The “Civic” Road to Secession: Political Ideology as an Ethnic Boundary Marker in Contemporary Scotland

Abstract

Civic nationalism is a weak vessel for secession. Nonetheless, contemporary Scottish nationalism has proven unusually successful, using the characteristically civic marker of political ideology as its signature boundary mechanism. Because a civic form of nationalism funnels toward civic markers of national identity, nationalist elites define Scotland as social democratic and England as neoliberal. This symbolic cultivation of a Scottish social democratic essence is deeply ethnic, however, through a mythological fusion of ideology with genealogy characteristic of ethnic myths of descent. Scotland’s “civic” nationalism points up the confused nature of the ethnic-civic dichotomy itself.     

Popular Threats and Nationalistic Propaganda: Political Logic of China’s Patriotic Campaign

Abstract

Conventional wisdom suggests that authoritarian leaders use nationalist propaganda as a tool to strengthen mass support. Yet few studies have provided systematic evidence to account for specific tactics underlying these information manipulations. We argue that autocrats, recognizing the material costs of propaganda, are more likely to target localities with the greatest antiregime potential. Using a unique dataset of “patriotic education sites” that the Chinese Communist Party assigned throughout China as tools to advance its nationalistic campaign, we found a systematic association between these locations and the scale of antiregime mobilization in the 1989 prodemocracy movement. The longer the antiregime protest lasted in a city in 1989, the greater the number of patriotic education sites the city contains. Our findings highlight the strategic way in which autocrats manipulate nationalist propaganda to mitigate popular threats.     

Shaking off the neoliberal shackles: “democratic emergence” and the negotiation of democratic knowledge in the Middle East North Africa context

ABSTRACT

There is a general assumption in democracy promotion that liberal democracy is the panacea that will solve all political and economic problems faced by developing countries. Using the concept of “good society” as analytical prism, the analysis shows that while there is a rhetorical agreement as to what the “good society” entails, democracy promotion practices fail to allow for recipients’ inclusion in the negotiation and delivery of the “good society”. Contrasting US and Tunisian discourses on the “good society”, the article argues that democracy promotion practices are underpinned by neoliberal parameters borne out from a reliance on the transition paradigm, which in turn leave little room to democracy promotion recipients to formulate knowledge claims supporting the emergence of alternative conceptions of the “good society”. In contrast, the article opens up a reflective pathway to a negotiated democratic knowledge, which would reside in a paradigmatic change that consists in the abandonment of the transition paradigm in favour of a “democratic emergence” paradigm.     

“Systemically Significant States”: Tracing the G20’s Membership Category as a New Logic of Stratification in the International System

ABSTRACT

The international system has long distinguished classes of states, such as “great powers”. Recently, “systemically significant states” has emerged as a new designation within global financial governance. This designation was introduced by the G7 to justify the new membership composition of the G20, and has since been adopted in policy documents and recommendations by other institutions, such as the IMF. This article traces the origins of the term “systemically significant” and argues that, although nominally meant to be a term of inclusion and a signal of the pluralisation of governance authority, it instead serves as a new category of stratification rooted in a neoliberal governmentality of risk.     

Explaining “Market Authority” and Liberal Stability: Toward a Sociological–Constructivist Synthesis

Irrespective of the occasionally destructive financial consequences for individuals and the global economy, and warnings of its imminent collapse by critics, a globalising regime of capital mobility and neoliberal domestic policies appears in no danger of imminent collapse. This article explores the sources of the erstwhile stability of a liberal global economic order. The social mechanisms whereby people in many of the most capable states give their consent to “market authority” are explored with reference to Max Weber's sociology of legitimacy and Anthony Giddens' sociology of modernity. A constructivist theoretical construct of the changing “structure of intersubjective public belief” is developed as an explanatory heuristic. Liberalism is criticised for its conflation of choice with consent regarding its treatment of market processes, and vulnerabilities resulting from inconsistencies among liberal treatments of these are discussed.     

