Operation ‘cardinal’: The OSS in Manchuria,August 1945

To protect thousands of Allied military prisoners of war, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), China Theater parachuted a small team into Mukden the day after the Japanese surrender. Operating amid a disintegrating security situation, the OSS team's military and diplomatic skills enabled success of its humanitarian mission. Afterward, the team reverted to a secondary mission of intelligence gathering. Witnesses to the beginning of the Cold War in Asia, the team's intelligence reporting revealed the strength of the Chinese Communists in Manchuria, and how in the flush of victory over Japan, the United States was already facing problems with a resurgent Soviet Union whose ambitions were far different from those of America.     

Operation ‘Robin’ and the British overflight of Kapustin Yar: a historiographical note

It is now nearly 40 years since the story of the British reconnaissance mission to overfly and photograph the Soviet missile test base at Kapustin Yar in 1953 or 1954 first surfaced in public. Yet, despite declassification and research, the full story is still elusive. This is a small but significant episode of Cold War history, which historians could reasonably expect to have been clarified by now. This research note seeks to review the evidence.     

Democratization in the ‘miracle’ economies

Michael R.J. Vatikiotis Political Change in Southeast Asia: Trimming the Banyan Tree London: Routledge, 1996. 230 pp. ISBN 0–415–13484–6.

Garry Rodan (ed.) Political Oppositions in Industrialising Asia London: Routledge, 1996. 338 pp. ISBN 0–415–14865–0.     

‘No politics in the agenda-setting meeting’: plenary agenda setting in the Netherlands

The process of agenda setting is fundamental to politics, yet there is surprisingly little research about this process in parliamentary systems. The reason for this lacuna is that agenda setting tends to occur behind closed doors. The Dutch Tweede Kamer is an exception to this rule: decisions about the parliamentary agenda are made in public. This study examines agenda setting in the Dutch parliament from an issue-competition perspective. It looks at a sample of more than 400 agenda-setting meetings of the Dutch parliament between 1998 and 2017. It finds that opposition parties which stand far from the government make proposals on issues that they ‘own’; these proposals are supported by other opposition parties, parties that stand close to them and focus on the same issue. Coalition parties and parties that stand far away sabotage these proposals.     

Filling in the ‘unknowns’: Hypothesis-based intelligence and the Rumsfeld commission

In 2003 the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans employed a hypothesis-based methodology to deliver the now discredited intelligence that justified the Iraq war. The 1976 ‘Team B’, which was also heavily influenced by neoconservatives and used the same methodology, has been recognized as a precedent. There is, however, another precedent, the 1998 Rumsfeld Commission, which challenged CIA predictions on the ballistic missile threat to the US. Lobbied for by many of the same conservatives and neoconservatives, the Commission used the same analytical style as Team B and the OSP. The now discredited intelligence on Iraq was not a ‘failure’ or ‘mistake’, but a method, tried and tested by the right, of challenging the CIA on political grounds.     

The business of a secret war: Operation ‘Remorse’ and SOE salesmanship in Wartime China

The prime British objective in China during the Pacific War was the re-establishment of pre-war trade and influence and the recovery of Hong Kong. Through Operation ‘Remorse’ (1944–45) the Special Operations Executive covertly established a wide network of distributors and buyers throughout occupied and unoccupied China for high-value low-bulk goods and currencies, using the returns acccruing to buy influence, information, safety and food for Allied prisoners, subsidise politically problematic operations, and smooth the British path back into Hong Kong. ‘Remorse’ epitomised the concerns and demonstrated the methods of the British presence in China generally: a readiness to innovate and adapt, market sensitivity and a capacity for making unlikely local alliances, all held together through a strong focus on a fixed target – a secure China base for Sino-British trade.     

Operation ‘Piet’: The Joseph Sidney Petersen Jr. Spy Case,a Dutch ‘Mole’ Inside the National Security Agency

In 1986 it was discovered that Jonathan Jay Pollard, an employee of US Naval Intelligence, had worked as a spy for Israel. Until then the case of Joseph Sidney Petersen was the most important example of espionage against an US intelligence service by an ally. Petersen, who worked for the National Security Agency, was arrested in October 1954 and charged with obtaining top secret documents to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation. According to the International Herald Tribune this represented a case with worldwide implications. During the subsequent trial it emerged that Petersen had forwarded these top secret codeword documents to the Netherlands. For the first time an attempt will be made here to fully reconstruct the Petersen affair based on declassified American and Dutch archival holdings. Special attention will be paid to when Petersen was recruited and by whom, how long his spying lasted, what intelligence he delivered to the Dutch, what led to his arrest and trial and what the impact that had on American–Dutch relations. This article will close with some still remaining and unanswered questions.     

