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The article examines the historical significance of Ukrainian literature in nation-building and its contemporary role in Ukraine's resistance against Russia. Topics discussed include the promotion of Ukrainian mass literature in the early Soviet period, the scholarly analysis of Ukrainian war poetry translations, and the need for a more nuanced understanding of Ukraine's literary history.

This articles examines the Msane chieftaincy, a small polity located in the vicinity of the White and Black Mfolozi Rivers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This article makes two contributions. One, it presents a coherent narrative of the history of the Msane chiefdom in south-eastern Africa. It does so by looking at how it was challenged, then disintegrated and migrated, and finally assimilated itself into other groups over the course of the nineteenth century. Two, it contributes to the ongoing conversation about the historiography of groups in southern Africa, especially as regards the question of how to reconstruct precolonial (and colonial) histories that were dismissed in the accounts about Zulu nation-building accounts and swept under the carpet in written accounts in the mid- and late nineteenth century. The article discusses developments in the broad area south of Delagoa Bay and how these led to the rise of the paramount kingdoms such as the Ndwandwe under Zwide, Mthethwa under the Dingiswayo and the Zulu Kingdom. Amongst the chiefdoms that were affected by these developments was the Msane chiefdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the role of Standard Arabic in nationalism and nation-building in the Mashriq and the Maghrib through two case studies, Iraq in the 1920s and 1930s and Morocco in the three decades after its independence in 1956. It explores the history and political significance of the modernisation and standardisation of the Arabic language and analyses Standard Arabic’s role in nationalism and nation-building in the Mashriq and the Maghrib in general and in Iraq and Morocco in particular. It argues that while both the Mashriq and the Maghrib saw a process of Arabisation, this process was a revival of Arabic in Iraq and the Mashriq and a reclamation of the language in Morocco and the Maghrib, and that while the Arabic language was used in the independence struggle and nation-building in both the Mashriq and the Maghrib, it was used as a symbol of Arab nationalism in Iraq and the Mashriq but as a symbol of Islam in Morocco and the Maghrib. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Armenian Genocide, the Ottoman Empire's Young Turk government forcibly transferred and assimilated thousands of Armenian children into Turkish society. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, Armenian and international bodies and individuals began to liberate the transferred children. However, they encountered resistance to child identification from both Turkish authorities and some of the children themselves. This study examines the efforts to bring back those child-survivors, many of whom, after being rescued, found it difficult to accept their Armenian identities following their traumatic ordeal. To analyse in what ways the liberated child-survivors were educated, this study investigates Tun magazine, prepared by the orphans of the Jbeil orphanage, and presents its history. Tun is a unique example of a student press that was guided by teachers, with the aim of reinforcing Armenianness in the students and returning them to their nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Militarized state-building interventions (MSIs) must fulfill two often conflicting goals. At the time of withdrawal the intervenor must leave in place a state able to survive on its own and govern its territory. States only intervene in other states, however, when they aspire to change the policy of the target in ways they prefer. In attempting to balance these objectives, the intervenor 'pulls' policy in its preferred direction by supporting a less popular leader at the cost of leaving behind a state that is no more likely to survive over time than its peers. We test our theory and find evidence for this trade-off by examining all MSIs by great powers and IOs in failed states from 1956 to 2006. Consistent with the theory, we find that MSIs do not on average have any significant effect on state survival. We also find that MSIs that move the target state's policy closer to that of the external power have a negative effect on survival, but interventions that do not result in a change in policy do not. This argument and finding temper the optimism of much of the contemporary literature on international interventions. Potential intervenors face a stark trade-off. If they draw the policy of the failed state towards their own preferences, then that state will be more likely to fail again in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Aotearoa/New Zealand, the relative safety offered by border regime closures during Covid-19 promised to ease uncertainty surrounding perilous futures, yet it did so by extending nation building into more intimate areas of life, exacerbating existing lines of discrimination. While justified in terms of crisis management, state expressions of citizen care during the pandemic were largely modelled in terms of a particular conflation of nature, society and economy peculiar to settler colonialism. Using bordering practices during the pandemic as a point of departure, this essay draws on scholarship on borders to interrogate settler colonialism in Aotearoa. This allows for four innovations: First, it situates Covid-19 as structure rather than event, one which accentuated historical patterns of nation-making. Second, it underscores continuities in Indigenous relations of ownership, belonging, social reproduction, kinship ethics and environmental engagements. Third, it suggests alliances between migrants, non-white and colonized peoples; those for whom borders do not remain at the periphery, but rather penetrate deep into the informal spaces of the everyday. And fourth, it recalibrates resistances as expressions of sociality aimed at reclassifying nature, economy and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exceptional measures to combat the Covid‐19 pandemic have brought great potential for reconfiguring urban governance. To examine such potential, this article presents how the pandemic crisis was managed in Chinese neighbourhoods. Following a statecraft approach and using Shanghai as a case, we show how a citywide lockdown played out on the ground as a joint product of state apparatus and citizens. Drawing on discourse analysis of interviews, policy documents, and news reports, we probe into Shanghai's contextualized neighbourhood pandemic responses, particularly by emerging neighbourhood voluntary practices in crisis management. We examine