The 15 July abortive coup and post-truth politics in Turkey

Contemporary developments throughout the world have been marked by post-truth politics. Epitomized by a disregard for truth coupled with a reliance on emotive arguments, the term ‘post-truth politics’ has not yet been adequately reflected upon by political or social theory. This article uses Turkey’s 15 July (2016) abortive coup as an entry point to address this gap and argues that the post-truth has altered both the grammar and vocabulary of politics. The term denotes the contemporary shift from a ‘regime of truth’ to a ‘regime of common sense’, which also operates as the discursive ground of new populisms. While treating three contending narratives of 15 July – ‘kamikaze coup’, ‘staged coup’ and ‘controlled coup’ – this article focuses on the post-truth elements in the government’s narrative performance that obstructed the pursuit of truth and set the conditions for a particular interpretation of the events of 15 July.     

Chiquitano and the Multiple Meanings of Being Indigenous in Bolivia

To be ‘indigenous’ in Bolivia is not only a rights‐ and resource‐bearing identity, but the national MAS party has recently actively promoted the ‘indigenous’ as an inclusive national political project. This article seeks to shed further light on the different meanings Bolivians attach to ‘indigeneity’ by focusing on the Chiquitano people of the Bolivian lowlands. This reveals that while Chiquitano employ the term to advance their political project, some nevertheless simultaneously reject its power to categorise and subordinate Chiquitano. This highlights some of the paradoxes faced by those employing an indigenous political strategy, be it at the local or ‘more inclusive’ national level.     

‘Bridging the differences’: political communication experts in Germany

A process of modernisation and professionalisation has been affecting the political communication culture in Germany. The emergence and rise of the so-called ‘spin doctors’ particularly symbolises this trend. But how do the numerous political communication experts in Germany bridge the differences between the diverging objectives of the political and media realms? By what means do they link political issues and images to anticipated media logics? And how successful are their efforts in agenda- and image-building? To answer these questions, first, a contextual framework is provided identifying political communication experts as dually conditioned linking pins. Second, a hermeneutic content analysis of 63 interviews with high-ranked German ‘spin doctors’ gives some empirical evidence of the practical relevance of widely discussed communicative strategies. The longitudinal perspective provides insights into an enormous and expanding set of communicative strategies. Here, the cultivation of interpersonal networks is most promising, although it is a rather shaky tool of modern political communication in Germany. Overall, the new myth of the ‘powerful spin doctor’ has to be modified since their ‘success’ is contingent on individual variables.     

Secularizing Islamism and Islamizing Democracy: The Political and Ideational Evolution of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers 1984–2012

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) emerged in Egypt in the early twentieth century to resist secularism and political pluralism in favour of religious revival and a unitary Islamic state. After three decades of political participation culminating in its formation of a government in Egypt, the MB has prioritized electoral paths to power, while claiming to defend individual rights, popular majorities and a civil state. Nevertheless, the MB's discourse continues to straddle religious and secular terrain: in recent election campaigns, MB leaders promised to build an ‘Islamic state’ and a ‘caliphate’, all the while insisting that the people, not God are the source of all power. What explains these contradictions, and what do they tell us about the Brotherhood's apparent adoption of political and ideational pluralism and democratic values? The article contends that the MB's ambivalence about democracy is not a sign of dissimulation or lack of ideological evolution. Instead, it has its roots in a 30-year process of partially adapting to democratic and ‘secular’ political ideas by reframing them in religious terms which, however, resulted in creating what the article discusses as a hybrid ‘secularized’ Islamism. This hybridization has both enabled and constrained the Brothers' adaptation to democracy in the post-Mubarak period.     

Theories on Central Asian factionalism: the debate in political science and its wider implications

Factionalism, in all its forms, has created an obstacle to achieving progressive reforms in Central Asia. Recent research in political science has examined different kinds of factionalism in the region and what impact they have on the government structure and decision-making processes. This article focuses on a debate between ‘regional’ vs ‘clan’ models of factionalism. It explores the different approaches while examining the implicit assumptions made in these arguments. Although these studies have provided valuable information and concepts, an interdisciplinary approach may bring further insights. Anthropological studies are juxtaposed to the political science models to present an alternative view, which also contributes to broaden the debate by considering a variety of meanings. Labels such as ‘regional’ or ‘clan’ conceal the complexity of relationships. Everyday experiences need to be analysed alongside the political interpretations of these relationships.     

Israel: ethnocracy or multicracy?

