In a sensitive and compelling account of the lives of those at the very bottom of Indian society, Oliver Mendelsohn and Marika Vicziany explore the construction of the Untouchables as a social and political category, the historical background which led to such a definition, and their position in India today. The authors argue that, despite efforts to ameliorate their condition on the part of the state, a considerable edifice of discrimination persists on the basis of a tradition of ritual subordination. Even now, therefore, it still makes sense to categorise these people as 'Untouchables'. The book promises to make a major contribution to the social and economic debates on poverty, while its wide-ranging perspectives will ensure an interdisciplinary readership from historians of South Asia, to students of politics, economics, religion and sociology.
Hind Swaraj is Mahatma Gandhi's fundamental work. Not only is it key to understanding his life and thoughts, but also the politics of South Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. Celebrating 100 years since Hind Swaraj was first published in a newspaper, this centenary edition includes a new Preface and Editor's Introduction, as well as a new chapter on 'Gandhi and the 'Four Canonical Aims of Life''. The volume presents a critical edition of the 1910 text of Hind Swaraj, fully annotated and including Gandhi's own Preface and Foreword (not found in other editions). Anthony J. Parel sets the work in its historical and political contexts and analyses the significance of Gandhi's experiences in England and South Africa. The second part of the volume contains some of Gandhi's other writings, including his correspondence with Tolstoy and Nehru.
How has democracy taken root in India in the face of a low-income economy, widespread poverty, illiteracy, and immense ethnic diversity? Atul Kohli brings together some of the world's leading scholars of Indian politics to consider this intriguing anomaly. They do so by focusing, not so much on socio-economic factors, but rather on the ways in which power is distributed in India. Two processes have guided the negotiation of power conflicts. First, a delicate balance has been struck between the forces of centralization and decentralization and, second, the interests of the powerful in society have been served without excluding those on the margins. These themes are addressed by the editor in his introduction, which is followed by an essay on the historical origins of Indian democracy, and two sections, one on the consolidation of democratic institutions, and the other on the forces which motivate or inhibit democratic growth.
The Republic of Korea is regarded as a shining example of democracy in East Asia. Despite this significant achievement, Korea's democracy in practice has been plagued by political gridlock, severe factional infighting, a lack of social capital and cooperation between civil society and political institutions, and leadership behavior that calls to mind its authoritarian past. Although the country is now a secure electoral democracy, its journey toward democratic consolidation is far from complete. In this volume, some of the best scholars on Korean politics explore and assess the complex interplay of the facilitating and inhibiting factors that have influenced and reshaped Korea's democratic consolidation process at all levels of state and society, as well as the prospects for consolidation in the coming years.
Rarely has security been such a preoccupation of Australian politics, and rarely has it seemed so far from being achieved. This celebrated book argues that security has dominated and distorted Australia's foreign policy and national life, from Cook's first voyage to the Tampa crisis, 9/11 and Iraq. Whether in the Great War, Vietnam or the treatment of asylum seekers, Anthony Burke shows that Australia's security has been bought with the insecurity and suffering of others. Against this corrosive tradition, he offers a new - cosmopolitan and non-coercive - model of national existence and responsibility. At once a deep historical survey and an argument with its society, Fear of Security is a landmark account of how Australia relates to itself, its region and the world. Turning powerful academic and political orthodoxies on their heads, it is essential reading for those concerned with the burning questions that face Australia and the Asia-Pacific.
This book offers fresh insights into the complex and various ways in which international frontiers influence cultural identities. The ten anthropological case studies collected here describe specific international borders in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, and bring out the importance of boundary politics, and the diverse forms that it may take. The frontier itself may be of great symbolic importance; in other cases the symbolism lies rather in the disappearance of the traditional border. A frontier may be above all a barrier against immigration, or the front line between hostile armies. It may reinforce distinctive identities on each side of it, or the frontier may be disputed because it cuts across national identities. Drawing on anthropological perspectives, the book explores how cultural landscapes intersect with political boundaries, and ways in which state power informs cultural identity.
