SATI AND PERFORMATIVITY

This article explores some of the conceptual and representational difficulties sati presents for Western feminist analysis, and draws upon Judith Butler's concept of performativity to generate an account of the constitution of satis’ subjectivities and agencies that may also provide a basis for theoretical and political contestations of sati.     

Volatile voters,short-term choices? An analysis of the vote choice determinants of stable and volatile voters in Great Britain†

The increase of electoral volatility in established democracies is typically interpreted as proof that short-term factors are increasingly important determinants of vote choice. The empirical evidence to support this assertion, however, is relatively weak. This paper addresses this question by investigating the impact of both long- and short-term determinants on the vote choices of stable and volatile voters in Britain. Analysis of three British election panels (1992–1997, 1997–2001 and 2005–2010) indicates that short-term factors – especially economic issues – do have more weight in determining the vote choices of volatile voters compared with stable voters. However, the results also reveal that the growth in instability of voting behaviour is driven mainly by the weakening impact of long-term factors and not by increasing importance of short-term determinants of the vote choice. Short-term predictors are becoming more important, therefore, but this gain in strength is in relative rather than absolute terms.     

The contested terrain of land governance reform in Myanmar

State control of land plays a critical role in producing land dispossession throughout the Global South. In Myanmar, the state’s approach towards territorial expansion has driven the country’s system of land governance, resulting in widespread and systemic land grabbing. This article investigates ongoing land governance reforms as key terrains for contesting such abuses of power. Employing a relational land governance approach, we view reform processes as shaped by changing power-laden social relations among government, civil society, and international donor actors. Legal and regulatory reforms in Myanmar potentially act as sites of meaningful social change but in practice tend to maintain significant limitations in altering governance dynamics. Civil society organizations and their alliances in Myanmar have played an important role in opening up policy processes to a broader group of political actors. Yet, policies and legal frameworks still are often captured by elite actors, becoming trapped in path dependent power relations.     

New Geographies of Disadvantage: Implications for Service Delivery

Shifts are apparent in the spatial distribution of disadvantage in Australia since the 1970s. Not only are new sites of disadvantage emerging (small rural towns, manufacturing centres, coastal welfare regions, some outer suburbs), but research suggests a possible spatial cleavage between best-accessed Melbourne and Sydney, and 'the rest' of the country. At the same time, examples of provision and delivery of services continue to occur locally andregionally that demonstrate lack of attention to the characteristics of the places in which those services are received. The paper calls for spatially conscious public policy in service delivery, and considers the possibilities of this occurring if governments form partnerships with other organisations to provide services for communities.     

Difference revisited: Women,men, and religious discourse

The study of language as a ‘site of struggle’ has generated a burgeoning body of feminist research. Over the past decade the two concepts central to the feminist debate on language— language and woman—have come under scrutiny from a variety of theoretical fronts. Recognising the inherent instability of both these categories, this paper adopts a poststruc‐turalist approach to the discussion on gender and language in an examination of one area of gender contestation—religious proclamation. An analysis of the discursive construction of four preaching events shows the ‘gendering’ of the whole communicative process to be more complex and ambiguous than previous studies on gender and preaching have suggested.     

“龙象并肩”:中印非传统安全合作

非传统安全合作是国际关系领域的新焦点。近年来,越来越多的国际关系学者开始关注日益凸显的非传统安全问题,包括恐怖主义、金融危机、跨国有组织犯罪、传染性疾病、气候变化、移民难民、复合性自然灾害、自然资源枯竭或跨界资源冲突等。非传统安全挑战严重威胁着区域安全,东亚和南亚地区也不例外。审视中国和印度这两个地缘相连的竞争大国之间的关系以及中印双边非传统安全合作,从传统安全角度看,长期以来存在的领土争议是阻碍中印关系发展的核心问题,而从非传统安全角度看,中印之间的合作交流却超过以往。中印之间存在的传统安全问题和非传统安全问题之间的关联,经济安全、能源安全、民族分裂主义与恐怖主义、水资源安全、流行性疾病、海洋安全、生态安全等领域是双方能够实现合作的非传统安全优先领域,而"和合主义"理念范式与"多元共赢"合作模式为中印之间的非传统安全合作提供了重要的理论指导,从而展示出中印共同携手发展的可能与前景。