Showing papers in "Politics & Society in 2011"

A Common Neoliberal Trajectory The Transformation of Industrial Relations in Advanced Capitalism

Abstract: Based on quantitative indicators for fifteen advanced countries between 1974 and 2005, and case studies of France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Ireland, this article analyzes the trajectory of institutional change in the industrial relations systems of advanced capitalist societies, with a focus on Western Europe. In contrast to current comparative political economy scholarship, which emphasizes the resilience of national institutions to common challenges and trends, it argues that despite a surface resilience of distinct national sets, all countries have been transformed in a neoliberal direction. Neoliberal transformation manifests itself not just as institutional deregulation but also as institutional conversion, as the functions associated with existing institutional forms change in a convergent direction. A key example is the institution of centralized bargaining, once the linchpin of an alternative, redistributive and egalitarian, model of negotiated capitalism, which has been res...

The Emancipatory Effect of Deliberation: Empirical Lessons from Mini-Publics

Abstract: This article investigates the prospects of deliberative democracy through the analysis of small-scale deliberative events, or mini-publics, using empirical methods to understand the process of preference transformation. Evidence from two case studies suggests that deliberation corrects preexisting distortions of public will caused by either active manipulation or passive overemphasis on symbolically potent issues. Deliberation corrected these distortions by reconnecting participants’ expressed preferences to their underlying “will” as well as shaping a shared understanding of the issue.The article concludes by using these insights to suggest ways that mini-public deliberation might be articulated to the broader public sphere so that the benefits might be scaled up. That mini-public deliberation does not so much change individual subjectivity as reconnect it to the expression of will suggests that scaling up the transformative effects should be possible so long as this involves communicating in the form of...

Emerging World Order? From Multipolarity to Multilateralism in the G20, the World Bank, and the IMF:

Abstract: Many developing and transitional countries have grown faster than advanced countries in the past decade, resulting in a shift in the distribution of world income in their favor. China is now the second largest economy in the world, behind the United States and ahead of Japan. As the relative economic weight of China and several others has come to match or exceed that of the middle-ranking G7 economies, the world economy has shifted from “unipolar” toward “multipolar,” less dominated by the G7. How is this change being translated into changes in authority and influence within multilateral organizations like the G20, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)? Alarm bells are ringing in G7 capitals about G7 loss of influence. According to a WikiLeaks cable from the senior U.S. official for the G20 process, from January 2010, “It is remarkable how closely coordinated the BASIC group of countries [Brazil, South Africa, India, China] have become in international fora, taking turns to impede US/E...

Democratic Practice after the Revolution: The Case of Portugal and Beyond:

Abstract: This article examines democratic practice after the revolution that brought an end to authoritarian dictatorship in Portugal in April 1974, taking the Portuguese case as an opportunity to theorize democratic practice and historical processes that shape its emergence. The argument stresses the distinctive features of democracy born in social revolution and the explanatory role of the partial inversion of social hierarchies and remaking of cultural repertoires in social revolutionary settings. The Portuguese case is compared to its larger neighbor, Spain, which moved from authoritarianism to democracy at roughly the same time following a process of change thoroughly unlike that of Portugal. Comparisons with other instances of postrevolutionary democracy and implications for more conventional democratic systems are also introduced. A central theme concerns the extent to which democracies attain the ideal of full political equality among citizens. This article asserts that democracies born in social revolutio...

Varieties of Capitalism, Power Resources, and Historical Legacies: Explaining the Slovenian Exception

Abstract: Although Slovenia is a small, relatively new nation-state, it has been justifiably called “neocorporatist” and a “coordinated market economy,” making it unique among postcommunist societies, includ...

Mobilizing in Borderline Citizenship Regimes: A Comparative Analysis of Undocumented Migrants’ Collective Actions

Abstract: This article seeks to explain how and why groups and networks of undocumented migrants mobilizing in Berlin, Montreal, and Paris since the beginning of the 2000s construct different types of claims...

What We Talk About When We Talk About Terrorism

Abstract: There is no consensus in the literature about the nature of terrorism. The authors’ main claim is that this is ultimately the result of the coexistence of two senses of the term, the action and the actor sense, which are not fully congruent. Rather than trying to advocate a specific conceptualization, the authors provide in this article a map of the different ways in which scholars talk about terrorism. They identify first the set of terrorist actions and the set of terrorist actors. Terrorist tactics are a variety of the power to hurt, based on the lack of military power. Terrorist groups are underground ones with no territorial control. When the two criteria meet, the core of terrorism exists: coercive violence perpetrated by underground groups. The ambiguity that surrounds terrorism is caused by two other possibilities: actors with some measure of territorial control adopting coercive tactics and underground actors adopting military tactics. Although it is not possible to remove this ambiguity in empir...

