Confederates and Yankees under the Southern Cross

Following the Civil War in the United States of America, colonies that were predominately ‘Yankee’ and Confederate sprang up in Brazil. In contrast to the subject's historiography, we seek to show how these colonies were the result of in the first case, the actions of Imperial diplomacy and in the second case, spontaneous interest by Southerners due to the existence of slavery in Brazil. This proposition is supported by primary sources, as they indicate the presence of significant teams of slaves in the Confederate colonies in Brazil, while slavery was prohibited in their ‘Yankee’ counterparts.     

Unexpected Persistence Amidst Enlargement Stasis: Usages of Europe in Turkey’s Nuclear Energy Debate

Recent studies on European Union (EU) Enlargement have emphasised the importance of usages of ‘Europe’ by domestic actors as a necessary condition for the EU to have an impact on domestic politics. We study the usages of Europe in the critical case of Turkey’s nuclear energy policy. We analyse the narratives and actions of domestic actors in Turkey to identify if they use ‘Europe’ (the EU and the idea of Europe). We reach the counter-intuitive finding of usages by both state and non-state actors, which illustrates that usages of Europe can persist despite enlargement stasis in candidate states.     

The development of Kuwaiti Islamists’ political ideology: the administration of the Kuwaiti Supreme Committee and the Free Kuwait campaign during the Second Gulf Crisis 1990–91

Abstract

This article aims to explore how the intellectual thinking and political actions of an Islamist could be developed and changed toward a more realistic view. The Kuwaiti Islamic Students’ movement in the UK was led by the youth of the Muslim Brotherhood under the Free Kuwait Campaign during the Second Gulf Crisis in 1990-91. This movement went through a significant development and change of ideas and practices with other political and societal groups. Dealing with all segments of Kuwait’s society as partners in the country and its destiny, and not as intellectual or party opponents, was the main change in ideas. Moreover, a qualitative leap in realistic political thought emerged among these young people and affected the future of the movement. In the immediate post-invasion era, this action was not invested towards building an open national platform. However, the students’ actions were influenced by the event, and pro Islam al-’i’tilafiyah became more accepting of others, leading to many students from other ideologies joining the ranks. Moreover, nationalistic ideas crept into Islamic thoughts in the post-invasion era, leading to a mixture of ideologies rendering one ‘moderate’ or ‘conservative’ that was described by stricter Islamists as ‘lenient’.     

From Bandung to Brasilia: IBSA and the political lineage of South–South cooperation

This article aims to trace South–South cooperation political lineages connecting the Non-Aligned Movement and the IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) Forum. In order to determine whether IBSA could be considered the ‘heir’ to Bandung's principles, we analyse the concepts of ‘Third World’ and ‘Global South’ as well as their current applicability, the interpretations provided by existing literature on the IBSA grouping, and its member countries' shared views on different issues of the international agenda. The article also considers the historical evolution of ‘Southern’ diplomatic thought and actions. IBSA's actions and history, as well as its members, are studied to grasp how they are related to the Third World movement in the Cold War.     

Culture constitutionnelle,modèles étrangers et forme de gouvernement parlementaire en Italie: l'État libéral (1848–1922)

SUMMARY

The main aim of this article is to grasp the specific nature of the Italian case and the form of its government, as seen in particular in the analyses made by students of the constitution at the time. Fernanda Mazzanti Pepe considers two separate periods, the first during the formation and early actions of the parliamentary regime during the first thirty years after the grant of the Albertine Statute (1848), and the second in which amendments were sought, from the 1880s until the eve of the Fascist regime. The key concept for the constitutional culture of the first period was ‘parliamentary omnipotence’ in the English manner, while reserving real powers to the king. In the second period, full of far-reaching social and political changes, the erstwhile simple confidence in parliamentary omnipotence gave way to a growing suspicion and a diffuse search for guarantees, such as the continuance of a strong role for the Crown and a revitalization of the Senate as an institution representing ‘organized interests’. The catchphrases most used became the ‘correction’, ‘development’ or ‘adaptation’ of the constitutional system in face of the new reality, but these words were always linked with ‘limits’ which had to be identified to avoid dangerous innovations, whether progressive or regressive. Limits also had to be placed on the ‘flexibility’ of the Statute, and in this search for forms of stability for the constitution, the American model, long rejected, now also became a worthy one to follow.     

