bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Refugees and Political Theorists: The Problem of Complicity
Authors: Cole Phillip
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines the role of political theory in framing the forcibly displaced in a way that confines their political and theoretical agency. This confinement is caused by the way in which political theory is structured around the nation-state system of membership, such that the displaced have no context within which to exercise political agency, as they are, by definition, displaced outside of that system. It is also caused by the nature of political theory as a discourse of power, in which the displaced are constituted as objects of study, with no recognition that they can be agents of theory. This chapter applies postcolonial theory to arrive at a framework that focuses on the political agency of the forcibly displaced and their ability to contribute solutions to their own challenges, and which recognizes their capacity to be agents of theory, providing essential theoretical insights based upon their experiences.
Conceptualizing Precariousness: A Subject-oriented Approach
Authors: Armano Emiliana , Morini Cristina , Murgia Annalisa
Published: May 2023

This chapter identifies two main lines of inquiry among sociological approaches to precarious work: studies on ‘precarity’, which in the European context mainly focus on the erosion of standard employment relationships, and those on ‘precariousness’, which are more interested in the subjective experience that affects not only labour but the entire life of the subject. Using the results of a series of research projects as the starting point, this chapter discusses how precariousness is experienced and represented, including in light of digitalization processes during the pandemic. In particular, the precarious subject is conceptualized as a ‘precarious-enterprise worker’, impelled to become the sole person responsible for their destiny and to invest totally in the production of their subjectivity. By adopting a feminist perspective, a reflection is proposed on how potential forms of resistance to precariousness can be constructed through social relations based on affective and corporeal encounters with others.
The Experience of Precariousness as Vulnerable Time
Authors: Barata André , Carmo Renato Miguel
Published: May 2023

This chapter addresses the emergence of an abstract concept of time: time as disentangled from events. Stemming from late medieval to early modern times, this understanding of time has since been consolidated by the progress of industrialized production and the transformation of the concept of labour into abstract labour. Time calculated in working hours became a social relation measured by clock time. In the contemporary world those shifts operate across at least two dimensions and have had a profound social impact, experienced particularly through job insecurity. Firstly, humans tend to live their own relationship with time less and less as subjects with their own autonomy and, secondly, they do so more and more as objects of a transcendent and external time. The subject’s own time is increasingly vulnerable and powerless, while the time that socially regulates their existence is increasingly an imperturbable continuity outside of the order of events. This chapter aims to understand to what extent these two temporal aspects constitute and are incorporated in contemporary forms of labour precarization.
The Social Foundations of Precarious Work: The Role of Unpaid Labour in the Family
Authors: Pulignano Valeria , Morgan Glenn
Published: May 2023

This chapter argues for a perspective on the study of precarious work that draws on earlier critical labour studies and feminist analyses of the role of domestic labour in the reproduction of capitalism. In particular, we point to the challenges that the fading away of the standard employment contract poses to workers and their families, and assess the implications for the reproduction of labour power. We argue that the rise of precarious work, with highly flexible hours and reward systems, shifts risks and functions that were previously organized through the employment contract (supported by the welfare state) back onto the individual, and through this onto the household and the family. This shift fosters a reconfiguration of the interdependencies between productive paid work (undertaken within the public sphere) and unpaid work (within the private household sphere), and a shift of risks from the employer to the state and, further, onto individuals and families. Precarity therefore, we argue, is not just a feature of work but an underlying aspect of everyday life in the private as well as the public sphere for those trapped in this situation.
Precarity and Migration: Thai Wild Berry Pickers in Sweden
Authors: Hedberg Charlotta
Published: May 2023

This chapter analyzes the precarity of migrant workers. International migrants tend to be precarious due to the unequal distribution of resources along lines of ethnicity, race and citizenship. The chapter analyzes the complex relationship between structure and agency in precarious migration processes of global food chains. The example of Thai wild berry pickers in Sweden shows how migrant work is sustained through an interplay of, on the one hand, structures of neoliberal and global divisions of labour and, on the other hand, migrant aspirations for a better life. Specifically, the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates how migrant workers, as actors in global neoliberal food systems, are taking both economic and health-related risks while working abroad. Indirectly, migrant agency is sustaining a system of precarious work.
Revisiting the Concept of Precarious Work in Times of COVID-19
Authors: Holubová Barbora , Kahancová Marta
Published: May 2023

