Charity as Resistance: Connections between Charity,Contentious Politics,and Terror

This article explores two ways of conceptualizing ties between charity, contentious politics, political violence, and terrorism. The first half of the article discusses how social and political exclusion serve as motivations for within-group philanthropy, political activism, and political violence. Using this conceptualization, charity and terrorism can be seen as two activities among a range of possible actions that address grievance and exclusion. The second half of the article discusses how terrorist organizations and political insurgents use charity as a tool to move community members along a “continuum of community support” toward greater acceptance of and participation in violent activities.     

Politics,presidents, and DCIs

Sukarno's Apologists Write Again

Audrey R. Kahin and George McT. Kahin: Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia, The New Press, New York, NY, 1995, 318 pp., $25.00.

The Ames Case: Various Versions

James Adams: Sellout: Aldrich Ames and the Corruption of the CIA, Viking, New York, 1995, 322 p., $23.95.

Peter Maas: Killer Spy: The Inside Story of the FBI's Pursuit and Capture of Aldrich Ames, America's Deadliest Spy, Warner Books, New York, 1996,264 p., $6.50 (paperback; first published in hardback by Warner Books in 1995).

Tim Weiner, David Johnston, and Neil A. Lewis: Betrayal: The Story of Aldrich Ames, An American Spy, Random House, New York, 1995,308 p., $25.00.

David Wise: Nightmover: How Aldrich Ames Sold the CIA to the KGB for $4.6 Million, HarperCollins, New York, 1995,356 p., $25.00.

The Brutal March Backward

Dmitri Volkogonov: Lenin: A New Biography (Translated and edited by Harold Shukman), The Free Press, New York, 1994, 529 p., $30.00.

The Big Stretch

John Newman: Oswald and the CIA, Carroll &; Graf, New York, 1995,627 p., $28.00.

More About the Past

Oleg Gordievsky: Next Stop Execution, Macmillan, London, 1995, 396 pp., £16.99.     

Democracy, Law, and Comparative Politics

This article offers a revision of democratic theory in light of the experience of recently democratized countries, located outside of the northwestern quadrant of the world. First, various definitions of democracy that claim to follow Schumpeter and are usually considered to be “minimalist” or “processualist” are critically examined. Building upon but clarifying these conceptual efforts, a realistic and restricted, but not minimalist, definition of a democratic regime is proposed. Thereafter, this article argues that democracy should be analyzed not only at the level of the political regime but also in relation to the state—especially the state qua legal system—and to certain aspects of the overall social context. The main underlying theme that runs through this article is the concept of agency, especially as it is expressed in the legal system of existing democracies. I dedicate this article to my daughter Julia, for the metonymy and much love Guillermo O'Donnell is the Helen Kellogg Professor of Government at the University of Notre Dame. He has written many books and articles on authoritarianism, political transitions, democratization, and democratic theory. His latest book,Counterpoints, was published in 1998 by the University of Notre Dame Press. O'Donnell is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. I presented previous versions of this paper and received useful comments at seminars held in April and May 1999 at the University of North Carolina; Cornell University; Berlin's Wissenschaftszentrum; the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, August 1999; and in September 1999 at the Kellogg Institute. I also appreciate the comments and criticisms received from Michael Brie, Maxwell Cameron, Jorgen Elklit, Robert Fishman, Ernesto Garzón Valdés, Jonathan Hartlyn, Osvaldo Iazzetta, Gabriela Ippolito-O'Donnell, Iván Jaksić, Oscar Landi, Hans-Joachim Lauth, Steven Levitsky, Juan Linz, Scott Mainwaring, Juan M. Abal Medina, Martha Merritt, Peter Moody, Gerardo Munck, Luis Pásara, Timothy Power, Adam Przeworski, Héctor Schamis, Sidney Tarrow. Charles Tilly, Ashutosh Varshney, and Ruth Zimmerling. I am particularly grateful for the careful revision and editing undertaken by Gerardo Munck and Ruth Collier for the present issue ofSCID.     

Network Politics,Political Capital,and Democracy

Abstract

Is network politics a good or a bad thing for democracy? Seen from a narrow perspective of democracy the answer is clear. It is a bad thing. However, seen from broader perpsective the answer is more complex since it does not only focus on the preservation of representative democracy but also on the promotion of organizational democracy in civil society and on the enhancement of the citizens' political capital, that is their endowment, empowerment and political identity. The complexity of the relationship between democracy and network politics is apparent in a case study of political decision making in Skanderborg, a small town in Denmark.     

