Re/visioning the women's movement in Israel

Current literature on the women's movement argues that in recent decades, a schism based on the politics of identity has divided women and led to the weakening of the movement. This process, intersecting with the escalation of neoliberal trends and the ‘NGOization’ of civil society, has resulted in the depoliticization of the women's movement and the waning of its influence as a political force. The present paper seeks to examine whether this argument is consistent with the situation in the Israeli women's movement of the early twenty-first century. Based on the history of the women's movement in Israel, the paper posits a twofold argument: (a) the women's movement in Israel has not disappeared but has been restructured as a result of its NGOization; (b) despite criticism of the movement in the literature and on the part of activists as the result of its NGOization, the movement's political messages have remained intact and even expanded to embrace questions of social justice, including novel thinking on matters of peace and security.     

The politics-violence frontier

ABSTRACT

This article analyses how early twenty-first century political activists in Italy construct the frontier between politics and violence. It puts these constructions into the context of more conventionally theoretical accounts of violence and politics. Analysis of internet discourse published by left/anarchist bloggers and group members focusses on how activists criticize the conventional view that electoral politics is non-violent, and endorse the view that violence is politics’ main means. This means that the role of violence in oppositional politics then has to be negotiated. Discourse analysis shows how ideas of resistance, and anti-state force, are articulated in such a way as to draw distinctions between us and them, and their politics and ours. The article discusses the significance of these articulations of the politics-violence distinction for the construction of political agency, and for the justification of forms of political action, seeking to show that boundary work is fundamental to political agency.     

Rethinking Postwar Liberalism: The Road to 2010 and Beyond

The nineteenth and early twentieth century Liberal Party has been well served by British political historians. By contrast, research on the post-1945 Liberal Party and Liberal Democrats has become a specialised field, with strong empirical foundations (including in biographies and political science work) but few connections with the larger narratives that historians tell about postwar Britain. This article explores how the story of the ‘long Liberal revival’ from the late 1950s to the 2010–15 coalition might be reintegrated with contemporary historiography, including debates about deindustrialisation, class dealignment and the rise of ‘popular individualism’. It argues that careful attention to the nature and limits of Liberals’ political agency can help us understand the changing meaning and significance of third-party politics in Britain.     

Discourses of popular politics,war and authenticity in Turkish pop music

Turkey and the United States (US) have had a close mutually beneficial political and military relationship since the end of World War Two. However, this relationship came under pressure when the US government and Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) tried to cooperate closely in the 2003 military invasion of Iraq. AKP's leadership failed to persuade Turkey's parliament to accept the deployment of US troops and equipment in Turkey partially due to public opinion. Despite Turkish media and its government being intertwined to the extent where subversive discourses are all but silenced, some popular music videos were able to articulate discourses which questioned AKP's military policies. This paper analyses lyrics, visuals and sounds of one of these songs to look at the way war and political issues become articulated through a form of simplified popular politics, despite being presented as serious and authentic by a number of key signifiers across the different modes. A number of scholars have addressed the issue of subversion in music both as actual political challenge and as popular counter culture. This case study is used to assess subversion in music in these terms in order to consider its likely place in political debate in Turkey.     

New geographies and temporalities of power: exploring the new fault-lines of Southeast Asia

Abstract

Since the end of the Cold War, the international arena has witnessed two concurrent worldwide trends. One is the gradual prevalence of universalism under the banner of human civilization; the other is the gradual revival of nationalism globally under exactly the same heading. Both trends are evident in China, a country which in the twenty-first century is perceived universally as a rising nation. However, does Chinese nationalism necessarily pose a threat to the world? By examining two debates on the Chinese intellectual response towards Sino-American and Sino-Japanese relations in the early twenty-first century, this paper investigates the status of Chinese nationalism. It questions whether it is a fixed set of ideas embraced by a solid entity, or whether it possesses multiple layers with dual elements contributing to both security and insecurity internationally. The paper argues that three separate nationalist processes are occurring concurrently but independently of each other: the construction of civic nationalist values; the development of an international relations strategy assigning responsible power to China; and the detection of alleged anti-Chinese conspiracies. The effect of the first two would be to encourage regional peace, and they could offset fervent nationalist expression. A somewhat counter-intuitive result of Chinese nationalism might be that it also becomes a stabilizing force within and outside China's borders.     

