Labor strategies and agribusiness counterstrike during the Bracero Era: the peculiar case of the National Farm Labor Union, 1946–1952

This article investigates the responses of the political establishment and the agro-industry to the militant actions of the National Farm Labor Union (NFLU) from 1946 until 1952. It confirms the well-known hypothesis that the maintenance of the bracero program affected the efforts to form agricultural unions in California, but it also underlines strategies and the roles played by the agro-industry, California Farm Placement Service and other federal instances of government in the weakening of agricultural unionization. It argues that the agricultural unions’ weakness in California throughout this period can be attributed to the needs of the food-processing industry and the latter’s special relationship with the political establishment. I demonstrate that while the failure to consolidate agricultural unions in California during the postwar years, is not attributable to the strategies adopted by the NFLU per se, it is closely related to a lack of support from the major political players and to the privileged relationship they built up with Mexican officials. The influence of some public servants, political representatives and agribusiness lobbyists has been crucial for the continuation of the bracero program and has also obstructed the NFLU to organize efficiently strikes and boycotts.     

Gender and the experiences of local elected members – a focus on Wales

This article explores issue of gender in relation to the experiences of local elected members. Member experiences are important as this may be one of the factors which lie behind the under-representation of women in political life at all levels. This article is focused on Wales where women make up 26% of local councillors, hold only 20% of cabinet positions and occupy one Leader position. This article reports on the views of male and female councillors from a number of Welsh authorities who, when interviewed, identified very different experiences of elected office. Central to their experiences are their routes into office, personal circumstances and societal influences. The existence of a dominant male political culture is evident and this may have an impact on the participation of women in local political life.     

Contested Statelessness in Sabah,Malaysia: Irregularity and the Politics of Recognition

ABSTRACT

UNHCR's current #IBelong campaign presents stateless people as uniquely excluded, emphasizing the need for legal solutions to their situation. Such approaches to statelessness sidestep both the complexities of lived experience and the wider politics of state recognition. In response, this article utilizes ethnographic data from Sabah, Malaysia, and theorizations of the gray areas between citizenship and statelessness to argue for the fundamental connection between statelessness and irregularity. Such a connection is central to understanding both the everyday lives of potentially stateless people and Sabah's public discourse on statelessness as a mirage obscuring the problems of “illegals” and “street children.”     

Rural-urban migration in Vietnam and China: gendered householding,production of space and the state

The transition from state socialism to market socialism in Vietnam and China has been characterized by unprecedented rural-urban migration. We argue that this migration is integral rather than incidental to the gendered reproduction of state and society. A review of the emerging literature on trans-local householding explores the process whereby the reflexive engagement of the state and the household remakes rural-urban differentiation in ways that are deeply gendered and classed. As such, state regulation and control of migrants are part of a process of reconfiguring state-society relations in which the production of space and the symbolic valuation of ruralness and urbanness have become a central trope.     

Awakening the Sleeping Giant in Greece and Portugal? Elites' and Voters' Attitudes towards EU Integration in Difficult Economic Times

This article explores the extent to which the economic crisis and political responses of the European Union (EU) to austerity policies have contributed to Euroscepticism in Greece and Portugal. We analyse attitudes towards the EU at both voter and elite levels using fresh and innovative data, and by comparing them with data from surveys conducted before the crisis we show assessments of austerity and the bailouts are feeding elite and voter Euroscepticism. In both countries there are signs of a crisis of representation with greater voter–elite incongruence in the representation of EU issues than before the bailout.     

Fimag: The United Kingdom Disaster Victim/Forensic Identification Imaging System

Abstract:  Imaging is an integral diagnostic tool in mass fatality investigations undertaken traditionally by plain X-rays, fluoroscopy, and dental radiography. However, little attention has been given to appropriate image reporting, secure data transfer and storage particularly in relation to the need to meet stringent judicial requirements. Notwithstanding these limitations, it is the risk associated with the safe handling and investigation of contaminated fatalities which is providing new challenges for mass fatality radiological imaging. Mobile multi-slice computed tomography is an alternative to these traditional modalities as it provides a greater diagnostic yield and an opportunity to address the requirements of the criminal justice system. We present a new national disaster victim/forensic identification imaging system—Fimag—which is applicable for both contaminated and non-contaminated mass fatality imaging and addresses the issues of judicial reporting. We suggest this system opens a new era in radiological diagnostics for mass fatalities.     

The politics of performance evaluation: Independent evaluation at the International Monetary Fund

How has the Fund institutionalized independent evaluation as a means of assessing its performance? This paper process-traces the contentious creation of the Fund’s Independent Evaluation Office (IEO). I use primary interviews conducted at the Fund headquarters in 2008–2010 and Fund archive documents dating back to the beginning of the debate over independent evaluation in 1992 to analyze the interaction of internal and external actors and interests that led finally to the creation of the IEO in 2001. I then comment on the ‘performance of the performance evaluator.’ I draw from a recent external evaluation of the IEO (Lissakers et al. 2006), as well as interviews and secondary sources, to identify enduring contestation over the IEO’s function and scope of authority and to discern how this has affected the ability of the IEO to inform and shape the Fund’s process and outcome performance. To this end, I discuss four issues currently facing the IEO: the need to establish both actual and perceived independence, the problems of ambiguous or non-existent metrics for assessing Fund performance, difficulties in balancing candor of evaluation reports with credibility in the eyes of multiple constituencies, and the challenges of fostering a culture of learning in the Fund.     

Alternatives to the constitution of Cádiz in New Spain: republicanism and the insurgent constitutional decree of Apatzingán (1814)

This article compares the Decreto Constitucional para la libertad de la América Mexicana, published in Apatzingán by the insurgents of New Spain in 1814, with the 1812 Constitution of Cádiz which established a constitutional monarchy in the Spanish Empire. It argues that the Decreto Constitucional cannot be understood as simply a product of Hispanic political thought and a reflection of the Cádiz text. Rather, it contends that the decree published in Apatzingán represents an alternative republican response to the dissolution of the Spanish monarchy. This alternate constitutional settlement drew on the debate of constitutional ideas that had taken place in New Spain since 1808 and was grounded in many of the same ideas as those present in the Pennsylvanian Constitution of 1776 and the first French republican constitutions of 1793 and 1795.