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Through a case study based on original interviews, this book offers an analysis of the invisible bonds of trust that hold a community together, extending the local and national perspective. The case of Finland and nuclear company Fennovoima, first working with the German energy company E.ON, and later with the Russian state-owned company Rosatom, opens a window onto the Finnish culture of trust: what kind of collective belief system lies at the foundation of public life and decision-making in the energy sector? This story can help us look at our own roots and the stories we have grown up with, allowing us to understand ourselves and others as connected to the land, in the current era of a seemingly victorious new world order. Those interested in an in-depth analysis of a Northern political culture and its historical roots should read this book. In fact, anyone interested in current world politics should read this book: it is an eye-opener to what happens in deeper levels of decision-making.
How can stories and legends, written and oral, help people suffering from severe traumas or harsh conditions, now or in the past? Can storytelling help us sort out our innermost feelings and troubles? This deeply human subject is relevant not only to practitioners of psychotherapy, but to all of us, as we sometimes go through difficult times in life. In Therapeutic Uses of Storytelling, a cross-disciplinary group of researchers examine the ways in which narrative might aid in coping with difficult situations in life, and with the emotions that these situations engender. Starting with an introduction to basic narrative theories and the therapeutic effects of storytelling, the book then moves ...
The ‘open society’ has become a watchword of liberal democracy and the market system in the modern globalized world. Openness stands for individual opportunity and collective reason, as well as bottom-up empowerment and top-down transparency. It has become a cherished value, despite its vagueness and the connotation of vulnerability that surrounds it. Scandinavia has long considered itself a model of openness, citing traditions of freedom of information and inclusive policy making. This collection of essays traces the conceptual origins, development, and diverse challenges of openness in the Nordic countries and Austria. It examines some of the many paradoxes that openness encounters and...
Historical scholarship is currently undergoing a digital turn. All historians have experienced this change in one way or another, by writing on word processors, applying quantitative methods on digitalized source materials, or using internet resources and digital tools. Digital Histories showcases this emerging wave of digital history research. It presents work by historians who – on their own or through collaborations with e.g. information technology specialists – have uncovered new, empirical historical knowledge through digital and computational methods. The topics of the volume range from the medieval period to the present day, including various parts of Europe. The chapters apply an...
How did the drastic experiences of the turbulent twentieth century affect the works of a legal historian? What kind of an impact did they have on the ideas of justice and rule of law prominent in legal historiography? Ville Erkkila analyses the way in which the concepts of 'Rechtsgewissen' and 'Rechtsbewusstsein' evolved over time in the works of the prestigious legal historian Franz Wieacker. With the help of previously unavailable sources such as private correspondence, the author reveals how Franz Wieacker's personal experiences intertwined in his legal historiography with the tradition of legal science as well as the social and political destinies of twentieth century Germany.
This book explores the institution of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a policy instrument. It argues that after the Cold War the European Union started challenging the unilateral policies of the United States by promoting new norms and institutions, such as the ICC. This development flies in the face of traditional explanations for cooperation, which would theorize institutionalization as the result of hegemonic preponderance, rational calculations or common identities. The book explains the dynamics behind the emergence of the ICC with a novel theoretical concept of normative binding. Normative binding is a strategy that provides middle powers with the means to tie down the unilateral policies of powerful actors that prefer not to cooperate. The idea is to promote new multilateral norms and deposit them in institutions, which have the potential to become binding even on unilateralist actors, if the majority of states adhere to them.
In this work, Marko Ampuja offers a critical reassessment of mainstream perspectives on globalization, challenging their media-centrism and their lack of historical materialist analysis of global capitalism and the power of neoliberalism.
Challenges and Solutions in Ethnographic Research: Ethnography with a Twist seeks to rethink ethnography ‘outside the box’ of its previous tradition and to develop ethnographic methods by critically discussing the process, ethics, impact and knowledge production in ethnographic research. This interdisciplinary edited volume argues for a ‘twist’ that supports openness, courage, and creativity to develop and test innovative and unconventional ways of thinking and doing ethnography. ‘Ethnography with a twist’ means both an intentional aim to conduct ethnographic research with novel approaches and methods but also sensitivity to recognize and creativity to utilize different kinds of ...
‘Power investigation’, or the practice of power to legitimize itself through commissioned programmes of scientific enquiry, is a hallmark of Nordic democracy. Five power investigations have been conducted in the Nordic countries since 1972. The close connection to state power has not dissuaded prominent scholars from participating in them, nor have their findings evoked strong criticism. Combining politically guided perspectives with collaborative research, power investigations represent public events that typify the ostensibly open political culture of the Nordic countries, rather than simply existing as texts or as a politico-scientific genre. Although such investigations have been tho...
The Cold War was a media phenomenon. It was a daily cultural political struggle for the hearts and minds of ordinary people—and for government leaders, a struggle to undermine their enemies’ ability to control the domestic public sphere. This collection examines how this struggle played out on screen, radio, and in print from the late 1970s through the early 1990s, a time when breaking news stories such as Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” program and Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost captured the world’s attention. Ranging from the United States to the Soviet Union and China, these essays cover photojournalism on both sides of the Iron Curtain, Polish punk, Norwegian film, Soviet magazines, and more, concluding with a contribution from Stuart Franklin, one of the creators of the iconic “Tank Man” image during the Tiananmen Square protests. By investigating an array of media actors and networks, as well as narrative and visual frames on a local and transnational level, this volume lays the groundwork for writing media into the history of the late Cold War.