Political History Research Articles

A decisive clash?: A short history of black protest politics in South Africa 1875-1976

A decisive clash?: A short history of black protest politics in South Africa 1875-1976

Leading from the Frontline: A History of Pacific Climate Diplomacy

ABSTRACT Pacific Island states have, for decades, considered climate change a threat to their security. In 1991, island leaders declared global warming and sea level rise as serious environmental threats, and that their ‘cultural, economic and physical survival’ was at risk. Pacific Island countries have since played a disproportionate role in United Nations climate negotiations, working as a diplomatic bloc to shape new rules and to drive multilateral cooperation to reduce emissions. Pacific Island states have also sought greater recognition of climate change as a security threat. This article considers the history of Pacific climate diplomacy. It explains how Pacific Island countries have played a key role in the global response to the climate crisis and outlines the history of regional climate politics in the Pacific Islands Forum. We also focus on recurring tensions between Pacific Island states and Australia with regard to ambition to tackle climate change.

Kish Island through the Books of Geographers and Muslim Travellers

The research is interested in studying the history of the Iranian island of Kish through the books of geographers and Muslim travellers, as these books are an important source of history, politics, economy, and culture. Kish Island played a prominent role in the history of the sea, especially the distinctive economic role through its strategic location, as it dominated maritime trade for a large historical era of the history of the sea, in addition to its political history full of political events, as it controlled the coastal cities and neighbouring islands in the Gulf, and became the capital of the sea and the seat of kings, especially its cultural role, as many modernists and classifiers emerged from it who supported the scientific movement throughout Islamic history.

Political Parties: Builders and Destroyers of Ghana’s Drive to Democratic Consolidation

Despite a very checkered political history, Ghana’s Fourth Republic has so far performed relatively better, surviving through eight election cycles. Though political parties are objects of massive supports in Ghana’s drive to democratic consolidation, nevertheless, questions have been raised about the ways in which parties operate in practice. Through the use of concurrent mixed methods design, the study examined the view that Ghanaian political parties are not agents of democracy due to some irresponsible and self-interested actions they usually pursue. The study found that Ghana has made significant progress towards democratic consolidation partly because political parties actively perform the functions of voter mobilization and forming the government. However, despite the strong support for multiparty democracy from Ghanaians, their hopes and expectations have proved illusionary due to persistent poverty and socio-economic inequalities. This has the potential to disempower the poor majority and make democracy the property of few wealthy politicians. Additionally, policy discontinuity and the activities of political vigilantism championed by political parties were identified as notable threats to Ghana’s democratic gains. The study recommended that both the intrinsic and instrumentalist approaches to politics are critical for democratic consolidation and maturity in Ghana.

Историческая политика Польской Народной Республики в 1980-е гг.: особенности трансформации

The article examines the transformation of the historical politics of the Polish People’s Republic in the 1980s. The author proceeds from the position that the commemorative practices of the Polish socialist government experienced significant external influence from the “mnemonic actors” opposed to the state − the Solidarity trade union and the Polish Catholic Church. The purpose of the study is to analyze the transformations of commemorative practices in the conditions of confrontation between the Polish United Workers’ Party and opposition structures. The works of domestic and foreign authors on the problem of research are noted, in which experts analyzed historical politics through the involvement of didactic literature, paid attention to anniversaries and memorable dates of socialist Poland, and also used a semiotic approach. Relying on a wide array of narrative sources, the author traces the structural changes in the historical policy of V. Jaruzelski: the reform of history textbooks, the actualization of previously suppressed historical events, the institutionalization of the academic community of historians under the auspices of the Polish Historical Society. It is noted that the impulse to modify commemorative practices was the spread of alternative versions of the past by the opposition, which contributed to their actualization in the collective memory of Polish society. The author focuses on the role of the Polish-born Pope John Paul II, whose visit to socialist Poland in 1983 actualized the events related to the Holocaust and the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. It is concluded that the anti-communist forces of the Polish People’s Republic influenced the transformation of the course of historical politics due to the popularity of institutions opposed to the state in the conditions of permanent socio-economic and political upheavals in the country in the 1980s.

