Perpetuating paranoia: citizenship, civil liberties and counter-terrorism

The adoption of various anti-terror policies by Western governments post-9/11 has generated discussion on the legitimacy of such counter-terror mechanisms and their influence on the rights of citizens. This paper aims at establishing a connection between counter-terrorism, civil liberties and citizenship with the intent of expanding the already existing literature on citizen’s sentiments towards counter-terrorism measures. While presenting data from various research studies from Western nation-states, it is my intention to bring attention to the feelings of racialized citizens as primary targets of the presented counter-terror tools. I will argue that there is reason to assume that such counter-terrorism policies presented foster the development of what I refer to as paranoia for racialized citizens living in Western countries. I will suggest that there is reason to suspect that these mechanisms advance unintended consequences that may exacerbate what the initial policies aimed at deterring.

Perpetuating paranoia: citizenship, civil liberties and counter-terrorism

The adoption of various anti-terror policies by Western governments post-9/11 has generated discussion on the legitimacy of such counter-terror mechanisms and their influence on the rights of citizens. This paper aims at establishing a connection between counter-terrorism, civil liberties and citizenship with the intent of expanding the already existing literature on citizen’s sentiments towards counter-terrorism measures. While presenting data from various research studies from Western nation-states, it is my intention to bring attention to the feelings of racialized citizens as primary targets of the presented counter-terror tools. I will argue that there is reason to assume that such counter-terrorism policies presented foster the development of what I refer to as paranoia for racialized citizens living in Western countries. I will suggest that there is reason to suspect that these mechanisms advance unintended consequences that may exacerbate what the initial policies aimed at deterring.

The Substance of Solidarity: What the Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic Says About the Global Refugee Regime

The European migrant crisis of 2015 brought to light the urgent need for solidarity and responsibility-sharing in dealing with large influxes of people fleeing war, conflict and persecution. This spirit was captured in two subsequent international agreements: the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) (2018) and the Global Compact for Safe and Orderly Migration (GCM) (2018). In the midst of a very different kind of crisis - the global COVID-19 pandemic - the need for solidarity and responsibility-sharing is all the more imperative as COVID-19 has become a 'risk multiplier' for asylum seekers, compounding existing drivers. By examining how Western nation states in the global North have responded to asylum seekers during the pandemic against the backdrop of existing international refugee law, practice, and policy, this essay seeks to evaluate the normative potential of the GCR and the GCM for the entrenchment of the principle of solidarity. Employing the theoretical framework of governmentality, it argues that despite the rhetoric of responsibility-sharing, the reactions of Western nation states reflect an existing trend toward exclusionary impulses, with countries reflexively reverting to patterns of state-centric, insular protectionism. Taking these issues into consideration, the essay goes on to focus on Canada's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in light of its proximity to and relationship with the United States to illustrate how biopower is being deployed to exclude in line with neoliberal rationalities, even in a country that is usually heralded as a beacon of humanitarianism. The essay concludes with a guarded diagnosis that warns of the potential for an international protection crisis should civil society fail to challenge prevailing biopolitics. Keywords: COVID-19, Asylum Seekers, Refugees, Solidarity, Responsibility-sharing, Governmentality, Biopower, Neoliberal, Canada, United States

The Substance of Solidarity: What the Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic Says About the Global Refugee Regime

The European migrant crisis of 2015 brought to light the urgent need for solidarity and responsibility-sharing in dealing with large influxes of people fleeing war, conflict and persecution. This spirit was captured in two subsequent international agreements: the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) (2018) and the Global Compact for Safe and Orderly Migration (GCM) (2018). In the midst of a very different kind of crisis - the global COVID-19 pandemic - the need for solidarity and responsibility-sharing is all the more imperative as COVID-19 has become a 'risk multiplier' for asylum seekers, compounding existing drivers. By examining how Western nation states in the global North have responded to asylum seekers during the pandemic against the backdrop of existing international refugee law, practice, and policy, this essay seeks to evaluate the normative potential of the GCR and the GCM for the entrenchment of the principle of solidarity. Employing the theoretical framework of governmentality, it argues that despite the rhetoric of responsibility-sharing, the reactions of Western nation states reflect an existing trend toward exclusionary impulses, with countries reflexively reverting to patterns of state-centric, insular protectionism. Taking these issues into consideration, the essay goes on to focus on Canada's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in light of its proximity to and relationship with the United States to illustrate how biopower is being deployed to exclude in line with neoliberal rationalities, even in a country that is usually heralded as a beacon of humanitarianism. The essay concludes with a guarded diagnosis that warns of the potential for an international protection crisis should civil society fail to challenge prevailing biopolitics. Keywords: COVID-19, Asylum Seekers, Refugees, Solidarity, Responsibility-sharing, Governmentality, Biopower, Neoliberal, Canada, United States

Fasting, feasting: The resistant strategies of (not) eating in Ananda Devi's Le Voile de Draupadi and Manger l'autre

This article explores representations of fasting and feasting in Le Voile de Draupadi (1993) and Manger l'autre (2018) by contemporary Francophone Mauritian author, Ananda Devi, teasing out the resistant strategies of (not) eating to the power dynamics entrenched within her global, postcolonial settings in which the politics of gender, neo-colonialism and advanced capitalist consumer culture compete in the regulatory domination of the individual body. Reading these two novels together offers space for reflection on the different meanings ‐ psychical, familial, religious, cultural, political, historical ‐ that converge on the bodies of her protagonists, and the ways that these meanings may exceed singular or conventional interpretations of both fasting and feasting. Written 25 years apart, and set in different locations, one in Mauritius, the second in an unnamed although recognizably western nation, Devi's novels speak to one another across these spaces, tracing the global flows of attitudes towards the body and practices of consumption. In so doing, Devi's writing illuminates the embedded, crisscrossing power dynamics and layered drives exhibited by these fasting, feasting bodies, and their divergent ‐ but resonant ‐ strategies of resistance in the practices of (not) eating across the contemporary, globalized world.

WHEN PARIS WAS “À L’HEURE CHINOISE” OR GEORGES POMPIDOU IN CHINA AND JEAN YANNE’S (1974) LES CHINOIS À PARIS

This article looks at two seemingly disparate events: Georges Pompidou’s 1973 presidential visit to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the filming and release of Jean Yanne’s blockbuster comedy Les Chinois à Paris (1974). Both produced flawed visions of Franco-Chinese relations. During Pompidou’s visit, officials and the press attempted to demonstrate that France enjoyed warmer relations with the PRC than any other Western nation. Yanne’s film parodied the French fad for Maoism by imagining the People’s Liberation Army invading and occupying Paris. His film caused an uproar in the press and sparked official Chinese protest. The article ultimately argues that the two events were deeply related, part of a wave of popular and official interest in China in the early 1970s that extended well beyond the well-known stories of student and intellectual Maoists. This interest paved the way for Franco-Chinese relations as we know them today.

Scholar-Officials

This chapter examines the evolution and development of the selection system for scholar-officials in ancient China. It also considers how the institution of selection has adjusted in response to the politico-social-cultural conditions of different periods and how it embodies political rationalization. The chapter first explains why ancient China's politico-cultural elites differed in practice from the elite politicians of ancient city-states in the West or modern Western nation-states before discussing how the social consensus for historical China's meritocracy formed. It then explores the problem of creating ancient China's meritocracy, focusing specifically on how, in a large state, an elite can be selected in an institutional way that is fair, accurate, and effective. The chapter goes on to describe the recommendation and examination systems for scholar-officials and concludes with an analysis of the politics of meritocracy as well as the politics beyond meritocracy.