Violence and adversity among pregnant women and new mothers in central Vietnam

Prenatal intimate partner violence (p-IPV) can harm the physical and mental health of mothers and their offspring, and the effects can persist throughout life. Among Asian countries, which are strongly influenced by patriarchal ideology, Confucian beliefs and gender norms, Vietnamese women are at high risk of physical and psychological trauma from abusive behaviours. Current social, economic, and political transitions can reinforce gender inequality, and also change expectations of partners within intimate relationship; this interplay has been associated with individual men’s use of violence.

Making the Soft Power Hard: Nepal’s Internal Ability in Safeguarding National Interest

Soft power is an important instrument of foreign policy and a tool in safeguarding national interests. Under various regimes after the advent of democracy in 1950, Nepal has experienced a turbulent effect of international influence on technology, governance capability, policy transfer, labor migration and climatic affairs. In these contexts, traditional diplomatic effort based on persuasive bargaining requires an interest based practice which is complicated for the countries like Nepal where military power and economy are considered to be public goods rather than strategic base for the expansion of domestic policy making the other countries follow. Nepal creates an exemplary image in coping with the internal and external threats even during the major political transitions in 1950, 1990 and 2006. In all these power sharing mechanisms, the immunity that galvanized internal forces with minimum experience of indirect influence from the neighbouring countries shows that soft power values in Nepal became the major component for managing internal tensions and mitigating external interests. At one hand, the sources of soft power rests on ancient value system and on the other, Nepal celebrates new political system confronting the values earlier regime survived on. Political crisis before 2015 and the natural disaster after it plunged Nepal into a serious threat. During the time of crisis it is need and the value that functions compared to the interest. This paper posits a central question that how soft power became a variant during the war to peace transition from 2006 to the period of implementation of constitution stipulated in 2015 with the result of a stable government. The first part of the paper explores the dimensions of soft power in Nepal- both perceived and practiced- after Jana Aandolan II. The effectiveness of soft power in maintaining the geostrategic importance through a constant coupling of soft power diplomacy adopted and endorsed in Nepal by the external powers and Nepal’s own soft power standpoint will be analyzed in the second part of the paper. The last section of the paper analyzes the challenges for effective implementation of soft power diplomacy in meeting the national interest. Key words: Soft power, geo-strategic importance, national interest

Annual Review of Constitution-Building: 2020

International IDEA’s Annual Review of Constitution-Building Processes: 2020 provides a retrospective account of constitutional reform processes around the world and from a comparative perspective, and their implications for national and international politics. This eighth edition covers events in 2020 and includes chapters on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and emergency legal frameworks on constitutionalism and constitution-building worldwide; the impact of the pandemic on attempted executive aggrandizement in Central African Republic, Hungary and Sri Lanka; the impact of the pandemic on peace- and constitution-building processes in Libya, Syria and Yemen; gender equality in constitution-building and peace processes, with a particular focus on Chile and Zimbabwe; constitutional amendments to enhance the recognition of customary law in Samoa and Tonga; and the establishment, functioning and outputs of the French Citizens’ Convention for Climate. Writing at the mid-way point between the instant reactions of the blogosphere and academic analyses that follow several years later, the authors provide accounts of ongoing political transitions, the major constitutional issues they give rise to, and the implications of these processes for democracy, the rule of law and peace.

The Macanese Diaspora in British Hong Kong

Diaspora transformed the urban terrain of colonial societies, creating polyglot worlds out of neighborhoods, workplaces, recreational clubs and public spheres. It was within these spaces that communities reimagined and reshaped their public identities vis-à-vis emerging government policies and perceptions from other communities. Through a century of Macanese activities in British Hong Kong, this book explores how mixed-race diasporic communities survived within unequal, racialized and biased systems beyond the colonizer-colonized dichotomy. Originating from Portuguese Macau yet living outside the control of the empire, the Macanese freely associated with more than one identity and pledged allegiance to multiple communal, political and civic affiliations. They drew on colorful imaginations of the Portuguese and British empires in responding to a spectrum of changes encompassing Macau’s woes, Hong Kong’s injustice, Portugal’s political transitions, global developments in print culture and the rise of new nationalisms during the inter-war period.