Paving the Road to “Too Big to Fail”: Business Interests and the Politics of Financial Deregulation in the United States

Abstract: The debate over the political power of business has witnessed a revival after the global financial crisis of 2007—2009. We begin by arguing that business political fragmentation or unity has important consequences for policy outcomes. The structure of the U.S. government is conducive to incremental policy changes, often in response to business pressures. In turn, these changes shape the political interests and alliances of business. We illustrate this dynamic through an analysis of the political processes leading to the enactment of the Financial Modernization Act (FMA) of 1999, which repealed Depression-era regulations and allowed commercial banks to enter the securities and insurance business and vice versa. The FMA condoned the emergence of largely unregulated diversified financial institutions, which proved “too big to fail” during the crisis. Several factors contributed to the FMA: political institutions, international competition, the ideological convergence of the Republican and Democratic parties,...

O movimento negro no Brasil: ausências, emergências e a produção dos saberes.

Abstract: Este artigo consiste em uma reflexao sobre as experiencias e os saberes construidos pelo movimento negro, no Brasil, tendo como foco a luta pela construcao de uma educacao para a diversidade etnico-racial e as acoes afirmativas. O movimento negro e entendido como um sujeito politico, com uma trajetoria historica, integrante do contexto atual da organizacao dos movimentos sociais e participante da articulacao transnacional com outros movimentos e ONGs na luta pela construcao de uma sociedade democratica. A educacao e compreendida como parte do processo de formacao humana, na perspectiva de Paulo Freire, no qual a escola e os processos educativos construidos em outras instituicoes sociais sao considerados vivencias formadoras (e, por vezes, deformadoras) que constituem sujeitos.

The Political Contradictions of Incremental Innovation: Lessons from Pharmaceutical Patent Examination in Brazil

Abstract: Neodevelopmental patent regimes aim to facilitate local actors’ access to knowledge and also encourage incremental innovations. The case of pharmaceutical patent examination in Brazil illustrates political contradictions between these objectives. Brazil’s patent law includes the Ministry of Health in the examination of pharmaceutical patent applications. Though widely celebrated as a health-oriented policy, the Brazilian experience has become fraught with tensions and subject to decreasing levels of both stability and enforcement. I show how one pillar of the neodevelopmental regime, the array of initiatives to encourage incremental innovations, has fostered the acquisition of innovative capabilities in the Brazilian pharmaceutical sector, and how these new capabilities have altered actors’ policy preferences and thus contributed to the erosion of the coalition in support of the other pillar of the neodevelopmental regime, the health-oriented approach to examining pharmaceutical patents. The analysis of capability-derived preference formation points to an endogenous process of coalitional change.

What Do We Really Know About Racial Inequality? Labor Markets, Politics, and the Historical Basis of Black Economic Fortunes

Abstract: Racial earnings inequalities in the United States diminished significantly over the three decades following World War II, but since then have not changed very much. Meanwhile, black—white dispariti...

Waves of Change Within Civil Society in Latin America Mexico City and São Paulo

Abstract: For the past half a century, Latin American scholars have been pointing toward the emergence of new social actors as agents of social and political democratization. The first wave of actors was characterized by the emergence of novel agents—mainly, new popular movements—of social transformation. At first, the second wave, epitomized by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), was celebrated as the upsurge of a new civil society, but later on, it was the target of harsh criticism. The literature often portrays this development in Latin American civil society as a displacement trend of actors of the first wave by the second wave—“NGOization”—and even denounces new civil society as rootless, depoliticized, and functional to retrenchment. Thus, supposedly, NGOization encumbers social change. The authors argue that NGOization diagnosis is a flawed depiction of change within civil society. Rather than NGOization related to the depoliticization and neoliberalization of civil society, in Mexico City and Sao Paulo, t...

Transnational Governance as Contested Institution-Building: China, Merchants, and Contract Rules in the Cotton Trade

Abstract: We are in an era of uncertainty over whose rules will govern global economic inte­ gration With the growing market share of Chinese firms and the power of the Chinese state it is unclear if Western firms will continue to dominate transnational governance Exploring these dynamics through a study of contract rules in the global cotton trade, this article conceptualizes commodity chain governance as a contested process of institution-building To this end, the global commodity chain/global value chain (GCC/GVC) framework must be revised to better account for the broader institutional context of commodity chain governance, institutional variation across space, and strategic action in the construction of legitimate governance arrangements I provide a more dynamic model of GCC governance that stresses how strategic action, existing institutions, and dominant discourses intersect as firms and states compete for institutional power within a commodity chain This advances our understandings of how commodity chain governance emerges and chan g es over time

Guerrilla Insurgency as Organized Crime: Explaining the So-Called “Political Involution” of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

Abstract: The escalation of violence committed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas against noncombatant civilians triggered a shift in the theoretical orientation of scholars who ...

