Regionalist governance and transnational collective action in Latin America

Abstract

New forms of regionalism are now a central element in global governance. It is sometimes suggested that new regionalism represents an opportunity for transnational civil society activism. I explore this argument through a comparison of processes of collective action in two emerging frames of regionalism governance in the Americas, the FTAA/Summit of the Americas and Mercosur. I show that, while civil society activism has regionalized to some extent in relation to both hemispheric regionalism and sub-regionalism, this process is far more marked in the former. I suggest, further, that the influence of civil society actors in regionalist governance in the Americas is extremely limited. This is due to persistent institutional barriers to inclusion, the practical obstacles for many groups of scaling up to the regional/transnational level and the particular difficulties associated with accessing trade-based negotiations.     

Party system nationalisation and social spending

Party systems diverge in their levels of nationalisation. While in some countries parties obtain similar levels of electoral support in all districts, in others parties get very asymmetric electoral shares across districts. The distributive consequences of this have been seldom studied. The argument tested here is that when political parties have nationalised electorates they have stronger incentives to provide social policies that spread benefits all over the territory. This argument is tested in 22 OECD democracies for the period 1980?2006. The results show that, regardless of the electoral system in place, there is a positive relation between party system nationalisation and social spending.     

Class and social policy in the knowledge economy

Recent studies of welfare state attitudes in the knowledge economy find very high generalized support for generous welfare state policies, both among the working and the middle classes. Has class become irrelevant as a predictor of social policy preferences? Or do we simply mis-conceptualise today's class conflict over social policy? To what extent has it changed from a divide over the level of social policy generosity to a divide over the kind of social policy and – more specifically – over the relative importance that should be given to different social policies? Answering these questions is not only relevant to understand welfare politics in the twenty-first century, but electoral politics as well: only when we understand what working- and middle-class voters care about, can we evaluate the role distributive policies play in electoral processes. We use original survey data from eight West European countries to show that middle- and working-class respondents indeed differ in the relative importance they attribute to social investment and social consumption policies. Middle-class respondents consistently attribute higher absolute and relative importance to social investment. We also show that this emphasis on investive policies relates to the middle class expecting better future economic and social opportunities than the working class. This divide in anticipated opportunities underlies a new kind of working- versus middle-class divide, which contributes to transforming the class divide from a conflict over the level of social policy to a conflict over the priorities of social policy.     

The weakness of strong policies and the strength of weak policies: Law,experimentalist governance,and supporting coalitions in European Union health care policy

The experience of European Union (EU) health care services policy shows the importance of supporting coalitions in any effort to effect policy change and the extent to which the presence or absence of such coalitions can qualify generalizations about policymaking. EU health care services law is substantively liberalizing and procedurally driven by the courts, with little legislative input. But the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has been much better at establishing an EU competency in law than in causing policy development in the EU or member states. Literature on courts helps to explain why: courts are most effective when they enjoy supporting coalitions and the ECJ does not have a significant supporting coalition for its liberalizing health care services policy. Based on interview data, this article argues that the hard law of health care services deregulation and the newer forms of health care governance, such as the Open Method of Coordination and the networks on rare diseases, depend on supporting coalitions in member states that are willing to litigate, lobby, budget, decide cases, and otherwise implement EU law and policy. Given the resistance that the Court has met in health care sectors, its overarching deregulatory approach might produce smaller effects than expected, and forms of experimentalist governance that are easy to deride might turn out to have supporting coalitions that make them unexpectedly effective.     

General Motor Holden's closure in Playford,South Australia: Analysis of the policy response and its implications for health

Deindustrialisation and the closure of automotive manufacturing can differentially affect the socioeconomic prospects of workers and their communities, and contribute to social and health inequity. We used Bacchi's problematisation approach to examine the South Australian (SA) Labor government's policy responses to the General Motors Holden (GMH) Elizabeth plant closure announcement. We focused on the way that these policy responses framed the ‘problem’ of this major economic shock, particularly the extent to which potential social and health equity consequences were addressed. We found a narrow focus on economic strategies, neglecting the compounding impact of poverty in Playford, which may exacerbate health inequity. The community effects from the GMH closure remain uncertain and may be delayed for several years. SA requires better integrated social and economic policies to minimise social and health inequalities, as the consequences of the car manufacturing loss are realised.     

