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492. The Politics and Ethics of Identity: In Search of Ourselves by Richard Ned Lebow
- Author:
- Alan Wolfe
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Carnegie Council
- Abstract:
- The Politics and Ethics of Identity: In Search of Ourselves, Richard Ned Lebow (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 431 pp., $103 cloth, $34.99 paper. The Politics and Ethics of Identity dazzles the reader with its ambition and erudition. Its theme is grand: nearly all the claims made by social theorists emphasizing the importance of identity are wrong because human beings and the associations they create, including nation-states, can do without it. Its breadth is startling, and includes brilliant textual analyses of, among other things, Greek epic poetry, the operas of Mozart, Germany's search for a classical past, the contemporary conservative Christian book series Left Behind, and science fiction. If all this is not enough, it also contains important theoretical discussions of the nature of narrative and the question of whether modernity implies a sharp break with the past.
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- Germany and Cuba
493. Political Self-Sacrifice: Agency, Body and Emotion in International Relations
- Author:
- Andrew A.G. Ross
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- Carnegie Council
- Abstract:
- Political Self-Sacrifice: Agency, Body and Emotion in International Relations, K. M. Fierke (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 281 pp., $95 cloth. What could we learn from examining suicide bombing, self-immolation, or hunger strikes not through the lens of state security but from the position of those individuals who use such acts to achieve normative change? In addressing this question, Political Self-Sacrifice brings what seem like senseless acts of desperation into focus as strategically intelligible and culturally meaningful techniques of resistance. By disentangling the logic of “political self-sacrifice,” K. M. Fierke offers an important and timely account of the political strategies, cultural meanings, and normative aspirations associated with those participants in international affairs who, as she puts it, “play with a weak hand” (p. 8).
- Topic:
- International Relations, Politics, and Regime Change
- Political Geography:
- New York
494. Turkey's Humanitarian Diplomacy and Development Cooperation
- Author:
- Edibe Sozen and M. Hakan Yavuz
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- The purpose of this paper is to examine the social and political causes of the Gezi protests, and their long- and short-term impact on Turkey's domestic landscape. As part of our endeavor to enrich the conversation over the protests, this paper puts in context both the meaning and media coverage of the Gezi protests. This in turn will explain how on the one hand a protest over a particular environmental dispute escalated into vulgar anti- Erdoğan slogans and wild Tahrir comparisons, but on the other hand faded away without leaving a mark on Turkey's national political map. Following our analysis of the Gezi Park phenomenon, we will offer our view of its implications.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Turkey
495. Beyond Turkey's Borders: Long-distance Kemalism, State Politics and the Turkish Diaspora
- Author:
- Umut Azak
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- Beyond Turkey's Borders: Long-distance Kemalism, State Politics and the Turkish Diaspora Beyond Turkey's Borders is based on Banu Şenay's PhD dissertation, which is an ethnographic study of Kemalism among migrant Turks in Australia. Şenay conducted her fieldwork in Sydney in 2007 and 2008 among Turkish migrants who have settled there since the late 1960s. She draws her material largely from formal and informal interviews with first- and second-generation migrants, as well as Turkish and Australian state officials. She also performs content analysis of relevant community papers' archives and contemporary visual and textual materials, such as political speeches, cartoons, internet blogs, etc., produced, shared or followed by the migrant actors of “trans-Kemalism.”
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- Turkey and Australia
496. The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East: The Politics of Community in French Mandate Syria
- Author:
- Annika Rabo
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East. The Politics of Community in French Mandate Syria Ethnic and religious minorities – and concomitant majorities – do not just exist sui generis. They have to be constructed or invented. It is not self-evident who is included in which category and who is excluded. It is only once these categories are accepted and used by people that they appear as natural and even eternal. This basic argument in White's book is not new or startling for readers familiar with today's mainstream research on ethnicity and social classifications. None the less, it is an argument well worth reiterating, not least because of its contemporary relevance for politics in the post-Ottoman empire in general and in Syria in particular. White does this by investigating the actual emergence of concepts such a 'minorities' and 'majority' during the French mandate in Syria.
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Syria
497. Nationalism and National Identities
- Author:
- Sinisa Malesevic
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- Nationalism and National Identities There is a strong tendency among public commentators and many scholars to view nationalism as a phenomenon of yesteryears. Hence the 19th and beginning of 20th centuries are usually identified as the heyday of nationalist movements, whereas much of the 20th and the beginning of this century are analysed through the prism of apparently more universalist ideologies: liberalism, socialism, conservatism, religious fundamentalism, anarchism, fascism or racism. The past two decades are in particular viewed as being characterised by the strong forms of universalist creeds: the world-wide proliferation of the neo-liberal doctrines and practices; the ever increasing globalisation of the economy, politics and culture; the intensive expansion of cosmopolitanism, individualism and transnational identities; and conspicuous religious revivals. However, despite all these major organisational and ideological transformations that have taken place nationalism did not vanish. On the contrary, nationalist doctrines and practices have demonstrated resilience and ability to adapt to different political and economic conditions and to co-exist with very different belief systems. Hence, nationalist discourses were crucial for the justification of the communist rule in Romania of the 20th century and in Stroessner's right wing dictatorship in Paraguay just as they were in the democratic USA and France. This has not changed dramatically in this century as the strong nationalist sentiments underpin such diverse political orders as Islamist Iran, communist North Korea, and liberal Denmark. Nationalism remains a potent source of popular legitimacy.
