External Actors and the Provision of Public Health Services in Somalia

Concentrating on the health sector, this article argues that the provision of collective goods through external actors depends on the level of state capacity and the complexity of the service that external actors intend to provide. It shows that external actors can contribute most effectively to collective good provision when the service is simple, and that simple services can even be provided under conditions of failed statehood. Effectively delivering complex services requires greater levels of state capacity. The article also indicates that legitimacy is a key factor to explain variance in health service delivery. To demonstrate this, the article assesses health projects in Somalia. It shows that simple services—malaria prevention and tuberculosis control—are provided effectively in all three Somali regions, including the war‐torn South‐Central region. In contrast, the HIV/AIDS project only achieved substantial results in Somaliland, the only region with a comparatively higher level of state capacity, and failed in the South‐Central region and Puntland.     

A heroic male and a beautiful woman. Teemu Mäki,Orlan and the ambivalence of the grotesque body

In this article two performances are analysed, Finnish artist Teemu Mäki's video performance The Good Friday (1989) and French artist Orlan's performance of metamorphosis The Re-incarnation of Saint Orlan or Image(s)/New Image(s) . The concept of heroic masculinity is problematized through Mäki's masochistic performance. Orlan undergoes cosmetic surgery in the name of art. Her performances are treated as a cultural statement about gender and as a visualization of the contemporary, commercial ideals of female beauty. This interpretation is framed by the art theoretical concept of the grotesque. In the article the grotesque is approached through the works of Mikhail Bakhtin, Wolfgang Kayser and feminist appropriations of them by Mary Russo and Rosemarie Garland Thomson. Through these works the grotesque is defined as a concept by which phenomena are described in a state of transformation, a state in which they no longer fit into any fixed category. The ambivalence of the performances is stressed in this analysis. The grotesque is defined as a thoroughly political term. The politics of the grotesque is such that the term can be used to indicate that phenomena - bodies, genders and sexualities - are not as natural and self-evident as we would often like to think.     

Southeast Asia and conflict prevention. Is ASEAN running out of steam?

Abstract

If the assessment of ASEAN's success in the past is difficult, speculations on whether ASEAN will be a success will be close to impossibility. Yet this is what is intended in this article. However, this is done by first defining robust criteria of success of conflict prevention. Conflict prevention is successful if conflicts and battle deaths can be avoided, either by means of conflict resolution or transformation, or simply by means of conflict avoidance. By starting with this criterion the article will argue that ASEAN peacefulness cannot be explained by durable objective conditions. Instead, it is built on imagined realities. The imagined realities of the ASEAN Way are getting more difficult to sustain due to their interaction with material and normative/institutional developments. Many of the constructed foundations of the ASEAN Way are unsustainable in the new realities where communication has become easy and uncontrollable, and societies have become wealthier and more democratized. However, the article will show that evidence of existing conflict violence suggests that ASEAN has started to reformulate its approach to conflict prevention and that this has largely been successful.     

Useful Opium? ‘Adapted religion’ and ‘harmony’ in contemporary China

Pragmatism has been a leading feature of Communist Party policies since Mao Zedong's death. The attitude to religion has been something of an exception with many restrictions to the freedom of religion stipulated in the constitution. In recent years, while stressing the ‘harmonious society’, there has been a change in the view of religion. Recognizing the ‘spiritual vacuum’ in China after Mao, the party has seen the need for a controlled spiritual development that could also support the economic development. However, in this process the party has tried to control not only religious activity but also religious content and to use it for its own purposes. This is in direct opposition to Marx and Lenin's views on ‘religion as opium’ and indicates that the party is de facto using ‘a reversed opium theory’.