Rethinking the repression-dissent nexus: assessing Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood's response to repression since the coup of 2013

This article examines the repression-dissent nexus in Islamist social movements. Several studies have overwhelmingly focused on the effects of repression on protest volume, level, and tactics. However, understanding the responses of individual members to regime repression and how they relate to the movement's collective response is rarely discussed. By analysing the response of the Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood to regime repression since the coup of 2013, this article explains the effects of repression on opposition movements. It argues that to understand the impact of repression on these movements, we need to differentiate between the collective and individual responses to repression. These two levels of analysis are crucial to better understand the repression-dissent nexus. Also, the article contends that collective and individual responses to repression cannot be explained by focusing solely on the structural and institutional factors (i.e. organization, ideology, leadership, etc.). Members’ personal experiences, memory, emotions, and trauma play a key role in shaping their response to repression. The article thus accounts for both the formal and informal effects of repression on Islamists.     

Minorities and marginality: pertinacity of Hindus and Sikhs in a repressive environment in Afghanistan

The situation of Hindus and Sikhs as a persecuted minority is a little-studied topic in literature dealing with ethno-sectarian conflict in Afghanistan. Hindu and Sikh communities' history and role in Afghanistan's development are examined through a structural, political, socioeconomic, and perceptual analysis of the minority populations since the country gained its independence in 1919. It traces a timeline of their evolving status after the breakdown of state structure and the ensuing civil conflicts and targeted persecution in the 1990s that led to their mass exodus out of the country. A combination of structural failure and rising Islamic fundamentalist ideology in the post-Soviet era led to a war of ethnic cleansing as fundamentalists suffered a crisis of legitimation and resorted to violence as a means to establish their authority. Hindus and Sikhs found themselves in an uphill battle to preserve their culture and religious traditions in a hostile political environment in the post-Taliban period. The international community and Kabul failed in their moral obligation to protect and defend the rights of minorities and oppressed communities.     

Political Economy of Southeast Asian Borderlands: Migration,Environment, and Developing Country Firms

The Chinese way of development shares many characteristics with the East Asian developmental state model. Key elements of this shared development model include state control over finance, direct support for state owned enterprises by the government, import substitution industrialisation in heavy industry, a high dependence on export markets and a high rate of domestic savings. Even the reform of corporate governance is not likely to change the basic features of the East Asian model in China. Among East Asian countries, China shares more similar characteristics with Taiwan rather than with Japan or Korea since China, like Taiwan, also has an economy of dual structure that divides the public and non-public sectors.     

Is environmentally sustainable and inclusive growth possible? Sub-Saharan Africa and emerging global norms on development

This paper critically reviews the debates on environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive growth with specific focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. It observes that, even considering its inherent limits, the discourse on growth is still imprisoned by the Washington Consensus mode of thinking. There have been attempts by various institutions and commissions appointed by heads of government to take the debate forward, but a lack of commonly agreed global norms undermines prospects for shifts in thinking. Nonetheless, countries need to undertake such efforts if there is to be any meaningful deliberation on environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive growth. In this regard, the paper also examines the strengths and weaknesses of efforts undertaken by South Africa thus far. Policy emphases on the role of the state and structural transformation that predominate in debates in formal institutions in the African continent are insufficient. This paper explores what is possible.     

我国公司环境法律责任制度的绿化:一个预防的视角

公司的环境法律责任包括民事责任、行政责任和刑事责任。当前,我国公司法律责任的设置存在根本性缺陷,即预防理念的缺失,主要表现在市场准入阶段公司设立的环境条件缺失、环境保护法律相关准入规定的缺陷、环境风险内控预防机制的空白、行政处罚手段的滞后性以及重大环境污染犯罪尚未"危险化"等。以预防理念全面"绿化"公司的环境法律责任,需要从如下方面加以努力:完善环境准入立法、建立以环境风险应对为中心的内部控制制度及责任体系、行政处罚方式的科学化、重大环境污染事故罪的"前置"及环境监管失职罪的修订。     

