Struggles over the rights of foreign domestic workers in Malaysia: the possibilities and limitations of ‘rights talk’

Abstract

The publication of Max Weber's early lecture notes on economic theory as Volume III/1 of the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe (MWG) reveals for the first time how much his teaching in Freiburg and Heidelberg from 1894 to 1898 was influenced by the ‘modern economics’ of Carl Menger and his students, Friedrich von Wieser and Eugen Böhm-Bawerk. This review essay examines the significance of this volume, and also presents a brief history and assessment of the ongoing Gesamtausgabe project.     

From Promoting to De-emphasizing ‘Ethnicity’: Rethinking the Endless Supervision of Kosovo

International statebuilders’ strategy to achieve a peaceful and multi-ethnic Kosovo has shifted from the top-down institutionalization of a multi-ethnic society in the UNMIK period (1999-2008), to the neutral and technical administration of society, with a focus on the reduction of the ethnic divide (EULEX and ICO after 2008). However, despite this evolution in the understanding of statebuilding, this article identifies a dominant sentiment among practitioners of both periods, shared also by academic scholars: further international assistance is key to building a truly inclusive peace. It is argued that this shared assumption rests on the belief that the problems in Kosovo are caused by ethnic thinking—a psychosocial dysfunction. This psychosocial framing of the problem—no matter whether the solution is a process of promoting or de-emphasizing ‘ethnic’ differences—involves a constant and endless international management of Kosovo.     

From the outside lane: issues of ‘race’ in South African athletics in the twentieth century

In her introductory essay to this special issue on refugees and xeno­phobia--in which the articles focus primarily on asylum-seekers,2 mostly in the United Kingdom, but also in France and Ireland--guest editor Liza Schuster draws on the work of the contributors and on her own research in Britain, France, Germany and Italy to address the treatment of asylum-seekers by European states. European liberal democracies share a common commitment to granting asylum to those in need of protection, a commitment made legally binding by signing the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. They also share a commitment to principles of equality and non-discrimination. However, in recent years European states have embraced practices that permit discrimination against and unequal treatment of asylum-seekers, and recent British government proposals threaten the 1951 Convention itself. Schuster interrogates some of the underlying assumptions of asylum policies in the United Kingdom in particular, but also with reference to other European states, arguing that common-sense assertions of the ‘need for control’, which underlie the differential treatment of asylum-seekers in particular, are expressions of a racism at the heart of European states. She further argues that, at the border, racism intersects in a complex and shifting way with class and gender, creating a hierarchy of the excluded. Following a discussion of racism and these other modalities of exclusion, Schuster examines practices through which this racism is articulated.     

From CAUR to EUR: Italian Fascism,the ‘myth of Rome’ and the pursuit of international primacy

ABSTRACT

The formation of Fascist Italy's international imaginary in the 1930s tells a fascinating story of growing global political ambition, of constant recalibration in the face of seismic geopolitical shifts and, in the end, a (frustrated) pursuit of symbolic primacy. Kallis discusses two different Fascist projects underpinned by this imaginary: first, the political project of internationalization promoted through instruments such as the Fasci Italiani all'Estero (Italian Fasci Abroad) and especially the Comitati d'Azione per l'Universalità di Roma (CAUR), as well as through direct diplomatic and political ties with an expanding circle of regimes in Europe and overseas; and, second, the pursuit of a deeper sense of historic-cultural primacy, linked to the idea of ‘Roman universality, which became the discursive lynchpin of the ill-fated plan to host a 1942 world’s fair in Rome (EUR/E42). The transformation of Fascism from a hyper-nationalist phenomenon into a force actively seeking international diffusion and finally ‘universality’ can be understood as a reflexive adjustment of Fascism’s ideological-political horizon, driven as much by new geopolitical opportunities and frustrations as by conquering ambition and ideological continuity. In fact, Italian Fascism’s trajectory from CAUR in the 1930s to EUR/E42 in the war-torn 1940s, unfolding against a backdrop of growing antagonism between Italy and Nazi Germany for global influence, retained a primary symbolic point of reference: the ideological, political and cultural-historic estate of the ‘myth of Rome’ as a symbolic discourse of trans-temporal and -spatial primacy.     

