Lines of sight: on the visualization of unknown futures

This article considers the specific mode of visualization that is at work in contemporary border security practices. Taking inspiration from art historian Jonathan Crary's genealogies of attention, it situates homeland security visuality in a particular economy of attention or attentiveness to the world. How is it that we come to focus on some elements of our way of life, establish them as normal and designate deviations from the norm? How does this algorithmic attentiveness break up the visual field, ‘pixelating’ sensory data so that it can be reintegrated to project a picture of a person? The pre-emptive lines of sight emerging in contemporary security practice become precisely a means of visualizing unknown futures. The article concludes with reflections on the creative artistic forms of attention that flourish even where the lines of sight of the consumer, the citizen, the border guard, the traveller, the migrant appear ever more directed and delimited. It is in these more creative modes of attention that we find one of the most important resources to contemporary political life – the capacity to question the ‘better picture’, to disrupt what we see as ordinary or out of the ordinary and confront the routines of our lives anew.     

Denaturalisation and conceptions of citizenship in the ‘war on terror’

The threat of American and British nationals returning home after fighting with ISIS sparked calls in 2014 for legislation to allow the revocation of terror suspects’ citizenship. Using content analysis, this paper compares how citizenship was renegotiated during the debates that followed in both countries. For proponents of the new powers, acts considered prejudicial to national security did not simply constitute a ‘bad’ or dissenting citizen, but were incompatible with the status of citizenship itself. I find that republican discourses of citizenship conceived as loyalty to the state were used not as an alternative to liberal discourses that espouse individual rights and a more limited political arena, but precisely as means of discursively limiting of that arena, by selectively excluding particular undesirable or less desirable groups – terror suspects, naturalised citizens – from political life as we know it.     

The accidental citizen: acts of sovereignty and (un)making citizenship

In previous issues of Economy and Society, Somerville and Durham debated the moralization of neo-liberal family policy. The conservative politics of the family has been moralized not only in Anglo-American societies but also in South Korea. From a neo-Confucian perspective, many conservative politicians and even scholars have found a convenient scapegoat in the nuclear family as the main cause of many recent social problems, in particular, widespread poverty and psychological difficulties among the elderly and children. In a situation where public services and social security programmes have been neglected for decades of growth-oriented developmentalism, conservative elites seem to derive a convenient excuse in the functionalist proposition that family nucleation nourishes individualism at the cost of traditional familial solidarity, and thus causes the alienation and abandonment of many dependent people. This paper refutes the neo-Confucian/liberal claim by showing that the thesis of family nucleation is untenable not only from a demographic but also from a sociocultural and economic perspective. This neo-Confucian society will be no exception to the need for a comprehensive package of public services and social security programmes if its industrial capitalism is to remain socially sustainable.     

The Jenin Initiative: Counterinsurgency by Capacity Building

In late 2008, as negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians faltered, the US directed the Jenin Initiative on the ground in the West Bank. Designed to inspire confidence in Washington’s security-driven ‘West Bank First’ strategy, the Jenin Initiative married economic development to security sector reform under the Palestinian Authority. Drawing on the perspectives of those responsible for implementing the Jenin Initiative, this article reveals how counterinsurgency doctrine transplanted from the ‘war on terror’ shaped US interventions that built capacity in the Palestinian Authority. The Jenin Initiative exposes the extent of US intervention to create an effective apparatus of Palestinian self-policing to enhance – but not replace – that of the Israeli occupation.     

The Myth of the Failed State and the War on Terror: A Challenge to the Conventional Wisdom

Abstract

A central hypothesis in the articulated rationale inspiring the war on terror suggests that failed states play a key role in the international terrorist nexus and require external intervention and guided democratization. This logic is based on two related premises; first that there is a direct link between failed states and international terrorism, second that democratic governance reduces the recourse to terrorism. This article suggests that there is no causal link between failed states and international terrorism and that the asserted ability of democratic governance to catalyze a reduction in terrorism is exaggerated if not wholly inaccurate.     

