scholarly journals Informal Cairo: Between Islamist Insurgency and the Neglectful State?

2009 ◽  
Vol 40 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 419-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
W.J. Dorman

From the late 1980s, Islamist militants established a ‘state within the state’ in the Egyptian capital Cairo, situated in ‘informal’ neighbourhoods developed without official authorization, planning or public services. After government security forces in late 1992 crushed these efforts in the neighbourhood of Munira Gharbiyya, informal Cairo became pathologized in public discourse as ashwa’iyyat (‘random’ or ‘haphazard’ areas), a zone of socio-spatial disorder threatening Egypt as a whole and demanding state intervention. However, this securitizing move did not lead to heavy-handed intervention against informal Cairo more generally. Following the suppression of the militants, the Mubarak government instead returned to long-term patterns of indifference and neglect that had allowed informal neighbourhoods to flourish since the 1960s. In part, the absence of intervention can be explained in terms of resource constraints and risk avoidance. More profoundly, however, it reflects numerous linkages between informal urbanization and the Egyptian state. The ashwa’iyyat are, to a significant degree, both a consequence of an authoritarian political order and embedded in the informal control stratagems used by Egyptian governments to bolster their rule. Informal Cairo should thus not be understood as a disorderly zone of subaltern dissidence. Rather, the Egyptian state is best seen as facing its own oblique reflection.

The Athenaeum ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 270-295
Author(s):  
Michael Wheeler

This chapter examines the Athenæum during the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s. While enjoying affectionate teasing by cartoonists, the club tended to stand upon its dignity in the 1950s. Although some aspects of the 'cultural revolution' that so disturbed Richard Cowell at the time created divisions among the membership, others suited the club in the long term, allowing it not only to survive but also to position itself for the process of reinvention that was to take place in later decades. During the 1960s and 1970s, life at the club carried on much as before, in spite of recurrent financial difficulties. The decorous tradition of 'lunch at the Athenæum' had become proverbial in public discourse, as published novels, memoirs, and diaries recorded conversations there in which bonds of friendship were strengthened, or matters of state and church quietly arranged in private.


2008 ◽  
pp. 47-55
Author(s):  
A. Nekipelov ◽  
Yu. Goland

The appeals to minimize state intervention in the Russian economy are counterproductive. However the excessive involvement of the state is fraught with the threat of building nomenclature capitalism. That is the main idea of the series of articles by prominent representatives of Russian economic thought who formulate their position on key elements of the long-term strategy of Russia’s development. The articles deal with such important issues as Russia’s economic policy, transition to knowledge-based economy, basic directions of monetary and structural policies, strengthening of property rights, development of human potential, foreign economic priorities of our state.


Author(s):  
Louçã Francisco ◽  
Ash Michael

Chapter 5 traces how free market ideology displaced the apparent consensus on economic regulation that emerged from the Depression, the New Deal, and the Second World War. Viewed as cranks within economics through the 1960s, Milton Friedman and his supporters built an apparatus of ideas, publications, students, think tanks, and rich supporters, establishing outposts in Latin America and the UK. When developed economies faltered in the 1970s, Friedman’s neoliberal doctrine was ready. With citizens, consumers, and workers feeling worked over by monopolies, inflation, unemployment, and taxes, these strange bedfellows elected Reagan in the US and Thatcher in the UK and rolled to power in academia and in public discourse with a doctrine of privatization, liberalization, and deregulation. Friedman, Eugene Fama, and James Buchanan whose radical free market views triumphed at the end of the 1970s are profiled. A technical appendix, “Skeptics and Critics vs. True Believers” explores the economic debates.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 1058-1077
Author(s):  
Matthias Goldmann

AbstractThis article argues that the PSPP judgment effectively buries the era of financial liberalism, which has dominated the European economic constitution for decades. It raises the curtain on a new political paradigm, which I call “integrative liberalism”. Whereas the financial crisis put financial liberalism under strain, the development since then has been contradictory, torn between state intervention and market liberalism, focused above all on buying time rather than finding a new constitutional equilibrium. Now, together with the measures adopted in response to COVID-19, the PSPP judgment paves the way for profound change. Integrative liberalism is characterized by an overall shift from the market to the state, mitigating the post-crisis insistence on austerity and conditionality. Contrary to the embedded liberalism of the post-war era, integrative liberalism operates in a corrective and reactive mode with a focus on goals and principles, lacking the emphasis on long-term planning. Like every political paradigm, integrative liberalism ushers in a new understanding of the law. It puts the emphasis on context instead of discipline, and it elevates the proportionality principle. If integrative liberalism is to succeed, however, the democratic legitimacy of the Eurosystem and its independence require serious reconsideration.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Atanu Bhattacharya ◽  
Tobias Bolch ◽  
Kriti Mukherjee ◽  
Owen King ◽  
Brian Menounos ◽  
...  

AbstractKnowledge about the long-term response of High Mountain Asian glaciers to climatic variations is paramount because of their important role in sustaining Asian river flow. Here, a satellite-based time series of glacier mass balance for seven climatically different regions across High Mountain Asia since the 1960s shows that glacier mass loss rates have persistently increased at most sites. Regional glacier mass budgets ranged from −0.40 ± 0.07 m w.e.a−1 in Central and Northern Tien Shan to −0.06 ± 0.07 m w.e.a−1 in Eastern Pamir, with considerable temporal and spatial variability. Highest rates of mass loss occurred in Central Himalaya and Northern Tien Shan after 2015 and even in regions where glaciers were previously in balance with climate, such as Eastern Pamir, mass losses prevailed in recent years. An increase in summer temperature explains the long-term trend in mass loss and now appears to drive mass loss even in regions formerly sensitive to both temperature and precipitation.


