Structure and Strategies: Two Faces of Civic Activism in India

Abstract

This paper explains the success of civic actors in achieving their aims by reference to their organizational structure. Based on a comparison of a religious nationalist movement and a women's movement in South Asia, I argue that organizational structure is closely linked to the success of a social movement. The lack of coordination and collaboration among women's groups in terms of mission and strategy has led to a perception of the overall movement as weak and marginal. The superior coordination of strategy and mission within the religious nationalist movement have allowed it to effectively use its resources to cause great changes in Indian society.     

The New Virtual (Inter)Face of African Pentecostalism

In the absence of research on religion and the Internet in Africa, this paper examines select African Pentecostal ministries that are developing websites as a major new interface for interacting with their membership, with potential converts, competing or partnering religious groups, and organs of the media and the state. It argues that this new media platform constitutes an important site for the constitution of Pentecostal leadership in the contemporary African and diasporic contexts.     

The Civic,Economic, and Political Consequences of Pentecostalism in Russia and Ukraine

In contemporary Russia and Ukraine, Pentecostalism carries with it commitments to civic engagement and democracy, strong bonds of social capital, and the embracing of an entrepreneurial spirit. In this article, the authors analyze the origins of Pentecostalism in Russia, Soviet methods of repression, and Pentecostal survival strategies. Continuing, the authors examine the political efficacy of Pentecostals, their civic commitments, their embracing of the free market, and the strength and nature of social capital among them. While the authors conclude that it is too soon to conclude that Pentecostalism will bring about democracy, civil society, and free markets in Russia and Ukraine, they argue that Pentecostalism is proving itself a popular choice in the contemporary religious marketplace and that choice is not without significant civic, economic, and political consequences.     

Government revenue and expenditure in an agrarian economy: North Arcot District in South India

This paper uses disaggregated data to assess the recent history and geography of revenue mobilization and expenditure allocation in a district where rice production increased by 50 per cent during the decade 1973–83 and where gross urban output (to judge from research in one market town) increased in real terms by a factor of 8. At the district level, land revenue is a small and unstable component of revenue despite the dynamism of the rice economy. Furthermore rice is exempt from commercial taxes, which are eight times more important than land revenue, just under half of which derives from traded agricultural goods. Despite the region's commercial dynamism, real revenue has increased by only 76 per cent over the decade, suggesting substantial evasion. The district appears to be a net donor to the state fisc. Direct expenditure shows urban bias (being 60 per cent more per caput than rural expenditure), though the gap has been narrowing. Despite this trend the rice-producing sector appears to be a net beneficiary from direct revenue and expenditure. A rural micro-level case study shows that the village panchayat is a net donor and the urban panchayat union a net recipient of an unstable quantum of revenue. A case study of an urban municipality shows real revenue declining over the decade, forcing an increasing dependence upon discretionary grants from the state government, which cannot prevent a deterioration in urban infrastructure. Indirect revenue and expenditure shows a recent trend towards the rural population. Public sector employment is numerically significant, urban, and has average incomes equal to the top decile of rural cultivators.     

Defending In Defence of Politics Today

What are the threats to politics fifty years after the publication of Bernard Crick's classic In Defence of Politics? The chief danger lies in the forces of globalisation and the eclipse of the national state as the locus of political life. It is the hope of many in both Europe and the US that we might replace the basic structure of the sovereign state with a variety of postnational forms of organisation such as the UN or the EU. What are the forces behind these developments? Are we entering a world beyond politics increasingly administered by international law courts and tribunals no longer responsible to their national electorates? The possibility cannot be ruled out, but such a world, I suggest, would no longer be a political world.     

The Changing Faces of Contemporary Tourism

Tourism, a domain of considerable importance in the contemporary world, has long been overlooked by social scientists, but has recently become a field attracting a growing body of research. In sociology, the relation between tourism and modernity at first constituted the issue of principal interest, the discourse focusing on the extent to which modern Western tourists seek authentic experiences on their trip. The article discusses the changes in the terms of the discourse, contingent upon the growing similarity of the world in the wake of globalization, the emergence of the “post-tourist,” and the diversification in the composition of tourists, with the growth in the number of travelers from non-Western countries. The question of the limits of the future expansion of the tourist system is raised in conclusion.

A Veteran's View of Science Education Today

Science education in our schools is fundamentally the same today as it was fifty years ago and the scientific method has not really changed. Good science teaching is defined as the never‐ending search for evidence, for objective data, which leads to truth, and the search for truth should be at the heart of education in all subjects at all levels, and teacher training should address this objective view point. Science in our schools is watered down with derivatives such as environmental education. Steps should be taken to increase the level of science content knowledge in schools and science teacher education. Additionally, the rules of the open market should be invoked to give science teachers the latitude to offer their services as other providers of professional services do, and receive compensation greater than they would as regular full‐time teachers. These issues are discussed with implications for policy.     

Maintaining Perspective on the Economic Issues of Today

As the new administration takes office it is important to maintain some perspective on the economicchallenges facing the nation. The situation is far better today than when President Obama took office in2009 and 2013. Unemployment is close to pre-Great Recession levels, incomes are rising and poverty ratesfalling. We face economic challenges but the most important ones are not international trade or immigration.Sluggish economic growth, a fiscal crisis in our entitlement programs, high inequality in incomes andwealth, and climate change are what should demand our attention.     

Faces of Federalism: From Bullinger to Jefferson

This study argues that the eighteenth-century political philosophyof federalism found its roots in covenant theology of earlyReformed Protestantism in Zurich. It contends that there wasa progression covenant or federal thought from the first publishedarticulation of the theological covenant by Bullinger in 1534,through the use of the covenant notion in defense of tyrannicideby Philippe Mornay, to Johannes Althusius's political philosophyof federalism, as well as the political theories Thomas Hobbesand John Locke, to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutionof the United States. These different faces or variations offederalism shared several common elements over the 250-yearspan.