Under development and modes of production: A reply to Nicos Mouzelis

What follows is a reply to a number of points raised by Nicos Mouzelis in his review of my book, From Modernisation to Modes of Production: A Critique of the Sociologies of Development and Underdevelopment (Macmillan 1979, £4.95 paper) in The Journal of Peasant Studies, Volume 7, No. 3, April 1980. I focus on Mouzelis’ arguments that my framework for analysing Third World societies is ideological and reductionist. I try to show how the analysis put forward in my book can be used to analyse what for me is the central problem of ‘development ‘ ‐ namely the relations between the restricted and uneven capitalist development characteristic of Third World societies, their class structures, forms of state and development strategy. I also examine the relevance of Mouzelis's alternative ‐ of inter‐relating structuralist and action perspectives ‐ and suggest that the framework put forward in my work can deal more adequately with the issues raised by Mouzelis in his review. I agree with Mouzelis that the most fruitful debates in the Sociology of Development currently centre on the relevance of the Marxist approach, and view my comments here as part of this wide‐ranging, continuing debate, of which my work forms a part.     

Mass destruction

How international organizations influence the domestic politics and foreign policies of states is often ignored in the study of international cooperation. This article develops an approach focusing on how states may influence the international agenda, which then shapes the position‐taking opportunities and constraints politicians face as they try to maintain their domestic political positions. This article is a preliminary exploration of how agenda setting works, what kinds of agenda‐setting strategies are available, and under what conditions agenda setting matters. Aspects of past secessionist crises will be used to clarify the discussion. The interaction between domestic position taking and international agenda setting will then be applied to the current crisis in Yugoslavia to determine why Greece, in particular, has been more influential than one might have expected.     

Racialisation of Immigrants at Work: Labour Mobility and Segmentation of Peruvian Migrants in Chile

This article explores the emergent racialisation of Peruvian migrants as one element conditioning the labour segregation that characterises Peruvian insertion in Chile. We understand racialisation as a process of construction of categories in which both individual and collective actors participate, and whose expression is demonstrated by the differentiation and inequality that affects the racialised group. We tackle the articulation of racial differences among individual actors, both Chilean employers and Peruvian migrant workers, to suggest that the attribution of naturalised characteristics to migrants is related to segregation, mobility, and specific trajectories in the labour market.     

The Arab‐Israeli peace process: A house built on sand?

While the Declaration of Principles agreed between the government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in September 1993 was widely welcomed as the major breakthrough in the seemingly intractable Arab‐Israeli conflict, progress proved to be difficult, uncertain and, at times, bloody. This article places the agreement in the context of previous peace endeavours in an attempt to explain why the apparent early promise proved so difficult to sustain.     

The PDS in the new German party system

The success of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) cannot be explained solely with a rising tide of GDR nostalgia and/or with the efficiency of PDS members as service providers and advocates at the grass‐roots level. We stress the importance of the PDS as the main political representative of a specific socio‐economic and cultural milie in the former GDR. Furthermore, the article traces the evolution of the PDS from a populist voice of protest of the losers of unification to the beginnings of a new political party. As such it defines its identity more as a radical left‐wing party with strong social libertarian characteristics than a traditional socialist party. The party programme and the electorate of the PDS display remarkable similarities to the fundamentalist wing of the West German Greens in the 1980s, although differences as to the origins of the left‐libertarian ideas remain important. While the PDS seems to have strengthened the significance of the new politics agenda in post‐unification Germany, it is still too early to conclude whether this agenda is firmly rooted in the party or whether it is simply a vehicle to electoral success.