The shape of the nation: Visual production of nationalism through maps in Turkey

Nationalism, as a political discourse requiring a fundamental connection to a particular territory has constantly referred to maps as evidence of the eternal existence of the respective nation. In the case of modern Turkey, the national map has been a symptomatic signifier of a constant anxiety of territorial loss. Built around such anxiety, Turkish nationalism has been sensitive towards the borders defining national territory. This article analyzes the use of national maps as instruments for the cultural production of nationalism in Turkey throughout the last three decades. In the process, it is intended to differentiate between official maps produced under state authority and popular maps circulated in mass media.Throughout the 1980s, national maps included in school textbooks presented a country surrounded by hostile neighbors on all sides, in tune with the political climate of the Cold War. A crucial aspect of these official maps was the cartographic awareness they generated which, in the following decade, would become operational in the widespread use of the map as a nationalist sign. With the emergence of the Kurdish question in the 1990s, the national map became a key instrument in promoting nationalist sentiments with the invention of the flag-map logo as a favorite symbol. After the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Kurdish issue was projected on to Northern Iraq, and a new mode of cartographic representation was invented. “Appropriated maps” produced through the digital retouching of random maps found on the Internet visualized irredentist desires enlarging the country’s territory especially into Northern Iraq and invoking the Ottoman past. These maps, which consciously distorted geographical information, turned to historical references to sustain their cartographic validity.     

Imperialist democracy,ancient Athenians and the US presence in Iraq

This article speculates about possible parallels between the experience of the Athenian empire and the Americans’ rationale for their presence in Iraq. Leaders in both countries sought to make their worlds safe for democracy by military invasion. The Athenian experience is described, drawing on Thucydides and other primary and secondary sources. Then there is a sketch of the scholarly treatment accorded the Athenian empire by writers through to the present day. Finally, allusions to the classical experience by several contemporary writers are examined. These writers articulate a common pessimism about the future prospects for the American presence in Iraq.     

The ideological roots of failure: the application of kinetic neo‐liberalism to Iraq

This article argues that American policy towards Iraq went through four major shifts between the invasion in 2003 and the announcement of the surge in 2007. The best way to understand the Bush administration's evolving policy towards Iraq is by examining the ideological parameters within which it was made. The article assesses various approaches to understanding the relationship between ideology, policy making and foreign policy, concluding that ideology shapes the paradigm and analytical categories within which foreign policy is made. A major change in foreign policy originates either from the decision‐maker consciously recognizing and attempting to rework the ideational parameters within which policy is made or in reaction to ‘discrepant information’ or ‘anomalies’ that destabilize the paradigm and its analytical categories. The article goes on to examine the extent to which both neo‐liberalism and neo‐conservatism shaped George W. Bush's foreign policy. It identifies a series of major analytical categories that originate from within these two doctrines and shaped policy towards Iraq. The article argues that the four major shifts in Bush's policy towards Iraq were forced upon the administration by the rising tide of politically motivated violence. Ultimately this violence forced Bush to abandon the major analytical categories that, up to 2007, had given his policy coherence. In order to extricate his administration from the quagmire that Iraq had become by 2006, Bush totally transformed his approach, dropping the previously dominant neo‐liberal paradigm and adopting a counter‐insurgency doctrine.     

“The Cockroaches of Canada”: French‐Canada,Immigration and Nationalism,Anti‐Catholicism in English‐Canada, 1905–1929

This article examines the central influence of anti‐Catholicism upon English‐Canadian nationalism in the first third of the twentieth century. Anti‐Catholicism provided an existing rhetorical and ideological tradition and framework within which public figures, intellectuals, Protestant church leaders and other Canadians communicated their diverse visions of an ideal Canada. The study of anti‐Catholicism problematises the rigid separation that many scholars have posited between a conservative ethnic nationalism and a progressive civic nationalism. Often times these very civic values were inextricable from a context of Britishness. In addition, anti‐Catholicism was not simply about theological differences between Protestants and Catholics. Instead this theological thread often intersected with the perceived socio‐political problems that Catholics and Catholicism posed. Hostility to Catholicism was not limited only to fraternal organisations such as the Orange Order; indeed the importance of anti‐Catholicism as a component of Canadian nationalism lies in its presence across the political and intellectual spectrum. Catholicism was perceived to inculcate values antithetical to British traditions of freedom and democracy.     

