Greece—EU comparative economic performance at the national and regional levels: why divergence?

This paper reviews the evidence on the economic performance of the Greek economy vis‐à‐vis the average economic record in the European Union. It deals with the problems of measuring economic convergence and suggests that the Greek economy has followed a diverging path since 1980. It also addresses the problems of policies aiming at strengthening the regional economies, by means of examining the case of Crete and the latter's experience with the implementation of the Integrated Mediterranean Programme (IMP). It concludes by drawing attention to the fact that the absorption of funds alone does not guarantee a long‐term and viable development scenario, since the inertia of domestic actors (both at the national and the regional levels) and the inherited structures and attitudes may culminate in the preservation of the status quo rather than its transformation.     

GEOMETRIC SQUARES

Summary: One type of male figure on Attic Late Geometric vases has a rectangular rather than triangular torso. the general interpretation of this shape as a square shield is not valid, and it is already recognised that we have some examples which represent a bell-corslet and a chiton. the warriors on the chariots in the main frieze of an amphora by the Anavysos painter in the British Museum appear to be wearing non-metallic corslets. A review of extant material suggests we should be cautious in interpreting square-bodies since artists availed themselves of the convention for a number of purposes. the extent of the use of non-metallic corslets in the eighth and seventh centuries cannot be judged from this evidence, but its very use is a significant factor in the debate over the introduction of hoplite armour and tactics in Greek society.     

A Shield Loaded with History: Encounters,Objects and Exhibitions

This article discusses an Aboriginal shield in the British Museum which is widely believed to have been used in the first encounter between Lieutenant James Cook's expedition and the Gweagal people at Botany Bay in late April 1770. It traces the ways in which the shield became ‘Cook-related’, and increasingly represented and exhibited in that way. In the wake of its exhibition at the National Museum of Australia in late 2015 and early 2016, the shield gained further public prominence and has become enmeshed within a wider politics of reconciliation. A recent request from the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council to the British Museum to review knowledge about the shield has contributed to a reappraisal of claims about its connection to Cook's 1770 expedition. Preliminary findings of this review are presented. In the process, the article addresses larger questions concerning the politics surrounding the interpretation of the shield as a historically ‘loaded’ object.     

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.     

Squaring the Shield: William Ridgeway's Two Models of Early Greece

From the early 1880s the Cambridge-trained classicist William Ridgeway had applied cutting-edge anthropological theory to his reading of ancient Greek literature in order to develop an evolutionary account of the continuous development of early Greek social institutions. Then, at the turn of the century, he began to argue that archaeological evidence demonstrated that the Achaean warriors described by Homer were in origin Germanic tribesmen from north of the Alps who had but recently conquered Mycenaean Greece. The present paper inquires as to how Ridgeway reconciled these seemingly opposed visions of early Greek society. A fairly comprehensive survey of his writings leads to the suggestion that, in Ridgeway's opinion, Achaean invasion had left little lasting impact upon most early Greek social institutions, but that it had been responsible for a fundamental shift from matriarchy to patriarchy, and that this shift was the key to the subsequent greatness of Greek—and so ultimately Western—civilisation.     

Greece: the persistence of political terrorism

Greece has one of the most sustained problems of political terrorism anywhere in the world. From the mid‐1970s to the present, the country's political and socioeconomic institutions have been confronted by systematic terrorist violence mainly at the hands of revolutionary guerrilla groups. The long story of Greek terrorism was thought to have ended in the summer of 2002 with the collapse of the country's premier terrorist group and one of Europe's longest‐running gangs, the notorious Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17N). 17N's dismantling and imprisonment, rather than demoralizing and emasculating the country's armed struggle movement, led instead to the emergence of new urban guerrilla groups and an increase and intensification of revolutionary violence. In consequence, the article places Greek extremist violence in a broader political and cultural perspective and explains why it has become a permanent fixture of national public life.     

