Crafting a business Umma? transnational networks of ‘Islamic businessmen’ after the Arab Spring

This article focuses on the transnational project, led by Turkish Independent Industrialists and Businessmen Association (Müsiad), of crafting a community of Islamic businessmen. The Arab Springs opened new opportunities to further this project, especially in Tunisia and Egypt where Islamist groups rose to power after 2011. In both countries, Müsiad supported the creation of two Islamic business associations, exporting its own organizational model. Examining this circulation process, we question the classical dichotomy between economic and advocacy transnational networks. We also show how this transnational activism is constrained by divergent domestic patterns of relationships between Islamists, business and states in each country.     

The quest for inclusion and citizenship in Ghana: challenges and prospects

Ghana's tortuous journey to democracy received a major boost in the year 2006 with the enactments of two human-rights-related pieces of legislation. In this article the author contends, on the one hand, that the recent enactments of an amendment to the law on representation of the people and the persons with disability law in Ghana constituted a noteworthy landmark in the search for inclusive citizenship. On the other hand, the relation between society and the political authority during the processes of the enactments highlighted characteristics of a post-colonial African state. The author explores the antagonisms that surrounded the enactments of these laws. The article concludes that although the Ghanaian experience represents a new wave of re-thinking of rights in Africa, it also underscores the deep-seated issues of contestation and negotiations that unavoidably accompany the expansion of democracy and extension of rights to the excluded and the marginalized.     

Gendering the ‘responsible risk taker’: citizenship relationships with gender-neutral social assistance policy

This paper explores the gendered relationships among reforms to social assistance policy, concurrent transformations in citizenship rights to benefits, and low-income parents' experiences of these changes in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Policy discourse in all three provinces increasingly constructs mothers and fathers as ‘responsible risk takers’ who are entitled to income support conditional on their employability efforts (for example, attendance in welfare-to-work programmes) or market citizenship. Qualitative interviews with 41 mothers and five fathers illustrate how this ‘gender-neutral worker-citizen’ model can be gendered in application and is contradicted by parents' gendered identities and everyday realities when living on social assistance. Using the theoretical perspective of gender as a social structure, the paper draws upon these findings to provide empirical support for a dominant theoretical argument in feminist scholarship – that gender-neutral policy is gendered and has deeply gendered consequences.     

Bernard Crick: citizenship and democracy in the United Kingdom

Bernard Crick's contribution to citizenship studies can be regarded as part of the tradition so ably represented by T.H. Marshall. I want to argue in this brief article on Crick that on the one hand he is part of the ‘golden age’ of political philosophy that has flourished in the English-speaking world over the last two or three decades, but on the other his work also shows the limitations of that tradition, at least from the perspective of comparative and historical studies in political sociology. His work was unquestionably ‘local’ in its focus on the subject of Scottish independence and the viability of the British Isles under the governance of a multi-national state.     

工会领袖们的困惑:劳动关系面临的挑战

经济全球化向世界各国工会提出严峻挑战,工会必须进行相应变革,重新审视自己的战略目标,建立新的伙伴关系,协调劳资矛盾,以应对经济全球化和跨国公司的挑战。     

Prior Commitments: Compatible Interests versus Capabilities in Alliance Behavior

The rapid emergence of transnational networks in world politics calls for an analysis of their power dynamics. By combining the advocacy network literature and the two-level game theory in an innovative manner, this article provides a theoretical conceptualization of the interplay between intra- and inter-network interactions. It argues that the strength of a network as agent springs from its force as a structure. A network win-set is determined by its internal games, thereby affecting both its bargaining power and its chance to reach a consensual agreement with other networks. The issue of access to medicines is used as a factual background to illustrate how the flow of influence within networks affects influence among networks.     

Citizenship in Civil Society?

Abstract

This article seeks to provide a conceptual framework to complement and guide the empirical analysis of civil society. The core argument is that civil society must be understood, not as a category of (post)industrialized society, but as one of individualized society. Civil society is characterized by individualism that is sustained and protected by the civil values of autonomy and emancipation. This, accordingly, implies that empirical data of civil society can be understood most fruitfully within the framework of individualized society. Classical sociology, however, perceives this very individualism and its values as being antagonistic to its own civic vision. Hence, the crucial question is whether there can be any scope for citizenship, classically understood, within civil society. This article begins with the conceptual reconstruction of the social organization of civil society. Thereafter, two distinct civil society perspectives—mediating structures and Tocquevillianism—are explored to see how civil individualism and citizenship relate to each.     

差异公民资格与正义:艾利斯·马瑞恩·杨政治哲学探微

在当代西方女性主义政治哲学中,艾利斯·马瑞恩·杨以其"差异的公民资格"与"差异政治"而独具特色.从对罗尔斯为代表的自由主义普遍公民资格的批判出发,她说明了自由主义普遍公民资格如何忽略或至少是回避了差异及差异群体的权利要求.她以差异的公民资格为切入点,揭示出女性主义政治哲学之差异正义的根本理论诉求,这不仅为女性等差异性群体争取自身权利指明了方向,也试图以另外一种新的视角,即公民资格的理论视角,冲击传统意义上普遍主义的正义理解.在当代多元文化的广阔背景下,差异的公民资格和差异平等的正义观照正越来越成为差异性群体争取自身权利的理论武器,而差异正义的独特理论诉求也正日益成为普遍正义的一种有意义的补充.     

What Limits for Government Control? Civil Liberties and Anti‐terror Measures after the Heathrow Bomb Plot

The threat posed by transnational terrorism has excited debate about how best to calibrate relations between government, the courts and parliament: how can the provision of internal security be facilitated, whilst respecting freedoms and ensuring that policies enjoy broad legitimacy? Attention has focussed primarily on the power of the courts. Sections of the government have mooted a curtailment of judicial competencies; by contrast, a broad range of actors calls for ‐ at the least ‐ the maintenance of current judicial powers as the best means to prevent government from exploiting its already large scope for manoeuvre, as well as to overcome public scepticism. Yet the current debate misses the point that relations between government, courts and parliament have already been altered. Government has gained extra political resources thanks to its participation in forms of international counterterrorist cooperation. This shift of power, and associated problems, were clear during the recent ‘Heathrow bomb plot’.     

Citizenship Tests: A Comparative, Communitarian Perspective

The history, nature and scope of citizen naturalisation tests are briefly examined in this article, as well as their political and social applications. A comparison of tests from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany highlights the ways in which these tests are used as immigration controls rather than as a way to establish preparation for citizenship. The difference in the content of the tests also reveal alternative conceptions of citizenship including authoritarian, liberal and neo-communitarian.