What is the relationship between Thailand’s human rights crisis during Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s leadership and the USA-led post-9/11 war on terror? Why did the human rights situation dramatically deteriorate after the Thaksin regime publicly supported the Bush administration’s war on terror and consequently received US counterterror assistance? This article offers two conceptual arguments that jointly demonstrate a constitutive theoretical explanation, which shows that counterterror and militaristic transnational and national discursive structures enabled the strategy of state repression in Thailand under (...) Thaksin. The first concept refers to strategic localization, which refers to how the Bush administration’s global war on terror—and its consequent overarching emphasis on military security—provided an opportunity for the Thaksin administration to strategically localize the global threat of terrorism in ways that could seem relevant to the local Thai context. The second concept pertains to resource mobilization, which shows how converging US and Thai discourses on military security facilitated Thaksin’s strategy of increased state repression that led to the proliferation of state-led human rights abuses. This research article contributes to the human rights literature in two ways: by highlighting how foreign aid programs and its constitutive political discourses shape recipient countries’ domestic human rights situation and by tracing the macro-political factors that lead to the eventual democratic decay of contemporary Thailand. (shrink)

This article critically reconstructs militant democracy’s ‘institutional conservatism’, a theoretical preference for institutions that restrain transformation. It offers two arguments, one historical and one normative. Firstly, it traces a historical development from a substantive to a procedural version of institutional conservatism from the traditional militant democratic thought of Schmitt, Loewenstein and Popper to the contemporary militant democratic theories of Kirshner and Rijpkema. Substantive institutional conservatisms theorize institutions that hinder transformation of the existing order; procedural conservatisms encourage transformation but contain and (...) limit it within the boundaries of existing institutions. Secondly, the article uses resources internal to this historical reconstruction to make the normative case that even the procedural version of institutional conservatism, which characterizes contemporary theories of militant democracy, is problematic from a democratic perspective. The reason for this is that it unjustifiably restricts fundamental democratic change to existing institutions. In conclusion, the article calls for further engagement with modes of democratic defence that do not limit the possibility of radical democratic change but nevertheless enable the protection of democratic institutions against authoritarian regression. (shrink)

The neo‐Gramscian framework offers one of the more innovative contributions to a discipline long embedded in the self‐same verities of behaviouralism, positivism and neo‐Realism. As with conventional wisdom, however, neo‐Gramscians reproduce either assumptions of liberal neutrality or cultural thickness in relation to the ‘peripheral zones’ of the global political economy. These tendencies produce a variant that can be likened to ‘soft Orientalism’. In the first instance, cultural difference is not much of an impediment to the establishment of (West‐centred) global hegemony. (...) In the second instance, otherness becomes the principal source of counter‐hegemonic movements or resistance. This article provides a Gramscian rereading of these antinomies in relation to the apparent consolidation of a natural attitude towards Islam in the wake of recent dramatic events. (shrink)

This paper is organised in three interconnected parts. First, contemporary political economic approaches to understanding the structure of the global economic system are outlined and synthesised. Specifically, it is suggested that the current structural configuration of the globe is a transitional phase between the spatially-bounded configuration hypothesised by world-system theory and the configuration hypothesised by globalisation theorists. Second, the contemporary problem of environmental degradation is situated in a global structural context. Third, an outline and critique of Ulrich Beck 's theory (...) of the ' Risk Society ' is presented to illustrate the increasing inadequacy of nation-state-centric theories in explaining the dynamic linkage between global capitalism and local environmental degradation. (shrink)

This article develops a line of theorising the relationship between peace, war and commerce and does so via conceptualising global juridical relations as a site of contestation over questions of economic and social justice. By sketching aspects of a historical interaction between capitalist accumulation, natural rights and state hegemony, the article offers a critical account of the limits of liberal international law, and attempts to recover some ground for thinking about the emancipatory potential of international law more generally.

Antonio Gramsci is today the most translated Italian theorist. His theory has been used extensively in English language publications in cultural studies and international relations. This article examines the use, abuse and fruitful additions to Gramsci of Stuart Hall, Edward Saïd, Ranajit Guha, Robert Cox, Stephen Gill and Adam Morton. Its object is to examine their fidelity to what the mainstream Italian philology of Gramsci has written about his concepts and their order.

