Resisting globalization: a study of localism in Thailand

Recent work has suggested that the discontent over perceived negative impacts arising from liberalization and globalization need to be more carefully considered. The critiques emanating from non-governmental organizations and social movements are considered to be amongst the most significant. This paper examines one example of such criticism – localism – that emerged during the economic crisis in Thailand. This example is found to be a variety of populist reactions to the changes and inequalities generated by capitalist industrialization. The paper assesses this critique, its political strength and its potential to provide an alternative economic model for Thailand. While populist localism develops a useful moral argument regarding the impact of neoliberal globalization, it is unable to develop a sound alternative model.     

1999年以来印尼马鲁古地区民族分离运动探析

作为一个多元民族与多元宗教的岛屿国家，印度尼西亚民族分离运动问题十分突出。本文阐述1999年以来印尼马鲁古地区民族分离运动产生和发展的过程，并试图探究其产生的原因。随着印尼地区自治的逐步实施以及全国地方直接选举的逐步实行，在民主化改革的背景之下，印度尼西亚的民族分离运动问题将面临一个新的前景。     

一座新的宫殿——《欧陆法律史概览:事件、渊源、人物及运动》译余剩语

《欧陆法律史概览:事件、渊源、人物及运动》是美国法学院协会"大陆法史系列丛书"中的第一卷。此书除第一编、第九编外,其他七编均以国别为经,又以各国法律发展中的主要时期为纬,描述各国法律发展中的几大要素,即事件、渊源、人物及运动。在很大程度上,它不仅是一部介绍欧陆各国(不包括斯拉夫法系、拜占庭法系及匈牙利法系)法制史概况的书籍,还是一部法学史作品。意大利法、瑞士法、斯堪的那维亚法及西班牙法等内容研究角度别致,内容新颖。本书的用功最勤之处,不在于它的理论建构,而在于其正本清源,旨在说明什么是真的法律史。法学译著应该注意主要遵循"名从主人"、"约定俗成"、"服从主科"和"尊重规范"等翻译原则。     

Family ties: A case study of coverage of families and friends during the hijacking of TWA flight 847

When U.S. citizens are held hostage in a foreign land, U.S. journalists have problems making the story meaningful for their readers. The hostages are usually not accessible. The political causes are far too complex to translate well into 90‐second nightly news stories or 20‐inch newspaper articles. Friends and families of the hostages provide journalists with a way for focusing on the human element of the story. This case study of the 1985 hijacking of TWA 847 illustrates how such a focus can lead to exploitation of friends and family to manipulation of news media.     

Saints,scholars and the idealized past in Philippine Muslim separatism

Philippine Muslim nationalism appeals to two distinct but related imagined pasts: the traditional territorial past of the precolonial southern Philippines and the newly-emphasized moral past of the Sunna; the sacred traditions of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions in the earliest days of Islam. Problems arise when the imagined moral past, embodied in the present by a sharp increase in the influence of Middle East-educated Islamic clerics and their calls for the purification of local Islamic practice, comes into direct conflict with the authority of the traditional aristocracy and locally-cherished cultural practices. The Muslim separatist movement that began in 1968 had dual goals. It was primarily an ethno-nationalist endeavour that had as its primary goal the creation of a Philippine Muslim nation - a nation-state governed by Philippine Muslims and modelled on the sultanates of the precolonial period. The second goal of the Muslim separatist movement was to reform local religious and cultural practices under the leadership of a new set of religious leaders. To understand the place of atavism and puritanism in the Philippine Muslim separatist movement I review the largely local tradition of saints and the more universal Muslim institution of religious scholars as they have interacted in the contemporary Muslim Philippines. I consider the contradictions between revanchist and reformatist goals of the movement by interpreting the narratives of Sultan Muhammad Adil, a prominent supporter of Muslim separatism in the Philippines.     

