Despotic Regimes Research Articles

The New Urban Rebellions: A Review Article

Abstract Mark R. Beissinger's The Revolutionary City is a tour de force that will interest a wide range of readers. It charts both the decline of social revolutions and the rise of a new kind of rebellion, what Beissinger calls the urban civic revolt. Beissinger also analyzes the many ways in which these revolts differ from previous ones. These new rebellions have been minimalist in character, aiming to overthrow despotic regimes but eschewing any effort to redistribute wealth on a large scale or transform class relations. Beissinger's “spatial theory of revolution,” however, only partially illuminates these new urban rebellions, and it leads him to the premature conclusion that social revolutions will never occur again.

The Sozonov Case, 1910: The Making of a Russian Revolutionary Martyrology

Abstract: On the night of 27 November (10 December) 1910, the Socialist-Revolutionary terrorist Egor Sozonov, renowned as the assassin of Minister of the Interior Viacheslav von Pleve in July 1904, committed suicide in his Siberian prison cell in protest at the use of corporal punishment against his fellow political prisoners. News of Sozonov’s death provoked an outcry across Russia: it was accompanied by questions in the Duma, widespread and hagiographical coverage in the liberal and revolutionary press, and student protests in the major university towns (and, conversely, by barely concealed joy from the Black- Hundredist right). This article serves two purposes. First, it reconstructs, in as much detail as the evidence allows, the events surrounding Sozonov’s death, which (despite their infamy at the time) have up to now received little scholarly attention and remain, to some extent, shrouded in mystery. Secondly, it explores how these events came to serve as the basis of a revolutionary martyrology — originally promoted by the SRs, and later appropriated by the Bolsheviks after 1917 — that glorified Sozonov as a ‘just assassin’, persecuted by a despotic government, who had ultimately sacrificed his own life in order that others might live. The article situates Sozonov’s death in the wider political, social and cultural context of the time, considering it in relation to contemporary discourses on suicide (as a transcendentalist political act), corporal punishment (long regarded as the gravest imaginable insult to the dignity of educated Russians), the ‘moral economy’ of revolutionary terrorism and the quasi-religious mythologies of the revolutionary underground.

Synchronous Chanting in Indonesian Social Movement Repertoires: A Tool for Emoting and for Manipulating Emoters

AbstractChanting has been in existence since time immemorial and is thought to emerge as a way to convey information about visceral and affective states. Chanting synchronously allows participants to synchronize their actions and affective states for it requires them to actively and coordinatively participate in it. This phenomenon can be observed in various social rituals across times and cultures all around the world, including in social movement repertoires, such as demonstrations and street protests. Since emotions play a pivotal role in social movements, gaining insights into how chanting can be used as a “tool” for emoting and evoking emotions in such contexts is useful. For this purpose, the lens of situated cognition and affectivity is used to analyze how activists' interactions during occurrences of synchronous chanting facilitate distributed emotions among the participating chanters. Looking at cases of social movements in Indonesia, a multi-ethnic nation-state, which has its own demonstration culture embedded in its sociocultural-historical context, it is argued that synchronous chanting as an emoting tool is coupled to Indonesian activists of various groups. Some of these chants even date back to more than two decades ago, beginning when Indonesian youth fought against the despotic regime of President Suharto and his New Order, to hundreds of years ago when the founding fathers fought against colonialism. Based on the said framework, the analysis concludes that synchronous chanting can be used as a tool for not only emoting but also manipulating people.

Արեվմտյան Հայաստանում բարենորոգումների իրագործման հանգամանքները 1913 թ. (Գեվորգ Ե Սուրենյանցի աթոռակալության տարիներին) / Circumstances of the implementation of reforms in Western Armeniain 1913 (during the patriarchy of Gevorg Surenyants)

