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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]

In countries emerging out of conflict, state-building initiatives tend to prioritize gender-balancing. Post-conflict police reform in the Solomon Islands aligned with this set standard, as capacity-building efforts within the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) prioritized the empowerment, inclusion, and promotion of women within the force. Through the use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) this study investigated, identified, and described common perceptions held by eighteen (18) officers about how they viewed gender reform in the RSIPF. The research found that although officers believed that gender-balancing was necessary, the increased inclusion of women conflicted with their traditional roles and positions and brought several challenges to the effective functioning of the force. It was also revealed that officers were of the view that the organization was not yet ready to fully embrace gender-balancing. The arguments presented herein further build on scholarly discussions about gender equality in policing organizations in small-island developing states in the Pacific. [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]

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]

The Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 terminated the country's democratisation. The crisis was more an outcome of the two-decade-long flawed state-building and democratisation, and the escalation of the insurgency than an overnight change in the country's politico-military landscape. This paper examines Afghanistan's failed democratization from 2001 to 2021 by focusing on five variables including stateness, welfare, rule of law, political regime, and political community. The paper explains how flawed progress in the five areas gradually eroded the democratisation process resulting in state collapse and the restoration of the Taliban's Islamic Emirate. [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 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]

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]

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]

The story of Kenyans who travelled to study in the United States of America, in what is known as the airlifts program and, its resultant implications on the project of the nation building, is well known. So much has been extensively written and documented in various forms on this subject from multiple and multi-layered dimensions and perspectives. However, my entry into this subject is through a critical encounter with Philip Ochieng's life's story, who happens to be one of the airlift beneficiaries to the United States of America, as reconstructed by Liz Gitonga-Wanjohi. I am especially interested in the way that his (Ochieng's) life-story in this reconstruction is proliferated with aspects of nomadism. I discern nomadism in this discussion in a plural sense. As both literal and figurative, manifested through his practices of the everyday rituals of life. I argue that the nomadic tendencies, exhibited in his total lifestyle, define him as a glocal citizen: always oscillating between and betwixt the local and global spaces, languages and ideologies. In reading the nomadic subject, that is Ochieng, I consciously and cautiously, rely on Rosi Braidotti's ideas of nomadic subjects as accentuated in her book Nomadic Subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sheds light on the efforts of intellectuals and women’s circles in the struggle for equal inheritance rights in modern China. By analyzing various social campaigns for women’s equal rights during this period, specifically in relation to daughters’ access to inheritance rights, this article explores the complexities and contradictions surrounding daughters’ inheritance rights in twentieth-century China. The argument put forth is that the interaction between the new state-building process and the influence of social campaigns enabled female to explore new rights holder. However, local practices often adhered to traditional customs that marginalized daughters without inheritance rights. Nevertheless, with the assistance of feminist movements, daughters’ inheritance rights have gradually gained acceptance as an essential component of social claims in modern China. [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]

This paper develops an analysis of the politics and temporality of infrastructure through a focus on the idea of a project. A project (noun) is an assemblage of expertise, labour, materials and resources. The development of a project to build a port, pipeline, a mine, or a hydropower plant entails the mobilization of ideas, finance, political support and the law, the containment of material forces, as well as the organization of expertise, resources and labour. To project is also a verb; to throw forwards or to imagine, visualize or speculate on a possible future, which may or may not be actualized in practice. Moreover, individual infrastructural projects are often built on the legacy of earlier projects and conceived as contributions to ambitious projections of the future – including modernization, socialism, development and state building. Our analysis of the politics and temporality of projects is both developed and illustrated through an account of infrastructural projects in the Republic of Georgia which are also understood as contributions to a larger project of transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International migrants confront many new challenges from the impact of global populism and geopolitics, but we also see the growth of a new identity culture. The Chinese community in Canada constructs its identity through the collective memory of the image of Chinese railway workers, and realizes the cross-cultural communication of a new identity culture in the course of the interaction of symbolic cultural practices. Since the 1980s, the image of Chinese railway workers has changed from "the