From British mandate to post Anglo‐American invasion: Reproduction of ethno‐sectarian divides and the breakdown of social cohesion in Mosul

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 ushered in an era of great uncertainty and turbulence that left the country in an economically crippled, politically unstable, and socially desperate situation. While the built‐in ethno‐sectarian divides have been widely used as analytical categories to address the enduring violence in both Mosul and the rest of Iraq, little attention has been paid to the connection between the long‐term Anglo‐American invasion of Iraq and the ethno‐sectarian violence that currently characterizes Mosul. This study argues that while ethnic and sectarian loyalties have historically persisted in their social forms since the rule of the Ottoman Empire, the highly politicized and violent forms of ethno‐sectarian conflict are modern phenomena, produced and reproduced under the conditions of the decades‐long British and American interventions. The study retrospectively evaluates the current dynamics of ethno‐sectarian confrontations in Mosul through two stages in the long historiography of modern Iraq. The first section reveals how Britain’s mismanagement of colonial Iraq set the initial conditions for communal cleavages and instability in today’s Mosul. Later, the second section turns its attention toward the contemporary manifestation of ethno‐sectarian violence, particularly under the U.S.‐led occupation.     

Liberal nationalism and Central American refugees: What is America's national responsibility?

In an era of unprecedented numbers of migrants from the global south to the global north, nationalism has become synonymous with liberal states' ethnocentric, xenophobic, and racist immigration policies. The Trump administration's treatment of Central American refugees has been taken as a prime example. By focusing on liberal cultural nationalism, this paper demonstrates that these prevailing perceptions about nationalism are unfounded. Although liberal cultural nationalism has been accused of endorsing restrictive immigration policies, the degree to which liberal cultural nationalism's immigration policies are restrictive is context dependent; under certain circumstances, liberal nationalism may call for relaxing immigration policies to admit certain types of immigrants by invoking the idea of national responsibility. Consequently, liberal cultural nationalism offers one of the strongest liberal arguments for admitting certain kinds of migrants from the global south. The Central American refugee crisis at the U.S. southern border is analysed as a case study to illustrate this.     

卡特政府在《巴拿马运河新条约》上的双重政治博弈(1977-1979)

1977年的《巴拿马运河新条约》,是卡特政府在外交政策上的标志性成果之一。它的签署和通过,是卡特政府在复杂的国内外局势下实行双重政治博弈的结果。面对具有强烈民族主义倾向的巴拿马人民,卡特政府从国家长远利益出发,顺势而为,适度妥协;面对政府内部行政部门间的意见不一和顽固保守的国会势力,卡特政府在守住政策底线的前提下,通过巧妙施压和正面劝导,积极争取中间势力的理解和支持。这种内外博弈过程突出反映了在切实维护国家利益的重大外交决策问题上,美国现行宪政体制的功能和效用具有典型的两面性一方面,对内尽可能争取相关各方在重大外交政策上理解和支持的最大公约数,以有效增加美国对外政治斗争中获胜的筹码;另一方面,决策上的混乱拖沓增加了内耗,使得某些符合整体长远利益的重大外交决策不得不迁就于注重眼前、局部利益的国会系列修正案,导致重大外交政策的实施初衷与实际后果之间出现明显偏差。     

Beyond Dichotomy: Concepts of the Nation and the Distribution of Membership

Abstract. Globalisation, fragmentation and the emergence of identity politics challenge the myth of the homogeneous nation-state. They also lend increasing importance to processes of national boundary construction. This article argues that the dichotomy of ethnic and civic nations which traditionally informs much of social science discourse on nations and nationalism is inadequate to analyse how nations distribute membership. The same is true of the Meineckean distinction between cultural and political nations. Both typologies fail to account for some actually existing types of national boundary construction and they suggest that, in any instance, the process of boundary construction is homogeneous, universal and generic. As a consequence of these shortcomings, the ethnickivic dichotomy needs to be revised, by disentangling different organising principles at work in defining the boundaries of ethnic and civic nations: ancestry, race, culture and territory.     

复兴党民族主义原初理论初探

复兴党民族主义原初理论是中东民族主义的重要组成部分,它在塑造叙利亚和伊拉克地区政治体系、区域经济结构、民族文化格局过程中发挥了举足轻重的作用。原初理论的基本主张是"统一"、"自由"和"社会主义"。作为一种影响深远的民族主义,原初理论对阿拉伯民族的思想、文化、价值观念及生活方式等都产生了深刻的影响。但是,原初理论本身是一个具有多重结构和功能的复合体,加之在中东特有的政治文化环境中存在许多变量,因而在复兴党政治实践中,也出现一些背离或扭曲原初理论的做法。     

AMERICAN HISTORY IN A GLOBAL AGE1

Historians around the world have sought to move beyond national history. In doing so, they often conflate ethical and methodological arguments against national history. This essay, first, draws a clear line between the ethical and the methodological arguments concerning national history. It then offers a rationale for the continued writing of national history in general, and American history in particular, in today's global age. The essay makes two main points. First, it argues that nationalism, and thus the national histories that sustain national identities, are vital to liberal democratic societies because they ensure the social bonds necessary to enable democratic citizens to sacrifice their immediate interests for the common good. The essay then argues that new methodological and historical work on the history of nations and nationalism has proven that nations are as real as any other historical group. Rejecting national history on critics' terms would require rejecting the history of all groups. Instead, new methods of studying nations and nationalism have reinforced rather than undermined the legitimacy of national history within the discipline.     

