Challenges of research in rural poverty: lessons from large field surveys

This practical note highlights lessons learnt during the data collection of two large field surveys as part of the ongoing “Sindh Union Council and Economic Strengthening Support” (SUCCESS) programme in southern Pakistan. The experience is discussed in terms of language barriers, the educational status of households, dealing with people’s expectations and non-cooperation, and the weather conditions. The note also highlights the practice of public sharing of data in real-time to improve the design and implementation of future surveys, especially those measuring poverty and quality of life.     

Totalitarian tendencies in drone strikes by states

Lethal drones or unmanned combat aerial vehicles have been used to kill thousands of persons suspected of complicity in terrorism. Despite concerns aired by legal scholars that drone strikes outside areas of active hostilities violate international law, the US government contends that targeted killing is distinct from assassination, and has persisted in the practice to the point where it has become normalised as a standard operating procedure and taken up by other nations as well. Drone strikes have been championed by Western politicians as a “light footprint” approach to war, but the institutional apparatus of remote-control killing rests on totalitarian, not democratic principles. Secretive targeting criteria and procedures are withheld from citizens under a pretext of national security, resulting in a conflation of executive with judicial authority and an inversion of the burden of proof, undermining the very framework of universal human rights said to be championed by modern Western states. Moreover, lethal drones hovering above in the sky threaten all persons on the ground with the arbitrary termination of their lives and as such represent a form of terrorism no less than the suicide bombings of jihadist groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS.     

The right to commemoration and “ideal victims”: the puzzle of victim dissatisfaction with State-led commemoration after 9/11 and 3/11

This article explores the puzzle of victim dissatisfaction with State-led commemoration following 9/11 and 3/11 by offering a cross-national case study through which to view key areas of theoretical debate in the sociology of human rights, cultural trauma and collective memory, and the politics of victimhood. Although State-led commemorative processes are often highly contested, we would expect them to be less so in the cases of 9/11 and 3/11, given broad social consensus about the victims’ right to commemoration and the traumatic nature of the events, and especially the “ideal nature” of the victims who as symbolic representatives of the State are conferred with great moral authority. Drawing on primary and secondary data on the commemoration of the attacks of 11th September 2001 and 11th March 2004 we find that despite sharp differences between commemorative processes, three common key areas of contestation and dissatisfaction for victims emerge: political instrumentalisation, hierarchies of worth and exclusion. We show how the status of ideal victimhood for victims of transnational terrorism carries within it an inherent paradox which provides the key to their dissatisfaction, namely the moral authority conferred on them as representatives of the State simultaneously depersonalises them, excluding them as individuals with rights and needs.     

The feminine in abstract painting reconsidered

This essay explores the complex gender issues embedded in abstract painting’s history as well as the present.     

Gender discrimination in Vietnam: the role of personal face

This paper examines gender discrimination using two novel perspectives: its relationship with personal face and its manifestation in contemporary Vietnam. Interviews with a sample of college teachers in Nha Trang city suggest that gender discrimination is reflected in and institutionalised through learning and enacting ‘acceptable’ face-related behaviours. These processes are exemplified in gender based linguistic conventions, role differentiation and segregation, the higher value associated with male roles, the (surface) acceptance of double standards by both genders and the recognition of public sanctions as effective reinforcers of gender inequality. Despite limitations in generalising from this research, an approach based on personal face-related language, behaviour and attitudes has promise for understanding how gender inequality functions at both individual and societal levels.     

马克思劳动关系理论与全球劳动关系的演变

马克思的劳动关系理论对于20世纪80年代以来全球劳动关系的演变过程具有很强的解释力,劳动关系内部权力结构及处理机制所发生的变化使劳动关系出现了极其严重的权力与利益分化,当代劳动关系的复杂性远远高于马克思所描述的19世纪的资本主义劳动关系。在马克思提出的劳动关系的理想模型中,不存在由劳权缺失所引发的矛盾、冲突与分化。在这种理想的劳动关系尚未实现的情况下,劳权保护机制是不能缺失的。在劳动关系内部,保护雇佣劳动者劳权的唯一途径依然是减弱资本优先权和管理优先权对劳动关系的过度控制。在劳动关系外部,完善的公共保障体系则能够同时保护雇佣劳动者和非雇佣劳动者的劳权。随着非雇佣劳动者数量的增长,劳权保护将对公共保障体系形成更多的依赖。     

International democracy promotion and democratization in the Middle East and North Africa

This article offers an overview of the literature on international democracy promotion in relation to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It draws on the criteria of process tracing to evaluate the mechanisms, processes and episodes of democratization associated with international democracy promotion in the region. It finds that the literature lacks a clear account of how international democracy promotion relates to conditions for democratization and could pay greater attention to the role of media in either supporting or counteracting democracy promotion activities which impact democratization processes in the region.     

The effects of executive constraints on political trust

This article explores political trust, delving into its subcomponents and the relationship between them. It is interested in explaining why governmental trust and trust in regulative state institutions are similar in some countries and different in others. It argues that the variation can best be explained by checks on the executive. This is the case because the more restricted the executive, the less regulative state institutions are affected by the fluctuations in governmental trust. When the government cannot encroach upon state institutions, the impartiality and efficacy of regulative institutions are maintained. The less governmental interference to regulative state institutions, the more such institutions will be devoted to the public rather than partisan interests, resulting in a wider gap between state and government trust. The argument is tested through an empirical analysis of a cross-national panel data based on all existing waves of the World Values Survey.     

Intra-Campaign Changes in Voting Preferences: The Impact of Media and Party Communication

An increasing number of citizens change and adapt their party preferences during the electoral campaign. We analyze which short-term factors explain intra-campaign changes in voting preferences, focusing on the visibility and tone of news media reporting and party canvassing. Our analyses rely on an integrative data approach, linking data from media content analysis to public opinion data. This enables us to investigate the relative impact of news media reporting as well as party communication. Inherently, we overcome previously identified methodological problems in the study of communication effects on voting behavior. Our findings reveal that campaigns matter: Especially interpersonal party canvassing increases voters’ likelihood to change their voting preferences in favor of the respective party, whereas media effects are limited to quality news outlets and depend on individual voters’ party ambivalence.     

On our terms! How domestic elites localised the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala

Abstract

In summer 2004, an UN-sponsored international rule of law commission based on an initiative of the Guatemalan human rights community was rejected by Guatemalan political elites. In 2007, a new version, the International Commission against Impunity (CICIG), was approved by the Guatemalan Congress and has since been active in the country, supporting the modernisation of the Guatemalan judicial system and the investigation and prosecution of criminal networks. The CICIG has been hailed as part of a new generation of rule of law promotion that addresses the problems of post-conflict states. How did this change in elite support come about? Neither increased pressure from the international community nor changes in the elite groups in power can fully explain this shift. Rather, Guatemalan elites actively reshaped the commission; in addition, the human rights community reframed it to better fit the risk perceptions of the general public.