Showing papers on "Expansionism published in 2018"

Forest city, Malaysia, and Chinese expansionism

Abstract: Over the past decade, an acceleration of Chinese state and private investment in urban infrastructure and real estate has transformed many skylines around the world. In 2014, a private Chinese comp...

Polish Lebensraum: the colonial ambition to expand on racial terms

Abstract: Lebensraum – the space a state believes is required for its natural expansion – has a pivotal role in the global expansion projects. Whenever this concept is discussed, it is almost exclusively reduced to the Imperial Russia’s domination of less-stately countries in Central and Eastern Europe; the British exploration and colonization of territories in Africa and Asia; the French settlements in parts of the Caribbean Islands and Africa; the German experimentation in South-West Africa, and the Dutch seaborne competing with the Spanish and Portuguese’s expansionism. Study related to Poland’s attempted acquisition of colonial territories outside Europe is rarely discussed. Drawing on the activities of the Polish Colonial Society, this article contends that the building blocks of colonization were not confined solely to European imperial powers. As colonization forged ahead in the twentieth century, Poland seemed to be the country where colonialism played a significant role in both national and transna...

Prisons and State Building: Promoting ‘The Fiasco of the Prison’ in a Global Context

Abstract: Prison expansionism around the world is, in part, facilitated by extolling the prison as a symbol of ‘Western‐democracy’ which is justified as an effective and transparent means of enforcing the rule of law and as an internationally recognised indicator of a strong state. This article, however, argues that the realities of prisons do not match up with their symbolic and extolled virtues. Drawing on existing empirical and theoretical literature, this article argues that the role of the prison as a symbol of effective ‘state‐building’ ignores the irrefutable evidence of the ‘fiasco’ of the prison, either to fulfil its own stated purposes or to operate in ways that adhere to or strengthen democratic ideals. Further, it suggests that international bodies, non‐government organisations, state officials and scholars must engage more honestly with the ‘truth about prisons’ and their failure to function in the ways they are imagined to.

The peculiarity of Brazilian state-formation in geopolitical context: the challenge of Eurocentrism in international relations and political Marxism

Abstract: This thesis provides a historical reconstruction of the long-term trajectory of Brazilian state-formation (ca. 1450 - 1889), developed as a contribution to the sub-field of IR Historical Sociology. Theoretically, it is informed by the tradition of Geopolitical Marxism, which emphasises the social conflicts – on both sides of the Atlantic – that inform the geopolitical strategies and disputes between coloniser and colonised, without being determined by them. This account challenges existing theories of IR and Historical Sociology, in which trajectories of state formation are explained through the use of generalising theoretical assumptions foreclosing case-specific particularities, especially in non-European cases. I propose instead a radical historicist approach to social science, reframing social theory as a methodological guideline for historical analysis. Empirically, this amounts to a reinterpretation of Portuguese maritime expansionism, deriving the geopolicies of South American occupation not from generalising notions of colonialism or the expansion of capitalism, but from the situated practices of elite and inter-elite reproduction. The thesis moves on to show how the events that followed Napoleon’s invasion of Portugal in 1807 eventually led to Brazilian independence through an analysis of the competing interests of Portuguese and Brazilian elites, exacerbated by and geopolitically managed through the interference of British strategies of informal imperialism in Latin America. After formal independence, Brazilian policy making is driven not by the aspiration towards a civilizational standard or capitalist modernisation, but by the conflicts between segments of the ruling class, especially regarding the long-delayed transition from slavery towards other forms of labour control. The argument is that the historicist method does not only provide the key to the “peculiarity” of the Brazilian case by questioning the biases towards state-centrism in mainstream IR and towards structuralism in Marxism, but that it also overcomes the challenge of Eurocentrism by incorporating the agency of non-European subjects in the making of their own history.

Climate Apartheid and Environmental Refugees

Abstract: The ideologies and technologies of the global North have long necessitated the forced migration, colonization and ecological plunder of the global South for imperial and capital expansionism. In recent decades, the excesses and demands of a global economy dependent upon unrelenting growth and industrialization have created new victims—entire populations now being dislocated by human-induced climate change—an emerging class of environmental refugees. The impact of climate change exacerbates existing pressures and inequalities related to economics, conflict, urban mega-development and land-use changes—all of which particularly affect the global South—and this chapter utilizes Connell’s (Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 2007) Southern theory to examine critically what has been termed ‘climate apartheid’ and explore its impacts on the increasing number of environmental refugees.