This chapter revisits the multidimensional concept of precarious work in the light of the recent COVID-19 pandemic. It argues that the pandemic facilitates a broader and deeper understanding of the dimensions of precarious work. First, the precarity intensified from the perspective of health and safety at work due to threats to bodily integrity, unmanageable mental stress and a lack of autonomy to refuse exposure to hazardous working conditions. Second, telework as a flexible work arrangement turned into a mandatory work arrangement during the pandemic and yielded multiple risks of precarity, such as extra hidden costs or extreme surveillance practices. Third, theorizing precarity as a gendered phenomenon, the chapter highlights that a gendered stratification of the labour market intensified the work–life imbalance during the COVID-19 crisis and the pandemic has served as a catalyst for gendered work precarity across all dimensions.
Roads, Debt, and Kyrgyzstan’s Quest for Geopolitical Kinship
Authors: Steenberg Rune , Shamshiev Ulan , Abdilashimova Farzana
Published: May 2023

This chapter traces the established narrative of infrastructure development in Kyrgyzstan as first dominated by the Soviet Union, followed by the US through international development banks in the 1990s, and most recently by China. It complicates this narrative by diversifying scales of analysis and examining who engages in infrastructure planning and construction, thereby recognizing a multitude of actors and non-linear trajectories development trajectories. Through on-the-ground road ethnography and asphalt archaeology, the authors show the centrality of local politics and perception. They also consider debt and whether it creates dependencies or mutuality.
Chinese Investment Meets Zambian Policy: the Planning and Design of Multi-Facility Economic Zones in Lusaka
Authors: Tang Dorothy
Published: May 2023

Chinese-funded multi-facility economic zones (MFEZs) in Zambia are paradigmatic cases of the complex processes of negotiations between state interests, industrialization, and urban development. As instruments of Chinese foreign policy, state-led investments, and globally accepted best practice for economic development, economic zones require land, infrastructure, and a development strategy that is loosely aligned with priorities of their host countries. Rather than conceiving of these MFEZs as isolated Chinese enclaves, this chapter situates them within a longer spatial and temporal trajectory of geopolitics to unpack how urban design and planning practices are also subject to such negotiations. The chapter, first, contextualizes the history of Zambian economic planning that led to the establishment of MFEZs in relationship to Chinese and Japanese foreign policies. Second, it compares the planning and design of the Zambia–China Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone and the Lusaka South MFEZ – funded by the Zambian government with assistance from Japan and Malaysia – to analyse the underlying spatial and urban logics of two state-led economic development projects.
Interlude : The Emergence of a Sino-Centric Transnational Capitalist Class?
Authors: Rolf Steve
Published: May 2023

This interlude considers the conditions under which a Sino-centric capitalist class is emerging. It proposes a schema for analysing Sino-centric class formation – along economic, political, and ideological lines – and introduces cases in Venezuela, Serbia, and New Zealand. However, despite China’s growing global political economic power, there is scant evidence of a Sino-centric transnational capitalist class operating as a class-for-itself. This, the chapter suggests for now substantially limits China’s ability to become a global hegemon anchoring a distinctively Chinese-centred system of capital accumulation. It concludes by asking how the global political economy may fragment or align along particular US- or Sino-centric lines.
Contradictory Infrastructures and Military (D)Alliance: Philippine Elite Coalitions and Their Response to US–China Competition
Authors: Camba Alvin , Cruz Jerik , Lim Guanie
Published: May 2023

This chapter discusses how elites in the Duterte administration (2016 onwards) have carved out new state spaces amid intensified US–China geostrategic competition and the expansion of the BRI in the Philippines. While observers argue that Duterte represents a distinct ‘pro-China’ faction, this chapter instead suggests that the country’s recent shifts in foreign economic policy are the result of competing political, economic, and military coalitions that collectively underpin a convoluted geopolitical approach towards US and China. Beyond Duterte’s immediate role, this account draws attention to a broader constellation of actors and conflicts behind the country’s management of the BRI and geopolitics in general. In the context of US–China competition, Philippine elites are pursuing longstanding political, economic, and spatial objectives through state restructuring. The first case in the chapter illustrates how Philippine economic managers shifted their infrastructure strategy from a market-oriented approach leaning heavily on public–private partnerships (PPPs) to a hybridized usage of PPPs and foreign funding. The second case shows that elites within the Philippine military, particularly the Coast Guard, leveraged Duterte’s (d)alliance with China to expand their jurisdiction and capacity. In sum, the chapter illustrates that host states restructure in the context of US–China competition in accordance with the interests of elite coalitions, illustrating the heterogeneity of powers and interests in the host country.
Infrastructure-Led Development with Post-Neoliberal Characteristics: Buen Vivir , China, and Extractivism in Ecuador
Authors: Jepson Nicholas
Published: May 2023

