British decline or the politics of declinism?

Books reviewed in this article:
C. Barnett The Audit of War: The Illusion and Reality of Britain as a Great Nation
P. Clarke and C. Trebilcock (eds) Understanding Decline: Perceptions and Realities of British Economic Performance
B. Collins and K. Robbins (eds) British Culture and Economic Decline
A. Gamble Britain in Decline: Economic Policy, Political Strategy and the British State
W. Hutton The State We're In
P. Kennedy The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000
D. Marquand The Unprincipled Society
S. Pollard The Wasting of the British Economy: British Economic Policy 1945 to the Present
S. Pollard Britain's Prime and Britain's Decline: The British Economy 1870–1914     

The transnational construction of “national allegory”: China and the cultural politics of postcolonial Indonesia

Abstract

“The story of the private individual destiny,” declares Fredric Jameson, “is always an allegory of the embattled situation of the public third-world culture and society.” Using the case of China's involvement in the cultural politics of postcolonial Indonesia, this essay examines the transnational dynamisms of the making of a national allegory and discusses the production and reception of the China images in Sukarno's Indonesia (1949–65), with a focus on the PRC's cultural diplomacy and how Chinese literary principles were appropriated and domesticated, subsequently constituting an integral component of Indonesian cultural politics. Arguing that the narratives about China (both as a sociopolitical entity and a cultural symbol) served as an important transnational inspiration to public deliberations and cultural polemics—thus contributing to the formation of national allegories in postcolonial Indonesia, this essay takes the Jamesonian thesis a step further by suggesting that a transnational imaginary within Third World countries plays a significant part in the making of domestic literary politics. This essay may also be taken as an exercise in going beyond the nation-state-centric historiography that has been the defining characteristic of Asian Studies and pointing to the need to study Sino-Southeast Asian relations from the angle of cultural politics and its intertwining ambiguities with conventional diplomacy.     

Deliberative democracy and the politics of traditional leadership in South Africa: A case of despotic domination or democratic deliberation?

A heated debate developed in South Africa as to the meaning of ‘deliberative democracy’. This debate is fanned by the claims of ‘traditional leaders’ that their ways of village-level deliberation and consensus-oriented decision-making are not only a superior process for the African continent as it evolves from pre-colonial tradition, but that it represents a form of democracy that is more authentic than the Western version. Proponents suggest that traditional ways of deliberation are making a come-back because imported Western models of democracy that focus on the state and state institutions miss the fact that in African societies state institutions are often seen as illegitimate or simply absent from people's daily lives. In other words, traditional leadership structures are more appropriate to African contexts than their Western rivals. Critics suggest that traditional leaders, far from being authentic democrats, are power-hungry patriarchs and authoritarians attempting to both re-invent their political, social and economic power (frequently acquired under colonial and apartheid rule) and re-assert their control over local-level resources at the expense of the larger community. In this view, the concept of deliberative democracy is being misused as a legitimating device for a politics of patriarchy and hierarchy, which is the opposite of the meaning of the term in the European and US sense. This article attempts to contextualise this debate and show how the efforts by traditional leaders to capture an intermediary position between rural populations and the state is fraught with conflicts and contradictions when it comes to forming a democratic state and society in post-apartheid South Africa.     

Concession or compromise? The politics of abortion in United Germany

Most GDR policies instituted to secure women's equality between 1949 and 1989 have been dismantled in the name of German unity, including freedom of choice regarding abortion. That right ceased to exist in May 1993, when the Constitutional Court imposed a number of western restrictions on eastern women as the new law of the land. This study addresses the post‐unity search for an acceptable compromise between the western constitutional mandate of foetal protection and the eastern guarantee of a woman's right to choose. It argues that a three‐year reform process which should have provided a positive introduction to the art of democratic compromise served instead as a negative socialising experience for Germans in the new Lander. Besides denying them a chance to render a meaningful policy contribution to their new state, the nature of the process has distorted East German perceptions of the quintessential ‘balance of power’ between legislative and judicial institutions under democracy. ‘Compromise’ has been attained, but consequences for the German Rechtsstaat are not all positive.     

The logic of no alternative? Political scientists, historians and the politics of Labour's past

This paper critiques the largely incommensurate approaches taken both by historians and political scientists to the governmental past of the British Labour Party. It argues that revisionist historians, in flight from the traditional left critique of parliamentary socialism, are in danger of damaging their capacity to produce general explanations, while political scientists (who specialise in the latter) have tended to preserve an outdated version of Labour's past that supports their greater interest in its present and future. Both approaches dovetail with the political strategy of the Party's current leadership, but do little to contribute to what could be a profitable breaking-down of the barriers between the two disciplines in this area.     

