Abstract
66.3887 ADIDA, Claire L., et al. —
In democratic Africa, where ethnicity is a key driver of vote-choice, politicians must attract voters across ethnic lines. This article explores one way politicians can do this: by appealing to a co-ethnic bond through their spouse. We propose that cross-ethnic spouses can help candidates send credible signals of coalition building before an election. We test this argument with a survey experiment in Benin, where President Yayi has married across ethnic lines. Our results confirm that priming the first lady's ethnicity increases support for President Yayi among her co-ethnics. We generalize these results by combining new data on leader-spouse ethnicity with Afrobarometer survey data. Our results suggest that cross-ethnic marriages are one tool leaders can use to shore up support in multiethnic elections. [R]
66.3888 AKAN, Taner —
The Arab Uprisings and their transformational impact across MENA have generated immense debate about the future of the region's countries during a period of reorganizational crisis in the international political economy. At this stage of the unfolding region-wide transition in the MENA, this paper performs a two-step theoretico-practical examination of the processes between and after the Uprisings. A discussion ensues on the prospective changes these nations will face in terms of the potential trajectories of systemic change between the embedded path-dependencies of the established regimes and the patterns of change demanded by the subversive Islamic factions. [R]
66.3889 AKDER, Derya Göçer; ÖZDEMIR, Zelal —
This paper [examines] the lessons from recent uprisings in the Middle East with regard to the theories of revolutions. Within the wider theoretical debate of the causes, processes and outcomes of revolutions, the paper focuses on the international political dimensions of the revolutionary situations as distinct from the revolutionary outcomes. It disentangles and conceptualizes the international politics surrounding these revolutionary situations, [and] proposes a framework of analysis of international politics in revolutionary situations by drawing not only on the Egyptian Uprising but also on the Gezi Uprising in Turkey. We argue that the role of the international should be neither downplayed nor exaggerated at the expense of domestic agency, and we need to combine structural and agential elements as we build a conjunctional understanding of international factors in revolutionary situations. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.2692]
66.3890 ALCANTARA, Christopher; DAVIDSON, Adrienne —
In 1973, the federal government of Canada invited Aboriginal groups to enter into comprehensive land-claims negotiations to settle outstanding claims not addressed by historical treaties. After eight years of negotiations, the Inuvialuit became the second group in Canada to sign a modern treaty. Missing from that agreement, however, was a self-government chapter, which was not [then] open to negotiation. In 1996, the Inuvialuit initiated self-government negotiations with the Crown but have yet to conclude an agreement despite increased institutional capacity. What explains this puzzle? Drawing upon the existing literature on land-claims negotiations, Aboriginal self-government and historical institutionalism, we analyze a variety of primary and secondary sources to argue that a number of institutional and non-institutional factors have prevented the Inuvialuit from successfully completing self-government negotiations with the Crown. [R]
66.3891 ALI, Zulfiqar —
This article unravels the contradiction between Pakistan's anti-corruption laws and its social world, taking into account the broader context of Pakistan's internal cohesion, democratic development and sustainable growth. [Although] Pakistan inherited a British legal framework based on the division between public and private spheres, the article argues that a greater part of Pakistani society does not recognize such division. The split between public and private realms which provides a conceptual framework for any definition of political corruption seems culturally deficient. In particular, the paper demonstrates that ethnic loyalties by taking precedence over the public interest give rise to the “moral view of corruption”, which explains why many people do not view the use of public office for ethnic gain to be an act of corruption. [R, abr.]
66.3892 ALIYEV, Huseyn —
The people of the Southern Caucasus have to rely on informal networks in order to manage everyday life. The origins of these networks lie in traditional forms of social organization, such as extended families and rural communities. In the Soviet Union, informal networks served to offset the structural deficits of the planned economy. They guaranteed access to products in short supply and services. The introduction of the market economy did not render these networks obsolete. On the contrary: in politics, economics, and society, they have gained even greater significance. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3907]
66.3893 ALWIN, Duane F.; TUFIŞ, Paula A. —
This article investigates the implications of Th. Frank's “conservative backlash” thesis that cultural cleavages have become much more important in contemporary American political life relative to traditional socio-economic bases for political differentiation. We frame our research within the recent literature on the “polarization” of the electorate with respect to social and cultural issues. Using Hunter's “culture war” imagery, we examine the extent to which opposing cultural forces on issues of abortion, gay rights, women's extra-familial labor force participation, and child-rearing have become more important in shaping political identities and party preferences. We use data from twenty-six nationally representative surveys of the General Social Survey (GSS) from 1974 through 2010, and we find evidence of polarization in the liberal-conservative identities of respondents. [R, abr.] [Part of a thematic issue on “Living in a high-inequality regime”, edited and introduced by David B. GRUSKY and Alair MacLEAN]
66.3894 ANDERSEN, Morten Skumsrud —
IR has seen increased interest in international hierarchy and an upswing in the analytical study of imperial logics of rule. Nonetheless, existing structural models of empire focus on core-periphery dynamics, and so cannot explain polities that display elements of both core and periphery. Therefore, I offer the new concept of “semi-cores.” Semi-cores are a specific form of historical political associations whereby certain imperial provinces are different from the others in terms of the close relationships it maintains with the imperial metropolis. Semi-cores are different by virtue of being relatively similar. The conceptualization of semi-cores is followed by a section illustrating its logic, examining the relatively unfamiliar cases of Scotland and Norway and their position within the Danish and British empires, respectively. Although being separate imperial provinces, these were tightly connected to an imperial core. [R, abr.]
66.3895 ANTIL, Alain, et al. —
There are multiple causes for displaced populations in Africa and they are not new, whether these displacements are within countries, across the continent, or towards Europe. The term “migrations” covers diverse situations with internal and international implications. Factors that contribute to movements have to be closely analyzed. The problem's complexity cannot be dealt with simply through border control or by externalizing the problem, as the EU seems inclined to do. [R] [First of a series of articles on “Migration in Africa, a new approach”. See also Abstr. 66.3077, 3540, 3555]
66.3896 ASSEBURG, Muriel; WIMMEN, Heiko —
This article provides a conceptual framework for a special issue that investigates the transformation processes inaugurated in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen in 2011 in the wake of the uprisings commonly referred to as the “Arab Spring”. It proposes that these processes should not be conceptualized as linear and centrally crafted transitions from authoritarian orders towards preconceived outcomes, but rather, as contested and open-ended transformations. These are best understood through an actor-centered approach that focuses on the choices and strategies of the “Politically Relevant Elite” (PRE) and its interactions with citizens intent on exerting influence, described here as “Mobilized Publics”. Drawing on the results of eight research papers presented in this volume, this article argues that the PRE perceived the transformation processes as mechanisms to maximize political resources and monopolize power. [R, abr.] [Introduction to a thematic issue of the same title, edited by the authors. See Abstr. 66.3155, 3256, 3264, 3266, 3297, 3414, 3506, 3669, 3943]
66.3897 AUGÉ, Benjamin —
The biggest producer of oil in Africa, Nigeria, is facing many challenges. President G. Jonathan, who just left power in May 2015, largely participated in the deterioration of the trust of oil investors, who radically diminished their investments in the hydrocarbons rich-province of Niger Delta. The new president, M. Buhari, will have a difficult time recreating trust in the private sector, regarding security, corruption and the massive robbery of crude in the pipelines, better known as oil bunkering. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3985]
66.3898 BALCELLS, Laia; DANIELS, Lesley-Ann; ESCRIBÀ-FOLCH, Abel —
This article explores the determinants of low-intensity sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, which has marked the post-1998 peace agreement period. Low-intensity violence comprises a variety of events from riots to attacks against other civilians as well as against homes and symbolic buildings such as churches. We argue that this violence is more likely and prevalent in interface areas where similarly sized rival communities are geographically in contact with each other. Parity and contact spur intergroup competition and threat perception, and they increase the viability of violence. We use original cross-sectional time-series violence data for the 2005–2012 period at a disaggregated subnational level, the ward, and a wide variety of social and economic indicators to test our hypotheses. [R, abr.]
66.3900 BANDELJ, Nina —
Unlike recent tendencies to specify the variety of post-socialist trajectories, this article characterizes the common features of post-socialist capitalism, as it has developed since the 1990s in Eastern Europe. Using conceptual tools of economic sociology, the post-socialist socioeconomic organization is analyzed as embedded economy, the institutionalization of capitalism as a moral project, and the pervasiveness of informality from the networks and culture perspectives. Economic development is viewed as dependent, simultaneously, on the system's structural, political and cultural features. For post-socialist capitalism, these features include lack of state autonomy due to close coupling of political and economic roles; the embrace of greed and self-interest as legitimate motives for action; and persistence and bolstering of informality as modus operandi. Stipulations about developmental consequences are provided in the conclusion. [R]
66.3901 BARBEHÖN, Marlon —
Constructivist approaches to European integration maintain that the meaning of “the EU” is a variable artefact contingent upon context-specific social practices. However, this premise has not yet settled, with the EU typically being treated as an objective reality constituting either adaptational pressures or windows of opportunities for domestic politics. This applies also to the research on the Europeanization of cities which neglects what Europe means locally. This article proposes a discourse-analytical conceptualization which investigates the interdependency of urban discursive practices and the political processes of dealing with EU directives. Using the empirical examples of Frankfurt and Dortmund, it is shown how “the EU” is discursively constructed and how these constructions constitute specific spaces of possibilities for implementing the EU directive on ambient air quality. [R, abr.]
