National Reconstruction Research Articles

The Peace Process, National Reconstruction, and the Transition to Democracy in Palestine

With the signing of the September 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles (DOP), the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have witnessed the acceleration of the development and interaction of three processes-the peace process, the national reconstruction and nationbuilding process, and the transition to democracy. This paper seeks to describe the three processes and to examine their interaction, with special focus on democratization and the impact of the first two processes on its pace, dynamic, and prospects.

The Peace Process, National Reconstruction, and the Transition to Democracy in Palestine

The Peace Process, National Reconstruction, and the Transition to Democracy in Palestine

Vietnam: Marketization and internationalization of its economy

This paper examines the Vietnamese economy from the perspective of its marketization and internationalization. Vietnam's economy is in the process of a twofold transition: a change from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, of course, with its socialist agenda, and a move away from a closed COMECON-membership to an open internationalized economy. Vietnam has an indigenous, independent economic structure and its development process will draw more upon its endogenous factors. Any facile attempt to place Vietnam in the generic class of transitional economies will lead to misleading and spurious conclusions. Vietnam began its national reconstruction agenda with all the limitations of a war-ravaged, poor economy. It is to be noted that its macroeconomic core has been well positioned. Vietnam's ability to manage its monetary and fiscal policies, as evidenced by its control of money supply, government expenditure, budget deficit, and the rate of inflation merits commendation. Indeed, Vietnam's economic performance since 1986, albeit mixed, have been commendable. Vietnam has adopted an open economic policy, and inflows of direct foreign investment will play a key role in its economic reconstruction. In July 1985 Vietnam became a member of ASEAN, and as such a candidate-member of APEC. With regard to the economic relationship between the United States and Vietnam, it will be facilitated by the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Gastronomy or Geology? The Role of Nationalism in the Reconstruction of Nations

Abstract. This article considers the debate that has recently developed in studies of nationalism between those scholars who see the nation as a modern and constantly changing construction ex nihilo and those who see it as an immemorial, unchanging communal essence. It outlines the so‐called ‘gastronomical’ and ‘geological’ metaphors of nation formation and suggests a synthetic model which balances the influence of the ethnic past and the impact of nationalist activity. It shows that the central question which has divided theorists of nationalism is the place of the past in the life of modern nations. The author recognises the role of nationalists in national mobilisation but stresses that nationalists are not social engineers or mere image makers as modernist and post‐modernist accounts would have it, but rather social and political archaeologists whose activities consist in the rediscovery and reinterpretation of the ethnic past and through it the regeneration of their national community.

National Reconstruction and Social Re-stratification

IntroductionIn the 1940–50s a totalitarian regime was established and consolidated in Estonia. Socialist society led to a new kind of social stratification and inequality. Stratification under totalitarian, socialist regimes differs from that in Western, capitalist countries. The utopian idea to create an egalitarian society turned into the creation of a hierarchically organized and heavily institutionalized society. Access to political power became the basis for social stratification. Reforms in the early 1990s have led to fundamental changes in the social stratification of Estonian society. The present social situation in Estonia (as in other former socialist countries of Eastern Europe) is characterized by the co-existence of elements of socialist and post-socialist societies, the expected marks of transition. Privatization brings about the emergence of new social strata. Therefore, the new social stratification in Estonia is now in the formation phase, and further changes are still forthcoming.

Women, Writing and Revolution, 1790-1827

Part 1 Women and writing in the Revolutionary decade: feminizing revolution - Helen Maria Williams Mary Hays and revolutionary sensibility Elizabeth Hamilton and counter-revolutionary feminism. Part 2 Women, writing and the Revolutionary aftermath: Helen Maria Williams in post-Revolutionary France Mary Hays - women, history and the state Elizabeth Hamilton - domestic woman and national reconstruction.

