Journal articles on the topic 'Republican philanthropy'

In “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy,” Kant holds the seemingly untenable position that lying is always prohibited, even if the lie is addressed to a murderer in an attempt to save the life of an innocent man. This article argues that Kant's position on lying should be placed back in its original context, namely a response to Benjamin Constant about the responsibility of individual agents toward political principles in post-revolutionary times. I show that Constant's theory of political responsibility, which sanctions the lie, is not based on expediency, but on principled realism, whereas Kant endorses a position that I describe as ‘political juridicism.’ This analysis enables us to uncover two plausible Republican theories of political responsibility in post-revolutionary times behind an apparently strictly ethical debate.

During the turbulent years between the Chinese nationalist revolution of 1911 and the communist victory of 1949, a group of missionaries lived and worked in West China whose social gospel theologies led to unusual identification with Chinese. Among the regular social actors in their lives were itinerant “curio men” who, amidst the chaos of feuding warlords, gathered up the heirlooms of the deposed Manchurian aristocracy and offered these wares for sale on the quiet and orderly verandahs of the mansions inside the missionary compounds of West China Union University. Although missionary men and women often collected the same types of Chinese antiquities, these became variously specimens, fine arts, commodities and household effects because their collecting practices were framed within different cultural and gendered domains of value. The scientific and connoisseurial male-gendered collecting paradigms often bolstered the anti-imperialist Chinese nationalist modernities of the Republican state. They were therefore paradoxically at odds with female-gendered collecting paradigms that drew in part upon feminist discourses of capitalist consumerism. Coupled with residual ideals of domesticity and philanthropy, these fluid female discourses resonated with emergent Chinese New Woman modernities and inspired missionary women in creative bicultural identity projects.

Abstract Chile’s abolition of slavery (1823) has commonly been framed within a self-congratulatory narrative that emphasizes the philanthropic role of republican elites and the peaceful nature of slave emancipation. The traditional narrative not only views abolition as an ideologically inspired gift from the elites, but also underscores Chile’s exceptionalism vis-à-vis other South American emancipation processes—in Chile, unlike in the rest of the continent, the eradication of slavery was supposedly both politically and socially insignificant. This article challenges two of this narrative’s assumptions: first, that consensus characterized the abolition of slavery in Chile, and second, that abolition was simply a philanthropic concession from the new nation’s republican elites. Instead, this study highlights how officials, slaveholders and enslaved people transformed slavery and its dismantlement into a contested issue. It also explores the proactive role that enslaved people played in undermining the institution of slavery throughout Chile, ultimately leading to its abolition.

Supporting and investing in the integration of immigrants and their children is critically important to US society. Successful integration contributes to the nation's economic vitality, its civic and political health, and its cultural diversity. But although the United States has a good track record on immigrant integration, outcomes could be better. A national, coherent immigrant integration policy infrastructure is needed. This infrastructure can build on long-standing partnerships between civil society and US public institutions. Such partnerships, advanced under Republican- and Democratic-led administrations, were initially established to facilitate European immigrants' integration in large American cities, and later extended to help refugees fleeing religious persecution and war. In the twenty-first century, we must expand this foundation by drawing on the growing activism by cities and states, new civil society initiatives, and public-private partnerships that span the country. A robust national integration policy infrastructure must be vertically integrated to include different levels of government and horizontally applied across public and private sector actors and different types of immigrant destinations. The resultant policy should leverage public-private partnerships, drawing on the energy, ideas, and work of community-based nonprofit organizations as well as the leadership and support of philanthropy, business, education, faith-based, and other institutions. A new coordinating office to facilitate interagency cooperation is needed in the executive branch; the mandate and programs of the Office of Refugee Resettlement need to be secured and where possible expanded; the outreach and coordinating role of the Office of Citizenship needs to be extended, including through a more robust grant program to community-based organizations; and Congress needs to develop legislation and appropriate funding for a comprehensive integration policy addressed to all, and not just humanitarian immigrants. The federal investments in immigrant and refugee integration we propose are a big ask for any administration; they seem especially unlikely under the Trump administration, whose efforts focus on enforcement and border control, targeting undocumented and legal immigrants alike. Yet immigrant integration is not and should not be a partisan issue. Federal politicians across the political spectrum need to realize, as many local officials and a large segment of the public already do, that successful immigrant integration is a win-win for everybody. When immigrants have more opportunities to learn English, to improve their schooling and professional training, to start businesses, and to access citizenship, we all benefit. A majority of the American public supports immigrant integration, from proposals for learning English to a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Local and state governments are setting up initiatives to promote integration. If the federal government will not act, cities, states, and civil society organizations must continue to work together to build an integration infrastructure from the bottom up.