Linking land displacement and environmental dispossession to Mi'kmaw health and well‐being: Culturally relevant place‐based interpretive frameworks matter

For over five decades, Pictou Landing First Nation, a small Mi'kmaw community on the northern shore of Nova Scotia, has been told that the health of its community is not impacted by a pulp and paper mill pouring 85 million litres of effluent per day into a lagoon that was once a culturally significant place known as “A'se'k,” and which borders the community. Based on lived experience, the community knows otherwise. Despite countless government‐ and industry‐sponsored studies indicating the mill's pollutants are merely “nuisance” impacts and harmless, the community's concerns have not gone away. Using a “Piktukowaq” (Mi'kmaw) environmental health research framework to guide the interpretation of oral histories coming from the Knowledge Holders in Pictou Landing First Nation, we convey the deep, health‐enhancing relationship with A'se'k that the Piktukowaq enjoyed before it was destroyed, and the health suppression that has occurred since then. Conducting the research using a culturally relevant place‐based interpretive framework has demonstrated the absolute necessity of this kind of approach where Indigenous communities are concerned, particularly those facing health impacts vis‐à‐vis land displacement and environmental dispossession.     

Examining the Impact of Turkey's Approach Vis‐à‐Vis Syria into Turkey's Iraq Policy

The tension between “international order” and justice has long been a focus of critical attention of many scholars. Today, with the rise of the humanitarian crises, the debate is once again visible, and Turkish foreign policy is one of the most important areas of observation of this tension. Indeed, the U.S.‐led invasion of Iraq in 2003 paved the way for Turkey to actively engage in regional affairs. Meanwhile, the need to bring human justice into world politics makes Turkish foreign policy decision makers operate on a much more humanitarian basis. Nevertheless, active humanitarian engagement poses an important challenge to traditional Turkish foreign policy as it is mainly based on the notion of “non‐interference,” as well as on the elementary components of international order, by raising suspicions on the intentions of the Turkish authorities. This article aims to explore the challenges Turkey has been facing since the U.S.‐led invasion of Iraq, and diagnose Turkish foreign policy vis‐à‐vis Iraq in the shadow of the Syrian civil war from Hedley Bull's framework of “order” and “justice.” It argues that Turkey's recent fluctuations in the Middle East could be linked to Turkey's failure to reconcile the requirements of “order” with those of “justice” and the Turkish governing party's (AKP) attempts to use justice as an important instrument to consolidate its power both in Turkey and in the Middle East.     

Workers,Unions and the State: Migrant Workers in China's Labour‐intensive Foreign Enterprises

Migrant workers present a new challenge both to China's increasingly diversified industrial relations and to its state–society relationship, especially vis‐à‐vis China's developmental state. Through an examination of the situation of migrant workers in the country's labour‐intensive foreign investment enterprises, this article argues that it is difficult to establish tripartite industrial relations in China and that pluralistic labour organizations will not easily develop into civil society type labour entities. China's developmental state is in an ambiguous process in redefining its role. Its ability to micro‐manage society is weakening substantially. However, its developmental character at the macro‐level largely remains strong, allowing it to continue to restrict progress towards civil society. The future will ultimately depend on a collective determination by key players — the workers, unions and the state — to find a compromise.     

Early? Late? A reply to F.H. Cryer

Abstract

The article clarifies the position taken in the author's 1990 doctoral dissertation vis‐'a‐vis the distinction between Early and Late Biblical Hebrew. This distinction functions as a frame of reference for what is essentially an effort to detect linguistic similarities and differences between the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.     

The German politics of war: Kunduz and the war in Afghanistan

This article analyses the way in which Germany's participation in the international intervention in Afghanistan has shaped and transformed the country's politics of defence and deriving policies. It argues that in the wake of operational challenges posed by the insurgency in northern Afghanistan since 2007, and in particular the increasing rate of German combat fatalities, established post‐Cold War dogmas of German politics are becoming subject to erosion. Developments in the Kunduz region of northern Afghanistan, with the tanker bombing of 4 September 2009 as its apex, have had a catalyst function in this process. In particular, strategic, operational and tactical requirements for counterinsurgency operations have had significant politico‐strategic repercussions for the country's defence and security policy more generally. As a result, in recent years the Bundeswehr has begun to undergo a far‐reaching structural process of military adaptation and innovation. The article explains and analyses this phenomenon of political change and military learning in the context of political paralysis.     

