scholarly journals Postsocialism or when ‘Having’ is another Way of ‘Being’. The Reconfiguring of Identity through Land Restitution and the Narratives of the Past

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-56
Author(s):  
Elena Chiorean
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Official Discourse ◽  
The Past ◽  
Economic Transformations ◽  
Land Restitution

Abstract In this paper I examine the consequences of the 1989 political overturn in Romania on the selfhood. To this purpose, I initiate a twofold analysis: the official discourse of both socio-political systems, socialism and liberalism, and the individual’s quotidian discourse. The first one will enable a comparative view, over the ’bottom-up’ constructed realities, and the second will account for the degree of pervasiveness and naturalization of ideological views and, in this way, of a “top-down” identity construction and its configurations. One of the most apprehensible provisions through which liberalism endeavoured to institutionalize its own way of setting out reality is land restitution. Thereafter, I will discuss the way re-appropriation was experienced and its various subjectivization trajectories, but also the wider frame of the postsocialist economic transformations: rethinking work, money, the state and the interrelations between them. This particular angle of sight will disclose the mechanisms through which liberalism has deconstructed the system of socialist meaning and representation, at the same time replacing it with a socio-political order which reconfigured these meanings.

“Forward to David the Builder!” Georgia's (re)turn to language-centered nationalism

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 522-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christofer Berglund
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
The Past ◽  
Building Project ◽  
The Rose ◽  
State Language

After the Rose Revolution, President Saakashvili tried to move away from the exclusionary nationalism of the past, which had poisoned relations between Georgians and their Armenian and Azerbaijani compatriots. His government instead sought to foster an inclusionary nationalism, wherein belonging was contingent upon speaking the state language and all Georgian speakers, irrespective of origin, were to be equals. This article examines this nation-building project from a top-down and bottom-up lens. I first argue that state officials took rigorous steps to signal that Georgian-speaking minorities were part of the national fabric, but failed to abolish religious and historical barriers to their inclusion. I next utilize a large-scale, matched-guise experiment (n= 792) to explore if adolescent Georgians ostracize Georgian-speaking minorities or embrace them as their peers. I find that the upcoming generation of Georgians harbor attitudes in line with Saakashvili's language-centered nationalism, and that current Georgian nationalism therefore is more inclusionary than previous research, or Georgia's tumultuous past, would lead us to believe.

THE CONTROL REGAINING OVER THE DANUBE PROVINCES AS DESCRIBED BY CLAUDIANUS

2021 ◽  
pp. 74-80
Author(s):  
Eduard E. Meyer ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
The State ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Official Discourse ◽  
The Past ◽  
Balkan Region ◽  
Danube Region ◽  
Claudius Claudianus ◽  
Poetic Work

The paper analyzes the poetic work of a late antique court poet from Western Roman Empire Claudius Claudianus. The key verbal construc - tions describing the situation on the Lower-Danube region after the Goths have settled are identified. The analysis of the Claudianus’ discourse shows the state of alarm of the Honorius court looked at the Balkan region. The high officials of Western Empire sought to establish Roman authority over the Danube region, regardless of whether the Eastern or Western court would rule there. Claudianus conveys to the readers that desire to see those lands under Roman rule. The study of contexts in which the Danube is men- tioned by Claudianus allows to assume that in the official discourse at court of the Western Emperor Honorius the Lower-Danube lands were pronounced pacified. They were beginning to recover from the destruction of the past wars, although still being perceived as a hotbed of instability. It was supposed that after Theodosius I first concluded the Treaty with the Goths in 382, and then Alaric and his people left Thrace in 395, the Danubian lands returned to Roman rule regardless whether the Roman institutes of power there functioned or not.

Politics of Memory and Cinematography in Modern Russia: the October Revolution and the Civil War

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Egor M. Isaev
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Civil War ◽  
The State ◽  
October Revolution ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
Popular Cinema ◽  
Official Discourse ◽  
The Past

Abstract This article discusses the representation of the era of the October Revolution and the Civil War in contemporary Russian popular cinema. It describes the modern tools used by the state to create new images of the past and to reconstruct history in Russian popular culture. It also considers how Russian society has reacted to this official discourse.

scholarly journals Beyond the Post-Sovereign State?: The Past, Present, and Future of Constitutional Pluralism

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 6-23
Author(s):  
Michael WILKINSON
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Recent Decade ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
European State ◽  
The Past ◽  
Constitutional Pluralism

AbstractConstitutional pluralism is a theory for the post-sovereign European state. This only makes sense historically, emerging out of postwar European reconstruction through the repression of popular sovereignty and restraining of democracy, including through the project of European integration. It became unsettled at Maastricht and evolved from a series of irritants into a full-blown crisis in the recent decade, with sovereignty claims returning both from the bottom-up and the top-down, to the extent that we can legitimately ask whether we are now moving ‘beyond the post-sovereign state’? Constitutional pluralist literature fails to capture this in that evades material issues of democracy and political economy.

