Fighting the Jihad of the Pen: Countering Revolutionary Islam's Ideology

Al Qaeda's ideology is not new; their critique of the existing political and social order and vision for how to redeem the Muslim world builds on preexisting arguments of several 20th century predecessors who called for an Islamic revolution that would create a new order based on Islam. The persistence of revolutionary Islam suggests that these ideas need to be countered in order to strike at the root of the problem driving Islamically motivated terrorism and insurgency. U.S. efforts to defeat Al Qaeda, however, continue to focus primarily on killing or capturing the leadership, interdicting operations, and defensively bolstering the homeland and U.S. assets against various types of attacks. In order to confront Al Qaeda's ideology, U.S. efforts should focus on indirectly fostering “a market place of ideas”—the space and culture of questioning and debating—in order to challenge the grievances and solutions proposed by revolutionary Islam.     

Revolutionary Pathways: Leaders and the International Impacts of Domestic Revolutions

How much and in what ways do individual leaders matter for international politics? This article sheds new light on these questions by considering the consequences of domestic revolutions in international relations. We argue that revolutions have international effects due to two separate pathways, one associated with the event and one associated with the new leader’s administration. In the first pathway, a revolutionary event disrupts established relationships and perceptions, creating uncertainty both within the state and abroad. In the second pathway, revolutions put individuals into office who are more willing to challenge the status quo and who have publicly committed to a sustained shift in policies during their administration. These two distinct pathways suggest that the important question about revolutions is not whether leaders or events matter most but rather the conditions under which they matter. Consequently, we studied these pathways on three phenomena: international economic sanctions, domestic economic growth, and interstate alliances. We find that revolutionary events have a short-term negative effect on domestic economic growth, while revolutionary leaders have a long-term effect on the probability that a revolutionary state is targeted for sanctions. Both the revolutionary leader and the revolution’s immediate events alter the state’s international alliances. Our findings suggest that no single level of analysis completely dominates, and the answer depends on the outcome of interest.     

Revolutionary conflict in federations: the Indian case

Federations promise to provide autonomous, representative governance that is flexible enough to overcome potential internal conflict resulting from the dual stresses of governing diverse populations and power overreach. India is the world's biggest federation but also hosts the most violent revolution in modern history against a federal state. Since 2004, 150,000 people have been killed or displaced in the war between the Communist Party of India-Maoist and India's government. Conflict management efforts led not to resolution but catastrophe across Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand as state responses contradicted each other and the centre's efforts. The differences illustrated how institutional mechanisms of decentralisation create, sustain and otherwise alter internal revolutionary conflicts that cross subunit boundaries. Three unique characteristics come into play when federal governments tackle revolutionary conflict: picking from subunit actions like policy buffets, exacerbation of state–subunit fissures and empowerment of local elites who put political self-interest above conflict resolution.     

From Revolutionary Dreams to Organizational Fragmentation: Disputes over Violence within ETA and Sendero Luminoso

This article examines the evolution of ETA and Shining Path and the leaders' early theoretical justifications for armed action and the views of dissenters. Although both organizations emerged under similar circumstances, members of each differed in how they thought about violent politics. This resulted in different types and amounts of violence. Leaders revised their thinking amid constitutional change, fierce government repression and the entrance of new generations of activists. The two cases corroborate several recent scholarly theses - in particular, hypotheses about the ubiquity of discord and the propensity toward fragmentation within movements that use violence - and suggest new hypotheses about the role of leadership in the evolution of revolutionary movements.     

A Rose by Any Other Name: Neoclassical Realism as the Logical and Necessary Extension of Structural Realism

Neoclassical realism is often criticized by non-realists for being an ad hoc and theoretically degenerative effort to explain away anomalies for neorealism. In this paper, I argue instead that neoclassical realism is a logical extension and necessary part of advancing neorealism. Structural realism argues that the system constrains but does not determine state action and where foreign policy departs from what would be ideal behavior given a state's structural position, domestic politics and ideas are generally the cause. This focus on mistakes and maladaptive behavior, seen in such neoclassical realist concepts as over-or under-balancing, is necessary to avoid falling into the trap of merely using domestic politics and ideas to make neorealism more determinate and explain residual variance in foreign policy choice unaccounted for by structure. The article attempts to correct the mistaken presumption that particular paradigms own domestic politics and ideas, asserting instead that each paradigm has access to these variables but must make them their own.     

