The Challenge of Talking about Terrorism: The EU and the Arab Debate on the Causes of Islamist Terrorism 1

The Arab “hegemonic debate” on the causes of Islamist terrorism nurtures (pan-) Arab, anti-Western sentiments and delegitimizes criticism of the political status quo. The European Union's emphasis on multilateral means of conflict resolution and trade promotion leads to official pronouncements that barely address the Arab world's domestic problems, instead referring to international tensions such as the Arab-Israeli conflict as a particular cause of Islamist terrorism and the need for cooperation with Arab governments. By failing to challenge the official narratives of authoritarian Arab regimes the EU obstructs interests in the democratization of the region and the delegitimization of Islamist violence.     

Does Proximity Encourage Tolerance and Less State-Centrism?: Dismissing Monolithic Chinese Youth Perception of Terrorism and Security in a Comparative Regional Study

After 9/11, the exact perception among young Chinese of terrorism and security is little known to the world. What are their views and how are they formed? Are there any obvious differences in perception between young Chinese in different parts of China? What causes this disparity, if there is any? Are these differences intentionally created by the Chinese party-state top-down, or are they only nurtured in a bottom-up, decentralized manner? Using primary research findings obtained from original quantitative surveys and qualitative analyses, this article attempts to offer an empirical answer to these questions. The article is arranged in three sections. The first provides a review of the literature on the topic and describes the research methodology used. The second offers an analysis of our survey findings on how university students from two different cities, Shanghai and Xi'an, evolve distinctive perceptions about terrorism and security. The third section explains the framework used to analyse our findings, which can be summarized as “the nearer, the more tolerant and the less state-centric” towards terrorist-related topics. A conclusion suggests the possible roles of—and wake-up calls for—the Chinese state and the media in light of these disparate perceptions.     

The Impact of Rural Votes in Foreign Policies: The FTA Policies under the DPJ Government in Japan

The recent trend of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) has pressured the governments of many countries to make such arrangements with their trade partners. Since its foundation in 1998, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has advocated free trade policies, partly because the party was an urban-based party. Thus, many expected that, when the DPJ assumed power in 2009, it would implement free trade policies as it had promised in the past. However, the DPJ government failed to deliver on its promise after spending three and a half years in office. It contrasts sharply with the Korean government under the leadership of Lee Myung-bak, which managed to conclude FTAs with its major trade partners, including the United States and the European Union. Both governments' free trade policies faced strong opposition from the agricultural industry, as farmers in Japan and Korea lacked international competitiveness. What explains the reasons why the Japanese government has been struggling to implement its free trade policies, while its Korean counterpart succeeded in signing a number of FTAs? Focusing primarily on the case of Japan and using the Korean case as reference, this study tries to provide an explanation for this puzzle by analyzing the impact of rural votes in the policy-making process.     

Exploring Strategies and Implications of an Opportunistic Alliance: A Case Study of Pakistan and China

This article seeks to test the validity of ‘balance of threat’ theory as propounded by Stephen Walt that states react to imbalances of threat. It takes into account the factors enumerated by Walt to explore threat perceptions of Pakistan and the strategy they developed to cope with security threats. It attempts to take an overview of Pakistan's security dilemma its responses in twin time frames: the Cold War period (1980–1989) and the post-Cold War period (1990–2000) with relevance to the contemporary period. Pakistan's arms acquisition, upgradation in sophistication of arsenals, increase in fund allocation in defence have all been its tangible tactics to neutralize India's military superiority. Pakistan explored Pan-Islamism to bring the support of the Islamic states. Pakistan also resorted to an active alliance with China, to increase its competency. From a theoretical angle, this article adopts a realist viewpoint, focuses on security concerns of state actors.     

China’s international socialization of Caribbean state-society complexes: Trinidad and Tobago as a case study

ABSTRACT

Using the case study of Trinidad and Tobago, this article analyzes the process of reciprocal international socialization that allows Beijing to construct a cognitive and normative space conducive to a new regional order in the Caribbean which should be politically friendly, economically profitable, and socially open to its government, companies, and citizens. We argue that there has been a shift in the identity of Trinidad’s state-society complex due to the influence of China’s very visible political, economic, and social conditionalities. Their impact on political elites (which is reflected in government discourse and actions) and on the society at large (as shown by interviews with 30 Trinidadian nationals) is analyzed in order to show that Type I, ‘role playing’ socialization has been reached. However, frustration within Trinidad’s society with the domestic effects of China’s economic and social conditionalities clearly limits the potential for the evolution toward the more advanced Type II socialization exemplified, in the same region, by the Soviet-Cuban relationship. This suggests that, at least in the near future, key features of the Chinese approach incompatible with its self-proclaimed win-win nature will prevent Beijing from upgrading its status to that of a decisive socializer in the Caribbean.     