China has loomed large in Ecuador during both the post-neoliberal turn under Rafael Correa (2007–17) and the return to neoliberalism under his successor Lenín Moreno (2017–). The China-powered commodity boom proved crucial in providing Correa the economic wherewithal to break with local business elites and their international allies. However, the direct involvement of Chinese state capital had other important but contradictory effects in shaping correísmo. As the country turned away from traditional sources of investment, Chinese lenders and investors sustained a deepening of the extractivism on which Correa’s redistributive policies rested. Conversely, some Chinese-built and -financed projects engendered ambitious attempts to shift towards a model more in line with the official ideology of buen vivir (‘good living’ – including constitutionally enshrined rights of nature). This article highlights two such ventures: the Coca Codo Sinclair Dam, meant to substantially reduce Ecuador’s fossil fuel dependence; and the Yachay City of Knowledge, aimed at developing a ‘biopolis’ economy. Moreno’s presidency has seen a neoliberal backlash and the return of both the International Monetary Fund and local capitalists to political influence. Meanwhile, alleged corruption surrounding Chinese projects has become a tool in Moreno’s efforts to marginalize key figures from the previous administration.
Turkey between Two Worlds: EU Accession and the Middle Corridor to Central Asia
Authors: Bayırbağ Mustafa Kemal , Schindler Seth
Published: May 2023

This chapter argues that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) – which currently controls the Turkish government – is pursuing state spatial objectives that are designed to entrench it within the state apparatus. The cornerstone of its spatial plan is the Middle Corridor, which integrates İstanbul with the Caucasus and Central Asia. This initiative has been formally aligned with the BRI, and this enabled the AKP to pursue its domestic political objectives, which include (1) the cultivation of a supportive bourgeoisie whose fortunes are connected to the construction sector, and (2) institutional reforms that enhance the executive branch’s regulatory powers over economy and society. This arrangement is in jeopardy because most contracts are awarded to Turkish firms, but this has led to tension with Chinese lenders.
Multipolar Infrastructures and Mosaic Geopolitics in Laos
Authors: DiCarlo Jessica , Ingalls Micah
Published: May 2023

This chapter offers two contributions: it, first, problematizes new Cold War narratives and, second, suggests focusing on the ways in which infrastructure investments align with host state interests and prompt internal restructuring. By contextualizing the processes that are discussed in faraway offices in Washington and Beijing, it shows that bipolar geopolitical rhetoric does not aptly capture the Lao infrastructural experience. Instead, it is characterized by an array of actors and interests, which the Lao government has balanced since well before the BRI. While geopolitical tension has undoubtedly intensified, bipolar rivalry is scarcely visible despite recent US overtures. Rather, other bilateral relations such as those with Vietnam, Japan, as well as Russia, are pivotal. They are not only investing in and building much of Laos’s infrastructure, but they also have deep relations, and their capital and projects have become tools for the Lao government to balance Chinese influence. With the BRI, national development goals are not kowtowing to Chinese demands, but rather incorporate problems and agendas that have been on the table much longer than the BRI. The key question that arises across Lao government ministries is how to juggle and benefit from a deluge of projects and investment capital, and the Lao government has demonstrated an aptitude for successfully manoeuvring between various countries, donors, and international organizations who rush to offer aid or development finance and secure influence.
Himalayan Geopolitical Competition and the Agency of the Infrastructure State in Nepal
Authors: Paudel Dinesh , Rankin Katharine
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines how Nepal is seeking to enhance its trans-Himalayan connectivity with China to reduce its dependence on India. This case speaks to geopolitics because the US is supporting Indian efforts to orient the Nepali economy away from China through large-scale infrastructure investments. The chapter asks: in what ways is competition in infrastructure development becoming a key domain of geopolitics and geoeconomics on the Himalayan landscape, and how has the Nepali state, as an ‘infrastructure state’ in the sense developed in this volume, leveraged the opportunity to mobilize foreign capital for infrastructure projects serving national interests. It demonstrates that like many countries within the ambit of BRI and other regimes of infrastructure-led development, Nepal is refashioning itself as an infrastructure state – driving development priorities with large infrastructure and imagining that not only economic growth but also that poverty alleviation and empowerment will follow. Thus, infrastructure competition among geopolitical powers in the Himalaya unwittingly creates opportunities for assertion of agency and autonomy by small states, while also revealing the limits of hegemony, and indeed the vulnerability of the major geopolitical powers.
‘No One Stole Anyone Else’s Cheese’: The Politics of Infrastructural Competition in Kazakhstan
Authors: Neafie Jessica
Published: May 2023

Since independence in 1991, Kazakhstan’s role in Central Asia and the world has evolved as it became a regional pivot, and central to the interests of the US and China. The Kazakhstani government has worked closely with the US since the 1990s on security issues. While China also has security interests in Kazakhstan, its primary interest has been economic, as it views Kazakhstan as a source of natural resources and a transit route. American and Chinese foreign policies towards Kazakhstan were compatible, and sometimes even complementary, until recently when their relationship has become competitive, particularly in the field of infrastructure construction. However, with the BRI and the US keen to expand economic ties with Kazakhstan, the country has become central to geopolitical-economic competition. This has offered the Kazakh government an opportunity to leverage the country’s strategic location as a pivot at the crossroads of Eurasia. By hedging between the US and China, Kazakhstan has secured support for its spatial objectives, which are centred around the idea that Kazakhstan become a central hub for goods transportation and engine of economic growth for the region. centrality to the US–China rivalry affords it agency, but in some instances, this has undermined the realization of its spatial objectives.
Outer Space Infrastructures
Authors: Klinger Julie Michelle
Published: May 2023

