Barack Obama as the post-racial candidate for a post-racial America: perspectives from Asian America and Hawai‘i

ABSTRACT

Okamura reviews the 2008 US presidential campaign and the election of Barack Obama as a ‘post-racial candidate’ in terms of two different meanings of ‘post-racialism’, namely, colour blindness and multiculturalism. He also discusses his campaign and election from the perspective of Asian America and Hawai'i given that Obama has been claimed as ‘the first Asian American president’ and as a ‘local’ person from Hawai‘i where he was born and spent most of his youth. In both cases, Obama has been accorded these racialized identities primarily because of particular cultural values he espouses and cultural practices he engages in that facilitate his seeming transcendence of racial boundaries and categories generally demarcated by phenotype and ancestry. Okamura contends that proclaiming Obama as an honorary Asian American and as a local from Hawai‘i inadvertently lends support to the post-racial America thesis and its false assertion of the declining significance of race: first, by reinforcing the ‘model minority’ stereotype of Asian Americans and, second, by affirming the widespread view of Hawai‘i as a model of multiculturalism.     

‘A curious relationship’: Barack Obama,the 1960s and the election of 2008

ABSTRACT

Ward explores the diverse ways in which memories, understandings and misunderstandings of the 1960s were mobilized during the 2008 election cycle. At the time, Barack Obama's campaign and triumph were hailed by many as marking a series of a decisive breaks with the past, notably with the culture wars and fiercely ideological political partisanship unleashed in the late 1960s. Others suggested that Obama represented a new kind of candidate who somehow transcended, or might even heal, the racial divisions in the United States, in a fanciful vogue for ‘post-racialism’ that Ward argues was also connected to popular conceptions of the 1960s and, in particular, to a misreading of the social philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr and his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. While some commentators stressed rupture and discontinuity with the past in interpreting Obama's victory, others—friend and foe alike—were keen to stress continuities with the past, often explicitly with a 1960s routinely, if simplistically, parsed into ‘good’ early and ‘bad’ later periods. ThusWard considers Obama's connections to the civil rights and black power movements, as well as to other 1960s organizing traditions, charismatic leaders and conceptions of federal government, arguing that the decade continues to offer an important, if ambiguous touchstone in contemporary American politics and social memory.     

善优先于权利——社群主义权利观评析

社群主义权利观是在批判自由主义个人权利至上观点的基础上建立起来的。它反对自然权利,主张法律权利;主张积极权利优位于消极权利;主张社群权利优位于个人权利;并提倡"善优先于权利"。但它不反对个人自由,也不主张取消个人权利,而是为个人权利划定适当的界,并为个性的形成与存在寻找历史和社会的基础。这种以社群为本的权利观念奠立在反对自然权利基础之上,充分回应了西方社会的现实需要,是现代权利理论的新发展,并对近代西方社会产生了重大影响。     

Key actors in UN environmental governance: influence,reform and leadership

In the introductory article it was concluded that the effectiveness of the UN environmental institutions studied was quite low. Key actors, especially the US and the EU, play a considerable role in explaining the course of development in these institutions. However, this does not mean that these processes are mainly state-driven as a number of other factors matter. The potential for reform and increased effectiveness is limited as the main actors, the US the EU and G-77/China have very different interests and perceptions as to the future directions of these institutions.

Governing under advanced liberalism: sport policy and the social investment state

Since the election in 1997 of a New Labour Government in the United Kingdom, a growing number of analyses have provided insights into, and critiques of, what has been termed the “social investment state”. To date, these analyses have interrogated particular developments and distinct issues in a number of key social welfare policy-related sectors, including education, citizenship, the family, and poverty/employment. Notable by its absence, however, is the contribution that policies for sport and physical activity are now playing in the realisation of New Labour’s social investment strategies. This article therefore interrogates and registers the growing salience of sport policy interventions for the construction of a social investment state within the broader political context of governing under “advanced liberal” rationalities. The “active citizen”, and children and young people, in particular, are valorised and appear centre-stage as the focus for these interventions. This child-centred focus is problematised, as is the argument that, under prevailing political rationalities of advanced liberalism, government “steers” rather than “rows” and “enables” rather than “commands”. Under these conditions, while children are deemed deserving of investment, there may be other groups who are deemed less deserving, for example, older people who, unlike children and young people have little currency in a future-oriented world.

