Urban Governance Under Neoliberalism: New Labour and the Restructuring of State‐Space

Abstract: In the UK there has been a proliferation of agencies at differing regulatory scales as part of the rescaling and restructuring of the state by New Labour, following the neoliberal policies of previous Conservative governments. This raises questions concerning the extent to which New Labour's urban state restructuring is embedded within neoliberalism, and the local tensions and contradictions arising from emergent New Labour urban state restructuring. This paper examines these questions through the analysis of key policy features of New Labour, and the in‐depth exploration of two programmes that are reshaping urban governance arrangements, namely Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) and New Deal for Communities (NDC) programmes. We conclude that New Labour's restructuring is best understood in terms of the extended reproduction (roll‐out) of neoliberalism. While these “new institutional fixes” are only weakly established and exhibit internal contradictions and tensions, these have not led to a broader contestation of neoliberalism.     

Engendering New Labour's Workfarist Regime: Exploring the intersection of welfare state restructuring and labour market policies in the UK

This article deconstructs New Labour's emerging workfarist regime to reveal the complex and contradictory gender relations embodied in and through its work–welfare policy. Starting from the decline of manufacturing employment within the UK, it traces the deregulation of the labour market and the range of structural and social changes initiated by this process. Noting, in particular, how the ‘feminisation of the economy’ is connected to the changing characteristics of employment and women's socio-economic positions, the article identifies the manner in which the growing labour market participation of women is serving to (further) entrench gender inequality. Against this background, it proceeds to raise issues regarding the increased expectation to enter the labour market observed within programmes such as the New Deal for the Unemployed, which stipulates that the receipt of state benefits ought now to require a labour input. The crux of analysis is on the policy and political discourses that award priority to paid work in the formal labour market, whilst simultaneously neglecting the gendered divisions of labour around unwaged care work and domestic tasks. In suggesting that gender remains a key form of political-economic organisation in the contemporary period of after-Fordism, this article argues that (further) attention must be given to the ways in which its socially constructed properties are manifest within work–welfare policy and the ramifications of this embedding for social and economic equality.     

Managing gendered expectations upon resettlement: the experiences of Iraqi Kurdish Muslim women in the UK

This article discusses research surrounding the migration experiences of Iraqi Kurdish Muslim women migrants who have settled in the UK. Looking at some of the important and influential works by post-colonial feminist writers, what is revealed are arguments that provide some false senses of separation between different women. These writers' concepts provide for a stagnation of extreme oppositionally based models of power that fail to recognise the existence of current and future transgressive, positive and empowering relationships of power which exist between women; and that happen in ways that remake the process, whereby transnational feminisms reach out, speak to, touch and reject each other – often all at the same time – and yet, in fresh and reconstituted forms. Considering both oppressive and transgressive relationships of power revealed complex combinations of often contradictory and simultaneously negative and empowering experiences. The Kurdish women practise strategies of Othering, of distance and of proximity corresponding to a variety of different concepts held within several different forms of feminism; they demonstrate an eclectic approach to their self-determination and to the development of rethinking forms of transnational feminism.     

Parents and policy under New Labour: a case study of the United Kingdom's new deal for lone parents

Within the context of neo-liberal economic policy, and triggered by the looming demographic crisis of an ageing society, a cornerstone of the policies aimed at parents of the previous New Labour administrations in the UK ‘encouraged’ parents to take up paid work or to make themselves ‘work-ready’ to provide the skills to compete in a globalised labour market. Underpinned by a belief that most citizens should be in a position to participate in the paid labour market, government rhetoric actively perpetuated a normative code of economic participation in a political climate that appeared to increasingly marginalise and denigrate the work of social reproduction. Notions of good parenting and, in particular, good mothering were variously tied to (re)employment, financial independence and offering a productive role model to children. ‘Good parenting’ was supported by a host of policies which aimed to enable parents to take financial responsibility for their families, ensuring their children did not grow up in poverty. In this paper, I consider the impact on parents and children of one of the key policies aimed at parents to come out of the UK in the last decade: ‘The New Deal for Lone Parents’. In doing so this article will highlight the role that economic and fiscal concerns have had in shaping the direction of policies aimed at parents in the UK. Drawing on empirical work which sought to explore the views of parents and their children of welfare reform, it will also argue that policy-makers must engage with children when developing policies aimed at parents.     

