Journal articles on the topic 'Tripartite Pact'

Since South Korea made a historic social pact in 1998 amid the Asian financial crisis, a newly established presidential committee, the Korea Tripartite Commission, has become a center of social concertation. The Korean case signifies the need to complement the theory of social concertation with a new set of hypotheses concerning structural factors, with particular attention to industrial structure and the mode of labor movement.

After the outbreak of World War II, the Bulgarian government pursued a policy of non-alignment. In the fall of 1940 it rejected plans for a combined Italian-Bulgarian attack against Greece. And when Italy alone invaded Greece, Bulgaria facilitated Greek resistance by her own passivity. When Germany called on Bulgaria to enter the Tripartite Pact and make its territory available for a German attack against Greece, the Bulgarian leadership succeeded in retarding the talks. At the same time, the Soviet Union, Germany's Balkan rival, tried to entice Bulgaria into concluding a pact of mutual assistance by offering the whole of western and eastern Thrace at the expense of both Turkey and Greece. Bulgaria refused, and on 1 March 1941 joined the alliance with Germany in hope of territorial gains. It took this step only when it seemed unavoidable.

AbstractThe downfall of Adolf Hitler was a significant development in the history of the world. His armies conquered almost all of Europe in a dramatic span of time by the employment of Blitzkrieg tactics. Before the outbreak of the Second World War, Hitler assisted General Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Later, while still fighting on the Western front, Hitler ordered the Afrika Korps to assist Italians in Northern Africa and in the Balkans region and finally launched Operation Barbarossa by invading the Soviet Union. The Anti-Comintern Pact, Pact of Steel and Tripartite Pact brought the Third Reich, the Empire of Japan and the Kingdom of Italy onto one page. This paper attempts to probe the multiple fronts and the efficacy of Hitler’s allies including Japan, Italy, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Croatia and to try and find the causes behind the downfall of one of the strongest men the world has ever seen from a theoretical perspective. This research did not intend to glorify Hitler or Nazism, but focuses on how the maximization of power and the states’ actions with hegemonic aspirations triggered a balancing coalition and ultimately resulted in punishment from the system itself.

Abstract Introduction In recent decades, the Ministry of Health has been recommending the use of indicators for the assessment and monitoring of health care. Over the years, it has instituted interfederative pacts dealing with health indicators, including oral health indicators, with the purpose of encouraging health system managers to incorporate the monitoring and assessment of actions in their practice, as well as enabling the follow-up of the performance of services. Objective To analyze the development of oral health indicators propounded in the interfederative pacts of the Unified Health System (SUS) in Brazil between 1998 and 2016. Material and method Documentary research based on government guidelines issued during the analyzed period. The variables studied were the characteristics of publications and indicators (denomination, method of calculation, source and purposes). Result In the period of 1998-2016, oral health indicators were proposed in the pact on primary care indicators (1998-2006), in the Pacts for Health (2007-2011), and in the resolutions of the tripartite intermanagerial committee (2012, 2013 and 2016). Changes were identified over this period, characterized by the inclusion and exclusion of indicators, and by a drastic reduction in the number of indicators, eventually leading to only one retained indicator: “Proportion of tooth extractions in relation to procedures.” Conclusion There were changes in oral health indicators over the analyzed period, characterized by periods of advancement and regression, eventually resulting in a single indicator related to mutilating actions (tooth extractions), effective in 2016.

The article examines the relationship between two leading countries – Great Britain and the United States, which had a significant impact on international political situation in the world in 1930s and still have nowadays. As a vector of research, the author takes the factor of the Japanese militaristic regime because of the rather similar current geopolitical situation due to the aggressive actions of Russian Federation. According to this, the author aimed to conduct a comprehensive analysis and his own assessment of the impact of Japan’s behavior in the international arena on the development of British-American relations in various fields. The chronological boundaries of the study are the period from the Mukden incident ‒ the beginning of Japanese invasion in the north-eastern part of China (September, 1931) to the conclusion of Berlin (Tripartite) Pact between Japan, Italy and Germany (September, 1940). Methodology: the article uses a comparative-historical method to compare and analyze the influence of Japan and Germany on the foreign policy of London and Washington, as well as descriptive method ‒ to identify the essence and features of British-American relations during 1931–1940. The use primarily of a wide base of diplomatic documents, archival sources from the F. D. Roosevelt Digital Library, cabinet papers of the British government allowed the author to apply the systematic approach and the principle of objectivity working with only verified facts and their comprehensive assessment. Scientific novelty: for the first time in Ukrainian historiography the author analyzed and rethought the process of how did Japan’s aggressive actions influence on US-British relations on the eve and beginning of World War II regarding the current geopolitical situation. The author concludes that the leadership of the United States and Great Britain did not realize the threat from Japan in time, that their inconsistent actions only contributed to the rapprochement of Tokyo with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, culminating in the formation of a tripartite military alliance («axis»). According to the author, the ambiguity of the position of London and Washington caused primarily by the struggle for spheres of influence in the Pacific area and trade conflicts between them in general. In view of this, the article emphasizes the need for modern leading states, especially Great Britain and the USA, to take into account the mistakes of the past in order to prevent a repeat of the Japanese scenario in the international arena in future.

The monograph “Piłsudski between Stalin and Hitler” by the Polish researcher K. Rak published in 2021 cannot but interest specialists in the history of international relations in the interwar period, not least because of its analysis of tripartite rather than bilateral relations, its chronological scope (1924–1935), the wealth of source material from German, Polish and Russian archives, and the extensive bibliography, including works in Russian. Our critical analysis does not purport to show the diversity of the issues raised or addressed in the book. Our task is a different one: to provide an insight into the state of Polish historiography, first and foremost, of such landmark events in international relations of the interwar period as the 1925 Locarno Treaties, the 1932 Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact, the 1934 Polish-German declaration of non-aggression, and the Polish policy of balancing. Yet Rak's book is not a historiographical one, but is purely research-oriented, containing many new and intriguing facts, observations, assertions and hypotheses, which can be debated, but cannot be dismissed. While demonstrating an innovative approach to the analysis of a number of issues, Ruck is not always free of stereotypes, especially when it comes to matters such as the threat to Poland posed by the 1922 Soviet-German Treaty of Rapallo, the explanation of Polish longstanding reluctance to respond to the Soviet proposal for a non-aggression treaty, the substitution of scholarly evidence for these stereotypes, yet his conclusions are well grounded, though not always incontrovertible.

This article presents how the political changes in Bulgaria after 1989 have infl uenced the interpretation of 20th century history. The emergence of the new censorship is traced through the introduction of a new canon for presenting the past. Three decades ago, Bulgaria began its transition from Soviet-type state socialism to political democracy. For historians, this meant removing political and ideological censorship. Initially, this freedom gave historians the chance to upgrade historical knowledge with hidden facts that were inconvenient for the BCP government. Soon, however, new political parties came to power and began to impose their political version of history. This meant re- moving facts related to the history of the communist movement and anti-fascism in Bulgaria. The attempts at rewriting history are especially visible in the presentation of the socialist period. The political intervention began with the renaming of streets, towns, and institutions. Names associated with the anti-fascist resistance and Russian and Soviet history were removed. Instead, names from the time when Bulgaria was part of the Tripartite Pact were restored. The modern political censorship is most evident in the rewriting of history textbooks. The new curricula introduced a mandatory positive presentation of the history of the Third Bulgarian Kingdom. The actions of the Communists had to be presented as terrorist, and the entire post-war government was defi ned as totalitarian. Instead of socialism, we should use the term “communism”. In 2019, when approving the new history textbooks for high schools, right-wing non-governmental organizations intervened and, as a result, facts about the socio-economic development of the country in the socialist period were removed.

