Society and politics in China today

China's social and economic transformations, and their growing global impact, have prompted a plethora of books. This review article examines five recent books in Polity's China today series as a basis for discussion about society and politics in China. The series is structured around applying different themes or concepts to China, and these five look at consumption, social welfare, class, ethnicity, and the nature, role and performance of the Communist Party and state. The books provide well‐researched and balanced accounts of developments in China, especially since the era of ‘reform and opening up’ began in 1978. The article argues that important themes of the books—the growing discourse of consumption, the depoliticization of class as socio‐economic strata, the Party‐state as a pragmatic provider of citizen services, and the role of the private sector in the provision of social welfare—are all features of the current phase of a globalized capitalist modernity, and concludes that while the country wants to be seen as different, the accounts of politics and society in this series suggests that China today offers more of an alternative within that modernity than an alternative to it.     

The disciplinary politics of antagonistic nationalism in militarized South and North Korea

After the Korean War (1950–53), the two militarized Koreas governed each and every member of society in similar ways through their disciplinary politics of antagonistic nationalism. The existing studies of state formation in the two Koreas have neglected an aspect of state power that was neither necessarily top‐down nor violent from above but also reproduced from below. In both South and North Korea, especially from the 1960s to the 1970s, state power had internal dynamics that penetrated the day‐to‐day activities of most citizens and led them to actively accept and participate in nationalist rule. This article explores an understudied aspect of the two Koreas' state power that was disciplinarily diffused in people's everyday practices through reproduction of aggressive nationalism from below and the organic construction of the individual body and nation.     

Why Dominican Feminism Moved to the Right: Class,Colour and Women's Activism in the Dominican Republic, 1880s–1940s

This article analyses feminism in the Dominican Republic, and the rightward shift of the women's movement in the 1930s and 1940s, by examining the historical development of female activism in the Dominican Republic from the 1880s until the first decade of General Rafael Trujillo's regime in the 1940s. The article argues that elite female activists, most of whom were white or light‐skinned, allied themselves with the right‐wing politics of General Rafael Trujillo's dictatorship because his vision of elite women's activism complemented the class and colour interests of a select group of female reformers. Dominican feminism's rightward shift also resulted from the monopolisation of political power under the Dominican Party; the veneration of elite, bourgeois womanhood in official state iconography; the elaboration of Hispanidad nationalism; and the rejection of feminism's early roots in the political philosophy of Eugenio María de Hostos. As a result, Dominican feminism's origins in left‐leaning, potentially radical politics were ignored and erased by leading activists.     

Colonial Matriarchs: Garveyism,Maternalism, and Belize's Black Cross Nurses, 1920–1952

This article analyses the politics of Belize's Black Cross Nurses in their heyday in order to bring into dialogue the historiography on gender in the transnational Garveyite movement to which the middle‐class Nurses belonged, and the historiography on maternalism. It complicates the claim that Garveyite women were subordinated within the movement and resisted its gender norms, and addresses the lack of attention to maternalist politics among non‐white women in colonised settings, where racial anxieties strengthened middle‐class attachment to bourgeois respectability. By analysing the Nurses's relations with the colonial state, poor urban mothers and middle‐class men, the article concludes that their maternalism served to reproduce class and race hierarchies, and colonial rule, even as it strengthened middle‐class women's political autonomy and legitimacy.     

Race,Class and Politics in Peninsular Malaysia: The General Election of 2008

Racial politics have bedevilled peninsular Malaysia since independence in 1957, largely sustained by a ruling coalition of partners sharing power unequally, in a consociational government. The effect of a racialised practice over fifty years is the institutionalisation of the politics of ethnic pluralism, each component driven by its own internal dynamic and cultural logic: for the Chinese it is the politics of economic security, for the Tamils the politics of religion and caste, and for the Malays incipient class antagonisms that are historically rooted in a feudal society. In the general election of 2008, there was an unprecedented swing of votes across the ethnic divide against the ruling government, resulting in the loss of five state governments to an opposition coalition espousing multiculturalism and the loss of the government's two-thirds majority in Parliament for the first time. However, we argue that these developments do not signal the beginning of the end of racial politics in peninsular Malaysia. Instead, the opposition has skilfully recoded multiculturalism as social justice and accountability in racial terms, and effectively communicated this to an essentially racialised electorate at a time when Malays, Chinese and Tamils had lost faith in the ruling government's ability to address deep-seated grievances specific to each of these communities.     

