Contested Discourses on National Identity: Representing Nicaraguan Immigration to Costa Rica

This article explores the ways in which the immigration of Nicaraguans to Costa Rica is represented by Costa Rican institutions and individuals through public discourses and everyday life. Three discourses are considered. First, intellectual claims that immigration poses a threat to Costa Rican national identity, whereby intellectuals portray 'Costa Rica in crisis' due to immigration. Second, fictional works seek to represent issues regarding the Nicaraguan community in innovative ways, being open‐ended and including diverse voices. Third, stories written by Nicaraguan children are discussed in view of exploring how hostility towards immigration interpellates them, who face the challenge of negotiating their identities with their peers in everyday life. The article ends by asking for a politics able to defend public institutions and public investment, able to forge networks of solidarity with immigrant communities.     

Pampered Sons, (Wo)manly Men,or Do‐nothing Machos? Costa Rican Men Coming of Age under Neoliberalism

This article explores how young men in Costa Rica negotiate ideas of manhood under neoliberalism. We draw on interview data involving 23 men, ages 15–35, residing in one Costa Rican city. Comparing men across three different class locations, we find diverse "markers of manhood." Our data suggest an emerging globally dominant masculine ideal among an elite class of men, a declining locally dominant masculine ideal among working-class men, and a cynical, possibly counter-cultural masculine ideal among poor men. We conclude that masculinities are not only fluid, but tied to changing economic circumstances and class structures.     

Rethinking Race, Gender and Citizenship: Black West Indian Women in Costa Rica, c. 1920–1940

This article brings Afro‐Caribbean women to the fore of a discussion of Costa Rican citizenship. It explores the relationship between ideologies of gender, imageries of black womanhood, and the dialectic of citizenship and exclusion. It examines how the efforts of the black elite to achieve citizenship through assimilation generated inter‐class tension which centred on ideas of female morality. It explores the absence of political platforms for poor black women excluded by such strategies and argues that while Costa Rican feminists succeeded in challenging the ideological system of gender they failed to challenge issues of race and class.     

Information and Values in Popular Protests: Costa Rica in 2000

The mass demonstrations in Costa Rica in 2000 opposing a government initiative to deregulate the electricity and telecommunications markets point to the importance of the paths of communication between the people and government leaders to understand mass political mobilisation. This article explains the surprising reaction of the Costa Rican public by focusing on the unwillingness or inability of the policy-makers to articulate their position in a way acceptable to the citizenry, leaving public space under the dominant influence of social organisations that opposed the initiative.     

Northern theories,Southern movements? Contentious politics in Africa through the lens of social movement theory

ABSTRACT

The article examines the extent to, and the conditions under which theoretical approaches from Social Movement Studies, mainly developed based on empirical experiences from the Global North, are appropriate for analysing contentious politics in the South, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. In order to answer this question, the article discusses whether social movements in Africa differ fundamentally from those in other world regions. Four main approaches from social movement theory are examined: resource mobilisation, political opportunity structures, framing, and collective identity, to find out how suitable they are for explaining empirical phenomena in Africa. It is argued that social movements in Africa are not principally different from those in other world regions. Approaches from social movement theory prove helpful in explaining phenomena in the South, although they suffer from the same weaknesses and limitations to their scope as they do regarding movements in the North.     

The meaning of a militia: Understanding the civil defence forces of Sierra Leone

This article is an adapted, narrative version of an expert witnessreport the author wrote for the Defence of one of the accusedbefore the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The case againstthe Civil Defence Forces militia was predicated in part on theargument that the CDF was a military organization with military-stylecommand and control. Based on a close reading of the Prosecution'smilitary expert witness report and the author's ethnographicresearch with the militia, the article outlines a case for understandingthe CDF as the militarization of a social network rather thanas a military organization. This framing has implications notonly for post-conflict adjudication, but for how we think aboutand intervene in violent contexts throughout contemporary WestAfrica.     

Chile's (Inter)National Identities: Framing the Relations with Bolivia and Peru

National identities play a significant role in Latin American international relations. They affect the ways in which policy‐makers view themselves and others, as well as influencing the ways in which their policies are ‘received’ abroad. In this way, identities create opportunities and constraints for foreign policy‐making, framing the relations between Latin American countries. The author argues that, since 1990, three main patterns of Chilean identity recently affected the country's relations with its northern neighbours Bolivia and Peru: a ‘neoliberal identity’, a ‘legalistic identity’ and a ‘progressive identity’. These three patterns of identity have created opportunities for cooperation as well as causes for conflict.     

