The Kurdistan Referendum Movement: Political Opportunity Structures and National Identity

This article examines the lack of mass mobilization by Iraqi Kurds to establish an independent Kurdistan. It argues that while the outcome of an unofficial January 2005 referendum – in which 98 per cent of Kurds supported independence – was a clear expression of their will, the political opportunity structures within which the Kurdistan Referendum Movement operates are closed to the formation of a mass-based social movement. Utilizing data from a survey of Kurdish elites and activists, as well as follow-up interviews, this analysis provides insights into the future of democracy in Iraq and the value of political opportunity theory in understanding mass mobilization.     

British Muslim youth: radicalisation,terrorism and the construction of the “other”

Academic interest in Muslim youth, Islam, radicalisation and Islamic-inspired terrorism exploded in the aftermath of 9/11, aimed at discovering the connection between Islam and terrorism, radicalisation and terrorism and how to detect and understand those who might become involved in them. Radicalisation as a process has increasingly become associated with Muslim youth, particularly male Muslim youth, as the precursor to Islamic-inspired violence against Western states. In an effort to understand these youths, the radicalisation of, or potential radicalisation of, Muslim youth is linked in the literature to alienation due to living in separate or parallel communities, identity crisis and intergenerational conflict. Because of this, terrorism, radicalism and extremism have become entangled with notions of identity, integration, segregation and multiculturalism, and this entanglement has made being a “Muslim youth” a precarious designation in the United Kingdom. This article examines some of the concepts that are central to the process of radicalisation as it is described in the literature. Using empirical data from a study with Muslim youth, the article examines the realities of the emergence of new transcultural identities and generational change amongst Muslim youth in the United Kingdom as a feature of their lived experience, rather than as evidence of a process of radicalisation.     

Digital identity,privacy and the right to identity in the United States of America

This article analyses digital identity as an emergent legal concept in the United States of America, as a consequence of the move to place all federal government services on-line. The features and functions of digital identity and its legal nature are examined, and the consequences are considered.     

安徽新生代农民工维权保障与政治认同

在对安徽省新生代农民工访谈和调研的基础上,探讨新生代农民工维权保障在政治认同中的作用。由于城乡二元结构导致的分野,使新生代农民工在身份定位上、权益保障上、利益诉求表达渠道上遭遇众多尴尬、困惑和迷茫。为此,应高度重视对新生代农民工维权的保障,采取积极有效的政策和措施,从法律制度建设和政府行政效率提升入手,不断创新维权保障路径,增强安徽新生代农民工的政治认同。     

Public Attitudes to Gaelic and the Debate about Scottish Autonomy

Scotland seems to be a counter-example to general theories of the relationship between language and national identity or nationalism. These theories point to three components in the ideology of language and nation—that being able to speak the national language is necessary for full national membership, that the national language is a core part of the nation's culture, and that the future of national political autonomy and the future of the national language are connected with each other. In Scotland, it has appeared that language is not central to national membership or culture, and language campaigning has not been central to the political campaigns for autonomy. The article presents new evidence, from the 2012 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, which questions these beliefs about the relationship between language and national identity or nationalism in Scotland.     

(Im)possible citizens: Canada's ‘citizenship bonanza’ and its boundaries

This article discusses a recent amendment to the Canadian Citizenship Act, which retroactively restores or gives Canadian citizenship to ‘hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting foreigners, most of them Americans’ (P. Dvorak, 2009. Canada issues a wake-up call: you may be a citizen. The Wall Street Journal, 17 April. Available from: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123993183347727843.html) while also restricting the inheritance of Canadian citizenship to the first-generation born abroad. Aiming to redress past discriminations based on gender, marital status and dual citizenship while simultaneously curtailing modern citizenship's dubious ius sanguinis provision, the new law might be interpreted as perpetuating Canada's reputation as a world leader in interethnic relations and human rights. A contextual analysis of the new law, by contrast, shows that the opposite is the case: the boundaries that are being drawn by Canada's new citizenship regime follow the now common trend of re-ethnicization and securitization. Specifically, they conflate kinship and Whiteness, thereby leading, on the one hand, to the construction of possible citizens whose authenticity and loyalty to the nation are unquestioned. On the other hand, within the logic of the new laws and their surrounding discourses, non-White, non-Christian ‘impossible citizens’ emerge, whose lack of loyalty and instrumental use of their Canadian passport are said to be eroding the value of citizenship from within.     

论监狱外观标识的规范化

监狱和公安机关、法院、检察院等国家机构一样也是公共服务机构,因而外观标识也应做到统一规范和"一目了然"。"监狱是个活生生的提醒物",在全国做到了统一规范,就会使社会民众通过"高高的监墙、森严的大门"产生"敬畏感",同时,监狱作为公共服务机构,则是展示一个国家文明水平的重要窗口。     

青少年自我的结构论与渐成说——埃里克森对弗洛伊德的发展

埃里克森在弗洛伊德理论的基础上,构建出以＂自我同一性＂为内核的新理论,这一理论是对弗洛伊德的传承与创新。在这种发展的视野延伸中,其理论突破了以前的瓶颈,达到了新的质的飞跃。     

东南亚华人身份定位与华商经营环境

第二次世界大战后东南亚国家的华族逐渐取得了当地公民权,但1998年5月的印尼种族骚乱又使人们怀疑起他们的身份定位问题。     

Capturing ethnicity: the case of Ukraine

Abstract

Building on past survey-based studies of ethnic identity, we employ the case of Ukraine to demonstrate the importance of taking seriously the multidimensionality of ethnicity, even in a country that is regarded as deeply divided. Drawing on relational theory, we identify four dimensions of ethnicity that are each important in distinctive ways in Ukraine: individual language preference, language embeddedness, ethnolinguistic identity, and nationality. Using original survey data collected in May 2014, we show that the choice of one over the other can be highly consequential for the conclusions one draws about ethnicity’s role in shaping attitudes (e.g. to NATO membership), actions (e.g. participation in the Euromaidan protests), and the anticipation of outgroups’ behavior (e.g. expectations of a Russian invasion). Moreover, we call attention to the importance of including the right control variables for precisely interpreting any posited effects of ethnicity, making specific recommendations for future survey research on ethnic identity in Ukraine.