From tribe to peasant? The Limbus and the Nepalese state

This article's context is the distinction inform and meaning of land tenure systems as between tribes and peasants, and the role of the state in the transformation of traditionally inalienable tribal lands into alienable private property. The historical circumstances which have shaped and transformed the economy and culture of a particular tribal population ‐ the Limbus of east Nepal ‐ are examined. There is analysis of the programme of land reform introduced by the Nepalese state, whose chief outcome for the Limbus was the abolition of their kipat tenures and the conversion of their lands into private property. The implications in terms of land and identity are considered, and the outcome of heavy dependence on a small class of high caste Hindus who are now their landlords, creditors and employers is outlined.     

Peasants and the redshirt movement in Thailand: some dissenting voices

The ‘redshirt’ movement in Thailand is commonly portrayed in media and scholarly accounts as a class-based, pro-Thaksin social movement that draws fervent support from the poor rural-born masses, especially peasants, in the north and northeast. The movement leaders, including Thaksin, have supposedly won these people's support by framing urban-based political elites as ammart (aristocrats) who have stakes in suppressing the needs of phrai (serfs) – a contrasting label for the rural-born poor. I question this analysis that highlights the polarisation of Thai society along class lines. Combining data from election results and fieldwork in Chiang Mai Province – Thaksin's birthplace and the putative redshirt heartland – I show that despite their relative poverty, some peasants remain cynical opponents of the redshirt movement. They have autonomy to penetrate and reinterpret the redshirts' class-centric collective action frame – a fact that cautions us against linking rural poverty causally to rural support for redshirts. Peasants are a more diverse, politically divided lot than we are led to believe.     

Migration to the bars of Bombay: Women,village religion and sustainability

This article deals with the migration of Bangladeshi village women to the bars of Bombay. For about twelve years (1992 to 2003), ladies' bars provided a lucrative source of income for young women from villages of Jessore and Satkhira. With the money they earned, families were enriched and village economies were invigorated. From being burdens to their families because of the dowry required for their marriage, daughters became assets; wives provided for their husbands, daughters-in-law sustained parents-in-law and sisters established their siblings. No one could deny the widespread benefits of women's migration to Bombay. But how could their activity be reconciled with village norms requiring women to restrain their movements, show modesty and remain under the authority of guardians? How could women's migration be accommodated with village religion and principles of life held to be fundamental to an Islamic way of life and to the good order of society? How could women's earnings be enjoyed without reprobation or disturbances?     

Inequality,land reform and agricultural growth in China, 1952–55: A preliminary treatment

Although the Agrarian Reform Laws of the late 1940s were intended to preserve the rich peasant economy, Chinese land reform during 1947–52 was uneven in its spatial impact. In some areas, the reform was indeed a ‘wager on the strong’. But in others, land reform was more egalitarian, re‐distributing self‐cultivated land from rich peasants to the rural poor. New county‐level evidence suggests that this egalitarianism hampered the pace of agricultural growth in the years immediately prior to collectivisation.     

我国“劳动法”与CPTPP劳工条款接合的法律方案研究

我国“劳动法”对接CPTPP劳工条款有利于我国融入国际经贸规则体系,也有利于避免社会倾销调查。我国“劳动法”对接CPTPP劳工条款的制度框架包括原则性条款、实体权利条款、组织性条款、实施条款和纠纷解决条款。我国“劳动法”与CPTPP劳工条款接合的法律方案可分为国际和国内两个层面。国际层面可利用双边协议争取劳工标准实施的缓冲期、利用程序性规定防止争端解决程序滥用、适时推进结社权和集体谈判权相关公约的批准。国内层面可在海南自贸港提前试行CPTPP劳工规则：在强迫劳动方面,重点推动服刑人员报酬制度改革;在职业歧视方面,重点推动户籍制度改革以消除基于户籍的制度性歧视;在结社权和集体谈判权方面,可参考借鉴CPTPP缔约国越南和新加坡的经验。     

日本平台经济下的“类雇员”概念建构及其启示

平台经济在各国的发展状况不同,各国对其涉及的劳动关系认定等问题进行规制的法律制度也不同。日本平台经济下的劳动关系认定相关探讨建立在个别法与集体法对劳动者概念之界定、相关的判例和学理的基础上,主要思路是修订现行《家内劳动法》与导入德国"类雇员"概念。在充分考虑日本对于平台经济之定位与我国有所区别的前提下,其兼顾"如何划定适用对象"及"对其采用何种规制"的政策研究方式,以及构建"类雇员"概念的相关探讨,对我国相关政策研究及法律制定极具借鉴意义。     

广东工会改革研究 —— 基于非公有制企业职工参与的视角

改革开放以来，经过持续的制度建构，非公有制企业的职工参与制度不断健全完善。但是，当 前非公有制企业劳资冲突事件的多发，说明在制度化、民主化和多元化的基础上，职工参与还需要提高参与质量。 广东工会经验表明，通过创新执行机制强化职工参与是新时代工会改革能有所突破的关键，而加强基层工会建 设发挥企业工会的主体性参与作用，培育职工的参与意识与能力，以及通过集体协商发展劳资协商民主，是提 高非公有制企业职工参与质量、化解劳资矛盾与冲突的三条基本路径。     

