scholarly journals The Decoupling of the Nation and the State: Constitutionalizing Transnational Nationhood, Cross-Border Connectivity, Diaspora, and “National” Identity-Affiliation in Asia and Beyond

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroshi FUKURAI
Keyword(s):  
Political Influence ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
National University ◽  
Multiple Regions ◽  
Border Politics ◽  
Global Affairs

AbstractSince the first Asian Law and Society Conference (ALSA) was held at the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2016, a number of special sessions have been organized to focus on the deconstruction of the Westphalian transnational order based on the concept of the “nation-state.”1 This dominant hegemony was predicated on the congruence of the geo-territorial boundaries of both the state and the nation, as well as the “assumed integration” of state-defined “citizenship” and another distinctly layered “membership” based on culture, ethnic, religious, and indigenous affiliations. The “nation-state” ideology has thus masked a history of tensions and conflicts, often manifested in the form of oppression, persecution, and genocide directed at the nation and its peoples by the state and its predatory institutions. Our studies have shown that such conflicts between the nation and the state have been observed in multiple regions in Asia, including Kashmir in India; Moro and Islamic communities of Mindanao in the Philippines; Karen, Kachin, and other autonomous nations in Myanmar; West Papua, Aceh, Kalimantan, South Moluccas, Minahasa, and Riau in Indonesia; Kurds in multiple state systems of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran; and Palestine in Israel, among many other culturally autonomous nucleated communities in Asia and across the world.2 The phrase “the nation and the state” was specifically chosen to distinguish and highlight the unique conflictual histories of two geo-political entities and to provide a fundamentally differing interpretation of history, geography, the role of law, and global affairs from the perspectives of nation peoples, rather than from that of the state or international organizations, as traditional analyses do. The Westphalian “nation-state” hegemony led to the inviolability of the state’s sovereign control over the nation and peoples within a state-delimited territory. The state then began to engage in another predatory project: to strengthen and extend its international influence over other states and, thus, the nations within these states, by adopting new constitutional provisions to offer cross-border “citizenship” to diasporic “ethnic-nationals” and descendants of “ex-migrants” who now inhabit foreign states. The nations have similarly capitalized on constitutional activism by erecting their own Constitutions to explore collaboration with other nations, as well as diasporic populations of their own, in order to carve out a path toward the nations’ independence within, and even beyond, the respective state systems. The “constitutional” activism sought by the state and the nation has become an important political vehicle with which to engage in possible collaboration with diasporic “ethno-nationals” and ex-migrant communities, in order to further assert political influence and strengthen trans-border politics of the state and the nation. Three articles included in this issue investigate such constitutional activism of cross-border politics and transnational collaborations in Asia, the Americas, Europe, and other regions across the globe.

scholarly journals Transnational mobility, strong states and contested sovereignty: Learning from the China–Taiwan context

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Momesso ◽  
Chun-Yi Lee
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Taiwan Strait ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Transnational Mobility ◽  
Economic Exchanges ◽  
State Actors ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Taiwan Strait

Mobility across the Taiwan Strait has intensified since the border was opened in 1987. The cross-border social, cultural and economic exchanges, however, have remained closely embedded in the nationalistic logic specific to cross-Strait relations. Employing a state-centered approach and building on a comparative analysis of the interaction between Beijing and two groups of cross-Strait migrants (mainland spouses in Taiwan, and Taiwanese investors in China), this paper examines the various ways in which a state may still exert influence over migrant communities in a context of increased mobility and exchanges. This paper argues that the nation-state may still shape migrants’ experiences, particularly when sending and receiving governments have unresolved disputes. Under these conditions, state actors may use migrant communities to achieve their nationalistic goals.

scholarly journals THE TRIUMPH OF THE STATE: SINGAPORE'S DOCKWORKERS AND THE LIMITS OF GLOBAL HISTORY, c. 1920–1965

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 1097-1123
Author(s):  
GARETH CURLESS
Keyword(s):  
Nation Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Global Approach ◽  
Global History ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
The World

AbstractLabour history has been revitalized by the global turn. It has encouraged historians to look beyond national frameworks to explore issues relating to mobility and inter-territorial connection. This article, while accepting the benefits of a global approach, argues that historians should not lose sight of the factors that constrain mobility or lead to the collapse of cross-border exchanges. Singapore's dockworkers were at the forefront of the island's anti-colonial campaigns of the 1940s and 1950s. Inspired by anti-colonial movements elsewhere in the world, dockworkers drew on international discourses relating to self-determination to place their local struggles in a global context. This activism, however, coincided with the emergence of countervailing forces, including the universalization of the nation-state and the rise of state-led developmentalism. In this context, dockworkers’ internationalism came to be regarded as a threat to state sovereignty and development. As a result, once Singapore achieved independence the ruling People's Action Party encouraged dockworkers to abandon their globalized outlook in the name of modernization and nation building. Global history, then, should be as much about the rise of the national as the transnational, and the loss of connection as the forging of inter-territorial networks.

