Interests Of Elites Research Articles

Developmental Faith, Sacrifice and the Betrayal of Transitional Justice: A Bougainvillean Case Study

This article, drawing on the case study of resource development and conflict in Bougainville (Papua New Guinea), explores how global faith in development hollows out the possibilities of justice for peoples transitioning from the violence of colonization, corporate-state crime and armed civil conflict. While developmental faith promises a future horizon of prosperity with the Global North, Bougainville's recent history illuminates how development's economy of sacrifice authors social fragmentation, conflict and gross environmental harms while serving the interests of powerful transnational corporation, states and local elites. The harmonization of such interests, when coupled with development's reluctance to confront substantive colonial and post-colonial injustices, risks setting the parameters for a new era of instability and state-corporate crime.

Workplace Suicide and States of Denial: The France Telecom and Foxconn Cases Compared

Workplace suicides are sharply on the rise and reflect a generalised deterioration in working conditions across the globalised economy. Despite their growing prevalence, workplace suicides are subject to specific modes of repression that tend to keep them hidden from public view. Suicides and their social recognition threaten the vested interests of corporate and political elites by giving material embodiment to relations of production in the form of extreme human suffering. This article focuses on 'suicide waves' at two distant corporations in the information and communications sector: in France, the telecoms provider, France Télécom (rebranded Orange in 2013) and in China, electronics supplier, Foxconn. Drawing on Stanley Cohen's notion of 'states of denial', the article examines the tactics used by corporate and political elites in an effort to keep the suicides concealed. These include discourses that denied the suicides, individualised their causes and repressive tactics intended to control information and impede investigations. Recognising workplace suicides and the forms of repression that seek to occlude them, is crucial if we are to confront the profound human costs of a new international division of digital labour on lived experiences of work.

Conditions of military contestation in populist Latin America

ABSTRACTLatin America experienced recurring episodes of populism, and of military reaction against populists, during the twentieth century, frequently ending in coups d’état. In the twenty-first century, military coups appear to have died out even as populist regimes returned during the third wave of democracy. This paper examines military contestation in populist regimes, both left and right, and how it has changed in the contemporary period. Combining fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Latin American presidencies (1982–2012) and four focused case analyses, we find that military contestation in contemporary populist regimes is driven by radical presidential policies that threaten or actually violate the institutional interests of key elites, among them the military, which in turn is facilitated by the interplay of political, social, economic, and international conditions. Counterintuitively, two of these conditions, the presence of rents and regime capacity for mass mobilization, operate in theoretically unexpected ways, contributing to military contestation.

The Euro and Central Europe (from points of view of monetary integration maturity)

The paper discusses the frameworks and development of the introduction of the Euro in Central Europe, with a focus on pre-entry countries (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Croatia). The main elements of monetary integration maturity are the state of real-integration (possibilities of large saving in transaction costs), meeting the criteria of functioning market economy and the single market; macro-economic stability and meeting the Maastricht criteria; and shortcomings of absorption (integration) capacities of the EU. Controversial questions are also discussed, such as requirements concerning inflation, the budget deficit or exchange rate stability. The paper argues that the countries under scrutiny show diverging courses of action and policies, public support is also unclear, and the interests of TNCs and political elites contradict each other. Cultural, legal, security or emotional factors will pay a key role in eventual adoption, and prospects also depend on the solution of the current debt and migration crises.

Desequilíbrio das informações ao cidadão: estudo de caso da relação entre jornais impressos e política no Estado do Pará.

O presente artigo analisa a relação dos principais jornais do estado do Pará (O Liberal e Diário do Pará) com a classe política estadual. Embora sejam concorrentes empresariais, estes veículos de comunicação podem apresentar um eventual alinhamento político com os políticos tradicionais do Pará. Dessa forma, os interesses políticos dessas elites midiáticas, ás vezes comandadas ou patrocinadas por políticos locais, afetam o conteúdo da informação transmitida para a população paraense. Nesse cenário, jornais de pequena circulação representam uma alternativa relevante de conteúdo informativo permitindo que o acesso às informações de interesse público não seja tão deturpado pelos jogos de poder. Partindo da perspectiva teórica da qualidade da democracia, o texto se empenha em verificar como os jornais de maior circulação, e também as pequenas mídias impressas alternativas, posicionam-se acerca da política estadual e da informação levada ao público. Para tanto, será pesquisada a história de fundação destes jornais e sua relação com a classe política no passado e na atualidade.