Soviet footprints in St. Peter's Square

Abstract

The collapsing political and economic structures, the rise of Islamic nationalism, and the defeat in Afghanistan are viewed as contributing factors to potential terrorism within the Soviet Union. These factors are discussed within the framework of nationalist terrorism. An attempt is made to predict, based on the current trends, sociopolitical results if nationalistic terrorism becomes a reality in the Soviet Union.     

Western Medical Education on Trial: The Endurance of Peking Union Medical College, 1949–1985

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, Beijing's Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) stood as a prominent symbol of Western medical science and education in China. After the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) took control of the College between 1952 and 1956.This article argues that the endurance of PUMC as an institute of scientific, Western biomedicine in China was largely contingent upon reforms that the PLA instituted there. Drawing on Chinese accounts, as well as the observations of North American and European physicians, it asserts that political campaigns under Army leadership vehemently attacked American influences on the College but avoided direct criticisms of Western medical science itself. This dynamic politically legitimized the Western medical education that the College embodied. It also permitted PUMC to contribute to the development of Chinese military medicine, suggesting a significant connection between civilian and military medical education in the early People's Republic.     

Cao Yu’s Peking Man and Literary Evocations of the Family in Republican China

Abstract

Shanghai in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was home to communities and musicians from all parts of the world. Among the over 20,000 Russians living there, a significant population of musicians contributed to the musical life of the city, particularly the Conservatory of Music founded in November 1927. This article reveals an overlooked phase of musical exchange between China and the West by 1) tracing the context and early development of the Conservatory; 2) identifying and discussing the activities of the Russian pedagogues (including Boris Zakharov, Vladimir Shushlin, and Sergei Aksakov amongst others) and their more notable Chinese students’ (including Li Delun, Ding Shande, Wu Leyi, and Yi Kaiji amongst others) reaction to them; 3) assessing the role that Russians played in the affairs of the Conservatory; and 4) demonstrating how Russian pedagogues influenced the development of Western classical music in China through their students’ notable achievements.     

Little Teachers: Children's Drama,Traveling, and Ruptured Childhoods in 1930s and 1940s China

This paper examines and problematizes complex relationships among war, the construction of “children,” and pursuit of national salvation and modernity in wartime China through case studies of children's traveling troupes. Children have received less attention than women and the masses in relation to modern Chinese literature and culture: wartime conceptions of children can contribute to rethinking ideas about orphan and refugee children's role in the national rescue movement during the War of Resistance against Japan (1937–1945). Influential reformer Tao Xingzhi's radical educational philosophy of “little teachers” liberated children's power and organized them for war propaganda. Shaped into a potent cultural symbol, self-administered children's troupes like the Xin'an Traveling Troupe and the Children's Drama Troupe demonstrated the politicization of Tao's slogan “Life is Education.” The children's “long march,” narratives of their travel experience, and amateur performances became a political means to educate themselves as responsible citizens and motivate the nation in wartime.     

Balanced or Biased? Interest Groups and Legislative Lobbying in the European News Media

This article examines the coverage of legislative lobbying in European news media. The starting point thereby is that lobbying in the crowded European Union (EU)-level interest community is not only a struggle for direct access to policymakers, but that in order to realize policy goals many interest groups rely on political attention generated by the media. Our main research question is how media attention is skewed toward particular interests and which factors explain these varying levels of prominence. Our empirical analysis is based on a set of 125 legislative proposals adopted by the European Commission between 2008 and 2010. For all these cases we identified 379 interest organizations that made public statements, we coded the amount of media attention these organized interests gained, the type of statements they made as well as some key organizational features. While the aggregate levels of attention look pretty balanced, our evidence shows that media prominence is skewed toward particular types of interests; in particular that organized interests which oppose a proposed policy gain significantly higher levels of media attention.