Transnational Politics Research Articles

From National to Cosmopolitan Hydrocarbons Resource Space: Hydrocarbons, Transnational Politics and the State in Greece

Abstract In this paper, we historicise the co-production of regional visions and governing practices for hydrocarbon explorations in the particular case of Greece. The paper aims to contribute a new understanding of state-building processes by studying how visions and infrastructures steered energy policies, (re-)configured hydrocarbon resource spaces and shaped technopolitical order in the Eastern Mediterranean. Chronologically, the storyline is divided into three distinct periods, in which visions and related practices shaped the hydrocarbon space: the first period in which the hydrocarbon space was constructed, the second period in which a non-commons truce was maintained to avoid conflict, and the final period in which a cosmopolitan common in the Eastern Mediterranean emerged.

Journey to Indo-América: APRA and the Transnational Politics of Exile, Persecution, and Solidarity, 1918–1945 by Geneviève Dorais

<i>Journey to Indo-América: APRA and the Transnational Politics of Exile, Persecution, and Solidarity, 1918–1945</i> by Geneviève Dorais

Kimberly D. McKee, Disrupting Kinship: Transnational Politics of Korean Adoption in the United States

Kimberly D. McKee, Disrupting Kinship: Transnational Politics of Korean Adoption in the United States

“What Does that Flag Mean to Them?” Rural Relief, Children’s Suffering, and American Philanthropy in Cuba

Abstract This article explores the transnational politics of hunger, philanthropy, and rural reconstruction during the U.S. occupation of Cuba (1899–1902). In the wake of Cuba’s final War of Independence (1895–1898), tens of thousands of reconcentrados—rural civilians forcibly removed from their lands by Spanish forces during the war—continued to face starvation, disease, and homelessness in the island’s western towns and cities. The Cuban Industrial Relief Fund, a U.S.-based philanthropy, hoped to return the reconcentrados to their now-overgrown lands and help them rebuild their homes and farms. The organization connected rural Cubans and ordinary Americans through the complex bonds of transnational philanthropy just as Americans were working out the meanings of American power and responsibility in the new post-1898 world. Early during the U.S. occupation of Cuba, debates over rural reconstruction and relief became a central locus for Americans to articulate the meanings of U.S. power in Cuba. These meanings, however, were refracted through American understandings of childhood, race, and poverty, as paternalist understandings of poverty as cultural failure and colonial depictions of Latin Americans as childlike and untrustworthy shaped debates over the future of rural Cuba. Based on newly available organizational records as well as Cuban and U.S. archival and popular press sources, this article argues that while the goals of the CIRF were to return the Cuban peasantry to a state of self-sufficient independence, entrenched racialized U.S. perceptions of the Cuban poor as lazy, irresponsible, and essentially dependent doomed the prospects of any large-scale industrial relief for Cuban reconcentrados.

The transnational politics of religion: Turkey's Diyanet, Islamic communities and beyond

ABSTRACT The article builds on current academic debates pertaining to the use of religion in global politics. By examining how and why religion is used as a tool for foreign policy aims as well as for perpetuating a state’s identity and institutional capacity at home and abroad; the article presents a theory-informed discussion on Turkey’s transnational politics of religion from a comparative perspective. The country’s use of religion as a political tool outside of its borders has been studied in Western Europe, Africa, Asia and the Balkans thanks to extensive fieldwork and interviews conducted between 2016 and 2020. The article investigates how and why Turkey has implemented similar policies with different aims in different geographic territories and the underlying material and normative motivations for this pursuit. The main argument presented in the article is that Turkey, under the rule of the AKP (Justice and Development Party), employs religion for three fundamental reasons: to bolster its regional and global influence, to access regions or groups that are difficult to reach through traditional foreign policy tools and to alter domestic political balances or amass power.