Associations, Deliberation, and Democracy: The Case of Ireland’s Social Partnership

Abstract: Over the past two decades there has been a burgeoning interest and research into experiments and innovations in participatory governance. While advocates highlight the merits of such new governance arrangements in moving beyond traditional interest group representations and deepening democracy through deliberation with a broad range of civic associations, critics express concern about the political legitimacy and democratic accountability of participating associations, highlighting in particular the dangers of co-option and faction. Addressing these concerns, a number of theorists identify an important role for civic associations in linking deliberations at micro policy levels to those within the public sphere more broadly. These normative contributions raise an important empirical question—does civic associational engagement at micro levels leave scope to engage both laterally across associations and vertically with members and citizens more broadly? More simply put, is civic associational engagement wit...

What Do We Mean by “Class Politics”?

Abstract: During the past thirty years in the social sciences, there has been a wide-ranging discussion of “class politics” in capitalist modernity. Several distinct threads have developed, largely in isolation from each other. The authors suggest that the various accounts implicitly rely on different definitions of class politics and propose a way to classify them. The classification is based on two questions: first, whether changes in the strength of the left depend on the working class specifically or on cross-class dynamics and, second, whether emergent class differences in politics are largely spontaneous or constructed. The authors use this classification to assess the prospects for testing the empirical implications of different accounts and point to the more general insights potentially offered by each approach.

Peace of Cemeteries: Civil War Dynamics in Postwar States’ Repression

Abstract: This article analyzes whether state repression in post-civil war situations can be exp- lained by dynamics associated with previous civil wars. It claims that in post-civil war situations the state can more easily resort to indiscriminate repression against social groups, relying on information related to the civil war. Two civil war dynamics are tested: preemptive indiscriminate violence to eliminate opposition by the defeated population and retaliation for crimes committed during the war. Using data from the first decade of the Francoist regime in Spain, the author found that civil war dynamics, and not actual dissent, explain most of the country's postwar violence.

Global, conventional and warring movements and the suppression of contention. Themes in contentious politics research. doi:10.5007/2175-7984.2011v10n18p25

Abstract: Contentious events often come in waves, but they are seldom homogeneous. A series of contentious events over the past two years were the result of the global financial crisis that began in the United States in 2008 and ultimately diffused around the world. But it was in Greece and the European Union that the crisis hit hardest. There, conventional protest, violence, and political contention combined. The Greek/Euro crisis has three lessons to teach us about the current themes in social movement research. The first lesson has to do with the nature of the capitalist crisis that triggered these events. The second lesson is that there are limits to globalization and internationalization. The third lesson is that while the financial crisis sparked a great deal of contention, it was differently affected by the political opportunity structure of each country. This article investigates three meanings of the term “social movement society” that became popular in the North in the 1990s: global movements; contained movements; and warring movements. It closes with some speculations about the relationship between the movements of recent years and protest policing and the increasing danger of suppression of all movements as the result of the fear of terrorism.

A Development-Friendly Reform of the International Financial Architecture

Abstract: The current financial crisis demonstrated, once again, the need for deep reforms of the international monetary and financial architecture. This article argues that reforms under way are insufficient, as they are partial in scope and rely excessively on an ad hoc body, the G20. It thus calls for an international architecture that meets two basic criteria. First, it should be comprehensive. This means that a broad range of reforms should be undertaken: better macroeconomic policy coordination; regulatory reform, including cross-border capital flows; ample countercyclical IMF and development financing with limited conditionality; global monetary reform; and the creation of an international debt court. Second, inclusive institutions should stand at the center of the new architecture, structured as a multilayered network of global, regional, and national financial institutions.

Rethinking global market governance: Crisis and reinvention?

Abstract: The recent financial crisis and Great Recession have been compared to other historical moments during which significant shifts in regimes of market governance have occurred. Here, we engage with the pieces that follow in this special section of Politics & Society as we consider three dimensions along which global market governance might be transformed in the direction of greater democracy. First, given that problems of market governance often extend across national boundaries, enhanced intergovernmental coordination could play a key role in promoting the public interest. Second, broader country representation would help to ensure that the interests of different national publics are more fully addressed. Third, wider social participation would expand the definition of the public interest at both the national and global levels, allowing a range of social groups to enhance the quality of their representation by governments and IGOs, and to engage more directly in the project of market governance.

