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Political Struggles (political + struggle)
Selected AbstractsAESTHETICS AND CULTURAL POLITICS IN THE AGE OF DREYFUS: MAURICE DENIS'S HOMAGE TO CÉZANNEART HISTORY, Issue 5 2007KATHERINE MARIE KUENZLIArticle first published online: 12 DEC 200 This article examines the alliance between painterly modernism and right-wing politics in France at the height of the Dreyfus Affair. Political struggles took on an aesthetic dimension in the cultural battles waged around 1900. Maurice Denis's monumental group portrait Homage to Cézanne (1900) serves as the focus of my inquiry. This painting is often cited and reproduced in histories of French modernism, but has yet to be examined within its historical and political moment. Although Homage does not directly reference contemporary political events, Denis's formal and compositional choices in Homage were informed by Adrien Mithouard's right-wing nationalist cultural politics. [source] Gender and New Public Management: Reconstituting Academic SubjectivitiesGENDER, WORK & ORGANISATION, Issue 4 2002Robyn Thomas This article is located within the context of British Higher Education. It examines the ,radical reforms' of New Public Management (NPM) (marketization and managerialism) in the management of university organizations. The article has two main aims. First, to explore the extent to which NPM initiatives have influenced individual women academics's day,to,day experiences of the gendered academy and their professional identities. Second, to understand individuals' active responses to NPM to develop theorizing of individual resistance in public service organizations. Adopting a Foucauldian feminist framework, it is suggested that the introduction of NPM presents a site for political struggle for women academics. The article explores the gendered nature of NPM, to determine how, in three individual universities, different women academics have responded to the ,managerialist challenge'. Finally, the article focuses on the ways in which different women academics might accommodate, resist, or transform the discourses of NPM, the factors facilitating this, and the material outcomes. [source] The black flag: Guantánamo Bay and the space of exceptionGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 4 2006Derek Gregory Abstract The American prison camp at Guantánamo Bay has often been described as a lawless space, and many commentators have drawn on the writings of Giorgio Agamben to formalize this description as a ,space of exception'. Agamben's account of the relations between sovereign power, law and violence has much to offer, but it fails to recognize the continued salience of the colonial architectures of power that have been invested in Guantánamo Bay, is insufficiently attentive to the spatialities of international (rather than national) law, and is unduly pessimistic about the politics of resistance. Guantánamo Bay depends on the mobilization of two contradictory legal geographies, one that places the prison outside the United States ito allow the indefinite detention of its captives, and another that places the prison within the United States in order to permit their ,coercive interrogation'. A detailed analysis of these interlocking spatialities , as both legal texts and political practices , is crucial for any crique of the global war prison. The relations between law and violence are more complex and contorted than most accounts allow, and sites like Guantánamo Bay need to be seen not as paradigmatic spaces of political modernity (as Agamben argues) but rather as potential spaces whose realization is an occasion for political struggle not pessimism. [source] Towards Culturally Appropriate Assessment?HIGHER EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2010A Contribution to the Debates Culturally appropriate assessment in higher educational is premised on factors that do not benefit minority groups, because they have no control over the processes governing such factors. Significantly, practices to account for students from different ethnic/minority/indigenous backgrounds are the inclusion of elements like their language, knowledge and culture into the curriculum. However, assessment procedures are often seen to be ,a-cultural', but are political activities that benefit the interests of some groups over others, as ,a-cultural' approaches tend to be bound within the cultural capital of the dominant group. This article examines the international discussions relating to culturally appropriate assessment through generic themes, assessment practices, cultural inclusions and cultural appropriateness. It argues that there are two distinct approaches to addressing inclusion: ,centric' and ,friendly', respectively, that result in different priorities and outcomes. Assessment however, is a political struggle between dominant and minority interests, which this article also recognises and explores. [source] Inequality and Politics in the Creative City-Region: Questions of Livability and State StrategyINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2007EUGENE J. McCANN City-regionalism and livability are concepts that feature prominently in recent writings on urban politics and policy. Policy discussions have seen the two concepts fused together in such a way that regional competitiveness is generally understood to entail high levels of ,livability' while urban livability is increasingly discussed, measured and advocated at a city-regional scale. It is, then, important to understand how these concepts work in tandem and to delineate the often-elided politics of reproduction through which they operate. This paper begins by elaborating on the politically powerful fusion of city-regionalist and urban livability discourses, using the example of Richard Florida's creative city argument. It then discusses the politics of city-regionalism