66.3902 BARKAN, Elazar —
Historical memory of mass violence and war crimes plays a central role in a nation or an ethnic group's cultural identity, but is not given adequate attention in the politics of conflict-resolution. The article argues that it is wrong and counterproductive to treat history as exclusively belonging to the past and therefore to ignore it politically. Northern Ireland invested heavily in various transitional justice and conflict-resolution mechanisms, but resolutely avoided efforts to bridge sectarian histories. This experience is juxtaposed to Colombia, where during the peace negotiations a historical commission was established to explore narrowing the sectarian disagreements through legitimizing their historical memories. What can the field of conflict-resolution learn from the Colombian experience? Do historical commissions provide an additional tool for transitional justice and conflict-resolution? [R] [First article of a thematic issue on “Commemoration in transition: navigating memory in contested societies”, edited and introduced by Máire BRANIFF, Sara McDOWELL & Joanne MURPHY. See also Abstr. 66.3915, 3916, 3925, 3945, 3972, 3973, 4014]
66.3903 BARRÈRE, Céline —
This article discusses alternative frames and dissident narratives of diversity through the analysis of Paris hôtels meublés as historical places of dwelling for newcomers in the city. Diversity used as an analysis category puts into perspective both social imaginaries and processes of identification. Through a double methodology combining interviews with landlords and clients in 19 hotels and literature, it argues that they are heterodox spaces negotiating identity norms and assigned categories. Despite being forever ambiguous places, they nurture patterns of low-key diversity that allow us to examine the tensions between a politics of diversity and an ethics of diversity. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3207]
66.3904 BASTIAN, Jens —
2015 was a year no one inside Greece will easily forget. With the change of government and A. Tsipras from the leftist SYRIZA party becoming prime minister a period of profound uncertainty about the future course of the country ended only when a third financial assistance program was agreed with international creditors in August 2015. The threat of “Grexit” from the Euro-zone was real and could be overcome only at the last minute of dramatic negotiations in Brussels. The contribution analyzes the unfolding events and the political economy consequences for the country and Greece's relationship with its European partners as well as international creditors. The outlook for 2016 remains challenging: the emerging refugee and migration crises create new policy conditionalities for Greece and its relationship with Europe. [R]
66.3905 BEARD, Victoria A.; SARMIENTO, Carolina S. —
We analyze why a low-income community failed to meaningfully affect plans for the redevelopment of the Station District in Santa Ana (CA, [USA]) although they used three avenues to do so: public participation, liberal democracy, and deliberative democracy. The city provided opportunities for public participation but controlled the agenda, effectively preventing residents because many were ineligible to vote, while city council members received campaign contributions from external business interests. Residents did develop extensive deliberative democratic processes that produced collaborative plans; however, these plans were not well incorporated into the official plan. [R, abr.]
66.3906 BEAUGRAND, Claire —
This article contends that while the ethno-religious understanding of “minority” makes little heuristic sense in these two countries, the minority/majority dialectic is part of a political praxis used to garner support for the regime and by manufacturing “minorities” to evade the principle of majority rule. The article traces the post-2011 responses by the Kuwaiti and Bahraini regimes to the rise of an oppositional majority. For Kuwait, it analyzes the emphasis placed on the nation's unity and the discrediting of the Bedouin's political claims for Bahrain, it looks at how the authorities stressed the nation's multicultural character to undermine the representativeness of the dominant Shiite political movement. Both strategies are designed to deflect the threat of power-sharing. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.3967]
66.3907 BEDFORD, Sofie; SOULEIMANOV, Emil —
In the Caucasus, Islam is represented in various forms. The Northern Caucasus is marked by Sunni Sufi brotherhoods. Elites and laymen there see religion as the source of political legitimacy. The Sunni Islam of the Hanafi school of jurisprudence is present in the Northwest Caucasus. In Azerbaijan, the Twelver Shia Islam spread by the Iranian Safavid dynasty predominates, and, as in the Northwest Caucasus, Islam is largely limited to the realm of spirituality. But there, too, Salafis are calling into question the authority of official Islam. [R] [Part of a thematic issue on “Borderland: conflict and cooperation in the Southern Caucasus”. See also Abstr. 66.2962, 3039, 3049, 3159, 3182, 3220, 3233, 3472, 3604, 3673, 3752, 3816, 3852, 3854, 3881, 3892, 3940, 3966, 4010]
66.3908 BELGE, Ceren —
During the 1990s, thousands of Kurdish settlements in Eastern Turkey were forcibly evacuated, resulting in the displacement of more than one million Kurdish villagers. This article examines why some villages survived while the populations of others were forcibly displaced. It also addresses the broader question of why particular groups of civilians become more vulnerable to coercion in the course of armed conflict, and how their vulnerability is shaped by the extent and quality of information that states possess about population groups, particularly minorities deemed dangerous to the regime. The author argues that state practices to categorize the identity of minority groups and to collect information about their behavior and allegiances are integral to the dynamics of violence. [R, abr.]
66.3909 BENRAAD, Myriam —
Marginalization of the Sunnis in the Iraqi political reconstruction process since US intervention in 2003 has encouraged the rise of radical elements, then of jihadist groups, and progressive rallying of part of Sunni opinion to the “caliphate” project, which ideological power has now reached Western societies. [R] [Part of a thematic issue on “Iraq and the ISIS challenge”. See also Abstr. 66.3856, 3953, 3957]
66.3910 BØÅS, Morten —
The Mali-Sahel periphery is not an “ungoverned space” captured and preyed on by the transnational forces of global “crime-terrorism” nexuses but an area of overlapping and competing networks of informal governance. Some have an agenda of resistance, others are more aligned with coping and criminality. What they share is that they are neither entirely state nor non-state but somewhere in between. Different competing “big men” vie for the role of nodal points in different networks of informal governance: some mainly profit-driven, others combining income-generating strategies with social and political objectives, and yet others simply aiming to cope (and hopefully thrive in the future). [R] [See Abstr. 66.3193]
66.3911 BOISVERT, Marc-André —
This article examines the impact of violence on the state and on civil-military relations of pro-government militias that failed to use violence to influence the outcome of the conflict. It uses the case of the Mouvement Patriotique Ganda Koy and the Ganda Iso. It argues that, since 2012, militias have succeeded in increasing political influence and in framing a national narrative; it further reflects on how state sovereignty can be reappropriated by the agency of civilians once a state institution, the military, fails to defend it. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3193]
66.3912 BOWNAS, Richard A. —
This paper examines the role of Dalits in Nepal's 1996–2006 civil war (or “Maoist People's War”) in three villages in mid-western and mid-eastern Nepal. It illuminates Dalit struggles at the village level which have gone more or less unnoticed both in academic literature and in civil society debate in metropolitan Nepal. Dalit activists in certain locations had been mobilizing under the radar for many years before the People's War. These activists were able to co-opt the Maoist guerrilla movement at the local level to oppose caste discrimination, while arguably, being themselves afterwards co-opted into the Maoists’ national campaign for state power. Empirically, this paper uses detailed findings about changes in caste discrimination practices in three villages where Maoist–Dalit interactions varied greatly to assess the successes and failures of this local-level Dalit activism. [R, abr.]
66.3913 BRERETON, Victoria; AYUKO, Bonita —
This article examines the negotiation of security in landmark peace agreements brokered in Sudan (2002–2005) and Kenya (2008). It reviews the dominant literature on peace agreements, arguing that preoccupation with agreements’ durability has led to the neglect of questions about whether and under what conditions agreements work to improve human security. The article calls for a different approach to analysis of peace agreements’ quality that addresses how transformative they are of security conditions for ordinary people. Applying this lens to the Sudanese and Kenyan accords, it outlines the agreements’ commitments to improved human security and the range of factors that shaped and undermined prospects for the realization of those commitments in practice, even prior to implementation. It concludes with lessons for international conflict-resolution practitioners. [R]
66.3914 BREY, Thomas —
The persistent Kosovo crisis has for months been creeping toward a new escalation. Contributing to such volatility, opposition parties are blocking the Kosovo parliament with tear gas attacks, violence routinely accompanies street demonstrations, and progress remains elusive in talks the EU is brokering between Pristina and Belgrade. Front lines run between the Kosovar government and the opposition, as well as between the Albanian majority and the Serb minority. Now a desperate search is on for a mediator to impose control over the explosive situation. Without a solution, the international community can only continue to appeal for respect of democratic standards. While the eyes of the US and the EU are glued to crises in Ukraine, Middle East and Africa, the frozen conflict in Kosovo may again turn hot. [R, abr.]
66.3915 BROWN, Kris; GRANT, Adrian —
The political functions of conflict-related commemoration have been examined in Northern Ireland, as in other deeply divided societies. However, a gap in research has persisted. In order to properly examine and evaluate local commemoration as a political activity, we should find out the size and spread of this activity, and ascertain who is responsible for its production. Accordingly, this paper presents the findings of a scoping survey of “Troubles”-related commemoration in Northern Ireland. We supply survey data in relation to types of commemoration; categories of actor; frequency; and location. Combining this with field observation of the forms and themes of commemoration, we examine how these data can frame our understandings of the environment of “Troubles” memory. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3902]
66.3916 BROWNE, Brendan Ciarán —
This article considers the commemorative events for the 1916 Rising taking place over the course of the Easter weekend in Belfast an exercise in choreographed segregation. Beginning on Easter Sunday morning and concluding late on Monday afternoon, six separate faction-specific commemorations take place in the west of the city. Rather than serving the purpose of uniting an ever-expanding network of rival groups under a banner of this shared Irish republican commemoration, the manner by which the events are organized serves to harden the lines of intra-factional difference. Analysis of the use of commemorative space, with a specific focus on how it is both shared and divided over the course of the Easter weekend, reveals the designation of separate time slots for groups to gather and internal segregation within the same commemorative space in the city, Milltown cemetery. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.3902]
66.3917 BUNTE, Jonas B.; VINSON, Laura Thaut —
Under what conditions does religious identity become the fault line of communal violence? We argue that informal power-sharing institutions on the communal level are essential in shaping the incentives of potential perpetrators. We provide both qualitative and quantitative evidence for our claim that districts in which informal power-sharing agreements exist are less likely to experience interreligious violence. We conducted interviews with community leaders in 38 Nigerian districts to trace the process by which local power-sharing institutions exert influence on actors’ incentives to engage in religious violence. We complement this with quantitative analyses of a new dataset capturing interreligious violence on a subnational level. The analyses show that the overall degree of interreligious violence is significantly lower in districts with power-sharing than in those without. [R, abr.]
66.3918 BUSSMANN, Margit —
The analysis aims at detecting patterns in the use of violence against the civilian population in the Civil War that was fought in the North of Uganda by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), an armed group that is known for its atrocities. One-sided violence increased with a decline in popular support and was related to the support of an external patron who influenced the relative military strength. The results of the quantitative analysis indicate that the LRA's use of violence varied systematically with battle-related activities and was higher after the LRA had to suffer losses in combat. [R] [See Abstr. 66.2859]
66.3919 BUTT, Ahsan I. —
This article addresses Pakistani Islamists’ street power — their ability to organize rallies, protests, and demonstrations. I first demonstrate how Friday prayers aid Islamist mobilization. Mosques on Friday serve as a filtering and coordination tool, as tactical “choke” points in urban neighborhoods, and as incitement through the imam's sermon. I then show how Islamist street power affects Islamization in Pakistan. I argue that Pakistan's foundational religious nationalism acts as an “opportunity structure”, and affords Islamists agenda-setting and veto power. The success of Islamist agitation depends on the issue contested, the type of regime targeted, and the era in which it is practiced. [R, abr.]