how these practices were tactically incorporated into the state's overall responses to the pandemic through co‐production, co‐option and mobilization. Instead of co‐governance, we argue that the grassroots state orchestrates and steers community participation and volunteerism to reinforce grassroots statecraft and consolidate its role in (post‐) pandemic neighbourhood governance. Through exceptional crisis management measures, the state penetrates everyday life. This process has facilitated local state‐building in urban neighbourhoods, thereby manifesting, perpetuating, and expanding state‐centred governance trends that were established well before the onset of Covid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization involves a process of state building. As manifest in its infrastructure, the state shapes its interactions with citizens. In this study, we link fine-grained geo-referenced points-of-interest (POI) data of government agencies with the 2018 Urbanization and Quality of Life Survey conducted in 40 localities experiencing rural-urban transition, and investigate how the presence of state infrastructure is associated with neighborhood well-being in China during a period of rapid urbanization. Our findings confirm that urbanization contributes to the expansion of local state: there is more evidence of state infrastructure per capita in newly urbanized areas than in potential sites of urbanization. Moreover, the association between state infrastructure and neighborhood well-being varies based on the type of government institution and the type of neighborhood. The presence of administrative infrastructure is positively associated with neighborhood satisfaction, which is likely due to residents' easier access to public services. In contrast, there is a negative association between coercive infrastructure and neighborhood satisfaction, but less so for urban neighborhoods than rural villages. The research provides nationwide evidence that the process of urbanization increases the state reach as well as its influence on local governance, but the effects of this influence vary considerably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article empirically studies the Catalan Digital Republic, that is the set of practises, narratives, institutions, and infrastructures mobilised by a stateless nation to reposition itself in the international arena. The article has a two-sided objective. First, to analyse how nation branding and nation building strategies intersect with digital technologies and technopolitical narratives. Second, to examine how stateless nations are making use of such technologies and strategies in order to find their way in the international arena. To satisfy these objectives we have empirically studied the case of Catalonia, a stateless nation which in the last years has developed an ambitious technopolitical strategy rebranding itself as the southern European technological hub. To do so we have relied on a triangular methodological strategy combining (1) critical discourse analysis; (2) in-depth interviews with high-profile actors coming from the political, academic, and civil society landscape, and (3) a thorough documentary analysis. The first part of the article explores the concept of digital nation and its relationship with the notion of nation branding. In the second part of the text, we present the methodology and the objectives. We continue the paper by outlining the results of the interviewing process and the critical analysis of the findings. The article concludes with a critical recapitulation of the research results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Giving policies pompous names, such as 'Digital Spain 2025', 'National Artificial Intelligence Strategy' (ENIA) or 'Spain 2050', the Spanish government wants to roll out a new sovereign power deployed outwards and integrated into the global digital, financial and military sphere. The article argues that this process, which requires handing over legal, social, financial, and economic powers to private corporations, has transformed the country into an incipient 'digital colony,' a territory for data mining and the surveillance of society situated on the periphery of the capitalist world economy. On the way to becoming a digital colony, the privatisation of nation-building and popular sovereignty has involved discriminating against minority nations and executing repressive law enforcement policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research partnerships between Tribal Nations and rural colleges and universities can support rural development and strengthen Tribal Nation building through reclamation of economic, political, cultural, and social affairs. However, Tribal Nation–University relationships have received little attention in rural sociology. While scholars identify best practices for research engagement in light of colonial harms, the ideal visions that Tribally and university‐affiliated people have for research partnerships and the barriers to achieving those ideals are poorly understood. Without identifying these visions and barriers, we risk making wrong assumptions about each party's needs and cannot implement appropriate policies. Semi‐structured interviews with Tribally‐affiliated (n = 20) and university‐affiliated (n = 20) people in rural southeastern Idaho suggest, contrary to literature on best practices for collaborative research, that participants in both groups viewed what we term "Tribally‐responsive research engagement" as ideal, though few projects met this goal. Tribally‐responsive research directly addressed Tribal priorities but did not necessarily involve close collaboration. The University's failure to acknowledge past or colonial harms, university‐affiliated researchers' historicization of those harms, and negative Native student experiences reinforced distrust, limiting desired research engagement. In sum, Tribally‐responsive research engagement could strengthen Native Nation building, but requires universities to acknowledge harms, create more welcoming campus environments, and prioritize Tribal benefits in research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The caudillo strongman remains emblematic of Latin American authoritarianism, but scholarship has seldom reflected on the semantic shifts that this concept suffered over time and its implications for the history of political thought. Numerous political experiments have been marginalized from historical and state-building narratives as the irrelevant work of caudillos , such as the short-lived Rio Grandense Republic in southern Brazil (1836–45). By explaining the Rio Grandense caudillos ' engagement with constitutionalism, this article argues that ' caudillo ' can be a useful category of analysis if historically contextualized. The article thus reconsiders the history of political thought and state-building in Latin America and beyond in the age of