Demands Of Civil Society Research Articles

The possibilities for and constraints on agency: Situating women's public and ‘hidden’ voices in Greater Buenos Aires

AbstractThis paper focuses on women's possibilities for agency in an excluded neighbourhood of the suburbs of Buenos Aires, Argentina. In this urban location, while women's social and economic insecurity become part of public concerns and civil society demands for state action, other forms of women's physical vulnerability are sidelined from state institutions and cannot be voiced as social concerns. This paper tackles this paradox and analyses women's public and hidden narratives of participation, and identifies the social processes and institutional mechanisms by which certain needs of women are sidelined from the public sphere. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

DEVERES DE INFORMAÇÃO E O CUMPRIMENTO PELOS BANCOS PORTUGUESES NO PSI 20

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Uruguay's Evolving Experience of Amnesty and Civil Society's Response

In charting the history of amnesties in Uruguay, this paper will begin in Part 2 by providing a brief overview of the circumstances that gave rise to military rule and the consequences of the dictatorship on society. Then in Part 3 it will explore the moves towards a negotiated transition and the growing civil society demands for amnesty for political prisoners. Part 4 will analyse the terms of the Naval Club Pact and the role that amnesty played in the negotiations. This pact led to democratic elections and the creation of parliamentary investigative commissions which will be discussed in Part 5. Part 6 will subsequently explore the scope and impact of the National Pacification Law, which benefited political prisoners and exiles. The elite driven Naval Club Pact and National Pacification process were followed by 'bottom-up' pressure for truth and justice, which will be considered in Part 7. This pressure contributed to the issue of amnesty for military and police officers resurfacing in 1986 as outlined in Part 8 and the resulting Ley de Caducidad will be explored in Part 9. The referendum challenge of civil society to the amnesty will be discussed in Part 10 and the impact of the referendum and the Ley de Caducidad will analyzed in Part 11. Although the amnesty provided broad impunity for state officials, attempts to provide truth, justice and reparations continued at the international level, as explored in Part 12, and then increasingly at the domestic level from the late 1990s, which will be discussed in Part 13. Part 14 will look at the current efforts to reinterpret the amnesty law and Part 15 will discuss the current campaign to trigger a second referendum to annul the amnesty. This paper will argue that Uruguay provides an important case study that highlights how civil society can engage with the amnesty issue, and how the wider population respond. Furthermore, the experience of the amnesty laws in Uruguay illustrates how the scope of amnesty laws can change over time through new interpretations in response to changing political contexts and legal developments.

Holding Multilateral Development Banks to Account: Gateways and Barriers

AbstractThis article offers an examination of the development and operation of accountability mechanisms in multilateral development banks. These mechanisms are gateways for citizens, as non-state actors, to file their grievances in projects that adversely affect them against these international organisations at the international level. The study focuses on the accountability mechanisms established at the World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and International Development Association) and the Asian Development Bank, and other initiatives and avenues provided by these institutions addressing accountability issues. The article offers an analysis of barriers encountered by claimants in accessing these mechanisms based on insights generated by way of claims filed and participation in accountability procedures. It suggests ways in which civil society's demands for accountability in multilateral development banks and other financial institutions can move forward.

Learning from Political Sociology: Structure, Agency and Inclusive Governance

AbstractIn this article, we consider the inclusion of children and young people in participatory governance processes. Whilst limitations are often evident in such processes, we argue that even participatory opportunities that are provided by the state and regarded as spaces into which citizens are invited can be "conquered by civil society demands for inclusion" (Cornwall and Coelho, 2006: 1). To this end, we suggest a practice-based and diachronic approach to studying the interactions between participatory structures and children and young people's agency. Being attentive to the agency of children and young people, and adopting a more diachronic approach to evaluating participatory initiatives, point to the possibility, we suggest, of seeing these relationships unfold in sometimes unexpected ways.

Action on the social determinants of health: A historical perspective

A renewed concern with social factors has emerged in global public health, spearheaded by the World Health Organization's Commission on Social Determinants of Health. The coming decade may see significant health gains for disadvantaged populations if policies tackle the social roots of health inequities. To improve chances of success, global action on social determinants must draw lessons from history. This article reviews milestones in public health action on social determinants over the past 50 years. The goal is to bring into sharper focus the persistent challenges faced by social determinants agendas, along with distinctive opportunities now emerging. The historical record highlights the vulnerability of health policy approaches incorporating social determinants to resistance from entrenched interests. The Commission on Social Determinants of Health can consolidate political support by building collaborative relationships with policymakers in partner countries. However, this strategy must be complemented by engaging civil society constituencies. Historically, successful action on social determinants has been spurred by organized civil society demand.

Colheita de cana-de-açúcar com auxílio mecânico

As demandas legais da sociedade civil e dos produtores de cana-de-açúcar em áreas inclinadas colocam em evidência deficiências tecnológicas dos processos de colheita que ameaçam a produção de cana-de-açúcar em extensas regiões canavieiras. O estudo analisa o sistema de colheita mecânica atual, comparativamente a uma proposta de colheita semimecanizada, com base em 11 características consideradas determinantes para a disseminação rápida da colheita da cana sem queima prévia, em áreas declivosas, com menor impacto sobre a demanda de mão-de-obra agrícola e sobre a capacidade de investimento dos produtores.

