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Political Strength (political + strength)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	80%

Selected Abstracts

Political characteristics, institutional procedures and fiscal performance: Panel data analyses of Norwegian local governments, 1991,1998

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2005
TERJE P. HAGEN
The political leadership is assumed to have an important role in keeping fiscal control and resisting the high-demanders' pressure for increased spending. Three factors of relevance for their success are investigated: political characteristics (political colour and political strength, the strength of relevant interest groups) and two institutional characteristics, committee structure and budgeting procedures. The analyses are based on panel data from up to 434 Norwegian municipalities in the period from 1991 to 1998. The results support the hypothesis that strong political leadership improves fiscal performance. The effect of interest groups is to a high degree community-specific. However, an increased share of elderly reduces fiscal surplus. Differences in budgetary procedures do not seem to affect fiscal performance. A strong committee structure seems, on the other hand, to result in better fiscal performance than a weaker one. [source]

Welfare municipalities: economic resources or party politics?

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE, Issue 1 2001
Norwegian local government social programs of the 1920s
This article analyses the introduction of Norwegian local government social security programs for the elderly, disabled persons, widows and single mothers in the 1920s. The role of local government as an agent and initiator of welfare state development has been for the most part neglected within the welfare state literature. Indeed, the first social security programs in Norway were introduced by local governments, affecting nearly half of the population. Even if these programs were not very generous compared with the social security programs of our time, many of them were equal to, or even more generous than, the national pension scheme introduced in 1936. This article examines what distinguished the social security municipalities from those that did not implement such programs, and the variation in generosity profiles. The conclusion is that the main determinant regarding the implementation and generosity of the local social security programs is the political strength of the two Norwegian socialist parties at the time , the Social democratic party and the Labour party , both being too impatient to wait for a national social security plan, and both being willing to mobilise economic resources through taxation and borrowing. [source]

The Increasing Political Power of Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union in Israel: From Passive Citizenship to Active Citizenship

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 1 2003
Tamar Horowitz
The immigrants in Israel from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) followed a different pattern of political growth than other immigrant groups. Their increased power began on the national level and moved down to the local level, rather than from the periphery toward the centre , the pattern followed by the Oriental Jewish immigrants. We can trace three stages in the development of their political power. The first stage was during the 1992 elections when the immigrants attempted to organize their own list. Though they failed, the results of the election strengthened them because they were given credit for the left's victory, giving them a sense of political effectiveness. The second stage came during the 1996 elections. It was a defining moment for the former Soviet immigrants' political power. In this stage external factors and internal factors reinforced each other. The change in the electoral system made it possible for the immigrants to vote for their community on the one hand and for a national figure on the other, thus resolving their identity dilemma. The local elections in 1998 marked the third stage in their political strength. They found the immigrant community better organized, with an improved understanding of its local interests, the capacity to put forward a strong local leadership, and a stronger link between the immigrant political centre and the local level. [source]

Toronto's gay village (1969,1982): plotting the politics of gay identity

THE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER/LE GEOGRAPHE CANADIEN, Issue 1 2006
Catherine Jean Nash
Between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, a loose association of gay social spaces consolidated into what is now known as the ,gay village' in the Church and Wellesley street areas in downtown Toronto. Scholars argue that, while these residential and commercial districts evolved prior to the formation of organized gay political organizations, they suggest that the emergence of these districts as political and commercial districts was a direct result of deliberate local gay activism. I argue here that contrary to this literature and for much of its history, the gay movement was largely opposed to the existence of specifically gay-identified spaces, particularly those operated by both heterosexual and homosexual businesspersons. Toronto's gay activists, using different ideological frameworks, struggled to constitute a homosexual identity that stood mainly in opposition to the so-called ,ghetto gay' and to construct alternative spaces that were seen as more appropriate to the formation of a properly politicized homosexual identity. Nevertheless, by the early 1980s, as the gay village continued to thrive and as the players in gay movement politics changed, the gay ghetto became the gay village and was celebrated as a location of political strength and social necessity. This article explores that material and symbolic transformation. Entre les années 60 en retard et le début des années 80, une association lâche des espaces sociaux gais consolidés dans ce qui est maintenant connu comme ,village gai ,dans l'église et la région de rues de Wellesley dedans Toronto du centre. Les disciples discutent cela tandis que ces résidentiel et commercial les zones ont évolué avant la formation de politique gai organisé des organismes, ils proposent que l'apparition de ces zones comme politique et les zones commerciales étaient un résultat direct d'activisme gai local délibéré. J'argue du fait ici que contraire à cette littérature et pour beaucoup de son histoire, le mouvement gai a été en grande partie opposéà l'existence spécifiquement de gai les espaces identifiés, en particulier ceux ont fonctionné par le hétérosexuel et hommes d'affaires homosexuels. Les activistes gais de Toronto, en utilisant idéologique différent cadres, luttés pour constituer homosexuel d'identité tenu principalement dedans opposition au prétendu ,ghetto gai ,et aux espaces d'alternative de construction cela ont été vus comme plus appropriéà la formation de l'correctement politisée identité homosexuelle. Néanmoins, par le début des années 80, comme village gai suite pour prospérer et pendant que les joueurs dans la politique gaie de mouvement changeaient, le ghetto gai est devenu le village gai et a été célébré comme endroit de politique force et nécessité sociale. Ces article explore ce matériel et symbolique transformation. [source]

Evidence that the terms of petroleum contracts influence the rate of development of oil fields

OPEC ENERGY REVIEW, Issue 1 2002
Mustafa Bakar Mahmud
This paper presents evidence that the main determinant of the rate of development of Libya's crude oil upstream activities, from 1961 to 1999, was the terms of the petroleum contractual agreements, which existed between the state and the international oil industry during that period, and that US sanctions against the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya failed to affect this rate of development. In keeping with other Members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Libya has, over three decades, been a key player in helping to regulate global production levels of oil and gas. However, the economic and political strengths and weaknesses of individual Members of OPEC vary widely and it is inevitable that the stresses arising from adherence to OPEC policies will vary proportionately to these strengths and weaknesses. It is instructive, therefore, to analyse how successfully Libya has exploited its own petroleum resources. The results are thought-provoking and send signals to the superpowers of the futility of economic sanctions against countries whose political policies they find distasteful. Further, the analysis highlights the need for OPEC Members to be fully informed of the significance of the terms of the petroleum agreements they employ in their countries. [source]