Childhood in the rural areas of Chile,intergenerational and gendered perspectives

ABSTRACT

This article triangulates intergenerational (childhood, adulthood, and old age) visions on the social representation of childhood in rural areas of Chile. These visions were considered within the framework of identity constructs (perceptions, social behaviours, preferences, and ambitions) and were compared against emerging transformations in the spheres of family, and gender relations. A qualitative methodology was used to analyse 68 individual interviews (41 children; 21 women old age; and 6 adult women). It was concluded that, in a context of globalization, rural boys and girls use modern, urban symbols and conform to traditional gender stereotypes. In a familial environment, rural children have acquired discursive protagonism in alliance with older women, a reality that conflicts with the conservative vision of middle-aged adults who have poor awareness regarding the participation of children. Contrasting visions exist between adult women and seniors concerning the responsibilities assigned to children in general and, particularly, to girls.     

论新中国文化发展的历史分期

在中国特色社会主义的奠基、开创和发展过程中,中国共产党也在探索社会主义文化的发展道路和发展规律。应该将新中国文化建设放在整体经济社会发展与演变的大背景中,确立划分60多年来文化发展分期的标准。根据经济基础与上层建筑的关系、文化与经济政治的关系以及文化自身发展的特殊规律,可以将新中国60多年文化发展的历史分为六个时期。其中的每个阶段都有其特征和中心内容,且前一个发展阶段成为后一个发展阶段的先导,后一个阶段继承前一个阶段的成果和经验。新中国60多年来,文化建设是在艰辛探索中螺旋式上升、曲折性前进的,反映了社会主义文化建设内涵的不断丰富和发展,也反映了中国共产党对文化建设规律的认识不断深化和完善。     

New military femininities: humanitarian violence and the gendered work of war among U.S. servicewomen

This article examines ‘military femininity’ in new gendered forms of labor employed by the U.S. military in the post-September 11 wars. Between 2003 and 2013, when women were technically banned from direct assignment to ground combat units, the U.S. military deployed all-female counterinsurgent teams in Iraq and Afghanistan. In various forms, these teams searched Iraqi women at checkpoints and in home raids, provided medical assistance to Afghan women and children, and participated in highly combative special operations missions alongside Army Rangers and Green Berets in Afghanistan. Recent literature on the gendering of counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan focuses mainly on the teams’ deployment of humanitarianism and affect as weapons of war, while older feminist critiques analyze women’s marginalization within military institutions. This article reconceptualizes military femininity, departing from the prevailing marginalization and humanitarian frameworks. Drawing on military and policy documents, first-hand observations of military trainings, and interviews with military trainers, I show how women were integrated into ground combat through the promotion of certain gender essentialisms, such as feminine domesticity, alongside military violence. A new form of military femininity has emerged that eschews humanitarian rhetoric, and instead emphasizes servicewomen’s lethality.     

New Zealand parents' understandings of the intergenerational decline in children's independent outdoor play and active travel

Children's independent mobility and physical activity levels are declining in Western countries. In the past 20 years New Zealand children's active travel (walking and cycling) has dropped on average from 130 to 72 minutes per week, and those travelling by car to school have increased from 31% to 58%. This paper describes parents' understandings of why 9–11-year-old primary school children in suburban Auckland are less likely to walk to school and play unsupervised outdoors than they were as children. Data gathered in focus groups show understandings range from proximate neighbourhood explanations to downstream impacts of a neoliberal policy context.     

The British Parliamentary Labour Party and the Government of Ireland Act 1920

Immediately after the First World War the British Labour Party was forced to reconsider its relationship with an increasingly militant Irish nationalism. This reassessment occurred at the same time as it was becoming a major political and electoral force in post‐war Britain. The political imperative from the party's perspective was to portray itself as a responsible, moderate and patriotic alternative governing party. Thus it was fearful of the potential negative impact of too close an association with, and perceived sympathy for, extreme Irish nationalism. This explains the party's often bewildering changes in policy on Ireland at various party conferences in 1919 and 1920, ranging from support for home rule to federalism throughout the United Kingdom to ‘dominion home rule’ as part of a wider evolving British Commonwealth to adopting outright ‘ self‐determination’ for a completely independent Ireland outside both United Kingdom and empire. On one aspect of its Irish policy, however, the party was adamant and united – its opposition to the partition of Ireland, which was the fundamental principle of Lloyd George's Government of Ireland Bill of 1920 which established Northern Ireland. Curiously, that aspect of Labour's Irish policy was never discussed in the party at large. All the running was made by the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) in the house of commons in 1920. The PLP's outright opposition to the bill acted as balm throughout the wider party, binding together the confusing, and often contradictory, positions promulgated on the long‐term constitutional future of Ireland and its relationship with Britain.     

