LITIGATION AND SUBTERFUGE: CHINESE IMMIGRANT MOBILIZATION DURING THE CHINESE EXCLUSION ERA

I analyze historical changes in American immigration law and the subsequent responses of Chinese immigrants during the Chinese Exclusion Era. Using the political process model's concept of “political opportunity structure,” I examine how the indeterminate nature of the Chinese Exclusion laws provided key opportunities for mobilization. I present an interactive framework that considers not only how the broader political environment enabled and constrained the Chinese, but also how they responded by actively reshaping their environment. I apply this framework to the Chinese community's initial use of litigation and their move towards tactics of subterfuge in response to changes in Chinese exclusion policies. My findings show that the anti-Chinese immigration policies basically fulfilled their purpose, but led to unintended exploitation due to problematic language and enforcement.     

Canada's Migrants without History: Neoliberal Immigration Regimes and Trinidadian Transnationalism

Temporary migration programmes have re‐emerged as a preferred mechanism for regulating labour migration in many migrant‐receiving countries in the past decade. In this paper, I consider the role of shifting Canadian immigration policies, notably the expanded streams for temporary workers, in the changing flow of migrants from Trinidad to Canada. Temporary programmes can bring workers to Canada relatively quickly, but they limit access to permanent residency and citizenship, in sharp contrast to most of Canada's earlier immigration policies. Ethnographic fieldwork reveals that Trinidadians actively seeking to make the move to Canada have little interest in new temporary work programmes. Rather, they continue to plan futures in Canada that they expect to be years in the making. I consider some reasons for this apparent refusal to submit to the new migration realities. I show that present‐day Trinidadian emigrant desires and practices are deeply connected to individual, familial and national emigration and immigration histories. Trinidadians are declining to participate in new immigration regimes and are restricting their migration practices to those forms that are historically familiar and have been proven successful. I attempt to show how ethnographic approaches that take seriously migrants' agency can assist in developing a fuller understanding of the ways in which migration flows are changing. These approaches reveal what are otherwise the silences and invisibility surrounding those whose previous access to permanent migration streams has been diminished through neoliberal restructuring of migration policy. I argue that temporary worker policies disregard long‐standing histories of migration and engagement with capitalist processes for people in particular regions of the world, rendering them, for policy purposes, effectively “people without history” (Wolf, 1982).     

Symbolic Economies: Money,Neoliberal Law and National Politics in Argentina

In this article, I examine Argentina's neoliberal reforms throughout the 1990s from a Marxist theoretical perspective, analysing how money, monetary policy and law constitute a fundamental mode of ideological regulation in neoliberal capitalism. Situating this analysis in the context of the capitalist crisis of the mid-1970s, the article discusses the politics of effacement that in Argentina's case paved the way for the use of monetary policy as a form of social control intended to embed the nation-state into global capitalism. Examining economic legislation, macro-economic policies, political ideologies, consumer discourses and pension privatization, I analyse how the neoliberal monetary regime ideologically underpinned a whole state imaginary based on exchange rate parity with the US dollar. Further, I investigate the ideological function of money in symbolically reordering the relationships of workers and citizens to the state, capital and culture. The article concludes with an exploration of the political significance of the monetary collapse of the Argentine neoliberal reform in 2001–2002, comparing Argentina's crisis of hegemony with that of other states within global capitalism.     

Policies for older volunteers: A study of Germany and Italy, 1990–2008

Older people increase their well-being and contribute to the community when they volunteer. Therefore, policy-makers sometimes consider supporting older volunteers. However, they reach different conclusions on whether they should introduce policies for older volunteers, and on what policy would be the most suitable. This article studies how policies for older volunteers emerged in Germany and Italy, both countries having one of the oldest populations in the world. It explores the political discourse on older volunteers, and how this discourse translates into policies. To do this, the article presents data collected in expert interviews and document analysis. Findings show that German policy-makers stress the contribution of volunteering to older people's well-being and have introduced policies for older volunteers. Italian policy-makers, in contrast, frame older volunteers as social service providers and have decided not to single out specific age groups in their policies for volunteers. Moreover, the policies are influenced by the policy-makers' perceptions and path-dependencies, meaning policies and institutions that were introduced in the past. These findings suggest that whether or not policies for older volunteers emerge depends less on the characteristics of the older population and more on the society and its political traditions.     

NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS,POPULISM AND THE POLITICS OF THE LIFEWORLD

Since the 1960s, New Social Movements (NSMs) have been prominent as new actors on the political scene. But, by comparison with other radical political agents, they have made a relatively poor showing in mainstream political theory. Habermas, for example, criticizes NSMs, including second-wave feminism, for merely masquerading as new forms of radical political agency. By introducing some ideas from Laclau, I show how to counter Habermas's criticism. I then rethink NSMs as a new post-liberal form of democratic-emancipatory political agency, which by contrast with the politics of the public sphere that Habermas champions, is anchored in the less organized reaches of the lifeworld.     

Why do states enfranchise citizens abroad? Comparative insights from Mexico,Italy and Belgium

Over the past two decades, sending states have greatly increased their interest in maintaining strong connections with their citizens abroad. The worldwide adoption of external voting – understood not only as an electoral procedure that allows some citizens to cast their vote outside the national territory but also as an acknowledgement that an emigrant status is compatible with polity membership – illustrates this phenomenon. Why do states enfranchise citizens abroad? In this article, I seek to answer this question by comparing the evolution of the debates on the extension of voting privileges to citizens residing abroad in Mexico, Italy and Belgium. My central argument is that a combination of variables shapes the development of external voting in different parts of the world, as well as the content of these laws. These include emigrant lobbying, home states' desires to stimulate emigrant loyalty for economic purposes and, most importantly, the evolution of domestic politics. In discussing these variables, I also shed light on how one can shape the adoption of external voting legislation to control the impact of votes cast abroad.     

Migrant Membership as an Instituted Process: Transnationalization,the State and The Extra‐Territorial Conduct of Mexican Politics1

How should we conceptualize membership, citizenship and political community in a world where migrants and their home states increasingly maintain and cultivate their formal and informal ties? This study analyzes the extra‐territorial conduct of Mexican. politics and the emergence of new migrant membership practices and relations between migrants and home states. Standard globalist, transnationalist or citizenship theories cannot properly contextualize and analyze such practices. I propose that we rethink the concept of membership in a political community not only as a Marshallian status granted by states, but also as an instituted process embedded within four other institutions and processes: home state domestic politics; the home state's relationship to the world system; a semi‐autonomous transnational civil society created in part by migration; and the context of reception of migrants in the United States. A main conclusion is that the state itself plays a key role in creating transnational political action by migrants and new migrant membership practices. The article draws on printed sources and interviews and ethnography done since 1990.     

What Encourages Nonprofits' Adoption of Good Governance Policies?

This study examines how nonprofits' external environments and organizational characteristics explain their likelihood of having written policies for good governance. Findings from the 2010 data of the National Center for Charitable Statistics show that state requirements for registration and annual reporting are not related to a nonprofit's likelihood of adopting such written policies. The results instead indicate that organizations that engage in lobbying activities and operate in metropolitan areas are more likely to have good governance standards. Most of all, the analysis shows that organizational resources, both financial and human, explain differences in the adoption of these policies. These findings suggest that the nonprofit community should collectively invest in building the infrastructure that helps smaller organizations develop good governance policies and, hence, stay competitive.     

Redrawing the Contours of the Nation‐State in Uruguay? The Vicissitudes of Emigration Policy in the 2000s

This study analyzes Uruguay's recently launched emigration policy. It argues that the redrawing of the boundaries of the nation‐state along non‐territorial basis is still an incipient and contested process. The findings highlight some relatively under‐explored explanatory factors: emigrants' profile; political junctures requiring immediate commitment; the impact of rhetorical changes and post‐neoliberal projects; presidents as policy drivers and sources of inconsistencies; and institutional deficiencies, inertias, lack of reform, and society's conflictive notions of nation and belonging as brakes. The conclusions indicate that the sustainability of emigration policy is contingent on the state's progress toward internal reform and society's ability to acquire a greater voice and more organizational capacity. Exploring emigration policy characteristics and sources of setbacks in Uruguay unveils the inter‐mestic character of state transnational outreach efforts, qualifies and refines existing explanations, expands our understanding of new governance techniques, and provides some insights into the requirements for emigration policies to work effectively.     

