Manufacturing corporate landscapes: the case of agrarian displacement and food (in)security in Haiti

This paper explores the historical and contemporary sources of food insecurity in Haiti. It begins by detailing the impact of colonial legacies on the Caribbean region as a whole and on Haiti in particular. The adverse consequences associated with this period include deforestation, soil infertility and food-import dependence. The paper then turns to more contemporary trends, namely the influence of 30 years of neoliberal ideology. It argues that the belief that Haiti can best achieve food security through the pursuit of comparative advantage, a notion advanced and supported by powerful international and domestic actors, has served to reinforce harmful historic trends. We support this argument with recent fieldwork findings that highlight how the construction of a new export processing zone (EPZ), following the 2010 earthquake, has generated troubling environmental and food security concerns.     

Confronting the Reality

SUMMARY

The most recent UNAIDS report (December 2003) estimates that approximately 5 million persons became infected with the HIV virus globally in 2003 alone, while 3 million persons died as a result of HIV/AIDS. What do these staggering numbers mean for the Caribbean population? Is the impact of HIV/AIDS the same among Caribbean immigrants in the United States as among the Caribbean population in the countries of origin? If so, what are the factors that promote the spread of HIV/AIDS among this population regardless of their geographic location? Finally, what can be done to reverse the growing infection rate that has made the Caribbean the second largest population to suffer from HIV/AIDS globally? In this paper the authors explore sociocultural, attitudinal and gender-specific factors that place the Caribbean population at risk of the ongoing spread of HIV/AIDS. The authors make recommendations for a community involvement response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic that targets the individual, family and community to address the problem of HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean population. A community involvement model with its potential to reduce the negative impact of socio-structural factors, and attitudes towards victims of HIV/AIDS is recommended as a meaningful response to HIV/AIDS among the Caribbean population.     

Problems of political transition in Ukraine: leadership failure and democratic consolidation

Democratisation and consolidation of a political system encompass a range of complex challenges, for which effective leadership is pivotal. However, the skills that a leader requires to break through and introduce change are not necessarily the same as those needed to maintain stability. This article examines the case of Viktor Yushchenko as president of Ukraine following the Orange Revolution. The negotiated transfer of power from the previous semi-authoritarian regime rendered consolidation difficult by limiting opportunities for a complete break. Within the residual ‘grey area’, a number of actors continued to participate and create tension. The regime that emerged was characterised by political infighting and instability, leading to the defeat of candidates associated with the Orange Revolution in the 2010 presidential elections. This article argues that the inability to move towards a consolidated democratic political system was due to the failure of the transitional leader, rather than the political and institutional configuration.     

Two regionalisms,two Latin Americas or beyond Latin America? Contributions from a critical and decolonial IPE

This article reconsiders the hegemonic interpretation of Latin American regionalisms, which have been defined as expressions of the fragmentation power of ideologies. After identifying the main bias and limitations of this approach, two alternative analytical proposals are presented: critical International Political Economy (IPE), which reconsiders the region’s heterogeneity as the reflection of a variety of historical trajectories; and the increasingly influential Latin/Latin American modernity/coloniality approach, which re-authorises the voices of a multiplicity of ‘marginal’ subjectivities to the cognoscible world of international studies.     

Economic transformation through political change? Evidence from Turkey

Turkey recently initiated a political change by replacing its parliamentary model with the presidential governmental system (PGS) to achieve, inter alia, a structural transformation from an efficiency-driven to an innovation-driven model of growth. To investigate the PGS’s potential for mediating such a change, this paper uses four key concepts of institutionalist analysis: systemic governance, credible commitment, institutional fragmentation and institutional traps. In doing so, the paper concludes that the PGS’s potential to unleash a structural transformation towards an innovation-driven and high growth depends on the prospect of its mediating an imperative commitment in political and economic governance. This prospect proves to be weak due to both the PGS’s institutional pillars and the path-dependent dynamics of the country’s trap in efficiency-driven growth that have become embedded under a parliamentary model.     

New media and governance in conflict

The role of new media in shaping the interactions of formal and informal leaders with their audiences is frequently misunderstood and often narrowly focussed on electoral processes and political competition. By weaving together strands of scholarship on political communication and political settlement while engaging with concepts of hybrid governance and leadership more prevalent in the African studies literature, this article takes a different, wider focus. We attempt to knit a framework that challenges normative assumptions on institutional communicative practices and considers the role of power, leadership and communications in both exacerbating and mitigating violent conflict in emerging and consolidating democracies. By bringing together disparate strands of scholarship that are rarely in dialogue, we question a characterisation that contrasts vertical mainstream media with more horizontal and inclusive social media, arguing that a more nuanced view of the political significance of these spaces is required, one that highlights their interplay and blurs the boundaries between online and offline. In doing so, the article places power at the centre of analysis to examine how entrenched relations of patronage can be left unscathed, transformed or even reinforced by networked forms of communication.     

Dimensions of Child Abuse and Neglect Among Native and Immigrant Caribbean Families

Abstract

This study attempted to replicate a study that examined severity of physical child abuse among Barbados families with a sample of Caribbean families known to the New York City public child welfare agency. Study findings did not support the hypothesis that child abuse in the Caribbean community is linked to cultural child-rearing norms sanctioning the use of physical punishment of children, but were consistent with the largest body of research indicating that child abuse and neglect are driven by the complex interaction of interpersonal, economic, social and environmental factors.     

Newly Arrived West Indian Adolescents

Abstract

This study explores patterns of adjustment among newly arrived West Indian adolescents. In particular, it focuses on the concurrent developmental and cultural transitions of immigration and adolescence. Barriers to adjustment and patterns of identity formation are explored and discussed within the context of a typological developmental model. Findings of this study are based on the responses of 25 newly arrived adolescents from six Caribbean countries regarding their adjustment to New York City schools. The data analysis identifies various structural and immigration-based factors, which challenge the social and psychological adjustment of new immigrant adolescents. It highlights the effect of culture and immigration on attachment to school and society and supports the need for increased social work intervention in mediating between homes and schools of new immigrants.