China's Relations with India's Neighbours: From Threat Avoidance to Alternative Development Opportunity

Abstract

China, once seen as a threat by the states of South Asia, is now viewed correctly as an alternative development opportunity. The unprecedented success of the Chinese development model places it as an obvious alternative to that offered by India—or indeed by the Western model of development—but what implications does this have for the middle and small powers that surround India, and indeed for India and the Western developed world? The fundamental rationale for China's relations with South Asia has changed radically, but the Sino-centric nature of Chinese foreign policy remains. Uniquely, for India's neighbours, but also for the global political economy as a whole, Chinese economic power raises political issues of human security, economic interdependence, and the relationship between physical infrastructure and the benefits of global public goods. The Chinese necessity to tranship through South Asia is identified as a complex new reality for the great power.     

New geographies of financial power: global Islamic finance and the Gulf

Abstract

A growing body of critical scholarship has examined the recent growth of Islamic finance (IF), unpacking its ethical assertions and highlighting its close affinities with conventional financial instruments. Receiving less attention, however, is the relationship between the global expansion of IF and the emergence of new financial actors and zones of accumulation. This article situates the evolution of global Islamic circuits alongside processes of capital accumulation in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), arguing that contemporary IF is deeply bound up with the internationalisation of capital groups headquartered in the GCC. This is evident in the internationalisation of GCC Islamic banks, which has given the Gulf a powerful foothold in new markets and a variety of sectors that are typically considered ‘non-financial’. Simultaneously, the expansion and geographical diversification of Islamic debt (sukuk) issuance is refashioning the Gulf’s relationships with other global spaces, a process that looks set to intensify given the widespread push to utilise IF in development financing. Seen from this perspective, the global growth of IF sits in a mutually constitutive relationship with patterns of capital accumulation in the Gulf, as well as the region’s burgeoning weight within (and new linkages to) the global economy.     

‘There is such a shelter in each other’: women looking for homes in Zadie Smith's White Teeth,On Beauty and NW

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the different ways in which home is experienced by the female characters of the diaspora in Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2000), On Beauty (2006) and NW (2013). In On Beauty, one of the characters declares: ‘There is such a shelter in each other’ (93). This implies that the sense of home may not be tied to a place, but to the intimacy of relationships. In these novels, Zadie Smith portrays women whose feelings of belonging to a place are threatened, due to their geographical displacements or to their complex transcultural identities. Using Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of territorialization and reterritorialization, I’ll explore how concepts of home and diaspora are reconfigured in Smith's novels.     

Socially responsible investment and the development agenda: peering behind the progressive veil of non-financial benchmarking

One of the most striking trends in global development finance has been the growing role of Western-based, institutional investors. Pension funds in particular have played a leading part in supplying capital to publicly traded corporations in emerging market economies. An important feature of this type of financing has been the trend to make investment conditional not only on sound economic fundamentals, but also on a series of non-financial (or social) risk indicators (eg meeting labour standards and human rights). Despite the significance of non-financial benchmarking, these strategies have not been subjected to critical analysis, especially with regard to their wider impact on the reproduction of the mainstream development paradigm. This article addresses this gap by focusing on the benchmarking strategies of one of the world's largest pension funds: the California Public Employees' Retirement System (Calpers). Calpers's rating instrument, the Permissible Country Index (pci), employs both financial and non-financial risk indicators to screen its investments in 27 emerging markets. I argue that, despite its progressive sheen, the pci not only reproduces but also reinforces neoliberal forms of discipline and exploitation in the global South. It does this through coercive measures, such as divestment (ie removing a country from the pci), as well as through the construction of specific forms of knowledge that act to normalise the expansion and restructuring of spaces of capital in the global South.     

Network Powers: strategies of change in the multipolar system

Abstract

The multipolarity of the 21st century is fundamentally different from that of its harbingers because in the past decade change and innovation have been induced through sites of negotiation and by the establishment of intergovernmental foreign policy networks. New powers like Brazil, China and India have gained relative weight thanks to their status as agenda setters, brokers and coalition builders. This paper examines the relevance of different foreign policy networks such as India–Brazil–South Africa ( ibsa ) and Brazil–South Africa–India–China ( basic ) for their strategic approaches and argues that they are crucial vehicles for their ascension. Drawing on the work of Hafner-Burton et al, who raised the question of how states increase their power by enhancing their network positions, a typology of foreign policy networks is proposed: mediation, advocacy and substitution networks play important roles in today’s shifting global order. The paper analyses how the different network types work together and how particular states have adapted better to the new environment than others.     

