Development,Neoliberalism and Electoral Politics in Latin America

The purpose of this article is to discuss the impact of the current economic crisis on development strategies in Latin America, and the ways in which redefinitions of the notion of development have transformed Latin American politics during the period of democratization. The article examines, specifically, the rise of the neoliberal movement in Latin America and its impact on policy-making, parties and electoral politics. It argues that in spite of the electoral inroads recently made by neoliberal parties, political organizations of the New Right remain weak, either because they are the product of unstable political coalitions with a slim chance of surviving electoral defeat, or because the renewal of populist parties has pre-empted the growth of neoliberal parties.     

The brokerage role of supporting organizations inside clusters: how does it work?

The objective of this research is to examine in depth the brokerage roles that supporting institutions play in conducting local business and applying technical knowledge inside clusters. We identify three main roles: a coordination role, characterized by the efforts that organizations play in internally coordinating themselves and establishing a shared institutional framework; an interconnector role, where organizations foster communication along the value chain of the industry; and a gatekeeper role that allows organizations to connect cluster members with external networks. Results obtained in the Toy Valley cluster provide evidence that each kind of supporting organization tends to specialize in specific roles, since universities are best for a coordination role with regard to technical knowledge while private organizations are key for vertical communication and coordination. Similar results were obtained when analysing the extra-cluster contacts that these organizations develop as gatekeepers, as they tend to establish specific communication conduits with similar alters in external networks.     

Resurrections and rebirths: how the Risorgimento shaped modern Italian politics

The Risorgimento was the process of independence and unification of the Italian nation between 1848 and 1860, and has remained a powerful symbol of Italian politics ever since. Elaborating on Jan Assmann’s concept of cultural memory, the article discusses the Risorgimento at crucial moments in twentieth-century Italian politics: the 1911 anniversary of unification, the elaboration of the Risorgimento during fascism, the re-appropriation of the Risorgimento by the left and by the Resistance during the 1930s and 1940s, the general semantic space carved by the post-war democratic forces on both right and left with reference to the Risorgimento, and the sudden return to the memory of the Risorgimento in the 1990s and afterwards. The aim of the article is to understand both continuities and changes in the reference to the Risorgimento in twentieth-century political discourse, and to put into perspective Italy’s ‘particular’ road to modernity within a comparative European frame.     

‘The Next Wave of Italians Has Come to America’: Italian Investments and Business in the United States, 1980-2013

Abstract

This article examines the economic and socio-cultural impact of Italian investments and business in the United Stated from the 1980s onwards. It investigates flows, networks and ideas that have cut national boundaries and politically-defined spaces. The article argues that the last three decades of Italian investments and business in the USA have re-defined the symbolic space held by Italy and Italians in the American imagination. It also argues that the distinctive Italian contribution to the American business environment lies in the so-called ‘fourth capitalism’ and in the family business aspects of Italian Capitalism.     

Judas and his Phallus: The Carnivalesque Narratives of Holy Week in Catholic Philippines

On the eve of Easter Sunday, or what is called Black Saturday in Catholic Philippines, a secluded barrio in the Visayan province of Antique comes alive with a ritual involving an effigy of Judas and his phallus. As one of the country's main sources of Overseas Contract Workers, Antique is a specific illustration of the truism that third world countries like the Philippines consist concurrenty of premodern, modern, and postmodern societies. This paper examines the Judas ritual as a carnivalesque trope, in which folk and modern literature, colonial apparatuses, popular culture, and the agency of the subaltern intersect. I read the plaza, in which the Judas ritual is enacted, as the locus of struggles for power between the dominant and the oppressed. Finally, I read the narratology of Judas' phallus in adjunction with other texts across historical periods and insular boundaries so as to unmask the codes of ideological regulation.     

Political Theology as Liberative Theology

ABSTRACT

Challenging the widespread assumption that “political theology” as a discipline began with Carl Schmitt in the 20th century, this essay explores the biblical theme of God’s preferential option for the poor and oppressed first articulated as a modern political theology by Latin American theologians, but organically and independently manifest in US black liberation theology, and First World feminist theologies. At the heart of this movement is a commitment to speak truth to power at the risk of personal loss and even martyrdom.