Southernizing green criminology: Human dislocation, environmental injustice and climate apartheid

Abstract: The politics and conquests of the Global North have long necessitated the forced migration, colonization and ecological plunder of the Global South for imperial and capital expansionism. In recent decades, these excesses of accelerated industrialization have created new victims, with entire populations or “climate refugees” (Barnes and Dove 2015) or “environmental refugees” (Seelye 2001) dislocated by human-induced climate change. This article adopts Connell’s (2007) southern theory and Carrington and colleagues’ (2015) idea of a “southern criminology” to examine critically the notion of ‘climate apartheid’ and explore its impacts on the increasing number of individuals displaced by environmental harms.

An enduring sovereign mode of punishment: Post-dictatorial penal policies in Spain:

Abstract: When analysing the features of the Spanish criminal justice system from the perspective of the late-democratisation of the Spanish polity, the system's evolution is characterised by an almost uninterrupted penal expansionism and a relatively prominent level of severity. This paper examines those features from the viewpoints of the legal reforms, institutional practices and collective perceptions and expectations experienced since the end of the dictatorial period. In addition, the article explores some reasons which may explain the relatively high punitiveness of the Spanish criminal justice system, before adding a coda on the changes of the penal system fostered by the Great Recession.

Dangerous liaisons: money and citizenship

Abstract: Vogue predictions that citizenship is diminishing in relevance or perhaps even vanishing outright, popular among jetsetters who already possess full membership status in affluent democracies, have failed to reach many applicants still knocking on the doors of well-off polities One can excuse the world’s destitute, those who are willing to risk their lives in search of the promised lands of migration in Europe or America, for not yet having heard the prophecies about citizenship’s decline But the same is not true for the well-heeled who are increasingly active in the market for citizenship: the ultra-rich from the rest of the world They are willing to dish out hundreds of thousands of dollars to gain a freshly-minted passport in their new ‘home country’ That this demand exists is not fully surprising given that this is a world of regulated mobility and unequal opportunity, and a world where not all passports are treated equally at border crossings Rapid processes of market expansionism have now reached what for many is the most sacrosanct non-market good: membership in a political community More puzzling is the willingness of governments – our public trustees and legal guardians of citizenship – to engage in processes that come very close to, and in some cases cannot be described as anything but, the sale and barter of membership goods in exchange for a hefty bank wire transfer or large stack of cash

The Rise and Fall of Russia's Far Eastern Republic, 1905–1922: Nationalisms, Imperialisms, and Regionalisms in and after the Russian Empire

Abstract: The Russian Far East was a remarkably fluid region in the period leading up to, during, and after the Russian Revolution. The different contenders in play in the region, imagining and working toward alternative futures, comprised different national groups, including Russians, Buryat-Mongols, Koreans, and Ukrainians; different imperialist projects, including Japanese and American attempts to integrate the region into their political and economic spheres of influence as well as the legacies of Russian expansionism and Bolshevik efforts to export the revolution to Mongolia, Korea, China, and Japan; and various local regionalists, who aimed for independence or strong regional autonomy for distinct Siberian and Far Eastern communities and whose efforts culminated in the short-lived Far Eastern Republic of 1920–1922. The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Far Eastern Republic, 1905–1922 charts developments in the region, examines the interplay of the various forces, and explains how a Bolshevik version of state-centered nationalism prevailed.

The Explanatory Power of Structural Realism in the 21st Century: the Eastern Partnership, Russian Expansionism and the War in Ukraine

Abstract: While the scope of the paper is to assess the actions undertaken by the European Union towards the FSU-CIS (Former Soviet Union, Commonwealth of Independent States) which was manifested through the Eastern Partnership Initiative in the years 2008 – 2014, the focus will be centred on theoretical concepts and their ‘explanatory power’ rather than actions undertaken by European or Russian decision makers. Taking that under account, this essay will critically assess the explanatory power of the neorealist school of thought which although overtly criticized, still remains a viable tool in explaining the processes occurring in international relations.

