Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

‘The Production of Space’, in: Frans Jacobi, Imagine, Space Poetry, Copenhagen, 1996, unpaginated.

The Production of Space

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers

Preface (1999) Preface (1990) 1. Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire I. 'Women' as the Subject of Feminism II. The Compulsory Order of Sex/Gender/Desire III. Gender: The Circular Ruins of Contemporary Debate IV. Theorizing the Binary, the Unitary and Beyond V. Identity, Sex and the Metaphysics of Substance VI. Language, Power and the Strategies of Displacement 2. Prohibition, Psychoanalysis, and the Production of the Heterosexual Matrix I. Structuralism's Critical Exchange II. Lacan, Riviere, and the Strategies of Masquerade III. Freud and the Melancholia of Gender IV. Gender Complexity and the Limits of Identification V. Reformulating Prohibition as Power 3. Subversive Bodily Acts I. The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva II. Foucault, Herculine, and the Politics of Sexual Discontinuity III. Monique Wittig - Bodily Disintegration and Fictive Sex IV. Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions Conclusion - From Parody to Politics

Postmodern Subjects, Postmodern BodiesThinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Postmodernism in the Contemporary WestYearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural PoliticsGender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

Recent literature concerning regional development has placed significant emphasis on local institutional structures and their capacity to ‘hold down’ the global. Conversely, work on inter-firm networks – such as the global commodity chain approach – has highlighted the significance of the organizational structures of global firms’ production systems and their relation to industrial upgrading. In this paper, drawing upon a global production networks perspective, we conceptualize the connections between ‘globalizing’ processes, as embodied in the production networks of transnational corporations, and regional development in specific territorial formations. We delimit the ‘strategic coupling’ of the global production networks of firms and regional economies which ultimately drives regional development through the processes of value creation, enhancement and capture. In doing so, we stress the multi-scalarity of the forces and processes underlying regional development, and thus do not privilege one particular geographical scale. By way of illustration, we introduce an example drawn from recent research into global production networks in East Asia and Europe. The example profiles the investments of car manufacturer BMW in Eastern Bavaria, Germany and Rayong, Thailand, and considers their implications for regional development.

Globalizing regional development: aglobal production networks perspective

Kenya and the European Union (EU) (and its predecessor, the European Community) look back to a long history of relations. The European Delegation in Nairobi was opened in 1976, and in the same year Kenya became the first country to sign a cooperation agreement with the European Community under the Lome Convention (EEAS 2014i). In 2014, the Nairobi Delegation was one of the largest in the world with more than 150 staff, accredited to Kenya as well as to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Centre for Human Settlement (UN-Habitat), both of which are headquartered in Nairobi. Development cooperation has long been an integral part of Kenya-EU relations, however, given that only 4% of Kenya’s national budget is externally financed (Nesoba 2013), Kenya-EU relations extend well beyond development cooperation to also include other sectors, such as economic and trade relations, political and diplomatic relations, security cooperation and humanitarian aid. Economically, the EU is Kenya’s largest trading partner, accounting for 17.2% of Kenya’s overall trade (second is China with 11.7%) in 2011 (EEAS 2014j). Political relations have cooled since the post-election violence following the presidential elections of December 2007 and in light of the cases at the International Criminal Court (ICC) against current President Uhuru Kenyatta and Vice-President William Ruto following their alleged involvement in the post-election violence. Nevertheless, relations between Kenya and the EU remain far reaching and intense in a variety of aspects.

Kenya-EU Relations: Perspectives and Expectations

The resurfacing of German fascism

German geopolitical claims have changed from two phases of aggressive, military expansionism (Jackboots) at the beginning of the twentieth century to a civilianised foreign policy (Birkenstocks) at its end This paper describes this transition during the second half of the twentieth century in light of a changing international system and the geopolitical constellations of the Cold War and European integration As part of such historical experiences, external circumstances and internal preferences the civilian power concept became the foundation for the Berlin Republic's grand strategy of promoting civilianised structures in the international system Unlike at the beginning of the twentieth century, German foreign policy after reunification in 1990 was not based on a deliberately pursued strategy of militaristic power politics to attain world power status It reflected a foreign policy identity into which Germany ‘grew’ during the Cold War in a process of adapting and becoming part of European integration and American hegemony Even though Germany did not completely abandon its power ambitions, their articulations and claims were radically transformed A civilianised international system thereby became the objective and medium of German foreign policy Such a system is characterised by multilateralism, supranational integration, strong international institutions, rule of law, free trade, human rights, good governance and restrictions of the use of force

From jackboots to birkenstocks: the civilianisation of german geopolitics in the twentieth century

Germany's (not so) banal militarism

On 1 November 2013, the European Union will celebrate its twentieth birthday. On 12 October 2012, the Nobel Committee announced the Nobel Peace Prize 2012 will be awarded to the European Union “for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”. In the following, I will comment on Alec Murphy’s paper Trapped in the Logic of the Modern State System? European Integration in the Wake of the Financial Crisis and argue that never before in the history of European integration, has the European ‘idea’ had so little inspiration and appealing visions for the future of integrating/integrated Europe to offer. This constitutes a fundamental problem as we can currently observe a rise of nationalism and the (re-)constructions of ‘us vs. them’ binaries in Europe. In my argument, I side with Murphy in that both the lack of vision and such constructions are, at least partially, rooted in what he describes as a metageographical mindset based on the logic of the modern state system. Murphy traces insightfully how essential parts of the European integration processes have been trapped in a way of thinking determined by a “modernist politicalterritorial order”, despite the challenge European integration presents to that order (p. 3). His argument is framed around the question of why European Monetary Union (EMU) was prioritised as the preferred way to promote European integration as opposed to other possible paths of integration that seem(ed) less trapped in such modern, territorial, state-based logic. I agree with Murphy’s general argument of European integration logics being trapped in such logic. However, in the following I will challenge and comment on Murphy on a number of issues as regards the example of EMU and subsequently outline how the trap of state-based thought

Veit Bachmann

Papers

Kenya-EU Relations: Perspectives and Expectations

The resurfacing of German fascism

From jackboots to birkenstocks: the civilianisation of german geopolitics in the twentieth century

Germany's (not so) banal militarism

Europe's Lack of Visions