Reconstruction of the ‘Armenian Homeland’ Notion

This article explores the way paved for the reconstruction of the ‘Armenian homeland’ notion. It considers the emergence of modern ‘national’ history of Armenians, the settlement of the Armenians in the South Caucasus or Transcaucasia, the liquidation of the (Caucasian) Albanian Catholicosate and the impact of the change of the church identity of the monophysite Caucasian Albanians living between the Kur and Araz Rivers on the change of their ethnic identity as factors instrumental in this reconstruction. The examination of this process is especially important for understanding the factors, which played a crucial role in the construction of the Armenian Republic in the South Caucasus in 1918 and its territorial claims.     

‘This is a Prison…A Death in Life’: Reza Shah’s troubled exile on the Island of Mauritius

Reza Shah, the feared and powerful master of Iran for nearly two decades, spent the last years of his life in lonely exile, on the island of Mauritius, then in South Africa. His life in exile was hardly a happy one. The place and conditions of his exile were dictated not by himself but by the British, and the relationship between the two remained uneasy. Britain’s handling of Reza Shah – the degree and freedom and choice they were prepared to allow him and his family – were determined by the exigencies of war. Reza Shah sought to loosen the bonds of British control. In Tehran, his son and successor, Mohammad Reza Shah, also played a role. He used what leverage he had with the British to help ease the conditions of his father’s exile, while he endeavored to protect Iran’s interests under a difficult foreign occupation. The push-and-pull of cross-purposes entailed by this triangular relationship defined Reza Shah’s life in exile in both Mauritius and Johannesburg. This article examines the Mauritian period of his exile.     

Radicalization of Russians in Ukraine: from ‘accidental’ diaspora to rebel movement

Abstract

The article examines different types of macropolitical identities in Ukraine and their interaction in establishing political order in the country. The authors argue that political institutional design was unfavourable to the Russian diaspora in eastern and southern regions. It hindered stable development of post-Soviet identity between Russians in the country. But during the Euromaidan protests, the Russians reacted to unpleasant political situation by exploring who they were and what social and political goals they had. Having been incipient for decades, the identity of the diaspora evolved in a soaring way within three or four months. The violent actions of the newly established government in Kiev radicalized the Russian diaspora. Diasporants started establishing alternative authorities in regions where government had no monopoly on the use of force. The involvement of Russia and international volunteers complexifies the situation in Donbass and the identity formation process in unrecognized republics also known as DNR and LNR.     

Syria,Saudi Arabia,the U.A.E. and Qatar: the ‘sectarianization’ of the Syrian conflict and undermining of democratization in the region

Understanding the Syrian conflict only in terms of sectarian politics amounts to dismissing a very modern effort at emancipation within the context of the country’s populace fighting for its civil, political and economic rights, and in the process robs Syrians of their agency and diminishes their humanity. A closer look at events and political alignments in Syria reveals a more complex picture better understood through the lens of regimes’ desire to counteract the dissident and reformist dynamics that emerged with the Arab Spring. And while this paper is most certainly not minimizing the fact that the sectarian discourse and animosity, once activated, acquired its own dynamic, it underlines that this is not a case of so-called ancient sectarian rivalries emerging unprompted and of their own accord. As a result, the Syrian crisis and the regional ramifications of it can be appreciated as not simply identity politics writ large, but as an example of the authoritarian resilience paradigm in action. In making these arguments, this paper examines the interplay of the domestic and regional policies of three actors involved directly in the Syrian conflict: the Syrian regime, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. (considered as a unitary actor within the context of the Syrian crisis), and Qatar.     

Rise of the temporary employment industry in Namibia: A regulatory ‘fix’

The role of the temporary employment industry as an active intermediary in the job market can only be fully understood in the context of wider processes of restructuring and regulation at a particular time and place. In Namibia, the rise of poorly regulated employment relationships occurred in a context of expanding institutional and statutory regulation of the labour market. Here the temporary employment industry thrives within the interstices left by the limits in regulatory coverage. Nonstandard jobs are premised on a selective decoupling of the employment relationship from statutory, and hence almost invariably also collective, protective measures. The mediating role of the employment agency between the client firm and the temporary labourer allows management to evade or dilute the protections that insulate permanent employees from competitive pressures in the external market. As such, temporary agency employment constitutes both a regulatory ‘fix’ for the dilemmas associated with the deployment of labour and a mechanism for the social reproduction of a nonstandard labour supply. However, the role of labour market intermediary varies depending on whether an agency is located at the top or the bottom of the temporary employment industry.     

