European Rule Research Articles

Modern Company and Capital Market Problems: Improving European Corporate Governance after Enron

Improving European corporate governance after Enron requires rethinking company and capital market regulation and law reforms. This article - which is an updated version (footnotes and references only, summer 2006) of an earlier one published in (2003) 3 Journal of Corporate Law Studies 221-268 - discusses shareholder decision-making; the choice between the one-tier and the two-tier board system; appointment, compensation and audit committees with a majority of independent members; checks on exorbitant payments to the directors; a special investigation procedure and wrongful trading. As to capital markets a European framework rule on prospectus liabilty is proposed. A key problem is the need for loyal and competent intermediaries. Since the 13th Directive is only a compromise solution, the hopes are pinned on the Court to continue its golden share case law. The German Volkswagen Act will be a test case.

The Ottoman peoples and the end of empire

The Ottoman Peoples and the End of Empire, by Justin McCarthy. London, UK and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. x + 219 pages. Acknowledgments. Pronunciation guide. Maps. Notes to p. 223. Suggested readings to p. 226. Index to p. 234. $24.95 paper. Reviewed by David Kushner The theme of the book under review is the peoples of the Balkans and the Middle East, most of whom had lived in the past within the Ottoman Empire. The author examines their fortunes during the last phases of Ottoman rule and the early decades of their existence as new political entities, whether in sovereign states or under European colonial rule. His aim is not to provide a simple history of these peoples, but rather to answer a question which seems to trouble him most: Was the collapse of the Ottoman Empire of real benefit? The focus of attention is the people themselves, and the criteria for this examination are all in the simple human domain - survival versus loss of life, stability versus dislocation, prosperity versus destruction. Throughout the book, McCarthy shows, both in narrative and in statistical figures, what staggering human suffering was involved in the process of Ottoman disintegration and the emergence of the successor nation states. Furthermore, the move to life under new masters was not always for the best. Setting out to disprove common notions, the author expresses his view that the Ottoman Empire was not all bad. For centuries, it had been home to a multitude of ethnic and religious groups who learned to live with each other. It had, of course, many faults and weaknesses, but the Ottomans were not totally to blame for them; in fact, in the closing years of the Empire, the Ottomans made a serious effort - not without results - to correct problems and embark upon a program of modernization. In the end, the Empire fell victim particularly to two related phenomena - nationalism among its ethnic groups and European imperialist greed. McCarthy tends to view nationalism in the Benedict Anderson fashion, as an imagined community. In the Ottoman Empire, nationalism reached the ethnic groups as an import from Europe which, supported by certain social classes, organizations and personalities, superseded other loyalties among the people, such as the past prevailing religious ones. Being ethnocentric, selfish, and aggressive, it became the cause of rebellions and wars, leading in turn to more and more loss of life, destruction, and human suffering. Closely connected with the process was European imperialism. Not only was Europe the source of nationalist ideas, but it knew how to exploit them for its purposes. This combination of forces is what led to the Ottomans' demise. The Europeans pretended to support Ottoman reform, but were not really interested in Ottoman well-being and hypocritically pursued their own imperialistic aspirations. In his discussion of conditions after the fall of the empire, McCarthy attempts to weigh the benefits accruing to the successor states from their separate existence. …

Sortimentenstruktur unterschiedlich behandelter Schwarzkiefernbestände

The quality of Pinus nigra Arn. salzmanni var. pyrenaica round timber was investigated on 120 sample trees from 4 stands with different stocking density in a region of Catalonia /Spain. The age of the sample trees lay between 58 and 68 years. The following morphological tree parameters (hight, crown length and volume, crown projection area) and round timber quality grading criteria (stem volume and taper, spiral grain, crookedness, eccentricity, number and quality of branches, branch diameters and defects) were measured. The results of the crown morphological parameters present significantly higher values in wide spaced stands than in stands with higher stocking density. The round timber quality classification followed the European rule prEN 1927-2 (1995). Significantly more timber volume of the faster grown trees could be classified into quality class B, which allows better utilization as sawn timber. Narrow spaced grown trees showed a higher proportion of pulping wood assortment.