Elite perceptions of land reform in early republican Turkey

This article focuses on the land reform attempts of the single‐party regime in Turkey of the mid‐1930s through the mid‐1940s, culminating in the reform Law of 1945. Why the Turkish ruling elite wanted a land reform is still not adequately understood, and there are a number of controversial and often contradictory interpretations. The thesis here is that despite mainstream approaches to the issue in Turkish historiography, the land reform attempts during the single‐party era should be seen as part of the Kemalist project of conservative modernisation. The article argues that a variety of concerns were important in shaping the Turkish elite's thinking on land reform, including an ideology of peasantism combined with a fear of rural unrest (from sharecroppers, agricultural laborers and landless and land‐poor peasants); a fear also of urbanisation, proletarianisation and socialist ideas; a desire to strengthen Republican nationalist ideology in the countryside as a basis of regime support (with a particular emphasis on the Kurdish issue). The conclusion presents an interpretation of the Turkish land reform that connects the long‐and short‐term causes of the land reform Law of 1945.     

The politics of peasant burden in reform china

This article analyses the changing nature and role of the state in rural China during reform by examining the issue of peasant financial burdens. It argues that, despite some successes in transforming China's countryside, the state has not been reduced since the reform began in 1978. Rather, it is being reshaped (with certain distortions) with its major role changing from ‘redistributive’ to ‘regulatory’. This transition, epitomised by continuing expansion of the state and growing unruly exaction from peasants by local state agents, has been in the direction of neo‐patrimonialism where resources are contested by state, officials, and the masses. This three‐way struggle has led to tensions among the state, cadres, and peasants.     

Junior high school students’ use of their afterschool hours in Ghana: The role of household assets

Studies have examined a broad range of factors for how students use their time, but few attempts have been made to explore the nuanced link between different types of asset ownership and students' use of study time, particularly in resource-limited countries. This study uses data from junior high school students in Ghana to examine how students spend their time after school hours, the predictive influence of different types of household assets, and the extent to which these trends and relationships vary by gender. Polynomial quantile regression models were fitted across three quantiles (24th, 53rd, and 76th percentiles) to align with one hour, one and half hours, and two hours of study time. Results show that the average student spends well above the recommended 90 minutes on their schoolwork during afterschool hours, regardless of gender. Multivariate results indicate that owning limited assets tends to have a negative relationship with use of study time, but higher levels tend to be positively related to use of study time. Also, the predictive influence of asset ownership varies by asset type, and higher levels of asset ownership favor girls more than boys. Given this study's realtively small sample size, caution must be exercised in generalizing the study findings to the general population of junior high school students in Ghana. In light of the study's limitations, the finding of varying asset effect may have practical implications for asset development programs designed to enhance the well-being of low-income families.     

Claiming the land: Take‐overs by villagers in the Philippines with comparisons to Indonesia,Peru, Portugal,and Russia

Taking advantage of the tumultuous national political conditions during the mid and late 1980s, Filipino villagers launched a wave of land occupations, trying to realize ideas that they rarely dared to express during normal political conditions. This situation is similar to that of land seizures in Russia (1905–18), Peru (1960s), Portugal (1974–75), and Indonesia (1963–65). Other similarities are that villagers had ideas significantly at odds with the elite‐domianted order about how land should be used and by whom, a common thread being that priority should go to those most in need of a livelihood; resistance comes first at the level of ideas and in small, unobtrusive ways; and agicultural workers and peasants mobilized in considerable measure on their own.     

Soviet Peasants and Collectivization, 1930-39: Resistance and Adaptation

This article re-evaluates the widely held view that Soviet peasants responded only or predominantly with resistance to collectivization and work in Soviet collective farms. It analyses key examples of the evidence for this 'resistance interpretation' to show that the evidence is not representative of most peasants' actions. It presents new evidence and analysis to show that peasant responses cannot be reduced to resistance, that more often they adapted to the new system, and that they worked hard within the system to overcome famines.     

"No More Pressing Task than Organization in Southeast Asia": The AFL‐CIO Approaches the Vietnam War, 1947–64

A retrospective analysis of the employee purchase of the Weirton Steelworkers by 11,000 union workers brings into relief the critical role collective bargaining agreements had in motivating the original parent corporation, National Steel, to seek an alternative to closing the plant and subsequently to enabling employees to balance their desires for secure incomes and pensions with the company's financial obligations. There are three critical lessons from Weirton's experience. First, labor progressives created a political context that enabled the union leadership to leverage concessions from National Steel. Second, democratic practices instituted by the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) and the Independent Steelworkers Union's collective bargaining agreements enabled worker-owners to secure incomes and pensions. Third, collective action and collective interests created and sustained majority support for the ESOP. Had employees acted individually it is unlikely they would have sustained employment and pensions for twenty years.     

