Organising Everyday Resistance: An Ethnographic Study of Rickshaw Drivers in Bogotá

Workers in the informal transport sector are often exposed to multiple forms of workplace violence, for instance by the police and their colleagues. Through a collection of rich ethnographic stories and using the concept of popular resistance, this article investigates how and under what conditions rickshaw drivers in Bogotá resist violence in their workplace. The results reveal that rickshaw associations have been essential in articulating acts of everyday resistance to the legal ban on this activity, such regulating routes, fees and stops. However, associations have created new forms of oppression, being labelled as mafia-like organisations, showing that resistance can also translate into new forms of domination. Contrary to the argument that everyday resistance is uncoordinated, this article shows that acts of everyday resistance can be organised by actors that switch between different individual and collective strategies. Thus, organisations can provide a framework to resist the law on an everyday basis.     

Organised Crime Governance in Times of Pandemic: The Impact of COVID-19 on Gangs and Drug Cartels in Colombia and Mexico

The COVID-19 crisis provides a window of opportunity for organised crime organisations in Colombia and Mexico to exert social control in local communities through actions of solidarity and care rather than traditional violent coercion. This new dynamic is increasing the legitimacy, power and social capital of gangs and drug cartels, helping them to co-opt civil society and the state to support their criminal operations. The pandemic also shows how poverty and inequality remain fundamental in shaping the building of the nation-state in both countries, where criminals act as a de facto state even without the virus and, in many areas, effectively replace the state. The coronavirus is making visible the ways in which organised crime groups cultivate civil society's support in delivering the provision of governance, order and public health in a time of lockdown and quarantine, making local ‘narco-gang’ governance profitable economically and politically.     

Good Urban Governance: Evidence from a Model City?

Few cities in Latin America provide much evidence of good governance. However, during the last fifteen years, Bogotá has been transformed and now qualifies in certain respects as an example of ‘best practice’. The paper considers how Bogotá changed and whether it can continue its improvement, an especially interesting question insofar as a left‐wing administration has been in charge since 2004. Of course, the city is by no means perfect and national issues continue to create difficulties both for the poor and for the local administration.     

The politics of ethnicity and post-conflict reconstruction: The case of Northern Ghana

Taking into account the complexity of contemporary ethnic conflicts, this article examines the construction and politicisation of ethnicity to understand a recent case of post-conflict reconstruction. More specifically, the article considers theories of post-conflict reconstruction, particularly the conflict transformation school that claims to respond to the hybrid nature of recent ethnic conflicts. By adopting a constructivist perspective, this article argues that post-conflict reconstruction in ethnically-fragmented areas is largely about the problem of de-politicising essentialist discourses of historically constructed ethnic identities. In order to explore this key theoretical issue, the article analyses the 1994-95 case of conflict and reconstruction in the Northern Region of Ghana. This analysis draws on archival research and 21 interviews with individuals representing nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), traditional authorities, religious leaders, opinion leaders, and the state conducted from August to October 2006 in Accra, the capital of Ghana, as well as Tamale, the capital of the Northern Region. Because very little research is available on post-conflict reconstruction in Northern Ghana, this analysis fills a major gap in the contemporary literature on ethnic conflict and post-conflict reconstruction in West Africa. At a broader level, the article suggests that contemporary theories of post-conflict reconstruction would gain from taking a more systematic look at the social and political construction of such identities.     

The sea as humanitarian space: Non-governmental Search and Rescue dilemmas on the Central Mediterranean migratory route

In 2016 only, more than 5000 migrants lost their lives while attempting to cross the Mediterranean. To mitigate this humanitarian emergency, ten different non-governmental organisations (NGOs) started conducting Search and Rescue (SAR) operations offshore Libya. While operating at sea ostensibly provides humanitarian relief organisations with the possibility to work free of political interference, non-governmental SAR entails operational and ethical dilemmas, forcing NGOs to accept uneasy compromises on the principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence that underlie humanitarian action.     

