes that his philosophy of life can never be a total or absolute system, he must constantly seek to correct and expand his own viewpoint by dialoguing with other men. Rahner points out that genuine Christian dialogue is truly possible in a pluralistic society because for the man of faith all true values in 2s"Philosophy and Philosophizing in Theology," Theology Digest, Sesquicentennial issue, 1968, p. 27. 29"The Future of Religious Orders in the World and Church of Today," Sister Forma-tion Bulletin, Winter, 1972, p. 7. Pluralism in Rahner / 233 various philosophical and theological systems are seen to be rooted in the one mystery of God. Values not rooted in the mystery of God are not true values and will be shown as such in the dialogue. Hence as we journey through history together, there is hope that men can come to understand how their partial expressions of value are integrated in the absolute mystery or absolute future of man which is God. Those of course who lack faith will not see human differences as resolvable even in our future in God. But for those of us who do believe, there is hope that full unity will be attained in the eschaton. And in this hope we can keep on talking with each other despite repeated misunderstandings. Our age is peculiarly an age of going to meetings, and no doubt many of us get tired of meeting after meeting. But, if we are to be Christians in these pluralistic times, it seems we must keep on having meetings no matter how boring they, become. As Rahner sees it, dialogue is the only possible mode of coexistence for mod-ern Christian persons."~° In ending this section an observation which ought to be made is that none of these consequences of pluralism we have just reviewed really solve the problem of how the Christian is to live and form community today. For in all honesty we have to face the fact that pluralism as it now exists is a new problem which the generations who have preceded us did not face in the way we face it. Thus nobody today really knows how to cope with our pluralism and our inability to form worldviews which large scale segments of society can accept. Rahner makes some suggestions on the matter for the Church as a whole, but even he admits that he is far more asking the question about pluralism than answering it.~1 This lack of answers to the challenge of pluralism may not make us feel comfortable, but we must realize that that is where we are. Pluralism and the Oneness of Our Faith An especially nagging question seems to underlie much that we have said. Is pluralism something like the dualisms of former centuries with their many gods? Does pluralism have some effect on our faith in one God? In the Rahnerian thought world the answer is quite simple. Theological plural-ism positively does not weaken the oneness of our faith; if anything it strengthens that oneness by focusing us on the true source of our faith instead 'of on the more superficial sources of unity upon which we too often relied in the past. To understand Our oneness in faith in Rahner's system, we must advert to a basic theme of Rahner's theological anthropology or vision of man, namely that there are two poles or levels to human exis- :~°"Reflections on Dialogue within a Pluralistic Society," TI 6, p. 35. The whole article is valuable on dialogue. :~lThis point is made clear by the title and substance of Rahner's article, "A Small Question Regarding the Contemporary Pluralism in the Intellectual Situation of Catholics and the Church," TI 6, pp. 21-30. 234 / Review lor Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 tence.3~ One of these poles, in fact the more obvious of them, is the pole of concrete human activity and experience. This is the pole of human expres-sion, of human speech, of explicit consciousness and choice. On this pole or level the effects of man's materiality and limitation are clear, and thus man operates from this pole in a radically pluralistic fashion. He has many con-crete acts of learning and many forms of speech. He makes many choices. There is, however, another, a deeper and ultimately more significant level to human existence, a level which precedes the level of the concrete and multiple. This is the level of man's preconscious existence, of his deepest self-awareness before his God. Those who speak of man's funda-mental option are referring to this level of man's life. On this level rather than multiplicity and a myriad variety of human acts of knowledge and choice, man, if he is a believer, has a basic and simple openness to his God. On this level man in his radical openness no longer experiences a pluralism of values. Instead he knows one Lord and one faith. He and his neighbor may not be able to describe their faith in the same way, but as believers they are surely experiencing the one ineffable God. This level of transcen-dent human openness to God makes Christian faith community real. Our faith, therefore, is not hindered by pluralism. In fact, pluralism only serves to buttress our faith, because it forces us to realize that our faith can only be genuine faith if it is based on the unfathgmable mystery of God. No other source but this mystery can stand as an adequate ground for us as believers. Surely with this ground we can cry out in the words of Malachy: "Have we not all one father? Has not the one God created us?" (Mal 2:10). The Foundation in Tradition Rahner's position on human openness to the ineffability of God as the source of our faith and upon (he inevitable pluralism which begins to ensue as soon as we start expressing that faith finds much support both in the tradition of the Church and in modern authors. Traditionally, for instance, Christian authors have emphasized that the ways of knowing God by specific affirmation (via allirmativa) or negation (via negativa) had a validity .but still a clear limitation. Thus traditional authors appealed to a third way of knowing God, to the way of eminence or transcendence (via eminentiae), that is, to a primal recognition by man of the mystery of God. As Henri de Lubac has pointed out this third way is really the first and most fundamental way. a3 Among modern authors Bernard Lonergan in his new book, Method in Theology,34 gives particularly noteworthy support to Rahner's idea that we 3'-'"Dogmatic Reflections on the Knowledge and Self-Consciousness of Christ," TI 5, pp. 199-201. a:~Henri de Lubac, The Discovery o! God (New York: Kenedy, 1960), pp. 122-3. 34New York: Herder and Herder, 1972. In our context see especially pp. 265, 323, 326-30. Pluralism in Rahner / :235 all share one ineffable faith despite our various perceptions of that faith. Lonergan's insistence that true objectivity in man is not an "out there now real" set of facts, but rather man's honest habit of mind as he keeps him-self attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible would seem to place faith on the deepest level of human openness while realizing that faith will be expressed in various formulations. Even more explicitly, Lonergan's carefully reasoned argument that what is permanent in our dogmas is their meaning, not their formula supports Rahner's effort to place faith at the core of the human person while being open to pluralism on other levels of human perception or choice. Perhaps the title of Rahner's article "Pluralism in Theology and the Oneness of the Church's Profession of Faith" sum-marizes all this very nicely?5 We may have to use many words but we still have the Word of God. Pluralism thus creates no fundamental faith problem. It helps us to see that our faith must be based on the mystery of God. Our openness to this mystery is the primary source of our existence as a faith community. It is true, of course, that Christians need other levels of communal togetherness and organization besides this primary mystery of faith level. Some of these other or "second level" approaches to community will be considered in what follows about religious communities. First, however, we must realize that none of these other levels will have any meaning unless we begin by seeing ourselves as united on the primal level of faith in God. Implications of Pluralism for Religious Community Life~ With less specific guidance from Rahner, but in the spirit of all that we have seen, what can be said about the implications of contemporary plural-ism for religious communities in the Church? First, if we accept the idea that a religious community is called to be a genuine sign of hope to the whole Church and if contenlporary theological pluralism is one of the most critical and fundamental challenges facing the Church today, the task of opening itself to and coping with man's radically pluralistic situation is one of the most formidable and vital tasks facing the religious community today. It seems to be the kind of issue concerfiing which the religious community must live up to its eschatological nature as a sign of transcendent hope for the whole Church, a sign that real Christianity is possible in the modern pluralistic world, a sign to the Church of where she is going. It is an historical fact that over the centuries, religious com-munities have been leadership organizations in the Church in times of crisis. :~SA section of Lonergan's new book has almost exactly the same title (pp. 326-30). a6White the title of this section speaks of religious communities, surely the remarks herein can be taken as referring to the various n6ncanonical religious groups in the Church today as well as to the canonically approved religious communities. Indeed, the noncanonical groups may have an especially important task in showing religious communities their possibilities in our pluralistic world. 