One script,two languages: Garabed Panosian and his Armeno-Turkish newspapers in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire

This article focuses on the publications of Garabed Panosian and examines the extent of readership achieved by the Armeno-Turkish newspapers in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. It specifically focuses on the linguistic, social, and political circumstances in which his newspapers were read. The readership of Panosian's newspapers was not only limited to Turkish monolingual Armenians but also extended to Armenian--Turkish bilingual Armenians. Moreover, his newspapers, along with other Armeno-Turkish materials, gained a non-Armenian readership. Thus, Panosian was able to use his newspapers to display the allegiance of Armenians to the Ottoman Empire, aiming at a favourable evaluation from government circles. Besides being a tool to reach out to Turkish monolinguals, Armeno-Turkish newspapers were also rich products of the culture of bilingualism and a medium shared by religiously diverse people. Thus, examining Armeno-Turkish materials elucidates the pluralistic society of the late Ottoman Empire.     

Eastern Figures: Orient and Empire in British Writing

This article outlines the labour impacts and social consequences of the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis and 2008–09 global financial crisis on Southeast Asia. Both had adverse consequences on output, employment, income and poverty in the region, although the impact of the global financial crisis was much less severe compared to the Asian financial crisis. Economies recovered quickly from both crises. However, labour markets continue to be characterised by informal, vulnerable and precarious employment. The crises and the ensuing efforts of employers to resort to increased flexibility in labour hiring in both crisis and recovery periods fanned labour protests despite the diminutive size of the trade union movement and the underdeveloped system of industrial relations in most countries. In turn, these protests have triggered national and regional debates on rules for labour contracting, minimum wage adjustments and social protection. These debates have remained unresolved even as the region is gearing up for fuller economic integration in 2015 labelled as the ASEAN Economic Community.     

The great game: Russia's role in the Persian Empire and Tibet

Formerly Professor of History and Central Asian Studies at the Panjab University, Chandigarh, Parshotam Mehra has written largely on India's northern frontiers and relations with Tibet and China. His publications include The North‐West Frontier Drama 1945–47 (1998), An ‘Agreed’ Frontier, Ladakh and India's Northern Borders (1992) and The McMahon Line and After (1974). Two of his books, From Conflict to Conciliation: Tibetan Polity Re‐visited and The Younghusband Expedition, an Interpretation (2^nd edition), are due to appear later this year.     

Empire of Taxonomy: Ethnic and Religious Identities in the Ottoman Surveys and Censuses

This article examines how the Ottoman Empire through pre-modern surveys (tahrir) and censuses, counted, categorized and classified their population according to ethnic and religious identities, and how the social, economic and political transformation impacted on the change of taxonomy (nomenclature, classification and hierarchization) over time. Through this long trajectory, from the imperial system to the modern state system, the Ottoman government increased its power over its ‘population’, and, simultaneously, its taxonomic power     

Opium and Empire: McCoy on Heroin in Southeast Asia

Abstract

More and more, as scholars search to understand the history of U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia, they are forced to study the largely submerged operations of crime. The tripartite symbiosis which A. J. Liebling a generation ago described in Chicago—between local government, the Syndicate, and less visible economic interests—operates with the same brutal efficiency in the Far East as well. There too the tightly-knit, ruthless bagmen and enforcers from narcotics and other vice operations become the indigenous local cadres for venal and demoralized regimes, which in turn are fronts for more powerful imperial and economic forces. Al McCoy has written a fascinating and exhaustive analysis of the interpenetration between crime and local government in Southeast Asia. But, as we shall see, he has less to say about U.S. influence behind the scenes, and as to economic interests he is largely silent.     

Restructuring the Empire: The Nixon Doctrine after Vietnam

Abstract

Ever since Richard Nixon announced that the United States would adopt a “low profile” defense posture in Asia, American foreign affairs analysts have sought to construct an accurate model of the new policy. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, who analyzed the Nixon Doctrine in a 1969 report to the Congress, concluded that henceforth “The United States will avoid the creation of situations in which there is such dependence on us that, inevitably, we become enmeshed in what are essentially Asian problems and conflicts.” Lest this conclusion alarm any of our more insecure clients in the area, Vice President Agnew toured Asia in early 1970 to announce that the President had never intended such a sweeping reversal of policy: “Let me make it very clear,” he told newsmen in Canberra, “that despite a great deal of speculation and rumor, we are not withdrawing from Asia and the Pacific…. As a Pacific power, we will remain in the Pacific.” Nixon himself seems to have encouraged this dichotomy: thus the invasion of Cambodia in 1970 and the massive air attacks on Hanoi in 1972 suggested that he was committed to the interventionist stance represented by Agnew; while the cease-fire in Vietnam and the initiation of diplomatic contacts with China suggest that he leans toward the more restrained position of Mansfield.     

Lawmaking and Decree Making in the Russian Federation: Time,Space, and Rules in Russian National Policymaking

Russia's 1993 constitution created a hybrid presidential-parliamentary system in which the president has the power to initiate and veto legislation and to issue normative decrees. Using a comprehensive examination of laws and decrees promulgated in 1994-2004, three political scientists identify key influences on the use of lawmaking and decree-making powers by the president and parliament: constitutional constraints on the use of decree-making power, temporal considerations, and the effect of change in the policy distance between the president and the Duma. The interplay of these forces is illustrated in a case study of the use of law and decree in setting policy on land ownership.