and livability through the case of Austin, Texas, a city that has framed its policy in terms of regionalism and livability but which is also characterized by marked income inequality and a neighborhood-based political struggle over the city's future. The paper concludes by drawing lessons from the discussion and suggesting that the city-regional livability agenda can best be understood as a geographically selective, strategic, and highly political project. [source] Law, Struggle, and Political Transformation in Northern IrelandJOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 4 2000Kieran McEvoy This article analyses the role of law as an element of the Republican Movement's violent and political struggle during the Northern Ireland conflict. The trials and legal hearings of paramilitary defendants, the use of judicial reviews in the prisons, and the use of law in the political arena are chosen as three interconnected sites which highlight the complex interaction between law and other forms of struggle. The author argues that these three sites illustrate a number of themes in understanding the role of law in processes of struggle and political transformation. These include: law as a series of dialogical processes both inside and outside a political movement; law as an instrumental process of struggle designed to materially and symbolically ,resist'; and the constitutive effects of legal struggle upon a social and political movement. The article concludes with a discussion as to whether or not Republicans' emphasis upon ,rights and equality' and an end to armed struggle represents a ,sell out' of traditional Republican objectives. [source] The Use of Gasoline: Value, Oil, and the "American way of life"ANTIPODE, Issue 3 2009Matthew T. Huber Abstract:, While the critical literature has focused on the geography of oil production, the politics of "outrageous" gasoline prices in the United States provide a fertile path toward understanding the wider geography of petro-capitalism. Despite the deepening contradictions of US oil consumption, "pain at the pump" discourse projects a political sense of entitlement to low priced gasoline. I use a value-theoretical perspective to examine this politics as not only about the quantitative spectrum of price, but also the historical sedimentation of qualitative use-values inscribed in the commodity gasoline. Gasoline is analyzed both as a use-value among many within the postwar value of labor power and as a singular use-value fueling broader imaginaries of a national "American way of life." While use-value still represents an open site of cultural and political struggle infused within value itself, the case of gasoline illustrates how use-values are not automatically mobilized toward politically savory ends. [source] Precarious Democratization and Local Dynamics in Niger: Micro,Politics in ZinderDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 5 2001Christian Lund Literature on the African state often finds it hard to specify what is state and what is not. The closer one gets to a particular political landscape, the more apparent it becomes that many institutions have something of a twilight character. This article argues that studies of local politics in Africa should focus on how the public authority of institutions waxes and wanes and how political competition among individuals and organizations expresses the notion of state and public authority. This is explored in the context of contemporary political struggles in Niger, played out in three different arenas in the region of Zinder around 1999, as home,town associations, chieftaincies and vigilante groups all take on the mantle of public authority in their dealings with what they consider to be their antithesis, the ,State'. [source] Disaster Mitigation and Preparedness: The Case of NGOs in the PhilippinesDISASTERS, Issue 3 2001Emmanuel M. Luna The Philippines is very vulnerable to natural disasters because of its natural setting, as well as its socio-economic, political and environmental context - especially its widespread poverty. The Philippines has a well-established institutional and legal framework for disaster management, including built-in mechanisms for participation of the people and NGOs in decision-making and programme implementation. The nature and extent of collaboration with government in disaster preparedness and mitigation issues varies greatly according to their roots, either in past confrontation and political struggles or traditional charity activities. The growing NGO involvement in disaster management has been influenced by this history. Some agencies work well with local government and there is an increasing trend for collaborative work in disaster mitigation and preparedness. Some NGOs, however, retain critical positions. These organisations tend to engage more in advocacy and legal support for communities facing increased risk because of development projects and environmental destruction. Entry points into disaster mitigation and preparedness vary as well. Development-oriented agencies are drawn into these issues when the community members with whom they work face disaster. Relief organisations, too, realise the need for community mobilisation, and are thus drawn towards development roles. [source] Governance of Higher Education in Britain: The Significance of the Research Assessment Exercises for the Funding Council ModelHIGHER EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2004Ted Tapper This article uses the political struggles that have enveloped the research assessment exercises (RAEs) to interpret the UK's current funding council model of governance. Ironically, the apparently widespread improvement in the research performance of British universities, as demonstrated by RAE 2001, has made it more difficult to distribute research income selectively, which was supposedly the central