The Making of the Informed Voter: A Split‐Ballot Survey on the Use of Scientific Evidence in Direct‐Democratic Campaigns

Literature claims that scientific evidence makes better democracies. This paper analyses whether and which voters choose empirical evidence in the form of policy evaluation results when informing themselves about issue‐specific votes. The analysis is based on a split‐ballot survey where participants chose media items with different content to make a decision on a specific issue. Results show that voters do indeed choose evidence‐based information, especially if their involvement with the issue is high and if they are well educated and that they choose a higher amount of such information if they are also politically engaged. In a setting that fosters political engagement and provides policy‐relevant information, the findings imply that voters want to be informed when making a democratic issue choice. Involved and engaged voters might be a solution to sceptics against direct democracy out of fear of uninformed decisions and post‐factual populism.     

The Janus‐Face of Negociation Democracy. The Effects of Consensus Democracy,Direct Democracy and Decentralization on State Intervention in Swiss Cantons

Dieser Beitrag analysiert die Varianzen der quantifizierbaren Staatstätigkeit in den 26 Schweizer Kantonen der 1980er und 1990er Jahre. Im Mittelpunkt der erklärenden Grssen stehen dabei Formen der Verhandlungsdemokratie, insbesondere der Konkordanz, dezentraler Entscheidungsstrukturen und direktdemokratischer Beteiligungsrechte. Wir zeigen, dass die Erweiterung des Konzeptes der Verhandlungsdemokratie auf weitere Staatsorgane neben der Regierung zur analytischen Unschärfe fhrt, da die verschiedenen Ausprägungen der politischen Machtteilung mit unterschiedlichen Wirkungen auf den Umfang des ffentlichen Sektors verbunden sind. Während die Konkordanz im Sinne der parteifrmigen Organisation politischer und sozialer Konflikte tendenziell die staatliche Intervention begnstigt, zgeln konstitutionelle Vetospieler die Staatstätigkeit, indem direktdemokratische Mitwirkung und dezentrale Machtteilung dem Staat Fesseln auf der Einnahmen‐und Ausgabenseite anlegen.     

Post‐conventional Political Cultures via Processes of Direct Democracy: Theoretical Considerations Based on Jürgen Habermas and Lawrence Kohlberg

In this article, it is proposed to differentiate political cultures in two dimensions. First, inspired by Habermas' distinction of the contents of discourse, a distinction is suggested between moral, ethical‐political and pragmatic elements of political culture as well as of an element of culture of balancing interests. Second, inspired by Kohlberg's stage models for the development of the individual moral consciousness and for moral culture, a distinction is similarly suggested between two pre‐conventional, two conventional and two post‐conventional collective stages of political culture. It can be shown that from a normative point of view, only deliberations made in a post‐conventional political culture can produce reasonable or at least fair results. Conceptual considerations indicate processes of direct democracy as the method for promoting post‐conventional political cultures. The more liberty that the citizens have to formulate and trigger processes of direct democracy, the more one can expect from them to generate post‐conventional political cultures.     

Individual Differences and Political Contexts –The Role of Personality Traits and Direct Democracy in Explaining Political Protest

Building on a growing literature concerned with the link between psychological dispositions and political protest behavior, we argue that this relationship is not universal, but rather depends on contextual factors. Political context factors are able to alter the meaning and understanding of participatory repertoires. This, in turn, leads to differential effects of personality on participation. We argue that direct democracy constitutes such a political context that can act as moderating factor with regard to protest participation. In order to test this interaction between person and situation empirically, we conduct a subnational comparative analysis of the Swiss cantons. Hierarchical regression models reveal that the personality traits openness to experience and extraversion affect protest behavior directly. Most importantly, however, the link between openness to experience and protest participation is significantly moderated by direct democracy. This provides evidence for variance in the situational expression of personality traits.     

Cuba’s Ministry of Interior: The FAR’s Fifth Army

Since the beginning of the Cuban Revolution, Raúl Castro and his Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) has sought to maintain at least operational control over state security, i.e., the Ministry of Interior (Minint). Between 1960 and 1989 FAR and Minint competed for resources and for the attention of the Revolution’s supreme leader, Fidel Castro. In 1989 Raúl Castro was finally able to achieve his objective of absorbing Minint’s operational missions, namely domestic security, when, after a series of crises associated with the end of the Cold War, corruption scandals in Minint, and indiscretions by the Minint leadership, Fidel acquiesced and allowed Raúl and FAR to purge Minint and take control of state security.     

