Suchergebnisse

The way housing affordability evolved since WW2 in Greece—and in its capital city in particular—is an example of how the South European welfare system managed, for several decades, to provide socially inclusive housing solutions without developing the services of a sizeable welfare state until global forces and related policies brought it to an end. The increased role of the market in housing provision since the 1980s, the rapid growth of mortgage lending in the 1990s, the neoliberal policy recipes imposed during the crisis of the 2010s and the unleashed demand for housing in the aftermath of the crisis have led to increased housing inequalities and converged the outcome of this South European path with the outcome of undoing socially inclusive housing solutions provided by the welfare state in other contexts. The article follows longstanding and recent developments concerning the housing model in Greece and especially in the city of Athens, focusing on mechanisms that have allowed access to affordable housing for broad parts of the population during different historical periods, and examines the extent to which the current housing model remains inclusive or not. The aim here is to discuss the most important challenges concerning access to decent housing and highlight the need for inclusive housing policies to be introduced into the current social and political agenda.

Official (government-to-government) lending is much larger than commonly known, often surpassing total private cross-border capital flows, especially during disasters such as wars, financial crises and natural catastrophes. We assemble the first comprehensive long-run dataset of official international lending, covering 230,000 loans, grants and guarantees extended by governments, central banks, and multilateral institutions in the period 1790-2015. Historically, wars have been the main catalyst of government-to-government transfers. The scale of official credits granted in and around WW1 and WW2 was particularly large, easily surpassing the scale of total international bailout lending after the 2008 crash. During peacetime, development finance and financial crises are the main drivers of official crossborder finance, with official flows often stepping in when private flows retrench. In line with the predictions of recent theoretical contributions, we find that official lending increases with the degree of economic integration. In crises and disasters, governments help those countries to which they have greater trade and banking exposure, hoping to reduce the collateral damage to their own economies. Since the 2000s, official finance has made a sharp comeback, largely due to the rise of China as an international creditor and the return of central bank cross-border lending in times of stress, this time in the form of swap lines. ; Not Reviewed

Official (government-to-government) lending is much larger than commonly known, often surpassing total private cross-border capital flows, especially during disasters such as wars, financial crises and natural catastrophes. We assemble the first comprehensive long-run dataset of official international lending, covering 230,000 loans, grants and guarantees extended by governments, central banks, and multilateral institutions in the period 1790-2015. Historically, wars have been the main catalyst of government-to-government transfers. The scale of official credits granted in and around WW1 and WW2 was particularly large, easily surpassing the scale of total international bailout lending after the 2008 crash. During peacetime, development finance and financial crises are the main drivers of official crossborder finance, with official flows often stepping in when private flows retrench. In line with the predictions of recent theoretical contributions, we find that official lending increases with the degree of economic integration. In crises and disasters, governments help those countries to which they have greater trade and banking exposure, hoping to reduce the collateral damage to their own economies. Since the 2000s, official finance has made a sharp comeback, largely due to the rise of China as an international creditor and the return of central bank cross-border lending in times of stress, this time in the form of swap lines.

This paper investigates the impact of increased media competition on the quantity and quality of news provided and, ultimately, on political participation. I build a new county-level panel dataset of local newspaper presence, newspapers' number of journalists, costs and revenues and political turnout in France, from 1944 to 2014. I estimate the effect of newspaper entry by comparing counties that experience entry to similar counties in the same years that do not. Both sets of counties exhibit similar trends prior to entry, but those with entry experience substantial declines in the average number of journalists. An increased number of newspapers is also associated with fewer articles and less hard news provision. Newspaper entry, and the associated decline in information provision, is ultimately found to decrease voter turnout at local elections. Exploiting the long time span covered by my data, I discuss a number of mechanisms that may drive these empirical findings. First, I examine the relationship between increased competition and media capture in the aftermath of WW2, when newspapers were biased and the advertising market was underdeveloped. I then show that in the recent period the effects are stronger in counties with more homogeneous populations, as predicted by a vertical product differentiation framework, whereas there is little impact in counties with more heterogeneous populations.

