The Unflinching Mr. Smith and the Nuclear Age**

This article focuses on the U.S. diplomat and nuclear arms control negotiator Gerald (Gerry) Coat Smith in order to cast new light on the importance of diplomats in the context of the set of international activities currently labelled as “science diplomacy.” Smith, a lawyer by training, was a key negotiator in many international agreements on post-WW2 atomic energy projects, from those on uranium prospecting and mining, to reactors technologies to later ones on non-proliferation and disarmament. His career in science (nuclear) diplomacy also epitomized the shortcomings of efforts to align other countries’ posture on nuclear affairs to U.S. wishes. In particular, the unswerving diplomat increasingly understood that strong-arm tactics to dissuade other countries from acquiring nuclear weapons would not limit proliferation. Not only did this inform later U.S. diplomacy approaches, but it lent itself to the ascendancy of the new notion of “soft power” as critical to the re-definition of international affairs.     

Beyond “unwinding”: Constitutional review strategies in consociations

This article contributes to the emerging literature on the role of constitutional courts in consociational democracies. While most works have approached the topic from the perspective of regime dynamics, this analysis focuses on how courts relate to the constitutions they are mandated to enforce. Beyond addressing the empirical question of what choices courts make in their balancing between universal values and stability, this article also investigates how courts do this balancing. Through the analysis of seven cases from two consociations, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Northern Ireland, I argue that courts embrace specific interpretive approaches (proportionality analysis, purposive interpretation, and the political question doctrine) to reconcile the ideas of constitutional supremacy and respect for political agreements. The analysis also demonstrates how—by their nature political—framework agreements establishing consociational settlements become primary reference points for interpreting constitutional documents.     

“The Old New-Intellectuals” in the May Fourth New Cultural Movement*

During the May Fourth New Cultural Movement, three debates on new/Western and old/Chinese cultures were respectively carried out between the journal New Youth and Lin Qinnan, Chen Duxiu and Du Yaquan, as well as Zhang Dongsun and Fu Sinian. New Youth, Chen Duxiu and Zhang Dongsun were regarded as the “new school,” whereas their opponents “the old new-intellectuals.” The difference between them lies in their attitudes towards traditions instead of their new or old knowledge. After three heated debates, New Youth won a total victory in big cities, because the so-called “urban youths” needed a radical cultural reform plan and a simple guide for action. On the contrary, “town youths” who lived in small cities and towns did not care about the attitudinal difference of two sides. They paid more attention to absorbing new knowledge from both sides and were more sympathetic to tradition.     

Embodied experiences in international volunteering: power-body relations and performative ontologies

In this paper we debate the interpretation of embodied experience on international volunteering placements. Drawing on six in-depth interviews with volunteers recently returned from Northern Thailand, we document the affects and emotions that play a key role in the formation of volunteer–host relations. We then present two interpretations of the data, conceptualising power-body relations in two different ways: from power’s affective and emotional literacy, to the body’s autonomous capacities. With these two interpretations at hand we then consider the performative nature of academic labour and make the case, following the work of feminist geographers J.K. Gibson-Graham, for a research praxis that does not set limits on subjectivity but rather excavates – and writes into being – the possible. We therefore argue for a conceptualisation and interpretation of embodied experience in volunteering as a site of potential transformation and transcendence of the inequalities that otherwise set the conditions of the volunteer–host encounter.     

A Technocratic Vision of Empire: Lord Montagu and the Origins of British Air Power

This article advances the existing literature on British imperial aeronautics by explaining how Lord John Montagu’s extensive collaboration with military and government officials during the first decades of powered flight expanded the global distribution of the air forces and anticipated their important later role in facilitating international communication and security. In reconsidering problems of conquest and governance through an aeronautical perspective, Montagu strengthened critical junctures between British civil and military affairs, while his innovative employment of the new technology also complicated divisions between the metropolis and periphery in ways that would intensify the destructiveness of modern warfare across the planet.     

