Palestine: the return of the one‐state solution

The Cambridge History of Islam. Edited by P. M. Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, Bernard Lewis. Cambridge University Press, 1970. Volume I: The Central Islamic Lands. Pp. xviii, 815. Bibliog., Index. ££6.00. Volume II: The Further Islamic Lands, Islamic Society and Civilization. Pp. xxvi, 966. Plates, Bibliog., Index. £7.00.     

Gorbachev and the “National Question”: Restructuring the Soviet Federation

An American specialist on Russian economic law and managerial behavior examines the means by which enterprise directors cope with non-payments. Analysis is based primarily on evidence from six in-depth case studies of industrial enterprises in Moscow, Saratov, and Yekaterinburg. On-site observation of managerial routines complements intensive interviews with a range of managerial personnel and examination of sales contracts and other documentary records. The author identifies three basic patterns of adaptation to the threat of insolvency, the factors that explain the managers' behavioral choices, and the implications of these changes for the broader banking, inter-enterprise, and legal systems.     

Asia’s Conservative Moment: Understanding the Rise of the Right

ABSTRACT

Recent scholarship has identified a new era of post-democracy or democratic crisis in the West, characterised by the increasing resort to authoritarian measures and the erosion of mechanisms such as representative parties and unions that link citizens and social forces with the political process. Conservative political movements, right-wing governments and populism have also emerged in the democratic states of the Asia-Pacific. The existing literature, with its focus on the crisis of social democratic institutions and forms of representative politics, provides inadequate frameworks for explaining these trends in the region. This article suggests that a better way of understanding the emergence of these new forms of political regime in Asia is to locate the origins of democratic crises in processes of global capitalist transformation and political incorporation and disincorporation. The articles in this special issue show that previously dominant modes of incorporation are fracturing under the conditions of neo-liberal capitalist transformation. In the wake of this fracturing, political elites have struggled to created new forms of political incorporation. This has inadvertently resulted in the sharpening of the conditions that give rise to political crisis. The political responses to crises have predominantly been conservative and have led to attempts to restructure the state to limit dissent and electoral competition.     

Israel approaches the nuclear threshold: the controversies in the American administration surrounding the Israeli nuclear bomb 1968–1969

The article focuses on the internal debate in the US Administration as Israel Approached and passed the Nuclear threshold in 1968–1969. The article is based on recently released American Defense and State Departments documents and also on Presidential and National Security Advisor documents hitherto unavailable.     

The EU against the New Normal: Avoiding the Banalization of the Israeli‒Palestinian Dispute

This article assesses the European Union (EU)’s engagement with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and highlights the unintended consequences of the policies pursued by Brussels on this matter. While stressing that Palestinians and Israelis interested in peace face the danger of the banalization of the conflict, the article argues that the current status quo is unacceptable and unstainable in the long run, and this demands new policies from the actors involved with the conflict or its resolution. The EU policies’ overall rationale must be to treat the Israeli?Palestinian dispute as a normal, non-exceptional conflict, in which economic and legal tools can be employed to create new legal facts on the ground. An alternative EU approach to the conflict must recognize the insufficiency of recent initiatives and should be built upon two pillars: the legalization of the main contending issues and the empowerment of the civil society actors and initiatives that foster dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis.     

Negotiating the technological capacity in Chinese engagements: Is the Tanzanian government in the driving seat?

Is the Tanzanian government in charge of development cooperation programmes with China? The literature has portrayed the Tanzanian and other state actors in Africa as passive and weakly coordinated players over the five decades of intensified cooperation with China. This paper will attempt to challenge this narrative by drawing on lessons from the negotiation efforts of individual and institutional actors in Tanzania, as they sought to improve the country's industrial and technological capacity, among other interests. Our findings revealed a gap between the capacity to attract Chinese investments and development assistance, and extraction of knowledge and technology from such engagements. President John Pombe Magufuli's anti-corruption measures signal a paradigm shift against the rent-seeking tendencies, elitism and limited utilisation of local content under the Chinese partnership projects. Nevertheless, the combination of a declining share of official Chinese engagements with the increased involvement of private actors necessitates further policy innovations in order to boost inter-firm technological spillovers.     

‘On the outskirts of the Empire’: Joseph Brodsky and Lithuania

This article explores the role of Lithuania in Joseph Brodsky’s life and works before and after his exile from Russia in 1972. As a former Soviet republic, Lithuania represented an intermediary space for Brodsky both culturally and geographically, contributing to his realization that it was a ‘rehearsal’ for his actual emigration. However, Brodsky’s notion of Lithuania changes when, after 1972, instead of representing a simulacrum of the ‘abroad,’ the poet sees Lithuania as a ‘home’ from afar. Emigration, in Brodsky’s case, thus became a realization of the myth of exile implicit in his earlier texts about Lithuania.     

