Transitional Justice and Political Economies of Survival in Post‐conflict Northern Uganda

This article explores the interplay between transitional justice and ‘everyday’ political economies of survival in post‐conflict Acholiland, northern Uganda. It advances two main arguments. First, that transitional justice — as part and parcel of conventional liberal peacebuilding packages — promotes a repertoire of normatively driven policies that have little bearing on lived realities of social accountability in post‐conflict settings. Second, that in transcending the epistemological and ontological boundaries of transitional justice and using concepts developed in the critical peacebuilding literature — the ‘everyday’ and ‘hybridity’ — a nuanced understanding of this dissonance emerges. Based on extensive fieldwork in Acholiland in the period 2012–14, using a range of qualitative research methods, the author examines the means through which people negotiate social and moral order in the context of post‐conflict life and analyses the tensions between these forms of ‘everyday’ activity and current transitional justice policy and programming in the region.     

Gender and Welfare Reform in Post‐ Revolutionary Mexico

This article discusses the impact a gender and woman's history conference had on the development of my own research and writing. ‘Las Olvidadas’ was a conference held at Yale in the Spring of 2001, and was the first in a series of Mexican women's and gender history conferences organised. My own research, on the gendered nature of the welfare state in Mexico, explores how class and race intersected with gender to produce a welfare system that, while particular to Mexico, also nevertheless had much in common with other Latin American countries. These conferences shaped both my views of gender, but also the importance of the transnational to historical research.     

Aid and the Geopolitics of the Post‐Colonial: Critical Reflections on New Labour’s Overseas Development Strategy

In the post Cold War era, issues of poverty, inequality and social exclusion have become central to many of the key discussions of international relations and development aid. In this context, this article sets out to analyse the nature and specificity of the development strategy of the New Labour government in Britain, as it has evolved since 1997. In the setting of the literatures on post‐colonialism, aid and development, the authors examine the specific concepts and approaches that help to frame such a strategy, giving particular attention to the commonalities and divergences between the British Government’s 1997 and 2000 White Papers. The perspective used connects ideas and issues from domains of knowledge which tend to remain independent of each other, namely aid and development studies and post‐colonial theory. Situated on the terrain of aid and development, the guiding objective of the article is to raise certain questions concerning power, knowledge and geopolitics, so that a wider conceptual and policy‐oriented debate might be engendered.     

Pious Way to Politics: The Rise of Political Salafism in Post‐Mubarak Egypt

The Arab Spring has reshaped the Islamist landscape in the Middle East drastically. After decades of repression and exclusion, Islamist parties have taken power in Egypt, Tunis, and Morocco. However, the startling rise of Salafism (Salafiyya) remains the most visible feature of the new Islamist scene in the region. After decades of eschewing politics for theological and political reasons, Salafi movements and groups have rushed into electoral politics enthusiastically. They became keen to form political parties, contest elections, and vie for power. In Egypt, the Salafi parties fared well in the post‐revolution parliamentary elections and are a key player in drafting Egypt's new constitution. This article explores the rise of Salafism after Mubarak and examines its effects on the democratic transition in Egypt. It investigates the ideological and theological stance of Salafi movements and parties on politics and democracy in particular. The argument put forward is that the extraordinary political openness in Egypt after the revolution has pushed Salafis into everyday politics. Subsequently, Salafis have become more inclined to adopt a pragmatic and practical discourse. Based on field research, this article provides a thematic analysis of Egyptian Salafism and assesses its political future.     

The Heartbreak of the Place: Space,Religion and Politics in Post‐9/11 Mosque Controversies

In recent years, there have been a series of public controversies related to construction of Islamic worship spaces in the U.S. One of these controversies, surrounding a proposal for an Islamic community center in New York City known as Park51, dominated media coverage for several weeks in the summer of 2010 and is one of several high‐profile mosque‐building debates in the U.S. Another contentious debate occurred in the community of Temecula, Calif. These controversies represent the still‐uncertain place Islam holds in the American public sphere. Using framing theory, this article considers the ways in which Islam is portrayed in news media content by political actors and the potential consequences of such framing.     