Much of the recent academic literature that assesses democracy in Israel labels it either as incomplete or flawed, yet such literature employs minimal systematic analysis of how the state is actually governed. Since the 1990s, there has been a tendency to describe the Israeli political regime as an ethnocracy. This article argues that the term ‘ethnocracy’, when applied to Israel, has certain weaknesses and instead proposes the concept of ‘multicracy’ (multiformocracy) as a more appropriate term by which to describe Israel's political organization. It will demonstrate that existing Israeli democratic institutions do not control the state's policymaking in full and that several politically important processes are controlled or at least influenced by various other politically active forces. Whilst these forces can influence, stimulate, inhibit, and otherwise change governmental decisions and actions, they can be labeled as kratiae. While the capacity of Israel's democracy to govern is weak, these other kratiae can intervene in policymaking and the state's regime acts as democracy-dominated multicracy.     

The foreign policy of the Zuma government: pursuing the ‘national interest’?

It was after much anticipation that members of the new Jacob Zuma foreign policy executive announced that, for the duration of their term, South Africa's foreign policy would be based on the doctrine of advancing ‘the national interest’, conceptualised simply as the ‘most vital needs’ of the country. However, almost two years since taking control of the levers of policy and political power, the South African government has yet to spell out in detail what constituted the national interest or how such interest would be pursued. In spite of this lacuna, senior members of the new foreign policy inner-elite continue to proclaim the national interest, and proceed to spell out grander foreign policy goals that they would pursue under the banner of a ‘new’ developmental agenda. These include consolidating the African agenda; deepening South–South cooperation; expanding South–North relations; strengthening foreign political and economic ties generally; and participating in a global system of governance. To date, this proclamation that the national interest will be the beam that will guide foreign policy has remained little more than a statement of intent and much conjecture. The challenge is to move beyond rhetoric and intentions and to define the national interest and to articulate a coherent foreign policy going forward. This will require concrete proposals on the basis of thorough-going domestic–foreign policy linkages.     

Instrumentalizing the recent past? The new Cold War narrative in Russian public space after 2014

There has been much debate about whether the US and Russia are locked in a new Cold War, but much less attention as to how the term is used in Russian political discourse. Through a close analysis of public statements, I analyze how the Cold War narrative has been used in the Russian public space since 2014, and assess how the “resuscitation” of the Cold War paradigm has been used by Moscow’s political elites, in order to discuss its impact on foreign policy. I document a distinct shift in Russian policymakers’ use of the term in 2016 and trace this shift to domestic political considerations.     

Between Market‐Preserving Federalism and Intergovernmental Coordination: The Case of Australia

This article investigates Australia's economic success since the 1990s. As this was set in motion by fundamental political reforms, it asks to what extent Australian‐type federalism has been an important factor in the reform process. By using two approaches ‐ the market‐preserving federalism approach of Weingast, which stresses the virtues of ‘limited government’, decentralisation and competition together with the intergovernmental coordination approach of Scharpf which argues for a ‘problem‐solving’ orientation of territorial actors ‐, the structure of Australian federalism, changes in the working of the federal system in the 1990s, and effects on policy‐making are scrutinised. The article demonstrates that a particular combination of a rather centralised federal structure and a particular type of intergovernmental coordination, i.e. collaboration, supplemented by the strong influence of new public management ideas, has been conducive to political reforms in Australia. This suggests that a decentralised and competitive version of federalism, as defended by Weingast, is not a necessary condition for embarking on a successful reform path in federal countries. In future research, both approaches or analytical dimensions should be used in order to better understand the relationship of intergovernmental relations and policy reforms.     

‘Europeanization’ as a legitimation strategy of political parties: the cases of Ukraine and Georgia

This article’s objective is to critically assess the top-down rational choice and sociological approaches to Europeanization, while advocating the ‘usages of Europe’ approach. I argue that both classic top-down perspectives do not adequately grasp the nature of Europeanization of political parties beyond member and candidate countries. Empirically, the analysis focuses on transnational cooperation of political parties from Ukraine and Georgia and stresses agency of domestic partisan actors seeking international and domestic legitimacy. It is argued that European party federations and parliamentary cooperation formats should not only be seen as channels of top-down Europeanization, but they should rather be conceptualized as resources that are used strategically by domestic political parties. Thus the article deals with the following question: To what extent and how channels of Europeanization have been used by national political parties from outside the European Union as resources serving to attain partisan goals, both in terms of domestic positioning and international legitimacy? Patterns of strategic and legitimating usage of European partisan and parliamentary resources depend on whether parties in question are in power or in opposition and whether they are more pro-European or more pro-Russian.     