Ethnic Formation with Other-Than-Human Beings: Island Shrine Practice in Uganda’s Long Eighteenth Century

Abstract: Many studies of ethnic formation find metaphors of descent at the core of largely masculinist discourse about belonging and difference. This study integrates the meaning, affect, and information-sharing prompted with the other-than-human beings – in particular, trees – enlisted during rhythmic assembly at an Island shrine in east Africa’s Inland Sea (Lake Victoria), in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Fostering ethnic identification there drew on lateral connections that crossed language, region, and standing without creating boundaries. A gendered discourse exceeding the masculine was likely indispensable to this sort of belonging. The beginning of a long period of bellicose state expansionism and the deep history of public healing in the region framed these developments.

The Wilsonian moment in Yanaihara Tadao's political thought

Abstract: Albeit with little reference to Woodrow Wilson, Yanaihara Tadao, the Chair of Colonial Policy at Tokyo Imperial University in the 1920s and 1930s, and a pious Christian, adapted the core ideas of Wilsonian liberalism such as national self-determination, multilateralism, and democracy to the political and legal framework of imperial Japan. Yanaihara advocated the principle of autonomy for the Japanese empire to transform itself into the core of a liberal international order. He articulated that the combination of colonialism and unfettered capitalism had detrimental effects on the colonized and advocated for a Japanese empire that reflected the voice of its colonized people. However, having seen little improvement in the status of the colonized, Yanaihara increasingly regarded Japanese pan-Asianist ideas in the 1930s as a cover-up of Japanese expansionism. Almost abandoning his earlier ideas about empire as a multiethnic society, he criticized Japan's military venture as economically unprofitable, and policies toward Manchuria as stoking the rise of Chinese nationalism. He advocated for the normative framework advanced by the Mandate System of the League of Nations as a way toward the universalization of sovereignty, and protection of stateless populations. The failure of the Wilsonian moment in Japan forced Yanaihara out of Tokyo Imperial University but also strengthened his inclination towards liberal internationalism.

Regionalisms and Imperialisms in the Making of the Russian Far East, 1903–1926

Abstract: Tracing the emergence of the Russian Far East as a new region of the Russian Empire, revolutionary Russia, and the Soviet Union through regionalist and imperialist discourses and policies, this article briefly discusses Russian expansion in the Pacific littoral, outlines the history of regionalism in North Asia during the revolutionary and early Soviet periods, and focuses on the activities of the Far Eastern Council of People's Commissars (Dal΄sovnarkom), the Far Eastern Republic (FER), and the Far Eastern Revolutionary Committee (Dal΄'revkom) Inspired by Siberian regionalism and other takes on post-imperial decentralization, the Bolshevik Aleksandr Mikhailovich Krasnoshchekov and other regional politicians became the makers of the new region from within Meanwhile, the legacies of the empire's expansionism, the Bolshevik “new imperialism” in Asia, and the Japanese military presence in the region during the Russian Civil War accompanied the consolidation of the Russian Far East

The Fujitsuru Mystery: Translocal Xiamen, Japanese Expansionism, and the Asian Cocaine Trade, 1900–1937

Abstract: Author(s): Thilly, Peter | Abstract: This article examines the Asian cocaine trade of the early twentieth century. It argues that the distribution of cocaine into Asian colonial ports was controlled by people from southeastern China who took advantage of a convergence of factors: consumer markets in India and Southeast Asia, shifting political winds surrounding drug use, the rise of Japan, and the translocal nature of southern Fujianese society. Xiamen was not only a port but also the hub of a society that was omnipresent in the maritime world of early twentieth-century Asia: natives of southern Fujian resided in Calcutta, Singapore, Rangoon, Manila, and Kobe, constituting a huge percentage of the crew and passengers of the steamships that connected those places. The implications of this story are relevant to two important themes of this special issue: the history of control and evasion in maritime Asia, and, relatedly, the ways in which states sought to extend their jurisdiction over the seas. Fujianese cocaine smugglers saw an opportunity when colonial governments banned cocaine imports, and took advantage of their place within the Japanese imperial sphere to acquire drugs and penetrate colonial markets. The evidence presented here thus highlights the place of opportunism and entrepreneurialism within the wider history of state efforts to control trade. Keywords: cocaine, drugs, smuggling, China, Fujian, Xiamen, Singapore, India, Japan, maritime history, East Asia, Southeast Asia