Legal reform or erasure of history? The politics of moral crimes in Afghanistan

ABSTRACT

In this article we reflect on our efforts to study the prosecution of moral crimes in Afghanistan. In the process of collating information about men and women imprisoned for moral crimes such as adultery, we found evidence that pointed to large-scale incarceration of men for the uncodified crime of elopement. After establishing this fact through a careful review of official data, the article considers two interrelated themes. First, we argue that government attempts to conceal its extralegal practices cannot be reduced to the question of a corrupt bureaucracy or weak governance. Rather, they reflect a fundamental tension between a modern state’s interest in projecting the rule of (codified) law and societal expectations arising from both Islamic and customary law. Second, we suggest that officials seek to address this conceptual tension between the different bodies of law through a complex process involving both accommodation and concealment. In day-to-day judicial practice, ‘assimilation’ refers to attempts to rely on sharia provisions to accommodate customary practices which have no counterpart in statutory law. ‘Dissimulation’ refers to bureaucratic actions aimed at concealing the actual practices which make such extralegal accommodations possible.     

Coming Together over Trade? A Study of the Resumed Dialogue between India and Pakistan

India and Pakistan were born into conflict in 1947 and their relationship has been among the world’s enduring rivalries ever since. In this historical context, the modest signs of progress since the resumed dialogue in February 2011 are of significance. How can these improved prospects for a more peaceful relation between Pakistan and India be explained? Departing from Liberal peace theory, this study develops an explanatory framework and investigates the impact of trade on dyadic peace processes. The empirical findings indicate that trade expectations indeed could have facilitated for a resumed dialogue between India and Pakistan. Future research may be able to attain more robust results through further specifications of the explanatory framework and additional empirical analysis.     

Political Neo-Malthusianism and the Progression of India’s Green Revolution

Academic literature on India’s economic history often portrays the nation’s Green Revolution as a single package of technocratic reforms that eventually led to sustained growth in India’s total agricultural production – the quintessential triumph of science over political resistance. This account, though, is a dramatic oversimplification, which has led both social and natural scientists to criticise the Green Revolution’s normative consequences without fully addressing the political and economic forces that led to its varied results. To date, India’s Green Revolution lacks the established historical periodisation necessary to begin putting these accounts in dialogue. To remedy these issues, this article introduces the adapted concept of political neo-Malthusianism, which deconstructs the relationship between agricultural production, dependence on foreign aid, and the period’s political battles. Understanding this nexus allows not only for a deeper understanding of the politics that shaped various Green Revolution policies’ implementation, but also moves towards an understanding of its larger place in Indian economic history.     

Shrinking democratic space? Crisis of consensus and contentious politics in Uganda

Previously considered a reforming and promising African country, economically and politically, Uganda has in recent years suffered substantial shrinkage of democratic space. This article argues that two factors have been crucial: the gradual breakdown of minimum political consensus forged under a ‘broad-based’ government which climaxed in a relatively progressive constitution in 1995 and, second, the security imperative accentuated by the war on terror. These two are compounded by the exigencies of incumbent president Museveni’s determination to rule for life, the result being erosion of basic democratic institutions, securitisation of politics, criminalisation of political competition and upsurge in contentious politics.     

The OAS and the Summit of the Americas: Coexistence,or Integration of Forces for Multilateralism?

Fifty years after the creation of the OAS, political power is not centralized in that organization but variously diffused throughout the interamerican system. Meanwhile, the Summit of the Americas process has slowly acquired its own institutionality outside the OAS, and is sometimes perceived as challenging the primacy of the ideal of the OAS as the principal institution of interamerican relations. Even with its own weaknesses, the Summit of the Americas has become the most important force for reform of the OAS. As the hemisphere prepares for the third full summit in Quebec, this essay assesses the relationship of these two institutions and their future prospects.     

The politics of national‐populism: Ideology and policies of the German Republikaner party

In this article, the Republikaner party's ideology and policies are explored on the basis of programmes and other public statements. There will be an emphasis on economic policies and issues of national and ethnic identity. It will be argued that the Republikaner party is targeting a broader electoral coalition than its main competitors and predecessors on the extreme right. In its attempt to mobilise a broad and heterogeneous protest coalition and to attract voters beyond the narrow confines of traditional right‐wing extremism the party makes contradictory promises to various sectional groups without being able to integrate them into a consistent framework of economic policy. These contradictions are covered up by the party's radical nationalism, extreme xenophobia and populist propaganda.     

The limits of agency: Emily Hobhouse’s international activism and the politics of suffering

Abstract

This article pieces together the activism of the British welfare worker and feminist-pacifist Emily Hobhouse (1860–1926) during two largely unrecorded episodes of transnational activism: firstly, her ministry of Cornish miners in Virginia, Minnesota, in the United States; and secondly, her interventions during the period of reconstruction following the South African War (1899–1902). The article endeavors to contextualize Hobhouse’s activism and offer a broader understanding of the limitations and restraints on her actions. Ultimately, her activism required a platform that was in the gift of political actors and establishment figures, and dependent on fluctuations within specific political and bureaucratic situations. Based on close inspection of undocumented material in both South African and British archives, the article investigates Hobhouse’s repertoire of missionary and philanthropic roles within a wider context of humanitarian politics. It demonstrates how women’s activism and their behind-the-scenes politicking informed political decision-making in modern imperial and international affairs.     

‘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.