Contesting Mestizaje: Black Politics and Oral Traditions in Venezuela

Afro-descendant oral traditions are powerful modes of political expression that disrupt anti-black logics within Latin America's mestizaje. Scholarship on Afro-Latin American anti-racist mobilisation centres on large-scale, collective action. Instead, in this article, I examine songs and décimas, central forms of Afro-descendant cultural subjectivity. Drawing on thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in La Guaira state, Venezuela, I show how oral traditions are place-based forms of resistance against anti-black racism. This research calls on scholars to attend to oral traditions and their geographies as a tool of anti-racist political mobilisation.     

The Monetisation of Consent and its Limits: Explaining Political Dominance and Decline in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

Malaysia’s 14th General Election in 2018 toppled the Barisan Nasional government after six decades in power. Barisan Nasional’s longevity was due to its performance legitimacy and a capacity to manipulate electoral mechanisms. However, it was the use of money in eliciting consent that led to a political change. This article traces how sustaining the dominance of the Barisan Nasional under Najib Razak used a strategy which we term the monetisation of consent. However, when monetising consent loses its efficacy, political dominance is challenged. We discuss why and how manufacturing consent through the use of money has its limits when regime legitimacy is challenged. Intense political competition on the electoral terrain from 2008 and the multiplication of Malay-Muslim political parties induced Najib’s greater personal grip on state funds to gain political support. This resulted in the Najib regime’s kleptocratic turn. Beyond the disbursement of largesse to political power brokers and business elites, his government monetised consent as a populist strategy. The reduced efficacy of electoral manipulation made the monetisation of consent imperative for regime survival but the use of money and unpopular fiscal policies, which deprived citizens of disposable income, led to a legitimacy crisis and the Barisan Nasional’s defeat.     

Ideology, Institutions and Ideas: Explaining Political Change in Venezuela

This article scrutinises the links between patterns and modes of political participation and the emergence of Bolivarianism in Venezuela in the early 1990s. I study how Bolivarianism triumphed over competing projects in a period characterised by widespread unrest and its relationship to the Punto-Fijo institutional structure it overthrew. I argue that the ideas of Bolivarianism are derived from contradictions inherent to the existing institutions, and can only be understood in relation to the values and practices embedded in them, which Bolivarianism aimed to replace.     

Dying to win: Elections,political violence,and institutional decay in Kenya

This paper examines the lessons learned from Kenya's 2007 post election violence and what has happened since then. It notes that the root causes of the violence still persist, have not been addressed, and easily could be reignited. Faced with a situation where institutions and the rule of law have been weakened deliberately and where diffused violence is widespread, both Kenya's transition to democracy and the fate of the nation remain vulnerable. The argument here is that the problems faced in holding and managing elections in conflict situations often are not simply technical. Instead, in Kenya and elsewhere, many difficulties are symptomatic of larger political and institutional questions related to democratic change that are more difficult to analyze in causal terms or to address.     

Casino Interests,Fujian Tongxianghui and Electoral Politics in Macao

The study of hometown associations has been traditionally focused on their social and cultural activities, but little research has been conducted on their political and electoral participation. The direct elections held for the Legislative Assembly in September 2013 in the Macao Special Administrative Region were characterised by the emergence of a clear triangular relationship between casino interests, Fujianese tongxianghui (a hometown association or an interest group with members sharing the same locality ties) and electoral politics. The prominent victory of an electoral group led by the Fujianese tongxianghui and represented under the umbrella of the United Citizens Association of Macao (UCAM) was unprecedented in Macao’s political participation and historical development. As a community leader of the Fujian community, Chan Meng Kam formed the UCAM to perform multiple functions: protecting his casino interests, articulating the interests of the Fujianese and the society vis-à-vis the casino state, acting as an intermediary between the Macao government and ordinary citizens, especially in the northern district which is the power base of the UCAM, and serving as a united front machinery for a unique sub-ethnic interest group to win the hearts and minds of the people of Macao.     

Venezuela after the Caracazo: Forms of Protest in a Deinstitutionalized context

Protest has become in recent years one of the most visible features of everyday life in urban Venezuela. Since the middle eighties, but in particular after the Caracazo of 1989, the Caraqueños as well as residents of other cities of the country have had to adjust themselves to the hundreds of demonstrations that are held every year. In this article I shall present the most common forms of collective action over the last ten years, relating them to the process of deinstitutionalization that has developed during the decade. I shall discuss why extra-institutional forms of collective action of a confrontational and violent nature have spread from marginal actors to organizations that in the past had at their disposal alternative channels for presenting their complaints and demands.     

