Tunisia’s youth: awakened identity and challenges post-Arab Spring

This paper examines Tunisian youths’ sense of identity and how it is influenced by the economic malaise that the country has experienced since the revolution; this is despite the relative success of the Arab Spring at inciting the country’s political transition to democracy. Although young people appreciate new-found freedoms of expression and association in post-Arab Spring Tunisia, the economy, acquiescent to the neoliberal model and weighed down with corruption and political marginalization, has deprived many of a dignified existence. The research reported in this paper surveys over 100 youth chosen from northern, coastal, central and southern parts of Tunisia. It examines how Tunisian youth view the Arab Spring in the context of unstable socio-economic and political environments. To most surveyed youths, the Arab Spring is a failure in socio-economic terms, but it is also an occasion to reassert their Tunisian identity.     

Understanding Russia’s energy turn to China: domestic narratives and national identity priorities

This study investigates whether, as part of a broader “Asian Energy Pivot,” Russia’s energy giant Gazprom refashioned its export strategy away from Europe, and what impact such a reorientation might have on the EU–Russia gas relationship. It uses four empirical cases to emphasize the domestic movers underlying Russia’s eastward shift in energy trade, developing a constructivist theory rooted in the dynamics of Russia’s dominant public narrative and the contours of domestic politics. It argues that Russia’s national interests changed as a result of how Russian policy-makers interpreted and reacted to the stand-off with Europe, in response to what they perceived as Europe’s attempt to isolate it economically and geopolitically. Russia’s Eurasianists, who had advocated the notion of a necessary turn to the East for a long time, positioned themselves as norm entrepreneurs and their new interpretation of the preexisting material incentives shaped the future course of action.     

“But it is our duty!” Exploring Gazprom’s reluctance to Russian gas sector reform

Reform of the Russian domestic natural gas sector has been discussed for several decades but has not been carried out. The state-controlled energy company Gazprom holds a dominant position in the domestic market, supplying the population with gas, carrying out societal functions, and in return getting privileges from the state. Recently, however, independent gas producers have increased their market shares and are lobbying for liberalization. While Gazprom might gain from reform, it continues to warn against the dangers of altering the gas market structure too abruptly. Analyzing Gazprom’s reasoning through an ideational analytical lens, this article finds that Gazprom’s reluctance to change can be explained not only by its interests but also by norms and beliefs. Reform studies should take note of Gazprom’s idea of “keeping the country together,” not least because the company has a sounding board in the President, who makes the final decisions.     

Orientalism and binary discursive representations of Tunisia’s democratization: the need for a “continuity and change” paradigm

ABSTRACT

Mainstream analyses of Tunisia’s post-2011 democratic transition have been largely divided along two mutually exclusive narratives. There are those hailing the country as ‘the Arab Spring’s only success story’ on the one hand and those sounding sensationalist alarms about the country’s democratization failure and return to authoritarianism on the other. This is consistent with, and perpetuates, a problematic zero-sum binary in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) scholarship between either a linear democratization process or authoritarian resilience. Furthermore, these reductionist representations highlight the failure of predominant democratization theories to account for the nuances and complexities of democratic transition. This paper critically examines the binary discursive representations of Tunisia’s democratization and explores their underpinning in two competing Orientalisms: the classic Orientalism underscoring an ontological difference (and inferiority) of the ‘Arab world’ to the West, and a liberal civilizing Orientalism which, while acknowledging an ‘essential sameness’ between the West and the ‘Arab world’, places the West as the temporal pinnacle of democracy and the normative monitor of democratic success. This paper thus rejects the binary discursive representations of Tunisia’s transition and advocates for a more nuanced narrative which accounts for the patterns of continuity with and change from authoritarian structures within the democratization process.     

From the Achaemenids to Somoni: national identity and iconicity in the landscape of Dushanbe’s capitol complex

This article focuses on the iconicity of contemporary Dushanbe’s capitol complex, with its state-sponsored architecture and memorial culture, part of the government of Tajikistan’s national identity construction. Dushanbe’s architecture post-independence is actant, a mnemonic and iconographical bridge between the present and favoured historical periods in a quest for national origins. A bricolage of historical symbols, including those of Achaemenid Iran and the early Islamic Samanids, is displayed here in a city with Soviet foundations. Together with pan-Iranian iconography is a desire by the government of Tajikistan for monumentality for its own sake. The capitol complex evokes the natural world, connected to a Central Asian conception of sacred space, suggesting an interlacing of power and religious authority. These monumental building projects are taking place against the backdrop of the destruction of Dushanbe’s ‘authentic’ Soviet architecture and built heritage in the capitol complex, itself a container for collective memory.     