Southeast Asia in the Twentieth Century: A Reader. By Clive J. Christie. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1998. x, 350 pp. $59.95 (cloth); $19.95 (paper).

Introduction: the shape of pre-colonial mainland southeast Asia, the shape of pre-colonial maritime southeast Asia, the first stages of European colonial take-over general considerations of the scope and objectives of this book education, reform and national awareness, 1900-41 - the patterns of European rule, education, westernization, cultural challenge and change pre-nationalism and nationalism, readings. revolution and constitutional change, 1900-41 - the question of colonial strategies, the indigenous response to imperial rule - the framework of resistance, antinationalism, anti-colonialism and the battle of ideologies, readings the impact of the Japanese intervention in southeast asia, 1940-45 - the situation in southeast Asia in 1939-82, the Japanese intervention in southeast Asia, the Japanese conquest of southeast asia, the impact of the Japanese military take-over of southeast Asia, the course of the war, and its impact on political developments, readings the aftermath of war -revolution - the defeat of Japan and surrender arrangements, the build-up of revolutionary forces in southeast Asia, the era of revolution - 1945 , readings the independence settlements - I the immediate post war settlements - general features of the post-war period, the independence settlement in the Philippines, the independence settlement in Burma, readings the independence settlements - II inter-ethnic negotiations, conflict and the Cold War - the independence settlement in the Malayan region, the independence settlements in Indonesia, the independence settlements in Indochina, the Cold War and the Geneva settlements of 1954, readings the decade of instability, 1954-65 - the Cold War confrontation in mainland southeast Asia, the Laos crisis and regional subversion the Vietnam crisis, 1954-65, instability in the Indonesia region, 1950-65, readings the era of stabilization in southeast asia, 1965-74 - the paradox - the United States' failure in Vietnam, the genesis of the Cambodian tragedy, the rest of southeast Asia - the ending of the independence regimes - Cambodia, Burma and the Philippines, the special case of Thailand, Malaysia - the new political settlement after 1969, Indonesia in 1965 - guided democracy, the PKI, the armed forces and the "new order", readings 1975 - the crossroads and beyond p regime resilience and regional security, the communist victory in Indochina and its impact the communist implosion emerging intact, readings. Postscript: regional stability in southeast Asia.

African/American: Lorraine Hansberry's Les Blancs and the American Civil Rights Movement

