Religion,ethnicity and citizenship: demands for territorial self-determination in southern Kaduna,Nigeria

This article analyses the ‘politics of scale’ of how identity is linked to territory in the quest for self-determination by actors on the Christian side of the ethno-religious conflict in Kaduna State, Nigeria. Ethnic and political relations are framed with reference to scale, such as ‘the local’ and ‘the regional’, in ways that support claims for territorial control on an ethnic and religious basis. The experience of lack of access to the state is seen to be grounded in community identities. Furthermore, the state relates to citizens through religious and neo-customary authorities as a way to localise authority. This is connected to an idea that neo-customary institutions represent ‘the local’. It is argued in this article that these institutions are just as entangled in various constructions of scale as the state.     

Press and ethnic polarization in post-2001 Afghanistan: the 2014 presidential election experience

This article analyses the contents of three newspapers affiliated with the Tajik-dominated Jamiat and Shura-e-Nezar factions that were deployed during the 2014 presidential election to publicize ethno-political polarization for instrumental ends. The practice of nurturing ethnic identities serves as a microcosm of the broader context in which identity politics, besides coalition-building, rent-seeking, and patrimonial interdependencies, has become a key feature of post-2001 politics. This article focuses on how these factions used these newspapers to polarize ethnic cleavages to win legitimacy for themselves and defamation for their Pashtun-dominated rival factions – Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin and the Taliban. It will be years before the ethnic mujahedeen and muhajereen and the new generation reach a mutually binding and working condition that facilitates the country's long-term stability. Reaching this condition is critical because the future of Afghanistan lies in the commitment of its people to form a united community that resolves disputes in the manner of a democratic nation.     

印尼华人的同化及其前景

印度尼西亚华人同化于主体社会的历史告诉我们 :民族通婚、一个民族的经济和文化素质、国际环境以及国家的民族政策是影响民族同化进程的四个主要因素。比较而言 ,国家民族政策是具有决定意义的因素。只要印度尼西亚政府能够制定明智而现实的国家政策 ,实现真正的民族平等 ,印度尼西亚各民族所期盼的民族统一、和睦相处的崇高目标就一定会达到。     

Harnessing Africa's sun: China and the development of solar energy in Kenya

Africa has immense energy challenges, characterised by low rates of access to electricity, irregularities and a general shortage in electricity supply. Solar energy provides African governments with the opportunity to address these challenges. With an average quantity of five to six kilowatts of power from the sun per square metre per day, the continent has vast potential for producing energy from the sun. The moderate success that Kenya has achieved in its solar energy industry is commendable and provides a good platform for other countries aspiring to extend electrification to its population through solar energy. China's emerging capabilities in solar technology also offers the continent the opportunity to take decisive steps towards sustainable energy. The proposed partnership between China's Tianpu Xianxing Enterprise and Kenya's Electrogen Technologies to build a solar panel factory in Kenya is a positive step towards addressing energy challenges.     

试析瓦希德政府对华政策与华人政策

1999年 1 0月印尼瓦希德政府产生 ,开始了民主改革的进程。瓦希德政府的国内外政策发生了重大变化 ,其对华政策和华人政策作了什么调整 ?政策实施过程与实质进展怎样 ?发展趋势如何 ?本文将作进一步分析和探讨。     

Count us! Ethnic Activism in South-Eastern Estonia,and the Census of 2011

The ethnic activists of south Estonia (the Seto and Võro movements), challenging traditional concepts of the Estonian nation, tried to exploit the last national census (2011) for their cause, but were only partly successful because of opposition from decision-makers at Statistics Estonia, who have demonstrated a spontaneous conservatism in regard to questions of ethnicity and language. The government’s response to the initiatives of the ethnic activists was inconsistent, passive, and reactive. This matter has simply not been thought through at the state level.     

Contested spaces: the use of place-names and symbolic landscape in the politics of identity and legitimacy in Azerbaijan

This article deals with the political manipulation of symbolic landscape, using post-Soviet Azerbaijan as a case study. In particular, it looks at the practice of toponym changes as an element of political legitimization and national identity-making. The political use and manipulation of place-names and symbolic landscape is a relatively recent phenomenon that became particularly widespread in the twentieth century. It is widely used for ideological or nationalist purposes throughout the world – from Iran to Israel, from former Yugoslavia to the USSR. However, I argue that post-Soviet Azerbaijan represents an unusual case where one can clearly see strikingly different patterns of place-name manipulation in the pursuit of political legitimacy. It argues that while questions of political legitimacy and nationalism found their reflection in the policy of place-name manipulation, their uses followed clearly different routes and were confined to separate areas.     

