Strong Nation Research Articles

Ömer Seyfettin—The Balkan Wars, World War I, and His Criticism of Ottomanism and Minority Nationalisms

Ömer Seyfettin (1884–1920) was one of the significant ideologues of Turkish nationalism disseminating his ideas through his activism and his literature by invoking Turkish history. In the journal Young Pens, published in Ottoman Salonica between 1910–1912, Seyfetttin together with Ziya Gökalp laid the foundations of Turkish nationalist thought as well as national policies toward the Turkish language. While Gökalp developed a more systematic ideology of Turkism with his writings, Seyfettin appealed to the sentiments of the Turkish people with his short plays arguing that Turkish nationalism was the only viable option for the Turkish speaking people of the Balkans and Anatolia. A literary figure as well as an ideologue, Seyfettin’s ideas against Ottomanism and Islamism were clearly expressed in his plays and articles focusing on Ottoman Turks, their heroism and their betrayal by the subject peoples living under the Ottoman state. Consequently, nationalism was the only natural solution to the plight of the Turks and for the prospects of their salvation against imperial encroachments and minority separatist movements. His literary production, however, had strong nationalist tones making ideological considerations to be more important than any intention to produce belles-lettres. Seyfettin’s influence can be observed as his plays are still included in the curriculum of Turkish primary and secondary education as devised by the Ministry of National Education in Turkey.

The Contingent Effect of Patriotic Rhetoric on Firm Performance

Drawing on resource-dependence logic, we frame a firm’s use of patriotic rhetoric as a strategy for absorbing external resource constraints. We argue that strong nationalist sentiment positively influences the performance effect of using patriotic rhetoric, whereas a firm’s involvement in overseas markets negatively influences this effect. To test our hypotheses, we capture U.S. firms’ patriotic rhetoric using earnings calls and press releases for 456 firms in the S&P 500 during the period 2002−2015. We find that the effect of using patriotic rhetoric on performance is more positive under conditions of high levels of nationalist sentiment in the home country and more negative for firms that are highly involved in overseas markets.

Jihadists and Refugees at the Theatre: Global Conflicts in Classroom Practices in Sweden

In democratic societies schools have an obligation to address complex societal issues such as ethnic/religious tensions and social conflicts. The article reports an exploratory study of how theatre plays were used in upper-secondary schools to generate pedagogically relevant platforms for addressing the current Middle East conflicts and their impact on European societies in the context of religious education and civics. The schools are situated in areas with substantive migrant populations of mixed backgrounds, and this has implications for how these issues are understood as a lived experience. In the same classrooms, there were students who had refugee backgrounds, who represented different interpretations of Islam, and religion more generally, and whose families were victims of terrorism. There were also students with strong nationalist views. The study is ethnographic documenting theatre visits and classroom activities in relation to two plays about the Middle East situation. The results show that plays may open up new opportunities for addressing these issues, but that they may also be perceived as normative and generate opposition. An interesting observation is that a play may generate space for students to tell their refugee story in class, which personalized the experience of what it means to be a refugee.

Cheap talk or policy lock? Nationalist frames and sympathetic audience costs in international territorial disputes

ABSTRACT Failure by democratic states to resolve protracted international territorial disputes has often been traced to domestic politics. In seeking advantages at the bargaining table and to limit vulnerability versus domestic challengers, democratic leaders may assert hardline territorial demands to mobilize support from sympathetic publics. By staking their political credibility on such claims, they may become locked into extreme policy positions which render compromise untenable. To what extent, however, does expressed support by sympathetic publics actually imply audience costs for reneging? This paper argues that sympathetic publics’ demands for policy follow-through on revisionist territorial claims depend upon how they are framed. Building on the existing audience cost literature, it demonstrates that tangibly salient frames highlighting national security threats are more likely to consistently move sympathetic publics to demand policy redress than intangibly salient frames asserting national rights to defend heritage or cross-border kin. It does so using comparative survey experiments in Israel and Serbia – two democratic states with disputed international boundaries and strong domestic nationalist sentiment, but whose geopolitical contexts are dissimilarly conducive to territorial revisionism. Results contribute to a refined understanding of how domestic attitudes toward nationalist claims impact international conflict processes.

Birth of the Cold War: irregular warfare first blood in Greece

ABSTRACT While often held up as a model of successful American counterinsurgency, the Greek Civil War presents a unique case. Peculiar local conditions and geopolitics contributed to the defeat of communist forces in Greece. A firm British and later American commitment to combating communism stood in contrast to ambiguous support from the Soviet Union in an area they considered outside of their sphere of influence. Strong nationalist feeling among the Greek population buttressed support for the government and undermined the ‘internationalist’ concessions of communist forces. These characteristics make the extrapolation of broader lessons focused on victory through the application of overwhelming American resources and the financing of local forces problematic. If lessons are to be gleaned from this case, they should focus on the critical roles played by internal political dynamics and geopolitics in undermining the strength of the insurgent forces and how these provided a stable platform from which the counterinsurgents could operate.

