scholarly journals Anthropological Perspectives on Romanian Socialism. A Case Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20
Author(s):  
Alina BRANDA
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Research Interest ◽  
Rural Settlements ◽  
Main Research ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Specific Factors ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Difficult Times ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Socialism And Postsocialism

This paper aims to analyze mainly how and why Western anthropologists conducted fieldwork in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. What motivated their particular research interest in this part of Europe, how they understood these societies and socialist systems, what specific factors made possible and facilitated the fieldwork they had conducted in difficult times. These are the main research questions addressed in this paper. Specifically, I refer to their work carried out in the 1970s-1980s in Romania. In particular, I aim at analyzing the works of three reputable US specialists in the field, who manifested a research interest, and conducted fieldwork especially (but not exclusively) in different rural settlements of this country. The paper attempts to identify the ways in which the Romanian socialism is understood in its peculiarities by these notable anthropologists, analyzing their studies as results of intensive fieldwork. Their works, published initially in English, in the USA, were translated into Romanian in the post 1989 decades, being received with high interest by “local specialists,” as well as by the broader public. They are present in representative anthologies on socialism and postsocialism, as valuable contribution to the understanding of these periods. Despite all these, comprehensive analysis of their contributions is still lacking, as well as the comparative frames meant to facilitate the identification of both specificities and recurrences in their works, in the ways they viewed the impact of socialisms on various, studied communities. It is a necessary and useful task to revisit their works (as well as the works of other anthropologists who conducted fieldwork in Romania and broader, in Eastern Europe) to understand in depth their views, their meanings and relevance in that particular context and afterwards, as well as their contribution to the Anthropology of Socialism and Postsocialism. Through this, other fields and topics are opening to the analysis, such as the contribution and particular roles of the Anthropology of Socialism and Postsocialism in structuring the Anthropology of Europe, as it is configured nowadays.

The impact of economic downturn on mental health in Canada

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ehsan Latif
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Population Health ◽  
Unemployment Rate ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Health Behaviours ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Canadian Data ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Specific Factors ◽  
The Impact

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to use longitudinal Canadian data from the National Population Health Survey (1994-2006) to examine the impact of provincial unemployment rate on mental health as measured by the short form depression scale. Design/methodology/approach – To control for the unobserved individual specific factors, the study utilized individual-specific fixed-effects model. Findings – The study found that, for the overall model, provincial unemployment rate has a significant positive impact on depression. The study further examined the impact of unemployment rate on depression for a number of sub-groups based on gender, age, marital status, and education. The results suggest that the impacts of unemployment rate on depression are heterogeneous across different sub-groups. Practical implications – The results of this study have important policy implications. Previous studies suggest that mental stress may lead to risky health behaviours such excessive drinking, substance use, and smoking. These risky health behaviours may have long term health consequences in terms of chronic conditions such as heart disease, cancer, etc. Thus policy makers may consider taking appropriate steps to provide mental health support during the period of recession. Such support may also be helpful for the unemployed individuals who are too depressed to search for job. Originality/value – Previous studies on this issue may suffer from potential bias since they omitted unobserved individual specific factors from the estimating equations. This paper has taken the opportunity of utilizing longitudinal Canadian Population Health Survey and adopts an individual specific fixed effects method to estimate the effects of macroeconomic conditions on mental health. All of the studies reviewed here used data from the USA. So far no study has examined the impact of unemployment rate on mental health using Canadian data. It is interesting to conduct a study using Canadian data since there are important differences between Canada and the USA with respect to labour market policies and health care systems.

