brics in the Contemporary World: changing identities,converging interests

Abstract

This paper aims to address the reasons why the acronym brics is moving from being an easy marker to guide foreign investors interested in emerging markets to denoting an important political group of countries determined to promote major changes in international relations. Theoretically the paper draws on social constructivism to demonstrate that the changing identities of brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) can be treated as the main cause of the convergence of their interests in the international arena. Through a detailed analysis of these countries’ statements at the opening sessions of the UN General Assembly from 1991 to 2011, their social claims about themselves are retraced and the way they have judged the international sphere in which they engage is captured, in order to demonstrate the changing character of their identities. These new identities, it is argued, created the opportunity for converging interests, which explains the emerging political structure of brics . The paper concludes that, after four major summits and a significant number of wide-ranging low-level meetings, brics might be considered one of the major long-lasting forces shaping the new architecture of international relations in the 21st century.     

Convergence as political strategy: social justice movements,natural resources and climate change

Abstract

Critical scholars and activists have now been contending with a widely recognised convergence of global crises for a decade. The issues have intersected decisively, with staple food sources proving inaccessible for the world’s poor, banks foreclosing on the most vulnerable, fuel sources causing war and impacting migration, and climate change-related instabilities shaking low-income communities to their core. At the same time, agrarian, environmental, indigenous and fishers’ movements – among others – have used this moment to converge in their own right. This article explores this intertwining of social justice movements with an eye on such interrelated challenges. Its overall objective is, on one side, to provide some broad empirical brushstrokes on the intertwining of transnational social justice movements at the local, national and regional scales as they work with and trade frameworks of food sovereignty and climate justice. On the flip side, this article offers a set of tools to analyse and understand the politics of convergence as political strategy – as a means of advancing global social justice – against the rising tide of climate-related resource grabs.     

Inclusive partners? Internationalising South Korea’s chaebol through corporate social responsibility-linked development cooperation

Abstract

In recent years, non-traditional or ‘emerging’ donors such as South Korea have organised their development cooperation models in a manner that seeks to complement the capacities of the private sector by extending the overseas activities of domestic businesses. To better understand this process, this article examines the role of South Korea’s large, family-led conglomerates (chaebol) in its growing international development sector. In particular, we focus on how the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been used to link the role of its large, and frequently scandal-ridden, private companies to international development, and, by extension, how it has helped to internationalise state–business networks long associated with the Korean developmental state. We examine two strategies through which this has been carried out. The first is by extending the logic of creating shared value (CSV, a derivative of CSR) to aid and infrastructure projects in which chaebol and other state-linked businesses have participated. The second is by directly embedding CSR-based aid initiatives in the value chains of the specific chaebol themselves.     

Disrupting Daesh: Measuring Takedown of Online Terrorist Material and Its Impacts

Abstract

This article contributes to public and policy debates on the value of social media disruption activity with respect to terrorist material. In particular, it explores aggressive account and content takedown, with the aim of accurately measuring this activity and its impacts. The major emphasis of the analysis is the so-called Islamic State (IS) and disruption of their online activity, but a catchall “Other Jihadi” category is also utilized for comparison purposes. Our findings challenge the notion that Twitter remains a conducive space for pro-IS accounts and communities to flourish. However, not all jihadists on Twitter are subject to the same high levels of disruption as IS, and we show that there is differential disruption taking place. IS’s and other jihadists’ online activity was never solely restricted to Twitter; it is just one node in a wider jihadist social media ecology. This is described and some preliminary analysis of disruption trends in this area supplied too.     

Wither the ‘development contract’? Historical conjunctures in Naomi Hossain’s The Aid Lab: Understanding Bangladesh’s Unexpected Success

This paper examines methodological avenues for a historical sociology of development through a close reading of Naomi Hossain’s recent book, The Aid Lab: Understanding Bangladesh’s Unexpected Success (2017). Hossain’s conjunctural perspective, the formative moment of Bangladesh in environmental catastrophe, war and famine in the 1970s, establishes a novel account of the country’s development trajectory. Contingencies of the moment and consequent political uncertainties committed an emergent national elite to a largely informal but substantive social compact against future crises of subsistence. The result was a specific, transnational power configuration rendering Bangladesh a test case for developmental interventions and the production of knowledge regarding them. Debates in critical development studies have often posited that such ‘elite commitment’ is a consequence and not so much a precondition for social improvement, brought about through struggles from ‘below.’ How might these positions be reconciled by shifting the temporal frames of reference? By rendering historical processes legible as conflicting and complementary interactions between different social forces and actors? How can such actors be envisaged without presuming their identities and interests as fixed or given, but rather, as shaping and being shaped by such processes? These questions motivate the immanent critique and reappraisal of Hossain’s timely work, highlighting its significance for dynamic analyses of historical capitalism today through the ‘universal particularities’ of the national case.     

