Ummah or tribe? Islamic practice,political ethnocentrism,and political attitudes in Indonesia

Existing research has uncovered a link between religious practice and political ethnocentrism. Religious individuals are relatively inclined to both support policies that benefit their own ethnic group and support political competitors seeking to represent them. These findings are broadly consistent with a large body of literature that examines the relationship between religion and ethnic prejudice. To date, empirical research has concentrated overwhelmingly on Western, Christian contexts. There is, however, reason to believe that Islamic practice may produce more universalistic beliefs and attitudes. This paper examines the relationship between religious participation and political ethnocentrism in Indonesia, this world’s largest Muslim-majority country. Using survey data collected during the lead-up to the 2009 national elections, this paper examines the relationship between religious practice and expressed preference for co-ethnic political leadership. It finds that a respondent’s self-reported level of religious activity strongly correlates with stated preference for co-ethnic leadership. These findings bolster confidence that the relationship between religious participation and ethnocentrism holds beyond Western Christian contexts. For Indonesia, deepening Islamic practice could thus predict a rise in ethnocentrism, threatening the country’s reputation for tolerance.     

Framing the revolution: the role of social media in Ukraine’s Euromaidan movement

The role of social media as a tool of mobilization, communication, and organization of social movements has been well documented since the Arab Spring. The public information posted on social media sites also presents researchers with a unique tool to study protests movements from within. The proposed study utilizes the theoretical foundation of issue framing literature and examines the social media framing of the Ukrainian Euromaidan protest movement. The original dataset traces the activities of the users on the social media site Facebook from 21 November 2013 to February 2014. While foreign media sources portrayed the Ukrainian crisis as a geopolitical struggle, the results of our analysis show that the participants of the protest conceptualized their movement in terms of domestic issues and an anti-regime revolution rather than a geopolitical crossroad between the EU and Russia. This study contributes to our understanding of the role social media sites play in the activities of protest movements, such as Euromaidan. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of social media as a tool of issue framing on par with the traditional sources of framing such as mass media and political elites.     

Modalities of Violence in Development: structural or contingent,mythic or divine?

This paper examines the relationship between violence and development. It explores whether violence is an intrinsic (structural) part of development, or a contingent result of poor or mistaken policies and practices that might be corrected. The issue of how far an element of violence might be desirable for development is also considered. These two issues are debated in the context of a variety of approaches to development and in light of various accounts of violence offered by analysts such as Fanon, Benjamin, Critchley and Zizek. In conclusion it is argued that an emancipatory conception of development may be reconciled with Benjamin’s idea of divine violence in the form of a Badiouan event—with the proviso that the Derridian conception of the economy of violence is also applied in such a way as to minimise, or at least limit violence.     

Introduction—Politicising Debt and Development: activist voices on social justice in the new millennium

In contrast to mainstream development economists’ and policy makers’ insistence that relatively straightforward, technical and apolitical solutions exist to the problems of debt and development, debt is inscribed in powerful, unequal and contested structures and relations. This is vividly depicted in the articles in this special section, written by activists and researchers with years of experience mobilising and supporting grassroots struggles, which reveal the often obscure or unspoken relations of power that underpin the highly unequal dynamics of debt on a global scale, while promoting and offering fresh insights from a diverse array of new initiatives and subversive tactics that confront the dominant debt and development paradigm. They offer sober reflection on what organisations need to do to get things done in continuing and future battles for debt justice.     

NGDOs as a moment in history: Beyond aid to social entrepreneurship or civic innovation?

NGDOs are the product of an era that is rapidly passing. Yet the common goals they strive towards remain relevant and are far from being realised. Poverty, inequity, insecurity and injustice were stubborn features of the old world order and are abiding features of the new. A brief history of NGDOs and of the radical shifts in the context where international development takes place shows that the goals NGDOs typically aspire to cannot be reached by simply relying on the framework employed by the official aid system. One important reason is that a growing reliance on tax-based funding is shifting NGDO morality, legitimacy and function from the civic to the public domain. Consequently, a new paradigm is required not just for NGDO development practice, but for the very nature of NGDOs themselves. This paper explores the extent to which social entrepreneurship and civic innovation could provide a new framework for NGDOs and development beyond aid. While both merit further attention, civic innovation is shown the better to fulfil the twin requirements of civic financial embedding allied to principles of co-operation and non-exploitation.     

