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A prominent literature in political science holds that the meritocratic recruitment of public servants leads to gains in bureaucratic performance. It is also believed that this institution ought to also have positive effects on social cohesion, since the meritocratic distribution of civil service jobs theoretically enables members from all groups---ethnic minority or otherwise---to win coveted employment in the public sector. Looking predominantly at Southeast Asia, and drawing on large scale surveys and archival documents, this dissertation presents an argument and evidence to the contrary. Instead, under certain conditions, the introduction of meritocratic civil service reforms perpetuates existing inequalities, as privileged groups outperform marginalized groups on entrance exams and go on to staff administrative posts at disproportionately high rates, an outcome that heightens group-based resentment and weakens national solidarity.This dissertation develops its argument in the context of an important but understudied tension between the twinned goals of state-building and nation-building---a trade-off that comes most into focus in the Asian context. At the moment of independence, the leaders of Asian states faced the urgent task of state-building, which mostly involved recruiting a competent corps of public servants to staff the organs of their new governments. But these leaders were also tasked with nation-building to generate a sense of solidarity across their diverse populations. These twinned goals often existed---and continue to exist---in tension with one another. The most "competent" applicants for public service typically hailed from historically privileged groups who had received formal education: the forward castes in India, the Javanese in Indonesia, or the Chinese in Malaysia. A narrow focus on state-building would have led to a disproportionate representation of certain groups in the apparatus of the state, which would have surely detracted from the task of nation-building.

This paper examines the transnational exchanges associated with the emergence of racial blood group studies in Greece. It explores the overlap between anthropological and medical perspectives as well as the concurrences and tensions between national and transnational concerns. By following the work of the main Greek physical anthropologist of the interwar period, the paper asks how politics interpenetrates into this case study in a scientifically consequential way and conversely how innovation in research allows anthropologists to intervene with politically timely questions. It showcases how wartime mobilities generated anthropological data that weaved and strengthened the fabric of the Greek national narrative.

In 2022, and despite a dramatic rise of executions in prisons, unexpected events supported the idea of possible changes (beyond the usual stereotypes) and, maybe, ultimately, of a hypothetical political transition (in opposition to the belief of a “defective” or “illiberal” democracy, in tune with the so-called “Asian values”). Besides efforts on the diplomatic scene to appear more mature and independent, the government proceeded through short and delicate strokes to be more flexible (e.g. vis-à-vis the use of Chinese dialects), more attentive to the underprivileged (via various vouchers and national conversations named “Forward Singapore”) and more open-minded (by deciding to decriminalise sexual relations between men). It also tried to build bridges between communities – or “races” according to the official documents. However, are these the signs of a first and prudent step before bigger moves – and a new Prime Minister, who should be Lawrence Wong? Or is it only a political façade?

This paper presents a comparative analysis on the historical process of nation-building in Romania and Ukraine, highlighting the role of state and non-state actors and the path taken by both countries that led them to the current day situation. This comparison will explore the role of socio-cultural prerequisites in each country’s transition, specifically civil society and social movements., {"references":["Aliyev, H. (2017). When Informal Institutions Change. University of Michigan Press. doi:10.3998/mpub.8772004","Andrukhovych, Y. (2020). The Festival Age: Origins of a Phenomenon. IWMpost 126: Democracy in Question. Retrieved from IWMpost.","Bădescu, G., & Uslaner, E. (2004). Civil Society Development and Democratic Values in Romania and Moldova. East European Polity and Societies, 18(2).","Baker, S. (2006). Changing times. The countries in transition in Eastern Europe. Sustainable Development, 186-210.","Barany, Z. D. (2004, January). NATO's Peaceful Advance. 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Refugees/asylum-seekers are socially constructed as being economically, politically and culturally threatening to the nation-state in which they seek asylum. Evidence of this social construction can be found in media, statements by public officials and in opinion polls. By synthesizing the results of research we can identify the commonalities amongst discourses from different nation-states. This allows us to see how refugees/asylum- eekers serve nation building in general. A case study of South Africa is used to show how this discourse relates to the South African nation-building exercise, with particular references to the xenophobic violence of May 2008. What emerges from the case study is that despite evidence that this framework is a good fit for thinking critically about instances of xenophobia in South Africa, there is also evidence of a counter discourse about refugees/asylum-seekers that casts them as deserving of compassion and generosity.