“Developing a community soul”: A Comparative Assessment of the Australian Assistance Plan in Three Regions, 1973–1977

The Australian Assistance Plan (AAP) was an innovative yet largely forgotten social welfare program from the 1970s. A key platform of the Whitlam Labor government, which established a series of Regional Councils for Social Development across Australia, the AAP reframed citizens’ participation in their communities, stimulated voluntary organisations and volunteering and attempted to transform engagement among all levels of governments and the voluntary sector. Through an analysis of three Regional Council case studies in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, this article focuses on the themes of regionalism and regional distinctiveness in order to assess how questions of regional difference can impact on the development of policy practices.     

Non-governmental organisations and the management of HIV and AIDS in refugee camps: A comparison of Marratane Camp in Mozambique and Kakuma Camp in Kenya

In recent years, a number of sub-Saharan African states appear to have placed restrictions on the operations of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) within their state boundaries. Indeed, some commentators and academics have questioned the role NGOs should play in providing humanitarian aid to refugees and to what extent they are, or should be, involved in the political, cultural, economic and healthcare concerns and agendas of any state. However, the high HIV/AIDS prevalence in refugee camps in sub-Saharan Africa creates negative economic, social, political and security implications for their host states and many states lack the knowledge, experience and funds to manage the problem successfully. Within this context, this article examines and compares the role and effectiveness of two separate NGOs involved since 2001 in HIV/AIDS management programmes in two distinct refugee camps: Save the Children in Marratane Refugee Camp in Mozambique and the International Rescue Committee in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. NGO success in managing HIV/AIDS programmes is analysed according to UNHCR guidelines and specifically against four key aspects of HIVAIDS management; HIV/AIDS awareness, HIV/AIDS prevention, access to HIV healthcare services and the provision of treatment.     

Urban Design as Technology of (Counter‐) Democratic Security Politics

How does architecture operate as a security technology? This contribution sets out how reflexive security research and urban studies approach built environments as political inclusion and exclusion instruments. It first presents how this role is understood to operate in the respective scholarly fields, and then illustrates its ambivalent operation with two mini‐case studies centering on Bogotá and Zürich. In doing so, the contribution seeks to familiarize readers with architecture‐oriented reflexive political analysis, and to draw out main lines of further investigation.     

Perception of corruption by traffic police and taxi drivers in Bukavu DR Congo: the limits of moral analysis

ABSTRACT

This study explores how traffic police, taxi drivers and anticorruption agencies each perceive corruption in Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Thirteen traffic police officers were interviewed, three focus groups of four to five taxi drivers were conducted, and two members of anti-corruption agencies were interviewed. Findings suggest that while western NGOs and anti-corruption agencies consider corruption immoral and a major barrier to development, both the traffic police and taxi drivers perceive it as a normal expression of solidarity and a sine qua non condition for survival. For them, corruption is a system that provides job security, greater access to food, accommodation, healthcare and education in the dysfunctional and failed Congolese State. This suggests that framing corruption in the transport sector of Bukavu solely as a moral issue and seeking to eliminate it without establishing a new system that effectively meets the needs of the population may result in more serious social problems than the corruption itself.     

Precarity,Cognitive (Non-)Resistance and the Conservative Working Class in China

ABSTRACT

Workers’ resistance is crucial to understanding how the working class respond to the growing labour precarity in post-socialist China. The labour studies literature posits that inequality and volatile capital movements increase workers’ precarity and lead to stronger labour resistance, such as strikes. However, workers’ cognition as an integral part of resistance has been rarely studied. This article examines cognitive resistance by Chinese workers from different tier cities by looking at their social trust, class identity, understanding of policies and class solidarity. Despite capital movements and precarity causing more labour unrest, it does not necessarily lead to a stronger cognitive resistance. While inequality and precarity are greater in the more developed megacities with a shifting capital favourability, workers in megacities display a more conservative cognitive resistance than those from the lower-tier cities. This study of workers’ cognitive resistance provides insight into the future of the Chinese labour movement. It argues that the working class’s current cognitive non-resistance suggests that even if a window of opportunity were to appear in the wall of state oppression, workers are not cognitively prepared to coalesce into a coherent social movement that would bring about transformative changes.     

