Constructing the ‘Immigrant’: Germany’s Radical Left in the Refugee Crisis

The article scrutinises how Germany’s non-political party radical left has discussed immigration and ‘cultural’ or ‘national’ identity in the context of past and current immigration into Germany, with a focus on the refugee crisis of 2015. Three types of radical left discourse are identified. First, some in the radical left have come to regard immigrants, in particular refugees, as an ‘ersatz proletariat’ and therefore as potential revolutionary instruments for their own project. Second, some agree that revolutionary change is necessary but subordinate their principles to practical support for immigrants and refugees in the here and now. Third, given the improbability of communist revolution and the crisis of ‘Western modernity’, some on the radical left have called for the defence of ‘the West’ and to help immigrants assimilate into Western civilisation. The article makes a timely contribution to the knowledge about contemporary radical left politics in Germany and shows the fractured nature of Germany’s non-political party radical left in the context of the refugee crisis. It also investigates the impact of ‘crisis’ as an ‘open moment’ and ‘catalyst’ on the radical left’s discourse-as-practice.     

Addressing Myanmar’s Citizenship Crisis

Among many problematic issues surfacing in reformist Myanmar is a citizenship crisis with four main dimensions. First, in a state with fragile civil liberties, skewed political rights and limited social rights, there is a broad curtailment of citizenship. Second, Rohingya Muslims living mainly in Rakhine State are denied citizenship, and other Muslims throughout the country are increasingly affected by this denial. Third, designated ethnic minorities clustered in peripheral areas face targeted restrictions of citizenship. Fourth, the dominant Bamar majority concentrated in the national heartland tends to arrogate or appropriate citizenship. The result is growing social tension that threatens to undermine the wider reform process. To examine this crisis, the article sets Myanmar in a comparative context. In particular, it considers how multicultural states in the developed world have sought to manage a political switch from racial or ethnic hierarchy to democratic citizenship. Drawing on global experience with multiculturalism and enabling civic integration, it advances a series of policy options focused on rights, duties and identity. It argues for domestic political leadership, backed by global political support, to address Myanmar’s citizenship crisis.     

Interrogating the Mediterranean ‘Migration Crisis’

This Forum aims to uncover the socio-politics of the ‘migration crisis’ in the Mediterranean. The contributions explore the idea of the ‘migration crisis’ or ‘refugee crisis’ in the Mediterranean from the starting point that as scholars of the Mediterranean we can do two things: one, we can look at the way crisis introduces processes of bordering to our analysis, limiting our gaze and analytical curiosity to a specific space and a specific time; or two, we can take these limits as an opportunity to explore the wider socio-politics, geographies and economies that contribute to producing this so-called ‘crisis’ and in turn what socio-politics, geographies and economies are produced and their implications.     

From AKP’s ‘Conservative Democracy’ to ‘Advanced Democracy’: Shifts and Challenges in the Debate on ‘Europe’

Abstract

Following the AKP’s victory in the 2002 general elections, ‘conservative democracy’ has emerged as a trademark in Turkish politics, focusing on cosmopolitanism and European integration. In the late 2000s, the party’s favourite notion was ‘advanced democracy’, this time underlining Turkey’s leadership claim in the region and displaying a more critical approach to ‘Europe’. In this paper, I aim to show how different narratives on ‘Europe’ emerged within the context of these empty signifiers. The paper claims that the difference in the two narratives on ‘Europe’ in two different periods does not point to a complete and fully fledged de-Europeanisation trend.     

South Africa’s multiple faces in current climate clubs

Climate clubs emerged as a concept to revitalise the international climate change negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and mitigate the free-riding problem. The underlying idea suggests that countries committed to reducing emissions can advance a stable coalition in the form of a club with other countries. As a result, more countries would put forth targets for more ambitious emissions reductions. This article analyses South Africa’s memberships in current climate related clubs. We contextualise South African climate club governance in its wider geopolitical and national context of low-carbon development. The purpose of the analysis is to identify if and how South Africa can possibly contribute to advancing ambition for change within climate clubs. Furthermore, it advances ideas about possible design options for climate clubs that may appeal to developing countries.     

