Nigerian Constitutional Proposals

Proposals for drastic constitutional reform in Nigeria wereissued at the beginning of March in the form of a white paper(Cmd. 6599, price 3d.) combining a historical introduction drawnup in the colonial Office and a despatch from Sir Arthur Richards,dated the 6th December. The proposals include a general schemeto bridge the gap between the Native Authorities and the centreby the creation of three new Regional Councils with headquartersat Kaduna, Ibadan and Enugu. The Northern Council is to consistof a House of Chiefs (24) and a House of Assembly (39); thereis to be a Western Assembly of 29; and an Eastern Assembly of27. These regional councils are to have unofficial majorities,mainly selected from existing Native Authorities by themselves.They will have the right to discuss all general legislation,and to pass their own regional budgets, which, subject to approvalfrom the Governor, will be passed by a block vote at the centre.At the same time each Regional Centre will have an AdministrativeHeadquarters, largely decentralised from Lagos, whose departmentalheads will there have Deputies. Finally, the Councils will actas electoral colleges to the central Council, which is alsoto have an unofficial majority (25 to 24), and which will legislatefor the whole of Nigeria (with a budget session held in rotationat the four main centres). Other details include a Supreme Courtfor the whole of Nigeria, and a reorganisation in the Colonyof Lagos, whose urban limits are to become a municipality. Thescheme is proposed for 9 years with reviews of the system ofdirect nomination at the end of the 3rd and possibly the 6th. The proposals, which as Sessional Paper No. 4 were passed unanimouslyin the Nigerian Legislature on 22nd March, have still to bediscussed in the British Parliament. They are here consideredby a former Governor, and a former Lieut-Governor. It was hopedto have comments from Nigeria itself, where there has been considerableunofficial criticism, but this has had to be held over.     

Challenges to decentralisation in Ghana: where do citizens seek assistance?

Decentralisation in Ghana, and across sub-Saharan Africa, faces a number of challenges to successful local governance provision because there are a number of formal and informal actors to choose from. Citizens may take problems they want a governance provider to solve to a member of parliament or a district assembly person, a traditional chief or a police officer, a neighbour or an NGO. In this article we report on a four-constituency survey administered to explore and understand how citizens choose between the options of local institutions available to them in order to solve a problem important to their community or themselves. We find that formal national (Parliamentarians) and informal traditional (Chiefs) institutions are where respondents turn for assistance most often instead of constitutionally described local modes of governance (District Assemblies). We consider the implications of this finding in terms of decentralisation in Ghana and the need to build institutions that are context-sensitive and reflect how citizens understand political options.     

The Shifting Tides of Pacific Regionalism

Abstract

The current state of Pacific regionalism is faced with a range of external and internal factors that are acting to reshape the region and which call for a rethinking of Pacific regionalism. Within this context a range of new and in some cases reinvigorated groupings of political actors have emerged, seeking to influence and shape the region. Interpretations of this plurality of political groupings differ, with some authors seeing it as a direct challenge to the previously existing regional order, while others argue it signals a return to a foundational Pacific voice in regional politics. This article suggests that the present plurality is more than resituating a ‘Pacific voice’ and is not necessarily a challenge to the existing order. Rather, the Pacific’s experience mirrors global trends in the evolution of regionalism as a practice, in which network diplomacy or coalition-building across the plethora of actors will become a predominant feature of new regionalism. Further, the authors argue that the Framework for Pacific Regionalism provides the platform for effectively navigating this new context through facilitating the politics of networks and coalitions to drive the shared interests of the region, and presents a shared platform to test paradigm-shifting ideas.     

