Negotiating the technological capacity in Chinese engagements: Is the Tanzanian government in the driving seat?

Is the Tanzanian government in charge of development cooperation programmes with China? The literature has portrayed the Tanzanian and other state actors in Africa as passive and weakly coordinated players over the five decades of intensified cooperation with China. This paper will attempt to challenge this narrative by drawing on lessons from the negotiation efforts of individual and institutional actors in Tanzania, as they sought to improve the country's industrial and technological capacity, among other interests. Our findings revealed a gap between the capacity to attract Chinese investments and development assistance, and extraction of knowledge and technology from such engagements. President John Pombe Magufuli's anti-corruption measures signal a paradigm shift against the rent-seeking tendencies, elitism and limited utilisation of local content under the Chinese partnership projects. Nevertheless, the combination of a declining share of official Chinese engagements with the increased involvement of private actors necessitates further policy innovations in order to boost inter-firm technological spillovers.     

The Bedouins in the Galilee in the War of Independence of Israel 1948–1950

The relations of the Bedouins with the Jewish population during the War of Independence were very complex. The Bedouins were both opponents and friends. Bedouin groups helped the Jews in their struggle against the Palestinian national movement and against the Arab armies like Arab-al-Hib. Before the foundation of the state, these Bedouins had already participated in the protection of the security of the Jewish population. They supplied intelligence on events of the Arab and Palestinian sides, and also fought by the side of the Jews in the War of Independence, but at that time other groups joined the Palestinian national movement and took part in the struggle against the Jewish population, more so after the declaration of the partition plan in the United Nations. Subsequently, Bedouin fighting gangs were established and they joined the Palestinian struggle with the Jewish population.

The Bedouin positions during the war had implications for their fate in the State of Israel. The War of Independence allowed a significant part of the Bedouin tribes to escape to the neighbouring Arab states – Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Many of the Bedouin tribes that escaped did so as they were connected with fighting with the Arab gangs and the Arab Liberation Army. The Bedouins who were in the Zionist camp during the war or who adopted a neutral position stayed in the territory of the borders of the State of Israel.     

Lion in the Sand: British Policy in the Middle East, 1945–67

The crisis that unfolded after Iran's June 2009 presidential election exposed the absolutist nature of the state's highest religious authority (wali-ye faqih), Ayatullah ‘Ali Khamena'i. It also revealed the urgent need to critically interrogate Ayatullah Khomeini's doctrinal justifications for the governance of the jurist (wilayat al-faqih) in light of how ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, the first Shi‘i Imam, assumed the caliphate: divine bestowal (nass) combined with public investiture that took the form of bay‘a (oath of allegiance). Ayatullahs Husayn ‘Ali Montazeri, Mohsen Kadivar, Yousef Saanei, Bayat Zanjani and Mehdi Karrubi have attempted to devise a model in which sovereignty belongs to the public and limits the clergy's role in daily matters of the state to oversight and guidance. In contrast, Ayatullahs Kazemeyni Boroujerdi and Mojteba Shabestari argue for a clear-cut separation between the church and the state so that the public can choose its form of government since no specific form is prescribed in Islam. On the other hand, Ayatullah Mesbah Yazdi, a member of the Assembly of Experts, has consistently been a passionate advocate of the absolute authority of the jurist in its most comprehensive form and a vehement opponent of any dissenting discourse on this subject.     

From the national state to the rational state and back? An exercise in understanding politics and identity in Germany in the twentieth century

The end of the East‐West conflict and the unification of Germany in 1990 have dramatically altered the geopolitical shape of Europe. Speculations abound, in particular as regards Germany: have the spectres of German nationalism been banished for good? Is the new Berlin Republic different from the Bonn Republic? This article traces the national idea in Germany since the early nineteenth century and argues that the Bonn years have been crucial in the development of a civic culture which transcends the concept of a nation dominant in Germany from 1871 to 1945. Rather than marking a return of traditional nationalist concepts, the unification of Germany may well open the way for a lasting reorientation towards a civic concept of national identity in Germany.     

