Showing papers on "Politics published in 2002"

Social Capital: Prospects for a New Concept

Abstract: A growing number of sociologists, political scientists, economists, and organizational theorists have invoked the concept of social capital in the search for answers to a broadening range of questions being confronted in their own fields. Seeking to clarify the concept and help assess its utility for organizational theory, we synthesize the theoretical research undertaken in these various disciplines and develop a common conceptual framework that identifies the sources, benefits, risks, and contingencies of social capital.

Inclusion and Democracy

Abstract: Introduction. Chapter 1: Democracy and Justice. Chapter 2: Inclusive Political Communication. Chapter 3: Social Difference as a Political Resource. Chapter 4: Representation and Social Perspective. Chapter 5: Civil Society and Its Limits. Chapter 6: Residential Segregation and Regional Democracy. Chapter 7 Self-Determination and Global Democracy

Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work

Abstract: List of Figures ix List of Tables xi Preface and Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 PART I: VETO PLAYERS THEORY 17 One: Individual Veto Players 19 Two: Collective Veto Players 38 PART II: VETO PLAYERS AND INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS 65 Three: Regimes: Nondemocratic, Presidential, and Parliamentary 67 Four: Governments and Parliaments 91 Five: Referendums 116 Six: Federalism, Bicameralism, and Qualified Majorities 136 PART III: POLICY EFFECTS OF VETO PLAYERS 161 Seven: Legislation 165 Eight: Macroeconomic Policies 187 PART IV: SYSTEMIC EFFECTS OF VETO PLAYERS 207 Nine: Government Stability 209 Ten: Judiciary and Bureaucracies 222 Eleven: Veto Players Analysis of European Union Institutions 248 Conclusion 283 Bibliography 291 Index 309

The end of the transition paradigm

Abstract: In the last quarter of the twentieth century, trends in seven different regions converged to change the political landscape of the world: 1) the fall of right-wing authoritarian regimes in Southern Europe in the mid1970s; 2) the replacement of military dictatorships by elected civilian governments across Latin America from the late 1970s through the late 1980s; 3) the decline of authoritarian rule in parts of East and South Asia starting in the mid-1980s; 4) the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s; 5) the breakup of the Soviet Union and the establishment of 15 post-Soviet republics in 1991; 6) the decline of one-party regimes in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa in the first half of the 1990s; and 7) a weak but recognizable liberalizing trend in some Middle Eastern countries in the 1990s. The causes, shape, and pace of these different trends varied considerably. But they shared a dominant characteristic—simultaneous movement in at least several countries in each region away from dictatorial rule toward more liberal and often more democratic governance. And though differing in many ways, these trends influenced and to some extent built on one another. As a result, they were considered by many observers, especially in the West, as component parts of a larger whole, a global democratic trend that thanks to Samuel Huntington has widely come to be known as the “third wave” of democracy. This striking tide of political change was seized upon with enthusiasm by the U.S. government and the broader U.S. foreign policy community. As early as the mid-1980s, President Ronald Reagan, Secretary of State Thomas Carothers is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. He is the author of many works on democracy promotion, including Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve (1999), and is the coeditor with Marina Ottaway of Funding Virtue: Civil Society Aid and Democracy Promotion (2000).

Migrant “Illegality” and Deportability in Everyday Life

Abstract: ▪ Abstract This article strives to meet two challenges. As a review, it provides a critical discussion of the scholarship concerning undocumented migration, with a special emphasis on ethnographically informed works that foreground significant aspects of the everyday life of undocumented migrants. But another key concern here is to formulate more precisely the theoretical status of migrant “illegality” and deportability in order that further research related to undocumented migration may be conceptualized more rigorously. This review considers the study of migrant “illegality” as an epistemological, methodological, and political problem, in order to then formulate it as a theoretical problem. The article argues that it is insufficient to examine the “illegality” of undocumented migration only in terms of its consequences and that it is necessary also to produce historically informed accounts of the sociopolitical processes of “illegalization” themselves, which can be characterized as the legal production ...