Transnational Spatial Dimensions of Colombian–Canadian Relations in the Era of Capitalist Expansionism

Abstract: The study of the history of the Western Hemisphere, as a spatial unit, has been for the most part disregarded. In North America, historians such as Lester Langley and Herbert Bolton tried to make h...

Bismarck or Wilhelm? China's Peaceful Rise vs. Its South China Sea Policy

Abstract: The choice facing China today is whether it will follow the precedent set by Otto von Bismarck—which appears to be its stated goal—or whether it will (intentionally or unintentionally) follow the path of another German leader, Kaiser Wilhelm, and pursue a policy of military growth, territorial and/or maritime expansionism, and a relative disregard for the concerns of its neighbors. The South China Sea will be an important test case, an arena where China's choices will impact its relations with its neighbors and other great powers like the United States.

Resolving un torts in us courts: georges v. united nations

Abstract: This article concerns the recent case of Georges v United Nations, which constitutes, to date, the most elaborate public law challenge to the principle of UN immunity from suit and private law attempt at procuring compensation from the UN for alleged malfeasance. Despite the fact that it relates to people and events in Haiti, the case was brought by United States lawyers on behalf of US plaintiffs, was decided by US courts, used the US-style class action method, called for reparations of US proportions and was intervened in by the US government. The article addresses how the US legal culture of expansionism, litigiousness and charity have influenced the case. It asks whether, in drawing on this culture, the US legal system has overextended its extraterritorial engagement in international and foreign affairs.

Embodied Seeing-In, Empathy, and Expansionism

Abstract: I will argue that the ambition to provide a naturalized aesthetics of film in Murray Smith’s Film, Art, and the Third Culture is not fully matched by the actual explanatory work done. This is because it converges too much on the emotional engagement with character at the expense of other features of film. I will make three related points to back up my claim. I will argue (1) that Smith does not adequately capture in what ways the phenomenon of seeing-in, introduced early in the book, could explain our complex engagement with moving images; (2) that because of this oversight he also misconstrues the role of the mirror neuron system in our engagement with filmic scenes; and (3) that an account of embodied seeing-in could be a remedy for the above. In order to demonstrate the latter point, I will show how such an account could contribute to the analysis of a central sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951) that Smith also discusses.

The Anti-Colonial Empire: Ottoman Mobilization and Resistance in the Italo-Turkish War, 1911-1912

Abstract: Author(s): McCollum, Jonathan | Advisor(s): Gelvin, James L | Abstract: The Italo-Turkish War (1911-1912), now remembered primarily as Italy’s war for what is now Libya, swelled from a localized colonial invasion into a significant Mediterranean conflict and a global cause ci?½li?½bre that attracted support and aid for the embattled Ottoman regime from diverse locations both inside and outside the borders of the empire. This dissertation examines the means by which the Ottoman Empire erected an asymmetric defense of its last North African provinces to preserve its territory and empire from Italian occupation and annexation. Drawing on sources in Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, Greek, and Judeo-Spanish, this study demonstrates how the Sublime Porte and the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) initially deployed a rhetoric of unity, constitutionalism, and international law to protect the empire from the Italian invasion. Due to the efficacy of Italian diplomacy, the Ottomans, unable to enlist Great Power support for the preservation of imperial territory, developed a defensive strategy for its North African territories that relied primarily on humanitarianism and volunteerism. This dissertation, therefore, investigates the vital contribution of pan-Islamism and the broad appeal of a loose ideology of Muslim anticolonialism in the empire’s attempts to bolster its forces with international aid and volunteers. While many studies tend to brush aside the importance of early twentieth-century pan-Islamism as either a pipe dream of Wilhelmine champions of German imperialism and their Ottoman collaborators or as merely a rhetorical movement devoid of substantial consequence, this dissertation reveals how global appeals to Islamic unity to combat European expansionism translated into material benefits for Ottomans on the battlefield. Through an examination of documents from the Turkish Red Crescent and the Turkish General Staff archives, it highlights the crucial assistance of global Islamic humanitarian aid to the Ottoman war effort in the form of sizeable financial contributions to the Ottoman Red Crescent from Muslims over the duration of the conflict. The Red Crescent organization provided a means to funnel aid to the battlefield collected in mosques, mass meetings, newspaper subscriptions, and Islamic associations within and without the Ottoman Empire. This charitable aid facilitated the deployment to North Africa of multiple Red Crescent teams which assumed, in most cases, sole responsibility for the medical care of both soldiers and civilians of the Ottoman provinces. Simultaneously, the Ottoman ranks in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica swelled as calls for coreligionist volunteers to take up arms were heeded throughout Africa and Asia. Ultimately, the empire’s anticolonial ideology proved an effective unifier for the many Muslims around the world who shouldered a great deal of the cost of the conflict. While Italy’s expenses for its war for colonial expansion ballooned, the defense of North Africa cost the Ottoman treasury very little.