抗战时期安徽新县制改革研究

抗战初期,新桂系参考广西经验对安徽县政进行了初步改革。1940年起,新桂系安徽省府推行国民政府新县制,内容包括行政机构调整、民意机关创建、国民兵团编整、干训体系完善等诸多方面。改革所带来的基层政权人员与机构的正规化及对地方自治的有限试验,一定程度上推动了民国安徽政治现代化,并为安徽省府进行社会动员、坚持敌后持久抗战产生了积极影响。但由于各种不利因素制约,改革最终未能摆脱近代中国官治吞噬自治的政治窠臼。     

新时期中国文化发展的几个宏观问题研究

改革开放以来,中国共产党的文化理论与政策经历了从“一体化”的文化建设理论与方针到建设“高扬主旋律”的多样化的文化观念与政策的演进;党在知识分子问题上的认识和政策也发生了很大转变,不但认识到知识分子是工人阶级的一部分,是先进生产力的开拓者,而且把市场经济、知识经济、信息时代与知识分子政策密切联系在一起;与此同时,建立在一元化基础上的一体化的文化形态开始解构,并形成了主导文化、大众文化和精英文化三足鼎立的当代中国文化的基本格局。     

新时期文化产业建设考察

文化与文化生产、文化产业是不同性质、不同层次的概念。新中国对文化事业和文化产业的理解既受到经济发展水平的限制,也受到意识形态观念的影响。从单一的文化建设向文化事业与文化产业并举的转变反映了新时期理论界、文化界对社会主义文化建设理论的大胆探索和积极实践。群众文化作为意识形态的一部分,因其具有广泛的大众娱乐消费基础以及与传统文化和民间文化的紧密联系,成为催生文化产业最丰饶的沃土。文化经济正崛起为21世纪我国新的经济增长点,文化产业处于大发展时期。而文化产品作为文化的载体,其生产与传播方式的变革必然会对文化的传承与发展产生巨大的影响。文化的核心是价值观,文化传统必定持续地存在并显现于文化生活和文化产品中。在繁荣文化经济的同时,如何处理当代文化与传统文化、民族文化与外来文化的关系,是发展繁荣社会主义文化必须面对的课题。     

试论建国初期河北省的禁烟禁毒斗争

建国前 ,由于帝国主义侵略和封建主义的黑暗统治 ,河北省种植鸦片和吸食毒品的问题十分严重 ,影响了社会经济的发展。中华人民共和国成立后 ,河北省开展了大规模的禁烟禁毒斗争 ,仅仅用了三年左右的时间 ,就基本消除了省内延续上百年的种植、贩运和吸食毒品的现象 ,解决了旧中国历届政府无法解决的烟毒泛滥问题 ,树立了“无毒省”的形象。河北省禁烟禁毒获得成功的主要原因在于 :领导重视、组织保证 ;制定了一系列法律法规 ;深入开展宣传教育 ,广泛发动群众投入禁烟斗争 ;禁烟禁毒工作与清除其他社会病害配合进行 ;各部门协同行动 ,综合治理     

The global,the ethnic and the gendered war: women and rape in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

The purpose of this study was to illuminate the perspectives of women who experienced sexual violence perpetrated in the warscapes of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Civilians are targeted for rape, loot and pillage yielding deleterious effects on the social fabric and the sustenance the community provides. The article is based on 11 qualitative semistructured interviews and 4 written narratives from women of reproductive age, recruited from organizations providing support post-sexual violation. The study departs from a larger ethnographic project investigating the phenomenon of war-rape. Thematic analysis guided the analysis through the theoretical lenses of structural violence and intersectionality. The women expressed total insecurity and a multitude of losses from bodily integrity, health, loss of family, life course possibilities, livelihoods and a sense of place; a profound dispossession of identity and marginalization. Pregnancies resulting from rape reinforced stigma and burdened the survivor with raising a stigmatized child on the margins of society. Perpetrators of rape were mostly identified as Interhamwe (Rwandan Hutus rebels) who entered Congo after the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Their goal, according to the women, was to spread HIV and impregnate Congolese women, thereby destroying families, communities and society. The women survivors of war-rape described experiences of profound loss in this conflict which has global, ethnic and gendered dimensions. Congo's conflict thus requires critical reflection on how local wars and subsequent human suffering are situated in a matrix of globalization processes, enabled by transnational actors and embedded in structural violence.     

