Lewis Namier: Nationality,Territory and Zionism

The historian Sir Lewis Namier, born Ludwik Bernstein in Russian Poland in 1888 and brought up in east Galicia, was an unusual figure amongst Jewish theorists of nationalism. His father’s family were assimilated Jews, and Namier grew up in a household that was thoroughly Polonised. Though registered as Jewish, he was not circumcised and was brought up in ignorance of Jewish traditions; his parents and sister subsequently converted to Catholicism. Unlike other Jewish intellectuals, he had no love for the Austro-Hungarian monarchy nor for German culture in general, and as a young man was an ardent pan-Slavist. Education at Oxford also imprinted in him a lifelong admiration for the British Empire, which he regarded as a force for good because it embodied the libertarian ethos inherent in Britain’s national traditions. In his early writings, he defined nationality principally by race, and took religion, and attachment to a particular territory, as the principal markers of racial identity. This analysis derived chiefly from his observation of the history and geopolitics of central and eastern Europe, but he was also able to apply the same calculus to the “Anglo-Saxon” empires of the Atlantic world. These ideas, which he refined in later life but never abandoned, also fuelled a growing attachment to Zionism, accelerated by his own experiences of anti-Semitism, and his observation of the maltreatment of Jews in eastern Europe, of which he became increasingly aware through his role as an expert adviser in the British Foreign Office in 1916–1920.     

The Ideological Evolution of Horst Mahler: The Far Left–Extreme Right Synthesis

In the late 1990s, Horst Mahler, a former leader of the Red Army Faction and scion of the radical left, announced his affinity for the extreme right and joined the National Democratic Party of Germany (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands; NPD)—Germany's principal far right party. Later distancing himself from party politics, he founded the Deutsches Kolleg, a far right think tank that promotes German nationalism. Although ostensibly now a rightist, Mahler has synthesized much of his original left-wing ideology into a far right Weltanschauung that features nationalism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism, with a strident critique of capitalism. As such, it has the potential to appeal to some segments of the contemporary anti-globalization movement, the international extreme right, and even Islamists.     

Static law and dynamic administration: Marshall dimock's assault on the legal profession

This article examines Marshall Dimock's thought on the relation between public administration and law. The examination revolves around his book, Law and Dynamic Administration,but also incorporates insights from his many other works. Dimock treated the idea of rule of law as an important source of authority and guiding principles for both the public administrative and legal professions. He criticized the legal profession harshly for its tendency in this century to disparage and reject law as such a source. Its treatment of law has led to many abuses that affect the legitimacy and efficacy of all who govern in our society. Dimock hoped to reunify the fields with a common jurisprudence that is mindful of public, institutional needs. In the process, he pressed the point that public administrators should be legal artisans in their own right, contributing confidently to the content and processes of the law for public benefit.     

THE DILEMMAS OF A CIVILIAN POLITICIAN IN TIME OF WAR: ZHOU FOHAI AND THE FIRST STAGE OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR,JULY–DECEMBER 1937

Abstract

History’s verdict on Zhou Fohai is that he was an arch-collaborator, the éminence grise of Wang Jingwei’s government. Yet Zhou’s political career in the 1930s as a member of Chiang Kai-shek’s factional network did not suggest his later activities as a highly placed collaborator. Prior to 1938, Zhou had little or no political connections to Wang Jingwei; indeed, prior to the outbreak of war he regarded Wang and his followers as bitter factional enemies. Zhou’s background, therefore, underscores the complexity and indeed contingency of collaboration in the Sino-Japanese War. This article examines three areas of Zhou’s activities in the Guomindang Party-State during the first six months of the Sino-Japanese War: his role as a Chiang Kai-shek loyalist helping to craft key policies; his involvement with developing the United Front after the Lushan Conference; and his part in efforts to seek a negotiated peace with the aim of preserving as much of China’s sovereignty as possible. The article argues that these peace efforts were not in themselves a harbinger of collaboration, but were in fact conducted within the framework of the Party-State and involved a variety of leading figures. Despite Zhou’s liaison with the communist representatives, he remained staunchly anti-communist and suspicious of their ultimate ambitions, a suspicion that only deepened with the Guomindang’s every military reverse. And in his efforts to effect peace negotiations, he faced insurmountable obstacles in Chiang’s decision to pursue the military option, in the failure of international mediation by the leading Western powers, and in Japan’s ratcheting up its demands as its army went from victory to victory. By early 1938, therefore, Zhou was profoundly pessimistic about China’s prospects in its war with Japan.     

