The Cost of Empowerment: Multiple Sources of Women’s Debt in Rural India

Abstract

Poor women borrow from multiple sources. This study examines whether the source of debt matters for women’s role in household financial decisions. Drawing on a household survey from rural Tamil Nadu, we categorise women’s loans along the lines of accessibility and formality into ‘planned loans’ and ‘instant loans’. We find that ‘instant loans’ support women’s bargaining power in various types of household financial decisions, whereas ‘planned loans’ have no impact. This surprising result is better understood when the nature of ‘instant loans’ is examined – these are frequently usurious, involve coercive enforcement methods and are considered socially debasing. Hence women who use them perform a convenient role for their households and in return gain some negotiating power.     

China’s ‘New Silk Roads’: sub-national regions and networks of global political economy

This paper argues that the Chinese government’s ‘belt and road’ initiative – the Silk Roads vision of land and maritime logistics and communications networks connecting Asia, Europe and Africa – has its roots in sub-national ideas and practices, and that it reflects their elevation to the national level more than the creation of substantially new policy content. Further, the spatial paradigms inherent in the Silk Roads vision reveal the reproduction of capitalist developmental ideas expressed particularly in the form of networks, which themselves have become a feature of contemporary global political economy. In other words, the Silk Roads vision is more of a ‘spatial fix’ than a geopolitical manoeuvre.     

The Darfur Issue:A New Test for China’s African Policy

<正>With the approaching of Sudan's very first election in nearly two decades in April 2010,Sudan,the biggest country in Africa and also the country that faced most complicated development environment both domestically and internationally,is once again becoming the focus of the world.And the ongoing conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan,about one fifth of the total area and with more than 17%of total population,plus the controversy policy taken by the Sudan government as well as China's growing economic engagement in the country,particularly in the energy field,has put China's Africa policy in the spot light.Since China and Sudan have had a long tradition of friendship and close political and economic ties,there has been an unreasonable high expectation from the international community that China alone can influence the position of the Sudanese government on this sensitive matter.The international controversy over Darfur has brought a fundamental challenge to China's long-held foreign policy of 'non-interference'.The author argued in the paper,the principle ofnon-interferenceshould not be interpreted as non willingness to take theresponsibility to protect.As a matter of fact,in recent years,China's Darfur policy has shown more and more flexibility and thenon-interferencepolicy itself is also undergoing changes.Given the complexity of the Darfur issue and the volatile North/South relation in Sudan,theengagement approachendorsed and pushed by China is more constructive thansanction initiativefor maintaining the stability and peace in Sudan.     

Regulating religious authority for political gains: al-Sisi’s manipulation of al-Azhar in Egypt

The shedding of blood is a serious matter in Islamic law; disregard for human life negates the very essence of just rule. By standing by General al-Sisi as he suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood, the popular legitimacy of al-Azhar – the oldest seat of Islamic learning – was called into question. This article shows how the al-Sisi government skilfully deployed the two other state-controlled religious establishments, the Ministry of Awqaf (Religious Endowments) and Dar-ul-Ifta, to boost al-Azhar’s popular legitimacy in this context. Existing scholarship highlights the importance of competition within the Egyptian religious sphere to explain how the Egyptian state co-opts the al-Azhari official establishment. This article instead shows how the state, equally skilfully, uses state institutions to boost al-Azhar’s popular legitimacy – albeit to ensure that it remains useful for the purposes of political legitimisation. Political authority and religious authority in Egypt thus remain closely entangled.     

The Europeanization of social movements in the Czech Republic: The EU and local women’s groups

The goal of this paper is to analyze the impact the EU has had on Czech women’s groups since the 1990s. Drawing on both Europeanization and social movement theories, the first section defines the theoretical framework of the paper. The second section is focused on the impact of changes in the funding of women’s groups which, since the end of the 1990s, have relied more than before on European funding. The third section analyzes the shift in the political context and the domestic political opportunity structure in the Czech Republic that has occurred in connection with the accession process. The fourth section analyzes transnational cooperation for which new opportunities have appeared with the EU’s eastward expansion. The paper concludes by summarizing its main findings.     

The development of Kurdistan’s de facto statehood: Kurdistan’s September 2017 referendum for independence

This research aims to analyse the drivers which informed the decision and timing of Kurdistan’s independence referendum on 25 September 2017. Here we argue that any proper examination of these drivers must begin by investigating the relationship between the fight to counter the Islamic State begun in 2014, the disputes arising as a result of Kurdistan’s presidential election issue in 2015 and the internal political rivalry exacerbated by the question of whether to hold a referendum. The findings of this article highlight the centrality of de facto entities’ internal governance in their struggle towards statehood. The fight against IS served as a primary driver in influencing the timing and the approach of the September 2017 referendum. While the 2015 political deadlock resulting in the illegal extension of Barzani’s presidency was not a determining factor leading to the referendum, nonetheless it quickened the process and influenced the timing.     

