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Copyright of Historia y Politica: Ideas, Procesos y Movimientos Sociales is the property of Departamento De Historia del Pensamiento y de los Moviemientos Sociales y Politicos (Madrid) 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 Swiss Political Science Review is the property of Wiley-Blackwell 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.)

Scholars engaged in the study of community power have debated the merits of the so-called "reputational" and "pluralist" methods of inquiry at length. This paper suggests that differences in substantive results can be understood in terms of the assumptions made by each method concerning what is being studied, and, therefore, in terms of the investigative techniques that are appropriate. The "reputational" school, based principally on sociology, views the community as a system of action and examines the structure of political roles involved in setting community policies. The "pluralist" school, based principally on political science, views the community as a collection of individuals and attempts to measure in quantitative terms the amount of power held by each individual. Both systems of thought are examined, and questions are raised with regard to the adequacy of the currently popular "pluralist" method. Finally, some problems common to both methods are noted, and suggestions for further research are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the main trends of sociology and political science in Brazil. It uses as empirical data the workgroups and the bibliographical reviews sponsored by the Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Ciências Sociais (ANPOCS), a scientific association that organizes much of the debate in the Brazilian social sciences in the last 40 years. From these data, it is verified that sociology and political science in Brazil combine a universalist vocation, in relation to its themes and problems, with an almost exclusive focus on Brazilian society. It is also considered that the current coup d'État imposes new interpretative challenges to Brazilian social sciences, which can no longer consider stable or irreversible the process of democratization of society and its political institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on alternative economic and political spaces seeks to expose the diversity of economic forms in the landscape. However, this research has become detached from questions of territory and regionalism. Radical scholars are revisiting the relationship between anarchism, populist movements and territory, potentially opening up a discussion about alternative regionalisms. This report examines the potential for marrying the analysis of alternatives with critical-theoretical work on regionalism and territory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This commentary offers a Foucauldian-inspired interpretation which conceptualises localism within the framework of neo-liberal governmentality. It argues that although localism represents a continuation and intensification of previous neo-liberalism trends in Britain, it introduces three distinct features related to: the underlying political philosophy of government; the shift of emphasis in government technologies from performance to agency; and the increased visibility of the spatial dimension in the neo-liberal understanding of the 'social'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The localism agenda in England, to the extent that it has been followed through, relies on the increasingly free availability of government data for its success. The availability of this open government data, however, solves nothing: as many writers have pointed out, such data needs to be interpreted and interpretation is always a function of a collective—what has been called an ‘interpretative’ or ‘epistemic’ community. The authors question the possibility of such local epistemic or interpretative communities emerging in the English context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Democratic representation involves tradeoffs between collective actors – political parties seeking to maximize seats – and individual actors – candidates seeking to use their personal vote-earning attributes (PVEAs) to maximize their own chance of election and reelection. We analyze these tradeoffs across three different electoral systems used at different times for the large-magnitude nationwide tier of Japan''s House of Councillors. These electoral systems – closed and open-list proportional systems and the single non-transferable vote – differ in the extent to which they entail candidates seeking individual preference votes and in whether collective vote shares affect overall party performance. We use local resources as a proxy for PVEA and seek to determine the extent to which parties nominate “locals” and how much the presence of such locals affects party performance at the level of Japan''s prefectures. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article focuses on the Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership (NBCO) Rule which was designed for governmental control of media ownership. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission protects local networks from national owners and encourages principles of diversity, competition, and localism. It promotes reformulation of NBCO Rule's four-factor test related to cross-ownership of local newspapers and television stations, and highlights latest cross-ownership rules in Canada and Great Britain.

