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As the literature on small state foreign policy predicts that smaller states of the international community attempt to enlarge their influence by seeking a constructive status or proving their adherence to positive norms, the cases in which small states use a negative image to better their international position are almost completely neglected. The article aims to assess how the status of Visegrád countries in interstate society changed since their accession to the European Union in light of the generally negative perception of their governments' ideological background connected to different kinds of populism and nationalism. Using the GDELT Database, the number of government-level interactions initiated towards the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia was analysed in a European context between 2004 and 2020. The results of the inquiry showed a drastic decrease in the interactions initiated towards the four countries between 2004 and the mid-2010s with a slightly higher ratio of confrontative interactions than in the case of other small and middle-sized states. Data show that Hungary, governed by populist parties since 2010, witnessed the smallest drop in attention in the last decade. These results defy the expectations of the small state literature and suggest a more complicated relationship between international status and the image of small states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Populism and nationalism are often grouped together as phenomena challenging international cooperation. This article argues that, despite these similarities, international relations and foreign policy scholarship can and should distinguish analytically between them. Populism and nationalism differ in how they visualise and articulate the boundaries of the political community and its relationship with political authority. Also, populism can be distinguished from nationalism in that the political community it discursively constructs and mobilises is temporally and territorially particularistic, holding different interests from those of the historically universal nation. These differences imply that populism and nationalism express themselves in distinct, although often overlapping, discourses in foreign policy. The article develops a typology of foreign policy discourses created by the intertwining of populism and nationalism and applies it to an analysis of Greek foreign policy during the decade of the Eurozone crisis (2010–19). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, we elucidate the insufficiency of a simple binary choice between substantialism and relationalism or between dualist and nondual/incarnational sensibilities. We highlight the ways that all translations of these sensibilities into the scholarly form of life encounter characteristic problems and challenges precisely because the very practice of scholarly writing is always and already inclined towards a more dualist way of going on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late summer of 2018, like many of her students, friends and admirers, I was very glad to see that L.H.M. Ling’s health was improving. In mid-September, we were having exchanges about the publication of a special issue to which both of us were contributing. It felt like it was possible to plan new intellectual journeys together and I asked Lily whether she might be interested to take part in a panel on the ‘yogurt roads’ of Eurasia for the 2019 EISA conference in Sofia (Bulgaria). Her response was prompt and positive. Knowing that I come from the country, Lily also used the opportunity provided by this exchange to ask me whether there is something personal about my interest in the topic of relationality. Unfortunately, in the following week or so, work and family commitments prevented me from writing back. At the same time, Lily’s brief question appeared to have stirred something that kept her question constantly at the back of my mind and finding it difficult to come up with a meaningful answer. In the end, even though I had no clear idea what I am going to say, I turned on my computer with the firm decision to respond to her message before doing anything else that day. Yet, the first email in my inbox bore the shocking and unbelievable news of Lily’s sudden passing. The following is a belated answer to her question, attempting to draw on her inspiring work melding fiction, experiences and narrative into stories of IR. I truly wish she could have read this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a critical reflection on methodological issues at the interface of researcher national identity and emotional vulnerability. This aspect of social research is often neglected in discussions of positionality, primarily in relation to emotional risk in the field, and here we address this gap in the literature. Rather than reflecting on access and rapport, or issues related to the complexities of insider or outsider research, the national identity of the researcher is considered alongside emotional entanglements experienced in the field. The emotion work that is performed, and the emotional risks that are experienced by the researcher as a consequence of nationality reveal much about the complexities of identity and power relations in the field. The fieldwork informing this article was undertaken as part of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded study (ES/N019423/1) that examined how seafarers from different ethnic and faith backgrounds interact with each other on board and how their religious/spiritual and welfare needs are addressed ashore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented on the issue New Perspectives exploring some of the key points in the politics and international relations of Central and Eastern Europe. Topics include showing great power conflict, disruption to international institutions, resurgent nationalism, and authoritarian alternatives to Liberal Democracy; and problem of managing popular protest relating to the role of law within any democracy.

The article presents the discussion on some leading voices reflecting on the transnational and international relations between the movements. Topics include internationalism of the New Right raising key questions for the future of international relations in Europe; and working on the political right and intersecting with the concepts of nationalism being traditionally defining the Far Right exploring the contested concept of ‘Judeo-Christianity.'

