From ethnic outbidding to ethnic conflict: the institutional bases for Sri Lanka's separatist war1

Abstract. Beginning in the mid‐1950s Sri Lanka's politicians from the majority Sinhalese community resorted to ethnic outbidding as a means to attain power and in doing so systematically marginalised the country's minority Tamils. This article consequently argues that institutional decay, which was produced by the dialectic between majority rule and ethnic outbidding, was what led to Tamil mobilisation and an ethnic conflict that has killed nearly 70,000 people over the past twenty years. It also analyses the influence informal societal pressures exerted on formal state institutions and how this contributed to institutional decay. Evaluating the relations that ensued between social organisations and the Sri Lankan state shows how institutions can prescribe actions and fashion motives even as it will make clear how the island's varied institutions generated a deadly political dynamic that eventually unleashed the ongoing civil war.     

Europe’s mediation junction: technology and consumer society in the 20th century

This article reviews the literature on the relationship between consumption and technological development to understand the character of Europe’s 20th‐century trajectory, i.e. the hidden integration of Europe long before the formal process of unification started. Within the rich historiography, the paper focuses on the intersection between production and consumption, where a range of social actors and institutions sought to represent consumers and mediate consumption. It is at this juncture of mediation that social actors and institutions negotiated the mediated design and the appropriation of new products and technologies. The paper further historicizes the juncture of mediation by introducing the European politics of the state, marketplace, and civil society within the context of economic crises, world wars, revolutionary changes, post‐war reconstruction, and cold war. By looking at the mediation junction, a conceptual frame is offered to understand the connection, the disconnection, or the reconfiguration of technologies and consumer identities in 20th‐century Europe. In a final section, the article suggests new avenues for research to examine the hidden integration of Europe.     

Where is the state? How is the state? Accessing water and the state in Mumbai and Johannesburg

This article examines the water distribution systems in Johannesburg and Mumbai to argue that the political and institutional contexts of service delivery shape people’s access to the state and its resources, and also mediation between citizens and government institutions by councillors. Through ethnographies of water supply and distribution systems in Mumbai and Johannesburg, I explain how the organizational structure of the water utility, institutional arrangements of service delivery, regulatory systems, councillors’ proximity to decision makers and their relationship with municipal officials, civil servants and party members variously influence councillors’ mediation capacities and their ability to fulfil the claims of their constituencies for piped water supply and connections.     

Some Aspects of State–NGO Relationships in India in the Post-Independence Era

This article discusses some aspects of state–NGO relationships in India at the central and local levels from 1947 onwards. It draws its analytical framework from studies which incorporate organizational complexities and characteristics, political, social, and economic realities, associational cultures of individual countries, and human agency in analysing state–NGO relationships. It examines the applicability to India of some propositions on state–NGO relationships which are found in the literature. The author argues that there are observable differences in state–NGO relationships in various localities; these are illustrated through a set of case studies of local state–NGO interactions in the context of housing and land policies for the urban poor. Despite these differences, however, the author argues that the relationship at the local level can be generally characterized by the hostility of politicians, party workers, local élites, lower level bureaucrats, and lower level employees of the state toward NGO activity.     

In the Eye of the Storm: Sri Lanka's Front‐Line Civil Servants in Transition

This article narrates how bureaucrats in eastern Sri Lanka operated during and after the war. They managed to keep minimal state services running whilst being locked between the government and the insurgent Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). When the government defeated the LTTE in 2009, civil servants were freed from rebel coercion, but they also lost their counterweight against unappreciated policies from the capital and interference by local politicians. The article links the thinking on armed conflicts with the literature that conceptualizes ‘the state’ not as a coherent entity, but as a subject of continuous negotiation. The state's insigne provides a sense of legitimacy and supremacy, but governments have no monopoly on using it. Other powerful actors capture state institutions, resources and discourse for contradictory purposes. This perspective helps us reconcile the appearance of bureaucratic order with the peculiar and hybrid forms of rule that emerged in the war between rebels and government, and it sheds light on some of the surprising changes and continuities that occurred when that war ended. Public administration is neither just a victim of war, nor plainly a victor of the post‐war situation.     