indispensable evil" to "pioneers in nation-building" and "a tragic group subjected to injustice." This is a product of the collective memory of the Chinese ethnic group's pursuit of identity in Canada's multicultural reconstruction. The Chinese ethnic group has reshaped an image of Chinese railway workers that has been widely disseminated through cross-cultural means. They have aimed at gaining social acceptance and fundamental recognition of a Chinese-Canadian identity with the help of their "native cultural heritage and historical resources" in Canada. The construction of this identity culture through collective memory has consolidated the foundations of multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite numerous works of Kartini as Indonesia’s most famous feminist icon, hardly any deep study investigated how Kartini was remembered in the first years of Indonesia’s independence. This study aims to examine how Indonesians celebrated Kartini Day during the Indonesian Revolution (1946–1949), by using print media in Indonesian, Dutch and English from that period. This study argues that for Indonesian nationalists at that time, commemorating Kartini Day was of paramount importance to encourage women empowerment based on the Indonesian nation-state concept. The commemorations were held in many places in Indonesia and were attended by numerous people from different walks of life. During the commemorations, Indonesian women were persuaded to adopt new roles in that era, namely as devoted Indonesian citizens who should contribute to the new country, especially in the field of women empowerment, community service, political participation and war effort. However, Indonesian women were criticised for still being Dutch-oriented and interpreting their freedom way too far. These findings indicate that during the Revolution, the commemorations of Kartini Day was urgently needed by the Indonesian nation-state as a momentum to promote Indonesian nationalism among women and encourage women’s participation in the nation-state building process and in the Dutch-Indonesian conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to explore the influence of heritage on Jordanian national identities, a topic that has received limited attention in research. Specifically, it examines the poetry of Nayef Abu Obeid to investigate how his work addresses the challenges of upholding heritage in the modern era. Furthermore, it assesses how his poetry contributes to the preservation and portrayal of Jordanian culture and identity. By delving into these aspects, this article offers valuable insights into the intricate connections between heritage, national identity, and the current global landscape. Such insights are crucial for advancing the promotion of Jordanian cultural heritage and fostering nation-building efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the cultural and literary significance of walking in the context of nineteenth-century imperial geographies. Topics include the role of walking in nation-building, contradictions between pedestrian travel and its historical documentation, and how walking intersects with modernity in various imperial spaces.

The article focuses on the peripatetic mode of walking, where walking is seen as a transformative act for both individuals and society. Topics include the origins of this literary mode in Wordsworth's poetry, its adaptation to colonial South Africa in Olive Schreiner's "The Story of an African Farm," and the varying relationships of the novel's characters to movement and stasis, particularly in terms of nation-building.

European colonialist thinking continues to influence history writing after national independence – even in the construction of national narratives. In the case of Malaysia, the work of the scholar-official, Richard Winstedt, has had a far-reaching impact – and one that is seldom recognised. The 20th century was a crucial period in the political and historical construction of 'Malay(si)a' – a time when a colonial state was imagined, and then positioned as a foundation for post-colonial nation-building. Malay(si)a did not exist as a political entity before this time – it had to be carved out of the Indian (or 'Malay') Archipelago, an enormous region largely under Dutch authority. The historical construction of Malay(si)a was never a homogenous process, even in colonial narratives. This article examines the strategy Winstedt undertook to develop a state narrative – suggesting how his work moved beyond that of earlier British historians. Although Winstedt's project was explicitly 'modern' in its purpose and style, we also note ways in which he was influenced by pre-modern Malay writers. The final section examines Winstedt's impact on local Malay(si)an writing, including Malaysia's standard national narrative. Some local historians, however, resisted Winstedt – and sought to write the Malaysian nation from alternative perspectives. Nation-making in this and other regions of Southeast Asia is all the more interesting because it has been a dialogic rather than merely integrative project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ṣulḥ is a well-known Islamic legal method of dispute resolution through amicable settlement practiced in Western Sahara. It standardly includes different phases, including negotiation between the affected parties mediated by local elites, the payment of compensation (sometimes symbolic), and a ceremony in which the conflict is resolved and social peace restored. This paper examines the implementation and evolution of this practice in the Sahrawi refugee camps from their creation in 1975 to the present day. The article proposes that ṣulḥ has played a central role in building social cohesion in the refugee camps, highlighting the importance of the institutions through which cohesion is maintained in contexts of prolonged conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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What is a recognition of a right to statehood and how it matters for Palestine and