Race as Category Crisis: Whiteness and the Topical Assignation of Race

In this essay, I examine whiteness along two different axes. First, I discuss, in the context of Richard Dyer's White , the manner in which discussions of whiteness tend to be decontextualised and dehistoricised. Fundamentally, in White , whiteness is represented in terms of a homogeneous and self-identical category. In the second part of my essay, I focus on how racialised bodies, once they are situated within a specific historico-cultural context, complicate and problematise unitary and homogenised concepts of whiteness. I argue that the power and endurace of whiteness emerges out of its historical dispersions and geo-political mobility.     

Special Issue on electronic media,markets and civil society in East and Southeast Asia: Introduction

Abstract

The government of Hong Kong has been trying to reform the territory's health care financing system since the early 1990s and is finally on the verge of succeeding. The objective of this paper is to assess the reform efforts and explain the causes of repeated failures and eventual success. It will argue that the government's fortunes changed only after it abandoned the core reform goal and decided to pursue peripheral objectives. It will explain the abandonment with reference to the peculiar political system in Hong Kong that makes it difficult for the government to adopt substantial policy reforms in the face of even moderate opposition. The reason for the government's policy incapacity is the existence of liberalism in a non-democratic setting, which allows the government to neither suppress opposition nor mobilize popular support. This has been illustratively evident in its health care reforms when its proposals to improve the system's fiscal sustainability invariably met an early death because they imposed costs on employers, the population or both. The current proposal has fared better not only because it addresses a simpler peripheral problem but also because it offends almost no one and pleases many among the powerful.     

Between realism and idealism in Japanese security policy: The case of the ASEAN regional forum

Abstract

While ASEAN played the leadership role for erecting the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Japan generated positive impact on the historical trajectory leading to the birth of the ARF. This paper asks the following question: On what ideational foundation was Japan's support for the ARF based? Utilizing a conceptual framework based on the theoretical literature of multilateralism, the paper analyzes three major Japanese perspectives on the ARF in the inception years (1991–95) — Idealism, Realism, and Liberalism — while paying special attention to Liberalism, the perspective underlying Japan's actual policy. Liberalism, while leaning toward Realism, still incorporated some elements of Idealism. For Liberals, centering around the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ARF was a vehicle to foster a sense of trust, however fragile, on the basis of providing and sharing quality information about China, Japan, and the United States, without undermining the existing security arrangements including the US‐Japanese alliance.     

Reinventing political subjectivities: studying critical documentaries on the war on terror

This paper casts a look on media aspects of the anti-war-on-terror struggle in western countries. A peculiar warfare, the “war on terror” that officially begun in 2001, is a low-density global warfare, fought in different internal and external fronts . Within a liberal, increasingly post-political social terrain, where social affairs are objects of expert management lacking public accountability and legitimacy, the role, status and the identity of the contemporary citizen is in decline. New media “affordances” offer critical possibilities for challenging hegemonic political discourses, and addressing political alternatives for a broad range of social problems; a re-invention of citizenship through the construct of a new (collective) political subject is central in the reinvention of democracy today. Discourse analysis, drawing reflexively on post-structuralist discourse theory and critical discourse analysis, is deployed in the study of counter-war-on-terror discourses in different documentaries critical to the “war on terror”. Analysis looks at different constructions of “us” and “them” in the context of counter-hegemonic discourses today. Identity is central in the engagement, participation and orientation of citizens today. Identity is central in organising a collective centre and in initiating subjectivity to fragmented liberal, postmodern individuals.     

Incorporating immigrants as foreigners: multicultural politics in Japan

With the growth of immigrant population over the past couple of decades, a ‘multicultural’ discourse has emerged in Japan. A notable point is that immigrants are expected to be incorporated into the host society primarily as foreigners rather than as Japanese nationals with full citizenship rights. The purpose of this article is to understand this prevailing mode of immigrant incorporation and to consider the comparative implications. By examining the discursive aspects of claims-making on behalf of both old-timer and newcomer immigrants, I argue that the underlying opportunity structures have been reproduced in each phase of immigration-related development in Japan, facilitating the use of the ‘foreigner’ category in advocacy efforts. Official recognition of the category has also helped to further institutionalize it as the main target of immigrant policy. In comparative perspective, ‘incorporation as foreigners’ can be understood as a variant of the ethnic model of immigration regimes in that it tends to reinforce the dominant ethnocultural conception of Japanese nationhood.     

Political citizenship and local political participation for disabled people

The theme of this article is political citizenship among people with disabilities. Political citizenship on the basis of gender and ethnicity has received attention internationally. However, there has been little attention on political citizenship of persons with disabilities. The article sheds light on political representation at the local level in Norway. The data used are from a survey sent to 767 political representatives in local politics and 50 administrative representatives. Our study shows that disabled people are under-represented in local political assemblies, and thus, their political citizenship is not fully acknowledged. We apply Fraser (N. Fraser, 1997. Justice Interruptus. Critical Reflections on the ‘Postsocialist’ Condition. New York and London: Routledge) concepts of redistribution and recognition to analyse the lack of representation of disabled people. According to the dimension of redistribution, the analysis shows that neither the physical conditions nor the organization of the different meetings is particularly well adapted for disabled people. The dimension of recognition shows that disabled representatives are expected to be more occupied with issues concerning disability than other representatives. The analysis also shows that over time it has become more important for elected disabled representatives to put issues concerning disability on the agenda.     

Decentring state categories: diaspora within a Palestinian geopolitical assemblage in Nicosia,Cyprus

With over 50% of Palestinians in diaspora, global constructions of what is Palestinian are central to Palestinian geopolitics. This article examines how the meanings and implications of the label “Palestinian” in diaspora are produced as Palestinians negotiate the politics of migration and citizenship while living in Cyprus. Using the concept of a geopolitical assemblage incorporates the role of state immigration control into a critical discussion of diaspora. Cyprus provides a complex context in which the momentary constructions of a Palestinian diaspora in relation to other geopolitical entities affects Palestinians despite their immigration or citizenship status in Cyprus.     

Derrida on Identity and Difference: A Radical Democratic Reading of The Other Heading

Abstract

Both modernist and post-modern social criticism of power pre suppose that agents frequently consent to power relations, which a political theorist may wish to critique. This raises the question: from what normative position can one critique power which is, as a sociological fact, legitimate in the eyes of those who reproduce it? This paper argues that "symbolic violence" is a useful metaphor for providing such a normative grounding. In order to provide an epistemological basis of critique, it is further argued that social actors have multiple interpretative horizons avail able to them as part of their everyday social practices. Thus, they are not caught in a preconstituted web of meaning from which there is no escape, as is sometimes implicit in the over-socialized perceptions of agency associated with post-modernism.     

The Centrality of Work

Abstract

This article briefly presents some of the main features of the notion of "centrality of work" within the framework of the "psychodynamic" approach to work developed by Christophe Dejours. The paper argues that we should distinguish between at least four separate but related ways in which work can be said to be central: psychologically, in terms of gender relations, social-politically and epistemically.     

中共十八大对反腐倡廉政策的新发展

中共十八大系统地分析了当代中国党风廉政建设和反腐败实践所面临的新形势,在反腐倡廉政策方面提出了新的政策问题、政策思想、政策观点、政策原则、政策目标和政策工具、政策措施,基本建构了中国目前阶段新的反腐倡廉政策体系,体现了执政党的反腐倡廉政策向科学化、民主化和体系化方向发展的趋势。深入研究中共十八大对反腐倡廉政策的新发展,对于把握未来一个时期当代中国反腐倡廉政策的走向具有重要的理论价值和实践意义。