Book reviews

Books reviewed in this issue International Relations theory Just war and international order: the uncivil condition in world politics. By Nicholas Rengger. Dilemmas of decline: British intellectuals and world politics, 1945–1975. By Ian Hall. Thucydides and the modern world: reception, reinterpretation and influence from the Renaissance to the present. Edited by Katherine Harloe and Neville Morley. The silence of animals: on progress and other modern myths. By John Gray. International organization, law and ethics Exit strategies and state building. Edited by Richard Caplan. Statebuilding. By Timothy Sisk. Conflict, security and defence In defence of war. By Nigel Biggar. British generals in Blair's wars. Edited by Jonathan Bailey, Richard Iron and Hew Strachan. The strategy bridge: theory for practice. By Colin S. Gray. Perspectives on strategy. By Colin S. Gray. Governance, civil society and cultural politics The Oxford Handbook of the history of nationalism. Edited by John Breuilly. The naked communist: Cold War modernism and the politics of popular culture. By Roland Végsö. Political economy, economics and development The global economic crisis: a chronology. By Larry Allen. Constructing capitalisms: transforming business systems in Central and Eastern Europe. By Roderick Martin. The rise of the People's Bank of China: the politics of institutional change in China's monetary and financial system. By Stephen Bell and Hui Feng. Energy, environment and global health South African AIDS activism and global health politics. By Mandisa Mbali. International history 1 1 See also Michael Brett, Approaching African history, pp. 1524–25.
Europe: the struggle for supremacy, 1453 to the present. By Brendan Simms. Unfinished empire: the global expansion of Britain. By John Darwin. China's war with Japan, 1937–1945: the struggle for survival. By Rana Mitter. The Punjab bloodied, partitioned and cleansed: unravelling the 1947 tragedy through secret British reports and first‐person accounts. By Ishtiaq Ahmed. From Lenin to Castro, 1917–1959: early encounters between Moscow and Havana. By Mervyn J. Bain. Europe The passage to Europe: how a continent became a union. By Luuk van Middelaar. Translated by Liz Waters. Why Europe matters: the case for the European Union. By John McCormick. Europe, strategy and armed forces: the making of a distinctive power. By Sven Biscop and Jo Coelmont. NATO's European allies: military capability and political will. Edited by Janne Haaland Matlary and Magnus Petersson. Transformations in Central Europe between 1989 and 2012: geopolitical, cultural, and socioeconomic shifts. By Tomas Kavaliauskas. Democratic institutions and authoritarian rule in Southeast Europe. By Danijela Dolenec. Russia and Eurasia Hard diplomacy and soft coercion: Russia's influence abroad. By James Sherr. Russia, the West, and military intervention. By Roy Allison. Sovereignty after empire: comparing the Middle East and Central Asia. Edited by Sally N. Cummings and Raymond Hinnebusch. Middle East and North Africa 2 2 See also Sally Cummings and Raymond Hinnebusch, eds, Sovereignty after empire: comparing the Middle East and Central Asia, pp. 1515–16.
The power and the people: paths of resistance in the Middle East. By Charles Tripp. Israel has moved. By Diana Pinto. Identity and nation in Iraq. By Sherko Kirmanj. Sub‐Saharan Africa Business, politics, and the state in Africa: challenging the orthodoxies on growth and transformation. By Tim Kelsall and others. Al‐Shabaab in Somalia: the history and ideology of a militant Islamist group, 2005–2012. By Stig Jarle Hansen. Approaching African history. By Michael Brett. Routledge handbook of African politics. Edited by Nic Cheeseman, David M. Anderson and Andrea Scheibler. African agency in international politics. Edited by William Brown and Sophie Harman. South Asia 3 3 See also Ishtiaq Ahmed, The Punjab bloodied, partitioned and cleansed: unravelling the 1947 tragedy through secret British reports and first‐person accounts, pp. 1504–05.
Shooting for a century: the India‐Pakistan conundrum. By Stephen Cohen. Righteous republic: the political foundations of modern India. By Ananya Vajpeyi. Why growth matters: how economic growth in India reduced poverty and the lessons for other developing countries. By Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya. An uncertain glory: India and its contradictions. By Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen. East Asia and Pacific Will this be China's century? A skeptic's view. By Mel Gurtov. China goes global: the partial power. By David Shambaugh. The China choice: why we should share power. By Hugh White. Shooting star: China's military machine in the 21st century. By Mikhail Barabanov, Vasiliy Kashin and Konstantin Makienko. North America Empire of ideas: the origins of public diplomacy and the transformation of U.S. foreign policy. By Justin Hart. Confront and conceal: Obama's secret wars and surprising use of American power. By David E. Sanger. Latin America and Caribbean Enabling peace in Guatemala: the story of MINUGUA. By William Stanley. Breves narrativas diplomáticas. By Celso Amorim.     

