Patterns of urban rebellion in medieval Flanders

The medieval county of Flanders experienced an extraordinary number of rebellions and revolts, opposing the count, the patricians and the urban middle classes, in various combinations. If the fluctuating balance of power inclined too sharply to one group, or if specific demands of privileged citizens were not fulfilled because they lacked access to power, political challengers rebelled. Representative organs could solve socio-political and economic problems, but a rebellion usually ended in a struggle between social groups and networks within the towns and a war between rebel regimes and prince. These two struggles continuously intermingled and created a rebellious dynamic, ending in victory or defeat and in repression and, in turn, inspiring the next rebellion. This remarkable pattern of rebellion started in the phase of ‘communal emancipation’, in the twelfth century, a period in which the counts granted privileges to the Flemish towns, as social and political contradictions developed within the city. From the 1280s until the end of the fourteenth century, craft guilds constructed alliances with other challengers, such as noblemen, and fought for political representation and control over fiscal and economic policies. As state power became more and more important after the arrival of the centralising Burgundian dynasty in Flanders, this pattern changed significantly. The urban elites gradually sided with the dukes and urban rebellions became less successful. This did not mean, however, that the Flemish rebellious tradition was exhausted. The end of the fifteenth century and the sixteenth century would witness new challenges to princely power. In this article we will consider the role of alliances and leadership, ideology, mobilisation and rebellious ‘repertoires’ in medieval Flemish towns.     

Constituencies of conflict and opportunity: Land rights,narratives and collective action in Darfur

Grievance-based narratives are a primary component of civil wars. While present among the general population affected by conflict, the variants held by the segment of the population most proximate to the armed factions – constituencies – play a primary role in the development and conduct of a conflict. Such narratives can coalesce around specific volatile issues and enable non-combatant constituencies to participate in the conflict through the use of specific 'legalities' or legal precepts. These legalities facilitate the engagement of sets of collective action that are opposed to those derived by constituencies of the opposing side. However such constituencies and their narratives are also where potential opportunity resides for peace-building, both during and subsequent to hostilities. This article looks at the case of Darfur to examine these ingredients, with a focus on land rights as the volatile set of issues around which narratives have developed. In Darfur, opposed narratives which maintain how and why groups claim and deserve access to land and territory, and how groups were unjustly displaced or excluded from lands (and hence power), became solidified and acted upon prior to the conflict to become a primary driver in the current war. In certain cases however narrative change has led to interaction between members of opposed constituencies for the purpose of exploring cooperative arrangements.     

吴应箕实政思想略论

长期以来,吴应箕的实政思想一直未能引起学界的重视,本文旨在对他的主要思想进行评述.吴应箕对明代政治体制问题的关注和思考,已经超出了与他同时代的人,因而,他的许多批判思想,对于我们今天研究明代政治史具有十分重要的价值.通过分析和比较,人们不难看到明末清初黄宗羲、顾炎武等人的启蒙思想形成的条件,还可从吴应箕这一个案进一步了解复社士人的思想主张和政治参与意识.     

Emancipatory or Neoliberal Food Politics? Exploring the “Politics of Collectivity” of Buying Groups in the Search for Egalitarian Food Democracies

In the context of apolitical tendencies in food studies, this paper explores how alternative food networks can contribute to developing emancipatory food politics rather than constitute a tool to reproduce neoliberal subjectivities. For this purpose, I contend that the post‐political literature offers a useful approach to examining the concept of food politics by developing a more robust theoretical framework, permitting the establishment of linkages with broader contemporary processes of social change. The analysis of an action‐research process with buying groups in Spain is used to examine the “politics of collectivity” at play, that is, how these initiatives institutionalise “the political”. Specifically I explore the motivations mobilised to construct place‐based ethical repertoires and unveil how these groups govern the relationality of consumption practices in the pursuit of broader processes of change. I conclude by discussing the contribution of these initiatives to building egalitarian food democracies.     

Land Recycling, Community Revitalization, and Distributive Politics: An Analysis of EPA Brownfields Program Support

This article examines social, economic, and political factors influencing the distribution of resources to local governments under the EPA Brownfields Program, an innovative federal effort to encourage the remediation and redevelopment of contaminated properties. Signed into law in 2002, the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act provided the program with a congressional mandate, new tools to promote reuse such as liability protections, and increased funding up to a level of $250 million per year. This article contributes to research on environmental regulatory reform with an analysis of successful and unsuccessful local government applicants for EPA Brownfields Program support between 2003 and 2007. Building on prior research, we develop a series of expectations and an empirical model, and estimate the influence of program priorities, government and civic capacity, interest group pressures, and institutional politics. Results point to significant relationships between program priorities and award patterns. Contrary both to EPA's explicit commitments to equity and to analysis of pre-2003 award patterns, however, we find negative correlations between the proportions of local populations that are nonwhite or low-income and the likelihood of receiving an award. In addition, better-resourced governments and several dimensions of political representation show strong associations with the likelihood of winning awards. We conclude by discussing implications.     

旅游地流动摊贩的空间生存状态及其影响机制

流动摊贩的空间治理成效关系着目的地的可持续发展。本文建立了关于弱势群体空间政治中\"不得其所\"与\"安适其位\"的理论分析框架,并应用于阳朔西街的流动摊贩空间生存状态的案例分析中。发现:(1)受新自由主义思想主导下的城市管理模式影响,阳朔西街的流动摊贩被政策法规在正式制度层面认定为\"不得其所\",但其在旅游经营活动中却受到其他空间使用者的欢迎,在非正式制度层面是\"安适其位\";(2)西街流动摊贩的空间生存状态具有\"不得其所\"与\"安适其位\"的双重性,由此也塑造出流动摊贩在阳朔西街时空嵌入的空间结构;(3)内部群体特征(灵活流动性、规范化提升)与外部社会文化情景(和谐稳定的社会话语、旅游场域的特殊性)两个方面因素不仅有效消解了正式制度层面所形塑出的\"不得其所\"空间规范,同时也强化了非正式制度层面与空间结构上西街流动摊贩的\"安适其位\"。     

The Abeng’s Call: The Articulation of Place and the International in Black Power Print Production

This article engages with radical Black Power print production in order to examine the articulation of Black practices of place-making and Black internationalist spatial politics. These spatial politics and practices are developed through engagement with the Jamaican Black Power newspaper Abeng which was produced at the height of Black Power activity on the island in 1969. The paper draws on Black Geographies scholarship to demonstrate that Abeng represented a material and discursive means through which subaltern practices and places of resistance in Jamaica were enacted in opposition to and excess of plantation spatialities and regimes on the island. The carving out of such subaltern places allowed for the articulation of transnational imaginaries and translocal solidarities with similarly aligned communities and struggles across the diasporic world. The Abeng newspaper was again central in crafting these imagined Black internationalist geographies and coeval praxes of transnational solidarity.     

Canadian Political Economy and the Great Recession of 2008–9: The Politics of Coping with Economic Crisis

The emerging comparative political economy literature on the Great Recession of 2008–9 has devoted an increasing amount of time analyzing how domestic politics and the economic crisis were jointly determined. This article seeks to explore certain aspects of this dynamic relationship in the context of Canada, a country that has received little coverage in the comparative literature so far.