PENTINGNYA RISET KEBIJAKAN DALAM PEMBUATAN KEBIJAKAN PUBLIK UNGGUL DI INDONESIA

A public policy in Indonesia tends to be implemented insufficiently good, although a public policy making process has been undertaken sequentially. One of factors is the neglected research results, particularly a social or policy research has not become yet as a main consideration for the policy makers. They tend using an intuition consideration and a personal experience rather than using the research results in determining a new public policy. Unfortunately, majority of policy makers use a political and economic consideration in each of stages of policy making process to fulfill the various elite interests, not for public as a whole. Important to be known that a evidence-based policy can create a sound public policy. It is a policy to resolve the recent problems, to minimize the mistakes/failures, and giving a bright wish for people in the future. The aim of this sound public policy is to hoist the image and trust of Indonesian Government in the perspective of Indonesian and foreign people currently.

Elite interests and political participation in Botswana, 1966–2014

ABSTRACTBotswana’s tiny economy is overwhelmingly government-driven and political participation, particularly on the side of the ruling party, is critical for one’s economic survival and prosperity. This has led to enduring intrigue and conflict among the country’s political power elite. Opposition party activists traditionally have embraced leftist policies and claimed to be representing the country’s poor and downtrodden while castigating the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (in power since 1966) of being pro-rich and politically connected business. Ironically, some members of the opposition elite also engage in business ventures with their ruling party counterparts. The scramble for economic opportunities has fuelled debilitating factionalism within both the ruling and opposition parties over the years. In some instances tribalism was mobilised in intra- and inter-party elections for positions of influence even though voters are more interested in service delivery than traditional ethnic issues. Our paper considers the question: ‘Whose interests do Botswana’s politicians represent?’

Of demons and angels: The “international” gaze on electoral democracy in Africa

ABSTRACTThis article reflects on the role of international election observers in African elections, following the so-called wave of democratisation at the end of the Cold War. When analysed against the role of the “international” as a geopolitical entity and the construction of the political as an epistemic heritage of the West, international observation comes across as a western gaze over the gale of democratisation sweeping through Africa. This observation is not motivated by meeting the expectations and aspirations of generations of Africans who have been waiting for and working towards freedom, but by the convergence of elite interests locally and abroad. The article therefore suggests that international observation of Africa in a neo-colonised post-colonial environment raises suspicions of imperialist designs to impose on Africa the manner in which it must organise the political arena, and the kind of democracy that it should pursue.

Participation of the Church Organizations in the International Relations

Participation of the church organizations in political process is considered. The Church as an institution takes an active part in international relations. Activity of the religious organizations on the international scene has ambiguous character. They, in a historical retrospective, used policy of interference in internal and in foreign affairs of the states. It is shown that religious institutes are capable to exert impact on policy of the state. Religious organizations have shown and have a contradictory impact on interstate relations. The church organizations tried to be active participants in political life. With the strengthening of secular power, religious organizations have not ceased to use political technologies of pressure on the policies of the ruling class. They changed them and adapted them to new political realities. As a rule, the church as an institution enjoys authority among the population in most countries. The world view of many social groups is still formed under the influence of religious doctrines and concepts. The church, as well as the state, can mobilize the supporters. Many of them are ready to advocate the interests of church in political process. The fate of many political regimes, directly depended on interaction with the leadership of the church. In turn modern political actors try to strengthen own political power by means of religious institute. The ruling class is interested in participation of church in policy. Their cooperation is mutually advantageous. Activization of the church organizations in political process depends on activity of the state. In Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church enjoys popularity. She actively advances interests of the Russian political elite which in turn give to ROC various support. Along with this, the church strives to counteract the spread of Western ideals in the country. Priests actively preach traditional Christian values in the socio-political process. Their influence increases every year.

Net Neutrality Reloaded

How does net neutrality fit within today's neoliberal politics? In short, it doesn't! Here we use neoliberalism to denote an uncritical vision of unregulated markets, privatization of public assets and resources, and antipathy to public support of social programs that's affiliated with crony rather than laissez-faire capitalism. Under this definition, government largely serves the interests of the power elite and military industrial complex-through corporate welfare (government subsidies/subsidy economics), procorporate tax policies (for example, foreign investment credits), loose monetary policy (for example, quantitative easing), deficit spending, and pro-monopolistic practices-and its legitimacy is measured by its potential contribution to corporate profit. To be sure, this use of the term has what Boas and Gans-Morse call a negative normative valence, as it's also associated with authoritarianism, corporatism, and statism.

