Vidyapati and Mithila

2019 ◽  
pp. 3-36
Author(s):  
Pankaj Jha
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Intellectual Milieu ◽  
Available Information

Vidyapati was a polyglot poet and scholar, attached at different moments to courts of different chieftaincies of north Bihar and the terrain of Nepal. The chapter introduces his scholarly profile and provides the details of all his known compositions. The diversity of their themes, genres and languages is marked. Available information indicates how vibrant the intellectual milieu of Mithila was as a hub of Sanskrit learning during the 14th–16th centuries. The chapter traces the geographical background of the region. It also outlines the political setting with reference to the genealogies of the local rulers. These rulers were mostly ‘autonomous’ but ruled over a relatively tiny principality. Few historians have studied the region during the ‘medieval’ period, most of them local enthusiasts of Maithil culture and pride. The chapter provides a brief account of this historiography and its limitations.

Prices in Mecca During the Mamluk Period

1989 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 279-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard T. Mortel
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
The Political ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Terra Incognita ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Mamluk Period ◽  
Available Information ◽  
Source Materials

AbstractThe political, social and economic history of western Arabia during the medieval period still remains terra incognita for the great majority of Islamicists, in spite of the intrinsic importance of the subject and the existence of a corpus of first-rate source materials. The goal of this article is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the economic history of Mecca through a detailed study of the available information regarding the prices of cereal grains and other foodstuffs there during the Mamluk period. So that the maximum advantage may be derived from the discussion, it will be preceeded by a short outline of the political history of Mecca during Mamluk times, as well as the salient features of its economy.

If in Doubt, Leave it Out? EU Precaution in WTO Regulatory Space

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Flett
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Level ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
International Organisations ◽  
Balanced Approach ◽  
Available Information

This article reviews the way in which the concept of precaution, as commonly referenced in EU law, is received in the WTO. It argues that precaution is not a principle, but one facet of a principle of making rational judgments based on available information, the other facet of which is “that risk is worth taking”. Systematically pursuing high cost measures in response to low risks is not a balanced approach, and has probably contributed to the scepticism with which the concept is viewed in the WTO. However, this article goes on to argue that, without needing to be a principle, precaution is the determining legal feature in the SPS Agreement, because, unlike in the European Union, there is no legislative harmonisation of SPS measures at international level, WTO Members being free to set their own appropriate level of protection. In fact, the concept of precaution is relevant in the context of many other WTO provisions and is in some respects quite close to the concept of subsidiarity. Notwithstanding this, the first WTO SPS cases, driven by regulatory exporters and an interventionist WTO, have excessively emphasised scientific issues, masking policy judgments that the WTO has neither the legal nor the political authority to sustain. The article concludes that the proper way forward necessitates closer political, legal and administrative links between the WTO and other relevant international organisations, and a move away from consensus in the latter.

The Political Attitudes of Senior Civil Servants in Western Europe: a Preliminary Report

1973 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D. Putnam
Keyword(s):  
Preliminary Report ◽  
Political System ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
The Political ◽  
Technical Expertise ◽  
Policy Initiatives ◽  
Literal Sense ◽  
Available Information

Can there really be much doubt who governs our complex modern societies? Public bureaucracies, staffed largely by permanent civil servants, are responsible for the vast majority of policy initiatives taken by governments. Discretion, not merely for deciding individual cases, but for crafting the content of most legislation has passed from the legislature to the executive. Bureaucrats, monopolizing as they do much of the available information about the shortcomings of existing policies, as well as much of the technical expertise necessary to design practical alternatives, have gained a predominant influence over the evolution of the agenda for decision. Elected executives everywhere are outnumbered and outlasted by career civil servants. 1 In a literal sense, the modern political system is essentially ‘bureaucratic’ – characterized by ‘the rule of officials’.

scholarly journals ‘On behalf of the city’: wax and urban diplomacy in the late medieval Baltic and North Sea

Urban History ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Mark Whelan
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Capital ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Civic Leaders ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Leaders ◽  
North Western

