Topic: Culture / Content Type: Journal Article

1. The Role of Mass Media Propaganda in Shaping American Culture: A Study on the Torches of Freedom

Author:: Oğuz Kartav and Mikail Uğuş
Publication Date:: 01-2025
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:: Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:: This study examines the profound impact of mass media propaganda on American culture, with a particular focus on the iconic Torches of Freedom campaign. Originating in the late 19th century and led by Edward Bernays, this campaign aimed to reshape social norms surrounding women and smoking. Initially, a societal taboo prevailed, suggesting that respectable women did not smoke. Although tobacco consumption was common in America during the late 19th century, women were neither expected nor permitted to partake in the consumption of tobacco products until 1929. Women were eventually allowed the option to smoke discreetly, but even then, it was considered taboo by American society due to its perceived unfeminine nature. Particularly in North America and Europe, women’s smoking had long been associated with immorality and questionable sexual behaviour. Through the analysis of historical documents, media artefacts, and scholarly literature, this research examines the multifaceted impact of the Torches of Freedom campaign on American culture. It explores how mass media, through carefully crafted messages and imagery, played a significant and influential role in shaping public perceptions and behaviour. By examining the campaign’s relationship with dominant cultural ideologies and its effects on gender roles, the research aims to illuminate the complex interplay between propaganda, cultural values, and social change. The study focuses on advertising, consumerism, and cultural practices in the United States by examining the strategies employed in the Torches of Freedom campaign through the lens of propaganda.
Topic:: Mass Media, Culture, Propaganda, and Advertising
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

2. Dünyada ve Türkiye'de Zaman Kapsülleri'nin Gelişimi

Author:: Mutlu Erbay
Publication Date:: 06-2025
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: AURUM Journal of Social Sciences
Institution:: Altinbas University
Abstract:: Bu çalışma, zaman kapsülleri konusunu gündeme getirerek bu konuya dikkat çekmeyi hedeflemektedir. Makalede, zaman kapsüllerinin Amerikalılar ve Türkler için sosyo-kültürel açıdan önemi vurgulanmakta ve önemli örnekler ele alınmaktadır. Zaman kapsülleri, Amerikan kültüründe hatırlama, hatırlatma ve anma yöntemi olarak kullanılmaktadır. Hatıraların anılması, düşünülmesine ve bu yolla anlamlandırılmasına sebep olur. Kültürler, kendi öz hedeflerine yönelik hatırlatma ve hatırlamalar yapabilmektedir. Bu hatırlamalar, geçmişi gelecek kuşaklara tanıtır ve aktarmada önemli bir rol oynar. Zaman kapsülleri, geleceğe gönderilen mektuplar aracılığıyla gelecek temennilerini yansıtmakta; kişilerin ve kurumların geleceği öngörme ve şekillendirme çabalarını simgelemektedir. Yeni açılan bir fabrika, yeni üretilen bir ürün, borsa için yazılan mektuplar, yeni hammadde üretimleri veya uzaya gönderilen yeni araçlar gibi çeşitli sebeplerle zaman kapsülleri hazırlanabilmektedir. Amerika Birleşik Devletleri'nde devlet kurumları, yüksek enstitüler ve fabrikalar tarafından zaman kapsülleri oluşturulmakta, kayda geçirilmekte ve belirlenen tarihte açılması planlanmaktadır. Zaman kapsülleri, Amerikan tarihinin önemli kültürel davranışlarından biri olarak kabul edilmektedir. Aşağıdaki makalede, önemli zaman kapsülleri ele alınarak incelenmiştir. Gelecekte açılmak üzere hazırlanan bu kapsüller, geleceğe bir not düşmekte ve bu yönüyle geleceği planlama ve öngörme amacı taşımaktadır. Türkiye’de de hazırlanmış zaman kapsülleri mevcuttur. Çalışma, bu örneklere de kısaca değinerek zaman kapsüllerinin Türk kültüründeki yeri ve önemini ortaya koymaktadır.
Topic:: Culture, Memory, Tradition, and Time Capsules
Political Geography:: Turkey, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

3. A Comparative Analysis of the Piece “Op. 6 No: 2 Nocturne” by Clara Wieck Schumann, one of the Female Composers of the Romantic Period, with the Nocturnes of Frederic François Chopin

Author:: İlayda Çetin and M. Nevra Küpan
Publication Date:: 04-2025
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Academic Inquiries
Institution:: Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:: This study includes a comparative analysis of the composition titled "Op.6 No.2 Nocturne" by Clara Wieck Schumann, a female composer from the Romantic era, with the nocturnes of Frederic François Chopin. The purpose of this research is to determine the similarities and differences between Clara Wieck Schumann's aforementioned work and the works of Frederic François Chopin, who is an important male composer of the same period, in the same form. In this study, firstly a literature review was conducted. Then, in line with the purpose of the research, a comparison of Clara Wieck Schumann's composition titled "Op.6 No:2 Nocturne" with Frederic François Chopin's compositions titled "Op.27 No:2 Nocturne" and "Op.9 No:2 Nocturne" was carried out using harmonic, form and style analysis methods. When examining the harmonic analysis of the compositions, including accompaniment and chord styles, ornaments, rhythmic structures, and stylistic features, it is observed that they exhibit a similar emotion and style. Accordingly, it can be inferred that Clara Wieck Schumann was influenced by Frederic François Chopin in her composition. The conducted analysis is of importance not only in determining the similarities and the differences between the works of both composers, but also in terms of increasing the visibility of female composers in the music world.
Topic:: Culture, Music, Frederic Chopin, and Clara Schumann
Political Geography:: Global Focus

4. The Art of War: PRC Weaponizes Culture to Galvanize the People

Author:: Arran Hope
Publication Date:: 11-2024
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: China Brief
Institution:: The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:: The Party sees culture as a tool to achieve its strategic ambitions both inside and outside the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Speeches, articles, and conferences portray it as central to achieving national rejuvenation. Party discourse on culture is shot through with militaristic terminology. Not just echoing Mao-era rhetoric, this reflects Beijing’s desire to “engineer souls” in pursuit of a strong nation. Artists, culture workers, and academics are perceived as pawns in a project to present the PRC globally as peaceful and prosperous, but the Party is aware of the deficiencies of its soft power.
Topic:: Arts, Culture, Soft Power, Academia, and Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
Political Geography:: China and Asia

5. New Textbook Reveals Xi Jinping’s Doctrine of Han-centric Nation-Building

Author:: James Leibold
Publication Date:: 05-2024
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: China Brief
Institution:: The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:: Another cultural revolution is in full swing in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This is not the purported class revolution Mao advocated in the past, but rather a wave of Han cultural and racial nationalism. Xi’s new approach to ethnic minority policy repudiates the Party’s past promise to allow minority nationalities to exercise political and cultural autonomy, becoming “masters of their own house.” Following more than ten years of incremental change, a new textbook from scholar-officials articulates the discourse, ideology, and policies associated with a new Han-centric narrative of China’s past and future. In this conception, the sovereignties and homelands of the Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongol, and other indigenous minorities are erased and replaced with a seamless teleology of the Han colonial and racial becoming.
Topic:: Education, Culture, Political Parties, and Xi Jinping
Political Geography:: China and Asia

6. Emin Alper'in Kurak Günler Filmine Bakhtinyen Bir Yaklaşım

Author:: Baran Barış
Publication Date:: 12-2024
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: AURUM Journal of Social Sciences
Institution:: Altinbas University
Abstract:: Bakhtin, çeşitli sanat dallarında oluşturulan anlatıların incelenmesi için Einstein’ın Görelilik Kuramı’ndan ödünç aldığı kronotop kavramını geliştirmiştir. Bu kavram çerçevesinde yapılan anlatı çözümlemelerinde zaman ve uzam kurucu öğe kabul edilerek birlikte ele alınmaktadır. Bakhtin’e göre zamansal ve uzamsal belirlenimler, duygu ve değerlerin izlerini taşır. Yüzyıllara bağlı olarak değişen kronotopları yazınsal metinler üzerinden sınıflandıran araştırmacı yol – karşılaşma kronotopu, şato kronotopu, kesişme kronotopu (misafir odası ve salon kronotopu, sokaklar, kentler, kırsal bölgeler ve taşra kasabaları) ve eşik (kopuş) kronotopu olmak üzere dört temel kronotop belirlemiş; on dokuzuncu yüzyıl metinlerine kadar sürdürdüğü çözümlemelerinde ulaştığı kronotop türlerinin yanı sıra farklı ülkelerin yazınsal metinlerinde ve farklı dönemlerde başka kronotopların da saptanabileceğine dikkat çekmiştir. Kronotop kavramı, günümüzde yazın dışındaki sanat dallarında üretilen anlatıların çözümlenmesinde de kullanılmaktadır. Emin Alper’in Kurak Günler (2022) filmi açılış sekansından itibaren zaman ve uzamın kurucu öğe olarak karşımıza çıktığı bir anlatı sunmaktadır. Bu yapısı, filmin kronotop kavramı çerçevesinde incelenmesine olanak sunmaktadır. Suç ile güç arasındaki ilişkiyi irdeleyen, linç kültürünü besleyen kodların nasıl yeniden üretildiğini ortaya koyan ve izlekleriyle anlatıdaki zaman ve uzam öğelerine ilişkin obruk vb. imgeler arasında doğrudan bağlantı kuran Kurak Günler filmindeki kronotopların saptanmasının ve anlatıdaki işlevlerinin çözümlenmesinin amaçlandığı bu çalışmanın araştırma soruları şöyledir: (i) Filmde hangi kronotoplar bulunmaktadır? (ii) Bu kronotoplarla Bakhtin’in belirlediği dört temel kronotop arasındaki benzerlik ve farklılıklar nelerdir? (iii) Filmde tespit edilen kronotoplar, anlatının yapılandırılmasında hangi işlevlere sahiptir? Yapılan incelemelerde filmdeki kronotopların Bakhtin’in dört temel kronotopuyla büyük ölçüde benzerlik gösterdiği tespit edilirken anlatının kronotoplarla filmin temel izlekleri arasındaki ilişkinin koşutluğu üzerinden yapılandırıldığı görülmüştür.
Topic:: Arts, Culture, Film, and Chronotope
Political Geography:: Global Focus

7. Kök Ailenin Evlilikte Partner Seçimine Etkisi

Author:: Isik Özel, Ilayda Dikmen, and Hacı Tuğberk Yılmaz
Publication Date:: 12-2024
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: AURUM Journal of Social Sciences
Institution:: Altinbas University
Abstract:: Kök aile, hayatımız boyunca yaşantımızı, davranışlarımızı, yönelimlerimizi ve birçok tercihimizi etkileyen temel unsurlardan biridir. Partner seçiminin de kök aileden etkilenen önemli alanlardan biri olduğu düşünülmektedir. Bu açıdan, partner seçiminde ağırlıklı olarak ele alınan karşı tarafı çekici bulma, erişilebilirlik ve beğeni/karşılık görme faktörlerinin dışında, kök ailenin etkisinin de ele alınması, yapılan seçimin doğasına dair daha detaylı sonuçlar elde etmek açısından oldukça önemlidir. Bu fikir ve bulgulardan hareketle Türk kültüründeki aile yapısının farklı boyutlarının, bireylerin partnerlerini seçerken hangi alanlarda etkileri olabileceği araştırma sorusunu oluşturmaktadır. Araştırma, iki farklı ölçeğe dayalı anket soruları kullanılarak 18-64 yaş aralığındaki 306 katılımcıyla gerçekleştirilmiş; sonuçlar ağırlıklı olarak regresyon ve korelasyon analizleriyle elde edilmiştir. Bu doğrultuda, Türk aile yapısının işlevselliği ile partner seçimindeki kısıtlayıcı inançlar arasında negatif ve anlamlı bir ilişki gözlemlenmiştir. Türk aile yapısı, aile içi güç dengesi ve sosyal algılar, evlilik için aşkın yeterli olduğu inancını ve zıt partnerlere çekilme eğilimini etkilemektedir. Türk aile yapısının modern kalıplarda gelişmesinin, tek doğru partner ve bu partneri bulmanın doğal bir süreç olduğuna dair inanca negatif yönde etkisi mevcuttur. Evlilik öncesi birlikte yaşama düşüncesi, dini ve kültürel değerler nedeniyle ön planda değildir. Ancak, dini değerlere verilen önemin artması partner seçimi için aşkın yeterli olduğu düşüncesini desteklemektedir. Sonuç olarak, incelenen alt boyutlar arasında pozitif ve negatif yönde anlamlı ilişkiler saptanmış, Türk kültürü çerçevesinde kök ailenin partner seçimi üzerindeki etkisi vurgulanmıştır. Araştırmanın bulguları, ilgili literatür kapsamında ele alınarak tartışılmıştır.
Topic:: Culture, Family, Marriage, and Mate Selection
Political Geography:: Turkey and Middle East

8. AURUM Journal of Social Sciences (Volume 9, Number 1) - Full Issue

Author:: Meltem Yilmaz, Büşra Alparslan, Arzu Uğurlu Kara, Mesut Özcan, and Ceyhun Ilsever
Publication Date:: 07-2024
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: AURUM Journal of Social Sciences
Institution:: Altinbas University
Abstract:: The first article of this issue is on the field of law. The study is titled “A Street Law Course Experience for Raising Human Rights Awareness”. This study by Meltem Yılmaz aims to examine the contribution of ‘street law’ type legal clinic courses to increase of human rights awareness among both law students and society. As a result of the study, the author finds that giving street law-type law clinics as elective courses in the last years of faculty of law education is the most efficient option; in addition, the importance of enhancing the courses in terms of active learning methods and techniques was emphasized in order to increase efficiency concerning high school and secondary school students’ achievements. The second study in this issue is “War and Peace in Game of Thrones as An Epic Narrative”. This study from the field of psychology was conducted by Büşra Alparslan. The aim of the study is to investigate to examine the war and peace themes in the TV series Game of Thrones, which can be considered as an epic a popular culture narrative. This study’s results reveals that Game of Thrones somewhat differs from traditional epic narratives. Although classical themes like “just war discourse” pops on and off throughout the show, it is also emphasized that, unlike the traditional approach, war is not a glorious act. The third study in this issue is from the field of human resources titled “Adaptation of the “Design Thinker Profile” Scale into Turkish” by Ayça Uğur and Kemal Özkan Yılmaz. As the title suggests, the aim of the study is to adopt “Design Thinker Profile” scale developed by Chesson (2017) to the Turkish and to assess its validity and reliability. The results show that the scale has validity and reliability in Turkish. Another study in our journal is titled “Development of Maritime Public Transportation in Istanbul in the Framework of Organic Transportation Approach”. The study conducted by Ceyhun İlsever and Ayşe Buse Cılız aims to make concrete suggestions for the development of urban maritime public transportation in Istanbul in line with the principles and criteria of organic transportation, which is developed as one of the approaches to integration, accessibility, and governance in transportation. As a result, the authors propose some suggestions under specific headings to increase the demand for maritime transportation in Istanbul. The last study in this issue is from the field of psychology. The article by Ecem Kıran, Yaren Erdoğdu ve Naci Can Sümengen is titled “Examining the Relationship Between Eating Attitudes and Self-Compassion”. As its title suggests, this study aimed to examine the relationship between eating attitudes and self-compassion and to investigate the prevalence of this relationship in a non-clinical sample by evaluating it in terms of chronic and psychological disorders. As a result, a statistically significant negative relationship between disordered eating attitudes and self-compassion levels is found; in addition, results shows that the self-compassion levels of participants diagnosed with a psychological disorder were significantly lower, while participants with a chronic disease had eating attitudes that were significantly disordered compared to participants without a psychological disorder. In addition to the research articles briefly summarized above, we have also included a book review in this issue. Ahmet Tuğşad Doğukan and Fatih Dağ reviewed Thomas Piketty’s “Nature, Culture et Inégalités” book. According to the reviewers, in this book, Piketty examines the complex dynamics of socioeconomic disparities, questioning traditional assumptions that can be characterized as deterministic and offering an innovative perspective on the causes and evolution of inequality. While traditional assumptions emphasize natural factors such as individual abilities or resource endowments, Piketty argues that contrary to these factors, political and social forces have been more influential in the course of inequality throughout history.
Topic:: Development, Culture, Law, Human Resources, Social Science, and Public Transportation
Political Geography:: Turkey and Global Focus

