Italian state politics and the disruptive factor of volunteer groups

The Cretan crisis and the Greco-Ottoman War meant a revival of philhellenism all over Europe. Especially in Italy the war caused vigorous philhellenic reactions: demonstrations and collections of money for the Greek cause, as well as organization and shipping of groups of volunteers to the Greek war fronts. Scholarly discussion on the Italian involvement in the crisis of 1897 has revolved around two main foci: Italy’s search for a diplomatic role and a national identity between “grandezza” and “raccoglimento” policies or Italian philhellenism as an example of the power of philhellenism in nineteenth-century Europe within the broader international context of Risorgimento philhellenism. In this paper, Italian state politics will be discussed from another perspective, namely the Italian policy towards the Italian volunteer groups fighting for Greece. Published Italian state documents as well as research studies based on further Italian primary sources not having dealt with the specific desideratum, the allies’ angle, also partly the Greek perspective, as revealed through their state archives allow us to extensively reconstruct the different steps taken by the government in Rome in its endeavours to deal efficiently with the uncontrolled dynamics of its national revolutionaries both inside and outside the country. Irregular volunteer groups claimed their right and in part imposed their share to actively participate and influence directly or indirectly national and international policies, aspiring to represent continuity in a powerful revolutionary tradition against the priorities of nation-states. In times of internal crises, and despite their divergent, even contradictory, policies, nation-states of the nineteenth century came together in their objective to defend their exclusive right to shape and pursue national policy according to their priorities against the disruptive factor of national revolutionaries, and to deal efficiently with – or repress – the actions and potential for instigation by volunteer groups both at home and abroad, especially when internal collection was for them the only viable alternative left.     

Anarchists and national identity: The case of German radicals in the United States and Brazil, 1880–1945

How German were German anarchists in the United States and Brazil? Did the experience of exile and immigration preserve or even heighten a national identity among radicals who openly espoused revolutionary internationalism? Anarchists distinguished between nation and nationality on the one hand, and the state and nationalism on the other. This article examines expressions of nationality by a handful of German anarchist editors and writers from the 1880s to the end of World War II. They wanted to be stateless, but not nationless. This article argues that German exile anarchists in the United States and Brazil expressed a militant, countercultural, antistatist and anticlerical nationality. They were ‘rooted cosmopolitans’: They identified with the international revolutionary tradition and at the same time remained attached to Germany's heritage of radical politics, arts and humanities. There was a remarkable consistency in their commentary levelled against Bismarck, the Kaiser, the Weimar government and the Nazis either in Germany or in the host country. Anarchists advocated for a borderless global federation of free communities and, to that end, rejected nationalism and urged people to stop ‘seeing like a state’ by exposing the false promises and crimes of statism.     

日军“慰安妇”制度在南京实施的再考察

“慰安妇”制度是日本军国主义者在第二次世界大战期间实施的一项侵犯人权的制度,是有组织的国家犯罪。但是,战后日本官方矢口否认曾经实施过这项制度,辩解称其为个别从业者的私人行为,与日本政府和军队无关。然而,在已经发现的若干中日档案资料中,明确记载了日本政府和军队在“慰安妇”制度建立和实施过程中发挥了重要作用。南京是日军“慰安妇”制度实施较早的城市。本文以南京地区为例,结合前人的研究和新近发现的部分档案资料进一步考察日军“慰安妇”制度在南京的实施过程及其特点。     

The Articulation of National Identity in Early Twentieth-century East Asia: The Intertwining of Discourses of Modernity and Civilisation

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which national identity was articulated by intellectuals in Japan, China and Taiwan in the first half of the twentieth century as a first step to reviewing the standard western-centric and diffusionist account of nationalism. Conventional accounts of nationalism regard nationalism as intrinsically European, rooted in developments such as the Enlightenment and the Westphalian system of states, and consider non-western cases as examples of diffusion from the “centre” to the “periphery”. Even though the discourse of the nation and national identity produced by East Asian intellectuals in the early twentieth century was shaped by social and political theories developed in the West, their frequent use of civilisational referents suggests that they were subjectively engaged with a project of self-definition that drew on their own sources, which undermines diffusionist assumptions. The article briefly examines the discourse of national identity articulated by the Kyoto School of philosophy, Sun Yat-sen and Tsai Pei-huo as the first step in exploring the possibility of multiple origins of nationalism.     

Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: Economic Analysis or Tract for the Times?

