Kinship Structure and Political Authority: The Middle East and Central Asia

1986 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 334-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Lindholm

Kinship studies have traditionally been the core of the anthropological enterprise, but the knowledge gained in studies of indigenous kinship systems has not generally been of interest to other disciplines. This essay intends to draw attention to some of the political and social implications of patterns of kinship relations by comparing two large historical culture areas, that of the frontier region of Inner Asia, and that of the peripheral tribes of the Middle East.

Author(s):  
Laura Robson

This chapter introduces the main question of the book: how did mass violence come to be a primary—perhaps the primary—mode of making political claims in the twentieth and twenty-first century Middle East? It asks when mass violence became a constitutive aspect of the political landscape of the region, why it took precedence over other strategies of state building and establishing political authority, and how governments, armies, and civilians alike came to think of mass violence as a viable and legitimate mode of claiming political space and national rights. Drawing on several different and largely separate historiographies, this introduction argues, makes it possible to produce a synthetic account of violence in the twentieth century Eastern Mediterranean that takes account of regional developments as much as individual national histories.


2018 ◽  
pp. 75-90
Author(s):  
Ofer Fridman

This chapter analyzes two contemporary approaches towards confrontation: net-centric and information wars, developed during late 1990s early 2000s by two Russian scholars, Aleksandr Dugin and Igor Panarin. Although neither mentions Messner’s works, the essence of their concepts echo many of Messner’s ideas discussed in the previous chapter. Indeed, the core of Dugin’s net-centric war and Panarin’s information war (as well as Messner’s subversion-war, as it was interpreted by many Russian contemporary military thinkers) is quite similar. As this chapter shows, all these theories claim that with the geopolitical and technological realities of the twenty-first century, it is easier to achieve political goals by undermining the political authority of the adversary through the manipulation of political elites and the generation of political dissent, separatism and social problems, rather than by waging classic wars and military operations.


2013 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-145
Author(s):  
Christine Noelle-Karimi

Students of Afghan history come up against two sets of academic demarcations and appropriations. First, as Nile Green points out in his introduction to this roundtable, Afghanistan as a field of study tends to fall off the edge of the scholarly traditions associated with the regional denominations of the Middle East, South Asia, and Central Asia. Second, the tendency to view history through the lens of present-day national entities presents an impediment to historical inquiry and not only in Afghanistan. The attempt to streamline the past to fit a consistent narrative of state-building may serve to foster a national identity, yet it is of little use in gaining a deeper understanding of the political, social, and economic processes at work in a given period.


2020 ◽  
pp. 157-190
Author(s):  
Daniel S. Markey

This chapter summarizes the interplay between China and South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East, then assesses the geopolitical implications for America, and offers recommendations for US policy. Marshalling evidence from previous chapters, it shows that anticipating the political consequences of China’s overseas activities in any particular instance requires an appreciation of the other state’s preexisting domestic political-economic conditions and geopolitical relationships. It finds that across Eurasia, China’s involvement tends to undercut healthy pressure for economic and political reform within states and appears to be exacerbating or rekindling tensions among them. The chapter evaluates current US policy in the context of global competition with China and identifies a range of strategies for Eurasia, including “benign neglect,” “peaceful accommodation,” “critical publicity,” “selective competition,” and “militarized competition.” To make the most of America’s limited influence, it argues that US policymakers should pursue a selective and localized strategy in Eurasia.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-183
Author(s):  
Mary L. Mullen

This article considers the politics and aesthetics of the colonial Bildungsroman by reading George Moore's often-overlooked novel A Drama in Muslin (1886). It argues that the colonial Bildungsroman does not simply register difference from the metropolitan novel of development or express tension between the core and periphery, as Jed Esty suggests, but rather can imagine a heterogeneous historical time that does not find its end in the nation-state. A Drama in Muslin combines naturalist and realist modes, and moves between Ireland and England to construct a form of untimely development that emphasises political processes (dissent, negotiation) rather than political forms (the state, the nation). Ultimately, the messy, discordant history represented in the novel shows the political potential of anachronism as it celebrates the untimeliness of everyday life.


Author(s):  
Nguyen Van Dung ◽  
Giang Khac Binh

As developing programs is the core in fostering knowledge on ethnic work for cadres and civil servants under Decision No. 402/QD-TTg dated 14/3/2016 of the Prime Minister, it is urgent to build training program on ethnic minority affairs for 04 target groups in the political system from central to local by 2020 with a vision to 2030. The article highlighted basic issues of practical basis to design training program of ethnic minority affairs in the past years; suggested solutions to build the training programs in integration and globalization period.


2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael H. Ritzwoller ◽  
Nikolai M. Shapiro ◽  
Anatoli L. Levshin ◽  
Eric A. Bergman ◽  
Eric R. Engdahl
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