Russian ‘deniable’ intervention in Ukraine: how and why Russia broke the rules

The Russian military interventions in Ukraine, which have led to the annexation of the Crimean peninsula and to the entrenchment of separatist enclaves in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, directly challenge the post‐Cold War European state system. Russia has consistently denied any wrongdoing or illegal military involvement and has presented its policies as a reaction to the repression of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers. This article argues that it is important to examine and contest unfounded Russian legal and political claims used by Moscow to justify its interventions. The article proceeds to assess in detail three different explanations of the Russian operations in Ukraine: geopolitical competition and structural power (including the strategic benefits of seizing Crimea); identity and ideational factors; and the search for domestic political consolidation in Russia. These have all played a role, although the role of identity appears the least convincing in explaining the timing and scope of Russian encroachments on Ukrainian territorial integrity and the disruption of Ukrainian statehood.     

Heading west? Georgia's Euro‐Atlantic path

Events in Ukraine in 2014 are likely to transform the presence and role of western institutions such as NATO in the post‐Soviet area. The crisis has starkly revealed the limits of their influence within Russia's ‘zone of privileged interest’, as well as the lack of internal unity within these organizations vis‐à‐vis relations with Moscow and future engagement with the area. This will have long‐term implications for the South Caucasus state of Georgia, whose desire for integration into the Euro‐Atlantic community remains a key priority for its foreign and security policy‐makers. This article examines the main motivators behind Georgia's Euro‐Atlantic path and its foreign policy stance, which has remained unchanged for over a decade despite intense pressure from Russia. It focuses on two aspects of Georgia's desire for integration with European and Euro‐Atlantic structures: its desire for security and the belief that only a western alignment can guarantee its future development, and the notion of Georgia's ‘European’ identity. The notion of ‘returning’ to Europe and the West has become a common theme in Georgian political and popular discourse, reflecting the belief of many in the country that they are ‘European’. This article explores this national strategic narrative and argues that the prevailing belief in a European identity facilitates, rather than supersedes, the central role of national interests in Georgian foreign policy.     

VERTICAL INDUSTRY RELATIONS,SPILLOVERS, AND PRODUCTIVITY: EVIDENCE FROM CHILEAN PLANTS*

ABSTRACT We use disaggregated data on Chilean plants, and the Chilean input–output table to examine the impact of agglomeration spillovers on total factor productivity (TFP). In common with previous studies, we find evidence for intraindustry spillovers, but none for general cross‐industry spillovers. This picture changes when we take vertical industry relations into account. There are important productivity spillovers from plants in upstream industries. Interestingly, a similar effect cannot be found from plants in downstream industries. The number of plants in these sectors has no effect on plant‐level TFP, just as the number of plants in other industries that are neither important upstream suppliers nor downstream customers also has no effect.     

Myths of ancestry

This article examines the national significance of fifth‐century BC Greek sculpture and especially the so‐called Elgin Marbles. It examines the significance of these archaeological remains not for the Greek nation but for the British, and specifically the English, nation during the nineteenth century. The national significance of fifth‐century BC Greek art lies in its incorporation into nineteenth‐century debates concerning the identity of the English nation. At a time when physical appearance or race was accepted as an important and, indeed, determining component of the ‘self’ and a measure of collective belonging, Greek sculpture, which was primarily figural in its subject‐matter, came to be seen as an image of the English ‘self’. The belief in the Greek identity of the English caused a Greek revival in English life and art. In life, this revival took the form of care for the body and the imitation of the athletic practices of Greek youth through the practice of sport in English school and university education. It was thus that nineteenth‐century English youth turned itself into a work of art.     

From Enmity to Rivalry? Notes on National Identity Politics in Competition States

Abstract

This paper examines what it means to study national identity politics in an age during which state-to-state relations are being conceptualised increasingly in terms of economic rivalry and less in terms of political enmity. It is suggested that this transformation has not been sufficiently taken into account in the study of national identity politics that continues to operate on the basis of the friend-enemy distinction. It is also suggested that the ‘old school of national identity politics’ with its emphasis on territorial exclusion and geopolitical images of threat and enmity has done highly important work in deconstructing security discourses and it is noted how they are linked to a specific, realist understanding of the world. That is, they have disclosed how what Alexander Wendt calls the ‘Hobbesian culture of anarchy’ has motivated national identity politics. Further using Wendt's characterisation of the three cultures of anarchy, the paper suggests that in the practices of contemporary national identity politics the logic of economic competitiveness and the logic of political enmity continue to co-exist but that ‘state survival’ is being increasingly understood as a matter of economic competitiveness and decreasingly as that of military power. On this basis it is argued that the era of competition states begs an analysis of the conflictual and often contradictory articulations of the Self's relation with the Other. It is proposed that a fruitful road of enquiry would open up if national identity politics was examined within the framework of political struggles whereby the national survival and Self/Other relations are played out against the background of the global marketplace paradigm which resonates more with the Lockean than the Hobbesian culture of anarchy.     