236 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 In our times pluralism is the crisis and millions of persons throughout the world are seeking to overcome the alienation which can exist in our plural-istic world. New experiments in communal living abound. In the crisis of pluralism can the religious community live up to its historic role of leader-ship for the future? Second, if religious communities do face up to this challenge of assuming a leadership function in showing the Church its role in a pluralistic society, probably the most realistic forecast which can be made is that the days ahead are going to be days of agony and suffering for religious communi-ties, agony because of the very nature of pluralism, and because no one right now knows precisely what to do about pluralism. This does not mean at all that religious communities should give up hope or lose faith, but it does mean that the years ahead and the paths to adapting to pluralism are going to be most difficult. Just one example of this difficulty will be that almost in-evitably more religious will have crises of faith and perhaps leave com-munities, even later in life?7 For an honest facing of pluralism will create more options for the religious and these options will create more crises. Third, it would seem that the option being taken by a few communities of refusing virtually all change and forward movement simply is not a viable option in the light of the theology of pluralism. With the greatest respect for the good faith of the leaders and members of these communities, there is an honest question about how such nondialoguing communities can continue to exist in our pluralistic .world. It is true that these communities are doing rather well as far as incoming candidates are concerned. But are these candidates accepting the vocational task of building community amidst the pluralism which God has given us all? Or are they fleeing from that task and seeking after a security which refuses to admit that pluralism exists? The Option of Fragmentation Fourth, and of special importance, the option of "fragmentation," the option of a larger religious community dividing itself into two or more smaller groups with each group representing a particular viewpoint would also seem to be foreign, at least in principle, to Rahner's theology of plural-ism. Many religious are heard to call for this option today when there is so much clamor about the bigness of organizations and the value of small, intimate communities. While I can see real value in religious communities working out living arrangements based on small, relatively homogeneous groups, I would argue that the large community structure with its varying viewpoints should be retained in our pluralistic world. My reasons for saying this is that there would seem to be a great possibility that smaller groups of religious in cutting off dialogue with other thinking about religious ::rKarl Rahner, "The Future of Religious Commonities in the World and Church of Today," Sister Formation Bulletin, Winter, 1972, p. 4. Pluralism in Rahner / life would become ineffectual, would fail to grow in maturity, and would stand in a real danger of closing in on themselves in such a way as to become unresponsive to the demands of a pluralistic society. Incidentally, the danger of a select group becoming closed would be just as great for a progressive group as for a conservative group. The Pharisees are the classical example of a progressive group who closed in on themselves and subsequently became of little value to society. Further, the fragmentation option for religious seems to ignore another of Rahner's noteworthy themes, namely that the power inherent in a larger organization can be a genuinely redemptive value in a pluralistic society.3s The foregoing remarks against the fragmentation of religious com-munities should not be taken as an absolute stand against such fragmenta-tion. Rather these remarks are a general or "in principle" statement. Rahner himself points out that in some hopefully exceptional cases in life there is so little possibility of creating understanding that a particular dialogue must be broken off so that a group can keep dialoguing at all."~ In these cases other forms of dialogue must replace the broken ones, since genuine dialogue is essential for human coexistence in a pluralistic society. There have been a few cases in recent years of religious communities dividing; and who are we to say that these particular terminations of dialogue were not genuine in-spirations of the Holy Spirit, genuine efforts to establish other forms of dia-logue when one form had become impossible? In general, however, dialogue between differing viewpoints is so essential in a pluralistic society that the option of fragmentation should not be taken except under extreme and oppressive circumstances. Experimentation and Incarnationalism Fifth, if the religious community accepts its leadership mission for the world, and if it refuses the anti-change and fragmentation options, it be-comes clear that the most helpful (and also most difficult) option for a religious community today is to let its structures become open to genuine dialogue and pluralism in such a way that the community becomes truly re-flective of the actual condition of the whole Church today. This will mean as Rahner sees it that the religious community will be engaged in a constant process of. experimentation as it seeks to face up to new perceptions of value in our pluralistic world?" Such experimentation will stem from all levels in a community: individuals, groups, and organized authority. Only through such experimentation will a religious community achieve the true openness and dialogue needed in a pluralistic ~ociety. ~S"Theology of Power," TI 4, pp. 391-409. :~:~"Reflections on Dialogue within a Pluralistic Society," Ti 6, pp. 40ol. ¯ "~"The Future of Religious Communities in the World and Church of Today," Sister Formation Bulletin, Winter 1972, pp. 6-7. 238 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 Lastly, a religious community living amidst pluralism must advert to what Rahner calls the "incarnational principle" of Christianity.'1 This principle means that the ineffable faith unity which we share in the depth of our being must somehow become incarnate, must somehow be incorpo-rated into tangible structures. Otherwise we could never experience our faith unity. More particularly, a religious community as a small unit in the Church can never embrace all the possible incarnations or concrete ex-pressions of faith value. A religious community is thus only one form of faith expression. It is only one "social institutionalization''42 of Christianity. All this implies that in addition to its underlying faith unity, a religious community will necessarily have to embrace certain second level values (the first level is always our faith), certain particular incarnations of the mystery of God. Such second level values are genuinely worthwhile in a pluralistic society for they do lead us to the one God, though in a limited way. Traditionally, the second level values around which religious com-munities have been organized have included the confession of the members of a community (Roman Catholic), their apostolate, their sex, their vowed life, their prayer, their communal living, and so forth. Openness and Second Level Unifiers Now what, in our pluralistic society, can be said about religious com-munities' second level sources of unity? Two main points must be made. First, important though these second level unifiers are, they are not ab-solute expressions of the mystery of God. Thus the place, meaning, and even the continued existence of such second level unifiers of a religious community are subjects which cannot be exempted from dialogue if a re-ligious community is going to be genuinely open to the pluralism of today's world, to our inability to form a total worldview as we did in the past. A religious community which seeks to be open to the absolute mystery of God is not absolutely open to that mystery if it absolutizes any other points besides the one mystery. And when a religious community says that values such as the vows do not call for further dialogue and understanding, it is precisely absolutizing something other than the mystery of God; it is sub-mitting to the ultimate temptation created by our pluralistic situation, the temptation of seeking particular goods instead of the good. It would be most paradoxical if today's religious community were to submit to this temptation. The whole history of religious communities has been one of protest (by vows) against the absolutization of partial human goods such as marriage, wealth, and power. And even though this