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the South Sudan question: reconsidering moderation

This article examines the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) movement's stand on the South Sudan question. The aim here is to contribute to the ongoing debate over the MB's moderation. Throughout the civil war in Sudan, the MB consistently objected to South Sudanese secession. Yet, while it had traditionally framed its objection in religious terms, describing the South Sudanese struggle as a Christian conspiracy against Islam, in the decade preceding South Sudan's declaration of independence it moved to base its opposition on more practical grounds, revolving around issues such the absence of democracy, stability and infrastructure in South Sudan. This correlated with wider shifts in the MB. Since the 1990s, the movement has claimed to have undergone a transformation, adopting a moderate, pro‐democratic stance. These statements persuaded many scholars that the MB has come to represent political moderation in both its domestic and international agenda. More recent works on the movement, however, have come to question the MB's moderation hypothesis, suggesting that even though the movement has changed its discourse and some aspects of its activism, this could not be seen as a linear process of moderation. This article uses the South Sudan case to further support this critique from a foreign policy perspective. It demonstrates that even though the MB changed its tactics and discourse, its goals remained unchanged— even when the circumstances and the normative environment changed dramatically. Moreover, it shows that at times of crisis, the liberal discourse gave way to the old‐fashioned radical discourse of previous decades.     

Fragmented Integration and Business Cycle Synchronization in the Greek Regions

This paper examines the degree of business cycle synchronicity among Greek regions and investigates the determinants of the business cycle co-movements of output associated with specific functional and spatial aspects of the integration process among the Greek regions. We analyse nearly 30 years (1980–2008) of data at the NUTSIII level (prefectures). We conclude that the business cycles of prefectures are more synchronized with the NUTSII regional cycle than with the national business cycle revealing a regional (NUTSII) border effect. Moreover, the intensification of the integration process seems to diachronically affect the structural characteristics of the Greek regions and the geography of cyclical synchronization. Our study reveals a two-stage integration process where in the first stage we detect the existence of urbanization economies, while in the second one the existence of localization economies. Furthermore, our study reveals that the metropolitan regions have a low level of business cycle synchronicity with the other regions, stressing Greece's pattern of economic and structural dualism.     

Tzvetan Todorov,the ‘Responsible Intellectual’, and the new world disorder

This article assesses Tzvetan Todorov's intellectual evolution from structuralist literary critic to ‘responsible intellectual’. It contrasts his notion of the responsibility of the intellectual with traditional definitions of commitment, and analyses why for Todorov figures such as Camus, Aron, and Tillion are exemplary, whereas Communist intellectuals are not. The article examines Todorov's positions vis‐à‐vis current crises and controversies, including the bombing of Kosovo, the validity of the ICT, and America's war in Iraq. Finally, it discusses Todorov's ideas for a stronger and more independent Europe as articulated in his most recent book, Le Nouveau Désordre mondial.     

SEKE,the KKE and the language question

Abstract

This article presents an overview of SEKE and the KKE's views on the language question between 1918 and 1936. By examining unpublished sources, shifts in the party's views become discernible which cannot be attributed solely to changes in the language debates. The article introduces two innovations: it argues that there is a correlation between political changes within the KKE and transformations in its views on language, and analyses these with reference to ideas on language in the USSR. Studying these views augments our knowledge of a relatively neglected dimension of the language question. Moreover, as the influence of Marxism on some Greek intellectuals increased in this period, its findings can be used to elucidate aspects of literary production.     

Mostafa Malekian: Spirituality,Siyasat‐Zadegi and (A)political Self‐Improvement

Mostafa Malekian has yet to receive much attention in Western academic literature pertaining to Iranian intellectual life, but inside Iran, he has emerged as a popular public intellectual; seen as both a culmination of and rupture with the project of “religious intellectualism.” Rather than offer a revolutionary and politically engaged vision of Islam, or a “reformist” or “democratic” interpretation of Shi?ism, his project seeks to integrate what he calls “rationality” (?aqlaniyat) and “spirituality” (ma?naviyat). As Malekian's project has developed, it has broken, in a number of important respects, with mainstream Islam as practiced in Iran, the religious reformist project, and even organized religion as a whole. This article seeks not only to offer one of the first comprehensive analysis of his existential and social thought in English, but also to analyze his project's deep affinities with a pervasive fatigue vis‐à‐vis collective projects of political emancipation and even “politics” tout court, in the latter phases of the “reformist” President Hojjat al‐Islam Seyyed Mohammad Khatami's tenure.     

