International and Area Studies Commons^™

Civilizational Dynamics Of "Hybrid Warfare", Stephen T. Satkiewicz

Comparative Civilizations Review

Since the end of the Cold War, analysts have struggled to make sense of the proliferation of smaller scale conflicts. Several labels have been used to describe this phenomenon, the most recent being “Hybrid Warfare.” This paper attempts to analyze them through the perspective of civilizational theory.

Very rarely, however, have the civilizational dimensions to these "Hybrid Wars" been extensively addressed. Considering that civilizations represent collective identities on perhaps the most macro-scale, they play an important potential dimension in this ongoing debate. Avoiding any gross simplified variation of a "clash of civilizations" type thesis, a civilizational perspective into this debate …

Pestilence And Other Calamities In Civilizational Theory: Sorokin, Mcneill, Diamond, And Beyond, Vlad Alalykin-Izvekov

Comparative Civilizations Review

This paper analyses the phenomenon of pestilence through paradigmatic and methodological lenses of several outstanding social scholars, including Pitirim A. Sorokin, William H. McNeill, and Jared M. Diamond. All three thinkers have advanced original, fundamental, and revolutionary paradigms regarding the profound role which infectious diseases played, are playing, and will continue to play in world history and culture. The phenomenon of pestilence is studied in the context of other major calamities. The relevant historic, as well as contemporary macro-level and long-term sociocultural research, is reviewed. The author advances a number of original concepts, as well as makes relevant projections into …

St. Thomas Aquinas And The Third Hellenization Period, Demetri Kantarelis

Comparative Civilizations Review

In this paper, I assert that currently the world has been experiencing the Third Hellenization Period that started with the Italian Renaissance, instigated by the teachings of the theologian and philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 CE). Unlike philosophers in previous periods (First and Second Hellenization as well as Medieval), St. Thomas preached that Truth is a function of both Natural Revelation and Supernatural Revelation. This resulted in, simultaneously, Christianizing Aristotle (St. Thomas’ most referenced philosopher) and Aristotleizing Christianity, thus opening up the doors to human reason that had been muted during the Medieval centuries.

I also assert that the basic …

Religious Changes In Montenegro: From The Socialist Atheization To Post-Socialist Revitalization, Vladimir Bakrač, Mirko Blagojević

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The influence, significance, and meaning of religion and religiosity in the Balkans at the end of the second decade of the 21st century have not diminished. Peter Berger argues that today’s world, with some exceptions, is deeply religious—perhaps even more than before. This attitude of Berger refers to modern society, but in the era of socialism, it was not so. Empirical verification from that period records the atheization and secularization of society. In this regard, the primary aim of this paper is to present a kind of panoramic review of religiosity from the era of socialism to the post-socialist transformation …

Religious Organizations Under Quarantine: Ukrainian Realities, Petro Kraliuk, Igor Bogdanovskiy, Kateryna Yakunina

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

On March 11, 2020, quarantine restrictions were introduced in Ukraine due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They concerned all spheres of public life, including the religious sphere. Accordingly, all religious organizations in Ukraine had to adapt to the new rules and conditions of their liturgical practice. A dialogue at the state-church level took place immediately after the introduction of the quarantine. Some spokesmen for religious organizations (Greek Catholics, Protestants) called for a consolidation of efforts to support the population under conditions of the spread of the coronavirus disease.

The article analyzes the situation of religious organizations under the conditions of the …

The Politicization Of Religion And The Sacralized Balkan Nations Regarding Bosnia And Herzegovina, Faruk Hadžić

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Ethnic, national, and confessional affiliation in ex-Yugoslavia add to political radicalization. As a form of political power, politicized religions are, psychologically speaking, unconscious non-faith. Due to new national-state theoretical inadequacy, (i.e., nationalism as an ideology), religion is used as an instrument of socialization and legitimization of new national-political state subjects. When nation and religion become “controversial” identification and mark others as potentially dangerous, through a policy that allegedly aims to "affirm" and "protect" its people and their faith, then in local historical and current circumstances, it essentially implies antagonism in the most dramatic conflicts. The historical revisionism and the memory …