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

Abstract: The blank slate, the noble savage and the ghost in the machine: the official theory silly putty the last wall to fall culture vultures the slate's last stand. Fear and loathing: political scientists the Holy Trinity. Human nature with a human face: the fear of inequality the fear of imperfectability the fear of determinism the fear of nihilism. Know thyself: in touch with reality out of our depths the many roots of our suffering the sanctimonious animal. Hot buttons: politics violence gender children the arts. The voice of the species. Appendix: Donald E. Brown's list of human universals.

Spatializing States: Toward an Ethnography of Neoliberal Governmentality

Abstract: In this exploratory article, we ask how states come to be understood as entities with particular spatial characteristics, and how changing relations between practices of government and national territories may be challenging long-established modes of state spatiality. In the first part of this article, we seek to identify two principles that are key to state spatialization: vertically (thestate is "above"society) andencompassm ent (thestate "encompasses" its localities). We use ethnographic evidence from a maternal health project in India to illustrate our argument that perceptions of verticality and encompassment are produced through routine bureaucratic practices. In the second part, we develop a concept of transnational governmentality as a way of grasping how new practices of government and new forms of "grassroots" politics may call into question the principles of vertical ity and encompassment that have long helped to legitimate and naturalize states' authority over "the local." [states, space, governmentality, globalization, neoliberalism, India, Africa] Recent years have seen a new level of anthropological concern with the modern

Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution

Abstract: From the Publisher: How the convergence of mobile communications and computing is driving the next social revolution-transforming the ways in which people meet, mate, work, buy, sell, govern, and create. When Howard Rheingold sneaks off down an untrodden trail, everyone else follows. He is always onto something marvelous no one has seen before. An ever-considerate guide, he navigates this new world with ease, compassion, and grace, and gives you the inside story, with no punches pulled. Tech talk? Howard could get your mother to understand. From Tokyo to Helsinki, Manhattan to Manila, Howard Rheingold takes us on a journey around the world for a preview of the next techno-cultural shift-a shift he predicts will be as dramatic as the widespread adoption of the PC in the 1980s and the Internet in the 1990s. The coming wave, says Rheingold, is the result of super-efficient mobile communications-cellular phones, personal digital assistants, and wireless-paging and Internet-access devices that will allow us to connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime. From the amusing ("Lovegetty" devices in Japan that light up when a person with the right date-potential characteristics appears in the vicinity) to the extraordinary (the overthrow of a repressive regime in the Philippines by political activists who mobilized by forwarding text messages via cell phones), Rheingold gives examples of the fundamentally new ways in which people are already engaging in group or collective action. He also considers the dark side of this phenomenon, such as the coordination of terrorist cells, threats to privacy, and the ability to incite violent behavior. Applying insights from sociology, artificial intelligence, engineering, and anthropology, Rheingold offers a penetrating perspective on the brave new convergence of pop culture, cutting-edge technology, and social activism. At the same time, he reminds us that, as with other technological revolutions, the real impact of mobile communications will come not from the technology itself but from how people use it, resist it, adapt to it, and ultimately use it to transform themselves, their communities, and their institutions. Author Biography: Howard Rheingold is one of the world's foremost authorities on the social implications of technology. Over the past twenty years he has traveled around the world, observing and writing about emerging trends in computing, communications, and culture. One of the creators and former founding executive editor of HotWired, he has served as editor of The Whole Earth Review, editor-in-chief of The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog, and on-line host for The Well. The author of several books, including The Virtual Community, Virtual Reality, and Tools for Thought, he lives in Mill Valley, California.

The Free Press

Abstract: Hilaire Belloc, a great English essayist of the 20th century, takes an uncompromising look at the forces working against the freedom of the press. Targeting financial and political influences, along with the influence of advertising, Belloc exposes the powers and motives responsible for the suppression of news and the manufacturing of opinion. Neither pie-in-the-sky idealism nor an irrational conspiracy theory, The Free Press is a rationally argued essay explaining the origins of those influences and factors that make the press less than what it should be honest: fair, and independent. This is a topical work written almost a century ago. Times have changed, but the situation has gone from bad to worse, and thus this work is even more relevant today. This book will be of interest to anyone, particularly the student of journalism and its history, who is curious about the rise of the major papers and media networks, and about the forces both overt and semi-covert working to shape what is reported and which opinions are sanctioned.

