Nationalism And State Building

This research is dealing with  the relationship between authoritarian state-building and ideology in contemporary Russia.  The collapse of the Soviet Union introduced a period of remarkable economic and political changes, but also of a turmoil and uncertainty for many. Unlike the Soviet Union, Russian Federation was a state without official ideology. However, when Putin's attempts to  consolidate the Russian regime along the authoritarian lines, resulted in  harsh Western critique, the need for new sources of legitimation emerged.  To deal with this critique and to thwart the perceived threats of colored revolution in Russia financed and supported by the West, Russian authorities adopted various strategies that combined a political, administrative and intellectual assault on the opposition and Western democratic ideals. An important element of these strategies was an attempt to supply ideological justifications for Russia's undemocratic regime. This attempt included both the de-legitimation of the idea of liberal democracy and the formulation of alternative conception that would legitimize Putin's regime. The latter became known as "sovereign democracy"

On the Shoulders of Grandmothers won the 2020 Mirra Komavrsky Book Award from the Eastern Sociological Society (ESS). Through in-depth interviews and ethnographic work with migrant grandmothers caring for the elderly in Italy and California and their adult children in Ukraine, On the Shoulders of Grandmothers investigates how migrant grandmothers built the “new” Ukraine from the outside in through transnational networks. By comparing the experiences of individual migrants in two different migration patterns—one a post-Soviet “exile” of individual women to Italy and the other an “exodus” of families to the United States—Dr. Solari exposes the production of new gendered capitalist economics and nationalisms that precariously place Ukraine between Europe and Russia with implications for the global world order. This global ethnography explains the larger context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Publicado como introducción a Javier Moreno Luzón (ed.), Construir España. Nacionalismo español y procesos de nacionalización, Madrid, Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2007, pp. 13-24. En una célebre frase de 1979, el intelectual valenciano y catalán Joan Fuster afirmaba que, "en plan de broma, podríamos decir que España-no el estado, la 'ideología'-es una invención de don Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo". Fuster, con una evidente intención provocadora-lo que Pierre Vilar llamó "su inimitable capacidad panfletaria"-, venía en realidad a denunciar la presencia de un españolismo rampante no sólo en las derechas sino también en las izquierdas españolas. Lo mismo le daban los herederos de la dictadura franquista que los socialdemócratas o los comunistas. No obstante, y por encima de sus objetivos políticos inmediatos, aquel panfleto señalaba la enorme importancia de un tema apenas estudiado, el nacionalismo español, y la necesidad de abordarlo desde perspectivas múltiples y rigurosas. A su juicio, había que desentrañar la historia del concepto de España y de las ideas españolistas en sus distintas versiones, así como la dinámica de sus relaciones con el catalanismo y su interiorización por parte de los españoles, atendiendo tanto a los discursos más elaborados como a la cultura popular. Hoy, casi treinta años más tarde, pocos compartirían las premisas filomarxistas y pan-catalanas de Fuster. Pero éste tampoco podría detectar tantas carencias, porque los historiadores se han empleado a fondo en tareas como las que él recomendaba y las polémicas sobre el nacionalismo español y la nacionalización de los españoles ocupan ya un lugar preeminente en la historiografía 1. El Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales acogió, en mayo de 2006, un coloquio internacional sobre estos asuntos al que fueron invitados diversos especialistas con un fin fundamental: que sometieran a discusión los resultados de investigaciones en marcha. Vaya por delante nuestro agradecimiento a quienes participaron en ese foro, tanto a los ponentes como a los comentaristas que moderaron los debates: José Álvarez Junco, Andrés de Blas Guerrero, Carolyn P. Boyd y Alfonso Botti. Este libro es el fruto de la revisión, a la luz de aquellas sesiones, de las ponencias presentadas entonces. Ya es el segundo de estas características, después del que dirigió Carolyn P. Boyd y se publicó hace unos meses bajo el título Religión y política en la España

