Search

Through an investigation of policy documents and reports from post-1989 Romanian education reform, this article argues that what came to be known in the early 1990s as a 'post-socialist condition', characterized by exuberant nationalism, needs to be rethought. Rather than an exceptional path, Romanian education displays conspicuous synchronization with wider world trends, while some peculiar national narratives in explaining reform failures persist. Instead of becoming more nation-focused (as predicted by prevalent conceptualizations of ' Eastern' types of nationalism), discourses of educational reform opened up to the world, most notably through the mediation of Europe. Since the end of the nationalizing decade of the 1990s, educational texts have consistently invoked global themes of adaptation. Narratives about the mission of mass education and reform priorities encapsulating officially-sanctioned projections of the nation became outward-looking, in contrast to the self-referential rhetoric of socialist times. The changing patterns of Romanian nation-building are reflective of trends across the world, pointing to a reconsideration of the exceptionalism often associated with Eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the book "Nation Building: Why Some Countries Come Together While Others Fall Apart," by Andreas Wimmer, in relation to the significance of public goods provision by states. Topics include the relation between public goods provision and national identification in Botswana and Somalia, public opinion surveys conducted by the research institute Afrobarometer, and the relation between ethnic identification and national identification.

After the 2003 Rose Revolution, the Georgian government strove to integrate its disaffected Armenian and Azeri minorities, settled in southern Georgia across the border from their kin states. This article sheds novel light on this nationalisation drive. It argues that the centre's nation‐building entrepreneurs – the Mississippdaleulni – laboured to spur minorities in the ethnic enclaves first to interact with the heartland and then to adapt to its language. Officials invested in infrastructure and extended the state's clout into the borderlands so as to foster inter‐ethnic contacts. In tandem, the authorities promoted the Georgian language in the civil service, demoted the Russian tongue, and acculturated pupils to the state language. This nationalisation drive, I conclude, drew upon the same set of tools that Eugen Weber recorded French authorities as using in the opposite corner of Europe centuries ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Established in 1944, the North Queensland Local Government Association made an impact on post‐war reconstruction and northern development in Australia. The association modernised infrastructure and improved social conditions in Queensland's north, as well as launching an influential publicity campaign to promote a massive northern development scheme. In an era when federal proposals for developing Australia's northern regions often struggled to make a convincing case for Commonwealth investment, these were significant contributions to nation‐building. Putting substance before parochialism, the association fostered cooperation among municipal authorities and patiently lobbied the Queensland government. But some members complained that their region was part of a "neglected north" and called for a more assertive campaign. By the late 1950s, having developed regional infrastructure, grown in confidence, and looking for new challenges, the association shifted its lobbying to target the Commonwealth government. The change led to the "People the North" publicity campaign, which influenced federal northern development policy. This article analyses the campaigns led by the North Queensland Local Government Association in the twenty years after 1944. It illuminates a neglected part of Australia's political history: the contribution of regional political voices from Australia's north to nation‐building projects such as post‐war reconstruction and northern development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the book "Toward an Anthropology of Government: Democratic Transformations and Nation Building in Wales," by William R. Schumann.