Russia’s economic policy in 2015–2016: the imperative of structural reform

In the aftermath of the global economic crisis, we have seen uneven development in the leading advanced and emerging economies, new models of economic growth that vary from country to country, uncertain prospects for globalization and challenges of “regional globalization,” looming currency re-configurations, as well as shifting energy price dynamics and their influence on political and economic prospects of particular states. This paper discusses current challenges for social and economic policy in the context of the history of the past 30 years. With reference to Russia, it focuses on a new growth model, structural transformation (including import-substitution issues), economic dynamics, fiscal and monetary concerns, and social issues. It concludes by addressing the priorities of economic policy.     

Constitutional reform and new patterns of electoral violence: evidence from Kenya’s 2013 elections

In places prone to electoral violence, what effects can constitutional changes have on elites’ incentives to organise conflict? This article develops two hypotheses to address the above question. It proposes that in places where national reforms find sub-national resonance, national and local politicians’ incentives regarding the electoral utility of conflict will align. However, in places where national-level changes fail to be locally relevant, these incentives will deviate from one another. The research illustrates these logics through a controlled comparison of two Kenyan counties: one that experienced electoral violence and the other that maintained peace around the 2013 elections.     

Debating Indonesia’s Reformasi: Bridging “Parallel Universes”

Fifteen years after the fall of Suharto in Indonesia, scholars still continue to disagree over why he fell and what the subsequent process of political transition has actually entailed. A review of the literature reveals two competing interpretations. In the liberal camp, scholars draw on transition theories and argue that the fall of Suharto was caused by a “people power” mobilisation. Other scholars in the oligarchy literature who adopt theories of political economy, however, question this interpretation and argue that the fall of Suharto entailed a reorganisation of patrimonialism. The latter has been criticised by liberals for underestimating the significance of changes in post-Suharto Indonesia, though little engagement has taken place between these camps, which now constitute two “parallel universes.” This article argues that while the oligarchy camp tends to emphasise continuity, it still provides us with important insights into changes in post-Suharto Indonesia which are not adequately recognised by liberals. This is largely because their different theoretical roots prevent meaningful conversations. By reframing the oligarchy literature using the language of transition theories, this article clarifies the difference in the nature of change these two camps are respectively concerned with in the hopes of stimulating more constructive engagements between them.     

The Engagement Pendulum: Australia’s Alternating Approach to Irregular Migration

This paper examines the Australian federal government’s use of regional engagement to stop irregular migration. It shows that Australia’s policy elites have long debated whether regional cooperation is useful or necessary for stopping irregular migration. The debate among policy elites bears little relationship to the academic and ideological controversy over Australia’s “engagement” with Asia. Rather, this controversy is defined by pragmatism and operates akin to a pendulum, with an action–reaction cycle occurring where governments seek alternative approaches to what they perceive as the failures of their predecessors. This paper shows that the governments who have championed Asian engagement have been no more willing to seek a regional approach to irregular migration than those who seem to downplay engagement. Differing perspectives on regional cooperation is an important and largely under-examined aspect of Australia’s broader national debate about irregular migration. Given the significance of this issue to Australian politics, it also serves as an important case study in the wider context of Australia’s relationship with and attitudes towards the Asia-Pacific.     

Tunisian Women at the Crossroads: Antagonism and Agonism between Secular and Islamist Women’s Rights Movements in Tunisia

The recent rise in Islamist-inspired women’s activism is posing challenges to the longstanding secular women’s movements in post-Ben Ali Tunisia. Starting from the conviction that cohesive, cross-class women’s coalitions are better suited to achieve gender justice for women of all walks of life, this article draws on the concept of ‘agonistic pluralism’ (Chantal Mouffe) to understand how Tunisia’s women’s movements can deal with the new, multifaceted conflict in their ranks. Through a discussion of the ‘Dialogue of Tunisian Women’, the grounds for strategic coalition-building and ‘agonistic’ engagement between secular and Islamist women’s rights actors are illustrated.     