Hallowed Stewards: Solon and the Sacred Treasurers of Ancient Athens by William S. Bubelis

Reviewed by: Hallowed Stewards: Solon and the Sacred Treasurers of Ancient Athens by William S. Bubelis P. J. Rhodes William S. Bubelis. Hallowed Stewards: Solon and the Sacred Treasurers of Ancient Athens. Societas: Historical Studies in Classical Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2016. xv + 272 pp. Cloth, $75. This book (which has grown out of the author's Chicago Ph.D. thesis) ranges more widely than its sub-title suggests and is concerned with sacred property in Athens and those who administered it, not only in the time of Solon, but from then to the end of the classical period. The Introduction begins with the mid-sixth-century altar dedicated by the tamias Chaerion and suggests that Solon's law on the tamiai of Athena was the starting-point for a development, through the creation of new forms of "sacred" property, by which nearly half of Athens' officials and a considerable proportion of its wealth came to be concerned with "handling public resources for religious ends." For the purposes of this book, "sacred treasurers" are all officials with significant authority over some kind of sacred property—tamiai, hieropoioi and the like, in contrast to priests. In Chapter 1, Bubelis interprets Solon's law on the appointment of the tamiai by lot from the pentakosiomedimnoi, reported in Ath. Pol. 8.1 (cf. 47.1), as "a trade-off in which he subordinated certain elite interests to those of the polis in return for assuring the elite that to be a tamias would remain their exclusive privilege." After discussing Ath. Pol. and Aristotle's Politics, he argues that the two-stage appointment of Ath. Pol. 8.1 applied in fact only to the tamiai and that the archons were appointed by simple election until the law on the tamiai was used as a model for the appointment of the archons in 487/6 (Ath. Pol. 22.5). Restriction of the office of tamias to the new class of pentakosiomedimnoi would confine eligibility to a greatly limited circle, and Bubelis sees Poll. 8.129–31 as referring to an indemnity which tamiai had to deposit with the Areopagus when appointed, and which it would return to them if it judged them guilt-free when they left office. Chapter 2 turns to other measures of Solon. The sacrificial calendar published at the end of the fifth century was not a reproduction of an earlier master calendar but was a compilation from different sources, updated in some respects such as the costs of victims, and was limited to what was to be sacrificed on which occasions, the costs and the resulting perquisites. Solon did not compile such a calendar, but he did enact laws which included provision for sacrifices and for their funding. Bubelis seizes on the recent elimination by M. Nelson (CQ n.s. 56 [2006], 309–12) of stelai as another source of material mentioned in Lys. 30.17, and he suggests that the rubrics in the inscribed calendar referred, in some cases [End Page 555] obliquely, to laws of Solon detailing the duties of particular officials. The basileus, and the other archons with their paredroi, will have been among the officials with relevant duties. Chapter 3 returns to Chaerion's altar and to sixth-century dedications by treasurers and other officials as signs that such positions were valued. Office-holders will have needed to appeal to the voters who elected them, and Bubelis interprets the hospitality of Cimon in the fifth century (e.g. Ath. Pol. 27.3) as the provision of ritual banquets ("There is no direct evidence for a festival context, though it seems necessary on a priori grounds," 100 n. 25). Under the Pisistratid tyranny cooperation was rewarded with office while those who refused to cooperate would suffer for it. Bubelis thinks that under the tyranny celebration of electoral victory would have been considered inappropriate, but elections still occurred, voters still needed to be wooed, and religious observances and the resources devoted to them were increased (he interprets Thuc. 6.54.5 to mean that the Pisistratids' tax was "for the purpose of funding religion": 109). After the fall of the tyranny competition and patronage...

The Red Book of Ukraine of endangered species as an effective mechanism of biodiversity: certain application problems

In the scientific article the author focuses on the major shortcomings of legislation relating to the maintenance of the Red Book of Ukraine and found that it is today effectively prevents the protection and conservation of biodiversity with the specified official document. Paid attention to the problematic aspects of the publication of the third edition of the Red Book of Ukraine; found that pursues the interests of the political elite in the Red Book of Ukraine reprint; expressed criticism of the content of certain requirements of the Law of Ukraine «On the Red Book of Ukraine»; identified gaps within the given legal act. Achieving the goal of scientific research articles contributed chronologically stages of creating Red Book with the assistance of the international community and how international processes influenced the development of the national Red Book of Ukraine.

Barriers to Professional Recognition: Experiences of Zimbabwean Engineers in South Africa

This paper discusses the challenges faced by Zimbabwean engineers as they strive for professional recognition in South Africa. A case study of Zimbabwean engineers is used as an example to explore how a South African professional association dealt with an inflow of migrant professionals from within the African continent. Data was collected through semi-structured individual and group interviews. The findings reveal that the process to become a licenced professional engineer was ambiguous, highly subjective, unnecessarily long, and complex. Furthermore, the Engineering Council of South Africa’s re-accreditation process under-valued their working experience and educational qualifications. Despite being employed in very senior positions for at least three years at the time of the interviews, the participants in this study were not registered as professional engineers. Thus, I argue that the Engineering Council of South Africa is mainly concerned with protecting the interests of the powerful elite in the profession.