The presence of local «queer» candidacies has traditionally been a fact overlooked by electoral studies and political science. While in the late eighties and early nineties seemed a phenomenon tending tod is appear and very typical of small towns, the data of the last three electoral events in Catalonia belie this claim at least in this country. So not only is important to note the maintenance of «queer» candidacies number but also to indicate the changes occurring in their typology and size of the municipalities in which these exist. All of this lets talk about a consolidation of the theses of the new localism and the politicization of the local arena pointed by Quim Brugue and Ricard Goma in 1998. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the international debate about new forms of governance and moves towards decentralization and devolution, this article discusses the increasing interest in the concept of ‘localism’ in the UK, marked recently by the publication of the UK Coalition Government’s ‘Localism Bill’. A distinction is made between three versions – ‘centrally managed’, ‘laissez-faire’ and ‘democratic’ localism. The article draws on two research projects funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and one by the Nuffield Foundation, as well as sources by specialists in local government, political analysts and educationalists. It explores the broad features of the three versions of localism and their implications for upper secondary education and lifelong learning. The article concludes by examining the strengths and limitations of the first two models and suggests that the third has the potential to offer a more equitable way forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the opinion of many Western observers (e.g. Timothy Garton Ash) as well as Polish authors (e.g. Zdzisław Krasnodębski), the political thought of Solidarność was a mixture of ideas taken from different ideological traditions (right and left). What, in the aforementioned authors' opinion, was a reason for pride was an object of criticism by Leszek Nowak, the eminent Polish philosopher, engaged in the Solidarność movement. One of his most important charges against the political thought of this movement was its intellectual provincialism and its inability to propose something new and fresh. The purpose of this paper is to present Nowak's reflection on the political thought of Solidarność in years 1980-1981. I show that he presses three general kinds of objections. According to Nowak, the political thought of the movement had formal-internal deficiencies (it provided no clear theoretical vision), cognitive deficiencies (it was incapable of offering a diagnosis of the situation) and policy deficiencies (it was incapable of indicating the appropriate course of action). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The case for greater descriptive representation of groups such as women and ethnic minorities has become widely, though not wholly, accepted in much of the academic literature and in the 'real world' of politics in most advanced democracies. In the UK the goal of greater descriptive representation of women has often become framed as a zero-sum game against men, especially local men, with consequences for the descriptive representation of women. This article examines whether claims made for the descriptive representation of women and black candidates can and should apply to local candidates, whatever their sex or race. It draws a distinction between the representation of a territory (common to most representative systems) and the representation of a territory by someone from that territory, a similar distinction to the difference common in the gender and politics literature between the representation of women by an elected representative and the representation of women by women representatives. The article also distinguishes between a hard and a soft form of this argument. The latter applies to almost every constituency in the UK, but it is a claim not based on arguments for the presence of the disadvantaged. However, the case for a local candidate to represent a more disadvantaged constituency, the harder form of the argument, can be made on almost all of the criteria applied to other excluded groups identified in the politics of presence literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local government party systems are not necessarily copies of the national party system. In many countries, local party systems have come to resemble the national one more and more--a process Rokkan termed ‘party politicisation’. The traditional expectation has been that the take-over of local politics by political parties, through a gradual process of societal modernisation, would eventually be complete. More recently, however, it has been suggested that reorganisations of the institutional set-up--that is, amalgamations of municipalities--could entail developments in the degree of local party system nationalisation. This article investigates cultural and institutional explanations for party politicisation by analysing the Danish case from 1966 to 2005--a period that witnessed both major amalgamation reforms and periods of stability in the local government structure. The data suggest that dramatic party politicisation does not lend itself to cultural explanations, but originates exclusively from changes in the institutional set-up. Party politicisation is not a gradual process, but comes--at least in Denmark--in leaps coinciding with major reorganisations of the local government structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kyrgyzstan is a country that has recently attracted attention with its different features in post-Soviet Central Asia. The country could not be institutionalized by either an authoritarian means or a democratic regime after her independence in 1992. Political life has been shaped by political confrontation between administrative authorities that have tendencies to strengthen the authoritarian regime and local political leaders who act centrifugally. This article, in the light of this background, aims to investigate the political process in the framework of the 'Tulip Revolution' that took place in 2005. Initially, social, economic and cultural dynamics, which have impacts