Pashtun Jirga and prospects of peace and conflict resolution in Pakistan’s ‘tribal’ frontier

ABSTRACT

There is growing recognition and appreciation of traditional approaches towards peace and conflict resolution across the world. This article aims to highlight the crucial role and consequential importance of traditional mechanisms of peace and conflict resolution in Pakistan’s terror-hit Pashtun ‘tribal’ areas, formerly known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). These ‘peripheral’ areas of Pashtun tribes stand in relative isolation from the ‘centre’ of the Pakistani ruling establishment. Moreover, with the onset of militancy since 2001 in the Afghanistan–Pakistan region, the situation has turned worse for the local Pashtun tribes. The article discusses the changing role of traditional mechanisms and local structures of peace and conflict resolution, arguing that colonial legacies have failed to prevent, manage, resolve or transform conflicts in post-colonial states such as Pakistan. Furthermore, the Pashtun cultural code of Pashtunwali, along with its various tenets and structures, especially Jirga (Pashtun tribal council) and Lashkar (tribal militia), is also discussed in the article. The article concludes that the changing socio-political situation, along with the rise of the secular Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), is presenting a challenge to ‘tribal’ Pashtun patriarchal values as well as traditional structures like Jirga in the region.     

Post-development theory and the question of alternatives: a view from Africa

Post-development theorists have declared development obsolete and bankrupt and have called for ‘alternatives to development’. What do they mean by such calls and what should be the African response to such calls? In this paper I will attempt to address three important questions: first, what is meant by post-development theory's call for ‘alternatives to development’? Second, why consider post-development theory from an African perspective? Third, what contributions can a consideration of African difference and diversity make towards debate on ‘alternatives to development’? I conclude by arguing that increased consideration of the African experience would be valuable for all who are seeking alternative ways of dealing with the problems that development purports to address.     

Theory and Practice of Public Administration in the Philippines: Concerns for an Identity Crisis

Abstract

The discipline of public administration in the Philippines has been undergoing its version of an ‘identity crisis’ over the past decade. This crisis has been manifested in four areas: (1) the inordinate influence of mostly American public administration theories and concepts upon Philippines public administration has led Filipino academics in the early to mid-1980s to ask the question ‘is there a Philippine public administration?’; (2) the perceived disconnect between theories of public administration as taught in schools and the realities in the outside world has raised questions of the relevance of the discipline to real world challenges; (3) the continued frustration over the perception that in spite of many public administration and governance reforms, the Philippines continues to be among the more corrupt nations in the region; and (4) the recent fascination of academics in other disciplines, especially economists, that ‘institutions matter’, has led some public administration scholars to argue that their discipline has been arguing precisely the same point since the 1950s.     

Territorial changes and changing identities: how spatial identities are used in the up-scaling of local government in the Netherlands

This article analyses the use of local identities by local communities in two Dutch municipalities. This research was commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of the Interior to better understand the role of local identities in municipal amalgamations. This article develops a conceptual framework based on the distinction between a primary identity based on the widely recognised dominant characteristics of the local community, and a secondary identity based on how communities within a municipality have learned over time to deal with these different primary local identities. During an amalgamation, this secondary identity disappears with the old municipality. The disappearance of the protective shield of a secondary identity exposes the underlying primary local identities, and can bring local identities into the centre of the local political debate. They can become more ***inward-oriented and focus more on their historical roots and their differences with others; they ‘thicken’ into resistance identities. In other cases, the secondary identity of a municipality is too weak and indistinct to support the primary local identities. Municipal amalgamation can then help to promote a new more attractive secondary, ‘thin’ regional identity based on a selection of characteristics of established primary local identities.     

Russia in the European Home? Convergence,Cosmopolitanism and Cosmism in Late Soviet Europeanisation

The aim is to present a conceptual and historical reconstruction of Gorbachev's notion of a ‘European home’, its underlying philosophy of history as well as its relation to Russian cosmism. The concept is contextualised within the convergence debate of the post-war period, in which a rapprochement between communism and capitalism was posited. The essay concludes with reflections on what the conceptualisation can tell us about the fall of communism and what impact the concept has had on today's search for a common European identity. An argument is advanced that the notion contained paradoxes that contributed to the dislocation of post-Soviet Russia from Europe.     