From neighbours to deadly enemies: excavating landscapes of territoriality and ethnic violence in Jos,Nigeria

Jos, a central Nigerian city engulfed by deadly violence in September 2001, offers a unique case study for exploring what happens when a modern metropolis lacks the institutional capacity to regulate its competing groups, and latent rivalries ignite into widespread, systematic brutality. Emerging from combined political and cultural dynamics radically different from those of better-known examples, such as Jerusalem and Belfast, Jos provides fresh insights into the roles of group concentration and conflict framing in engendering territoriality and violence in the city. As this paper shows, Jos’ colonial history in tin mining, waves of migration, and an urban policy of sociospatial differentiation have shaped and intersected with the contemporary politics of ethnicity to foster explosive relations between Christians and Muslims. Building on literature and primary data from interviews and discussions with surviving residents, the paper explicates how group geography and conflict became so entangled, leading to the so-called ‘Jos crisis’.     

Criminalizing human trafficking in Latvia: the evolution and implications of human trafficking policies

This article explores the development and evolution of human trafficking policies in Latvia and the measurable outcomes of these policies. An analysis of policy development revealed that Latvia has three different types of human trafficking policy: criminalization statutes, national action programs, and victim service provisions. These policies have produced outcomes such as criminal cases against traffickers, rehabilitation services for victims, and the formation of anti-trafficking institutions. The results revealed direct causal links between human trafficking policies and anti-trafficking institutions are evident with the National Coordinator and social services for victims. Indirect causation is also present with specialized police and prosecutor units and anti-trafficking institutional policy development by the anti-trafficking working group.     

Family history,identity, and public history: writing a history of The Benevolent Society in its 200th year

Abstract

Since 2011, the authors have worked together on outputs associated with the bicentenary of The Benevolent Society of New South Wales, Australia's oldest charity, established in 1813. This article focuses on one of those outputs—a project making use of family histories of clients of The Benevolent Society's Asylum, in the second half of the nineteenth century, to reveal the histories of these families in colonial New South Wales. The project also involves an exploration of the many different ways in which contemporary Australians are active agents in the creation of historical knowledge when practicing family history.     

Barriers Natural and Unnatural: Islamiento as a Central Metaphor in Kuna Ecotourism

This article considers ecotourism among the Kuna of the San Blas Archipelago in Panama, using the term I use the concept of islamiento to describe both ‘isolation’ and ‘island‐isation’ as central metaphors to understand Kuna strategies in demarcating tourist and community spaces. The local autonomy exemplified by the Kuna in tourism is just one transformation of the way in which they utilise island configurations as a source of physical and ideological independence. While competition for resources between tourists, non‐Kuna ‘outsiders’ and Kuna ‘insiders’ is common, pressures on local inhabitants, resources and the need for privacy and community life are exacerbated in island tourism. Through various mechanisms that turn the physical properties of the archipelago to their advantage, the Kuna limit the impacts of tourism on daily life and strengthen their autonomy.     

Development as a Source of Conflict: The Sahukars,Displaced People and the Maoists in Koraput

The dominant debate in India on the role of development in reducing conflicts still remains open. Despite development measures by both state and non-state actors, conflicts continue to emerge frequently in the country. In Koraput district of Odisha state, development models implemented by the state and by non-state actors have accentuated conflicts. The Sahukar-model of development has caused land alienation among marginalised communities leading to conflicts between the landowners and the landless. Large-scale displacements caused by mega development projects have intensified the confrontation between the displaced and the state. The Communist Party of India-Maoist (‘Maoists’ in short) claims to have an alternative development model, which rejects the state-led development plan. The alternative model imposed by the Maoists—reclaiming land from the rich and adopting ‘Community Farming’—has further exacerbated the conflicts among various communities. Though the nature of conflict and its contenders keep changing, the conflicts as such refuse to die down in Koraput.     

Running to stand still: aggressive immobility and the limits of power in Russia

The common conception of Russian politics as an elite game of rent-seeking and autocratic management masks a great deal of ‘mundane’ policymaking, and few areas of social and economic activity have escaped at least some degree of reform in recent years. This article takes a closer look at four such reform attempts – involving higher education, welfare, housing and regional policy – in an effort to discern broad patterns governing how and when the state succeeds or fails. The evidence suggests that both masses and mid-level elites actively defend informality – usually interpreted in the literature as an agent-led response to deinstitutionalization and the breakdown of structure – creating a strong brake on state power. More than a quarter century into the post-Soviet period, this pattern of “aggressive immobility” – the purposeful and concerted defense by citizens of a weakly institutionalized state – has in fact become an entrenched, structural element in Russian politics.     