the conflict with Israel, and international relations more broadly? I argue that this recognition matters because it often informs international state-building and as a prelude to proper diplomatic state recognition. More specifically in this case, I show that the international community's recognition that Palestinian self-determination must be satisfied through an independent state alongside Israel is clear and irrevocable and, despite the dubious results of international state-building, continues to be crucial for the resolution of this conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigates the Habsburg (Hungarian) civil service and its relation to the Czechoslovak state on the territory of Slovakia in the immediate post-First World War years. By exploring how Czechoslovakia regulated the status of former Hungarian postal employees and civil servants working in public education until 1918, the study provides an in-depth look at how the civil service was integrated into the Czechoslovak state in its eastern Slovakian regions. The main argument is based on the analysis of 294 personal trajectories, including detailed questionnaires on social networks, language use, nationality declaration, political behaviour and the job opportunities of teachers and postal employees. On the one hand, civil servants’ attitudes are discussed. How did they react to the creation of the new state? To what extent was it possible for them to stay in their position? On the other hand, the Czechoslovak state’s reaction to the shortage of qualified and loyal personnel is analysed. These trajectories belie how the Hungarian civil service was more significant for Czechoslovak institutions and state-building than national historiographies have so far presented and reveal individual strategies of coping with the transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-2003, the Iraqi Police Service (IPS) has undergone a series of overhauls that have prioritised building institutional capacities ('statebuilding') above socio-political cohesion ('nation-building'). Following the defeat of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), however, a community policing initiative premised on improving state–society relations has gained momentum. But while community policing is conceived in the Global North as a trust-building mechanism, how do Iraqi stakeholders locally perceive it, when the legacy of regime change has been to entrench a highly militarised police force beholden to patronage networks and heavily outnumbered by other security and justice providers? This paper considers policing in two diverse districts in Ninawa province: a rundown Sunni tribal neighbourhood in Mosul, and a predominantly Christian town in a multi-ethnic district. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 37 figures representing a spectrum of local interests, we explore how Iraqis understand three commonly touted characteristics of community policing: police–public partnerships; problem-solving; and preventing crime. Our findings suggest that while police conduct does impact how stakeholders view them, public trust in the police is at least as much a function of who the police are as of what they actually do, underscoring that police professionalism cannot substitute for political legitimacy more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The likelihood of success criterion makes armed humanitarian action politically and morally prohibitive. Yet, the just war tradition is designed to confront egregious moral evils. To help reconcile these tensions, this essay questions the applicability of the success principle to armed humanitarian intervention. This questioning provokes reflection on how the just war theory's high threshold for success can rarely be achieved in the direct aftermath of humanitarian interventions. A low likelihood of success post bellum leads to the suggestion that the full demands of just war theory's tranquilitas ordinis definition of peace ought not to be required in the aftermath of armed humanitarian intervention. Guaranteed failure may be a more useful criterion than likelihood of success for interventions aimed at ending acute state-sponsored human rights atrocities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the Yugoslav Sokol, the leading organization dedicated to physical education in Interwar Yugoslavia, the youth was both an object and a tool of conquest. The education of younger generations was at the heart of its project of creating a new 'Yugoslav man' and a key asset in enforcing its legitimacy as an important agent in state-building. Yet, while the Sokol multiplied its initiatives to attract children and youth, these showed a contradictory interest in the organization. Moreover, besides the epic overtones of the official's narrative, intergenerational relations were often contentious: while the older representatives expected the younger ones to commit to the Yugoslav national project, the latter were frequently more interested in popular entertainment, and, even at times, in radical forms of political engagement. By critically analysing a diverse corpus of sources – publication and archives related to the Sokol's educational programmes together with different types of visual documents – as well as focusing on its local implementation in the Belgrade Sokol district, this article observes the discrepancies between the Sokol's ambitions and its reception on the ground, trying thus to shed light on the young people's experience and agency inside the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reconstructs the place of 'self-determination' and its conjunct, 'minorities' rights,' as legal languages in the history of Iraq from the British occupation until its League of Nations-supervised independence in 1932. While historians understand the development of the Arab-led mandatory regime and its relationship to international, League-mediated politics, the potential for the politics of 'self-determination' to have created radically different geopolitical outcomes, particularly