on the political processes, are analysed, and next, the contemporary implications of these dynamics are examined in detail. Finally, probable influences of the political developments witnessed after 2005 and the potential direction of transformation of the political regime are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes three ways through which politics in this country can be revitalised. The first is a drive towards localism, allowing people to identify with local politicians and restoring local engagement. The second is to give elected officials real powers to affect the lives of the people they represent. The third condition is that people are elected through a representative system that provides a constant incentive to them to serve the voter, rather than the political party or the executive. These reforms are the only way that we can return the power to the people and finally change the way our politics works for the better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1990s participation has grown to become a key notion amongst child-focused international and intergovernmental development organisations. By means of participatory projects such bodies commonly seek to achieve transformation of children's lives. While considerable consideration has been given to the technical, institutional and attitudinal challenges to achievement of this goal, far less attention has been paid to the political context in which such transformation is sought. Drawing upon the emerging critique of (adult) participatory development, this article seeks to illustrate the inherent limitations of child participation resulting from the failure to confront the workings of power associated with capitalist expansion. It argues that societal change leading to the realisation of the rights of impoverished and marginalised children requires greater political will and new forms of alliance amongst international child-focused development organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on multi-level governance in Europe offers important insights into the institutional character of emerging spaces of political practice and the ways in which they are part of a politics of scale that has been unleashed in the wake of neo-liberal reform. What is less clear is the extent to which new multi-level governance arrangements are moving Europe beyond a political geography rooted in the Westphalian state system. This paper argues that a deepened understanding of the possibilities and limitations of multi-level governance requires consideration of the emerging territorial arrangements and practices that are shaping how things are organized on the ground and how people conceptualize Europe as a geographical construct. Focusing on questions of territoriality and metageography can offer insights into the socio-political significance of multi-level governance while directing attention to developments that have the potential to undermine dominant political-territorial framings of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Labour government in England is pressing for further individual consumer choice in local authority services and, in the name of localism, exploring possibilities for devolution of powers to councils. Little work has been done on how the two agendas might interact. Are they in inevitable tension, because choice promotes exit and devolution promotes voice? Might devolution be offered as a reward for good performance in choice? What might be the consequences for equity? This article argues that the more significant interaction issues are likely to arise from the dynamics created by their combined effects on incentives on households at the margin to relocate. The article offers conceptual and deductive analysis, because before we know the design of devolution and choice schemes we cannot measure the size of the interaction effects. Although major policy tension is not inevitable, the article concludes that policy makers may have to decide how much gains in voice and from choice are worth the possible losses in equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As British politics enters a new post-Blair era, Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Vince Cable argues that a new tri-party ‘progressive consensus’ is emerging, encompassing the environment, centralism and localism, authoritarian versus liberal approaches to personal freedoms and the ‘politics of identity’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the impact of globalization on land peripheral to large cities of the south. It identifies such land as providing major arenas for contested claims between the requirements of international firms and those of local inhabitants and businesses, entailing both threats and opportunities in terms of local economic development. Much depends on the urban governance and institutional processes surrounding the use and allocation of land that are themselves directly influenced by the globalization process. In many cities national, state or provincial governments have set up special parastatal organizations with substantial funding and significant decision-making powers over infrastructure development and land use to facilitate the rebirth of their cities as havens for international investment. In the process local municipalities and the local population are often excluded from the decision-making process, while being left to cope with the aftermath and maintenance of the grand projects. The essay identifies weaknesses in elite governance models usually centred at the state or national levels, and asks if a better alternative may be a local government-led ‘inclusive leadership’ model capable of clear leadership, greater coordination of different governance layers and inclusion of local actors. Résumé Cet essai étudie l’impact de la mondialisation sur les terrains situés à la périphérie des grandes villes du Sud. Il identifie ces terrains comme des scènes majeures de contradiction entre les besoins des multinationales et les revendications des entreprises et habitants locaux, ce qui créent à la fois menaces et opportunités en termes d’expansion économique locale. Le résultat dépend largement des processus institutionnels et de gouvernance urbaine qui entourent l’utilisation et l’affectation des