Terrorism,anti-terrorism and the normative boundaries of the US polity: The spatiality of politics after 11 September 2001

Both terrorism and governmental anti-terrorist actions affect spatial structures and their boundaries, such as the state and the distinction between public and private spaces. Those spatial structures also articulate the normative dimensions of human life, which include the ethical principles and constitutional rights that orient behaviour and thought. By affecting the spaces, places and scales of life, (anti-)terrorism potentially can generate a new normativity. A new normativity would be manifested in changes to spatial structures and thereby would indicate that the content of political rights like personal freedom had been changed in practice. This paper addresses the possible emergence of a new normativity via an examination of how spatial structures are affected—specifically, their permeability and plasticity—by terrorist and anti-terrorist activities within a US context.     

The limits of local citizenship: administrative borders within the Italian municipalities

This article explores residency, a form of municipal membership that plays a strategic role in Italy. Residency is a formal status and a means to have access to rights. Therefore, it is a sort of local citizenship that, at least in part, equalises citizens and non-citizens. Due to its strategic role, many local authorities have paid serious attention to it recently. Municipalities have illegally tightened the requirements provided for by national laws for obtaining the status of resident or introduced new requirements. Stressing the different mechanisms of exclusion from residency, this article explains that they often work as administrative borders. These are bureaucratic barriers that, by denying residency, aspire to regulate, symbolically and sometimes materially, the composition of the people living within municipal territories and to redistribute rights between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ individuals. As such, administrative borders fragment individual statuses and provoke an increase in civic stratification.     

Postcolonial strangers in a cosmopolitan world: hybridity and citizenship in the Franco-Maghrebian borderland

Current critical theorizations within citizenship studies on the condition of migrants and refugees celebrate the nomadic dimension of the contemporary migrant/refugee figure and assign her the potential to disrupt hegemonic practices of capital and state-centric citizenship. However, such enthusiastic accounts need to exercise a sense of caution in conceptualizing the fragile and unstable condition of the migrant, and need to distinguish between various experiences of mobility, hybridity, and citizenship. Such a differentiation between these different lived experiences of citizenship echoes Aihwa Ong's critique of the ‘unified moralism attached to subaltern subjects [that] now also clings to diasporan ones, who are invariably assumed to be members of oppressed classes and therefore constitutionally opposed to capitalism and state power’. My analysis points to how class, race and language structure various experiences of mobility and citizenship and make tenuous easy celebrations of postcolonial hybridity within critical re-configurations of citizenship. I argue that practices of postcolonial mobility in the Franco-Maghrebian context have produced differentiated and unequal hybridities, and, consequently, asymmetrical experiences of citizenship. By distinguishing between various practices of mobility and hybridity, I indicate that postcolonial hybridity can also be employed to re-constitute the rigid boundaries of nation and citizenship.     

The politics of landscape as ways of life in the ‘divided’ city: reflections from Mostar,Bosnia–Herzegovina

ABSTRACT

‘Divided’ cities – places of extreme exclusion and polarization – are sites where the paradox of both fragmentary and cosmopolitan capacity of the city comes to the fore. This article asks: What practices-in-landscape consolidate, construct and deconstruct the impression of a divided city? Drawing insights from the post-conflict Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the main argument I put forward is that urban infrastructures are a crucial medium through which social divisions and cohesions are performed and rearticulated on the ground. The article attends to the everyday of youth in Mostar turning to the politics of landscape as ways of life in the city.     

Minilateral security's relevance to US strategy in the Indo-Pacific: challenges and prospects

The Indo-Pacific region's security landscape is unfolding in highly uncertain and potentially explosive ways. The postwar American-led network of bilateral alliances – underpinned by concrete guarantees of extended deterrence and containment – is now yielding to a more diverse set of alignments and coalitions to manage an increasingly complex array of regional security issues. Multilateralism and minilateralism have emerged as two increasingly prominent forms of such cooperation. Minilateralism's informality and flexibility appeals to those who are sceptical about multilateralism's traditional focus on norm adherence and community-building even as great power competition in the Indo-Pacific is sharply intensifying. However, minilateralism's track record in the region is underdeveloped. The potential for this policy approach to be applied by the United States and its regional security partners as an enduring and credible means of diplomatic and security collaboration in the region will remain unfulfilled as long as the Trump administration's own geopolitical orientation remains uncertain.     

