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1691. Northern Ireland’s 100th Birthday

Author:
Brendan O'Leary
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
On 23 December 2020, Northern Ireland turned one hundred years old— that is, if its birthday is dated by the ratification of the Government of Ireland Act by King George V. Officially titled “An Act for the better Government of Ireland,” it became known to Irish nationalists and republicans as the partition act.1 The U.K. Parliament passed the act without a single vote in its favor from a member of Parliament elected in Ireland. The proposed British “solution” to Ireland’s right to self-determination was the invention of two Irelands, “Northern Ireland” and “Southern Ireland,” each scheduled to be a devolved government within the Union of Great Britain and Ireland. The proposal was enacted during what we Irish call the “War of Independence.”2
Topic:
Politics, History, and Territorial Disputes
Political Geography:
Europe and North Ireland

1692. An Unfinished Revolution: The Trajectory of Thailand’s Current Protests

Author:
Pavin Chachavalpongpun
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
This essay investigates the ongoing protests demanding monarchical reform in Thailand. Since July 2020, protestors have strived to place constraints on the monarchy back into the constitution in response to the increasingly unrestrained power of King Maha Vajiralongkorn.1 As part of this effort, protesters proposed a crucial ten-point demand for immediate reform. The demonstrations were driven by several factors, including the generational shift, the evolution of social media, and the interconnectedness with other movements in the region.2 After months of protests, however, Vajiralongkorn has continued to ignore the popular call for change. Instead, he has undermined protests through violent crackdowns, legal measures, and online censorship. The crown is now on the defensive.3 It has become the battle of the century—the outcome of which may take Thailand back to the absolute monarchy of the past or toward a modern republic. The concept of a constitutional monarchy in Thailand has remained elusive since its inception in 1932. Today, such an arrangement is intolerable to many Thais.
Topic:
Social Movement, Reform, Protests, and Monarchy
Political Geography:
Thailand and Southeast Asia

1693. The Rise and Fall of Golden Dawn: Organized Racism Suffered a Great Defeat in Greece—But the Fight is Far from Over

Author:
Eleni Takou
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
Golden Dawn was already a violent, marginal, neo-Nazi group in the 1980s. But how did it become a regulator of Greece’s political life? The economic crisis that plagued Greek society in 2010, the lack of a consistent migration policy, as well as the state’s (and other institutional actors’) reluctance to acknowledge its extreme far-right past and address xenophobia and racist crime, led to the group’s consolidation. In 2010, Golden Dawn gained a seat on the Athens municipal council. In the 2012 general election, it took almost 7 percent of the vote, electing 21 MPs.1 Many mark this as the starting point of Golden Dawn’s presence in Greece; however, this approach alone leads to a narrow and historically inac- curate interpretation of extremist far-right violence in Greece.
Topic:
Elections, Far Right, Racism, and Golden Dawn
Political Geography:
Europe and Greece

1694. Contemporary Challenges to Global Democracy

Author:
Erica Frantz
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
Today’s democracies are under threat. According to the watchdog organiza- tion Freedom House, each year of the past decade has seen a decline in global democracy.1 Importantly, many of these declines have occurred in wealthier and more established democracies, which scholars have typically considered resistant to democratic backsliding. In some instances, these erosions have left democracies weakened, such as in India and the United States; however, in other instances, they have led to complete democratic collapse and the emergence of authoritarianism, such as in Turkey and Serbia.
Topic:
Governance, Democracy, Dictatorship, Political Crisis, and Autocracy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1695. Are European Migration Policies Racist?

Author:
Pastore Ferruccio
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
Are European migration policies racist? In times of spreading politiciza- tion of any migration-related issue, such a question may sound rhetorical and partisan. It is not; or at least, not necessarily. Millions of actual and potential migrants and a growing number of decision-makers in migrant-sending countries are earnestly asking this question or close variants of it. If only for this reason, this question becomes a relevant factor in international relations and, as such, it requires evidence-based answers. To answer this question, some historical background is needed. This is why I will start with a brief appraisal of the transition from the colonial to the post- colonial migration regimes of European countries. In particular, I will consider migration policies adopted toward Africa, which forms the key empirical case for my investigation.
Topic:
Migration, History, Colonialism, and Racism
Political Geography:
Europe