Reinterpreting India's Rise through the Middle Power Prism

Abstract

India's spectacular rise in recent years has been the source of hyperbolic theorising and speculation on its major power status. Middle power theory offers a set of dynamic analytical parameters which allow for re-evaluating India's global influence and identifying both strengths and weaknesses of its power projection and resources. Placing emphasis on themes of Third World leadership, good international citizenship, multilateral activism, bridge-building diplomacy, and coalition-building with like-minded states, the middle power concept can encapsulate key aspects of India's contemporary agency and account for structural dynamics which constitute a reformist world-view through the reconfiguration of the Indian state within the existing world order. Overall, middlepowermanship delineates fundamental continuities in India's foreign policy tradition, epitomises India's existing position in the neoliberal world order, while providing a good indication of the directions India will take on the global stage in the short and medium-term.     

‘Knowing’ Pakistan: knowledge production and area studies

Abstract

This article explores the processes that contribute towards the image of Pakistan as portrayed to the West. It does this by critically analysing the discursive practices through which knowledge, and a general idea of Pakistan, are created, for example in South Asian area studies journals and South Asian studies centres in Western universities. This article demonstrates that most scholarly research on Pakistan, as published in South Asian studies journals, is in fact heavily influenced by the research of American and European scholars. It argues that as the positionality of these Western scholars is further based on ‘academic quality’, this causes a continuous circle of knowledge production. In this circle, the Western academic produces ‘quality’ work in top area studies journals. Their work then receives wider circulation due to the scholar’s positionality and status within elite, Western centres of knowledge production, whereas research in South Asian studies centres is predominantly India-centric. While true to their proposed research ambit, research conducted on India in South Asian studies centres is multidisciplinary in nature. In Pakistan’s case, most of the research, however marginal, remains centred on the country’s security and its international affairs.     

Emerging powers as normative agents: Brazil and China within the UN development system

Institutions are frequently thought of as ‘socialising’ member states into pre-established norms. However, this influence is not necessarily a one-way street; members can also affect institutions, whether individually or collectively. This article analyses the behaviour of two emerging powers – Brazil and China – within the field of international development. What roles have these two states played in shaping global development norms? The article examines the key motivations, positions, and initiatives taken by Brazil and China, with special reference to the UN development system (unds). Whereas Brazil and China’s early behaviour within the unds diverged significantly, in the post-cold war period both have become increasingly interested in – and capable of – influencing UN norms. However, despite greater involvement in UN development negotiations, these countries’ leverage in normative debates originates outside of the unds, through their South–South cooperation programmes. The current diversification of platforms through which the norms of international development are negotiated may enhance the influence of emerging powers, although their ability to channel this influence effectively will depend on their capacity for norm entrepreneurship, rather than mere norm blocking.     

Locating black feminist resistance through diaspora and post-diaspora in Edwidge Danticat’s and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short stories

ABSTRACT

Migrating to the US is transformative in the short stories in Edwidge Danticat's Krik? Krak! and Chimamanda Adichie's The Thing Around Your Neck. The currents of Blackness, gender and class alter their characters' experiences of the world, shaped by the global flows of migration taking place under neoliberal capitalism. This essay explores the nuanced and conflicting ways diaspora and post-diaspora spaces can facilitate Black feminist resistance in Danticat's ‘Caroline's Wedding' and Adichie's ‘Imitation'. I offer a Black feminist analysis, paying attention to the literary body as the site where tensions are dramatised. My reading of Danticat's and Adichie’s short stories leads to a progressive reconsideration of diaspora.     

From technological catch-up to innovation-based economic growth: South Korea and Taiwan compared

This paper sets out to analyse the divergent models pursued by South Korea and Taiwan in regard to technological catching-up and their ongoing transition towards innovation-based economies. It is found that South Korea's former high-debt and chaebol-dominated model inclined it to pursue a Schumpeterian scale-based technological development, while Taiwan's former pro-stability, small- and medium-sized-enterprise (SME)-based model tended to favour its emphasis on a neo-Marshallian network-based technological development. It will be argued that the state's approach to economic liberalisation and firms' demand for capital for technological upgrading are the major factors that have underpinned the adjustment efforts of these two countries.     

