Floreas into Virágs: State Regulation of First Names in Dualist Hungary

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 107-127
Author(s):  
Ágoston Berecz

The Kingdom of Hungary instituted the civil registry of births, marriages, and deaths in 1894. While the new institution was both eulogized and criticized as a major step in the separation of church and state and toward the creation of a modern, secular Hungary, it also opened up a new path for nation building. In this exceedingly multilingual and multinational country, churches often acted as proxies of cultural and political institutions for the national minorities. In the present article, I examine the specifically nation-building aspects embodied in the new regulation for the official use of first names that accompanied Act XXXIII of 1894 on the civil registry, and focus particularly on Romanian first names. Due to their considerable mismatch with Hungarian first names, Romanian names posed a special challenge to policy makers, and for this reason they demonstrate some less obvious dimensions of the changes instituted in 1894. The geographic parameters of this investigation have been imposed by the spatial framework of a wider research project on the interconnections among language, nationalism, and social change in the eastern part of Dualist Hungary, a territory encompassing Transylvania, the easternmost counties of contemporary Hungary proper (according to the administrative division created in 1876), and the eastern two-thirds of the Banat. This framework enables me to make comparisons with other ethnolinguistic groups, notably Transylvanian Saxons and the Catholic Germans of the Banat.

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Marie-Christine THAIZE CHALLIER

This paper is an empirical analysis to explore the relationships between urban conflict and both rent seeking and corruption. It examines social disturbances in medieval France through a sample of twelve towns examined over the period 1270-1399 in a real context of informational asymmetries, commitment problems, and issues indivisibilities. As regards the economic corruption class, it is found that townspeople rebel more often and more intensely against the extortion of funds carried out by policy makers than against the embezzlement of a part of these funds. As to the political corruption class, the findings highlight that abuse of power against municipalities is identified in more social unrest than influence peddling against these local institutions. Furthermore, it is shown that rent-seeking-related policies (like arbitrary actions limiting property rights, economic rules-based policies, and targeted political measures) have less influence on urban conflict than corrupt policies do. These findings produce insights that apply beyond the historical context and analysis of the paper. Situations presenting over-indebted towns despite overtaxed people disturb also modern democracies.


Unity Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Anand Sing Bhat

Some of the theories of nation building have been dedicated to the study of link between nation and nationalism; others are attributed to explore nation building, state building, social integration, national integration and even conflict transformation during various historical periods. However, nation building is a normative concept used by academicians and nation builders alike to study the role of armed forces in nation building in recent times. Although research has conducted on ethnicity and nation building in Nepal, a little is known about application of theoretical perspective to explore the role of Nepali Army in nation building. Apparently, this article argues that the level of theoretical awareness of academicians and nation builders needs improvement and multiple theories of nation building are relevant to explore the role of Nepali Army in nation building during various enclaves of Nepali nation. Important issues like what are the relevant theories in Nepali context to analyse nation building? Their implication during the historical times to study the link of Nepali Army with nation building needs to be studied. Hence, this paper comparatively examines a nation building theories and their relevant implications during various enclaves of Nepali nation particularly applauding the role on Nepali Army. Conceptual framework based on Saunder's Research Onion Peeled (2007) method was used with qualitative design in a way of inductive approach to conduct the research work to investigate the research questions. Comparative document study, library research, quick survey with policy makers, government employees, professors, university students APF Officers and Army Officers based on purposive sampling method have been used. Study found that Nepali nation passes through its own way of building the nation in various enclaves, none of the theories are complete to study the employment of Nepali Army to produce visible and encouraging results. The level of theoretical awareness of academicians and nation builders needs further improvement. For this, multiple theories particularly related to social transformation, infrastructural development in support of centre to periphery relation; social integration and nationalism are appropriate.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-19
Author(s):  
Robert E Aronson

Disparities in population health statuses are tied to inequities in society, and not just differences in personal decision-making and behavior.  Christians should (and must) play a role in confronting these inequities, based upon three biblical themes: 1) the instructions in the book of Leviticus regarding the Sabbath year and the Year of Jubilee as a way to protect the economic system from producing insurmountable inequities and degrading the environment; 2) the eschatological image of the New Jerusalem in the book of Isaiah, with its focus on Shalom in contrast to a religion focused on personal piety in the face of oppression and social injustice; and 3) Jesus’ teachings about the kingdom, which include its imminence and the counter-cultural nature of its ethic.  The notion of the kingdom can be applied in the lives of Christians (particularly those involved in public health) through individual acts, corporate acts in the context of the church, and state-led actions to bring about social change to achieve social justice. Social change can be described as an act of reconciliation in which systems of society are redeemed by the power of kingdom principles.  


