Fighting the Hellhounds: Pro-democracy Activists and Party Politics in Post-Suharto Indonesia

In the literature on post-Suharto Indonesia, an increasingly dominant stream has portrayed the political system as being hijacked by predatory elite interests associated with the fallen New Order regime. While such characterisations describe important elements of the post-1998 polity, they do not tell the full story. At the same time that patronage-driven career politicians have staked their claims in the newly democratic state, a large number of civil society activists also started to play an active role in formal politics. This article illustrates how human rights advocates, women activists and labour leaders have tried to promote their causes not from the margins of civil society, but from within the power centre of political institutions. To be sure, some activists-turned-politicians have failed in this effort, but others have initiated key pieces of legislation that led to ground-breaking reforms. In comparative terms, the article demonstrates that Indonesian activists have created an effective political niche for themselves, avoiding both the patterns of state co-optation so prevalent in South Korea and the anti-system attitudes of activist politicians in Malaysia.     

The Rise of Golden Dawn: The New Face of the Far Right in Greece

The article examines the rise of the one of the most extremist political parties in Europe, Golden Dawn. It sketches the historical trajectory of the Greek far right, examines the ideological, organisational and voter profile of Golden Dawn, and offers possible explanations for its breakthrough in the 2012 elections. The article shows how the economic crisis has brought a massive realignment of the Greek electorate away from mainstream parties, giving rise to anti-system and anti-immigrant sentiments. Golden Dawn's violent tactics have allowed the party to establish an anti-system and anti-immigrant profile and capitalise on these sentiments. The party's future will depend on its capacity to absorb organisationally any future tensions between party pragmatists and idealists.     

Reflecting on Social Movement Unionism in Hong Kong: The Case of the Dockworkers’ Strike in 2013

By analysing the 2013 Hong Kong dockworkers’ strike, this article explores how workers, precariously situated in the world’s freest economy, fight for decent wages with the support of civil society. It is argued that the trade union movement in Hong Kong, a Special Administration Region of the People’s Republic of China, is a typical example of social movement unionism. It suggests that the rise of social movement unionism in Hong Kong was a practical strategy of social activists to support labour rights under the specific context of vulnerable structural power, weak institutional power, failed political unionism and a vibrant civil society. Social movement unionism has a “double-edged sword” effect on workers’ power: on the one hand, it has the potential to create societal power and strengthen associational power; on the other hand, it may compromise workers’ militancy and the possibility of stronger workplace bargaining power during workers’ struggle.     

Can Lebanon's Economy Be Saved? A Plan for Revival

The recent financial and economic meltdown in Lebanon is the result of 30 years of social, economic, financial, and fiscal mismanagement, amplified by the Covid-19 pandemic and further exacerbated by the Beirut port explosion. Lebanese citizens’ trust, as well as the international community's trust in the government, have unfortunately been destroyed. Consequently, Lebanon's sole option is to rebuild confidence in the government and public institutions by implementing economic reforms and to seek an IMF program to pave the way for additional financing from other international sources. The most important confidence-building step is a clear financial and economic plan that has the support of all key stakeholders. This article presents a road map for a reforms-driven, export-led growth strategy for Lebanon. Ultimately, the goal is to jump-start the economy and put it on a path of sustainable, inclusive, and equitable economic growth. Such growth should be grounded in a small, open-economy model and driven by low tariffs, a flexible exchange rate regime, and a dynamic export sector built on competitive and comparative advantages. This plan partially builds on proposals and recommendations provided by previous economic plans and policy notes.     

The transition in the political economy of South Korean development

This article analyzes the current transition in the political economy of South Korea in the context of political democratization and economic development. Because South Korea can be regarded as a case in which successful economic growth preceded political democratization, the article reviews the advantage and the disadvantage of late industrialization and its limitations. It discusses rising conflicts of interest among economic agents, labor disputes, and the erosion of international competitiveness. The article also reviews the sociopolitical reform program advanced by the new administration and its ramifications for the economic prospects. The article concludes that the Korean economy will continue to grow but not as fast as it had grown in the past and that the new political environment will play a critical role in determining the characteristics of capitalism in South Korea. The success of future economic development will depend on the stability of the political system and the national capacity to resolve conflict of interests.     

