Forms Of Political Mobilization Research Articles

Blurring Disciplinary Boundaries: The Material Culture of Improvement during the Age of Abolition in Barbados

This article uses plantation archaeology to explore white Barbadian responses to the British anti-slavery campaign during the late eighteenth century. By blurring disciplinary boundaries between history and archaeology, we examine how competing British and Caribbean images of West Indian planters were contested through material culture. Drawing on an archaeological case study at St. Nicholas Abbey sugar plantation, St. Peter, Barbados, we highlight how the landscape of slavery was transformed with the emergent, English ideal of ‘improvement’. This early Barbadian response to anti-slavery was a form of political mobilization deployed by the planter elite, allowing for the construction of new racial and cultural identities.

Political Machines at Work Voter Mobilization and Electoral Subversion in the Workplace

The authors explore how modern autocrats win elections by inducing employers to mobilize their employees to vote for the regime and thereby subvert the electoral process. using two original surveys of employers and workers conducted around the 2011 parliamentary elections in russia, they find that just under one-quarter of employers engaged in some form of political mobilization. they then develop a simple framework for identifying which firms engage in voter mobilization and which workers are targeted for mobilization. firms that are vulnerable to state pressure—financially dependent firms and those in sectors characterized by asset immobility—are among the most common sites of workplace-based electoral subversion. the authors also find that workers who are especially dependent on their employer are more likely to be targeted for mobilization. By identifying the conditions under which workplace mobilization occurs in authoritarian regimes, the authors contribute to the long-standing debate about the economic bases of democratization. in addition, they explore an understudied means of subverting elections in contemporary autocracies: the use of economic coercion to mobilize voters. Moreover, their research finds that clientelist exchange can thrive in industrial settings and in the absence of deeply embedded political parties.

Ethnopopulism in Africa: opposition mobilization in diverse and unequal societies

At first glance, ethnically based and populist forms of mobilization appear to be contradictory and ultimately mutually exclusive phenomena. Appealing to voters on the basis of a shared sense of economic grievance against powerful or wealthy sections of society does not fit well with the emphasis on sectional divisions that is required to rally support on the basis of ethnicity or region. Yet over the past ten years a number of opposition political parties in Africa have risen to prominence by fusing populist and ethnic constituencies, a form of political mobilization we call “ethnopopulism”. This article employs a pairwise comparison of Kenya and Zambia to explain how leaders have been able to harness this apparently incompatible combination to considerable electoral effect. We argue that in order to fully overcome the tensions at the heart of ethnopopulism leaders need to identify and incorporate shared narratives of exclusion felt by different communal and interest groups. But we also show that the narratives available to political entrepreneurs are shaped both by the structure of society and the ideas and networks left over from past episodes of political mobilization. Finally, we argue that variation in the reach of the urban political economy and the extent to which ethnic identities have historically been politicized shape the potential for populist mobilization to overcome ethnic divisions, and hence challenge prevailing patterns of “ethnic politics”.

From Witch-hunts to Thief-hunts: On the Temporality of Evil in the South African Lowveld

This article explores continuities and changes between two forms of political mobilisation in the Bushbuckridge region of South Africa: violent attacks on alleged witches by young men during the late 1980s, and the punishment of thieves and rapists by anti-crime squads since 2009. I suggest that within local knowledge witches, thieves and rapists have important affinities. As ‘absented persons’ they perpetrate negative reciprocity and feed upon ordinary hardworking villagers. But significant differences become apparent when one considers the broader ‘tempo-politics’ of these kinds of political mobilisation. Activism occurred against witches towards the end of apartheid and was informed by ideologies of liberation and lineal progress. Witches were perceived as elders who were rooted in the past, and spread misfortune that obstructed the realisation of a brighter future. Fifteen years into democratic rule, the new ANC government's promises of prosperity lacked conviction. In this context, the crimes perpetrated by young thieves and rapists, provoked disquiet about succeeding generations and about the future. Anti-crime squads did not seek to inaugurate an age of bliss, but rather aimed to avert catastrophe.