- Topic:
- Nationalism and Politics
- Political Geography:
- North Korea and Romania
498. Secularism and Religion-Making
- Author:
- Nurullah Ardiç
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- Secularism and Religion-Making Recent scholarship in the sociology of religion has produced fresh perspectives on the understanding of religion and its inter-relationships with society. Largely influenced by post-structuralist social theory, these new perspectives call for a re-evaluation of existing theoretical and methodological approaches as well as empirical analyses, as reflected in the oft-used terms to describe their projects, including “rethinking,” “imagining” religion and its “invention” and “manufacturing” a là “invention of tradition”. The term “religion-making” is one such concept that questions the traditional ways of studying religion (and its constitutive other, secularism). It refers to the reification by political and intellectual actors (with different motivations) of a religion (its beliefs and practices/rituals) based on certain taken-for-granted (binary) concepts, such as the religious/secular divide, within the discursive field of world religions. The collection of articles edited by Markus Dressler and Arvind-Pal Mandair brings together eleven theoretically-informed and empirically-focused studies on religion-making in different socio-historical contexts. It fits nicely, and contributes to, the above-mentioned recent trends in the sociology of religion and secularism. A strong trend within this scholarship is a critique of the “secular critique” of the Enlightenment-inspired secularization theory, which also implies a critical re-evaluation of the (secularist) notion of a clear-cut distinction between the religious and the secular. This is also a common theme among the articles brought together in this edited volume: each study questions from a post-structuralist angle (but focusing on a different aspect of) the assumption of the 'boundedness' of “religion” and “secularism” and their opposition to one another. The theoretical aim of the volume, according to the editors, is to problematize this dichotomous assumption and demonstrate instead the codependency of “secular” and “religious” discourses. Its empirical aim is to “examine the consequences of the colonial and postcolonial adoption of Western-style objectifications of religion and … the secular, by non-Western elites” (p. 3), but it also contains cases of Western actors. Moreover, the editors' lengthy Introduction contains a useful discussion on the philosophical foundations (from Kant to Heidegger, from Hume to Hegel) and current manifestations (in Taylor, Habermas etc.) of the epistemological hegemony of the religious/secular dichotomy and of the “universalization” of the concept of religion out of Western Christianity. The analyses contained in the volume address the processes of religion-making at three different levels. First, “religion-making from above” refers to the discursive strategy of reifying religion(s) from powerful positions rendering them an instrument of governmentality. This is often undertaken by nation-states in their efforts to reframe existing religious traditions in a docile manner. As the editors note, this strategy is also applied by individual political actors, intellectuals and NGOs, as exemplified by the famous American think-tank RAND Corporation's call for “rebuilding Islam” in a manner that would not constitute a threat to American interests worldwide. The same advice was reiterated in 2004 by Daniel Pipes, a member of the Zionist lobby in the US who was close to the Bush administration, who argued that the ultimate goal of “the war on terror” was “religion-building,” implying the neocon elites' desire to “civilize Islam” (p. 22). These examples show not only the fact that the notion of religion-making from above is extremely relevant to current global geo-politics but also a paradigmatic symptom of the secular-liberal hegemony over religion in Western imagination: all religious traditions are encouraged and/or forced to “fit in” the existing socio-political structures in the form of “protestantization” –i.e. becoming an a-political, “modernized”/secularized and docile religion with no agenda for change in the status quo. Therefore, this hegemonic secular discourse does not so much aim to cleanse the public sphere and politics from religion as to make the latter fit in with the existing system and, if possible, function as a source of legitimization for hegemonic powers.
- Topic:
- Islam and Politics
- Political Geography:
- America
499. Is Flexible Integration Harming the Prospect of a Common Acquis?
- Author:
- Filippa Chatzistavrou
- Publication Date:
- 03-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The International Spectator
- Institution:
- Istituto Affari Internazionali
- Abstract:
- In the post-Lisbon era and especially since the outburst of the financial and European sovereign debt crisis, the EU has been changing significantly, to the extent that the meaning and the process of integration are being affected. While constitutional asymmetry is a longstanding feature of the EU polity, the real challenge today is the expanding scope and fragmented character of newly established forms of flexibility, and how they are being used politically. The flexible configuration of integration reinforces a trend toward fragmented integration. Flexibility within the EU could become an end in itself, a device to serve a wide range of strategic visions and preferences in sectoral politics.
- Topic:
- Politics and Sovereignty
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Lisbon
500. Contesting the U.S. Constitution through State Amendments: The 2011 and 2012 Elections
- Author:
- Sean Beienburg
- Publication Date:
- 04-2014
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- SEAN BEIENBURG examines attempts at amending state constitutions in the 2011 and 2012 elections and finds that they were efforts to influence the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. He argues that some elected state officials see themselves as legitimate challengers of Supreme Court decisions. In addition, he finds that national interest groups use state constitutions as platforms for federal constitutional politics, and that such efforts were predominantly, though not exclusively, conservative in the last two election cycles.
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States