Many scholars, including Margaret B. Wilkerson, note that Lorraine Hansberry was first African-American playwright to explore, in her final work, Les Blancs, African quest for freedom from European colonialists. Hansberry studied African history and read about uprisings in Kenya and other African nations before beginning Les Blancs to create work that is obviously well-informed examination of events in Africa. However, despite play's inherent Africanness, readers must remember that it was written by an African American for an American audience. In this context, it is possible to view play both as condemnation of colonialism in Africa and, on another level, as commentary on race relations in early 1960s America. Frustrated by inefficacy of one-sided with representatives of dominant ideology, both Africans within play and African Americans in Hansberry's society were being provoked to action. Hansberry held strong beliefs about means by which African Americans should attain their civil rights, and these beliefs surface in situations and characters depicted in Les Blancs. play's setting, fictitious African nation of Zatembe, provided Hansberry safe distance from which she could critique American civil rights leaders' strategies and philosophies and allowed her way to express her belief that ultimate destiny and aspirations of African people and twenty million American Negroes are inextricably and magnificently bound up together forever (Negro Writer 6). Critical discussions of text's meaning sometimes take into consideration authorial intent as well as historical context in which text was produced. story of Les Blancs' creation is as complex as play itself. Hansberry began writing it in 1960, creating several drafts but leaving play unfinished at her death in 1965. Her literary executor and former husband, Robert Nemiroff, drawing on notes and detailed conversations he had with Hansberry before her death, completed another preliminary draft in 1966, and play was first produced in New York in 1970. Nemiroff continued to edit text until publication of revised edition in 1983. Determining authorship and authorial intention behind this play, which explores racial tensions, is difficult process which is further complicated by fact that Hansberry was an African-American woman, Nemiroff white man. It may be impossible to know how much of Les Blancs in its present state was Hansberry's creation, and how much her original intent may have been changed, consciously or not, by Nemiroff's work. What is known, however, is Hansberry's determination to use her work as an agent of social change. Speaking at conference in 1959, Hansberry proclaimed that African-American writers must address [them]selves to [any] about the fundamental questions of society and individual (Negro Writer 3). Hansberry entered such dispute when she wrote and titled Les Blancs (The Whites, originally subtitled The Holy Ones) in immediate visceral response (Nemiroff 32) to Jean Genet's Les Negres (The Blacks: A Clown Show), play that examines black attainment of power and concludes that empowered blacks would be as susceptible to corruption as ruling whites are. Hansberry considered Genet's play a conversation between white men about themselves, and, according to Nemiroff, she wished to write play in which people of all ethnicities were equal participants in much-needed dialogue... whose purpose is neither procrastination nor ego fulfillment but clarity, and whose culminating point is actio n (Critical Background 32-33). result is story of Tshembe Matoseh, young African man who returns home from his comfortable life in Europe to bury his father only to find that tensions between native Africans and European settlers in his homeland are explosive. Tshembe resists attempts to enlist him in fight against European rule, but ultimately finds he cannot deny his responsibility to his people and to cause of freedom. …

From a Colonial to a Postcolonial African Voice:Amkoullel, l'enfant peul

In our broad use of the term to characterize contempo? rary African culture, there is an implicit understanding that the colonial experience played a critical role in shaping the identity of societies that emerged from extensive periods of European rule. We can trace such an impact directly through a great variety of written African documents pro? duced under colonialism as well as through various reflections on this expe? rience by African historians and other thinkers after the attainment of independence. However, among the fictional works that have entered into the canon of modern African literature, the topic of colonialism is conspicuous for its relative absence. This hiatus can be explained in part by the chronology of colonial rule, which did not last long enough for the first generation of major writers in English and French to reach their full powers much before its demise.2 Some of these early figures?most notably Chinua Achebe, Mongo Beti, and Ferdinand Oyono?have written on colonial themes. Others, like Camara Laye, describe situations in the colonial era with virtually no refer? ence to European rule. More commonly, the focus of African writing is upon decolonization and its postcolonial aftermath, since these are the experiences the authors know at first hand. Amadou Hampate Ba stands out in this context, first of all because he is older than even such senior francophone figures as Leopold Sedar Senghor and Birago Diop (who also grew up in the far more established colonial confines of the Senegal coast) and is considerably older than the Nigerian literary pioneers, Chinua Achebe and Cyprian Ekwensi. Yet it is Hampate Ba, with his rather limited formal French education, who pro? duced probably the richest literary account of colonialism in L'etrange des? tin de Wangrin (discussed elsewhere in this issue). In the memoir of his own childhood, Amkoulkl, Hampate Ba provides us with not only another classic account of the lived colonial experience, but also an insight into the process by which an African scholar and verbal artist could find a voice: first as a contributor to the colonial project of recording (and even creating) tradition and then to the rendition of his own life through a particularly effective form of European-language literature. The title of this book comes from a nickname that Hampate Ba acquired in his childhood and continued to use later in life.3 It translates as

After Da Gama: Europe and Asia since 1498

The years 1997–1998 witnessed Britain's return of Hong Kong to China; the fiftieth anniversary of the independence of India and Pakistan; and the much less publicized 500th anniversary of the arrival of the Portuguese in Asia. So were marked the beginnings and end of European empire in the East, and so, too, a new global distribution of power was recognized. The appearance on 20 May 1498 of a Portuguese fleet commanded by Vasco da Gama at Calicut (Kerala, S. India), combined with the penetration of the Caribbean six years earlier by a Spanish flotilla under Christopher Columbus were, it has often and eloquently been urged, the prelude to a fearful saga. In next to no time Europe was enriched, non-European populations and ecologies destroyed, indigenous states and economies overthrown, a peculiarly European violence introduced into lands previously innocent of such ways, and the yoke of European colonial rule and hegemony eventually imposed. In short, as India's Independence Day Pledge (1930) pithily put it, subjection to empire meant economic, political, cultural and spiritual ruin.