The rise of competitive authoritarianism

Abstract: The post–Cold War world has been marked by the proliferation of hybrid political regimes. In different ways, and to varying degrees, polities across much of Africa (Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe), postcommunist Eurasia (Albania, Croatia, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine), Asia (Malaysia, Taiwan), and Latin America (Haiti, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru) combined democratic rules with authoritarian governance during the 1990s. Scholars often treated these regimes as incomplete or transitional forms of democracy. Yet in many cases these expectations (or hopes) proved overly optimistic. Particularly in Africa and the former Soviet Union, many regimes have either remained hybrid or moved in an authoritarian direction. It may therefore be time to stop thinking of these cases in terms of transitions to democracy and to begin thinking about the specific types of regimes they actually are. In recent years, many scholars have pointed to the importance of hybrid regimes. Indeed, recent academic writings have produced a variety of labels for mixed cases, including not only “hybrid regime” but also “semidemocracy,” “virtual democracy,” “electoral democracy,” “pseudodemocracy,” “illiberal democracy,” “semi-authoritarianism,” “soft authoritarianism,” “electoral authoritarianism,” and Freedom House’s “Partly Free.” 1 Yet much of this literature suffers from two important weaknesses. First, many studies are characterized by a democratizing bias. Analyses frequently treat mixed regimes as partial or “diminished” forms of democracy, 2 or as undergoing prolonged transiSteven Levitsky is assistant professor of government and social studies at Harvard University. His Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. Lucan A. Way is assistant professor of political science at Temple University and an academy scholar at the Academy for International and Area Studies at Harvard University. He is currently writing a book on the obstacles to authoritarian consolidation in the former Soviet Union.

Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others

Abstract: This article explores the ethics of the current "War on Terrorism, asking whether anthropology, the discipline devoted to understanding and dealing with cultural difference, can provide us with critical purchase on the justifications made for American intervention in Afghanistan in terms of liberating, or saving, Afghan women. I look first at the dangers of reifying culture, apparent in the tendencies to plaster neat cultural icons like the Muslim woman over messy historical and political dynamics. Then, calling attention to the resonances of contemporary discourses on equality, freedom, and rights with earlier colonial and missionary rhetoric on Muslim women, I argue that we need to develop, instead, a serious appreciation of differences among women in the world—as products of different histories, expressions of different circumstances, and manifestations of differently structured desires. Further, I argue that rather than seeking to "save" others (with the superiority it implies and the violences it would entail) we might better think in terms of (1) working with them in situations that we recognize as always subject to historical transformation and (2) considering our own larger responsibilities to address the forms of global injustice that are powerful shapers of the worlds in which they find themselves. I develop many of these arguments about the limits of "cultural relativism" through a consideration of the burqa and the many meanings of veiling in the Muslim world. [Keywords: cultural relativism, Muslim women, Afghanistan war, freedom, global injustice, colonialism]

Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity

Abstract: List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration Introduction I. Economies of Truth 1. Can the Mosquito Speak? 2. Principles True in Every Country 3. The Character of Calculability II. Peasant Studies 4. The Invention and Reinvention of the Peasant 5. Nobody Listens to a Poor Man 6. Heritage and Violence III. Fixing the Economy 7. The Object of Development 8. The Market's Place 9. Dreamland Notes Select Bibliography Index

Servants of globalization : women, migration, and domestic work

Abstract: Introduction: migrant Filipina domestic workers in Rome and Los Angeles 1. The dislocations of migrant Filipina domestic workers 2. The Philippines and the outflow of labor 3. The international division of reproductive labor 4. The transnational family: a postindustrial household structure with preindustrial values 5. Intergenerational and gender relations in transnational families 6. Contradictory class mobility: the politics of domestic work in globalization 7. The dislocation of nonbelonging: domestic workers in the Filipina migrant communities of Rome and Los Angeles Conclusion: servants of globalization: different settings, parallel lives Appendix A. Characteristics of the samples Appendix B. Tables Notes bibliography Index.