(Auto) representaciones en internet de los guardias de seguridad privada peruanos en Irak

This article analyzes the self-representations in social media of a group of Peruvian workers hired as Private Security Guards in Iraq (2005-2012), as well as their different identifications referring to the hypermedia narratives of the Internet, about the globalized culture and regulated by the military workforce of transnational companies. In addition to the strong nationalist roots consistent with the authoritarian and classist tradition of Peruvian society and the realization of their manhood, these identities manifest an autographic and epic presence of seasonal migration experiences through their videos and interactive environments. As well as strengthening the social construct embodied by the mercenary, this this type of guard is a sign of contemporary civility that helps regulate the system. Its legal and supposedly neutral status collides with an empirical position of combatant giving way to a critical social role. In this, the paradox of a prototype of a subject adapted to the market economy would be possible thanks to a war and the strengthening of masculinity patterns specific to the local context.

The Dveri Movement Through a Discursive Lens. Serbia’s Contemporary Right-Wing Nationalism

Abstract Twenty-first century Serbian nationalism has had little serious analysis. Most works concentrate heavily on the nineties and the wars of Yugoslav secession, which produced a wide variety of rampant forms of nationalism throughout former Yugoslavia. Since 5 October 2000, right-wingers have somewhat softened their line in public discourse and lost some of their popular appeal, but strong nationalist tendencies have remained, taking their place in Serbia’s social and political discourses. These tendencies have been concentrated around certain extreme right-wing groups, chief among them Dveri srpske, which has been active since the early nineties. After organizing itself politically, this movement has refurbished its image and discourse, and, in the April 2016 elections, has even succeeded in entering parliament. Here, the author analyses Dveri’s agenda and key convictions: antisemitism, an anti-EU stance, support for Putin’s Russia, clericalism, and homophobia. He also reviews Dveri’s change of image and discourse over time.

A review of Hirata Atsutane's Yi zong zhong jing kao (Studies on Zhongjing, the Medical Master)

In the book named Yi zong zhong jing kao (Studies on Zhongjing, the Medical Master), through a series of examinations, the author, Hirata Atsutane of the late Edo period of Japan, argued that the author of the book Shang han lun (Treatise on Febrile Diseases) is Ge Xuan, brother of Ge Hong's grandfather, whereas the names of Dai Ba, Zhang Ji, Zhong Jing, etc., in ancient books are but his other names or his alias. With Ge Xuan as a basis, Hirata Atsutane explored its former and later history and eventually pointed out that medical prescriptions of traditional Chinese medicine were originally formulated by the gods, and fundamentally rooted from the Japanese gods, or called Shinto in ancient Japan, which is the foundation of Traditional Chinese Medical art. Prospectively, Hirata Atsutane's such conclusion is incredible. Actually, Hirata Atsutane used a series of textual investigation to interpret the doctrine of supernatural medicine, or the idea of "medical Shinto" he advocated. This thought also corresponds to the thinking of recede-to-ancient Shinto, reflecting his view of superiority of Japan over China. In a broader sense, such viewpoint on China can also be seen as a strong nationalist view in Japan, emphasized by the intelligentsia represented by classical scholars and even by Japan as a whole in the mid-late Edo period.

Język szwedzki w epoce stormaktstiden: ideologia i narzędzia

In the history of Sweden the years 1611–1718 are the so-called great power era (Swedish: stormaktstiden), the period of geographic and economic expansion, as well as the formation of a romantic image of own nation, state and language. In this age, the foundations of today’s Old Norse studies were shaped, and the interest in the language and history of the language took peculiar forms in nationalist glottogony, as in Olof von Rudbeck, the author of a popular work Atland eller Manheim, in which he pointed out that the Swedish language is in fact the language that Adam used in Eden. Strong nationalist tendencies and a growing interest in the native language were accompanied by the unusual situation of the publishing market in the history of the Swedish language, as this was the only time when native texts, not translations definitively prevailed.

Ideological Divergence and Issue Convergence

This article explores the role of nationalism in paradiplomacy, the phenomenon of sub-state entities engaging in international affairs. In regions characterized by strong nationalist movements, paradiplomacy is utilized by regional actors to project a minority identity distinct from that of the majority centre. Quebec has sustained the world’s most advanced case of paradiplomacy, despite wholesale alternation between two ideologically divergent parties, the sovereigntist Parti Québécois (PQ) and the federalist Quebec Liberal Party (QLP). This article proposes party competition for issue ownership as a causal explanation of this convergence. The central argument put forth is that regional parties are galvanized by a nationalist electorate to take stances on international relations which promote their electoral competitiveness to voters vis-à-vis rival parties. The greater the emphasis a party places on itself as the most capable “owner” of the issue of the region’s international interests, the greater its commitment to paradiplomacy will be.

The Nativist Backlash: Exploring the Roots of the Action Conservative Movement

After decades of decline, the sudden emergence from about 2006 of a new style of hard-right organization has greatly changed the landscape of rightist politics in Japan. In Japan, this is referred to as the Action Conservative Movement (ACM), or Kōdō Hoshu Undō. ACM groups have a strong nativist streak, and are known for their use of hate speech against foreigners in general and Koreans in particular. This paper, the first in a collection of four, sketches in the historical, social and political background against which the ACM has arisen. It covers the development of Japan’s ethnic minorities, with particular reference to the Zainichi Koreans, Japan’s largest and longest-standing ethnic minority, whose so-called ‘special privileges’ are a particular target of the ACM. It shows how a gradual liberalization of the treatment of foreigners in Japan has gone hand-in-hand with a strengthening emphasis on patriotism under successive administrations. This apparent paradox of governance, along with the spread of internet chatrooms and live streaming of political demonstrations, are the main factors identified in the rise of the ACM.

Nationalist bias in Turkish official discourse on hate speech: a Rawlsian criticism

ABSTRACTThis article analyzes the approach in Turkey on hate speech by evaluating legal regulations, decisions and public responses. We argue that the Turkish case cultivates neither a lenient, nor a restrictive response to hate speech, because a strong nationalist bias seems to be at work in interpreting, penalizing or allowing hate speech. The peculiarity of the Turkish case stems from a prejudice that hate speech might be conducted only against the nation, unity of the state, or the principles of regime, rather than against vulnerable groups or identities. By focusing on the Hrant Dink case among others we try to demonstrate the most striking example of this prejudice.

Icelandic politics in light of normative models of democracy

Icelandic politics are analysed from the perspectives of three normative models of democracy: the liberal, republican and deliberative democratic theories. While the Icelandic constitution is rooted in classical liberal ideas, Icelandic politics can be harshly criticized from a liberal perspective, primarily because of the unclear separation of powers of government and for the extensive involvement of politics in other social sectors. Despite strong nationalist discourse which reflects republican characteristics, rooted in the struggle for independence from Denmark, republicanism has been marginal in Icelandic politics. In the years before the financial collapse, Icelandic society underwent a process of liberalization in which power shifted to the financial sector without disentangling the close ties that had prevailed between business and politics. The special commission set up by the Icelandic Parliament to investigate the causes of the financial collapse criticized Icelandic politics and governance for its flawed working practices and lack of professionalism. The appropriate lessons to draw from this criticism are to strengthen democratic practices and institutions. In the spirit of republicanism, however, the dominant discourse about Icelandic democracy after the financial collapse has been on increasing direct, vote-centric participation in opposition to the system of formal politics. While this development is understandable in light of the loss of trust in political institutions in the wake of the financial collapse, it has not contributed to trustworthy practices. In order to improve Icelandic politics, the analysis in this paper shows, it is important to work more in the spirit of deliberative democratic theory.

“A few kids at least” A Sirian children reaseatlmente experience in Uruguay

This article addresses the Resettlement of Syrian Refugees Program in Uruguay, implemented in cooperation with UNHCR from 2014 and interrupted in 2015, targeting children victims of the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria. Throughout the text, we discuss how a sector of the refugee population — defined around the chronological age understood as correlate of a specific and differentiated moment of the life cycle — becomes a central category in dispute. We focus on the struggle between the different senses that are established for the categories of children and minors, the ways in which they are re-elaborated in each context and how they are linked to the projected assimilation processes. We propose that, beyond human rights, what finally mobilizes the actions around resettlement is a strong nationalist impulse that reinforces a national identity: the Uruguayan one.

Discourse on nationalism in China’s traditional cultural education: Teachers’ perspectives

Education of Chinese cultural traditions has been endorsed by the central government in Mainland China in recent years. The article presents a study which examined how nationalism advocated in the policy text has been interpreted at the localized level by primary school teachers in Beijing. The study draws on discourse theories as the primary point of reference. The qualitative coding methods and textual analysis were employed to interpret the meanings of 52 interview transcripts of public primary school teachers. The findings reveal a discrepancy between the discourse on nationalism presented by the policy and the discourse used by the respondents. The former exhibited a strong nationalist aspiration. The latter made a discourse of cultural nationalism more explicit, which cherishes the intellectual and esthetic aspects of Chinese cultural heritage, and considers them important in cultivating students’ cultural taste and moral characters. Teachers’ lack of knowledge of the original policy text might be one reason for this discrepancy. Public media also played a significant role in constructing the complexities in their understandings. Its entertaining nature may diminish the importance of sovereignty nationalism in their eyes. The complexity of nationalism in contemporary China seems to go beyond the explanatory power of western theories.

Nación y socialdemocracia en Galicia: PSG-PSdG

Gallicia’s ability –or inability to be assigned equivalent competences to those of the other two historical nationalities sanctioned by the 1978 Constitution was a key issue in the process of creating the State of the Autonomous Regions. The pressure of very relevant sectors of the large Galician parties against the reduction of said competences brought about the first great hindrance against what some might consider as the development of a federal system. In this respect, the transfer to the PSOE of leading individuals from the PSG –an organization integrated in the Federation of Socialist Parties, with a strong nationalist commitment, was crucial. They took over a PSOE that urgently needed leading personnel. They provoked a 'transition within the transition' in Galician socialism, restructuring a good part of its organizational scheme and, above all, a radical opposition to accepting –massive mobilizations included– a Statute considered 'second level'.

Mosques as monuments: an inter-Asian perspective on monumentality and religious landscapes

This article examines monumental mosques and particularly those that are built to be and function more as monuments than as places for worship. We consider the role of monumentality in religious landscapes by way of six exemplary mosques in three different world regions – Central Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and Southeast Asia. Tracing their unique histories and the identity narratives inscribed in their built form, we stress three broader commonalities among these mosques-as-monuments: (1) each is the result of top-down, state-funded planning infused with strong nationalist or ideological symbolism, (2) each was designed to be an iconic architectural showpiece in the country’s capital city, and (3) each represents a stark contrast to other places of worship within that national or regional context. In this unique comparative study, we use an interpretive approach designed to push the research on monuments and monumentality into new directions and new empirical contexts, and specifically to ask why and with what effect some religious sites are primarily monuments and only secondarily places of worship.

The Many Lives of Chief Kisco

This paper deconstructs the folklore surrounding an early twentieth-century zinc figure of an American Indian that stands in the center of the village of Mount Kisco, New York. The identity that “Chief Kisco” has assumed over the past hundred years elides the nature of the origins of the statue, which was intended not as a statement of communal identity, but rather as the exact opposite. As a ready-made art object, the statue was emblematic of a new network of commodified goods that transformed the cultural geography of the United States; as it was utilized in Mount Kisco, the statue was a piece of temperance propaganda with strong nativist undertones that tapped directly into the class, religious, and ethnic divisions running through the turn-of-the-century village.

Framing "our social disaster": narratives of disease and sexuality in Turkey's early republic.

For the early Turkish republic, resource shortages, illiteracy, and geography combined to hamper any achievement of the immediate and universal diffusion of state-authored lessons in public health throughout the country's populace. One of the first steps taken to overcome these obstacles involved the production and publication of a medical atlas. Ideally, this text would serve both to standardize care provided by the state's health professionals and to inform the entire population of their public health obligations and compel their compliance; longer lives, prosperity, and a stronger nation were the promised outcomes. However, utilizing public health education to institute this state-society contract also entailed framing diseases in particular ways. This was especially true with sexually-transmitted infections (STIs), and the narratives associated with STIs marginalized routinely specific subpopulations of the Turkish nation; women and girls, generally, and sex workers, in particular. Focusing on this primary text, this article engages critically with the atlas to document, analyze, and inform the nature of this promise and the types of medical and moral norms that it imposed and reinforced.

Estado e planejamento na América Latina: origens do desenvolvimentismo no Brasil

Este trabalho propõe um debate sobre a urbanização e as práticas urbanísticas no Brasil entre 1930 e 1945 compreendendo que o “desenvolvimentismo”, ligado na América Latina aos processos de industrialização baseada na intervenção estatal e na ideia de um projeto de nação, ao qual se vinculou a formulação da “cidade latino-americana” após 1945, teria origens no Brasil em 1930. A visão da cidade como alavanca para o desenvolvimento das sociedades latino-americanas estava em grande medida já proposta ou em maturação no Brasil desde 1930 quando a aposta estatal no desenvolvimento, com forte componente nacionalista, levou à conformação de um ambiente propício ao planejamento urbano de cunho modernizante, resultante do amálgama das visões de vanguarda do plano político e do plano técnico.