Configuring ‘country ownership’: patterns of donor-recipient relations

Given the proliferation in the number and type of development actors and an expressed desire by donors to engage them in a more meaningful way, this article identifies multiple ways in which ‘country ownership’ is manifested in practice. Through comparative case research, this article examines the involvement of five sets of actors in: problem identification, resource administration, programme design, implementation, and governance. Three donor-recipient relationship patterns emerge: ‘doctor knows best’, ‘empowered patient’, and ‘it takes a village’, each with specific conditions but overall underrepresentation of recipient country actors, suggesting that their involvement could take place more often than currently occurs.

Configurer l'« appropriation par les pays » : schémas des rapports bailleurs de fonds-récipiendaires

Au vu de la prolifération du nombre et des types d'acteurs de développement et du désir exprimé par les bailleurs de fonds d'intervenir de manières plus significatives, cet article identifie des manières multiples dont se manifeste l'« appropriation par les pays » dans la pratique. À travers des recherches comparatives sur des cas particuliers, j'examine le rôle joué par cinq ensembles d'acteurs dans : l'identification des problèmes, l'administration des ressources, la conception des programmes, la mise en ?uvre et la gouvernance. Trois schémas des rapports bailleurs de fonds-récipiendaires se sont dégagés : « le docteur a toujours raison », « le patient autonomisé » et « il faut tout un village », chacun doté de conditions précises, mais avec dans l'ensemble une sous-représentation des acteurs des pays récipiendaires, ce qui suggère que leur participation pourrait avoir lieu plus souvent que ce n'est le cas à l'heure actuelle.

Configurando la “apropiación nacional”: patrones de relaciones entre donantes y destinatarios

Tomando en cuenta la proliferación numérica y el tipo de actores participantes en el desarrollo, así como el deseo expresado por los donantes de relacionarse con éstos de manera más profunda, el presente artículo señala las distintas maneras en que la “apropiación nacional” se manifiesta en la práctica. A través de investigaciones realizadas por medio de comparación de casos, la autora analiza la participación de cinco conjuntos de actores en materia de identificación de problemas, de gestión de recursos, de diseño de programas, de implementación y de gobierno. Identifica tres patrones de relación entre donantes y destinatarios: “el médico lo sabe todo”, “el paciente empoderado” y “hace falta una aldea”, cada uno con sus condicionantes específicos. Sin embargo, en general, los mismos adolecen de la baja representatividad de los actores en el país destinatario, lo cual apunta a que éstos deberían participar con una frecuencia mayor que aquella con la que actualmente lo hacen.

Configurando a “propriedade de país”: modelos de relações de doador-recebedor

Dada a proliferação no número e tipo de agentes de desenvolvimento e uma vontade expressa dos doadores de engajarem-se de maneira mais significativa, este artigo identifica várias maneiras pelas quais a “propriedade de país” é manifestada na prática. Através de pesquisa de caso comparativa, eu examino o envolvimento de cinco conjuntos de agentes: identificação de problema, administração de recursos, montagem de programa, implementação e governança. Três modelos de relação doador-recebedor surgiram: “o doutor sabe mais”, “paciente empoderado” e “é preciso uma aldeia inteira”, cada um com condições específicas, mas no geral com sub-representação de agentes do país recebedor, sugerindo que seu envolvimento poderia ocorrer de maneira mais frequente do que ocorre atualmente.     

Placing sons and daughters in the church: Strategies used by the gentry of Central Catalonia to maintain social status in the 17th and 18th centuries

This study analyses strategies for placing sons and daughters used by Notaries, Doctors of Law and Honorary Citizens of Manresa in the 17th and 18th centuries. Reconstructions of several family trees show that all of the sons, except the heir, went into the church and many of the girls remained single or went into convents. The consistency of this behaviour has led to an interpretation in terms of how these families maintained their social status, given their particular way of gaining access to resources. This study traces the way the younger generations entered the church and how they returned resources to the families they came from. Celibacy excluded many sons and daughters from inheriting the family patrimony and opened the way to combining patrimonies with other families. This happened if the heir had no children and the inheritance went to the eldest daughter married to the heir of another family. Combining patrimonies was one of the strategies used to deal with the problem of declining incomes suffered by these families.     

Civic Networks and Community Resilience in Brazil,Canada, Chile,and Cuba

This article explores the relationship between civil society and community resilience in coastal communities in Brazil, Canada, Chile and Cuba. In understanding the role of social capital in community development, we do not feel sufficient attention has been paid to the subtle micro-dynamics of civil network structure. Using social network analysis, we explore the link between community cohesion and resilience. Attention is given to conflicting interests that characterize these communities and how they manifest themselves in civic participation and factional affiliations. We find that organizational diversity is a necessary condition for community vitality, but organizations can become captive to factional interests. The critical factors for resilience are associated with a benign side of factions (a plurality of inclusive ties) and the presence of keystone bridging agents. Each offers hidden mechanisms for neutralizing the effects of fragmentation by providing a cohesive capability which remains latent until crises call for collective action.     

