Political History

Beginning in 1260, the Mongol ruler Khubilai Khan embarked on the creation of a Chinese-style bureaucracy to govern his realm more effectively. At the same time, the court began to promulgate a salary code for its officials. Though both processes were led in large part by Chinese scholar-officials, this group continually complained about the shortcomings of the salary code and its negative effects on the bureaucracy. By studying their writings on salaries and official government records, this article will demonstrate that the Chinese literati used their complaints about the salary code to level criticisms against flaws in the administration and to push for bureaucratic reform, and that the Yuan court was genuinely concerned about the salary problem and took measures to alleviate it. Yet the court never actually reformed, and this article will ultimately aim to show how the response to the issue of salaries reflected the Mongols’ desires to cling to the power and privilege that was afforded to them by a bureaucratic structure which preserved much of their traditional steppe institutions and values.

This paper searches for the source of presidential power and finds it in the contributions of a finite number of " magnificent presidencies. " What makes presidents great is not the specific contributions they make when holding office but whether or not their efforts to empower the

Úvod do studia politiky Miroslav Novák et al. Tato učebnice je určena zejména vysokoškolským studentům sociálních a humanitních věd bakalářského a magisterského stupně. Jde o práci kolektivní a svým pojetím i rozsahem v českém prostředí ojedinělou. Je rozdělena do čtyř částí. V první části je politika vykládána očima nejrůznějších disciplín-od politologie přes filosofii, psychologii, antropologii, právo, geografii a ekonomii až po his-torii. Obsahem druhé části jsou úvody do vybraných subdisciplín politické vědy, jako je komparativní politologie, teorie mezinárod-ních vztahů a správní věda. Ve třetí části jsou zpracovány úvody do kvantitativních a kvalitativních metod v politické vědě, včetně tzv. kvalitativní srovnávací analýzy. Čtvrtá část pak pojednává o někte-rých velkých tématech politiky, jako jsou stranické a volební systémy, národy a nacionalismus nebo demokracie a nedemokratické režimy. Učebnice tvoří vnitřně propojený celek, i když se názory, pojetí nebo hodnocení autorů jednotlivých kapitol od sebe mohou poněkud lišit.-Kdy vznikla politická věda?-Jaké další disciplíny se zabývají politikou?-Jaký je vztah mezi politickou vědou a politickou sociologií?-Proč se v češtině více ujal výraz "politologie" než "politická věda"?-Co je politika? Jaký je vztah mezi politikou a mocí?-Je řadový občan v politice kompetentní?-Jak nám analýza stranického systému pomáhá pochopit mo-derní politické režimy?-Co je předmětem komparativní politologie? Jaké metody pou-žívá?-V čem spočívá rozdíl mezi komparativní politologií a teorií mezi-národních vztahů?-Čím se vyznačuje dobrá veřejná správa? Rozsáhlý autorský tým pod vedením Miroslava Nováka tvoří čeští odborníci nejrůznějších generací z mnoha akademických pracovišť. vydání druhé, rozšířené a doplněné o 2 nové kapitoly.  Doporučená cena 749 Kč

Die Spätblüte der preußisch-deutschen Monarchie unter Wilhelm II. und der Durchbruch der Massenmedien fielen in Deutschland zeitlich zusammen. Erstmals untersucht das Buch von Martin Kohlrausch, was diese Konstellation für die Ausbildung der politischen Medienberichterstattung, mehr aber noch für die wilhelminische Monarchie bedeutete.
Indem diese Studie die Zäsur von 1918 überschreitet, vermag sie vielschichtige, bisher kaum beachtete Verbindungen zwischen der gescheiterten wilhelminischen "Medienmonarchie" und den ubiquitären Führerkonzepten, die lange vor 1918 aufkamen, herauszuarbeiten. Dies geschieht auf Grundlage eines breiten, bisher nicht erschlossenen Quellenspektrums, insbesondere von über 1000 systematisch erschlossenen Zeitungsartikeln und einem umfangreichen Sample politischer Pamphlete.

Critical comments from one member of the Siamese elite in the second half of the nine- teenth century on the merits of the form of government of the United States of America published in a newspaper called Bangkok Recorder led to the dissemination of liberal concepts in Thailand for the first time in its history. In his published articles, Dan Beach Bradley, an American missionary and the publisher of Bangkok Recorder, mentioned freedom, equality, constitutional and republican government, free press, liberal mind, and meritocracy. The dis- semination of these liberal concepts marks the beginning of liberalism in Thailand.

