All the way? The evolution of German military power

German strategic decision‐makers have to reconsider their approach to the use of force. In Afghanistan, the Bundeswehr is faced with the challenge of a growing insurgency. This situation requires a willingness to provide combat forces for the NATO‐led International Security Assistance Force. Hence, the conviction in German domestic politics that the Bundeswehr should only be employed for the purposes of stabilization and reconstruction is increasingly challenged by a changing operational reality in Afghanistan, and allies’ reluctance to continue to accept German policy. In essence, the issue is about German participation in counterinsurgency operations. To continue current policy undermines Germany's military credibility among allied partners and restrains Germany's ability to utilize fully military power as an instrument of policy. This article argues that while military force in recent years has become an integral part of German foreign policy to pursue national interests, political decision‐makers in Berlin and the broader German public will still have to come to terms with the reality of a new security environment in Afghanistan. For the German government the ‘small war’ in northern Afghanistan is a very politically exhausting undertaking. Both politically and militarily Germany seems ill‐prepared to sustain such an operation. Its political and strategic culture still promotes an aversion to involvement in war‐fighting. In addition, the government and the Bundeswehr lack vital strategy‐making capabilities. Still, there are indicators that the changing operational reality in Afghanistan might lead to a significant evolution of the German approach to the use of force.     

The Problem of the Epoch? Labour and Housing, 1918-51

As one of the salient political issues in twentieth-centuryBritain, housing helped define the differences between the mainpolitical parties but also gave rise to tensions and conflictingapproaches within them. This article traces some of these tensionsand anomalies as they manifested themselves in Labour's housingpolicies between the first and second world wars. While withinthe Labour movement there was a common acceptance of the needfor expanded public housing provision, the ways in which thisneed was to be met were the subject of considerable dissension.In the early inter-war period, Labour's housing policies werestrongly influenced by the building unions' notions of industrialself-government, ranging from guild socialism and the BuildingGuild to the corporatist inflexions of the Wheatley HousingAct of 1924. In the short term, there was little evidence ofthe marriage of industrial innovation, modernist aesthetics,and socialist politics that characterized responses to the housingproblem in other parts of Europe. However, by the time of theSecond World War the ascendancy of a professional modernizingdiscourse within the Labour Party, along with the emergenceof a younger generation of left-wing architects and planners,led to the marginalization of the building unions within Labour'spolicy-making apparatus. Increasingly restive at the developmentof Labour’s housing policy, union leaders continued toarticulate notions of economic citizenship rooted in guild socialism.These were largely disregarded, and have remained so in theliteratures both on housing policy and the Labour Party itself. ^* Kevin.morgan{at}manchester.ac.uk. Interviews cited in this articlewere recorded as part of a research project funded by the ESRC,award no R000237924.     

German-Austrian social democracy and the nation-state idea: 1889–1918

In 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia-Hercegovina. Serbia protested and was itself threatened by the Danube Monarchy. In 1992, Serbs are fighting in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Is there any justification for the annexation policy of both nations in the two periods? How do the European nations react?     

Malaysia — democracy and the end of ethnic politics?

In this article I discuss Malaysia's turning point moments – the March 8^th General Election and the August 26th by-election which respectively saw the opposition's ascendancy and Anwar Ibrahim's political comeback. The opposition's ability to gain an ‘optimum multiethnic consensus’ had denied the incumbent of its unbroken two-thirds majority win. Its coalition arrangement was presented as a credible alternative to the 51 year-old winning but increasingly fractured coalition of the incumbent. In the final analysis a combination of a dwindling economy, the Abdullah-versus-Anwar leadership factor and the new media was what provided the major push for the swing. The article ends by posing various questions about the future of Malaysia's characteristic ethnic vote, the possibility of an emerging two-party system and of a probable Malaysia under Anwar Ibrahim.

     

The Americanisation of Europe after 1945? The Case of the German Universities

Academic discourse about America's influence on Europe constitutes an important contribution to the understanding of intercultural transfer-processes. In this context particularly the twentieth century has to be considered, because it was during this period when the decline of more than 400 years of the Europeanisation of the world ran parallel to the beginning of its Americanisation. The thesis presented here pursues an aspect of Amercanisation which has hardly been analysed: namely, the direct and indirect American influences on the German universities and academic system after the Second World War. In this case, the term Americanisation does not mean a one-sided transfer of the American higher education system, but rather a gradual merging of American influences with the German university tradition.     

The caste system of India on the skids: Totaled by democracy and a dynamic economy?

