Dealigned or Still Salient? Religious-Secular Divisions in Chilean Presidential Elections

With countries like Chile facing secularisation, some research predicts religious-secular cleavages will ‘dealign’, while other research suggests these cleavages will persist so long as religious-secular divisions are reflected among presidential candidates. Using surveys of first-round voting intentions in the five most recent presidential elections in Chile, the analysis shows that religious-secular divisions in voting appear when candidates are divided clearly along religious-secular lines (and not when divisions among candidates are blurred). These findings suggest researchers need to account for the impact candidates' positions have on the appearance of religious-secular divisions before declaring that dealignment has occurred.     

Soldiering on: The Reagan Administration and Redemocratisation in Chile, 1983–1986

This article examines the circumstances in which the Reagan administration began to rethink its support of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile and shift toward advocating a return to democratic civilian rule. It argues this shift was closely related to calculations that US interests might best be served by severing ties with the incumbent regime, but only so long as two vital interrelated issues were resolved to Washington's satisfaction: the nature of the movement likely to inherit political power, and the survival of key institutions of the autocratic Chilean state. To the extent that the incoming government did not portend a challenge to existing constitutional and economic arrangements, and to the extent that the ‘old’ military – the perceived ultimate guarantor against any kind of radical transformation – was in a position to survive the transition with its power and prerogatives intact, a ‘regime change’ could be supported, and even actively promoted. These twin concerns shaped and influenced a US commitment to democracy in Chile that was more contingent than principled, reflected in the constraints US policymakers imposed upon themselves in regard to the types of pressures they were prepared to apply to achieve their preferred outcome.     

From ‘Green Laggard’ to Regional Leader: Explaining the Recent Development of Environmental Policy in Chile

Environmental policy in Chile has developed rapidly in recent years, and the country has become a regional leader in renewable energy, climate change policy, recycling, and nature conservation. This contrasts with the previous neglect of environmental issues in the country and its depiction as a ‘green laggard’ (Orihuela, 2014: 251) within Latin America. In this article the recent development of environmental policy in Chile is reviewed and five factors affecting this development are analysed: international influences, institutional legacies, a window of opportunity opened by environmental movements, policy entrepreneurship, and business power.     

The Commonwealth of Nations and the EU after the ‘Global’ Crisis: Rethinking Post-2015 ‘Global’ Development?

Abstract

The continuing ‘global’ crisis has accelerated divergences between regions, especially between the ‘rising’ global South, the European Union (EU) of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) and Cyprus, which belongs to both the Commonwealth and the EU. This article studies the emerging ‘vertical’ divergences between the EU and the global South, especially around the so-called Economic Partnership Agreements, and the parallel ‘horizontal’ divergences among Anglophone, Francophone (the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie) and Lusophone (the Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa) Commonwealths, with their inheritance of emulation and competition. It focuses on the possibilities of enhanced human/citizen security to propose an analysis that challenges established perspectives and points towards prospects for Commonwealth ‘schools’ of international relations/development.     

‘Nothing could be more pernicious’: King James II and parliament at King’s Inns,Dublin, 1689

This article concerns the only session of the Irish parliament during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries at which most members shared the Roman Catholic religion of the majority of Irish people. It explores for the first time the significance of that parliament’s meeting in 1689 at an inn of court, a location at which members never before or afterwards convened, and highlights in this context the leading role of judges and senior law officers in its affairs there. Attended by James II, it was also the only Irish parliament opened by a king of England and Ireland before the institution’s abolition in 1800. Dismissed by its Williamite detractors as ‘pretended’ and even by some Jacobites as ‘pernicious’ for distracting King James from military objectives, the assembly of 1689 was later depicted by nostalgic nationalists as ‘the patriot parliament’.     

Newspaper Coverage of Three Presidential Campaigns in Chile: Personalisation and Political Strategies

We investigate the evolution of political campaign coverage through a content analysis of the topics highlighted in newspapers' agendas during three presidential elections in Chile. Results show an expected increase in the space allocated to the politicians' private lives (privatisation) by 2009, but no change in the attention given to individual politicians' political traits (political competence). Coverage of candidates' campaign strategies had increased markedly in media agendas by 1999, and by 2009 in politicians' agendas. These changes are consistent with some of the recent transformations of political communication in Western democracies, within the framework of the so‐called ‘mediatisation’ of politics.     

