Storytelling and fraught histories: Phila Ndwandwe’s Blue Dress

Twenty years after the final hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, researchers are unearthing and examining the stories, discourses and processes that formed the transition from the apartheid to post-apartheid periods. In this paper, I investigate the story of Phila Ndwandwe, killed by the security police in the late 1980s, whose body was the first to be exhumed by the commission. Ndwandwe’s story has been framed through various narrative devices, most prominently by an artwork by Judith Mason colloquially titled the Blue Dress. Tracing the stories constructed about Ndwandwe, I consider the performative and transformative potentials of storytelling and argue for a commitment to listening that resists mere understanding.     

Breaking down the barriers? New public management in the European commission

On 15 March 1999, the mass resignation of the College of Commissioners amidst accusations of fraud, mismanagement and nepotism was the catalyst for potential transformation of the European bureaucracy in a radical way. The Commission is at the centre of networks of European governance but it only demonstrates a ‘shadow of a cohesive administrative culture’ (Cini 1996: 223). The managerial reforms which have finally been engaged by the Commission twenty years later than its member countries focus primarily on efficiency and accountability in order to bridge the ‘EU's management deficit’ (Metcalfe 2000: 824). This paper seeks to argue that reforms in the European Commission can only be successful if a cultural analysis is carried out, developing a distinctive approach to European public management in order to lay the basis for new forms of European governance. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Electoral Risk and Redistributive Politics in Mexico and the United States

What strategy does a rational party follow in allocating discretionary expenditure? This article conceives redistributive politics as an investment strategy where expenditure allocations respond to electoral risk. To show the effects of risk, it provides evidence from Pronasol in Mexico and an analysis of New Deal spending in the United States. The analysis finds that the federal administrations in both countries responded to systematic electoral risk. Spending diversification into risky voters was a rational response to chances of losing elections. The analysis hence connects electoral volatility with redistributive spending.     

The Presidential and Parliamentary Elections of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela: Change and Continuity (1998–2000)

The paper examines to what extent electoral behaviour in Venezuela, as it appeared in the elections of 1998 and 2000, is different from that observed between 1958 and 1988. The paper reaches the conclusion that given the decline in party identification (dealignment), the short-term variables specific to each election, in particular the attitude towards government performance and personalities, have grown in weight vis-à-vis the structural factors (party identification, institutions, long-standing political predispositions). However, the latter were still relevant and important in the 1998 and 2000 elections and it is very likely they will carry on as such for the future. It is also concluded that, even though the party system has become unstable due to the decline in identification with the traditional government parties, new stabilising factors seem to have appeared and should be taken into account. These are ideology and negative party identification.     

Reengineering the Child Support Scheme: An Australian Perspective on the British Government's Proposals

After years of problems with the Child Support Scheme in Britain, the Government has decided to attempt reform again, less than four years after a previous major change was implemented in 2003. The author evaluates these reform proposals, drawing upon his experience in leading a recent major review of child support policy in Australia. While many of the reform measures offer a sensible way forward for child support policy, Britain risks going backwards in terms of community acceptance of the child support obligation. The Government needs to consider the likely impact of its policy settings on private agreements about child support. Ways are proposed both to protect the Treasury and to promote the wellbeing of children by adopting different policy settings that ensure the resident parent has an incentive to bargain for the level of child support required by the new formula. The new formula itself is evaluated in the light of the international research on the costs of children. Ways are also suggested for developing a co-ordinated approach across government to the provision of support services for parents who do not live together.     

Rising Damp in the Suburbs. Or ‘Whatever Happened to the Villa Tory?’

The suburban areas that were initially stereotyped in the late nineteenth century as ‘Villa Tory’ strongholds and exemplified by Hackney and Islington had, by the 1980s, become ‘bedsitter’ areas dominated by the political left. An examination of the evolution of electoral behaviour in these areas shows that conservatism did indeed dominate the villa suburbs, and that although there were previous intimations of decline, it was not until 1945 that Labour broke the Conservatives’ grip. The causes of this are identified as an outward movement of the population to interwar suburbia, the breaking up of villas into flats, and Labour's increasing appeal to middle class electors. In this category of seats, Labour has outperformed the party's national achievement consistently since 1955; the party's exceptional results here in the 2017 election are, therefore, a new peak on a long‐term trend rather than a breakthrough.     

Social networks and mass media as mobilizers and demobilizers: A study of turnout at a German local election

This paper explores the impact of informal communication in voters’ social networks and the formal communication of the mass media on individuals’ propensity to take part in elections. Analyzing survey data from a recent local election in Germany it shows how both forms of communication may not only mobilize, but also demobilize voters. On the whole, personal communication appears more influential than mass communication. The media’s effects are generally weaker than those of social networks. Moreover, they are mediated by attitudes, while social networks have strong direct effects. These originate mainly from information conveyed through personal contact with voters and abstainers in one’s immediate social environment. Social voting norms are only influential, if they originate from persons’ families and are in favor of electoral participation.     

韩国的选举制度与政治体制

本文旨在分析韩国的选举制度如何加大了社会的不平等现象。1997年金融危机之后,韩国社会迅速走上两极化道路。本文分三个层次进行论述。一是简要介绍韩国的选举制度。这将作为支撑本文核心见解的框架。二是考察韩国选举制度导致的＂民心歪曲＂现象。三是探讨政治制度的党派特征。即使同为民主主义,但选择比例代表制还是多数制将决定其政策方向。最后,在结论部分中强调,若要使韩国的选举制度取得更加均衡的政治结果,就一定要取消现行多数制,采用比例代表制度。比例代表制将有助于实现得票和议席之间的均衡,并进一步创造平等的民主主义。     

U.S Federal Trade Commission hosts public forum on facial recognition technology

On December 8, 2011, the United States Federal Trade Commission hosted “Face Facts, A Forum on Facial Recognition Technology,” a one-day public forum exploring emerging issues in the field of facial recognition in Washington, D.C. Consisting of thought leaders from academics, government and industry, four panels analyzed and discussed the technology behind facial recognition, current and potential uses of that technology, and the privacy and security concerns raised by this newly-emerging technology. The event was open to the public and was made available on the Internet via webcast.     

Made in the USA? Immigrants' imported ideology and political engagement

This study explores both the extent to which immigrants' pre-migration ideological predispositions might serve as a heuristic, by which these individuals anchor and adjust their ideological predispositions in the new polity, and the extent to which imported ideology enhances the likelihood of immigrants' political engagement once in their new home. Empirical tests take advantage of two unique survey datasets of Mexican immigrants residing in the United States; one of which incorporates a survey embedded experiment. Results show that immigrants' ideological predispositions in the country of origin do anchor these individuals' ideological predispositions in the new host country in terms of intensity and directionality. Most importantly, imported ideology does heighten the prospects of immigrants' electoral participation in the United States.