Postsocialist patronage: Expressions of resistance and loyalty

Research on patronage in postsocialist Russia focuses on structural and exchange aspects, but neglects deeper cultural forces that contribute to its reproduction. This study adopts a “bottom-up” approach to understanding the culture of patronage by analyzing the claims of ordinary citizens in “letters to the editor” from a postsocialist Russian locality. The common conventions authors use to legitimize claims share many characteristic features with patronage. Rather than judge authorities based on policy or ability to represent citizen interests, authors evaluate the moral and ethical worth of individuals, making their claims highly personalized. Evidence from these analyses suggests clients help sustain patronage by publicly expressing claims in a language infused with particularlism. Andrew D. Buck is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Reading, England. His interests include social network analysis and postsocialist transitions. He has written on aspects of the privatization process, as well as on the relationship between elite networks and democracy in postsocialist Russia. Research for this article was supported in part by a grant from the international Research and Exchanges Board (IREX). Grateful thanks to Vladimir Levitchev for research assistance. Special thanks to Antonina Bambina for her insightful suggestions and criticisms throughtout different stages of the research. I would also like to acknowledge the helpful comments I received from Roberto Franzosi, Jeff Hass, Jorge Rodriguez, and David Stark on a previous draft.     

‘Rioting in goatish embraces’: Marriage and improvement in early British Jamaica

Marriages were relatively infrequent among the white population of early British Jamaica. This article examines the ideological implications of the failure of whites to marry with sufficient regularity to ensure that white population increase would allow Jamaica to become a settler society on the British North American model. It looks, in particular, at the tendency of whites to live in irregular unions, either with other whites or with black or brown concubines, and the effect that such arrangements had on perceptions of white Jamaicans as especially immoral. It connects these views with other discourses on settler societies in which improvement and frequent marriage were linked.     

An Impulse Response Function for Corporate Taxes in Barbados

For many years, corporate taxes have been an important source of Government revenue in Barbados. The variables, namely, rate of corporate tax, real income and the rate of interest were selected when applying an impulse response function to the model for corporate taxes. The function revealed the following results after respective new equilibria were attained: First, corporate taxes would contract if the rate of corporate tax had experienced an upward shock. Second, corporate tax inflows would rise sharply from an upward shock to real income. Finally, an upward shock to the rate of interest would result in a steep contraction in corporate taxes.     

Towards a Post-Structuralist Development Ethics? Alterity or the same?

The validity of development has been cast into doubt by postmodern critiques that have highlighted its failings. Attempts to rehabilitate the idea of development have brought ethics into play. This paper examines attempts to identify a viable basis for development based on post-structuralist ethical theories developed by analysts such as Levinas and Derrida that privilege the concept of alterity, or respect for the other. This approach is contrasted with Badiou's influential critique of an alterity-based ethics, critically examining his alternative of an ethics of the same. The article concludes by incorporating some of Badiou's insights into a reformulated ethics of alterity.     

Countdown to Ecstasy: development as eschatology

This paper examines the antinomies posed by a consideration of development as eschatology. Development is generally conceived as a grand narrative with humanity progressing inevitably to a redemptive goal, whether this be revolution or Rostovian consumerism. It is eschatological in structure. This opens development theory up to critique. Grand narratives premised on an end of history are open to criticism as utopian and exclusory through setting a limit—they conceive of a redemptive ending of time, but repress those excluded from the vision. However, this eschatological structure may also have a function in the shape of the Derridian conception of ‘the promise’. This concept refers to a need to posit a closure that incorporates a redemptive, Messianic moment, which impels us to pursue the promise of that moment of development. Thus, the eschatological structure of development incorporates a risk of utopianism/exclusory violence—but we need the Messianic moment in order to conceptualise the goal that drives us to strive for progress.     

A note on the current and capital accounts compilation of Barbados under the fourth and fifth IMF editions

Measurement of external positions of member countries has been a main feature of International Monetary Fund (IMF) operations since inception. A first step towards an understanding of current and capital account movements is the understanding of the IMF Manuals. The first edition was used as a guideline for Balance of Payments (BOP) compilers and published in 1948. However since then, important changes had occurred in the manner in which international transactions were conducted. This led to the publication of the second edition in the 1950's, the third edition in 1961 and the fourth edition in 1977. Since that last publication, liberalization of financial markets, innovations in the creation and packaging of financial instruments and new approaches to the restructuring of external debt have all taken place. As a result, the fifth edition was introduced and published in 1993 although not implemented by Barbados until two years later.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the fourth edition with the new edition with respect to the composition and structure of the current and capital accounts. It also intends to show what the changes would have implied for Barbados’ BOP statistics from 1979 until 1994 and how the statistics could impact on the future.