Search Results (28)

In the 21st century, the space system has experienced a substantial shift from a simple unipolar to a new and more complex structure. This transition is the result of the emergence of new space powers and global power dynamics. The central hypothesis of this research work is that the space system is undergoing an intersystem transition from a unipolar, U.S.-dominant, post-Cold War space system to a new and more complex structure that includes new space powers and a redistribution and rebalancing of power dynamics. The unipolar structure that prevailed in the post-Cold War era has been replaced by a new space system, in which emerging space powers exhibit global ambitions and a willingness to compete with and challenge the United States’ dominance. These shifts in the number of space actors, power dynamics, and the structure of the space system necessitate novel scientific approaches. This research postulates the utilization of systems science as a means to enhance our comprehension of the intersystem transition and the rebalancing of power in the space system in recent decades. The result of this study is a comprehensive analysis of the major space actors in the 21st-century space system, the analysis of the redistribution of power among them, and the new power structure that has emerged. Full article

The papacies of Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis coincided with a period of conflict and change in Europe. In the post-war period, Europe was still divided along ideological lines, with much of it having experienced invasion, occupation, and totalitarianism. Both John Paul II (1920–2005) and Benedict XVI (1927–2022) experienced the excesses of totalitarianism, profoundly affecting their outlook. Their papacies also coincided with a formative period in the post-war era: the end of the Cold War, the emergence of a new European order, and the disenchantment with that same order. Though not hailing from Europe, Pope Francis (1936–) has been an equally vital contributor to the conversation of the “idea of Europe”. This paper proposes to identify how the idea of Europe features in the work of these three popes and whether there are elements of continuity and dissonance. Full article

The air quality in Mosul was adversely affected both directly and indirectly during and after the conflict phase, spanning from the occupation to the liberation of the city from ISIS (2014–2017). Direct impacts included the ignition of oil fields and sulphur deposits, as well as the use of military weapons and their propellants. Indirectly, the air quality was also compromised by various other factors negatively affecting the quality due to excessive emission levels of air pollutants, such as particulate matter (PM), sulphur dioxide (SO₂), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and other toxic gases. Six important locations in the city of Mosul were selected, and the concentrations of the parameters PM2.5, PM10, formaldehyde (HCHO), total volatile organic compounds (TVOC), NO₂ and SO₂ were determined at monthly intervals during the year 2022. The sites were selected both according to their proximity and their specific distance from the direct conflict zone. The aim was to assess the present pollutant levels based on WHO guidelines and to compare the results with previous pre-war studies to understand the long-term war impact on air quality. The results showed that the annual average values of PM2.5, PM10 and NO₂ were above the WHO limits at all locations throughout the year. In contrast, the annual average values of TVOC, HCHO and SO₂ were within the limits in the hot months but exceeded them in the cold months (December to March), which can be attributed to the use of heating material in winter. Two sites revealed higher pollution levels than the others, which can be attributed to their proximity to the devastated areas (conflict zones), high traffic density and a high density of power generators. These factors were further exacerbated by post-war migration from the destroyed and unsafe areas. Thus, in addition to the short-term effects of burning oil fields and sulphur deposits, as well as airborne weapon emissions, the increase in traffic, the use of decentralized power generators, and the higher demand for heating oil, progressive desertification due to deforestation and the destruction of extensive green areas, as well as increasing and unaddressed environmental violations in general, can be held responsible for declining air quality in the urban area. This work should be considered as preliminary work to emphasise the urgent need for conventional air quality monitoring to consolidate air quality data and monitor the effectiveness of different approaches to mitigate war-related air quality deterioration. Possible approaches include the implementation of air purification technologies, the preservation of existing ecosystems, the replacement of fossil energy sources with renewable energy options, proactive and sustainable urban planning and enforcing strict air quality regulations and policies to control and reduce pollution levels. Full article

Religion in international relations should not be viewed solely as a source of conflict or cultural differences; it also has a constructive dimension, as demonstrated by the international activities of faith-based organizations (FBOs). FBOs have benefited from the post-Cold War expansion of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in global affairs. Their growth is often linked to raising awareness among various social groups about security challenges or issues traditionally addressed by state and inter-governmental actors, as well as increasing international interconnectedness. While FBOs differ from classical NGOs in their strong religious motivation, they too often organize around specific missions or messages. The Community of Sant’Egidio (CSE) is a distinctive example of a faith-based organization that operates both as a religious community within the Roman Catholic Church and as an internationally active NGO. Unlike many NGOs, which are founded in response to a singular issue, CSE has broadened its scope over time, addressing a wide range of concerns, from poverty alleviation and peacebuilding to humanitarian aid and, more recently, environmental issues. This paper explores the process by which the CSE has discursively constructed its identity and examines how this process has contributed to its growing influence on the international stage. Full article