‘England Failed to do her Duty towards Them’: The India Office and Pauper Indians in the Metropole, 1857–1914

This article examines how the India Office handled cases of destitute Indians, such as sailors and servants, who were stranded in Britain. The empire provided opportunities for work and travel, yet there were no securities for those who were taken advantage of by the system. This article highlights how the India Office was the institution expected to help distressed Indians and yet the secretary of state for India consistently refused to accept official responsibility for them. Nor did the British government try to prevent the problem from occurring in the first place. Instead, the official position taken by the secretary of state for India was to let social institutions intervene, arguing that, as British subjects, Indians could receive relief through the Poor Laws. Workhouses, however, were ill suited to Indians striving to return to their homes. This article addresses these issues through examining three key periods: the early to mid-nineteenth century; a shift in the 1880s when the India Office acknowledged a better policy was needed for the treatment of destitute Indians; and, the turn of the century when a Committee on Distressed Colonial and Indian Subjects was established in 1909. Through a focused study of India Office discourses, this article addresses the ambiguity of imperial policy and assesses how it contributed to competing understandings of British responsibility over imperial subjects.     

‘It was Satan that Took the People’: The Making of Public Authority in Burkina Faso

This article explores the making of public authority through the analysis of one specific master‐hunter in Western Burkina Faso and of the cultural and political contexts in which he has emerged as a political actor. Instead of looking at institutions and socio‐political structures per se, the article focuses on a powerful but controversial political actor, in order to unpick the intricate networks that he has creatively appropriated in the making of public authority. The master‐hunter, whom we will call Kakre, has been breaking state law in order to assert his own authority, but he has also drawn upon state institutions to be recognized as a legitimate political actor. External actors, such as civil servants, politicians and private business entrepreneurs, have consulted him and asserted his public authority. As a political actor Kakre is generally held to be unpredictable, which is one of the reasons for the importance of scrutinizing his public authority. It could even be argued that ‘unpredictability’ is one of the characteristics that make authority and power compelling. In conclusion, it is suggested that public authority is derived from a combination of different sources of legitimacy and that, therefore, public authority is shaped by the very ‘unpredictability’ of specific political actors.     

Politicians,Parties, and the Persistence of Weak States: Lessons from the Philippines

Under what conditions will politicians strengthen state capabilities through bureaucratic reform? This article presents a principal–agent model of state capacity that shows that unless competition to influence policy is largely confined to a single dimension, politicians have no incentive or ‘political will’ to adopt bureaucratic reform. The validity of this model is tested using the experience of the Philippines in the period 1946–72. It is found that politically relevant groups in the Philippines were competing to influence policy over issues of social welfare, economic nationalism and control over public spending, and that groups' demands over these issues failed to align along a single dominant dimension. Consistent with expectations derived from the principal–agent model, there were numerous calls for and attempts to improve bureaucratic performance, but the calls went unheeded and the attempts failed miserably. The study highlights a lesson of potential use to countries currently undergoing democratization. It argues that state capacity is not a function of insulating the state from societal forces, but rather of clarifying lines of authority and accountability in the hierarchy of principal–agent relationships between society, politicians and bureaucrats.     

The road from serfdom: economic storytelling and narratives of India in the rise of neoliberalism

Abstract

Studies of neoliberalism’s rise in the second half of the twentieth century have focused on influential US and European thinkers and global economic institutions. They rarely mention India. This article argues that, in the 1950s and early 1960s, Nehru’s India served as both a central laboratory and a discursive field for international economists debating the proper role of the state in economic development. US economists like John Kenneth Galbraith held up India planning as a proxy for the ‘American way’ of capitalism in Asia; neoliberal economists like Milton Friedman and B.R. Shenoy excoriated Nehru’s ‘road to socialism.’ As India’s economy stumbled in the late 1960s, neoliberal economists used Indian foundations to build an empirical and rhetorical case against scientific planning. Their cautionary tales about India’s ‘Permit-License-Raj’ helped to construct and sustain the project of delegitimizing state action and celebrating markets.     