Rioting for Representation

Ethnic riots are a costly and all too common occurrence during political transitions in multi-ethnic settings. Why do ethnic riots occur in certain parts of a country and not others? How does violence eventually decline? Drawing on rich case studies and quantitative evidence from Indonesia between 1990 and 2012, this book argues that patterns of ethnic rioting are not inevitably driven by inter-group animosity, weakness of state capacity, or local demographic composition. Rather, local ethnic elites strategically use violence to leverage their demands for political inclusion during political transition and that violence eventually declines as these demands are accommodated. Toha breaks new ground in showing that particular political reforms—increased political competition, direct local elections, and local administrative units partitioning—in ethnically diverse contexts can ameliorate political exclusion and reduce overall levels of violence between groups.

Political Parties and Elite Resilience in Sahelian Politics

All Sahelian political regimes had adopted multiparty elections by the 1990s, however, few of the subsequent elections led to peaceful political change or democratization. These newly adopted multiparty systems produced a variety of outcomes ranging from the continued rule of a given political party, to the fracturing of political parties, to military intervention, to near state collapse. This chapter offers a historical account of political parties within this context. It identifies the broad historical trends from independence until the multiparty elections, and presents a typology of political parties in the Sahel. It then presents an initial analysis of the thirty-five legislative elections that have taken place in these six countries since multiparty systems have been installed. The chapter finds that the Sahel may represent an ideal sub-region for comparative analysis for future research on political parties, party systems, political transitions, and regime trajectories in Sub-Saharan Africa.

SOUTH AFRICA’S QUIXOTIC HERO AND HIS NOBLE QUEST – CONSTITUTIONAL COURT JUSTICE ALBIE SACHS AND THE DREAM OF A RAINBOW NATION

Albie Sachs has always been clear-sighted in his vision of a rainbow nation at the southern tip of Africa, characterised by tolerance and mutual respect among and between its citizens. Using the well-known story of Don Quixote de la Mancha as a metaphor, this article sets out to chart the “quest” undertaken by Albie Sachs in pursuit of his noble dream. It traces a number of important personal and political transitions that he has made along the way, from his initial emphasis on solidarity and revolutionary struggle, to his later focus on issues of diversity and tolerance. The article touches briefly on aspects of Albie Sachs’s inspiring dignity jurisprudence which it applauds, but then poses the question as to whether or not his views represent real hope to a country which, a decade and a half after the end of apartheid, remains fractured and traumatized.

The Macanese Diaspora in British Hong Kong

Diaspora transformed the urban terrain of colonial societies, creating polyglot worlds out of neighborhoods, workplaces, recreational clubs and public spheres. It was within these spaces that communities reimagined and reshaped their public identities vis-à-vis emerging government policies and perceptions from other communities. Through a century of Macanese activities in British Hong Kong, this book explores how mixed-race diasporic communities survived within unequal, racialized and biased systems beyond the colonizer-colonized dichotomy. Originating from Portuguese Macau yet living outside the control of the empire, the Macanese freely associated with more than one identity and pledged allegiance to multiple communal, political and civic affiliations. They drew on colorful imaginations of the Portuguese and British empires in responding to a spectrum of changes encompassing Macau’s woes, Hong Kong’s injustice, Portugal’s political transitions, global developments in print culture and the rise of new nationalisms during the inter-war period.

After the Revolution: State, Civil Society, and Democratization in Armenia and Georgia

In 2003 and 2018, mass protests triggered the collapse of authoritarian regimes in Georgia and Armenia, respectively. In both cases, civil society organizations (CSOs) played an important role in laying the groundwork and organizing the protests. Following the toppling of semi-autocratic leaders, reform-oriented governments took over in both countries. Yet, the way civil society engaged the new rulers differed considerably. Whereas in Georgia, former civil society leaders were often absorbed into the new government, Armenian civil society has kept its distance from the new political leadership. In this paper, we attempt to explain why state-civil society relations after the revolutions have developed in different directions in these two Soviet successor states. We argue that three conditions explain differences in engagement with the new governments: CSOs pre-revolutionary cooperation with the political opposition, Western governments support for civil society before and after the political transitions, and the degree to which CSOs represent and are rooted in the general public. As a consequence, Georgia’s post-revolutionary regime lacked the checks and balances that CSOs usually provide, allowing it to sacrifice democratization on the altar of modernization. In Armenia, in contrast, CSOs have maintained a critical stance and continued to hold the government accountable.