Transnational social movements and changing organizational fields in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries

© 2016 The Author(s) Global Networks © 2016 Global Networks Partnership & John Wiley & Sons Ltd Recent decades have seen dramatic changes in the global political arena, including shifts in geopolitical arrangements, increases in popular mobilization and contestation over the direction of globalization, and efforts by elites to channel or curb popular opposition. We explore how these factors affect changes in global politics. Organizational populations are shaped by ongoing interactions among civil-society, corporate and governmental actors operating at multiple levels. During the 1990s and 2000s, corporate and government actors promoted the ‘neoliberalization of civil society’ and the appropriation of movement concepts and practices to support elite interests. Not all movement actors have been passive witnesses to this process: they have engaged in intense internal debates, and they have adapted their organizational strategies to advance social transformation. This article draws from quantitative research on the population of transnational social movement organizations (TSMOs) and on qualitative research on contemporary transnational activism to describe changes in transnational organizing at a time of growing contention in world politics. We show how interactions among global actors have shaped new, hybrid organizational forms and spaces that include actors other than states in influential roles.

Elitism: normative ethics of local organisation in community-based natural resources management

Purpose Local organisations have been established on participatory approach whose central purpose is to establish development activities bringing about positive change as four pillars of developments: to establish decentralised robust local organisation for sustainable forest management to enhance livelihood of rural people, to meet the forest products basic needs of local people, targeted interventions for poverty alleviation and social mobilisation initiatives and biodiversity conservation climate change mitigation and adaptation. Design/methodology/approach Local organisational elites designed/conceptualised the concept, where it can be operated organisationally and in local organisational context that provides new ways and methods to develop conceptual framework (Table I), which sheds light on involvement of poor and underprivileged members in decision-making process and distribution of benefit on equity basis. Findings The findings will lead to a positive change through the organisational elite model through both reorganising organisations and restructuring of power with change in the society and reduce the impact of rational choices, vested interests of elites (leaders of local organisation) and political factors, which are otherwise playing a game or tragedy of commons. Research limitations/implications Because of the limited resources and time, the authors are unable to verify it on the other development line agencies such as drinking water scheme, livestock, health and cooperative. Practical implications It considerably appears that the impacts are very sound to conclude from the review of above models of elites that provide a very clear understanding and useful conceiving lens to formulate how participation occurs in the executive committee of the community forestry user groups (CFUG) and community-based organisations based on three key elements. First are the caste and the caste structure of the community. Second is the wealth status of the individual, and third is power created both from wealth and caste. This should be determined from the local organisational elite model (Table I) about the nature of interactions on the executive of the CFUGs and other vehicles of local community-based development organisations. Social implications Local organisations will provide an opportunity in reality to both elites and non-elites to considerably change, make aware and create a realistic situation to determine the dialectical opportunity to develop relationship, interaction and configuration between elite and non-elite members both outside and inside of the local organisations. Originality/value It has not been found in literatures yet such sort of concept developed in development field particularly in the development activities performed by participation of local users. Hence, it is certainly original conceptual framework.

Managing the marshes: An integrated study of the centuriated landscape of the Pontine plain

The study of Roman centuriation has a long and rich tradition, and the past decades have witnessed the rise of new perspectives on these field systems. Even though these systems were considered for some time as static structures studied through metrological analyses, they are increasingly considered as dynamic elements in the management of landscapes and the reclamation of wetlands, that should be studied from a long-term perspective. Methodologically, this development has gone hand in hand with an integration of GIS-based archaeomorphological approaches, historical, geo-archaeological and, less commonly, ecological data. This paper builds on such approaches in order to study centuriation as a complex socio-economic, political and ecological phenomenon. It aims to show that the changing roles of centuriation in human engagements with the environment can only be understood by applying a framework that integrates perspectives and approaches from different disciplines. After introducing the characteristics of this integrated framework, the paper presents a case study that synthesises recent work on the centuriated landscape of the lower Pontine plain (Lazio, central Italy), an infamous marsh with a long history of (failed) reclamation projects.A GIS-based analysis of cartographic and remote-sensing imagery, including geophysical prospection data, shows that this centuriation covered an area of some 120km2 and consisted of a hierarchical system of in-field and field-bounding ditches as well as larger collectors that drained towards the sea. Palaeoenvironmental reconstructions suggest that the centuriation and several associated canals improved the hydrological structure, although such improvements may have started before.Archaeological prospections and geo-archaeological data allow us to consider both when the centuriation was established and how its role in managing and exploiting the Pontine wetland changed through time. It probably dates to the late 4th or early 3rd century BCE and presumably is one of the first of its kind. It was established in the context of Rome's territorial, economic and demographic expansion and represented a large-scale reclamation that expanded Rome's agricultural hinterland, providing dwellings, farmland and a new life for numerous colonists. But the exploitation of the Pontine wetland by a system of small farms that occupied the centuriated area proved not to be sustainable: within two centuries settlement had decreased significantly and by the Imperial period only a few sites remained, some of which represent elite-controlled estates. The decline of settlement and its associated land use system can be explained by a series of socio-economic, political and environmental factors, including Rome's on-going territorial expansion, changing elite interests in the area as well as environmental change. Individual features of the centuriation, however, remained in use for considerable time. Even though medieval and post-medieval reclamations used parcelling systems with a different orientation, the main channels associated with the centuriation remained the basis for later attempts to drain the Pontine wetland.