Cultivating digital mediation: The implementation of publicly funded digital museum initiatives in Denmark

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to review and re?ect on the factors defining the expected benefits that have influenced the implementation of digital mediation initiatives in publicly funded museums over the course of the last 20 years. The expectations directed towards digital museum mediation are established by taking a closer look at Danish cultural policy implementation and socio-technological development. Examples from a review of cultural policy documents, funding applications and reports, supplemented by articles from a museum practice journal illustrate trends and developments in digital museum mediation. This article identifies a development of digital museum mediation in three phases, from providing access to digitized cultural heritage to more user-oriented communication strategies such as personalization and participation. The analysis shows that, in a cultural political context, the adoption of digital mediation in institutions is part of a higher strategy where technological development acts as a catalyst for innovation in the cultural sector.     

Thirty years of the Australia–Japan partnership in Asian regionalism: evolution and future directions

This article reviews the development of the Australia–Japan partnership in building regional institutions such as the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council and the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation over the last three decades since the NARA Treaty was signed in 1976. In a unique partnership, academics, business people, politicians and officials in both countries were central to establishing these regional economic institutions. This article, however, argues that while both countries had shared understandings on regional issues during the first two decades after the treaty, the last decade has seen divergent regional understandings, especially over the rise of China. Japan sees the growing influence of China as a political obstacle due to growing bilateral tensions arising from historical and territorial issues, while Australia finds it a great economic opportunity to promote its trade with and attract investments from China. This differing understanding on China between both countries may act as a major hurdle to the effective and functional partnership in East Asian regionalism.     

China's and India's perspectives on military intervention: why Africa but not Syria?

This article addresses the puzzle for students of international relations as to why China and India, two major re-emerging powers in Asia, do not always baulk at military intervention invoked by Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, while they rhetorically harbour strong reservations about it. The recent cases of Côte d'Ivoire (2011), Libya (2011), Syria (since 2011) and Mali (since 2012) show that both China and India acquiesced in external military intervention in these African countries plunged into brutal civil wars, with only intervention in Syria being rebuffed. By studying how they voted in the United Nations Security Council in 2011–12 and their discourses on intervention, including humanitarian intervention, this article examines why their decisions about intervention in Africa diverged from their decisions regarding intervention in Syria. The authors put forward the thesis that their behaviour can be explained by an interplay between norms and interests, in which they express a common anti-US liberal imperialist stance, shaped by a ‘collective historical trauma' and ‘post-imperial ideology', and demonstrate concerns for state failure and preferences for regional initiatives and political mediation to resolve civil wars.     

Municipal Councillors and the Everyday State: New Representations of Political Accountability in Ahmedabad,India

Scholarly literature on municipal councillors in urban India has variously labelled them as ‘lords’, ‘captains’ and ‘shrewd operators’ who have the power to mobilize resources and act as political intermediaries between the state and ordinary citizens. Conversely, voters are seen as collectively trading their votes to secure access to the state's resources. In this article, empirical fieldwork in the city of Ahmedabad, India, suggests that while traditional modes of patron–client relationships continue to exist at the municipal urban governance level, there has been a shift in the roles as perceived by municipal councillors themselves. The ‘state at the roadside’ model of urban governance is being expanded to include new modes and sites of mediation with citizens. Drawing from the literature on political representative claims and social representation theory, this article argues that the changes in the practices of municipal councillors are driven partly by political aspirations that are distinct from their identity as a party karyakarta (worker) and partly as a response to a better-informed citizenry, referred to as jagrukt janta (public awareness). These shifts create the conditions for new modes of civic engagement and political accountability within existing patronage-based networks.     

De facto,displaced, tacit: The sovereign articulations of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile

Based on ethnographic research on exiled Tibetan political institutions and practices in India, this paper investigates sovereignty in exile. The Tibetan Government-in-Exile (TGiE) remains internationally unrecognised and lacks de jure sovereignty over territory in both Tibet and in exile. However, this exiled administration claims legitimacy as the official representative of the Tibetan population, performs a number of state-like functions in relation to its diasporic ‘citizenry’ and attempts to make its voice heard within the international community. Rejecting arguments that such entities should be viewed merely as discrepant forms of political practice, this paper asserts that the state, sovereignty, and territory can be conceptually disentangled, opening up the theoretical possibility of entities other than territorial states claiming sovereignty. In teasing apart and problematising constituent elements of sovereignty, this paper focuses on three aspects of the TGiE's articulations of sovereignty: its claims to and production of legitimacy, authority and de facto sovereignty; its displaced sovereignty and strategies of territorial governance over non-contiguous spaces in exile; and the mediation of its ambiguous relationship with the host state India through practices of tacit sovereignty.     