The article presents the efforts of the Catholicos of All Armenians to carry out reforms in Western Armenia in 1913. The primary basis for the methodological study of the work was letters and reports by figures of theat period by the methodology of comparison, comparison and analysis of the materials contained in them, an attempt was made again to identify the main motives of the Armenian question, which is still actual relevant and has not received its solution. In 1908 after the abolition of Abdul-Hamidian despotic regime and the hold of powers by Young Turks the pursuits and cruelties against Western Armenians did not cease. Beginning from the Аpril in 1909 the Turks organized The Massacre of the Armenians of Cilikia. of Catholicos of All Armenians Gevorg V, who played a great role in the discovery of the Armenian question in 1912 receives information about the massacre of Armenians in Western Armenia from various sources. Catholicos appealed to various state and public European and Russian statesmens and figures with a request to prevent the massacre of Western Armenians. He tries to force European and Russian figures, as well as Russian and European ambassadors of Constantinople, to force Turkey to carry out reforms in Western Armenia. The Catholicos is making great efforts to gain the favor of the Russian emperor. To this end, he establishes correspondence with the governor of the Caucasus Vorontsov-Dashkov. On the other hand, the Catholicos directs appeals to European statesmen. He thinks that reforms should be implemented by Russia and controlled by Europe. In the end, the program is being drawn up, but because of the outbreak of the world War, it is not being implemented But the European countries and the Russian government guided by their own interests were limited only to diplomatic steps and promises.

Катон Младший, Сенека Младший, Плиний Младший: конфликт между нормой и реальностью

the article is devoted to three politicians and intellectuals – the republican leader Cato of Utica, Neroʼs tutor Seneca and Trajanʼs friend Pliny the Younger. An uncompromising fighter against tyranny, Cato chose to commit suicide rather than accept the dictatorship of Caesar. The conformist Seneca, who consciously accepted autocracy and dreamed of the rule of an ideal princeps, was forced to commit suicide under the compulsion of his unworthy pupil, emperor Nero. Pliny the Younger made a brilliant political career and, having survived the despotic regime of Domitian, created the image of «the best princeps» in the «Panegyric» dedicated to Trajan.

Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Deception, Disinformation and Social Media

Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Deception, Disinformation and Social Media

The Formation of the Image of Ivan the Terrible in English Sources of the Second Half of the XVI Century

After the establishment of permanent Russian-English diplomatic and trade relations in the middle of the XVI century, the problem of the formation and evolution of the image of the Moscow tsar became one of the central ones in the descriptions compiled by English merchants, travelers and diplomats who visited the possessions of Ivan IV. Along with the real features of the Moscow ruler, we find in his descriptions a huge number of myths and exaggerations, emphasized both from other tendentious foreign writings of the era and from earlier treatises describing states with a despotic regime allegedly characteristic of all Eastern states. Images rooted in the specified historical epoch will continue to accompany the descriptions of most Russian rulers for centuries. Russian state and the first Russian tsar's image formation in the English writings of the second half of the XVI century opens up the prospect of revealing the characteristic features and stereotypes that have become established in English and in Western society in general in relation to the Russian state in the following centuries. In the course of the study, the peculiarities of the presentation of the image of Ivan the Terrible in English sources were revealed. The reasons for his despotic rule, which began with glorious deeds, English authors see the need to preserve the unity of the state by concentrating all wealth and power in the hands of the ruler, which invariably leads to his corruption and arbitrariness. The Russian tsar is not called a madman, but is considered a tyrant, similar to the eastern despots described by ancient authors.

Prospects of Digital Currency in India- A Way Forward

The era of information and communication technologies has created many opportunities in every aspect. The field that has been benefitted the most from these recent developments in the financial and business sector. The scope and speed of evolution in technology, customer perception, and wide acceptance indicate that these technologies and disruptions will transform the finance and banking sector as we know it, providing both opportunities and challenges to financial institutions. Systems that have traditionally been used for savings, investments are not well suited given the scale and agility required for the digital age. Keeping in mind this array, financial institutions are responding with new digitization and innovation initiatives, using analytics, cloud technologies, and other new alternatives to respond to customer expectations. In a country like India, with a large economy and a despotic regime, the country shows decent economic growth even after having a complex system of arbitrary rules and regulations. Amidst all the growth, there is a huge scope of transforming the investment and lending patterns, with the help of technologies becoming more customer-centric and efficient. So, the technologies like blockchain are looking to drive innovation across various industries in India. In the era of blockchain, cryptocurrencies are the main part of it. They are said to be the most disruptive technologies in this area. This paper is an attempt to find the future of digital currency in India from the international experience.