Elections and democratic transition in Pakistan: one step forward and two steps backwards

Expectations in Pakistan rose, when for the first time, in its history a political government in 2013 completed its full term of office and was replaced not by the military but by another political government after being defeated at the ballot box. It raises questions about what kind of democratic space is developing and what type of hybrid regime is emergent. The paper reflects upon the concept of hybrid regime and draws out key variables: turnover, tutelage and neo-patrimonialism and then considers how to categorise development in Pakistan. It concludes that Pakistan is in a ‘gray zone’ and that during the period there was evidence of it moving towards becoming an illiberal hybrid regime but the military went on the offensive and the democratic space contracted returning to being an illiberal tutelary hybrid regime. Unless tutelage and neo-patrimonialism are not challenged Pakistan will not progress in the democratic transition and remain a hybrid regime.     

Two perspectives on Zimbabwe's National Democratic Revolution: Thabo Mbeki and Wilfred Mhanda

The concept of the ‘National Democratic Revolution’ (NDR) is often used by left-leaning scholars and political actors in attempts to explain or justify the lack of socialism in third-world societies governed by rulers who consider themselves ‘scientific socialists’. It has been invoked in analyses of Zimbabwe by both the former president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, in 2001 as he was embarking on his ‘quiet diplomacy’, and Wilfred Mhanda, a Zimbabwean guerrilla leader imprisoned by the Mozambican government in the late-1970s for posing problems to the leadership aspirations of Robert Mugabe, who later became president of the country posing problems for Thabo Mbeki among others. Analysis of both these political intellectuals’ writing sheds light on the concept of the NDR (evoked often in contemporary South African politics and Zimbabwean discourse about the current crisis) as well as the theoretical and practical aspects of the authors’ careers.     

Learning to laugh: satire and political thought in the Latvian ‘National Age’

ABSTRACT

Satiric publications are often recognized as an important part of the political communication of the nineteenth century. Their role, however, in the national ‘awakenings’ in central eastern Europe has been rarely addressed. This paper argues that satirical publications provide useful material for the research of the political ideology of early Latvian nationalism. The development of the ‘ethnic Other’ in the figure of the Bizmanis or ‘Plaitman,’ the invention of the ‘dumb minority,’ the Malenians, as well as the representation of imperial and provincial forces in animal fables illustrate the development of the political thinking of the emerging national movement.     

The British Empire in India,the Gulf pearl and the making of the Middle East

Abstract

Genealogies of the term ‘Middle East’ conventionally focus on a juncture around the 1890s, when it gained new geopolitical currency, promoted by various European and American officials with reference to a space centred around the Arabo-Persian Gulf. This article argues instead that the ‘Middle East’ label should be seen as the culmination of a longer process, led less from London than from India. Over the previous century, this consolidation of ‘British’ India as a distinct regional actor was accompanied by the conceptualisation of its borderlands, including that Gulf-centred space. This space become a theatre for economic and political monitoring strategised from India, seeking to transform what was represented as a pirate-infested margin into a pacified buffer zone. Control and exploitation of pearl fisheries, the main economic activity for Gulf populations, was central to these efforts. Imperial strategy around the Gulf pearl was a key tool in founding an informal Indian empire in the Gulf and its hinterlands, in that very space to which the name ‘Middle East’ would subsequently be given.     

The council of expediency: crisis and statecraft in Iran and beyond

Abstract

Giorgio Agamben argues that in contemporary governance the use of ‘emergency’ is no longer provisional, but ‘constitutes a permanent technology of government’ and has produced the extrajudicial notion of crisis. The engendering of ‘zones of indistinction’ between the law and its practice is what Agamben defines as a ‘state of exception’. This article adopts the notion enunciated by Agamben and revisits it in the Islamic Republic of Iran. There, the category of crisis has been given, firstly, a juridical status through the institution of maslahat, ‘expediency’, interpreted in a secular encounter between Shi^ca theological exegesis and modern statecraft. Secondly, crisis has not led to the production of a ‘state of exception’ as Agamben argues. Instead, since the late 1980s, a sui generis institution, the Expediency Council, has presided and decided over matters of crisis. Instead of leaving blind spots in the production of legislative power, the Expediency Council takes charge of those spheres of ambiguity where the ‘normal’ – and normative – means of the law would have otherwise failed to deliver. This is a first study of this peculiar institution, which invites further engagement with political phenomena through the deconstruction and theorization of crisis politics.     

