Finanzplatz deutschland: National or European response to internationalisation?

Germany's has long been held up as a competitive, bank‐based financial system, providing long‐term and secure finance for industrial and service companies. The emphasis here is on the international market and regulatory conditions which have helped to transform the the financial system. In the 1980s, the government remained averse to any ‘Big Bang’ experiment, adapting national securities markets to policy initiatives in the US, and in London and Paris. This aversion was rooted in Bundesbank opposition to the development of money markets, and to the practice of corporate‐bank‐insurance cross‐shareholding among Germany's big publicly listed corporations. The politics of ‘Finanzplatz Deutschland’ achieved a balance between maintaining national institutions and adapting them carefully to international markets and regulation. Implementing monetary union and the European financial area in the 1990s and beyond amounts in effect to a ‘Big Bang ‘ policy which is already under way. The prospect of a liquid ‘Euro'‐market for securities, and increasingly competitive banking and insurance markets, spells a shift in German corporate policies towards Anglo‐American practices. National cross‐shareholding corporate structures will not long survive a single currency.     

Israel: ethnocracy or multicracy?

Much of the recent academic literature that assesses democracy in Israel labels it either as incomplete or flawed, yet such literature employs minimal systematic analysis of how the state is actually governed. Since the 1990s, there has been a tendency to describe the Israeli political regime as an ethnocracy. This article argues that the term ‘ethnocracy’, when applied to Israel, has certain weaknesses and instead proposes the concept of ‘multicracy’ (multiformocracy) as a more appropriate term by which to describe Israel's political organization. It will demonstrate that existing Israeli democratic institutions do not control the state's policymaking in full and that several politically important processes are controlled or at least influenced by various other politically active forces. Whilst these forces can influence, stimulate, inhibit, and otherwise change governmental decisions and actions, they can be labeled as kratiae. While the capacity of Israel's democracy to govern is weak, these other kratiae can intervene in policymaking and the state's regime acts as democracy-dominated multicracy.     

Somali pirates: villains or victims?

The proliferation of piracy activity off the coast of Somalia has received a fair share of international attention. Its consequences have included a destabilising effect on trade, security and humanitarian aid. This has served to give reason for the deployment of multi-national forces by some of the countries affected by the scourge. While naval patrols have reduced the success rate of piracy attacks in some areas, there has been little respite in piracy incidents with the overall number of attacks and their geographic scope increasing. Piracy off the coast of Somalia has, in fact, evolved into organised syndicates with transnational networks. The problem is that various international actors have largely viewed piracy off the coast of Somalia in terms of threats to their own national interests and security. They have, thus, dealt with the issue in isolation from its wider context, which has not succeeded in ending the attacks. This article argues that to deal with the piracy problem more meaningfully, there is need for a contextual framework beyond addressing the ‘illegal’ activities. Piracy is a complex problem, with political, legal, social, economic, security and even human rights dimensions, and calls for a truly holistic approach that, especially, seeks to address the root causes on land. The article calls for a change in strategies in order to facilitate a ‘local Somali solution’ rather than an international one that is acceptable to the sensibilities of international actors. The article emphasises the need to extend the strong international cooperation demonstrated on the high seas in the fight against piracy to the fight against root causes of piracy onshore.     

Fried Chicken or Pop? Redefining Development and Ethnicity in Totonicapán

This article draws on ethnographic research with a K'iche' community development organisation in the rural department of Totonicapán to examine how neoliberal development policies in post-conflict Guatemala both enabled and problematised grassroots ethnic development strategies. Specifically, this study analyses efforts by the Cooperation for the Rural Development of the West (CDRO) to operationalise Maya culture as a tool for development through the pop (woven mat) methodology. This particular Maya development model was successful in its ability to appeal to both the international development industry and local community development goals. The article also examines, however, how the pop also became an important site of critique of neoliberal state reforms and class inequality within the community.     

Decolonisation after Suez: Retreat or Rationalisation?

Did the Suez crisis mark the end of empire in Britain and France, their submission to the political domination of the United States and the beginnings of a ‘new Europe’? Or did it stimulate a rethinking and reformulation of the meaning of empire, its utility and costs? This article argues that the ‘retreat from empire’ was not so much a simple, reflexive response to demands from below but a conscious effort by those from above to find new ways of exploiting the opportunities that the world beyond Europe offered them. Decolonisation, it is argued, is best understood in terms of contemporary business thinking, i.e. a conscious design on the part of managers to ‘downsize’, ‘restructure’, and ‘re‐engineer’ the imperial project. And, as in the corporate world, what might appear to the naked eye as retreat and abandonment may, on closer examination, turn out to be something more ambitious, an attempt to divest the imperial enterprise of unprofitable ventures and to reinvigorate those that are deemed to have untapped potential. After Suez, Britain attempted to demonstrate to the Americans that maintaining their access to middle eastern oil was vital both strategically and economically. They attempted to persuade them that ‘Nasserism’ was second only to communism as a danger to the western alliance, to have them drop their ‘anticolonialist’ rhetoric and to support the Bagdad Pact. In order to combat the anticolonial movement they established a ‘colonial’ bloc at the UN. Assuming that the Suez crisis marked the end of empire has hidden the struggle between Britain and France to redefine its meaning and has concealed the extent to which ambitious designs continued to persist in the contest to determine the future shape of a ‘united’ Europe — a struggle in which neither the British nor the French regarded themselves as pawns of the Americans in the Cold War, but rather one in which they attempted to move the powerful new American piece around the chess board in the middle east, Africa and Asia.     

Consociationalism and Centripetalism: Friends or Foes?

Two schools dominate the literature on democracy in divided societies: consociationalism and centripetalism. The first advocates group representation and power sharing while the second recommends institutions that promote multi‐ethnic parties. Although often presented as mutually exclusive choices, in reality many new democracies display a mix. Drawing on the experiences of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, Fiji, Lebanon, Malaysia, and Northern Ireland, this article examines the empirical and theoretical relationship between centripetalism and consociationalism. The aim is to explore the conditions under which they reinforce each other (friends) or work at cross‐purposes (foes). A better understanding of the interaction between consociational and centripetal elements in post‐conflict societies not only yields a more nuanced picture of institutional dynamics, but also holds lessons for institutional design.     

Nigeria and South Africa: Collaboration or competition?

This article focuses on the dynamics of the relationship between Nigeria and South Africa, arguably the two most prominent states on the African continent. Each of the two states continues to make attempts at extending its hegemony beyond its respective sub-region to emerge as Africa’s foremost state. These efforts are not pursued in isolation, but affect their bilateral relations and are tied to the guiding principles of the national interest. Through data gathered from secondary sources, we analyse the trajectory of the relationship between Nigeria and South Africa, from the intensely politically contentious to the strongest of warm relations. In the final analysis, the article concludes that collaboration and competition are critical variables in the conduct of inter-state relations. Nigeria and South Africa have an historic opportunity to collaborate in the current period, in order to promote the general interest of the African continent in the international system. Will their respective pursuit of their own national interests encourage, or derail, this role?