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Political Capital (political + capital)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences75%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting25%

Selected Abstracts

Brecht and Sinn und Form: The Creation of Cold War Legends

GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS, Issue 4 2007
Stephen Parker
ABSTRACT Brecht and Peter Huchel's Sinn und Form are among the few examples of early GDR cultural life with a genuine capacity to accumulate cultural capital on the international stage. The analysis of Brecht's collaboration with Sinn und Form in the Deutsche Akademie der Künste offers a fresh perspective upon their attainment of a legendary pre-eminence in German cultural life during the Cold War. Brecht's espousal of Marxism-Leninism and of a relative artistic autonomy, informed by political constraints, ensured some common ground with the SED leadership. However, the Party's enforcement of a binary opposition between Socialist Realism and Formalism became a crucial field of conflict, spawning major illusions and antagonisms between the artistic and political elites. In key contributions to Sinn und Form, Brecht foregrounded aesthetic considerations and historical responsibility, yet the SED's nationalistic discourse colouring Socialist Realism was motivated by the geopolitical imperative of justifying the GDR's status among the people's democracies of the Eastern Bloc. This, in turn, justified the SED's subordination of cultural to political capital, dismissing the claims of elite culture in a series of staged events. The position of Brecht and his supporters was relentlessly eroded until, quite improbably, the crisis of 17 June 1953 allowed them to turn the tables. While popular opposition was suppressed, Brecht simultaneously re-affirmed his loyalty to the weakened SED leadership, whose revolutionary achievements he continued to praise, and re-asserted the relative autonomy of the elite Akademie and its journal. Brecht and Sinn und Form capitalised upon their enhanced reputations, securing the legendary status that later repression did nothing to diminish. [source]

Explaining union membership of temporary workers in Spain: the role of local representatives and workers' participative potential

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL, Issue 1 2007
David Llorente Sánchez
ABSTRACT It has been widely assumed that type-of-contract segmentation represents a strong structural constraint on trade union growth. The analysis of a sample of the Spanish workforce shows, however, that the effect of contract type on union membership is not statistically significant once the availability and performance of local union representatives are introduced in the explanatory model. Additionally, the worker's participative potential, as indicated by his/her social and political capital, is also found to be a major explanatory factor. These findings are placed in comparative perspective and discussed in relation to possible union revitalisation strategies. [source]

A self-restrained approach to nation-building by foreign powers

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, Issue 1 2004
Amitai Etzioni
Nation-building by foreign powers can rarely be accomplished and tends to be very costly, not merely in economic resources and those of political capital, but also in human lives. Foreign powers often attempt to tackle numerous tasks with little discernible effect. Therefore, whatever resources foreign powers are willing and able to commit should be focused on a modest agenda,what is termed in this article a ,restrained approach,. A restrained approach focuses first and foremost on pacification and security, it deals with whoever is in power initially and it requires local people to overcome some challenges by themselves. Greatly curtailing foreign ambitions and promises will lead to much greater credibility of drives for democratization; will provide stronger domestic support for such efforts among the taxpayers and donors who have to foot the bills; and will pay off by focusing more resources on the few facets of society that are relatively easy to change. [source]

CORRUPTION AND CORPORATE FINANCE PATTERNS: AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

PACIFIC ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 2 2008
Julan Du
Corruption contributes to a more prevalent and higher degree of corporate equity ownership concentration and more reliance on bank financing in raising external finance. It argues that corporate governance under corrupt governments is particularly poor. Firm management, taking advantage of political capital acquired through bribery, is especially powerful in expropriating from outside investors. Ownership concentration and reliance on bank financing are means of mitigating the corporate governance problem under a corrupt government. [source]

Touching the Third Rail: Explaining the Failure of Bush's Social Security Initiative

POLITICS & POLICY, Issue 4 2007
Terry Weiner
Although President George W. Bush mentioned Social Security and the need to "modernize" the popular social insurance program in his first and reelection campaigns for the presidency, many were surprised that it featured as one of his most important goals just two days after the election. Given that most reporters and congressional leaders recognized the "risks" and were circumspect about his chances of success, this article examines Bush's decision to make Social Security "privatization" a major legislative initiative in his second term. Using the garbage can model of agenda setting as proposed by Kingdon, the study looks at why the president decided to move this issue, long known as the "third rail" of U.S. politics, to the top of his agenda. It also questions why,if he indeed had new political capital to spend,he spent it on Social Security and why the effort for reform was virtually dead just ten months later. [source]

First Politics, Then Culture: Accounting for Ethnic Differences in Demographic Behavior in Kenya

POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 3 2001
Alexander A. Weinreb
Ethnic differences in demographic behavior tend to be disguised behind analytically opaque labels like "district" or "region," or else subjected to simplistic cultural explanations. Drawing on new political economy, sociological theory and the political science literature on sub-Saharan Africa, this article proposes an alternative explanatory model and tests it empirically with reference to Kenya. Access to political power and, through power, access to a state's resources,including resources devoted to clinics, schools, labor opportunities, and other determinants of demographic behavior,are advanced as the key factors underlying ethnic differences. District-level estimates of "political capital" are introduced and merged with two waves of Demographic and Health Survey data. The effects on models of contraceptive use are explored. Results confirm that measures of political capital explain residual ethnic differences in use, providing strong support for a political approach to the analysis of demographic behavior. [source]

The Contemporary Presidency: George W. Bush and the Myth of Heroic Presidential Leadership

PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2004
Jon Roper
This article discusses the reinvention of George W. Bush's image during a critical period of his presidency,the 18 months after September 11, 2001. It examines how, during that time, he assumed a mantle of heroic presidential leadership similar to that designed by a previous generation for one of his predecessors: John F. Kennedy. In the "age of infotainment," however, it remains a challenge for presidents to make the transition from "celebrity" to "hero." While the currency of celebrity is easy to acquire, the political capital that accrues to the heroic leader in times of national crisis is more difficult to keep. In pursuing the "war on terror," George W. Bush must beware the "credibility gap" that can impact on the presidency if a president picks the wrong fight and loses control of the way his image is mediated. [source]

Co-Opting the Wolves: National Film Industry Reform in China After 1978

ASIAN POLITICS AND POLICY, Issue 1 2010
Katherine Kit Ling Chu
This article is about the relationship between the film industry, society, and the state, in the context of economic reforms. I first provide an overview of current writings on the field and then explain the film industry's structure since 1949. I also examine policy changes over the past 30 years. What exactly did the state change? And why did it change? By way of analyzing Chinese cinema, this article examines the relationship between the market, the state, society, and transnational capital. Although the government has increasingly been in favor of a market economy, it has never given up its official ideology over films. Moreover, the domestic film industry did not collapse after the entry of transnational capital; instead, the state successfully co-opted the "wolves" not only to save the film industry but also to enable the state to accumulate both economic and political capital. [source]