Reading Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on the Armenian genocide of 1915

ABSTRACT

The debate on where Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey and universally known as the ‘Father of the Turks’, stood in regard to the colossal violence committed against Armenians during the First World War has become a fiercely contested part of the Turkish-Armenian reconciliation process, especially within the past few years. Ulgen aims to clear away the clouds of dust surrounding Kemal by delving into his texts and examining his role in the reification of Turkish denial of the destruction of Ottoman Armenians. Based on a textual analysis of his entire corpus, including Nutuk—the Great Speech of 1927 and the master-narrative of modern Turkish history and national identity—her article examines and documents how his charismatic leadership helped to consolidate both the myth of ‘murderous Armenians’ and that of the Turks as an ‘oppressed nation’ (mazlum millet), monumentalizing both in official Turkish historiography. Ulgen argues that Kemal's portrayal of Armenians and the Armenian Question was generally consistent across the years and in various political documents, as well as being consistent with contemporary Turkish representations of the events of 1915. What really tips the balance towards Turkish innocence in Kemal's representation of the conflict is not his framing of the issue per se but the stark difference in the rhetoric he deploys in depicting Armenian and Turkish atrocities and, hence, Armenians and Turks. The undeniable authority of this discursive regime is central to the resilience of Turkish denial today.     

Quiet power: Japan's China policy in regard to the Pinnacle Islands

Abstract

This paper explores how the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has tackled the threat of terrorism since 9/11 and the Bali bombings. It claims that ASEAN has applied its traditional approach to security, based on comprehensive security and the principle of resilience, when addressing this challenge. The resilience concept underpins the nexus between national and regional security and emphasizes domestic regime consolidation re-enforced by regional consultations. In their pursuit of resilience, member states have sought in various degrees to address terrorism domestically through a mixture of security, law enforcement, socio-economic, ideological, and educational policies. It is noted that Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore have tackled terrorism more comprehensively than Thailand and Malaysia. Reflecting the synergy between national and regional resilience, ASEAN has operated as an umbrella organization meant to complement domestic and sub-regional efforts. It has been committed rhetorically, has produced frameworks of action, as well as reached agreements with the great powers. The paper is not overly optimistic, however, about ASEAN's role in promoting regional resilience against the threat of terrorism in Southeast Asia.     

International and domestic challenges to Japan's postwar security identity: ‘norm constructivism’ and Japan's new ‘proactive pacifism’

Abstract

Japan today is widely portrayed as on the verge of a significant identity shift that could lead to dramatic new security policies. Yet, Japan's first formal national security strategy, adopted in December 2013, proclaims repeatedly Japan's long-standing ‘peace-loving’ policies and principles. Why does a conservative government with high levels of popular support not pursue policies more in line with views widely reported to be central to its values and outlook? The answer lies in Japan's long-standing security identity of domestic antimilitarism, an identity under siege to a degree not seen since its creation over 50 years ago, but – as evidenced in Japan's new national strategy document – one that continues to shape both the framing of Japan's national security debates and the institutions of Japan's postwar security policy-making process. Relational approaches to identity construction illuminate challenges to Japan's dominant security identity, but a focus on domestic institutions and electoral politics offers the best course for modeling identity construction and predicting its future resilience.     

The Rise of Resilience in Education in Emergencies

ABSTRACT

This article explores how resilience as a concept is being increasingly mobilised within the Education in Emergencies (EiE) community. Using content and a close textual analysis, it identifies the concept's growth in prominence within key EiE documents arguing it has been employed to serve a range of different purposes. It contends, however, that dominant conceptualisations of resilience within the EiE community are reflective of a number of shifts around the problem, subjects and purposes of education provision in such conflict-affected contexts. This serves to limit the transformative potential of resilience, particularly in regards to contributing to positive peace.     

Defection of North Korea's ideologist a sign of regime crisis

Abstract

The defection of Hwang Jang‐yop, one of North Korea's major ideological authorities and a senior member of the leadership, is a clear indication of regime crisis in Pyongyang. Hwang's assessment of the nature of the Kim Jong‐il regime, which he regards as incapable of reform and committed to war with South Korea, will strengthen those in Seoul who argue for a tough approach to be taken in negotiations on security issues with North Korea. At the same time, his remarks on the extent of communist influence in South Korean politics may influence the outcome of the 1997 presidential elections.     

The origins and dynamics of genocide

Abstract

Two of Michael Mann's recent books continue his exploration of the sources of social power and then extend it into the study of ethnic cleansing, a phenomenon which Mann wishes to see as a potential built into modern political institutions, and specifically democratic political cultures, from the start. However, this review argues that the richness of the empirical material mobilized in these books makes them more nuanced and sophisticated than Mann's own summary of them suggests.     

