Understanding the War in Syria and the Roles of External Players: Way Out of the Quagmire?

With Western commentators, media and think tanks still being the predominant determinant of the global international relations discourse and therefore also of the discourse relating to Syria, discerning actual realities coherently from the fog of a very biased narrative presents great challenges. Deciphering the complexities of West Asia has never been easy and the situation in Syria is particularly complicated. This article argues inter alia that the Commonwealth as an entity needs to add its efforts, voice and prestige to the global effort to prioritize the restoration of peace in West Asia in general and Syria in particular.     

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.     

I Cry Out So That You Wake Up1: Cegerxwîn's Poetics and Politics of Awakening

This study focuses on the poetry of the well-known Kurdish poet Cegerxwîn (1903–84). Contextualizing Cegerxwîn's life and literary career within his specific social, political and historical circumstances, this article demonstrates the way in which Kurdish classical poetry during his madrasa education shaped Cegerxwîn's poetic creation. Furthermore, the oppression and exploitation of Kurdish peasants at the hands of tribal chiefs, sheikhs and nation-states contributed to Cegerxwîn's adoption of a Marxist and nationalist social and political standpoint. This article, attempting a closer reading of his poetry, suggests that at the essence of his poetry is found the continued use of the metaphor of awakening. Hence Cegerxwîn's poetics and politics can best be depicted as one of awakening the oppressed and subordinate social groups including the Kurds, peasants and workers from their deep sleep of oppression and exploitation. Through his Kurdish poetics and politics of awakening, it is argued, Cegerxwîn participates in the progressive political discourses of his times.     

“Time to Speak Out”: The 1980s Australian Gay Press and Personal Accounts of Living with HIV

This article considers the significance of gay men’s personal accounts of living with HIV or AIDS that were published in the gay press across the 1980s. Editors utilised individuals’ accounts of living with the illness to challenge mainstream media representations of gay men’s physical and emotional demise in the “final stages” of the debilitating illness. Such accounts conveyed the message that it was possible to resume one’s life after receiving a positive diagnosis. Gay men’s personal accounts of living with HIV or AIDS evolved from anonymous anecdotes to articles accompanied by the narrator’s full name and photograph by the end of the decade. This shift is attributed to Australia’s Third National AIDS Conference in 1988, whereby people with HIV and AIDS publicly disclosed their positive statuses. This article locates gay men’s personal accounts of living with HIV in a broader transnational shift towards the visibility of people with HIV and AIDS that was underway at that time.     

The end of apartheid as part of ‘the end of history'?

This article undertakes a critical assessment of Francis Fukuyama's interpretation of the end of apartheid. It is argued that Fukuyama's analysis, which rests on linking economic growth to democracy, falls short in the depth of its empirical analysis and fails to establish the necessary causal connection. The appeal of Fukuyama's approach is therefore explained in terms of its ideological context and function.     

The ambivalent Apostle of 1953: a liminal reading of the centenary of José Martí

This article has common Cuban motifs at its core: the prevalent obsession with the notion of collective identity, the ideological and psychological importance of national anniversaries, and the omnipresence of the archetypal patriot José Martí. It approaches all from a particular theoretical perspective, however, and thus presents a new reading of the so-called ideario martiano and of the Cuban “national narrative” at a critical moment of the island’s historical trajectory: 1953, the centenary of Martí’s birth. Taking its lead from cultural anthropology (and particularly from the work of Victor Turner), this article presents the half-century since independence in 1902 as a post-colonial “rite of passage” punctuated by a series of turning points, or “limens,” within which the sense of national identity was exposed to sustained scrutiny by public intellectuals and activists. The article provides evidence of such intense collective introspection in 1953 when commemorations of Martí’s centenary stimulated a re-examination of the Republic in the light of his luminous example. Importantly, this turning point is also exposed as a battleground on which antagonistic interpretations of martiano heroism, Republican history, and national identity faced each other in exegetical strife.     

Sites of power,instruments of public intervention: the Palace of Congress and the construction of federal power in Argentina, 1880–1916

SUMMARY

This article intends to provide an analysis of the process of building a house for the Argentine congress between 1880 and 1916. After the presidential campaign and revolution of 1880, Argentina entered a new political era that saw the definition of a political system under the hegemony of the Partido Autonomista Nacional and the consolidation of the federal state. The defeat of porteño militias in 1880 represented the end of the project of a national state controlled from Buenos Aires and the transformation of the city into the federal capital of the country. This new role meant that the city now needed buildings to accommodate new functions, a house for parliament among them. This article explores the significance of building the Palace of Congress as part of a broader plan by politicians, urban planners and bureaucrats to place symbols of republican greatness in central areas of the new capital. This study also focuses on the parliamentary debates that discussed the allocation of public funding for the construction of congress and the importance of giving the new capital examples of monumental architecture as a way to underscore its new political status. Finally, this article analyses the impact of the debates in congress and in the press about allegations of embezzlement and corruption that surrounded the building of the Palace of Congress.     