Participação de representantes da sociedade civil na esfera pública na América Latina.

Abstract: Partindo de cenarios desenhados pelas novas politicas publicas na America Latina, especialmente no caso do Brasil, o trabalho apresenta os eixos principais destas politicas no que diz respeito a participacao de grupos organizados da sociedade civil. Demarcam-se as diferencas entre as atuais politicas sociais voltadas para o atendimento de demandas sociais e a construcao e implementacao destas politicas nos anos de 1990. O objetivo principal e o de qualificar o carater e a natureza das novas acoes envolvendo a sociedade civil organizada e as instâncias governamentais, indagando sobre os impactos e resultados destas relacoes no processo democratico em curso.

Killing the Goose That Lays the Golden Egg The Politics of Milton Friedman’s Economics

Abstract: It’s a commonplace that Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke draws his policies from Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz’s A Monetary History of the United States (MH). With that in mind, this article establishes five points. First, contrary to conventional wisdom, Friedman and Schwartz merely insinuate their claim the Fed caused the Depression in MH. Second, their criticisms of Fed policy during the Depression, which turn on its refusal to adopt open market purchases (OMPs), repudiate Friedman’s famed libertarianism and market fundamentalism. Third, Friedman and Schwartz don’t refute the practical objections of bankers who opposed OMPs in the 1930s. Consequently, Bernanke’s policies for addressing the financial crisis risk doing precisely what Friedman’s targets warned against—encouraging financial speculation without addressing problems of unemployment. Fourth, Friedman and Schwartz’s prescriptions entail a neoliberal, not a libertarian, state, one governed by technocrats and answerable to financial mark...

Território, certificação de procedência e a busca da singularidade: o caso do Café do Cerrado

Abstract: Este artigo analisa a experiencia do arranjo produtivo territorial organizado pelos cafeicultores do oeste do estado de Minas Gerais (Brasil), que, por meio de suas associacoes de produtores municipais, constituiram o Conselho das Associacoes dos Cafeicultores do Cerrado Mineiro (Caccer), que obteve, em 2005, o reconhecimento da Indicacao Geografica de seu cafe, e pode passar a emitir a Certificacao de Procedencia Cafe do Cerrado. Desde entao, cabe ao Caccer atestar a qualidade da producao de seus filiados que atendam as especificacoes exigidas por aquela certificacao. O Cafe do Cerrado constituiu-se, assim, na primeira regiao de origem produtora de cafe demarcada do pais. O sucesso daquela cafeicultura esta ligado a constituicao de um arranjo produtivo territorial rural, bastante institucionalizado, cuja insercao nos mercados nacional e global e cada vez mais expressiva. Porem, ha que se reconhecer que esse processo tem causado diferenciacao entre os produtores, entre os que tem e os que nao tem conseguido acompanhar as exigencias estabelecidas pela certificacao de origem.

La institucionalización de la participación en Colombia: notas para su interpretación

Abstract: Colombia decidio hace veinticinco anos institucionalizar la participacion ciudadana como parte de la descentralizacion del Estado. La participacion ciudadana fue entendida como una forma de acercar el gobierno a los ciudadanos y como un medio para democratizar las decisiones publicas. El desarrollo de la participacion ciudadana ha pasado por dos momentos: el primero de ellos se caracterizo por la acogida que tuvo la reforma entre la mayoria de los colombianos y por la multiplicacion de espacios institucionales de participacion. La segunda etapa se caracteriza por el efecto negativo de dos factores sobre la participacion institucional: la implantacion de un regimen politico autoritario y la incidencia del conflicto armado en la gestion publica. Como alternativa, los colombianos acuden cada vez mas a espacios informales para expresar sus demandas al Estado. El reto actual es fortalecer la participacion ciudadana a traves de varias estrategias: cambio normativo, pedagogia ciudadana, nuevos disenos institucionales y transformacion de esquemas culturales.

Financial markets: masters or servants?

Abstract: hroughout the history of capitalism, there have been tensions between financial institutions and the state, and between financial capital and the firms and households engaged in the production and consumption of physical goods and services. Periods of financial sector dominance have regularly ended in spectacular panics and crashes, often resulting in the liquidation of large numbers of financial institutions and the reimposition of regulatory controls previously dismissed as outmoded and unnecessary. The aim of this article is to consider measures to restore financial markets to their proper role, as servants rather than masters of the market economy and the society within which it is embedded.

