Search results

One of the most important, least-known documents of the American Revolution was a 25-page pamphlet published in Amsterdam early in 1787: An Explanatory Message Concerning the Funds by Pieter Stadnitski. ¹ Within a year of its publication Peter Stadnitski's Message quite literally revolutionized American sovereign finance. My paper will summarize in detail the report's content and analyze its arguments in light of Dutch archival materials including deeds, newspaper reports, and letters, as well as congressional records from American sources. It will describe what Dutch investors knew (and did not know) of the state of American public finance and American political landscape, and the Dutch financial community's view of the American future. Its essential argument is that thanks initially to Stadnitski's persuasive case and ultimately to the success of the trusts he pioneered, Dutch investment specialists came to see the American republic as a safe haven at a time that Dutch Republic's own future seemed increasingly perilous. If their dream of achieving a new Golden Age through trade and investment with the new nation ultimately proved illusory, the effects of Dutch capital in creating financial stability for the United States government and igniting the first peacetime economic expansion in American history were revolutionary indeed.

The Congregation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (CBVM), a Catholic order founded in the early 1800s, was faced with a series of strategic concerns, including an aging clerical population, a changing laity, reduced finances, very limited vocations, and an evolving mission. Some of these concerns faced the Catholic Church in America as a whole (including sexual abuse, not discussed in this case) and several of these issues were also facing the Catholic Church worldwide. The serious matters facing them were threatening the continued viability of the order in America, and the guidance they were receiving from Rome - instruction to decide which of three suggested models for restructuring they would adopt - seemed to back them into a corner, requiring selection from among several strategies not devised by their membership and commitment to the selected strategy going forward. Change was necessary, but one of the major concerns of the order was that it remain consistent with its stated mission while adapting to a new environment and “operating system.” Their decisions were driven by Rome, but the decisions were not made by Rome; the CBVM was as autonomous in its decision-making as any decentralized international organization.

Pakistan had never been a place of serious and nuanced debate and contestation of politics of postcolonial critique, that is, the continuity of economic, political, and cultural dependency of newly independent countries (NICs) on ex-colonizers as pointed out by neocolonialism, dependency theory, and postcolonial theory, respectively. Instead, Pakistan is presented by extant liberal academic literature as a “failed nation” and a state dominated by the military and plagued by religious extremism. As opposed to this, through the literary and activists writings of Aziz-ul-Haq, this chapter will try to illustrate how cultural contestation of the nation-building project postindependence from British rule was a lot more complex and interesting in Pakistan. This was so because the nation-building project of Pakistan was, on the one hand, an amalgamation of Indo-Persian, Arab, Indian, and Western colonial and civilizational influences and, on the other hand, entailed suppression of resilient local and national cultures of its constituent nationalities developed over centuries. This was later expressed in ethno-nationalist politics. However, when it came to the politics of the marginalized in the late 1960s, there were important political, theoretical, and literary insights which caused a change in the direction of political practice in Pakistan, which paralleled the politics expressed by writers like Fanon and early Subaltern Studies influenced by the Naxal Movement in India. The contestation and confusion arising from this dialectic also entered Pakistan's literary and cultural sphere. This chapter not only tries to give a different postcolonial critique of the failure of nation-building project in Pakistan but, though at a preliminary level, is an attempt to separate the original postcolonial theory in its radical tradition from contemporary postmodern/poststructuralist postcolonial theory marked with pessimism and resignation.

If moments of historical rupture create spaces for social change, what emerges to fill those gaps? This article approaches this question by exploring the creation of the “domestic” in 17th century Europe and Asia following the decline of the Spanish Habsburgs in the West and the Ming Dynasty in the East. Two events will serve as lenses through which that process will be explored. The first case centers on arguments for the legitimacy of the 1603 Dutch seizure of a Portuguese carrack in what would serve as the basis for Hugo Grotius’s defense of the free seas. The second debate focuses on the appropriate mourning ritual following the 1659 death of King Hyojong, the 17th ruler in Korea’s Choson dynasty. I argue that, in the process of responding to the crises they faced in their environments, social elites in both cases defined and articulated a conception of themselves as sovereign societies, creating a political space and corporate identity distinct from the extant institutional apparatus of the state and cultural framework of the nation.

During the 17th century, the Dutch Republic sought to project a positive global image centred around the principles of economic endeavour, moral stewardship and military resilience. By illustrating one way in which the country sought to communicate its international position, the paper aims to provide an early example of political diplomacy and reputation management.

Pictorial narratives provide an important but often underutilised insight into our cultural, social and economic history. As works of art were considered legitimate and authoritative forms of communication, their importance can lie beyond any aesthetic accomplishment. Using established iconographic techniques, this paper deconstructs and interprets the meaning contained within a specific genre painting, The Young Mother (1658) by Gerrit Dou.

Rather than being devoid of meaning, The Young Mother represents a narrative purposely constructed to symbolise the cultural, religious and economic character of the United Provinces. It celebrates success through global trade, innovation and enterprise while simultaneously reminding audiences of the country’s moral and spiritual foundations. Like the patriotic allegory of De Hollandse Maag protecting the sacred space of the hortus conclusus, the painting is a secular representation of the new Loca Sancta.

