Paraíso terrenal, mujeres bellas, gente cordial: Gender Performances and Narratives of Modernity in La Sierra

La Sierra (Martínez and Dalton, 2005), a portrait of a paramilitary-run community on Medellín's eastern edge, is both anthropological study and self-conscious creator of narratives. The documentary is both globally and locally inserted, and straddles both generic and public/private boundaries. The article discusses the film's self-conscious examination of gender performances, describing the way it plays out the conflicting demands of masculinity on the male body. It argues that the responses of feminine desire and identity to the various masculine models may subvert dominant codes through (re) citation and failed interpellation. Central to the article's argument is the notion that through female desire, the film performs Colombian undecidability surrounding masculine violence.     

Globalization and the transformation of the national political space: Six European countries compared

Abstract.  This article starts from the assumption that the current process of globalization or denationalization leads to the formation of a new structural conflict in Western European countries, opposing those who benefit from this process against those who tend to lose in the course of the events. The structural opposition between globalization 'winners' and 'losers' is expected to constitute potentials for political mobilization within national political contexts, the mobilization of which is expected to give rise to two intimately related dynamics: the transformation of the basic structure of the national political space and the strategic repositioning of the political parties within the transforming space. The article presents several hypotheses with regard to these two dynamics and tests them empirically on the basis of new data concerning the supply side of electoral politics from six Western European countries (Austria, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland). The results indicate that in all the countries, the new cleavage has become embedded into existing two-dimensional national political spaces, that the meaning of the original dimensions has been transformed, and that the configuration of the main parties has become triangular even in a country like France.     

European Union transgovernmental networks: The emergence of a new political space beyond the nation‐state?

Abstract. Does the European Union (EU) represent a new political order replacing the old nation‐states? The assessment of the real character of political orders requires the identification of political key actors and of the specific structure of their interactions. Transgovernmental networks have been considered to be one of the most important features of EU integration. Unfortunately, the network structures, processes and the impact of these informal horizontal inter‐organisational relations between nation‐states are mostly unknown. The main objective of this article is to measure and explain the selective pattern of informal bilateral relations of high officials of the EU Member States’ ministerial bureaucracies on the occasion of an EU Intergovernmental Conference. The quantitative data used rely on standardised interviews with 140 top‐level bureaucrats. The statistical estimation of network choices is based on recent developments of exponential random graph models.