The Tainting Doctrine In Singapore Conflict Of Laws, Rennie Whang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In Singapore conflict of laws, the tainting doctrine applies where a contractual claim governed by Singapore law is not itself unenforceable for illegality or public policy, but is sufficiently connected to a transaction which is so unenforceable. However, the mechanism of this doctrine—as articulated in the English Court of Appeal decision of Euro-Diam Ltd v Bathurst Ltd—is today uncertain due to, inter alia, its use of domestic illegality principles which no longer apply. This paper suggests two areas of clarification. First, it explores whether the doctrine should be seen an application of the proper law of the contract or the …

“The Gifts Of Enemies”: The Acteal Massacre, Sociedad Civil Las Abejas And Mexico’S Ejército Zapatista De Liberación Nacional And Humanitarian And Development Aid During The Low-Intensity War, 1997–1999, Maria R. Hart

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is about a faction of the Sociedad Civil Las Abejas who, as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), were housed at the INI IDP camp in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, in 1997-99 after the Acteal massacre on December 22, 1997. This faction is of interest because they protested the remaining members of Sociedad Civil Las Abejas (Civil Society The Bees) social movement at Acteal and the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, often better-known as the Zapatistas), because the movement required them to reject governmental humanitarian aid and development programs or lose their membership in the social …

Oceanic Groundings: Maritime Geographies And Black Internationalism In The Early Twentieth Century, Maegan A. Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the shipboard writings, transnational solidarities and vernacular cultures, and spaces of social reproduction among Black and other subaltern seafarers and maritime travelers in the first decades of the twentieth century. I draw upon oral histories, literature, poetry, memoirs, and the archives of leftist political organizations and British colonial officials. Through a practice of close reading across textual genres and transnational spaces, my dissertation develops oceanic groundings as: (1) a constellation of iterative and intentional acts of political learning through the movements of ordinary people, (2) a pedagogical project of listening to and learning from the shifting grounds …

Ujamaa Policies And Women Gender Issues Of Land Tenure In Tanzania, Nasa S. Edgar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

History has shown us that women always have a part to play in society and that they have fought to receive equal opportunity with their male counterparts. In the United States in the late 1800s and early twentieth century, this movement by women became known as the women’s suffrage movement. It paved the way to women fighting for equal opportunity including for the right to vote and equal pay. In Tanzania, women fought and continue to fight against customary practices that are discriminatory against them. In this thesis I make three arguments: 1. I argue that the history of the …

The Importance Of Innovation And Entrepreneurship In China’S Social Transformation, Guo Jun Shen

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

As world’s second largest economy, China has seen tremendous changes since its 1978 “open door and reform” policy. Different reformations in form of policies were planned and rolled out to release the potential of productivity. At the same time, social development also seen a huge progress. How the reformation been transformed to social development and in what degree? This is the question was answered in this dissertation. I studied four major reformations covering: State owned Enterprises (SoE), land, financial liberalization, and science and technology, and their impacts on the social development. At macro level, I identified mediation effects of entrepreneurship …

Frontmatter (Volume 40, Issue 7), Paul B. Mojzes

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Hearing Essential And Urgent Court Matters During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Kwan Ho Lau, Daryl Xu

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This chapter discusses the hearing of essential and urgent court matters in the Singapore courts during the COVID-19 pandemic. On 27 march 2020, the Singapore judiciary notified courst users that remote hearings were to be implemented for certain types of hearings by means of video and telephone conferencing facilities. Court users were also provided with indicative lists of matters which might be considered essential and urgent.

