Political Science Commons^™

Is It Really Time To Intervene In Libya?, Christina Cerna

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Shadi Hamid, in “It’s Time to Intervene,” suggests that the international community—specifically, the United States, the United Nations, and NATO—must intervene in Libya because Muammar Gaddafi has declared that he is ready and willing to slaughter his own people if his survival depends on it. The author considered Gaddafi’s speech otherwise “bizarre” and “incoherent.”

Feminism And Democracy, Louis Edgar Esparza

Human Rights & Human Welfare

After work on December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks walked onto a bus that was to take her home that night. She ended up on a trip to jail instead, for refusing to give her seat to a white passenger. The event triggered resistance to bus segregation, the founding of the Montgomery Improvement Association, and the election of the then-unknown Dr. Martin Luther King as its leader. The success of the campaign is an integral battle in our historical retellings of the US African American Civil Rights Movement. Fewer recount the sexual harassment against black women by white …

We Do Indeed Reap What We Sow, Walter Lotze

Human Rights & Human Welfare

When violence first broke out in Tunisia in January 2011, few observers would have predicted that waves of unrest would engulf North Africa and the Arab world. When demonstrations swiftly spread to Algeria, Sudan, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, and Jordan, observers hastened to place bets on which regime would be the next to fall. That Hosni Mubarak would be felled next came perhaps as no surprise; Egypt had for years been on a knife’s edge, liberalizing and modernizing society while closing all space for political and social participation. Most analysts then turned their attention to Sudan, Yemen, and Bahrain, predicting that …

Rising Asian Powers And Changing Global Governance, Ann Florini

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

International Relations (IR) scholarship is directly in the path of two simultaneous tidal waves. The first is the rise of China and India in the traditional IR terms of military and economic power. The second is the expanding nature of what IR scholarship needs to address, as global integration transforms the nature of the issues to be addressed and numerous trends expand the number and types of relevant actors. Neither theory nor practice is yet coping well with the profound implications of these fundamental changes. Investigating what kind of a world order might emerge from these two simultaneous tsunamis will …

When Religion Trumps Ethnicity: A Regional Election Case Study From Indonesia, Edward Aspinall, Sebastian Carl Dettman, Eve Warburton

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The authors analyse the 2010 mayoral election in the city of Medan, North Sumatra. Medan is an ethnically and religiously diverse city and the authors treat the elections here as a case study of inter-communal dynamics in local elections in plural regions of Indonesia. The first round of the vote was contested by 10 pairs of candidates and occurred in a climate of cross-ethnic alliance building and appeals that, the authors argue, are typical of broader Indonesian patterns. The second round confronted voters with a choice between a Muslim candidate and an ethnic Chinese candidate who was also a Buddhist. …

Taking It Off In The Mideast, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author explores the concept of democracy and the impact of financial, moral, and sexual corruption in the Middle East.

The Security Situation For Central Asia: Afghanistan, Water, And Uzbek Stability, Carleton Wesley Becks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Central Asia has emerged on the global stage after spending decades in isolation. As developing nations, most of Central Asia possesses the resources to spur rapid development. Things would seem to be in the region's favor. There are, however, a few events that could derail the region.

Afghanistan is on the periphery of the region and presents a series of difficult dilemmas such as creating a functioning government from a country that has been at war for nearly 30 years, the problem of the insurgency in the south, and narcotics trafficking.

Water is scarce in the region, the leaders cannot …

February Roundtable: The Arab Revolutions And Human Rights, Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“The Failure of Governance in the Arab World” by Simon Tisdall. The Guardian. January 11 2011.

He's Our Son Of A Bitch, Robert Funk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

It is said that Franklin Delano Roosevelt defended the US tendency to support dictators by remarking, “He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch.” The recent events in Tunisia and Egypt indicate that almost seventy years later, this unfortunate phrase seems to continue to guide US foreign policy.

A Little Respect, Please, Christina Cerna

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Simon Tisdall suggests that last month, when Mohammed Bouazizi (twenty-six years old), “an unemployed graduate, set himself on fire outside a government building in protest at police harassment,” his act became the “rallying cause for Tunisia’s disaffected legions of unemployed students, impoverished workers, trade unionists, lawyers and human rights activists.” The reaction to his act of self-immolation and death on January 4th led to the flight of President Ben Ali ten days later to Saudi Arabia and to the end of Ali's twenty-three-year rule of Tunisia. Time reported the event as follows: “When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight on Dec. …