This chapter is about outer space infrastructures in Eurasia in the overlapping contexts of the BRI, the final years of the US-led occupation of Afghanistan, and diverse approaches to development within and among Central Eurasian states. These contexts are situated within multiple histories: the footprint of Soviet-era space infrastructure, shifts in global extractive politics, and the more recent increase of public and private actors using outer space-based and space-linked technologies for a variety of purposes. This chapter probes several contexts in Central Eurasia to complexify the actors, interests, and institutions involved in this immense and varied region. Through three brief case studies of space activities in Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, the chapter decenters the roles of ‘Great Power’ or ‘New Cold War’ politics. It makes two analytical moves – to put grandiose discourses in their place, while also bringing the domain of outer space more centrally into discussions on infrastructure, investment flows, development, and security – enabling greater clarity on the dynamics unfolding across the diverse regions of Central Eurasia, in subterranean, surface, and orbital spaces. It concludes that far from being bipolar, infrastructural competition comprises dozens of parties working, together as well as independently, on a host of different initiatives.
Reality in Hard and Soft
Authors: Ashcraft Karen Lee
Published: May 2023

This chapter identifies the ‘hard versus soft’ binary as a major way we carve up the world. We use this binary to differentiate things and secure their relative nature and value—as strong versus weak, for example. Through ‘hard and soft,’ we come to think of the material world as separate from the social realm, the former rigid against the latter’s flexibility. The chapter introduces an alternative to this common division, a sociophysical approach that regards life’s social and material dimensions as one—indivisible and mutually influential in shaping the world. It then reveals that the ‘hard–soft’ split is the gender binary. This core dualism inhibits our thinking and yields significant real-world consequences. To better understand contemporary populism, we must let go of the gender binary. Part I seeks to upgrade our gender analytical skills accordingly.
Strongmen versus Sober Women
Authors: Ashcraft Karen Lee
Published: May 2023

This chapter begins the work of dismantling the gender binary. It does so through a popular narrative about gender and leadership that resurfaced during COVID-19, which contrasted the bungled response of populist “strongmen” with the success of governments led by women. Reacting to this narrative in an intentionally emotive way, the chapter both shows how it recycles ‘common sense’ ideas about gender and evokes frustration at the dead ends where ideas like this lead. To get out of these culs-de-sac, we can stop treating ‘men’ and ‘women’ as the given starting point of gender analysis. A better opening question is how apparent men and women come to be, or how they happen in everyday life. The chapter redefines gender as mundane encounters that become real and compelling by continuing to happen.
Perish the Thought of Gender
Authors: Ashcraft Karen Lee
Published: May 2023

This chapter works through the most common defenses by which gender is dismissed or downplayed as a viable cause of New Populism. These include: (1) ‘women do it too’; (2) ‘politics are patriarchal’; (3) ‘masculinist extremism is a fringe element’; (4) ‘populism is the opposite of identity politics’; (5) ‘even feminists agree’; (6) ‘the populism-identity politics distinction is important to maintain’; and (7) ‘class is more important and broadly human than gender.’ These habitual responses are sociophysical, in that they condition our senses to perceive and process New Populism in predictable ways. The knowledge and skills of Part I are needed to disarm the physical reflexes by which we deny the centrality of gender—specifically, the gender binary and normativity—to New Populism.
Not Another Masculinity Crisis
Authors: Ashcraft Karen Lee
Published: May 2023

Gender-first analysis exposes a different motivating history for New Populism than the one typically told. This chapter demonstrates that in the US context by tracing the claim that masculinity is in crisis. Time and again, ‘crises’ of manhood appropriate class, folding privileged men into a ‘working class’ of wounded manhood. The chapter zooms in on the past two decades, in which New Populism exploded. Through a layered analysis of momentum from Fight Club to Joker, it shows a continual escalation of aggrieved masculinity up to the nihilistic present. Nothing can soothe this cross-class ‘crisis’—some 50 years in the making—because the manly supremacies it seeks are unsustainable. ‘Crises’ of masculinity drive the spread of New Populism. Increasingly, they endanger us all, even those they claim to serve.
Dear Manosphere
Authors: Ashcraft Karen Lee
Published: May 2023