Permanent Populism: The Howard Government 1996–2007

This article argues that populism was a permanent feature of John Howard's government and that populism and the associated tactic of wedging were adopted to secure the government's position and to eliminate populist rivals such as One Nation. Margaret Canovan describes the use of populist techniques by mainstream politicians as politicians' populism. She also suggests that democracy has both redemptive and pragmatic faces and that when too great a gap opens between democracy's two faces, populism is likely to emerge. The experience of four terms of the Howard government indicates that when politicians knowingly use populism they can successfully eliminate populist alternatives such as One Nation. The costs for democracy, however, are high, and in the case of the Howard government included neglect of minority rights, the growth of distrust in the institutions of representative democracy, increased community cynicism, the reluctance of the Opposition to speak out on a number of human rights issues for fear of losing support, and opportunistic policy making.     

Australian foreign policy and news media: national identity and the sale of uranium to India and China

This article explores the utility of a constructivist-media communications approach to understanding the production of national identity in Australia through a case study of the Australian Labor Party's 2011 decision to allow uranium sales to India. The decision came at a time when Australian foreign policy, political debate and news media discourse were increasingly concerned with India and China, as ‘rising’ superpowers whose prominence offered opportunities for economic prosperity even as it undermined settled regional power balances. This article finds that, rather than a matter of rational strategy, the decision was made in a context of considerable anxiety about the ‘Asian century’ as the Australian public, politicians and policymakers struggled to comprehend geopolitical change. It further argues that the constructivist project in international relations can benefit from engaging with insights from media and communications methodologies and by taking a less hierarchical approach to ‘elite’ and ‘non-elite’ discursive agency.     

Business,empire and the United Australia party

This article presents an analysis of the political economy of the United Australia Party (UAP) mainly while in government There are discussions of decisions and policies relating to tariffs, the exchange rate and trade relations with the United Kingdom. Through four case studies of policy‐making it deals with two interrelated aspects of this political economy. The first aspect focuses on conflicts between key business groupings and how UAP government policies were shaped in part by a need to negotiate compromises between these business groupings in the context of wider economic problems. The second aspect deals with relations between the UAP government and British manufacturers and banks. It shows that Australian politicians and institutions possessed considerable independence and bargaining power.     

How do Local Institutions Mediate Market and Population Pressures on Resources? Forest Panchayats in Kumaon,India

This article addresses one of the most controversial issues in resource management: how do population and market pressures affect resource use? After examining some shortcomings in several major approaches to the issue, the authors use structural equation analysis to decipher the relative and reciprocal influence of population pressures, markets, and institutional arrangements on forest use in the Kumaon Himalaya in India. By deploying an approach which investigates comparatively the effects of these factors, the article attempts to find a way out of the stultifying positions that participants in the debate on overpopulation and environmental change are forced to adopt. The results presented in the second half of the article are especially interesting, showing that local institutions created by the state play a critical role in mediating the influence of structural and socio-economic variables. The findings thus possess significant implications for all who are interested in co-management of renewable resources by the state and the community.     

Stratified familialism: the care regime in India through the lens of childcare

This article explores the political and social economy of care in India through a focus on childcare practices, from the viewpoint of the care giver — a perspective frequently ignored or touched on only generally in earlier discussions on development or social policy. It is argued that the care regime is an ad hoc summation of informal, stratified practices. It is shaped by the institutional context, in particular the economic and social inequalities of work and livelihoods, as well as trends and absences in state economic and social policy. Central to the dynamics of care practices in India is the ideology of gendered familialism in public discourse and policy, which reiterates care as a familial and female responsibility and works to devalue and diminish the dimensions of care. By delineating the range of institutions through which everyday childcare practices are organized, this contribution draws out the differentiations and actualities of stratified familialism and care. At one end of the spectrum are those who have the possibility to retain familial carers at home and supplement them with paid and other institutional carers; at the other are those who are neither able to retain family members at home nor fill the care gap through formal institutions.