Popular Responses To Hiv/aids And Policy

This article examines the way in which the Mbeki government in South Africa has proceeded in its policy-making on HIV/AIDS and some of the ways in which people have responded to the epidemic. The protracted tussle between the state and civil society in the form of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) over the terms of engagement for treating the disease has marred South Africa's engagement with HIV/AIDS. The President's embrace of dissident science and his more recent silence on the AIDS issue have contributed to the creation of a climate of suspicion and mistrust. While government has conceded to specific demands of civil society, disagreements remain with organisations such as the Rath Foundation having entered the foray, seemingly with the state's nod of approval and clearly determined to tarnish the reputation of the TAC and subvert the gains made in anti-retroviral treatment. In this context of polarisation, ordinary people have responded by adapting some common ways of thinking and behaving to deal with the exigency of an epidemic that is now impacting on all facets of their lives. Not all popular responses to AIDS, however, resonate with universal principles of human rights. Some are clearly retrogressive and others destructive in their effects. The idea that strategic responses by all sectors of society should help to promote a sense of inclusion and a human rights culture, is the central argument of this article. Ultimately it may not be the gap between policy and implementation that presents the most formidable challenge to South Africa's fight against AIDS and the future of the democratic state, but rather the growing gap between government and an increasingly ill and estranged populace.

Voices from the south: the construction of Brazilian community social psychology

This paper focuses on community psychology practices developed in Brazil in the last four decades. These practices are situated in different historical periods in order to identify the paradigms and the theoretical and methodological aspects that have guided them. The paper outlines a debate between ‘old’ and ‘new’ community psychological practices and their corresponding philosophical foundations with the objective of establishing the elements that demarcate the Latin American experience in community social psychology. It is argued that there are philosophical and political differences between community social psychology and other psychological practices. The paper also discusses the possibilities and dangers associated with the work of community social psychology as it responds to demands of both civil society and neo-liberal governments. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Nationalism, Civil Society, and the Prospects for Freedom in Eastern Europe

The events of 1989 in Eastern Europe represented an alliance between two dynamics: anti‐Soviet and anti‐communist. Once the “double rejective” task of the revolution was complete, these dynamics began to diverge as the space created for freedom filled with the competing demands of nationalism and civil society. Building freedom in Eastern Europe today is associated with overcoming the economic and social dislocation inherited from communism and developing the institutions and attitudes required for a civil society. But it is confronted above all by the attractions of a tribal nationalism which threaten the entire project of creating an open society.

The Transition State and the Dialectics of Educational Transformation in the Third World: the case of Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT This paper examines the role of the Zimbabwean State in providing education since 1980. The nature of the Zimbabwean revolution, the colonial inheritance in education, the economy and civil society will be used to explicate the failure of the emergent transition state in redressing residual and emergent imbalances within the educational system. A critical theory of the post‐colonial transition state will be used to probe the relationship between the socialist rhetoric of the government and the demands of civil society on the one hand, and on the other, the requirements of local and international capital. It is the interplay and contradictions among these four major actors that is used to show how educational reform is becoming an elusive goal in Sub‐Saharan Africa.

Bringing the State into Constitutional Theory: Public Authority and the Constitution

This article brings the state into constitutional theory by presenting a theory of the development of the American state from the late 19th century to the present. The focus of the theory is the ability of the national state to exercise sovereignty or public authority over civil society. The main thesis is that the Constitution did not establish a government with a level of public authority adequate to the requirements of a modem democratic state. The result was a mismatch between the demands of civil society and the competence of state institutions, causing a reorganization of the political institutions of civil society in the early 20th century and a crisis of public authority in the 1960s. The United States continues to experience the consequences of an imbalance between the state institutions established by an 18th-century constitution and 20th-century democratic politics.

Bringing the State into Constitutional Theory: Public Authority and the Constitution

This article brings the state into constitutional theory by presenting a theory of the development of the American state from the late 19th century to the present. The focus of the theory is the ability of the national state to exercise sovereignty or public authority over civil society. The main thesis is that the Constitution did not establish a government with a level of public authority adequate to the requirements of a modem democratic state. The result was a mismatch between the demands of civil society and the competence of state institutions, causing a reorganization of the political institutions of civil society in the early 20th century and a crisis of public authority in the 1960s. The United States continues to experience the consequences of an imbalance between the state institutions established by an 18th-century constitution and 20th-century democratic politics.

The Logic of Development in Socialist Poland

The Communist regime in Poland has succeeded in industrializing the economy and in transforming social structure, but it has done so in pursuit of values which were in conflict with those of As a result, the Party has been unable to institutionalize the self-sustained, innovative growth characteristic of a mature industrial economy. The conflict has necessitated an increasing accommodation by the Party to the demands of civil society, and greater legitimacy has been sought through the development of a welfare state. Internal contradictions in the structure of Polish society (and in particular, the weak basis of the upper class) make it difficult for reforms to succeed in producing the economic growth necessary for increasing levels of welfare. The increasing tendency towards technocratization of the Party and state apparatus may be seen as a functional alternative to decentralization and a marketoriented economy, this being a way of meeting consumer demand without altering the power structure of Polish society. The Socio-Historic Background As is well known, the Eastern European societies which underwent a socialist transformation did not correspond to the kind of society for which theory predicted a socialist revolution, and Poland was no exception. Interwar Polish society was predominantly rural and traditional, the leading social force of the country being the landed aristocracy, who controlled large parts of the tillable land. The countryside was underdeveloped, poor, and suffered from substantial overpopulation. To a large degree, existing industry was in the hands of foreign interests; for example, it is estimated that in 1937 over 40 percent of the capital in joint stock companies was foreign owned (Petit Annuaire Statistique de la Pologne). Urban unemployment was also quite substantial; thus, in 1937, 24 percent of the workers and 13 percent of the white collar employees were unemployed (Kalecki). Consequently, the small industrial sector could not employ the urban population and could even less serve as an outlet for superfluous manpower from the countryside. One reason for this situation was that the landed aristocracy showed