The aim of this article is to understand the symbolic representations of the assistance strategies aimed at disadvantaged children, expressed in two newspapers published on the island of Faial, in the Azores, in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries (covering the time horizon between the end of the monarchic period and the implementation of the First Republic). The technique of documentary analysis and a subsequent qualitative thematic content analysis of childcare news collected in two local newspapers were used. The discursive records produced by the press on the assistance strategies value, on the one hand, an axiological dimension and forms of charitable intervention and, on the other hand, aggregate and reconcile the discourses and techniques inherent to charitable and philanthropic models. This mutual assimilation underlies the achievement of the same objective: The moralization and integration of disadvantaged invalid childhood and, above all, the protection of the existing social order. We conclude that, perhaps contrary to what would be expected, the charitable logic articulated in a concomitant way with the philanthropic logic survived, even with the stabilization of the republican period (result of a revolution that deposed the regime of the constitutional monarchy and implemented the republican regime in 1910 in Portugal, whose political elites mobilized an official discourse that advocated the separation between the State and Religion, assigning the State the function of social assistance for children and youth). This demonstrates a certain dissociation, as well as a relative autonomy of conceptions about child and youth care between republican political ideology and current social practices, at least in this specific context.

Abstract Dr. Lin Qiaozhi (1901-83) was China’s foremost female physician whose career reflects the country’s reproductive health policies from the Republican era to the early People’s Republic. This article examines the interconnections of politics and reproductive health campaigns in China, from Republican reliance on foreign philanthropic support, through the early PRC alliance and subsequent break with the Soviet Union, to China’s reforms in the 1970s. Lin’s life illuminates the many central shifts and tensions across the twentieth century: as a Western-trained physician, Lin represents the role of biomedicine in a modernizing China and the importance of reproductive health in forming a robust body politic. As an establishment intellectual, Lin was a model propagandist supporting government policy while using her power as a platform to serve her own goals. As a lifelong single woman with no children, Lin’s life manifests the ongoing conflict between the traditional values of wife and mother versus a woman’s independence, liberation, and the pursuit of a challenging and fulfilling career. Lin’s legacy continues into the twenty-first century as she remains an icon for young women and a role model for members of the medical profession.

Readers who expect a comprehensive analysis of biological science in modern China, as the blurb on the jacket promises, may be disappointed: this book specifically contrasts the small community of followers of T. H. Morgan in Republican China with the state-sponsored rise of Lysenkoism after 1949. The first part follows the development of genetics and evolutionary theory in three universities in China, namely National Central University in Nanjing; the missionary school of Yanjing University in Beijing, linked to the Rockefeller Foundation's Peking Union Medical College; and Nanjing University, an American missionary school closely tied to Cornell. The author shows that training in biology and genetics developed in these three schools, thanks to substantial philanthropic involvement from the United States, as a “transfer” of knowledge took place between Chinese life scientists and major American institutions.While the author presents valuable biographies of a small number of scientists such as Chen Zhen, Tan Jiazhen and Tang Peisong, and succeeds in recreating the political and institutional context within which these three geneticists operated, his work is insufficiently grounded in primary sources. The literature produced by biologists in Republican China is never invoked in any systematic way, the first chapter being largely based on Chen Zhen's biology textbook to create the impression of a neat “transfer” of knowledge from the United States. However, incompatible theories in biology were often invoked, contradictory ideas about evolution were bandied around, and vague phrases on “struggle for survival” were widespread in dozens of biology textbooks, many far more popular than Chen Zhen's work: neo-Lamarckism and Mendel-Morganism were never tidily organized into two “schools,” and they could even overlap, as very different writers from complex backgrounds struggled to make sense of an ever-growing global repertoire of biological theories. In Europe and the United States too, biologists disagreed over the relative importance of nurture versus nature, and China was no exception: diversity, elided by the author in favour of a fairly simplistic notion of an American success in Republican China before the failure of Lysenkoism under Soviet influence, is precisely what makes pre-1949 biology such a fascinating field.