Not-guilty verdicts, mistrials, and impunity for the Bundy family and many of their supporters in the armed confrontations over public land use in Nevada and Oregon. Expanded access for private oil, gas, mining, and logging industries and the downsizing of national monuments such as Bears Ears lead by Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke. A number of highly contentious debates and sensationalized events have again focused attention on land held in the public domain by the United States. This essay argues that federal land policy as a form of colonial administration has been constitutive for the logic of expectation as property in what is now the United States. From the state land cessions negotiated on behalf of the Articles of Confederation to the preemption acts (1830–1841) to the homestead acts (1862–1916) to present-day demands for land transfer, the acquisition and disposal of the so-called public domain have been central to westward colonization, the consolidation of the nation-state, and the promise of land ownership as the ostensible foundation of individual liberty. These dynamics are evident in contemporary conflicts over public lands and arguments for the transfer of public lands to either state or private ownership. Approaching the Bundy occupations as flashpoints that illuminate competing interpretations and claims to land within the history of westward colonization, this essay seeks to demonstrate the ways in which expectation emerges from particular economies of dispossession of indigenous peoples that have historically worked through and across the division of public and private property.

This article aims to analyze the relations between the trial of Adolf Eichmann and the Israeli national identity. It analyzes a trial which has its roots in the ius gentium and continues until the reappropriation of the memory of the Holocaust by Israel. The trial of Nazi criminal represents the moment when the Jewish state integrates his national experience to the memory of the destruction of European Jewry during the Second World War. Through the trials against Eichmann and its consequences on the Israeli public opinion, Ben Gurion strove for a nationalist rewriting of the Holocaust. The role of justice and law is central to the development of the national identity of Israel, providing a renewed civil identity that makes Israel the ‘guardian’ of memory and shifting the focus from the classic themes of Zionism.
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L’articolo si propone di analizzare le relazioni intercorse tra il processo ad Adolf Eichmann e l’identità nazionale israeliana attraverso la rilettura del suo processo. Si analizza un processo che ha le sue radici nello ius gentium e prosegue fino alla riappropriazione, da parte d’Israele, della memoria della Shoah. Il processo al criminale nazista è il momento in cui lo Stato ebraico integra nella propria storia nazionale l’esperienza della distruzione della comunità ebraica in Europa. Tramite i procedimenti contro Eichmann e le sue conseguenze sull’opinione pubblica, Ben Gurion si adoperò per una riscrittura in chiave nazionalista dello sterminio, con la conseguenza che il ruolo della giustizia e del diritto risultò, dunque, centrale nello sviluppo dell’identità israeliana, spostando l’attenzione del giovane Stato non più sui temi classici del sionismo, ma su una rinnovata identità civile che fa di Israele il custode della memoria.

Those who work with topics related to Modern Greek identity usually start discussing these issues by quoting the famous Georgios Gemistos Pletho (c.1360-1454): we, over whom you rule and hold sway, are Hellenes by genos (γένος), as is witnessed by our language and ancestral education. Although Woodhouse thought of Pletho as the last of the Hellenes, others prefer to denounce him the last of the Byzantines and the first and foremost Modern Greek. During the 14th and 15th centuries, a number of influential intellectuals in the Eastern Roman Empire preferred the term Hellene (Ἓλλην) to identify themselves, instead of the formal Roman (Ρωμαῖος) and the common Greek (Γραικός). According to the prevalent view of modern scholarship, the shift should not be interpreted only as a statement of proto-national identity, but also as the outcome of growing archaism. As Vryonis pointed out, the historian Critoboulos used to call the Balkan nations with their archaic names: Byzantines became “Hellenes,” Albanians became “Illyrians,” etc. Chalkokondyles followed in the same path. Furthermore, in order to lament the decline of their Empire, byzantine intellectuals tended to compare their sad present to the glory of ancient Greece. Besides archaism, proto-nationalism and Hellenism, I suggest that a careful reading of the sources would lead us to reappraise the ways 15th century intellectuals perceived identity. Whilst I do not accept Vakalopoulos’ views on diachronic Hellenic identity, I support that, in the 15th century, Byzantine scholars attempted to create an identity based on cultural and historical continuity and otherness. Moreover, Laiou’s definition of Greek identity as a resultant of language, history, tradition and interests does not cover the case of 15th century Byzantine philosophers, since the latter strived to enrich and enlarge Greek identity with additional elements. It is worth noting that those philosophers who fled to Italy deliberately chose to describe themselves as
Greeks (Greci/Γραικοί) or Hellenes (Ἓλληνες) and not as Romans (Ρωμιοί/Ρωμαῖοι), according to the Byzantine official terminology. During the 15th century a major shift occurred in the Byzantine intelligentsia and its prominent members revisited matters of identity. In this paper, I attempt to scrutinize the ways Byzantine philosophers of the 15th century,
who lived in the territories of the Byzantine Empire and in Italy, perceived identity and otherness. In my research, I include not only Greek, but also Latin sources, since their works is written in both languages.