This article examines current manifestations of Zionist political-economy by analyzing discourses that frame Israel as a "Start-Up Nation"—that is, a unique economic achievement that offers a successful business model for the world. By focusing on the 2009 book from the Council of Foreign Relations, Start-Up Nation, this article theorizes "neoliberal Zionism" as a manifestation of Zionism that valorizes specific kinds of neoliberal rationalities in order to garner support for the State of Israel. In particular, neoliberal Zionism produces an entrepreneurial Israeli citizen-subject whose unique cultural attributes derive from compulsory military service and a Zionist past sanitized of conflict with Palestinians. Further, these discourses position this neoliberal Zionist subject as economically out-competing Arabs and Palestinians. At stake is how neoliberalism and exclusionary nationalism potentially mobilize each other and operate as "management" models for other states to adopt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what conditions do nations give up parts of their national homeland? This article answers this question using novel data that traces systematically the inclusion of lost homeland territory in discursive definitions of the homeland for all ethnic nationalist homelands truncated between 1945 and 1996. A survival analysis of the continued homeland status of lost lands shows that longer-lasting democracies are significantly less likely to continue to include lost lands within the homeland's scope, even after controlling for other factors thought to shape the inclusion of territory in the homeland. Since the desire for the control of territory is at the heart of much international conflict, understanding the conditions under which the scope of that territory is redefined contributes to addressing an especially refractory aspect of international politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article conceptualizes populism as a discourse of international relations that arises as response to state transformation, a phenomenon that encompasses changes in both state-society relations and the norms defining the appropriate practice of statehood. The current surge of populism is a response to one such transformation: the internationalization of state elites and their insulation from popular scrutiny. Populism does not simply address material and cultural dislocations that internationalization entails. Crucially, its distinct discursive logic allows these partial social demands to adopt the moral claim to representation of the 'real people' and so counter the universality of the international norms that underpin state transformation. Beyond the current conjuncture of state internationalization, this conceptualization accommodates iterations of populism in various regional and historical contexts of state transformation, making it a promising basis for the further comparative study of populism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the multiplicity and taking responsibility for the International. Topics include relative positioning of critical and post-positivist scholars in International Relations (IR) as a discipline and in relation to the International; accusation that multiplicity reproducing methodological nationalism being as a result of focusing on the international; and multiplicity providing a common ground for IR scholars of different stripes can productively discuss their subject matter.

This article examines the evolution of international thought through the notion of 'political space'. It focuses on two important domains of international politics, the nation-state and the global, to reflect on spatial categories in the discipline of International Relations (IR). Since its inception, the concept of the nation-state has dominated mainstream IR theory. Yet an investigation of how international order has been theorized over IR's first century shows that this era has also been defined by globalist visions of political order. Nowadays, globalization is sometimes seen as the apex of the historical interplay of particularity and universality. The progression towards global political and economic order, however, is today undermined by the resurgence of state-centric political nationalism which seeks to challenge the legitimacy of the global political space. By examining how past international thinkers including Alfred Zimmern, Barbara Ward, Hans Morgenthau, E. H. Carr and John Herz, imagined and interpreted the relations of space and politics in the national and global spheres, this article suggests that spatial thinking offers an insightful approach for theorizing international relations. The article argues that the global and national spaces attain their political meanings through divisions as well as interactions and connections. The focus on divisions, exemplified in the writings of Barbara Ward, helps to make sense of the modus operandi of power in the national and global political spaces by investigating differences, tensions and instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2006, according to the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey, the largest portion of people in Northern Ireland identify themselves not as Unionist nor Nationalist but as Neither. This fact is difficult to tally with the patterns of polarised election results and the narratives of a 'culture war' that dominate most analyses of contemporary Northern Ireland. This article examines the existence of this large portion of the population in Northern Ireland who reject the identities upon which the 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement is centred. We find that those identifying as neither Unionist nor Nationalist are predominantly female, they come from all religious backgrounds, all age groups, and both British and Irish national identities. The majority of those who identify as Neither appear to do so as a statement of rejection of what is on offer from the political parties in Northern Ireland; rather than supporting a centrist party, they support no party at all. The article concludes that the 1998 Agreement has created the conditions for a growing number of people to identify as neither Unionist nor Nationalist, but at the same time it makes the emergence of