State,social policy and subaltern citizens in adivasi India

This paper argues that social policies work towards the subject-making of subaltern citizens by defining the grammar of state–subaltern relationship. The Forest Rights Act of India (2006) defines the state–adivasi relationship through a two-way process: claim-making by the indigenes for forest rights, and reduction of the discourse by the state into a politics of recognition without redistribution. While adivasis have employed their agency in wresting social policies from the state through protracted struggles, they are also made subjects of the state as they go about the Forest Rights Act procedure. The paper further points out that adivasi struggles and the organisations representing them constitute a distinct adivasi society contra the middle-class civil society. Though the spirit of the Act envisages substantive redistribution, the state institutions and the monitoring Non-Governmental Organisations have yet to adopt redistribution as a core narrative.     

Parenthood and social policy preferences: A gender and time sensitive examination

Attitudes towards social spending and the welfare state have been characterised by one of the longest standing and widest gender gaps. Past research suggests that parenthood deepens this divide further. Yet, the exact relationship between parenthood and support for social policies – and the gendered nature of this process – has been difficult to establish because it can vary across welfare policy areas and the age of the children, which past studies, relying on cross-sectional data, has found difficult to unravel. Using panel data from the Swiss Household Panel, we examine individual level changes in fathers’ and mothers’ views towards specific welfare state policies. We find that individuals’ support for social spending fluctuates at different stages of parenthood, and that mothers’ demands differ from fathers’ in relation to care related but not in terms of educational spending. This implies that parents are not a homogeneous group that parties could target with uniform electoral pledges. As a result, building widespread electoral support for expanding a broad range of social investment policies is likely to be challenging in a context where, first and foremost, self-interest appears to drive (or depress) individuals’ support for specific welfare state policies.     

Mobilizing drug policy activism: conferences,convergence spaces and ephemeral fixtures in social movement mobilization

This paper explores the role of conferences as “convergence space”: temporary events with lasting material effects. Drawing on three harm reduction conferences occurring between 2011 and 2012, I argue that conferences are both ephemeral fixtures in the landscape of policy activism, and are important nodes through which policy mobilization occurs. Conference spaces provide opportunities for ideas to be shared, produced and advocated. They serve as important sites for the construction of relationships that are required to form and maintain policy advocacy networks and harness political opportunity structures for drug policy reform.     

中国城市住房货币化政策：经济增长与社会公正的博弈

自1998年中国实行住房货币化改革以来，城市居民的住房条件有很大的改善。但近几年，由于城市房价的持续上涨，住房供给的结构性失调以及住房不公平等问题日渐凸显，使住房货币化政策本身成为公秉关注的焦点。住房政策的价值导向是一味地追求经济的增长远是兼顾住房公正，是我们必须深刻反思的重要课题。     

Negotiating universalism in India and Latin America: Fiscal decentralization,subnational politics and social outcomes

ABSTRACT

This is the introductory paper for a special issue which focuses on an exploration of how vertical inter-governmental political and fiscal bargains and horizontal variation in political, social and economic conditions across regions contribute to or undermine the provision of inclusive and sustainable social policies at the subnational level in Latin America and India. The papers incorporate both federal, as well as decentralized unitary states, pointing to common political tensions across unitary and federal settings despite the typically greater institutionalization of regional autonomy in federal countries. Jointly, the papers examine the territorial dimension of universalism and explore, in greater and empirical detail, the causal links between fiscal transfers, social policies and outcomes, highlighting the political dynamics that shape fiscal decentralization reforms and the welfare state. This introductory essay reviews existing scholarship, and highlights the contribution of the special issue to understanding these issues beyond OECD contexts.     

Private authority and public policy interactions in global context: Governance spheres for problem solving

Private organizations play a growing role in governing global issues alongside traditional public actors such as states, international organizations, and subnational governments. What do we know about how private authority and public policy interact? What are the implications of answering this question for understanding support for, and effects of, policy development generally? The purpose of this article is to reflect on these questions by introducing, and reviewing, a special issue that challenges explicit claims, and implicit methodologies, that treat private and public governance realms as distinct and/or static. We do so by advancing a theoretical and conceptual framework with which to explore how the contributions to this special issue enhance an understanding about governance interactions across a range of empirical, sectoral, and regional domains. We specifically introduce the concept of governance spheres to capture the proliferation of issue domains denoted by highly fluid interactions across public and private governance boundaries.     

