Turkish Migration Policy from the 1960s Until Today: What National Development Plans Tell Us

This paper is on migration and migration policy transition of Turkey. The focus is on the Turkish National Development Plans from the 1960s until today and the socio-political and economic context. We identify three distinct periods. The first period of the 1960s is characterized by an explicit support of out-migration to reduce population pressure and on remittances to promote economic growth. The second period from the 1970s to 2000 is marked by diaspora policies of Turkey relative to Europe, thereby acknowledging the role of the Turkish diaspora in the promotion of Turkish economic development and international relations. Since the year of 2000, Turkish migration policy turned to the promotion of highly skilled immigration, aiming at the promotion of technological progress towards a knowledge society with the support of intellectual elites. The policy transition towards the promotion of highly skilled immigration goes hand in hand with institutional and legal changes, which we specify.

Self-Criticism in Post-Communist Times

This article revisits the category of self-criticism, which, as a speech act, plays a special role in the discourse of the intelligentsia, emerging from the peripheral status of Poland and from the imperative to catch up with the West. In contemporary Poland, self-criticism has revived as a discursive strategy in the context of coming to terms with the democratic transformation. For the right-wing intelligentsia, self-criticism is mainly a postulate that is addressed to political adversaries. For the left-liberal intelligentsia, self-criticism is not only a political weapon but also a strategy of introspective enunciation directed at the post-transformation society. A qualitative discourse analysis of selected acts of self-criticism performed by Polish left-liberal elites between 2013 and 2019 highlights two interconnected conflict-generating fields of debate: (1) reckoning with the neoliberal and pro-Western model of the 1989 democratic transition and (2) retribution on the post-transition intellectual elites that patronized the people and the attribution of responsibility for the Elite-People Division. The distinguished functions of self-criticism point to the political and class conflict as well as to the growing delegitimacy of the dominance of the neoliberal narrative about the Polish model of modernization.

Polish-Ukrainian Treaty of Good Neighbourhood. Analysis of the decision-making process

2022 marks the 30th anniversary of the Treaty of Good Neighbourhood, Friendly Relations, and Cooperation between Poland and Ukraine. In the presented article, by applying elements of decision analysis, an attempt was made to explain the decision to conclude the Treaty. First, the decision-making centres in Poland and Ukraine, and their awareness with respect to Polish-Ukrainian relations, were presented as three separate circles: public opinion, political parties, and groups of the most important decision-makers. The decision to sign the treaty was possible thanks to the political and intellectual elites who originated in the former communist-era opposition, both in Poland and Ukraine. Those elites convinced the governing circles to accept their conception of foreign policy. In Poland, this was all the easier because people originating directly from those elites formed part of the decision-making bodies. In Ukraine, however, the foreign policy conception of the dissident circles was internalised by the President. Secondly, using the game theory and assuming the rationality of decision-makers, the decision-making process was reconstructed, understood in the category of interactions between two decision-making centres. The two states aimed to conclude a treaty that would satisfy both parties. It can thus be concluded that they demonstrated a readiness to compromise during the negotiations. It can also be assumed that this readiness was slightly asymmetrical in Poland’s favour. Ukraine was willing to sacrifice much more in order for the treaty to be negotiated.

The Pauline methodology of communicating the Word to a gentile audience

The article describes and reconnoitres how the Apostle Paul, a Hebrew who was a welllearned man and a brilliant scholar and studentunder Gamaliel, went about conveying the Word to the Gentiles. The aim of this brief study is thus to describe the methodology used by the Apostle Paul to communicate the Word. He was raised to leadership and mentorship and gave guidance to the body of Christ and used every form of communication at his disposal to share the gospel with the surrounding Gentile world. Though he was called to preach the word of God to the Gentiles, he also preached to the Jews and defended the gospel against various kinds of obstinate and pagan rulers. The New Testament (Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη) has a compilation of the letters written by the Apostle Paul. It should also be noted that although he was a prolific writer and teacher of the word, Paul encountered many barriers when it came to sharing the gospel. He was nonetheless very able to connect with people in the Graeco-Roman world outside of his culture and could easily communicate with the intellectual élites he encountered in the Empire. He was an eloquent speaker and also engaged effectively with the non-believers in the promulgation of the gospel message. Paul allowed both give-and-take, he was always eager to answer acute questions on faith issues, and he exerted himself in aiding people to acknowledge the truth of Jesus Christ. At times Paul spent a short period of time in a city, presenting the gospel and opening new churches. However, in Acts 18:11, it is evident that Paul stayed at one place for up to a year and time was spent in instructing the locals and also in evangelizing. This was clearly a sound strategy designed to meet his objective. In the Graeco-Roman culture, Paul personified a strong voice present in his oral and written works. The theoretical framework used in this study was the Shannon and Weaver Communication Model. This paper was based on a desktop research approach and literature from various sources was used including holy scriptures, academic articles, books, and various online sources.