Supporting political debate while building patterns of trust: the role of the German political foundations in Tunisia (1989–2017)

This article focuses on a specific aspect of the international context surrounding the Tunisian transition to democracy. Through the case of the German political foundations in Tunisia, this study argues that the country’s journey to democracy has not been an exclusively domestic affair, but has also been the product of the engagement of international actors and their interplay with domestic groups. Building on evidence from semi-structured interviews and data triangulation the article shows that since the late 1980s four German political foundations operating in Tunisia created platforms for ‘political debate’ – alternative to the regime’s but not subversive – and encouraged political training. The article posits that initially the German political foundations helped Ben Ali’s regime in the making of a ‘façade liberalisation’, while in the long run their activities generated unintended consequences that in part undermined its ‘authoritarianism upgraded’. The article demonstrates that their longstanding presence on the ground allowed the German political foundations to develop patterns of trust with and between political and civil groups, ultimately improving the capacity of their action after the revolution.     

Revelation or revolution: a Gramscian approach to the rise of political Islam

This article seeks to conceptualise the contemporary phenomenon of ‘political Islam’, or Islamic fundamentalism as it is usually classified in the West. This paper takes the view that those movements that utilise the ideology of political Islam are not primarily religious groups concerned with issues of doctrine and faith, but political organisations utilising Islam as a ‘revolutionary’ ideology to attack, criticise, and de‐legitimise the ruling elites and the power structure on which their authority and legitimacy is based. Since the one‐party authoritarian state is the norm in most of the Middle East, only Islam has been able to provide the marginalised, alienated, and disgruntled masses with an oppositional force capable of articulating their specific grievances and general displeasure with these regimes. A Gramscian framework helps to demonstrate that these organisations classified as ‘political Islam’, and promulgated by the core Islamic scholars of the twentieth century, are authentic counter‐hegemonic movements focussed on the overthrow of these despotic regimes and the acquisition of political, economic, and social power.     

From the Rainy Place to the Burnt Palace: How Social Movements Form their Political Strategies. The Case of the Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba

How do social movements form their political strategies? The relevant theory pays considerable attention to structure, and argues that when political opportunities are open, movements are more likely to opt for a systemic political strategy; when they are closed, movements are expected to take a more revolutionary turn. However, political opportunities can make some options appear more ‘realistic’ and others less so, but movements don't always behave ‘realistically’. They might explain when movements are more likely to mobilise and what repertoires they adopt once they do so, but they do not account for what happens earlier on: by what mechanisms the movements form their political strategies. Exploring the case of the cocaleros of the Chapare, this article argues that more emphasis should be placed on mechanisms that are internal to the movements, such as: (a) the resonance of other political experiences at home and abroad, (b) internal struggles for ideological hegemony, and (c) the political formation of their grassroots.     

The politics of being a human being in Soweto: Identity as a social capital ‘Everything not forbidden is compulsory’ (T.H. White)

In this paper, the concept of social capital is redefined in the context of identity politics within contemporary South Africa. A case is made against the fetishism of identity dogmas that thrive upon closed historicity. Any narrative of subjective formation that is beckoned upon closed historicity is a predisposition towards identity ‘commoditisation’. As the term suggests, commoditisation implies that human subjectivity is ‘wholly’ dependent and measured ‘only’ through the compass of social capital. Commoditisation of identity means that human subjectivity is no longer transcendental but an object of possession – I am what I have or where I come from. This fixation on subjective acquisition and ‘possesivisms’ as an ethno-subjective repertoire for our overall subjective formation is identity fundamentalism. Although the notion of social capital in South Africa's context is a residue of South Africa's history of racialist capitalism, its present pervasiveness has generated a peculiar pattern of identity fundamentalism in which competition over economic resources has become construed as a threat to subjectivity. A reflexive understanding of this problem induces awareness for a healthy humanism.     

Deconstructing Minorities/Majorities in Parliamentary Gulf States (Kuwait and Bahrain)

Abstract

The notion of ‘minority’ has traditionally been understood as an ethnic or religious category based on primary identity markers, and as such only makes sense relative to a broader polity. On closer examination, however, the case of the smaller Gulf states illustrates the constructed nature of the minority/majority dialectic. In these societies, with mixed populations and transnational foundations—, monarchic regimes have historically asserted themselves by promoting some groups over others to secure their loyalty.

This is particularly true in the parliamentary regimes of Kuwait and Bahrain. This article contends that while the ethno-religious understanding of ‘minority’ makes little heuristic sense in these two countries, the minority/majority dialectic is part of a political praxis used to garner support for the regime and by manufacturing ‘minorities’ to evade the principle of majority rule. The article traces the post-2011 responses by the Kuwaiti and Bahraini regimes to the rise of an oppositional majority. For Kuwait, it analyses the emphasis placed on the nation’s unity and the discrediting of the Bedouin’s political claims for Bahrain, it looks at how the authorities stressed the nation’s multicultural character to undermine the representativeness of the dominant Shiite political movement. Both strategies are designed to deflect the threat of power sharing.