Suchergebnisse

Political discourse is inarguably deemed an essential tool, impercetably influencing people's perception within a socio-political zone. The present research revolve around the critical discourse analysis of manifestos of Pakistani political parties, pertaining to the general election of 2013. The theoretical framework for the study triangulates VanDijks (1998) Socio-Cognitive Model, along with the support of Turner and Tajfels (1979) Social identity approach and Budge and Farlies Salience theory (1983). The research revealed that all the political parties under study used the discursive strategies in their party manifestos in order to enhance the positive self-image of party to in-group people, by focusing the negative aspects of the out-group, thereby (re)constructing peoples political identities and ideologies and achieving the desired hegemony for itself.

I. The "Plantation of Surinam" -- II. The White Masters -- III. The Settlement as a Slave Colony -- IV. The Jewish Community -- V. The Free Mulattoes and Negroes and the Position of the Manumitted -- VI. The Slaves -- VII. Emancipation and the Period of State Supervision -- VIII. Government Policy -- IX. The Economic and Social Changes after Emancipation -- X. State Organization and Political Tensions -- Postscript -- Table I–IV -- Bibliography of Selected Literature.

Ernest Renan was one of the leading lights of the Parisian intellectual scene in the second half of the nineteenth century. A philologist, historian, and biblical scholar, he was a prominent voice of French liberalism and secularism. Today most familiar in the English-speaking world for his 1882 lecture "What Is a Nation?" and its definition of a nation as an "everyday plebiscite," Renan was a major figure in the debates surrounding the Franco-Prussian War, the Paris Commune, and the birth of the Third Republic and had a profound influence on thinkers across the political spectrum who grappled with the problem of authority and social organization in the new world wrought by the forces of modernization.What Is a Nation? and Other Political Writings is the first English-language anthology of Renan's political thought. Offering a broad selection of Renan's writings from several periods of his public life, most previously untranslated, it restores Renan to his place as one of France's major liberal thinkers and gives vital critical context to his views on nationalism. The anthology illuminates the characteristics that distinguished nineteenth-century French liberalism from its English and American counterparts as well as the more controversial parts of Renan's legacy, including his analysis of colonial expansion, his views on Islam and Judaism, and the role of race in his thought. The volume contains a critical introduction to Renan's life and work as well as detailed annotations that assist in recovering the wealth and complexity of his thought.

Since colonial times, Northeastern Guatemala has been at the crossroads of legal and illegal trade routes used by local elites and foreign investors. Organized crime has always prospered there with the complicity and participation of the local authorities, while the United Fruit Company started its first banana plantations there in 1904. Both rested their capital accumulation on governmentalities mixing disciplinary and sovereign power mechanisms as analyzed by Foucault. In response to the impact of these governmentalities, centered on control and violence, the population has developed a tactical subjectivity that presents obstacles to its political participation and collective mobilization.Desde la época colonial, el noreste de Guatemala ha estado en la encrucijada de las rutas comerciales legales e ilegales utilizadas por las élites locales y los inversionistas extranjeros. Allí, el crimen organizado siempre ha prosperado con la complicidad y la participación de las autoridades locales, y la United Fruit Company sembró sus primeros platanares en el territorio en 1904. Ambos bandos sustentaron su acumulación de capital en gubernamentalidades que mezclan mecanismos de poder disciplinario y soberano, tal y como los define Foucault. En respuesta al impacto de estas organizaciones gubernamentales, centradas en el control y la violencia, la población ha desarrollado una subjetividad táctica que presenta obstáculos a su participación política y movilización colectiva.

The current torture ethics debate comprises a dispute about the moral status of torture and a parallel dispute about the right way to do ethics. The first dispute receives much attention, while the the second dispute is obscured or even suppressed. As a result, scholars have developed highly idiosyncratic approaches to torture ethics that cannot be meaningfully compared. These moral evaluations of torture rest on contrary assumptions about the definition of torture, the right way to do ethics, and the facts of the situation, and therefore they are not really answers to the same moral question. I respond to this dilemma by analyzing torture ethics as a social rather than ethical problem. I use Bruno Latour's Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to reimagine two things: what kind of conceptual object torture is, and the structure of the social group that is considering torture. This approach puts disagreeable actors on equal footing, based on their real associations. It does not force an unjustifiable resolution to their normative and metaethical differences. I then use the controversies in the torture ethics debate as raw material for developing new descriptions of torture that do not re-engage proprietary ethical frameworks. These advances make possible a more inclusive and robust political ethics of torture.

While the present dispensation in Kabul can be regarded as relatively more stable than the regimes in recent pre-2001 period, a number of challenges — security, political and socio-economic — continue to persist. The Afghan National Army and other law enforcing agencies find it hard to fend off the continuously increasing and assertive strength of resistance forces. Talks between the representatives of Kabul government and the resistance forces have been reinitiated in Qatar but the outcome and future course remains too little to talk about. Their contacts can only be regarded as 'talks about talks' for complete withdrawal of foreign troops and the positions on Constitution among the major issues on the road to a possible yet hard-to-achieve negotiated settlement. Economy and quality of life are far from satisfactory and are actually in danger of further deterioration. If a negotiated and peaceful settlement is desired, then both the sides will have to soften their stances to an extent. The role of regional countries as well as the UN — not really in the lead so far — will assume a critical significance.
This is a revised and updated version of the paper presented in international symposium on "The Situation in Afghanistan after NATO's Withdrawal", held in Istanbul under the auspices of South Asia Strategic Research Center on May 5–7, 2015.

The purpose of the REACH Regulation is to comprehensively restructure European chemicals law. On 27 June 2006, the Council adopted its Common Position on the basis of the political agreement reached on 13 December 2005. Since September 2006, the European Parliament (EP) has been deliberating the proposed regulation, on the basis of the Council's approved text. This process is now at the 2nd reading stage. This 2nd reading was accompanied by "trilogue" negotiations, between the Parliament, Council Presidency and the Commission, with the aim of achieving a so-called "agreement in the 2nd reading", i.e. a resolution of the European Parliament that the Council could then accept without any changes. In difficult negotiations, this aim was finally achieved. The resulting agreement was then formally approved on 13 December 2006 by the European Parliament's plenary assembly and on 18 December 2006 by the Council. The new Regulation is to be promulgated in the Official Journal in December 2006, and the Regulation enters into force on 1 June 2007.
The trilogue agreement represents the successful conclusion to a reform process lasting more than eight years. It brings great progress in the areas of environmental, consumer and worker protection, while giving companies throughout industry new innovation opportunities via improved knowledge about substances.