any strong alternative, 'third way' type of politics difficult to envisage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of Sino-British collaboration in promoting green bond development in China, the extent to which it meets the United Kingdom's wider objectives regarding the UK-China bilateral relationship and the underlying factors. Drawing on desk research and interviews, it tests and validates the hypothesis that the key driving force for this development is the coupling of the financialisation of the Chinese economy and the politics of 'ecological civilisation', although learning through international interaction has also played a role. It further shows that the scope for the United Kingdom to benefit from this growth is limited by the structure of UK-China trade, China's strong macro-economic control and its approach to international relations that prioritises learning and identity transformation rather than the opening up of its markets. Inter-hub competition also plays a part. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is part of the special cluster titled Bukovina and Bukovinians after the Second World War: (Re)shaping and (re)thinking a region after genocide and 'ethnic unmixing', guest edited by Gaëlle Fisher and Maren Röger.This introductory essay provides an overview of the historiography of the borderland region of Bukovina after 1945 and 1989–1991. Presenting the approaches adopted in different national contexts after the end of the Second World War, it points to the methodological nationalism which characterized research on the region during the Cold War. We show that while the historiography of Bukovina on the ground, in Romania and the Soviet Union, refracted wider national ideologies, abroad, particularly in West Germany and Israel, it remained for a long time the prerogative of small groups of "Bukovinians," who saw it as their "lost home." We explore both the similarities and differences between these narratives and stakeholders as well as the changes that took place after 1989–1991, especially in Romania and Ukraine. We show that while divided, the actors behind the narratives and thereby the narratives themselves have been connected in complex ways over the decades and particularly since the collapse of communism. Indeed, while for a long time the study of Bukovina resisted transnationalism, it nevertheless constituted and constitutes an ultimately transnational research object. Today, Bukovina remains a space of contest but it is also a space of opportunity, not least for researchers interested in the contested histories of borderland regions. This essay therefore contextualizes the themes and issues addressed in the following cluster of articles and identifies avenues for future research in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses results gained from research on the self-presentations of German migrants in Greece. The research project has taken into account that the recent Greek discourse on Greece has produced hostility against Germany. This hostility may be epitomised by the burning of German national flags in Greece. Further, the hostility suggests that being German may be assigned moral inferiority in Greece. In the light of the anti-German sentiment in Greece, the research is focused on how German migrants perform self-presentations in terms of national affiliation and on whether they treat Germanness as a stigma. Based on qualitative interviews, I have developed five types of German migrants' self-presentations that are outlined in this article. The types unveil German migrants' understanding of their national affiliation and their focus on the Greek discourse on Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how borders are discursively reproduced in representations of the ‘refugee crisis’ in the German media. Based on an extensive content and discourse analysis of German press representations in 2015 and 2016, we argue that the discourse of crisis obscures the reasons for migration and instead shifts the focus to the advantages and disadvantages that refugees are assumed to bring to their host country. More specifically, we contend that press discourses construct a figure of the (un)deserving refugee around three key themes: economic productivity; state security; and gender relations. In doing so, we illustrate how the framing of some lives as more deserving of protection than others directly mirrors and extends the humanitarian securitization of borders into public discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article combines quantitative and textual analysis of editorials in leading American newspapers devoted to Russia's internal politics from 2008 to 2014. Despite rapprochement under President Dmitry Medvedev, the media image of Russia has been overwhelmingly negative since 2008. Negative media editorial opinions of Russia reflect fears of autocratic political systems that are represented as a dangerous mirror image of the American system. To maintain this binary, aspects of Russian politics that did not fit into the neo-Soviet autocracy narrative were ignored. An original contribution of the article is its identification of key frames used by leading American media outlets to construct a narrative about contemporary Russia as a neo-Soviet autocracy. It demonstrates that this narrative is instrumental in confirming domestic perceptions of American national identity that emphasize its association with freedom at home and leadership of the 'free world' abroad. As such, these findings are significant for reaffirming the importance of media framings, associated narratives, and control over them to global governance and soft power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the multiplicity of South Korean Major League Baseball fans, with a focus on the tensions that they experience under the nationalistic aura surrounding MLB fandom while pursuing their individual hobby. For this purpose, it employs the idea of “post-Westernization” to interpret baseball as a global sport and examine its recent popularity in South Korea. By exploring the activities and voices of an online community among Korean fans, it demonstrates how national desires were complicated when they collided with a global strategy during the first World Baseball Classic in 