Energy in Northeast Asia: Resources for Conflict or Cooperation? An Introduction

Although Northeast Asia typically is seen as an arena for conflict over energy supplies, complementary economic relationships would seem to make the region ripe for energy cooperation: Russia possesses major oil and gas resources, while China, Japan, South and North Korea all depend on imported energy. The four papers in this issue raise a number of important and, at times, neglected issues about the prospects for energy cooperation in Northeast Asia. While focusing on specific projects for energy supply and conservation, the authors implicitly raise broader theoretical questions about the prospects for and consequences of regional energy cooperation.

Ripe for Cooperation or Rivalry? Commerce,Realpolitik, and War Memory in Contemporary Sino-Japanese Relations

Abstract

Sino-Japanese political relations, fraught with disputes and tension during the Koizumi years, only began to recover after Abe came to power. This article investigates the driving forces shaping recent and future bilateral relations. Using evidence from the Koizumi era, I argue that 1) bilateral commercial links prove a weak stabilizing factor for political relations; 2) the current distribution of power between China and Japan does not dictate their strategic rivalry, but they may still treat each other as rivals if they perceive the danger of long-term power transition and mutual hostile intent; 3) the frequent flare-up of bilateral history disputes can exacerbate mutual threat perceptions among elites and generate popular emotional pressure for hard-line government policy toward the other country. The future of Sino-Japanese cooperation heavily depends on their efforts to resolve the negative historical legacy.     

Class or Citizenship? Debating Workplace Conflict in China

While a new working class is in the process of remaking itself in China, the latest trend in labour studies has rejected the Marxist tradition which sees the social relations of production as the point of departure for analysing workplace conflict. According to the new current, influenced by post-structuralism, class is only one of the identities articulated by workers, and it can be understood only with reference to their discourses. By critically evaluating an important book by Ching Kwan Lee (Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt), this article suggests that her approach generalising workers' protests with the notion of citizenship cannot satisfactorily explain the changing pattern of labour protests in China since 2004. By using fieldwork data and connecting the analysis of the social relations of production with the changing patterns of workers' struggle, this paper argues that migrant workers protests are a significant part of the emerging class conflict in China.     

Rural Mobilisation and Agrarian Political Economy in Argentina, 2001–2020

In this article, we reconstruct the mobilisations of rural actors both from ‘below’ and from ‘above’ and their connections to Argentina's agrarian political economy between 2001 and 2020. We divide the analysis into three periods and review key protest events and the actions of movements and organisations, paying special attention to two dimensions. First, we consider how rural movements and organisations engaged with institutional politics and the state. Second, we analyse the collective identifications and claims at the basis of coalitions forged within and beyond the rural sector.     

China’s Surging Energy Demand: Trigger for Conflict or Cooperation with Japan?

This article revisits a conventional interpretation of Sino-Japanese energy relations from geopolitical and zero-sum viewpoints. Contemporary Sino-Japanese disputes over the East China Sea and their scramble over a crude-oil pipeline from Russia have drawn global attention to the intensification of the rivalry between the two giant energy consumers. Beijing and Tokyo, however, have gradually found common interests resulting from business opportunities, environmental countermeasures, etc. Russia’s failure in driving a wedge between China and Japan, and the United States’ proactive engagement in Asia-Pacific energy issues, appear to provide new opportunities in which the East Asian powers’ energy rivalry can be reduced.

Does Coup-Proofing Work? Political–Military Relations in Authoritarian Regimes amid the Arab Uprisings

The popular mass uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) call into question the assumption, widespread prior to the “Arab Spring”, that militaries in these countries were subservient to civilianized and consolidated authoritarian regime incumbents. In most countries militaries have stepped in to suppress uprisings, replace incumbents, or cause civil wars. The analysis of political-military relations explains the immediate outcome of popular mass mobilization in the MENA region and helps re-conceptualize coup-proofing as an important authoritarian survival strategy. Accounting for variation in the degree of officers' loyalty toward incumbents provides an opportunity to test the efficacy of coup-proofing. The article accounts for questions largely ignored in the theoretical literature: which coup-proofing mechanisms work best, and under which circumstances? In a qualitative comparison of Egypt and Syria, the article illustrates that authoritarian regimes have applied fundamentally different coup-proofing strategies. The Syrian regime has engineered integrative strategies to tie officers closer to the incumbent, provoking a greater degree of loyalty during regime crisis than in Egypt where officers were excluded from politics.     

Democratization Through Contention? Regional and Local Governance Conflict in Peru

Social conflict in Peru has increased dramatically since 2004. The economic origins of these disputes, which result mostly from the growth of mining operations, have received considerable scholarly attention. The emergence of collective action directed at the performance of regional and local government, however, has received little notice. This essay examines Peru's regional and local governance conflicts on the basis of hundreds of reported cases. It investigates the nature of these episodes and the strategies adopted by community organizations to get their complaints addressed. It finds that the political opportunity of the posttransition period, dissatisfaction with government performance, and new participatory rights have helped to give rise to such collective action. Community protagonists choose between institutional and noninstitutional strategies but often combine them to help ensure success. Maintaining legitimacy proves essential to both sides. This article argues that these events represent both constraints and favorable developments for subnational democracy in Peru.     

Old Tools and New Movements in Latin America: Political Science as Gatekeeper or Intellectual Illuminator?

