Suchergebnisse

Shipping list no.: 2006-0171-P. ; Distributed to some depository libraries in microfiche. ; Includes bibliographical references. ; Mode of access: Internet.

Although the geographical, technological and economic aspects of the South African nation have a reasonably stable basis, the socio-cultural aspect is not only contested, but has since 1994 led to new movements and public debates regarding the recognition of the position of some categories/minorities and their rights in the newly-created democratic dispensation. It would not be correct to assume that all these 'new' movements and voices are of a centrifugal nature and therefore indicative of potentially separatist tendencies. Whereas most of the evolution and history of 'Afrikaans' stemmed from its proponents' opposition to the imposition of English and its imperialist backing, the current debate is about Afrikaans being displaced and relegated to a lowly position by an Englishspeaking black-majority government. Surveying the nature and context of this public debate on the 'position of Afrikaans' will broaden the understanding of contemporary 'nation building' in South Africa. Again, social scientists could endeavour to comprehend culture 'in the making' as created by some of the 'imaginative' Afrikaans-speaking participants and the implications of this discourse for nation building and competition.

This chapter shows how nationalism logically leads regional governments to seek international agency. The first section argues that paradiplomacy is a likely consequence of the existence of a strong nationalist movement because it prodvides opportunities for identity/nation building, political-territorial mobilization and the promotion of regional interests.The second section suggests that regional autonomy, constitutional frameworks and the national foreign policy agenda are the crucial elements of this domestic context. The third section examines the case of the Basque Country. ; Peer reviewed

"August 2005." ; Includes bibliographical references (p. 27-29) ; Stabilization and reconstruction: a strategic requirement -- The Army misreads the future landscape -- The consequence of rapid decisive force to promote stability -- The winds of change begin to blow -- Understanding stabilization versus reconstruction -- A closer look at stabilization -- Progressive stabilization concept: the missing link -- Implications for the Army's future expeditionary force -- Army modularity: right effort aimed at the wrong target -- Shift and adjust: bring modularity on target. ; Mode of access: Internet.

"Serial no. 109-146." ; Shipping list no.: 2006-0210-P. ; Distributed to some depository libraries in microfiche. ; Includes bibliographical references. ; Mode of access: Internet.

This report explores the interface between recent socio-political changes in Namibia, and the way they are reflected in emergent musical practices and identities within the country. The potential tension between unity and diversity is investigated within musical landscapes in traditional and contemporary frames. Sadly, diversity is often seen to be the precursor of divisiveness rather than a product of human creativity and ingenuity. Based on a decade of field research undertaken mainly in the north and central areas of Namibia since 1993, this report poses questions about fundamental purposes of music-making, and the conscious response of people to the contemporary Namibian socio-political situation. It provides a broad overview of music emanating from different cultural practices in Namibia, and relates this to the State's political strategies for ensuring unity and nation-building through policy-making, education and broadcast media. The changes that occur in musical practices are seen as strategic cultural choices and ongoing identity-formation. ; CONTENTS -- The musical landscape-bands of unity and rhythms of diversity -- A musician's perspective on Namibian statehood and budding nationhood -- Political (con)texts in music -- Strategies for nation-building in the cultural sphere -- Musical expericences of continuity and change -- As a finale

The questions of how to empower the Iraqis most effectively and then progressively withdraw non-Iraqi forces from that country is one of the most important policy problems currently facing the United States. The authors seek to present the U.S. situation in Iraq in all of its complexity and ambiguity, with policy recommendations for how that withdrawal strategy might be most effectively implemented. ; "October 2005." ; Includes bibliographical references (p. 47-60). ; The questions of how to empower the Iraqis most effectively and then progressively withdraw non-Iraqi forces from that country is one of the most important policy problems currently facing the United States. The authors seek to present the U.S. situation in Iraq in all of its complexity and ambiguity, with policy recommendations for how that withdrawal strategy might be most effectively implemented. ; Mode of access: Internet.

The small nation-state of Singapore has increasingly been referred to in the popular media as the Intelligent Island of the future. With significant state investment in the promotion and dissemination of information-communications technology and attendant social ramifications, this has become an area that can no longer be ignored or taken for granted. This article intends to map the conditions of possibility on which Singapore can be conceived of as an Intelligent Island, in situating the role of information technology and Intelligent Island discourse within the discourses of postcoloniality, technocapitalism, late modernity, and globalization. In particular, this article attempts to show how, in Intelligent Island discourse, the processes of the construction of a Singaporean nation are intricately linked to the shift in political discourse from mobilizing a rhetoric of crisis to one of utopianism.

This article discusses the Maori construction of a national Maori identity by the Maori media, and by Maori radio in particular. It then suggests that this is creating a Maori nation within the state of New Zealand. This is an important development for Maori and for the future of New Zealand society. The article suggests that Maori are creating a fully developed identity as required by the radical democratic theories of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, and, as such, will provide a practical case study of their theories.