Paradoxes of electoral authoritarianism: the 2015 Ethiopian elections as hegemonic performance

The 2015 elections in Ethiopia had a predictable outcome, showing an entrenched system of one-party dominance that self-referentially enacts the political order created by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) since 1991. EPRDF spokespersons continued to defend the party’s hegemony as inevitable, grounded in a logic of technocratic authority and with reference to ‘stability’ and ‘development’. This paper describes the electoral process not in the light of democracy theory but of hegemonic governance theory. Elections seem to have lost relevance in Ethiopia as a means of political expression and are only important as a performance of hegemonic governance and as ‘global impression management’ – showing state skills in securing a smooth electoral process as a major organisational feat in itself. Contradictions that the political process creates between the Ethiopian party-state and domestic constituencies, and between the attitudes/policies of certain donor countries, are downplayed or avoided, but problematic in the long run.     

Venezuela,April 2002: Coup or Popular Rebellion? The Myth of a United Venezuela

This article assesses the merits of opposing National Assembly reports into the coup against President Chávez of Venezuela in April 2002. Looking at the historical context and the content of the reports, it argues that the two opposing accounts reflect a class division that has always existed in Venezuela but has been officially denied. It concludes that a possible exit from the stalemate could be that the opposition accept the reality of this class division and therefore the Chávez government as a legitimate representative of the popular classes. This, however, is unlikely in the present circumstances.     

Politics and the Price of Rice in Thailand: Public Choice,Institutional Change and Rural Subsidies

Despite the Thai state’s long record of rice market interventions, historically politicians failed to leverage rice subsidies in their pursuit of political support, notwithstanding the large number of farmers in the country. Since Thaksin Shinawatra’s election in 2001, though, each government has subsidised rice producers, although at varying degrees. What explains this change? This article traces the four-decade history of rice price support programmes. It is proposed that these policies be interpreted through the dual lens of institutionalism and public choice theory, demonstrating how political institutions have shaped incentives for politicians to cater to different constituencies. During the pre-1980 period, under authoritarian regimes, Thai leaders applied rice price policies to benefit urban consumers and the government. From 1979 through 2000, following implementation of the block-vote system, rice interventions were used to appeal to voting intermediaries like rice millers, as bargaining chips among competing parties and as stopgap measures to diffuse farmer protests. Since 2001, responding to the electoral system created by the 1997 constitution, politicians have appealed directly to the voting public, seeking broad-based support via subsidies. The analysis highlights the impact that shifting institutional incentives have on politicians’ actions and thus the emergent policies.     

台湾政党政治的腐败与政治转型

近二十年来,金钱政治以一种看似矛盾和不自觉的方式,破坏着台湾执政党和政府及官员的政治形象、权力结构和统治基础,以一种潜在的力量推动着它们的政党政治和政治体制由一元的模式向多元的模式变化,从而加快了多元政治的发展;同时,在巩固民主的过程中,它以一种瓦解体制的形式阻碍着民主制度的形成和稳定.进一步来说,这种腐败在政党政治和政治发展的不同阶段可以产生不同的作用,它或是在巩固政治转型阶段推动政治转型和民主化,或是在巩固民主的阶段推动或阻碍民主的发展,但其总的表现形式都是瓦解体制.     

Explaining the Politics of Recognition of Ethnic Diversity and Indigenous Peoples' Rights in Oaxaca, Mexico

A 'politics of recognition'– a process of political reform intended to recognise formally cultural diversity and indigenous peoples' rights – has developed in Mexico, both at the federal and at the state levels, since the early 1990s. The case of the state of Oaxaca stands out in this respect – the local constitution and nearly a dozen secondary laws were reformed during the 1990s, resulting in the conformation of the most comprehensive multicultural framework in Mexico. In this article, I attempt to explain the emergence and the particular development of Oaxaca's unique politics of recognition. Following an explanatory framework proposed by Donna Lee Van Cott, I conclude that the recognition agenda emerged in Oaxaca as legitimacy and governability was put under strain. In addition, I conclude that the (by Mexican standards) rapid and broad fashion in which it developed can be explained on the bases of the severity of the threats to governability and of the capacity of indigenous actors to influence the decision‐making process and form alliances with key political actors – i.e. the state governors.     

Doing Politics in a Depoliticised Society: Social Change and Political Deactivation in Chile

This article explores the process of political deactivation in Chile which has taken place since the military coup of 1973. Its stresses a series of political, social and cultural factors which have produced an increasing depoliticisation of the Chilean population under both the Pinochet regime and the current Concertaciòn governments. The forced depoliticisation generated by repression and fears under the military government marked the genesis of political deactivation. Since the late 1970s the marketisation of Chilean society and its increased consumerist orientation have weakened even further the readiness and interest among Chilean citizens to participate actively in party politics. In addition, in recent years politicians and politics in general have experienced in Chile a growing decrease of prestige and credibility. The media, and particularly the television, have become the main arenas in which new style politicians sell their electoral products to a depoliticised mass who expect quick and concrete solutions to their particular problems and demands.     

In Search of Alternatives: The Making of Grassroots Politics and Power in Argentina

This article analyses ethnographically the reconfigurations of the state and relations of power through their dynamic interactions with subaltern alternatives that emerged in the 2001 uprising in Argentina. In this regard, it counters influential interpretations of these events articulated within John Holloway’s framework of ‘anti‐power’, which ignores the reconstruction of the state, and rank and file trade unionism. The article concludes that intensified class and political struggles in the region offer new spaces for contesting hegemonic reinventions of populism and ‘top‐down’ socialism in Latin America.     