The Jewish–Arab Conflict and the Disintegration of the Ancient Jewish Community in the Village of Peqi‘in

The fate of the last community of Arabized Jews in Palestine, in the Galilee village of Peqi’in is surveyed. Peqi’in (al-Baqi’a in Arabic) is still known as the “Village of the Four Religions,” because of its unique mix of Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Druze, who lived together for centuries in good neighborly relations. Although the Arab-Jewish conflict might not have seemed relevant to the Peqi’in Jews, who had lived there for centuries, they were ultimately pushed out of the village. This pioneering study describes how the Peqi’in Jews, who had became a symbol for the Zionist enterprise, were forced from their home, although senior Zionist leaders strove to protect them and even made them a test of the alliance between the Zionists and the Druze. The sequence of events is recounted, from the start of the Mandate through the stillborn attempt to return the Peqi’in Jews to the village after the establishment of Israel.     

Contesting Europe,or Germany's Place in Europe? European Integration and the EU Policies of the Grand Coalition Government in the Mirror of Parliamentary Debates in the Bundestag

This article explores how European integration is contested between political parties in debates of the German Bundestag. Distinguishing between ‘domestic’ debates about the conduct of EU policy-making by the German government and ‘supranational’ debates about the institutions and policies of the European Union, the article asks for thematic objects and patterns of polarisation between parties within these debates. Presenting empirical evidence from the manual coding of 23 plenary debates during the second ‘Grand Coalition’ government, it is shown that the polarisation between parliamentary parties differs greatly at both levels of discussion. Whereas the antagonism between government and opposition appears to determine the polarisation of parties in ‘domestic’ debates, more ambiguous and atypical position patterns emerge on behalf of supranational issues. Therefore, the article suggests that a differentiation of various levels of debate is helpful in capturing the polarisation of political parties over the issue of European integration.     

Negotiating power and authority in the desert: the Arab Bedouin and the limits of the Ottoman state in Hijaz, 1840–1908

This article explores the techniques and strategies used by Ottoman authorities to control the Bedouin with a specific focus on the province of Hijaz between 1840 and 1908. Using primary sources from the Ottoman and British archives, it argues that the Ottoman Empire developed a ‘politics of negotiation’ towards the tribes in its attempt to secure cities and major pilgrimage and trade routes against tribal attack. The principal agents of the empire who made this negotiated governance possible were the amir of Mecca and the governor of Hijaz. As a result of this policy, imperial authorities had to give significant concessions to the tribes, and they thus incorporated them into the province's imperial order. When the Ottoman economy went through a crisis, as in the 1900s, negotiated governance and order faced great problems.     

From trade to empire in the near East — II: the repercussions of the incident at Nakhilu in 1803

Jews among Muslims. Communities in the Precolonial Middle East edited by Shlomo Deshen and Walter P. Zenner. London: Macmillan, 1996. Pp.ix + 292. £16.99 (paperback).

War in the Gulf, 1990–91: The Iraq‐Kuwait Conflict and Its Implications by Majid Khadduri and Edmund Ghareeb. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp.299. £22.50.

Britons in the Ottoman Empire 1642–1660 by Daniel Goffman. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1998. Pp.xxv + 310, maps, notes, bibliography, index.

Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban edited by William Maley. London: Hurst &; Co., 1998. Pp.xiii + 253, index. £14.95.

The History of Saudi Arabia by Alexei Vassiliev. London: Al‐Saqi, 1998. Pp.576. £45.00.

The Remaking of Saudi Arabia: The Struggle between King Saud and Crown Prince Faysal, 1953–1962 by Sarah Yizraeli. Tel Aviv: The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies. Pp.219. £14.95 (paperback).

Saudi Arabia Outside Global Law and Order by Anders Jerichow. Surrey: Curzon, 1997. Pp.xiv + 171. £12.99.

The Saudi File People, Power, Politics by Anders Jerichow. Surrey: Curzon, 1998. Pp.340, index. £40.00.

Ottoman and Persian Odysseys: James Morier, Creator of Hajji Baba of Ispahan, and his Brothers by Henry McKenzie Johnston. London: I.B. Tauris British Academic Press, 1998. Pp.xv + 258, notes, chronology, bibliography, index. £29.50.