9. Russian Propaganda Efforts: Historical Continuities Accompany Technological Changes

Author:: John Katzka
Publication Date:: 02-2024
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: As public affairs officer at the US embassy in Moscow, I had the opportunity during the last years of the Soviet Union to engage with and at times respond to its propaganda efforts. My personal impressions and the conclusions I drew from them form the basis for the observations below. Whether something constitutes propaganda often depends on your point of view. The Oxford English Dictionary defines propaganda as “information that is often biased or misleading, used to promote a political cause or point of view.” Propaganda, in other words, is not analytical, although it may pretend to be. It seems to me that any one-sided presentation is in its essence propagandistic. The promotion of US foreign policy may be as propagandistic as that of any other country. Ours is “good” propaganda only because we are on the side of the angels. There are three overarching influences on the role of propaganda in a particular country: first, that country’s underlying culture; second, its form of government (in the case of Russia, authoritarianism); and third, the role of media-related technology.
Topic:: Science and Technology, Culture, Authoritarianism, Propaganda, and Soviet Union
Political Geography:: Russia and Eurasia

10. Satchmo, the Duke, and the Count: Representing America at its Best Despite Having Experienced its Worst

Author:: Larry Tye
Publication Date:: 05-2024
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: Exuberant crowds in New Orleans had crowned Louis Armstrong the pretend King of the Zulus during Mardi Gras in 1949. But in 1960 when he visited the Belgian Congo, not far from the fountainhead of the Zulu people, the Congolese feted him like the real thing. Tom-tommers drummed a greeting reserved for tribal chiefs and hailed him as “Ambassador Extraordinary of the United States.” Grass-skirted tribesmen painted in violet and ochre carried him through the streets of Leopoldville on a homemade throne mounted on poles, a company of police and soldiers leading the way. His hosts had hoped to draw 1,500 people to his concert at King Baudouin Stadium, but so popular was Satchmo that 10,000 churning fans packed the stands. While they chanted “Satcheemo,” he shouted back, in wretchedly accented French, “Merci beaucoup, beaucoup.” His proudest triumph during his twenty-four-hour trip defied even the power of diplomats and kings. As he told it, “There was fighting, and they stopped the war because I played there that night.” That wasn’t merely Satchmo telling tales. The Congo was embroiled in a deadly civil conflict, with civilians caught between rampaging troops. But as one headline hollered, “They Called Truce To Dig Louis.” The Associated Press trumpeted, ‘“Wizard’ Satchmo Unites the Congo!” The warring sides, the AP explained, “joined forces to provide a heavily armed cordon ‘round Satchmo and his party.” They actually danced and cheered side-by-side at that night’s concert, although they resumed their bloody fighting once Louis left the country.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Culture, Soft Power, Memoir, and Music
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

11. Pakistan’s quest for soft power status: A case study from 2018 to 2022

Author:: Faiza Idrees and Azhar Shahbaz Khan
Publication Date:: 12-2024
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Political Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: In international politics the impression of the state is significant in order to achieve a convincing position. Soft power helps a state to establish its image globally. This article analyses how Pakistan is striving for Soft power status. The time period under study is from 2018 -2022. It also highlights the Role of state and individuals in pursuing the status of Soft Power. To answer the questions the researcher has explained the efforts of different government institutions and various individuals and the outcomes of their activities, especially during a time when the nation is frequently labeled a "failed state." Through a careful academic analysis, a case for the potential of soft power to transform Pakistan's international reputation has been presented.
Topic:: Religion, Food, Tourism, Culture, Soft Power, and Music
Political Geography:: Pakistan and South Asia

12. A Call for Space-Domain Intelligence Training

Author:: Genelle M. Martinez
Publication Date:: 03-2024
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Advanced Military Studies
Institution:: Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
Abstract:: U.S. Space Force intelligence initial skills training (IST) currently occurs via U.S. Air Force pipelines. However, as the Space Force matures, it must take ownership of its training programs. Consolidating guardian intelligence initial skills training under the purview of the newest Service fosters a critical space-domain focused mindset and guardian culture at the outset of a member’s career.
Topic:: Intelligence, Culture, Armed Forces, Space, Training, Space Force, and Identity
Political Geography:: United States of America and Space

13. Gross National Happiness Policy Outputs in Bhutan from 1972 to 2014*

Author:: Michael Givel
Publication Date:: 10-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Bhutan Studies
Institution:: Centre for Bhutan & GNH Studies (CBS)
Abstract:: In 1972, Bhutan’s Fourth King declared Gross National Happiness (GNH) more important than Gross Domestic Product. But what was the nature of GNH legislation policy outputs before and after the adoption of the written 2008 Bhutanese Constitution that required that Bhutan to promote GNH as a national policy goal? This study examines from 1972 to 2014 (six years after the adoption of the Bhutan Constitution) GNH policy outputs. There were two stages related to Bhutan’s four pillars that include sustainable and equitable economic development, good governance, cultural preservation, and environmental protection. In the first stage lasting to the 1990s, Bhutanese policy outputs emphasized preserving traditional culture. In the second phase from the 1990s to 2014, Bhutanese policy outputs emphasized Buddhist modernism in which all four pillars balanced traditional Buddhist values with modern issues like health care and illiteracy.
Topic:: Culture, Constitution, History, Legislation, Public Policy, and Gross National Happiness (GNH)
Political Geography:: South Asia and Bhutan

14. The 21st Century Global Crisis: Laying out the Foundations for a New World Civilization

Author:: Jorge Armand
Publication Date:: 10-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Bhutan Studies
Institution:: Centre for Bhutan & GNH Studies (CBS)
Abstract:: The article focuses on principal traits of modern culture, i.e., on what we term the foundational cultural myths of Modernity, and to examine the role these myths have played in the contemporary crisis. A set of new epistemological insights is outlined that would be needed to understand and to act upon the root causes of this crisis, such as the oneness of Reality, the diversity within the oneness of Reality, the impermanency of all phenomena and the relativity of time and space. In this context, the actual functionability of modernity’s myth is questioned (the Myth of Eternal Progress) and its concrete manifestation as a model of social development based on the perennial increase of economic growth, i.e., industrial production and consumerism, in detriment of fundamental values, which we believe are the origin of both that existential system and the current global crisis. As a substitution, a model of development, Optimizing Homeostatic Paradigm, is proposed. This implies dismantling all policies of unrestricted economic growth and the replacement of Gross Domestic Production (GDP) as the standard measure of social development and human progress. The criticism that limitation of economic growth would reduce economic activity and would foster loss of employment, therefore more poverty, is refuted. In this theoretical framework, the concepts of human freedom, development and technology are revised, and new ones are proposed. Finally, Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness (GNH) index is shown as an example of alternative model of development, and inspiration for a new kind of world civilization.
Topic:: Culture, Crisis Management, Modernity, and Gross National Happiness (GNH)
Political Geography:: South Asia and Bhutan

15. Russia’s Cultural Heritage Can Be a Bridge to the Future

Author:: Robert Cox
Publication Date:: 02-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: Russia has become Europe’s ogre. Beyond the brutality of Moscow’s onslaught on Ukraine looms a harsher ideological backdrop. Too many Russian citizens have been enticed into seeing this invasion as a defence of Russia’s security, national pride and identity, history, Weltanschauung, international standing, and imperial stature. They eulogise Russia’s national church as a defensive shield despite its abuse of spiritual humanity, its soldiers as crusaders. Europeans, in response to this baggage respond with a mixture of fear or unease. Anger, too, along with frustration and ultimately something akin to hatred. With all this comes an inclination in the western world to reject everything Russian. This rejection of a rich culture risks tarnishing our mindset and that of our children. Russian orchestras, dancers and sopranos have been banned from western stages—largely on the pretext that they have not condemned Putin and his acolytes. Ultimately Russian culture risks being airbrushed out of western European mentalities. It is worth pausing for a moment and just looking at what we are rejecting, perhaps unconsciously. Hitherto—and for many Europeans still —Russian culture has had an important place in our education and upbringing. Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Rimsky Korsakov, Shostakovich and the sublime Prokofiev have delighted our concert audiences for decades. Marc Chagall’s imagination has stimulated ours. Ballet in Europe—or the US, for that matter—would not be what it is without the great influence of the ballet russe. Nor, in a related world, would we be so intellectually rich without the heritage of Russian scientists, physicists and mathematicians.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Culture, Literature, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, and Eurasia

16. The Heart of Arabs. Emirati Songs for Egypt

Author:: Edyta Wolny-Abouelwafa
Publication Date:: 06-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Nowa Polityka Wschodnia
Institution:: Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Abstract:: Creating patriotic songs in the Arab countries is very common. They can represent different types of music, can be connected to special occasions or be created without them, just from the ‘need a heart’. The author of the article has been doing research on contemporary Egyptian patriotic songs for years. On the basis of her results, she has decided to divide all the analysed songs into the those created by Egyptians for Egyptians and in addition created by other artists for Egypt and its citizens. The job of the latter she calls ‘patriotic songs’ as well and divided them into two main groups which are connected with the way they identify themselves. The article presents the results of the analysis of selected songs released by United Arab Emirates’ artists for Egypt. The article’s author’s goal was to check the songs’ topics and which one of the previously mentioned groups they represent. She also mentions the figure of Hussain Al Jassmi, the most popular, in recent years, Emirati singer creating patriotic songs for Egypt. She analysed the songs on the basis of the songs’ topics and combined it with the contemporary relations between United Arab Emirates and Egypt while mentioning their origins historically. All of this allowed her to reach the conclusions presented in the article.
Topic:: Culture, Arab Countries, Music, and Identity
Political Geography:: North Africa, Egypt, and United Arab Emirates

17. Cultural Security in the Context of the Analysis of the Religiosity of Belarusian Students

Author:: Viktoryia Baretskaya
Publication Date:: 06-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Nowa Polityka Wschodnia
Institution:: Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Abstract:: Religion can become an instrument of manipulation and destabilization in society, everything depends on people who have access to the levers of power, the position of Church hierarchs and the level of religious literacy of the population. The article is devoted to the study of the concept of the correlation of national identity and Christian universalism, as well as the model of Church–State relations in the modern social teaching of the Russian Orthodox Church, in the context of the analysis of some aspects of the religiosity of the Belarusian student youth, namely quantitative indicators of trust in the Church, attendance of divine services, and confessional affiliation.
Topic:: Security, Religion, Culture, Students, and Identity
Political Geography:: Eastern Europe and Belarus

18. Introducing the Research Project “Sacred Narrative – The Political Dimension of Japanese Mythology"

Author:: Klaus Antoni, Julia Dolkovski, and Louise Neubronner
Publication Date:: 06-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Nowa Polityka Wschodnia
Institution:: Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Abstract:: The Kojiki and Nihon shoki have been integral to the formation of Japanese identity, especially since the 18th century. As such, they were constantly exposed to processes of sacralization and desacralization, i.e., the attribution and removal of authority. The research project “Sacred Narrative – The Political Dimension of Japanese Mythology” is concerned with how certain systems of thought or ideology used these texts in a way that raised them to an elevated position or deprived them of it. Organized in three focus areas, the project delves into the topic of the historical change the Kojiki and Nihon shoki underwent in terms of interpretation and instrumentalization from the Edo period up to modern-day Japan. These investigations are integrated into the research group “De/Sacralization of Texts” at the University of Tübingen that started its work in January 2022. In this interdisciplinary context, “Sacred narrative” seeks to promote the integration of East-Asian textuality into general theory formation.
Topic:: Politics, Culture, Identity, and Mythology
Political Geography:: Japan and Asia

19. Pashtun Cultural Transition between the Militants and Military

Author:: Syed Wasif Azim and Muhammad Naveed Akhtar
Publication Date:: 11-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Review of Human Rights
Institution:: Society of Social Science Academics (SSSA)
Abstract:: This article aims at discussing the violent conflict and its inter-relationship with militants and military in Swat, Pakistan. It argues that the term Badal may be recognized as having multiple forms and meanings. This paper demonstrates that in the initial phase of the conflict people used militant’s ‘tag’ while in post-military-operations period took the benefit of their ties with the military to take revenge from their opponents. This study underscores that this phenomenon has impacted the socio-cultural symbols and practices of badal negatively and has further defamed socio-cultural norms and values of the society. The study for being empirical in its methodology is based on 45 open-ended in-depth interviews, 05 focus group discussions and ethnographic observation, in Swat, Pakistan.
Topic:: Culture, Violence, Military, Pukhtuns, and Pashtuns
Political Geography:: Pakistan and South Asia

20. Shaping the Words of a Culture: Heydar Aliyev’s Lasting Impact on the Identity of a Country

Author:: Elnur Gajiev
Publication Date:: 04-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Baku Dialogues
Institution:: ADA University
Abstract:: How can literature shape the voice of a people? How may it invite the rediscovery and reclamation of centuries’ old tradition while simultaneously orienting a nation towards an uncertain, though desperately future filled with hope? How might words, poems, stories, and songs reveal an identity long repressed, yet now bold enough to form itself anew? It would not be a surprise if a similar strand of inquiry kept Heydar Aliyev company as he envisioned the future for his fledgling nation through a time of great tumult and transition. For he was no stranger to the significant role of the arts in sustaining, developing, and proliferating the merits of culture, particularly one with roots as deep as the literary arts of Azerbaijan.
Topic:: History, Culture, and Identity
Political Geography:: Azerbaijan and South Caucasus

21. Sport Diplomacy: An Old Frontier Rediscovered

Author:: Heather L. Dichter and Maame Quakyi
Publication Date:: 09-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:: Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:: Dr. Heather L. Dichter is Associate Professor of Sport Management and Sport History at the Inter- national Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK. Her publications include Bidding for the 1968 Olympic Games: International Sport’s Cold War Battle with NATO (Massachusetts, 2021) and two edited books: Soccer Diplomacy: International Relations and Football Since 1914 (Kentucky, 2020) and, with Andrew Johns, Diplomatic Games: Sport, Statecraft, and International Relations Since 1945 (Kentucky, 2014).
Topic:: Diplomacy, Culture, Sports, and Interview
Political Geography:: Global Focus

22. The Impact of Colonization on Language Policy in Indigenous Languages

Author:: Elisa Loncon
Publication Date:: 09-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:: Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:: On 18 December 2019, in its 50th Plenary Session, the United Nations Gen- eral Assembly proclaimed the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022–2032) to draw attention to the endangerment and erasure of indigenous languages and to assemble states to allocate funds to revitalize and promote languages.1 This piece will discuss the linguistic policies applied to indigenous peoples and how they have influenced the abandonment of native languages to favor Spanish. Since the Spanish set foot on the lands of the continent, they began to exterminate indigenous languages. The dispossession of the people’s wealth was not only territorial—it was also linguistic and cultural. This piece reflects on the political nature of languages and explains how racism, as part of the colonial paradigm, has contributed to the reduction in the importance of languages and limited our understanding of them to a cultural artifact or folklore.
Topic:: Politics, Culture, Language, Indigenous, Colonization, and Language Policy
Political Geography:: Global Focus

23. Cultura de la seguridad pública en Europa

Author:: Diego Torrente
Publication Date:: 12-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:: International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:: La cultura puede entenderse como un sistema de adaptación humana al entorno. Cuando éste cambia, aquella tiende también a evolucionar. Sin embargo, existen inercias culturales que permiten entender algunas pautas en las conductas de la población, incluso en contextos de cambio acelerado como el actual. Identificar los rasgos culturales de los países europeos en el ámbito de la seguridad pública es el propósito del presente artículo. Para ello, en primer lugar, se propone un sistema de indicadores que parte de una revisión teórica. Los mismos recogen aspectos de pensamiento y de conducta. En segundo lugar, se aplican esos indicadores buscando los mejores datos comparados disponibles de acuerdo con una serie de criterios de calidad. Se utilizan series temporales amplias para identificar las tendencias que se mantienen en el tiempo y que pueden resultar de inercias culturales. La principal aportación del presente estudio respecto a otros previos es utilizar un abanico geográfico, temporal, y de dimensiones culturales más amplio. Con ello, se logra un dibujo más afinado de las distintas representaciones y conductas de la Europa de la seguridad. El texto comienza por revisar cómo se ha definido y abordado el concepto de “cultura de la seguridad” en la literatura internacional. A continuación, se identifican sus dimensiones clave, se propone un sistema de indicadores para cada una de ellas, y se seleccionan un conjunto de fuentes europeas de datos sobre seguridad pública. El trabajo tiene un carácter más descriptivo que explicativo de las diferencias culturales. Al dibujar, de forma comparada, la cultura de la seguridad pública en Europa, este artículo contribuye también a entender mejor la situación actual en España, y a anticipar posibles escenarios en un contexto de fuertes cambios en los riesgos, como los que se analizan en las distintas contribuciones a este número de la revista.
Topic:: Security, Culture, Public Security, and Comparative Analysis
Political Geography:: Europe

24. Chinese Soft Power

Author:: Robert Edmund Łoś
Publication Date:: 01-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:: Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:: China’s modern power is based on traditional sources: territory size, demographics, economy, and army. An important factor of power is soft power, which is based on culture, foreign policy (including economics), and values. Chinese soft power resources have an old tradition and the possibility of using them is large, and most importantly, in the current international environment, they can use them to gain and maintain an advantage over competitors. The article presents the elements of China’s soft power that determine its advantage over other countries and the weaknesses that may limit its influence. It largely determines the research methods used: statistics and system analysis. The latter method makes it possible to determine the scale of China’s influence and the chances of using them in the 21st century.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Culture, Soft Power, and Values
Political Geography:: China and Asia

