scholarly journals Fascism, Anti-Fascism and the Idea of Nation: Italian Historiography and Public Debate since the 1980s

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-123
Author(s):  
Marco Bresciani
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
East Central ◽  
Italian History ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
East Central European

It is common to consider 1989 as a kind of ‘zero hour’. This applies to East Central European and to Italian history alike. A thought-provoking book, published in 1993, evoked the image of ‘an avalanche that swells downhill, speeded up and enriched by the great landslide of the nearby great mountain’. In this way the historian Luciano Cafagna described the impact of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Italian democracy. As a matter of fact, the Italian party system, based on the leading role of the Christian Democratic Party and of the West's major Communist Party, suddenly collapsed in the three years that followed the end of the Cold War because of a growing loss of legitimacy. In hindsight, though, I argue that the first, mostly invisible, movements of this ‘avalanche’ went further back in time, to well before 1989. The early 1990s simply marked its spectacular acceleration.

Part 1 The Cold War Era (1945–89), 13 The Intervention in Czechoslovakia—1968

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hafner Gerhard
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Valid Consent ◽  
The Cold War

This contribution discusses the intervention of five member states of the Warsaw Pact Organization under the leading role of the Soviet Union in the CSSR in August 1968, which terminated the “Prague Spring” in a forceful manner. After presenting the facts of this intervention and its reasons, it describes the legal positions of the protagonists of this intervention as well as that of the states condemning it, as presented in particular in the Security Council. It then examines the legality of this intervention against general international law and the particular views of the Soviet doctrine existing at that time, defending some sort of socialist (regional) international law. This case stresses the requirement of valid consent for the presence of foreign troops in a country and denies the legality of any justification solely based on the necessity to maintain the political system within a state.

Ending the LDP Hegemony: Party Cooperation in Japan. By Ray Christensen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000. 228p. $52.00 cloth, $27.95 paper.

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 231-232
Author(s):  
Kenji Hayao
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Socialist Party ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Japanese Politics ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
2000 Election

The Japanese party system has been in flux in recent years. In 1993, two groups defected from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and joined with the opposition to form a broadly based coalition government. A year later, the LDP regained power by creating a coalition government with its ideological opponent, the Japan Socialist Party (JSP). Both events shocked virtually everyone at the time. The LDP had been in power for so long-almost 40 years-that it seemed almost inconceivable that it could lose power. For just as long, the JSP had been the main opposition. By the 2000 election, a dozen parties had come and gone, the JSP's strength dropped to a very small fraction of what it was a decade earlier, and the LDP had to turn to various coalition partners to maintain its control of government. All this is quite puzzling to even close watchers of Japanese politics, because party politics, especially the role of opposition parties, has been a relatively understudied area. For those who want to make sense of how these events came to pass, Ray Christensen's Ending the LDP Hegemony will be very helpful.

The impact of populist radical right parties on foreign policy: the Northern League as a junior coalition partner in the Berlusconi Governments

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 525-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bertjan Verbeek ◽  
Andrej Zaslove
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Party System ◽  
Coalition Partner ◽  
Northern League ◽  
The People ◽  
Radical Right Parties ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Common Understanding

Despite the populist radical right’s (PRR) popularity among political scientists, little scholarship has focused on its influence on foreign policy. This lack of study is due, in part, to a general lack of attention to the role of political parties in foreign policy, both in comparative politics and international relations (IR). This is unfortunate because, due to Europeanization and globalization, the domain of foreign policy has expanded, making foreign policy increasingly a domestic concern and, most importantly, touching on major themes of PRR parties. Combining insights from comparative politics and IR, we theorize the mechanisms, which may facilitate the impact of such parties on foreign policy. Subsequently, we examine whether the Italian Northern League (LN), as a prime example of a PRR party participating in a coalition government, has had an impact on Italy’s foreign policy and, if so, what accounts for this (lack of) influence. This paper concludes that, unlike common understanding, the PRR is not persistently anti-internationalist/anti-EU; rather, its position depends on the extent to which international politics helps or hinders the promotion of ‘the people’. Second, despite the LN’s strong coalition position, it pursued an effective foreign policy mainly regarding immigration policy. Third, IR theories of junior coalition partners and foreign policy should address the nature of the party system and how inter-party electoral competition affects the strength of a junior coalition partner. Fourth, these theories need to acknowledge that party preferences are sometimes trumped by national concerns, as suggested by more systemic IR theories.

Reforming Regional Governance in East Central Europe: Europeanization or Domestic Politics as Usual?

2006 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conor O’Dwyer
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Regional Governance ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Governance Reform ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
East Central ◽  
East Central European

In recent years, a number of East Central European (ECE) governments have undertaken to radically alter the territorial structures of their public administration. Some have suggested that this development represents the growing Europeanization of ECE politics, in particular the role of the European Union. This article questions that view by examining the crucial role of domestic party politics in the enactment and implementation of regional governance reform. It does so through a close comparison of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.