Rural drinking water governance politics in China: Governmentality schemes and negotiations from below

This paper examines the politics of rural water governance in China through a governmentality lens and village water intervention case. The China Rural Drinking Water Safety Project (RDWSP) was an attempt to control water, while also serving as a tool of power to impel the rural population towards national development goals. The authors analyzed official documents and conducted interviews in a village in Shandong Province to investigate the RDWSP's rationale and practices, as well as how water access and management were negotiated by rural water users. The paper argues that (1) confronted with a decline in local governance capacity and in an effort to rectify the mistakes of the supply-driven, technocratic paradigm, the RDWSP attempted to integrate social, environmental and economic concerns but did not achieve that goal; (2) the decline in local governance capacity and people's pragmatic everyday strategies contributed to an individualized approach to solving water problems, reflected in people's disengagement from the government project and local participation, an effect that may sustain people's marginalization and exclusion from good-quality water access and management. Using the Chinese water project as an example, the paper contributes to the debate on state-induced water control versus civil society “counter-conduct” formed by daily interactions. Furthermore, it enriches the study of politics in general by presenting the state as a site of contested institutionalization and ongoing negotiations, confronted by everyday narratives and encounters with marginalized citizens that go far beyond and are far more complex than overt resistance or covert weapons of the weak.     

State Power,Civic Participation and the Urban Frontier: The Politics of the Commons in Karachi

Abstract: A martial state's neoliberal policies opened the nation's frontiers to new forms of globalization. This article investigates the political process that undergirded the military and global capital's sequestration of common land in Karachi and the concomitant contestation by a key civil society organization. Using Foucault's conception of sovereignty and government as an assemblage of authority and strategies of rationalization, this paper analyses the role of state and non‐state actors and changing power configurations in a conflict that surrounded the enclosure of a common and its transformation into a securitized zone of consumption in Karachi's Civil Lines. The conflict highlights the nature of the politics of space and citizenship in Pakistan's primary metropolis.     

‘New Cold War’ or twenty years’ crisis? Russia and international politics

President Vladimir Putin's foreign policy can be characterized as a ‘new realism’, repudiating some of the exaggerated ambitions of Yevgeny Primakov's tenure as foreign minister in the late 1990s while asserting Russia's distinctive identity in world politics. Rather than acting as a classic ‘balancing’ power prescribed by classic realist theory as the response to the hegemonic power of a single state, Russia under Putin tended to ‘bandwagon’ and the country has been a vigorous ‘joiner’. Putin insisted that Russia retains its ‘autonomy’ in international politics while moving away from earlier ideas that Russia could constitute the kernel of an alternative power bloc. However, the opportunity to integrate Russia into the hegemonic international order may have been missed because of what is seen in Moscow as the resolute hostility of groups in the West who continue to pursue Cold War aims of isolating and containing Russia. The Cold War was transcended in an asymmetrical manner, and this has given rise to four major failures: political, strategic, intellectual and cultural. The world faces the danger of the onset of a new era of great power bloc politics, thus restoring a Cold War structure to the international system. With none of the major strategic issues facing the international community at the end of the Cold War yet resolved, we may be facing a new twenty years’ crisis.     

Class,Power, and Patronage: Landowners and Politics in Punjab

In the century following their conquest of the province, the British in Punjab erected an administrative apparatus that, like those of precolonial regimes, relied heavily upon the support of the province's landed class. The relationship between the landed class and the colonial state was one of mutual benefit, with the latter using the former to ensure the maintenance of order and collection of revenue in exchange for state patronage. In this paper, it is argued that this administrative framework gave rise to a path-dependent process of institutional development in Punjab, allowing for the different fractions of the province's landowning class to increasingly entrench themselves within the political order in the postcolonial epoch. This paper outlines the mechanisms underlying this process of institutional development, focusing, in particular, on the strategies adopted by the landowning class to reproduce its power. This paper also considers the potentialities for institutional change in Punjab, allowing for the creation of a more democratic and participatory politics in the province.     