Ethnos,demos and democratization: A comparison of the Czech Republic,Hungary and Poland

With the collapse of European communism, Western observers and leaders fostered new expectations about the relative likelihood for post‐communist nations to ‘join the West’. The Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary were seen as least problematic candidates, sponsored especially by the German leadership. A troubling issue however is the emerging pattern of ethnos‐politics, identity politics based on blood ties, as opposed to demos‐politics, civic politics based on universal territorial citizenship. In the Czech Republic this ethnos‐politics appears most clearly as anti‐Romany racism and governmental discrimination. In Poland and Hungary, centre‐right parties have developed a politics of ethnic patriotism which labels opponents as traitors and foreign elements. In these nations, political liberalism has been too weak and often too opportunist to offer a viable demos‐politics as a counterweight. Instead, the ex‐communist successor parties in Poland and Hungary have re‐emerged as the mass base for a non‐nationalist demos‐politics. The West has yet to take seriously the new ethnos‐politics, prefering to give priority to economic and foreign‐policy compatibility. The admission of these nations into the European Union or North Atlantic Treaty Organization would give new legitimacy to ethnos within the West, and reinforce the ethnos‐politics of Austria's Haider and France's LePen.     

Everyday encounters with the global behind the Iron Curtain: imagining freedom,desiring liberalism in socialist Romania

This article challenges the liberal assumption that socialist societies were closed or isolated entities, and that it was the 1989 revolutionary moment that both freed them and integrated them into global dynamics. Everyday encounters with a particular vision of the global had already shaped the political imagination of ordinary Romanians prior to 1989. Such encounters constituted their instruction into concepts of liberalism and the liberal subject, freedom and democracy. By looking at informal (and illicit) networks of consumption of both goods and ideas (such as tuning into Radio Free Europe and Voice of America), I seek to explore the sensorial dimension of everyday politics in communist Romania and to illustrate how such a sensorial experience reinforced the imagined distance between a free and prosperous ‘outside’ and an impoverished and oppressive ‘inside’. I use Michel de Certeau's theorizing on the everyday, and Ashis Nandy's preference for the ‘non-player’ as the ordinary hero of violent political projects, to go beyond the framework of power and resistance, and to explore the more nuanced practices of coping, survival and subversion.     

Mainstream Revolutionaries: Sinn Féin as a “Normal” Political Party?

Despite the seismic shift of Sinn Féin from being the “mouthpiece” of the Provisional Irish Republican Army to the largest nationalist force in Northern Ireland, the party continues to project its objectives within the revolutionary politics and tradition of 1916. Whilst various groups across the island of Ireland stress their loyalty to Irish independence and allegiance to their republican forefathers, 2016 also plays host to devolved assembly elections in Northern Ireland. The centenary of the Easter Rising is therefore a poignant moment to reassess republican politics, more specifically, the relationship between the armed revolutionary tradition and constitutionalism. Within the post-peace process era Sinn Féin have been accused of maintaining an autocratic culture and an intra-party framework that is more representative of a clandestine revolutionary organisation than a political party. Yet, simultaneously, Sinn Féin have not been immune to the pressures experienced by other modern political parties, bound by the laws of electoral competition and driven by office-seeking priorities. In order to explore Sinn Féin within the modern political arena, this article firstly examines the broader debate surrounding how armed groups make the transition into constitutional politics. Secondly, public opinion survey data is used to judge the basis of Sinn Féin's electoral appeal. Finally, internal party documents are used to examine party structure, intra-party democracy, and professionalisation in order to judge the extent to which Sinn Féin have completed the transition from being a “mouthpiece” to their armed counterpart, towards being a “normal” political party.     

Anti-Americanism in Electoral Politics: Insights from South Korea's 2002 Presidential Election

Since September 11, 2001, anti-Americanism has emerged as an important issue in international politics. In democratic election campaigns, anti-Americanism should be an attractive issue where it is expected to have a favorable impact on key swing vote constituencies. Anti-Americanism has certain inherent ideological appeals and more varied historically-based attractions. Anti-Americanism should be least attractive where countries continue to rely on U.S. security guarantees. South Korea's December 2002 presidential election, in which winner Roh Moo-hyun openly sympathized with anti-American demonstrators, appears to contradict this expectation. Yet closer analysis of individual-level polling data shows that anti-Americanism was, both statistically and substantively, much less significant than alternative campaign issues. By activating the numerous voters hostile to the North Korean regime, anti-Americanism actually hurt the victor's electoral chances. The approach appears useful in understanding why anti-Americanism is a more prominent ideology and electoral issue in some regions, such as Western Europe and Latin America, and a less prominent one in others, for example Eastern Europe, East Asia, and Oceania.     

How to Change Your Foreign Policy in 100 Days: A New Course with the Prodi Government?