Contemporary scholars share a common vision of the phenomenon of autocephaly as a virtue empowering a local Orthodox church independently to elect its supreme hierarch and run its domestic affairs without the endorsement of another church leader. While the academic discussion on this subject is concentrated on the canonical and theological aspects of autocephaly, the presented study shifts the focus to the involvement of civil authorities in the promotion and abolishment of this ecclesiastical status. It challenges the conventional perception of such interventions as something incidental or a feature of particular political formations. It aims to reveal that civil authorities have been a constant factor in the establishment of new autocephalies since the recognition of Christianity as an official religion in the Roman Empire. For this purpose, the focus falls on the Chalcedonian Eastern Orthodox churches which have centuries-old traditions in autocephaly-related practices from the Edict of Milan (313) to the end of the Cold War. It also takes into account the different legal frameworks within which civil authorities used to validate new autocephalies. On the grounds of this analysis, the concluding remarks reflect on the impact of this experience on the autocephaly-building process in post-atheist areas. Full article

The architectural heritage directly related to the refugees from Europe who came to the USA as a result of World War II is still an under-researched topic. New post-war arrivals from the displaced persons camps resulted in a sizeable growth of the already well-established Lithuanian community, infusing it with highly educated professionals. This also included many architects who needed to adapt and continue their practice in a different environment while also finding a way to be useful for the objectives of their national group. The aim of this paper is to examine the architectural legacy of the Lithuanian community in the post-war decades in the USA, emphasizing buildings that were designed with a specific aspiration to implement national character. Research finds that buildings built for the Lithuanian community carried a strong symbolical language that was a peculiar, yet enriching case, in regard to the then-dominant mid-century modernist trends. These structures show the determination of the national group to use their built environment as a medium to reinforce their identity and use architecture as a political statement. The paper proposes to interpret this politically motivated and stylistically distinctive architecture as monuments testifying to the political atmosphere of the Cold War. In this way, the heritage value of these buildings is linked not to avant-garde architectural styles, but to the political needs of a specific community in exile. Full article

Since the first launch of an artificial satellite—Sputnik 1—in 1957, space activities have played a significant role as a pioneering technological sector with a high impact on the international scenario. The space system has changed rapidly in the last 30 years, as a result of an intersystemic transition from a bipolar and simplified space system in the 20th century to a new and more complex space system in the 21st century. The post-Cold War space system has undergone multiple changes in its key system parameters—actors, interactions, processes, trends, etc.—that require new scientific approaches. Currently, there is extensive literature that attempts to address these changes, but it is an atomized and fragmented approach that focuses only on particular aspects of space activities, failing to provide a holistic perspective of the systemic changes. This article is analytical and is concerned with how space activities can be empirically examined using a systemic-level approach and systems models, and how the fundaments of systems science are a valuable methodological toolkit to be applied to the field of space studies. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to apply a systems architecture model—previously developed for the author—to the study of the key characteristics of the 21st century space age. The result is a systemic-level study of the new space age in the 21st century, which identifies and describes the intersystemic transition from the Cold War (1947–1991) to the post-Cold War period (1991 to the present), showing the profound changes in the main parameters of the space system and the emergence of new space actors, interactions, processes, and megatrends in space that have a significant impact on the entire world system. Full article

The abstractionist paintings of Puerto Rican artist Olga Albizu (1924–2005) gained prominence in the late 1950s when her work debuted in galleries across the Americas and entered the commercial music industry with RCA and Verve records. However, existing scholarship has failed to capture the complex relationship between Albizu’s anti-commercial abstractionist aesthetic and its mass reproduction as cover art for vinyl records during the Cold War era. Returning to the canvas to explore the iconographic, formal, and aesthetic qualities of Albizu’s work within its sociohistorical post-World War II context, this study reveals Albizu’s devotion to formal borders, vivid color juxtapositions, and compositional tensions. I argue that Albizu’s practice constitutes an ongoing concern with a Modernist dialectic and ideals about subjective transformation in a postmodern world of mass culture, a message she conveyed through the material and experiential borders of the canvas. As an avowed formalist and Modernist existing between the postcolonial and postmodern worlds of San Juan and New York City, her work merits formal scrutiny. This paper will add to the diverse histories of Abstract Expressionism and mid-century Modernisms across the Americas while shedding light on an important post-war historical moment and artistic impulse that held on to anti-commercial values in an all-encompassing consumerist world. Full article