2006. Analysis of Korean MLB fans during the WBC indicates both the possibilities and the limits of global baseball as a case of post-Westernization. The study shows that becoming an MLB fan in South Korea is at the intersection of national identity (nationalist fervor for MLB), regional rivalry (against Japan, the former colonizer) and global sensibilities (American sport fandom). Korean fans’ responses can be summarized as the national-regional-global nexus in which they perceive the existence of regional and global hierarchies, but they also routinely contest their own and each others’ perceptions. Finally, it suggests that fans’ articulation of the national, regional, and global are far from being fixed or unidirectional: they are constantly under construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organised movements that challenge a government must construct and frame their own visions of the nation that legitimate their challenge. To do so, they may attempt to mobilise a cultural nationalism to supersede dominant political nationalisms. An alternative cultural nationalism can appeal to patriotism while undermining the legitimacy of a standing government. Such work is subtle, particularly when direct challenges to authority are proscribed by law. Organisational rituals of belonging are powerful tools in this process. Ritual repetition of key framing ideas can unite members around the cultural construct of the movement without directly addressing their targets. This paper examines the organisation of the Society of United Irishmen (1791-98) and their use of a membership 'test' ritual. The test epitomised the primary work of the society which entailed the construction of a new vision of Irish nationalism. As the Society transitioned from its rhetorical function to organising an actual rising against British rule, the Society's test and related rituals changed to reflect this shift. While the rising itself failed, the cultural construct endured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article talks about the food in Israel and the postcards that depict the country's national snack falafel. It analyses the correlation between food and nationalism, as food consumption leaves an impact on the domestic and global politics. Topics include ban on Foie gras that attacks French culture and identity, Thai food's popularity, and international values regarding food.

This paper analyses the extent to which Georgia's pro-Western foreign policy orientation stems from ideas and identity rather than from materialist and systemic factors alone. Finding such narrow approaches insufficient for explaining small state behavior, and drawing on liberal and constructivist approaches to international relations theory, the article argues that Georgia's foreign policy orientation has a strong basis in the widespread ideological perception amongst the local political elite that Georgia “belongs” in the West. Based on this theoretical framework, this paper provides a historical overview of Georgia's foreign policy, tracing the evolution of Georgia's identity from seeing itself as “Christian” in contrast to its Islamic neighbors, to identifying as European in contrast to a modern, Russian “other”. As Georgia attempts to construct a collective international identity, the devotion to the idea of Euro-Atlantic integration as a “sacred destiny” amongst the country's elite has significant foreign policy implications. This article overviews the current challenges and dilemmas of self-identification and investigates the roles that national identity and the prevailing “European” identity play in Georgia's quest for “desovietization”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual article proposes a new integrative model of the country image by drawing on advances from the fields of business studies, social psychology, political science, and communication science. To interrelate different approaches, a communication management perspective is applied, providing a basic terminological framework systemizing the central constructs of country image, country reputation, country brand, and country identity. On this basis the authors develop the ‘4D Model' of the country image by integrating well-established concepts from national identity theory, attitude theory, and reputation management. The new model is suited for application in comparative analyses of country images both on the level of different groups (such as a country’s domestic and foreign publics) as well as different societal levels (such as individual attitudes on the one hand and mass-mediated prestige information on the other). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article argues that Karl Deutsch’s work on nationalism is not only a precursor to his ‘security communities’ but that it is central to his international relations (IR). Nationalism impacts what people expect from the state and influences the state’s international behaviour. While these processes are mostly automatic and cannot be controlled, their trajectories are not fully determined. Deutsch is interested in theorising moments when automatic processes do not suffice or become harmful and intervention is needed. The article first introduces Deutsch as a theorist of nationalism, examining his contribution in the context of the field of nationalism studies and the reasons for his equivocal reception in this field. In its second part, the article makes sense of the legacy of Deutsch’s work on nationalism for contemporary IR by focusing on his use of the notion of self-determination with which Deutsch transcends the normative imperatives of the narrower concept of national self-determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I describe Karl Deutsch’s personal and political background and career and offer an assessment of him as a scholar, teacher, and mentor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russian political elites have long been aware of the power of myths to forge national unity. However, the past six or seven years have seen core myths increasingly situated within a highly selective narrative of Russian history. This narrative is accepted as contextual information for policy discussion, and so sets cognitive parameters for evaluations of Russia's history, identity and