“The pluses of pulses”: haricot beans and women’s empowerment in Ethiopia

This practical note demonstrates the role that haricot beans play in assisting women to become food and nutrition secure, to generate income, and to have sustainable livelihoods that are resilient to shocks. Based on qualitative research among female and male beneficiaries of a pulse innovation project implemented in southern Ethiopia, the note provides a summary of the critical voices of farmers, and the role that haricot beans play in empowering women. It also outlines some of the challenges that the project faced in achieving its empowerment objectives.     

Demands,responsibility, and influence in Malawi’s participatory agricultural extension services

Participatory governance offers the potential to deliver responsive and accountable services. This article tests this expectation by looking at how members of participatory extension platforms in Malawi understand the meaning of “demand-driven” services, and allocate responsibility and influence in service provision. Results show that most respondents agree on bottom-up extension services that respond to expressed farmers’ needs (86% of respondents), and assign responsibility and influence widely across state and non-state actors. While these findings suggest that these participatory mechanisms can promote responsiveness to farmers’ needs and accountability, they also point toward different governance challenges in extension services.     

内战反对派武装的联盟构建与内部冲突——以叙利亚内战为例

在内战进程中,不同的反对派武装组织有时会构建起联盟共同反抗政府军,而有时则会相互袭击引发内部冲突。对于此现象的解释已是当前内战研究理论的重点。通过回顾既有研究对此问题提出的物质因素和理念因素解释,文章认为单纯的理念因素和物质因素均无法解释反对派联盟的形式与瓦解。因此,文章提出了一个将物质因素和理念因素进行整合的分析框架,分析理念因素与物质因素交互影响反对派联盟形成和内部冲突。在政府军实力较强的情况下,理念因素无法起作用,而反对派内部实力均衡与否也将使得理念因素对联盟构建产生不同的影响,并且外部支持则会加强理念在反对派联盟形成中的影响作用。文章以叙利亚内战作为阐释性案例,采取案例内比较的方式,对提出的逻辑进行分析。     

中美两国太空安全领域的互动

作为第四空间的太空是国际争夺的战略制高点。中美两国在太空领域有着广泛利益,涉及其国家安全与经济繁荣以及国际声望。中美两国之间的太空关系,事关国际战略稳定与平衡。尽管两国都主张太空安全,但是中美太空安全观大相径庭,在如何确保太空安全的方式上存在巨大差异。中国在安全困境下考虑和实施太空政策,谋求太空安全;美国则是推进太空武器化,保证美国治下的太空安全。两国在太空安全领域上进行了针锋相对的较量。美国使用传统守成大国对待崛起大国的方法,不仅研发更先进的(反)太空技术,而且也禁止中美太空合作,同时拼凑同盟,封堵中国(反)太空能力的发展。与美国相比,中国应对美国太空封堵手段相对较少,只有潜心发展自己的(反)太空能力,才能确保太空资产安全和国家安全。在外交场合下,在禁止太空军备竞赛与《禁止生产用于核武器及爆炸装置的裂变材料条约》、禁止太空武器化的国际条约与自愿性质的国际太空行为规范准则两组问题上,中美两国也进行了互不妥协的对抗。为降低两国在太空安全领域的对抗烈度,中美两国开启了民用太空对话与太空安全对话机制,同时,也不排除特朗普政府未来会启用中美外交安全对话机制处理太空安全问题。     

Social history, (Neo-)revisionism and mapping the 1930s Spanish left*

Revisionist historians and their Neo-Revisionist/conservative fellow travellers identify the Spanish left as the main cause of the civil war (1936–1939) that culminated in the establishment of the Franco dictatorship. Such claims are possible because these historians distort both the history of the left and the nature of social protest and mass mobilisation during these years. In part, the reliance of Neo-Revisionist/conservative historians on the methods of traditional political history – combined with their stubborn aversion to social history – makes it impossible for them to understand the left. This article argues that only through social history is it possible to comprehend the complex and shifting nature of protest dynamics in the 1930s. Indeed, many of the conflicts that played out in the political arena during these years were conditioned by structural economic problems and social tensions that resulted in diverse forms of radical contestation among the grassroots of leftist movements. Social, and indeed cultural history, are, therefore, central to any analysis of the myriad forms of these protest energies that flowed from the bottom up to shape the orientation of the leftist organisations.     