Agamben's geographies of modernity

This paper examines the geographical underpinnings of Giorgio Agamben's theory of sovereign power. Reflecting on Agamben's attempt in developing a unified theory of power, I highlight the eminently spatial nature of two of the key concepts that mark his argument: the structure of the ban and the camp as a paradigm of modern politics. In particular, I analyse how the spatialisation of biopolitics finds in the camp the ideal site for the definition of endless caesurae in the body of the nation, and for the definition of population as a merely spatial concept. I claim, therefore, that the biopolitical state machine activated by the recent war on terror is not only an autopoietic machine, but that it is also at the origin of new geographies of exception that are imposing a new nomos on global politics: a nomos within which decision is produced by a permanent state of exception, and where law exists only through its endless strategic (dis)application.     

The crisis of the Italian state: then and now

Abstract

The article argues that Patrick McCarthy's Crisis of the Italian State was a book of great value by an author who was a partisan in the struggle to reform the Italian political system. The book's argument that lasting reform of Italian politics is only possible if middle class Italians begin to act as citizens, rather than as clients who regard the state as a source of potential largesse, has proved to be a far-sighted one, although at the time it seemed simplistic. Many of Italy's current troubles stem from the failure of Italy to go beyond the ‘overworked state’.     

Book reviews

Books reviewed in this issue. International Relations theory The social in the global: social theory, governmentality and global politics. By Jonathan Joseph . Power, Realism and constructivism. By Stefano Guzzini . International organization, law and ethics * 1 See also Alex J. Bellamy, Massacres and morality: mass atrocities in an age of civilian immunity, pp. 1029–30.
The law of targeting. By William H. Boothby. Just business: multinational corporations and human rights. By John Ruggie . Unimaginable atrocities: justice, politics, and rights at the war crimes tribunal. By William Schabas. No one's world: the West, the rising rest and the coming global turn. By Charles A. Kupchan. Conflict, security and defence The Cambridge history of war, volume IV: war in the modern world. Edited by Roger Chickering, Dennis Showalter and Hans van de Ven. Invisible armies: an epic history of guerrilla warfare from ancient times to the present. By Max Boot . Massacres and morality: mass atrocities in an age of civilian immunity. By Alex J. Bellamy . After war ends: a philosophical perspective. By Larry May . Ballistic missile defence and US national security policy: normalisation and acceptance after the Cold War. By Andrew Futter . Privatizing war: private military and security companies under public international law. By Lindsey Cameron and Vincent Chetail . Governance, civil society and cultural politics Federal dynamics: continuity, change, and the varieties of federalism. Edited by Arthur Benz and Jörg Broschek . Of virgins and martyrs: women and sexuality in global conflict. By David Jacobson . Political economy, economics and development New spirits of capitalism? Crises, justifications, and dynamics. Edited by Paul du Gay and Glenn Morgan . Masters of the universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the birth of neoliberal politics. By Daniel Stedman Jones . Governing guns, preventing plunder: international cooperation against illicit trade. By Asif Efrat . Energy, environment and global health China's environmental challenges. By Judith Shapiro. Green innovation in China: China's wind power industry and the global transition to a low‐carbon economy. By Joanna I. Lewis . The governance of energy in China: transition to a low‐carbon economy. By Philip Andrews‐Speed . Global health and International Relations. By Colin McInnes and Kelley Lee . International history The sleepwalkers: how Europe went to war in 1914. By Christopher Clark . Lenin's terror: the ideological origins of early Soviet state violence. By James Ryan . Hitler's philosophers. By Yvonne Sherratt . Empire of secrets: British intelligence, the Cold War and the twilight of empire. By Calder Walton . Nasser's gamble: how intervention in Yemen caused the Six‐Day War and the decline of Egyptian power. By Jesse Ferris . The killing zone: the United States wages Cold War in Latin America. By Stephen G. Rabe . Visions of power in Cuba: revolution, redemption and resistance, 1959–1971. By Lillian Guerra . Europe European security: the roles of regional organisations. By Bjørn Møller . Six moments of crisis: inside British foreign policy. By Gill Bennett . Defending the realm? The politics of Britain's small wars since 1945. By Aaron Edwards . A special relationship? British foreign policy in the era of American hegemony. By Simon Tate . Britain's quest for a role: a diplomatic memoir from Europe to the UN. By David Hannay . Russia and Eurasia * 2 See also James Ryan, Lenin's terror: the ideological origins of early Soviet state violence, pp. 1046–7; and Marlene Laruelle and Sebastien Peyrouse, The Chinese question in Central Asia: domestic order, social change and the Chinese factor, pp. 1076–7.
Wheel of fortune: the battle for oil and power in Russia. By Thane Gustafson . Edge of empire: a history of Georgia. By Donald Rayfield . Georgia: a political history since independence. By Stephen Jones . Middle East and North Africa Revolutionary Iran: a history of the Islamic Republic. By Michael Axworthy . Lebanon after the Cedar Revolution. Edited by Are Knudsen and Michael Kerr . Dynamics of change in the Persian Gulf: political economy, war and revolution. By Anoushiravan Ehteshami . Sub‐Saharan Africa Multiethnic coalitions in Africa: business financing of opposition election campaigns. By Leonardo R. Arriola . Nigeria since independence: forever fragile? By J. N. C. Hill . Peacebuilding, power, and politics in Africa. Edited by Devon Curtis and Gwinyayi A. Dzinesa . South Asia Policing Afghanistan. By Antonio Giustozzi and Mohammed Isaqzadeh . East Asia and Pacific * 3 See also Judith Shapiro, China's environmental challenges; Joanna I. Lewis, Green innovation in China: China's wind power industry and the global transition to a low‐carbon economy; and Philip Andrews‐Speed, The governance of energy in China: transition to a low‐carbon economy, pp. 1041–3.
The Chinese question in Central Asia: domestic order, social change and the Chinese factor. By Marlene Laruelle and Sebastien Peyrouse . China's search for energy security: domestic sources and international implications. Edited by Suisheng Zhao . North America Foreign policy begins at home: the case for putting America's house in order. By Richard N. Haass . US foreign policy and democracy promotion: from Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama. Edited by Michael Cox, Timothy J. Lynch and Nicolas Bouchet . The Secretary: a journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the heart of American power. By Kim Ghattas . Latin America and Caribbean * 4 See also Stephen G. Rabe, The killing zone: the United States wages Cold War in Latin America, pp. 1052–3; and Lillian Guerra, Visions of power in Cuba: revolution, redemption and resistance, 1959–1971, pp. 1054–5.
The Mapuche in modern Chile: a cultural history. By Joanna Crow .     