Private Liability For Public Health, Jerrold Soh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

As at this writing, COVID-19 continues to spread around the world. Most disease transmissions, one hopes, are unintentional. But could one nonetheless be liable for unintentionally, yet carelessly, transmitting the disease? If so, when would liability arise, and how wide may its scope be? If X transmits the disease to Y who in turn transmits it to Z, can Z claim against X? If not, why should liability escape one who carelessly spreads a deadly and highly contagious virus when courts have historically found liability for more innocuous harms?154 This short essay discusses how private liability might complement public regulation …

Constitutional Literacy In Times Of Crisis, Maartje De Visser

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

At the same time she announced her withdrawal from public life in 2018, former US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor made a passionate plea for “all citizens to understand our Constitution and unique system of government, and participate actively in their communities.”441 The timing coincided with the halfway mark of Donald Trump’s term in presidency, a president who has very publicly declared his knowledge of the US Constitution, but whose understanding of it has regularly been called into question.442 At its foundation, the democratic legitimacy of a government arguably presupposes a working familiarity with the constitution qua social contract. …

Impossible Attempts And The Punishment Of Intent: Han Fang Guan V Public Prosecutor, Wing Cheong Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This comment reviews the new “two-stage framework” developed by the Singapore Court of Appeal in the case of Han Fang Guan v Public Prosecutor for impossible attempts under the Misuse of Drugs Act. The new framework clarifies the law and it is suggested that the approach should be adopted for all other criminal laws as well.

12 September 2020: The Singapore Convention On Mediation Comes Into Force, Nadja Alexander, Shou Yu Chong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In this post on the Kluwer Mediation Blog, the potential impact of the Singapore Convention on Mediation is analysed.

Forging Alternatively Sacred Spaces In Singapore's Integrated Religious Marketplace, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper expands the notion of sacred space within the geographies of religion by arguing that spaces of religious praxis need to be understood in relation to the broader spatial logics within which they are embedded. Given that the spatial logics of urban environments tend to be secular and neoliberal in nature, it considers how religious groups respond to the realities of the marketplaces in which they operate by forging “alternatively sacred” spaces. These spaces augment the appeal of religious groups in non-religious ways, thus making them more competitive players in a religious marketplace. Specifically, it explores how independent churches …

Opening The Door To Fickle-Minded Guilty Pleas? Public Prosecutor V Dinesh S/O Rajantheran, Teng Jun Gerome Goh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Unlike applications to retract guilty pleas, accused persons are not required to provide valid and sufficient reasons when qualifying their guilty pleas in mitigation. In Criminal Reference No. 5 of 2018, the Court of Appeal held that section 228(4) of the Criminal Procedure Code allows accused persons to qualify their guilty pleas in mitigation to the extent that it amounts to a retraction of their guilty pleas unless there is an abuse of the court’s process. This comment considers the desirability of the current law and suggests that the law applying to such withdrawals of guilty pleas should be …

A New Chinese Economic Law Order?, Greg Shaffer, Henry S. Gao

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

China is incrementally developing a new, decentralized model of trade governance through a web of finance, trade, and investment initiatives involving memorandum of understanding, contracts, and trade and investment treaties, supported by an indigenous innovation policy that is transnational in its reach. In this way, China could create a vast, Sino-centric, legal order in which the Chinese state plays the nodal role. It is a hub and spokes model, with China at the hub. In this article, we first examine China’s export of an infrastructure-based development model, implemented through Chinese state-owned and private enterprise investments and commercial contracts (Part B), …

Indonesia: Twenty Years Of Democracy By Jamie S. Davidson [Book Review], Colm A. Fox

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In Indonesia: Twenty years of democracy, Jamie S. Davidson looks back over the two decades since Soeharto’s fall, focusing on the ‘tensions, inconsistencies, and contradictory puzzles of Indonesia’s democracy’ (p. 4). Refreshingly, the book moves beyond the common approach of studying the similarities and differences between the contemporary democratic period and the Soeharto era. Davidson identifies, labels and skilfully guides the reader through three separate eras in Indonesia’s recent democratic history: the innovation period (1998–2004), the stagnation period (2004–14) and the period of polarisation (2014–18). Each era is analysed in parallel fashion, with subsections on politics, political economy and identity-based …

Gender And Parliamentary Representation In India: The Case Of Violence Against Women And Children, Sadhvi Kalra, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