Post‐communism and the Russian public

This book, based on a survey by the Sociology Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences completed in April 2011, provides, in the opinion of this reviewer, one of the most comprehensive accounts so far published of Russian opinion during the twenty years since the fall of communism. Based on a carefully weighted sample of respondents, it makes full allowance for the great variations of opinions according to age, income group and place of residence. It also allows for changes in opinion by drawing on surveys of earlier years. The finished product provides a wealth of information on subjects ranging from leisure to moral attitudes. The book sees little conclusive evidence of xenophobic attitudes towards the outside world, and suggests that ethnic hatred within Russia is a reflection of stress rather than racism. One salient finding is that very few Russians support the idea of the ‘minimum state’ or unregulated free market. Most Russians believe in some kind of a mixed economy in which the state nevertheless plays a key role. The idea of democracy, according to this book, is regarded with ‘benevolent scepticism’; that is, support in principle coupled with considerable doubts whether it would work in present‐day Russia. Given the impossibility of voting the present government out of office, Russians are increasingly resorting to other means of protest, including street demonstrations. The level of discontent is illustrated by the fact that only 10 per cent in the survey said they were better off as a result of the post‐communist reforms, while 25 per cent said they were worse off. Nevertheless, the majority of Russians have no wish for yet another upheaval and this may explain the continued public acceptance of President Putin's rule.     

Rethinking the Emerging Post‐Washington Consensus

The objective of this article is to provide a critical assessment of the emerging Post‐Washington Consensus (PWC), as the new influential vision in the development debate. The authors begin by tracing the main record of the Washington Consensus, the set of neoliberal economic policies propagated largely by key Bretton Woods institutions like the World Bank and the IMF, that penetrated into the economic policy agendas of many developing countries from the late 1970s onwards. They then outline the main tenets of the PWC, emerging from the shortcomings of that record and the reaction it created in the political realm. The authors accept that the PWC, in so far as it influences the actual practice of key Bretton Woods institutions, provides an improvement over the Washington Consensus. Yet, at the same time, they draw attention to the failure of the PWC, as reflected in current policy practice, to provide a sufficiently broad framework for dealing with key and pressing development issues such as income distribution, poverty and self‐sustained growth.     

Consultancy,Neo‐Liberal Conservatism and the Politics of Anti‐Politics

What a lot of nonsense about the ANU and Australian universities in general (sites of neoliberal thought indeed?!) I find it odd that people who have willingly spent their professional lives and made careers in Australian universities suddenly want to bite the hand that is (still) feeding them! (Finlayson, J. 14 December 2010, AASNet email post)     

Post‐communist Russia: a historic opportunity missed

This article analyses the nature of the current Russian system and its future trajectory. First, the continuity between the Yeltsin and Putin presidencies is made clear. The nature of the Russian system has, to a great extent, been influenced by Yeltsin, who strengthened demands not for independent institutions but for a new and more powerful authoritarian leadership. Putin has consolidated the system, based on personalized power. But despite signs of economic growth and outward stability there is evidence that the Russian system is unsustainable in the long‐term. The current system is based on a modification of the petro‐economy that reproduces the merger between power and business with the rentier class. Thus far, however, the model has not been able to solve social conflicts or stop the degradation of ‘human capital’. Nor is it likely to do so in the future.     

Israel and Post‐Mubarak Egypt: Perils of Historical Analogy

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has perceived the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 as a replica of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. Drawing on the apparent similarities between the two revolutions—both made against dictators who reigned over secular, Western‐oriented regimes advocating coexistence with Israel, and both having Islamists as the best‐organized opposition force—Netanyahu appears to have concluded that the outcome for Israel would be the same: the advent of an aggressive Islamist regime in Cairo that would initiate a larger conflict. Based on this historical analogy, the Netanyahu government has adopted policies that are meant to help Israel defend against the potential deterioration in relations with Egypt. However, looking at Iran 1979 to draw on lessons about Egypt 2011 is misleading and does not take into account the significant differences that would rather lead Egypt to preserve the peace. This article analyzes Netanyahu's employment of this historical analogy and examines other appropriate lessons that Israel could draw from Iran's Islamic revolution, and proposes that Israel should instead engage the Egyptian revolution and reach a peace deal with the Palestinians so that it avoids misperception and maintains the Egyptian–Israeli peace.     

