Yucatecan–Mexican Relations at the Time of Independence: The Yucatecan Pronunciamiento of 1821

This article will explore local Yucatecan politicking and the Yucatecan–Mexican relationship at the time of independence, using Yucatán's pronunciamiento for independence in September 1821 as a case study. This examination will highlight the fact that, while local ambitions played a significant role in Yucatán's bid for independence, this did not necessarily detract from Yucatecans' attempts to not only engage with national political movements, but also to unite with Mexico. This in turn will take further historians' recent attempts to revise the traditional perception of Yucatán as one of the more pro‐autonomous and isolated states of early nineteenth‐century Mexico.     

From Araucanian warriors to Mapuche terrorists: contesting discourses of gender,race, and nation in modern Chile (1810–2010)

This article explores the complex, shifting intersections between gender, racial, and national identities in modern Chile. Focusing on the figure of the Araucanian warrior who famously defeated the Spanish conquistadors in the sixteenth century, it draws readers' attention to four transformative periods between the first declaration of Chilean independence and the bicentennial celebrations of that independence, and examines the contesting notions of masculinity that emerged in such contexts. Firstly, it analyses the late nineteenth-century liberal State's “civilising” discourse, which was imbued with imperial racist concepts of masculinity; secondly, a protest mestizo masculinity that emerged through the writings of Nicolás Palacios in the early twentieth century; thirdly, a revolutionary masculinity that was exalted by various actors during the Popular Unity government (1970–3); and finally, multicultural, neo-liberal configurations of masculinity in post-dictatorship Chile. It shows how the masculine ideals of physique (strength, impressive build, virility) and behaviour (independence, intelligence, bravery, spirit of adventure) projected onto the noble warrior of old have existed in tension with disparaging attitudes towards contemporary Mapuche demanding respect for their rights. It also underscores the multiple, creative ways in which Mapuche intellectuals and political leaders have engaged with dominant discourses of gender, race and nation in republican Chile.     

试析二战后英国对缅政策的改变

二战结束后,英国政府的对缅政策发生了令人瞩目的改变.在国内和国际政治形势的推动下,英国政府开始与缅甸民族运动领导人通过谈判解决缅甸独立问题,加快了缅甸本部与山区少数民族的统一进程.英国对缅政策的改变深刻地影响了缅甸战后的政治格局.一方面,以昂山为代表的反法西斯人民自由同盟抓住机会,以和平手段争取缅甸的独立建国;另一方面,自由同盟与缅甸共产党、少数民族的裂痕加深,终于在独立后爆发了内战.     

Change and Continuity after the Arab Uprising: The Consequences of State Formation in Arab North African States

This article provides a comparative macro-level overview of political development in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt. It examines their evolution from the colonial period through several distinct phases, showing how differences in their origins were followed over time by a certain convergence towards a common post-populist form of authoritarianism, albeit still distinguished according to monarchic and republican legitimacy principles. On this basis, it assesses how past state formation trajectories made the republics more vulnerable to the Arab uprising but also what differences they make for the prospects of post-uprising democratisation. While in Morocco the monarch's legitimacy allows it to continue divide-and-rule politics, in Egypt the army's historic central role in politics has been restored, while in Tunisia the trade union movement has facilitated a greater democratic transition.     

Le probléme des origines des Assemblées d'États: Réflexions méthodologiques à la lumière de l'histoire sud‐est européenne de l'institution

Summary

This paper examines the relations between republican and democratic forces in Restoration Spain. From the middle of the last century, republicanism was the political movement most clearly involved with the democratization of Spanish politics. After the collapse of the 1873 Republic, the republican movement went through a severe crisis which led to its fragmentation over issues both of principle (federalists against unitarists) and of practice (revolutionaries against reformists). Between 1873 and 1931 Spanish republicanism underwent a marked transformation. The old republicanism was characterized by the modes of political activity of the nineteenth century — the club, the committee, the masonic lodge. The new republicanism, on the other hand, emerged from the first decade of the present century clearly moving in the direction of the modern political parties which finally crystallized out in 1931. Together the Radical and the Reformist parties are a case‐study in the transition between the classical and the modern which perfectly exemplifies the hybrid nature of republican democracy.