The International Character of a Trimmer: Interest,Reason of State,and Balance of Power in Halifax's Political Thought

This article argues that George Savile's thought casts light on international relations in the seventeenth century. Halifax's life and works concern not only England's domestic politics, but also its foreign affairs. Indeed, he develops a clear vision of international politics. This article analyses Halifax's international thought, in particular three concepts that are closely related to one another: ‘interest’, ‘reason of state’, and ‘balance of power’. Through the study of these ideas, this article will try to point out both the novelty of Halifax's thought compared with that of his contemporaries, and to reverse the stereotypical understanding of his intellectual legacy and political behaviour. The ‘trimmer’ contrasts with Louis XIV's attempt to establish a universal monarchy across Europe, outlining a doctrine of moderation that seeks to ensure liberty, security, and restraint in international relations.     

Perpetual Alleluia and Sacred Violence: An Afterword

This paper re-examines Paul Schroeder's thesis concerning the new international order after 1815 and argues that the practicalities of power projection were as important in shaping foreign policy as were diplomatic principles and practices. Highlighting Wellington's role in policy-making, it re-assesses British interventions in Portugal in the 1820s to argue that the exercise of British power resulted from a range of influences apart from the adherence to the Concert system. British interventionism was constrained by the limitations of military and naval power, difficulties in securing co-operation with the Portuguese, and the nature of Portuguese politics and the Portuguese state. The experience and legacy of the Peninsular War also made British ministers sceptical about the potential impact of foreign interventions in the region during the 1820s. Interventions in Portugal demonstrated that Britain could not project power on a global or significant scale in areas where it did not locally command substantial war-making resources, as in India. Schroeder's emphasis on Concert diplomacy and C.A. Bayly's on global-reach fail, therefore, to capture the appropriate range of influences on power projection.     

