欧盟的中东-北非战略调整刍议——基于2011年中东-北非变局的思考

中东-北非地区对欧盟具有特殊的战略意义。长期以来,欧盟通过各类援助以及与该地区强权人物保持紧密联系,力求确保经济和安全双重战略目标。2011年初开始的中东-北非变局,给欧盟的既有战略带来了全方位冲击。为摆脱被动境地,欧盟已初步形成了较为清晰的战略调整思路。其中,欧盟顺动荡之势在该地区推广民主的作法尤其值得关注。挑战与机遇并存的中东-北非地区,将在未来数年内成为欧盟对外战略的一大重点。     

From a ‘success’ story to a highly indebted poor country: Ghana and neoliberal reforms

Drawing on the experience of Ghana, which the World Bank itself proclaimed as an African success story in the early 1990s, this paper sheds important light on why neoliberal policies have had limited success in Africa and what strategies are likely to be necessary to foster growth and industrialisation in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa. In 2001, a few short years after being proclaimed as an economic miracle, Ghana joined the growing ranks of highly indebted poor countries (HIPC) – an especially humbling development for this once proud nation. Why did Ghana's economy collapse after recovering so well? Ghana's experience highlights both the promise and limitation of neoliberal reforms.     

Governance and Conflict

Within a global gendered economy based on an international division of labor, Filipina migrants have become nannies, maids, and caregivers in affluent homes in numerous Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Filipina migrants who seek employment as domestic workers abroad have been described as “classical” transmigrants who keep in touch with family members back home and commute between their countries of origin and their destinations. In this article — based on ethnographic research in Israel, Palestine, and the Philippines between 2003 and 2008—the author argues that Filipina migrants are transnational in a much broader sense than commonly discussed in studies on migration: engaged in border-cross-ing journeys through a number of nation states, many Filipina migrants move on and on rather than back and forth. They do so within a global hierarchy of desirable destination countries, ranked according to the differences between nation-states with regard to salaries and the legal entitlements migrants can claim, the costs and risks migrants have to take in order to enter, and these countries’ overall subjective and imaginative attractiveness. By migrating on, Filipina domestic workers acquire an intimate picture of the Middle East “backstage.” Some even become self-pro-claimed Middle Eastern experts or politically active Christian Zionists or sentimental Orientalists, who, in spite of their Christianity, miss fasting on Yom Kippur or during Ramadan as they continue their journeys toward Western Europe and North America, where they have hopes of living and perhaps gaining citizenship.     

EVOLVING TOWARD NORMALCY AMID ANOMALY: NORTH KOREA’S MIDDLE EAST POLICY SINCE THE DEMISE OF KIM IL-SUNG

North Korea's engagement in the Middle East is a six-decade long narrative. Neither the DPRK nor its Middle Eastern partners have remained still over this time; each region has undergone significant changes. In particular, the leadership of the North Korea is now in the hands of the third generation. No matter how stagnant and monolithic the country may seem at first sight, each generation has had to deal with differing commitments and adapt to changing realities. As such, each generational change of leadership in Pyongyang has arguably had repercussions on the DPRK's relationship Middle Eastern partners, which may at times have been misattributed to a fundamental change of approach. This study attempts, therefore, to probe the twists and turns in the DPRK's interactions with the Middle East since the death of Kim Il-sung, beginning with an appraisal of each leaderships’ priorities in North Korea, and how they could potentially influence Pyongyang's overall orientation toward its different partners in the region.     

Transnationale Migration als relative Immobilität in einer globalisierten Welt

There are two conflicting interpretations of transnational migration. The first and common one is to view migration as a prime example of increasing globalization, the ever denser flows of goods, ideas and persons. The second interpretation highlights the fact that the number of migrants as a percentage of world population has not increased significantly over the past decades. After all, currently only about 3 percent of the world population reside outside the borders of the state whose citizenship they carry. However, both perspectives overlook the central sociological puzzle of relative immobility: Why are there so few transnational migrants from the many places in so-called developing and transformation countries? And why do so many migrants from a few places in the South and East come to the North and West? A systematic analysis of the factors advancing and limiting migration shows that local assets are usually quite important resources for mobility. However, if local assets are transferred into mobile resources, transnational migration can be usefully interpreted as a case of the transnationalization of life worlds.     

