Political Crisis (political + crisis)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


A Review of Udo Schnelle and Francis Watson on Paul

DIALOG, Issue 1 2007
David L. Balch
Abstract:, Since E. P. Sanders introduced the "new perspective" on Paul, Lutherans have had to ask again: did Luther understand Paul on the Mosaic law? The two books reviewed here carry forward the discussion Sanders began. Udo Schnelle's Apostle Paul makes two methodological choices with dramatic consequences for understanding Paul's theology and letters: 1) Paul was in direct dialogue with the Greco-Roman culture of the cities where he preached the gospel and founded churches, and 2) Paul's Christology, ethics, and eschatology developed and changed in relation to the religious and political crises through which he struggled. Francis Watson's Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith makes an obvious but novel decision to focus on the five books of Moses as read by Paul in dialogue with other contemporary Jewish interpreters, arguing that Paul's view of the "law" is his counter-reading of the five books of Torah. Paul's hermeneutic exploits tensions and anomalies in the text of Torah itself, enabling him to emphasize God's promise, not the human deeds of scriptural heroes. [source]


Toward a Reconceptualization of Regional Development Paths: Is Leipzig's Media Cluster a Continuation of or a Rupture with the Past?

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2003
Harald Bathelt
Abstract: This article develops a model of regional development that is then used to examine the evolution of two media industries in Leipzig, Germany. We note that the city's current media cluster, centered on television/film production and interactive digital media, shares little in common with the city's once-premier book publishing media cluster. Treating interactive learning as the primary causal mechanism that drives economic growth and change, our conceptual framework incorporates both sectoral/technological and political crises as mechanisms that rupture regional development paths. These regional development paths are not homogeneous, but instead consist of bundles of various technological trajectories. Regions recover from crises as their actors continually rebundle local assets until they find a combination that generates growth. As a result of these crises, new opportunities for growth may arise for new and previously marginal industries. In turn, these expanding industries shape the region's development path. [source]


Sanitary versus environmental policies: fitting together two pieces of the puzzle of European vulture conservation

JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY, Issue 4 2010
Antoni Margalida
Summary 1.,Between 1996 and 2000 the appearance of bovine spongiform encephalopathy swiftly became one of the most serious public health and political crises concerning food safety ever experienced in the European Union (EU). Subsequent sanitary regulations led to profound changes in the management of livestock carcasses (i.e. the industrial destruction of around 80% of all animal carcasses), thereby threatening the last remaining healthy scavenger populations of the Old World and thus contradicting the long-term environmental policies of the EU. 2.,Several warning signs such as a decrease in breeding success, an apparent increase in mortality in young age classes of vultures and an increase in the number of cases of vultures attacking and killing cattle, as well as a halt in population growth, suggest that the decrease in the availability of food resources has had harmful effects on vulture populations. 3.,Between 2002 and 2005, a number of dispositions to the EU regulations (2003/322/CE 2005/830/CE) enabled conservation managers to adopt rapid solutions (i.e. the creation of vulture restaurants) aimed at satisfying the food requirements of vultures. However, these conservation measures may seriously modify habitat quality and have indirect detrimental effects on avian scavenger populations and communities. 4.,Synthesis and applications.,Conservation managers and policy-makers need to balance the demands of public health protection and the long-term conservation of biodiversity. The regulations concerning carrion provisioning need to be more flexible and there needs to be greater compatibility between sanitary and environmental policies. We advocate policies that authorize the abandonment of livestock carcasses and favours populations of wild herbivores to help to maintain populations of avian scavengers. Conservation strategies should be incorporated into new European Commission regulations, which should be effective in 2011. [source]


The Politics of Hostage Rescue: Is Violence a Route to Political Success?

JOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2001
Joseph Scanlon
Over the years, law enforcement agencies have acquired extensive experience with hostage incidents, and most Western countries have officers trained in all aspects of hostage resolution. There are also articles and manuals outlining how to deal with the media coverage of hostage takings (Scanlon, 1989). However, because hostage rescue efforts can provide dramatic visuals that attract enormous audiences, the media have steadily intensified their coverage of such incidents. Today, a group of previously obscure persons can suddenly dominate the media agenda by successfully resisting an armed assault or by seizing hostages and calling themselves terrorists. After defining a hostage incident and looking at the strategy for dealing with such incidents, this article examines the implications of two fatal incidents: the stand-off involving religious fanatics at Waco, Texas; and the Air France hijacking that started in Algiers and ended in Marseille, France. Both became number one on the Western media agenda, and both became political crises involving the head of state; one threatening a president's credibility, the other enhancing a president's status. Together they suggest that the escalating media coverage of such incidents raises questions not only about the effectiveness of current response strategies, but also about political leadership. This article discusses a number of strategies that have been tried or suggested. It also debates whether involvement has a positive or negative effect on political leaders. It concludes that, from the evidence available, a successful hostage rescue can yield political rewards. [source]


Innovative Governance and Development in the New Ireland: Social Partnership and the Integrated Approach