Democratic Phoenix: Reinventing Political Activism

Abstract: Conventional wisdom suggests that citizens in many countries have become disengaged from the traditional channels of political participation. Commentators highlight warning signs including sagging electoral turnout, rising anti-party sentiment, and the decay of civic organizations. But are these concerns justified? This book, first published in 2002, compares systematic evidence for electoral turnout, party membership, and civic activism in countries around the world and suggests good reasons to question assumptions of decline. Not only is the obituary for older forms of political activism premature, but new forms of civic engagement may have emerged in modern societies to supplement traditional modes. The process of societal modernization and rising levels of human capital are primarily responsible, although participation is also explained by the structure of the state, the role of agencies, and social inequalities.

The tools of government : a guide to the new governance

Abstract: Machine generated contents note: 1 The New Governance and the Tools of Public Action: -- An Introduction I Lester M Salomon -- 2 Direct Government i ChristopherK. Leman -- 3 Government Corporations and Government-Sponsored -- Enterprises I Thomas H. Stanton and Ronald C. Moe -- 4 Economic Regulation LesterM. Sahaon -- 5 Social Regulation I Peter May -- 6 Government Insurance I Ron I1 Feldman -- 7 Public Information I anet A. Weiss -- 8 Corrective Taxes, Charges, and Tradable Permits I Joseph J Crdes -- 9 Contracting I Steven J. Kelman -- 10 Purchase-of-Service Contracting I Ruth Hoogand DeHoog and -- Lestr M. Salamon -- 11 Grants David R. Beam and Timothy i. Cmnan -- 12 Loans and Loan Guarantees I Thomas H. Stanton -- 13 Tax Expenditures I Christopher Howard -- 14 Vouchers I C Eugene Steuerle and Eric C Twombly -- 15 Tort Liability I Peter Schuck -- 16 Managing Indirect Government I Donald F. Keda -- 17 Financial Accountability in Indirect Government I John Lordan -- 18 Accountability Challenges of Third-Party Government I -- Paul L. Posner -- 19 The Politics of Tool Choice I B. Guy Peters -- 20 Policy Tools and Democracy I Steven Rathgeb Smith and Helen Ingram -- 21 European Experience with Tools of Government I -- Arthur B. Ringeling -- 22 The Tools Approach and the New Governance: Conclusion and -- Implications I LesterM. Salamon -- Bibliography -- Index.

Partisan Hearts and Minds: Political Parties and the Social Identities of Voters

Abstract: In this authoritative study, three political scientists demonstrate that identification with political parties powerfully determines how citizens look at politics and cast their ballots. "Partisan Hearts and Minds is a profound breakthrough in our understanding of partisan loyalties and makes a major contribution to the study of political attitudes and voting behavior."-Paul Abramson, Michigan State University "This book will be influential the moment it appears. It will be the starting point for all further treatments of the topic."-Richard Johnston, University of British Columbia "The grounding of partisanship in social identities is the most important theoretical contribution to the study of partisanship in the last two decades."-Morris P. Fiorina, Stanford University

The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India

Abstract: The determinants of government responsiveness to its citizens is a key issue in political economy. Here we develop a model based on the solution of political agency problems. Having a more informed an politically active electorate strengthens incentives for governments to be responsive. This suggests that there is a role both for democratic institutions and the mass media in ensuring that the preferences of citizens are reflected in policy. The ideas behind the model are tested on panel data from India. We show that public food distribution and calamity relief expenditure are greater, controlling for shocks, where governments face greater electoral accountability and where newspaper circulation is highest.

Cities: Reimagining the Urban

Abstract: This book develops a fresh and challenging perspective on the city Drawing on a wide and diverse range of material and texts, it argues that too much contemporary urban theory is based on nostalgia for a humane, face-to-face and bounded city Amin and Thrift maintain that the traditional divide between the city and the rest of the world has been perforated through urban encroachment, the thickening of the links between the two, and urbanization as a way of life They outline an innovative sociology of the city that scatters urban life along a series of sites and circulations, reinstating previously suppressed areas of contemporary urban life: from the presence of non-human activity to the centrality of distant connections The implications of this viewpoint are traced through a series of chapters on power, economy and democracy This concise and accessible book will be of interest to students and scholars in sociology, geography, urban studies, cultural studies and politics

Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health

Abstract: Preface Introduction: The Food Industry and "Eat More" PART ONE Undermining Dietary Advice 1. From "Eat More" to "Eat Less," 1900-1990 2. Politics versus Science: Opposing the Food Pyramid, 1991-1992 3. "Deconstructing" Dietary Advice PART TWO Working the System 4. Influencing Government: Food Lobbies and Lobbyists 5. Co-opting Nutrition Professionals 6. Winning Friends, Disarming Critics 7. Playing Hardball: Legal and Not PART THREE Exploiting Kids, Corrupting Schools 8. Starting Early: Underage Consumers 9. Pushing Soft Drinks: "Pouring Rights" PART FOUR Deregulating Dietary Supplements 10. Science versus Supplements: "A Gulf of Mutual Incomprehension" 11. Making Health Claims Legal: The Supplement Industry's War with the FDA 12. Deregulation and Its Consequences PART FIVE Inventing Techno-Foods 13. Go Forth and Fortify 14. Beyond Fortification: Making Foods Functional 15. Selling the Ultimate Techno-Food: Olestra Conclusion: The Politics of Food Choice Appendix: Issues in Nutrition and Nutrition Research Notes List of Tables List of Figures Index

Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution

Abstract: The dramatic advances in DNA technology over the last few years are the stuff of science fiction It is now not only possible to clone human beings it is happening For the first time since the creation of the earth four billion years ago, or the emergence of mankind 10 million years ago, people will be able to choose their children's' sex, height, colour, personality traits and intelligence It will even be possible to create 'superhumans' by mixing human genes with those of other animals for extra strength or longevity But is this desirable? What are the moral and political consequences? Will it mean anything to talk about 'human nature' any more? Is this the end of human beings? Post Human Society is a passionate analysis of the greatest political and moral problem ever to face the human race

The Consequences of Cross-Cutting Networks for Political Participation

Abstract: JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Midwest Political Science Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Journal of Political Science.

Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide

Abstract: Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide. Pippa Norris. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 303 pp. $60 hbk., $20 pbk. Forecasts that the Internet heralds a world of more democracy and less poverty seem as inflated as dot.com stocks. This rosy view has electronic voting, political chat rooms, and email access re-engaging apathetic publics in politics. Digital technologies redress economic disparities, and the benefits of the Internet percolate down to transform poor societies. Equally exaggerated is the gloom of naysayers. The Internet Age has done little to narrow the gap between rich and poor countries, the information haves and havenots, cyber-skeptics contend. Indeed, digital technologies could create new inequalities and reinforce the dominance of power elites. In her new book, Digital Divide, Pippa Norris, associate director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, steps into this fusillade of cyber-hyperbole, lowers the decibel with a well-written and thoughtful examination of Internet use and access in 179 countries and dissects the claims and counter-claims. Her research and findings place her on middle ground, somewhere between current reality and optimism. The Internet era seems to be changing "politics as usual" in a number of countries, expanding and loosening information about governments and politics, allowing the entrance of new political players, and fostering international movements on the environment, women's rights, and other issues across borders. The disappointment is that digital technologies are activating the already politically active and passing up the disengaged and uninterested. A major challenge to digital democracy is the gulf between the United States, Scandinavia, and other early Internet adopters and the rest of the world. That gap is now so wide that at the turn of the century, more than three-quarters of the online community lived in the developed world. Internet use tracks the path of economic and technological development. But that situation could begin to change, Norris says. The Internet is in its technological adolescence. Costs of access are falling. And governments can make a difference if policymakers take the initiative. We have the historical patterns of other communication technologies to study. Norris examines theories of technological diffusion and points out that the American response to the Internet is more akin to the rapid spread of televisions and VCRs than the slower adoption of telephones and radios. American dominance could recede as Internet access grows worldwide. Contrary to what officials of the Bush Administration contend, Norris finds that the digital divide between rich and poor within the United States remains substantial. Europe mirrors that trend. In the long run, the Internet could become more accessible to the excluded: lower income families, minorities, and women. …

