The ethnic majority: benign or malign?*

ABSTRACT. Since the consciousness of the ethnic majority frequently develops in the context of the formation of the nation‐state, its tendency to ethnocentrism is thereby inhibited by a commitment to the civic norms associated with the modern state. This gives a potentially benign character to its support for the national integration of ethnic minorities. It is then argued that ethnic majorities can also exhibit a more malign face which has its origin in disillusionment with democracy. The resultant feelings of marginalisation are resolved by the construction of a ressentiment nationalism which reassures the ethnic majority of its virtue and status as the ethnic core, by identifying demonised minorities against which it can mobilise. When this dark face of majoritarian ethnic nationalism is tapped by populist politicians, it sustains violence against ethnic minorities. The argument is illustrated through the example of Thai support for state violence against Muslim demonstrators in Southern Thailand.     

Islam and politics in Turkey: the 2007 presidential elections and beyond

The changing role of Islam in the public life of Turkey is about to come under renewed scrutiny, the key issue being the potential candidates for the May 2007 presidential election. Erdoǧan, the Prime Minister and head of the first Islamist majority government in the republic's history, is likely to stand. Arguments already abound as to the legitimacy of such a move, with the opposition declaring that they will boycott the election if Erdoǧan becomes a candidate. Equally, Erdoǧan's own supporters are, in public, at least occasionally uncertain, conscious that when the late Özal moved to become president, his party suffered. Secularists grimly wonder whether they will be able to survive such an overt transfer to an Islamist figure, one whom they fear would be a great contrast to the pro‐Republican present incumbent, President Sezer. Yet, how should we face such a transition? What implications does it have for Turkey's politics, both internally in terms of the social life of the country, and in external affairs?     

NATO and the anticipatory use of force

Only since the end of the Cold War, and particularly since September 2001, have questions of anticipatory action arisen in alliance deliberations concerning the use of force. In initiating their Balkan operations, it should be recalled, the allies did not face direct threats, but intervened toterminate conflicts and human rights abuses and to shape their security environment. It has been difficult for the alliance to get to grips with the new security challenges presented by terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction because of its history, its intrinsic character, and the nature of the new security challenges. Its history includes a strictly reactive posture during the Cold War and its interventions from a position of overwhelming superiority in the Balkan conflicts. The new security challenges place under stress the alliance's intrinsic character as a permanent coalition of sovereign independent states committed to collective defence because these challenges may endanger specific allies to differing degrees (in contrast with the overarching Soviet threat during the Cold War) and revealdiff erences in interests, capabilities and strategic cultures among the allies. The allies have not yet resolved questions concerning the legality and legitimacy of the antici patory use of force, nor have they fully explored the implications of concepts such as ‘constructive abstention’ and ‘NATO in support’ with regard to preemptive or preventive operations undertaken by a group of allies.     

Authoritarianism and the securitization of development in Africa

Debate on the ‘securitization’ of aid and international development since 9/11 has been anchored in two key claims: that the phenomenon has been driven and imposed by western governments and that this is wholly unwelcome and deleterious for those in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world. This article challenges both of these assumptions by demonstrating how a range of African regimes have not only benefited from this dispensation but have also actively encouraged and shaped it, even incorporating it into their own militarized state‐building projects. Drawing on the cases of Chad, Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda—four semi‐authoritarian polities which have been sustained by the securitization trend—we argue that these developments have not been an accidental by‐product of the global ‘war on terror’. Instead, we contend, they have been the result of a deliberate set of choices and policy decisions by these African governments as part of a broader ‘illiberal state‐building’ agenda. In delineating this argument we outline four major strategies employed by these regimes in this regard: ‘playing the proxy’; simultaneous ‘socialization’ of development policy and ‘privatization’ of security affairs; making donors complicit in de facto regional security arrangements; and constructing regime ‘enemies’ as broader, international threats.     

The Budapest Memorandum and Russia's intervention in Ukraine

Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States extended security assurances to Ukraine in December 1994 in an agreement that became known as the Budapest Memorandum. This agreement was part of a package of arrangements whereby Ukraine transferred the Soviet‐made nuclear weapons on its territory to Russia and acceded to the Treaty on the Non‐Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non‐nuclear weapon state (NNWS). Russia's violations of the Budapest Memorandum, notably its annexation of Crimea, could have far‐reaching implications for nuclear non‐proliferation and disarmament because of the questions that Russia's behaviour has raised about the reliability of major‐power security assurances for NNWS parties to the NPT. Doubts about the reliability of such assurances could create incentives to initiate, retain or accelerate national nuclear weapons programs. Moreover, because the Budapest Memorandum included restatements of UN Charter provisions and principles articulated in the Helsinki Final Act of the Conference on Security and Co‐operation in Europe, Russia's disregard for the Budapest Memorandum has raised fundamental questions about the future of international order. The Russians have demonstrated that, despite economic sanctions and international condemnation, they are prepared to disregard longstanding legal and political norms, including those expressed in the Budapest Memorandum, in pursuit of strategic and economic advantages and the fulfilment of national identity goals. Unless Russia reverses its dangerous course, the fate of the Budapest Memorandum may in retrospect stand out as a landmark in the breakdown of international order.     