用GDP评价新中国头30年建设成就的几个问题

GDP是国民经济账户体系的一个核心指标,简单地用GDP评价新中国头30年的建设成就,并不完全合适;目前1952～1978年GDP主要有张风波、国家统计局、麦迪森三种数据,其中,麦迪森数据平均比国家统计局数据高出29.8%左右;传统上认为,发展中国家的经济总量被低估主要表现在未观测经济方面,但实际上,产品经济是计划经济国家经济总量被低估的另一个重要方面;汇率法GDP并不能真实地反映我国的经济实力及在世界上的地位,购买力平价GDP是一个重要的参考。现行的1952～1978年GDP低估了中国这一时期的建设成绩,应同时使用社会总产值和社会总产品的若干数据和事实进行补充和调整。     

论五四新文化运动时期的“自觉”思潮

“自觉”是五四新化运动的一个重要方面。在这之前,由于政治上的原因,“自觉”问题已被普遍关注,其中最有代表性的就是“爱国心”与“自觉心”的讨论。五四新化运动的自觉思潮,直承爱国心与自觉心的讨论而来。但其内容已有深化,它所关注的重心是“青年之自觉”。所谓“青年之自觉”包括三个层次的意思,即青年对于国家之自觉,青年对于社会之自觉,青年对于个人之自觉。五四新化运动所主张的“青年之自觉”,一方面从西方浪漫主义思潮中吸取了灵感,另一方面也受到了儒家“心学”传统,特别是王阳明思想的影响。     

Jumping Fish: Engendering Contestation and Development on the Waterways of the Aramia River in Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACT Set in the Aramia River basin, this article explores the intimate and interactive relationship between communities in Western Province, Papua New Guinea, and the water that dominates the environment in which they live. Located amongst tidal rivers, creeks and lagoons, Gogodala villages sit high on ‘islands’ of land. In this environment, water is the site of seasonal change and the space of movement. The Aramia River is synonymous with an ancestral figure called Sawiya who travelled in her canoe, naming, creating and populating the water and land of the area. As the ‘mother of all fish’, Sawiya controls the movement and abundance of fish and other aquatic resources. Water is embodied in Sawiya, whose capacities to both nourish and punish are the basis of seasonal variations in fish, and in the colour and clarity of water in the local lagoons and rivers. Set against the backdrop of the Ok Tedi Mine and recent logging operations on the Aramia, the article explores some of the ways in which water and its resources are defined and experienced in this rural community and the impact this may have on the exploitation and development of natural resources in PNG.     

新中国60年与马克思主义哲学发展的反思—中国马克思主义哲学史学会2009年年会综述

回顾和总结马克思主义哲学发展的基本经验和基本规律,并由此探寻马克思主义哲学未来发展的方向和道路,是中国的马克思主义哲学研究者和宣传者面临的重要任务。文章从马克思主义哲学发展的基本经验及规律、马克思主义中国化与中国特色社会主义道路、马克思主义经典著作出版和研究的进展等方面对新中国60年马克思主义哲学的发展进行了反思与总结。     

Expanding the discursive domain of research on the New Culture Movement: An incomplete review of studies on the New Culture Movement

ABSTRACT

The discussions revolving around the common subject of the New Culture Movement have experienced a complex and convoluted history, with a discursive domain ranging from the differentiation of new and old culture, to appeals for a scientific and democratic enlightenment, to the balancing of the cultural relationship between China and the West. The New Culture tends to be regarded as development in the direction of increasing rationality, liberality, and inclusiveness, in which the pursuit of an understanding between the Chinese and Western cultures is the only path by which Chinese civilization may gain future opportunities and development.     

Migrant mothers,left-behind fathers: the negotiation of gender subjectivities in Indonesia and the Philippines

The distinct feminization of labour migration in Southeast Asia – particularly in the migration of breadwinning mothers as domestic and care workers in gender-segmented global labour markets – has altered care arrangements, gender roles and practices, as well as family relationships within the household significantly. Such changes were experienced by both the migrating women and other left-behind members of the family, particularly ‘substitute’ carers such as left-behind husbands. During the women’s absence from the home, householding strategies have to be reformulated when migrant women-as-mothers rewrite their roles (but often not their identities) through labour migration as productive workers who contribute to the well-being of their children via financial remittances and ‘long-distance mothering’, while left-behind fathers and/or other family members step up to assume some of the tasks vacated by the mother. Using both quantitative and qualitative interview material with returned migrants and left-behind household members in source communities in Indonesia and the Philippines experiencing considerable pressures from labour migration, this article explores how carework is redistributed in the migrant mother’s absence, and the ensuing implications on the gender roles of remaining family members, specifically left-behind fathers. It further examines how affected members of the household negotiate and respond to any changing gender ideologies brought about by the mother’s migration over time.