The politics of conflict: a constructivist critique of consociational and civil society theories*

ABSTRACT. This article presents a (critical realist) constructivist critique of both consociational and civil society/transformationist approaches and their crude understandings of politics and the prospects for political change. Consociationalism's primordialist or essentialist foundation leads it towards a world‐weary, pessimistic, conservative realism about how far ‘divided societies’ may be transformed. Advocates of the civil society approach, in contrast, take an instrumentalist view of identity and are optimistic that a radical transformation can be achieved by mobilising the people against ‘hard‐line’ political representatives. The constructivist approach can provide a framework in which a more complex and nuanced understanding of identities is possible. This better equips us for understanding the prospects of bringing about desirable political change. The first part of this article is a critique of Nagle and Clancy's consociationalism. The second part provides a brief outline of a constructivist critique of both the consociational and civil society understandings of politics and their contribution to understanding the politics of managing conflict.     

Agency,Periodisation and Change in the Gender and Women's History of Colonial India

The paper begins with a critique of the ‘imperialism‐nationalism’ paradigm and its concomitant privileging of the period 1885–1947, which has dominated the writing of modern Indian history. It is argued here that the fixation with the ‘birth‐of‐the‐nation’ theme has led to the neglect of women's agency; that it has resulted in many inconsistencies, dilemmas and unresolved issues regarding a range of topics within Indian gender‐relations; and that this periodisation inhibits the reclamation of terms such as ‘feminist’ and ‘feminism’. The second half of the essay proposes that women's agency can be recovered via a new chronology and a new template for understanding agency within which scholars will be enabled to retrieve the conscious voices of Indian women and record change in gender relations.     

Applied theatre and political change in Bhutan

This essay reflects on an applied theatre project which took place in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan in 2010. It investigates how far this project enabled Bhutanese young people to both critique their experiences of Bhutan's integration into the global market economy and experiment with their own alternatives to ‘modernisation’ as it is currently conceived. The essay has two intertwined aims: to investigate the utility of applied theatre for young people in Bhutan to help determine their future; and to assess how the Bhutanese case stories can reflect back on applied theatre as a means of furthering political change. The field of applied theatre is in need of such a provocation, as presently its radical edge has been dulled by its cooption into, and advocacy of, Western development discourse. During the performance process the young participants demonstrated a postcolonial subjectivity which could provide methods for challenging this state of affairs.     

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.     

Bringing the study of warfare into theories of nationalism

This article argues that warfare has been marginalised in theories of nationalism but that in conjunction with nationalism is vital for understanding the rise of nation‐states, the formation of nations and the nature of the international system. It offers a critique of statist approaches, suggests mechanisms through which warfare may sacralise nations and explores different patterns of nation‐state formation as they affect the interstate system. In particular, it emphasises tensions between state and nation‐formation as activated by the fortunes of war and the destabilising effects of waves of imperial dissolution, which are accompanied by patterns of re‐imperialization. It suggests that it is simplistic both to claim that war has led to a transition from empires to nation‐states and that contemporary practices of war‐making have led to a postnational era.     

“I found the truth in Foot Locker”: London 2011, Urban Culture,and the Post‐Political City

The article begins with an overview of what is implied in the notion of the “post‐political” before looking closely at post‐political interpretations of the 2011 London riots. It presents a critique of the restricted sense of political subjectivity in such accounts. It demonstrates how participation in the riots and their aftermath may be seen as indicative of an embryonic form of urban politics that works with and against the post‐political city. This discussion is illuminated by an analysis of the discursive space of London hip‐hop which reveals an ironic, complex and reflexive dialogue about identity, justice and politics that is far removed from the caricature offered by “strong” interpretations of the post‐political subject. This is then linked to readings of the post‐political city that place a welcome stress not only on the evacuation of the political dimension from the city, but also on the opportunities for the re‐emergence of the proto‐political.     