The Obama Administration's Challenges after the “War on Science”: Reforming Staffing Practices and Protecting Scientific Integrity in the Executive Branch

In this article, we examine the difficult leadership position President Barack Obama inherited as he took office with respect to science and technology policy making and implementation, particularly following the Bush administration and years of the so‐called “war on science.” We contend that the Obama administration's challenge is not only to take substantive policy action, but also to reform certain administrative practices, particularly in light of the previous administration's practice of the politics of strategic vacancies, a managerial technique that rearranges an agency's ideological inclinations not through the usual forms of active politicization (i.e., by filling the appointee ranks with like‐minded ideologues) but instead by “starving” the agency of staff and co‐opting its agenda that way.     

Political party and party system institutionalization in Southeast Asia: lessons for democratic consolidation in Indonesia,the Philippines and Thailand

Abstract

This article analyses the Kim Dae-jung government's industrial realignment (‘Big Deals’) policy in post-crisis Korea, which offers a valuable insight into the state's role in managing the transition from a developmental state to a free-market economy and into the changing nature of government–business relations. Although Kim was committed to creating a free-market economy in Korea, as the ‘Big Deals’ got under way critics accused him of violating market principles and employing tactics of intervention and coercion used by previous authoritarian regimes. The ‘Big Deals’ experience suggests a further stage in the evolution of the Korean developmental state; the dismantling of state powers and the implementation of neoliberal reforms in the 1990s had led to the emergence of a ‘transformative state’ in which the state acted as ‘senior partner’ rather than ‘commander-in-chief’. The transitional state charged with the task of rebuilding the economy after 1997 regained some of its lost powers and used some familiar methods of achieving its ends. However, it also demonstrated by the nature and scope of its interventions that it was gradually evolving and adapting to meet the changing economic environment. Although Kim's actions prompted allegations from the chaebol and their conservative allies of a return to autocratic economic management by the government, it was clear that the developmental state had not been resurrected. Rather, these criticisms serve to highlight the continuing antagonism in the state–business relationship; neither side had developed new strategies for dealing with each other and their relations were still characterized by mutual mistrust and staunch chaebol resistance to key reforms demanded by the government. Although suspicions of a permanent return to extensive state intervention were unfounded, they nevertheless diminished the prospects for the creation of a cooperative relationship between the state and big business that would be a crucial factor in revitalizing the Korean economy.     

Shimane Prefecture,Tokyo and the territorial dispute over Dokdo/Takeshima: regional and national identities in Japan

Abstract

This paper joins the debate on Japan's territorial dispute with South Korea over the Dokdo/Takeshima islets. Informed by the ontological security framework of analysis, this paper seeks to explain the decision to adopt the ‘Takeshima Day’ ordinance by the Shimane Prefectural Assembly and the subsequent ascendance of ‘Takeshima’ to the fore of Japan's identity construction vis-à-vis the Korean ‘other’. In this paper, I distinguish between two processes: one that led to the adoption of the ordinance and another that resulted in the entrenchment of ‘Takeshima’ in Japan's identity construction vis-à-vis the Korean ‘other’. The paper argues that the former process should be understood within the context of Shimane Prefecture's distinct identity construction vis-à-vis Tokyo, while the latter can be attributed to recent changes in Japan–Korea relations unrelated to the territorial dispute per se.     

