Todos somos indígenas: Towards a New Language of National Political Identity

One of the most striking aspects of ‘Red October’ was the central role played by indigenous groups and their leaders who were largely able to set the agenda of protest. This paper explores how the concept of indigeneity as a mobilising concept has moved from the periphery of the political arena to centre stage. Two indigenous leaders played significant roles: whereas the political rhetoric of Felipe Quispe is exclusionary and particularistic, Evo Morales's rhetoric is inclusive and broad. Indigenous identity as articulated by indigenous leaders is contrasted to the identities expressed by rural people and raises the question of how indigeneity is defined and by whom.     

The Indigenous in the Plural in Bolivian Oppositional Politics

This article examines how currents of Bolivia's indigenous movement are gravitating to the city and to the centre of national political life, capitalising on popular sentiment against the political status quo, economic privatisation and violations of national sovereignty. The Movement Toward Socialism led by Evo Morales does not promote a separatist ethno-national project; instead, it uses regional, national and international coalition building to equate indigenous with non-indigenous issues through resonant political analogies that frame Bolivia's national crisis of political legitimacy in terms of indigenous rights, while making common cause with diverse urban popular sectors who, if not indigenous, recognise their indigenous cultural heritage as a crucial background to their own struggles against disenfranchisement.     

‘The Root Is Maya,the Practice Is Pluralist’: Xel‐jú and Indigenous Political Mobilisation in Quetzaltenango,Guatemala

Since the 1990s Latin America has witnessed the emergence of ethnic, often social movement‐based, political parties. Within this context Rigoberto Quemé Chay became the first indigenous mayor of Quetzaltenango, the second‐largest city of Guatemala, a place that until then had been marked by indigenous political exclusion and racism. This article seeks to explain why Quemé was victorious in 1995 and also why he subsequently lost the election in 2004 through an analysis of the ideational struggle within the (indigenous) political organisation, Xel‐jú, which backed Quemé's candidacy twice. I use the movements of ‘departure’, ‘manoeuvre’ and ‘arrival’ in the process of the constitution of hegemonic visions of power to analyse Xel‐jú's rise to political power.     

‘The backbone of the village’: gender,development, and traditional authority in rural Zanzibar

Recent processes of political decentralisation and the parallel movements asserting indigenous identity and autochthony have led to a resurgence of academic interest in ‘traditional’ and local forms of leadership and authority. Based on ethnographic research on the hirimu age-set system and related forms of traditional authority in the Zanzibari village of Jongowe, this article explores how these systems rooted in local history and identity are mitigated by contemporary national and international political circumstances. By examining how ‘traditional’ systems both create and circumscribe space for gendered expressions of power and how they work with the emerging forms of non-governmental organisation characteristic of contemporary development, the article considers how these dynamic local systems of governance maintain their legitimacy through both association with the past and engagement with contemporary politics. It argues for an understanding of ‘traditional authority’ that expands beyond hereditary leadership positions, and suggests that such forms of power, though embedded in historical collective identity, are expressions of contemporary forms of governance.     

Tribal or Indigenous? The Indian Dilemma

Abstract

Current Maoist struggles, resulting from deprivation of livelihood in the Central Indian tribal belt and for autonomy in Northeast India, focus on the rights of tribes who claim to be indigenous In the Northeast the demand is to be considered the ‘original’ inhabitants of the region and, in the rest of India, it is the first inhabitants of India as a whole. Most conflicts today are around identity, central to which is indigenous status and tribal sustenance. Much resource has been alienated for ‘national development’ since independence in 1947. A national failure to recognise the importance of community-based sustenance facilitates its alienation. Intensified alienation, resulting from globalisation, causes more conflicts and greater state suppression. This article discusses the link between development and indigenous status, and implications for human rights.     