Marx and Modernity: Rethinking Labour,Capital, and Capitalism

This article argues that China’s modern historical development and, more generally, modern global developments can be illuminated by a renewed encounter with Marx’s critical analysis of capitalism. This renewed encounter entails a fundamental critique of traditional Marxism’s understanding of capitalism and of socialism. It seeks to explain the historically dynamic character of capitalist society as a system of ongoing constraints. This central feature of the contemporary world cannot be grasped adequately by intellectual paradigms, such as theories of identity or of politics, which have been dominant in recent decades. The approach outlined here analyzes capitalist modernity as structured by a historically unique social function of labour, and is based on a fundamental reevaluation of the meaning of labour in Marx’s analysis as the object, rather than the standpoint of his critique. The focus on the historical specificity of Marx’s analytic categories also calls into question any conception of a transhistorically valid social science.     

Religion and communism: Feuerbach,Marx and Bloch

Whilst Marx made scattered positive remarks about the details of communist society, he also made important negative indications. Religion features in this negativity: his critique of religion is withering, there is no mention of religious life in communism, and he is emphatic that religion will play no role in such a society. For Marx, one of the tangible freedoms of communism was freedom from religion. The critique of religion is fundamentally inscribed in the very genesis of Marx's thought, and Feuerbach is crucial to understanding Marx's strictures on religion. Yet Feuerbach also figures in Ernst Bloch's very positive approach to religion, which argues that communism involves the freedom to be religious, in the sense of opening up oneself and society to the gold-bearing seams of the religious experience. This essay explores how such different conceptions of the relationship between religion and communism both draw sustenance from Feuerbach.     

Gramsci and the African Città Futura: Urban Subaltern Politics From the Margins of Nouakchott,Mauritania

This article offers reflection on how Gramscian theories can be useful for critically analyzing the political significance of the actions and resistances of urban subaltern Africans. It interrogates the potential of subaltern political forms to profoundly transform society and to thus prepare for the African “future city”. It merges a theoretical analysis of Gramsci's concepts relating to the città futura—and its relation to concepts of city, subalternity, political initiative and cittadinanza—with a comparative critique of urban theory applied to Africa and especially relating to the politicization of the city in Mauritania. Our reflections are based on Mauritania and the case of Nouakchott, its capital, where we have carried out our research for over a decade. We will interrogate the re‐appropriations or resistances, as well as the autonomous construction of modes of living and of city‐making, made by marginal inhabitants, in order to consider their political potentialities.     

Alternative Food Economies and Transformative Politics in Times of Crisis: Insights from the Basque Country and Greece

Why and how do alternative economies emerge, how do they develop and what is their contribution, if any, to transformative politics? Alternative economies proliferate in the countries worse hit by economic crisis and austerity, such as Spain or Greece. Yet the existing literature is stuck in a counter‐productive division between celebration and critique. We move beyond this division applying philosopher Daniel Bensaïd's understanding of politics to two alternative food economies, one in the Basque Country and one in Greece. We illuminate the activist strategies and specific conjunctures within which the two alternatives emerged and explain how they develop in the face of political‐economic barriers. Alternative economies, we conclude, can be transformational when they are inserted in activist strategies directed to extend conflict, social struggles and challenge the capital–state nexus.     

Intergenerational Inequality? Labour,Capital, and Housing Through the Ages

This article examines the relevance of generational relations to emerging patterns of inequality in advanced capitalist societies, with a particular focus on inequalities related to housing wealth. At its heart is a critique of the increasingly prevalent argument that generational difference is a crucial axis of inequality today. It argues that while contemporary capitalist societies are certainly characterized by marked inequalities between generations and that the latter are manifested inter alia in housing ownership, understanding such inequalities principally in generational terms is problematic because they reflect deeper, more fundamental, structural inequalities and should therefore be conceptualized as such. The article suggests that the principal significance of generational relations to contemporary inequality dynamics actually concerns economic transfers rather than differences between generations. Within‐family transfers of wealth, especially housing‐related wealth, from older generations to younger ones tend to reproduce pronounced, structurally generated existing patterns of intra‐generational inequality.     