Ending the impasse in Kosovo: partition,decentralization, or consociationalism?

This paper argues that current Western-backed approaches to conflict resolution in Kosovo have failed to alter Serbia's policy toward the region and have contributed to the exacerbation of political tensions between Belgrade and Brussels, while deepening ethnic cleavages between Serb and Albanian communities. While there is no possibility of Kosovo returning to Serbia's control, there is an equal unlikelihood that Serbian-populated regions of Kosovo, especially the north, will submit to Pristina's authority. Most importantly, there is little hope that Kosovo can gain full international recognition and membership in international organizations without a compromise settlement with Serbia. While territorial partition has long been a suggested option, I conclude that the best possible solution for Kosovo, given the positions of all parties involved, is a process of significant decentralization beyond the internationally supported measures in the Ahtisaari Plan. A model of consociational power sharing is one in which Serbian and Albanian municipalities are granted high levels of autonomy similar to arrangements made for Bosnia. While this solution may not be ideal and further weakens central authority, I argue that consociationalism reduces the problems of ethnic conflict, encourages local self-government, and preserves the overall territorial integrity of Kosovo.     

Remittances in Nepal: Boon or Bane?

Nepal is one of the highest recipients of remittances (percentage of GDP) in the world. For a small land-locked economy battered by a decade-long Maoist insurgency (1996–2006), prolonged political instability, slow growth rate and large exodus of youths for employment overseas, high inflow of remittances bears a huge significance both at micro and macro levels. Exploring various facets of high migration and remittances, this article shows remittance-induced Dutch disease effects and policy laxity to improve investment climate in Nepal. Since it is costly to sterilise the impact of remittances each year, it might be prudent to learn to live with it and gradually channel remittances to productive usages with a goal to boost productivity.     

The Place of Vietnamese Marriage Migrants in Singapore: social reproduction,social ‘problems’ and social protection

While the literature on ‘global care chains’ has focused on the international transfer of paid reproductive labour in the form of domestic service and care work, a parallel trend takes the form of women marriage migrants, who perform unpaid labour to maintain households and reproduce the next generation. Drawing on our work with commercially matched Vietnamese marriage migrants in Singapore, we analyse the existing immigration–citizenship regime to examine how these marriage migrants are positioned within the family and nation-state as dependants of Singaporean men with no rights to work, residency or citizenship of their own. Incipient discussions on marriage migrants in civil society discourse have tended to follow a ‘social problems’ template, requiring legislative support and service provisioning to assist vulnerable women. We argue for the need to adopt an expansive approach to social protection issues, depending not on any one single source—the state, civil society and the family—but on government action to ensure that these complement one another and strengthen safety nets for the marriage migrant.     

Debates in Ukraine over nationalist involvement in the Holocaust, 2004–2008

The article concerns debate about the memory of the Holocaust in Ukraine. It covers the period 2004–2008.     

‘Multi-Vector’ Foreign Policies in Europe: Balancing,Bandwagoning or Bargaining?

The article examines the phenomenon of ‘multi-vector’ foreign policies that have been adopted by a variety of states in Russia and the EU common neighbourhood. It traces the origins of ‘multi-vector’ foreign policy to a series of asymmetric bargaining ‘games’ between smaller states and two competing regional powers over the terms of cooperation. During these bargaining games, they either accommodate the demands of more powerful actors to relieve external pressure, or manoeuvre between two external actors to extract concessions from and negotiate more favourable agreements with one or both. The model illustrating how ‘multi-vector’ states behave is tested in the case of Ukraine's energy policy in the period from 1999 to 2009.     

Social security in the european community: co-ordination,harmonization or thirteenth state?

