Mano Dura: El Salvador responds to gangs

Although it is increasingly recognised that violence, crime, and associated fear are challenging democratic governance in Latin America, less attention has been paid to the ways in which state responses to crime contribute to the problem. By analysing El Salvador as a case study, this article addresses three key interconnected issues in the debate. First, it explores the dynamic of violence. It then locates youth gangs as violent actors within this context. Finally, it addresses the state response to the growing phenomenon of youth gangs. It is argued that current strategies, dubbed Mano Dura – Iron Fist, employed by the Salvadoran government serve to reveal the fragility of the democratic project, exposing the underside of authoritarianism that remains key to Salvadoran political life in the transitional process from civil war to peace.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article:
Stuart F. Voss, Latin America in the Middle Period 1750–1929
Norman Long, Development Sociology: Actors Perspectives
Elizabeth J. Friedman, Unfinished Transitions. Women and the Gendered Development of Democracy in Venezuela, 1936–1996
Roberto González Echevarría, The Pride of Havana. A History of Cuban Baseball
Christopher Dunn, Brutality Garden: Tropicália and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture     

Development,racism, and discrimination in the Dominican Republic

From an analysis of recent empirical research in the Dominican Republic, this article addresses the ways in which racism underpins elements of governance, and explores organisational and individual responses to racialised discrimination initiated by the state. The context is timely, given the steady rise in reported racist and violent attacks against people presumed to be of Haitian origin in the Dominican Republic over the past five years. The government has intensified formal military and police round-ups of migrants and settlers suspected to be of Haitian origin, and this article assesses the group and individual responses to these state-led actions, analysing formal and informal interventions, their evolution, maintenance, and impact.     

“迎法入乡”与“接近正义”——对中国乡村“赤脚律师”的个案研究

在职业法律服务队伍加剧了法律系统与社会生活之间距离的时候,目前在中国一些乡村存在的“赤脚律师”铺设了一条“接近正义”的桥梁。赤脚律师主动的“迎法入乡”,并不仅仅是简单地在农村法律服务体制中发挥拾遗补缺的功能,而且是在乡村社会重建了“法律服务”的概念,即以长远的人情交换而非现时的金钱交易为基础的法律服务。因此,赤脚律师与单求经济利益的黑律师有着本质的差别,他们对中国的法治化进程以及公民社会的塑造具有重要的意义。但由于国家对乡村社会的治理方式与乡村社会自生自发的利益表达方式之间面临着冲突,所以,赤脚律师还面临着一些深层次的困惑,也即所谓“周广立式的困惑”。     

Advocacy in the Amazon and the Camisea gas project: implications for non-government public action

The article considers international advocacy concerning the exploitation of gas reserves in an area inhabited by an isolated indigenous group in Peru, the Machigengua. Considerable international advocacy activity was centred mainly in Washington, DC. Poor communication between those directly affected and international environmental NGOs characterised very different and not always compatible agendas. The article concludes that this failure to adapt the international lobby both to the views of the indigenous population and to political realities in Peru severely weakened the impact of the international advocacy work.     

Development versus enjoyment of life: a post-development critique of the developmentalist worldview

This article discusses the meaning of development from a post-development perspective, based on a case study of a goat-keeping project involving a small community of farmers from a rural town in north-east Brazil. The development project was fraught with conflicting views of development as it sought to impose an interventionist, ethnocentric, and modernist view of what was best for the community, even stipulating how the farmers should work together. The modernist interpretation has been criticised on various grounds, but nevertheless continues to condition how the ‘development industry’ defines its values and views its mission.     

美国变性人立法和司法情况评议

变性人在进行变性手术后,会面临一些现实的法律困境,如,户口,婚姻,就业,医疗等,目前我国法律在这方面还是处于空白。虽然美国在这方面不是特别完善,但联邦及各州法律都对此做出了很多规定来保护变性人。通过介绍和评议美国在立法和司法对变性人做出的相关规定,借此深入了解变性人在变性后所面临的法律上的尴尬,将更有利于保护越来越多的变性人,也有助于我国法律在这方面的完善。     

Dogmatic Liberalism? T.R.S. Allan and the Common Law Constitution

Book reviewed in this article:
T.R.S. Allan, Constitutional Justice: A Liberal Theory of the Rule of Law     

关于人大个案监督的法律思考

明确个案监督的含义是解决目前关于个案监督争议的基础。人大个案监督是程序性监督、事后监督,实践中以对同级人民法院审判工作的监督居多。个案监督在宪法精神及其他规范性法律文件中有据可寻。目前,个案监督的实施虽存在一些弊端,但完全符合我国的现实国情,其所发挥的功效远远大于负价值,且完全可以通过一些原则的遵守和规则的制定来弥补其弊端。个案监督的具体运作建议包括程序的启动、运作、法律后果及特殊情形的处理。     

Gender equality – whose agenda? Observations from Cameroon

The political project of gender equality in Africa has gained momentum and made many achievements. However, these have been largely confined to the ‘big’ women working in the public and private bureaucratic contexts in which there is a greater commitment to gender equality. It is argued that in the context of Cameroon, until these ‘bigger’ women renew their commitment to their grassroots sisters, the experience of gender equality will remain largely unequal. Only strong links between white-collar workers and less privileged women will span this chasm.