‘Venona’: the British dimension

‘Venona’ remains the greatest secret of the Cold War yet to be declassified, and offers the pieces of a jigsaw that, when assembled and interpreted, reveals the identities of dozens of Soviet agents who participated in GRU and NKVD networks across the globe between 1940 and 1948. Among them, operating in London, were Professor J.B.S Haldane, codenamed ‘Intelligentsia’, and Lord Swaythling's son, the Honourable Ivor Montagu, appropriately codenamed ‘Nobility’. Contained in the sometimes partially decrypted texts are clues to hundreds of other, as yet unexposed, spies, active in Australia, Mexico, Sweden, the United States, Britain, and numerous other countries. Betrayed by William Wiesband and Kim Philby, the ‘Venona’ project failed to find the traitor known as ‘Baron’ inside the wartime GCHQ, but was responsible for the arrest of Klaus Fuchs, confirming the guilt of Alger Hiss, Donald Maclean and the Rosenbergs, supporting the allegations of Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley, and sparking off molehunts on three continents. ‘Venona’ sheds important new light on the assassination of Trotsky, Soviet penetration of the Manhattan project at Los Alamos and Berkeley, and reveals high-level espionage in the White House, OSS, the State Department and virtually every government department in Washington DC.     

‘Buzantine’ security complexes in the Pacific

In Search of Peace: Confidence Building and Conflict Reduction in the Pacific, edited by Muthiah Alagappa. Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS), Kuala Lumpur/Kegan Paul International, London, 1989. vi + 72 pp. £20. ISBN 0–7103–0375–0.

Building Confidence, Resolving Conflicts, edited by Muthiah Alagappa. ISIS, Kuala Lumpur/Kegan Paul International, London, 1990. vi+155 pp. £35. ISBN 0–7103–0372–6.

No Longer an American Lake?, edited by John Ravenhill. Allen &; Unwin, Sydney, Wellington and London, 1989, ix + 227 pp. £10.95 paperback. ISBN0–04–372042–0.

Arms and Defence in Southeast Asia, edited by Chandran Jeshurun. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1989. xiv+174pp. $19.0 (SS35.00) hardback, $14.00 (S$25.00) paperback. ISBN 981–3035–44–7 and 981–3035–45–5.

Security and Arms Control in the North Pacific, edited by A. Mack and P. Keal. Allen &; Unwin, Sydney, Wellington and London, 1988. xiv+324pp. £30 hardback, £14.95 paperback. ISBN 0–04–335061–5 and 0–04–332138–0.     

Regional Mobilization in the ‘New Europe’: A Research Agenda

This Special Issue re-assesses regional mobilization in the ‘New Europe’. We anticipate that enlargement to Central Europe, the entering into force of the Lisbon Treaty and the largest economic and financial crisis since the birth of the European Community have affected how regional governments respond to Europeanization along three different dimensions: (1) the position they take vis-à-vis the process of EU integration more generally, (2) the strategies they adopt in response to Europeanization pressures and (3) their internal structures and dynamics of the EU member states as multi-level states. The article introduces a framework and formulates hypotheses to examine why and how Europeanization pressures in the ‘New Europe’ affect regional mobilization along these three dimensions. In the final section, the article also introduces the various contributions to this Special Issue and relates them to the analytical framework.     

Redeeming the ‘Indian’: sport and ethnicity in post-revolutionary Mexico

For many historians of Latin America and others, twentieth-century Mexico offers a shining example of a country that has been able to overcome its ethnic divisions. Following a decade of brutal civil war (1910–20) the state devised a range of reforms designed to incorporate previously marginalized sectors of society. Semi-autonomous indigenous communities were singled out for particular attention as rural teachers and cultural missionaries engaged in the dual task of bringing ‘civilization’ to the ‘Indian’ and simultaneously gathering cultural remnants of ‘traditional’ indigenous culture for inclusion within an all-embracing new national culture. Within an environment of mutual understanding and respect, mestizo children in Mexico City, for example, would learn the dances of the Yaquis in Northern Mexico, and Yaqui children would practise the games of Mayas from the South. But what were the motives behind such measures, and how successful were they? Using sport as his focus, Brewster suggests that the political rhetoric accompanying these reforms contained an inner contradiction: the cultural diversity of Mexico's ethnic groups would be celebrated within a homogeneous national culture. He argues that there is little evidence that mainstream mestizo society ever compromised its own values in order to embrace those of its indigenous compatriots. Rather, the underlying trend was one in which indigenous communities were forced to accept an urban-based model of civilized society completely alien to their own. Moreover, Brewster argues, the frequently ostentatious public celebration of indigenous culture, whether in sport, dance or other arenas, rarely moved beyond a level of paternalistic tokenism. Behind the facade of national unity, the reality of ethnic divisions lay hidden, only to re-emerge at the end of the twentieth century to the surprise of a complacent mestizo society.     

The Mutiny That Never Was: The Special Operations Executive and the Failure of Operation ‘Kitchenmaid’

This article analyses the development and failure of a plan by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to use a small-scale mutiny by German troops in Greece in 1944 to engender a widespread uprising within the Reichsarbeitsdienst and the ranks of non-German troops serving in the Wehrmacht. Through an analysis of this operation, codenamed ‘Kitchenmaid’, an assessment will be made of the capabilities and motivations of SOE's Greek section (Force 133); the problem of its cooperation with Greek communist guerrillas in relation to British foreign policy towards Greece; and the strategic and political value of ‘Kitchenmaid’.     

