Architecture and Dynasty

2020 ◽  
pp. 188-210
Author(s):  
Daniel B. Rowland

This chapter sketches the political and geographic environment in pre-Petrine Rus´ that favored architecture as a major but little-investigated arena for symbolic action by the ruler. It mentions rulers from Saint Vladimir to Peter the Great that made architecture a useful tool for state-building in order to demonstrate their power and define their image. It also points out that architectural construction, whether of churches, fortifications, or palaces, was avidly noted in chronicles from the Primary Chronicle to the Nikon Chronicle and beyond. The chapter elaborates the ways that Boris Godunov used architecture in order to make a useful case study as architecture in relation to the pre-Petrine period finds too little place in discussions of political history. It provides access to some perceptions of Godunov's architectural efforts and gauges how successful those efforts were.

Author(s):  
Mikhail Mints ◽  

This review article deals with a collection of essays published in «Europe-Asia Studies», vol. 71, N 6 (2019), the authors of which are analyzing Stalinism as a specific exemplar of state-building. Their research is based on various concepts of modern social sciences, especially on the theory of the developmental state. The authors show the new opportunities provided by such an approach and suggest the main directions of further study of the political history of the USSR from this point of view.


Author(s):  
Ryan Boehm

This chapter provides a narrative overview of the urban history of this period of the formation of the Hellenistic states. It presents the restructuring of urban centers against the backdrop of the warfare and state-building activities of the early Hellenistic kings. Covering the period 322–281 (and, to a lesser extent, 281–ca. 250), it stresses both the ideological and structural roles of urbanization in underpinning the Hellenistic states. It treats both the political history of the wars of the successors and presents a detailed survey of the archaeological and historical evidence for the effects of Hellenistic imperial policy on settlement patterns in northern Greece and Asia Minor. What emerges is a picture of great political and social disruption, but also the centrality of polis institutions.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Cristian Villalonga

The prominence of lawyers in the politics of modern state building has been recognized in both historical and theoretical scholarship. In Latin America, however, legal professionals were largely displaced from public governance by the mid-twentieth century. Using Chile as a case study, I argue that, beginning in the 1930s, the rise of the administrative state diminished the authority of elite lawyers who previously enjoyed a quasi-monopoly on statecraft. In addition to the emergence of professional competitors, lawyers lost political influence for two reasons: (1) a growing divergence between political and legal careers for law graduates and (2) internal and external constraints on the bar and the judiciary that limited the ability of legal actors to influence the political process. As a result, during a period when lawyers gained political sway in much of the world, their authority in public affairs dwindled in Chile.


Author(s):  
James A. Palmer

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the political history of Rome. Rome's communal traditions and their emphasis on the city's autonomy were long-standing and vital. Yet, by the turn of the fifteenth century, the autonomous Roman commune was gone, replaced by papal dominion. Its institutions remained as mechanisms of papal governance, but the absence of autonomy or meaningful ideological commitment makes any appearance of communal vitality illusory. This transformation is notable in its own right, but its aftermath endows it with critical importance. Despite sometimes rocky relations with the city and its inhabitants, it was by and large from Rome that the popes would consolidate their power over the ever more robust Papal States, which have come to serve as an important case study for the emergence of early modern European states in general; for the evolution of sovereign power; and for the process and limits of secularization. This consolidation of papal power began in the fourteenth century and continued in the mid-fifteenth century, accelerating with the end of the Western Schism and the papacy of Martin V. Though the papacy is commonly credited with Rome's transformation, the book demonstrates that such an understanding of Italian, papal, and Roman history misses a fundamental, homegrown transformation of Rome's political culture, which preceded and enabled the consolidation of papal power.


Author(s):  
Kristina Dietz

The article explores the political effects of popular consultations as a means of direct democracy in struggles over mining. Building on concepts from participatory and materialist democracy theory, it shows the transformative potentials of processes of direct democracy towards democratization and emancipation under, and beyond, capitalist and liberal democratic conditions. Empirically the analysis is based on a case study on the protests against the La Colosa gold mining project in Colombia. The analysis reveals that although processes of direct democracy in conflicts over mining cannot transform existing class inequalities and social power relations fundamentally, they can nevertheless alter elements thereof. These are for example the relationship between local and national governments, changes of the political agenda of mining and the opening of new spaces for political participation, where previously there were none. It is here where it’s emancipatory potential can be found.


2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Haruo Nakagawa

Akin to the previous, 2014 event, with no data on voter ethnicity, no exit polls, and few post-election analyses, the 2018 Fiji election results remain something of a mystery despite the fact that there had been a significant swing in voting in favour of Opposition political parties. There have been several studies about the election results, but most of them have been done without much quantitative analyses. This study examines voting patterns of Fiji’s 2018 election by provinces, and rural-urban localities, as well as by candidates, and also compares the 2018 and 2014 elections by spending a substantial time classifying officially released data by polling stations and individual candidates. Some of the data are then further aggregated according to the political parties to which those candidates belonged. The current electoral system in Fiji is a version of a proportional system, but its use is rare and this study will provide an interesting case study of the Open List Proportional System. At the end of the analyses, this study considers possible reasons for the swing in favour of the Opposition.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-63
Author(s):  
Ruth Roded

Beginning in the early 1970s, Jewish and Muslim feminists, tackled “oral law”—Mishna and Talmud, in Judaism, and the parallel Hadith and Fiqh in Islam, and several analogous methodologies were devised. A parallel case study of maintenance and rebellion of wives —mezonoteha, moredet al ba?ala; nafaqa al-mar?a and nush?z—in classical Jewish and Islamic oral law demonstrates similarities in content and discourse. Differences between the two, however, were found in the application of oral law to daily life, as reflected in “responsa”—piskei halacha and fatwas. In modern times, as the state became more involved in regulating maintenance and disobedience, and Jewish law was backed for the first time in history by a state, state policy and implementation were influenced by the political system and socioeconomic circumstances of the country. Despite their similar origin in oral law, maintenance and rebellion have divergent relevance to modern Jews and Muslims.


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