"The City is Dead, Long Live the Net": Harnessing European Interurban Networks for a Neoliberal Agenda

A network discourse has emerged during the last two decades, representing networks as self–organizing, collaborative, nonhierarchical, flexible, and topological. Progressive scholars initially embraced networks as an alternative to markets and hierarchies; neoliberal thinkers and policymakers have reinterpreted them in order to serve a neoliberal agenda of enhanced economic competitiveness, a leaner and more efficient state, and a more flexible governance. The European Commission and the German state have initiated and financially supported interurban network programs, broadly framed within this neoliberal network discourse, despite their long traditions of regulated capitalism. Really existing interurban networks depart, however, from these discourses. Embedded within pre–existing processes of uneven development and hierarchical state structures, and exhibiting internal power hierarchies, really existing networks are created, regulated, and evaluated by state institutions, and often exclude institutions and members of civil society, making them effective channels for disseminating a neoliberal agenda. At the same time, they create new political spaces for cities to challenge existing state structures and relations and are of unequal potential benefit to participating cities, both of which may catalyze resistance to neoliberalization.     

Sourcing temper sands in ancient ceramics with U–Pb ages of detrital zircons: a southwest Pacific test case

Through use of methodology common in sedimentary geology, we apply U–Pb ages of detrital zircons to source nonlocal temper sand in an ancient ceramic assemblage recovered from Roviana Lagoon of the New Georgia Group in the Solomon Islands. Most potsherds from the Roviana Lagoon contain local volcanic sand as temper, but a small number of sherds contain anomalous granitic temper sand that does not appear to be local. To determine the origin of the anomalous temper, ages of zircons from the anomalous Roviana sherds are compared with ages of zircons in materials from Lizard Island off the Queensland coast and in sand from Muyuw Island in the Solomon Sea where generically similar granitic sands occur. U–Pb analyses of grains from the Roviana sherds yield Middle Miocene ages, while analyses of grains from Lizard Island granitic bedrock, sand, and local potsherds yield much older Permian-Triassic ages, disproving any possibility that the Roviana sherds were derived from Lizard Island, but suggesting local production of the Lizard Island sherds. Ages of grains in a sand sample from Muyuw Island are nearly identical to the ages of grains in the Roviana sherds. All grains in the Muyuw sand are Middle Miocene in age, overlapping closely with the Roviana age population. This strong similarity in detrital zircon signals indicates that the Roviana temper was likely derived from Muyuw Island sands. Our test case for the use of U–Pb ages of detrital zircons in sourcing temper sands is of only regional significance, and not of intrinsic global interest. The methodology, however, should find wide applicability for sourcing temper sands in many parts of the world, for it provides more specific data for the origins of tempers than either petrographic or chemical analysis.     

Illegality at Work: Deportability and the Productive New Era of Immigration Enforcement

Abstract: Our goal in this paper is to identify how recent escalations in immigration enforcement and changes in migration practices affect the ability of the state to continue to serve two of its key “productive” functions: protecting capital accumulation within industry and ensuring the state's own political legitimacy in the eyes of the public. We draw on our ethnographic research on Latino migrant dairy farm workers in Wisconsin to examine the ways in which a group of migrant workers experiences the process of being enforced as “illegal” bodies. We find that migrant dairy workers’ palpable sense of “deportability” articulates with the specific structure of dairy work in ways that make the economically and politically “ideal” migrant: compliant at work and invisible otherwise.     

Does Reported Policy Activity Reduce Contributions to Nonprofit Service Providers?

There is a growing recognition that charitable organizations are important actors in the policy process, but research has not, to date, systematically investigated whether reporting policy activity influences private giving to such organizations. This article develops the argument that reported lobbying should be positively related to donations because organizations seeking policy change consider such activities to be vital to their clients and missions and communicate that belief to potential donors. This article tests for the relationship between reported lobbying activities and private giving in analyses of 501(c)(3) organizations that filed Internal Revenue Service form 990 s in fiscal years 2000 and 2001. The results suggest that organizations that report policy activity receive more donations in the following fiscal year, with some variation across service type. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for the policy process and scholars of nonprofit organizations.