Transitional Politics of Memory: Political Strategies of Managing the Past in Post-communist Romania

Abstract

The article develops a typology of political strategies of coming to terms with the past as a theoretical frame of reference against which it assesses the transitional politics of memory pursued in Romanian post-communist society. It argues that after an initial ‘elusive’ strategy based on a politics of amnesia gave way to a confrontationist stance promoting a politics of anamnesis, the communist past was both politically criminalised and symbolically demonised. The article concludes by arguing that the failure of the ‘mastering the past’ paradigm epitomised by the 2006 Tism?neanu Report needs to give way to a ‘normalising’ paradigm of remembering Romanian communism.     

Knowing Me,Knowing You: Media Portrayal of the EU in Kazakhstan

Abstract

The dichotomy of Self/Other prevails in shaping identity. This article asks how and to what extent the elements of the EU’s image produced by media discourse shape the national identity of Kazakhstan. It contends that a state’s identity can be formulated not in opposition—that is, not ‘Us against Them’—but rather, ‘Us as One of Them’. It argues that, in the case of Kazakhstan, the predominantly positive media discourse about the EU ‘Other’ contributes to a positive formulation of the Self via the legitimisation of the domestic regime on the national and international levels.     

The Fallacy of the ‘Failed State’

This article examines the origins and evolution of the concepts of ‘failed’ and ‘failing’ states, arguing that the terms have come to be used in such widely divergent and problematic ways that they have lost any utility. The article details six serious problems with the term ‘state failure’ and related terms like ‘fragile’ or ‘troubled’ states, concluding that analysts should abandon these terms. It concludes with a modest attempt to develop alternative concepts and principles for thinking about diverse states that pose varied challenges for academic analysis and policy makers.     

Conclusion: Is competency management a passing fad?

Is competency management a passing fad; is it a catch‐all term to cover diverse national patterns of development or a symptom of wider changes within bureaucracies? As the papers published here suggest, it is more likely to be a passing fad in Europe than the USA. Competency management addresses rather different agendas in different countries and while it does not embrace as diverse a collection of activities as ‘new public management’, there is substantial range in the issues it does address. European experience suggests competency is more likely to be ephemeral and concerned with repackaging rather than bringing something substantially new to personnel management in the upper reaches of civil services. Without taking too rosy a view of US experience, there may be a stronger case for arguing that contemporary competency management approaches there have brought something new to a longer standing debate in public and private management.     

The Projection of Development: Cinematic Representation as A(nother) Source of Authoritative Knowledge?

Popular representations of development need to be taken seriously (though not uncritically) as sources of authoritative knowledge, not least because this is how most people in the global North (and elsewhere) ‘encounter’ development issues. To this end, and building on the broader agenda presented in a previous article exploring the usefulness of literary representations of development, we consider three different types of cinematic representations of development: films providing uniquely instructive insights, those unhelpfully eliding and simplifying complex processes, and those that, with the benefit of historical hindsight, usefully convey a sense of the prevailing assumptions that guided and interpreted the efficacy of development-related interventions at a particular time and place. We argue that the commercial and technical imperatives governing the production of contemporary films, and ‘popular’ films in particular, generate a highly variable capacity to ‘accurately’ render key issues in development, and thereby heighten their potential to both illuminate and obscure those issues.     

Humanitarian neophilia: the ‘innovation turn’ and its implications

This paper critically examines the ‘humanitarian innovation’ movement, arguing that it represents a departure from classical principles and the entry of a distinctive new ideology into the sector. Labelling this ‘humanitarian neophilia’, the paper argues that it has resonances of Barbrook and Cameron’s ‘Californian Ideology’, with its merging of New Left and New Right within the environs of Silicon Valley. Humanitarian neophilia, similarly, comes from a diverse ideological heritage, combining an optimistic faith in the possibilities of technology with a commitment to the power of markets. It both ‘understates the state’ and ‘overstates the object’, promoting a vision of self-reliant subjects rather than strong nation-states realising substantive socioeconomic rights.     

