Kevin Hewison

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor Emeritus at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Precarious work is universal, though its forms and consequences vary across countries due to institutional, cultural, and historical differences. This article reviews recent research on precarious work from a global perspective, emphasizing the comparative and interdisciplinary research needed for a comprehensive understanding of the structural tra...

Workers in precarious jobs are more likely to be poor. Inequality between regular and nonregular workers and for informal workers remains high even when the social wage, including benefits and social protections, is considered. The relationship between nonregular work arrangements and labor market outcomes such as wages, inequalities, and poverty i...

Chapter 4 documents the growth in nonregular work arrangements in Japan and South Korea and the salience of the informal economy in Indonesia. These trends are discussed in terms of dualisms: nonregular versus regular work especially in Japan and South Korea, and informal versus formal work in Indonesia. For Japan a key trend is the expansion of no...

This book assesses the role of global and domestic factors in shaping precarious work and its outcomes in Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia as they represent a range of Asian political democracies and capitalist economies: Japan and South Korea are now developed and mature economies, while Indonesia remains a lower-middle income country. The author...

Chapter 3 discusses the ways in which global and domestic factors have intersected to produce the growth of precarious work and inequality in these three countries. The discussion identifies how exogenous factors—neoliberalization and the dynamics of global capitalism, and the processes of hyperglobalization, production, and investment—and endogeno...

Chapter 6 discusses labor politics in Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia. The emphasis is on responses by labor, civil society, and governments to precarious work, inequality, and poverty. In Japan the political dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party and a union focus on regular workers has made it difficult for unions to press for labor laws and...

This chapter summarizes our conclusions about precarious work in Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia and indicates their implications for current and emergent issues, such as automation and the platform economy. It also considers possible changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The need for comprehensive social protections to help people cope w...

The chapter presents our conceptualization of precarious work, which includes nonregular work, informal economy work, and self-employment. Precarious work results from the interplay between the dynamics of global and regional capitalism and the relations between the state, business, and labor in Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia. Who works in preca...

Chapter 2 offers an overview of the three countries included in this study: Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia. The patterns of economic development, political dynamics, and relationships with the global division of labor are summarized for the three countries up to the early 1990s. The three countries industrialized at different times, and such dif...

The Cold War alliance between the USA and Thailand is well-known and well-documented. Rather than recounting the details of that alliance, this article examines some important political legacies associated with Thailand’s Cold War alliance with the USA, focusing on the period from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s. The article examines efforts by the...

This article introduces the pieces collected in this special issue on the legacies of the Cold War in East and Southeast Asia. Linking to the Journal of Contemporary Asia’s 50th Anniversary volume, it examines the origins and conflicts associated with the Cold War in Asia. In this special issue, the authors collectively examine the enduring legacie...

This article provides an account of the upper echelons of Thailand’s capitalist class. Based on an analysis of the Forbes data on Thailand’s wealthiest for the period 2006–2019, it analyses the 30 families and groups that have dominated these rankings over this period. The article compares how the growth of this group’s wealth has outpaced other me...

Almost all popular and academic assessments of Thaksin Shinawatra label him a populist, with his time in power characterized by populism. Through an assessment of conceptual accounts of populism and a discussion of Thaksin’s political campaigning and his prime ministership, it is argued that this characterization is inaccurate. While electorally po...

This article introduces the feature collection titled Malaysia and China in a Changing Region: Essays in Honour of Professor Lee Poh Ping. As well as introducing the six articles in the collection, this article pays tribute to Professor Lee, who passed away in late 2016. The article links some of the key themes of Professor Lee’s research and publi...

The relationship between Thailand and China has been both long and complicated, with periods of conflict associated with, for example, the cold war. In recent years, and especially following the Asian Economic Crisis, there has been a blossoming of the relationship, built on careful diplomacy, a renewal of interest in ethnicity and expanding busine...

Thailand’s politics from the mid-2000s has seen considerable conflict and contestation, with seven prime ministers, two military coups, and scores of deaths from political violence. This article, as well as introducing the eight articles in the Special Issue, examines various aspects of this tumultuous period and the authoritarian turn in Thai poli...

Thailand's politics in the early twenty-first century has seen considerable contestation. Underlying the street protests, military interventions and considerable bloodshed has been a struggle over the nature of electoral politics, popular sovereignty and representation. The military and monarchy have maintained a royalist alliance that opposes elec...

In Thailand, economic inequality has long been a fact of life. It is a “general inequality of condition” that can be seen to influence all aspects of social, economic, and political life. Yet inequality has not always been associated with political activism. Following the 2006 military coup, however, there has been a deliberate and politicized link...

Thailand's on-going political crisis began with agitation against the Thaksin Shinawatra-led government, saw a military coup and a spate of street-based protest and violence. Drawing on Marx and Weber and using the categories of class, status and party, it is argued that Thailand has reached a political turning point. Subaltern challenges to the hi...