Difference in Marx: the lumpenproletariat and the proletarian unnamable

This article considers the place of difference in Marx's politics through an exploration of his categories of the lumpenproletariat and the proletariat. Far from a simple set of class subjects or empirical peoples, these two categories are argued to describe particular modes of political composition . Despite the frisson of difference and excess which is usually associated with Marx's lumpenproletariat, it is argued to describe a mode of composition - and, in relation to anarchism, a politics - oriented not towards difference and becoming, but towards present identity . The proletariat, on the other hand, is shown to be not a People, historical Subject or identity, but a 'minor' political mode of composition immanent to the manifolds of capitalism, and premised on the condition that, as Deleuze puts it, 'the people are missing'.     

The Irish Parliamentary Elections of 2007: New Gloss on an Old Engine

The issues of Kosovo independence and European Union membership have dominated Serbian domestic politics and foreign policy since the fall of Slobodan Milo?evi? in 2000. Despite the lack of formal EU conditionality on the Kosovo issue, Serbia’s insistence on its uncompromising ‘no recognition’ of Kosovo policy has been detrimental to its EU candidacy aspirations. This article examines Serbia’s Kosovo policies in the context of EU integration, in particular the divergence between Serbia’s stance towards Kosovo and its aspirations towards EU candidacy. Considering the negative effects that the Serbia–Kosovo relationship has had on regional cooperation and Serbia’s EU integration, this article considers why Serbia appears to have failed to ‘Europeanise’ its Kosovo policies, i.e. to normalise relations in a way that would be more favourable to accession. In doing so, it examines Serbia’s Kosovo policies since 2000, and the ways in which domestic actors have deliberately manipulated and complicated the question of Kosovo and Serbia’s EU membership.     

Postliberalism: The New Centre Ground of British Politics

Brexit and support for anti‐establishment insurgencies suggest that British politics is moving away from the old left–right opposition towards a new divide between the defenders and detractors of progressive liberalism. As this article suggests, progressive liberalism differs significantly from both classical and new liberalism. It fuses free‐market economics with social egalitarianism and identity politics. Both the hard left and the radical right reject this combination and want to undo a number of liberal achievements. British politics is also moving in a postliberal direction. In the economy, postliberalism signals a shift from rampant market capitalism to economic justice and reciprocity. In society, it signals a shift from individualism and egalitarianism to social solidarity and fraternal relations. And politically, it signals a shift from the minority politics of vested interests and balkanised group identity to a majority politics based on a balance of interests, shared identity and the embedding of state and market in the intermediary institutions of civil society. This article argues that postliberalism is redefining Britain's political centre ground in an age where neither progressive liberalism nor reactionary anti‐liberalism commands majority support. First, it charts the ascendancy of progressive liberalism over the past quarter‐century. Second, it contrasts anti‐liberal reactions with postliberal alternatives, before exploring why earlier iterations of postliberalism failed to gain traction with the political mainstream. Third, it provides a discussion and critique of Theresa May's postliberal conservatism, notably the tension between free‐market globalisation and free trade, on the one hand, and the support for national industry and the indigenous working class, on the other.     

Public Attitudes to Gaelic and the Debate about Scottish Autonomy

Scotland seems to be a counter-example to general theories of the relationship between language and national identity or nationalism. These theories point to three components in the ideology of language and nation—that being able to speak the national language is necessary for full national membership, that the national language is a core part of the nation's culture, and that the future of national political autonomy and the future of the national language are connected with each other. In Scotland, it has appeared that language is not central to national membership or culture, and language campaigning has not been central to the political campaigns for autonomy. The article presents new evidence, from the 2012 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, which questions these beliefs about the relationship between language and national identity or nationalism in Scotland.     

