Town and countryside in northeastern Catalonia, 1267–c. 1450: the sobreposats de la horta of Perpignan

The study of the relationship between town and countryside in medieval Catalonia is still in an early stage. This article examines how Perpignan, the second most populous Catalonian town by the second half of the fourteenth century, extended its influence over the countryside of northeastern Catalonia through the sobreposats de la horta. Although they were the heads of the guild of Perpignan's agricultural labourers, the sobreposats de la horta acquired a broad jurisdiction over cases involving damage to property, and thus became responsible for protecting the rural interests of Perpignan's citizens more generally. First mentioned in 1339, the sobreposats de la horta continually encountered seigniorial and other opposition, but their powers steadily increased between their initial appearance and the 1380s, as did the control of Perpignan's consuls over them. However, the very success of the sobreposats de la horta necessitated a series of reforms, largely the work of Perpignan's consuls, from the 1380s onwards. These reforms attempted to restore the earlier efficiency of the sobreposats de la horta, to eliminate abuses of office, and even to limit the power of the sobreposats de la horta, whose growth the consuls had done so much to foster previously.     

The trajectory of nation‐building through language policies: the case of Turkey during the early Republic (1920–38)†

ABSTRACT. This article explores the link between language policies and nation‐building by focusing on the Turkish case during the early Republican period (1920–38). As opposed to conceptualising nation builders as seamlessly and strategically forming a nation out of the remnants of an empire, this article emphasises the complex and, at times, ambiguous nature of the nation‐building process using Turkey as a case study. The article is also critical of ethno‐symbolic accounts of nations and nation formation that tend to emphasise the cultural at the expense of the political sphere. Instead, by looking at the process and content of the formulation of language policies, this study demonstrates how culture was highly politicised during the formative period of the Turkish nation.     

Myths and symbols in the political culture of Catalan nationalism (1880–1914)

Historiography on the phenomenology of nationalisms has often pointed to the importance of myths and symbols in the construction of these political movements, underlining how the past is transfigured and/or particular historical episodes are recast for use in creating a given political discourse in the present. By adopting this viewpoint, the aim of this paper is to analyse the evolution of historiographical thinking on the use of myths and symbols in contemporary politics, giving particular attention to how they were brought to bear in the early days of the Catalan nationalist movement. This initial period, covering the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is of special interest in the case of Catalan nationalism because it was a phase of politicisation marked – much as it was in other nationalist movements across Europe – by a nationalisation of history, a selection of foundation myths and historical milestones, and a crystallisation of the movement's symbols.     

Byron to D'Annunzio: from liberalism to fascism in national poetry, 1815–1920

ABSTRACT. From Byron's death at Missolonghi in 1824 to D'Annunzio's capture of Fiume for Italy in 1919, the nationalism of universal liberalism and independence struggles changed, in literature as in politics, to cruel dictatorial fascism. Byron was followed by a series of idealistic fighter‐poets and poet‐martyrs for national freedom, but international tensions culminating in World War I exposed fully the intolerant, brutal side of nationalism. D'Annunzio, like Byron, both a major poet and charismatic war leader, was a key figure in transforming nineteenth‐century democratic nationalism into twentieth‐century dictatorial fascism. The poet's ‘lyrical dictatorship’ at Fiume (1919–20) inspired Mussolini's seizure of power in 1922, with far‐reaching political consequences. The poet became the dangerous example of a Nietzschean Übermensch, above common morality, predatory and morally irresponsible. This article shows how the meaning of nationalism was partly determined and transformed by poets, illustrating their role as ‘unacknowledged legislators of the world’.     

The ethno‐religious ambitions of the Roman Catholic Church and the ascendancy of communism in post‐war Poland (1945–50)

ABSTRACT. This paper differentiates between centrifugal and centripetal aspects of ethno‐nationalism to help account for the ascendancy of communism in the immediate aftermath of World War II in Poland. It argues that the directing of social antipathy to defined out‐groups allowed the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) to manage social anger and that the Roman Catholic Church's ethno‐religious agenda was aligned with the PPR's ethno‐nationalist policy. Furthermore, it is contended that the Church's toleration of hostile actions directed at minority communities supported the PPR's management of social anger. The paper concludes that the Church, despite its manifest intentions and contrary to contemporary perceptions, played a role in the PPR's achievement of hegemony.     

