Introduction

Author(s):  
Adeed Dawisha

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to examine the political development of Iraq from the inception of the state in 1921 to the post-2003 years of political and societal turmoil. Its premise is that from the very beginning of the state the Iraqi project in fact devolved into three undertakings: the consolidation of the state and its governing institutions, the legitimization of the state through the framing of democratic structures, and the creation of an overarching, and thus unifying, national identity. The book is different from other studies of Iraq's political history, in that it traces the development of each of the three projects of governance, democracy, and national identity separately, while at the same time highlighting the way they impacted and shaped one another. The remainder of the chapter discusses the roots of the predicament of post-2003 Iraq.

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-45
Author(s):  
Akihiko Shimizu

This essay explores the discourse of law that constitutes the controversial apprehension of Cicero's issuing of the ultimate decree of the Senate (senatus consultum ultimum) in Catiline. The play juxtaposes the struggle of Cicero, whose moral character and legitimacy are at stake in regards to the extra-legal uses of espionage, with the supposedly mischievous Catilinarians who appear to observe legal procedures more carefully throughout their plot. To mitigate this ambivalence, the play defends Cicero's actions by depicting the way in which Cicero establishes the rhetoric of public counsel to convince the citizens of his legitimacy in his unprecedented dealing with Catiline. To understand the contemporaneousness of Catiline, I will explore the way the play integrates the early modern discourses of counsel and the legal maxim of ‘better to suffer an inconvenience than mischief,’ suggesting Jonson's subtle sensibility towards King James's legal reformation which aimed to establish and deploy monarchical authority in the state of emergency (such as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605). The play's climactic trial scene highlights the display of the collected evidence, such as hand-written letters and the testimonies obtained through Cicero's spies, the Allbroges, as proof of Catiline's mischievous character. I argue that the tactical negotiating skills of the virtuous and vicious characters rely heavily on the effective use of rhetoric exemplified by both the political discourse of classical Rome and the legal discourse of Tudor and Jacobean England.


Author(s):  
Rembert Lutjeharms

This chapter introduces the main themes of the book—Kavikarṇapūra, theology, Sanskrit poetry, and Sanskrit poetics—and provides an overview of each chapter. It briefly highlights the importance of the practice of poetry for the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava tradition, places Kavikarṇapūra in the (political) history of sixteenth‐century Bengal and Orissa as well as sketches his place in the early developments of the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava tradition (a topic more fully explored in Chapter 1). The chapter also reflects more generally on the nature of both his poetry and poetics, and highlights the way Kavikarṇapūra has so far been studied in modern scholarship.


Author(s):  
Dmitry Shumsky

This introductory chapter discusses the unquestioned identification between “Zionism” as a national movement that sought to realize the Jewish nation's self-determination in Palestine, and “the Jewish nation-state,” which has no room for the national collective existence of any particular national group other than the Jews and which represents the ultimate and teleological realization of the Zionist project. The vast majority of those who support the two-state solution, who are known as the “Zionist left,” base their position on the need to avoid the formation of a binational state in which the Jewish demographic majority would be endangered. They argue that this is the way to rescue what they consider to be the political core of the Zionist idea: a mono-national state for the Jewish political collective.


2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-180
Author(s):  
Roslina Abdul Latif ◽  
◽  
Sojoud Elgarrai ◽  

The following study of selected works of art by Zulkiflee Anwar Haque or better known as Zunar, a Malaysian political cartoonist from his book ‘Twit Twit Cincin’. This study is guided by the visual rhetoric theory that has three areas of study - nature, function and evaluation. The study looks at selected cartoons that addressed political figures, politics and social issues. The research looked at the way the caricatures portrayed Malaysian politicians, his perspectives on the political and social issues and how these issues were addressed. The researcher also looked at metaphors used by the cartoonist to communicate his ideas to the audiences. The study found that Zunar’s portrait of Malaysian politicians is not always positive. He is critical but not in an inflammatory way. The metaphors found in Zunar’s work are found to be common themes and simple to understand. They are also very well-known, visually appealing and a tool to tie his messages together and to get his ideas across. Zunar has managed to resist the oppression of the state through his cartoons while looking at institutional reform, puts forth an alternative articulation of history and nation that juxtapose the current government. Keywords: Zunar, political cartoonist, political and social issues, Twit Twit Cincin, metaphors.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rizka Wahyu Nurmalaningrum

Often the link between politics, economics and history escapes our attention so far. Much of the history of Indonesian development even the political history of the Indonesian nation itself has been forgotten by this millennial era society. They prefer mobile phones rather than books. Prefer cellphones from history. Even though history is important. The successors of the nation in the millennial era are more concerned with social media than knowing the origin of a country. Many do not understand the history of someone who can become president. There are various theories about history, such as Aristotelian theory, and the theory of plateau. Arisstoteles can be made a reference for learning for the ideals of the State with a fair and calm manner. The discussion with this theme takes the example of the fall of Soeharto as President of the Republic of Indonesia.


