Crossing borders in North America after 9/11: ‘regular’ travellers’ narratives of securitisations and contestations

This article is part of a larger project on ordinary border crossings and state practices in North America. The changing border governmentalities in the region focusing on securitising their borders against potential terrorist threats and the increased emphasis on the managing of population flows have led to a reduced mobility for certain travellers as opposed to others. The construction of potentially safe and ‘un-safe’ subjects through profiling on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion and socioeconomic background and the increasing use of biometrics have impacted upon travellers’ mobilities. In the North American context, the Mexican state has undergone significant modernisation in terms of its border control capacities, thus enhancing not only its capacity as a buffer state, but also its performative sovereignty, and is therefore an interesting case to study. This article aims to analyse how these transformations in border governmentalities have affected the mobility of ‘ordinary’ travellers, and how they have developed coping strategies and resistances towards the potential curbing of their respective mobilities.     

Nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula: strategic adaptation,the Abe administration and extended deterrence in the face of uncertainty

Abstract

In the wake of two nuclear tests in 2016, an additional test in 2017 and a series of missile launches by North Korea in 2016–17, Japan's government is facing a critical set of security challenges. These require adaptation and careful planning by the Abe administration and raise important questions about the future of Japanese defence policy, alliance relations with the United States, and cooperation between Japan and the Republic of Korea. The following article considers both the history and current state of relations between Tokyo, Washington and Seoul, the relationship between elite and public opinion within Japan, and the character of Prime Minister Abe's leadership at a time of acute strategic risk. While the danger of conflict in northeast Asia should not be minimized, the gravity of the current crisis potentially offers an important opportunity for policy innovation for the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).     

Balloon warriors for North Korean human rights activism: a critique of North Korean defector-activists’ post-humanitarianism

While the identity politics of North Korean defector-activists at home and abroad is revealed by unraveling the discursive complexity of their activism, little attention has been paid to the way in which that activism compromises the discursive dynamic of the defector community desiring to contest the power of a ruling paradigm within political culture. A critical analysis of North Korean defector balloon warriors who have crusaded against the North Korea regime through airborne leaflet drops at the South–North Korea border illustrates how their uncritical and unquestioned acceptance of liberal human rights can only leave the defector community vulnerable to charges of being politically-futile disparate citizens. The invocations of transnational liberal hegemonic norms obscure and undermine North Korean defectors’ agency of collective engagement in acts of liberal democratic citizenship. Understanding the propagandistic dimension of their dissenting voices can help expand the scope of analysis of liberal democratic posthumanitarian citizenship.     

朝鲜北学派的新华夷观解析

中国传统的"华夷观"长期影响着朝鲜半岛,朝鲜各朝代的封建统治者也以"小中华"自居。"尊华攘夷"、"慕华贱夷"是朝鲜人传统的文化观念,这一文化观念严重影响了民族意识和民族文化的健康发展。自进入清代以来,朝鲜人自以为所谓华夷秩序大乱,华夏文明之真传移到了朝鲜,并因此而深感自豪;同时,自感传续华夏文明之真传的责任重大,虔诚地维护传统文化,唯恐有丝毫的亵渎。尽管当时由于地理大发现、西势东渐,人类文明格局发生了巨大变化,但朝鲜卫道士们一直将中华以外的文明视为"夷狄"之货,采取不屑一顾的态度。在如此僵化愚腐的意识氛围中,北学派的先驱洪大容率先提出了"华夷一也"的新观念,实现从"慕华贱夷"、"尊华攘夷"到"华夷一也"思想的飞跃。在东亚率先打破传统的"华夷观"是朝鲜北学派的一大特点,在朝鲜唤起了民族主体意识,为朝鲜学习世界先进文化,吸收新的世界文明做了理论准备。     

论巴黎协定后北越实行"政治优先"政策的原因

签署巴黎协定之后,北越并没有立即采用军事手段统一南方.虽然北越一直在向南越渗透人员和物资,但是在南越的蚕食行动面前,北越却保持了一种忍让的态度.考虑到当时南北双方的力量对比以及北越以往的进攻态势,它的这种行为是耐人寻味的.北越之所以会这样,一是为了最大限度地利用对自己有利的巴黎协定,二是为了避免美国的再度干涉,三是考虑到自身的实力问题.但这并不代表北越就要放弃统一越南的目标,正好相反,这只是为了实现其目标而采取的一种相当妥当的策略.     

