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This paper suggests that the analysis of racism in Japan can be advanced by taking note of theoretical arguments produced in the context of studies of European racisms. Specifically, the paper discusses the relationship between racism and nationalism, and argues that this relationship can be understood only if the ideological character of the notion of 'race' is recognised. The significance of racist ideology in the discourses of the state during the period of the Japanese colonial empire is analysed and some implications of this analysis for the situation of minority populations in contemporary Japan are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Gender ideology' discourse has been one of the most recurrent strategies of neo-conservative activism at a global level. Through this syntagma, a variety of moral panics have been mobilized against feminist agendas and LGBTI rights, accusing them of promoting the destruction of natural order, the spread of Marxism and global conspiracy. The academic literature has highlighted that the genesis of this strategic discourse was an intellectual production in the mid-1990s; we can trace back texts written in conjunction by secular neo-conservative intellectuals in the United States and members of the Catholic hierarchy. However, the tendency has been to ignore the strong intellectual production that neo-conservative activists developed at that time in Argentina, particularly in Córdoba and Buenos Aires, which helped to lay the foundations of the present 'gender ideology' discourse. The intention of this work is to draw attention to that local production and its connection with the ideas that were being developed in parallel in the global North. In order to do this, the article analyzes a series of texts produced by neo-conservatives in Argentina in the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing body of evidence indicates that globalization can trigger a variety of reactions from societies. The possible outcomes include blending, hybridization, fault line formation or even an increased salience of local traditionalist value systems. An important task for the research field is developing systematic, comparative theories predicting which outcome is expected to emerge depending on the interplay between the global and the local. Drawing on the rich empirical literature on globalization variants, the article takes a further step in theory building by proposing a typology with the four possible outcomes mentioned above. To make the model premises more transparent, the authors transcribe their arguments into symbolic logic sentences and derive the typology outcomes as theorems. This allows testing if the proposed model does indeed imply the purported conclusions, and to see what consequences would, or would not, follow from a slightly modified premise set, that is, from a slightly modified globalization theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article uses primary data from the constitutional texts of 91 postcolonial nations (over the course of the latter part of the 20th century) to question the effects of global political norms upon documentary constitutionalism. The independence constitutions were strongly influenced by intra-imperial and transnational lines of circulation, but not global ones. They were differentiated by former empire, religion and political-economic ideology A significant change came about during the 1990s, when most of these original constitutions were rewritten or replaced. The newer constitutions are more isomorphic than before, indicating the global influence of democratization, human rights ideology and economic neoliberalism. On the other hand, this process of homogenization has been tempered by two countervailing processes: constitutional complexification and differentiation. These processes produce syncretic forms within and across constitutions. They reveal that divergence can unfold concomitantly with, rather than in spite of, constitutional convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It can be argued that, in the light of the 'cultural turn' in sociology, the search for new sources of critical theory, might profitably begin by considering the contributions of the interdisciplinary field of cultural studies, particularly the lessons to be learned from the Frankfurt School and then from British cultural studies in dealing with the problem of reconciling radical critical theory with the demands of cultural policy and administration. The contributions of these two traditions in cultural theory to debates about cultural governance are used to illustrate the dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]