Burma's ‘saffron revolution’ and the limits of international influence

The demonstrations in September 2007 were the most significant civil protests seen in Burma since the ill-fated pro-democracy uprising of 1988. The military government's brutal response to the latest unrest prompted an unprecedented level of diplomatic activity and a rare consensus on the need for political change. Since then, however, efforts to resolve the crisis have withered away, underlining the international community's inability over the past 20 years to make a significant impact on the situation in Burma. Neither the principled approach of some countries and organisations, nor the more pragmatic attitude adopted by others, has persuaded the regime to abandon any of its core positions. Indeed, by demonstrating the international community's continuing disagreement over Burma, and the limited policy options available, the lack of concerted action since the protests has probably encouraged the regime's obduracy and increased its confidence that it can survive external pressures. An appreciation of the generals’ threat perceptions may help the international community to understand the regime's intransigence, but it is still difficult to see what policies can be effective against a government that puts its own survival before accepted norms of behaviour and the welfare of its people. Real and lasting change will have to come from within Burma itself, but the events of 2007 suggest that this is a distant prospect.     

The limits of civil society in militarised regimes: evidence from the Asia-Pacific

The nature of civil society is transformed by a strong military presence, which occurs in the Asia-Pacific region. While modern civil society survives under military rule through co-optation, veiled resistance or geography, traditional organisations may continue to threaten the state's dominance of political society. This article examines the nature of civil society in two countries in the Asia-Pacific that have recently emerged from direct military rule—Burma and Fiji. It considers the independence of civil society under military rule, how militaries take steps to safeguard their roles in political society, and how democratic postures change during transitions away from military rule. Understanding how militaries preserve their influence provides a better perspective of authoritarian resilience in the region and the limits to democratic reforms.     

Rule of Law Expedited: Land Title Reform and Justice in Burma (Myanmar)

Abstract

The development of rule of law is touted as one of the most important considerations in Burma (Myanmar) today, yet its meaning is highly contested after fifty years of military rule. This paper will examine how the rule of law in Burma’s transitional political environment has been influenced by the legacies of military rule and the government’s development policies since 2011. A series of laws introduced by the Thein Sein government under the rubric of rule of law and good governance had a significant impact upon small hold farmers across the country. While some laws specifically related to farmers and their land, others encouraged private investment in the land used by farmers. The combined effect of these laws was to formalise the pattern of land grabbing that had developed under the previous government and to encourage land speculation. Moreover, they show how an expedited procedural rule of law incited conflict and further injustice. Any progress towards substantive justice and a more democratic rule of law must keep pace with improvements in the country’s limited administrative and judicial capacities. Whether, and how far, Burma can develop and move beyond a thin or procedural rule of law will be tested as the country experiences life under the NLD government.     

Violation of the Laws and Customs of War on the Russian Front in the First World War

This article examines wartime efforts by the Russian civil and military authorities to shape public opinion, both at home and abroad, through investigating and publicizing enemy atrocities committed against Russians. An extraordinary investigative commission established in 1915, along the lines of Britain’s Bryce Commission, looked into alleged atrocities against soldiers and civilians as well as crimes against property; chronicled its findings; and publicized them on a wide scale. The ample funding and breadth of this undertaking challenges perceptions of the Tsarist authorities as unable to appreciate the importance of public opinion, even if the results were not always as intended.     

Security,secularism and gender: the Turkish military’s security discourse in relation to political Islam

This article examines the sexual and corporeal constructions of risk within the security discourses of the Turkish military in response to the rise of political Islam and Islamist identities in Turkey. I look at the Turkish military as the self-proclaimed guardian of the secular Republic, which, until recently, has actively configured political Islam as a risk to national security and ingrained such risk onto the body of the headscarved woman. My analysis covers a time frame from 1980s to late 2000s when the military issued memorandums and public statements against the rise of political Islam and pursued a belligerent campaign to erase ‘Islamist’ identities both from civilian politics and its own structure. The military implemented security regulations and dress codes to detect the ‘Islamist’ military personnel who are most conspicuously identified with the dress style of the women in their families. I explore these security regulations through women’s everyday and personal experiences in relation to their dress, headscarf style and comportment in military spaces and try to understand how ‘Islamism’ is constructed as a security threat in sexually and corporeally specific ways. I demonstrate how secularism is constructed, and needs to be protected, on the basis of a particular regime of gender and sexuality at the merger of traditional gender norms and secular Western modernity.     

