The Constraints on Civil Society beyond the State: Gender-based Insecurity in Meghalaya,India

The role of civil society is vital for politicizing, contesting, and addressing human insecurity, yet there is very little analysis of the ability of civil society actors to do so. Recent critical approaches to the concept have questioned the tendency to view civil society as an unequivocal good, yet the majority of these critiques still focus on civil society at a global level or on the enabling and disabling capacity of the state at the national level. This paper argues that civil society is constrained not only by the state but by local government and other actors from within civil society. Identity politics, power relations, and existing inequalities between and within communities affect the ability of formal and informal organizations to contest the causes of insecurity. This paper examines the role of civil society in addressing gender-based insecurity in the Indian state of Meghalaya to demonstrate the influence of these factors on civil society and concludes by arguing that civil society is a much more dynamic and contradictory sphere than is often recognized by both advocates and critics. These dynamics must be understood if the constraints on civil society are to be transcended.

A transnational networked public sphere of air pollution: analysis of a Twitter network of PM2.5 from the risk society perspective

ABSTRACT

Drawing on digitaltrace data, publicly accessible government documents, and journalistic reports, this research integrates Beck’s risk society theory with digital media theories to examine the mediated process of risk definition and assessment of PM2.5 (particulate matters with a diameter less than 2.5 micrometers) in a networked public sphere. Network and content analysis of a PM2.5 Twitter network shows that political and professional elite remained the most powerful producers of risk definition. Established media played a key role, yet faced challenges from a variety of actors who disseminated and filtered information. Laypersons, while peripheral, actively interacted with elite and established media. The blurring geographic boundary in the PM2.5 Twitter network revealed an emerging transnational public sphere, which, however, was segregated by language. This research advances a layered understanding of the contingent, paradoxical media impact for social changes in a risk society.     

Transnational land investment web: land grabs,TNCs, and the challenge of global governance

ABSTRACT

Despite international media’s waning attention, research and political debates on global land grabbing have not subsided. We argue the importance of understanding the ‘transnational land investment web’ of corporate and state actors and institutions, which are not always immediately visible. Focusing on transnational corporations (TNCs) based in the European Union (EU), we examine five sets of actors and institutional spheres through which these actors are able to grab lands beyond Europe. It is crucial to understand these not as individual sets of actors or institutions, but as interconnected sets, comprising a web. These are EU-based: (1) Private companies using regular institutional platforms; (2) Finance capital companies; (3) Public–private partnerships; (4) Development Finance Institutions; and (5) Companies using EU policies to gain control of land through the supply chain. One implication of this complex web is that democratic governance in the context of land grabs becomes an even more daunting challenge.     

Radicalised civil society and protracted political actions in Kerala (India): a socio-political narrative

ABSTRACT

Kerala modernity and its widely acclaimed model of development, among other factors, is a result of radicalised civil society and protracted political action. The political actions of multiple actors such as social reform movements, communist movements, public theatre, people’s science movements, library and radical public policy played decisive role in this direction. In contrast to the two dominant conceptions of modernity – western capitalist modernity and eastern socialist modernity, which conceptualised that modernity is the result of industrialisation and centralised planning and development, respectively – modernity in Kerala was the result of political actions from below, which forced the state to adopt radical social and political reforms. These exceptionalities in Kerala modernity distinct itself from rest of the modernities in societies of the Global South.     

Scale shift in international tax justice: comparing the UK and Australia from 2008 to 2016

ABSTRACT

International tax justice issues, such as corporate tax avoidance, have gained particular salience over the past decade in an environment of financial instability and government austerity. Civil society involvement has ranged from trade unions and NGOs calling for parliamentary inquiries to civil disobedience by less established actors. Since the international financial crisis, how have levels of contentious collective action around these issues waxed and waned? Is contentiousness associated most with domestic politics or global media events like the Panama Papers? This paper uses an original hand-coded dataset from five national newspapers in the United Kingdom and Australia between 2008 and 2016. Political claims analysis (PCA) was used to collect all instances of claims around international tax justice and compare the types of actions and the different frames used by civil society actors. In both countries, mobilising grievances are generated most strongly in the period after domestic austerity policies are introduced. The qualitative coding provides evidence of accompanying frame alignment in these periods, as international taxation is problematized in terms of national revenue, demonstrating scale shift from the global to the national political stage.     

Who are the active and central actors in the ‘rising civil society’ in Mexico?

