Home-rule versus non-territorial autonomy? Western European national movements and their views on the minority question, 1919–1939

The leading elites of the ethnonationalist movements that developed in the aftermath of World War I in Western Europe usually refused to see their nations and territories as ‘national minorities’. In their view, they were stateless nations or nationalities. However, in the aftermath of World War I, the prior international discussion on the nationality principle was increasingly replaced with the notion of ‘minority rights’, enhanced by the implementation of the Minorities Treaties by the League of Nations. Thus, the term ‘national minority’ emerged as a label that permitted ethnonationalist activist to present their claims on the international stage. This became evident in the participation of some Western European national movements in the activities of some transnational non-governmental organisations, such as the Congress of European Nationalities (1925–1939). However, the general programme advocated by the most influential leaders of East-Central ethnic minorities, based on the extension of the personal principle and the implementation of non-territorial autonomy all over Europe, was hard to accept for ethnonationalist elites from Western Europe, which were interested in territorial home-rule and believed that their homelands did not fit in the category of ‘minority’. This article explores the modalities and limits of that cultural and political dialogue.     

地缘政治关系简析

本文从地缘政治学分析国际政治大国与全球地理环境之间的关系实质,即地理位置、综合国力和战略利益在地域政治体系中的相互联系、制约和影响,及变化规律.     

Female and National Self‐Determination: A Gender Re‐reading of ‘The Apogee of Nationalism’

Abstract. This article offers a gender re‐reading of the international history of the post‐First World War peace process, a period when nationalism is said to have reached its ‘apogee’, when national self‐determination and mutual cooperation between nations in the form of a League of Nations defined liberal aspirations for a democratic new world order. It was also a period when international women's organisations emphasised female self‐determination as both a national and international issue. Juxtaposed, these two aspects of the history of the peace of 1919 shed light on the importance of sex difference to the idea of national self‐determination and to the overlapping constitution of the national and the international as spheres of political agency and influence in the early twentieth century.     

World Heritage listing and changes of political values: a case study in West Lake Cultural Landscape in Hongzhou,China

World Heritage themes and frameworks, as well as the criteria for assessing the ‘outstanding universal values’ (OUV) of World Heritage sites, have been extensively criticised for being Eurocentric. Asia is a region of extraordinary levels of cultural, religious and ethnic diversity, which often comes into conflict with UNESCO understandings of heritage. Due to the influence of UNESCO, and the persuasiveness of the heritage discourses it authorises, Asian nations tend to utilise assessments and management ideologies that derive from a European viewpoint. This paper explores the changes in the political role of heritage during the process of World Heritage listing of a Chinese cultural heritage site, West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou. The study is based on three and a half months of fieldwork in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou. Firstly, I examine how the government officials and experts formulated the nomination dossier, and explore their purposes in seeking World Heritage listing and their understanding of heritage. In addition, tensions between governments’ understanding of the values of the site and those of UNESCO and ICOMOS will be mapped. Secondly, I examine how the Chinese government used the World Heritage ‘brand’ and policies to construct national and local narratives during and after the World Heritage listing. In this paper, I argue that both national and local governments are quite cynical about the listing process, in that they not only recognise they are playing a game, but that the game is ‘played’ under Eurocentric rules and terms. They know some Chinese values do not fit into UNESCO’s conception of ‘outstanding universal value’ (OUV), and they have ‘edited out’ those Chinese values, which could not be explained to Western experts, and utilised the discourses of international policy and expertise. Ultimately, these values and ‘rules’ frame the management of the sites to some extent, as the Chinese government must not, in order to maintain the WH listing, deviate too much from the rules of the game.     

