Governance,the State,and the Market: What Is Going On?

Analyses of the 'shrinking state' tend to focus on the pressures being felt by the welfare state. The 'state' is viewed as a provider of social benefits and as redistributing wealth. To the extent these functions are being challenged the state is perceived as being 'rolled back' by the forces of the market. Yet the state is also involved in 'building' markets. This function, overshadowed in the past, has now become an important state activity. Such activity, however, is carried out by state actors different from those involved in the provision of social benefits and the evolution of the welfare state. Majoritarian institutions are largely responsible for the latter while non-majoritarian institutions oversee theformer. Although the balance of power among different types of state actors has shifted, the power of public authority has not necessarily been 'rolled back' by the market.     

Global Protesters Versus Global Elites: Are Direct Action and Deliberative Politics Compatible?1

In this article I examine the legitimacy of direct action in relation to liberal deliberative norms and global institutions (World Bank, World Trade Organization, etc.). Because the deliberative processes of these institutions are illegitimate according to the theory of deliberative politics, the activists of the movement for global justice are legitimate to confront these institutions. Moreover, confrontational action in itself may have a deliberative value for at least seven reasons: (1) initiating deliberation (agenda-setting); (2) enlarging participation; (3) enlarging representation; (4) disseminating information and arguments (publicity); (5) stimulating imagination; (6) pushing for action; (7) re-opening deliberations. Finally, social movements such as the movement for global justice may be seen themselves as deliberative arenas. Thus, those who seek to evaluate the legitimacy of direct actions need to take into consideration the deliberative nature of the process through which activists decide which means may be more efficient in order to repair defects in the official deliberative process, and promote equality, liberty, and justice.     

Liang Tang,China’s Authoritarian Path to Development: Is Democratization Possible?

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

Property as a Constitutional Right in the Nineteenth Century: Or What Have We Learned Since Corwin?

The evolution of due process from an innocuous paraphrase ofthe old English concept "the law of the land" into a strongbastion of property rights until its curtailment in constitutionaldecisions in 1937 has been beautifully delineated in the writingsof Edward Corwin. Later writers have concentrated largely onextrapolating that history to cover the metamorphosis of propertiedliberty into personal rights, which has even required a modestrevival of property protection. Still, Corwin has been amendedon several key points. (1) We now understand that the nineteenth-centurybattle over property was not between property and persons, butbetween an older concept of "property as possession" and a dynamiccapitalist view of "property as creation of social value." (2)The transformation of "due process" in popular controversy,which Corwin was acute enough to advance as a factor, seemsto have been the most decisive factor, particularly alteringthe debate on the Fourteenth Amendment. (3) Corwin's searchfor a transforming case representing a decisive conceptual changeseems misplaced The complex economic-regulation due-processcases allowed a move from "procedure to substance" without anyvisible transformation of legal rules.     

Review essay: What of tomorrow's stranger?

From Aliens to Citizens: Redefining the Status of Immigrants in Europe. Rainer Bauböck (Ed.), 1994, Aldershot/Brookfield, Avebury, 233 pp., pbk. ISBN 1 85972 059 5

The Challenge of Diversity: Integration and Pluralism in Societies of Immigration Rainer Bauböck, Agnes Heller, Aristide R. Zolberg (Eds), 1996, Aldershot/Brookfield, Avebury, 279 pp., pbk. ISBN 1 85972 401 9     

PCC Elections as a ‘Failed Experiment’: What Lessons can be Learned?

The low turnout of the 2012 police and crime commissioner (PCC) elections have led to questions surrounding their legitimacy and have even led to the former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg describing the elections—elections his party helped to introduce—as a ‘failed experiment’. Despite this, the election of a majority Conservative government in May 2015 appears to offer some longevity to the role of police and crime commissioners and cements next year's PCC elections in the political diary. Concerns in the immediate aftermath of the elections focused upon the costs of the elections. In this article I offer some suggestions as to what lessons could be learned from this experiment and, through exploring the attitudes of voters, political parties and the media, suggest that we can learn four lessons: (1) that spoilt ballots cannot be ignored; that (2) political parties and (3) the media's attitudes toward elections are important in encouraging people to vote; and (4) that high numbers of independent candidates cannot simply be welcomed at times of elections.     

Transnational Cultural Studies: What Price Globalisation?

One of the most significant aspects of globalisation has been the developing focus upon local resistances, of various types, and the ways in which these resistances seek to carve out specific spaces that both maintain and construct cultural difference. Performing cultural studies in those spaces, particularly those not determined by the philosophical and ideological underpinnings of cultural theories that are traditionally highly resistant to orthodoxies, is both challenging and exciting. Questions of whether a transnational cultural studies is possible in such contexts have been exercising a number of scholars in the past few years. This paper reviews some of those concerns and considers some of the issues involved in the developments of cultural studies within a transnational humanities context, which often operates in ways unfamiliar with the anti-establishment beginnings of Anglo-American/Australian cultural studies.     

Project Trafficking: Global Unity in Addressing a Universal Challenge?

Trafficking in persons is often referred to as a global problem that can only be resolved through collaborative action involving the entire global community. Since the early 2000s, the United Nations (UN) has spearheaded efforts to lead the global anti-trafficking campaign and advocate for the humane treatment of trafficked persons. This paper examines the effects of various legal documents and advocacy campaigns to argue that, for the present moment, the UN-led anti-trafficking collaboration fails on both counts—end trafficking and provide protection and support to trafficked persons. It further argues that the global anti-trafficking unity is maintained at the expense of solving the actual problem: identifying someone to blame and criminalize takes precedence over resolving socio-economic conditions, which are often at the root cause of trafficking. An extreme emphasis on criminality and morality, while well aligned with states’ anti-immigration objectives and public outcries against illegal migration and prostitution, also leads to further ostracization of those in need of protection and options for reintegration.     

What comes first,democracy or human rights?

Minimalists about human rights hold that a state can have political legitimacy if it protects a basic list of rights and democratic rights do not have to be on that list. In this paper, I consider two arguments from Benhabib against the minimalist view. The first is that a political community cannot be said to have self-determination, which minimalists take to be the value at the heart of legitimacy, without democracy. The second is that even the human rights protections minimalists take to legitimize institutions cannot be had without democracy. These rights can only be adequately interpreted and specified for any social context if the interpretations and specifications result from democratic processes. Here, I bring out some important problems with these arguments and so conclude that they do not represent a robust case for rejecting minimalism.