‘On the Road to Mandalay’: The Development of Railways in British Burma, 1870–1900

ABSTRACT

This article examines the history of railway development in British Burma between 1870 until 1900. In particular, it focuses on how railways and public works projects became a key site of contestation about Burma’s prospects, value, and future during the late nineteenth century, as well as how a litany of agents – both official and non-official – influenced the path of railway development in the colony. This article not only reveals the difficulties and disputes that impacted railway construction in Burma, but also how these debates led to the eventual privatisation of Burma’s railway system in the 1890s. In doing so, this article demonstrates how myriad agents with often competing aims affected the colony’s social and economic development, as well as how the results of these debates and the subsequent construction of railways produced a new geography of occupation in British Burma.     

The strategic culture of the European Union: a progress report

This article re‐examines the EU's character and potential as a strategic actor, setting that analysis in the context of the debate on strategic culture. The definition of strategic culture as the political and institutional confidence and processes to manage and deploy military force, coupled with external recognition of the EU as a legitimate actor in the military sphere, lends itself to a reappraisal around four core questions. First, military capabilities: establishing a European strategic culture is vital in order to rationalize the acquisition of capabilities necessary for the range of humanitarian and peacekeeping tasks envisaged. Equally, without military capabilities, all talk of a strategic culture would ring hollow. This article discusses how much closer the EU has come to acquiring those essential capabilities. Second, while the EU has gained significant experience of, albeit limited, military/policing experiences and established a growing reputation and some credibility for ad hoc action, to what extent and in what quarters have these experiences engendered a sense of reliability and legitimacy for autonomous EU action? Third, given that so far operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Balkans have depended on an integrated civil–military effort, do the policy‐making processes of the EU now ensure the appropriate level and depth of civil–military integration? Finally, considering that EU operations have been limited in time and scope, and that much of the EU's work in the Balkans has depended upon cooperation with NATO, what can be said of the evolving relationship between the EU and NATO?     

Mountbatten,the royal family,and British influence in post-independence India and Burma

One of the unexplored themes in the career of Mountbatten is why more use was not made of his services in similar contexts in the years after his Indian viceroyalty and governor-generalship. This article examines his influence in private and unofficial capacities in his dealings with post-independence India and Burma in the 1960s and early 1970s. In India it considers Mountbatten's efforts on behalf of the Indian princes when Indira Gandhi's government threatened their privy purses and privileges. In Burma it discusses Mountbatten's attempts to persuade Burma to return to the Commonwealth and his influence over General Ne Win, Burma's military ruler. Mountbatten was unsuccessful in both cases. By contrast in Burma, Princess Alexandra was better placed to represent British interests, suggesting perhaps that we should look more closely at the role of members of the royal family in promoting Britain's foreign policy.     

The birth of cyberwar

Within western security discourse, the threat posed by cyberwar has risen from a barely acknowledged concern to one of the greatest challenges confronting the West and the world in only a few short years. How did this happen so quickly, and what are the consequences for how security is performatively enacted? We argue that an event that occurred in 2007 catalyzed cyberwar's actualization as a new policy object, and has continued to affect the discursive practices materializing cyberwar since 2007. After a brief genealogy of cyberwar imaginings prior to 2007, the article interrogates how the 2007 events catalyzed cyberwar's materialization, and the discursive practices that have worked performatively to stabilize and institutionalize a knowledge-power assemblage named cyberwar as a new policy object. In particular, it traces the ways in which the site and situation of cyberwar's birth have affected the emerging apparatuses of cybersecurity, how the event enabled Estonian cybersecurity specialists and political and military elites as “catalyzing agents and shimmering points” in the emerging cyberwar resonance machine, while Tallinn became elevated as a cybersecurity center of calculation, and finally how the events of 2007 have served as a precautionary baseline for the anticipatory actions through which future cyberwars are made present.     