role. This standard narrative of Russian history prioritises the state, supports gradualism and continuity, and dramatically reduces the potential for re-conceptualising Russia's role in contemporary international relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A spate of work has demonstrated tensions between ethno-cultural diversity and social capital. Some have suggested that attachment to the nation can foster cross-group trust, particularly if this national self-definition is “civic” in character rather than “ethnic” (the Miller thesis). Similarly, others have argued that civic nations are less likely to suffer reduced social capital in response to increased diversity, as the sense of threat that typically emerges in ethnically diverse contexts will be mitigated (the Putnam thesis). The authors test these hypotheses on 27 countries using both contextual-level data and the latest wave of the European Values Study (2008). Though the evidence is mixed on civic nationalism, the authors find strong evidence that ethnic nationalism goes hand-in-hand with reduced social capital and that it increases the negative social impact of diversity. So although this study only partially confirms the benefits of civic nationalism, it clearly underlines the costs of its ethnic variety. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many scholars assume that nationalism is inherently aggressive without systematically exploring the relationship between nationalism and interstate war initiation. Thus, many questions are unanswered. Does nationalism increase the risk of war and if so, how? Which types of nationalism are most likely to trigger warfare? The author argues that nationalist persuasion campaigns produce several mechanisms that encourage conflict. Nationalism provokes “national enemies” and their foreign allies, generates biased strategic assumptions, creates domestic interest groups that favor war, permits the suppression of opposition groups, and promotes “nationalist bidding wars.” When these processes exist, nationalism should increase the probability of war initiation. But, different forms of nationalism may not have similar effects. Using original data on the existence and type of state-level nationalism from 1816 to 1997, the author finds that nationalism significantly increases the probability of interstate war initiation. However, not all forms of nationalism are created equal in this regard. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article addresses the problem of managing nationalism in multination states by evaluating the influential multination federal model, as put forward by a group of Canadian scholars. Finding that it employs an overly primordial view of nations, the article argues that John Hutchinson’s approach, which foregrounds the conflict of nationalisms that occurs within nations, offers a better lens from which to bring to light the sources of unity and disunity in multination states. To illustrate this, the article discusses the conflict of nationalisms in Canada, suggesting that a debate over the merits of pan-Canadian nationalism within English Canada and French Québec can be identified. In failing to account for this, the article argues that the multination federal model risks (1) marginalizing French-speaking Quebecers who support pan-Canadian nationalism and (2) encouraging English Canadian nationalism. To conclude, the article suggests that models seeking to mitigate the potential centrifugal effects of nationalism should avoid privileging one type of nationalism over another. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite China’s claims of a foreign policy of ‘peaceful rise’/‘peaceful development’ and of seeking a ‘harmonious world’, and despite its economic openness and active participation in economic multilateralism, China’s neighbours continue to be concerned about the overall direction and intent of Beijing’s security policies. These concerns are particularly heightened by China’s rapid military modernization of the past couple of decades. The announcement in 2010 that China considered its territorial claims in the South China Sea a ‘core interest’, can be seen as a setback to its regional diplomacy, so diligently crafted over the years and drove its Southeast Asian neighbours to seek closer engagement with the US. This article argues that the contradictions evident in China’s neighbourhood foreign policy reflect its continuing search for a model of international relations that can balance its domestic interests such as the need for political stability, including regime stability, on the one hand and its external ambitions for a decisive role in regional affairs, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing on Rogers Brubaker’s theoretical analyses of “nationness” and nationalism in post-communist Europe, this article examines the dynamics of social identity within the nationally contested setting of the Estonian–Russian borderland. Since 1991, the city of Narva (96% Russophone by population) has customarily been defined (both politically and academically) in binary national terms as a “Russian enclave” within a unitary and “nationalizing” Estonian state. An ethnographic approach to the case, however, gives a rather different perspective, pointing to hybridity rather than nationality as the defining characteristic of identity politics within the city. In what follows, we bring to bear the results of extensive fieldwork carried out in Narva during 2006–2008. We first examine how different identity categories (local, national, meso-regional, and supranational) are being officially inscribed within Narva’s sites of memory. Thereafter, we focus on how these discursive-material articulations of place are implicated within the everyday performance of identity amongst the city’s population. Using the novel methodology of photo elicitation, we examine how residents of Narva appropriate but also subvert the identity categories that elites and outsiders (including ourselves as researchers) would seek to impose on them from above. This study (we argue) is significant for its methodological novelty, as well as in terms of giving a more nuanced understanding of Narva’s situation at a time of continued ethnopolitical contestation within Estonia