Revolution between Ideology, History and Philosophy: World Imperialism

Abstract: The paper addresses the problem of the October Revolution and revolution as such in its historical, ideological and philosophical aspects. The unity of all three aspects and their mutual permeation is reflected in the question how the event of the October Revolution is inscribed into the history of the 20th century, considering that the latter was largely written by this event itself. Being more than just an intra-historical event, revolution presupposes the transformation of history. Thus one needs to ask: What enables a self-transforming history? There is no supernatural force involved: it is rather that the subjectivity of society perceives history and the whole world as space for its own expansion and participation in power. In the context of world history as a self-establishing social power, even communism finally proves to be what it allegedly fights against: world imperialism. The thesis is based on Ivo Urbancic’s essay from 1971, ‘Lenin’s philosophy’ or Imperialism, and on recent discussions about the possibility of revolution today, which is mentioned in the last part of the article. The rampant imperial expansionism of society as subjectivity must give us pause with the question how there can persist a hope in the meaningfulness of humanity. Does anyone dare to offer resistance, perhaps to launch a revolution?

Richard M. Nixon and European Integration

Abstract: This book re-examines the Nixon administrations attitude and approach to the European integration project. The formulation of US policy towards European integration in the Nixon presidential years (1969-1974) was conditioned by the perceived relative decline of the United States, Western European emergence and competition, the feared Communist expansionism, and US national interests. Against that backdrop, the Nixon administration saw the need to re-evaluate its policy on Western Europe and the integration process on this continent. Underpinning this study is the extensive use of newly-released archival materials from the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, the Library of Congress, and the State Department. Furthermore, the work is based on the public papers in the American Presidency Project and the materials on the topic of European integration and unification in the Archive of European Integration. Finally, the study has extensively used newspaper archives as well as the declassified online documents, memoirs and diaries of former US officials. Mining these sources made it possible to shed new light on the complexity and dynamism of the Nixon administrations policy towards European integration.

Liberalism, Colonialism and Liberal Imperialism

Abstract: One of the most obvious features of the post-Cold War world was that western states and western dominated international organizations pursued a more expansionist and interventionist set of foreign policies and practices. In attempting to explain as well as assess this period, scholars from across the theoretical and political spectrum have identified “liberalism” or “liberal” ideas, arguments and concepts, as playing a crucial role in motivating these practices as well as shaping their contents. In turn this has led to increased attention to the links between liberalism, colonialism, and liberal imperialism. This article explores these connections by focusing on the trajectory of a particular form of Nineteenth Century colonial liberal argument—what will be called here “developmental liberalism”—articulated most famously by John Stuart Mill. The objective here is to use Mill’s arguments to raise a number of vitally important questions about the discourses and practices of some modern forms of liberal imperialism. In particular it stresses Mill’s arguments against immanence and institutional universalism, and his understanding of the kind of agency necessary for achievement of progress in colonial settings.

