Confronting A Dark History

正In late May, Canadians learned the remains of 215 indigenous children had been found in unmarked graves on the site of a former residential school in British Columbia.About a month later, hundreds of other unmarked graves were found located on another former residential school in Saskatchewan and a further 182 unmarked graves were discovered at a third site in British Columbia.     

The Female Student on Trial, 1910–1915: Dorothy M. Gladish versus University College Nottingham versus Oscar Wilde

This article examines the student career of Dorothy M. Gladish at University College Nottingham from 1910–1915. By drawing on little-studied archives, a range of narratives about Gladish's multiple embodiments of the female student are analysed. In particular, these narratives are situated within the representational contexts of the Gong student magazine, which are marked by re-writings of Victorian literary texts that re-invent the contemporary female student. In the case of Gladish, the symbolic and literal ‘trial’ was also a feature of her student career. A ‘Mock Trial’ of Gladish is read alongside accounts of the college council’s examination of Professor R. G. F. Dolley, following a complaint by the Gladish family, and their responses to the trial of Oscar Wilde in 1895, contained in a hitherto restricted archive. Consideration is given to how this case study extends our knowledge about women’s roles in civic universities at this period.     

The Georgians

Matthew Edwards gained his BA (Hons) in History from the University of York and his MA in War Studies from King's College, London. He currently works at the UK Ministry of Defence. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and not necessarily those of the UK Ministry of Defence.     

No Colonial Working Class,No Post-Colonial Development: a Comparative-Historical Analysis of Two Oil-Rich Countries

Development sociologists generally agree that states play a critical role in promoting, as well as in impeding, development. However, far less scholarly consensus exists on the precise historical processes that lead either to strong or to weak states. This paper investigates the factors that shape varied state capacities through a comparative-historical analysis of two similar countries with divergent development outcomes—Trinidad and Tobago and Gabon. In the 1960s, both countries had comparably large amounts of oil wealth, minimal state involvement in the economy, and low levels of development. In the 1970s, state capacity in Trinidad and Tobago dramatically increased and the country went on to achieve high levels of development. The Gabonese state, on the other hand, remained weak resulting in persistent low levels of development. This paper traces the divergence in state capacity to variations in working class mobilization, specifically the particular type of working class movements in each country and the political opportunity contexts. In doing so, this paper reveals new agents and contingencies producing state capacity that are not predominantly discussed in the contemporary development literature, and the meso-level mechanics by which these agents are successful or constrained in doing so.     

Was Idi Amin's Government a Terrorist Regime?

What does state terrorism look like? How do we distinguish it from other forms of mass state violence, such as repression or genocide? Based on the developing literature on state terrorism, this study presents three expectations that violence perpetrated by the state should meet if it is to be classified as state terrorism: these are (a) that the violence is perpetrated by agents of the state, (b) that the violence is visible, and (c) that state terrorism focused against a state's own citizens will be carried out by an autocratic, personalistic regime. Drawing substantially on a series of primary sources, this study demonstrates that Idi Amin's regime in Uganda from 1971 to 1979 did engage in state terrorism against its own citizens.     

Meeting development goals: evidence from the Civil Society Education Fund

In recent years, the Civil Society Education Fund has supported national education civil society coalitions (NECs) in low-income countries so that they put pressure on governments and donors to implement the Education for All agenda and the Millennium Development Goal on education. This article draws on literature on global governance as well as on an extensive evaluation of the CSEF to explore the actual contribution of this initiative to the activity of NECs. The article highlights the achievements and shortcomings of the CSEF and includes a set of practical recommendations on the role of global civil society in international development processes.