Some Preliminary Remarks on the Limitations of European Competition Law

The article analyses the possible limits of negative integration on the basis of the competition law of the European Community. In contrast to the fundamental freedoms of the Community, its competition law is not subject to any explicit exceptions or limitations (apart from the possibility of an exemption under Art. 81 (3) EC). That is problematic, because in competition law just as with the fundamental freedoms issues of competence must be taken into account. An appropriate relationship between supranationality (internal market, market opening) and conflicting national requirements and competences must be taken into account in the determination of the scope and limits of the Community law prohibition of anti-competitive agreements. While the Member States, because of the increased sensitivity of the European Court of Justice in relation to the fundamental freedoms, have won back some national room for manoeuvre, such a tendency towards flexibility is less apparent in the case law of the European Court of Justice on competition law. Such indications as exist are apt to be characterised and developed as a European rule of reason. Considerably more thorough-going are comments in the legal literature that directly challenge the principle of the priority of Community law and in the case of so called indirect or diagonal conflicts argue that supremacy should be treated as an "optimisation principle" according to the principle of "practical concordance". In contrast, it is suggested here that the principle of "practical concordance" should only be applied to the (growing) number of horizontal conflicts between European competition law and the other policies of the Community. For diagonal conflicts between Community competition law and other policies of national law it seems appropriate to read across the limitations inherent in the Cassis- jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice to Arts. 81 I and 82. This contribution does not include any consideration of the procedural aspects of competition law or of the ideas for reform discussed by the Commission in its White Paper of May 1999 on modernising the application of the provisions of competition law.

Considerations on the Chick-Watson Law Applied to the Ozonation of Drinking Water

This contribution reports on the basic principles underlying the Chick-Watson law (CT-concept) in disinfection of water. The boundary conditions of its application in water treatment by ozonation are discussed and the concept is compared with the classical European rule: to obtain a residual concentration of 0.4 mg/L ozone in water after a detention of minimum 4-6 minutes.

Industrialisation in Late Colonial Africa: A British Perspective

Among the most entrenched criticisms of the record of European colonial rule in Africa is that it discouraged, or actively obstructed, the emergence of diversified colonial and post-colonial economies. Specifically, it is normally argued, the colonial state failed to create the climate in which industrialisation might have been possible. The two basic explanations advanced for this policy of neglect were a desire to ensure that the colonies continued to provide the metropolitan economies with a steady supply of desirable commodities, and a concern to protect the market share of metropolitan exporters. Critics of the colonial legacy, across the ideological spectrum, have often assumed that ‘development’ was a condition which could only be achieved through the process of industrialisation, and that specialisation in commodity production for export could not have been in the colonies' long-term interests. Moreover, in the late colonial period, industrialisation had come to be seen by many as a measure of a state's effective autonomy and economic ‘maturity’, as witnessed by the sustained attempts by many former African colonies to promote their own industrial sectors, often with substantial state involvement or assistance. While it cannot dispute the obvious fact that in most of late colonial Africa, industrialisation was negligible, this paper will offer a refinement of conventional assumptions about the colonial state's attitudes towards this controversial topic. Drawing on examples from British Africa, particularly that pioneer of decolonisation, West Africa, and focusing on the unusually fertile period in colonial policy formation from the late 1930s until the early 1950s, it will suggest that the British colonial state attempted, for the first time, to evolve a coherent and progressive policy on encouraging colonial industrial development.

