The Politics of Recognition and Redistribution: Development,Tribal Identity Politics and Distributive Justice in India's Jharkhand

This article illustrates how the potential of recognition‐based politics to achieve distributive justice is determined by political structures and the power relations that constitute them. In response to Nancy Fraser's framework of social justice, it shows that the meaningful coordination of identity‐based claims with distributive justice is constrained — not only by the content of the claims themselves, but also because redistributive demands are subverted through competing pursuits for power and legitimacy between rival political factions. The article describes how the separate‐state movement for Jharkhand in Eastern India was de‐radicalized by three instruments, namely, the reservation system, cultural nationalism and state development discourse. This explains why distributive measures do not feature prominently in the Jharkhand state and why recognition politics has taken a disciplined form in the electoral mainstream while distributive politics continues to be pursued through violent and extra‐parliamentary means.     

The Micropolitics of Dispossession and Resistance: Case Study of a Proposed Dam in Central India

This article presents a study of the micropolitics of dispossession for a proposed medium‐sized irrigation project in an Adivasi region of Central India. The article explores the complex micropolitics of dispossession and collective action in the project planning stage, long before the formal processes of land acquisition actually begin. It highlights the importance of training the researchers’ gaze on the functioning of the local state in the pre‐acquisition phase. It shows how the local state uses various powers of exclusion to fracture emerging cross‐class, multi‐caste alliances, while maintaining formal compliance with a range of social safeguard policies aimed at protecting vulnerable groups and fragile landscapes. The ‘everyday’ decisions of local state actors during the project planning stage produce site‐specific, differentiated and shifting matrices of risks and opportunities for the local people, who are already divided along class and caste lines. This, in turn, is likely to inform their political responses at the actual moment of enclosure. Thus the durability and success of anti‐dispossession collective action is likely to vary depending on the dynamic interactions of local state and non‐state actors, mediated by regional electoral politics and the overall safeguard policy regime governing land acquisition.     

‘There Was A Third Man…’: Tales from a Global Policy Consultation on Indicators for the Sustainable Development Goals

This article reflects on the experience of the two authors as ‘experts’ during consultations on justice and security indicators for the Sustainable Development Goals. The authors examine how the tension between the indeterminacy of the concepts to be measured — justice and security — and the concreteness of indicators shaped the politics of the consultations. Participants used this tension strategically to destabilize notions of time, space and identity on which knowledge production rests. In doing so, they blurred the distinction between academics, advocates and policy makers. They did this to lay claim to some aspects of implementation while distancing themselves from others. The authors then juxtapose this with personal experience of researching South Sudanese citizens, who challenged and deconstructed that distinction. At the same time, experts at the consultations incorporated an image of these citizens as an ethical justification for the discussion. The authors argue that a more complex sociology of knowledge is required to understand how these global knowledge practices work from the global to the local. Such a sociology of knowledge acknowledges fluidity and grapples with how knowledge practices defer and delimit moments of decision; it requires an ethico‐political — rather than just a political — critique.     

Electoral instability and the modern campaign: New Zealand labour in 1987

This essay explores the theme of the rise of the ‘modern campaign'—the electoral focus on polling, targeted appeals, and the professional, managed use of the media—as the strategic response by parties to the exigencies of electioneering in an era of increasingly fluid, weakly partisan electorates. Given New Zealand Labour's unparalleled policy‐reversals since 1984, which rocked a political system noted for its stable, loyal partisan politics, it is argued the 1987 campaign constitutes a threshold election in which Labour's executive consciously embraced the modern campaign to deflect reactions to its unorthodox policies, and to allow appeals to newly heterogeneous bases of electoral support. Interviews with key figures in New Zealand's Labour and National parlies afford the chance to examine this strategic tactic as a considered response to electoral uncertainty.     