2015 ◽  
Vol 59 (11) ◽  
pp. 91-102
Author(s):  
I. Semenenko

Analyzing discourses on interethnic relations can contribute to a clearer understanding of the focal points of tensions in contemporary political communities sharing a common territory and common political institutions. These discourses represent the complex of problems related to nation-building and are generated both in the public sphere and in academic discussion. As such, they often develop separately one from the other. Assessing the current academic discourse on nations and nationalism, on nation-building and the nation-state, on citizenship, cultural diversity and interethnic conflict can contribute to the formation of the agenda of a politics of identity aimed at building a civic nation. Memory politics deserve special attention in this context, as the interpretation of historic memory has today become a powerful instrument that political elites can use to consolidate the nation and, in different contexts, to politicize ethnicity and deepen cleavages in existing nation-states. The affirmation of a positive civic (national) identity is a reference framework for modern democratic societies, and it is in meeting the challenges of politicizing ethnicity that political priorities and academic interests meet. However, the current domination of politics over academia in this conflict prone sphere contributes to its radicalization and to the formation of negative and exclusive identities that can be manipulated to pursue elitist group interests. Evaluating models of political organization alternative to the ones known today (such as “the nation-state”) does not aspire to “write off” the nation, but this can help to come up with visions and ideas politics can take up to overcome the conflict potential that contemporary societies generate over ethnic issues. Acknowledgements. This article was prepared with financial support provided by the Russian Science Foundation [research grant № 15-18-00021, “Regulating interethnic relations and managing ethnic and social conflicts in the contemporary world: the resource potential of civic identity (a comparative political analysis)”]. The research was conducted at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), RAS.


Homelands ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 197-212
Author(s):  
Nadav G. Shelef

This concluding chapter highlights the lessons from the empirical exploration of homelands and their contraction. It reevaluates how one identifies territorial partitions and reassesses the question of whether partitions can be used to resolve conflict. Partitions can succeed in resolving nationalist conflicts where beliefs about the homeland's extent change. While drawing a new border is usually not enough on its own, contexts in which evolutionary dynamics operate on homelands are more likely to experience such transformations. Partitions may therefore be more likely to contribute to peace where the society that lost access to part of its homeland is characterized by long-lasting domestic political contestation. To be successful, in other words, policy makers advocating partitions need to pay as much attention to creating or maintaining domestic political institutions that foster such contestation within the states on either side of the border as to where the particular line is drawn.


Author(s):  
András Sajó

Regimes that operate in a democratic manner without offering the possibility of changes in who rules the country represent the ultimate problem of illiberal democracies and authoritarian rule in general. The shaping of the electoral system in the 1860s and 1870s in England and Hungary was decisive for regime building. In liberal Hungary, the franchise and the electoral system were frozen because of nationalist hegemony. In consequence the governing party remained in power until the collapse of the country in 1918. In England, accidental reform enabled in the long run adaptation to social change and rather peaceful incorporation into the electorate of the working classes, which were thought in Hungary in the 1860s as dangerous, risking the establishment of national minorities. The Hungarian parliamentary debate indicates the importance of comparative constitutional law for liberalism.


Asian Survey ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Ela L. Atienza

Two and a half years into the Duterte administration, the country is facing high inflation rates, weak political institutions, and political uncertainty. While there are efforts toward political reform as well as peaceful settlement of conflicts, the country remains divided, with no clear strategy for reforms or nation-building being offered.


2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Harrison ◽  
Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom

The authors use a comparative politics framework, examining electoral interests, policy-maker's own normative commitments, and domestic political institutions as factors influencing Annex 1 countries' decisions on Kyoto Protocol ratification and adoption of national policies to mitigate climate change. Economic costs and electoral interests matter a great deal, even when policy-makers are morally motivated to take action on climate change. Leaders' normative commitments may carry the day under centralized institutional conditions, but these commitments can be reversed when leaders change. Electoral systems, federalism, and executive-legislative institutional configurations all influence ratification decisions and subsequent policy adoption. Although institutional configurations may facilitate or hinder government action, high levels of voter concern can trump institutional obstacles. Governments' decisions to ratify, and the reduction targets they face upon ratification, do not necessarily determine their approach to carbon emissions abatement policies: for example, ratifying countries that accept demanding targets may fail to take significant action.


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