scholarly journals GAMES OF HUNGER: THE POLITICS OF FAMINE, STATE-BUILDING PROCESSES AND CONTEMPORARY HUNGER STRIKES IN EUROPE – THE CASES OF NORTHERN IRELAND AND UKRAINE

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (58) ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Tendera
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
State Building ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Civic Society ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Political Forces

The famines and periods of prolonged hunger that took place in Europe in the last centuries had a complex social dynamics and substantial transformative potential that still influence European politics. Dramatic cultural representations of hunger and starvation became deeply engaged in various modern nationalist narrations in order to open up new sources of political legitimacy for newly arising nation states. The periods of the Great Famine and Holodomor were at the same time moments of an extremely intense consolidation of Irish and Ukrainian national identities and the collective mindsets of multiple communities. Those identities became major political forces on the peripheries of the Old Continent. Hence, some strategies of transforming the experience of hunger into politically beneficial strategies of civic resistance were developed. Those tactics determined the future roles of both political and civil actors in sovereignty conflicts. Using a comparative approach, this paper explores the way in which the state-building processes in Ukraine and Northern Ireland in the 20th and 21st centuries were framed by famines, the raise of civic society, hunger strikes, and how the mindset of food scarcity grew into the nations’ characters. The mindset has turned into a serious drive for some political projects in Ukraine and Ireland to become modern nation states integrated with increasingly globalized European societies. The compelling and enchanting cultural narrations on hunger are profoundly up-to-date and political, as well as European phenomena, and as such should be analyzed – through the conceptual lens of modernity and postmodernity, and the international forms of political and economic coercions. 

Imagining Nations and Making States

2020 ◽  
pp. 14-31
Author(s):  
Christine Leuenberger ◽  
Izhak Schnell
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
State Building ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Nation State ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Building Process ◽  
New Geography

It is central for international relations to support state- and nation-building; “nation-building” entails forging common national identities, and “state-building” consists of establishing infrastructures to enhance governance. This chapter examines some of the ways that nation-states have been made—through narratives, ideas, and practices as well as through technologies and infrastructures—and how this has been reproduced in Israel/Palestine. Various disciplines were recruited to the service of nation-state building. Cartography helped stake out a territory, history and archaeology were used to make claims on it, and geographers were called on to formulate a new geography of the new homeland. At the same time, the Zionist vision and a Jewish metaculture as well as the quasi-state institutions of the Yishuv contributed to the establishment of the Israeli state. Throughout the 20th century, the high-modernist state used science and technology to take on its people as a state project. Israel exemplifies how the use of science and technology contributed to the belief that a society, its people, and its territories could be known, managed, and improved. Science and technology charted grand new futures for societies, furthering scientific and technical frontiers, expanding the power of states, and leaving behind all those people and lands that were not considered part of the state-building process.

Rules without Rights

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Bartley
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Transnational Governance ◽  
Private Regulation ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Labor Exploitation ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
The World

Activists have exposed startling forms of labor exploitation and environmental degradation in global industries, leading many large retailers and brands to adopt standards for fairness and sustainability. This book is about the idea that transnational corporations can push these rules through their global supply chains, and in effect, pull factories, forests, and farms out of their local contexts and up to global best practices. For many scholars and practitioners, this kind of private regulation and global standard-setting can provide an alternative to regulation by territorially bound, gridlocked, or incapacitated nation states, potentially improving environments and working conditions around the world and protecting the rights of exploited workers, impoverished farmers, and marginalized communities. But can private, voluntary rules actually create meaningful forms of regulation? Are forests and factories around the world being made into sustainable ecosystems and decent workplaces? Can global norms remake local orders? This book provides striking new answers by comparing the private regulation of land and labor in democratic and authoritarian settings. Case studies of sustainable forestry and fair labor standards in Indonesia and China show not only how transnational standards are implemented “on the ground” but also how they are constrained and reconfigured by domestic governance. Combining rich multi-method analyses, a powerful comparative approach, and a new theory of private regulation, this book reveals the contours and contradictions of transnational governance.

scholarly journals Fashioning the Post Colonial Reading: Cultural Representations In Vogue Mexico and Latin America and Arabia Editorials

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martyne Alphonso
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Editorial Content ◽  
Visual Narratives ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
And Gender