Regime change and public administration in East Germany ‐ some findings from a research project in Brandenburg and Saxony

After the accession of the GDR to the Federal Republic, the transfer of institutions and personnel from the west to the east, especially the transformation of a ‘cadre‐administration’ into a modern western‐type public administration ranked very high on the political agenda. This article presents some findings from a research project on ‘Administrative Culture in East Germany’, conducted in the states of Brandenburg and Saxony. The questions to be addressed are whether one could speak of a total replacement of eastern and western élites during the process of unification. What are the results of élite transfer from the west? What is the composition of the new administrative elites in the east German Länder? Are there significantly different political perceptions by ‘easterners’ and ‘westerners’ of the problems confronting public administrators?     

Dynamic Success on YouTube: A Longitudinal Analysis of Click Counts and Contents of Political Candidate Clips during the 2009 German National Election

Since the 2008 Obama victory, mass media and academic research have contributed to the widespread notion that modern political campaigns are won in the so-called ‘web 2.0’, more precisely on YouTube. While respective studies were able to identify some major factors for the success of political YouTube videos, some videos ‘failed’ to have the presumed success online. This lack of clarity has not been convincingly explained by cross-sectional designs without taking into account the dynamic aspects of the success of YouTube videos. This study evaluates and validates the impact of presentation, professionalism, topic, age and the typical slope of the website-visits over time on the total amount of page visits. Political YouTube videos were analysed over a five-month period before the 2009 German national election. Most strikingly, one has to ignore some of the YouTube conventions to be successful on the platform during an election campaign, like uploading user-generated content.     

At the Edges and on the Margins: Hearing the Voices of Young People in South Pacific Island Countries

Abstract

‘Youth’ are frequently referred to under the mantra of inclusivity in any aid-funded project, development initiative or government–donor initiative in the Pacific region. Indeed, ‘youth’ ranks alongside ‘women/gender’ as a catch term for communicating diversity compliance. But how are ‘youth’ framed and who speaks for this group of people who are not yet adults or are only just adults in law, and yet are beyond the voiceless or barely articulate stage of childhood? This question may be particularly pertinent in cultures such as those found in the Pacific, where the right to speak out is traditionally not afforded to those on the edge of adulthood, and where ‘youth’ for the purposes of inclusive dialogue frequently means people over the age of 20. Although they may seem isolated, the Pacific islands are linked to global, regional and national movements to give young people more voice, to recognise the valuable contributions they can make and to ensure that they are participants in determining their own futures.     

The Recursive Indian: The Significance of Complementary Ethnic Alterity in the Bolivian Tipnis March

This article explores ethnic alterity in the Bolivian Tipnis crisis, showing how claiming indigenous, Indian and colonial identities was significant in shaping government strategy and responses among ‘citified Indians’ of La Paz and El Alto and highland indigenous social movements. While Kuper claims indigeneity can distract attention from ‘real local issues’, Andean ethnicity is relational, roles assigned and reassigned in a continually shifting political theatre, where the ‘rebel Indian’ recurs historically, challenging colonial hegemony and reorienting the discussion towards issues of territorial autonomy.     

Learning to laugh: satire and political thought in the Latvian ‘National Age’

ABSTRACT

Satiric publications are often recognized as an important part of the political communication of the nineteenth century. Their role, however, in the national ‘awakenings’ in central eastern Europe has been rarely addressed. This paper argues that satirical publications provide useful material for the research of the political ideology of early Latvian nationalism. The development of the ‘ethnic Other’ in the figure of the Bizmanis or ‘Plaitman,’ the invention of the ‘dumb minority,’ the Malenians, as well as the representation of imperial and provincial forces in animal fables illustrate the development of the political thinking of the emerging national movement.     

The Spring 2011 Landtag Elections: Regional Specificities or National Electoral Dynamics?