Author(s):  
Julian E. Zelizer

This chapter examines how legislators associated with the conservative movement thrived in a congressional process that liberals had helped to create. It first considers how Congress was reformed in the 1970s, focusing on its transition from the committee era to the contemporary era and how the reform coalition of 1958–1974 helped end the committee era. It then compares the contemporary Congress to the committee-era Congress and how the new legislative process contributed to the fortunes of the conservative movement. It also discusses the decentralization and centralization fostered by congressional reforms, the creation of the Conservative Opportunity Society in 1983 by young mavericks in the Republican Party, congressional conservatives' disappointment with the presidency of George H. W. Bush, and the Republican congressional reforms of 1995. The chapter argues that the state endured despite the political success of American conservatism in Congress.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Teo Ballvé

This introductory chapter briefly explores the ways in which imaginaries of statelessness have structured the political life of Urabá, Colombia. It argues that Colombia's violent conflicts have produced surprisingly coherent and resilient regimes of accumulation and rule—yet this is not to say they are benevolent. In order to do so, this chapter approaches the state as a dynamic ensemble of relations that is both an effect and an instrument of competing political strategies and relations of power. In Urabá, groups from across the political spectrum, armed and otherwise, all end up trying to give concrete coherence to the inherently unwieldy abstraction of the state in a space where it supposedly does not exist. The way this absence exerts a generative political influence is what this chapter establishes as the “frontier effect.” The frontier effect describes how the imaginary of statelessness in these spaces compels all kinds of actors to get into the business of state formation; it thrusts groups into the role of would-be state builders.


Author(s):  
Jaime Rodríguez Matos

This chapter examines the role of Christianity in the work of José Lezama Lima as it relates to his engagement with Revolutionary politics. The chapter shows the multiple temporalities that the State wields, and contrasts this thinking on temporality with the Christian apocalyptic vision held by Lezama. The chapter is concerned with highlighting the manner in which Lezama unworks Christianity from within. Yet its aim is not to prove yet again that there is a Christian matrix at the heart of modern revolutionary politics. Rather, it shows the way in which the mixed temporalities of the Revolution, already a deconstruction of the idea of the One, still poses a challenge for contemporary radical thought: how to think through the idea that political change is possible precisely because no politics is absolutely grounded. That Lezama illuminates the difficult question of the lack of political foundations from within the Christian matrix indicates that the problem at hand cannot be reduced to an ever more elusive and radical purge of the theological from the political.


2021 ◽  
pp. 96-120
Author(s):  
André Lecours

This chapter considers a case, Flanders, where secessionism has not gained strength despite many episodes fuelling tensions between the two main communities and significant, though episodic, cynicism about the future of the country. The singular political development of the Belgian state, which has involved an incremental and open-ended process of decentralization, has meant that Flemish autonomy is dynamic. Belgium is famous for its seemingly incessant constitutional politics leading to reforms of the state that transform the country’s institutional architecture in innovative ways. For Flanders, these state reforms have meant a gradual expansion of autonomy. Moreover, the reforms are never meant to conclude a process of decentralization; they always leave issues to be dealt with at an ulterior date. State reforms are high-profile events that often occur to manage a crisis between the two communities and are subject to government formation agreements in the context of the country’s consociational practices. Flemish parties can typically have a state reform if most of them want one or else the country remains without a government, which is something Francophone parties want to avoid for fear it makes Belgium seem unworkable and therefore feeds Flemish secessionist arguments. As Flemings know there is a forthcoming state reform that will enhance their collective autonomy and address some issues perceived as important for their national identity and interests, there is little incentive to support secessionist positions.


2021 ◽  
pp. 300-302

This chapter studies Martina L. Weisz's Jews and Muslims in Contemporary Spain: Redefining National Boundaries (2019). This book aims to analyze “the place granted to Jews and Muslims in the construction of contemporary Spanish national identity, with a special focus on the transition from an exclusive, homogeneous sense of collective self toward a more pluralistic, open and tolerant one, in a European context.” This narrative of progress, however, is challenged by the excellent information provided in the book itself, which shows how these processes have been filled with contradictions and deep ambivalence, both historically and in the present, and how exclusionary nationalism has not been left behind. One of the book's richest contributions is its Jewish/Muslim comparative framework, which, as the author argues, is not usually undertaken. Ultimately, this book contains an abundance of useful information and insights for all those interested in Spain's relationship with its Muslim and Jewish minorities, the political and cultural negotiations of multiculturalism in Spain, and the way these relationships are affected by international events and diplomatic concerns.


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