Sharpening Advocacy Coalitions

The concept of “advocacy coalitions” is the bedrock of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), one of the most established and successful approaches for understanding policy processes across the globe. This article revisits and sharpens the conceptual definition of advocacy coalitions. We summarize the lessons from its theoretical emphases under the ACF and specify its five attributes (policy actors, shared beliefs, coordination, resources, and stability). Through this specification, we identify the ideal coalition type and several coalition subtypes. We then clarify and make a distinction between how we think about coalitions as a concept and how we approach coalitions empirically. This article sharpens the lens for describing and explaining coalitions toward better observations, theorizing, and measurements. It ends with next steps for further deepening and broadening knowledge about advocacy coalitions.     

The Second Coming of Rail: The Spanish High-Speed Rail-Finance Complex

This article offers a critical account of Spanish high-speed rail (HSR) through the lens of the spatial fix. I designate the integration of Spanish HSR into a European-wide process of circulation of finance capital as the HSR-finance complex. The analysis of the inner workings of the HSR-finance complex reveals the way in which European finance has laid the conditions of possibility for the development of the project and offers a forewarning about the dangers of leveraging finance capital toward green infrastructure. The analysis of the Spanish HSR-finance complex shows that the particular form of capital circulation that has made it possible has not brought about new productive combinations but has instead deepened traditional relations of economic dependency and magnified their socioenvironmental consequences.     

Revuelta plebeya,conciencia criolla y reivindicación jesuita: política y gobernanza en la Historia del Reino de Quito,de Juan de Velasco

Este artículo propone una lectura de la Historia del Reino de Quito en la América Meridional (1789), de Juan de Velasco, a partir de las ideas políticas y jurídicas de su autor. Sugiere abordar el tomo tercero de la Historia no solamente como un relato del declive social y económico que aqueja a la Audiencia de Quito, sino como un comentario a la crisis de gobernanza que, según Velasco, inicia con el ascenso de los Borbones al trono. La incapacidad jurídica de controlar la mestización de la sociedad y las desacertadas políticas de las autoridades peninsulares, resultan en la Rebelión de los Barrios de Quito, episodio que representa el clímax de las penurias que atraviesa el Reino y que le permite a Velasco cuestionar el modelo de gobierno establecido por los reformistas ilustrados, abogar por la necesidad de un gobierno criollo y restaurar la desgastada imagen de la Compañía de Jesús.     

Empires for Peace: Denis Veiras’s Borrowings from Garcilaso de la Vega

Writing The History of the Sevarambians in the 1670s, the Huguenot Denis Veiras borrowed many ideas from Garcilaso de la Vega, also known as El Inca, whose Royal Commentaries of the Incas was published in 1609. Both works describe the history of an empire and justify it on the ground that it brought peace and unity. While Garcilaso’s book purported to be a history, his selection of facts reflected his goal of improving the treatment of the Incas by the Spanish. Veiras’s story also claimed to be a history, but it was transparently a fiction, even to the point of lifting many elements from Garcilaso’s book. What both works equally emphasized was that empires could aim at, and could be justified by, the benefits they provided their subjects. Both tell stories of benevolent and paternalistic rulers who founded nearly ideal societies in the countries they conquered. These were models of empire for peace and unity rather than merely promoting toleration of differences or concord among differing parties. Veiras’s utopia thus offers an instructive case study of the effects of cross-cultural borrowings of literary and political ideas.     

Sovereign Power,Biopower, and the Reach of the West in an Age of Diaspora‐Centred Development

Why at this particular historical moment has there emerged a rousing interest in the potential contribution of diasporas to the development of migrant sending states and why is this diaspora turn so pervasive throughout the global South? The central premise of this paper is that the rapid ascent of diaspora‐centred development cannot be understood apart from historical developments in the West's approach to governing international spaces. Once predicated upon sovereign power, rule over distant others is increasingly coming to depend upon biopolitical projects which conspire to discipline and normalize the conduct of others at a distance so as to create self‐reliant and resilient market actors. We argue that an age of diaspora‐centred development has emerged as a consequence of this shift and is partly constitutive of it. We develop our argument with reference to Giorgio Agamben's “Homo Sacer” project and in particular the theological genealogy of Western political constructs he presents in his book The Kingdom and the Glory (2011). We provide for illustration profiles of three projects which have played a significant role in birthing and conditioning the current diaspora option: the World Bank's Knowledge for Development Programme (K4D); the US‐based International Diaspora Engagement Alliance (IdEA); and the EU/UN Joint Migration and Development Initiative Migration4Development project (JMDI‐M4D). Drawing upon economic theology, we make a case for construing these projects as elements of the West's emerging Oikonomia after the age of empire.     

Accounts of early Christian history in the thought of François Guizot,Benjamin Constant and Madame de Staël 1800–c.1833

This article compares different historical accounts of early Christianity written by François Guizot, Benjamin Constant and Madame de Staël and shows that they played a significant role in the construction of their ideas about religious tolerance and political liberty in ancient and modern states. In his 1812 translation of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Guizot used his editorial footnotes to oppose Gibbon’s sceptical representation of the early Church and to assert that the development of Christianity had been crucial in condemning slavery, establishing religious toleration and fostering individual liberty. Benjamin Constant also opposed Gibbon’s representation of early Church history but he argued in his posthumously published Du polythéisme romain (1833) that the key achievement of the early Christians had been to revive the idea of individual religious sentiment against the anti-individualist Roman state. As Guizot developed his historical research in the 1820s he rejected this view and came to see the early Christians as demonstrating the inherently social nature of all religious practice. Some of these ideas were anticipated by Madame de Staël in De la littérature (1800), but all three thinkers sought to reintegrate religion into their ideas of modern liberty in ways that merit greater attention.     

The role of accredited zoos in the recovery process for species at risk in Canada

Zoos and aquariums are responding to the worldwide biodiversity crisis through major conservation initiatives like captive breeding for assurance populations and reintroduction programs. These institutions also fundraise, offer education programs, and provide critical research on biodiversity. Through a case study inside three accredited Canadian zoos, this paper illustrates that zoos and their staff members are being incorporated into many official species‐at‐risk recovery efforts on provincial, federal, and international levels. Specifically, the zoos studied are involved in every stage of the recovery process, from providing valuable research and habitat analyses, to captive breeding animals for reintroduction, to writing recovery strategies and creating recovery policy for multiple jurisdictional levels. Zoo staff indicate that zoos are uniquely suited to conservation because zoos have space, expertise, apolitical status, and the ability to connect with the public. Overall, the paper suggests that zoos can significantly contribute to species‐at‐risk protection and recovery in Canada and beyond.