LAW,TRANSLATION, AND VOICE

The channeling of popular struggles through legal cases is central to the strategy of the emerging “rights defense” movement in China, linking grassroots contention with professional mediators who translate grievances into the institutional environment of law. This was the case in an unusual, ultimately unsuccessful campaign in 2005 to remove an elected village chief in Taishi Village in Guangdong, China, by legal means. While the grievances that sparked the campaign were about the unequal distribution of the benefits from village development, the strategy of instituting a recall procedure and the framing of the campaign in terms of democracy and rule of law obscured distinctly gendered issues of poverty and inequality in the village, even though women were among the most visible protesters. This article employs a “sociology of translation” to link framing processes and power dynamics, thus proposing a methodological approach to reconnecting framing with other aspects of movements. In the Taishi case, the translation of the dispute into the language of law had contrary effects: it opened the door to a legitimate, if temporary, public space for the airing of villagers' claims. At the same time, translation legitimized the voices of “experts” who then became de facto leaders in this public space; it also increasingly shifted the action to the internet, to which the villagers apparently had no access. This analysis raises questions about whether such strategies may result in either the formation of durable rights-based identities among grassroots participants or a sense of being connected to a broader social movement.     

Framing Exclusion in the Public Sphere: Far-Right Mobilisation and the Debate on Charlie Hebdo in Italy

While the January 2015 Paris terrorist attacks presented a crucial opportunity for far-right mobilisation, the focus on liberal democratic values and Charlie Hebdo’s non-conformist progressive profile presented challenges for right-wing discourse. Taking Italy as a paradigmatic case of public controversies on cultural and religious affairs, this article examines the opportunities and constraints generated by multicultural crises for far-right framing choices. A qualitative frame analysis analyses the discourse of three types of far-right actors. While the populist radical right, extreme right, and ultra-religious right groups disagree on crucial criteria for outgroup exclusion, they collectively employed the Charlie Hebdo controversy to redefine their exclusionary discourse on liberal grounds with the goal of gaining legitimacy in the mainstream public sphere.     

Filling In the Missing Link Between Universalism and Democracy: The Case of Costa Rica

This article explores a missing link in the recent literature on the formation of social policies: that between democracy and universalism, one desirable yet elusive feature of these policies. We base our argument on a case study of Costa Rica, the most successful case of universalism in Latin America. We proceed by first depicting Costa Rica's peculiar policy architecture, based on the incremental expansion of benefits funded on payroll taxes. Then we reconstruct the policy process to stress the key role played by technopoliticians in a democratic context. Backed by political leadership and equipped with international ideas, technopoliticians drove social policy design from agenda setting to adoption and implementation. Third, we argue that key aspects of the policy architecture established in the early 1940s were fundamental building blocks for a distinctive and seldom explored road to universalism. We conclude considering contemporary implications.     

Multisectoral Movement Alliances and Media Access: Salvadoran Newspaper Coverage of the Health Care Struggle

Focusing on the social movement that resisted the privatization of health care in El Salvador in 2002–3, this article asks how the movement's multisectoral composition influenced news coverage of the health care policy debate. Specifically, it examines whether the diversity of perspectives in the alliance was reflected in the media's source selection and framing of the policy issues. A content analysis of Salvadoran newspapers' coverage shows that the media relied mainly on just two movement actors to represent the antiprivatization position: the striking doctors and the leftist opposition party. It also reveals that a period of elite dissensus on the policy issues opened a temporary opportunity to insert movement messages in the coverage. The study indicates that a multisectoral alliance does not enhance movement influence through the news media, though broad alliances confer strategic advantages for the movement's broader communication work.     

Wie wird bewertbar, ob ein Staat zu viele Schulden hat? Finanzexperten und ihr Bewertungswissen in der griechischen Schuldenkrise

This paper develops a sociology of knowledge of sovereign debt crises by studying expert cultures in the financial services industry. It is argued that the concept of calculative framing can capture the epistemic practices of analysts as well as the way their products are used by market participants and other stakeholders. The notion of calculative framing is empirically and conceptually extended: The article shows how sovereign debt is framed as a financial value and how calculative framing evolves in situations of crises. The central case is the evaluation of Greece government debt by analysts of international banks in the period from early 2010 until mid 2011. This case shows how crises frames are developed and how they consolidate the evaluation of sovereign default. In this crisis period, analysts inscribe their evaluations into contexts of official crisis management.     

Armed mobilisation and the nexus of territory,identity, and authority: the contested territorial aspirations of the Banyamulenge in eastern DR Congo

The closely intertwined notions of territory, identity, and authority are at the heart of conflict dynamics in the eastern DR Congo. Focusing on the territorial aspirations of the Banyamulenge community in South Kivu, this article looks at the ways in which the nexus of territory, identity, and authority shapes and is shaped by armed mobilisation. Excluded from a customary chiefdom in the colonial era, the Banyamulenge, a community framed as ‘migrants’, have been striving for a territory of their own for decades. These aspirations have fed into armed activity by both Banyamulenge and Mai-Mai groups linked to opposing communities, providing deeply resonating mobilising narratives that are employed to justify violent action. Yet, as this article demonstrates, the links between armed mobilisation and the nexus of territory, identity, and authority are both contingent and reciprocal, as violent conflict also impacts the meanings and boundaries of identities, authority structures and territory.     