Argentina Facing China: Modernization, Interests and Economic Relations Model

The article explains the Argentine-Chinese economic relations and identifies the interest’s network with the ongoing modernization processes in both countries. It can be observed that harmony is more important than discord when Argentina accepts the new China’s international division of labor, but when Argentina tends to consolidate the process of economic de-primarization, tensions between both countries tend to emerge. The crisis about crude soybean oil in 2010 is the clearest example to illustrate that trade tensions between both countries will be most frequent if Argentine industrialization continues and the process of policy coordination fails.     

No Way to Escape Imbalances in the Eurozone? Three Sources for Germany’s Export Dependency: Industrial Relations,Social Insurance and Fiscal Federalism

Over the last two decades, the German political economy has increasingly relied on export specialisation as a strategy for economic recovery. This export-led development strategy turned out to be a mixed blessing. While, on the one hand, specialisation in high-quality manufactured goods has preserved Germany’s competitive edge vis-à-vis many other industrialised countries, it has, on the other hand, led to an increasing dependency on exports as the engine for growth. There has been no equally strong evolution of a domestic service economy beyond manufacturing-related services. The issue of export dependency becomes increasingly important in light of the financial crisis and global imbalances, vis-à-vis Greece and the Eurozone but also globally. Weak aggregate demand depresses both domestic employment and endangers the still fragile construction of the Eurozone. The paper argues that Germany finds itself in an export-dependency trap due to imbalances between domestic services and export-driven manufacturing. It analyses three sources for the over-reliance on export-oriented manufacturing and weak employment in domestic services: firstly, the industrial relations system, secondly, the social insurance financing of the welfare state and thirdly, fiscal federalism. All three are fundamental pillars of the German political economy and locked into political coalitions that are not easily changed.     

Understanding Arab civil society: functional validity as the missing link

The study of civil society in the Arab region has been riddled with normative expectations largely derived from the experiences of civil society in other countries. While the region continues to endure a democratic deficit, it is also home to myriad civil society organizations working on a range of issues. The missing link when theorizing about Arab civil society has been in considering its functional validity in the eyes of the activists themselves. This article utilizes insights from focus groups with activists in Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq and Syria to propose a typology of the functional validity that civil society offers to Arab activists. Despite the criticisms that the concept of civil society has faced in the region, activists continue to find validity in the work they are doing. The typology proposed here presents a fivefold validity of action through neutrality, mobilization, democratic claim, access to funds, and representation for civil society activists. By bringing in empirical evidence from the activists themselves we can move away from normative expectations about civil society towards a better understanding of the various functions that civil society organizations are fulfilling in different contexts across the region.     

Alienation and labor export in the context of globalization

Beginning the early 1970s the Philippine government embarked on labor export as a development strategy to deal with its debt crisis, largely a consequence of structural adjustment policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Labor export has since become a major feature of globalization in the Philippines. This article argues that Philippine labor export in the context of globalization creates sites of and resistance to alienation. It examines the different forms of alienation that Filipino migrant domestic workers — who comprise the bulk of Philippine export labor — experience, drawing on qualitative/ethnographic data from fieldwork conducted in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vancouver, Rome, and Chicago. Viewing alienation as a dialectic, the article examines various forms of alienation—familial alienation, commodification of migrant/export labor, political and cultural alienation — and discusses the different ways that migrant domestic workers deal with them. Situating its analysis within the interlocking aspects of experience-context-resistance, the article shows how these forms of alienation are structurally/contextually produced and contested, with careful sensitivity to the complexity in tackling the root causes of alienation in the context of neoliberal globalization.     