I argue that the French economist Thomas Piketty's 2014 (American) bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century is not the treatise of economic analysis that its author purports it to be, but is rather a work of political partisanship making claims about the supposedly inevitable increase in the share of national income deriving from capital as opposed to labor—to the point where Chinese bankers or Middle Eastern oil sheiks might own “everything,” even people's bicycles, barring either world catastrophe or broad government intervention—that lack any empirical support or logical plausibility. As a professed heir to (what he understands to be) the spirit of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, as distinguished from the American Declaration of Independence, Piketty displays none of the respect for the rights of the individual—including the right not to have lawfully acquired property arbitrarily confiscated by government—that the original American political tradition entails. Nor, indeed, despite his profession of staking everything on “democracy,” does Piketty display any regard for the principle of self-government. Rather, his ultimate, admittedly “utopian” goal, outlined in Part IV of his book, is of a European “budgetary parliament,” selected in vague fashion by the existing parliaments of Eurozone members (not by the people themselves), that would hold sweeping powers to confiscate any privately owned wealth that its members regarded as “excessive” and redistribute it to others they deem more needy or deserving. This body would exacerbate all the difficulties resulting from the European Union's widely publicized “democracy deficit.” Yet Piketty implies it should ultimately be a model for world governance. Ultimately, his cause is the opposite of democracy: the unfettered continental or even worldwide rule of unaccountable bureaucrats, advised by “intellectuals” like Piketty himself, convinced that they know far better than their fellows how the latter should live their lives, and claiming the authority to regulate it accordingly.     

Indigeneity,Race, and the Media from the Perspective of the 2019 Political Crisis In Bolivia

This article analyses the disputes over images related to indigeneity and plurinationalism in the post-electoral crisis in Bolivia, focusing mainly on the realm of social media. It pays particular attention to how images such as memes, photographs, and videos produced and circulated by the movement for “democracy” opposed to Evo Morales and by sectors of the Right, project ideals of national unity based on racialised imaginaries that tend to obliterate references to plurinationalism. I also analyse the dichotomous ways in which multitudes and episodes of violence were represented by the two main sides in the conflict, such as the references to “mobs” and “hordes” versus “civic movements” and “resistance” respectively. I conclude by considering examples of promotional materials that the current interim government of President Jeanine Añez has developed since its inauguration, in order to reflect on the ways in which these display certain images of the “permitted Indian” for the national project that the social sector represented by her government is beginning to outline.     

The politics of the Balfour Declaration: Nationalism,imperialism and the limits of Zionist-British cooperation

This article proposes a new perspective on the much debated question of why the British government published the Balfour Declaration? It argues that the Declaration was published as part of the struggle that took place in the course of the First World War between two rival factions in the British government on the question of the future of the Ottoman Empire: the “radical” faction that strove to partition the Ottoman Empire as a means to extend the British imperial hold on the Middle East, and the “reformist” faction that opposed this. By promising to turn Palestine into “a national home for the Jewish people” the Declaration advanced the radical agenda of dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and expansion of British imperialism in the Middle East.     

How Can Liberal Democracies Defend Themselves against Tyranny?

Tyranny in the modern era turned toward totalitarianism through the idea that human nature needed to be “perfected”; communism's enemy was a matter of class, Nazism's a matter of race. Democracy would seem by definition to resist such ideologies, but even the modern democratic state now possesses mechanisms that can be turned in tyrannical directions: regulatory powers, social welfare systems, and the new tools of artificial intelligence and “big data.” American democracy has been trending toward the “direct” form of democracy that the Founders recognized in ancient Athens and were determined to avoid, a degree of popular sovereignty capable of producing demands upon government that, in turn, could transform a people's government into a government's people. The best defense may be found in classic American literature's examination of national character and identity.     

International Political System and the Westphalian Paradigm: a Call for Revision

This analysis examines the political documentation of the Amarna letters, which date back to the mid‐fourteenth century B.C.E. This analysis will illustrate that a viable functioning international relations systems existed long before the Westphalia treaties (1648), which typically stand as the marker for the beginning of international relations. In order to examine this hypothesis, literature written about the Amarna period was examined for evidence of six defining indicators of international relations. This literature was applied in conjunction with the actual letters, providing the general tool of analysis. The analysis revealed that a fully‐functioning international relations system existed during the Amarna period, consisting of actors, polarity, international law, diplomacy, foreign policy, territorial expansion, trade, and alliance building. These finding do not mark insignificant the Westphalian treaties, their claims, or their symbolic importance. The main implication here is that the international relations field, as well as others, needs to acknowledge that much of what is considered “modern” in international relations actually developed in ancient Mesopotamia. Continuing refusal to account for the disparity between historical assumptions and reality will limit the scope of knowledge regarding international dilemmas considerably.     

