A political economy for social movements and revolution: popular media access,power and cultural hegemony

Abstract

One key marker of mass social movements transitioning to participatory democratic governance is popular media access. This essay argues that democratic media access by public constituencies becomes a site for constructing social revolution and simultaneously a manifest empirical measure of the extent of democratic participation in the production, distribution, and use of communication with new cultural possibilities. The participatory production practices (with citizens producing and hosting their own programs) and the democratic content (of oral histories, local issues, critiques of government and business, and everyday vernacular) reflect the hegemony of emerging ‘Bolivarian’ twenty-first century socialism expressed as popular participation in media production. Bolstered by constitutional changes and public funding, popular social movements of civil society, indigenous, women, and working class organizations have gained revolutionary ground by securing in practice the right of media production. Findings indicate that public and community media (that move beyond alternative sites of local expression and concerns) provide a startling revolutionary contrast to the commercial media operations in every nation. Popular media constructions suggest a new radically democratic cultural hegemony based on human solidarity with collective, participatory decision-making and cooperation offering real possibilities and experiences for increased equality and social justice.     

Conservatives Divided: Defending Rhodesia Against Malcolm Fraser 1976-1978

Understanding the conflict between pro- and anti-Rhodesian government parliamentarians is the only way to understand how and why Australia struggled to formulate a coherent Rhodesia policy. It reveals the extent to which Malcolm Fraser had to struggle against his own party in this matter and adds needed nuance to this period. Fraser's opinion that Rhodesia was a racist and immoral project caused a schism in the Coalition parties. Despite Fraser's open antipathy towards Rhodesia, Rhodesia's interests in Australia were largely safeguarded. This reflects the reality that the Liberal and National Country Parties contained sizeable blocs of parliamentarians who openly and publicly saw Rhodesia as a fraternal country, not a dangerous pariah. They did not hold these beliefs passively and actively sought to resist any moves made by Fraser to damage Rhodesia and its interests. By following the development of Fraser's Rhodesia policy in the late 1970s the power of Rhodesia's allies in the Australian parliament becomes clear. Opposing Rhodesia was touted by Fraser as one of the greatest achievements of his government, yet the issue was divisive and caused bitter infighting.     

Punishment's Legal Templates: A Theory of Formal Penal Change

The well‐known gap between law on the books and law in action often casts doubt on the significance of changes to law on the books. For example, the rise and fall of penal technologies have long been considered significant indicators of penal change in socio‐historical analyses of punishment. Recent research, however, has challenged the significance of apparently large‐scale penal change of this kind. This article clarifies the significance of penal technologies' rise and fall by offering an alternative account of formal penal change, introducing the analytical concept of “legal templates,” structural models of legal activity (e.g., punishment) available for authorization and replication across multiple jurisdictions. Analyzing punishment's templates explains how new penal technologies can be important harbingers of change, even when they fail to revolutionize penal practice and are not caused by a widespread ideological shift. This article locates the significance of punishment's legal templates in their constitutive power—their ability, over the long term, to shape cognitive‐cultural expectations about what punishment is or should be. This power appears only when the template is widely adopted by a plurality of jurisdictions, thereby becoming institutionalized. Ultimately, these institutionalized templates define the scope of future punishment.     

Are Overlapping Local Governments Competing With Each Other When Issuing Debt?

Local public services are produced through various overlapping jurisdictions. This study examines how the issuance of municipal general obligation bonds is affected by the tax policies of overlapping local governments. The findings challenge the hypothesis that the shared tax base would be overused in a common-pool resource scenario. Instead, the empirical results show that the issuance of general obligation bonds is more likely in jurisdictions where counties and school districts make more intensive use of the property tax. These findings highlight the importance of the signals local governments receive from their overlapping neighbors regarding voters’ demand for additional public spending.     

Testing the Universality of the Gender Equality–Peace Thesis: The Influence of Increased Gender Equality on Terrorism in Turkey

Gender inequality has been empirically linked to the incidence of terrorism, as a motivator for women’s involvement in terrorism, and political and social violence more generally. Although these studies demonstrate that advances in gender equality on average decrease terrorism, it is unclear how these influences translate to individual nations or conflicts. Because Turkey has witnessed consistent but unequal regional advances in gender equality, it provides an ideal setting to examine how these developments have influenced terrorist violence. Analyzing data from Turkey’s 81 provinces from 2000–2013, this study finds important regional differences in the influence of gender equality on terrorism.     

How governments strategically time welfare state reform legislation: empirical evidence from five European countries

Abstract

Building on studies on the political business cycle, the literature on welfare state retrenchment has argued that governments which cut the welfare state try to avoid blame by implementing painful measures in the beginning of the mandate and expanding benefits as elections approach. In contrast to this linear relationship, this article argues that governments often feel pressured to fulfil (mostly expansionary) campaign promises during the first months in office. Consequently, cutting right away is not what should be expected. Instead, a more nuanced, U-shaped timing trajectory is probable with a period in the beginning characterised by both cuts and fulfilment of expansionary pledges, followed by a period of cutbacks, and finally an expansive phase towards the end of a mandate. This argument is tested on our new original dataset of legislative changes in five European countries – Britain, Denmark, Finland, France and Germany – during the last four decades.