PurposeThis essay draws on my experience in the democratic development of Albania and Kosovo. These leadership insights are shared in the contemporary context of the changes in the past ten years to the international development landscape in the Western Balkans and Central and Eastern Europe. My professional reflections on leading efforts to establish democratic institutions form the basis of these case studies on Albania and Kosovo. Drawing on these reflections (Schon, 1982) can generate a deeper understanding of the leadership practices that facilitated a successful transition, as well as make explicit the implicit practices in leadership that resulted in less than successful efforts.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis of the democratic development challenges in Albania and Kosovo are based on my experience in managing multi-million dollar nation building programs in both countries.FindingsThe democratic development of Kosovo and Albania illustrate the challenges that most leaders in governments and civil society face working in transitional societies. It should come as no surprise that their respective roles and goals will come into conflict as local leaders fight to hold onto power, while many Western good governance programs promote sharing of power. This conflict is complicated by the question of to whom the NGOs and international organizations are accountable – their donor or the community they are working in?Originality/valueThe analysis is based on personal experience in developing and implementing nation-building programs in Albania and Kosovo.

It is widely acknowledged that mega-sporting events play a powerful role in nationbuilding in their host countries, and many scholars have empirically demonstrated this relationship. The 2010 South Africa FIFA World Cup provided a potent vehicle through which national unity and integration could be successfully promoted. However, more recent Brazilian experiences in the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics proved that an identical outcome is not always the case. This study examines how the hosting of mega-sporting events in South Africa and Brazil yielded contrasting effects on nation-building. Events in these two countries are compared to explore how two analogous societies that hosted mega-sporting events at a similar time ultimately experienced completely different outcomes. It is argued that differences in the cost of these mega-events, different economic circumstances and, differences in the characteristics and impact of social movements in the two countries were major contributing factors to the divergence.

PurposeThis paper illustrates how Taiwan has tried to mobilize its prehistory Austronesian linguistic heritage and indigenous cultural memories to reposition itself in the Asia-Pacific. It examines how the attempt has gradually evolved into cross-border exchange and partnership based on the interconnectivity across the Pacific on different levels.Design/methodology/approachThe research is based on policy review of the Taiwan government's growing focus on indigenous culture in strategizing diplomacy and cultural policy from 2000 through 2021 and the researcher's participant observation in expert cultural heritage meetings (2018–2021). It is also complemented by semi-structured interviews with both selected state actors and civil actors.FindingsThe past connection among indigenous communities in Taiwan and the Austronesian peoples contributes to building up new cultural circuits across-borders based upon shared indigenous heritage and demonstrates the extraterritorial role of heritage, which can be the potential base for developing diplomacy.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is limited in not directly engaging with actors in the Pacific given limited time, budget and mobility under the coronavirus disease (COVID) pandemic. The author would like to follow on that in her future research.Originality/valueThe paper sheds light on the uneasy relationship between indigenous heritage making and nation building and its cultural implications. This study demonstrates that the state framework of heritage is not necessarily appropriate to deal with these complicated historical matters, especially when the notion of heritage per se is not decolonised in a settler state.

This contribution analyses the nineteenth-century debate on one of the most hotly debated topics of Italian history: public debt and taxation. Starting in the 1850s, fiscal policies were weaponised by liberal nationalist elites and their opponents alike to promote their contrary worldviews by arguing over the merits of national unification and a parliamentary system on the basis of their fiscal outcomes. First Piedmont, then unified Italy, were eagerly expected by Catholics and Bourbon legitimists to default on their debts as a result of their moral and fiscal profligacy, while liberals were concerned about popular support for the national cause in a context of rising taxes. Southern Italy in particular was very vocal in denouncing its perceived fiscal mistreatment by the Italian government, an accusation the North rejected by portraying Southerners as unpatriotic tax evaders. Today, these narratives are re-emerging not only in public debates questioning the Risorgimento as the nation’s founding myth but also in the discourse about European integration.

Amid increasing interest in city branding in East Asia, the municipalities of Gunsan (South Korea) and Chiayi (Taiwan) chose colonial heritage-making as their city branding strategies to recreate t...

The processes that led to the collapse of the USSR continue to affect the development of the post-Soviet space. Interest in this is maintained not only in Russian but also in foreign academic science. Purpose: to analyze a practically unknown in our country monograph by Polish researcher W. Zajonczkowski on the history of national policy and nation-building in the USSR on the example of Bashkortostan, Tatarstan and Buryatia, to reveal the author's exclusive viewpoint on the role and influence of the ethnic factor in these processes. Methods: the authors apply system analysis of the problem, diachronic study of ethno-political processes throughout several historical epochs, study of political and public personalities, comprehensive use of non-contradictory provisions of the world's leading concepts of ethnicity. Results: the achievements and shortcomings of the author's research are identified, the practical relevance of his conclusions is shown, the degree of their importance for national science is determined.