The impact of the Internet on Myanmar (originally published in May 2001)

First Monday ◽  
2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viola Krebs
Keyword(s):  
The Internet ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Before And After ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Flow Of Information ◽  
Freedom House

In the present paper, I explore how the Internet has affected the flow of information between in and outside Myanmar (Burma). I show that there is a strong difference between the way information was presented before and after the introduction of the World Wide Web. Within the last century, the country has been marked by political instability (Eliot, 1997; Freedom House, 2000). Particularly since its separation from British colonial rule in 1948, Burma has witnessed significant political change, violence and unrest. Since the early 1960s, Burma has essentially been an isolated state, with closed borders and a military government. However, the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the Cold War seem to suggest that isolationism is growing less common worldwide. Importantly, meteoric advances in communications have also paralleled the fall of isolationism. In my study, I examine two political events in Myanmar connected to student uprisings, in the hope of documenting how the Internet - as an easily researched symbol of modern communications - may be affecting the political strategies of one of the last isolated states.

Literaturrevolution in Continental Jewish Aesthetics

2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sami Sjöberg
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
East Central ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
The Social ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
East Central European ◽  
Second World

AbstractThe German term Literaturrevolution, associated with the modern period in literature, covers various aesthetical ideas and ideologies revolving around the notion of revolution. Concerning revolt, Literaturrevolution entails a radical reinterpretation of the relation between art and reality as it charts the role of art during the socio-political upheavals of modernity. The article traces the variety of readings of the notion of revolution present in francophone and germanophone Jewish literature and meta-literary discussions in Europe from the early 1900s until the outbreak of the Second World War. It accounts for the reception, adaptation, and utilization of revolutionary discourses among expressionists and dadaists of Jewish origin. The motivation to focus on Jewish thought in particular derives not only from its peculiarities but also from its discursive plurality. This plurality is already evident in Gustav Landauer’s Die Revolution (1907), which captures the manifoldness of reformist ideas in East-Central European Jewish thought. In the wake of his book, the aesthetic, religious-ecstatic, and socio-political aspects of revolution overlapped and amalgamated. The multifaceted conceptions of revolt are particularly noticeable in the Jewish manifestations of Literaturrevolution as they placed the aesthetical with the social in parallel, evoking both socialist and fascist conservative opposition.

Freud and the Neocons: The Narrative of a Political Encounter from 1949–2000

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt ffytche
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Lionel Trilling ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Political Right ◽  
The Impact

This article examines the impact of Freud on conservative liberal intellectuals in America particularly during the Cold War. It argues that, compared with studies of the ‘radical’ or left-wing assimilations of psychoanalysis, the Freud of the political Right has been relatively neglected. It concentrates on three figures in particular – Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and Leo Strauss, all of whom were a major influence on the formation of American neoconservatism, and ultimately on the Bush administration at the time of the War on Terror. The article also examines the role of Lionel Trilling in mediating Freudian ideas to Kristol and Podhoretz, who were disaffected with the progressive aspects of liberalism, and shifted their allegiance to the Right by the 1980s. Freud's work, especially Civilization and its Discontents, functions as an ideological landmark at the borderline of their reflections on religion, morality, the failures of democracy and the foundations of social order.

scholarly journals Accept Anxiety to Improve Sleep: The Impact of the COVID-19 Lockdown on the Relationships between Mindfulness, Distress and Sleep Quality

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (24) ◽  
pp. 13149
Author(s):  
Marco Mirolli ◽  
Luca Simione ◽  
Monica Martoni ◽  
Marco Fabbri
Keyword(s):  
Sleep Quality ◽  
Sleep Problems ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Dispositional Mindfulness ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Improve Sleep Quality ◽  
The Impact

It has been recently proposed that mindfulness can improve sleep quality through the mediating role on psychological distress and that acceptance may play a pivotal role in mindfulness beneficial effects. The aim of the present work was to understand the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on dispositional mindfulness, sleep, and distress, and on their relationships. In particular, we wanted to test the hypothesis that the detrimental effects of lockdown on sleep depended on mindfulness and distress (including anxiety and depression) and that the acceptance facet of mindfulness played the leading role. A longitudinal study based on self-report questionnaires was conducted on 39 Italian adults (M age = 35.03, SD = 14.02; 21 men) assessing mindfulness, distress, and sleep quality before (23 December 2019–8 March 2020) and during (27 April 2020–10 May 2020) the first Italian COVID-19 lockdown. Lockdown decreased mindfulness while increasing distress and sleep problems. Path analysis showed that the effects of lockdown on sleep were fully mediated by mindfulness and distress. Furthermore, a more detailed analysis showed that these effects were mainly dependent on the acceptance component of mindfulness working through anxiety. The present study confirms, in the context of the COVID-19 lockdown, a model according to which mindfulness, and specifically acceptance, influences sleep through the mediating role of distress.

International Mediation in Africa: Experiences and Challenges

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 402-430
Author(s):  
Vasu Gounden
Keyword(s):  
Mediation Process ◽  
The Past ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
International Mediation ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
Mediation Processes ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Deep Body

AbstractAlthough informal and traditionally driven practices of mediation have existed for many generations, institutionalized and African-driven mediation became more important following the end of the Cold War. Mediation initiatives undertaken over the past 25 years, partly as a consequence of the increase in intra-state conflicts on the continent, have resulted in the generation of a deep body of knowledge and the evolution of a community of practitioners. This article examines two of the first post-1990 African-driven mediation processes – the Arusha Peace Process for Burundi and the Inter-Congolese Dialogue (icd) for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (drc) – to highlight key lessons that emerged, including the choice of mediator, who to include in the mediation, the impact of regional and international dynamics on the mediation, the importance and challenges of addressing the root causes of the conflict in a mediation process, and the role of non-state actors and Track ii diplomacy.

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