Colonial system: balance and prospects after 1945 in the assessments of diplomats of the United States, the USSR and Great Britain

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 181-183
Author(s):  
Yaroslav Alexandrovich Levin
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Third World ◽  
The United States ◽  
Special Importance ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

The following paper deals with the views of the ambassadors of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain, expressed in telegrams for foreign affairs agencies. Rolling the world to a new global confrontation, the aggressive rhetoric of each participating country, specific actions to build up political and military capabilities required some kind of balanced assessment from experts who were well-versed in the political and social development of states that appeared after the Second World War on different sides of the barricade. In addition, the third world acquired special importance in the new conditions. The disintegration of the colonial system opened great prospects for each of the great powers. Therefore, besides the analyses of prospects and characteristics of relations between the USSR and Western countries, diplomats in their analytical reports affected the prospects for the development of the former colonies, as well as tried to forecast the actions of the probable enemy and the closest allies, comprehended the existing contradictions on this issue and tried to give some assessment, propose solutions to these problems. Considering the influence of the telegrams analyzed in the framework of this study on the formation of the Cold War, conclusions are drawn about the impact of assessments expressed by diplomats on the development of relations with the countries of the third world. The analysis of J. Kennan, N. Novikov and F. Roberts notes shows the difference in the approaches and understanding of each country, both its opponents and its allies, a different view of the process of decolonization and its prospects. The paper is based on the sources on the diplomatic history of the Cold War and on some references on the topic.

Resistance and Dissent in Central and Eastern Europe

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 318-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara J. Falk
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
North America ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Short Article ◽  
Seminal Article ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Initial Research

This article offers both a genealogy of academic interest in resistance and dissent in the region, as well as an overview of current directions in research. Four kinds of sources are canvassed to paint as fulsome a picture as a short article permits. First, the original literature on dissent prior to the conclusion of the Cold War is reviewed, beginning with the seminal challenge to the “totalitarian” school presented by Gordon Skilling’s seminal article in World Politics . Second, key texts written in the two decades since the fall of communism on the impact of resistance and dissent are examined. Trajectories of initial research in the post-communist era are outlined, along with an assessment of how more recent texts of the “twenty years since the Fall” variety account for resistance and dissent. Finally, results of a short survey conducted by the author and sent to both established and emerging scholars in Europe and North America who are interested, have written on, and/or published on forms of resistance and dissent add a critical contemporary dimension to the analysis.

scholarly journals GERMAN EXPAT HISTORIANS AND THEIR ROLE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE NATIONAL-SOCIALISM IN 1940-1960s

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-502
Author(s):  
I.F. Sergeenkova
Keyword(s):  
Mass Culture ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Historical Science ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
Us Government ◽  
The Usa ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

The scientific migration from the Nazi Germany to the USA is the subject of close attention by experts who study development of historical science in the USA and, in particular, such a trend as History of Germany. In the USA before the second half of the XX century not much attention was paid to the history of European countries, and a few researches on the history of Great Britain and France are just some isolated examples. Expat historians had changed the situation. The article presents an analysis of political views of German historians who left for the USA after Nazis had come to power. German expat historians are divided into two groups: 1. emigrants of “the first wave” who earned their qualification in History in Germany and worked as instructors at German universities; and 2. emigrants of “the second wave” who were brought to the USA by their parents and obtained education in the host country. Along with the financial support the US government provided the German emigrants with an opportunity to continue their scientific and educational activities. The research activities by German expat historians embraced such a significant topic as the reasons of Nazis’ coming to power. The most important trends of their research are: sustainability of the historical pattern of Germany, the so called ‘extraordinary path’; the reasons for the Weimar Republic collapse; the role of the upper middle class and the army leadership as well as the intellectual elite of Germany in Hitler’s coming to power; the intellectual origin of Nazism; the ideas of ‘the conservative revolution’; the mass culture. Expat historians were the first ones who turned to the issues of ‘Holocaust’. The article reveals the influence of ‘the Cold War’ and the doctrine of totalitarianism on the study of Nazism. The article touches upon the problems of interaction between expat historians and their colleagues in the Federative Republic of Germany and the impact the former made on modernization of the historical science in the West Germany.

