Class dynamics and ideological construction in the struggle over fairness: a neo-Gramscian examination of the Fairtrade initiative

This paper develops a neo-Gramscian conceptual framework in order to examine the ideological constructs and political dynamics that frame the day-to-day workings of the certification-based Fairtrade initiative. To accomplish this goal, the paper resorts to the notion of a ‘comprehensive concept of control’, which accounts for the main ideological elements that constitute the Fairtrade vision of the world. The analysis of these imaginaries is complemented with an examination of the concrete ways in which they have been institutionalized in the Fairtrade system and the specific power relations between class fractions they promote. This is followed by an exploration of the way in which Fairtrade articulates the contradictory interests of a variety of class fractions, bringing them together under the shared objective of advancing the situation of small producers and workers in the global South. The paper finishes with a reflection on the main limitations inherent to Fairtrade’s concept of control and the political dynamics it entails.     

The effect of valence and ideology in campaign conversion: panel evidence from three Spanish general elections

This paper studies changes in voting preferences over election campaigns. Building on the literature on spatial models and valence issues, we study whether (1) ideological distance to political parties, (2) assessments of party competence to handle different policy issues, and (3) voter-updated candidate evaluations are factors that explain shifts in voter choices in the weeks preceding the election. To test our hypotheses, we use data from three survey panels conducted for the 2008, 2011 and 2015 Spanish general elections. Our findings show that valence factors are more influential than ideological indifference to account for campaign conversion.     

When school meets the Other: intercultural policies in the Basque inclusive school

ABSTRACT

Gatti, Irazuzta and Martinez address the intercultural public policies implemented in the education system of the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country (Spain). Focusing on the education system allows them to reconstruct the historicity of identity-alterity production in a region in which language has been central for the establishment of ethnic frontiers. More specifically, they examine the implementation of these policies in three pre-school and primary educational institutions in a multicultural neighbourhood of the city of Bilbao. They look at Euskara—the Basque language—as a key element of the us-them distinction. The various education models regarding language and the teaching in/of Euskara or Spanish pave the way for the specialization and spatialization of the schools analysed. ‘Integration’ policies are implemented in ethnically marked schools only, based on a rhetoric of interculturality that assumes that any ‘racial or ethnic discrimination’ can be overcome through knowledge of the Other. Moreover, the assessment of public policies through ‘interculturality figures and best practice’ developed to address the so-called ‘immigration issue’ promotes a protectionist intervention on behalf of the assumed social vulnerabilities of immigrant schoolchildren and their families, which are read as ‘problematic characteristics’. The article argues that, as a result of the approach based on the social conditions of immigrant children and their families in the Basque Country, the race issue evaporates.     

Indirect holdings of securities and exercise of shareholder rights (a Spanish perspective)

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. Key points

• Shareholder rights have been the centre of the debatein Corporate Governance since recently. At the same time, modernsecurities markets have evolved and changed profoundly in recentdecades, both in the way in which the securities are representedand transferred—through electronic book entries held byintermediaries—and in the geographical reach of such transfers:every corner of the world.
• Recent research has thoroughly analysedthe effects of the indirect holding system in those countriesthat have chosen to give legal status to indirect holding systems(where the paradigm is the USA), leading to the conclusion thatin these countries the issuer–investor relationship encountersfar more difficulties than in those that facilitate direct holding.Some scholars have even proposed that countries such as theUSA should move into a direct holding similar to the Spanishone.
• This article analyses whether direct holdings facilitatethe said issuer–investor relationship by reviewing . . . [Full Text of this Article]