Globalization,democratization, and the Arab uprising: the international factor in MENA's failed democratization

What explains the almost wholly negative impact of international factors on post-uprising democratization prospects? This article compares the utility of rival “diffusionist” and neo-Gramscian political economy frames to explain this. Multiple international factors deter democratization. The failure of Western democracy promotion is rooted in the contradiction between the dominance of global finance capital and the norm of democratic equality; in the periphery, neo-liberalism is most compatible with hybrid regimes and, at best, “low intensity democracy”. In MENA, neo-liberalism generated crony capitalism incompatible with democratization; while this also sparked the uprisings, these have failed to address class inequalities. Moreover at the normative level, MENA hosts the most credible counter-hegemonic ideologies; the brief peaking of democratic ideology in the region during the early uprisings soon declined amidst regional discourse wars. Non-democrats – coercive regime remnants and radical charismatic movements – were empowered by the competitive interference of rival powers in uprising states. The collapse of many uprising states amidst a struggle for power over the region left an environment uncongenial to democratization.     

Rethinking Subaltern Resistance

Abstract

This special issue seeks to rethink “resistance” as a critical social science concept in the light of a range of critiques since the 1980s. The five articles in this issue draw their empirical materials from contemporary India, but their arguments have significant implications for those working on other parts of Asia and the world. The articles acknowledge the inherent ambiguities and ambivalences of subaltern resistance in the face of hegemonic social formations, yet, shorn of exoticising and homogenising tendencies, resistance can be reconceptualised as the negotiation rather than negation of social power. Such a reconceptualisation is useful to study a wide range of contentious politics from foot-dragging through protests to social revolutions under a single analytic umbrella. Resistance, in this sense, ought to be recognised as a vital part of a critical realist ontology of society, which helps us understand and critique existing structures of social domination in order to pursue emancipatory possibilities via the generation of social scientific knowledge.     

Resisting the Global Slum: Politics,Religion and Consumption in the Remaking of Life Worlds in the Twenty‐First Century

The volatility of Latin American society is producing political challenges to neoliberal capitalism, but these are complicated by the transformations neoliberalism has wrought in everyday social life. This paper explores tensions between movements to ‘democratise democracy’ and politics orientated to controlling the national state, while also considering apolitical forms of ‘resistance’ to humiliating conditions of life and the impact of new religious movements. I argue that although no instant utopias are likely, there are positive as well as negative possibilities in the way that apparently contradictory developments are combining to transform the established historical contours of hegemony in the region.     

跨文明传播的不对称性

当今世界的信息传播以跨文明为主要特征。这种跨文明的传播以不同文明的异质性冲突为背景,存在着传播霸权、不对称传播和只拿来不送出等问题。解决的途径除依靠文明内部经济文化的发展,还必须依赖于跨文明研究与对话,寻求不同文明之间的互补与共存。     

European political parties: A (timidly) rising actor in the EU political system

The Lisbon Treaty sets ambitious goals for the Union in the field of external relations, but makes limited changes in the pursuit of these goals. The role of the High Representative is reinforced and an External Action Service will be set up, but decisions on the common foreign and security policy are still to be taken by consensus. The Representative and the Service will seek to facilitate the emergence of such consensus and to increase the effectiveness of its external implementation. But this can only be a gradual process, the success of which will depend largely upon the continuing political will of the member states.     

以提升文化自觉来抵制西方文化殖民主义

结束了东西方冷战之后,文化殖民主义成为当代殖民主义的重要体现。中国要抵制西方的文化殖民主义,必须提高自身文化自觉的力量,做到对内强化民族意识,重构社会主义核心价值观的话语体系;对外强化文化安全战略,有效地抵制西方的文化霸权。     

Singapore's National Day Rally speech: A site of ideological negotiation

This article analyses the inaugural National Day Rally speeches of three Singapore prime ministers. It locates these speeches in the continuous ideological work that the People's Action Party (PAP) government has to do in order to maintain consensus and forge new alliances among classes and social forces that are being transformed by globalisation. Increasingly, these speeches have had to deal with the contradictions between nation-building and the tensions between the liberal and reactionary tendencies of the global city. It is argued that such a situation has made it futile for the government to attempt a straightforward ideological mobilisation of the people into a relatively homogeneous national community. The PAP government's ideological struggle to forge consensus has been balanced by a strategy of divide-and-rule. Ironically, the rally speeches have been as much about dividing as they have been about uniting.     

The contribution of Archie Mafeje to the debate on land reform in Africa

ABSTRACT

This article situates the election of Barack Hussein Obama as President of the United States of America within the current global political economy. It examines the major tenets of neo-liberalism, the founding ideology of this economy, and the policies by which neo-liberal ideology targeted and achieved a diminution of global state authority concomitant with a rise of market sovereignty. The consequences have been disastrous for the evolution of constitutional democracy and are at the root of the current economic crisis. As a critical factor that propelled Barack Obama's election, this article argues that Obama's presidency may offer a turning point away from a neo-liberal ideology and towards a strengthened commitment to constitutional democracy.     

酷刑与法律霸权

作为一个价值概念,酷刑在不同的社会和空间体系中的定义与价值都不相同。如果说在前现代社会中酷刑的价值在于刑罚的一般预防作用,那么在现代社会中酷刑的价值只能是负面意义的,反酷刑则成为文明的象征。但是,要警惕“反酷刑”向法律霸权或绝对理性的蜕变。     

后殖民理论视野中东方民族文化的历史命运

后殖民理论揭露出从殖民时期到全球化时代西方对东方的隐蔽的文化霸权,东方民族的文化在西方的知识生产和文化渗透下,被扭曲被贬低,被掩盖被抹杀。东方民族也有对西方的文化抵抗,但力量是非常微小的,东方民族文化的历史命运在后殖民理论视野中是悲观和无奈的。在东方民族面对全球化时代新的一轮西方文化冲击时,东方民族应坚守自己的民族文化。