The border as pain and remedy: commemorating the Polish–Ukrainian conflict of 1918–1919 in Lviv and Przemyśl

The fight for Lwów/Lviv in 1918 was the first military conflict in the difficult twentieth-century history of Polish–Ukrainian relations. In the inter-war period, an impressive military memorial, the Eaglets Cemetery, was constructed in Lwów to honor the young defenders of the city. A monument to the Eaglets was also erected in the neighboring Przemy?l. In inter-war Poland, the Ukrainians, who had lost their cause for state independence, created their own cult of national heroes, the Sich Riflemen. Their graves in Lwów and Przemy?l, as well as in many smaller towns, became sites of public commemoration and national mobilization. This article traces the emergence, the development and the post-World War II decay of both competing memorial cults, focusing on their revival and political uses after 1989. It examines the trans-border aspects of memory politics in Lviv and Przemy?l and analyses the role of war memorials in (re-)establishing the link between ethnic communities and their homelands.     

From a ‘terrorist’ to global icon: a critical decolonial ethical tribute to Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela of South Africa

This article examines Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela’s political life and legacy from the perspective of critical decolonial liberation ethics, which privileges a paradigm of peace, humanism and racial harmony and opposes the imperial/colonial/apartheid paradigm of war, racial hatred and separation of races. This system emerged in the 15th century and was driven by the desire to conquer, dispossess, colonise, exploit and segregate people according to race and, alongside imperatives of primitive accumulation, it informed the colonisation of South Africa and the imposition of apartheid. Mandela was a liberation fighter who provided an antidote to the colonial ideology of racial profiling and hierarchisation. What distinguished him from other freedom fighters was his commitment to the cause of human rights as early as the 1960s, long before it attained its status as a constitutive part of global normative order. When Mandela became the first black president of a democratic South Africa, his practical and symbolic overtures to whites and his reconciliatory politics aimed to call them back to a new inclusive humanity. Critical decolonial ethics logically enables a tribute to Mandela that privileges his commitment to a post-racial society and new humanism.     

Conflict diamonds and the Angolan Civil War (1992–2002)

Abstract

In the early 1990s several rebel groups turned to natural resource extraction to pay for war. A key form of this is rebel diamond production, commonly referred to as conflict diamonds, which is widely perceived as being highly beneficial to insurgent organisations. Yet in the Angolan Civil War (1992–2002), the use of conflict diamonds by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) resulted in a decisive insurgent defeat. How can this outcome be explained? Offering a nuanced understanding of how conflict diamonds affect civil war, this article shows that although diamonds generated considerable revenue for UNITA, they were not an effective method for them to take on the Angolan government. This was for two reasons: internally, the rebels greatly struggled to convert their diamond proceeds into sufficient goods and services; and externally, it left the group highly vulnerable to international countermeasures in the form of United Nations Security Council sanctions. Natural resource extraction may therefore not be as useful to rebel groups as is frequently believed.     

战争和革命对20世纪初俄国货币体系的影响

俄国是一个十分好战的国家,在18世纪初成为了欧洲强国之后,为了维持它的强国地位,俄国坚持对外扩张的政策,连年战事不断。受国家落后的经济状况和巨额战争经费所累,俄国货币体系混乱不堪。进入20世纪,俄国经历了日俄战争、1905年革命和第一次世界大战,受战争影响俄国的货币体系几乎陷入瘫痪的状态。     

Russian–Japanese relations after the Russo-Japanese war in the context of world politics

Abstract

The Treaty of Portsmouth could not solve all the diplomatic problems between Russia and Japan, and dissenting voices were heard in both countries. Nevertheless, Russo-Japanese relations went in the direction of not only normalization, but also building an alliance. That radical change from hostility has not often happened in history and needs careful research, in particular the early stages of this process after the conclusion of the Treaty of Portsmouth. The construction of an alliance was not the primary goal at the beginning of Russo-Japanese negotiations after the war between the two nations. This goal appeared during the process of solving different problems, and so the international situation is extremely important to understand changes in Russo-Japanese relations. This process had several facets. First, there was the deterioration in Anglo-German relations with a corresponding realignment of British policy towards Russia. Second was the resolution of problems in Central Asia between Russia and Great Britain. Third, there was the mutual interests Japan and Russia had in China, in particular rail interests, which were related to the organic unity of the northern part of the Russian railroad in China. Finally, Russia had the desire to keep relations with France as a corner-stone of foreign policy.     

Oil,Natural Gas,and Intrastate Conflict: Does Ownership Matter?

The impact of natural resources on intrastate violence has been increasingly analyzed in the peace and conflict literature. Surprisingly, little quantitative evidence has been gathered on the effects of the resource-ownership structure on internal violence. This article uses a novel data set on oil and natural gas property rights, covering 40 countries during the period 1989–2010. The results of regression analyses employing logit models reveal that the curvilinear effect between hydrocarbon production and civil conflict onset—often found in previous studies—only applies to countries in which oil and gas is extracted by state-owned companies. The findings suggest that only state-controlled hydrocarbon production might entail peace-buying mechanisms such as specific clientelistic practices, patronage networks, welfare policies, and/or coercion. At the same time, it seems that greed and grievance are more pronounced whenever resources lie in the hands of the state. Exploring the within-country variation, further analyses reveal that divergent welfare spending patterns are likely to be one causal channel driving the relationship between resource ownership and internal violence.