This paper investigates the impact of increased media competition on the quantity and quality of news provided and, ultimately, on political participation. I build a new county-level panel dataset of local newspaper presence, newspapers' number of journalists, costs and revenues and political turnout in France, from 1944 to 2014. I estimate the effect of newspaper entry by comparing counties that experience entry to similar counties in the same years that do not. Both sets of counties exhibit similar trends prior to entry, but those with entry experience substantial declines in the average number of journalists. An increased number of newspapers is also associated with fewer articles and less hard news provision. Newspaper entry, and the associated decline in information provision, is ultimately found to decrease voter turnout at local elections. Exploiting the long time span covered by my data, I discuss a number of mechanisms that may drive these empirical findings. First, I examine the relationship between increased competition and media capture in the aftermath of WW2, when newspapers were biased and the advertising market was underdeveloped. I then show that in the recent period the effects are stronger in counties with more homogeneous populations, as predicted by a vertical product differentiation framework, whereas there is little impact in counties with more heterogeneous populations.

The BBC radio feature, originally influenced by the documentary film movement, combined music and sound with speech that at first was scripted, later recorded on location, along with 'actuality'. This paper will ask 'whose speech?' A memorandum from BBC Director General, John Reith, in 1924, had insisted that "only those who have a claim to be heard above their fellows on any particular subject… should be put on the programme". Nevertheless, from the 1930s onwards, there was a continuing effort on the part of more politically-minded producers to extend the range of voices heard on the air. The BBC's North Region, where it was easier to escape Reith's centralising control, led the way. Pioneering initiatives used the cumbersome recording apparatus of the time to reach into people's homes and work-places to capture working class voices. After WW2 this example was followed in other regions, until, belatedly in the late 1950s, the BBC began to accept the use of portable recording. By this time a Europe-wide culture of radio feature-making had developed, influenced by the French exploration of musique concrète and the flourishing German Hörspiel, and fostered by the Prix Italia and the International Features Workshop. British features producers contributed to this movement and won some success with highly-crafted, aesthetically innovative features. The paper concludes by examining examples of the voices heard in BBC radio features in the last decade of the 20th century.

Black and white photographs. Five photographs. During World War II, the Border Patrol including Peavey, were stationed and patrolled along the Gulf Coast on the King and Kenedy ranch country. "They were all good camp cooks" ; https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/johnrpeavey/1011/thumbnail.jpg

In Bosnia and Herzegovina changed both by the 1992-1995 war and the Dayton peace which was imposed from outside and which officialised the nationality-based division of the country, the contrasts that exploded during the conflict are still unsolved. The political forces stille base their electoral consent upon nationalistic themes, while the population has lost faith when it comes to a prospective of an economically better future. A good example of this situation is the town of Srebrenica and its surroundings, where Europe's biggest genocide since WW2 took place. There rest thousands of Muslims killed in July 1995 under the eyes of the UN military forces. The cemetery, a tangible symbol of the horrors which happened at the end of the XX century - not so different from the Nazi concentration camps thet were left standing for the whole world to see and for the generations to come to keep as a warning - should inspire absolute respect in anyone. But it does not. This area is inhabited mainly by a Serbian population, and is exposed to insults and abuse from people driving by. Twenty years from the genocide - which is considered as such by Muslims only and not by Serbs - true peace is still far away, and the nationalities - ex enemies but still rivals - think that only their own dead are to remembered, while those Others are only result of media publicity. Yet if all that can happen in the Third millennia Europe, it means that there is still something wrong in the continent.

The paper discusses Stanislaw Kolbuszewski's essays devoted to the capitals of the Baltic states (W stolicach państw bałtyckich, Poznań 1939; (In the Capitals of the Baltic States).) the author visited in the 1930s. Kolbuszewski's aim was to familiarize the Polish reader with modern Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia as seen through the eyes of a (friendly) stranger. His book clearly transcends the conventional limits of its genre (travel writing, journalism, reportage). The three capitals function there as extended conceptual metaphors of the Baltic states, their history, architecture, urban layout, and local color being viewed by the Polish "tourist" as symbolic manifestations of their inhabitants' national mentality. The paper focuses on the geopolitical and geopoetic ideas implicit in Kolbuszewski's account, exploring the connections between "imagined" geographical space and the nation's collective memory. Curiously enough, though a Polish nationalist at heart, Kolbuszewski does not make any territorial claims on what was once "Polish Livonia". Instead, he enthusiastically endorses Baltic nationalisms, dismissing the German and Russian cultural contributions as hostile foreign intrusions. The tropes of ethnic "purity" and folk cultures viewed as pillars of national identity, recurrent in Kolbuszewski's Baltic essays, bring to mind the anti-German propaganda employed by Polish National Democrats after WW1 and Polish communists after WW2 in their attempt to justify Poland's annexation of German Silesia, Pomerania, and Masuria, symbolically redefined in the Polish political discourse as the so-called Regained Territories. The connection between Kolbuszewski's Baltic essays and his affinities with the Regained Territories narrative, as developed by Polish Western Thought and the Piast historiography, is our focus in this article.