Indexicalidad, gentrificación lingüística y desigualdad social en el proceso de estandarización del gallego

The aim of this paper is to show the relationship between indexicality, standardization policy and socioeconomic inequalities in the Galician linguistic field (as a minor language of Spain). I will examine the discursive role of Galician elites in the building of indexical orders from the Renaissance movement (19th century) onwards, and its links to the current negative representations of rural Galician. Also, I will explore the relationship between anti-rural prejudices, ideologies of class and standard ideologies, showing how common speakers share the stigmatizing indexical values of the elites, and rural speakers consent to the symbolic violence of which they are victims. Finally, I adapt the concept of gentrification from contemporary urbanism to the linguistic field in order to explain the impact of elitist academic lingualizing discourse on traditional speakers of Galician and also on the value of their varieties in the linguistic market. I support my analysis on the metalinguistic discourse of members of the intellectual elites authorized in the Galician linguistic and cultural field from Renaissance to contemporaneity, attitudinal matched-guise research, and ethnographic studies of the second millennium.

Think Tanks and Foreign Policy

The role of think tanks as policy actors has developed over time and created significant global scholarship. Widely understood as non-state policy actors, think tanks established either with or without the support of government have evolved in various political contexts with varied characteristics. They are avenues for the discussion of new policy ideas as well as used for the consolidation of existing understandings of global and national political issues. As ideational actors think tanks interact with policy frameworks at different levels, either in the framing stage or at the stage of consensus building towards certain policies. Intellectual elites at think tanks allow for the introduction of think tank ideas into the policy frames as well as the creation of public opinion towards foreign policy decisions. Think tank deliberations involve an interaction with policymakers, academic experts, business and social actors, as well as the media to disseminate ideas. Institutionally, think tanks in a wide variety of political contexts play a critical role in the making of foreign policy and bring closer attention to processes of state–society interactions in different political environments.

Remembering forgotten heroes and the idealisation of true love: Veteran memorial activism in contemporary China

Recent research on collective memory and war commemoration highlights the ‘conspicuous silence’ of war veterans in Chinese history. Studies of the War of Resistance against Japan (1937–1945) typically reflect either a state-centred approach, which emphasises the official history constructed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), or the alternative narratives constructed by intellectual elites in post-socialist China. In response to these top-down narratives, this essay focuses instead on a historical redress movement led by ex-servicemen of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The former PLA members, the participant volunteers of this movement, devote themselves into seeking and supporting a group of forgotten Kuomintang (KMT) veterans who fought against the Japanese invaders in the Second World War but now struggle with impoverished living conditions. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from 2013 to 2015, I will show how the daily interactions between these two groups of veterans embody a more private and internalised sense of commemorative yearning for a lost past, highlighting in the process the value of ethnographic research in breaking through the wall of silence constructed by hegemonic histories around veteran communities and their role in making war history.

The Institutionalization of the Bulgarian Circus between 1944 and 1957

This article analyzes the process of institutionalization of the Bulgarian circus be-tween 1944 and 1957. The appreciation of circus as “an equal member of the large family of socialist arts” was rooted in a belief that it was a democratic spectacle which transcended social divisions and classes. The source of the perception of the circus as an instrument of social change can be traced to pre-war Soviet tradition, when the circus became not only a tool of state cultural policy, but also inspired the most important creators of literary and theater avant-garde. In post-war Bulgaria, in order to improve the quality of performances, interinstitutional cooperation of the circus with literary and theater circles was initiated, and with the purchase of circuses by the state, numerous regulations were introduced in the profession of a circus artist. This purchase was not synonymous with nationalization: the state bought the circuses from the hands of their pre-war owners, allowing them to continue to perform strategic functions in the circuses.At the same time, despite deep institutional changes, the circus after 1944 main-tained its semi-peripheral status of an entertainment spectacle, not worth considering on the part of intellectual elites and unfit for the project of national high art. It is this peripheral potential of the circus as a spectacle not shaped by the refinement of the elites, that opens up new research perspectives which allow us to view the circus as a laboratory of social and cultural change. As a nomadic travelling institution, the circus crossed geographical boundaries and communicated with viewers from cities and villages, as well as representatives of various social groups and strata. On the other hand, multiethnic, international environment of the circus was a space for inten-sive transfer and intercultural dialogue, both in the artistic dimension and in the sphere of everyday interpersonal practices.

„Heutiger Nachbar – gestriger Untertan“

How did intellectual elites, who had acquired their position and formed their self-conception within the Ottoman Empire, deal with its loss and change? This question is discussed by looking at their representations of Southeast Europe in Ottoman and Turkish travel literature. The study analyses their attempts to continuously reposition themselves, their homeland and Southeast Europe in times of a shifting international balance of power. It also explores two mechanisms of processing the things observed – wonder and remembering. This approach allows us to reassess the importance of the lost region to the authors’ present and sheds new light on the transition from empire to republic.

From Common Reader to Canon: Memorialising the Shakespeare-Reading British Soldier During the First World War

In 1916, at the same time as Shakespearean tercentenary addresses were claiming that Shakespeare epitomised British national ideals, numerous press dispatches ‘from the field’ appeared in British newspapers seeming to prove the existence of a large audience of Shakespearean readers among those fighting for those ‘ideals’ in active zones. This chapter examines some of these claims. It asks how the image of the Shakespeare-reading soldier was deployed within book-trade and charity publicity and capitalised upon by educators and other members of Britain’s cultural and intellectual elites. It assesses the ways in which press anecdotes about soldiers reading the classics contributed to larger discourses of national identity and cultural and aesthetic mobilisation. Finally, it asks how these accounts may have contributed to the conflict’s transmutation into a ‘literary war’ in post-war collective memory, one in which literature came to assume an outsized role in how the conflict was subsequently memorialised.