Guillaume postel — Prophet of the restitution of all things — His life and thought

The article starts from an examination of the authorship of the ‘Geleitwort’, the programmatic statement which appeared in the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft when it came under new editors in 1904. Recently scholars have begun to view it as an important text by Max Weber recovered from obscurity, but this is a mistake. Examination of major contemporary works by Weber and Werner Sombart – the obvious co-author – as well as the first public disclosure of an entirely new MS. by Weber, show that in all probability the text was drafted by Sombart and then revised fairly lightly by Weber. This story of a combined, if unequal, authorship leads into two broader seams of intellectual history: the relationship between Weber and Sombart, and the history of the Archiv as a journal. An unusual starting point thus casts fresh and unexpected light on some of the most central figures and episodes in German social science at the beginning of the 20th century, not least Weber's seminal essay on “Objectivity” in social science.     

From the ‘spirit of capital’ to the “spirit” of capitalism: The transition in German economic thought between Lujo Brentano and Max Weber

I dedicate this essay to the memory of the late Wolfgang Mommsen—the subject would have been congenial to him. It is one of a series of offshoots from a central project: a scholarly edition of Max Weber's Protestant Ethic with commentary. When I first told Prof. Mommsen of my plan in 1994 he looked me full in the face and gave a characteristic growl: “All that work!” Here was a man who knew what he was about. My thanks to Ross McKibbin and Keith Tribe for reading this paper in draft.

The article begins by examining Max Weber's relations with Lujo Brentano, much the most important “precursor” to Weber in the field of economics. In particular, Brentano conducted a form of parallel inquiry into the rise of ‘the spirit of capital’ in England 35 years before Weber looked for the origins of “spirit” of capitalism there, and the contrast between these two ideas casts much light both on Brentano and on Weber's Protestant Ethic. This personal history leads into a broader history of the transition in German economic thought between the 1860s – the formative decade for Brentano but also the era of Marx's Capital – and that of Weber's generation coming to maturity c.1890. Marx and Weber remain the two great canonical thinkers and original minds; but any authentic historical comparison between Marx and Weber must take in Brentano. The essence of the contrast between the generations is that between Weber's novel conception of an ethical ‘capitalism’, and the materialism and naturalism underpinning Brentano's and Marx's ‘capital’, although Weber and Brentano are alike as liberals, democrats and bourgeois.     

The “Iron Cage” and the “Shell as Hard as Steel”: Parsons,Weber, and the Stahlhartes Gehäuse Metaphor in the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

In the climax to The Protestant Ethic, Max Weber writes of the stahlhartes Gehäuse that modern capitalism has created, a concept that Talcott Parsons famously rendered as the “iron cage.” This article examines the status of Parsons's canonical translation; the putative sources of its imagery (in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress); and the more complex idea that Weber himself sought to evoke with the “shell as hard as steel”: a reconstitution of the human subject under bureaucratic capitalism in which “steel” becomes emblematic of modernity. Steel, unlike the “element” iron, is a product of human fabrication. It is both hard and potentially flexible. Further, whereas a cage confines human agents, but leaves their powers otherwise intact, a “shell” suggests that modern capitalism has created a new kind of being. After examining objections to this interpretation, I argue that whatever the problems with Parsons's “iron cage” as a rendition of Weber's own metaphor, it has become a “traveling idea,” a fertile coinagein its own right, an intriguing example of how the translator's imagination can impose itself influentially on the text and its readers.     

Ethno‐political subordination and patient dissatisfaction: The Kurdish case in Hakkâri during the AKP period in Turkey, 2003–2013

This article revolves around a puzzle: the persistence of patient dissatisfaction with the health services as a mass phenomenon in a Kurdish province, Hakkâri, through the 2000s, despite the striking and tangible improvements enacted by the Turkish state. This is, I argue, related to the deeply entrenched conviction on the part of Hakkârians that their lives count for little in the eyes of the Turkish state. Rooted in the history of state‐Kurds relations, this conviction manifests itself in Hakkârians' deep distrust of the very basis of health services received, like the skills and intentions of health staff, causing many Hakkârians to underestimate service improvement. Thus, it is concluded, patient satisfaction among an ethnically subordinated group with health services provided by a dominant ethnic group may be unavoidably informed and perhaps overwhelmingly determined by an awareness of the wider ethno‐power context and its history, irrespective, that is, of material improvements.     

