History Commons^™

Genocide In The Non-Western World: Implications For Holocaust Studies, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

The example of the Holocaust has tended to dominate genocide studies, but the broader study of extreme violence makes it difficult to exclude the mass killing of indigenous peoples and mass killing on political grounds from the category of genocide.

Japan And Transformation Of National Identities In The Imperial Era, Li Narangoa, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Japan's view of the nationality of its Asian neightbours took many forms during the imperial era. In some respects Japan asserted its superiority to those neighbours, in other respects saw them as nations with a standing equal to that of Japan. The working out of these two views reflected Japanese strategic interests.

Environmentalism In Indonesian Politics, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Environmential politics emerged in Indonesia during the autheoritarian Suharto era. Rather than being a reaction to Suharto's predatory approach to the environment, many environmental policies were closely tied to the managerial, technocratic and campaign-oriented approach of the New Order.

Science, Identity, And The Construction Of The Gay Political Narrative, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

This Article contends that the current debate over gay civil rights is, at base, a dispute over the nature of same-sex desire. Pro-gay forces advocate an ethnic or identity model of homosexuality based on the conviction that sexual orientation is an immutable, unchosen, and benign characteristic. The assertion that, in essence, gays are "born that way," has produced a gay political narrative that rests on claims of shared identity (i.e., homosexuals are a blameless minority) and arguments of equivalence (i.e., as a blameless minority, homosexuals deserve equal treatment and protection against discrimination). The pro-family counter-narrative is based on a behavioral …

Remembering, Forgetting And Historical Injustice, Robert Cribb, Kenneth Christie

Robert Cribb

No abstract provided.

Military Strategy In The Indonesian Revolution: Nasution's 'Total People's War' In Theory And Practice, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Analyses the guerrilla strategy of General A.H. Nasution, architect of Indonesia's guerrilla resistance to the Dutch in the late 1940s and finds that his strategy, unlike that of Mao or Giap, involved keeping the mass of the poeple at arm's length from the guerrilla army.

Timbuktu: A Lesson In Underdevelopment, Riccardo Pelizzo

riccardo pelizzo

Th e purpose of the present paper is to investigate Timbuktu’s economic decline in the three centuries elapsed between 1526, when Leo Africanus reached the Mysterious City, and 1830, when the fi rst European explorers arrived in Timbuktu. It is argued that Timbuktu’s decline was neither an accident nor the result of inevitable natural conditions. Timbuktu’s decay was the product of historical and social forces. Specifi cally, it is argued that Timbuktu lost power and prestige because its market decayed. However, it is also suggested that no single factor can account individually for this event. Th e crisis of Timbuktu’s …

Rights Of Inequality: Rawlsian Justice, Equal Opportunity, And The Status Of The Family, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Is the family subject to principles of justice? In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls includes the (monogamous) family along with the market and the government as among the "basic institutions of society" to which principles of justice apply. Justice, he famously insists, is primary in politics as truth is in science: the only excuse for tolerating injustice is that no lesser injustice is possible. The point of the present paper is that Rawls doesn't actually mean this. When it comes to the family, and in particular its impact on fair equal opportunity (the first part of the the Difference …

Independence For Java? New National Projects For An Old Empire, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

In the context of speculation that outlying regions might break away from Indonesia, the chapter suggests that Java might be better off shorn of its Indonesian empire.

Mongoler I Troebbel Pa Java (Mongols In Trouble On Java), Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Brief article in Norwegian on the unsuccessful Mongol invasion of Java in the 13th century

Spanish Pre-Civil War, Josep M. Colomer

Josep M. Colomer

Nonmonotonic electoral results in which the loser in popular votes becomes the winner in seats can help to explain high levels of political bipolarization that, under certain circumstances, may lead to revolution, coup d'état, and civil war. This was the case in the Spanish Second Republic, in the period 1931-1936.

Origin Of Communist Policing In The People's Republic Of China, Kam C. Wong

Kam C. Wong

This is an investigation into the origin of Communist policing in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Existing literature on the PRC police (baowei, gongan, jingcha) are not in agreement as to the origin of Communist policing. Most sources, particularly western ones, point to the formation of the Ministry of Public Security in November of 1949 as the origination of Communist police. Others, particularly the PRC police historians, have traced the starting date to November of 1931 when the Chinese Soviet government in Shan-Gan-Ning border area established the Political Security Department (zhengzhi baoweiju). Still, a minority have suggested that Communist …

Political Structures And Chinese Business Connections In The Malay World: A Historical Perspective, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

The prominence of ethnic Chinese among successful business owners in Southeast Asia is intriguing. Many have sought the secret of Chinese success in Chinese characteristics. This chapter suggests that Chinese success rests rather on the specific historical circumstances in Southeast Asia during the colonial period and after. A series of crony-like arrangements has been possible because political conditions permitted them,

Nation: Making Indonesia, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

No abstract provided.

