Transnational Influences Research Articles

Transnational Actors in Central and East European Transitions. Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies by M. A. Orenstein , S. Bloom , N. Lindstrom (review)

REVIEWS 789 Gypsyculturalassociationare the fruits of outsideraction,not theirown. Romaniactivists are sometimes regarded withsuspicion bytheveryconstituencytheyare intendedto serve,whileGypsycynicsregardthe activists as 'puppetsin thehandsofthepoliticians in power5. Furthermore, theactivists themselves areriven bydissent. Somewantcultural minority rights and access totheeconomicand socialadvantages enjoyedbyothercitizens, whileothers simply wantthesame rights as othersubjects.And theyask formorethan their democratically-elected governments can afford to givethem. Vermeersch carefully setsout the gains and lossesin termsof poverty, discrimination and unemployment in legal,politicaland international contexts , butthetext veersoccasionally towards advocacyand theeconomiccontextdoes notreceiveadequateattention. London PhilipLongworth Orenstein, M. A., Bloom, S. and Lindstrom, N. (eds). Transnational Actors in Central and East EuropeanTransitions. Pitt Series in Russian and East EuropeanStudies.University ofPittsburgh Press,Pittsburgh, PA, 2008. x + 260 pp. Notes.Bibliography. Index.$27.95(paperback). This book offers a rangeof competing perspectives ratherthan a unified approachto the issue of the influence of transnational actorson Central and East Europeantransitions. The editorsassertthattransnational actors have been the'darkmatter thatheld thevariousaspectsofpostcommunist transition together'. The bookproposes thata quadrupletransition framework goingbeyondtheprevious focuson nation-building, democratization and marke tization - willprovidedeeperinsights. This cnew transnationalism', inwhichtheboundaries between international relations and comparative politics beginto collapse,takesa broad definition oftransnational actorsand thisis reflected in thebroad rangeofissuesand policyareasthatthisbookcovers. Thereare twomainareasoffocusin thisvolume:first, howtransnational actorsseekto exerttheir influence, and second,howinfluential theyactually are at thenationallevel. In terms ofthefirst theme,thefirst essay,perhapsunsurprisingly, focuses on theroleoftheEuropeanUnion.Here,Milada AnnaVachudovaoutlines the rationalist view of the EU's conditionality approach to dealingwith prospective members. Throughtheuseofpassiveand activeleverage, theEU has been the 'causal behemoth'of transnational influence on Centraland EasternEurope.This essayis theodd one outin thisvolumeas itrehearses a well-known argument and unlike theotheressaysdoesnotfocuson anyone particular issueorpolicyarea. The nextthreeessaysseekto combineelementsof bothrationalist and constructivist approaches. NicoleLindstrom looksat efforts tocombathuman trafficking in theBalkans,something thathas becomean 'obsession'forthe international community. The existence ofcompeting frames or conceptions 790 SEER, 88, 4, OCTOBER 2010 being used by different transnational actorsto approach the problemis identified as a potential sourceofnegative or unintended consequences. Wade Jacoby'sessaytakesa 'coalitionapproach' to theway thattransnationalactorsseektoexerttheir influence. Byputting their resources behind 'minority traditions' (domestic groupsthathavebeen 'losers'inpolicyareas), transnational actorsseekto levertheirresources and promotechange. Juliet Johnsonlooks at the politicsof adoptingthe Euro and the role ofcentral banksusinga two-track diffusion modelin whichbothpersuasion and materialcoercionmayoperatetogether on different groupsin different ways. Rachel Epstein'sessay on bank privatization focuseson the influence ofinternational organizations and how thisis contingent on theirability to mobilizedomesticreformers and theneed to builddomesticresonancefor their arguments. Aftertheseassessments of the variouspotentialmechanismsfortransnationalinfluence , thebook moveson to itssecondthemeoftheextentof suchinfluence in a diverse rangeofpolicyand issueareas. The attempts bytheCatholicChurchto advanceitsagendaare thefocus of TimothyByrnes'sessay.He findslimitedresultsand thatthe Church's efforts on someissuesbackfired: an exampleofunintended consequencesof transnational actors'influence. RobertHislope looksat transnational attempts to countercorruption in Macedoniaand arguesthatcorruption actually had a morepositive sidethan transnational actorsperceived interms ofwarding off ethnic strife. He argues thatcorruption could actuallybe a 'glue' holdingtogether an otherwise unstable society, and thattransnational influence was ineffective. Polishforeign policyis thesubjectofDavid Ost's essayand he finds that itsdevelopment involved theplaying off ofone transnational influence against another, namely thatoftheUS/NATO and theEU. UnliketheEU accession 'negotiations', therewas an opportunity forthe Polisheliteto exerciseits independence indeveloping a pro-USforeign policyand thisopportunity was taken, especially due tothefearthatEU policywasdominated byFranceand Germany. The lastessayis a realist critique byMichaelKennedyofthetransnational politicalliterature on military and energy security. He concludesthatstates are stillthedominantactorsas theyseekto protecttheirinterests. Middlerangetheories used in theexisting transnational influence literature maynot be adequate. Overallthisbookoffers a wide-ranging assessment ofboththemechanisms of transnational influence and the extentof thisinfluence in variousissue areas.It willbe useful to thosenewto thearea oftransnational influence as wellas offering detailedessaysforthoseinterested in certain specific areas.It istobe commended foritsbreadthofcoverageand willingness toencompass competing views. SussexEuropean Institute University ofSussex Peter Simmons ...