During the years that followed the end of the Great War, the Adriatic area found itself in a period of deep economic crisis due to the emptiness caused by the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The ancient Habsburg harbours, which had recently turned Italian, had lost their natural positions of Mitteleuropean economic outlets toward the Mediterranean due to the new political order of Central-Eastern Europe. Rome, then, attempted a series of economic manoeuvres aimed at improving Italian trade in the Julian harbours, first of all the port of Trieste, and at encouraging Italian entrepreneurial penetration in the Balkans. Resolved in a failure, the desire for commercial boost toward the oriental Adriatic shore coincided with the Dalmatian Irredentism and became a topic for claiming the 1941 military intervention across the Balkan peninsula. Italian geopoliticians, who had just developed the geopolitical discipline in Italy, made the Adriatic-Balkan area one of their most discussed topics. The fascist geopolitical project aimed at creating an economic aisle between the Adriatic and the Black Sea, in order to bypass the Turkish straits and become completion and outlet toward the Mediterranean of the Nazi Baltic-Mitteleuropean space in the north. Rome attempted the agreement with the other Danubian States, which subscribed the Tripartite Pact, in order to create a kind of economic cooperation area under the Italian lead. Therefore, the eastern Italian geopolitical border would have been traced farther from national limes. Rome would have projected his own interests as far as the Danubian right riverside, sharing with Berlin the southern part of that area consisting of territories historically comprehended (and contented) between German and Russian spheres of interest, which the Reich intended to reorganise after the alleged Soviet Union defeat. These Countries, framed by the Baltic, Mediterranean and Black See shores, found themselves entangled once more by geopolitical ties enforced by the interests of foreign Countries. However, these projects remained restricted to paper: the invasion of Yugoslavia turned into a failure and exposed Italy's military weakness; Rome proved to have no authority about the New Order organisation. Italy could dream up about its power only among magazines pages.

On 26 February 1921, the Soviet Union signed a «Treaty of Friendship» with Iran which was to pave the way for future relations between the two states. Although the Russians renounced various commercial and territorial concessions which the Tsarist government had exacted from Iran, they secured the insertion of two articles which prohibited the formation or residence in either country of individuals, groups, military forces which were hostile to the other party, and gave the Soviet Union the right to send forces into Iran in the event that a third party should attempt to carry out a policy of usurpation there, use Iran as a base for operations against Russia, or otherwise threaten Soviet frontiers. Furthermore, in 1927, the Soviet Union signed a «Treaty of Guarantee and Neutrality» with Iran which required the contracting parties to refrain from aggression against each other and not to join blocs or alliances directed against each other’s sovereignty. However, the treaty was violated by the Soviet Union’s wartime occupation of Iran, together with Britain and the United States. The violation was subsequently condoned by the conclusion of the Tripartite Treaty of Alliance of 29 January 1942, which permitted the Soviet Union to maintain troops in Iran for a limited period. Requiring restraint from propaganda, subversion and hostile political groups, the treaty would also appear to have been persistently violated by the Soviet Union: for example, the various radio campaigns of «Radio Moscow» and the «National Voice of Iran»; the financing and control of the Tudeh party; and espionage and rumour-mongering by Soviet officials in Iran. Whatever the Soviet’s original conception of this treaty may have been, they had since used it one-sidedly as a treaty in which both countries would be neutral, with one being «more neutral than the other». In effect, both the 1921 and 1927 treaties had been used as «a stick to beat the Iranians» whenever it suited the Soviets to do so, in propaganda and in inter-governmental dealings. During the Second World War, the treaty between the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and Iran, dated 29 January 1942 - and concluded some 5 months after the occupation of parts of Iran by allied forces, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union were entitled to maintain troops in Iran, but the presence of such troops was not to constitute a military occupation. Nonetheless, Soviet forces in the Northern provinces used their authority to prevent both the entry of officials of the Iranian Government and the export of agricultural products to other provinces. The treaty also required military forces to be withdrawn not later than six months after «all hostilities between the Allied Powers and Germany and her associates have been suspended by the conclusion of an armistice or on the conclusion of peace, whichever is the earlier». This entailed that the Soviet Union should have withdrawn its forces by March 1946, six months after the defeat of Japan. Meanwhile, however, there emerged in Iranian Azerbaijan, under Soviet tutelage, a movement for advanced provincial autonomy which developed into a separatist movement under a Communist-led «National Government of Azerbaijan». In 1945, Soviet forces prevented the Iranian army from moving troops into Azerbaijan, and also confined the Iranian garrison to barracks while the dissidents took forcible possession of key points. At the same time, Soviet troops prevented the entry of Iranian troops into the Kurdistan area, where, under Soviet protection, a Kurdish Republic had been set up by Qazi Mohammad. In 1946, after Iran had appealed to the Security Council, the Russians secured from the Iranian Prime Minister, Qavam es Saltaneh, a promise to introduce a bill providing for the formation of a Soviet-Iranian Oil Company to exploit the Northern oil reserves. In return, the Soviet Union agreed to negotiate over Azerbaijan: the Iranians thereupon withdrew their complaint to the Security Council, and Soviet forces left Azerbaijan by 9 May 1946. In 1955, when Iran was considering joining a regional defensive pact, which was later to manifest itself as the Baghdad Pact, the Soviet Government threatened that such a move would oblige the Soviet Union to act in accordance with Article 6 of the 1921 treaty. This was the «big stick» aspect of Soviet attempts to waylay Iranian membership of such a pact; the «carrot» being the conclusion in 1955 of a Soviet-Iranian «Financial and Frontier Agreement» by which the Soviets agreed to a mutually beneficial re-alignment of the frontier and to pay debts arising from their wartime occupation of Northern Iran. The Soviets continued their war of nerves against Iranian accession to the Pact by breaking off trade negotiations in October 1955 and by a series of minor affronts, such as the cancellation of cultural visits and minimal attendance at the Iranian National Day celebrations in Moscow. In a memorandum dated November 26, the Iranian Government openly rejected Soviet criticisms. Soviet displeasure was expressed officially, in the press and to private individuals. In the ensuing period, Soviet and Soviet-controlled radio stations continued to bombard their listeners with criticism of the Baghdad Pact, or CENTO as it later became. In early 1959, with the breakdown of the negotiations for a non-aggression pact, Iran-Soviet relations entered into a phase of propaganda warfare which intensified with the signature of the bilateral military agreement between Iran and the United States. The Soviet Union insisted that Iran should not permit the establishment of foreign military bases on its soil, and continued to threaten Iran despite the Shah’s assurance on this issue. Consequently, the Iranians denounced Articles 5 and 6 of the 1921 treaty, on the basis of which the Soviet Union was making its demands. Attempts by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to improve relations met with little success until September 1959, when Russia offered massive economic support on condition that Iran renounced its military agreements with the United States. This offer was rejected, and, as relations continued to become strained, the Soviets changed their demand to one neither for a written agreement that Iran would not allow its terrain to be used as a base of aggression nor for the establishment of foreign missile bases. The publication by the Soviet Union of the so-called «CENTO documents» did nothing to relieve the strain: the Soviet Union continued to stand out for a bilateral agreement with Iran, and the Shah, in consultation with Britain and the United States, continued to offer no more than a unilateral assurance. In July 1962, with a policy of endeavouring once more to improve relations, the Shah maintained his insistence on a unilateral statement, and the Soviet Government finally agreed to this. The Iranian undertaking was accordingly given and acknowledged on 15 September. The Instruments of ratification of the 1957 Agreements on Transit and Frontier Demarcation were exchanged in Moscow on 26 October 1962 and in Tehran on 20 December, respectively.