‘To lie down to death for days’

On 20 October 2000, the longest and most deadly hunger strike in modern history began in prisons throughout Turkey. Organized as a response to the government's plans to develop and construct new so-called ‘F-type’ prisons – in which prisoners are isolated from one another, from legal advocates and from family members – the strike was also intended to challenge several recently-enacted ‘anti-terrorism’ policies that have resulted in thousands of arrests. In a country where political prisoners make up roughly one-sixth of the total prison population, and where a long history of prison torture has been criticized by a wide range of outside human rights groups, the hunger strike sees little chance of achieving its goals: convincing government officials to repeal the official legislation and to reconsider its shift to the F-type prison system. Nonetheless, the Strike has continued for well over two years, and has claimed at least 107 lives. This essay is intended to explore the political effects and performative value of a mode of resistance (1) founded on the eventual death of many, if not all, of its practitioners and (2) ineffective in eventuating its desired changes. By definition, hunger striking is an unsustainable form of resistance; and yet, the Turkish strikers have continued to fast far longer than anticipated, and seem to be willing and able to continue indefinitely. How are cultural meanings and political currencies of Hunger Striking reformulated in such a radically changed temporal context? In a practice that so dramatically fuses the subject and object of state violence into a single body (and at the behest of such a maligned community), what kind of political subject is produced, and how is her/his relationship to the state redefined? And finally, how might political efficacy be redefined in the case of the Turkish strike, and by the performative value of various attempts to represent the strike in the context of European assimilation?     

How social policy impacts inequalities in political efficacy

Political efficacy—the feeling that one is able to effectively participate in politics and also that her input is worthwhile—is an important precursor to numerous political activities, most prominently voting. Beyond individual resources, there is growing evidence that social policies also matter for inequalities in political efficacy. This review centers on the concept of political efficacy and its dimensions to highlight the ways in which social policies can promote or hamper people's subjective beliefs about their role vis‐à‐vis the state. I review studies examining the ways in which social policies can shape political efficacy, focusing on social policy design and administration. Particular attention is given to the policy feedback literature, which posits that policies can influence political efficacy through the channels of resource and interpretive effects. The review concludes by discussing the limitations and challenges of the topic and also outlines areas for the further study of political efficacy and social policy.     

UNDERSTANDING ENVIRONMENTALISM IN A RED,AGRICULTURAL STATE: THE IMPACT OF POLITICAL PARTY IDENTIFICATION AND PLACE OF RESIDENCE

The red state-blue state characterization of American society geographically categorizes the U.S. into Republican and Democrat states, with the assumption that the gulf between the states is broad and deep in many issues and policies. Given this presumed division, this research examines three dimensions of environmentalism to determine if political party identification is indeed a useful predictor of environmentalism when taking into consideration a person's place of residence and several other social demographic influences. Data come from a 2003 phone survey of 606 residents in Nebraska. Nebraska provides a good test of how much political party identification matters in understanding environmentalism when the population is generally conservative, with traditional ties to extractive commodity production. The findings show that political party identification is significant in understanding environmentalism and that place of residence does not affect environmentalism. However, while the findings reveal that political party identification is an important predictor of environmentalism, both Republicans and Democrats show a relatively strong support for the environment.     

Anarchism,Communism and Hispanidad: Australian Spanish Migrants and the Civil War

Despite thorough analysis of the Spanish Civil War, its impact on Spain's emigrant communities remains largely unstudied. This article focuses on the Australian Spanish community to demonstrate that migrants experienced a twofold response. They were galvanised to oppose Anglo-Australian control of the Solidarity campaign, and attempted to create an alternative public discourse. Secondly, the Civil War prompted the community to reassess their relationship to politics, dividing local Spaniards according to radical ideologies, as they debated how best to achieve socialist goals in both Spain and Australia.     