protest has had tremendous impact in the history of salvation, can a religious corn- 41"Membership of the Church according to the Teaching of Pius XII's Encyclical 'Mystici Corporis Christi,'" TI 2, p. 34. a~Karl Rahner, "Reflections on Dialogue within a Pluralistic Society," TI 6, p. 31. Pluralism in Rahner / 239 munity absolutize its means (and its understanding of this means) of dialoguing with the world, of showing the world where it must move in the spirit of Christian hope? Many examples of how a religious community must be open to dialogue about second level values could be cited. Apostolates obviously need to be reconsidered today. The vow of poverty is in great need of reassessment inasmuch as the mere fact that one cannot dispose of his or her own funds does not make one poor if he or she belongs to a rich community.4'~ To take another example which has probably been thought of a good deal less, who are we to say that religious communities are always going to remain ex-clusively Roman Catholic? Granted that Vatican II has already described the other Churches as true ecclesial realities, granted that Eucharistic Inter-communion is probably not too far off, granted that many young people in the other Christian confessions (especiall.y young women) find an idealism, way of life and apostolic zeal in Catholic-religious communities for which there is no parallel in their own confessions, and finally granted that more and more the real need is for a united Christianity to show its value to a secular (and sometimes atheistic) world rather than for Catholicism to show its value to Protestantism or vice versa, might it not ultimately be-come a genuine call of the Spirit for the Catholic religious communities to accept members from other confessions? While not offering an absolute answer, I hope the example at least helps make the point that dialogue on the values which I have called second level in the religious life seems to be an inescapable consequence of the theology of pluralism. Necessity of Second Level Unifiers Our second major observation on religious communities and second level values or unity sources is a strong reminder that, granted that these values are a constant subject of dialogue, growth, and change, a religious community movement simply cannot exist without some sort of second level value commitment and organization. The religious community must operate through a concrete value-unity structure in order to be open to ultimate value. It must have a concrete vocation if it is going to have a vocation at all. It cannot have its absolute, transcendental goal (the mystery of God) without expressing this goal in concrete goals. A religious community's concrete vocation and concrete goals are so necessary sociologically that, in the midst of all the open dialogue about them, they should be seen as a requirement for membership in the community. Those who do not agree with a religious community's particular goals may be perfectly good Christians, but a community will only retain its societal identity insofar as its members agree upon a particular sociological format for moving towards the mystery of God. This is why Rahner argues that authority in a religious community 43On this point see Karl Rahner, "The Theology of. Poverty," TI 8, especially p. 172. 240 / Review jor Religious, Volume 321 1973/2 may sometimes have to operate in the traditional yes or no method. Surely the yeses or noes of a religious community's authority can never be more than provisional since the community's self understanding and consequent second level values will grow and change in dialogue. But the fact remains that the growth process of permanent religious commitment (and this is what permanent commitment is, a growth process) can only function at a particular point in space and time through the acceptance of second level goals.44 Religious communities which have forgotten this point in recent years have had their troubles as a result. Conclusion By way of a concluding thought, especially for those who are fearful of what will happen to religious communities as they face their future with all its pluralism, I would like to make the very joyful and hopeful point that there are already some indications that an honest, pluralistic dialogue on religious life's second level values will probably do a great deal more to reinforce rather than to downgrade the traditional wisdom of the Church on religious life even though this wisdom may not be asserted as absolutisti-cally as it was in the past. For instance, I have noted and been truly inspired by the fact that Christian virginity has been emerging as a very deep seated value in the lives of some members of the noncanonical religious com-munities in which it is required neither by Church law nor by any public vow. In an era when so many priests, brothers, and sisters are questioning celibacy and virginity, this is most refreshing; it suggests that our pluralistic, open-ended society (which is, after all, God's gift to us) is not so much a thing to be feared as it is a genuine opportunity for spiritual growth. Per-haps it will teach us some things we have been trying to learn all along. ¯ ~4The insistence of second level goals does not of course imply anything like the detailed agreement which existed when religious communities operated from a homogeneous worldview. But some admittedly evolutionary sociological coherence on the second level is a necessity. Pluralism and Polarization among Religious George M. Regan, C.M. Father George Regan is associate professor of theology at St. John's University; Grand Central and Utopia Parkways; Jamaica, New York 11432. The recently published sociological and psychological studies of priests in the United States have no counterpart as yet in special studies about religious men and women. Tempting hypotheses could be constructed on the basis of personal experience and impressions about the levels of maturity and self-actualization among religious, about their attitudes toward authority, and about their opinions on specific issues such as birth control, celibacy, divorce, and liturgical practices. The surveys of priests indicated that widespread disagreement exists among various segments of the Catholic clergy on such issues and that deeply polarized attitudes seem rooted in profound ideologi-cal differences. In the absence of hard data leading to actual percentages of religious who hold certain views, one can nevertheless reflect on the divergence experienced firsthand in contacts with religious communities these days. Pluralism of approach, outlook, and conviction characterize religious at all levels of the same community at times, and comparison of one community with others easily substantiates this impression of diversity, which has re-placed the former uniformity. Pluralism reaches into all levels of community life, encompassing not only particular questions such as order of day, con-crete regulations on government, poverty, and style of dress, but also more fundamental aspects of the institute's l!fe, such as its purpose and nature in the larger Church, its basic ideals and values, and its charismatic qualities for today's world. Members thus find themselves split deeply at official chapters and in less formal gatherings on the most fundamental meanings of their religious life and on many more superficial issues. Coupled with this pluralism has arisen a sense of alienation, an outright bitterness about 241 242 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 the frustrating experience of division, or an aimless confusion. Polarization of groups may be discerned not infrequently. The vitality of individual religious and of entire communities has suffered immeasurably as a conse-quence. This extensive pluralism and the resulting polarization constitute a rich and inviting ground for thorough exploration by specialists in various fields. At times in recent years, some religious have tended to look upon their problems as mainly theological in nature, but further reflection casts grave doubt on the accuracy of this claim. In particular, the psychological and social factors of given attitudinal differences and divisions often feed into the situation more than do the theological and philosophical viewpoints espoused. This may be seen clearly in many contemporary divisions which have emerged between young and old, or between liberals and conservatives. Such divergences often manifest features closely resembling matters dis-cussed in development psychology or sociology in general. This article will concentrate principally on the more theoretical and intellectual roots of today's pluralism which underlie the theological, psychological, and sociological differences. In a sense, it will address the issue of the basic framework within which various groups of religious operate. It will not offer a litany of the specific differences which separate religious, nor will it provide a "medicine chest" of remedies. Our more limited purpose is simply to reflect on the different levels and .origins of pluralism in the ways of thinking and acting among relig!pus and to inquire into some possible means of coping with its sometimes unhappy