Central Asia Meets the Middle East edited by David Menashri. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1998. Pp.xiii + 240, notes, index. £37.50/$49.50 (hardback); £18.50/$24.00 (paperback).     

Human rights in the overseas territories: in policy but not in practice?

Since the late 1990s emphasis has been placed by the UK government on enhancing human rights in its Overseas Territories. Some early changes were enforced, but more recently persuasion and capacity building have been prioritised. However, due to the complexity of the bilateral relationships and the cultural diversity that exists, fostering and embedding reform is difficult. These challenges are seen most clearly in two examples: the rights of the child to be protected from sexual exploitation, and the securing of equality in relation to sexual orientation with reference to LGBT rights. The article analyses the constitutional and legal changes that have been made in regard to these two issues, and whether the creation of stronger human rights principles has led to enhanced rights in practice.     

Description of the peasants’ sexual behavior in August Wilhelm Hupel’s Topographical Messages in the context of the history of the Estonian family

The aim of this article is to introduce the work of August Wilhem Hupel, a Baltic German author of the 18th century. The article focuses on the sections in his most voluminous work Topographische Nachrichten von Lief- und Ehstland (1774–1782) that describe Estonian peasants’ sexuality. Hupel’s writings belong to the sources of the history of the Estonian family, a field that has been rediscovered at the beginning of the 21st century. Thanks to the work of Marika Mägi and Nils Blomkvist, a new paradigm for research in this field has been opened up. This article adheres to that paradigm.     

Back to the Suitcase? Emigration during the Great Recession in Spain

The complex and multidimensional economic crisis experienced by Spain since 2008 significantly altered migration patterns in this country. Large scale unemployment contributed to slow down migrant inflows and accelerated out-migration flows in Spain. The media coverage of these processes created a distorted image of the patterns of migration affecting Spain during the crisis. Although the incipient economic recovery has not had a major impact in terms of modifying the migration dynamics triggered by the crisis, the media attention to this issue has substantially decreased without questioning its previous approach to the phenomenon. This article presents extensive data from a wide range of sources covering the period 2008–2016 to extract detailed information about the reality of crisis-era migration flows in Spain, and discusses the extent to which the media treatment of the issue has contributed to a partial and misleading view of the causes and consequences of the new Spanish emigration.     

Colonial Existence,Home and Nationalism in the Narratives of British Cameroons’ Exiles in the United States

This article explores the personal meanings and public expressions of colonial existence, home and nationalism among exiles of British Cameroons from the standpoints of 11 biographies of British Southern Cameroons’ first-generation exiles living in the United States. Examining their narratives reveals why the exiles actively resist a public categorisation as being Cameroonians. This article provides a new type of research regarding British Cameroons’ exiles and their vision of the restoration of the statehood of British Cameroons, a former United Nations trust territory deserving its separate sovereignty and independence in accordance with the UN Trusteeship Agreement (1946) and UN Resolution 1514 of 1960 on the independence of colonial people. Significant about this study of the narratives of British Cameroons’ exiles is its focus on biography for portraying particular facets of nationalist resistance, including questions relating to the processes that surround the right to define the community one calls home.     

Palestine’s Membership in the Commonwealth as a Contribution to a Lasting Peace in the Middle East

With the re-election of Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu for another four-year term as prime minister of Israel there is a real danger that the peace process has reached an irrevocable impasse. It is argued that bold moves must be considered by the international community to breathe life back into the peace process. To coax Netanyahu into negotiations real pressure must be brought to bear on his government to respect the international consensus on Palestinian statehood and to halt settlement activity in occupied territory. To coax the Palestinian leadership back into a negotiation process with Israel, membership in the Commonwealth should be considered as a stepping stone to membership in the United Nations, to be followed by Israel’s membership in the Commonwealth—but on condition that Israel agrees to abide by international law, and respect the international consensus on the two-state solution, completely freeze settlement activity, including in East Jerusalem, and on condition that Palestine agrees to enter into final status negotiations with Israel to conclude a peace treaty to resolve all remaining disputes.     