Conventional wisdom has it that the new government of Romano Prodi managed to effect a significant “shift” in Italy's foreign policy away from the course of the centre-right in the proverbial first 100 days of government. A number of discontinuities with the foreign policy of the Berlusconi government have been invoked, ranging from Italy's relations with Europe and its transatlantic posture, to its engagement with areas of crisis such as the Middle East. But these claims have to be substantially qualified. In fact, it appears that the foreign policy of the Prodi government has rather pragmatically blended elements of change and continuity, and that the shift which has occurred in some areas should be understood more as a combination of domestic and international developments than a result of the change in government alone. Moreover, in order to really change Italy's foreign policy – and change it for the better – the government should focus on a different set of priorities, mainly the institutions, instruments, politics, and ideas of foreign policy.     

Public Opinion,Foreign Policy,and the Security Balance in the Taiwan Strait

The delicate security balance in the Taiwan Strait is threatened on several fronts. In Taiwan, democratization has placed Taiwan independence as one of the most salient issues in its domestic politics, and the rise of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party to power has created uncertainty regarding Taiwan's future policy on the Taiwan independence-unification issue. In this paper, we investigate whether external factors such as China's military threat and the United States' security commitment to Taiwan can affect the development of the Taiwan independence movement. An interesting finding from our analysis is approximately one-third of the people in Taiwan can agree simultaneously on two seemingly contradictory issues: to unite with China if China becomes democratic and to declare independence if China will not use force and peace can be maintained. Voters in Taiwan with conditional preferences create opportunities for China and the United States to formulate foreign policy that will restrain Taiwan's drive toward independence.     

国际冷战初期的一个地方热点 ——1945年至1950年间的中越边境跨国革命区

自1920年代起,东亚各国,特别是中国、朝鲜和越南的共产主义运动即互相交织并连成一片。东亚三国共产党之间的合作,促成了南北两个跨国革命区的形成,本文探讨的即是1945年至1950年间南方中越边境跨国革命区形成的条件、中越双方合作的方式,以及1950年前与1950年后中越同盟关系的区别。学术界对于1950年后的中越同盟关系已多有论述,但1950年前中共与印支共之间的合作则未引起同等重视。1950年前的中越跨国革命区值得探讨,一是因为这一时期的中越革命同盟关系实际上是第二次国共内战和第一次印支战争的延伸,也是这两场战争的连接点。这种联系突显了这两场战争的国际性,进一步证明第二次国共内战和第一次印支战争都是与冷战密切关联的热战,中越跨国革命区因此成为冷战初期的一个地方热点,并代表了国际冷战的一种地方形态;二是因为这一阶段两党之间的合作为1950年代至1970年代末期的中越关系奠定了基础。在国共内战期间,中共不仅得到了苏联共产党和朝鲜共产党的支持,也得到了印支共产党的援助,中共对于胡志明和越南革命运动的支持也是从印支战争爆发之日起即已开始,1950年后只是扩大了援助的范围,并提高了援助的规模和合作的级别。1950年前两党关系中发生的一些问题也将在1950年后重复出现并带来严重后果。     

The US,the USSR and the Berlin crises: Perceptions and motivations

Berlin has been a central issue in the postwar dispute between East and West. Often it has been the site of political tensions that brought the Soviet bloc and the West to the brink of open combat. Its geographical location, unique political status, and dramatic division have made Berlin an important symbol in the struggle for the control of Germany and central Europe. Berlin's present role in international politics is noticeably muted. Yet its political status remains essentially unchanged. It remains sharply divided between the East and West even after the past decade's concessions from both sides. Its geographical location is now no less important strategically or politically.     

Changing Politics from Below? Women Parliamentarians in Morocco

The issue of political change in an authoritarian state takes different forms, and one central form that it assumes concerns the introduction of women's rights and female politics. In Morocco, one celebrated issue has been the introduction of a 10 per cent quota system in 2002 in the lower chamber, which saw for the first time a significant number of women in the hitherto male-dominated Moroccan parliament. This legal change gives rise to a number of hypotheses about the possibility of political change through increased formal participation by women in politics. This article gives a critical analysis of the way in which women seemed to have been ‘empowered’, by referring to recent legal changes as well as by presenting the results of a survey that the author conducted with women parliamentarians. Using as an example what is often considered a democratically more advanced Arab country, it thereby illustrates a common feature of pseudo-democratic regimes that incorporate apparently innovative political currents whilst relying on informal mechanisms to prevent real political innovation and associated contestation.     

