公众如何定义民主:理论分歧与实证测量

本文基于跨国调查的实证测量研究描述了公众民主定义的基本情况,分析了其对公民个体政治态度和政治行为的影响,并对其成因提出了理性主义和文化主义等解释。本文认为,有关民主的概念在理论的开放性、测量的精确性、方法的整合性等方面存在着进一步完善的空间。

Pros and Cons of Nationalism

This paper considers the debate that has developed in studies of pros and cons of nationalism. Nationalism deals with identification of a nation, group, or country. It is believed or viewed within a multicultural state. Nationalism can be defined as national pride or patriotism. This is not a new idea, it has been for centuries, but the concept has changed, in general, nationalism is described more negative concepts as opposed to more positive ones. Nowadays nationalism is linked either directly or implicitly to racism. Nationalism plays a great role in world politics today. There is also another negative argument that can include the belief that one state is superior to all of the other states. This paper begins by defining the pros and cons of nation and nationalism. The topic of pros and cons of nationalism creates one of the most important issues in the world today, and the issue promises to continue to the next century. People should be acknowledged in order to develop and increase their awareness and understanding of nationalism. This study also examines the importance and unimportance of nationalism in a country. The paper uses quantitative method with survey questionnaire. The structured questionnaire has been used to collect data and asked teachers and students. The paper uses content analysis in this part within the framework of the qualitative method. The respondents have quite diverse backgrounds which is very important to have a wider perspective, The results of this study show that there have been diverse views regarding the term nationalism. It has been found out that the teachers and students have not been quite comfortable and positive regarding the nationalism,

The Changing Image of the Ottoman Turks in the Habsburg Monarchy During the 18th Century

The old-aged confrontation between “East” and “West”, between “civilization” and “barbarism”, between “Christianity” and “Islam” came to new heights in the early modern times and found its arena in Central Europe. Since the late 15th century, the Ottoman Turks had been feared as menace, as the most dreadful enemies not only of the inhabitants of the Habsburg ruled countries but of the whole world of Christianity, and the Ottoman Turks did pose a permanent threat to their neighbours in Central Europe. The situation changed around 1700 when the Habsburgs succeeded in integrating the entire Hungarian Kingdom into their empire. From the early 18th century onwards the Ottoman Turks were no longer regarded as fierce fighters but increasingly as neighbours living in an unknown and totally different world and gained more and more curious attention. This change was not only the consequence of the new balance in power politics but mainly a sequel of gaining much more information. Up to the late 17th century the knowledge about the Ottoman Turks was based primarily on what had been reported by ambassadors travelling to Constantinople while in the 18th century people of several strands of life reported about their experiences. After the Peace of Passarowitz in 1718 trade agreements between the two states enabled activities of merchants and tradesmen who learned to know things about their eastern neighbours which were totally new to the Middle European contemporaries. Additionally, some elements of this ＂oriental＂ culture were taken over and were to become typical for Central Europe later on. The Turks were curiously observed as strange and fascinating neighbours. In the course of the movement of enlightenment from the middle of the 18th century onwards one aspect of this culture lost much of its dreadfulness： the fact that the Ottoman Turks were infidels. So it did not take very long until Ottomans were seen as being capable of true humanity regardless their religion. In the 19th century the multiethnic state organizations of the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy became outmoded in this age of nationalism. They realized their common interests and started a cooperation which eventually ended up as alliance in theWorld War I. From the point of view of power politics however, the Ottoman Empire was regarded as “sick man at the Bosporus”. In the following the changes of the image are shown as an overview by observing the criteria against the background of the most important historical events. The details of how this process worked are still pretty murky. Further investigations are already on the way and will bring more light into the reasons and the mechanism of this development.

Youth in Mainstream Arab Media： A Hybrid, Thus Consensual, Television Construct

Entertainment shows in the Arab world stand for something larger than pointless amusements shaped by producers to follow a set of marketing rules. They may be, at times, trivial or foolish but they always address the uncertainties of collective and individual identities in a region boiling with struggles over meanings and knowledge. Because of the liberalization of the Arab television industries, they have successfully integrated the global market and are now elaborating new conventions inspired by both oriental and western references. In this paper, it will explore the depiction of Arab youth as a social construct meant to challenge the nationalistic representation of this ambiguous social category while, at the same time, promoting the regional debate over modernity, Arabism, and change.