The literary topic of Siamese twins is not unfamiliar. American literary history tells us of the genealogy from Mark Twain’s pseudo-antebellum story The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson and the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins (1894), Karen Tei Yamashita’s postmodern metafiction “Siamese Twins and Mongoloids: Cultural Appropriation and the Deconstruction of Stereotype via the Absurdity of Metaphor” (1999), down to Shelley Jackson’s James Tiptree, Jr. award winner Half-Life (2006). Rereading these works, we are easily invited to notice the political unconscious hidden deep within each plot: Twain’s selection of the Italian Siamese twins based upon Chang and Eng Bunker, antebellum stars of the Barnum Museum, cannot help but recall the ideal of the post-Civil War world uniting the North and the South; Yamashita’s figure of the conjoined twins Heco and Okada derives from Hikozo Hamada, an antebellum Japanese who made every effort to empower the bond between Japan and the United States, and John Okada, the Japanese American writer well known for his masterpiece No No Boy (1957); and Jackson’s characterization of the female conjoined twins Nora and Blanche Olney represents a new civil rights movement in the post-Cold War age in the near future, establishing a close friendship between the humans and the post-humans. This literary and cultural context should convince us that Yamashita’s short story “Siamese Twins and Mongoloids” serves as a kind of singularity point between realist twins and magic realist twins. Influenced by Twain’s twins, Yamashita paves the way for the re-figuration of the conjoined twins not only as tragi-comical freaks in the Gilded Age but also as representative men of magic realist America in our Multiculturalist Age. A Close reading of this metafiction composed in a way reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges, Stanislaw Lem and Bruce Sterling will enable us to rediscover not only the role conjoined twins played in cultural history, but also the reason why Yamashita had to feature them once again in her novel I Hotel (2010) whose plot centers around the Asian American civil rights movement between the 1960s and the 1970s. Accordingly, an Asian American magic realist perspective will clarify the way Yamashita positioned the figure of Siamese Twins as representing legal and political double standards, and the way the catachresis of Siamese Twins came to be naturalized, questioned and dismissed in American literary history from the 19th century through the 21st century. Full article

This paper explores the intersection of personal responsibility, futility, and faith in visual representations of nuclear apocalypse. In two films produced during the late Cold War, Testament (1983) and When the Wind Blows (1986), the protagonists attempt to follow public guidance, maintain daily routines as their health and communities break down, and make muddled connections to religious faith. In Testament, a mother is left to care for her children in suburban California for months after an unexplained nuclear attack isolates and contaminates the town. In When the Wind Blows, a retired couple living in the British countryside diligently follow government instructions to “protect and survive”, while quickly succumbing to radiation poisoning. In a contrasting post-Cold War visual representation, the speculative artwork of the artists Erich Berger and Mari Keto imagine the storage of nuclear waste as a personal responsibility. In OpenCare (2016), waste is encased in steel pellets mounted on a bronze disc, and a series of artifacts and instructions assist in determining continued toxicity. While Testament and When the Wind Blows project the futility of personal responsibility and faith in nuclear survival, Berger and Keto’s system envisions a deep nuclear future requiring continued personal management and care. Full article

Transboundary water cooperation (TWC) is an important theme of international cooperation. We conducted macro-level research on TWC from the perspective of inter-country relations and constructed a theoretical framework in which multidimensional proximity influences the formation of global TWC. We explained how multidimensional proximity and the constituent elements comprehensively influence the cooperative willingness and ability of actors, which directly drive the generation of global TWC. During the empirical research phase, we constructed the TWC frequency and intensity networks based on historical TWC events data from 1992 to 2013. By using social network analysis and QAP regression analysis, the spatial structure and proximity effect of water cooperation linkages are examined. It can be found that: (1) the reconstruction of territorial space on the eve of the end of the Cold War led to the peak of water cooperation events in 1992. The overall scale of events in the Post-Cold War era was relatively high and fluctuated steadily. (2) Water cooperation linkages have distinct spatial heterogeneity and are concentrated in the Eurasian and the African continents. Water cooperation is sensitive to geographical distance, and high-intensity water cooperation linkages exist in only a few areas. (3) China, Egypt, Germany, the United States, and Russia have prominent positions in the network. The United States, Japan, and other extra-regional powers actively participated in TWC in the Eastern Hemisphere. (4) The regression results show that geographical, economic, organizational, and colonial proximity significantly affect the intensity of water cooperation among countries. Full article

