Dealing with the banks: populism and the public interest in the global financial crisis

Political protest in Europe and the problematic politics surrounding bank recapitalization in the US have raised growing concerns about the rise of populist politics. Populist politics is problematic in its search for simplistic solutions to complex problems, its disdain for institutions and its political ambiguity. Nonetheless, the rise of populist mobilization also points to genuine concerns about the functioning of democracy. The politics of financial regulation has been dominated by a narrow, utilitarian and technocratic mode of policy-making that has tried to limit public debate, favouring an expert discourse which privileges questions of efficiency over questions of distribution. This article explores the distributional issues at stake in banking recapitalization (particularly questions about the returns governments receive for their investment) and regulation (through an exploration of the financialization literature). It argues that, while populist appeals to 'the people' are too ambiguous to be helpful, given the complexity of the interests at stake in financial regulation, there is a need for a wider and more democratic debate about financial regulation that pays greater attention to distributional issues. Populist mobilization can create pressure for debate, even if it presents few solutions. As a result, we should be wary of moves to shift too much regulation to the international level where populist mobilization is less effective.     

Complexity,strategy and the national interest

British strategy‐making has been subject to a sustained critique in recent years, from parliamentarians, retired members of the armed forces and scholars of strategic studies. This article examines the nature of this critique and the evolving character of strategic practice in Britain. It argues that the criticisms of British strategymaking are often misplaced, for two main reasons. First, many base their critique on a reductionist notion of unitary ‘national interest’ that fails to capture systemic patterns of complexity and contestation in the wider security environment and in Britain. Second, they underestimate or ignore the extent to which the UK strategic community is itself innovating in response to these themes, particularly since the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review. This is not to argue that considerable challenges do not remain for strategy‐making in Britain. Most notably, these include: how to translate strategic innovation in departments and elsewhere into a coherent national strategic agenda; how to do this while maintaining institutional coordination and a shared sense of strategic purpose across government (and beyond); how to sustain and consolidate institutional expertise and experience in a rapidly changing civil service and at a time of continuing public austerity; and how to articulate and legitimate security policy decisions among a general public that is both disengaged from elite strategic discourse and sceptical of the efficacy of military force. Even so, the article concludes by arguing that it is possible to see the outline of an emergent and distinctive theory of action in contemporary British strategic practice, characterized by principles of adaptivity, anticipation, self‐organisation and nascent cross‐governmentalism.     

Cambridge Analytica,independent research and the national interest

This guest editorial addresses some of the ethical issues raised by the Cambridge Analytica case. The author criticizes expert opinions downplaying the scandal and links Cambridge Analytica's operations to the growth of academic research influenced by state security agendas.     

全球公共考古学的新视角

本文是《全球公共考古学的新视角》文集的一篇导论,对上世纪70年代以来公共考古学在英语国家及全球范围的发展做了综述。该文集的各章由各国考古学家撰写,分别介绍了公共考古学在各自国家的发展和现状。正如本文开宗明义所指出的,考古学与公众的关系从这门学科开始就相当密切,不只因为大部分重要考古发现是老百姓而非考古学家所为,而且几乎所有发掘工作都需要民众的参与。而且盗墓活动也难脱底层民众的干系。公共考古学的概念进入中国之后,一度被等同于大众考古或考古学的普及工作。具有讽刺意味的是。在相当长时间里,我国专家撰写科普读物被看作是不务正业,这类作品不被视为学术成果。这种看法正因公共考古学概念的引入而得到改观,从而使普及工作名正而言顺。因为考古学界认识到,没有高素质的民众,文化遗产的保护就是一句空话。公共考古学的概念最初是由美国考古学家理查德·麦克基姆西1972年出版的Public Archaeology一书所提出,后来迅速传播到世界各国。类似其他非英语国家,public的中译有"公共"和"公众"两种方式。英语的public有"官方"和"民众"的双重含意。这比较接近中文"公共"的意思,因为中文的"公共交通"或"公共设施"一般是指由行政部门主导和资助的大众服务。如果中国的遗产事业要与国际接轨,公共考古学也要摆脱目前局限于考古教育和知识普及的零敲碎打的大众实践,借鉴国际通行做法,由政府出于公众利益对考古学进行管理,鼓励公众积极参加考古活动和遗产保护与管理,并从多声部的公众视角来解释考古成果和布置博物馆陈列。     