revolutions, suggesting the serious need to scrutinize 'failed' states and revolutions. This argument is pursued in three steps. First, the article describes shifting understandings and usages of ' caudillo ' in nineteenth-century Brazil and neighbouring River Plate states. Second, it analyses the Rio Grandense Republic's 1842–3 constituent assembly and the novel electoral procedures it employed. Third, it examines the never-promulgated constitutional draft produced by its assemblymen. This constitutional draft is then compared to contemporary River Plate and Brazilian constitutions and its rejection is explained through the assemblymen's divergent understandings of constitutionalism and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1916 and 1918, a group of Chinese intellectuals opened a school in Paris for Chinese workers who came to Europe in aid of the Allied cause. One of them, Cai Yuanpei, created a textbook based on lectures he gave at the school, which included chapters on moral and intellectual topics. This article focuses on two of these chapters – History and Geography – and situates them within the context of Chinese modern history, curricular and pedagogical debates in mainland China, and the history of textbook publication at the time. In doing so, I argue that Cai Yuanpei utilised these chapters to instil critical thinking skills among workers in a pedagogical move that, while consistent with contemporary discussions on the goals of education, was nevertheless unique in the context of other contemporary approaches to education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an engagement with the problem of national identification and attempts to explain why it is so persistent. Beginning with Freud's formulations around identification with respect to the mass mind and the moving to Lacan, the paper attempts to address questions around the perseverance of national identity. From both a Freudian and Lacanian understanding, identification is an ambivalent process that lasts through a subject's life. It is the desire for recognition from the Other (in this case the nation) all the while circling around the subject's own experience of lack. Bolstering this lack is the enjoyment that the Other promises the subject. Using the concepts of the ego-ideal and the ideal ego along with the partial encounters with jouissance, the paper attempts to chart the ways in which identification is encouraged within the Indian nation state and how the contradictory process within it makes national identity difficult to question. The paper takes as its case the renaming of cities and streets in India, under the aegis of the current Indian government. I argue the new names, and the justifications offered for the change, signify the changes occurring in the symbolic order of the nation. These changes offer a "new" iteration of the nation state, where older desires around nation building proliferate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coasts of Australia are bestowed with place names (toponyms) that offer great cultural insights into the Australian history and its European connections. This paper focusses on the 598 place names set up by the authors of the narratives and atlases of the French voyage of discovery captained by Nicolas Baudin who undertook the surveying and exploration of parts of the South and West coasts of New Holland, and of the east and north coasts of Van Diemen's Land between 1801 and 1803. These names have been gathered into a database where they have been categorised, for example, according to the endeavour of personalities (scientific, military, administrative among others) or members of the expedition. The article shows that the French toponyms mirror the building up after the turmoils of the French Revolution of a new national narrative which gives pride of place to the men of science, cultural figures, and military officers dear to the French emperor, Napoléon I, and whose work and actions were portrayed as great examples for the nation. This retroactive reading of the French nomenclature discloses an Australian early nineteenth century French background with around half the names still recognised today. • Place names bestowed along the Australian coast mirror the successive or consecutive episodes of Australian history. • The Australian place names attributed by the Baudin expedition outlines a national narrative developed during the Napoleonic period. • These place names reflect a period of 'nation building' when France was reinventing itself after the turmoils of the Revolution. • The French narrative behind the names' selection remains poorly understood, hampering their appreciation in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the division and conflict during the formative phase of Turkish nationalism in the Early Republican Period. Turkish nationalism, the founding ideology of Türkiye, was oriented towards identity and state building, and it developed an ethno‐secular vision. In contrast, Turkism‐Turanism nationalism, emerging from civilian circles, adopted a critical stance towards the official ideology and the prevailing understanding of ideology during that period, as evidenced by Atsız Mecmua. Using discourse analysis, this study examines prominent themes in Atsız Mecmua, such as anthropological Turkishness, Turanism, militarism, and a holistic approach to history. Conversely, communism in its ideological sense and identities other than Turkish were depicted as the other. Atsız Mecmua attempted to foster a new conception of nationalism to challenge Kemalist nationalism, seeking to forge Turkish unity through militarism and a fascist state model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bulgarian Principality, established in 1878, witnessed serious contentions over railway accessibility. The central planning state, through its de facto practices of catering to local interests, polarised regions contending against one another. It also witnessed strife between rich and poor articulated in class-based party politics as well as intra-elite struggles between traditional and new elites, fought out in the sphere of cultural capital. Claims to rail accessibility and its gains were expressed in social Darwinian, ethnic, nationalist, economist and socialist discourses. By contrast, the factual division of the railway network into state-run and privately operated services evoked a sense of unity. The Orient Railways served as Enemy Within due to its multinational ownership and profit-oriented policy, first under Maurice de Hirsch's control and later the Deutsche Bank's. This "negative integration" served to gloss over the many social, ethnic, ideological and regional fault lines running through the country which the central state had not managed to bridge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa's 30 years of post-apartheid democracy are replete with lessons in constructing a