Liberation movements and stalled democratic transitions: reproducing power in Rwanda and South Africa through productive liminality

The lack of convergence towards liberal democracy in some African countries reflects neither a permanent state of political aberration, nor necessarily a prolonged transitional phase through which countries pass once the “right” conditions are met. Examining the cases of two ruling parties, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and the African National Congress in South Africa, we develop the concept of productive liminality to explain countries suspended (potentially indefinitely) in a status “betwixt and between” mass violence, authoritarianism, and democracy. On the one hand, their societies are in a liminal status wherein a transition to democracy and socio-economic “revolution” remains forestalled; on the other hand, this liminality is instrumentalized to justify the party’s extraordinary mandate characterized by: (a) an idea of an incomplete project of liberation that the party alone is mandated to fulfil through an authoritarian social contract, and (b) the claim that this unfulfilled revolution is continuously under threat by a coterie of malevolent forces, which the party alone is mandated to identify and appropriately sanction.     

Make Hegel great again: on Hegel’s epistemological contribution to critical terrorism studies

ABSTRACT

Despite the contribution of Foucaultian inspired approaches to Critical Terrorism Studies, this article invites us to consider Hegel’s epistemological insights. Foucault’s power-knowledge nexus is an invaluable intellectual tool which reveals how terrorism can be a “social fact”, yet it rests on a genealogical account of history and a passive notion of subjectivity determined by power (regimes). Hegelian philosophy maintains some of the benefits met in Foucault’s approach (sociality and contingency of knowledge) while providing a richer epistemological account. This article introduces Hegel’s epistemological insights to: i) challenge the portrayal of terrorism as a major external threat against the western liberal democratic states in the vein of “New Terrorism” or the “Clash of Civilizations”; and ii) domestically explore how the concept of liberal democratic rights, equality, freedom affect the interpretation of counter-terrorist bills, the threat perception of terrorism and domestic polarisation. Hegel’s insights critically interrogate the notions of “liberal rights”, “equality” and “freedom”, revealing how their ambiguous definition accommodates inherent contradictions which can fuel a controversial interpretation of counter-terrorist bills, leading to domestic polarisation and (reciprocal) radicalisation. Therefore, Hegel’s epistemological insights reveal how the defective definition of human rights, equality and liberty can amplify the effects of Terrorism and radicalisation.     

Citizenship Capital

ABSTRACT

This article examines the citizenship dimension of transnational inequalities. It is clear that some citizenships offer great advantages while others are liabilities for the individual, and the aim of this present article is to develop a conceptualisation of citizenship and inequality, in order to be able to assess and compare them. For this purpose, elements of Pierre Bourdieu's sociology are utilized. The argument is that citizenship can be thought of as a form of capital in this Bourdieusian sense – that is, as a resource with which individuals are more or less endowed, and which impacts on people's transnational social positions, their capacities for action, their strategies and perceptions. The main contribution is to develop this idea, which is referred to as “citizenship capital”. Its usefulness is demonstrated by considering its interaction with economic capital for shaping positions in transnational social space.     

Present at the Destruction? The Liberal Order in the Trump Era

Abstract

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 sent shock waves across political classes globally and prompted debates about whether his ‘America first’ agenda threatened the liberal international order. During his first year in office, Trump seemed determined to undermine the hallmarks of the liberal international order: democracy, liberal economics and international cooperation. So, are we witnessing the emergence of a “post-liberal” and “post-American” era? Four sources of evidence help frame – if not answer – the question: history, the crisis of liberal democracy, Trump’s world view, and the power of civil society (globally and nationally) to constrain any US President. They yield three main judgements. First, continuity often trumps change in US foreign policy. Second, the liberal international order may have been more fragile pre-Trump than was widely realised. Third, American power must be put at the service of its own democracy if the US is to become the example to the world it used to be.     

A Pacifist Approach to Countering Extremism

ABSTRACT

How should a pacifist approach both extremism and counter-extremism? Through exploring definitions of extremism alongside pacifist scholarship, the paper argues that pacifism itself appears to be “extreme”, allowing extremism to be examined from an extreme perspective. But does counter-extremism engender peace? The paper identifies three dominant definitions of counter-extremism: a promotion of nonviolence, of liberal democratic values, and of tolerance. While counter-extremism appears to engender peace, the paper exposes the ways in which countering extremism promotes violence: a “nonviolence” which legitimises state violence; an ethnocentric homogenisation of liberal democratic values which alienates ethnic minorities, and a narrow sphere of tolerated pluralism which transforms non-hegemonic values into threats. The paper argues that to promote peace, pacifists must contribute to the reconceptualisation of extremism. The paper suggests that instead of depicting challenges to hegemonic values as “antagonisms” that threaten, agonistic spaces are required such that “extremism” need not be countered but encountered.     

