Criminality and Armed Groups: A Comparative Study of FARC and Paramilitary Groups in Colombia

Terrorist groups and armed insurgents regularly exploit illicit markets to launder money, traffic illegal goods, and purchase arms. In such an environment, the line between armed political organizations and criminal groups appears to break down. However, through a comparative study of paramilitary groups and Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—FARC) in Colombia, this article finds that group goals, the political environment, and membership strongly influence the types of criminal activities a given armed groups undertakes. Thus, the membership and political agenda of sub-state armed groups not only distinguishes them from criminal groups—organized for and motivated by economic gain—but also shapes their criminal behavior.     

Brokers and Key Players in the Internationalization of the FARC

The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—FARC) was originally founded to protect Colombian peasants from harsh landowner policies in exchange for food and supplies. Over time, it has evolved into an internationally connected, narco-trafficking organization that displays little concern for the peasants it once vowed to protect. In recent years, Colombian authorities have become more adept at countering the FARC, forcing it to operate increasingly outside of Colombia. The FARC's transformation from a local insurgency into an internationally connected one is the focus of this article. Using social network analysis it identifies key leaders who are tied to this transformation and discusses implications concerning the FARC's future.     

Hardening Budget Constraints: A Cross-National Study of Fiscal Sustainability and Subnational Debt

This study explores the financial sustainability of subnational governments in four different countries. Scholars argue that subnational fiscal capacity helps local governments deliver better public services and provide public goods, which in turn helps to promote economic growth. While administrative control by the central governments contributes to reducing moral hazard from the soft budget constraints, bottom-up strategies to manage fiscal profligacy also need attention. The study first provides understanding about the characteristics of central-local governance and management of subnational government debt of each country. Then, we test our hypotheses regarding local fiscal capacity and administrative control, including political-economic factors that may affect debt spending by local governments. Our findings show that subnational fiscal sustainability improves when the central governments have clear rules to intergovernmental transfers in place and more (market) liberal policies, meanwhile when subnational governments have a more fiscal capacity and less intergovernmental transfers they are able to manage their debt more soundly.     

Indian politics in the 1990s: Trends and transformations

This article examines significant transformations that have occurred in Indian politics in the last decade, particularly after the eclipse of the one‐party dominant system. India is said to have entered the era of coalition politics with all its attendant consequences. The advent of coalition politics has induced pronounced political changes but coalition politics itself can be seen as a consequence of these changes. Cause and effect is therefore hard to separate but transformations can be identified with respect to India's electoral politics; stability of governments and the party system; federal‐regional equations; and, participation and empowerment. This article discusses these themes to provide an understanding of the noticeable mutations that the Indian political system has undergone.     

20世纪90年代以来中国理论界对列宁理论研究评述

上个世纪90年代以来,中国理论界对列宁理论研究的特点,一是深层次发掘列宁思想遗产,二是敢于进行拨乱反正,这对于全面正确地学习和掌握马克思主义理论,全面正确地认识社会主义的历史及经验,均具有重要的意义.     

Professionalizing the american states in the 1990s

This article reviews state executive branch efforts to professionalize in the 1990s. The states’ political, fiscal, and managerial capabilities are assessed by examining recent changes in governors’ offices, executive branch reorganizations, and management and productivity initiatives. The focus is on the process used to better prepare the states to respond to change, the multi-agency issues under reform, and the relative lack of integration of state agency reform with local government change. The analysis is based on research conducted by the author in 1991.     

Political security: from the 1990s to the Arab Spring

The 1994 Human Development Report (HDR) set out the definition and parameters of political security in fewer than 400 words. It was defined as the prevention of government repression, systematic violation of human rights and threats from militarization. This was intended to establish an agenda that would protect people against states that continued to practice political repression, systematic torture, ill treatment and disappearance. Yet, the concept of political security has evolved in both theory and practice. This has been done through an ongoing debate, which has been shaped more by immediate crises and the practice of international relations, than the parameters set out in the 1994 HDR report. In practice, achieving the ambitions of the political security agenda has become tied to questions of humanitarian assistance and intervention. This was narrowly interpreted throughout the 1990s as a debate surrounding the nature and legitimacy of humanitarian intervention. In the 2000s, this was institutionalized into a Responsibility to Protect agenda, only to see the second decade of the twenty-first century reveal the need for a far more complex and nuanced debate about how this should be carried out.     