paradigm of covenantal pluralism out of the conduct of struggle against the injustice of apartheid, the management of the transition to democracy, and the imagination of a constitutional governance based on the finest values. In every seminal moment on this path there was a fluidity between the political, the societal, and the religious, which became the foundations first, of reconciliation and then of co-existence of historical antagonists. Such counter-instinctive behavior was germane to the African philosophy of human interdependence—Ubuntu—which was inscribed into the post-apartheid constitutional order as the glue for a fragmented society, and an antidote to populism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a review of the diverse practices of how armed groups tax, we highlight that a full account of why armed groups tax needs to go beyond revenue motivations, to also engage with explanations related to ideology, legitimacy, institution building, legibility and control of populations, and the performance of public authority. This article builds on two distinct literatures, on armed groups and on taxation, to provide the first systematic exploration of the motivations of armed group taxation. We problematize common approaches toward armed group taxation and state-building, and outline key questions of a new research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pad Thai, an innovation of Chinese kway teow through Thai-ization that became an iconic national dish of Thailand, played a significant role in shaping national identity and constructing the country's national image. This study explored the relationship between nationalist policies and the localization of kway teow during the Phibunsongkhram government (1938-1944), which contributed to the popularity of kway teow in Thailand's lower class in terms of both production and consumption. The examination of government policies and recipes revealed that Thais infused their emotions and the sense of national identity into the production and consumption of kway teow, thereby enhancing the bond between individuals and the nation and laying a more solid base for the implementation of nationalist policies. The innovation of Pad Thai was one such nationalist policy that was disseminated top-down by the Phibunsongkhram government, making it a national food of Thailand by highlighting its Thai characteristics and including it in its National Nutrition Project. However, Pad Thai was not purely a national Thai dish; rather, it was one that existed in Thais' imagination. In revealing the nature of national cuisine and its importance in nation-building, this study's findings contribute to the significant role of localizing Chinese food in Thai nation-building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study delves into the intricate dynamics between tribal communities and states, acknowledging their complex relationships. While not aiming for exhaustive understanding, it aims to illuminate the convoluted nature of these connections, which often puzzle the average citizen entrenched within other societal structures. By examining the relationships between tribal societies and the Iraqi, Syrian, Saudi Arabian, and Israeli (Palestinian) states, focusing on the interplay between tribal and public spheres, this study presents four fundamental models. Its primary goal is to discern whether these connections reflect harmony, conflict, or accommodation with established authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined how labour migrations, which provide a veritable platform for nation-building, has been thwarted in Nigeria by the political elite through the politics of indigene-settler phenomenon. Though extant studies had examined the indigene-settler syndrome, the prospects of labour migration for nation-building in the country, which this entails, has been understudied. This paper, therefore, provides an insightful investigation into how the intricate web of politics of inclusion, exclusion, and deprivations between the indigenes and labour migrants or settlers in various states has tended to thwart nation-building efforts in the country. The study argues that the indigene-settler phenomenon undermines the facilitative capacity of labour migration for the actualization of the nation’s productive potentials and the construction of a common nationhood. It found that the indigene-settler syndrome is an elite construct to advance and protect their economic and political interests within the polity. It further contends that the elite’s coincidence of interests over scarce resources leads to inter-elite competition in which the indigeneity card is deployed as a potent politico-economic tool to gain advantage over contending elites. The study advocates for inclusive politics as the route to true nationhood devoid of mistrust, fears of marginalization and acrimonious competition for power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the shifting security landscape following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is reconfiguring (anti)-LGBTQ politics in Eastern Europe. Drawing on securitization theory, we unravel the changing construction of LGBTQ rights as a security issue in Ukraine and Georgia. We posit that securitization of sexuality occurs at the intersection of processes taking place at multiple scales: nation-building, in its imbrication with militarized conflicts, and EU-Russia geopolitical competition. We argue that Russia’s war has led to diverging paths regarding anti-genderism and political homophobia in each country. In Ukraine, we identify a move towards desecuritization, through the incorporation of (some) sexual minorities into the struggle against Russian invasion. In Georgia, the ruling elites’ attempts to retain power in a complex geopolitical landscape have crystallized the securitization of LGBTQ people as a threat from which society has to be protected. The article suggests that a major security crisis can result in differential and ambiguous outcomes for (anti-)LGBTQ politics, both across geopolitical locations and within a single national space. Overall, it advances our understanding of how anti-genderism and political homophobia connect with geopolitical dynamics in Eastern Europe and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explicit representation of uncertainties is essential to improve the reliability of seismic assessments of earthquake-damaged buildings, particularly when dealing with unreinforced masonry buildings. Modern inspection techniques use images for detecting and quantifying the damage to a structure. Based on the principle of falsification, this paper evaluates how the use of information of damage that is obtained from images taken on earthquake-damaged buildings reduces the uncertainty when predicting the seismic response under a future earthquake. New model falsification criteria use information on the residual state