Denigrating the local,glorifying the foreign: Malawian language policies in the era of African Renaissance

ABSTRACT

Malawi's Vision 2020 document, a national document that serves as a vehicle to project a future for a more developed, secure and democratically mature nation, laments the tendency of Malawians to denigrade local products and glorify all things foreign. Yet, paradoxically, the document does not address the important issue of promoting Malawi's indigenous languages. This silence can be interpreted as reflective of the population's inclination to ascribe greater value to foreign culture. In Malawi, as in many other African countries, indigenous languages are not considered worthy as media of education, subjects of advanced study or critical vehicles for national development. They are still victim to a discrimination rooted in Africa's 500 plus years of European enslavement and colonisation. Against the backdrop of the pursuit of an African Renaissance, this article looks at Malawi's language policies since independence in 1964, and at how, ten years short of an idyllic national vision, Malawi measures up on the important issue of language.     

History,memory and nation building in the post-Soviet colonial space

This is an article on Bolshevik nationalities policy and ethnic engineering, asking who, in fact, decided which populations belonged together as ethnic groups (narodnost') and thus had the right of national self-determination, and how the level of autonomy was determined for each ethnic unit. Scholars have dealt with Russian and Soviet nationalities issues for decades already, but they have turned their attention mainly to the larger nationalities (at the level of SSR, and to a lesser degree the levels of ASSR and autonomous oblast). I argue that the lower levels of national territorial autonomy in the Soviet Union (national okrug, raion, volost', and selsovet) are worthy of greater academic attention, at least from the ethnological point of view. Having this kind of low-level territorial autonomy has often been a question of to be or not to be for the small ethnic groups concerned, and hence the subject is connected with the question of preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity in Russia.     

Agile small state agency: heuristic plays and flexible national identity markers in Finnish foreign policy

Studies of small state foreign policy tend to draw relatively bleak conclusions when it comes to small state agency. However, I will examine alternative and more positive modalities of small state agency. One such modality is agility, the strategic maneuverability to take advantage of a chancy environment. Besides leading to dangerous rigidities and biases, particular types of foreign policy imageries and heuristics may also facilitate experimental and agile agency. In studying this possibility, Finland is chosen as an illustrative case because historically Finland has faced a particularly constraining geopolitical context and because it has managed to adapt to multiple upheavals and to different geopolitical contexts. The emphasis is on the heuristic dynamics inherent in Finnish foreign policy culture that have allowed it to actively meet the emerging challenges. Instead of taking a detailed historical approach, I seek to understand the role of the relatively flexible and combinable embodied cultural models, i.e. thick images. They allow for agency-related experimentation that may bring added value that allows Finland to exceed the constraints of the brute geopolitical position. After reviewing multiple embodied foreign policy images, I will use them to analyse New Year's speeches by the Finnish Presidents Ahtisaari and Halonen in order to see how the fickle present is made to resonate innovatively with the known, commonplace, and mythical.     

Rational or reckless? Georgia's zugzwang in the Caucasus

Although the 2008 Russian-Georgian war was a military defeat for Georgia, it has only reinforced Georgia's westward trajectory. One noteworthy difference from Georgia's pre-war policy is a new regional strategy – the North Caucasus Initiative – that seeks to create a soft power alternative to Russia's military dominance in the region. We suggest that this approach is rational rather than reckless, as some critics have claimed. It represents a carefully calculated strategy that is already benefiting Georgia and from which all concerned parties, including Russia, stand to gain. If the South and North Caucasus were more open and less divided – a direction in which this new initiative appears to point – the Caucasus could become more prosperous and more stable. That would serve Russia's long-term interest by significantly reducing the cost of subsidies to sustain and stabilize the volatile region.     

