Marketisation and democratisation in the Russian Federation: the case of Novosibirsk

The concurrent passage of the processes of democratisation and marketisation in the former communist world have attracted considerable attention throughout the social sciences. Less attention has been paid, however, to the local dimensions of change. Much of the literature lacks an understanding of the role of people and institutions at the local level in dismantling communism and building new structures and practices. This paper explicitly focuses on the local experiences of wider processes of transformation by exploring participation in and exclusion from debates over future strategies for local economic development in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. Drawing on literatures on markets and democracy, this paper argues that the expected democratisation of post-Soviet politics and the pluralisation of political representation are limited, at least at the local scale, by the playing out of the processes of marketisation and democratisation in grounded contexts, both local and global, by the passage of those transformations at a particular moment in history, and by their concurrence.     

Political hierarchies and landscapes of conflict across Africa

Almost all African states experience substantial and widespread political insecurity in a variety of forms. This analysis explains how relationships between groups and governments create incentives and disincentives for distinct forms of political violence to emerge. It argues that ethno-regional communities across Africa are situated within a power hierarchy that determines their relative importance to, and inclusion in, regimes. A dynamic power landscape emerges from relative group positions. Various positions within a hierarchy are associated with particular dominant forms of organized political violence as groups challenge political elites, but are bounded by their goals and characteristics. A failure to consider the political hierarchies and landscapes operating within African states has led to an under specification of the causal mechanisms driving different forms of violence, and an overstatement of benefits from declining civil war rates and inclusive governing coalitions.     

Set the junta free: Pre-transitional justice in Myanmar's democratisation

Myanmar is in political deadlock. In part, this is because the opposition has not confronted problems of transitional justice, notably how to deal with members of the military junta who have participated in gross human rights violations. There are therefore few incentives for the ruling generals to consider talking about change. To tackle this problem, the article develops a model of pre-transitional justice that is focused on the critical ‘torturer problem’. It is also informed by recent developments in international criminal law, and by the spread of truth commissions and lustration systems. The integrated reconciliatory model that results is suitable for political negotiation, capable of generating discontinuities with an authoritarian past, and legally and technically feasible. Applying it to Myanmar, the article holds that qualified amnesty is necessary for political reform.     

Democratization, Legitimacy and Political Change in Central Asia

This article examines the concepts of democracy and legitimacy in the context of post-Soviet Central Asia. Its first argument is that democratization projects have lived through hard times in five Central Asian countries despite the failure of the institutional expression of democracy to incorporate the values and structures of these societies. The Soviet legacy of cynicism combined with local conservative political culture obstructs the emergence of democratic values and processes crucial for successful institutional development. If democracy does not provide a basis for political legitimacy, should the conclusion be that the ruling regimes are illegitimate? The article’s second argument is that the current sources of legitimacy stem from the fact that the regimes managed to cope with the initial challenges of post-communist transition with relative success and laid the foundation of the new states. Moreover, the populations do not see viable alternatives to the present order. However, there are new problems, such as mounting social tensions, regionalization and criminalization of politics. These challenges are largely a by-product of developments in the post-independence era. The continuing legitimacy of the regimes will depend on their ability to cope with these new, highly problematic issues.     

The China factor in US alliances in East Asia and the Asia Pacific 1

Any discussion of the United States' alliances in East Asia and the Pacific should include an understanding of the role that China plays in regional security in general, and the influence of such a role on the alliance system in particular. The 'China factor' in the contemporary US alliance system can be understood by asking the following questions: (1) what are China's perceptions of and concerns regarding the US alliance system as a whole and regarding specific bilateral military alliances of the US?; (2) where does China figure in the American post-Cold War worldview, and what role does the United States itself see its alliances playing in relation to China?; (3) to what extent are the current bilateral alliances of the US directed against China, in the view of US allies; and (4) how might the reshaping of the international security environ ment following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States affect China's perceptions and attitudes towards future alliance developments?     

Institutionalising Future Geographies of Financial Inclusion: National Legitimacy Versus Local Autonomy in the British Credit Union Movement

In Great Britain, financial infrastructure withdrawal and community economic decline have focused attention on the capacity of locally "alternative" financial institutions to combat social and financial exclusion. This paper examines one such institution, the residential or "community" credit union, which provides a low-cost source of credit for members drawn from a common bond area usually based upon place of residence and/or work. Although community credit unions have traditionally been seen as providing individuals and communities with the opportunity to access credit and savings facilities in areas where there has been contraction in bank and building society provision (the financial "mainstream"), ongoing attempts exist to move away from the traditional role of community credit unions. This transition has set up three main challenges for the British credit union movement, discussed in this paper as follows: (1) a struggle over the attempt to redefine the "model" credit union within the national credit union movement; (2) the changing regulatory context for credit union development, including attempts to embrace credit unions within New Labour policies on social exclusion; and (3) a "local" challenge, including the incorporation of credit unions into community economic development initiatives. The paper considers how these challenges feed into wider understandings about the social relations, categorisation and autonomy of locally "alternative" financial institutions. We argue that future research on geographies of financial inclusion focusing on "alternative" institutions and their relationship to the financial mainstream needs to pay close critical attention to potential contradictions and tensions operating at different, yet intersecting spatial scales.     

