scholarly journals A MALAYSIA OF CITIZENS: ETHNICITY, MEMBERSHIP AND POLITICS OF MERGER

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Ong Argo Victoria

This paper examines the political history of the relationship between Malaysia and Singapore, focusing on the notion of citizenship and its ethnic, civic and political dimensions. It analyses the extent to which the merger of Singapore with Malaysia redefined the citizenship boundaries of the Malaysian national political identity. The incorporation of Singaporean citizens into the Malaysian political community was controversial, as it was closely related to electoral stakes. The ruling People’s Action Party and the Alliance Party attempted to delineate the political sphere of the population of each political unit through the demarcation between ‘citizenship’ and ‘nationality’. However, the citizenship crisis continued to trouble the relationship of these states to the point that both parties breached the perceived agreement not to interfere with the other’s political sphere of influence. This sphere of influence was delineated on the basis of race, thus cutting across political territory rather than territorial attributes. The ideological clashes over the meaning of citizenship that arose during the political merger of Singapore and Malaya, show that a truly Malaysian citizenship could not be developed-only a Malaysia of citizens.

Author(s):  
Jonathan Preminger

Chapter 15 summarizes the chapters which addressed the third sphere, the relationship of labor to the political community. It reiterates that since Israel was established, the labor market’s borders have become ever more porous, while the borders of the national (Jewish) political community have remained firm: the Jewish nationalism which guides government policy is as strong as ever. NGOs, drawing on a discourse of human rights, are able to assist some non-citizens but this discourse also resonates with the idea of individual responsibility: the State is no longer willing to support “non-productive” populations, who are now being shoehorned into a labor market which offers few opportunities for meaningful employment, and is saturated by cheaper labor intentionally imported by the State in response to powerful employer lobbies. These trends suggest a partial reorientation of organized labor’s “battlefront”, from a face-off with capital to an appeal to the public and state.


Author(s):  
Jonathan Preminger

Chapter 1 lays out the book’s theoretical framework. Accepting the claim that Israel is a neoliberalizing society, it asserts labor’s agency and its potential to thwart neoliberalism as part of a struggle taking place on the ideological or symbolic level too. It then proposes neocorporatism as a useful conceptual approach, and links this to union revitalization and concepts of power. These theoretical terms and concepts are used to anchor the three “spheres” of union activity which structure the book: union democracy, or workers’ relationship to their representative organization; the balance of power between labor and capital, and the way the potential clash of interests between them is viewed and played out; and the relationship of labor to the political establishment and wider political community. Finally, a short coda explains the research process and approach that led to the book.


Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly

This chapter binds the book together, recapitulating its general argument, and offering pointers as to how the study relates to some contemporary questions of political theory. It suggests that a classification that distinguishes between Weber the ‘liberal’, Schmitt the ‘conservative’ and Neumann the ‘social democrat’, cannot provide an adequate understanding of this episode in the history of political thought. Nor indeed can it do so for other periods. In this book, one part of the development of their ideas has focused on the relationship between state and politics. By learning from their examples, people continue their own search for an acceptable balance between the freedom of the individual and the claims of the political community.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-211
Author(s):  
Nick Cheesman

Throughout February 2012, a court sitting at Myanmar’s central prison recorded a defendant’s narrative of torture by policemen to have him confess to a bombing two years prior. How was this record made possible? What does the narrative reveal about the relationship of police torturers to the political community giving them authority to act? Working from Agamben’s intuition that in the moment of violence the policeman occupies an area symmetrical to the sovereign, inasmuch as his use of violence is justified in the name of public order, I suggest the account of police torture in this case can be explained in terms of Hobbes’s theory of attributed action. Like Hobbes’s sovereign, the Burmese policemen had the prerogative to decide when and how to use violence against the detained subject on behalf of the state. That the defendant could later recount to a judge the torture done to him was only because he lacked standing to lay claims against sovereign police, who he himself, as a member of the political community, had authorised. Ironically, the record of his narrative was possible precisely because his claims were without efficacy.


Author(s):  
S. N. Abrashkin

The review analyzes the memoirs of the first governor of the Samara region in the modern history of Russia Konstantin Alekseevich Titov. The ex-governor recorded the most important events of his political career, presented the personal characteristics of statesmen of the period of the 1990-s and early 2000-s. As a result of the study, it was found that in the memoirs of K.A.Titov, the relationship of the Samara governor with statesmen and representatives of the political elite of the Russian Federation is presented and fragmented his activities as a regional head of one of the largest regions of the Russian Federation.


1936 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-39
Author(s):  
John Van Antwerp Fine

One of the most interesting problems in the political history of the last three decades of the third century B.C. is the appearance of the Romans east of the Adriatic. Whether Rome in the First and Second Illyrian Wars was inaugurating a definite imperialistic policy with the conscious aim of gaining control in the Balkan peninsula, or whether at this time she was acting purely on the defensive against Illyrian piracy, are questions with which I am not concerned at present. The fact of primary importance is that, by establishing herself in Illyria, Rome came into contact with Macedon, and this contact was bound to lead to hostilities; for the Antigonids could not fail to resent the intrusion of a stranger in what they considered their own sphere of influence. In this paper I propose to consider the attitude of Philip V to the Roman protectorate in Illyria at the beginning of his reign. Since his whole life was one long struggle with Rome, the importance of understanding his policy in regard to this question is obvious. Before entering upon the subject, however, it will be necessary to try to determine how far westward Macedonian authority extended. A knowledge of this western frontier will not only inform us on the proximity of Macedonian possessions to the Roman protectorate, but will also reveal some of the problems which the barbaric Illyrian and Dardanian tribes presented to Philip in this quarter. Once we have these matters clearly in mind, we shall be in a much better position to form an unbiased estimate of Philip's attitude to what may be called his Illyrian problem.


