scholarly journals Histoire du politique au Congo-Kinshasa: Les concepts à l'épreuve (1) Mobutu (2)

Afrika Focus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Hendrickx
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Review Article ◽  
The West ◽  
The World ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

This review article analyses two publications which deal with the history of the independent Democratic Republic of the Congo/Zaire, emphasising the reign of President Mobutu Sese Seko. In comparing the two publications, originating from two decidedly different traditions, the pre- sent article concludes that, twenty years after the fall of the Mobutu regime, there is not (yet) a historiographic consensus on the character of the Mobutu regime. Jean-Pierre Langellier, com- ing from the world of journalism, emphasised in his biography of Mobutu the importance of the President’s friendship ties with the West, and the influence of the Cold War. Conversely, scholar Gauthier de Villers relativised the deterministic character of the Cold War on the regime, as well as the unconditional amical ties of Mobutu with his Western allies. Key words: Congo, DRC, Mobutu, Zaire 

Belgian Rule and its Afterlives: Colonialism, Developmentalism, and Mobutism in the Tanganyika District, Southeastern DR-Congo, 1885–1985

2017 ◽  
Vol 92 ◽  
pp. 47-68
Author(s):  
Reuben Loffman
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Labor History ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Dr Congo ◽  
Unfree Labor ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractThe arrival of Belgian rule in the late nineteenth century initiated significant changes in the labor history of Tanganyika, a province in the southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as well the discursive regimes used to legitimize these transformations. After the colonial conquests, unfree labor was justified by paternalistic rather than mythical discourses. Although unfree labor was less common in the postcolonial period, the state forced farmers to sell crops at low prices and build roads for no remuneration. In the Cold War context, the language and practice of developmentalism mediated the coercive practices of the independent Congolese state (known as Zaïre, 1971–1997). The floundering Zaïrian government expanded its presence in Tanganyika due to its partnership with USAID. USAID's rhetoric and practice was influenced by a “bottom up” approach to agricultural production, but the cuts to its funding in the 1980s meant it struggled to soften Mobutu's coercive administration.

Islam and the West: Coexistence or Clash?

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 363-374
Author(s):  
Noor Mohammad Osmani ◽  
Tawfique Al-Mubarak
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Peaceful Coexistence ◽  
The West ◽  
Comprehensive Review ◽  
The World ◽  
Islamic Civilization ◽  
The Cold War

Samuel Huntington (1927-2008) claimed that there would be seven eight civilizations ruling over the world in the coming centuries, thus resulting a possible clash among them. The West faces the greatest challenge from the Islamic civilization, as he claimed. Beginning from the Cold-War, the Western civilization became dominant in reality over other cultures creating an invisible division between the West and the rest. The main purpose of this research is to examine the perceived clash between the Western and Islamic Civilization and the criteria that lead a civilization to precede others. The research would conduct a comprehensive review of available literatures from both Islamic and Western perspectives, analyze historical facts and data and provide a critical evaluation. This paper argues that there is no such a strong reason that should lead to any clash between the West and Islam; rather, there are many good reasons that may lead to a peaceful coexistence and cultural tolerance among civilizations

Juggling Several Balls at Once

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 493-516
Author(s):  
Grace Mueller ◽  
Paul F. Diehl ◽  
Daniel Druckman
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Peace Operations ◽  
Early Failure ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract Peacekeeping during the Cold War was primarily, and in some cases exclusively, charged with monitoring cease-fires. This changed significantly, as peace operations evolved to include other missions (e.g., rule of law, election supervision), many under the rubric of peacebuilding. What is lacking is consideration of how the different missions affect one another, simultaneously and in sequences. This study addresses that gap by looking at the interconnectedness of missions and their success in the UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), which was mandated to perform eight different missions over a decade. The article examines success or failure in each of those missions and how they relate to one another guided by theoretical logics based on the “security first” hypothesis and mission compatibility expectations. Early failure to stem the violence had negative downstream consequences for later peacebuilding missions. Nevertheless, MONUC’s election supervision mission was successful.

Wallace Stegner's Arabian Discovery: Imperial Blind Spots in a Continental Vision

2007 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-438
Author(s):  
ROBERT VITALIS
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
American Identity ◽  
The West ◽  
Western History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Oil Company ◽  
Blind Spots

In 1956 Wallace Stegner wrote a history of the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco), but it was only published fifteen years later——in Beirut. The book complicates the view of Stegner as a destroyer of American western myths and a forerunner of the social and environmental turn in western history. Stegner shared with those who bought his services some problematic ideas about American identity and history in the context of the Cold War. His forgotten history of oil exploration in Saudi Arabia reveals the blind spots in his ““continental vision,”” an inability or unwillingness to see the moment as part of the long, unbroken past of the U.S. West. Stegner's journey, from chronicler of the despoiling of the West by eastern oil and copper barons to defender of cultural diversity and the collective commons, stopped, as it has for many other Americanists, at the water's edge.