集团博弈与公共利益--以马来西亚政治为例的研究

作为公共利益的具体表现,无论是马来西亚的法律制度,还是其经济社会发展政策,都是一种利益博弈的结果.博弈的规则、利益集团的力量大小、策略选择是否得当都对博弈的结果即公共利益的形成具有重要影响,其中博弈规则的影响最为关键.在既定规则下,作为一个利益集团,要想在利益博弈中,尽可能取得较多的利益,必须尽可能加强自己的力量,在博弈过程中,采取理性的策略,否则可能会一招不慎,满盘皆输,自己集团的利益在制度或政策(公共利益的具体体现)中也难以得到照顾.     

The Recent Appearance of Favelas in São Paulo City: an Old Problem in a New Setting

Abstract— While favelas have been an important feature of many Brazilian cities over the past 50 years, they were relatively insignificant in São Paulo until the mid- 1970s. Since then, São Paulo's favelas have experienced a dramatic expansion and some estimates now put their total population in the region of two million. This article examines potential explanations for this sudden change, including migration, changes in the housing market, relative prices and state intervention.     

Power,cultural nationalism,and postcolonial public architecture: building a parliament house in post-independence Myanmar

This article focuses on the contested, and frequently postponed, construction of a new parliament house in postcolonial Myanmar. Since the late colonial period, the country’s legislative bodies have convened in four different buildings, three located in the former capital Yangon and the latest one in Naypyitaw. Drawing on legislative proceedings and media reports, this study interrogates the relationship between decolonisation, national identity, state-building, and public architecture in post-independence Myanmar. It suggests that the commissioning and construction of a new legislative house has always served a dual objective: projecting state power and national pride in both Myanmar’s early postcolonial and later post-junta political contexts, whilst symbolising a sense of nationhood grounded on the representational ideals of the dominant and ruling ethnic Bamar elites.     

Public perception of energy security in Lithuania: between material interest and energy independence

The issue of the energy security in social sciences research area is mostly prevalent in political sciences. The sociological research of the issues of energy is rather scarce. The reasons of the lack of concern about sociology of energy security could be related to the specific geopolitical context of post-Soviet states. The energy policy of new democratic post-Soviet states are pressed to reconstruct the entire energy system of former Soviet Union. This is not only technological or political, but maybe, first of all, social issue directly related to the consumption of users of gas and electricity and their prices. The societies and different social groups become an important social actors in the stressful energy policy. There is a lack of attention not only to social determinants of perception of energy security but also a lack of deeper analysis of public opinion in Lithuania. This article aims to improve our understanding of the Lithuanian public perception of energy security. This article focuses on two aspects: (a) An analysis of public opinion on the most important aspects of energy security and the social factors influencing them. The hypothesis is that public perception of energy security is related to value orientations. (b) An analysis of how public opinion on energy policy executed by the government and confidence in the government are intertwined with the concept of energy security.     

The exclusionary side of (women’s) social citizenship in Southeastern Europe: childcare policy development in Bosnia-Herzegovina and gender,social and territorial inequalities

ABSTRACT

The article explores the shifts in (women’s) social citizenship in Bosnia-Herzegovina and its effect on the development of childcare policy in the 1945–2019 period. Gendered, selective childcare policy, which was inherent in the socialist notion of social citizenship and aimed to emancipate women as ‘worker-mothers’, deteriorated in the transition period when ethnicity became prioritized over gender and class. Exclusionary citizenship practices increased with the post-1990 reforms as gender and social inequalities incorporated into childcare policy design become intertwined with inequalities based on ethnicity and/or locality. The post-1990 period is characterized by discontinuity, retrenchment and weak implementation of childcare-related rights.     

Modes of legitimation by female Pentecostal-Charismatic preachers in East Africa: a comparative study in Kenya and Tanzania

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the rise of female Pentecostal-Charismatic (PC) church leaders and how they legitimize themselves in a male dominated religious field in Kenya and Tanzania. It explores, in a qualitative way, four women leaders’ modes of attaining legitimacy in African PC milieus and contributes empirically based knowledge from four cases which include Eleonorah Wambui of Prosperity Gospel Ministries and Jesca Njuguna of Prophetic Word Ministry in Kenya, as well as Neema Mwambembela of Holy Ghost Power Assemblies and Irene John of Miracle Prayer Ministry in Tanzania. We make reference to Boulding’s delineation of sources of legitimacy ([1967] ‘The Legitimacy of Economics.’ Economic Inquiry 5 (4): 299–307). We found that the four East African female preachers that we examined share certain common practices, but that differences are manifest among them owing to differences in their personal preferences and to the contextual flavour of each ministry.