Borrowed Surfaces

Shuichi Kato, who died in 2008, was one of Japan's leading social critics and author of the definitive three-volume study, A History of Japanese Literature , and Form, Style and Tradition .
In July, 1987, we met twice to discuss what he regarded as "Japan's empty core," first overlooking the Zen garden at the American Club in Tokyo, then at the Hotel Danieli in Venice where he was working on a documentary about the rise of the West.
I've retitled this interview "borrowed surfaces," a phrase used by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, to describe how Japan has adopted the forms of the West, but not the essence, as Kato so well describes in his comments.     

Reclaiming Scholarly Authority: Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi's Critique of Jihadi Practices

This article deals with the attempts by the radical Islamist ideologue Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi to reclaim scholarly authority over jihad, a phenomenon he has helped promote but that has led to excesses he disagrees with and has increasingly become the prerogative of fighters instead of scholars. These attempts by al-Maqdisi to reassert his own jihadi authority are expressed through criticism of certain jihadi practices and advice to jihad fighters. Because al-Maqdisi has been in the forefront of radical scholars calling for jihad, his criticism has been dismissed by some jihadis as revisionism of his earlier views and as the words of a man lacking any fighting experience himself. This article argues that al-Maqdisi's criticism of certain jihadi practices does not constitute revisionism of his earlier views but is an effort to take greater scholarly control of the jihadi trend that he has partly inspired but which—in the hands of militants—has also developed beyond what he sees as useful and even Islamically legitimate.     

Myron Echenberg and African Studies in Canada

Myron Echenberg's scholarship resides on the frontier of both African Studies in Canada and historical research in general. He has helped not only to establish African history as a valid field for historical study but also to transform the parameters of history as a discipline, both the opening up of the study of non-Western societies and the increasing focus on newer kinds of history. He made his mark with a prize-winning study of the social history of African soldiers in the French army; and he spent the latter part of his career doing original work on medical history. The profound influence of his work is celebrated in this special issue. Three of the contributions to this issue, all dealing with medical history, are by Echenberg's former graduate students; two contributions are by close colleagues. In both his teaching and his writing, Echenberg has contributed to an understanding of the social issues of our time; but perhaps more important, he has through his teaching and his mentoring very much enriched the educational experience and well-being of his students and his colleagues.     

The curious career of an African modernizer: South Africa's Thabo Mbeki

Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's second democratically elected president, was born into left-wing politics. In exile, he became the face of the African National Congress (ANC) and developed a reputation as a modernizer. He returned to the country and built relations, not with the ANC's internal allies, but with the country's business community. In 1996, as Mandela's deputy, Mbeki implemented a neo-liberal economic package, called GEAR, which alienated many. In office, he both failed to acknowledge the threat of HIV/AIDS to the country and refused to pressure the failing regime in Zimbabwe; but it was his bypassing of parliament that ultimately led to his failure as president.     

Brazil and Lula, 2005: crisis,corruption and change in political perspective

The election of Lula (Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) as president of Brazil in October 2002 broke new ground: for the first time in Latin America a working man was directly elected as president of the Republic. Lula also came to power as leader of the Partido dos Trabalhadores, the Workers' Party, with its close links to ‘new unionism’, ‘liberation theology’ and mass social movements. The possibility of his election caused strong market reaction but, by the start of 2005, Lula and his government had reassured their critics on the right. They had also dismayed many supporters on the left, including members of the pt, by failing to tackle urgent social problems. Even so, on the basis of a strong economic performance and support in the polls, Lula seemed assured of re-election in October 2006. Suddenly, in May 2005, came the first revelations of a corruption scandal, leading to a crisis described as ‘the most extensive in the whole history of the Brazilian republic’. Lula lost some of his closest ministerial colleagues, and the pt most of its senior officers, with the threat of impeachment for Lula himself. That crisis is still unresolved, but has already severely damaged the pt, virtually paralysed government and made Lula's re-election seem ever more unlikely. This paper seeks to set the current crisis in wider political perspective and to reflect on its possible impact on a political system which in 2002, and even in 2004, gave evidence of supporting a robust and stable democracy.     