Addressing Information Needs in Employment Services Provision in Italy: The Role of Codesign Networks

This article examines how coproduction can contribute to information quality in support of labor-market decision-making. Data was gathered on different types of Labor Market Intelligence (LMI) as decision-support systems for stakeholders, and subsequently by analyzing a specific program, with a focus on the role of information within its coproduction process. Results confirm the importance of information systems to support employment services design, but highlight the limitations of existing channels, and outline the types of information needed for policy effectiveness: those that are gathered through continuous relations with employers and jobseekers, and that often derive from participation in policy networks.     

Local-level law enforcement: Muscovites and their uchastkovyy

The uchastkovyy, or beat officer, is at the front lines of Russian police work. This article investigates the general environment in which the uchastkovyy functions, using Moscow as an example. More specifically, this article examines the institutional structure within which the beat cop operates, his/her duties and resources, the quota system used to evaluate his/her performance, and the nature of the interaction between the uchastkovyy and the public. In so doing, the study disaggregates the monolith that is the Russian police, focusing on that component of the force (uchastkovyy) that interacts most directly with the citizenry. It relies on data from a survey of 1500 Muscovites and four focus group encounters organized by the author to elicit a broad range of public attitudes regarding the performance and conduct of uchastkovyy, exploring particularly what measures might be taken to enhance the level of public trust in their local beat officers.     

Divergent fates: company unions and employee involvement committees under the railway labor and national labor relations acts

Well known is that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA, 1935) in the United States places a largely per se ban on nonunion employee representation (ER) groups which deal with employers over a term or condition of employment. Much less well known is that America’s other labor law, the Railway Labor Act (RLA, 1926), takes a different approach and permits employers to operate such councils and committees as long as they do not perform a collective bargaining function or interfere with workers’ free choice of a bargaining agent. Thus, under the RLA Delta Air Lines is able to operate what is today the closest living approximation to a 1920s-style ER plan while hundreds of other companies (e.g. Polaroid) under the jurisdiction of the NLRA have been forced over the years to disband similar groups on grounds they are a proscribed company union. No study to date has explored the history behind the RLA and NLRA’s divergent treatment of nonunion ER groups so this article takes a first look. The main part of the story covers the 1920–1935 period and examines the events, people, and experiences associated with company unions and ER in, respectively, the rail and manufacturing industries and why the legislative outcome in the former was a permissive stance on nonunion committees but prohibitive in the latter. The last part of the paper fast-forwards the RLA-NLRA story from the 1930s to contemporary law and practice in order to demonstrate how “history matters” when it comes to what employers can and cannot do with nonunion representation groups, such as works councils, participation and involvement committees, and dispute resolution forums.     

Look at Detroit: The United Auto Workers and the Battle to Organize Volkswagen in Chattanooga

ABSTRACT

On February 14, 2014, workers at Volkswagen’s new plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted 712 to 626 against being represented by the United Automobile Workers of America (UAW). The result capped one of the most high-profile organizing campaigns of recent years, with most media accounts anticipating a UAW victory, especially as VW had declared that it would not oppose the union. The VW election is also now attracting scholarly interest, with accounts stressing the role of external opposition – especially from conservative politicians and lobby groups – along with the UAW’s over-reliance on partnerships with German actors. Providing a detailed analysis of the campaign, this article recognizes the importance of these factors, but also argues that an important role was played by the UAW’s strong association with the domestic automakers, and especially with Detroit, their historic base. Citing the fact that foreign automakers had expanded since the 1980s while the domestics had contracted, opponents effectively linked the UAW with economic decline. These arguments swayed many workers. Placing the VW story within the broader struggle of the UAW to organize a foreign-owned auto plant, the article also stresses structural obstacles, especially the location of Greenfield plants in areas of low union density.     

Legal empowerment of the poor: with a little help from their friends?

In 2005 the initiative to create a High Level Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor, to be co-chaired by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto and former US Foreign Affairs Secretary Madeleine Albright, was launched with strong support from the Norwegian government. This article first reviews some of the debate surrounding the initiative, giving special attention to the role of Norwegian civil society organisations that questioned central assumptions of the Commission as well as its composition and working procedures. Next, the article looks at the propositions made by the Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor and argues that it was very much a top-down affair that called on those in power to behave in favour of the poor and relegated organisations of the poor and civil society to a supportive role. Issues of political power thus were downplayed. This also is reflected in the fact that the question of (re)distribution of assets is hardly addressed by the Commission. Questions of power or the distribution of assets were sidestepped by focusing primarily on the legal dimension and formalisation. And, although the Commission mentions macro-economic conditions it fails to critically analyse the conditions that account for poverty and informality, which basically are attributed to legal arrangements. Such an analysis would require a (critical) political economy perspective.