1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Bullion

The effects of the intense personal and political relationship between the young George III and his “dearest friend,” the earl of Bute, are well known to scholars of eighteenth-century Britain. The prince's affection and respect raised Bute, an obscure though well-connected Scottish nobleman, to the highest offices of state and to the absolute pinnacle of power. The earl's instruction and advice governed George's reactions to men and measures from 1755 until 1763. Even after Bute's influence waned following his resignation as First Lord of the Treasury, the lingering suspicions at Whitehall and Westminster that the king still listened to him in preference to others complicated relations between George III, his ministers, and Parliament.This article examines the origins of the friendship between the king and the earl, and the features of it that strengthened and preserved their attachment during the 1750s. These are questions that have not engaged the attention of many students of the period. The long shadow the relationship cast over politics during the 1760s has intrigued far more historians than its beginnings. They have been content to leave efforts to understand that subject to Sir Lewis Namier, who was inclined toward making psychological judgments of eighteenth-century politicians, and John Brooke, who was compelled to do so by the demands of writing a biography of George III. Both of these men asserted that the personal and affectionate aspects of the connection between the prince and Bute far outweighed the political and ideological during its early years. Their arguments have evidently convinced historians of politics to pass over what made Bute “my dearest friend” and press on to matters they assumed to be more relevant to their interests. The concern of this essay is to demonstrate that this assumption is incorrect. It will show that political and ideological considerations were in fact utterly crucial to this friendship at its inception and throughout its development during the 1750s, with consequences which profoundly affected the political history of the first decade of George III's reign. A mistaken reliance on works by Namier and Brooke has prevented scholars from perceiving these realities. Thus it is necessary to begin by pointing out the serious flaws in their interpretations.


Author(s):  
Yevgeniy Ye. Abekhtikov

The article is devoted to the problem of proletarian culture, the history of the creation and functioning of the Proletkult organisation. The author considers its theoretical basis, the practical implementation of which proved to be problematic. The work shows that all Marxist intellectuals believed that proletarian culture has nothing to do with the bourgeois one. Alexander Bogdanov, the most infl uential ideologist of the Proletkult, believed that the proletarian culture is developed by the newest proletariat, which he called «industrial». An analysis of the majority of his statements shows that the intelligentsia and peasantry was not even considered to be involved in the creation of the new culture by Alexander Bogdanov. However, during its heyday, the Proletkult was a refuge for intellectuals who devoted themselves to the service of Revolution and the Communist Party. The article also draws attention to the problem of the relationship of the creators and organisers of the Proletkult with the Soviet state and the Bolshevik Party. The Proletkult claimed autonomy in the sphere of culture, completely rejecting the idea of submission to any state institution. However, Lenin evaluated the Proletkult negatively, considering it to be not only useless, but also harmful. Part of Lenin’s problem with the Proletkult was Alexander Bogdanov personally, as he would be the rival of the former at one time and, possibly, could be the political rival in future, using the Proletkult as an organisational base


2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 843-863 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNA BECKER

AbstractIn the history of early modern political thought, gender is not well established as a subject. It seems that early modern politics and its philosophical underpinnings are characterized by an exclusion of women from the political sphere. This article shows that it is indeed possible to write a gendered history of early modern political thought that transcends questions of the structural exclusion of women from political participation. Through a nuanced reading of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century commentaries on Aristotle's practical philosophy, it deconstructs notions on the public/political and private/apolitical divide and reconstructs that early modern thinkers saw the relationship of husband and wife as deeply political. The article argues that it is both necessary and possible to write gender in and into the history of political thought in a historically sound and firmly contextual way that avoids anachronisms, and it shows – as Joan Scott has suggested – that gender is indeed a ‘useful category’ in the history of political thought.


Author(s):  
David Abulafia

The relationship between Rome and the Mediterranean was already changing significantly before the fall of Carthage and of Corinth. This relationship took two forms. There was the political relationship: it was clear before the Third Punic War that the Roman sphere of influence extended to Spain in the west and to Rhodes in the east, even when the Roman Senate did not exercise direct dominion over the coasts and islands. Then there was the commercial relationship that was creating increasingly close bonds between Rome’s merchants and the corners of the Mediterranean. Yet the Senate and the merchants were distinct groups of people. Like Homer’s heroes, Roman aristocrats liked to claim that they did not sully their hands in trade, which they associated with craft, peculation and dishonesty. How could a merchant make a profit without lies, deception and bribes? Rich merchants were successful gamblers; their fortune depended on taking risks and enjoying luck. This condescending attitude did not prevent Romans as eminent as the Elder Cato and Cicero from commercial dealings, but naturally these were effected through agents, most of whom were Romans in a new sense. As it gained control of Italy, Rome offered allied status to the citizens of many of the towns that fell under its rule, and also established its own colonies of army veterans. ‘Romanness’ was thus increasingly detached from the experience of living in Rome and, besides, only part of the population of the city counted as Roman citizens, with the right to vote, a right denied to women and to slaves. There may have been about 200,000 slaves in Rome around 1 BC , about one-fifth of the total population. Their experience forms an important part of the ethnic history of the Mediterranean. Captives from Carthage and Corinth might be set to work in the fields, having to endure a harsh existence far from home, ignorant of the fate of their spouses and children. Iberian captives were put to work in the silver mines of southern Spain, in unspeakable conditions.


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