Boxing and Politics in Slovakia: 'Meciarism' Roots,Theory, Practice

This article argues that 'Meciarism' represented an inevitable phase on Slovakia's way towards democracy and a market economy - it was the 'Slovak must'. 'Meciarism' as a distinct phase of development was determined by the fact that state-building and democratic transition took place at the same time and were fostered by peculiar traditional features of Slovak political culture. The first substantive section of the article introduces the theory and practice of 'Meciarism'. The attempt to clarify core features and their ideological roots is illustrated by a selection of examples that depict the reality of 'Meciarist rule' and the coalition government's political style. The second section investigates the political environment on the civic level, which was favourable to the emergence of 'Meciarism', and argues that 'civic incompetence' was the main reason for Prime Minister Meciar's political success. Finally, the third section explores the historic origins of 'Meciarism'. It shows how distinctive historical conditions and constellations shaped Slovak society's political culture to such an extent that 'Meciarism' was an inevitable feature of the first years of national independence.     

The Rise and Fall of the 'Ethical Dimension': Presentation and Practice in New Labour's Foreign Policy

This article explores why the New Labour government in Britain stopped using the former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's notion of an 'ethical dimension' to present its foreign policy to the public. The article begins by tracing the rise of the 'ethical dimension' in New Labour's foreign policy pronouncements. It then surveys some of the debates about the party's foreign policy record, investigating how far its explicit appeal to ethics merely overlies traditional British foreign policy practices. The final section discusses three possible explanations for New Labour's decision to abandon the language of an 'ethical dimension'. It is argued that this decision suggests two important lessons for the future relationship of ethics to foreign policy. While explicit ethical standards provide important benchmarks for activists and public intellectuals, they can also serve to highlight the failures of an administration at the expense of more positive developments. Consequently, jettisoning the language of an 'ethical dimension' may actually encourage a more sophisticated public debate that moves beyond the facile and misleading belief that foreign policies are either 'ethical' or 'unethical'.     

Global Intifadah? September 11th and the Struggle within Islam

Against the background of two dominant world order theories - the 'End of History' and the 'Clash of Civilisations' - this article argues that September 11th epitomised two interrelated patterns in world politics: first, the idiosyncrasies and perils of globalisation and second the struggle between different directions in contemporary 'Muslim' politics. The former challenges the traditional view that links globalisation solely to phenomena such as economic integration or the spread of liberal-democratic values, while the latter refers to intra-regional developments in the 'Muslim' world, questioning the characterisation of 'Islam' as a monolithic entity destined to challenge the security of the 'West'. Taken together, these two patterns defy traditional categories of international relations, touching on issues ranging from the role of the state to national security considerations.     

The Pinochet Case: 'Forced to be Free' Abroad and at Home

In part one of this article it was posited that the Pinochet case was best understood not as a harbinger of a borderless world of eroded state sovereignty and universal rights, but rather as an indication that those distanced from popular sovereignty and citizenship by the deals struck in a pacted democratic transition may have found their most potent means of forcing a reopening of the particularist national debate on who belongs to, and in, 'the nation'. Here, two phases of the Pinochet case are examined through this prism. The extradition attempt saw Pinochet's victims 'escape' the legalized confines of domestic space only to shape the understanding of national citizenship from afar. The case's surprising development after repatriation revealed the potential coercive power of the cosmopolitan liberal consensus on 'deserving sovereignty' similar to the conditionality associated with the neo-liberal 'Washington consensus' on economic reform. Three primary lessons are drawn: cosmopolitanism may have to be coerced; pacts are not forever; and place and belonging still matter even as justice is 'globalized'.     

The symbiosis between Palestinian ‘Fayyadism’ and Israeli ‘economic peace’: the political economy of capitalist peace in the context of colonisation

Abstract

Recent years have seen both the Palestinian Authority and Israeli government conveying the supremacy of economic approaches over politics to achieve peace and stability. More specifically, the encounter and symbiosis between Palestinian 'Fayyadism' as a professional application of neo-liberal approaches to state-building and economic development, and the Israeli strategy of 'economic peace' towards the Palestinians have shaped much of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict dynamic, with a particularly discernible materialisation in the West Bank. This article critically analyses this dynamic in light of the recently revived theory of 'capitalist peace', which, despite valid criticism, entails considerable similarities with the basic assumptions of 'Fayyadism' and 'economic peace'. While two key dimensions express this symbiosis—security co-ordination and economic normalisation—the article focuses mainly on the economic part, particularly the case of joint industrial zones, which exemplify the most extreme example of this symbiosis.     