Guarding the honor of the nation and the prosperity of the state: National Defense of Lithuania ‘Iron Wolf’ (1928-1930)

The radical right, semi-clandestine, and paramilitary organization called the National Defense of Lithuania ‘Iron Wolf’ (1928–1930) is, perhaps, the best known and the only example of an attempt to introduce a fascist form of governance in interwar Lithuania. Established and controlled by the Lithuanian Nationalist Union (Lietuvi? tautinink? s?junga) authorities, its first and foremost task was to protect the new nationalist regime from its political opponents, spread propaganda, as well as report any acts of societal disloyalty and disobedience. The short-lived organization was shut down due to conflict between the highest authorities and the threat that ‘Iron Wolf’ was beginning to pose to President Smetona’s rule.     

‘Bringing the state back in’: A political economy analysis of Portuguese immigration policy

Southern European states are recurrently represented as ‘safe havens’ for irregular immigration in face of powerless national governments. Drawing from an interdisciplinary approach combining the domestic politics approach and the political economy of migration, this investigation explores the effectiveness of the Portuguese policy towards labour and irregular inflows during the 1990s and the 2000s. Against the increasing exclusion of politics and national governments in immigration studies, this research focuses on the agency of the Portuguese state. This article associates the intensity of irregular inflows with the covert expansive approach towards immigration adopted by the Portuguese state, driven by economic objectives.     

A critique of the ‘Bureaucratic authoritarian state’ thesis: The case of the Philippines

The article reviews characteristic patterns of domestic resource mobilization, investments and foreign capital inflows in developing Asia and identifies the emerging issues in resource mobilization. It finds that high levels of investments and savings have been an important reason that developing Asia has had better growth performance than other regions of the world. The pattern of resource mobilization has been different across countries depending upon their development stage. Low-income countries tend to rely on concessional official sources as their debt-servicing capacity is limited and their domestic resource mobilization capacity is weak, while higher income countries rely on domestic resource mobilization as well as competitive financing from international capital markets and foreign direct investment.

Development challenges in Asia continue to be high in the 1990s and will require substantial resources. The challenges will in principle have to be met by domestic resources, indicating the need for strengthening the resource mobilization effort. However, the role of external resources will remain important because of limited domestic resource mobilization in developing Asia. Potential shortage in the global capital market implies that developing countries will have to improve their investment environment to induce more foreign private capital, including foreign direct investment. The possible shortage also indicates the need to strengthen the role of multilateral financial institutions.     

‘Fadaeeyan-i Islam’: the prototype of Islamic hard-liners in Iran

The voyages of the HMS Doris along the Mediterranean coast near Alexandretta (modern Iskenderun, Turkey) in the winter of 1914–15 had a dramatic effect on the Ottoman Empire that far exceeded the scope of the operations. This article uses British, German, and Turkish archival sources to focus on the ship's operations in the vicinity of Dörtyol and on the strategic impact these had on Ottoman perceptions of threats to the empire. The Doris figures prominently in two critical strategic outcomes – the relocation of the Armenians in 1915 and in the activation of three Ottoman army divisions for coastal defence and internal security.     

Outsourcing state violence: The National Defence Force, ‘stateness’ and regime resilience in the Syrian war

This article engages with and contributes to a nascent debate on state-sponsored militias by way of an analysis of the formation and deployment of the Syrian regime’s National Defence Force (NDF). This militia emerged from the regime’s rich repertoire in outsourcing violence and allowing ‘heterarchical orders’ to serve regime maintenance purposes at home and abroad. During the Syrian war (2011–…), the key rationale for using such militias is primarily to address manpower shortages. For an important but limited period, the NDF served this goal well as it contributed to the regime’s military advances. The regime’s devolution of its violence to militias including the NDF brought about a sharp contraction of its ‘stateness’ but this did not constitute ‘state failure’ or its collapse. In this context, the regime’s elaborate measures to manage or counter the risks and downsides of deploying non-state militias such as the NDF underscore its general adaptability in its authoritarian governance.     

