Good Deed Lost: The Story of the Straka Foundation in Historical Context

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 212-234
Author(s):  
Antonie Doležalová

What a beautiful day, Emil Franke may well have been thinking to himself as he hurried through the streets of Prague on a cool November morning in 1937. If only that day he had not been confronted by an unpleasant member of parliament's interpellations! The representatives of the Sudeten German Party were going to be asking about the wages of German minority teachers and Karel Domín, the rector of Charles University, was planning to ask about Straka Academy. Franke knew the situation in the academy very well—by the beginning of the 1920s, his Ministry of Supply had already occupied some of its rooms, and Domín shed some light on this situation. In his interpellation Domin described the state of the foundation as the most painful chapter in the existence of foundations in Czechoslovakia. He finished his speech by asking a question: “Are you, as Minister of Education, willing to arrange for both the foundation and academy to be returned and kept for our students as the founder of this foundation intended?” As Franke very well knew, at that moment in time the academy had barely any students. It was basically useless, it served no purpose.

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 102-110
Author(s):  
N. P. Molchanova

The paper deals with the methodology and practice of the state regulation of the regional economy based on the legislative framework and works of Russian scientists in the historical context with account for the specifics of the current period of market transformation. The subject of research is organizational and economic relations, aimed at improving the management efficiency of regional socio-economic development. The purpose of research was to identify the key problems of the regional economy regulation preventing the balanced functioning of administrative-territorial entities and substantiate the need to boost measures of state support. Based on the dialectical cognition method and the system approach, the positions of leading scientists and scientific schools on topical issues of the regional economy as a scientific discipline were analyzed, which made it possible to identify the main reasons hampering socio-economic transformations and justify measures for running a more active regional policy. It is concluded that consistent improvement of methodological and organizational approaches creates prerequisites for improving the results of the socio-economic development at the regional level; however, in the current situation of the macroeconomic instability serious problems may arise to be resolved primarily by the state regulation.


Author(s):  
Eugenia Roldán Vera ◽  
Susana Quintanilla

The Mexican policy of state provision of standardized textbooks for all was instituted in 1959 and still ongoing. This is an overview of the previous history of state intervention in the production and distribution of school textbooks, an examination of the particular circumstances in which the 1959 policy was figured and implemented, and a description of the characteristics of the different generations of textbooks that have since been published, corresponding with several educational reforms. The arguments for and against standardized textbooks mobilized by different sectors of society throughout sixty years are discussed in their historical context. Far from this being a debate about the authoritarian intervention of the state in education, issues of social equality and teaching quality have been central.


2021 ◽  
pp. 135406612110536
Author(s):  
Jonathan White

The making of modern authority centred on efforts to formalise and de-personalise power, and transnational orders such as the European Union have often been viewed as an extension of that project. As this article argues, recent developments tell a different story. More than a decade of crisis politics has seen institutions subordinated to and reshaped by individuals and the networks they form. Locating these tendencies in a wider historical context, the article argues that greater attention to informality in transnational governance needs to be paired with greater recognition of the normative questions it raises. Just as a separation between rulers and the offices of rule was central to the making of modern legal and political structures, the weakening of that separation creates legitimacy problems for contemporary authorities both national and supranational. Rather than acclaimed as flexible problem-solving, the step back from institutions should be viewed as a challenge to accountable rule.


Author(s):  
Tatiana Lavrova ◽  

The author covers the question of the stability of competitive authoritarianism in Malaysia. In this case, such a regime is particularly stable, possibly due to the developed and institutionalized model of interaction between the dominant party and ethnic groups, implemented in the conditions of the polyethnic composition of the state. It was crucial to take into account the historical context of the British colonization of Malaysia, which had led to the influx of migrants, and the presence of a political party in power for 61 years, which was practically merged with the state apparatus and fully represented only one ethnic group. "Ethnic outbidding" implemented by the dominant party UMNO provided a numerically greater population with benefits in exchange for support of the ruling party. Simultaneously, the incorporation of ethnic groups into the state's political structure and the use of the power-sharing model allowed UMNO to act as an umbrella party and to maintain the status quo. The unspoken Treaty, first, was based on granting the privilege to the indigenous Malay population, and, second, protected the interests of non-Malays. Thus, granting bumiputera and non-Malays certain privileges, the establishment was able to consolidate a non-democratic regime and control over complex Malaysian society.


Author(s):  
José G. G. Vargas-Hernández ◽  
Justyna Anna Zdunek-Wielgołaska

This chapter analyzes startups from the perspective of the theory of entrepreneurship. Based on a literature review, the historical context of entrepreneurship in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara (MAG) is explored, evaluating the variables that are important to successful entrepreneurship. The authors conclude that Mexico from their national policies and the state of Jalisco from its development plan created the conditions to promote the entrepreneurial ecosystem; however, there are key indicators that slow the growth of startups based on technology and innovation.


Author(s):  
Shantharaju S.