This chapter delves into how aggrieved masculinity intensified after it was declared all but extinct. The chapter suggests that the online culture wars of the late 2000s and 2010s better illuminate the rise of New Populism than the socioeconomic and demographic shifts marked in Chapter 11, though all of these are involved. During this period, the “manosphere” (the online phase of anti-feminist men’s movements) became a major political player. The manosphere cultivated the focus on Western Man under siege and perfected the edgy, countercultural vibe that fuels New Populism today. The chapter identifies the manosphere as the ‘super-spreader’ of New Populism. This is neither technological determinism nor a linear account of cause (why, for what reason, or in response to what event). Instead, this is the version of cause introduced in Chapter 12 (how, or on what electricity, does something move). The manosphere propels New Populism’s global surge with a transnational economy of attention and amplification.
Metaphor Matters: Poison or Pandemic?
Authors: Ashcraft Karen Lee
Published: May 2023

In light of the last chapter, this one considers the limitations of “toxic” and recommends “viral masculinity” as a metaphor suited to the challenge ahead. A poison control frame does not address the transnational movement of manly grievance because it concentrates on the substance (ideology) instead of how it gets passed around (feeling). Viral mitigation better captures a pandemic of feeling and redirects focus accordingly: from stopping individual ingestion to slowing communal transmission. Viral masculinity is more than a metaphor, in fact. Short of a biomedical virus, it is a physical transfer of social feeling through bodies, technologies, and other material means. Aggrieved masculinity is a genuine sociophysical pandemic.
Women in Terrorism and Extremism in Theory and Practice
Authors: Andrews Sam
Published: May 2023

Women are not well represented in research on terrorism and extremism. They are also not well integrated into counterterrorism frameworks. This chapter provides an overview of the relevant theories of women’s involvement in terrorism and violent extremism, and outlines the consequences of poor integration into counterterrorism frameworks. It argues that we need to take into account the feminist literature on political violence to properly understand how to integrate women into counterterrorism frameworks.
How do Prevent Professionals Understand Women?
Authors: Andrews Sam
Published: May 2023

As Prevent is a localized strategy, there is a broad scope for Prevent professionals to adjust the national strategy according to their perceived local needs. This chapter draws on 18 interviews with people who work on Prevent to understand how they perceive women’s role within the strategy. This chapter shows that Prevent workers are much more alive to the possibility of women’s radicalization than local and national strategy indicates. It outlines how they consider women to be radicalized by their search for romance, by patriarchal structures and domestic abuse, and due to their more idealistic nature. It also details the various problems that Prevent workers have faced in trying to get women involved in Prevent locally, and how they sought to overcome them. The chapter demonstrates that Prevent workers also see women mostly in relation to the family, seeking to draw mothers into Prevent. The chapter argues that while Prevent workers are much more nuanced than the strategy indicates, they still rely on gendered stereotypes in forming policy decisions.
Women’s Perceptions and Experiences of Prevent: Muslim and Secular Black and Minority Ethnic Women, and Right-wing Women
Authors: Andrews Sam
Published: May 2023

The ubiquity of Prevent, and its deep penetration into the UK’s social fabric, means that many will have been affected by the policy. Understanding how people perceive and engage with the policy is important to understanding both the policy’s effectiveness, and its impact on people’s lives. This chapter draws on 20 interviews with Muslim and Black and minority ethnic (BME) women, and right-wing women, across the UK. The chapter indicates that many women consider the concentration on mothers in Prevent to be a burden, especially when it falls upon migrant and BME women, who are some of the most deprived in society. It also indicates that while Prevent looks to improve women’s rights, a substantial portion of women will be left out of Prevent’s ‘empowerment’ work as they consider Prevent to be a discriminatory policy. Importantly, the integration of Prevent into safeguarding also means that women who suffer violence or abuse might be made more vulnerable, as they seek to avoid projects which collaborate with Prevent. Additionally, some women highlighted how Prevent’s framing of extremism and terrorism being detrimental to women’s rights can feed into right-wing narratives about cultural difference. The chapter argues that we need a broad and political understanding of Prevent in order to properly analyse its effect on women.
Introduction
Authors: Buckley Lucy-Ann
Published: May 2023

This chapter provides an overview of key issues and concepts addressed in the book. It explores the nature of disability harassment and its interaction with harassment of other kinds. While much disability harassment derives from the othering, stigmatization and social exclusion of persons with disabilities, multiple and intersectional forms of harassment are also highly prevalent. The chapter outlines both the prevalence of disability harassment and its impact in the work context. It demonstrates that disability harassment constitutes a serious problem both within and outside of employment, and that the response to disability harassment must encompass intersectional forms of harassment, including sexual harassment.
Disability Harassment in Ireland
Authors: Buckley Lucy-Ann
Published: May 2023

