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.     

Voters without a Party: The ‘Long Decade’ of the Italian Centre-Right and its Uncertain Future

Abstract

Following the corruption scandals of the early 1990s, the birth of the electoral coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi, and its occupation of government in 1994, 2001 and 2008, was interpreted by many as a sign of a new era of success for the Italian centre-right. Yet, after narrowly losing the 2013 national elections, the centre-right appears to have fallen into a political abyss. While opinion polls suggest that its potential electorate is still wide, the former allies that made up the coalition have been fragmented and weakened by a series of splits, leaving the centre-right divided into a more moderate component and an openly populist one. The centre-right’s old ruling elites have lost credibility, but the new younger leaders, like Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni, are not able to re-unify the former coalition. The centre-right has been riven by several factors that explain its difficulties during the decade of the economic crisis: the personalisation of its leadership, factionalism, a divergence of programmes, a failure of institutionalisation and ongoing corruption and legal problems. These factors also look set to condition its political future.     

The ‘Ottoman-German Jihad’: Lessons for the Contemporary ‘Area Studies’ Controversy

The ‘Arab Spring’ added new fuel to the ongoing controversy over the validity of regional or area studies. None of the Middle East ‘area experts’ predicted the revolutionary events that led to the fall of a number of authoritarian rulers in the Arab world. As a result, scholars, the media and policy-makers have again questioned the public relevance and scientific nature of Middle East studies. Do they actually provide the basis for an understanding of the real world? To address this issue, this article considers a historical case study with a view to throwing light on this debate and putting it in perspective. It looks more closely at a debate between two founding fathers of Islamic studies. After the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet V declared jihad against the Entente powers in 1914, Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje and Carl-Heinrich Becker disputed the role allegedly played by German Orientalists in this affair. The article would argue that this historical dispute already reflected some of the core issues of the contemporary controversy of ‘area studies’ and contained some lessons for us to learn regarding the analysis of Middle Eastern economy, society and politics.     

The map as an official symbol and the ‘Greater Israel’ ideology

This article examines the combined use of maps and symbols as an official symbol of political organization. Used in combination, a map and an emblem push the geographical component to the forefront of cultural–political discourse as an element of myth, drawing attention to an aspect that is not a conscious part of daily life. The article explores how the map of the Land of Israel was used as an official symbol by Zionist organizations, and attempts to decipher the political–cultural significance of the symbolic geography they employed. A symbolic map of Eretz Yisrael was adopted by three Zionist organizations: the Jewish National Fund (JNF); HaMahanot HaOlim Socialist–Zionist youth movement and the Revisionist movement. Aside from their differences in mission and raisons d’être, the organizations in this study represent different models of map and symbol usage. The main distinguishing feature was in their use of outlines and borders.     

The American-Japanese ‘Co-prosperity sphere’

Abstract

For many years Jane Hamilton-Merritt has carried out a publicity campaign in support of Vang Pao and the so-called “Lao resistance,” while condemning the government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) and anyone who challenges her own views. Hamilton-Merritt has demonstrated great effectiveness in marshaling the mainstream media, reputable public figures, and otherwise respected institutions as the channels or even mouthpieces for her campaign. The publication of Tragic Mountains highlights her ongoing efforts to find acceptance for her fanciful vision of the recent history of Laos (and the United States). Her success in this campaign has been possible only because few in her audience know the facts behind her distorted misrepresentations. In this book, Hamilton-Merritt constructs a fantastical account of “the Hmong, the Americans, and the secret wars for Laos” that bears little relation to the truth of the events and personalities she discusses.     

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:     

Identity creation and the culture of contrition: Recasting ‘normality’ in the Berlin Republic

This paper considers transformations in the concept of national identity post‐unification. In particular, it is interested in examining the changed status of the NS past in contemporary formulations of national identity. Whilst during the Historikerstreit conservative thinkers predicated the plea for conventional patriotism upon a ‘normalisation’ or ‘reladvisation’ of the NS past, left‐liberal discourse based the case for a post‐national Verfassungspatriotismus upon the critical engagement with the NS period. The collapse of the Cold War political framework has profoundly altered the polarised discourse over the German past and during the 1990s the critical consciousness of National Socialism became a central tenet of contemporary formulations of national identity. The paper attempts to place the contemporary discourse on national identity within a broader historical context and to consider reasons for recent transformations in perceptions of the German national past.     

