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Political Imperatives (political + imperative)
Selected AbstractsWorkfare,Warfare: Neoliberalism, "Active" Welfare and the New American Way of WarANTIPODE, Issue 5 2009Julie MacLeavy Abstract:, In recent decades, welfare reform in the USA has increasingly been based on a political imperative to reduce the number of people on welfare. This has in large part taken place through the establishment of a "workfare" state, in which the receipt of state benefits requires a paid labor input. Designed to reduce expenditure on civil social services, welfare-to-work programs have been introduced. At the same time, the restructuring of US defense provision has seen the "military,industrial complex" emerge as a key beneficiary of state expenditure. Both of these trends can be characterized, this paper argues, as manifestations of neoliberal thinking,whether in the form of the "workfarism" that is undertaken to bolster the US economy, or the "defense transformation" that has been intended to enhance US war-making capacity. While these two aspects have been analyzed in detail independently, the aim of this paper is to probe the similarities, connections and overlaps between the workfare state and the recent American emphasis on high-technology warfare,the so-called "Revolution in Military Affairs",and "defense transformation". There are, the paper argues, strong homologies to be drawn between the restructuring of the American defense and welfare infrastructures. Furthermore there are also instances where warfare and welfare are being melded together into a hybrid form "workfare,warfare", in which military service is increasingly positioned as a means of gaining welfare and, conversely, traditionally military industries are becoming involved in the area of welfare provision. The result, it is argued, is an emergent form of workfare,warfare state in the USA. [source] The Political Production of a LanguageJOURNAL OF LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2006Tony Crowley The assertion that a language is a dialect with an army and a navydraws attention to the fact that the distinction between the two is more likely to be based on political imperatives rather than linguistic features. The aim of this article is to examine a specific example of a form of language, Ulster-Scots, whose status varies between dialect and language. It will be argued that in the context of contemporary Northern Ireland, the distinction has serious political consequences in relation to identity, rights, and the possibilities for a settlement to a deep and extended conflict. [source] "Compassionate" Strategies of Managing Homelessness: Post-Revanchist Geographies in San FranciscoANTIPODE, Issue 2 2009Stacey Murphy Abstract:, After almost 30 years of Federal retraction from anti-poverty initiatives, many American cities have been left with the dual burden of intensified poverty and far fewer resources to combat the problem. At the same time, such devolution has afforded cities the authority to forge poverty policy at the local level, such that the familiar neoliberal imperatives of state retraction and the mobilization of territory for capitalist expansion are frequently tempered by more progressive political imperatives at the local scale. What has thus emerged is a deeply ambivalent policy landscape, of which "kinder and gentler" poverty management strategies are a central feature. Using the example of a recent homeless program in San Francisco, "Care Not Cash", this paper argues that such poverty management strategies, while less punitive than their revanchist predecessors, nonetheless introduce a new set of exclusions to the service delivery system, many of which are obscured by the language of compassion. In order to illustrate those new exclusions, I describe the city's homeless geographies,the public spaces, shelters, service sites, and housing models,that have been produced and reconfigured according to a logic of managing homelessness through the provision of care. [source] Victoria's Unique Approach to Road Safety: A History of Government Regulation,AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND HISTORY, Issue 2 2009Glenn Jessop The Australian state of Victoria has a record of proactive and determined legislative action addressing road safety. Its processes and deliberations concerning the introduction of road safety laws serve as a noteworthy case study of political rationality and public policy development. Victoria has taken a unique and pioneering approach to traffic regulation. Using the seatbelt and handheld phone laws as examples, this article examines the political dynamics involved in, and the forms of political reasoning underpinning, the road safety policy decisions taken by Victorian governments. I argue that the different approaches taken by governments are partly due to the interaction of the political imperatives of state institutions imposing regulations for the public good and the protection of individual liberties. [source] | ||||||||||