Military Rule Research Articles

Peru's Military Revolution - The Peculiar Revolution: Rethinking the Peruvian Experiment under Military Rule. Edited by Carlos Aguirre and Paulo Drinot. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017. Pp. 368. $90.00 cloth; $29.95 paper.

Peru's Military Revolution - The Peculiar Revolution: Rethinking the Peruvian Experiment under Military Rule. Edited by Carlos Aguirre and Paulo Drinot. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017. Pp. 368. 29.95 paper. - Volume 79 Issue 1

Rethinking the Transition to Democracy in the Cases of Military Rule, Religion and Economic Development

Studies of democratization have developed and have become increasingly more sophisticated across the past 20 years as a result of new datasets being completed and shared. Scholars have written widely on the subject and have offered explanations of transitions to democracy, but some of these explanations are incoherent with others. This paper offers a discussion of a variety of conditions which provide fertile soil for transitions to democracy, ranging from military rule and religion to economic development. Addressing this contestation, the paper argues that there is no single explanation for the transition to democracy and that it requires very sophisticated thinking to determine the conditions for democratization.

The Dynamics of Nigeria’s Policy for Africa in the Post-Colonial Period

All heads of state of independent Nigeria have left their mark on the formation of national foreign policy, including the policy for Africa, and brought their vision to the development of this sphere, although the greatest contribution to the formation of relations of the Giant of Africa with other states of the continent was made during the years of the Fourth Republic (1999 – present), when, after a long period of military rule, civilian politicians came to power in the country. Throughout the entire period of independent development, the main principles of Nigeria’s formation of contacts with other countries were respect for equality and territorial integrity of sovereign states; non-interference in their internal affairs; active membership in international organizations; non-alignment with military-political blocs, etc. However, the main priority of Nigeria’s foreign policy in the post-colonial period was the development of relations with African countries – a phenomenon that has come to be known as Afrocentrism. In accordance with the principles declared in all Constitutions of the country (1960, 1979, 1993, and 1999), Nigeria made a great contribution to the struggle for the true political and economic independence of African countries, for the liberation of the continent from the remnants of colonialism and apartheid. Since the 1970s, when the country became one of the world’s largest oil producers and exporters and began to provide financial and logistical assistance to African countries in need, a new objective has appeared in its foreign policy – gaining the status of “the leader of the continent”. This desire has been fueled by the fact that Nigeria is the most populous state on the continent and has one of the largest and fastest growing economies in Africa. Not all Nigerian leaders were able to correctly identify political priorities and to a certain extent demonstrated naiveté, limiting their foreign policy primarily to the African direction. While in the first years of independence this was legitimate and justified, with the advent of globalization, the development of a multipolar world, and the transformation of the world political and economic order, it became necessary to ensure that Nigeria’s foreign policy was adapted to modern realities. Meanwhile, thanks to its economic potential, huge reserves of hydrocarbons, which all countries in the region need, and military-political power, Nigeria quite rightly claims a central role in coordinating joint efforts to achieve true economic and political independence by West African states, although one of the obstacles to the transformation Nigeria into a real “hegemon” both in West Africa and throughout the continent remains political instability in the country.

Understanding the ethnic inequality of the Thai Lao through perspectives on promoting social inclusion policy in Thailand in accordance with UN Sustainable Development Goal 10.2

ABSTRACT This article presents one of the first attempts to understand UN Sustainable Development Goal 10.2 (UNSDG 10.2) on reducing inequality as applied to a major ethnic minority community via a simultaneous application of three theoretical aspects of inclusion theory, itself an extension of social justice theory, i.e. via social, economic, and political inclusion. Thailand, recently under military rule for five years, experiences extreme differences in horizontal structural inequalities by ethnicity. These developmental differences, unacknowledged by the Thai state, nonetheless affect state-minority relations, particularly the relationship between the dominant Central Thai ethnic community and the Thai Lao (TL) ethnic community. The general policy prescription to address such inequalities by ethnicity is to promote greater inclusion, as in UNSDG 10.2. As the state does not properly recognise the TL, this is problematic. This study applied a novel theoretical framework to obtain and analyse opinions from ‘Establishment’ and ‘Local Government Officials’ (LGO) samples as to whether and how to promote greater inclusion.