Due to the national narrative of successful integration of Danish Jews and their heroic rescue from Nazi persecution, a critical investigation of the relationship between Jews and Non-Jews in 19th and 20th century Danish society has been neglected until recently. The article discusses recent developments in the field of antisemitism as well as a new appreciation of the cultural dimension of anti-Jewish stereotyping have been instrumental in a new understanding of anti-semitism. Together with a growing awareness of the interrelationship between the construction of the nation and the politics of exclusion, these trends have created new grounds for historical research. It is argued that this new generation of research also calls for a rewriting of Danish history "from the margins": The liberal democratic political culture that informed the formation of the Danish nation state did not do without exclusionist practices&&on the contrary, it implied a rejection of cultural or ethnic heterogeneity. Instead of exonerating Danish antisemitism by self-serving comparisons, a fresh view on Danish-Jewish relations in modern times promises new insights into the development of Danish national identity, oscillating between inclusion and exclusion.

In this paper, I attempt to pull together sociological and geographical perspectives in the study of music to understand the ways in which pop and rock music are socio-cultural products with political and moral meanings and implications. I examine state engineering of moral panics, focusing on a case study of pop and rock music in post-independence Singapore. Such engineering is aimed at political and ideological ends, in particular, "nation"- building outcomes. In engineering moral panics through both discursive and legislative acts, the contours of a moral geography are delineated at various spatial scales. First, at the scale of the national and global, moral geographies are inscribed by the state, with the demarcation of national boundaries as the boundaries within which morality resides and beyond which belong negative decadent forces. Second, at the scale of the local and everyday, moral geographies are constructed in terms of certain nightspots, which are thought to be morally damaging, and to be contained. Third, at the spatial scale of the individual self, the body becomes the site of moral judgement. Through the policing of all these scales, moral geographies contribute to the construction of desired "Singaporean" identities. Inasmuch as geographies are inscribed with moralities, so too music. The "new" "western" sounds of particular historical times, and more especially, the performative aspects of music embodying the sensual and the violent, are imputed with moral meaning. © Springer 2006.

The geographic literature made an important contribution to the development of national consciousness among Slovenes in the 19thcentury, as well as to the reinforcement of Slovene identity after Slovenia's independence in 1991. A typical example of this kind of geographic publication is Atlant, the first atlas of the world in the Slovene language, which was published in installments from 1869 to 1877. Atlant followed the concept of a Unified Slovenia, and this idea boosted the confidence of Slovenes, the bulk of whom were incorporated into Austria-Hungary as they entered the stage of European politics as a nation for the first time. With the publication of Atlant, a number of geographical names were trans-lated into Slovene or Slovenized for the first time. The geographic, linguistic, and political conditions in which Slovenes lived, as well as the relations at the time between Slovene, German, and Slavic languages, are reflect-ed in the way foreign place names were adapted. The reprinting of Atlant in 2005 is also associated with a critical period in history, since it was published after the independence of Slovenia and its inclusion in the European Union, a time when the young state has been seeking its identity among all the world's nations.