The Tragic and the Political: A Parallel Reading of Kostas Papaioannou and Cornelius Castoriadis

Abstract

The fundamental difference between Castoriadis' and Papaioannou's accounts of the link between tragedy and the political is that Castoriadis insists on a political form (the democratic regime) whilst Papaioannou insists on a social actor (the masses). The starting point for this essay, then, are two thinkers: one whose main interest was a political and philosophical reflection on the social-historical and one whose main interest was a philosophical reflection on the arts. Surprisingly, however, the end situation is one where Castoriadis gives us a political explanation of the link between tragedy and the political whilst Papaioannou gives us a social explanation of the same phenomenon. How can this difference be accounted for? First, distinguishing their respective conceptualisations of the political allows us to see that where one thinker privileges restlessness and revolution, the other privileges law and regime. Second, looking at their depictions of the essential aspects of tragedy places them on opposing sides of the couple hubris-dike, in a way that leads to two radically different conceptualisations of the relation in question.     

Reorganizing political power in Indonesia: A reconsideration of so-called 'democratic transitions'

The fall of Soeharto's long-entrenched authoritarian New Order regime in 1998 raised hopes among many about a transition in Indonesia to a liberal democratic system of politics. However, Indonesia's new democratic institutions have been captured and appropriated by predatory interests, many of which were nurtured and incubated in the New Order. These have merely now reconstituted and reinvented themselves in Indonesia's new democracy. The article assesses these developments in the light of many of the assumptions of the still influential and growing 'democratic transitions' literature and on the basis of case studies in two Indonesian provinces, Yogyakarta and North Sumatra. These show that gradual reform since the fall of Soeharto has allowed the rise in political fortunes of those formerly entrenched in the lower levels of the New Order's formerly vast system of patronage, including its political entrepreneurs and henchmen. On the other hand, those social forces that were marginalized under the New Order, for example organized labour, remain politically excluded.     

Democracy as a Tragic Regime: Democracy and its Cancellation

Abstract

To see "democracy as a tragic regime", as Cornelius Castoriadis did, is to recognize the ever-present risk of democracy's cancellation, but it also means to emphasize the anti-democratic nature of such cancellation, thus its incompatibility with democracy. In the context of this understanding of democracy, the article takes the political to consist of those relations among people and among institutions within the polis, which aim at deciding the polis' fate. It takes the social to be those relations among people and among institutions within the polis, to whom such decisions about the polis' fate apply and whom they create. If democracy is understood as tension between the two, then the relation between those who decide and those who are the subject of the decision is never entirely pacified - hence, always contested and in need of specification. Using the examples of the state of exception and totalitarianism (temporary and permanent self-cancellation), the article argues that these situations are outside a linear continuation with the democratic phenomenon and are due to a displacement, which is akin to the hubristic displacement.     

Myths about tigers: Indonesian development policy debates

This paper assesses some of the major policy debates currently occurring in Indonesia. It is argued that, while Indonesia's economic performance over the past 30 years has been very good, some of these debates are centred on misleading or irrelevant 'myths' which may have adverse policy consequences. There is some evidence that the reform momentum has slowed in the past few years, while other pressing policy challenges have not been addressed with the vigour evident in the 1980s. Debate over these myths may therefore be contributing to a somewhat less coherent policy regime, just as the country is wrestling with post-Soeharto succession scenarios.     

The semiotic limbo of the pacific

Deleuze's study of his friend Michel Toumier's first novel Vendredi has widely been seen as a pivotal point in the development of his thought; Alphonso Lingis even sees it as the final articulation of the concept of the ‘elemental sign’. Contrary to this view, this paper argues that Deleuze's postface anticipates in important ways the semiotics of Mille Plateaux, but that Deleuze's reading has been so influential as to obscure Tournier's own? which may be shown to be much more concerned with the immediate politics of the French presence in the Pacific.     

Local Resilience and the Reconstruction of Social Institutions: Recovery,Maintenance and Transformation of Buddhist Sangha in Post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia

ABSTRACT

This article explores how local resilience is realised in post-conflict reconstruction, by examining the redevelopment of Buddhist institutions in Cambodia. It firstly proposes three forms of resilience that were significant in the local level peacebuilding practice in the country – recovery, maintenance and transformation – and examines the process by which each form of resilience was materialised from the perspectives of local communities. Moreover, this study highlights two factors that determined the development of local resilience: ontological security and local leadership structure. Based on the empirical findings, this study discusses the conceptual and theoretical implications of such elements of resilient peacebuilding.     