The Christians of Palestine: Strength,Vulnerability, and Self-restraint within a Multi-sectarian Community

Based on fieldwork in the Bethlehem area, this article uses the issue of internal land disputes as a starting point to describe a series of developments that have served to weaken the Christian communities in Palestine, and to identify some dilemmas they face, as Palestinians and as members of a minority community in Palestine. The article describes a situation where a weak and dysfunctional legal system under the Palestinian Authority (PA) has left Palestinians dependent on family and community networks for security and protection. Due to a history of emigration, combined with distinct social and demographic characteristics, Christian Palestinians find themselves in a position of structural vulnerability, subject to land theft and other criminal violation. Cautious about igniting sectarian divisions, Christian community leaders have a hard time addressing these issues within a public discourse. Fearful of harming Palestinian national interests, they are also reluctant to utilize international contacts and seek external support to secure their own rights and interests in Palestine. The article argues that this reflects both a commitment to an ethos of national unity among Christian Palestinians, and an acute awareness of the impact of ‘framing’ in preserving sectarian harmony.     

Whatever Happened to the Australian Role in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership?

In 2003, Iraq was invaded, ostensibly to remove a nuclear threat, by a coalition led by George W. Bush. At the same time select allies were invitited to participate in Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership which aimed to limit the spread of nuclear enrichment and reprocessing. This came as climate change gave emphasis to the development of nuclear energy, especially in Asia. With an abundant supply of uranium and strict nuclear safeguards, Australia was well placed to provide a site for the full suite of nuclear services. The recent AUKUS nuclear submarine agreement has underscored its failure to do so. This article makes the case for the adoption of nuclear power as a necessary step in the development of advanced manufacturing; the provision of a domestic capability to fuel nuclear attack submarines and other naval craft; and as a contribution to global nuclear non-proliferation.     

The ‘heart’ of Eurasia? Kazakhstan's centrally located capital city

In a world still dominated by a geopolitical system of territorial states, one tool in the state- and nation-building repertoire is the strategy of moving a capital from one city to another, and to an ostensibly more ‘central’ location of a geometrically conceived territory. From Ankara to Brasília, the technique has been used in a variety of places around the world, and Kazakhstan's new capital since 1997, Astana, is one more recent iteration. Taking a Foucauldian approach to analysing political technologies of government, the author examines the strategy of the centrally located city and considers how it has been instrumental to simultaneously producing a ‘state effect’ and a ‘territory effect’ in newly independent Kazakhstan. Part of a larger mixed-methods study, this article draws on a diverse range of methods, including data from interviews, participant observation, textual analysis, focus groups and a country-wide survey.     

Circles of esteem,standard works,and Euphoric couplets

Abstract

Indonesian Studies as a field is strongly influenced by its own social character as a community of competing and cooperating scholars. Outside individual universities, the dominant social form is not the powerful professor, but rather the “circle of esteem,” a cluster of scholars who respect each other, cite each other's work, push each other's ideas into the academic marketplace, and, occasionally, rise to each other's defense. Circles of esteem arise because academic work has less to do with the industrial production of knowledge than with a constant search for novelty, which may arise from new sources or new uses of sources. Although novelty is prized, the value of new work is hard to judge, and it will be more easily accepted when backed by a circle of esteem. There are two effective ways to gain academic prestige outside a circle of esteem. The first is to write a standard work, a conservative strategy to create a work that will become citation fodder for others. The second way is to coin a “euphoric couplet,” which is an unexpected adjective-noun combination encapsulating a previously elusive analytical truth. Euphoric couplets are easy to remember, dissociated from theory, and intriguingly ambiguous.     

构建“中国学派”的观念困境:基于比较视野的分析

构建"中国学派"的国际关系理论是一个歧见丛生、远未成型、前景未卜的话题。即便如此,对于其已经表现出来的具有较大影响的观念基础进行反思并不为时过早。通过从两个角度对"中国学派"背后所体现的观念进行比较,可以发现,"中国学派"面临的观念困境在于:如果我们批判西方作为深层差异之外在表现成果的国际关系理论,是否会株连到该内核的其他优势方面?在主张中国观念价值的同时,如何避免其潜在的弊端与危害?在中国社会改革持续深入的背景下,只有在社会改革的进程中实现了文化、文明和思想层面的崛起及民族精神革新之后,才能为国际关系理论的"中国学派"提供思想的活水源头。换言之,对理论的建构者而言,与其循着西方国际关系理论的弊端而思考建构理论,不如立足于思考中国民众所面临的问题——关于如何塑造强大的积极的个体、如何保持民族持续的发展和进步,进而思考我们理想的世界是什么样的。这些问题虽然看起来与国际关系理论相去稍远,但却能够保证理论应用的品质及其价值维度。     