Empowerment,Deliberative Development,and Local-Level Politics in Indonesia: Participatory Projects as a Source of Countervailing Power

The salience of the concept of “empowerment” has been deductively claimed more often than carefully defined or inductively assessed by development scholars and practitioners alike. We use evidence from a mixed methods examination of the Kecamatan (subdistrict) Development Project (KDP) in rural Indonesia, which we define here as development interventions that build marginalized groups’ capacity to engage local-level governing elites using routines of deliberative contestation. “Deliberative contestation” refers to marginalized groups’ practice of exercising associational autonomy in public forums using fairness-based arguments that challenge governing elites’ monopoly over public resource allocation decisions. Deliberative development interventions such as KDP possess a comparative advantage in building the capacity to engage because they actively provide open decision-making spaces, resources for argumentation (such as facilitators), and incentives to participate. They also promote peaceful resolutions to the conflicts they inevitably spark. In the KDP conflicts we analyze, marginalized groups used deliberative contestation to moderately but consistently shift local-level power relations in contexts with both low and high preexisting capacities for managing conflict. By contrast, marginalized groups in non-KDP development conflicts from comparable villages used “mobilizational contestation” to generate comparatively erratic shifts in power relations, shifts that depended greatly on the preexisting capacity for managing conflict.

Alcohol,Policy and Politics in Kazakhstan

Alcohol consumption in post-communist Kazakhstan remains at high levels and episodic heavy drinking, characteristic of the spirits-drinking regions of the former USSR, is still the national drinking style. Reported levels of alcohol-related harm are rising but assessment of trends in levels of consumption and harm is hindered by the disruption to data collection in the post-independence period and the continuing poor availability of public information. There is evidence however that changes in the republic's ethnic profile are connected with a downward trend in overall consumption rates, though changes in lifestyles may be leading to more drinking amongst women and young people. The numbers undergoing treatment for alcohol problems are greater than ever before. Alcohol problems are still perceived as entrenched and non-urgent, but in the present climate of greater stability and prosperity they are beginning to attract more attention from government. Underlying policy trends will depend on the overall direction of Kazakhstan's political and cultural development. This article assesses drinking patterns and related problems in Kazakhstan, and examines government responses and policies. The article is based on documentary research, visits to organisations and interviews.     

Memory, Empathy, and the Politics of Identification

This essay explores the ethical and political dimensions of what I have elsewhere called “prosthetic memories” (Landsberg, Prosthetic memory: The transformation of American remembrance in the age of mass culture, Harvard University Press, 2004), focusing on those that are produced and disseminated cinematically. I argue that cinematic technology, by which I mean also to include the dominant cinematic conventions and practices used in the Hollywood style of filmmaking, is an effective means for structuring vision. Through specific techniques of shooting and editing, films attempt to position the viewer in highly specific ways in relation to the unfolding narrative. Sometimes, in such films, viewers are brought into intimate contact with a set of experiences that fall well outside of their own lived experience and, as a result, are forced to look as if through someone else’s eyes, and asked to remember those situations and events as both meaningful and potentially formative. By engaging specific strategies intended to elicit identification, films can force viewers to engage both intellectually and emotionally with another who is radically different from him or herself. This complicated form of identification across difference might condition viewers to see and think in ways that could foster more radical forms of democracy aimed at advancing egalitarian social goals.

Caught Between Agendas: GPRA,Devolution, and Politics

Abstract

Despite the optimism that has surrounded the performance movement, there are signals that these expectations are not easy to achieve. This paper focuses on performance activities within the federal government and the accountability concerns that have been attached to the federal‐level Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA). It highlights the special problems that are raised in an environment in which federal programs are devolved to state and local government. It reviews the context from which this reform effort has emerged, the constraints surrounding it, highlights several problems in federal performance activities, and suggests an alternative approach to performance instead of GPRA.1–3 Radin, B. A. 2000. The Government performance and results act (GPRA) and the tradition of federal management reform: square pegs in round holes?. J. Publ. Adm. Res. Theor., 1: 111–135. Radin, B. A. 2000. Intergovernmental relationships and the federal performance movement, PUBLIUS. The Journal of Federalism, 30 Radin, B. A. 1998. The Government performance and results act (GPRA): hydra‐headed monster or effective policy tool?. Public Admin. Rev., 58(4): 1–10.       

China–CEE Trade,Investment and Politics

Abstract

The growing and intensifying cooperation between China and 16 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries has generated extensive criticism by and concerns among EU institutions and Western European member states of the Union. According to diplomatic presumptions, China aims to gain political leverage in exchange for economic benefits in the EU through its CEE members. The following article attempts to evaluate the correlation between the quality of bilateral political relations and economic relations of China and CEE countries in order to draw conclusions on the importance or, on the contrary, the irrelevance of Chinese activity in the region.     

Politics,justice and the new Russian strike

After almost a decade of passivity, Russian workers are once again striking. For the first time since the 1990s, labor unrest has spread across the country, affecting foreign and domestic investors, well-to-do industrial and natural-resource enterprises and infrastructural installations. But unlike in the 1990s, these strikes have accompanied an economic boom, suggesting that patterns of Russian labor unrest are beginning to resemble those in other countries. Analysis of several recent strikes, meanwhile, suggests the early emergence of a new labor proto-movement, characterized by feelings of entitlement and injustice that stem in part from government rhetoric, while pushed into opposition by the state's refusal to accommodate genuine labor mobilization.