Modern Italy ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Gundle

SummaryThe problem of the legitimacy or otherwise of the Resistance tradition in post-war Italy has been addressed in recent years mainly in terms of the role of the partisan struggle and its political legacy. This article aims to assess the tradition in terms of commemorative practices, rituals, artistic representations and monuments. It seeks to evaluate whether the Resistance gave rise to a civic religion that may be compared to those which existed in the Liberal period, based on the heroic struggles and figures of the Risorgimento, and the Fascist period, which drew on the feelings of loss and injustice that followed the First World War. It is argued that, although the Resistance lacked, prior to the 1960s, a high degree of official sponsorship, it did acquire some of the features of a civic religion. Its appeal was mainly limited to the regions administered by the Left which had seen a significant degree of Resistance activity in 1943-5. Even here, however, it was difficult to sustain the tradition as a key feature of community life during and after the economic boom: the eclipse of public culture, the decline of public mourning and the development of commercial leisure and mass culture all served to deprive it of meaning. Although intellectuals, politicians and ex-partisans reacted to this situation, the visual and rhetorical languages associated with the commemoration of the Resistance became increasingly divorced from everyday life and dominant social values.


2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 549-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
KARL DEROUEN ◽  
CHRISTOPHER SPRECHER

Scholars often observe that the foreign policies of states are not made in a vacuum but rather are determined or moulded to a significant degree by the external and internal actions of rivals. Domestic unrest is often considered a potential impetus for changing strategic behaviour. Leaders may be tempted to employ force externally to divert attention away from domestic unrest. The intended result is a ‘rally round the flag’ effect that culminates in higher approval/support for the executive as citizens forget about domestic problems and pay attention to a common adversary. One implication of this sort of ‘diversion’ is that potential scapegoats might employ strategic behaviour to avoid becoming a diversionary target. In other words, when they witness domestic unrest in a rival state, they worry that the rival may lash out at them and thus engage in ‘strategic avoidance’.Conversely, strategic behaviour may lead to a greater chance that the potential ‘diverter’ will itself be targeted for hostile behaviour. Erstwhile scapegoats may view periods of social unrest such as elections, domestic political protests or unstable cabinet structures in the other country as convenient and favourable times to escalate hostility. Such situations are viewed as opportunities that are ripe for exploitation.Alastair Smith's work has been extended to both the US case and a comparative cross-national study. Our purpose here is to extend this line of inquiry by looking at a region of the world locked in a long-term hostile relationship; namely, the Middle East. Our approach builds upon previous research that addresses the strategic interaction of enduring rivals.


2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Smith

This paper examines how the past of desert landscapes has been interpreted since European explorers and scientists first encountered them. It charts the research that created the conceptual space within which archaeologists and Quaternarists now work. Studies from the 1840s–1960s created the notion of a ‘Great Australian Arid Period'. The 1960s studies of Lake Mungo and the Willandra Lakes by Jim Bowler revealed the cyclical nature of palaeolakes, that changed with climate changes in the Pleistocene, and the complexity of desert pasts. SLEADS and other researchers in the 1980s used thermoluminescence techniques that showed further complexities in desert lands beyond the Willandra particularly through new studies in the Strzelecki and Simpson Dunefields, Lake Eyre, Lake Woods and Lake Gregory. Australian deserts are varied and have very different histories. Far from ‘timeless lands', they have carried detailed information about long-term climate changes on continental scales.


2009 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan McCargo

Thailand's ‘southern border provinces’ of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat – along with four districts of neighbouring Songkhla – are the site of fiery political violence characterised by daily killings. The area was historically a Malay sultanate, and was only loosely under Thai suzerainty until the early twentieth century. During the twentieth century there was periodic resistance to Bangkok's attempts to suppress local identity and to incorporate this largely Malay-speaking, Muslim-majority area into a predominantly Buddhist nation-state. This resistance proved most intense during the 1960s and 1970s, when various armed groups (notably PULO [Patani United Liberation Organization] and BRN [Barisan Revolusi Nasional]) waged war on the Thai state, primarily targeting government officials and the security forces. In the early 1980s, the Prem Tinsulanond government brokered a deal with these armed groups and proceeded to co-opt the Malay-Muslim elite. By crafting mutually beneficial governance, security and financial arrangements, the Thai state was able largely to placate local political demands.


2019 ◽  
pp. 244-271
Author(s):  
Martin Pugh

This chapter discusses how, misled by Islamophobic propaganda, Britain and America were unable to come to terms with what they called ‘Islamism’. The origins of what is variously known as Islamism, Islamic fundamentalism, and radical Islamism lie in the 1960s, in the ideas of a handful of Muslims in Pakistan, Egypt, and Iran who believed that Muslims had been led astray from their religion by nationalist movements. Although some Muslims were critical of Western morality and politics, Islamism was not primarily anti-Western: it was essentially a reaction against what were widely seen as the corrupt, authoritarian, and secular regimes that controlled much of the Muslim world. The aim was to evict them, return to a purer form of Islam and re-create an Islamic state. In view of the exaggerated reputation it enjoys in the West, it is worth remembering that this movement has largely been a failure. Yet while fundamentalism appeals to only a small minority, it is also the case that large numbers of Muslims have become aggrieved by the policies of the Western powers. The explanation for this can be found in long-term frustration with the consistently pro-Israeli policy of Britain and the United States over Palestine, in addition to the proximate causes in the shape of two Afghan wars, the genocide in Bosnia, the Rushdie affair, and the first Gulf War in 1990, which made many Muslims see themselves as the victims of Western aggression and interventionism.


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