Everyday nationalism and international hockey: contesting Canadian national identity

This paper examines how hockey is used to construct and demarcate the Canadian national community from external others, namely, the USA, Europe and Russia/USSR. The paper suggests popular nationalist narratives around the sport of hockey construct difference from external others in ways that place them in tension with state and corporate interests. Drawing on the concept of everyday nationalism, this article explores how the interplay between international competition, national identity and commercial sport has made hockey an ambiguous and contested national symbol in Canada.     

Asymmetrical international integration and Ukrainian national disunity

This article examines the impact of international integration on ethno-regional relations in multiethnic states. It argues that when ethno-regions in such a state have different geographic patterns of foreign ties, national unity suffers. “Asymmetrical international integration” (AII) hinders national cohesion by reducing the cultural similarity of the ethno-regions, sharpening their disputes over foreign policy, and intensifying their disparate identities. This argument is evaluated using the case of Ukraine. Analysis of a survey distributed to approximately 1000 elites in two key Ukrainian cities in 1994–95, as well as of other data, demonstrates that AII exists, is believed by Ukrainians to weaken national unity, and in fact does weaken national unity.     

Italian Fascism and the Portuguese Estado Novo: international claims and national resistance

ABSTRACT

Taking into consideration the transnational dimension of Fascism that had its epicentre in Italy ? as Mussolini’s purpose of “marching throughout the streets of Europe and the World” plainly illustrates ? this article explores the connections between the Italian Fascist regime and the Portuguese Estado Novo during the interwar period. From the moment Fascism became attractive for Portuguese intellectuals, state officers, and politicians, until it became a colonial threat to the Portuguese empire, the cultural diplomacy apparatuses of the two countries will be analysed from a balanced, bi-lateral perspective, encompassing actors, transferences, and resistances.     

Framing multiple others and international norms: the migrant worker advocacy movement and Korean national identity reconstruction

ABSTRACT. This paper analyses the discourse of the migrant worker advocacy movement in South Korea to examine how activists' strategic framing can expedite the mobilisation of international norms despite significant cultural barriers. Korean activists argue on behalf of migrant workers that adopting international norms will help the Korean nation gain more respect from other nation‐states and that international norms are not antithetical to the true nature of the Korean nation. These framing strategies have enabled Korean activists to mobilise international norms despite cultural barriers. However, such a framing strategy does not cultivate a truly inclusive nationhood; Korean activists have circumvented cultural barriers, but have not overcome or transformed them.     

The ‘new home front’ and the war on terror: ethical and political reframing of national and international politics

This article adopts the notion of the ‘new home front’ to consider the spatial complexity of the war on terror and the blurring of domestic and foreign policy divides. It considers the politics and ethics of the war in three main areas: new media and everyday life; liberalism under strain; and citizens’ lives, multiculturalism and gender. It discusses the increasing role of horizontal (bottom up) influences alongside vertical (top down) ones, not least in the context of new media, which adds the sociospatial (virtual) realm of online communications to the familiar geospatial (physical) world of politics. Implications of the extended nature of the war on terror are assessed, as well as the potential for developments that have been part of it to impact on the broader sphere of liberal international politics in the future.     

The international monetary system: diffusion and ambiguity

This article examines the dynamics of power and rule‐setting in the international monetary system. It begins with a brief discussion of the meaning of power in international monetary relations, distinguishing between two critical dimensions of monetary power: autonomy and influence. Major developments have led to a greater diffusion of power in monetary affairs, both among states and between states and societal actors. But the diffusion of power has mainly been in the dimension of autonomy, rather than influence, meaning that leadership in the system has been dispersed rather than relocated—a pattern of change in the geopolitics of finance that might be called leaierless diffusion. The pattern of leaderless diffusion, in turn, is generating greater ambiguity in prevailing governance structures. Rule‐setting in monetary relations increasingly relies not on negotiations among a few powerful states but, rather, on the evolution of custom and usage among growing numbers of autonomous agents. Impacts on governance structures can be seen on two levels: the individual state and the global system. At the state level, the dispersion of power compels governments to rethink their commitment to national monetary sovereignty. At the systemic level, it compounds the difficulties of bargaining on monetary issues. More and more, formal rules are being superseded by informal norms that emerge, like common law, not from legislation or statutes but from everyday conduct and social convention.     

The Brazilian Green Revolution

This article analyzes the critical geopolitics of knowledge production in Brazil during the 20th century. It offers a critical appraisal of recent calls to decolonize political geography by locating the role played by actors and institutions in the Global South within the broader narrative of the Green Revolution. Historical accounts of the Green Revolution have only recently started to incorporate perspectives of and attribute agency to actors in the Global South. However, Brazil has largely been left out of the geographical scope of the Green Revolution. This article focuses on U.S.-Brazilian geopolitical relations behind an effort to reproduce the U.S. model of higher education, rural extension and agricultural research in Brazil. I argue that the confluence of Brazil's geopolitical importance with opportunities for foreign investment in its agricultural sector brought together U.S. and Brazilian experts and expertise to modernize Brazilian agriculture. The case of transnational soybean research illustrates the importance of this relationship in transforming Brazil's agricultural sector and limiting alternatives. This article offers an account of how the geopolitics of knowledge production shape the long-term institutional legacies of national research institutions.     

The Changing Brazilian Language

This article analyzes two female Bildungsromane published by nineteenth-century authors, Las dos Gracias by Fernán Caballero (1867) and La vida íntima by Pilar Sinués (1876). The female Bildungsroman in Spain explores different educational and developmental opportunities open to women since the middle of the nineteenth century. Fernán Caballero and Pilar Sinués, who have been—and still often are—dismissed as anti-feminist and conservative, created a very nuanced vision of female Bildung in their novels. Far from being mere propaganda pieces aimed at keeping women in subjection, these novels discuss the obstacles that society places in the way to female development and offer ways of overcoming these obstacles.     

The consequences of nationalism: A scholarly exchange

The main thrust of the scholarship on nationalism has so far been concerned with its origins. But nationalism also has effects. Whether it underpins the nation-building efforts of states, is mobilised by counter-state forces or is used in everyday life, nationalism might implicate a wide range of substantive outcomes, including political regimes, public goods provision, citizenship and immigration laws, and different patterns of conflict. Yet—with a few notable exceptions—the consequences of nationalism have received significantly less scholarly attention. In response, the aim of this Exchange is to create a new dialogue between different strands of scholarship around what we know and do not know about the consequences of nationalism. We organise this Exchange around the following questions: (1) What is nationalism? (2) How can we measure nationalism? (3) What are the consequences of nationalism? (4) What are new research frontiers?