Abeyance And Spontaneity In Tunisia, Louis Edgar Esparza

Human Rights & Human Welfare

On August 16, 1819, tens of thousands of workers gathered in what is now St. Peter’s Square in Manchester to demand suffrage. Entire families, parishes, and townships assembled, fueled by increasing commodity prices and political disenfranchisement. They had spread the word from town to town, and from church to church, that this previously banned meeting was indeed to occur. It was the culmination of months of agitation on the part of common people to achieve economic and political reform. The government responded violently to the challenge of its authority, as governments so often do, leading to a score of deaths …

Those Pesky Winds Of Change..., Walter Lotze

Human Rights & Human Welfare

When a police officer slapped a fruit seller by the name of Mohammed Bouazizi in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, nobody could have anticipated that a revolution had commenced. Bouazizi, a twenty-six-year-old computer science graduate unable to find work, had resorted to selling fruit from a street cart in an attempt to support himself and his seven siblings. Slapped by the police officer and ordered to pack up his goods, Bouazizi himself snapped. He marched to the local governor’s office and demanded an appointment, threatening to set himself alight if the governor did not meet with him. In frustration, …

The Name Game As Blame Game: The Domodedovo Terrorist Bombing, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author discusses the relevance of blame in the context of terrorism.

Book Review: Fractured Rebellion, Amy O'Keefe

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In this groundbreaking book, Andrew Walder creates an orderly account of the events, discussions, and political currents that comprised the student movement in Beijing during the first two years of China’s Cultural Revolution. With meticulous attention to sequencing, he comprehends and brings meaning to a whirlwind of events often described as a vindictive political free-for-all, but which he shows, instead, to have been a structured series of rivalries.

Passport To The World: Chinese Students At The University Of Kentucky, Denise Ho, Jared Flanery

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

My Thursday afternoon flight from Shanghai to Chicago exhibited a curious phenomenon. United Airlines Flight 836, which went from China to Midwestern America on August 19, 2010, had the most homogenous set of passengers I had ever seen. They were all in their late teens and early twenties, Chinese youth dressed in the trendiest fashions and carrying the latest electronics. I was so impressed that I broke my rule about photographing people, popped up in my seat in the corner of economy class, and took their picture.

Whether United knew it or not, my flight was a modern school bus, …

Havel, China And Africa, Howard W. French

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I am eager to read Chinese news accounts of the life and death of Vaclav Havel, whose central message might be summed up as the necessity for individuals everywhere to cast off their apathy and assume their rights – and agency – as citizens.

The death of this figure of major importance to the history of the late- and post-Cold War world will inevitably generate talk that is heavily focused on Europe, just as the attention of the Western media and foreign ministries tended to stay almost exclusively bracketed on this region (with China, for a time, serving as a …

Liminal City, Rian Dundon

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

He says he’s lost his city and his society. We drive past a group of demonstrators protesting land seizures. He points out the scene and the gaggle of police cruisers nearby and grins in English “this is Chi-na”, emphasizing the play-on-words between “Chi” and “Chai” (chai, or 拆 being Chinese for “dismantle” or “demolish”). He sees the city’s recent prosperity through a filter of isolation, exclusion, and greed. Tells me how the doors are all closed. How peoples’ sense of self worth is determined by the number of contacts in their cell phones. How they are drifting further …

Review: Consent Of The Networked, Anne Henochowicz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The last two years have seen much talk about the explosion of social media as a tool of real change, most notably during the Arab Spring. Tunisia’s and Egypt’s revolutions were powered by Twitter and Facebook. Though these sites are blocked in China, Sina’s microblogging platform Weibo has also changed the political game in that country, forcing government accountability after last summer’s high-speed train crash in Wenzhou and contributing to the very public downfall of former Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai. Weibo’s power may also lead to its demise. After rumors of a coup attempt spread recently, the comment function …

Obama, The Dalai Lama, And Us-China Relations: The Current State Of Affairs

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In early 2010, when President Obama met with the Dalai Lama, this made a considerable splash both in the news media and in diplomatic circles, and there have been various repercussions from Beijing’s side when other foreign leaders have met with the Tibetan figure. Obama’s July 16 meeting with the Dalai Lama in Washington, DC led to a furious reaction within hours from Beijing, perhaps even stronger than in the past. So we decided to ask Robbie Barnett, the Director of Columbia University’s Modern Tibetan Studies Program, the author of works such as Lhasa: Streets with Memories, and a long-time …

China’S Empty Apartments, Michael Gsovski

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

There are serious problems in the Chinese housing market. While the average urban resident has to deal with constant rent hikes and the threat of eviction in the face of new construction, the rich buy extra apartments to shield their wealth against inflation. Not only is this an economic threat, but in China it is a particular threat to stability as well. Firstly, since the turbulent boom years of the China’s opening and reform period, owning housing has been seen as a useful hedge for ordinary people against an otherwise uncertain economic situation. Secondly, owning—rather than renting—an apartment or other …