‘Everybody has Won, So All Must Have Prizes’: Reflections on the South African General Election

For South Africa 1994 was an Annus Mirabilis. Despite pre-election predictions of violent disruption, the country's first democratic general election took place in an atmosphere of reconciliation and hope for a future in which past injustice would be rectified and the ‘new South Africa’ welcomed back into the international community. For a brief moment — and, of course, it might not last as the inevitable constraints imposed by scarce resources, rising expectations and external pressures complicate decision making — South Africa appeared to have taken a major step towards Nelson Mandela's goal of a ‘nation united in diversity’. Certainly, one striking feature of the four-year transition was the willingness of the elites engaged in the negotiating process to accommodate each other as they sought to reach agreement on a new constitution in a spirit of ‘consensus and compromise’. And the same spirit is meant to inspire the day-to-day working of the Government of National Unity and Reconstruction (GNU) which, in effect, is a grand coalition of all the major talents.

Upwardly mobile languages: The politics of language in the Baltic States

Since regaining their independence from the Soviet Union, the Baltic states have adopted far‐reaching language policies as a crucial element in national reconstruction and transition from a Soviet system. Such policies now raise profound issues in the extremely complicated and politically sensitive social and linguistic situation of the Baltic states. A consistent Soviet policy of demographic mobility has brought to the Baltic states (particularly Estonia and Latvia) a substantial population with very diverse responses to newly reclaimed independence, and to the social and linguistic policies now being pursued by these national governments.

National reconstruction plan, its impact on the national economy 1992-1993

No abstract availableRealidad: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades No. 36, 1993: 605-635

FRANTZ FANON AS A DEMOCRATIC THEORIST

CURRENT DEBATES and reforms around the issue of democratization in Africa will, hopefully, encourage the development of indigenous political theories favouring democratization in the long run. This essay is intended to emphasize that need by stimulating discussions around the ideas of one of the founding fathers of the African liberation movement, Frantz Fanon. Frantz Fanon was born in Martinique in 1925 and died in 1961. After studying psychiatry in France, he worked for a brief period in colonial Algeria where he joined the Algerian freedom fighters in their insurrection against French colonialism. A psychiatrist, social philosopher, journalist, diplomat and political activist, Fanon wrote four books1 dealing with national liberation, social reconstruction and self-reconstitution. His eloquent defence of violence by colonized peoples in the struggle for national emancipation attracted a great deal of attention. His defence contains several strands including the psychological strand implying that violence would result in a 'collective catharsis' that would free the oppressed from their inferiority complexes and degredation. The debates that ensued clouded Fanon's reflections on a number of serious issues: democratizing development, promoting national cultures or facilitating the emancipation of women, for example. Even though Fanon did not shed much light on certain detailed aspects of democratic politics electoral mechanisms, for example the corpus of his political writings is both compatible with and supportive of an understanding of democracy as a process in which individuals cooperate as free and equal participants in the demanding task of development and self-rule. Today we confront reordered global relationships. First, the Cold War has encled. Over thirty years ago, Fanon said, 'The Cold War must be ended, for it leads nowhere' .2 The end of the Cold War removes any excuse by national and international forces to compromise principle because of the fear of disturbing East-West loyalties. Second, popular revolts in Africa and elsewhere have shown that military power has become problematic as a tool of foreign policy and internal repression. Third, the nature, scope,

Foreshadows of the Law: Supreme Court Dissents and Constitutional Development, by Donald E. Lively

Preface Introduction: Judicial Review and Constitutional Development A Constitutional Right in Slavery Images of a New Union Constitutional Redefinition and National Reconstruction The Rise, Demise and Resurrection of Substantive Due Process Color and the Constitution Freedom of Speech: The Indispensable Liberty The Right to Be Let Alone

The national reconstruction plan is three: Which is the main one?

