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Parades were an intrinsic part of urban life in Belgium between the middle of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Scholars have used these festivities time and again to probe into nationalism and the growing political tensions of the time. However, much less attention has been paid to the relation between these parades and the townscape itself. Th is article tries to fi ll this gap by exploring how urban festivities can reveal the diff ering ways in which small-town populations coped with the dilemma of modernization versus preservation (or even creation) of a historical townscape. To this end the routes of the parades are examined, as well as the selective illumination of certain buildings and town quarters, the fl oats and temporary constructions used during these festivities.
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This article examines the extent to which spaces are structuring influences on, or targets of, action. Two factors and their interactions are presented: the extent to which a space is 1) maintained and 2) used. As these factors increase in strength, the structural influences of a space increase while agential opportunities are diminished. Conversely, as spaces become dilapidated and abandoned, structural forces are weakened and the potential for creative action heightens. These spaces can be conceptualized as elements of the ‘residual landscape’: spaces left behind by socio-historical processes and practices. Special cases are considered where the factors are inversely related and issues of structure and agency are complicated. A brief case study serves to illustrate each type of space and the factors which operate therein.
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Th is article explores what enables a space to become festive. We start by reviewing how the festive has been deeply connected with play, to the point of being considered a type of play, or more generally, a type of interaction. What enables the festive is the ability to interact with the substance on which participants feast. Th e question we will then explore in more detail is: given a subject matter from which to build a festive occasion or space, how do we go about making it happen? How do we model the festive space? It is impossible to show that there is only one way of going about enacting the festive. For this reason, it is more productive to propose a model of how to achieve such task. Th e model that emerges in this article proposes that dismembering the festive substance, in a participatory way, facilitates its enactment. We then examine two cases of festive enactment in diff erent mediums: the textual feast of Julio Cortázar’s novel Hopscotch that turns the printed page into a festive space, and the making of festive theatre, including the creation of the festive play Fire ’Scapes.
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Rosario Assunto, an Italian philosopher of aesthetics begins one of his most interesting and dense essays with a terrifying image about the Earth where we live—“calvizie della terra dissacrata” (1983, 15)—meaning that the Earth becomes bald because of the actions of the man and loses every characteristics of beauty and sacredness. According to Assunto’s theory the homo oeconomicus is the author and the promoter of a Promethean, titanic, industrial and malodorous town where the sense of art, beauty and the harmony in landscape are forgotten and erased. The Modern homo oeconomicus is satisfied in his thoughts and works with such a desecrated and raped Earth, rather, he desires this kind of landscape as a symbol of his own progress. I remember that when I first red this essays I asked to myself what kind of philosophy I could propose in such a horizon and what kind of analysis I could develop. Maybe geophilosophy could now give some answers. Geophilosophy, according to the version I will propose, deconstructs the usual and reductionist grammar about the concept of space and place, suggesting a new expressive, perceptive and, finally, ethic possibility for the relation between human beings and places. In this paper I provide my interpretation of geophilosophy, inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s words, the first philosopher of XX century who wrote about this concept. Then I will analyze non-places according to the famous definition proposed by the Marc Augé and I will go beyond the French anthropologist’s definition suggesting a new interpretative model for places and non-places by linking my idea of geophilosophy to Deleuze’s concept of rhizome. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the complexity of the concept of place and finally put into evidence that places, which constitute our roots, are all the spaces we have around, even non-places. Post-modern era mainly produces non-places: geophilosophy has to explain the philosophical and cultural reasons for this production by pointing out which possible modalities of connection we can find between contemporary human beings and places.
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Review of: Naomi Klein, Doctrina Șocului. Nașterea capitalismului dezastrelor
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The economic crisis brings back into attention the neglected issue of welfare state retrenchment and pressures to scale down social spending. Recent literature on welfare state shifted the focus from ideal types of welfare states to institutional constraints that affect the ability of a government to change the status quo. The analytical framework of veto players provides a useful tool not only for the affluent Western societies but also for the analysis of post-communist states. In the case of Romania, the core hypothesis of “new politics” of welfare state, namely the correlation between institutional stickiness and the success of social policy retrenchment proves to be sound.
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Review of: Michael Shafir, Radiografii și alte fobii. Studii contemporane, publicistică și pubelistică
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Twenty years of transition to a free economy seems to be not enough for economic adjustments in Romania. Moreover, in the last five years, the macroeconomic imbalances have widened. Government’s inability to adjust the excessive budget deficit has caused a fast growing of public debt and deep changes in social and fiscal policies, under the slogan “We make the State’s reform!”. However, there is still no consensus on economic and social effect caused by the high stock of public debt, especially for emerging countries, like Romania.
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Public policies are public actions carried out in a minimal institutional framework or in a welfare state. Determining the boundaries of public space is a complex action that depends on the actors involved, how resources are allocated, the request for proposals, the degree of economic development or the provision of features such as social justice or gain power in electoral competitions. Article seeks to outline the characteristics of minimal state and of welfare state from the perspective of public space versus private space and to analyze them flaws and failures. Creating a such institutional construct becomes a challenge beyond ideological lines, as long as, in practice it is almost impossible to establish it.
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This article summarizes a current academic debate: the problem of legitimacy of state intervention in economic and social fields. In their attempt to provide a general normative response to this problem, some Western scholars call the economic theory of "market failure"; others, however, counters with the theory of "government failure", arguing that the theory of market failure seems to commit the "Nirvana fallacy”, because contrasts the imperfect realities of free markets with a idealized corrective interventions of governments.
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This study starts from the assumption that the theory of distributive justice as fairness, theorized by John Rawls and the theory of justice as entitlement, outlined by Robert Nozick, are the main rivals in the arena of debate in contemporary political philosophy. After reiterating the arguments that describe Robert Nozick’s conceptual framework relating to the minimal state and the right of property, the author brings into discussion the contrasting elements of the two approaches about the social justice.
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This study starts from the observation that, before entering into the old disputes between the supporters of the different formes of state, first of all it must be started a discussion about the possibility of such a dispute. Built around the distinction outlined by Hayek between „the constructivist rationalism” and „the evolutionary rationalism”, this study tries to outline the necessity of a preamble to the topic in discussion.
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catallaxy, mână invizibilă, echilibru, cunoaștere, evoluţie culturală
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The article examines the current state architecture in Romania and analyses its main features, by answering to the questions „what kind of state we have” and „what kind of state we don’t have”. Its intention is to reassess the whole conception about the state and provide a new vision, which exceeds the old paradigms.
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In this paper we analyze some political aspects regarding monetary macroeconomics at EU level, stressing the importance of Maastricht Treaty of 1992, the monetary crisis that occurred in Europe in 1992-1993, we describe the advantages and disadvantages of Euro creation, we discuss about criteria and phases to enter in Euro zone, we analyze the specific situation of Romania, and we present our conclusion about the future of Euro zone and the consequences for Romanian economy.
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