The 2014 Fiji Elections and the Methodist Church

Abstract

The Methodist Church of Fiji has around one-third of Fiji’s population as members, and is a strong influence on all aspects of Fiji’s life, including its politics. Since 2006 the relationship between the Methodist Church of Fiji and the Bainimarama regime has been variously tense, acrimonious and downright hostile, with Church conferences cancelled by the government in 2009–2011 after the Methodist Church was accused of ‘playing politics’. A further attempt to minimise the influence of the Methodist Church has included government encouragement of the New Methodists (Souls to Jesus) movement in 2008–9. However, these government actions have been premised on the assumption that the Methodist Church is monolithic in its support for conservative Fijian chiefly values, often privileging these over more universalist values espoused by other Christian denominations. While this may have been generally true of the years 1989–2012, it has not always been the case. This paper suggests that more recently the dynamics within the Methodist Church have changed, a shift that is only partly influenced by Bainimarama’s actions.     

The De Rossetti Affair: Legal Pluralism and Levantine Identity at the Crossroads of Empires

In the nineteenth century, changes to Ottoman legal and financial structures upset the familial interests of the large Levantine clans that were an integral part of the Ottoman Empire from its centre in Constantinople to its peripheries. Many legal and political disputes involved influential individuals who were not strictly ‘European’ or ‘foreign’; rather they were long-term residents of the empire with strong ties to the Mediterranean basin. A forgotten part of Egyptian history, the De Rossetti family presented here exemplifies those families and individuals who transcended the ‘imperialist’ tag as part of a wider Levantine network. This article argues that extraterritorial legal claims had the direct, and generally unintended, effect of an imposed legal order that ensnared both Ottomans and non-Ottomans in disputes over juridical pre-eminence, a creeping institutional imperialism which case by case sought to undermine the Egyptian regime’s capacity to govern.     

‘On the outskirts of the Empire’: Joseph Brodsky and Lithuania

This article explores the role of Lithuania in Joseph Brodsky’s life and works before and after his exile from Russia in 1972. As a former Soviet republic, Lithuania represented an intermediary space for Brodsky both culturally and geographically, contributing to his realization that it was a ‘rehearsal’ for his actual emigration. However, Brodsky’s notion of Lithuania changes when, after 1972, instead of representing a simulacrum of the ‘abroad,’ the poet sees Lithuania as a ‘home’ from afar. Emigration, in Brodsky’s case, thus became a realization of the myth of exile implicit in his earlier texts about Lithuania.     

NORTH KOREA’S PERSPECTIVES IN ITS ARGUMENT FOR A PEACE TREATY

In recent years, North Korea’s military provocations have been making the headlines. Beyond its harsh actions and remarks, North Korea persistently mentions ‘peace’ through a demand for a ‘peace treaty’. This may sound paradoxical. However, the origin of the North Korean argument for a peace treaty dates back to the Korean War (1950–53). Since then, North Korea has continued to raise the issue of a peace treaty in a consistent manner and the arguments have displayed similar logic and terminology throughout. It is this consistency and similarity that this article examines: through reviewing North Korea’s original texts, this article attempts to undercover North Korea's perspectives reflected in its argument for a peace treaty.     

Everyday Construction of Identity in the Estonian Refugee Community in Sweden

Social constructionist approaches underscore that identity is constantly negotiated. It emerges as values and attitudes are promoted and confronted in everyday actions, behavioral patterns and fleeting comments by participants in social events. This article analyzes membership categorization and pragmatic code-switching in the Swedish Estonian refugee community, demonstrating the fragile balance between ‘Estonian’ and ‘Swedish’. The speakers orient to Estonian Estonian as the target variety of language, while frequently using Swedish for sense-making. The analysis is based on audio and video recordings of Swedish Estonian club activities and research interviews.     

Asia’s Security Triangles: Maritime Minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific

Since the early years of the twenty-first century, a number of key regional governments have consciously chosen to alter the way they talk about the region, and have now largely shifted from using the ‘Asia-Pacific’ to the ‘Indo-Pacific’ construct. But after three decades of utilising the ‘Asia-Pacific’ concept, why has this been the case and how might this shift in geographical conceptualisation alter the strategic framework of the region? This paper argues that the ‘Indo-Pacific’ is a regional reconceptualisation utilised by Japan, Australia, India and the USA to address deficiencies in Asia’s maritime security and institutional architecture, which are being simultaneously influenced by a more assertive Chinese posture and waning U.S. influence. Additionally, the Indo-Pacific concept has developed in tandem with a transformation in the regional security architecture. The utilisation of maritime minilateralism between Japan, India, Australia and the USA supplements Asia’s bilateral American alliances, with an array of trilateral security dialogues or ‘security triangles’. The Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific shift is really an instance of an emerging minilateral security regionalism, rather than the predominant forms of bilateral and multilateral security and economic regionalism that have dominated Asia in recent decades.     