The ‘Europeanization’ of the Religious Cleavage in Turkey: The Case of the Alevis

The EU accession process reveals a series of paradoxes, which are not merely indicative of the complexity of Turkey's state–religion relations in general but also point to how the Justice and Development Party (JDP) government portrays controversies such as the Sunni–Alevi divide. The religious cleavages in Turkey have become Europeanized and found expression in the European political and legal structures. The Alevis have been one of the groups most affected by this issue partly because of their heterodox and transnational religious identity and partly as a result of their links with secularist political sectors. The paper underlines a dilemma of current Turkish politics. The case of the Alevis shows that the regime's current transformation undermines its basis through exclusion. The JDP's political strategy, focusing on the effective control of the mainstream Sunni base, does not willingly accept or tolerate the autonomy of some civil society groups, including the Alevis.     

‘We’, ‘they’ and the ‘human’ in the middle: foreign interventions for ‘humanitarian reasons’ during the nineteenth century in Turkish historiography

This paper explores the way in which historiography produced in Turkey (or by Turkish scholars abroad) approaches foreign military/diplomatic interventions in the Ottoman Empire during the long nineteenth century. It focuses on three case studies where ‘humanitarian reasons’ formed the discursive basis/justification of such interventions. The author argues that when the distinction between victims and perpetrators, civilians and combatants, emerges as an interpretive dilemma in the debates of the historical period examined, similar interpretive and normative challenges are inherited by the historiographical accounts of it. The paper distinguishes two contrasting ways in which Turkish historiographical scholarship responds to such a dilemma. The first remains confined by the way Ottomans themselves viewed the world around them and uncritically reproduces rigid categories of selfhood and otherhood between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The second trajectory offers tools for understanding the conflicts behind the construction of the category of the human worth of international protection, and disentangles itself from the normative bind described above.     

Euroscepticism and Right-Wing Extremist Attitudes in Germany: A Result of the ‘Dialectic Nature of Progress’?

Euroscepticism is associated with a new cleavage between the ‘losers’ and the ‘winners’ of globalisation. Current research also indicates that right-wing extremist, racist, and anti-democratic attitudes are more prevalent in lower status groups, particularly those struggling with societal change. These findings are combined with a unique data set covering both topics and thus add to the growing literature on Euroscepticism while also exploring the divide between the ‘losers’ and ‘winners’ of modernisation processes. The article introduces categories of occupational status groups, namely the ‘engaged’, the ‘skilled workers’, and the ‘legworkers’, which represent different levels of involvement in modernisation processes. It explores the differences in attitudes between these groups and how those differences correlate with citizens' professional status. It is concluded that perceived subjective alienation, which manifests in racist and anti-democratic attitudes, best explains EU-scepticism.     

‘Democracy under Threat’: The Foundation of the Opposition in Venezuela

This article sheds new light on how the Venezuelan Opposition was created and, more widely, on contemporary Venezuelan politics. By focusing on the Opposition's articulation of democracy, the article examines how this movement became possible and how it succeeded in maintaining support. Opinion articles covering the period October 2001 to April 2002 were analysed using the theoretical framework of logics within discourse theory. The article argues that although the Opposition succeeded in maintaining its support throughout Chávez's government, it contributed to the polarised politics that currently characterises Venezuela.     

Constitutionalism and federalism in the ‘future of Europe’ debate: the German dimension

This paper examines some of the constitutional aspects of the ‘Future of Europe’ reform process in the light of interactions between German and ‘European’ federalism. Many aspects of the traditions of German federalism and German post-war constitutionalism have been influential, if not to say formative, for the evolution of the EU. These aspects are set out as a frame for the paper, before more detailed analysis of the constitutional process and a particular focus on the division of competences. The constitutional outcome reveals clear German ‘fingerprints’, though that finding needs to be balanced by a recognition of the constitutional debate as multi-perspectival, involving all member states both separately and collectively.     

Redefining the Nation: Shifting Boundaries of the ‘Other’ in Greece and Turkey

While Greek and Turkish nationalisms have followed diverse historical paths, they share several features. Following the model of Zimmer, this study explores how inclusive and exclusive boundary mechanisms have shaped Greek and Turkish national identity and which symbolic resources were utilized in these processes. It is argued that a shift from the use of voluntaristic to that of organic boundary mechanisms has characterized both Greek and Turkish nationalisms and influenced the definition of national ‘self’ and ‘other’. This study aims to track a pattern of historic-political conditions which favour a shift from voluntaristic towards organic models of defining the nation and discuss possible future trends.