This chapter outlines the social and legal context for disability harassment in Ireland. It highlights similarities between disability harassment rates in Ireland and internationally, and outlines the key legal provisions on disability harassment at work contained in the Employment Equality Acts 1998–2021. The chapter argues that, while Irish law complies with European Union requirements under the Framework Employment Directive, it fails to satisfy the requirements of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in relation to intersectional discrimination.
The Irish Legal Framework in Practice
Authors: Buckley Lucy-Ann
Published: May 2023

This chapter evaluates the operation of Irish law in practice, considering primarily its ‘curative’ effectiveness (the extent to which law rectifies a previous injustice). Analysing all available disability harassment decisions under the Employment Equality Acts 1998–2021 from 1998 to 2020, it finds that very few cases go to hearing and that the success rate for claims is extremely low. It then explores the reasons for the success and failure of claims, the kinds of remedies awarded, and the implications of these findings. It concludes by arguing that notwithstanding the theoretical capacity of the Employment Equality Acts 1998–2021 to address much work-related disability harassment, the legislation has not been curatively effective in practice.
Mapping the Global Pattern of RO Responses to Coups
Authors: Hohlstein Franziska
Published: May 2023

The third chapter provides a comprehensive and detailed overview of the responses of all ROs to coup attempts in the last 30 years. First, a new dataset on RO responses to coups, including the coding procedures, the structure of the dataset and the variables is introduced. Subsequently, the most important trends in the data, including temporal developments and geographic as well as inter- and intra-organizational differences are mapped. The data show that over time the number of coups has declined, yet they continue to present a frequent phenomenon. At the same time, the number of RO responses to coups has strongly increased, pointing towards a considerably more active role of ROs after coups. RO responses cover a wide continuum of instruments, stretching from rhetorical concern and condemnation statements over diplomatic measures and economic sanctions to military options. Whereas some instruments have been used more frequently in recent years, there is no general trend towards the use of stronger responses over time. When zooming in to the diverse strategies and instruments to respond to coups in different continents and organizations, a high degree of heterogeneity and variation not only between, but also within organizations becomes apparent.
Examining Differential Post-coup Solutions
Authors: Hohlstein Franziska
Published: May 2023

The fifth chapter addresses the question why ROs strive for differential post-coup solutions by conducting a comparative case study of four selected cases. First, details on the case selection and methods are provided before presenting the empirical findings. Following the principle of a diverse case design, cases with different post-coup solutions pursued by ROs were chosen. These include a power-sharing agreement (Madagascar in 2009), the formation of a new government through elections (Niger in 2010), the reinstatement of the ousted government (Burkina Faso in 2015) and the acceptance of the coup plotters as new state leaders (Zimbabwe in 2017). Case studies were conducted using inter alia materials and data from official RO statements, speeches, declarations and press interviews from diverse actors, reports by research institutes, NGOs and election observers, as well as newspaper coverage. In all four cases not only the question of whether a leader change was unequivocally identified as a coup, but also democracy- and stability-related factors were decisive in shaping the choice of post-coup solutions by ROs. The findings of the cases studies provide strong empirical support for the theoretical expectation that the choice of post-coup-solutions by ROs is strongly influenced by considerations related to democracy and stability.
Locating the Gift in Society
Authors: Adloff Frank
Published: May 2023

Chapter 4 focuses on which kinds of gifts exist in society and on which levels of sociality they are located. I will introduce the distinction between ordinary and extraordinary gifts, in which trust and reciprocity play quite different roles. Then, I will illustrate that gifts may be found not just on a micro-sociological level: we can conceive of them as a medium of symbolic communication that circulates in society as a whole, and constitutes a background mechanism for cooperation of all kinds.
The Gift between Socialism and Capitalism
Authors: Adloff Frank
Published: May 2023

Chapter 5 revisits Mauss and recalls his political activism. A socialist who championed individual freedoms and democracy, his political arguments have lost none of their relevance. They are of value especially to current concepts of post-growth and a solidarity economy, which defy the traditional dichotomy of capitalism vs. state socialism. While the principle of the gift is of utmost importance in interpersonal relationships, it can have just as much impact in the realm of the economy.
Commodities, Values, Money, Gifts
Authors: Adloff Frank
Published: May 2023

Whoever speaks of the gift cannot remain silent about value, commodity, and money, the interconnections of which are the subject of Chapter 6. Following Mauss and Karl Polanyi, it is demonstrated that non-capitalistic gifts foster the capitalist economic process. No economy can do without gifts given for free; in fact, it is the non-symmetry and non-equivalence inherent to the gift that form the very basis of our coexistence. Even money contains aspects of gift giving, and it is these aspects that would become more important in a reformed money system.
Civil Society, Conviviality, Utopia
Authors: Adloff Frank
Published: May 2023

The project of a politics of the gift points to the domain of civil society, the subject-matter of Chapter 9. Practices of conviviality are mostly self-organized, emerge beyond the grasp of markets and state, and are frequently utopian in character. Such utopian practices may best be put to the test, and eventually realized, in social experiments.
Introduction
Authors: Morgan Pippa
Published: May 2023

