Workers Entering the Prison

Qui Parle ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-372
Author(s):  
Christopher McGowan
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
The State ◽  
The Body ◽  
Care Work ◽  
The Political ◽  
Hunger Strike ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Disciplinary Power ◽  
Affective Dimensions

Abstract This article argues that Steve McQueen’s Hunger (2008) represents an unexpected but compelling mutation of the genre of postindustrial labor film. Hunger depicts the protests of Irish republican prisoners inside the Maze Prison that culminated in the 1981 Irish hunger strike. At the same time, the film develops an extended representation of the labor of the prison workers who beat, humiliate, care for, and counsel the prisoners throughout the protests. By combining and reworking the genres of labor film, prison film, and Irish Troubles film, Hunger imagines the prison as a microcosm of a deindustrialized Northern Irish economy where labor has left the factory and become conjoined to the disciplinary power of the state, either as police work or as care work. In this way, Hunger attends to the “spirit” of what Lenin called the “labor aristocracy,” here reduced to the work of maintaining the very boundary between itself and those excluded from it. McQueen’s attention to the body and to the affective dimensions of labor and struggle, the article argues, allows Hunger to achieve a uniquely committed, totalizing representation of the political economy of Northern Ireland.

George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Post-Conflict Northern Ireland

2019 ◽  
pp. 259-276
Author(s):  
Andrew Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
2008 Presidential Election ◽  
Post Conflict

After Clinton’s second term in office ended, President George W Bush moved the Special Envoy to Northern Ireland to the State Department, but his Envoys, led by Richard Haass and Mitchell Reiss, were no less engaged in Northern Irish affairs as the political figures there sought to create a functional government at Stormont Parliament Buildings. A series of significant obstacles emerged, but the Northern Ireland Assembly finally formed in 2007 before Bush left office. He was succeeded by President Barack Obama who had little interest in Northern Ireland but Obama’s initial Secretary of State, former Senator Hillary Clinton, was well-versed in Northern Irish issues. This chapter also examines the role of Northern Ireland in the 2008 Democratic Primary contest and, to a lesser extent, the 2008 Presidential Election.

The Political Economy of Post-Independence India—A Review Article

1989 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 787-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akhil Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Newly Industrialized Countries ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Balance Of Forces ◽  
The Third World

Economists and political scientists have become increasingly interested in the political economy of India during the past decade and particularly during the past three or four years. The titles under review will be valuable not only to India specialists but also to comparative scholars because of the intriguing mix of conditions found in India. More like a continent than a country in its diversity, India is in some ways very similar to densely populated, predominantly rural and agricultural China, differing most perhaps in the obstinacy and depth of its poverty. In the predominant role played by the state within an essentially capitalist economy, it is closer to the model of Western social democracies than it is to either prominently ideological capitalist or socialist nation-states; like other countries in the “third world,” the state in India plays a highly interventionist developmental role. Finally, since Independence it has pursued, more successfully than most nation-states in Latin America and Asia, policies of importsubstituting industrialization and relative autarchy. In terms of its political structures, India differs from most newly industrialized countries (NICs) in that it generally continues to function as a parliamentary democracy. The federal political system creates an intriguing balance of forces between central and the regional state governments, which are often ruled by opposition parties with agendas, ideologies, and organizational structures quite different from those of the central government.

The Saint with Indra's Sword: Khruubaa Srivichai and Buddhist Millenarianism in Northern Thailand

2014 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 681-713 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Bowie
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
The State ◽  
Capital City ◽  
The Political ◽  
Northern Thailand ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Modern Context ◽  
A Charge ◽  
Social Causes

AbstractDespite a growing literature revealing the presence of millenarian movements in both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist societies, scholars have been remarkably reluctant to consider the role of messianic beliefs in Buddhist societies. Khruubaa Srivichai (1878–1938) is the most famous monk of northern Thailand and is widely revered as atonbun, or saint. Althoughtonbunhas been depoliticized in the modern context, the term also refers to a savior who is an incarnation of the coming Maitreya Buddha. In 1920 Srivichai was sent under arrest to the capital city of Bangkok to face eight charges. This essay focuses on the charge that he claimed to possess the god Indra's sword. Although this charge has been widely ignored, it was in fact a charge of treason. In this essay, I argue that the treason charge should be understood within the context of Buddhist millenarianism. I note the saint/savior tropes in Srivichai's mytho-biography, describe the prevalence of millenarianism in the region, and detail the political economy of the decade of the 1910s prior to Srivichai's detention. I present evidence to show that the decade was characterized by famine, dislocation, disease, and other disasters of both natural and social causes. Such hardships would have been consistent with apocalyptic omens in the Buddhist repertoire portending the advent of Maitreya. Understanding Srivichai in this millenarian context helps to explain both the hopes of the populace and the fears of the state during that tumultuous decade.

The EU’s Stealthy Hegemony and Ambiguous Neighbors

2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (824) ◽  
pp. 112-117
Author(s):  
Alexander Clarkson
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
European Integration ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Control ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

European integration based on a supranational form of pooled sovereignty has taken on increasingly state-like qualities. With every move toward absorbing additional members, the European Union system has expanded its geographic reach. The state-like power of the EU is apparent in the impact its integration processes have had in societies just outside its borders. Its growing influence is most notable in misfit border territories, from Kaliningrad to Transnistria, and from Cyprus to Northern Ireland, that are tenuously under the political control of neighboring geopolitical powers.

Writing Politics: Ottoman Governmentality and the Language of Reports

2018 ◽  
pp. 116-145
Author(s):  
M. Safa Saraçoglu
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
The State ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
The Political ◽  
Local Administration ◽  
Essential Component ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Provincial Capital ◽  
False Accusations

This chapter focuses on the official correspondence between Vidin’s administrative council and the provincial capital, Ruse. These reports pertaining to events in Vidin County were a part of the political procedures of the local judicio-administrative sphere. As such, politics of local administration influenced the official correspondence and our understanding of the events in Vidin County. The writing of reports and petitions and other provincial administrative/judicial practices (such as interrogations) constituted a significant part of Ottoman governmentality. Those who could shape how the official correspondence was constructed gained advantage in local political economy. Such correspondence was an essential component of how provincial Ottoman government functioned; therefore, reports, petitions, false accusations, and interrogations became important tools for agents and groups who were engaged in hegemonic negotiations. Both elite and non-elite agents were able to utilize Ottoman governance to pursue their own strategies against other local agents or imperial government. People who refused to use these bureaucratic tools in making claims and negotiating were presented in this correspondence as defiant stubborn and violent. This perspective is critical of the state–society divide, as the case studies reveal a more complex singular government of state and society.

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