Rebel star Ambareesh, a popular Kannada film actor and a politician, is considered a cult figure for various reasons including his contentious political career and unquestionable stardom. He was well known for controversial, witty, and sleazy statements in public. Yet he gained considerable attention within the party as he represented dominant Vokkaliga voters in Old Mysore part of the state. A large number of films cast him in scripts comprising a rebellious young man who would take down the entire system single-handedly. In his political career as an MP and state minister, he always shocks his party leaders with his “who cares” attitude like in his films. It is not only the rhetorical, chauvinistic statements alone that gained him popularity. The on-screen jingoism towards a region, roles appealing to feudal set up also welded Ambareesh's image as a “Proud son of Mandya.” The current chapter is an attempt to deconstruct the unique model of “Rebel Star,” which needs to be evaluated in the historical context of Kannada cinema along with reception among shared ideologies.


Author(s):  
Julia Moses

T. H. Marshall’s claims that the twentieth century was the era of social rights, embodied in education and welfare policy, has found enduring favour with a wide variety of scholars and social commentators. To what extent, however, was his theory of citizenship and social rights a reflection of the specific moment in which he was writing? This chapter places T. H. Marshall’s concept of ‘citizenship’ within its historical context. Through examining his biography, this essay suggests that Marshall’s theory of citizenship was informed by an appreciation for continental, and especially German, conceptions of social policy, the role of the state, and the nature of community. Parsing this aspect of Marshall’s intellectual biography has important implications for our own understanding of British ideas about the purpose, structure, and scope of social policy during the formative middle decades of the twentieth century.


Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly

This book offers a broad-ranging re-interpretation of the understanding of politics and the state in the writings of three major German thinkers, Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Franz Neumann. It rejects the typical separation of these writers on the basis of their allegedly incompatible ideological positions, and suggests instead that once properly located in their historical context, the tendentious character of these interpretative boundaries becomes clear. The book interprets the conceptions of politics and the state in the writings of these three thinkers by means of an investigation of their adaptation and modification of particular German traditions of thinking about the state, or Staatsrechtslehre. Indeed, when the theoretical considerations of this state-legal theory are combined with their contemporary political criticism, a richer and more deeply textured account of the issues that engaged the attention of Weber, Schmitt and Neumann is possible. Thus, the broad range of subjects discussed in this book include parliamentarism and democracy in Germany, academic freedom and political economy, political representation, cultural criticism and patriotism, and the relationship between rationality, law, sovereignty and the constitution. The study attempts to restore a sense of proportion to the discussion of the three authors' writings, focusing on the extensive ideas that they shared rather than insisting on their necessary ideological separation. It is a detailed re-appraisal of a crucial moment in modern intellectual history, and highlights the profound importance of Max Weber, Carl Schmitt and Franz Neumann for the history of European ideas.


Author(s):  
Donald Bloxham ◽  
A. Dirk Moses

This article describes the state of genocide studies, historicization, and causation, placing genocide into its historical context, and genocide in the world today. ‘Genocide’ is unfortunately ubiquitous, all too often literally in attempts at the destruction of human groups, but also rhetorically in the form of a word that is at once universally known and widely invoked. The comparative scholarship of genocide began with Raphael Lemkin and through the later Cold War period was continued by a small group of dedicated scholars. The discussion also opens the probing of the limits and the utility of the concept of genocide for historical understanding, and placing this crime back in its context that may often include mass non-genocidal violence. It also reflects on the debate about the relationship between individual acts of genocide and the wider political economy and norms of the worlds in which they occur.


2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (4 Zeszyt specjalny) ◽  
pp. 139-158
Author(s):  
Bogumił Szady

The major aim of the present article is to assess the credibility and provide criticism of the source value of the first account on the state of the Chełm diocese from 1594 in reference to the organizational state of the diocese at the end of the 16th century, which was before the fire of the archives of the Episcopal curia in Krasnystaw (7 April, 1597), when most of the documents and books burnt down. The account analyzed in the present text is one of the oldest preserved reports sent by the Polish bishops to the Apostolic See after the Council of Trent. The criticism of the Chełm account from 1594 is preceded by an introduction referring to the research tradition and the editorial tradition related to this category of sources. The circumstances and the historical context concerning the account are presented. The evaluation of the reliability of the information passed to the Apostolic See by the representative of bishop Stanisław Gomoliński was conducted by means of the comparative analysis referring to the content of the account together with the information on the state and organization of the Chełm diocese which comes from other sources and scientific studies. The author of the account pointed to a number of difficulties in the functioning of his diocese in the area where the Orthodox Church prevailed and the network of Latin churches, additionally weakened by the Reformation, did not make up a regular and compact territorial structure. This caused a lot of problems in the material protection of the benefices and in pastoral services (a lack of clergymen, accumulation of benefices, disregarding the duty of residence). The account from 1594, as compared to later reports, has the character of a letter (“stylus epistolaris”), and not a form. It is short and fairly general. Its informative value, especially when we analyze particular problems or particular issues, is only supplementary. It can present greater value while studying the bishop’s relation to his diocese and the way of managing it. It is worth looking at this source in the comparative context – especially through the prism of the accounts presented by the same bishop from various dioceses which were under his management during his pastoral career. This will enable criticism of this source and the answer to the question about the extent to which the accounts were the personal work of a given bishop or the work of the Episcopal curia circles and to what extent the traditions of the bishopric.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document