In Search of a Non-Eurocentric Understanding of Modernization: Turkey as a Case of ‘Multiple Modernities’

This article uses the Turkish case of modernity to critically examine different understandings of modernization put forward by competing schools of thought, namely the ‘classical modernization theory’, the ‘neo-modernization theory’ and the ‘multiple modernities paradigm’. In the context of modernization studies, Turkey has long held a special place as numerous scholars have studied this country in an attempt to validate the ‘convergence thesis’ – namely the idea that once a non-western society launches a secularization and/or an industrialization programme, its political regime and socio-economic life would eventually resemble its western counterparts. Firstly, the three theories are comparatively analysed by discussing how they perceive the concept of modernity and its interaction with religion, economic development and democratization. Then, the theories are reviewed in light of the Turkish experience. It is argued that the Turkish modernity can be best comprehended through the lens of the multiple modernities paradigm that challenges the Eurocentric assumption of classical modernization and neo-modernization theories based on the convergence thesis.     

Means of production versus means of coercion: can Russian business limit the violence of a predatory state?

In their most recent works, North and his coauthors (North, D. C., J. J. Wallis, S. Webb, and B. R. Weingast. 2012. In the Shadow of Violence: Politics, Economics, and the Problems of Development. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; North, D.C., J. J. Wallis, and B. R. Weingast. 2009. Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press) name the formation of organizations capable of effectively restricting violence in society as a necessary condition for transition from developing societies to societies with sustainable economic growth. However, the mechanisms of emergence and conditions for the operation of such organizations in contemporary developing countries remain unclear. We follow the logic of formation of such organizations using the case study of collective actions of the Russian business community aimed at restricting “state violence” against business. We seek to identify the conditions leading to a shift in the choice of strategies from attempts at informal agreements with extortionists controlling means of coercion to cooperation of businessmen and trace the further evolution of organized forms of collective action. Finally, we assess to what extent the created organizations can be efficient and self-supporting in the long term.     

Echoes of domestic silence: mechanisms of concealment in cases of ‘Family Honour Killings’ in Mandate Palestine

This article deals with the manner in which family and community in Mandate Palestine attempted to keep the criminal justice system from intervening in cases defined as ‘Family Honour Killing’. Drawing on criminal court cases, we argue that the familial, domestic and communal features of this crime and its social, predominantly rural, context were critical for the attempts to keep it within the community and to prevent state intervention by obstructing, concealing and denying evidence. We focus on the mechanisms used by members of the family and community for that purpose. Our case study is in line with previous findings indicating the under-reporting of domestic violence, especially when witnesses were closely related to both the victim and the perpetrator. This domestic and communal alignment was most likely reinforced under colonial rule, though it was not necessarily caused predominantly in opposition to it.     

The Return of ‘Social Europe’: Ideas and Positions of German Parties towards the Future of European Integration

Politics in Eastern Europe. By George Schöpflin. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993. £12.99 pb.

Eastern Europe since 1945. By Geoffrey Swain and Nigel Swain. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1993. £10 pb.

Revolution in East‐Central Europe. The Rise and Fall of Communism and the Cold War. By David S. Mason. Boulder, San Francisco and Oxford: Westview Press, 1992. £9.50 pb.

Surge to Freedom: The End of Communist Rule in Eastern Europe. By J.F. Brown. Twickenham: Adamantine Press, 1991. £18.40 pb.

The New Democracies in Eastern Europe. Party Systems and Political Cleavages. Edited by Sten Berglund and Jan Åke Dellenbrant. Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1991. £39.95 hb.

Developments in Eastern European Politics. Edited by Stephen White, Judy Batt and Paul G. Lewis. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1993. £11.99 pb.     