The Petroglyphs of Shenah

Shenah is an area of high biological and geological diversity, supporting an active and developing population. Its resources include extensive archaeological sites, of which the petroglyphs, beehive tombs and other archaeological sites deserve more detailed study to determine their importance. Some light is thrown on the former occurrence of wild ungulates in the region. The area has potential for tourism but the petroglyphs are highly vulnerable to damage.     

Canadian economic geography at the millennium

Over the last quarter of a century the Canadian economy experienced a series of profound changes which have affected every level of society. They include new forms of flexible production, fundamental changes in regulation at all spatial scales, structural shifts away from manufacturing towards service sector activities, the rise of information technology (IT) and computerization at the workplace, the feminization of the labour market, and, what has become the leitmotif of the age, globalization. Such changes are intimately connected with geography. By that we mean not merely that they take on a geographical form, but that geography is pan of their very constitution. In this sense Canadian economic geographers are exactly in the right time and the right place to make use of their skills. Indeed, over the last five years there has been an explosion of literature by Canadian economic geographers on precisely these kinds of changes that are simultaneously both economic and geographical. In reviewing that literature the paper begins by situating Canada within its wider global setting, which we then follow by surveying the diverse writing around the three broad sectors that make‐up the Canadian economy: the resource sector, the manufacturing sector, and the service sector. We conclude by highlighting two particular research themes within Canadian economic geography that have become especially germane over the late 1990s. The first is on new labour markets and forms of work both of which have been transformed during the last decade; and the second is on new forms of industrial innovation, which are clearly pivotal to the future well‐being of the country for the next millennium. Au cours des vingt‐cinq dernières années, l'économie canadienne a connu une série, de changements profonds qui ont affecté toutes les couches de la société. Ces changements comprennent les nouvelles formes de production flexible, les changements fondamentaux dans la réglementation à toutes les échelles spatiales, la mutation structurelle du secteur industriel au secteur tertiaire, la montée de la technologie de l'information (Tl) et l'informatisation sur le lieu de travail, la présence plus importante des femmes sur le marché du travail, et, ce qui est devenu le leitmotiv de notre époque, la mondialisation. De tels changements sont intimement liés à la geographie. Par la, nous ne disons pas simplement qu'ils prennent une forme géographique, mais que la géographie fait partie intégrante de leur constitution. Dans ce sens, les géographes‐économistes canadiens arrivent, si l'on peut dire, au bon endroit au bon moment pour mettre leurs connaissances à profit. En effet, on assiste depuis les cinq dernières années à une recrudescence impressionnante des travaux de géographes‐économistes canadiens portant, précisément, sur ces types de changements qui sont à la fois économiques et géographiques. En faisant le compte‐rendu de cette littérature scientifique, cet article situe d'abord le Canada dans son contexte mondial plus large, passe ensuite en revue ce qui a étéécrit au sujet des trois grands secteurs qui forment l'économie canadienne: les secteurs primaire, secondaire et tertiaire. Nous concluons en mettant en relief deux thèmes de recherches de la géographie économique canadienne qui sont devenus particulièrement pertinents depuis la fin des années 1990. Le premier traite des nouveaux marchés du travail et des nouvelles formes de travail, qui ont tous deux subi des transformations au cours de la dernière décennie. Le second traite des nouvelles formes d'innovation industrielle, qui sont cruciales pour le bien‐être futur du pays à l'aube du nouveau millénaire.     

'You Cannot Hate the Bastard Who is Trying to Kill You...'Combat and Ideology in the British Army in the War Against Germany, 1939-45

During the Second World War the British Army faced a difficulttask when it tried to transform recruits who were mostly peace-lovingcivilians, into men prepared to kill. This article examineshow it went about doing so and how front-line soldiers respondedto the demand that they kill their German (and Italian) oppositenumbers. It also analyses the extent to which front-line soldiersin the British Army retained a sense of a shared common humanitywith their enemies that transended the political divisions ofthe war. It does so by analysing the ways in which they treatedtheir enemies when they were completely at their mercy, eitheras prisoners of war or as civilians in occupied territory. ¹N.McCallum, Journey with a Pistol (London,1959), 105.