This chapter sets the scene for the analysis in the remainder of the book. It describes the developmental and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Global South, as well as the inequities in global vaccine supplies, in particular during the first wave of the vaccine rollout in which vaccine nationalism in the West created a space for China to step in to. It then situates the book in context by reviewing existing understandings of China’s relationship with the Global South, and of the political economy of crises. Next, the chapter summarizes the analytical framework and main argument: that the distribution of Chinese COVID-19 vaccines was shaped by the ‘opportunity management’ of state and corporate actors, with the former seeking to consolidate their performance-based legitimacy and the latter to expand internationally into new products and markets. Finally, the chapter describes the data sources and provides a roadmap of the book.
‘Vaccine Diplomacy’
Authors: Morgan Pippa
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines China’s official donations of COVID-19 vaccines. It first briefly reviews competing narratives on Chinese vaccine supplies outside China (grand strategy of ‘vaccine diplomacy’) and inside the country (‘global public good’), and explains why neither is particularly helpful in explaining patterns in the actual distribution of China’s vaccine donations during the first half of 2021. It then empirically charts those patterns, showing that – in line with the state’s performance-based legitimacy goals – Asian neighbours were prioritized over traditional aid recipients in Africa. The evidence suggests Beijing’s vaccine donations were motivated mainly by a pandemic-induced desire of Chinese officials to avoid ‘imported infections’ at home (and their potentially significant consequences for domestic legitimacy) and maintain regional stability, and relatedly by pre-existing strategic partnerships with the country’s neighbours.
Security
Authors: Devellennes Charles
Published: May 2023

The need for security is an essential component of Macron’s ideological thought, so much so that it has surpassed the need for freedom that liberalism is renowned for being founded on. In order to provide security, neoliberalism has fully embraced the power of the state to create markets and economic structures that liberalism once thought to be natural. Nowhere is this shift more evident than in the rise of security as a core value of society. By analyzing the thought of Michel Foucault, who was writing on security in the late 1970s precisely as the neoliberal state was becoming a reality, we will see that this new value is articulated in the form of new technologies for the management of populations. By focusing on the town, economics, and health policy, we see three distinct areas where this state has established itself as the primary provider of techniques to deal with problems of the industrial and post-industrial eras. Instead of a continued focus on security, as articulated under Macron, I show that a focus on safety (sûreté), conceptualized as both safety and certainty, is possible and desirable.
On Not Apologising: Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and the TRC Hearing into the Mandela United Football Club
Authors: Hassim Shireen
Published: May 2023

This chapter examines the appearance of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela at South Africa’s Truth And Reconciliation Commission, and specifically her refusal to make a full apology to the victims of the actions of the Mandela United Football Club. The chapter makes two arguments. First, that there is an implicit gendered script apparent in the hearing, in the ways in which apology was demanded, as well as in the affective moves at work in Madikizela-Mandela’s testimony. The chapter argues that the strategy of discursive reattribution at work in her testimony placed responsibility fully on the apartheid state as well as on the patriarchal double standard by which Madikizela-Mandela was judged. Second, the chapter argues that reattribution rather than apology was an effective device for the intended audience for the apology. In standing her ground, Madikizela-Mandela became the figure around whom a narrative rupture of the reconciliation project coalesced. In resisting the demand to provide a narrative of culpability, Madikizela-Mandela disallowed the TRC’s own narrative of truth-telling and personal accountability. This stance illuminated the emerging fault lines in democratic South Africa, between those who accepted the terms of the transition and those for whom the TRC side-lined justice in favour of reconciliation.
(Re)Collections: Her Sorry, Never Mine
Authors: Jefthas Diane
Published: May 2023

This chapter tells the story of Fabian, a five-year-old boy, who regularly witnesses his father physically assault his mother, and who often is a victim of the violent abuse himself. Fabian also accompanies his mother when she visits the police station to bring charges against his father, and when she withdraws them after accepting his apology, allowing him to return home. Presented as a fictional narrative, communicated through the eyes of the child victim, the chapter centres on the themes of family violence, child vulnerability and invisibilisation, police service delivery, and domestic violence complainant withdrawals. It highlights how child victims, powerless to impact their own circumstances, are often forgotten and dismissed by parents, family members, police, and others who should be assuming responsibility for their safety and well-being.
Beyond Words: Apologies and Compensation in Sexual Offences
Authors: Khan Leila , Smythe Dee
Published: May 2023