Hamas in Politics: Democracy,Religion, Violence

Ahmed Midhat Efendi, a nineteenth century Turkish author, maintained that it was necessary to establish customs duties and other barriers against foreign sellers in order to convince them to produce locally in the Ottoman Empire. This would be a way to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) to a country in need of capital and technology. However, today, liberals around the world as well as in Turkey see a free trade environment as a prerequisite for FDI. This study tries to find out whether a relationship existed between free trade and FDI inflows in Turkey during a period when the Turkish foreign trade and financial markets were almost completely liberalized.     

Are We There Yet? Religion,Secularization and Liberal Democracy in Israel

Secularism and liberalism are often perceived as interlinked and associated with the process of modernization and liberal democracy. Yet recent studies of Israel cast doubts on this linkage as in spite of a rapid secularization of some parts of the public sphere anti-liberal and ethnocentric attitudes remain entrenched, encouraging some to call Israel a ‘non-liberal democracy’. This article seeks to explain these contradictions by, first, arguing that religion remains instrumental to the national discourse and to practices of demarcating boundaries and, second, that ethnic groups hold different perceptions of religion and attach different importance to religious rituals. Finally, secularization, as the Israeli case demonstrates, remains within the confines of a national discourse, differs between ethnic groups, and advances only with a limited commitment to religious freedom, to toleration associated with liberalism and, consequently, to a liberal democracy.     

Decolonisation after Suez: Retreat or Rationalisation?

Did the Suez crisis mark the end of empire in Britain and France, their submission to the political domination of the United States and the beginnings of a ‘new Europe’? Or did it stimulate a rethinking and reformulation of the meaning of empire, its utility and costs? This article argues that the ‘retreat from empire’ was not so much a simple, reflexive response to demands from below but a conscious effort by those from above to find new ways of exploiting the opportunities that the world beyond Europe offered them. Decolonisation, it is argued, is best understood in terms of contemporary business thinking, i.e. a conscious design on the part of managers to ‘downsize’, ‘restructure’, and ‘re‐engineer’ the imperial project. And, as in the corporate world, what might appear to the naked eye as retreat and abandonment may, on closer examination, turn out to be something more ambitious, an attempt to divest the imperial enterprise of unprofitable ventures and to reinvigorate those that are deemed to have untapped potential. After Suez, Britain attempted to demonstrate to the Americans that maintaining their access to middle eastern oil was vital both strategically and economically. They attempted to persuade them that ‘Nasserism’ was second only to communism as a danger to the western alliance, to have them drop their ‘anticolonialist’ rhetoric and to support the Bagdad Pact. In order to combat the anticolonial movement they established a ‘colonial’ bloc at the UN. Assuming that the Suez crisis marked the end of empire has hidden the struggle between Britain and France to redefine its meaning and has concealed the extent to which ambitious designs continued to persist in the contest to determine the future shape of a ‘united’ Europe — a struggle in which neither the British nor the French regarded themselves as pawns of the Americans in the Cold War, but rather one in which they attempted to move the powerful new American piece around the chess board in the middle east, Africa and Asia.     