The House that Poison Built: Customary Marine Property Rights and the Live Food Fish Trade in the Kei Islands,Southeast Maluku

The use of cyanide to stun and capture live food fish for export first appeared in the Philippines during the mid‐1970s. Today, this technology has spread throughout Southeast Asia and the Indo‐Pacific region, causing widespread damage to coral reef ecosystems. This study examines the local political and economic changes that have resulted since this destructive trade arrived in the Kei Archipelago of the Southeast Maluku District in Indonesia. District and provincial fisheries and law enforcement officials turn a blind eye, and evidence suggests complicity by some members of the military. Many local fishermen attempt to resist, motivated more by vestigial concepts of communal village rights and rules governing access to coral reef territories and resources, than by some intrinsic sense of environmental conservation. The article challenges the romantic predisposition of indigenous knowledge systems scholarship that characterizes local knowledge and practices as inherently eco‐friendly and socially just, and argues for closer examination of the dynamics involved when local practices and institutions are integrated into larger circuits of production and trade.     

Militarization of the Market and Rent‐Seeking Coalitions in Turkey

This article analyses the role of historically‐determined institutional and political characteristics in determining both the nature of the adjustment process, and its economic and political outcomes, in Turkey. In particular, the author explores the degree to which the formation of rent‐seeking coalitions has contributed to the failure of neo‐liberal economic reforms in the country. The analysis suggests that the Turkish experience since the early 1980s offers a unique case for studying the relationships between the state bureaucracy, the military, the business sector, civil society, and international economic actors. Unlike previous research in this area, this article focuses especially on the role of the military as an interest group in the process of economic liberalization in Turkey.     

Malta: Reclaiming the Naval Heritage?

This paper responds to three current concerns: military geographies, naval heritage in waterfront revitalisation and heritage tourism with particular reference to small‐island states. Malta is of cardinal interest in all these respects. Formerly the premier overseas naval base of the British Empire, it possesses abundant military heritage resources which derive from a culturally composite historical depth as well as from a territory‐wide geographical breadth. Paradoxically, the reclamation of its pre‐eminent naval heritage has been slow by the standards of peers elsewhere, notably Bermuda. The paper examines the reasons for this, what naval heritage reclamation has been undertaken, what is proposed, why this matters to Malta’s tourism economy and what wider significance this naval heritage has for the cultural/economic landscape. Malta is particularly significant in that it both substantially epitomises evolving postcolonial trajectories and uniquely reflects a pan‐European historical identity, befitting its recent accession to the EU.     

DOUBLE TRANSITIONS? REGIONAL PATTERNS OF POPULATION AGEING IN POLAND

The number and geographical distribution of the aged, and how the distribution changes over time, have captured the attention of geographical gerontologists; the complexity and spatially differentiated nature of ageing is of considerable practical and theoretical import. This article seeks to link the traditional concerns of population geography to the social and spatial relations between old people, their health and places of residence and care. It does presuppose, however, that patterns and processes at the sub‐national level are also taken into account. Therefore, the aim of the article is to identify the aged and the localities or regions where they reside, within the particular context of a Polish post‐socialist society that has recently become integrated into the European mainstream. As such it is potentially subject to a double transition, where the political and economic changes cross path with the second demographic transition. To identify interrelationships between ageing and post‐socialist transition, areas vulnerable to ageing are defined using ageing indices. Projections of the share of elderly up to 2030, based on a component cohort method, are made with a view to identifying future change in the spatial patterns of ageing. Regional patterns of ageing are presented in social, political or economic context, to show their relation to the structural changes that societies such as Poland have been passing through during the period of transition to democracy and a market economy or are likely to go through in the near future.     

A fine instrument: two nation‐building strategies in post‐Soviet Belarus*

Abstract. This article pursues two aims. On the empirical level, it challenges the view of Belarus as a ‘denationalised’, or ‘failed’ nation, and exposes the country as an area of intensive nation‐building. The article demonstrates that, unlike most post‐communist states, two versions of national identity have been advanced in Belarus since 1989, with divergent results for their proponents. On the theoretical level, such an atypical experience places qualifications on the instrumentalist approach, that regards nation‐building as a political tool. The analysis of identity creation in Belarus suggests that nation‐building as a political strategy may be limited by the existing attitudes in the society in question, the socio‐economic structures, as well as by the influence of foreign actors.     

