The Effects of Capital Mobility, Trade Openness, and Democracy on Social Spending in Latin America, 1980–1999

Empirical studies measuring the impact of globalization on social spending have appeared recently in leading journals. This study seeks to improve upon previous work by (1) employing a more sophisticated and comprehensive measure of financial openness; (2) using a more accurate measure of trade openness based on purchasing power parities; and (3) relying on social spending data that are more complete than those used by previous studies on Latin America. Our estimates suggest that several empirical patterns reported in previous work deserve a second look. We find that trade openness has a positive association with education and social security expenditures, that financial openness does not constrain government outlays for social programs, and that democracy has a strong positive association with social spending, particularly on items that bolster human capital formation.     

Understanding rural resistance: contemporary mobilization in the Brazilian countryside

Contradictions between impressive levels of economic growth and the persistence of poverty and inequality are perhaps nowhere more evident than in rural Brazil. While Brazil might appear to be an example of the potential harmony between large-scale, export-oriented agribusiness and small-scale family farming, high levels of rural resistance contradict this vision. In this introductory paper, we synthesize the literature on agrarian resistance in Brazil and situate recent struggles in Brazil within the Latin American context more broadly. We highlight seven key characteristics of contemporary Latin American resistance, which include: the growth of international networks, the changing structure of state–society collaboration, the deepening of territorial claims, the importance of autonomy, the development of alternative economies, continued opposition to dispossession, and struggles over the meaning of nature. We argue that by analyzing rural mobilization in Brazil, this collection offers a range of insights relevant to rural contention globally. Each contribution in this collection increases our understanding of alternative agricultural production, large-scale development projects, education, race and political parties in the contemporary agrarian context.     

Parents, Friends, and Romantic Partners: Enmeshment in Deviant Networks and Adolescent Delinquency Involvement

Adolescent networks include parents, friends, and romantic partners, but research on the social learning mechanisms related to delinquency has not typically examined the characteristics of all three domains simultaneously. Analyses draw on data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (n = 957), and our analytic sample contains 51% male and 49% female as well as 69% white, 24% African-American, and 7% Latino respondents. Parents,’ peers,’ and partners’ deviance are each related to respondents’ delinquency, and affiliation with a greater number of deviant networks is associated with higher self-reported involvement. Analyses that consider enmeshment type indicate that those with both above average romantic partner and friend delinquency report especially high levels of self-reported involvement. In all comparisons, adolescents with deviant romantic partners are more delinquent than those youths with more prosocial partners, regardless of friends’ and parents’ behavior. Findings highlight the importance of capturing the adolescent’s entire network of affiliations, rather than viewing these in isolation, and suggest the need for additional research on romantic partner influences on delinquent behavior and other adolescent outcomes.

Emancipatory rural politics: confronting authoritarian populism

A new political moment is underway. Although there are significant differences in how this is constituted in different places, one manifestation of the new moment is the rise of distinct forms of authoritarian populism. In this opening paper of the JPS Forum series on ‘Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World’, we explore the relationship between these new forms of politics and rural areas around the world. We ask how rural transformations have contributed to deepening regressive national politics, and how rural areas shape and are shaped by these politics. We propose a global agenda for research, debate and action, which we call the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI, www.iss.nl/erpi). This centres on understanding the contemporary conjuncture, working to confront authoritarian populism through the analysis of and support for alternatives.     

Making the Newest Citizens: Achieving Universal Birth Registration in Contemporary Brazil

Identity documentation is essential to secure the rights, benefits, and services that modern states provide. Historically, significant numbers of poor Brazilians lacked core documents, beginning with a birth certificate. In recent years the government has conducted a campaign to rectify this situation. We explore why the state left so many Brazilians without a birth certificate previously and why it became intent on registering all births, as reflected in recent efforts to facilitate the process. Key in this regard is the movement from a social policy orientation that excluded poor Brazilians in the informal sector to one aimed at including them.     

Schönheitschirurgie-Patientinnen als „ugly dopes“? Zur Medialität der Entscheidungsfindung für plastisch-chirurgische Eingriffe

The mass media’s view on the current practices of aesthetic surgery is typically negotiated in the social sciences within the realm of ideology critique: The claim is that the mass media culture industry encourages particularly female consumers to undergo surgical interventions in order to optimize their body and thus instructs them to better market themselves (their entrepreneurial self). Furthermore, this process is not sufficiently reflected by the patients; according to the discourse in social science, they mutate to “ugly dopes” who are not truly aware of the conditions to which their decision for physical optimization is subject. This paper proposes a different reading of the mediality of plastic surgery, based on an empirical analysis of interviews with plastic surgery patients. The media certainly play a crucial role as carriers of format templates for body images, but they also are being translated in particular practical contexts. There is no continuum between the body images that are displayed by the media and their individual acquirement. The medial format templates must be actively incorporated into the conflictual everyday contexts of decision making. The effect of the media is therefore accounted for by their connectivity to life-world and has a permanent, continuous irritation as a result, caused by body images.