On realpolitik and its limitations

A largely peaceful collapse of dictatorships both in the communist world and beyond occurred in 1989. That year also saw one notable failure: the violent suppression of peaceful protest in Tiananmen Square, raising the perennial question of how far dictatorships can be effectively undermined by non‐violent methods. This review article offers no definitive answer to the question but provides a series of specific case‐studies from different countries, each chapter written by an expert on the country concerned. Besides covering the collapse of communist rule in the Baltic states, East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia, it examines the role of non‐violence in four post‐communist revolutions: in the rump Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Georgia and Ukraine. But its scope goes far beyond the former communist world. The authors demonstrate that non‐violence has, with varying degrees of success, played a role in many regions—in India under British rule; in the US civil rights campaign; in Northern Ireland prior to the troubles; in Portugal during the transition to democracy in the 1970s; in Iran before the overthrow of the Shah; in the Philippines before the removal of President Marcos in 1986; and in Chile in the late 1980s, gradually ending the Pinochet dictatorship. The negotiated dismantling of apartheid in South Africa is the subject of a long chapter. The book also examines two conspicuous failures of peaceful protest—China in 1989 and Burma in 2007. The book's conclusions are understandably cautious, but the authors concede that civil resistance has proved a more potent weapon than was previously supposed. At all events, so the reviewer argues, the notion that civil resistance can only work in free societies has been proved demonstrably wrong.     

Are Monarchies Exceptional to the Arab Uprisings? The Resilience of Moroccan Monarchy Revisited

With the onset of the Arab uprisings at the end of 2010 and the emergence of popular demonstrations that raised the issue of crises of legitimacy across the Arab states, the literature on democratization in the Middle East and North African (MENA) studies has taken on new dimensions recently. One of the primary theoretical debates that has surfaced in the post‐2011 era has revolved around on whether or not the demonstrations will lead to regime change or increased authoritarianism in the MENA region. One of the crucial developments of the Arab Spring has, then, been the overthrow of some long‐standing rulers like Ben Ali of Tunisia and Mubarak of Egypt, as well as the questioning of authoritarian regimes by the masses. The public protests submerged some Arab republics, but monarchies found ways to overcome the public outcry through containing the opposition. This paper, therefore, takes the monarchy of Morocco as a case study with the aim of analyzing the methods and regime‐survival strategies the regime has employed to sustain itself and consolidate power in the post‐2011 Arab uprisings era. Additionally, the role of the Justice and Development Party as an emerging threat in the postdemocratization era, and the changing nature of the party’s relations with the palace, will be addressed.     

Horror,hubris and humanity: the international engagement with Africa, 1914–2014

This article examines the international engagement with Africa from the First World War and the apex of colonial rule through to the present day. It is argued that there have been dramatic shifts throughout this period—from increasing interventionism on the part of the colonial state, to decolonization and the emergence of nation‐states with independent foreign policy programmes, to the predations and influences of the Cold War, to the developmentalism and humanitarianism of the contemporary era. Yet, there has also been marked continuity in terms of policy, perception and practice. In particular, Africa has long been seen in terms of economic opportunity—a place where markets and raw materials abound—and of military and political threat, a place in which intrinsic instability makes external intervention both desirable and inevitable. While immediate contexts have changed over time, the international engagement with the continent remains essentially economic and military. A concern for democratization and development represents a relatively new element, although even this can be traced to the paternalistic humanitarianism of the colonial era and, earlier still, moral stances toward Africa in the nineteenth century.     

Dual‐Use Technology In the Context of the Non‐Proliferation Regime

Many technologies have both vital legitimate uses and potent military applications. An international regulatory regime has been devised for the purpose of monitoring the use of the most dangerous of these technologies, namely chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Multiple examples of the use of chemical and biological weapons against members of the public, and evidence of prohibited state weapons development programs, demonstrate the vital need for a more effective enforcement regime. The authors discuss the concept and threat of dual‐use technology, the existing regulatory regime and its shortcomings, and propose enhancing this regime with powerful international judicial authorities to enable the prosecution of any state, group or individual who attempts to misuse dual‐use technology.     

David Meetom: Interpreting,Power and the Risks of Intermediation in the Initial Phase of German Colonial Rule in Cameroon

ABSTRACT

David Meetom, a Duala subchief, was an important interpreter in the coastal region of Cameroon at the beginning of German rule, which was shaped by colonial officials’ lack of language skills, the colonial state’s low level of institutionalisation, its necessity to rely on intermediaries, and tensions within Duala society. In this circumstances, new opportunities opened up to those who had knowledge of a colonial language. The article examines Meetom’s actions as an interpreter, broker and intermediary between colonial and African languages, authorities and interests. It covers his actions from his informal participation in negotiations between African and German authorities, to his work as official government interpreter, to a trial in which he was accused of having exceeded his authority before finally being shot fleeing German authorities. For Meetom, the consequences of his intermediary position veered between being personally advantageous and disadvantageous. His work held potential for conflict, both with the colonial government and with the Duala or other African groups in the region. Meetom’s life serves to illustrate how interpreters facilitated and controlled contact between colonisers and Africans and proves the distinction between the colonisers and the colonised which underlay the concept of colonial rule as having been surprisingly fragile.     