Oriental Despotism and the Limits of Doux Commerce, from Montesquieu to Raynal

According to one interpretation, Montesquieu believed that laws should be suited to the particular physical and moral characteristics of a nation, and that political change should not be abruptly imposed. However, as Montesquieu nonetheless condemned despotism, he argued that change in despotic regimes should happen gradually through the noncoercive alternative of doux commerce. My aim is to challenge this interpretation of Montesquieu in two ways. First of all, Montesquieu was far more skeptical about the possibility of political change; so strong was his physical determinism that Montesquieu himself thought that despotic states could not be reformed, even through commerce. Second, even though successors of Montesquieu—such as the Abbé Raynal—did view the use of force in reforming despotic states as futile and preferred commerce as a benign alternative, they had to acknowledge that even commerce could not take root in those supposedly despotic states without coercion. The two most representative doux commerce theorists of the eighteenth century, when confronted with the prevailing trope of Oriental despotism, were far less optimistic about the civilizing effect of commerce than today’s interpretations suggest. My reading of The Spirit of the Laws and The History of the Two Indies suggests the limits of turning to eighteenth-century doux commerce ideals to theorize political reform in so-called despotic governments today.

The Songs of Old Europe—Ancient Belarusian Folk Songs

The Songs of Old Europe—Ancient Belarusian Folk Songs

Dashnaktsutyun and its anti-human propaganda

Dashnaktsutyun and its anti-human propaganda

Distorted linkages and labor devaluation: an exploration of automotive value chain-driven ‘development’ in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

ABSTRACT Contrary to the optimistic narratives that see in foreign direct investment and global value chains (GVC) potential levers to generate dynamics of strengthened local patterns of industrial development, this article analyses the case of the automotive industry in Ciudad Juárez (Mexico) to demonstrate that local connection to GVCs has rather deepened dysfunctional relationship to globalized production/supply chains and labor degradation. Domestically, Ciudad Juárez’s auto production linkages are fully controlled by transnational corporations underpinning conditions of an export-driven despotic labor regime: sustained long-term wage precariousness, and intensive and exhaustive working conditions inside manufacturing plants.

Patriarchy, Subordination, and Rise of the Individual in Hisham Matar's In the Country of Men

This article examines the narrative of resistance to social subordination and the manipulated notions of faithfulness and treason in Hisham Matar's In the Country of Men (2006) observed through the lens of the child narrator, 9-year-old Suleiman, who grows critical of the patriarchy and power hierarchy of Libyan society's private and public spheres. In the private sphere, his mother's retelling of her forced marriage at a young age informs his initial aversion of patriarchy. In the public sphere, the Revolutionary Committee's policing and suppression of dissent, and the neighbor's public execution amid a cheering crowd, shed light on the dynamics of subservience and divisiveness. Though the novel takes place in 1979 Libya, it raises questions on the possibility of individual agency and rise of the citizen against a post-colonial Arab despotic regime, where patriarchal authoritarianism, rooted in colonialism, creates a system of dependency and subjugation that undermines citizens' power and manipulates faith as a medium of submissiveness. This article concludes with some reflections on the outcomes of 2011 Arab uprisings with regards to active citizenship.

Prospects of Digital Currency in India - A Way Forward

The era of information and communication technologies has created many opportunities in every aspect. The field that has been benefitted the most from these recent developments in the financial and business sector. The scope and speed of evolution in technology, customer perception, and wide acceptance indicate that these technologies and disruptions will transform the finance and banking sector as we know it, providing both opportunities and challenges to financial institutions. Systems that have traditionally been used for savings, investments are not well suited given the scale and agility required for the digital age. Keeping in mind this array, financial institutions are responding with new digitization and innovation initiatives, using analytics, cloud technologies, and other new alternatives to respond to customer expectations. In a country like India, with a large economy and a despotic regime, the country shows decent economic growth even after having a complex system of arbitrary rules and regulations. Amidst all the growth, there is a huge scope of transforming the investment and lending patterns, with the help of technologies becoming more customer-centric and efficient. So, the technologies like blockchain are looking to drive innovation across various industries in India. In the era of blockchain, cryptocurrencies are the main part of it. They are said to be the most disruptive technologies in this area. This paper is an attempt to find the future of digital currency in India from the international experience.