No abstract availableRealidad: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades No. 32, 1993: 153-185

Economic Austerity and the Peruvian Crisis: The Social Cost of Autocracy

ECONOMIC AUSTERITY AND______ THE PERUVIAN CRISIS: THE SOCIAL COST OF AUTOCRACY by Carol Graham EI conomic reform and the reduction in poverty that it will generate are the only viable strategies for ending instability and political violence in Peru, the third largest nation in South America. Yet integral to the political feasibility of a successful economic reform program is the development of a safety net to address the social costs of adjustment and the economic deterioration that preceded it. Another key component ofsuccessful reform which entails Peru's integration into the international financial community is the restoration offull political democracy. One reason is the nature ofpresent day international politics. Another is that President Alberto Fujimori's economic program cannot endure without the establishment of domestic political legitimacy under democratic auspices. Unfortunately, the authoritarian nature ofthe Fujimori government, coupled with its complete failure to implement a social safety net, have jeopardized the viability of the Peruvian economic reform program. In response to domestic and international pressure, President Fujimori has promised to restore the democratic institutions he closed down in April 1992. Atthe same time, he is correctly attemptingto implementan orthodox adjustment program, which entails painful austerity measures and proCarol Graham is a guest scholar in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. She is also Adjunct Professor ofGovernment at Georgetown University. She wishes to acknowledge the Inter-American Development Bank and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for support for the research upon which this article is based. 45 46 SAIS REVIEW longed recession. Both these processes are taking place amid widespread political violence which approximates civil war. Our experience with simultaneouspolitical and economic liberalization is limited to "experiments" in Latin America and Eastern Europe; it is not yet fully clear what constitutes success nor how it can be achieved.1 Yet ifthe process of liberalization fails in Peru, its precarious social order will disintegrate further. Various insurgent groups, particularly the Maoist Sendero Luminoso movement, will substantially increase their de facto control. The economic and political obstacles to success are formidable. Per capita income levels lie below those of 1970, when Peru was already one of the region's poorest countries. Up to 70 percent of Peruvians now live in poverty. Less than 10 percent of the population capable of working is adequately employed in the capital of Lima, home to more than one third of the national population.2 Political democracy, which had been in place since 1980 and endured three rounds of national elections, came to a halt on April 5, 1992, when in an "autogolpe," or self-coup, President Fujimori suspended the nation's constitution, closed down the Congress and the Judiciary branch, and launched a process of "national reconstruction" under military auspices. Fujimori subsequently succumbed to international pressure and agreed to hold elections for a constituent assembly and Congress in November 1992, and municipal elections in early 1993. But the prospects for completion of the electoral process are limited at best, given the President's questionable commitmentto it, combined with the economic crisis andpolitical violence.3 Finally, Sendero Luminoso, the main guerrilla movement that confronts Peru, is one ofthe world's remaining Marxist insurgencies. It is also one ofthe most brutal guerrilla movements in modern history, despite the recent capture of its founder and leader, Abimael Guzman. The Sendero philosophy is a blend of "gang of four" Maoism and anarchism, with a glorification ofthe Inca empire; the group is most often compared in terms of philosophy and violent tactics to the Cambodian Khmer Rouge.4 1.Few ofthe market transitions that are complete enough to learn from were completed under fully democratic auspices. These cases include Chile, Mexico, South Korea, Spain, and Turkey. For a detailed study of various such cases, see Stephan Haggard and Steven B. Webb, Voting for Reform: The Political Economy of Adjustment in New Democracies (forthcoming, The World Bank). 2.Adequately employed implies earning sufficient salary from one forty hour per week job to purchase a basic needs basket of food and other essentials. [Cuanto, March 1991] 3.Before the November 1992 elections, the government modified the electoral laws to favor the New Majority/Change 90 Front, which backed...