Domestic troubles,national identity discourse,and China's attitude towards the West, 2003–2012

Prior to its recent, much discussed international ‘assertiveness’, China's attitude to the West had deteriorated, as reflected in official discourse of national identity. Drawing from political science and social psychology literature on identity studies, I argue that the discursive pattern of national identity can shift as a function of an elite strategy to exclude internal others through opposition to foreign others. Internally exclusionary nationalism, often employed by elites during major crises, is instrumental to consolidating control and maintaining order. But when targeting internal opponents alone is politically inconvenient or lacks public resonance, elites will accentuate ethnocentric national identity discourse vis‐a‐vis foreign nations in order to reinforce internal battles and divert popular discontent externally. An interpretive analysis of the official texts of Chinese national identity discourse during the Hu Jintao decade, supplemented by quantitative data, shows a significant correlation between the regime's fear of internal instability and bottom‐up political opposition on the one hand and the timing and intensity of ethnocentric identity discourse regarding the West on the other. The party‐state negatively framed the West in order to shift the blame for domestic troubles onto foreigners and discredit internal resistance.     

Structures and Members: An Overview of The Cumann na nGaedheal Party Organisation, 1923–33

This article re‐examines Cumann na nGaedheal's approach to party organisation. Cumann na nGaedheal has been portrayed as a badly organised, ‘top‐down’ party that suffered electorally for its reluctance to match the structure and organisation of its main anti‐Treaty rival, Fianna Fáil. Moreover, the party has been caricatured as a conservative organisation with little affinity for the ideology of the Irish revolution. While recent studies have reappraised Cumann na nGaedheal's engagement with the revolutionary inheritance, while highlighting underappreciated aspects of the party's electoral innovations, its organisational structures require further scholarly attention. Closer scrutiny of Cumann na nGaedheal's organisational structures sheds further light on its fate as nationalist Ireland's first party of government and ultimately its demise as a distinct party in 1933.     

Between Radical Geography and Humanism: Anne Buttimer and the International Dialogue Project

This paper argues for a rediscovery and reassessment of the contributions that humanistic approaches can make to critical and radical geographies. Based on an exploration of the archives of Anne Buttimer (1938–2017) and drawing upon Paulo Freire's notion of conscientização (awareness of oppression accompanied by direct action for liberation), a concept that inspired the International Dialogue Project (1977–1988), I explore Buttimer's engagement with radical geographers and geographies. My main argument is that Buttimer's notions of “dialogue” and “catalysis”, which she put into practice through international and multilingual networking, should be viewed as theory‐praxes in a relational and Freirean sense. In extending and putting critically in communication literature on radical pedagogies, transnational feminism and the “limits to dialogue”, this paper discusses Buttimer's unpublished correspondence with geographers such as David Harvey, William Bunge, Myrna Breitbart, Milton Santos and others, and her engagement with radical geographical traditions like anarchism, repositioning “humanism” vis‐à‐vis the fields of critical and radical geography.     

Understanding the Helmand campaign: British military operations in Afghanistan

British forces are now engaged in a major operation in southern Afghanistan, the outcome of which is likely to be strategically decisive—especially for the configuration and status of Britain's land forces. Although progress seems to have been made, there has been much criticism of the campaign. Through an analysis of the three‐year Helmand mission (Operation Herrick), this article explores whether, for all the improvements in the campaign in terms of resources and numbers of troops, the basic structure of the campaign established in 2006 has endured. Instead of focusing on an ‘ink‐spot’ from which to expand, British forces have tended to operate from dispersed forward operating bases from which they have insufficient combat power to dominate terrain and secure the population. They are consequently engaged in a seemingly endless round of high‐intensity tactical battles which are normally successful in themselves but do not contribute to the overarching security of the province. The analysis explores the way in which this distinctive campaign lay‐down—the preference for dispersal and high‐intensity fighting—may be a reflection of British military culture and its military doctrine. By highlighting potential unacknowledged aspects of the British military profession, the article aims to contribute to debates about the development of the armed forces.