Never Thaw that coming! Latin American regional integration and the US–Cuba Thaw

Existing accounts of the US–Cuba Thaw correctly identify the decisiveness of Latin American states in pushing the 2014 change in US policy towards Cuba. Problematically, however, these accounts overlook a range of regional integration projects pursued by Latin American states that prove pivotal in ascertaining the central dynamics of the region in shaping the Thaw. This article argues that these regional integration projects are imperative to understanding how Latin American states were able to alter US policy towards Cuba, for three reasons. First, these initiatives, and Cuba’s role in these projects, are central to understanding why Cuba came to be a unanimously ‘regional’ issue for Latin American states of all political persuasions; second, the challenges to US dominance in the region provided by these integration projects were ultimately what gave Latin American states their teeth in pushing the Obama administration to reconsider its policy towards Cuba; and third, a consideration of this broader regional context more thoroughly illustrates the strategic nature of the change in policy towards Cuba as an attempt by the US to salvage its ability to influence regional affairs in response to these integration initiatives that excluded it from the region’s architecture.     

Populism: a deflationary view

This paper takes a critical, synoptic view of the current upsurge of populism. Populism, it is argued, has long been a feature of liberal democracies in so far as claims are made for democracy to be as directly expressive as possible of the will of its subjects. Yet populisms are hybrid in form and parasitic on existing political arrangements. What unites them is more to do with what they oppose than what they espouse. Above all, it is the norms of liberalism that are brought into question by populist proponents of direct democracy with their characteristic hostility towards elites, experts and the so-called establishment. In so far as all populisms can be dangerous this lies in the degree to which they oppose the existing norms of liberalism and seek to undermine its moderating institutions. Rather than relying on generic theories of populism to explain contemporary developments, what needs investigation is the degree to which particular populisms prioritize fear over judgement, unqualified assertion over reasoned deliberation and resentment over the moderation of power.     

对战后初期美国转变对日政策原因的再审视

战后美日关系的变动,始终是影响东亚地区稳定的重要因素。战后初期美国对日政策的重心经历了从改造到扶持的转变过程。这一转变有着复杂的历史背景和原因,经历了曲折的转变过程,转变的直接结果奠定了之后的美日关系,且至今仍对东亚地区国际政治格局的变化存在着重要影响。战后初期影响美国转变对日政策的诸因素,并非先前中外学者所分析的平行并重,而是有先有后,有主有次,诸因素形成一个逻辑因果链,最终导致"旧金山体制"形成。在美国转变对日政策过程中,意识形态分歧和美苏大国间国家利益的博弈互为表里,时而契合,时而背离,但最终依归是各自的国家利益。所有这些对于预判目前东亚地区国际政治格局的走向和趋势、对于确立处理该地区国际事务的基调和对策是有重要的现实借鉴意义的。     

GEORGE W. BUSH AND ASIA: IN THE SHADOW OF 11 SEPTEMBER

Traditionally seen as a President consumed by the war on terror, George W. Bush is frequently portrayed as being relatively uninterested in Asia, and unable to outline a vision or a strategy to China, America’s Asian allies and Asian multilateral mechanisms. This article will revisit Bush’s policy on Asia and show a president who guided the United States with a policy that balanced the need to combat global terrorism and locate a focus on Asia. He faced the dilemmas of building cooperative relations with a rising China while trying to foster American alliances and partnerships in Asia, and managing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Utilizing qualitative content analysis as the main research method, the article will demonstrate that the Bush administration had not a lack of focus on Asia and that Bush’s diplomacy to Asia should be recognized as one of the most significant achievements of his presidency.     

The coloniality of US agricultural policy: articulating agrarian (in)justice

Drawing on participatory action research with La Via Campesina’s US member groups, this paper traces the coloniality of US agricultural policy – and the uses of this analytic lens. The framework of coloniality conjures history, contextualizing US Department of Agriculture (USDA) racism within long legacies of subjugation, while paying homage to historical resistance. It raises the stakes regarding the neo-imperialism of agribusiness monopolies, while highlighting divide-and-conquer strategies and the colonialist mentalities that linger on despite reform. Assertions of coloniality, however, risk nostalgia for 18^th century pastorals, or may jeopardize hard-fought-for relationships of trust with USDA personnel. Deployment demands self-reflexivity, on the part of academia, which like the USDA is neo-colonial, yet not monolithic. Most importantly however, the discursive impact of coloniality builds upon existing, grassroots articulations of the need to decolonize agricultural policy. Calling out the coloniality of US agricultural policy echoes global revalorizations of peasant agriculture, while overcoming the constraints of the term ‘peasant’ in US-English-speaking contexts. Accordingly, it could facilitate dialogue among grassroots agrarian alliances within the US and, internationally, with international advocacy for peasants’ rights.