The creation of ‘real’ spaces: regions and regionalism in the New South Africa

The culmination of a protracted struggle for liberation was crystallised in the debate over a new regional dispensation for South Africa. The aim of this paper is to examine the creation of the new regional geography of South Africa. The nascent regional dispensation was defined at a particular moment and it is the contention of this paper that the creation of the ‘geographical moment’ was not entirely conjunctural, but rather was the product of the different political parties’ understanding of space. The paper attempts to analyse the dynamics of the different political parties’ conceptualisation of the spatial and in so doing provides an explanation of the proposals for a new regional geography for South Africa. This position is derived from a realist theoretical argument which seeks to understand the stratification of reality by attempting to uncover structures and mechanisms responsible for the constitution of a particular historical event. The theory is illustrated by considering the process and the outcome of the new regional geography of South Africa as embodied in the nine‐region map produced by the Commission for the Demarcation/Delimitation of Regions. This paper reveals that the spatial philosophy of the major political parties was based on an incomplete relational concept of space, which contributed to the marginalisation of civil society, and to the artificiality of the process in the regional debate.     

Intelligence expertise in the age of information sharing: public–private ‘collection’ and its challenges to democratic control and accountability

The emergence of a more elusive and uncertain threat environment has transformed the nature of intelligence, increasing its reliance on civil society partners. Once the work of an insular and carefully select few, intelligence production is now a networked, partially open and extensively public–private enterprise. Most poignantly, new practices of public–private ‘collection’ face Western intelligence services with novel questions about control and accountability – questions to which the services have responded with hopes that by standardizing ‘methodologies’, central command may be retained. Suggesting a more complex picture, this article argues that ‘managing uncertainty’ imply forms of interpretation and choices which cannot be pre-empted by rule-regulation: more than Weber’s ideal of the procedural and rule-bound, it may be his (once central, yet largely marginalized) emphasis on institutional and individual capacities for critical ‘judgment’ that is of relevance today.     

Demonising ‘the other’: British Government complicity in the exploitation,social exclusion and vilification of new migrant workers

This article demonstrates the close and complex connection between the demonisation, exploitation and exclusion of new migrant workers. In so doing, it testifies to the blurred boundaries between the categories of severe labour exploitation, forced labour and slavery. This study highlights the absence of citizenship rights as crucial to understanding the vulnerability to demonisation, exploitation and exclusion that characterises the embodied experience of such workers. It also highlights the key role of citizenship as a means for such workers to make rights claims. In the UK, new migrant workers, particularly those arriving from Eastern Europe since 2004, have been increasingly designated by government and media as interlopers in a tight labour marketplace. Whilst their collective economic contribution is sometimes welcomed, they are regarded as ‘external’ to UK society and citizenship, a potential threat to indigenous values and culture, and in competition with British workers. Rarely are migrants afforded the space in public and private spheres to express their individual needs, wants, cares or perspectives. UK migrants have variously been portrayed by the tabloid media and irresponsible politicians as rapacious opportunists, as benefit scroungers, criminals and potential terrorists. The predominant discourse around new migrant workers in the UK is that they are not citizens, but temporary residents who are expected to work industriously and to remain otherwise unseen and unheard until they return to their country of origin. No further contribution to social and political life is required or expected. It is within such an unsupportive environment that new migrant workers in general, and undocumented migrants in particular, have become highly susceptible to employer and gangmaster abuse and exploitation.     

From Totalitarian to Utilitarian: The Coupling of Mao’s New Man and the Liberal Old Self

Society - This article investigates the conceptualization of the socialist subject – Mao’s New Man – in American Sinology. Rather than an empirical study of the Maoist subject...     

