The fate of nationalism in the new states: Southeast Asia in comparative historical perspective

In two landmark essays published in 1973, the eminent anthropologist Clifford Geertz offered an early assessment of what he termed "The Fate of Nationalism in the New States," referring to the newly independent nation-states of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. 1 Ranging with characteristic ease and flair across Burma, India, Indonesia, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, and Nigeria, Geertz argued that an "Integrative Revolution" was under way, but one complicated and compromised by the inherent tension between "essentialism" and "epochalism," between "Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States." Geertz argued: The peoples of the new states are simultaneously animated by two powerful, thoroughly interdependent, yet distinct and often actually opposed motives-the desire to be recognized as responsible agents whose wishes, acts, hopes, and opinions "matter," and the desire to build an efficient, dynamic modern state. The one aim is to be noticed: it is a search for identity, and a demand that the identity be publicly acknowledged as having import, a social assertion of the self as "being somebody in the world." The other aim is practical: it is a demand for progress, for a rising standard of living, more effective political order, greater social justice, and beyond that of "playing a part in the larger arena of world politics," of "exercising influence among the nation

Examining Agency in Thai Argumentative Political Science Texts

This chapter explores the representation of agency in two Thai argumentative political science texts on the 2006 military coup d’état. It draws on Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to ascertain how writers of two texts written shortly after the coup (Khien in Thai World, 2006; Pitch in Faa Diaw Kan—Same Sky, 2007) construe agency or the lack of agency in the exercise and contestation of power. Specifically, this chapter explores the system of TRANSITIVITY and the complementary systems of AGENCY and PROCESS TYPE. The degree of agency or dynamism is compared across texts by plotting the realisations of participant roles on a “cline of dynamism” (Hasan, 1985). Identifying patterns of processes and participant roles in terms of whether the process extends from one participant to another participant (transitivity) or whether the process is actualised through a Medium which may or may not be impacted by an external causer (ergativity) provides insights into the construal of agency in the texts and the manner in which some actors, events or ideas are valorised over others. The chapter argues that the two writers attribute agency to social actors to convey their position on the legitimacy of staging the coup and associated events. Their choices offer insights into the existence of unequal relations of power in a highly contested political context