El presente capítulo examina la vida política de la provincia de Buenos
Aires desde 1821, cuando se constituyó en un estado soberano regido
por un sistema republicano representativo, hasta 1880, cuando la derrota
de sus milicias a manos del ejército nacional permitió la federalización
de la ciudad como capital de la nación.

There are more types of borders today than ever before in history. Borders of all kinds define every aspect of social life in the twenty-first century. From the biometric data that divides the smallest aspects of our bodies to the aerial drones that patrol the immense expanse of our domestic and international airspace, we are defined by borders. They can no longer simply be understood as the geographical divisions between nation-states. Today, their form and function has become too complex, too hybrid. What we need now is a theory of the border that can make sense of this hybridity across multiple domains of social life.

Rather than viewing borders as the result or outcome of pre-established social entities like states, Thomas Nail reinterprets social history from the perspective of the continual and constitutive movement of the borders that organize and divide society in the first place. Societies and states are the products of bordering, Nail argues, not the other way around. Applying his original movement-oriented theoretical framework "kinopolitics" to several major historical border regimes (fences, walls, cells, and checkpoints), Theory of the Border pioneers a new methodology of "critical limology," that provides fresh tools for the analysis of contemporary border politics.

During the reign of James II/VII Stuart (1685-1688), the political, diplomatic and cultural relations between the British court and the Italian states flourished as never before. This was due above all to the Roman-Catholic faith of the king and the lively personality of his consort Maria Beatrice d’Este («Mary of Modena»), while the growing English economic power was acquiring commercial dominance in the Mediterranean area. With the help of thousands of unpublished papers, the book by Alessandro Cont reconstructs the British diplomatic network in Italy during this period, the personalities and orientations of the ministers of Italian princes accredited to the court of Whitehall, the queen’s dynastic policy and the peculiar characteristics of her Italian entourage of chaplains, servants, artists and musicians.

Monarchia della verità indaga una componente ideologica fondamentale della Controriforma: l’ossessione ecclesiastica per la 'veritas', concepita nella versione dogmatica di 'doctrina' e ortodossia in opposizione alla formulazione umanistica della 'veritas' come ricerca. Da Poggio Bracciolini a Montaigne, gli umanisti esprimono un concetto di 'religio' coincidente con la ricerca stessa della verità, rinunciando a definizioni esclusive o dogmatiche e astenendosi da difese di carattere polemico o controversistico. I teologi adottano invece il concetto dogmatico di 'doctrina', identificando la 'veritas' nell’ortodossia e favorendo il formarsi di un clima di oscurantismo clericale e di generale intolleranza nei confronti dell’autonomia umanistica, dell’individualismo religioso e del libero pensiero, con Valla, Erasmo e Machiavelli in testa.
In questo libro l’autore prende in esame il primato normativo della verità nella Chiesa del Cinquecento e del primo Seicento con lo scopo di illustrare modelli culturali e pedagogici della Controriforma e rilevarne i miti: cronotassi pontificia, agiografia e culto delle reliquie, concetto eroico del documento, didattica figurativa, giurisdizione curiale, temporalismo papale. Tuttavia, la sopravvivenza della tradizione umanistica e il suo confrontarsi dialetticamente con le culture dogmatiche di Riforma e Controriforma si evidenziano in momenti significativi della storia culturale e religiosa della prima età moderna: in particolare, nel dibattito europeo 'de puniendis haereticis' originato dal tragico rogo di Michele Serveto, nel ricorso all’elemento storico in sede di polemica confessionale, nei processi di Bruno e Galilei e nelle discussioni sulla 'libertas investigandi', nel nicodemismo di artisti, scienziati e anticlericali cristiani, infine nella ripresa – specialmente in Olanda e nelle aree della diaspora sociniana – del pacifismo erasmiano e dell’utopismo di Thomas More, associati alla critica del Valla e all’irenismo di Sebastiano Castellione. Un esempio insigne è la proposta irenica di Jakob Arminius, calvinista di cultura umanistica, formulata a Leida nel 1605 con l’intento di superare i contrasti tra cristiani e realizzare la pacificazione sociale e religiosa.