This survey is a synthesis of the economic, social, cultural, and political history of the Atlantic slave trade, providing the general reader with a basic understanding of the current state of scholarly knowledge of forced African migration and compares this knowledge to popular beliefs. The Atlantic Slave Trade examines the four hundred years of Atlantic slave trade, covering the West and East African experiences, as well as all the American colonies and republics that obtained slaves from Africa. It outlines both the common features of this trade and the local differences that developed. It discusses the slave trade's economics, politics, demographic impact, and cultural implications in relationship to Africa as well as America. Finally, it places the slave trade in the context of world trade and examines the role it played in the growing relationship between Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. This new edition incorporates the latest findings of the last decade in slave trade studies
Although temples have been important in South Indian society and history, there have been few attempts to study them within an integrated anthropological framework. Professor Appadurai develops such a framework in this ethnohistorical case study, in which he interprets the politics of worship in the Sri Partasarati Svami Temple, a famous ancient Sri Vaisnava shrine in India. The author uses the methods and concepts of both cultural anthropology and social history to construct a model of institutional change in South Asia under colonial rule. Focusing on the problem of authority as a cultural concept and as a managerial reality, Professor Appadurai considers some classic problems of South Asian anthropology: problems of deference, sumptuary symbolism, and religious organization. In addition, he addresses such issues as the nature of conflict under a hybrid colonial legal system, the political implications of sumptuary disputes, and the structure of relations between polity and religion
Hind Swaraj is Mahatma Gandhi's fundamental work. Not only is it key to understanding his life and thoughts, but also the politics of South Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. Celebrating 100 years since Hind Swaraj was first published in a newspaper, this centenary edition includes a new Preface and Editor's Introduction, as well as a new chapter on 'Gandhi and the 'Four Canonical Aims of Life''. The volume presents a critical edition of the 1910 text of Hind Swaraj, fully annotated and including Gandhi's own Preface and Foreword (not found in other editions). Anthony J. Parel sets the work in its historical and political contexts and analyses the significance of Gandhi's experiences in England and South Africa. The second part of the volume contains some of Gandhi's other writings, including his correspondence with Tolstoy and Nehru.
This book challenges the conventional view of Japanese society as monocultural and homogenous. Unique for its historical breadth and interdisciplinary orientation, Multicultural Japan ranges from prehistory to the present, arguing that cultural diversity has always existed in Japan. A timely and provocative discussion of identity politics regarding the question of 'Japaneseness', the book traces the origins of the Japanese, examining Japan's indigenous people and the politics of archaeology, using the latter to link Japan's ancient history with contemporary debates on identity. Also examined are Japan's historical connections with Europe and East and Southeast Asia, ideology, family, culture and past and present.
This book develops the idea that since decolonisation, regional patterns of security have become more prominent in international politics. The authors combine an operational theory of regional security with an empirical application across the whole of the international system. Individual chapters cover Africa, the Balkans, CIS Europe, East Asia, EU Europe, the Middle East, North America, South America, and South Asia. The main focus is on the post-Cold War period, but the history of each regional security complex is traced back to its beginnings. By relating the regional dynamics of security to current debates about the global power structure, the authors unfold a distinctive interpretation of post-Cold War international security, avoiding both the extreme oversimplifications of the unipolar view, and the extreme deterritorialisations of many globalist visions of a new world disorder. Their framework brings out the radical diversity of security dynamics in different parts of the world.
Taking a fresh look at the impact of non-state actors on world politics and on the foreign policies of states, this book revives the debate on transnational relations which started in the 1970s. This debate withered away in the face of state-centered approaches, but this book's new approach emphasizes the interaction of states and transnational actors, arguing that domestic structures of the state as well as international institutions mediate the policy influence of transnational actors. Empirical chapters examine the European Economic and Monetary Union, US-Japanese transnational relations, multinational corporations in East Asia, Soviet and Russian security policy, democratization in Eastern Europe, and ivory management in Africa. The book concludes with chapters discussing the theoretical implications of the findings in the empirical studies.
The Republic of Korea is regarded as a shining example of democracy in East Asia. Despite this significant achievement, Korea's democracy in practice has been plagued by political gridlock, severe factional infighting, a lack of social capital and cooperation between civil society and political institutions, and leadership behavior that calls to mind its authoritarian past. Although the country is now a secure electoral democracy, its journey toward democratic consolidation is far from complete. In this volume, some of the best scholars on Korean politics explore and assess the complex interplay of the facilitating and inhibiting factors that have influenced and reshaped Korea's democratic consolidation process at all levels of state and society, as well as the prospects for consolidation in the coming years.