Contesting and upholding the rights of the Irish Parliament in 1698: the arguments of William Molyneux and Simon Clement

SUMMARY

This paper explores the constitutional relationship between England and Ireland at the end of the seventeenth century with a focus on the contemporary debate around the prerogative of the Irish legislature. It examines and contrasts the arguments developed in the pamphlets of William Molyneux of Dublin (1656–98), representing the ruling Irish Protestant nation, and of English Whig Simon Clement (1654?–1730?), asserting the rights of the English empire. Molyneux's The Case of Ireland's being bound by Acts of Parliament in England, Stated (Dublin, 1698) and Clement's An answer to Mr. Molyneux his case of Ireland's being bound by Acts of Parliament in England, stated: and his dangerous notion of Ireland's being under no subordination to the parliamentary authority of England refuted by reasoning from his own arguments and authorities (London, 1698) are compared and analysed in the context of renewed tensions around the woollen trade. These pamphlets highlight the nature, and the perceived nature, of the constitutional relationship between the two polities in the aftermath of the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688. The main discussion was whether Ireland was a colony of England or an independent kingdom, and how its nature affected the relationship between both legislatures. Molyneux argued that Ireland, although sharing a monarch with England, was an independent kingdom. To Molyneux, Ireland's independence, as a kingdom, signified the independence of its legislature and the unconstitutionality of the English Parliament's claim to legislate for Ireland. Clement refuted Molyneux's assertions point by point, contending that Ireland was part and parcel of an empire. In Clement's opinion, Ireland's subjection to England meant that the English Parliament had a legitimate right to legislate for Ireland.     

Media and Punitive Populism in Argentina and Chile

Punitive populism is common throughout Latin America. It involves political and public opinion support for more police officers, greater police autonomy, and tougher laws to punish crime—options that often perpetuate old police practices and resist police reform efforts. This article critically examines the role of the media in fostering punitive populism by examining the sources used by journalists. Comparing the ‘most different’ cases of Argentina and Chile and drawing on interviews conducted from 2009 to 2015, I argue that the choices made by journalists regarding their sources are affected by neoliberal media policies in a particular way that favours tough‐on‐crime discourses.     

Reproductive Governance in Nordeste/Northeast (Juan Solanas, 2005, Argentina/France/Belgium/Spain)

Juan Solanas's 2005 film Nordeste/Northeast problematised maternity by presenting two female characters who conform to cultural or trans-cultural norms of the Global North and South and personify the narratives of transnational trade. As Lynn M. Morgan and Elizabeth F. S. Roberts argue, ‘reproductive governance’ is a useful analytical tool for understanding how political rationalities affect the reproductive lives of women in Latin America and globally. Reproductive governance can also be used as a lens to analyse how contradictions and ambivalences are built into the lived experience of abortion and adoption as the complexity of maternity.     

Brokering Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity: Chilean Lawyers and Public Interest Litigation Strategies

Rights gains for members of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) populations in Chile have been highly contentious since democratisation, indicative of the stigmatisation directed towards non‐normative gender and sexual identities. This article addresses the role of activist lawyers pursuing LGBTI rights cases through the courts, and draws on McAdam and colleagues' (2001) concept of a ‘broker’ to examine the lawyers' roles in linking previously unconnected sites within the judiciary and further afield. The analysis draws these processes together through interactionist perspectives of meaning‐making and how they relate to stigma, deviancy and identity.     