66.3920 CAPELLO, Roberta —
Since the unification of the country in 1861, Italy has faced a large North-South divide, which persists despite the huge efforts made to determine the reasons for its existence. This paper has the aim of building a unified, coherent and logically structured theoretical review of theories and approaches that have dealt with the backwardness of the South of Italy. It further assesses the extent these are able to highlight the reasons for the emergence of a particular interpretation, the reasons for its failure once applied at a normative level, and for the rise of the subsequent theoretical interpretation. A logical storyline in the development of thought on the Mezzogiorno emerges on building the theoretical framework from a diachronic perspective, and policy lessons can be learned. [R]
66.3921 CARPENTER, Ted Galen —
Western leaders portray NATO as a league of democratic nations as well as a security alliance. Although the organization tolerated illiberal members during the Cold War, it would be more than a little embarrassing to have an outright autocracy emerge in NATO's ranks today. Yet worrisome manifestations of authoritarianism and intolerance have surfaced in several members. Two NATO countries, Hungary and Turkey, have engaged in repeated autocratic behavior reminiscent of V. Putin's regime in Russia. Such developments provide yet another reason why US policy-makers should reconsider America's continuing role as NATO's leader. [R]
66.3922 COHEN, Corentin; LEFEBVRE, Hugo —
The paper explores the factors of political violence in Nigeria through the analysis of data concerning deadly clashes involving political parties between 2006 and 2014. We claim that Nigeria's political system under the 4th Republic remains deeply influenced by local and regional logics. Starting from the existing literature — which focuses mainly on clashes during general elections — we demonstrate first that deaths occurring during this type of elections account for only half of the total number of causalities. Second, we show that the regional organization of political parties still predominates. We finally show that inter-party violence is concentrated in the Middle Belt where ethnic and religious conflicts are most important. Along with political competition, those rivalries explain mass violence. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.3985]
66.3923 CONNOLLY, Eileen; DOYLE, John —
W. Zartman's concept of “ripeness” has been strongly criticized on both methodological and substantive grounds, yet it remains central to both academic and policy debates. This paper assesses the usefulness of Zartman's model through an analysis of the three peace agreements which were negotiated during the Northern Ireland conflict — the 1973 power-sharing Sunningdale Agreement, the 1985 inter-governmental Anglo-Irish Agreement and the 1998 Belfast Agreement. It uses a refined version of Zartman's model to argue that the concept of “ripeness” remains a useful means to analyze the potential for peace and that it can provide an explanation for the relative success of the 1998 Belfast Agreement and for the failure of previous agreements. [R]
66.3924 CORONA, Gabriella —
The article analyzes [how] the metropolitan area around Naples — a great chaotic and degraded conurbation — has been growing during the last six decades. The author highlights the failure of the national and local public institutions in answering the social demand of increasing services and collective goods. This circumstance has left large space to the role of criminal organizations in the rule of the area. The national “territorial question”, meeting with these aspects, has produced in Campania specific negative implications such as a large-scale illegal housing development and the traffic of both urban and industrial waste. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3928]
66.3925 CROOKE, Elizabeth —
As Northern Ireland seeks ways to deal with the memory of the conflict, artifacts associated with the period that can be ascribed with an aura of historical authenticity are placed on public display as yet another means to employ the past. These artifacts become another element of the media machine of commemorative projects, touchstones to the past, and agents in contemporary political activities. This paper considers the methods employed by In Their Footsteps, an artifact-based initiative organized by groups and families seeking justice for conflict-related losses. By critically investigating the methods employed by this initiative, insights are given to the use, meaning, symbolism and contribution of artifact display to the social processes of commemoration. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.3902]
66.3926 DAWSON, Michael C.; FRANCIS, Megan Ming —
We probe the key differences between the Jim Crow racial order and the [contemporary US] racial terrain and conclude that leading characterizations are inadequate because they are tied to a sanitized and restricted understanding of Jim Crow as a set of legal and state institutions and policies. As such, both frames neglect the economic sphere. This article addresses this silence in the context of black politics. Specifically, we argue that a neoliberal racial order has emerged and that analyses of black politics must attend to the way racial divisions have become magnified in economic policies and civil society. A critical difference between this era and the Jim Crow era is the adoption of neoliberal ideology and support for neoliberal policies by a wide and diverse segment of black elites. [R, abr.]
66.3927 DILEK, Oğuz —
This paper conceives of the Arab Spring as a leap forward that has relegated the established order to the status of a “walking dead”. The “old” Middle East is dead: the Arab elites hold no bargaining chip with which to consolidate a stable domestic rule. Hence they have no sense of purpose, will or chances regaining livelihood. This is because, first, the repressive character of Arab states has no sympathy to gain from their impoverished and powerless masses. Second, such oppressive practices are coincident with the IMF's austerity programs, which constitute the greatest obstacle to Arab economies’ serving their key purpose: social cohesion. Unfortunately these two arguments are insufficient to support the belief that a bright new day has dawned for the regional people. [R, abr.]
66.3928 DONOLO, Carlo —
The author explains how in the contemporary European political systems, political actors do not play the proper attention to the most important social issues. The hidden presence of removed national issues reveals a democratic deficit: it is precisely for this reason that today it is necessary to rethink the Southern Question. In this perspective, the Southern Question is an institutional, urban and social matter and it needs to be rethought in a national perspective, given that even the EU does not seem to be interested in its solving. [R] [Introduction to a thematic issue of the same title, edited by the author. See Abstr. 66.3186, 3230, 3248, 3924, 3930, 3932, 3968, 3971, 3981, 3987, 3988, 3997, 3998, 4021]
66.3929 EISIKOVITS, Nir —
In previous work I developed an account of truces focused on “truce thinking” — the moral and psychological commitments made by those who seek to manage and reduce conflict rather than permanently end it. I further develop that theory by placing truce thinking in conceptual context and by exploring a case study. Part 1 rehearses the main features of truce thinking. Part 2 situates it against the related concepts of political reconciliation and containment. Part 3 takes up Spain's transition to democracy as an example of how truce thinking works in practice. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3642]
66.3930 FELICE, Emanuele —
At the time of Italy's Unification, the North-South divide in GDP was already present, but mild; conversely, a clear North-South gap in the preconditions of development and in social indicators could be observed. During Italy's modern economic [period], it was the latter that shaped the former: in per capita GDP, the North-South divide enlarged, at the same time while both the South and the Center-North grew more internally uniform and the North-East and Center converged towards the North-West. Nowadays, there are two Italies in terms of GDP and industrial structure; but in socio-institutional terms Italy is more homogeneous, and has been falling behind the rest of Western Europe. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3928]
66.3931 FINKELSTEIN, Norman G.; RABBANI, Mouin; STERN-WEINER, Jamie —
Many expected the Arab uprisings to strengthen official and popular Arab support for Palestinian self-determination, and, for a time, they did. Since then, internal strife, the return in several Arab states of the ancien régime, and an intensified regional Cold War have left the Palestinians isolated and vulnerable. But historical precedent as well as existing tendencies counsel against despair. [R]
66.3932 FOFI, Goffredo —
In Italy, a history of the peasants is still to be written, although, presumably, nobody will write it. Authors like R. Scotellaro, C. Levi and I. Silone, started writing the history of this culture, but the years of the Reconstruction, after the end of World War II, and the “economic miracle”, have put this millenary culture to an end and we are all submerged in a more comfortable but less intelligible world. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3928]
66.3933 FORREST, M. David —
Drawing on Marx's call for a “ruthless criticism”, this article outlines the contours and promise of a more disruptive American politics. Rather than reduce uncertainty about politics and society, disruptive scholarship unveils points of tension at which they are contingent and mutable — in a sense, rendering them more uncertain. In the process, this scholarship articulates important possibilities for democratic and egalitarian change. To illustrate the promise of disruptive research, I examine the American politics literatures on intersectionality and policy feedback, both of which have a significant but often underappreciated capacity to reveal crucial points of sociopolitical tension. I conclude by suggesting how scholars of US politics might better develop the disruptive potential of their collective work. [R, abr.]
66.3934 GANDOLFO, Luisa —
This essay explores the impetus behind the religio-political tensions in Tunisia and posits that to grasp the events unfolding since 2010, the unrest must be located within an understanding of the dynamic between the Islamists and the state under President H. Bourguiba and, later, President Z. Ben Ali. The essay revisits the terms revolutionary and revolution within the Tunisian context and reflects on the application of the label revolutionary, contending that the act of selective labeling bears implications for an objective understanding of the revolution and its actors. Finally, the essay evaluates how far the political tensions of the past continue to mark the present through the subsequent generation of religious movements emerging from the revolution. [R, abr.]
66.3935 GARFINKLE, Adam —
The collapse or weakening of six empires over a 53-year period furnished the precondition for the rise of what we offhandedly call the modern Middle East. But if we mean “modern” as a concept of political sociology rather than a shorthand way of saying recent or contemporary, we must conclude that a “modern” Middle East is still straining to be born. We see that through an integrated analysis that explains not how the post-Ottoman Middle East arose, but why it took the shape it did. [R]
66.3936 GAUB, Florence —
The Islamic State is a cult; it cannot be fought as a mere terrorist organization or a proto-state with territorial ambitions. [R]
66.3937 GECHTMAN, Roni —
Non-territorial autonomy, in various forms, was an enormously popular idea among Central and East European Jews in the early 20th c., until two major events — the Holocaust and the creation of Israel as an ethnonational state in 1948 — sidelined the public debate, among Jews, on alternatives to the nation-state. This article analyzes the relatively little known (but intellectually fecund) political programs for Jewish autonomy in Europe in the first half of the 20th c.: the non-territorial Jewish autonomy envisioned by proponents of diaspora nationalism, the national–cultural autonomy proposed by the Jewish Labour Bund and the proposals by some liberal Zionists to create a binational state in Palestine. It also considers the few historical attempts to implement these ideas in practice. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.2683]
66.3938 GVOSDEV, Nikolas K. —
The problems experiences during the Obama years reflect an increasing sclerosis in the US policy process itself. If nothing is done, this dysfunction is likely to continue into the next administration, regardless of party. [R]
66.3939 HARGREAVES, Alec G. —
The inadequacy of government efforts to curb discrimination against postcolonial minorities, referred to in everyday discourse as “Arabs”, “Muslims”, and “blacks”, is a major weakness in French public policy, feeding resentment that contributes to violent extremism. This article first reviews the main policy frames adopted towards postcolonial immigrant minorities in France. The second section examines the development of public policy against racial and ethnic discrimination, highlighting serious limitations with particular reference to police racism, ethnically-based data-gathering, and the Haute Autorité de lutte contre les discriminations et pour l'égalité (HALDE). The third section reviews evidence documenting the high levels of discrimination experienced by racial and ethnic minorities and the ineffectiveness of efforts to combat it. The fourth offers an explanatory framework for the fitful and largely unproductive nature of those efforts. [R, abr.]
