Remapping the State: Inter-Municipal Cooperation through Corporatisation and Public-Private Governance Structures

The institutional setting of regional and local government in Italy appears to be characterised by an ongoing process of reform and adjustment ever since Regions were created in 1970. More recently, provinces and Municipalities gained wide autonomy in 1990, and the constitution itself was revised in 2001 to set up what is sometimes referred to as a ‘quasi-federal’ system of intergovernmental relations. In this context, inter-municipal cooperation also has witnessed several phases and dynamics, ranging from (very rare) fusions, through single-purpose cooperation, to integrated service management (Public-public partnership, and consortia for the management and/or regulation of public utilities). More recently, and most notably over the past decade, inter-municipal cooperation has taken on a new form, consisting in the shared ownership in joint-stock companies. The so-called ‘corporatisation’ of public bodies, i.e. the creation of public-owned (or mixed public-private), private-law companies and corporations for the fulfilment of public-interest activities, has come to constitute a network of inter-municipal cooperation that appears to represent a shift from an institutional intergovernmental structure of cooperation, to one that is pre-eminently played out in the arenas of public-private forms of governance. The article analyses the literature and overarching trends in inter-municipal cooperation in Italy, and draws on very rich original data on the companies owned by Municipalities in six Italian regions to show how these companies represent the locus of inter-municipal (and multi-level) relations that go well beyond the formal boundaries of local administrations, and are often brokered by powerful private partners.     

Nationality and Nationalism in Africa: the Uganda case

Depuis 2006 et l'exode de migrants ouest-africains tentant de rejoindre l'Europe à bord de pirogues, la lutte contre l'émigration clandestine a été mise à l'agenda des relations afro-européennes. A partir de l'étude du tissu associatif et non-gouvernemental sénégalais, plus particulièrement d'une initiative féminine de la banlieue dakaroise, cet article souhaite revenir sur les conditions d'émergence et de possibilité d'un tel agenda et des mobilisations collectives y ayant trait. Le consensus relatif entre acteurs du Nord et du Sud concernant la lutte contre l'émigration irrégulière provient de l'articulation, dans une conjoncture d'urgence, de facteurs qui tiennent aux conditions structurelles d'insertion à l'international des acteurs du Sud, d'effets d'aubaine et de cadrages interprétatifs rendus compatibles. L'internationalisation d'acteurs sénégalais en charge de cet agenda a alors eu pour conséquences de générer un registre d'action victimaire, contraignant toute action protestataire, et de nourrir factionnalisme et concurrence au sein des champs associatif et politique, locaux et nationaux.     

"布什主义"与美国民族主义

"布什主义"就是现任美国总统小布什所主张的先发制人、单边主义、追求美国仁慈的霸权以及运用美国的军事力量在世界上推进民主的外交政策.它具有四大特征:坚信一个国家的政体决定其外交政策,并以此认定改变一些国家的政体有益于世界稳定与和平;     

Nationalism in the USSR: a historical and comparative perspective

The late 1980s and early 1990s were characterized by the sudden rise of nationalist movements in almost all Soviet ethnic regions. It is argued that the rise of political nationalism since the late 1980s can be explained by the development of cultural nationalism in the previous decades, as an unintended outcome of Communist nationalities policy. All ethnic regions are examined throughout the entire history of the USSR (49 regions, 1917–1991), using the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. This paper aims to make at least three contributions to the field. First, it is a methodological contribution for studying nationalism: a “quantification of history” approach. Having constructed variables from historical data, I use conventional statistical methods such as SEM. Second, this paper contributes to the theoretical debate about the role of cultural autonomy in multiethnic states. Finally, the paper statistically proves that the break between early Soviet and Stalinist nationalities policy explains the entire Soviet nationalities policy.     

Introduction: Jewish Conditions,Theories of Nationalism

Thinkers with Jewish backgrounds, whether ascribed, embraced or even denied, created the central grammar used in modern attempts to understand nationalism. This introduction first describes the central dilemma faced by those with Jewish conditions when confronted by the rise of ethnonationalism. The responses to the dilemma were varied, so the bulk of this introduction describes some of the most important intellectual boundaries—doing so in such a manner as to introduce the specialist studies that then follow.     

The Imagined Globe: Remapping the World Through Public Diplomacy at the Asia Society

Debates about public diplomacy have recently turned to the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in what had been primarily a conversation about state-to-state affairs. We contribute to this conversation through an in-depth analysis of the Asia Society. Founded by John D. Rockefeller III in 1956, the Asia Society was established to educate Americans about Asia at a time when there was much less contact between the USA and Asia. Since then, the institution has undergone several reinventions, each contributing to and reflecting changing understandings of Asia and its relationship to the USA. We track the kinds of artwork the Asia Society collects and puts on display, the range of countries it categorizes as Asian, and the goals and content of its programming to reveal these shifts in scale and focus and demonstrate how they mirror and drive forward shifts in US-Asian relations. We argue that understanding how cultural institutions contribute to changing geographic imaginaries and geopolitics is an important, often overlooked aspect of public diplomacy. They are both a catalyst and reflection of changing political economic dynamics that, in turn, shape how citizens imagine their world and their nation’s place within it.

     

Remapping development in light of globalisation: From a territorial to a social cartography

This article assesses the state of development studies in the wake of the 'impasse' that the field reached in the 1980s and suggests that the way forward is to 'deterritorialise' the concept of development. The first part critically assesses recent new perspectives and middle-range theories and focuses in particular on neoliberal and institutional approaches as hegemonic discourses. The myriad of new approaches offers limited and competing explanations for social change in the current epoch. The second part argues that globalisation, by modifying the reference points of macrosocial analysis, is responsible for development studies' paradigmatic quagmire. A sociology of national development is no longer tenable. The way out of the 'impasse' is to break with nation-state centred analysis by reconsidering the relationship between space and development and by reconceiving development based not on territory but on transnational social groups. Drawing on critical geographies and recent political economy theories of flexible accumulation and globalisation, it suggests that transnationalised labour markets exhibit an increasing heterogeneity across borders and that differentiated participation in these transnational labour markets in each locale comes to determine social development. The article emphasises the political nature of development theory and calls for a critical globalisation studies.