Rethinking “democratic backsliding” in Central and Eastern Europe – looking beyond Hungary and Poland

This essay introduces contributions to a special issue of East European Politics on “Rethinking democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe”, which seeks to expand the study of democratic regression in CEE beyond the paradigmatic cases of Hungary and Poland. Reviewing these contributions, we identify several directions for research: 1) the need to critique “democratic backsliding”, not simply as a label, but also as an assumed regional trend; 2) a need to better integrate the role of illiberal socio-economic structures such as oligarchical structures or corrupt networks; and 3) a need to (re-)examine the trade-offs between democratic stability and democratic quality. We also note how insights developed researching post-communist regions such as Western Balkans or the post-Soviet space could usefully inform work on CEE backsliding. We conclude by calling for the study of CEE democracy to become more genuinely interdisciplinary, moving beyond some narrowly institutionalist comparative political science assumptions

Small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO)-1, SUMO-2/3 and SUMOylation are involved with centromeric heterochromatin of chromosomes 9 and 1 and proteins of the synaptonemal complex during meiosis in men

Background: Post-transcriptional modification by SUMOylation is involved in numerous cellular processes including human spermatogenesis. For human male meiosis, we previously showed that the small ubiquitin-related modifier-1 (SUMO-1) protein localizes to chromatin axes in early pachytene spermatocytes, then to kinetochores as meiosis progresses. Here, we delineate possible functional roles based on subcellular localization for SUMO-1 and SUMO-2/3. Methods: Western and immunoprecipitation analyses were conducted on proteins isolated from the testis of two normal adult fertile men. Combinatorial immunofluorescence and chromosome-specific fluorescence in situ hybridization analyses were performed on male meiocytes obtained during testicular biopsy from four patients undergoing testicular sperm extraction for assisted reproduction technologies. Results: The synaptonemal complex (SC) and SC proteins (SCP)-1 and SCP2, but not SCP3, are SUMOylated by SUMO-1 during the pachytene substage. Likewise, two distinct localization patterns for SUMO-1 are identified: a linear pattern co-localized with autosomal SCs and isolated SUMO-1 near the centromeric heterochromatin of chromosomes 9 and 1. In contrast to SUMO-1, which is not detectable prior to pachytene in normal tissue, SUMO-2/3 is identified as early as leptotene and zygotene and in some, but not all, pachytene cells; no linear patterns were detected. Similar to SUMO-1, SUMO-2/3 localizes in two predominant subnuclear patterns: a single, dense signal near the centromere of human chromosome 9 and small, individual foci co-localized with autosomal centromeres. Conclusions: Our data suggest that SUMO-1 may be involved in maintenance and/or protection of the autosomal SC. SUMO-2/3, though expressed similarly, may function separately and independently during pachytene in men

Determinación de ácidos grasos en leche bubalina (Bubalus bubalis) producida en Corrientes, Argentina

El objetivo del estudio fue determinar los valores de ácidos grasos saturados e insaturados, especialmente ácido linoleico conjugado (CLA) y ácidos omega 3 y 6, en leche de búfalas de la Provincia de Corrientes. Se emplearon 16 búfalas multíparas de raza Murrah y mestizas Murrah x Mediterránea, distribuidas en 2 grupos integrados por 8 animales cada uno (4 Murrah y 4 mestizas). El primero fue alimentado con pasturales naturales ad libitum y el segundo con pasturas naturales y un suplemento diario de 2 kg de maíz molido por animal. El ensayo duró 35 días. En los días 1 y 35 se obtuvieron muestras de leche de todas las búfalas (32 muestras). Para la dieta de pastura natural con y sin suplementación, los ácidos grasos saturados fueron de 56,91 y 57,10%, en tanto que los insaturados fueron de 43,68 y 42,89% respectivamente. De estos últimos, el 37,24 y 36,92% correspondieron a monoinsaturados y el 5,84 y 5,97% a polinsaturados respectivamente. Entre los ácidos grasos saturados predominó el C16:0 y entre los insaturados el C18:1. El ácido C14:0 reveló diferencias significativas según época de muestreo y dieta (p<0,05), resultando mayor al día 35 y en animales suplementados. El nivel de CLA en búfalas no suplementadas fue de 10,29 mg/g de grasa láctea. Existió una correlación positiva entre CLA y acido vaccénico en la grasa láctea (r = 0.87). La relación de ácidos grasos omega 6 y omega 3 fue de 2,07/1 al final del ensayo. En conclusión, se establecen valores de referencia para ácidos grasos en leche bubalina y se espera que estos datos asuman importancia al momento de compararlos con los obtenidos mediante otras estrategias dietarias, con el propósito de incrementar el contenido de CLA y omega 3 en la leche de búfalas

Anti-Equivalence: Pragmatics of post-liberal dispute

In the early 21st century, liberal democracies have witnessed their foundational norms of critique and deliberation being disrupted by a combination of populist and technological forces. A distinctive style of dispute has appeared, in which a speaker denounces the unfairness of all liberal and institutional systems of equivalence, including the measures of law, economics and the various other ‘tests’ which convention scholars have deemed core to organisations. The article reviews how sociologists of critique have tended to treat critical capacities as oriented towards consensus, but then considers how technologies of real-time ‘control’ circumvent liberal critique altogether. In response, a different type of dispute emerges in the digital public sphere, which abandons equivalences in general, instead adopting a non-representational template of warfare. This style of post-liberal dispute is manifest in the rhetoric of populists, but does not originate there

Populism and nationalism in a comparative perspective: a scholarly exchange

The purpose of the Exchange feature is to publish discussions that engage, advance and initiate new debates in the study of nations and nationalism. This Exchange article is on the subject of ‘Populism and Nationalism’. Each contributor addresses the following four questions on the subject: (1) What is populism and what role does it play within the context of democratic politics? (2) Does populism cut across left-right lines? (3) What is the relationship between nationalism and populism? (4) Are contemporary populist movements across Europe and the West comparable? Our aim is to generate a thought- provoking conversation with regards to the rise of populism in Europe and the West