Assessing the danger of war: parallels and differences between Europe in 1914 and East Asia in 2014

The article looks at structural analogies between the strategic situation in Europe in the summer of 1914 and in East Asia today, with particular emphasis on the probability of the outbreak of a major war. The author examines analogies regarding the nature of the international system, i.e. is the international system characterized by outright anarchy or by a more or less developed and institutionalized understanding among the main actors about the way to preserve peace and to organize economic exchange? The article addresses domestic factors (nationalism, democratic, authoritarian or semi‐democratic regimes) and investigates military dynamics against the backdrop of geography and the availability of military equipment and technologies. Possible routes of military escalation are also discussed. Special attention is paid to states that have isolated themselves and that dispose of military means that might promise swift victory. The article comes to the conclusion that there are very few similarities between Europe in 1914 and East Asia today, but that both the high degree of militarization of the Korean peninsula and the evolving military competition between the US and China in the region do imply the possibility of a major armed conflict in a not too distant future.     

State,Politics and the Idea of Social Justice in Chile

This article explores the ways in which the idea of social justice has been utilized during this century as an idée-force in Chilean politics. It stresses the Catholic background of the concept and shows how it has been adapted to the political objectives of several doctrinal streams. The idea of social justice has been a powerful ideological instrument for governments in their attempts to deal with the social expectations of the electorate and to create a broad consensus between different political and social sectors. This idea has also been historically related to an active state role in the search for equity through income distribution and the adoption of progressive social legislation. While the recent military government (1973-90) radically reformulated both the social function of the state and the official definition of social justice, the current democratic authorities seem to have readopted the idea of social justice as a key element in their ideological discourse.     

Nested or exclusive? The role of identities on blame attribution during the Great Recession

Despite an increasing number of studies assessing the importance of institutions as regards to accountability, it still remains to be known whether and how an individual's national and regional identity shapes the attribution of responsibilities in multi‐level settings. By focusing on the economic crisis that affected Europe since 2008, we argue that identity‐based assessments of responsibility for the crisis will occur solely among individuals who hold exclusively national or regional identities and who live in regions that have nationalist aspirations. This will be in contrast to individuals that have exclusively identities who live in regions that lack nationalist aspirations, as well as dual‐identity individuals, irrespective of where they live. We test our arguments by using data from Catalonia and Madrid (Spain) and Bavaria and Lower Saxony (Germany). In line with our expectations, our results show that, in minority nationalist regions such as Catalonia, an individual's identity will crucially determine which level of government is blamed for the economic crisis, while this will not occur in regions with no nationalist aspirations. The article reveals the existence of an additional determinant of blame attribution in some specific multi‐level arrangements and contributes to the understanding of the tensions between identity politics and blame avoidance.     

Author response: between liberty and discipline

Abstract

Most accounts of the microelectronics revolution have emphasized the role of military patronage and procurement in the shaping of silicon technology and the consolidation of the semiconductor industry. Little attention has been devoted, however, to the silicon industry's shift from military to commercial markets in the early and mid‐1960s. Drawing on an examination of Fairchild Semiconductor, the firm that initiated this shift, this essay argues that the silicon industry's expansion into non‐military markets was indissociable from deep changes in manufacturing, organizational structures as well as component and system technologies. Special attention is devoted to the ways in which Fairchild created a user base for its products in the computer and consumer electronics industries by hiring engineers from these sectors and encouraging them to design components as well as applications for the firm's potential customers. This article also examines how Fairchild introduced mass production techniques from the automotive and electrical industries, delocalized its assembly operations to South‐East Asia, and developed new packaging techniques to meet the cost and manufacturing requirements of commercial users. This article is intended to contribute to recent interest in the role of user ‐ supplier relations in technological change and, more specifically, to the question of the pervasive use of silicon components across a wide range of industrial sectors, a central phenomenon in the history of industrialized economies since the 1960s.     

Gendering activism,exile and wellbeing: Chilean exiles in the UK

Drawing on the case of Chilean exiles in the UK this article looks at the experiences of exiles through a gender lens. The analysis argues for the need to recognise the gendered nature of spaces of political activism in order to highlight the contribution made by many Chilean women to life in exile. Using a gender lens sheds light on the multiple ways in which many women were indirectly the victims of abuse under the military regime and how this impacts on their mental health and wellbeing. The analysis also provides new insights into how forced migration impacts on gender roles and norms among those living in exile. The article primarily focuses on the experiences of women who arrived in the UK as the ‘wife of’ political activists, a group whose needs have been frequently overlooked.     

