Knowing Me,Knowing You: Media Portrayal of the EU in Kazakhstan

Abstract

The dichotomy of Self/Other prevails in shaping identity. This article asks how and to what extent the elements of the EU’s image produced by media discourse shape the national identity of Kazakhstan. It contends that a state’s identity can be formulated not in opposition—that is, not ‘Us against Them’—but rather, ‘Us as One of Them’. It argues that, in the case of Kazakhstan, the predominantly positive media discourse about the EU ‘Other’ contributes to a positive formulation of the Self via the legitimisation of the domestic regime on the national and international levels.     

Economic crisis and the crisis of national identity in Slovenia: toward a new notion of social order

This paper addresses the influence of the economic crisis on national identity in Slovenia. It first analyzes the creation of the contemporary national identity following independence in 1991 that was established in relation to a negatively perceived Balkan identity, which represented “the Other,” and in relation to a “superior” European identity that Slovenia aspired to. With the economic crisis, the dark corners of Slovenia’s “successful” post-socialist transition to democracy came to light. Massive layoffs of workers and the bankruptcies of once-solid companies engendered disdain for the political elites and sympathy for marginalized groups. The public blamed the elites for the country’s social and economic backsliding, and massive public protests arose in 2012. The aftermath of the protests was a growing need among the people for a new social paradigm toward solidarity. We show that in Slovenia the times of crisis were not times of growing nationalism and exclusion as social theory presupposes but, quite the contrary, they were times of growing solidarity among citizens and with the “Balkan Other.”     

An Analysis of the Taliban in Khurasan's Azan (Issues 1–5)

This article analyzes issues 1–5 of the Taliban in Khurasan's Azan magazine. It applies an interpretive framework for analyzing radical narratives, based on a multidisciplinary conceptualization of the radicalization process, to explore how Azan attempts to appeal to its audiences by leveraging ingroup, Other, crisis and solution constructs via value-, crisis-, and dichotomy-reinforcing narratives. Two key findings emerge. First, Azan prioritizes content that empowers its readership toward action with narratives that link ingroup and solution constructs. Second, Azan uses a variety of narrative approaches in order to appeal to a potentially diverse readership at different stages of radicalization.     

Gypsies: A selected bibliography (central and Eastern Europe)

National identity is constructed through successive identifications with significant Others. This article discusses the phenomenon of change and continuity in Czech identity. It is focused here on the identification towards the EU, which has become the most significant Other of today in two ways: (a) (change) contributing to overcoming the identity crisis provoked by the drastic changes that occurred between 1989 and 1993 (change of regime, disappearance of the USSR and the break-up of Czechoslovakia), and therefore the subsequent drastic changes in relations with past significant Others: communism, the USSR, and the Slovaks; and (b) (continuity) reaffirming one of the fundamental elements during the national revival in the nineteenth century, democracy, upon which the various identifications towards the EU have been aligned. According to the differing interpretations of what democracy means, and three other criteria of the “levels of Othering,” the EU has been “imagined,” on the one hand, as an entity where Czechs can flourish in their identity and ensure their freedom and democratic values (positive Other), and, on the other, as an “oppressor” entity which portrays democratic deficit, restricts freedom, and threatens Czech national identity (negative Other).     

Queering the Pashtun: Afghan sexuality in the homo-nationalist imaginary

A certain, pathologised image of the Afghan man now dominates the mainstream Western imaginary. This article interrogates representations of Pashtun males in Anglophone media, arguing that these representations are embedded in an Orientalist, homo-nationalist framework. Through a specific focus on the construction of the Taliban as sexually deviant, (improperly) homosexual men, the paper underscores the tensions and contradictions inherent in the hegemonic narrative of ‘Pashtun sexuality’. It also revisits the debate about homosexuality as a ‘minority identity’, arguing that the act versus identity debate is deployed in this context simultaneously to make the Pashtun Other legible and to discredit his alternate ways of being.     

Private foreign asset accumulation,not just capital flight: Evidence from the Philippines

External debt problems have been accompanied in many developing countries with large private capital outflows. The latter phenomenon is usually identified in the literature as ‘capital flight’. This article argues that private foreign asset accumulation is a more appropriate term and compares a great variety of definitions and measurement methods and applies these to Philippine data for 1971–88. Outcomes show striking differences in assessment of the magnitude of the phenomenon. In the preferred definition of this study applied to the Philippines, unrecorded workers remittances from abroad, a factor omitted in other studies, represent a major source of foreign exchange earnings which indirectly support private foreign asset accumulation. Other definitions appear to severely underestimate private capital outflows. Econometric evidence on the causes of private foreign asset acquisition shows a strong sensitivity to the applied definition. Regression analysis for six alternative definitions shows that the expected real exchange rate depreciation and the real foreign‐domestic interest rate differential are ‐ in line with portfolio theory ‐ important determinants in the case of nearly all alternative measures, except for those that attempt to define a narrow ‘capital flight’ concept. Other determinants found significant are the availability of external finance and the previous year stock of private foreign assets. Debt‐fuelled private capital outflows are associated with the political economy of public external borrowing and the segmented nature of the foreign exchange market in the Philippines. Stock‐adjustment behaviour in the acquisition of private foreign assets in turn is interpreted as being a result of a simultaneous decision‐making process determining consumption demand and portfolio choice of high‐income Philippine households to satisfy demands related to their international lifestyles. These results have important welfare implications and policy consequences.     