Nationalism and feminism: The Seccion Femenina of the Falange

The categories of nationalism and feminism are a particularly interesting combination for approaching the topic of the Women’s Section of the Spanish Falange. It was in their way of interpreting their own nationalism that members of the Secci6n Femenina defined their role as women. That is, their role as Falangist women. The Secci6n Femenina, or Women’s Section, was founded as a small auxiliary-a year after the founding of the Falangist party-in 1934. With the outbreak of the civil war in Spain it expanded as a service organisation, and its adherents numbered more than half a million by the war’s end in 1939. Its membership far surpassed the male membership of the Falange, and its founder, Pilar Primo de Rivera, long survived her brother, Josh: Antonio, the founder of the Falange. Nevertheless, Pilar remained absolutely loyal to the ideology and principles of Jo& Antonio and the Seccibn Femenina, laboring for nearly half a century to realise his project for the Falange. It is in analysing the concept that these women held of themselves and their Falangist mission that the categories of nationalism and feminism are most productive. The Falange exhibited those traits characteristic of fascist or protofascist parties of the 30s: hero worship of a charismatic leader, a call for a corporate state to replace parliamentary democracy, martial values and uniformed paramilitary units, the raised fist salute and a clear strain of misogyny. Reminiscent of Mussolini’s blueprint for society, Falangism called for the reconstruction of Spain. The family, the municipality and the syndicate would be the building blocks of a revolutionary organic society-one with imperial aims. The Falange called for a revolution, but one that would revive Spanish traditional values. It is its particular emphasis on Catholicism that most distinguishes the Falange. Like Italian fascists, Falangists looked back to an imperial past. But Spain’s era of greatness was also its most Catholic. ‘The most important glories of Spain are united always with the glories of the Church, and our culture and our expansion has always had a Catholic orientation”, goes an official Secci6n Femenina account. In order to recover that impetus, that will-to-empire, it was first necessary to reestablish traditional Catholic values. The anarchy of the Second Republic had revealed the bankruptcy of Modernism and its offshoots: liberalism, materialism, communism, atheism-and feminism. Catholicism was thus essential to the Falangist program. Number 25 of the doctrinal principles of the party mandated the incorporation of Catholicism into the ‘national reconstruction’ because of its ‘glorious tradition’ and its ‘predominance’ in Spain.2 Reestablishing Catholic values and the Catholic spirit would reorient

?Truncated? society: The eastern European cases

The multicultural experience of the author inspires a reflection on the persistence of certain negative features in several societies despite profound transformations not only outside and even also inside them. In the post-communist reality of eastern Europe, the national reconstruction meets obstacles originating not only from the rigid nature of the Soviet style state socialism and the one party rule, but also from the pre-communist heritage. The inability to deal with the past and take a constructive approach to the present and to the future is behind the phenomenon of “truncation”, preventing the given society to enter the road of a substantial reconstruction in the conditions of free market economy of the Western style democracy.

Southern Africa in the Post-Apartheid Era: The Freeing of Domestic Politics

On 1 February 1991, at the opening of the new session of South Africa's parliament, President F.W. de Klerk announced his government's intention to scrap three of the 'pillars' of apartheid the Land Act, which reserves 87 per cent of South Africa's land for the white minority; the Group Areas Act, which mandates residential and business segregation; and, perhaps most significantly, the Population Registration Act, which underpins the whole system of apartheid by providing for the classification of all South Africans according to race.1 This announcement does not yet mean that apartheid is dead, but, coming after a turbulent year of change that began with the release of Nelson Mandela in February 1990, it is one further proof that apartheid is dying. The death throes of apartheid come at a time when profound changes are occurring throughout the region of southern Africa. In Namibia, independence has been successfully achieved, a liberal-democratic constitution harmoniously agreed upon, and moves begun towards national reconciliation and reconstruction. In both Angola and Mozambique, talks are under way between the government and its guerrilla opponents, offering the prospect, though not yet the reality, of the end to years of bloody civil war. Meanwhile, even as the wars continue,

Corporate federalism and the reform of teacher education in Australia

Since 1983, the Hawke Labor government has been engaged in a process of national restructuring of the private and public sector. In Australia, however, it has not always been recognized that education, including teacher education is an industry, is expected to contribute to this national reconstruction, and is itself currently undergoing a restructuring which is revolutionary in extent and effect. With the Green and White Papers on higher education (Dawkins 1987, 1988), the Commonwealth Government effectively established a unified national system of higher education. The Australian Education Council (AEC) comprised the Federal and State Ministers of Education subsequently established a working party to produce a Green Paper, Teacher Education in Australia: Report to the Australian Education Council, (February, 1990) (hereafter referred to as the report) and a supplementary document.

The Prussia of the East?