The year 2011 is a Superwahljahr in Germany, with five states (Hamburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Bremen) holding Land-level elections in the spring and two more (Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) following in the autumn. The debate on the ‘second-order’ nature of Land elections – whether they are to be understood by their own regionally specific dynamics or whether they primarily serve as a proxy for national electoral trends – provides the frame for this election report and its discussion of campaigns, election results and coalition outcomes. These elections could perhaps best be described as ‘one-and-a-half-order’ elections: in some of these elections there was evidence of national electoral trends and national political issues, and voters undoubtedly rendered something of a judgement on the federal coalition government. Nevertheless, election and coalition outcomes probably had more to do with the specific political conditions prevailing in each of these states than with any overarching national dynamic.     

Democracy,Power and Indigeneity

This article identifies a theoretical nexus between indigeneity and liberal democracy in three post‐colonial contexts. Like democracy, the politics of indigeneity asks questions and makes assumptions about where power ought to lie and how it ought to be shared in relation to political inclusion and national sovereignty. The interaction of indigeneity with democracy highlights the limitations of liberal theory as well as the opportunities it provides to meet indigenous claims and conceptions of justice. Exploring the ideological tensions and commonalities between democracy and indigeneity allows a contrast, in comparative context, of the proposition that in Fiji, for example, democracy is “a foreign flower” unsuited to the local environment with the argument that liberal representative democracy can, in fact, mediate power in favour of an inclusive national polity.     

Praying for Government: Peasant Disengagement from the Bolivian State*

This article explores peasants' experiences of the state in the Toracari valley, Northern Potosí, suggesting that such an analysis may shed light on the absence of political unrest among substantial segments of Bolivia's indigenous population. So long as Toracari peasants imagine the fetish of a benevolent (national) Government that one cannot fight, they associate local public offices with the small‐scale mestizo landlords who hold these positions, rather than with Government. Recognition of this distinction should caution scholars against employing the concept of ‘State’ as a system that includes all levels of government and state officials. Use of that concept may obstruct serious research into the power of local elites such as the landlords.     

Everyday forms of state decomposition: Quetzaltenango,Guatemala, 1954⋆

This essay explores how Guatemala's 1952 agrarian reform played out among Quetzalteco K'iche's. Much of the academic writing on the revolution is concerned with the way the agrarian reform affected indigenous communities. These studies either view the reform as creating bitter political conflicts within the community, thereby weakening or destroying local institutions of communal politics and identification, or else they understand the reform as deepening incipient class divisions. In all of these studies,‘conflict’is understood to be something antithetical to‘community’. Yet conflict is as essential to communal formation as are more visible identity markers, suggesting an intriguing correlation: the greater the degree of communal conflict, the greater the level of communal identification.     

Chinese eyes on Africa: Authoritarian flexibility versus democratic governance

This article seeks to shed more light on the consequences of China's aid to and trade with African states. It attempts to answer two questions: First, does China's ‘no-strings-attached’ policy in Africa constitute a challenge to Western aid paradigms? Second, is there as an emerging state-sponsored Chinese model of ‘effective governance’, guided by a south-south vision of mutuality, equality and reciprocity at work? It is argued that China's Africa watchers are cautious, not wanting to project any false hopes into bilateral relationships with African countries. In the light of China's reform experience, these analysts propose that indigenous contexts should determine what developmental model to choose. China is unwilling to force its experiences of ‘a market economy with Chinese characteristics’ upon other nations. The article concludes by arguing that, although not unproblematic, there is reason to be positive about China's higher profile in Africa.     

From the Bare and Arid Hills to Anatolia,the Loveable and Beautiful: Kemalist Project of ‘National Modernity’ in Anatolian Countryside

This article discusses how the discourse of ‘Anatolia, the loveable and beautiful’ was developed after the retreat of the Ottomans from the Balkans and how Anatolia emerged as the construction site of the Kemalist project of ‘national modernity’ and ‘Anatolian enlightenment’. Based on a meticulous reading of the ethnographies, histories and monographs on Anatolian cities and regions published between 1923 and 1950 as well as the journals of the local branches of People's Houses, the article demonstrates how the regime attempted to establish its legitimacy by incorporating the local elements into the ‘grand national narrative’ and nationalizing the Anatolian countryside.     