Labor exportation, transnational production politics, and the formation of exploitation relationships—a case study of Chinese migrant workers in Japan

In the context of globalization, the exporting of labor from developing countries to developed countries has shaped a relationship of exploitation between employers and employees. This study presents the case of Chinese migrant workers’ overtime pay in Japan and explores the formation mechanisms of exploitation using the analytical framework of “transnational production politics”. Transnational migrant workers often see overtime as an indispensable opportunity to generate extra income to support families back home. This need is being taken advantage of by employers who habitually reduce overtime pay or do not pay for overtime at all. Overtime pay often becomes a focal point of labor conflict. Because of the limited protections for migrant workers in the labor laws of host countries, the power granted to employers by the host country's labor system, competition from migrant workers of other nationalities, and the selective involvement of transnational intermediaries, Chinese migrants suffer a dilemma of either surrendering to low overtime pay or losing overtime work, or even their job altogether. Whether to resist or surrender, it seems that the outcome is all the same for migrant workers: they lose and employers win. This “transnational production” polity exercises its market authoritarianism. Elements such as the constraints of the foreign labor system, loopholes in the system used by employers, the global surplus labor supply, and the separation of the processes of labor maintenance and labor renewal in the mode of labor reproduction typical to migrant labor reflect the transnational production politics peculiar to international contract labor mobility. This becomes an important mechanism for the re-emergence of the forced exploitation of capital in developed capitalist countries. Unlike the exploitative relationship between local workers and employers in developed countries, the exploitation between migrant workers and employers is born out of imbalanced development between countries. Migrant workers not only have no access to protections afforded by the host country's welfare system, but also are controlled by strict laws regarding foreign labor and are threatened by competition from other migrant workers. All this has put employers in a strongly advantageous position in labor conflicts.

Introduction to the Dialogues on Afterlives and Different Futures for Latin American Art

What theoretical and political exigencies framed the discussions of Latin American art in the 1970s, and what are the afterlives of those formations today? This Dialogues traces a constellation of curators and scholars that participated in the articulation of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art, paying attention to experimentation and the ways coloniality haunt its development. Authors analyze episodes in the formation of the field, including a prominent international symposium, an audiovisual display as curatorial intervention, and the redefinition of popular art, as well as troubling the subordination of Black art. George Flaherty and Adele Nelson discuss the intensive questioning that constituted the Austin Symposium in 1975, drawing on the previously understudied audio recordings of the conference. Camila Maroja reconsiders the controversial audiovisual presentation by Ángel Kalenberg at the Tenth Paris Biennial (1977) with a view to the transnational cultural politics of the period. Karen Benezra offers that Ticio Escobar’s multidecade reconception of popular art grants space for art by communities historically excluded from both art and the mestizo nation, notably the Ishir Indigenous people of Paraguay. Eddie Chambers issues a challenge and reflects on the limited degree to which the contributions of African-descended artists have been recognized by historians of Latin American art, focusing on Brazil and Cuba. Together these texts propose that questioning and unresolvability can serve as both tools and reminders of the size and significance of the continued work required of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art.

Projecting Latin America

What theoretical and political exigencies framed the discussions of Latin American art in the 1970s, and what are the afterlives of those formations today? This Dialogues traces a constellation of curators and scholars that participated in the articulation of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art, paying attention to experimentation and the ways coloniality haunt its development. Authors analyze episodes in the formation of the field, including a prominent international symposium, an audiovisual display as curatorial intervention, and the redefinition of popular art, as well as troubling the subordination of Black art. George Flaherty and Adele Nelson discuss the intensive questioning that constituted the Austin Symposium in 1975, drawing on the previously understudied audio recordings of the conference. Camila Maroja reconsiders the controversial audiovisual presentation by Ángel Kalenberg at the Tenth Paris Biennial (1977) with a view to the transnational cultural politics of the period. Karen Benezra offers that Ticio Escobar’s multidecade reconception of popular art grants space for art by communities historically excluded from both art and the mestizo nation, notably the Ishir Indigenous people of Paraguay. Eddie Chambers issues a challenge and reflects on the limited degree to which the contributions of African-descended artists have been recognized by historians of Latin American art, focusing on Brazil and Cuba. Together these texts propose that questioning and unresolvability can serve as both tools and reminders of the size and significance of the continued work required of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art.