India–Iran Trade Relations Under the Shadow of USA Sanctions

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 399-407
Author(s):  
Suadat Hussain Wani ◽  
Mohd Afzal Mir ◽  
Imtiyaz Ahmad Shah
Keyword(s):  
Energy Requirements ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
The West ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Working Together ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

India and Iran have a long history of cooperation on various issues ranging from economic to strategic importance. However, the present phase of cooperation is as old as end of the cold war and reached a peak during the period 2001–2003 with the Tehran and Delhi declarations, which established a substantial set of framework for enhanced cooperation. In the present times given the changing regional and global economic and security conditions, many attempts have been made by both countries to increase their cooperation. Since Islamic revolution, Iran faces continuous confrontation and sanctions from the West and the USA. Iran has continuously tried to improve its relations with its neighbours and other friendly countries to minimize the impact of these sanctions which are badly affecting its economy. India, on the other hand, has been growing at a faster pace from last many years which has increased its energy requirements. Given Iran’s nuclear programme and its confrontation with the West and India’s energy requirements, both countries are working together to sustain their economic and energy cooperation from last many years. In 2015, both countries signed a memorandum of understanding worth USD 195 million for the development of Chabahar Port situated in south-eastern Iran and India agreed to make the investment in infrastructural development of Iran. Through this port, India will get easy access to Central Asian and Afghanistan which will increase its trade relations with these countries. The aim of this research article is to examine the impact of sanctions on Iran due to its nuclear programme on trade relations between India and Iran by using threshold autoregressive model and using trade variables including exports and imports. JEL Codes: 00, 05, 05

scholarly journals What went wrong? Fracking in Eastern Europe

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreea Maierean
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Research Question ◽  
The United States ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Shale Formations ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Strategic Incentives ◽  
The Impact

AbstractA few years ago, optimistic estimates claimed that Eastern Europe possessed large shale formations that seemed likely to produce great quantities of natural gas. In addition, the countries in the region had strategic incentives to develop a transparent domestic shale industry in order to reduce its reliance on gas from Russia. Nevertheless, political and social factors as well as differences in physical characteristics, prevented the U.S. experience from being replicable in Eastern Europe. In the end, most multinational energy corporations announced that they had abandoned efforts to find and produce natural gas from shale rock in Eastern Europe. The paper discusses the impact of shale gas exploration on the quality of democratic governance by comparing and contrasting fracking regulations adopted in the United States with those of Eastern Europe. The main research question attempts to ask and identify: “what are the factors that influence a democratic and fair governance of public natural resources”.

Introduction

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-301 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Technological Advancement ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
External Actors ◽  
The Eu

Central Eastern Europe (further CEE) has been thoroughly reconstructed during nearly a quarter of century since the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the cold war. The CEE countries turned to the West for economic and technological advancement, for political and administrative models as well as for protection. The authors coming from eight different countries look at the place and role of the former member states of the Warsaw Pact in the new European and international constellation. This concept of CEE includes most pro-western states of the former ‘Eastern block’: the four countries of Central Europe (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) and the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia). There were many tumultuous political developments in and around the region within the last decade, and especially during the last five years when the financial crisis started to take its toll. While the Atlantic link of Central and Eastern Europe is still strong, many commentators have pointed out its wearing strategic meaning. The balance between the focus on the USA and the EU has shifted in favour of Europe. However, this shift has rather been an incomplete one due to the region’s own political and economic problems. The aim of this special issue is to analyse the new constellation by looking at the CEE countries themselves, at their ability to react and adapt, produce sound political strategies and act on as national actors: through bilateral ties, regional co-operation, NATO and the EU. Also, the main external actors - the USA, Russia and Germany - are looked at as they directly influence the way how the CEE countries shape their policies.

The dangers of US interventionism

2002 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 577-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan P. Dobson
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Crises ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

Both policy articles about US post-Cold War foreign policy and the recent rhetoric of US policymakers appears to be slipping back into the language of the ‘arrogance of power’, against which Senator Fulbright warned America in the 1960s. In what follows, the USA's style of foreign policy; its criteria for intervention; its invasion of Panama; its capabilities; its intervention in Bosnia; and the impact of contending theories about changes in the international sphere will be examined with a view to casting some light on how the USA has responded to the world outside its boundaries after the Cold War. Finally, in the light of Senator Fulbright's criticisms of US interventionism in the recent past, the essay draws towards its conclusion by specifically addressing the key questions of the whens, whys and wherefores of US intervention into and exits from international crises. It explores some of the problems posed by continuity and change in the struggle to adjust US foreign policy to a non-Cold War world and examines the wisdom of enthusiastic calls for the US to spread democracy abroad.

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