Perceptions of Europe in modern Bulgaria – from the Ottoman Empire to the European Union The article demonstrates the construction of the notion of Europe during the modernization of Bulgarian society during the historical period from the Bulgarian Renaissance (1762) until the end of 20th century. The perception of Europe in Bulgaria depends mostly on the almost five‑century‑long Ottoman rule of Bulgarian lands which detached Bulgaria from the European civilization. Therefore, for the Bulgarians Europe represents the foreign, more developed part of the world, towards which they strive. Bulgaria only begins to rees­tablish its place in Europe with the restoration of the Bulgarian state following its Liberation (1878), achieved thanks to the Russian‑Turkish war of 1877–1878. The new Bulgarian state is based on a European template, but in the first decades following its independence, it faces European contradictions. The idea of Europe as a unitary whole is put in doubt as Bulgaria is the battleground where the interests of the Russian liberator and the Western European countries collide.The participation of Bulgaria in the two world wars on the side of the Central Powers and the Tripartite Pact leads to defeats and further detachment from Western Europe. Following World War II, Bulgaria falls into the Soviet sphere of influence, and Europe (understood as Western Europe) is associated with the image of the enemy for nearly half a century. This only changes with the end of the Cold War, when the conception of Europe is equated with the de­sired membership in the European Union, achieved on 1 January 2007. Bułgarskie wyobrażenia Europy w dobie nowożytnej – od Imperium Osmańskiego do Unii Europejskiej Artykuł ukazuje powstawanie obrazu Europy w społeczeństwie bułgarskim w okresie modernizacji trwającej od początku odrodzenia narodowego (1762) do końca XX wieku. Na jego kształcie wyraźne piętno odcisnęło trwające pięć wieków panowanie osmańskie, które oddzieliło Bułgarię od cywilizacji europejskiej; dlatego dla Bułgarów Europa stanowi ze­wnętrzną, bardziej rozwiniętą część świata, do której aspirują. O początkach europejskiej identyfikacji Bułgarów można więc mówić dopiero po utworzeniu państwa bułgarskiego, co nastąpiło po wyzwoleniu w 1878 roku, w wyniku wojny rosyjsko‑tureckiej 1877–1878. Nowe państwo bułgarskie powstawało zgodnie z wzorcami europejskimi, ale już w pierwszych de­kadach niezależności Bułgarzy doświadczyli Europy w kategoriach antynomii. Idea Europy jako całości została zakwestionowana, ponieważ w Bułgarii starły się z jednej strony interesy wyzwolicielskiej Rosji, a z drugiej państw zachodnioeuropejskich.Udział Bułgarii w wojnach światowych po stronie państw centralnych i państw Osi do­prowadził ją do upadku i ostatecznego odcięcia od Europy Zachodniej. Po II wojnie świato­wej Bułgaria znalazła się w sferze wpływów Związku Radzieckiego, przez niemal pół wieku Europa (rozumiana tu jako Europa Zachodnia) stanowiła synonim wroga. Ta sytuacja uległa zmianie dopiero po zakończeniu zimnej wojny, kiedy dla Bułgarii pojęcie „Europa” stało się tożsame z pożądanym członkostwem w Unii Europejskiej, co nastąpiło 1 stycznia 2007 roku.

AbstractThe formula 'the elements of logos' in the Zeno quotation by Epictetus at Arrian, Diss. 4.8.12 need not, pace e.g. von Arnim, pertain to the parts of speech, but more probably means the elements i.e. primary theorems of philosophical theory, or doctrine. Theory moreover should become internalized to the soul and 'lived': philosophy is also the so-called 'art of life'. These theorems are to be distinguished but should reciprocally entail each other. Philosophy according to Zeno is both tripartite and one, and tripartite especially in that its parts (and subparts) cannot be transferred simultaneously: of necessity these have to taught and learned one after the other.

In this article, I contribute to the comparative literature on trade unions and social pacts, through an analysis of Spanish experience between 1996 and 2016. First, I specify the phases of agreement (‘competitive corporatism’) and confrontation. Second, I examine the impact of the agreements and the subsequent breakdown of tripartite social dialogue on the two most representative trade unions. This makes it possible to explain why these unions accumulated so little strength during the period of consensus, and their evident weakness and the risks they have faced since the start of the crisis and the turn to confrontation.

This article analyses some implications for trade unions of social pacts. Unions' participation in tripartite agreements has been one response to tensions triggered by the decentralisation and individualisation of employment relations. However, their involvement in social pacts renders it increasingly difficult for unions to strike a positive-sum balance between competing logics of influence and membership. Following an analysis of four countries with social pacts, this article shows that trade unions' participation in social pacts has been most successful when unions have pursued a strategy of ‘articulation’ between their different levels of organisation by enhancing the participation of rank-and-file members in decision making and by strengthening company level representation structures.

We have obtained 85 finite triangular lattices from 7 to 36 vertices. We display two very good finite lattices – 21a (well-known) and 22a (previously unknown). Over the past decade several physicists have used exact diagonalization on five tripartite triangular lattices from N = 9 to 36 to study the Heisenberg and XY antiferromagnet on the infinite triangular lattice. Nine more tripartite triangular lattices are available as shown below in the text. Our exact diagonalization of the S = 1/2 XY ferromagnetic energies and magnetization leads, by scalar equations, to the properties on the infinite lattice. We found that all but 10 of the 85 are good lattices. Finally, we obtained spin–spin correlations of two kinds, xx and zz. PACS Nos.: 75.10Jm, 05.05+q

Two graphs G1 and G2 on n vertices are said to pack if there exist injective mappings of their vertex sets into [n] such that the images of their edge sets are disjoint. A longstanding conjecture due to Bollobás and Eldridge and, independently, Catlin, asserts that if (Δ(G1) + 1)(Δ(G2) + 1) ⩽ n + 1, then G1 and G2 pack. We consider the validity of this assertion under the additional assumption that G1 or G2 has bounded codegree. In particular, we prove for all t ⩾ 2 that if G1 contains no copy of the complete bipartite graph K2,t and Δ(G1) > 17t · Δ(G2), then (Δ(G1) + 1)(Δ(G2) + 1) ⩽ n + 1 implies that G1 and G2 pack. We also provide a mild improvement if moreover G2 contains no copy of the complete tripartite graph K1,1,s, s ⩾ 1.

In Ireland and Southern European countries, social pacts were widely seen as a mechanism to mobilize broad support for weak governments to legitimate difficult reforms in the context of monetary integration. I retrace the politics of these pacts in Ireland and Italy to argue that it was less the condition of ‘weak government’ that enabled the negotiation of tripartite pacts, than the intervention of a ‘strong executive’: the prime minister’s office. Social pacts were pursued as a political strategy to enhance prime ministerial executive autonomy. In the aftermath of the euro crisis, this means of enhancing executive autonomy has been replaced by the negotiation of grand coalition governments, with the exclusion of unions; but this continues the trend towards the prime ministerialization of politics.

New taxonomic and diagnostic data for 17 species of Encephalus Kirby, 1832, Gyrophaena Mannerheim, 1830 and Phanerota Casey, 1906 of Sri Lanka and India are provided. Eight species are redescribed: G. (Gyrophaena) furcata (Motschulsky, 1858), G. (G.) indica Motschulsky, 1858, G. (G.) kashmirensis Bernhauer, 1923, G. (G.) livida Motschulsky, 1858, G. (G.) permutaria Schubert, 1906, G. (G.) sexualis Cameron, 1939, G. (G.) soror Bernhauer, 1923, and Ph. (Acanthophaena) appendiculata (Motschulsky, 1858). The following new synonymies are established: G. (G.) cognata Cameron, 1939 = G. setiensis Pace, 2006 syn.n., G. (G.) indica = G. granulifera Kraatz, 1859 syn.n., G. cicatricosa Motschulsky, 1858 syn.n., G. rigida Motschulsky, 1858 syn.n., G. nigrides Newton, 2017 (replacement name for G. nigra Motschulsky 1859) syn.n., G. trifida Motschulsky, 1859 syn.n., G. (G.) livida = G. curtula Motschulsky, 1859 syn.n., and G. (G.) tripartita Cameron, 1939 = G. annapurnensis Pace, 2006 syn.n. Lectotypes for G. (G.) furcata, G. (G.) indica, G. (G.) kashmirensis, G. (G.) livida, G. (G.) soror Bernhauer, 1923, Ph. (Acanthophaena) appendiculata and Ph. (A.) rufiventris (Cameron, 1920) comb.n. (from Gyrophaena) are designated. The habitus of all taxa, aedeagi and apical abdominal sclerites of all species of Gyrophaena and Phanerota are illustrated. Gyrophaena (G.) jumlicola Pace, 2006 is recorded from India for the first time.