Countering the hegemony of the Irish national canon: the modernist rhetoric of Seán O'Faoláin (1938–50)1

ABSTRACT. The telling and re‐telling of national history has long been recognised in studies of nationalism as one of its key legitimising and mobilising strategies. In this article I illustrate how a rhetorical approach can effectively explore this dynamic and emotive dimension of nationalist ideology by examining the rhetorical strategies in the Irish liberal intellectual, Seán O'Faoláin's, attempts to reconstitute the popular canon of Irish history in the 1930s and 1940s. More specifically, I show that contrary to depictions of O'Faoláin as a European liberal who employed rational argument to undermine and encourage the rejection of Irish nationalism and its emphasis on rhetorical narratives of the past, O'Faoláin's challenge to the Irish national canon reveals that he himself mobilised historical narrative to promote his own modernist version of Irish liberal nationalism and demonstrated in the process that he was one of the most skilful rhetors of his day.     

Old wine in new bottles: civic nation‐building and ethnic nationalism in schooling in Piedmont,ca. 1700–1861

ABSTRACT. Gellner (1983 : 35) equates nationalism with ‘the organisation of human groups into large, centrally educated, culturally homogeneous units’. As the theorist of nationalism argues, and as recent and not so recent historical research shows, the modernisation of schooling is a defining moment in this process. The objective of this article is twofold: first, to show that during the Risorgimento schooling in Piedmont became nationalist; and second, to explain why that was the case. In doing so, it is argued that: (a) the modernisation of schooling reflected the rise of laissez faire liberalism, industrialisation and the enfranchisement of the middle class; and (b) the leadership of the Risorgimento revived pre‐modern ethnic symbols of patriotism to legitimate inequality and state formation under conditions of individualism.     

The Rhetoric of Convention: The Foundational Saul Narratives (1 Samuel 9–11) Reconsidered

Biblical scholars have applied new methodologies to the royal narratives in the Deuteronomistic History (Joshua–Kings) as viable resources for recovering authentic historical information regarding the monarchic cultures of ancient Israel and their impact on the development of Israelite religion. The present study considers anew the narratives regarding Israel's first king, Saul son of Kish. A recurring motif in these narratives is the appeal to socio‐religious convention, which is suggestive of a rhetorical strategy among the authors that sought to situate the Saulide royal lineage in familiar traditions that the institution of kingship was perceived as disrupting.     

The politics of ‘forgetting’ as poetics of belonging: between Greek self‐narration and reappraisal (Michaniona, 2000/3)

ABSTRACT. The repressive mechanisms of collective memory have received due attention in the social sciences, with scholars examining the ethics of remembering and forgetting and their political implications. This study focuses on episodes that took place in a Northern Greek town in 2000 and 2003, when an Albanian student was twice denied the right to hold the Greek flag during a commemorative national parade. It is argued that this line of action against the student, representative of Greek attitudes towards immigrants in Greece, asserted the locality's participation in the Greek ‘imagined community’. This was made possible through a process of ‘forgetting’ the locality's history and the analogies this presents with the experience of contemporary immigration. Questioning the ethical implications of this collective decision, the article links regional micro‐politics to nationalist discourses that originate in the European project itself.     

Early pan‐Arabism in Egypt's July revolution: the Free Officers' political formation and policy‐making, 1946–54

Between 1952 and 1970, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Egypt's Free Officers Movement established the paradigmatic pan‐Arabist revolution from above. Yet it has become something of a cliché to maintain that the Free Officers had no blueprint of action before seizing power and that they later instrumentalised pan‐Arabism in their foreign policy, thinly veiling their actual commitments to Egyptian nationalism and imperialism. By contrast, this contribution underlines the impact of the British colonial context on the Free Officers' political formation and their early identification with pan‐Arabism in turn. Drawing on pamphlets, speeches, media output and memoirs, it shows that the Free Officers developed a distinctive form of anticolonial nationalism that emphasised social justice and invoked overlapping Egyptian and Arab identities. Their aspirations for liberation thus entailed a connected foreign policy and nation building programme in which pan‐Arabism was a prime – and early – component.     

