Este libro pretende entender las transiciones y negociaciones culturales entre arte y política -de 1989 a 2020- a través del análisis de una serie de novelas cubanas. La caída del muro de Berlín... Show moreEste libro pretende entender las transiciones y negociaciones culturales entre arte y política -de 1989 a 2020- a través del análisis de una serie de novelas cubanas. La caída del muro de Berlín tuvo un enorme peso simbólico en el mundo, quizás, tanto como la misma Revolución en su día. Las últimas tres décadas –entre la soviética y la postpandémica– podrían pensarse como un entrelugar en la isla, un afuera del tiempo o un presente incómodo de difícil representación, sobre todo si las leemos desde las dos grandes ideologías en juego. A nivel simbólico, estaríamos hablando de una crisis crónica de características particulares, una que se ha hecho evidente en la novelística a partir de la relación entre sujeto y vivencia. Timmer analiza el malestar del sujeto como síntoma de lo social escapando a los binomios de la Guerra Fría y aborda el presente cubano a través de las múltiples subjetividades e imaginarios de su producción cultural, de su literatura. Show less
This thesis investigated the extent to which types of civil service appointments shape the attitudes and behaviour of civil servants in neo-patrimonial settings, with a focus on the Ghanaian... Show moreThis thesis investigated the extent to which types of civil service appointments shape the attitudes and behaviour of civil servants in neo-patrimonial settings, with a focus on the Ghanaian experience. Despite the theoretical view in public administration literature about the consequences of the type of a civil servants’ appointment on his/her attitude and behaviour, the empirical data is marginal in emerging democracies such as Ghana. Regarding the attitudes and behaviour of concern, the study focused on the level of bureaucrats’ autonomy, loyalty and responsiveness. To investigate this phenomenon, the study adopted a mixed-method approach to understand why civil servants, despite their apolitical cloak, demonstrate varied attitudes and behaviour in contravention with their professionalism and, in particular, determine how their type of appointment influenced such attitudes and behaviour. The findings confirmed the study’s hypothesis that the type of a bureaucrats’ appointment into the bureaucracy indeed influenced his/her attitudes and behaviour. However, further analysis of this finding impugned mainstream discourses regarding the expected impact of types of appointment. For example, the study found that regardless of how merit-based the process of appointing a bureaucrat is, his/her autonomy is limited in Ghana. Secondly, whilst the general theoretical predictions concerning patronage and hybrid appointments’ impact on loyalty and responsiveness were confirmed respectively, the findings also suggest that such loyalties and responsiveness are not absolute, due to regulatory mechanisms and competing interests. Furthermore, this study’s findings support the class of scholars who call into question the orthodox view in bureaucratic politics that patronage is damaging because this study finds otherwise. It therefore adds to discussions on the need to move beyond the monistic conception of patronage as negative to encompass its beneficial outcomes. The study also proposes legal-constitutional and policy reforms that go beyond the merit-principle to embrace patronage and hybrid considerations where necessary. Show less
Through my investigation, I expose the multiple layers of Kurdish cinema constructed by Kurdish films and directors, by academics working on Kurdish cinema, by Kurdish institutions, and by... Show moreThrough my investigation, I expose the multiple layers of Kurdish cinema constructed by Kurdish films and directors, by academics working on Kurdish cinema, by Kurdish institutions, and by contemporary artists. By employing a content analysis of films in Kurdish languages, identifying Kurdish directors as agents of history making, and investigating attempts to institutionalize Kurdish cinema, I address the Kurdish presupposition of equality to act in an aesthetic regime of art. I structure my research under three chapters: ‘A Foundation of Kurdish National Cinema’, ‘A Re-interpretation of Kurdish Trauma’, and ‘An Aesthetic Regime of Kurdishness’. Based on the detailed discussion, across these three chapters, of national cinema, the art of the un-representable, and digital revolution, I aim to reveal the necessity of exploring the aesthetics regime of Kurdishness in audio-visual terms, in order to articulate the subjectification processes leading to an ethical community in the name of Rancièrian democratic politics.I posit cinema as a home for the communicative act that will empower speech and thought for the Kurdish social body. It does so by folding the future into the present through an aesthetic regime of imperfect, mobile audio-visual assemblages. Show less
