Lord Ponsonby and the Churchill affair of 1836: An episode in the eastern question

William Churchill, a British merchant in Turkey, accidentally wounded an Ottoman boy and, after being savagely beaten, was imprisoned in the notorious bagnio by the Reis Effendi and Achmet Pasha. Lord Ponsonby, the British ambassador, sought dismissal of these ministers. His tactics and threats of demands that his government would make, couched in extravagant language, provoked Russian intervention and alarmed the other powers. Before the British government could react, the Sultan dismissed the Reis Effendi, but Britain's failure to demand dismissal of Achmet left Russian influence supreme. Ponsonby, however, emerged from defeat with credit, and Churchill received compensation.     

Russian policies on central and eastern Europe: An overview

After the collapse of both the Warsaw Treaty Organisation and the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance in 1990—91 Russia has lost highly effective instruments of (repressive) control of the East European countries and has been left without any significant influence on the economic, political and military developments in the region ever since. This can partly be explained by the deep distrust and emotional reserve vis‐à‐vis Russia on behalf of the new ruling elites in the region. A very important additional factor, however, has been the lack of a clear and coherent Russian strategy on the region in the early years of independent Russian statehood. After the initial loss of importance the region has regained prominence only indirectly as a crucial variable in Russian relations with Western countries and institutions such as NATO, the WEU, and the EU. Though deeper economic and trade relations between Russia and the region seem mutually advantageous, a major rapprochement seems to be blocked by political reservations and considerations.     

Churchill and the Outbreak of the Second World War in Europe

Eighty years ago, World War II broke out in Europe. Remembering this anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect on what we might learn from studying the history of that hideous era. Of the many accounts on the war's origins, Winston Churchill offered one of the most insightful interpretations about how a return of great-power competition shattered Europe's peace. His condemnation of Great Britain's leaders for seeking to appease the Nazi dictator offers a sobering lesson in the failure of the world's democracies to arm themselves and band together to preserve the peace. Churchill lamented that democracy had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. His lamentation still serves as a warning against the folly of military weakness and foreign policy isolation.     

Technical discourse in defense of public virtue: Ronald Reagan's explanation of the Iran/contra affair

Contemporary political communication is marked by an evolving dialectical tension between public and technical forms of discourse. Using Ronald Reagan's explanation of the Iran/Contra arms‐for‐hostages initiative as a case study, this article explores the rhetorical uses of technical rationality and the dangers these appeals pose for public deliberation. A close reading of Reagan's March 4, 1987, Iran/Contra defense speech demonstrates that Reagan employed the Tower Commission Report's technical judgments to separate the ethical realm of the public from the nonethical realm of the technical. As a result, he was able to define the Iran/Contra affair as an instrumental problem of bureaucratic organization rather than a betrayal of the public trust. This strategy of demarcating the moral realms of agent from agency is conceptualized as both a moral dodge and an instance of what Kenneth Burke calls ironic discourse. The article concludes by contrasting Reagan's strategy with other recent political crises in which public servants did not separate their public virtue from their administrative responsibility.     

Linkages and the promotion of democracy: the EU's eastern neighbourhood

The EU's eastern neighbourhood with its considerable divergence in regime types is a more challenging testing ground for democracy promotion than Central and Eastern Europe. This article explores the diversity of the international linkages in the eastern neighbours (Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) and the role these linkages play in domestic politics. International linkages are filtered and activated by domestic politics. If diverse linkages reinforce domestic political competition, they can contribute to the creation of democratic openings. Conversely, in the absence of domestic political competition, international linkages can insulate a regime from internal pressures for reform, in particular if the linkages are deep and undiversified. This article focuses on one causal mechanism, namely stateness issues acting as a filter for international linkages.     

Endogenous knowledge and the development question in Africa*

An apt analogy for speaking to Africa's experience with development is offered by the twinning of colonialism and modernization. While colonialism left behind some forms of hybridity and mimicry, the urge to decolonize—to be free from the colonizer's control in every possible way—was integral to all anti-colonial criticism after the Second World War. The politics of decolonization followed by the new states in the mid twentieth century, however, displayed an uncritical emphasis on modernization, in which development, pursued—with technology and tools of scientific progress—was a catching-up exercise with the West. As an epistemological export from the West, taking the form of science as hegemony and ideology within colonial discourse, this has not delivered material progress for Africa. The widespread concern about the intractability and magnitude of the problems facing the continent has made development a popular theme in the literature on African studies. The disappointment across various academic circles and the popular press over the dwindling prospects of development in Africa—illustrated in its food insecurity, low life expectancy and the familiar litany of its ills—has made revisiting the debates on African development both compelling and timely. Much has consequently been written on what development is or should be about in Africa. This article underlines the centrality of endogenous knowledge as the material precondition for autonomous development for Africa.     

Inequality,environmental injustice,and racism in Brazil: beyond the question of colour

Starting from an analysis of social and environmental injustice, the author argues that the concept of environmental racism is integral to the hegemonic model of capitalist development. She reveals how the financial mega-conglomerates, helped by the media, exploit such prejudices, and highlights the relevance of environmental racism in the struggle to overcome inequalities, to value the importance of diversity, and to build full citizenship for all.     

The Arab middle east and the question of democratization: Some critical remarks

While many of the contemporary writings on Middle Eastern political change contend that democratization is under way in the Arab world, this article maintains that much of the recent optimism is due to a lack of terminological clarity. Neither are there any Arab democracies today, nor is there any tangible democratization in this region. Adherents of the democratization hypothesis in the Arab world invoke mainly two arguments: that of a strengthened civil society and that of economic transformation, which are supposed to trigger democratization. Both arguments are discussed with the finding that they do not provide convincing evidence to support such hypotheses. Rather, systemic transitions from non‐democracies to other non‐democratic systems are likely developments in the Arab Middle East. Comparative research should therefore focus not only on the ‘breakdown of democratic regimes’ or ‘democratic transitions’, but develop models better to grasp non‐democratic transitions.     

Glasnost and the emotional climate in eastern Europe

The year 1989 was as historic for Europe as 1848. The countries of Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania had disappeared from the emotional calendar of Western nations. But the people in what was erroneously called Eastern Europe were hurting because of their ostracism from Europe. Under glasnost, they showed, expressed, and acted upon their hurt. The actors were the youth and the artists. Glasnost has revealed what is best and worst in the traditions of these countries.