Deconstructing invisibility: race and politics of visual culture in Brazil

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss race relations and power-building in Brazil. It is well known that the Iberian colonizers developed special ways of imposing their supremacy, dissimulating the skin color standards to provoke some type of beliefs about shade stratification among African descendents, indigenous and mixed-race people. For the first time in South America there are deconstructive projects of that colonial paradigm still alive and strongly embedded in the media landscape. However, new identity politics and attitudes have been emerging amidst this old social cognition. This paper will discuss some speculative thoughts and power-building scenarios on new representations and struggles derived from these lived forms that are emerging in the new racial formations in Latin America. The question is: what will nation-building in the midst of this changing imagery be like? This paper proposes that a civic pedagogy is the only answer to rendering this phenomenon visible.     

Across time and space: Explaining variation in news coverage of the European Union

News about the European Union (EU) looks different in different countries at different points in time. This study investigates explanations for cross‐national and over‐time variation in news media coverage of EU affairs drawing on large‐scale media content analyses of newspapers and television news in the EU‐15 (1999), EU‐25 (2004) and EU‐27 (2009) in relation to European Parliament (EP) elections. The analyses focus in particular on explanatory factors pertaining to media characteristics and the political elites. Results show that national elites play an important role for the coverage of EU matters during EP election campaigns. The more strongly national parties are divided about the EU in combination with overall more negative positions towards the EU, the more visible the news. Also, increases in EU news visibility from one election to the next and the Europeanness of the news are determined by a country's elite positions. The findings are discussed in light of the EU's alleged communication deficit.     

中国公共政策制定中的政府俘获及其解决对策

中国公共政策制定中的政府俘获主要有国有垄断企业有力影响政府的决策、地方支柱企业绑架地方政府的决策、向政府官员提供非法的个人所得三种表现形式。政府俘获产生的原因包括企业与政府形成利益共同体、以GDP增长为核心的政绩考核体系、政府反腐败不力及廉政建设滞后、各社会群体参与不均衡、政府权力缺乏制约,法治不健全等方面。解决这一问题应从以下几方面采取措施:减少政府对市场经济的干预、保障民众的结社权利,培育公民社会、实现政策制定的公开透明和广泛参与,严惩政府官员腐败行为、加强廉政制度建设,建立以科学发展观为指导的政绩考核体系。     

Natural resource rents and elite bargains in Africa: Exploring avenues for future research

This article explores the recent debate over the quality of Africa's growth episode of the past decade, specifically insofar as it pertains to the pitfalls of commodity-dependent growth and the hypothesised ‘resource curse’. In addition, the article focuses on why political and economic institutions are important, and why they are indicators for the likely development impacts of Africa's evident mineral and hydrocarbon wealth. Third, it suggests a useful theoretical framework for understanding these indicators, especially with regard to the differing constraints under which foreign investors operate and interact with host countries. Developing on the latter points, the article looks at the nature of Chinese foreign investment in Africa's extractive industries. Finally, the article suggests an agenda for future research that could better inform development policy for the purpose of promoting high-quality growth in Africa.     

Challenges to the elite exclusion–inclusion dichotomy — reconsidering elite capture in community-based natural resource management

The community-driven, decentralised approach to natural resource management has reached a crossroads. The good governance agenda in the water, forestry, fishery and biodiversity sectors has generated limited success in achieving pro-poor outcomes. In many cases, local elites are to blame for capturing the benefits from the process of democratising decision-making processes. This paper examines two approaches in the literature which both aim to address elite domination, namely elite exclusion and elite inclusion. The former is a deliberate act to reduce the influence of elites by excluding them from the decision-making process in natural resource management. The latter, in contrast, is a conscious strategy to integrate elites into the use of natural resources in an attempt to redistribute the benefits to poor people via the ‘trickle down’ effect. This paper argues that the dichotomy of elite inclusion and exclusion is inadequate in understanding the complex local power dynamics in natural resource management. In particular, the binary division fails to address the multiple locations of elites, overlapping institutions and the paradoxes of ‘controlled’ participatory processes. This paper argues that any strategies to tackle elite capture need to pay attention to the historical, socially embedded and negotiated nature of resource governance arrangements.     

Reassessing the Role of Civil Society Organizations in the Transition to Democracy in Spain

Spain's democratization process has mainly been described as a settlement between political elites in which civil society organizations played little part. Yet the literature on Eastern European democratization sets great store by the role of civil society, both for transition and consolidation. Does this different treatment reflect the approach adopted by analysts or the actual contrasting presence of civil society organizations in the relevant periods? The question prompts this re-examination of the role of civil society organizations in the Spanish transition. It finds that the answer depends in part on definitions of civil society, but mainly on the approach taken by authors in presenting their accounts. It finds that the elite settlement perspective silences or removes agency from the Spanish civil society organizations active in the transition.

An alternative view is developed through an in-depth review of the events following the death of the dictator General Franco in 1975 and a textual analysis of Spain's actual definitive settlement, the 1978 Constitution. The research demonstrates that civil society organizations were responsible for disrupting the dictatorship's intention to maintain an authoritarian regime, leaving it no option but to negotiate with civil society organizations such as political parties and trade unions, which were pursuing their own strategic goals towards co-construction of a socially advanced democracy. The article's approach bridges the gulf between top-down and bottom-up accounts of political change in Spain at the end of the Franco regime.     

独立前缅甸民族主义精英对国家发展道路的探索

独立前缅甸民族主义精英对缅甸独立后的总体发展道路以及国家的政治制度、经济发展战略和具体政策、宗教与政治关系、民族问题与国家结构、对外政策等重大问题进行了比较全面的探索,在此过程中形成的观点和暴露出的特点对缅甸独立后的现代化进程产生了较为深刻的影响。     

士绅阶层衰落化过程中的乡村政治——以20世纪二三十年代的浙江省为例

士绅阶层是影响乡村政治的一支重要政治力量。在晚清科举废除过程中,其作为社会文化重心的独特地位逐渐被动摇。随着民国时期新教育的不断扩张及新知识阶层离乡步伐的加速,乡村士绅出现了严重的侵蚀化现象。优秀分子的离开及乡村管理者的食利倾向使得士绅群体迅速劣质化,整个乡村政治处于破产和崩溃边缘。     

论牛津大学的办学特色

作为一所“英国最具创新力的大学”和培养精英的世界名校,牛津大学坚持以培养全面发展的绅士为人才培养目标,并通过学院制、导师制、别具特色的专业设置、多样化的课程体系、丰富多彩的课外活动,促进人才培养目标的实现,始终保持着勃勃生机和强大的吸引力,对英国乃至世界和人类历史都产生了重大影响。     

Competition and Coordination in Bank Regulation: The Financial Crisis of 2007–09

The ability of businesses to shift regulatory jurisdictions has long raised questions about whether this generates a regulatory race to the bottom (RTB). Prior to the Financial Crisis of 2007–09, the structure of U.S. federal bank regulation raised similar questions, as banks could choose their regulator and regulators received fees for assessing banks. I investigate this question, through the theoretical lenses of bureaucratic structure, regulatory capture and bureaucratic reputation. Relying on quantitative and qualitative data, I find that the initial regulatory structure did induce a regulatory RTB, but once the Financial Crisis had begun, reputational fears on the part of federal agencies reversed the race, as the regulators strengthened standards and brought more enforcement actions. The paper ultimately shows that multiple theories help to explain what is going on with regulatory RTBs.