Man Does Not Live by Reason Alone

Leszek Kolakowski, who died in 2009, was professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago and a fellow of All Souls College at Oxford University. His critical, magisterial study of the history of Marxism and his perpetual doubt and self-questioning, which led to a preoccupation with "the revenge of the sacred" in secular life, earned him a reputation as modern Europe's Erasmus.
Just after he published Modernity on Endless Trial in 1991, Kolakowski sat down with me in his study at All Souls College. The following conversation was also published in Kolakowski's last book, My Correct Views on Everything.     

As Obama Gears Up in Afghanistan, Pakistan Faces Leadership Void

President Barack Obama pledged in his first TV interview—with the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya—that America under his watch would "listen with respect and not dictate" to the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has further announced that this country will no longer just throw around its military might but will pursue a "smart power" approach by tempering the use of hard weaponry with the "soft power" of persuasion and cultural attraction. Or, as Madame Secretary's husband Bill has put it, America will now lead through the power of example instead of the example of power.
The first exceedingly complex test of Obama's smart power strategy will be how to end George W. Bush's misguided "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Pakistan, keeping al-Qaida at bay without being swallowed by the quagmire of tribal politics. An array of experts from New Delhi to Paris offers their views in this section.     

Is the Muslim World a Credible Partner for Obama's Outreach?

President Barack Obama pledged in his first TV interview—with the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya—that America under his watch would "listen with respect and not dictate" to the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has further announced that this country will no longer just throw around its military might but will pursue a "smart power" approach by tempering the use of hard weaponry with the "soft power" of persuasion and cultural attraction. Or, as Madame Secretary's husband Bill has put it, America will now lead through the power of example instead of the example of power.
The first exceedingly complex test of Obama's smart power strategy will be how to end George W. Bush's misguided "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Pakistan, keeping al-Qaida at bay without being swallowed by the quagmire of tribal politics. An array of experts from New Delhi to Paris offers their views in this section.     

Obama's Realist Idealism

President Barack Obama pledged in his first TV interview—with the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya—that America under his watch would "listen with respect and not dictate" to the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has further announced that this country will no longer just throw around its military might but will pursue a "smart power" approach by tempering the use of hard weaponry with the "soft power" of persuasion and cultural attraction. Or, as Madame Secretary's husband Bill has put it, America will now lead through the power of example instead of the example of power.
The first exceedingly complex test of Obama's smart power strategy will be how to end George W. Bush's misguided "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Pakistan, keeping al-Qaida at bay without being swallowed by the quagmire of tribal politics. An array of experts from New Delhi to Paris offers their views in this section.     

THE IRREPRESSIBLE ROD RHODES: CONTESTING TRADITIONS AND BLURRING GENRES

Rod Rhodes spent 25 years as the Editor of Public Administration before he retired from that role at the end of 2010. These essays in his honour are intended to celebrate the achievement of those 25 years and reflect on his contribution to the worlds of public administration and political science. Rod has now consolidated the standing of the journal as one of the most significant locations for work on public administration. At the same time, over his career, he has prodded and probed, challenged and innovated, in a wide range of areas. The essays in this special edition have been designed around his intellectual interests over the 40 years of his career, from local government, and networks, to ethnography and narratives. Each author was asked, as appropriate, to identify Rhodes' impact and to assess the present state of the literature. Three articles consider the state of the discipline in the UK, the USA and in the world of comparative politics. Rod is then given the opportunity to reflect on his career and where his interests might lead. As ever he wants the last word! This introduction provides the context for his career and charts in broad terms his intellectual trajectory and contribution.     