of a building, such as shear cracks, residual roof displacements, and observation of out-of-plane failure. To demonstrate the effectiveness of these criteria in reducing the uncertainty in response predictions, results from a four-story unreinforced masonry building stiffened with reinforced concrete walls, which was experimentally tested under a sequence of ground motions, are assessed. Three commonly used modeling approaches (single degree of freedom (DOF) systems, multi DOF systems with four DOFs, and equivalent frame models) are used, where uncertainties in model parameters and model bias are included and propagated through the analysis. Out of the models used, and in the absence of any additional source of information, the proposed falsification criteria are most effective in connection with the equivalent frame model because this model can simulate the response at the element-level, while the simpler models can only represent the global response or the response at the storey-level. The results show that when using only the information on the presence of shear cracks, which might be the first and only source of information after an earthquake, the effectiveness of model falsification is increased, thus reducing the uncertainty in model parameter values and seismic response predictions through the use of image-based inspection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholars commonly see nation-building as a modernist project or a cultural assertion, we suggest that a "third way" is equally important. Analysing data from a representative survey of 2,001 Singaporean residents collected in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, we demonstrate that everyday social networks have been key to creating and maintaining Singaporean nationalism. We make the point that despite ambitious plans at transforming society, modernist projects must rely upon organic, routinised, and quotidian mechanisms such as friendship-making within and between ethnic groups for national cohesion to materialise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite Turkey's changing political regimes, sports have remained under state governance since 1938. This article analyzes the ideologies, influences, and politics that have shaped this state monopoly over the sports system across three phases from the 1920s to the 1990s: establishment, stabilization, and instrumentalization. The establishment phase aimed to align sports with nation-building ideals, incorporating nationalist ideology and paramilitarism. The stabilization phase embraced a statist approach influenced by socio-economic conditions and Soviet influence. The instrumentalization phase, beginning with the Özal years, utilized sports for political discourse and socio-economic purposes, retaining the state-run system even during the era of neoliberalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the creation of Pakistan in 1947, the state has been struggling in nation-building efforts because of mainly ethnic differences in the country. This is most evident in Balochistan, Pakistan's largest province, which has been suffering from insurgency since the late 1950s. Being home to the Gwadar Port, there is a growing Baloch resistance to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) since 2015. This situation necessitates a thorough examination of how the locals view and have reacted to the CPEC. This research investigates Baloch reactions to the CPEC and how the federal and provincial governments as well as Beijing have tried to address these challenges. China's investment is seen by the Baloch as neo-colonialism—something they must fight at all costs. Therefore, the CPEC, and particularly projects like the Gwadar Port, have added to the locals' grievances against the state, reflected through an increasing number of terrorist attacks in Balochistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estonian nationalism has undergone a transformation from 'state-seeking' to 'state-led' since acquiring independence, which has affected the Estonian national identity. Estonia is commonly labelled as an 'ethnic democracy'; however, we propose a dichotomy between open and closed ethnic democracies. The process of national state-building in Estonia is still going on, with the concept of 'Estonianness' consisting of the 'Finno-Ugric,' 'Nordic/Scandinavian,' and 'European' identity structures. These form the basis for an inclusive, or open ethnic democracy. Though Estonianness is primarily defined in cultural and linguistic terms, a newcomer may ascribe oneself to it and become a member of the ethno-civic nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the phenomena of complex threat syndrome (CTS) in the Sahel from the standpoint of the increasing dysfunctionality of the states in this area. The study posits that the CTS in the Sahel reflects the logic of a conflict-crime-terror conundrum in the context of rising state fragility. The crisis of legitimacy and governability in the Sahel, instantiated by the weaknesses of the states to facilitate governance, security, and development effectively and sustainably, has brought about conditions that exacerbate anti-state militantism and extremism. The inability of governments to demonstrate requisite competencies in the face of these threats bolsters and reproduces widespread criminal indulgence, impunity, and opportunism. Critical indicators of this include rising jihadist insurgencies, banditry, communal conflicts, and other forms of violence. The consequence has been a complex threat situation where violent conflicts and crimes reinforce each other to engender an enduring climate of insecurity and crisis. Mitigating such a complex security scenario requires a deliberate effort by the authorities in the Sahel to optimize statecraft through effective state-building, security governance reforms, and functional state-society synergy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the struggles over Ottoman sovereignty in Yemen from the October 1918 armistice to the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey in October 1923. The governor-general (vali), Mahmud Nedim, and Imam Yahya, the principal local ally of the Ottomans, succeeded in upholding Ottoman sovereignty over most of highland Yemen against the Armistice terms, the Treaty of Sèvres, and their local and British rivals, while receiving the political backing of the Ottoman resistance movement in Anatolia under Mustafa Kemal. Efforts of the vali, the imam, and the British to prevent ordinary Ottomans from leaving and entering Yemen were at the centre of these struggles. This changed in 1923 when Mustafa Kemal and Yahya turned to state-building projects emphasising post-Ottoman forms of sovereignty. I thus highlight several aspects of ordinariness. First, the continuation of daily governmental routines in Yemen was a key element of Ottoman efforts to resist British attempts