Father,son, and holy ghost: Pye,Solomon, and the ‘spirit of Chinese politics’

Abstract

Mao's Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture structurally is two books. The first (parts I and II pp. 1-159) is a discussion of Chinese psychological characteristics based on the author's 1966 dissertation for MIT, The Chinese Revolution and the Politics of Dependency: The Struggle for Change in a Traditional Political Culture. The second (parts III and IV pp. 160-526) is a competent if somewhat narrow think-tank piece written in 1969 on the Hundred Flowers, the Great Leap, and the early phase of the Cultural Revolution.     

‘The backbone of the village’: gender,development, and traditional authority in rural Zanzibar

Recent processes of political decentralisation and the parallel movements asserting indigenous identity and autochthony have led to a resurgence of academic interest in ‘traditional’ and local forms of leadership and authority. Based on ethnographic research on the hirimu age-set system and related forms of traditional authority in the Zanzibari village of Jongowe, this article explores how these systems rooted in local history and identity are mitigated by contemporary national and international political circumstances. By examining how ‘traditional’ systems both create and circumscribe space for gendered expressions of power and how they work with the emerging forms of non-governmental organisation characteristic of contemporary development, the article considers how these dynamic local systems of governance maintain their legitimacy through both association with the past and engagement with contemporary politics. It argues for an understanding of ‘traditional authority’ that expands beyond hereditary leadership positions, and suggests that such forms of power, though embedded in historical collective identity, are expressions of contemporary forms of governance.     

Making the ‘empowered woman’: exploring contradictions in gender and development programming in Kyrgyzstan

This article examines the complexities of women’s increasing participation in international development programming for gender equality. Taking a specific setting in rural Kyrgyzstan where one such project has been operating, the researchers discover adverse effects on the local women’s livelihoods, status and health. Women’s contradictions are attributed to the women’s own failures and lacks, creating confusion and frustration among them. Adopting Smith’s institutional-ethnography approach, we explicate and map out the hidden processes which must be held accountable for these reactionary outcomes, taking women’s experiences as entry points to inquiry. We find that the reactionary effects are not accidental but organized, powerfully, systematically but invisibly, by taken-for-granted institutional practices serving the purposes of global development institutions, where women are seen as instruments of global economic growth. The analysis provokes critical discussion of ‘how’ and ‘what’ it takes to transform Central Asian women into ‘empowered’ people.     

‘We have chased Blaise,so nobody can resist us’: Civil society and the politics of ECOWAS intervention in Burkina Faso

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the limits of ECOWAS’ top-down approach to mediation, based on a case study from Burkina Faso in 2014 and 2015. It shows the growing importance of ordinary citizens in the regulation of political arenas, both at the domestic and the regional level, as well as citizens’ impact on ECOWAS mediation in Burkina Faso. It thereby argues that mediation in ‘revolutionary’ situations is hardly feasible. In Burkina Faso, the 2014 popular uprising created a new kind of citizenry who felt ‘sovereign’ and expressed its grievances through mass mobilisations. In such political contexts, regional mediation, which aims at re-establishing stability and power-sharing agreements, becomes problematic because it contradicts the spirit ‘from the streets’. Moreover, the top-down approach also erodes the legitimacy of the mediators, who are perceived to work against ‘the people’s will’. The reflection draws attention to the tensions between international mediators and actors from below and highlights the need to craft new strategies for conducting mediation in the context of popular uprisings.     

‘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.     

Why Leipzig? ‘Exit’ and ‘voice’ in the East German revolution

Albert Hirschman's exit‐voice scheme provides a useful starting point for making sense of the East German revolution. Following Hirschman, it is argued that the conjunction of emigration and protest was key to the mass upheaval of 1989. Going beyond Hirschman, however, ‘exit’ is seen as relevant not only as the cumulative effect of individual emigration, but also as a political force in its own right. Different constellations between voice and exit groups then help to explain why the revolutionary upheaval originated not in East Berlin, but in Leipzig.     