The Utilization of “Surplus” labor in the people's republic of China

Abstract

For decades, economists concerned with the problems of economic development have noted the typical existence of surplus labor in heavily populated, underdeveloped countries, most notably those of Asia, in which the factor endowment consists of abundant and often rapidly growing labor forces coupled with scarcity of both land and capital. In such countries, the vast majority of the population usually is engaged in agricultural activities and, at a minimum, is characterized by substantial seasonal unemployment during the slack agricultural times of the year and, more typically, also has substantial disguised unemployment throughout the entire year. Also characteristic of such countries is a continuing large-scale migration of labor from rural to urban areas, which transforms the disguised agricultural unemployment into open urban unemployment as the newly (and not-so-newly) arrived urban residents discover that the jobs they seek are substantially fewer than the number of job-seekers. Furthermore, even those fortunate enough to find urban employment often appear to be substantially underemployed, for example, in jobs within the government sector, in petty retail trade, and as messengers and private household servants. Even in countries that have been experiencing relatively high levels of investment and fairly rapid rates of economic growth, the employment problems are far from eliminated and cause social and political problems as well as economic ones. It seems ironic that in such countries there exists simultaneously so many people seeking work and so much work that could be accomplished and could raise basic living standards if the unemployed (and underemployed) workers could be engaged in productive (and more productive) activities.     

Responding to Western Critiques of the Muslim World: Deconstructing the Cliché of Islamophobia and the Genealogies of Islamic Extremism

This paper is premised on the questions of whether Islam as a religion, spiritual domain, cultural practice and philosophy should be held responsible for whatever activities the Muslims choose to do in their personal capacity. Does the ascribed status of individuals being Muslims and their choice of declaring themselves as terrorists in the name of Islam entail that they are true followers of the religion and have been theologically and spiritually inspired by it? These questions have sprung up because Islam as a religion has constituted the fundamental component of western interpretation of the reasons for the rise of violent extremism involving Muslim radicals. In this context, the objective of this paper is to examine how the contemporary western interpretations, linking the actions of Muslim extremist groups with those of the ontology and epistemology of Islam, are predicated on a faulty cognition of the nature and the guiding principles of that religion itself. To accomplish this, the paper critiques Samuel Huntington's ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis and Bernard Lewis's version of the roots of Muslim extremism.     

Allegories of Venice: Singapore’s Vague Concept of a Global City

This paper argues that although the state elites of Singapore use “Venice” as an image to legitimate the People’s Action Party’s continuous rule and unpopular immigration policies, the image has both empowered and constrained the state. To the state, Venice serves as a keyword that conjures up dynamism, progress, and continuity; to its critics, however, Venice signals the state’s willingness to focus on the intangible elements of nationhood, namely culture and the arts. These critics use the ambiguities of the Venice rhetoric to legitimate their own appeals for change, especially after discovering that the “shared vision” of Venice is mainly in economic terms. By so doing, detractors of the state contest the centrality of economics in the making of modern—and future—Singapore, rendering the use of “Venice” as an image to promote the concept of a Global City problematic.     

Clash of the Titans?

Abstract

Asia's strategic evolutions during the next two decades or so will put major theories about great-power behavior to the test. A trio of new books about the Sino–Indian rivalry help sketch out a timely research agenda.     

Visions of Tsafendas: Literary Biography and the Limits of “Research”

Abstract

Research seminar, research cluster, research output. The word is almost a fetish within the contemporary academy—but what does “research” actually mean in a discipline like literature? And what happens when a research project overspills its bounds, or pushes up against disciplinary limits and protocols? In this piece, I explore such questions via the figure of Demetrios Tsafendas, the "mad Greek" who assassinated apartheid Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd in 1966, supposedly acting on instructions from a tapeworm inside him. It is one of the strangest facts in South African history; it is also, of course, a kind of fiction, and one that has been refracted into a range of literary and artistic works. Reading across both official and “creative” archives, I address a range of methodological problems that I encountered in attempting an academic treatment of Tsafendas and his (as the presiding apartheid judge put it) “useless life”.     

Japanese Demographic Crisis in View of Marx’s Capitalist Law of Population

ABSTRACT

In more than four decades, Japanese society has rapidly intensified a tendency towards a very low fertility rate with a smaller number of children. It is generally confirmed that a society needs a total fertility rate of at least 2.1 in order to avoid a decline in its total population. The total fertility rate in Japan was still 2.14 in 1973, when the period of high economic growth in the post-World War II ended. It continued to decline to 1.26 in 2005. It then recovered somewhat in 2015, as the post-war “junior” baby-boom generation reacted to its last chance to have children. However, the recovery is temporary, and the Japanese total fertility rate is estimated to slide again in the 2020s. This article examines this transition through a re-examination of Marx’s capitalist law of population. This approach rejects the naturalist theory of population and directs attention to Japan’s demographic decline in the context of neo-liberal policies in contemporary capitalism.