A life narrative as short addendum to Chapter IV/Lives in Translation.

In Xenophon's Anabasis, Book IV, beginning of Chapter 8. Xenophon's army reaches the land of the Macrones at the east of Trabzon. The Macrones are lined up for battle. At this moment one of the peltasts came up to Xenophon, a man who said that he had been a slave at Athens, with word that he knew the language of these people; “I think,” he went on, “that this is my native country, and if there is nothing to hinder, I should like to have a talk with them.” (4.8.3). The man serves then as an interpret.

This paper explores changing representations of the nation in 19th and 21st century Serbia and Croatia. I analyse how the changed structural conditions influence different visualisation strategies of a nation over long periods of time. More specifically I attempt to show how the dominant 19th century visual representations of nationhood in Croatia and Serbia were centred on violent images: representations of battlefields, personal sacrifices, national martyrdom, large-scale forced migrations of the nation, the past military glories of medieval kingdoms, and the production of maps depicting more expansive future states. In contrast to this mode of representation, the imagery of 21st century nationalist tends to focus on the nation’s international achievements in the fields of economy, science, technology, art and sports. Whereas the 19th century was saturated with violent images of the nation, in the 21st century such representations are less visible. On the surface this significant visual shift would indicate that nationalism was a far more influential force in 19th Serbian and Croatian societies than is the case today. However I argue that the opposite is the case: the changing representations of the nation in fact reflect a greater organisational and ideological penetration of nationalism in present-day Serbia and Croatia. While in the 19th century violent images of the past largely served as a didactic tool for the socialisation of mostly peasant, and thus nationally ambiguous populations, in the 21st century there is no need to perform such a role, as most citizens are already highly nationalised. Instead the visualisation of national success in sports or science and the relative absence of violent images reflect the organisational and ideological strength of nationalism in both cases.

Two Systems, Two Countries is an unabashedly heterodox addition to a growing body of critical work on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) suppression of local identity and political freedoms in Hong Kong. What Carrico’s contribution uniquely provides is a penetrating analysis of the various schools of thought that make up the diverse landscape of Hong Kong nationalism.

This study analyzes controversies and public attitudes concerning the Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B), the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)
and Stepan Bandera in Ukraine. The research question is: Which factors affect attitudes toward the OUN-B, the UPA and Bandera in contemporary Ukraine? This article employs comparative and regression analyses of surveys commissioned by the author and conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in 2009 and 2013 to determine the effects of regional and other factors on attitudes toward these organizations and the OUN-B leader. The study shows that regional factors and perceptions of these organizations' involvement in mass murder were the strongest predictors of the views concerning the OUN-B, the UPA and Bandera. Their public support is strongest in Galicia and weakest in the East and the South, in particular, in Donbas and Crimea, two major conflict areas since the “Euromaidan.”

For Puerto Ricans, World War I provided the opportunity to test and challenge the linkages between military service, manhood, citizenship and decolonization.  During the war Puerto Rican political leaders, elected officials, and opinion makers sought to advance the socio-economic and political standing of their communities by demanding access to, and encouraging participation in the U.S. military.  In particular, Puerto Rican elites were interested in mobilizing the Puerto Rican peasantry thinking that training would transform them into modern men worthy of self-determination in the eyes of the metropolis.

The period between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century is one that witnessed the rise and spread of anti-Semitism throughout Europe. This paper attempts a historical analysis of the development of anti-Semitism in Romania and a comparison with the case of Hungary in the period between 1866 and 1913. Such a comparison is interesting as the process of Jewish emancipation in the two countries could not have been more different: while in the Romanian principalities Jews were almost completely excluded from political life, and faced important restrictions in all areas of activity, in Hungary they enjoyed full civil and political rights. As a result, anti-Semitism in these countries took different forms as well. In Hungary, anti-Semitism is usually viewed as a reaction to emancipation, while in Romania it accompanies the offi cial policy of discrimination and exclusion. As a result, this paper follows the development of legislation dealing with the
Jewish populations in the two countries, and tries to challenge the common perception of anti-Semitism as a phenomenon appearing as a reaction of the majority population to Jewish emancipation. This comparative discussion is carried out taking into account the different historical contexts of the two neighbouring lands and their impact on the situation of the Jews.