Your Discourse Or Mine?, Silvia Lindtner

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As scholars we speak frequently in public and are confronted with various interpretations of our work by others who at times do not share our own viewpoints. Though this often brings with it excitement at the opportunity to form bridges between academic and other discourses, reaching audiences beyond our own disciplines and engaging a wider public still remains a challenge for many of us. We look at these conversations as opportunities for further debate, for mutual learning, and for being introduced to different perspectives on our work. At times, how one’s work finds resonance elsewhere surprises, illuminating the scholar’s responsibility …

Excerpt: The Tree That Bleeds: A Uighur Town On The Edge, Nick Holdstock

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Nick Holdstock, who readers might remember from a piece on the 2009 riots in Xinjiang he posted here last month, has a new book coming out later this week from Luath Press. In The Tree That Bleeds: A Uighur Town on the Edge, Holdstock recounts the story of his year teaching English in Yining, a border town that in 1997 saw an outbreak of violence, and his efforts to discover the truth about what happened there. Here, in two excerpts from the book’s introduction, Holdstock explains what brought him to Yining and describes his journey to and first encounters with …

Reading Round-Up: Reactions To The Wenzhou Train Crash, Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

There has been a huge amount of reporting on the July 23 train accident in Wenzhou that killed at least 39 and incited a continuing outcry among Chinese journalists and internet users, as well as government efforts to silence such criticism. Here, a collection of links connected to the rail crash and its aftermath.

Book Review: A Critical Introduction To Mao, Brian J. Demare

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

At the outset of the final chapter of A Critical Introduction to Mao, Jiang Yihua, a senior Chinese scholar, suggests that it will still be many years before historians will be able to draw any definitive conclusions concerning Mao Zedong, revolutionary China’s most imposing figure. This inability to give a final and authoritative interpretation of Mao, Jiang suggests, is due to difficulties of archival access as well as the fact that Mao is still being recreated and reshaped by his ever loyal followers and his equally dedicated detractors. Jiang’s skeptical approach to the problem of knowing Mao, a problem rarely …

A View On Ai Weiwei’S Exit, Geremie R. Barme

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A much shorter version of this essay was originally destined for a leading newspaper outlet. Unfortunately, so much editorial “back-filling” was required to transform it into something more accessible to even a relatively sophisticated readership, I decided that it would be best to pull it. Instead, I offer it here with considerable additional material to readers of China Beat.

Facebook And The People In The Iron House: 非死不可？, James A. Millard

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

“Maybe we will block content in some countries, but not others,” Adam Conner, a Facebook lobbyist, told the [Wall Street] Journal. “We are occasionally held in uncomfortable positions because now we’re allowing too much, maybe, free speech in countries that haven’t experienced it before,” he said.

China Beat Event: “Nationalism And Religion In Twentieth- Century Asia,” Friday 4/22

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

China Beat readers in Southern California are invited to join us this Friday at UC Irvine for a dialogue between James Carter of Saint Joseph’s University and UCI’s Vinayak Chaturvedi, who will be discussing the topic of “Nationalism and Religion in Twentieth-Century Asia.” Carter’s new book is Heart of Buddha, Heart of China: The Life of Tanxu, a Twentieth-Century Monk (read an excerpt here); Chaturvedi is author of Peasant Pasts: History and Memory in Western India.

Understanding China, Ron Javers

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Though the lyric was written for and recorded by Nina Simone in 1964, most Americans who remember it at all probably remember best the 1965 cover by Eric Burdon and the Animals, with its twangy guitar riffs and R&B-fired shriek of entreaty.

Ai Weiwei And Qingming, Lionel M. Jensen

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Ai Weiwei (as most readers of this blog will know), perhaps China’s best-known artist and provocateur, is missing. Like so many other people of conscience and voice in the past two years, he is gone. Swallowed by the insatiable fear of the state’s authoritarian belly. It has been more than four days since his apprehension and his wife, Lu Qing, who was also detained and questioned, has not heard from him; he is unreachable by phone.

Mourning The Soviet Union, Nicolai Volland

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Twenty years ago, on 23 August 1991, a grimlooking Boris Yeltsin shoved a sheet of paper in front of Mikhail Gorbachev with the words, “You read this now!” Gorbachev, who had just returned to Moscow after the abortive coup d’état led by KGB generals and hardliners in his own Party, appeared tense and insecure. In front of a stunned international TV audience (original footage here [at 01:25]), he did as he was told. Gorbachev’s decree was the first in a number of documents that led to the ban of the once mighty Communist Party of the Soviet Union.