State Formation (state + formation)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Distribution within Humanities and Social Sciences


Selected Abstracts


Law, Patriarchies, and State Formation in England and Post-Colonial Hong Kong

JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 2 2001
Carol A. G. Jones
The rise of the modern state is often associated with the demise of particularistic ties and authoritarian patriarchy. Classically, particularism gives way to universalism, patronage, hierarchy, and deference to the ,equalities' of contract. But history is not a one-way street nor is patriarchy all of one kind. Society's legal arrangements, structure, custom, power, affect, and sex swing back and forth between values of distance, deference, and patronage and those stressing greater egalitarianism in personal and political relations. Though they vary in type, patriarchy and particularism as cultural systems do not disappear but ebb, flow, and are revived, their oscillation driven by particular economic goals and political insecurities. [source]


Military Power and State Formation in Modern Iraq

MIDDLE EAST POLICY, Issue 4 2003
Ahmed S. Hashim
[source]


Transnational politics at the edges of sovereignty: social movements, crossings and the state at the US,Mexico border

GLOBAL NETWORKS, Issue 4 2001
Hilary Cunningham
This article documents the history of border crossings among a group of social movement activists located in southern Arizona. By comparing two types of US,Mexico border crossings separated ten years apart, the article explores how political groups become ,transnationalized' and in relation to what kinds of ,states'. By contrasting the shift from a state-centric movement to a transnational coalition, the case study analyses why, in the later period, political activists were no longer able to identify the same kind of state. In chronicling the disappearance of one kind of state formation and the emergence of a transnational one, this research argues that globalization,rather than simply reflecting a decline of the nation state,is a process entailing not only new forms of transnational political activism but also new forms of the state. [source]


Development, the state, and transnational political connections: state and subject formations in Latin America

GLOBAL NETWORKS, Issue 1 2001
Sarah A. Radcliffe
Focusing on the processes of making and sustaining transnational political ties between actors, international actors and states, this paper reviews recent work from a number of disciplines on globalization and politics, and outlines an agenda for future research. Rather than seeing transnational political linkages merely as forerunners to the loss of local sovereignty, the paper argues for a wider conceptualization of transnational connections, embedded within processes of state formation in Latin America. Using a variety of examples, it is argued that transnational networks are associated with a wide range of meanings and a variety of responses by diverse actors. Drawing on recent work in political science, post-structuralism and anthropology, it is suggested that geographical concepts - related to scale, process and networks - offer a means through which to analyze and ,map out' these transnational political processes. [source]


Politic history, New Monarchy and state formation: Henry VII in European perspective

HISTORICAL RESEARCH, Issue 217 2009
Steven Gunn
Historians have repeatedly compared Henry VII with his continental contemporaries, Louis XI of France and Ferdinand of Aragon. Around 1600 the writers of politic history emphasized Henry's wisdom in drawing lessons in statecraft from his fellow monarchs. By 1900 analysts of the ,New Monarchy' placed more stress on the common circumstances that underlay the revival of monarchical power, but thereby raised awkward questions about similarities and differences in the development of national states. Latterly a model of European state formation has been constructed which sets Henry's kingship less comfortably alongside those of Louis and Ferdinand. This should lead us not to abandon, but to reshape the attempt to set Henry in his European context. [source]


Henry VII in Context: Problems and Possibilities

HISTORY, Issue 307 2007
STEVEN GUNN
Clearer understanding of Henry VII's reign is hindered not only by practical problems, such as deficiencies in source material, but also by its liminal position in historical study, at the end of the period conventionally studied by later medievalists and the beginning of that studied by early modernists. This makes it harder to evaluate changes in the judicial system, in local power structures, in England's position in European politics, in the rise of new social groups to political prominence and in the ideas behind royal policy. However, thoughtful combination of the approaches taken by different historical schools and reflection on wider processes of change at work in Henry's reign, such as in England's cultural and economic life, can make a virtue out of Henry's liminality. Together with the use of more unusual sources, such an approach enables investigation for Henry's reign of many themes of current interest to historians of the later Tudor period. These include courtly, parliamentary and popular politics, political culture, state formation and the interrelationships of different parts of the British Isles and Ireland. [source]


The Ideology of Early Modern Colonisation

HISTORY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2004
Andrew Fitzmaurice
This article argues that colonial ideologies were the concern of more than a privileged élite in early modern Europe. The article shows that early modern English colonisation was torn between the humanistic pursuit of glory, or greatness, and humanist and scholastic scepticism of empire. The article also addresses the relation between state formation and European expansion, and concludes that these processes were inherently linked rather than merely parallel. Historians have focused on the Machiavellian character of the early modern European ideology of greatness, or grandezza. They have accordingly concluded that where grandezza informed the pursuit of empire, it was driven by the Machiavellian concern with virtue rather than profit. According to such accounts, early modern ideologies of empire were uncomfortable with commerce. It is argued here that these accounts have overlooked the emergence of an alternative account of grandezza in early modern Europe, which presented commerce as the means to greatness. [source]