Genocide in Kosovo

Conclusion That Kosovo exploded with genocidal violence in 1999 and ultimately prompted outside intervention surprised few—it was a long-festering hotspot but one that fell low on the world politics priority lists, despite the brutal “wars of Yugoslav” succession that engulfed Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia. But for a relatively small scale conflict in a rather unknown corner of the world, Kosovo’s crisis of 1998–1999 brought with it a host of complex issues that challenge the international community to this day. As with any issue or case in the area of genocide studies, attention and understanding must first go to the dramatic human suffering inflicted upon one group by another. The macro-level political, legal, and ethical discussion and debates swirling about Kosovo should not and must not obscure the powerful and provocative human element at play. First and foremost, the Kosovo issue revolves around how best to save lives following an explosion of genocidal violence. Simultaneously, however, Kosovo in 1999 exploded with ramifications for the future of state sovereignty, the United Nations, and understanding the causes of genocide, nation building, and humanitarianism in the twenty-first century.     

A ‘nation of intent’ in Burma: Karen ethno-nationalism,nationalism and narrations of nation

Fully-formed nationalisms do not emerge from nothing. Nor are they inextinguishable expressions of pre-modern forms of identity and political aspirations. The argument in this paper is that if they are fully formed, they have to emerge from ethno -nationalism; that is, out of ethnic identification-writ-large, where ethnic identification becomes ‘mapped’ onto that larger thing called a ‘nation’. Ethnic identification, however, requires a transformation in modes of consciousness and atavistic ethno-histories before ethno-nationalism and then full-blooded nationalisms can come into being. The argument is made in relation to the Karen nationalist movement in Burma. Karen nationalism emerged out of ethno-nationalism that was fostered by Christian missionary interest and ethnological attempts to set out a Karen ethno-history. Missionary writings offered Christian-educated Karen, in colonial times, the basis for a ‘narration of nation’ and for viewing themselves not merely as an ethnic group but a ‘nation’. This paper sets out the ceaseless unfolding of this ‘narration of nation’ that began in the nineteenth century and now tragically occurs in refugee camps in Thailand because of drastically altered politico-military conditions in Burma since the late 1980s. These narrations can only be understood in terms of their discursive history and how this history has been shaped. These narrations are examined with a view to addressing some key theoretical issues contained in more recent studies of nationalism and nation-state-making as modern phenomena and how ethno-nationalism is transformed into nationalism.     

Xenophobic Rhetoric and Its Political Effects on Immigrants and Their Co‐Ethnics

Though political scientists generally understand the origins of native‐born reactions to foreigners, less is known about how anti‐immigrant contexts trigger a political response within immigrant groups. I address this question by studying the connection between xenophobic rhetoric and Latino politics. I claim that xenophobic rhetoric raises the salience of ethnic identity and impugns its worth. This identity threat leads high‐identifying group members to engage in political efforts that assert their group's positive value, whereas low identifiers shun political opportunities to bolster their group's devaluation. I test these claims with an experiment embedded in a nationally representative opinion survey of Latino adults. In light of xenophobic rhetoric, I find that relative to low identifiers, high‐identifying Latinos become less politically trusting, more ethnocentric, and increasingly supportive of policies that emphasize ingroup pride. These results clarify xenophobic rhetoric's role in amplifying the influence of ethnic identity on immigrant politics.     

Anatomy of a Scottish Revolution: The Potential of Postnationalist Scotland and the Future of the United Kingdom

Scottish politics isn't about some remote northern politics but go to the heart of the nature, character and power dimensions of the UK and British state. Scotland has been dramatically changed by the scale of the SNP landslide victory in the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections. Scottish society, identity and culture along with the politics of unionism and nationalism have all changed and will change further. The old fashioned politics of devolution are dead, but what comes next and what are the consequences for Scottish independence? What has to be challenged are old‐fashioned out‐of‐date views of the SNP, and the unreconstructed nationalism of the British state.     

Political Studies and Cultural Studies

This article deals with certain aspects of nationalism, minorities and transition politics in the post-communist Balkans with particular reference to Romania. After attempting to explain why nationalism constitutes a dominant feature of Balkan and — as a consequence — of Romanian political culture, it argues that the involvement of Romania's Hungarian minority in the collapse of the communist regime has been disproportionately exaggerated. Furthermore, it argues that the communist legacy is still shaping Romanian politics, emphasising the lack of substantial political reforms in a genuine liberal-democratic West European direction and arguing that Romania's transition politics does not necessarily mean democratic politics.     