Contrarian investment philosophy in the American stock market: on investment advice and the crowd conundrum

Abstract

This paper contributes to the understanding of the role of crowds in the financial market by examining the historical origins and theoretical underpinnings of contrarian investment philosophy. Developed in non-scientific, practice-oriented ‘how to’ handbooks in 1920s and 1930s America, contrarian investment advice was aimed at so-called small investors rather than well-established market practitioners. Emerging out of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century debates about public participation in the stock market, the contrarians expanded on a widely held (amongst financial writers) scepticism about the investment and speculation skills (or lack thereof) of the masses and adopted ideas from the theoretical discipline of crowd psychology, whereby they positioned the mass (i.e. the crowd) in opposition to the successful investor. I argue that despite its idiosyncrasies, the contrarians’ conception of the market based on crowd psychology points to a fundamental fragility of market participants, which still lingers on in recent debates about the wisdom of financial market crowds.     

Combating Domestic Abuse in Jordan from the Top-Down: Liberal and/or Democratic Statebuilding?

ABSTRACT

This article explores how liberal statebuilding can produce unexpected results by examining Jordan's campaign against domestic abuse. Jordan's Family Protection Initiative exemplifies the executive's implementation of externally-supported measures promoting women's empowerment. However, ambiguities over its central mission have resulted in the state pressuring victims to reconcile with abusive family members. I argue that the Initiative reflects regime survival strategies, designed to deflect international calls for democratic reform, co-opt the Jordanian women's movement, and circumvent Islamist and tribal opposition. Critics' accusations that the Initiative is ‘foreign’ are largely veiled criticisms of the executive for politically marginalising them and/or usurping their authority in family matters.     

社会保障体系的巨灾风险补偿功能分析——美国9．11五周年的启示

五年前,在9.11恐怖袭击事件中,美国社会保障制度在巨灾补偿中发挥了一定的作用.其中有很多经验,例如,国家对巨灾损失的补偿是通过国家计划、保险公司和慈善事业这个"三条腿机制"发挥作用的,并通过立法建立了一个临时机构:"9.11遇难者补偿基金",令其根据普通法的原则,赋予全权,统一运作全国的补偿工作;也有一些教训,例如,社会安全号信息管理不善和被盗用,从而酿成飞机劫持者拥有合法的手续等.我国要建立起社保制度突发事件巨灾风险补偿的"三条腿机制"还有很长的路要走,例如,基本社保制度的工伤保险中存在着诸多问题,保险业还需进一步改革完善,慈善事业的机制缺位等;对尽快建立一个混合型的"国家巨灾补偿机制"提出了一些不成熟的改革思路和采取公共委托与购买的方式进行损失补偿的设想.     

半嵌入性互动治理的形成逻辑与主要类型——以H街道四个社区的业委会与物业管理运作为例

城市基层治理涉及多元治理主体的复杂互动关系,这种复杂的互动关系内蕴着权力结构与秩序的演变。国家、市场、社会三方主体力量在中国强国家弱市场弱社会的现实背景下,呈现出以结构性非对称性形式相互依赖、三角权力关系稳定、相互弥补各方失灵为特点的互动形态。文章将此互动形态在基层社区中的运作概括为“半嵌入性互动治理”。基于国家-市场-社会三维分析视角,通过多案例比较方法研究H街道四个社区的业委会与物业管理运作,发现“半嵌入性互动治理”在现实运作中呈现多种类型。国家、市场、社会在基层社区治理中的互动关系会根据现实需求与权力博弈进行平衡与调试,最终保证社区内部安全与有效治理。     

我国社区居家养老服务中非营利组织的功能嵌入分析——以北京市A助老食堂与上海市B助餐点为例

非营利组织以其提供养老服务的灵活性和个性化、资源利用透明高效等优势,在居家养老服务领域中逐渐受到重视。基于需求溢出理论的广义社会组织论,非营利组织以志愿利他为基本功能路径,同时混搭嵌入不同比例的其他功能路径以使资源效率达到最大化。在我国社区居家养老的助餐服务中,北京市A助老食堂与上海市B助餐点作为偏企业型的非营利组织,不同程度上均混合嵌入了其他组织色彩。通过构建需求溢出理论广义社会组织论视角下的非营利组织参与居家养老服务的分析框架,以两类非营利组织作为比较案例,探析两类组织的功能路径与养老需求之间匹配的差异,并进一步分析起关键决定作用的资源效率状况,思考两类组织的优胜劣败及未来发展空间。