This article explores how Thai men construct and perform masculine identities through cryptocurrency trading, using the concept of crypto-masculinity to examine how digital finance becomes a site for gendered self-making. While existing scholarship on masculinity in financial contexts often centers on transnational business masculinities in Western corporate settings, little attention has been paid to how masculinity is enacted in decentralized, digital financial spaces, particularly in non-Western contexts. Addressing this gap, this article draws upon in-depth interviews with 21 male traders in Thailand to analyze how masculinity is shaped by the internal instability of masculinity and local cultural norms. This study identifies three key themes through which Thai men's subjectivity is negotiated: valorizing failure, homosociality, and ‘becoming a good Thai man.’ As a result, this article challenges assumptions about the naturalized links between men and finance, suggesting the need for further research on how exclusions within digital finances are taking place to better support equality on crypto platforms.
In 1986, the Filipino people made history by overthrowing the 13-year Marcos dictatorship through a peaceful people power revolution. As a result, the country restored democracy and free elections through the 1987 Constitution which promised to empower citizens and Local Government Units (LGUs). Decentralization and local autonomy were further enhanced to put greater freedom and autonomous powers to local governments. However, it was the shortcomings of decentralization that paved the way for the interest of conversion to federalism. Thus, the present administration of the Philippine government has planned to convert the country's political system from democratic to federal. The study employed descriptive research design. The 58 local government officials in SAMARICA area were purposively selected. It includes the municipality of San Jose, Magsaysay, Rizal, and Calintaan in the province of Occidental Mindoro. The instrument underwent validity procedures and in the reliability test, it was found reliable. Result shows that the local government officials are middle-aged, male, and college graduate. In addition, they are the only politician in the family, members of the Liberal party, and councilors serving in the third class municipalities with short political experience. Lastly, officials have been attending seminars and trainings in the national level with few membership in organizations. The officials are "moderately perceptive" about the issues surrounding the proposed federal system of government. There is a significant difference in the respondents' perspectives when they are grouped based on age, the class of municipality, position, and attended seminars and trainings.
The virginity test as a practise stretching back to at least the Middle Ages has, in recent western popular discourse, been firmly connected with cultures in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Its appearance, then, in the western-authored sheikh romance is not entirely surprising. This chapter explores the representation of the virginity test in English Orientalist romances from two distinct historical moments: the late Middle Ages and the twenty-first century. This cross-period approach takes a long view of the virginity test, considering how current romance ideologies contrast with those of medieval romance. It antagonises exactly what is at stake in persistent reference to the virginity test in romance literature, focusing on their articulations of certainty and uncertainty, loss and possession. Through close readings of six popular sheikh romances featuring virgin heroines published by the genre’s biggest publisher, Harlequin Mills & Boon – Lynne Graham’s The Arabian Mistress (2001), Lucy Monroe’s The Sheikh’s Bartered Bride (2004), Penny Jordan’s Possessed by the Sheikh (2005), Sarah Morgan’s The Sultan’s Virgin Bride (2006), Lynne Graham’s The Desert Sheikh's Captive Wife (2007) and Chantelle Shaw’s At the Sheikh’s Bidding (2008) – alongside two popular English medieval romances – Bevis of Hampton (c.1300) and Floris and Blancheflur (c.1250) – the chapter considers how the test is positioned in each text and what this reveals about the importance of virginity. To put the testing in context, I first offer a brief overview of virginity testing in European culture. Next, I examine the role virginity plays in these romances, outlining their narrative importance. I then move to a focus on the test itself, indicating how testing for virginity is, in these romances, inherently unstable. In the two medieval romances, virginity test can be manipulated, highlighting the unreliability of the test to prove virginity. In sheikh romance, the ultimate virginity test for heroines is penetrative sex with the hero. Therefore, the moment at which the sheikh realises the heroine is a virgin is precisely the moment she ceases to be a virgin; any proof of virginity identified by penetration during a sex act can only be retrospective. Encoded in the very basis of the sex act as virginity test, then, is a fundamental ambiguity; as Kelly argues, ‘in the end, all tests for verifying virginity are inherently flawed’ (2000, 18). Yet while these retrospective, liminal tests might not be reliable as clear indicators of virginity, they do indicate what is at stake in the ‘loss’ of female virginity; ultimately, testing for virginity functions to secure male ownership of women as part of the romance genre’s celebration of a heteronormative gender system within which virginity is valued.
