Mobilizing from the Margins: Domestic Citizen Politics and Yasukuni Shrine

Prime Minister Koizumi’s six consecutive annual visits to Yasukuni shrine played a key role in initiating a new phase of domestic citizen political mobilization not seen since the early 1970s. This paper is based on field research during the Koizumi years (2001–2006) centering on domestic groups that conduct activities in “protection” of or “opposition” to Yasukuni shrine. As a study of street-based politics, this paper seeks to uncover the processes, strategies, and outcomes of citizen responses to elite political action at Yasukuni Shrine as well as explore meaning of their actions within the context of Japan’s democratic polity.

From Machine Politics to the Politics of Technocracy: Charting Changes in Governance in the Mexican Municipality1

Abstract — A typology comprising technocratic rationality versus political partisanship helps to identify several local government structures found in contemporary Mexico: political machines; autonomous-indigenous; technocratic; and modernising party governments. Case study research in over a dozen municipalities for three principal parties suggest a trend towards increasing technocratic and more administratively efficient municipal government and changing patterns of partisanship. This arises from new pressures associated with electoral opening, political alternation, new government actors, growing urban development complexity, and from federal reforms offering greater local government autonomy. However, while improved administration and technocratic governance often leads to positive outcomes, they do not necessarily imply ‘good government’.     

Stones on the Road: The Politics of Participation and the Generation of Crisis in Bolivia

This paper demonstrates that recent protests in Bolivia must be linked to the failure of efforts to improve democratic participation in the country. It argues that such failures can be traced to a history of prejudices in national development and society and persistent biases and contradictions within international development policy and institutions. Despite these obstacles, the paper concludes that ideas for appropriate development and realistic alternatives for change to government and democracy are visible in recent critical development thinking and amongst the different social and cultural groupings involved in the demonstrations.     

Differing Effects of the Global Financial Crisis: Why Mexico Has Been Harder Hit than Other Large Latin American Countries

In this article, we argue that the economic and financial crisis that began in Mexico in 2008 has not been primarily caused by the US crisis that began in 2007, as many have argued. As we will show, years of misguided economic policies at the national level have been at the heart of the Mexican crisis. On the one hand, the dominance of foreign banks in the country's financial system and the minimal presence of the public banks have greatly limited the range of counter‐cyclical policy options available to authorities. On the other hand, in the face of the crisis, Mexico has continuously applied deflationary Washington Consensus policies that have deepened the economic contraction. This article will focus on Mexico's individual problems, which offer important lessons for other Latin American countries with a shared recent history of Washington Consensus policies.     

探析当今美国传播与政治的关系

传媒与政治有密切的关系,传媒的巨大宣传功能为政府提供了影响和引导舆论的工具。美国向来标榜“新闻自由”,但却打着信息传播的幌子对他国进行价值观的渗透,本文从美国传媒对北约轰炸南联盟的报道中剖析美国传媒与政治的关系,指出美国传媒并非它所自我标榜的那么“独立”和“公正”     

In Search of Alternatives: The Making of Grassroots Politics and Power in Argentina

This article analyses ethnographically the reconfigurations of the state and relations of power through their dynamic interactions with subaltern alternatives that emerged in the 2001 uprising in Argentina. In this regard, it counters influential interpretations of these events articulated within John Holloway’s framework of ‘anti‐power’, which ignores the reconstruction of the state, and rank and file trade unionism. The article concludes that intensified class and political struggles in the region offer new spaces for contesting hegemonic reinventions of populism and ‘top‐down’ socialism in Latin America.     

Rethinking Indigenous Politics: The Unnoticed Struggle for Self-Determination in Peru

Most scholars characterise Peru as a country with weak indigenous movements, whose demands would have no influence in regional and national policies, even though its socio-economic structures are similar to those of Bolivia and Ecuador, where indigenous movements are stronger. Based on fieldwork in the northern Peruvian Amazon and Lima between 2012–2013 and 2016–2018, this article argues that pro-indigenous legislation enacted as a response to strong indigenous mobilisation as well as the creation of indigenous autonomous governments in the Amazon express an unnoticed struggle for indigenous self-determination. These social phenomena also raise questions about the common assessment of the strength or weakness of indigenous movements.     

The Politics of Financial Intransparency: The Case of Swiss Banking Secrecy

In parallel to the growing weight of finance in the global economy, the transparency of financial flows and asset ownership has attracted increasing attention, a process further accelerated by the 2007/8 global financial crisis. Tax‐starved governments want to know the assets their residents own but financial intransparency can make tax collection difficult by obscuring both the ownership of assets as well as their real size. This article reviews three interrelated strands of literature on financial intransparency with a special emphasis given to one of its most prominent examples: Swiss‐style banking secrecy. First, I discuss the challenge of financial intransparency in a globalized economy and document the central role Switzerland plays as an offshore financial centre. I show that while Swiss‐style banking secrecy is an important example of financial intransparency, possible tax evaders also have other instruments at their disposal. Second, a review of the literature on the origins of Swiss banking secrecy shows how struggles for interpretive dominance shape the politics of financial intransparency. Third, I discuss the literature on the first OECD campaign against tax havens and demonstrate that representatives of the Swiss political‐economic system could have anticipated the shift of attention from small island states to OECD member states like Switzerland. Given the writing on the wall, it is surprising that recent developments have caught Swiss banks flat‐footed.     