Overcoming the Desire for Misunderstanding through Dialogue

The emotional and psychological aspects of joint working are examined in this article, providing a powerful explanation for the continuing difficulties in achieving joined-up government. Drawing on the sociology of community, psycho-dynamics of inter-group behaviour and theories of identity and difference, the author argues that New Labour's vision of an inclusive, consensual, community is inherently flawed; that conflict is a necessary and fundamental aspect of social relations. Indeed, ‘splitting’ and ‘exclusion’ are features of geographical, professional and occupational communities. And concepts such as ‘relationships-in-the-mind’ are valuable in understanding how identities are formed and maintained, and how patterns of conflict, hostility, misunderstanding and non-cooperation develop. Splitting and exclusion are important processes in building group identity, but they can also significantly undermine attempts to develop collaboration between agencies. The answer is for groups to engage in ‘conflictual dialogue’, addressing openly the misunderstandings created by group identities.     

BRINGING STRUCTURES BACK IN: THE ‘GOVERNANCE NARRATIVE’, THE ‘DECENTRED APPROACH’ AND ‘ASYMMETRICAL NETWORK GOVERNANCE’ IN THE EDUCATION AND SPORT POLICY COMMUNITIES

We reflect upon the ‘governance narrative’ as a means of conceptualizing recent developments in the British state. Recent public administration research has advocated a ‘decentred approach’ that would reject the linear narrative of a shift from hierarchical to network governance. We seek to build on ‘decentring’ theorists' critique of existing governance literature by offering case studies of the education and sport policy communities, arguing that the ‘new’ governance form is present in these sectors, but only as an element of a state strategy, the effect of which is to reduce autonomy and increase dependence on the centre among actors outside the core executive. We use the case studies to reflect back on the utility of the decentred approach and suggest that the range of questions it might tackle could be expanded by allowing for a greater role for structures and institutions in explanation, alongside the ideas, culture and belief of actors.     

The not-so-great aid debate

The ‘Great Foreign Aid Debate’ raged in the 2000s yet there are few overviews of it. This paper builds on heuristic classifications of the debate not to simply classify it, but rather to explore how it is perhaps not as ‘great’ as claimed and, in fact, is contributing to a narrowing of thinking about development possibilities. The paper explores the debate through the books released in the 10 years from 2001 that made both an academic and a media impact. It analyses what gets discussed and why and, equally importantly, what does not get discussed. In terms of what is missing, the paper posits that ‘left’ has disappeared and the progressive critique and support for aid has been left to scholars like Jeffrey Sachs and Jonathan Glennie.     

Diversity in Daugavpils: Unpacking Identity and Cultural Engagement among Minority School Youth in Eastern Latvia

Abstract

Studies of minority ‘integration’ often focus heavily on group boundaries of ethnicity, language and identity. This essay challenges these conventional approaches in Latvia by examining individuals’ quotidian, lived experiences and how these transcend common analytical boundaries. Using the Daugavpils region as a case study, I explore Russian speaker and Latvian participation in events explicitly linked with ‘ethnic’ Latvian cultural identity. I argue, by adopting multifaceted analytical measures of identities, ethnicity and belonging, new perspectives on banal integration and minority engagement within national culture emerge. Individuals engage with each other and with ‘national’ identity and culture in complex ways. Young ‘Russian speakers’ are often more integrated with their ethnic Latvian peers than the extant literature suggests, both civically and in Latvia’s cultural sphere, as consumers and producers of Latvian ‘national’ identity.     