The debate about the rise of civil society in Mexico suggests that the processes of political and economic liberalization are multiple and uneven and, thus, have different and contradictory effects on different social groups. This study takes such arguments into account and examines the nature of collective identities and social networks that are more likely to be mobilized in the rising civil society. Who, with what types of social networks and identities, are the active actors in this rising civil society in Mexico? This study also attempts to identify the central actors who take an active part in multi-sector coalitions. As such a broad coalition often leaves profound effects on politics and society, it is vital to ask which actors are likely to take an important step toward multi-sector coalition making. Using a catalog of 1797 protest campaigns collected from three Mexican newspapers between 1964 and 2000, event frequency analysis is employed to find active actors and social network analysis – blockmodel method and degree centrality measure – is applied to uncover central actors. The analyses reveal that while workers, peasants, or students continue to be very active, the centrality of these actors in contentious networks and coalitions has not increased. New central actors in the rising civil society turn out to be civic associations and NGOs formed around single issues, such as environment, retirement, and human rights. When a multi-sector coalition occurs in contemporary Mexico, NGOs and civic associations are likely to play a crucial role in it.     

Neoliberal discourses and ethnonormative regime in post-recognition Peru: redefining hierarchies and identities

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the impact of ‘recognition’ of cultural and ethnic diversity in Peru. It proposes that the rise of a new global ‘ethnonormativity’ – a regime to define and administrate cultural and identity differences, to establish boundaries between those who ‘are’ ethnic and those who are not, and to set rights and duties derived from identities – has had meagre effects in Peru. While the past decades have witnessed the emergence of Latin American political actors who regard indigenousness as their basic political identity, there has been no ‘emergence of indigenous movements’ in Peru. The discourses that highlight the importance of diversity have gained terrain – unsettling, to a certain extent, the narratives of assimilation through ‘development’ and mestizaje – and the Peruvian state has officially embraced ‘recognition’, including it in its official rhetoric and creating institutions to design policies to guarantee the rights of the indigenous and Afroperuvian ‘peoples’ (itself a label part of the language of multiculturalism). The state has also crafted a definition of ‘indigenous peoples’ and introduced ethnic variables in censuses and official statistics, thus being active in the production and regulation of subjects. Some civil society actors have also incorporated ethnic labels into their rhetoric to adapt to the global turn to identity politics. Peru remains, however, a fertile terrain for neoliberal policies and discourses of a different kind. A discourse that exalts ‘emprendedurismo’ (entrepreneurship) and states that success depends entirely on personal effort has become a new common sense, obscuring the structural inequality that has historically affected indigenous and Afroperuvian people. Extractivism continues to damage the environment and the rights of indigenous people, while the expansion of agribusiness in the coastal valleys of Peru keeps people – regardless of their ‘ethnic’ self-identification – in poverty and without basic labour and social rights. The article suggests that the ambiguities of the ethnonormative regime in Peru may serve as a diversion from structural issues in a context of neoliberalism and may re-elaborate racial hierarchies, racism and the narratives of mestizaje it allegedly opposes.     

A “shift in attitude”? Institutional change and sexual and gender-based crimes at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

ABSTRACT

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) has been slow to address sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) crimes perpetrated during the Democratic Kampuchea regime. However, there appears to have been a tentative “shift in attitude” at the ECCC toward the investigation and prosecution of these crimes. This article draws on feminist institutionalist theories, first to explain the ECCC’s initial failure to prioritize SGBV and then to explain how and why this may have changed. The article suggests that such change has not arisen from the ECCC’s formal rules. Instead, various actors working with and around these “old rules” have drawn on these provisions, civil society initiatives and international and national gender norms to modify “informal” practices concerning the prosecution of SGBV at the ECCC. Sensitivity to SGBV is particularly important in hybrid, or internationalized, international criminal structures, which may be hindered by prohibitive practices emerging from both the international and national components of the institution.     

Conceptualizing Cultural Politics in Subcultural and Social Movement Studies

In this article it is argued that combining theories of social movements and subcultures provides a way of 'conceptualizing cultural politics'. The focus is on debates that have taken place over the conceptualization of subcultures and social movements as well as the status and viability of cultural politics. Contemporary subcultural theorists are critical of the rigid concepts used by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) but, it is argued, they provide few feasible alternatives. They also have little to say about the supposed contemporary significance of cultural politics. New social movement (NSM) theorists, on the other hand, have generated conceptual frameworks that recognize the complexity of collective phenomena and have developed an approach which enables us to engage with the controversy over cultural politics. However, they concentrate too narrowly on struggles waged at the level of lifestyle, culture and civil society. The article shows how, like the CCCS, critics of NSM theory rightly question the potency of symbolic challenges and stress the persistent role of material issues and the continued part that conventional political actors, such as the state, play in contemporary social conflicts. Finally, the case of New Age Travellers is used to illuminate these debates in subcultural and social movement studies and to show how elements of each approach can be employed fruitfully in empirical research.     