The moral economy of EU relations with North African states: DCFTAs under the European Neighbourhood Policy

The EU has loudly voiced its intention to facilitate poverty reduction and democratisation in North Africa. In particular, it seeks to conclude Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements (DCFTAs) with Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt. These are seen as a vital response to the Arab Spring – integrating North African countries into the globalised economy. Applying a moral economy perspective, this article argues, however, that, while ‘Normative Power Europe’ seeks to build more tranquil societies in the region, its trade policies nevertheless threaten to exacerbate poverty and social unrest. The prospect of de-industrialisation in the wake of FTAs will do much to entrench economic asymmetries between the European metropole and its neighbours.     

The transnational state and the BRICS: a global capitalism perspective

It is commonplace for observers to see the increasingly prominent role of the BRICS in international economic and political affairs as a Southern challenge to global capitalism and the power of the core Trilateral nation-states. Extant accounts remain mired in a tenacious realist debate over the extent to which the BRICS are challenging the prevailing international order. I suggest that we shift the paradigmatic focus in discussion of the BRICS phenomenon towards a global capitalism perspective that breaks with such a nation-state/inter-state framework. Global integration and transnational capitalist class formation has advanced significantly in the BRICS. BRICS protagonism is aimed less at challenging the prevailing international order than at opening up space in the global system for more extensive integration and a less asymmetric global capitalism. The article examines agricultural subsidies, US–China relations and international trade agreements as empirical reference points in arguing that the concept of the transnational state provides a more satisfying explanatory framework for understanding the BRICS phenomenon than the variety of realist approaches. By misreading the BRICS critical scholars and the global left run the risk of becoming cheerleaders for repressive states and transnational capitalists in the South. We would be better off by a denouement of the BRICS states and siding with ‘BRICS from below’ struggles of popular and working class forces.     

Kim Jong-il's military-first politics and beyond: Military control mechanisms and the problem of power succession

Military-first politics has been at the heart of the unexpected regime stability in North Korea under Kim Jong-il and his son Jong-un. This article analyzes Kim Jong-il’s military-first politics as a strategic choice for regime survival, in which the locus of political power switched from the party to the military. At the same time, Kim Jong-il formulated a complex system of circumventing the possibility of the armed forces' political domination, including personalistic control using sticks and carrots, fortifying security and surveillance institutions, and compartmentalizing the security institutions for intra- and inter-organizational checks and balances to prevent the emergence of organized opposition to the regime. Although an effective short-term solution, military-first politics could never be a long-term strategy for building gangseongdaeguk (a powerful and prosperous nation). The current Kim Jong-un regime needs to conduct sweeping reforms to address dire economic difficulties, which might result in a departure from his father's legacy and downgrade the military's power. In this process, the current regime's (in)stability will depend on how it maintains a balance between revoking military-first politics and preserving the armed forces' allegiance.     

Assessing the leadership transition in North Korea: Using network analysis of field inspections, 1997–2012

This paper examines changes in the in the composition of the North Korean elite from 1997 to 2012, a particularly tumultuous period in the history of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Specifically, the paper assesses the changing composition of the leadership networks around both Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un, using data from the entourages that accompanied the great leaders on their “on the spot guidance” inspection tours. The paper finds that there have been significant changes in the leadership elite since the succession of Kim Jong Un. The paper offers some observations regarding the implications these changes have on the receptivity of the regime to a normalization of relations with the West and future economic and political reform.     

New approaches to North Korean politics after reunification: The search for a common Korean identity

Whilst most of the literature focusing on the Korean peninsula has concentrated on how to achieve unification through confidence-building measures, dialogues, negotiation and diplomacy, little attention has been paid to how a unified Korean identity, a core component of any potential reunification scheme could develop and be sustained. The paper addresses this gap by: (1) defining what national identity is, and how Korean identities have been formed, (2) outlining how both South and North Korea have understood and used the concept of national identity, (3) suggesting possible grounds on which the two Koreas could build a new, common national identity.