America’s Missing Leverage in Afghanistan and Pakistan: a structural analysis

Abstract

Despite strong shared interests and their dependence on US assistance, Kabul and Islamabad frequently fail to cooperate with the USA’s post-9/11 security agenda. Why doesn’t the USA have more leverage in these alliances and what can it change to be more influential? This article identifies four structural factors in Washington’s alliances in Afghanistan and Pakistan (‘Af-Pak’) contributing to Washington’s lack of coercive power: 1) the USA’s interest makes coercion difficult; 2) Kabul and Islamabad have more invested and will bargain to protect their interests; 3) the form of US commitment (an intense but explicitly temporary military commitment) produces incentives for Kabul and Islamabad to adopt short-term solutions, frequently running against US interests; and 4) the tenets of counterinsurgency policy cause Washington to be politically dependent on Kabul and Islamabad, effectively reducing its influence.     

The oppression/emancipation nexus in ongoing power struggles: Village—Power dynamics in Western Nepal 1

Abstract

How can we gain a more nuanced understanding of power struggles than is assumed under the ‘power as domination’ perception that attributes power to dominant actors who exercise control over others, and thus dichotomises domination and emancipation? This article addresses this question by exploring the power dynamics underlying ‘participatory’ public works in a village in western Nepal. Drawing on an alternative analytical framework that brings together Giddens' ‘structuration’ perspective and the Foucauldian notion of power, the case study illustrates that dominance and resistance are interwoven in day-to-day social interactions, and that the existing social order is continually being readjusted. The article concludes by discussing this study's implications for proponents of empowerment, namely the need to ascertain the emancipatory potentials that are immanent in daily power contestation, and then to develop strategies that compensate for the limitations of everyday struggles.     

Indigenous food sovereignty in a captured state: the Garifuna in Honduras

Abstract

This study explores the emergence of the Afro-Indigenous food sovereignty movement in the context of a captured Honduran state and unequal political economy. In contrast with national-level research that has advocated a policy of food security in the context of non-indigenous campesino movements, this work explains how food sovereignty is more appropriate regarding Garifuna Hondurans. In a political economy that has precluded other options, and given the deep cultural relation that Garifuna activists have to land and autonomy, food sovereignty provides a possibility around which Indigenous development can be animated. It encapsulates a local ‘fight’ response to repression as an alternative to northern ‘flight’, often via migrant caravans, that many Garifuna have undertaken. This study shows how food sovereignty, more than being a technical policy set, is a discursive and material node through which dispossessed and especially indigenous populations can enhance decolonial power in the contestation of entrenched hegemonic and institutionalised power in a corrupt, unequal and colonised political economy.     

Social Capital: the politico-emancipatory potential of a disputed concept

Since the middle of the 1990s the concept of social capital has provoked rapidly growing interest. Social theorists, policy makers and those ngos working on the edge of theory and practice became fascinated with social capital. International organisations like the World Bank, undp and the oecd upgraded social capital to the ‘missing link’ in understanding (under)development. However, it did not take long before the critique cast shadows on this euphoria. Initially the critique was concerned with problems of defining and measuring social capital and its inadequate theoretical elaboration. In a later stage the critique accused social capital of forming part of the anti-politics machine of the post-Washington consensus. Social capital would reflect a point of view in which there was no room for an analysis of power inequality and struggle over access to resources. This article starts with an overview of the most important problems attached to the notion of social capital. The focus is then shifted to the contours of the global political crisis, which acts as a frame of reference for an attempt to reassess the politico-emancipatory potential of social capital.     

The Benefits of Globalization: Why More for South Korea than Mexico?