25. Resistance and Counter-Memories in Persian Black Metal

Author:: Pasqualina Eckerstrom
Publication Date:: 03-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:: The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:: Sina Winter, a pioneer of Iranian black metal, was forced to leave Iran because of his music. As the leader of the band From the Vastland, Sina has produced music celebrating the pre-Islamic heritage and Zoroastrian tales. After performing at the Inferno Music Festival in Oslo in 2013 and appearing in the documentary Blackhearts (2017), he was forced to relocate. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), targeted him as a result of his media exposure. In Iran, several artists are persecuted due to their music. In the West, black metal bands tend to be influenced by ancient legends and traditions, whereas in religious authoritarian countries, such practices are often harshly punished. In Iran, black metal is generally considered to be blasphemous. In addition, the lyrical content featured in Sina’s work is controversial, as he celebrates a heritage that the Islamic Republic wishes to eradicate from the collective consciousness. This paper presents some results of my most recent studies looking at how black metal artists in Iran use their art to preserve their ancient heritage and defy social norms.
Topic:: Culture, Social Movement, Music, and Resistance
Political Geography:: Iran and Middle East

26. How Poster Art of the “Long 1960s” Fueled International Solidarity

Author:: Lincoln Cushing
Publication Date:: 03-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:: Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:: With internet and cell phone connectivity enabling instant worldwide dissemination of information, many individuals presume that communication between international social justice activists during the twentieth century was tedious, insular, and ineffective. Yet analysis of the vast output of published graphics from that period reveals a different story, one of dynamic interchange and cross-national support.
Topic:: Cold War, History, Arts, Culture, Solidarity, and Internationalism
Political Geography:: Global Focus

27. Dumping the Jewel in the River: Renewing and Perpetuating the Memory of Bhutanese Statehood in Punakha Domchoe

Author:: Sonam Kinga
Publication Date:: 12-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Bhutan Studies
Institution:: Centre for Bhutan & GNH Studies (CBS)
Abstract:: Theatrical re-enactments of historical battles characterize some local festivals in western Bhutan in contrast to the largely Buddhist mask dances that are performed during such festivals elsewhere in the country. They serve as medium of recording, renewing and transmitting the memory of historic moments in the life of spiritual and political leaders. For example, the festival of Nangkar Dog (snang-dkar bzlog) in Chang village, Paro is dedicated to commemorate the victory of Phajo Drugom Zhigpo over his spiritual adversary called Lama Lhapa (Zangpo, 2003). Lo-ju (blo-‘gyur) is another festival celebrated every three years in villages of Wangdue Phodrang. It is ‘an articulate narrative of the events leading up to the formation of the Drukpa state by conquering hostile forces…’ (Chophel, 2003, p.85). Punakha Drubchen (spungs-thang sgrub-chen) popularly known as Punakha Domchoe (hereafter domchoe) theatrically re-enacts a historic battle that the Bhutanese fought against Tibetan forces in 1649. Dochula Tshechu is a very recent innovation that recounts Bhutan’s military operation in 2003 against Indian militants (David & Samuel, 2016). The domchoe is one of the most important festivals celebrated in the first month of the lunar calendar. It begins with fifteen days of sacred prayers and mask dances inside the congregation hall or dukhang (‘du-khang) of the magnificent Punakha Dzong, which was built by Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal (hereafter Zhabdrung Rinpoche) between 1639-40. Known as Goenwang Drubchen (mgon-dbang sgrub-chen), it is followed by three days of martial performances by people dressed as traditional militia called pazangpas (dpa’-mdzangspa - hereafter pazaps) to commemorate and re-enact the military victory in 1649. Both folk and mask dances are performed during the domchoe alongside the pazaps’ performances. The most significant episode of the domchoe with which it concludes involves immersion of multi-coloured sacred substances used as base of the mandala made for Goenwang Drubchen. This moment of dumping of jewel in the Mochu (mo-chu) river and three days of pazaps’ performances record and renew the memory as well as transmit the narrative of that historic victory to both the performers and the audience. The focus may be that particular battle but the overall narrative of the domchoe recounted through songs and dances also record, perpetuate and transmit the memory of the founding of Bhutanese state by Zhabdrung Rinpoche. In this article, I examine how this narrative is constructed and re-told in Punakha Domchoe. I argue that this local festival has transformed into a state-sponsored national ritual that serves important political objective of keeping alive, perpetuating and transmitting the memory of the founding of Bhutanese State.
Topic:: History, Culture, Theater, and Festivals
Political Geography:: South Asia and Bhutan

28. Military Culture 2.0: The Female Cadet’s Approach, Feminine Competencies, and Pan-Critical Feminism - Drawing examples from American and Norwegian Special Forces

Author:: Mariah Loukou
Publication Date:: 07-2022
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: Military values of honour, courage and loyalty are synonymous to male soldiers due to the association of the military with the alpha-male narrative. However, the everchanging nature of war urges for a new approach. One that is identified with female cadets and feminine competencies. The article explores examples from the U.S. and Norway to show practically how military training and education can benefit from the female soldiers’ approach. To back this argument, the author, explores feminist institutionalism and body politics. The author then suggests a new theoretical tool, pan-critical feminism, as the means to incorporate female values and competencies to represent the changing cohort of military institutions. The article finally discusses military culture through the lens of organisational culture to show that there is space for testing this idea, even though social perceptions create barriers to its implementation.
Topic:: Culture, Armed Forces, Feminism, and Military
Political Geography:: Europe, Norway, North America, and United States of America

29. Public and cultural diplomacy in European cities and states’ branding

Author:: Szymon Ostrowski
Publication Date:: 03-2022
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Nowa Polityka Wschodnia
Institution:: Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Abstract:: Article “Public and cultural diplomacy in cities’ branding” is a try to set ideas of city diplomacy and idea of branding into theory of international relations. Also, analysis of two West-European and two East-European cities is a chance to analyze chances and threats that both states and cities can encounter during a process of brand building. The main questions that article is answering are “Can cities use their resources and connections to make public and cultural diplomacy?” and “What influence on that process has factor of being a city in post-soviet country or former Soviet Satellite state?” It can be said that cities are able to brand and rebrand itself and they are more flexible than states that cannot run away from some aspects of its identity. In case of difference between western and post-soviet states, the difference is none. In research, numerous rankings, articles and analyses were used as a primary sources in order to characterize how different are images of Italy, Germany, Hungary and Ukraine. Also, paper tries to determine, what is relation between states brand and branding of its cities.
Topic:: International Relations, Diplomacy, Culture, Soft Power, State, Cities, and Branding
Political Geography:: Europe, Ukraine, Germany, Hungary, and Italy

30. A Salute to Cultural Diplomacy and Those Who Make It Possible

Author:: Renee M. Earle
Publication Date:: 08-2022
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: What do James Brown, Joseph Heller, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and the U.S. Sixth Fleet Band have in common? They all supported U.S. cultural diplomacy abroad. Not all of our cultural ambassadors are as famous— most are not — but together a very wide variety of American artists, performers, and writers have had positive impact on the image of the United States throughout the world. U.S. cultural diplomacy also includes many examples of citizen diplomacy and philanthropy, whether in partnership with U.S. embassies or independently. Together, these programs positively project our values abroad.
Topic:: Culture, Soft Power, and Cultural Diplomacy
Political Geography:: Turkey, France, North America, Brussels, Czech Republic, and United States of America

31. Language and Cultural Immersion Build Effective Communication

Author:: Bruce K. Byers
Publication Date:: 11-2022
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: Foreign language competency and cultural understanding are acknowledged as important skills for diplomats. While many Foreign Service Officers receive such training in Washington before going to an overseas assignment, few have the opportunity for the deep cultural and language immersion that I enjoyed as part of my first assignment for the U.S. Information Agency (USIA). In early 1972, after completing seven months of Farsi language training at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), I was posted to USIS Tehran. My family and I arrived shortly before the Persian new year, Now Ruz, and took up residence in an embassy apartment. Dave Dubois, the Public Affairs Officer, with the concurrence of the embassy Deputy Chief of Mission and USIA’s Office of Near East and South Asian Affairs (NEA), had arranged for me to spend some time with a host family in Isfahan. It was a “deep immersion” experience in which I would continue learning Farsi and experience life with a local family for several weeks.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Culture, Language, and Memoir
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, and United States of America

32. The Legal Role of Government in Protecting Cultural Heritage and Archaeological Sites in the War-Affected Countries: The Case of Iraq and Syria

Author:: Rukhsar Ahmad
Publication Date:: 06-2022
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Liberty and International Affairs
Institution:: Institute for Research and European Studies (IRES)
Abstract:: Conserving cultural heritage and archaeological sites have become a serious national concern in the Middle East for the war-affected countries, including Iraq and Syria. Because looting and violence have caused massive destruction of cultural heritage and archaeological sites, this study aimed to analyze the legal background concerning the protection of cultural heritage and archaeological sites in the context of Iraq and Syria during 2014 with the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). This study used the content analysis method and cross-country analyses for Iraq and Syria. The study is guided by two main questions: What is the government's legal role in protecting cultural heritage and archaeological sites? Are there any legal authorities in Iraq and Syria to protect cultural heritage and archaeological sites during war and conflict? In the end, this paper suggests that protecting cultural heritage is the legal responsibility of government which is supposed to be enforced in the legal foundation of the state as a national sovereign power.
Topic:: War, Governance, Culture, Legal Theory, Heritage, and Archaeology
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, and Syria

33. China and America: From Trade War to Race and Culture Confrontation

Author:: Walter Woon
Publication Date:: 03-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: PRISM
Institution:: Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:: The Thucydides Trap is an intellectual trap for the unwary when uncritically applied to China. China is not a rising power; it is a returning power. The psychology is different. Misapprehending the nature of the problem will exacerbate it. First and foremost, it is essential to recognize that it is not “China” and “the Chinese” that challenge America’s dominance. America’s adversary is the People’s Republic of China (PRC) led by the Communist Party of China (CCP). The Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan has been an ally of America since World War II. The millions of people of Chinese descent abroad are not automatically aligned with the PRC. To refer unthinkingly to the “Chinese” challenge is intellectually flabby and politically misguided.
Topic:: Race, Culture, Trade Wars, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:: China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

34. Circles, networks, and relations of Jerzy Giedroyc and “Kultura”

Author:: Iwona Hofman
Publication Date:: 01-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:: Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:: The purpose of the article is to describe the model and method of management of the Literary Institute and “Kultura” by Jerzy Giedroyc using the categories of circles, networks, and relations, verifying in this way the editor’s legend. The analysis covered the entire period of the Institute’s operation (1946-2000), comparing the internal periodization of the activity with the changes of the authors in the “Kultura” circle, which made it possible to distinguish between the friendly and home circle and three authors’ circles. The diaries, biographies, and letters provided the grounds to emphasize the significance of the network for building the position of “Kultura” as an opinion-forming magazine and a place of help for emigrant writers. Managing “Kultura” is presented, which is focused on creating relations and being objective. Synthesis, content analysis, and comparative methods have been used. This problem has not been discussed so far in the extensive literature on the subject.
Topic:: Culture, Media, Literature, and Literacy
Political Geography:: Global Focus

35. Cultural Security in Shaping the Generation of Civilizational Advancement Within the Universalization of Cultural Transformations. Based on Research Conducted in Samoa

Author:: Mirosława Jaworowska
Publication Date:: 01-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:: Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:: The Author has demonstrated that Samoan youth is not indifferent to cultural universals, despite attempting to co-create them in the course of a multi-cultural dialogue and globalization processes. The study was founded on research results conducted through local observations and a questionnaire distributed among students of the Faculty of Education at the National University of Samoa in Apia. The research aimed to learn about the opinions, aspirations, attitudes, and value systems of Samoan students as they represent the educated elite of the 21st-century generation. The interviewed approve of contemporary civilizational novelties, as long as those do not harm the traditional culture. The socialization process in the Samoan youth has been occurring on a borderland between upbringing, traditional family-tribal, and the modern state-citizen education in schools and social life. Family and traditional customs are still vivid despite being more open to contemporary civilization and state developments. Although cautious towards novelties that might threaten the Samoan culture, these attitudes may be assessed as a reformatory. Based on the results obtained in Samoa, it is justifiable to state that the process of cultural transformation universalization has been occurring there in many areas of reality.
Topic:: Security, Development, Culture, and Civilization
Political Geography:: Asia-Pacific and Samoa

36. Beijing Brushstrokes

Author:: Beatrice Camp
Publication Date:: 05-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: While studying Chinese in Taiwan in preparation for assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, I gave birth to baby William, our first child. Along the way, I learned a fair amount about Chinese birthing beliefs; our teachers at the Foreign Service Language School were happy to talk about the importance of fetal education and how my studying Chinese while pregnant would benefit the baby. A few days before my due date, my husband David dreamed I gave birth to a koala. David’s shock over having a furry animal for a son was compensated by the thrill of hearing the newborn utter a Chinese phrase. We had, after all, spent the previous two years struggling to master tones and characters. Not to mention that the little koala’s question of “gànmá” (干吗) or “whatever for?” seemed right on the money.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Culture, Language, and Memoir
Political Geography:: China, Taiwan, and Asia

37. Legitimacy and Significance of Art. 2A in the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973

Author:: Naveed Ahmed, Nawaz Khan, and Bakht Munir
Publication Date:: 01-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: South Asian Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: Religion is a nearly common institution in humanity. It is found in all societies past and present. All the prehistoric societies have the influence of religions in their societies. Religion goes back to commencement of the culture itself. There is no primeval society without religion. It is social treatise that deals with familiarity and restraint. Religion is concerned with the shared beliefs and practices of human being. Allah being creator of this universe delegates his authority to those who owes it as a sacred trust in order to maintain peace and justice on this earth as per his commandments. Islam is an ideology sanctioned by revealed law. It is a way of life universal, humanitarian, eternal and egalitarian based on equality, fraternity, justice and liberty. Now, it is the duty of the state as well as the people of Pakistan to resort to the golden rules of Islam as enunciated by the Holy Quran and Muhammad (PBUH), in all fields of life. The key concern of this research is to evaluate the legitimacy of Art. 2A in the constitution of Pakistan and how is it practiced in Pakistan?
Topic:: Religion, Arts, Culture, Constitution, and Legitimacy
Political Geography:: Pakistan and Middle East

38. National Identity in the Guest Room: The Palestinian “Duyuf”

Author:: Alessandra Gola
Publication Date:: 12-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:: Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:: This article explores the manifold dimensions of Palestinian contemporary identity through the lens of the ghurfat al-duyuf (traditional guests’ room) and its design. It argues that against a backdrop of a decades-long military occupation, this domestic space devoted to social functions is the terrain where families spontaneously express the core features of their identity and their participation in Palestinian nationhood through the layout of meaningful objects. It further contends that the narratives that emerged from the ghurfat al-duyuf over a ten-year observation period necessitate the reframing of Palestinian identity as a nuanced complex of diversities. Using a combination of architectural and ethnographic methods, the article seeks to provide an alternative approach to the subject matter, based on empirical observation of small-scale, everyday realities and common practices in the guests’ room.
Topic:: Culture, Identity, Nationhood, and Duyuf
Political Geography:: Middle East and Palestine

39. The UAE Art Scene: Challenges and Opportunities

Author:: Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi
Publication Date:: 05-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:: School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:: Sustainability and longevity of a thriving cultural sector in the Gulf must be treated as a priority, which is why long-term planning is essential in order to ensure the ability of the art field to meet with both current and future challenges.
Topic:: Development, Arts, Culture, and Cultural Diplomacy
Political Geography:: United Arab Emirates and Gulf Nations

40. More than a Monolith

Author:: Ariana Bennett
Publication Date:: 08-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:: School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:: Home to 54 unique countries, ancient civilizations and cultures, Africa is much more than meets the world’s eye.
Topic:: Civil Society, Economics, Environment, Culture, Social Policy, and Regionalism
Political Geography:: Africa

