The last Byzantines: perceptions of identity,culture, and heritage in Serbia

Focusing on material culture, this article considers a range of issues concerning the cultural policies, ideologies, and identities that have underlain Serbian development since the Middle Ages, and tests some widely held yet previously uncontested views. In particular it questions the Serbs' perceived affiliation with the Byzantine Empire and challenges the view that this affiliation was so pervasive that it influenced Serbian development and national formation in the modern age. It is argued that Byzantium had little if any role in the Serbs' cultural development – neither in historical memories nor in surviving traditions. Serbia's Byzantine culture is largely a myth developed in the 1930s by the Serbian clergy as a corollary of the Russian-inspired Svetosavlje ideology. This myth was meant to dislocate Serbia's cultural identity from its secular European sources and reposition it closer to Orthodox Russia.     

Paradoxes of (dis)empowerment in the postcolony: women,culture and social capital in Ghana

Women’s empowerment discourses in Africa involve contradictory desires from women on one hand and society at large on the other. This article argues that the traditional validation mechanisms for women’s identities are crucial avenues for analysing both the conceptions and experiences of empowerment. Drawing on primary ethnographic data, I analyse paradoxes in women’s empowerment discourses in postcolonial Ghanaian societies, where neoliberal discourses thrive side-by-side with collectivist–socialist cultural ideals. Using an example of social capital, gained largely through mothering, I suggest that, because women’s relationships with capital are structured by local socio-cultural and global economic structures and relations, the theorisation and application of the concept of empowerment need to recognise the complicated relationships (with capital) that women negotiate on a daily basis.     

Two regionalisms,two Latin Americas or beyond Latin America? Contributions from a critical and decolonial IPE

This article reconsiders the hegemonic interpretation of Latin American regionalisms, which have been defined as expressions of the fragmentation power of ideologies. After identifying the main bias and limitations of this approach, two alternative analytical proposals are presented: critical International Political Economy (IPE), which reconsiders the region’s heterogeneity as the reflection of a variety of historical trajectories; and the increasingly influential Latin/Latin American modernity/coloniality approach, which re-authorises the voices of a multiplicity of ‘marginal’ subjectivities to the cognoscible world of international studies.     

An undisclosed story of roses: church,state, and nation in contemporary Georgia

Since the Rose Revolution (2003), Georgia has encountered an unprecedented scale of institutional reforms concomitant with the rise of American and European involvement in the “democratization” process. Various scholars have suggested that Georgian nationalism developed from an ethno-cultural basis to a more civic/liberal orientation after the Rose Revolution. This paper analyzes Georgian nationalism under President Mikheil Saakashvili to demonstrate the significant divergence between political rhetoric on national identity, the selection of symbols, and state policy toward the Georgian Orthodox Church versus state policy toward ethnic minorities. The aim of this article is to examine the at times conflicting conceptions of national identity as reflected in the public policies of Saakashvili’s government since the Rose Revolution. It attempts to problematize the typologies of nationalism when applied to the Georgian context and suggests conceptualizing the state-driven nationalism of the post-Rose Revolution government as “hybrid nationalism” as opposed to civic or ethno-cultural.     

The ‘shared workplace’ agenda in Northern Ireland: lessons from local government

The study considers the ‘Shared’ Workplace agenda in Northern Ireland, which is a significant aspect of the reconciliation process. Our emphasis is on the capacity of a wide group of work-based social identifications to affect, limit, and frustrate this policy. Specifically, we address the impact of spatial and functional factors as well as occupational and professional characteristics through fieldwork in three local authorities. Interviews were held with a cross section of 65 subjects, each of whom had either been employed by or worked in partnership with one of these authorities. Our study thus contrasts with much of the literature on Northern Ireland, which is concerned with the impact of Protestant/Catholic or Unionist/Nationalist identities on such reconciliation processes in the workplace and more widely. This approach enables us to develop insights about implementation of such agendas, specifically concerning Northern Ireland and other deeply divided societies. In the conclusion, connections are also made between our findings and consociational forms of governance.     

Public opinion,social cohesion,and the politics of immigration in South Korea

This article analyses public opinion in order to explore the politics of immigration in South Korea. It argues that there are divergent views about immigration and the obligations of the host society to accommodate migrants. Younger, better-educated citizens are representative of a majority that has a generally positive view of immigrants and immigration. A sizeable minority of older and less well-educated citizens, however, is warier of immigration and its effects on South Korean society. Men were more likely than women to have a positive view of immigration, but the differences along gender lines were small. The article also finds that attitudes towards immigration depend to a significant degree on how migrants are described. It thereby highlights the possibility that South Korea’s leaders could use immigration for political gain while also seeking to attract new migrants in order to resolve the country’s economic and demographic problems.     