results. The Death of Old Theory In an address to a committee of American bishops in which he inter-preted the results of the sociological survey of priests, Andrew Greeley claimed that "we have not yet discovered that our fundamental problem is the collapse of old theory combined with the non-appearance of new theory." In his usage, theory means those goals, values, models, and basic assumptions that allow the given human grouping to interpret and order phenomena, to justify its own existence, to explain its purposes to outsiders and new members, to underwrite its standard procedures and methodologies, and to motivate its members toward its goals. Though Greeley's comments regarding such theory concern priests alone, his approach has direct bear-ing on the question of the emergence of pluralism in all areas of American Church life, including religious communities. According to Greeley, the old theoretical structure began to crumble in the United States about ten years ago, and it has now disappeared, never to be restored. This rigid and unconscious theory emerged as a mixture of post-Tridentine garrison Catholicism and American immigrant Catholicism. It laid stress on loyalty to the Church, certainty and immutability of an-swers, strict discipline and unquestioning obedience, a comprehensive Pluralism and Polarization Catholic community, suspicion of the world beyond the Church, avoidance of re-examination of fundamental principles, and clearly defined models of behavior. The reasons substantiating .this theory were largely extrinsic and suasive, not decisive, for they were justified by one's loyalty to the teachings and structures of the Church and not by their intrinsic rationality. When various elements of this theoretical structure were thrown into doubt, the entire theoretical structure collapsed without warning. Since all rules, however minor, were viewed as immutable and unquestioned, change in even a few rules such as "meat on Friday" exposed the shaky foundations of the whole structure. The very suddenness of the change had excluded any opportunity to rethink the grounds of past assumptions and when these assumptions fell into disrepute, confusion resulted. Greeley believes that there exists virtually no theoretical perspective to replace the old theory, for the fads and fashions, clich6s and slogans of recent years lack sound and solid scholarship. His remedies for this situation center on the indis-pensability of scholarship in all areas of Church life. Scholars must get to work on building a new theory; and all levels of the Christian community must manifest openness, respect, and understanding for the results of their scholarship. One might justifiably criticize various elements of Greeley's presenta-tion, which sometimes verges more on polemical journalism than on ob-jective analysis. Sweeping generalizations about the old theory's "avoidance of re-examination of fundamental principles," and about the former lack of rational foundations do not ring completely accurate. One may well disagree with the actual cogency of the intrinsic reasons advanced for many past approaches, but it strikes one as gross exaggeration to deny their very existence, as Greeley seems to do. Consequences ot the Loss o~ the "Old Theory" His overall analysis seems true enough, however, and its application to the current situation which exists in many religious communities also seems clear. In a peculiar fashion and perhaps more strongly than in the priesthood, many religious institutes had embodied the chief marks of the "old theory" which Greeley describes. Disappearance of these characteristics or questionings about their presentday relevance have split many a com-munity or left it adrift aimlessly. The basic goals, values, and assumptions of past approaches to religious life constitute the kind of "old theory" which has undergone increasing challenge. Debates about such funda-mentals have obviously far more import than does disagreement about more superficial features in religious communities. How often does one not hear religious, usually older in age, wondering about the seeming decrease in loyalty to the community and its traditions among some members, the ever-changing views of the young, the lack of discipline and compliance with authority which has grown, the intrusion ~/44 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 of what seems a worldly spirit, the lessening in time devoted to formal prayer, an overstress on personal fulfillment, an endless questioning of basic goals, values, and principles, and the advancement of vague and im-precise models of religious conduct? It takes little effort to draw the sharp contrast between these tendencies and the "old theory" formerly in effect. Another group of members, on the other hand, may criticize the present situation and urge change from precisely an opposite vantage point: Why has the community not updated more its apostolate, life style, government, and spirituality? Why do institutional requirements outweigh personal needs? Such conflicting comments and complaints signal at the least that the members of the religious community have failed to agree on some essential aspects of their life together. Onguing Crisis If one were to accept Greeley's views, then a religious community which lacks agreement on a theory in this deep sense of goals, values, and basic assumptions must of necessity expect ongoing crisis, for it lacks the founda-tions needed by any human organization. Without such organizational ele-ments agreed to substantially by the members, the religious community will lack the tools to provide a rationale for its existence, thereby undercutting its ability to attract new candidates and to motivate its present members. The conflicting expectations of its members, furthermore, would in all likeli-hood lead to frustration and anger, which may become repressed and then manifested only in hidden agendas. The real issues which separate may appear rarely in open discussion; a superficial facade of friendly toleration may mask underlying divisions. Instead of religious' testing one another's assumptions in healthy confrontation and seeking to incorporate whatever seems of value, defensive listening may begin whereby one person listens caret~ully in order to gather information, or better ammunition, to contra-dict. In extreme cases, open hostility or full withdrawal into silence may eventuate. Such problems parallel closely communications difficulties de-scribed extensively in marriage counseling literature. In such an atmosphere, not only deterioration of the human relationships involved, but also de-terioration of the persons themselves must set in eventually. Need for Substantial Agreement This sobering prospect lends a special urgency to the continuing task of striving to clarify and reach substantial agreement on the fundamentals of each religious community. If the members differ broadly on the very purpose and values of the community, how can they realistically expect one another to pursue vigorously and in unison some common goals? The various issues which polarize groups may, in fact, be symptoms of the deeper pathology in the religious community: a lack of common goals, values, and assump-tions essential to the life of the organism. For example, when large numbers Pluralism and Polarization / 245 of religious in a teaching community favor direct social work for the poor, the issue of the apostolic purpose of the institute should be addressed courageously. Similarly, communities which experience sharp and immense diversity among the members on their inner identity as contemplatives or apostolically oriented religious should discuss the matter openly, rather than avoiding the problem or simply drifting indecisively into a new identity through the sheer force of circumstances. When religious of the same community differ enormously on such a basic point of their common life as that of the character of the institute, they have little reason to hope for harmonious concord on lesser ideals and values. The more that significant pluralism enters these foundational areas of goals, values,, and basic assumptions regarding the community itself, the more the members should expect a sense of aimlessness, disunity, and confusion, it would seem. Unless some shared meanings emerge at these deep levels of their life together, religious must prepare for the inevitable results which flow from vague and overly general goals and values. Un-fortunately, dialogue may at times neglect these basic levels of religious life and concentrate on the more superficial, day-to-day aspects or happenings. Such failure may even carry over into official discussions at chapter and the like where extreme defensiveness or closed-mindedness can prevent needed exchange of opinions among the members. In a positive way, therefore, it seems incumbent on religious, especially those in higher authority, to raise these issues when disagreement exists below the surface and to foster free airing of views in the hope of clarifying goals and values. This seems a healthier solution than pretending outwardly that the members amicably share the same opinions. Some meeting of minds may follow more