This study examines the role of political factors in attitudes toward World War II in contemporary Ukraine. The question under examination is which factors determine public views of the principal warring sides and their leaders in Ukraine. This paper uses a representative national survey specifically designed for this research project and conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in 2012. It analyzes the roles of regionalism, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, age, and sex in attitudes toward the Red Army, Soviet partisans, the German Army (Wehrmacht), and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the war, as well as toward the wartime leaders of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and the UPA. The analysis of the survey data shows that regional values, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, and age have significant effects on views of the Soviet Army and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the war and attitudes toward the wartime activities of Joseph Stalin and Roman Shukhevych. Public perceptions of the German Army and Adolf Hitler in Ukraine do not vary much across regions, political parties, and ethnic, language, age, and sex groups.

Margaret Thatcher was one of the most controversial figures of modern times. Her governments inspired hatred and veneration in equal measure and her legacy remains fiercely contested. Yet assessments of the Thatcher era are often divorced from any larger historical perspective. This book draws together leading historians to locate Thatcher and Thatcherism within the political, social, cultural and economic history of modern Britain. It explores the social and economic crises of the 1970s; Britain's relationships with Europe, the Commonwealth and the United States; and the different experiences of Thatcherism in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The book assesses the impact of the Thatcher era on class and gender and situates Thatcherism within the Cold War, the end of Empire and the rise of an Anglo-American 'New Right'. Drawing on the latest available sources, it opens a wide-ranging debate about the Thatcher era and its place in modern British history.

The Main subject under study for this research work is “Problems of Nation Building in Pakistan: Issues and Challenges”. For this research work a reference is made to the theory regarding the nation building and its historical perspective. In the case of Pakistan, pre and post independence history is examined and all those factors which are substantial in the formation of nation building process evaluated.

La época republicana en Colombia, con las innovaciones propias de la situación política revolucionaria, inauguró también un nuevo capítulo en las discusiones en torno a las relaciones entre Iglesia y Estado, con las respectivas pugnas y reconciliaciones entre los diferentes proyectos surgidos en este ambiente. La cuestión no era pacífica en absoluto y hunde sus raíces en las influencias ilustradas del antiguo Virreinato de la Nueva Granada, empezando por las herencias absolutistas dentro del primer liberalismo republicano y sus proyectos que, por una vía o por otra, en medio de la experimentación del nuevo régimen, encontraron a lo largo del tiempo un espacio para la materialización de un modelo más radical o de otro más moderado. La nueva situación interna después de la Independencia y los modelos políticos revolucionarios que influenciaban desde fuera (especialmente desde Francia) crearon la oportunidad para que el liberalismo criollo naciente condujera sus políticas hacia una secularización gradual de la sociedad colombiana, más o menos exitosa según el momento. La exposición que sigue presenta algunos hitos históricos escogidos en los que, a lo largo del siglo XIX, se pueden observar estos proyectos, sus mutaciones, las pugnas entre sí y con la Iglesia y sus efectos en el plano político-jurídico con el propósito de comprender los caminos que van del llamado «laicismo de combate» hasta la «nueva laicidad», esta última, como veremos, no es tan nueva y más bien su éxito actual se debe a su coexistencia con el oscilante anticlericalismo decimonónico que ocultaba bajo el conflicto su crecimiento gradual.

This thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach combining research methods in history and political science to propose that the fundamental cause of Rome’s entry into and later domination of the Greek world was its reaction to a series of geopolitical developments in the Mediterranean region around the years 219 – 188 BCE. The thesis contends that the dominant paradigm in current scholarship on Roman imperialism assigns too much value to the internal structures of Roman society and consequently overlooks the importance of developments in the interstate system, in which the Roman state was a participant.

Following Alexander’s unexpected death in 323, his subordinates waged constant warfare for the next four decades to divide the spoils of his vast empire. By the 280s, these wars subsided, and an unstable balance of power emerged in the east Mediterranean, between the Antigonid, Ptolemaic and Seleucid dynasties.