Was There a Clinton Doctrine? President Clinton's Foreign Policy Reconsidered

This article discusses the concept of 'doctrine' within American foreign policy and seeks to locate a possible Clinton Doctrine. It argues, against some interpretations of the Clinton presidency, that Clinton's foreign policy did have a degree of coherence necessary to sustain a 'doctrine'. The broad development of Clinton's foreign policy between 1993 and 2001 is summarized and assessed. Five possible Clinton doctrines are investigated. The article concludes that the best case for being regarded as the Clinton Doctrine relates to the doctrine of 'rogue states'.     

The logical framework: An easy escape,a straitjacket,or a useful planning tool?

The 'logical framework' and 'logical framework approach' have become widespread planning tools, particularly in donor-assisted projects in developing countries. With its simple format and the clear relationship between variables, the logical framework is helpful for summarising main concerns relating to development schemes. At the same time, the author argues, current conventions limit the framework's usefulness; and he suggests modifications that should substantially enhance its applicability and information-carrying capacity. The logical framework approach seeks to address additional dimensions of planning. However, it is too circumscribed by standardised steps and procedures to be defended as the ubiquitous planning methodology it is commonly held out to be. The 'logical framework approach' is here juxtaposed with a broader and more flexible concept of 'development planning', with which it should not be confused.     

'Something nasty down below': The challenges facing cultural studies in English departments

ABSTRACT

This article examines the controversial impact that English literary studies is having upon cultural studies. Instead of reconstructing itself in the light of moving onto the terrain of cultural studies, English literary studies is in danger of over-textualising cultural studies, and remains captive to appropriating texts ethically to suit its historical mission as a 'surrogate religion'. These prevent English literary studies from properly engaging with the recent shift within cultural studies to notions of the 'active audience'. However, the preoccupation of English studies with postmodern textualist theories can enable cultural studies to break with the damaging opposition between 'text' and 'social context'.     

Buyer and Seller Differences in Business‐to‐Business Negotiations

The purpose of this article is twofold: first, to examine the differences between buyers' and sellers' use of negotiation tactics in face‐to‐face business‐to‐business (B2B) negotiations and second, to explore how negotiators' professed negotiation styles influence buyers' and sellers' use of tactics. The methodology is a multiple case study analysis of eighteen negotiators representing twelve companies in six real‐life buyer–seller negotiations in B2B settings analyzed using qualitative research methods, including both comparative analysis and frequency analysis. We found some difference between buyers' and sellers' use of negotiation tactics, which suggests this question deserves further empirical study. Buyers' and sellers' use of specific tactics differs according to which overall strategy the negotiators chose, and sellers generally use a greater number of negotiation tactics than buyers. The findings challenge previous findings that suggest that B2B negotiations are collaborative and that negotiators communicate in a collaborative manner. The findings also increase our understanding of buyers' and sellers' variable use of tactics in the course of everyday practice as well as the interplay between negotiation tactics and strategies.     

Loyal Advisor? Colonel Edward House's Confidential Trips to Europe, 1913–1917

Between 1913 and 1917, Colonel Edward House, President Woodrow Wilson's closest friend and advisor, undertook several missions to Europe. Serving to shape House's attitude to American neutrality, House's advice deriving from these trips was extremely influential upon Wilson's foreign policy. This analysis examines the influences on House's advice, arguing that his pro-Allied stance evolved during this time and influenced Wilson's ultimate decision to have the United States enter the war on the Allied side. The primary influence on House's attitude was his relationship with British foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey. Several factors drew the two men together. They meshed with House's pre-existing views on global geopolitics expressed in his novel, Philip Dru. Previous scholarship that has investigated House's trips to Europe tends to gloss over the intricacies of the House-Grey relationship. Whilst the two men shared a close friendship, examination of their correspondence and the observation of others suggests that Grey's diplomatic goal was to establish close Anglo–American relations, and that a close connexion with House furthered that aim. This connexion re-enforced House's pro-Allied attitude that, in turn, contributed to America's entrance into the war.     

