Remade in China: Rule of Law, Democracy, and the Chinese 12 Angry Men

Against the background of the growing effort in the Xi Jinping era to sinicize democracy and rule of law, much critical attention has surrounded Chinese models of governance variously conceived as “humane authority” and “political meritocracy.” What is missing from the literature on the export of the so-called “Chinese solution,” however, is the consideration of popular cultural products. This article takes as its case study the state-sponsored film 12 Citizens, the 2014 remake of the classic 12 Angry Men, most famously known in its 1957 version directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Henry Fonda. As there is no jury system in China, 12 Citizens instead presents the scenario as a law school mock trial on Anglo-American law, with crucial elements indigenized to the local setting. In one masterly maneuver after another, the remake overturns the democratic tenor of the original. Yet as a metanarrative about adaptation, the film reveals ambivalent attitudes not only toward the jury system and the West but also toward adaptation itself, open to an alternative interpretation in which the figure of the citizen, as a member of a political community actively engaged in public matters, precisely takes center stage. This ambivalence challenges the very concept of “Chinese characteristics.”

Gótico brasileño: el cine de Walter Hugo Khouri y José Mojica Marins

This paper seeks to connect the concepts of “terror” and “horror” proposed by Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe to films by Brazilian directors Walter Hugo Khouri and José Mojica Marins. It will be discussed here how such concepts manifest themselves in the national context and in which senses, trapped somewhere between repetition and difference, Khouri and Mojica’s films can be deemed expressions of a Brazilian Gothic. Stemming from elements derived from Anglo-American criticism, but, highlighting the different meanings that these elements gain in Brazil. To interpret Brazilian films in the light of the Gothic means addressing the issue of “construction of meaning” in national history, as the Gothic has the potential to revive old traumas and generate discussions about specific social contexts.

The Foundation and the First Decades of the Activity of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the Works of Russian and Foreign Historians of Science. Part 2

The article is devoted to the critical analysis of the foreign historiography of the foundation of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. The authors focus on German and Anglo-American historiographic traditions. The authors analyze the works of M. Posselt, V. Stieda, A. Vucinich, S. Werrett, M. Gordin and others. The article shows the the development of approaches to the highlighting of the problem of the foundation of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. The Western historiography was initially dominated by German historians of science who were mostly interested in the role of foreigners (primarily Germans) in the history of the foundation of the Academy of Sciences. The authors of the article show that German historians followed the approach developed in Russian pre-revolutionary historiography. However, both British and American historians of science worked within this approach in the 1950–1970s. In this regard, the authors of the article draw attention to the interpretation of the history of Russian science by A. Vucinich and show its relations to the positivist historiography. An important result of the study concerns the identification of the fact that transformation in the Western historiography of the foundation of the Academy of Sciences was associated with new posmodern methodological strategies in cultural studies and in sociology. Theauthors show that contemporary Anglo-American historians tend to use the social analysis of M. Foucault, N. Elias and other influential contemporary sociologists, which significantly enriches the historiography of the foundation of the Academy of Sciences.

8. The European Commission:

Focusing on the services and the cabinets, this chapter analyses the European Commission as a complex organizational, political, and social institution. Organizationally, it describes the Commission as a unique international bureaucracy which puts its French administrative tradition, consensus-based, and law-heavy internal procedures under the growing influence of an Anglo-American style of management. Politically, the chapter shows that the Commission increasingly behaves like a political executive that seeks to establish its own legitimacy vis-à-vis public opinion and member states by addressing partisan dynamics in the European Parliament. In terms of social relations, the chapter draws from the author’s ethnographic work to explore the transnational life of Commission civil servants and cabinet staffers who have made the Berlaymont their home.

Review of Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations translated by Richard Howard and Annette Baker Fox (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967)

Wight suggests that Aron’s book, first published in 1962, has not won the recognition it deserves, owing in part to ‘Anglo-American intellectual insularity’ and ‘the massiveness of the book itself’. Wight praises Aron for grounding his work in history: ‘Rich in historical reference, it abounds equally in acute analysis.’ The book raises the questions of preventing and containing nuclear war. ‘Cautiously, tentatively, himself a political Clausewitz, Aron accumulates the considerations which may make it possible that a nuclear war would not expand to its fullest violence.’ Wight shares Aron’s judgement that, ‘if war should come, we can still seek to restrict violence. Aron repeatedly asserts the indeterminacy of politics. Diplomacy is the realm of the contingent and the unforeseen, and the statesman’s supreme virtue is prudence, which means acting in accordance with the concrete data of the particular situation.’

Towards an Integrated (and Possibly Pan-European?) Prima Facie Legitimacy Test: Merging the Rechtsgut Theory, the Offensività Principle, and the Harm Principle

The Anglo-American harm principle, and its European counterparts – the legal goods theory and the offensività principle – attempt to provide an answer to the question of which conducts can be prima facie legitimately criminalised. Despite the historical, conceptual, and practical differences between these criminalisation approaches, they share important elements, particularly from a functional and operational perspective. By merging the key aspects of these theories, this work elaborates an instrument to assess the prima facie legitimacy of criminalisation – the Integrated Legitimacy Test – that embeds their essential elements and further conceptualises them. The Test strives to overcome some of the criticisms directed against the Anglo-American and European theories by narrowly defining their core elements and linking them to empirical evidence. Moreover, its transnational nature makes it suitable to feed the criminalisation debate at the European Union level.