The intersectionality of gender,sexuality, and religion: novelties and continuities in Turkey during the AKP era

ABSTRACT

This article argues that in the AKP era, gender and sexuality play a central role in reshaping the secular-religious divide to instil ‘yeni milli’ (new national) – or as AKP members call it, ‘yerli ve milli’ (homegrown and national)- values. Adopting a feminist and reflexive approach, this article seeks to demonstrate that Erdo?an and the AKP have used gender and sexuality-related issue areas not as diversions to highjack the public agenda, as it is often assumed, but as a medium to regulate the neoliberal redistribution of conservative values. After a brief presentation of the historical background of the gendered evolution of the secular-religious divide in Turkish politics, this article focuses on the following three particular cases: the policies and discourse on LGBTI rights; the link that was established between the reproductive rights of women and ethnic identity; and how the AKP created new types of ‘other men’ and ‘other women.’ The article also seeks to show that in each case the meanings attributed to the secular and the religious in the secular-religious divide have shifted accordingly and that shift was reflective of, and was used to instil the particular set of values supportive of particular political positions.     

Articulating Body,Territory, and the Defence of Life: The Politics of Strategic Equivalencing between Women in Anti-Mining Movements and the Feminist Movement in Peru

In Latin America, rural and indigenous women have mobilised in defence of their territories and built strategic alliances with urban and mestiza feminist movements. This paper focuses on how these processes have played out in Peru, tracing the development of the discourse on ‘body as territory’, which articulates sexual and reproductive rights with territorial autonomy. It discusses the ‘cosmopolitics’ of translating the distinct concerns and worldviews of the women involved, arguing that this discourse has enabled partial recognition and strategic equivalencing but that it has failed to fundamentally transform the underlying asymmetric relations of power and privilege.     

Scottish Presbyterian networks in Ulster and the Irish House of Commons, 1692–1714

SUMMARY

Throughout the seventeenth century Ireland gradually came under British control, culminating in the reimplementation and consolidation of the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy rule in the aftermath of the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688–91. The Irish Parliament became the vehicle for securing the Ascendancy position within eighteenth-century Irish society. Although the Catholic threat never disappeared, some within the Ascendancy focussed their attentions towards the Scottish Presbyterian community in Ulster, a resilient and growing group that had been reinforced by 40,000–70,000 Scottish migrants arriving in Ireland during the 1690s. Viewed as a stubborn sect who controlled the majority of trade in Ulster, some within the Ascendancy feared that their supposed economic control of the province would ultimately lead to political control of the region, and possibly Ireland as a whole. Indeed, during the parliamentary sessions of 1692, 1695–99, 1703–13 and 1713, when the foundations for securing the Ascendancy were put in place, so too was legislation designed to curtail the strength of the Scottish Presbyterians in Ulster. This article examines whether the Scottish Presbyterian community deserved to be considered such a threat to Irish political elites by analysing the role and networks of Ulster MPs of Scottish Presbyterian origin in the Irish House of Commons during the reigns of King William and Queen Anne. The article also analyses the impact of legislation passed against nonconformists in Ireland during this period in order to assess what effect it had on the Scottish Presbyterian community.     

Allende in Athens: The Political and Cultural Impact of the Chilean 1970s in Greece during the Colonels' Dictatorship and the Metapolitefsi (1970–1981)

This article discusses how Greeks perceived Salvador Allende's overthrow, Pinochet's military dictatorship, and US interventionism in Chile. By the end of Greece's dictatorship (1967–1974), left-wing militants emotionally identified with the ‘Chilean tragedy’ through their own experiences of military authoritarianism. Indeed, the Greek Colonels' Junta amplified the 1973 Chilean coup's local impact. Subsequently, during the early Metapolitefsi period (1974–1981), a wide variety of Greek political, social, and cultural actors used the Chilean 1970s as a key reference in the crucial debates that ultimately redefined Greece's collective political and cultural identities.     

The influence of the South African transition on the Northern Ireland peace process

The Provisional Irish Republican Army's announcement of a ceasefire at the end of August 1994 prompted widespread comment around the world. A notable feature of the commentaries was the frequency with which reference was made to the transition in South Africa and the peace process in the Middle East. The South African analogy derived additional credibility from the fact that nationalist leaders in Ireland themselves made constant reference to it, both at the time of the ceasefire and in the months leading up to it. Comparison with South Africa became a major theme of Sinn Fein's rhetoric during the 1980s, when comparison with the African National Congress (ANC) was used to legitimise the IRA's ‘armed struggle’. It is argued that the analogy itself became an influence on developments in Northern Ireland in the mid‐1990s, when South Africa underwent fundamental change, putting pressure on Sinn Fein leaders either to drop the comparison or to justify it through establishing an Irish peace process.     