in the northern, heterogeneous province of Mosul, has only recently been acknowledged. Rather than treat self-determination as an analytical category, this article begins from the perspective of the concept's novelty in the Middle East in 1918. State-building in Iraq through independence, I argue, depended on manipulating the doctrinal slippages between 'self-determination' and 'minorities' rights' as much as it did on institutional processes. Through the emergence of the mandatory regime and in two critical League Council decisions – the Mosul territorial arbitration of 1925 and Iraqi independence proceedings in 1932 – the nascent Arab state, the British Empire, and the inhabitants of Mosul contested the meaning of self-determination. Their arguments had far-reaching implications, some unintended, for the shape of inter-war international politics and constitute an important – and earlier – episode in the interplay between decolonisation and the centring of the nation-state in international law in the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing attention to the everyday, nation-building literature has paid insufficient attention to the ways in which national identity is strengthened as a side effect of measures that are not initially conceived of as nation-building activities. This article examines contemporary examples of such non-traditional processes of nation-building by reviewing the unintended consequences of political measures not directly targeting identity construction. We focus on processes of identity construction in Kyrgyzstan and Estonia that have emerged as a side effect of nation branding. In both cases, the primary goal of the national government was not necessarily to boost national identity but rather to re-brand the country for international audiences. We argue, however, that these efforts at external image projection and change have also influenced the ways in which national identities are understood, perceived, and reproduced by domestic populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the claims that the unique public-private television system of the 1980s provided space for the development of a national sense of community-based on common narratives and decentralization. The sources for the analysis included a revision of its contemporary discussion in printed media coupled with an analysis of TV shows currently available on streaming services and interviews with relevant figures of the time. The television content shot on location was praised for representing the nation, while simultaneously giving rise to debates about decentralization, which was finally addressed by the creation of regional broadcasters. The hybrid system fostered diversity, production quality, and a national representation that was strongly contested from the regions. At the same time, the system unintendedly hampered the creation of an audiovisual archive, and complaints about its tender systems resonate with the plight of contemporary public service broadcasting in Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the ongoing and destructive nature of invasion and settler-colonial institutions, laws and policies in Australia, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations continue to assert their sovereignty; exercise their inherent rights to self-determination as self-defined, autonomous peoples; and pursue collective aspirations in highly constrained and contested environments. Many nations are engaged in Indigenous nation (re)building (INB). One key INB strategy utilised by such nations is to use settler-colonial policy for their own collective ends. This article analyses the relationship between a complex and highly fraught settler-colonial legal-political system, native title, and INB processes in Australia. Using the 'Identify as a Nation, Organise as a Nation, Act as a Nation' framework, we explore some of the actual and potential relationships between the native title system and INB. Despite the considerable harms of the native title system on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, we maintain that First Nations may be able to strategically engage in the system in a way that assists them to further their cultural and political autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article explores the trials and tribulations of the Romanian state in building viable institutions and acquiring independence in the latter half of the 19th century. Starting from a flurry of diplomatic exchanges on the eve of the Russian-Turkish war (1877--1878), which were aimed at securing experienced General Staff officers for the young Romanian army, this article shows how intimately interconnected the domestic and international dimensions of state building were for such fledgling states and explores the inversely proportional relationship between Krasner's notions of sovereignty -- legal-international and Westphalian. The article thus proposes a more institutional-oriented approach to state building in South-Eastern Europe and seeks to bring the state and the pragmatics of its creation back into a discussion of independence and sovereignty in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The newborn Second Polish Republic inherited a complex imperial legacy and a large minority population. The series of borderland conflicts and the Soviet–Polish War that followed the Great War added additional layers to the heterogeneity of the veteran population. Throughout the interwar era, the eastern borderlands became a source of interethnic, religious and political tension, and turned into a battleground of contested Polish and Ukrainian memory discourses. The article focuses on welfare policy as an instrument of state-building in the eastern Polish borderlands. The process of defining war disability took place alongside the process of nation-building. The question of the legal definition of 'Polish disabled veteran' turned into a discussion about who was a part of the national body. The article examines how the interconnections between the categories of war