‘Let's Win this Game Together’: Children's Rights Violations,Macro‐Securitisation and the Transformative Potential of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil

Sport's transformative potential is known to support marginalised children, to deal with traumatic experiences and instil positive values; yet hosting mega sporting events (MSEs) can have negative impacts. Drawing on participatory research with favela‐based children during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, this article argues that MSEs bring a macro‐securitisation of urban life, which causes considerable harm. This paper also suggests that the inclusion of children's voices in advocacy debates can challenge top‐down securitisation and might allow MSEs to foster further positive social transformation. Therefore, juxtaposed with causing harm, macro‐securitisations can open opportunities for children to take action and have their voices heard.     

Peace in South Tyrol and the Limits of Consociationalism

This article discusses the capacity of corporate consociationalism in bringing positive peace, understood as the enhancement of societal harmony, cooperation and integration, by analyzing South Tyrol, considered a model-case to diffuse ethnic tensions. Using data on attitudes of the South Tyrolean population concerning various aspects of the relationships between South Tyrolean linguistic groups, the analysis shows that South Tyrolean consociational mechanisms have brought peaceful coexistence and mutual acceptance among the groups, but some problematic elements remain in the success story of South Tyrol. Thereby the article highlights the limits of corporate consociationalism in fostering positive peace in divided societies.     

Chinese Dream： Flarmony for the World

THE Chinese Dream takes into consideration the ancient wisdom that it is more important to attain the domestic political capability needed to fulfill China＇s aspirations towards a harmo- nious and stable society and to exert a positive influence on the world than it is to strive for economic or military might. The Chinese Dream is based on the concept of seeking individual and collective happiness.     

Race,Nature and History in Ensayo sobre las revoluciones políticas and El Español de Ambos Mundos

This article revisits the Ensayo sobre las revoluciones políticas published in Paris by Colombian intellectual José María Samper in 1861. It does so by positioning it in the context of the newspaper in which it was initially published in instalments: El Español de Ambos Mundos. Hitherto both this newspaper and its close conceptual connection to the Ensayo have been overlooked. The simultaneous reading of EAM and the Ensayo also serves to signal similarities and differences in racial thinking on both sides of the Atlantic, while contributing to the increasing interest among scholars in studying how miscegenation was endowed with different meanings according to the context in which it was considered.     

Pathways of democratisation to human development in post‐communist countries

The article investigates the consequences of post‐Cold War regime transitions on human development in the former Soviet bloc. Relying on a mixed‐methods research strategy that combines econometric and qualitative comparative analysis, it proceeds through three consecutive steps. First, there is a discussion of how democratic institutions may solicit governments’ attention toward social issues. Second, the relationship between democratisation and human development in 21 post‐communist countries is tested. Third, democracy in its core attributes is unpacked, and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is used to identify a few alternative institutional configurations favouring human development. The analysis reveals that not only full democracies, but also some hybrid regimes, have been successful in this task.