The Mass Media as Sentinel: Why Bad News About Issues is Good News for Participation

This article argues that negative news coverage of politically relevant social issues stimulates political participation by shaping citizen awareness of collective problems and interest in politics. By drawing citizen attention to social problems that government may attend to, the press acts as a sentinel for the mass public, cuing them to periods when participation is more important. Drawing on an analysis of the 1974 National Election Study in combination with the Center for Political Studies' content analysis of newspapers, I find evidence that bad news about issues is good news for participation.     

Party Strategies and Administrative-Territorial Reforms in Poland

How well do electoral competition, ideological divides and territory-based cleavages explain the strategies of administrative-territorial reform chosen by political parties in Poland? The role of these logics is explored in the creation of regions and regional self-governments (1999), local electoral reform (2002), rules of adopting regional development projects (2006) and the creation of metropolitan regions (2008). The paper provides evidence supporting the significance of vote- and office-seeking strategies, the rise of a national conservative opposition to decentralisation associated with the weakening of the post-communist divide, and parties representing distinct eastern and western constituencies. Since its creation, subnational government has become more dominated by state-wide parties and has stabilised the emerging bloc party system on the central level.     

Comment on William M. Rohe and Rachel G. Bratt's “failures,downsizings, and mergers among community development corporations”: Defending community development corporations or defending communities?

Abstract

An overemphasis on preserving community development corporations (CDCs) may confuse the ends with the means. The end is empowered, self‐sustaining communities of place and identity. CDCs are one means of trying to get there, and there are many communities in which CDCs are helpful, and, indeed, empowering. However, the trends we are seeing—failures, downsizings, and mergers—may tell us that it is time to look for alternatives to CDCs.

If we truly care about poor communities, those of us with the resources to find the best community development models should be searching for them. We do not have good data to show whether community organizing is a better strategy than CDCs for achieving community development, but it is a strategy that merits exploration.     

Spaces for community involvement: Processes of disciplining and appropriation

Over the past two decades, Mexican society, economics and culture have undergone a dramatic set of transformations. Accordingly, certain historical narratives that underpinned Mexican national identity formation throughout the 20th century have begun to unravel. As a result of this process, some scholars posit that a ‘post-national’ political culture is emerging in Mexico. This paper seeks to examine these trends through a critical examination of the narratives around national identity found in interviews conducted in Mexico in 2000. As a theoretical frame, this paper begins by examining the concept of post-nationalism. It then turns to an overview of 20th-century national formation in Mexico to provide a contextual basis for the interpreting the interview excerpts. The resulting analysis demonstrates the co-presence of national and post-national narratives in Mexico, both of which display hegemonic and subaltern dimensions. The particular discursive contours of these narratives have roots, this paper argues, in the contemporary intersection of state authoritarianism and neo-liberal globalisation.     

Health Care Reform in China: An Analysis of Development Trends and Lack of Implementation

ABSTRACT

China's health care system, under the direction of the central government, has undergone continuous reform in recent decades. Many problems have been encountered, with successive measures attempting to deal with shortcomings and failings of previous reforms. To what extent can implementation failures account for the recurring problems, and what explains these failures? The analysis adopts the theoretical lens of structural-instrumental and cultural-institutional perspectives, respectively, and draws also on recent developments in implementation theory. The historical trajectory of health reform is described, with particular reference to why health policies formulated by the central government during different periods repeatedly failed to achieve their objectives. The empirical analysis finds that structural factors, such as departmentalism and regional separation resulting in complex, overlapping horizontal and vertical actor patterns, have been a primary reason for implementation failures and suggests that they will continue to dog future reform efforts.