In a recent paper published in this review (79 (2011), p. 253–296), L. Waelkens investigates the problem of the lacunose oldest western manuscripts of the Code, especially at their beginning. He argues that the first 13 titles of the Codex Justinianus had been compiled after the promulgation of its second edition and placed in front of the text of 534, where they did not in fact belong. This successful forgery would have led in various stages to the composition of the Code in its accepted form. This paper sets out to demonstrate that there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary: C. 1,1–13 have always been part of the Codex repetitae praelectionis, as is proven by, inter alia, P.Oxy. 1814, the Collectio XXV Capitulorum, the scholia of the Basilica and, pace Waelkens, even the Collectio Tripartita. The solution of the problem of the western medieval tradition of the Code has to be sought elsewhere.

Promoting partnership with traditional Authority Project (PPTAP) was designed to translate into reality the vision of having our traditional leaders play pivotal roles in community devel­opment. The project was to test the role that chiefs, queen mothers and other opinion leaders could play in the decentralization of community development. In spite of the presence of some challenges with respect to project implementation such as slow pace in the payment of coun­terpart fund contribution, this novelty achieved spectacular successes. This paper discusses the results of a questionnaire survey that looked at the role played by traditional authorities and community involvement in infrastructure development for 40 selected communities in Ashanti region under the PPTAP, with support from the International Development Agency (IDA) of the World Bank and the Government of Ghana. The paper concludes that the inclusion of tradi­tional authorities in beneficiary communities helped in an accurate identification of community needs, minimization of cost incurred and high-quality workmanship as well as strengthened ownership. For community based development, the paper recommends a Tripartite Partnership (TTP), where Traditional Authorities work in tandem with the Public and Private Sector to ensure sustainable national development. PPTAP presents an excellent framework for such TPP arrangements. Keywords: Traditional Authorities, Community Based Project, Infrastructure, Development

The quality of pharmaceuticals has always been a hot issue in the world, and it involves public health, economic development of countries, social stability, and national security. Cleaner production is a prerequisite for ensuring the quality of medicines. However, the various types of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and fake vaccines exposed in the recent years have revealed many problems, such as lacking government regulation, loose quality management of companies, illegal profit of medical service agencies, and failure of patient complaints. This paper’s two innovations are as follows: first, it not only considers the collusion between pharmaceutical companies and medical service agencies, but also introduces patient feedback to study drug quality regulation strategies from a microperspective; second, this paper constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model involving cleaner production pharmaceutical companies, medical service agencies, and the governments to analyze the evolutionary stability using the Lyapunov first rule. The results of the research show that, first, improvement of patient complaint rates can effectively curb collusive behavior and promote the stable improvement of cleaner production drug quality; second, the governments must impose sufficient fines on pharmaceutical companies to avoid a stable strategic combination of collusion; third, enhancing patient feedback can speed up the evolution of the stable choice of legitimate strategies by pharmaceutical companies and the medical service agencies; finally, the government reducing the strict regulation costs can increase the strict regulation rate employed in the evolution process and slow down the pace of evolution to loose regulation. In addition, the simulation analysis was carried out using Matlab 2017b, which verified the validity of the model and proved the practical meaning of countermeasures and suggestions for improving government quality regulation.

Industrial jurisprudence is an ideology to study the perspective and perception of those legislators who give the shape to be a labour legislation for governing the relation of workmen and employers. It is correctly said by Mahatma Ganghi that industry is the joint venture of workmen and employers. In the Hospital Mazdoor Sabha1 case the triple test theory introduced and it was reiterated and set up in the case of Banglore Water Supply2. In both cases the cooperation of workmen is made essential part to be any industry. The industrial jurisprudence provides the thinking to make the labour laws accordingly. When the laissez faire theory wiped out and placed the welfare state, workers has become the integral part of any industry. With this view the state made the labour legislation for governing the relation of workmen and employers. It has been felt by most of the country of world that there must be apply tripartism; it means state will interfere with the labour regulations to settle the both relations. For this purpose state made the various laws, which are existed. In June 1998the International Conference proposed the fundamental labour policy for the World. Certain points of hose policy are existed in Indian labour jurisprudence. First, freedom of association, second, right to collective bargaining, third, elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour, fourth abolition of child labour and fifth, elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation. Industrial jurisprudence is more dynamic for industrial governance. With this ideology, the State utilizes the modus operandi accordance with the need of regulation for harmonious relation between employers and employees. When the Constitution of India commenced the concept of social justice gave the pace to the welfare labour legislation. The outcome of concept, the social assurance and social assistance are also prevalent with the ideology of social justice. It is the spirit of the Constitution. Now, it is being expected that there will be dynamic change in industrial jurisprudence by introducing the new economic policy for the upliftment of industry as well as labours. It not need to be panic the new exit policy will destroy the fundamental rights of the workers.

Tourism as the main driver and pillar of the socio-economic development of the developed and the underdeveloped countries is a powerful economic segment for economic development. The rapid pace of tourism development has contributed to a number of countries to take strong steps towards development and more serious treatment. The effects of tourism are mainly perceived through the increase in the foreign exchange inflow, improvement in the balance of payments, creation of new jobs and growth of investments. The dynamic growth and development as well as the significance of the tourism industry have contributed to raising marketing to a higher level where through promotional activities tourism will strengthen the role of the tourism market. The promotion in tourism refers to communication between the producer and the consumer, where through communication, information is exchanged that will contribute to increasing the sales of tourism products and services, and significantly influences the choice of the particular tourist product, while providing relevant information about the characteristics of the tourist destination. Through the promotion, consumers receive information about products, services and ideas in order to encourage the interest in using them. The promotion takes an important place in positioning the product on the market and achieving a competitive advantage. It is accomplished through economic propaganda, promotion of sales, public relations, publicity and personal consumption, which are basic forms of promotion. It is particularly important that these activities are coordinated, which will contribute to the formation of awareness among potential probes for the existence of the product / service and create their preferences. This role of promotional activities is conditioned by their mutual relationship with other marketing instruments. If both the product, the price, and the distribution channels successfully perform their role, then the promotional activities will be successful. They can not complement the weaknesses of other elements of the marketing mix. In order for the promotion to be effective, an efficient product / service policy, price, distribution channels, as well as a high level of integration of the overall marketing activities in the marketing plan, as well as the coordination of the company's plans as a whole, is required. In promoting products, services and ideas, a number of methods, tools and activities are used that are aimed at achieving the goals of promotion, and thus the marketing goals. When we talk about promotional activities in tourism, that is, when tourists are offered a certain tourist product, it is necessary to intensify and coordinate cooperation between all participants in the preparation of this product. In the offer of the tourist product, tourists are informed in advance about the trip itself to decide on destinations that would satisfy their tourist needs. Promoting a particular tourist destination encourages people to visit, or to engage in a tripartite journey.