Szeklerland is a historical-ethnic region located on the eastern border of the Carpathian Basin, in the central region of Romania. In Szeklerland, thanks to its varied topography and a network of small settlements, landscape management is still carried out using traditional methods. Szeklerland is a macro-region rich in natural resources. Among its natural treasures, the mineral water springs with healing properties are of particular importance: around 40 percent of Romania’s mineral water resources are found here. This richness in hydrogeological features is due to the fact that the post-volcanic activities in the young tertiary mountain ranges in the region still produce large quantities of carbon dioxide, which dissolves beneficial minerals from the earth. When dissolved in water, these minerals produce mineral waters that can be used to cure various types of diseases. For centuries, the medicinal properties of the mineral waters of Szeklerland have been regularly used by the local population. In addition to their consumption, small and larger vernacular baths were built in the settlements with medicinal springs, and their regular use led to the development of a traditional, local cold-water bathing culture in the region. However, the vernacular baths were destroyed in the world wars, and their traditional use was abolished by the apparatus of the 20th century communist regime, which had no respect to natural and cultural heritage. After the political change in 1989, the attention of the society turned back to tradition and values. Alongside (or as part of) nature and landscape conservation initiatives, the reinterpretation and restoration of the intangible and practical values of vernacular baths in Szeklerland also began. Over the past decades, the renovation of vernacular baths, which started as a professional–civic initiative, has grown into an independent heritage conservation programme: dozens of vernacular baths have been renovated in Szeklerland over the past twenty years with public participation initiated and led by professionals. In the course of the renovations, baths used by local communities have been rebuilt using nature- and environment-friendly techniques, materials and in a way that they are also related to the physical environment and the mythology of the region. The project has won prestigious awards both in Romania and internationally, and has become a successful and exemplary movement in landscape heritage conservation. Full article

This article explores the growing affinity for the post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church by far-right Orthodox converts in the United States, highlighting how the spiritual draw to the faith is caught up in the globalizing politics of traditionalism and a transnational, ideological reimaging of the American culture wars. Employing ethnographic fieldwork from the rural United States and digital qualitative research, this study situates the post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church in the international flows of conservativism focused on reclaiming social morals and traditional religiosity. In doing so, this article sheds light on how the post-Soviet Orthodox Church is viewed politically by a growing contingent of American religious and political actors who are turning to Russian Orthodoxy and Putin’s government during this New Cold War moment of tension between the United States and Russia. I argue that the allure of the post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church for conservatives in the West offers us a window into how the institution is situated imaginatively within transnational politics, thereby providing us insights into the rapidly transforming culture wars fomenting globally. Full article

Atomic metaphors permeated daily life as the world reacted to the atomic bombings of Japan and the nuclear threat of the Cold War. These metaphors reveal a widespread sense of ownership of atomic narratives and public conceptions of victimhood that are often divorced from actual nuclear victims. Japan faced the reality of the nuclear again in 2011 when three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant exploded, spreading toxic radiation far and wide. Rather than turn to religion to make sense of the traumatic destruction and existential threat of this invisible force, the Japanese have processed the catastrophe through a secular discussion of victimhood. In the decade since the Fukushima accident, the discourse about victims in Japan has narrowed to emphasize the authority of the tōjisha—victims with direct experience of the disaster—to tell their story. The debate over narrative ownership has challenged the literary community, and post-disaster Japanese literature is an important site of imaginative exploration of this victimhood. Using the theories of Jean-Luc Nancy and Michael Rothberg, this article examines collective memory and the catastrophic equivalence of Hiroshima and Fukushima, as well as the Japanese terminology for victims, in order to provide insight into the struggles for ownership of atomic narratives. Rather than proposing solutions, the article interrogates the ongoing literary controversy over the victim/non-victim divide. Full article

This article situates David Cronenberg’s film Eastern Promises in the context of post-Cold-War European narratives. It argues that the secret dealings of the Russian mob in London are presented in the film as the uncanny and spectral return of forms of government and business that run counter to the rationale conventionally associated with democratic capitalism and at the same time reveal much about its inherent logic. Cronenberg’s film connects private traumata with the violent reality of globalization, staging one as the ghostly realization of the other. Full article