This article offers an analytical framework for understanding the peculiarities of the Ottoman Empire's nationality policies in the second constitutional period (1908–18). It will examine the extent to which the nationality policies of the Young Turks can be perceived as a nation-building project, and question whether it is reasonable to apply the term ‘Turkification’ to these policies. The primary goal of the paper in this context is to identify how and to what degree a nationalist outlook shaped imperial polices of the late Ottoman Empire. Engaging in a critical dialogue with the existing historiography, the article argues that ‘Turkification’ should be conceptualised solely as a project of nation-building in the multiethnic Ottoman Empire. It was only one of the policies employed by the imperial elite and it coexisted with other imperial policies ranging from centralisation to decentralisation, assimilation to dissimilation and integration to homogenisation. The paper concludes by contending that only by contextualising and understanding this complexity and only by taking geographical variations into account can the peculiarity of ‘Turkification’ be grasped. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From its foundation as a private corporation in 1694, the Bank of England extended large amounts of credit to support the British private economy and to support an increasingly centralised British state. The Bank helped the British state reach a position of geopolitical and economic hegemony in the international economic order. In this paper, we deploy recalibrated financial data to analyse an evolving trajectory of connections between the British economy, the state, and the Bank of England. We show how these connections contributed to form an effective and efficient fiscal–naval state and promote the development of a system of financial intermediation for the economy. This symbiotic relationship became stronger after 1793. The evidence that we consider here shows that although the Bank was nominally a private institution and profits were paid to its shareholders, it was playing a public role well before Bagehot's doctrine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many multiethnic polities suffer from a deficit of citizens’ support for their political communities. Hence, their governments may think of political decentralisation as a solution. This article analyses the effects of that policy on citizens’ identification with their political communities in Spain: on identification with the Basque Country, Catalonia or Galicia (its most conspicuous ‘nationalities’) once they have become ‘autonomous communities’, and on identification with the overall Spanish political community. To study the processes of transformation of such attitudes, nation-building theories are interpreted from the political socialisation approach and applied to the autonomous institutions. It is also suggested that the state strictu senso, by contrast, may be developing an alternative method of forging identification with its own political community. Survey time-series evidence shows that although those autonomous communities are engaged successfully in a local but standard nation-building, the whole political system may be fostering its own diffuse support by recognising and institutionalising cultural diversity and self-government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically surveys the concept of nationalising states first coined by Rogers Brubaker when referring to the policies implemented by post-communist states. The concept of nationalising states is placed within the context of the traditional literature on nationalism, which divides Europe into a ‘civic West’ and an ‘ethnic East’. The article discusses the concept of nationalising states and questions if it is really any different to nation building which took place from the late eighteenth century onwards in the ‘civic West’. Polyethnic rights are ignored on both sides of the classic ‘West:East’ divide. All civic states are composed of both civic and ethnic factors and the proportional relationship between them depends upon how much progress there has been in democratisation. The article concludes by arguing that the concept of nationalising states has little theoretical value unless it is equated with nation building and no longer selectively applied to only former communist countries. The traditional division of Europe into a ‘civic West’ versus an ‘ethnic East’ requires revision in the light of recent developments in Central and Eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the work of Singaporean comic book artists Sonny Liew and Leslie Chew who have staked their citizenship, their freedom and their finances to pursue their art. Topics include the practice of regulatory censorship faced by both artists and along with their peers, the reactive and preemptive censorship of their work by Singaporean authorities, and the naturalization and invisibility of comics censorship in Singapore.

This study surveys the widely held view in the years leading up to the First World War that Italy required a war to complete its unification process. Intellectuals and activists from across the political spectrum came to accept the view that Italian territorial unity had mostly been achieved by 1870, but that an Italian national consciousness, that bound together north and south, urban and rural, bourgeois and proletariat, had yet to be achieved. Many of these individuals also came to believe that war would create this national consciousness as Italy strove to expand its colonial empire and conquer the Italian lands held by the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Such commitment to war as the solution to the nation's various ills was instrumental in pushing Italy from its initial neutrality in 1914 to its declaration of war against its former allies in 1915. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adore historical studies are needed of the processes of nation-building and national integration in Western Europe. The basic research, whether within a single nation (as most historical studies will be) or comparative between nations, calls for fuller co-operation between historians and other social scientists. It is useful to recall some of the characteristics of the work by most professional historians, so as to minimize the illusions that may plague efforts at needed co-operation. One series of studies now under way brings together people of a number of disciplines and many nations in historical and current analysis of the all-too-little-known politics of the smaller European democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the nature of the transitional society in the developing nations and reviews the role and problems of bureaucracy in the tasks of nation-building. Eight major characteristics of bureaucracy are identified, and its problems in the context of t fie culture of politics, the emerging ethos and the expanding sphere of Stale activity and new institutional arrangements are analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the process through which the state nurtured urban middle-class formation during the Park Chung Hee regime in South Korea. While existing studies have focused on the size and characteristics of the middle class, few studies explore the political process or mechanisms through which the middle class was on the rise as a mainstream force. This article argues that urban middle-class formation was a political-ideological project of the authoritarian state to reconstruct the nation and strengthen the regime's political legitimacy. In particular, this article explores the two concurrent processes of urban middle-class formation in Korea: one is the growth of the middle class in an objective sense, as a result of state-directed economic development; and the other is the production of urban middle-class norms. Drawing on the discourses of the Korean government and the media disseminated during from 1961 to 1979, I trace how the formation of the middle class in Korea was intertwined with modernity and nationalism in order to consolidate state power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

: Ancient nation-building demanded fecundity, and traces of this demand lie dormant in Old Testament scriptures. In the U.S. today some Protestants preach natalism (an ideology promoting high fecundity), often with the objective shifted from national preservation to denominational aggrandizement. Some present Martin Luther as a forerunner of natalism. This article evaluates that claim, looking at his references to reproduction in a historical and theological context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the rhetoric of nation-building in South Africa with particular reference to the incorporation of South Africans of Indian descent into the post-1994 political order. During its years as a protest movement, the ANC came to embrace ‘non-racialism’, a doctrine emphasising a common South African identity, in order to provide a counter-rhetoric to the racially exclusive doctrine of apartheid. However, the organisation had difficulty in garnering support from the Indian and Coloured communities during the transition to democratic rule. It increasingly adopted a multiculturalist conception of the South African nation and promoted the idea of the ‘rainbow nation’ in order to foster a sense of unity among South Africa's diverse population groups. This multicultural conception of the South African nation has met with some success. The majority of Indians voted for the ANC in the 2004 elections, shifting their political loyalties from the National and Democratic Parties in previous elections. This trend demonstrates an increasing identification among Indians with the African majority government. However, in spite of the ANC's success in courting the Indian vote in the 2004 elections, Indian-African tensions have been fuelled by recent anti-Indian rhetoric. The paper argues that a multiculturalism that does not address the material conditions that fuel class antagonisms will prove to be shallow in the present neo-liberal policy climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spirit Wars: Native North American Religions in the Age of Nation Building. Ronald Niezen. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. xi. 256 pp., figures, photographs, references, index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of whether or not return migration produces any development impacts on the migrants' country of origin continues to raise the interest of policy‐makers. Most empirical studies focus on the macro‐level economic impacts of return. However, it has increasingly become apparent that socio‐cultural and political impacts are important as well. Using both quantitative and qualitative data concerning highly‐skilled élite migrants who have returned to Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, and stressing instead the meso‐level of analysis, this paper demonstrates that return migration has, on balance, fostered positive development effects in both the public and private sector. The effects do vary, mostly across generations of migrants and in relation to historical periods. Whereas earlier migrants' contributions tended to concern the realm of nation‐building, more recent contributions are to be found in a more explicit economic context in the form of entrepreneurship. In particular, the paper illustrates the changes that return migrants have operated in the workplace and dwells upon some significant, concrete examples of innovative practice and productive investment. The policy implications of the main findings are discussed, and some recommendations for future research are formulated. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In Malaysia, the Internet figures prominently in the imagery of modernity. Associated with a high-tech future where the country is positioned in the midst of regional and global flows, the Internet represents the way forward. The Malaysian middle classes are at the forefront of this process of social transformation, their wired lifestyles serving as a model for society. Having readily adapted the Internet, the middle classes have been acculturated in the global culture of networking that it denotes. Their exposure to the world at large has heightened their sense of national identity. Meanwhile, their experience in decentralized interaction has provided them with the means to participate in the construction and reconstruction of national imageries. A medium for on-line nation building, the Internet has evolved into a machinery of meaning that allows Malaysians to participate in the cultural management of their nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article