Beer and Skittles? Workers and Culture in Early Twentieth‐Century Germany

This paper begins by examining the cultural practices of the large workers' leisure organisations associated with German Social Democracy and asks whether these merely reproduced 'high' or 'bourgeois' culture or whether they contributed to a distinct cultural identity for their members. It concludes that, although much of the culture of these organisations was borrowed, it was not necessarily understood in the same way by workers as by middle-class Germans. Moreover these organisations remained separate from those of the German bourgeoisie and possessed distinctive core values, in particular that of solidarity. This difference was reinforced by the housing conditions of German workers, which obviated the possibility of a privatised and domestic leisure. However, this 'labour movement culture' had to compete both with other organised working-class cultures (of Catholics, Poles and workers in company clubs), with a 'culture of poverty' on the part of those in irregular employment and on low incomes, and with an increasingly commercial leisure industry. This 'labour movement' culture was also predominantly male.     

非政府组织和印尼的政治改革

非政府组织经常被看作是充满活力的公民社会的基础。对于发展中国家的政治、社会发展来说,非政府组织至关重要。关于这一点,印尼这个东南亚地区的最大国家体会得相当深刻。本文将通过探讨苏哈托政府时期印尼非政府组织的生存发展,展示非政府组织在发展中国家政治发展中的杠杆作用。     

Neo-liberalism in post-crisis South Korea: Social conditions and outcomes

South Korea's post-war development pattern has been considered to be a developmental state model, where the basic institutional framework was the “state-banks-chaebol nexus.” Since the financial crisis of 1997, however, the country has been swiftly transformed from the developmental state model and has acquired more neo-liberal characteristics. This has been made possible through intense reforms implemented by the post-crisis South Korean government under the IMF's guidance and encouraged by domestic political, ideational, and social conditions. Among those, significant conditions for this swift transformation include chaebols' legitimacy problems, neo-liberal consensus among the domestic elite, democracy hijacked by neo-liberalism, and the role of some NGOs. As social outcomes of the transformation, we find the enlarged presence of transnational capital, increased labour flexibility, inequality and poverty, and an increasing cultural gap in the country. Huge social costs of such neo-liberal transformation necessitate an alternative path of political economy.     

A new look: professionalization of NGOs in Kyrgyzstan

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan have become visible players in the social and political scene. However, despite being portrayed as professional organizations in the literature, the professionalization of NGOs in Kyrgyzstan has been understudied. This article aims to rectify this gap. It presents and discusses the findings of a study analysing NGOs from an organizational perspective using semi-structured interviews with 45 NGOs, self-administered questionnaires with their leaders and employees, and observation of their working environment. The key conclusion is that the NGO sector can be described as semi-professional. NGOs use different tactics to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. However, they face such challenges as limited funding, high staff turnover and poor coordination. The article provides an account of the NGO sector by mapping it into professional and non-professional groups that can serve as a new benchmark for better understanding NGOs in Kyrgyzstan.     

The Migrant Workers' Movement in the Democratic Consolidation of Korea

This paper traces the rise of the migrant workers' movement in Korea and the conditions of their collective actions in the militant tradition of Korean democratisation. It does this with a focus on the causes of militancy and its similarities to and differences from the characteristics of Korean democratisation. This paper argues that some defects of the political system, the role of oppressive government policy, and intervention of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are the combined reason for migrant worker militancy. However, this militant trend faces the challenge of the judicialisation of politics as democratic consolidation has been deepened and the legal order of society is emphasised. Judicialisation requires reconsideration on how to maximise one's interest through legal procedure rather than militant struggle. Such a legal approach, however, again confronts a dilemma in which simply following legal procedure will not generate any change in existing laws. Furthermore, according to various cleavage lines such as labour vs. capital, national vs. non-national, and native vs. foreign cultures, the priority of struggles in migrant workers and support groups has been differentiated into labour rights, political rights, and cultural rights. In this situation, the migrant workers' movement should be sensitive to locate its future agenda considering the needs of migrants as well as the changing context of Korean society.     