Dahl's Procedural Democracy: A Foucauldian Critique

Using Michel Foucault's insights into the operations of power this article assesses the theoretical strengths of Robert Dahl's procedural democracy. It assumes a 'perfect' procedural democracy that functions according to the ideal standards, or five criteria, that Dahl introduces. In so far as this imaginary democracy is 'perfect' it will, according to Dahl, ensure a variety of goods such as equality and freedom. Theoretically speaking the controlling mechanisms that Foucault describes will not be able to function within Dahl's model, since they tend to annihilate the goods that it is meant to secure. The article reveals two central difficulties with Dahl's account. First it shows that a range of controlling mechanisms that suppress freedom and engender inequality could legitimately function within a 'perfect' democracy. Second, it argues that within this democracy, human traits inconsistent with the values considered essential by Dahl can still be generated. On a deeper level, the article concludes that a 'perfect' procedural democracy is untenable because procedures can never be divorced from power relations.     

Lifting the 'No Haste,Be Patient' Policy: Implications for Cross-Strait Relations

Cross-Strait relations remain deadlocked following Chen Shui-bian's inauguration as Taiwan's president. Amid this political stalemate, Chen's administration decided to change the 'no haste, be patient' ( jie-ji yueng-ren ) policy while refusing to endorse the 'one China' principle. While this policy change is in response to domestic demands, Chen and his ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) are unlikely to reap any benefit from these actions without active cooperation from China's leaders. Beijing will continue to use its economic clout in an attempt to pull Taiwan into political union, as Taipei needs to nurture an environment favourable for domestic and foreign investment in Taiwan in order to maintain its competitive edge over China and thus preserve its de facto independence. Beijing's leaders will need to rethink their rigid stand on the 'one China' principle, since increased cross-Strait economic integration may not lead to the expected political union they desire.     

Leading learning and change from the middle: Reconceptualising strategy's purpose,content, and measures

When implementing a transformational global vision and mission, three problems typically confront international NGOs: aligning different levels of planning and strategy; balancing global analysis and priorities against local realities; and identifying measures that both indicate progress and promote and encourage innovation. This article reports on the efforts of CARE International's Latin America Regional Management Unit to address these problems by introducing 'reversals' to common strategic planning principles and processes. It shows middle managers in NGOs how they can lead 'from the middle', and considers 'the region' to be the nexus enabling an organisation to change and learn across multiple hierarchical levels.     

Uneven space of everyday modernity: the colonial logic of the suburb in Tanizaki Jun'ichiro's A Fool's Love

Tanizaki Jun'ichiro's A Fool's Love (1924–1925) has been widely studied as a representative text of the modern popular culture of the Taisho period. This article treats the work as a key text that reveals the colonial relations embedded in everyday modernity of Japan's interwar years, and examines the articulations of colonial relations in three registers of the text. It first investigates the protagonists' unrestrained embrace of cosmopolitan culture as a manifestation of Japan's ambiguous imperialist consciousness, shaped in the interstices between Western and Asian others. The second and third registers concern a particular kind of space dominant in the story: the modern suburb, which became a major symbol of Japan's modernity in the 1920s. In its subordinate relationship with the city, the suburb exemplifies colonial relations. The second register explored in the article is the overlap between the text's exoticism and suburban topography. A key scene on a resort beach is examined for its reference to Hawai'i and the setting's suburban nature in relation to Tokyo. The last register is the suppression of the story's suburban setting. The article analyzes the disappearance as a manifestation of the anxiety about the unevenness of capitalist development that the suburb represents.     

Considering al-Qa'ida's Innovation Doctrine: From Strategic Texts to “Innovation in Practice”

Understanding how terrorist groups innovate and adapt is key for anticipating future shifts in terrorist threats. Past innovation studies have identified factors that shape group behavior, as well as the importance of combining study of organizations' innovation doctrines with data on how these doctrines are put into practice. Here we describe such an analysis for two texts that have shaped al-Qa'ida and its associated movements' strategies: contrasting Naji's Management of Savagery with al-Suri's Call to Global Islamic Resistance—including elements of the latter relevant to innovation specifically translated for this work. Though open source data on the groups' innovation practices are necessarily more sparse, we contrast the doctrinal texts with selected examples, which suggest caution in assuming that group doctrine is necessarily put into practice “as written.”

