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Copyright of Werkstatt Geschichte (Transcript Verlag) is the property of Transcript Verlag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sozialer Fortschritt is the property of Duncker & Humblot GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sozialer Fortschritt is the property of Duncker & Humblot GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article "Renaissance of Populism in Africa - Development boost or neoliberal regime change?" examines the question of whether there is a revival of populism in West Africa. The term "populist" is often used in Africa to describe various phenomena. However, it is difficult to define populism in Africa, as authoritarian leaders prevail and many parties do not have a political ideology. According to Danielle Resnick, populist strategies in Africa consist of four key elements: direct connections to the urban poor, anti-elitism, an economically eclectic message, and the mobilization of rural voters. It is also noted that populism in Africa occurs in two waves, triggered by disappointment with democratic experiments and the emergence of a corrupt elite. The article also raises the question of whether there has been a third wave of populism since 2010. An example of this is Senegal, where the leader of the anti-globalization party PASTEF, Ousmane Sonko, challenges the ruling coalition. China is criticized as an intruder in Africa, and anti-Chinese populism is on the rise. In Zambia, Hakainde Hichilema was elected president, with his anti-China populism helping him. It is discussed whether he will be successful in a society permeated by socialist values. A study shows that many young Africans do not consider Western democracy suitable and want to find their own democratic structures. [Extracted from the article]

Urban studies regard the increasing importance of new religious movements as extremely problematic or they interpret them by using monocausal logics. The urban booms of the Pentecostal movement or political Islam are often one-dimensionally linked with increasing urban poverty and immiserization. Drawing on the concept of "worlding" advanced by Aihwa Ong and Ananya Roy, this article examines the complex practices of the believers, focusing on the interrelations between religion, globality, and urban daily life. Using the example of different Pentecostal churches which are assembled under the umbrella of the Assembléia de Deus in Rio de Janeiro, the article compares local and Congolese migrant churches and discusses three aspects of the urban configuration of the Pentecostal movement: the location of the parishes, with reference to their relationship to urban space in general and especially to daily life in the favela, their interaction with urban everyday cultures, particularly the music culture, and, finally, their transitory character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A report is presented from an April 20-21, 2012 conference on the role played by cities in the advancement of social movements in Hamburg, Germany. Topics of discussion included urban sociology, the role of urbanity in promoting social change, and the precarity and willingness to effect social change of the urban poor.

This article focuses on how the town and city markets affected the social conditions and the survival of the poor people in Europe during the early modern period. Several topics are discussed, including how historians previously assumed that the main survival strategy of the poor was to turn to criminal endeavors, such as prostitution, smuggling, and theft, how historical research shows that poor people were affected by their proximity to the market place of a town or city, and how it was difficult for poor people to work in the markets in European cities because they had no funds and because there were laws against credit. Also mentioned are how the poorer women sometimes became merchants or pawn-brokers, and how the poor people in the Alpine valley regions of Europe made their living.

It is nowadays rarely denied that the poor are active agents in the development process. Participation, once radical and controversial, is now mainstream management theory; harnessing self-help potentials is the order of the day. Properly 'empowered' or at least 'enabled', the poor are assumed to be able to overcome deficits of infrastructure and services and exhaust their tremendous entrepreneurial potential. Without altogether denying the validity of the self-help approach, the paper scrutinizes both its practical assumptions and ideological underpinnings. Does it work for all urban poor communities, and critically, for all people in such communities? And is it its efficiency, or rather the implicit justification of cutting subsidies and transfers, which make it so popular with governments and international financial institutions? We conclude that self-help approaches can and should be supported by the state, but should considered as complements, not as alternatives, to resource transfers and accessible public services. The idea that poor communities can develop under their own steam is not only unrealistic but politically harmful. It obscures gross injustice in the distribution of wealth and power in society, but also within the poor communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]