The ‘Louis XVI of the Turks’: The Character of an Ottoman Sultan

Selim III ruled the Ottoman Empire in the Age of Revolutions, but his rule did not reflect the vigorous, expansionist and aggressive spirit of this age. He more resembled a ruler forced to defend his empire from the turbulence of the age, an effort which also shaped his character and perception of rulership. During his years in royal confinement, he clung passionately to the revival of the warrior-sultan through charismatic leadership. While on the throne, there was a gradual transformation of his perception of rulership and he became satisfied with being the bureaucratic ruler of the empire.     

The diplomacy of ‘Disregard’

Abstract

The recent revival of interest in the state in post-colonial societies is, in large part, a consequence of the decline of dependency theory as a general tool for the analysis of society and economy in the “third world” and a move towards an approach based upon the concepts of mode of production and social formation. The focus of analysis has consequently moved from global structures of capital circulation to class struggle within specific peripheral social formations. This paper is not the place to follow the complex debate which has surrounded the decline of dependency theory but the following quote by Leys puts succinctly the major thrust of the critics:     

The ‘Europeanization’ of the Religious Cleavage in Turkey: The Case of the Alevis

The EU accession process reveals a series of paradoxes, which are not merely indicative of the complexity of Turkey's state–religion relations in general but also point to how the Justice and Development Party (JDP) government portrays controversies such as the Sunni–Alevi divide. The religious cleavages in Turkey have become Europeanized and found expression in the European political and legal structures. The Alevis have been one of the groups most affected by this issue partly because of their heterodox and transnational religious identity and partly as a result of their links with secularist political sectors. The paper underlines a dilemma of current Turkish politics. The case of the Alevis shows that the regime's current transformation undermines its basis through exclusion. The JDP's political strategy, focusing on the effective control of the mainstream Sunni base, does not willingly accept or tolerate the autonomy of some civil society groups, including the Alevis.     

The Commonwealth Caribbean and Europe: The End of the Affair?

Abstract

The institutional relationship between the Commonwealth Caribbean and the European Union (EU) dates back to the mid-1970s, when the Lomé Convention was signed. The agreement was seen as a high water mark in First–Third World relations. However, since then the bond has come under concerted pressure. The consequence is that today the particularism that underpinned relations for so long has almost vanished and the EU is beginning to treat the Caribbean like any other relatively marginal region of the world. The article evaluates the reasons for this change, in particular: the scrapping of the trade protocols; the erosion of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) preference due to free trade agreements signed by the EU; the refocusing of EU development policy towards the least developed countries; and the split in the ACP group with the creation of an ill-designed regional Economic Partnership Agreement. The article places these changes into starker relief by assessing briefly the deepening links between the United Kingdom Overseas Territories and the EU. However, as the article highlights, this link will neither reboot nor sustain the more important Commonwealth Caribbean–EU relationship.     

The “killer of the cane fields”: The social construction of the Australian coastal taipan

This paper makes an original contribution to human–animal studies through the application of social construction theory to an iconic species of Australian snake, the coastal taipan. Little research attention using this approach has been focused on reptiles, and this study addresses this gap in the literature. The taipan has achieved a high level of notoriety in Australia. This paper seeks to understand why and how this has occurred. Drawing on a range of data derived from analysis of newspaper articles, popular magazines and books, and the scientific literature, four dominant narratives are identified: the taipan as an object of science and natural history, as social problem, as object quest and as celebrity. The insights gained from this study support the contention that the meanings made of Australia's fauna are fluid, historically contextualised and socially constructed. In the specific case of the taipan, key individuals, including scientists, popular natural historians and snake men contributed greatly to the species’ construction, as did popular cultural forms such as newspapers and natural history books.     

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 Language of the Nation: The Rise of Arabic among Jews and Christians (1900–1950)

Abstract

This essay explores the ways in which in the period following the First World War, non-Muslim communities participated in the establishment of Modern Standard Arabic as the foremost symbol of the new states that replaced the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. A comparison of the sociolinguistic trajectories of Syriac Christians in North Iraq, Jews in Baghdad and Catholic Christians in Palestine suggests that Arabic’s function of undergirding the ‘Arab states’ thrived on earlier interpretations of Arabic as the language of interregional and interdenominational contacts and as the language of cultural, societal and political modernization rather than on exclusivist nationalist, ethnic or linguistic identifications. Put differently, the increased use of Arabic by those who also had other languages at their disposal resulted from the combination of pragmatism with commitment to societal modernization and inclusive nationalism. The linguistic trajectories of these three groups are analysed against the background of a rereading of George Antonius’ The Arab Awakening (1938) as a contemporary source for the rise of Arab nationalism among non-Muslim minorities.     

The Political Economy of Myanmar’s Transition

Since holding elections in 2010, Myanmar has transitioned from a direct military dictatorship to a formally democratic system and has embarked on a period of rapid economic reform. After two decades of military rule, the pace of change has startled almost everyone and led to a great deal of cautious optimism. To make sense of the transition and assess the case for optimism, this article explores the political economy of Myanmar’s dual transition from state socialism to capitalism and from dictatorship to democracy. It analyses changes within Myanmar society from a critical political economy perspective in order to both situate these developments within broader regional trends and to evaluate the country’s current trajectory. In particular, the emergence of state-mediated capitalism and politico-business complexes in Myanmar’s borderlands are emphasised. These dynamics, which have empowered a narrow oligarchy, are less likely to be undone by the reform process than to fundamentally shape the contours of reform. Consequently, Myanmar’s future may not be unlike those of other Southeast Asian states that have experienced similar developmental trajectories.     