This study analyzes regional editorial content as produced by Vogue magazine. Vogue has developed an empire comprised of 22 international editions. Vogue Mexico & Latin America, and Vogue Arabia, are the only two editions that encompass numerous countries, cultures, and voices. Using discourse analysis through a cultural studies lens, this study analyzes six editorial spreads to uncover what cultural messages are being produced, how these images impact national identities, and who is or is not represented in the fashion image. Intersections of fashion with culture, identity, race, and gender, are analyzed through critical discourse analysis to address constructions of power, specifically within a cultural and postcolonial framework. Visual narratives in Vogue Arabia and Vogue Mexico & Latin America reflect values seemingly distinct to their region, but are charged with cultural assumptions and inaccuracies. For postcolonial cultures vying for identities independent of their colonial past, these marketable stereotypes continue to suppress their structural agency.

scholarly journals Tribal Factor in Libya: Metamorphoses after Qaddafi Epoch (2011-2020)

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (9) ◽  
pp. 118-129
Author(s):  
Y. Zinin
Keyword(s):  
National Identities ◽  
The Other ◽  
Tribal Identity ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Divided Society ◽  
Current Events ◽  
Systemic Crisis ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

The overthrow of M. Gaddafi with the assistance of NATO in October 2011 led to the collapse of the vertical of power and institutions of the state and sentenced Libya to a deep systemic crisis. The article examines the peculiarities and role of the tribal factor in the current events in Libya, a country with deeply divided, multi-composite societies (DDS). It is characterized by tribal, regional, racial and ethnoreligious diversity. With 90% of its population having tribal roots, the number of tribes passes 140. This diversity has left its mark on the course of events, affected the struggle for power. The author sums up the shifts that have taken place in the tribal segment of society in recent decades. The rush of members of different tribes to the city led to their fragmentation, diminution of their former structure. The bonds of kinship, the spirit of solidarity, the traditional behaviour of the tribesmen have been to different extents eroded. However, the influence of a tribe or genus that play the role of a bonding society remains essential. This was especially evident after the advent of dual power in 2014, the author assumes. The two poles of domination – Tripoli and Tobruk are trying to play this card to their advantage. On the other hand, the security vacuum caused by the fall of the regime spontaneously filled forces, including regional tribal groups. The scholar tracks how various tribal councils and other entities here and there take on the functions of maintaining resilience and order, ending infighting, returning hostages, etc. In doing so, they often turn to the traditional usual right – Urf. The author agrees with a number of Libyan scholars and other foreign researchers that there are now some signs of a breeding tribal identity in Libya. At the same time, this process is multi–directional, as in Libya, a country with a deeply divided society, tribes can both engage in conflicts and contribute to their peaceful denouement. The researcher draws attention to the fact that the relationship between tribalism and Islamists is rather contradictory. The latter use to argue that “Islam is the solution to all problems.” But their entry into the arena of politics in Libya after October 2011 did not prevent the de facto collapse of the country and the growth of sectarian standoff. And that according to the author divides society and plays into the hands of certain political forces. In this atmosphere, tribal polarization and the general alienation of society are at risk of growth. The author analyzes the relations between tribal and national identities in a country where the process of consolidation of the population into a single nation has not yet been completed.

Sun Yat-sen as Guofu: Competition over Nationalist Party Orthodoxy in the Second Sino-Japanese War

Modern China ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-235
Author(s):  
Yue Du
Keyword(s):  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
State Building ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
Nationalist Party ◽  
Chinese Nation ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Political Purpose ◽  
Political Legitimation

This article explores the significance of the cult of Sun Yat-sen, often referred to as “Father of the [modern Chinese] Nation” 國父 (Guofu), for Nationalist state-building in China. Although Sun Yat-sen’s title of Guofu was formalized only in 1940 as a result of competition over Nationalist Party (Guomindang, GMD) orthodoxy between opposing Nationalist regimes in Chongqing and Nanjing during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the term reflected the ongoing importance of Sun’s legacy in securing political legitimacy in the Chinese Republic. Overall, the GMD promulgated state-sponsored veneration of the Guofu to justify its political tutelage in the name of parental guardianship over the Chinese people. Yet Sun’s legacy allowed for multiple interpretations, which complicates any effort to lock this legacy to one political purpose. The development of different elements of the Guofu’s legacy by competing wartime regimes shows how it failed to provide a truly unifying tool for political legitimation.