Ethnic belonging of the children born out of rape in postconflict Bosnia‐Herzegovina and Rwanda

Sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war in ethnic conflicts, and forced impregnations have been central to this strategy. Scholars however disagree on whether the cultural assimilation to the maternal group influences these children's identities, or whether they are perceived as belonging to the enemy group (Carpenter; Nikolic‐Ristanovic). Drawing on preliminary qualitative findings collected in 2013 in Rwanda and Bosnia‐Herzegovina, this paper analyses the ethnic identification imposed by the enemy group, the mothers and their community on the children born out of rape. It first explores how the mothers' ethnic identities are often subordinated to their fathers' ethnic background, and how this then justifies their social exclusion from their maternal ethnic group. This paper suggests that sexual violence is extremely effective in ensuring the continuation of the ethnic conflict in the aftermath of the violence by attacking the children's senses of belonging.     

Empire and ethnicity†

ABSTRACT. Historians and social scientists have typically assumed a conflictual or exploitative relationship between empire and ethnicity. On the one hand, empire might be seen (as perhaps Ernest Gellner saw it in Nations and Nationalism) as a superstructure of coercion to which a group of ethnic units were subject. On the other (according to an influential view), empire fabricated ethnicities (tribes or castes) to divide and rule. This article suggests that both of these views are too crude. In the British case at least (and in the modern history of empire, no generalisation that excludes the British case has much value), ‘imperial ethnicity’ was a much more subtle phenomenon. It existed ‘at home’ as one element in a more complex identity. It was a powerful force in British settler societies, where an indigenous identity could not be imagined. And, perhaps surprisingly, it was deeply attractive to some colonial elites in Asia and Africa – at least for a time.     

THE ALLURE OF DARK TIMES: MAX WEBER,POLITICS, AND THE CRISIS OF HISTORICISM

This article argues that realist invocations of Weber rely on an unrealistic reading of Weber's realism. In order to escape the allure of Weber's dramatic posture of crisis, we place his seminal lecture on “Politics as a Vocation” (1919) in its historical and philosophical context of a revolutionary conjuncture of dramatic proportions, compounded by a broader crisis of historicism. Weber's rhetoric, we argue, carries with it not only the emotion of crisis but is also the expression of a deeper intellectual impasse. The fatalistic despair of his position had already been detected by some of his closest contemporaries for whom Weber did not appear as a door‐opener to a historically situated theory of political action but as a telling and intriguing impasse. Although the disastrous history of interwar Europe seems to confirm Weber's bleakest predictions, it would be perverse to elevate contingent failure to the level of retrospective vindication.     

Sri Lankan Muslims: between ethno‐nationalism and the global ummah

ABSTRACT. Sri Lanka's Sunni Muslims or “Moors”, who make up eight percent of the population, are the country's third largest ethnic group, after the Buddhist Sinhalese (seventy‐four per cent) and the Hindu Tamils (eighteen per cent). Although the armed LTTE (Tamil Tiger) rebel movement was defeated militarily by government forces in May 2009, the island's Muslims still face the long‐standing external threats of ethno‐linguistic Tamil nationalism and pro‐Sinhala Buddhist government land and resettlement policies. In addition, during the past decade a sharp internal conflict has arisen within the Sri Lankan Muslim community between locally popular Sufi sheiks and the followers of hostile Islamic reformist movements energised by ideas and resources from the global ummah, or world community of Muslims. This simultaneous combination of “external” ethno‐nationalist rivalries and “internal” Islamic doctrinal conflict has placed Sri Lanka's Muslims in a double bind: how to defend against Tamil and Sinhalese ethnic hegemonies while not appearing to embrace an Islamist or jihadist agenda. This article first traces the historical development of Sri Lankan Muslim identity in the context of twentieth‐century Sri Lankan nationalism and the south Indian Dravidian movement, then examines the recent anti‐Sufi violence that threatens to divide the Sri Lankan Muslim community today.     