terrains, processus eux-mêmes directement influencés par la mondialisation. Dans de nombreuses villes, les organes de gouvernement nationaux, étatiques ou provinciaux ont créé des entités para-étatiques spécialisées, dotées de fonds et de pouvoirs décisionnels considérables en matière d’aménagement des infrastructures et d’occupation des sols, afin de réinstaurer leur ville en terre d’accueil de l’investissement international. Or, les municipalités et populations locales sont souvent exclues du processus de décision alors qu’on les laisse assumer les conséquences et la maintenance des grands projets. L’article repère les faiblesses des modèles de gouvernance par les élites, généralement centrés aux niveaux de l’Etat ou de la nation, et se demande si un modèle de ‘leadership inclusif’ sous la houlette du gouvernement ne serait pas une meilleure alternative, permettant un leadership clair, une meilleure coordination des différentes strates de gouvernance et l’intégration des acteurs locaux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese economic reforms have profoundly changed the scale at which things get done. Much of the existing literature on scale has concentrated on the politics of rescaling from above. Less has been written about rescaling initiatives from below, the focus of this study. It distinguishes three important localisms. Local capitalisms treats capitalism as subordinate to local social and political processes that provide crucial conditions of existence. Local citizenship sees processes of entitlement and exclusion as accomplished locally rather than through national frameworks. Translocality describes the ways in which claims are made on the loyalties of those possessing capital but residing elsewhere and the promotion of the place through image-building and physical/social infrastructural enhancements. These three distinct localisms overlap and interact in a variety of ways to shape a new social and spatial order in post-reform China. A detailed study of the practices of localism in the Dongguan city-region reveals the ways in which the emergence of capitalism has been dependent on pre-existing social connections and based on villages and townships. The entitlements of citizenship are polarized between the local hukou population and the migrant workers irrespective of the national definition of social safety net and regardless of the physical presence of the individuals. Résumé En Chine, les réformes économiques ont profondément modifié l'échelon auquel les choses se font. Les publications traitant de cet aspect se consacrent en général aux politiques de redimensionnement venues des instances supérieures, et abordent plus rarement les initiatives venues d'en bas, objets de cette étude. Cette dernière distingue trois localismes importants: les capitalismes locaux, le capitalisme apparaissant subordonné aux processus sociaux et politiques locaux qui déterminent les conditions d'existence; la citoyenneté locale pour qui les processus d'habilitation et d'exclusion s'effectuent au plan local et non en fonction de cadres nationaux; la translocalité qui décrit comment est sollicitée la loyauté de ceux qui possèdent le capital mais résident ailleurs, et comment des projets de création d'image et d'infrastructure matérielle ou sociale dynamisent la promotion du lieu. Ces trois localismes se chevauchent et interagissent diversement, façonnant un nouvel ordre social et spatial dans la Chine de l'après-réforme. Une étude détaillée du localisme pratiqué dans la ville de Dongguan fait apparaître les modalités d'un capitalisme émergent, dépendant des liens sociaux existants et basé sur des villages ou municipalités. L'accès à la citoyenneté définit un clivage entre la population locale ayant son hukou et les travailleurs migrants, indépendamment de la notion nationale de filet de protection sociale ou de la présence physique des individus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the characteristics of localism and its relevance to deliberative democracy. The deliberative democratic principles are both macro-focused, more on political conversation and micro-focused, more on the ideal speech situation. Hence, micro ideals are dominating in the localist environment where its context is more related to the system. In this regard, the author argues that this kind of approach can only damage democracy by weakening the motivation to participate in politics.

Rearticulating Chen (1992, 1994; see also Silk and Andrews, 2005), this article argues for the need to establish an agenda of ‘internationalist localism’ to analyse the place of sport within unfolding socio-political agendas of neoliberal globalization. In doing so, it constitutes a response to calls within the academy to register critical, reflective responses to ongoing international crises (Martin and Shohat, 2002; Denzin and Lincoln, 2003). We thus extend recent calls to interrogate sport as a site through which various socio-political discourses are mobilized in the organization and discipline of daily life in the service of particular political agendas (Andrews, 1995). We do so by illustrating both the global extent of these agendas and the locally conjunctural nature of such processes. We centre upon the case of Aboriginal Muslim-Australian boxer Anthony Mundine, and the response to his post-9⁄11 criticism of Australian involvement in the US-led ‘War on Terror’. Mundine was vilified and demonized within the Australian corporate media, and sanctioned by world boxing bodies. Critically, the dominant media discourse of the moment revealed that inherently local agendas contour the connection of the national with the global. Specifically, the contested nature of Australian identities in and through the framing and rebuttal of dissent are writ large in responses to global events. Thus, the intimate, yet nuanced connection between local and global power dynamics is revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the rationalization of politics in the second republic of Italy. Regionalization has been successful in Italy through the years. Regionalization is a process of distributing power and rationalizing the activities. This allows those in the periphery to govern themselves even if the national government has somehow neglected them.