THE NORTHWEST QUESTION: CAPITALISM IN THE SANDS OF NATIONALIST CHINA

Abstract

At the onset of the Great Depression, right-wing intellectuals in China beseeched their compatriots to part ways with the decadence of coastal cities and rediscover their ancient homeland in the northwestern corner of their country. This article explores this intellectual reorientation through the speeches and essays of the leading Guomindang ideologue Dai Jitao, who retooled Sun Yat-sen's ideas of frontier development in order to address perceived crises of territoriality, capitalism, and spirituality. Dai's vision for a national revival structured around the material and cultural resources of the Northwest is shown to be crucial to his articulation of concepts shared with a global fascist current. In spite of widespread enthusiasm in the press and conservative intellectual circles, support for “Opening Up the Northwest” was uneven in Nanjing. To explain how this region ultimately remained underdeveloped, this article turns to the technocrat Weng Wenhao, who believed natural barriers and ecological frailty posed major challenges to economic development in the Northwest.     

The Timing of Split-Ticket Voting Decisions in Mixed Systems: Evidence from South Korea

Abstract

Although two-vote mixed legislative systems have proliferated globally, the factors contributing to split-ticketing in these cases remains poorly understood. Using survey data regarding South Korea's 2008 National Assembly election, this article addresses two questions: Is ticket-splitting in two-vote legislative systems influenced by the timing of one's vote decision and are late deciders more or less rational in their decision to ticket-split than early deciders? Empirical analysis finds that split-ticket voting under various specifications is more likely to be carried out by late deciders. Among split-ticket voters, however, late deciders are more likely to irrationally split their vote.     

Citizen Participation in Governance Through Representation: Issue of Gender in East Asia

Abstract

In the modern age, although East Asia represents some of the most successful economies such as Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and (now) China, the level of political and administrative development in the region remains controversial. One of the major indicators of such politico‐administrative development is the extent of citizen participation in governance through various democratic means, including the formation and expression of public opinion, people's involvement in government decisions and deliberations, and direct representation of citizens in governing institutions. However, the direct representation of citizens is considered one of the most effective modes of participation in institutions such as legislature, cabinet, and bureaucracy. In this regard, although the representation of women in these governing institutions has gained global significance, it still remains relatively weak in most East Asian cases. This article evaluates the extent of such women's participation in governance through representation in East Asia, examines the major factors constraining this representation, and suggests remedial alternatives to improve the situation.     

EDWARD O. WILSON'S THEORY OF CONSILIENCE: A HERMENEUTICAL CRITIQUE

ABSTRACT

This paper is a hermeneutical critique of Edward O. Wilson's theory of consilience which attempts to understand “human nature” and unify all knowledge under the aegis of biology and genetics. His pansophic endeavor based on “gene-culture coevolution” is deeply and one-sidedly embedded in genetics. By reducing the human order merely to the organic and ultimately to the physical, furthermore, Wilson's theory is not only a specimen of physicalism whose paradigmatic model is physics but also is fundamentally rooted in a mechanistic or materialistic ontology. Hermeneutics is introduced and proposed here as the alternative to Wilson's reductionistic theory of consilience. It is capable of untying the Gordian knot of Wilson's scientism which has a monochromatic and short leash on human culture and society because both the social and natural sciences are socio-cultural phenomena and products. Hermeneutical inquiry becomes an indispensable tool for learning and teaching the social sciences in particular because above all it is erected in the conception of language as the edifice of human specificity.

The pioneers are paradigm hunters.

–Edward O. Wilson     

The Benefits of Globalization: Why More for South Korea than Mexico?

ABSTRACT

This article examines the arguments for globalization and analyzes Mexico’s “maquiladora experience,” which indicates that globalization alone does not bring about a higher standard of living. The primary reason that Mexico has not benefitted as much as might be expected from globalization has to do with the poor quality of its governance, referring especially to public administration. This assertion is supported by a comparison of Mexico and South Korea. In explaining South Korea’s greater success, Political Elasticity (PE) theory is introduced, suggesting that political power needs to become elastic in two meanings of this word: a “rubber band” meaning (referring to the ability of leaders to delegate power without losing or diminishing it) and “a balloon meaning” (having to do with the ability of leaders to reliably influence the behavior of the general public). Based upon studies of rural and industrial development, South Korea is shown to be more politically elastic than Mexico. This article concludes by examining the lessons that Mexico can learn from Korea’s experience.     