Continuity and change in instrumentalizing ‘The Precedent’. How Russia uses Kosovo to legitimize the annexation of Crimea

The article contributes to the efforts of understanding Russia’s legitimization endeavours by looking at the policy narratives centred around the so-called Kosovo precedent and the way they were perceived by different actors from Ukraine, Russia, and international experts. The aim of the paper is to scrutinize the process of politicization of contested international norms (in particular, territorial sovereignty and the right to self-determination) in the case of Russia’s legitimacy claims in Ukraine. In assessing the instrumentalization of the ‘Kosovo precedent’ in the Crimea crisis, we focused on three main elements identified in the selected policy narratives: the reinterpretation of history, the humanitarian and ethnic factor and the reinterpretation of Western actions in the Balkans.     

Book reviews

Abstract

This article is a case study of Kaliningrad's political elite's attempts to make Kaliningrad the ‘Baltic Republic within the Russian Federation’, and the fact that this regional programme was perceived by observers from Moscow and neighbours as leading to the creation of the ‘Fourth Baltic Republic’. The geopolitical and historical peculiarities of Kaliningrad, and their impact on Kaliningrad's regional programme, are also discussed. The article will conclude by arguing that although the Baltic Republic slogan is fading, Kaliningrad's ambitions and desire to remain an ‘actor’ are not.     

‘Unarmed’ We Intervene,Unnoticed We Remain: The Deviant Case of ‘February 28th Coup’ in Turkey

When a military staged an intervention during the Cold War, students of civil-military relations could quite easily tell if it was a coup d’état. This no longer seems to be the case. The reason may be the regnant understanding of coup d’état as a violent (bloody), swift, and extralegal/extra-constitutional seizure of power by first and foremost military officers or members of state apparatus after a long time of secret planning. This article takes stock of political complexities surrounding coups in our times by studying the nationally and internationally neglected case of February 28^th (1997) coup process in Turkey as a ‘deviant case’, based on newly-revealed military documents as primary sources and several previously unstudied memoirs by army officers of the period. It argues that the February 28^th coup was deliberately stretched over a long process, it was violent but not bloody, was staged almost openly through ‘theoretically constitutional political operations’ and psychological warfare against the elected government. Several select ‘civilian’ groups from the media, judiciary, trade unions, and non-governmental organisations were happily enlisted by the military as active participants in the coup caravan and without them as unique and pioneering a coup as the February 28^th could not be executed.     

“规范性力量”遭遇“新大博弈”:欧盟在中亚推进民主的三重困境

作为“规范性力量”的欧盟,一直在中亚地区实施民主推进计划,以扩散西方自由、民主、人权、善治和法治等价值观念。为了评估欧盟在中亚地区推进规范议程的效果,本文构建了一个涵盖欧盟“自我”和中亚地区相关“他者”的分析框架。对于欧盟“自我”,本文着重考察了其规范绩效状况;对于中亚地区的相关“他者”,则着重分析了俄罗斯对欧盟形成的规范竞争,以及中亚国家对欧盟规范议程产生的规范共鸣现象。就欧盟在中亚地区推进自由民主模式产生的规范绩效、规范竞争与规范共鸣而言,其表现均不尽人意,且难以在短期内扭转。面对上述困境,欧盟意识到应着眼于中亚地区更长远的发展态势,以一种潜移默化的方式引导各国通过渐进的方式走上西方式发展道路。2019年6月,欧盟新出台的中亚战略正是反映了这一思路。     

In Search of a Non-Eurocentric Understanding of Modernization: Turkey as a Case of ‘Multiple Modernities’

This article uses the Turkish case of modernity to critically examine different understandings of modernization put forward by competing schools of thought, namely the ‘classical modernization theory’, the ‘neo-modernization theory’ and the ‘multiple modernities paradigm’. In the context of modernization studies, Turkey has long held a special place as numerous scholars have studied this country in an attempt to validate the ‘convergence thesis’ – namely the idea that once a non-western society launches a secularization and/or an industrialization programme, its political regime and socio-economic life would eventually resemble its western counterparts. Firstly, the three theories are comparatively analysed by discussing how they perceive the concept of modernity and its interaction with religion, economic development and democratization. Then, the theories are reviewed in light of the Turkish experience. It is argued that the Turkish modernity can be best comprehended through the lens of the multiple modernities paradigm that challenges the Eurocentric assumption of classical modernization and neo-modernization theories based on the convergence thesis.     