Revolutions in Mexican Catholicism: Reform and Revelation in Oaxaca, 1887 – 1934

This book is a rich regional history of Mexican Catholicism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Partly as a response to the recent call by historian José Andrés-Gallego to revisit the history of Mexican Catholicism both “as a complex organization and as a way of life,” Edward Wright-Rios brings together the religious perspectives of ecclesiastical authorities, parish priests, and laypeople around the promotion of local devotions (p. 6). He argues that, in the wake of the anticlerical “reform laws” of the 1850s and 1860s, clergymen and parishioners in the Archdiocese of Oaxaca sought to spur a revival of Catholicism through “their common interest in founding, fueling and managing devotions” (p. 4). Religious revitalization in Oaxaca took place at the institutional and popular level. In this view, the Oaxacan Church witnessed two “revolutions,” one administered by Catholic pastors and the other one sustained by women and indigenous peoples.Wright-Rios opens with an examination of the reform program undertaken by Oaxaca’s Archbishop Eulogio Gillow (1887 – 1922). In line with Vatican dictates to bring about a modernization of Catholicism, the Oaxacan prelate assumed the task of transforming popular religiosity and sparking a Catholic renewal among Oaxaca’s population. In addition to destroying the secular power of the Mexican Church, the liberal anticlerical laws of the middle of the nineteenth century altered the foundations of local devotion. As the century drew to a close, male-dominated religious brotherhoods, whose activities largely resided outside the realm of archdiocesan mandates, emerged as the locus of communal religion among indigenous peoples. Gillow encouraged the formation of “canonically structured organizations” to bring these local associations under the control of the clergy, establish devotions managed by the church, and implant a sacrament-driven form of Catholicism. Women, who had played a secondary role within religious brotherhoods, flocked to the church-sanctioned lay associations, thus gaining a crucial voice in the public sphere and becoming key agents in the archbishop’s reform plan.The impact of Gillow’s project was limited at best, particularly in the countryside. The “spirit of association” that accompanied church-sponsored lay organizations found few converts among the indigenous population. Indigenous religious brotherhoods generally retained their autonomy. But neither the prelate nor the clergy under his command were willing to directly confront them. They recognized that a renewed Oaxacan church ultimately depended on preexisting religious structures for the maintenance of popular piety. Churchmen adopted a policy of compromise, “turning a blind eye to heterodox practice, or otherwise accommodating it” (p. 202). Conflict and negotiation stood at the center of Oaxacan popular religiosity.As Wright-Rios indicates, Oaxacan parishioners remained Catholics “in their own way.” The author documents the gulf between Gillow’s modernizing agenda and popular religious sensibilities by examining two apparition movements: the Lord of the Wounds and the Virgin of Ixpantepec. Through their devotion to the Lord of the Wounds, women and indigenous groups sought to reshape rural Catholicism in such a way that it escaped the patriarchal order and control of ecclesiastical authorities. Despite its “heterodox” character, most parish priests tolerated this devotion and its main promoter, Bartola Bolaños. In an illuminating chapter, Wright-Rios investigates the apparition of the Virgin of Ixpantepec in the late 1920s. Women such as Matilde Narváez, major advocate of the Virgin of Ixpantepec, interpreted this Marian apparition as a sign of an impending divine punishment for the modern error of secularism. Although Gillow’s successor, José Núñez, refused to officially recognize this devotion, Narváez and her supporters perceived themselves as central characters in the church’s revitalization campaign.Wright-Rios raises important issues about the history of Mexican Catholicism in the aftermath of the anticlerical reform. Specialists and nonspecialists will find enlightening Wright-Rios’s argument that the history of Latin American Catholicism cannot be understood without situating it in the age of modernity. This work also redirects our attention away from male-directed religious sodalities such as cofradías and mayordomías and brings to the fore the integral role that devout women played in the Catholic renewal of the turn of the twentieth century. In addition, after reading Wright-Rios’s book one wonders to what extent religious change in Oaxaca led to social or political change, especially during the years of the Mexican Revolution. Did apparition movements result in any forms of political mobilization in the face of the revolution’s anticlericalism? Wright-Rios notes that the documentation that might allow us to positively answer this question for the case of Oaxaca “is always sketchy” (p. 279). Nonetheless, this line of inquiry merits consideration if we are to understand Catholicism as part and parcel of this tumultuous modern age.The above comment, however, does not diminish the significance of this well-researched work. Wright-Rios’s ability to weave together church documents, popular accounts, and oral histories, as well as to engage contradictory sources, leaves us with a refreshing institutional and cultural portrayal of Mexican Catholicism.

Youth, waste and work in Mathare: whose business and whose politics?