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM IN UGANDA: THE NEW APPROACH

The article examines the constitution-making process in Uganda,from the days when Museveni's National Resistance Movement conductedits guerrilla campaign, declaring its intention to re-establishdemocracy with a new constitution. It considered that Uganda'scycle of violence in the past sprang from the lack of a goodconstitution and much store was placed on constitutionalismas a panacea. Accordingly, a constitutional commission was setup to consult the people and make proposals for a new constitution.The article examines how far this was a genuine attempt to consultwidely, or whether the government ‘guidelines’ wereintended to steer the discussion along pre-determined lines,and at a deliberately slow pace. The constitution itself isseen to contain some valuable improvements on previous constitutionsbut also to safeguard and preserve the existing ideology ofthe National Resistance Movement as far as possible.     

Dilemmas and accomodations of married japanese women in white-collar employment

Abstract

In the 1970s much of the literature on the role of married Japanese women presented a picture that roles should be clearly demarcated and segregated by gender. According to this ideal a man's main role is to earn a living, whereas a married woman's primary role is to run the household, manage the family finances, and look after the welfare of the family. Fundamental to this gender role segregation was the notion that women had a natural aptitude for matters relating to the home and to the family, and that a woman's most important and rewarding role was that of nurturing her family. This view lies behind the complete interdependence and role complementarity that characterize the Japanese husband-wife relationship.     

From Industrial Policy to Regional and Local Locational Policy: Experience from Santa Catarina/Brazil

Abstract — Industrial policy is no longer what it used to be. In the industrialised world and in advanced developing countries alike, the focus has shifted from a top-down, statist approach that sought to create industries to a decentralised, networked approach whose aim is to shape competitive advantages and to create ‘systemic competitiveness.’ This reflects the fact that globalisation and localisation are parallel and mutually reinforcing processes: The firms which do better in a globalised market are rooted in well-developed networks of supporting firms and institutions. The analysis of the case of Santa Catarina, a state which had a strong industrial growth record in the 1970s and 1980s, shows that the relevant actors tend to be slow to move to this kind of pattern. State-level industrial policy mainly consists of participation in a ‘guerra fiscal’ geared to attracting external investment as well as, to a very limited extent, measures aimed at giving financial support to local firms. Yet there is no such thing as an explicit policy at the state level — to say nothing of the local level — designed to support firms by shaping locational advantages. This is due to limitations on the part both of the state and the private sector. As far as the state is concerned, a traditional clientelist and ad hoc style of policy making prevails. In the private sector the business associations (sindicatos and the Federation of Industries, local chambers of industry and commerce and their umbrella federation) are slowly adapting to the new conditions presented by an open economy and far more competitive pressure, though they have thus far lagged in putting more pressure on local and state government to support company-level efforts to increase competitiveness. Within this general picture, however, there are differences between industrial clusters. The most advanced of them, made up of world-class firms manufacturing ceramic tiles, may show the way by strengthening associations, shaping locational advantages, and articulating the demands of companies toward the state.     

Intolerance Toward Immigrants in Switzerland: Diminished Threat Through Social Contacts?

Intolerance toward immigrants has recently reached noticeable highs in Switzerland. Referring to the conflict theory, the perception of a specific group as a threat tends to lead to intolerance toward that group. The expectation of a negative relationship between threat and tolerance is nevertheless not assumed to be universally valid for all members of society. In particular, the contact theory assumes that intercultural encounters should promote positive attitudes toward culturally different individuals and groups. Using a new and unique data set, our Heckman selection models reveal that Swiss who view rising immigration to mean a loss of economic privileges and an erosion of Swiss cultural values are less tolerant toward immigrants. Moreover, our results indicate that contact with immigrants may moderate this effect. However, not all group settings are able to reduce the perceived threats in a similar way, and not all sorts of social contact are able to foster tolerance toward immigrants.     

GEORGE W. BUSH AND ASIA: IN THE SHADOW OF 11 SEPTEMBER

Traditionally seen as a President consumed by the war on terror, George W. Bush is frequently portrayed as being relatively uninterested in Asia, and unable to outline a vision or a strategy to China, America’s Asian allies and Asian multilateral mechanisms. This article will revisit Bush’s policy on Asia and show a president who guided the United States with a policy that balanced the need to combat global terrorism and locate a focus on Asia. He faced the dilemmas of building cooperative relations with a rising China while trying to foster American alliances and partnerships in Asia, and managing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Utilizing qualitative content analysis as the main research method, the article will demonstrate that the Bush administration had not a lack of focus on Asia and that Bush’s diplomacy to Asia should be recognized as one of the most significant achievements of his presidency.     

