Addressing Myanmar’s Citizenship Crisis

Among many problematic issues surfacing in reformist Myanmar is a citizenship crisis with four main dimensions. First, in a state with fragile civil liberties, skewed political rights and limited social rights, there is a broad curtailment of citizenship. Second, Rohingya Muslims living mainly in Rakhine State are denied citizenship, and other Muslims throughout the country are increasingly affected by this denial. Third, designated ethnic minorities clustered in peripheral areas face targeted restrictions of citizenship. Fourth, the dominant Bamar majority concentrated in the national heartland tends to arrogate or appropriate citizenship. The result is growing social tension that threatens to undermine the wider reform process. To examine this crisis, the article sets Myanmar in a comparative context. In particular, it considers how multicultural states in the developed world have sought to manage a political switch from racial or ethnic hierarchy to democratic citizenship. Drawing on global experience with multiculturalism and enabling civic integration, it advances a series of policy options focused on rights, duties and identity. It argues for domestic political leadership, backed by global political support, to address Myanmar’s citizenship crisis.     

Interrogating the Mediterranean ‘Migration Crisis’

This Forum aims to uncover the socio-politics of the ‘migration crisis’ in the Mediterranean. The contributions explore the idea of the ‘migration crisis’ or ‘refugee crisis’ in the Mediterranean from the starting point that as scholars of the Mediterranean we can do two things: one, we can look at the way crisis introduces processes of bordering to our analysis, limiting our gaze and analytical curiosity to a specific space and a specific time; or two, we can take these limits as an opportunity to explore the wider socio-politics, geographies and economies that contribute to producing this so-called ‘crisis’ and in turn what socio-politics, geographies and economies are produced and their implications.     

Utopia in Crisis? Subaltern Imaginations in Contemporary Bihar

Abstract

The Subaltern Studies Collective inaugurated an important point of departure in Indian historiography and social sciences by demanding that attention be directed to subalterns (a term adapted from Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks) as makers of their own destinies. Their scholarship raises three issues, which are discussed in this article. The first of these relates to the empirical observation about subaltern resistance to elites. The second pertains to the analytical dichotomy between elite and subaltern modes of conducting politics. The third centres on the valorisation of a putatively coherent fragment that seeks autonomy from the totality of the state. The fundamental problem with the perspective advanced by the subaltern studies scholars stems from their implicit assumption that utopian ideals centred on reclaiming dignity and asserting social equality are necessarily derivative of European Enlightenment ideals.     

The Origins of the Soviet Oil Crisis, 1970–1985

Soviet oil production peaked in 1983 and declined in 1984, chiefly because the growth of West Siberian output has nearly stopped. The root of the problem is two decades of unbalanced policy favoring near-term payoff over long-term preparation. Exploration has been systematically neglected in favor of development, and the West Siberian oil industry has been built on too narrow a base. Despite warnings from local officials as early as 1970, this led to a first crisis in 1976-1977. Moscow responded with an emergency increase in development drilling. This approach prevented output from dropping between 1978 and 1983 but only aggravated the deep-seated imbalance, preparing the way for a new crisis in 1983-1985. The underlying causes of this near-sighted approach are analyzed and the implications for a deeper understanding of Soviet decision-making spelled out. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: 052, 124, 721.     

The Italian Welfare State in the Crisis: Learning to Adjust?

Abstract

After a decade of inertia, that left it unprepared to withstand the blow of the great recession, the Italian welfare state has witnessed significant changes since 2012. Externally driven consolidation in the wake of the sovereign debt crisis spurred yet another wave of social policy reforms after that of the 1990s. These reforms did not however invariably entail retrenchment. Both the Monti and the Renzi governments combined liberalisation with expansion of social rights, particularly in income support. As a result, the Italian welfare state looks more comprehensive than it was before the crisis. At the same time, there was no overall strategy of welfare modernisation based on coordinated social investment measures. The changes in Italian social policy since the outburst of the great recession highlight the importance of domestic politics interacting with external drivers of change. They also facilitate an assessment of the opportunity structures for further reforms in a political system that appears to be veering again towards consensus democracy.     

The Italian Five Star Movement during the Crisis: Towards Normalisation?

Abstract

The Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S) represents the most significant occurrence in Italian party politics during the economic crisis that commenced in 2008. Founded in 2005, the party caused a major upset at the 2013 national elections, with a subsequent major impact on the Italian party system, which is analysed along four dimensions: amount of change; number of relevant competitors; alteration of the political space; and degree of nationalisation. The sudden electoral success, in turn, presented the party with a number of challenges that forced it to adapt its organisational nature. Moreover, the anti-establishment nature of the M5S is questioned by its activities in the legislative arena. As with other outsider parties, this poses the dilemma of being part of the establishment while criticising it. The M5S has thus been forced to redefine its main goals and style of communication in order to adapt to the new institutional environment without losing the palingenetic aspiration of its original message.     

