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This book examines nation-building ideology in the soldered states of Vietnam and Germany. Official nation-building ideology is understood here as the government-led construction of national identity, memory and history in order to promote an 'imagined community'. This ideology aims to maintain legitimacy within territorial limits, those of the state, and defines the limits of national belonging accordingly. The German and Vietnamese experiences are similar in using regional integration not only to improve their international standing, but also their domestic legitimacy. Comparison of Vietnam and Germany shows that despite contextual disparities, common trends emerge in governments' handling of advantages and obstacles to nation-building. Both soldered states face the same challenge of post-unification state legitimation. Their governments also use both nationalist and regionalist narratives in pursuit of that goal, offering insights into the ideological construction of communities in the context of past, divergent development. In sum, the German and Vietnamese cases have been chosen for their shared experience of national division, communism and participation in regional integration projects, namely the European Union (EU) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). These themes are examined through empirical examples of nation-building ideology - namely selected cityscapes, museums and textbooks - with an analytical focus on national icons, heroes and myths as nodal points of nation-building.
This substantially updated and revised edition offers a comprehensive overview of the challenges confronting the political system as well as the international politics of the European Union. It draws from a spectrum of regional integration theories to determine what the Union actually is and how it is developing, examining the constitutional politics of the European Union, from the Single European Act to the Treaty of Nice and beyond. The ongoing debate on the future of Europe links together the questions of democracy and legitimacy, competences and rights, and the prospects for European polity-building. The aim is to contribute to a better understanding of the emerging European polity and the questions that further treaty reform generates for the future of the regional system. The authors also assess the evolving European security architecture; the limits and possibilities of a genuine European foreign, security and defence policy; and the role of the EU in the post-Cold War international system. Common themes involve debates about stability and instability, continuity and change, multipolarity and leadership, co-operation and discord, power capabilities and patterns of behaviour. The book traces the defining features of the ‘new order’ in Europe and incorporates an analysis of the post-September 11th context.
This collection of lively biographical essays examines historical and contemporary Pan-Africanism as an ideology of emancipation and unity. The volume covers thirty-six major figures, including well-known Pan-Africanists such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Amy Ashwood Garvey, C.L.R. James, George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon, Steve Biko, and Thabo Mbeki, as well as popular figures not typically identified with mainstream Pan-Africanism such as Maya Angelou, Mariama Bâ, Buchi Emecheta, Miriam Makeba, Ruth First, Wangari Maathai, Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott, V.Y. Mudimbe, Léopold Senghor, Malcolm X, Bob Marley, and Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. The book explores the history and pioneers of the movement; the quest for reparations; politicians; poets; activists; as well as Pan-Africanism in the social sciences, philosophy, literature, and its musical activists. With contributions from a diverse and prominent group of African, Caribbean, and African-American scholars, The Pan-African Pantheon is a comprehensive and diverse introductory reader for specialists and general readers alike.
two parties so as to address global challenges through common action. Ambitious in its scope and long-term perspectives, the JAES proposed an action plan around eight thematic partnerships to address four main areas: peace and security, governance and human rights, trade and regional integration and development. The strategy coincided with renewed regional dynamism in both Africa and Europe: the African continent had taken a number of steps in the direction of closer cooperation at continental and sub-regional levels, while the EU had enlarged and deepened its own
Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) between 1975 and 1991. UNECA is one of the five UN regional commissions established by the UN General Assembly’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in 1958 to promote the economic and social development of its member states, foster intra-regional integration and promote international cooperation for Africa’s development. Adedeji was undoubtedly one of Africa’s most visionary proponents of economic integration. He guided the creation of several regional integration schemes in Africa. This essay appraises his
) The predatory behavior of the past is finished. This is a Germany of the Bundesrepublik; the country has been ‘Europeanized.’ Markovitz and Reich (1997: XI) Introduction This case study examines the original application of regional integration as a system of conflict resolution in the example of the
This study set out to look at three shared features of nation-building in unified Germany and Vietnam, namely national division, the impact of communism and the interplay with regional integration. It found that the nation-building process in post-unification Germany and Vietnam cannot be understood without a close reading of their respective historical, political and cultural contexts. The following
Chester dominated service provision and so formed key locational constants around which a changing and growing urban system and regional economy was shaped. Interstitial secondary centres were defined by specialist trading functions as well as a quintessentially urban servicing role, suggesting the coexistence of hierarchical and point–point lines of spatial integration. These processes of broader regional integration are brought into sharper focus in the final part of the book. Attention centres on the ways in which spatial interaction and integration both shaped and
political integration, a dynamic absent in Mitrany’s functionalist account (Mitrany 1943 [1966]). Functional integration is essentially economic in nature. It refers to the build up of pressure created by incomplete integration by modern interdependent economies. The focus on the economic rationale for integration in the face of mounting international pressures is a strand of neo-functional thought similar in conception to other theoretical accounts of regional integration. Moravcsik, a leading critic of neo-functionalism remarked, ‘the focus on economic interests may
. Investing in regional integration The fiftieth anniversary of the EU and ASEAN’s fortieth jubilee both occurred in 2007. ASEAN remains an eminently flexible, intergovernmental organisation based on member state consensus, and is unencumbered by any supranational institutions beyond a permanent secretariat and a series of regular meetings. In this sense, ASEAN differs greatly from the EU, but this does not rule out fruitful