The politics of social service provision through NGOs: A study of Latin America

Abstract — This article looks at the role of NGOs in social service delivery in Latin America and questions some of the assumptions which are often made about their abilities. Following the implementation of the neo-liberal model, increased conditionality has been placed on economic assistance. This has created a new role for NGOs, whereby they are harnessed by states in order to secure effective implementation of reform packages. In the process many NGOs and their own agendas become distorted. The paper discusses the political implications of this new role for NGOs and goes on to conclude that, given the nature of the democratisation process in Latin America, and the accompanying economic model, expectations regarding NGO potential for grassroots empowerment have been over-optimistic.     

Networks of Reciprocity: Precarity and Community Social Organisations in Rural Myanmar

ABSTRACT

Growing precarity amongst rural households in Myanmar is characterised by increasingly debt-fuelled agriculture, decreasing sufficiency and sustainability of rural livelihoods and an absence of social safety nets. This constrains the capacity for viable livelihoods, as risk-averse coping strategies undermine long-term economic sustainability. In this context, informal support networks may be expected to decline or collapse. However, recent evidence demonstrates the widespread emergence of community-based social organisations in rural communities, formed along traditional principles of reciprocity. Analysis of large-scale rural household surveys demonstrates that such organisations are found in nearly 40% of communities in rural Myanmar. These organisations collect and redistribute funds to help with healthcare, education, funerals and other social needs. The presence of such organisations is linked to higher levels of household resilience, achieved through reducing the inequalities linked to gender, disability and poverty, and through providing enabling environments for effective income diversification. Communities with higher levels of migration are more likely to have community-based social organisations, possibly a result of economic and social remittances. In the absence of effective formalised social protection, these social organisations provide most of the social assistance in rural communities, representing new networks of reciprocity in the face of increasing precarity.     

The Class Context of Temporary Immigration,Racism and Civic Nationalism in Taiwan

This article adopts a Marxist framework for examining the class bases of racism against guest workers in Taiwan, focusing on the legislative and administrative mechanisms adopted by the state to racialise and recompose the labour market and to politically repress immigrants, largely for the benefit of capital accumulation. It examines the ways in which racism against immigrants has constituted an important element of Taiwan's civic nationalism; an ideology which depicts guest workers' resistance as a source of social instability in the nation-state. The article also considers the ways in which the state has adapted to immigrants' struggles, together with the immigrants' and local workers' efforts to unite in solidarity against wage exploitation and racism. The article brings together evidence supporting the contention that Marxist analysis is the most effective means of explaining both racism and anti-racism.     

Change and Continuity under an Eclectic Social Security Regime: The Case of Turkey

This article discusses how changes in the welfare regime are shaped by the inherited institutional setting as well as by politics with reference to the particular case of Turkey, where the former social security system combined Bismarckian conservatism with informality and clientelism. Both the reassertion of traditional forms of solidarity and the discovery of social rights as an aspect of equal citizenship figure in the currently emerging social solidarity models. The ability of political actors to defend these contesting models is likely to influence the ongoing transformation of the countryãs eclectic welfare regime.     

From interest groups to parties: The change in the career patterns of the legislative elite in German social policy

Analysing the careers of members of the Bundestag Standing Committee for Labour and Social Affairs, the paper demonstrates that the ties between social politicians and social policy organisations such as trade unions, faith-based social policy organisations, independent charity organisations, works councils and social insurance institutions have become blurred. Since the 1990s social politicians have become more focused on political careers in the party and in parliament than on social policy. The new social politicians are party politicians who have distanced themselves from the interest groups. The qualitative change in parliamentary personnel is explained by changes in electoral politics, parties and interest groups. The author argues that the weakening linkages confirm contemporary research results on change in German neo-corporatism.