Miao Identities,Indigenism and the Politics of Appropriation in Southwest China during the Republican Period

This paper examines the conception of Miao identities in the writings of three indigenous intellectuals during the Republican period. Being members of three different indigenous groups who are classified as Miao today, these writers imagined the Miao community differently in terms of geographical boundaries, cultural contents, and historical experiences. While these differences need to be explained by the writers' unique life histories unfolded in particular local, national and transnational contexts, these writers in general appropriated and domesticated Chinese ethnic categories to reformulate their own conceptions of the indigenous community in terms that stretched beyond the boundary of their own local groups, forming part of their political activism to struggle for official recognition of ethnic minority status in the Republican regimes' nation-building project. This politics of appropriation and recognition constitutes some indigenous groups' special form of activism in Southwest China to struggle for self-definition in the process of being integrated into the modern Chinese state. It shaped the historical conditions for indigenous responses to the Communist Party's minority policies, showing that indigenous people were not waiting passively for their historical fate of being classified according to some state-imposed supra-local ethnic identities after the Communist takeover.     

Analyzing Politics and Change in Women's Organizations

Research on women's political action too often passes over women's organizations that do not officially adopt a feminist ideology and do not explicitly set out to change gender power relations. Based on implicit notions that such women's organizations are nonpolitical (or less interesting), the research often supports a false dichotomy between feminist and nonfeminist organizations rather than illuminates women's common political ground. This study addresses women's collective action, politics and change by focusing on the case of Nicaraguan Mothers of Heroes and Martyrs - women who lost a son or daughter in the revolution or Contra War. Although some members in Matagalpa critiqued male domination, the organization itself did not set out to challenge the gendered division of labor; indeed, their collective demands relied upon and in many ways reinforced traditional gender identities. I argue that such movements are important to feminist political analysis. As I demonstrate in this article, an organization's lack of an official feminist ideology does not mean that individual members do not express interests, identities and ideals that challenge the gendered status quo. Such research, however, requires a nuanced approach, recognizing women as both accommodating and resisting gendered social structures. Thus, this study challenges the dominant feminist-feminine dichotomy by demonstrating that women's collective action is not only per se political (and politically important) but may also challenge as well as reinforce gendered power structures.     

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.”     

The political consequences of contemporary immigration

This article synthesizes research on political outcomes associated with increasing immigration, with an emphasis on cross‐national studies of European countries, where immigration is a relatively newer phenomenon compared to the United States and other traditional immigrant destinations. We begin with explanations of and research on anti‐immigrant sentiment, not a political phenomenon in itself but considered an important precursor to other relevant political attitudes. Next, we review scholarship on the relationship between immigration and support for the welfare state, as well as exclusionary attitudes regarding immigrants' rights to welfare benefits. Then, we review research on immigration and political party preferences, in particular radical right parties, whose platforms often combine anti‐immigration and welfare chauvinistic positions. We conclude by discussing how these processes may ultimately shape social policies, which may in turn influence immigration itself.     

Social justice,care and developmental welfare in South Africa: a capabilities perspective

One of the paradoxes of the democratic project in South Africa is that the combination of political empowerment, organised constituencies of poor people and increasing social sector spending has made minimal impact on increasing equality. Despite an overall macroeconomic framework that emphasises fiscal restraint, social welfare spending has increased in the past 14 years, and dramatically so since 2003. Almost one in four South Africans receives some or other form of grant, and the majority of recipients are women. Indeed, South Africa is regularly described as the developing world’s largest and most generous welfare state. I address the extent to which gender inequalities are reduced through public sector spending, asking the question: what is the optimal relationship between social policy and the intrinsic democratic goals of equality, social justice and citizenship? Drawing on Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach, the article argues that a focus on social sector spending alone is inadequate to address questions of social justice. Instead, I draw attention to the normative assumptions, discursive environment and institutional context in which social policy is elaborated and implemented. I argue that, in a context in which there is relatively poor infrastructural capacity in the state to ensure that service delivery takes place in fair, consistent and egalitarian ways, households and communities act as shock absorbers of state failures and women’s gendered burdens increase, despite formal commitments to gender equality. While women appear to have gained from political empowerment, women politicians did not effectively leverage their position in the state to promote pro‐poor policies or to build coalitions to challenge the watering down of early commitments to reducing gender inequalities.