to impose a post-Ottoman political order. Further, Yemeni Ottomans and Ottoman officials were reduced to different degrees of ordinariness because the disintegration of the Ottoman state after the war often eliminated their sources of income. Finally, struggles against the consequences of the Armistice are often reduced to a 'Turkish War of Independence' and the actions of policy makers in administrative centres, like Istanbul and Ankara. Studying the end of the Ottoman Empire from the vantage points of Yemen's 'spatial ordinariness' as an imperial borderland and of ordinary Ottomans disrupts this 'methodological nationalism' and allows for a more nuanced understanding of the post-Armistice years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even before Indonesia's independence, its leaders had drafted plans to relocate the capital city. Proponents gave various reasons at different times, but with Jakarta's stifling traffic and perennial flooding, the government is now translating visions of relocation into action. Construction of the new capital, Nusantara, is already underway in East Kalimantan province. Nusantara is an ambitious and symbolic nation-building project that positions Indonesia as an increasingly confident player on the international stage. Underpinning these plans are aims to solve the more complex environmental hazards and challenges associated with climate change. Much ink has been spilled on the social, political, and technical dimensions of Nusantara, but less scrutiny has focused on the assumptions of a climate forward capital city. As this green developmentalism takes shape, we more closely examine the climate dimensions of the project, exploring the extent of its climate mitigation impacts, while also homing in on its potential for adaptation and resilience. Our findings suggest that under the project's current course, emissions are likely to increase significantly, worsening vulnerabilities in Jakarta and creating new ones in East Kalimantan. Nevertheless, the future remains unwritten, with many crossroads and opportunities to change direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the question of mosque construction and its interrelationship vis-à-vis nation-building in contemporary Turkey. The dynamics of a secular state ruling over a conservative society have always been conflictual in republican Turkey, and this ever since the modern state began initiating a number of radical secular reforms in the 1920s and the 1930s. Among those reforms, disruptive in a previously conservative society, were the dissolution of the caliphate and dismemberment of religious institutions, coupled with widespread Westernizing policies including the adoption of Western sartorial habits, emphasis on science and technology, and changing the alphabet from the traditional Arabic to the current modern (romanized) Turkish script. On the other hand, the advent of democracy and changeover of government in 1950 brought with it the emergence of a renewed religious discourse and a desire for more mosque construction in order to accentuate the Islamic facet of Turkish culture. Therefore, the religious dimension of Turkish identity has increasingly been buttressed by mosque construction by right-wing governments, reaching its zenith with the current Justice and Development Party (JDP) government (beginning in 2002). Coupled with the emergence of an illiberal democracy bolstered by Turkish populism, this article proposes to analyze the linkage between mosque construction and the building of an Islamic conservative Turkish nation contrasting the secular Turkish identity of the ancien régime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the postwar period of 1918–1919, specifically focusing on the situation in Lebanon and the Levant following the Allied occupation of Ottoman territories. The aim of the article is to reexamine the situation in the former Ottoman territories that became modern Lebanon, and assess the nationalistic wishes as expressed by their people. To do this, the global and regional political context is established, before homing in on the establishment of the "1919 Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey," more commonly known as the King-Crane Commission. This fact-finding mission provides a uniquely direct understanding of the wishes of the Lebanese people, so its work, as well as the complementary writings of its members, are analyzed contextually to determine what accurate results can be derived. By doing so, the article sheds further light on Lebanese popular will after World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relations between Greece and Turkey are often imagined in binary terms. A common question typifies such bilateral thinking: Is baklava Greek or Turkish? Popular discussions attaching national labels to select dishes present food as a site for showcasing competitive and stereotypical conceptualizations of identity. In Greece and Turkey cuisines have been integral elements of nation-building processes that display forms of gastronationalism which can be traced in debates over the origins of food items that take place in everyday discourse or on international platforms. Challenging such formulations based on "methodological nationalism" which restricts the analysis of cultural processes to those conducted by nation-states the proposed perspective of "culinary complexities" both underlines the difficulty of containing cultural processes within the confines of nation-states and recognizes recent trends regarding food as a realm in which to express regional identifications that defy and diversify dualities between Turkey and Greece in the shared social ecology of the Aegean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Becoming Catawba: Catawba Indian Women and Nation-Building, 1540-1840" explores the resilience and ingenuity of Catawba Indian women in preserving their identity and nation amidst European colonization and cultural changes. Through kinship, land control, and pottery production, Catawba women played a crucial role in maintaining their culture and land ownership. The article highlights the challenges faced by native peoples in the Southeast, emphasizing the importance of Catawba women in retaining their lands and cultural heritage. The author, Brooke M. Bauer, provides a detailed account of how Catawba women's efforts were instrumental in the survival of the Catawba nation. [Extracted from the article]