Illustrating a Jewish Life: Portrait Photography, Biography and the Creation of a Jewish Public Sphere

Abstract Portrait photography is a fixed element in the history of German Jewry. This article asks what we can learn about a Jewish biography like that of the German–Jewish writer Sammy Gronemann by seeking to follow his life’s trajectories through the images he and others created of him and the appearances he coined. It argues that photography not only represented but also actively shaped his work as a writer and a Zionist politician and that it influenced the worlds he inhabited. It does so by situating Gronemann, the German Jew, in the history of German portrait photography, Gronemann, the Western Zionist, in the history of international Zionist image politics and Gronemann, the writer in the history of the creation of a visible cultural scene in the Yishuv and later Israel. Pondering Gronemann’s relationship with visual arts offers insights into the ways public visibility shaped German–Jewish realities both in Europe and in Palestine, both before and after the foundation of the State of Israel.

‘The most extensive reform ever made in the private law of Ghana’: a political history of the 1985 Intestate Succession Law

ABSTRACT Ghana's 1985 Intestate Succession Law (PNDC Law 111) is a notable example of attempts by postcolonial African states to introduce new forms of protection for widows and children in cases of death ‘intestate' (that is, when the deceased person had not made a valid will). Whilst some legal scholars depicted Law 111 as a radical departure from customary laws pertaining to marriage and property, feminist scholars have been more sceptical, pointing to deficiencies in both the letter and implementation of the law, and advocating for further reform. This article is driven by a historical question: given that several previous governments had considered the issue of intestate succession but had not actually reformed the law, why did the military regime of Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings decide upon Law 111 in 1985? The national archives for this period are fragmentary, but we draw from newspapers, ‘grey literature', and oral history interviews to trace the prolonged struggle over intestate succession, suggest what motivated the Rawlings' regime in 1985, and identify the compromises that were made. By locating Law 111 in Ghana's postcolonial political history, we nuance established typologies of women’s organisation, activism, and advocacy.

Understanding the historical processes of privatization policies in North Africa: Lessons from the cases of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia

This paper provides a concise historical analysis of the political economy of privatization in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia from the 1980s to 2007, a period that witnessed the emergence of privatization as a primary policy tool to reform the public sector. The paper examines the influence of political history, macroeconomic considerations, and International Development Agencies (IDAs) on the early privatization processes in these North African countries. Despite shared developmental trajectories, internal and external factors had a significant impact on the outcomes of economic liberalization. The paper aims to answer the following key questions: What were the underlying political-economic factors driving privatization, and how successful was it in achieving the promised economic growth? Through a focused analysis of each country’s contextual factors, privatization processes, and outcomes, the paper contributes valuable insights into the nuanced dynamics shaping privatization in developing countries.

SOCIOPOLITICAL SYNDROME IN NAYANTARA SAHGAL: A STUDY

The paper seeks to explore the themes surrounding Nayantara Sahgal's personal and political history through her earlier works, which weave together the past of individual lives with the historical past of India. It is always acknowledged that politics is a component of society. Her uncle's insights into global history had an impact on her. Her historical and political consciousness informed her works. Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Graham Greene are among the authors who have influenced her. Nehru's diplomatic foreign policy is the novel's high point. She uses a variety of political life aspects to seamlessly merge the personal and the political. She places emphasis on the humanistic principles she adheres to, and the story turns into an examination of life quality. Her stories possess a warm, intimate quality.

Ukraine in Soviet Narratives about the October Revolution: A Case Study of Ihor Savchenko’s Film Ballad About Cossack Holota (1937)