66.3940 HEINEMANN-GRÜDER, Andreas —
In recent years, a number of new analyses of the conflicts in the Caucasus have appeared. Only the best studies manage to name the violent ethno-nationalist actors precisely, to reveal the tensions between official interpretations of history and concrete experience, and to show how Soviet models of depicting perceived enemies persist to this day. Federalism is hardly discussed as an option for conflict-resolution. Desideratum in the research are comparative analyses of the (semi-)authoritarian regimes in the Caucasus and their reproduction mechanisms as well as the micro-dynamics of conflicts and internal social configurations. The field is also still awaiting comparative policy research that looks at the political economy and functioning of the para-government structures in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3907]
66.3941 HÉMEZ, Rémy —
The Kurdish military's recent history immediately brings to mind images of its mythical female fighters, and of its real victories against Daesh. But its successes have been primarily in Syria. In Iraq, the Kurdish military has been hindered by poor preparation, lack of effective weaponry, and various political and tactical disagreements between actors. Without support from the West, Kurdish forces will not be able to win the on-ground offensive. [R]
66.3942 HERO, Rodney E. —
Political science should play a larger role in grappling with the political roots, meanings, and implications of the various levels and unique configurations of class inequality and racial diversity that have characterized the last several decades of US history. I offer some observations about the discipline's research, or lack thereof, and indicate suggestions about how we might think about and do more in these respects. Some developments have influenced the present in social and political terms and other events in political science; identify intellectual guideposts that may help how we think about research issues of our day; consider why race and class are not studied (more); acknowledge how the questions have been studied, as well as noting some reservations about these; and provide several examples from [my] research. [R, abr.]
66.3943 HEYDEMANN, Steven —
Drawing on the research presented by contributors to this special issue, this article assesses the analytic opportunities that emerge when the Arab uprisings are conceptualized as moments of transformation rather than as incipient, flawed or failed transitions to democracy. Highlighting critical issues that cut across and link the experiences of political relevant elites (PREs) and mobilized publics in the cases of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen, it identifies three sets of issues that warrant further comparative research: the effects of stateness and patterns of state-society relations on the trajectory of Arab uprisings; the role of identity politics and non-state forms of solidarity as drivers of political mobilization and collective action, and the impact of these forms of collective action on possibilities for establishing stable, legitimate forms of governance; and the limits of civil societies and civic sectors in influencing transformational processes. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.3896]
66.3944 HOGGARTH, Davinia —
Islamic finance signifies more than a projection of religious affiliation. The importance of Islamic finance is increasing in central Asia, both as a source of capital and as a form of post-colonial market-building. In central Asia, it is an important facet of the new phenomena of “nation-branding” and a means of reinvigorating the economy. In identity politics, Islamic finance projects an attitude of religious tolerance allowing states in the region to reposition their geopolitical identity relative to the Islamic community. Adopting Islamic finance projects images of the state's religious tolerance and diversity without changing the underlying structures; it suggests an “Islamicness” that is useful to the development and post-colonial goals of the state. As such, it creates opportunities for geopolitical alliances with Muslim countries. Economically, it appeals to rising financial-industrial elites seeking new investment opportunities, which reduces pressure on the state to democratize. Meanwhile, in Russia, Islamic finance is an alternative source of capital for the sanctions-hit state and a useful identity marker with which to connect to the increasingly wary Caucuses and Commonwealth of Independent States countries, lending it a wider significance across Eurasia. [R, abr.]
66.3945 HOPKINS, Stephen —
This article analyzes the contested and complex commemorative politics associated with the Irish Republican hunger strikes of 1980–1981, and the struggle over their legacies during the course of the last 40 years, and the last decade in particular. This contest has been framed not simply by the expected disputes between the republican narrative and those memories associated with the Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist communities or the “official” interpretation of the British state. For many years, the broad republican “family” could commemorate the martyrdom of the hunger strikers as a foundational and unifying narrative for the movement. The article first establishes the central significance of the commemoration of these events for Irish republicanism's sense of continuity with past incarnations. [It then] analyzes the politics of memory in the contemporary, post-Good Friday Agreement Republican commemorative landscape. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.3902]
66.3946 HORNSBY-SMITH, Michael P. —
This paper reviews religion and politics in the UK shortly after the Scottish referendum in September 204 and the UK general election in May 2015. It first provides a historical outline of the emergence of the four separate parts of the current UK, their different experiences of Anglo-Saxon and Viking invasions and responses to the Reformation in the 15th c. after a millennium of Roman Catholicism. It then reviews data from recent censuses and social attitude surveys about religious identities, beliefs and commitment and political party preferences, which generally indicate a preference for Conservative Party support by Anglicans and Labour by Roman Catholics. Recent Church of England leaders have suggested that religion is now a major player on the public stage. This is strongly rejected. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.3422]
66.3947 HÜSKEN, Thomas; KLUTE, Georg —
The current political developments in Libya and northern Mali represent nothing less than the renegotiation of the post-colonial political order. The toppling of Libya's authoritarian regime and the country's subsequent disintegration into post-revolutionary camps, plus the continuing Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali accompanied by the rise of transnational jihadist forces, have fostered the fragmentation of state structures, greater heterogeneity in politics, and gains by non-state power groups on the complex political stage. To assess these processes, the article proposes three theoretical concepts and fields of research: heterarchy (historical and present), connectivities in northwest Africa, and the importance of local actors/locality. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3193]
66.3948 JANARA, Laura —
Each year through the practices of Canada's universities, vast numbers of nonhuman animals are caught, bought or bred, narrowly confined, manipulated and killed. These university animal relations are governed by a state-based regime, the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC). Through the lens of critical public philosophy, I clarify the power that has constituted this governance regime and now sustains it, examining the regime's justifying claims, its practices that authorize universities and scholars as legally compliant and the related effects of its power. The resulting critical redescription reveals fundamental problems with the political legitimacy of CCAC governance and thus with the university-animal relations that it sanctions. [R]
66.3949 JOFFÉ, George —
Although the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is seen as a novel manifestation of Islamic extremism, it is in fact the latest, albeit perhaps the most effective, of a long line of revivalist movements in the Islamic and the Arab worlds. It differs, of course, in terms of the sophistication of its political and military strategies, which mirror the contemporary complexities of the world in which it operates, but its objectives recall longstanding Islamic ideals, even if articulated in radically brutal and extremist ways. More importantly, perhaps, ISIS or Daesh, reflects the enormous degree of resentment inside the Middle East at the ways in which Western powers have intervened in regional affairs over recent years, particularly their support for regimes and economic systems there that have betrayed, in the popular imaginary, the essential principles of social justice that lie at the root of Islamic vision of ideal social order. [R, abr.]
66.3950 JUAN, Alexander De —
Does extraction increase the likelihood of anti-state violence in the early phases of state-building processes? Although research has focused on the impacts of war on state building, the potential “war-making effects” of extraction have largely been neglected. The article provides the first quantitative analysis of these effects in the context of colonial state-building. It focuses on the “Maji Maji” rebellion (1905–1907), the most substantial incidence of anticolonial violence in Eastern Africa. Analyses based on a new historical data-set confirm the correlation between extraction and resistance. More importantly, they reveal that distinct strategies of extraction produced distinct outcomes. Although the intensification of extraction in state-held areas created grievances among the population, it did not drive the rebellion. [R, abr.]
66.3951 JUAN, Alexander De; PIERSKALLA, Jan Henryk —
Exposure to violence can shape people's political and social perceptions. War-time effects on trust in state institutions are particularly relevant for political stability in the aftermath of violent conflict. If people distrust the state, they are less likely to endorse reform plans, will be less inclined to comply with state rules and regulations, and may uphold support for challengers of state authority. Our paper contributes to the understanding of the role of violence for trust in the national government. We use high-quality, geo-referenced survey data, joined with village-level information on civil war casualties, to estimate the effects of exposure to violence on political trust in Nepal. [R, abr.]
66.3952 KANAT, Kilic; USTUN, Kadir —
Turkey's decision to participate in military operations against ISIS as part of US-led coalition efforts has provided the US with operational ease and cost-effectiveness in the fight against ISIS while contributing to Turkey's efforts to secure its border with Syria. Such an agreement is a welcome development for US-Turkey relations. However, the two allies are still struggling to forge a common perspective on the Syrian civil war as a whole. If Washington and Ankara cannot come to a comprehensive agreement on their strategy toward the Syrian civil war and different groups on the ground, their bilateral relations may face significant challenges in the coming months, rendering coalition efforts against ISIS more complicated and less effective.
66.3953 KAVAL, Allan —
The armed struggle of the Kurds against Daesh has helped change the non-official borders in Iraqi Kurdistan. But these territorial gains, militarily secured by the coalition air force, remain fragile due to the institutional crisis dividing the Kurds. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3909]
66.3954 KELSALL, Tim; HENG, Seiha —
Over the past 15 years Cambodia has made significant strides in expanding effective access to free healthcare for the poor, thanks largely to “Health Equity Funds” (HEFs), a multi-stakeholder health-financing mechanism. HEF operators have helped expand access, incentivize health staff, and lobby on behalf of poor patients. However, despite their successes, they have been unable convincingly to address some of the deeper-seated problems of the Cambodian health system, such as under-resourced facilities, underpaid, poorly qualified staff and a burgeoning private sector. This paper explains this state of affairs as a product of Cambodia's “political settlement”, in which relatively successful multi-stakeholder initiatives exist as “islands of effectiveness” in a sea of rent-seeking and patronage. [R, abr.]