The Romani Movement: Minority Politics and Ethnic Mobilization in Contemporary Central Europe. Studies in Ethnopolitics by Peter Vermeersch (review)

788 SEER, 88, 4, OCTOBER 2OIO analysis ofhowinsurgencies ariseand howtheycan be effectively dealtwith, bothbythetarget stateand thewiderinternational community. In anyfuture edition,Perritt shouldseriously considerrevising histitleto makeclearthe book'swiderscope and relevance.The current titleunnecessarily limitsits potential appeal and market. Department ofDefence & International Affairs RoyalMilitary Academy Sandhurst M. A. Smith Vermeersch, Peter.TheRomani Movement: Minority Politics andEthnic Mobilization in Contemporary Central Europe. Studiesin Ethnopolitics. BerghahnBooks, NewYorkand Oxford, 2006.xiv+ 261pp. Tables.Notes.Bibliography. Index.$80.00: £47.00. Gypsies,or Roma as theycall themselves, are an unpromising subjectfor political mobilization. Theyare an ethnie, nota nation;theylivein scattered communities, lacka standard written language,tendtobe poorlyeducatedif notilliterate, aredividedintheir aims,andlackan ideology thatmight sustain themin politicalaction.On the otherhand, as Vermeersch notes,it was Gypsyrioting thatgave riseto whathe callstheRomani movement in the first place. His bookis a conscientious comparative study ofwhyGypsies inHungary, theCzech Republicand Slovakiahavefailedtomobilizeeffectively inpursuit oftheir objectives. Vermeersch setsoutmeticulously thechangesintheir conditiondatingback a decade and a halfin each country, and discussestheir impacts.He has equippedhimself forthetaskwithrelevant politicalscience textsfromTed RobertGurronwardsbut,sadly,he neglects equallyuseful contributions fromsociologists (HenryA. Landsberger, forexample).This reflects a recenttendency forsocial scientists to confine themselves to their ownparticular discipline, and ithinders thedevelopment ofscholarship inthe area. Romanitendtobe resented bytheir neighbours and discriminated against. Most Roma remaininertifnot entirely apatheticwhilethe activists rarely agree about means or ends. Beforethecollapseof Communismtheywere better caredforbypaternalistic Communist regimes. Butthosedayshavelong past, and meanwhilediscrimination againstGypsieshas increased.In the Czech Republictheyhaveevenbeenattacked byskinheads. Yet though they havebecomemorevocaltheRoma havenotbeeneffective participants inthe politicalfreemarketthathas obtainedsince,and such alleviationof their condition as theyhaveexperienced in recent yearshas been obtainedmostly thanks totheintervention ofoutsideagencies, including theEU, OECD and Soros Foundation.Roma have notbeen effective in standing up forthemselves ,and the authoridentifies himself withthemsufficiently to sharethe frustrations ofRomaniactivists at thisfailure. In Hungary,forexample,the betteraccess to decenthousingthatthey enjoy,theexistence ofan advisory nationalGypsyCouncil,and a Hungarian REVIEWS 789 Gypsyculturalassociationare the fruits of outsideraction,not theirown. Romaniactivists are sometimes regarded withsuspicion bytheveryconstituencytheyare intendedto serve,whileGypsycynicsregardthe activists as 'puppetsin thehandsofthepoliticians in power5. Furthermore, theactivists themselves areriven bydissent. Somewantcultural minority rights and access totheeconomicand socialadvantages enjoyedbyothercitizens, whileothers