Ian Turner’s The Australian Dream and Australia’s “settler transition”

Focusing on radical labour historian Ian Turner’s The Australian Dream (1968), this article reflects on the evolution of Australia’s settler colonial imagination. During a few crucial decades in the nineteenth century, colonial traditions were overcome by settler colonial ones. The former espoused a system where British rulers would paternally manage a colonial environment and all its populations (pastoralists, free settlers, convicts, emancipated convicts, and Indigenous peoples); the latter advocated the establishment of self-reliant agricultural communities of free settlers. In Replenishing the Earth (2009), James Belich distinguished between settler “transition” and settler “revolution”, and emphasised the imaginative elements that underpin and precede the shift to settler self-government. As the global settler transition took hold, locales usually associated with the perception and expectation of degenerative processes were reconfigured as propitious sites for experimenting in sociopolitical regeneration. Following and expanding on Belich’s framework, this article links Australia’s settler transition with its historiography.     

South Korea’s Economic Course: from State Dirigisme to Liberal Monetarism

The paper aims to investigate the transformation of South Korean economy from strict state regulation to liberalization and to fill in the gap in the historical analysis of the transition from import-substitution to export-oriented economy of South Korea. The study relies on the methods of comparative-historical, historical-typological, and historical-genetic analysis to consider the evolution of South Korean economic system, the change in economic development model, and the transition to a new economic strategy. The study also implies the use of interdisciplinary methods to systematize the empirical material, applying political-geographic, economic, and complex approaches. The paper gives periodization of South Korean economic development and investigates the reasons of country’s successful modernization and transition to export-oriented economy. Large corporations began to emerge in South Korea in the mid-1960s due to the active support from the state. They established the production of steel, marine vessels, automobiles, and electronic devices. The well thought-out government program brought notable success by the late 1990s, and South Korea gained the developed industrial base and powerful export potential. The afflux of foreign investments and the competitiveness of Korean products were mostly provided by low wages, traditional diligence, and Confucian education. Since the Korean strategy of economic development happened to be successful, there is a need for examining the experience of modernization as it can be useful for developing countries.     

Japan’s Quest for “Soft Power”: Attraction and Limitation

Japan is seeking to project its “soft power” through the allure of manga and anime in its public diplomacy. The production, diffusion and global consumption of manga and anime are driven by market forces and consumer tastes and not by the Japanese state. However, the latter is seeking to harness this popular culture to burnish Tokyo’s international image. Despite the attractiveness of Japanese pop culture and other more traditional forms of public diplomacy, Tokyo’s pursuit of “soft power” and a good international image is undermined by its failure to overcome its burden of history.

‘To Recognise,or not to Recognise’: Macmillan’s Yemen Arab Republic question

The Macmillan government's dilemma over whether to grant diplomatic recognition to the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) following a coup in 1962 was finely balanced. Hitherto, though, the literature on this specific issue has neither reflected the complexity of issues with which the British government was confronted nor offered a satisfactory explanation of its ultimate non-recognition of the YAR. Some scholars suggest that London was immediately and consistently opposed to granting recognition; others attribute the decision to fear of Nasserism and a determination to maintain Britain's colonial interests in the Persian Gulf. This article contends differently. Drawing upon newly declassified information it first reveals in fuller detail the array of issues and interests that the Macmillan government was confronted by and sought to balance. It then proceeds to demonstrate that the Macmillan government was not unwaveringly against according recognition to the YAR and that whilst important, the influence of the Aden Group and its sympathisers in government was not decisive. Instead, irresolution within the government resulted in an event-driven policy that arrived ultimately at non-recognition of the YAR by default rather than by design.     

“A garden had been left to grow wild there”: considering nature in Ivan Vladislavić’s Johannesburg

Johannesburg has frequently been subjected to critical examinations that conceive the city as a metropolis dominated by late capitalist excess and gold mining hyperbole. Along these particular lines, much of the literary scholarship that considers Vladislavi?’s city texts have focussed on his conception of the built environment that critiques its exploitative extractive history and its simulacral tendencies. However, sustained critical attention of his treatment of nature in the urban space has largely been neglected or underplayed. The natural Highveld environment, for Vladislavi?, occupies a fraught and liminal space in the city, pushed to the margins of a brutalizing modernity. Nature in Johannesburg, he opines, is a construction, an imposition and inheritance that belies the city’s colonial and European settler history. However, there are moments in which, when human attention is turned away, nature in its untended and generative capacity works to unmake the structural obduracy of the settled city. This manifests in episodes that embrace the quiet potency of wild gardens that disrupt the urban status quo.