as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyses the China-Myanmar 'comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership' in the framework of China's diplomacy in the post- Cold War era and concludes that the partnership has no 'significant negative impact' on regional relations. China pursues its partnerships with Myanmar and other states to create a 'stable' and 'harmonious' surrounding environment, itself a 'major' prerequisite for China's peaceful development. The author argues that China has not focused its diplomacy on Myanmar at the expense of other states; rather, he notes that in fact China established a 'comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership' with three other ASEAN states (Vietnam in 2008, Laos in 2009, and Cambodia in 2010) before it did so with Myanmar in May 2011. The article argues that the scope and depth of China's partnerships with states such as Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia are actually above that of its partnership with Myanmar. It also argues that Myanmar's strong nationalism will prevent China from, for example, building a base on Myanmar's soil. The author also asserts that China does not seek to use Myanmar as an ally to weaken or dilute ASEAN or its unity on the South China Sea issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the politics and history of Cyprus, focusing on its division between Turkish Cypriots in the North and Greek Cypriots in the South. It comments on the attempted coup d’état in 1974 that aimed to overthrow the government and annex Cyprus to Greece, and the subsequent invasion by Turkish forces. The author reflects on Cyprus' European Union (EU) membership and Turkey's prospects for EU membership. Other topics include international mediation, the prospect of reunification, and the influence of nationalism.

This article re-examines the relevance of 'left nationalism' as a form of progressive response to globalization, and argues that despite the considerable work that has been done to revise the concept of nationalism in the light of orthodox Marxist criticisms, such moves ultimately fall into the same divisionary trap that dogged the nationalist struggles inherent in post-colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

North Korea is arguably the least understood and the most reclusive country in the world. This article discusses the use of sport in the country as a vehicle for political propaganda and, in particular, the role of nationalism within the communist sporting culture. Although most nation states have become increasingly interdependent politically and economically in the so-called global era, relatively few countries have an official relationship with North Korea. Sport may be one of the few arenas in which the world can glimpse North Korean people and their culture because North Korean athletes consistently participate in international sporting competition, both inside and outside of the country, regardless of political and economic isolation. In this article, an attempt is made to paint a picture of North Korean society by exploring the country's sport culture. Particular attention will be paid to the political, and specifically the nationalistic, dimension of sport in North Korea. To this end, three case studies- football, taekwondo, and mass gymnastics-are explored. This study of North Korean sport offers useful insights into the political and nationalistic elements embedded in the country's cultural practice, and, more generally, insights into the problematic relationship between communism and nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korean 'official nationalism' (as Anderson calls it) arose late, in a context of partition and its inevitable ambiguities, Confucian self-discipline but wildly violent politics, rapid economic growth, and then Korea's pivotal role in the electronics and c-economy booms of the 1980s and 1990s. Seoul had to be constructed as the national capital in the absence of continuity in its represented past, consequent on the attempted total obliteration of Korean identity by the Japanese colonialist regime and subsequent wartime destruction. Its 'monuments' are virtually empty of cultural referencing; even the National Assembly is a 'painted shed'; new cultural production is overwhelmingly either pastiche or electronic; political activity slips from the Third Estate of popular democracy to an emerging Fifth Estate of the Internet and the weblog. While print capitalism may have been a necessary enabling condition for the rise of nationalism in Europe, the Americas, and beyond, as Anderson asserts, in Korea's case we may have the paradox of the weakly defined nation slipping away, into a wider imagined community, even as the dream of Korean distinctiveness cuts ever deeper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do states realign their foreign policies? I argue that democratic transitions are an important cause of foreign-policy realignment with the United States and, furthermore, that the nature of that realignment is conditioned by whether the United States supported the previous nondemocratic regime. American support, or lack thereof, for the ancien régime structures the domestic politics of democratic transitions. In the absence of previous U.S. support, democratization commonly leads to positive foreign-policy realignment toward the United States. Conversely, when the United States supports nondemocratic regimes, democratic transitions rarely produce positive realignment. I use an original data set of country-year dyads with the United States from 1950 to 2000. Using Markov Transition regression models, I find that the interaction of democratic transition and previous U.S. support is a powerful determinant of foreign-policy realignment. This research has important implications for international relations theory and American foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the role of cricket in the diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan. It provides an overview of the negative aspects of cricket within internal and international relations. It describes the way the relations between India and Pakistan have been reflected in their cricketing relations. It relates how cricket connects to national consciousness in both countries.