scholarly journals The United Nations is grounded on the Westphalian state system. Throughout the de-colonizationperiod, the Organization ceased to be peculiar to the West only, and soon became the prevalent model in theentire globe. The Cold War also solidified and institutionalized the Westphalian State as the fundamentalprinciple in international relations. The end of the Cold War, however, along with the collapse of theEastern bloc, the challenges of peace and security in Africa, and the failure of the states in coping withhumanitarian crises increasingly made the three fundamental principles of Westphalian state, namely the“non-interventionism”, “sovereign-equality” and “territoriality” disputable among political scientists. Newapproaches and arguments on the end of the Classical Westphalian state and the emergence of a so-called“New Medieval Age” have widely been circulated. This paper alternatively suggests that, since the end of thecold war, the world politics has gradually and decisively been evolving into a system of states that could becalled Neo-Westphalian.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 235-266
Author(s):  
Öner Buçukcu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
State System ◽  
The West ◽  
Sovereign Equality ◽  
The World ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
The Cold War

The United Nations is grounded on the Westphalian state system. Throughout the de-colonizationperiod, the Organization ceased to be peculiar to the West only, and soon became the prevalent model in theentire globe. The Cold War also solidified and institutionalized the Westphalian State as the fundamentalprinciple in international relations. The end of the Cold War, however, along with the collapse of theEastern bloc, the challenges of peace and security in Africa, and the failure of the states in coping withhumanitarian crises increasingly made the three fundamental principles of Westphalian state, namely the“non-interventionism”, “sovereign-equality” and “territoriality” disputable among political scientists. Newapproaches and arguments on the end of the Classical Westphalian state and the emergence of a so-called“New Medieval Age” have widely been circulated. This paper alternatively suggests that, since the end of thecold war, the world politics has gradually and decisively been evolving into a system of states that could becalled Neo-Westphalian.

scholarly journals International Slavic Studies: Concepts, History and Evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenfei Liu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The West ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Formal Establishment ◽  
Slavic Studies

Abstract This paper departs from the definition of Slavistics and reviews the history of international Slavic studies, from its prehistory to its formal establishment as an independent discipline in the mid-18th century, and from the Pan-Slavic movement in the mid-19th century to the confrontation of Slavistics between the East and the West in the mid-20th century during the Cold War. The paper highlights the status quo of international Slavic studies and envisions the future development of Slavic studies in China.

scholarly journals Thinking Across Hemispheres: Further notes on Oversights and Blind Spots in Disciplinary African Studies

Afrika Focus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-22
Author(s):  
Premesh Lalu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
African Studies ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nationalist Sentiment ◽  
Sustained Effort ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Blind Spots

In the midst of ever-hardening nationalist sentiment across the world, the humanities may need to recall its long history of thinking across hemispheres. In such balkanised times, we may have to rethink the work that a hermeneutics of suspicion performs for a critical humanities as well as how Africa is bound to particular configurations of area studies that emerge out of the geopolitical distributions of knowledge during the Cold War. To the extent that we might develop a history of a critical humanities across hemispheres, this paper asks what it might mean to return to a concept of freedom formed through a sustained effort at reckoning with the worldliness specific to the anti-colonial struggles in Africa. There, a critical humanities may discover the sources of a creative work in which Africa is not merely bound to the binary of blind spots and oversights, but functions as that supplement which gives itself over to a liveable future.

Victory

2019 ◽  
pp. 221-242
Author(s):  
Melvyn P. Leffler
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
The West ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
Democratic Capitalism ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Do So

This chapter argues that the West “won” the Cold War because statesmen made systems of democratic capitalism and social democracy work effectively. The challenge for democratic leaders throughout the world was to thwart the appeal of communism and co-opt revolutionary nationalist movements. To do so, they had to reinvent the role of government—not to supplant markets, but to make markets work more effectively and equitably. They avoided intracapitalist conflict, won the support of their own peoples, and created a culture of consumption that engendered the envy of peoples everywhere. In this contest over rival systems of political economy, the role of government was not the problem; it was part of the solution. But it had to be calibrated carefully.

Limonov: vita e avventure di un teppista lirico

2012 ◽  
pp. 127-130
Author(s):  
Roberto Valle
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The Other ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Event ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

Eduard Limonov, a maudit writer, idol of the Soviet and post-Soviet underground, is the Limonov's eponymous hero of Emmanuel Carrčre, a book that in France has been a literary and political event; a kind of anatomy of the innards of the thug that narrates the novelistic and dangerous life of a voyou, a rogue. From the adventurous life of Limonov you can take the narration of the not official but eccentric and infamous history of the Russia and the West by the Cold War to the rise of Putin. Limonov, National-Bolshevik thug, has joined the Other Russia, an heteroclite coalition, and considers Putin his sworn enemy to be destroyed by a revolution. But Limonov will forfeit the seizure of power and retire to Samarkand or like Rudin, superfluous man of Turgenev's novel, will be forced to die for a cause not his, for the hated democracy.

The West and Elections in Nigeria

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-37
Author(s):  
Amadu Sesay ◽  
Charles Ukeje
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Socialist Country ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
Essential Component ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War

The end of the cold war has made democratization, and its barest essential component elections, imperative for all nondemocratic forms of government. This is to be expected, given the dismal failure of the socialist alternative even in the first socialist country, the former Soviet Union. The United States, which is not only the foremost democracy in the world but also the only superpower, has been in the vanguard of democracy salesmanship. Africa, the continent with the least democratic space, has not been left out, as witnessed by President Bill Clinton’s unprecedented tour of the continent in March 1998.Understandably, Nigeria, arguably the most important country in Africa, was left out of the tour, since it was then under the obnoxious, undemocratic, and oppressive military regime of the late General Sani Abacha.

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