As one of the most potent hypothesis in political economy, the negative impact of ethnic diversity on the provision of public goods made the welfare state–nation state isomorphism seem a one-way connection. Against the grain of existing studies I argue, through a case-study of interwar Romania, that welfare states are constructed to proactively (re)build the nation, rather than retroactively emanate from it, once established. Rather than an ahistorical ethnolinguistic fractionalization, the article takes nationhood as historically fluid and contested because through institutionalized action, elites can and do proactively revamp the political arena, redistributing coalitions of winners and losers based on exogenously given criteria. The article therefore shows that nation forgers typically internalize the global social question through the topoi of local socio-economic problems construed as a national question. Because elites can pick and choose who becomes part of the national compact, the politicization of the perception of incomplete nationhood provides a sufficient ideational thrust for welfare policymaking, irrespective of pre-existing national solidarities. Consequently, welfare policies are typically layered as remedial or compensatory policies designed to foster a specific social mobility, deemed in a top-down fashion to be completing the nation.

Palestine of the 1920s was a country in transformation. Arabs and Jews were striving to build their separate national communities on the same land amid a bitter rivalry between them, under a recently installed colonial government that had its own geostrategic interests. The mighty earthquake that inflicted death and devastation on the country in July 1927 confronted all of these actors at an early stage of advancing their respective agendas, and presented a serious test to all of them. The article examines the quake’s impact on the Palestinians, the dual Jewish community (Zionist and “old yishuv”), Arab-Jewish relations, and the country’s British imperial administration, and scrutinizes their respective handling of the challenge. Employing the natural disaster as a prism, it sheds a focused light on the dilemmas and choices of these actors at that early phase of Palestine’s mandatory history

Post-imperial ethnic identities and divides are often constructed and construed through direct and indirect references to imperial legacies. In this study, we use nationally representative survey d...

Histories of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the North-West Frontier summarize the borderland events of 1947 and the next years as concerned with several enduring issues. The nation-states of Afghanistan and Pakistan became rivals. Each projected different, contested claims to sovereignty over border territories and populations. The Afghan government, especially Sardar Muhammad Daud, used the Pakhtunistan issue to consolidate an Afghan national identity, attract borderland Pashtuns, and extract advantages from an economically weak, politically vulnerable Pakistan. Within the tribal agencies, the government of Pakistan at first withdrew regular military units from forward bases, nominally to exhibit nation-building unity in a new country for Muslims.1In both countries, economic development and political integration were policy goals intended to build human capital and legitimate the nation-state, but also to maintain established internal hierarchies of authority and power.2By 1955 despite such efforts, borderland residents continued to negotiate relationships with state officials now recruiting signatures on documents of national loyalty.3

The article examines nation-building in Kazakhstan from the point of view of the relationship between its homogeneous and heterogeneous cultural foundations. The article shows that the cultural and linguistic heterogeneity of the entire multiethnic society in Kazakhstan is inextricably linked with the Kazakh-Russian heterogeneity of the titular nation. The consequence of the heterogeneity of the titular nation is the three-element social structure of society in Kazakhstan: 1) Kazakh-speaking Kazakhs, 2) Russian-speaking Kazakhs, and 3) Russians and other nationalities. Due to the linguistic heterogeneity of the Kazakhs as the nuclear state-forming nation, such a transition is seriously hampered today in the nation-building in Kazakhstan. The results of the opinion poll demonstrate a different level of support for heterogeneity among different ethnocultural groups. The tendency to support cultural titular homogeneity among Kazakhs is significantly higher than among other ethnocultural groups. Key words. Kazakhstan, nation-building, cultural foundations, homogeneity, heterogeneity.

Ethnic tensions were central to Singapore’s birth as an independent republic, and they left the government in a quandary: how to talk about the country’s history when its birth was mired in content...

Liberal internationalists, such as professors Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry, share much of the neoconservatives’ international agenda while disagreeing with them on domestic policies. Likewi...