Kurdish nationalists and non‐nationalist Kurdists: rethinking minority nationalism and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, 1908–1909

ABSTRACT. Recent scholarship has begun to nuance the idea of Ottoman decline, but few works have attempted to see nationalism outside of the dominant decline paradigm. By addressing the emergence of Kurdish nationalism in the late Ottoman period, this paper questions the idea that imperial disintegration and nationalism were inherently intertwined; and challenges not only the mutually causal relationship that has been emphasised in literature to date, but also the shape that the ‘nationalist movement’ took. Using archival sources, the Kurdish‐Ottoman press, travel literature and secondary sources in various languages, the present paper will illustrate how the so‐called Kurdish nationalist movement' was actually several different movements, each with a differing vision of the political entity its participants hoped to create or protect through their activities. The idea of Kurdish nationalism, or Kurdism, may have been present in the minds of these activists, but the notion of what it meant was by no means uniform. Different groups imbued the concept with their own meanings and agendas. This study demonstrates that most ‘nationalists’ among the Kurds continued to envision themselves as members of the multi‐national Ottoman state, the temptingly powerful rise of nationalism in their day notwithstanding. The suggestion has important implications for students and scholars of nationalist movements among other non‐dominant groups, not only in the Ottoman Empire but in contemporaneous empires such as the Habsburg, and in later states like Iraq, Rwanda and Sudan. The present study further questions the received wisdom that multi‐ethnic entities are a recipe for disaster. It proposes that a joint effort to rethink what we know about minority nationalism may involve not only a reconceptualisation of the very terms we use, but perhaps an accompanying shift in approach too.     

Dreaming as a critical discourse of national belonging: China Dream,American Dream and world dream

This article explores the normative politics of national belonging through an analysis of the ‘China Dream’ and the ‘American Dream’. It traces how politicians and public intellectuals employ such slogans to highlight how national dreams emerge in times of crisis and involve a combination of aspirations and anxieties. It compares parallel rhetorical strategies – ‘patriotic worrying’ in China and the American Jeremiad in the US – to examine how belonging to these two nations involves a nostalgic longing for the past as a model for the future. Debates about the meaning of these national dreams highlight the tension between freedom and equality in the US, between the individual and the collective in China, and between longing for the true nation, and belonging in the actual nation for both countries. It concludes that while this quest for redemption through past models limits opportunities for critical discourse in China, the American Dream still contains much ‘promise’. The China Dream and the American Dream thus are, at the same time, 1) familiar expressions of nationalism and national belonging, and 2) ongoing self/Other coherence‐producing performances that help us to question received notions of nationalism and national belonging.     

America in denial

The recent publication of State of denial, by veteran Washington journalist Bob Woodward, created firestorm of controversy over its central claim that the Bush administration is in denial over the severity of the unfolding crisis in Iraq. But one of the most revealing aspects of the book is its portrayal of the American policymaking process as dysfunctional, incompetent and beset by personal rivalries and ambitions. Woodward's account of the Bush administration's handling of Iraq reveals that bureaucratic necrosis, cronyism and internecine warfare between the Pentagon and the State Department are now the signature features of the American government. Thus an alternative reading of Woodward's book suggests that American people are no longer in denial about Iraq, but have yet to reckon with the deeper problem: the deterioration of their foreign policy establishment.     

Exercising the Utmost Vigilance: The Catholic Campaign AgainstContraception in New Zealand During the 1930s*

The Catholic campaign against contraception in New Zealand during the 1930s is usually interpreted from the perspective of the promoters of birth control, who accused the church of exercising undue influence over the Labour government (1935–49). This paper argues that while Catholics were the most outspoken opponents of contraception, their opposition to the dissemination of birth control information and contraceptive devices was shared with other influential groups, notably the Protestant churches, the medical profession, journalists, and politicians. It was the combined strength of these conservative interests, not pressure from Catholics alone, which discouraged the Labour government from establishing birth control clinics. Catholics and many other New Zealanders feared that increased access to contraceptives would reduce the birth rate, leaving New Zealand vulnerable to non-British migration or even invasion. There was also widespread concern that the promotion of birth control would encourage sexual promiscuity. Since Catholics sought a compete ban on artificial contraception, however, they were unable to cooperate with non-Catholics who, accepting the restrained use of contraceptives, sought only to limit their availability. Catholic influence reinforced the efforts of other conservative interests but was not strong enough to secure legislation reflecting distinctively Catholic principles.     

