Brokers and Key Players in the Internationalization of the FARC

The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—FARC) was originally founded to protect Colombian peasants from harsh landowner policies in exchange for food and supplies. Over time, it has evolved into an internationally connected, narco-trafficking organization that displays little concern for the peasants it once vowed to protect. In recent years, Colombian authorities have become more adept at countering the FARC, forcing it to operate increasingly outside of Colombia. The FARC's transformation from a local insurgency into an internationally connected one is the focus of this article. Using social network analysis it identifies key leaders who are tied to this transformation and discusses implications concerning the FARC's future.     

Compulsory Competitive Tendering And Local Government Financial Services: An Analysis Of The Views Of Local Government Accountants In The North West Of England

Between 1979 and 1997, successive Conservative governments sought to reduce the scale of public sector activity and to introduce competition in the provision of public sector services. A central feature of this policy was the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering (CCT). CCT was initially confined to blue collar services but, by means of the Local Government Act 1992, it was extended to white collar, professional services, including financial services. However, though potentially extremely significant, the support for and implications of such a policy are issues which have been inadequately researched. Because of this, research has been under-taken into financial services CCT and has included a questionnaire survey of 300 professionally qualified accountants employed in 17 local authorities in the North West of England, drawn from county councils, district councils and metropolitan authorities. The article presents the findings of the survey, with a particular focus on the views of accountants on CCT in general and financial services CCT in particular. In addition, it provides evidence that the CCT process, irrespective of views on CCT and its appropriateness for specific activities, has changed culture and attitudes in the case of local government finance professionals.     

How are we doing? Group-based economic assessments and African American political behavior

Using data from the National Black Election Study, this study tests the importance of group-based economic evaluations in driving African American political behavior.¹ Group-based evaluations powerfully influence presidential approval and vote choice, even controlling for national and personal evaluations and a conception of “linked fate.” More importantly, group-based assessments exert a significant and independent influence on turnout, the central variable in black electoral politics. The results extend and reconsider the implications of group solidarity as a motivator of black political behavior and suggest that a revision of traditional notions of economic voting is in order, at least for African Americans.     

Dorset,Kincardine and peasant crisis: A comment on David Craig

David Craig's paper ‘Novels of Peasant Crisis’ is to be warmly welcomed. But Craig provides no adequate analysis of the peasant crises underlying the novels which he considers. This paper considers one of Craig's novels; Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song. Craig's explanation of this book in terms of depopulation and the destruction of the Kincardine peasantry from outside is seen to be inadequate. Sunset Song is about the crumbling of a peasant mode of production through the working out of internal contradictions within that mode of production. As an introduction to this discussion of Sunset Song Craig's dismissal of the utility of Thomas Hardy's work for the analysis of rural class relations is argued to be distinctly premature.     

Representing the state? School and teacher in post‐Sendero Peru⋆

The school and the teacher give rise to different images and sets of meaning. Locating schools is a technique of government and teachers are supposed to act as mediators between state and society. But teachers are also local intellectuals and have actively engaged in discourses of dissent and challenges to the state. This article explores the changing identity, situation and representation of provincial schoolteachers in post‐conflict Andean Peru. It draws on material from Tarma province to debate the extent to which the former racist “social order”, upheld by school and teacher, has been destabilised and superseded.