objective of the whole evaluative process. Whilst enhanced research ratings may be seen as a cause for celebration in the universities, the failure to anticipate this outcome and, more significantly, to plan for its financial implications is seen in political circles as a failure of higher education management. The article explores the alternative models of governance that are likely to emerge as a consequence of this crisis and, in particular, whether the funding councils can have much freedom of action, given the tighter political control of policy goals and their critical dependence upon the academic profession for the conduct of the evaluative process. [source] The ,Terrible Wednesday' of Pentecost: Confronting Urban and Princely Discourses in the Bruges Rebellion of 1436,1438HISTORY, Issue 305 2007JAN DUMOLYN On 22 May 1437 a violent disturbance of the social order occurred in Bruges. Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, only narrowly escaped with his life, while Jean de Villiers, lord of L'Isle-Adam, was killed. Contradictory and competing accounts of these events have survived which illustrate princely and urban discourses on the Bruges rebellion of 1436,8. Careful analysis of these sources reveals that the social and political struggles between the centralizing dukes of Burgundy and their powerful and autonomous Flemish cities reflected a discursive struggle for the representation of political events. [source] A Neo-Gramscian Approach to Corporate Political Strategy: Conflict and Accommodation in the Climate Change Negotiations*JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 4 2003David L. Levy ABSTRACT A neo-Gramscian theoretical framework for corporate political strategy is developed drawing from Gramsci's analysis of the relations among capital, social forces, and the state, and from more contemporary theories. Gramsci's political theory recognizes the centrality of organizations and strategy, directs attention to the organizational, economic, and ideological pillars of power, while illuminating the processes of coalition building, conflict, and accommodation that drive social change. This approach addresses the structure-agency relationship and endogenous dynamics in a way that could enrich institutional theory. The framework suggests a strategic concept of power, which provides space for contestation by subordinate groups in complex dynamic social systems. We apply the framework to analyse the international negotiations to control emissions of greenhouse gases, focusing on the responses of firms in the US and European oil and automobile industries. The neo-Gramscian framework explains some specific features of corporate responses to challenges to their hegemonic position and points to the importance of political struggles within civil society. The analysis suggests that the conventional demarcation between market and non-market strategies is untenable, given the embeddedness of markets in contested social and political structures and the political character of strategies directed toward defending and enhancing markets, technologies, corporate autonomy and legitimacy. [source] DSM-III and the revolution in the classification of mental illnessJOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES, Issue 3 2005Rick Mayes A revolution occurred within the psychiatric profession in the early 1980s that rapidly transformed the theory and practice of mental health in the United States. In a very short period of time, mental illnesses were transformed from broad, etiologically defined entities that were continuous with normality to symptom-based, categorical diseases. The third edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) was responsible for this change. The paradigm shift in mental health diagnosis in the DSM-III was neither a product of growing scientific knowledge nor of increasing medicalization. Instead, its symptom-based diagnoses reflect a growing standardization of psychiatric diagnoses. This standardization was the product of many factors, including: (1) professional politics within the mental health community, (2) increased government involvement in mental health research and policymaking, (3) mounting pressure on psychiatrists from health insurers to demonstrate the effectiveness of their practices, and (4) the necessity of pharmaceutical companies to market their products to treat specific diseases. This article endeavors to explain the origins of DSM-III, the political struggles that generated it, and its long-term consequences for clinical diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders in the United States. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Disability activism and the politics of scaleTHE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER/LE GEOGRAPHE CANADIEN, Issue 2 2003Rob Kitchin In this paper, we examine the role of spatial scale in mediating and shaping political struggles between disabled people and the state. Specifically, we draw on recent theoretical developments concerning the social construction of spatial scale to interpret two case studies of disability activism within Canada and Ireland. In particular, we provide an analysis of how successful the disability movement in each locale has been at ,jumping scale' and enacting change, as well as examining what the consequences of such scaling-up have been for the movement itself. We demonstrate that the political structures operating in each country markedly affect the scaled nature of disability issues and the effectiveness of political mobilization at different scales. Dans cette dissertation, nous examinons le rõle de l'échelle spatiale dans la médiation et le développement des luttes politiques entre les handicapés et l'État. Spécifiquement, nous nous inspirons des récents développements théoriques concernant la structure sociale de l'échelle spatiale pour interpréter deux