Early Defectors, 1924–1930

This chapter identifies sixteen intelligence and state security officers who defected from the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1930. Their revelations show that Soviet intelligence targets focused initially internally, but gradually turned outward as the Soviet government sought to identify external support to internal threats. Most of the defectors in the first group began their careers as enthusiastic Bolshevik adherents, while others cooperated out a sense of personal survival. Regardless of their backgrounds, each of the officers in this group lost their faith in the system, and even more so, lost their faith in the people around them. Several individuals in this group complained about the low moral standard of the early Bolsheviks, their lust for blood, and their intolerance for anyone not fully in agreement with them. This chapter further explains the longest period in Soviet history without any intelligence officer defectors: 1931 to 1936, caused by new Soviet government measures to stem the flow of Soviet officials who were choosing to leave the system in the 1920s.

Determining the quality of life of marriage migrant women in Korea

In search of greater economic and social opportunities, people emigrate, choosing to leave their countries of birth. Currently, many married migrant women are building new lives in Korea. They are no longer foreigners or part of the social minority but neighbors raising children and engaging in economic activity in Korea. The purposes of this study are to clarify the importance of studying, in the field of policy studies, the quality of life of marriage migrant women who left their homelands to live in Korea, and to analyze various factors that affect quality of life. Specifically, family factors, relational factors, social factors, and cultural and policy factors are examined. Based on the results of the empirical analysis, this study suggests various policy implications for enhancing the quality of life of marriage migrant women.

Great Britain or Little England?

This chapter asks the taboo question: shouldn't the United Kingdom have been in the single currency from the start — and how is the course of Europe as a whole affected by its choices, first not to join the euro and now to leave the EU altogether? The United Kingdom was the only big economy in Europe to stay outside of the monetary union. In June 2016 Britons took the further step of choosing to leave the EU altogether. Britain will nonetheless continue to be strongly affected by the euro's failure or success, and by how the eurozone manages its economy. It is not widely appreciated how much political influence in Europe Britain abdicated by not joining the euro; in a sense, ‘Brexit’ (Britain's exit from the EU) is the logical completion of that abdication. Even less understood is how much difference the British choice to stay out made to how the euro has been run.

The Diatessaron, Canonical or Non-canonical? Rereading the Dura Fragment

Among those texts that vied for a position as authoritative Scripture, but were eventually rejected by ecclesiastical authorities, was the so-called Diatessaron of Tatian. Having been compiled from the four canonical gospels, Tatian's work occupies a liminal position between the categories of ‘canonical’ and ‘apocryphal’, since the majority of its content was common to users of the fourfold gospel, though this content existed in a radically altered form and was tainted by association with an author widely accused of heresy. In order to demonstrate the originality of Tatian's gospel composition, this article gives a close reading of the only surviving Greek witness to it, a fragment of parchment found in excavations at Dura-Europos. Dura's very location as a borderland between Rome and Persia corresponds with the fact that in this outpost garrison city Christians were using a gospel text that would have appeared markedly strange to those in the mainstream of the Christian tradition. The wording that can be recovered from the Dura fragment shows how Tatian creatively and intelligently combined the text of the four gospels to produce a new narrative of the life of Jesus, choosing to leave out certain elements and to make deliberate emendations along the way. However, it was precisely such originality that made his gospel appear problematic, so in order to rescue his text from censure, later scribes had to domesticate it by making it conform throughout to the canonical versions. Comparison of the Dura fragment with the medieval Arabic gospel harmony and with the Latin version in Codex Fuldensis illustrates well this process whereby Tatian's gospel went from being a rival to the fourfold gospel to a designedly secondary, and therefore acceptable, work.

‘I'd rather keep running to the end and then jump off the cliff’. Retirement Decisions: Who Decides?

Government in the UK, as elsewhere in Europe, is keen to encourage individuals to delay their retirement, work for longer and save more for their retirement. This article argues that much of this public discussion is based on the debatable premise that most people are actively choosing to leave work ‘early’. Research on retirement decisions hitherto has concentrated on individual factors, which dispose towards early retirement and has neglected the role of the employer in determining retirement timing. New research reported here, undertaken in three organisational case studies, explores the management of retirement and how individual employees experience these processes. It employs the concepts of the ‘retirement zone’ and retirement scenarios to demonstrate how the interaction of individual attributes (themselves subject to change) and organisational practices (also unpredictable and variable) produces retirement outcomes. It concludes that there is considerable management discretion over the manner and timing of individual retirements. Hence, government needs to recognise that the majority of individuals may have relatively little personal discretion over their departure from work and hence concentration on urging them to work for longer and delay retiring may be missing the real target for policy change.

Chronic Physical Disability and Secondary Control: Appraisals of an Undesirable Situation

“Secondary control” (accommodation to unchangeable, undesirable situations), rather than just “primary control” (choosing to leave or improve the situation) can help in adapting to a chronic physical disability. To identify instances of secondary control, semistructured interviews with 22 persons with chronic physical disabilities were conducted. This research examined the emotional valence of disability appraisals, and identified regularities in these appraisals. Results showed that the great majority of interviewees used secondary control in handling their disability, and that 95% of comments were non-negative in emotional tone. Regularities included mention that one learns much about the self and others, and comes to know more than able-bodied persons in some ways. It is concluded that secondary control processes are useful, and their training should be considered during cognitive therapy.