THE ISSUE OF CONTEMPORANEITY AS CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL TOTALITY IN THE WORKS OF BORIS GROYS

2021 ◽  
pp. 5-18
Author(s):  
Elena Y. Baboshko ◽  
◽  
Dmitriy V. Galkin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Will To Power ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Modernist Discourse ◽  
Selection Of

The authors refer the issue of definition of contemporaneity as cultural and historical totality basing on the research results of a well-known theorist Boris Groys. Analyzing the progress of his ideas, the authors conclude, that the philosopher’s considerable contribution to the science is composed of the next phase of the development of the thesis about the art language as the base of contemporaneity construction and of the “natural selection” of contemporary art structures. The latter is not simply reduced to the postmodern “polylogue” variant, but implies a kind of contemporaneity patterns niche and “stabilization”. The patterns naturally tend to become complementary due to simple juxtaposition/ overlay in general time context. According to the authors, this circumstance does not prevent them from being turned by different political forces into locally dominating contemporaneity patterns (as in the case of Gesamkunstwerk Stalin). Contemporary art provides simple experience, that helps to retain the illusion of single and seemingly total contemporaneity. B. Groys leads us to the thought that art provides conditions for generating a significant reflective distance in relation to different social and historical situations. The distance gives an artist the opportunity to consider the reality comprehensively, given the autonomy, through the art language. However, we believe, that the most important philosopher’s achievement is not only drawing parallels between cultural and social and historical processes, based on the concept of art strategies influencing the social dynamics. He also managed to approach one of the most significant issues in culture theory and history – the opportunity to define contemporaneity as cultural and historical totality. According to his modernity theory, the origin of contemporaneity is hidden in the avant-garde art manifestation. He interprets the utopic by its nature modernist discourse, applied in art practice, through Nietzscheian will to power as redefining the new age philosophy. This article aims to analyze the progress of the issue of contemporaneity in the works of B. Groys and to explicate the complexity of considering contemporaneity as cultural and historical totality. The authors believe that the thorough study of the phenomenon of total artwork (Gesamtkunstwerk) as a soviet Stalin project and critics’ opinion analysis helps to create arguments limiting the opportunity of considering contemporaneity as totality.

Scottish Conservatism and Northern Ireland: Mapping an Ambivalent Relationship

2020 ◽  
pp. 154-168
Author(s):  
Jonathan Evershed
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
First Century ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Political Force ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
Scottish Independence ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores shifting and often contradictory dynamics which have manifested themselves in the relationship between Scottish Conservatism and Ulster Unionism. It provides a brief historical overview of this relationship which, it argues, has been highly salient in the consolidation of Conservatism as a political force in Scotland during the twentieth century, but which has become more ambiguous as understandings of ‘Union’, processes of secularisation, patterns of integration and differentiation, as well as the nature of centre-periphery relations in Northern Ireland and Scotland have increasingly diverged. The chapter also looks at how this relationship has continued to be reshaped into the twenty-first century by a potent mix of political forces which has included the Irish peace process, the Scottish independence referendum and Brexit.

The Rise of Majorities and Emerging Existential Threats to India and China

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Castellino
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
State Building ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
China And India ◽  
Unity In Diversity ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Action Measures ◽  
India And China

Abstract China and India are comparable in size, complexity, and their relatively recent State-building histories. Commencing in 1947 and 1949 respectively, the relatively recent foundations of India and China highlighted a ‘unity in diversity’ message. The significance of this lay as much in ideology as in a pragmatism that was both central and relatively successful in bringing what could be argued as many civilizations into singular modern States. While the messages about diversity have always been contested in some quarters by rival ethno-nationalists, they remained significant in laying the foundations for a strong ‘national’ identity. To the majority populations, Hindu in India and Han in China this called for restraint to any triumphalism or chauvinism; to the minorities, they called for unshakeable loyalty in return for full citizenship rights. In both cases, these messages were backed by constructive affirmative action measures that, irrespective of their efficacy, served to emphasize the ‘unity in diversity’ message, sowing a degree of fealty towards the State over what may have been more prominent and compelling ethno-religious or ethno-linguistic cleavages. In recent years, however, this message has been significantly altered, as political majoritarianism has begun to oust legally or administratively determined minority protections. This article seeks to offer an assessment of the potential impact on this phenomenon on each country, arguing that it has contributed to instability, sowing seeds for the rise of opposing sub-national identities that the founding parents of each State actively sought to counter in their statecraft.

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