Anarcho-cosmopolitanism: The Universalisation of the Equal Exchange

This paper concerns itself with the values which make up what has been labelled “ethical cosmopolitanism”—that which entails a universal scope of ethical concern. Conceptions of this ethic have underpinned the development of a “global civil society” and associated humanitarian and activist campaigns. However, such cosmopolitan campaigns have illustrated the ways in which the dismissals of difference and importance of embeddedness have caused suffering to the supposed beneficiaries of such campaigns. This is because of the unrecognised power relations that exist between moral agents, which result in “unequal exchanges”, that is, the exchange of physical, material and mental resources from positions of unequal negotiating positions, driven by power differentials and hierarchy. A theory of the “equal exchange” is developed upon which to base alternative cosmopolitan practices. Such a theory is grounded in Anarchist thought, which, it is argued, provides the most stringent philosophical underpinning for such a cosmopolitan theory.     

The General on his Journeys. Augusto Pinochet’s International Trips and Diverging Transnational Justice and Memory Agendas in the Aftermath of the Cold War

Augusto Pinochet, comandante-en-jefe of the Chilean Army, was an avid global traveller in the 1990s. As the former military dictator had developed into a potent symbol of Cold War anti-communism, authoritarianism, and market radicalism, his trips across Latin America, East Asia, Southern Africa, continental Europe, and to the United Kingdom usually made a great stir. This article looks at public reactions, political debates, and legal consequences that were caused by Pinochet’s appearance. It argues that different attitudes towards the Chilean visitor reflected how local groups positioned and envisioned themselves in the transformative period around 1989. Drawing on documents from the Chilean Foreign Ministry, interviews with Chilean generals, and newspaper coverage from four continents, it demonstrates that many anti-communists as well as liberal economists did not see Pinochet as a representative of a criminal past. Rather, his “Chilean model” had become a source of legitimacy of an authoritarian path of modernisation.     

Terrorism,counter‐terrorism and democracy: The assessment of national security threats

The development of radical Islamist strategic thinking and the impact of post-modern, Western styles of thought upon the ideology that informs that strategy is often overlooked in conventional discussions of homegrown threats from jihadist militants. The propensity to discount the ideology informing both al-Qaeda and nominally non-violent Islamist movements with an analogous political philosophy like Hizb ut-Tahrir neglects the influence that critical Western modes of thought exercise upon their strategic thinking especially in the context of homegrown radicalization. Drawing selectively on non-liberal tendencies in the Western ideological canon has, in fact, endowed Khilaafaism (caliphism) with both a distinctive theoretical style and strategic practice. In particular, it derives intellectual sustenance from a post-Marxist Frankfurt School of critical thinking that in combination with an “English” School of international relations idealism holds that epistemological claims are socially determined, subjective, and serve the interests of dominant power relations. This critical, normative, and constructivist approach to international relations seeks not only to explain the historical emergence of the global order, but also to transcend it. This transformative agenda bears comparison with radical Islamist critiques of Western ontology and is of interest to Islamism's political and strategic thinking. In this regard, the relativist and critical approaches that have come to dominate the academic social sciences since the 1990s not only reflect a loss of faith in Western values in a way that undermines the prospects for a liberal and pluralist polity, but also, through a critical process facilitated by much international relations orthodoxy, promotes the strategic and ideological agenda of radical Islam. It is this curious strategic and ideological evolution that this paper explores.     

Representing the West and “non-believers” in the online jihadist magazines Dabiq and Inspire

ABSTRACT

This article analyses how jihadist ideology groups discursively represent “the West” and “non-believers” in their online propagandamagazines. In doing so, it contributes to the field of Critical Terrorism Studies conceptually, by considering the voices of violent actors, and methodologically, by illustrating how linguistic tools of enquiry can advance current knowledge of jihadist ideology groups. Our work adopts a case study approach, focusing on the online magazines Inspire and Dabiq, which are part of the propaganda machinery of, respectively, Al-Qaeda and ISIS. The analysis reveals a number of similarities and differences in the discursive strategies that these twogroups use. On the one hand, both Inspire and Dabiq support and further construct an “us versus them” dichotomy thatpolarises differences between their jihadist ideologies and those of Westerners/non-believers. On the other, Dabiq’s discursiverepresentation of “the West” targets a wider variety of individuals and groups of people and geographical locations than Inspire’s. Additionally, Inspire places a greater focus on the pejorative construction of “the West” than Dabiq, suggesting that Al-Qaeda places more emphasis than ISIS on presenting “the West” as the enemy of jihad.     