In Brazil, from the 1950s to 1970s, the term “exceptional” was used to define people with disabilities as a counterpoint to a so-called “normal” human being. On the other hand, the term “exception regime” defined the post-1964 coup dictatorial government, which opposed the democratic republican regime. Based on the analysis of legislative documents, school records, reports on training internships in audiovisual resources, curricular proposals and demonstration schools, this article investigates the production of these exceptionalities and their consequences in school attendance for people with disabilities in the state of Espírito Santo during the dictatorial period (1964-1985). In this period, a bifronted movement was produced: in public education, the segregation of “exceptional” pupils - apparently supported by technical-pedagogical arguments - overshadowed social and economic factors that conditioned exclusions inside and outside of schools; in the private sphere, the creation of philanthropic institutions disobliged the state of the attendance to the ones who demanded differentiated educational support. In the first case, the aim was to promote analyses and solutions ranging from the domain of audiovisual resources and teaching techniques by teachers up to the organization of classes according to learning “levels” and “capacities” of the children judged “exceptional”. In the second case, basic principles of citizenship were denied.

In this essay I argue that despite the scope of change in the realms of military, security, economic, and social policies, as well as changes in the legal sphere, the path dependency left by the institutions of the previous imperial and republican regimes has influenced the current arrangements for the regulation of religion by the state in China. This state of affairs has less to do with something specific to Chinese culture and more to do with the particular institutional context of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In the first section of this paper, I consider the influence of previous regimes’ institutions that is still felt in the current regulatory mechanisms for the control of religion. Then, in the second section, I explore the current approach to religious affairs, drawing attention to its quadripartite dimensions: political, legal, administrative, and managerial. In a third section I examine the nature of the challenges faced by the Communist Party of China, the legal and state apparatus of the PRC, and the religious institutions. The discussion uses evidence from fieldwork that I have undertaken over the space of ten years on the philanthropic activities of Buddhist institutions in China. I conclude by discussing the political obstacles that stand in the way of implementing a secular state in China that is genuinely pluralist and supportive of religious diversity.

