Contesting American Power: Beijing’s Challenge in South China Sea Disputes

Contribution for newspaper or weekly magazin

Using foreign aid for state repression in Thailand

Contribution for newspaper or weekly magazin

Contested spaces of illiberal and authoritarian politics: human rights and democracy in crisis

The global moral appeal of human rights and democratic governance appears to be in severe crisis. In both the Global North and the South, many countries have witnessed the rise of racist, sexist, and illiberal politicians into the highest positions in the government. As one of Asia's oldest electoral democracies, the Philippines is not an exception in this global pattern of decline in civil liberties and democratic governance. Considering the case of the Philippines, this article addresses the following core question: How and under which conditions do contestations as well as legitimations of the Duterte regime emerge across domestic and transnational spaces? This article examines the transnational and domestic contestations and legitimations of the Duterte regime based on a spatially-oriented analysis of the official results of the 2016 and 2019 elections, while demonstrating the multispatial contestations against and in support of global human rights and liberal democratic norms. While the role of geography and spatialization in the formation of illiberal and authoritarian politics remains underappreciated, this article contributes to the disciplinary fields of political geography, comparative politics, and International Relations. Specifically, the article deploys a spatial approach in understanding the territorially-contingent patterns of contestations and legitimations of liberal democratic politics.History and International Relation

Human rights and humanitarian interventions in the international arena

History and International Relation

The instrumentalization of human rights in world politics

History and International Relation

Constitutional Order in Oligarchic Democracies: Neoliberal Rights Versus Socio-Economic Rights

What is the relationship between constitutional order and the emergence of oligarchic politics in contemporary democratic societies? How and to what extent does constitutional design contribute to oligarchic politics in contemporary liberal democratic states? Focusing on constitutional discourses, rather than the legal positivist interpretation of the constitution (or constitutions as text), I maintain that state constitutions should be understood as an ideational-discursive realm of competing discourses, paradigms, and interpretations of an ideal state. My main argument states that oligarchic democracies emerge because a coalition of stakeholders that promote neoliberal understanding of the constitution has taken hold of this discursive realm of constitutional interpretation both within the state apparatus and the public sphere. Thus, the crisis of democratic representation and its relationship to constitutional design represents ideational and materialist aspects: oligarchs promote, reinforce, and sustain self-serving constitutional interpretations and discourses that reinforce the political logic of oligarchic wealth accumulation while suppressing the politics of peaceful dissent and distributive justice.History and International Relation

America’s aid imperium and human rights in Southeast Asia

History and International Relation

Does US Foreign Aid Undermine Human Rights? The “Thaksinification” of the War on Terror Discourses and the Human Rights Crisis in Thailand, 2001 to 2006

What is the relationship between Thailand’s human rights crisis during Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s leadership (2001–2006) and the USA-led post-9/11 war on terror? Why did the human rights situation dramatically deteriorate after the Thaksin regime publicly supported the Bush administration’s war on terror and consequently received US counterterror assistance? This article offers two conceptual arguments that jointly demonstrate a constitutive theoretical explanation, which shows that counterterror and militaristic transnational and national discursive structures enabled the strategy of state repression in Thailand under Thaksin. The first concept refers to strategic localization, which refers to how the Bush administration’s global war on terror—and its consequent overarching emphasis on military security—provided an opportunity for the Thaksin administration to strategically localize the global threat of terrorism in ways that could seem relevant to the local Thai context. The second concept pertains to resource mobilization, which shows how converging US and Thai discourses on military security facilitated Thaksin’s strategy of increased state repression that led to the proliferation of state-led human rights abuses. This research article contributes to the human rights literature in two ways: (1) by highlighting how foreign aid programs and its constitutive political discourses shape recipient countries’ domestic human rights situation (2) and by tracing the macro-political factors that lead to the eventual democratic decay of contemporary Thailand.History and International Relation

State violence in narcotic drug governance: a call for harm reduction and human rights protection

This reflection piece sheds light on expanded state violence in global narcotic governance, offering valuable insights to perpetrator studies. It expands the focus by acknowledging the state as a collective perpetrator within the framework of global narcotic regulation. With its near-monopoly on the use of force, the state possesses significant resources to inflict violence on citizens, leading to increased number of civilian fatalities, suffering, and other forms of physical integrity rights abuses. Additionally, this piece highlights the role of structural factors in facilitating state violence and the spread of narcotic drugs, emphasizing socioeconomic inequalities and systemic discrimination perpetuated by a militaristic approach to narcotic politics. Lastly, it emphasizes the disproportionate impact of state violence and drug policies on marginalized communities, urging an examination of how coercive state agencies deliberately target minoritized groups.History and International Studies 1900-presen