The Demise of the Kurdish Emirates: The Impact of Ottoman Reforms and International Relations on Kurdistan during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

Since the West's very early flirtations with the modern Near East, and especially in the past 100 years of East–West relations, there has been considerable difficulty in understanding and defining the Middle East, the Arab world, pan-Arabism, Arab nationalism, and Middle Eastern identities in general. The Western impulse of conflating national identity with language, state, and ethnicity – often subsuming Arabic language into Arab ethnicity – has contributed to this misunderstanding and misreading of the region. For, while the Middle East can be accurately referred to by way of the generic ‘Arab world’ label, the appellation itself is a misleading oversimplification that conceals an inherent diversity and multiplicity of Middle Eastern cultures, ethnicities, languages, and nationalities. And while there is certainly a dominant Arab ethnos, there are also significant numbers of Middle Eastern peoples and nationalities with historical memories and ethno-cultural bonds that challenge the dominant Arabist paradigm. This article proposes a new reading of modern Middle Eastern history and attempts to bring back to the foreground of Middle East Studies the issue of language as a key factor in shaping (and misshaping) the region, with the hope of rediscovering a broader, more honest, and less ideologically tainted discussion on the Middle East and Middle Eastern identities.     

A Dangerous Axis: The ‘Bulgarian Müftü’, the Turkish Opposition and the Ankara Government, 1928–36

In June 1967, when the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact partners decided to break off diplomatic relations with Israel following the outbreak of the Six Day War, it came as a surprise to many that Romania refused to do the same. This paper investigates previously unpublished documents in order to retrace the decision-making process in Bucharest and offer a rational answer to the question: why did Romania choose to ignore Moscow's decision? Was it a demonstration of support for Israel as it appeared at the time and, if so, what were the reasons behind it? Archival insight demonstrates that Romania's decision to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel can best be understood in the general framework of its relations with Moscow. Striving to gain autonomy in the Communist bloc and fight off Soviet domination, Romanian decision-makers preferred to engage in their own analysis of the events in the Middle East before assuming one decision or another. Their conclusions led them to believe that Moscow's policy had been adventurous and to break relations with Israel would have implied confirmation and reinforcement of Moscow's role in the Middle East.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this articles. A History of Modern Libya , by Dirk Vandewalle. History and the Culture of Nationalism in Algeria , by James McDougall. Memory and Violence in the Middle East and North Africa , by Ussama Makdisi and Paul A. Silverstein, eds. Women in the Middle East, Past and Present , by Nikki R. Keddie.     

B. Reviews and notes of recent bibliographies

i. The Islamic Near East and North Africa: An Annotated Guide to Books in English for Non‐Specialists. By David W. Littlefield, Littleton, Colorado, Libraries Unlimited, Inc., 1977. pp.375. $19.50.

ii. A select bibliography of Yemen Arah‐Eepublic and People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. Compiled by Simoné L. Mondesir. University of Durham Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, 1977. pp. iii, 59. £3.00.     

Turkey's Hydropolitics: Building Order in the Middle East

Water resources have evolved into a major tool for expanding a country's regional influence. The dynamic interactions of hydraulics strategies have thus been regarded as critical factors in Middle Eastern politics. As Turkey controls upstream water resources in the region, this study attempts to answer this question: What goals does Turkey pursue with its water-control policy? The article demonstrates that Turkey is seeking to become the dominant power in the Middle East by regulating hydropolitics.     

DPRK Troop Dispatches and Military Support in the Middle East: Change from Military Support to Arms Trade in the 1970s

The DPRK now trades in arms with the Middle East. However, in the October War (1973) the DPRK first began military cooperation with the Middle East by sending troops and providing unrequited military support. This switch was made to win support within the UN from these Middle Eastern countries, and so to counteract the US presence in the UN. Failing this, the DPRK withdrew from the UN in 1976. The DPRK then turned to arms trading both to build up its foreign currency reserves and to help liberate developing countries from US control.     

Religious voluntarism,political individualism,and the secular: nineteenth-century evangelical encounters in the Middle East

In 1819, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) began a mission in the Middle East. Though initially the missionaries sought to convert Muslims and Jews to the Christian faith, they soon turned to revitalizing their co-religionists. This puzzling situation of Christians proselytizing other Christians occurred because the two groups of Christians, American and Middle Eastern, held very different cultural and political notions of what that identity meant. In the end, the American mission remained minimally effective at conversion but influential in its secular goals of educating, furthering religious freedom, and modernization. Counter-intuitively, the missionaries’ religious proselytizing became implicated in a kind of secularization.     