begins as an attempt to analyse an apparently paradoxical situation created by two events, which occurred simultaneously in 1948: the establishment of Israel as an independent state and the emergence of the Ofakim Hadashim (New Horizons) group of artists, acknowledged as the most renowned local artists at the time. The creation of the state of Israel may be considered the high point of Jewish nationalism, when the nation celebrated its distinctiveness. On the other hand, Ofakim Hadashim was a group of intellectuals who aspired to disengage their artistic work from the dominant political processes of the time. The basic claim of its members was l'art pour l'art, which ostensibly contradicted the significance of the general political process. This situation is highly interesting since it challenges the general sociological assumptions about the role of intellectuals in nation-building processes, and also contradicts the usual explanation regarding the Israeli state-building process. It concludes that an explanation of the social complexity existing in 1948 can be found in an understanding of modernity as a multifaceted phenomenon embracing a diversity of inherently contradictory practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1954 and 1961, American private voluntary organizations (PVOs) endorsed U.S. intervention in Vietnam and offered humanitarian assistance to help save the Vietnamese people from communism. The Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere (CARE) and a prominent group of PVOs solicited the support of American and Saigon governments and willingly supplemented official strategies to build an independent, noncommunist nation in South Vietnam under Ngo Dinh Diem. Government authorities protected and advised PVOs’ operations, subsidized their distributions, and used their altruistic reputations to boost the psychological impact of America’s role there. As U.S. military involvement escalated, PVOs’ partnership with the government ultimately hampered their aid efforts by politicizing their humanitarian programs and increasing their dependence on government security. CARE’s participation in this failed nation building experiment reveals the pervasiveness of Americans’ cultural and political misjudgments about Vietnam’s struggle for independence. It also shows how private citizens and beneficent institutions helped serve Cold War objectives and implement U.S. foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethno‐racial and linguistic boundaries have major implications for socio‐economic well‐being throughout the world, yet their specific effects vary greatly across contexts. The countries that were once part of the Soviet Union have seen dramatic transformations yet also exhibited remarkable continuities from the socialist era. This article contributes to cross‐national evidence on the roots and expressions of ethno‐racial socio‐economic inequalities and on nation building and nationalism in the post‐Soviet context. It uses data from two identically designed nationally representative surveys conducted in Kyrgyzstan in 2011 and 2017 to investigate patterns and trends in ethnic and linguistic disparities in employment by occupational type and economic sector and in earnings among men and women. The authors find that despite government policies to promote the advancement of the nation's titular majority, Kyrgyz, and to encourage the use of its language, the ethno‐linguistic economic inequalities inherited from the Soviet era — privileged positions of the European‐origin minority and of Russian‐speaking Kyrgyz — were still potently present in the earlier survey. While variations in types of occupation and employment sectors tended to diminish between the two surveys, the ethno‐linguistic differences in earnings remained very pronounced, even after controlling for other factors. The authors relate these findings to the extant scholarship and reflect on their implications for our understanding of post‐socialist transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Minority Treaties that were signed at the end of First World War were not only instrumental in establishing the status of minorities in their respective countries but also significant in terms of their impact on nation‐building processes. Through focusing on the post‐Ottoman lands, and specifically on Turkey, this paper examines the tension between the goals of the Allied Powers and the League of Nations, and those of the nationalist political elites in the newly‐created national states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is not usually thought that Wittgenstein has much to show us about political power and the state. This essay disputes this claim by showing how the Mausoleum and career of the First Emperor can be understood in terms of political solipsism, so illuminating the nature and logic of centralized state building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The region "East Asia" is understood here to refer to China, Korea and Japan. Geographically, the Pacific littoral of the Soviet Union could be included in East Asia, but it is a part of a social and political unit whose centre is not in East Asia. Similarly the Mongolian Peoples Republic could be included but is not considered because of the author's limitations of knowledge. Looking at China, Korea and Japan in terms of the formation of a distinctive politico-cultural unit, we are impressed by the early formation and continuous development of such units by all three. In the case of China, this can be traced back to the Chou and the Chin dynasties. Chinese characters, Confucianism and other Chinese philosophies which have influenced not only the Chinese people but also the Koreans and the Japanese until the nineteenth, or even twentieth century, the idea of the Middle Kingdom which contained the assumption of the cultural unity and supremacy of China over external barbarians, all these were the products of the period of the Chou dynasty. In terms of political integration, the first emperor of the Chin dynasty, Shih Huang Ti took such important steps as the creation of a centralized administrative organization, the unification of weights and measures, and the construction of roads leading to the capital, of canals connecting north and south, and of the famous Great Wall which constituted part of the boundary of his empire.

