Search results for "CRAC"
showing 10 items of 1418 documents
Identity, nation‐state and football in Spain. the evolution of nationalist feelings in Spanish Football
2007
This essay shows the importance of the identity component in the development of Spanish football from its birth at the beginning of the twentieth century, when football was organized at a regional level, until the present time when football reflects the democratic and post‐national Spain created after the arrival of democracy in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The essay expounds the existence of four periods in the development of the nationalistic feelings with which Spanish football has been embodied: the pre‐national or regional period, the period of Spanish nationalization, the period of strengthening of peripheral nationalisms and the post‐national period. In order to explain…
Political participation in Latvia 1987–2001
2001
Abstract Political participation is crucial to democracy; we discuss its main features during three stages. The years 1988–91 are marked by anti-regime mobilization and extensive mass activism in support for restoring independence. After a “normalizing” phase between 1992–98 we note contradictory trends in more recent years. Next to conventional political participation one notes increasing protests, referendum initiatives, and corrupt ways of gaining influence.
From the Worship of God to the Worship of Beauty? The Reception of Italian Catholic Religious Paintings in the Private Chapels of English Country Hou…
2010
This study discusses the shifting reception of Italian Catholic religious paintings in the private chapels of English country houses. It first investigates how the practice of art collecting and patronage informs the strategies deployed by the English aristocracy to expunge from these pictures all Catholic overtones. It moves on to assess the impact of this ideological reinterpretation on works of art, whose original religious message was thus gradually displaced. The article concludes that these paintings came, effectively, to extol a religiosity of splendour, representative of a desire to glorify both the host's good taste and God's greatness.
UNESCO and cultural diversity: democratisation, commodification or governmentalisation of culture?
2012
The Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) was first adopted by its member states in October 2005. The document defines UNESCO's general principles and conceptualisations regarding culture, cultural diversity and expressions. In order to better manage culture, cultural expressions refer above all to goods and services of the markets, but another, more universally humanitarian and participatory aspect is also present. For the United Nations member states and especially countries that ratified it, the Convention offers policy and legal guidelines to support all forms o…
The Cultural Dimension of Spanish Universities: The state of the issue
2020
The cultural dimension of Spanish universities has changed markedly, especially since the restoration of democracy in Spain in the late 1970s. This study reflects on the terminology and the historical evolution of Spanish universities, comparing their development within a broader world context. It also analyses the present state of affairs through two complementary pieces of field work. The paper concludes by examining the issues and hurdles that until recently were the third dimension of university life after teaching and research.
Introduction: Continuities, Dislocations and Transformations: 50 Years of Independence in Africa
2010
Many sub-Saharan African countries celebrated 50 years of political independence in 2010. This presented an opportunity for scholars, politicians and journalists, both within and outside of Africa, to take stock. The situation on the African continent has changed fundamentally since 1960. Brief general analyses and reviews can scarcely do justice to the complexity of this development process. The processes of consolidation, differentiation and transformation that have caused African societies today to become significantly more complex than they were at the time of independence are simply too multifaceted. Most of the journalistic attempts to take stock of these developments in recent years …
Nazis, Pollution, and no Sex
2004
This article briefly summarizes the German research literature on scandal and then outlines a theory of scandal as a socially constructed communication pattern. The theory distinguishes macro- and micro-level approaches for addressing the question of which malfunctions a society selects for scandal. The manifest and latent functions of scandals are discussed with special emphasis on the role of the mass media. The authors’concept of scandal is linked to the concept of political culture. The article then reviews, from a comparative cross-national point of view, (a) scandals that were formative for the development of democratic political culture in Germany, (b) scandals that are linked to th…
The 2019 Local Elections in Valencia’s Metropolitan Area
2020
Voting behaviour in Valencia’s Metropolitan Area can be split into four periods: (1) During the early years of democracy (1979-1991) following the Franco dictatorship, the area was a stronghold of the Left; (2) In 1991, the City of Valencia switched and was governed by the Right; (3) In 2011, the Right extended its control to the whole of the Metropolitan Area; (4) In the May 2015 elections, the Left won not only in the ‘red’ metropolitan belt but also in the City of Valencia. This study looks at what happened in the last set of local elections in 2019. To this end, we begin with a brief review of the election results, voting trends, and the institutional performance of each party since the…
“You are special”: othering in biographies of “GDR children from Namibia”
2017
ABSTRACTThe article analyses a historical case of politically induced flight. The so-called German Democratic Republic (GDR) children from Namibia are about 430 people brought to the GDR between 1979 and 1989. They came from Namibian refugee camps and were part of a solidarity project between South West African People’s Organization (SWAPO) and the GDR. They were educated to become the Namibian elite once the country had been liberated. Their stay was to be temporary, with the children identified as Namibian by SWAPO and GDR. The article reconstructs culturalist and biological-racist forms of othering as characteristic biographical experience of the young people which deny them belonging to…
Decolonizing Othello in search of black feminist North American identities: Djanet Sears' Harlem duet and Toni Morrison's Desdemona
2017
<p>The plays <em>Harlem duet </em>(1997) by African Canadian playwright Djanet Sears and <em>Desdemona </em>(2012) by Toni Morrison signify upon European texts aiming to carve out a new definition of what it means to be black in North America. Therefore both texts make for interesting reading in the study of (black) identity construction within US and Canadian contexts for, by revising Shakespeare’s <em>Othello</em>, they rethink and rewrite a social and racial reality unrelentingly disrupted by difference and hybridity. Sears’ play establishes a specific reading of Canadianness in dialogue with African America to erect a possibility of healing and …