Unintended consequences: social policy,state institutions and the ‘stalling’ of the Malaysian industrialization project

Abstract

This paper examines the relation of particular forms of social and labour market policy to economic development. Taking the history of Malaysian industrialization as its empirical case, the paper assesses the unintended consequences of redistribution policy, on the one hand, and migration policy, on the other, for the limited upgrading of the country's electronics industry. It argues that, while the former has been central to social harmony in Malaysia's multi-racial society, it has contributed to the underdevelopment of small and medium-sized firms capable of linking with the TNCs on the basis of knowledge-intensive and higher value-added operations. Migration policy, on the other hand, has allowed manufacturers to have continued access to supplies of low-cost, lower-skilled labour that have released the pressures that would otherwise have been there for technological and skill upgrading in the electronics industry. Only in Penang, where regional state institutions have intervened to encourage SME upgrading, has the national picture been moderated. Malaysia's industrialization project emerged at time when export competition in manufactured commodities was less intense than it is now. Largely as a result of federal government priorities and for other reasons explored in the paper, advantage was not taken of this ‘window of opportunity’. As a consequence, the country's industrialization project – exemplified by its electronics industry – is now ‘stalling’ in the sense that it remains locked into low- to medium-technology operations. With the rise of China as a manufacturing exporter, this is a dangerous situation for a country's principal industry to be in.     

Remitting subjects: migrants,money and states

Abstract

Scholars’ and policy-makers’ interest in the remittances that migrants send home to relatives has increased dramatically in the past two decades. Focusing on remittances from the United States to El Salvador, we examine how academic studies, public discourse, and state accounting practices simultaneously produce and reveal the nature of this phenomenon. By treating the money that migrants send home as both national resource and foreign currency, central banks and international financial institutions define remittances as a ‘cost-free’ source of national income. Further, debates about remittances’ social and economic impact focus on whether remitting promotes or undermines particular values associated with neoliberalism, such as self-sufficiency, entrepreneurship and empowerment. Our analysis thus sheds light on new configurations through which money, states and migrant citizens are linked.     

Borders of emptiness: gender,migration and belonging

This article argues that we need to consider the question of ‘who belongs’ in terms of individuals' construction as market actors, workers and migrants as well as citizens. Using Hegel's theory of civil society, and Charles Mills' critique of the social contract, it argues for the significance of the process of self-government and the construction of a ‘hard inside’ for understanding migration and its relationship to embodiment, labour and belonging. This approach can take us beyond the distributional framework of the territorial state, and the assumption of stable membership, to interrogate the boundary-setting aspects of the political and the meanings of interdependence and vulnerability.     

Immigrant protest: an introduction

The last decade has witnessed an explosion of ‘immigrant protests’, political mobilizations by irregular migrants and pro-migrant activists. This special issue on ‘immigrant protest’ has emerged in response to this rise in the visibility of immigrant protests, and its central aim is to contribute to the growing body of scholarship on migrant resistance movements and to consider the implications of these struggles for critical understandings of citizenship. This introduction maps out some of the central issues and themes emerging from the contributions to this issue, exploring the tensions between integrationist and autonomous approaches and theories of migrant activism and resistance and between migrant and activist strategies of invisibility and visibility. By bringing immigrant protests to the heart of debates about citizenship, we hope to further extend discussions about the limits and the possibilities of citizenship as the material and conceptual horizon of critical social analysis and political participation and practice today.     

Reviews

Books reviewed:
Byers (ed) The Role of Law in International Politics: Essays in International Relations and International Law
Jones Private Enforcement of Antitrust Law in the EU, UK and USA
Waldron Law and Disagreement
Forte (ed) Good Faith in Contract and Property Law
Lucy Understanding and Explaining Adjudication
Jones Speaking for the Dead: Cadavers in Biology and Medicine     

天津市人口迁移情况的研究与思考

迁移加速是本世纪前半叶我国人口变动的突出特征。从迁移总量、迁移人口的自然构成和社会构成、迁移原因及迁入人口的来源等研究天津市的人口迁移状况,对于揭示天津人口流动规律、资源配置效果、社会管理水平等有积极的现实意义。     

Rooting and Cultura in West Mexico

Drawing on Kwame Appiah’s discussion of the relationship between rooting and cosmopolitanism, I show that this concern was shared by many in west Mexico, where I conducted fieldwork among diverse groups of townspeople, villagers, weekend visitors from Guadalajara, and migrants working in Guadalajara and in California. All of those groups talked about belonging or rooting to specific places – villages, towns, cities, countries and so on. They also used the term cultura in a way that resonated more with Appiah’s ‘cosmopolitanism’ than with his ‘cultural particularities’. Although most people aspired to gain cultura without losing rooting, I found that many people judged themselves or others to fail in one or both respects. Migrants in California, in particular, were felt to have lost rooting without having become cosmopolitan. I focus throughout on how west Mexicans, including the novelist Juan Rulfo, used their knowledge of history as a way of claiming both rooting and cultura.     

沙俄远东移民运动史略

18 6 1年俄国农奴制改革后 ,俄政府将远东南部辟为重点移民区 ,俄国远东移民运动从此真正拉开帷幕。随着国内外政治经济形势的变化及交通条件的改善 ,沙俄远东移民运动经历了三个历史阶段 ,尤其在斯托雷平土地改革时期达到最高峰。移民运动为荒凉落后的远东地区经济开发奠定了基础。     

1942—1972年云南人滇缅陆路迁徙

交通与移民息息相关,一方面,两者相互“成就”与“促进”。另一方面,被缚的交通势必抑制移民的活力,移民活动过于密集可能“导致”交通梗塞,交通梗塞也可能在短期内唤起移民大潮。同等外力作用下,缘何云南人有外迁缅甸者,有回归家乡者,有原地坚守而未再迁徙者,也有再移民往第三国者？案主情感、意志、主观能动性等来源之“内力”,似乎已成为推、拉力之外左右其移民选择的“第三力量”。     

Cooperation Between Russia and the EU in the Sphere of Migration

The author attempts to analyze all aspects of cooperation between Russia and the European Union (EU) within the framework of the migration dialogue. She compares the migration policies of Russia and the EU-28 countries, discussing both common problems—the relationship between migration and development, labor immigration, the fight against illegal immigration—and the specific ways in which each side tackles them. She points out that the migration dialogue has great potential for developing further cooperation, exchanging experience, and strengthening trust between Russia and the EU.