Legal/illegal: protesting citizenship in Fortress America

This article examines the issue of legality and illegality, focusing on U.S. citizenship, anti-immigrant rage, and pro-immigrant protests. The central case study is an analysis of what I call digital rage, namely, the rhetorical strategies present in anti-immigrant online activism. I argue that online performance of rage invests in acts of bordering (Nyers 2008) which propel a discourse of white supremacist pure nation and neurotic citizenship (Isin 2004). The final part of this article explores No Human Being is Illegal, a protest art exhibition. Imaginatively refusing forms of citizenship grounded in legal/illegal axis, the exhibition exposes U.S. citizenship itself as illegal, rooted in the colonization of indigenous people and in current neocolonizing practices of exploitation.     

Territorial dispossession: dynamics of capitalist expansion in rural territories in South America

The rural territories of the Agrarian South have been occupying a central role as epicentres for the recent dynamics of capitalist expansion. Over the last years this has led to an increase in the process of control and extraction of natural common goods by different mechanisms such as agribusiness, mining-energetic projects, mega-infrastructure building, cultural dispossession and so on. Taking the territory as the central analytical approach that involves different dimensions and scales, we analyse the recent transformations in several rural sceneries from South America where various forms of dispossession of natural goods have been presented. With this perspective, we hope to contribute to the analysis and understanding of the agrarian transformations in the Agrarian South.     

Privatising the war on drugs

A defining feature of the ‘9/11 wars’ has been the prominent role played by private military and security companies (pmsc). The growth of this market for military and security services has not gone unnoticed. Yet the role pmsc have played in supporting the US-led war on drugs has largely gone under the radar, both literally and figuratively. The aim of this article is to look at the activities of pmsc funded by the USA in Latin America, and to consider the specific consequences that arise from employing them in the field of counter-narcotics. It is argued that the use of pmsc further entrenches a costly and unsuccessful way of dealing with drugs. There is a need to move from a strict prohibitionist stance and consider alternatives to the war on drugs approach, but the use of pmsc creates another strong vested interest in maintaining an increasingly problematic and costly status quo.     

Populism and competitive authoritarianism in the Andes

Although military rule disappeared in Latin America after 1990, other forms of authoritarianism persisted. Competitive authoritarianism, in which democratic institutions exist but incumbent abuse skews the playing field against opponents, emerged in Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador during the post-Cold War period. This article seeks to explain the emergence of competitive authoritarianism in the Andes. It argues that populism – the election of a personalistic outsider who mobilizes voters with an anti-establishment appeal – is a major catalyst for the emergence of competitive authoritarianism. Lacking experience with representative democratic institutions, possessing an electoral mandate to destroy the existing elite, and facing institutions of horizontal accountability controlled by that elite, populists have an incentive to launch plebiscitary attacks on institutions of horizontal accountability. Where they succeed, weak democracies almost invariably slide into competitive authoritarianism. The argument is demonstrated through a comparative analysis of all 14 elected presidents in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela between 1990 and 2010.     

Central America,civil society and the ‘pink tide’: democratization or de-democratization?

In the literature on the turn to the left in the wider Latin American region, Central America has generally been neglected. The aim of this article is to seek to fill that gap, while specifically assessing the left turn's impact on prospects for democratization in the sub-region. Using three case studies – El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua – the article questions the usefulness of transition theory for analysis and instead offers a framework based on state/civil society interaction within the context of globalization. Four key conclusions are made: First, democratization is not a linear process, but can be subject to simultaneous processes of democratization and de-democratization. Second, continued deep structural inequalities remain central to the region's politics but these often provoke unproductive personalistic and partisan politics which can inhibit or curtail democratization. Third, interference from local and/or international economic actors can curtail or reverse democratization measures, underlining the influence of globalization. Fourth, Central America is particularly revelatory of these tendencies due to its acute exposure to extreme oligarchic power and outside influence. It hence can help shed light on wider questions on the blurring of boundaries between state, civil society and market and its impact on democratization, especially within the context of globalization. In this way the article contributes to the analysis of Central America in the current context of the ‘pink tide’, underlines the importance of continued analysis of Central America for democratization studies, and brings new insight to debates on transition theory.     

Bringing direct democracy back in: toward a three-dimensional measure of democracy

Most procedural definitions and measurements of democracy are missing one crucial component: direct popular decision-making. This is an important gap that does not allow users of data to ascertain some important variation among democracies. Thus, I propose a new measure that is strongly anchored in a procedural definition of democracy but includes this missing dimension. The proposed measure is well rooted in the literature and introduces a dimension whereby citizens may become the masters of their political fate at any time and without the consent of elected authorities, while avoiding the inclusion of extraneous attributes that are not highlighted in democratic theory. Tests of the validity of the new indicator, using Latin American cases, show that there is enough room for its inclusion without the typical collinearity problems this literature faces. This indicator is not only sound, but it is empirically appealing as it performs better than others when testing relevant hypotheses.     

冷战前美国的南中国海政策

冷战前美国的南中国海政策是后来的基础。18世纪末到二战结束,南中国海越来越多地涉及美国利益。二战前,美国在南中国海的利益有限,承担责任亦有限;二战期间,美国已深深地介入南中国海事务,南中国海对美国利益的影响也越来越大,从而决定了整个冷战时期乃至如今美国南中国海政策的方向。