Ukraine’s social, political, and cultural history has become a controversial issue since the 1990s. Dominant until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the discourse about the Soviet brotherly nations has since been contested by depictions of Ukraine as politically and ideologically divided over the course of its 20th-century history. Russia-Ukraine war that began with the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 Feb 2022 has had a dramatic impact on the process of replacing the formerly standard version of Ukraine’s past with new interpretations. At the same time, Russia’s war on Ukraine has also demonstrated that Soviet-era collective memory about the key events in Soviet history has outlived the Soviet state and has been mobilized for political use. When in pain of heart a Ukrainian politician says that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has cancelled a shared past of Ukraine and Russia, he refers to a familiar discourse about these nations’ familial ties (Tkach). With this discourse now shattered, the question of particular salience is: How was the idea of brotherhood between Ukraine and other Soviet nations expressed and sustained? How did it evolve? In light of Russia-Ukraine war, the stories that were building blocks of the Soviet foundational narrative about Ukraine and Russia as fraternal nations are worth revisiting. An analysis of such stories reveals the mechanism of making Ukraine’s part an integral part of Soviet culture. In this paper, I discuss the issue of the evolution of the Soviet discourse about ‘eternal friendship of Ukrainian and Russian peoples’ in the example of Igor Savchenko’s film Ballad About Cossack Holota ( Duma pro kozaka Golotu, 1937), released by the Gorkii Film Studio as part of the celebrations of the twentieth anniversary of the October Revolution. Igor Savchenko (Ihor Savchenko in 24 | WEEReview 13 | 2024 Ukraine in Soviet Narratives about the October Revolution Ukrainian) was a Ukrainian Soviet film director who made films both in Russian and Ukrainian film studios; his work played an important role in promoting the idea of familial ties between Ukraine and Russia. Ballad About Cossak Holota is based on Arkadii Gaidar’s novella for children R.V.S. (1925) that is set during the Civil War in Ukraine, following the October Revolution. Savchenko’s film is especially interesting in how he reworks Gaidar’s story; he depicts events of the Civil War in the context of Ukraine’s 17th-18th-century history, drawing on Ukrainian folklore. Cossack Holota, a character from Ukrainian folklore, becomes a symbol of the revolutionary liberation of Ukraine, a promise of a just social and political order. Drawing on memory studies, post-colonial theory, and theory of deconstruction, I discuss the artistic means that Savchenko used in order to integrate Ukraine’s experience of the revolution and the Civil War into the Soviet discourse about the fight for Soviet power. Savchenko constructs Ukraine’s response to the revolution by making use of tropes of a big family, Biblical imagery, elements of folk culture, conventions of the adventure film. The study of Savchenko’s film contributes to our understanding of the debates about Soviet-era and presentday collective memory about the October Revolution and the Civil War in Ukraine and Russia. As the discourse about the biggest Soviet nations’ familial unity is yet another casualty of Russia-Ukraine war, it is important to consider how the idea of brotherhood between Ukraine and other Soviet nations was expressed in Soviet cinema. Such analysis explains why Ukrainian’s common emotional response to the start of the war was that of a feeling of shock and betrayal.

Umu-Ada (Ama’oma-Ada) women institution in Igala and Igbo Nsukka communities: a comparative socio-cultural analysis

ABSTRACT While many studies have been devoted to interrogating the political history of the centralized Igala society and the enormous influence of the Atta and Achadu institutions on the Igbo polity and economy, little scholarly attention has been paid to analyzing, in reverse order, the influence of Igbo culture on the Igala society. Despite the precarious placement of women in traditional Igala-Igbo Nsukka borderland, the Umu-ada (women) institution represents one of the means through which women organize and assert power while promoting collective peace, security, development and socio-cultural transformation. We argue that the diffusion and adaptation of Umuada heritage in this region is traceable to geography, the influence of inter-ethnic marriage, trade, burial and funeral rites. The similarities and differences in organization and impact of this women institution in both Igbo Nsukka and Igala communities are appraised to show the preponderance of cultural dispersals in contemporary Nigeria. This paper relied on the use of both primary and secondary data. Primary data was obtained through oral interviews with aged Umuada (women) members of Igbo Nsukka-Igala communities including men. Oral data were intermeshed with secondary literature, especially published books and journal articles. The collected data were qualitatively analyzed using the cultural diffusion theory.