Beneath the “Zunami”: Jacob Zuma and the Gendered Politics of Social Reproduction in South Africa

Abstract: In April 2009, African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma was swept into power in South Africa's fourth democratic general election. To date, this political “Zunami” has largely been presented as either a leftist rebellion against Mbeki's neoliberalism, a reassertion of patriarchal “traditionalism”, or an example of Zulu ethnic mobilization. This article draws on a long‐term ethnographic study to provide a critical gendered perspective on Zuma's rise. It argues that Zuma resonates with many poor South Africans, including women, in part because of his ability to connect the personal and political in ways that talk to South Africa's “crisis of social reproduction”. A key point the article emphasizes—one virtually absent from contemporary discussions about Zuma—is the profound gendering of growing class divisions, specifically the way this manifests itself in huge reductions in marital rates and heightened gendered contestations.     

Covering the Building of a Kingdom: The Saudi Arabian Authority in The London Times and The New York Times, 1901–1932

The orientalist literature subjected the Middle East in an exotic way — mostly as an “Arabian Nights” society ruled by traditional sultans and/or tribal chiefs — rather than modern governance structure's “bureaucracy.” The presumption within postcolonial scholarship has been that this perception influenced the policy landscape in the United States and Europe, especially the media depictions of the oriental leaders and leadership. The paper empirically tests this hypothesis through content analysis using Weber's categorization of leadership of two newspapers of record — The New York Times in the United States and The London Times in the United Kingdom — during the period of state building in Saudi Arabia (1901–1932). I find that rather than depicting the Saudi leadership as “backward,” these newspapers in particular, tend to overstate the development of the Saudi state during this period. As Weber is best known for his three types of authority, it benefits the discipline to see how the interpretive communities of Western journalists operationalized “authority” in terms of politics and religion of Saudi Arabia as this monarchy emerged.     

The class route to nationhood: China,Vietnam, Norway,Cyprus – and France*

ABSTRACT. This essay explores the proposition that China and Vietnam represent a fourth class route to modern nationhood, in addition to the ethnic (German), civic (French) and plural (American) routes. Nation‐states emerging along the class route are characterised by an exclusive membership based on social class rather than just ethnicity, living under the same laws or participation in liberation from foreign rule. The essay compares China's and Vietnam's class‐based nationalism with the more inclusive labour movement nationalisms of Norway and Cyprus. Then it explains how the class route differs from the French civic route. In the conclusion, the author concedes that the Chinese and Vietnamese class route is perhaps a detour rather than a route of its own, since it leads to inevitable tension between the divisive history of how the nation was formed and the need of its later leaders to include and represent the same social classes that were originally excluded. These leaders and their national storytellers are forced to undertake a redefinition of the national self as ethnic, civic and/or plural in an attempt to recreate national legitimacy, often in competition with more radically nationalist opposition groups.     

ETHNICITY AND THE RURAL ECONOMY: ILLUSTRATIONS FROM SOUTHERN MANITOBA, 1961–1971

V ariation in behaviour stemming from cultural differences has long been recognized as a possible key influence on attitudes towards economic development. The seminal work of Max Weber (1958) relating economic performance to religious allegiances is an obvious example. However, variations in the attitudes of economic actors may also derive from differences in endowments stemming from ethnic heritage. In Canada, for instance, the role of the British group in dominating corporate directorships has been well documented (Porter 1957) and is of special significance in a nation attempting to establish a balanced power situation between its Anglophone and Francophone elements. The problems of attaining cultural equality in Canada are, of course, compounded by the concentration of the Francophone element in Quebec and this spatial concern introduces new complexities in prescribing solutions.     