Transtexuality and the Precarious Materials of Dissent (1973): Radicalism in Cecilia Vicuña,Felipe Ehrenberg and the Beau Geste Press (1970–1976)

The article analyses the material strategies of dissent through two transtextual bookworks, Cecilia Vicuña's Sabor a mi (Vicuña, 1973) and Felipe Ehrenberg's Pussywillow (1973) produced at the Beau Geste Press radical collective. Contesting Pinochet's coup in Chile, they resorted to visibly undisciplined responses to ‘the New Disorder now in power’. Experimenting with embodied poetics based on the page as a site of resistance, on textual construction predicated on relational impetus, they exploited litter and impoverished materials. Heterodox aesthetics at the BGP personified equivocal gender imagery. Word objects and body contours transmogrified to bring to the surface the interpenetrated textures of perception, identity and language.     

Reviews

G.R. Batho: Thomas Harriot and the Northumberland Household; W.A. Wallace: John White, Thomas Harriot and Walter Raleigh in Ireland; M.P. Earles: The London Pharmacopoeia Perfected (The Durham Thomas Harriot Seminar, Occasional Papers, Nos. 1, 2 and 3, 1983–5; £8.10).

Michael Mendle: Dangerous Positions, Mixed Government, the Estates of the Realm, and the Making of the ‘Answer to the XIX Propositions’ (University of Alabama Press, 1985; pp. 256; £28.50. Distributed in the U.K. by Eurospan, 3 Henrietta Street, London).     

East Asia: Chile’s Missed Opportunity?

East Asia is regarded in Chile as an opportunity to achieve economic development, because economic integration would place it in East Asia’s value chains. This article suggests that the results of Chile’s economic strategy toward East Asia, based on trade agreements, have had a predominantly quantitative success. The value of exports toward East Asia has indeed increased impressively. However, the qualitative results are less impressive. These agreements are not adequate to achieve structural change, which would enable the Chilean economy to move along East Asia’s value chains. Statistical evidence confirms that Chile is still reduced to a commodity supplier and at the periphery of the chain. To change this situation, Chile has to design first a strategy of how to offer East Asia goods and services beyond commodities. This means looking beyond trade agreements.     

Power in Transition in Marcelo Cohen's ‘La ilusión monarca’

This article examines the changing nature of power relations engendered by the Argentine transition to democracy, as reflected in Marcelo Cohen's short story ‘La ilusión monarca’ (1992). By examining contextual markers dispersed throughout the story, Cohen is shown to problematise Foucault's conception of ‘disciplinary society’ as a means to criticise the legacy of corruption bequeathed by the military dictatorship of 1976–1983. Subsequently, the work of Gilles Deleuze is deployed to demonstrate that Cohen's story philosophically examines the change in power and resistance concomitant with the transition from ‘disciplinary’ to ‘control society’ precipitated by the adoption of neoliberal economics in Argentina.     

Governance and order-making in Central Asia: from illiberalism to post-liberalism?

ABSTRACT

This forum brings together five different angles on the question as to whether and how political regimes and forms of order-making can and should be researched through the concept of ‘illiberalism’. The discussion engages critically with this and associated concepts, such as ‘illiberal peace’ and ‘authoritarian conflict management’, which have been developed out of the Central Asian / Eurasian context and discussed in their wider global ramifications and, within the framing of ‘illiberal peace’, explored in various contexts in and beyond Central Asia. While further assessing the relevance and implications of this approach, this forum also attempts to think beyond ‘illiberalism’ by introducing and discussing the idea of ‘post-liberalism’. This way, the authors engage in an exchange that serves to probe both concepts and to determine their strengths and limitations when it comes to analysing and understanding politics and societal processes in Central Asia.