Between 1859 and WW2, the Highlanders of South Indochina became members of the French Indochina. Colonial and Khmer sources and field interviews show the changes that occurred in the Highlands on three scales: a Mnong community, the North-East of Cambodia and South Indochina. Mnong hamlets of Bu La-Bu Gler became part of the kingdom of Cambodia despite heavy resistance. They nevertheless succeeded in preserving most of their lifestyle, while Colonial and Cambodian authorities implemented policies towards natives in the North-East of Cambodia that broke the former links between these people and the Khmer kindgom, which was following a trend of modernisation. These policies proceeded from the colonial approach, which was based on France's grandeur, civilising mission and economy. ; Entre 1859 et la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, les aborigènes des hautes terres du sud de l'Indochine sont intégrés à l'Indochine française. Les sources coloniales ou khmères et des entretiens in situ montrent les transformations vécues par ces peuples sur trois échelles : une communauté mnong, le Nord-est cambodgien et le Sud indochinois. Les hameaux mnong de Bu La-Bu Gler sont intégrés au royaume du Cambodge et soumis, malgré les mouvements de résistance. Mais, ils réussissent à préserver l'essentiel de leur mode de vie, alors que les autorités coloniales et cambodgiennes s'implantent dans le Nord-est cambodgien et rompent les anciens liens établis entre les aborigènes et le royaume khmer devenu un Etat en voie de modernisation. Leurs politiques découlent de l'approche coloniale basée sur la défense de la grandeur de la France, sur la mission civilisatrice et sur les enjeux économiques.

Between 1859 and WW2, the Highlanders of South Indochina became members of the French Indochina. Colonial and Khmer sources and field interviews show the changes that occurred in the Highlands on three scales: a Mnong community, the North-East of Cambodia and South Indochina. Mnong hamlets of Bu La-Bu Gler became part of the kingdom of Cambodia despite heavy resistance. They nevertheless succeeded in preserving most of their lifestyle, while Colonial and Cambodian authorities implemented policies towards natives in the North-East of Cambodia that broke the former links between these people and the Khmer kindgom, which was following a trend of modernisation. These policies proceeded from the colonial approach, which was based on France's grandeur, civilising mission and economy. ; Entre 1859 et la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, les aborigènes des hautes terres du sud de l'Indochine sont intégrés à l'Indochine française. Les sources coloniales ou khmères et des entretiens in situ montrent les transformations vécues par ces peuples sur trois échelles : une communauté mnong, le Nord-est cambodgien et le Sud indochinois. Les hameaux mnong de Bu La-Bu Gler sont intégrés au royaume du Cambodge et soumis, malgré les mouvements de résistance. Mais, ils réussissent à préserver l'essentiel de leur mode de vie, alors que les autorités coloniales et cambodgiennes s'implantent dans le Nord-est cambodgien et rompent les anciens liens établis entre les aborigènes et le royaume khmer devenu un Etat en voie de modernisation. Leurs politiques découlent de l'approche coloniale basée sur la défense de la grandeur de la France, sur la mission civilisatrice et sur les enjeux économiques.

There is a widespread perception that present-day Nordic egalitarianism is the outcome of a long historical continuity, where the strong political position of peasant farmers and weak feudalism were marking characteristics of pre-industrial society. However, little empirical evidence so far exists on the distribution of income for the early modern period. In this paper, we draw on the schedule and individual assessments devised by the authorities to distribute the tax-burden associated with the Älvsborg ransom to estimate income inequality and the share of income accruing to top income earners and to different social groups in the Swedish realm (present-day Sweden and Finland) in 1613. Using this information, we are able to speak to several debates on pre-industrial distribution of income and historical inequality in the Nordic countries. We find that the income share of the richest one percent was 13 percent while the share of the top 0.01 percent stood at 2 percent. Sweden was characterized by a twopronged social structure where a large share of income was held by the absolute top as well as by the peasants who made up the majority of the population, while the nobility, clergy, burghers and other middle-rank groups held relatively small income shares not least due to their small population numbers. This finding helps explain the relatively strong position of peasants as a fourth estate within the early modern Swedish parliament. While Sweden in the early seventeenth century was relatively equal compared to other contemporary societies, the egalitarian social structure was upended over the subsequent centuries resulting in vast economic and political inequality by the late nineteenth century. Thus, there is no apparent continuity between early modern equality and post-WW2 egalitarianism.