The personal as political: the function of the private space in contextualizing the ‘other’ in Jewish–Palestinian encounters

The private/personal sphere is perceived to be a channel of empowerment that fosters processes of acknowledgment and recognition during encounters between participants from different cultural groups. Drawing on ethnographic research at an inter-cultural program that offered a space for engagement for Palestinian and Jewish educational trainees’, we followed the role played by the private sphere in the process of articulating a perception of the ‘Other’. Most participants from both groups chose to locate their position toward the ‘Other’ in their private sphere. The different ways through which the private sphere was preformed and justified by the participants reveals that for the Palestinian participants the private sphere served as a way to create particularity, while for the Jewish participants it served as a way to construct universalized claims. These justifications, which were tightly coupled with each groups’ social position and social power, were working in both cases to isolate the discussion from immediate historical, social, and political contexts. Thus, these findings deepen our understanding of the meaning ascribed to the private sphere and the common epistemology that defines the personal as political and contributes to advance warm relations between Palestinian and Jewish individuals that these educational frameworks seek to foster.     

All Quiet on the Eastern Front? Media Images of the West and Russian Foreign Political Identity1

National and foreign political identities are discursively constructed, not least through the media. Starting from the contention that Europe serves as the main Other used to define the idea of Russia, this article uses media texts (online and press) to analyse how Russia is constructed as a foreign policy actor in relation to Europe and the ‘West’ more generally. In so doing, the article draws on three discourses around Russia’s foreign policy: ‘Russia as Europe’; ‘Russia as part of Greater Europe’; and ‘Russia as Alternative Europe’. The article suggests that discursive developments in the 2000s have paved the way for a return of Cold War discourses in characterising relations between Russia and the West.     

The Determinants of Gender Differences in Income in Trinidad and Tobago

The present study employs 1993 Continuous Sample Survey of the Population data for Trinidad and Tobago to investigate the causes of gender income differentials. The findings suggest that such differentials are not well explained by differences in levels of human capital and other measured factors valued by the labour market. This result is robust to the disaggregation of the data into African, Indian and Other ethnic groups thereby raising the possibility of gender discrimination. African and Indian women's incomes would increase by over 20 per cent with the returns to the measured factors of their male, ethnic counterparts. Women would benefit from having men's industry distribution of jobs, but not men's occupational distribution. African women appear to be significantly more disadvantaged relative to their male counterparts than are Indian or Other women.     

Agency Internets and the Changing Dynamics of Congressional Oversight

Abstract

As federal government agencies offer more sophisticated and useful web access to their programs, many have examined citizen use of these services. Other effects of the increasing online access to agency information and services have been less well studied. Here we focus on the effects of the increasing digital capacity of federal agencies on congressional oversight. We explore the impact of expanded online agency offerings on the number and type of requests for casework; on the focus, duration, and number of investigative hearings; and on the detail and specificity with which program legislation is written. This research is based on interviews with committee staff with jurisdiction over two agencies with a strong Internet presence and two with a weak presence.     

Yugoslavism between the world wars: indecisive nation building

This article examines Yugoslav national programs of ruling political elites and its concrete implementation in education policy in interwar Yugoslavia. It is argued that at the beginning of the period Yugoslavism was not inherently incompatible with or subordinate to Serbian, Croatian or to a lesser degree Slovenian national ideas. However, the concrete ways in which Yugoslavism was formulated and adopted by ruling elites discredited the Yugoslav national idea and resulted in increasing delineation and polarization in the continuum of national ideas available in Yugoslavia. Throughout the three consecutive periods of political rule under scrutiny, ruling elites failed to reach a wider consensus regarding the Yugoslav national idea or to create a framework within which a constructive elaboration of Yugoslav national identity could take place. By the end of the interwar period, the Yugoslav national idea had become linked exclusively to conservatism, centralism, authoritarianism and, for non-Serbian elites at least, Serbian hegemony. Other national ideas gained significance as ideas providing viable alternatives for the regime's Yugoslavism.     

Egypt’s Many Public Administration Transitions: Reform Vision and Implementation Challenges

ABSTRACT

This article discusses Egypt’s many transitions toward public administration reform. It argues that some of these transitions have collided with an existing large and complex bureaucracy and a legacy of state-led development, such as the protracted and contentious process related to the civil service regulation reforms. Similarly, despite decades of decentralization efforts, state budgeting praxis remains centralized and concentrated. While attracting private investment for job creation and economic growth is a key priority to Egypt, state centrism overshadows the experience. Other transitions, however, have thrived at a much faster pace, such as the adoption of e-government.     