Ticio Escobar

What theoretical and political exigencies framed the discussions of Latin American art in the 1970s, and what are the afterlives of those formations today? This Dialogues traces a constellation of curators and scholars that participated in the articulation of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art, paying attention to experimentation and the ways coloniality haunt its development. Authors analyze episodes in the formation of the field, including a prominent international symposium, an audiovisual display as curatorial intervention, and the redefinition of popular art, as well as troubling the subordination of Black art. George Flaherty and Adele Nelson discuss the intensive questioning that constituted the Austin Symposium in 1975, drawing on the previously understudied audio recordings of the conference. Camila Maroja reconsiders the controversial audiovisual presentation by Ángel Kalenberg at the Tenth Paris Biennial (1977) with a view to the transnational cultural politics of the period. Karen Benezra offers that Ticio Escobar’s multidecade reconception of popular art grants space for art by communities historically excluded from both art and the mestizo nation, notably the Ishir Indigenous people of Paraguay. Eddie Chambers issues a challenge and reflects on the limited degree to which the contributions of African-descended artists have been recognized by historians of Latin American art, focusing on Brazil and Cuba. Together these texts propose that questioning and unresolvability can serve as both tools and reminders of the size and significance of the continued work required of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art.

Accentuating Latin American Art’s African Dimensions

What theoretical and political exigencies framed the discussions of Latin American art in the 1970s, and what are the afterlives of those formations today? This Dialogues traces a constellation of curators and scholars that participated in the articulation of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art, paying attention to experimentation and the ways coloniality haunt its development. Authors analyze episodes in the formation of the field, including a prominent international symposium, an audiovisual display as curatorial intervention, and the redefinition of popular art, as well as troubling the subordination of Black art. George Flaherty and Adele Nelson discuss the intensive questioning that constituted the Austin Symposium in 1975, drawing on the previously understudied audio recordings of the conference. Camila Maroja reconsiders the controversial audiovisual presentation by Ángel Kalenberg at the Tenth Paris Biennial (1977) with a view to the transnational cultural politics of the period. Karen Benezra offers that Ticio Escobar’s multidecade reconception of popular art grants space for art by communities historically excluded from both art and the mestizo nation, notably the Ishir Indigenous people of Paraguay. Eddie Chambers issues a challenge and reflects on the limited degree to which the contributions of African-descended artists have been recognized by historians of Latin American art, focusing on Brazil and Cuba. Together these texts propose that questioning and unresolvability can serve as both tools and reminders of the size and significance of the continued work required of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art.

Latin American Art by and for Whom?

What theoretical and political exigencies framed the discussions of Latin American art in the 1970s, and what are the afterlives of those formations today? This Dialogues traces a constellation of curators and scholars that participated in the articulation of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art, paying attention to experimentation and the ways coloniality haunt its development. Authors analyze episodes in the formation of the field, including a prominent international symposium, an audiovisual display as curatorial intervention, and the redefinition of popular art, as well as troubling the subordination of Black art. George Flaherty and Adele Nelson discuss the intensive questioning that constituted the Austin Symposium in 1975, drawing on the previously understudied audio recordings of the conference. Camila Maroja reconsiders the controversial audiovisual presentation by Ángel Kalenberg at the Tenth Paris Biennial (1977) with a view to the transnational cultural politics of the period. Karen Benezra offers that Ticio Escobar’s multidecade reconception of popular art grants space for art by communities historically excluded from both art and the mestizo nation, notably the Ishir Indigenous people of Paraguay. Eddie Chambers issues a challenge and reflects on the limited degree to which the contributions of African-descended artists have been recognized by historians of Latin American art, focusing on Brazil and Cuba. Together these texts propose that questioning and unresolvability can serve as both tools and reminders of the size and significance of the continued work required of the field of modern and contemporary Latin American art.