To better understand how gender impacts parliamentary representation, we analysed representative claims made by parliamentarians in India, the world's largest democracy. Applying critical frame analysis to plenary debates in the Indian Rajya Sabha, we examined four parliamentary bills addressing violence against women and children under four successive governments between 1999 and 2019. Testing six hypotheses concerning who represents and how, our study found women legislators more active in speaking on behalf of women and children than male legislators. Women parliamentarians focused more on rehabilitating victims and expanding the scope of rights and rights-holders. Women were also more vocal in contesting …

Full Issue

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Development Of Chaplaincy In Independent Ukraine: Current State And Trends Of Development, Nataliia Ishchuk, Oleksandr Sagan

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The preconditions and difficulties of the formation of the chaplaincy movement in contemporary Ukraine are systematized in this paper. It is shown that for a significant period of time after the proclamation of Ukraine’s independence, chaplaincy developed mainly by private initiatives of individual clergy or public organizations. In the first years of Ukraine’s independence, the main obstacles to its development were the atheistic legacy of the Soviet Union, ideological clichés, and the lack of a legal framework for the implementation of pastoral work. Nevertheless, as early as the 1990s, the chaplaincy ministry began to receive legal justification, significant international support, …

Journal Review: Illuminatio/Svjetionik /Almana: The Journal For New Ideas., İbrahim Karataş

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This is a review of the first issue of the academic online journal Illuminatio (Svjetionik in Bosnian and Almanar in Arabic). It began publication in 2020, and will be published twice a year by Al-Wasatiyya Center for Dialogue based in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The journal is bilingual and appears in Bosnian and English. The Editor-in-Chief is Mustafa Cerić, who was the Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1999 to 2012 and holds a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago. The other editors and the advisory board of the journal are prestigious local and international scholars of …

Screening Southeast Asia: Film, Politics, And The Emergence Of The Nation In Postwar Southeast Asia, Darlene Machell Espena

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Covid‐19 Crisis And Its Impact On Trustees And Beneficiaries, Man Yip

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The COVID-19 pandemic has been described by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as the “crisis of our generation”. We have to swiftly adjust to a new “normal” characterised by safety measures, travel restrictions, economic downturn and uncertainties in the days ahead. What is the new “normal” for trustees and beneficiaries? How should they respond to the legal and practical uncertainties in these challenging times? This commentary discusses two categories of uncertainties for trustees and beneficiaries: (1) uncertainty relating to trust investments; and (2) uncertainty relating to day-to-day administration.

Singapore’S Proposed Approach To Tackling Missing Trader Fraud, Vincent Ooi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In the Draft Goods and Services Tax (Amendment) Bill 2020 (the “Draft Bill”), Singapore proposes a new framework to deal with the problem of MTF. The approach is neatly summarised by a document released by the Singapore Ministry of Finance: “Annex: Proposed Changes to the Goods and Services Tax Act”, of which one point is of particular interest. The document states that the proposed legislative amendments will “allow the Comptroller of GST to deny a GST-registered business’ input GST claim, if the business knew or should have known that his purchase was part of or connected with a fraudulent arrangement. …

Singapore’S Covid-19 General Election: Political Breakthrough Amid A Generational Crisis?, Eugene K. B. Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In the 13th general election since independence, the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) – which has governed Singapore since 1959 – won 83 out of 93 seats, with a popular vote share of 61.24%, its third lowest on record. The Workers’ Party (WP) won 10 seats, including an unprecedented two multi-member electoral constituencies, cementing its standing as the leading opposition party. Not only did this outcome fall short of the strong mandate the PAP had sought, it was arguably its worst electoral performance since independence as the PAP’s control of elected seats dipped below 90% for the first time. In …

Gdp Growth Incentives And Earnings Management: Evidence From China, Xia Chen, Qiang Cheng, Ying Hao, Qiang Liu

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using data from China, we examine whether and how the incentive to boost GDP growth at the government level affects earnings management at the firm level. We find that firms in provinces with GDP growth lower than the national level or the average of the adjacent provinces are more likely to engage in earnings management than firms in other provinces. Specifically, they are more likely to inflate revenues, overproduce, and delay asset impairment losses. The aggregate earnings management induced by GDP growth incentives accounts for about 0.5% of GDP. The results are stronger for local state-owned enterprises, in provinces with …