Judicial Collegiality and Tolerance of Difference: Insights from Justice Johan Froneman's Dissents

The retirement of Justice Johan Froneman from the Constitutional Court of South Africa provides an ideal opportunity to reflect on his approach to collegiality and tolerance of difference. Like his predecessors, Justice Froneman navigated a delicate balance between collegiality and dissent. While the diverse backgrounds and experiences of his judicial colleagues enriched the Court's deliberations, Justice Froneman's dissents demonstrated the need for the Court to function as a cohesive unit to resolve judicial differences. His insistence on understanding the proper context of issues, taking account of relevant facts and synthesising opposite viewpoints was particularly pronounced in cases involving potentially divisive moral and ideological questions. Cases that touched on South Africa's contested political history and the proper role of the Court in a constitutional democracy further provided him with the platform to strike a balance between collegiality and dissent, thereby showing that tensions between unity and diversity among judges can be resolved amicably and that doing so would positively contribute to the development of the Court's jurisprudence on tolerance

Against the Nudity in Art: Eliasian Reading of National Conservative Catholic Habitus

Abstract The Cleaner Marina Abramović Retrospective Exhibition in the Centre of Contemporary Art in Toruń, Poland, sparked much protest. This article analyses the protesters’ attitudes to capture their habitus. The analysis employs Norbert Elias’ sociological theory on national habitus. Demonstrations of protest invite interpretations of the peculiar national conservative Catholic habitus that – in the light of my study – stems in Poland from selective post-Tridentine pre-Vatican II Catholic magisterial thought and a sociopolitical historiography of traditional Polish culture. I recognise that the aim of the national conservative Catholics is to preserve a specific kind of Polish culture based on its early-modern image: strong state influenced by the Catholic Church in both policy and culture, with the accompanying theology of art taken from the Tridentine Council and the post-Tridentine debate. As a result, the national conservative Catholics invest much energy in remembrance politics and historical politics. I conclude that this habitus requires theological and religious reworking of national conservative Catholics’ understanding of the term “catholic.”

A Journey of the Political History of Jammu and Kashmir: Autonomy and Conflict

A Journey of the Political History of Jammu and Kashmir: Autonomy and Conflict

O parlamentar José Bernardino Batista Pereira D'Almeida

In this article, the partial political trajectory of José Bernardino Batista Pereira d'Almeida is recovered. As the sole representative of the Province of Espírito Santo in the first two legislatures of the Imperial Chamber of Deputies, in 1828 he was part of the ministerial cabinet formed by Dom Pedro I at the end of 1827, with the appointment of deputies who partially opposed his government to occupy key positions. A figure of the moderate liberal camp, highly active in the Chamber until his appointment to the Ministry, he was later practically ignored in imperial political records and only recently has his name been revisited by historiography. The objective is thus to contribute to the reconstruction of his thinking, aiming to deepen understanding of the political history of that period.

Data Visualization of Artists’ Responses to Violence Against Women: Art Activism for Pedagogy

Abstract Addressing the need to confront violence against women (VAW) within educational contexts, this article explores how data visualization can be used to understand entanglements of VAW across geographies, culture, religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and political histories. Through the examination of art activism that emerges within digital places such as social media platforms, this research queries how art manifests within transnational online environments to highlight unique nuances of place and identity. Emphasizing the critical ability of the arts to provide voice to confront difficult subject matter, this publication focuses on five of the 24 global artists who participated in the study, who explore the theme of “silence” in their art works. Through a publicly accessible interactive map and website, including curricular resources, this research provides a model for confronting challenging and traumatic topics within art pedagogy through coalition building, creating awareness, and empowering individuals to transform society.

The Self in Self-Help: A Re-Appraisal of Therapeutic Culture in a Time of Crisis

In this article, I analyse constructions of the self in bestselling self-help books in the United Kingdom. In doing so, I offer a re-appraisal of contemporary therapeutic culture. Therapeutic culture has long been associated with neoliberal governance, and scholars have argued that popular therapeutic narratives promote neoliberal accounts of an autonomous, masterful ‘entrepreneurial self’, able to thrive in the world on its own. However, beginning with the international financial crisis of 2008, neoliberalism has entered a period of serious and accelerating crisis and contestation. The question therefore arises to what extent popular therapeutic narratives might have changed during this period. In response, I analyse narratives of the self and self-improvement in UK self-help bestsellers between 2008 and 2022. Given their high sales and consumption, self-help books are prominent in the constitution of popular therapeutic discourse. I focus on the UK as an emblematic case, given its history of neoliberal politics, the latter’s recent crisis, and the salience of therapeutic culture in the country. Across the analysed period, my findings point to the emergence of alternative, survivalist and spiritual, therapeutic discourses that move beyond the model of the entrepreneurial self, while ultimately retaining its core assumptions about rational, autonomous behavioural modification.