Against the current. Essays in the history of ideas

In An Essay upon Civil Government (1722), Andrew Michael Ramsay mounted a sustained attack upon the development throughout English history of popular government. According to Ramsay, popular involvement in sovereignty had led to the decline of society and the revolutions of the seventeenth century. In his own time, Parliament had become a despotic instrument of government, riven with faction and driven by a multiplicity of laws that manifested a widespread corruption in the state. Ramsay's solution to this degeneracy was the extirpation of Parliament, and its substitution with a monarchy moderated by an aristocratic senate. Ramsay's adoption of certain “Country” elements, including a return to the first principles of the constitution, claimed to reflect the principles of contemporary French aristocratic theory which called for the reform of government through the nobility. In his desire to exclude popular government, and reverse the decline of the state, however, Ramsay utilised the theory with which Bossuet had defended Louis XIV's absolute France. Intriguingly, traces of the natural law system which fortified Ramsay's theory can be found in Viscount Bolingbroke's subsequent attack on Walpole's Whig ministry and the corruption of the state.     

Australian and People's Republic of China government conceptions of the international order

Through qualitative comparative analysis of policy documents and official statements over the last 10 years (2008–2018), this paper examines Australian and PRC government conceptions of the international order and the associated policy implications. Their understandings of the international order are informed by their self-defined national role conceptions and perceptions of other states, and are manifested in discussions of institutional reform, international law and human rights. Australia's self-conception as a middle power informs its emphasis on maintenance and US leadership of the existing order, while the PRC's self-conceptions as both a developing and established power enable it to frame itself as either an upholder or reformer of the order. Both governments highlight the ‘rules-based’ mechanisms of the WTO, and are more likely to agree on trade and economic issues than on other matters. Their responses to the 2016 South China Sea arbitration tribunal decision and discussions of the role of human rights in the international order suggest less agreement is likely on international law and human rights norms. While Australia considers the PRC a potential challenger to the existing order, Australia does not feature in PRC discussions of international order, suggesting its limited ability to affect PRC foreign policy decisions.     

The emerging of "female citizen": The subject identity of modern Chinese women through literary practices

The construction of “citizen-state” relations in the intellectual world of modern China and the establishment of individual citizenship in political discourse have opened up a political and discourse sphere for modern women to strive for new identities, wherein some intellectually advanced women have managed to establish their individual identity as “female citizen” by carrying the debate on the relationship between women and the state with regard to their rights and responsibilities, and on the relationship between gender role and citizenship. Though the idea of “female citizen” was not provided with a political theory of practical significance, the subject identity of women, however, was repeatedly spoken about and strengthened in brand-new literary practices, resulting in a dynamic discourse of “female citizen”; in the meantime, disagreements concerning the concepts of “female rights,” “civil rights,” and “natural rights” have all helped create significant tension inside the related discourse sphere.     

Intertextual relations: The geopolitics of land rights in Thailand

This paper explores the geopolitics surrounding the “modernization” of the formal property rights regime in land in Thailand (formerly Siam) from the mid 1850s to the late 1930s. The paper argues that this weak, peripheral state, in pursuit of international recognition of territorial and jurisdictional sovereignty, employed a strategy of “counter-spatialization” in order to mitigate or deny claims for control over natural resources and population groups by imperial powers. The intertextual dimensions of this “spatial” mode of resistance are elucidated through a close reading of the ways in which diplomatic negotiations of a series of unequal treaties, beginning with the Anglo-Siamese treaty of 1855, shaped—and were shaped by—the formulation and implementation of regulations governing formal property rights in land in Siam. The political economy of land rights at the large scale (local implementation of land titling) and the medium scale (enactment of national land laws) was nested within a process of geopolitical contestation over land rights at the small scale (international recognition of Siamese territorial sovereignty).     

“You can make it here!”: Producing Europe’s mobile borders in the New Gambia

European border externalization to “sending states” throughout Africa is a well-documented phenomenon. Less clear, however, is the role that African governments and implementing organizations play in border externalization, nor the precise mechanisms by which European borders are “mobilized” (Szary & Giraut, 2015) and projected into everyday spaces in “sending states”. Drawing on a case study of three different European border enforcement projects in The Gambia, I argue that a collaboration between the International Organization for Migration, the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, and the Gambian government makes Gambians themselves agents of the European border. Drawing upon Szary and Giraut's notion of “borderities” (2015), I illustrate how the border is projected into The Gambia through an articulation of humanitarian borderwork with developmental approaches intended to solve the “root causes of migration” (Zaun & Nantermoz, 2021). Furthermore, I argue that the Gambian government is not passive in the process of border externalization, but actively involved in interpreting and rearticulating European policies and narratives about migration. Following Adamson and Tsourapas' (2020) reworking of the “migration state” concept, I demonstrate the Gambian government's active interests in bordering its own citizens: simultaneously encouraging emigration for the sake of national “development” while immobilizing young Gambians as part of a broader strategy to cooperate with European states. This research illustrates both the immense value of a “borderities” approach to studying contemporary migration management, and the close association between borderwork and nationhood in African post-colonial states.     

