Alliance Politics in Hybrid Regimes : Political Stability and Instability since World War II

Cette thèse étudie la stabilité et l’instabilité politique des régimes hybrides. Elle pose la question suivante : dans quelles conditions l’autorité des élites au pouvoir est-elle reconnue ou contestée? Notre réponse s’articule en lien avec le caractère inclusif ou exclusif de la coalition dirigeante : c’est-à-dire, l’alliance stratégique des élites dirigeantes avec les groupes sociaux dominants. L’inclusion de ces derniers favorise le consentement et la stabilité; leur exclusion entraîne l’affrontement et l’instabilité politique. Sa composition dépend (i) du degré de violence organisée extra-légale et (ii) du degré de pénétration de l’État sur le territoire et dans l’économie. La première variable permet d’identifier quel groupe social au sein de l’État (militaires) ou du régime (partis d’opposition) est dominant et influence les formes de communication politique avec les élites dirigeantes. La deuxième variable permet d’identifier quel groupe social au sein de l’État (fonctionnaires) ou de la société (chefs locaux) est dominant et oriente les rapports entre les régions et le pouvoir central. L’apport de la recherche est d’approfondir notre compréhension des institutions politiques dans les régimes hybrides en mettant l’accent sur l’identité des groupes sociaux dominants dans un contexte donné. La thèse propose un modèle simple, flexible et original permettant d’appréhender des relations causales autrement contre-intuitives. En ce sens, la stabilité politique est également possible dans un pays où l’État est faible et/ou aux prises avec des mouvements de rébellion; et l’instabilité dans un contexte inverse. Tout dépend de la composition de la coalition dirigeante. Afin d’illustrer les liens logiques formulés et d’exposer les nuances de notre théorie, nous employons une analyse historique comparative de la coalition dirigeante en Malaisie (1957-2010), en Indonésie (1945-1998), au Sénégal (1960-2010) et au Paraguay (1945-2008). La principale conclusion est que les deux variables sont incontournables. L’une sans l’autre offre nécessairement une explication incomplète des alliances politiques qui forgent les conditions de stabilité et d'instabilité dans les régimes hybrides.

Impossible Identification : Contemporary Art, Politics and the Palestinians in Israel

Quel est le sens donné à l’art par la minorité palestinienne d’Israël dans un contexte où l’État se définit uniquement en termes ethno-nationaux et religieux ? Les écrits sur l’art en contextes coloniaux et postcoloniaux ont tendance à considérer l’art comme une ressource de revendication identitaire face à une situation de domination. Autrement dit, l’art est souvent présenté comme un acte politique de reconnaissance à travers l’affirmation d’une contre-identité. Suite à un travail intensif de terrain ethnographique dans la région, cette recherche démontre que pour les artistes palestiniens en Israël, l’aspect politique de l’art ne vient pas de sa capacité à exprimer des revendications identitaires. À travers l’observation des pratiques et l’analyse des discours des artistes, elle remet en question la relation présumée entre l'art et l'identité. Plus concrètement, elle analyse les pratiques d’un groupe d’artistes issus d’une minorité nationale indigène dont le travail artistique constitue une interruption des régimes spatiotemporels d'identification. L’aspect politique du travail des artistes palestiniens en Israël s’exprime à travers un processus de désidentification, un refus de réduire l’art à des catégories identitaires dominantes. Les œuvres de ces artistes permettent l’expression d’une rupture esthétique, manifestant un « ayant lieu » politique qui se trouve entre l'art et le non-art. Il s’agit d’un espace qui permet la rupture de l’ordre sensible de la société israélienne à travers l’affirmation et la vérification d’une égalité qui existe déjà.

‘The Pages are Bugged': the politics of listening in the poetry of W.S. Graham

This paper probes the public dimensions of the work of the twentieth-century Scottish poet W. S. Graham. It draws upon the public contacts and contexts that Graham's lyrics structure and reconfigure, in texts that have appeared to critics to demonstrate the poet's textual aloneness, his intellectual and geographical banishment. Repeatedly addressing his St Ives community of artists and writers, lovers and companions, Graham's work sets up strategic routes through a succession of publicly-minded verbal engagements. Refusing to allow one passively to listen in to the poet's isolation, the lyrics invite, rebuff, tease, avoid, dally with, and proposition audiences and interlocutors. Graham's poetry speaks from within and without tradition, location and heritage, subtly attuning readers to the politics of its handling of national allegiance, identity, class and patronage.

British national identity and the dilemmas of multiculturalism

Nationalism and multiculturalism are often perceived as polar opposites with the former viewed as the disease and the latter the cure. Contrary to this view, this article argues that a strong national identity, albeit of a particular kind, is prerequisite to a stable and functioning multicultural society. The article seeks to identify both the causes and the implications of the absence of an overarching, civic national identity in Britain, further to the goal of seeking a meaningful solution. It is our contention that the problem lies in the difficulty involved in reconciling current pressures on British identity with a coherent narrative of British history, especially its imperial past.