Ronald Reagan's Indian Policy in Retrospect

This article examines presidential politics during the Reagan era with regard to the formulation, implementation, and aftermath of Reagan's Indian policy. Indian affairs proved to be a formidable testing ground for the drastic administrative budget cuts that transpired in the 1980s. Although the ill-effects of this policy were felt immediately in Indian Country, economic crisis inspired some tribes to seize control of their own political and economic destinies, ultimately influencing federal policy in their favor.     

Passing Nonincremental Policy: Presidential Influence in Congress,Kennedy to Carter

This article represents an important step in understanding early, modern presidents’ strategic use of signing statements by taking a sharp focus on the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. In contrast to recent presidents who have used the instrument increasingly to challenge legislative provisions, Eisenhower's use of signing statements was rather complex—from political credit-claiming, explaining the provisions of bills to the American public, and reinforcing his views on the federal-state balance of power—to maintaining bipartisan relations on foreign policy, shaping implementation of congressional bills, and selectively criticizing Congress for overspending. The theoretical framework devotes particular attention to the interplay of contexts—electoral, institutional, and economic—on Eisenhower's use of signing statements by policy area across his two terms.     

A trade balance: litigation and negotiation in the World Trade Organization's dispute settlement system

The establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been widely accepted as representing the legalisation of world trading rules. However, it is important to reflect on the limits of this legalisation thesis in terms of the interface between international and domestic policy processes. By locating trading disputes in a political analysis of policy implementation, it is argued that it is difficult to establish conceptually how the WTO dispute settlement system could have authority separate from and above the conventional international politics of trade policy relations. Instead, the article argues that case outcomes should be expected to be largely the product of domestic political institutions and policy processes, and how these intersect with developments in the WTO dispute settlement system. Brief studies of the Australian government's dispute settlement strategy and two high-profile WTO disputes—the US upland cotton and European Union sugar cases—serve to suggest that the authority of international trade law is not as significant as assumed by the legalisation thesis. Rather, domestic politics and institutions have an important impact on the outcome of trade disputes.     

“Fraudulent” Citizens of a Small Town: Occidentalism in Turkey

Abstract: By looking at the electoral politics in a small town in Turkey, this article aims to illustrate how the political scene is polarised with counterpoised representations of East and West, alongside Occidentalist aspirations. The division supplies a set of ready‐made explanations regarding “backwardness, poverty and corruption”. However, although different frameworks are employed in line with the political orientations of respective parties, particular political demands and courses of action are systematically dismissed. The poor and the repressed are hardly listened to. Yet worse, they are “explained” in advance by the antagonistic pair of the East and the West. This article is an ethnographic exploration of how their demands fall in neither side, and how attending them could challenge the existing political realm.     

When Does Cooperation Improve Public Policy Implementation?

Interorganizational cooperation is often considered valuable in the public sector. However, in this article it is suggested that the impact of cooperation on public policy implementation is dependent on the type of policy being carried out. It is argued that complex policies are more effectively put into practice if agencies cooperate a lot, whereas less difficult tasks are handled just as well without interorganizational cooperation. Thus, two policies within the Swedish active labor market policy are examined. The empirical test focuses on the cooperation between Public Employment Service offices and municipal labor market administrations. In agreement with the hypothesis, the findings suggest that policy matters. The implementation of one of the policies—the complex policy—is enhanced if cooperation between agencies increase. On the other hand, cooperation does not improve implementation of the less complex task. The study is based on quantitative data.     

西方选举地理学的研究进展

选举地理学是政治地理学的重要研究领域之一。本文以Web of Science中选举地理学的学术论文为依据,借助科学计量工具,系统回顾了1982-2018年选举地理学的发展脉络,归纳了西方选举地理学的主要研究领域和研究范式。研究表明：选举地理学主要包括投票地理、选举制度、选区划分、选票转化四个领域;与此相应,西方学界对选举地理的研究范式可归纳为空间分析、地理制图、政治经济学、后结构主义。展望未来,选举地理学在解释中国的地方政治、基层选举、社区自治,以及推动中国政治地理学的学科发展方面将值得期待。     

The quest for good government and development in Africa: is NEPAD the answer?