66.3955 KENNEDY, Andrew B. —
challenge — and its relationship to globalization — remain poorly understood. This article develops a theoretical framework that outlines the central policy challenges facing late innovators. It maintains that globalization has not fundamentally altered these challenges, but rather underlined the importance of surmounting them successfully. The article then employs this framework to compare China and India's progress in this regard. It finds that China has confronted the basic reform challenges more successfully, has more impressive innovation outputs, and has integrated into global networks more successfully. Yet it also notes the weaknesses of China's approach and the potential for these to constrain its development in the future. [R]
66.3956 KHATTAK, Masood Ur Rehman; AFRIDI, Manzoor Khan; AMIN, Husnul —
The Islamic State is the wealthiest militant organization in the world; it can provide funds to cash-strapped militant organizations, which might work to benefit them. In such a scenario, more and more radical groups as well as individuals from Pakistan might join Islamic State for monetary benefits if nothing else. The IS funds would put a new life into the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and would help them in reorganization and fresh recruitment, which could result in a new wave of violence engulfing Pakistan. The TTP and other affiliated militant organizations could then carry out attacks against Pakistani security forces, government installations, rival sects, and religious minorities more lethally. Therefore, it is important to understand the emergence of IS and its subsequent impact on Afghanistan and Pakistan. [R]
66.3957 KHOEI, Hayder Al —
Iranian diplomatic and military support of Iraqi Shiites has consolidated former Prime Minister N. al-Maliki's power to the detriment of his political rivals. Maintaining it has split the Shiite community while pointing part of the militias against central government. Baghdad has also legitimized the involvement of Shiite groups, some of them pro-Iranian, alongside the Iraqi army in the fight against Daesh, a security evolution that could jeopardize the country's unity. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3909]
66.3958 KIM Younkyoo; BLANK, Stephen —
Rerouting South Stream through Turkey, Russia is striking at Azerbaijan and at potential Central Asian gas exporters to Europe. Over the last couple of years, under Baku's lead, Azerbaijan and Turkey have been working on bringing to fruition the so-called Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), which aims to bring Caspian-sourced gas through the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) to the Turco-Greek border and, from there, to South-eastern Europe via the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and regional interconnectors. This paper examines Russia's recent high-stakes game to threaten vital Azerbaijani interests, including the SGC, particularly developments since the cancellation of South Stream — or “Turk Stream”. “Turk Stream” is likely to propel the Balkans and Ukraine into front-line states in a serious struggle between the EU and Russia. Yet, the obstacles to “Turk Stream” are considerable. [R, abr.]
66.3959 KOOS, Carlo —
Studies have found that politically deprived groups are more likely to rebel. However, does rebellion increase the likelihood of achieving political rights? This article proposes that rebellion helps ethnic groups to overcome deprivation. I illustrate this by using a “typical” case (the Ijaw's struggle against the Nigerian government) to demonstrate how ethnic rebellion increases the costs for the government to a point where granting political rights becomes preferable to war. Further, I exploit time-series cross-sectional data on deprived ethnic groups to show that rebellion is significantly associated with overcoming deprivation. The statistical analysis shows that democratic change is an alternative mechanism. [R]
66.3960 KROOK, Mona Lena; RESTREPO SANÍN, Juliana —
Violence against women in politics is increasingly recognized around the world — but especially in Latin America — as an emerging tactic to deter women's political participation. We survey how this concept has been defined by academics and practitioners across the region — largely in terms of physical and psychological violence — and draw on global data and research in various disciplines to propose expanding this concept to include two further forms of violence: economic and symbolic. We provide examples of all four types of violence in Latin American countries and then consider a range of solutions that might be pursued in light of this broader definition. We emphasize that a comprehensive approach provides the best means for tackling violence in all its forms. [R] [See Abstr. 66.4007]
66.3961 KUPATADZE, Alexander —
Much can be done to uproot graft when a major event such as the Rose Revolution sweeps in a determined new team on a wave of massive public support. [R] [See Abstr. 66.2816]
66.3962 LANG, Kai-Olaf —
Prime Minister V. Orbán governs Hungary with a landslide majority since 2010 and has undertaken significant, far-reaching reforms that have been heavily contested by the opposition and the international community. Some policies worth mentioning are the increasing centralization of power, the severe restriction of the constitutional court's jurisdiction over financial matters, the tough approach to the migrant crisis and the demonization of the Roma people. V. Orbán's critics have pointed out that these reforms have been conducted in the light of semi-authoritarian power politics while ruling party Fidesz considers them as legitimate steps towards innovation. [R, transl.] [See Abstr. 66.3509]
66.3963 LIBMAN, Alexander —
Since the Summer of 2015, signs have been growing that political bias is increasingly compromising academic research in Russia. The political leadership and bureaucracy do not even have to order repression. By means of anticipatory obedience, academics are themselves often making sure that the scope for critical debate becomes narrower. This is seen by way of example in a case involving from the Institute of Economics within the Academy of Sciences. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3798]
66.3964 LISTE, Philip —
In a 2013 US Supreme Court decision on human rights violations in Nigeria, state territoriality served as a technique to rule out the application of transnational law against private corporations. Drawing on work in critical geography, the article argues that this was possible only against the background of a certain geographical knowledge as reproduced in the course of legal practice. The corporate production of space consisted of a “private use of territoriality” to resist the extraterritorial application of law and thus transnational state regulation. During a spatial analysis of a number of the 82 amicus curiae briefs to Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, the article reveals how the geographical configurations of our contemporary order not only withstand transnational challenges, but are even reproduced transnationally by a multiplicity of state and non-state actors. [R, abr.]
66.3965 LIU Yu-Shan —
This article presents a study of the textbooks composed and released by the Tibetan Government-in-Exile for the Central School for Tibetans in India. It [thus] looks at how the Tibetan Government-in-Exile engages with various external and internal “others” in the process of constructing knowledge of the Tibetan nation, and at how it represents Tibetan life to those born in exile. It is contended that schooling and power are interrelated, and textbook curricula represent a way in which national power dominates the selection and representation of public knowledge. [R, abr.]
66.3966 MANUTSCHARJAN, Aschot L. —
2015 marked the 100th anniversary of the expulsion and massacre of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. One and a half million people lost their lives in this campaign of mass murder. Even if the term itself did not find its way into international law until 1951, this was undisputedly genocide. This is evidenced by a number of monographs, studies, source editions, and publications of files from diplomatic archives. The knowledge about the genocide is overwhelming. It is time that Turkey end its policy of denial and reassess its past. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3907]
66.3967 MARCUS, Elizabeth J. —
In 1961, Sélim Abou, then a young doctoral student, published his thesis. It argued that Lebanon's most formative national characteristic is its French-Arabic bilingualism. Moreover, he proposes that Lebanese communities should be defined not by confession but by language. Abou's work raised red flags for partisans of Arabic in Lebanon who argued that bilingualism was nothing more than a conceptual “fig leaf” for maintaining French and an established cultural and political status quo that worked in favor of Lebanon's Maronites. Critics suggested that his design was nothing more than a thinly veiled promotion of sectarian politics. Through an examination of his work, and of the critical response it provoked, this article examines the possibilities of language as an alternative category of analysis in Lebanon. [R, abr.] [Part of a thematic issue on “The fragments imagine the nation? Minorities in the modern Middle East and North Africa”. See also Abstr. 66.3906]
66.3968 MARCY, Paolo —
This article deals with the numerous historiography on the making of the Italian political unity and the Italian state-building, published on the occasion of the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of unification. The author points out what he calls a sort of political turn of this historiography, which was for a long time particularly interested in economic, social and, more recently, cultural topics. Such a political turn looks very interesting, even if sometimes controversial and maybe too ambitious, when compared to the state of art and the current empirical research. Also, it could end up underestimating the structural phenomena. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3928]
66.3969 MARTENS, Stephan —
As a dominant economic power in Europe, Germany is optimistic about its future but is confronted with a world that is making more demands on it that it would like to meet. Germany has opened its doors to refugees and migrants in Europe, and supports France in its battle against IS, but it is reticent to engage on the international scene in any other capacity than as a civil power, serving the law. Can the country accomplish its dream of becoming a big Switzerland? [R] [See Abstr. 66.3663]
66.3970 MARTEU, Élisabeth —
The war in Syria has tended to overspill into neighboring states. Lebanon is especially affected; notably because of the Syrian regime's active support of Hezbollah. The jihadist movement is developing here and the Islamic State's anti-Shiite strategy holds particular resonance. In Jordan too, Islamic State is winning over more and more young people. The Hashemite regime is keeping a close eye on the Salafist movement, but it would not be surprising if Amman were to become a terrorist target. [R]
66.3971 MASTROPAOLO, Alfio —
The complex relationship between Northern and Southern Italy is a long-lasting matter of power. Northern and Southern elites have exploited each other for more than 150 years. The deal between “moderates” of both sides was that the Northen ones exploited the large political and electoral consensus obtained by their Southern counterpart to stay in power and that the [latter] obtained not only financial resources, but also the North would not care about what happened within Southern society, including the perverse links between politics and organized crime. The deal was denounced twenty years ago, when the Northern moderates discovered that the Southern political support had become superfluous. Since then the Mezzogiorno is politically irrelevant and was abandoned to itself. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3928]
66.3972 McAULEY, Jim —
In Northern Ireland, there is a constant struggle between competing interpretations of historical events, the determination of which serves to validate and legitimate views of the present and to meet contemporary political concerns. The memory of historical events carry a profound political significance, as the past is altered to suit present purposes, and transmitted across generations by commemoration and memorialization. This article examines how Ulster Loyalist collective memory is characterized by an attempt to ensure collective coherence and how individuals understand their relationship to contemporary political events through their interactions with the past. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3902]
66.3973 McQUAID, Sara Dybris —
In the absence of a political agreement on an overall mechanism for dealing with the past in Northern Ireland, storytelling has become a prevalent mode of addressing the legacy of violent conflict. Adopting a historiographic approach, this paper opens up two related tracks of examination: one exploring the (ideally) more comprehensive and egalitarian approach to accessing the past found in storytelling projects, understood as forms of oral history; and the other considering the process of those stories being made into records, and the dynamics of the archive. Drawing on a qualitative study of two storytelling projects in Northern Ireland, the paper argues that the stories produced there are not only sources for studies of life during conflict, but are also sources for the study of the present peace process. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.3902]
66.3974 MEKA, Eltion —
The European integration of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) was supposed to bring democratic consolidation in the region. Postaccession, however, we have been witnessing democratic regression in a number of cases. Thus, an interesting question has risen as a result of this puzzling outcome. This paper provides an institutional argument for the post-accession divergent patterns of CEE by tying post-accession performance to political competition during the pre-accession process. Using the effective number of parliamentary parties, this article argues that the pre-accession process of the Eastern enlargement was more conducive to democratic consolidation under those democracies with a higher number of effective parties. Additionally, the paper shows that more fragmented party systems exhibited higher levels of party-based euroskepticism. [R, abr.]