While acknowledging that The Young Mother has been praised for its visual qualities, this paper maintains that any broader political significance has been largely overlooked. The analysis and findings therefore offer original interpretations from which new conclusions are drawn.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the progresses made by the Potenza province in implementing #weResilient strategy, a risk-informed sustainable development policy-making action at territorial/local levels based on a structural combination of environmental sustainability, territorial safety and climate change contrasting policies; results obtained in supporting and coordinating the municipalities of the provincial territory for creating local conditions to manage risks and sustainable development with a multiscale and multilevel holistic approach based on a wide-area outlook and so contributing directly to the SFDRR Target E, SDGs 11 and 13 and to other goals and targets; The effectiveness of the accountability system on which the approach is based.

The conceptual basis: A strong governance based on multi-stakeholder and community engagement; The interdisciplinary nature of risk; Enhancing local resilience is an essential pre-condition for achieving all of the SDGs; Downscaling the experience of Potenza Province to the urban context; 10;The design: Description of #weResilient, the multiscale and multilevel approach in Local Resilience and sustainable development adopted by the Province of Potenza: the Vision and institutional commitment; the accountability; the multi-stakeholder engagement; community and people-centered iaction; the achieved results; the critical points. Description and analysis of the performed supportive actions to the municipalities with a subsidiary and wide-area approach.

A significant progress in establishing the basis for a risk-informed decision-making at local level; Further significant progresses in promoting inclusive Resilience across the provincial territory; Progress in Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and disaster risk-informed Sustainable Development at local level, including in support of the 2030 Agenda, the Paris Agreement and the New Urban Agenda. Achievements and progresses made in local communities engagement; Achievements in performing actions for including communities and people in relevant institutional decision making processes, building capacities, developing capabilities, raising awareness, increasing political will and public support in local disaster risk reduction and achievement of the SDGs.

The paper is a field-testing of the implementation results of the #weResilient strategy, a risk-informed sustainable development policy-making action at territorial/local levels based on a structural combination of environmental sustainability, territorial safety and climate change contrasting policies; of the coherence of the multiscale and multilevel approach in integrating risk informed and sustainable development pathways; of the improved governance at urban level thanks to the downscaling of the strategy.

Transforming DRR and Resilience to disasters into real “structural” policy-making and actions to be implemented by coordinating territorial and urban development and land-use, with a wide area vision and holistic approach is crucial for the effectiveness of the territorial sustainable development. Moreover, participatory mechanisms can boost althe political will and consequently the related public support. The bottom-up approaches, especially when structured on well defined and clear strategies and supported by concrete actions, are a strategic tool for enhancing the institutional commitment and for enriching the implementation paths also with additional and innovative strategic solution.

In the #weResilient strategy implementation most of the efforts have been devoted to setting-up a complex system of progressive engagement having the main purpose of entrusting and engaging key-actors and community in the institutional policy-making regarding territorial and urban sustainable and resilient development. Engaging community in decision-making processes allows governments to tap into wider perspectives and potential solutions to improve decisions, services and actions. At the same time, it provides the basis for productive relationships, improved dialogue, increased sense of belonging and, ultimately, concrete better democracy.

Multiscale and multilevel holistic approaches in downscaling local well defined Resilience and Sustainable Development integrated strategies (#weResilient) provide for the best approach in terms of future growth. Setting a vision, outlining a strategy and implementing actions on those elements with multiscale and holistic approaches is key- success of every local long-term development; various worldwide leading experiences demonstrated by particularly shining governments are a tangible proof of it. So, the value of this work is to illustrate a concrete example of translation of words into actions so to provide guidance and inspiration to other worldwide governments in performing similar path.

A certification attempt involving an incumbent union is known as a raid. Very little is known about union raiding, yet a large number of workers are affected by raiding and unions continue to debate the process. This paper tests various hypotheses of the nature of union raiding using unique data on raiding attempts over the 1978–1998 period in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The principal findings are (1) raiding attempts are much more likely to succeed when the incumbent union has underachieved in collective bargaining, and are often used in such circumstances; (2) employers favor the incumbent union, are effective in influencing the outcome, but use very different tactics than in regular certification; (3) independent unions fare better in raid contests relative to the national and international unions; and (4) there is a modest amount of inter-affiliation raiding, but much of this is between AFL–CIO affiliates who apparently disregard their no-raiding agreements when operating in Canada.

For the first time since the “limits to growth” debate of the 1970s, we hear serious talk about the prospect of the world running out of oil. In the United States, concerns about reducing dependence on foreign oil have incited debate over the viability of alternative energy sources versus the oil industry's search for new oil “frontiers.” The rancorous dispute over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWAR) has captured the spotlight in this debate. Less controversial, but more significant for the future of U.S. oil production, are the bountiful “deepwater” reserves of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). Offshore is central to the history of the petroleum industry over the last 50 years, and the GOM is the most explored, drilled, and developed offshore petroleum province in the world. In recent decades, revenue from offshore leasing has been second only to federal income taxes in value to the U.S. treasury. During the last 30 years, the search for oil and gas has continually moved into deeper waters and into new offshore environments. Still, the GOM remains the primary laboratory for technological innovation and regulatory practices. The recent and spectacular revival in production there thanks to deepwater discoveries has strongly reinforced this demonstration effect. As offshore oil assumes a high profile in national development strategies around the world, any effort to analyze the political, social, and economic aspects of offshore exploration and development must use the GOM as a historical precedent or basis of comparison.

This paper examines diverging views on the Chongqing model, the policy experiment led by Bo Xilai from 2007 to 2012 that was famous for its “red songs” and the campaign against organized crime. It has impressed both the supporters of socialist identity of China and the supporters of liberal identity and led to an intense debate concerning China’s path of development. This paper attempts to discuss and clarify to what extent the Chongqing model represented a genuine socialist experiment and the implications of the model for China’s future.