readily in this unhampered atmosphere, despite the anxieties created by confronta-tion. The Roots of Change Greeley's analysis of the contemporary situation in the Church and in the American priesthood is professedly that of a sociologist. When he speaks of the disappearance or collapse of the old theory, therefore, he refers hardly at all to the philosophical and theological underpinnings of the old theory, which he discusses more in empirical terms. Appreciation of these more theoretical dimensions may assist us in gaining additional insight into the roots of pluralism and in evaluating proposed means of coping with it. We shall direct our attention to two matters in particular: the emergence of pluralism in ecclesiology today, and the shift from a classicist to an his-torically conscious worldview. Pluralism in Ecdesiology Though Greeley mentions the death of post-Tridentine garrison Cathol-icism, he does not explore the highly juridical theology of the Church which 246 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 had justified these tightly knit patterns of behavior. This ecclesiology often found direct application to the models of authority and the corresponding structures employed in religious communities. The overcentralization, lack of sufficient subsidiarity, and overly juridical conception of authority found in the Church at large and in diocesan structures existed in religious com~ munities as well and rested its common roots in this understanding of the Church. This former approach to a theology of the Church had the added implication of overstressing the divine element of the holy Church, in too great contrast at times with the so-called profane world. In failing to give enough weight to positive elements outside the Church and to see God present there among men, "this understanding lent a basis to a spirituality tinged with suspicion of the world, "merely natural" or human values, and human institutions. God's self-communication seems relegated more readily to the more narrowly institutional context of the Church and open dialogue with the world appears foreign or dangerous in this conception. Religious communities which operated within this conceptual framework more natur-ally took on reservations about contacts with the world and the need to separate oneself from its perverting influences gained favor. By way of contrast, many contemporary writings which view the Church as servant and healer of the total human society understand her as essentially related to the world; and they take a far more accepting view of human values and institutions: the Church "goes forward together with humanity and experiences the same earthly lot which the world does. She serves as a leaven and as a kind of soul for human society as it is to be renewed in Christ and transformed into God's family" (The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, no. 40). The more that individual religious communities as a whole have taken on this more openly secular approach, which views the world and human values more favorably, the more they customarily take a somewhat negative view of factors which are viewed as separating the religious from the world or from human customs. Resulting Disagreements Inevitable disagreements must exist in religious communities and throughout the entire Church so long as disagreement exists on such funda-mental approaches to a theology of the Church. Pluralism among religious in this basic theological area sometimes underlies the members' differing convictions on contact with or separation from other people, openness or closedness to human standards and patterns of conduct, and general in-volvement with or disassociation from ordinary human events. Disputes about religious garb, about freedom to come and go, about visiting with laity or entering into friendship with them, and about attendance at or participa-tion in recreational or sports activities sometimes stem from more profound differences about the way in .which religious are conceived of in their rela-tionship to "the world." An implicit ecclesiology often seems at work in the Pluralism and Polarization / 247 way people think about such concrete matters. Similarly, disagreements in ecclesiology are bound to influence one's notions of Church authority. These disagreements become manifest frequently in the comments or criticisms by religious that they find their community's authority too centralized in the person of the provincial authorities or the local superior; or that col-legial bodies such as consultations of the local house are given mere lip service by the local superior; or that decisions which can be reached by themselves individually or at the local level are reserved to higher authority. Once again, these issues seem symptomatic of the more profound ideological differences in ecclesiology which separate Catholics today. Though such disagreements seem inevitable in today's climate of plural-ism, the destructive manner of coping with them found so often need not exist. More comments will be made on this topic later in this article, but some reflections seem pertinent even at this stage. Disagreement can at times be a constructive and enriching force in human relationships, within toler-able limits and depending on how people react. Deep differences should be faced squarely in a climate of open communication, if some valid hope remains of fostering closer harmony and unity in community. To bury di-vergences o~r to treat only the symptoms or external manifestations of pluralism and the resulting polarization insures an eventual destruction of interpersonal sharings promotive of personal growth. It would be more worthwhile to plunge tactfully into the more basic levels of disagreements, which in this case touch on the very nature of the Church and of ecclesiasti-cal authority. One's assumptions, spoken and outspoken, should be brought to light in mutual respect and openness. A willingness to temper one's views, to grant honesty and good will to the other party, and to speak about issues, not personalities, seems a minimum condition in such dialogue. In this deeper context where lie the roots of more shallow differences, mere pragmatic techniques for bettering the current situation will prove in-sufficient. Though the American passion for such practical programs may obscure one's vision, religious communities must accept the need of dealing with these more profound, theoretical dimensions of these issues. If reli-gious communities are to adopt even more moderate thrusts of contemporary theologies of the Church and of ecclesiastical authority, for example, they should at least acquaint all members with a more positive view of the world beyond the Church. Leaders in each community must also embody the con-viction that authority means service, not naked power disguised under new forms; that collegial functioning flows from Christian coresponsibility as members of the community; that love, trust, and friendship must be present in any effective Church leader and perhaps even more in a leader within a religious community. This kind of new theory, if it be that in contrast to some past distorted notions, surpasses mechanical techniques of improving government and the community's stance vis-?a-vis the rest of mankind. To expect that religious superiors familiar with another approach to authority 248 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 can automatically learn and adopt this new theory and behavior seems rather unrealistic. Practice based on such theory would go a long way in alleviating some tensions which exist among those who doggedly hold to outmoded con-ceptions of the Church and of authority, and those who stridently favor newness uncritically, perhaps urging the abandonment of most structures and of practically any interpretation of authority. Once more, unless some attempt is made to deal with issues below their surface and to strive for some limited agreement in fundamentals, religious communities cannot rightfully expect polarization to lessen, let alone disappear. A Changed Worldview Beyond Greeley's empirical analysis and the implications of the ecclesi-ological factors described above, we can explore still further to the deeper roots of today's pluralism in religious communities. Catholic authors in recent years have noted a significant shift in the basic worldview whereby we do philosophy and theology these days, and whereby we approach prac-tical solutions to questions in Church life. By worldview, these authors mean the fundamental framework whereby one interprets and orders reality and thus arrives at more detailed convictions. Bernard Lonergan in dogmatic theology, Charles Curran in moral theology, John Courtney Murray in matters pertaining to religious freedom, and Avery Dulles in ecclesiology have all referred to a contemporary change from a classicist worldview to an historically conscious worldview, which they all see as having immense ramifications in their areas of concern. Greek philosophy and Christian thought represented by thinkers ranging from Augustine to Thomas Aquinas to nearly all Catholic theologians until quite recently employed an approach which emphasized man's