The ‘Westminster model’ in Israel

Israel's Parliament—The Law of the Knesset, by Eliahu S. Likhovski. Oxford; Clarendon Press, 1971. pp. 236; £4·25.     

Identity,Politics and Nation: Algerian Nationalism and the ‘Berberist Crisis’ of 1949

Abstract

Between the 1940s and the 1950s, a crucial period of change for Algerian nationalism and state formation, Berber activists within the anti-colonial nationalist movement challenged the political line of the nationalist party, the Mouvement pour le Triomphe des Libertés Démocratiques. This opposition focused on the need to redefine the concept of identity: activists did not reject either Arabic or Islam—the dual linguistic-religious core of national identity for Algerian nationalists—but they identified with a broader idea of an ‘Algerian Algeria’ that could incorporate various components of society.

Through the study of archival sources, this paper analyses the origins and consequences of the 1949 controversy within Algerian nationalism known as the ‘Berberist crisis’. Particular attention is paid to the idea of the nation proposed, assessing whether and how Berber activists participated in the political debate and state-building.     

‘We Looked after People Better when We Were Informal’: The ‘Quasi-Formalisation’ of Montevideo's Waste-Pickers

Drawing on participatory research, this article explores the state formalisation of Uruguayan clasificadores (waste-pickers). It goes beyond the informal/formal binary, instead proposing the concepts of ‘para-formality’ to describe economic activity that exists in parallel to regulated and taxed spheres, and ‘quasi-formality’ to describe processes of formalisation that are supported by underlying informal practices. When unregulated, clasificadores enjoyed parallel services in health, finance and social security, implying that benefits of ‘formalisation’ must be explored ethnographically rather than assumed. The persistence of ‘quasi-formal’ activity within formalised recycling plants complicates simple narratives of informal to formal transitions and suggests that the concept can be useful for the study of labour policies in Latin America and beyond.     

The ‘Forgotten’ People: Turkey's Artisans in the 1950s

This paper intends to shed light into a social class, the Turkish artisans who were ignored by the mainstream historiography for a variety of reasons. Yet, they were the ones who formed the bulk of the middle-class in the following decades, helped shape the contours of Turkish politics and were seen as responsible for propogating the ideology of conservatism. In fact, without a thorough analyses of this social class, one could hardly grasped the evolution of the so-called modernization process Turkey underwent for the last half a century or so. By using parliamentary records, periodicals, newspapers and memoirs of the time as well as artisans' own journals, we trace the social and ideological demands of the Turkish artisans of the 1950s and bring about a comparative perspective by using the historical experiences of other countries. We argue that their conservatism should not be confused with the modern day conservatism since they represented a version of a peculiar form of progressive ideas and demands together with pro-Western and pro-capitalist inspirations.     

The ‘science’ of superiority: Africa and scholarly colonial assumptions

ABSTRACT

The use of ‘neopatrimonialism’ as a category in mainstream scholarship on African polities and economies is ubiquitous. A critique by Thandika Mkandawire has shown that the ‘neopatrimonial school’ is devoid of conceptual coherence and analytical power – it is an expression of a prejudice, not a useful tool for research and analysis. The article endorses Mkandawire's view but points out that this is by no means the only example of its kind. On the contrary, the use of categories which assume the superiority of societies in the global North over those in Africa is widespread. The article illustrates this by discussing and criticising two others, the ‘democratic consolidation’ paradigm and the ‘failed state’ framework. It argues that all three shape assumptions by scholars in Africa as well as outside it which obstruct concrete analysis. A critique of these paradigms is thus essential to the development of scholarship on and about Africa.