‘Blocked’ Youth: The Politics of Migration from South and East Mediterranean Countries Before and After the Arab Uprisings

Migration from South and East Mediterranean (SEM) countries has been considered a growing security threat in the EU and Gulf states following the 9/11 attacks and the Arab uprisings. Since 2011, the economic slowdown, regime changes and socio-political instability have spurred growing migration pressure from SEM countries. However, the securitisation of migration of young citizens from these countries in the EU and the Gulf states is manifested in the drastic limitation of migrants’ inflows, and in the selection of prospective migrants on demographic, socio-economic and political grounds. Today’s ‘governmentality’ of youth migration from SEM countries poses ethical and development-related issues.     

‘Raising a moral generation’: the Republican People's Party and religious instruction in Turkey, 1946–1949

When Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, as the Prime Minister of the Turkish Republic, declared his government's intention to raise a ‘religious generation’, his proposition drew harsh criticisms from Turkey's secularists, who argued that doing so would clearly challenge the secular nature of the Turkish state. Yet it may come as a surprise to many that it was not a conservative party with Islamist leanings that first experimented with the idea of relying on religious education as an antidote to the perceived moral decadence of the society. Rather, it was the secularist party, the Republican People's Party, which attempted to use religious instruction for the same purpose during the heyday of Kemalism in the 1940s. Against this backdrop, providing an analysis of how the Republican People's Party had come to the point of offering religious education to school children and how it justified this policy can shed light on today's debate on secularism and the secular character of the Turkish state.     

Prison registers,their possibilities and their pitfalls: the case of local prisons in nineteenth-century Quebec

This article presents a methodological discussion and analysis of nineteenth-century local prison registers, using two datasets drawn from the common gaols of Quebec City (1813–1871) and of Montreal (1836–1899). It first examines the analytical possibilities offered by the wealth of serial data in these sources, concentrating especially on marital status and on the reconstruction of prisoners' incarceration histories. It then turns to the pitfalls inherent in exploiting such administrative records, notably the vagaries of social categorization and of stature measurement, arguing for the importance of reconstructing the legal and administrative contexts of prisoner data collection.     

From foreign trade to international investment: a new step in China’s integration with the world economy

China’s economic strategy is facing new challenges arising from the changes in the world economy as well as in its domestic conditions. Given the sluggish global economy and the rise of protectionist policies, China cannot expect external demand to contribute to its economic growth as much as in the past. On the domestic side, the working age population has ceased to increase and will soon diminish; rising domestic costs will force Chinese exporters to shift from price competitiveness to quality upgrading and to build new comparative advantages. An important dimension of China’s new strategy will be the expansion of its direct investment abroad. China which has already become the leading world exporter and has been up to now a major recipient of foreign direct investment is likely to turn out to be a major international investor. China has accumulated large foreign assets which mainly consist of foreign government debt securities and is now aiming at diversifying its external assets through promoting Chinese firms’ investment abroad.     

Remaking the public through the square: invention of the new national cosmology in Turkey

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the formation of authoritarian populism in Turkey by analysing mass mobilization and its repercussions in the symbolic and imaginary realms as authoritarian right-wing populisms have gained global popularity. It scrutinises the AKP government’s mobilization of the masses in the so-called ‘democracy watches’ after the coup attempt on 15 July 2016. During the demonstrations that took place in various locations in Istanbul, authors carried out participant observation fieldwork and field interviews. The paper concludes that democracy watches constitute a significant means of constructing and consolidating a new authoritarian regime, thereby endowing this consolidation process with a popular legitimacy.     

China’s Integration in East Asia:Production Sharing, FDI & High-Tech Trade

China has taken advantage of the globalisation process and has become an assembly country for firms in Asia, which have extended their production and trade networks to China. China’s position in the segmentation of the production processes has fostered its trade in high-technology products. However the rapid technological upgrading of China’s trade is associated with an increasing dependence on foreign capital and technology. The emergence of China has led to the reorganisation of production in Asia and to a triangular trade pattern: firms in advanced Asian economies use China as an export base and instead of exporting finished goods to the US and Europe, now export intermediate goods to their affiliates in China.