The Malaysian “Islamic” State versus the Islamic State (IS): evolving definitions of “terror” in an “Islamising” nation-state

ABSTRACT

This article provides a study of how the Malaysian state defines and redefines “terror” as the nature of militancy changes from the Communist insurgency to present day’s Islamist jihadism. Tracing such definitional changes, the article demonstrates how the portrait of a terrorist not only is inherently political (and at certain junctures, politicised), but also reflects the changing nature of the state. While able to ethnicise and externalise the Communist Terrorists (CTs), the rise of Islamist militancy forced the Malaysian state to shelve the term “terrorist” in favour of religious “deviancy” until the advent of the “war on terror”. Advancing along a state-driven Islamisation project, the discursive ideal that is the “Islamic state”, was securitised (1980–2001), normalised (2001–2013), and resecuritised (2014–2016) as a balancing act not only to neutralise the security threat but also to augment the state’s “Islamic” credentials for domestic political gains. Following the emergence of the Islamic State (IS), I argue that the Malaysian state is now embroiled in an “Islamic state versus Islamic State” dilemma, where in the face of a far enemy it cannot decisively eliminate, the state has no choice but to defend itself as a sovereign nation-state as well as an “Islamic” one, further problematising Islam in discourses of security and violence.     

Immoderation: comparing the Christian Right in the US and pro-Islamic movement-parties in Turkey

This article will discuss the “immoderation” of religious political actors – defined as the continuation of a relatively closed and rigid worldview – through a cross-religious comparison of the Christian Right coalition within the Republican Party in the US with the pro-Islamic movement-parties in Turkey. By adapting a “most different systems approach”, this study will question the similar evolution of two religious political actors in two dissimilar political regimes. In particular, it will question the processes and types of immoderation by looking into (1) “behavioural immoderation”, immoderation for the strategic purpose of forming a small yet ideologically pure supporter base, and into (2) “ideological immoderation”, immoderation as a result of a continued advocacy for a moral role for the state without a full embrace of political pluralism. In this, it will argue that religious political actors are strategic actors who try to guarantee their organizational survival amidst changing costs and benefits of moderation vis-à-vis immoderation. Through its discussion of “immoderation” and through its cross-religious comparison, this study will aim to contribute to the inclusion-moderation literature.     

Norm compliance by proximity: explaining the surge of regional actors in responsibility to protect

International military interventions in Libya and Côte d'Ivoire in 2011 revealed that regional and sub-regional organisations are playing an increasingly active and important role in the implementation of Responsibility to Protect (RtoP). However, the academic and policy analyses of RtoP have not thus far presented any comprehensive model to explain the emergence of regional actors in RtoP. This article develops and applies a four-fold taxonomy, according to which the unique powers of regional actors in initiating and implementing RtoP can be attributed to four types of compliance effects. First, regional actors themselves can directly promote RtoP for either normative or strategic reasons. Second, they can wield either normative or strategic compliance pull on other actors, such as the permanent members of the UN Security Council, which is an indirect but effective way to implement RtoP. As a benefit, this taxonomy reveals the diversity and depth of compliance effects wielded by regional actors in the RtoP process. The powers of regional actors in RtoP are realised on multiple fronts, rather than through a singular channel. This conclusion challenges the whole conception of RtoP by demonstrating that the traditional two-layered idea of RtoP developed in the mainstream literature, according to which RtoP is composed of the levels of international society and its member states, should be replaced with a tri-layered conception which also recognises the emerging middle level of regional actors.     

Empire and modernity: dynastic centralization and official nationalism in late imperial Ethiopia

Conventional accounts of modern state-formation either underplay its contradictory and variegated character or neglect its international dimensions. Against these approaches, alternative theories of state-formation have emerged centred on the constitutive significance of intersocietal relations and differential temporalities. This article develops the latter approaches in relation to the Ethiopian state. Contrary to widespread assumptions of Ethiopia's political insularity, it suggests that at three crucial turning points geopolitical exigencies provided the critical impetus for the political and cultural reconstitution of the state. Late nineteenth century European colonial encroachment triggered a reaction in the form of an Ethiopian imperial expansion to rival them. And the political shock of Italian occupation 40 years later provoked a concurrent project of dynastic centralization and official nationalism in the post-restoration period. But precisely because divine monarchy and nationalism are antithetical orders by virtue of their opposed principles of sovereignty, the attempt to conjoin them generated deep social and cultural contradictions that erupted in two successive revolutions that were internationally overdetermined and resulted in a profound reconstitution of the Ethiopian state.     

International Relations as Juridical Life: Rethinking ‘the International’ in International Theory

This article advances an account of “the international” in which “juridical life” is taken as the dominant ethic and ultimately the force of “the international” within the discipline of international relations. It evaluates the foundational myths of international politics in terms of its capacity to exercise juridical power, in the service of the state as a geopolitical entity. It examines the ethics of doing “the international” and how rationalities of the international are contained within legalist rationalities of international politics. Drawing upon the ideas of Giorgio Agamben, it proposes an alternative conceptualisation of international life in which the juridical is dispossessed of its political rationality. Such an outlook allows for the reframing of international politics at a critical distance from geopolitical orthodoxies within international theory and opens up new possibilities for ethics in international politics.     

The “Finlandisation” of Finland: The Ideal Type,the Historical Model,and the Lessons Learnt

“Finlandisation” has become a buzzword and suggested solution to the on-going Ukrainian crisis. However, in Finland, Finlandisation tends to be a pejorative term because of its negative effects on Finnish domestic politics. Negative effects notwithstanding, Finland’s Cold War experience often appears as a success: it preserved its democratic system, prospered economically, and strengthened its international status. This analysis examines the historical evidence of what role Finlandisation—understood as a policy of collaboration and friendship with the greatest potential security threat to a country’s sovereignty and as a political culture related to that policy—played during the Cold War era. Did the strategy of accommodation go too far and was it superfluous to Finland’s survival and success? In this context, the article also discusses the “dangers” of Finlandisation and the gradual end of the policy.     

Explaining Myanmar's regime transition: the periphery is central

In 2010, Myanmar (Burma) held its first elections after 22?years of direct military rule. Few compelling explanations for this regime transition have emerged. This article critiques popular accounts and potential explanations generated by theories of authoritarian “regime breakdown” and “regime maintenance”. It returns instead to the classical literature on military intervention and withdrawal. Military regimes, when not terminated by internal factionalism or external unrest, typically liberalize once they feel they have sufficiently addressed the crises that prompted their seizure of power. This was the case in Myanmar. The military intervened for fear that political unrest and ethnic-minority separatist insurgencies would destroy Myanmar's always-fragile territorial integrity and sovereignty. Far from suddenly liberalizing in 2010, the regime sought to create a “disciplined democracy” to safeguard its preferred social and political order twice before, but was thwarted by societal opposition. Its success in 2010 stemmed from a strategy of coercive state-building and economic incorporation via “ceasefire capitalism”, which weakened and co-opted much of the opposition. Having altered the balance of forces in its favour, the regime felt sufficiently confident to impose its preferred settlement. However, the transition neither reflected total “victory” for the military nor secured a genuine or lasting peace.     

Colouring Within the Lines: How the International Legal Operating System Influences Rule Creation∗

Some of the most visible changes in the international legal system occur when treaties specify new rules or norms of behaviour for its members. Each of these is a component of what has been referred to elsewhere as the “normative system”, or the part of the international legal system that is quasi-legislative in character by mandating particular values and directing specific changes in state and other actors' behaviour. Yet the normative system is only part of the international legal system; we adopt the term “operating system” to refer to the other segment. This article identifies six different ways that extant provisions or changes in the international legal operating system condition international rule creation: (1) setting the parameters of acceptability, (2) clarifying credible commitment, (3) providing flexibility, (4) actor specification, (5) forum specification and (6) direct law-making.

     

Defining the “queers” in India: The politics of academic representation

ABSTRACT

In the last 20 years, research and academic writing on “non-heterosexual” lives, identifications, and sexualities have developed considerably in India, in a context where lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and queer politics have become more and more visible in the public sphere. When it comes to gender and sexuality, researchers are often activists, and scholarship is highly political. In particular, by documenting non-heterosexual lives, practices, and groups, social scientists participate in the construction of social categories that can be mobilized in the public sphere. Using both Pierre Bourdieu’s and Stuart Hall’s views on representation as a discursive process by which representatives shape the group they claim to represent, this article contends that social scientists are engaged in a “work of representation” when it comes to LGBT and queer individuals and groups. Yet, this process is not without tensions, as there is a deep contradiction between the making of an “object of study” that is spoken about, and the promotion of a political subject, who can speak for him- or herself. Drawing on a corpus of about 45 academic publications on LGBT and queer people and issues in the last 25 years, this article explores the contentious discursive formation of “LGBT” and “queer” as analytical and political categories.     

The British Nuclear Experience: The Role of Beliefs,Culture, and Status (Part Two)

Part One of this article, which appeared in the last edition of Diplomacy and Statecraft, argued that the origins and early development of British nuclear weapons was largely driven by the particular ideas and beliefs of a relatively small political, scientific, and military elite. It is also argued that these beliefs, which developed into a “deterrence state of mind” amongst the elite, derived in part from a traditional strategic culture that emphasised the importance of producing the most sophisticated weapons of the day to protect Britain's diplomatic and security interests in a largely anarchic international system. Part Two argues that these ideational factors, based on a “realist” perspective of international security held by Britain's political-military leadership, have remained of crucial importance through to the present day.     

哈萨克斯坦参与全球治理的举措、动力及前景

自1991年独立以来,哈萨克斯坦不但成功巩固了国家主权,在政治、经济、社会发展等领域取得了举世瞩目的成就,而且在外交领域赢得了国际社会的高度赞誉,使哈萨克斯坦成为全球治理舞台中最为活跃的中亚国家。在参与全球治理进程中,哈萨克斯坦将自己定位为“有实力的重要地区大国”,奉行以巩固主权独立和维护国家利益为中心的“全方位务实平衡”外交战略,通过建立睦邻友好信任带的“近邻外交”和以伙伴关系为基础的“远邻外交”,拉近与世界各大国及周边国家的外交关系,在国际和地区热点问题上扮演着“沟通者”和“调停者”角色,积极推动中亚地区内部的一体化进程,广泛参与全球与地区性国际组织,在核不扩散和文明对话等领域提出了各种有影响力的倡议,力图将本国的利益和世界的利益融为一体,为哈萨克斯坦的发展赢得了很大的机遇和空间,使哈萨克斯坦在国际社会中的能见度不断提升。作为中亚国家经济发展最为成功、外交最为活跃、国际影响力最为显著的国家,哈萨克斯坦参与全球治理的实践经验值得发展中国家学习借鉴。     

A Means of First Resort: Explaining “Hot Pursuit” in International Relations

This article provides a new theory of hot pursuit—the use of military force by a state against a nonstate actor across borders—in international relations. Drawing from the literature on civil-military relations, I argue that attitudes on limited use of force in peripheral areas will vary between civilian and military, with the latter preferring to treat hot pursuit as a policing operation, whereas the former will treat it as a military one. The logic of my argument is that militaries are oriented structurally and culturally to fight conventionally and against state near-peer adversaries. Threats emanating from nonstate actors, while at times perceived to be existential, require “pin-prick”-style targeted airstrikes, raids by commando forces, or policing operations along a state's periphery. I draw on an original dataset of “hot pursuit” (1975–2009) I collected and examine two recent case studies: India's hot pursuit of ethnic militants into Myanmar and Turkey's pursuit of Kurdish militants into Iraq and Syria.     

A Household Full of Bodies: Neoliberalism,Care and “the Political”

This article explores “the political” of political economy through an analysis of neoliberalised care. Borrowing Glyn Daly's metaphor of the political economy as a disorganised household, where the “political” disrupts the neat order of the oikonomia, we argue that in neoliberalism care is a central site of the political. Through Foucauldian biopolitics we define commodification as a central logic in the governance of care, and situate it in the wider context of neoliberal governmentality. Conceptualising care as a corporeal relation, and following Annemarie Mol's logic of care, we show how, despite the constant attempts to domesticate it, the hegemonic discourse fails to fully subsume care within the “order of the household”. Examining the ruptures produced when care resists its governance, the article demonstrates how the corporeal relatedness of care continues to open up spaces for the political, hence ensuring that the economy remains political.     

Neither episodic,nor destined to failure? The endurance of Hungarian populism after 2010

The Palestinian Authority's (PA) claim to embody the spirit of the “Arab Spring”, through its recent “state-building” agenda – including its elevation to “non-member observer status” at the United Nations – is disingenuous. This conclusion rests on three key arguments outlined in this article. First, this article identifies a continuation of broader patterns of authoritarianism represented by the PA's lack of adherence to democratic practices, the deprivation of access for the Palestinian population to basic resources and the wider issue of the continued absence of Palestinian sovereignty. Second, it identifies the intensification of some authoritarian practices within Palestine, particularly in the areas of security and policing, for example by the use of force against protestors. Finally, this article identifies that civil-society groups and opposition supporters throughout 2011–2012 have more genuinely embodied evidence of resistance to authoritarianism in popular demonstrations against the PA.     

“International terrorism” in the League of Nations and the contemporary terrorism dispositif

This article recovers states’ discursive practices regarding “international terrorism” in the 1930s. It examines the internal conditions of the discourse of terrorism among states in this period with a particular focus on its conspiratorial elements and suggests external conditions for this discourse’s emergence and order. Furthermore, it points to continuities and discontinuities between the 1930s discursive series and the constituent discursive forms of the contemporary global terrorism dispositif – an assemblage of power practices which bear on individual human bodies, populations or (rogue or fragile) states and which are all strategically oriented through the concept of terrorism. The purpose of such a genealogical history is to expand the space of dissent to power practices in the dominant structures of (terrorism) knowledge by problematising their object and the ways in which these formations are productive of human subjectivity.     

New Security Dynamics in the Asia-Pacific: Extending Regionalism from Southeast to Northeast Asia

This article explains the emerging security dynamics in the Asia-Pacific in the context of the project to establish an “Asian Community”. Although the model of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been constrained by a post-colonial attachment to sovereignty, new processes of domestic democratisation, taking in new members and dealing with non-traditional security threats have led to an acceptance of the need to deepen its social and political pillars. The real test for this project, however, will be whether it can be extended to Northeast Asia, where relations between states are still characterised by traditional power-balancing and rising nationalism.     

A Doctrine of Contingent Sovereignty

Disengagement of U.S. leadership in recent years has not only emboldened the world's worst actors, it has enabled the emergence of non-state groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) to threaten a new and ominous trend in international affairs—the pursuit of sovereign authority by transnational violent-extremists. Amending both the Clausewitzian “remarkable trinity” to explicitly encompass non-state actors in war and the balance-of-power praxis of Talleyrand to one favoring dynamic repair of failed and failing states in diplomacy, the Doctrine of Contingent Sovereignty proposed in this article provides the requisite tools for bolstering legitimacy of weakened states while simultaneously affording the necessary freedom-of-action for the United States to secure its vital national interests. Analogous to the Monroe Doctrine of the nineteenth-century, which put putative expansionist powers on notice, this new doctrine asserts that the privilege of sovereignty remains contingent upon adherence to accepted international norms of behavior.     

The political importance of labelling: terrorism and Turkey's discourse on the PKK

Labelling the ‘other’ is one of the most relevant aspects in an armed conflict context. Summarising what the opponent is in one single expression is a strong rhetorical tool in any belligerent discourse. The use of the ‘terrorist’ label assumes a particularly powerful role in such a construction. Employing Ole Wæver's layered discursive structure, this article aims to study the discursive practices and political consequences associated with the use of such labels. The political implications of using the ‘terrorist’ label in regards to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkish politics will be analysed as an illustrative case study. The period under analysis extends from April 2007 to January 2008, corresponding to the escalation of a security discourse that led to the (brief) Turkish military incursion in northern Iraq in the winter of 2007–2008. The political exposure and intense usage of the ‘terrorist’ label in this period makes it particularly ripe for understanding the political discursive context that shapes Turkey's policies towards this protracted conflict. The focus on this period also sheds light on the political reasons underlying the intractability of this conflict.     

Emerging political narratives on Malawian digital spaces

Social media platforms are being considered new podiums for political transformation as political dictatorships supposedly convert to overnight democracies, and many more people are not only able to gain access to information, but also gather and disseminate news from their own perspective. When looking at the situation in several sub-Saharan African countries, it becomes clear there are various challenges restricting social media and its palpable yet considerably constrained ability to influence political and social changes. Access to the internet, or lack thereof, is a recognised social stratification causing a “digital divide” thanks to existing inequalities within African and several other societies throughout the world. This article reports on a study that analysed a popular Facebook page in Malawi using a discursive online ethnographic examination of interactions among social media participants seeking to determine the level of activism and democratic participation taking shape on the Malawian digital space. The study also examined potential bottlenecks restraining effective digital participation in Malawi. The article argues that while social media's potential to transform societies is palpable, keeping up with the pace of transformation is no easy task for both digital and non-digital citizens. The study demonstrated social media's potential but also highlighted the problems facing online activists in Malawi, including chief among them digital illiteracy. Therefore, the digital sphere is not a political podium for everyone in Malawi as shown by the analysis of digital narratives emerging from the country's online environment, which opens its doors to only a tiny fraction of the population.