ABSTRACT

This article examines the arguments for globalization and analyzes Mexico’s “maquiladora experience,” which indicates that globalization alone does not bring about a higher standard of living. The primary reason that Mexico has not benefitted as much as might be expected from globalization has to do with the poor quality of its governance, referring especially to public administration. This assertion is supported by a comparison of Mexico and South Korea. In explaining South Korea’s greater success, Political Elasticity (PE) theory is introduced, suggesting that political power needs to become elastic in two meanings of this word: a “rubber band” meaning (referring to the ability of leaders to delegate power without losing or diminishing it) and “a balloon meaning” (having to do with the ability of leaders to reliably influence the behavior of the general public). Based upon studies of rural and industrial development, South Korea is shown to be more politically elastic than Mexico. This article concludes by examining the lessons that Mexico can learn from Korea’s experience.     

The origins and politics,campaigns and demands by the international fisher peoples’ movement: an Indigenous perspective

Abstract

This reflective contribution discusses the intersection of Indigenous and Small Scale Fisheries’ (SSF) issues, and how the international SSF movement has a critical role in the broader struggle for the convergence of social justice regarding the environment, food and lifeways. I explore some of the political tensions around Indigenous and SSF struggles against global neoliberalisation of land and water resources, some of the successes and challenges of the international SSF movement, and future considerations for academic/activist ‘decolonising’ work.     

The Politics of the Past in Dagestan: National Unity and Symbolic Revolt

Abstract

Dagestan is inhabited by numerous ethnic communities with their own languages, cultures and histories. However, despite its ethnic and cultural diversity, the republic’s authorities have consistently sought to promote a unified concept of Dagestani identity. This policy has been challenged by local ethnic nationalists concerned about the future of their ethnic communities, which they saw as being endangered by assimilation and marginalisation. This struggle to secure political and social benefits began in the Soviet period and reached its height in the early 1990s. Resentment was particularly widespread among the Kumyks and Lezgins. Their dissatisfaction with the status quo resulted in a competition between inclusive (national) and exclusive (ethnic) approaches, which in turn manifested themselves in debates over historiography. This essay analyses the development and outcomes of this struggle from the 1950s through to the early 2000s, with an emphasis on the early 1990s.     

Young Married Women in the Russian Countryside: Women's Networks,Communication and Power

This essay explores the experiences of recently married young women living in rural Russia in the village of Karsun in the Ul’yanovsk Oblast’. It analyses the connections between women in rural communities looking at social networks and the power relations inherent within them. The ways in which forms of power among and between women (as well as between women and men) impact on young women's agency are critically appraised through an analysis of what this essay terms forms of ‘women's power’. The essay also shows how women's discussions of their experiences reflect the problems that the perceived physical and emotional absences of men present for younger married women and their attempts to develop forms of autonomy.     

Science-women: arcane knowledge and African spirituality in independent African-American cinema of the 1990s

ABSTRACT

This article explores the significant role played by arcane knowledge and expressions of African spirituality in the iconography of powerful black women in three films directed by independent African-American filmmakers in the 1990s: Sankofa (Haile Gerima, 1993, USA), Mother of the River (Zeinabu irene Davis, 1995, USA), and Eve’s Bayou (Kasi Lemmons, 1997, USA). My discussion draws on the orature and legendary tales of West African-based cosmologies in the African diasporas of the Americas and the concept (and practice) of ‘conjure’ in African–American cultures. It argues that heroic black women characters possessing extraordinary or supernatural powers not only predate the current vogue of cinematic superheroism, but that the iconography of such ‘science-women’ is embedded in culturally specific, African-rooted cosmological, epistemological and spiritual contexts. I argue that the feminine power celebrated in the films by the independent African-American filmmakers discussed here draw on legendary and historical accounts of women in African diasporic oral, literary and spiritual traditions for their cinematic storytelling to construct an affirmative and paradigmatic model of black female heroism based on empowering African spiritual beliefs and arcane knowledge.     

Exu is not Satan – the dialogics of memory and resistance among Afro-Brazilians

ABSTRACT

In 2000s Brazil, an unprecedented number of Brazilian afrodescendentes (Afro-Descendants) have been mobilizing to secure rights and resources for the Brazilian black population. From carnival parading in ‘cultural’ groups to electoral campaigning, from consciousness-raising education to antiracist community outreach, black activists have been aggressively taking a critical stance toward the discursive fabric of Brazilian race relations and national identity. Placing examples of their discursive struggles over Afro-Brazilian history and culture under the lens of intertextual and heteroglossic relations, I illustrate black activists’ efforts to dispute what they see as misconceptions about black people and blackness that have found their way into the dominant narrative conceptions of Brazilian society. In doing so, I argue, they are accomplishing something of broader social significance: They are revising not only the history and collective memory of race relations in Brazil but blackness itself.     