There is a widespread perception that present-day Nordic egalitarianism is the outcome of a long historical continuity, where the strong political position of peasant farmers and weak feudalism were marking characteristics of pre-industrial society. However, little empirical evidence so far exists on the distribution of income for the early modern period. In this paper, we draw on the schedule and individual assessments devised by the authorities to distribute the tax-burden associated with the Älvsborg ransom to estimate income inequality and the share of income accruing to top income earners and to different social groups in the Swedish realm (present-day Sweden and Finland) in 1613. Using this information, we are able to speak to several debates on pre-industrial distribution of income and historical inequality in the Nordic countries. We find that the income share of the richest one percent was 13 percent while the share of the top 0.01 percent stood at 2 percent. Sweden was characterized by a two- pronged social structure where a large share of income was held by the absolute top as well as by the peasants who made up the majority of the population, while the nobility, clergy, burghers and other middle-rank groups held relatively small income shares not least due to their small population numbers. This finding helps explain the relatively strong position of peasants as a fourth estate within the early modern Swedish parliament. While Sweden in the early seventeenth century was relatively equal compared to other contemporary societies, the egalitarian social structure was upended over the subsequent centuries resulting in vast economic and political inequality by the late nineteenth century. Thus, there is no apparent continuity between early modern equality and post-WW2 egalitarianism.

Decolonisation flooded through Africa after WW2, spearheaded by national liberation movements, apparently. In most cases, this did not lead to national sovereignty or independence, and did not alleviate poverty. Decolonisation eventually led to inequality, economic stagnation, and new, subtle forms of outside control. Fanon's incomplete work shows contradictions in national liberation (and the parties which represent it). Using Fanon's work, I criticise nationalism, the expected role of the national bourgeoisie, racism and consumerism, and reified conceptions of politics, democracy, corruption and socialism. Each of these reified conceptions, common to decolonial movements, is presented by the national liberation movements as the overcoming of problems of Western modernity. In fact, I show that these conceptions are all new forms of the problems they claim to overcome. I supplement Fanon's work with ideas and arguments from Marxism and psychoanalysis, as well as many interesting examples from decolonisation. These show how Fanon's predictions were frequently correct, though he lived to see few of them. I use Fanon's writing to show some of the ideologies underlying the worldview of national liberation. Those ideological motifs that are continually present include Freudian illusion, reification (I show how countries, leaders, people etc. are erroneously represented as independent of each other), false identification (particularly the representation of a whole thing by its parts or its symbols, including operationalism), interpellation of individuals as subjects, and images and symbols that manipulate the unconscious. These lead to false interpretations of decolonisation, and individuals celebrating their own domination. Fanon understands decolonisation as not an end to colonisation but a continuation of imperialism; we will read it thus, not as a break from the past but a continuation of its problems.

The Agriculture Course of Dr Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) is the seminal text of biodynamic farming and the organic agriculture movement. It has appeared in 16 languages. The Austrian New Age philosopher, Dr Rudolf Steiner, presented his Agriculture Course in the village of Koberwitz, Germany (now Kobierzyce, Poland) in the summer of 1924. The course of eight lectures laid the foundations for the emergence, over the following two decades, of biodynamic farming and organic agriculture. There were 111 attendees at the course at Koberwitz, many were farmers, all were Anthroposophists. The Agriculture Course was presented in German. It was one of the final lecture series that Rudolf Steiner conducted in his lifetime. It was a course of what Rudolf Steiner called "hints", to be put to the test, not prescriptions nor dogmas. The Agriculture Course appeared in print in German in 1926. It was initially available only to members of the Experimental Circle of Anthroposophic Farmers and Gardeners (until some time after WW2). Members of the Experimental Circle agreed to test Rudolf Steiner's ideas with the view to the publication of the results. The first translation of the Agriculture Course appeared in English in 1929. That translation was by George Kaufmann (later known as George Adams) who brought to the task his years of masterfully and extemporaneously rendering into English Rudolf Steiner's lectures in German for audiences. The Agriculture Course has been translated into a further 14 (at least) other languages: French (1943); Swedish (1966); Italian (1973); Danish (1976); Dutch (1977); Spanish (1988); Hebrew (1989); Norwegian (1992); Romanian (1997); Russian (1997); Serbian (2004); Portuguese (2005); Polish (2007); and Esperanto (2009). As organic agriculture continues to increasingly attract consumers, advocates, practitioners, and scholars, interest endures in the seminal text of biodynamics and the organics movement.