Party system polarization in developing democracies: the case of Turkey, 1950–2018

ABSTRACT This paper examines party system polarization over 19 general elections in Turkey from1950 to 2018. Using data on party policies from the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP), we show that, contrary to the common view, party system polarization is not a persistent feature of Turkish politics. We also find that party system polarization on the left-right continuum reflects party differences primarily on social rather than economic or European integration issues. Finally, our results demonstrate that the military interventions in 1960 and 1980 reduced party system polarization in subsequent elections, even when controlling for other determinants of polarization. These findings have important implications for debates on party politics, military rule, and the prospects of democratic governance in developing democracies.

Charcoal Production in Palestinian villages - The Paradox of resistance to innovation driving rural development

An attempt to implement new charcoal-production technology in Palestinian villages in the West Bank, Jenin area, is examined in this research. The ‘retort’ system avoided air pollution associated with traditional kilns by recycling flue gases. The attempt was made against the backdrop of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and life under Israeli military rule. The study analyzes the relationship between supporters and opponents of the new technology and the moves leading to rural development. Based on a survey, in-depth interviews and field observations, the research identifies environmental, political, socio-cultural and economic interests, power relations and the interdependence between conflicting parties. The findings reveal the leading hamulas' (extended families) use of resistance tactics against the technology to preserve their dominant status within the socio-cultural structure, while traditional kiln usage was prevented by Israel. As a consequence, new strategies were adopted by various parties. Flexible negotiation led to an agreed resolution that opened new opportunities of social mobility and brought economic and environmental prosperity to the rural area. The study contributes to the resistance to innovation theory in traditional rural communities.

Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil

Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil

Revisiting the Falklands-Malvinas Question: Transnational and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Revisiting the Falklands-Malvinas Question: Transnational and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Embodying Geopolitics: Generations of Women’s Activism in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon (by Nicola Pratt)

Reviewed by: Embodying Geopolitics: Generations of Women's Activism in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon by Nicola Pratt Sher Afgan Tareen Embodying Geopolitics: Generations of Women's Activism in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon Nicola Pratt University of California Press, 2020, 224 pages In 2011, people across North Africa and the Middle East (MENA) region gathered in public spaces to denounce tyranny. The filming of a crowd gathered around the burning body of Mohammed Bouzizi, a young Tunisian man who set himself on fire in late 2010 in retaliation against the police seizing his scales for working as a street vendor without a permit, is routinely attributed for triggering the uproar. But the profile of Arab women protesters has received far more extensive coverage than the tragic death of Bouzizi might suggest. Western media accounts framed women who had gathered at Tahrir Square as pioneers in speaking out against male aggressors. According to Nicola Pratt, Arab women activists not only predate the 2010 uprisings but have also routinely both upheld and upended the geopolitical order through cultivating a feeling of "respectability." Her book Embodied Geopolitics: Generations of Women's Activism in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon traces the recurrence of respectability in the geopolitics of these three countries over the course of the 20th century with particular focus on the following key moments: the late-19th and early 20th-century decolonization movement, the 1967 Six Day War (remembered as a catastrophy or a Nakba) and ensuing student-led Palestinian Movement, the proliferation of NGOs and advocacy for women's rights during the late 1980s and '90s, and lastly the restoration of military rule in the fallout after the Arab uprisings. "Respectability" is a feminine virtue that defines itself against the specter of a repressed woman living under the scrutiny of a male kin within the confines of the home. But during the early 20th century, the daughters, wives, and sisters of Arab nationalist leaders leveraged the expansion of higher education and emergence of women's clubs to cultivate respectability, thereby transforming it from a gift of the colonizer to an indigenous attribute of Al-mar'a al-jadida, "the new woman." This new woman dissolved polygamy and reformed marriage from an obligatory to an intimate relationship that avails opportunities for extending educational opportunities to the poor as well as nurturing children into civic-minded citizens. As the reproductive powers of women enveloped child-rearing into a larger project of giving birth to the nascent nation-state, the older [End Page 123] hierarchy between the colonizer and the colonized collapsed while a newer hierarchy between national/natural and foreign/unnatural women arose. The latter includes a large number of women who are ineligible to pass on their national identity to their children, due to marrying a man with a different nationality, instilling in these women a feeling of foreignness created by personal status laws. Personal status laws in Lebanon, for instance, create equality between the various sectarian groups that make up the national assembly on the basis of a consensus among its members of women's subordination to their male kin. Since the decolonization of Arab nation-states, women have continued to enact competing visions of female "respectability" amid an ongoing struggle against personal status laws. At moments of disillusionment with the existing regime, female respectability conveys disrespect for the male elders in the family. But when unrest descends into chaos, hastening calls for a return to order, female respectability restores the family and by extension the nation. During the fallout of the Arab uprisings, for instance, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi hailed the Egyptian daughter who fights for women's rights while his regime jailed female protesters and subjugated them to forced virginity tests inside the prison cells. The suspicion that they had slept with male protesters in outdoor tents not only made their bodies uncouth, but more importantly a threat to national security. By studying the geopolitics of the MENA region through the frame of female respectability, Pratt reveals that the seemingly abstract ideas such as colonialism, decolonization, neoliberalism, and martial law are in fact gendered practices waged over women's bodies. While conventional studies are replete with maps charting the influence of...