66.3975 MILOVAC, Dejan —
Montenegro, the small Balkan country, has for years been torn by widespread corruption. It is captured by long-term political ruler M. Dukanovic and strong organized crime structures, blurring the line between the mafia and the government in numerous business deals. Ordinary citizens are left with a really bad deal. In 2016, Montenegro will face another parliamentary election that should give the answer to the long lasting question in the country: is there enough political force to dismantle one of the last European dictators? [R]
66.3976 OLOJO, Akinola Ejodame —
This paper [focuses] on Sokoto, a state in the northwest zone, where the capacity to deter the Boko Haram insurgency is the result of a societal synergy among communal structures, which although located in the contemporary milieu, draw some inspiration from Sokoto's unique historical legacy of the 19th c. jihad. This legacy serves in a way as a collective counter-narrative which effectively confronts the pseudo-narrative (of jihad) pushed by Boko Haram. While acknowledging the strength of the local actors involved in Sokoto, this paper offers a cautionary note drawing attention to certain fundamental issues which, if not addressed, can undermine efforts in the long run. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.3985]
66.3977 OMEJE, Kenneth —
This paper critically revisits the debate on natural resource rent, curse and conflict, interrogating some of the key assumptions that have become received knowledge in extant discourses. The paper demonstrates how orthodox theories’ preoccupation with issues of resource rent and resource curse tend to be marred by slants of ahistoricity and state-centricity. Adopting a stakeholder approach to the issues of resource rent and conflict in Africa, the author argues that natural resource rents produce and attract a multiplicity of competitive stakeholders, both domestic and external, in the resource-rich states. The paper attempts a new conceptual explanation of how natural resource rents dialectically generate stakes, stakeholders and political conflict. [R, abr.]
66.3978 ÖNAL, Leyla —
Both Turkey and Ukraine — on the external borders of the EU — are seen as important partners of the EU, especially in terms of economic relations and strategic partnership. Both experienced en masse protest events in 2013: the Gezi Park protests and EuroMaidan. Although these protests started initially for different reasons, they both include claims related to a “more just and transparent system”. Such claims are not purely political and are closely linked to a social dimension, especially in terms of local and European space-making. This article [examines] the importance of Gezi Park and EuroMaidan within the framework of new social movements in terms of space-making and the perception of human rights, democracy, justice, identitarian politics and consensual social relations as Euro-concepts or European ideals. [R, abr.]
66.3979 ORTMANN, Stephan; THOMPSON, Mark R. —
China's government looks to Singapore, the only country in the region to modernize without liberalizing, in hopes of finding the key to combining authoritarian rule with economic progress and “good governance”. [R]
66.3980 PAASCHE, Till F.; GUNTER, Michael M. —
This article suggests a combination of military, political, and diplomatic approaches for Western states to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). In Syria, support should be strengthened for the only effective moderate force fighting against ISIS: the Kurdish militias. In Iraq, where ISIS relies on local partners from Sunni Arab tribes to help govern, it is incumbent on the West to break this coalition in order to hamper ISIS's military operations and weaken its governing capacity. [R]
66.3981 PANIZZA, Giacomo —
The author [recalls] the beginning of his activities as a priest, in Calabria, in the 1970s, after his ideological studies at the seminary of Brescia. After moving to the South, with the support of institutions and local associations, the author started a process of social integration for young Calabrians affected by disabilities, especially in small towns. From this first experience, he succeeded in giving life to the community Progetto Su, a self-managed project, rooted in the context of Calabria and headquartered in the city of Lamezia Terma, with the aim of “making community”, among people with disabilities and people without disabilities, against social exclusion. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3928]
66.3982 PARIS, Marjolaine —
This article analyzes the reciprocal influences between international trade and violence in Nigeria. The various types of violence are based on evolving socio-economic, identity-related and religious divisions. These divisions are themselves influenced by some characteristics of international trade. The diversification of the economic sectors contributing to the GDP and to the external trade balance id likely, on the one hand, to reduce some inequalities between territories and individuals, but on the other hand, strengthen the existing gap between those who are “in” and those who are “out”. The rise of emerging countries amongst Nigeria's commercial partners is building up an internationalized social group distinct from the rest of the population. This division is made visible in the urban space. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.3985]
66.3983 PEARLMAN, Wendy —
The 2011 revolt in Syria produced an outpouring of new forms of self-expression, as well as encouraging millions to tell their stories for the first time. I explore what we can learn from greater attention to such data, based on thick descriptive analysis of original interviews with 200 Syrian refugees. I find that individuals’ narratives coalesce into a collective narrative emphasizing shifts in political fear. Study of these testimonials aids understanding of Syria and other cases of destabilized authoritarianism by elucidating lived experiences obscured during a repressive past, providing a fresh window into the construction and evolution of national identity, and demonstrating how the act of narration is an exercise in meaning-making within a revolution and itself a revolutionary practice. [R, abr.]
66.3984 PÉROUSE DE MONTCLOS, Marc-Antoine —
Born at the periphery of Nigeria, in the North-East, the jihad of Boko Haram has shaken the most populated country in Africa. Indeed, it forced the authorities to take into consideration the geopolitics of Lake Chad and, for the first time since independence, to accept the intervention of foreign troops on their territory, with an international coalition that involves neighboring countries: Chad, Niger and, to a lesser degree, Cameroon. This article thus analyzes how the pan-Islamism of Boko Haram challenges the colonial legacy of the current borders of Nigeria. It also shows how borders are used as strategic assets both by insurgent groups and governmental forces that try to assert national sovereignties. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3985]
66.3985 PÉROUSE DE MONTCLOS, Marc-Antoine —
Nigeria intrigues as much as it is feared for its regional trouble-making and destabilization potential. On one hand, the dynamism of an emerging power is praised while, on the other, we lament a weak and dysfunctional — or even failed — state, one that is at the very least incapable of stopping the terrorist threat posed by Boko Haram. Due to its demographical and economic strength, Nigeria also has international diplomatic ambitions; however, the list of hindrances is long: an out-of-control demographic growth, youth unemployment, generalized corruption, the political class's business-making, waste of the oil profits, high criminality rates, rampant poverty, lack of basic public service, lacking educational system, strong regional, ethnical and religious tensions and Boko Haram's jihadist insurrection in the North-East. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “Géopolitique du Nigéria (Geopolitics of Nigeria)”. See also Abstr. 66.2991, 3219, 3227, 3822, 3897, 3922, 3976, 3982, 3984, 4009]
66.3986 PERRIN, Jean-Pierre —
The Islamic State (IS) emerged from the fusion of various Iraqi jihadist movements in the mid-2000s. It recruited extensively among the Sunni population ostracized by Baghdad's newly established Shiite-led government, including many ex-officers from S. Hussein's army. Since 2011, the civil war in Syria has further fueled the rise of IS, enabling it to gain a strong foothold in the country. IS now controls [much] territory, while attracting thousands of recruits from around the world to serve the “caliphate” and die as “martyrs”. The atrocities committed by the organization have made it the target of a vast international coalition. Now on the defensive in Iraq and Syria, IS is said to be seeking to tighten its grip on other territories, especially in Libya and Nigeria. [R, abr.]
66.3987 PUGLIESE, Enrico —
The author analyzes the current economic and social conditions of Southern Italy, moving from the latest report of SVIMEZ, published in July 2015. The analysis is based on three aspects of the “Southern Question”: first, the evolution of public intervention in relation to the situation of the South; second, the interpretations, since the second half of the 1970s, of the “Southern Question” and its causes; third, the policies implemented to solve the “Southern Question”, always criticized by SVIMEZ in the last decades. The decline of southern Italy and the increase of the North-South gap have their bases in the cessation of the extraordinary intervention in favor of the South, during the last two decades. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3928]
66.3988 RAGOZZINO, Marta —
The author traces the history of the city of Matera from the end of World War II, illustrating the policies of protection of the cultural heritage of the city. In particular, Matera was nominated by the EU the European Capital of Culture for 2019, not only due to policy choices of the recent years, but also because its inhabitants have become real cultural producers, cultural inhabitants of the city. The process of recovery and revaluation of Matera began in the 1990s, when the Sassi and the Parco delle chiese rupestri were registered in the UNESCO list, while the choice of Europe has recognized the fact that Matera is an example of sustainability and social innovation, but also of the recovery of traditions. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3928]
66.3989 RAINERI, Luca; STRAZZARI, Francesco —
This article explores the nexus between conflicting geopolitical imaginaries and socio-economic tensions in northern Mali, examining microlevel processes whereby extralegal and criminal economies have reshaped political and armed mobilization, especially among Tuareg who fought to draw the borders of an independent Azawad and jihadists affiliated with the MUJAO Islamist group who sought to abolish all borders. Secessionist, jihadist, and statist political projects must be interpreted in light of the dynamics of armed protection, extraction, and clientelist connivance underlying processes of territorialization and social mobility in a hybrid regional order whose peripheral location no longer serves as a geopolitical insulator. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3193]
66.3990 RICHARDSON-LITTLE, Ned —
Human rights are portrayed as a catalyst, alighting a revolutionary ethos within those living in the Eastern Bloc. During the Arab Spring, international commentators and local actors invoked this mythological version of 1989 to declare that a similar awakening was once again taking place and that human rights were sure to triumph over dictatorship. The example of Egypt appeared to mirror that of 1989 with mass demonstrations for human rights, prompting optimism that a similar revolutionary change was inevitable. Instead, the successful reassertion of military dictatorship has been legitimized in the name of protecting human rights. In viewing the end of state socialism as the result of the proliferation of human rights consciousness, the mythology of 1989 creates a tragically flawed model for reform and revolution. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.2692]
66.3991 ROETS, Arne; AU, Evelyn W. M.; VAN HIEL, Alain —
We hypothesized that in the Singaporean context, the very strong social norm enforced by the authority may curb or even reverse the relationship between authoritarianism and negative attitudes about out-groups that is consistently observed in all other countries. Demonstrating that authoritarianism can be positively related to out-group-friendly attitudes would be unique; to the best of our knowledge, no such finding has ever been reported or even considered as a possibility. As an underlying mechanism for this reversed relationship, we propose a mediating role for citizens’ perception of the government's unambiguous position toward multiculturalism. [R]
66.3992 ROMANO, David —
The Arab Spring offered Kurdish political actors in the region significant opportunities to advance their goals. Particularly in Syria and Iraq, Kurdish parties took advantage of the weakening of central governments there. The Kurdish political movement in Turkey, along with its sister movement in Syria, has likewise used the struggle against the “Islamic State” to gain a lot of international sympathy and even support. At the same time, instability in the region has brought increased immediacy to the very real threats faced by Kurdish political actors, whether from hostile central governments or groups such as ISIL. [R]
66.3993 RUGH, William A. —
The course of Yemen's domestic political development and relations with its neighbors demonstrates the way they have evolved over the past seven or eight decades and allows for the persistent challenges that continue to play a part in the current crisis to be identified. A review of Yemen's modern history reveals five recurring themes. First, Yemen is highly decentralized and has a weak central government. Second, Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world. Third, its weaknesses have been exploited repeatedly by outsiders, where interventions have often exacerbated Yemen's problems. Fourth, the Yemeni crisis is not primarily a Sunni-Shia conflict as sometimes portrayed by the press. Fifth, a key factor in the Yemen story still is ex-President Ali Abdullah Salih.