In Nairobi’s Mathare Valley, one of the largest and oldest informal settlements in East Africa, waste has become a source of income generation for youth and a means of asserting slum dwellers’ rights to the city. While waste management has become a platform for engaging with the broader politics of basic services, it also interfaces with “sustainability” initiatives that invite alternative market-based approaches to address the challenges of poverty. It is at once a critique and an enabler of the excesses of modernity, at once a business and a form of political mobilization and contestation. The politics of work and waste among youth reflects alternative modes of urbanization grounded in both the dynamics of youth culture among the urban poor and grassroots market-based approaches to the provision of basic services.

'Thinking globally; acting locally': Municipal Labour and Socialist Activism in Comparative Perspective, 1890–1920

What does the unique political space of cities tell us about the forms working-class politics took and the barriers it confronted during the period of rapid industrialization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century? Three points of reference are crucial. First, city politics addressed immediate, tangible needs of workers and their families that were common to urban, industrial life irrespective of national boundaries. Second, the forms of political mobilization and relative success of these movements were remarkably congruent across the industrializing world but with interesting and important variations; and the US case at the municipal level, contrary to the tradition of 'American exceptionalism', was not an outlier. Third, municipal activists crafted a new local politics, that was internationalist in orientation (recall the contemporary slogan: “think globally, act locally”), and that challenged the nationalist aspirations of their parliamentary-oriented party colleagues. This divergence had ...

Comunidades negras en el Pacífico colombiano: Innovaciones y dinámicas étnicas

Of the studies that grew out of the 1990s redefinition of Latin American nations as multicultural, most focus on the struggles of indigenous groups and the extension of their rights. Odile Hoffmann’s insightful book centers on black people, bringing together the literature on multiculturalism with that on blackness and race relations. Colombia’s 1991 constitution and the legislation that followed stands out in the Latin American context for conceiving black rural people of the Pacific coast as an ethnic group who should receive communal titles to the land. This legal recognition produced an unprecedented wave of political mobilization around the consolidation of this new identity and the formation of communal territories. Many researchers followed this process. Although in the last 15 years they have produced numerous articles, only recently have they begun to publish monographs based on their experiences. Hoffmann’s is one of several much-awaited books that have appeared in the last two years or are currently in press (Bettina Ng’weno 2007, Arturo Escobar 2008, Ulrich Oslender 2008, and Kiran Asher 2009).The book centers on the region of Tumaco, on the southern Pacific coast of Colombia, and explores the complex relationship between territory and identity. It claims that the legal model that equates them provides a way to self-empowerment for blacks subject to discrimination, but it does so by misinterpreting their society and limiting the ways this kind of relationship can be established. The author builds her argument around two main contributions. First, she examines the history and forms of organization of a community on one of the rivers of the area. Based on ethnographic work, she concludes that it is a mistake to assume, as does the recent Colombian legislation, that black rural people have clear communal institutions as do indigenous groups. Instead, political power has been scattered, people move in and out of the communities, and there is no centralized way of distributing territorial rights. Thus, the establishment of communal councils creates a new form of political organization and of regulating space rather than simply recognizing an ancestral one.Hoffmann’s second main contribution stems from her study of the application process for communal titles in the Mira River, an area with large oil palm plantations. The author analyzes the difficulties and contradictions in the creation of communal property rights and in the process of political organizing where capital has a strong presence. The loss of land to agribusiness, the subsequent dependence on the jobs the firms offer, and the contrasting realities this situation creates in relation to the ideal territorial model expressed in the law all complicate the process needed to guarantee communal property rights. She also mentions that the intensification of the armed conflict, coca plantings, and the drug trade have further hindered these developments. However, many of the latter problems escalated after she finished her fieldwork, so they do not figure prominently in the book.This work ends by relating the new forms of political mobilization with the political history of the region since the 1950s, as well as by exploring how an urban ethnic or racial identity relates to the rural ethnic identity promoted by the law.Hoffmann’s work is perhaps the best single contribution so far on black identity and its relation to the way space has been conceived and managed in this region. Her two case studies bring much-needed detail to discussions on this topic. As a geographer, she captures elements that have escaped the attention of scholars from other disciplines. Besides drawing very useful maps and combining various scales of analysis to build a complex picture, she includes relevant discussions about space, such as the way residents of the city of Tumaco use places differently according to race, and the implications of map making in the process of communal titling.The book moves between diverse places, scales, and topics, creating a mosaic that shows many sides of a multifaceted reality. But this strategy has its costs. While reading the book’s 11 chapters, which are organized in four sections, I sometimes had a hard time fitting all the parts into one big picture. By trying to cover so much terrain, the author shortchanges a number of the interesting topics that she raises. Also, bringing her ethnographic work to life by giving voice to the people whose experiences she shared would have greatly enriched this book. Unfortunately, inadequate copyediting left the publication with numerous typographical and writing mistakes. This is, nonetheless, a major work that will be widely consulted for years to come.