disability and ethnic and new social minorities forged new identities in interwar eastern Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the concept of ethnic prejudice to examine the extent to which fears and anxieties related to immigration and ethnic diversity constitute obstacles to middle-class nation-building in Canada. Our underlying assumption is that if immigration is so contentious and the status anxiety it induces so great, then it should manifest into substantial levels of ethnic prejudice. Moreover, if status anxiety induced by immigration is indeed a widespread concern in Canada, we expect it to translate to significant differences in ethnic prejudice between class and immigration status. To measure ethnic prejudice, we developed an index using common factor analysis with the Provincial Diversity Project. This dataset allows us to create a robust index of ethnic prejudice based on the individual attitudes regarding eight different ethnic groups. While our findings indicate that ethnic prejudice in Canada remains relatively low for the time being, it is evident that a certain level of ethnic prejudice persists and intersects with other forms of status anxieties and competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between temporary labor migration programs (TLMPs) in the post-war era and middle-class nation-building. The analysis centers on Canada, an exemplary case of balancing the rights of foreign workers and national concerns. By examining two eras of Canadian TLMPs – one Keynesian and the other neoliberal – I foreground how and why temporariness has reemerged as a norm in (im)migration policy. Relative to TLMPs before 1990, contemporary ones emphasize merit, skill, and private actors with implications for how countries like Canada imagine political belonging. In the neoliberal era, the normative emphasis on permanence is challenged by a more transactional view of people's standing in a political jurisdiction. If this is a global shift, this analysis raises questions about whether we are now experiencing a doubling down on the market logics of migration and national membership, a backlash against it, or something different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada is often praised for successfully integrating ethnically diverse immigrants into its multicultural nation, so successful indeed that the country has been considered an exception to the twenty-first-century right-wing populist wave. The recent ascent of political mobilization associated with right-wing populist repertoires across Canada, however, has exposed the need to revisit the exceptionalism thesis. With this goal in mind, our article examines the contemporary right-wing responses to the Liberal Party of Canada's (LPC) post-2015 discourses and policies on immigration and multiculturalism. Building on existing scholarship, we first characterize the LPC's approach as a nation-building project with strong middle-class partialities that emphasize high skills and human capital. We then explore how right-wing parties oppose or embrace this 'middle-class nation-building'. Qualitatively analyzing the platforms of center-right parties and those further to the right at the federal and provincial levels (Alberta and Québec), we observe three prevalent response types: those that follow a cultural logic to prioritize identity and values, an economic logic to underline merit and contribution, or a combination of the two. Besides modulating the Canadian exceptionalism thesis, our findings complicate the assumed dichotomy between market-based and cultural forms of nationalism, as political actors can merge them in various permutations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past twenty-five years, Germany has seen substantial shifts towards more robust and expansive migration and integration policies addressing immigration primarily as a socio-economic resource and an irreversible reality defining contemporary German society. Yet, the idea of Germany as a 'country of immigration' has remained contested and polarizing in electoral politics particularly on the political right: While the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) under Chancellor Merkel's leadership has gradually endorsed immigration as an integral part of its socio-economic modernization agenda, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has embarked on a nativist rejection of all forms of immigration and cultural diversity. Based on a frame analysis, the article argues that the idea of middle-class nation-building through immigration has allowed the Christian Democratic Union to move away from its traditional anti-immigrant stand and integrate related issues into its market-driven political agenda. The key hypothesis is that the Christian Democrats have been able to modernize the party's middle-class nation-building ambition by adopting its basic rationale to the recruitment and integration of immigrants into German society. In contrast, the AfD has embarked on an opposing trajectory as the political advocate for identity-driven, anti-immigrant sentiments and an exclusionary nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue examines the increase in scale and intensity of merit-based (im)migration policies as a means to revive aging populations and boost national economies in countries around the world. It proposes the idea of 'middle class nation building through immigration' to characterize this phenomenon, to relate it to previous versions of nation building and (im)migration policies, and to highlight the puzzle of middle class (im)migration at times of increasing socio-political polarization in receiving societies. In this foundational introduction, I define the three concepts at stake, situate them within their respective bodies of literature, and address the following three questions: How to characterize the type of nation building at stake in today's democracies? Who gets to belong to the new educated middle class? Can we still speak of immigration or do we, instead, observe an end of