Gender as national interest at the UN Security Council

The United Nations Security Council has often been identified as a key actor responsible for the uneven trajectory of the international Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. It is, however, the Council members—who also seek to advance their national interest at this intergovernmental forum—that are pivotal in the Council's deliberations and shape its policies. Yet, little attention has been paid to this aspect of deliberative politics at the Council in feminist scholarship on WPS. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature. It notes that gender has increasingly become part of foreign policy interests of UN member states, as evidenced by practices such as invocation of ‘women's rights’ and ‘gender equality’ in broader international security policy discourse. The article demonstrates that this national interest in gender has featured in WPS‐related developments at the Security Council. Using specific illustrations, it examines three sets of member states: the permanent and non‐permanent members as well as non‐members invited to take part in Council meetings. The main argument of this article relates to highlighting member states’ interests underpinning their diplomatic activities around WPS issues in the Security Council, with the aim to present a fuller understanding of political engagements with UNSCR 1325, the first WPS resolution, in its institutional home.     

The coming revolution in foreign affairs: rethinking American national security

For the last two decades the US has pursued what some analysts have called the ‘fantastical idea’ of military transformation that would enable the US to change the very nature of war. Known as the ‘revolution in military affairs’, this process would use technology to provide the US with battlefield dominance that no opponent could overcome. Motivated by the politics of the Cold War, however, this exit from reality has proved less than effective in what has become known as the ‘war on terror’. The US has been pulled into nasty, ‘small’ wars, against enemies utilizing asymmetric tactics. The Bush administration has tried to destroy these groups through the use of military force, failing, or even worse refusing, to recognize that these enemies feed off the economical, political and social rot of weak and failing states. For the last eight years the US government has addressed the symptoms of a problem rather than the actual disease. If America wants to make serious progress with the most pressing national security risks, the next American president must enact a revolution in foreign affairs that sees a massive overhaul and substantial investment in the State Department and USAID. A critical mass of research exists to illustrate the links between development and security—it is time Washington gets serious and embraces a conception of security that is more holistic, and ultimately, more effective.     

The campus as a public space in the American college town

With its concert halls, museums, sports stadiums, landscaped grounds, and busy calendars of events, the college campus is a hub of activities that serves not only students and staff, but the larger population of a town and region. As such, the campus serves as both an environment for learning and a public space. This is especially true of campuses located outside big cities, because metropolitan institutions often face significant security concerns and demand for their facilities. Campuses in small cities, in contrast, tend to be open and inviting, and help to make the college town a distinctive type of urban place. This study will examine the multifaceted role of the campus, using the University of Oklahoma campus as an example, as a way to demonstrate the centrality of the campus to college town life.     

Raising the dead: war,memory and American national identity*

Abstract. The dead, particularly the war dead, play a central role in the development of nationalism, nowhere more so than in America. America's mid‐nineteenth century Civil War produced a recognisable and influential ‘cult of the dead’, comparable in its construction with similar developments in Europe following World War I. Focused on the figure of the fallen soldier, especially the volunteer soldier, this cult found physical expression in the development of national cemeteries devoted not just to the burial of those who fell in the war but to the idea of America as a nation, in the development of monuments to the dead that, again, reinforced the new national symbolism of the war era, and in the beginnings of Memorial Day, an American sacred ceremony with clear parallels with the later Armistice Day ceremonies in Europe. In all these developments, America preceded the European nations by several decades, making America a valuable case study for the role that the cult of the fallen soldier plays in national development more generally.     

Cultural icons and urban development in Asia: Economic imperative,national identity,and global city status

Global cities are characterized by the multiplicity of flows that they are implicated in – flows of people, goods, services, ideas, and images. Yet, global cities do not derive their status only on the basis that they are networked nodes. They also require particular forms of cultural capital. Cities with global aspirations have thus increasingly recognized the need to accumulate cultural capital, for which one means is to create new urban spaces, in particular, new cultural urban spaces (e.g. grand theatres, museums, libraries). These often monumental structures are intended to support a vibrant cultural life, in order to attract and sustain global human and economic flows. In this paper, I examine the efforts by Shanghai's, Singapore's and Hong Kong's governments to develop cultural icons as part of the strategy to help their cities gain global city status, and in the process, constructing shared national and city identities. I illustrate how such efforts are not universally interpreted in the manner intended, with city populations sometimes protesting, sometimes simply oblivious. At the same time, I argue that such strategies to achieve global city status are sometimes at odds with projects of nationhood.     