Irruptions of the Dreamings in Post‐Colonial Australia

This essay is written round four ‘funny stories’ from Northern Australia. Metamorphosis instigated by a Dreaming is central to all four stories and this is why the stories are counted as ‘funny,’ and received with glee. The analysis illuminates a topic that has been attracting attention in recent contributions to Aboriginal ethnography: how Dreamings irrupt into contemporary histories and act in ways that have political significance, contesting whitefella paradigms and re‐asserting the world‐view of the original Australians.     

Democracy and Islamist Violence: Lessons from Post‐Mubarak Egypt

This article explores the contentious relation between the absence of democracy in the Middle East and the use of armed violence by Islamist groups in light of the Arab Spring. Its main objective is to decipher the evolving positions of former and current groups who used or promoted violence and to relate them to broader academic debates on violence and democracy on the one hand, and deradicalization on the other. This research demonstrates that the large majority of former Islamist militants in Egypt reject any sort of violence in post‐Mubarak Egypt, even if they have not all renounced their religious legitimization of violence in the past. Second, it reveals that even if they maintain a religious opposition to democracy in Egypt, the opening of political opportunities and their progressive joining of the political process has favorably led most of them to accept democratic practices in reality. Third, it adds that the voice of those currently promoting violence in Egypt has been marginalized and that their main alternative has been the promotion of armed violence in Syria; and last, it stresses two potential security threats unrelated to the opening of political opportunities in post‐Mubarak Egypt and to the general debate on democracy and violence. First, local grievances in Sinai have led to violence in the past and are still to be dealt with. Second, the current political deadlock can potentially lead to localized and specific armed activities that could start a cycle of violence. This research is based on field research in Egypt and uses repeated interviews of leaders and members of the two main former militant groups, al‐Jama?ah al‐Islamiyya (the Islamic Group) and Jama? al‐Jihad (the Jihad Group) as well as interviews with militants of the salafi jihadi trend and their supporters in Cairo.     

"On the Way": Reflections on Politics and Passion

Abstract

In Passion and Politics Michael Walzer explores two problems of liberal democratic theory: its refusal to acknowledge the place of passion in politics, and its difficulty in making place for involuntary associations (especially illiberal ones) that shape the character of citizens. Against a background of appreciation for his concerns and arguments, I ask whether his account of involuntary associations is sufficiently complicated or sufficiently rich metaphysically.     

Gendered Visibilities and the Dream of Transparency: The Chinese‐Indonesian Rape Debate in Post‐Suharto Indonesia

How does the seen produce the unseen? And what happens when the unseen makes a bid to emerge from its occlusion? This paper examines the gendered visuality of the Reformasi crisis in Indonesia in 1998, juxtaposing the visibility of male‐on‐male violence at student demonstrations with the invisibility of violence against (feminised) Chinese‐Indonesians and, in particular, raped Chinese‐Indonesian women. The discussion focuses on activists’ attempts to establish ‘proof’ that these rapes did occur, government attempts to discredit their evidence, and the circulation of false photographs of the rapes on the internet. (An unremarked irony of this falsification of evidence was that it was made possible by the pre‐existence of an archive of sexually violent images on pornographic sites depicting ‘Asian schoolgirls’.) The paper argues that this particular debate over credibility, witnessing and proof needs to be seen within a wider popular Indonesian discourse on the status of evidence, the privileged place of the photograph within it, and the archive of images of (male) students and heroic male‐on‐male violence that helped shape what people could ‘see’ as meaningful political action and recognisable state violence. It also comments on the evidentiary status of witnessing and embodied experience in the age of mechanical and digital reproduction.     

Maori Tribalism and Post‐settler Nationhood in New Zealand

In this article I begin by sketching the main events in a recent dispute over the allocation of fishing quota among Maori. I seek to shed some light on the ideological grounding of this dispute in the simultaneous individualisation and tribalisation of Maori society since the late 19th century. Because the New Zealand nation is now imagined as an essentially binary one (bicultural, or treaty‐based) there is no secure place for urban indigeneity which constitutes a third voice. The inability of urban Maori Authorities to gain a share of the fishing quota is a reflection of this binarism.