Headlong into the Polanyian Dilemma: The Impact of Middle-Class Moral Panic on the British Government's Response to the Sub-prime Crisis

This article focuses on the discursive construction in Britain of a middle-class moral panic occasioned by the distress caused to self-styled 'responsible mortgage borrowers' by falling house prices. In the context of the move towards asset-based welfare the sub-prime crisis manifested itself most obviously in the popular consciousness as a threat to housing market wealth. The Labour government used the political space opened up by the narrative of middle-class moral panic in order to protect banks' balance sheets from the consequences of their own failed investments in mortgage-backed securities. The ensuing arrangements immunised banks from the implications of market self-regulation in the first-phase response to the sub-prime crisis while simultaneously allowing them to continue to impose the experience of market self-regulation on their customers. An increasingly asymmetric approach to banking regulation has arisen analogous to that which Karl Polanyi associated with the contradictory co-existence of market and non-market forms.     

Re‐articulating Identity: The Shifting Landscape of Indigenous Politics and Power on the Ecuadorian Coast

The Levantamiento Indígena of 1990 was a defining moment in the advancement of indigenous politics in Ecuador. Following the uprising of 1990, scholars have paid close attention to the politics of identity and indigenous representation in Ecuador with the main focus being placed on the highland and Amazonian regions of the country. Based on fieldwork conducted in Ecuador's Manabí province, this article provides preliminary insight into the growth of an indigenous discourse on the Ecuadorian coast. I focus on the process of re‐indigenisation in the coastal community of Macaboa. This research is significant because while a great deal of scholarly attention has been paid to indigenous movements in Ecuador's highland and Amazonian regions, indigenous politics on the coast have gone largely unnoticed. The case outlined in this article is emblematic of the shifting nature of identity and the way in which ethnic discourses are increasingly being adopted by marginalised groups in their attempts to negotiate with the state.     

Building Neo-liberal Markets and Other Agendas: The Politics of Risk Management at AusAID

Abstract

This article analyses emerging approaches by donors to risk management, focusing on the case of the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). It suggests that AusAID's understanding and management of risk are expressions of particular political and social interests and, subsequently, that its approach to risk management is inherently political in nature. While AusAID's policies and guidelines on risk management identify a wide range of risks as being relevant to the agency's work – including risks to poverty reduction and sustainable development – in practice it has focused on managing risks to the building of neo-liberal markets, both within Australia and in developing countries, and the Australian government's foreign policy objectives. To illustrate these points, we present an analysis of AusAID's approach to risk management in a major economic governance project, the Philippines-Australia Partnership for Economic Governance Reforms. We conclude by indicating ways in which donor approaches to risk management can be revised to give greater attention to the needs of the poor and civil society, while acknowledging that such revisions may be contingent upon prior changes in the structure of power and interest and/or institutional characteristics of aid policy-making processes in donor countries.     

缅甸国内政治与对外关系现状

按照联合国宪章规定 ,非选举政府的执政期限不得超过 5年 ,但如今 1 0年过去了 ,缅甸军政府依然我行我素 ,敢冒天下之大不韪 ,拒绝和美国欧盟提出的承认 1 990年 5月大选结果并将政权移交给全国民主联盟的条件。缅甸军政府反复声称 ,它将完全按照自己的既定方式和时间表移交政权。为此 ,它致力于制订一部有力于自己的新宪法 ,一旦制宪完毕 ,将再举行新一轮选举 ,把自己 1 0年来苦心经营的政党 (联邦巩固发展协会 )推向政治舞台。尽管缅甸军政府至今仍被国际社会所遗弃 ,同东盟的关系微妙 ,但同中国的关系则是牢固的。     

Explaining the Rise of Class Politics in Venezuela

The sudden rise to power of leftist former coup leader Hugo Chávez and the subsequent politicisation of social class raises a number of interesting questions about the sources of class politics and political change in Venezuela. Using nationally representative survey data over time, this article considers different explanations for the rise of class politics. It argues that explanations for the politicisation of class can best be understood in terms of 'top-down' approaches that emphasise the role of political agency in reshaping and re-crafting political identities, rather than more 'bottom-up' factors that emphasise the demands that originate within the electorate. The economic crises during the 1990s undermined support for the existing parties, but it did not create a politically salient class-based response. Rather, it created the electoral space that facilitated new actors to enter the political stage and articulate new issue dimensions.     

金融危机背景下的中日中小企业合作：现状、问题和对策

近年来,中日中小企业合作成为中日经贸合作的新热点。首先分析了中日中小企业合作开展的背景,然后从日本中小企业对华投资、中日中小企业政策对话等几方面阐述了中日中小企业合作的现状及存在的主要问题,最后在上述分析的基础上提出了促进中日中小企业合作的政策建议,并展望了金融危机背景下中日中小企业合作的发展前景。     

金融危机与东南亚地区国际关系的新变化

金融危机使东南亚各国面对一系列严峻挑战 ,也使该地区的国际关系发生重大而深远的变化。东盟主导东南亚地区事务的能力受到了削弱。中美日等大国的影响力增强了。尤其是美国 ,利用这次金融危机 ,得到了许多它平时得不到的东西。金融危机之后 ,东南亚地区形成了由美、日、中和东盟四足鼎立的政治经济格局。     

Resisting the Global Slum: Politics,Religion and Consumption in the Remaking of Life Worlds in the Twenty‐First Century

The volatility of Latin American society is producing political challenges to neoliberal capitalism, but these are complicated by the transformations neoliberalism has wrought in everyday social life. This paper explores tensions between movements to ‘democratise democracy’ and politics orientated to controlling the national state, while also considering apolitical forms of ‘resistance’ to humiliating conditions of life and the impact of new religious movements. I argue that although no instant utopias are likely, there are positive as well as negative possibilities in the way that apparently contradictory developments are combining to transform the established historical contours of hegemony in the region.