41. Shared History, Divided Consciousness: The Origins of the Sino-ROK Cultural Clash amid the Pandemic

Author:: Dong Xiangrong
Publication Date:: 07-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies
Institution:: Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:: Since 1992, bilateral relations between China and South Korea have sustained a state of positive development, although there have naturally been some moments of friction and contradictions. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, a number of disputes arose between netizens in China and South Korea over such things as the origin of pickled vegetables (paocai in Chinese, kimchi in Korean) and the Van Fleet award acceptance speech of South Korea’s BTS singing group. Different interpretations of a few thousand years of bilateral interactions—cultural, political, military, historical, and other topics mutually entangling the two—have led to some sharply vitriolic disputes between netizens in the two neighboring countries. Today’s tensions over national identity issues are rooted in how history is understood in the two countries and the enduring salience of cultural symbols of identity tied to history. Nobody could have anticipated that pickled vegetables would, ultimately, become a focus of the 2020 dispute between netizens of China and South Korea. Since over a decade ago when the Gangneung Danoje (端午祭) was granted UNESCO recognition and other developments occurred, all the way up to today’s pickles, it seems that almost all ongoing Sino-South Korean identity disputes are connected to the entangled histories of the two sides. Seen from the history of cultural exchanges from long ago, is traditional medicine, after all, your Chinese medicine or my Korean medicine? Is traditional dress our Han Chinese clothing or your Korean clothing? Is the May 5 festival our Duanwujie (端午節，Dragon Boat Festival) or your Danoje? Are vegetables marinated by pickling, our “paocai” or your “kimchi”? A thousand-year cultural legacy should be a factor to strengthen shared identity and tighten cultural connections in Sino-South Korea relations. However, against the current geopolitical and geo-economical background, shared cultural connections unexpectedly became the focus of contention between the two neighbors. Geopolitically, China and South Korea have been involved in different political camps since World War II. During the decades of Cold War, these two countries unfortunately fell into hot war although they were not each other’s main enemy. Each country describes the war and justifies its actions through its own lens. Was the war, after all, our “War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea” or your “Korean War”? Different memories of the war led to widespread, fervent protest from Chinese fans against South Korea’s popular singing group BTS’s acceptance speech in receiving the Van Fleet Award by the Korea Society. Sensitivity toward remarks about the war some 70 years ago has unexpectedly heightened recently. Geo-economically, China and South Korea have been interdependent over the past three decades. China has been the biggest trade partner of South Korea for many years. The Chinese market is bigger than the U.S. and Japanese ones combined for Korean products. The market matters. The Samsung Group and Hyundai Group have had to react to the voices of customers and stop showing an advertisement performed by BTS. Also, when Seoul and Washington decided to deploy THAAD in South Korea, Seoul had to face the negative economic consequences of its deteriorating bilateral relationship with China. Both geopolitical differences and historical memories are now capable of arousing economic retaliation. This chapter analyzes from the angle of how history and the present are linked the current identity conflicts between China and South Korea. It recognizes that using today’s concepts to evaluate history leads clearly to tearing asunder Sino-South Korean mutual historical recognition. At the same time, the influence of values, geopolitics, differences in level of development, and other factors, along with cultural clashes between China and South Korea intersecting with political and security topics mutually arouse and even worsen relations between the two peoples. Security confrontations and ideological divergence have severely worsened public relations between the Chinese and South Koreans. These disputes, such as the Korean War and THAAD, have become important backdrops for the emergence and exacerbation of cultural rifts.
Topic:: Politics, Culture, History, and COVID-19
Political Geography:: China, Asia, and South Korea

42. The Pandemic and its Impact on the South Korea-Japan Identity Clash

Author:: Scott Snyder
Publication Date:: 07-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies
Institution:: Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:: The global pandemic caused by the onset of the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 has tested governance at both the national and international levels by challenging the capacity of nations to provide effective public health solutions to protect their citizenry. The pandemic has deepened preexisting international rivalries while also creating diplomatic opportunities to promote international cooperation and public diplomacy. Rather than serving as a turning point for a new era in international relations, the pandemic and the global response appear primarily to have accelerated preexisting trends. In Northeast Asia, the pandemic has accelerated deepening rivalry between the United States and China, reinforced political paralysis between Japan and South Korea, primarily by providing a pretext for privileging domestic concerns and constituencies at the expense of international relations, and has generated heightened new foreign policy challenges resulting from deepening identity-based major power rivalries. This chapter reviews the deepening of identity-based challenges facing Japan-South Korea relations prior to 2020, examines the conditions generated by leadership responses in both countries to the pandemic, identifies missed opportunities for pandemic-related cooperation between the two countries, and addresses challenges and opportunities facing the Japan-South Korea relationship in the context of anticipated recovery from the pandemic as well as the shifting geopolitical environment as tensions mount between China and the United States.
Topic:: Culture, Domestic Politics, COVID-19, and Identity
Political Geography:: Japan, Asia, South Korea, North America, and United States of America

43. The Coronavirus: Fueling Concerns and Contrasts between India and China

Author:: Tanvi Madan
Publication Date:: 07-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies
Institution:: Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:: On February 26, 2020, an Indian plane landed in Wuhan carrying medical supplies for China, which was then the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. On its return, it evacuated a number of Indian and Bangladeshi nationals, as well as citizens of other countries. On the face of it, this is the kind of cooperative effort that is expected during a global public health crisis, with countries—even competitors—coming together at a time of need. However, the saga of that flight reflected another (prescient) dynamic—that COVID-19 would reinforce and increase rather than alleviate competition between China and India and complicate cooperation, with pandemic response and recovery efforts being seen through a competitive prism. That flight to Wuhan was not smooth; indeed, it was much delayed. Delhi had announced it a week earlier. It was a way to help China, demonstrate India’s capacity, and assist India’s neighbors by evacuating their citizens. But then Indian officials publicly, albeit anonymously, revealed that Beijing was not clearing the flight. The reason was unclear—China, after all, had been requesting international support. There also did not seem to be a bureaucratic snafu. So, was it the visual of Beijing accepting support from India, which Chinese officials and analysts sometimes dismiss as a less capable, even chaotic, neighbor? Was it the desire not to give India a soft power win, including with its neighbors? Was it because the flight involved a military transport aircraft procured from the U.S.? Was it retaliation for the temporary Indian detention of a Chinese ship bound for Pakistan due to a tip-off of dual-use items on board? Or was the reason Chinese unhappiness about Indian travel restrictions to and from China, or Indian export limits on certain medical products? Whatever the reason, China eventually gave the flight clearance, but only a week later and after much Indian negotiation. It was an early sign that the public health arena would not be immune from the competitive atmosphere prevailing between the two countries, and in the region as a whole. Subsequent events only bore that out. There has been considerable discussion about how countries’ perceptions of China would change due to the pandemic—at the beginning because of its mishandling, and then because of its recovery. This chapter argues that, rather than change perceptions, Beijing’s handling of COVID-19 increased the largely skeptical views of China that prevail in India, which had at least 29 million cases and over 385,000 deaths in India by mid-June 2021 (the 2nd and 3rd highest in the world respectively). This trend was further bolstered by the worst boundary crisis between the two countries since they fought a war in 1962. Together, the pandemic and the boundary crisis have ensured that the competitive and conflictual elements of the India-China relationship have been front and center over the last year. They have reinforced and accelerated concerns in India about China’s lack of transparency, its uncertain commitment to the rules-based order, as well as its growing influence in the Indo-Pacific and in international institutions. And they have demonstrated that despite Delhi and Beijing’s efforts to cooperate and to stabilize their relationship over the last two decades, it remains a fundamentally competitive one that can spill over into conflict. This chapter examines the impact of first the pandemic and then the boundary crisis on perceptions of China among the Indian government, establishment, and public. It proceeds to outline the consequences of these perceptions on Indian domestic policy, its partnerships with like-minded major and middle powers, and its counter-COVID activism. Finally, it considers China’s response, particularly to Indian policy changes.
Topic:: Bilateral Relations, Culture, Domestic Politics, and COVID-19
Political Geography:: China, South Asia, India, and Asia

44. The Russo-U.S. National Identity Gap and the Indo-Pacific in 2021

Author:: Gilbert Rozman
Publication Date:: 07-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies
Institution:: Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:: The start of the Biden administration demonstrated how far Russo-U.S. relations had sunk. On the heels of the massive cyber-hacking of U.S. government files, attributed to Russia, hearings for Biden’s appointees showcased harsh accusations. These were compounded by the arrest of Aleksey Navalny on his return to Moscow from convalescence in Germany after a near fatal poisoning in Russia, arousing severe rebukes in the U.S. Meanwhile, Russian officials and news sources attacked Biden personally as senile or a figurehead, a flawed U.S. system of democracy as a farce and dysfunctional, and U.S. plotting through Navalny as aimed at taking down Putin. Mutual accusations intensified in mid-March 2021 when Biden responded to a query whether he considered Putin a killer by saying, “I do,” which reverberated in sharp retorts by Putin and from many in Russia. In late April, as Russia massed troops on Ukraine’s border, Biden placed new sanctions on Russia, and Russian language grew even more threatening, relations had sunk even further. If there was no direct focus on the Indo-Pacific in such vitriolic exchanges, that can be seen elsewhere, especially in a further tilt toward China in a reputed “strategic triangle.” The Indo-Pacific is where relations between Moscow and Washington have the most potential, spared of the quandaries of NATO expansion and Soviet nostalgia over a sphere of influence or Middle East intrigues leading to shifting alliances. Many in Washington thought that a win-win scenario could be achieved if Moscow accepted integration into a dynamic region, a balance of power welcoming Beijing’s rise but preventing it from domination, the denuclearization and stabilization of Pyongyang, and breakthroughs in bilateral relations with Tokyo and Seoul. All of these objectives appeared consistent with Russian aspirations in the early 1990s, but they were thwarted by the national identity that was being reconstructed in the following quarter century, especially under Vladimir Putin from the mid-2000s. Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific proved to be a casualty of Russian thinking toward the United States, most of all, but also toward China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, and India. The Russo-U.S. identity gap has widened further in 2021. As Dmitry Medvedev wrote on January 16, the relations of Moscow and Beijing with the new U.S. administration are likely to remain extremely cold after years in which the trajectory of relations between Washington and Moscow had already been heading steadfastly downhill. Russo-U.S. bilateral relations and conflicting agendas in Europe and the Middle East draw avid interest, but the Indo-Pacific appears to be an inconsequential factor in their sharp rivalry. Nor do their differences in this region appear to have much significance for the development of the area, where China casts a broad shadow and U.S. alliances and partnerships are being renewed. To argue to the contrary leads one down several possible pathways: 1) this is the one promising arena for rebuilding relations; 2) Russia has a special role to play, distinct from China’s, due to its ties to India, North Korea, or ASEAN; 3) continued strengthening of Sino-Russian ties adds an element of concern for U.S. policies in the Indo-Pacific; or 4) Russia’s animus toward the U.S. may find an unexpected outlet in this region. Whichever pathway is explored, it is important to grasp how Russians perceive this region and its various sub-regions, while keeping in mind the context of the broader clash of national identities severely affecting the Russo-U.S. relationship. In this chapter, I offer an overview of the Russo-U.S. identity gap, turn to Russian thinking about the Biden administration, review Russian national identity, focus on aspects of Sino-Russian ties and their identity gap, subsequently shift to how Russians have viewed other parts of Asia of late, and conclude with an assessment of the prospects for Russo-U.S. relations in the region.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Bilateral Relations, Culture, Domestic Politics, and Identity
Political Geography:: Russia, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific

45. The Sino–U.S. National Identity Gap and Bilateral Relations

Author:: Danielle Cohen
Publication Date:: 07-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies
Institution:: Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:: The national identity gap between China and the United States has become increasingly apparent. Under Xi Jinping, China has sought to reclaim its historical greatness and proclaimed itself to be a responsible great power that offers a credible alternative to Western values, while also promoting increasingly authoritarian policies at home, complete with extensive repression in Xinjiang and renewed state control of the economy. Assertions of U.S. national identity were somewhat muted under Donald Trump, confused by the battle between those who supported the administration’s “America First” policy, its transactional approach to foreign affairs, and its deemphasis on human rights and democracy promotion in U.S. foreign policy, and those who worried about the global repercussions of an isolationist, nativist policy. For a time, the United States seemed more preoccupied with its trade war with China than with claims that the United States should act as the global protector of human rights and democracy. The COVID-19 pandemic further complicated already tense Sino–U.S. relations and called both countries’ national identities into question. While China had, as of spring 2021, succeeded in keeping its COVID-19 outbreak remarkably small, the damage caused by its initial suppression of medical reports, along with successful virus mitigation in a number of non-authoritarian states, called into question its claim to be a responsible world power on the basis of its pandemic performance. Meanwhile, the Trump administration failed to protect U.S. citizens from catastrophic death tolls and prevented the United States from taking a leading role in resolving this global crisis. In January 2021, the Biden administration took office with a focus on swiftly ending the pandemic, while also reasserting the traditional U.S. global leadership role. When combined with its assessment of U.S. power after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and of U.S. domestic social and political instability evident throughout 2020-2021, the pandemic has strengthened China’s perceptions of the United States as a country in decline, and of China as a “risen” great power that should now play a major role in shaping the global order. At the same time, although U.S. policy towards China remains firm despite the presidential transition, the underlying rationale has shifted from the “America First” approach of the Trump administration to the democratic values-infused approach of the Biden administration. As the world struggles to move beyond the pandemic, the national identities of China and the United States are increasingly defined in opposition to each other and seem likely to drive an ever more challenging bilateral relationship in the coming years.
Topic:: International Relations, Foreign Policy, Bilateral Relations, Culture, and Domestic Politics
Political Geography:: China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

46. Economic Well‐Being under Plan versus Market: The Case of Estonia and Finland

Author:: Anna Bocharnikova
Publication Date:: 01-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Cato Journal
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: This article investigates the dynamics of individual economic well‐being in Estonia and Finland over three periods: (1) 1923–1938, when both countries were similarly situated; (2) 1960–1988, during which Estonia was under Soviet control; and (3) 1992–2018, after Estonian independence. Economic well‐being is calculated using the purchasing power of wages in terms of the affordability of a minimal food basket. The results show that, in 1938, the purchasing power of wages in Estonia was 4 percent lower than in Finland; in 1988, it was 42 percent lower; and, by 2018, the gap had fallen to 17 percent. Consequently, as measured by the purchasing power of wages, well‐being in Estonia and Finland was similar before the Soviet occupation, widely diverged during Soviet rule, and converged after Estonian independence, with the transition from plan to market.
Topic:: Economics, Markets, Politics, History, and Culture
Political Geography:: Europe, Finland, and Estonia

47. Role of Social media in Amplifying Neo-Liberal Cancel Culture

Author:: Greg Simons
Publication Date:: 12-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Turkish Policy Quarterly (TPQ)
Institution:: Transatlantic Policy Quarterly (TPQ)
Abstract:: Cancel culture and wokeism are dangerous trends that are increasing in their intensity and the self-destruction of Western civilization is a matter of time as the underlying historical myths and value/normative philosophies that led to its global hegemony is destroyed by a messianic ideology that is engineering an exclusive homogenous worldview in the name of pluralism and inclusivity. In this world of Orwellian doublespeak, the current struggle for ideological hegemony is taking place in the information space for hearts and minds in the cognitive realm. Social media is the very frontline in the future and even very existence of Western civilization, and it has chosen to support those waging the neo-liberal cancel culture in the name of justice, liberation and equality.
Topic:: Culture, Hegemony, Social Media, Neo-Liberalism, and Cancel Culture
Political Geography:: Global Focus

48. 'Humanising' Statelessness through an Artistic Approach

Author:: Md Mizanur Rahman
Publication Date:: 12-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Statelessness & Citizenship Review
Institution:: Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School
Abstract:: In this article I critically examine an art-based approach to statelessness in institutional settings, to show how art can produce alternative insights on statelessness. Drawing from ethnographic observation, I show how an art-based approach tries to go beyond the predominant legalistic and political frames and representations of statelessness, but stay married to the same legal and political discourses. I found the art-based approaches observed do not subscribe to the idea that statelessness is only a legal anomaly and instead emphasise the creation of empathy for stateless individuals or groups. This humanises statelessness by showing their human vulnerability and creatively recognising their hope and agency. Regardless, artistic approaches can struggle to challenge the legalistic and political nature of the problem. It remains a question whether such approaches are appropriately promoting the views, perceptions and feelings of stateless persons themselves, as their participation in creating such art projects are minimal. As such, I argue for an ‘ethnographic turn in art practices’, which can ensure the participation of stateless people in the process of creating and demonstrating art. I believe this ‘turn’ could play a crucial role in the development of statelessness studies.
Topic:: Arts, Culture, Law, and Stateless Population
Political Geography:: Global Focus