Without Sticks or Carrots: Brazilian Leadership in South America During the Cardoso Era, 1992–2003*

Throughout the Fernando Henrique Cardoso presidency Brazil actively pursued a South American leadership project. The distinctive and central feature of this policy was its attempt to operate without the coercion or explicit payoffs often associated with ‘leading’ in mainstream international relations literature. Instead, efforts were devoted to constructing an inclusive project that sought extended and unconscious cooperation from other states through a transfer of ‘ownership’ of the continental project. An examination of three cases – the 1994 Summit of the Americas, interregionalism and South American infrastructure integration – is used to demonstrate the techniques employed by Brazil as well as to highlight the limitations implicit in the Brazilian leadership strategy.     

Constructing the ‘Immigrant’: Germany’s Radical Left in the Refugee Crisis

The article scrutinises how Germany’s non-political party radical left has discussed immigration and ‘cultural’ or ‘national’ identity in the context of past and current immigration into Germany, with a focus on the refugee crisis of 2015. Three types of radical left discourse are identified. First, some in the radical left have come to regard immigrants, in particular refugees, as an ‘ersatz proletariat’ and therefore as potential revolutionary instruments for their own project. Second, some agree that revolutionary change is necessary but subordinate their principles to practical support for immigrants and refugees in the here and now. Third, given the improbability of communist revolution and the crisis of ‘Western modernity’, some on the radical left have called for the defence of ‘the West’ and to help immigrants assimilate into Western civilisation. The article makes a timely contribution to the knowledge about contemporary radical left politics in Germany and shows the fractured nature of Germany’s non-political party radical left in the context of the refugee crisis. It also investigates the impact of ‘crisis’ as an ‘open moment’ and ‘catalyst’ on the radical left’s discourse-as-practice.     

The development of Kuwaiti Islamists’ political ideology: the administration of the Kuwaiti Supreme Committee and the Free Kuwait campaign during the Second Gulf Crisis 1990–91

Abstract

This article aims to explore how the intellectual thinking and political actions of an Islamist could be developed and changed toward a more realistic view. The Kuwaiti Islamic Students’ movement in the UK was led by the youth of the Muslim Brotherhood under the Free Kuwait Campaign during the Second Gulf Crisis in 1990-91. This movement went through a significant development and change of ideas and practices with other political and societal groups. Dealing with all segments of Kuwait’s society as partners in the country and its destiny, and not as intellectual or party opponents, was the main change in ideas. Moreover, a qualitative leap in realistic political thought emerged among these young people and affected the future of the movement. In the immediate post-invasion era, this action was not invested towards building an open national platform. However, the students’ actions were influenced by the event, and pro Islam al-’i’tilafiyah became more accepting of others, leading to many students from other ideologies joining the ranks. Moreover, nationalistic ideas crept into Islamic thoughts in the post-invasion era, leading to a mixture of ideologies rendering one ‘moderate’ or ‘conservative’ that was described by stricter Islamists as ‘lenient’.     

‘Belmopan. A New Capital for a New Nation’ State,Nation and Ethnicity at the Time of Independence

In Belize, a project for building a new capital emerged in the early 1960s, just after the ravages of Hurricane Hattie, which had destroyed much of the colonial capital, Belize City. According to the common narrative, Belmopan was the answer to a natural threat. But this article will show that it was also a political strategy, intended to give the country a new, modern face, the symbol of a young nation on the road to independence (1981). One of the issues of this post-colonial state is the definition of a national ‘us’ and the place of ethnic groups inherited from the British colonial administration's policy of ‘divide and rule’. The article shows that the politicisation of ethnicity entails neither its integration in the state nor its institutionalisation by the parties, but rather the emergence of ‘citizenship from below’.