The Election in Iraq

Although election of the Iraqi Interim National Assembly on 30 January 2005 was a step on the path toward democracy, it is too soon to judge it a resounding success. Further, it 7is important to keep in mind that the election is significant not only regarding the democratic process for the people of Iraq but also for the US and the future of US policy toward the Middle East.

Many Iraqis strongly desired democracy and some steps toward democratization showed resemblance to the democracy movement in Europe. However, the exclusion of popular political movements and the emergence of mistrust failed the political process.

At last, with the involvement of Grand Ayatollah Sistani, the election was realized. However, the Iraqi elections do not merit unreserved acclaim. This election allows, for the first time in Iraq's history, competition among ethnic and religious factions. Different attitudes among these groups toward the election and its results may further widen the gap separating them. In fact, the most important consideration regarding the election is what happens from now on.     

The Kurds in Iraq

The following briefs are edited versions of papers presented at the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association in Anchorage, Alaska, November 8, 2003. The editors were Hakan Yavuz and Michael Gunter, whose papers are included below. Why Kurdish Statehood is Unlikely , Michael M. Gunter, professor of political science, Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, Tennessee Transnational Networks: New Opportunities and Constraints for Kurdish Statehood , Denise Natali, visiting research fellow, Washington Kurdish Institute (WKI); director of WKI's transnational project Turkey and Kurdistan‐Iraq, 2003 , Robert Olson, professor of Middle East and Islamic history, University of Kentucky Could a Kurdish State Be Set Up in Iraq? , Nihat Ali Özcan, author of PKK (Kurdistan ýpçi Partisi) Tarihi, Ideolojisi ve Yönetimi (Ankara: Asam, 1999) Kurdish Reality in an Emerging Iraq , Khaled Salih, University of Southern Denmark Provincial Not Ethnic Federalism in Iraq , M. Hakan Yavuz, associate professor of political science, University of Utah     

The situation in Iraq

General

The Global Politics of Arms Sales. By Andrew J. Pierre. Princeton University Press, 1982. Pp. xvi + 352. Figs. Tables. Notes. Index. £14.10 (hardback); £4.20 (paperback).

Estimating Foreign Military Power. Edited by Philip Towle. London (Croom Helm), 1982. Pp. 276. Index. £13.95.

Eurasia

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union. General Editors Archie Brown, John Fennell, Michael Kaser and H. T. Willetts. Cambridge University Press, 1982. Pp. 482. Bibliog. Index. Illus. £18.50 (hardback).

Central Asia

Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Race for Lhasa. By Peter Hopkirk. London, John Murray, 1982. Pp. x + 274. Illus. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £9.75.

South Asia

India's Preferential Policies: Migrants, the Middle Classes, and Ethnic Equality. By Myron Weiner and Mary Fainsod Katzenstein. The University of Chicago Press, 1981. Pp. vii + 184. Tables. Maps. Notes. Index. £9.95.

Pakistan: Energy Planning in a Strategic Vortex. By Charles K. Ebinger. Indiana University Press, 1981. Pp. x + 155. Notes. Bibliog. £13.50.

The British Raj and the Indian Princes: Paramountcy in Western India, 1857–1930. By Ian Copland. London, Sangam Books, 1982. Pp. xvi + 345. Map. Bibliog. Index. £6.95.

British Policy Towards the Indian States 1905–1939. By S. R. Ashton. London, Curzon Press (London Studies on South Asia No. 2) 1982. Pp. xii + 231. Appendix. Gloss. Bibliog. Index. £6.75.

Goa. By J. M. Richards. London, Hurst &; Co., 1982. Pp. xii + 143. Map. Illus. Plates. Bibliog. Index. £7.50.

The India Museum 1801–1879 (India Office Library and Records). By Ray Desmond. London, H.M.S.O., 1982. Pp. xv + 215. Plates. Index. £25.00

The Arts of India. Edited by Basil Gray. Oxford, Phaidon Press, 1981. Pp. 224. Map. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £25.00

Views of Medieval Bhutan: The Diary and Drawings of Samuel Davis, 1783. Michael Aris. London, Serinda Publications; Washington,\Smithsonian Institute, 1982. Pp. 124. Maps. Plates. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £18.00

Middle East

Yemen: the Search for a Modern State. By J.E. Peterson. London, Croom Helm Ltd., 1982. Pp. 221. Map. Appendixes. Bibliog. Index. £11.95

Atatürk: Founder of a Modern State. Ali Kazancigil and Ergun Özbudun, eds. London, C. Hurst &; Co., 1981. Pp. vi + 243. Notes. Index. £8.50

South East Asia

Years of Upheaval. By Henry Kissinger. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson and Michael Joseph, 1982. Pp. 1152. £15.95

? Sideshow. Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia. 1979.

