Time to scale up cooperation? Trade unions,NGOs, and the international anti‐sweatshop movement

Between 1991 and 2002 the international anti‐sweatshop movement experienced significant growth. A series of interconnecting international networks developed, involving trade unions and NGOs in campaigns to persuade particular transnational corporations (TNCs) to ensure that labour rights are respected in the production of their goods. While the loose, networked form of organisation that characterises the movement has helped it to grow and progress despite its diverse constituency, arguably a lack of coordination has undermined its ability to achieve policy change. There is a need to develop new forms of global cooperation in order to avoid fractures within the movement and the loss of impetus.     

Federalism, the Bush Administration, and the Transformation of American Conservatism

Most recent Republican presidents have proposed signature federalisminitiatives intended to devolve power or sort out federal andstate functions. The Bush administration has not propoundedan explicit federalism policy of this sort, but its approachto federalism can be gleaned from analyzing presidential advocacyof legislation and constitutional amendments, fiscal policies,administrative actions, and judicial policies. What emergesfrom this analysis is an administration that has been surprisinglydismissive of federalism concerns and frequently an agent ofcentralization. In one sense, Bush is merely the latest in astring of presidents who have sacrificed federalism considerationsto specific policy goals when the two have come in conflict.However, the administration's behavior is somewhat surprising,given the president's background as a governor and the factthat he has been the first Republican president to enjoy Republicancontrol of Congress since 1954. Our explanation for the Bushapproach begins with the president's lack of any philosophicalcommitment to federalism and explores the changing status offederalism concerns within conservative ideology. Any explanationfor the Bush approach should account for this shifting politicaldynamic, which has seen Republicans in recent years become increasinglysupportive of exerting federal authority on behalf of theireconomic and social objectives, encouraging Democrats at timesto become more supportive of state authority.     

Political Succession in the Middle East

The following briefs were presented in a workshop on "Political Succession in the Middle East" at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 1, 2001, in San Francisco. Louis J. Cantori, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Augustus Richard Norton, Boston University, were the conveners of the Conference Group on the Middle East, which issued this report.     

Nietzsche, Historiography and Yugoslav Nationalism

In The Use and Abuse of History Friedrich Nietzsche warned of the dangers of separating history from the irrationality of nature and establishing it as a science. Increasingly individualised, spiritually adrift and soulless, Man, he suggests, will become a prisoner of an excess of history imposed upon, and external to, life itself. This article will argue that contained within Nietzsche's polemic, particularly his elaboration of an alternative effective methodology, is a useful framework for the analysis of historiography's construction of the past. The development of nationalist mythologies within the politics of the former Yugoslavia is then discussed in light of this interpretation of Nietzsche's position.