Rethinking the ‘open functional’ approach: Ideas,problem pressure and reform in the contemporary welfare state

Recognition that welfare states continue to change has fostered debate about the relationship between ideas and policy problems in driving governments towards reform. To move the debate forward, this article proposes a modification of Barbara Vis and Kees van Kersbergen's ‘open functional approach’. It first argues that while policy problems may provide ‘functional pressure’ to reform, this pressure is significant only in so far as inaction would risk electoral punishment. Reform pressure is hence best evaluated with reference to contemporaneous expert advice, public opinion data and the timing of elite and media attention. Second, it suggests that ideas may also lead parties to act as reform seekers, using policy problems as justification for cherished solutions or long‐held programmatic goals. The modified approach is demonstrated through comparative application to two case studies, attempts at pension reform in Sweden and the United States.     

The People Are Missing: Cramped Space,Social Relations,and the Mediators of Politics

This article investigates the place of social relations in Deleuze and Guattari’s figure of ‘cramped space’, a figure integral to their ‘minor politics’. Against social and political theories that seek the source of political practice in a collective identity, the theory of cramped space contends that politics arises among those who lack and refuse coherent identity, in their encounter with the impasses, limits, or impossibilities of individual and collective subjectivity. Cramped space, as Deleuze puts it, is a condition where ‘the people are missing’. This is not, however, a condition of asocial isolation, but one full of social relations; the loss of identity is a condition comprised only of social relations. The ramifications of this thesis are here explored through Marx’s critique of citizenship, the socio-historical conjuncture of cramped space in relation to the ‘communization’ problematic, and the Palestinian mediator of sumud.     

National in Form,Putinist in Content: Minority Institutions ‘Outside Politics’

Abstract

Over the past three decades, Russia has developed a set of institutions for the management of ethno-linguistic diversity based on the principle of ‘national cultural autonomy’. This article examines the positioning of these institutions within Russian society, arguing that while state-endorsed discourses locate them within the culture sphere—treated as distinct from political processes—there is in fact an interpenetration of ‘politics’ and ‘culture’. The article identifies why these institutions position themselves within the ‘cultural sphere’ while also supporting the country’s meta-narratives on inter-ethnic tolerance and, effectively, the political status quo. Soviet legacies of inter-ethnic relations continue to be socially embedded, yet within this framework some dissenting voices are also discerned.     

Debt Politics and the Free Trade ‘Package’: the case of the Caribbean

While much has been written on how powerful institutions have used debt crises to foist free trade agreements on poorer states, this paper explores how the foisting of free trade agreements on poorer states has resulted in debt crises. Part one critiques the common-sense understanding of ‘free trade’ as a mere technical or policy issue, arguing that it is an intricate political, economic and ideological ‘package’ rooted in complex social, historical and cultural forces. Part two explores the role of debt in the free trade package by examining the impact of free trade agreements on the Caribbean over the past decade, during which time the region has experienced growing public and personal debt crises, further fuelled by an aid packages that included millions of dollars of concessional loans. It is argued that the contradictions of ‘free trade’ are mitigated through a ‘debt for trade’ paradigm, which Caribbean states are beginning to subvert through new preferential South–South partnerships.     

Seeing/being double: how African immigrants in Canada balance their ethno-racial and national identities

With increased transnational ties to their homelands, immigrants' ontology now verges on being double – and, consequently, on seeing double – most of the time. This double consciousness, and the attendant dearth of fixity in identity among immigrants, has led some to wonder where the allegiance of minority immigrants, in particular, lies. Can these immigrants be loyal to both their ethno-racial identity and their host national identity? Is the identification with one's ethno-racial background and national identity a zero-sum game in which one side of the loyalty equation gains only at the expense of the other? This study examines these issues, using African immigrants (specifically, Ghanaians and Somalis) in Canada as a case study. In particular, we use multinomial logistic regression to predict the factors that prompt these immigrants to identify as: ‘just Canadians’, ‘just Ghanaians/Somalis’, or as ‘Ghanaian-/Somali-Canadians’. The study is significant not only because of the lack of research on African immigrants' identity formation in Canada, but also because immigrants' identity has significant bearing on their settlement and integration in host societies.