Spanish needles (Bidens bipinnata L.) is an annual herb that belongs to a genus of flowering plants in family Asteraceae native to United States, and tropical regions around world. The plant produces important flavonoid compounds quercitin and hyperoside that function as anti-allergens, anti-inflammatories, anti-microbials, and anti-cancer agents. Between July and October 2011 and 2012, white superficial mycelia were observed initially on leaf and stem portions, but later progressed to the flower head. Surveys showed that the disease was widespread in Gwangju and most areas of South Korea. Abundant, necrotic, dark brown spots showing chasmothecia were frequently observed in October and were abundant on the adaxial surface of leaves. Chasmothecia were blackish brown to yellow without typical appendages. They ranged from 51.2 to 71.1 (mean 66.8) μm in diameter. Conidia were formed singly and the primary conidia were ellipsoid, rounded at the apex, truncated base, and ranged from 25.4 to 33.2 (mean 27.3) μm long × 10.2 to 12.2 (mean 11.3) μm wide. Conidiophores were erect, 60.1 to 101.3 (mean 98.3) μm long × 6.2 to 9.2 (mean 7.3) μm wide. From extracted genomic DNA, the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region inclusive of 5.8S and 28S rDNA was amplified with ITS1F (5′-TCCGTAGGTGAACCTGCGG-3′) and LR5F (5′-GCTATCCTGAGGGAAAC-3′), and LROR (5′-ACCCGCTGAACTTAAGC-3′) and LR5F primer sets, respectively. rDNA ITS (GenBank Accession No. JX512555) and 28S (JX512556) homologies of the fungus (EML-BBPW1) represented 99.6% (532/534) and 100% (661/661) identity values with Podosphaera xanthii (syn. P. fusca) AB040349 and P. xanthii (syn. P. fusca) AB462798, respectively. The rDNA sequence analysis revealed that the causal fungus matched P. xanthii (syn. P. fusca), forming a xanthii/fusca group (3,4). A pathogenicity test was performed on three plants in a greenhouse. The treated leaves were sealed in vinyl pack in humid condition for 2 days. Seven days after inoculation, similar symptoms were observed on the inoculated Spanish needles plant leaves. No symptoms were observed on control plants treated with distilled water. Koch's postulates were fulfilled by re-observing the fungal pathogen on the inoculated leaves. Podosphaera (syn. Sphaerotheca) xanthii (or fusca) has been known as an ubiquitous species with a broad host range. So far, five records regarding P. xanthii (=P. fusca) have been found in plants of genus Bidens. P. xanthii has been reported to occur on B. cernua in Belarus and Switzerland. In addition, the powdery mildew species was reported to occur on B. frondosa and B. tripartita in Korea, Russia, and Switzerland (2). To our knowledge, this is the first report of powdery mildew caused by P. xanthii on Spanish needles (B. bipinnata) in Korea. References: (1) U. Braun et al. Schlechtendalia 10:91, 2003. (2) D. F. Farr and A. Y. Rossman. Fungal Databases, Systematic Mycology and Microbiology Laboratory, ARS, USDA. Retrieved from http://nt.ars-grin.gov/fungaldatabases/ , 2012. (3) H. B. Lee. J. Microbiol. 51:1075, 2012. (4) S. Takamatsu, et al. Persoonia 24:38, 2010.

The tripartite pact, concluded by Germany, Italy, and Japan in 1940, sought to create a new global order. This article is part of a broader shift in scholarship, inspired by global and cultural history. Instead of revisiting the decision-making that led to the pact's conclusion, this article explores the pact through the dialectics of culture and power. Through an archive-based interpretation of the pact's signing and the celebrations of its anniversaries from 1941 until 1945 that involved ordinary people in Axis-dominated territories around the world, the central mechanisms of this global fascist alliance become clear. A performative diplomacy of power and unity held the alliance together. Style and substance were not mutually exclusive categories of tripartite politics; instead, ‘real’ and representational politics shaped each other. The pact was a concerted attempt by the three signatories to transform global political structures and supersede the purported global hegemony of the liberal democracies.

Drawing on the notion of compensatory behavior, this paper studies how students compensate for learning loss during a pandemic and what role artificial intelligence (AI) plays in this regard. We further probe into a difference in compensatory behavior for learning loss in terms of quantity, pattern, and pace (i.e., tripartite aspect of learning behavior) of AI-powered learning app usage depending on the level of pandemic threat and the proximity of a goal to students. Results show that the pandemic threat affects student learning behavior differently. Immediately following the COVID-19 outbreak, students who live in the epicenter of the outbreak (versus those who do not) use the app less at first, but with time, they use it more (quantity), on a more regular basis (pattern), and rebound to a curriculum path (pace) comparable to students who do not live in the outbreak’s epicenter. These findings collectively explain behavior that is consistent with compensation for learning loss. The results also partially corroborate the goal-proximity effect, revealing that proximity to a goal (e.g., the degree to which the national university admission exam is approaching) has a moderating role in explaining the tripartite perspective of student learning behavior. Overall, these findings have important theoretical and practical implications for understanding how innovative education technologies can not only facilitate student learning during adversity, but also support learning recovery after adversity. This paper was accepted by D. J. Wu, information systems.

O Pacto Nacional pelo Fortalecimento do Ensino Médio (PNEM) é uma política tripartite que uniu esforços de Secretaria de Educação Básica do Ministério da Educação (MEC), das secretarias estaduais de educação e das universidades públicas federais e, para analisar os efeitos dessa experiência, tomou-se como universo empírico o processo de formação continuada coordenado e executado pela Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) no biênio 2014-2015. A singularidade dessa formação consistiu em orientar-se para o estudo das Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais do Ensino Médio, com base em um conjunto de temas que possibilitasse aos docentes refletirem coletivamente sobre o ensino médio enquanto etapa final e essencial da educação básica. A primeira fase da formação teve como temática “Sujeitos do ensino médio e formação humana integral”, e a segunda abarcou o exame aprofundado das áreas de conhecimento, contemplando a reescrita coletiva do projeto político-pedagógico da escola. A particularidade e a eficácia desse programa estão na centralidade da escola como locus privilegiado de formação e no professor como sujeito epistêmico que elabora e produz conhecimento.

Neuronal signal transmission depends on the frequency, pattern, and timing of spike output, each of which are shaped by spike afterhyperpolarizations (AHPs). There are classically three post-spike AHPs of increasing duration categorized as fast, medium and slow AHPs that hyperpolarize a cell over a range of 10 ms to 30 s. Intensive early work on CA1 hippocampal pyramidal cells revealed that all three AHPs incorporate activation of calcium-gated potassium channels. The ionic basis for a fAHP was rapidly attributed to the actions of big conductance (BK) and the mAHP to small conductance (SK) or Kv7 potassium channels. In stark contrast, the ionic basis for a prominent slow AHP of up to 30 s duration remained an enigma for over 30 years. Recent advances in pharmacological, molecular, and imaging tools have uncovered the expression of a calcium-gated intermediate conductance potassium channel (IK, KCa3.1) in central neurons that proves to contribute to the slow AHP in CA1 hippocampal pyramidal cells. Together the data show that the sAHP arises in part from a core tripartite complex between Cav1.3 (L-type) calcium channels, ryanodine receptors, and IK channels at endoplasmic reticulum-plasma membrane junctions. Work on the sAHP in CA1 pyramidal neurons has again quickened pace, with identified contributions by both IK channels and the Na-K pump providing answers to several mysteries in the pharmacological properties of the sAHP.

Movement disorders are a common feature of many antibody-associated neurological disorders. In fact, cerebellar ataxia is one of the most common manifestations of autoimmune neurological diseases. Some of the first autoantibodies identified against antigen targets include anti-neuronal nuclear antibody type 1 (ANNA-1 or anti-Hu) and Purkinje cell cytoplasmic antibody (PCA-1) also known as anti-Yo have been identified in paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration. Historically these antibodies have been associated with an underlying malignancy; however, recently discovered antibodies can occur in the absence of cancer as well, resulting in the clinical syndrome of autoimmune cerebellar ataxia. The pace of discovery of new antibodies associated with autoimmune or paraneoplastic cerebellar ataxia has increased rapidly over the last few years, and pathogenesis and potential treatment options remains to be explored. Here we will review the literature on recently discovered antibodies associated with autoimmune and paraneoplastic cerebellar ataxia including adaptor protein-3B2 (AP3B2); inositol 1,4,5-trisphophate receptor type 1 (ITPR1); tripartite motif-containing (TRIM) proteins 9, 67, and 46; neurochondrin; neuronal intermediate filament light chain (NIF); septin 5; metabotropic glutamate receptor 2 (mGluR2); seizure-related 6 homolog like 2 (SEZ6L2) and homer-3 antibodies. We will review their clinical characteristics, imaging and CSF findings and treatment response. In addition, we will discuss two clinical case examples of autoimmune cerebellar ataxia.

