Pinochet: The Politics

Against the background of the Pinochet affair, the author considers that a new era of international politics is in the process of being created. The House of Lords' ruling which has allowed extradition procedures against the former Chilean dictator, is understood as a formidable and groundbreaking decision in international law based on the defence of human rights against crimes committed by authoritarian and unlawful rulers. The decision taken under the European Convention on extradition and the setting up of a Permanent International Criminal Court in the summer of 1998 are, according to the author, signs that international law and international politics are moving in the direction of a universal acceptance that violators of human rights must bepunished.
However, the author is also cautious about the tension between the new path opened to international politics and the old power politics based on the absolute and indivisible sovereignty of the state. Double standards will certainly prevail and powerful states, in particular the United States, are reluctant to accept that international law and international politics are in the process of change.     

Redemocratization and Decentralization in Brazil: The Strength of the Member States

With redemocratization and the promulgation of the 1988 Constitution, Brazil became highly decentralized in terms of the distribution of financial revenue and political strength. As a result, sub-national governments, and especially the states, are now at the centre of the political and financial scene. In the absence of party-oriented politics, regional politicians, and particularly the state governors of the most important states, provide the federal government with ruling coalitions. The central question addressed in this article is what the state governments and their politicians are doing with this political and financial strength. A further point made is the importance of incorporating the states into the framework of analysis of decentralization: at the state level it is possible to identify a number of details about processes which remain too general at the national level and too specific at the local level. Brazil's experience in a decade of political and financial decentralization shows that although decentralization fosters democracy, a variety of other political and economic factors are also of influence, thus exposing the limits of decentralization's impact on policy results.     

Introduction: The International Politics of Resources

Abstract

China, Japan and Korea’s international relations are shaped by the fact that all three are significant importers of resources. This Introduction proposes two conceptual frameworks for understanding the politics that is taken up in the papers of this Special Issue. The first is to consider the extent to which there is an East Asian model of resource procurement. We find that there are some similarities in the approaches taken by all three countries; for example, their development assistance shares a focus on infrastructure building and a reticence to purposefully influence domestic politics. There are, however, also significant differences due in large part to the individual nature of the states as international actors. The second conceptual framework is the broad contemporary theme of the end of Western dominance of the world order. The main way this affects the international politics of resources in Northeast Asia is through the belief that the activities of those countries are threatening in some way. In some cases Northeast Asian approaches to resources are seen as a problem because they are not sufficiently liberal, whereas in others the problem is that Northeast Asian powers are seen as replacing Western powers in exploiting resource-rich developing countries.     

Dreams of Empire: France,Europe, and the New Interventionism in Africa

This article examines the growing importance of the concept of rural heritage in contemporary France by exploring its creation and institutionalisation through French cultural policies. The French state has sought to define rural heritage as a social and economic tool enabling different social categories to promote rural France as a new object of consumption mainly aiming at urban society. The concept of rural heritage has become the object of an intense appropriation by the declining farming industry, which uses it as a mean to create a new relationship with its territory. Considered as an ongoing and future project, rural heritage remains a major issue for the future of French society as a whole.     

Difficult but Not Impossible: The ANC's Decentralization Strategy in South Africa

As the neo‐liberal project has spread across the globe, decentralization has been a key component of it. In South Africa, the neo‐liberal macro‐economic strategy of the African National Congress (ANC) involves support for fiscal and administrative decentralization partly as a way to bring the private sector into basic service delivery and supposedly to make local government more efficient and effective. However, the ANC also sees decentralization as a way to empower the historically disadvantaged black population. Community‐based public–private partnerships have been one of the chief initiatives in this regard. In the metropolitan municipality of Port Elizabeth, small black contracting companies have been hired and trained to dispose of waste, construct roads and build houses. While not free of tensions and problems, this approach to decentralization has fostered a form of democratic development. This article uses examples from the Port Elizabeth experience to test and reflect upon a number of issues which are raised in the literature on decentralization.     

Politics of Reading: Cultural Politics of Homelessness

Reading opens up important avenues for political action. Reading is political in the sense that social groups produce and resist, advance and censor readings of key cultural texts, according to their power to do so and their interests in doing so. This paper examines the politics of reading in relation to cultural politics of homeless-ness. It does so by considering readers and readings of Johnny Go Home (1975), a British television documentary drama about homeless young people, and a cultural text that was open to different readings and political uses. Like many other representations of homeless people, Johnny Go Home revolved around a small number of stereotypes. However, these stereotypes were interpreted and used differently by different readers, according to their power to read and their interests in doing so. Broadly distinct interpretive communities, identified as liberal and conservative, used their respective readings of the programme to advance different solutions to contemporary homelessness. These readings were put to significant legislative use,for they were mobilised in the formal and informal political discourse that culminated in Britain's first direct legislation on behalf of homeless people. More generally, the various readings of Johnny Go Home underline the political significance of the consumption, as well as the production, of representations.     

The Politics of Termination: Concepts and Process

This article clarifies some of the theoretical issues relevant to the concept of termination of public policies. It distinguishes between functional and structural termination, considering the first to reflect an end to policy or program activities, the second to reflect an end to institutional arrangements that have responsibility for policies or programs. Their Interrelationship is analyzed. The authors find that few programs or policies are terminated; fewer bureaus, agencies, or departments are eliminated. In fact, efforts at termination occasionally lead to an expansion of resources. An application of these concepts and this framework in the case of community health care in Nebraska demonstrates their potential utility for understanding termination.