Anand Chakravarti. Contradiction and Change: Emerging Patterns of Authority in a Rajasthan Village. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. xii + 234 pp. Tables, diagrams, maps, appendixes, references, and index. $9.00.

D. B. Miller. From Hierarchy to Stratification: Changing Patterns of Social Inequality in a North Indian Village. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. xviii + 229 pp. Diagrams, illustrations, tables, maps, bibliography, and index. $9.75.     

Stuck in the past? British views on the Spanish army’s effectiveness and military culture, 1946–1983

After the Civil War the Spanish army functioned as a guardian of domestic order, but suffered from antiquated material and little financial means. These factors have been described as fundamental reasons for the army’s low potential wartime capability. This article draws on British and German sources to demonstrate how Spanish military culture prevented an augmented effectiveness and organisational change. Claiming that the army merely lacked funding and modern equipment, falls considerably short in grasping the complexities of military effectiveness and organisational cultures, and might prove fatal for current attempts to develop foreign armed forces in conflict or post-conflict zones.     

Debunking the cliché of Italian military cowardice: the Italian military internees and Guareschi

This article has two goals. The first is to challenge the cliché (outside Italy) of the cowardly and clownish Italian soldier by recalling the voluntary journey to concentration camps (Lagers) of 650,000 soldiers and officers, the so-called Italian Military Internees (IMI), who said ‘No!’ to the German ‘invitation’ to swear an oath of loyalty to the Reich upon the declaration of the armistice on 8 September 1943. Despite a reign of terror in the Lagers in which they were interned, most continued to resist until they died or were repatriated at the end of the war. The second goal is to examine the idiosyncratic evocation of officers’ experience as IMI by Giovannino Guareschi in his Diario clandestino (1949). He played a major role in the IMIs’ ‘unarmed resistance’ in the four Lagers in which he was interned and the work consists mostly of material written in situ for his companions in misfortune.     

The Making and Breaking of the Slovak Clerical Council, 1918–19

Abstract

This article examines the Slovak Clerical Council, one of a number of clerical councils which were founded in Central Europe in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. On the basis of primary sources and extensive familiarity with the relevant secondary literature, it challenges the existing historical consensus that this clerical council was merely one manifestation of Slovakia’s desire to break away from Hungarian rule and was, therefore, of limited scope and import. Instead, it argues that the clerical council’s nationalist agenda manifested itself not only in its eagerness to support and in?uence the establishment of the Czechoslovak state but also in its determination to reconstruct and reinvigorate the Catholic Church in Slovakia. It also explains why the ambitions of the council, and the threat it posed to the unity of the Church in Slovakia, were stymied. This account of the Slovak clerical council serves, therefore, as a case study of both the radicalizing impact of nationalism in the aftermath of the First World War and the limits of that radicalization. No account of any of the post-war clerical councils has, hitherto, been published in English, and thus this article will contribute to a clearer understanding not only of developments in Slovakia in 1918–19, but also of the broader challenges affecting the Catholic faith in Central Europe in the aftermath of the First World War.     

The acid test? Competing theses on the nationality – democracy nexus and the case of Switzerland†

ABSTRACT. This article deals with the connection between nationality and democracy and explores the role Switzerland plays in the scholarly debate on this question. It identifies three main theses – liberal‐nationalist, liberal‐multinationalist and liberal‐postnationalist – and shows that each of them uses the Swiss case to claim empirical support. It then analyses the connections between nationality and democracy in Switzerland and demonstrates that the country is neither multinational nor postnational, but is best characterised as a mononational state. These findings expose the fallacy of using Switzerland to claim support for either the multinational or the postnational thesis and call for a reconsideration of them. Additionally, they show that “civic nationalism” and “civic republicanism” can be conflated and that a predominantly civic nation is viable and sustainable and is not necessarily an ethnic nation in disguise. The Swiss case thus provides qualified empirical support for the liberal‐nationalist thesis.     

Divide and rule? The military infrastructure of eighth‐ and ninth‐century Mercia

Military might is widely recognized as having been a key element in the Mercian kings’ ability to forge and maintain a large kingdom in midland England in and after the seventh century. The paper argues that its basis was a network of fortified places – all major royal settlements that were given substantial defences in the eighth and early ninth centuries – and a systemic mechanism for manning them. The archaeological evidence of these defences at Hereford, Tamworth and Winchcombe is reviewed; the probable locations of other such early fortified places in midland England are considered; and the significance of this burghal system for our understanding of ‘the supremacy of the Mercian kings’ is weighed.