Though Spanish republicanism was socially heterogeneous, embracing within its various parts elements of the upper and middle bourgeoisie, substantial sections of the petty, urban bourgeoisie, and a declining, but still numerous, section of the working class, it still needed an alliance with the socialists (the Conjunción of 1910). However, what was most notable about Spanish republicanism was its link with the intelligentsia; it was they who gave it its character and who made the greatest effort to integrate Spain into the most modern currents of European thought.     

The Cuban Experience in East Germany: Academic Migration from 1960 to 2000

The partnership between revolutionary Cuba and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) offered a route for migration that had not been possible before. While academic exchange aimed to construct a socialist society in Cuba and strengthen the Socialist Bloc, as well as serving the economic and political interests of both states, the creation of a transnational academic elite and of intellectual collectives across borders also occurred as a by‐product of the exchange. This article shows how these ‘by‐products’ came into existence, and how academic exchange can be influenced by political, financial and organisational limitations.     

Cuban Historiography in the 1960s: Revisionists,Revolutionaries and the Nationalist Past

This article examines nationalist historiography in revolutionary Cuba, focusing in particular on the relationship between pre‐revolutionary ‘revisionist’ histories and the revolutionary historiography produced after 1959. Despite agreement among the revolutionaries on the need for new histories to respond to the needs of the revolutionary age, the dominant nationalist historiography of the Revolution repeated many of the myths of the ‘bourgeois’ histories of the past. In the 1960s, however, several historians working at the margins of academia emerged to challenge the nationalist myths perpetuated by both their republican counterparts and by their Marxist adversaries in the University School of History. Yet despite many significant historical re‐interpretations undertaken during the Revolution, many of the sacred cows of Cuban nationalism remained firmly on their plinth.     

Parliamentarianism and anti-parliamentarianism in Portugal. The voices of the republicans, 1910–26

In Portugal the republican regime broke ties with the monarchy, advocating the need to reassume the national principle, as well as the secularization of its foundations and of the state itself. With the establishment of the new parliamentary republic in 1910 and the debate between republic and monarchy, the supporters of parliamentarianism saw a rupture in the composition and relationship between the powers foreseen in the constitutional charter of 1826, which gave more power to the king during the period of the constitutional monarchy. This made republicans grow closer to the constitution of the French Third Republic, the Brazilian constitution of 1891, the 1812 constitution of Cadiz and the 1822 Portuguese constitution, owing to the fact that these were radical liberal constitutions that conferred national sovereignty. The republicans put forward various arguments both to defame and to defend parliamentarianism. Nevertheless, as in the constitution of 1822, the republican constitution of 1911 stipulated that the congress (the Portuguese Parliament) would be, in theory, the only body that could regulate the political guidelines of the republic.     

Can International Boycotts Transform Political Systems? The Cases of Cuba and South Africa

The economic embargo against Cuba has been widely promoted as a way to hasten the end of the Castro regime. Historically, however, the connection between embargoes and regime change is mediated by a complex of political, social, and economic conditions. Labormarket bottlenecks and domestic elite opposition, decisive factors in the South African case, are absent from that of Cuba. This study uses the factors derived from an analysis of South Africa to compare the Cuban case and concludes that the embargo against Cuba cannot have its intended results.     

Governors-General during Pacific Island constitutional crises and the role of the Crown

Links with the Crown are often thought to play a largely ‘symbolic’ role in the contemporary politics of the Pacific Islands. Yet the Queen appoints Governors-General for three Pacific Island states, albeit acting on advice, and did so in Fiji until that country became a Republic in October 1987. All four countries have witnessed constitutional crises in which the Governor-General has played a critical role. This paper examines those crises, and other occasions that have tested the link with the Crown. It argues that the common minimalist defence of such institutions (influenced by one reading of Walter Bagehot's well-known views) – i.e. that such arrangements tend to work better than republican or presidential alternatives by elevating a relatively disinterested arbiter to broker political transitions – misses the fact that realm territories have tended to face similar and comparable difficulties to those Pacific nations that abandoned the link with the British Crown at independence, and that these issues have been no better or no worse handled by Governors-General than by locally selected Heads of State.     

