Post-secular Messianism Against the Law: Judith Butler on Walter Benjamin and ‘Sacred Life’

This essay focuses on Judith Butler’s configuration in Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism (2012a) of sacred life from the mystical motifs that traverse Walter Benjamin’s writings as the pivot of an anti-identitarian ethics committed to non-violent resistance. To gain critical leverage on Butler’s post-secular stance, my analysis turns to Talal Asad’s ‘Redeeming the “Human” Through Human Rights’ chapter from Formations of the Secular (2003), where he enunciates a disparity between a ‘pre-civil state of nature’ and the notion of ‘inalienable rights’ that informs the subject’s rights under secular law. In underscoring the secular state’s inability or refusal to ascribe sacredness to ‘real living persons’ over and against ‘“the human” conceptualized abstractly, or imagined in a state of nature’ as presumed by natural law, Asad indirectly articulates what is at stake in Butler’s explication in Parting Ways of Benjamin’s ‘Critique of Violence’. In this context, Butler unpacks Benjamin’s remarks about the sixth commandment’s non-coercive disposition and the inner struggle its provisional applicability prompts. A conception of ‘sacred life’ crystallizes through Butler’s emphasis on the open-endedness of this struggle, which encourages us to abandon a solipsistic investment in our own suffering in the process of acknowledging its eternally transient rhythm. I argue that Butler supplements this motif by drawing upon Hannah Arendt’s grounding of the political in cohabitation. My contention is that while ‘sacred life’ forms the backbone of Butler’s affirmation of civil disobedience, Arendt empowers Butler’s ethics to transcend Benjamin’s Jewish-messianic melancholy by radicalizing the passivity that refracts it.     

Family Firms,Networks and ‘Ethnic Enterprise’: Chinese Food Industry in Britain

Chinese family enterprises in the United Kingdom have penetrated many different sectors of the economy, including restaurants, wholesaling, retailing, trading, manufacturing, property development, computer services and investment holding. Among the companies in these sectors, those involved in different segments of the food industry, as manufacturers, retailers and wholesalers, reputedly feature characteristics of Chinese culture. A majority of these enterprises, for example, function as family firms. This study explores the assertion that, among companies owned by ethnic minorities, culture strongly influences form of business development. This argument will be assessed through a focus on Chinese food-based enterprises in the UK. Two family-controlled companies, Seven Seas (Frozen Food) Ltd and Dayat Foods Packaging Ltd, were selected as case studies as they are involved in key business components of the Chinese food chain industry. Through an in-depth comparative study of the history and development of these two firms, we consider the argument that Chinese businesses have evolved well because of family ties and their inclusion in mutually-beneficial ethnically-constructed networks. Through these case studies, we provide an alternative perspective to diasporic Chinese business development which brings into question the extensive use of the concept of ethnic enterprise.

Desistance as a Developmental Process: A Comparison of Static and Dynamic Approaches

New research in the field of developmental criminology has led researchers to reconceptualize desistance as a behavioral process that unfolds over the life course. This approach puts more emphasis on the pathways by which people reach the state of non-offending, and less emphasis on the state of non-offending itself. This reconceptualization has implications for how we measure desistance in longi-tudinal data. In this paper, we suggest that the traditional measurement approach is inconsistent with this view, and we present an alternative measurement approach based on the premises of developmental criminology. Although not perfect, we argue that the dynamic measure better describes the key elements of the process of desistance. Both approaches are implemented using data from the Rochester Youth Development Study, a longitudinal study of youthful offenders. We demon-strate that the two approaches identify different people as desistors. Moreover, we argue that the dynamic definition of desistance has more promise for providing insight into the changes that are the behavioral focus of the desistance process.     

Political economy,the Agrarian question and the comparative method

This is the text of an Inaugural Lecture, given at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, on 28 October, 1994. In it the case for classical political economy, and especially its Marxist variant, as a means of analysing the problems of economic development, is argued. Three major preoccupations of classical political economy are identified: accumulation, class and the state. The agrarian question is considered, and the significance of these in its analysis is posited. With the agrarian question in mind, the importance of the comparative method is urged. Some problems associated with the comparative method are considered, and, in the political economy context, the strength of the case‐oriented rather than the variable‐oriented variant of the comparative approach is stressed.     

OMAN: A CENTURY OF OIL EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT

This is the history of the search for, and eventual discovery of, oil in Oman, from the first geological survey in 1925 by George Lees and his party through to modern times. For many years survey work was hampered by disputes between the tribes and the Sultan. Then bad luck with the Fahud-1 well in 1957 meant that it was not until 1963 that oil was finally struck in the Natih field. Oil quickly became the mainstay of the Omani economy. This is the slightly edited text of the lecture which he delivered to the Society on 20 February 2008.     

The Taiwanese Economic “Miracle”: Continuing?

The island of Taiwan has successfully managed 60 years of fast-paced economic growth. Taiwan is a demonstrably resilient player in the global economy, while also maintaining high levels of income equality. However, there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding whether the factors that have enabled and sustained the Taiwanese development project thus far will be an adequate means of managing the contemporary challenges facing the island. Taiwan may be becoming increasingly vulnerable to global economic conditions, and the island’s future seems also to be increasingly tied to developments in the Chinese mainland. This paper examines the prospects for a continuing Taiwanese growth paradigm from both a cultural and an economic perspective and finds reason for optimism. This optimism is contingent on the strength of international export markets and prudent management of cross-Strait relations with the Chinese mainland.     

Transforming security sectors: the IMF and World Bank approaches

Since the end of the Cold War, donors have come to realise that when security sectors operate autonomously, with scant regard for the rule of law, democratic principles, and sound management practices, sustainable, poverty-reducing development is extremely di?cult, if not impossible, to achieve. Because of the substantial ?nancial resources and technical expertise at their disposal, there is a growing expectation that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will play an important part in supporting improved security-sector governance. These organisations have, however, long taken the position that, because of restrictions on political activities in their Articles of Agreement, their involvement in issues pertaining to the security sector must be limited. This article suggests that a governance approach to the security sector is well within the mandate of both organisations. And it is necessary for the Bank and the Fund to address the quality of security-sector governance if they are to be e?ective in carrying out two of their core functions: reforming public institutions and strengthening governance.