The aim of the present study was to examine the causal relationships between psychological and social factors, being independent variables and body image dissatisfaction plus symptoms of eating disorders as dependent variables through the mediation of social comparison and thin-ideal internalization. To conduct the study, 477 high-school students from Tehran were recruited by method of cluster sampling. Next, they filled out Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (RSES), Physical Appearance Comparison Scale (PACS), Self-Concept Clarity Scale (SCCS), Appearance Perfectionism Scale (APS), Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI), Multidimensional Body Self Relations Questionnaire (MBSRQ) and Sociocultural Attitudes towards Appearance Questionnaire (SATAQ-4). In the end, collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings showed that the assumed model perfectly fitted the data after modification and as a result, all the path-coefficients of latent variables (except for the path between self-esteem and thin-ideal internalization) were statistically significant (p<0.05). Also, in this model, 75% of scores' distribution of body dissatisfaction was explained through psychological variables, socio-cultural variables, social comparison and internalization of the thin ideal. The results of the present study provid experimental basis for the confirmation of proposed causal model. The combination of psychological, social and cultural variables could efficiently predict body image dissatisfaction of young girls in Iran. Key Words: Thin-ideal Internalization, Social comparison, Body image dissatisfaction, mediating effects model, eating disorder symptoms, psychological factors.

ABSTRACTEndophytes have been explored and found to perform an important role in plant health. However, their effects on the host physiological function and disease management remain elusive. The present study aimed to assess the potential effects of endophytes, singly as well as in combination, inWithania somnifera(L.) Dunal, on various physiological parameters and systemic defense mechanisms againstAlternaria alternata. Seeds primed with the endophytic bacteriaBacillus amyloliquefaciensandPseudomonas fluorescensindividually and in combination demonstrated an enhanced vigor index and germination rate. Interestingly, plants treated with the two-microbe combination showed the lowest plant mortality rate (28%) underA. alternatastress. Physiological profiling of treated plants showed improved photosynthesis, respiration, transpiration, and stomatal conductance under pathogenic stress. Additionally, these endophytes not only augmented defense enzymes and antioxidant activity in treated plants but also enhanced the expression of salicylic acid- and jasmonic acid-responsive genes in the stressed plants. Reductions in reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) along with enhanced callose deposition in host plant leaves corroborated well with the above findings. Altogether, the study provides novel insights into the underlying mechanisms behind the tripartite interaction of endophyte-A. alternata-W. somniferaand underscores their ability to boost plant health under pathogen stress.IMPORTANCEW. somniferais well known for producing several medicinally important secondary metabolites. These secondary metabolites are required by various pharmaceutical sectors to produce life-saving drugs. However, the cultivation ofW. somniferafaces severe challenge from leaf spot disease caused byA. alternata. To keep pace with the rising demand for this plant and considering its capacity for cultivation under field conditions, the present study was undertaken to develop approaches to enhance production ofW. somniferathrough intervention using endophytes. Application of bacterial endophytes not only suppresses the pathogenicity ofA. alternatabut also mitigates excessive ROS/RNS generation via enhanced physiological processes and antioxidant machinery. Expression profiling of plant defense-related genes further validates the efficacy of bacterial endophytes against leaf spot disease.

The migration of highly skilled workers is becoming an increasingly important factor that is influencing the development of specific countries as well as different regions of the world. In fact, in the European Union, the tendency of low-skilled workers shortage is changing to the trend of promoting the highly skilled workers migration, which can create added value and contribute to pension funds for the aging population in those states. At the same time, due to the loss of highly qualified personnel, the recipient countries are losing the pace of their economic development. The relevance of this study is also enhanced by changing conditions for international labor migration to the European Union in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, including for highly qualified Ukrainian professionals. The article examines the reasons of highly skilled workers migration processes, analyzes the consequences for different stakeholders and provides methods to reduce the scale of such migration. To analyze the reasons of highly qualified specialists labor migration, the model of "Push and Pull" factors was used on the example of Ukraine and the European Union. The positive and negative consequences of the highly qualified specialists’ migration growth for various stakeholders of this process have been identified. It is also proved that despite the fact that salaries are growing in real terms in Ukraine, the difference in salaries in the main areas of emigration to the EU is so large that it is likely to continue to motivate people to work and earn abroad. Moreover, the existence of a large and growing Ukrainian diaspora tends to encourage the migration of other family members and friends, providing informational and logistical support in destination countries. This attraction may increase in the coming years, and the diaspora will continue to expand. In the article, it is also described the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the highly qualified professionals’ migration, and it gives a number of proposals or recommendations that could be implemented at the level of state migration policy to address highly qualified professionals labor migration or at least improve the current situation. The proposed recommendations of the migration policy to confront the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic include the establishment of a mechanism for coordination and consultation between all government institutions, authorities and agencies involved in labor migration, as well as the establishment of tripartite procedures for advising employers and workers of migration organizations and considering their opinions on the given topic.

