Me Killingsworth

Stalin the Charismatic Leader?: Explaining the ‘Cult of Personality’ as a Legitimation Technique

This article reassesses Stalins attempts to construct legitimacy through the development of a ‘cult of personality’, built through an overt co-option of the charismatic authority generated by Lenins revolutionary leadership. While seemingly counterintuitive, it will be argued that Max Webers theory of charismatic authority offers a constructive tool with which to examine Stalins attempt to construct legitimacy through the creation of the ‘cult of personality’. Through the application of routinised charisma, Stalins attempts at legitimation are not only better understood, but also present further avenues for exploring non-democratic legitimation techniques through the use of modern media.

Opposition and Dissent in Soviet Type Regimes: Civil Society and its Limitations

Abstract Following the collapse of Communist regimes in 1989, academics and dissidents alike were quick to claim that agents of ‘civil society’ had played an integral role in the 1989 ‘Velvet Revolutions’. However, the appropriation of civil society to explain events in Eastern Europe is highly problematic. In arguing that civil society offers an inappropriate framework in which to study opposition and dissent in Soviet type regimes, this article recommends dismissing the typology for this particular scenario. Instead, a new typology, the totalitarian public sphere, is introduced. This article concludes by elaborating on why the totalitarian public sphere serves as a more comprehensive typology by which to explain dissent and opposition in Soviet type regimes.

Where Does Poland Fit in Europe? How Political Memory Influences Polish MEPs' Perceptions of Poland's place in Europe

Abstract This research article investigates the degree to which the ‘politics of memory’ influences the behaviour of Polish MEPs. It explores the ways in which Polish MEPs, through ‘educating’ the European Parliament about important Polish/European moments in history, reaffirm their own national identity while simultaneously promoting the need for European identity to be constructed in relation to Poland and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

Lustration and Legitimacy

For much of their existence, the Soviet-type regimes of Central and Eastern Europe were accused of suffering from a “legitimacy crisis”. It is argued in this contribution that not only are such assumptions tainted by Cold War biases but that the nature of these regimes, combined with the inherent complexities of legitimacy, mean that such claims have limited credence. It proposes that studying a particular phenomenon in the post-communist world—in this case lustration—provides us with new insights into the legitimacy of the communist regimes in Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic and Poland.

Understanding order and violence in the post-Soviet space: the Chechen and Russo-Georgia wars

Following the end of the Cold War, the discipline of international relations has benefited from a plethora of old, new and hybrid approaches to understanding order and violence. Yet amidst the scholarship on ‘new wars’, neo-medievalism and a range of alternative approaches such as human and critical security, the goal of understanding the motives, nature and limitations of contemporary uses of force remains elusive. This article attempts to shed light on this issue by reconsidering three traditions in conceptualising order and violence: the Grotian, Kantian and Clausewitzian traditions. It applies the respective emphases of each (legitimacy and law; moral imperatives; and Realpolitik) to the two Chechen wars and the 2008 Russo-Georgian war. The article demonstrates that while the prescriptive elements of the normative Grotian and Kantian traditions may well reflect the future trajectory of political violence, war continues to be fought for clear political motives relating to statehood and power. Based on the cases assessed here, the Clausewitzian tradition remains the most appropriate way to understand violent conflict in the post-Soviet space.

A liberal peace? The problems and practices of peacebuilding

and deeper, invoking the notion of radical as ‘getting to the roots’ (p. 31). The chapters in this section cover a wide range of cultural practices, social movements, and Indigenous epistemologies: Maori cosmology and shamanism (Williams), Sufism (Nayyar Javed), Transition movement (Smyth), Gaelic human ecology movement (MacKinnon), Orthodox Christianity (Morrison), Lakota philosophy and shamanism (Nehl-Madrona and Mainguy), and Cree of Saskatchewan (Roberts). What is particularly noteworthy of the chapters in this part is the auto-biographical approach. Human ecology, to the authors, is ‘a living, breathing, post-colonial activist movement’ (p. 7). This autobiographical approach is carried through into the third part of the book, the ‘Hand’, which consists of chapters focused on the application of radical human ecology. McIntosh begins this part with his reflection on his experiences in teaching radical human ecology, providing very useful pedagogical tips. Taking a similar reflexive approach, Goodman narrates her experiences in her peace-building work through InterChange, an international community-based peace movement, while Weiss and White in separate chapters focus on their involvement with marginalized migrant communities in Australia and Canada respectively. The role that radical human ecology can play in the formulation of culturally appropriate state policies, institutions, public health interventions, and research methodologies is addressed in the context of rural China (Zhang and Lovrod), rural Brazil (Varga and Moreno), UK and Ireland (O’Neill, Wilding) and Indigenous peoples in Canada, New Zealand and Australia (Williams). The Koru International Network (KIN) which is featured as a case study in Williams’ chapter is indeed one with great potential for the enhancement of Indigenous activism and the ‘pedagogy of hope’. This is a book of scholarly and practical importance that deserves a wider audience. The key strengths of the book are its autobiographical approach and activist orientation. Since about half of the contributors are Indigenous and an equal number are women, this anthology offers a rich diversity of voices and narratives, not readily found in conventional human ecology. I would, however, have liked an engagement with political ecology which has arisen from the intellectual ruins of human ecology. Radical Human Ecology will make a good university course text as well as a useful activist manual. It is a book with lots to offer to anyone who is concerned about building a better future for humanity and the planet.

