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This study aims to investigate the reasons for the shutdown of a mobile night market during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lack of tourists was obviously one of the causes but social reasons must also exist. The study investigates territoriality, collectivization and human relations in urban social spaces which are essential for the sustainability of a market than solely short-term profit and unconnected customers.

In this study qualitative methods are used, including reviewing contents, semi-structured interviews with vendors and customers, and informant interviews.

Drawing from urban space theories, this paper argues that trendy markets catering for diverse market segments sustain their business. Once the market has shifted away from local Thai customers to main tourists, it loses its base and becomes vulnerable in territoriality negotiation.

The findings and model provide practice information for local authorities, town planners and night market operators in the design of open-air marketplaces. Such knowledge pinpoints the importance of connecting place and people in order to sustain a business.

Studies on mobile marketplaces are rare. The findings address the “detaching” process and consequence from the perspective of place attachment.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-04-2021-0218

The purpose of this paper is to examine the microcredit system, social networks within self-help groups (SHGs) and micro-entrepreneurial activities at the grassroots aiming at well-being, sustainability and income generation. The empirical study took place in Phnom Penh.

Focus group and in-depth interviews were employed. Two SHGs in Phnom Penh were selected for this study. The social network approach was used to distinguish the type of nodes and cliques within SHGs.

The result suggests that there exist lending and borrowing nodes and cliques. Strong ties exist within a clique and only weak ties link between cliques. Job and business information transmits well on weak ties but not entrepreneurship. This explains the failure of the process of microcredit in fostering microenterprise among very poor and low-educated borrowers.

The findings were based on a small sample from two SHGs. Further study is needed for justification of the findings.

It was original research which took place in Phnom Penh. Homogeneous lending and borrowing cliques in microcredit networks were identified. A model of hierarchical microcredit network was hypothesized to explain how some members of a SHG are able to utilize the credit in starting up their microbusinesses while others failed.

This paper aims to study dams on transboundary rivers. In this study, the case of the Nu–Salween–Thanlwin River is reviewed. This study is an attempt toward developing a conceptual model to explain the unequal hydropower exchange of hydropower dams on transboundary rivers.

This paper reviews big dam project plans on the Salween–Thanlwin River near the Myanmar–Thailand border from the perspective of critical hydropolitics. The evidence is drawn from an extensive review of academic literature, reports, newspapers and websites on this topic. Cascao and Zeitoun’s (2010) four pillars of power, namely, geographical, material, bargaining and ideational power, are reviewed in the case of the Salween–Thanlwin River and its riparian states.

On the basis of a realist discourse, power relationships between dams and their socio-environmental effects are discussed from the perspective of critical hydropolitics. Multiple levels of power asymmetry regarding geographical, material, bargaining and ideational power are observed. The powerful states are high electricity consumers and importers. They invest in hydroelectric dams of adjacent developing states and buy back most of the electricity generated to fuel their industrialization and urbanization. Weak states generally do not have high bargaining power. They depend on the investment of high material power states for domestic and economic development and gain from the export of electricity. However, the externalities of hydropower dams are transferred to these weak states. This contributes to an unequal hydropower exchange model.

The model provides an analytical framework for hydropower dam projects through which comprehensive and multidimensional views are extracted. Academia, policymakers, private developers, international development agencies and nongovernment organizations will have a better understanding of hydropower dam projects and the interactions among riparian states.

This conceptual model stems from Cascao and Zeitoun’s (2010) four pillars of power – geographical, material, bargaining and ideational power. The author limits the framework to hydroelectric dams in transboundary rivers. The powerful states are high electricity consumers and importers that dominate the dam development projects and exchange process.

The purpose of this paper is to employ enclave economy in the perspective of economic sociology to explain the existence and process of the Thai enclave in Hong Kong.

In-depth interviews and case studies are employed in relation to Thai restaurant and grocery shop owners and employees in Hong Kong.

This study is an attempt to explain the clustering of Thai ethnic small businesses in Kowloon City through a discourse on the ethnic enclave economy. The Thai migrant enclave in Hong Kong is explored with dimensions of segregation, namely evenness, exposure, clustering, concentration and centralization (Massey and Denton’s, 1988). This study suggests that these Thai enclave businesses have two differentials compared to the findings of Zhou (1992) in Chinatown restaurants in New York.

The findings provide evidences for social workers, migrant associations and policy makers in developing ideas of ethnic business enabling. There should be wide range of supporting and welfare policies for the empowerment of migrants and minority ethnic groups. An immigrant enclave should no longer be regarded as a ghetto for many business chances can be found there.

Two ethnic economy development differentials are developed. First, ethnicity similarity between the minority group and the majority ethnic enables ethnic business accessing earlier to an interethnic clientele from wider society. Second, internal factors of the ethnic enclave and external factors of the wider society have constrained the diversification of ethnic business.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the intra-party conflicts in Hong Kong’s Democratic Party (DP) and their implications for broader democratic processes in the territory. It also examines some other thematic issues including: the party’s policy decision-making process, candidate selection, party membership and mergers, and their overall relevance for democratisation in Hong Kong.

The study gives a historical review of intra-party conflicts. The concept of factionalism is applied to better understand the DP in Hong Kong’s political space.

Hong Kong is unique and popular models of party conflicts are hardly applicable to the country. Intra-party conflict is an obvious, expected conflict because of differences in formation, leadership, manifestoes and ideologies. The present author tries to examine the case with a view to making a novel contribution.

The study of political factionalism is not uncommon in Hong Kong but this paper intends to study intra-party elite conflicts and self-democratisation of the Hong Kong DP as a case study which is seldom addressed. Consolidation is a possible scenario and its presence is evident when political elites increasingly demonstrate commitment towards creating a democratic regime and when they hold strong beliefs in democratic procedures and institutions as crucial to governing public life.