Identity formation through national calendar: holidays and commemorations in Pakistan

This article contributes to academic literature on the project of identity formation in a postcolonial nation‐state. The article argues that a nation‐state emphasising certain aspects of the past for commemorative or celebratory purposes, while suppressing or ignoring the memories of some other event or historical figure, are both parts of the same process. Both these processes, in different ways, seek to give a certain direction to the narrative about the history of the nation and the nation‐state. These aspects of national memory and amnesia have been explained through the prism of national/public holidays while foregrounding the case study of Pakistan. The article argues that although this process of shaping a specific narrative (referred to as commemorative narrative in this article by using Yael Zerubavel's work) is common to every project of identity formation, its peculiarity is more pronounced in a postcolonial state like Pakistan, which has certain cut‐off dates and ruptures but is, simultaneously, eager to emphasise continuities in its trajectory and antiquity in historical tradition. The study of the process of developing a national calendar in case of Pakistan will show that identity formation is a transient process in which various identarian values, political considerations and social processes play an important part. In particular, it requires an attempt on the part of the state to try impose a homogenising historical narrative by envisaging a national calendar, i.e. by announcing a national or public holiday. This helps accord prestige to persons credited as founding fathers or ideologues, ascribe solemnity to days remembering wars and festivity to mark independence or religious occasions. By discussing these themes in detail, this exploratory study of the history of national calendar will lend an alternative lens through which to look into the processes of identity formation in postcolonial nation‐states in general.     

Welfare accounting and the environment: reassessing Brazilian economic growth, 1965-1993

Few countries in recent decades have experienced economic growth as rapid as that in Brazil. The period spanning the late 1960s and mid 1970s, during which GDP growth was especially strong, is often referred to as the ‘economic miracle’. Yet, the use of per capita GDP growth as a proxy for economic development (or social welfare improvement) can be questioned on both distributional and environmental grounds. Scholars such as Ahluwalia and Chenery have noted that per capita GDP growth places greater weight on the income of richer income groups, and have proposed distribution‐neutral and pro‐poor alternatives. More recently, studies by the World Resources Institute and others have questioned the environmental sustainability of GDP growth and have introduced an alternative national income accounting methodology that factors in estimated losses associated with natural resource depletion. To date, no studies have undertaken both types of revisions concurrently, creating a revised national welfare measure based on per capita GDP, but corrected for both distributional bias and resource depletion. Such a measure is derived in this article and applied to the Brazilian case. The results cast doubt on the proposition that rapid economic growth in Brazil has resulted in comparable welfare gains.     

Manufacturing Modernity: Cleaning,Dirt, and Neoliberalism in Chile

Since the coming to power in 1973 of the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, neoliberalism in Chile has been discursively tied to the goal of “modernizing” Chilean society. This discourse of modernization has relied for its articulation upon another important discourse, that of “cleanliness” as a marker of progress: clean spaces are seen as those of modernity whereas dirty spaces are taken to represent social and economic “backwardness”. In this paper, then, we explore how spaces which are considered emblematic of the modern economy—shopping malls, giant office complexes, university campuses—are maintained as clean spaces. However, in order for the discourse of cleanliness as modernity to work, it is crucial that the corridors of mobility—train routes, subways, city streets—which allow passage between these nodes of the modern economy also be maintained as sanitary spaces. The result is the construction discursively of an almost seamless nexus of hygienic spaces, one which stands in contrast to the dirty spaces of the “other” Chile. The paradox in all of this, however, is that the workers who are crucial to this project—janitors—have suffered greatly as a result of neoliberalism.     

明代贵州军屯述论

明代的卫所屯田制度在贵州“蛮荒”之地的开发史上有着重要的一页。本文通过对贵州社会变迁史的回顾来突出论述明代军屯在贵州的具体实施状况以及所产生的巨大历史作用,这对今天贵州地方经济史的研究有着重要意义和价值。     

Standardizing the state while integrating the frontier: the Chilean telegraph system in the Araucanía, 1870–1900

Beginning in 1870, the Chilean government built a telegraph network to support its conquest of the Mapuche people of the Araucanía, a region on its southern frontier. The telegraph not only facilitated military domination of the Mapuche, but also served to bring, first, army commanders and, later, civilian regional governors under more direct control from the capital. As this new technology was introduced, army commanders and telegraph officials each fought to control the frontier telegraph lines. This conflict, and a rapid but partial victory by the civilian telegraph specialists, demonstrates the role of the telegraph in making state services run by expert civilian professionals into an important part of and defining characteristic of the Chilean state by 1900.