浅析明末东北亚政治格局中的东江因素

明清易代之际,战乱频仍,各种势力进行着激烈的绞杀。做为明军主要战略方向之一的辽东战场,由于涉及到方方面面,其矛盾更显尖锐、复杂,而以皮岛为中心的东江军镇又恰处于各方矛盾聚焦之处,其虽处于辽东战场的侧翼,但其重要性毫不逊色,并曾引起各方的反复博弈。     

The disturbance and endurance of norms in ASEAN: peaceful but stressful

Since the Cold War, South-East Asia has been marked by a period of relative calm and stability. Yet this peace belies ongoing tensions, mistrust and stress in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and among its member states. Within the scholarship on ASEAN, not enough attention is devoted to these underlying currents. How and in what way do tensions stress the ASEAN norms? What are some of the coping mechanisms adopted by ASEAN and its member states? Engaging with the scholarship on norms, the author contends that changes wrought in this relationship are both extra- and intra-mural. These have accelerated as contentious issues—particularly the South China Sea disputes—gain more visibility. The author argues that ASEAN is put under pressure, firstly, through a more muscular Chinese foreign policy that disrupts but does not yet break the fundamental norms of ASEAN and, secondly, through internal contestation over ASEAN norms that challenges the meaning of these norms. Essentially, the article gives an account of how internal and external pressures are burdening ASEAN norms but yet remain durable because of resistance against duress by the bloc and member states. This is done through an examination of instances where the established order and practices in the region were disturbed, and the response to this disturbance.     

Transitional Justice and Political Economies of Survival in Post‐conflict Northern Uganda

This article explores the interplay between transitional justice and ‘everyday’ political economies of survival in post‐conflict Acholiland, northern Uganda. It advances two main arguments. First, that transitional justice — as part and parcel of conventional liberal peacebuilding packages — promotes a repertoire of normatively driven policies that have little bearing on lived realities of social accountability in post‐conflict settings. Second, that in transcending the epistemological and ontological boundaries of transitional justice and using concepts developed in the critical peacebuilding literature — the ‘everyday’ and ‘hybridity’ — a nuanced understanding of this dissonance emerges. Based on extensive fieldwork in Acholiland in the period 2012–14, using a range of qualitative research methods, the author examines the means through which people negotiate social and moral order in the context of post‐conflict life and analyses the tensions between these forms of ‘everyday’ activity and current transitional justice policy and programming in the region.     

Reading Revolutionaries: Texts,Acts, and Afterlives of Political Action in Late Colonial South Asia

This essay maps out the discursive and political trajectories of the ‘revolutionary’ in Indian historical and literary worlds. Focusing on the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army and related interwar Indian anticolonial agitators, this essay reflects on the lineages, breadth, and productivity of the term. By tracing the figure of the revolutionary, we show that its genealogy reflects a wide range of political allegiances, ethical concerns, and aesthetic protocols. ‘Revolutionary’ not only suggests Marxist roots, but also reveals anarchistic, nationalistic, reformist, and socialist beliefs. Moreover, in our analysis, ‘revolutionary’ often escapes the grasp of the merely political: its use in popular discourse also suggests debates about violence, modernism, propaganda, cosmopolitanism, and utopianism. Consequently, we argue for the importance of historical context for understanding revolutionary thought, which is sensitive to an active rejection of rigid political categories or spectra.     

Ephemeral geopolitics: Tracing the role of refugees in Syria's transnational opposition

It has become common to read that Syria's conflict has become a “globalized civil war,” with the understanding that states have become the key actors shaping its dynamics. While in great part true, such an understanding overlooks the significance of transnational networks in shaping the conflict and, more importantly, how these networks and states have been intimately connected from its early stages. This paper explores how a network of Syrian refugees that I dub the “coordinating class” performed the work of binding together the heterogeneous assemblage that was Syria's opposition movement. Drawing on assemblage theory and two years of multi-sited fieldwork, the paper explores three practices through which this emergent network linked the spaces of exile to the warzone of Syria's opposition-held “Liberated Territories.” In doing so, the paper argues that in Syria's conflict, refugees' geopolitical agency was highly layered, provisional, and ephemeral, yet still shaped the wider geopolitics of the war.     

Democracy,nationalism and (lack of) sovereignty: the complex dynamics of democratisation in unrecognised states†

ABSTRACT. Unrecognised states are among the least likely candidates for democratisation: they tend to be driven by ethno‐nationalism, many are marked by the legacy of war and most are facing international isolation. Nevertheless, the claim to democracy has become a central part of their legitimising narrative. This article examines this apparent paradox and finds that neither ethno‐nationalism nor non‐recognition represents insurmountable barriers to democratisation. However, what we tend to find in these entities is a form of stagnated ‘ethnic democratisation’. These findings throw new light on the relationship between democracy and nationalism; they highlight the importance of (lack of) sovereignty; and they are used to evaluate Sammy Smooha's concept of ‘ethnic democracy’.