Challenges in conflict management in multi-ethnic states – the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and Serbia and Montenegro

This article examines the break-ups of post-communist Czechoslovakia and the Union of Serbia and Montenegro under consociationalism. According to Arend Lijphart, social divisions may be neutralized at the elite level with power-sharing mechanisms. Lijphart's theory has been abundantly criticized, particularly because, while its intention is to induce cooperation, consociationalism does not give leaders actual incentives to cooperate. Czechoslovakia and the Union qualified as consociations; however most favorable factors were absent. The states failed to overcome their divisions and broke apart. Both states were going through a democratization period, experienced differently in each republic. The article argues that the application of consociationalism at this time magnified the divisions. Stirring up the ethnic sensitivity of the population was the most reliable strategy for politicians to secure popular support. In this context, and with the EU enlargement prospect, the consociational structure, instead of bringing elites together, weakened the federal power and provided elites the opportunity to defend republican interests at the expense of the federations. Hence, while a consociation requires certain conditions and favorable factors, the context in which consociationalism is implemented, and particularly democratization periods, may have a decisive influence on the leaders’ ability to cooperate, on their decisions, and thereby on the state.     

Ending the impasse in Kosovo: partition,decentralization, or consociationalism?

This paper argues that current Western-backed approaches to conflict resolution in Kosovo have failed to alter Serbia's policy toward the region and have contributed to the exacerbation of political tensions between Belgrade and Brussels, while deepening ethnic cleavages between Serb and Albanian communities. While there is no possibility of Kosovo returning to Serbia's control, there is an equal unlikelihood that Serbian-populated regions of Kosovo, especially the north, will submit to Pristina's authority. Most importantly, there is little hope that Kosovo can gain full international recognition and membership in international organizations without a compromise settlement with Serbia. While territorial partition has long been a suggested option, I conclude that the best possible solution for Kosovo, given the positions of all parties involved, is a process of significant decentralization beyond the internationally supported measures in the Ahtisaari Plan. A model of consociational power sharing is one in which Serbian and Albanian municipalities are granted high levels of autonomy similar to arrangements made for Bosnia. While this solution may not be ideal and further weakens central authority, I argue that consociationalism reduces the problems of ethnic conflict, encourages local self-government, and preserves the overall territorial integrity of Kosovo.     

Testing for linguistic injustice: territoriality and pluralism

This article develops a linguistic injustice test. Language policy measures passing the test conflict with the normative ideal of equal language recognition. The first part of the test checks for external restrictions – language policies that grant more recognition to one language group than to another. The second part of the test checks for internal restrictions – language policies that grant more recognition to some members of a language group than to other members of the same group. The article then applies the linguistic injustice test to two models of linguistic justice: linguistic territoriality and linguistic pluralism. It is argued that real-life cases of linguistic territoriality tend to pass the test. It is argued that instantiations of linguistic pluralism tend to fail the test.     

(Neo-)extractivism – a new challenge for development theory from Latin America

This paper addresses new challenges and identifies starting points for development theory following recent debates in Latin America on ‘new or neo-extractivism’. It focuses on the concept of neo-extractivism and the context of its emergence, and on the changing role of the state. Looking at a number of social economic indicators, we find that, even after considering differences between countries, (neo-)extractivism is not merely a temporary economic strategy in the region. Instead, it exhibits features of a consolidated development project. Empirical evidence from the region shows the fundamental implications of resource-based development paths in politics, social relations and territorial orders. To grasp these implications conceptually, we argue for a shift in theoretical perspectives related to the link between development and resource extraction. Key elements for such a shift are to be found in recent studies in rentier theory and politics and new approaches in the field of political ecology.     

The militant palestinian organizations and the Arab‐Israeli peace process

The current Arab‐Israeli peace negotiations have normalized frequent and open contacts between Israel and its neighbors. This new situation is primarily the result of Operation ‘Desert Storm’ and the Soviet Union's dissolution. Both events forced the Middle Eastern states and sub‐national organizations to re‐evaluate their perceptions of one another, as well as of the degree of support they might expect from their superpower patrons. This article begins by examining the ways in which these events have affected those countries and organizations which chose to participate in the peace process and finally focuses on the policies of the Palestinian national movement ‐ specifically the groups which are opposed to the negotiations and have vowed to undermine them. It argues that these groups seek to subvert any peace treaty which the talks may produce and that the moderate Palestinian leadership has proven incapable of controlling them. It concludes that unless this occurs, it will be impossible to implement any agreement.