Economic conditions and punishment in Postbellum Georgia

This paper examines the relationship between economic conditions and incarceration in Georgia between 1868 and 1936. Time-series analysis provides evidence that declining cotton prices increased the rate at which both black and white males were incarcerated. Changes in cotton production, declines in racial economic inequality, and demographic shifts also affected incarceration rates. Each had quite different implications for black and white punishment, however. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for research on punishment in general and Southern punishment in particular.     

Monetary mismanagement and inadvertent democratization in technocratic Mexico

Conclusion The interplay between political and economic reform in Mexico has atken a path not fully predicted by neomodernization theorists or their critics. The Mexican events during these last few years demostrate that economic growth and market reform are not necessarily correlated neatly with the advance of democratic practices, During the Salinas and Zadillo administartions, political opening was not the “ultimate consequence of economic opening” as two analysts of Mexican economics and politics argued several years ago.⁵⁶ It was not the case that an expansion of individual initiative and greater economic choice accompanying market opening led to the accelaration of democratic reforms in Mexico. Rather, limited democratic reforms were offered as the price of public asquiescence to the economic pain associated with Mexico’s recent cycle of economic crisis and reform. The gradual expansion of democracy in Mexico was not the consequence of market reforms but instead was the mechanism enabled the implementation of these reforms. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at Southern Methodist University conference on the Economic and Political Challenges of Market Reform in Latin America, Dallas, TX, October 1997 and the XXI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Chicago, IL, 24–26 September 1998. The author would like to thank the participants of the SMU conference and Philip Oxhom for their comments.     

The Evolving Right to Travel: Saenz v. Roe

Although the 1996 federal welfare-reform law shifted more authorityfor welfare policy to the states-including authority to providelower benefits to new state-residents than to longer term residents-theU. S. Supreme Court's decision in Saenz v. Roe delineates alimit on that authority, namely, that states cannot discriminateagainst citizens based on their length of in-state residency.The Court's reliance on the Fourteenth Amendment's privilegesor immunities clause in Saenz, while surprising after its longdormancy, is not a departure from prior precedent. What remainsto be seen is whether states will attempt to avoid the decision'simplications by adopting new variations on residency laws, andwhether the revival of the privileges or immunities clause willlead to a rearticulalion of individual civil rights, based ona new understanding of national citizenship.     

'No! I'm Not a Refugee!' The Poetics of Be-Longing among Young Oromos in Toronto

This paper presents some findings from an empirical study carriedout with young Oromos living in Toronto. To capture the complexitiesof negotiating be-longing, the paper offers dispersal–affinity—anew conceptual framework empirically grounded in an innovativemethodological design. Using participants' narratives in theempirical material, the paper contests the dualism created betweenessentialist and constructionist perspectives. It employs dispersal–affinityto explore participants' understandings of ‘the refugee’and the wider processes of refugeeization and refugee be-longing.Findings suggest that be-longing is a project of selfhood thatis both fixed and constantly shifting. It is argued that be-longingis constructed from the same movements of selfhood within andthrough social relationships. Young Oromos employ both essentialistand constructionist discourses to weave multiple layers of fixedand mobile be-longing. Implications for refugee studies arediscussed wherein dispersal–affinity is offered to criticallyengage the recent debate on ‘deceit and trickery’among refugees.