The Making of Nakasone Yasuhiro’s Diplomacy

The upbringing and early life experiences of a political leader strongly influence development of the policy framework implemented when in office. In the case of Nakasone Yasuhiro, his experiences during the Pacific War would later be reflected in both domestic policy and international affairs. In terms of international relations, Nakasone formed relationships of trust with international leaders in both East and West that engendered respect and that contributed to his exceptional leadership in Japan’s diplomacy.     

The Policy of Strategic Demobilisation: The Social Policy of the Christian Democratic–Liberal Coalition, 2009–13

This article addresses two research questions: which course did the CDU, CSU–FDP coalition government choose to follow in social policy from 2009 to 2013? And what relationships exist between social policy in this period and the Bundestag election in 2013? The analysis of primary and secondary data reveals both continuity and discontinuity in social policy in the 17th legislative period of the Bundestag. The decisions and non-decisions on social protection and labour market regulation in this period mirror a wide variety of determinants. These include partisan effects, electoral cycles, co-governing judges and anonymous social policy of market forces. The data also suggest that the CDU/CSU has been relatively successful in its strategy of ‘asymmetric demobilisation’, the strategy of changing its social policy profile to one more similar to that of its social democratic opponent, in order to demobilise the SPD's voters rather than mobilising them. More ambivalent has been the electoral outcome of the FDP's role in social policy. The FDP's first foray into leading a large welfare state ministry, the Federal Ministry of Health, in 2009 to 2013 did not prove to be a winning proposition for the Liberals electorally. Social policy in general and welfare state recalibration in particular thus seem to be an electorally especially risky project for a liberal party such as the FDP.     

The Dead Hand of the Treasury: The Economic and Social Development of the Trucial States, 1948–60

This paper addresses an aspect of British policy in the Trucial States that has received scant scholarly attention. It examines British attempts to promote economic and social development in the Trucial States, and places this policy within the context of British attitudes towards the economic development of the colonial empire. During the 1950s Britain's interest in the Arabian Peninsula expanded, in notable contrast with the rest of the Middle East. One aspect of this expanded role was British efforts to improve the economic and social conditions prior to the discovery of oil in Abu Dhabi in 1958. British officials on the ground were concerned to improve the lot of the population of these impoverished shaikhdoms for a combination of political and strategic and ethical reasons. This article shows that attempts to introduce a modicum of economic and social development in the Trucial States were hindered by the Treasury's refusal to provide adequate funds, and because of inherent problems in finding suitable development projects. Nonetheless, the plans put in place during the 1950s did provide the foundations for subsequent development programmes, which, in turn, drastically expanded as a result of oil wealth.     

The Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia 1967–1969: The Purge of the “Heirs of Genghis Khan”

This is the edited text of the Lecture which he delivered to the Society on 8 January 2008, immediately after he had been presented with the Sir Percy Sykes Medal. 1 1. The Sir Percy Sykes Memorial Medal, established in 1947, in memory of Sir Percy Sykes (1869–1945), a British soldier and diplomat who spent 25 years associated with Iran, and was author of one of the first histories of that country, A History of Persia, as well as of the travel book Ten Thousand Miles in Persia. The medal is ‘to be awarded by the Council of The Royal Society for Asian Affairs at such time or times as the council may in its discretion think fit, to any distinguished traveller, writer or other distinguished person whatsoever approved by the Society, who is deemed to have increased man's knowledge of and stimulated man's interest in Asian countries, or done work furthering cultural relations between the Commonwealth and Asian countries?…’. Sit Percy Sykes is not to be confused with his contemporary, Sir Mark Sykes, co-author of the 1916 Anglo-French ‘Sykes-Picot’ Agreement. Previous recipients of the award have included Freya Stark, Albert Hourani, Ella Maillart, Hugh Richardson, Giuseppe Tucci, Gunnar Jarring, Denis Wright, Peter Hopkirk, Mark Tully and William Dalrymple. (See Activities of the Society, page 332 of this issue.)     

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.     

The Repercussions of Brexit for CARICOM’s Cohesion

Abstract

Britain’s decision to leave the European Union has sent shockwaves not just within Europe but across the globe. In the Caribbean, it has heightened uncertainty about the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) ability to survive its own fissures, most recently expressed in Jamaica’s decision to review its membership of CARICOM. This article explores some of the challenges CARICOM is experiencing, in particular Jamaica’s dissatisfaction with and position within the group. It argues that despite parallels between Britain and Jamaica and their position in their respective groupings, the rationale for CARICOM is fundamentally different from that underlying the European integration experience. It concludes that CARICOM is unlikely to unfurl because the factors driving the process—small size, global marginality and common challenges—provide a strong impetus for their cohesion.     

The Outcry of the Periphery? An Analysis of Ticino's No to Immigration

When the popular initiative “against mass immigration” was accepted by the Swiss people and cantons on 9 February 2014, Ticino had by far the highest approval rate. The Italian‐speaking canton thus once more confirmed its singular position, assumed since the 1990s, on popular votes regarding immigration and foreign policy. This seems to be indicative of wider crises and changes in both the economic and political spheres that have favoured the emergence of a political opposition between centre and periphery. The results of a survey among 1400 citizens of Ticino after the vote of 9 February confirm this. In essence, on top of the question of immigration, the vote was influenced by a fearful perception of Ticino as a “double periphery” vis‐à‐vis both Berne and Lombardy.