Contesting the international order by integrating it: the case of China’s Belt and Road initiative

What does the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) tell us about China’s perceptions of the international order? This paper takes an inductive approach by examining the BRI for a two-pronged purpose: first, to understand China’s perception of the international order by examining Beijing’s official discourse around its intentions and vision for the initiative; and, second, to examine the mechanisms through which Chinese norms are diffused and normalised in Global South states. I find that Chinese policy navigates a dialectical interchange between upholding the existing international order while simultaneously promoting alternative norms and practices to reform parts of the order that are unsatisfactory to Chinese interests. To answer the second part of the puzzle, the paper finds that a central socialisation mechanism in China’s foreign policy for Global South states occurs through professionalisation training programmes. These programmes allow for Chinese expert knowledge and technical know-how to be shared with and mimicked by elites and civil servants across many Global South states.     

Two Faces of Transparency: The Regulations of People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information

The People’s Republic of China enacted the first nationwide open government information regulations (OGIRs) in 2007. The regulations safeguard Chinese citizens’ right to know and provide public oversight. This analysis aims to explain how and why the Chinese government incorporates the universal values of transparency and accountability into the complex Chinese political systems. The article first provides a theoretical framework of government transparency and a quick road map of OGIRs for international audiences by tracing its regulatory details. It then analyzes OGIRs’ external mechanisms of transparency on how information flows to the citizenry through public supervision and judicial review. Fourthly, the article explains OGIRs’ internal mechanisms of transparency and accountability through the hierarchical control of the party-state agencies and officials. The article emphasizes that transparency and accountability are as important to today’s Chinese government and civil society as they are in democratic regimes generally. OGIR shares the values of external transparency and legislative missions of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). However, the Chinese government tailors information disclosure to meet the institutional requirement of strengthening internal accountability mechanisms, maintaining the party-state’s authority and legitimacy, and representing the collective welfare and public interest.     

The personal as political: the function of the private space in contextualizing the ‘other’ in Jewish–Palestinian encounters

The private/personal sphere is perceived to be a channel of empowerment that fosters processes of acknowledgment and recognition during encounters between participants from different cultural groups. Drawing on ethnographic research at an inter-cultural program that offered a space for engagement for Palestinian and Jewish educational trainees’, we followed the role played by the private sphere in the process of articulating a perception of the ‘Other’. Most participants from both groups chose to locate their position toward the ‘Other’ in their private sphere. The different ways through which the private sphere was preformed and justified by the participants reveals that for the Palestinian participants the private sphere served as a way to create particularity, while for the Jewish participants it served as a way to construct universalized claims. These justifications, which were tightly coupled with each groups’ social position and social power, were working in both cases to isolate the discussion from immediate historical, social, and political contexts. Thus, these findings deepen our understanding of the meaning ascribed to the private sphere and the common epistemology that defines the personal as political and contributes to advance warm relations between Palestinian and Jewish individuals that these educational frameworks seek to foster.     

The social science of human rights: the need for a ‘second image reversed’?

What are the causes of state-initiated human rights violations? Are intra-national factors alone causally responsible for the emergence of human rights crises in the developing world? This article critically examines contemporary social science literature on the causes of human rights compliance and violations, particularly in the fields of international relations and comparative politics. It underscores the finding that the current research agenda on human rights has yet to fully recognise the causal and constitutive links between transnational and domestic factors in generating variations in states’ level of compliance. The main goal of the paper is to analytically explore the possibilities of generating social scientific research that recognises the interactive causal dynamics among extra-national and domestic variables as they jointly produce cross-national variations in the quality of a state’s compliance with human rights norms. Based on a critical analysis of the current scholarship in human rights research, the paper offers several pathways the academy must traverse in order to enhance our understanding of the causal underpinnings of human rights violations in the global South.     

China’s impact on the landscape of African International Relations: implications for dependency theory

Since China began enhancing its economic relationship with key African oil exporters from the early 1990s, the effect this has had on the International Relations (IR) of Africa has remained largely unknown. This paper delves into African IR theory and finds that, rather than representing an alternative pole for African states to bandwagon with, China’s limited interest in Africa and its international socialisation, along with a possible growth of the middle class in Africa, is likely to give many African states few alternatives than those which have existed thus far in the postcolonial period. More development options are found to lie in sub-regional integration.     

Revolution,power and the Third World: a review of Michael Mann’s The Sources of Social Power,Volume 4

The fourth volume of Michael Mann’s The Sources of Social Power is the last in his historical sociological series, which has centred on an analysis of ideological, economic, military and political power in human societies from the start of civilisation. Mann’s final volume provides an important overview of the period of American hegemony and its worldwide effects, the rise and crisis of neoliberalism, the contrasting fates of the USSR and Maoist China, the vagaries of American empire, and modern revolutions. The implications of his study, particularly regarding the history and theory of revolutions, are of the utmost value to anyone on the Revolutionary Left today, especially in the Third World. While Mann’s study is primarily focused on the West, it provides important lessons to be drawn for the Third World.     

