![[JCA] What has Happened to the Poster Child: is South Korean Democracy Backsliding?](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1540575467063-178a50c2df87?w=800&q=85)
Latin America Watch
[LAP] Brazil-China Relations Beyond the Dependency Myth
Latin American Perspectives, Volume 53, Issue 2, Page 39-58, March 2026. Throughout the administrations of Lula and Dilma, Brazil pursued a foreign policy aimed at diversifying partnerships, with a particular emphasis on South-South cooperation mechanisms and endeavors toward ref
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ROAPE Watch
[ROAPE] The candlelit state
Power cuts were a regular feature of childhood in Nairobi. When the electricity failed, my father would gather our family by candlelight and draw. On one such evening, he sketched a woman: a baby strapped to her back, a water pot balanced on her head, a basket of provisions carri
Read more →![[LAP] Dismantling or Drifting? The Politics of Bolsa Família's Transformation under Brazil's Far-Right Government](https://iocss.org/content/images/2026/03/journal-feature-lap.svg)
Latin America Watch
[LAP] Dismantling or Drifting? The Politics of Bolsa Família's Transformation under Brazil's Far-Right Government
This article analyses the politics of Bolsa Família under the Bolsonaro government, showing how the program survived through administrative degradation and electoral expansion rather than formal dismantling, illustrating a pattern of 'drift with expansion' in social policy retrenchment.
Read more →![[ROAPE] Economic Instrument or Political Tool? Socioeconomic Outcomes of Nigeria's 2022 Currency Redesign and Cashless Policy](https://iocss.org/content/images/2026/03/journal-feature-roape.svg)
ROAPE Watch
[ROAPE] Economic Instrument or Political Tool? Socioeconomic Outcomes of Nigeria's 2022 Currency Redesign and Cashless Policy
Paul Ani Onuh examines how Nigeria's 2022 naira redesign and cash withdrawal limit policy — ostensibly aimed at price stability and financial inclusion — became a weapon in elite political competition ahead of the 2023 election, with the costs of its chaotic implementation falling overwhelmingly on
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ROAPE Watch
[ROAPE] The Coloniality of Biometric Power: Global Digital Empire, Biometric State and the Control of Digital Subjects in Nigeria
Victor Iwuoha and Martin Doevenspeck introduce the concept of 'biometric coloniality' to explain how digital ID systems in Nigeria reproduce colonial relations of domination through a 'digital consensus' among the EU, US, China, World Bank, and major foundations. The biometric state is complicit in
Read more →![[JCA] What Has Happened to the Poster Child: Is South Korean Democracy Backsliding?](https://iocss.org/content/images/2026/03/journal-feature-jca.svg)
Asia Watch
[JCA] What Has Happened to the Poster Child: Is South Korean Democracy Backsliding?
Soo Hyun Lee and Timo Fleckenstein challenge the 'democratic backsliding' framing for South Korea, proposing instead the concept of a 'democratic rollercoaster' — significant advances under progressive administrations followed by sharp regression under right-wing governments. The root cause, they ar
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Asia Watch
[JCA] China's Climate Policy: Transition, Governance, and the Limits of Authoritarian Environmentalism
A book review by Geoffrey C. Chen (Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University) of Alex Y. Lo and Chen Xiang's Edward Elgar monograph on China's climate governance. The review highlights the book's framework — deploying authoritarian environmentalism, the centralised developmental state, and ecological civi
Read more →![[FOCUS_GLOBAL] Against the Tides: Uprisings and Protests in Troubled Waters](https://iocss.org/content/images/2026/03/journal-feature-focus-global.svg)
Asia Watch
[FOCUS_GLOBAL] Against the Tides: Uprisings and Protests in Troubled Waters
This article analyses the global wave of uprisings and social protests between 2019 and 2025 as a conjunctural phenomenon reflecting converging structural crises, examining why mass mobilization has produced disruption without durable political transformation.
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Asia Watch
[FOCUS_GLOBAL] Resisting the Weaponization of Interdependence
This article examines strategies available to states and non-state actors for resisting weaponized interdependence — the use of asymmetric economic dependencies as coercive instruments — identifying diversification, coalition-building, and norm entrepreneurship as complementary resistance strategies
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