The Portable Coup: The Jurisprudence of ‘Revolution’ in Uganda and Nigeria

In the years after independence, former British colonies in eastern and southern Africa struggled to fill the ranks of their judiciaries with African judges. Beginning in the mid-1960s, states including Uganda, Tanzania, and Botswana solved this problem by retaining judges from the Caribbean and West Africa, especially Nigeria. In this same period, a wave of coups brought many independent states under the rule of their militaries (or authoritarian civilian regimes). Foreign judges who had been appointed in the name of pan-African cooperation were tasked with interpreting the laws that soldiers imposed, and assessing the legitimacy of regimes born of coups. The decisions they rendered usually accommodated authoritarianism, but they could also be turned against it. To understand how colonial law and postcolonial solidarities shaped Africa's military dictatorships, this article focuses on one judge, Sir Egbert Udo Udoma of Nigeria, who served as Uganda's first African chief justice and was an influential member of the Nigerian Supreme Court. Udoma and other judges like him traversed the continent in the name of African cooperation, making a new body of jurisprudence as they did so. Their rulings were portable, and they came to underpin military rule in many states, both in Africa and in the wider Commonwealth.

REBUILDING INDIA’S EXTERNAL TRADE: A SEARCH FOR OPPORTUNITIES IN MYANMAR

Myanmar is a resource-rich country. It is endowed with precious mineral resources. Previously, Myanmar was called ‘Rice bowl of the East’ because of its fertile land and rich forest products. Not only in mineral resources, it is also rich in cultural aspects as well. Myanmar is also known as a ‘home of many civilizations to the South East Asian nations’. However, it is one of the poorest countries in the world despite its richness in natural and mineral resources. It has been known as one of the most isolated countries due to its setback under the military rule. The economy was under strict governmental control and the poor economic policies virtually destroyed the whole economy. In other words, the economy of the country deteriorated due to poor management of resources. The people of the ‘rice bowl of the east’ were dying due to hunger and the morale of the people has been ruined. Many cases of human rights violation have been reported every year.

Governing through Informal Mechanisms

In their post-authoritarian period, civilian governments in transitional democracies have often been battered by unelected power centers. Where do these unelected forces derive their power? This article addresses this question through a case study of Pakistan. Since the 2018 elections, a decade after leaving formal political office, the Pakistani military has asserted greater control over civilian government. Using the concept of informal institutions of political participation as an analytical framework, we argue that when formal forms of control become untenable due to legitimacy and/or functional constraints, the military turns into a Janus-faced institution, visibly acting as a formal state organ while invisibly protecting its institutional interests through what we call “informal mechanisms.” The article explains how Pakistan’s pre-2018 political situation dictated a quasi-military regime more suited to the military’s interests than direct military rule.

Anti-gender politics and the authoritarian turn in Brazil

In 2018, Jair Bolsonaro, a former captain and congressman known for his racist, sexist, and homophobic remarks, was elected president of Brazil. His election shocked political analysts, representing the major setback in the Brazilian democracy since the end of the military rule in the 1980’s. The present work analyses the social actors and the political processes behind the rise of Bolsonaro to power. It focuses on the role of anti-gender politics in the recent authoritarian turn. Borrowing some insights from the Protest Event Analysis methodology, the work explores the dynamics of the anti-gender protest events, their main social and political actors, repertoires of actions and demands. It also review the recent debate on the crisis of democracy and the rise of extreme right-wing movements and parties, focusing on the centrality of opposition to gender equity and LGBTQI+ rights in the rhetoric and action of conservative and far-right groups.