66.3994 SANCHEZ, Gabriel R.; VARGAS, Edward D. —
Group identity scholarship has expanded our understanding of how group consciousness and linked fate operate among racial and ethnic minority populations. What is yet to be tested is whether the measures employed adequately capture the multidimensional theoretical constructs associated with group consciousness across racial and ethnic populations. We use the 2004 National Political Study and apply principal components analysis and exploratory factor-analysis to assess whether measures used for both group consciousness and linked fate are interchangeable, as well as whether these measures are directly comparable across racial and ethnic populations. We find that the multidimensional approach to measuring group consciousness is a sound strategy when applied to African-Americans, as the dimensions fit the African-American experience more powerfully than is the case for non-Hispanic whites, Hispanics, and Asian populations. [R, abr.]
66.3995 SCHOEMAN, Maxi —
South Africa proudly wears the label “emerging power”, with its membership of the BRICS and G20 probably the most visible signs of this conferred status. This paper explores the concept of the emerging powers within the context of current global power shifts and locates South Africa within this group. It discusses the criteria for and characteristics of emerging powers, and then turns to some of the constraints and challenges faced by these states. Specific attention is paid to the “how” of these states’ recognition and inclusion in global institutions and the impact of domestic conditions and regional politics on their positions, focusing particularly on South Africa. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.3744]
66.3996 SCHULZE, Gerit —
Despite the hard conditions it had to face at the beginning, the small republic between the Danube and the Tatra Mountains has made considerable progress in the economic realm. There is room left for improvement, especially in terms of efficiency of the public administration and performance of investments, but overall, the country's economic development can be considered a success. In this respect, it is sufficient to refer to the high recovery of the country's labor market since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and its high GDP growth. Domestic demand is the main motor of growth and to German exporters the Slovakian market is of more importance today than that of India or Brazil. [R, transl.] [See Abstr. 66.3509]
66.3997 SCIARRONE, Rocco —
The current problems of Southern Italy are often interpreted in terms of public order, represented primarily as a “criminal question”. In fact, everything seems to depend on what the Mafia wants and does, neglecting contextual factors and economic and social processes. In reality, to understand the embeddedness and the territorial expansion of the mafia, we must focus on the institutional settings, and in particular on the mode of operation of politics and economics. The strength of the Mafiosi is based on their ability to accumulate and use resources of social capital, a relationship of complicity and collusion in the economic and political circuits. In this perspective, it is important [to have] a space where hidden exchanges, collusive agreements, alliances and cartels criminals take shape and develop. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.3928]
66.3998 SCIOLLA, Loredana —
This article reconstructs the reasons for the persistent success of Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work since its publication [Princeton, 1993], highlighting “internal” and “external” reasons. It focuses also on the criticism addressed to the Putnam's cultural theory and democracy. It considers some search results that continue and deepen the analysis of the role of the “civic community” and its territorial distribution. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3928]
66.3999 SEGERT, Dieter —
The political stage in the four Visegrad countries has experienced unquestionable progress after more than 25 years after the fall of communism, but several events whose legitimacy is dubious from a democratic point of view are also apparent. In the 1990s, the implementation of a democratic system in Hungary and Poland was very rapid and satisfactory and the same can be said of V. Havel's Czechoslovakia. The first problems came with populist V. Meciar's victory in Slovakia in 1994. In the last few years, there has been a significant rise of cases of corruption and far-right parties are becoming ever more powerful. However, these countries’ democratic transition can still set an example to more established democracies. [R, transl.] [See Abstr. 66.3509]
66.4000 SEJFIJA, Ismet; FINK-HAFNER, Danica —
This article tackles the tensions in consociational political systems between the politics of the collective and the politics of the individual citizen. It focuses on the particular form of consociationalism that was introduced by the international community into Bosnia and Herzegovina as a political solution following the 1991–1995 war. Based on a theoretical framing of the tensions between collective consociational and citizen-based politics, the article conducts a multi-method empirical analysis of the causes and timing of the 2014 Bosnian Spring and the lessons learned from the political innovations of these protest movements. [R]
66.4001 SONAN, Sertaç —
The article provides a brief overview of the new round of negotiations in Cyprus, which started in May 2015 following M. Akinci's election as the new Turkish Cypriot president. Based on the review of official statements from the two sides and the UN, as well as media coverage, the contribution argues that significant progress has been achieved by the two leaders during the past six months of negotiations. A referendum in the Spring of 2016 is on the cards. [R]
66.4002 TARTIR, Alaa —
This article analyzes perceptions of the Palestinian Authority's post-2007 state-building project — popularly known as “Fayyadism” — by assessing academic and practitioner literatures on the topic, and by drawing on the findings of ethnographic fieldwork conducted at two sites in the West Bank: Balata and Jenin refugee camps. The ethnographic data reveal that despite the self-proclaimed institutional successes of Fayyadism, its achievements have failed to have a meaningful impact on the basic rights of Palestinians. These voices from below articulate the detrimental effects that Fayyadism has had on their resistance against Israel's occupation, and by extension on their own protection and security. Criticisms focus on the absence of local legitimacy and accountability, and question the agenda of Fayyadism, its political basis and its trajectory as they relate to the Palestinian struggle for freedom. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3864]
66.4003 THEROS, Patrick N. —
The Arab Awakening (the Arab Spring) caught the Western world, and even most experts, by surprise. A fuller understanding of how the peoples of the Middle East perceive their history and their relationship with the Western world — from their own perspective and not a Western analysis of that perspective — is a sine qua non to understanding what happened and how to begin to formulate policies and actions to deal with the new reality. The Islamic State has become the champion of disaffected Sunni Muslim youth building on those perceptions, and the West underestimates it at its peril. [R]
66.4004 THOMAS, Dominique —
Since 2013, Al-Qaeda and Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant have been waging an insidious war. This conflict thrives in ideological, strategic and personal opposition. A.B. Al-Baghdadi's proclamation of the caliphate has created a favorable climate for IS, which has managed to attract many young people. In the short term, reconciliation between the two jihadist organizations is unlikely, but a change of leadership could open up new possibilities. [R]
66.4005 THORNTON, Rod —
The siege of the northern Syrian town of Kobane was lifted in January 2015. The Kurdish defenders there had triumphed against Islamic State (IS). The conflict then moved on. It moved on, though, with the US, the UK, and other Western powers having adopted, almost by default, the Kurds as proxy fighters in this conflict. The Kurds, however, are a divided and fractious nation spread across three states and historically famous for fighting among themselves. In employing the Kurds as proxies against IS, as this article shows, these Western powers must be aware of the unintended consequences that can result. [R]
66.4006 TOALDO, Mattia —
In 2011, Libya became the only country of the Arab Uprisings where NATO and the Arab League intervened militarily, ostensibly to protect the civilian population, but in reality in support of the opposition National Transitional Council. This article argues that, since 2011, Libya has transitioned from Qadhafi's centralized authoritarianism to a new decentralized authoritarianism where multiple centers of power coexist and sometimes overlap, while leaving room only for formal democratic institutions. This is the result of decisions taken by the “revolutionaries” after the overthrow of the dictator, and a consequence of long-standing features of the Libyan state and society. [R]
66.4007 TREJO, Guillermo; LEY, Sandra —
The dominant view of the dramatic increase of criminal violence in Mexico following the 2007 federal intervention in the war on drugs suggests that inter-cartel violence became particularly intense in subnational regions where the president could not coordinate the federal government's actions with subnational opposition rulers but came under control where the president worked with his co-partisans. In this article we challenge the “coordination” argument and claim that in contexts of acute political polarization between Left and Right. Based on an original dataset of inter-cartel violence in Mexico (2006–2012), we show that while criminal violence was more intense in municipalities in states ruled by opposition parties, it was five times greater in cities ruled by the left. We use case studies to show how Mexico's conservative federal government followed differentiated strategies to deal with spirals of drug violence. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “Conflict, violence and democracy in Latin America”, edited and introduced, pp. 5–9, by Ana ARJONA and Luis DE LA CALLE. See also Abstr. 66.3216b, 3355, 3960]
66.4008 TÜYSÜZOĞLU, Göktürk —
Rentier states [are those] that acquire income only through a natural resource. These states present an authoritarian type of profile and their people have a passive stance in terms of political/economic issues. When we assess Kurdistan Regional Government, we could define this region as a rentier type of administration, [but] not an independent state. [Although] economic development is fully dependent [on] oil production and exportation, industrial production could be seen as a minute amount and the most significant employer is the regional administration. Regional government, which has articulated vast majority of Kurdish tribes to its political will and has ignored pluralism, consolidates the rentier type of administration by the reference of Kurdish independence and the emphasis on regional security. [R]
66.4009 VOLDER, Jan de —
In Nigeria, Islam — rooted for centuries in the North — is increasingly challenged by dynamic Christians. Christianity presented itself from the coasts and the Niger River in the 19th c. While the English colonial masters limited missionary expansion in the northern territories, neo-Pentecostal African churches introduced Christianity to the north to recent decades. Christians, however, are divided between the Anglican, Roman Catholic, mainstream Protestant churches and an array of new churches in the evangelical or neo-Pentecostal movement. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) is an umbrella for them all, but its unity has been severely undermined. Boko Haram poses a real threat to living together in Nigeria. But as its fight appears first as a struggle within the Muslim world, a veritable “religious war” can still be avoided. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3985]
66.4010 WAAL, Thomas de —
The murder of 1.5 million Armenians by the Young Turk government in the late Ottoman Empire casts long shadow. This was one of the first genocides of the 20th c. Since then, Armenians and Turks have remained locked in confrontation. Despite the intransigence and estrangement on both sides, the Armenians with their trauma and the Turks with their fear of acknowledging the truth are chained to one another in an almost pathological way. In order to move forward in the Armenian question, dialogue should take the place of confrontation. It would be prudent to put the static, symbolic conflict surrounding the term “genocide” on the back burner. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3907]
66.4011 WALDRON, Arthur —
More than once, I have heated milk on a gas stove only to have it boil over disastrously. The US and its allies face at least four major and converging challenges that may also boil over like overheated milk, perhaps simultaneously. Social scientists will have more sophisticated frameworks, but this homely analogy of the full gas stove frames my points. [R]
66.4012 WALLIS, Joanne; JEFFERY, Renee; KENT, Lia —
In recent years, the study and practice of political reconciliation has experienced a turn to hybridity. This turn has been defined by the increased rate at which liberal international and local peace-building practices, and their underlying ideas, have become merged, integrated or co-located in time and space. While hybrid approaches to reconciliation have been praised as an effective means of engaging local populations in peace-building operations, little attention has been paid to examining whether or not they also bring unintended negative consequences. Drawing on the cases of Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands and Bougainville, this article examines the potentially dark side of hybridity. It demonstrates that, in each of these cases, hybrid approaches to political reconciliation have brought both positive and negative consequences. [R, abr.]