'The African Presence in Caribbean Literature' revisited: recovering the politics of imagined co-belonging 1930–2005

Working outward from Edward Kamau Brathwaite’s landmark 1974 essay, “The African Presence in Caribbean Literature,” this article explores the fuller history of the idea of Africa in anglophone Caribbean critical and literary works from the 1930s to the 2000s. It demonstrates that earlier, now forgotten Caribbean critics drew on imperfect and incomplete Caribbean literary imaginings of Africa to frame a counter-colonial politics of identity. The essay also brings back into view writings by Una Marson, Victor Stafford Reid, and Derek Walcott that expressed a different politics of solidarity based on the shared experience of colonial violence. Readings of recent literary works by Charlotte Williams and Nalo Hopkinson reveal the contemporary crafting of this relation around a heightened awareness of both presence and loss, history and imagination. Importantly, this gathering of sources and perspectives allows for an appreciation of the role that a reach toward Africa has played in articulations of Caribbeanness and its complex patterning of cultural co-belonging.

Category politics: deaf students' inclusion in a 'hearing university'

This article investigates the way in which deaf tertiary students' identity is constructed within the university - an overwhelmingly 'hearing' institution. It is a descriptive and analytical account of the experiences of two deaf teacher education students as they reflect on their progress and experiences in higher education. Data have been analysed within an interpretive framework of category politics and the construction of difference. The study found that providing the same access to the same information in the same form did little to address the discursive marginality of these students.

Recent indigenous theatre in Australia:the politics of autobiography

Over the past decade Australian theatre has seen an increased profile for works written and created by Indigenous artists. This paper looks at the development of Indigenous theatre in Australia and considers how increased mainstream production opportunities have facilitated this expansion of Indigenous theatre practice. Based on the textual analysis of a number of key works, this paper looks at the development of the one-person show as the dominant genre for Indigenous theatre practices, and investigates the relationship between autobiography and the celebration of ‘otherness’. This study argues that this theatre work represents a shift away from conventional representations of Aboriginality towards a more self-determined expression of political identity.

Postcolonial bildungsroman: indigenous subjects and identity-formation

In the bildungsroman as it has conventionally been defined, individuals attain self-actualisation through a series of experiences whereby they accommodate their individuality to a social order.  Protagonists negotiate their transition from childhood to young-adulthood by way of educative experiences, trials of various kinds, and a search for identity, which is generally formulated as a fixed or stable essence which they must discover or accept.  In this paper I focus on two examples of bildungsroman by Indigenous Canadian and Australian authors: Jeannette Armstrong’s Slash (1985),and Richard J. Frankland’s Digger J. Jones (2007).  Both novels feature male protagonists whose stories play out against the background of Indigenous activism in the 1960s.  As they track the identity-formation of their protagonists, the two novels deconstruct simple or fixed ideas of national identity by pointing to the complex cross-cultural relationships which have characterised settler societies.  At the same time,these novels dramatise the power of socialising practices which promote white superiority and position Indigenous peoples as supplicants or victims.  Both novels draw on what Paul Havemann terms the "new politics of identity and cultural recognition" which characterise contemporary Indigenous activism, re-reading events and settings of the 1960s in the light of discourses of cultural recognition and self-determination.

Abstract art or the politics and pedagogies of getting read

The writing of academic abstracts is more than a tiresome necessity of scholarly life. It is a practice which goes beyond genre and technique to questions of identity and the promotional economies of academic work. In this paper we deconstruct a series of abstracts from a variety of refereed journals and conferences and develop a set of questions that allow us to 'read' the representation of data, argument, methodology and significance. We argue that the rules of abstract engagement are fluid and increasingly important with the advent of online journals and global citation indices. We suggest that abstract art is now an obligatory aspect of postgraduate supervision.

Valuing local built heritage in a global setting : identity & visual perceptions of cultural built heritage in Northern Ireland

‘In these troubled times with the world in search of its bearings and way ward minds using the terms “culture” and “civilization” in an attempt to turn human beings against one another, there is an urgent need to remember how fundamental cultural diversity is to humanity itself’ (UNESCO 2002). The progressive idea of culture can be used in regressive ways by extremists who used it occasionally to pursue the politics of xenophobia and exclusion. The hypothesis that different communities can share the same culture but have different visual perception of their built environment might seems contradictory. It is essential to describe what is meant by the ‘same culture’. The ever evolving changes of definition and re-definition of the word has not yet settled. This paper adopts the descriptive definition of culture while challenging its interpretation. The descriptive definition refers to ‘all the characteristics activities by a people’. While this description is generally accepted, the interpretation of what ‘a people’ means is divisive. It is not clear how Eliot defines ‘a people’. Is the term genetically prescribed or is ‘a people’ place related? And what about the moral and religious orientation? This paper argues that culture is basically place related and the forces that shape a culture of a ‘people’ are deeply embedded in the environmental forces that also shape other aspects of the place making and its identity. The paper addresses the questions of conflicts, value systems, and culture definitions and the inseparable links with architecture aesthetics.