INHERITING “JAPANESE-NESS” DIVERSELY

The late twentieth century saw a rise of global discourse about heritage. Research on heritage politics, however, has shed little light on heritage practices in schools, especially regarding language, that is, how heritage language is constructed and how it is “inherited” by students of various backgrounds. Heritage language education is often viewed as a means to empower heritage language speakers or to address the diverse needs of students in language classes. In existing works, the individual’s link to “heritage” is assumed as given and stable. More recent works show that the processes and effects of heritage language education are complex and nuanced due to diverse personal backgrounds and changing political economy and cultural politics. The role of schooling in the process of “inheriting” language, however, has not attracted much attention: how students are grouped or tracked into a particular class, for example. After ethnographically investigating various views and practices at a weekend Japanese language school in the northeastern United States throughout 2007 and 2008, the authors of this article argue that heritage language school is not merely a place to reproduce “heritage” by passing it on to students, but it is also a productive site where ways to imagine “heritage” and “inherit” it proliferate. The article analyzes the processes by which what would be considered as merely “speaking Japanese” and “being Japanese” outside heritage language school are differentiated into diverse ways of being Japanese. It suggests a need to investigate school as a site of heritage politics as well as a need for researchers and practitioners to view heritage language education not only as a way to teach language but also as a means to gain an understanding of heritage politics.     

Organisierte Zivilgesellschaft im EU-Verfassungsprozess: Partner des Regierens oder Konstituent politischer Ordnung?

A new role has been ascribed to civil society within the EU-constitutional process. It is not only regarded as a partner in governance but also as a constituent of the emerging EU-polity. Civil society appears in this process primarily as the structure of voice that is articulated in relation to EU-governance and that claims to represent European citizens. The article proposes an analytical framework and a methodology of how to analyze civil society in its role as constituency. The research agenda is linked to the intermediary and the representative function of organised civil society as a transmission belt of legitimatory discourse on the EU. In order to reconstruct how potential interests, identities and normative ideas relating to the legitimacy of a EU constitutional order are contested within national politics, our research draws on a survey of German civil society organisations in three sectors: a) consumer interest organisations, b) churches and religious organisations, and c) women and gender equality groups.     

The Two-Stage Solution: Toward a Long-Term Israeli-Palestinian Truce

There is growing consensus among Israelis and Palestinians that the paradigm of pursuing a two-state solution through bilateral talks has reached a dead end. Yet the widely discussed alternatives to this supposedly expired model have not posed a credible challenge to it. Instead they have been confined largely to academic discussions among activists who enjoy little support in their societies; the proposals are more a reflection of widespread desperation than a serious movement to bring change. In the absence of a negotiated settlement to the conflict, one possibility, though currently remote, is that Israel and a future Palestinian state will establish a long-term truce that settles some disputes, such as over territory, while leaving other issues unresolved.     

Between Domestic Learning and External Coercion: Budgeting and Fiscal Management Reform in Greece

ABSTRACT

The article examines the interplay between external pressure and domestic learning through a case-study of Greek budgetary and fiscal management reform. Pre-crisis, budgetary management inadequacies were not efficiently addressed, mainly due to lack of awareness of problems, a low uncertainty environment and a strong political propensity to maintain discretionary use of financial resources. In contrast, crisis-era bailout conditionality represented a drastic change in the environment, increasing uncertainty and encouraging domestic openness to reform. The fiscal governance framework was significantly transformed, to a point of paradigm change. While there is no doubt regarding the impact of external pressure, the analysis highlights certain aspects that point to a domestic learning process, though variable in different parts of the political-administrative system.