The mobilisation of identities: a study on the relationship between elite rhetoric and public opinion on national identity in developed democracies

Over the last decade, the topic of national‐identity has gained considerable importance after various heads of states have made it an important political issue in the context of ongoing globalisation and European integration processes. There is also a large, mainly historical literature that has emphasised the role of the political elite in the formation of national‐identities. While this argument is widely discussed in both public and academic debates, there is, surprisingly, hardly any empirical research on this issue. We do not know whether elite positions resonate with how the masses think about these issues. We therefore set out to test this relationship by combining the 2003 wave of the International Social Survey Programme and content analysis of elite mobilisation rhetoric from the Comparative Manifesto Project. Results indicate that an overlap exists between politicians' articulation of exclusive notions about the contours of national‐identity and heightened expressions of civic and ethnic national‐identity within public opinion. By contrast, elite mobilisation along more inclusive lines appears ineffective. From this, it appears that exclusionary arguments play a more important role, at least in terms of attitudes about national‐identity, than inclusionary ones.     

精英、舆论与外交:华盛顿会议期间的国民外交代表

1921年底,余日章和蒋梦麟作为国民外交代表参与华盛顿会议。他们对中国政府代表团进行舆论监督,力促政府代表早日提出山东问题。当会外谈判成为现实后,他们又力促政府代表早日解决山东问题;并利用各种渠道构建一个舆论宣传网络,努力维护中国的国家形象,揭露日本侵略中国权利的实际情形。余日章、蒋梦麟在华盛顿会议期间的国民外交活动堪称1920年代初期中国精英利用公众舆论影响政府外交的一个典型。     

The British Empire and revolutionary national poetry

ABSTRACT. The British empire set off an explosion of poetry, in English and native languages, particularly in India, Africa and the Middle East. This poetry – largely neglected in the scholarship on nationalism – was often revolutionary both aesthetically and politically, expressing a spirit of cultural independence. Attacks on England and the empire are common not just in native colonial poetry but also in poetry of the British isles. This article discusses some of the most influential poets, including: Shawqi of Egypt, Tagore of India, Rusafi of Iraq, Yeats of Ireland, Iqbal of Pakistan, Greenberg of pre‐State Israel, and Kipling, the ‘poet of empire’. In contrast with other empires, many poets were inspired by British culture to create revolutionary art and seek political independence. Most strikingly, British rule was instrumental in the revival of vernacular Hebrew poetry after 1917 as the centre of Hebrew literature shifted from Odessa to Tel Aviv.     

Contested visions of American democracy: citizenship, public housing, and the international arena

This essay reexamines the history of public housing and the controversy it generated from the Great Depression to the Cold War. By recasting that history in the global arena, it demonstrates that the debate over public housing versus homeownership was also a debate over the meaning of American citizenship and democracy, pointing up starkly divergent notions about what was and was not American. Through an examination of national conflicts and neglected local struggles, this article further shows that the fight over public housing was far more meaningful and volatile than traditionally assumed. Both critics and advocates of public housing drew from international experiences and imagery in positioning the home as a constitutive feature of citizenship in American democracy. Fears of Bolshevism, fascism, and communism served to internationalize issues of race, space, and housing and together shaped the decision of whether a decent home was an American right or privilege.     

Destabilizing homonormativity and the public/private dichotomy in North American lesbian domestic violence discourses

Developing and circulating community-based educational materials and offering workshops are common feminist approaches to addressing violence in lesbian relationships. This article explores the racialized exclusions in the public/private dichotomy in community-based educational discourses about ‘lesbian domestic violence’. An examination of community-based educational materials and interviews with lesbian and queer feminist educators illustrates how the public/private dichotomy produces exclusions and makes certain forms of violence enacted on certain bodies unthinkable and unintelligible. While these discourses challenge heteronormative constructions of violence, they have relied on a simple conceptual framework that has had the effect of promoting a dominant narrative or regime of truth privileging white, middle-class lesbian experiences. This article seeks to destabilize homonormative constructions by arguing for an anti-colonial feminist spatial analysis of violence in same-sex/gender relationships.