The Role of Politics in the Historical Transport Networks of the Iberian Peninsula and the Pyrenees from Roman Times to the Nineteenth Century

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-260
Author(s):  
Pau de Soto ◽  
Cèsar Carreras

AbstractTransport routes are basic elements that are inextricably linked to diverse political, economic, and social factors. Transport networks may be the cause or result of complex historical conjunctions that reflect to some extent a structural conception of the political systems that govern each territory. It is for this reason that analyzing the evolution of the transport routes layout in a wide territory allows us to recognize the role of the political organization and its economic influence in territorial design. In this article, the evolution of the transport network in the Iberian Peninsula has been studied in a broad chronological framework to observe how the different political systems of each period understood and modified the transport systems. Subsequently, a second analysis of the evolution of transport networks in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula is included in this article. This more detailed and geographically restricted study allows us to visualize in a different way the evolution and impact of changes in transport networks. This article focuses on the calculation of the connectivity to analyze the intermodal transport systems. The use of network science analyses to study historical roads has resulted in a great tool to visualize and understand the connectivity of the territories of each studied period and compare the evolution, changes, and continuities of the transport network.

Author(s):  
Andrea Harris

This chapter explores the international and interdisciplinary backdrop of Lincoln Kirstein’s efforts to form an American ballet in the early 1930s. The political, economic, and cultural conditions of the Depression reinvigorated the search for an “American” culture. In this context, new openings for a modernist theory of ballet were created as intellectuals and artists from a wide range of disciplines endeavored to define the role of the arts in protecting against the dangerous effects of mass culture. Chapter 1 sheds new light on well-known critical debates in dance history between Kirstein and John Martin over whether ballet, with its European roots, could truly become “American” in contrast to modern dance. Was American dance going to be conceived in nationalist or transnationalist terms? That was the deeper conflict that underlay the ballet vs. modern dance debates of the early 1930s.


Author(s):  
S. A. Vasyutin

The article deals with the evaluation of the political institutions in early medievalCentral Asia. The existing approaches to defining the governing systems of the imperial nomad unions focus on the concepts "chiefdom" and "state", but in both cases researchers have to state an absence of total compliance of the nomadic empires' governing structures to the classical attributes of chiefdom and state, thus constantly making reservations, which blur these concepts. The purpose of the work is to consider the possibility of solving this problem by using a broader "net" of terms determining different political systems and stages in their development in relation to early medieval nomadic empires. The methodological base of the article is the modern conceptions of multilinearity and diversity of the political genesis. The research has resulted in determination of a range of concepts which could better reflect the specificity of political institutions of different nomadic empires or make this evaluation more neutral but providing a clearer understanding of the complexity level of the political organization. 


Author(s):  
Yuri Pines

This chapter explores the reasons for the recurrence of large-scale popular uprisings throughout imperial history. It considers how the idea of rebellion correlates with fundamental principles of Chinese political culture, such as monarchism and intellectual elitism. Moreover, the chapter looks at why the rebellions serve to support rather than disrupt the empire's longevity. These issues are then related to the broader issue of the political role of the “people,” here referring primarily, although not exclusively, to the lower strata, in the Chinese imperial enterprise. In answering these questions, this chapter focuses on ideological and social factors that both legitimated rebellions and also enabled their accommodation within the imperial enterprise.


1999 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHLEEN G. DONOHUE

The 1890s and the 1930s were periods of intense consumer activism during which organized consumers pressured government to regulate business on behalf of the consuming public. In both periods, however, the heightened awareness of the consumer had an impact that extended beyond the realm of grass-roots activism or government regulation. One of the areas profoundly affected by this heightened awareness was political–economic thought. In both periods, political–economic theorists turned their attention to the consumer, debating such issues as whether humans were fundamentally producers or consumers, whether civic identity should be rooted in the consumer or the producer identity, and whether the “good society” was one based on “producerist” or “consumerist” values.


Author(s):  
Daniel J. Fiorino

This chapter examines the role of economic inequality in influencing a society’s capacity for ecological protection and green growth. Its premise is that for two similar political systems differing only in their degree of inequality, the less unequal one will have advantages. Although there still is limited research on the role of income and wealth inequality in influencing ecological performance, evidence suggests that more economically equitable societies hold an advantage. This is partly due to economic factors, such as the tendency in more unequal societies to promote consumption based on status competition and positional goods, but there is evidence of political and social factors as well. High economic inequality increases social mistrust and distance, which undermines the ability to collectively value public goods. Any green growth strategy should account for the sources of and effects of inequality.