Children＇s Fantasy With Mythical Echoes： Redefining Womanhood and Greekness

Ancient Greece having survived uninterruptedly through centuries, consists an incontestably cultural capital of overriding importance for the global community and especially for Greece itself. Mythical elements usually become frameworks or structures, in which Greek literary tradition encodes Greek national virtues and promotes nationalistic goals. On the other hand, myth＇s adaptations to different chrono-topes generate diversified cultural reception, adjusted to the era and the audience＇s expectations. The mythical figures are constantly invested in different conceptual schemata, which correspond to the altered way of thinking. Myth is also usually embedded in or underlies fantasy genre, which becomes a vehicle for utterances on women＇s rights. In this paper, we are going to examine closely three ＂fantasy＂ novels for children with mythical intertextual elements： The Fortunate lsles （1989）, Torch （1987）, and Sirena （1998）, whose plot takes place in Greece and we will try to explore： （1） how is Greekness being perceived and presented; and （2） how is female identity being introjected or depicted, in order to find out if the subversive potential of the fantasy genre reworks and rationalizes femininity and Greekness, which have for so long been exploited by the patriarchal or nationalistic status quo.

Sublimated Colonialism： The Persistence of Actually Existing Settler-Colonialism

In my paper, “Sublimated Colonialism： The Persistence of Actually Existing Settler-Colonialism,” I interrogate the remaining settler-colonialisms that refused to disappear during the epoch of decolonization. I am most concerned with those settler-colonialisms that persist at the centers of world capitalism, and examine bow this social context often produces an ideology that relegates the concrete reality of settler-colonialism to the past, pushing its existence under supposedly “modem” social relations. Since Frantz Fanon＇s analysis of settler-colonialism, and the class contradiction between colonizer and colonized, was developed in an era where settler-colonialism was partially defined by the relationship between motherland and colony, some often imagine that the era of settler-colonialism is over. Clearly settler-colonialism did not vanish along with this distinction; internal colonies are retained in North America, for example, and the state of Israel is perhaps the most recent historical of this type of colonialism since it was settled and established in the 20th century. Moreover, there is often talk of a “world-wide indigenous movement” which claims to represent a global anti-colonialist front. The point of my paper, therefore, is to examine how settler-colonialism functions and persists when the settler-colony has become synonymous with the motherland. In this social context, colonizers often imagine themselves as the native inhabitants, while those who remain colonized are pushed even further out of history than they were during the previous era of settler-colonialism.

The Igbo Art and Cultural Heritage： Changing Time, Changing Form

The Igbo artists of all generations, from the pre-colonial to the post-colonial period, and from her traditional to contemporary art practices, have demonstrated the ability to express the material, as well as spiritual world of the lgbo cultural society. The fear of the unknown, uncertainties of the forest, river, mountain, seas, oceans, lightening, thunder, and the changing weather, brings her artists in constant contact with their spirituality. Over time, these artists have demonstrated their inherent ability to perceive, through their various art practices, the unseen, speak the unspoken, revere and share in the silent salient world of their ancestors, as well as preserve it for posterity. This paper presents an insight into the Igbo cultural society with reference to her indigenous and contemporary art practices. It identifies the trajectories of her art and cultural developments toward contemporary and global acceptance, and in addition attempts to identify her visual creative frontiers.

Neoliberal Multiculturalism and Western Exceptionalism： The Cultural Politics of the West

The tradition of the west defines its modernity as a radical rupture with endless possibilities for egalitarian futures; yet western modernity was rooted in the genocide of indigenous populations, transatlantic racial slavery and colonialism. Moreover, as the war on terror demonstrates, racial/gender violence continues to be linked to the formation of western identity, culture and politics in the early twenty-first century. This paper examines how the histories of race and coloniality feature in the contemporary formation of the west, with a particular focus on US nationalism and Canadian multiculturalism. These nation-states are most often defined as antithetical, with the latter confirming that western society has transcended its originary racial/colonial politics. I begin with a brief discussion of the reformation of the west in the mid-twentieth century as the USA became the dominant western power. I then move to compare the contemporary national politics of the USA and Canada to highlight the divergence and convergence in their ddineation of their identity and values. My study demonstrates that although the white supremacist discourse that presently constitutes US nationalism is at variance with the multi- culturalism that shapes Canadian identity, these discourses can be defined as twin aspects of the racial/colonial politics that continue to give meaning to the idea of the west.

Repositioning Ethnicity in the Process of State Building： The Power of Culture and the Poverty of Interpretation

In this article, the author tries to analyze the incongruity between ethnicity and its theorization in China and explore the tension between the mainstream discourse of homogenization-cure-nationalism and the minority linguisticcultural ＂heteroglossia, ＂ as is typified by the conceptual and practical difficulty in translating Minzu[ I ] as well as the political revival and pragmatic use of traditional culture. Drawing on Walker Connor＇s study of the national question in Marxist-Leninist theory and strategy, the author argues that the old formula of ＂national in form, socialist in content,＂ as has been applied in China, lacks a Thirdness-based ＂indexical embodiment＂ dimension, a defect that creates a situation ＂national in form, ethnic in content,＂ and leads to political ambiguities and identity conflicts.