Work,Wages and Gender in Export-Oriented Cities: Global Assembly versus International Tourism in Mexico

Drawing on a rich source of urban labour market data, the Mexican National Urban Employment Survey of 1998, this article addresses the question of how dissimilar export-oriented industries shape urban labour markets, particularly with respect to women workers. It compares Ciudad Juárez, which has an economy based on global assembly production, and Cancún, whose economy is based on international tourism. Employing economic base theory and location quotients, the analysis isolates the impact of the export sectors on the local labour markets. Results show that global assembly and international tourism encourage a mix of occupational and income prospects for both men and women in each of these Mexican cities. Female employment tends to be concentrated in the export-oriented sector in both cases, but the types of occupational and income opportunities therein vary. Overall, the analysis challenges common exploitation arguments that tend to stress the universally shared deleterious working conditions and low wages that result from global integration and export-led industrialisation in contemporary Latin America. It suggests that we pay closer attention to the diverse nature of outward oriented industries, which will tend to differentiate the labour market implications of increasing economic globalisation.     

Shaping Social Activism in Post-Soviet Russia: Leadership,Organizational Diversity,and Innovation

A political scientist investigates the weakness of civil society in post-Soviet Russia, asking how these limitations manifest themselves in practice and how they influence the ability of social activists to reach out to the public, form coalitions, and advocate for new government policies. In an examination of environmental organizations from the mid-1990s to the present based on interviews with activists, materials produced by the organizations, and social scientists' analyses, three distinct patterns of organizational development are identified. The mechanisms linking political, economic, and cultural characteristics to patterns of organizational development within civil society are analyzed in this case study.     

Social Movements within Organisations: Occupy Parties in Italy and Turkey

This paper analyses a little-studied phenomenon: movements within parties. While parties and movements are often assumed to be separate entities, the borders between the two have proved to be more fluent. Parties frequently play a pivotal role in movement politics, and movements influence parties through the dual militancy of many of their members. The article presents two cases of Occupy movements taking place within major left-of-centre parties – the Italian PD and the Turkish CHP – and analyses the causes of discontent within the party and the choice of activists to voice this discontent rather than exit the party. It is argued that, beyond country specificities, shared factors include the perceived betrayal of social-democratic values, a lack of internal democracy, and electoral defeats. In both cases, activists’ choice to refer to Occupy in their opposition inside the party can be explained by the normative resonance of anti-austerity protest claims and forms within the party, as well as the instrumental exploitation of mass media attention to Occupy as a logo.     

The 2008 Financial Crisis and the Flying Geese Model

In the twentieth century Japan embarked on an economic developmental path that came to be known as the Flying Geese Model. The geopolitical milieu after the Second World War provided Japan with favourable conditions for rapid economic growth and industrialization. By the 1950s, many had noticed the success of the model and it was subsequently adopted by other East Asian countries. They too enjoyed decades of remarkable economic growth. An important element of the model is growth driven by export to the USA and Europe. As a result of the 2008 financial crisis, the traditional markets of the geese are shrinking. The new situation poses grave challenges to both the existing flying geese economies and latecomer economies which wish to follow the model. East Asian countries are responding to the situation by broadening and deepening their existing economic linkages and developing new ones. This represents a continuation of East Asian regionalism in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis.     

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 Asian scholar and the American crisis

Abstract

National development strategies in many Third-World countries in recent years have tended to emphasize a number of Japanese-pioneered patterns, among them management methods and export-oriented industrialization. Both have been seen as crucial to Japan's rise as an industrial power; and, during the past decade, export-oriented industrialization has been behind the rise of the Asian “Gang of Four”—South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore.     