49. Church of Woke: Next American Religion?

Author:: Michael Vlahos
Publication Date:: 02-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Humanitas
Institution:: The Center for the Study of Statesmanship, Catholic University
Abstract:: What does it mean to be woke? First and foremost, “woke” is a religious signal that you have heard the Good News and Seen the Light. Awakening means both witnessing revealed truth and experiencing spiritual transformation. Today this has taken the form of a collective enunciation: Of a new national church, reformed and transformed, to replace the original American sect, which is wicked and corrupted. In simple, practical terms, the Church of Woke is pledged to the destruction of Racism, Patriarchy, and Heteronormativity. The original national religion—often called American Exceptionalism—and the Church of Woke are locked in a victory-or-death struggle. To understand this, two points are essential. First: America is a religion. American life and politics function in a religious milieu.[1] That should not surprise. In 1967, American sociologist Robert Bellah declared a national “civil religion”[2]—yet “civil religion” is a pleonasm. Greek “politics” and Roman “civil” both refer to the city, the national community of Antiquity. Hence today, in our national city, all citizens are part of an American religious congregation. Second, the full faith conversion of an empire is a transformation. Our distant past records just such a shift. 1700 years ago an entire civilization—the sacred world of the Greco-Roman Mundus[3]—was overthrown and replaced by something new. This transformation was the work of three generations, from 313-380. The first generation converted a Roman emperor who declared tolerance toward Christians. The second marched steadily toward the persecution of “pagans.” In the third generation there was a counter-coup by the apostate emperor Julian. He failed. What followed was the total proscription of all pagans (or Hellénikos). Likewise, the Church of Woke has began its Long March to transform American life in the mid-1960s. Like Christianity, it has burrowed deeply into elite society and the institutions of state power. Now we are locked in a culminating phase. The third generation of Woke—true to Late Roman antecedents—must cast down the Pantheon of American Exceptionalism, of Founders and Heroes, establishing a new divine order that will wash away America’s sins[4] of Racism, Patriarchy, and Heteronormativity. What follows puts Late Antiquity and Today’s world side-by-side. The reason to do this is compelling. Simply, we are facing a potential civilizational discontinuity.
Topic:: Religion, Culture, Racism, Heteronormativity, and Patriarchy
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

50. Intrastate cultural and socio-political influences and the realisation of national security: A two-level correlational analysis

Author:: Dimitrios G. Pantazis
Publication Date:: 12-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:: War Studies University
Abstract:: This paper aims to examine how specific domestic social, political, and cultural motives affect the formation and implementation of national security agendas. The following assumptions drive the research rationale behind this essay: Security-making processes are considered non-similar among states due to different domestic political processes, cultural discourses, and socialisation patterns. Therefore, national security agents are constantly being guided by various intrastate settings, which construct attitudes that are ultimately reflected in policy formation and implementation through strategic behavioural manifestations. The realisation of national security is thus dependent on each state actor’s existent strategic culture, and given that, such choices cannot be contemplated in a strictly rational way. The methods of literature review and multi-layered analysis are applied throughout this study. In particular, this text’s reasoning is based on contextualisation, identification, categorisation of variables, and correlational implications. In relation to the findings, the theoretical examination of the objects assessed provides adequate clarification on the interaction between the domestic motives, decision-makers’ perspectives, and strategic cultural manifestations. Specifically, it was critically identified that the two last concepts can have a complementary function during security-making processes, hence producing unique outcomes for each state actor. Consequently, this paper wishes to contribute by giving direction for future research and broader methodological implications on the role of intrastate socio-political and cultural motives as sources of strategic culture and determinants of national security-making attitudes; without ignoring other factors that can respectively affect the aforementioned schemes.
Topic:: Security, National Security, Politics, Culture, and Decision-Making
Political Geography:: Global Focus

51. Dimensions of freedom and self-governance: Past, present, future

Author:: Richard Jurgens
Publication Date:: 12-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Africa Governance Papers (TAGP)
Institution:: Good Governance Africa (GGA)
Abstract:: In the editorial to this – the first issue of The Africa Governance Papers – the editor starts by providing a brief overview of the content of the issue, which has the theme: “Dimensions of freedom and self-governance: Past, present, future”. He then reflects on the meaning of the term “governance”, which is understood differently in the global south and north. The differences in understanding, he argues, indicate an historical clash of understanding between universalists and particularists. The former, (mostly northern institutions and researchers) assume that their criteria for the effective running of a country apply everywhere, while the latter (mostly institutions and researchers from the global south) argue that these criteria can impose some values, while also ignoring others that are important in other parts of the world. The Africa Governance Papers, the editor continues, aims to provide a platform for publishing and debate that is based in the global south. Ultimately, though, the journal is open to submissions from scholars of disciplines relating to African governance from every part of the world.
Topic:: History, Governance, Culture, Global South, Freedom, Universalism, Self-Rule, Global North, and Particularism
Political Geography:: Africa

52. The Cultural Reflections on the Middle Eastern Geopolitics: An Assessment on the Cultural Heritage | Ortadoğu Jeopolitiğinde Kültürel Yansımalar: Kültürel Miras Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme

Author:: Senem Atvur
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Novus Orbis: Journal of Politics & International Relations
Institution:: Department of International Relations, Karadeniz Technical University
Abstract:: The territory known as the Fertile Crescent is located at the eastern part of the Mediterranean Basin. This region, where the agriculture was developed, the first human settlements started, arts and culture were shaped, is now called the Middle East. The concept of the “Middle East” had started to be used at the beginning of the 20th century, when imperialist politics had spread worldwide. Due to the common use of the Middle East concept, the region was defined with a Western-centric perspective. This identification has played an essential role in the interpretation of Middle Eastern with Western concepts and on the construction of the cultural hegemony in the region. The stereotypes created by the West and adopted by the regional actors have caused homogenisation of the cultural diversity in the Middle East. Hence, the powerful actors of the international system could expand their zone of influence in the region. This study focuses on the importance of the area called the Middle East in the history of humanity and on the cultural heritage of this region. It is argued that to break the geopolitical interests of great actors in the region; the Middle East should reconcile with its cultural history and a new image of the Middle East based on common cultural heritage. | Tarımın geliştiği, yerleşik hayatın başladığı, yazının ve sanatın şekillendiği, Akdeniz Havzası’nın doğusunda kalan ve Bereketli Hilal olarak anılan topraklar bugün Ortadoğu olarak adlandırılmaktadır. “Ortadoğu” kavramı, 20. yüzyıl başlarında, emperyalist politikaların yaygınlaştığı dönemde kullanılmaya başlamıştır. Ortadoğu kavramının kullanımının yaygınlık kazanması, bölgenin Batı merkezli bakış açısıyla tanımlanması sonucunu da beraberinde getirmiştir. Bu durum Ortadoğu kültürlerinin Batılı tanımlar üzerinden yorumlanması ve bölgede kültürel hegemonyanın inşasında rol oynamıştır. Batı’nın yarattığı Ortadoğulu stereotipinin bölge içinde de kabulü, bölgenin kültürel çeşitliliğini tektipleştirici bir etki yaratmış; bu durum Ortadoğu coğrafyasında, uluslararası sistemin güçlü aktörlerinin etki alanlarını genişletmesini sağlamıştır. Bu çalışma Ortadoğu olarak adlandırılan coğrafyanın insanlık tarihinde üstlendiği rol ile sahip olduğu kültürel birikimin önemine odaklanmaktadır. Çalışmada uluslararası aktörlerin bölgeye ilişkin jeopolitik çıkarlarının kırılması yönünde Ortadoğu’nun kültürel geçmişi ile barışması ve ortak kültürel miras üzerine inşa edilen yeni bir Ortadoğu imgesinin gerekliliğine vurgu yapılmaktadır.
Topic:: Culture, Geopolitics, Heritage, and Identity
Political Geography:: Turkey and Middle East

53. Beer-Pong Diplomacy: A Diplomat’s Guide to Drinking in China

Author:: Derek Sandhaus
Publication Date:: 02-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: It’s rare that I receive a summons to brief senior diplomats. You see I’m a writer and what is referred to as a “trailing spouse” in the U.S. Foreign Service. So when my diplomat wife informed me that the Consul General and his deputy would like to meet with me, no one was more surprised than I. When I learned what they had in mind it all made more sense: They wanted me to tell them how to drink, more specifically how to drink in the Chinese manner.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Culture, Memoir, and Alcohol
Political Geography:: China and United States of America

54. When Glasnost Opened Soviet Doors for American English

Author:: Gregory Orr
Publication Date:: 05-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: In 1987 I joined the United States Information Agency (USIA), a foreign affairs agency whose mission was to engage in public diplomacy with audiences overseas. We liked to say that we wanted “to tell America’s story to the world” via a variety of cultural, educational, and informational programs (e.g. speakers, exchanges, exhibits, and libraries). USIA had a corps of press and cultural officers implementing these programs as well as specialists in areas such as library science and English language programs. As an English language officer, I was expected to promote the learning and teaching of American English as a means of developing mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. I therefore looked forward to my first overseas trip to make contact with the English teaching establishments in Hungary and the Soviet Union.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Culture, Soft Power, Public Policy, and Memoir
Political Geography:: Soviet Union and United States of America

55. Migrations and Security. The Problematic Circularity ‘Philosophy, Law and Politics’

Author:: Giovanni Bombelli
Publication Date:: 05-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:: International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:: This article focuses on the problematic nexus migration-security, which calls into question classical philosophical-legal and political categories (State, law, territory) dating back to the origins of the modernity. The analysis of Hobbes’ and Grotius’ insights allows to grasp the distance between the modern framework and the post-modern scenarios. The contemporary complex societies are characterized by fundamental socio-legal transitions, in particular as regards the notion of “privacy”, and by the progressive implementation of a new model of law and politics relations that is closely connected to the crucial role played by technology. In the light of this horizon, the migration issue, and its relations with the political phenomenon called “populism”, should be fundamentally understood in a cultural perspective even before its immediate sociological, political and legal projections.
Topic:: Security, Migration, Politics, Culture, and Law
Political Geography:: Spain and Global Focus

56. Can Religious Human Rights Discourses Help Integrating Muslim Migrant Communities Across Europe?

Author:: Sonia Boulos
Publication Date:: 05-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:: International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:: The perception of Islam as antithetical to European human rights values is widespread in Europe. Such perceptions complicate the task of integrating Muslim minorities across Europe. While incrementing respect to human rights norms among migrant communities is an important element of any integration policy, this goal should not be perused by forcing migrant communities to adhere to human rights norms based on purely secular grounds. The drafting history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the ultimate proof that human rights can be justified from different political, philosophical and religious perspectives. While European States cannot compromise their commitment to human rights, even in relation to migrant communities, still, they must allow other narratives on the importance and the meaning of human rights to emerge. Muslim migrant communities must be allowed to engage in intra-group religion-based dialogues to reevaluate their stance on human rights and to debate their meaning. After being given the opportunity to engage in internal debates on the significance of human rights, Muslim migrant communities should also be engaged in cross-cultural dialogues with the rest of community to generate a wider agreement on the meaning and the application of human rights. This two-fold strategy is consistent with the principle of subsidiarity, which suggests that for human rights be effective they must be seen as legitimate by all those small groups that are close to the individual. Such legitimacy cannot be imposed from the outside, it must emerge from within these small groups. However, for these intra-group and cross-cultural dialogues to succeed, the separation of religion and State cannot be understood as the complete exclusion of religion from the public sphere. Individuals of different philosophical or religious convictions must have an equal access to public debates on the centrality of human rights in the European legal order.
Topic:: Human Rights, Islam, Religion, Culture, and Integration
Political Geography:: Europe

57. Protecting Protected Areas in Bello: Learning From Institutional Design and Conflict Resilience in the Greater Virunga and Kidepo Landscapes

Author:: Elaine (Lan Yin) Hsiao
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Institution:: The Goettingen Journal of International Law
Abstract:: It has often been cited that major armed conflicts (>1,000 casualties) afflicted two-thirds (23) of the world’s recognized biodiversity hotspots between 1950 and 2000.1 In 2011, the International Law Commission (ILC) included in its long-term work program Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflict.2 This led to the adoption of twenty-eight Draft Principles, including designation of protected zones where attacks against the environment are prohibited during armed conflict.3 Protected zone designations apply to places of major environmental and cultural importance, requiring that they “[...] shall be protected against any attack, as long as it does not contain a military objective.”4 Most research on armed conflict and protected areas has focused on impacts to wildlife and less on how to protect these natural habitats from the ravages of armed conflict.5 This article highlights some of the gaps in the ILC Draft Principles towards protecting protected zones in bello. It uses transboundary protected areas (TBPAs) formalized through multilateral agreements to illustrate challenges on the ground. TBPAs are internationally designated “[...] protected areas that are ecologically connected across one or more international boundaries [...]” and sometimes even established for their promotion of peace (i.e., Parks for Peace).6 There is little legal research on how to design TBPA agreements for conflict resilience, conflict sensitivity, and ultimately positive peace.7 The research draws from two case studies in Africa’s Great Rift Valley: the Greater Virunga Landscape (GVL) between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda, and Uganda, and the Kidepo Landscape, which forms part of the broader Landscapes for Peace initiative between South Sudan and Uganda. Both suffer from armed conflicts of various types and present two of the only TBPAs in the world that have incorporated environmental peacebuilding into their transboundary agreements.8 The case studies illustrate different approaches to TBPA design and the pros and cons of each modality in the context of conflict resilience and conflict sensitivity. This guides us on how to better protect protected areas in bello, ensuring that protected zones endure on the ground and not just in principle.
Topic:: Environment, Culture, and Conflict
Political Geography:: Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda

58. Journal of Advanced Military Studies: Spring 2020

Author:: Donald M. Bishop, Valerie Jackson, Christopher Davis, Evan N. Polisar, Kerry K. Gershaneck, Troy E. Mitchell, James R. R. Van Eerden, Rosario M. Simonetti, Paolo Tripodi, David E. McCullin, Christopher Whyte, and Jeannie L. Johnson
Publication Date:: 03-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Advanced Military Studies
Institution:: Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
Abstract:: In 2010, MCU Press published the first issue of this journal, formerly known as Marine Corps University Journal, to serve as the bridge between the military Services and the professional military educators, strategists, and historians within the greater Department of Defense community. During the ensuing years, the press and the journal have evolved to offer innovative and active content that continues to serve as a forum for interdisciplinary discussion of national security and international relations issues and how they impact the Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy, and the U.S. Marine Corps. Now, 10 years later, we see the need to evolve and offer a wider base for those conversations to take place. To celebrate this 10-year anniversary and to reflect the journal’s change in focus over time, the journal has been renamed the Journal of Advanced Military Studies (JAMS) to honor the constant innovation of our content, our authors, and the topics we present to our readers. JAMS will continue to offer readers thematic, biannual issues that encourage and continue the debates happening across Marine Corps University, the Services, and the Department of Defense. It is no coincidence then that this issue of JAMS focuses on innovation and the future of warfare. Each of the articles presented offers the readers a deep dive into a historical, current, or forward-looking perspective on innovation and the military Services. As with any discussion of the military and abstract concepts such as innovation, we must first set the parameters of our discussion. For many readers, the term innovation evokes thoughts of technology, shiny gadgets, and artificial intelligence. While innovation is not necessarily synonymous with technology, it is certainly a challenge to say what in fact it is—a thing, a concept, an action, the people involved, or all of the above. The experts may not agree on what innovation is, but they can agree that it requires change or transformation to be successful. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War compares the nature of warfare to that of water for “just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions.” More contemporary agents of innovation include military theorists such as Earl H. Ellis, John R. Boyd, Michael D. Wyly, and John F. Schmitt. Lieutenant Colonel Earl Ellis’s work on Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia (Operation Plan 712) in 1921 clearly demonstrated his ability to forecast the future needs for amphibious warfare in the Pacific two decades prior to World War II. Though most readers will recognize former Air Force colonel John R. Boyd for his observe-orient-decide-act (OODA) decision-making loop, his more innovative work may well be seen in the energy maneuverability (E-M) theory, a mathematical study of fighter aviation. Then-major Wyly was tasked with reforming the Marine Corps concept of maneuver warfare in the wake of the Vietnam War. The work of Wyly, Boyd, and William S. Lind would serve as the foundation for Warfighting, Marine Corp Doctrinal Publication (MCDP) 1, that was later formally written by then-captain John Schmitt, along with several other doctrinal publications, including Ground Combat Operations, Campaigning, Command and Control, Planning, Expeditionary Operations, and a revision of Warfighting. The articles in this issue of JAMS continue the discussion fostered by these innovative pathfinders. Our introductory section from the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Creativity discusses the conception and creation of the center and some of its most innovative programs, including the award-winning Destination Unknown graphic novel and the center’s first essay contest, the U.S. Marine Corps Postmortem, and offers insight from Marine Corps leaders who consider both success and failure as critical measures for the strength of an organization. For example, Lieutenant General Loretta E. Reynolds contemplates how the Corps “must find a way to manage today’s risks while constantly readying ourselves for the emerging challenges of the future fight.”
Topic:: Security, Defense Policy, Military Strategy, Counterinsurgency, Culture, Armed Forces, Authoritarianism, Cybersecurity, Democracy, Geopolitics, History, Surveillance, Think Tanks, Propaganda, Innovation, Armed Conflict, and Game Theory
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Haiti, North America, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific

59. Iranians Turn Away from the Islamic Republic

Author:: Ladan Boroumand
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Democracy
Institution:: National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:: The Islamic Republic of Iran is confronted with an unprecedented legitimacy crisis. This article, highlighting the heterodox character of Iran’s theocratic ideology, stresses the tectonic social and cultural changes that have resulted in society’s estrangement from the state over the past forty years in a reaction against this ideology. The nature and depth of these social and cultural changes point to a historic process that is taking Iran toward becoming the first Muslim-majority society to weave into its spiritual, social, and intellectual fabric the principled separation of religion and the state characteristic of the liberal-democratic worldview.
Topic:: Religion, Culture, Democracy, and Protests
Political Geography:: Iran and Middle East

60. The Art of Resistance in the Palestinian Struggle Against Israel

Author:: Eray Alim
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:: Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:: This manuscript aims to assess Palestinian street art’s effectiveness as a resistance tool and political instrument in the struggle waged against Israel. It concludes by employing Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power that Palestinian street art is an effective instrument on account of its ability to instill in Palestinian collective consciousness as a sense of resistance. By utilizing Mouffe’s definition of politics as being a constant struggle between hegemonic and counter hegemonic forces, this work also holds that street art serves Palestinians as a means to reaffirm their political existence and develop an alternative political imagination against the Israeli-imposed reality. This manuscript also broaches the oft-discussed issue of visual diversity in Palestinian street art scene and concludes that eclectic content may serve as a contributive force, if the counter hegemonic character of Palestinian street art is adhered to.
Topic:: Arts, Culture, Hegemony, and Resistance
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

61. Women Participation as Agent of Citizens Diplomacy through Solo International Performing Art (SIPA)

Author:: Setyasih Harini and Tracy Wright Webster
Publication Date:: 05-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
Institution:: Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
Abstract:: Abstract Women affiliated with Semarak Candrakirana Art Studio have been carrying out a set of artistic performances, in particular, dance. This art studio was established and developed by women art activists to preserve national culture. One of the activities organised by Semarak Candrakirana to preserve national culture is, among others, the organization of international events. The objective of this research is to explain the women’s participation as agents of citizen diplomacy by introducing Indonesian culture through Solo International Performing Art (SIPA). To analyze the case, the theory of citizen diplomacy and post-feminism is used. The findings showed that the women of Semarak Candrakirana Art Center promote Javanese culture through their international performances. These activities fall into the category of citizens diplomacy, supporting the Indonesian government's diplomatic efforts to strengthen relations with other countries.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Arts, Culture, Women, and Citizenship
Political Geography:: Indonesia and Southeast Asia

62. Poland’s Cultural Relations with Middle-Eastern Arab Countries

Author:: Jacek Knopek and Zbigniew Danielewicz
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:: Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:: The article takes up the subject of Poland’s cultural relations with some Middle Eastern Arab countries, i.e. with Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Palestine in particular. It has been done in historical perspective, analyzing development of the connections, the determinants influencing the course of changes, and political events and processes that have been strengthening or weakening the ties. Despite the long geographical distance between Poland and the Middle East, the cultural ties have turned out to be astonishingly rich, which was so partly due to the idiosyncrasy of their history - abound with wars and full of dramatic transformations. The three-part text begins with a historic overview of the relations that have gained a momentum during the World War II and in the post-war decades. Part two concerns the relations on official diplomatic level, usually ending up in initialed agreements and exchanging official visits. And the last part scrutinizes the spontaneous grassroots links forged between groups, individuals and non-political institutions. In this case the links embrace the field of academia, education, high culture and private lives of individuals and families.
Topic:: Diplomacy, International Cooperation, Religion, Culture, and Local
Political Geography:: Europe, Middle East, and Poland

63. Language and Politics in India and China: A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study

Author:: Daniel Komarzyca and Janina Fras
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:: Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:: This paper provides insights into the relationship between language and politically relevant aspects of culture in India and China which are as follows: attitude toward revolution and tradition, the domination of politics over religion or vice versa, and a concern for the liberty of the individual. The paper introduces a novel approach to the comparative study of civilizations by advancing the political-linguistic explanation. In so doing, it combines Hajime Nakamura’s hypothesis of the strict connection between language and culture (understood as a way of thinking) with Samuel P. Huntington’s emphasis on the impact of cultural differences on the political dimension of society – so that our explanatory model can be expressed as follows: language→culture→politics. As far as language is concerned, the focus is on the basic structure of Sanskrit and Chinese; besides, special attention is given to Indian and Chinese philosophies of language. Culturally, the most relevant schools of Hindu philosophy may be called “ultraconservative” since they tend to ground unchanging meaning firmly in metaphysics and rely on the supreme authority of ancient religious texts. In contrast, the Chinese typically considered language a social mechanism for shaping our behavior (so the relation of language and society is the most crucial); they also expressed clearly divergent views on naming. In short, at least four distinctive perspectives are essential: (1) conservative Confucianism, (2) anti-traditional and highly authoritarian Legalism, (3) egalitarian and linguistically skeptical Laozian Daoism, (4) nonconformist and proto-libertarian Zhuangzian Daoism.
Topic:: Politics, Culture, Philosophy, Language, and Identity
Political Geography:: China, India, and Asia

64. China in the Geopolitical Imaginations of the Polish Pop Music after 1989

Author:: Jaroslaw Macala
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:: Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:: This paper focuses on the issue of geopolitics in the pop culture interpretation as illustrated by the Polish pop music after the year 1989. Songs selected from various trends of the Polish popular music made the source material of the text. The primary study method involved the analysis of the lyrics discourse. The Polish geopolitical imaginations used to revolve around the basis axis of better West and worse East, symbolized mainly by Russia, but its image was transferred over entire Asia. Asia, including China, was scarcely present in the geopolitical imaginations contained in the pop music, which, at the same time, reflected the irrelevant interest of Polish elites in global problems. The discourses in the musical texts about China frequently adopted the West’s perspective, where Poland made part of as seen by our elites. The rhetoric strategy concerning China in popular music featured two essential views, which references Orientalism as specified by E. Said. It explains the frequent use of the postcolonial discourse by the Polish elites, also the music ones, which promoted the supremacy of the West over the rest of the world and the universal nature of the Western world values which were meant to be implemented into other civilizations and nations for their own sake. China was presented as a growing threat for the dominance of the West, the USA in the first place, as an alternative model of globalization and international deal putting offthe world by its cultural and geopolitical alienation, as well as indicating negative effects for Poland
Topic:: Culture, Geopolitics, Music, and popular culture
Political Geography:: China and Asia

65. Language and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author:: Biruk Shewadeg
Publication Date:: 08-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Conflict Trends
Institution:: The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:: Language is an important factor of identity formation, and given the multilingual nature of Africa, political discourse related to ethnic and nation-state issues founded on the language factor is crucial to a holistic understanding of the situation. A brief glance at divergent conceptualisations of multilingualism in sub-Saharan Africa may enrich the discussion of language, ethnicity and the nation-state nexus.
Topic:: Culture, Ethnicity, Domestic Politics, and Language
Political Geography:: Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa

66. Community-based reconciliation in practice and lessons for the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission of Zimbabwe

Author:: Lawrence Mhandara
Publication Date:: 06-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:: The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:: Reconciliation in Zimbabwe remains a recurring question despite several interventions by the government to respond to the challenge. Such efforts stretch as far back as the first decade of independence. A key observation about the failure of the interventions is the weak utilisation of localism. Yet other countries with similar historical experiences as Zimbabwe have recorded better progress by embracing community-based methods. Indeed, the traditional liberal view that there is a universal set of approaches to reconciliation has for long been discredited and it is now widely accepted that due to diverse cultural values, practices and norms, communities should approach reconciliation in diverse ways. The National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) of Zimbabwe has the opportunity to learn from other developing countries on how community approaches unfolded, and apply such lessons in enriching its own programmes in the country. The East Timor and Sierra Leone cases are adduced as providing practical and valuable insights upon which the NPRC can benchmark and refine its strategy, and take advantage of the idle pool of indigenous methods in the country.
Topic:: Culture, Peace, Reconciliation, and Community
Political Geography:: Africa and Zimbabwe

67. Lepcha Chieftains of the 17th–18th Centuries, based on Tibetan and Bhutanese Sources

Author:: John Ardussi
Publication Date:: 11-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Bhutan Studies
Institution:: Centre for Bhutan & GNH Studies (CBS)
Abstract:: The ruler Gaeboo Achyok (Rgyal-po A-mchog) is undoubtedly the most highly celebrated Lepcha cultural hero. It was he who led a valiant attempt during the second half of the 17th century to assert the authority of the Lepcha people over their ancestral lands in the region of modern Kalimpong and the hill country near South-west Bhutan. Although his story has been told by previous authors, much is still based on legend and conflicting secondary sources. So, it is worth reviewing the primary original, written documents in the context of broader events of his era.
Topic:: Religion, History, Culture, and Historiography
Political Geography:: Bhutan

68. Evolution of the Meaning of Happiness in Modern Bhutan from 2008 to 2019

Author:: Michael Givel
Publication Date:: 11-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Bhutan Studies
Institution:: Centre for Bhutan & GNH Studies (CBS)
Abstract:: Background: This paper will analyse the legal meaning of what constitutes Gross National Happiness (GNH) and happiness in Bhutan from 2008 to 2019. These legal definitions are then linked with whether they reflect balancing traditional cultural values with material needs of happiness through governmental and individual actions to become enlightened. Results: Bhutanese legislative Acts from 2008 to 2019 have adopted and updated happiness requirements in five of nine GNH material domains including health, economic development, cultural resiliency, good governance, and ecological resiliency. One other Act in the area of disaster management has implemented the constitutional happiness provision for security. These Acts and constitutional provisions balance traditional values and material needs of happiness by government requirements and individual actions to become Enlightened. Conclusion: The meaning of happiness in Bhutan while solidly grounded in foundational concepts of GNH and happiness continues to evolve as Bhutan progresses now and into the future.
Topic:: Governance, Culture, Economic Development, Resilience, Ecology, and Gross National Happiness
Political Geography:: Bhutan

69. Descriptive Analysis of Need Assessment of the Scouting Programmes for Nazhoen and Nachung Scouts in Thimphu District

Author:: Lham Tshering and Sherab Jatsho
Publication Date:: 11-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Bhutan Studies
Institution:: Centre for Bhutan & GNH Studies (CBS)
Abstract:: The scouting programme in Bhutan has been implemented as cocurricular activities in a non-formal setting to promote physical, intellectual, social, emotional and spiritual development, and to cultivate citizenship. This study is a need assessment conducted to evaluate the relevance of existing scouting programmes and recommend development of new programmes. We conducted a crosssectional study using stratified random sampling. Data was collected using a leader-assisted structured questionnaire and was analysed using SPSS (Version 23) and MS Excel. Descriptive statistics such as frequency and mean were used to describe the result. A total of 193 respondents (71 Nachung Scouts, 72 Nazhoen Scouts, 30 CBS, and 20 Scout Leaders) participated in the study. Although there was a high level of agreement on the effectiveness of existing scouting programme, the finding shows that there is a need to align programmes towards intellectual development of both Nachung and Nazhoen scouts. Based on the specific item analysis, programmes on developing good personal habits, making sense of the data, applying scout laws and promises, maintaining meaningful relationship with others, being expressive with one’s emotions, and more religious programmes are recommended for both Nachung and Nazhoen scouts. Further, we recommend programmes for Nachung Scouts on the significance and contributions made by monarchs in Bhutan.
Topic:: Health, Culture, and Emotions
Political Geography:: Bhutan

70. Attitude of Students of Gedu College of Business Studies Towards Reading Dzongkha

Author:: Chencho Wangchuk
Publication Date:: 11-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Bhutan Studies
Institution:: Centre for Bhutan & GNH Studies (CBS)
Abstract:: This study examined the attitude of Gedu College of Business Studies towards reading Dzongkha, their reading choice between Dzongkha and English, and attitudinal difference between the two groups. Descriptive analysis of the survey responses found respondents’ attitude positive towards reading Dzongkha. No statistically significant attitudinal difference was observed between the two groups, however. In contrast to their positive attitude towards reading Dzongkha, majority of the respondents’ preferred choice of reading was English owing to reasons such as access to and availability of reading materials, employability, and its widespread usage as a lingua franca. The mismatch observed between attitude and reality implies a need to increase both accessibility and availability of Dzongkha reading resources in school libraries. One way to fulfil them could be reintroduction of teaching subjects such as environmental studies and Bhutan history in Dzongkha. Enforcing a requirement to produce Dzongkha proficiency test results, like the ones in English, for any scholarship and employment purposes could possibly increase usage and assist in promoting Dzongkha as the national language. Otherwise, excessive usage of and reliance on English may result in loss of Bhutan’s ethno-linguistic and socio-cultural attributes which are symbolisms of her sovereignty.
Topic:: Education, Sovereignty, Culture, Language, and Students
Political Geography:: Bhutan

71. Wartime Experiences and Indigenous Identities in the Japanese Empire

Author:: Lin Poyer and Futuru Tsai
Publication Date:: 02-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: Further research on the operations of empire and on Indigenous histories offers the opportunity to examine how Indigenous communities in the Japanese Empire experienced competing currents of loyalty and identity during the Pacific War. This article examines how three Indigenous populations—Ainu, Indigenous Taiwanese and Micronesian Islanders—survived the ideological and social pressures of an empire at war and, despite the intense assimilationist demands of Japan’s kōminka program and traumatic wartime experiences, retained cultural identities sufficiently robust to allow expression at the end of the century in the form of action to maintain community lives apart from, while engaged with, the nation-state.
Topic:: Culture, Empire, World War II, and Indigenous
Political Geography:: Japan and Asia

72. Embracing Indigenous culture in military organizations: the experience of Māori in the New Zealand military

Author:: Grazia Scoppio
Publication Date:: 02-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: This article builds on a 2007 research on Indigenous peoples in the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) which identified best practices from New Zealand that Canada could draw upon to enhance participation of Indigenous peoples within the Canadian Armed Forces. Using organizational culture theory as a conceptual framework, this article further investigates the main approaches and practices that have enabled a positive partnership with Māori and the successful inclusion of Māori culture in the NZDF. Specifically, the paper investigates the mechanisms used by the NZDF and the internal and external environments of the organization supporting the participation of Indigenous groups in the New Zealand military. The discussion explores ways in which Indigenous practices and customs can be incorporated into other military systems and protocols. The paper concludes that, among military organizations, the NZDF is a leader in transforming the organizational culture by enabling the organization to embrace Indigenous culture and empowering Indigenous members within their ranks.
Topic:: Culture, Military Affairs, Indigenous, and Defense Industry
Political Geography:: Canada, Australia, North America, and New Zealand

73. Canadian Dilemma: Is There a Path from Systemic Racism Toward Employment Equity for Indigenous People in the Canadian Forces?