The Social Production of Metropolitan Expertise in Tropical Diseases: The Imperial State, Colonial Service and the Tropical Diseases Research Fund

The hegemonic authority of Western science over disease in the tropical world is not a prod uct of its inherent truth value, but rather refers to the underdevelopment of science resources under European rule. As this study will show, the emphasis on the delivery of medical care in the dependent British Empire in the second half of the nineteenth century created conditions for the domestication of tropical disease research in the twentieth cen tury. A large pool of underemployed medical practitioners in Britain enabled the Colonial Office to satisfy the personnel needs of its far-flung empire. Colonial governments, in turn, maximised the labour of imperial doctors as primary care providers through a wide range of administrative tools. This emphasis simultaneously retarded the development of labora tory research into disease in the periphery while creating an opportunity for its metropolitan appropriation. Eventually the Tropical Disease Research Fund was created to promote the understanding of disease in the empire by subsidising laboratory science in Britain.

From the Editor: Introduction to the Special Issue of Africa Today

Introduction to the special issue of Africa Today The articles which appear in this special, double issue of Africa Today focus on African Muslims. Some of the articles highlight African participation in key institutional features of Islamic cultural life, such as the hajj (pilgrimage to Muslim holy sites in Arabia) or Sufism (a mystical orientation within Islam). Others analyze the ways African Muslims have participated in political life, both during the period of European colonial rule and in postcolonial contexts. The papers can be read individually, or they can be read in groups that develop similar conceptual threads. The first three papers address, to varying degrees, the gendered nature of power and participation in Islamic contexts: O'Brien examines the role of the hajj as a social and economic resourcein the lives of primarily female healers from northern Nigeria and as a site of mutual cultural influence between West Africa and Saudi Arabia; Hutson discusses the role of women in Tijaniyya Sufi devotional practices in Kano and the profound influence of particular women in the history of the order; and Askew analyzes historical changes in the gender dynamics of dance performance as well as other social domains along the Swahili coast of East Africa. The next three papers concern Muslim participation in political life in the region comprising today's Senegal, Mali, and Mauritania: Robinson's paper locates the emergence of the region's distinctive style of non-confrontational Islamic politics in the early colonial period; Villalón's paper traces recent shifts in perceptions of the state's legitimacy and the politics of succession among powerful religious families which may foreshadow significant changes in Senegalese political life; and Clark's paper highlights the historical interdependency between secular political institutions and religious organizations in Senegal and Mali. The last two papers focus on Muslim reactions to the social upheavals of the last century: Reese's paper concentrates on urban Sufi responses to the disruptions associated with the period leading to European colonial occupation in Somalia; and Ibrahim's paper examines and contextualizes the ideas of Hasan al-Turbi, an influential political leader in contemporary Sudan. The system of transliteration of Arabic terms adopted for this special issue is one that emphasizes simplicity for the general reader as opposed to strict accuracy for the specialist, as the latter would encumber the text with an elaborate orthographical system. Thus, diacritical marks have not been used to note glottal stops and long vowels. We have also omitted completely the ta marbuta and the Arabic consonant ayn. [End Page 8] I want to take this opportunity to thank all the scholars who acted as anonymous reviewers of the papers considered for this issue. I also wish to thank Jo Ellen Fair, Director of the African Studies Center at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, for facilitating the submission of the papers by Ibrahim and Villalón, who initially presented them at a conference concerning "political Islam" held at Madison. John Hanson Editor