IDENTITIES AND URBAN SOCIAL SPACES IN LITTLE TOKYO,LOS ANGELES: JAPANESE AMERICANS IN TWO ETHNO‐SPIRITUAL COMMUNITIES

Ethnic identities are expressed and articulated in particular places. These mutable identities are crucial sources of meaning in the lives of social actors. This article seeks to elucidate just how the contexts of specific institutions in an urban enclave will impact upon patterns of conflict and cooperation among different subgroups practising two religious traditions. Historical discourses of ethnic community and ‘race’, shifts in migration patterns and the changing nature of the Little Tokyo enclave provide the formative patterns of social spaces, in which ethnic actors seek to create lives of spiritual and material meaning and security. Barth's concept of the social organization of cultural difference encourages analysis of ethnic identities as a dynamic and mutable enterprise. Because the maintenance of boundaries is crucial to identities, the manner in which a group seeks to maintain difference is intermeshed with the social terrain of particular places. Through qualitative methods of semi‐structured and informal interviews and participant observations, this project engages Japanese American identities within the context of two religious communities in an urban enclave. Fieldwork was conducted in two institutions, a Protestant church and a Buddhist temple, with the aim of exploring how Japanese American identities are expressed and (re)negotiated within different ethno‐spiritual communities. Such communities are fundamental to the expression of ethnic identities, and to the emotional lives of worshippers, particularly seniors and new immigrants.     

Iraqi Perceptions of Out‐groups: Effects of Ethnicity,Religion, and Location

At the Iraq “liberation” in 2003, many asked, “Could Sunni, Shi'a and Kurdish factions be brought together, or is it likely that ethnic conflicts would lead to civil war?” This pilot project addressed: 1) How do Iraqis' self‐reported ethnic/religious identities (their membership in their personal in‐groups) relate to their perceptions of other unlike groups (out‐groups)?, and 2) How does a place of residence relate to Iraqi perceptions of out‐groups? My team collected 479 surveys of Iraqi opinions in Iraq, Jordan, and The Netherlands, asking for perceptions of Those Other Groups, their out‐groups. I found that background items of religion, ethnic origin, and location, taken by themselves, did not relate strongly to respondents' attitudes towards out‐groups. But, some combinations of background items did give significant differences in perceptions towards other groups. For example, moderate Arabs (with respect to ethnic importance) in Iraq were the group most opposed to foreigners, and were the group most opposed to expatriate Iraqis returning to Iraq. In this paper I explain important terms (out‐group and wiki); report on my findings in the midst of a period of regime change in Iraq; mention the use of an alternate way to disseminate research findings over the internet via a wiki; and describe follow‐up projects on social capital among Iraqis. My hope is that this will contribute to a base from which researchers and fieldworkers can develop theories to explore and explain elements of civil society in Iraq and other societies. This paper presents the following major sections: Abstract; Introduction; Purpose; Background; Methodology; Results; Conclusions; Further; Work; Appendixes; and End Notes     

Ethnic Distance,Power and War: The Case of Croatian Students

Abstract. This article examines dimensions of ethnic distance in two wartime surveys of university students in Croatia. The data from the surveys is interpreted together with the content analysis of the Croatian daily newspaper vjesnik. The article draws its central conclusion from the striking similarities between the media's depiction of various ethnic groups and the dimensions of ethnic distance towards these groups. In 1992 the prime targets of ethnic distance were Serbs and Montenegrins, while in 1993 Bosnian Moslems received similar attention. Since the majority of respondents had no war experience the authors conclude that the media's influence on popular attitudes was a crucial determinant of ethnic distance. Considering that most of the media is government-controlled, it is argued that changes observed within these two years can be primarily attributed to the concrete political goals of power possessors.     

East and West in Jewish nationalism: conflicting types in the Zionist vision?