Vattel's theory of the international order: Commerce and the balance of power in the Law of Nations

Vattel's Law of Nations (1758) claimed that a system of independent states could maintain the liberty of each without undermining the ideal of an international society. The chief institution serving this purpose was the balance of power. In Vattel's account, the balance of power could be stabilized if it operated primarily through a process of commercial preferences and restrictions. These limits on how states ought to defend themselves were grounded in Vattel's thoroughly forgotten writings on the mid-eighteenth-century luxury debates, which addressed the political economy of reforming the state and pacifying the international order. An examination of Vattel's Law of Nations in this context shows that his approach to the law of nations should not be dismissed as a capitulation to the harsh reality of international politics.     

Below the Belt? Territory and Development in China's International Rise

China's internationalization has been heralded by some as a new era of South–South cooperation. Yet such framings of development are pitched at an abstract space of the ‘global South’ which conceals more than it reveals. With some theory moving towards ontologies of ‘global development’, we need to capture both the connectedness and the local specificity of increasingly diffuse processes. This article sets out a more fine‐grained understanding of how political territories and processes are imagined and produced by and through China's internationalization, focusing on infrastructure as a ‘technology’ of territorialization. Much of the focus on China's internationalization has been on state‐to‐state relations, but this obscures the ‘omni‐channel politics’ that China practises. Using a critical literature review and illustrative case study, this article develops the idea of omni‐channel politics to posit a view of ‘twisted’ territories in which political processes and development outcomes are more complex and contingent.     

Infrastructure Nation: State Space,Hegemony, and Hydraulic Regionalism in Pakistan

Large‐scale infrastructures are often understood by state planners as fulfilling a national integrative function. This paper challenges the idea of infrastructures as national integrators by engaging theories of state/nation formation and infrastructure in a postcolonial context. Specifically, I put Lefebvre's characterization of the production of state space as a homogenization‐differentiation dialectic in conversation with Gramsci's understanding of hegemony, bureaucracy, and nationalism to analyze the controversy surrounding the giant Tarbela Dam in Pakistan in the 1960s. I use the Tarbela controversy as a case study to elaborate a theory of postcolonial nation‐formation through state‐led infrastructural projects. I argue that in a postcolonial context the failure to articulate a hegemonic nationalist ideology to accompany the production of large‐scale infrastructure results in a fragmentation of state space in some ways, even as state space is homogenized and integrated in other ways. The paper also offers a “hydraulic lens” on the politics of regionalism in Pakistan.     

The Politics of Recognition and Redistribution: Development,Tribal Identity Politics and Distributive Justice in India's Jharkhand

This article illustrates how the potential of recognition‐based politics to achieve distributive justice is determined by political structures and the power relations that constitute them. In response to Nancy Fraser's framework of social justice, it shows that the meaningful coordination of identity‐based claims with distributive justice is constrained — not only by the content of the claims themselves, but also because redistributive demands are subverted through competing pursuits for power and legitimacy between rival political factions. The article describes how the separate‐state movement for Jharkhand in Eastern India was de‐radicalized by three instruments, namely, the reservation system, cultural nationalism and state development discourse. This explains why distributive measures do not feature prominently in the Jharkhand state and why recognition politics has taken a disciplined form in the electoral mainstream while distributive politics continues to be pursued through violent and extra‐parliamentary means.     

Re-Interpreting Modern Iran: Tribe and State in the Twentieth Century

For the nationalist elite of early Pahlavi Iran, the regime's military successes over tribal opposition, whether real or imagined, were welcomed and celebrated. These successes were interpreted as confirmation of their views of tribal power as hostile to modernity, archaic and outmoded, and of Riza Shah as the deliverer of Iran's national salvation. This conceptualization of the “tribal problem” had appeared in tandem with and as a product of modernist ideology in the late nineteenth century, acquired the backing of state power with the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty, and endured until the revolution of 1979. It communicated itself, in diluted form, to Western scholarship, which has been largely content to depict Riza Shah's tribal policies as regrettably brutal, but an unavoidable stage in Iran's progress and “modernization.”

Yet this version of tribe–state relations is clearly an ideological construct rather than an historical analysis. The account which follows begins a re-evaluation of tribal politics in modern Iran, focusing especially on the Riza Shah decades when these politics were a site of intense conflict and where the nationalist template was most starkly delineated, and concludes by tracing and re-examining the evolution of the tribe–state dynamic in the decades of land reform and revolution.