Soviet musicology and the ‘nationalities question’: the case of latvia

Nation branding, as a phenomenon, is attracting increasing scholarly attention. However, much of the existing literature has been written by those involved in the public relations industry themselves. There have been some studies which have been written from a critical viewpoint; however, the tensions of branding a nation have often been neglected. This paper aims to explore the inherent tensions between nation branding and nation building. To what extent is nation branding a tool or a practice? What images of the nation do branders seek to promote, and who is this image for? Is nation branding merely a more palatable version of nationalism? In particular this paper focuses on the debates surrounding the launch of Brand Estonia in 2001/2. Brand Estonia, with the slogan Welcome to Estonia: Positively Transforming, was launched to coincide with Estonia staging the Eurovision Song Contest in 2002. It is a unique and interesting case study given the level of controversy that the initiative generated amongst the Estonian public. Estonia was the first Former Soviet Republic to launch a nation branding project and, perhaps more controversially, it was managed by a British-based company, Interbrand. However, little scholarly attention has been paid to public-level discourses concerning Brand Estonia. The empirical findings discussed in this article highlight some of the more salient narratives on national identity that Brand Estonia engendered and therefore aims to fill this gap.     

Russia in the Post-Western World: The End of the Normalization Paradigm?

If the relative decline of the West and the great power shift defined as "the rise of the rest" are approaching, there are important implications for Russia's foreign policy. Drawing on the work of Russian and Western commentators, this article offers a preliminary assessment of the post-Western world's implications for Russia and its foreign policy. The challenge of the emerging post-Western world and the manifestations of the West's declining hard and soft power dimensions are described; several schools of Russian thought on current international conditions and Russia's own domestic capabilities are identified and analyzed; and Russia's potential to act as a post-Western great power is assessed.     

Questioning the ‘immortal state’: the Gezi protests and the short-lived human security moment in Turkey

This article has three interrelated objectives: firstly, it challenges monolithic depictions of the 2013 Gezi protests and conceptualizes the so-called ‘Spirit of Gezi’ as a highly influential—albeit temporary—power in the politics of Turkey. Secondly, it traces the success of the HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) in the 7 June 2015 parliamentary election back to Gezi while acknowledging the roots of the party within the Kurdish political movement. Thirdly, it examines the manifestation and subsequent decline of what is termed the human security moment in Turkey. The arguments of the work are mostly based on interviews with Gezi activists. It is argued that Gezi produced a discursive challenge to the national security-oriented understanding of the ‘Kurdish question’. Yet, even though the human security-oriented Gezi discourse had brought the Kurdish political movement and the Turkish left together, it ultimately failed to permanently transform Turkish politics due to the collapse of the peace process in June 2015. In addition to contributing to the literature on Gezi, the article also draws insights for security studies. It concludes that alternative discourses to the state-centric securitization approach to conflicts such as the Kurdish question can only have a lasting effect under conditions of ceasefire.     

Understanding the War in Syria and the Roles of External Players: Way Out of the Quagmire?

With Western commentators, media and think tanks still being the predominant determinant of the global international relations discourse and therefore also of the discourse relating to Syria, discerning actual realities coherently from the fog of a very biased narrative presents great challenges. Deciphering the complexities of West Asia has never been easy and the situation in Syria is particularly complicated. This article argues inter alia that the Commonwealth as an entity needs to add its efforts, voice and prestige to the global effort to prioritize the restoration of peace in West Asia in general and Syria in particular.     

1812–15: The debate about the High Court of the Sicilian Parliament

According to the Piano generale per l'organizzazione delle magistrature, the High Court of Parliament was one of the legal institutions provided for in the Sicilian constitution of 1812. Due to the fact that the Piano did not define in detail the competences and tasks of that institution, only referring to coming laws, the High Court became the subject of an important debate that developed in the reformed ‘assembly’ in the two years between 1813 and 1815. Documents uncovered in the Protonotaro del regno kept in the State Archives in Palermo regarding the parliamentary meetings and contemporary accounts outlined the heated argument between the Lords and the Commons about the function and powers of the Court that should have the right to try the highest officers of kingdom.     

The 2017 election in Kenya: reimagining the past or introducing the future?

The new 2010 Kenya Constitution introduced a devolved system of government that has radically transformed the Kenyan polity. The political elite which operated primarily at the national level now encounters a new competitive political arena with the introduction of county governments under devolution. In particular, a new post of County Governor has surpassed in power calculations both the traditional MP and the new position of senator. In the 2013 elections, the focus was on the national arena; in 2017, all this will change.     

Mega-Regional Trade Deals in the Asia-Pacific: Choosing Between the TPP and RCEP?

The emergence of “mega-regional” trade agreements has recently become the most significant trade policy issue in the Asia-Pacific. Since 2010, governments in the region have launched negotiations for two new trade agreements: the United States-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the ASEAN-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Differentiated by their membership, scope and level of ambition, the TPP and RCEP embody competing visions for how the Asia-Pacific trade system should evolve, and regional governments must now make choices over which initiative better serves their economic and political interests. This article explores the trade policy choice posed by these mega-regional trade negotiations, reviewing the evolution of the Asia-Pacific trade system, the recent emergence of the TPP and RCEP, and the competitive dynamics inherent in the development of the two proposals. It argues that four key considerations (trade policy ambition, the role of ASEAN, US-China geopolitical rivalry and defensive concerns) will be of key importance in informing regional governments’ decisions as the TPP and RCEP move towards completion in 2015.