E-government and moral citizenship: the case of Estonia

The present article concerns Estonian e-government, that is, the digitalization of government and public administration, and the way e-government produces a moral citizen. Although several case studies on e-government exist, they have seldom been sensitive to the local conditions shaping the functions and social meaning of digitalization. E-government involves producing knowledge, and the present article draws on a theoretical perspective that stresses the tight relationship between knowledge and power. In Estonia, the power–knowledge regime is characterized by centralization. Centralization is the condition for a firm national e-government policy, and within this policy, an image of the unique Estonian citizenry is produced. The Estonian moral citizen who emerges out of e-government is de-politicized and detached from a social context, on the one hand, and strongly politicized and attached to a specific ethno-national community, on the other.     

The Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding Ten Years on: Critical Reflections and Stimulating Ideas on an Evolving Scholarship

ABSTRACT

The Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. This special volume opens up with a selection of nine of the most influential articles published in the journal. JISB's editorial team has asked the authors for their reflections on their original articles, telling us more about the writing process at that time, what they would do differently (with hindsight), or how they see their articles contributing to current debates on intervention and statebuilding. We have selected one article per volume, and we have ordered the contribution starting from volume 1 (2007) to volume 9 (2015). The articles will be made open access for the year, and we highly recommend (re-)reading the original articles along with the comments from the authors.     

论食品安全监管的制度创新

我国《食品安全法》在食品安全监管方面有若干制度创新,目前监管合作比监管分工更具挑战性与艰巨性,因而应废除各类商品免检制度。政府官员的问责机制不能取代国家对受害消费者的赔偿责任。食品安全监管部门应树立发展与规范并重、公平与效率兼顾、监管与服务相统一、监管与维权的理念。     

The role of the Asia Pacific Partnership in discursive contestation of the international climate regime

After withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol, the US Bush Administration and the Australian Howard Government pursued an international climate change policy focussed on voluntary international agreements outside the UN climate negotiations. This strategy included the formation of several climate agreements directed at technology development, including the 2005 Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP). The APP provides a model for international climate change policy directed at voluntary national greenhouse gas intensity targets, technology development through sectoral public–private partnerships and technology diffusion through trade. This article situates the APP within these US and Australian inspired climate agreements formed outside the UN negotiations. Bäckstrand and Lövbrand’s (in M. Pettenger (ed.) The social construction of climate change: power knowledge norms discourses, 2007) discourse analysis in relation to the international climate negotiations is used to explore differences between the APP and UN climate treaties. We find the APP embodies a discourse of what we call ‘deregulatory ecological modernisation’ that promotes limited public funding to ease informational failures in markets for cleaner technologies and management practices. The deregulatory ecological modernisation discourse is a deeply intensive market liberal approach to international climate change policy, which contests binding emission reduction targets and the development of a global carbon market. The USA, Australia, Japan and Canada represented a core group of countries that used the APP to promote the deregulatory ecological modernisation discourse and thereby contest any deepening of developed nations' emission reduction targets for the post-2012 period. However, with changes of leadership and new parties in power in the USA and Australia, it appears that the deregulatory ecological modernisation discourse has lost ground compared to a reengagement with discourses supportive of developed country emission reduction targets and equity-based adaptation and technology transfer assistance for developing nations.     

Commentary: Food regime for thought

This essay engages with Henry Bernstein's critical survey of food regime analysis, focusing on the claim that my interpretation of the food regime takes a misguided ‘peasant turn’. I argue Henry's representation loses sight of my reformulation of the ‘agrarian question’, as more than analysis of the uneven process by which capital subordinates landed property, and therefore of the class fate of the peasantry, as such. Rather it is about social and ecological fate on a global scale, involving questions of ecosystem survival, precarious labor circuits, urban slum proliferation, privatization of states, financialization, intellectual (property) rights, climate change mitigation and so on. Significantly, global recognition of these connections to processes of agro-industrialization and enclosure was informed by a ‘peasant’ mobilization that would be unthinkable within the terms of the classical agrarian question. Peasant organizations catalyzed challenge to the neoliberal food order institutionalized in the World Trade Organization (WTO) regime, in a time of massive dispossession. Politicizing neoliberal ‘food security’ as an agribusiness project, the ‘food sovereignty’ counter-movement used a politics of strategic essentialism to unmask the undemocratic and impoverishing architecture of the ‘free trade’ regime privileging corporate rights over state and citizen rights. In effect, this counter-movement performed a food regime analysis from within, importantly reaching beyond a peasant project. This essay revisits the comparative-historical method by which the food regime trajectory can be understood, as a contradictory set of interacting forces and relations that complicate and shape and reshape its politics, and yet allow identification of emergent possibilities.     