Inequality and Theorizing in International Relations: The Case for Subaltern Realism

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 3 2002
Mohammed Ayoob
I argue that the dominant paradigms in IR fail to explain adequately two of the central issues in the international system: the origins of the majority of conflicts and the behavior of the majority of states. These paradigms fail because they formulate generalizations from data drawn from a restricted universe and because they lack historical depth. Both these flaws are related to inequality in the arena of the production of knowledge in IR, which in turn is a function of the inequality in material capabilities in the international system. A supplementary, if not alternative, perspective is needed to correct this situation and fill this gap. We can fashion such a perspective by drawing upon classical realist thought, the historical sociology of state formation, and the normative perspicacity of the English School. Combining their insights and applying them to the analysis of Third World conflict patterns and the external and domestic behavior of Third World states is likely to provide more satisfactory explanations for the origins of the majority of contemporary conflicts. Such an exercise will also shed light on the crucial variables that determine the behavior of the majority of states in the Third World. Moving postcolonial states into the mainstream of theorizing in IR will also help reduce the impact of inequality on the field and open new vistas for theoretically informed scholarly research. I also call for pluralism in international relations theorizing rather than a search for universally applicable law,like generalizations divorced from historical and social contexts. [source]


Frontiers and Wars: the Opium Economy in Afghanistan

JOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 2 2005
JONATHAN GOODHAND
This paper describes the evolution of the opium economy in Afghanistan and examines the factors behind its resurgence since the fall of the Taliban regime. The historical roots of poppy cultivation are analysed with particular reference to the role of borderlands and processes of state formation and collapse. This is followed by an examination of the contemporary dynamics of the opium economy. It is argued that micro-level opium production lies at the intersection of three economies of production, namely the ,combat', ,shadow' and ,coping' economies. [source]


Failures of the state failure debate: Evidence from the Somali territories,

JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 1 2009
Tobias Hagmann
Abstract Much of the current literature on state failure and collapse suffers from serious conceptual flaws. It ignores the variegated types of empirical statehood that exist on the ground, it conflates the absence of a central government with anarchy, it creates an unhelpful distinction between ,accomplished' and ,failed' states, and it is guided by a teleological belief in the convergence of all nation-states. Particularly African states figure prominently in this debate and are frequently portrayed in almost pathological terms. Proposing a comparative analysis of politics in the Somali inhabited territories of the Horn of Africa, this article challenges state failure discourses on both theoretical and empirical grounds. We draw attention to the multiple processes of state-building and forms of statehood that have emerged in Somalia, and the neighbouring Somalia region of Ethiopia, since 1991. The analysis of the different trajectories of these Somali political orders reveals that state formation in Africa contradicts central tenets of the state failure debate and that external state-building interventions should recognise and engage with sub-national political entities. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Old wine in new bottles: civic nation-building and ethnic nationalism in schooling in Piedmont, ca.

NATIONS AND NATIONALISM, Issue 3 2007

ABSTRACT. Gellner (1983: 35) equates nationalism with ,the organisation of human groups into large, centrally educated, culturally homogeneous units'. As the theorist of nationalism argues, and as recent and not so recent historical research shows, the modernisation of schooling is a defining moment in this process. The objective of this article is twofold: first, to show that during the Risorgimento schooling in Piedmont became nationalist; and second, to explain why that was the case. In doing so, it is argued that: (a) the modernisation of schooling reflected the rise of laissez faire liberalism, industrialisation and the enfranchisement of the middle class; and (b) the leadership of the Risorgimento revived pre-modern ethnic symbols of patriotism to legitimate inequality and state formation under conditions of individualism. [source]


Communities of complicity: Notes on state formation and local sociality in rural China

AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 3 2010
DR. HANS STEINMÜLLER
ABSTRACT In this article, I deal with the tension in rural China between vernacular practice in local sociality and official representations related to processes of state formation and with the ways in which this tension is revealed and concealed through gestures of embarrassment, irony, and cynicism. Such gestures point toward a space of intimate self-knowledge that I call a "community of complicity," a concept derived from Michael Herzfeld's outline of "cultural intimacy." I illustrate how such communities are constituted with examples involving Chinese geomancy (fengshui), funerary rituals, and corruption. I contrast this approach with arguments made about "state involution" in China. [source]


Effects of the Interaction Between , -Carboline-3-carboxylic acid N -Methylamide and Polynucleotides on Singlet Oxygen Quantum Yield and DNA Oxidative Damage