settlement policies? This allows me to sketch-out the contours of 'middle class nation building through immigration' as an ideal-type: a heuristic theoretical construct (not to be found empirically in its pure form) that kindles our imagination, allows us to examine empirical cases, and invites debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constructing narratives of memory has long been acknowledged as a major component of nationalism and nation building. In Israel the memory of the Holocaust is widely seen as constituting one of these major components and is at the core of Israeli national identity. Since the early 2000s, the imminent passing of Holocaust survivors has resulted in an intense preoccupation with the question of the future of this memory. This preoccupation has produced new commemorative initiatives engaging with interactive digital platforms. In our article we explore the role of human agency in successfully conjuring up alternative or forgotten memories that dramatically transform contemporary remembrance landscapes by analyzing two recent commemorative projects in Israel, Zikaron Besalon and Eva's story. Informed by the understanding of the centrality of temporal orientations to the dynamics of social interaction in our analysis we adopt a temporal framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of democratic state-building constituted the basis of the peace promotion engagement of the United Nations and other international agencies in Timor-Leste. Yet, this process of internationally assisted socio-political reconstruction has produced mixed results in terms of achieving a liberal democratic transformation. In accounting for these outcomes, the existing scholarship highlights the ways in which the intensifying power struggles between different competing social groups gave rise to a socio-political order where clientelist, neo-patrimonial governance structures and practices co-exist with those of the Western Weberian state. This article draws on social conflict theory to examine the underlying political economy dynamics of these governance outcomes. It concludes that the process of socio-political ordering experienced in Timor-Leste is not a deviation from the liberal democratic blueprint. It rather results from it, reflects the balance of power between competing groups in society, and develops in such a way that serves the interests of particular social forces while marginalising others. Following from this premise, the article emphasises the point that the analysis of the political environment in Timor-Leste should consider the state-society complex rather than focusing on the quality of state institutions misguidedly insulated from societal interest and influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the Smithsonian Institution, in collaboration with other partners in the US scientific establishment, sought on multiple occasions to oversee the preparation of a Philippine flora. Boosters originally conceived of the project in 1903 as a means of showcasing US colonial prowess and aiding the economic and cultural development of the Philippines as part of a benevolent civilizing mission. By the 1920s, however, the justification for the Philippine flora increasingly emphasized the US-Filipino partnership, although US officials immediately undercut this collaborative rationale by suggesting that Philippine institutions lacked the skill and infrastructure to preserve and care for specimen collections. This account of how visions of nation-building and imperial power shaped the Smithsonian's quest for a Philippine flora contributes to ongoing scholarly efforts to integrate the United States into the global history of botany and empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I explore the organisation of practices of vernacular cosmopolitanism in the city of Buenos Aires. The starting point is a series of festivals and activities organised by the city government to promote and celebrate its cosmopolitanism. I then explore the spaces where they take place, and the monuments built by immigrant communities that populate the urban landscape. I read these in relationship to the ideological making of the Argentine nation and state, showing that the vernacular cosmopolitanism being promoted is exclusionary in character, and Eurocentric in orientation. Furthermore, I suggest that this form of exclusionary cosmopolitanism has an ideological affinity and shared genealogy with the settler colonialism that underpins Argentine nation building and its territorial state consolidation. I also show that in these celebrations of diversity, the government of the city of Buenos Aires strategically uses immigrant institutions and their networks, subsuming their particularity and multiplicity to that of the city and the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disagreements between European Union (EU) member states constrain the Union's capacity to manage conflicts such as Kosovo-Serbia. While Kosovo has long received EU support, five EU member states do not recognise its independence. How does the EU manage to work around member states' vetoes and mitigate contestation? In contrast to previous scholarship, the analysis of the EU enlargement process and visa liberalisation, the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue and the EULEX mission illustrate how institutional, technical and diplomatic solutions have allowed the provision of support to Kosovo, despite internal disagreements. EU member states have delegated to EU institutions the responsibility of overseeing day-to-day conflict management and integration policies concerning Kosovo and Serbia. EU institutions also use technical and constructively ambiguous language to manage conflicts and navigate the absence of political consensus regarding Kosovo's statehood. Additionally, the EU has fostered diplomatic collaboration with the United States (US) and with actors from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to navigate through the Kosovo-Serbia conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I