simply wantthesame rights as othersubjects.And theyask formorethan their democratically-elected governments can afford to givethem. Vermeersch carefully setsout the gains and lossesin termsof poverty, discrimination and unemployment in legal,politicaland international contexts , butthetext veersoccasionally towards advocacyand theeconomiccontextdoes notreceiveadequateattention. London PhilipLongworth Orenstein, M. A., Bloom, S. and Lindstrom, N. (eds). Transnational Actors in Central and East EuropeanTransitions. Pitt Series in Russian and East EuropeanStudies.University ofPittsburgh Press,Pittsburgh, PA, 2008. x + 260 pp. Notes.Bibliography. Index.$27.95(paperback). This book offers a rangeof competing perspectives ratherthan a unified approachto the issue of the influence of transnational actorson Central and East Europeantransitions. The editorsassertthattransnational actors have been the'darkmatter thatheld thevariousaspectsofpostcommunist transition together'. The bookproposes thata quadrupletransition framework goingbeyondtheprevious focuson nation-building, democratization and marke tization - willprovidedeeperinsights. This cnew transnationalism', inwhichtheboundaries between international relations and comparative politics beginto collapse,takesa broad definition oftransnational actorsand thisis reflected in thebroad rangeofissuesand policyareasthatthisbookcovers. Thereare twomainareasoffocusin thisvolume:first, howtransnational actorsseekto exerttheir influence, and second,howinfluential theyactually are at thenationallevel. In terms ofthefirst theme,thefirst essay,perhapsunsurprisingly, focuses on theroleoftheEuropeanUnion.Here,Milada AnnaVachudovaoutlines the rationalist view of the EU's conditionality approach to dealingwith prospective members. Throughtheuseofpassiveand activeleverage, theEU has been the 'causal behemoth'of transnational influence on Centraland EasternEurope.This essayis theodd one outin thisvolumeas itrehearses a well-known argument and unlike theotheressaysdoesnotfocuson anyone particular issueorpolicyarea. The nextthreeessaysseekto combineelementsof bothrationalist and constructivist approaches. NicoleLindstrom looksat efforts tocombathuman trafficking in theBalkans,something thathas becomean 'obsession'forthe international community. The existence ofcompeting frames or conceptions ...

Forgotten Transnational Connections and National Contexts: an ‘entangled history’ of the political transfers that shaped Belgian feminism, 1890–1914

The history of Belgian feminism before World War I has hitherto been written almost exclusively from within a national framework. Using the perspective of ‘entangled history’, this article focuses on the forgotten transnational influences that shaped the pre‐war movement for women’s rights in Belgium, starting with the Dutch and French political transfers that triggered the birth of organised feminism in the early 1890s, followed by the interventions of the International Council of Women and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance aimed at creating a Belgian affiliation. This entangled history profoundly upsets the prevailing categorisation of socialist versus so‐called ‘bourgeois’ feminism and thus contributes to the growing international body of work that criticises these accepted concepts in feminist historiography.