études de cas d'activisme des handicapés au Canada et en Irlande. Dans ces deux études, nous analysons en particulier le taux de succès obtenu par les mouvements des handicapés dans chacun de ces pays en matière de « saut d'échelle » et pour provoquer un changement. Nous examinons aussi les retombées d'une telle augmentation d'échelle sur le mouvement lui-m,me. Nous démontrons que les structures politiques présentes dans chaque pays affectent profondément la nature hiérarchique des questions d'invalidité et l'efficacité de la mobilisation politique à différentes échelles. [source] Tribal synthesis: Piros, Mansos, and Tiwas through historyTHE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 2 2006Howard Campbell This article critically examines recent anthropological theorizing about indigenous tribalism using ethnographic and historical data on the Piro-Manso-Tiwa Indian tribe of New Mexico. Debates about constructionism, neo-tribal capitalism, and proprietary approaches to culture provide valuable insights into recent indigenous cultural claims and political struggles, but also have serious limitations. The approach taken in the article, ,tribal synthesis', emphasizes process, agency, interdependence, and changing political and cultural repertoires of native peoples who seek survival amidst political domination and internal conflict. Such an approach can apply the best of recent critical theory in an advocacy anthropology that supports indigenous struggles. [source] ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING AND URBAN FOOD ACCESS IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLICANNALS OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRACTICE, Issue 1 2009Howard Rosing The article describes how economic restructuring in the Dominican Republic during the 1980s and 1990s established the basis for urban food access challenges during the 2000s. Primarily based on research in Santiago, the second largest Dominican city, the article provides insights into how export-oriented development strategies, expanding trade liberalization, domestic political struggles, and patriarchal relations influenced access to food for low-income residents. During the early 2000s, many Santiago residents were engaged in an elaborate, androcentric exchange network that linked gendered income-generating strategies to credit-bearing food merchants who were, in turn, conjoined to a sequence of brokers all of whom were eventually linked to domestic and international producers by credit relations. Analysis of these findings illustrates how and why this exchange network existed, the importance of credit relations to its maintenance, and the ways in which government and U.S. food policies influenced urban provisioning patterns among the most economically and socially vulnerable population of Santiago. I argue that the rapidly changing social and spatial configurations of Latin American and Caribbean cities calls for innovative applied anthropological research into the processes that structure access to food resources by food insecure groups. By focusing on household food procurement in conjunction with exchange relations for a key staple, the article highlights practices and policies that enable and constrain food access for such groups. The article provides empirical data relevant to scholars and practitioners concerned with understanding the structural origins of the present-day food crisis in developing countries. [source] Cities and the Geographies of "Actually Existing Neoliberalism"ANTIPODE, Issue 3 2002Neil Brenner This essay elaborates a critical geographical perspective on neoliberalism that emphasizes (a) the path,dependent character of neoliberal reform projects and (b) the strategic role of cities in the contemporary remaking of political,economic space. We begin by presenting the methodological foundations for an approach to the geographies of what we term "actually existing neoliberalism." In contrast to neoliberal ideology, in which market forces are assumed to operate according to immutable laws no matter where they are "unleashed," we emphasize the contextual embeddedness of neoliberal restructuring projects insofar as they have been produced within national, regional, and local contexts defined by the legacies of inherited institutional frameworks, policy regimes, regulatory practices, and political struggles. An adequate understanding of actually existing neoliberalism must therefore explore the path,dependent, contextually specific interactions between inherited regulatory landscapes and emergent neoliberal, market,oriented restructuring projects at a broad range of geographical scales. These considerations lead to a conceptualization of contemporary neoliberalization processes as catalysts and expressions of an ongoing creative destruction of political,economic space at multiple geographical scales. While the neoliberal restructuring projects of the last two decades have not established a coherent basis for sustainable capitalist growth, it can be argued that they have nonetheless profoundly reworked the institutional infrastructures upon which Fordist,Keynesian capitalism was grounded. The concept of creative destruction is presented as a useful means for describing the geographically uneven, socially regressive, and politically volatile trajectories of institutional/spatial change that have been crystallizing under these conditions. The essay concludes by discussing the role of urban spaces within the contradictory and chronically unstable geographies of actually existing neoliberalism. Throughout the advanced capitalist world, we suggest, cities have become strategically crucial geographical arenas in which a variety of neoliberal initiatives,along with closely intertwined strategies of crisis displacement and crisis management,have been articulated. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||