Women in counselling

During the last few years many new types of counselling institutions, offices, firms, and agencies dealing with giving advice have come into existence. In Poland, women's participation in these new institutions as well as in the traditional counselling offices differs depending on the type of problems which are solved there. Women more often fulfill the role of counsellor in counselling offices dealing with health, family, and childcare, which are traditionally treated as women's issues. At the same time, more women than men apply for counsel in these types of counselling offices. By contrast, in the new types of counselling/guidance offices dealing with economic, legal, and management problems, a woman counsellor appears more rarely than a man counsellor. When there are women in these new types of counselling offices, these women are forced to continuously demonstrate their competence and expertise. Women also more rarely use counsel given in the matters of economy, law, and management, but, as counsellors noticed, if a woman applies for advice, she is usually better informed and better prepared for taking advantage of the advice.     

Contesting Rural Resources: Emerging ‘Forms’ of Agrarian Production in Uzbekistan

The most recent land reform in Uzbekistan, in which Large Farm Enterprises (LFEs) were split into medium-sized fermer enterprises, left, alongside the country's overwhelming majority of small dekhan peasants, continued strong state intervention in agrarian production. Three ‘forms’ (rather than ‘modes’) of production emerged: (1) state-ordered production of cotton and wheat; (2) commercial production, in particular of rice; and (3) household production of other food staples, including wheat and rice. These production ‘forms’ or processes are characterised by distinct input and output relations, terms of trade and technical requirements. They interrelate through competition for limited resources, such as land, water and other inputs, rather than competition amongst the actors themselves (the state, the new medium-sized fermers and the small dekhan peasants). A contest over resources is particularly evident between the (state-ordered) cotton crop and the (commercial) rice crop in the case study on which our argument is based, namely the province of Khorezm, a downstream part of the Amu Darya river basin, in the western part of the country.     

Grounds for self-government? Changes in land ownership and democratic participation in Chinese communities

Do variations in land ownership affect people’s democratic participation? Quantitative, cross-country research on this topic suffers from the non-comparability of regulatory systems and cultures, and the use of crude indicators to identify participation. This study attempts to overcome these methodological problems, by employing indicators of procedural and substantive participation in a structured, diachronic comparison of qualitative data from five sites in China – an authoritarian state, which, however, requires residents of urban communities and villages to participate in ‘self-government’. It examines whether and why changing land from collective ownership to state ownership, and residents’ compensated acquisition of cash and secure, fungible assets, strengthens or weakens participation in self-government. In the research sites, collective land ownership is found to stimulate participation in self-government. Transformation of the land to state ownership and people’s acquisition of private property weakens participation. The robust results of the study support the direction of a causal argument that collective land ownership is conducive to democratic participation. These findings imply that scholars and policymakers should consider the potentially adverse political consequences of changing land ownership. A further implication is that, absent substantial political reform, an urbanized China might be less rather than more democratic at the community level.     

俄罗斯工会改革的历史与现实：基于社会统合主义的分析

俄罗斯工会在苏联解体之后经历了由计划经济到市场经济的转变,最终形成了社会统合主义的 模式。本研究在梳理俄罗斯工会改革历史的基础上,根据统合主义理论分析了俄罗斯工会在与政府的关系、对 工人利益的代表性和自身行动能力 3 个方面的现实情况。研究认为,俄罗斯工会在改革初期复杂、动荡的政治 经济背景下所追求的自由主义模式受历史因素影响并不成功。改革的转机出现在统一俄罗斯党成立之后,俄罗 斯工会与政府关系迅速改善,并在执政党的同情和支持下提升了自身对工人利益的代表性和行动能力,特别是 运用法律武器的能力。但俄罗斯工会也面临着新就业形式和移民劳工增长的挑战,还需要进一步的改革以适应 劳动力市场的复杂变化。     

对集体合同形式化的反思

我国目前劳动关系的现状非常严峻,已经对我国市场经济发展的正确方向构成了严重挑战。而在市场经济条件下调整劳动关系的最有效手段就是建立集体协商和集体合同制度。但在我国集体合同制度推进的过程中,集体合同形式化问题也凸现出来,严重影响了这一制度的健康发展。因此,加快工会体制改革,推进立法,建立多层次的集体协商结构,将是今后完善集体合同制度,避免形式化倾向的必然选择。     

The Rise,Fall and Future of the Jamaican Peasantry

This article examines the crisis of the Jamaican peasantry. Jamaica's peasants are struggling against pressures old and new, with the burden of their spatial inheritance magnified by a withering state, rising food imports following trade liberalisation, and oft-conflictive social relations. It begins by examining the historical formation of the peasantry after Emancipation, emphasising the unevenness of the landscape and the tensions between individualism and cooperation, before describing the protracted process of de-peasantisation, which has sped under structural adjustment reforms. Current conditions and future prospects are assessed through the insights and experiences of peasant farmers situated on the periphery of a plantation landscape. Ultimately, the future of peasant farming in Jamaica is seen to be bound up foremost in the struggle for land reform, and it is hoped that the current de-stabilisation of the plantation system will provide a new window for historic change.