This article briefly recapitulates the social, economic, and political factors that led to the rise and consolidation of precarious work in various countries in Asia and the definition of “precarious work.” The article then considers the utility of precarious work for describing the growth of work that is uncertain and insecure and in which risks a...

Precarious work, characterized by the uncertainty and unpredictability of employment, is well established in Thailand. This article examines the expansion of new forms of precarious work in Thailand with particular attention to the post–Asian economic crisis period. This is done through an examination of the currently available data. The post-1997...

This article discusses the social, economic, and political factors that led to the rise and consolidation of precarious work in various countries in Asia. We first define what we mean by “precarious work” and its utility for describing the growth of work that is uncertain and insecure and in which risks are shifted from employers to workers. We the...

Discusses increasing corporatism in S.E. Asian politics; integrates the analysis of circulation and production in the study of the state and class formation in the region where penetration of capitalism is having most influence on pre-capitalist modes of production; criticizes modernization theories and adaptations of dependency theory; and uses th...

Thailand's 2006 coup unleashed deadly political conflict as a conservative elite rallied against Thaksin Shinawatra and his red shirt supporters. Further strife was predicted in the wake of Yingluck Shinawatra's 2011 election victory. But, as Kevin Hewison reports, the expected clashes have not yet materialised.

Twice elected prime minister of Thailand at the head of his Thai Rak Thai Party, telecommunications magnate Thaksin Shinwatra was controversial in office. Since his government was overthrown by a September 2006 military coup backed by the palace, conservatives, and a broad coalition of opponents, Thaksin has remained at the centre of Thailand's con...

This paper introduces the special issue that addresses the challenges of globalisation that face contemporary South Korea. Before briefly introducing each of the articles that comprise the special issue, this paper provides some basic contextualisation, suggesting that Korea is a useful case for understanding the pressures and resistances associate...

There is an underlying optimism in much of the literature that considers the emergence of social movements as being associated with deepening processes of democratization. The expansion of civil society is seen to expand political space. This paper takes a critical lens to this perspective, using recent political events in Thailand as a case study...

This article examines the labour relations and practices of Hong Kong-invested factories in Thailand. Although Hong Kong investments in manufacturing in Thailand can be traced back to the 1970s, there has been little research on Hong Kong firms in Thailand. This article reports on a survey and interviews conducted in 25 Hong Kong-invested plants, s...

This article involves an assessment of Paul Handley's important book, The King Never Smiles. A Biography of Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej. The article begins with a dis-cussion of the supposed threat the book posed to the monarchy and outlines the attempts to pre-vent publication. It then outlines Handley's evaluation of the involvement of King Bhu...

Constitutions are both a site of social and political conflict and a means to structure and limit political participation. This article emphasizes the contested nature of constitutions and constitutionalism to explain how and why modes of participation have been affected. It maintains that constitutions are themselves punctuated by struggle over th...

Professor Noam Chomsky is one of the most-cited academics in the world. Google Scholar records 15,000 citations for the first five of his works it lists. My university's library catalogue identifies 153 works he has authored. Professor Chomsky is recognised for path-breaking work on linguistics and his committed political activism. He is the author...

Special issue. Incl. abstracts, bib.

The landslide electoral victory of Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai (TRT) Party in February 2005 means that the most powerful elements of big domestic capital will continue to manage the affairs of the Thai state. In this article, we focus on the relationship between this capitalist state and the politics of labour, with considerable emphas...

The landslide electoral victory of Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai (TRT) Party in February 2005 means that the most powerful elements of big domestic capital will continue to manage the affairs of the Thai state. In this article, we focus on the relationship between this capitalist state and the politics of labour, with considerable emphas...

The 1997 economic crisis in Thailand provided an opportunity for a reinvigoration of neo-liberal economic policies. International financial institutions, together with Thailand's Democrat-led government, emphasised further market reforms, liberalisation, deregulation, decentralisation, privatisation and a reduced role for the state. The deep econom...

Abstract not available

This article sets out to understand the relationship between the complex process of structural change and the proliferating political strategies and programs implemented to manage the process of political and social change. More particularly the authors examine how in the wake of the Asian economic crisis international financial institutions advoca...

Abstract not available

This paper assesses the rise of the Thaksin Shinawatra government in Thailand. It examines this in terms of the social impacts and political ramifications of the Asian economic crisis. It is argued that the economic crisis threatened the economic and political power of domestic capital and smashed the developmental social contract that had underpin...

The study of migrant workers in Hong Kong has given attention to Filipinas. There has been just one published study of Thais in Hong Kong, despite the fact that they are a significant minority, and about half of them are domestic workers. This article presents the results of a survey of Thai workers, assessing a range of issues: scale of migration...

Thailand's economic performance from 1957 to 1996 was remarkable, with uninterrupted, sometimes very rapid, growth. The decade to 1997 witnessed an unprecedented economic boom that came to a crunching and dramatic halt in July 1997, with the beginning of the Asian economic crisis, the impact of which is still being played out. Despite the crisis, T...