Research points to a profound disconnect between victim conceptions of justice and the remedies offered by the criminal justice system. Where more restorative approaches are considered in the context of sexual offences, reservations have been raised by scholars and activists about their appropriateness to the seriousness of the crime and the context of unequal gendered power relations in which these violations occur. The lack of solutions for repairing harms caused by sexual violence and providing meaningful recourse for victims demands that serious attention is paid to the outcomes and the forms of justice sought by victims themselves. Apologies are known to be useful and important in the realm of harm-reduction, and to hold meaning and power for victims. Compensation can also play an important role in assisting victims to recover pecuniary and non-pecuniary losses. Because compensation, both as an end in itself and conceptualised in terms of apology, has meaning to victims of sexual violence, this paper suggests that it should be more intentionally included as a method of remediating harm for victims of sexual violence within the South African criminal justice system.
‘She Told Me to Stop Making a Fuss’: Undignified Treatment, Medical Negligence Claims, and Desires for Apology
Authors: Kolawole Omowamiwa
Published: May 2023

Through analysis of case law on medical negligence claims in South Africa, this chapter considers how the refusal of health care providers to apologize for harm suffered when receiving medical care influences the actions of health users. It shows how the treatment of patients, in ways that they perceived as an assault on their dignity, feeds their belief that they have not received the best possible care from their interaction with the health system. While these assaults on dignity, by themselves, are not enough to make valid medical negligence claims, they in fact provide key insight into the motivations of litigants in seeking redress.
The chapter shows that even if human error cannot be completely removed from health care provision, healthcare providers can reduce their exposure to litigation by having an approach that is centered on treating patients with dignity, both during and after the provision of medical care to them. Such dignified and respectful treatment of patients, regardless of outcome, is the ultimate acknowledgement of their pain and is a necessary first step in giving effective apologies for medical wrongdoing.
On Apology and the Failure of Shame in the TRC
Authors: Barnard-Naudé Jaco
Published: May 2023

The chapter is an enquiry into the relationship between apology and reparation in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). It investigates the role of shame in the TRC, arguing that for the apology to be reparative, it has to be accompanied by demonstrated shame. The discursive context of the TRC was saturated by the ideology of forgiveness and pardon without apology, to the extent that this discursive context severely occluded the role of shame in the apology, as demonstrated during the TRC’s amnesty hearings. The chapter enquires into the psycho-dynamic character of shame and concludes that shame fails when a fantasmatic relation is constructed with Lacan’s 'Other of the Other'. It was precisely this construction of the TRC that is responsible for the lack of shame before and in it. The TRC staged itself as an all-forgiving big “Other” which forgave in a hysterical fashion, and in doing this risked the authenticity of its discursive intentions to represent the gaze of the victims. The chapter proposes that it is time to assume the full sense in which the big “Other” is lacking, inconsistent and non-existent, in order to open the discourse of apology onto a new, and more ethical, horizon.
Sexual Discrimination and Abuse: Law and Definitions
Authors: Punch Maurice
Published: May 2023

The material here has to be placed in the wider context of long-standing and deeply rooted prejudice and discrimination against women in many societies, along with high levels of sexual abuse and harassment in some organizations, professions and institutions, including colleges/universities. Moreover, the law and assumptions about sexual offences vary across and within societies. This chapter examines the policing of sexual offences comparatively and how bias and prejudice impact on enforcement. The features of prejudice and discrimination have often affected female students in the US and Western societies seeking justice following abuse. They often encounter persistent and flawed assumptions, demeaning tactics and the downplaying of the gravity of sexual offences.
Youth Crime Prevention: Myths and Reality
Authors: Dandurand Yvon , Heidt Jon
Published: May 2023

This chapter offers a discussion of crime prevention through sports and offers some working definitions of key terms like sport and sport participation. The next section consists of a review of the common claims made by proponents of sport-based crime prevention programmes. For example, some supporters seem to think that sports inevitably lead to good outcomes despite a great deal of empirical evidence suggesting otherwise. Other proponents claim that they can prevent youth crime and gang recruitment despite a lack of empirical evidence. Potential negative aspects of sport participation (for example, increased likelihood of substance abuse and in some cases criminal behaviour) are also discussed in this chapter. The chapter concludes with a critical review of the risk factor prevention paradigm and its applicability to sport-based crime prevention.
Theory of Change Underlying Sport-Based Programmes
Authors: Dandurand Yvon , Heidt Jon
Published: May 2023

This chapter presents an attempt to conceptualize the links between criminological theory and sport-based crime prevention programmes. The focus here is on understanding how participation in sport-based prevention programmes at the community level may affect the likelihood that the targeted youth will become or continue to be involved with criminal activities or criminal groups. Efforts are made to clarify existing concepts and connect them to the theories commonly used to understand youth crime and desistance from crime. The chapter also attempts to articulate a theory of change, a prerequisite to forming a cogent programme logic model and to conducting programme evaluations. The theory incorporates key concepts based on individual differences and personality development and then attempts to address social-psychological concerns identified by desistance and social support theories.