The Law of Group Polarization

Abstract: In a striking empirical regularity, deliberation tends to move groups, and the individuals who compose them, toward a more extreme point in the direction indicated by their own predeliberation judgments. For example, people who are opposed to the minimum wage are likely, after talking to each other, to be still more opposed; people who tend to support gun control are likely, after discussion, to support gun control with considerable enthusiasm; people who believe that global warming is a serious problem are likely, after discussion, to insist on severe measures to prevent global warming. This general phenomenon -group polarization -has many implications for economic, political, and legal institutions. It helps to explain extremism, “radicalization,” cultural shifts, and the behavior of political parties and religious organizations; it is closely connected to current concerns about the consequences of the Internet; it also helps account for feuds, ethnic antagonism, and tribalism. Group polarization bears on the conduct of government institutions, including juries, legislatures, courts, and regulatory commissions. There are interesting relationships between group polarization and social cascades, both informational and reputational. Normative implications are discussed, with special attention to political and legal institutions. “The differences of opinion, and the jarrings of parties in [the legislative] department of the government . . . often promote deliberation and circumspection; and serve to check the excesses of the majority.”

Feminist Methodology: Challenges and Choices

Abstract: Introduction PART ONE: FEMINISM'S ENLIGHTENMENT LEGACY AND ITS CONTRADICTIONS Reason, Science and Progress Feminism's Enlightenment Inheritance Can Feminists Tell the Truth? Challenges of Scientific Method From Truth/Reality to Knowledge/Power Taking a Feminist Standpoint PART TWO: FREEDOM, FRAGMENTATION AND RESISTANCE Escape from Epistemology? The Impact of Postmodern Thought on Feminist Methodology Researching 'Others' Feminist Methodology and the Politics of Difference Knowledge, Experience and Reality Justifying Feminist Connections PART THREE: MEETING CHALLENGES, MAKING CHOICES Choices and Decisions Doing a Feminist Research Project Conclusion

Ethnicity, Political Systems, and Civil Wars

Abstract: The effect of ethnic division on civil war and the role of political systems in preventing these conflicts are analyzed, using the importance of religious polarization and animist diversity to explain the incidence of ethnic civil war. Findings show that religious differences are a social cleavage more important than linguistic differences in the development of civil war, and being a consociational democracy significantly reduces the incidence of ethnic civil war.

Does multiculturalism menace? Governance, cultural rights and the politics of identity in Guatemala

Abstract: This article challenges the assumption that the underlying principles of state-endorsed 'multiculturalism' stand in tension with neoliberal political- economic policies. Based on ethnographic research in Guatemala, it is argued that neoliberalism's cultural project entails pro-active recognition of a minimal package of cultural rights, and an equally vigorous rejection of the rest. The result is a dichotomy between recognised and recalcitrant indigenous subjects, which confronts the indigenous rights movement as a 'menace' even greater than the assimilationist policies of the previous era. It is suggested that the most effective response to this menace is probably not to engage in frontal opposition to neoliberal regimes, but rather to refuse the dichotomy altogether.

Excavating Lefebvre: The right to the city and its urban politics of the inhabitant

Abstract: Much current activism and scholarship has raised concern that the various processes of neoliberal restructuring are threatening democracy More specifically, researchers in geography and other social sciences have stressed that political and economic restructuring in cities is negatively affecting the enfranchisement of urban residents Much recent research and writing has explored progressive responses to this perceived disenfranchisement in cities One popular trend has been a fascination with the idea of the `right to the city' as a way to respond to neoliberal urbanism and better empower urban dwellers I argue that the right to the city holds promise, but that in the literature the idea remains both theoretically and politically underdeveloped It remains unclear (1) what the right to the city entails or (2) how it might address current problems of disenfranchisement This paper examines the right to the city in greater depth It does so by offering a close reading and analysis of the intellectual roots of the idea: the writings of Henri Lefebvre I suggest that Lefebvre's right to the city is more radical, more problematic, and more indeterminate than the current literature makes it seem The paper concludes by suggesting that the right to the city does offer distinct potential for resisting current threats to urban enfranchisement However, the right to the city is not a panacea It must be seen not as a completed solution to current problems, but as an opening to a new urban politics, what I call an urban politics of the inhabitant