Between transnationalism and state power: the development of Russia's post-Soviet environmental movement

Transnational linkages are generally considered advantageous for environmental activists who face an unsympathetic government at home. Since the early 1990s, Russia's environmentalists have developed a number of transnational ties that have increased their leverage over the Russian government. However, transnational support interacts with domestic constraints on mobilisation in unpredictable ways, generating obstacles as well as opportunities. The recentralisation of state power in Russia has presented environmentalists with a dilemma as they attempt to engage constructively with state bodies that prioritise security and economic growth and have little tolerance for autonomous public mobilisation or transnationalism. A comparison of environmental mobilisation on the extraction of petroleum resources, climate change and forestry illustrates the power and limits of transnational influence on Russia's environmental movement in a context of renewed state authority and economic globalisation. Thus far, Russian environmentalists have found it easier to achieve rhetorical change than institutional change in environmental governance; institutional change appears most likely when environmental and economic goals coincide.

Spirit, Mission and Transnational Influence

This article examines the transnational significance and impact of the Church of the Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for all nations (Embassy of God), a Nigerian-led Pentecostal church based in Kyiv, Ukraine. It shows that the church’s uniqueness lies both in its huge following and in the fact that the majority of its members are white Eastern European. In this sense, it represents a “negative instance” of current trends within African-led migrant churches, where membership is pre- dominantly African. The church’s popularity is explained in terms of its Pentecostal spirituality, which satisfies the spiritual hunger fostered by socialism in Eastern Europe and challenges the staid religiosity of older denominations such as the Eastern Orthodox Church. Its deliberate pursuit of a transnational agenda is evident in the extensive foreign engagements of its leader, Sunday Adelaja, its international media ministry, the growing network of pastors attached to its ministry and its global missionary vision.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender psychology: an international conversation among researchers

This article reports on a conversation between 12 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) psychologists at the first international LGBT Psychology Summer Institute at the University of Michigan in August 2009. Participants discuss how their work in LGBT psychology is affected by national policy, funding and academic contexts and the transnational influence of the US-based stigma model of LGBT psychology. The challenges and possibilities posed by internationalism are discussed with reference to the dominance of the United States, the cultural limits of terms such as ‘lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender’, intergenerational communication between researchers and the role of events such as the Summer Institute in creating an international community of LGBT psychologists.

THE ‘NORTH ATLANTIC TRIANGLE’

This paper examines a few key moments in television's navigation of the competing demands of the national and the transnational in the 1950s, focusing on the relationship between Great Britain, the USA and Canada. Three figures whose careers demonstrate the complex currents of transnational exchange in this ‘North American triangle’ are discussed: Alistair Cooke, British commentator on American life, selected in 1952 to host the BBC-inspired experimental programme Omnibus (1952–61); Hannah Weinstein, the Hollywood independent producer whose historical adventure series filmed in Britain gave employment to blacklisted writers during the coldest years of the cold war; and Sydney Newman, the Canadian drama producer whose career spanned the CBC, NBC, ABC (in the UK) and the BBC. The troubling but productive role of transnational influences within national television cultures is explored along with the challenges it presents for media historiography.

International women's magazines in China: Global and local perspectives

Unlike other global media products that are imported from overseas, international women's magazines in China are published via licensing agreements or joint ventures with local companies. These ownership patterns allow local editions of international women's magazines to negotiate the tensions and contradictions between the global players and local publishers. Given the influence of cultural and commercial forces in different economic environments, international women's magazines provide a challenging platform for exploring the interaction between global and local forces. Through a theoretical framework of hybridity theory and in-depth interviews with editorial personnel from the magazine industry, this study explores the global and local forces that have contributed to the production process of international women's magazines in China. The findings reveal that these magazines are a result of a multi-level convergence of local realities and global influences. Although there are factors of control and dependence in many areas such as the publishing ideas, editorial policies, the training of personnel, and the quality of production, both Western-style and Japanese-style women's magazines tend to appropriate and rework global cultures to satisfy local readers' needs, albeit in different ways. As a result, local and transnational influences are inextricably interwoven in the production process of international women's magazines in China. The study provides an extensive understanding of the global processes, the consumers, and the cultural forces that are shaping the media, particularly magazines in China.

