Charles de Gaulle: The Warrior as Statesman

Charles de Gaulle is primarily remembered as the leader of “Free France” between 1940 and 1945, as well as for his time as president of the Fourth and Fifth Republics. This article explores some of the sources of his political belief system, using his military writings of the 1920s and 1930s before he became a celebrated politician. It suggests that his political views can only be understood as being influenced by his experiences as a soldier and his reflections thereon in those military writings.     

Explaining Kazakhstani identity: supraethnic identity,ethnicity, language,and citizenship

The demographic composition of Kazakhstan after the fall of the Soviet Union presented a dilemma to the new Kazakhstani government: Should it advance a Kazakh identity as paramount, possibly alienating the large non-Kazakh population? Or should it advocate for a non-ethnicized national identity? How would those decisions be made in light of global norms of liberal multiculturalism? And, critically, would citizens respond to new frames of identity? This paper provides an empirical look at supraethnic identity-building in Kazakhstan – that is, at the development of a national identity that individuals place above or alongside their ethnic identification. We closely examine the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan to describe how Kazakhstani policies intersect with theories of nationalism and nation-building. We then use ordered probit models to analyze data from a 2014 survey to examine how citizens of Kazakhstan associate with a “Kazakhstani” supraethnic identity. Our findings suggest that despite the Assembly of People’s rhetoric, there are still significant barriers to citizen-level adoption of a supraethnic identity in Kazakhstan, particularly regarding language. However, many individuals do claim an association with Kazakhstani identity, especially those individuals who strongly value citizenship in the abstract.     

Teachers’ nascent praxes of care: potentially decolonizing approaches to school violence in Trinidad

Zero tolerance, punitive, and more negative peace-oriented approaches dominate school violence interventions, despite research indicating that comprehensive approaches are more sustainable. In this article, I use data from a longitudinal case study at a Trinidadian secondary school to focus on the role of teachers and their impact on school violence; I show that institutional constraints are not fully deterministic, as teachers sometimes deploy their agency to efficacious ends. In combining Noddings’ postulations on care and Freire’s notions of praxis as a symbiosis of reflection and action, I explicate the nascent praxes of care of six teachers at this school, as they strive for more positive peace-oriented approaches to school violence. I characterize these praxes as nascent because they are not fully interrogative of the structural violence of the entire system. However, I do argue that these nascent praxes possess decolonizing and transgressive potentiality in the face of a logic of coloniality that reinforces hierarchy, exclusion, and marginalization in the Trinidadian educational system. I conclude by contending that these nascent praxes must be scaled-up to more mature, radical praxes, including the cultivation of a systemic praxis of care; in other words, a deeper and broader postcolonial peace education.     

Ideology in three voices: an adapted methodology for the study of political ideology

Abstract

Theology in four voices represents a fitting methodological model for the study of political ideology, given the similarities between religions and ideologies as belief systems with ineliminable, fundamental beliefs. The formal theological voice is dropped from consideration on the grounds that, while the involvement of academic theologians in the theology of ordinary believers is entirely appropriate, political theorists ought not to be involved in seeking to change or refine the ideologies which they research. The normative voice – which we refer to as the established voice – consists of texts which carry authority within a particular ideology, such as The Communist Manifesto in Marxism, or J.S. Mill’s On Liberty in liberalism; the espoused voice represents that which adherents of an ideology explain about what they believe; the operant voice consists of the political action taken by the adherents. While there are potential disadvantages to this method, there are also potential advantages. Firstly, it enables a fuller understanding of an ideology, especially when tensions arise between the three voices. Secondly, it allows the researcher to enter at any one of three points into a circle leading from pre-understanding to understanding. Thirdly and finally, the model presents opportunities to combine different methodological approaches into ideological research.     

‘Swanning back in’? Foreign fighters and the long arm of the state

As foreign fighters have flocked to conflicts in Syria and elsewhere, their home governments have often claimed a right not only to criminalise their doing so, but also to deprive them of the right to return. This article challenges some problematic assumptions about the intersection among political allegiance, extraterritorial jurisdiction and the right of abode. It traces the origins of today’s conventional wisdom to a particular modern experience of state–society relations, including the rise of administrative ambitions that outrun the original bounds of the territorial state. In contrast, it argues for an ‘unbundling’ of state authority, prepolitical membership in society, and cross-border political action. This position would chasten overreaching views about states’ ownership of their citizens, while still leaving other ways to deal with jihadist violence.     

Introduction: Social Media,Political Marketing and the 2016 U.S. Election

This essay introduces the contributions of the volume “Social Media, Political Marketing and the 2016 U. S. Election.” Using a variety of methodological approaches, the authors investigate the communication strategies of the Democratic and Republican candidates for president together with the responses of their audience. Collectively, this research offers insights into how new communication technologies are changing both political marketing and the ways candidates and voters interact.     

Ruth First: political journalist,researcher and teacher

This article begins with Ruth's teaching at Durham and Dar es Salaam and teaching and research at the Centro de Estudos Africanos in Maputo. It discusses Ruth's research on how white farmers and mining houses in South Africa addressed their common problem of finding labour that was ‘abundant and … cheap’. She wrote about migrant workers to the South African mines from the South African end in ‘The gold of migrant labour’ and from the Mozambican end in Black Gold: the Mozambican miner. The address examines her analysis of the ‘power elite’ in Barrel of a Gun. It concludes with the threat that new legislation makes to investigative journalism in South Africa.     

Maytree: A respite center for the suicidal: an evaluation

This paper evaluates the contribution to suicide prevention made by an innovative project, Maytree, a respite center for the suicidal. Maytree offers a distinctive brief period of sanctuary for four nights for suicidal people; within this limited time it aims to provide opportunities through talking, reflecting, and relaxing for reducing the intense feelings that lead to suicidal behavior. The focus of this paper is on evaluating the first 3 years of Maytree's operation, exploring how Maytree works, and its effects on the people who stay there as "guests". This shows that Maytree reaches people who are at significant risk of suicide. Guests report both short term relief and longer term benefits. These changes are understood, through applying crisis intervention theory, as being generated by the opportunities for change in the Maytree approach. Thus, there is the potential for a benign cycle to be established. Maytree's model is different from that of mainstream, statutory services; we conclude that Maytree complements these services and also challenges the values and frameworks of statutory provision in the field of suicide prevention.