GOVERNANCE, Issue 1 2004
J. D. House
Since the mid-1980s, the economy of the Republic of Ireland has displayed a remarkable turnaround. Its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown at a faster rate than any developed country in the world. The government's deficit has been cut severely and the debt-to-GDP ration sharply reduced. Average incomes have risen significantly, and the unemployment rate reduced dramatically. This article documents these changes. Its main purpose, however, is to provide a plausible explanation for the "Irish miracle." While many factors have been important,support for the Economic Union's regional development programs, a favorable tax structure, locational and language advantages for attracting multinational corporations, strong education and training programs,these factors in themselves do not explain the emergence of the "Celtic tiger." They were in place before the mid-1980s when Ireland was suffering from a fiscal, economic, and political crisis. Instead, the article argues, it was the creative and innovative response of Irish leaders in government, industry, and labor movement and community organizations to the crisis, and the subsequent institutionalization of this response in a new form of governance, that has been the catalyst for the Irish success story. Based on the thorough background research of the Economic and Social Research Council, a farsighted group of leaders developed a strategic plan in 1987 that provided a blueprint for constructive economic and social change. This was then formally instituted for wage restraint on the part of labor in return for income tax and social supposed provisions by government. Irish social Partnership is modeled to some extent on Northern European corporatism. The article reviews corporatism as an early form of innovative governance, using classical corporatism in Sweden and competitive corporatism in the Netherlands to illustrate how this approach has evolved over the years. Dutch economic success in recent years is due in part to its new form of corporatism that has helped it become globally competitive. It is argued, however, that Irish social partnership goes beyond continental corporatism in several important ways. It is more inclusive, covering a large array of social interests; it is more strategic, with a well-articulated integrated approach to social and economic development that is self-corrective and articulated in a new national agreement every three years; and it is more firmly institutionalized in both government and nongovernment agencies in the country. Social partnership and the integrated approach have become part of the culture of the new Ireland. This innovative form of governance underlies the Irish turnaround and augurs well for the future. It can also serve as a model, with appropriate modification tailor-made to each case, for other jurisdictions hoping to emulate Ireland's success. [source]


The Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of England, 1066,1266

HISTORY, Issue 292 2003
G. A. Loud
This article looks back from the political crisis in England in the 1250s to examine English and Anglo-Norman perceptions of southern Italy and Sicily, and contacts between the two regions, over the previous two centuries. Although some at least were conscious of a common Norman heritage, commentators from England knew relatively little of the southern kingdom; certainly less than the Norman chroniclers, Orderic Vitalis and Robert of Torigni, and even they were less well informed than has been suggested in the past. There was a period of increased diplomatic contact for a generation or so after 1160, in which the Becket dispute played a part, culminating in the visit of Richard I to Sicily during the Third Crusade although that episode did nothing to increase the warmth of Anglo-Sicilian relations. Thereafter there was relatively little contact for the next half-century, in spite of Frederick II's marriage to the sister of Henry III of England in 1235. Furthermore, Sicily was always perceived as an exotic and alien region indicating that the perceptions found in the 1250s had been anticipated at an earlier period. [source]


Unmarried in Palestine: Embodiment and (dis)Empowerment in the Lives of Single Palestinian Women

IDS BULLETIN, Issue 2 2010
Penny Johnson
There are rising numbers of single women across the Arab world. While this is usually connected with delayed marriage, Palestine shows a unique pattern of early but not universal marriage. This article looks beneath the statistics to investigate the stories behind this trend. How do young unmarried women negotiate boundaries and understand and enact choice in the context of a society experiencing prolonged insecure and warlike conditions, political crisis and social fragmentation and where the high number of unmarried women can be an increasing locus of moral panic? In conducting focus groups with two generations of women, my research looks at the prevailing importance of education, civil society and security in negotiating space within women's lives and uncovers a long tradition of unmarried women leading full and significant lives which needs to be recovered from the past. [source]


The Regulation of Public Company Auditing: Evidence from the Transition to AS5

JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 4 2010
RAJIB DOOGAR
ABSTRACT The replacement of Auditing Standard No. 2 (AS2) by Auditing Standard No. 5 (AS5) creates a natural experiment that sheds light on (1) potential inefficiencies caused by regulatory responses to a political crisis and (2) audit efficiency and effectiveness improvements resulting from the risk-based approach embodied in AS5. We study these effects by examining the impact of AS5 on audit fees. We find that AS5 audit fees are aligned with auditee fraud risk, but not AS2 audit fees. Second, relative to AS2 benchmark levels, AS5 audit fees are, on average, lower for all auditees. Third, relative to AS2 benchmarks, AS5 fees are lower for lower-fraud-risk auditees but greater for higher-fraud-risk auditees. Overall, the evidence is consistent with (1) initial overregulation (via AS2) followed by reform (via AS5) and (2) auditors deploying a risk-based audit approach to obtain both efficiency and potential effectiveness gains in audit production. [source]


Indictments, Myths, and Citizen Mobilization in Argentina: A Discourse Analysis

LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 4 2005
Ariel C. Armony
ABSTRACT Most accounts of the turmoil that shook Argentina in 2001,2 focused on the harmful impact of the financial environment, imprudent policymaking, and institutional weaknesses. These explanations paid little attention to the cultural frames and cognitive patterns that underlie the connection between civil society and political society. Based on a discourse analysis of Internet forums and presidential speeches, this article argues that the Argentine crisis cannot be fully grasped without considering the link between collective behavior and ingrained conceptions of national identity. The analysis finds that national myths and definitional questions of national purpose are key factors in the way citizens behave in the context of an economic and political crisis. [source]


Indonesia's Crisis: Implications for the Region

ASIAN-PACIFIC ECONOMIC LITERATURE, Issue 1 2000
Hadi Soesastro
What began as a currency crisis in Indonesia in the third quarter of 1997 rapidly turned into a deep financial crisis with wide-ranging economic and social impacts, and finally became a serious political crisis that exploded in May 1998, forcing President Soeharto to resign. Soeharto's departure, however, did not resolve the crisis. He left behind an economy in shambles, a serious political vacuum and a highly polarised society. The issues to be dealt with are wide-ranging, including the loss of Indonesia's position in the international system, the domination of industry by foreign capital and the imposition by the IMF of a certain model of economic development. Regional and international aspects of the crisis have not become an issue in the public debate and policy discourse in Indonesia. This article looks at these implications. [source]