ability to grasp the essence of reality through his reasoning faculty. This so-called "classicist worldview" left little room for change, variation, or uncertitude. Since reason can easily enough penetrate to the essence of reality, im-mutability, certitude, timelessness, and absoluteness characterized such varied matters as moral principles, images of the Church, Church laws, and inherited patterns of conduct. In moral issues, for example, this thought pattern leaves little room for variability and relativity because of cultural diversity, historical development, or concrete circumstances. A variety of universal, negative norms, "Thou shalt nots," became part and parcel of the moral theology built on this worldview. In ecclesiology, this approach favored descriptive notes which emphasized similar qualities of unchange-ableness, universality, absoluteness, and certainty. The canon law elaborated in former times also mirrored this conception of reality. Modern influences of personalism, phenomenology, and existentialism and the scientific spirit of modern times bore in on Catholic philosophers and theologians in recent decades and turned the tide against this classicist Pluralism and Polarization / 249 worldview for many an author and, seemingly, for our entire Western cul-ture. The historically conscious worldview embodied in many Catholic writ-ings today views man and his world as evolving and historical, rather than as static and unchanging. Progress, development, and growth are seen as marking man and his world, and these qualities should carry into all philosophical, theological, and practical understandings of Christian life. A stress on the human person in his subjectivity and concreteness, on this man or men, rather than simply on "man," characterizes the contemporary in-quiry. The individual's feelings and non-rational states understandably receive more attention in this approach. Since concreteness, change, and diversity are such prominent features, tentativeness and openness to excep-tion replace the past tendency to formulate a host of absolute understand-ings. Pluralism and Worldviews Results of this shift in worldviews can be seen clearly in recent debates in the field of Christian moral theology. The uniqueness and unrepeatability of the individual person and his myriad moral situations have eroded for some authors the very possibility of articulating general moral norms with an absolute force, the "Thou shalt nots" so familiar in past presentations of Catholic morality. Rather than centering their treatment of a question like divorce, contraception, or pre-marital relations on the essence of marriage and human sexuality, for instance, authors writing in this vein will tend to discuss the empirical consequences and concrete circumstances of divorce, contraception, and pre-marital relations in order to arrive at their moral reflections on the proposed conduct. Nearly all authors show some reliance these days on this historically conscious view of man, though most have combined this with some continuing reliance on man's essential structures. This eclecticism does, however, lead inevitably to a spectrum of theological opinions, instead of the one "Catholic opinion" found in moral writings in use even into the past decade. A main result of this shift in worldviews and the accompanying eclecti-cism, consequently, has been the emergence of pluralism in many areas of Catholic thinking and living. One answer no longer exists for many issues in theology, philosophy, and Church life. Catholics' opinions run the spectrum from the essentialism inherited from past approaches through all shades of combinations to the other pole, new approaches heavily conditioned by existentialism, process thought, and consequ.entialism. Many common em-phases can, of course, be discerned in contemporary writings: a stress on the human person in his freedom, dignity, and personal fulfillment; the possibility of more room for change in previously accepted theological opinions, in social customs and law, and in Church structures; a thrust toward service in the world, rather than an emphasis on the dangers of con-tamination from the world; and an understanding of the Church more in 250 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/2 terms of the persons involved than in terms of institutions. These common emphases do not, however, lead to one new theory; they lead instead to new theories, new theologies, new understandings of the Church and ecclesiastical laws, customs, and structures. In a real sense, a new theory has developed which permits and even fosters a plurality of theories, of theologies, and of understandings. Pluralism constitutes a key-note of such "new theory." Disappointment may well await those who urge and expect some new univocal theory in the sense of an all-comprehensive and wholly coherent system of goals, values, and models of appropriate behavior and assumptions for the Church at large. Such a theory seems un-likely to appear on the horizon in the foreseeable future, if at all. What seems far more plausible and realistic to expect is an acceptance of pluralism in theology, philosophy, Church structures, and social customs and laws. Worldviews and Polarization This contrast between the classicist and historically conscious worldviews has influenced greatly the polarization so evident in religious communities today. At the roots of the various groupings whose labels have become pop-ularized-- liberal vs. conservative, old vs. young, secular-minded vs. cultic --often lies this more fundamental difference in the very approach to reality which religious and other Catholics now have. Inevitably, religious working within the historically conscious worldview will be more prone to accept or even to foster change in structures, in theological understandings, in the manner of doing Christian service to the world, in the proper exercise of authority in their community, and in traditional laws and customs. Since their entire outlook on reality promotes change and development in the name of human and Christian progress, and diversity and tentativeness in all formulations, which must of necessity be time-conditioned, they will urge these qualities in all aspects of religious life. Bedause their worldview con-centrates more on the human person in his concreteness and uniqueness, they will react strongly against whatever structures, institutions, and under-standings hinder the individual's fulfillment. A deeper interpersonal sharing at a different level of friendship than found in traditional approaches to religious life will leave these religious unsatisfied with forms of life which they find impersonal, institutionalized, and shallow. De~ires for small group-living frequently result from their reaction to such weaknesses, which they discern in large religious houses. Such issues as those of optional celibacy for secular priests, the ordination to priestly ministry of women, freedom of life style for priests and religious in such matters as dress, residence, and occupation, remarriage or readmis-sion to the sacraments of the divorced, and collegial living without a local authority in the person of a superior flow more naturally from a person whose fundamental outlook remains open to newness and progress in the sense described and whose value system places great emphasis on the indi- Pluralism and Polarization / :251 vidual person's development. Often enough, the individual religious will not have clearly articulated the theoretical foundations of his basic worldview or framework for thinking and judging; he simply finds himself doing it rather consistently without much reflection. No more than for many a person operating within the classicist worldview, his basic presuppositions and unarticulated theory rarely enter formally into discussion. Unless other members of religious communities come to appreciate this basic contrast in worldviews, they will find it most difficult to understand the rationale for many present-day movements and for viewpoints like those described previously. They will greet each new issue in the community with dismay, wondering why large numbers of their own community fail to see things their way. "Where have they gone wrong?" may be their continuing puzzled query. They will not grasp that an entirely different framework, the historically conscious worldview, has its own inner logic, as compelling for its adherents as their own classicist approach. One need not, of course, actually agree with the historically conscious worldview in its main lines or certainly in its applications. Unless one has some minimal understanding ot~ its overall thrust, however, one seems doomed to confusion, so far-reaching has been its influence and acceptance. Rancor and anger leading to hardened opposition of polarized camps may eventually set in. This seems already to have occurred in numerous instances in religious communities and rela-tions have become strained or, in some cases, non-existent. The Danger of Worsening The pluralism of opinions has threatened and disturbed many religious precisely because it has unsettled the foundations of their entire worldview and the conclusions which flow from