Political Conflict in Thailand: Reform, Reaction, Revolution. By David Morell and Chai‐anan Samudavanija. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Oelgeschlager, Gunn and Hain, Publishers, Inc. 1981. Pp. xviii + 362. Appendix. Bibliog. Index. Figures. Tables. £18.75

The Sociology of Secret Societies. A study of Chinese secret societies in Singapore and peninsular Malaysia. By Mak Lau Fong. Kuala Lumpur (OUP ‐ East Asian Social Science Monographs), 1981. Pp. 178. £17.

Far East

China: Politics and Government. By Tony Saich. London, Macmillan, 1981. Pp. xiv + 265. Map. Index. £4.95.

China's New Development Strategy. Jack Gray and Gordon White, eds. London, Academic Press Inc., 1982. Pp. x + 341. Index. £12.20.

Dissent in Early Modern China. By Paul S. Ropp. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1981. Pp. viii + 356. Notes. Gloss. Bibliog. Index. $24.00.

MITI and the Japanese Miracle: the Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–75. By Chalmers Johnson. California, Stanford University Press, 1982. PP. xvi + 393. Bibliog. Index. $28.50.

Japan: Divided Politics in a Growth Economy (2nd edn.). By J. A. A. Stockwin. London, Weidenfeld &; Nicolson, 1982. PP. xiv + 333. Maps. Index. £8.50.

The Roots of Modern Japan. By Jean‐Paul Lehmann. London, Macmillan, 1982. Pp. xviii + 352. Bibliog. Index. £6.95.

Utilitarian Confucianism: Ch'en Liang's Challenge to Chu Hsi. By Hoyt Cleveland Tillman. Cambridge (Mass.) and London, Harvard University Press, 1982. Pp. xvi + 304. Foreword by Benjamin Schwartz. Bibliog. Gloss. Index. $20.00.

Japan's Renaissance: The Politics of the Muromachi Bakufu. By Kenneth Alan Grossberg. Cambridge (Mass.) and London, Harvard University Press, 1981. Pp. xii + 207. Pref. Figures. Appendices. Bibliog. Gloss. Index. £10.50.

Shorter Notices

Guide to Thailand. By Achille Clarac. Edited and translated by Michael Smithies. Kuala Lumpur. Oxford University Press/Duang Kamol Book House, 1981. Pp. ix + 219 (Index 1–35). Notes. Maps. Plans. Illus. Gloss. Bibliog. Index. £12.00 (paperback).

Tales of Burma. By Alister McCrae and friends. Paisley, James Paton Ltd., 1981. Pp. 168. Illus. Maps. Glossary. £2.95.

Academies in Ming China: A Historical Survey. By John Meskill. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1982. Pp. 203. Maps. Illus. Bibliog. Index. $12.95.

The Interlingual Critic: Interpreting Chinese Poetry. By James J. Y. Liu. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1981. Pp. 152. Notes. Chinese Name List. Bibliog. Index. £10.77.

The Japanese Crane: Bird of Happiness. By Dorothy Britton (Lady Bouchier) and Tsuneo Hayashida. Tokyo, New York and San Francisco, Kodansha International, 1981. Pp. 64. Bibliog. Illus. Index. £9.30.

Russian Studies of Japan: An Exploratory Survey. By E. Stuart Kirby. London, Macmillan, 1981. Pp. xi + 276.Notes. Bibliog. Index. £20.00.     

浅论美国第三轮量化宽松政策退出对东南亚国家的影响

2008年以来,美国的量化宽松政策向国际市场投放了大量的流动性。相对欧美国家而言,东南亚新兴国家有着较为稳定的金融环境、较快的经济增长、外向型的经济发展方式以及较大的利差,吸引了大量的外资前来"避难"。如今,美国第三轮量化宽松政策正式结束,东南亚新兴国家的经济发展面临新的挑战。在对东南亚国家在美国第一、二轮量化宽松政策退出后的经济状况进行分析的基础上,本文试图探讨美国第三轮量化宽松政策退出给东南亚国家带来的影响,并简要介绍东南亚国家的应对措施。     

Employment strategies in the Third World: A critique

The recent critique and outright dismissal of the concept and practice of secularism has not been informed by sustained historical and sociological analysis of Indian society. Critics of secularism have taken their theoretical and Indological abstractions too seriously and have paid scant attention to the complex relationship between ideologies and changing social structures and institutions. Their one-dimensional focus on religion per se has obscured the structural similarities between communal violence and other types of sectarian and ethnic conflicts.