Assessing and Explaining the Diverging Trajectories of Territorial Parties and Politics in Italy and Spain (2008‐2018)

Until the mid‐2000s, territorial politics played a considerable role in both Italy and Spain. Two regionalist parties, among others, clearly contributed to this: Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC) and the Northern League. Yet evidence shows that the two parties, while starting from relatively similar positions, have followed diverging trajectories, particularly after the financial (and then economic) crisis that hit their respective countries. CDC pushed its pro‐autonomy stances to the extreme and eventually ended up supporting Catalan independence. On the other hand, the League dropped its regionalist agenda and even became a state‐wide party. By comparing these two cases, this article aims to shed light on the mechanisms that lead to the radicalisation or moderation (and even abandonment) of regionalist parties’ territorial demands. These opposite movements have broader implications, since they have been accompanied by increasing polarisation of territorial politics in Spain and the de‐politicisation of this issue in Italy.     

Influencing votes,winning elections: clientelist practices and private funding of electoral campaigns in Albania

ABSTRACT

The present article is part of a broader effort to understand and analyse the relationship between formal and informal norms and institutions in the Balkans. Free and fair elections are a central component of any functioning democracy and, in the case of Albania, an essential element of its EU accession process. Elections can also be affected by political clientelism, which puts their outcomes’ credibility into question. Political clientelism is a principal sector of informal relations and practices and informal and/or illegal funding of electoral campaigns are identified as its key mechanisms. This article addresses a number of issues related to clientelist practices and private funding of electoral campaigns, focusing on the general parliamentary elections of June 2017. The main research question investigates the ways in which private funding of electoral campaigns works in practice. Based on data gathered through ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, reports on the electoral process, and other secondary sources, we argue that informal clientelist practices permeating private funding of electoral campaigns enable political parties to further and strengthen clientelist relations and to influence the electoral result.     

The Politics of Welfare State Reform

This article presents and discusses the state of the art in political science research on welfare state reform. While scholars first aimed at explaining the emergence and growth of the welfare state, national variation in its development, and crises of welfare state regimes, more recently the focus has shifted to the persistence and reform of the major welfare state institutions. Research in this direction has typically adopted an institutionalist perspective, stressing how institutional settings affect the feasibility and direction of reforms. These studies have shed light on important aspects of the question, in particular by demonstrating the role of path dependency and veto players in reform processes, but suffer from two main problems, namely the difficulty of defining the dependent variable in an appropriate way, and the neglect of the importance of power resources.     

Modernity and the Politics of Identity in an Amazonian Society

Abstract— Recent work in the anthropology of practice shows that cultural transmission is a complex and active process rooted in everyday activity. It follows that cultural continuity depends more on understanding in practice than on the internalisation of collective representations. These insights are used to examine critically the provision of state bilingual education to the Huaorani, a small group of Amazonian hunter-gatherers. It is generally hoped that bilingual programmes for indigenous minorities will protect their linguistic and cultural rights. However, by neglecting ‘culture in practice’ and reducing culture to language, these programmes foster the emergence of a discursive identity at odds with the cultural continuity of nomadic and egalitarian indigenous groups. This case study is used to discuss some recent analyses of the politics of cultural identity and difference. It is argued that current thinking fails to recognise that culture is acquired and transmitted within communities of practice. 01997 Society for Latin American Studies.     

The Fiji Election of 2014: Rights,Representation and Legitimacy in Fiji Politics

Abstract

Fiji’s 2014 election was its first in eight years, first under the 2013 constitution, and first using a common roll of electors with proportional representation. In the new parliament of 50 seats, the coup leader of 2006, Frank Bainimarama, emerged triumphant. His FijiFirst Party won 32 seats, with the Social Democratic Liberal Party, a successor party to earlier indigenous Fijian parties, winning 15 and the National Federation Party three. The election of the new parliament marked the end of Fiji’s longest period under a military government since independence. How should the significance of these elections be judged in the context of Fiji’s history? Do they represent the breakthrough to democratic stability that so many Fiji citizens have wanted for so long? Or are they just another phase of Fiji’s turbulent politics, a democratic pause before another lurch into authoritarian government?     

‘There Can Be No Revolution without Culture’: Reading and Writing in the Bolivarian Revolution

Under Hugo Chávez's ‘Bolivarian Revolution’, the government made itself present in all stages of literary production, applying the official idea of reading and writing as ‘socialist practices’. The Bolivarian government envisaged a popular counter‐hegemony, courting popular support while delegitimising cultural elites and reinforcing class tensions. Bolivarian cultural policy is anachronistic in an age of global literary markets, while the emphasis on a national collective of writers over internationally promoted representative writers of the revolution is particularly radical.