A Forgotten Instrument of Global Capitalism?International Concessions, 1870–1930

From the mid-1800s through the 1930s, concessions were an institutional foundation of modern capitalism about which we have little systematic, comparative knowledge. Concessions - contracts given by governments in less-developed states to foreign investors - supplied elements that were lacking in the host country, including a congenial legal order and an attractive investment environment. Cash-poor governments eager to modernise often added special privileges and monopoly rights to concessions in order to attract capital. In Africa and Asia, all the colonial powers granted concessions to promote the building of infrastructure and development of commercial agriculture without burdening the Treasury. After providing a global survey of concessions with special attention to Russia, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and French West Africa, the author concludes that concessions, by their nature, entailed contradictions that made them a ‘third best’ option for political elites eager to incorporate peripheral regions into the world economy.     

The Christian Socialist Movement in Scotland C. 1850–1930

Abstract

This essay reads Politics and Passion as a philosophical complement to theological projects that see no innate conflict between Christianity and liberalism and considers the significance of Waltzer's "more egalitarian liberalism" from the perspective of one who believes there to be compelling theological, ethical and political grounds for "making common cause" with liberalism. Liberal human rights discourse provides the lens through which this case is argued. This essay endorses the revisions proposed in Politics and Passion and suggests that developments in human rights discourse since the early twentieth century allows one to regard this discourse as a still unfinished version of Waltzer's more egalitarian liberalism. I argue that it is precisely because of the pressures identified by Waltzer that a thicker, more contextually varied conceptualization of rights has been generated. Moreover, when human rights language is understood as a discourse of egalitarian rather than emancipatory liberalism, then the claims that it is irredeemably secular, individualistic and voluntaristic, and that its adoption will result in the marginalization of Christian narrative traditions, are no longer tenable.     

Education and the Origins of Quebec’s International Engagement

ABSTRACT

This article examines some of the ways that education has served as a catalyst for the engagement of Quebec and Quebeckers with the broader world, from the educational activities of French Canadian missionaries beginning in the late-nineteenth century to the growing involvement of secular nongovernmental organizations and of the government of Quebec itself in international educational assistance in the mid- to late-twentieth century. For the government of Quebec in particular, jurisdiction over education was integral to the development of Quebec’s own international identity and the Gérin-Lajoie Doctrine that both articulated and bolstered its claim to international competence. The controversy surrounding Quebec’s international educational endeavors has declined since the 1970s, and with it the relative amount of attention and funding devoted to it by the provincial government, yet education broadly defined remains a bridge linking Quebec and Quebeckers to the wider world and catalyzing their engagement with it.     

The Mezquita of C��rdoba is Made of More than Bricks: Towards a Broader Definition of the ��Heritage�� Protected at UNESCO World Heritage Sites

On March 31, 2010, a group of Muslim tourists visited the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, Spain, and attempted to pray. They were confronted by guards who called the police; two of the tourists were arrested and jailed, charged with crimes against religious sentiment. The incident is but one of many acts of religious intolerance which represent a threat to this UNESCO World Heritage Site. Though the World Heritage Convention seems to be concerned only with the protection of the physical heritage represented by archaeological sites, I argue that in order to adequately preserve and promote the sites on the World Heritage List, the intangible heritage values of those locations must also be protected.     

Sustainable architectural conservation according to traditions of Islamic waqf: the World Heritage–listed Stone Town of Zanzibar

Sustainability in the conservation of architectural heritage is now more extensively considered than it was decades ago. The introduction of the concept of sustainability to the field marked hopes to overcome problems threatening heritage sites. There are general concepts guiding sustainable conservation. However, heritage specifics play important roles in achieving sustainability, and may direct the formulation of sustainable concepts to be applied. This paper is an attempt to add to the discourse of heritage sustainability by discussing buildings managed through a tradition of Islamic waqf in the World Heritage Stone Town of Zanzibar. It examines sustainability in terms of its financial, social, managerial, and environmental aspects. The relatively good survival rate of waqf buildings in the old town over several centuries suggests sustainable and transmissible ‘genes’ within the tradition. Waqf was found to elaborate ways to strike a balance between heritage consumption and use, avoiding gentrification, and enabling collective urban conservation. It further suggests that sustainable conservation cannot avoid monetary sacrifices, and if it is to be sustainable in the long term it should be inherent in the heritage itself.     

Studying the International,Serving the Nation: The Origins of International Relations (IR) Scholarship in Germany, 1912–33

This paper examines the dynamics of internationalist and nationalist political thought in the formation of International Relations (IR) scholarship in Germany during the early twentieth century. It argues that while liberal internationalism played a significant role in shaping the discipline, IR scholars were often devout nationalists and worked for their government rather than for international peace. German institutions for the study of IR, like their Anglo-American counterparts, were founded in the aftermath of the First World War. Celebrated during the 1920s as ‘bulwarks of democracy’, they were nationalised by the Nazi government, lost their academic profile and since then have been largely forgotten. This paper explains the origins of IR research at the Institut für Auswärtige Politik, based in Hamburg and directed by Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy, as well as at the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik, led by Ernst Jäckh in Berlin. Formally inaugurated in 1923 and 1920 respectively, both institutions drew on pre-war intellectual traditions as well as wartime networks. In light of recent re-appraisals of inter-war IR scholarship in other countries, the German case offers new and important insights into the complex intellectual traditions of what has traditionally been oversimplified as a first ‘great debate’ between ‘idealists’ and ‘realists’.     

Picturing Austria–Hungary. The British Perception of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1865–1870

In the late 1960s a Joint Nordic Co-operative Assistance Project was established in Tanzania. Its objective was to promote co-operative development in Tanzania based on Nordic experiences in the field. The project's effort to export Nordic co-operative ideas and traditions to Tanzania soon encountered major problems as the Government of Tanzania (GoT) launched a villagization process in the beginning of the 1970s, which sought to move the entire peasant population into ujamaa villages. The resettlement effort was implemented with the use of force and coercion and implied a dismantling of the traditional co-operative structures in Tanzania. This article finds that the Nordic countries helped facilitate GoT's compulsory policy by adjusting and restructuring the project to GoT's villagization strategy, despite the fact that the primary objective of the project was no longer present. As the article will reveal, there was a clear concern in the Nordic aid administrations that the Nordic project could be linked with the politics of coercion ingrained in the ujamaa policy.