As the magical date December 31, 1992 is drawing closer full economic integration in the European Community is becoming a reality. At the same time it is getting clear that the future economic union has no social counterpart. International, as well as European social security law has been developed along the lines of two different techniques: co-ordination and harrnonization. While the former technique leaves the national legislation intact, only regulating cases with international aspects, the latter does have consequences for national law. The co-ordination of national social security law within the European Community is ruled by co-ordination Regulations 140817 1 and 574172. The mere amendment of the existing Regulations seems insufficient to create a social dimension within the European Community.Moreover, the co-ordination technique seems handicapped by its intrinsical complexity. A genuine harmonization, on the other hand, seems both for political and technical reasons impossible

in the short run. The Thirteenth State scenario aims both at offering an alternative for the complexity of co-ordination and providing a first impetus towards harmonization. This scenario was elaborated by a team of specialists at the University of Leuven, Belgium. The result of this research is an extensive blue-print for a European Community social insurance scheme.The authors offer an overview of the main goals of the scenario and a number of basic choices that have been made in develop-ing it. Finally they give some comments on the legal grounds for a European social insurance scheme and on the problems concerned with the elaboration of the administrative structure for such a scheme.     

HRM: Performance Relationship: Need for Further Development?

The last decade of empirical research on the HRM value additions, also known as the “HRM and performance” debate, demonstrates evidence that HRM does matter (Huselid, 1995 Huselid, M. 1995. The impact of human resource management on turnover, productivity and corporate financial performance. Academy of Management Journal, 38(3): 635–672. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Guest et al., 2003 Guest, D.E., Michie, J., Conway, N. and Sheehan, M. 2003. Human resource management and corporate performance in the UK. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 41(2): 291–314. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Wright et al., 2003 Wright, P., Gardner, M. and Moynihan, L. 2003. The impact of HR practices on the performance of business units. Human Resources Management Journal, 13(4): 21–36.  [Google Scholar]; Rehman et al., 2010). Unfortunately, the relationships are often statistically weak and the results ambiguous. This article reviews and attempts to extend the theoretical and methodological issues in this debate. Its aim is to build an agenda for future research in this area. A brief overview of achievements to date is followed by the theoretical and methodological issues related to what constitutes HRM, what is meant by the concept of performance, and the nature of the link between these two. In the final section, it is argued that research designs should start from a multi-dimensional concept of performance, including the perceptions of employees, and build on the premise of HR systems as an enabling device for a whole range of strategic options. This implies a reversal of the strategy-HRM linkage.     

It is Ukraine,not Russia — Irish told in Kiev

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Baymirza Hayit. Turkestan im Herzen Euroasiens. Köln: Studien vertag, 1980, pp. 308.

Lev. Bykovsky. Solomon I. Goldeman: A Portrait of a Politician and Educator (1885–1974). A Chapter in Ukrainian Jewish Relations. New York, Toronto, Munich: Ukrainian Historical Association, 1980. pp. 98. $8.00.

Kenneth C. Farmer, Ukrainian Nationalism in the Post‐Stalin Era: Myth, Symbols and Ideology in Soviet Nationalities Policy. The Hague, Boston and London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1980. Pp. 241. $35.00.

Vasyl Veryha. Dorohamy Druhoi svitovoi viiny. Legendy pro uchast ukraintsiv u Varshavskomu povstani 1944 p. ta pro Ukrainsku Dyviziiu “Halychyna”. Toronto: Novyi Shliakh, 1980. Pp. 259.

Pohrom v Ukraini: 1972–1979 (Zoshyty ukrains'koko samvydavu, No. 1), Su?asnist, 1980. Pp. 312. Zupynit’ kryvosuddia! Sprava Levka Lukianenka (Zoshyty ukrains'koko samvydavu, No. 3). Su?asnist, 1980. Pp. 264.

Mykola Rudenko. Ekonomkhni monolohy. Introduction by Petro Hryhorenko. Su?asnist, 1978. Pp. 199.

Ivan Franko. The Master's Jests. Translated by Roman Tatchyn. New York: Shev‐chenko Scientific Society, 1979. Pp. 133. $10.00

Sidney Heitman. The Soviet Germans in the USSR Today. Köln: Bundesinstitut für ostwissenschaftliche und internationale Studien, 1980. Pp. 135.

Ivan Maistrenko. Natsional'naia politika KPSS v ee istoricheskom razvitii. Munich: Su?asnist, 1978. Pp. 224.