Asia’s Security Triangles: Maritime Minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific

Since the early years of the twenty-first century, a number of key regional governments have consciously chosen to alter the way they talk about the region, and have now largely shifted from using the ‘Asia-Pacific’ to the ‘Indo-Pacific’ construct. But after three decades of utilising the ‘Asia-Pacific’ concept, why has this been the case and how might this shift in geographical conceptualisation alter the strategic framework of the region? This paper argues that the ‘Indo-Pacific’ is a regional reconceptualisation utilised by Japan, Australia, India and the USA to address deficiencies in Asia’s maritime security and institutional architecture, which are being simultaneously influenced by a more assertive Chinese posture and waning U.S. influence. Additionally, the Indo-Pacific concept has developed in tandem with a transformation in the regional security architecture. The utilisation of maritime minilateralism between Japan, India, Australia and the USA supplements Asia’s bilateral American alliances, with an array of trilateral security dialogues or ‘security triangles’. The Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific shift is really an instance of an emerging minilateral security regionalism, rather than the predominant forms of bilateral and multilateral security and economic regionalism that have dominated Asia in recent decades.     

Beijing’s Quest for Stability in its Neighborhood: China’s Relations with Russia in Central Asia

Using the English school arguments that inter-state regulation ameliorates the consequences of the power politics of international anarchy, I analyze to what extent China pursues a strategic partnership with Russia in Central Asia. I investigate if China has compatible policies with Russia on the use of force, on international legitimacy, and on institutional frameworks for security management. As China is increasingly asserting its security, economic, and institutional interests in Central Asia, similarities and differences have become apparent in relations with Russia. Increased mutual concern for continued regional stability has encouraged Beijing and Moscow to coordinate their policies across a wide range of issue areas. Stability allows them to focus attention and resources on each of their different geostrategic priorities.     

Silent partners: archaeological insights on mobility,interaction and civilization in Central Asia’s past

ABSTRACT

Civilizations are as complex as the human relationships that engendered them, and outlining these relational qualities within open notions of mobility and interaction frames a reconceptualization of Central Asia’s past. Recent Eurasian archaeological research deconstructs deterministic political-economic or hierarchical typologies of civilization and the overly simplified narrative that roots it in urban centres perpetually juxtaposed with nomadic groups. Archaeological evidence from the Oxus Civilization, Central Asia’s earliest complex polity (ca. 2500–1400 BCE), reveals the deep roots of sedentary–mobile interactions. I argue that Oxus–steppe relationships helped maintain the long-term structural cohesion of the Oxus Civilization as a multicultural entity, with implications for subsequent Central Asian polities. As we begin to balance the lopsided conversations about the social formations of Central Asia’s past and present, the silent partnership that characterized the Oxus Civilization is given a voice that forces us to reconsider who, exactly, belongs inside our notions of civilization.     

“Crisis” in the Consumer Sector: A Comment

An American expert on the Soviet economy analyzes the seeming contradiction between observations of empty shelves in stores prompting perceptions of deteriorating living standards since the beginning of perestroyka and the fact that CIA and Soviet statistical measures show increases in real consumption. The paper notes that goods have been diverted on a large scale into household hoards, sales through workplaces, and black market channels. The growing difficulties in obtaining consumer goods in the face of rapidly rising money incomes, along with accelerating inflation, have reduced people's welfare, despite the government's success in maintaining slow consumption growth. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 027, 124, 921.     

Authoritarian Statism and the New Right in Asia’s Conservative Democracies

ABSTRACT

Across Asia there has been a shift to the right in important democratic polities. This article argues that this conservative or authoritarian shift reflects the emergence of a new form of political regime that Nicos Poulantzas characterised as authoritarian statism. This article presents a theoretical framework – with illustrative case studies of Japan and Korea – to understand the emergence of a distinctive brand of Asian authoritarian statism. These new trajectories of political regimes reflect interconnected political and economic crises of conservative capitalist democracies. These crises are the result of the fracturing of modes and mechanisms of political incorporation due to the transnationalisation of capital. It is argued that the inability of current modes of state intervention or political incorporation to manage these economic and political crises or secure political legitimacy for political projects to deepen market reform has led to a “crisis of crisis management” and the further weakening of the Japanese and Korean states.     