The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois Reader

The Oxford W.E.B. Bois Reader. Ed. Eric J. Sundquist. New York: Oxford UP, 1996. 680 pages. $26.95 paper. quality of reader or anthology can be determined largely by how teachable it makes subject that it documents and how accurately it outlines parameters of that subject, The Oxford W.E.B. Bois Reader, edited by Eric Sundquist, is exemplary. Despite his almost unchallenged prominence as intellectual patriarch of African American cultural and history and his self-conscious desire to write history of African American culture, Bois has always been somewhat difficult figure to integrate into literature and cultural studies courses. Much of this difficulty has stemmed from sheer range of his accomplishments and interests. As Sundquist points out, Du Bois wrote alternately and equally well as sociologist, an economist, political scientist, an educator, an artist, and civil rights advocate, and more often than not, several of these intellectual roles were combined in any given speech or essay. The generic singularity of Bois's two major literary works, The Souls of Black Folk, often considered ur-text of African American modernity, and brilliant and under-appreciated Darkwater, text that Sundquist accurately sees as anticipating as well as instigating modern Pan-Africanism and culture of anticolonialism that has come to play such prominent role in Western (or anti-Western) literature of late twentieth century, has also contributed to under-reading of Bois's work. Both of these texts are included in their entirety in this reader and their juxtaposition makes clear value of reading them in relation to each other, If The Souls of Black Folk became century's most important statement of African American resistance to segregation, Darkwater joined battle for black civil rights in United States to broader campaign against European colonial rule abroad, especially in Africa. Placed under five broad headings (Concepts of Race, Representative Men, Literature and Art, Politics, Economics, and Education, and Africa and Colonialism), other essays that Sundquist has collected provide an exhaustive documentation of Bois's intellectual and ideological development. They effectively cover practically entire range of his non-literary writings. In its entirety reader's representation of Bois's constant engagement with current events and arguments, offers political history of diasporically self-conscious Blackness as experienced by man whose narrated life begins during presidency of Andrew and ends just short of presidency of Lyndon Johnson and whose roles were, among others, those of a historian, sociologist, teacher, cofounder of National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), magazine editor, novelist, governmental envoy, Pan-Africanist, spokesman for socialism, and an opponent of anticommunism. The one significant problem with Sundquist's choice of texts is that critical selections on Literature and Art are scanty and finally unsatisfying. Sundquist may have felt that because the great bulk of Bois's writing ... is devoted to politics, economics, and education and his critical writings on literature are ones most readily available elsewhere, this de-emphasizing of Bois was necessary. …

Conceptions of Community in Colonial Southeast Asia

It is a commonplace that European rule contributed both to the consolidation of the nation-states of Southeast Asia and to the aggravation of disputes within them. Since their independence, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam have all faced the upheavals of secessionism or irredentism or communalism. Governments have responded to threats of fragmentation by appeals to national ideologies like Sukarno'spancasila(five principles) or Ne Win's ‘Burmese way to socialism’. In attempting to realise unity in diversity, they have paraded a common experience of the struggle for independence from colonial rule as well as a shared commitment to post-colonial modernisation. They have also ruthlessly repressed internal opposition or blamed their problems upon the foreign forces of neocolonialism, world communism, western materialism, and other threats to Asian values. Yet, because its effects were uneven and inconsistent while the reactions to it were varied and frequently equivocal, the part played by colonialism in shaping the affiliations and identities of Southeast Asian peoples was by no means clear-cut.

The Timber Trade in Pre-Modern Siak

Situated in a region of seemingly endless lowland rainand mangrove forest in eastern Sumatra, the Siak river is the deepest in the Malay archipelago and an important conduit for trade in the region. Before European colonial rule encompassed much of Southeast Asia during the nineteenth century, the Siak river was home to a number of small villages that acted as stapling posts for the collection and transfer of a variety of trade products, ranging from camphor and bezoar stones to tin and gold. These communities were also exporters of timber, for which Siak was well-known throughout the Straits of Melaka and as far away as Java. Wood from eastern Sumatra was exported to other ports in the region, where it was used for construction and ship repairs, while a ship-building industry had been present along the Siak river for centuries. As mentioned in the best-known study of sixteenth-century Portuguese Melaka, The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires, a king of Siak has many paraos, and they are made in his country, because of the amount of wood there.2 The importance of Siak timber trade was enhanced by the nineteenth century as other regions of Southeast Asia, particularly those with easily accessible teak forests, became deforested.3 When supplies became low in Java, Siak continued to be covered with fine and durable timber for ships and houses,. . . [that], as far as I know, is not