Missing the point: globalization, deterritorialization and the space of the world

This article provides a critique of a dominant strand of the literature on globalization – that which suggests it can be understood as deterritorialization. It argues that suggestions that we have moved away from territorial understandings of politics fail to conceptually elaborate the notion of territory itself. Drawing parallels between mathematics and politics in the seventeenth century, the paper claims that the notion of territory is dependent on a particular way of grasping space as calculable. This way of understanding space makes bounded territories possible, but also underlies new global configurations. In other words globalization is a reconfiguration of existing understandings rather than the radical break some suggest. The article concludes by making some comments on this reconfiguration, and suggesting that further historical and conceptual work on territory is necessary before it can be thought to be superseded.     

Tracing resident antagonisms in urban development: agonistic pluralism and participatory planning

This article draws on research with resident action groups and other alliances in Sydney. It investigates the ways in which citizens work beyond the formal planning system to approach and achieve their urban development goals. The post‐political treatment of community voices in planning relies on the centrality of consensus politics in current participatory planning regimes. By providing a democratic outlet that is far removed from the actual development outcome, powerful urban actors can silence through inclusion. Planning theorists have posited that one pathway beyond this post‐political moment in urban planning is provided by Chantal Mouffe's critique of Habermasian communicative theory and consensus politics, which she bases on her theory of agonistic pluralism. Following Mouffe, to achieve a productive agonistic politics, any rigid antagonisms between “enemies” need to be moderated to more mutable “adversarial” positions. However, we have little knowledge of the conditions that might precipitate such a change in praxis. To address this gap between theory and praxis, we use focus group data to show how local resident action groups and urban alliances work through three modalities of antagonism to achieve their urban development goals. We add empirical weight to the idea that citizens can shift from rigid and fundamental antagonisms to the potentially more productive adversarial politics of agonistic pluralism but therein expose some limitations with how Mouffe's ideas are being applied to urban planning.     

Indonesian Language Education in Australia: Politics,Policies and Responses

This paper takes an interdisciplinary approach to the history and politics of the development of Indonesian language studies within Australia. It examines the effect on Indonesian language education of government policies such as the National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools (NALSAS) strategy, and responses developed by Indonesian language educators at the tertiary level. It suggests that, in order to achieve a more complete understanding of such issues as changes in the popularity of Indonesian language studies at the tertiary level, or the development of language education per se, it is necessary to broaden the frame of reference to include not only national policies but also politics. The impact of ideological, social, political, national and international frameworks also needs to be considered. Stakeholders may be able to effect improvements if the academic sector and government bodies identify and consciously pursue common goals, notably through a critique of the status of language teachers and continuous, collaborative consultation between the stakeholders on planning and problem solving.     

Is “Threat” in the Eye of the Researcher? Theory and Measurement in the Study of State‐Level Immigration Policymaking

This study initiates a methodological critique of the state‐level immigration policy literature through the lens of the racial threat and group power perspectives. First, I highlight the conceptual problems related to the application of such theories to legislature‐level data analysis. Next, I demonstrate the methodological and analytical problems that raise concerns about ad hoc theorizing in this field. Using counts of hostile and welcoming immigration legislation (2005–2011), I demonstrate that outgroup size measures correlate positively with both dependent variables while measures of population growth rate yield null results unless used on their own. These results suggest that the use of legislature‐level models with demographic indicators does not allow us to gain a clear understanding of whether and how population dynamics influence immigration policymaking. Based on these findings, I recommend that when using demographic indicators as key explanatory variables, researchers provide evidence of result consistency across multiple model specifications and also test the models with both hostile and inclusive policy variables. Such protocols would help avoid ad hoc theorizing.     