Introduction: Internal conflict has become the predominant threat to the security and stability of many of the small island nations of the Southwest Pacific and particularly in the countries of Melanesia. Since the late 1980s, conflicts of varying causes and degrees of intensity have occurred in Papua New Guinea (Bougainville secession attempt), Fiji (coups and attempted coups), Vanuatu (police rebellion) and Solomon Islands (ethnic conflict and coup). These events have seriously debilitated the already fragile national economies and polities of all countries, so much so in the Solomon Islands that that country is now being described by many analysts as a failing, if not failed, state. While most of these countries have so far been able (not without difficulty) to maintain a measure of state integrity, the situation in Solomon Islands has become so precarious that Australia and New Zealand (with the support of most Pacific Island governments and anticipating a request from the Solomons parliament) are preparing to intervene in an attempt to restore the rule of law and rebuild administrative institutions. The form of that intervention is not yet clear - it is thought likely to include up to 2,000 armed military and police with a large team of civilian technical personnel nor has a mandate been determined. In this context a host of questions arises as to how best to resolve, contain, manage and/or transform these internal conflicts in the interest of the security, stability and well-being of the peoples of the countries concerned and of the region as a whole. What are the ways out - or ways through - such conflicts? What are the appropriate domestic strategies, policies and mechanisms for resolving conflict and producing stability? Are they sufficient to the task? What roles can (and should) regional states play in helping states manage, settle or ameliorate internal conflict? Is external intervention the answer? What is the likely impact of such intervention? Is there a regional security architecture that might be useful in these circumstances? Is there a role for NGOs? Is conflict prevention possible? And if so, how? Do the answers not lie in a holistic approach to improving the processes of economic development and governance? And if so what agencies and policies are most likely to bring this about? How has the region responded to date? These questions deserve serious consideration and doubtless many will have been explored in presentations and discussions at this conference. The purpose of this paper is to consider one form of conflict management undertaken recently in the region; that is, the peace monitoring interventions by Australia, New Zealand and some Pacific Island Countries (PICs) in Bougainville and Solomon Islands. How useful have these exercises been in assisting peace processes and in conflict management/peace construction, and what lessons can be drawn from them for any future such operations - including perhaps for the more vigorous co-operative intervention currently in prospect? From 1997 to 2003, the Truce Monitoring Group (TMG) and later the Peace Monitoring Group (PMG), consisting of unarmed Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Islands military and civilian personnel, provided support to and helped facilitate the peace process in Bougainville. These external groups, numbering from 250 to 300 personnel at various points in time, were agreed to by the parties to the Burnham and Lincoln peace conferences held in 1997 and 1998. In Solomon Islands, following the conclusion of the Townsville Peace Agreement (TPA) in October 2000 to mid-2002, an International Peace Monitoring Team (IPMT) comprising 50 unarmed police and civilian personnel from Australia, New Zealand and other PICs, was established to work in support of the indigenous Peace Monitoring Council (PMC) that had also been set up by the parties to the TPA to advance the cause of peace. While the specific mandates and responsibilities of the PMG and IPMT differed and the resources available to the two operations also differed substantially the expectation of the signatories to the peace agreements was that by providing a neutral, physical presence, by undertaking community confidence-building activities, and by facilitating contact between stakeholders in the respective peace processes, these interventions would help consolidate peace and reduce the prospect of renewed fighting. Note that these were not coercive interventions or humanitarian interventions in which armed forces under, for example, United Nations or regional agency command are inserted into a civil conflict to stop fighting and bloodshed and to make or keep the peace. They were unarmed and neutral monitoring operations consisting of military, police and civilian personnel inserted after peace agreements had been reached between combatants and authorities. These were a type of intervention designed to assist in conflict management and amelioration as part of the larger peace process rather than as the prime mover of the process.(At times, however, the PMG saw it as its responsibility to help maintain, or re-start, the momentum of the process when it flagged). Note also that in attempting to learn and apply lessons from one countrys conflict to anothers, methodological difficulties arise. Conflicts and resolutions are often context specific and the factors in play in one conflict/post-conflict situation do not always translate well to others. But while there are obvious limits to comparisons, it is nonetheless possible to generate at least some rules of thumb, particularly since there has been (a) such a large number of monitoring interventions of various kinds and (b) that the learning of lessons especially from UN operations has become something of an industry. ; AusAID

As a mode of intervention in which the UN assumed direct authority over disrupted states, transitional administrations represent unique examples of ambitious state-building projects. This thesis investigates the apparent failure of transitional administrations to establish the rule of law in Cambodia, Kosovo and East Timor. It identifies nine explanatory factors which are tested against each case study. In addition, it seeks to enhance conceptual understandings of the UN s state-building agenda and to add to empirical studies regarding attempts by external actors to establish the rule of law in disrupted states. Three findings emerge. First, in each case, UN transitional administrations failed in each of the following ways: to make the best use of their mandate; to establish effective state justice institutions; to build local commitment to the rule of law as a value system; to promote social relationships supportive of the rule of law; to ensure sufficient state capacity post-intervention; to maintain adequate levels of security; to address the existence of informal justice structures; to deal with the legacies of the past; and to ensure an adequate level of mission performance. Of these, establishing effective state justice institutions, building local commitment and addressing informal justice structures proved most crucial. Second, the state-based enforcement approach adopted by transitional administrations proved ineffective. Enacting laws and establishing coercive state structures such as judicial, police and prison services were critical to, but could not be equated with the rule of law. This approach did not account sufficiently for the importance of entrenched informal justice institutions, of the voluntary consent of local actors, or of appropriate institutional design choices. As a result, it did not offer real solutions to real problems faced by local actors. Finally, the UN failed to consider fully how to create an enabling space in which internal processes of change could occur, to engage ...

In the last weeks of the Second World War and the following months Sweden played a crucial role in saving more than 30.000 non-Jewish and Jewish prisoners from German concentration camps, carrying them with the White Buses to Sweden. One of the mayor reasons for this action was to regain the positive relations to the Allied powers which had been seriously damaged during the first years of the war. The Jewish group counted 11-12.000 persons, mostly young women. An analysis of the treatment of these Jewish displaced persons by the Swedish authorities and the Jewish community in Stockholm from 1945 to 1950 shows that the authorities conducted their policy according to national interests and that the Jewish community was characterized by caution to keep the benevolence of the authorities. It was not considered a Swedish interest that they would stay, but after a few months the authorities, influenced among others by the Jewish Community, realized that forced repatriation was neither feasible out of humanitarian nor international political considerations. There were no restrictions for giving them medical help, but the treatment of these persons did not pay much attention to their psychic condition. One example is the use of their working power soon after their arrival in Sweden. Together with other displaced persons and refugees they became an important working power in building the Swedish welfare state, folkhemmet. Therefore, their inability to repatriate never became a problem for Sweden.