Winners and losers: Conflict management through strategic policy engagement

In high-conflict policy debates, individuals often make strategic decisions about the ways in which they engage in efforts to influence the direction of the debate. Some individuals act to expand the scope of the conflict, whereas others would prefer to contain the scope of the conflict and maintain status quo. This study empirically examines the relationship between activities of political engagement and goals of conflict expansion or containment in a particular setting in which there are clear “winners” and “losers.” This research first explores the tactics an individual undertakes as either conflict expansion or containment. The patterns uncovered are then tested against sectoral affiliation, to draw conclusions about key factors that explain some variation in policy engagement. Findings confirm that there are predictable patterns to engagement decisions, paving the way for future testing in different policy arrangements.     

Asymmetric bargaining between Myanmar and China in the Myitsone Dam controversy: social opposition akin to David's stone against Goliath

The Myitsone Dam suspension is an asymmetric negotiation between Naypyitaw and Beijing. The bilateral agreement of the hydropower project was concluded in 2009. However, Myanmar's civil society started to oppose the dam when political opportunities expanded in 2011. The quasi-civilian government in Myanmar was caught in an ‘audience cost dilemma': either to disappoint domestic constituents by fulfilling international obligations, or to compensate the Chinese dam developer for breaching the contract. In September 2011, Myanmar President Thein Sein declared the suspension of the dam throughout his tenure. Unexpectedly, China's state-owned dam company did not sue Naypyidaw. Moreover, Beijing even engaged with societal actors in Myanmar to seek their support for the project. How could Naypyitaw defy Beijing in this Myitsone Dam case? Drawing from 35 interviews with anti-dam campaigners and other stakeholders, as well as secondary data, this article argues that the rise of civil society successfully conditioned Naypyitaw's diplomatic options in the controversy. The change of Beijing's diplomatic strategy confirms that domestic constraint in Myanmar is not rhetorical. The Myitsone Dam case is an example that shows bilateral agreement without domestic endorsement can become China's business risk. Presumably, the dispute has wider implications for other Chinese overseas projects outside Myanmar.     

Repression,spontaneity, and collective action: the 2013 Turkish Gezi protests

Scholars have identified various conditions that influence the formation of spontaneous collective action. Certain types of opposition strategies and geographic conditions make it likelier for protesters to be able to overcome reactive repression and keep mobilizing after experiencing state violence. As such, it is still unclear why a small protest sometimes diffuses into an unforeseen mass wave of dissent. Through examination of Turkish civil society, this study introduces a framework to explain the emergence of the 2013 Gezi protest, which was the largest in the Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi (Justice and Development Party) government-led era of Turkish politics. A sequence of mechanisms including viral diffusion, elite updating/cover-up, public outrage, and coordination are categorized and linked to previously identified antecedent conditions as well as Twitter activity of social movement organizations which took part in the protests. The framework advances our knowledge of repression backfire by identifying its causal mechanisms and classifying a configuration of conditions under which the phenomenon is likely to empirically take place.     

Local government reform in Jamaica and Trinidad: a policy dilemma

Issues of local governance have dominated Caribbean policy agenda for the past two decades, prompting considerable thought and action on local government reform by scholars, local government practitioners and policy makers, alike. No reforms have been as ubiquitous as those of local government. Permitted by an international reformist agenda, local government reform policy is linked positively to efforts to redress incapacities of public management and administration. This article examines conceptual and empirical issues relating to implementation of local government reform in two Caribbean countries, Jamaica and Trinidad. It analyses how the vision for local governance is articulated through specific reform taxonomies and argues that, although local government reform is normatively a policy aimed at fundamental changes in intergovernmental relations, in Jamaica and Trinidad reform has led merely to adjustments in the internal administration of local government. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Networks and campaigns but not movements: collective action in the disciplining Chinese State

Popular protest, civil society organizing, and non-governmental organizations have become notable features in China’s socio-political development. A mounting body of research has documented both opening opportunity structures and remaining restrictions when it comes to collective action within the authoritarian state. However, given the wide range of definitions and interpretations that are at play in the literature, it can be difficult to distinguish between different forms of collective action and determine which actions represent actual movements. This article argues that a refocus towards the basic components that constitute movement action can provide more clarity and help explain the limitations, as well as the opportunities, that surround collective action within authoritarian states. To illustrate, the article studies the organizational growth, networking, and collective action that have occurred in connection with AIDS in China. It finds that political restrictions and other coordination challenges prevent the mobilization of actual social movements.     