Introduction: Socialism – from Eternal Reality to Passing DreamThe Year of Revolutions in 1989 presaged the end of the Cold War. For many people, it must have felt like the end of the Twentieth Century, and the 1990s a period of waiting for the Millennium. However, the 1990s was, in fact, a period of profound transformation in the post-Socialist world.In early representations of Socialism’s end, a dominant narrative was that of collapse. Dramatic events, such as the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in Germany enabled representation of the end as an unexpected moment. Senses of unexpectedness rested on erstwhile perceptions of Socialism as eternal.In contrast, the 1990s came to be a decade of revision in which thinking switched from considering Socialism’s persistence to asking, “why it went wrong?” I explore this question in relation to former-Yugoslavia. In brief, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) was replaced through the early 1990s by six independent nation states: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Kosovo came much later. In the states that were significantly ethnically mixed, the break-up was accompanied by violence. Bosnia in the 1990s will be remembered for an important contribution to the lexicon of ideas – ethnic cleansing.Revisionist historicising of the former-Yugoslavia in the 1990s was led by the scholarly community. By and large, it discredited the Ancient Ethnic Hatreds (AEH) thesis commonly held by nationalists, simplistic media commentators and many Western politicians. The AEH thesis held that Socialism’s end was a consequence of the up-swelling of primordial (natural) ethnic tensions. Conversely, the scholarly community tended to view Socialism’s failure as an outcome of systemic economic and political deficiencies in the SFRY, and that these deficiencies were also, in fact the root cause of those ethnic tensions. And, it was argued that had such deficiencies been addressed earlier Socialism may have survived and fulfilled its promise of eternity (Verdery).A third significant perspective which emerged through the 1990s was that the collapse of Socialism was an outcome of the up-swelling of, if not primordial ethnic tensions then, at least repressed historical memories of ethnic tensions, especially of the internecine violence engendered locally by Nazi and Italian Fascist forces in WWII. This perspective was particularly en vogue within the unusually rich arts scene in former-Yugoslavia. Its leading exponent was Slovenian avant-garde rock band Laibach.In this article, I consider Laibach’s career and methods. For background the article draws substantially on Alexei Monroe’s excellent biography of Laibach, Interrogation Machine: Laibach and NSK (2005). However, as I indicate below, my interpretation diverges very significantly from Monroe’s. Laibach’s most significant body of work is the cover versions of Western pop songs it recorded in the middle part of its career. Using a technique that has been labelled retroquotation (Monroe), it subtly transforms the lyrical content, and radically transforms the musical arrangement of pop songs, thereby rendering them what might be described as martial anthems. The clearest illustration of the process is Laibach’s version of Opus’s one hit wonder “Live is Life”, which is retitled as “Life is Life” (Laibach 1987).Conventional scholarly interpretations of Laibach’s method (including Monroe’s) present it as entailing the uncovering of repressed forms of individual and collective totalitarian consciousness. I outline these ideas, but supplement them with an alternative interpretation. I argue that in the cover version stage of its career, Laibach switched its attention from seeking to uncover repressed totalitarianism towards uncovering repressed memories of ethnic tension, especially from WWII. Furthermore, I argue that its creative medium of Western pop music is especially important in this regard. On the bases of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Bosnia (University of Melbourne Human Ethics project 1544213.1), and of a reading of SFRY’s geopolitical history, I demonstrate that for many people, Western popular cultural forms came to represent the quintessence of what it was to be Yugoslav. In this context, Laibach’s retroquotation of Western pop music is akin to a broader cultural practice in the post-SFRY era in which symbols of the West were iconoclastically transformed. Such transformation served to reveal a public secret (Taussig) of repressed historic ethnic enmity within the very heart of things that were regarded as quintessentially and pan-ethnically Yugoslav. And, in so doing, this delegitimised memory of SFRY ever having been a properly functioning entity. In this way, Laibach contributed significantly to a broader process in which perceptions of Socialist Yugoslavia came to be rendered less as a reality with the potential for eternity than a passing dream.What Is Laibach and What Does It Do?Originally of the industrial rock genre, Laibach has evolved through numerous other genres including orchestral rock, choral rock and techno. It is not, however, a rock group in any conventional sense. Laibach is the musical section of a tripartite unit named Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) which also encompasses the fine arts collective Irwin and a variety of theatre groups.Laibach was the name by which the Slovenian capital Ljubljana was known under the Austrian Habsburg Empire and then Nazi occupation in WWII. The choice of name hints at a central purpose of Laibach and NSK in general, to explore the relationship between art and ideology, especially under conditions of totalitarianism. In what follows, I describe how Laibach go about doing this.Laibach’s central method is eclecticism, by which symbols of the various ideological regimes that are its and the NSK’s subject matter are intentionally juxtaposed. Eclecticism of this kind was characteristic of the postmodern aesthetics typical of the 1990s. Furthermore, and counterintuitively perhaps, postmodernism was as much a condition of the Socialist East as it was the Capitalist West. As Mikhail N. Epstein argues, “Totalitarianism itself may be viewed as a specific postmodern model that came to replace the modernist ideological stance elaborated in earlier Marxism” (102). However, Western and Eastern postmodernisms were fundamentally different. In particular, while the former was largely playful, ironicising and depoliticised, the latter, which Laibach and NSK may be regarded as being illustrative of, involved placing in opposition to one another competing and antithetical aesthetic, political and social regimes, “without the contradictions being fully resolved” (Monroe 54).The performance of unresolved contradictions in Laibach’s work fulfils three principal functions. It works to (1) reveal hidden underlying connections between competing ideological systems, and between art and power more generally. This is evident in Life is Life. The video combines symbols of Slovenian romantic nationalism (stags and majestic rural landscapes) with Nazism and militarism (uniforms, bodily postures and a martial musical arrangement). Furthermore, it presents images of the graves of victims of internecine violence in WWII. The video is a reminder to Slovenian viewers of a discomforting public secret within their nation’s history. While Germany is commonly viewed as a principal oppressor of Slovenian nationalism, the rural peasantry, who are represented as embodying Slovenian nationalism most, were also the most willing collaborators in imperialist processes of Germanicisation. The second purpose of the performance of unresolved contradictions in Laibach’s work is to (2) engender senses of the alienation, especially as experienced by the subjects of totalitarian regimes. Laibach’s approach in this regard is quite different to that of punk, whose concern with alienation - symbolised by safety pins and chains - was largely celebratory of the alienated condition. Rather, Laibach took a lead from seminal industrial rock bands such as Einstürzende Neubauten and Throbbing Gristle (see, for example, Walls of Sound (Throbbing Gristle 2004)), whose sound one fan accurately describes as akin to, “the creation of the universe by an angry titan/God and a machine apocalypse all rolled into one” (rateyourmusic.com). Certainly, Laibach’s shows can be uncomfortable experiences too, involving not only clashing symbols and images, but also the dissonant sounds of, for example, martial music, feedback, recordings of the political speeches of totalitarian leaders and barking dogs, all played at eardrum-breaking high volumes. The purpose of this is to provide, as Laibach state: “a ritualized demonstration of political force” (NSK, Neue Slowenische Kunst 44). In short, more than simply celebrating the experience of totalitarian alienation, Laibach’s intention is to reproduce that very alienation.More than performatively representing tyranny, and thereby senses of totalitarian alienation, Laibach and NSK set out to embody it themselves. In particular, and contra the forms of liberal humanism that were hegemonic at the peak of their career in the 1990s, their organisation was developed as a model of totalitarian collectivism in which the individual is always subjugated. This is illustrated in the Onanigram (NSK, Neue Slowenische Kunst), which, mimicking the complexities of the SFRY in its most totalitarian dispensation, maps out in labyrinthine detail the institutional structure of NSK. Behaviour is governed by a Constitution that states explicitly that NSK is a group in which, “each individual is subordinated to the whole” (NSK, Neue Slowenische Kunst 273). Lest this collectivism be misconceived as little more than a show, the case of Tomaž Hostnik is instructive. The original lead singer of Laibach, Hostnik committed ritual suicide by hanging himself from a hayrack, a key symbol of Slovenian nationalism. Initially, rather than mourning his loss, the other members of Laibach posthumously disenfranchised him (“threw him out of the band”), presumably for his act of individual will that was collectively unsanctioned.Laibach and the NSK’s collectivism also have spiritual overtones. The Onanigram presents an Immanent Consistent Spirit, a kind of geist that holds the collective together. NSK claim: “Only God can subdue LAIBACH. People and things never can” (NSK, Neue Slowenische Kunst 289). Furthermore, such rhetorical bombast was matched in aspiration. Most famously, in one of the first instances of a micro-nation, NSK went on to establish itself as a global and virtual non-territorial state, replete with a recruitment drive, passports and anthem, written and performed by Laibach of course. Laibach’s CareerLaibach’s career can be divided into three overlapping parts. The first is its career as a political provocateur, beginning from the inception of the band in 1980 and continuing through to the present. The band’s performances have touched the raw nerves of several political actors. As suggested above, Laibach offended Slovenian nationalists. The band offended the SFRY, especially when in its stage backdrop it juxtaposed images of a penis with Marshal Josip Broz “Tito”, founding President of the SFRY. Above all, it offended libertarians who viewed the band’s exploitation of totalitarian aesthetics as a route to evoking repressed totalitarian energies in its audiences.In