Reading the spirits in Julia Alvarez’s A Wedding in Haiti

Dominican writer Julia Alvarez’s 2012 memoir, A Wedding in Haiti: The Story of a Friendship, documents her first-time travel from the Dominican Republic to Haiti over land in order to attend the wedding of Piti, a young Haitian man who had worked for her and her husband for a number of years. She deploys the literary non-fiction genre of memoir, a genre that is relatively new to her, to explore both the Dominican (collective) relationship with Haiti and her individual relationship with both Haiti and its people centering on her connection to Piti and his family. Drawing on Vodou, a nature religion that strives for balance, this article explores Alvarez’s memoir through several lwa. I argue that the lwa are deployed and manifest as mechanisms from within Vodou epistemology to restore balance to a world relationship between Haiti and the DR that reverberates in the metaphysical world. Examinations of this unequal relationship between the two nations are even more prescient contemporarily considering the recent decision by the Dominican Constitutional Court to strip children of “irregular” migrants born in the DR after 1929 of their Dominican citizenship.     

Islamist radicalism in the provinces of Iran 1906–9: a stage in the development of Islamism

Islamist radicalism emerged in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906–9. This article examines the early stages of its emergence with particular reference to the provinces of Iran. It looks at the subject thematically and traces the development of an Islamist notion of the state, characterized by Islamic law, and the shaping of new views on nationalism, absolutism and the economy. Increasingly politicized ordinary people also influenced ideological change. The article begins by establishing the background and influence of individuals and groups who played a leading role in developing an Islamist radical political perspective and identity. It then discusses their vision for an alternative state in terms of the authority to govern, its institutions and its laws and considers their methods of organization and propagation to oppose the existing system, and their attempts to change it. Since the article is intended primarily for those interested in the history of Islamism, it ends by evaluating the stage it had reached in 1909.     

The role of peace journalism in the deconstruction of elections and the “national question” in Nigeria

Nigeria, a very fragile country, is constantly teetering towards dissolution. For several decades post-independence, the country has been plagued by protracted disputations among the diverse ethnic nationalities, which have been attributed to the inadvertent merger of the Northern and Southern protectorates in 1914 by the British colonialists. Since the merger, there has been intense unrest among the various ethnic groups with tensions for greater resource control and self-determination. The country has also witnessed the intense politicisation of religion in ways that have continued to aggravate the deepening antagonism between Christians and Muslims, further broadening already existing fault lines. The longdrawn-out bickering has led to calls for a renegotiation of the terms of cohabitation among the various ethnic nationalities; and this has given rise to the “national question”, a term used to describe the quest to review the dilemmas associated with accommodating multipleidentity communities within the framework of a single, integrated, national political system. This article argues that traditional media reportage of the “national question” in Nigeria has been more divisive than uniting. The article proposes the adoption of a peace journalism approach to reporting the “national question” to ensure that members of the various ethnic nationalities consider and value non-violent responses to conflict.     

Shī‘itisation of the Futuwwa Tradition in the Fifteenth Century

This study examines the Shī‘itisation of the futuwwa tradition from the eleventh century to the early sixteenth century, with a special reference to fifteenth-century events. Available scholarship has a rather generalised view on the sectarian orientation of the futuwwa, locating it within the Sunni fold, though having a slightly Shī‘ite tinge. This view has a tendency to underestimate changes in the religious stand of the futuwwa through the ages. Likewise, it devalues the evident Shī‘ite content of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century futuwwat-nāmas, regarding them as a temporary divergence due to Safavid propaganda. This article challenges two premises of this established view, arguing that the religious history of futuwwa was by no means static and linear but shows a rupture, i.e. Shī‘itisation, in the fifteenth century; and, in contrast to the consensus of the available scholarship, this Shī‘itisation was not a result of Safavid propaganda, but of a greater ‘universal’ transition taking place in fifteenth-century Islamdom.     

Population displacement in the baltic region in the twentieth century: from ‘refugee studies’ to refugee history

This article explores how Baltic migration, and particularly the experience of forced migration, relates to broader comparative and methodological issues and debates in the emerging field of refugee history. Attention is given to the impact of two world wars and their aftermath in the Baltic, with particular emphasis on the ways in which refugees from the Baltic and elsewhere have related their experiences. The article concludes by drawing attention to the multiple readings of population displacement that historians need to entertain.