哥斯达黎加：一团和气的国度

2008年11月，胡锦涛主席出访了拉丁美洲三国，其中，一个是哥斯达黎加，由于它很少见诸报端，一般人对它不甚了解，但它确是一个值得我们认识的国家，因为它有许多可爱之处。     

How to make an undemocratic constitution: The Nigerian example

Constitution? Wetin be that? Me a never see constitution before o. Na wetin e bi? Na book or na food? Abi na di name of one new govnor? My broda, a beg make you talk the one wey poor man pikin fit sabi. But on a serious note, who are these chaps in the PRC (Provisional Ruling Council)? When did they get the mandate of the Nigerian people to give us a constitution? That will not be said to be the constitution of the Nigerian people … … it is a political mistake to call the document they are handing over a constitution. This is because, it has nothing to do with the will of the people of Nigeria. It was done based on the way the military wants it, it is only a guideline and therefore the civilians should regard it as a guideline.     

Becoming patriots in Russia: biopolitics,fashion, and nostalgia

The article seeks to explore the common ground between biopolitics, fashion, patriotism and nostalgia. Taking off from the Foucauldian notion of biopolitics as a control apparatus exerted over a population, I provide an insight into the modern construction of the Russian nation, where personal and collective sacrifice, traditional femininity and masculinity, orthodox religion, and the Great Patriotic War become the basis for patriotism. On carefully chosen case studies, I will show how the state directly and indirectly regulates people’s lives by producing narratives, which are translated (in some cases designers act as mouthpieces for the state demographic or military politics) into fashionable discourses and, with a core of time, create specific gender norms – women are seen as fertile mothers giving birth to new soldiers, while men are shown as fighters and defenders of their nation. In the constructed discourses, conservative ideals become a ground for the creation of an idea of a nation as one biological body, where brothers and sisters are united together. In these fashionable narratives, people’s bodies become a battlefield of domestic politics. Fashion produces a narrative of a healthy nation to ensure the healthy work- and military force.     

Putting the City on the World Art Map: Star Curators and Nation Branding

International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society - Over the last two decades, we have seen a worldwide expansion of the concept and practice of cultural diplomacy, along with the emergence...     

Becoming Patani Warriors: Individuals and the Insurgent Collective in Southern Thailand

Focusing on the case of Thailand's ongoing insurgency in its southern Malay Muslim majority region, this article examines the circumstances surrounding individual's choices to engage in violent revolt and their conformity and non-conformity with the norms and disciplines of the movement in which they operate. Insurgent-driven violence in Thailand's southern border provinces has attracted considerable attention, but little has been published about the people who become “Patani Warriors” (juwae). Based on the authors’ direct encounters with current and former insurgents and study of Thai official documentation and captured insurgent propaganda material, this article presents the most detailed information currently available on southern Thailand's shadowy fighters. We argue that there is no single type of Malay Muslim insurgent: this variegated reality defies the normative ideals projected in insurgent's indoctrination material while it also poses a challenge for the Thai authorities to define in simple terms those who oppose the state.     

From an Estate to a Cossack Nation: Kuban' Samostiinost', 1917

This paper explores the origins of Cossack separatism in Kuban' during 1917. It investigates the growing tension between the Cossack caste and the civic universalism of the post-February environment, a setting which increasingly made Kuban' Cossackdom an anachronism, obliging Cossacks to search for a modern alternative group identity superseding the old estate one. The Kuban' Cossacks' answer was to justify Cossacks' estate particularism for the sake of ‘civic unity’ by implementing separatism in the name of ‘self-determination’. The result was the emergence of a Cossack nation-building movement during the civil wars, which pursued the separation of a Cossack state from Bolshevik Russia.     

Organized labor under military rule: the Nigerian labor movement, 1985–1992

This article examines the recent evolution of state-labor relations in Nigeria. The research indicates that the present military regime has maintained neocorporatist relations within the labor movement in order to limit union demands concerning political reform and economic restructuring. In addition, the study claims that the relative exclusion of organized labor from the reform process has undermined union support for the regime’s program of political liberalization. John P. Tuman is a lecturer in the department of labor studies and industrial relations and in the department, of political science at Pennsylvania State University. Currently, he is working on a study of unions and restructuring in the Mexican automobile industry. His other research interests include comparative industrial relations and the politics of developing areas.