Alice Davis Hitchcock Award for 1992, Society of Architectural Historians.
Most Outstanding Book in Architecture and Urban Planning, Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, Association of American Publishers, Inc., 1991.
International Architecture Book Award, American Institute of Architects, 1992: "This is magisterial history with a grand sweep, an eye for detail and a determination not to simplify.  If Modern architecture in Italy over five generations was complex, paradoxical and full of counter-tendencies in any one architect, then these are lovingly pulled apart and exposed.""

This essay attempts to integrate the local paradigm of the Ionian State into the general structures of the British Empire, while at the same time examines the institutional continuities deriving from the Venetian dominion. An overall plan of the Ionian State's administration, focusing on governmental practices from the institutional point of view, is also being undertaken. The essay was based on primary and secondary sources' elaboration, referring to the administrative organization and to the state system in the Ionian Islands under the British Rule. Reflecting that, the social structure of the local society was interconnected to administrative mechanism. From a methodological perspective, the use of administrative archives is instrumental in synthetic process, in an effort to portray social networks and to clarify the formation of both individual and collective identities. Developing, however, the empirical work in the factual context is deemed necessary. The text is arranged in two parts: the first refers to the local economic realities, as well as to the economic mechanisms shaped in the context of the British Rule. Both subject matters are examined in very general terms. Public finance, the banking sector and the monetary system are research objects, aiming at a grosso modo description of Ionian State's economic practices. In this framework, a special mention is made to the financial mission of Gladstone to the Ionian Islands. British Rule's economic policy is also being considered with regard to the changes in property rights: although the policy of the abolition of the feudal rural estate is not completed during the period of the Ionian State, it is nevertheless indicative of the market's transition to more liberal (or more monetarized) forms. Finally, the economic reforms taking place between 1834 and 1836 are analyzed, with special focus on the protection of local agricultural products. A reference to commercial and maritime activity is also included, with emphasis on government interventions to support (or not support) private initiative. The second part of the essay examines the gradual articulation of the state mechanism and the way this is reflected to the intended rationalization of legislative and executive authorities. In this context, the language used in administration (Italian, English, and then Greek) elucidates reforms and alterations of the State mechanism, and is also related to the emergence of a local identity. The statecraft of the Ionian State is also being examined, with a reference to the previous constitutional texts of the Septinsular Republic, as an encounter of both institutional continuity and discontinuity. Thus, the administrative mechanisms of the Ionian State are analyzed in their interaction with the local society, as an indicator of British colonial practices. Beyond the articulation of the executive, juridical and legislative authorities, as expressed in the Constitution of 1817 but also as reflected in the relevant archive material, the text contains an analysis of the reforms of 1848/1849 that basically correspond to a more proportional representation of the local population and to alterations concerning the executive authority expressed by the Commissioners, the Senate and local governors (prefects). Finally, as the administration is ran by individuals, a special reference to the relevant social network deriving from governmental practices is made: The State's administration staffing during the period of the British Rule constitutes a qualitative indicator for the social formation of the Ionian Islands and for social mobility, mainly in the context of the higher and middle-class bourgeoisie.

El proyecto de investigación Amtsnaturen. Habituelle Spielräume von Amtspersonen der spanischen Monarchie (16.-17. Jahrhundert) [La naturaleza de los oficios: márgenes de actuación y comportamiento de los oficiales de la Monarquía Hispánica (s. XVI-XVII)] tiene como principal objeto analizar la relación entre el ejercicio del cargo y el desarrollo de un habitus propio de los oficiales regios en la España moderna.
Con la intención de profundizar en algunos de los aspectos fundamentales del proyecto y de estimular el debate científico con especialistas en la materia, se ha proyectado el workshop “El Habitus del oficial real. Ideal, percepción y ejercicio del cargo en la Monarquía Hispánica (s. XV-XVIII)” que tendrá lugar entre el 24 y el 25 de abril de 2015 en la Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität de Munich. La discusión girará en torno a los siguientes argumentos:

- El oficio como habitus: implicaciones ideológicas y de comportamiento del ejercicio del cargo. El concepto de habitus se emplea como categoría de análisis para estudiar en qué medida se produjo una interiorización del ideal del cargo por parte de los oficiales y hasta qué punto se adoptó un comportamiento en función del oficio que permitiese ostentar un carácter propio del oficial real: una especie de segunda naturaleza que mostraría al oficial como inaccesible a la vez que legitimizaría su autoridad y sus actos al servicio de la Corona y del bien común. Para ello es preciso observar la relación entre el ideal presentado en la tratadística y la conducta de los oficiales reales: los valores, requisitos y atribuciones teóricos de los cargos frente a la calidad de las personas que los ejercieron, las (malas) prácticas de los oficiales y el alcance real de su actuación.
- Los límites impuestos al ejercicio del cargo: tanto desde arriba, por parte del control real, como desde abajo, por parte de las personas sujetas a su jurisdicción (juicios de residencia, insubordinaciones, ataques a la autoridad, etc.). A este respecto interesa abordar el debate aún no zanjado sobre el sentido disuasorio y/o punitivo de los juicios de residencia así como sus efectos en la imagen de los oficiales y en las expectativas de recibir otros cargos o favores reales.
- Autoconcepción y autorrepresentación de los oficiales reales como grupo: discursos legitimadores y de prestigio (el bien común, la nobleza, la virtud, el servicio al rey...); fórmulas y pautas de comportamiento tendentes a reforzar su autoridad y respuestas frente a los ataques a la misma por parte de la población.
- El oficial real visto desde fuera: cuáles son los principales estereotipos y acusaciones contra los oficiales reales; en qué se fundamentaban la mayoría de las demandas a título particular presentadas en los juicios de residencia; qué tipos de comportamientos por parte de estos agentes reales causaban escándalo entre la población o/y insubordinación; cómo se concretaban los ataques físicos y verbales a su autoridad, etc.
Estas líneas generales servirán para vertebrar y estimular la discusión cuyo objetivo no es tan sólo analizar cómo se concretaba la actuación de los oficiales regios entre los siglos XV y XVIII, sino hacerlo poniendo especial énfasis en equilibrar la perspectiva teórica, los discursos y la vertiente ideológica, con la observación de la praxis del oficio, la intervención de la Corona y la reacción de los grupos sociales afectados por el ejercicio del cargo.

Más información en:

http://www.for1986.uni-muenchen.de/aktuelles/veranstaltungen/workshop_habitus/index.html

http://www.for1986.uni-muenchen.de/aktuelles/veranstaltungen/workshop_habitus/programa-workshop-habitus.pdf

Le concept de nation chez M. Mauss comparé à la question actuelle des identités nationales et culturelles en Europe. À partir d'études de cas de l'histoire politique contemporaine, aussi différents l'un de l'autre que la formation des nations balkaniques, au tournant du dernier siècle, et la situation des immigrés en France ou des migrants en Europe, j'essaie de montrer que les concepts de 'nation', 'nationalisme' et 'citoyenneté' doivent être appréhendés autant comme des constructions identitaires que politiques et juridiques. Il importe donc de concilier les approches historique, sociopolitique et anthropologique de l'idée de nation et essayer de comprendre la construction des identités, des relations interethniques et des valeurs interculturelles dans le monde actuel, que ce soit en Europe, en ex-Yougoslavie ou au Maghreb.

"The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist" is the first comprehensive and scholarly biography of the Ukrainian far-right leader Stepan Bandera and the first in-depth study of his political cult. In this fascinating book, Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe illuminates the life of a mythologized personality and scrutinizes the history of the most violent twentieth-century Ukrainian nationalist movement: the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Elucidating the circumstances in which Bandera and his movement emerged and functioned, Rossolinski-Liebe explains how fascism and racism impacted on Ukrainian revolutionary and genocidal nationalism. The book shows why Bandera and his followers failed—despite their ideological similarity to the Croatian Ustaša and the Slovak Hlinka Party—to establish a collaborationist state under the auspices of Nazi Germany and examines the involvement of the Ukrainian nationalists in the Holocaust and other atrocities during and after the Second World War. The author brings to light some of the darkest elements of modern Ukrainian history and demonstrates its complexity, paying special attention to the Soviet terror in Ukraine and the entanglement between Ukrainian, Jewish, Polish, Russian, German, and Soviet history. The monograph also charts the creation and growth of the Bandera cult before the Second World War, its vivid revivals during the Cold War among the Ukrainian diaspora, and in Bandera's native eastern Galicia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The paper analyzes the process of the Jewish community of Salonika's passage from the Ottoman into the Greek period through its organizational patterns and its internal and external politics. Using a variety of primary sources, many of them newly unearthed, are revealed here the continuity and changes in the community's political culture as it was forced to leave the Imperial - multinational framework and adjust to the world of a Nation-State. The community's political and economic decline that followed its integration in the Greek state and the influence these developments had on the social fabric is portrayed through the communal organization.