a sense the libertarians were correct, for Laibach were quite explicit in representing a third function of their performance of unresolved contradictions as being to (3) evoke repressed totalitarian energies. However, as Žižek demonstrates in his essay “Why Are Laibach and NSK Not Fascists”, Laibach’s intent in this regard is counter-totalitarian. Laibach engage in what amounts to a “psychoanalytic cure” for totalitarianism, which consists of four envisaged stages. The consumers of Laibach’s works and performances go through a process of over-identification with totalitarianism, leading through the experience of alienation to, in turn, disidentification and an eventual overcoming of that totalitarian alienation. The Žižekian interpretation of the four stages has, however been subjected to critique, particularly by Deleuzian scholars, and especially for its psychoanalytic emphasis on the transformation of individual (un)consciousness (i.e. the cerebral rather than bodily). Instead, such scholars prefer a schizoanalytic interpretation which presents the cure as, respectively collective (Monroe 45-50) and somatic (Goddard). Laibach’s works and pronouncements display, often awareness of such abstract theoretical ideas. However, they also display attentiveness to the concrete realities of socio-political context. This was reflected especially in the 1990s, when its focus seemed to shift from the matter of totalitarianism to the overriding issue of the day in Laibach’s homeland – ethnic conflict. For example, echoing the discourse of Truth and Reconciliation emanating from post-Apartheid South Africa in the early 1990s, Laibach argued that its work is “based on the premise that traumas affecting the present and the future can be healed only by returning to the initial conflicts” (NSK Padiglione).In the early 1990s era of post-socialist violent ethnic nationalism, statements such as this rendered Laibach a darling of anti-nationalism, both within civil society and in what came to be known pejoratively as the Yugonostagic, i.e. pro-SFRY left. Its darling status was cemented further by actions such as performing a concert to celebrate the end of the Bosnian war in 1996, and because its ideological mask began to slip. Most famously, when asked by a music journalist the standard question of what the band’s main influences were, rather than citing other musicians Laibach stated: “Tito, Tito and Tito.” Herein lies the third phase of Laibach’s career, dating from the mid-1990s to the present, which has been marked by critical recognition and mainstream acceptance, and in contrasting domains. Notably, in 2012 Laibach was invited to perform at the Tate Modern in London. Then, entering the belly of what is arguably the most totalitarian of totalitarian beasts in 2015, it became the first rock band to perform live in North Korea.The middle part in Laibach’s career was between 1987 and 1996. This was when its work consisted mostly of covers of mainstream Western pop songs by, amongst others Opus, Queen, The Rolling Stones, and, in The Final Countdown (1986), Swedish ‘big hair’ rockers. It also covered entire albums, including a version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. No doubt mindful of John Lennon’s claim that his band was more popular than the Messiah himself, Laibach covered the Beatles’ final album Let It Be (1970). Highlighting the perilous hidden connections between apparently benign and fascistic forms of sedentarism, lead singer Milan Fras’ snarling delivery of the refrain “Get Back to where you once belong” renders the hit single from that album less a story of homecoming than a sinister warning to immigrants and ethnic others who are out of place.This career middle stage invoked critique. However, commonplace suggestions that Laibach could be characterised as embodying Retromania, a derivative musical trend typical of the 1990s that has been lambasted for its de-politicisation and a musical conservatism enabled by new sampling technologies that afforded a forensic documentary precision that prohibits creative distortion (Reynolds), are misplaced. Several scholars highlight Laibach’s ceaseless attention to musical creativity in the pursuit of political subversiveness. For example, for Monroe, the cover version was a means for Laibach to continue its exploration of the connections between art and ideology, of illuminating the connections between competing ideological systems and of evoking repressed totalitarian energies, only now within Western forms of entertainment in which ideological power structures are less visible than in overt totalitarian propaganda. However, what often seems to escape intellectualist interpretations presented by scholars such as Žižek, Goddard and (albeit to a lesser extent) Monroe is the importance of the concrete specificities of the context that Laibach worked in in the 1990s – i.e. homeland ethno-nationalist politics – and, especially, their medium – i.e. Western pop music.The Meaning and Meaningfulness of Western Popular Culture in Former YugoslaviaThe Laibach covers were merely one of many celebrations of Western popular culture that emerged in pre- and post-socialist Yugoslavia. The most curious of these was the building of statues of icons of screen and stage. These include statues of Tarzan, Bob Marley, Rocky Balboa and, most famously, martial arts cinema legend Bruce Lee in the Bosnian city of Mostar.The pop monuments were often erected as symbols of peace in contexts of ethnic-national violence. Each was an ethnic hybrid. With the exception of original Tarzan Johnny Weismuller — an ethnic-German American immigrant from Serbia — none was remotely connected to the competing ethnic-national groups. Thus, it was surprising when these pop monuments became targets for iconoclasm. This was especially surprising because, in contrast, both the new ethnic-national monuments that were built and the old Socialist pan-Yugoslav monuments that remained in all their concrete and steel obduracy in and through the 1990s were left largely untouched.The work of Simon Harrison may give us some insight into this curious situation. Harrison questions the commonplace assumption that the strength of enmity between ethnic groups is related to their cultural dissimilarity — in short, the bigger the difference the bigger the biffo. By that logic, the new ethnic-national monuments erected in the post-SFRY era ought to have been vandalised. Conversely, however, Harrison argues that enmity may be more an outcome of similarity, at least when that similarity is torn asunder by other kinds of division. This is so because ownership of previously shared and precious symbols of identity appears to be seen as subjected to appropriation by ones’ erstwhile comrades who are newly othered in such moments.This is, indeed, exactly what happened in post-socialist former-Yugoslavia. Yugoslavs were rendered now as ethnic-nationals: Bosniaks (Muslims), Croats and Serbs in the case of Bosnia. In the process, the erection of obviously non-ethnic-national monuments by, now inevitably ethnic-national subjects was perceived widely as appropriation – “the Croats [the monument in Mostar was sculpted by Croatian artist Ivan Fijolić] are stealing our Bruce Lee,” as one of my Bosnian-Serb informants exclaimed angrily.However, this begs the question: Why would symbols of Western popular culture evoke the kinds of emotions that result in iconoclasm more so than other ethnically non-reducible ones such as those of the Partisans that are celebrated in the old Socialist pan-Yugoslav monuments? The answer lies in the geopolitical history of the SFRY. The Yugoslav-Soviet Union split in 1956 forced the SFRY to develop ever-stronger ties with the West. The effects of this became quotidian, especially as people travelled more or less freely across international borders and consumed the products of Western Capitalism. Many of the things they consumed became deeply meaningful. Notably, barely anybody above a certain age does not reminisce fondly about the moment when participation in martial arts became a nationwide craze following the success of Bruce Lee’s films in the golden (1970s-80s) years of Western-bankrolled Yugoslav prosperity.Likewise, almost everyone above a certain age recalls the balmy summer of 1985, whose happy zeitgeist seemed to be summed up perfectly by Austrian band Opus’s song “Live is Life” (1985). This tune became popular in Yugoslavia due to its apparently feelgood message about the joys of attending live rock performances. In a sense, these moments and the consumption of things “Western” in general came to symbolise everything that was good about Yugoslavia and, indeed to define what it was to be Yugoslavs, especially in comparison to their isolated and materially deprived socialist comrades in the Warsaw Pact countries.However, iconoclastic acts are more than mere emotional responses to offensive instances of cultural appropriation. As Michael Taussig describes, iconoclasm reveals the public secrets that the monuments it targets conceal. SFRY’s great public secret, known especially to those people old enough to have experienced the inter-ethnic violence of WWII, was ethnic division and the state’s deceit of the historic normalcy of pan-Yugoslav identification. The secret was maintained by a formal state policy of forgetting. For example, the wording on monuments in sites of inter-ethnic violence in WWII is commonly of the variety: “here lie the victims in Yugoslavia’s struggle against imperialist forces and their internal quislings.” Said quislings were, of course, actually Serbs, Croats, and Muslims (i.e. fellow Yugoslavs), but those ethnic nomenclatures were almost never used.In contrast, in a context where Western popular cultural forms came to define the very essence of what it was to be Yugoslav, the iconoclasm of Western pop monuments, and the retroquotation of Western pop songs revealed the repressed deceit and the public secret of the reality of inter-ethnic tension at the heart of that which was regarded as quintessentially Yugoslav. In this way, the memory of Yugoslavia ever having been a properly functioning entity was delegitimised. Consequently, Laibach and their kind served to render the apparent reality of the Yugoslav ideal as little more than a dream. ReferencesEpstein, Mikhail N. After the Future: The Paradoxes of Postmodernism and Contemporary Russian Culture. Amherst: U of Massachusettes P, 1995.Goddard, Michael. “We Are Time: Laibach/NSK, Retro-Avant-Gardism and Machinic Repetition,” Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 11 (2006): 45-53.Harrison, Simon. “Identity as a Scarce Resource.” Social Anthropology 7 (1999): 239–251.Monroe, Alexei. Interrogation Machine: Laibach and NSK. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005.NSK. Neue Slowenische Kunst. Ljubljana: NSK, 1986.NSK. Padiglione NSK. Ljubljana: Moderna Galerija, 1993.rateyourmusic.com. 2018. 3 Sep. 2018 <https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/throbbing-gristle>.Reynolds, Simon. Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past. London: Faber and Faber, 2011.Taussig, Michael. Defacement: Public Secrecy and the Labor of the Negative. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.Verdery, Katherine. What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Žižek, Slavoj. “Why Are Laibach and NSK Not Fascists?” 3 Sep. 2018 <www.nskstate.com/appendix/articles/why_are_laibach.php.>