Cultivating “success” and “failure” in policy: participatory irrigation management in Nepal

Introduced over a decade ago and considered largely successful by irrigation professionals, Irrigation Management Transfer and Participatory Irrigation Management (IMT/PIM) policies were recently reviewed and seen to have resulted in more cases of “failure” than “success”. Primary research on two IMT/PIM projects in Nepal, which were among the few “successes” in the assessment supporting a “failed” PIM, shows how such policy-driven evaluations, when defining success, overlook incongruities between policies, institutions, and the evolving dynamics around class, caste, ethnicity, and gender. Without exploring the dynamics of practice, the process of “cultivating” success and/or failure in evaluations provides little insight on how irrigation management works on the ground.     

The role of caste in the implementation of herbal gardens in Bangalore

Over the past few decades home garden research has emphasised the promotion of home gardening for nutritional and other welfare benefits for the poor in urban areas. Still, the urban communities who cultivate plants in their home gardens are in general represented as rather uniform groups, and no distinction is made in terms of caste, ethnic groups, or social class. This article asserts that social stratification represents an important aspect that needs to be taken into account while devising educational programmes and community projects for the promotion of home herbal gardens in urban areas.     

Microcredit and power: examining how and why women encounter domination in Bangladesh

Using data from a recent ethnographic research project on microcredit, power, and poverty in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, this article demonstrates that the relationship of women with both NGOs and male relatives is one of dependency and subordination. Gendered power relations, embedded in NGO practices and socio-cultural gender norms, influence the female borrowers to accept the domination of the fieldworkers and their male relatives. This article examines how and why NGOs create power inequalities between fieldworkers and female borrowers, why the fieldworkers dominate a group of women, and why these women continue to participate in microcredit programmes.     

Religion and attitudes towards corruption in India: a collective action problem?

This paper argues that religion influences the ways that people think and speak about corruption, typically leading to condemnation. However, it is also argued that, in a systemically corrupt country, such condemnation is unlikely to influence actual corrupt behaviour. Based on fieldwork in India, the paper finds that existing anti-corruption policies based on a principal-agent understanding of corruption, even if they incorporate religious organisations and leaders, are unlikely to work, partly because people consider “religion” to be a discredited entity. Instead, the paper argues that if corruption were to be seen as a collective action problem, anti-corruption practice would need significant rethinking. Despite its current lack of influence, revised policies and practices may see a role for religion.     

共建21世纪海上丝绸之路——走出东亚格局中的二元困境

传统东亚格局具有明显的一元化特点,无论是经济贸易还是政治安全都高度依赖美国。伴随中国经济的快速崛起,东亚经济体对美国的经济贸易依赖逐步被中国所取代,从而形成当前东亚地区格局中的二元困境,即政治安全依赖美国,而经济贸易依赖中国。同时20世纪90年代末金融危机后逐步形成的东亚传统的合作模式也遭遇多层面挑战。中国新一届政府提出的建设21世纪海上丝绸之路的战略构想,基础扎实、背景厚重、举措有力、开放度高、统领力强,在区域合作架构上实现了一系列重大突破,也为走出东亚格局中的二元困境开启了可行路径。中国是构建21世纪海上丝绸之路的发起者,东盟是21世纪海上丝绸之路的重点地区,通过共建21世纪海上丝绸之路,中国与东盟关系将发展到全新阶段,提升至更高水平。     

东南亚国家产业结构的演进及其特征

战后,随着东南亚国家的工业化进程,各国的产业结构发生了一系列变化,这主要表现为:农业在国内生产总值和就业的比重不断下降,工业(尤其是制造业)增加值和就业比重迅速提高,服务业增加值和就业比重总体上趋于上升。东南亚国家产业结构演变的趋势,是与世界各国工业化中产业结构变化的规律相适应。不过,由于各国经济发展存在着历史性、结构性和制度性的差异,东南亚国家产业结构的变化又有许多不同的特点。     

Third time lucky? Establishing diplomatic relations between Russia and South Africa

Diplomatic relations between Russia and South Africa were established in 1992, before South Africa's transition to democracy was completed. This move was perceived as a betrayal by many in both countries and beyond. For many decades the Soviet Union supported the African National Congress in its fight against the apartheid regime. South Africa's National Party government, in its turn, presented the USSR as the main force behind the ‘total onslaught’ – an all-out war purportedly waged against South Africa by international communism. Yet it was with the National Party government that the Russians established diplomatic relations. This article looks into the reasons for this change of heart in Moscow and Pretoria, discusses the political forces behind the decision to establish diplomatic relations, and analyses the process that led to this event and the results of establishing diplomatic relations the way it happened and at the time it happened for both countries.     

非洲和平与安全建设：南非的区域大国角色及限度*

作为区域大国,南非在非洲安全秩序构建中发挥着重要作用。1994年民主转型后,南非国家身份定位由西方的"白人飞地"转变为"非洲国家","以非洲为中心"成为南非外交政策的战略优先。南非非国大政府秉持新的国家身份认知,不再将非洲国家视为国家安全的威胁,而是命运与共的合作伙伴。南非通过参与解决非洲国家冲突、加强非洲集体安全机制建设、支持非洲冲突后重建与发展进程、推动联合国与非盟加强战略协调与合作、参与多边维和行动等方式参与非洲和平与安全建设,扮演了区域安全公共产品供给者的角色。南非虽然在非洲和平与安全建设的某些领域发挥了独特的引领作用,但经济增长乏力和国力相对下降,使其越来越无法有效应对日趋复杂的非洲安全形势。域外大国和国家集团加大对非洲安全事务的干预力度、其他非洲区域大国的竞争,也对南非在非洲和平与安全建设领域发挥引领作用形成了制约。在新冠肺炎疫情冲击、经济增长陷入衰退和社会矛盾加剧的背景下,南非政府将把更多精力和资源用于解决国内经济和社会发展问题,直接介入非洲冲突解决的意愿和能力会有所下降。南非在参与非洲安全事务过程中将更加惜用自身国内经济军事资源,进一步提升对外交手段、非洲集体安全机制的依靠。     

调整与延续:杜特尔特政府的对华政策

2016年杜特尔特总统执政以来,菲律宾政府调整了对华政策,在南海问题上采取主动降温的方式,加强了与中国的政治沟通和经济合作,放弃了"联美制华"政策,转而奉行"大国平衡"政策。这种调整使得中菲关系得以平稳有序的发展。不过,杜特尔特总统仍然继承和延续了菲律宾的一些传统政策,主要表现在南海问题上坚持领土要求,坚持南海仲裁案的结果,以及对美国的防务依赖性。     

The sustained incremental multi-actor multi-action building of South Korean soft power in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Since the end of the East–West divide in the 1990s, the world has slowly lost its US-based unipolarity to globalisation, and a shift towards East Asia. This phenomenon has given more space to middle powers and furthered the embeddedness of the political, economic, and cultural spheres into the dynamics of social structures. It is highly visible when observed from the digital communication standpoint, which has become pervasive. In this context, the study of international power has moved towards the concept of soft power, which remains a fuzzy concept concerning ‘who’ and ‘what’. We define power as a continuum, in which various types of public and private actors carry out different types of coercive to cooptive actions in various but embedded spheres. We propose an empirically tractable conceptual framework that we use as a tool to analyse soft power within a hard-to-soft power spectrum, in which the articulation, dynamics and incremental nature of soft power become observable. We illustrate our point with the case study of South Korean power in Indonesia in the twenty-first century and draw conceptual as well as practical conclusions.