The 1992–1993 civil wars in Moldova and in Georgia ended with a de facto separation of Transnistria and Abkhazia, respectively. These de facto states are both inhabited by the kin to the 'enemy' across the administrative border: Moldovans and Georgians/Mingrelians. How do the de facto authorities foster a collective identity in support of their claim for legitimacy and statehood? Engaging with Wimmer's taxonomy of boundary‐making, this article argues that nation‐building involves not only expansion but also, simultaneously, contraction. Transnistria constructs a higher‐level identity category and co‐opts and contracts the Moldovan category, separating it into 'our' and Bessarabian Moldovans in order to incorporate the former into the Transnistrian people. In Abkhazia, the nation‐building project establishes the Abkhazs as the titular nation allowing, however, for the construction of an Abkhazian people that would include minorities, with Gal/i Georgians said to be Mingrelians, distinct from Georgians. These cases show that elites combine different ethnic boundary‐making strategies in order to implement their favoured identity project and to legitimize the claimed statehood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout history, the planning and construction of a dam has become symbolic of wider political events and processes. This paper investigates how the Tryweryn scheme in north‐west Wales in the 1950s and 1960s became a central signifier within the emergent Welsh nationalism of the period. The project, providing water to the city of Liverpool, flooded the village of Capel Celyn and displaced its 48 residents. However, the opposition to the project extended beyond this rural community, with the scheme becoming a focal point for Welsh nationalism. This paper explores this significance, arguing that the Tryweryn scheme was articulated in a number of ways that elevated the project from a local issue to a national outcry, resulting in the term 'Tryweryn' having a resonance that continues to this day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Service‐delivery NGOs are often attacked for abandoning the pursuit of ‘alternative development’ in favour of ‘technocratic’ forms of development. Yet some commentators argue that these organizations can have progressive impacts on political forms and processes. We investigate this debate through the lens of state building. Research into The AIDS Support Organisation's (TASO) work with the Ugandan government reveals that its state capacity building effects were both uneven and temporary. Although TASO played important roles in strengthening the bureaucratic ability of targeted hospitals to deliver HIV/AIDS services and increased the state's embeddedness in society in the targeted districts, it was less successful in expanding the infrastructural reach of the state in rural Uganda. We conclude that NGOs need longer time‐frames to achieve state building goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nation-building remains a key challenge in Vanuatu. From the origins of this new nation in 1980, it was clear that creating a unifying sense of national identity and political community from multiple languages and diverse traditional cultures would be difficult. This paper presents new survey and focus group data on attitudes to national identity among tertiary students in Vanuatu. The survey identifies areas of common attitudes towards nationalism and national identity, shared by both Anglophone and Francophone Ni- Vanuatu. However, despite the weakening ties between language of education and political affiliation over recent years, the findings suggest that there remain some key areas of strong association between socio-linguistic background, and attitudes to the nation, and national identity. These findings cast new light on the attitudes of likely future elites towards regional, ethnic, intergenerational and linguistic fault lines in Vanuatu and the challenges of building a cohesive sense of political community and national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implications of the 2011 Scottish election and the proposed referendum on Scottish independence for the future of social policy across the devolved UK are profound but far from certain. It is crucial to understand not only the historical nature of this conjuncture but to develop an adequate conceptual understanding of the place of social policy in the dialectic between state and nation in Scotland. To this end, we critically examine theories that depict Scotland as an essentially 'stateless nation' in the light of recent developments. In so doing, we examine the implications for social policy of the changing character of statehood in Scotland, the nature of civil nationalism, and the problem of legitimacy in Scotland for the UK as a multinational state. As the architecture of statehood is re-negotiated, strong centrifugal pressures are being created for a more distinct divergence of social policy in Scotland from the rest of the UK regardless of the outcome of the independence referendum. Policy-making is ensnared in a series of tensions, not just between Westminster and Holyrood but also, more broadly, tensions between competing principles of social justice and territorial justice, and competing demands between welfare nationalism and competitive nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most treatments of protectionism by economists try to account for the departure on a case-by-case basis. However, protectionism is often an element in a systematic political economy. This was developed by authors such as List, and persists today. Debating it requires normative as well as analytical arguments in a political economy approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BSTRACT In this article, I examine how local groups are often instrumental in the establishment of nation-states whose legitimacy is later threatened through acts of resistance or subversion by these same groups or their heirs. In Venezuela, groups who maintain a tradition of stick fighting provide a case in point. Developed among the rural civilian population in the postcolonial era for defensive purposes and sometimes deployed in the service of the nascent Venezuelan state, stick fighting has recently been promoted as a national martial art. As one group of stick fighters helped link the popularization of this art with Venezuelan nationalism, it simultaneously drew on strategies of misdirection