South America's Ongoing Interrogation of the Political

Abstract The notions of “concepts of the political” and that of “political concepts” refer to different but intertwined phenomena. As I will argue in this article, the concepts of the political refer to the self-institution of societies, while political concepts are those that emerge in the realm of politics, a field some societies institute as precisely the site in which the reversibility of the political takes place. This article will argue that the concepts of the political and the political concepts coming out of South America in its contemporary history spring from the main events and processes—the political and social history—that dominated the period. The events and concepts first discussed will be those related to the conquest and its legacy, only to later move fully to the past fifty years of dictatorships, transitions to democracy, and the emergence of the neopopulist political form.

Kristīne Beķere. Latvijas labā: Politiskā darbība trimdā 20. gadsimta 40.–80. gados. Rīga: LU Akadēmiskais apgāds, 2022

The book Latvijas labā: Politiskā darbība trimdā 20. gadsimta 40.–80. gados (For the Good of Latvia: Political Activities of Latvian Exiles from the 1940s through the 1980s), written by the chief editor of The Journal of the University of Latvia. History (Latvijas Universitātes Žurnāls. Vēsture), historian Kristīne Beķere focuses on the political actions of Latvian exiles in the Western world during the postwar, and especially, Cold War era. The purpose of the study is to provide an overview of the activities of the Latvian exiles related to the protest movement against the occupation and annexation of Latvia by the USSR. The book defines many periods of exiles’ activities. K. Beķere has identified the most important activities for each stage of history and describes them in a chronological order. Thus, for example, the author describes the period of the emergence of exile after the Second World War, the strengthening of exile organisations, and the development of political activities during the escalation period of the Cold War in the 1950s and 1960s, and the period since the 1970s (Cold War relaxation or detente phase), which created new more active forms of exile’s international protest against the occupation of the Baltic. K. Beķere’s book marks the increasing attention in historiography towards the history of the Latvian exiles. In recent years, for example, a voluminous book by the US–Latvian historian Andrejs Plakans has been published. The book For the Good of Latvia is one of the important contributions to systematise both – the information about the political history of the Latvian exile community and its important information work in the world mostly during the Cold War era.

Творчество Галима Хисамова: зарождение политического романа в башкирской прозе ХХI века

The famous Bashkir novelist Galim Khisamov, the author of a number of major novels, occupies an important place in the literature of Bashkortostan in the first quarter of the XXI century. His talent was awarded the Salavat Yulaev State Prize, and many of his works have been translated into Russian. His most important difference among modern prose writers is that the author carries in his work the features of the national heroic character of the Bashkir people. The works of G. Khisamov reflect the mentality of the people, their proud spirit of the owner of their land, demonstrate the high level of intelligence and education of his many heroes, who lead their compatriots to a better life, and thus correspond to the accepted definitions of the nationality of literature. In the historical genre, the novel by the writer G. Khisamov “February Blizzard” was written, which is dedicated to the events of a century ago, the theme of the formation of the USSR and the Republic of Bashkortostan. But a novelty in the genre diversity is his political novel “President Rakhimov”, dedicated to the life of a major leader of such a powerful region as Bashkortostan. If the novel “February Blizzard” of 2017 about the formation of the Bashkir Republic can be attributed to the historical and political, then the novel about the first president of the Republic of Bashkortostan “President Rakhimov” can undoubtedly be attributed to the political. An important indicator of the realism of the novel is the appeal to a contemporary living in our time, a political figure. Of course, in the political novel “President Rakhimov” there are features of historical and industrial novels. Describing the activities of Murtaza Rakhimov as president in close-up, the author delves into the historical, socio-political, as well as production aspects of the republic’s governance for the benefit of its population. Undoubtedly, the experience of artistic development of politics as a specific life material in G. Khisamov’s novel is of interest both from the point of view of the formation of national political history and from the point of view of the development of national artistic and political culture and requires extensive literary study.