ЎЗБЕКИСТОН ССРДА СУДЛАР ТОМОНИДАН МЕҲНАТ НИЗОЛАРИНИНГ КЎРИБ ЧИҚИЛИШИ (26.06.1940 йил фармони мисолида)

Using the example of the Uzbek SSR, this article reveals the process of militarization of enterprises and institutions on the eve of the attack of Fascist Germany on the Soviet Union, restrictions on the constitutional right of citizens to freely choose a profession and work, cruel exploitation of the population and the use of tens of thousands of prisoners aslabor by the despotic Soviet regime. The article also highlights the emergence of judges as victims of repression, the strengthening of party and state control over the judicial system based on archival sources.Index Terms:People's Commissariat of Justice, Supreme Court of the Uzbek SSR, people's Court, judge, investigation, sentence, prison, correctional labor, fine, working week, labor discipline, prisoner, military enterprises, decree

From “notable Syrians” to “ordinary Anatolians”: the politics of “normalization” and the experience of exile during World War I

AbstractThis article examines an important attempt at the political engineering undertaken in Syria during the Great War. It focuses on the experience of the Arabs exiled to Anatolia by Cemal Pasha to redesign Syrian society in line with the Committee of Union and Progress’ idea of empire, which imagined an authoritarian regime. The members of the Arabist parties were removed from Syria to eliminate their contemporaneous and future resistance to the emerging despotic regime. The article sets out to analyze what the exiles experienced in Anatolia using their memoirs in Arabic and the Ottoman documents describing their conditions in Anatolia, and to what extent the aims could be realized. It argues that the purpose was to put a politics of “normalization” into practice by depoliticizing the Arab notable families through “relocation” to Anatolia, although the resistance of the exiles and varying attitudes in Ottoman bureaucracy significantly differentiated outcomes. It also uncovers many untold stories with regard to the daily life of the exiles and adds much to our knowledge on the experience of Arab exiles in Anatolia. It is the first serious examination of the experiences of the Arab exiles using their own texts and narrative.

Ex-President of Botswana Ian Khama: Ascents and Reversals in the Political Career of a Former Pilot

The article shows the development of the political career of the ex-president of Botswana Ian Khama, a son of the country’s first president Seretse Khama. The article analyzes domestic and foreign policy of the government of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) headed by Mr. Ian Khama, whose first term in office coincided with difficulties of the global economic crisis that began in 2008. It is noted that during Mr. Khama’s presidency the West-oriented foreign policy of Botswana was well-balanced, pragmatic and aimed at attracting investments. It was rather bold and independent, which was largely due to the independence of Botswana, a major exporter of diamonds to the world market, as regards donors’ assistance. At the African level Mr. Khama’s image has been that of a consistent critic of authoritarian and despotic regimes, he also adhered to a consistent firm position regarding the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe, calling on Robert Mugabe to transfer power. Mr. Khama is an extraordinary political leader. The style and methods of his leadership (harsh bureaucratic methods, frequent decision-making without coordination with the government, disdain of opposition’s criticism and of public opinion) led to accusations of authoritarianism. The author makes an attempt to define its nature which was somewhat different from the authoritarianism of other African leaders. The issue of corruption and nepotism in Botswana is also discussed. During the ten-year period of Mr. Khama’s rule (2008–2018), the problem of nepotism was especially often the focus of the criticism by the local opposition and media. This had a negative effect for the president’s political image and for that of the authorities in general. At the same time, Mr. Khama’s government managed to maintain stability of the economics and of the internal political situation. The properties of the situation in the Botswana Democratic Party, which has ruled the country for almost 55 years and still holds a central position in the country’s political landscape, are shown. Despite a number of mistakes in governing the country, President Ian Khama managed to preserve and strengthen the authority of Botswana in the eyes of the international community for its commitment to the international law, its respect for human rights, good governance and active foreign policy. It is pointed out that Mr. Khama, respecting the Constitution, peacefully transferred power to the country’s vice-president Mokgweetsi Masisi whom he chose as his successor. However, a conflict arose between them very soon, and their confrontation led the ex-president to supporting the opposition at the general elections in October 2019. The events of recent years in Botswana serve an important evidence of the problematic issue – insecurity of democracy in the context of a long dominance of one political party. The unexpected emergence of Khama-Masisi confrontation questioned to a certain extent the tradition of early power transfer from the head of state to the vice-president which established in the country in recent decades. However, this confrontation did not go beyond the framework of the electoral struggle and did not lead to serious tension in the internal political situation.

