Syrian Refugees’ Integration Policies in Jordanian Labor Market

The Government of Jordan declared that there are more than one million Syrian refugees in Jordan while UNHCR statistics show that the number is about 700,000. Nonetheless, it is still a large problem for Jordan, especially since there is no real solution that seems to be looming on the horizon for the Syrian crisis. Consequently, that means that those refugees’ stay in Jordan is indefinite. This fact requires Jordan to work towards solutions to avoid the warehousing of those refugees in camps and to integrate them in Jordanian community to ease their stay in Jordan. To achieve that integration, Jordan must facilitate the Syrians’ access to the Jordanian labor market so they can achieve self-reliance. In February 2016, donors gathered in London for the ‘Supporting Syria and the Region’ conference, known as the London Conference, to mobilize funding for the needs of the people affected by the Syrian crisis. In that conference, Jordan pledged to facilitate Syrian refugees’ access to the labor market. This paper will study the process of Syrian integration in Jordanian society by discussing the policies and the procedures that Jordan has developed to facilitate the Syrians’ access to the labor market. The event study method combined with interviews and desk research were used to evaluate the new policies and procedures developed to facilitate this access. It was found that Jordan succeeded in creating a legal and procedural environment that facilitates Syrians’ access to formal jobs, and the Syrians went a long way toward integration in Jordan. Nonetheless, they are still not fully integrated.

The 1931 London Congress: The Rise of British Marxism and the Interdependencies of Society, Nature and Technology

The Second International Conference of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, held in London in 1931, exerted a profound influence on the historiography of science, giving rise to a new research field in the anglophone world at the intersection of social and political studies and the history of science and technology. In particular, Boris Hessen’s presentation on the Social and Economic Roots of Newton’s Principia successfully ushered in a new tradition in the historiography of science. This article introduces and discusses the London conference as a benchmark in the history of the social study of science within a Marxist and materialist tradition. In contemporary science and technology studies, political epistemology, and the study of society-nature interaction, it is no less relevant today than it was at the beginning of the fabulous 1930s. In reconstructing some important theses presented by the Soviet delegation in London, we aim to revive the conference’s legacy and the approach promoted on that occasion as a pretext to address current debates about society’s major transition toward a new agency and ways of existence in the Earth system. In particular, the London conference invited us to think of the growing metabolic rift between society, technology, and nature, and further reflects a historical moment of profound environmental and political crisis.

The Digital Renaissance from da Vinci to Turing

The Italian Renaissance started a rebirth of culture and knowledge not experienced since Roman times. Leonardo da Vinci was arguably the leading polymath of the era. We are now in the throes of a Digital Renaissance, arguably started by Alan Turing in England. This paper draws some parallels between these two periods and speculates on the future of digital developments, especially in the context of the EVA Florence conference in Italy and the EVA London conference in the UK.

Participation of Britain and its role in the elaboration of the London Inter-Allied Conference’s decisions on the “Russian question” (December 11-13, 1919)

The London Inter-Allied Conference on the "Russian question" (December 11-13, 1919) is rarely mentioned by historians, but a landmark event in the history of British participation in foreign intervention in Russia - and in a broad sense an interesting phenomenon in world history. During the Conference in London participants - Britain, Italy, USA, France and Japan - discussed the future of the intervention and in general a new foreign policy strategy regarding Russia in the context of the evident Bolsheviks’ victory in the Civil War and the formation of a new system of international relations after the First World War, in which it was necessary to determine the position of Russia. The approaches and methods adopted in London, as practice shows, seem to be currently relevant. The purpose of this article is to analyze the participation of Britain and determine its role in the development of decisions of the London Inter-Allied Conference on the "Russian question" on the basis of previously uninvolved documents of the Cabinet of Ministers and the Parliament of the United Kingdom, as well as sources of personal origin. The decisions of the London Conference on the "Russian question" put an end to largescale military assistance to the White movement and thus contributed to the end of the Russian Civil War. The British government played a key role in producing the decisions of the London Conference. The Government had prepared thoroughly for the Conference and had proposed its draft decisions.