Contemporary functions of ilobolo (bridewealth) in urban South African Zulu society

The functions and meanings of bridewealth in African societies have been analysed extensively in anthropological and historical studies. Although bridewealth remains widely practised in Southern Africa, few studies have examined the custom in a contemporary context. This paper addresses the paucity of research by focusing on South African Zulu society where, among all cultural traditions, the payment of bridewealth (ilobolo) continues to be one of the most salient. On the basis of recent qualitative research data collected in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, we argue that ilobolo practices among urban Zulu people are multifaceted and its contemporary functions debated and contested. However, there is also broad consensus about the obligation to uphold the custom based on a complex web of cultural and spiritual motives, socio-economic considerations and collectivist identity politics.     

Contesting and negotiating religion and ethnic identity in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan

Post-Soviet Central Asia has inherited a set of circumstances conducive to the revitalization of religion. The renewal of Muslim awareness and identity in Central Asia may not be surprising, but the growth of Christianity is, especially in its Protestant form within indigenous Muslim communities. This article, based on qualitative field research, reviews one example of this development: the process of conversion to Protestant Christianity among Muslim Kyrgyz in Kyrgyzstan. A prominent aspect of this social movement has been the ways in which Kyrgyz Christians have entered into a dynamic process of engaging with issues of identity and what it means to be Kyrgyz – a process that has sought to locate their new Christian religious identity within, rather than on the margins of, familial and ethnic identity, and one that challenges the normative understanding of Kyrgyz identity: that to be Kyrgyz is to be Muslim. While providing the context for Kyrgyz conversion, this discussion primarily focuses on the way Kyrgyz Christians utilize a number of different discursive strategies to contest normative Kyrgyz identity constructs and to legitimize a Kyrgyz Christian identity.     

东亚安全结构中的日本及其战略选择

随着冷战的结束和中国的和平崛起,日本在东亚地区的战略选择正处于至关重要的十字路口。进入21世纪以来,日本国内精英层对东亚安全中日本的定位基本上可分为三个派别:"现实主义派""东亚共同体派"和"脱离对美从属派"。日本国内精英界有关东亚战略选择的讨论也呈多元化的趋势。在官方层面,自2012年上台的安倍政权的战略选择徘徊于"对美从属"和"自主独立"之间。值得注意的是,日本国家战略的具体落实往往受到其国内政治、美国的态度和其自身文化思维——身份认同和非理性因素的制约未来日本的战略走向,将取决于美国在东亚地区的实力消长、日本国内政治的变化以及日本自身对其身份认同的调整。     

The Strange Career of British Democracy: John Milton to Gordon Brown

Political debate in modern Britain has been structured by four narratives or traditions, called here ‘Whig imperialist’, ‘Tory nationalist’, ‘democratic collectivist’ and ‘democratic republican’. The Whig imperialist tradition goes back to Edmund Burke; it is a tradition of responsive evolution, flexible statecraft, genial optimism and abhorrence of dogmatic absolutes. It prevailed for most of the nineteenth century, for most of the interwar period and for most of the 1950s and early‐1960s. Its Tory nationalist counterpart is tense, rebarbative and often shrill. At its core lies a primal fear of the dissolution of authority and a collapse of the social order. Its most notable exponents include Lord Salisbury, Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher. The democratic collectivist tradition stresses ineluctable progress towards a just and rational society, to be achieved by a strong, essentially technocratic central state, with the power and will to replace the wasteful, unjust chaos of the market place by planned co‐ordination. Formative influences on it were the great Fabian socialists, George Bernard Shaw and Sidney and Beatrice Webb; it achieved its apotheosis under the Attlee Government of 1945‐51. The democratic republican tradition is much more inchoate: its exponents have been the awkward squad of British democracy. The most glittering stars in the democratic republican firmament were probably John Milton, John Stuart Mill and R.H. Tawney. It stresses active self‐government and republican self respect, embodied in a vigorous civil society and strong local authorities. During the ninety‐odd years since Britain belatedly acquired a more‐or‐less democratic suffrage, the first three traditions have all been tested, almost to destruction. But though the fourth has had great influence on social movements of all kinds, governments at the centre have done little more than toy with it, usually for brief periods. The great question now is whether Britain is about to experience a democratic republican moment.