follow sound across hegemonic geopolitical boundaries to map its place-making force in the emergence of new forms of nationhood. Through an analysis of Mabel and Robert F. William's radio show, Radio Free Dixie, I argue that racialized Southern culture was respatialized and reimagined, positioning the Black Belt as a Black nation where citizenship is rooted in self-determination. This analysis demonstrates that utilizing sonic rhetorics as a mode through which to uncover Black geographies offers insight into practices of nation building that diverge from existing forms of Westphalian sovereignty that manifest as colonial and racialized domination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops the concept of 'entangled migration states' as a means of highlighting the centrality of migration governance to state-building processes, the constitution of state sovereignty, and interstate relations. Drawing on the example of France and Algeria, it demonstrates the key role that migration played in three phases of state-building: the colonial period of Algérie française; the Algerian nationalist independence movement; and postcolonial state-building. In the case of France and Algeria, at least three actors constructed and instrumentalised migration and mobility regimes as sources of power and control – the French imperial state; the non-state Algerian independence movement; and the newly sovereign postcolonial Algerian state. A focus on the entangled nature of migration management allows for a deeper historicisation of contemporary migration regimes and draws attention to the central role played by migration diplomacy and transnational governmentality in contemporary migration management regimes, thus calling into question some of the spatial assumptions undergirding the 'migration state' concept. The article traces the evolution of mobility patterns and control in the Franco-Algerian case; their relationship to state-building processes; and the implications for rethinking the 'migration state'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although famines have historically claimed millions of lives, they are rarely publicly remembered through monuments, commemorative events or museums. This article investigates the apparent silence around famine memory by asking if there is something about famines that makes them less 'commemorable' than other mass-atrocities, and in which circumstances famines become the object of public memorialisation. Bringing together a rather fragmented literature on famine memory, the article outlines seven ways that famine memorialisation is impeded or made possible. First, it draws attention to the divisiveness of famines and their lack of clearly defined heroes and perpetrators. Second, shame and culpability shape how individuals and states talk – or keep quiet – about hunger victims. Third, earlier commemorative traditions and other traumatic events can inspire or crowd out famine memory. Fourth, for famines to be officially remembered, a break with the past tends to be necessary. The article also, fifth, discusses how famine memory can be used to construct national unity, or, sixth, instrumentalised in domestic and international politics. Finally, it highlights the role of activism and memory projects from below. While famines may not easily lend themselves to public commemoration, political contestation, nation-building or civil society initiatives can enable their memorialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ethiopian empire retained its political independence through the European Scramble for Africa. The imperial elites oversaw the transformation of the empire into a territorially-bounded state, part of an international system of states regulated by international law and by international institutions such as the League of Nations, and later the UN. Ethiopian intellectuals were keenly aware that Ethiopia had joined this international system from a subordinated position and that its sovereignty remained at risk. The struggle for sovereignty was fought not only at a diplomatic level, but also at a narrative level. Afäwärḳ Gäbrä-Iyyäsus's 1908 Traveller's Guide to Abyssinia and Käbbädä Mikael's 1949 Ethiopia and Western Civilisation pushed back against the European depiction of Ethiopia as intrinsically inferior and intrinsically unable to develop. Both Afäwärḳ and Käbbädä rejected the rigid determinism of stagist models of development, and argued that Ethiopia and Europe were natural allies by virtue of their shared Christian heritage. Global power hierarchies rigidified Ethiopia's domestic power hierarchies. The article shows how the way in which Afäwärḳ and Käbbädä defended Ethiopia's place in an unequal world had important consequences on their vision of domestic nation building, resulting in hierarchical assimilationist policies that marginalised Ethiopia's non-Christian citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a theoretical intervention in new and emergent approaches to analysing China's coercive nation-building policies under Xi Jinping. The author contends that the recent Western framing of CCP policies as genocidal or necropolitical, predicated on notions of settler colonialism and indigeneity, not only strips minority nationalities of their political agency but also prevents them from pursuing anti-colonial self-determination. By delving into the extensive scholarly work within Chinese anthropology, history, and philosophy that contributes to the reconstruction of a retrotopian Chinese nation with non-Han minority groups at its core, this article argues that the ongoing effort to build a revitalised Chinese national community requires more than merely overcoming obstacles related to minority cultures and identities. It entails actively reimagining the role and participation of minorities in 'self-sacrifice' for the Chinese national community, implying their voluntary relinquishment of identities and rights in order to align with the Chinese nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]