Based on a detailed study of 35 cases in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and post-communist Eurasia, this book explores the fate of competitive authoritarian regimes between 1990 and 2008. It finds that where social, economic, and technocratic ties to the West were extensive, as in Eastern Europe and the Americas, the external cost of abuse led incumbents to cede power rather than crack down, which led to democratization. Where ties to the West were limited, external democratizing pressure was weaker and countries rarely democratized. In these cases, regime outcomes hinged on the character of state and ruling party organizations. Where incumbents possessed developed and cohesive coercive party structures, they could thwart opposition challenges, and competitive authoritarian regimes survived; where incumbents lacked such organizational tools, regimes were unstable but rarely democratized.
This book develops the idea that since decolonisation, regional patterns of security have become more prominent in international politics. The authors combine an operational theory of regional security with an empirical application across the whole of the international system. Individual chapters cover Africa, the Balkans, CIS Europe, East Asia, EU Europe, the Middle East, North America, South America, and South Asia. The main focus is on the post-Cold War period, but the history of each regional security complex is traced back to its beginnings. By relating the regional dynamics of security to current debates about the global power structure, the authors unfold a distinctive interpretation of post-Cold War international security, avoiding both the extreme oversimplifications of the unipolar view, and the extreme deterritorialisations of many globalist visions of a new world disorder. Their framework brings out the radical diversity of security dynamics in different parts of the world.
The so called 'Kingdom of Prester John' was a Christian power thought to exist in Central Asia at the time of the twelfth-century crusades. At a deeper level, for the steppe peoples it constitutes a distant dynamic which led to the world-shattering rise of Mongol power under Chinggis (Genghis) Khan. The book ranges widely in subject matter, space and time. Christian history and ecological, demographic, social and economic history are all interwoven with the politics, religions and literature of the vast and varied area between European Russia and China from c800 to 1300. The author's views are distinctive and stimulating and are not always accepted by western specialists. But his bold synthesis fills in many of the missing links between histories of Europe and medieval China and makes it possible to think of these vast areas as, in some senses, parts of a greater whole.
This is a pioneering, multi-empire account of the relationship between the politics of imperial repression and the economic structures of European colonies between the two World Wars. Ranging across colonial Africa, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean, Martin Thomas explores the structure of local police forces, their involvement in colonial labour control and the containment of uprisings and dissent. His work sheds new light on broader trends in the direction and intent of colonial state repression. It shows that the management of colonial economies, particularly in crisis conditions, took precedence over individual imperial powers' particular methods of rule in determining the forms and functions of colonial police actions. The politics of colonial labour thus became central to police work, with the depression years marking a watershed not only in local economic conditions but also in the breakdown of the European colonial order more generally.
Modern Malaya was born in a period of war, insurrection, and monumental social upheaval. Tim Harper's acclaimed 1999 study examines the achievement of independence in 1957, not primarily through the struggle between Imperial Britain and nationalist elites, but through the internal struggles that late colonial rule fostered at all levels of Malayan society. It contains research on the impact of the Second World War in Malaya, the origins and course of the Communist Emergency, and urbanisation and popular culture, and charts the responses of Malaya's communities to more intrusive forms of government and to rapid social change. Dr Harper emphasises the various conflicting visions of independence, and suggests that although the experiments of late colonialism were frustrated, they left an enduring legacy for the politics of independent Malaya. This book sheds light on the dynamics of nationalism, ethnicity, and state-building in modern Southeast Asia.
Understanding Australia's Neighbours is a comprehensive introduction to the study of Asia. Written thematically, it provides comparisons between Asian and Australian societies and encourages readers to think about Australia's neighbours across a wide range of social, economic and historical contexts. Topics covered include: • The nature of tradition and modernity • Change to the family and religion • The role of colonialism and nationalism in political change • Nation-building • Economic development • International politics • Globalisation • Democracy and human rights. Fully revised and updated, it covers the region's response to the global financial crisis, war on terror and climate change. It features a brand new chapter on the rise of China, its changing dynamic with Japan and the US and what this means for the broader region and Australia. Written in an accessible and informative way, this is a book for all Australians who seek a better understanding of Australia's neighbours
The end of the Cold War and the bipolar era constituted a significant change in Germany's and Japan's foreign policy settings, granting both countries greater leeway to pursue policies divergent from