Author:: Carol Agocs
Publication Date:: 02-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: Indigenous peoples continue to be oppressed by racial discrimination enacted through legislation, policies and practices of the Canadian state, including the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). Systemic racism, practiced through institutionalized policies and customary behaviour affecting people working in organizations, results in inequality for some groups and privileges for others. Since 2002 the CAF has been covered by the federal Employment Equity Act whose purpose is to address systemic discrimination by requiring employers to remove and prevent systemic barriers to equality for Indigenous people, women and “visible minorities” and to maintain a workforce that reflects the diversity of the Canadian population. Aside from its legal obligation, it is in the interest of the CAF to recruit and retain Indigenous People because they are an essential part of Canada’s labour supply. However Indigenous members of the CAF comprise a small and marginalized minority within a rigid, bureaucratic and culturally foreign organization. Implementing the Employment Equity Act could assist the CAF to address the Canadian state’s promise of reconciliation, fairness and equality for Indigenous people. This chapter reviews available evidence bearing on the CAF’s employment equity record, which presents a pattern of resistance to the Act’s requirements and failure to progress toward a representative workforce. In the absence of effective action to implement change, the CAF has yet to find a path from systemic racism toward employment equity for Indigenous People.
Topic:: Race, Culture, Military Affairs, Discrimination, Social Services, and Indigenous
Political Geography:: Canada and North America

74. The Art of Diplomacy

Author:: Bruce A. Heyman
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Ambassadors Review
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: Seeing the words “U.S.-Canada Trade War” in headlines is hard to imagine in any year, but to see them in 2018 was jarring. How is it possible that best friends and neighbors who have had the most successful trading relationship in the world now could have an association characterized by the word war? This is hard enough for the average American or Canadian to conceive of, but it was particularly hard for me to do so, as the U.S. Ambassador to Canada until January 20, 2017. When I left Ottawa, I was confident that the U.S.-Canada relationship was strong—indeed, perhaps never stronger. In March 2016, we had a state dinner in Washington for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the first in nearly 20 years. Then-President Barack Obama later repaid the favor and addressed the Canadian Parliament for the first time in more than 20 years. Our two-way trading relationship was valued at a huge $670 billion per year, and while no longer our largest, it was the most balanced, with the United States having a slight but rare trade surplus in goods and services. Through an integrated supply chain, our companies and citizens worked together. On average more than 400,000 people legally crossed our 5,525-mile non-militarized border daily for work and tourism. But the U.S.-Canada relationship was and is much larger than trade. Canadian and American troops have fought and died together from the beaches of Normandy to the mountains of Afghanistan, and our countries are founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)—a unique Canadian-American partnership—patrols the skies above our shared continent. Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies constantly exchange information on threats from terrorism, nuclear proliferation, espionage and complex crimes. Our two countries work together to protect the environment and provide stewardship of the magnificent Great Lakes, where cities such as Toronto and my own Chicago are located. This dense web of mutually beneficial cooperation is based on a shared set of values. Both our countries settled the vast North American continent, providing undreamt-of opportunities to millions of immigrants. Both our countries have an abiding commitment to democracy and the rule of law, and when we fall short, we make the needed changes. Beyond our countries’ being next-door neighbors, the largest number of Americans living abroad live in Canada and the largest number of Canadians living abroad live in the U.S. We are best friends, but more important, we are family.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, Culture, Trade Wars, and Trade
Political Geography:: United States, Canada, and North America

75. The Georgian Herald Samizdat Journal

Author:: Aleksandra Gryzlak
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Warsaw East European Review (WEER)
Institution:: Centre for East European Studies, University of Warsaw
Abstract:: From the very beginnings of Soviet rule in Georgia, the communists were not very popular throughout Georgian society and treated as occupants. Almost all active forms of resistance ceased to exist after the bloody suppression of the August Uprising of 19241. The massive purge of the Georgian intelligentsia that followed deprived the nation of its patriotic elites. Only after the death of Stalin and in the wake of Nikita Khrushchev’s famous speech in 1956, did the situation change. Khrushchev’s words of accusation and criticism, leveled at Stalin for his cult of personality and other mistakes, were treated in Georgia as an attack on their nation and an element of Russian chauvinism. It gave rise to a series of mass protests in Tbilisi in March 1956, that were brutally dispersed by the army. Approxi- mately 150 people died as a result2. During the 1950s and 60s, Vasilii Mzhavanadze was the leader of the Georgian Com- munist Party. In keeping with Khrushchev’s strategy of somewhat reduced control over the national republics, one could observe a consolidation of power by the ruling elite in Geor- gia3. This led to the spread of corruption, bribery and other illegal economic operations. Despite a weak economy, according to official statistics, the average Georgian’s savings in the 1970s were nearly twice that of the average Russian. Also, during this time, a very high number of educated specialists – who while graduating, did not take job assignments were still able to live reasonably well. Another phenomenon characteristic for the 1950s and 60s was a growing sense of nationalism. Symptoms of this included a relatively small number of national minority representatives able to gain access to higher education in the Georgian Republic, as well as clear-cut Georgian control over local and national party structures. The situation did not change after the fall of Khrushchev.4 Only in the early 1970s, did things start to change. In 1972, the key position of the First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party was passed to the former Minister of the Inte- rior – Eduard Shevardnadze, who began his rule with a broad campaign against corruption, overgrown bureaucracy, nepotism, and the so-called “second economy” (black market). Harsh administrative methods used in this campaign brought some positive effects – especially in the agricultural sector – but also resulted in a negative reaction from Georgian society5. Shevardnadze was also supposed to fight against growing Georgian nationalism. Campaigns, that condemned such things as reluctance to learn Russian lan- guage and promotion of national chauvinism in culture, were initiated. The teaching cur- riculum of the subject of history was also put under siege by the new authorities.
Topic:: Agriculture, Communism, Corruption, Human Rights, Nationalism, and Culture
Political Geography:: Europe, Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, and Georgia

76. Role of Middle Class in Bringing Democratic Governance in Pakistan

Author:: Aleeza Ehsan
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Political Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: The paper examines the theoretical framework of the concept of middle class and the notion behind the Karl Marx‟s concept of class struggle and how the Marxist traditions are still prevalent in the form of class politics and identity politics of Pakistan. By using secondary sources this paper attempts to assess the role of middle class in the politics of Pakistan by critically reviewing the class structure and the growth of new middle-class in post 2007 era and how this class has attained the political role after lawyers movement and after the PTI‟s (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf )pop-politics . This paper also attempts to study the trend of protest politics in the developing world and conundrum that democracy faces in this developing part of the globe and how middle class has assumed driving role in it. The social, cultural and religious evolution of this class in Pakistan and in the globalized world, is also explored in the wake of cross-culturalism . The role of middle class in shaping last decade of democracy is also studied by analysing the results of the elections of 2013 and 2018. This paper also suggests incorporating consumerism and marketing based reforms to attract this class towards democratic process.
Topic:: Politics, Culture, Class, Middle Class, Identity, and Consumerism
Political Geography:: Pakistan and South Asia

77. Pakistani Tile Mosaic Work: A Remarkable Ornamentation in the Contemporary Mosques of South Asia

Author:: Samina Nasim
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: South Asian Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: Classical architectural decorative technique such as mosaic work has been practiced in all over the world. Buildings are carefully designed to reflect the character and tradition of the region. In present research an attempt has been made to explain the significance of tile mosaic work with traditional motives and stylized conceptual representation in contemporary mosques of Punjab, Pakistan. The mosques present traditional and modern phase of decoration in Pakistan with aesthetic values. The study explains geometrical designs and stylized symbolic interpretation through the tile work of contemporary mosques of Pakistan. Conceptual, symbolic and abstract representation of mosaic work of Faisal Mosque Islamabad, arabesque and islimi designs of Ali Hajvery Data Darbar Mosque Lahore, geometrical designs and their significance in Jami„ Mosque Defence Lahore, Bahria Town Mosque and Masjid al-Habib Lahore Cantt, are the major areas covered in the paper.
Topic:: History, Arts, Culture, Material Culture, and Architecture
Political Geography:: Pakistan, South Asia, and Punjab

78. A New Era of Multiculturalism and the Role of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 21st Century

Author:: Qamar Fatima and Iram Naseer
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: South Asian Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: Multiculturalism is thoroughly connected with “identity politics,” “the politics of difference,” and “the politics of recognition,” which assigns a promise to increasing disparaged appearances and shifting leading arrangements of illustration as well as interaction which disregards definite units. It encompasses claims of fiscal benefits, political power, distinctiveness and culture. In this backdrop, the article targets to analyze traditional interaction as a panacea of all social and border disputes in this new century through the Chinese BRI connecting the current situation along historical linkages of Old Silk Road (OSR). Likewise, the basic purpose of this study is to investigate how seventy states in BRI project can be unified through cultural collaboration other than political, economic and strategic partnership, following Chinese pushing forward scheme in New Silk Road (NSR). In fact, BRI would provide all stakeholders of this project a golden opportunity to value their disregarded culture whose ethos lost actual worth because of Western rule since decades in this landmass. Moreover, the study is grounded with the theoretical approaches of cross-cultural power and leading theorizers of multiculturalism supported by Confucius, Iqbal, Nietzsche, Ibn Khaldun, Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka. Besides, the data have been taken from the official reports, reports on cultural meetings among diplomats from BRI official sites and archival holy manuscripts to reevaluate the value of marginalized local cultures of Arabian, Indian and Chinese civilizations. Overall, the study distinguishes that how diversity is the real beauty of Asia and manifold culture of Asia is embedded with each other because of erstwhile historical links and it‟s tough to separate diverse identities of Asia on ethnic and communal grounds.
Topic:: Globalization, Culture, Multiculturalism, Soft Power, Identities, and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
Political Geography:: Pakistan, China, South Asia, Asia, and Punjab

79. Socio-Political History of Nepal: A Case Study of Nepali Local Government System

Author:: Shoukat Ali and Abdul Majid
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: South Asian Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: Nepal is one of the members of SAARC. Like most of other members, Nepal has also a long socio-political history. It has a particular culture that distinguishes it from the other members. The current study is mainly a descriptive study that is based on secondary data in which the researchers collected data from different articles, books and research reports. This article is an attempt to explore the social and political history of Nepal. Nepal has passed through different phases of political rules like the rule of Shah Dynasty and Rana’s rule. During 1950s, Nepal for the first time in the history opened for international community. Nepal practiced Panchayat System as well. The Maoist Movement is also an important phase in the political history of Nepal. Furthermore, the local government system is also discussed in detail by the researchers. Like the different political eras, it also faced many changes. Currently, Nepal is experiencing two tiers Local Government System that is District Development Committee (DDC) and Village Development Committee (VDC).
Topic:: Demographics, Politics, History, Governance, and Culture
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Asia, Nepal, and Punjab

80. Freedom of Expression and Justiciability in Pakistan

Author:: H.S. Sharif and Jafar Riaz Kataria
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: South Asian Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: This paper would discuss freedom of expression and restrictions on the freedom with particular reference to the provisions of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the „Justiciability Doctrine‟ as enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). The question whether the freedom of expression claims are justiciable or not, in third world countries like Pakistan and how it helps in the advancement of rule of law and good governance would be explored. The focus would be on the cultural relativism narrative developed ever since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The claims of „Universalism‟ associated with human rights especially freedom of expression would be criticized with respect to the Margin of Appreciation Doctrine as reflected in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and adopted in other jurisdictions. Freedom of expression and the rights of minorities in Pakistan would be discussed with a special mention of proselytization and forced conversions. Lastly, the role of legislation and judiciary in Pakistan for the protection and advancement of the freedom of expression guarantee would be discussed.
Topic:: Human Rights, Governance, Culture, Freedom of Expression, and Rule of Law
Political Geography:: Pakistan, South Asia, and Punjab

81. Event Review: Critique, Dissent, and Solidarity--the Politics of Modern Middle Eastern Art

Author:: Asma Elgamal
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:: The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:: Described as one of the “greatest fusers of politics and art,” Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi has spent much of his life studying – and talking about – Arab art. Between founding the Barjeel Art Foundation, an Emirati-based initiative that collects and preserves Arab art, to live-tweeting the events of the Arab-spring to millions of Twitter users, al-Qassemi has a reputation for breaking silence on topics most members of an Arab royal family would be reluctant to touch. On February 7th, at an event hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Security, al-Qassemi gave a talk entitled “Politics of Modern Middle Eastern Art” in which he explored the greatest hits of modern political Arab art.
Topic:: Politics, History, Arts, and Culture
Political Geography:: Middle East and Gulf Nations

82. Vice President Nixon and Cold War Public Diplomacy

Author:: Hans Tuch
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: Between 1959-1991, the U.S. Information Agency mounted a series of exhibitions in the Soviet Union featuring various aspects of American life and culture. The 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow, best known for the famous “kitchen debate” between Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev, was visited by 2.7 million Soviets. USIA officer Hans Tuch recounts some of the interaction between Nixon and Krushchev.
Topic:: Cold War, Diplomacy, Culture, and Memoir
Political Geography:: Asia, Soviet Union, North America, and United States of America

83. A Rare Bloom in Beijing

Author:: May Johnston
Publication Date:: 05-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: American Diplomacy
Institution:: American Diplomacy
Abstract:: Chinese universities first reopened after the Cultural Revolution in 1977. Since 1949, no academic degrees had been awarded in China. The professors agreed with us that the time had come to invite specialists in American history and American literature to teach about our cultural patrimony rather than just teach English. Were we interested to learn about traditional Chinese opera, recently resurrected from the dead after the Gang of Four's departure? How did he, alone of all the officials I met in my two and a half years in Beijing, remain warm, curious, cheerful, open, enthusiastic, ever flashing a thousand watt smile and above all, so alive? I have photos of Ma grinning as he tried out my colleague's American motorcycle, Ma helping my two-year-old daughter with her chopsticks, Ma joking with the newly arrived Fulbright professors, who ended up relying on Ma as their interlocutor for every request or misunderstanding with the BeiDa authorities.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Education, History, Culture, and Memoir
Political Geography:: China, Asia, North Africa, Hong Kong, and United States of America

84. The Chávez Era Perspective for an Innovative Cultural Policy

Author:: Mônica Leite Lessa and Pablo Victor Fontes
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Contexto Internacional
Institution:: Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:: This paper examines Venezuela’s audio-visual sector and its cultural and media policies during the Chávez Era (1999-2013). Accordingly, this analysis essentially emphasises how Chávez’s perception of the absence of representation concerning Venezuelan popular culture served as the basis for proposing a remodelling of cultural and media policies. Bearing in mind this scenario, we point out that this initiative took place in order to rescue, promote and appreciate national distinctiveness and to stimulate the population’s inclusion and social development. In this sense, we indicate that the reconstitution of Venezuela’s social fabric took place through a new, important and original agenda of cultural and/or audio-visual goods. Also, we suggest that, to a certain extent, the same process took place in Latin America.
Topic:: Globalization, Culture, Media, Domestic Politics, and Social Policy
Political Geography:: Latin America and Venezuela

85. Casualties of War: The Legacy of South Korean Participation in the Vietnam Conflict

Author:: Christos G. Frentzos
Publication Date:: 04-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:: International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:: After the United States, the Republic of Korea sent more troops to Vietnam than any other nation. Approximately 325,000 South Korean soldiers served in Vietnam between 1964 and 1973. Although the Korean military and economy benefited substantially from the conflict, the war also left some deep scars on the national psyche. While the government did not permit public criticism of the war in the 1960s and 1970s, South Koreans have now finally begun to confront their troubled Vietnam legacy. Often referred to as Korea’s “forgotten war,” the Vietnam Conflict has recently made its way into Korean popular culture through movies, novels and songs about the war. Increased freedom and democracy has created an environment where both the Korean government and the people have begun to openly discuss issues such as Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and alleged wartime atrocities committed by South Korean servicemen. This paper will analyze some of the more controversial aspects of Korea’s involvement in the Vietnam War and examine how South Koreans themselves have addressed these issues both officially and within their popular culture during the last few decades.
Topic:: War, History, Culture, Media, Conflict, Atrocities, Vietnam War, and Veterans
Political Geography:: Asia, South Korea, Vietnam, and United States of America

86. Cultural Evolution: People’s Motivations are Changing, and Reshaping the World, Ronald F. Inglehart

Author:: George E. Marcus
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Consolidating more than four decades of research, Ronald F. Inglehart elaborates on the enlightenment story that reliance on science and technology enables nations to meet the material needs of their populations. To that story he adds that populations, finding their security needs being met, are increasingly abandoning materialist values for post-material values. The meaning of life satisfaction is changing. Inglehart advances this story by converting it into explicit hypotheses and subjecting them to extensive empirical testing. Inglehart marshals considerable evidence chiefly drawing on the World Values and European Values Surveys covering something on the order of 90 percent of the world’s population from 1981 to 2014. Along the way, Inglehart demonstrates the potent role of culture in advancing or retarding the overall trajectory of economic growth and life satisfaction. These shifts occur on a time scale marked in decades through intergenerational change.
Topic:: Culture, Book Review, Political Science, State, and Corporations
Political Geography:: Global Focus

87. Journal of Advanced Military Studies: Economics of Defense

Author:: Patrick Callaway, James Lockhart, Nikolas Gardner, Rebecca Jensen, Ian Brown, J. Craig Stone, Lauren Mackenzie, and Kristin Post
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Advanced Military Studies
Institution:: Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
Abstract:: During the past two decades, the U.S. government infrastructure has ground to a halt for a variety of reasons, particularly due to deficit reductions, military spending, health care, and overall party-line budget disagreements, but even more recently on border security and immigration. Regardless of party politics and the daily administrative drama in the White House, how does one of the wealthiest countries in the world prepare for the impact of making war and defending peace within these economic and political constraints? Authors for this issue of MCU Journal address the economics of defense and how those costs impact nations. Aside from the economic costs the United States bears for its defense, the articles in the Spring issue of MCU Journal will demonstrate there are other costs and unique limitations faced by America and other nation-states. For example, smaller nations such as Oman must rely on technologically advanced allies for their defense support. Long-term political costs also may apply to these nations, as James Lockhart’s article on the Central Intelligence Agency’s intervention in Chilean politics discusses. There are also other ways to wage “war” that are discussed in this issue; for example, looking to the past, President Thomas Jefferson attempted to wage a trade war against Great Britain and France to maintain U.S. trade neutrality and, looking to the present and future, governments must address the real costs of cyberwar. Finally, we must consider the political and diplomatic costs associated with U.S. servicemembers and their work in foreign states, but also the relationship repair they must rely on to keep the peace.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Counterinsurgency, Culture, Armed Forces, Military Affairs, Authoritarianism, Cybersecurity, Weapons, Economy, Military Spending, History, Coup, Trade, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Augusto Pinochet
Political Geography:: Britain, Afghanistan, China, South Asia, Canada, Asia, South America, North America, Chile, Oman, and United States of America

