Uprooted cosmopolitans? The post-war exile of Spanish anarchists in Venezuela, 1945-1965

This article considers the activity of anarchist refugees in exile after the Spanish civil war in the light of their professed cosmopolitan and internationalist outlook. It first examines the trajectory of anarchist internationalism in Spain and its perceived shortcomings in the period up to and including the civil war. It then provides a brief survey of the post-war re-organisation of Spanish anarchists in exile, before proceeding to the case study of Venezuela. Anarchist activity in this country is analysed through the lenses of internationalism and cosmopolitanism in the ambivalent context of exile.     

Who,Why and How: Assessing the Legitimacy of Secession

Since the breakdown of bipolarity, the international community had to cope with independence movements spreading in Eastern, Central and Southeastern Europe. Given the peculiar coercive character of the Soviet and Yugoslav Federations and the Soviet Union's hegemonial rule in Central Europe, the wish for independent statehood can be understood as a sum of single secessionist movements. This article investigates secession as a moral problem of public international law; it also attempts to define normative criteria for the assessment of secessionist legitimacy. What conditions are required for a legitimate secession? On what political, social or historical characteristics should a legitimate secession be based in order to obtain international recognition? The analysis is carried out on three levels: legitimacy of the actors (Who), legitimacy of the secessionist argument (Why) and procedural legiti‐macy (How). The analysis is illustrated by three examples of recent se‐cessionist movements: Slovakia, FYR Macedonia and Chechnya.     

Sharaf Rashidov and the international dimensions of Soviet Uzbekistan

ABSTRACT

During the Cold War, Sharaf Rashidov became a representative of the Soviet anti-imperialist agenda, a key interlocutor with Third World leaders and a promoter of Uzbekistan as a modern and emancipated model of political, economic, social and cultural development for newly independent countries emerging from decolonization. Tashkent hosted important meetings among Soviet and Asian leaders, along with international festivals of cinema and literature, which attracted hundreds of Asian, African and Latin American intellectuals, writers, poets, journalists, trade unionists and athletes. Moreover, Uzbekistan came to symbolize the self-proclaimed compatibility between communism and Islam, offering a façade of religious freedom, tolerance and tradition combined with Bolshevik progress. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan discredited this narrative – and Uzbekistan and (posthumously) Rashidov were humiliated in the Cotton Affair – pointing to the impact as well as the limits of Uzbek internationalism.     

Soviet Work Attitudes and Politics, 1953–91: A Preliminary Historical Sociology

The main question investigated here is the extent to which Russian workers' changing attitudes toward their labour contributed to the systemic political crisis of the Soviet regime during the latter part of the 1980s. The related issue of the workers' understanding of what has been called the "social contract" between themselves and government is also explored. The goal is to assess the relationship between their political allegiance and historical Soviet practices that guaranteed rudimentary welfare and job security, irrespective of work performance.     

苏东社会结构转型的社会学分析:阶级与阶层的视野

本文通过对苏联东欧社会变迁的实证分析,从社会结构分层的视角探索苏东社会转型的原因及过程.首先,高度工业化与城市化所导致的城乡社会结构的改变,是苏联东欧社会转型的根本原因,这是它与东亚、拉美等国或地区的社会转型具有深层关联性的一面.而农民迁移到城市的结构性流动所产生的复杂流动机制和分层机制,对苏东社会转型带来了直接的影响和冲击.苏东社会的中间阶层,其价值观、社会功能和政治态度对激进的制度转型具有不可低估的作用.其次,先是深层次的社会结构发生转变,即由农民向城市工人的阶级分层发生变化,然后才是表层的社会结构发生转变,即在市场化背景下,苏东社会的阶层分层因利益多元化而发生分化.苏东社会结构转型的具体过程明显地分为这两个阶段.     

Reconstituting European social democracy: Germany's pivotal role

After a long period of dominance by the centre‐right, social democracy is once more in the ascendancy in Europe. At the same time social democracy is cross‐cut by competing ideological paradigms, ranging from an unreformed or ‘traditional’ model through to the neo‐liberal tinged ‘Third Way’ agenda. With social democratic‐led governments in power in France, Germany and Great Britain, this ideological competition has to a certain extent been mapped onto these member states’ statecraft agendas. The article makes three points. First, that there is a high degree of institutional ‘fit’ between of the Federal Republic and the European Union and that this potentially favours the successful transfer of German policy initiatives to the EU level. Second, that the ‘Red‐Green model’ of political co‐operation between the SPD and Greens is grounded within the parameters of sub‐national politics and is not easily adapted to the demands of the national and supranational levels. Third, that as a result of this, any distinctively ‘German’ social democratic agenda for Europe is more likely to have the ideas of the ‘Neue Mitte’ at its core.     

Winning Friends,Influencing People: Soviet Cultural Diplomacy in Australia, 1928–1968

This article draws on largely unpublished archive materials to examine the strategies employed by the USSR to manage its cultural relations with Australia as a means of extending its influence beyond its traditional supporters in trade union and socialist movements. The activities of key players like the All‐Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS), the Union of Soviet Friendship Societies (SSOD) and the International Commission of the Union of Soviet Writers and their interaction with Australian organizations and individuals identified and cultivated as contacts of influence are reviewed in the context of the changing international situation and an often problematic bilateral political relationship.     

Globalization, marginalization and contemporary social movements in South Africa

The objective of this article is to provide a broad frameworkfor situating social movements in post-apartheid South Africa.The discussion begins with a brief review of approaches to thestudy of social movements and then turns to the challenges presentedby globalization. South African democratization coincided withits increasing economic, social and political engagement withthe rest of the world. One of the key effects of this has beenmassive job losses and resultant increases in poverty and inequality.Finally, the article reviews key features of movements in postapartheidSouth Africa. Overwhelmingly, these movements are driven byworsening poverty, with struggles addressing both labour issuesand consumption issues. In addition, some movements confrontquestions of social exclusion in terms of gender, sexualityand citizenship which sit at the intersection of recognitionand redistribution. Given the failure of the post-apartheidparty political system to generate opposition to the left ofthe African National Congress (ANC), social movements providea vital counterbalance to promote the needs of the poor in politicalagendas.     

Works in Russian on Ottoman foreign relations

O.V. Pavlochyenko's Rossiya i Syerbiya, 1888–1903: diplomatichyeskiye otnoshyeniya, obshchyestvyenniye svyazi, Russia and Serbia, 1888–1903: Diplomatic Relations, Social Ties (Kiev: Naukova Dumka for the Institute of History in the Academy of Sciences of the Ukraine, 1987; 131 pp.).

V.N. Vinogradov, entitled Myedzhdunarodniye otnoshyeniya na Balkanakh, 1856–1878 gg.,

International Relations in the Balkans, 1856–1878 (Moscow: Nauka Press for the Institute of Slavonic and Balkan Studies in the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, 1986:416 pp., 1 map),

Yu. A. Pisaryev's Vyelikiye dyerdzhavi i Balkani nakanunye pyervoy mirovoy voyni, The Great Powers and the Balkans on the Eve of the First World War (Moscow: Nauka Press for the Institute of Slavonic and Balkan Studies in the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, 1985; 286 pp.).

Osmanskaya Impyeriya i strani Tsyentral'noy, Vostochnoy i Yugo‐Vostochnoy Yevropi v XV‐XVI vv.: Glavniye tyendyentsii politichyeskikh vzaimootnoshyeniy, The Ottoman Empire and the Countries of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe in the 15th and 16th Centuries: The Main Trends of Mutual Political Relations (Moscow: Nauka Press for the Institute of Slavonic and Balkan Studies in the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, 1984; 302 pp.).

V.I. Shyeryemyet's Osmanskaya Impyeriya i Zapadnaya Yevropa: vtoraya tryet’ XIX v., The Ottoman Empire and Western Europe: Second Third of the Nineteenth Century (Moscow: Nauka Press for the Institute of Oriental Studies in the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, 1986; 311 pp.).

Angliya, Rossiya i Tanzimat (vtoraya chyetvyert’ XIX v.), England, Russia and the Tanzimat (Second Quarter of the Nineteenth Century) (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1983; 184 pp.).

V.A. Zolotaryev, entitled Rossiya i Turtsiya: voyna 1877–1878 g., Russia and Turkey: The 1877–1878 War (Moscow: Nauka Press, 1983; 232 pp.).     

Third Worldist relativism: A new form of imperialism

This article challenges relativist and Third Worldist ideas which continue to influence the Left. It is argued that while the Left should remain critical of western domination of the global political economy, this should not be confused with the assumption that anti-western positions in the “Third World” are always and necessarily progressive. This is illustrated by a discussion of recent western interventions in the Third World. It is argued that a “Third Worldist” approach is based on a spurious relativism which has recently enjoyed a revival through the rise of post-modern social theory. In rejecting these approaches the case is made for a restatement of a genuine universalism and internationalism, which is equally critical of western imperialism and conflicts with the “Third World.”     

New Labour in the global economy: partisan politics and the social democratic model

Drawing on a framework developed by Geoffrey Garrett in his recent book Partisan Politics in the Global Economy , I examine the 'policy space' that is available for the social democratic project in the United Kingdom. Garrett is optimistic about the possibilities for reformism: he emphasises the ability of an 'encompassing' labour movement to exchange wage restraint for reformist policies. Given the absence of such an encompassing labour movement in the United Kingdom, his conclusion apparently offers little support to those seeking reformist measures in these circumstances. I discuss three reasons why Garrett's model may still be applicable in the British context. First, social democrats may be able to offer policies desirable to capital. Second, wage moderation may be possible without the existence of an encompassing labour movement. Third, and most ambitious, it may be possible to develop an encompassing labour movement within the United Kingdom. My tentative conclusion is that a variant of the Garrett model is potentially a plausible one for a reformist party in the United Kingdom.     

The Mediterranean: Migration Corridor,Border Spectacle,Ethical Landscape

Talk of a ‘migration crisis’ calls forth three related spatial renderings of the Mediterranean Sea. Their social production involves a particular politics of visualization. First, the Mediterranean is but one leg of a longer migration corridor, yet as such substantiates a geo-racial border zone. Second, scenes of rescue at sea have functioned as border spectacles, naturalizing migration politics. Third, expanding surveillance infrastructure has undermined a firewall between border patrolling and search-and-rescue, thereby helping to create and sustain an ethical landscape of response-ability to routinized emergency. Visualizing and disseminating this landscape has, for the moment, created a political space between wanted and unwanted mobilities.     

公共空间的争夺——欧洲穆斯林社群与当地主流社群冲突的再解读

近年来在欧洲不断发生的穆斯林社群与欧洲本土主流社群之间的冲突,实质上是一场双方对公共空间的争夺战,问题的核心是公共空间的归属。这种争夺产生的原因有三个方面:首先,痛苦的历史记忆与负面的现实认知的双重发酵形成缺乏信任的社会观念结构;其次,多元文化的价值观与平等、自由的价值观在理论和现实层面上存在的冲突使公共政策不能很好地平衡双方利益;最后,欧洲公民不仅是一个法律概念,还应该融合文化与价值理念,而欧洲穆斯林的这种双重身份并没有得到欧洲主流群体足够的理解和关注。这些问题的解决应立足于对公共空间的重新分配、对公共政策失衡的审视及对公民身份的重新定义和建构,这也是欧洲主流群体与欧洲穆斯林群体和解和合作的关键。     

Party-Sponsored Protest and the Movement Society: The CDU/CSU Mobilises Against Citizenship Law Reform

In 1999, the CDU/CSU single-handedly launched an extremely successful petition drive against the SPD-Green citizenship law reform (in particular against dual citizenship). This article argues that four developments converged to explain this tactical innovation. First, Germany's political culture had become a 'social movement society', with even conservatives accepting protest as a political means. Second, the issue of immigration pressurised the party to adopt a hard-line stance in order to co-opt the extreme right. Third, the Kohl government had left a legacy of resistance to citizenship liberalisation and of populist exploitation of anti-foreigner sentiment. Fourth, the petition drive reflected the CDU/CSU's new opposition status and its internal struggle over agenda and leadership. The article concludes with a look at the CDU/CSU's subsequent use of plebiscitory tactics and the implications for the future of protest politics.     

"The word makes the man": A Catalan Anarchist Autodidact in the Australian Bush

This paper examines the interplay between the life and ideas of a Catalan anarchist and autodidact, Salvador Torrents, who migrated to Australia in 1915. Until his death in 1951, Torrents, from his isolated farm in North Queensland, contributed regular commentaries and articles in libertarian newspapers in Spain, France and the United States. With the exception of the years of the Spanish civil war, Torrents remained outside mainstream Australian labour politics. Like many non-English speaking immigrants, a lack of the language was an obstacle to participation. As well, as an anarchist, Torrents considered political parties and electoral politics a waste of time in achieving social and political change. Instead he propounded, and practised, the transformative powers of self-education and the revolutionary role of the autodidact in fomenting radical change. His ideas had been forged in the turbulent politics of Catalonia in the first decades of the century. In Australia he continued to apply the same analysis in what he perceived as the similar context which Southern European immigrants confronted in North Queensland. Although invisible on the Australian Left, Torrents functioned as a left wing intellectual, contributing to a particular public discourse, which took place in a space that was separated from the mainstream Australian Left by language and different radical traditions.     