2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 120-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hana Hašková ◽  
Radka Dudová

The article compares the development of policies pertaining to care for preschool children in the course of the second half of the 20th century in France and in the Czech Republic. It aims at identifying the key factors that led to the differentiation of the policies and institutions in the two countries, especially with respect to support for extra-familial care and formal care institutions (nurseries). We build on the theories of ‘new’ institutionalisms and we apply framing analysis, which allows us to understand the formation of ideas that precede policy changes. Specifically, we discuss the role of expert discourse and the framings of care for young children in the process of social policy change. We argue that expert knowledge in interaction with the political, economic, and demographic contexts and how it has been presented in public have had a fundamental impact on the formation of childcare policies and institutions in the two countries.


2017 ◽  
pp. 103-111
Author(s):  
Vira Berkovets

This study is devoted to the identification and description of areas of functioning of phonetic words (rhythmical structures, accent-rhythmical structures, rhythmical groups, tacts) in modern Ukrainian. The article highlights the features of using of phonetic words as means of language play in the colloquial, artistic, journalistic (media) functional styles. Also there were investigated the figurative and expressive potential of phonetic words in fiction; the derivational specificity of such words in aspects of general language and occasional derivation in different functional styles in modern Ukrainian; the functioning of phonetic words as verbal attractants in the modern Ukrainian advertising text. Special attention was paid to role of phonetic words in the occurrence of possible communicative misunderstandings in oral communication by one language or several languages. Finally, we examined the use of phonetic words in the structure of hashtags and memes of different thematic focuses (in particular with the political, economic, promotional, informational and cultural orientation) in modern Ukrainian Internet discourse.


Author(s):  
Alexandra Chavarría Arnau

This chapter traces the material evidence for the spread of Christianity in the Iberian peninsula (including Spain and Portugal) between the third and seventh centuries, focusing on a critical review of traditional interpretations and identifications frequently based on inconsistent chronological references, fragile and poorly surviving materials, and often contradictory textual and archaeological evidence. The result is a new perspective on the subject that is much more comparable to that seen in other areas of the Mediterranean. The chapter will analyze the development of Christianization in cities and the countryside, taking into account when churches were built, who built them, and the political, economic, and social context in which Christian topography was created.


Author(s):  
Aleksandar Takovski

AbstractIn 2010, the Macedonian government commissioned a controversial urban project titled Skopje 2014, designed to aesthetically revamp the look of the capital’s center. The announcement gave rise to conflicting views, both supportive and critical of the idea. Part of the criticism leveled at the project was expressed through on-line humor which produced no major sociopolitical effect, public debate or counter-humor production. Yet its production and reception may be taken as emblematic of the societal tensions underlying the contradiction between its effects and its evaluations.By outlining the political context of the humor’s emergence, analyzing the examples produced, and voicing humor creators’ and citizens’ understanding of its political role, the study reflects upon humor’s specifics and limitations in order to argue that the humor produced and its understanding reflect the political impulses, tensions, and ambiguities of a hybrid society such as Macedonia. Using input from the discussions on the role of humor across political systems, and especially relying on studies of political on-line humor in democracies and audience research, the study intends to determine the political effect of the humor produced so as to argue that faced with many challenges, the humor failed to become a democratic means of political engagement, remaining largely a tool for the expression of personal dissatisfaction. Nonetheless, there is an existing paradox in the face of citizens’ beliefs in the potential of this humor. This study tries to explain this paradox.


Author(s):  
Dmytro Filipenko

As the practice of referendum has considerable potential for legitimizing power, it is an integral part of the functioning of many political systems. This article applies a systematic approach in order to analyze this practice comprehensively and to examine the referendum processes in their integrity and interconnection. The formation of a new political system is considered as a synthesis of two components: the internal self-awareness of the identity of the political system itself and its separation from the external environment, the recognition of the system as the environment. The author of the article (using D. Eastonʼs reasoning) interprets it as the whole divided into two parts: internal – in society, and external – between the political system and other political systems (societies): the intra-society and extra-society external environment of the political system. These components (self-awareness and outward recognition) are shown to be crucial in the process of the development of the political system in the independent Ukraine. This is confirmed by the December 1, 1991 Referendum. The author analyzes the role of the aforementioned referendum in the formation of Ukraineʼs political system in the context of a systematic approach. He argues that the referendum was initiated due to a number of intra-society and extra-society requirements. Holding a referendum in support of independence became a comprehensive systemic response to systemic challenges and allowed to solve a whole set of problems of existence and further development of a political system of the independent Ukraine. Keywords: referendum on independence, political system of Ukraine, systemic approach, collapse of the USSR.


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