The historiography of nationalism and national identity in Latin America

ABSTRACT. This article surveys the current state of research on nationalism in Latin America, focusing on the large body of work produced from the 1990s onwards in a wide variety of disciplines (history, the social sciences and cultural studies). Covering work on both the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, it takes as a starting point the impact of Benedict Anderson's work, Imagined Communities, on Latin Americanists. It discusses the ways in which Latin Americanists have applied his ideas, and their critiques of many of his claims about Latin American nationalism. It goes on to outline major recent developments across the field, within the context of an argument that it is important for all scholars of nationalism to incorporate Latin American experiences into their debates on the history and theory of nationalism. The references have been selected to guide readers to key relevant works; regrettably, the article cannot, for reasons of space, offer a fully comprehensive bibliography.     

Myths, Motivations and 'Misunderestimations': the Bush Administration and Iraq

This article explores the myths and motivations behind US foreign policy towards Iraq in America's 'war on terrorism'. It argues that the foreign policy of the Bush administration is widely misunderstood and that much of the debate about Iraq policy that has taken place has been conducted at an unhelpful level of analysis. It addresses arguments that the Bush administration is motivated by oil, revenge or hubris as well as the more mainstream arguments that an attack on Iraq would provoke instability through the entire Middle East, as well as encouraging further acts of and support for murderous terrorism; that there is no urgency to act against Iraq as containment and deterrence remain adequate means to manage this threat; and that Iraq should be a lower priority than dealing with North Korea. It does this by analysing the development of American foreign policy thinking on the war on terrorism, what motivates it, and why it rejects the arguments of its critics. The article explains the intellectual process by which the US decided upon this course of action and how Europe's failure to understand this process added to its incomprehension of American policy. It does not argue that European's opposition would have been swept aside had they better understood the Bush administration, the central disagreement about the necessity and prudence of military action versus containment remains, but that such an understanding would have allowed for a better and more focused level of debate than the one which has got us to this point. Nor does it argue that the Bush administration approach is necessarily persuasive or justified, merely that its case is reasoned and explicable in terms of America's foreign policy traditions.     

Iran and the United States: Reconcilable Differences?

Hostility between Iran and the United States has intensified since the mid-2000s. America's allegations regarding Iran's nuclear program and its association with terrorist organizations are the main drive for this rising tension. This study focuses on the latter. Specifically, it examines Tehran's ties to militant groups in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in the Palestinian Territories. I argue that although American and Iranian interests in the region are very different, they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.     

Early Lithuanian nationalism: sources of its legitimate meanings in an environment of shifting boundaries

The objective of this article is to formulate the problem of modernity of the nation more specifically with reference to early Lithuanian nationalism. The problem is to find out how national solidarity emerges in the modernising social context in which factors reflecting nationally relevant conflicts of group interests are more valid. The argument, to summarise, is that the decisive phase of Lithuanian nationalism came with the external religious conflict, on the one hand, and the secular liberal movement, on the other. The analysis also explains why early Lithuanian nationalism was of the ‘belated’ type. It was the interaction of ethno–religious factors, socio–economic interests and the rapidly increasing role of the intelligentsia that reinforced the symbolic relations of language and social solidarity.     

The Search for National Identity and Japanese Industrial Policy, 1950–1969

Abstract. Economic nationalism reflected in Japanese industrial policy experienced two distinctive stages during 1950–69. It was fragmented in the 1950s as political actors held competing perceptions of national interest and consequently asserted contesting strategies for industrial policy. The tensions between the conservative and the progressive eventually led to a clash in 1960 on the issue of the renewal of the Japan–US security treaty. Economic nationalism began to unify the country in the 1960s as political actors were able to build a consensus on national interest based on economic growth and united around a grand strategy of high growth and liberalisation of trade. During this transition, the perceived external threat to the nation was a major force in generating the momentum for economic nationalism in policy-making, while a fair distribution of economic welfare among social classes through industrial policy was indispensable for economic nationalism to obtain public support.     

Economic nationalism in Flanders before the Second World War

ABSTRACT. In this article the author makes the claim that economic nationalist ideas had their origins in the Flemish Movement before the First World War and were further developed in the interwar period. This is an important modification of the classical view that Flemish nationalism before the Second World War was mainly focused on the linguistic and cultural situation in Belgium. Central to this contribution is the view of economic nationalism as an ideology using social and economic means for nationalistic purposes, although there are variations in the degree to which economy and nationalism are tools or purpose. In any case there was not much consistency, because there were different views on what constituted the interests of the ‘Flemish nation’, and which social and economic principles should be adopted. In addition, a movement that did not show much unity could not construct a homogeneous social‐economic agenda.