Unions and agricultural protests in inland Spain during the Transition: the example of Burgos province (1975–80)

This article analyses the creation of unions and the evolution of protests (demonstrations, tractor blockades) instigated by farmers in the province of Burgos, in the interior of northern Spain, during the period following the death of the dictator Francisco Franco known as the Transition (1975–80). The study uses press articles, documentation from the Civil Government and information gathered through personal interviews. The aim of the article is to show that the farmers of the interior of northern Spain – an electorally conservative region – also participated in the citizens’ protests that were the driving force behind the democratisation process in the country during the 1970s.

Catholic Political Thought and Calvinist Ecclesiology in Samuel Rutherford's Lex, Rex (1644)

This article presents a significant reinterpretation of an essential text in Scottish (and British) political thought, Samuel Rutherford's Lex, Rex, by analyzing its relationship with Catholic scholasticism. While scholars have observed Rutherford's use of Catholic authors, there has been no sustained analysis of how Rutherford strategically applied this intellectual tradition to the religious and political context of the British civil wars. Ideas about human liberty, the law of nations, and popular sovereignty that were developed by Catholic scholastics in the School of Salamanca allowed Rutherford to defend limited monarchy and fulfill an ecclesiological purpose in seventeenth-century Britain. He, and the majority of his Covenanter contemporaries, believed in jure divino presbyterianism: scripture mandated that elders and synods, not bishops, should rule the church. To ensure a presbyterian settlement, Rutherford needed to disprove royalist absolutists who claimed that presbyterianism threatened absolute monarchy (the divinely ordained form of civil government) by limiting royal supremacy over the church. By building on Catholic scholastic political ideas, Rutherford was able to argue that human beings could change the form of civil government and that absolute monarchy was not required by God. Ironically, to make a civil state safe for presbyterianism, Rutherford resorted to Catholic scholastics rather than those of his own confessional tradition. This analysis urges reconsideration of not only the porosity of traditional confessional boundaries in early modern political thought but the respective positions of both Calvinism and Catholicism in shaping the political ideas underlying the British revolutions of the mid-seventeenth century.

Romos katalikų dvasininkų tarnybos prasižengimų samprata ir praktika Šiaurės vakarų krašte (po 1863–1864 m. sukilimo – iki XX a. pradžios)

ANNOTATION. This article analyses the concept of the official misconduct of the Roman Catholic clergy in the sphere of the civil authorities in the so-called Northwest region (which comprised the dioceses of Vilnius and Samogitia [Telšiai]) in the decades from the Uprising uf 1863–1864 to the beginning of the 20th century. It also dwells on the legal situation of Catholic clergymen, and the practice of their punishment that developed after the January Uprising. A more detailed inquiry into the ways clergymen were punished for their official misconduct is aimed at disclosing not only the attitude of the civil government towards the clergy, but also the social standing of the clergymen in the society of those times, and the attitude towards their duties. KEYWORDS: Roman Catholic clergy, Russian Empire, dioceses of Samogitia (Telšiai) and Vilnius, official misconduct.

Greek Salonika

Salonika (Thessaloniki) was the great prize of the war. Having got there first, the Greeks were determined to hold onto it and repel Bulgarian attempts to assert their claim. Venizelos's main effort went into establishing strong civil government, restoring trade and dealing with refugee relief. His appointments (Raktivan as governor, Negrepontis for refugees) reflected this. The indigenous population, especially the large Jewish community, were mainly indifferent or hostile to the Greek occupation. Although the new Greek administration proclaimed equal rights for all, some non-Greek peoples, especially Muslims, began to be squeezed out, emigrating to Asia Minor. Opposition politicians in Athens (Theotokis, Rallis, Gounaris) criticized Venizelos for alleged weakness in dealing with Bulgarian claims, while Bishop Chrysostom of Smyrna urged him to dictate a harsh piece to the Muslims, favoring the Christians of Asia Minor.

Sudan Transitional Government Economic Measures: Missing the Revolutionary Twinkling

The Sudan transitional government policy and action were different from the socioeconomic and political demands of the revolutionary forces and from the Economic Salvation Plan developed by the civil government political incubator, Forces of Freedom and Change. Economic measures proposed targeted macroeconomic stabilisation through immediate lifting of subsidies and freeing the exchange rate, without viable pre-conditions being in place. The government plan to mitigate negative effects of removing the fuel and food subsidies was to raise wage of civil servants and to provide cash transfers to the poor. Both of these two measures as proposed were totally inappropriate.