Religion and Political Action in Postcommunist Europe

Patterns of political identification in postcommunist Europe are still weakly formed. The churches, however, command high levels of confidence, in sharp contrast to political parties. Representative surveys in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ukraine in late 1997 and early 1998 indicate high levels of confidence in the churches in three of these nations, but not in the Czech Republic for reasons that appear connected to its forced conversion to Catholicism. The religious, as in other countries, are disproportionately female, but attenders in postcommunist Europe are not more likely to be elderly or resident in the countryside. There was little difference between church attenders and national populations in attitudes to the market, NATO membership, or the current government; there were rather larger differences between the countries, with Bulgarians the most favourable to the market, NATO and pro-market parties, and Ukrainians the least favourable. A multiple regression analysis found that church attendance of itself had little effect on attitudes or party preferences in either the Czech Republic or Slovakia; it did, however, increase support for the market, for joining NATO and for pro-market parties in Bulgaria and Ukraine. The relatively modest effects of overt religiosity are likely to be helpful to the formation of a democratic political culture, although account must also be taken of a strong association between the Muslim minorities in these countries and the political parties that seek to represent their interests.     

Green and Grey: Water Justice,Criminalization, and Resistance

Since its initial proposal in the 1990s, ‘green criminology’ has focused on environmental crimes and harms affecting non-human and human life, ecosystems, and the planet as a whole. Describing global trends toward privatization of water supply systems and the criminalization of several water conservation activities and tactics, this paper employs theoretical perspectives offered by green, cultural, and critical criminologies, focusing on overt resistance to water privatization and oppressive regulations governing rainwater storage and residential water recycling. Taking a critical theoretical perspective, this paper examines water access and autonomy, individuals and groups openly resisting the criminalization of household water reuse and storage, and the cultural significance of water. This paper concludes with an exploration of the potential benefits of a green cultural criminology.     

‘Stepping back and moving in’: the role of the state in the contemporary food regime

In recent years, a number of middle-income countries and influential multilateral institutions have instigated actions that frame food system governance around social protection and rights. These state-centered mobilizations raise fundamental questions about how to portray the global politics of food. Since the late 1980s, analysts have largely concurred that US hegemony in the global politics of food has given way to diverse and volatile neo-liberalist and corporate-led food system governance. However, what should we make of a situation where state and supra-state actors are flexing their powers to reshape food systems in line with rights-based models? Should this be understood as reflexes which aim to preserve national order, at a time of intensified food and nutrition insecurities? Or, does it lay the foundations of a re-governed system which curbs and molds a corporate-led politics of food within frameworks of justice? This contribution responds to these questions by tracing the evolution of social protection and rights-based approaches to the politics of food at the multilateral level and in two influential jurisdictions (India and South Africa). We argue that these initiatives underline a robust and continuing role of state power in global food politics, albeit in a novel fashion compared to previous entanglements.     

The Influence of Jurisdiction Size and Sale Type on Municipal Bond Interest Rates: An Empirical Analysis

The authors use data on municipal bond sales in Oregon from 1994 to 1997 to explore whether population (as a proxy for financial-management capacity) and sale type (competitive or negotiated sale) influence interest rates. They find that smaller jurisdictions pay an interest cost penalty in the municipal bond market, and that competitive sales result in significantly lower interest rates compared to negotiated sales. The authors suggest that measures to enhance the financial-management capacity of small governments are warranted and that state laws requiring justification for negotiated sales are appropriate.     

The diffusion of mediated state public affairs information

• The strength of a democracy rests with having an informed public. The relatively recent advent of C‐Span at the national level and the state‐based equivalents such as CT‐N in Connecticut now provide the most thorough and unbiased coverage of public affairs information that has ever been disseminated in the U.S. The importance of these networks rests with the word of mouth influence that the smaller, demographically diverse, opinion leader audience for these stations have on the rest of society. A series of surveys of CT‐N viewers over three years provides a good picture of what their opinion leader audience looks like and how it is evolving. This information may be useful for other public affairs television networks.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.