“The world would just fall apart if there’s no respect at all”: children’s understandings of respect for diversity in a post-conflict society

The term ‘respect for diversity’ has gained prominence in many policy and curricular developments aimed at promoting reconciliation and pluralism. To explore the understandings of ‘respect for diversity’ held by children in a society that has both emerged from conflict and is increasingly multicultural, 15 group interviews were conducted with 7–11-year-old children in Northern Ireland. The behavioural aspects of respect for diversity articulated by the children were identified as: attention; offering time; equality of treatment; and acts of solidarity. Affective motivations for these actions were empathy and the pursuit of friendship; cognitive motivations were: a moral norm of inclusion; curiosity; internalised human rights principles; and egalitarianism (a belief that all persons are equal in fundamental worth or value). Findings are discussed in relation to theories of children’s prejudice development and moral development, and implications for the teaching and promotion of respect for diversity as part of peace education programmes are considered.     

A Review of: “The War for Muslim Minds”

Terrorism: Threat, Reality, Response. By Robert Kupperman and Darrell Trent. (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press), 1979, 450 pgs., $14.95.     

Discursive construction of Lithuania’s “others:” the case of Belarus

This article analyzes discursive representations of Lithuania and of Belarus as Lithuania’s “Other” in the context of the recent political crisis in Ukraine. Focusing on the media discourse of Lithuanian intellectuals regarding the historical Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) and its legacy, it examines how Belarus and its role vis-à-vis Lithuania have been depicted. The analysis is informed by the discourse-historical approach within critical discourse analysis, using thematic content and argumentation schemes for studying the images ascribed to the GDL, Belarus, and Lithuania in the selected texts. Focus in the discourse of intellectuals on the GDL as a historical homeland is found to shift from history as a scholarly endeavor to the politics of history and the uses of the past in today’s political projects. Belarus and the GDL emerge as topics not only historically and politically salient but also potentially dangerous for Lithuania within the setting of the events in Ukraine.     

The Second Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945: The Current Status of Research and Publication in the People’s Republic of China,and Prospects and Problems for Foreign Researchers

Zhao Erfeng (1845–1911), the Qing governor-general of Sichuan province in 1911, died immediately after the successful revolutionary uprising in Chengdu. This article examines three biographical narratives of Zhao produced during the 1910s. The three different portraits of Zhao in the biographies—Zhao as racial traitor, loyal martyr, and modernizer—reveal radically different ways in which the Qing–Republican transition was understood in the early Republic. Focused on the two major issues associated with Zhao, the Qing incorporation of the Sino-Tibetan frontier and the railway-protection movement in Sichuan, the following discussion utilizes Zhao's biographies as windows on the unsettled definitions of the 1911 Revolution, revealing how Chinese negotiated the issues of nation, territory, and modernity at the birth of a modern state.     

Captain of “We Band of Brothers”: An Archaeologist’s Homage to Nehemia Levtzion

By inviting archaeologists to collaborate in the revision of his beloved Ancient Ghana and Mali, Nehemia Levtzion confronted the oft-assumed, yet-rarely tested asymmetry in explanatory power between documentary history and archaeology. Others have treated prehistorians as, at best, handmaidens and, at worse, scientific parvenus. Levtzion explicitly rejected several assumptions that render many histories of pre-colonial Africa uninteresting to prehistorians: (1) that that the data of archaeology provide, at best, background and context, (2) that the hierarchical state is the only viable integrative structure when peoples become stratified economically or politically, and (3) that culture change in Africa simply replicates patterns already known from elsewhere, and no others. Levtzion enlisted a plural force of specialists, a “Band of Brothers,” to continue his Good Fight against those who would distain Africa’s accomplishments.     

Advocating for the cause of the “victims of Communism” in the European political space: memory entrepreneurs in interstitial fields

The European Parliament (EP) adopted, between 2004 and 2009, a series of resolutions calling for recognition of Communist crimes and commemoration of their victims. This article focuses on an overlooked aspect of anti-Communist activism, the awareness-raising activities carried out by some Central European Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to perpetuate the cause through networks that enable them to exchange institutional credibility, scientific legitimacy, and policy-oriented knowledge with Institutes of National Memory, parts of academia, and victims associations. Although they use the techniques of expertise and scandalization that are often effective in European institutions, these memory entrepreneurs have largely failed to further their claims in the European Union (EU) after 2009. In line with the turn toward “practice” in EU studies and the increased attention paid to agency in memory politics, this article contends that the conditions of production of their narrative of indictment of Communism accounts for this relative lack of success. Because their demands produced a strong polarization inside the EP while colliding with established Western patterns of remembrance, these MEPs’ reach remains limited to their Conservative peers from the former Eastern bloc. This weak national and ideological representativeness hinders their capacity to impose their vision of the socialist period in the European political space.