Theoretically, the Byzantine Emperor was, just like in the times of the Roman Empire, chosen on the basis of his personal qualities and merits ? by the grace of God, of course. Practically, the factors which determined the ascension of a person to the throne were much more complex, the methods of gaining power being multifarious. In consequence, the political philosophy was confronted with the question of whether it is virtue (aret?) or origin (g?noz) that defines an Emperor. Independently of this rather theoretical question, however, and despite the claims that the personal qualities are decisive in the choice of the Emperor, the origin of the ruler played an important role in the consciousness of the Byzantines of all epochs. This is why great attention was paid to the creation of family trees, especially in the cases when the Emperor was of low origin (homo novus) or when it was for some reason necessary to strengthen his legitimacy. The choice of the genealogy was not random: since it carried a clear political message, it was of utmost importance with whom the Emperor in power would be associated and whose historical deeds or legendary personality would serve as a moral model. Also important is the fact that the search of a "good family" was as a rule triggered by the need to confirm one's own virtue. Thus, genealogies often reflect a certain system of values, usually emphasizing morality, courage in war, care for the welfare of the country, piety, etc. The choice of the archetype depended, of course, on the needs of the ruler for whom the genealogy was created. All this allows us to consider legendary genealogies as an expression of the imperial ideology. Notwithstanding their chronological diversity, the Byzantine imperial genealogies display very similar characteristics, i.e. they contain stereotypical elements, many of which had been established already in the first centuries of the Eastern Empire. In the early Byzantine period, when Christianity was still young, Emperors were frequently associated with pagan gods and semi gods, like Jupiter, Mars or Hercules. The Roman tradition of the eastern part of the Empire is also reflected in the fictive genealogies, so that the Emperors often chose Western Emperors or illustrious personalities and families of the Republican Era as their ancestors. The convention of establishing genealogical relations with the past rulers or their families (e.g. Claudius Gothicus, Trajan, the Flavii) served on one hand to create the impression of continuity and legitimacy, and on the other, to affirm the proclaimed system of values, since individual Roman Emperors had by that time become the prototypes of certain values (so Nerva stood for tranquility, Titus for philanthropy, Antoninus for high morality, Hadrian for justice and legality, Trajan for a successful military leader). In the same fashion, the creation of the family ties with persons from the Roman republican past, like the members of the family of the Scipios or Gnaeus Pompeius, was instrumental in the emphasizing of not only noble origin but also virtue. Interestingly enough, whereas the bonds with the Roman state are permanently evoked, the exempla from the Greek history play only a minor role in legendary genealogies (mostly Corinthians and Spartans, sometimes even mythical nations, like Homer's Pheacians). The central position of the Roman ideology is also reflected in the tendency to establish direct geographical connections between the origin of the ruler and either Rome itself or one of the Western provinces, so that the motif of migration is often found in the genealogies. On the other hand, Byzantine writers sometimes tended to boast with their knowledge of the history of the Ancient Orient, connecting famous personalities (like Artaxerxes) or dynasties (Achaemenids, Arsacids) with the Emperor whose genealogy they were composing. A special place in legendary genealogies is occupied by Constantine the Great. Almost as a rule, the genealogies postulate a kinship with him, often confirming it with the alleged physical resemblance. Depending on the purpose of the genealogy, certain purported features of Constantine's character were emphasized, so that he is alternately mentioned as a protector of the Christian faith, a triumphant military leader, or as a wise administrator of the Empire. Apart from that, the motifs of founding the new Capital and the migration of the Roman patrician families to Constantinople represent important topoi in this literary genre. The two most fascinating specimens of legendary genealogies in the Byzantine literature ? those of Basil I the Macedonian and Nikephoros III Botaneiates ? show that the choice of the elements of which the genealogy is composed (personality, family, dynasty) is at the same time a strong indication of the reason why it was composed in the first place. The genealogy of Basil the Macedonian was doubtlessly conceived by more than one person. It is quite certain that the idea to compose it originally came from Photios and was taken over by Basil's descendents ? his son Leo VI and his grandson Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos. The core of Basil's legendary genealogy is the story of his origin from the Parthian-Armenian dynasty of Arsacids (an indication of the Armenian origin of the founder of the Macedonian dynasty?). Constantine Porphyrogennetos elaborated this story further, describing in some detail the fate of Arsac's descendents, to whom Basil was allegedly related on his father's side, in the Byzantine Empire. This, of course, does not mean that he forgot to create connections between his grandfather and the standard legendary ancestors, like Constantine the Great (on Basil's mother's side) and Alexander the Great (the common ancestors of both Basil's parents). This apocryphal family tree certainly has its roots in the fact that the founder of the Macedonian dynasty was a parvenu of low origin, whose ascent to the throne was maculated by the murder of his predecessor and benefactor Michael III: apart from providing Basil with the noble origin, the genealogy was supposed to strengthen his right to the crown. One should keep in mind, though, that Basil's genealogy was written in the time of "Macedonian renaissance", so that its content is doubtlessly partly a product of the erudition of the compilers. In the course of time, legendary genealogies were enriched with new elements, stemming from the Byzantine history in the narrower sense of the word. The genealogy of Nikephoros III Botaneiates, compiled by Michael Attaleiates in the second half of the 11th century, is a good illustration to this. In contrast to Basil the Macedonian's genealogy, it is interwoven with real historical data, so that it cannot be called 'legendary' in its entirety. It would probably be more appropriate to call it a genealogy of both the Phokades and the Botaneiatai, since its core is made up of an invented story of the origin of the famous Byzantine family of Phokades, from which the family of Botaneiatai purportedly stems. The genealogy is clearly divided into three parts. In the first part, Attaleiates develops a theory according to which the Phokades are descendents of the Roman patrician families of Fabii and Scipios. The second part is devoted to the elaboration of the genealogical connection between the Phokades and the Botaneiatai, a tour deforce achieved by the claim that the latter are direct descendents of Nikephoros II Phokas, who is not only the central figure of this part in his capacity as an ancestor of Nikephoros III, but also as a model of a virtuous Emperor. Comparable to the habit of other writers to single out one or another characteristic trait of Constantine the Great according to their needs, Attaleiates concentrates on Nikephoros Phokas' military qualities, which are similar to those possessed by his "descendent" Botaneiates, and emphasizes the physical resemblance between the two rulers. In all likelihood, the part on the genealogy of the Phokades, as well as the story of Nikephoros Phokas, were taken over from an earlier tradition dealing with this renowned family, which Attaleiates implicitly mentions when he says that he had used 'an old book' and some other writings. As indicated above, the last, third, part of the genealogy, devoted to the deeds of Nikephoros Botaneiates' father and grandfather, does not fit the narrow definition of a legendary genealogy, despite the exaggerations Attaleiates uses in order to satisfy the demands of the genre. The description of Nikephoros Botaneiates' family tree represents merely an excursus within Attaleiates' History, but its composition has nevertheless an internal coherence and logic. Namely, all parts of the genealogy (the histories of the Fabii/Scipios, Phokades, and Botaneiatai) have one characteristic in common: the stories of the military deeds of the members of these families are used as an illustration of the military virtues of Nikephoros III. Since the hidden intention of the panegyric for Nikephoros III Botaneiates is to justify his usurpation of the throne, it is clear that a genealogy in this form ? especially the section pertaining to Nikephoros Phokas and his kinship with the usurper's father and grandfather ? represents a good basis for a legalistic interpretation of the coup d'?tat of 1078. The permeation of legendary genealogies with the Byzantine history is not confined only to individual Emperors which, like Nikephoros II Phokas, get assigned the role of the ancestor and moral model: some aristocratic families, most often the Phokades and the Doukai, also became moral exempla, serving to prove the reputation and the nobility of the ruler. As in the case of the Phokades, there is also a legendary tradition surrounding the family of Doukai, which made them a kind of model family: Being related to them became a measure of nobility, since it allowed the less prominent families to occupy a more distinguished place on the hierarchy of the Byzantine nobility. The prominence certain family names achieved ? mostly those of the families which created a dynasty ? led from the beginning of the 12th century until the fall of the Empire to free adoption and combination of more different surnames (mostly Doukai, Komnenoi, Angeloi, Palaiologoi, Kantakouzenoi, etc.). This, in turn, led to the creation of fictitious family trees. This kind of apocryphal construction of one's own origin was characteristic not only of the Byzantine culture but rather represented a very common phenomenon in the medieval world. In the medieval Serbia, for instance, its dissemination was fostered by the translation of the writings of the Byzantine chroniclers (Georgios Monachos, John Malalas, Constantine Manasses, and John Zonaras), so that legendary genealogies, written according to the Byzantine pattern, became an expression of the wish to include one's own history into the flow of the world history. Finally, a note on the reception of this genealogical line of thought. Parallel to the fictitious genealogies, there also existed a consciousness about them: Just like the development and the functional load of genealogies reveals a lot about the attitudes of the Byzantines towards power, so do the Byzantine writers who often criticize and ridicule the genealogies of individual Emperors. .