ABSTRACT. This article analyses the ethnic and civic components of the early Zionist movement. The debate over whether Zionism was an Eastern‐ethnic nationalist movement or a Western‐civic movement began with the birth of Zionism. The article also investigates the conflict that broke out in 1902 surrounding the publication of Herzl's utopian vision, Altneuland. Ahad Ha'am, a leader of Hibbat Zion and ‘Eastern’ cultural Zionism, sharply attacked Herzl's ‘Western’ political Zionism, which he considered to be disconnected from the cultural foundations of historical Judaism. Instead, Ahad Ha'am supported the Eastern Zionist utopia of Elchanan Leib Lewinsky. Hans Kohn, a leading researcher of nationalism, distinguished between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ nationalist movements. He argued that Herzl's political heritage led the Zionist movement to become an Eastern‐ethnic nationalist movement. The debate over the character of Jewish nationalism – ethnic or civic – continues to engage researchers and remains a topic of public debate in Israel even today. As this article demonstrates, the debate between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ Zionism has its foundations in the origins of the Zionist movement. A close look at the vision held by both groups challenges Kohn's dichotomy as well as his understanding of the Zionist movement.     

From Soviet Modernization to Post–Soviet Transformation: Understanding Marriage and Fertility Dynamics in Uzbekistan

In this article we analyse the dynamics of marriage and childbearing in Uzbekistan through the prism of the recent socioeconomic and political history of that country. After becoming an independent nation in 1991, Uzbekistan abandoned the Soviet modernization project and aspired to set out on a radically different course of economic, social, and political development. We argue, however, that not only independence but also the preceding period of perestroika reforms (1985–91) had a dramatic effect on social conditions and practices and, consequently, the demographic behaviour of the country's population. Using data from the 1996 Uzbekistan Demographic and Health Survey we apply event–history analysis to examine changes in the timing of entry into first marriage, first and second births over four periods: two periods of pre–perestroika socialism, the perestroika years, and the period since independence. We investigate the factors that influenced the timing of these events in each of the four periods among Uzbeks, the country's eponymous and largest ethnic group, and among Uzbekistan's urban population. In general, our results point to a dialectic combination of continuity and change in Uzbekistan's recent demographic trends, which reflect the complex and contradictory nature of broader societal transformations in that and other parts of the former Soviet Union.     

Plastic arts and nation‐building in Israel

This article begins as an attempt to analyse an apparently paradoxical situation created by two events, which occurred simultaneously in 1948: the establishment of Israel as an independent state and the emergence of the Ofakim Hadashim (New Horizons) group of artists, acknowledged as the most renowned local artists at the time. The creation of the state of Israel may be considered the high point of Jewish nationalism, when the nation celebrated its distinctiveness. On the other hand, Ofakim Hadashim was a group of intellectuals who aspired to disengage their artistic work from the dominant political processes of the time. The basic claim of its members was l'art pour l'art, which ostensibly contradicted the significance of the general political process. This situation is highly interesting since it challenges the general sociological assumptions about the role of intellectuals in nation‐building processes, and also contradicts the usual explanation regarding the Israeli state‐building process. It concludes that an explanation of the social complexity existing in 1948 can be found in an understanding of modernity as a multifaceted phenomenon embracing a diversity of inherently contradictory practices.     

The Thai Lao – Thailand's largest unrecognized transboundary national ethnicity

In 1900, the Lao ethnonym, and thus the Lao, ‘officially’ disappeared from Siam. However, Lao culture and identity persisted at local, regional, and national levels. As Keyes (1967) discovered, ‘a Northeast Thailand‐based ethno‐regionalism’ emerged post‐World War II. This regionalism, which we re‐term ‘Thai Lao’ and specify to the majority ethnic community, exists in a contested relationship with both ‘Thai’ and ‘Lao’ identity. The survival of the Lao ethnic community's cultural identity occurred despite the best efforts of the Royal Thai Government (RTG) to eradicate aspects of Lao culture. These aspects included Lao language, religion, and history, using the school system, the Lao Buddhist Sangha, and the bureaucracy. Beginning in the 1990s, buoyed by a multitude of factors, the Lao ethnic community reappeared as the ‘Thai Lao’ or ‘Lao Isan’. This reappearance was noted in the RTG's Thailand 2011 Country Report (RTG 2011) to the UN Committee responsible for the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. For nearly four decades now, ‘Laoism’ has recurred in Thai academia, the media, the public sphere, popular traditions, and even Lao apocalyptic millenarianism. Following Smith (1986, 1991, 1999), this article utilizes a historical ethno‐symbolist approach to analyse this recurrence.