To accept the ideology of secularism is to accept the ideologies of progress and modernity as the new justification of domination, and the use of violence to achieve and sustain ideologies as the new opiates of the masses (Ashis Nandy, 1988:192).

The principle of secularism basically demands symmetric treatment of different religious communities in politics and in the affairs of the state. It is not obvious why such symmetric treatment must somehow involve “the use of violence to achieve and sustain ideologies as the new opiates of the masses”…. There are good reasons to resist the contrary enticements that have been so plentifully offered recently. The winter of our discontent might not be giving away, right now, to a glorious summer, but the abandonment of secularism would make things far more wintry than they currently are (Amartya Sen, 1996:37–43).     

美国传媒眼中的伊拉克战争:批评报道角度的考察

本文从“嵌入式报道规则”入手,对美国政府在伊拉克战争期间对新闻报道所采取的管制措施、战争期间美国政府同媒体的关系、美国媒体对伊拉克战争的报道、传媒所显现的新的特点等问题进行了探讨。文章认为,伊战期间的嵌入式报道具有不同于以往美国对外战争的随军报道的一些特点,如:记者全程固定,介入程度较深;反应迅速,利用高科技手段;不仅记者数量众多,而且允许反战国家传媒随行;开放程度较高。文章还认为,尽管有大量负面批评报道,但传媒在政府一意孤行走向战争之路时并非毫无责任。     

A Preferential Option for the Spirit: The Catholic Charismatic Renewal in Latin America's New Religious Economy

The Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR), the Latin American church's largest and most dynamic lay movement, demands scholarly attention for its extraordinary appeal among Catholic laity and its unanimous approval by national episcopacies. If the church is finally using mass media and other Protestant techniques for evangelization, it is because of the Charismatics, whose missionary zeal rivals that of their chief competitors, the Pentecostals. This study uses the tools of religious economy to analyze the reasons for the Renewal's rapid growth and acceptance. In attempting to explicate the CCR's success, the study also examines the major ecclesial trends during the movement's three decades in Latin America.     

Israel's Exit from Africa, 1973: The Road to Diplomatic Isolation

In 1973 25 Black African states severed diplomatic relations with Israel. This article examines the motives that brought the African countries to shun Israel and the manner in which the Israelis attempted to cope with their growing ‘pariahtude’. The African states sought to achieve unity on their continent, avoid their own isolation, and advance the international norms that they espoused. The Black African countries claimed that no hostility attended their decisions to break ties with Israel. Yet, as this article demonstrates, their imposition of a quarantine on Israel was an act of indirect violence. By early 1974 officials of the Israeli Foreign Ministry attempted a reformulation of policy toward Black Africa but could ameliorate in no effective manner the isolation imposed upon their country.     

Policy Entrepreneurs: The Third Dimension in American Foreign-policy Culture

"The Great oil boom was an event so profoundly and broadly influential that it provides the key to understanding the surge of Islam." — Daniel Pipes, 1983.
"Yet it is naive to attribute the Islamic revival mainly to oil." — John Esposito, 1985.
"Yes, I did publish a book in 1983, In the Path of God , suggesting that the resurgence of Islam in the 1970s resulted from the boom in oil wealth. At this point I don't know what causes fundamentalism‥[It] may be too complicated for us to figure out." — Daniel Pipes, 1994.
"In the long run, many academics were proved right." — David D. Newsom, 1995-96.     

The other 'awakening' in Iraq: The women's movement in the first half of the twentieth century

The history of the women's movement in Iraq, during the first half of the twentieth century, has received little attention in scholarly work. This essay enlarges upon the topic using common features characteristic of more central women's movements in the Middle East. The emergence of intellectual debate on women's status, establishment of a myriad of women's organizations, evolution of a women's press, women's participation in the nationalist struggle, the adoption of nationalism as a liberating discourse and development of pan-Arab feminism, are shared characteristics which shed light on developments that occurred in Iraq. The essay suggests that the study of seemingly peripheral movements not only confirms similar patterns of development within the region but might also reveal new insights that transcend regional boundaries.