Advancing Cosmopolitanism through International Competition

The impact of the Olympics seems global, but is it cosmopolitan? Cosmopolitan theory needs to be expanded to include criteria for evaluating the effects of transnational non-governmental associations. Such criteria would enable cosmopolitans not merely to argue for the toleration of associations but also to consider how associations advance cosmopolitan norms and dispositions. Assessing institutional, developmental, shared identity and public sphere effects, this article uses the example of the Olympics to explore what it would mean for an association's effects to be cosmopolitan. Establishing standardised international rules and shared global norms such as fair play are cosmopolitan aspects of the Olympic movement. These shared rules and practices lead to transnational communities among elite athletes, sports administrators and even audiences. The nationalistic aspects of the Olympic Games keep this association a partial expression of cosmopolitanism. Partial expressions of cosmopolitanism, however, have the potential indirectly to advance cosmopolitan norms among those who do not necessarily embrace cosmopolitanism. The Olympics demonstrates that to advance cosmopolitanism requires more than a declared cosmopolitan purpose.     

In-between liberal authoritarianism and electoral authoritarianism: Hong Kong’s democratization under Chinese sovereignty, 1997–2016

On the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the handover, Hong Kong’s transition towards a full democracy remains unsettled. Drawing upon the contemporary theories of hybrid regimes, this article argues that manipulations adopted by electoral authoritarian governments have become increasingly common in Hong Kong today. As Hong Kong’s elections, opposition activities, and media have been increasingly put under electoral authoritarian-style manipulations, the city-state is now situated in the “political grey zone” in-between liberal authoritarianism and electoral authoritarianism and its transition into a full democracy remains nowhere in sight. The case study of Hong Kong will help enrich the existing comparative literature on hybrid regimes by developing a new “in-between category” and offering an interesting case of democratization of sub-national polity.     

The Problem of Nuclear Harm for Andrew Linklater,Lorraine Elliott and Other Contemporary Cosmopolitans

In a paper that helped inaugurate the subfield of Environmental Philosophy in 1973, Richard Routley located the seed of Western anthropocentrism in the liberal harm principle. Yet, beginning in the late 1990s, Andrew Linklater began globalising the harm principle with no reference to Routley, or to the enduring debates about the moral status of the non-human world. In this article, I offer a preliminary sketch—no more than that—as to why Routley was right to reject the idea of a harm principle being contained within a non-anthropocentric environmental ethic, and that Linklater, Lorraine Elliott and their contemporary cosmopolitan colleagues—whatever the extent of their human-centredness—have been wrong to ignore him. I do so by intruding the problem of nuclear harm into Linklater’s cosmopolitan account of harm in world politics. Approaching the concept of harm through the prism of the nuclear age is interesting and important, I argue, since it both takes seriously Linklater’s intuition that the cosmopolitan response to the emergence of nuclear harms is evidence of a global harm narrative, and because it serves to ground Linklater’s otherwise abstract theorising in the harm par excellence of world politics.     

Global Collective Memory: Conceptual Difficulties of an Appealing Idea

The idea of “collective memory” has attracted substantial attention since Maurice Halbwachs’ path-breaking work in the 1920s. Recently we have started to notice references, at an increasing pace, to a global(ised) version of collective memory. This essay argues that “global collective memory”, especially in light of Halbwachs’ original understanding, is not a particularly strong or promising concept. First, the essay discusses three kinds of memory, namely individual, organisational, and institutional, and juxtaposes them with the idea of collective memory. Then it turns more specifically to a discussion of the global scale, and suggests that the intricate connections between these different types acquire a new degree of complexity when transposed to the global level due to the questions of politics and identity. The essay suggests further that a global memory, conceptualised with reference to its institutional rather than collective characteristics, may well be in the making.