Politics of representation in the era of globalization: discourse about marriage migrant women in two South Korean films

The complexity of globalization challenges our understanding of culture and identity as these are reshaped by dominant/marginal identity relations that become increasingly fluid across transnational space. Ex/neo-colonial South Korea, growing in economic power and transnational cultural influence mostly in Asia, has become a host to Asian immigrants. Accompanying the changing ethnoscape, media discourse constitutes (more than reflects) immigrant identities and their experiences. Study of discourse in two South Korean films about marriage migrant women reveals constructions that serve new nation-building policies in the global era while maintaining traditional assumptions about, and realities of, gender, race/ethnic, and class relations.

Privatizing pensions: the transnational campaign for Social Security reform

List of Figures and Tables ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 CHAPTER ONE: The Rise of Pension Privatization 14 CHAPTER TWO: Evaluating the Impact of Transnational Actors 36 CHAPTER THREE: A Model of Transnational Actor Influence 55 CHAPTER FOUR: The Transnational Campaign for Pension Privatization 71 CHAPTER FIVE: Domestic Enactment of Pension Privatization 95 CHAPTER SIX: Transnational Influence and Its Limits 141 CHAPTER SEVEN: Analyzing Transnational Public Policy 166 Appendix: Understanding Pension Privatization 179 References 195 Index 213

Ummah in Zomba: Transnational Influences on Reformist Muslims in Malawi

This paper aims to explore the transnational aspects that have influenced ideological and organizational changes of Islam within Malawi. It is impossible to review these changes from an isolated position, like the national context. In order to truly understand the reasons and elements of change, the national situation of Islamic reformation in Malawi has to be placed within the context of worldwide Islamic reformation. Changes within the transnational arena have affected and influenced financial, social, political, ideological and cultural processes and organization in local situations. This paper presents an analysis of the Muslim community in Malawi beginning from a historical perspective working towards the economical, social and political situation of Muslims in Malawi today. It focuses on the transnational influences that have affected these changes in religious and social identification of a small group of reformist Muslims in Malawi.

Islamic Morality, Youth Culture, and Expectations of Social Mobility among Young Muslims in Northern Ghana

The article presents an understanding of why young Muslims of Northern Ghana increase their religious commitment, wishing to be part of the modern world. It is stated that they place a growing importance on mastering discourse on Islamic morals, and that discourse of this kind has increased in correlation with an increase in trans-national influences on the local Islamic community. The strengthened relationship between Muslims in West Africa and the Arab world has led to an understanding of Islam that is related to Wahhabi and the Muslim Brotherhood traditions. The young committed Muslims of Northern Ghana find that Islam carries “civilizing properties” as they encounter, through their religious engagement, new possibilities of taking part in the modernization process. Because the moral discourse of the religious authorities is emphasizing the authority of the religious texts, it has widened the general access to schooling. Moreover, by stating that engaging in education of almost any kind is to be acknowledged as a religious and moral act, it has legitimized young Muslims becoming engaged in further religious and secular studies. The result of this development has been that the young generation of Muslims is presently creating informal moral communities across established sectarian lines, and this engagement has led to an increase in their self-respect and their skills for taking part in the development of civil society.