and secrecy associated with the art to restrict its dissemination. In doing so, it maintained local forms of sociality against the cultural domination of state and global forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns about failed and fragile states have put state- and nation-building firmly on the academic and policy agenda, but the crucial role of public services in this process has remained underexplored. The 1960s and '70s generated a substantial set of literature that is largely missing from current writing. It identified state penetration, standardisation and accommodation as key processes in the state- and nation-building sequence. This article analyses these three processes in Western Europe in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, and the role of public services therein, to explore how they may help us to understand the success and failure of state- and nation-building in developing countries and fragile states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of language preceded the founding of Israel. In the nineteenth century, the emergence of political Zionism was accompanied by a revival of Hebrew. In the early years of Jewish resettlement in Palestine, Hebrew slowly emerged as the popular language, a compromise between the Yiddish spoken by Eastern European immigrants and the Arabic or Ladino current among many Middle Eastern Jews. After World War I, as educational institutions proliferated, the challenge of French and German as languages of instruction was blocked by teachers' strikes. With the establishment of the state and the massive influx of Jewish displaced persons, mostly speakers of Yiddish, that language, regarded as a potential threat to the primacy of Hebrew, was systematically fought by the country's political and cultural elite. Today, the position of Hebrew as the national language of Israel is secure. English, however, has been asserting its influence in an increasingly postindustrial and globalised society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes the concept of 'war veteranship' to better understand war veterans' positioning in and engagement with post‐war societies and state‐building processes. The study is based on ethnographic research with former insurgent movements, specifically the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) in Mozambique and the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN) in El Salvador. The concept of war veteranship allows for the exploration of trajectories of former combatants not necessarily, and certainly not exclusively, in terms of reintegration, but rather in relation to the manifold ways in which the status and connections associated with armed group participation may hold currency in the veterans' lives, and particularly in relation to political processes. The article argues that war veteranship is best understood as a distinct type of post‐war citizenship. Integral to the political accommodations that shape post‐war societies, war veteranship involves the construction, negotiation and contestation of the societal status of different categories of war veterans. Drawing on the analyses of political struggles of war veterans in RENAMO and FMLN over two decades, this study's findings underscore the longue‐durée socio‐political relevance of war veteranship, extending above and beyond reintegration efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American missionaries introduced a project of female educational reform among Bulgarian Orthodox Christians in their attempt to promote a Protestant reformation in the Ottoman Balkans. This case study of American-Bulgarian interactions in the town of Eski Za&gcaron;ora (Stara Zagora) illuminates a hitherto unexplored projection of American culture abroad and highlights the connections between women's education, religion, and national identity. In the face of Ottoman secular reform and American religious reform, Bulgarian women appropriated American educational ideals to demand improved schooling for Orthodox girls in the name of national progress. Ironically, by promoting female education, missionaries ensured the failure of their Protestant reformation and inadvertently contributed to shaping a Bulgarian national discourse during a period of increasing Balkan nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until the Second World War the Netherlands housed a Jewish minority, which varied from 1.4% to 2.2% of the Dutch population in the 1800–1940 period. In this paper an analysis is made of their numerical development and geographical distribution based on census data, and of the consequences of the Jewish demography and geography for the assimilation into Dutch society. Among other factors, it appears that the small size of the Jewish population, their strong geographical dispersion, their strong propensity for internal migration, their orientation towards rival liberal and socialist institutions in Amsterdam have prevented the rise of a Jewish ‘pillar’ and encouraged assimilation into Dutch society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses new trends in the assessment of Russian–Ukrainian relations by representatives of the Russian elites in the late 1990s. It sees a discussion of the historic roots of Ukrainian separatism in the Russian media and attempts to identify the origins of the ‘Russian national homeland’ outside Kyiv Rus as the first steps towards a revision of traditional Russian perceptions of Russian–Ukrainian relations. The article argues that the new trends have become particularly visible following the signing of the Russian–Ukrainian inter-state treaty in May 1997, which it regards as an important landmark in Russia's acceptance of the independence of Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how, in the decade following India's independence, the psychology of childhood became a locus of experimentation, and an avenue through which approaches to postcolonial development were expressed. Tracing the ideas of educational reformers, psychological researchers and child welfare advocates, we show how a 'science of childhood' in this period emphasised both the inherent potential and the emotional complexity of India's young citizens. However, while identifying this potential, these actors at times circumscribed it by deploying culturalist assumptions about Indian childhood that were linked to a teleology of the new nation state. These were ideas that shaped a 'pedagogic' approach to