After four decades of rural-to-urban migration, the class identity of more than 280 million rural migrant workers in China remains ambiguous. Many scholars have attempted to capture the transformation of their identity from ‘peasants’ to ‘workers’ by resorting to such labels as ‘new industrial workers’ (xin chanye gongren), ‘semi-proletariat’, ‘full proletariat’, ‘precarious proletariat’ (buwending wuchanzhe), and even ‘Chinese new workers’ (zhongguo xin gongren) (Lee 2007; Lü 2012 and 2014; Pun and Chan 2008; Pun and Lu 2010; Smith and Pun 2017; Standing 2016; Swider 2015; Woronov 2016; Xie 2005; Yang 2010).
September 1938 - the founding of the Fourth International
19 October 2018, by , , , ,This ensemble of articles was originally published as a centre-spread in l’Anticapitaliste weekly newspaper of the NPA in France.
The implications of the Balfour declaration
20 September 2018, by ,Below we publish two articles written almost a year ago to mark the centenary of the Balfour declaration, a key moment in the history of the Middle East. The issues raised in the two pieces, respectively by Gilbert Achcar and Julian Salingue, are as least as pertinent today as they were when they were written.
Local Government, Local Governance, Local Democracy
18 September 2018, byThe shock result of the February 2018 local government election, on a high turnout exceeding 75%, has triggered governmental instability and continuing turmoil within the ‘good governance’ touting coalition that rode to power in the presidential election of January 2015, and stabilised itself after the August 2015 parliamentary election.
Catalonia’s independence movement :A strategic assessment
5 September 2018After more than two million people in Catalonia voted to declare independence from the Spanish state in October 2017, the state struck back. The Spanish central government, under the conservative President Mariano Rajoy, dissolved the Catalán government and charged its leaders with crimes of rebellion against the state. Rajoy called new elections in Catalonia for December 2017. In the results of those elections, the pro-independence parties took the small majority of a sharply polarized electorate. The independence movement, the Catalán government, and the Spanish state are currently locked in an impasse.
Muddying the Revolution
3 September 2018, byWe should be honest about the Communist Party of the Philippines’ record, including its assassinations of left-wing activists.
The Troika’s Policy in Greece: Rob the Greek people and give the money to private banks, the ECB, the IMF and the dominant States of the Eurozone
2 September 2018, byOn 20 August 2018, the Greek government of Alexis Tsipras, the IMF and the European leaders celebrated the end of the Third Memorandum.
Syria’s Disaster, and What’s Next
30 August 2018, byMore than seven years after the beginning of the Syrian popular uprising, which was gradually transformed into a deadly war with an international character, the situation in the country is catastrophic at all levels. The popular classes are the most affected with continuous suffering.
Secularists, Secularism and the Syrian uprising
27 August 2018, bySyrian secularists, and moreover the concept of secularism, are under attack online and on the ground. Joseph Daher takes a critical look at recent efforts to discredit the contribution of Syrian secularists to the 2011 revolution and offers historic perspective on the meaning of secularism and how the concept has been used and misused in the battle to shape the future of Syria.
The retreat of the pink tide in Latin America
27 August 2018, by ,Jeffery R. Webber is senior lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. He spoke with ISO editorial board member Phil Gasper on April 5, the morning after the Brazilian Supreme Court voted to imprison the country’s former president, Lula da Silva.