Passive revolution in Brazil: struggles over hegemony,religion and development 1964–2007

This article examines transformations of the role of religion in Brazil, focused on two transitions within the national political economy. A Gramscian framework of analysis is used to investigate the shift from import substitution industrialisation to neoliberalism, and the varying role of religion within class struggles in each period. The central argument is that Brazil has moved from a period of ‘passive revolution’ to one of ‘hegemony’, and that the role of religion has changed significantly in this period. The article examines ideas, institutions and social forces, with particular attention to the Landless Workers Movement and its relationship with Liberation Theology.     

The Observer: Good at Observing, Less Good at Influencing?

The 1997 British General Election appeared to show a clear-cut case of the media influencing electoral behaviour. In an attempt to facilitate anti-Conservative tactical voting The Observer published the results of 16 constituency-level opinion polls. The newspaper is frequently seen as influential in determining the outcome in certain seats, where several high-profile members of the then Conservative government were defeated. In fact The Observer appears to have had very little impact in the seats it covered. Higher levels of tactical voting occured in few of these constituencies than in comparable seats elsewhere, and changes in the share of the vote consistent with the paper influencing the outcome are even rarer. In just one of the 16 seats covered by the paper is there prima facie evidence of the claimed effect.     

Spies as Informants: Triangulation and the Interpretation of Elite Interview Data in the Study of the Intelligence and Security Services

This article examines the application of 'triangulation' to the use of elite interviewing in political science, with specific reference to the study of the intelligence and security services. It is argued that the problems involved in using elite interviews in security and intelligence studies are no different than in other areas of political science, but simply more pronounced. It is further argued that these problems can be most effectively addressed in terms of the sociological 'triangulation' strategy of multi-methodological research. The article concludes that this approach is, moreover, generally applicable to political studies at large.     

Constituents’ Responses to Congressional Roll‐Call Voting

Do citizens hold their representatives accountable for policy decisions, as commonly assumed in theories of legislative politics? Previous research has failed to yield clear evidence on this question for two reasons: measurement error arising from noncomparable indicators of legislators’ and constituents’ preferences and potential simultaneity between constituents’ beliefs about and approval of their representatives. Two new national surveys address the measurement problem directly by asking respondents how they would vote and how they think their representatives voted on key roll‐call votes. Using the actual votes, we can, in turn, construct instrumental variables that correct for simultaneity. We find that the American electorate responds strongly to substantive representation. (1) Nearly all respondents have preferences over important bills before Congress. (2) Most constituents hold beliefs about their legislators’ roll‐call votes that reflect both the legislators’ actual behavior and the parties’ policy reputations. (3) Constituents use those beliefs to hold their legislators accountable.     

Looking Forward to Cuts: A Simulation Decision Tool for Cutback Management

This study addresses managerial strategies to adapt public spending in anticipation of fiscal stress. It simulates a cutback to a federal agency, providing a decision tool that applies normative recommendations from the cutback management literature. Using agency data, we develop a menu of options that illustrate how different distributions of budget reductions affect organizational goals. We show five alternatives that consider the political, legal, and fiscal implications of the agency's responses to anticipated budgetary pressure. This simulation demonstrates that public agencies can apply existing data to generate rational and viable strategic plans for weathering fiscal stress.     

Trajectories of International Engagement with State and Local Actors: Evidence from South Sudan

External actors have been engaged in what is now South Sudan from the colonial era through to the present day, providing humanitarian and development assistance and exerting political pressure during and since the second civil war that has helped to protect people, legitimize the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), broker the peace agreements leading to independence, and undergird the new state of South Sudan. After the civil war and especially at independence, many international actors approached South Sudan as a tabula rasa, ready for peace and development; since then, engagement has shifted back to large-scale humanitarian efforts and crisis response. This paper investigates how international actors have engaged with the South Sudanese state and local actors in order to improve access to basic services and build state capacity to deliver those services and provide social protection and livelihood support, what the impacts of such engagement have been, and what aid actors can learn from this history. The paper draws on four years of fieldwork by the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium (SLRC), with a focus on Jonglei State.     

Weighing the “burden of ‘acting white’”: Are there race differences in attitudes toward education?

Recent reports by ethnographic researchers and media sources suggest that many African American students view academic success as a form of “acting white,” and that peer pressure reduces their level of effort and performance. This article analyzes the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 to answer three questions: (1) do blacks experience greater alienation toward school than non-Hispanic whites?; (2) do blacks incur social penalties from their peers for succeeding academically?; and (3) if so, are these “achievement penalties” greater than those for whites? Our analysis suggests the answer to each of the three questions is “apparently not.”     

Allies at War in Afghanistan: Anglo–American Friction over Aerial Poppy Eradication, 2004–2007

From 2004 to 2007, the Anglo–American alliance was at the heart of counter-narcotics policy-making in Afghanistan. Despite agreement on the broader direction of strategy, one issue generated significant diplomatic conflict: aerial eradication. The debate over its introduction was extremely controversial within both the Anglo–American alliance and the wider George W. Bush Administration, pitting the State Department and its Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs against the Pentagon and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Both the Pentagon and British bitterly opposed its introduction fearing it would alienate the rural community and ultimately damage the coalition’s hearts and minds campaign. This analysis provides unique coverage of the fraught policy-making process, paying particular attention to how the British opposed aerial eradication, which included conspiring with the Pentagon in an attempt to defeat the policy. This area of the debate is particularly under-researched, yet is significant as Britain was, after all, the G8 lead nation on counter-narcotics.     

The Karoo and eco-inflections of fracking: preliminary notes on literary imagination

The awareness of the “planet in peril” has never been more acute in a South African context than today, when the imminent extraction of shale gas through the process of hydraulic fracturing (known as “fracking”) in the Karoo has gained traction in the public mind. At least two broad dimensions are involved. The first, based on the logic of petro-modernity and its profligate culture, is framed within a seductive, neoliberal narrative of industrial progress and economic development. The second is framed as outright resistance to the inevitable environmental damage caused by this petro-industrial venture. This study reflects on how literature might intervene in this bipolar debate. Alfred Jackson’s Manna in the Desert, Pauline Smith’s The Little Karoo, and Etienne van Heerden’s “Poison Karoo” employ the trope of water to stimulate an ethical vision. Materially, water is imagined in its apparent scarcity as a feature of the delicate ecosystem of the Karoo, a vast arid landscape of drudgery, where life forms compete for the limited resource. Allegorically, water signifies as safely concealed, subterranean abundance. The Karoo, possessing more than its external features account for, is a place of beauty and mystical presence where life is sustained and preserved. It is within these significations that the environmental and social repercussion of fracking is inflected. Literature can bridge the divide between the narrative of progress and the counternarrative of ecological consciousness by way of highlighting their contradictions. But it also complicates these contradictions by valorizing their ethical potentiality.