Abstract Focusing on the largely unpublished ‘city accounts’ (‘Stadsrekeningen’) of Bruges, this article examines the city's giving of prestigious Baltic beeswax to their lords, the Valois and (later) Habsburg dukes of Burgundy. It sheds new light on urban government by analysing how civic leaders across north-western Europe used the apiary product to manage often fraught relationships with their rulers and reinforce their identities as trading centres or outposts of international repute. More broadly, the gifting of Baltic beeswax points to the political and diplomatic prestige associated with the trade and display of the commodity in the later medieval period and the desire of urban leaders and communities to extract symbolic and political capital from its exchange.

scholarly journals Shifting Perceptions of Orient and Occident in Nineteenth-Century Arabic Travel Writing

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Ibrahem Almarhaby
Keyword(s):  
Travel Literature ◽  
Pure Gold ◽  
The Political ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Thematic Approach ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Modern Arabic ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light

This study investigates the relationship between the Eastern Self and the Western Other by focusing on the influence of the French Other on the ideology of the Arab Self in modern Arabic travel literature. As a case study, the analysis has been conducted on Takhlīṣ al-Ibriz fī Talkhīṣ Paris [‘The extraction of pure gold in the abridgement of Paris’]. The 19th century, from which this source originates, is considered to be significant in terms of distinguishing modern travelogue literature from that of the medieval period, where the image of the Western Other in Arabs’ imagination dramatically changed due to colonialism. As one of the richest and most open approaches in textual analysis, the study adopts the thematic approach to shed light on the extent to which the ideological impact of the Other on the political, religious, civil and social domains of the Self can be seen in this wide-ranging travel source. The study infers that al-Ṭahṭāwī was greatly ideologically impacted by West in all of the allocated domains, as can be seen clearly in his comprehensive comparisons, descriptions and explanations. This influence is indeed what distinguishes this modern travelogue literature from the medieval ones.

scholarly journals Spin Doctoring in modern political discourse: linguistic aspect

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
The Political ◽  
Neurolinguistic Programming ◽  
Information Delay ◽  
Political Linguistics ◽  
The Media ◽  
Linguistic Aspect ◽  
Available Information ◽  
Deep Thought

In the article, the realization of verbal influence (also known as suggestion) phenomenon in political discourse is considered. This concept is defined as a whole combined image of the text itself and emotions of its recipient and addressee,including the peculiarities of perception, external and internal circumstances, its pragmatic and linguistic aspects, etc, and is aimed at a a political subject’s influencing a political object. Usually, political discourse and its immanent influential properties are researched from the standpoint of Psychology, Communicative Linguistics, Pragmalinguistics, Political Linguistics and other related sciences, but the author proposes to involve Neurolinguistic Programming as a modern science which deals with analyzing the peculiarities of perception, processing and generation of information and its transformations from deep thought structures to superficial speech; as well as Spin-Doctoring, an ultramodern complex discipline aimed at correcting the negative image of the event in the media after its has already happened or right before its manifestation, which is impossible without the involvement of language techniques to influence the recipient or a group of them. In order to fully research the political discourse, which in the network of this article is represented by the political speeches of the leaders of Ukraine, USA, France, Spain, Italy, Canada, Germany, the author involves both the basic Spin Doctoring techniques of political discourse correction ( negative information delay, ambiguous informing, focus switch, interspersing the artificial situations with elements of naturalness, and the technique of controlled information leaks and preparation for events expectations); and the NLP paradigm meta- and Milton-model analysis text having been utilized in order to isolate the actual linguistic influential patterns (markers of language metamodel processes, simple, complex and indirect inductions). The analysis details the available information on the peculiarities of implementing and enhancing the linguistic influence within the political discourse, as well as outlines the crucial next steps in the further researches on this topic, especially ones in the field of Ukraine’s state information security, which is a particularly important aspect of the state’s modern information during hybrid wars.

Between ‘Anti-totalitarianism’ and Radical Democracy

Populism ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-119
Author(s):  
Irem Taşçıoğlu
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Emancipatory Politics ◽  
Intellectual Milieu

Abstract Laclau’s theory on populism which is inseparable from his strategic endeavour to formulate a novel form of left-wing emancipatory politics has set off a variety of critiques, most notably from scholars who associate themselves with different strands of democratic theory. This paper picks out and uses Lefortian theory on democracy, utilizing it in order to figure out the different ways in which Laclau’s account could be construed and criticized. It argues that there are two possible interpretations of Lefort’s democratic theory with two different political implications, one liberal and the other radical-democratic and that they provide us with two different ways to formulate a critique of Laclauian populism. It particularly addresses the historical conjuncture from which Lefort’s democratic theory emerges and investigates how his ambiguous encounters with the intellectual milieu in France in the 70s, namely the ‘antitotalitarian moment’ undergird these two possible interpretations. This article’s elaboration on these two interpretations for addressing Laclau’s populism finalizes with a comparison between the political implications of the two and with a new proposal to invigorate counter-populism along the lines of Etienne Balibar as a (Lefortian) radical-democratic alternative to Laclau’s populism.

