Democratic centralism or ‘centres’ of power in the French Communist Party Var Federation? A glimpse of party culture in 1956

Drawing for the first time on personal interviews with over 25 informants and new documentary evidence, this article looks at an under-researched area of enquiry: political spaces and dynamics within Communist Party organisations that existed in parallel and functioned concurrently to the democratic centralist system. Taking as a case study a representative sample of the regional party membership of the French Communist Party Var Federation in 1956, it considers contemporary perspectives, interests, contradictions and tensions in everyday politics at this level which, whilst not representing internecine conflict as such, constituted nevertheless distinct articulations of communist identity and militancy. However, the objective of this article is not simply to measure the extent of adherence to a regulatory system within a political entity, although it inevitably does that. This is a qualitative study that examines in detail and explains in context power relations within a micro-political environment, within a wider political structure, within a world movement, at an important conjuncture in post-war history. In so doing, it sheds new light on the orientation, nature and practices of the Parti Communiste Français as a national party at this time. It also, automatically, addresses questions of human agency.     

The Role and Relevance of Intellectuals vis-à-vis the French and Italian Communist Parties in the Early Post-war Period. A Regional Grassroots Study

Taking as cases in point a French and an Italian communist party federation in the early post-war period, this paper considers the role and relevance of intellectuals vis-à-vis ‘the party’ from the perspectives of ordinary communists in regional contexts. New empirical evidence suggests that beneath surface parallels there were key differences in that respect, which apart from anything else, resulted in some very different responses to the macro political events of 1956. It appears that those differences related to core communist principles; interpretations of communist militancy; the nature and functioning of democratic centralism in the organisations in question; and matters of human agency. This paper examines the nature and extent of those constants and variables, accounts for them in their immediate and wider contexts, and evaluates what all of that can tell us about coherence and cohesion of French and Italian communism, and by extension that of the international communist movement, at that time.     

UNICEF ‘Child Poverty in Perspective’ Report: A View from the UK

In February 2007, UNICEF launched the latest in a series of reports comparing the conditions of young people's lives across the world's more industrialised countries. The report ranked the UK as the lowest of the countries investigated. We give a critical overview of the report, identifying its limitations as well as some of the trends it reveals. We also discuss the poor placing of the UK in relation to current broader political and public debates.     

Spatially varying relationships between municipal operating expenditure and its determinants: The case of South Africa

We apply the geographically weighted regression to investigate spatial variability (nonstationarity) in the relationships between municipal operating expenditure (in total and for a separate component thereof) and the determinants of this expenditure, in South Africa. The empirical findings indicate that some of these relationships are spatially varying for the period under consideration. The global model (i.e., least square regression) cannot take account of the unequal environment in which South African municipalities operate. One implication of our findings is that a “one-size-fits-all” approach in the design of policies targeting municipal finances may not be appropriate for municipalities in South Africa, and indeed in other contexts in which such heterogeneity is found. Instead, policy formulation should explicitly consider relevant differences in local conditions.     

On the Margins: Enduring Pre-Modern Water Management Strategies In and Around the Registan Desert,Afghanistan

The Registan Desert in southern Afghanistan has, like most deserts, traditionally been regarded as a barren, hostile space, devoid of human occupation other than occasional nomad campsites and an isolated 11th-century a.d. fortress. Detailed analysis of a strip of high resolution satellite imagery available through Google Earth and stretching into the Registan has revealed the presence of over 800 hitherto unrecorded archaeological sites. Many of these sites relate to water management, and predate the modern era. The water installations form networks of sites which facilitated the opportunistic exploitation of grazing following periodic rains, desert farming, travel, trade and exchange over hundreds of years, if not longer. Extrapolating from this detailed analysis, we argue that thousands of other sites have yet to be discovered in the Registan. These water management networks warrant further study in the field and protection from neglect, construction, recreational four-wheel driving, and looting.     

Stability in the South Pacific surface marine C reservoir over the last 750 years. Evidence from American Samoa, the southern Cook Islands and the Marquesas

Although minor climatic and sea-level changes have been documented for the South Pacific during the late Holocene, our understanding of the consequent impact of these changes on the marine ¹⁴C reservoir, and therefore the ¹⁴C content of shellfish, is limited. Ultimately, this has implications for documenting the chronology of human movement and adaptation in this region. In this paper we compare marine reservoir (ΔR) data obtained from tightly controlled archaeological proveniences with known-age, pre-AD 1950 shells from the southern Cook Islands, American Samoa, and Marquesas Islands. Results indicate that there has been no significant change in the near-shore marine reservoir in these three locations over the last ca. 750 years. Furthermore, known-age, pre-AD 1950 shell samples provide more precise ΔR values for use in sample calibration than archaeological paired shell/charcoal samples. This is attributed in part to the limitations of assigning provenance and age to material from archaeological sites. On the basis of these results we conclude that the known-age, pre-AD 1950 shell derived ΔR values can be used to calibrate shell ¹⁴C results from deposits of late Holocene age.     

De facto,displaced, tacit: The sovereign articulations of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile

Based on ethnographic research on exiled Tibetan political institutions and practices in India, this paper investigates sovereignty in exile. The Tibetan Government-in-Exile (TGiE) remains internationally unrecognised and lacks de jure sovereignty over territory in both Tibet and in exile. However, this exiled administration claims legitimacy as the official representative of the Tibetan population, performs a number of state-like functions in relation to its diasporic ‘citizenry’ and attempts to make its voice heard within the international community. Rejecting arguments that such entities should be viewed merely as discrepant forms of political practice, this paper asserts that the state, sovereignty, and territory can be conceptually disentangled, opening up the theoretical possibility of entities other than territorial states claiming sovereignty. In teasing apart and problematising constituent elements of sovereignty, this paper focuses on three aspects of the TGiE's articulations of sovereignty: its claims to and production of legitimacy, authority and de facto sovereignty; its displaced sovereignty and strategies of territorial governance over non-contiguous spaces in exile; and the mediation of its ambiguous relationship with the host state India through practices of tacit sovereignty.     

The excavation of 19th-century back-to-back housing and courts and the Kenyon Cutlery Works at the site of the Stephenson Blake-Type Foundry,Upper Allen Street,Kenyon Alley and Edward Street,Sheffield

SUMMARY: Between 2004 and 2007, ARCUS undertook a programme of archaeological work at the site of the Stephenson Blake-Type Foundry, Sheffield, in advance of redevelopment. This article will focus on the results of the below-ground investigations. The archaeological work provided information on the domestic character of the site, with examples of the houses and courts revealed, and the industrial character of the site relating to the former Kenyon Cutlery Works. Excavation informed on how the site was developed, and on the material culture relating to everyday occupation and manufacturing on site, and highlighted the close relationship between housing and works.