From permanent employment to massive lay-offs: the political economy of ‘transitional unemployment’ in urban China (1993–8)

Abstract

The idea that economic activities may be described and studied as ‘embedded’ in social relations has been central to much debate in recent economic sociology. The present paper analyses legal struggles over the status of begging in US law and argues that conflicting rhetorical accounts of begging illustrate social actors’ efforts to articulate the interconnectedness of their social world, including the ways in which economic practices are embedded in their social and institutional contexts. The paper thus suggests that embeddedness is not just something identified by social researchers, but also a problem faced by social actors as they try to understand the socio-economic order in which they live and act. By arguing for or against the claim that begging is simultaneously an economic action and the exercise of the right to freedom of expression, the voices in this debate attempted to affect the future of this marginal economic activity.     

Violence in a Religiously Divided City: Kaduna,Nigeria—From the Shari'a Riots of 2000 to the Post-election Clashes of 2011

Abstract

This paper examines why frictions developed in Kaduna between Muslims and Christians, how they turned violent, and the outcomes. The frictions were caused by a combination of the effects of colonial policies that established the north/south, Muslim/Christian divide, added to unequal treatment of ethnic groups within Nigerian state structures, and Nigeria's position as a rentier oil-producing state, making it a valuable property for elite capture, and structural adjustment that increased unemployment. Hostilities between Reform Islam and Pentecostal Christianity helped fuel conflict and the configuration of masculinities among unemployed youths facilitated participation in violence. The outcomes included death, destruction and mutual suspicion.     

From partisan to pluralist ideology: the changing practices of democracy through Spain’s 20th-century constitutional moments

This article explores the practices of democracy in Spain through the lens of its 20th-century constitutional moments, namely, those around the 1931 and the 1978 constitutions, with the aim of elucidating its changing ideological significance. Whereas in 1931, supporting democracy had a strongly partisan meaning, as every endorsement of the democratic ideal entailed a conflicting understanding of the Republic’s democratic character, in 1978 it gave rise to an integrative form of pluralism. Even if the former has left a deep imprint on Spanish politics, anticipating a kind of seemingly irreconcilable opposition between left and right, the latter has proved instrumental in the consolidation of the new democratic regime. After the institutional distortion of democracy during the four-decade dictatorship’s ‘organic democracy’, since 1977 the ideal of democracy was thoroughly recast into a pluralist ideology. Unlike views describing it as a consensual regime, the article argues that the politics of consensus tested since the 1977 constitutional debates paved the way for the accommodation of democratic pluralism; furthermore, the culture of pacts it contributed to set up has continued to inspire a new form of adversarial, parliamentary politics well beyond the transition years.     

Sharing the burden in a free riders’ land: The EU migration and asylum policy in the views of public opinion and politicians

New divisions have emerged within the European Union over the handling of the recent migration crisis. While both frontline and favoured destination countries are called upon to deal with the number of migrants looking for international protection and better living conditions, no consensus has been reached yet on the quota-based mechanisms for the relocation of refugees and financial help to exposed countries proposed by the EU. Such mechanisms pose a trade-off for member states: the EU's response to the crisis offers help to countries under pressure, but it inevitably requires burden-sharing among all EU members and a limitation of their national sovereignty. Within this scenario, the article compares how public opinion and political elites in ten different EU countries view a common EU migration policy grounded on solidarity and burden-sharing. By tracing both within- and cross-national patterns of convergence (and divergence), the article shows that contextual factors influence policy preferences, with support for solidarity measures being stronger in countries with higher shares of illegal migrants and asylum seekers. While individuals’ predispositions, identity and ideological orientations account for both masses’ and elites’ attitudes towards burden-sharing measures, subjective evaluations and beliefs concerning the severity of the crisis provide additional and alternative explanations when looking at the public's preferences. In particular, it is found that concern about the flow of migrants to Europe consolidates the impact of contextual factors, whereas the overestimation of the immigrant population fosters hostility against solidarity measures, with both effects more pronounced as the country's exposure to the crisis increases. In the light of these results, the main implication of this study is that EU institutions have to primarily address entrenched beliefs and misperceptions about immigrants to enhance public support for a joint approach to migration.     