L’une des nombreuses définitions de la mondialisation la présente comme une dynamique ayant répandu à travers le monde entier les structures sociales modernes telles que le capitalisme, la bureaucratie, la haute technologie ou encore la philosophie du rationalisme et du libéralisme. En effet, dans ce sens, le libéralisme a en général prévalu en tant que cadre politique dominant dans la mondialisation actuelle. La plupart des gouvernements ont promu des politiques néolibérales à l’égard de la mondialisation, tandis que des organismes multilatéraux (...) influents n’ont cessé d’associer la mondialisation à la libéralisation. Les partisans de la mondialisation ont également proliféré dans les cercles commerciaux, notamment sur les marchés financiers, et su multiplient parmi les dirigeants d’entreprises transfrontalières. Les associations d’entrepreneurs et les mass-médias tournés vers la finance représentent de même des bastions du néolibéralisme qu’ils considèrent globalement comme une autorité en ce qui concerne la politique de la mondialisation. Autrement dit, les idées néolibérales sont depuis quelque temps acceptées comme une vérité absolue dictée par le « bon sens ». Le texte élabore la thèse suivante : le néolibéralisme – une sorte de théorie philosophique, politique et économique, appelée libertarianisme, qui s’est imposée dans la mondialisation contemporaine en tant qu’approche dominante – ne coïncide pas avec l’idéal de la société bien ordonnée de la démocratie libérale qui découle des idées, des aspects et des dimensions de la philosophie libérale diamétralement opposés. La philosophie sociale du libéralisme, développée dans l’oeuvre de Kant, Hayek, Dworkin et Rawls, considère la conception de la démocratie libérale moderne, fondée sur le règne de la loi, la protection des droits de l’homme et des droits civiques ainsi que sur les idées d’égalité, de justice et d’équité. Dans ce sens, les programmes de « discrimination positive » des couches sociales les plus basses sont en parfait accord avec cette philosophie libérale qui protège les droits individuels. Partant de là, la mondialisation économique et culturelle devrait faire l’objet d’une analyse conceptuelle claire avec pour impératif normatif la mondialisation de la responsabilité dont l’objectif serait de protéger l’avenir mondial de l’humanité. Une sorte de contrôle démocratique et de règne du droit sont tout aussi nécessaires dans notre monde globalisé. Le devoir central de la politique mondiale – à savoir de stopper le chaos global qui menace d’être une conséquence inévitable d’une mondialisation non contrôlée – implique, entre autres, un ordre légal international avec une sorte de gouvernance démocratique mondiale. Cependant, une question décisive, à laquelle il est difficile de répondre, se pose à propos de la construction démocratique mondiale : comment bâtir une politique de gouvernance mondiale dans notre monde divisé ? (shrink)

One of numerous definitions of globalization describes it as a dynamic process whereby the social structures of modernity, such as capitalism, bureaucracy, high technology, and philosophy of rationalism and liberalism are spread the world over. Indeed, in that sense, liberalism has in general prevailed as the authoritative policy framework in present-day globalization. Most governments have promoted neoliberal policies toward globalization, as well as influential multilateral agencies have continually linked globalization with liberalization. Champions of neoliberal globalization have also abounded in commercial (...) circles, particularly in the financial markets and among managers of transborder firms. Business associations and business-oriented mass media have likewise figured as bastions of neoliberalism which has overall ranked as policy orthodoxy in respect of globalization. Generally speaking, neoliberal ideas recently gained widespread unquestioned acceptance as “common sense”. On the other hand, neoliberalism as a sort of philosophical, political and economic theory known as libertarianism, which has generally prevailed as theoretical approach in contemporary globalization, does not have much in common with the ideal of liberal democracy of well-ordered society, which arises from quite different ideas, aspects and dimensions of liberal philosophy. Social philosophy of liberalism, developed by Kant, Hayek, Dworkin and Rawls, has promoted the idea of modern liberal democracy which is generally based on the rule of law, protection of human and civil rights, ideas of equality and justice as fairness. In that sense “affirmative action” programmes in favour of the least advantaged groups are fully consonant with a general liberal philosophy that protects individual rights. Economic and cultural globalization should be accompanied by a clear conceptual analysis and a normative requirement of a globalization of responsibility in order to protect the global future of humankind. A democratic control as well as the rule of law in our globalized world is necessary, too. Central tasks of global policy to prevent global chaos as a consequence of uncontrolled globalization include, among other things, a legalized international order with a sort of global democratic governance. Concerning the improvement of global democracy and global rule of law the genuine question is: who can realize a policy of global governance in our divided world? (shrink)