Are We Concerned Yet? Environmental Crisis and Economic Development in China; China on the Edge: The Crisis of Ecology and Development,by He Baochuan; China's Environmental Crisis: An Inquiry into the Limits of National Development,by Vaclav Smil

Abstract

The storyline of China's late imperial and modern history typically revolves around questions of economic development: Was China's economy in the late imperial period developing on its own? If so, what is the evidence? If not, why not? What impact did imperialism have? What have been the developmental strategies of the People's Republic of China (PRC), and how successful have they been? Regardless of whether or not the scholar pursuing these questions is a Marxist (of whatever flavor) or neo-Smithian economist working for the World Bank, development remains at the core of the inquiry and is its central problematic.     

A Kingdom in Crisis – What’s All the Fuss About?

This article reviews Andrew MacGregor Marshall’s A Kingdom in Crisis: Thailand’s Struggle for Democracy in the Twenty-First Century, a book on how Thailand’s political challenges relate to the Thai monarchy. The review draws comparisons between the excitement surrounding the publication of the acclaimed book The King Never Smiles in 2006 and the recent reaction to the publication of A Kingdom in Crisis. It argues that the book is an important contribution because it informs a wide audience about the damaging political role of the monarchy, but it repeatedly ignores an already existing corpus of literature that deals critically with Thailand’s monarchy. Moreover, its focus on the succession as the key factor in the ongoing political crisis is unnecessarily narrow and should have been complemented by an analysis of structural forces as drivers of change.     

China Crisis? Indian Strategy,Political Realism,and the Chinese Challenge

Abstract

China's rise has provoked a substantial debate about its possible consequences for Indian security and its implications for Indian strategy. This review essay examines the parameters of this debate, concentrating especially on the rise of a new American-derived political realism in Indian thinking about China. It argues that in urging India to abandon its longstanding posture of strategic restraint, the new realists overestimate India's political military capabilities and run the risk for driving India toward a costly and dangerous confrontation with China.     

Comment on Eqbal Ahmad’s ‘Notes on South Asia in Crisis’

Abstract

Dr. Eqbal Ahmad’s intellectual stature and moral courage have become almost legendary. At a considerable personal risk he, together with his late brother, was among the first ones to denounce Yahya Khan’s brutal suppression in Bangladesh. In several ways he has emerged as a man of all nations and whatever he says and writes carries weight among concerned people. It should be realized that these Notes were written when the author was under great pressure having to face the gruelling Harrisburg trial and one would hope that had he had more time to edit them some of the statements would have been omitted. But since they are made and are in print I am moved to offer comments on the Notes.     

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.     

Deaths,Interventions, Humanitarianism and Human Rights in the Mediterranean ‘Migration Crisis’

Recent declarations of ‘crises’ in the Mediterranean have been distinctly humanitarian, being linked to human deaths and suffering. The growing emphasis on humanitarianism and human rights has coexisted with a continued security rationale, as the three discourses work together in the governance of EUrope’s borders and in ongoing struggles over movement and control.     

The Terminal Crisis of the “Participatory Government” and the Election of Lee Myung Bak

This paper examines the election of Lee Myung Bak through the terminal crisis of the Roh Moo Hyun government that preceded it. I start with an analysis of the election of Lee Myung Bak and the electoral strategies of the liberal-progressive bloc in the December 2007 election and then move on to detail how these strategies shed light on tensions within Korean progressive politics since the transition to democracy in 1987. These tensions inform what I shall call the “terminal crisis” of Roh's “participatory government.” I argue that this crisis involves a problem of articulation within progressive politics between a politics of reunification and one grounded in egalitarian economic reform, including the lack of an alternative to the different forms of neo-liberalism embraced by both the Roh government and the conservative government of Lee Myung Bak. My hope is that thorough examination of these tensions that have informed the liberal-progressive bloc during the long decade since 1987 can spur reflection on the role of social movements in Korean democratisation and the dilemmas they face in crafting strategies for political and economic reform.     

Identity,Politics and Nation: Algerian Nationalism and the ‘Berberist Crisis’ of 1949

Abstract

Between the 1940s and the 1950s, a crucial period of change for Algerian nationalism and state formation, Berber activists within the anti-colonial nationalist movement challenged the political line of the nationalist party, the Mouvement pour le Triomphe des Libertés Démocratiques. This opposition focused on the need to redefine the concept of identity: activists did not reject either Arabic or Islam—the dual linguistic-religious core of national identity for Algerian nationalists—but they identified with a broader idea of an ‘Algerian Algeria’ that could incorporate various components of society.

Through the study of archival sources, this paper analyses the origins and consequences of the 1949 controversy within Algerian nationalism known as the ‘Berberist crisis’. Particular attention is paid to the idea of the nation proposed, assessing whether and how Berber activists participated in the political debate and state-building.     

Foreign Policy “On the Cheap”: Latvia’s Foreign Policy Experience from the Economic Crisis

This article assesses whether the reduction of budgetary allocations to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia in 2008–2012 led to more modest foreign policy in the sense of both objectives and execution. After assessing four goals of Latvian foreign policy since 2008 – regional cooperation, bilateral development cooperation, facilitation of Latvia’s economic interests abroad, and relations with the Latvian diaspora – the authors conclude that the decrease in funding for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had little impact on Latvia’s ability to achieve foreign policy objectives.