1696. Racism, a Challenge For An Increasingly Global China: Confronting a Problem the PRC Does Not Know it Has

Author:
Bonnie Girard
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
As I lay on a gurney in an examining room in Peking Union Medical College Hospital (Xiehe Yiyuan) in central Beijing—pleading with the doctor to give me something, anything for the pain coursing through my head—I could not help but wonder why it was taking so long for hospital staff to give me relief. The diagnosis could come later, I thought, but right now I want either morphine or a gun. The year was 1990. Martial law imposed on Beijing during the aftermath of the massacre that occurred as the culmination of the Tiananmen Square demon- strations of 1989, had only just been lifted five months earlier. The city remained on edge. We were quickly approaching the 1 October Chinese National Day holiday, which would typically celebrate the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) with fanfare and tens of thousands of people in Tiananmen Square itself. The tanks sent to break up the student protests months earlier had rolled by on East Chang’an Avenue only 800 meters away; doctors and nurses in Peking Union had treated survivors and dealt with the dead.
Topic:
Inequality, Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and Racism
Political Geography:
China and Asia

1697. Frontiers and Borders: The Internet and the Amplification of Illiberalism

Author:
Edward Greenspon
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
In March 1985, on winter break from graduate studies in Britain, I visited my first illiberal and non-democratic country. It was a fortuitous moment to be dropping in on the mothership of the alternative system, the Soviet Union, that had provided decades of dystopian fodder for the likes of Orwell, Solzhenitsyn, Koestler, and Kundera. Mikhail Gorbachev had been named General Secretary of the Communist Party two weeks earlier. His photo, with the famous red wine birthmark on his forehead, adorned the cover of the Time magazine I picked up at Heathrow airport. Although some of our reading material was confiscated on arrival, the Gorby cover slipped through. A couple of evenings in, a group of us gathered outside Leningrad’s Winter Palace, once the home of the czars and a key venue in the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. We met three young Russians. It was my birthday. They invited us back to their apartment to listen to “underground” music, drink vodka, and talk.
Topic:
Internet, Borders, and Illiberalism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1698. Absolutely Corrupted: The Rise of an Illiberal System and The Future of Hungarian Democracy

Author:
Anna Júlia Donáth
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”1 Lord John Dalberg-Acton’s words should not be relevant in the era of modern democracy, when political power is distributed and filtered through the institu- tions of checks and balances. Absolute power should simply be off the table. Yet, as shown by the events unfolding in Hungary in the last decade, democratic institutions can be transformed into mere façades that obscure the grim reality of unchecked power in the hands of one person. In the case of Hungary, this man is Viktor Orbán, the leader of Hungary’s dominant right-wing party.
Topic:
Corruption, Democracy, Far Right, and Illiberalism
Political Geography:
Europe and Hungary

1699. Academic Freedom: A Test and a Tool for Illiberalism, Neoliberalism, and Liberal Democracy

Author:
András L. Pap
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
Using the case study of Hungary, this article investigates the status and role of academic freedom in (neo)liberal democracies and illiberal regimes. Here, academic freedom is gauged in three dimensions: teaching, research, and publishing (cultivated at research institutes and universities). The inquiry begins with an overview of academic freedom under Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. This case study provides a snapshot of how academic freedom can be curtailed in a hybrid illiberal regime. The article’s second half provides an assessment of the three contextual dimensions through which the case study may be relevant—particularly for a social science and international affairs audience. The first context shows how the second phase of emerging authoritarian regimes target cultural life as a soft tool to cement and solidify illiberalism once the capture of constitutional institu- tions has been accomplished. The second context refers to the role and ambition of international instruments to sustain autocracies in the making. The case of the Hungarian government’s entanglement with the European Union (EU), Council of Europe’s Venice Commission, and the European Court of Human Rights documents the institutional inability of multilevel constitutional organs to administer ex-post restorative constitutional justice. It also points to the ten- dency of these organs to experiment with “Al Capone”-like judicial strategies in referring to the breach of equal treatment and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) commitments to disguise inadequate rule of law shortcomings.
Topic:
Democracy, Neoliberalism, Illiberalism, and Academic Freedom
Political Geography:
Europe and Hungary

1700. The Two Sources of the Illiberal Turn in Brazil

Author:
Afonso de Albuquerque
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
In the early 2010s, the consolidation of Brazilian democracy seemed a well- established fact. Although far from perfect, the prospects for Brazil’s future looked bright. The economy was booming, and Brazil appeared to be on the verge of assuming a more prominent role in international politics. A few years later, Brazil’s fortune has reversed dramatically. In 2018, far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro won the Brazilian presidential election. Nostalgic for the military dictatorship that governed the country from 1964 to 1985, Bolsonaro has cham- pioned an anti-human rights agenda. Throughout his tenure, he has minimized the COVID-19 health crisis,1 denied the existence of climate change, and used his platform to spread disinformation.2 He often attacks the National Congress, Supreme Court, and press. Bolsonaro has even threatened these entities, argu- ing he has the Armed Forces and the people on his side. How did this happen?
Topic:
Democracy, Institutions, Jair Bolsonaro, and Illiberalism
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America