谈《出师颂》的历史背景

隋人书《史孝山出师颂》原为清内府珍藏,被溥仪携出宫后流落民间,而今时隔80年又重回故宫,引起社会广泛关注。本文撇开作品的书法意蕴,简要探讨了《出师颂》所描述的东汉王朝派邓骘讨伐羌人的历史事件,及其发生的历史背景。为艺术研究者提供了一个深入研究的文本。     

Whose Streets? Roadway Protests and Weaponised Automobility

The article examines the role of automobility in US-based anti-racism demonstrations and counter-demonstrations. We contrast the spatial strategies of highway occupations by racial justice activists, with so-called “weaponised car” attacks by the American far right. Analysing online memes and anti-protest legislation, the article explores under-acknowledged links between “automobile supremacy”—the structure of motorists' privilege as embedded in law, the built environment and the popular imaginary—and the patterns of racial stratification often termed “white supremacy”. We document three ways in which automobility has been enlisted as means of violence against protestors and against wider Black communities in the US: through the use of vehicles, right-of-way conventions, and roadways as weapons. The article demonstrates how the imperative to make way for the motorist has long provided cover for racial injustice.     

Geopolitical boundary narratives, the global war on terror and border fencing in India

This article investigates how expansive new security projects have gained both legitimacy and immediacy as part of the 'global war on terror' by analysing the process that led to the fencing and securitising of the border between India and Bangladesh. The framing of the 'enemy other' in the global war on terror relies on two crucial shifts from previous geopolitical boundary narratives. First, the enemy other is described as not only being violent but also as outside the boundaries of modernity. Second, the enemy other is represented as posing a global and interconnected threat that is no longer limited by geography. These two shifts are used to justify the new preventative responses of pre-emptive military action abroad and the securitisation of the borders of the state. This article argues that in India the good and evil framing of the global war on terror was mapped onto longstanding communal distinctions between Hindus and Muslims. In the process, Pakistan, Bangladesh and increasingly Muslims generally are described as violent, irrational and a threat to the security of the Indian state. These changes led to a profound shift in the borderlands of the Indian state of West Bengal, where fencing and securitising the border with Bangladesh was previously resisted, but now is deemed essential. The article concludes that the framing of the war on terror as a global and interconnected problem has allowed sovereign states to consolidate power and move substantially closer to the territorial ideal of a closed and bounded container of an orderly population by attempting to lock down political borders.     

The Failure of Restored British Rule in Revolutionary Charleston,South Carolina

The two-year occupation of Charleston, South Carolina, during the American Revolution demonstrates that umbrages suffered under military rule played a significant role in turning civilians in the 13 colonies against the British Empire. Despite British attempts to encourage loyalty by giving loyalists a say in government, stabilising the economy and guaranteeing the safety of slave property, Charleston's occupation regime failed to win local hearts and minds due to inconsistent and arbitrary policies, conflicts between military and civilian authorities and the unwillingness of imperial officials to restore full civil government to the province. As a result, South Carolinians lost faith in Charleston's restored royal administration long before British defeat on the battlefield secured American independence.     

20世纪初期芬兰人马达汉入疆考察细节及其分析

1906年8月,芬兰籍职业军人马达汉接受俄军总参谋部的军事任务,组成一个以自己为主的小型考察队,从中亚进入中国新疆境内进行军事情况收集活动,历时一年两个月。到达北京后,他进入俄国驻北京公使馆,整理完成了呈送上级的军事考察报告(含附图)。本文注重研究考察队在新疆境内的许多细节:如何从军事地形着眼,如何使用仪器,如何广泛取材形成一部具有军事情报价值的日记体著作。百年后这部著作的军事情报时效性已大为降低,但仍可作为颇具参考价值的历史地理资料加以使用。