scholarly journals Afghan internationalism and the question of Afghanistan's political legitimacy

Afghanistan ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-94
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Leake
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Political History ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Top Down ◽  
International Recognition

This article uses Afghan engagement with twentieth-century international politics to reflect on the fluctuating nature of Afghan statehood and citizenship, with a particular focus on Afghanistan's political ‘revolutions’ in 1973 and 1978. By considering the ways in which Afghan leaders asserted their politics in the international sphere, some of the key concerns of the Afghan state become clear. In order to assert their authority and gain credence among international observers, Afghan leaders both drew on and rejected their state's political history, ultimately leading to a top-down reconceptualization of Afghan statehood and the citizen which relied on a territorially defined state, rather than ethnicity. Two issues especially shaped Afghan foreign engagement: a longstanding tradition of political neutrality, or bi-tarafi, and demands for international recognition of an autonomous Pashtun state in the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands. These interests frequently conflicted, but both played critical roles in prolonging regional instability. Afghan leadership ultimately latched onto, publicized, and justified contradictory definitions of Afghan statehood and citizenship that could not be reconciled.

Aftershocks

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seva Gunitsky
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
International System ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Sudden Rise ◽  
The World ◽  
National Borders

Over the past century, democracy spread around the world in turbulent bursts of change, sweeping across national borders in dramatic cascades of revolution and reform. This book offers a new global-oriented explanation for this wavelike spread and retreat—not only of democracy but also of its twentieth-century rivals, fascism, and communism. The book argues that waves of regime change are driven by the aftermath of cataclysmic disruptions to the international system. These hegemonic shocks, marked by the sudden rise and fall of great powers, have been essential and often-neglected drivers of domestic transformations. Though rare and fleeting, they not only repeatedly alter the global hierarchy of powerful states but also create unique and powerful opportunities for sweeping national reforms—by triggering military impositions, swiftly changing the incentives of domestic actors, or transforming the basis of political legitimacy itself. As a result, the evolution of modern regimes cannot be fully understood without examining the consequences of clashes between great powers, which repeatedly—and often unsuccessfully—sought to cajole, inspire, and intimidate other states into joining their camps.

scholarly journals POLITICS AND PREACHING: CHIEFLY CONVERTS TO THE NAZARETHA CHURCH, OBEDIENT SUBJECTS, AND SERMON PERFORMANCE IN SOUTH AFRICA

2010 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOEL CABRITA
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Narrative Practice ◽  
The Church

ABSTRACTTwentieth-century Natal and Zululand chiefs' conversions to the Nazaretha Church allowed them to craft new narratives of political legitimacy and perform them to their subjects. The well-established praising tradition of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Zulu political culture had been an important narrative practice for legitimating chiefs; throughout the twentieth century, the erosion of chiefly power corresponded with a decline in chiefly praise poems. During this same period, however, new narrative occasions for chiefs seeking to legitimate their power arose in Nazaretha sermon performance. Chiefs used their conversion testimonies to narrate themselves as divinely appointed to their subjects. An alliance between the Nazaretha Church and KwaZulu chiefs of the last hundred years meant that the Church could position itself as an institution of national stature, and chiefs told stories that exhorted unruly subjects to obedience as a spiritual virtue.

Steeped in Modernism: The Teapot as Manifesto in Early 20th Century Art

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maya Bielinski
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Political History ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
The Other ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Small Window ◽  
Time Period ◽  
20Th Century Art

The art manifesto, a written political, social, and artistic proclamation of an artistic movement, surged in popularity among avant‐garde art groups in the first half of the twentieth century. Many of the manifestos featured declarations for the synthesis of art and life as well as a call for social and political power for artists of both 'high' and 'low' art forms. Concurrently, new artistic interpretations of the humble teapot became suddenly ubiquitous. This inquiry explores how the teapot emerged as a dominant symbol for the goals of Modern Art movements, and includes an analysis of the teapot's socio‐political history, its ambiguous status between high and low art, and its role in the commercial sphere. By examining the teapots of Suprematism's Kazimir Malevich, Constructivism's Mariane Brandt,and Surrealism's Meret Oppenheim, this presentation will track ideas of functionality, the teapot as symbol, and aesthetics from 1923 to 1936. This small window in time offers an analysis of the extraordinary developments in teapots, and perhaps a glimpse of the paralleled momentum that occurred more generally in design, architecture, and the other arts in this time period.

“This Room is Yours, Personal!”: The Rise and Fall of Middle-Class Decoration Expertise in the Bedrooms of America’s Teens, 1900–1985

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-129
Author(s):  
Jason Reid
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Room Design ◽  
Do It Yourself ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

This article also examines how the decline of teen-oriented room décor expertise reflected significant changes in the way gender and class influenced teen room culture during the tail end of the Cold War. Earlier teen décor strategies were often aimed towards affluent women; by contrast, the child-centric, do-it-yourself approach, as an informal, inexpensive alternative, was better suited to grant boys and working class teens from both sexes a greater role in the room design discourse. This article evaluates how middle-class home décor experts during the early decades of the twentieth century re-envisioned the teen bedroom as a space that was to be designed and maintained almost exclusively by teens rather than parents. However, many of the experts who formulated this advice would eventually become victims of their own success. By the 1960s and 1970s, teens were expected to have near total control over their bedrooms, which, in turn, challenged the validity of top-down forms of expertise.

Chinese Revolutionary Ballet

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaomei Chen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Future Development ◽  
Political History ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Folk Dance ◽  
Chinese Tradition ◽  
Socialist Realist ◽  
Significant Performance ◽  
The Impact

Introduced to China in the 1920s, Western ballet evolved into a significant performance genre in modern and contemporary China. Its popularity grew in the twentieth century when political history, revolutionary wars, the impact of Western cultures, and the artistic visions of a new and modern state all played a significant role in the formation of Chinese revolutionary ballet. The revolutionary ballets took over this Western classical form and transformed its aesthetics, turning an elite spectacle into a socialist realist portrayal of everyday life and its challenges. The introduction of Western ballet into China can be traced to 1894, when the first Sino-Japanese War broke out. At that time, Yu Rongling (裕容龄) traveled to Japan with her father, a Manchu aristocratic diplomat of the Qing Court. She learned modern Japanese dance before pursuing a formal training in Western ballet in Paris, and her teachers included Isadora Duncan. Yu’s quick rise to stardom on the Western stage brought her into the Qing Court, from 1904 to 1907, as a lady-in-waiting to entertain Empress Dowager Cixi (慈禧太后), who developed an interest in Western modern dance. Yu also initiated a combination of Western modern dance with traditional Chinese folk dance, therefore paving the way for the future development of a unique choreography which blended Western and Chinese tradition.

Criminal Law as Public Law I

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Vincent Chiao
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Criminal Process ◽  
Social Commitment ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries

This chapter sketches the gradual emergence of criminal law as public law over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as public institutions gradually asserted control over most aspects of the criminal process. The emergence of criminal law as public law is compared to the development of the welfare state in the early decades of the twentieth century. Public institutions collectively manage the risk of crime, in part by mobilizing practices of policing, prosecution, and punishment. They represent a social commitment to treating crime as a publicly shared burden rather than merely a privately borne tragedy. The emergence of criminal law as public law suggests that, rather than understanding crime and punishment by reference to the rights of individual persons in the state of nature, a normative theory of criminal law should be appropriately sensitive to the institutional morality and political legitimacy of public institutions.

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