Impact Of External Forces Research Articles

The exploration of Western Europe's hydrocarbon resources: the politico-economic framework and prospects

Up to the 1950s, the evolution of Western Europe's energy sector, in which coal production and use was preeminent, had been steady and relatively untraumatic. Subsequently it has been replaced by a period of highly dynamic and forceful developments in which long-established structures have been undermined, not only by changing internal circumstances but also by the impact of extern al forces.

Stalking the Squeeze: Understanding Commodities Market Manipulation

Commodities manipulations often have spectacular results. Not all dramatic upheavals in the commodities markets result from manipulation, however; indeed, sometimes when prices rise sharply the market is performing one of its most important functions, cushioning the impact of external forces that might otherwise have been far more disruptive.1 Thus, attempting to discern the line between a manipulated

Revivalism in Theory and Practice: The Case of Cornish Methodism

Religious revivals in early industrial England have received considerable attention from historians concerned with explaining their appearance in relation to social, economic, and political trends. R. B. Walker, for example, in a general assessment of the impact of external forces on Wesleyan Methodist growth after 1830, argued that political tension in the years 1832 to 1834 may have contributed to religious revival, and that the outbreak of cholera in 1832 certainly increased religious excitement. Chartism, on the other hand, probably competed with the chapels and made revival less likely, while general economic trends of boom and depression had no apparently conclusive impact. Some historians have noted these connections between religious revivals and secular stimuli and have gone on to ask what functions revivals might serve for those participating in them. Eric Hobsbawm in 1957 suggested that, in the half-century after 1790, intense political and religious excitement often coincided and that at such times ‘preachers, prophets, and sectarians might issue what the labourers would regard as calls to action rather than to resignation’. E. P. Thompson, by contrast, forwarded an ‘oscillation’ theory by which it was conceivable that religious revivalism reflected ‘the chiliasm of despair’ amongst working people and occurred ‘just at the point where “political” or temporal aspirations met with defeat’. More recently, Hobsbawm appeared to concur with this theory when he interpreted the revivalism which superseded Swing riots in several parts of the country in 1830 as ‘an escape from, rather than a mobilisation for social agitation’.

Revolution and Democracy in Nicaragua

On November 4, 1984, Nicaragua went to the polls to elect a new president, vice president, and national assembly. The general elections in Nicaragua have attracted considerable international response ranging from the predictable scepticism of the Reagan administration to cautious optimism on the part of most European and Latin American leaders and support from the socialist international. All see elections as the touchstone of democratic progress, although the rules of evidence concerning what counts as free are bent to serve particular interests. Indeed, the U.S. administration's campaign to discredit the elections is already in full swing. That such maneuvers are part of the common currency of international politics is well known and need not be explained here. What is more worrying is the simple, unproblematic manner in which many sympathetic observers of the Nicaraguan Revolution tend to conflate elections with democracy. To be sure the institutionalization of democracy, of which elections are one ingredient, raises fundamental (and often highly emotional) issues of theory and practice, most particularly under conditions of Third World revolutionary leadership. Sections of both the Left and the Right share this unproblematic approach. In reality, of course, social projects emerge from the dialectic between revolutionary leaders, the class (or classes) they represent, and external political forces. Indeed, understanding the impact of external forces on internal alliances is often just as important as understanding internal alliances themselves, and certainly more important than looking into revolutionary minds. But if one is