After returning home to his despoiled property, Henry Rutgers cautiously rebuilt the family fortune during the economic malaise of the 1780s. He was initially swept into office on the wave of patriotic, anti-loyalist sentiment, but later as an Antifederalist and Jeffersonian Republican he both won and lost elections to the Federalists. Capitalizing on the shrewd economic decisions of his forbears and the burgeoning population of the metropolis, by the 1790s Rutgers was a successful developer, landlord, and entrepreneur, which laid the foundation for his future philanthropic endeavors. He continued to be involved in the affairs of his community, his city, and his state.

AbstractThis essays looks at the diversity of approaches used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its politicization of religions. It first provides an overview of continuity with past practices by the Chinese state in the imperial and republican eras to stress the undetermined nature of ideological change in China. Then, it looks at the mechanisms by which the CCP makes religion a political issue and a matter of public concern within broader agendas. It stresses that this politicization of religions has unfolded in two different ways since 1949: besides the negative and coercive approach of the authorities, positive and cooperative strategy are also implemented. The regime hopes religions will be active politically to promote its objectives, such as projecting abroad an image of China’s soft power, raising funds for philanthropic activities within China, or supporting the state ‘patriotic’ agenda. The actions by the CCP suggest that it does not look at all religions as equally valuable to serve its political objectives, as it still maintains a distinction between official and banned religions. The article documents that the state’s encouragement to the revival of some religious activities is selective but on the other hand that CCP views are more nuanced than outsiders assume.