Beyond Westminster governance: Bringing politics and public service into the networked era

Abstract: The underlying premise of this article stems from the following question: is our Westminster, parliamentary model of democratic governance and administration adaptable for contemporary realities and emerging challenges? By way of response, the author attempts to expose what is wrong with the current model and sketches what changes to our governing institutions must be envisioned in order to safeguard political legitimacy and administrative competence in a world that is increasingly networked. Central to this discussion is the doctrine of ministerial responsibility and accountability and an appropriate parcelling of roles and authorities to public servants and politicians. Equally important is the rise of the Internet and new forms of political mobilization outside of government, on the one hand, and the potential for more direct mechanisms of public engagement, on the other hand. Without significant innovation and reform, Parliament and the federal government instead face a steady erosion of political and human capital that cannot be reversed until the country is convinced that 1) a new approach to governing is a realistic proposition, and 2) citizens will play an important role in designing this new approach.Sommaire: La prémisse sous‐jacente du présent article découle de la question suivante : est‐ce que notre modèle de Westminster de gouvernance et d'administration démocratique parlementaire peut s'adapter aux réalités contemporaines et aux défis émergents? En guise de réponse, l'article essaie d'exposer ce qui ne ne fonctionne pas dans le modèle actuel et donne un aperçu du genre de changements que nous devons envisager pour nos institutions dirigeantes afin de sauvegarder la légitimité politique et la compétence administrative dans un monde de plus en plus réseauté. Au centre de cette discussion se trouvent la doctrine de la responsabilité et de l'imputabilité ministérielle et une répartition appropriée des rôles et des pouvoirs des fonctionnaires et des responsables politiques. Tout aussi importants sont le rôle accru d'Internet et de nouvelles formes de mobilisation politique en dehors du gouvernement d'une part, et la possibilité de recourir à des mécanismes de participation publique plus directe, d'autre part. Par contre, à défaut d'innovations et de réformes importantes, le Parlement et le gouvernement fédéral font face à une érosion continue du capital politique et humain qui ne peut être inversée tant que le pays ne sera pas convaincu : a) qu'une nouvelle manière de gouverner est une proposition réaliste; et b) que les citoyens joueront un rôle important en concevant cette nouvelle démarche.

Europeanisation and post-peasant populism in Eastern Europe

On the basis of an examination of rural social structure, traditionalist narratives and an agrarian imaginary resulting from uneven development, this article investigates the forms of political mobilisation which materialise in East European politics as ‘post-peasant populism’. Focusing on grassroots mobilisation, an analysis of the annual Corpus Christi ritual in the city of Przemyśl, south-east Poland, serves as the basis for an exploration of the theme of socially sensitive post-peasant populism as an alternative to post-socialist capitalism. This populism relies on the politicisation of the rural past and is currently influenced by ‘Europeanisation’.

Commerce and Community in the Countryside: The Social Ambiguity of Market-Oriented Farming in Pre-Industrial Northern South-West Germany (c.1770–1860)

In the mainstream literature on the socio-political history of the German countryside in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the south-west areas of partible inheritance are often stereotypically contrasted with the regions of impartible inheritance in the north and north-west. While the latter were dominated by the antagonism between large peasants and tenant-labourers, it is claimed, the far more homogenous village societies in the south-west were primarily marked by conflicts with external powers such as the state and nobility. This dichotomic model, however, fails to account for major differences in political culture within the south-west, which in many cases cannot simply be explained with reference to divergent social structures, such as property distribution, either. In the following article it is argued that specific forms of agricultural market-integration and their effects on rural status groups had a crucial impact on collective solidarities and local cohesion. This hypothesis is empirically tested by comparatively analysing demographic development, access to land and, most extensively, modes of commercialisation in four exemplary regions on the northern upper Rhine. In the last section, these observations are tentatively related to distinctive forms of political mobilisation.

Sexual Negotiations in Relation to Political Mobilization: The Prevention of HIV in a Comparative Context

Based on ethnographic research in different sites of the global economy, in New York City, Puerto Rico, and South Africa, this paper examines the ways in which women, confronted with the spread of HIV/AIDS, describe their sexual negotiations with men. In each situation, women are found to adopt different strategies for prevention in relation to their level and forms of political mobilization. The research documents the dual role of the U.S. media both in providing information for populations around the world and in perpetuating misconceptions and cultural stereotypes about the spread of HIV/AIDS and women's sexuality. Overall, the comparative data overturns stereotypes of cultural invariability with respect to women's sexuality and demonstrates women's willingness to modify their sexual behavior to reduce the threat of infection from HIV.

