New Democratic Spaces at the Grassroots? Popular Participation in Latin American Local Governments

This article sounds a note of caution with regard to the idea that political decentralization and increased popular participation, notably at the local level, could help consolidate fragile democratic regimes, and render their institutions both more efficient and more responsive to their constituents. Taking a review of two major strands of the decentralization literature as its starting point, the article shows that political decentralization often runs into bureaucratic obstacles and politically motivated resistance from local and other élites, and that locally based popular movements are frequently co-opted by other actors for their own ends. The author develops an ‘inventory’ of possible courses of action for locally based popular movements, arguing that their democratic potential may be best realized not by withdrawing from the institutional space altogether, but by taking advantage of existing possibilities to participate, while maximizing their influence and minimizing the risk of co-optation by striking alliances with a variety of other actors.     

Framing papal communication in the central Middle Ages

ABSTRACT

This essay examines the production and consumption of papal communication in the central Middle Ages. It outlines the development of the papacy, which formed the historical and political framework for papal communication, and discusses the processes, themes and meanings behind various types of communication relating to the papacy in Latin Christendom principally between the years 1100 and 1300. Particular emphasis is placed upon the plurality of responses to papal communication and on the relationship between papal communication and authority, and papal self-identity and perceptions. The essay introduces seven diverse and interdisciplinary articles in a special issue of the Journal of Medieval History on the papacy and communication in the central Middle Ages.