Alexander Podrabinek. Punitive Medicine. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Karoma, 1980. Pp. 223. $12.95, cloth.

Bohdan Wytwycky. The Other Holocaust: Marty Circles of Hell. Washington, D.C.: A Research project of “The Nowak Report,” 1980. Pp. 96.

John F. Besemeres. Socialist Population Politics: The Political Implications of Demographic Trends in the USSR and Eastern Europe. White Plains, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1980. Pp. 384. $25.00.

Peter J. Potichnyj, ed. Poland and Ukraine: Past and Present. Edmonton, Toronto: The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1980. Pp. 364. $14.95. Distributed by the University of Toronto Press.

Alvin Marcus Fountain II. Roman Dmowski: Party, Tactics Ideology 1895–1907. No. 60. Boulder Col.: East European Quarterly, 1980. Pp. XIII, 240. $16.00. Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York.

Stavro Skendi. Balkan Cultural Studies. East European Monographs, 72. Boulder, Colo.: East European Quarterly, 1980. Pp. x, 278. $20.00. Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York.

Josef Kalvoda. Czechoslovakia's Role in Soviet Strategy. Washington: University Press of America, 1978. Pp. ix, 381. $8.75.

Joseph Held, ed. The Modernization of Agriculture: Rural Transformation in Hungary, 1848–1975. East European Monographs, no. 63. Boulder, Colo.: East European Quarterly, 1980. Pp. 400. $19.50. Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York.

Zsuzsa Ferge. A Society in the Making: Hungarian Social and Societal Policy 1945–75. White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe Inc. 1980. Pp 288. $22.50.

Robert F. Byrnes, ed. Communal Families in the Balkans: The Zadruga; Essays by Philip E. Mosely and Essays in His Honor. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976. Pp. xxvii, 285.

Warren F. Mazek, ed. Slovene Economy in the Eighties. New York: Society for Slovene Studies, 1981. Pp. v, 49.

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The Politics of International Law in the Post-Soviet Space: Do Georgia,Ukraine, and Russia ‘Speak’ International Law in International Politics Differently?

Abstract

Since the Soviet Union’s collapse, Ukraine, Georgia and Russia have faced the challenge of taking their positions in the politics of international law as part of their transformation processes. Strong dynamics of conflict have shaped these states’ politico-legal actions and interactions, for example, the Russo–Georgian War, the annexation of Crimea and the armed conflict in East Ukraine. This essay explores whether, how and why Georgia, Ukraine and Russia ‘speak’ international law in international politics differently. It discusses conceptual approaches to empirically analysing the processes of translating political preferences into legal arguments as well as how ‘communicators of international law’ in the post-Soviet region use the language of international law differently.     

Trade liberalisation in Brazil: Creating or exporting jobs?

Using the growth accounting and factor content approaches, this article looks at the impact of trade liberalisation on the structure and level of employment in Brazil over the 1990–97 period. The results support the argument that trade liberalisation in developing countries have a negative short‐term impact on employment — relatively small in Brazil's case ‐ which tends to be outweighed, in the long run, by a more labour‐intensive output mix.     

Does public opinion matter in Ukraine? The case of foreign policy

The article critically surveys the impact of domestic public opinion on foreign policy in Ukraine by integrating it within theories of public opinion. Studies of public opinion in Ukraine have not given due weight to the unique characteristics of the Ukrainian ‘public’, which differs greatly from the Western public. Ukrainian society is passive, atomized and its power is ‘submerged’ relative to that of the state. The article argues that public opinion is of minimal importance in the area of foreign policy.     

American Power,East Asian Regionalism and Emerging Powers: in or against empire?

Recent years have seen a revival of discussions on American decline. This paper intervenes in this debate by suggesting that there is a tendency towards partial conceptualisations of US power. It suggests a new historical materialist perspective that makes it possible to theorise American Empire as a relational social totality embedded within global capitalism. The paper then analyses the social limits of China’s rise and the integration of East Asian regionalisation into American Empire, suggesting the extent to which world power has shifted east has tended to be overestimated. It also analyses the emergence of Brazil, India, and the brics meetings, suggesting these developments have a limited, but overstated, capacity to challenge American Empire.