At a number of points in his excellent paper, Chalmers Johnson has drawn our attention to the interest in comparing the historical experiences of Japan and Germany. I would like to take this further and look not only at a broad set of similarities but also at some significant contrasts. The parallelism between the two was, of course, noted very early on. Already in the 1890s, observers in England were calling Japan the Prussia of the East, some of them urging-even then-the need for the British to emulate Japanese values if they were to maintain their position in the world. Japan, like Germany, was a latecomer to industrialization. Both countries had been unified, within a few years of each other, in the 1860s, under the leadership of regional agrarian elites-Prussian junkers and Sat-Cho samurai, for example. In both, national reconstruction produced imperial states that intervened actively to promote industrialization in the interests of military expansion. The Meiji oligarchs, indeed, used the Second Reich as their model when they framed an authoritarian constitution and legal code for Japan. Whereas Bismarck had reduced Denmark and vanquished France, Japan seized Korea and defeated Russia. The two states fought on

Construction of the 'Folk Cultural Heritage' in Hungary and Rival Versions of National Identity.

This study analyzes the process by which Hungarian national culture has been constructed and changed in the last century, by focusing on one set of national symbols: the 'folk cultural heritage'. Competing groups of the elite developed more or less different, rival notions of 'Hungarianness'. In accord with these changing notions, different representations and interpretations of the folk culture emerged. To demonstrate that relationship, the author presents three dilemmas, contradictions of Hungarian self-perception and shows how diverse positions in the political-ideological debates were reflected in rival identity-constructs and rival symbolic strategies. The relation between state and nation was a sensitive question in Hungary, dramatized by abrupt changes of the country's territory and political regime. National membership 'imagined' on the basis of language and culture or on the basis of citizenship resulted in different symbolic economies. Another divide separated modernists and traditionalists - their debates often referred to a richly elaborated symbolism of East and West, to an 'eastern' and to a 'western' image of the folk traditions. Finally, the study surveys the cultural programmes of competing elites, succeeding and replacing each other, the strategies of the 19th century lesser nobility, the 'historic middle class', the upward mobile urban bourgeoisie, the populist intellectuals of the inter-war period, the communists, and their diverse opponents. Ethnographers and folklorists, as professional constructors and interpreters of the 'folk cultural heritage' appear in this picture sometimes in the ideological mainstream, sometimes in opposition or as supporting actors in marginal positions. Professional institutions have a considerable stability or inertia, which gives them some independence from political currents. Nevertheless, the author argues, the history of 'national ethnography' gains in plasticity and depth when placed into the complex process of national identity-construction and reconstruction.

The Youngmen and the Porcupine: Class, Nationalism and Asante's Struggle for Self-determination, 1954–57

This article examines the origins, background, composition and policies of the National Liberation Movement, a mass political organization founded in Asante in September, 1954. The central aim of the NLM was to advance Asante claims for self-determination and to oppose the CPP in their advocacy of a constitutional settlement with the British colonial government–a settlement that would bring about a unitary government in an independent Gold Coast [Ghana]. The analysis developed here places the ‘youngmen’ of Asante, the nkwankwaa, at the centre of these events. It is argued that this somewhat enigmatic group was the catalyst behind the formation of the NLM and the resurrection of Asante nationalism that it represented. The nkwankwaa forged a dynamic popular front of resistance in Asante to what they termed the ‘black imperialism’ of Nkrumah and the CPP. In exploring the pivotal role of the nkwankwaa in the rebirth and reconstruction of Asante nationalism, the discussion addresses the legacies of indirect rule in Asante, the importance of cocoa, the development of class, and the ambiguous role of Asante's political intelligentsia. Most crucially, it is suggested that the political development of the NLM turned upon the struggle within Asante between the nkwankwaa and the Asantehene (backed by the chiefs and Asante's political intelligentsia) over the very definition of ‘nation’ and of ‘self-determination’. Thus, the article highlights the historical conflicts and contradictions within Asante society–contradictions which were softened by but not subsumed within Asante nationalism, and conflicts which were distorted, but not overshadowed, by the resilience of Asante Kotoko in the face of the centralized state. The reasons for the tenacity of Asante nationalism lay not in the struggle between Asante and what was to become the Ghanaian state, but in the unresolved struggles within Asante society.