Article 370 has been virtually abrogated by a Presidential order and with it democratic India’s colossal betrayal of 13 million of its citizens. The Presidential order not only ended the special status granted under this Article to Jammu and Kashmir, it also rendered the separate constitution of Jammu and Kashmir inoperative and decided to redraw the map of the state. The historic state of Jammu and Kashmir has been annihilated.  This “final solution” will have catastrophic consequences, not only for Kashmir and the rest of the country, but the entire sub-continent. It is a sad saga of a people, who were once sold to an autocratic ruler by a colonial power. They had joined Indian Union on the advice of their leader, Sheikh Abdulla, believing that in a secular democracy, they will enjoy freedom and dignity. It is a total betrayal of the trust that the people of Jammu and Kashmir had reposed in the Indian constitution.

The modern state embodies and promotes hegemonic and masculine values, silencing the voices of minorities and women. This paper attempts to show in the context of Bangladesh how the use of the category 'nation' has resulted in the marginalisation of women generally as well as of minorities, specifically in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

In Brasilien spielt der Prozess des Nation-Buildings eine zentrale Rolle. Von der 'Rassendemokratie' über das 'Land der Zukunft' bis zum 'Land für Alle'-die Bemühungen das riesige Land mit seiner sehr heterogenen Bevölkerung zu vereinen, fanden unter den verschiedensten, symbolisch aufgeladenen Parolen statt. Diese Konzepte prägen Brasiliens nationale Identität bis heute und bestimmen oft die Wahrnehmung der großen sozio-ökonomischen Differenzen im Land. Im Oktober 2018 wurde, nach einer lang anhaltenden wirtschaftlichen und politischen Krise sowie einem rücksichtslosen Präsidentschaftswahlkampf, mit Jair Bolsonaro ein rechtsextremer Populist zum neuen Präsidenten Brasiliens gewählt. Unter dem Motto ‚Brasilien über alles, Gott über allen' versprach er in Zukunft für die Mehrheit der Brasilianer*innen zu regieren und nicht für die Minderheiten, wie es bis jetzt der Fall gewesen sei. Dabei werden unterschiedliche Gruppen, wie LGTB-Aktivist*innen, Feminist*innen und Sozialist*innen, immer wieder explizit in das Zentrum seiner Kritik gestellt. Diese müssten sich von nun an entweder der Mehrheit beugen oder sie würden aus dem Land verschwinden. In der Präsentation wird dieses rechtspopulistische Nation-Building anhand von Reden, Werbespots und Infomaterial aus dem Präsidentschaftswahlkampf analysiert. Das Material wird dabei auf seine Ausschlüsse, Grenzziehungen und diskursiven Bezüge hin untersucht, sodass ein Bild der von Bolsonaro angestrebten Gesellschaftsordnung entsteht. Dabei wird auch immer wieder auf Differenzen und Gemeinsamkeiten zu rechten populistischen Bewegungen in Europa und den USA hingewiesen. Dies erlaubt ein differenzierteres Bild des globalen Rechtspopulismus zu zeichnen, die Entwicklungen in Brasilien auch in transnationale Zusammenhänge einzuordnen und eurozentristische Annahmen zu hinterfragen.

This paper seeks to examine the relation between democracy and violence. It will first offer an historical overview of the emergence of democracy in relation to three major political events: the English civil war from 1640-1660; the American war of independence and the drafting of the Bill of Rights; and the French Revolution. It will propose that, apart from the fact that each of these struggles was marked by large-scale and protracted violence, they also shared a common discourse – the discourse of rights, understood proprietorially. The paper will argue that the emergence of democracy as articulated through this discourse of proprietorial rights was, in turn, closely related to the emergence of the contemporary form of the nation-state, and that, consequently, it is founded on a paradox: the discourse of the nation (or nationalism) has been historically an exclusivist one, while the discourse of democracy seeks, by definition, to be inclusive. It will argue that the colonial moment served on the one hand, to disseminate the discourses of nationalism and democracy; while on the other, it complicated the paradoxical relation between them further, when the discourse of rights (integral to both) often emphasized community rights over individual rights, at least in colonial South Asia. The contours of community, then and since, have been overwhelmingly determined by the personal law system and the communal patriarchates. Given that, this paper will argue that the tensions between the exclusivism of such communalisms and the inclusivism of the democratic discourse leads inevitably to the production of cultures of violence. It will conclude by questioning the sustainability of a rights-based understanding of democracy.

