A break from the past: The labor party and the political economy of Keynesian social democracy

Arguments about the nature of the Australian Labor Party have been somewhat revived over the past few years. Those who argue that there has been a fundamental break with Labor tradition are criticised from both the right of the labour movement and the Marxist left. Both, interestingly, argue that to see the Hawke‐Keating years as too distinct is to misread history. Both schools of thought argue that those who defend a Labor tradition ‐which is fundamentally different from contemporary Labor are glorifying the past. This paper gives an account of Keynesian social democracy, and employs a comparative case study of economic debate in the 1940s and 1980s, in order to argue that there has indeed been a fundamental change in Labor's approach to political economy.     

Everyday political practices,democracy and the environment in a native village in Mexico City

In recent years there has been a debate about the extent to which democratization implies protection of the environment. This article offers an exemplary case of this debate, exploring the theoretical links between democracy and environmental protection advanced by Walker (1999): accountability, development and participation. The site of the study is a Mexican native village, one of many incorporated into the metropolis, Mexico City. The city is faced with the challenge to supply an expanding population of some 20 million with housing, clean water and oxygen. The forest in the common property belonging to the original inhabitants is formally protected with logging bans and a rigorous Land Use Plan, yet illegal sales of this communal land to new settlers result in irregular settlements which now contain one quarter of the village’s inhabitants. In 1997 local elections were reinstated in Mexico City, after a suspension of nearly 70 years. Although the governing party in the city promoted the protective Land Use Plan, the party’s local politicians promised to regularize the zone in exchange for votes from the irregular settlers. These dynamics are explored in the context of everyday political practices in the village. The struggles over material and symbolic resources are analyzed in terms of force fields with multiple actors, making visible the ways in which democratic elections alone cannot prevent the ongoing deforestation caused by irregular settlements.     

内战前美国南部白人民主政治的发展与政治权力的归属

美国的政治制度在内战之前的半个多世纪发生了重大变革,其显著标志是废除了选举权和担任官职的财产资格限制,确立了白人男性成人的选举权和担任官职资格,在制度上确立了白人民主制.然而在美国南部蓄奴州,奴隶制的社会整合作用导致政治权力落入奴隶主利益集团的掌控之中.这样,法制上的白人民主制在实际政治世界中就蜕变成了奴隶主统治.在内战前的南部政治世界中,在总体上奴隶主政治人物担当着领导角色,广大非奴隶主大众是奴隶主在政治活动中的附庸.     

The origins of lithic projectile point technology: evidence from Africa,the Levant,and Europe

Projectile weaponry is a human cultural universal, but its origins and antiquity remain poorly understood. Stone- and bone-tipped projectile weapons have long been treated as emergent features of the "Upper Paleolithic" behavioral revolution. Recently it has been proposed that projectile technology was in widespread use among Homo sapiens populations in Africa during Middle Stone Age (MSA) times. One obstacle to researching the origins of projectile point technology is that the criteria archaeologists employ for recognizing plausible and implausible stone projectile points are largely subjective (overall tool shape, microwear traces). Tip cross-sectional area (TCSA) is a ballistically significant dimension that works well at discriminating North American stone projectile points (spearthrower dart tips and arrowheads) from spear points. This paper compares the TCSA values of ethnographic North American stone projectile points to hypothetical Middle and Upper Paleolithic stone projectile points from Africa, the Levant, and Europe. The results of this comparison do not support the hypothesis of widespread use of stone-tipped projectiles in Africa, the Levant, or Europe prior to 40 Ka. In the New World and in Australia, where we have the richest ethnographic record of stone projectile point use, these implements are largely employed in big-game hunting and in warfare. One or both of these factors may have played a role in the widespread adoption of stone projectile point technology after 40 Ka.     

Economic despondency and social division: A political review of the year, 1996

Verschave, F. X., La Françafrique. Le plus long scandale de la république (Stock 1998). 379 pp. 130F ISBN 2 234 04948 2

Gourévitch, J.‐P., L'Afrique, le fric la France. L'aide, la dette, l'immigration, l'avenir: vérités et mensonges (Le pré aux Clercs, 1997) 372 pp., 110F. ISBN 2 84228 022 9     

French Left Euroscepticism and the myth of social Europe

Salesse, Y., Propositions pour une autre Europe: Construire Babel (Editions du Félin, 1997), 477 pp., 169F, ISBN 2 8664 5251 8

Appel des économistes pour sortir de la monnaie unique, La Monnaie unique en débat (Syros, 1997), 155 pp., 69F., ISBN 2 8414 6378 8     

The status of religion in emergent political regimes: lessons from Turkey and Israel

Why do some newly formed regimes incorporate religion in various dimensions of public affairs, while others relegate religious actors and content to the private sphere? This article offers an explanatory model with four key components that together determine the status of religion in newborn political regimes: (1) the pervasiveness of religion in the old order; (2) the overlap among different ingredients of national‐identity; (3) the constraints of demographic realities; and (4) the period before and during the formation of the new regime as critical juncture. The model is applied and tested in the cases of Israel and Turkey, which in many respects represent opposite trends – accommodation and marginalization, respectively – that produced broad and long‐term consequences for their respective political regimes.     

Urban smartness and sustainability in Europe. An ex ante assessment of environmental,social and cultural domains

The aim of the paper is to define a set of smartness and sustainability indicators applicable to European cities and to assess their outcome in an ex ante perspective with regard to the implementation of Europe 2020 strategy. Following the DPSIR (Driving forces, Pressures, State, Impact, Response) model, we select a bundle of indicators for three relevant sustainability domains (environmental, social and cultural), which are proper to the smart city definition. Then we define groups of homogeneous cities for each domain by using a two-step cluster analysis. Results show the existence of heterogeneous groups of cities that are likely to become smart in the cultural domain, side by side with groups of more developed urban areas that have acquired a substantial advantage in the environmental and social dimensions.     

当代安徽社会阶级阶层的演进

社会阶级阶层的分析与研究,一直是每个国家、地区在进行社会建设过程中制定路线、方针和政策的重要依据。建国以来,安徽社会和全国一样,经历了两次重大制度变革。随着经济发展,在经济结构、产业结构调整的同时,安徽的社会阶级阶层结构发生了深刻的演化,有些阶层分化了,有些阶层新生了,有些阶层的社会地位提高了,有些阶层的社会地位下降了。进入21世纪,安徽各个社会阶层之间的经济、政治关系发生了并且还在继续发生各种各样的变化,正在向与现代经济结构相适应的现代社会阶层结构方向转变。