A questão da co-responsabilidade prevista na estratégia saúde da família

Abstract: O novo modelo assistencial em saude proposto em 1997 e plasmado na Estrategia Saude da Familia (ESF) tem por foco a atencao basica a saude e as acoes de promocao e prevencao. Configura um novo modo de agir em saude em que as responsabilidades pelos cuidados devem ser compartilhadas pelas familias e pelas equipes de Saude Familiar (SF). Este artigo visa resgatar em documentos oficiais o sentido outorgado ao termo co-responsabilidade e explorar a compreensao que as familias tem sobre o tema, a partir de relatos de pesquisa de campo junto a familias atendidas pela ESF. O artigo aponta que enquanto os operadores em saude, notadamente as equipes de SF, tem uma lista de atribuicoes que delimitam a sua atuacao, as familias nao sabem como executar a sua parte da co-responsabilidade.

Los consejos comunales en Caracas vistos por sus participantes: una exploración.

Abstract: El 26 de abril de 2006, la Asamblea Nacional de Venezuela aprobo la Ley de los Consejos Comunales, con la cual daba existencia legal a una nueva forma participativa en las comunidades. La ley los definio como uma instancia de “participacion, coordinacion e integracion” de las diversas innovaciones participativas, que bajo la orientacion de la nueva Constitucion Bolivariana el gobierno venia impulsando. Tres anos despues, en noviembre de 2009, la Asamblea reformo dicha ley y le dio rango de organica, la Ley Organica de los Consejos Comunales (GO 39.335), elevando el status legal de los CC e incorporandolos al Poder Popular emergente con miras a la construccion del socialismo del siglo XXI. En este articulo, analizamos la evolucion juridico-legal de los consejos comunales, exponemos la conceptualizacion que de ellos hacen activistas, funcionarios y participantes de diversos consejos comunales (CC) en barrios caraquenos desde 2006, exponemos caracteristicas centrales del funcionamiento de algunos CC en Caracas, y examinamos respuestas que han dado nuestros entrevistados sobre la idoneidad de esta forma participativa para proporcionar mas calidad de vida, fortalecer su desarrollo personal y la autonomia organizativa de sus comunidades, y contribuir con uma ampliacion y profundizacion de la democracia venezolana.

Movimientos culturales y la emergencia de una nueva politicidad

Abstract: La tesis central del texto argumenta que en un nuevo momento de inflexion historica que experimenta America Latina se estarian desarrollando nuevos movimientos sociales cuyos rasgos principales anidan en sus caracteristicas culturales y que ellos estarian marcando los nuevos horizontes de cambio historico muy vinculados a la expansion de los derechos humanos de tercera generacion. Tales movimientos estarian asociados con cuestiones de reconocimiento de identidades culturales de diverso tipo. Las demandas sociales en su variedad de significados tenderian a expresarse culturalmente. Se estaria frente a una sociedad de diferentes que cambia constantemente y esto generaria una “nueva politicidad” particularmente entre los jovenes. El texto sintetiza los hallazgos de estudios empiricos de movimientos de participacion femenina, ecologistas y de jovenes. Asimismo se plantean que estos movimientos culturales tienen sus referentes mas cercanos em los nuevos movimientos sociales generados en los comienzos de los 80.El articulo es parte de un libro sobre las nuevas condiciones sociologicas de la democracia y el desarrollo en America Latina en publicacion.

A busca de uma nova agenda de pesquisa sobre os movimentos sociais e o confronto político: diálogos com Sidney Tarrow [Comentários ao artigo de Sidney Tarrow].

Abstract: Como introdução aos meus comentários sobre a conferência de Sidney Tarrow gostaria de fazer uma apreciação inicial sobre a recepção das teorias norte-americanas sobre a ação coletiva e os movimentos sociais no Brasil. A publicação recente em português de O Poder em Movimento (TARROW, 2009a) e o interesse despertado por esta primeira visita de Tarrow ao Brasil são mostras de uma crescente influência tanto da sua obra como do projeto coletivo “contentious politics” no país. No entanto, trata-se de um fenômeno relativamente novo, já que até recentemente a discussão sobre as teorias norte-americanas, neste campo de estudo, no Brasil esteve caracterizada por ser: a) indireta; b) tardia; c) parcial/limitada11. Indireta por que a discussão, até recentemente, foi realizada principalmente a través do esforço analítico de alguns colegas bra-