postcolonial modernisation. Nation‐building was not just a technocratic undertaking, but an educative project that was scientific, spiritual, and therapeutic in orientation. The article argues for greater attention to the pedagogy of the state in analyses of past and present state‐citizen relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to map the relations between nation-building processes in 19th-century Europe and city cultures with their urban sociability. Three patterns are surveyed: [1] the modern-national assimilation of medieval and early-modern city cultures (sample case: Orléans and the French cult of Joan of Arc); [2] the modular replication across cities of urban festivals as cultural mobilizers (sample case: the spread of Floral Games festivals in Southern France and Northern Spain); [3] the reticulation of city-based practices into a nationwide and nation-building network (sample cases: the role of choral societies in German cultural nationalism; and its transnational knock-on effect in the Baltic Provinces). By choosing the city as our social focus and placing it (or rather, its ideal-type ' Urbania') alongside Gellner's ideal-types of ' Megalomania' and ' Ruritania', we can avoid the finalism of studying regionalist and nationalist movements in the analytical framework of the post-Versailles state system, and we gain a better understanding of the granulated, localized social basis of such movements and the translocally homogenizing role of culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship has opened questions as to the everyday actions of the Khmer Rouge and those living under the regime which led to the Cambodian Genocide. Current work examines the critical cultural geographies of the Khmer Rouge: photography, poetry and music, for example. Music specifically has an interesting underpinning, as it was previously understood to be have been eradicated in the genocide as the standard narrative has us believe. This paper instead investigates the pieces of evidence that exist, which explain the use of music by the Khmer Rouge. I explore the geographies of music beyond the lyrics and look at the transformation and use of music in Cambodia and Democratic Kampuchea. What elements of traditional Khmer music were used during the regime? What modifications occurred to the music of Cambodia during the regime, and how did the Khmer Rouge modify existing Cambodian (and other) music to best fit their desired uses (state‐building and genocide)? This paper goes beyond traditional geographies of music, which rely on lyrical analyses, to bring an ethnomusicological perspective to the work of music and its role in shaping the idea of the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no doubt that a new trend in political science has developed over the past fifteen years. This new trend may be characterized, in general, by the use of diverse relevant social sciences to explain a given theme, by greater and more systematic comparative efforts and by a renewed interest in social dynamics. This new trend has been beneficial to political science because it has helped to defeat the old parochial, configurative, formalistic approach and stimulated the emergence of a new, more comprehensive, realistic and precise approach, tending to seek out a new theoretical order. One of the themes where this theoretical order has reached an advanced stage of crystallization is the so-called modernization or political development field. In the last five years, more and more political scientists have reached a virtual consensus about a general definition of modernization and about the main processes underlying political development. Much widely accepted literature refers to one or several of the following main processes: identity.

Deals with the process of media transformation in South African broadcasting industry. Proliferation of radio and television services in the country; Restructuring of the South African Broadcasting Corp.; Limits of using the mass media as nation-builder; Legacy of apartheid broadcasting policy; Transition to the independent broadcasting in the country; Redefinition of independent broadcasting regulation.

The COVID‐19 pandemic has exposed fundamental flaws in the design of public administration in late democracies. While much writing to date focuses on the initial and vital responses to COVID‐19, the magnitude of this event also furthers insights into the risks of incomplete institutional designs and practices, such as the case of Brazil, an example of the administrative flaws in late democracies. This article is not a critique of responses to COVID‐19 per se, but an examination of these considering democratization processes that include state‐building and the need for another push in administrative and political reforms. Shortcomings in state‐building, which existed before COVID‐19, inflict heavy costs on society and, if left unaddressed, add to the costs of future disasters and unraveling of support for state and democratic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines and clarifies the complex relationship between economic development, the formation of classes, political movement responses to these changes, and state institutional capacity building in response to these movements in the Midwestern US. It seeks to remedy views of the transition to capitalism in America that focus too narrowly on a moment of transition, positing instead a long, politically contested process of class formation by elucidating the specific interactions between agrarian and union movements and state‐building processes. Our research reveals the substantial role of the state in forcing through acceptance of economic changes and shifting class locations through a co‐developmental process of political resistance movements and state‐building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delineates the multi-faceted roles that Islam has played in Malaysian society as the symbol of Malay ethnicity and dominance. Support for the ruling elite's control of the state; Conduit to a host of religious organizations; Alternative to the status quo.

Examines the interconnections among concrete social and political structures and circumstances and the contingent histories put into play in moves to constitute a sense of national identity. Competition between bands from two neighboring but politically distinct islands at Saint Thomas to commemorate emancipation; Identity formation in a transnational context.