Gran Torino

Given the current constellation of fiscal, moral, and logistical problems facing its corrections industry, the USA is on the cusp of a widespread penal reform movement. For the past 200-plus years, each US penal reform that intended to diminish penal practices resulted in widening the reach and deepening the roots of the nation’s punishment system. The question asked here is: is the restorative justice movement in the USA headed the way of past benevolent penal reforms? A new type of social movement: the regressive social movement model is presented. Three past benevolent penal reforms – the penitentiary, the adult reformatory movement, and parole are dissected in order to formulate a regressive reform profile and tested against the restorative justice movement. Field research finds that a repeat performance of regressive reform is in progress. In each of the eight restorative justice movement, variables demonstrate characteristics evident in past benevolent penal campaigns, resulting in a redirection of the campaign’s course.     

Environmentalism and the internet: corporate greenwashers and environmental groups

Environmental degradation is a serious problem, for current populations and for future generations. Corporations are the largest offenders but seldom face the consequences of their actions. This article proposes that public relations campaigns and conflicting information on the internet pose significant challenges to calling for environmental accountability from corporations. Three companies – Coca‐Cola, Georgia Pacific, and Shell – are examined here in terms of questionable practices and public relations campaigns. While the internet could be an alternative news source, ‘corporate greenwash’ muffles a definitive voice on environmental issues. Both retributive and restorative justice processes are thwarted by misleading information. Despite environmental laws and efforts to increase accountability, calling for necessary change will continue to be exceedingly difficult without public knowledge of corporate behavior.     

Introduction: studying political violence while indicted – against objectivity and detachment

ABSTRACT

Knowledge construction should seek to embrace empiricism – the deriving of knowledge from data and experience – while not confusing this with a false notion of objectivity. As a truly objective approach is not only difficult but likely impossible to establish, it obscures the burden placed upon social scientists by sociologist C. Wright Mills who advocated for the study of society in order to change it. This action-centric, emancipatory-focused approach is a hallmark of the critical turn in the investigation of political violence. Regardless of how neutral scholars and teachers may try to appear, what does it mean when our audience – our readers, colleagues and students – glimpse behind the curtain and begin to understand knowledge producers as three-dimensional political actors with subjectivities, positionalities and passions? Upon embarking on a multi-semester research and writing process with undergraduate students, what did it mean to begin such a relationship only hours after being released from federal custody, and how did my position vis-à-vis powerful juridical discourses shape our collaborative scholarship and the process of shared knowledge construction?     

论公民海洋环境安全权——由渤海湾漏油事故引发的思考

2011年6月发生在我国渤海湾石油钻井平台的满油事故,给公民海洋环境利益造成巨大损害.目前受害公民实现索赔却略显艰难,其根源就在于公民海洋环境安全权的缺失.公民海洋环境安全权作为一种新兴的集合性权利,其产生和发展有着深刻的认识论、经济学和法学基础.该权利与其他公民权利并行不悖,并与其他法律制度相融合.本次渤海湾石油泄漏事故也在一定程度上拷问着公民海洋环境安全权的实践现状.     

日本环境犯罪的刑法理论发展

日本从战后废墟中快速重建,但其工业经济的发展却是以人们的生活环境为代价的,在一连串的公害事故后人们才觉醒到环境的重要,并将环境作为刑法上的重要法益。但是由于环境本身的特殊性,以保护个人利益为基础的传统刑法理论在处理环境犯罪方面明显不足,因此不得不提出相应的修正理论。例如客观归责上的疫学因果关系说,乃至于主观归责上的危惧感说。然而,在面临举证困难的同时,为了有效预防环境犯罪,提早保护不特定多数人的生命、身体乃至于财产安全,日本最终在立法上采用了危险犯的立法模式。日本环境犯罪的刑法理论发展,对我国具有一定借鉴价值。