Frente Amplio and the Crafting of a Social Democratic Alternative in Uruguay

This study of Uruguay's Frente Amplio explores four central questions for the analysis of the “new Latin American left.” How did a leftist alternative emerge and grow inside an institutionalized party system? How do the socioeconomic and political factors that enabled the rise of the left in Uruguay differ from those observed in other Latin American cases? How did Frente Amplio adapt itself to profit from the opportunities that arose during the 1990s? What are the implications of the previous factors for governmental action by the FA? In answering these questions, this study integrates an analysis of the sociological and political-institutional opportunity structures consolidated during the 1990s with one of strategic partisan adaptation processes. This perspective is useful for explaining how, by 2004, Frente Amplio had built a dual support base from its historical constituency and a socially heterogeneous group alienated from traditional parties due to economic and political discontent.     

The Art of Bypassing: Students’ Politicization in Beirut

This article explores how students experiment with politicization in contemporary Beirut. The objective is to refine the understanding of the interplay between memorialization, identification and politics in the Lebanese context. Based on ethnographic material and qualitative interviews, the article argues that politicization, defined as a twofold process of collectivization and conflictualization, is shaped by interactional positioning between students. It relies on identification along patterned storylines framing the cognition and recognition of the self and others. Largely dependent upon affective and memorial dynamics, these experiences of politicization become constitutive for students’ understanding of identity boundaries within the Lebanese plural society.     

The local impacts of large-scale land acquisitions: a review of case study evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) are controversially discussed with respect to their local impacts. On the one hand, they are regarded as an opportunity for employment creation and a transfer of knowledge and technology, which enhances productivity and output in agriculture. On the other hand, they are said to impair food security and to foster land conflicts and environmental degradation. Despite the existence of numerous case studies, systematic evidence on the impact of LSLAs on local communities is not available. In this paper we review the existing literature in order to provide a summary of the characteristics of LSLAs and of the impact they have on local livelihoods. We find that while positive effects arise through employment creation and the provision of public goods and services, these benefits are offset by inadequate compensation, land conflicts, and environmental degradation. Overall, most case studies find a negative impact of LSLAs on local livelihoods.     

Controlling the Police in Buenos Aires: A Case Study of Horizontal and Social Accountability

The article analyses the interaction between various forms of accountability on the basis of a case study of responses to the Federal Police of Argentina's practice of framing innocent victims. The failure of classic agencies of balance to establish accountability was compensated in this case by the creation of an ad hoc agency of oversight, an investigative commission established by the Attorney General, that interacted with social agents of accountability. The analysis points to the ambivalent role of the media in both supporting and exposing illegal police practices and shows that the cooperation between the commission and social actors was crucial to its success.     

Welfare Regimes in Latin America: Capturing Constellations of Markets,Families, and Policies

This article presents both a theoretical framework and a methodology that attempt to capture the complex interactions among labor markets, families, and public policy that currently constitute Latin American welfare regimes. Drawing on cluster analysis based on available data for 18 countries, the study identifies three welfare regimes. Two are state welfare regimes: protectionist (e.g. Costa Rica) and productivist (e.g. Chile); one is nonstate familiarist (e.g. Ecuador and Nicaragua). In a region where people's well‐being is deeply embedded in family relationships, closer scholarly attention to how social structures interact with public policy bears not only academic interest but also policy implications, particularly for adapting particular welfare regimes to the local welfare mix.     

Reinventing Green Politics: On the Strategic Repositioning of the German Green Party

Whilst environmental issues, most notably climate change, have recently been more prominent in public debate than at any earlier time, Green parties are confronted with a fundamental challenge: The agenda of ‘new politics’ that had once been their original project has meanwhile become largely exhausted, and the profound transformation of societal structures, value preferences and party political competition necessitates a comprehensive reinvention of Green politics. Focusing on the German Greens, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, this article spells out the thesis of the exhaustion of the Green project and investigates how since the end of the Red–Green coalition under Chancellor Schröder the party has tried to forge a new, electorally attractive, programmatic profile. Detailed analysis of its evolving environmental and social policy position and of its relationship to the specific concerns and priorities energising late-modern consumer societies suggests that whilst in principle Germany's new five-party system offers favourable opportunity structures for Bündnis 90/Die Grünen to regain executive power, there is as yet little evidence of a successful reinvention of Green politics.     

Locating Kaliningrad And KÖNigsberg In Russian And German Collective Identity Discourses And Political Symbolism In The 750Th Anniversary Celebrations Of 2005

This article begins by briefly exploring issues of conflict and control in relation to the 750th anniversary of the city of Kaliningrad/Königsberg. An analysis of the tensions between Russian regional (Kaliningrad) and national (federal) identity discourses on the political symbolism of the 750th anniversary commemoration is offered, using Russian media reports and interviews conducted in Kaliningrad. German narratives on the political symbolism of the anniversary events and their implications for German national identity discourses are investigated via interviews conducted in Kaliningrad and Germany, German media reports, books, films and a theater production about Königsberg. Particular attention is given to the impact of the German expellee organizations on framing the discourse about Königsberg in contemporary Germany. The article will conclude by comparing and contrasting the various discourses and interpretations of the anniversary in the Kaliningrad region, Russia and Germany.