Intent to Exit: Why Do US Federal Employees Leave?

This study examines factors that may influence an employee to exit an organization. Factors that are considered to influence exit are derived primarily from Hirschman’s model of exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect. Other variables considered are public service motivation, job satisfaction, pay satisfaction, gender, race, supervisory status, and agency. The study evaluates the relationships between these variables using data obtained from the United States’ 2010 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. Overall, the data suggest that there is a slight tendency of public employees to be intrinsically motivated.     

Forward to the Past? Loyalist Paramilitarism in Northern Ireland Since 1994

This article considers in detail loyalist paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland since the paramilitary cease-fires of 1994. The continuing nature of contemporary loyalist violence is documented with reference to sectarian attacks against members of the “Other”/Catholic community and associated symbols of that community, violence directed at other loyalists, and the potential for future violence given constitutional uncertainty regarding Northern Ireland's position within the United Kingdom. The article also challenges assumptions within the broader literature of an inability within loyalist paramilitary groups to move beyond violence in the post-cease-fire period with particular reference to their conflict transformation efforts.     

A tale in stone and bronze: old/new strategies for political mobilization in the Republic of Macedonia

The redesign of Skopje’s main square and the wider central area in the last six years has been a top priority of the Macedonian government. The project, called Skopje 2014, provoked intense domestic debate and controversy as well as international reaction and concern. Although officials say that project’s aim is to unify ethnic Macedonians, it has produced several lines of political, intra-ethnic/interethnic as well as intra-cultural/intercultural divisions in the fragile Macedonian society. The aim of the paper is to offer reflections about its mobilizing potential among ethnic Macedonians in a set of social, economic, and political contexts. In that sense, four areas of mobilization are suggested: (1) around new identity markers; (2) around the name dispute and against threats (real or imagined) to the ethnic and national identity; (3) against the internal Other, that is, the ethnic Albanian community, as well as critics of these identity politics; and (4) in reaction to the global financial crisis and problems within the EU.     

Network structures and network effects across management and policy contexts: A systematic review

The wide application of networks in public administration has been driven by the practical need to address increasingly complex management and policy problems. To understand the outcomes of network structures, we reviewed empirical network research and examined the effects of six network structural properties across the five most studied policy domains. We found that certain structural properties such as global connectedness were consistently associated with positive network effects. Other structures such as brokerage/structural holes provided mixed findings, depending on the policy domain. Overall, our field is still in the early stages of developing research on network effects. The number of hypotheses on both node-level and system-level effects in any policy domain was relatively small. Most studies focused only on a single network at a single point in time, and thus very little work currently exists that examines the influence of contextual factors and their combined effects with network structures.     

Understanding Sub-Saharan Africa’s Extreme Poverty Tragedy

Motivated by a recent World Bank report on achieving of Millennium Development Goals which shows that poverty has been declining in all regions of the world with the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), this study puts some empirical structure to theoretical and qualitative studies on the reconciliation of the Beijing model with the Washington Consensus. It tests the hypothesis that compared to middle-income countries, low-income countries would achieve more inclusive development by focusing on economic governance as opposed to political governance. The empirical evidence is based on interactive and noninteractive fixed effects regressions and 49 countries in SSA for the period 2000–2012. The findings confirm the investigated hypothesis. As the main policy implication, in order to address inclusive development challenges in the post-2015 development agenda in SSA, it would benefit low-income countries in the subregion to prioritize economic governance. Other theoretical and practical contributions are also discussed.     

Burundi: des identités ethnico-politiques forgées dans la violence

Taking the recent political situation as background, the author examines the rhetoric of political propaganda in Burundi. By considering several texts, both written (newspaper articles, politicians’ statements, political leaflets) and oral (speeches and radio declarations), of which long excerpts are reproduced, the author is able to demonstrate that all parties call for violence in Burundi, regardless of political side. The Other, whoever he may be, is systematically denied the right to exist; meanwhile, the exercise of violence appears as a means of delimiting the space belonging to each group. This in turn legitimates and generalizes daily use of violence.     

Foreign aid and the economic growth of developing countries (LDCs): Further evidence

The objectives of this article are to revisit the critical role that foreign aid presently plays in the economic growth of the LDCs and to examine the nature of its utilization in those countries which heavily rely on foreign aid. Other sources of economic growth such as capital (physical and human capital), raw labor, technological changes, and the degree of political and civil liberties will also be considered. Using average cross-sectional data for eighty countries over the 1971–1990 period, the study shows that foreign aid has a statistically positive effect on economic growth in developing countries. Lack of political and civil liberties is found to have a negative, but statistically marginal impact on economic growth. A policy implication which may be drawn from the study is that foreign capital inflow can have a beneficial effect by supplementing domestic savings rather than replacing them. Bichaka Fayissa, Ph.D., is Professor of Economics at Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN. He has published in theInternational Journal of Social Economics, World Development, Keil World Economics, Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Applied Economics, Economia Internazionale, Journal of Economics and Finance, Journal of Legal Economics, and several other journals.