Randomness and Political Complexity in the Contemporary Arab Novel

This essay examines the concept of randomness in three novels by contemporary Arab novelists, employing chaos theory and complexity theory. The three novels are Lebanese Rabie Gaber's dystopian novel Beirutus: Underground City ( Beirutus: Madīna Taḥt al-Arḍ, 2005), Egyptian Ezzedine Choukri Fishere's realistic novel Exit ( Bāb al-Khurūj, 2012), and Algerian Yasmina Khadra's detective novel What are Monkeys Waiting for? ( Qu'attendent les singes, 2014). Although they belong to different genres, all three are speculative novels and present different forms of political-security complexity and chaos in the contemporary Arab world. They represent unpredictable, random events that both resonate with and anticipate forthcoming events and political changes in the Arab world. Exit, for instance, represents the unexpected downfall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the return of the military rule after the 2011 revolution, and Beirutus the unexpected rubbish and environmental crisis in 2016 in Lebanon, while What are Monkeys Waiting for? anticipates the contemporary political turmoil in Algeria. Randomness and unpredictability in the three novels are used as a means of political projection and prediction, and as narrative strategies of literary activism against repressive realities and authoritarianism. By representing the unpredictable, Gaber, Fishere and Khadra implicitly incite resistance by warning of appalling forthcoming realities.

The role of superior judiciary in protecting its independence: A case study of judicial legitimization of military regimes in Pakistan

Pakistan has faced four military regimes, in three out of it, the military rulers were not declared illegitimate by the supreme judiciary, on the contrary, the doctrine of necessity became the quoted terms as causes of accepting those extra-constitutional moves. While adjudicating these cases, the establishment either used their personal influence or manured the judiciary to take afresh oath of allegiance of the military rulers under the provisional constitutional orders (PCO). Thus, the cases before these judges were just hoodwinking or a lip service of endorsing and affixing a stamp of validity. Even then the superior judiciary had authorized the military rulers to amend the constitution, which is the role prerogative of the parliament not only as per Pakistan constitution. Thus, superior judiciary was unable to stand in front of power dynamic, except in the case of Asma Gillani vs federation of Pakistan, but it was adjudicated, when General Yahya was not in power. While applying heterogeneous sampling research techniques the study has attempted to accumulate a variety of expert opinions on the role and independence of the judiciary. Findings show that the judges, to assure smooth running of the country, sacrificed the very spirit of the constitution. The apex court decisions only tried to maintain the statuesque and to pave the way to let the system run.

Military Political Connection and Firm Value—Empirical Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Thailand

ABSTRACT This paper uses the exogenous shock- Thailand military coup on May 22, 2014-as a natural experiment to test the impact of military political connections on the value of Thai’s listed firms. Results show that the military coup will bring significant benefits to the share price of listed firms with military political connections. Moreover, the DID estimations show that the military rule can significantly increase the Tobin’s Q of military political affiliates after the military coup. The main influential mechanism is that, after the military is in power, the listed firms will hire personnel with military background to enter the management. This move will bring long-term financing convenience to the military politically connected firms and enable them to use more funds to capital investment and R & D activities.

Determinants of citizens’ support for democracy in Ghana

AbstractObjectiveThis article addresses the following questions: (1) What is the extent of Ghanaians' support for democracy? (2) What are the influences of education, the pursuit of political news, and the discussion of politics on citizens' support of democracy?MethodsThis study combines the sixth and seventh rounds the Afrobarometer surveys on Ghana. The total sample for this study is 4,800 adult Ghanaians. Binary logistic regression analysis was employed for the multivariate analysis.ResultsAbout 81 percent of the respondents prefer democracy to any other form of government, including a military rule. Also, the study also found that education attainment, the pursuit of political news information, and the discussion of politics is significantly linked to citizens' support of democracy.ConclusionThe study shows that increasing access to education and political information are vital mechanisms for strengthening democratic consolidation.