Gendering pastoral power: masculinity,affective labour and competitive bonds of solidarity among Filipino migrant men in Saudi Arabia

This article draws on Foucault’s concept of pastoral power to understand Filipino men’s care work and the making of migrant masculinities in Saudi Arabia. Feminist scholars have indicated the gendered nature of pastoral power and emphasized what Young refers to as the ‘logic of masculinist protection’ that characterizes the contemporary security state. However, the notion of pastoral power invites further consideration of the taken for granted cultural assumptions about the way that hegemonic masculinity and forms of homosociality are characterized mainly by aggression, competition and dominance. Men’s talk about and practical involvement in assisting fellow migrants in diasporic settings foregrounds the way that an ethics of care runs up against and is entangled with the competitive bonds of masculine solidarities. While markers of material success are privileged in measuring migrant men’s accomplishments in country of origin, practices of care become central to men’s achievement of symbolic power and social legitimacy especially among their peers in the diaspora. That spatialization is also linked to temporally shifting models of masculinity and normative expectations about men over the life course.     

A power elite in the cultural field. A story of Norwegian neo-corporatism

The organizational culture elite is studied as a new elite group emerging within a stable neo-corporatist state. Does this new elite adopt existing modes of operation or place itself at bay from the more established elite groups? The emergence of and changes in the culture elite are discussed from a historical perspective in terms of social background, recruitment processes, occupational careers, gender composition, political outlooks, lobbying, and media strategies. The culture elite is systematically compared to two other elites: the university elite, the most similar among the elites, and the economic elite, assumedly representing the greatest contrast. Despite special characteristics in the social situations and political views of the culture elite, it is concluded that the mode of operation of this group indicates a high degree of adaptability to the general system of elites. A main reason is assumed to be the integrative power and liberal quality of the state in a neo-corporatist regime.     

Middle-power definitions: confusion reigns supreme

Renewed interest in middle powers since the late 2000s has seen a surge in research. Yet an agreed definition is more elusive than ever. This compromises the ability to pursue meaningful research programs, communicate practical policy advice, and instruct future generations. Why is an agreed definition so elusive and how can this challenge be overcome? The author contends that the definition of the term ‘middle power’ has evolved to be less about discovering either ‘the meaning of a word’ or ‘the nature of a thing’ in the pursuit of knowledge, and more about persuasion, influence, coercion and, ultimately, the exercise of power. An alternative approach to definition offers the best hope to address this challenge. With this objective, the author first looks into the nature and criteria for definition in the social sciences. Second, he looks at the structure of contemporary attempts to redefine the term. Third, he analyses definitional ruptures to shed light on the rhetorical import of contests. Finally, the author turns to rhetorical theory to offer an alternative approach to the definition of the term ‘middle power’.     

Embracing Hygienic Modernity in Late Nineteenth-century Korea: A View from the Periphery

This paper examines Koreans’ response to cholera and the introduction of hygienic modernity by the Japanese after the opening of Korea in 1876. As Korea’s first open port, Pusan became a testing ground for Japanese hygienic modernity in Korea with the influx of Japanese settlers who introduced modern medical knowledge to the area. The introduction of modern medical science and technology by the Japanese, through the establishment of modern facilities such as Saisei Iin, the first modern clinic in Pusan, had a significant impact on the local community, which was suffering the horrific consequences of cholera due to ineffectual government management. In the process, the Japanese settlers utilised hygienic modernity as a way of legitimising and increasing their power over indigenous Koreans. While it is necessary to recognise the contributions of the Japanese to disseminating modern medicine and medical knowledge to local Koreans in Pusan, hygienic modernity became a way of legitimising the power of the Japanese settlers over indigenous Koreans in Pusan as a result.     

Agamben,Postcoloniality, and Sovereignty in South Korea

This paper examines modern Korean politics through the framework of Giorgio Agamben's theories of sovereign power, bare life, and the state of exception. Though his political analysis draws from the European history, we contend that the nature of his method attests to the possibility of analogical examples in non‐Western places. Thus, we argue that a postcolonial encounter with Agamben may enrich our understanding of sovereignty and political geography. In the Korean context, such an analysis needs to consider that sovereign power has been shaped by the itineraries of colonialism and empire. Korea's political space is deeply marked by the legacy of Japanese colonialism, the imperial interventions by the U.S., and the division of the peninsula. Thus, Korea offers a valuable lens through which to read Agamben's critique of sovereignty. Our paper offers such a reading to argue that a state of exception functions as the underlying nomos for postcolonial Korea.