Assemblages of State Power: Topological Shifts in the Organization of Government and Politics

Abstract: Multi‐scalar or multi‐site power relations offer two contrasting ways of understanding the shifting geography of state power. In this paper, we argue for a different starting point, one that favours a topological understanding of state spatiality over more conventional topographical accounts. In contrast to a vertical or horizontal imagery of the geography of state power, what states possess, we suggest, is reach, not height. In doing so, we draw from Sassen (2006 , Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, Princeton University Press) a vocabulary capable of portraying the renegotiation of powers that has taken place between central government in the UK and one of its key city regions, the South East of England; one that highlights an assemblage of political actors, some public, some private, where negotiations take place between elements of central and local actors “lodged” within the region, not acting “above”, “below” or “alongside” it. The articulation of political demands in such a context has less to do with “jumping scale” or formalizing extensive network connections and more to do with the ability to reach directly into a “centralized” politics where proximity and reach play across one another in particular ways.     

State Power,Civic Participation and the Urban Frontier: The Politics of the Commons in Karachi

Abstract: A martial state's neoliberal policies opened the nation's frontiers to new forms of globalization. This article investigates the political process that undergirded the military and global capital's sequestration of common land in Karachi and the concomitant contestation by a key civil society organization. Using Foucault's conception of sovereignty and government as an assemblage of authority and strategies of rationalization, this paper analyses the role of state and non‐state actors and changing power configurations in a conflict that surrounded the enclosure of a common and its transformation into a securitized zone of consumption in Karachi's Civil Lines. The conflict highlights the nature of the politics of space and citizenship in Pakistan's primary metropolis.     

Participation and Power: Poor People's Engagement with India's Employment Assurance Scheme

‘Participation’ has become an essential part of good developmental practice for Southern governments, NGOs and international agencies alike. In this article we reflect critically on this shift by investigating how a ‘participatory’ development programme — India's Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS) — intersects with poor people's existing social networks. By placing the formalized process of participation in the EAS within the context of these varied and uneven village–level relationships, we raise a number of important issues for participatory development practice. We note the importance of local power brokers and the heterogeneity of ‘grassroots’ (dis)empowerment, and question ideas of power reversals used within the participatory development literature.     

Sexual Misconduct and Church Power on Scottish Mission Stations in Xhosaland,South Africa,in the 1840s

Tensions over the control of improper sexuality were a key concern of African converts and Scottish missionaries in Xhosaland, South Africa, in the first part of the nineteenth century. Missionary preoccupations with sexual behaviour meant that sexual acts became key sites for the negotiation of status and identity. Reading the case of Jan Beck, which is represented in unusually rich detail in the mission archive, allows us to see how converts used European understandings of sexual morality to gain access to mission resources as well as to exclude other converts from them. In the process, male converts were mediating between Xhosa and missionary evangelical sexual mores and identities. Their ability to do so reveals both the power of local figures to influence colonial outcomes, and the relative fragility of missionary authority in these contexts.     

1840-1860年间清政府三种外交体系分析

两次鸦片战争期间的中外关系,如果按照类型分析法标准来划分,可以基本分为朝贡体系Ⅰ型、Ⅱ型和Ⅲ型三类。中国与三类国家间的关系及其各自体制内部的演变错综复杂。两次鸦片战争之间的中外关系显然发生了重要变化。澄清这一时期中外关系复杂的性质,对中国近代史研究具有重要意义。     

Italy during the Rhine Crisis of 1840

The paper addresses the impact of the Rhine Crisis of 1840 on Italian countries and explains the role they played in the European State System when the Continent seemed to be on the eve of a general war. As the paper attempts to prove, the crisis seriously alarmed the ruling classes as well as the general public and revealed the internal problems of the Italian countries as well as their deep distrust towards the egotistic and self-serving policies of the Great Powers. The paper therefore introduces the history of Italy during late 1840 within the wider context of European diplomatic history and serves as a probe into the history of the European State System during the Pre-March period in general.     

华侨华人社团的“拟村落化”现象——荷兰华侨华人社团案例调查和研究

通过对荷兰华侨华人生活的实地调查和研究,分析了华人社团的类型、功能、运作方式及其在社会融合中的作用。认为华侨华人社团在华人世界中扮演着一个关键性的角色——拟村落化,提供了一个非常重要的社会生活和活动空间。他们凭借着原有的历史经验和记忆,将社团当作村落来经营和管理,在社团内进行博弈和地位实现,在一定程度上缓解了他们在移入国的边缘化感受,缓解了因失落而对主流社会的抱怨,这在一定程度上降低了华侨华人与主流社会的对抗。由此可见,荷兰的华侨华人社团不同于专业化的行业组织或政党组织,有着多样的、综合性的社会属性,是一个村落式的我群社会。