The transformation of war

In the final years before the USSR imploded Mikhail Gorbachev spoke about a ‘coming century of peace’, characterised by increased cooperation amongst great powers, the growing significance of multilateralism and the increasing illegitimacy of military force. Distinctly different from the militaristic power politics that characterised the Cold War, this order would be defined by the global spread of democracy, accord through institutional cooperation and the declining incidence of war and conflict. However, since the collapse of the USSR in 1991 and the subsequent ending of the Cold War, varying degrees of political, economic and social chaos have plagued the post-Soviet space. In fact, this space has arguably been defined by the war and conflict that has taken place there. Whereas the high-profile conflicts that took place in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia were identified as being representative of what post-Cold War conflict would most likely continue to look like, wars in the former Soviet space, especially those in Chechnya and Georgia, have also challenged the way we think about war and conflict. With this in mind, one is therefore moved to ask whether there has been a change in the nature and character of war. If so, how significant is this change? These questions have particular relevance to the former Soviet geopolitical space. Indeed, the former USSR serves as a microcosm for the changes that characterise the post-Cold War order: new forms of religious and ethnic secessionist violence; identity politics; and non-traditional security threats that the new Russian state has responded to in an arguably non-traditional manner. The wars in Chechnya serve as a case in point. Conversely, the 2008 Russo-Georgian conflict bears many of the hallmarks of so-called traditional warfare. Thus, while a discussion on the changing nature of conflict and warfare can certainly be framed in a broader, global context, the geopolitical significance of the former Soviet space makes a focus on this arena especially pertinent.

Book Reviews - Tom Conley, The Vulnerable Country: Australia and the Global Economy

Tom Conley’s The Vulnerable Country: Australia and the Global Economy provides a clear account of the relationship between global and domestic political economic processes in Australia. While the specific focus is upon the past three decades, the political economic transformations that took place during this period are situated within a much longer historical context. A political economy approach is explicitly acknowledged as the theoretical framework informing the book. For Conley, this means ‘that it is impossible to understand economic forces and developments, without considering political forces and developments’ (p. 14). This perspective allows Conley to tease out the political and social structures and interests that underpin the economic processes about which he writes. He does so with respect to: Australia’s economic and political relationships with other Asian nation-states; the place of finance within the Australian economy; Australia’s trading relationships; and industry policy in Australia. Conley also interrogates processes of microeconomic reform and the recent Australia boom with an eye to identifying ways in which ‘the success story of growth tends to override more disaggregated and less sanguine analyses of the social effects of globalization in Australia’ (p. 236). This is a useful corrective to many triumphalist accounts of the boom, which tend to ignore its uneven effects. The notion suggested in the book’s title, that the Australian economy is ‘vulnerable’ – whether because of its reliance upon commodity exports or capital imports – is not novel. Furthermore, the reference to ‘The Vulnerable Country’ in the title of this book doesn’t really do justice to its contents. Rather, the second half of its title, ‘Australia and the Global Economy’, is a more accurate indicator of what to expect from this book. In fact, the book is more descriptive than argumentative, and the theme of economic vulnerability is only thinly articulated throughout. The policy advocacy within the book, to the extent that it exists, is also rather weak, lacking detail and substantial justification. Nevertheless, although the book does suffer from the lack of a novel and strongly articulated argument, its strength lies in its drawing together of existing literature into a coherent, up-to-date overview of some of the major political economic changes in Australia, and to situate these within a global context. The breadth and clarity of this book mean that The Vulnerable Country should serve as a useful supplementary text for undergraduate or postgraduate courses on the global economy, international political economy or the Australian economy in an international context.