‘Going beyond the Troika’: Power and discourse in Portuguese austerity politics

This article analyses the margin of manoeuvre of Portuguese executives after the onset of the sovereign debt crisis in 2010–2015. To obtain a full understanding of what happened behind the closed doors of international meetings, different types of data are triangulated: face‐to‐face interviews; investigations by journalists; and International Monetary Fund and European Union official documents. The findings are compared to the public discourse of Prime Ministers José Sócrates and Pedro Passos‐Coelho. It is shown that while the sovereign debt crisis and the bail‐out limited the executive's autonomy, they also made them stronger in relation to other domestic actors. The perceived need for ‘credibility’ in order to avoid a ‘negative’ reaction from the markets – later associated with the conditions of the bail‐out – concurrently gave the executives a legitimate justification to concentrate power in their hands and a strong argument to counter the opponents of their proposed reforms. Consequently, when Portuguese ministers favoured policies that were in congruence with those supported by international actors, they were able to use the crisis to advance their own agenda. Disagreement with Troika representatives implied the start of a negotiation process between the ministers and international lenders, the final outcome of which depended on the actors’ bargaining powers. These strategies, it is argued, constitute a tactic of depoliticisation in which both the material constraints and the discourse used to frame them are employed to construct imperatives around a narrow selection of policy alternatives.     

Lessons Learned

Amonth before the PRC 60th anniversary celebrations in Beijing, I traveled back to the US as part of a group fromthe Chinese media to meet with former American president George H.W. Bush, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Sino-U.S. diplomatic ties. The interview he granted us was for Chinese television and part of a larger series featuring various individuals recounting developments in New China that took place on their watch. Mr. Bush and the PRC have done more than just cross paths over the last 60 years. His particular story began back in the early 1970s when then President Nixon took notice of a young congressman from the State of Texas.     

Kosher Made in China？--China takes on the specialty food market

THERE is an old joke that hints at the understanding two cultures joined through food have for each other： ＂If, accordingto the Jewish calendar, the year is 5770, and, according to the Chinese calendar, the year is 4707, what did the Jews eat on Sundays for those first 1,063 years？＂     

Public Participation in Environmental Regulatory Conflicts: Treading Through the Possibilities and Pitfalls*

Based on two years of qualitative field work, this paper examines public participation in environmental regulatory disputes. Drawing on political economy critiques of environmentalism, we argue that regulation is both a political arena and a legal process that is about responsivity, competition, and bargaining. A combination of case study and Boolean algebra techniques are used to refine and apply the conceptualization. Five primary factors are identified which mediate citizens' participation: (I) information networks, (2) social resources, (3) cooperative linkages, (4) the ability to sustain linkages and levels of resource mobilization over time, and (5) agendas which fit within the narrow constitutive norms of a particular regulatory community.     

Much of Politics Is Still Local: Multi‐State Lobbying in State Interest Communities

Abstract We explore the nationalization of state lobbying communities by examining all lobbying registrations held by organizations in the 50 states in 1997, with special attention given to the frequency of multi‐state registrations. Following discussion of the meanings and sources of nationalization among state interest communities, we develop and analyze several measures of the level of localism, examining what factors drive variation in multiple state registrations across group types and states. Finally, we discuss the substantive and measurement implications of the nationalization of state interest communities. Our findings identify an interesting paradox of interest representation before state legislatures: although lobbying responses and techniques may have become more nationalized, the composition of state interest communities remains predominantly local.