From privileged to thwarted stakeholders – Polish migrants’ perceptions of the Scottish Independence Referendum 2014 and the UK General Election in 2015

Scotland in 2014 and 2015 provides an ideal context for examining EU citizenship political rights as established in the Maastricht Treaty of 1993 from the perspective of Polish migrants resident in Scotland. We argue that the contrast between Polish migrants’ full enfranchisement in the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014 to then being disenfranchised from the UK General Election in 2015 is a significant site for observing how EU laws interact with state-centric and also ‘post-national’ notions of citizenship. Our participants’ experiences of voting in the Referendum and subsequently not being able to vote in the General Election were articulated in the following terms: (a) the justification of their political rights in terms of their stake and contribution in the UK; (b) their frustrations with regards to anti-migration rhetoric and the limitations of European citizenship; and for some, (c) their plans of apply for British citizenship in the context of EU membership uncertainty.     

From cold to cyber warriors: the origins and expansion of NSA’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) to Shadow Brokers

How did the National Security Agency (NSA) adopt the practice of hacking? This paper explores how NSA confronted the digital age by focusing on arguably NSA’s key organizational innovation as a microcosm of these broader changes: the Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO). This paper develops a pragmatist model of organizational change showing how the practice of hacking became a practical solution to deal with the problems posed by a globally networked world through TAO’s case history. TAO’s aggressive expansion by developing a scalable Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) architecture was designed to keep NSA relevant in the twenty-first century.     

Journeys to the limits of first-hand knowledge: politicians’ on-site visits in zones of conflict and intervention

ABSTRACT

This article explores the practice and political significance of politicians’ journeys to conflict zones. It focuses on the German example, looking at field trips to theatres of international intervention as a way of first-hand knowledge in policymaking. Paying tribute to Lisa Smirl and her work on humanitarian spaces, objects and imaginaries and on liminality in aid worker biographies, two connected arguments are developed. First, through the exploration of the routinized practices of politicians’ field trips the article shows how these journeys not only remain confined to the ‘auxiliary space’ of aid/intervention, but that it is furthermore a staged reality of this auxiliary space that most politicians experience on their journeys. The question is then asked, second, what politicians actually experience on their journeys and how their experiences relate to their policy knowledge about conflict and intervention. It is shown that political field trips enable sensory/affectual, liminoid and liminal experiences, which have functions such as authority accumulation, agenda setting, community building, and civilizing domestic politics, while at the same time reinforcing, in most cases, pre-existing conflict and intervention imaginaries.     

‘They come here to work’: an evaluation of the economic argument in favor of immigrant rights

Advocates commonly highlight the exploitation that hard-working undocumented immigrants commonly suffer at the hands of employers, the important contribution they make to the US economy, and the fiscal folly of border militarization and enhanced immigration enforcement policies. In this paper, I unpack these economic rationales for expanding immigrant rights, and examine the nuanced ways in which advocates deploy this frame. To do so, I rely on statements issued by publicly present immigrant rights groups in six places: California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Texas, and Washington, DC. I also draw on interviews with immigrant advocates in San Jose, CA and Houston, TX, press releases from two alternative national immigrant rights organizations, and an ethnographic photo-documentation of immigrant rights mobilizations in 2012–2014. Economic rationales, I emphasize, can be found in each of these contexts, but are not mutually exclusive to other justifications, including narratives about civil, human, and family rights for immigrants. However, I argue that an economic framing of immigrant rights nonetheless runs the risk reifying work over conventional understandings of criminality, often relies on a narrow definition of economic worth, and could have negative consequences for coalition building.