The Struggle Against Oppression Everywhere: The Global Politics of Palestinian Liberation

This article situates the Palestine Liberation Organization in an international network of liberation movements in the 1960s and 1970s. As such, it is a transnational history of the early days of the Palestinian liberation movement, whereas most scholars have treated that movement inside the confines of the long-running Arab–Israeli conflict. By analyzing the intellectual and political linkages between the PLO and other liberation movements in Algeria, Cuba, and Vietnam, the article seeks to reframe the Palestinian struggle in the context of other postcolonial struggles of that era.     

Alternatives to the constitution of Cádiz in New Spain: republicanism and the insurgent constitutional decree of Apatzingán (1814)

This article compares the Decreto Constitucional para la libertad de la América Mexicana, published in Apatzingán by the insurgents of New Spain in 1814, with the 1812 Constitution of Cádiz which established a constitutional monarchy in the Spanish Empire. It argues that the Decreto Constitucional cannot be understood as simply a product of Hispanic political thought and a reflection of the Cádiz text. Rather, it contends that the decree published in Apatzingán represents an alternative republican response to the dissolution of the Spanish monarchy. This alternate constitutional settlement drew on the debate of constitutional ideas that had taken place in New Spain since 1808 and was grounded in many of the same ideas as those present in the Pennsylvanian Constitution of 1776 and the first French republican constitutions of 1793 and 1795.     

Sovereignty–Security Nexus,Domestic Constraints,and the Taiwan Independence Policy (1988–2010)

Abstract

This article explains the rise and fall of the so-called Taiwan independence policy during the period of 1988–2010. It defines the Taiwan independence policy as an internal political move by the Taiwanese government to establish Taiwan as a separate and sovereign political entity on the world stage. It reviews two existing prevailing theses – electoral politics and shifting identity – and points out their weaknesses, the former's being its indeterminacy and unfalsifiability, and the latter's being its inadequacy to explain policy change. A new explanation focusing on relative power shift (military balance, alliance strength, and diplomatic standing) and domestic constraints (resource and political constraints) is then proposed to explain the rise and fall of the Taiwan independence policy. A brief examination of the 1988–2010 cross-strait history lends strong support to the theory.     

The reflection of the Israeli ‘incorporation regime’ in the land allocation institution in Israel's urban area, 1950–1960

This article focuses on the Israeli land regime as reflected in the land allocation activities of the Development Authority (DA) in urban areas between 1950 and 1960, and particularly on how allocation of space influenced the development of a social stratum during this nation-building period. The analytical lens applies two concepts to the empirical data on DA activities during this period: ‘incorporation regime’ and ‘citizen discourse’. The outcome is an understanding of the ‘rules of the game’ supporting selective access to land allocations in given areas. Accessibility was aimed at distinct Jewish groups – wealthy, connected/networked, and veteran citizens, in line with the republican discourse in Israel at the time. The findings provide a deeper understanding of connections among institutional mechanisms, citizenship discourse and land allocation, and their expression both spatially and in terms of the fabric of life that developed within the social, political and land regime contexts.     

Reworking Bandung internationalism: decolonization and postcolonial futurism in Burma/Myanmar