Deportability, humanitarianism and development: neoliberal deportation and the Global Assistance for Irregular Migrants program

Offering return assistance and financial inducements to migrants and asylum-seekers, assisted voluntary return and reintegration (AVRR) programmes are critical to the management of migration. While AVRR programmes have emerged as an area of study in their own right, little attention has been paid to the role of these schemes in the transnational politics of anti-smuggling policy. Building on insights from border studies, migration studies and security studies, this article examines the Global Assistance for Irregular Migrants (GAIM) programme. The GAIM programme is an AVRR programme funded by the Canadian government and implemented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which targeted Sri Lankan nationals stranded following the disruption of smuggling ventures in West Africa. This article examines how the GAIM programme framed, rationalised and obscured the practice of neoliberal deportation as a humanitarian gesture in the interests of migrants themselves. It documents and conceptualises the humanitarian claims, narratives and representations mobilised by Canada and the IOM to explain and justify the return of stranded asylum-seekers. It argues that the GAIM programme can be analysed as a form of humanitarian securitisation, which obscures the politics of anti-smuggling policy, masks the violence of deportation and legitimises the return of stranded asylum-seekers.

Book Review: "Why Don’t They Hate Us More? Book Review: Beyond Dutch Borders. Transnational Politics among Colonial Migrants, Guest Workers and the Second Generation" by Liza Mügge

Book Review: "Why Don’t They Hate Us More? Book Review: Beyond Dutch Borders. Transnational Politics among Colonial Migrants, Guest Workers and the Second Generation" by Liza Mügge

On the Ethics of Disagreements (Uṣūl al-Ikhtilaf) and the Ethics of Hospitality (Uṣūl al-Dhiyafa) Between Spiritual and non-Spiritual Leftists in the Newest Social Movements

ABSTRACT Though Muslim-anarchists are active participants within “newest social movements” (NSMs) in settler-colonial societies as the US/Canada, as well as transnationally, little has been written on their maturing as a critical mass, or their ostracization within predominantly white anarchist scenes in North America. Anarcha-Islam, an example of ‘non-Western anarchism,’ fills this gap by re-imagining how the Holy Qurʾān and the Sunnah through the aḥadīth — the Prophetic practice and oral tradition — could be used to flesh out the theology, politics, and philosophy of an Islamic anarchism. I explore the possibilities of a new transnational politics grounded in an ethics of disagreement, friendship, and hospitality between these traditions. I suggest uṣūl al-dhiyafa and uṣūl al-ikhtilaf (a politics of friendship and an ethics of hospitality as well as an ethics of disagreements) in facilitating an appreciation of the similarities that bring these traditions together, while also valuing the differences that drive them apart.

Transnational Politics in Video Games

Political claims about the real world are abundant in video games, and the medium persuades uniquely through procedural rhetoric, the rules of behavior contained in computational code. The transnational scope of the video game industry makes it productive ground for interrogating how a game’s persuasion might influence international audiences with nationally situated politics. The 2012 third-person shooter Spec Ops: The Line, produced by the German studio Yager Development, depicts the international concern of a fictional conflict in the Middle East and the atrocities of failed military intervention. The game’s core procedural rhetoric, which tasks players to push ahead at all costs, cautions an international audience about the futility of deploying military power abroad, a warning that mirrors particularly German political anxieties. The game’s depiction of extreme violence—and the player’s participation in it—raises further questions about the cultural status of the medium in the country and abroad.