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The article discusses how the New York-based nationalist periodical "Young India" selectively reprinted the works of Rabindranath Tagore on pluralist nationalism. The periodical selected his work to capitalize the high status of Tagore in the west though he used fiction, poetry and lectures to convey his opposition to the western-style nationalism. It also created, under the leadership of Lala Lajpat Rai, a version of Tagore to gain the attention of American audience. This version offers a view into the development anti-colonial ideas outside India.

The article critically engages with the 'varieties of capitalism' school, which since its origins in the early 1990s has been consolidated into one of the most influential strands in comparative and heterodox political economy. While the 'varieties' approach can be credited with the development of several of the most evocative stylized facts in heterodox political economy, having served as a potent foil against the orthodox globalization thesis, its alternative vision of a bipolar global economy comprising two competing capitalisms is found to be wanting. The approach is limited by its methodological nationalism, a tendency towards static analysis and latent institutional functionalism, and by an inability to adequately balance national specifi city and path-dependency on the one hand with common underlying tendencies in capitalist restructuring on the other. Nevertheless, the varieties approach has spawned an influential account of the spatiality of advanced capitalism from which economic geography can certainly learn, and to which it has much to contribute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aims of this article are three-fold. First, it attempts to examine key features of a culturalist discourse reflecting a Confucian vision of a new world order that is being incorporated into China's foreign policy. Second, it analyses and assesses Chinese pragmatic nationalism that underpins an accommodationist foreign policy, contextualized within the ruling Communist Party's comprehensive revamping of itself on a new culturalist basis, in particular with the Hu-Wen leadership in the early years of the 21st century. Third, it examines the role of the press in disseminating the culturalist discourse and assesses its implications. The article concludes that the impact of the Confucian pacifist discourse on external perceptions of China is still limited, due to structural problems existing between China and the West, complexities and inherent tensions within Chinese nationalism and China's internal dynamics of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflicts between European Union (EU) members about enlargement result from its redistributive effects. EU members are more likely to suffer from enlargement if they profit from EU transfers and if they are relatively close to applicant countries in which unemployment is significantly higher than in member countries. Phasing in membership rights serves to compensate the relative losers of enlargement to accomplish EU widening. Using data from all previous enlargement rounds until 2004, we demonstrate that EU members are more likely to demand a discrimination of new members if distributional conflicts arise. The existence of these distributional conflicts in turn increases the odds of EU members and the accession candidates actually agreeing on a phase-in period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communication is the basic concept in explaining globalization. Globalization can be observed as the worldwide expansion of a functionally differentiated European society through intercultural communication. In this society, since the 17th century, intercultural communication has assumed the form of a modernist ethnocentrism based on values such as knowledge, pluralism and individualism. During the 20th century, historical changes created the necessity for new forms of intercultural communication. In the last decade of that century, a transcultural form of communication based on dialogue was proposed as a basis for cross-cultural adaptation, a creation of multicultural identities and a construction of a hybrid multicultural society. However, this transcultural form creates paradoxes and difficulties in intercultural communication, mixing the preservation of cultural difference with the search for synthesis. Consequently, a new form of intercultural dialogue, dealing with incommensurable differences and managing conflicts, is needed to create coordination among different cultural perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sudan has been intermittently at war with itself since independence on June 1, 1956, with only ten years of precarious peace between 1972 and 1983. At the heart of the conflict is a crisis of national identity. Those who have been in control of the country define themselves as Arabs and also Muslims, and identify more with the Middle East than with black Africa, though they are essentially Arab-Africans. Their physical features are similar to other African groups in the region, and their cultures and even Islamic practices are an amalgam of Arab and Islamic culture with indigenous belief systems and cultures. The outcome of Sudan's struggles is difficult to predict. Three questions are worth probing: What is the conflict about? To what extent does the comprehensive peace agreement address the root causes of the conflict? What are the prospects for a truly comprehensive and lasting peace in the Sudan? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of liberals defend nationalism as compatible with, even an aid in realizing, the values of liberty, democracy and social justice. In the process, they also defend the doctrine that it is legitimate to grant moral priority to conationals or compatriots. While not hostile to national attachment in all circumstances, and conceding a limited universalist case for prioritizing fellow group members, this article argues that even liberal nationalism is liable to be found wanting in situations where dominant-group nationals are called upon to show fulsome solidarity with their oppressed national 'other'. It focuses on the way liberal nationalism and sentimental partiality to conationals can distort moral judgement, rendering it difficult for dominant-group nationalists to recognize and fight oppression. The case is illustrated by way of a critical discussion of the reaction of liberal Zionists to the second or Al Aqsa Intifada in Israel Palestine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional understandings of Chinese nationalism often portray it as anti-Western, focusing on Chinese nationalists' obsession with a powerful state and on their ambition to recover the glory of China's historical empire. Such understandings clearly underlie the fear and hostility toward rising Chinese nationalism today. But this view relies too heavily on China's conflictive relations with the West and overemphasizes the impact of China's unique history, culture, and politics, making it hard, if not impossible, to draw on the concept of nationalism in understanding China's relations with its non-Western neighbors. Such a perspective neglects the importance of ideas and ideals from the international system that animate Chinese nationalism. In this article, the author characterizes Chinese nationalism as fusing realpolitik ideas and ideals and a fervent quest for national identity and power. A realpolitik nationalist, as defined here, is someone who frames an external threat to China in terms not of the country's unique culture or history but of a breach of the prevailing norms of the nation-state system, whose key dimensions include sovereignty, territoriality, and international legitimacy. Finally, the author applies this notion in examining China's conflicts with India in 1962 and with the Southeast Asian countries involved in the dispute over the Spratly Islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the recent proliferation of literature on nationalism and on social policy, little has been written to explore the possible interaction between the two. This article explores two essential aspects of the relationship between substate nationalism and welfare-state development in Canada (Québec), the United Kingdom (Scotland), and Belgium (Flanders). First, the article shows how the processes of identity formation/consolidation and territorial mobilization inherent to substate nationalism often involve a social policy dimension. Second, it analyzes the ways in which substate nationalism has affected welfare-state development in recent decades. Substate nationalism can impact social policy making in at least two ways: by reshaping the policy agenda at both the state and the substate levels and by reinforcing regional policy autonomy, which is depicted as an alternative to centralist schemes. To explain significant variations between the three empirical cases, the article underlines specific institutional, ideological, and socioeconomic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Isaiah Berlin is often regarded as one of the sources of contemporary liberal nationalism. Yet his own attitude to nationalism, and its relation to his liberalism, remains unexplored. He gave conflicting definitions of nationalism in different places, and although he frequently contrasts more benign with more malign forms of nationalism, the terms in which he draws the contrast also vary. In Berlin's most explicit account, nationalist doctrine is presented as political, unitary, morally unrestricted and particularist, but these four dimensions are separate, and on each of them alternative nationalist positions are available. Berlin's account of the sources of nationalism is also ambiguous: his analysis of the Jewish condition in European societies and his support for Zionism contrasts with his diagnosis of the origins of German nationalism. Comparing Berlin with later liberal nationalists, we see that his liberalism prevented him from presenting a normative political theory in which liberal and nationalist commitments were successfully combined. Such a theory can indeed be developed, but the challenge that emerges from Berlin's writing is to explain how real-world nationalism can be kept within liberal limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, it has been a common complaint among scholars to acknowledge the lack of research on Spanish nationalism. This article addresses the gap by giving an historical overview of 'ethnic' and 'civic' Spanish nationalist discourses during the last two centuries. It is argued here that Spanish nationalism is not a unified ideology but it has, at least, two varieties. During the 19th-century, both a 'liberal' and a 'conservative-traditionalist' nationalist discourse were formulated and these competed against each other for hegemony within the Spanish market of ideas. In the 20th-century, these two discourses continued to be present and became backbones of different political regimes. However, after the emergence of the Basque and Catalan nationalist movements, Spanish nationalists unified as a counter-force to these regional sources of identity. In fact, one can see 20th-century Spanish nationalism as a dialectical struggle between the centre and the periphery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]