Contemporary Issues and Christian Models of Integration: Into the Modern/Postmodern Age

1995 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Comprehensive View ◽  
The Past ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Dsm Iv

Model building in Christian psychology has gradually become increasingly outdated and unsophisticated over the past decade, particularly in light of postmodern challenges to the limitations of received modern scientific perspectives and social practices. The present article draws from Rychlak's (1993) “complementarity” model, Sperry's (1993) “bidirectional determinism” concept, and Engel's (1977) biopsychosocial formulation to develop a multiperspectival, holistic framework drawing on the strengths of both modern and postmodern approaches. The proposed model includes inferences from both top down and bottom up formulations, as well as potential for interactions between or among any of the various “groundings” for psychological theories. Such a model seems more faithful to both biblical and scientific perspectives, and thus may provide a more accurate and comprehensive view of persons to facilitate more effective research and treatment. A clinical example is provided with DSM-IV descriptive and criterion referents.

Strong Societies, Weak Parties: Regime Change in Cuba and Venezuela in the 1950s and Today

2001 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Corrales
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Bargaining Power ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
The State ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Best Interest ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Societal Factors ◽  
The 1950S

AbstractThe literature on the origins of democratic institutions is split between bottom-up and top-down approaches. The former emphasize societal factors that press for democracy; the latter, rules and institutions that shape elites' incentives. Can these approaches be reconciled? This article proposes competitive political parties, more so than degrees of modernization and associationalism, as the link between the two. Competitive political parties enhance society's bargaining power with the state and show dominant elites that liberalization is in their best interest; the parties are thus effective conduits of democracy. In the context of party deficit, the prospects for democratization or redemocratization are slim. This is illustrated by comparing Cuba and Venezuela in the 1950s and 1990s.

Participation or Pathology: Contradictory Tensions in Area-Based Policy

2004 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pete Alcock
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Uk

This paper discusses some of the tensions revealed in the development and implementation of recent area-based approaches to social policy in England. Such programmes are now a central feature of Government policy practice, although similar programmes have been developed in the past in the UK and other welfare capitalist countries. They reflect concerns to combat social exclusion and ‘join-up’ service provision. They are also evidence of a shift towards more agency based policy practice – from ‘top-down’ to ‘bottom-up’ planning. Thus participation of citizens is a key element in all programmes. Some of the problems of securing such participation are discussed, including in particular the tendency for expectations of participation to lead to pathological interpretations of the causes of (and solutions too) social exclusion.

scholarly journals A review of bottom-up vs. top-down control of sponges on Caribbean fore-reefs: what’s old, what’s new, and future directions

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e4343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph R. Pawlik ◽  
Tse-Lynn Loh ◽  
Steven E. McMurray
Keyword(s):  
Community Structure ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Fish Predation ◽  
Sponge Species ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Fore Reef ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Hawksbill Turtles

Interest in the ecology of sponges on coral reefs has grown in recent years with mounting evidence that sponges are becoming dominant members of reef communities, particularly in the Caribbean. New estimates of water column processing by sponge pumping activities combined with discoveries related to carbon and nutrient cycling have led to novel hypotheses about the role of sponges in reef ecosystem function. Among these developments, a debate has emerged about the relative effects of bottom-up (food availability) and top-down (predation) control on the community of sponges on Caribbean fore-reefs. In this review, we evaluate the impact of the latest findings on the debate, as well as provide new insights based on older citations. Recent studies that employed different research methods have demonstrated that dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and detritus are the principal sources of food for a growing list of sponge species, challenging the idea that the relative availability of living picoplankton is the sole proxy for sponge growth or abundance. New reports have confirmed earlier findings that reef macroalgae release labile DOC available for sponge nutrition. Evidence for top-down control of sponge community structure by fish predation is further supported by gut content studies and historical population estimates of hawksbill turtles, which likely had a much greater impact on relative sponge abundances on Caribbean reefs of the past. Implicit to investigations designed to address the bottom-up vs. top-down debate are appropriate studies of Caribbean fore-reef environments, where benthic communities are relatively homogeneous and terrestrial influences and abiotic effects are minimized. One recent study designed to test both aspects of the debate did so using experiments conducted entirely in shallow lagoonal habitats dominated by mangroves and seagrass beds. The top-down results from this study are reinterpreted as supporting past research demonstrating predator preferences for sponge species that are abundant in these lagoonal habitats, but grazed away in fore-reef habitats. We conclude that sponge communities on Caribbean fore-reefs of the past and present are largely structured by predation, and offer new directions for research, such as determining the environmental conditions under which sponges may be food-limited (e.g., deep sea, lagoonal habitats) and monitoring changes in sponge community structure as populations of hawksbill turtles rebound.

Salafism pushes Muslim communities to conservatism

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Core ◽  
Conservative Ideology ◽  
Three Generations ◽  
Muslim Communities

Subject Salafism impact on Muslim societies. Significance Salafism (‘ancestralism’) is an ultra-conservative ideology adopted by a variety of Muslim individuals and organisations. It claims to reveal the authentic Islam of the first three generations of ‘pious forefathers’ (Arabic: al-salaf al-salih) from the time of the Prophet Mohammed. Salafis seek to 'purify' and thereby change other Muslims’ behaviour. These aims can be pursued by ‘top-down’ methods of engaging the state via activist struggle (jihad), or by ‘bottom-up’ strategies of engaging society via quietist proselytisation (da‘wa): that is, with or without violence. Impacts The core salafi doctrine of (‘loyalty [to Muslims] and disavowal [of non-Muslims]’) encourages its followers’ isolation from wider society. Competition for authenticity will further divide Muslim communities by ‘condemning the other’. Salafi-inspired organisations will seek to dominate public discourse and definitions of Islam.

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