South African Nuclear Development in the 1970s: A Non-Proliferation Conundrum?

Abstract: The 1970s is often argued to be the era marking the beginning of the overall transformation of the international system and the nuclear order, following the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) entering into force in 1970. South Africa challenged this nuclear order from the outset. In addition to regarding the NPT as inherently discriminatory and hypocritical in allowing a difference between nuclear weapon ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, the South African apartheid regime felt threatened by Soviet expansionism into Southern Africa. Facing international condemnation and isolation due to its repressive domestic politics of racial segregation, and gripped in a war against Soviet- and Cuban-backed forces in Angola, the apartheid regime was quick to move from a decision to build one peaceful nuclear explosive device in 1974, to a formal decision in 1978 to design and develop a secret strategic nuclear deterrent. Using knowledge and skills acquired during a period of techno-nationalism and Western collaborat...

Africa and the Middle East: Shifting Alliances and Strategic Partnerships

Abstract: Chapter 15 traces the Cold War-era Afro-Arab cooperation as tied to the Arabs’ support for Africa’s struggles against racism and colonialism and the joint condemnation of Israel’s expansionist policies against the Palestine people at the United Nations. Turkey’s new Africa policy, however, has sought to strengthen its diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties with the continent. Much of the trade of the Middle East (Iran, Turkey, and Israel) in sub-Saharan Africa is with South Africa. The authors therefore argue that trade is the starting point, and there are still many opportunities to strengthen relations further between the Middle East and African countries, such as linking infrastructure for trade corridors, but more needs to be done by both parties to tap into these opportunities.

The Defiance of Global Commitment: A Complex Social Psychology

Abstract: The Brexit vote; the election of Trump; the upsurge of European nationalism; the devolution of the Arab Spring; global violence; Chinese expansionism; disruptive climate change; the riotous instabilities of the world capitalist system…While diverse in nature, these events share a common denominator: they are less a failure of policy, and more a complex social psychological reaction to globalization, the result of which presently threatens our survival on Earth. Based on a critical reading of Freud’s Civilization and its discontents, The defiance of global commitment constructs a complex social psychology of how people all over the world are addressingglobalization. Drawing on the latest advances in the cognitive, social, and complexity sciences, this timely volume presents a global model of defiance and the triangular tensions between nostalgic retreat, global aggression, and civil society, as manifested in forms ranging from nostalgic resentment and LGBTQI issues to racism and ecological aggression. Revealing how globalization and its discontents manifest the darker reaches of the human psyche and its conflicted relations with others, this insightful monograph will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers, interested in fields such as globalization studies, complexity sciences and social psychology.

Ciertos espacios de ocupación. La relación agroindustria-protestantismo en la formación de una región fronteriza entre México y Estados Unidos

Abstract: This paper proposes to analyse the interrelation of two dynamics of territorial occupation based on American expansionism in an agroindustrial region of northwestern Mexico. The paper will analyze, from a longitudinal perspective, the colonization processes through economic development and the establishment of a Protestant religious model in the productive model and in the regional settlement of one of the most important agro-exporting zones of the northwest of Mexico. Despite limitations in the method, the work excels in connecting complex dynamics of globalization that are usually analyzed separately. The work shows the development of a colonial sense in the dynamics of territorial occupation of companies linked to agro-industry and the development of a Protestant religious field in the borders; at the same time, it identifies the dispute over the possession of a regional identity that has not remained untouched by conflicts between the local settlers.

Colonial Archives on the Move: Mexican Manuscripts Read out of Context

Abstract: This article explores the circulation and utilization of colonial-era Mexican manuscripts outside of Mexico. With a focus on a nineteenth-century US history book, William H. Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843), and a novel, Lew Wallace's The Fair God, or the Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico (1873), this article illuminates the distinct archival moments the manuscripts embody as they were read, understood, and signified in various ways outside of the place and context of their production. Conquest of Mexico and The Fair God, it is argued, engage with materials from the Colonial Mexican Archive as parts of projects that are circumscribed by nineteenth-century US exceptionalism and expansionism. The article concludes with a consideration of the Archive and the Internet.