ABSTRACT

This commentary examines how futurity has been imagined across politics and political economy in Burma/Myanmar. Three areas are discussed: the revolutionary horizons of anti-colonialists, who combined Buddhist and Marxist ideas of historical progress; the developmental socialism of the early independence area, with its industrial telos and modernist commitments; and a contemporary development project in southern Myanmar, where processes of dispossession are troubling earlier temporal imaginaries. I suggest that a vision of postcolonial transformation coheres across anti-colonial and early independence claims to futurity. This temporal imaginary, which I call postcolonial futurism, promises transitions from farm to factory, peasant to the proletariat, and precapital to capital. This imaginary resonated widely. Today, however, scholars of South and Southeast Asia argue that modernist promises of transition now lack empirical and political purchase amid ongoing dispossession and trends towards low-wage, informal labour. Yet in the wake of postcolonial futurism, responses to dispossession are creating novel political possibilities. Responding to Kuan-Hsing Chen’s call to rework Bandung internationalism in the present, I consider how struggles over dispossession today indicate both openings and limits for the making of new political futures. Integrating Glen Coulthard’s work on colonialism and dispossession, I argue that decolonizing subjectivity is central to this process.     

The Personal Is Political: The Cuban Ethnic Electoral Policy Cycle

This article documents a U.S. Cuban foreign policy cycle that operated in tandem with the presidential electoral cycle between 1992 and 2004. During these post–Cold War years, when Cuba posed no threat to U.S. national security, influential, well-organized Cuban Americans leveraged political contributions and votes to tighten the embargo on travel and trade, especially at the personal level. U.S. presidential candidates, most notably incumbent presidents seeking re-election, responded to their demands with discretionary powers of office. When presidential candidates supported policies that made good electoral sense but conflicted with concerns of state, they subsequently reversed or left unimplemented Cuba initiatives. After describing the logic behind an ethnic electoral policy cycle and U.S. personal embargo policy between 1992 and 2004, this article examines Cuban American voter participation, political and policy preferences, lobbying, political contributions, and the relationship between the ethnic policy and presidential election cycles.     

A woman patriot and fighter for Italy's unity and freedom: Antonietta De Pace in Southern Italy

SUMMARY

In the context of the history of Italy's Risorgimento and unification, Maria Sofia Corciulo recounts the adventurous life, the clandestine struggle, and the political significance of Antonietta De Pace (1818–1894), the leading figure among several women patriots in the kingdom of Naples during the period of pre-parliamentary republican struggle. Her trial after capture in 1855 caused an international sensation, and in 1860 she entered Naples with Garibaldi's triumphal army. She devoted her entire life to Italian unification, and her later years to improving the social, economic and cultural position of women. Her career suggests that, in the exceptional circumstances of independent women like her and the political turbulence of the age, nineteenth-century Italian society was prepared to allow a greater degree of equality to women than before.     

Break Out of Russia: Miķelis Valters and the National Issue in Early Latvian Socialism

This article deals with the political thought of Mi?elis Valters (1874–1968), whose early writings are considered to contain the first clearly articulated argument for independent and democratic Latvia. Until now, Valters's writings haven′t been analyzed in their own historical and intellectual context, being subjected to Marxist and nationalist ‘proleptic mythologies’ instead. However, such an analysis provides us with important insights about the intellectual origins of Latvian political nationalism. Valters's early argument for independent Latvia derives much from the legacy of Russian narodnichestvo and from German liberal legal theory, rather than from Austro-Marxism, as suggested by previous commentators.     

Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot? The Uses of History in Scottish Nationalist Politics, 2007-Present

The Scottish National Party (SNP) was elected into government in 2007, and in January 2012 announced plans for an independence referendum. In the same period, the SNP government implemented substantial cultural and heritage projects — some of which showcased the long history of Scottish-English animosity. In the accompanying political rhetoric, it was clear that the SNP was utilising history for the 2014 independence campaign. This referendum ultimately resulted in Scotland's retention of the Union, though the SNP remained in power. The Scottish-British relationship was further tested in 2016, however, with the UK referendum on leaving the EU. All Scottish electorates voted in favour of remaining, and the chasm between Scottish and British identities and future trajectories has since widened further. This article compares the SNP's promotion of nationalist historical narratives prior to the 2014 referendum, particularly those seen in government-supported heritage initiatives, with subsequent historical narratives expressed especially through diplomatic engagements in light of Brexit. In doing so, the infusion of nationalist histories in contemporary Scottish politics — and the potential complications of this approach for the SNP in the post-Brexit political landscape — will be highlighted.