Partition,consociation, border‐crossing: some lessons from the national conflict in Ireland/Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT. Outlining Ireland's long history of ethno‐national conflict, and the recent protracted ‘peace process’ in Northern Ireland, contextualises a critique of the problems underlying such conflicts, and the difficulties in transforming externally imposed conflict management into self‐sustaining conflict resolution. It is argued that the problems and difficulties are deeply rooted in a thoroughly modern complex of nationalism, ethnicity, sovereignty and representative democracy. These are knotted together in a common denominator of territoriality, and the nub of the problem is the ‘double paradox’ of democracy's undemocratic origins in the present. Territoriality, the use of bordered geographical space, is a powerful and ubiquitous mode of social organisation which simplifies social control. But it can grossly oversimplify and distort social realities, particularly at borders and especially where territory is contested, thereby reinforcing other distorting simplifications typically found in ethno‐national conflicts. In consequence, radical remedies are needed if the problems are to be overcome. Making ethno‐national peace paradoxically calls for more creative border‐crossing conflicts around other issues.     

Prophetic Criticism and the Rhetoric of Temporality: Paul Tillich’s Kairos Texts and Weimar Intellectual Politics

ABSTRACT

The paper discusses Paul Tillich’s changing conception of a “prophetic critique” of contemporary culture and society through the notion of a “kairos”, the moment of fullfilled time. It shows how Tillich refers both to a specific notion of prophecy (developed in Max Weber’s reflections on charisma) and to a concept of eschatological time (developed in Karl Barth’s dialectical theology). In different texts from the 1920ies and the 1950ies, Tillich uses the idea of “kairos” for a critique of the “idols” of bourgeois culture that is both radical and urgent. However, read in their historic sequence, these texts also reveal the difficulty of upholding the urgency of such a critique over time – as a result, Tillich’s notion of “kairos” becomes more and more reflexive and self critical as the possibility of prophetic critique is concerned.     

The nation as an artichoke? A critique of ethnosymbolist interpretations of nationalism*

Abstract. The aim of this article is to offer a critique of ethnosymbolism in the light of recent approaches to nations and nationalism. The article will engage with ethnosymbolist interpretations on three different levels. Since ethnosymbolists present their approach as an attempt to revise the modernist analysis from within, it will first address their critique of modernism. It will then assess the analytical contributions of ethnosymbolism, focusing in particular on four issues: the antiquity of nations and national feelings, the importance of the past for the present and the related issue of the role of elites in nation‐formation, the notorious issue of resonance and the plurality of ethnic pasts. Finally, it will question the normative implications of ethnosymbolism and conclude that ethnosymbolism is more an attempt to resuscitate nationalism than to explain it.     

Counterfactualism,utopia, and historical geography: Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt

Though counterfactual histories are treated with suspicion by some historians, they can be both useful and politically progressive. In fact it is possible to argue that counterfactual historical geographies might even be utopian. Though this seems counter-intuitive (how could alternative histories imagine a better future?), both histories and utopias encourage a kind of popular historicism, a sense that things have been (and could be) different. Whether this makes counterfactual fictions utopian depends on how you define utopia. Recent critical re-appraisals of the concept have suggested that we might think of it as a process, an ongoing critique of the present, not as an end in itself. Counterfactual histories can be utopian because they encourage a critique of teleology and determinism; their geographies can also be utopian because they remind us that spaces are multiple and open. A close reading of Kim Stanley Robinson's Years of Rice and Salt (2002), a novel that describes a world without Europe after a more virulent version of the fourteenth-century plague kills everyone west of Constantinople, demonstrates that counterfactual historical fictions present an unequalled opportunity to reflect upon the practice of history. The novel also suggests that counterfactual historical fictions also allow for a critical evaluation of the nature of space. The paper concludes by demonstrating the value of counterfactual fictions through their representations of history, and of spaces of movement, multiplicity, and agonistic encounter.