[Supplemental materials are available for this article. Please visit the publisher's online edition of Terrorism and Political Violence for the following free, supplemental resource: Translation of portions of Abu Mus'ab al-Suri's The Call for Global Islamic Resistance, relating to innovation and learning.]     

New EU Members in Europe's Security Policy

What impact will the 2004 round of enlargement have on the European Union's common foreign and security policy? This article argues that the new members' arrival in theory strengthens the Euroatlantic camp within the EU. This impact has, however, been limited by the accession states' difficulty in exercising effective influence in Brussels so far, and their foreign policy is also coming under pressure at home because of the unpopularity of the Iraq War. The newcomers hold distinct views on the EU's policy toward Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union. On this point, their efforts have begun to slowly but demonstrably transform the European Union's own involvement in countries on the EU's eastern frontier. In addition, the first signs are becoming apparent of the new members' effective imprint on the EU's common foreign and security policy.     

A Manual of Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism

The current wave of so-called 'suicide-bombings' perpetrated by Muslims has been part of Shi'ite Islamic idealization of suffering and death, meant for the Believer to identify with the ordeal of Imam Hussein in the seventh century CE. It was revived by the Shi'ite Hizballah in Lebanon against the Americans and the Israelis, and then expanded by Sunnite Palestinian Islamists, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and even by avowedly 'secular' Palestinian groups such as the Fatah's al-Aqsa Brigades and Tanzim. But the justifications for all those groups are, nevertheless, curiously Islamic. This article presents the text written by a prominent cleric and diffused in the Palestinian media, rationalizing suicide-bombing as the ultimate mode of struggle against Muslim enemies.     

The development management task and reform of 'public' social services

With its emphasis on target-setting and performance measures, the New Public Management (NPM) appears to offer a coherent and 'no-nonsense' approach to public sector reform and the public management task. This article suggests that three questions require further thought: 'Management of what?', 'Management by whom?', and 'How to manage?' It considers these questions using the case of Community Based Health Care (CBHC) and its promotion by NGOs in Tanzania. The article argues that the task of public management is one of managing an arena of public action which includes (and excludes) a range of actors and agendas. Once this is taken into account, it becomes clear that the challenge to all development managers is how to manage more effective interdependence.     

‘Dancing with the prince’: Ngo's survival strategics in the Afghan conflict

Afghan NGOs have been a major provider of humanitarian aid throughout the Afghan conflict. They remained operational during this period by 'dancing' with and between the various parties to the conflict, their survival contingent on their ability to build ad hoc patterns of alliance and cooperation. This article explores the nature of 'the dance' between NGOs, the warring parties, and the NGOs' constituencies. It asks whether 'dancing with the prince' represents an accommodation with violence or is a necessary compromise which will ultimately contribute to resolving the conflict. It concludes by drawing out key lessons for donors who support indigenous NGOs operating in complex political emergencies.     

Reflections on Producing Security

Whether China's strategic culture is offensive or defensive in nature is an interesting question in understanding Chinese foreign policy behavior. Alastair Johnston argues for a parabellum culture of offensive realism that leads to a pattern of Chinese aggressive behavior. But China's behavior in the Korean War, the Sino-Indian War, and the Sino-Vietnam War shows a defensive pattern that Johnston's analysis cannot fully explain. By analyzing the operational code of Mao Zedong's public foreign policy speeches, using the automated Verbs in Context System (VICS) of content analysis, this article attempts to determine whether Mao's belief system reflected the influence of a defensive or an offensive strategic culture, and compares the results to Johnston's analysis. The results indicate that Johnston's cultural realist argument is only partially correct and needs to be qualified in important respects. The operational-code analysis of Mao Zedong reveals a more complex reality than did Johnston's analysis. The results partly support Johnston's claim about Mao as an offensive realist, but this result cannot be generalized across situations, as the operational code analysis shows that strategic beliefs are not static. Mao's beliefs were also the product of his personality and of the international historical setting.