This balance of power shattered seventy years later due to a sudden decline in Ptolemaic power, caused by a massive native uprising in Egypt, chronic domestic maladministration and a series of unfortunate coincidences. Ptolemaic collapse triggered what political scientists term a power-transition crisis, as it motivated the Antigonid and Seleucid rulers to launch aggressive wars with the aim of capturing Ptolemaic territory. Their aggression threatened the independence of minor Greek states, which attempted to recreate a tripolar balance of power in the region by appealing to Rome for intervention in the crisis.

With the Roman defeat of the two great dynasties and the collapse of the third, a new interstate system emerged in the Mediterranean: hegemony under the government of the Romans.

Book review. Overall, this book makes significant contributions to the project of understanding the history of the socio-political movements to improve women’s condition in Europe as well as making a persuasive argument for the centrality of this history in the portrait of the Continent in the nineteenth century

This chapter examines how the First World War is still talked about in Britain within political, media and public discourse. In advance of the centenary of its outbreak, the First World War has been a regular feature of discussion within Parliamentary debates, newspaper columns and a variety of political, social and local interest groups. These particular arenas frequently utilise a set of common responses to engage with, describe and remember the war. Terms such as ‘sacrifice’, ‘stoicism’, ‘futility’ or ‘slaughter’ are evoked in these circumstances to frame the conflict for contemporary society. However, alongside these traditional narratives of the war, alternative concepts of ‘celebration’, ‘community’ and ‘legacy’ have been used across a variety of media to structure the war’s remembrance to mark the centenary. Through an analysis of the political debate during the approach to the anniversary in 2014, a specific ‘war discourse’ will be identified. Using the methodology of critical discourse analysis, this way of talking about the war will be assessed as a form of social practice, reflecting issues of identity, power and politics within contemporary Britain. With the passing of the last veterans of the conflict the war has now moved beyond individual remembrance, however, despite this, the commemoration of the war is maintained and structured through language. This chapter demonstrates that far from receding into history, the way the war is talked about maintains its presence and its effect for British society. In this manner, through the study of the ‘war discourse’, language mobilises the past for the present.

In the years following World War II, the national Democratic Party aligned its agenda more and more with the goals of the civil rights movement. By contrast, a majority of southern Democrats remained as committed as ever to a traditional, segregationist ideology. Through the career of Senator James Eastland, one of the mid-century’s most prominent politicians, author Maarten Zwiers explores the uneasy, yet mutually beneficial relationship between conservative southerners and the increasingly liberal party to which they belonged.

Mississippi Democrat James “Big Jim” Eastland began an influential four-decade career in the United States Senate in 1941, ultimately rising to become president pro tempore of the Senate, a position that placed him third in the line of presidential succession. His reputation for toughness developed from his unfailing and ruthless opposition to greater civil rights and his concern over the global spread of communism, as he believed participants in the two movements were working together to undermine the American way of life. Zwiers contends that despite Eastland’s extreme positions, he still managed to maintain influence through productive relationships with his Senate colleagues—liberal as well as conservative. Though the progressive wing of the Democratic Party continued to push for stronger civil rights legislation, they valued compromise with southern senators like Eastland in order to ensure support from a region the Democrats could ill afford to lose. While Eastland’s campaigning rhetoric was inflammatory, his ability to operate within the national political structure by leveraging moderate concessions contributed to his lengthy and effective career.

Drawing on recently opened archival records, Maarten Zwiers offers a nuanced portrait of a man frequently portrayed as a southern zealot. Senator James Eastland provides a case study of the complicated relationship between party and party members that allowed Democrats to maintain power in the South for much of the twentieth century.

See more at: http://lsupress.org/books/detail/senator-james-eastland/

¿Cuáles fueron los principales puntos de debate entre la Iglesia Católica y los liberales salvadoreños durante un período crucial de reformas seculares durante el siglo XIX? El artículo intenta analizarlo a partir de una revisión de algunos periódicos de la época.

Este trabajo se pregunta: ¿Cómo observaron Goyeneche, Abascal y Pezuela ese tiempo convulsionado que se abre en 1808 y se agudiza con la disputa con los insurgentes del Alto Perú y Buenos Aires? ¿Qué percibieron de ese orden puesto en cuestión y que respuestas elaboraron? ¿Cuáles fueron las trayectorias de acción que buscaron para no permitir un desenlace radical? ¿Cómo un actor da cuenta de la desestabilización de su contexto –de su orbe imaginario y estructural- y da cuenta de esos sucesos?