Barack and Slumdog Millionaire

President Barack Obama pledged in his first TV interview—with the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya—that America under his watch would "listen with respect and not dictate" to the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has further announced that this country will no longer just throw around its military might but will pursue a "smart power" approach by tempering the use of hard weaponry with the "soft power" of persuasion and cultural attraction. Or, as Madame Secretary's husband Bill has put it, America will now lead through the power of example instead of the example of power.
The first exceedingly complex test of Obama's smart power strategy will be how to end George W. Bush's misguided "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Pakistan, keeping al-Qaida at bay without being swallowed by the quagmire of tribal politics. An array of experts from New Delhi to Paris offers their views in this section.     

"Yes We Can" in the Middle East

President Barack Obama pledged in his first TV interview—with the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya—that America under his watch would "listen with respect and not dictate" to the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has further announced that this country will no longer just throw around its military might but will pursue a "smart power" approach by tempering the use of hard weaponry with the "soft power" of persuasion and cultural attraction. Or, as Madame Secretary's husband Bill has put it, America will now lead through the power of example instead of the example of power.
The first exceedingly complex test of Obama's smart power strategy will be how to end George W. Bush's misguided "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Pakistan, keeping al-Qaida at bay without being swallowed by the quagmire of tribal politics. An array of experts from New Delhi to Paris offers their views in this section.     

AFPAK Realities

President Barack Obama pledged in his first TV interview—with the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya—that America under his watch would "listen with respect and not dictate" to the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has further announced that this country will no longer just throw around its military might but will pursue a "smart power" approach by tempering the use of hard weaponry with the "soft power" of persuasion and cultural attraction. Or, as Madame Secretary's husband Bill has put it, America will now lead through the power of example instead of the example of power.
The first exceedingly complex test of Obama's smart power strategy will be how to end George W. Bush's misguided "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Pakistan, keeping al-Qaida at bay without being swallowed by the quagmire of tribal politics. An array of experts from New Delhi to Paris offers their views in this section.     

Bring Hamas Into the Political Process

President Barack Obama pledged in his first TV interview—with the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya—that America under his watch would "listen with respect and not dictate" to the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has further announced that this country will no longer just throw around its military might but will pursue a "smart power" approach by tempering the use of hard weaponry with the "soft power" of persuasion and cultural attraction. Or, as Madame Secretary's husband Bill has put it, America will now lead through the power of example instead of the example of power.
The first exceedingly complex test of Obama's smart power strategy will be how to end George W. Bush's misguided "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Pakistan, keeping al-Qaida at bay without being swallowed by the quagmire of tribal politics. An array of experts from New Delhi to Paris offers their views in this section.     

Shari'a in Swat: A Dangerous Surrender to Islamists

President Barack Obama pledged in his first TV interview—with the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya—that America under his watch would "listen with respect and not dictate" to the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has further announced that this country will no longer just throw around its military might but will pursue a "smart power" approach by tempering the use of hard weaponry with the "soft power" of persuasion and cultural attraction. Or, as Madame Secretary's husband Bill has put it, America will now lead through the power of example instead of the example of power.
The first exceedingly complex test of Obama's smart power strategy will be how to end George W. Bush's misguided "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Pakistan, keeping al-Qaida at bay without being swallowed by the quagmire of tribal politics. An array of experts from New Delhi to Paris offers their views in this section.     

Smart Power

President Barack Obama pledged in his first TV interview—with the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya—that America under his watch would "listen with respect and not dictate" to the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has further announced that this country will no longer just throw around its military might but will pursue a "smart power" approach by tempering the use of hard weaponry with the "soft power" of persuasion and cultural attraction. Or, as Madame Secretary's husband Bill has put it, America will now lead through the power of example instead of the example of power.
The first exceedingly complex test of Obama's smart power strategy will be how to end George W. Bush's misguided "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Pakistan, keeping al-Qaida at bay without being swallowed by the quagmire of tribal politics. An array of experts from New Delhi to Paris offers their views in this section.