it. The wonder, at times is that more polarization fails to exist, given the chasms in viewpoints. A hankering after the former uniformity in outlook and the accompanying security may under-standably have crept into one's (onsciousness in this charged atmosphere. Condemnation of unexamined new approaches as untenable or foofish may prove the only sustainable defense for the threatened and vulnerable person trained in another way in a different era. Conversely, religious who operate within the historically conscious Worldview may retreat into an unsubstan-tiated dogmatism in reaction to this rejection which they sense in their fellow religious. The wounded feelings they experience may lead some into frustrated withdrawal, whose sequel will be loneliness and depression. In overreaction, others may lash out negatively against traditional values and customs, denying in the process the continuity with the past which will insure the future. This unhealthy and mutally destructive atmosphere will breed a polarization far removed from the ideals of Christian community. Unless some steps toward amelioration of this situation can be under-taken, the current crisis in some religious communities seems likely to con-tinue and to deepen. An already bad situation may worsen. In particular, 252 / Review ]or Religious, l/olume 32, 1973/2 the strong, balanced, and idealistic candidates needed so badly in religious communities will not be attracted to a divided and polarized group who seem unable to live the unity their very notion implies. A deep and urgent crisis exists; yet the tone of given communities sometimes manifests business as usual in an atmosphere of unrealistic hope for a better future. Doomsday prophets are usually proved wrong and their message hardly accords with Christian hope. Yet Christian hope has always avoided the twin shoals of despair and presumption. Both undue pessimism and unwarranted optimism remain excluded. Coping With Pluralism and Polarization What suggestions can be offered for coping with pluralism and its fre-quent companion, polarization? At the outset, it would be profitable to recall that any such discussion should proceed within the prayerful recol-lection of Jesus' prayer "that they may all be one, even as you Father in me and I in you; that they may all be one in us." Religious communities' unity must fit within this larger context of the unity among men and the unity of the Church, as prayed for by Jesus. Constant prayer for faithfulness to the gospel ideal of loving union with all one's neighbors should mark every Christian. I-Iow much more so in those situations when religious experience disunity, discord, and polarization? Prayer for one another, reflection on those features which the religious share in common, and a positive desire for loving union should receive more emphasis than often seems the case. Besides these most fundamental suggestions, several more come to mind. First, it would seem helpful as a starting point to realize and expect that pluralism will be unavoidable in the years ahead in most areas of Church life and theology. Pluralism will not simply go away overnight, if at all. The fundamental differences in outlooks among Catholic moral theologians, for example, in such basic matters as the existence of absolute norms, the epistemology of theological ethics, the use of Sacred Scripture, the binding force of the Church's teachings on moral matters, the importance of esti-mating consequences and employing empirical data, all point to long-reaching splintering into various camps of moral theologians for the fore-seeable future. Logically, authors who disagree on such basic items must disagree also in matters pertaining to medical ethics, sexual ethics, social issues, or any other concrete moral question. Similarly, the different worldviews employed by religious who live under the same roof or in the same province dictate perforce some degree of continued divergence on matters pertaining to their religious lives. Keeping these facts in mind, expectation of pluralism in a realistic way may cut away some of the unnecessary emotional defenses which hinder rational analysis of the new premises and conclusions. In this unhampered atmosphere, de-fensiveness will diminish, hopefully, and reasoned consideration and genuine dialogue, in the sense of a candid exchange of views, may follow the more Pluralism and Polarization / 25
In recent years, disinformation has become more viral, mainly due to its spread online on social media, leading to potential threatening consequences for the society. Heterogeneous forms of online disinformation are possible, i.e., deliberately manipulated or fabricated content with the intentional aim of creating conspiracy theories, rumours, or misbehaved stances and judgements, for instance, in news articles, and political discourse and debates. One of many instances of online disinformation, and certainly one of the most dangerous ones, is propaganda. This disinformation instance represents an effective but often misleading communication strategy which is employed to promote a certain viewpoint to the audience, for instance in the political context. The need to effectively and automatically identify, classify and understand such phenomenon is becoming a urgent need. In this thesis, I tackle this issue and I propose a fine-grained classification approach of polarized and propagandist text in news articles and political debates. More precisely, as the audience' perceptions are perceived differently depending on the context, the source of information, the audience background and preferences, a discussed topic can deviate or polarize the audience into a partisanship. This thesis firstly investigates such polarization given a use-case in a political scenario using Aspects-Based Sentiment Analysis to verify how extensively these methods can be employed to gain insights from the political posts on social media. The thesis discusses the design and evaluation of a number of techniques in extracting the main features of propagandist text in the area of Natural Language Processing (NLP) where sentiment analysis, persuasion techniques, message simplicity, and ultimately argumentation are proposed and thoroughly investigated. The findings in this thesis show that such features can capture particular characteristics of propaganda in texts. Furthermore, these features are employed to tackle the NLP tasks of propaganda detection and classification through the design and implementation of a neural architecture to classify fine-grained propaganda techniques. The work in this thesis goes beyond the state-of-the-art of current systems for fine-grained propaganda detection and classification. Various Machine Learning approaches ranging from feature-based logistic regression to recent neural architectures have been experimented on standard benchmarks in propaganda detection. As a result, a full pipeline in propaganda detection and classification is presented where the task of detecting the propagandist text snippets obtained .71 F1-score, and the transformer-based architecture obtained an average of .67 F1-score for the task of propaganda technique classification, outperforming the state-of-the-art systems. This pipeline is demonstrated with a proof-of-concept tool called PROTECT. Finally, as a last contribution of this thesis, I carried out the creation of a new annotated linguistic resource. This resource is annotated with 6 types of propaganda techniques, which breaks down into 14 sub-categories of propaganda in the political debates of the US presidential campaigns from 1960 to 2016. The data set I built contains 1666 instances of propagandist text. ; La désinformation, dont la propagation s'est accentuée par le biais des médias sociaux, suscite aujourd'hui une réelle menace pour la société. Il existe différents moyens de véhiculer de la désinformation, par exemple par le biais de contenus délibérément manipulés ou fabriqués dans le but de créer des théories conspirationnistes, de rumeurs ou encore de positions et jugements erronés, tels que l'on peut en rencontrer dans des articles d'actualité, discours et débats politiques. L'une des nombreuses formes de désinformation rencontrée en ligne, et certainement l'une des plus dangereuses, est la propagande. Ce type de désinformation, que l'on retrouve notamment en politique, représente une stratégie de communication efficace mais souvent trompeuse utilisée pour promouvoir un certain point de vue auprès du public. La nécessité d'identifier, de classifier et de comprendre efficacement et automatiquement ce type de phénomène devient pressant. Dans cette thèse, j'aborde cette question et je propose une approche de classification fine des textes polarisés et de propagande issus d'articles de presse et de débats politiques. Selon le sujet abordé, le contexte, la source d'information, les antécédents et les préférences constituent un panel de facteurs pouvant influer sur les perceptions de l'auditoire et donc conduire à sa déviation ou polarisation en faveur d'un parti. À partir d'un cas d'utilisation provenant d'un scénario politique, nous proposons d'explorer les impacts d'une telle polarisation par le biais de