We live amidst competing claims about change and transformation, especially claims about globalisms, localisms, regionalisms and multiple challenges to the authority of the modern state. These challenges are intricately entwined with claims about new engagements with, and legitimations of, mass violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This builds upon the conceptual framework of Lewis-Beck and Rice ( American Journal of Political Science , 27 , 548-56, 1983), in combination with the empirical design of Kjar and Laband ( Public Choice , 112 , 143-50, 2002), to investigate home grown-ness in US presidential elections from 1972-2000. It found that, ceteris paribus , home state vote shares for US Presidential election winners are 5.19-15.11 percentage points higher due to the home grown-ness effect. In the eight presidential elections analysed, this study confirms two aspects of prior work. First, the estimate of a home grown-ness effect in presidential elections of 5.19 percentage points (on average), supports the 4 percentage point average found by Lewis-Beck and Rice (1983) . Second, that support for the winning president monotonically increases as moves are made away from the opponent's home territory confirms the cascading dummy variable series approach developed by Kjar and Laband (2002) . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies of local autonomy and local democracy fail to distinguish adequately between the two terms. As a consequence, there is an assumed bilateral relationship between them in which changes in one are always deemed to affect the other – particularly in policy formulations. This article develops a stronger analytical distinction between them by considering local autonomy in three separate ways: as freedom from central interference; as freedom to effect particular outcomes; and as the reflection of local identity. Each of these conceptualizations raises different challenges for local democracy and its relationship to broader forms of democratic practice. When used to analyze the recent emergence of the ‘new localism’ as a policy approach within Great Britain, this separation also shows significant limitations in current policies towards democratic renewal and central policies that are supposedly focused on outcomes rather than processes. Although localities are being afforded some autonomy, most initiatives are not supporting the enhancement of local democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research evidence and pleas that humans are undermining their own survival on a robust and unforgiving planet seem to be falling on deaf ears. The drive for economic and military security remains more powerful than the evidence that both of these objectives are being undermined by environmental damage, social disruption, unjust treatment and forced migration. Yet the signs are growing that environmentally and socially sound futures may be vital prerequisites for economic and military stability. So, at the heart of multi-nationalism, sustainable development is beginning to be recognized as a crucial element in reliable international agreements. The consequence of all this is that environmental science has become highly political, and geographers need to recognize and work within an expanding political process. Examples of new forms of governing via sustainability science for sustainable futures are offered in the latter part of the paper, especially at local government level. The antagonistic pressures of established power and economic hegemony are never far away. Indeed, the confirmation of these established patterns of power still pervades the politics of environmental science. But it is possible that these antagonistic political frameworks are beginning to be transcended by the more influential aspects of sustainability partnerships incorporating new arrangements between government, private capital and civil associations. These partnerships will not be easy to create, for they criss-cross boundaries of familiarity and rules of operation. But geographers can play a critical role in helping to shape them and assess the best circumstances for ensuring their success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New Labour Government's New Deal for Communities attempts to stitch neoliberal urban policy onto Area Based Initiatives that involve the local community. In Newcastle upon Tyne, this combination resulted in several fault-lines and considerable local conflict. The local community was not adequately represented, because there was not one. The locus of power was not in the community but in the partner agencies. Thus the most obvious community was that of community regeneration professionals in these partner agencies, who have an ideological and material interest in representing the fact that there is a community for which they act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the problematic nature and implications of fellowship in and for communitarian theory, as illustrated by the writings of William Morris and Peter Kropotkin. The first part examines the descriptive and prescriptive components of fellowship and its role in Morris's and Kropotkin's theories. A discussion section then addresses problems arising from this dual nature of fellowship. In particular, an analysis of its social-psychological dimension on the one hand and its moral dimension on the other suggests a tension between them, inadequately recognized by communitarians, concerning the size of the appropriate communal unit. The paper concludes by suggesting a way in which this tension might be accommodated, if not resolved, drawing on the insights of conservative localism as well as the socialist universalism advocated by Morris and Kropotkin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the concept of globalization and localization. Topics covered include the search for ways of understanding globalization, the contributions of local communities to global society and the response of people from various parts of the world to global changes. Also mentioned is the call for democratization of knowledge production and application.

The article presents the author's response to several commentaries about his book "Unmaking Goliath." It presents the arguments raised by several commentators about the book. It explains why he considered the political potential of localized collectives. It illustrates how various avenues of political/intellectual research as collectives move beyond the local level.