This study proceeds from the obvious assumption that without revenue powers and expendi-ture autonomy any devolution of functions on local governments remains hollow. Without resources local self-government is an exercise without much scope for decision-making. But even if local governments do have adequate revenue powers, their fiscal autonomy may be curtailed by utterly restrictive and, often Byzantine, administrative regulations of the central state, erratic interventions by the central government and – for fear of being not returned to office in future elections - a lack of will among local leaders to utilize the revenue powers vested in local authorities. <br>\tAlthough there is a plethora of literature on decentralization in the Philippines, the literature reflects what Linn,48 Smoke,49 and Smoke, Martinez-Vasquez and Peterson 50 have deplored elsewhere in relation to fiscal decentralization in more general terms: there is not much systematic research on how the Local Government Code of 1991 affected the fiscal capabilities of local governments. Most of the decentralization literature stands in the tradi-tion of the old institutionalism 51 and thus strongly centers on legal-institutional aspects and the historical evolution of decentralization in the Philippines. The few serious studies are by now dated 52 or are difficult to access because they are studies commissioned by bilateral and multilateral donor organizations.53 <br>\tThe main objective of this study is thus to explore as to what extent in the Philip-pines the devolution of functions has been accompanied by an adequate allocation of re-sources to local governments. Local fiscal capacities are thus considered as the litmus test for the success of decentralization reforms in the Philippines. <br>This dissertation is organized into five parts. Chapter 1 discusses the theoretical foun-dation of decentralization as well as the study’s significance, scope and limitations, and methodology. In particular, the theoretical foundation lays down the debate between centrali-zation and decentralization as well as the differing contexts – political and economic - of de-centralization. The research question and the study’s possible contribution were also ex-plained in this chapter. <br>Chapter 2 describes the Philippines’ political-legal structure and its local government system. It also briefly outlines the major changes brought about by the Local Government Code of 1991, the most extensive reform legislation on local governments in the country’s history. <br>Chapter 3 presents the overall or macro-view of decentralization in the Philippines. First, decentralization and local autonomy were explained using the Local Government Code of 1991 wherein the new Code became a catalyst to personnel, functional and fiscal decen-tralization. Second, the local financing structure was described by presenting the trends and dynamics between the central and local governments in obtaining the consolidated LGU in-come and expenditures from 1985 (pre-LGC of 1991) until 2001 (after the passage of the LGC of 1991). Third, the Local Government Code and the LGU Performance were evaluated using the results of the Local Productivity and Performance Measurement System (LPPMS) as a self-assessment tool. <br>Chapter 4 presents the case studies in Bataan and Pampanga on fund sourcing as well as the performance of the Central Luzon Region in local fiscal administration. The case studies will show the experiences of the provinces, cities and municipalities in resource mobilization under the regime of decentralization. This Chapter will also show the impact of inflation or increase in prices in the increase in income on whether the inflation to increase in income leads to real growth in a particular locality. <br>Chapter 5 provides an analysis of the results and observations of the study.
Across the broad issues of decentralized governance in the Philippines, the process of fiscal decentralization continues to require thoroughgoing analysis vis-à -vis the incessant protests against purportedly unfair distribution and use of the country’s fiscal resources. This paper analyzes the institutional framework defining the country’s intergovernmental fiscal relations that would highlight the critical role of central-local political structures in shaping fiscal decentralization. It examines how the policy standardization, resource coordination and allocation, and monitoring and evaluation in the country’s intergovernmental finance affect the distribution, generation and use of fiscal resources. Key issues noted include : 1) limited devolution of budget; 2) constrained intergovernmental fiscal transfer system (insufficient and unlawful allocation of funds; lack of transparency and exercise of discretionary powers in the use of fiscal resources); and 3) low levels of local revenue generation. These issues intersect along a contradiction of powers between the local and central government politicians which predominates in an intergovernmental fiscal structure evaluated in this study as lacking in meaningful institutionalization. The basic paradigm of this paper is based on the assumption that decentralization as a political process can best be operated within the framework of centrally-led institutionalization.