In-between liberal authoritarianism and electoral authoritarianism: Hong Kong’s democratization under Chinese sovereignty, 1997–2016

On the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the handover, Hong Kong’s transition towards a full democracy remains unsettled. Drawing upon the contemporary theories of hybrid regimes, this article argues that manipulations adopted by electoral authoritarian governments have become increasingly common in Hong Kong today. As Hong Kong’s elections, opposition activities, and media have been increasingly put under electoral authoritarian-style manipulations, the city-state is now situated in the “political grey zone” in-between liberal authoritarianism and electoral authoritarianism and its transition into a full democracy remains nowhere in sight. The case study of Hong Kong will help enrich the existing comparative literature on hybrid regimes by developing a new “in-between category” and offering an interesting case of democratization of sub-national polity.     

Modes of transition and the timing of separatist war onset: a comparative analysis of South Ossetia and Kosovo

This paper compares the escalation of civil war in South Ossetia and Kosovo and shows how different modes of transition deeply influenced the timing and type of conflict in these two cases. It argues that regimes resulting from a transition from above – when the elite in power leads the process of regime change and imposes its political agenda on other social actors – are more likely to ensure political stability in the short term, since governments are more cohesive internally, enjoy the support of the military, and can rely on a loyal bureaucracy. In contrast, regimes that emerge from transitions from below are more likely to experience civil war with an ethnic minority in the short term because of an intrinsic weakness of the elite in power. Under these circumstances, the newcomers need to win the loyalty of the military and of the bureaucracy, and separatist groups can take advantage of the incumbents’ weaknesses and try to build resources to militarily challenge the state.     

Contemporary Russian nationalisms: the state,nationalist movements,and the shared space in between

For several years, various nationalist groups and the Russian state have been competing over nationalism as a political concept and for popular support to nationalist claims. This paper analyzes the relationship between the state and anti-government, ethnocentric nationalistic groups that gather annually in an event called “the Russian March.” Emphasis is on the change in that relationship that happened in 2014, when the state added efforts to channel and mobilize the nationalists to its previous repressive and controlling measures. The article conceptualizes the competition over the nationalist argument in contemporary Russia as a case of dissentful and consentful contention in hybrid regimes, and shows how the dissentful nationalists have been forced to make way for the more consentful ones. Until recently, the room for maneuver for the radical nationalists was relatively wide. The events in Ukraine, however, divided the nationalists, and since 2014 radical nationalists have faced increased state repression. At the same time, pro-government nationalist actors have strengthened, and new players have appeared in the field. These developments tell us not only about the Kremlin’s diminished tolerance for dissentful contention, but also about the importance of the nationalist argument in Russian politics today.     

Climate Adaptation in Canada: Governing a Complex Policy Regime

Climate adaptation is a complex policy area, in which knowledge, authority, and resources are fragmented among numerous public agencies, multiple levels of government, and a wide range of nongovernmental actors. Mobilizing and coordinating disparate public and private efforts is a key challenge in this policy domain, and this has focused research attention on the governance of adaptation, including the dynamics of interaction among interests and the institutions that facilitate collective action. This paper contributes to the study of adaptation governance by adopting the policy regimes perspective, an analytical framework designed to make sense of the loose governing arrangements surrounding complex, fragmented problems. The perspective's constructs are applied to a longitudinal case study of adaptation governance in Canada, which identifies, analyzes, and evaluates the policy ideas, institutions, and interests that comprise Canada's adaptation policy regime.     

Learning to live with irregular migration: towards a more ambitious debate on the politics of ‘the problem’

What might be gained by learning to live with ‘the problem’ of irregular migration, rather than attempting to solve it? This article engages two senses of ‘the problem’ at stake: first, the ongoing nature of displacement and migration and second, the contested justice claims that sit behind different policy perspectives. The second sense of the problem (its political dimension) is rarely addressed explicitly in public debate. Yet direct engagement with the political dimension offers the potential to unlock debate from a polarised impasse. To make this argument, I first diagnose debate on irregular migration in terms of three archetypal positions and examine their implicit justice claims. I then argue for a more ambitious debate that pushes contending justice claims to their logical extensions. Debate of this kind requires a more coherent defence of justice claims, whether they are based in communitarian, cosmopolitan, anti-capitalist or hybrid values with respect to citizenship and political community. The article concludes with an illustration of how this approach can generate momentum for less circular, more sustainable and politically achievable policy responses. The argument is made with reference to illustrative examples from Australia and Europe but holds for a variety of contexts where ‘the problem’ is framed in similar ways.