Co‐opting Conservation: Migrant Resource Control and Access to National Park Management in the Philippine Uplands

The history of political and economic inequality in forest villages can shape how and why resource use conflicts arise during the evolution of national parks management. In the Philippine uplands, indigenous peoples and migrant settlers co‐exist, compete over land and forest resources, and shape how managers preserve forests through national parks. This article examines how migrants have claimed lands and changed production and exchange relations among the indigenous Tagbanua to build on and benefit from otherwise coercive park management on Palawan Island, the Philippines. Migrant control over productive resources has influenced who, within each group, could sustain agriculture in the face of the state's dominant conservation narrative — valorizing migrant paddy rice and criminalizing Tagbanua swiddens. Upon settling, migrant farmers used new political and economic strengths to tap into provincial political networks in order to be hired at a national park. As a result, they were able to steer management to support paddy rice at the expense of swidden cultivation. While state conservation policy shapes how national parks impact upon local resource access and use, older political economic inequalities in forest villages build on such policies to influence how management affects the livelihoods of poor households.     

World population growth,family planning,and American foreign policy

The US decision since the 1960s to link foreign policy with family planning and population control is noteworthy for its intention to change the demographic structure of foreign countries and the magnitude of the initiative. The current population ideologies are part of the legacy of 19th century views on science, morality, and political economy. Strong constraints were placed on US foreign policy since World War II, particularly due to presumptions about the role of developing countries in Cold War ideology. Domestic debates revolved around issues of feminism, birth control, abortion, and family political issues. Since the 1960s, environmental degradation and resource depletion were an added global dimension of US population issues. Between 1935 and 1958 birth control movements evolved from the ideologies of utopian socialists, Malthusians, women's rights activists, civil libertarians, and advocates of sexual freedom. There was a shift from acceptance of birth control to questions about the role of national government in supporting distribution of birth control. Immediately postwar the debates over birth control were outside political circles. The concept of family planning as a middle class family issue shifted the focus from freeing women from the burdens of housework to making women more efficient housewives. Family planning could not be taken as a national policy concern without justification as a major issue, a link to national security, belief in the success of intervention, and a justifiable means of inclusion in public policy. US government involvement began with agricultural education, technological assistance, and economic development that would satisfy the world's growing population. Cold War politics forced population growth as an issue to be considered within the realm of foreign policy and diplomacy. US government sponsored family planning was enthusiastic during 1967-74 but restrained during the 1980s. The 1990s has been an era of redefinition of the issues and increased divisiveness among environmentalists, feminists, and population control advocates. The current justification of US population program assistance is based on concern for the health of women and children. Future changes will be dependent on ideology, theology, and political philosophy.     

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.     

Property,Authority and Citizenship: Land Claims,Politics and the Dynamics of Social Division in West Africa

In the contemporary African context of rising competition and anxiety over access to land, neoliberal policy interventions designed to clarify property rights, broaden political participation and increase official accountability have frequently provoked rather than alleviated social and political conflict. Comparing case histories of local struggles over land and authority in selected rural areas in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire and Bénin, this paper argues that in situations where access to land has been linked historically to claims on authority and social belonging, pressures to privatize or clarify ownership have intensified debates over citizenship and governance as well as over land claims per se. Ensuing struggles over land and entitlement have intersected with national as well as local economic and political dynamics, reinforcing ‘traditional’ hierarchies, contributing to the proliferation of formal and informal governing agents and institutions, and frequently disrupting or subverting open governance and sustainable resource use, rather than helping to create conditions for sustainable development and democratization.     