The Swastika and the Shamrock: British Fascism and the Irish Question, 1918–1940

The last fifteen years have seen an efflorescence of scholarly studies of British fascism between the wars. Once identified exclusively with the figure of Sir Oswald Mosley and dismissed as a wholly derivative imitation of its Italian and German counterparts, fascism in Britain is now understood as a complex and variegated phenomenon whose roots run no less extensively in British political culture than in external influences. As historians have probed more deeply into the ideological underpinnings of the British ultra-right, they have made increasingly apparent the numerous connections between this new form of political mobilization and long-standing tensions within British politics and society. While scholars continue to acknowledge the many important ways in which British fascism was indebted to its Continental equivalents, they can no longer maintain—as did Robert Benewick in 1969 in his groundbreaking survey of the radical right—that fascist policy was developed “with a callous disregard for principles” or that the distinctively fascist elements of British ultra-right ideology were imported en bloc from overseas.It is all the more surprising that existing histories should have overlooked so completely one of the most important “indigenous” components of British fascist ideology - its preoccupation with the Irish question. In the 1920s and 1930s, anti-Irish sentiment became a principal theme of several leading fascist groups, exceeded in prominence only by anti-Semitism and anti-Bolshevism, to which it was often explicitly linked. For these small, politically marginal societies, the formulation and dissemination of hibernophobic ideas held obvious attractions.

The politics of European union regional policy

Abstract Integration in the European Community/Union has progressed on three fronts: the creation of a common market; the development of common institutions; and the forging of common policies. Contrary to the expectations of early functionalist and neo‐functionalist observers, the three have not proceeded in concert. Market integration has progressed a long way, albeit in fits and starts. Institutional integration has lagged. Common policies have proved most difficult of all, especially where they have required funding. The budget of the European Union will amount to a maximum of 1.27 per cent of GDP by 1999. There are two notable exceptions to this: the Common Agricultural Policy, and regional policy, now encompassed in the ‘structural funds’. This article examines two issues. First, we ask how and why regional policy has been able to advance to the point that structural funds now account for almost a third of the Union budget. Second, we ask about the effects of this expansion on political mobilization and the changing roles of the Commission and regional actors in the policy process. We find that the establishment and expansion of regional policy can be understood neither as simply Commission policy, nor as simply an interstate transfer, but are to be explained by a series of economic and political factors. As it has expanded, the policy has become the object of contestation among the Commission, member states and regions and has stimulated new forms of political mobilization. This mobilization could potentially reshape the policy, particularly at the implementation end. It might also forge new roles and relationships within the European Union and challenge the monopoly of member states over decision‐making in the field of spatial development policy. We find that there has been a great deal of regional mobilization but that its effectiveness is questionable. Member states have been able to maintain and recently reinforce their primacy in defining the modalities of intervention.

Black Political Mobilisation and the Struggle for Equality

One of the most interesting aspects of recent debates in Britain about issues of race and ethnicity is that increasing attention is being given to the political dimension. Within both academic and social discourses there is growing awareness that we need to examine the role of politics in shaping public debate about key aspects of contemporary racial relations in British society. It is as a result of this development that we are seeing the emergence of analyses of the role of black2 and ethnic minority political mobilisation. This aspect of racial relations in British society has been relatively neglected, and few studies have been conducted into the forms and impact of minority political mobilisation. But in recent years this issue has come to the fore in debates about race and related issues in British society. This growing interest has given rise to a number of questions. In what ways can we talk about specific forms of black and ethnic forms of political mobilisation? What impact can black and ethnic political mobilisation have on the public policy agenda? How far is black political mobilisation overlaid by class? What role does representation in political institutions play in furthering the claims of black people to the fundamental rights of citizenship? It is not possible to address all of these questions in this paper, but we shall attempt to tackle at least some of the key issues arising from recent debates. Additionally we shall also suggest that there are some issues that require more detailed investigation and research. This is particularly the case in the current ideological and political climate which has been shaped by the neo-conservative policies of the Thatcher administrations. With the end of Thatcher's prime ministership and the prospect of a closely fought General Election the question is raised: how far will her legacy continue to impact on the politics of race in the 1990s? This is an issue which we hope this paper will help to clarify.