Development cooperation and post-colonial critique: an investigation into the South Korean model

Abstract

With the rise of the South–South Development Cooperation (SSDC), the international development community has entered into a new paradigm of development cooperation. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development – Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC) has had to consider what recently added members might have to offer, particularly South Korea given its dramatic transformation from official development assistance (ODA) recipient to donor. Post-colonial theory sees ODA as a system that reinforces the traditional hierarchy of North–South relations and reaffirms the hegemony of dominant countries; the SSDC has faced similar neo-colonial allegations. By employing post-colonial theory this paper investigates some neo-­colonial criticisms of the ODA activities of major OECD-DAC and SSDC providers, before turning its focus on those of South Korea to determine whether it does indeed offer an alternative strategy to development. The African region was chosen as the focus in light of the increased amount of aid South Korea has allocated to the region. This paper concludes by offering a different role South Korea might play engaging within the OECD-DAC/SSDC context.     

Co-Producing with FBOs: lessons from state–madrasa engagement in the Middle East and South Asia

Forging partnerships for development is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals. While faith-based organisations (fbos) are receiving growing attention within development policy as important non-state service providers, they are assumed to be less conducive to forging partnerships with governments or development organisations than secular ngos due to their allegiance to specific religious beliefs. Analysing the dynamic of engagement between the state and madrasas (the most prominent fbo in the Muslim world) in six countries across two geographical regions—the Middle East (Egypt, Syria, Turkey), and South Asia (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh)— the paper counters the assumption that fbos are less likely to enter into negotiations, demonstrate flexibility, and engage in the strategic bargaining often involved in forging such partnerships. Like ngos, fbos respond to socio-political and economic incentives and enter into a variety of relationships with the state, ranging from co-operation to conflict. The defining feature in building a cooperative relationship is the level of trust between the negotiators on the two sides.     

Confounded but Complacent: Accounting for How the State Sees Responses to Its Housing Intervention in Johannesburg

Abstract

The South African state’s ‘will to improve’ poor people’s lives through free home-ownership is unsettled by subsequent unauthorised housing usage and adaptions. Despite insight into and empathy for these non-compliant activities amongst some state housing practitioners, the dominant state position is to denounce them without analysing their drivers and significance. This position is enabled by the state’s selective use of knowledge, confidence in the housing project as is, and avoidance of discomforting signals. The ‘will to improve’ is not matched by a deep ‘will to know’, in part because the capacity to act under difficult circumstances is argued to depend on a form of ‘not knowing’.     

Entering the global dealing room: Reflections on a rights-based framework for NGOs in international development

The human rights framework cuts across different aspects of development. It has a universal appeal which is increasingly supported by a stronger social, political and cultural global rooting. NGOs have made important contributions to this growing global culture of human rights. The potential of human rights as a normative instrument to further shape and form the political and human quality of globalisation can hardly be underestimated. Human rights offer NGOs the possibility to strategically position themselves at the crossroads of emerging transnational relationships between different actors in the state, market and civil sector. This will strengthen enforcement of human rights, shared among and across different levels of institutions and decision making. But in order to enter the global dealing room, the function of NGOs must be grounded more firmly in the United Nations framework, which gives human rights their principal global legitimacy.     

Terrorist countermeasures

At the end of 1997 the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), and their proxies the South Lebanon Army (SLA), remained hopelessly bogged down in a military quagmire which is played out daily in the hills and valleys of Southern Lebanon. As each new week passed more and more Israeli and SLA soldiers fell victim to the Islamic Resistance's (IR) most effective weapon, the roadside bomb, no amount of “preventive patrolling” could manage to reduce the frequency with which these indiscriminate attacks took place, nor did it confine the planting of these devices to the perimeter of the Security Zone. Having recently completed an assignment with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Brendan O'Shea, of the History Department at University College, Cork, Ireland, investigates the claims of Nabih Berri, Leader of the Shi'ite Amal Movement and Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, that the blood‐spattered hills of South Lebanon have now become “Israel's Vietnam.“¹