Law and Disorder: The Brazilian Landless Farmworkers' Movement

Abstract — The Brazilian Landless Farmworkers' Movement (MST) occupies idle farmland and demands that it be expropriated under the terms of Brazil's agrarian reform law. The MST uses illegal tactics in the field to force the government's hand and at the same time asserts its legitimacy with legalism and invocation of public sentiment in favor of land reform. It confronts repression promoted by the landowning class and increasingly from the state itself. Through the combination of militant and legal tactics it has won expropriation of many farms and turned them into successful agricultural enterprises.     

Economic Realities in U.S.-China Relations

ECONOMIC relations between China and the United States formed a central part of discussions during Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to the U.S. Analysis of economic fundamentals shows that it is possible in principle to resolve this aspect of the international situation to mutual benefit.     

Why China’s Economy Will Grow Strongly in 2012

THE start of 2012 is a suitable moment to look at China’s economic prospects for the New Year. The overall outlook is clear-China’s economy will continue to grow strongly,remaining the world’s fastest growing major economy and outperforming Western pessimists’ predictions.     

China Rightto Set Lower Growth Target

THE reduction of China’s 2012 growth target to 7.5 percent from the eight percent of recent years headlined the international media coverage of PremierWen Jiabao’s report to the National People’s Congress. The announcement was greeted with fallson international stock markets - simultaneously reflecting China’s economic weight and a misanalysis by international markets. But the lowered target,which is justified by the global economic situation,is only the tip of the iceberg of complex short- and long-term challenges China is facing in its economic policy.     

Editorial

Today the United States faces an unpredictable security environment characterized by regional powers and non-state actors, such as vast terrorist networks, who wield increasingly lethal weapons. To address this security environment, the George W. Bush administration has endorsed the ‘transformation’ of US military forces. This article focuses on one transformational goal, namely the development of long-range precision strike capabilities, and examines the feasibility and desirability of using existing ballistic missiles as conventional global strike assets. While some of the futuristic and stealthy long-range technologies currently touted by defense planners might fulfill their promise and could someday be deployed, conventional ballistic missiles could offer an efficient global strike capability much sooner, one that would complement other existing global strike capabilities as research and development on more futuristic platforms continues. Thus, by combining existing capabilities, advanced technologies and new, flexible concepts of operations, the United States can deliver tomorrow's capability today.     

China Is Winning the New Global Industrial Contest

THE international financial crisis brought about a radical change in the structure of international industrial competition.That China is winning the new industrial race is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the pattern of industrial expansion and contraction in the major industrial centers over the five years since the beginning of the 2008 international financial crisis. China’s position among industrial centers isn’t inherently obvious from a glance at yearly data.To fully gauge changes in the industrial competition landscape,it’s best to look longerterm.Below,the first chart shows changes in     

REGIONAL GOVERNANCE IN ENGLAND: A CHANGING ROLE FOR THE GOVERNMENT’S REGIONAL OFFICES?

Debates about the appropriate territorial scales of government to meet the challenges of economic, political and social change have gained momentum in Western Europe in recent years. In the UK, political mobilization has transformed constitutional arrangements in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. By contrast, in the English regions, a less radical approach has been adopted, but the outcome has been a strengthening of the institutions of regional governance. A key feature has been the enhanced responsibilities of the Government Offices for the Regions, which have been encouraged to build on their traditional administrative functions and adopt a more strategic role. This article explores the Offices’ contribution to regional and local governance. Our central argument is that although increasingly expected to act as a bridgehead between national and sub‐national government and a focus for regional policy coordination, their potential role in filling the missing gap in English regional governance has not yet been fully grasped.