Between 1848 and 1867, at a time that is often considered to be central to Italian, German, and Slavic nation building, the Habsburg port city of Trieste witnessed a significant immigration from throughout Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. While the historiography of the city has focused on the Triestine entrepreneurial class, understandably described as cosmopolitan, little research has been conducted on the rest of the urban population, too often seen as polarized along distinct national affiliations. This article argues that such national allegiances are anachronistic and that 'vulgar cosmopolitanism', national indifference, dynastic patriotism, and urban and regional allegiances better define the lived experiences of the majority of the population. Archival material, the applications for Austrian naturalization that thousands of foreigners submitted in the period studied here, shows the intense inter-ethnic engagement of those people who did not belong to the cosmopolitan trading community, who often proved to be insensitive to nationalist agitation and unaware of the existence of 'nations'. This study of Habsburg Trieste at the time of nation building in Central and Southern Europe provides further elements that refute standard national narratives and classic interpretations of the development of nationalism. It also offers comparative evidence for global cities that have been integrated into mono-national states or have managed to avoid such integrational efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the failures of democratization in Afghanistan (2001–2021) after the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001. Over the last two decades, the Afghan state has experienced major setbacks in its journey of democratic development and statebuilding. This article, therefore, analyzes the pressures facing the state from the crisis of performative legitimacy, fraudulent election processes, political centralization, and state failure and corruption. More specifically, it argues that from the above-mentioned factors when considered, the lack of performative legitimacy played a significant role in the failure of democracy and statebuilding efforts. Towards that goal, each of these areas has been defined through an emphasis on how they relate to the broader challenges of legitimacy building, statebuilding and democratization in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the role of textbooks in the construction of national identity by analyzing state-approved versions of national identity and history in Kazakhstan. By doing so, this project seeks to highlight what understanding of identity prevails in the history textbooks of Kazakhstan, what narratives regarding the key historic events are promoted, particularly with respect to the Dzhungar wars, annexation of Kazakh Khanate by the Russian Empire, and the Soviet era. Finally, this article compares the main narratives in the textbooks published in Kazakh and Russian languages to illustrate differences and various understandings of identity in the two linguistic realms of Kazakhstan. The article argues that Kazakhstan's textbooks combine new, independence-focused narratives with the old approaches and partial reproduction of the Soviet symbolic discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of Italian nationalism in general, and in Habsburg Dalmatia in particular, has escaped any systematic theorizing in the field of nationalism studies. In the 1860s, changing geopolitical scenarios, resulting from the process of Italian unification, triggered a heated debate among Italian- and Slavic-speaking Dalmatian politicians and intellectuals over the introduction of equal status for the Italian language and Slavic-Dalmatian. Although Italian-speaking Dalmatians constituted a very tiny minority of the population of the Austrian province, the Italian language had a dominant role in public life as a legacy of previous Venetian colonial rule. While the majority of the Slavic-Dalmatian intelligentsia and political elites sought rights for the local Slavic language in public life without undermining the existence of Italian, Italian-speaking elites opposed measures aimed at language equality in their attempt to maintain their privileged position within Dalmatian society. In the same period, Niccolò Tommaseo emerged as the leading figure against any concessions to Slavs, thus distancing himself from his previous "multinational" ideas and igniting anti-Slavic Italian nationalism in the region. And the nationalist tropes used by Italian-speaking Dalmatians, Tommaseo included, mirrored the very same primordialist rhetoric of modern-day nationalist leaders, from Russia to China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the relationship between military conflicts and state-building in pre-imperial China. I develop an incomplete contract model to examine rulers' and local administrators' incentives in conflict. Defensive wars drive decentralization: landowning local administrators have more to gain from a successful defense and are therefore more committed to it. Offensive wars drive centralization: the landowning ruler has personnel control over the non-land-owning local administrator and can therefore force the latter to participate in less lucrative attacks. Model predictions are corroborated with empirical evidence and historical case studies, and offer broader implications for the political divergence between China and Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reputations for resolve are critical in international relations for deterring adversaries and reassuring partners. However, a state's resolve is unobservable and can change unbeknownst to its audience. How does the possibility of unobserved change impact reputation dynamics? I provide a theory of long-run reputations with changing resolve via a formal model covering conflict and cooperation domains. In the model, the possibility that current reputations are based on outdated information makes the audience extend the benefit of the doubt to states with poor reputations. This leads to states building or spending their reputations depending on their current reputations. Importantly, when damaged reputations can be rebuilt, states with better reputations face stronger temptations to spend them. Thus, reputations constrain states with poor reputations the most. Further, because demonstrations of resolve improve reputations, which, in turn, reduce incentives for future demonstrations of resolve, there is a cyclical rhythm to conflict and cooperation. A major implication is that a state's behavior changes with its reputation even if its resolve is unchanged and the stakes are identical. Reputational enforcement works, but the price is occasional breaches of trust. These results also settle a few long-standing controversies in the IR-reputation literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores bottom-up responses to the Kremlin's approach to nation-building in a multi-ethnic state. How do residents of ethnically mixed cities navigate conflicting themes of unity and diversity in the federal discourse of Russia as a multi-ethnic nation (mnogonatsional'nyi narod)? This discourse runs counter to assimilative policies and a concurrent vision of Russia as a civilisation rooted in Slavic culture. In the diverse city of Kazan, the discourse is shown to be