This outline of the theoretical and historical parameters of my recently published Famine Irish and the American Racial State synthesizes the work of Nicos Poulantzas, Michel Foucault, Antonio Gramsci, and David Theo Goldberg, among others. In so doing, it advances a model of the nineteenth-century US state-in-formation that demonstrates how the legal status of the transatlantic Famine Irish took on greater significance than any cultural differences with White Anglo Saxon Protestant America. Key concepts are explored, such as citizenship, nationality, race, ethnicity, the fractional state, the racial state, and the Black and Green Atlantic. Introduced, moreover, is one of the most important yet most overlooked American patriots of the nineteenth century, Irish-born Archbishop John Hughes of New York, whose efforts helped to mold the corporate Catholic Church into a major ideological apparatus of the US state.

In today’s globalisation, countries compete with each other in the same manner as the multinational corporations do. Recently, the term ‘nation-brand’ has appeared, together with a nation-brand index that tracks how a particular country's reputation responds to activities, promotions and events at home and around the world. Countries, like corporations and products have brand values and reputations. These ‘branding’ factors are analogous to identity formulation on a national and personal level. For example, visual motifs and icons have a dramatic impact on how successful that country is in attracting tourists, foreign investment, capital, talent, cultural relations and political allies. Such manifestations of identity are vital to the marketing of products and services abroad. In order for a country to develop itself as a competitive nation-brand, it needs to have a strong national identity. The paper will argue that in a same manner as the corporate identity, the national identity serves as a foundation on which the ‘brand image’ is built. The brand’s image is a representation of the brand’s culture (in this case the nation’s culture); therefore, how the image is formed and what kind of form it takes should be of concern to the government, the industry and the local communities. For that reason, strong interdisciplinary partnerships need to be established, as only then the communication of the country’s image can bring success in the above-mentioned areas of interest.

A historiographic and interpretative methodology will be used to present the analogous case of corporate and national identity formulation.  The current political situation in Macedonia will be used to exemplify the argument. This paper will address the subtheme ‘Identities/Subjectivities’ for the conference and will engage with activities in the boundaries of corporational-ism and nationalism.

Winner of 2009 Outstanding Book Award, North American Society for the Sociology of Sport.

In parks and cafes, homes and stadium stands, Cubans talk baseball. I contend that when they are analyzing and debating plays, games, teams, and athletes, Cubans are exchanging ideas not just about baseball but also about Cuba and cubanidad, or what it means to be Cuban. I explore the interconnections between baseball and Cuban identity. Suggesting that baseball is in many ways an apt metaphor for cubanidad, I point out aspects of the sport that resonate with Cuban social and political life: the perpetual tension between risk and security, the interplay between individual style and collective regulation, and the risky journeys undertaken with the intention, but not the guarantee, of returning home.

Chapter One is available below

A partir de la segunda mitad del siglo XX resurgió en todo el continente latinoamericano un paradigma 'extractivista' de la mano de la idea del 'Estado desarrollista'. El proceso de descolonización del mundo y el reconocimiento del principio de soberanía permanente sobre los recursos naturales fueron elementos esenciales en los proyectos de los Estados desarrollistas que se implementaron en el continente latinoamericano y que de la mano de Instituciones como la CEPAL, la política de Industrialización por Sustitución de Importaciones -ISI y  la teoría de la dependencia marcarían el 'camino hacia el desarrollo' de los países latinoamericanos antes de que se produjera el giro neoliberal en el mundo.

Blas, A. (2016): “Identity, Territoriality and Basque Secessionism: The Issue of Navarre“, Ibarra Güell, Pedro and Kolås, Åshild (eds), Basque Nationhood: Towards a Democratic Scenario. Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien: Peter Lang. Pp. 121-150 (ISBN 978-3-0343-2256-0).

This newspaper column from 2003 examines how Indians in Trinidad and Tobago are misled, guided by so many fears, the encouragement of feelings of victimhood, and smallness of vision. There is an important contribution for Indians to make to the building of this New World civilisation, which is still in its infancy and only half-made. What is needed is a vision, mission and leadership not griping about “discrimination”, but looking fearlessly to the future.