Book review: Agency in Transnational Memory Politics

Book review: Agency in Transnational Memory Politics

American Conservatives and the Allure of Post-Soviet Russian Orthodoxy

This article explores the growing affinity for the post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church by far-right Orthodox converts in the United States, highlighting how the spiritual draw to the faith is caught up in the globalizing politics of traditionalism and a transnational, ideological reimaging of the American culture wars. Employing ethnographic fieldwork from the rural United States and digital qualitative research, this study situates the post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church in the international flows of conservativism focused on reclaiming social morals and traditional religiosity. In doing so, this article sheds light on how the post-Soviet Orthodox Church is viewed politically by a growing contingent of American religious and political actors who are turning to Russian Orthodoxy and Putin’s government during this New Cold War moment of tension between the United States and Russia. I argue that the allure of the post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church for conservatives in the West offers us a window into how the institution is situated imaginatively within transnational politics, thereby providing us insights into the rapidly transforming culture wars fomenting globally.

Transnationalism with Multi-Leveled Actors: A Systematic Review of Studies on Overseas Koreans’ Voting

COVID-19 has affected several aspects of people’s lives, including overseas voting by Koreans overseas. Compared to the high national voter turnout for Korea’s 21st legislative elections (62.6%), the voter turnout among overseas Koreans was only 23.8%, the lowest since the inception of overseas voting in 2012. However, no study has systematically reviewed prior studies on overseas voting through the framework of political transnationalism with multilevel actors. By reviewing articles published between 2012 and 2020 that explore overseas Koreans’ voting in their home country’s election, this study aims to categorize studies at different levels and suggest policy implications and future directions for research that could contribute toward filling the gaps in the existing literature. The methods of overseas voting need to be diversified to adequately prepare for any exogenous shocks, such as COVID-19, during the upcoming election periods.

Transnational political economic structures: explaining transnational environmental movements against dams in the lower Mekong region

Influenced by regional economic integration and politics, the transboundary common water resources in the lower Mekong River are being exploited by the riparian states for hydroelectric dam development at the expense of local livelihoods and the environment. Affected communities and non-governmental organisations – formed into ‘transnational environmental movements’ (TEMs) in the framework of transnational activism – have challenged these riparian states to abandon dam construction on the main stream of the Mekong River. This paper explores the conditions that undermine TEMs’ ability to cancel dam projects in the region. This paper argues that, among several other factors, TEMs were unable to halt construction of the dam primarily due to the transnational political economic structures (TPES) of the riparian states that possess hydroelectric dams on the Mekong mainstream. TPES shape the sovereign power of the riparian states in making decisions regarding extracting economic value from the common water resource of the Mekong at the expense of the environment rather than complying with the demands of TEMs. By factoring TPES into understanding the outcomes of TEMs, this paper contributes to the understanding of political opportunity structures and transnational networks of transboundary movements, and of the political economy of the Mekong transboundary resources.

Integration and Transnational Political Interest among Immigrant-Origin Voters: An Analysis of Germans from Turkey and their Children in the Immigrant German Election Study 2017

What is the effect of integration in Germany on transnational political interest among Germans from Turkey and their children? Using data from the 2017 Immigrant German Election Study, we operationalise three dimensions of integration and two dependent variables of transnational political interest: the mean level of political interest in German and Turkish politics and net political interest as the difference of those two levels. Our analysis reveals: (1) For general political interest: social integration, by far, has the strongest impact with an estimated 28 % maximum impact on the scale of mean political interest whereas neither, economic or cultural integration nor discrimination experience hardly matter. (2) For net political interest, all three dimensions of integration tilt political interest in favour of German politics with social and economic integration mediating the effect of cultural integration. Economic integration maintains the most sizeable impact with the maximum impact at 11 % of the scale of net political interest. Overall, Germans from Turkey and their children empirically show a clear picture that more integration into German society leads to higher general political interest and a profile of transnational political interest tilted more towards German politics. Theoretically, these findings allow reconciling the expectations of the assimilation-mobility thesis (immigrant-origin voters become less distinguishable the less cohesive their group is) and of the international political theory (immigrant-origin voters are pluri-local political beings who are much less bound by national territories).