Mexico-U.S. Migration and the Nation-State: A Transnational Perspective on Transformations since 1990

2019 ◽  
Vol 684 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Judith A. Boruchoff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Mexican Migration ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Mexican Government

This article examines Mexico-U.S. migration from a transnational perspective, explaining the implications of cross-border ties for the nation-state. It builds on 30 years of original research in Mexico and the United States, and contributions of the Mexican Migration Project and other research that show that conventional understandings of the nation-state have become inadequate. Focusing on relations between migrants and the Mexican government as well as their struggles for inclusion in the United States, it demonstrates how each nation-state is transformed as migrants maintain attachments and participate simultaneously in countries of origin and destination. It advances scholarship on this topic by specifying how, in each case, the connections among territory, state, and nation are changing in distinct ways. In the case of Mexico, the state framework is extended beyond geographical borders to encompass extraterritorial citizens within the nation. In the United States, a disjuncture between state and nation is emerging within the bounds of the national territory.

Interacting Legal Norms and Cross-Border Divorce: Stories of Filipino Migrant Women in the Netherlands

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-529
Author(s):  
Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Global Migration ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Filipino Women ◽  
Transnational Social Spaces ◽  
Filipino Migrants

The Philippines is one of only two states in the world in which absolute divorce remains largely impossible. Through its family laws, it regulates the marriage, family life and conjugal separation of its citizens, including its migrants abroad. To find out how these family laws interact with those in the receiving country of Filipino migrants and shape their lives, the present paper examines the case of Filipino women who experienced or are undergoing divorce in the Netherlands. Drawing from semi-structured interviews and an analysis of selected divorce stories, it unveils the intertwined institutions of marriage and of divorce, the constraints but also possibilities that interacting legal norms bring in the life of Filipino women, and the way these migrants navigate such norms within their transnational social spaces. These findings contribute interesting insights into cross-border divorces in the present age of global migration.

Untimely Development, Ugly History:A Drama in Muslinand the Rejection of National-Historical Time

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-183
Author(s):  
Mary L. Mullen
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The Core

This article considers the politics and aesthetics of the colonial Bildungsroman by reading George Moore's often-overlooked novel A Drama in Muslin (1886). It argues that the colonial Bildungsroman does not simply register difference from the metropolitan novel of development or express tension between the core and periphery, as Jed Esty suggests, but rather can imagine a heterogeneous historical time that does not find its end in the nation-state. A Drama in Muslin combines naturalist and realist modes, and moves between Ireland and England to construct a form of untimely development that emphasises political processes (dissent, negotiation) rather than political forms (the state, the nation). Ultimately, the messy, discordant history represented in the novel shows the political potential of anachronism as it celebrates the untimeliness of everyday life.

Chernivtsi National University during the Romanian period in Bukovina’s history (1918-1940)

2017 ◽  
pp. 118-125
Author(s):  
Liubov Melnychuk
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
The State ◽  
Ongoing Training ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
National University ◽  
The Government ◽  
The University

The author investigates and analyzes the state Chernivtsi National University during the Romanian period in Bukovina’s history. During that period in the field of education was held a radical change in the direction of intensive Romanization. In period of rigid occupation regime in the province, the government of Romania laid its hopes on the University. The Chernivtsi National University had become a hotbed of Romanization ideas, to ongoing training for church and state apparatus, to educate students in the spirit of devotion Romania. Keywords: Chernivtsi National University, Romania, Romanization, higher education, Bukovina

The State of Shared Prosperity in the Philippines

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Garcia ◽  
Jamil Paolo Francisco ◽  
Christopher Ed Caboverde
Keyword(s):  
The Philippines ◽  
The State

1830: van de Belgische protonatie naar de natiestaat (deel 2)

2007 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 303-321
Author(s):  
Lode Wils
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
The State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The South ◽  
Public Office ◽  
The North ◽  
Ministerial Responsibility ◽  
The Government ◽  
The French Revolution

In het tweede deel van zijn bijdrage 1830: van de Belgische protonatie naar de natiestaat, over de gebeurtenissen van 1830-1831 als slotfase van een passage van de Belgische protonatie doorheen de grote politiek-maatschappelijke en culturele mutaties na de Franse Revolutie, ontwikkelt Lode Wils de stelling dat de periode 1829-1830 de "terminale crisis" vormde van het Koninkrijk der Verenigde Nederlanden. Terwijl koning Willem I definitief had laten verstaan dat hij de ministeriële verantwoordelijkheid definitief afwees en elke kritiek op het regime beschouwde als kritiek op de dynastie, groeide in het Zuiden de synergie in het verzet tussen klerikalen, liberalen en radicale anti-autoritaire groepen. In de vervreemding tussen het Noorden en het Zuiden en de uiteindelijke revolutionaire nationaal-liberale oppositie vanuit het Zuiden, speelde de taalproblematiek een minder belangrijke rol dan het klerikale element en de liberale aversie tegen het vorstelijk absolutisme van Willem I en de aangevoelde uitsluiting van de Belgen uit het openbaar ambt en vooral uit de leiding van de staat.________1830: from the Belgian pre-nation to the nation stateIn the second part of his contribution 1830: from the Belgian pre-nation to the nation state, dealing with the events from 1830-1831 as the concluding phase of a transition of the Belgian pre-nation through the major socio-political and cultural mutations after the French Revolution, Lode Wils develops the thesis that the period of 1829-1830 constituted the "terminal crisis" of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands. Whilst King William I had clearly given to understand that he definitively rejected ministerial responsibility and that he considered any criticism of the regime as a criticism of the dynasty, the synergy of resistance increased between the clericalists, liberals and radical anti-authoritarian groups in the South. In the alienation between the North and the South and the ultimate revolutionary national-liberal opposition from the South the language issue played a less important role than the clericalist element and the liberal aversion against the royal absolutism of William I and the sense of exclusion of the Belgians from public office and particularly from the government of the state.

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