Le Malentendu International: remembering international relations with Jean-Marie Teno

The discipline of International Relations and cognate fields of Comparative Politics and Development Studies have more or less successfully contained the study of Africa’s condition within the limits of the dominant Western imagination, with grave consequences. Africa is seen and analyzed as a site of weak states and neopatrimonial rule. The continued dominance and ubiquity of such analytical vocabularies and their underlying methods rests on many forces, one of which is the reluctance to acknowledge that Africans can and do articulate their own analyses of their condition and to respect such analyses. This article seeks to remember some of the routinely forgotten international relations which structure Africa’s contemporary condition, by turning to the work of Cameroonian film director Jean-Marie Teno. Teno’s work, in particular Afrique Je Te Plumerai and Le Malentendu Colonial, is profoundly important for students of international relations. This article examines the content, form, and effect of the critique Teno elaborates in Afrique Je Te Plumerai

Definitions and categories: epistemologies of race and critique

One of the striking and important features of The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics is the breadth and depth of literature over two and a half centuries which is examined. Hobson reveals irrefutably the centrality of racialised thought to the foundations of the disciplinary field of International Relations. Such an exercise necessarily encounters difficult methodological questions. This contribution to the forum reflects on the methodological and epistemological challenges of the critique of racial thought. How should we define racialised or racist thought, and how should we distinguish the various strands of racial and eurocentric thought? Does it matter if a critique of racial thought employs modes of categorisation and typology which seem to mirror the epistemological or methodological features of some strands of racial thought itself

Permeable and Impermeable Linguistic Boundaries : From Mass Media to Social Media in Policy and Practice in Minoritised Language Contexts

This article examines the ways in which the language policies and practices of traditional mass media in minoritised language communities are changing in the face of new models of communication attributed to media convergence and to social media. It introduces the concept of permeable and impermeable linguistic boundaries as a framework for understanding the relationship between two languages in the media of bilingual communities. Using Wales as a case study, it argues that there is stronger linguistic gatekeeping in English-language than in Welsh-language media, and explores key developments in language arrangements as Welsh public service broadcasters become multi-platform content producers.; Este artículo analiza las formas en que las políticas y la praxis lingüísticas de los medios de comunicación tradicionales en las comunidades lingüísticas minorizadas están cambiando a raíz de los nuevos modelos de comunicación atribuidos a la convergencia de medios y a las redes sociales. Introduce el concepto de fronteras lingüísticas permeables e impermeables, como marco para la comprensión de la relación entre dos lenguas en los medios de comunicación de las comunidades bilingües. Tomando a Gales como estudio de caso, argumenta que el gatekeeping lingüístico del inglés es más severo que el de los medios de comunicación en lengua galesa, y explora las principales novedades en el régimen lingüístico a medida en que la radiotelevisión pública en galés se convierte en productora de contenidos multiplataforma.; Masa komunikabide tradizionalen hizkuntza politika eta praktikak medioen konbergentziari eta sare sozialetako komnunikabideei lotutako komunikazio eredu berrien aurrean nola aldatzen ari diren aztertzen du artikulu honek. Hizkuntza muga iragazkor eta iragazgaitzen kontzeptua proposatzen du, komunitate elebidunetako komunikabideetako bi hizkuntzen artean suertatzen den harremana ulertzeko oinarri gisa. Gales ikerketako gaitzat harturik, ingeles hizkuntzako ate zaintza (gatekeeping) galesezko komunikabideetakoa baino trinkoagoa dela defendatzen du. Halaber galeserazko telebista eta irrati publikoak multiplataformarako edukien ekoizle bilakatu direnez gero hizkuntza kudeaketan gertatu diren funtsezko aldaketak aztertzen ditu

Permeable and Impermeable Linguistic Boundaries: From Mass Media to Social Media in Policy and Practice in Minoritised Language Contexts