To Be and Not to Be: The Question of Transborder Civic Activism and Regionalization in Mexico. A Critical Account of Neo-Gramscian Perspectives

Abstract

This article analyses how neo-Gramscian IPE and IR traditions look at the transborder agency of civil society actors in the making and re-making of regional orders. In particular, the article identifies key limitations of neo-Gramscian analyses that derive, on one hand, from how agency is understood and, on the other, from an insufficient attention to complex and paradoxical features of transborder collective action. Having as a case study three examples of Mexican TCA opposing market-driven regionalization policies during the 1990s, my empirical observations suggest that diversity and ambivalences of collective transborder action need to be addressed as first order questions. Despite this, neo-Gramscian accounts on transborder forms of collective action have either emphasized that: a) agency is conditioned by powerful structures of the global political economy; or b) that agency is making up these structures. While not rejecting this altogether but attempting to go further, this article advances a critique of both ‘emphases’ on agency and some alternatives.     

Social Change and Educational Technologies: By Invitation or Invasion

Abstract

This empirical research looks into the theoretical supposition that the social fabric can be shaped by educational technologies. It addresses the research question: how (and why) has the introduction of educational technologies into higher education institutions influenced the social configuration? This is answered through a qualitative case study of a Saudi state university, based on analysis of interviews, observations, and documents. Data analysis underpins the supposition of the study, demonstrating that the introduction of educational technologies into a university, for good or ill, deliberately or unintentionally, can engender changes in social structures, practices and relations. The recommendation for policy action, therefore, is that, given the technologically-shaped nature of society, the planning and development process of educational technologies should be more participatory, with all different categories of actors being involved and in turn able to express feelings, articulate needs, and negotiate interests. This process should be intended to arrive at a fuller understanding of these groups’ needs, thus overcoming what technologically constrains them and therefore ensuring that the technological shaping of society does not oppress the affected public.     

What’s Wrong with Us? Sexual Misconduct and the Discipline of Political Science

ABSTRACT

Sexual misconduct matters not only when it is perpetuated by political actors in political institutions. It matters wherever it happens and whomever it happens to, because it is, at its base, political. Politics is fundamentally about power: who gets what, when, and how. As political scientists it should be at the heart of what we study, but it isn’t. Our discipline creates artificial (and somewhat arbitrary) boundaries about which studies of politics count as meaningful research and which do not. We discourage research that explores more expansive notions of how politics is practiced in broader society. As academics we have the luxury of speaking out. I argue here that political scientists ought to embrace an expansive definition of politics to address the real questions of power, its abuse in our society and in our profession.     

“Filthy rich” and “dirt poor:” social and cultural dimensions of solid waste management (SWM) in Lagos

Abstract

This paper analyses how household solid waste was perceived and handled in traditional Yoruba and contemporary Lagos society in South West Nigeria. It highlights the roles of individuals, households, changing lifestyles and diet, business cycles, residential segregation, and state and non-state actors and institutions in waste management in Lagos. The filthy rich/dirt poor divide in Lagos is epitomised by spatial segregation and social stratification, reflected by contrasting highbrow neighbourhoods and massive dumpsites in the metropolis. Central to this discussion are changing economic dynamics. The boom years were characterised by conspicuous consumption, waste and replacement while economic adversity precipitated destitution, re-use and recycling of waste, and recourse to imported second-hand clothing and household utensils. The paper recommends a multi-pronged sustainable waste management strategy for Lagos.     

Competing Sovereignties,Contested Processes: Insights from the Venezuelan Food Sovereignty Experiment

Abstract

This article explores how ‘competing sovereignties’ are shaping the political construction of food sovereignty—broadly defined as ‘the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems'. This study was motivated by a lack of clarity on the ‘sovereignty’ of food sovereignty, as noted by numerous scholars—sovereignty for whom, and how? As there is a growing consensus that there are in fact ‘multiple sovereignties’ of food sovereignty that cut across jurisdictions and scales, there is the question of how these sovereignties are competing with each other in the attempted construction of food sovereignty. This question is becoming ever more relevant as food sovereignty is increasingly adopted into state policy at various levels, calling for state and societal actors to redefine their terms of engagement. This article explores questions of ‘competing sovereignties’ by developing an analytical framework, using the lenses of scale, geography, and institutions, and applying it to Venezuela, where for the past 15 years a food sovereignty experiment has been underway in the context of a dynamic shift in state–society relations.     