The Reconstructing of Industrial Relations in Taiwan’s High Technology Industries

Scholars have shown interest in labour capacity when discussing labour movements in Taiwan’s industrial relations since the nation’s democratic transition from 1987. Interestingly, the upturn in workers’ struggles skipped the Hsinchu Science Industrial Park, which concentrated its business on the non-unionised, high-technology sector. Existing studies have not sufficiently explained how the Hsinchu Science Industrial Park escaped the series of labour conflicts after 1987. Rather than focusing on labour capacity, this article employs an alternative perspective – the role of employers and management strategies – to examine how employers brought together segments of capital and labour through a diversity of human resource management strategies. These management strategies have two aspects. First, high-tech industrial managers took advantage of “Taiwan-style” employee profit sharing and stock ownership to strengthen firms’ top tier of strategic decision-making with the support of national institutions. Second, while human resource management strategies will often differ from country to country, Taiwan’s management strategies draw from the experiences of Silicon Valley. Rather than fragmenting workers into teams and ethnic networks as in Silicon Valley, Taiwan’s managers established individual labour and management relations to avoid collective labour conflict.     

Big dreams and small steps: comparative perspectives on the social movement struggle for democracy in Serbia and North Macedonia

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a comparative analysis of social movements’ characteristics and capacities to struggle against illiberal tendencies and incite political change in Serbia and North Macedonia. First, we discuss the illiberal elements of political regimes in the countries in question, Serbia and North Macedonia. Then, we provide a comprehensive overview of progressive social movements in the two countries, formed and organized as a response to different authoritarian and non-democratic tendencies. Finally, we point to some differences in their organizing, coalition-forging and issue-defining principles, which, we believe, may help to explain the relative success of social movements in North Macedonia in producing relevant political outcomes, compared to the weak political impact of social movements in Serbia. Empirical data were collected during the summer of 2018 through in-depth interviews with members of social movements in North Macedonia and Serbia.     

Creating and contesting meanings of place and community in the Ylay Talaa Valley of Kyrgyzstan

Formal schooling was virtually non-existent before the Soviet power in nomadic Kyrgyzstan, as communal life and learning was organized informally at the household and clan level. During the Soviet period, however, educational success became an avenue to a new form of upward social and geographical mobility, and the school provided new and prestigious positions for local teachers and administrators. This paper explores how the externally imposed Soviet collectivization policies reshaped the understandings and meanings of place and community during the twentieth century, a reshaping that centrally involved redefining education and the importance of ‘the school’. In the post-Soviet period, the utility of secondary and higher education in local and national labour markets has diminished, as has the power and prestige of educators. Yet the appeal of education lingers on. The authors seek to document these claims using oral histories, ethnographic interviews and participant observations in the Ylay Talaa Valley of the Kyrgyz Republic.     

Media freedom in Malaysia

This article discusses the contemporary issue of media freedom in Malaysia. First, it discusses the concept of freedom of the press and determines which theories, Libertarian, Social Responsibility, or Authoritarian, are suitable in the context of analysing the real situation of media freedom in Malaysia. Second, by using the list of media freedom criteria from the Department of Journalistic Studies, Missouri University, US, analysis has been done to measure the situation of media freedom in Malaysia. Third, the article tries to show the latest movements and lobbies internally and externally in supporting the media freedom in Malaysia. To conclude the current situation, the Malaysian government has restricted media freedom for the purpose of national security and political stability. However, this article clearly shows that media in Malaysia has been controlled by the government and media companies associated with government leaders for political survivability of ruling government party and leaders to hold the power.     

Rural Mobilisation and Agrarian Political Economy in Argentina, 2001–2020

In this article, we reconstruct the mobilisations of rural actors both from ‘below’ and from ‘above’ and their connections to Argentina's agrarian political economy between 2001 and 2020. We divide the analysis into three periods and review key protest events and the actions of movements and organisations, paying special attention to two dimensions. First, we consider how rural movements and organisations engaged with institutional politics and the state. Second, we analyse the collective identifications and claims at the basis of coalitions forged within and beyond the rural sector.