Exceptional Sovereignty? Guantánamo Bay and the Re‐Colonial Present

Abstract: The US government has presented Guantánamo Bay to the world through the lens of “exceptional sovereignty”. This argument holds that international law does not apply at Guantanamo because while America has “complete authority” over the base “ultimate sovereignty” rests with Cuba. Many accounts rightly critical of the abuses of power taking place at Guantanamo similarly understand it as something wholly abnormal—a literal “non‐place”. But in falling back on this argument both the American position and many of its critics have tended to “black box” what is taking place within the camp. In this paper I suggest that we ditch any sort of critique that says Guantanamo is somehow outside of the law and instead replace this line of argument with a critical history of the deployment of a particular sort of Executive power there. From this perspective, Guantanamo is better understood as a rather more normal part of the current imperial moment and connected up in various ways to American imaginations and materialisations of power. As a way of exploring some of these connections in greater detail, I examine the construction of Guantanamo as a particular sort of social space by drawing upon the accounts of those who have been there: former guards, detainees and their defence lawyers.     

The Modern State,the Question of Genocide,and Holocaust Scholarship

This review article asks: what defines mass violence in the twentieth century as particularly modern and how does the Holocaust figure in this history? The article compares the work of two path-breaking historians—Mark Levene and Timothy Snyder—while also discussing recent research by other scholars. It argues that the emergence of nation-states, together with technology and scientific knowledge to alter the environment, created the conditions for distinctly modern violence aiming to destroy diversity in societies and the environment. The article examines the relation between genocide, including the Holocaust, and the rise of twentieth-century nation-states. It follows the persistent idea that the Holocaust is unique in a way that establishes a hierarchy of Holocaust/genocide/other mass violence. As Levene argues, the contextualization of the complex set of events and processes called the Holocaust within the violent history of ethno-national and ethno-religious “homogenization” of nation-states challenges this framework. The article then turns to Snyder’s argument that, since Hitler’s worldview of racial struggle over land and food rejected agricultural science, genetic engineering in agriculture is one way to heed the Holocaust’s warning. A discussion of the devastating impact of genetic engineering in agriculture—in the frame of the violent implications of modern “development”—underscores how the destruction of societies perceived as “backward,” particularly indigenous groups in the Global South, follows the destruction of their biodiverse habitats and agriculture to make way for monoculture genetically engineered crops. A focus on case studies of such mass violence and the responses by indigenous groups facilitates, finally, a discussion of the recent turn to microhistories in Holocaust scholarship. These offer another contextualized view: of the societies that faced the assault of nation-states. The article concludes that the complexities on the social level, each rooted in specific circumstances and histories, challenge the analytical value of the general term “Holocaust.”     

Engendering Gramsci: Gender,the Philosophy of Praxis,and Spaces of Encounter in the Climate Caravan,Bangladesh

This paper examines the gendered politics of national and international networking amongst peasant farmers' movements in South Asia. In particular the paper provides an ethnographic account, based upon the author's critical engagement with the Bangladesh Krishok (farmer) Federation and the Bangladesh Kishani Sabha (Women Farmers' Association), of the Climate Change, Gender and Food Sovereignty Caravan that was organised in Bangladesh in 2011. The paper draws upon Antonio Gramsci's theory of the philosophy of praxis and feminist research on social reproduction, dispossession and materiality to interrogate the spaces of encounter and solidarity‐building practices of the Caravan between different communities in the country and between different social movement actors. The paper examines how processes of political organisation and consciousness‐raising within and between social movements are problematised by gendered power relations. The paper concludes with suggestions concerning how the philosophy of praxis in Bangladesh might be “engendered” to incorporate a politics of social reproduction.     

Competing entanglements in the struggle to save the Amazon: The shifting terrain of transnational civil society

Transnational civil society has often been conceptualized as a third sector, buffered from the power politics of nation-states and global capital. The relative autonomy of this sector has been seen as key in empowering the voices of marginalized peoples and in advocating new counter-hegemonic agendas on the world stage. Recent research, however, has begun to explore power imbalances within the transnational civic sphere, and how different transnational NGOs' modes of articulation with political institutions and market actors inform those power dynamics. We suggest here that the concept of “entanglements,” recently introduced within political geography, can offer a useful spatial imagery in assessing the effects of these varied lines of influence. The article first traces the evolution of the Amazon Alliance, a transnational network of environmental and human rights NGOs and Amazonian indigenous federations. It then examines a countervailing nexus of governmental and corporate entanglements that have been drawing conservation NGOs away from indigenous eco-political engagement in recent years. To understand the waning salience of the eco-indigenous conservation agenda, we argue, requires analysis of the shifting terrain of civil society, and of the articulation of different NGOs with institutions beyond the frontiers of the third sector.