Democratic Governance and Actors’ Conceptualization of “Civil Society” in Africa: State–Civil Society Relations in Ghana from 1982–2000

Despite civil society’s ambiguity, many scholars tend to focus on the economic reasons for the apparent conflict between state and civil society, with little or no attention to the conceptual differences that may be influencing the behavior of public and civil society actors. Using Ghana under J. J. Rawlings as a backdrop, this article argues that state–civil society relations are partly shaped by the divergent conceptualizations of “civil society” held by state and civil society actors. It suggests that the issue is not just the African state’s limited understanding of the multiple roles that civil society organizations can legitimately play in the polity; it is also civil society’s lack of recognition and acknowledgment of the legitimate functions of the African state.     

Soft Sovereignty,Rising Powers,and Subnational Foreign Policy-Making: The Case of India

Abstract

The rise of ‘new powers’ in international politics has been frequently associated with a re-emergence of traditional notions of sovereignty as a backlash against the weakening of nation-state sovereignty related to globalization. We argue that the coexistence of these trends has led to new forms of ‘soft sovereignty’. Soft sovereignty means that rising powers both gain and lose authority: From above, their freedom from interference within the international state system is strengthened due to their new status and influence. At the same time, rising powers’ governments are losing authority due to the rise of a multiplicity of sub and transnational actors from below. We apply the concept of soft sovereignty to the analysis of foreign policy-making in India as a least-likely case of a weakening of sovereignty from within a sovereignty-oriented rising power. The analysis of India's relations with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka reveals the huge impact that subnational governments have had on India's policies towards its South Asian neighbours over the past years. The dynamics observed in the case of India reflect many of the traits of current globalization processes, from regionalization to identity politics to the multiplication of actors in the conduct of foreign politics.     

Reading Polanyi in Erbil: understanding socio-political factors in the development of Iraqi Kurdistan

ABSTRACT

The Kurdistan Regional Government emerges out of the chaos of post-Saddam Iraq as a rare positive, providing both political stability and economic growth. However, the outward display masks a more complex domestic settlement where the trappings of the free market coexist with political parties who are significant economic actors. How can this model of development in Iraqi Kurdistan be explained? Turning to the writings of political economist Karl Polanyi, does his thinking on relations between society and economy offer a way to unpack the development? And what does this analysis tell us of prospects for Iraqi Kurdistan?     

A Reappraisal of the Quality of Women Candidates

Abstract

This article focuses on “second-wave” feminist perspectives on the role of the state and its effectiveness in removing gender-based inequality in Indian society. The major argument is that feminist rethinking of the relationship of women to the state illustrates the maturity of the Indian women's movement and its recognition that well-planned, mobilized, and effective state policies are crucial to the promotion of women's interests. Recent scholarship has addressed, more systematically and more critically than any in the past, the nexus between social and political processes and the subordination of women. It provides a contextualized and nuanced understanding of the complex interconnections between gender, state, religion, and community. Consequently, not only have feminist writings of the past two decades in India added to current gender sensitive scholarship on the state and development, they have also facilitated the construction of programmatic guides for realizing “strategic gender interests.”     

Gender and Citizenship in a Global Context: The Struggle for Maquila Workers' Rights in Nicaragua

This article analyzes the strategic deployment of rights and citizenship discourses by a Nicaraguan women's organization (MEC) and the struggle that this group has faced in reconciling the use of these discourses with its aim of bringing about changes in the conditions faced by women workers in the Free Trade Zone (FTZ). Contestations regarding notions of citizenship are explored, and I discuss Nicaraguan state agents' and (to a lesser degree) maquila factory owners' use of notions of citizenship, and how they both coincide and conflict with neoliberal social and economic projects. The case of this Nicaraguan organization's discursive engagement with state actors sheds light on the question: How do ideologies linked to transnational social movements filter into regional and national discourses and become transformed by local actors? In addition, this case has important implications for the larger issue of changing state sovereignty within a global context. A contextualized approach to the strategic use of (human) rights and citizenship calls attention to the complex and situationally specific dilemmas and opportunities involved in adapting this "frame" to work for oppositional objectives. Furthermore, viewing rights and citizenship as always situational calls us to move away from narrow conceptualizations of structural transformation to a more complex and nuanced vision.     

The World Social Forum: the paradoxical quest for strength in plurality

ABSTRACT

In this reflexive essay, I explore how the present and the future of the World Social Forum are intimately related to the ability of its actors to acknowledge and actively address the inherent tensions of open spaces. The former must compose themselves articulating seemingly opposites: ideals shared within the World Social Forum vs. some practices not in accordance with its principles (enhanced in contexts of urgency); claimed horizontality vs. dynamic power relations; internal plurality vs. the need to act in unity to achieve systemic global change, amongst others. I will propose perspectives on how the strength of the WSF can be seen as its capacity to continue building radical hope for a positive shift of paradigm within progressive civil society: from divergences to resilient complementarities.