Specialist Group on Ethnic Politics
Newsletter Summer 2004 

Dear Members, 

Please accept our apologies for the lack of a spring issue.  However, we were both away from our respective universities for lengthy spells.  This is not to say we have not been busy: on the contrary.  Two things you might like to note are that the long-awaited ‘Ethnopolitical Encyclopaedia of Europe’ at last has a publication date.  All being well it will appear on 9 July.  The relevant publication details are Palgrave/Macmillan, ISBN 0-333-97124-8, price £75.00.  We are also in advanced stages of negotiation with another major publisher about producing a hard copy version of the journal.  If all goes well, the first issue will appear in January 2005.  Thank you for your support, without your efforts, neither venture would have worked. 

The next issue of our journal Ethnopolitics will appear early in the summer and be announced through the usual channels. 

An update on membership: the specialist group at present has 483 members on all continents. 

Here are the latest activities in which our members and friends are involved.  Please continue to keep us informed and we’ll do our best to disseminate your news to as wide an audience as possible. 

Katharine Adeney (Oxford) and Lawrence Saez (LSE) convened a conference in February 2004 assessing the record of the Hindu Nationalist, BJP led National Democratic Alliance Government in India.  Although it was recently defeated at the polls it was the first BJP-led coalition government that completed a full term in office.  The conference was designed to assess the constraints of coalition politics on a political party with a strong Hindu nationalist ideology.  The conference was held at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and was a truly international event.  Speakers and participants included Katharine Adeney (Oxford), James Chiriyankandath (London Metropolitan), Rob Jenkins (Birkbeck), Apurba Kundu (EIAS/Bradford), James Manor (IDS, Sussex) Alistair McMillan (Oxford), Subrata Mitra (Heidelberg), Lawrence Saez (LSE), Gurharpal Singh (Birmingham), Andrew Wyatt (Bristol) and John Zavos (Manchester).  Kunal Sen (UAE) Barbara Harriss-White (Oxford), Rajat Ganguly (UEA), Apratim Barua (SOAS) Vicky Randall (Essex), Rahul Roy-Chaudhury (IISS) and Therese O'Toole (Birmingham).  The purpose of the conference was to produce a book entitled Coalition Politics and Hindu Nationalism that will be published by Routledge in early 2005.  Katharine and Lawrence would like to acknowledge the financial support of the PSA, the Society for South Asian Studies and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. 

Bill Bowring has recently published (b.bowring@londonmet.ac.uk) ‘Postcolonial Transitions on the Southern Borders of the Former Soviet Union: The Return of Eurasianism?’ in John Strawson and Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne (eds) ‘Tracking the Postcolonial in Law’, special issue of the Griffith Law Review (2003) Vol. 12, No. 2, pp.238-262 

Daniele Conversi (conversi@easynet.co.uk), of the University of Lincoln chaired two panels on ethnicity at this year’s PSA conference at the University of Lincoln.  The papers presented were: 'Terrorism as the means of political action of the weak against the strong: The mobilisation through enfranchisement of groups resisting American world domination' (John Rex).  'The American Press and the Russo-Chechen Wars' (Bernard Cook).  'The "Ethnicity" paradigm vs the "Terrorism" Paradigm: Two Sides of the Same Coin' (Carsten Wieland).  'The study of nationalism after September 11'.  (Daniele Conversi). 

Sandra F. Joireman (Sandra.F.Joireman@wheaton.edu) has two recent publications: Nationalism and Political Identity, London and New York: Continuum Press, 2003, and Corey, Allison and Sandra F. Joireman, ‘Retributive Justice:  The Gacaca Process in Rwanda,’ African Affairs, 103, 2004. 

Talip Kucukcan (talip.kucukcan@isam.org.tr) has recently published       
‘The Making of Turkish-Muslim Diaspora in Britain: Religious Collective Identity in a Multicultural Public Sphere’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2004. 
‘Dominant Discourses and Policies of Multicultural European Countries on National Identity and Religion in Public Schools’ in Milan Mesic (ed.), Perspectives of Multiculturalism: Western and Transitional Countries, FF Press & Croatian Commission for UNESCO, Zagreb, 2004, pp. 113-123.
‘Sites of National Imagery: Imparting the Dominant Culture through Public Education in Europe’, Journal of Economic and Social Research, Vol. 4, No: 2, 2003, pp. 95-114.
‘State, Islam and Religious Liberty in Modern Turkey: Reconfiguration of Religion in the Public Sphere’, Brigham Young University Law Review, Vol. 2, No: 2, 2003, pp. 475-507.

Together with Dr. Veyis Gungor he has also started a new project on the perception of Turkish civil society organizations in Holland of EU-Turkey relations. The project will run for three months and examine the possible role and contribution of Turkish civil sector in Dutch society to Turkey’s full membership of the EU. The project will involve a questionnaire and 80 in-depth interviews of randomly selected Turkish organizations in Holland. Findings of the project will be announced in two conferences in October 2004. 

John J. Kulczycki (kul@uic.edu) has recently published ‘ “Repatriation”: Bringing Poles from the Soviet Union Home after World War II’, Sprawy Narodowościowe, No. 23, 2003, pp. 7-41.

Alan J. Kuperman (akuperman@jhubc.it), has recently published the following two articles:
‘Humanitarian Hazard: Revisiting Doctrines of Intervention’, Harvard International Review, Vol. 26, No. 1, 2004
‘Provoking Genocide: A Revised History of the Rwandan Patriotic Front’, Journal of Genocide Research, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2004).

Ulrich Schneckener (German Institute for International Politics and Security) and Stefan Wolff (Bath) had their edited collection Managing and Settling Ethnic Conflicts published in March by Christopher Hurst & Co. in London. The US edition will bear the Palgrave Macmillan imprint and be available during the summer. The good news on top of this is that the book is immediately also available as a paperback for a mere £16.50 and can be ordered directly via the publisher’s website at http://www.hurstpub.co.uk/.

Ashley South (lerdoh@yahoo.co.uk) is currently writing a report for Human Rights Watch, on displacement in and from ethnic minority areas of Burma, funded by the MacArthur Foundation (USA).  He is also writing a book length treatment of the subject, including a review of Burma's ethnic politics on the eve of the National Convention, but does not yet have a publication contract for this work.  As an independent analyst, specialising in ethnic politics and civil society, displacement, and humanitarian issues in Burma, some of his recent consultancies include updating the Global IDP Database Burma Profile, and writing a report on Foreign Aid and Post-Ceasefire Reconstruction in Myanmar/ Burma for the International Crisis Group.

Rebecca Vickerstaff has issued a timely reminder of the existence of the journal of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, Nationalities Papers, which uniquely deals exclusively with all non-Russian nationalities of the former USSR and national minorities in Eastern and Central European countries. The problems and importance of over 160 million people are treated within the disciplinary and methodological contexts of post-Soviet and Europe-Asia studies. Please visit http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/00905992.asp.