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) states that democracy and good governance are preconditions for development. Given the fact that Black Africa is currently suffering widespread economic crisis and political disorder, how probable is it that electoral politics as it has been instituted over the last decade will lead to good government—which all, inside and outside Africa, now claim is the basis for sustainable economic growth? On the face of it, the argument is simple: democracy should reduce the scope for conflict and make good government more likely. In turn, good government should bring about the political stability, the institutional consolidation and the operation of the rule of law that are universally seen as the necessary framework for investment. Greater investment should facilitate economic growth. Growth provides the foundations for development. This article investigates the extent to which the political changes that have occurred in the last decade have made the possibility of good government and development more likely in Africa. It offers an analysis of why it is that the nature of politics in Africa today makes good government difficult and reconsiders the changes that have taken place in the exercise of power over the recent past.     

Parties,promises and politics: exploring manifesto discourse on arts policy in Westminster,Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections 1945–2011

This study addresses a key knowledge-gap by exploring the role of electoral politics in shaping public policy on the arts. Analysis of the prioritisation and use of language in party manifestos in state-wide and regional elections in the UK reveals that over recent decades there has been a sharp increase in the attention parties give to arts policy as they compete for the political centre-ground. It also shows how the framing of arts policy has broadened from an initial concern with social policy objectives to emphasise economic benefits and boosting international standing. However, parties have generally failed to advance comprehensive arts strategies raising accountability issues in relation to future government policy. Against the backdrop of a global trend of state restructuring, the analysis reveals how devolution is leading to the territorialisation of policy – as framing is contingent on ‘regional’ party politics, including nation-building by civic nationalist parties.     

盛世才治新时期新疆农村基层政权建设体系中的中共特色

盛世才治新时期,新疆局势渐趋稳定后,他效仿中共基层民主建政做法,使新疆基层政权革新初步凸显中共政治民主化色彩。在县级政权,盛世才效仿中共民主集中制原则,设置县政务委员会,民主议决与执行;在县级以下政权建设中推行区村制、民主选举区村长、实施村代表会制。通过借鉴中共基层民主建政经验,盛世才不仅首次健全了新疆基层政权体系,而且率先引入了中共政治民主化的措施,这也在一定程度上推动了当时新疆各项事业的发展。     

Convergence/divergence hypotheses of governments' activities: Some methodological considerations

This contribution to comparative politics — and to Australian state politics in particular — provides an initial brief review of the broader significance of the convergence/divergence hypotheses for the study of politics, and of some general methodological considerations. The essay continues by giving critical attention to the use of various indicators of governments' activities (organisations, portfolios, laws, and expenditure). It then moves to address the special requirements of testing for policy convergence/divergence, and concludes by discussing the research implications of policy area‐specific changes in governments' activities.     

How street-level dilemmas and politics shape divergence: The accountability regimes framework

Hierarchical accountability often proves insufficient to control street-level implementation, where complex, informal accountability relations prevail and tasks must be prioritized. However, scholars lack a theoretical model of how accountability relations affect implementation behaviors that are inconsistent with policy. By extending the Accountability Regimes Framework (ARF), this paper explains how multiple competing subjective street-level accountabilities translate into policy divergence. The anti-terrorism “Prevent Duty” policy in the United Kingdom requires university lecturers to report any student they suspect may be undergoing a process of radicalization. We ask: what perceived street-level accountabilities and dilemmas does this politically contested policy imply for lecturers, and how do they affect divergence? An online survey of British lecturers (N = 809), combined with 35 qualitative follow-up interviews, reveals that accountability dilemmas trigger policy divergence. The ARF models how street-level bureaucrats become informal policymakers in the political system when rules clash with their roles as professionals, citizen-agents, or “political animals.”     