American drivers in Europe: Different signing policy may cause safety problems at uncontrolled intersections

European signing policy favours uncontrolled intersections—a trend which is in marked contrast to the U.S.A. policy. European drivers must constantly keep in mind the general rule of priority at cross-roads which requires one to yield to a vehicle coming from the right, if not otherwise indicated. For a European driver, an uncontrolled junction means an obligation to yield to vehicles on the right while for U.S. drivers, adapted to the U.S.A. system with more frequent signing, an intersection unsigned from his direction suggests priority for him, particularly in an urban area. To demonstrate a safety problem which follows, three American subjects, visiting professors without previous experience of driving in Europe, were asked to drive a 1.8 km route six times with an instrumented car in the downtown area of Helsinki. All of them first showed unsafe driving practices at uncontrolled intersections with restricted visibility in comparison to a local control group, but changed their strategy, both in terms of speed control and visual search, after they had been informed of the European rule of crossroad priority. In spite of the same general rule at blind intersections in a similar urban environment, a different signing policy may cause safety problems for American drivers in Europe, and translate into more accidents at non-priority intersections. Varying rules and practices in different jurisdictions call for further efforts in presenting vital information to foreign motorists and striving towards worldwide uniform traffic control.

European Impact and Pacific Influence: British and German Colonial Policy in the Pacific Islands and the Indigenous Response.

British and German ambitions have clashed in the Pacific at many times in the last two centuries. This is a study of those episodes, and their effects on the European powers and the Pacific Islanders involved. It throws light on the activities of missionaries in Micronesia, head-hunters in New Guinea, Law-makers in Tonga and the influence of the British and Germans in the region. The book considers: European perceptions of Pacific islanders and vice versa; the ecological effect of European intervention, both on the environment and its inhabitants; the efforts to impose a European rule of law in the South Pacific; the area of sexuality as a specific form of Pacific-European interaction where cultural differences between European and traditional behaviour was at its most marked.

Making History, Creating Gender: Some Methodological and Interpretive Questions in the Writing of Oyo Oral Traditions

Of all the things that were produced in Africa during the colonial period—cash crops, states, and tribes, to name a few—history and tradition are the least acknowledged as products of the colonial situation. This does not mean that Africans did not have history before the white man came. Rather, I am making distinctions among the following: firstly, history as lived experience; secondly, history as a record of lived experience which is coded in the oral traditions; and finally, the recently constituted written history. This last category is very much tied up with European engagements with Africa and the introduction of “history writing” as a discipline and as profession. But even then, it is important to acknowledge the fact that African history, including oral traditions, were recorded as a result of the European assault.This underscores the fact that ideological interests were at work in the making of African history, as is true of all history. As such, tradition is constantly being reinvented to reflect these interests. A. I. Asiwaju, for example, in a paper examining the political motivations and manipulations of oral tradition in the constitution of Obaship in different parts of Yorubaland during the colonial period writes: “in the era of European rule, particularly British rule, when government often based most of its decisions over local claims upon the evidence of traditional history, a good proportion of the data tended to be manipulated deliberately.” This process of manipulation produced examples of what he wittily refers to as “nouveaux roisof Yorubaland.”

A GREAT DEBATE REVISITED From Slave Trade to ‘Legitimate’ Commerce: the Commercial Transition in Nineteenth-Century West Africa. Edited by ROBIN LAW. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. xii + 279. £35 (ISBN 0-521-48127-9).

One of the great debates running through the first decades of academic research on West African history concerned the degree to which the unilateral ending of the Atlantic slave trade constituted a crisis for local societies and what link there was between this change and the imposition of formal European rule in the late 1800s. In its original form this debate has been over for some time. Most historians now agree that there was no long-term ‘crisis of transition’ on the West African coast in the early nineteenth century. Robin Law justifies the present volume by shifting attention to two secondary issues associated with the end of the slave trade: first, the transformations around inland production rather than coastal-dominated bulking and transport of vegetable exports; and second, the relationship of all these changes to the advent of colonialism. All the authors in this volume do discuss the connection between the end of the slave trade and internal systems of African production in the nineteenth century (including issues of indigenous slavery and gender relationships). Only a few concern themselves with colonial partition, although this becomes the main theme of Hopkins' concluding essay.