Tench Coxe And The Right To Keep And Bear Arms, 1787-1823, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

Tench Coxe, a member of the second rank of this nation's Founders and a leading proponent of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, wrote prolifically about the right to keep and bear arms. In this Article, the authors trace Coxe's story, from his early writings in support of the Constitution, through his years of public service, to his political writings in opposition to the presidential campaigns of John Adams and John Quincy Adams. The authors note that Coxe described the Second Amendment as guaranteeing an individual right, and believed that an individual right to bear arms was necessary for …

An Unfit Standard-Bearer:An Unfit Standard-Bearer: Bill Clinton And The Social Order Expectations Of The Religious Right, Douglas J. Swanson Ed.D Apr

Douglas J. Swanson, Ed.D APR

This paper deals with the rift between the social order of the so-called Religious Right and the perceived social order established and held by President Bill Clinton as he entered his first term in office. The author, applying Duncan's "social order model," suggests Clinton's age, family history, educational background, work experience, domestic life, social circle, and leadership role--in sum, his symbolization of the presidency, presented to the public through the media--represented an unacceptable and irreconcilable affront to "traditional" Christian expectations for the office.

More Smoke Than Fire: The 1997 'Haze' Crisis And Other Environmental Issues In Indonesia', Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Reports on the 1987 haze crisis, analyses the four explanations put forward for the crisis and speculates on political consequences for the Suharto government.

Relativism, Reflective Equilibrium, And Justice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.

The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into …

Birds Of Paradise And Environmental Politics In Colonial Indonesia, 1890-1931, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Pressure to protect the bird of paradise, native to New Guinea and eastern Indonesia, began to develop in the late nineteenth century. Progress was slow, partly because lack of knowledge of the ecology of the birds made it difficult to assess the best way to provide protection, partly because of problems of enforcement, partly because of countervailing interests represented by the trade in pelts.

In Defence Of Exploitation, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

The concept of exploitation is thought to be central to Marx's Critique of capitalism. John Roemer, an analytical (then-) Marxist economist now at Yale, attacked this idea in a series of papers and books in the 1970s-1990s, arguing that Marxists should be concerned with inequality rather than exploitation -- with distribution rather than production, precisely the opposite of what Marx urged in The Critique of the Gotha Progam.

This paper expounds and criticizes Roemer's objections and his alternative inequality based theory of exploitation, while accepting some of his criticisms. It may be viewed as a companion paper to my What's …

Lethal Laws, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

Book review of Lethal Laws, which examines the relationsip between gun prohibition and genocide in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Guatemala, Uganda, and Armenia.

The Paradox Of Ideology, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A standard problem with the objectivity of social scientific theory in particular is that it is either self-referential, in which case it seems to undermine itself as ideology, or self-excepting, which seem pragmatically self-refuting. Using the example of Marx and his theory of ideology, I show how self-referential theories that include themselves in their scope of explanation can be objective. Ideology may be roughly defined as belief distorted by class interest. I show how Marx thought that natural science was informed by class interest but not therefore necessarily ideology. Capitalists have an interest in understanding the natural world (to a …

Functional Explanation And Metaphysical Individualism, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A number of (present or former) analytical Marxists, such as Jon Elster, have argued that functional explanation has almost no place in the social sciences. (Although the discussion is framed in terms of a debate among analytical Marxists, the point is quite general, and Marxism is used for illustrative purposes.) Functional explanation accounts for what is to be explained by reference to its function; thus, sighted organism have eyes because eyes enable them to see. Elster and other critics of functional explanation argue that this pattern of explanation is inconsistent with "methodological individualism," the idea, as they understand it, that …

“Sorry, Wrong Number”: Why Media Polls On Gun Control Are So Often Unreliable, David B. Kopel, Gary Mauser

David B Kopel

How scientific are the polls reported in the media on the gun control issue? Without arguing for or against gun controls, this article examines the interviewing and

sampling methods used by media polls and finds that some polls claiming impressive majorities in favor of severe gun controls may not be accurate.

This article was originally published in Political Communication and Persuasion, vol. 9, pp. 69-92 (1992). This web version is a from a reprint (without the tables) in the Journal on Firearms & Public Policy, volume 6, pp. 23-53 (1994). Starred page numbers [*24] indicate the beginning of a new …

A Future For Socialism In The Ussr?, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

This paper was written before the Fall, and when the fate of the former Soviet Union and Marxism in it was still in question. At the time many people interested in Soviet politics had high expectations for Gorbachev's reform program, with some expectation that it would rescue "actually existing socialism" from its crisis. The paper took a more pessimistic view, correctly identifying, in retrospect, the factors that lead to the internal loss of faith in socialism in the Soviet ruling elite, the basic nature and trajectory of perestroika and itys centrifugal effects on the USSR itself., and the ultimate rise …

The Politics Of Environmental Protection In Indonesia, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Discusses the history of environmental protection, principally nature conservation, in Indonesia. Briefly considers colonial policies, but focuses mainly on the expansion of national parks during the middle decades of the New Order. Argues that this expansion arose from the political management styles of the Suharto regime, rather than from a commitment to conservationist ideas

Administrative Competition In The Indonesian Revolution: The Dual Government Of Jakarta, 1945-1947, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Discusses the complex interaction between the Republican municipal government of Jakarta and the Dutch occupation authorities in the city during the early years of the Indonesian Revolution

The Nationalist World Of Occupied Jakarta, 1946-1949, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Describes the atmosphere in Jakarta during the Dutch occupation, 1946-1949.

Leadership In Asia: Indonesia, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Suharto's style of leadership in Indonesia changed significantly over the course of his time in office. In its later stages it was marked by a striking self-effacement.

Elections In Jakarta, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

No abstract provided.