US Presidential Elections: Two Centuries of Constitutional Continuity and Political Change—With an Analysis of the Political Geography of Barack Obama's Re‐election Campaign

The system for electing the President of the United States remains essentially as it was prescribed in the Federal Constitution drafted in 1787. The individual 50 states (plus the District of Columbia) are accorded a number of votes in the (so‐called) Electoral College; each state's Electoral College vote is then attributed to the candidate gaining a plurality (most) of the popular vote in that state; and the candidate with a majority (50% + 1) of these aggregated Electoral College votes is declared the incoming president. What has changed have been the methods of nominating the candidates, chief of which are the political parties from the nineteenth century with their stage‐managed quadrennial conventions and the primary/caucus campaigns from the twentieth century which precede and now determine the formal nomination. President Obama's 2012 re‐election campaign showed both the crucial importance of the much‐maligned Electoral College in winning the presidency and the demographic divisions hidden in the larger American political landscape.     

Nationalism and Civil Society in Romania

We explore the theoretical underpinnings of a political debate initiated in 1989 by the Grupul pentru Dialog Social about identity, legitimacy and civil society in Romania. Commentators have often focused on the resurgence of nationalism as a response to the politics of transition. We concentrate, instead, on the normative engagement which distinguishes practical argument in general. We offer a theoretical bridge which sets the sharply differentiated positions of protagonists contributing to the Romanian debate in a broader theoretical perspective. Our central claim is that attempts to defend a revised version of 'civic nationalism' fail to resolve tensions between individualist and collectivist notions. By focusing on what is 'civic' about civic nationalism, the terms of reference of the debate are significantly shifted.     

English Radicalism and the Annihilation of the ‘Progressive Dilemma’

The rise of political nationalism in the early twenty‐first century threatens to subsume the ‘progressive dilemma’ as identified by David Marquand. The labourist tradition is collapsing culturally, the liberal tradition intellectually. In the face of a new politics of nativism across Europe and America, the labour movement needs to put the debate over the progressive dilemma behind it and find a new source of philosophical inspiration in the English radical tradition.     

Nineteenth Century Nationalism in Finland: A Comparative Perspective

To assess the nature of Finnish nationalism, Finland should be compared with other minor nationalities within the great multinational empires of the nineteenth century. In this perspective it seems of utmost importance that Finnish nationalism developed in the interface between the Swedish and Russian centers, one economically and culturally dominant, the other politically dominant, but economically backward. Starting from this background, it is suggested that exceptionally strong incentives for nationalist mobilization existed not only in the Finnish middle class, but also in the upper class, and that therefore national consolidation and nationalism advanced calmly and steadily.     

A Networked Space of Meaning? Spatial Politics as Geostrategies of European Integration

The European Union is an example of regionalisation characterised not only by economic integration, but also by a 'spatial politics' aimed at instilling a sense of European identity and citizenship. Spatial politics are discussed here in terms of governance, regional policies and the production of geographical knowledge that reinforce the notion of a diverse but interdependent European space and, hence, political community. The paper examines recent planning concepts and regional development initiatives and their socio-political qualities and, in particular, their contested nature. Critical questions are raised, for example, regarding European spatial planning, its openness to different spatial development options and its apparent domination by 'core' Europe. The author suggests that European spatial politics can potentially contribute to a more cohesive political community, but that this is contingent upon the translation of symbolism into concrete incentives and opportunity structures that promote wider Europeanisation. This also requires forceful institutions, integrating symbolism and clear and effective forms of governance that allow regional diversity to find appropriate political expression.     

The Formation of National Party Systems in Europe: A Comparative-Historical Analysis

Using a large wealth of newly collected and unexplored data on single constituencies in 17 European countries, this comparative and long-term analysis describes the territoriality of electoral participation and vote for political parties, as well as their evolution since the mid- nineteenth century until the present day from highly territorialized politics to nationwide functional alignments. The article provides an empirical analysis through time, across countries and between party families. Through the inclusion of all the most important social and political cleavages (class, state–church, rural–urban, ethno-linguistic, and religious) the analysis assesses the homogenizing impact of the left–right dimension that emerged from the National and Industrial Revolutions, and the resistance of pre-industrial cultural and centre–periphery factors to national integration.