Whores, men, and other misfits: undoing ‘feminization’ in the armed forces in the DRC

The global attention focused on sexual violence in the DRC has not only contributed to an image of the Congolese army as a vestige of pre-modern barbarism, populated by rapists, and bearing no resemblance to the world of modern armies; it has also shaped gender and defence reform initiatives. These initiatives have become synonymous with combating sexual violence, reflecting an assumption that the gendered dynamics of the army are already known. Crucial questions such as the ‘feminization’ of the armed forces are consequently neglected. Based on in-depth interviews with soldiers in the Congolese armed forces, this article analyses the discursive strategies male soldiers employ in relation to the feminization of the army. In the light of the need to reform the military and military masculinities, the article discusses how globalized discourses and practices render the Congolese military a highly globalized sphere. It also highlights the particular and local ways in which military identities are produced through gender, and concludes that a simple inclusion of women in the armed forces in order to render men less violent might not have the pacifying effect intended.     

‘Making democracy a reality’? The politics of decentralisation and the limits to local democracy in Ghana

Through a case study of Ghana, this article focuses on the relationship between decentralisation and local democracy. The Ghanaian constitution emphasises decentralisation as the key means to ‘making democracy a reality’, reflecting the view common amongst international development agencies that decentralisation enhances local democracy and leads to more responsive government. This article questions such views and investigates whether decentralisation in Ghana has led to increased political participation at the local level and to downwardly accountable local government. Empirical findings are two-fold. On the one hand, relatively high levels of participation in local democratic processes are indicated. On the other, accountability mechanisms have not been strengthened, with a number of limitations and shortcomings identified at local level that undermine citizens’ attempts to hold local government and their elected representatives to account. Yet, in seeking to explain this delinkage between participation and accountability, such local issues do not provide a full explanation. Attention is thus refocused on the national context, where structural obstacles to devolved government are identified in the form of legal, political, administrative and fiscal constraints. Such obstacles are not easily overcome, however, due to the politics of decentralisation, notably central government's reluctance to relinquish control over its powers. Recent proposals for reform in Ghana's decentralisation system are considered, but political change is unlikely given the built-in advantages to the ruling party, whichever is in power. Without such reforms, though, local democracy is likely to remain more appearance than reality.     

Do the Kurds have ‘no friends but the mountains’? Turkey's Secret War against Communists,Soviets and the Kurds

A Kurdish proverb says that the Kurds have ‘no friends but the mountains’. This was not what the Turkish authorities believed. Using new and previously unexploited archives both in English and Turkish, this article offers a new interpretation of Turkey's perception of the Kurds. By analyzing Kurdish activities and their alignment with Communist movements and Soviet activities, it shows how Turkey's threat perception was shaped by international contexts, especially through the Cold War. In addition, the Kurdish nationalist movement in the Middle East played a pivotal role in regional intelligence cooperation between Turkey, Iraq and Iran. This article argues that Soviet and Communist activities had an important role in shaping Turkey's threat perception of the Kurdish minority in the country. Turkey's perception of subversive threats involved an intertwining of Communists, Soviets and Kurds. This affected the Kurdish bid for independence for most of the twentieth century.     

Germans and ‘others’: Racism,xenophobia, or ‘legitimate conservatism'?

Drawing on data from various sources, the article assesses the extent of xenophobia and the potential support base for right‐wing extremism in the united Germany. The data shows that West Germany displayed a considerable level of xenophobia before unification, and that at present, Germans in east and west display strikingly similar patterns of hostility towards foreigners. In comparison to their European neighbours, however, the Germans are not markedly different. In addition to levels of education, and placement on a Left‐Right scale, the driving force behind xenophobic attitudes ‐ both in Germany and in other European Community states ‐ are economic and social fears and a perception of relative deprivation.     

The ‘ballot and the brick’: protest,voting and non-voting in post-apartheid South Africa

Over the last decade, protest has become an enduring feature of the post-apartheid political landscape. Despite this wave of protest, the African National Congress (ANC) has largely retained its dominant status. The endurance of the ANC’s electoral support in spite of the high levels of protest has led Susan Booysen to conclude that protests in South Africa form part of a ‘dual repertoire’ of political contestation. She argues that protests are used to signal grievances to the ANC between elections but that, ultimately, people remain loyal to the party of liberation. This article interrogates Booysen’s claim through advancing an analysis of voting district and ward-level data in protest hotspots. The article highlights weaknesses in the methodological base of Booysen’s thesis. By analysing the support for the ANC amongst the estimated eligible voting-age population, this article suggests a different relationship between voting and protesting in post-apartheid South Africa.     

