Centralization in the Marxist and in the Leninist tradition

The very different positions of Marxists and Leninists on the issue of centralization of political and economic institutions show that, though using the same terminology, they were committed to different ideologies. Leninists were modernizing revolutionaries in underdeveloped countries seeking their rapid industrialization. They relied on centralized revolutionary movements, which, in power, formed centralized bureaucracies that advanced industrialization through mass persuasion, regimentation and terror as well as central planning.Marxists, associated with multifarious labor movements in industrialized countries, hoped to advance and empower the working class. Marx and Engels were vague on the subject of centralization, but condemned bureaucracy and came to favor the decentralization identified with the Paris Commune. Karl Kautsky and Otto Bauer advocated the operation of industry by local governments, cooperatives and trade unions and only minimal state ownership and sharply attacked bureaucracy. Policies of centralization were appropriate to the character and goals of Leninist movements but inappropriate to those of Marxist ones.     

Turks and Tatars in Bulgaria and the Balkans

Generosity is the thought that comes to mind after hearing and later reading the five studies first presented at a symposium in Toronto (2 October 2008) and published here in this issue of Nationalities Papers. My colleagues, who span the disciplines of history, literary criticism, and political science, have been generous with the time they spent in composing their essays and then traveling to Toronto to deliver them in person, and they have been particularly generous in conveying a spirit of constructive criticism and self-reflection that represent the best aspects of our common intellectual enterprise. To each of you – George G. Grabowicz, Taras Kuzio (who initiated this symposium), Serhii Plokhy, Alexender J. Motyl, and Dominique Arel – I express my deep appreciation for your generosity of mind and spirit.     

The Muslim uprising in Ajara and the Stalinist revolution in the periphery

In 1929, local officials in the mountainous region of upper Ajara in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) pursued aggressive policies to force women to remove their veils and to close religious schools, provoking the Muslim peasant population to rebellion in one of the largest and most violent of such incidents in Soviet history. The central authorities in Moscow authorized the use of Red Army troops to suppress the uprising, but they also reversed the local initiatives and offered the peasants concessions. Based on Party and secret police files from the Georgian archives in Tbilisi and Batumi, this article will explore the ways in which local cadres interpreted regime policies in this Muslim region of Georgia, and the interaction of the center and periphery in dealing with national identity, Islam, gender, and everyday life in the early Soviet period.     

"和平环"中的日本妇女和老人

2004深秋时节,我有幸作为中国妇女代表团的一名成员,受日本"和平环"妇女组织之邀来到扶桑之国,在东京、广岛和山口县进行了为期7天的交流与考察.我们近距离、广泛地接触日本国民,实地领略日本的风土人情,留下颇为深刻的印象,实在令人难以忘怀.     

Corruption and the Decline of the State in Pakistan

Pakistan is generally included in most discussions of ‘failing states’ that pose the maximum danger to global security, with the rise of Islamic militancy being the most commonly cited reason for the ‘failure’. However, Islamic militancy is a result of impending state failure, not a cause of it. This article argues that the state's inability, caused by decades of systemic corruption, to provide any appreciable level of public goods or services, broadly defined, is responsible for the delegitimization of the state and its inability to maintain law and order in the cities or suppress Islamist insurgents in the rest of the country.     

Hidden in the Household: Gender and Class in the Study of Islam in Africa

The household, if understood in a dynamic multi-status, multi-generational, multi-cultural, “gendered” way, can provide a conceptual framework for reinterpreting practices, processes, and patterns of Islamization in Africa. This framework contrasts with the one privileged in literature that focuses on the agency of traders, clerics and chiefs in public institutions. It reminds us that they “lived Islam” next to their mothers, wives, sisters, and slaves in households. This preliminary exploration of women and slaves usually seen as marginal to Islamization is intended to challenge extant perceptions: women and slaves were not only “recipients” of Islam but its agents. In their households, they shaped how Islam was lived by all around them. So instead of looking only at the history of more public Islamic people and places, addressing attention to the household and its changing nature over time may allow us to see a different face of Islam and different process of Islamization.     

History and Institutions in the Rebuilding of Social Capital after Forced Resettlement in the Philippines and Indonesia

Resettlement results in the loss of social capital from which poor households can draw resources for sustenance, survival and wellbeing. While Putnam deems social capital formation as pre-determined by a community’s history of civic engagement, the institutional view argues that social capital is generated through the institutions’ interventions. Utilising a comparative approach involving two resettlement sites, one in the Philippines and one in Indonesia, this article presents findings on the explanatory power of these two perspectives. The Philippine case is greatly influenced by the institutional interventions while the Indonesian case testifies to the validity of the theoretical perspective of Putnam.     

Being here and there: migrant communities in Sweden and the conflicts in the Horn of Africa

Abstract

The largest migrant communities in Sweden come from Africa's most troubled region, the Horn. These are the Somali and Ethiop-Eritrean communities. This paper examines the not-so-obvious ways in which Ethiop-Eritrean and Somali communities in Sweden influence the political developments, particularly the conflicts at ‘home’. Many of these immigrants living in Sweden keep up with social and political developments in their countries of origin almost on daily basis and remain engaged, to a large extent, in the affairs of both their families and communities ‘out there’ while they ‘are here in Sweden’. This article therefore focuses on the particular forms of engagement that have either intended or unintended impact on the intractable conflicts in which the societies in these countries are engaged. I argue that ‘nostalgia underpins the immigrants’ sense of commitment to the affairs of their countries of origin, and therefore, providing moral and material support to warring groups derives the impetus largely from the affective dimension of migration.     

中俄关系中的美国因素

中俄战略协作伙伴关系的建立和发展除了中俄两国的内在需要外,美国的国际战略及其对俄、对华政策产生了巨大影响.美国因素对中俄关系的性质、范围、层次、作用和未来走向有着十分重要的作用.就以往来看,美国因素的影响主要表现在四个方面.目前,美国的对俄、对华政策再次面临调整,受其影响,中俄关系的未来走势有四种可能.