Claiming the Grounds for Reform: Agrarian and Environmental Movements in Indonesia

This essay examines the convergences, tensions and mutual influences of agrarian and environmental movements in Indonesia and their connections to transnational movements under state‐led development and neoliberal governance regimes. The authors argue that environmental movements of the last quarter of the twentieth century affected the strategies, struggles, mutual relations with, and public discourses of resurgent agrarian movements in diverse ways. Environmental movements had significant influences on national policy, law and practice within a decade of their emergence under the state‐led development regime of President Suharto. Environmental activists used the appearance of technical ‘apolitical’ concerns to their advantage. They mobilized at multiple scales, targeting laws and other institutions of state power at the same time as organizing the grassroots. The repression of the Suharto regime forced agrarian reform activists underground, while environmental issues were mainstreamed. Agrarian movements in Indonesia today, under a decentralized regime dominated by neoliberal policies, have faced new opportunities and constraints due to national and transnational influences of environmental and agrarian reform discourses and networks. We show how these influences have changed the political fields within which Indonesian agrarian movement groups operate: forming, shifting and struggling over critical alliances.

Seven years that changed the world: perestroika in perspective

PART 1 1. Introduction PART 2 2. Gorbachev: New Man in the Kremlin 3. The First Phase of Soviet Reform, 1985-86 4. Fundamental Political Change, 1987-89 5. Reconstructing the Soviet Political System PART 3 6. Institutional Amphibiousness or Civil Society? The Origins and Development of Perestroika 7. The Dismantling of the System and the Disintegration of the State 8. Transnational Influences in the Transition from Communism 9. Ending the Cold War 10. Gorbachev and His Era in Perspective Index

Turkey Divided

Abstract: The period leading up to the July balloting exposed a key fault line in Turkish society. On one side of the divide were those who supported the economic and political reform process that the AKP had undertaken since coming to power in the elections of November 2002. The main objective of the second of the "two Turkeys" is the preservation of the Republic as a unitary, strictly secular, and nationalist country rather than one which adopts federal or confederal arrangements to accommodate the Kurds, permits Islam to make its weight felt in the public sphere, and opens itself up decisively to transnational influences.

The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism by Pericles Lewis

8I4 Reviews vincing and offers theway for the fuller integration ofMaeterlinck reception into the history ofGerman-language drama. ROYAL HOLLOWAY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON ROBERT VILAIN The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism. By PERICLES LEWIS. Cambridge: Cam bridge University Press. 2007. 298 pp. CI4.99; $24.99. ISBN 978-o-521 53527-4. It is a central objective of Pericles Lewis's Cambridge Introduction to Modernism to reintegrate thediverse strands of research thathave fragmentedmodernist studies in the last two decades. Lewis acknowledges the pivotal role of the established greats (Joyce,Pound, Eliot) but complements theirvoices with those fromoutside the main stream. Langston Hughes, Mina Loy, Siegfried Sassoon, and many others get their say on the controversial questions of the day, and the reproduction of aVanessa Bell painting on the cover epitomizes Lewis's strategy of approaching modernist literature byway of itscultural context. Chapters I to 3 are devoted to thegenesis of 'high'modernism, which is traced from Flaubert and Baudelaire throughWilde, Manet, Picasso, and Yeats. The strength of these chapters is their attention to both breadth and precision. They arewritten in a readable, jargon-free style and peppered with illuminative short interpretations of texts ranging frompoetry to sculpture, from diary entries tomanifestos. Important terms and concepts that are not covered by themain argument are explained in se parate boxes, and there are short bibliographies covering influential texts from the period and useful secondary literature. Lewis chooses England as his focal point but takes into account a largenumber of transnational influences from the literatures and cultures ofAmerica, Spain, Italy,Germany, Russia, China, and Japan. Chapters 4 to 6 detail themain modernist innovations inpoetry, prose, and drama, respectively.Here, thediscussion moves closer to the literary text.Lewis's approach consists in structuring each chapter around one representative work: The Waste Land forpoetry, Ulysses forprose, and Six Characters inSearch of an Author fordrama. This works better in the areas of poetry and prose, where much innovation originated within the internationalist anglophone avant-garde, than itdoes in thedrama chapter; but even here, Lewis succeeds in focusing on the important developments through his discussion of Pirandello's play. For the student, his approach has two decisive advantages: the focus on a single work makes the chapters more cohesive than their counterparts inother literaryhistories; and the technical explanations are unusually accessible since one need only to have read this single text to be able to retrace and comprehend theirpractical application. Chapter 7 moves on to the 1930s, which Lewis presents as a decade of repoliti cization. After a survey of political developments throughout Europe, in particular the rise of Fascism, he compares the responses to these developments on the part of modernists ranging fromPound and Eliot toAuden and Orwell. Inwhat isone of the best sections of thebook, he thus reintegrates all phases and major representatives of (British) modernism while at the same time illustrating how the new political influ ences resulted innew approaches toart and the aesthetic. The short conclusion traces theemergence ofpostmodernismin thepioneering works of Warhol, Celan, and Beck ett.Here, too, thebroad perspective points to the international and interdisciplinary impetus behind the entire book. Comprehensive surveys always triggerdiscussions as to their focus and choice of examples, and it is safe to say that The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism will be no exception. For instance, its introductory chapters treatVirginia Woolf and her MLR, I03.3, 2oo8 8I5 work ratherextensively,while equally innovative contemporaries such asHemingway, Musil, andGertrude Stein arementioned rarely throughout thebook. However, given the tendency in recent literaryhistory to cover an ever increasing number ofwriters and to avoid evaluating their importance, Lewis's unconventional structuringmight be just the right choice. His book certainly bridges a gap for students and teachers who have been looking foran up-to-date, comprehensive, yet accessible introduction to literary modernism. UNIVERSITY OF AUGSBURG TIMO MULLER ReconstructingHybridity: Post-Colonial Studies inTransition. Ed. by JOELKUORTTI and JopiNYMAN. (Studies inComparative Literature, 5 I)Amsterdam: Rodopi. 2007. x+330 pp. ?70; $95. ISBN 978-90-420-2I4I-9. This collection of critical articles reconsiders the concept of hybridity within the fieldsof postcolonial theory and literature.The volume isdivided into two sections, the firstoffering challenges to and reinterpretations of hybridity theory, the second consisting of textual...

Law, Culture, and Ritual: Disputing Systems in Cross-Cultural Context. By Oscar G. Chase. New York: New York Univ. Press, 2005. Pp. 224. $45.00 cloth; $20.00 paper.

Law, Culture, and Ritual: Disputing Systems in Cross-Cultural Context. By Oscar G. Chase. New York: New York Univ. Press, 2005. Pp. 224. $45.00 cloth; $20.00 paper. Chase, a specialist in civil litigation at NYU Law School, teaches a seminar called and Disputing. Law, Culture, and Ritual-Disputing Systems in Cross-Cultural Context is an outgrowth of that interdisciplinary seminar. It is a compact book (with a beautiful cover), presented in the clear and genial voice of a dedicated teacher. Law, Culture, and Ritual begins with an attempt by the author/ instructor to jolt readers out of a complacent acceptance of the inevitability of the dispute that happen to be most familiar to them. Chase devotes an entire chapter to the Azande of Central Africa, who use oracles to resolve disputes over witchcraft and adultery. He explains how Azande dispute reflect local belief systems and social and political hierarchies and how, reflexively, those and procedures help maintain class and gender relations. remainder of the book draws lessons from the Azande example, demonstrating how dispute in every society and help constitute its culture. Aware of recent critiques of the mirror thesis, Chase nevertheless contends that, The metaphysics, values, symbols, and social hierarchy of any collectivity will set the bounds within which it organizes its dispute-handling institutions (p. 5). Culture imposes limits on what is possible in a given society, even though professional elites exercise some autonomy in devising dispute according to their own specialized interests, and even though transnational influences and legal transplants may relocate dispute beyond the cultures in which they were originally developed. Our own oracles, according to Chase, are our law courts, where evidence is submitted to the jury much as benge, a potentially poisonous substance, is fed to chickens by the Azande. Like the Azande, we know our law oracles are fallible, yet we exalt the process by which they render their verdicts, and we surround that process with ritual that protects judges and jurors from recrimination or even revenge. Like the Azande, moreover, we have created dispute and procedures that are peculiarly appropriate-indeed, essential-for our society. Chase identifies and discusses four distinctive characteristics of civil litigation in America: the trial jury, the extensive use of pretrial discovery, the relatively passive role of the trial judge, and the adversarial deployment of expert testimony. He argues that these features distinguish American law not only from that of the Azande but also from other European legal systems and even from the British system that was our common law heritage. unique features of the American system of adjudication in civil cases derive, according to Chase, from a distinctive American ideology reduced by Lipset to just five words: liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez-faire (p. …

The First Globalisation and Transnational Labour Activism in Southern Africa: White Labourism, the IWW, and the ICU, 1904–1934

In this article, I argue that the history of labour and the working class in southern Africa in the first half of the twentieth century cannot be adequately understood within an analytical framework that takes the nation-state as the primary unit of analysis. 1 The literature has, with very few exceptions (notably Bond, Miller and Ruiters 2001:4‐5), generally presented the history of labour in the region in this period as a set of discrete national labour histories for Namibia (South West Africa), South Africa, Zambia (Northern Rhodesia), Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia), Swaziland, and so forth. Each national labour history is presented as taking place within a distinctively national context where organisational and political boundaries correspond with the administrative borders of the state, with labour politics developing inside these boundaries in response to national conditions, culminating in the emergence of national working-class movements. Such approaches project postcolonial borders onto the period of imperial rule, ignoring the way in which international labour markets, regional political economies, and networks of activists and propaganda operated both across, and beyond, the British Empire and southern Africa to create a transnational southern African working class in which activists, ideas and organisational models circulated. Transnational influences played a critical role in shaping working-class movements, which straddled borders and formed sections across the region and beyond it. Furthermore, ideological, ethnic and racial divides within the working class across southern Africa played a more important role in constituting divisions than state borders. This article explores these issues by examining three moments of transnational labour activism in southern Africa in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Firstly, there was the tradition of ‘White Labourism’: rather than being a peculiarly South African phenomenon, it originated in Australia, spread to South Africa in the early 1900s, and subsequently developed into a significant factor in labour politics in the Rhodesias by the 1920s. Secondly, there was the tradition of revolutionary syndicalism, which stressed interracial working-class

Funding civil society: foreign assistance and NGO development in Russia

@fmct:Contents @toc4:List of Tables iii Note on Transliteration iii Preface iii Acknowledgments iii List of Abbreviations iii @toc2:1. Crossing Boundaries: Analyzing Civil Society and Transnational Influences 1 2. Introducing the Protagonists: Russian NGOs and Foreign Donors 000 3. A Tale of Two Sectors: The Mixed Success of Foreign Assistance Across Issue Areas 000 4. Regional Realities: The Influence of Local Political Environments on Foreign Assistance Outcomes 000 5. Implications for Theory and Practice 000 @toc4:Appendix 1: List of Interviews Conducted 000 Appendix 2: Interview Questions 000 Appendix 3: Details on Donor Programs 000 Appendix 4: Presence of Foreign Assistance Providers, by Region 000 Appendix 5: Regional NGO Populations 000 Notes 000 Bibliography 000 Index 000

Neoliberalism, embedded neoliberalism and neocorporatism: Towards transnational capitalism in Central-Eastern Europe

This article analyses the key features and origins of three variants of transnational capitalism emerging in Central-Eastern Europe: a neoliberal type in the Baltic states, an embedded neoliberal type in the Visegrád states, and a neocorporatist type in Slovenia. These regimes are characterised by their institutions and performances in marketisation, industrial transformation, social inclusion, and macroeconomic stability. Explanations for regime diversity are developed at two levels. First, it is argued that the legacies of the past, and their perceptions as either threats or assets to these countries' future, have had deep impact on regime types. Legacies and initial choices were no less crucial for the degree of democratic inclusion, and the different patterns of protest and patience on the paths towards the new regimes. Second, the article demonstrates the importance of transnational influences in industrial transformation and social inclusion.