抗争的动力:新媒体与缅甸的民主化

自从2007年以来,缅甸社会政治发生了很大变化,其中新媒体起了很关键的作用。在2007年"藏红花"革命和2008年纳吉斯风灾中,缅甸人民利用互联网、移动电话等新媒体技术向世界传递了政府镇压和掩盖的真相。缅甸军人政府也明显感到了新媒体技术对其统治的压力,因此在2010年缅甸大选之前,严格控制国内的互联网。新媒体技术的出现虽然没有导致缅甸社会权力结构发生实质性的变化,但是新媒体技术打破了原来军政府对信息的封锁,逐渐促进了缅甸的民主化进程。     

Protest Politics in a Changing Political Context: Switzerland, 1975–2005

This article analyses if and how recent changes within the Swiss political system have influenced different aspects of protest politics (e.g. level, issues, action repertoires, and transnationalization). We argue that opportunities for mobilization have emerged in recent years due to changes in the institutionalized political context and that these changes have at least partially led to a resurgence of protest activities in the early 2000s. In a longitudinal perspective, it is however rather moderate. Additionally, new social movements still dominate Swiss protest politics. Although social and migration‐related questions gained in salience, the changes are not as dramatic as in the case of party politics. The rise of a new integration‐demarcation cleavage has not (yet) shaken Swiss protest politics as heavily as Swiss party politics. Finally, even though they are not integrated into a pronounced new protest cycle, the early 2000s are marked by the global justice movement. In this context, we observe a slight radicalization of the action repertoire and police reactions, which is at least partially explained by the emergence of new “transnational” sites of contention.     

Ambiguous revival: a study of some ‘new civic movements’ in Japan

Japanese democracy and the traditional systems and values of governing Japan are in crisis. Nevertheless, this article argues that this context has also witnessed the consolidation of new democratic practices and new civic movements which prove the vitality of the Japanese citizenry as a political actor. This article examines the reinvigoration of citizens' movements and the impact upon them of the images and concepts of 'alternative' groups and self-managed coops, and various problems associated with them. The third and fourth part shows how alternative ideology also permeates traditional movements in Osaka and Hokkaido, but also how these civic groups have been exploited for inner power struggles by elites in Fukuoka and Kobe. Finally, the last part of the article examines how alternative groups have found their way into the political platform of national political parties, and ponders the future of new civic movements in Japan.     

Competitiveness concerns in Hong Kong: business fears and government incomprehension

Much of the analysis of the anti-globalization movement that has emerged in the last five years has focused on the degree to which the Internet has played a crucial role in contemporary social movements. It is commonly argued that the Internet helps create ‘virtual communities’ that use the medium to exchange information, coordinate activities, and build and extend political support. Much of the commentary on the web as a means of political mobilization for social movements stresses the degree to which the Internet compresses both space and time, accelerating the exchange of information among whomever has access to this technology. Equally important in this view is the deterritorialized nature of on-line protest and the diminution in importance of ‘place’ in current anti-globalization campaigns. Certainly this argument features prominently in analyses of the campaign against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) in 1997-98 and the protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings in Seattle in November and December 1999. Our examination of the antiglobalization movement in Australia however leads us to a different conclusion: that while the Internet does indeed compress time, it compresses space in a different, and indeed quite variable, way. We examine the way in which Australians protested against the MAI and against the WTO meetings in Seattle, and show the differences in the nature of protest in each case. In the MAI case, the protests were well-organized and national in scope, with the Internet playing an important role in organizing the movement. By contrast, in the case of the WTO, the movement was minor and relatively marginal, with the Internet playing little discernible role in galvanizing protest. We conclude that crucial to an understanding of the differences was the considerable difference in the importance of ‘place’ in each case.     

An Unfinished Grassroots Populism: The Gezi Park Protests in Turkey and Their Aftermath

Focusing on the Gezi protests, this study addresses two questions: How did a particular struggle against the demolition of a park spontaneously turn into nationwide mass protests? And why was this mobilisation unable to transform itself into a popular counter-hegemonic movement? Drawing on the Laclauian concept of populism, I demonstrate that Gezi mobilised various groups by turning into a symbol of the repressive responses of the hegemonic power to various social demands. This popular mobilisation could not go beyond a conjunctural experience due to its inability to unify heterogeneous protesters and to respond effectively to the counter-strategies of the hegemonic power.