Spaces of Neoliberalism: Urban Restructuring in North America and Western Europe

Abstract: Preface:. From the 'New Localisma to the Spaces of Neoliberalism: Neil Brenner (New York University) & Nik Theodore (University of Illinois at Chicago). Part I: The Urbanization of Neoliberalism: Theoretical Foundations:. 1. Cities and the geographies of 'actually existing neoliberalisma : Neil Brenner (New York University) & Nik Theodore (University of Illinois at Chicago). 2. Neoliberalizing space: the free economy and the penal state: Jamie Peck (University of Wisconsin--Madison) & Adam Tickell (University of Bristol). 3. Neoliberalism and socialisation in the contemporary city: opposites, complements and instabilities: Jamie Gough (University of Northumbria). 4. New Globalism, New Urbanism: Gentrification as Global Urban Strategy: Neil Smith (CUNY Graduate Center). Part II: Cities and State Restructuring: Pathways and Contradictions:. 5. Liberalism, Neoliberalism and Urban Governance: A State--Theoretical Pespective: Bob Jessop (Lancaster University). 6. Interpreting Neoliberal Urban Policy: The State, Crisis Management, and the Politics of Scale: Martin Jones (University of Wales) & Kevin Ward (University of Manchester). 7. 'The city is dead, long live the networka : Harnessing networks for the neoliberal urban agenda: Helga Leitner (University of Minnesota) & Eric Sheppard (University of Minnestota). 8. Extracting Value from the City: Neoliberalism and Urban Redevelopment: Rachel Weber (University of Illinois at Chicago). Part III: New Geographies of Power: Exclusion and Injustice:. 9. Neoliberal urbanization in Europe: large scale urban development projects and the new urban policy: Erik Swyngedouw (Oxford University), Frank Moulaert (University of Lille) & Arantxa Rodriguez (University of the Basque Country). 10. Retro--Urbanism: Reliving the Dreams of 1980s Neoliberalism in Toronto, Canada: Roger Keil (York University, Toronto). 11. Spatializing injustice in the late entrepreneurial city: Unraveling the contours of Britaina s revanchist urbanism: Gordon MacLeod (University of Durham).

Cross-cutting Social Networks: Testing Democratic Theory in Practice

Abstract: Recent social and political theory has elevated political conversation among democratic citizens to new heights. Political talk is central to most current conceptions of how democracy functions (Schudson 1997). According to many prominent social theorists, democracy has a future only if “citizens come back out of their bunkers and start talking” (Gray 1995, 1; see also Elshtain 1995; Lasch 1995). The quantity and quality of political conversation have become “a standard for the accomplishment of democracy” (Sanders 1997, 347). Theorists extol the virtues of political talk, foundations spend millions of dollars to encourage it, and civic journalists and others plan special meetings to foster more of it. Yet what do we really know about beneficial outcomes of political talk as it occurs in day to day life? For the most part, arguments for the centrality of political discussion among ordinary Americans have been highly theoretical in nature. In other words, the contributions to democratic ends that political conversations are supposed to make depend critically on whether such talk reaches the standards necessary to be deemed “deliberation,” “discourse,” or, in Habermas’ (1989) terms, an “ideal speech situation.” It is one thing to claim that political conversation has the potential to produce beneficial outcomes if it meets a whole variety of as yet unrealized criteria, and yet another to argue that political conversations, as they actually occur, produce meaningful benefits for citizens (Conover and Searing 1998). Because the list of requirements for deliberation tends to be quite lengthy, 1 it is difficult, if not impossible, to test theories of this kind empirically.

Social Entrepreneurship and Social Transformation: An Exploratory Study

Abstract: This study provides a comparative analysis of seven cases of social entrepreneurship that have been widely recognized as successful. The paper suggests factors associated with successful social entrepreneurship, particularly with social entrepreneurship that leads to significant changes in the social, political and economic contexts for poor and marginalized groups. It generates hypotheses about core innovations, leadership, organization, and scaling up in successful social entrepreneurship. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for the practice of social entrepreneurship, for further research, and for the continued development of support technologies and institutions that will encourage future social entrepreneurship.