The Politics of Caste in India’s New Land Wars

ABSTRACT

In this article we introduce the special issue through framing the debate on the role of caste in India’s current land wars. We draw attention to how caste consistently mediates land transfers in present day India by pre-empting, undermining, or fuelling processes of social contestation, as well as the ways in which land claims in turn shape realigned or reimagined caste identities. Based on this, we make three main arguments. The first and most obvious one is that in contemporary conflicts over land, caste matters in evolving ways that deserve attention. Second, we argue that caste and land are recursively linked categories that are produced and reproduced in continuous interaction, even as multi-scalar political economies (re)shape them. And third, that different registers of caste are articulated by different social groups in more or less overt ways as they stake often competing claims to land.     

Employer associations: collective bargaining,services and power in historical perspective: the case of the EEF in the UK

ABSTRACT

This paper makes two major contributions: firstly, following on recent research, it offers a more detailed critical analysis of the historical role and structure of Employers’ Associations (EAs), concentrating on a detailed analysis of the range of member services offered by a local Employers’ Association within the Engineering Employers Federation (the EEF) during the 1970s. This focus is in contrast to the literature which has concentrated on the EAs national or ‘central peak’ level. It secondly addresses the ‘countervailing power’ hypothesis, and in so doing it illustrates the key roles of the disputes procedure. The study, as a typical or representative case, uses a qualitative methodology of documentary research combined with triangulation interviews of former officials: evidence which has so far not been prominent in the literature. This paper is, therefore, a significant addition to our understanding of these institutions.     

The wage share and government job creation in Sweden, 1900–2016

ABSTRACT

This investigation explores the long-run relationship between the wage share in the non-construction private sector and government efforts to create jobs in public services and construction of infrastructure and houses, in Sweden in 1900 to 2016. In the present article, it is argued that the creation of employment with generous wages by the Swedish government has increased the bargaining power of workers outside of these sectors, thus raising the wage share, up to about 1980. Correspondingly, retrenchment from such policy has been detrimental for the wage share in recent decades. This argument is supported by the results of cointegration tests, estimation of long-run and short-run, speed of adjustment, coefficients, as well as by Impulse-response functions. While government consumption is often found to be an important determinant for the wage share, earlier research has neglected the full labor market effect of government job creation associated with an expansion of the welfare state. Sweden is an ideal case for studying the impact of welfare policy on the wage share, since it has been one of the most extensive welfare states and simultaneously has been one of the most egalitarian countries in the world.     

Securitization,insecurity and conflict in contemporary Xinjiang: has PRC counter-terrorism evolved into state terror?

ABSTRACT

In the Introduction to this special issue, I first provide an overview of the programme of 'de-extremification' and mass internment in Xinjiang since early 2017. I then situate this development against the ‘ideological turn’ in Chinese Communist Party policy under President Xi Jinping, highlighting the new emphasis on stability maintenance and ideational governance. Next, I explore experiences of (in)security in Uyghur communities in- and outside of Xinjiang in the era of internment to consider how far PRC counter-terrorism initiatives have now evolved into state terror. In doing so, I apply Ruth Blakeley's (2012) definition of state terror as a deliberate act of violence against civilians, or threat of violence where a climate of fear is already established by earlier acts of violence; as perpetrated by actors on behalf of or in conjunction with the state; as intended to induce extreme fear in target observers who identify with the victim; and as forcing the target audience to consider changing its behaviour. Finally, I discuss the six contributions to the special issue.     

Kazakhstani public opinion of the United States and Russia: testing variables of (un)favourability

ABSTRACT

Though Central Asia is often studied through the prism of its relationships with external powers, research on local public perceptions of these different actors has largely been overlooked. The literature on Kazakhstanis’ perceptions of their neighbours, for instance, is scarce, and mostly focused on analysis of official discourse on Kazakhstan’s multi-vector policy, with little exploration of how this is received, appropriated or refuted by the population. On the basis of Gallup data spanning the last decade, and several other surveys, we test most of the main hypotheses usually advanced to explain attitudes to the US and Russia – age, ethnicity and access to information – and draw five main conclusions: (1) Kazakhstanis are not defined by an exclusive pro-US/pro-Russian dichotomy; (2) they nevertheless largely choose Russia over the US if forced to pick; (3) age does not have a significant effect on foreign policy attitudes; (4) ethnicity does affect some of the attitudes under consideration, but its effects are not large enough to produce markedly different opinions among ethnic Kazakhs and ethnic Russians in aggregate; and (5) consumption of media from Russia and access to non-governmental and Western sources of information do not seem to have significant effects on the attitudes under consideration.     

Linkages of oil and politics: oil strikes and dual power in the Iranian revolution

ABSTRACT

Looking at the oil strikes during the Iranian revolution (1978–79), this article challenges dominant narratives of the relationship between oil and politics and the processes that shaped the outcome of the revolution. The main arguments of the article are developed in a critical dialogue with Timothy Mitchell’s Carbon Democracy. Firstly, the article argues that the scale of the oil strikes and their central role in the creation of organs of revolutionary power call into question the generalization about the material characteristics of oil that supposedly prevented mobilization. Secondly, the article argues that the fact that oil workers were able to organize mass strikes, but failed to create an independent organization, calls for an explanatory approach that combines material factors with the role of consciousness, ideology and organization. This leads to a rereading of the Iranian revolution that highlights the essential role of the oil strikes in the emergence of dual power in early 1979, and the contingency of their outcome.     

宏观调控权配置原则论

宏观调控权的配置事关宏观调控的效果。要合理配置宏观调控权,就必须确定宏观调控权配置的原则。宏观调控权的配置包括横向配置与纵向配置。横向配置指宏观调控权在中央国家机关之间的分配;纵向配置指宏观调控权在中央与地方国家机关之间的分配。由于宏观调控是事关国民经济全局性的重大事务,因此,宏观调控决策权的配置应实行集权原则,由中央国家机关独享;而宏观调控执行权的配置应实行分权原则,由中央政府与地方省级政府在各自的职能范围内分享。     

论共产党治党治国的理论创新

“三个代表”重要思想无疑是马克思主义中国化的最新理论成果,那么,他“新”在何处呢?从无产阶级政党治党治国这一角度来看,“三个代表”重要思想的理论创新主要表现在他解决了中国共产党“为谁执政”、在执政过程中“如何治党”、“如何治国”的根本问题,深化了对人类社会发展规律、执政党的执政规律和社会主义建设规律的认识,开辟了马克思主义发展的新境界。     

权为民所用--警察权行使中的几个问题

为了充分体现人民警察权力为人民所用的最终目的,协调好在警察权力实施过程中可能产生的社会秩序与个人权利的矛盾,警察权力必须建立在完备的法治基础之上.警察权力的行使者必须是人民警察,警察权力的行使应该具有一定的边界,只能针对特定的责任人,应当遵循相当性原则,必须按照法定的程序.     

对“一国两制”提出的实际根据和理论依据的思考

"一国两制"构想不是一天形成的,也不是偶然提出的,更不是凭空想出来的.它是在党的十一届三中全会以后,邓小平同志从我国社会发展的客观需要出发提出的."一国两制"构想的提出有着充分的实际根据和可靠的理论依据,是理论与实际的紧密结合.