Hezbollah and the framing of resistance

Abstract

Hezbollah is a holistic network whose social, political, military and cultural dimensions are all parts of a discourse of resistance. Conducting a qualitative frame analysis of speeches by Hezbollah’s General Secretary Nasrallah, supported by interviews with Hezbollah leadership privy to its ideology, this study analyses the construction of muqawama (resistance). It argues that resistance is a complex social phenomenon, which can be manifested, for example, in the differences in how resistance is framed in varying contexts, often addressing different audiences. However, three unifying themes emerged from the frame analysis: diversity of resistance, normalisation of resistance and social dimensions of resistance.     

Coordination and control in Russia’s foreign policy: travails of Putin’s curators in the near abroad

Abstract

This article seeks to challenge the conception of the Russian state as being centred on Vladimir Putin by looking at the actors implementing Russia’s foreign policy in its near abroad. In particular, it explores the activities of curators (kuratory), a term applied in Russia to describe officials tasked with making things work often bypassing, and sometimes competing with, formal institutions. Following the state transformation framework, the argument put forward in the article is that curation (kuratorstvo), as a practice of coordination and control in Russia’s system of governance, can be seen as a manifestation of fragmentation and internationalisation of Russia’s foreign policy making. The empirical basis for this article is a case study of Russia’s policy towards Abkhazia, which Russia officially recognised as a sovereign state in 2008. This article addresses the involvement of curators in their attempts to exert political influence as an expression of fragmentation as well as emerging institutionalised curation in development assistance as a part of internationalisation.     

Maritime Strategies of Rising Powers: developments in China and Russia

Abstract

This paper seeks to uncover the drivers of maritime strategy formulation in Russia and China, two active players on the international stage that have often been identified as both rising and regional powers. The paper takes as its starting point the realist theory of state power and threat perception, which provide the means and motivation for states to accumulate material capabilities in an effort to safeguard their position in the international system. Given the increasing pressures of a changing security environment, China’s and Russia’s maritime strategies show a trend towards greater complexity and capability. The paper also addresses the impact of the revolution in military affairs ( rma ) and its subsequent manifestation as force transformation in Western states, especially the USA. Given that this new, qualitatively focused way of war has gained supremacy, at least where high-intensity inter-state war is concerned, the question remains of whether the Chinese and Russians will choose to emulate the leading powers in the system or, instead, will forge into the unknown and formulate an entirely different and innovative maritime strategy.     

‘Liberation Technology’ or ‘Net Delusion’? Civic Activists’ Perceptions of Social Media as a Platform for Civic Activism in Belarus and Ukraine

Abstract

This article analyses activists’ attitudes towards using social media for civic actions in authoritarian and democratising countries. Specifically, it examines whether civic activists in Belarus and Ukraine perceive social media as ‘liberation technology’ or as unhelpful and overhyped, a ‘net delusion’. We compare the ways in which civic activists use social media for the purpose of spreading information, networking and mobilisation. We find that social media is used by them for civic activism in order to campaign for civil and political liberties in their countries. Civic activists are generally enthusiastic about the use of social media, however we highlight challenges arising from socio-political conditions as well as negative consequences of activists’ online engagement.     

Slavery food,soul food,salvation food: veganism and identity in the African Hebrew Israelite Community

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews the transformation of meaning of food items central to African American fare from symbols of slavery to means of salvation as the African Hebrew Israelite Community (AHIC) live out their Biblically inspired lifestyle and perfect the vegan diet at its core. Although originating in Chicago in the late 1960s, for over 40 years the institutional and residential base of this transnational millenarian community has been in the Israeli desert town of Dimona. Based on long-term ethnographic acquaintance with their foodways in Israel and in the US, our analysis follows the AHIC’s eclectic incorporation of circulating religious, political, and scientific theories into their Bible-based cosmological-nutritional tenets of regenerative health and spiritual salvation. We argue that their ‘Edenic Diet’ reacts to the traumatic history of African Americans as slaves and as a discriminated against minority in the US, by serving as a means in their struggle for place and acceptance in modern Israel and an active component in their social and spiritual plans for the future.