méthodes issues de l'analyse de sentiment basée sur des aspects. L'objectif étant de vérifier dans quelle mesure ces méthodes peuvent permettre d'obtenir des informations sur les messages politiques postés sur les médias sociaux. Plus particulièrement, la thèse traite de la conception et de l'évaluation d'un certain nombre de techniques d'extraction des principales caractéristiques des textes de propagande dans le domaine du Traitement Automatique du Langage Naturel (TALN). L'analyse de sentiment, les techniques de persuasion, la simplicité des messages et l'argumentation y sont notamment proposées et étudiées en profondeur. Les résultats de cette thèse montrent que ces caractéristiques peuvent capturer des propriétés particulières permettant de caractériser la propagande dans les textes. D'autre part, ces caractéristiques sont employées dans le cadre de la conception et l'implémentation d'une architecture neuronale ayant pour vocation à détecter et classifier les techniques de propagande à grain fin. Le travail proposé dans cette thèse va au-delà de l'état de l'art des systèmes actuels de détection et de classification de la propagande à grain fin. En effet, plusieurs approches d'apprentissage automatique, allant de la régression logistique à des architectures neuronales récentes, ont été testées sur des jeux de données standard de détection de la propagande. En conséquence, un pipeline complet de détection et de classification de la propagande est présenté. La tâche de détection des extraits de textes de propagande a obtenu un score F1 de 0,71, et l'architecture basée sur les transformateurs a obtenu une moyenne de 0,67 pour la tâche de classification des techniques de propagande, surpassant ainsi les systèmes de pointe. Ce pipeline est démontré avec un outil de preuve de concept appelé PROTECT. Enfin, comme dernière contribution de cette thèse, j'ai participé à la création d'une nouvelle ressource linguistique annotée. Composée de textes issus des débats politiques des campagnes présidentielles américaines de 1960 à 2016, cette ressource est annotée avec 6 types de techniques de propagande qui se décomposent en 14 sous-catégories de propagande. L'ensemble de données que j'ai construit contient 1666 instances de propagande.
The place a person lives in significantly affects the living standards and life chances of this person. Peripheral and economically weak regions within highly developed countries appear to offer their residents fewer opportunities, due to economic constraints, such as unemployment and lower wages, weaker regional amenities (e.g. such as weaker infrastructure and educational opportunities) or social challenge, such as increased risks for social marginalization, poverty and premature mortality. These constraints affect the daily lives of people living in these regions. Thus, peripheral and structurally lagging regions tend to appear less attractive and economic and social disparities to primarily dynamic metropolitan areas foster social polarization. Socioeconomic trends such as structural change, the new geography of jobs or ageing tend to reinforce within-country inequalities. The theoretical considerations in this thesis illustrate that reducing regional disparities and promoting spatially equivalent living conditions is an important topic in regional science because of its economic, social and political implications. Regional redistributive policy such as structural investment funds and fiscal equalization schemes aim to make less developed regions more attractive and to increase economic and non-economic life-chances. But how effective are those policies? While there is a long tradition of examining economic growth effects of regional policies, there is a lack of scientific research and knowledge on effects that are not directly related to the economic output growth, such as the regional quality of life. This thesis aims to contribute to the literature on the efficacy of regional policy interventions dedicated to less developed regions by presenting novel empirical findings that focus on regional outcomes measures beyond regional economic output growth. Spatial vectorautoregressive panel models (SpVARs) are used to empirically assess the effects of regional policy measures. These models have the advantage of being flexible, accounting for indirect effects between variables, time lags between subsidies payments and regional effects and allowing for the evaluation of multidimensional policy outcomes within the same model. Another goal of this thesis is to further develop the SpVAR approach into an explicitly spatial design that adequately accounts for spatial spillovers and spatial interdependencies between variables and allows to estimate additional impulse response functions that estimate effects occurring in neighboring regions. This cumulative dissertation contains four stand-alone research papers in addition to an overarching introduction and a concluding chapter. The first paper analyzes the effects of the German Fiscal equalization scheme and the structural fund GRW at the level of German labor market regions. The paper shows, that fiscal equalization scheme grants have a significant positive effect on regional net migration rates for persons under 50 years of age. This particularly applies for regions with low endogenous fiscal capacities, which can be described as structurally lagging behind. It is argued that the dynamic development of net migration rates can be used as an indicator of the development of the individually perceived quality of life in the regions. By preventing out-migration from structurally lagging regions, it is found that equalization grants contribute to the goal of spatial equity, although no evidence for promoting regional economic growth is found. This is not found for the GRW policy. The second paper analyzes the multifaceted effects of European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF's) in European NUTS-2 regions. The paper finds that the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) can support regional productivity and employment growth as well as household income growth, which should have a positive impact on the people's material living standards. The effects of ERDF subsidies are particularly present in less developed regions, while no robust regional responses to subsidies are found for the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Cohesion Fund. In contrast to the first paper, no effects on net migration rates are found. The third article focuses on GRW effects at the regional level of German counties and independent cities. It emphasizes wage developments at different quantiles of the wage distribution as possible effects from GRW subsidies in order to investigate the extent to which possible productivity and income effects of GRW subsidies are transmitted to employees. Industry subsidies are found to have partially positive effects at different levels of the wage distribution in East Germany, while effects in the West are limited to the upper end of the wage distribution. Infrastructure subsidies appear to have higher efficacy on wages than firm subsidies in the industrial scheme, but are also limited to East Germany and to the service sector. The empirical findings suggest that the policies under investigation in this thesis have different transmission channels. The occurrence and strength of effects is heterogeneous and differs across policies. All three empirical findings suggest that effects are higher in less developed regions. Thus, they seem to depend on regional preconditions as well as on the policy frameworks. The final paper presents a novel spatio-temporal panel vector autoregressive approach as an extended spatial econometric method to correctly analyze spatial spillover effects in the SpVAR systems used in this thesis. The paper does not primarily aim to provide new empirical insights, but to extend the spatial dimension of SpVAR models by capturing the full cross-regional interdependencies and spatial spillover between variables over time, which allows to estimate policy effects in neighboring and economically connected regions. It is shown, that positive responses of variable shocks in regions can induce negative effects in neighboring regions through substitution effects. The findings presented should be of particular interest to policy makers, as relevant policy implications can be drawn. Based on the empirical findings, spatially redistributive policies can support the regional development of less developed regions and thus the quality of life and material living standards in these regions under certain circumstances. First, unconditional policy grants from fiscal equalization appear to be more effective than structural investment funds in increasing regional net migration rates and promoting non-material living conditions. Second, the high conditionality of effects in favor of regions with low economic strength indicates that policies should be even more tailored to these regions to be most effective. Finally, policymakers and researchers need to consider spatially indirect effects, since positive effects in subsidized regions may entail negative effects in neighboring regions.