The centralization vs decentralization tug of war and the emerging narrative of fiscal federalism for social policy in India

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the relationship between fiscal federalism and social policy in India through an analysis of the effects of a recent effort to increase fiscal decentralization to state governments on the nature of social policy investment at the sub-national level. Through its analysis, this paper highlights the persistence of a strong centralisation bias in India’s fiscal architecture for social policy. We trace this centralisation bias to the political and administrative dynamics of the federal bargain. The peculiar dynamics of this bargain have created a context where the core goal of centralization – to ensure equity – is undermined while the expectation of decentralization – greater accountability through alignment of expenditure with local needs and preferences, fails to take root. India is thus likely to continue to witness significant regional variation in social policy outcomes, despite a centralised financing architecture.     

International marriage and the state in South Korea: focusing on governmental policy

With globalization, the number of individuals traveling, working or studying abroad is rising globally, and so is the number of international marriages. However, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of ‘mail-order brides’ through matchmaking since the 1970s in the Western world and since the 1990s in several Asian countries. The so-called ‘mail-order bride’ phenomenon has become an important route for international migration, especially for gendered migration. Since official relations with China began in August 1992, the number of Korean Chinese women who came into Korea for marriage with native Korean men is about 100,000 between 1990 and 2005. The number of Japanese women who married Korean men is approximately 17,000, while the numbers of Filipino women who married Korean men is about 6000. Recently, the nationalities of these foreign wives of Korean men have expanded to include women from Vietnam, Russia, and Uzbekistan. In 2005, among a total of 250,000 foreign spouses in Korea, 160,000 of them were women. The Korean state had contributed to initiate these international marriages by importing Korean Chinese women for their unmarried rural citizens. As international marriages have become a social issue, the state tries to cope with these new issues through changing the laws and policies. Utilizing several government statistics, a nationwide questionnaire survey of nearly 1000 foreign brides with various nationalities, which was conducted in May and June 2005, and some interviewed data of foreign wives and government personnel, this paper analyzes (1) patterns and trends of marriage migration to Korea; (2) the issues and problems of foreign brides, such as their status and citizenship, economic situation, access to social security and ‘fake marriages’ issues; and (3) recent changes in governmental policies towards them. Special focus will be on what factors influenced the recent governmental action and how the ideology that ‘A married daughter is no longer a daughter ()’ is still reflected in recent policies even in today's more progressive society.     

Redistributive policies in decentralised systems: The effect of decentralisation on subnational social spending

This article uses cross‐national data to examine the effects of fiscal and political decentralisation on subnational governments’ social expenditures. It revisits the benefit competition hypothesis put forward by fiscal federalism research, which posits that subnational governments in decentralised countries match welfare benefit reductions by their peers to keep taxes low and avoid an in‐migration of welfare dependents. As a consequence, subnational social expenditures are assumed to plateau at similar and low levels. Using a new cross‐national dataset on social expenditures in 334 subnational units across 14 countries and 21 years, the author explores whether benefit competition causes subnational governments to converge on similar levels of social spending. The analysis reveals that as countries decentralise, subnational social spending levels begin to diverge rather than converge, with some subnational governments reducing their social expenditures and others increasing them. Furthermore, decentralisation is not likely to be associated with lowest common denominator social policies, but with more variability in social expenditure. The article also examines the effects of other macro‐level institutions and demonstrates that policy coordination influences the relationship between decentralisation and subnational social spending levels.     

Signing up to devolution: the prevalence of contract over governance in English devolution policy

Initial analyses of the ‘devolution deals’ that form the cornerstone of current efforts to devolve power within England assess the policy against conventional governance criteria: accountability, transparency, and the quality of governance systems. In fact, English devolution policy has little connection with territorial governance. Instead, it closely resembles a contractual process, with central government determining the terms on which it will outsource specified programmes and projects to local governments, complete with requirements for ‘business readiness’, implementation plans, evaluation requirements, and future joint working. Accountability, governance and even geography take second place to the aim of improving central policy outcomes via a contract-style relationship. This perspective is styled ‘post-territorial devolution’: it accounts more effectively for the shape of the policy so far than traditional governance perspectives, which are often laced with normative positions.