This article argues that social democratic and orthodox Marxist conceptualizations of politics are unable to "engage in solidarity" with many new forms of Latin American popular politics. Such movements challenge the politics of representation, the market economy, and the state form by reinventing territorialized experiments in self-government, which politicize place, subjectivities, and social relations. Developing a critique of these frameworks of political analysis, this article argues that conceptual categories combining the insights of autonomist or open Marxism and poststructuralism and the critical reflections and theorizations by Latin America's newest social movements enable a deeper engagement with such movements. This critique challenges academics committed to progressive social change to reexamine long-held notions about the nature and agents of social transformation and the epistemological categories that orient our research. It argues that if we fail to do this, then we risk becoming gatekeepers of the status quo.     

Conflict diamonds and the Kimberley process: Mission accomplished—or mission impossible?

The Kimberley Process, which seeks to eradicate the sourcing and sale of conflict diamonds, underwent a three‐year review in 2006, which highlighted the success of the initiative to date and the challenges that remain.     

Does Associational Involvement Spur Political Integration? Political Interest and Participation of Three Immigrant Groups in Zurich

This article looks at the determinants of the political integration of migrants at the local level, focusing on two dimensions of political integration: political interest (attitudinal dimension) and political participation (behavioral dimension). Based on a representative survey among Italians, Kosovars, and Turks in the city of Zurich, we tested the thesis advanced by the social capital approach which posits a link between membership in voluntary associations and political integration. Our findings suggest that membership in voluntary associations favors the political integration of the three groups under investigation. Furthermore, we find an impact of both ethnic and cross‐ethnic membership. However, while the effect of associational involvement on the behavioral dimension of political integration is strong and consistent across national groups, the attitudinal dimension displays a weaker and differential impact. Political attitudes and socio‐demographic characteristics play a less important role, except for the effect of the former on political interest, and also tend to have a differential impact on the three groups.     

Public Research Projects in Europe and East Asia: Cooperation or Competition? A Comparative Analysis of the ITER and Galileo Experiences

The projects discussed in this paper, Galileo and ITER, are two contrasting experiences of Euro-Asian cooperation within Very Large (Public) Scientific Enterprises. They offer key insights into the deepening relations which have given shape to the rapidly expanding field of Euro-Asian collaborative interregional projects. Cooperative agendas within such "Big Science" endeavors heighten the question of the political considerations supporting the decision to engage specific forms of international cooperation. As the main driving force behind both projects, the EU's choices have resulted in the establishment of novel and distinct forms of Euro-Asian scientific cooperation. A better understanding of how such Euro-Asian initiatives emerge can logically be garnered by confronting the Euro-Chinese cooperation within Galileo, and the Euro-Japanese partnership within ITER. This comparison will show that the agendas and institutions of these two interregional policies vary greatly. Within the same policy field - in casu Large Scientific Projects - and in relationship to the same region - i.e. East Asia - this study shows that fundamentally different policies are practiced side-by-side. If in both cases Euro-Asian scientific cooperation has provided its participants with renewed leverage and unprecedented opportunities, the exact scope and function of these interregional collaborations range from the merely tactical in the Euro-Chinese Galileo experience, to the substantial in the Euro-Japanese ITER experience.     

Hopes and Realities in Relations Between Russia and Japan: Is a Breakthrough Possible?

During the last 5 years, Russia and Japan have been able to widen and deepen bilateral ties in many spheres, including politics, economics, and culture. At the same time, the further qualitative improvement of bilateral relations is hampered by strong influence of an enduring negative historic memory of Japanese society toward Russia mostly due to the so-called Northern Territories syndrome. The formation of Russia’s image in Japan is also strongly influenced by a number of time-limited factors, such as the state leader’s popularity, single-moment events, empiric experience, and others (Streltsov 43). In this paper, the author traces the recent history of the territorial dispute between two countries and then attempts to evaluate the influence exerted by four time-limited factors: the triple disaster in Japan (as an example of the implications of natural disasters), the two leaders’ political aspirations, mutual trust, and popularity at home (as related to the personal features of President Putin and Prime Minister Abe), on the two countries’ approach toward signing a peace treaty and solving the territorial dispute. According to the author’s hypothesis, the strategic vision of Putin and Abe and their trustworthy relationship are playing the key role in improving ties between the two countries. Moreover, due to its importance for these ties, this paper considers the geopolitical environment of the Russo–Japan relations and the current state and perspective for bilateral energy cooperation. Finally, the author turns to an evaluation of whether a long-overdue compromise on the territorial dispute could be reached anytime soon.     

Direct Democracy and Political Trust: Enhancing Trust,Initiating Distrust–or Both?

This study investigates the relationship between direct democracy and political trust. We suggest a solution to the controversy in research centering on positive versus negative effects of direct democracy by analytically differentiating between the availability of direct democratic rights and the actual use of those rights. Theoretically, greater availability of direct democratic rights may enhance political trust by increasing citizens' perception that political authorities can be controlled as well as by incentivizing political authorities to act trustworthily. In contrast, the actual use of the corresponding direct democratic instruments may initiate distrust as it signals to citizens that political authorities do not act in the public's interest. We test both hypotheses for the very first time with sub‐national data of Switzerland. The empirical results seem to support our theoretical arguments.