Politics of place: political representation and the culture of electioneering in the Netherlands,c.1848–1980s

Abstract

This article is a first attempt to explore how a politics of place has manifested itself in Dutch electoral culture since the middle of the nineteenth century. It aims to move beyond a narrow interpretation of a politics of place as an ‘old-fashioned’ feature of electoral politics to be associated with a distinct, long-gone era of political representation. Instead, this article shows how it was continuously negotiated. This gives us a better understanding of the changing nature of political representation in the Netherlands. Compared to Britain at the turn of the nineteenth century, local senses of community and their clash with ideology-based party politics were far less prominent. There was, however, on-going debate about the degree to which Parliament should reflect the various regions of the country, so that local party associations and voters could feel represented and address ‘their’ MP for issues pertaining to their locality. Moreover, after 1918 parties were concerned about the need to maintain political communication on the spot to counter lack of political involvement and feelings of alienation among the electorate. The article ends with a call for further reflection on the nature of clientelism in the Netherlands by exploring direct interaction between voters and their representatives.     

罗斯福新政时期美国文官政治化倾向的加强

新政时期,罗斯福总统在扩大政府规模的过程中,通过“政治庇护制”任命文官,使行政部门特别是行政部门中的“政治文官”以多种方式直接参与立法和政策的制订,自主地执行联邦政府的政策,导致美国文官政治化倾向的加强。这种现象不仅源于政治与行政的特殊关系,源于“政治文官”自身的优势,也源于美国特殊的政治体制和社会结构。     

Eye to eye with the innovation paradox: why smart specialization is no simple solution to policy design

This paper revisits common, yet often untested assumptions on factors hampering the implementation – or even clear articulation – of regional innovation strategies. Based on a dedicated framework drawing on political science literature, it reflects on whether there are merit and promise in future higher-level attempts to promote a more strategic take on regional innovation policy. It investigates which relevant factors in local politics, policy and administrative facilitate or prevent the definition of clear priorities for action. Drawing on a Europe wide survey of stakeholders managing strategic processes, it finds that while a number of obstacles need to be overcome, these are regionally specific rather than attributable to restrictive national cultures. Furthermore, it demonstrates how stakeholder involvement bears different challenges at different levels.     

The chance for change in the Arab world: Egypt's uprising

As the largest Arab country, Egypt has always played a crucial role in the politics of the Arab world; however, the internal political dynamics of Egypt have until the January 2011 uprising hardly attracted a glance from international observers. This article gives an overview of the political arena and the various political forces at play in post‐Mubarak Egypt. With many unpredictable variables currently at play in Egyptian politics, the result of the elections scheduled for November 2011 will likely surprise many, both within the country and beyond. The article also looks at what impact the political changes in Egypt may have had on the relationship between Egypt and Israel. There have been increasingly frequent demands within Egypt to revise the Camp David accords—but not at the expense of war with Israel. While Israel is unlikely to accept any calls to revise the peace treaty, Arab public opinion has become newly relevant for policy‐makers and Israel will have to make corresponding adjustments to its regional security strategy.     

Explaining State Budget Punctuations: Policy Transparency,Political Institutions,and Electoral Incentives

What factors cause policies experiencing long periods of stability to be interrupted occationally by a short period of large changes? This study argues that electoral incentives might influence the search, supply, and processing of information on constituency issues, as well as the associated cognitive or institutional frictions, and thus determine the presence and variation of punctuated policies. This article develops and evaluates this claim within a systemic framework consisting of policy transparency, political institutions, and electoral incentives. For the purpose of identifying policy punctuations, this research uses the Generalized Pareto Distribution in the Extreme Value Theory. This study analyzes budget spending data collected from FY 1988 to FY 2008 for all 50 American states. This study finds that greater policy transparency is associated with larger spending stability. By contrast, greater gubernatorial competition is more likely to produce extreme spending changes. Electoral incentives shaped by public preference and political term limits have a profound impact on nonincremental policy changes. The impact of policy transparency is conditional on public preference, while that of electoral competition and legislative professionalism is moderated by political term limits. Particularly, a transparent policy consistent with public preference and legislative professionalism with term limits are more likely to give rise to punctuated policies, while gubernatorial (legislative) competition leads to less punctuated changes when governors (legislators) are subject to term limits.