PHOTOCHEMISTRY & PHOTOBIOLOGY, Issue 6 2007
Iñigo X. García-Zubiri
The complexation of , -carboline-3-carboxylic acid N -methylamide (,CMAM) with the sodium salts of the nucleotides polyadenylic (Poly A), polycytidylic (Poly C), polyguanylic (Poly G), polythymidylic (Poly T) and polyuridylic (Poly U) acids, and with double stranded (dsDNA) and single stranded deoxyribonucleic acids (ssDNA) was studied at pH 4, 6 and 9. Predominant 1:1 complex formation is indicated from Job plots. Association constants were determined using the Benesi,Hildebrand equation. ,CMAM-sensitized singlet oxygen quantum yields were determined at pH 4, 6 and 9, and the effects on this of adding oligonucleotides, dsDNA and ssDNA were studied at the three pH values. With dsDNA, the effect on ,CMAM triplet state formation was also determined through triplet,triplet transient absorption spectra. To evaluate possible oxidative damage of DNA following singlet oxygen ,CMAM photosensitization, we used thiobarbituric acid-reactivity assays and electrophoretic separation of DNA assays. The results showed no oxidative damage at the level of DNA degradation or strand break. [source]


Low temperature structural transformations of dilute KTa1,xNbxO3: x = 0.018, quantum superparaelectric or reentrant glass scenario?

PHYSICA STATUS SOLIDI (C) - CURRENT TOPICS IN SOLID STATE PHYSICS, Issue 1 2005
V. A. Trepakov
Abstract Impurity induced structural transformations are studied for KTa1,xNbxO3 with x = 0.0018 (KTN-1.8) by low-frequency linear and non-linear dielectric spectroscopy techniques. Nb admixture leads to the appearance of a sharp ,,(T) maximum accompanying the ferroelectric phase transition at TC , 27 K, and a glass-like state formation at lower temperatures. The linear permittivity evidences properties inherent to systems being near the quantum-mechanical displacive limit and shows the long range polar order with macroscopic polarization formation at ,27 K. This conclusion was proven by nonlinear polarization response stuidy under dc electric field action, which evidenced also the proximity of the three-critical point. Above 27 K, the nonlinearity increases at cooling in accordance with the Devonshire theory for the paraelectric phase of conventional ferroelectrics. Below 27 K, the random distribution of Nb5+ ions and related system's inhomogeneities provoke a new low temperature phase state formation, which can be treated as reentrant polar-glass. (© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source]


From ,Rogue' to ,Failed' States?

POLITICS, Issue 3 2004
The Fallacy of Short-termism
This article deals with the growing policymaking interest in the condition of ,failed states' and the calls for increased intervention as a means of coping with international terrorism. It starts by highlighting the inordinate attention initially granted to the threat posed by ,rogue states' to the neglect of ,failed states'. Generally, it is argued that the prevalence of such notions has to be related to a persistence of Cold War discourse on statehood that revolves around binary oppositions of ,failed' versus ,successful' states. Specifically, the purveyors of this discourse are practitioners who focus on the supposed symptoms of state failure (international terrorism) rather than the conditions that permit such failure to occur. Here, an alternative approach to ,state failure' is advocated that is more cognisant of the realms of political economy and security constraining and enabling developing states and appreciative of different processes of state formation and modes of social organisation. [source]


Further analysis of the population history of ancient Egyptians

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2009
Michael A. Schillaci
Abstract The origins of state formation in ancient Egypt have been the focus of recent research utilizing biological data to test hypotheses regarding in situ development of local groups, or large-scale in-migration, possibly by an invading army. The primary goal of the present research is to further test these hypotheses. Our secondary goal is to compare different distance measures and assess how they might affect interpretation of population history. We analyze craniodental nonmetric data using several different measures of biological distance, as well as a method for estimating group diversity using multidimensional scaling of distance estimates. Patterns of biological variation and population relationships were interpreted in temporal and geographic contexts. The results of our analyses suggest that the formation of the ancient Egyptian state likely included a substantial in situ process, with some level of contribution by outside migrants probable. The higher level of population structure in Lower Egypt, relative to Upper Egypt, suggests that such influence and migration by outsiders may not have been widespread geographically. These findings support, but serve to refine further those obtained by the second author in a previous study. Moreover, our comparison of distance measures indicates that the choice of measure can influence identification and interpretation of the microevolutionary processes shaping population history, despite being strongly correlated with one another. Am J Phys Anthropol 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Culturing identities, the state, and national consciousness in late nineteenth-century western Guatemala1,

BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, Issue 3 2000
John M. Watanabe
Abstract This paper examines the procedural culture that shaped ethnic and national identities in late nineteenth-century western Guatemala. Rooted in face-to-face encounters between departmental jefes políticos (departmental governors) and local Maya communities, this procedural culture emerged from routines of governance such as annual municipal inspections, ethnic struggles for municipal control, and local efforts to title community lands that led Maya and state officials to develop contrasting understandings of each other and their relations. Far from precipitating a national identity of mutual belonging, state formation here intensified the racism and political violence that would rend Guatemala during the century to come. [source]