“Neither Our Civil State nor Our Ecclesiastical System Will Ever Be the Same”: the Events of the Glorious Revolution of 1688—1689 in the New England Colonies

The article is devoted to the course of events of the Glorious Revolution in 1688—1689 in the colonies of New England and the ideological rationale for the uprising in Boston on April 18, 1689, which overthrew the power of the governor-general of the New England Dominion and proclaimed a return to the order that existed before the withdrawal of the charter of 1629. Based on the analysis of numerous pamphlets and sermons of this period, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that the uprising against the despotic regime was caused by the desire of the colonists of Massachusetts to protect the ancestral rights of the subjects of the English crown, above all, the right of private property and the right to representative government, while the religious rhetoric of Puritan authors faded into the background during the events of the Glorious Revolution. Refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the new government in Massachusetts, William III understood the need for a compromise with the colonial elite to stabilize the situation, for which he granted Massachusetts a new charter in 1691.

The East, the West, and the World History

The author raises in the article an important question of human civilization development: what contribution the East has made to the centuries-long evolution of society. The author emphasizes that, despite the low attention to the countries of the East in the World History books, it was the “Eastern” way that laid down by the great despotisms: Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, Ancient China, and was the main way of human development. Indeed the “Western path” did not appear immediately in Europe itself: both Minoan and Mycenaean Greece developed along the Eastern path, and only in Homeric Greece did the features of “Western” development begin to emerge, more clearly manifested in archaic Greece. The author concludes that such a “Western” emerged as a result of historical coincidence. The author turns to the similarities between the Eastern and Western paths of development, reinforcing them with examples from the history of Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, and Ancient China. The author pays special attention to the ancient Chinese model of statehood as a special kind of transformation of the supreme power. Many scholars record the presence in Ancient China in the 8th–7th centuries B.C. of the socio-political and political-administrative system typologically like the one that existed in Western Europe in the 11th–13th centuries. Ryabinin asks the question: “Why did this socio-political and politico-administrative system in Ancient China cease to exist?”. By the 8th–7th centuries, the Chinese state practice during the time of confrontation with the barbarians developed a new model of the political system and mobilization economy which did not allow the Chinese society to rebuild and avoid the format of a despotic regime. According to the author, the concept of “feudalism” in terms of relations within the ruling stratum does not belong exclusively to Western Europe. “Feudalism” as a system of vassal-loyal relations, for example, can also be observed in certain areas of India. Accordingly, the uniqueness of the European way of developing political systems lies not in democracy but something else. The paper emphasizes that this peculiarity is the priority of the wealthy people associated primarily with the market. It was those people who determined the main direction of the development of ancient society both in Classical Greece and in Republican Rome.

Arcane Register of Language as a Strategy in Nepali Modernist Poetry

This research paper tries to provide an analysis of the Nepali modernist poetry written from 1960onwards approximately for a decade. Literary critics holding different views have been vocal about this unique kind of poetry. They have variously labled the modernist poetry as esoteric, reactionary, obscure, monochromatic, status-quoist and devoid of communicative rationality. After judging the rationale and critical validity of these observations, this researcher argues that the poetry of this period has aimed to express the complexities of the time. So, a number of times, these poets have used an arcane register of language that contains revolutionary zeal at the level of both form and content. Even though the modernist poets in the west came to adulthood amid political, technological, social and scientific transformations commonly identified with modernization, such phenomena were not experienced by Nepali poets, whom we have labeled as the modernist, at their home country. They just derived consciousness from the West and experiment in Nepali poetry. Nepali modernist poetry poses challenges to the reader as it has highly experimented with syntax, rhythm, graphology and semantics as well. The reason behind the intellectualization of the poetry through arcane register of language was their strategy to conceal revolutionary spirit of their poetry from the intolerant despotic regime.