From politics to business: Hungarian-African football relations during the Cold War (1955–1989)

This study investigates the relatively overlooked phenomenon of Hungarian football coaches being sent to Africa between 1956 and 1989. It examines this practice as a form of sports diplomacy integrated within the broader context of Hungarian foreign and economic policy. Utilizing public sources, archival documents, and press coverage, the article outlines the development of Hungary’s ‘coach export’ programme and its changing geopolitical context. The participation of Hungarian professionals not only aimed to share expertise but also sought to exert influence during the dynamics of the Cold War and the process of decolonization. Football functioned as a tool of soft power, facilitating Hungary’s diplomatic outreach and strengthening ideological connections with emerging nations. However, as Africa’s strategic importance in Hungarian foreign policy declined by the late 1970s, this initiative shifted from being ideologically motivated support to a more pragmatic form of cooperation, highlighting the limitations and changes in socialist sports diplomacy.

Dutch progression and English decline: the use of ‘Total Football’ in the construction of declinist narratives

This study examines the use of English football in the 1970s in perpetuating narratives of decline to wider society. Often underappreciated amongst studies focused on the 1960s and 1980s, this examination of the decade uses the case study of Dutch football, specifically the presentation of ‘Total Football’ within English newspapers, to develop an understanding of how narratives of decline are constructed. The study argues that the presentation of foreign nations within the English media is not always pejorative in nature, but can, and are, used to influence socio-political change: aiding the transition from a Keynesian political model, to the coming of Thatcherism towards the end of the decade. The study also advocates that the 1977 international friendly between the Netherlands and England should also be considered as one of the key expressions of decline within the decade, and amongst the pantheon of matches associated with decline within the post-war period.

Behind the Scam Cities: Armed Brokerage in the Myanmar–Thai Borderland

This article examines local and national power dynamics that have enabled the proliferation of online scamming in the Myanmar–Thailand border region following the 2021 Myanmar military coup. Focusing on underlying politico-economic conditions, it analyzes how scam cities along the border have flourished despite an intensifying civil war and international scrutiny. The study highlights the role of the Karen Border Guard Force (BGF), a militia which was ostensibly under the control of the Myanmar military, in facilitating transnational organized crime. The article argues that the BGF’s armed brokerage, sustained by its ability to mediate between the military/state, Karen National Union, and local populations, has created ideal conditions for transnational organized crime to thrive, culminating in the rise of scam cities. By focusing on the role of armed brokers in contested liminal spaces, this study contributes to broader debates on the political economy that underpins the spread of transnational organized crime, both in Southeast Asia and globally. The article challenges the conventional perspective that links illicit economic activities with the weakness of states or political disorder, arguing instead that these are a result of a state building strategy that relies on armed brokers in peripheral regions.

Agentive minorities: place-memory, identity and ontological security in post-war Sri Lanka

This article examines how minoritised and securitised neighbourhoods respond creatively to inflection points in prolonged violent conflict and its afterlives. Drawing on ontological security studies and the anthropology of violence, it highlights the everyday labour of coexistence and the positive role of anxiety management in securing the community. Typically, inflection points – critical occurrences that unsettle routine coexistence and test community bonds – prompt narratives to re-assert a stable “we-ness”. However, based on oral histories from Kompagna Veediya, a multi-ethnic neighbourhood in Colombo, Sri Lanka, the article shows how long-term residents draw on their collective place-identity rather than their ethno-religious affiliations to mitigate outside scrutiny. They mobilised this place-identity in three interconnected ways: by banking on their mutigenerational history, by performing rituals of community cohesiveness and by mobilising their collective electoral power. Together, these practices draw on social capital from within, serve as a source of ontological security and as leverage in negotiating protection with security regimes. The article contributes to debates on everyday security, post-conflict urban life and the politics of recognition in divided societies.

Cigar socialism: an entangled history of Yugoslav-Cuban relations

The history of the Non-Aligned Movement is marked by a seemingly irreconcilable fracture: that between Yugoslavia and Cuba. Both countries aspired to gain leadership in it, while advocating for very different visions of socialist internationalism. Underneath the surface of strained diplomatic relations, however, lay a seabed of prolific economic cooperation between Yugoslav and Cuban enterprises. Propelling this exchange was a question fundamental to the non-aligned economic strategy: how to achieve economic de-colonisation and self-reliance without compromising aspirations to global integration. Based on new research findings, this article analyses economic non-alignment as a balancing act between integration and self-sufficiency.

From imperialists to pacifists: American Quakers and US-China relations in the Cold War

This article examines how American Quakers transcended the divide between the United States and the People’s Republic of China during the Cold War. Unlike many former Protestant missionaries to China who became vocal anti-communists after the Chinese Revolution of 1949, Quakers in the American Friends and Service Committee (AFSC) criticised the hostile US policy toward China and sought to restore their historical ties with China. Drawing on documents from the AFSC Archive, as well as some Chinese and Japanese materials, we argue that the efforts of American Quakers to rebrand themselves from imperialists to pacifists facilitated their comeback to China.

The triumph of broken promises: the end of the Cold War and the rise of Neoliberalism Fritz Bartel, (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 2022), 440 pp.

The emergence of global Maoism: China’s red evangelism and the Cambodian communist movement, 1949-1979 Matthew Galway, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2022), xiii + 324 pp.

Japan’s mediating role in Sino-US relations: The negotiation of China’s membership in the Asian Development Bank

This study examines the negotiation process leading to China’s membership in the Asian Development Bank (ADB) during the 1980s. Even though the US supported China’s modernisation, its parallel support of Taiwan’s full membership of the bank complicated China’s entry into the ADB. Japan leveraged its influential position within the bank and played a mediating role in Sino-US relations to facilitate China’s admission. The study contributes insight into the tripartite relations between China, Japan and the US within a regional organisation and illuminates the history of China’s integration into the US-led international economic order in the 1980s.

Blue helmet bureaucrats: United Nations peacekeeping and the reinvention of colonialism, 1945-1971 Tudor, Margot. 2023. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.