A Small Door Set in Concrete: One Woman's Story of Challenging Borders in Israel/Palestine by Ilana Hammerman

Reviewed by: A Small Door Set in Concrete: One Woman's Story of Challenging Borders in Israel/Palestine by Ilana Hammerman Lina Tuschling Hammerman, Ilana. A Small Door Set in Concrete: One Woman's Story of Challenging Borders in Israel/Palestine. Translated by Tal Haran. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019. A Small Door Set in Concrete is an intense reminder that although borders may separate people, they need not define them. In her newest book, Israeli writer, translator, and activist Ilana Hammerman gives us a glimpse into her [End Page 433] decades-long activism in the Palestinian Territories. After two losses in her personal life and a period of deep reflection, Hammerman starts traveling to the Palestinian Territories to learn about "the other side," where she generously invests time, effort, and money to aid those living under Israeli military rule. Voices of ordinary people affected by conflicts are often missing from academic scholarship and public discourse; this book tries to change that by giving voice to some ordinary Palestinians trying to make a living, get an education, or raise a family. A forceful counter-narrative to one-dimensional portrayals of both parties to the conflict, Hammerman's book effectively draws on her own experiences while putting the struggles of the Palestinians she encounters at the center of her stories. The book's division into two parts—"The West Bank" and "The Gaza Strip—makes intuitive sense. Throughout the book, we learn how Hammerman meets many Palestinians and how their life stories are intertwined, sometimes for years, at other times just for an hour or two. The book is a series of literary portraits stretching across almost three decades of the author's trips to the Palestinian Territories showcasing her quiet but persistent activism. Her actions are characterized by helping others accomplish seemingly normal things: seeing the sea for the first time; replacing a pair of glasses that broke; finding work for a few days; exploring a nearby city. Yet to accomplish these and other goals, Hammerman has to be resourceful and in some instances break the law, as when she smuggled the father of a family in her trunk to Jerusalem to give him employment for a few days. Or when she takes four Palestinian children into Israel so that they can visit the zoo for the first time in their lives. While her actions are marked by solidarity and compassion, they are acts of civil disobedience and show a fierce commitment to defying stereotypes and enemy narratives. Hammerman's accounts excel at showcasing a mosaic of individual fates that are individually and collectively representative of a whole yet fractured people living under military occupation. She also shows the "other" as regular individuals with hopes, dreams, and everyday struggles, and in doing so she attempts to combat the narrative of "enemy" on both sides of the conflict. Most of all, this book gently forces the reader to realize and evaluate the vastly different realities of everyday live on each side of the border. Most of the book is written in the third person, referring to Hammerman frequently as "the woman." This perspective appears to be utilized in order to emphasize her participation in the narrative while also providing a sense of [End Page 434] distance between the writer and the story, putting the focus on the Palestinian protagonists. Although this stylistic choice may fulfill its purpose for most readers, this reviewer found the frequent use of the third person a bit disconcerting. The nature of the book—a collection of personal experiences that are different yet share a common thread—makes for an easy read that stimulates compassion and even sympathy for the Palestinians we meet through Ham-merman. However, the recounting of personal stories is also the book's greatest weakness. Readers not familiar with the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might be left puzzled by or unable to grasp the severity of certain accounts and even underestimate Hammerman's courage. For students and scholars of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and those interested in nonviolent activism, this book amplifies voices rarely covered in typical textbooks on politics in the Middle East or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in...

“Our Temples for Tomorrow”: Langston Hughes and the Making of a Democratic Korea

AbstractIn 1964 a Korean scholar wrote to Langston Hughes, asking him to send some sources for publishing the “first Negro literature series” in Korea. Providing some of his books, Hughes supported the project that would feature “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and other works. This article examines how Koreans translated “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and other poems from the late 1940s to 1970s to explore Hughes's long-lasting influence on Korea. Korea's political landscape drastically changed during this period, punctuated by the ending of American military rule and the beginning and deepening of Korean authoritarian rule. The author argues that Korean writers, inspired by black resistance to American racism, disseminated Hughes poems to instill a sense of democracy in Koreans under the dictatorial regime. By building on scholarship of Hughes's global interactions, this article traces a transpacific legacy of Hughes's humanistic aesthetics that encouraged Koreans to envision social justice.

A Street View of Occupation: Getting Around Hebron on Google Maps

This article offers an ethnographic exploration of the role Google Maps plays in Israeli authorities’ surveillance of the occupied Palestinian territories. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted between Hebron, Palestine, and Tel Aviv, Israel, in the summers of 2018 and 2019, I describe how Google and Israel’s surveillance apparatus curtail what comes into view on Google Maps. I detail how Wesam, a Palestinian photographer, responds to such censorship through the creative use of Google Maps' Street View in Hebron. By centering Wesam's photographic practice, this article presents an ethnographic lens onto Israel's technologized military rule over the occupied Palestinian territories.