‘Social Investment’ or Back to ‘Familism’: The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Family and Care Policies in Italy and Spain

Family policies have traditionally been weak in Southern Europe. In the last two decades, however, and following a ‘catching up’ course, Spain has created new family programmes and expanded existing ones. Meanwhile, the picture for Italy during the years preceding the crisis is more of a ‘frozen landscape’. However, the diverging paths of the two countries in terms of policy reform in the years preceding the crisis do not place them in substantially different positions. The economic crisis and the austerity measures that followed have aggravated the weaknesses of family and care policies in both countries.     

Japanese Demographic Crisis in View of Marx’s Capitalist Law of Population

ABSTRACT

In more than four decades, Japanese society has rapidly intensified a tendency towards a very low fertility rate with a smaller number of children. It is generally confirmed that a society needs a total fertility rate of at least 2.1 in order to avoid a decline in its total population. The total fertility rate in Japan was still 2.14 in 1973, when the period of high economic growth in the post-World War II ended. It continued to decline to 1.26 in 2005. It then recovered somewhat in 2015, as the post-war “junior” baby-boom generation reacted to its last chance to have children. However, the recovery is temporary, and the Japanese total fertility rate is estimated to slide again in the 2020s. This article examines this transition through a re-examination of Marx’s capitalist law of population. This approach rejects the naturalist theory of population and directs attention to Japan’s demographic decline in the context of neo-liberal policies in contemporary capitalism.     

A Kingdom in Crisis – What’s All the Fuss About?

This article reviews Andrew MacGregor Marshall’s A Kingdom in Crisis: Thailand’s Struggle for Democracy in the Twenty-First Century, a book on how Thailand’s political challenges relate to the Thai monarchy. The review draws comparisons between the excitement surrounding the publication of the acclaimed book The King Never Smiles in 2006 and the recent reaction to the publication of A Kingdom in Crisis. It argues that the book is an important contribution because it informs a wide audience about the damaging political role of the monarchy, but it repeatedly ignores an already existing corpus of literature that deals critically with Thailand’s monarchy. Moreover, its focus on the succession as the key factor in the ongoing political crisis is unnecessarily narrow and should have been complemented by an analysis of structural forces as drivers of change.     

Crisis or Zemblanity? Viewing the ‘Migration Crisis’ through a Greek Lens

This intervention traces how Europe is being (re-)produced through ‘crises’ on three scales. Firstly, at the level of national territory, looking at the crisis-ridden Greek state. Secondly, through everyday border practices on the island of Lesbos and, finally, in the Mediterranean that acts as Europe’s primary locus for its aggregate (and often experimental) bordering practices.     

South Africa’s Inclusion in BRICS: Challenges and Prospects for Development in Africa

Abstract

The forming of alliances on the international scene has reflected a provisional arrangement in the world economy. Amongst such alliances was the formation of BRICS by the five world economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa into what is commonly known as BRICS. BRICS is considered a joint initiative, aimed at shifting conventional norms in international economic and political cooperation to create a new trans-continental platform for these actors. Each member country in BRICS has, in one way or another, reflected growth either through its economy foreign policy, and developmental pursuit. However, South Africa is portrayed by some researchers as lagging behind, when compared to the other member countries. Hence, this study sought to analyse the potential mediumand long-term implications of South Africa's inclusion in BRICS. The study also aimed to underscore the benefits and risks associated with South Africa's membership in the alliance in the area of development; specifically poverty reduction, foreign policy, trade, and global partnership. The researchers collected secondary data to analytically critique the inclusion of South Africa in the BRICS alliance, its benefits, and shortcomings for development in South Africa, and in Africa as a whole. We argue that as a global player under BRICS, South Africa has opened a new vista of opportunities, including transnational gateways to Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with the attendant inflow of infrastructural and developmental investments, enriching educational exchanges and technology transfers. The article concludes by stressing the need for South Africa and other African countries to formulate policies that will drive meaningful development in their respective countries. The authors recommend that African leaders should come up with innate policies that are Africa-centred, that would incite development internally.     

Deaths,Interventions, Humanitarianism and Human Rights in the Mediterranean ‘Migration Crisis’

Recent declarations of ‘crises’ in the Mediterranean have been distinctly humanitarian, being linked to human deaths and suffering. The growing emphasis on humanitarianism and human rights has coexisted with a continued security rationale, as the three discourses work together in the governance of EUrope’s borders and in ongoing struggles over movement and control.