Soft Authoritarianism in Malaysia and Singapore

Soft Authoritarianism in Malaysia and Singapore Gordon P. Means (bio) Both Malaysia and Singapore, as a consequence of their colonial past, have inherited the basic democratic institutions of the British political tradition. After 40 years of independence, most of these institutions survive with relatively slight modifications. Yet today Singapore and Malaysia generate a debate, not about the survival of democracy, but rather about “transitions to democracy” from “soft authoritarianism.” Why have basic democratic institutions survived in these countries, while democratic ideals and practices have not? The reasons are many and complex, and with limited space, only a partial answer can be given. When the Second World War ended, British colonial officials returning after the defeat of the Japanese occupiers concluded that Malaya and Singapore should be granted independence, but gradually and with careful preparation. The rigors of war and occupation, however, had generated tensions that produced escalating political mobilization based on ethnicity. Malaya’s population in 1945 was 50 percent Malay, 38 percent Chinese, 11 percent Indian, and less than 2 percent “other.” Across the Johore Strait on the island of Singapore, the Chinese constituted a decisive majority of 75 percent, while the Malays accounted for 14 percent, the Indians for 8 percent, and “others” for 2.5 percent. Instead of a gradual transition to democracy and independence, the British were forced into making piecemeal concessions to one ethnic community after another. Therefore, the introduction of democratic institutions was retarded as the British strove to manage rising ethnic [End Page 103] conflict by negotiating directly with the leaders of the main ethnic communities. Most local politicians demanded rapid transition to independence, and supported popular democracy and human rights. None questioned whether democracy was congruent with “Asian values,” or doubted that an independent judiciary was needed to protect human rights against the sovereign powers of new governments. As a consequence, the wholesale transplanting of British-style democratic institutions was easily accomplished, and received wide popular support. The introduction of elections and representative institutions did not produce widespread popular participation in political affairs. Neither the public nor elites had experience with democracy. The colonial system, even in its most benevolent phases, had been highly authoritarian. Each ethnic community supported leaders from traditional status hierarchies or at the apex of various patron-client networks. Malays (who accounted for most of the population) supported local village and regional leaders grouped around the nine Malay royal courts at the state level. Indians supported charismatic leaders arising from labor unions or cultural associations. The Chinese were descended from immigrants who in the old country had often been affiliated with secret societies dedicated to revolution or peasant resistance against imperial Chinese authority. In Southeast Asia under European colonial rule, this resistance tradition continued. Most overseas Chinese distrusted all public authorities and viewed government as something to be avoided, not supported. For all communities, “Asian values” meant communal loyalty, distrust of government, and avoidance of individual or collective responsibility for wider public interests. Few could acknowledge or empathize with the claims of ethnic communities other than their own. In this climate, elections and parliamentary government became the basis for the rituals of legitimacy, while the habits and attitudes required for a civic culture and participatory democracy went largely uncultivated. Party Systems In the period just after the war, politics was dominated by the struggle of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) against colonial rule. The CPM was secretive, authoritarian, and highly centralized; its cadres generated mass support through a combination of ideological indoctrination and violence. Although the CPM was ultimately defeated and eventually disbanded in 1989, its years of armed struggle set a pattern of militancy and intransigence that affected all parties. The United Malays National Organization (UMNO) became the most powerful party in Malaya even before independence, basing its power on the mass support of Malays. Traditional Malay elites founded UMNO in 1946 with a fairly democratic party structure. Because UMNO negotiated Malayan independence and was returned to power in all [End Page 104] subsequent elections, it has been viewed by most Malays as the bastion for the preservation of Malay political supremacy. Over time, strong Malay prime ministers have centralized power, creating tension between UMNO’s...