Translated fronts: songs of socialist cosmopolitanism in Cold War India

Throughout the Cold War, India maintained a policy of non-alignment, first in relation to China and later in relation to the US and USSR. This policy allowed India to receive support from both superpowers during the Cold War, and bolstered Jawaharlal Nehru’s efforts to craft a secular nation that would modernize rapidly along socialist lines. As is inevitably the case, reality proved more complicated than policy. The political context became messy, and myriad translations of socialism in regional contexts pulled at the seams of Nehru’s dream, particularly in the rural areas he sought to modernize through dams, irrigation projects, and infrastructural development. In this paper, I interrogate Cold War socialism at its highly translated margins through the work of Sant Tukdoji Maharaj, a singer-saint from rural Eastern Maharashtra whose influence was local, national, and international. Tukdoji was many things to many people: a devotional singer, a Gandhian, a champion of progressive land reform, an international spokesperson for World Peace, and a supporter of nuclear defence at the Chinese and Pakistani fronts. Tukdoji’s music absorbed influences from beyond rural Maharashtra, but many of his songs obscure the depth of his international political engagements and the complexity of his intersecting ideologies. Through close readings of his songs and writings, this article explores how Tukdoji Maharaj adapted cosmopolitan political ideas to particular contexts, crafting each cultural translation to be optimally intelligible and impactful for a given audience.     

论新中国周边外交政策的历史演变

中华人民共和国的周边外交历来在其整个外交战略中占有极为重要的地位。中国的国家安全、政治稳定、经济发展乃至国际地位的改善都需要一个和平的、发展的、稳定的周边环境 ,这是中国历届政府力图实现的基本外交目标。大体来讲 ,中国的周边外交政策受到国际格局变迁、中国对外战略调整以及周边环境变化的影响与制约 ,这同时也和中国决策者的主观认识和世界战略思想发展变化有关 ,大致以 1 0年为期呈现阶段性的变化。本文主要探讨了 50年来中国周边外交政策的阶段变化 ,剖析其基本内容 ,总结其经验教训。     

Hobbes's Contribution to International Thought,and the Contribution of International Thought to Hobbes

Summary

The aim of this article is to explore in what respects Thomas Hobbes may be regarded as foundational in international thought. It is evident that in contemporary international relations theory he has become emblematic of a realist tradition, but as David Armitage suggests this was not always the case. I want to suggest that it is only in a very limited sense that he may be regarded as a foundational thinker in international relations, and for reasons very different from those for which he has become infamous. In the early histories of international thought Hobbes is a cameo figure completely eclipsed by Grotius. In early histories of political literature, the classic jurists were often acknowledged for their remarkable contributions to international relations, but Hobbes is referred to exclusively as a philosopher of a positvist ethics and absolute sovereignty. It is among the jurists themselves that Hobbes is believed to have made important conceptual moves which set the problems for international thought for the next three centuries. He conflates natural law and the law of nations, arguing that they differ only in their subjects—the former individuals, the latter nations or states. This entailed transforming the sovereign into an artificial man, not in the Roman Law sense of an entity capable of suing and being sued; rather, as a subject not party to a contract, but created by a contract among individuals who confer upon it authority. This subject is not constrained by the contractors, but is, as individuals were in the state of nature, constrained by the equivalent of natural law, the law of nations in the international context. Throughout, the methodological implications are drawn for modern historians of political thought and political philosophers who venture to theorise about international relations.     

Nuclear energy and proliferation risks: myths and realities in the Persian Gulf

The use of civil nuclear power is set for major expansion among the world's developing economies. The pursuit of nuclear energy technology offers energy-hungry developing nations access to reliable large-scale electricity supplies with very low carbon emissions. But this climate-friendly energy solution comes at a security price. Historically, one third of the 30 countries that possess civil nuclear energy programmes have weaponized them. Security threats from the proliferation of nuclear weapons might become an important barrier to the further expansion of the global nuclear energy market. Nowhere is this tension more acute than in the Persian Gulf. Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) illustrate how the establishment of civil nuclear energy programmes can pose different levels of security risk depending on a country's foreign policy. While the UAE has embraced international transparent nuclear safeguards, Iran has rejected the concerns of the international community and continues to develop uranium enrichment technology that may soon lead towards a viable nuclear weapon. However, the use of proliferation-resistant thorium rather than uranium as a nuclear fuel technology might significantly reduce the threat of plutonium weaponization in Arab states. The UAE nuclear energy model deserves the political support of western nations as the best compromise between nuclear energy expansion and nuclear security threats. This article discusses the myths and realities surrounding the diversion of civil nuclear energy programmes for military use in the Persian Gulf region, and argues that proliferation of atomic weapons is a political choice, not a certain technical inevitability.     