Policy Change and Policy Stasis: Comparing Swiss Foreign Policy toward South Africa (1968–94) and Iraq (1990–91)

This article investigates how concepts from the field of public policy, in particular the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) initially introduced by Sabatier and Jenkins‐Smith, can be applied to the study of foreign policy analysis. Using a most similar comparative case studies design, we examine Switzerland's foreign policy toward South Africa under apartheid for the period from 1968 to 1994 and compare it with the Swiss position toward Iraq after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, when the Swiss government imposed—for the first time—comprehensive economic sanctions against another state. The application of the ACF shows that a dominant advocacy coalition in Swiss foreign policy toward South Africa prevented a major policy change in Swiss–South African relations despite external pressure from the international and national political levels. Actually, quite the opposite could be observed: Swiss foreign policy increased its persistence in not taking economic sanctions against the racist regime in South Africa during the 1980s and early 1990s. The ACF, with its analytical focus on policy subsystems and the role of external shocks as potential triggers for change, provided a useful framework for analyzing the factors for policy change and stasis in Swiss foreign relations toward the selected two countries.     

Contentious and Prefigurative Politics: Vigilante Groups’ Struggle against Sexual Violence in Egypt (2011–2013)

This article analyses the drivers, mobilizational tactics and manoeuvrings of informal, youth‐led initiatives that emerged in post‐Mubarak Egypt to counter the growing threat of sexual violence against women in public spaces. The findings are based on empirical research into youth‐led activism against gender‐based violence during 2011‒2013. The approach adopted is a case study of three initiatives, Bassma (Imprint), Shoft Taharosh (Harassment Seen) and Opantish (Operation Anti Sexual Harassment). Informal youth‐based initiatives in the context of the post‐January 2011 uprising have generally been criticized for their lack of sustainability, organizationally and politically. However, the examination of activism against gender‐based vio‐lence through the lens of prefigurative politics shows the inherent value of experimentation and its contribution to innovations in public outreach. The value of the initiatives studied in this article also lies in their mobilizational power which inadvertently produces ‘repertoires’ of knowledge, skills and resources to engage the citizenry and capture their imagination. In the long run, such repertoires may allow for the emergence of organized and sustained forms of political agency. The article suggests that a cross‐fertilization of prefigurative and contentious politics offers a framework for understanding temporally‐ and spatially‐bound forms of collective political agency.     

Patriotism,nationalism and modernity: the patriotic societies in the Danish conglomerate state, 1769–1814

ABSTRACT. This article investigates sixty‐three patriotic societies established in the Danish conglomerate state during the Age of Enlightenment, since they can throw light on the pre‐national collective identities. It explains how the patriotic societies had both an external function in regard to society and an internal function among their members. It analyses how the members comprehended patriotism and how they propagated ideas of solidarity and good citizenship to a wider audience. The patriotism of the eighteenth century is also compared with the nationalism of the nineteenth century, and the way they reflect two different understandings of core concepts such as state, language and folk culture is explained. However, both ideologies correlate to modernity, since they reflect the same dialectic tension in the relationship between the individual, the social community and the modern state.     

Towards an encompassing perspective on nationalisms: the case of Jews in Turkey during the Second World War, 1939–45

ABSTRACT. This article focuses on the plight of the Jews in Turkey during the Second World War, with the intention of analysing specific historical events through the lenses of leading theories of nationalism. First we review recent developments in historiography that contribute the framework for understanding both the hermeneutical possibilities and limitations when addressing historical texts. Then we employ three theories of nationalism – the ethno‐symbolist, instrumentalist and social constructivist – as a means of analysing and interpreting the historical events of the Jewish predicament vis‐à‐vis the Republic of Turkey. We conclude by suggesting what impact our findings may have on the narratives from this time period, and the way in which we can understand narratives today.