Now there is,now there is not: the disappearing silent revolution of AKP as re-entrenchment

ABSTRACT

Based on a continuous and relational understanding of state-formation, as conceptualized by Charles Tilly, and inspired by Gramsci’s formulation of ‘war of position’, AKP regime in Turkey can be identified as a process of (re)-entrenchment. The AKP’s original claim to de-securitize the state–society relationship in Turkey has re-entrenched, re-aligned and re-institutionalized positions of power and democratic participation within the state to overcome the old-guard and establish its own hegemonic rule. The conspicuous disappearance of a booklet from 2013, i.e. the Silent Revolution, that was supposed to be the historical documentation of the AKP’s ambitious original claims from all AKP-related media effectively indicates its abandonment of these goals. This document reveals the contentious (re)entrenchments while the party ascended to power challenging deep-rooted security-oriented positions of the statist nationalism. This ascent to power was indeed a ‘war of position’ during which international opportunities created by the EU were effectively navigated and legislation and executive actions a) pertaining rule of law, human rights and freedoms, administrative accountability and transparency, b) economic and social reforms regarding vulnerable social groups, anti-corruption measures and labour relations, c) de-securitization and civilianization of government agencies and d) issues of Kurdish citizens were utilized as ‘trenches.’     

Parliamentary oversight and corruption in the Caribbean: comparing Trinidad & Tobago and Grenada

Parliamentary oversight is a key determinant of corruption levels. This article presents research findings on parliamentary oversight in two Caribbean countries: Trinidad & Tobago and Grenada. Our results cast doubt on the results of previous research and also indicate that certain facets of ‘the Westminster’ system need to be relaxed, to reflect contextual reality in smaller island economies. Political will to adopt our recommended reforms is critical, but, as in other countries, inertia often dominates the political environment. Until citizens demand that their elected representatives establish various oversight and anti-corruption mechanisms and ensure these mechanisms are free of political influence, the institutions will be ‘window dressing’ and corrupt actions will go undeterred and unpunished.     

‘States have emotions too’: an affect-centred approach to South African foreign relations

Building on established scholarship in international relations theory, notably Alexander Wendt's assertion that ‘states are people too’, this paper explores South African foreign policy decisions that are routinely dismissed as being ‘schizophrenic’, and makes two claims: first, that existing scholarship fails to adequately address causal factors of South African foreign policy and, second, that we need to turn to emotions and affect to do so. As such, the theoretical framework adopted for the purposes of the paper treats ‘state-level’ affect as a central explanatory factor, in contrast to established scholarship on emotion theorisation, which treats states as ontologically subordinate to their constituent members and thus subject to the private affects and cognitions of the individuals that make decisions on behalf of the state. Existing literature on collective emotion seems to support the possibility of state emotion. This notion of transsubjective emotionality facilitates the argument that states have emotions too, and that these emotions condition not only identities but also actions in international relations.     

The politics of being a human being in Soweto: Identity as a social capital ‘Everything not forbidden is compulsory’ (T.H. White)

In this paper, the concept of social capital is redefined in the context of identity politics within contemporary South Africa. A case is made against the fetishism of identity dogmas that thrive upon closed historicity. Any narrative of subjective formation that is beckoned upon closed historicity is a predisposition towards identity ‘commoditisation’. As the term suggests, commoditisation implies that human subjectivity is ‘wholly’ dependent and measured ‘only’ through the compass of social capital. Commoditisation of identity means that human subjectivity is no longer transcendental but an object of possession – I am what I have or where I come from. This fixation on subjective acquisition and ‘possesivisms’ as an ethno-subjective repertoire for our overall subjective formation is identity fundamentalism. Although the notion of social capital in South Africa's context is a residue of South Africa's history of racialist capitalism, its present pervasiveness has generated a peculiar pattern of identity fundamentalism in which competition over economic resources has become construed as a threat to subjectivity. A reflexive understanding of this problem induces awareness for a healthy humanism.