Narcotization as Security Dilemma: The FARC and Drug Trade in Colombia

This article addresses the relationship between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the cocaine trade in Colombia, and implications for the FARC's complete demobilization under the 2016 peace agreement. The article identifies two phases of FARC interaction with drug markets. During the regulation phase (1982–1991), the FARC regulated the coca economy and charged protection rents. During vertical integration (1991–present), the FARC directly participated in drug markets. Contrary to conventional approaches, the article adopts the concept of the security dilemma to argue that FARC integration in drug markets was a strategic response to threats from paramilitaries and narcotics traffickers.     

Sinai's Insurgency: Implications of Enhanced Guerilla Warfare

This article aims to explain the endurance of Sinai's insurgency despite its limited military capacity and resources, and the overwhelming man- and fire-power of the incumbent's regular and tribal forces. After reviewing the literature on how insurgents beat or survive strong incumbents, the article offers a short overview of historical developments and socio-political causes leading to the rise of Sinai Province and its military build-up. It then analyses, qualitatively and quantitatively, how Sinai Province fight, based on its original documents and releases as well as on interviews with individuals who fought against it. Finally, the article concludes with an explanation of why did the insurgency survive and, at times, expanded based on the quality of its military tactics. It also provides policy implications, as a result.     

Changing development models in small economies: The case of Jamaica from the 1950s to the 1990s

By examining in detail the successes and failures of different development models in one developing country over a four-decade period, this article sketches a development model for small economies in the 1990s as an alternative to the neoliberal model pushed by the International Monetary Fund. It reviews the experience of Jamaica with various development models from the 1950s to the 1990s, with special attention focused on the experience of the Seaga government of the 1980s. It also draws lessons from the successful development experience of small European countries and of the East Asian Newly Industrialized countries. In normative terms, the alternative development model attempts to combine growth with equity and democracy. In analytical terms, it takes account of the constellation of domestic forces and appropriate political strategies, as well as of international economic and political conditions. The main features are a strong role for the state in economic interactions with transnational corporations, in identification of export markets and promotion of export production, in selective protection of domestic industry with an export potential, in promotion of agriculture linked to industrial development, in improvement of human resources and promotion of regional economic integration. Within these parameters, a crucial role is assigned to the domestic private sector and a complementary one to foreign investment. Distribution is to be addressed primarily through distribution of productive assets and access to health care and education. Evelyne Huber is professor of political science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is a coauthor ofDemocratic Socialism in Jamaica andCapitalist Development and Democracy. She is currently involved in research on the changing role of the state in Latin America and on comparative social policy. John D. Stephens is professor of political science and sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is a coauthor ofDemocratic Socialism in Jamaica andCapitalist Development and Democracy. His current research focuses on options for social democracy and comparative social policy.     

How Surrogate Impact Panels Function in the Context of Intimate Partner Violence: A Mixed-Methods Study

ABSTRACT

Intimate partner violence (IPV) continues to be an urgent social problem, despite decades of intervention and prevention efforts. Restorative justice programs (e.g., victim impact panels) may be a useful addition to intimate partner violence (IPV) intervention, but it is unclear how these panels operate and to what extent they are consistent with restorative justice models. This naturalistic study of IPV surrogate impact panels used ethnographic observation of panels (n = 18), archival analysis of audience responses to the panel (N = 287), and focus groups and interviews (k = 4) with IPV survivors, an audience member, and batterer intervention providers to investigate these gaps. Findings suggest the panels manifest interactional processes consistent with restorative justice principles. Implications, limitations, and future aims of research on these panels are discussed.     

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Russia: Contending Paradigms and Current Perspectives

The most outstanding trend in contemporary conflicts has been the fusion of the threats from terrorism and insurgency. Insurgent threats in many places on the globe today are mistaken as terrorist threats, and counterterrorism (CT) is deployed as the local insurgents come increasingly to resemble their transnational terrorist partners. Such an emphasis on the role of terrorism in insurgencies and the undue focus on CT risks strengthening, rather than severing, the connection between local insurgents and transnational terrorists. Russia's counterterrorist strategy inadvertently transformed the conflict from a contained, nationalist rebellion to a sprawling jihadi insurgency and perversely encouraged the group to resort even more to terrorist tactics. The Russian counterinsurgency has been unsuccessful, as the insurgents are neither demolished as a force nor are they isolated by society. Losing the hearts and minds among the Chechen people is a key reason behind why the Russian operation in Chechnya suffered failures. Too little attention was paid to winning over the “hearts and minds” of the people.     