Local built heritage in Northern Ireland is taken as a case study. Unlike many parts of the world, visual perceptions in Northern Ireland is well recognised with iconic as well as formal representations. The population is well aware of the signified as well as the signifiers. The boundaries between iconology and formalism theories are very blurred in the Northern Ireland context. This paper examines how the two communities visually perceive their shared built heritage and the extent of overlapping between the understanding of iconic and formalist visual representations in the built environment. The paper takes the buildings of the successful economic ventures of the shirt industry in the 19th century as a case study. The case study provides an insight of how a signified value of a successful economic regeneration initiative that is deeply imbedded in the social structure and within the urban fabric can overcome divisive visual perception. The paper examines the possibility of building upon the historical success of the shirt industry to promote architectural cultural dialogue in which cultural built heritage in Derry is able to facilitate knowledge creation and social capital in different arenas.

Gender and national identity : the people's theatre in the Philippines (1967-2000)

The Philippine Education Theater Association (PETA), the People’s Theatre in the Philippines was founded within the bounds of the nationalist leftist tradition. Its origin therefore determines to a great extent the contours of the discourse on the feminist movement in the Philippines, its participation within the cultural movement and the founding years of the pioneering People’s Theatre in the country. As a grass roots theatre from a Third World nation, the PETA theatre model responded to the needs in raising socio-political and economic consciousness and can therefore serve as an alternative tool to formal education for other Third World countries. This thesis argues, the People’s Theatre development is determined within the matrix of gender, class, politics and the nationalist movement to which it is intertwined or inextricably linked. The feminist, nationalist and radical movements have become superimposed upon the history of the People’s Theatre and have nurtured its development as a consciousness raising educational tool.

Ko Un and the poetics of postcolonial identity

Ko Un is one of South Korea's most important writers of the past 50 years, and a poet whose work provides important insights into crucial linkages between language, identity and community. He lived through, chronicled and critically engaged most of the traumatic events his nation faced during the last century: a brutal colonial occupation by Japan; the division of the peninsula into communist North and capitalist South; an unusually devastating fraternal war; the integration of the divided peninsula into global Cold War politics; periods of authoritarian rule on both sides; and the more recent challenge to promote reconciliation. Some of these episodes challenged the very existence of Korea as a people, nation and state. Ko Un's poetry was part of a larger effort to regain a sense of being and national identity in the face of turmoil, war and globalisation. We argue that by engaging with these highly political issues Ko Un's work provides important clues about how to articulate notions of identity and community in a way that empathetically portrays other people and their identities. In doing so he offers an alternative to the prevailing inside/outside logic that often leads to problematic forms of nationalism.

Westphalia and the Taiwan conundrum : a case against the exclusionist construction of sovereignty and identity

It is often argued that at the root of the Taiwan question are the myriad differences in politics, ideology, identity, and economy between mainland China and Taiwan. Any prospect for its peaceful resolution, it seems, hinges on bridging those differences through economic and/or political integration. Although the Taiwan conundrum has much to do with wide-ranging cross-strait divergence, this article argues that it cannot be disconnected from one important commonality between Beijing and Taipei, namely, a cross-strait normative convergence on the Westphalian notion of state sovereignty. Encompassing an exclusionary understanding of final authority, territory, and identity, Westphalian sovereignty provides both Beijing and Taipei with a common meaning that Taiwan is an issue of sovereignty, central to their respective national identity and political survival and hence not subject to compromise. As a consequence, it argues that this common meaning is paradoxically responsible for much of the mistrust, tension, and deadlock in cross-strait relations. In order to find a long-term solution to the Taiwan impasse, we need to pay attention to this particular normative convergence as well as to the many differences across the Taiwan Strait.

Competing notions of regionalism in South Korean politics

In the past decade, ASEAN has been the primary driver of East Asian regionalism, and Korea has been an active supporter of ASEAN plus Three. Korea has explored the idea of an East Asian Community, and has been relatively open to notions of Asia–Pacific regionalism. The ROK has involved itself comparatively heavily in regional projects as both an initiator and a participant, but its notion of ‘region’ has oscillated between more and less inclusive forms of regionalism. This article examines how competing conceptions of region have influenced Korea's pursuit of regional initiatives. By revisiting historical understandings of Korea's regional identity, we explore the normative bases and material interests which motivate Korean regional initiatives, and assess the impact of its proposals.