88. The Regime for Protecting Cultural Property during Armed Conflicts: An Analysis of the Historical Development

Author:: Elvan Çokişler
Publication Date:: 08-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:: International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:: This research deals with the historical development of the regime for protecting cultural properties during armed conflicts. The historical development is addressed in three sections: The first section explains the process from antiquity through the 18th century in light of the views that form the philosophical background of the regime. The second section discusses the initial tangible efforts which appeared in the 19th century with regard to the establishment of customary law, while the third section handles the 20th century endeavors in terms of the codification of the regime. The research has shown that, throughout history cultural property has been open for strategic use, efforts for protecting it accelerated particularly after great wars and codification efforts improved as a reaction to big damages stemming from changing nature of armed conflicts. These findings may be interpreted as indicating that today’s protection efforts are bound to be insufficient for the future strategic uses of cultural property that are unpredictable from today’s vantage point.
Topic:: International Law, Treaties and Agreements, Culture, and Conflict
Political Geography:: Global Focus

89. Contract Cheating In Serbia and In Sweden

Author:: Sonja Bjelobaba
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Studies of Changing Societies Journal (SCS)
Institution:: Studies of Changing Societies Journal (SCS)
Abstract:: The last two decades have seen many studies about contract cheating. However, thus far, there have been no such studies for Serbia or Sweden, two countries with a similar educational system that differ in many other ways. Although research indicates that students’ opinions on academic integrity vary in different countries, the question to which extent the essay mills are used and what students think about contract cheating in different countries remain unexplored. Previous research has shown higher engagement in cheating behaviour in Eastern European countries in general compared to Western countries, but without concentrating on contract cheating in particular. The aim of this paper is to compare the usage of and the attitudes towards essay mills and contract cheating in Serbia and Sweden. For that purpose, student questionnaires from Serbia and Sweden (n=2341) were extracted from the Global Essay Mills Survey (GEMS) project. The results show that the awareness of contract cheating and the usage of essay mills and other similar services in those two countries differ in many important aspects: while contract cheating is extremely rare in Sweden, Serbian students appear to be more tolerant to such services.
Topic:: Culture, Public Opinion, Survey, and Academic Integrity
Political Geography:: Europe, Serbia, and Sweden

90. Signals of Adaptive Social Readiness as a Cornerstone and a Driving Force of Russian Authoritarianism

Author:: Iwona Massaka
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Nowa Polityka Wschodnia
Institution:: Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Abstract:: The aim of this article is to show the relationship between, the features (in cultural, sociological and political science terms) exhibited by contemporary Russian society and the political regime (in holistic terms by J. Linz), that existed in the Russian Federation (in the years 2007–2015). We assume that an evolution from stable contemporary Russian society to amalgams system combining elements of authoritarianism with dictatorship has taken place during this period. We point out the essential features that constitute the nature of Russian society and social behavior of political importance. Referring to the theory of “the state in society” by D. Migdal, We put the thesis that it is just the Russian way of thinking resulting in certain behavior, that causes the permanence of contemporary Russian society with a tendency to move on the line continuum toward totalitarianism. Proving that Russian society is not a civil society, but a state society, we determine the structure, the role and the modes of operation of Russian intra-system opposition.
Topic:: Communications, Culture, Authoritarianism, Society, and Adaptation
Political Geography:: Russia and Eurasia

91. Chinese and Western Comedy – an Introduction into Cross-Cultural Humour Research between Taiwan, China and the West

Author:: Konrad Piwowarczyk
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Nowa Polityka Wschodnia
Institution:: Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Abstract:: The use of humour, both proper and improper, can influence the outcomes of meetings and shape entire relationships. Hence, although often trivial in nature, humour can play a significant role in human lives and deserves to be taken seriously. The same is true when it comes to the analysis of humour across cultures. In today’s increasingly globalized world, where people from various cultures interact on an almost daily basis it is important to understand the other persons culture, including their sense of humour. Consequently, this article provides a basic overview of humour of the world’s two biggest and most prominent cultures: the English speaking West and the Sinitic world. There is no doubt Chinese and Western humour differ in history and contemporary structure, therefore this article presents the various forms of comedic expression found in both cultures, but also provides basic explanations as to the reasons behind these differences.
Topic:: Culture, Society, and Humor
Political Geography:: China, Europe, Taiwan, Asia, and United States of America

92. Planting the Seed: Ethnic Policy in Xi Jinping’s New Era of Cultural Nationalism

Author:: James Leibold
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: China Brief
Institution:: The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:: The recent leak of secret Chinese Communist Party (CCP) documents in Xinjiang provides irrefutable evidence of the CCP’s radical plan to fundamentally remake Xinjiang society and transform the thoughts and behaviour of its Muslim minorities (ICIJ, 24 November). Less well known, however, is the role that Xi and his supporters have played in reorienting People’s Republic of China (PRC) policy away from a previous tolerance of ethnocultural heterogeneity, and towards a virulent form of cultural nationalism that pathologizes dissent and diversity as an existential threat to the Party and the nation. The self-described “New Era” (新时代, Xin Shidai) of Xi Jinping Thought marks a decisive departure from previous attempts to propitiate ethnic minorities through special preferences and a “loose reins” (羁縻, jimi) system of ethnic autonomy. This new orientation is most clearly articulated in a public speech Xi Jinping gave in September, suggesting a new level of confidence in the Party’s attempt to build a “spiritual homeland” (精神家园, jingshen jiayuan) for China’s fragile political unity in the face of deep internal resistance in the peripheries of Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong.
Topic:: Nationalism, Culture, Minorities, Ethnicity, and Discrimination
Political Geography:: China and Asia

93. The Daydreams of Polyphony: From The Music Revolution to The Birth of Turkish Popular Culture

Author:: Poyraz Kolluoğlu
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: AURUM Journal of Social Sciences
Institution:: Altinbas University
Abstract:: The Turkish Cultural Revolution has been a steady of debate and controversy for scholars coming from different disciplines of social science since the founding elites attempted to build the new secular society upon a disintegrating cosmopolitan empire in 1923. One of the off shoots of this modernization project championed by a group of elite soldiers under the leadership of Atatürk was the so-called Turkish music revolution. In this paper, I am defining the imagination of a nation and its cultural modular forms in an underdeveloped oriental milieu as that of Turkey as daydreaming because I would argue that the so-called music revolution of this total cultural fabrication throughout the 1930s, 1940s resulted in confusion, feelings of anxiety, artistic and cultural volatility, and, thereby, paved the way for an opportunity to navigate in a space between the Occident and the Orient spatio-temporality in parallel to ethno-racist discourses.
Topic:: Nationalism, Culture, Music, Modernity, Cultural Revolution, and Occidentalism
Political Geography:: Turkey, Middle East, and Mediterranean

94. The Return of Cultural Genocide?

Author:: Leora Bilsky and Rachel Klagsbrun
Publication Date:: 04-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: Cultural genocide, despite contemporary thinking, is not a new problem in need of normative solution, rather it is as old as the concept of genocide itself. The lens of law and history allows us to see that the original conceptualization of the crime of genocide – as presented by Raphael Lemkin – gave cultural genocide centre stage. As Nazi crime was a methodical attempt to destroy a group and as what makes up a group’s identity is its culture, for Lemkin, the essence of genocide was cultural. Yet the final text of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) does not prohibit cultural genocide as such, and it is limited to its physical and biological aspects. What led to this exclusion? In this article, we examine the various junctures of law, politics and history in which the concept was shaped: the original conceptualization by Lemkin; litigation in national and international criminal courts and the drafting process of the Genocide Convention. In the last part, we return to the mostly forgotten struggle for cultural restitution (books, archives and works of art) fought by Jewish organizations after the Holocaust as a countermeasure to cultural genocide. Read together, these various struggles uncover a robust understanding of cultural genocide, which was once repressed by international law and now returns to haunt us by the demands of groups for recognition and protection.
Topic:: Genocide, International Law, History, Culture, Courts, and Holocaust
Political Geography:: Europe and Germany

95. Addressing Controversial Topics in Public Diplomacy

Author:: Shanna Dietz Surendra
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Ambassadors Review
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: In my previous assignment in London, the U.S. Ambassador was so committed to public engagement that he reached as many as 30,000 students in 260 schools over the course of his three-and-a-half-year tenure. Through his outreach, he made a number of observations about British public opinion toward the United States, and he noted that there was one controversial question that emerged again and again when he met with the general public: Why is the American public so fixated on guns? It was evident that the British public struggled to understand this phenomenon and saw it as a major cultural and political difference between our two countries. Students in particular wanted an explanation for gun violence in the United States, and the topic stood as a hurdle in moving on to other positive areas of discussion. The Ambassador understood that if our embassy didn’t address the topic head on, the U.S. government’s overall credibility would be significantly hindered. And so, although he admitted he did not have “answers,” he tried his best to provide a historical, socio-cultural explanation for this vast dissimilarity between our two countries. Audience members may not have been convinced that his explanation was accurate. They may not have believed his statistics, and they might have thought he was trying to justify the unjustifiable. However, addressing the topic head-on allowed the discussion to move forward. His willingness to directly answer tough questions especially disarmed students of their “gotcha” questions, thereby creating space and time for other foreign policy-related questions. Most important, his honesty enhanced our embassy’s overall credibility and made the relationship—whether between audience and speaker or between our two countries’ publics—more open and more authentic. Addressing difficult topics directly and honestly is not always easy in public diplomacy. Foreign Service Officers are often nervous about deviating from official talking points and saying the “wrong thing” that could garner negative attention for their U.S. Embassy, the U.S. government, or—perhaps most terrifying—for the officers themselves. But in my modest nine years as a U.S. diplomat, I have seen colleagues deftly maneuver contentious topics, and their honesty and courage lays the foundation upon which U.S. foreign relations are built and sustained. Below, I summarize a handful of approaches I have observed as useful in addressing the most controversial topics.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Culture, and Domestic Politics
Political Geography:: Global Focus

96. The Role of Trauma in Romania’s Ontological Security

Author:: Loretta Salajan
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:: Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:: This paper analyses Romania’s foreign policy during the first post-communist years, by employing a theoretical viewpoint based on ontological security and trauma. It un- covers the elite efforts to secure the post-totalitarian state’s identity and international course. Romania’s search for ontological security featured the articulation of narratives of victim- hood, which were linked with its proclaimed western European identity. The Romanian identity narrative has long struggled between “the West” and “the East”, trying to cope with traumatic historical events. These discursive themes and ontological insecurities were crys- tallized in the controversy surrounding the Romanian-Soviet “Friendship Treaty” (1991). Key Romanian officials displayed different typical responses to cultural trauma and debated the state’s path to ontological security, which was reflected in the foreign policy positions.
Topic:: Security, Foreign Policy, International Affairs, Culture, and Identity
Political Geography:: Europe, Eastern Europe, and Romania

97. Choice of Language and the Quest for Israeli Identity in the Works of Tuvia Ruebner and Aharon Appelfeld

Author:: Michal Ben-Horin
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:: Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:: Immigration highlights the question of language and raises the dilemma of the relationship between the mother tongue and the language of the new land. For writers this question is even more crucial: should they write in the language of the place and its readers? Immigration to Israel is not exceptional, of course. What choices are open to those writers, and how are they to convey the complexities inherent in the formation of an Israeli identity? This paper focuses on two writers who demonstrate the role played by the “chosen language” in the cultural construction and deconstruction of Israeli identity. Tuvia Ruebner emigrated from Bratislava, Aharon Appelfeld from Bukovina. Ruebner shifted from German to Hebrew and back to German; Appelfeld wrote only in Hebrew. In both cases, their arrival in Israel en- abled them to survive. However, the loss of their families in Europe continued to haunt them. Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s concept of ‘translation’ and responding to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of ‘minor literature’, the paper shows how their work conveys a mul- tilayered interrelation between national and foreign languages, and between images of exile and homeland, past, present and future – all of which shed light on contemporary issues of Israeli identity.
Topic:: Nationalism, Immigration, Culture, Displacement, Language, and Identity
Political Geography:: Europe, Middle East, and Israel

98. The Hero’s Wife: The Depiction of Female Holocaust Survivors in Israeli Cinema Prior to the Eichmann Trial and in its Aftermath

Author:: Liat Steir-Livny
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:: Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:: Israeli culture in the 1940s and 1950s was dominated by ideological consider- ations. Zionist films, as other aspects of Eretz-Israel and Israeli culture, distinctively propa- gated Zionist ideas. As a consequence of their sociopolitical focus, these films neglected the complexities of the relationship between Holocaust survivors and the native Jews in Eretz- Israel. Instead, Holocaust survivors were reduced to a homogeneous entity that bore distinct negative connotations. Films depicted female Holocaust survivors as mentally unstable, unfit mothers, and often played up negative sexual stereotypes. In these films, the women were “cured” or went through a process of “purification” thanks to the Zionist establishment. Historical research often cites the trial of Adolf Eichmann (1961) as being a turning point in the Israeli public’s perception of the Holocaust, and its representation in Israeli culture. This article will focus on an analysis of the film The Hero’s Wife (Peter Frye, 1963) that was produced in the aftermath of the trial. It will discuss the innovative representations of this unresearched film, and will seek to answer the questions of why, and in what way, its narra- tive comprises a subversive antithesis to the narrative shaped by Zionist fiction films made prior to the Eichmann trial.
Topic:: Culture, Media, Film, Zionism, Holocaust, Psychology, and Stereotypes
Political Geography:: Middle East and Israel

99. Israeli Identity on the Run: the Quest for a Non- National Position in Contemporary Israeli Literature

Author:: Shira Stav
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:: Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:: My essay discusses a new attempt in young Israeli novels to break out of the suffo- cation and stagnation of the dominant literary protagonist. The discussion revolves around Ilai Rowner’s recent novel, Deserter (2015), which suggests ‘desertion’ as an option of to overcome nationalized structures of the self and of break new ground for its existence. The protagonist’s escape and quest for a non-national position is destined to failure, however, reflecting the current state of political consciousness among young Israeli authors, and, I ar- gue, the unthinkability of political exile in contemporary Israeli novels. The discussion presented here follows the renewed interest in Hanna Arendt’s exem- plary essay “We Refugees” (1943) in light of the current refugees’ crisis in Europe among scholars such as Giorgio Agamben, Amal Jamal and Itamar Mann. While Agamben develops a phenomenology of being-a-refugee, severing the bond between nation and territory, his work lacks an experiential account on being a refugee. In light of this absence, I argue that Rowner’s protagonist remains blind to the particular identities he encounters, actively eras- ing the profound differences between deserters and refugees, persecutors and persecuted. While he recognizes the haunted element in him, Rowners’ protagonist’s obliviousness to the specific experiential trappings of his own story effectively sterilizes the novel’s political acuity through the effort to adopt an all-human perspective.
Topic:: Nationalism, Culture, Refugee Crisis, Identities, and Novels
Political Geography:: Middle East and Israel

100. Deconstructing the Topos of Poland as a Jewish Necropolis in Texts by Israeli Authors of the Third Post- Holocaust Generation

Author:: Jagoda Budzik
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:: Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:: The paper aims at recognizing and describing the ways of deconstructing the to- pos of Poland as a Jewish necropolis, a process that in the last decade appears more and more often in the works of Israeli authors of the third generation after the Shoah. The generation concept – as I argue – can serve here as a useful tool for understanding the shift which oc- curred in the specific national context of Israeli Holocaust discourse and strongly influenced the image of Poland in Israeli literature and culture. Poland depicted as a Jewish necropolis has become one of the central motifs present in Israeli literary as well as the artistic canon of Shoah representations. As the central space where the Shoah occurred, Poland was obviously perceived as a land marked by death and formed exclusively by the experience of the Holo- caust. However, in the aftermath of two major shifts that have occurred in the last decades: a meaningful change in the Israeli Holocaust discourse and the new reality of Poland after 1989, and also as a consequence of the growing time distance separating yet another genera- tion from the events themselves, numerous authors born in Israel mostly in the 1970s and in the 1980s began approaching the abovementioned motif critically. This tendency, one of the few typical for the third generation, is demonstrated either through the motif ’s deconstruc- tion and subversive usage or, more radically, by employing the genre of alternate history and changing the place’s identity (e.g. Tel Aviv by Yair Chasdiel). The topos of Poland as a ne- cropolis has therefore been turned into a part – or even a starting point – of the reflection on collective memory patterns (e.g. Kompot. The Polish-Israeli Comic Book), stereotypes (e.g. Bat Yam by Yael Ronen), and on the authors’ own roots and identity (e.g. The Property by Rutu Modan). By analyzing the abovementioned texts, I will explore the process of constant interaction occurring between collective and the individual memory, between the Israeli national perspective and Polish landscapes, between an author and the space and, finally – between the category of the third generation and its representatives themselves.
Topic:: Nationalism, Culture, Holocaust, Memory, and Literature
Political Geography:: Europe, Middle East, Israel, and Poland

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS