The Koguryo controversy, national identity, and Sino-Korean relations today

In July 2004, a Chinese claim that the ancient Kingdom of Koguryo (37 BC-AD 668) was China's vassal state ignited a firestorm of protest in South Korea. The decade-long South Korean love affair with China appears to have ended, as increasing numbers of South Koreans have begun to view their colossal neighbor with new suspicion. What were the causes and consequences of this controversy? Rather than forwarding the usual political, economic and security explanations, this paper interrogates the deeper identity politics at stake, arguing that the Koguryo controversy implicates the very meaning of being Korean or Chinese in the 21st century.     

International politics in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century central Asia: beyond anarchy in international-relations theory

Using historical analysis of relations between city-states and other international actors in Central Asia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this article evaluates new structural theories of international politics, chiefly those of David Lake and Jack Donnelly. Pre-colonial Central Asia offers a usefully tough case for structural theories, since it so little resembles the modern international order that these theories were developed to describe. Empirically, the article proceeds by evaluating the region's city-states' relations with three groups of actors: one another; neighbouring empires; and the many non-state actors present at the time. It concludes with an assessment of the merits of the new structuralisms, and a discussion of their value for constructivist international-relations theories of international change.     

Indonesia: The politics of inclusion

Much commentary on Indonesian politics since the fall of President Suharto in May 1998 has suggested that Indonesia's political system has remained just as exclusionary as it was prior to his fall, despite becoming much more democratic and decentralised. In contrast to this view, we argue that Indonesia's political system has become more inclusive, if only somewhat more so. The fall of Suharto and the subsequent process of democratisation have removed key obstacles to organisation by poor and disadvantaged groups and their NGO allies, making it easier for them to engage in collective action aimed at achieving pro-poor policy change. By making attainment of political office dependent on the support of the voting public, many of whom are poor and disadvantaged, these developments have also created an incentive for politicians to pursue policy changes that favour these groups or at least that appeal to them. At the same time, however, we argue that poor and disadvantaged groups have not become major players in the policy-making process. Despite the fall of Suharto and democratisation, these groups continue to lack the resources possessed by other participants in the policy-making process. Whereas the politico-bureaucrats and well-connected business groups have been able to exercise influence over policy by buying support within representative bodies such as parliament and mobile capital controllers, the IFIs and Western governments have been able to exercise influence by virtue of their structural power, poor and disadvantaged groups have had to rely on less potent ways of exercising influence such as holding demonstrations, engaging in lobbying activity and participating in public debates. We illustrate these points with reference to two policy issues: land reform and mining in protected forests. The article concludes by considering the future prospects for inclusive policy-making in Indonesia.     

Energising ties: The politics of oil

India's growing energy needs are a key driver of commercial and diplomatic initiatives with Africa. It is also an area in which competition is rife with China and the US, but also other global players. The article details developments and production in Africa's energy sector and suggests ways that India could improve its relationship with the continent in this regard.     

Islamist politics in migrant cities: local identity cleavages and intra-party politics in Turkey

This article explores how the local party organizations of the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice and Development Party—AKP) interact with complex social structures in migrant-receiving cities in Turkey. Islamist movements are widely viewed as uniquely capable of appealing to working-class migrants. However, the support for Islamist parties varies across migrant-receiving cities. This article argues that local party organizations face two potential sources of discord that they have to resolve in order to build support in migrant neighbourhoods. They have to bridge the regional identity cleavages among different migrant communities while surmounting intra-party conflicts. In pursuing this argument, this article opens up the black box of local identity politics in the industrial heartland of Turkey and provides an ethnographic account of intra-party conflicts and political survival within the AKP.     

The elephant in the room: illiberal politics in Montenegro

ABSTRACT

Montenegro is at the same time considered both a success story as the leader of European integration in South-Eastern Europe and a country with severe democratic deficiencies. This paper builds upon the theory of democratic backsliding and uses theory-building process tracing to detect and analyse systematic patterns in the illiberal policies that the governing party uses to maintain its position in power. The three typical cases examined here reveal that assuring external control and maintaining the pretence of legality seem to be important elements of illiberal policies and that independent institutions and European standards are often used to assert and maintain control.     

The council of expediency: crisis and statecraft in Iran and beyond

Abstract

Giorgio Agamben argues that in contemporary governance the use of ‘emergency’ is no longer provisional, but ‘constitutes a permanent technology of government’ and has produced the extrajudicial notion of crisis. The engendering of ‘zones of indistinction’ between the law and its practice is what Agamben defines as a ‘state of exception’. This article adopts the notion enunciated by Agamben and revisits it in the Islamic Republic of Iran. There, the category of crisis has been given, firstly, a juridical status through the institution of maslahat, ‘expediency’, interpreted in a secular encounter between Shi^ca theological exegesis and modern statecraft. Secondly, crisis has not led to the production of a ‘state of exception’ as Agamben argues. Instead, since the late 1980s, a sui generis institution, the Expediency Council, has presided and decided over matters of crisis. Instead of leaving blind spots in the production of legislative power, the Expediency Council takes charge of those spheres of ambiguity where the ‘normal’ – and normative – means of the law would have otherwise failed to deliver. This is a first study of this peculiar institution, which invites further engagement with political phenomena through the deconstruction and theorization of crisis politics.     

The Indonesian crisis and beyond

The crisis in Indonesia is first and foremost a political crisis that has been exposed and complicated by the financial crisis, says Jusuf Wanandi, Chairman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta. The riots of 14 and 15 May 1998 forced President Soeharto to transfer power to his vice‐president, B. J. Habibie. However, because Habibie lacks credibility and legitimacy as a leader, he has been considered from the outset a transition figure. There is great hope that the general elections in June 1999 will solve the questions about the legitimacy of the government, and restore stability, security, and economic development throughout Indonesia, but there are still many obstacles to overcome if the elections are to be held on schedule. Furthermore, if the election results are not deemed fair, a political upheaval will likely occur. Indonesia, Wanandi says, cannot afford any further mistakes.     

The symbiosis of politics and crime in Lithuania

Abstract

The article argues that since the mid 1990s organized crime in Lithuania has undergone significant transformation. During the early 1990s organized crime was characterized by groups challenging the state in the process of privatization of state property. At this time the most important mode of organized criminal activities was coercion, intimidation and violence. Since the mid 1990s the degree of violence typical to organized criminality has declined significantly. Instead organized crime associations have became active in attempting to partially appropriate the state by influencing, bribing and corrupting state actors. Membership of organized crime associations also underwent changes. Formally a number of prominent crime groups were made up of socially homogenous, lower class “outsiders” who used violence as the primary means of domination and enrichment. Contemporary criminal associations typically are comprised of informal networks of individuals of higher socio-economic standing, who are influential in a wide range of domains: legal and illegal, state and private, bureaucracy and private enterprise. Instead of violence a multiplicity of interactions and transactions among these elite networks are utilized to enable, transact, exchange and enhance mutually beneficial influence and criminal enrichment. We explore the dynamics that have facilitated the emergence of the postmodern organized crime associations that have gained legitimate and illegitimate social and political standing and influence within Lithuania. To illustrate the organized crime transformation the most recent political crisis, involving President Paksas' office engagement in corruption and organized crime, is analyzed. The implications of the transformation in organized crime for the criminal justice system in the country are discussed.     

Japan's democracy in crisis: The new tide in Japanese politics

Since August 1993, when Morihiro Hosakawa inaugurated his “anti‐LDP” coalition, unstable coalitions have held power in Japan. Popular displeasure with the current state of politics has been evidenced by voter volatility and low electoral turnouts. In two notable cases, “flash candidates “ have assumed office, and, in some local elections, candidates have run unopposed. What does this listless version of dissent bode for Japanese politics? IIPS Research Director Seizaburo Sato is Professor at the Saitama University Graduate School of Policy Science. In this article, he maps out the issues that have left post‐Cold War Japanese politics in disarray and examines various potential scenarios, from a “super party “ larger than the LDP at its zenith, to the birth of a two‐party system.     

The politics and ethnography of environmentalisms in Tanzania

This article explores the forms of environmentalism flourishingin Tanzanian villages and district and central government. Itargues that their apparent unity should be explained by severalfactors. In central government, there is support for environmentalistpolicies because they generate revenue. In local government,environmentalism diverts attention away from bureaucratic failure,while simultaneously being the subject of intense politickingamong the legislature. In villages, environmentalism reflectsrealities of environmental change, different ecologies of agriculturalactivity, competition and jealousy and the manipulation of officialdiscourse. This article highlights the diversity of sourcesof environmentalist prominence in different sites of politicalactivity. ^1. The word used for ‘waste’ is translated from theSwahili: ‘jangwa’. It is also translated as ‘desert’but can be used in a wide variety of contexts and scales. Ihave heard it used to describe small patches of land, and itis also the name for the Sahara. It can be used in both aridlowlands and humid mountains [cf. C. Conte, ‘The forestbecomes a desert: forest use and environmental change in Tanzania’sWest Usambara mountains’, Land Degradation and Development10 (1999), pp. 291–309]. I prefer the term ‘waste’because its central notion is lack of productivity, rather thanaridity. ^2. <http://www.ippmedia.com> Accessed on 18 October 2002. ^3. Cf. O. B. Rekdal, ‘When hypothesis becomes myth: the Iraqiorigin of the Iraqw’, Ethnology 37, 1 (1998), pp. 17–38. ^4. R. Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial expansion, tropical islandEdens and the origins of environmentalism (Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, 1995); J. Fairhead and M. Leach, Misreadingthe African Landscape (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,1996); R. Neumann, Imposing Wilderness: Struggles over livelihoodand nature preservation in Africa (University of CaliforniaPress, Berkeley, CA, 1998); D. Brockington, Fortress Conservation:The preservation of the Mkomazi Game Reserve, Tanzania (JamesCurrey, Oxford, 2002). ^5. J. P. Brosius, ‘Analyses and interventions: Anthropologicalengagements with environmentalism’, Current Anthropology40, 3 (1999), pp 277–309. ^6. J.-F. Bayart, The State in Africa: The politics of the belly(Longman, London, 1993); J.-F. Bayart, S. Ellis, and B. Hibou,The Criminalisation of the State in Africa (James Currey, Oxford,1999); P. Chabal and J.-P. Daloz, Africa Works (James Currey,Oxford, 1999). ^7. J. M. Klopp, ‘Pilfering the public: the problem of landgrabbing in contemporary Kenya’, Africa Today 47 (2000),pp. 7–28. ^8. The constituency building reached the British press. Cf. ‘Kenya’srulers clear way for drought and disaster by felling forestfor votes’, The Independent (London), 16 January 2002,p. 14. ^9. J. M. Klopp, ‘ "Ethnic clashes" and winning elections:the case of Kenya’s electoral despotism’, CanadianJournal of African Studies 35 (2001), pp. 473–517. ^10. P. Richards, Indigenous Agricultural Revolution: Ecology andfood production in West Africa (Allen and Unwin, Hemel Hempstead,UK, 1985); M. Leach and R. Mearns, The Lie of the Land: Challengingreceived wisdom on the African environment (James Currey, Oxford,1996). ^11. M. Leach and J. Fairhead, ‘Fashioned forest pasts, occludedhistories? International environmental analysis in West Africanlocales’, Development and Change 31 (2000), pp. 35–59. ^12. J. Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: ‘Development’,depoliticisation and bureaucratic state power in Lesotho (CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, 1990). ^13. Cf. R. A. Schroeder, ‘Community, forestry and conditionalityin the Gambia’, Africa 69, 1 (1999), pp. 1–22. ^14. Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works. ^15. Klopp, ‘Pilfering the public’. ^16. E. P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters: The origin of the Black Act(Pantheon Books, New York, NY, 1975); J. Scott, Weapons of theWeak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance (Yale UniversityPress, New Haven, CT, 1985); B. Berman and J. Lonsdale, UnhappyValley: Conflict in Kenya and Africa (James Currey, London,1992). ^17. J. Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, 1979). ^18. R. Willis, A State in the Making. Myth: history and social transformationin pre-colonial Ufipa (Indiana University Press, Bloomington,IN, 1981). ^19. See S. Charnley, ‘Communal resource use and migrationinto the Usangu plains, Tanzania’ (PhD thesis, StanfordUniversity, California, 1994); P. B. Coppolillo, ‘Thelandscape ecology of pastoral herding: spatial analysis of landuse and livestock production in East Africa’, Human Ecology28, 4 (2000), pp. 527–60; F. Cleaver, ‘Reinventinginstitutions: bricolage and the social embeddedness of naturalresource management’, European Journal of DevelopmentResearch 14, 2 (2002). ^20. J. Ford, The Role of Trypanosomiases in African Ecology: A studyof the tsetse fly problem (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1971); J.Igoe and D. Brockington, ‘Pastoral land tenure and communityconservation: a case study from north-east Tanzania’,Pastoral Land Tenure Series 11 (IIED, London, 1999); J. G. Galaty‘Pastoral and agro-pastoral migration in Tanzania: factorsof economy, ecology and demography in cultural perspective’,in J. W. Bennett and J. R. Bowen (eds), Production and Autonomy:Anthropological studies and critiques of development (UniversityPress of America, Lanham, MD, 1988), pp. 163–83. ^21. E. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The short twentieth century 1914–1991(Abacus, London, 1994), p. 236. In 1961, US military expenditurewas 9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP); and althoughit was to decline (just over 5 percent in the 1970s), it remaineda powerful trope for explaining US economy, society and politics.Indeed the military-industrial complex is still important nowwith the Cold War won and US military expenditure down to lessthan 4 percent of GDP. ^22. Tanzania Wildlife Sector Review Task Force, A Review of theWildlife Sector in Tanzania. Volume 1: Assessment of the currentsituation (Ministry of Tourism, Natural Resources and the Environment,Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 1995). ^23. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, United Republicof Tanzania, Tourism Master Plan. Strategy & Actions, April2002 <http://www.tzonline.org/pdf/tourismmasterplan.pdf>Accessed on 9 November 2004. ^24. Brockington, Fortress Conservation. ^25. K. Hart, The Political Economy of West African Agriculture (CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, 1982). ^26. DANIDA, Overview of Donor Supported Environmental Activitiesin Tanzania (Royal Danish Embassy, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania,1999). Spent in 1 year, this would be equivalent to just over4 percent of the country’s GDP. ^27. Leach and Fairhead, ‘Fashioned forest pasts’, pp.47–9. ^28. W. A. Rodgers, T. T. Struhsaker, and C. C. West, ‘Observationson the red colobus (Colobus badius tephrosceles) of Mbisi forest,Southwest Tanzania’, African Journal of Ecology 22 (1984),pp. 187-94. ^29. J. Igoe, ‘Ethnicity, civil society, and the Tanzanianpastoral NGO movement: the continuities and discontinuitiesof liberalized development’ (PhD thesis, Boston University,Boston, MA, 2000). ^30. Mr. Mbegu’s stance on the forest, and emphasis of theimportance of the red colobus monkey, encouraged villagers toname him Mr. Colobus. His name was unfortunately similar tothe Swahili for the black and white colobus. ^31. D. Brockington, ‘Communal property and degradation narratives:debating the Sukuma immigration into Rukwa Region, Tanzania’,Cahiers d’Afrique 20 (2001), pp. 1–22. ^32. Ibid. ^33. Presidential Commission of Inquiry Against Corruption, Reporton the Commission of Corruption (Dar es Salaam, United Republicof Tanzania, Tanzania, 1996). ^34. Brockington, ‘Communal property’; D. Brockington,‘Local government, taxation and natural resource management:corruption, accountability and democratic performance in Tanzania’,Development and Change, forthcoming. ^35. Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine. ^36. I was unable to discuss the purpose of the visit and its causewith the representatives. However, the circumstances and languagedo suggest that villagers were exploiting government rhetoric.This explanation was favoured by people in the valley with whomI discussed the case. The result of their complaints was a largepublic meeting which unearthed many of the problems of governanceunderlying the grievances. See Brockington, ‘Communalproperty’. ^37. With good reason — the concentrating of dung in kraalsis sometimes referred to as ‘nutrient stripping’and forms an important part of the patch dynamics of semi-aridrangelands. ^38. One of the most lively contests in the village while I was therewas between two herders who had broken that agreement. ^39. This is a Sukuma innovation. Weeding parties I observed containedmixtures of residents and immigrants. ^40. Nicknamed Chuma (steel) because it was so tough. ^41. The importance of herd boy skill was underlined by the lamentof a (Fipa) herd owner whose herd boy was going to leave hisemployment and who had remarkably managed to guard his cattlefor 3 years without causing any case of crop damage. ^42. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft Oracles and Magic Among theAzande (OUP, Oxford, 1937), p. 82, 540; C. Geertz, Local Knowledge:Further essays in interpretive anthropology (Basic Books, NewYork, NY, 1983), p. 75. ^43. ‘Local knowledges’ here could cover a vast arrayof understandings and beliefs in all parts of the world. Ithas proven particularly productive to consider the incoherence,incompleteness and lack of co-ordination of Western knowledgesand certain areas of supposed expertise (R. Grove-White, ‘Newwine, old bottles? Personal reflections on the new BiotechnologyCommissions’, Political Quarterly 72 (2001), pp. 466–72). ^44. J. Fairhead and M. Leach, Science, Society and Power: Environmentalknowledge and policy in West Africa and the Caribbean (CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, 2003). ^45. Leach and Fairhead ‘Fashioned forest pasts’, p.35. ^46. K. Milton, Loving Nature: Towards an ecology of emotion (Routledge,London, 2002). ^47. I am grateful to Dr. John Lonsdale for this point. ^48. It is indicative of the importance of environmental concernsin Tanzania that its value can be equated with that of development.I have heard a funeral peroration for a village chairman whichconcluded with the praise that he had tried hard to bring developmentand conserve the environment. ^49. As the manager of the Mkomazi Game Reserve of northern Tanzaniatold me in 1994, when justifying the eviction of herders fromthe reserve — we cannot have these people living out therelike animals, they must develop.