Parties,promises and politics: exploring manifesto discourse on arts policy in Westminster,Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections 1945–2011

This study addresses a key knowledge-gap by exploring the role of electoral politics in shaping public policy on the arts. Analysis of the prioritisation and use of language in party manifestos in state-wide and regional elections in the UK reveals that over recent decades there has been a sharp increase in the attention parties give to arts policy as they compete for the political centre-ground. It also shows how the framing of arts policy has broadened from an initial concern with social policy objectives to emphasise economic benefits and boosting international standing. However, parties have generally failed to advance comprehensive arts strategies raising accountability issues in relation to future government policy. Against the backdrop of a global trend of state restructuring, the analysis reveals how devolution is leading to the territorialisation of policy – as framing is contingent on ‘regional’ party politics, including nation-building by civic nationalist parties.     

Coordinating Transport and Urban Planning: From Ideologies to Local Realities

In Europe, the idea that coordinating transportation and urban planning is a necessary condition for setting sustainable urban development into motion has spread throughout academic and professional circles. While this concern is not new, the objectives underlying transport and urban planning coordination have deeply changed over the last decades. How have local authorities translated the requirements and objectives of national laws? How have they accounted for the evolution of these global objectives? What factors explain innovation and continuity in the relationship between land use planning and transport policies? In a comparative research between Switzerland and France, we addressed the question of political change by reconstituting the “trajectories” of four urban areas: Geneva and Bern in Switzerland and Strasbourg and Bordeaux in France. We have described the policy paths of these urban areas since the end of the 1960s by focusing on the contents of master plans, the principal technical solutions and projects that have been implemented, and the means of inter-sectorial coordination used. For each case, factors of change or inertia have been identified by focusing on three main variables that are often studied alternatively in public policy analysis: ideas, institutions and interests.     

Why is There a Biodiversity Convention? The International Interest in Centralized Development Planning

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is an unusual international environment agreement in that it does not concern an international or global resource. Most of the resources whose regulation is implicit in the CBD are in fact domestic terrestrial species, everything from elephants to medicinal plants. The rationale for international intervention in the sphere of national land use planning lies in the recurring themes of underprovided diversity: underfunded, underappreciated, undermanaged species. In many different areas of international affairs–ranging from the trade in endangered species to the management of agricultural gene banks–these same problems arise. How is it possible to induce countries hosting diverse biological resources to expend theresources necessary to maintain them? The CBD represents the confluenceof all these various movements, and it constitutes the recognition of the importance of a global perspective regarding national land use decision-making.     

Land titling and poverty reduction in Southeast Asia: realising markets or realising rights?∗

AusAID has supported land titling projects in Southeast Asia with the World Bank for over two decades. These involve the first-time issuance of a land title in cases where the ownership rights of current occupiers are largely assured. Reflecting neoliberal thinking on private property rights and development, the rationale is that titling builds land markets and increases tenure security, investment and access to institutional credit. However, international research indicates that land titling can be neither sufficient or necessary to deliver such benefits and, under some circumstances, can harm poor landholders’ wellbeing. In this respect, attention is paid to political factors in addition to property rights per se which influence their tenure security. It is argued that the value which neoliberalism places on the exclusivity of ownership of land, to enable its efficient use and allocation, can be in conflict with the importance to poor people of secure access and use rights. If AusAID is to fully commit to poverty reduction goals, then there will need to be more attention paid to the social justice dimensions of land distribution in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.     