“We two will never twin”: Fundamentalism and the politics of security

Tell me your enemy and I will tell you who you are. This article takes issue with the significant but often disavowed symbiotic relation between two contemporary enemies: fundamentalism and the politics of security. We start with a metaphorical twinning, showing how these two enemies create, provoke, mimic and ultimately support each other. Then, by way of a discourse analysis, we show the way religion functions in Bush's and Bin Laden's discourses. Our claim is not (only) that the discourse of security is as religious as Bin Laden's but that politics of security as such is the religion of our times. We conclude by arguing that the dyadic interdependence between the two fundamentalisms—Islamic and securiticised—is dissolving the democratic habitus in a post-political condition, a condition devoid of self-reflexivity.     

Measuring and comparing party ideology in nonindustrialized societies: taking party manifesto research to Africa

Despite a growing interest in African parties, no comparative analyses of African party manifestos have been undertaken to date. This study applies the Manifesto Research Group's (MRG/CMP) coding scheme to a complete set of manifestos in three countries. The study's main aim is to determine whether a research tool that has been seminal in the study of Western politics can be used to advance the study of political parties in nonindustrialized societies. In a first step, the article examines the extent to which African manifestos advance programmatic ideas. The results show great differences across parties and time. The study subsequently investigates how parties position themselves on a right–left spectrum; it further outlines which policy categories African parties stress most. Finally, it examines the stance of individual parties on specific policy issues. The study argues that the MRG coding scheme can contribute to a much more nuanced analysis of African parties.     

Restaging the 1989 revolution: the Romanian New Wave

Almost 20 years after the 1989 Romanian revolution, the subject is experiencing a powerful comeback in a number of cinematic reflections that are at the forefront of the so-called Romanian New Wave, including Corneliu Porumboiu's 12:08 East of Bucharest, Radu Muntean's The paper will be blue and Catalin Mitulescu's How I spent the end of the world. This article seeks to establish some of the contributions that the New Wave is making to the reconstruction of the 1989 revolutionary moment, but also, and more importantly, to the renegotiation of Romania's present role in the local and global imaginary. The article offers a particular reading of these films as inspired by Walter Benjamin's writings on history and film, a reading that seeks to understand the careful temporal and spatial renegotiation of the revolutionary moment of December 1989, the key role that the technology of film has played throughout the course of the Romanian revolution and its aftermath, as well as the critical importance that the revolutionary moment continues to have for the way in which Romania imagines itself and is seen from abroad.     

Understanding the Problem of Northeast India

The first wave of feminism in India was closely connected to electoral politics, while the second wave turned away from party politics. This resulted in a growing marginalization of feminist concerns from the public agenda. There is a strong relationship between movement success and electoral engagement. This article reviews the history of feminist interventions in electoral politics and demonstrates that early victories for women depended on their participation in party politics. I argue that the creation of the autonomous women's movement has had a diminishing effect on women's progress in recent years. A number of paths remain available to the women's movement to engage with political parties and political leaders. Staying outside the electoral arena has not served Indian feminism well.     

The security dilemma in Sino‐Indian relations

With the end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the collapse of the old economic order in India a dozen years ago, the outmoded methods New Delhi had employed for four decades to engage the world were no longer tenable. C. Raja Mohan, one of India's leading strategic thinkers, has traced the remarkable transformation in New Delhi's foreign policy during the 1990s in Crossing the Rubicon, a thoughtful new study of the ideas shaping Indian diplomacy. Mohan highlights five changes in the conceptual underpinnings guiding Indian foreign policy since the early 1990s: a shift from domestically focused socialism to a globalized free market economy; a de-emphasis on politics in favor of economics; an abandonment of New Delhi's earlier infatuation with “Third Worldism” and non-alignment; a rejection of anti-Westernism; and a loss of idealism. These new forces have left India, Mohan contends, with a foreign policy infinitely more suitable for meeting the challenges of the twenty-first century. New Delhi is now poised, he adds, to break out of the South Asian box in which it has been confined, and assume its rightful place among the world's leading powers.     

Rising-Class Politics and its Impact on China's Path to Democracy

China's market reform over the last two decades or more have brought about a significant degree of societal stratification and the rise of class politics. The diversification of class interests forces the party-state leadership to take sides in the emerging class warfare and to show a manifest class orientation in government policy making. Mutual dependence and shared interests between the communist state and the entrepreneurial class (and other middle classes) have led to the formation of a de facto anti-democratic alliance. Meanwhile, the rapid expansion of the underclass, widespread resentment against socio-economic polarization, and the lack of institutionalized channels for articulating and advancing class interests have combined to create a potentially explosive situation that, to both the regime and its allies, has considerably increased the risks and costs of democratization. But the use of the coercive power of the state to maintain social stability has aggravated state-society tension and could push confrontation in a revolutionary direction.