The Green Belt Initiative, Politics and Sugar Production in Malawi

This paper critically examines underlying political economy dynamics of the expansion of sugar cultivation in Malawi within the framework of the Green Belt Initiative (GBI). This is being promoted in the context of a protracted legislative impasse in land reform efforts, targeting primarily land that belongs to smallholder farmers. The paper argues that the promises of employment, technology transfer and infrastructure development, as outlined in the GBI concept paper and touted in the outgrower sugar cane project, remain rhetorical. Communities in the investment sites are experiencing a destabilisation of social relations, precipitated by persistent violent confrontations with a coalition of elites. Corporate and elite interests have coalesced to press on with the GBI experiment, even though the welfare of smallholders is being undermined, and despite the growing resistance through both legal and extra-legal means. This political economy of sugar must be understood in relation to Malawi’s elite politics, a pattern that has persisted across successive regimes.

What are the ideas and motivations of bureaucrats within a religiously contested society?

This article reports research on bureaucrat behaviour. Where discretion exists, do primary associations such as religious, gender or racial identity guide behaviour or are these associations superseded by secondary learned professional or technocratic attachments? Using the theoretical lens of representative bureaucracy and Q methodology to investigate bureaucrat role perceptions, two distinct bureaucrat typologies are identified in Belfast. The evidence demonstrates that an elite-level bureaucrat may actively represent his or her own professional interests or, alternatively, may seek out and actively represent the interests of the political elite as a collective. The findings have implications for representative bureaucracy research as it is demonstrated that an elite-level bureaucrat may actively represent something other than a primary identity. This contribution also provides a useful insight into everyday life within a bureau of a successful power-sharing system of governance. Points for practitioners Politicians and bureaucrats from Northern Ireland are perpetually being invited to ‘teach the lessons’ of their power-sharing experience. This article highlights the importance of the elite-level bureaucrat in sustaining power-sharing regimes and provides an empirical basis for those seeking to draw on the Northern Ireland experience of conflict management and post-conflict governance.

What Neoliberalism Could Not Do, the MAS Can: Divergences and Compatibility between Political Forms and Capital Accumulation in Bolivia

Recently, the policies promoted by the government of the Movement to Socialism Party (Movimiento al Socialismo; MAS) have shown themselves to be increasingly and explicitly tied to the interests of old and new dominant elites. In contrast to the neoliberal era, when domination was confronted with broad popular resistance, the recent capitulation to old and new dominant elites has become feasible thanks to the new forms of organization of state control that were established with Evo Morales's presidency in 2006 and during subsequent political-economic transformations. This article examines how the political form on which Morales's government was founded instituted a narrative and practice that penetrated and disarticulated popular—mainly communitarian—forces that once resisted neoliberal politics, effectively making the Bolivian socio-economic structure more permeable to transnational capital.

Media, Race and Capital: A Decolonial Analysis of Representation of Miners’ Strikes in South Africa

ABSTRACTThis article explores media representation of a strike at Lonmin Platinum Mine in Marikana in August 2012, in which the police gunned down 34 miners. Data was collected from randomly selected articles from South African English-language print media. My main argument is that the South African print media provided coverage of the strike that privileged mining interests and generally ignored the concerns and voices of the miners. Using a combination of decolonial and neo-Marxist critical political economy of the media theoretical approaches, I suggest the media in South Africa operates in a global ‘colonial matrix of power’ that (re)produce dominant discourses and ideologies that favour elite interests. The article concludes with some remarks on the need for media in South Africa to adopt a different ethical and normative framework that gives voice to silenced and marginalised voices.