Two Centuries of Russian Sámi Policy: Arrangements for Autonomy and Participation Seen in Light of Imperial,Soviet and Federal Indigenous Minority Policy 1822–2014

Abstract

This article reviews arrangements for Russian Sámi self-government during the Late Imperial (1822–1917), Soviet (1917–1991) and Federal (1992–) Eras of Russian history, comparing them to developments in the country's general indigenous minority policy. Since the Soviet Era, indigenous minority policy has been delimited to a subset of the country's actual indigenous nations – smaller groups traditionally involved in certain rural economic activities. State paternalism, the framing of indigenous minority policy as giving aid to weak groups, is a constant trait of Russian indigenous minority policy. This paternalism has been channelled towards different goals at different times – the building of Communist nations, assimilation, or traditionalist preservationism. Indigenous minority policy has generally been weakly institutionalized, and its interests come into conflict with stronger actors who anchor their political activity in northern economic development and state security. Different forms of territorial autonomy have been practiced throughout the period, non-territorial arrangements becoming more common only in the Federal Era. Russian Sámi politics generally match the national trends but are a case of particularly weak indigenous autonomy and participation. A very case-specific phenomenon is the Federal Era conflict over whether or not to import the Nordic Sámi Parliament model. Case-specifics are explained by the weak demographic position of the Russian Sámi, the lack of any significant symbolic connection between the province and its indigenous people, and the border-proximity and border-transcendence of the Sámi people, which has repeatedly been used to frame their activism as a security concern.     

Concerning values: what underlies public polarisation about climate change?

Climate change is a partisan issue, with increasingly politically polarised responses, particularly in Anglophone countries. While politics clearly have a role in determining attitudes to climate science and policy, understanding the human values that underlie attitudes offers advantages over a focus on political differences. This study examines public concern about climate change in Hobart, the state capital of Tasmania, Australia. Hobart is a microcosm of polarisation about environmental issues due to its long history of conflict over natural resource use. Using a survey of 522 citizens of Hobart, the research examines the values underlying concern and unconcern about climate change. Applying an innovative analysis of human values to this area of research, I have found that, in the Tasmanian context, the unconcerned may be categorised into two groups with opposing values: people who prioritise national security, social order, and tradition; and people who value freedom of choice and the ability to make their own decisions. High levels of climate change concern are associated strongly with care for nature, suggesting that climate change is seen primarily as a threat to the environment, rather than to humanity. In this article, I argue that understanding the values underlying divergent interpretations of the threat of climate change is essential to resolving deadlock in political discourse. The work draws lessons for re‐engaging the unconcerned in inclusive conversations about climate change through narratives addressing a broader range of values.     

The Veil of Kyoto and the politics of greenhouse gas mitigation in Australia

This paper investigates how the Kyoto Protocol has framed political discourse and policy development of greenhouse gas mitigation in Australia. We argue that ‘Kyoto’ has created a veil over the climate issue in Australia in a number of ways. Firstly, its symbolic power has distracted attention from actual environmental outcomes while its accounting rules obscure the real level of carbon emissions and structural trends at the nation-state level. Secondly, a public policy tendency to commit to far off emission targets as a compromise to implementing legislation in the short term has also emerged on the back of Kyoto-style targets. Thirdly, Kyoto’s international flexibility mechanisms can lead to the diversion of mitigation investment away from the nation-state implementing carbon legislation. A final concern of the Kyoto approach is how it has shifted focus away from Australia as the world’s largest coal exporter towards China, its primary customer. While we recognise the crucial role aspirational targets and timetables play in capturing the imagination and coordinating action across nations, our central theme is that ‘Kyoto’ has overshadowed the implementation of other policies in Australia. Understanding how ‘Kyoto’ has framed debate and policy is thus crucial to promoting environmentally effective mitigation measures as nation-states move forward from COP15 in Copenhagen to forge a post-Kyoto international agreement. Recent elections in 2009 in Japan and America and developments at COP15 suggest positive scope for international action on climate change. However, the lesson from the 2007 election and subsequent events in Australia is a caution against elevating the symbolism of ‘Kyoto-style’ targets and timetables above the need for implementation of mitigation policies at the nation-state level.