Theorizing identity: beyond the ‘us’ and ‘them’ dichotomy

ABSTRACT

Yuval-Davis discusses three interconnected questions relating to identity. She first examines whether and in what ways the notion of identity should be theorized, on the one hand, and empirically researched, on the other, focusing on the opposing views of Stuart Hall and Robin Williams. She then examines the contested question of what is identity, positioning it in relation to notions of belonging and the politics of belonging, and in relation to several influential schools of thought, especially those that construct identity as a mode of narrative, as a mode of performativity or as a dialogical practice. Her third interrelated question concerns the boundaries of identity and the relationship between self and non-self. She explores both social psychological and psychoanalytical approaches to that question, and deals with questions such as reflexivity, identifications and forced identities. The last part of the article explores several types of relationships between self and non-self, such as: ‘me’ and ‘us’; ‘me/us’ and ‘them’; ‘me’ and other ‘others’; ‘me’ and the transversal ‘us/them’. Yuval-Davis's basic argument here is that dichotomous notions of identity and difference, when theorizing boundaries of individual and collective identities, are more misleading than explanatory.     

Keeping the ‘Ism’ in ‘cosmopolitanism’ – Wieland and the origins of cosmopolitan discourse

ABSTRACT

After having been dormant for much of the 20th century, the concept of cosmopolitanism has regained some of its former rhetorical power in current academic and political debates. Taking Kwame Anthony Appiah and Robert Fine as key interlocutors, the article argues that a historically informed analysis of the linguistic context, in which the language of cosmopolitanism first emerged, can help us understand better the political and ideological underpinnings of the concept. In the first part of the article, I discuss the emergence of cosmopolitanism in the context of what I shall refer to as the ‘ismatization’ of political language in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In the second part, I turn to what I consider to be a key text for understanding the paradoxes of cosmopolitanism: the essay Das Geheimnis des Kosmopolitenordens (‘The Secret of the Order of the Cosmopolitans’), published by the German novelist, poet and publicist Christoph Martin Wieland in the journal Teutscher Merkur in 1788. At the end of the 18th century, I argue, Wieland makes a similar observation to Fine, namely that the ‘ism’ connotes something doctrinal, even sectarian, and steeped in secrecy and conspiracy.     

Agency Termination in the UK: What Explains the ‘Bonfire of the Quangos’?

In October 2010, the UK’s Coalition Government announced a radical reduction in the number of public bodies in the UK. This research tests the impact of three factors identified in the termination literature as affecting agency survival: political turnover, age and agency type. The research found that advisory Non-Departmental Public Bodies were five times more likely to have been identified for abolition or merger than other agency types. The research also found that agency age was a factor, but that political turnover was not significant.     

‘New politics’ in Finland: The greens and the left wing in the 1990s

This article examines the development of two Finnish political parties (the Green Association and the Left‐Wing Alliance) from a ‘New Politics’ perspective, focusing on changes in their electoral, programmatic and organisational profiles, with emphasis on the composition and value‐related features of their electorates in 1991, 1995 and 1999. The results confirm the position of the Greens as the prime representative of New Politics; but the party has moved away from its anti‐establishment role and its supporters increasingly share the social and attitudinal characteristics of the average electorate. The UNA, on the other hand, has moved towards a New Politics profile and a gradual dealignment of its old male‐dominated working class electorate; but its central characteristics and its supporters are still firmly entrenched in an old leftist format.     

Knowledge production in/about conflict and intervention: finding ‘facts’, telling ‘truth’

ABSTRACT

This article has a twofold aim. First, it discusses the contributions to the scholarly field of conflict knowledge and expertise in this special issue on Knowledge production in/about conflict and intervention: finding ‘facts’, telling ‘truth’. Second, it suggests an alternative reading of the issue’s contributions. Starting from the assumption that prevalent ways of knowing are always influenced by wider material and ideological structures at specific times, the article traces the influence of contemporary neoliberalism on general knowledge production structures in Western societies, and more specifically in Western academia, before re-reading the special issue’s contributions through this prism. The main argument is that neoliberalism leaves limited space for independent critical knowledge, thereby negatively affecting what can be known about conflict and intervention. The article concludes with some tasks for reflexive scholarship in neoliberal times.     

‘Voice and Equality’: Young People’s Politics in the European Union

Academics and policy-makers have highlighted the increasing disconnection between citizens and electoral politics in Europe. Declining citizen involvement in traditional forms of politics has manifested itself in lower voter turnout and a dramatic shrinkage in the membership of political parties. Citizens have turned to alternative forms of civic and political engagement. These trends are most marked amongst young people. Whilst a number of studies have examined the nature of political participation in Europe, and the participation of young people in individual countries or specific political activities (such as voting), hardly any research has looked at patterns of engagement ‘within’ a generation of young people across different democracies. This article examines the political participation of young Europeans in national democracies in 15 European Union member states. Previous studies have shown that citizens are increasingly moving away from electoral forms of participation towards alternative forms of engagement that are (for the population as a whole) much less socially equal. Using data from the European Social Survey, this article finds that the social inequalities of participation are (with the major exception of voting) much less profound for young people. This latter finding has important implications for public efforts to promote greater youth participation in democracy.