RETHINKING ASIAN MOBILITIES

ABSTRACT

Vietnam's economic reforms have generated much praise for the country's rapid “opening” of its markets, as if the Vietnamese nation had previously existed in a state of isolation, closed to broader global influences and exchanges. Such discourses overlook the importance of transnational circulations of people, goods, technologies, and expertise during the socialist era that were vital to Vietnam's postwar national reconstruction and continue to play a role in post-socialist economic transformation today. This article traces the socialist pathways of labor migration between Vietnam and the former Soviet Bloc (specifically, East Germany) in the 1980s, mobilities that are generally absent in studies of contemporary export labor industries. Based on multi-sited ethnographic and archival research, the author follows Vietnamese workers first to the East German factories where they labored as “contract workers,” and then through their subsequent return and reintegration into Vietnamese society after the collapse of the Soviet Union. These mobilities bespeak of an alternative history and formation of diasporic communities that are little acknowledged or addressed in literature on labor migrations, and yet are important to understanding emerging forms of stratification today in Vietnam. Moreover, an analysis of early non-capitalist experiences with overseas labor regimes in the 1980s provides insights into contemporary Vietnamese governance practices that promote—rather uncritically, similar to other “emerging countries” —export labor as a nation-building strategy to reduce endemic poverty and develop a late socialist country.     

论加拿大政府的能源出口多元化政策

美国页岩气革命、亚洲地区能源需求增长、中东局势不稳定,影响了全球能源供求关系,驱动加拿大政府寻求更加多元的能源出口地。哈珀政府和小特鲁多政府积极实施能源出口多元化政策,加强输油管线建设,丰富能源出口产品类型,加强与他国特别是亚洲国家的经贸合作。这种能源出口多元化政策改善了加拿大能源出口环境,提升了加拿大能源在国际市场上的竞争力。但加拿大能源出口多元化战略也面临系列挑战,如能源行业的发展受到国内因素的限制、出口市场面临来自其他能源出口国的强力竞争,还有加拿大与大国关系的倒退等。     

EXTRACTING LABOR FROM ITS OWNER

The Asian economic crisis in 1997 helped bring down Suharto's authoritarian regime in 1998. At the same time it paved the way for more measures of economic liberalization. Some of these measures have taken the form of labor market liberalization, which aims to increase the labor market's ability to adjust to changing economic conditions by clearing what are seen as burdensome regulations, or “rigidities” as they are known in economic parlance. An important instrument in this effort is the private employment agency, which the Manpower Act no. 13/2003 introduced in 2003. This article argues that the introduction of these agencies has created opportunities for various actors in society to take advantage of the less-protected workers in the uncertain waters of the post-Suharto labor regime. In the process, the nature of industrial relations has also been changed in a way that is more predatory than liberal. Ultimately the agencies help erode the hopes for a better life for workers and undermine the revival of labor political rights in Indonesia.     

German Arms Exports: Between Normative Aspirations and Political Reality

Deciding on arms exports is a delicate matter in western democracies. Potential economic and security gains have to be weighed against normative and security concerns. This article explores how this tension is solved in Germany, a country that holds strong moral aspirations but at the same time lists among the top arms exporting nations worldwide. Using a newly compiled dataset, we quantitatively analyse German exports of major conventional weapons (MCWs) from 1992 to 2013. Our statistical findings do not support the claim that the human rights situation in recipient countries plays an important role for German arms export decisions. Our two-stage model therefore supports a trading state rather than civilian power reading of Germany, at least when it comes to arms export practices.     

The Interplay between Demand and Supply for Engagement in Social Movement Organisations – Insights from Attac Germany and France

This research aims to evaluate whether two types of social movement organisations (SMOs) – an organisation that has political influence and an organisation that focuses on consistent ideological frames and schemata of interpretation, attract different types of activists with different engagement patterns. Based on a comparative study of the membership of Attac Germany and France – two branches of the same organisation, which have identical goals but differ in their degree of political relevancy and ideological consistency – the research shows that, thanks to its recent policy successes, Attac Germany is mainly comprised of instrumentally-oriented members. In contrast, Attac France lacks policy successes, but offers its members a coherent ideological framework. Consequently, the membership of Attac France predominantly attracts activists with strong values and beliefs. The second part of the article also shows that the two types of activists – more instrumentally-driven and more ideology-oriented individuals – display distinct engagement patterns.