Book review: Cörüt I., Jongerden J. (ed.). 2021. Beyond Nationalism and the Nation-State: Radical Approaches to Nation. Routledge. 226 p. ISBN 9780367684020

The process of nation- and state-building in Israel could be viewed as unique because of its pace and intensive character. This is evident in much that is related to immigration, forging cultural coherence, the establishment of institutions, and the like. However, the extreme characteristics of its development also make Israel a valuable case study for a theoretical or comparative discussion because those conditions allow for a clear view of various social, cultural, and political aspects of nation-building. Therefore, using Israel as a case study can corroborate, refute, or challenge assumptions, patterns of analysis, or conceptions and terminologies in theories and models used in the humanities or the social sciences for understanding processes of nation-building.

Creating a new capital city is a critical decision, yet it has happened across the globe and across the years. Due to various reasons, capital cities were created and transformed their countries and affected their overall worldwide presence. This paper derives a comparison between the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana and the new Egyptian Administrative Capital that is currently under construction. This review article showed that despite the differences, similarities can be pointed out in relation to political, social, and economic aspects. The results figured out that both capitals are major initiatives for nation-building as well as regional and economic development. The authors conclude from the similarities between the two capital cities’ approaches that Egypt’s new administrative capital can follow the well-off steps of Astana aside from the contextual differences and challenges that should not be underestimated. The authors also derive a set of elements that create a significant capital city.

Modern universities have largely been portrayed in the literature as an extension of nation building projects, focusing on the state as primary actor. This article challenges such presuppositions b...

Some of the theories of nation building have been dedicated to the study of link between nation and nationalism; others are attributed to explore nation building, state building, social integration, national integration and even conflict transformation during various historical periods. However, nation building is a normative concept used by academicians and nation builders alike to study the role of armed forces in nation building in recent times. Although research has conducted on ethnicity and nation building in Nepal, a little is known about application of theoretical perspective to explore the role of Nepali Army in nation building. Apparently, this article argues that the level of theoretical awareness of academicians and nation builders needs improvement and multiple theories of nation building are relevant to explore the role of Nepali Army in nation building during various enclaves of Nepali nation. Important issues like what are the relevant theories in Nepali context to analyse nation building? Their implication during the historical times to study the link of Nepali Army with nation building needs to be studied. Hence, this paper comparatively examines a nation building theories and their relevant implications during various enclaves of Nepali nation particularly applauding the role on Nepali Army. Conceptual framework based on Saunder's Research Onion Peeled (2007) method was used with qualitative design in a way of inductive approach to conduct the research work to investigate the research questions. Comparative document study, library research, quick survey with policy makers, government employees, professors, university students APF Officers and Army Officers based on purposive sampling method have been used. Study found that Nepali nation passes through its own way of building the nation in various enclaves, none of the theories are complete to study the employment of Nepali Army to produce visible and encouraging results. The level of theoretical awareness of academicians and nation builders needs further improvement. For this, multiple theories particularly related to social transformation, infrastructural development in support of centre to periphery relation; social integration and nationalism are appropriate.

In the article, the author analyzes some political and philosophical dimensions and perspectives that become relevant on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Ukraine's Independence. The author, positioning himself within the political philosophy and philosophy of history, points out several fundamental points relevant to the identity and positioning of Ukrainian society on "eternal issues of Ukrainian society", such as discussions on the national idea, national identity, its historical and spatial perspective. The author's presentation is divided into four points: the century-old perspective of the Ukrainian struggle for independence, definition of the current Ukrainian situation in the context of nation-building and confrontation with Russia, the theoretical dimension of "national idea" and "civil religion", practical conclusions about the Ukrainian kind of these concepts. The author relies on the methodology of modern Nationalism Studies, Postcolonial Studies, the experience of Ukrainian studies, especially in the era of Ukrainian modernity (XIX-XX centuries). He postulates that the thirtieth anniversary of Ukrainian independence is inextricably linked with the century of liberation struggles of the Ukrainian nation, that the situation in Ukraine, in particular in the context of defining national identity and confrontation with Russia, can be correctly described as a confrontation between independentists of a modern emerging nation and the colonial empire, which fights for regaining its power over the former colony-province, relies on its numerous loyalists and uses various methods of aggression (both "cold" cultural war and "hot" military confrontation) to subdue the region. The author offers his view on the concept of "Ukrainian national idea", based on the basic literary sources of the history of Ukrainian nation-building. Based on the research, the author offers certain practical conclusions important for teaching history, law, civic education and for the education of a responsible citizen in Ukraine.

Using the concept of nostalgia, this paper scrutinizes the Chinese countryside depicted in film; focusing on sharp changes resulting from modernization and nation building. Three frameworks are dis...