66.4013 WEI Chi-hung —
This article proposes a conditional explanation for the oil-causes-rebellions curse by examining indigenous movements in oil-producing countries in Latin America. I argue that oil price drops and oil-caused land conflicts increase the likelihood of rebellions if indigenous peoples remain under-urbanized, as evidenced by the 1994 Zapatista rebellion in Mexico. Conversely, indigenous peoples are likely to pursue an ethnic politics that is “pacted” if oil-led economic activities have urbanized them. In Venezuela and Ecuador, oil has created an urban-indigenous class. When Venezuela and Ecuador introduced neoliberal reforms to deal with their economic crises caused by oil price drops, indigenous peoples made efforts to codify indigenous rights in the constitution as a pact. I conclude that this conditional explanation fits Latin America due to two regional factors: ethno-corporatist legacies and diffusion effects. [R, abr.]
66.4014 WHITE, Timothy J.; MARNANE, Denis —
In remembering critical events, history, memory, and commemoration often cause confusion and dissention. In this decade of centenaries, seminal events in modern Irish history contend for pre-eminence, but 1916 is clearly the most important. Scholars are competing with journalists and politicians for control of the agenda for establishing the meaning and importance of the Rising 100 years later. The continuing problems associated with commemorating 1916 are at least partly caused by the fact that partition has hindered nationalists from achieving their aspirations of a 32-county republic. We contend that it is this failure that accounts for much of the conflict in Ireland over the last century and which is now highlighted by the politics of commemoration of 1916. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.3902]
66.4015 YAMADA, Makio —
The export of oil, the development of renewable energy, and economic diversification are all closely related to the security of the Al Saud. The pursuit of the latter two goals by Saudi policy-makers has significantly accelerated in the past decade. They realize that the country's oil-centered economy is unsustainable and that Saudi Arabia needs to adapt changing socio-economic circumstances, in light of the persistence of violent Islamism and the eruption of the Arab Spring. These dynamics have driven the development of Saudi-Asian relations in the fields of renewable energy and economic diversification. Furthermore, within Saudi-Asian relations there have been some signs of growing bilateral defense ties. These may be only marginal today, but they appear to be forward-looking.
66.4016 YEŞILYURT, Nuri —
This article makes a comprehensive analysis of the impacts of the Arab Spring on the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In particular, it tackles with the question of how the Hashemite regime could survive the Arab Spring. Furthermore, it contributes to the ongoing scholarly debate about the resilience of Arab monarchies by trying to find out if the survival of the Hashemite monarchy during the Arab Spring has more to do with factors endogenous to the regime or exogenous to it. After analyzing the main challenges and opportunities that the Arab Spring created for Jordan, this article argues that challenges that the Hashemite regime faced during this period either disappeared or are outbalanced by the opportunities it enjoyed, and these opportunities originated from both exogenous and endogenous factors. [R]
66.4017 YI Lin —
Drawing upon the theses of State racism (M. Foucault), homo sacer (G. Agamben), and safe citizenship (C. Weber), and fieldwork data collected from a multi-ethnic primary school in Xinjiang, this paper examines the way in which the state agencies of the local government, the school and mainstream citizens design citizenship for Uyghurs, and how Uyghurs interpret and act upon their citizenship. The findings show why, and how, designed citizenship by the mainstream system for Uyghurs has failed to produce a desirably productive force for the prosperity of both the Uyghur community and society at large. The findings require reconsideration of what could be a win-win citizenship for both the state and the citizen. [R]
66.4018 YÜCEL, Clémence Scalbert —
This article examines the impacts that the embrace of diversity talk has had on identity and ethnic politics in Turkey that has evolved toward a relative and selective recognition. Based on the analysis of the cases of the Laze and Kurdish movements, the article argues that the politics of recognition are built conjointly by an array of actors, at different levels, with different aims, and through their very practices and interactions. The article shows that, although the embrace of diversity talk may mark a depoliticization of the ethnonational claims, it still gives room to forms of resistance. These dynamics have shaped a noncoherent, multilayered recognition that does not allow the building of a common ground in the country but rather of a battlefield around discursive and policies choices. [R] [See Abstr. 66.3207]
66.4019 ZAKAREVIČIŪTĖ, Ieva —
The martyrs of the January Events in 1991 in Lithuania became crucial symbols in the official revolutionary narrative after the re-establishment of the state. Their role of “national hero” was established through honors given to them after their deaths, multiple memorials, and naming streets after them. Similarly, the role of shahid [martyr] is prominent in the narratives of the 25th of January revolution in Egypt. These deaths and their commemoration became both a cause generating societal outrage towards the regime and an inspirational example of revolutionary acts. Tributes to the martyrs are still being paid in a variety of revolutionary mediums, from poetry to graffiti. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.2692]
66.4020 ZAMBARLOUKOU, Stella —
The debt crisis that broke out in Greece in 2009 and the conditions accompanying the bail out loans received, led to a dramatic decrease in social spending and social benefits. At the same time the need to curb spending led to major reform initiatives that transformed key aspects of the welfare state, such as the pension and health systems. The paper tries to understand to what extent the changes introduced since the outbreak of the crisis constitute a radical departure from past institutional arrangements. To this end, it examines how the reforms introduced in key welfare institutions, the austerity measures adopted, alongside changes in the labor market and family arrangements have transformed the welfare state. [R, abr.]
66.4021 ZANFI, Federico; CURCI, Francesco; FORMATO, Enrico —
Despite the public policy that should have “solved” the issue some 30 years ago, the phenomenon of unauthorized building in the Mezzogiorno not only remains unsolved, but it has also taken incredibly serious and complex features. This essay first reconstructs a sort of general framework where the main trends and factors that have contributed to the current situation are highlighted. Second, it focuses on concrete practices and describes the major declinations the abusivismo has taken in peri-urban and coastal territories. Finally, it proposes three future-oriented “moves” in order to overcome the actual impasse of the public action and to start a new season of policies, where unauthorized settlements could be involved in a more comprehensive reform for southern urban contexts. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 66.3928]
66.4022 ZULFQAR, Saman —
The prospects of a post-2014 drawdown of foreign troops from Afghanistan and the subsequent transition process have raised concerns about the capacity of the Afghan state to endure the challenges of transition. The process of security transition was initiated in 2011 with the handing over of security responsibilities to the Afghan National Security Forces. The passing years have exposed the weaknesses of the Afghan forces while highlighting future security challenges for Afghanistan. Likewise, the process of political transition has been completed by the formation of a Unity Government in Afghanistan. The task of economic transition is a challenging one as it depends on the transformation of the Afghan economy. The paper identifies the transition challenges and their implications for Afghanistan. [R, abr.]
66.4023 ZWITTER, Andrej —
In November 2008, ten heavily armed members of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Kashmiri separatist group, attacked several public sites in Mumbai, India, with automatic weapons and grenades, killing 164 people and wounding 300. This was one of the first known instances of terrorists employing powerful search algorithms such as Twitter's or the link analysis used in Google's PageRank system, which allowed LeT members to access information from massive data-pools in real-time. During the attacks, an LeT operations center based in Pakistan communicated with the terrorists via satellite and GSM phones to provide them with open-source intelligence. From the operations center, LeT members data mined the internet and social media, tapping into the power of Big Data to provide the attackers with an intelligence advantage over Indian law-enforcement agencies. [R, abr.]
66.4024
Articles by Shlomo BEN AMI; Michael SHIFTER; Guillermo PÉREZ FLÓREZ; Adrián BONILLA; Fernando SARMIENTO SANTANDER.
66.4025
Articles by Luca SCUCCIMARRA; Lea CAMPOS BORALEVI; Robertino GHIRINGHELLI; Stefano DE LUCA; Adriana LUNA-FABRITIUS; Aldo NICOSIA; Giancarlo PELLEGRINI; Francesco M. DE SANCTIS; Fausto PROIETTI; Gian Mario BRAVO; Maria Teresa PICHETTO; David WEINSTEIN; Claudio PALAZZOLO; Gilda MANGANARO FAVARETTO; Claudia GIURINTANO; Gian Biagio FURIOZZI; Franca BIONDI; Rafaella GHERARDI; Carlo CARINI; Paschalis M. KITROMILIDES; Sergio AMATO; Sara LAGI; Giovanni BELARDELLI; Paolo BAGNOLI; Luigi COMPAGNA; Salvatore CINGARI; Marcello MONTANARI; Eugenio GUCCIONE; Corrado MALANDRINO; Gianfranco RAGONA; Nicola ANTONETTI; Michela NACCI; Maria Antonietta FALCHI PELLEGRINI.