Politics Beyond Imperial Cores: Spatial Production in the Peripheries of Medieval South India

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 92-129
Author(s):  
Eduard Fanthome
Keyword(s):  
South India ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Spatial Production ◽  
Political Networks ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
Urban Settlements

Current scholarship on medieval South India has developed a comprehensive account of the ways in which political claims were constituted by dynasts and their subordinates in a range of contexts, from imperial courts to provinces. It has elaborated the modalities of political claim-making through instantiations of politico-cultural traditions or ‘cosmopolises’, and the integrative processes and social changes associated with them. However, this scholarship largely focused on imperial capitals and secondary urban settlements, which constituted nodes in the political networks of polities and loci of contestation and integration within them. Regions in which cosmopolitan traditions did not inform political practice remain opaque to this historiography. This article investigates one such contest- the ‘contested’ Raichur Doab. It explores the politics of the production of a settlement- MARP-30 and the ways they were negotiated to constitute relations of inclusion and exclusion.MARP-30 is part of the multi-component site at Maski that during the period of MARP-30’s occupation does not evince evidence of cosmopolitan practices. Examining the constitution of socio-political relations in this context will expand our understanding of political practice in medieval South India to include practices inaccessible through texts and under-explored archaeologically, and yet typical of medieval South India given the political and social dynamism that characterize the medieval period.

The Islamic Background To Indian History

1989 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 335-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Athar Ali
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
External Trade ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Political Structure ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Indian History ◽  
Northern India ◽  
Fiscal System ◽  
History Of ◽  
Do So

AbstractThe medieval period of Indian history, as conventionally fixed by historians, c. 1000 to c. 1750 had so deep an imprint of Islam, that during much of the period, India could be held to belong culturally to the Islamic World, not on its periphery, but close to its core. It is, of course, the uniqueness of India's situation, that at the very same time, strictly in terms of its Hindu component, it could be said to be a world in its own right, with Islam only as a peripheral phenomenon. Yet, since the Islamic connexion greatly influenced the political structure, the fiscal system and even much of the network of internal commerce and external trade, it is crucial to understand the background that Islam provided to Indian history, or in other words, to understand Islamic history till the arrival of Islam in Northern India, c. 12001). A splendid effort to do so was provided by Professor Mohammad Habib in his introduction to a reprint of Vol. II of Elliot and Dowson's History of India as told by its Own Historians, Aligarh, 1952. A year later Hamilton Gibb came out with his well known essay, "An Interpretation of Islamic History", published in Journal of World

scholarly journals Ballot position effects in open-list PR systems: the moderating impact of postal voting

Acta Politica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Jankowski ◽  
Torren Frank
Keyword(s):  
Political Interest ◽  
Federal State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Voting Systems ◽  
Position Effects ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Information Shortcuts ◽  
Available Information ◽  
German Federal State

AbstractVarious studies demonstrate that candidates at the top of the party list have a strong advantage in preferential voting systems, particularly under open-list PR. Such ballot position effects can be explained by voters’ tendency to rely on easily available information shortcuts when selecting a candidate. In this paper, we argue that the strength of ballot position effects depends on the context of how voters cast their vote. Specifically, we argue that postal voters are less likely to rely on the ballot position cue compared to voters who vote on election day for two reasons. First, postal voters might be more politically interested. Second, postal voters have more time to assess additional information about the candidates. The hypothesis is tested by analyzing newly collected data from two open-list PR elections in the German federal state of Hamburg. The results confirm the theoretical expectations: Ballot position effects are substantively weaker among postal voters. Additional analyses suggest that differences in the political interest between postal voters and election day voters are unlikely to fully explain these results. These findings advance our understanding of ballot position effects and voters’ use of information shortcuts more generally.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document