easily adopted by residents in narrating belonging, while being a problematic basis for nation-building. The discussion highlights the importance of regional and ethnic subject positions in bottom-up engagement with nation-building in Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review article assesses three new books on the "Golden Age" of caricature in Britain and the United States: Tim Clayton's James Gillray: A Revolution in Satire  (2022), Amanda Lahikainen's Money and Materiality in the Golden Age of Graphic Satire  (2022), and Alison M. Stagg's Prints of a New Kind: Political Caricature in the United States, 1789-1828  (2023). The article considers how satirical cartoons simultaneously educated and entertained the public about important issues, such as political corruption, nation building, and the perils of a credit economy based on paper money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why did America's twenty-year war in Afghanistan fail to establish a self-sustaining non-Taliban government? Analysts have cited cultural obstacles in Afghanistan, bureaucratic inertia in Washington, and a lack of strategic commitment, in part because Iraq dominated national security policy. Such claims tend to draw evidence from Germany, Japan, and Iraq, places where the U.S. military achieved some measure of success establishing pro-American governments. The present article broadens the comparison to consider Afghanistan alongside Germany, Japan, Iraq, and two examples of post-Cold War regime-change success: Panama (1989–1990) and Haiti (1994–1995). The cases indicate that U.S. influence in the postwar environment has depended on the prospects for integrating old regime elites into the new government and on the strength of indigenous opposition forces. Both variables were unfavorable in Afghanistan, and they shaped the boundaries of political order—no matter how hard U.S. forces fought or how long they stayed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I discuss the radical gender equality reforms in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, and how they have affected women's lives since the implementation of the Women's Law in 2014. Based on 40 in-depth interviews, eight group interviews, and participant observation, this ethnographic study illustrates how the ideal of the "free" woman permeates society in North and East Syria, prescribing desired forms of behavior and appearance. Drawing on the literature on gender and nationalism in postcolonial processes of state building, my study provides an analysis of the AANES' gender discourse that considers the real-life governing effects of the reforms. Building from the Foucauldian premise that modern power engenders disciplinary practices, I examine how awareness-raising efforts and education seminars establish new forms of control in the public sphere. I contend that the reforms operate as governing tools and, as such, shape women's subjectivities. Engendering both discipline and resistance, they result in the emergence of new subjectivities that are not entirely determined by either ideology or by patriarchal structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Helpem Fren, Michael Wesley's diplomatic history of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), the Australian-led multilateral intervention in Solomon Islands from 2003-2017, is a near definitive study of the intervention from an Australian perspective. As such, it shares some of the failures of RAMSI itself, such as overconfidence in its success. The reviewer, based on his experience of living in the Solomons during many years of the RAMSI intervention, examines both the strengths and weaknesses of RAMSI and this volume, its semi-official history. These include RAMSI's early success in peacemaking and its more problematic long-term exercise in state building, including its inflexible entrenchment in law and justice, finance, and governance sectors to the exclusion of support for sustainable human development. The reviewer notes areas not dealt with in the book, including RAMSI's cost and its relations with the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the churches. While Helpem Fren is an essential study for understanding the Australian role in RAMSI, its strictly Australian perspective calls for further critical study of RAMSI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid a relative withdrawal of western, liberal states from the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates have taken over some of the burden of regional security assistance – doing so redefining norms and practices of security assistance. Unlike western counterparts, the UAE are investing into security assistance in Libya or Yemen, not so much as a means of state and nation-building overseas, but as means of building networks allowing the small state to project influence and power with few normative strings attached. More so, the UAE deliver security assistance via surrogates as discrete means of statecraft allowing Abu Dhabi to compete overseas with plausible deniability. Many of these surrogates do not only challenge the state's monopoly over violence but ultimately undermine legitimate government institutions by creating alternative forms of security sector-based governance. Ultimately, the UAE's approach to security assistance is based on divide-and-rule, ripening particularly potent networks of surrogates over others to ensure that competitors are unable to secure their interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Markets require rules, made and enforced by governments, and modern market-making has therefore unfolded as an intrinsic part of state-building. While the European Union is not a state, it has not been immune to these processes. Over the last three decades it has expanded its Single European Market and created a currency while constructing European political authority and deepening its institutional capacities. The EU has done this through supranational market-making largely centred on neoliberal precepts of competition and openness. Today, however, the EU is breaking with that tradition by pursuing a visibly interventionist European industrial policy and geopolitical market strategy. I suggest a theoretical framework to illuminate how this policy turn may reconfigure the EU's political authority and build it as a polity. After briefly identifying the contours of the new European industrial and geoeconomic policy, I outline a research agenda to probe how the new market activism may reformulate societal interests and coalitions, increase the politicisation of the EU's governing institutions, raise the stakes for democratic legitimation, and project the EU as a geopolitical actor. The conclusion notes how this new market-making translates into significant policy challenges for both the EU and the international economic order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]