Diffusion,transmutation, and regulatory regime in socialist market economies: telecoms reform in China and Vietnam

Abstract

Marketization and state restructuring are proceeding apace in China and Vietnam. China and Vietnam are not, however, converging upon the global regulatory model, even allowing for customary national variations. Rather, they are building up distinctive forms of regulatory regimes aiming to maintain the party-state's control over key state sectors, while at the same time integrating with the global economy and conforming to international norms and standards. This study argues that the regulatory model being adopted in Vietnam and China is the product of a specific kind of transition from a command to a market economy within an authoritarian political regime. While diffusion theories are of use in identifying external driving forces for the reform effort, these theories are of limited value for unveiling the dynamics of local contexts. Indigenous incentives, opportunity structures, and the experimental nature of public policy explain why, despite their exposure to global reform movements and commitment to multilateral institutions, China and Vietnam are likely to end up not with just a variety of the same regulatory regime, but a different one. The case of telecommunications regulation is used to illustrate this.     

Leadership,regime security,and China's policy toward Taiwan: prospect theory and Taiwan crises

Abstract

Traditional analyses of Taiwan crises have relied mainly on deterrence theory for their explanatory power. This approach fails to account for China's risk-taking behavior, which can be explained by prospect theory. We suggest that Chinese leaders are more likely to use more risky military coercion against Taiwan's pro-independence movements within a domain of losses, i.e., when their regime faces serious domestic and international challenges to its security. Conversely, Chinese leaders are more likely to employ less risky political pressure to oppose Taiwan's pro-independence forces if their decision making takes place in a domain of gains, i.e., when the security of China's regime is not challenged. We conclude that maintaining a good US–China relationship is the best strategy for the United States to help prevent military crises in the Taiwan Strait.     

Institutions of the Offensive: Domestic Sources of Dispute Initiation in Authoritarian Regimes, 1950–1992

What are the most important sources of institutional variation among authoritarian regimes, and how do such institutions influence these dictatorships' propensity to initiate military disputes? This article argues that most existing studies in both comparative politics and international relations employ a flawed conceptualization of authoritarian institutions. Excessive focus on the personalization or institutionalization of authoritarian regimes' decision‐making procedures has distracted attention from the more critical issue of what institutions these regimes deploy to enhance social control and secure political incumbency. Since military regimes are systematically less effective than single‐party regimes at developing these types of authoritarian institutions, they more frequently resort to desperate measures to fend off domestic challenges to their power. In particular, we find compelling empirical support for our hypothesis that military regimes are more likely than single‐party regimes to initiate military disputes, irrespective of whether those regimes are highly personalized or not.     

Irving in Australia

David Irving, the British revisionist historian, has recently been in Australia promoting his latest book, Churchill's War, probably his most crudely anti‐jewish work to date.     

‘A willing Odysseus’: The life and times of Albert O. Hirschman

Abstract

In this review essay of Jeremy Adelman's biography of Albert O. Hirschman, A worldly philosopher, supplemented by references to other secondary works on Hirschman, I take the opportunity to discuss the relationship between the economist's life and his main publications. I argue that in times of crisis more attempts like Hirschman's political economy are needed. I further argue that Hirschman has given us a good idea of what a new moral economy, which really deserves this name, would look like.     

Ecological socialism and human needs∗

The proposed Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) is the keystone of India's Narmada Valley Project, consisting of 30 large, 130 medium, and 3000 small dams. Backed by the Indian government and the World Bank (the tatter to the tune of $450 million in loans), the SSP has generated unprecedented opposition from farmers and others whose lands would be submerged by the project, as well as from many Indian environmentalists and environmental and human rights groups around the world. In 1990, under tremendous pressure, former World Bank President Barber Co noble called for the Bank to make an independent review of the project. The Team's Report of the Independent Review, which evaluated the resettlement and environmental impacts of the SSPt backed up the criticisms of the projecfs opponents. One of India's best known engineers, CNS Editorial Consultant KM. Datye, his associates, and other scientists working on sustainable development alternatives have produced a wealth of critical studies of large dam projects including the SSP project in India. Their conclusion is that there are technical alternatives to the project which better serve the interests of democratic control of water and energy resources, economic and social equity, and economic efficiency.     

Varieties of Limited Access Orders: The nexus between politics and economics in hybrid regimes

This article advances our understanding of differences in hybrid stability by going beyond existing regime typologies that separate the study of political institutions from the study of economic institutions. It combines the work of Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast (NWW) on varieties of social orders with the literature on political and economic regime typologies and dynamics to understand hybrid regimes as Limited Access Orders (LAOs) that differ in the way dominant elites limit access to political and economic resources. Based on a measurement of political and economic access applied to seven post‐Soviet states, the article identifies four types of LAOs. Challenging NWW's claim, it shows that hybrid regimes can combine different degrees of political and economic access to sustain stability. Our typology allows to form theoretical expectations about the kinds of political and/or economic changes that will move different types of LAOs toward more openness or closure.