Management,markets and democracy: Australian local government reform in the 1990s

Australian local government has been subjected to extensive reform during the 1990s. This article considers the three main dimensions of the reforms — changes to management structures, the introduction of competition policy, and municipal consolidation. It reviews the evidence available about the nature of outcomes and examines the impact of the reforms on governance values. It is argued that, so far, economic considerations have been balanced by a commitment to community particpation. Recent political developments, however, may yet prove to be an emerging threat.     

1990年以来的日本社会主义运动

冷战结束以后 ,社会主义阵营的势力大幅衰退 ,日本社会主义运动处于低潮。经过调整改革后 ,日本共产党、社会民主党等开始走出困境 ,尤其是共产党实现了跃进 ,这就使得社会主义势力仍然成为日本政坛牵制保守势力的主要政治力量。     

Science-women: arcane knowledge and African spirituality in independent African-American cinema of the 1990s

ABSTRACT

This article explores the significant role played by arcane knowledge and expressions of African spirituality in the iconography of powerful black women in three films directed by independent African-American filmmakers in the 1990s: Sankofa (Haile Gerima, 1993, USA), Mother of the River (Zeinabu irene Davis, 1995, USA), and Eve’s Bayou (Kasi Lemmons, 1997, USA). My discussion draws on the orature and legendary tales of West African-based cosmologies in the African diasporas of the Americas and the concept (and practice) of ‘conjure’ in African–American cultures. It argues that heroic black women characters possessing extraordinary or supernatural powers not only predate the current vogue of cinematic superheroism, but that the iconography of such ‘science-women’ is embedded in culturally specific, African-rooted cosmological, epistemological and spiritual contexts. I argue that the feminine power celebrated in the films by the independent African-American filmmakers discussed here draw on legendary and historical accounts of women in African diasporic oral, literary and spiritual traditions for their cinematic storytelling to construct an affirmative and paradigmatic model of black female heroism based on empowering African spiritual beliefs and arcane knowledge.     

The Nepali State and the Dynamics of the Maoist Insurgency

In contrast to existing quantitative studies of the civil conflict in Nepal, we argue that combinations of motive and opportunity were crucial for the development of the Maoist insurgency and that these conditions stem largely from the nature of the Nepali state. The decade-long insurgency was characterized by two distinct dynamics. In the initiation period of the war (1996–2000), the insurgency was driven largely by newly enabled Maoist organizers capitalizing on the caste, ethnic, and economic divisions that had been codified over time by autocratic state-building efforts. In the more violent and geographically widespread maturation period of the war (2001–2006), the insurgency depended less on historical grievances than on the motivation of rebels and sympathizers by the often-indiscriminate violence perpetrated by the besieged Nepali state. We provide empirical evidence for this argument in a narrative section that contextualizes the Maoist insurgency as well as in a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of data for the 75 Nepali districts in the two periods of the insurgency. fsQCA allows for the assessment of how combinations of the largely state-generated motivations and opportunities affected the dynamics of the insurgency.     

Subnational governments in a stabilization program: lessons learned in Argentina

Autonomous subnational governments pose a serious challenge to national stabilization strategies. As illustrated by the case of Argentina, fiscal reforms that have been successfuly implemented at the national level have proved to be much harder to induce among subnational governments. Provincial reform is still largely pending and provincial governments continue to generate large public deficits, posing a threat to the success of Argentina's overall reform program in the medium and long term.

This paper provides a retrospective on Argentina's reform program with a focus on subnational governments. It identifies elements within the reform program itself, such as windfall increases of guaranteed central transfers, that systematically undermined early efforts to induce provincial reform. It also examines the government's strategy to neutralize their effects through the decentralization of services and the negotiation of two fiscal pacts, as well as its success in introducing major reforms by capitalizing on the financial pressure that resulted from the Mexican crisis. Finally, it draws lessons of experience that may be useful for policy makers faced with the similar challenge of inducing fiscal reform within autonomous subnational goverments.