The Rise and Fall of Turcophilism in Nineteenth-Century British Discourses: Visions of the Turk, ‘Young’ and ‘Old’

This article examines the evolving British perceptions of the Ottoman Empire from the onset of the Tanzimat to Abdülhamid II. The article aims to attest the emergence of a positive image of the ‘reforming Turk’ and the erosion of this positive assessment following the disillusionment with the achievements of Tanzimat. The article discusses the Christian dimensions of the positive and negative attitudes towards the Ottomans and ‘moral racism’ inherent in both the positive and negative assessments. The article ends with concluding that this reference framework from which the British discourses on the Ottomans derived had eclipsed with the demise of the British nineteenth-century political elite and culture in tandem with the waning of the Ottoman political culture and elite.     

Who is in the ‘‘We’’? Interrogating the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and Youth Political Participation

Most analyses of the African Union (AU) have focused on the politics of the state and the presidents. There are very few analyses that have focused on aspects such as youth development. The point of departure for this article therefore, is youth development. I argue that although the youth were always part of important historical developments in Africa, they remain on the periphery. In recent times, particularly since the transformation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) into the AU in the 2000s, the youth development agenda has begun to receive the attention at policy level. In 2015 the AU, through Agenda 2063 went a step further by including youth development into mainstream continental policy frameworks. While we welcome all these developments it has emerged that the continent remains hesitant in the area of youth development. Where the AU and its member states have adopted the discourse of youth inclusion—in cases where youth political participation is often limited, such efforts are not met with fitting institutional and practical policy arrangements. The article posits that the African elite is in for a rude awakening as we have witnessed—since 2011—given the discovery by the African youth of new methods of political participation in post-colonial Africa. The article advocates for the adoption of the African community outlook to youth state policy, argues for the youth to be linked to the project of economic freedom, and implores the African elite to embark on the decolonial project to resolve the bearing coloniality of being, power and knowledge.     

‘When we have nothing we all eat grass’: debt,donor dependence and the food crisis in Malawi, 2001 to 2003

In 2002, Malawi faced a devastating food crisis, an event in which hundreds of people died of hunger, while over a thousand succumbed to a country-wide cholera epidemic. By June of that year, over 3.2 million people needed emergency food aid, one-third of Malawi's population. This article assesses the crisis through the lens of donor–government relations. Beginning with the restructuring of the agricultural sector under a World Bank-sponsored structural adjustment programme, a process that discouraged food production by small-holder farmers, the article explains how the Malawian government's reliance on external sources of funding, and its deteriorating relations with key international creditors, rendered it impotent in the face of the oncoming crisis. Having sold its strategic grain reserve (SGR) to service mounting debts, the government could not rein in a food price spiral that peaked in March 2002. Allegations of financial irregularities surrounding the sale of the SGR served to make matters worse. The United States, Britain, Denmark and the European Union cancelled direct development funding and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank suspended Malawi from the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative. With limited access to credit, the Government of Malawi could neither re-stock its food reserves nor fund emergency imports in time to mitigate the worst effects of the crisis. Relief aid was further delayed by disagreements between the government and key donors and aid agencies regarding genetically modified (GM) food. While accepting Amartya Sen's basic entitlements framework – the 2002 crisis was one of pricing and access rather than absolute shortages of food – the article posits the following theoretical argument: in the context of highly indebted poor countries, it is a government's relationship with its principal donors and creditors that determines the outcome of food crises by shaping the policy responses available both leading up to and during the event.     

‘A second wife is not really a wife’: polygyny,gender relations and economic realities in Tajikistan

While polygyny in Tajikistan existed before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and has been a phenomenon of growing importance since Independence, it is still forbidden by law. To understand this renewal, I do not look at polygyny as a sign of religiousness, but as a form of patriarchal bargain in which women (who often experienced former matrimonial disjuncture) may have a greater power of decision in the spousal relations. I will explore women's points of view, from which polygyny is a strategy to accessing the symbolic and material resources they lack. I then explore the conditions to which becoming a second wife is possible: women's own resources, be they material, symbolic, familial, appear as of crucial importance in this accession to the status of being married anew.