This article examines the ways in which the language policies and practices of traditional mass media in minoritised language communities are changing in the face of new models of communication attributed to media convergence and to social media. It introduces the concept of permeable and impermeable linguistic boundaries as a framework for understanding the relationship between two languages in the media of bilingual communities. Using Wales as a case study, it argues that there is stronger linguistic gatekeeping in English-language than in Welsh-language media, and explores key developments in language arrangements as Welsh public service broadcasters become multi-platform content producers.; Este artículo analiza las formas en que las políticas y la praxis lingüísticas de los medios de comunicación tradicionales en las comunidades lingüísticas minorizadas están cambiando a raíz de los nuevos modelos de comunicación atribuidos a la convergencia de medios y a las redes sociales. Introduce el concepto de fronteras lingüísticas permeables e impermeables, como marco para la comprensión de la relación entre dos lenguas en los medios de comunicación de las comunidades bilingües. Tomando a Gales como estudio de caso, argumenta que el gatekeeping lingüístico del inglés es más severo que el de los medios de comunicación en lengua galesa, y explora las principales novedades en el régimen lingüístico a medida en que la radiotelevisión pública en galés se convierte en productora de contenidos multiplataforma.; Masa komunikabide tradizionalen hizkuntza politika eta praktikak medioen konbergentziari eta sare sozialetako komnunikabideei lotutako komunikazio eredu berrien aurrean nola aldatzen ari diren aztertzen du artikulu honek. Hizkuntza muga iragazkor eta iragazgaitzen kontzeptua proposatzen du, komunitate elebidunetako komunikabideetako bi hizkuntzen artean suertatzen den harremana ulertzeko oinarri gisa. Gales ikerketako gaitzat harturik, ingeles hizkuntzako ate zaintza (gatekeeping) galesezko komunikabideetakoa baino trinkoagoa dela defendatzen du. Halaber galeserazko telebista eta irrati publikoak multiplataformarako edukien ekoizle bilakatu direnez gero hizkuntza kudeaketan gertatu diren funtsezko aldaketak aztertzen ditu

Time, history, politics: Anticolonial constellations

One of the most significant elements of the international relations of the twentieth century was the transformation from a colonial to a postcolonial world order. That transformation, contested, lengthy and uneven, was the fruit of struggles by colonised peoples for independence. The postcolonial experience has proved very different from that hoped for by the anticolonial generation. From the perspective of our own times, how can we learn from the thought and practice of those earlier struggles? In this article I first discuss the work of David Scott who has posed this question in compelling terms, arguing that our postcolonial present requires a tragic apprehension of anticolonialism. Finding his questions urgent but his conclusions too restrictive, I turn to Walter Benjamin, and show how his method offers alternative possibilities for exploring the questions that Scott poses. Drawing on archives of African anticolonialism I consider how we can engage with these struggles for our own times, through three elements of Benjamin’s approach: the question of time and temporality; the method of montage and quotation; and the device of the dialectical image. In doing so this article sketches possibilities of an anticolonial method suitable for our own neoliberal but still imperial times

Dangerous Days: The Impact of Nationalism on Interstate Conflict

Does an upsurge in nationalism make interstate conflict more likely? This article gives evidence to suggest that spikes in nationalism do have a direct impact on the likelihood of disputes between states. In it, I use national days or anniversaries as occasions that increase the salience of a national identity and its historical wars. I show that in the two months following national days, conflict is markedly higher than would be expected—almost 30 percent more likely than the rest of the year—and particularly likely for states who initiate conflict or who have revisionist intentions. I demonstrate further how nationalist sentiment can increase international tensions with a case study of national anniversaries in China and Japan. Together, this evidence suggests that the increase in nationalism around national days provides both risks and opportunities to regimes and shapes when they choose conflict over cooperation in international relations

Meeting the Dalai Lama and perceptions of democracy in China: a quasi-natural experiment

How does the international human rights community affect the likelihood of democratization? Scholarship on Chinese citizens’ preferences about their political system has not explored the importance of the external environment, perhaps surprising given the extensive foreign pressure on China’s authoritarian system over the last 30 years. I use a quasi-natural experiment around the meeting between President Obama and the Dalai Lama in 2011 to examine the impact of foreign pressure on citizens’ perceptions of democracy in China in real time. I show that the meeting significantly increased the Chinese public’s belief that their country is democratic, with those of above average patriotism over 11 percentage points more likely to believe China is democratic in the five days following the meeting than before. The findings suggest that some kinds of external pressure may help to increase satisfaction with authoritarian rule, ultimately boosting autocrats’ ability to hold on to power