Understanding the Hermit Kingdom As It Is and As It Is Becoming: The Past,Present and Future of North Korea

North Korea, a Cold War remnant in East Asia, has long been treated as an impenetrable mystery and an excruciatingly difficult subject to comprehend given its closed system, under which it has maintained its isolation even from its closest allies and neighbours. The idiosyncrasies that revolve around North Korea do pose challenges for understanding the country through the “conventional wisdom.” Nonetheless, as acknowledged by the scholarly works reviewed in this article, the regime in Pyongyang must be dealt with as it is and as it is becoming so as to better understand both the challenges and opportunities for the country. The difficult task for the United States (US) and its allies in East Asia, however, is to be pragmatic in terms of dealing with the regime in Pyongyang and to project strength in a way that promotes long-term regional and global peace as well as the betterment of people in the country. The books reviewed are Charles Armstrong, Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950?1992, Andrei Lankov, The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia and the collection edited by Kyung-ae Park and Scott Snyder, North Korea in Transition: Politics, Economy, and Society.     

J.B. Jeyaretnam: Three decades as Lee Kuan Yew's bête noir

Abstract

J.B. Jeyaretnam was Singapore's most celebrated opposition leader when his career came to an abrupt end in 2001, but he is better known for the injustices he has suffered at the hands of the People's Action Party regime than for anything he has achieved or said. Bankrupted, imprisoned, deprived of his livelihood and expelled from Parliament twice, he has acquired the aura of martyrdom, yet little is known about his life, his ideas or his motivations. Drawing on interview and archival research, this article studies him with a view to better understanding both the man himself and — probably of greater significance — what his experience can tell us about the dynamics of the Singapore policy.

Why did he enter opposition politics and keep coming back for more in the face of persecution? Why did the government set out to destroy him with such vehemence? What does this tell us about the limits of political tolerance in Singapore, both today and in the past? What lessons can other opposition figures learn from his experience? And why has Jeyaretnam been treated so harshly while the government nurtures some other opposition MPs as responsible and courteous players?     

Israel's Middle Eastern Jewish Intellectuals: Identity and Discourse

The intellectual movement HaKeshet HaDemokratit HaMizrahit (The Eastern Democratic Rainbow) was established in 1996 by second and third generation Middle Eastern and North African Jewish immigrants who are faculty members, graduate students, actors, artists, educators, businessmen and women, and media workers. These self-identified Mizrahi Israeli intellectuals aimed to initiate new debates in Israeli society with their criticism of Zionist narrative and policies by applying post-colonial theory to expose the construction of social categorisation among Jewish Israelis. In their discursive contribution they addressed several issues of historical and contemporary inequality between groups of Israeli citizens. By examining the motivation behind this intellectual activism, the present article asks what the Mizrahi identity means to people labelled as Mizrahim and why it is important.     

Eastern Mediterranean Gas Discoveries: Local and Global Impact

The ongoing discoveries of natural-gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean region significantly affect international relations. Since their viability has been increasingly confirmed, they have attracted public attention in the international energy market. Focusing on current gas production and trading in the Middle East, this paper studies the anticipated impact of gas production in the sea on geopolitical relations in the Middle East and investigates how these results may change the geoeconomic strategies of global energy-market players as well as nearby countries. In addition, our analyses provide comprehensive insights into the evolution of gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean.     

Is the middle east democratizing?

Elections have become a common feature of the political landscape of the Middle East and North Africa, where dozens of elections for office have taken place in recent years. But more, and frequent, elections, or even some political liberalization, is not synonymous with democratization. Where elections have become a feature of the political system, we still find some disturbing evidence of de‐liberalization as well. Looking at the record in more detail, this article attempts to highlight the continuing tensions between the pressures for democratization and the strategy of gradual opening up of political systems in the Middle East.     

The Possibility of Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought

While the vast scholarly fields of modern Jewish thought and modern Jewish intellectual history effectively include no texts by Jews who are of non-European origin, the domain of modern Middle Eastern intellectual history includes no writings by native Middle Eastern Jews. Aiming to help remedy this dual void, this article presents the core premises and argumentation of several pre-1936 Middle Eastern Jewish intellectuals. In filling in some of the contours and details of this rich—but significantly underexplored—history, it posits that a distinct Jewish intellectual school that unambiguously understood itself to be quintessentially Middle Eastern has been present since the beginning of European Zionism in the late nineteenth century. What contemporary scholars commonly recognise as post-1970s Mizrahi (Eastern) thought is thus better understood as an outgrowth of a Middle Eastern Jewish intellectual formation predating 1948.