The introduction to this special issue argues that in many countries in southern Africa a new phase in the entanglement between the religious and the political has set in. Increasingly, activists... Show moreThe introduction to this special issue argues that in many countries in southern Africa a new phase in the entanglement between the religious and the political has set in. Increasingly, activists in political fields are borrowing from religious registers of discourse and practice, while conversely, activists in the religious domain are adopting discourses and practices originating in the political domain. We suggest that this religiopolitical activism is simultaneously the product of a climate of profound social change and an important transformative force within it. In order to do justice to the complex dynamics of southern African religiopolitical activism in its manifold manifestations, we draw on the concept of ‘family resemblances’. This allows us to examine how the boundaries between religious and political registers are made the object of situated social negotiations. The family resemblances explored in this special issue range from religiopolitical activists’ habitus and their communication strategies via religious leaders’ self-positionings in relation to the political, to the creation of specific religiopolitical spaces. Show less
This paper offers a political analysis of the development of the TPLF-induced armed conflict in northern Ethiopia and considers the international responses in media and international policy circles... Show moreThis paper offers a political analysis of the development of the TPLF-induced armed conflict in northern Ethiopia and considers the international responses in media and international policy circles. The extension of the conflict by the TPLF after the unilateral ceasefire proclaimed by the federal government on 28 June 2021 (followed by its retreat from Tigray) did not lead to an easing of the fighting. On the contrary, the TPLF used scorched-earth tactics, perpetrated substantial abuse of civilians (mass killings, burning down villages, destroying and looting hospitals, health centres and other economic infrastructure), and created food scarcity, hundreds of thousands of IDPs and hugely aggravated humanitarian problems in the Amhara and Afar regions. In spite of this unilateral TPLF extension of the armed conflict, the responses of international policy circles, notably from the Western ‘donor countries’ and the UN, have been negative towards the federal government and mild on the TPLF.This paper explores aspects of this paradoxical and problematic approach and argues that it will not lead to a political or other solution of the conflict, especially not in view of the undiminished belligerent strategy of the TPLF. The Ethiopian federal government and its leader PM Abiy Ahmed, having been confirmed in power after a relatively successful and credible parliamentary election on 21 June 2021, are pressurized by much of the global media and Western policy makers for the problems in Tigray – including the ‘famine’ declared by TPLF - and urged to negotiate. The TPLF, incorrectly identified with the people of Tigray as a whole, is not held to account. But an overbearing Western approach based on the threat of sanctions (by the US government) and on what often seem ‘neo-imperialist’ demands, as evident from serious interference in the conflict - even by a number of UN individuals (expelled from the country on 30 September 2021) - will not contribute to political negotiations or dialogue, restoration of peace, or rehabilitation of the war-torn regions, neither to stability in Ethiopia. Not only improved media reporting, based on solid local (Ethiopian) information and checking sources, but also a fundamental reset of certain UN and Western donor country policies on Ethiopia, are needed.RésuméCette étude propose une analyse politique du développement du conflit armé induit par les TPLF dans le nord de l'Éthiopie et examine les réponses internationales dans les médias et les cercles politiques internationaux. L'extension du conflit par le TPLF après le cessez-le-feu unilatéral proclamé par le gouvernement fédéral le 28 juin 2021 (suivi de son retrait du Tigré) n'a pas conduit à un apaisement des combats ; au contraire. Les tactiques de la terre brûlée, les abus sérieux contre les civils (meurtres en masse, incendies de villages, pillage et destruction des hôpitaux et autres infrastructures économiques), la pénurie alimentaire, des centaines de milliers de déplacés internes et des problèmes humanitaires extrêmement aggravés dans les régions d'Amhara et d'Afar en ont été le résultat. Malgré cette extension unilatérale du conflit par le TPLF, les réponses des cercles politiques internationaux, notamment des pays « bailleurs-de-fonds » occidentaux et de l'ONU, ont été négatives envers le gouvernement fédéral mais modérées envers le TPLF. Show less