From rebels to politicians: Explaining the transformation of the RCD-Goma and the MLC in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

This article analyses the transformation of two former Congolese rebel groups, namely the Congolese Rally for Democracy–Goma (RCD-Goma) and the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), into political parties following the conclusion of the Second Congo War (1998–2003) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It is argued that three sets of factors influenced the process of the political transformation of the RCD-Goma and the MLC. These factors related to the stabilisation process that unfolded in the country starting with the signing of the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement in July 1999, the make-up and the behaviour of the rebel groups involved as well as changes in international politics, especially the advent of the Bush administration to power in the United States in January 2001, which led to increased international pressure on Rwanda and Uganda to desist from interfering in Congolese internal affairs and the strengthening of the United Nations' peace efforts in the DRC.     

‘The Root Is Maya,the Practice Is Pluralist’: Xel‐jú and Indigenous Political Mobilisation in Quetzaltenango,Guatemala

Since the 1990s Latin America has witnessed the emergence of ethnic, often social movement‐based, political parties. Within this context Rigoberto Quemé Chay became the first indigenous mayor of Quetzaltenango, the second‐largest city of Guatemala, a place that until then had been marked by indigenous political exclusion and racism. This article seeks to explain why Quemé was victorious in 1995 and also why he subsequently lost the election in 2004 through an analysis of the ideational struggle within the (indigenous) political organisation, Xel‐jú, which backed Quemé's candidacy twice. I use the movements of ‘departure’, ‘manoeuvre’ and ‘arrival’ in the process of the constitution of hegemonic visions of power to analyse Xel‐jú's rise to political power.     

E‐Informality in Venezuela: The ‘Other Path’ of Technology

The study explores arguments concerning the concept of the informal economy and makes the case that new media technologies, or more broadly, information and communication technologies (ICTs), as a socio‐economic phenomenon, tend to be exploited in the same way as other economic activities by those actors that operate in the informal economy. Moreover, this exploitation tends to show similar patterns in terms of growth and ownership concentration. In this context, the study analyses the patterns and tendencies that transpire when informal actors exploit ICTs. It aims to question the validity of the neoliberal paradigm that portrays informality and new media technology as a creative process that requires deregulation. The article is based on a field study carried out in Venezuela between 2003 and 2004.     

Africa’s Initial Encounter with Texas: The Significance of Afro‐Tejanos in Colonial Tejas, 1528–1821*

The topic of African slavery and the role of Afro‐Tejanos in Texas during the period of Spanish colonial rule has been totally neglected. Primary sources used in this study discuss Afro‐Tejano family life, economic activities, military duties, and their experiences both as slaves and as individuals who gained their freedom. Hispanic treatment of Africans gradually became more enlightened by the eighteenth century to the point that Afro‐Tejanos suffered a decline in their overall standard of living after Texas became an independent republic in 1836. The relationship of Afro‐Tejanos to Mexico’s current total of 500,000 Afro‐Mexicans is an issue of contemporary relevance because of recent efforts in Mexico to highlight its African heritage.     

Using ‘Public Health Crossings’ to Create Community‐Based Rural Healthcare in Mexico: The Case of Two Health Centres in Xochimilco

Health centres established in Xochimilco, Mexico during the 1930s and 1940s represent a larger shift in the national health agenda from training medical students in rural health to addressing the specific health challenges of rural communities. While the 1935 centre offered urban students practical experience in rural environments, it did not adequately address the area's health problems. In contrast, the 1947 centre utilised improved community exchanges to enhance the region's health and sanitation. This decade of transformation resulted from a network of politicians, international organisations, and health professionals who helped to establish broader community‐based public health programmes in rural Mexico.     

The Social Function of Carlos Fuentes: A Critical Intellectual or in the ‘Shadow of the State’?

This article seeks to raise meaningful questions about the role, or wider social function, of the intellectual within state–civil society relations in Latin America characterised by conditions of socio–economic modernisation. It does so by pursuing such questions through a detailed examination of the social function of Carlos Fuentes as an intellectual in Mexico. Through a focus on the social function of Carlos Fuentes, it is possible to distinguish the role intellectual activity can play in the construction and contestation of hegemony in Mexico. Most crucially, the article prompts consideration of the social basis of hegemony and the agency of intellectuals organically tied to particular social forces functioning through state–civil society relations in the struggle over hegemony. Put differently, it is possible to grant due regard to the mixture of critical opposition and accommodation that has often confronted the intellectual within Latin America.