Levels Of Political Organization Research Articles

Влияние современного международного терроризма на основные мегатренды современной мировой политики

The article analyzes the influence of modern terrorism on two megatrends of contemporary world politics – globalization and democratization, which are linked with three levels of political organization of modern world – the Westphalian system, the system of interstate relations and the political system of states. A simplified method of constructing a forecasting scenario is used, which provides a description of the influence of terrorism on the dynamics of the development of globalization and democratization in the future. The author relies on the ideas of a cyclical approach, according to which “upward” and “downward” stages are inherent characteristic of social and political processes. It has been established that modern international terrorism uses the uneven distribution of benefits from globalization and its unifying characteristics in the sphere of culture and social relations in its destructive ideology and practice. As a result, globalization in the least developed countries is perceived in a negative way, and the risks of local rollbacks for this phenomenon remain. Long-term recommendations are proposed to improve the current situation. A scenario of anti-terrorist struggle, its state and prospects, and the dynamics of the two selected megatrends in the context of those scenarios have been developed. Results. It is concluded that terrorism is a significant negative factor for globalization and democratization. The first feels the influence of terrorism at the local level and it is unlikely to become a de-globalizing force, while the direct or indirect influence of international terrorism on the dynamic of democratization waves can be more significant.

Delocalizing Communities: Changing Forms of Community Engagement in Natural Resources Governance

Summary Across both the developing and developed worlds, community engagement has become a key strategy for natural resource management. However, a growing number of studies report that community-based approaches are experiencing formidable challenges, with limited outcomes in terms of livelihoods, decentralization and sustainability. Yet, policies continue to focus attention unduly on “community participation”, ignoring the ways in which the “community” is itself embedded in a wider social system. Recent studies have shown that local communities are more complex than previously assumed, with local community actions being heavily shaped by wider social and environmental contexts. Yet, scholarly research tends to focus on reporting such cross-scalar dynamics, with little explanation of how and why they occur. This paper advances a framework to understand how local communities interact with the wider world, through what we term “delocalization of communities” in natural resource management. Using Bourdieu’s theory of social field, we present an approach to analyze various trajectories of delocalization involving the exchange of, and struggle for, a variety of resources valued in specific fields of natural resource governance. We extend the work of several researchers who have been critical of the conventional view of the community, and argue that a new model of delocalized “community” needs to be envisaged, one that emphasizes the interactions among actors within and between spatial scales and levels of political organization. While such a cross-scalar view is not novel, we deepen social field approach to assess how cross-scalar processes unfold in the course of “delocalization” of communities in the context of rapid social and environmental change. We draw on evidence from five different case studies from three continents that demonstrate specific aspects of the delocalization phenomenon. The cases selected are from Australia, Indonesia, Mexico, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea. We demonstrate through these cases that increasingly diverse interests in natural resources such as forests have served to delocalize communities beyond “local” domains. We conclude that local community is not a localized entity, and there are multiple cross-scale networks which need to be recognized, as these have profound implications in community-based natural resource management. In such situations, open and exploratory approaches - moving away from blueprint interventions - are required to facilitate context-specific fields and spheres of local democracy, nurturing diverse, flexible, and networked models of community participation, along with the recognition of political and economic influence coming from the wider domain.

Mortalidad infantil por malformaciones congénitas y condición socioeconómica: el caso de la Argentina

Compare the infant mortality rate due to congenital malformations ( IMRCM) and the percentage of deaths due to congenital malformations (%DCM) with sociodemographic and economic characteristics in Argentina. The Argentine study population resided in 511 departments of 23 provinces, grouped into five geographic regions (Northwest, Northeast, Central, Cuyo, and Patagonia). The analyzed variables were the IMRCM and the %DCM calculated on the basis of births and deaths during 2002-2006 period. In addition, 21 variables were used from the 2001 Population and Housing Census (National Census and Statistics Institute of Argentina) to construct the Sociodemographic and Economic Indicator (SDEI) through the analysis of principal components. Comparison tests were carried out in order to assess the significant differences among the various regions and the correlations between indicators, and of these with the departmental latitudes and longitudes. There was no significant correlation between the IMRCM and the SDEI, nor with geographic coordinates. However, there was a significant positive correlation between the IMRCM and the SDEI (P < 0.05) at all levels of political organization. The SDEI explained 41% of the %DCM. The IMRCM was not significantly associated with the country's marked socioeconomic heterogeneity; the highest %DCM values, on the other hand, were observed in the populations of the central and southern areas of the country. Given the relationship between the %DCM and socioeconomic development of the population, use of this indicator as a proxy of well-being and quality of life is suggested.

Possessing the Pacific: land, settlers, and indigenous people from Australia to Alaska

During the 19th century, British and American settlers acquired a vast amount of land from indigenous people throughout the Pacific, but in no two places did they acquire it the same way. Stuart Banner tells the story of colonial settlement in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. Today, indigenous people own much more land in some of these places than in others. And certain indigenous peoples benefit from treaty rights, while others do not. These variations are traceable to choices made more than a century ago - choices about whether indigenous people were the owners of their land and how that land was to be transferred to whites.Banner argues that these differences were not due to any deliberate land policy created in London or Washington. Rather, the decisions were made locally by settlers and colonial officials and were based on factors peculiar to each colony, such as whether the local indigenous people were agriculturalists and what level of political organization they had attained. These differences loom very large now, perhaps even larger than they did in the 19th century, because they continue to influence the course of litigation and political struggle between indigenous people and whites over claims to land and other resources.Possessing the Pacific is an original and broadly conceived study of how colonial struggles over land still shape the relations between whites and indigenous people throughout much of the world.

The Sun City Wars: Chapter 3

A revealing indicator of social fragmentation in metropolitan America is the proliferation of common interest developments (CIDs), communities defined by restrictive covenants, deed restrictions, community associations, and citizens groups that wield substantial political influence and power. In Phoenix, large-scale retirement communities represent a conspicuous form of CID, populated by Anglo, middle, and upper-middle class elderly migrants who display high levels of political organization and participation. We present a case study of heated conflict between retirees in Sun City West—who see themselves as separate from the larger metropolitan region—and surrounding communities in the Dysart School District. The conflict is fraught with age, social class, and cultural tensions and evolves around seniors wielding political muscle in defeating school funding measures, controlling the Dysart governing board, and seeking to de-annex themselves out of the district to avoid paying school taxes. We argue that political conflict between advantaged seniors and neighboring working class Latino communities is symptomatic of troubling divisions across urban social space in America, raising thorny questions about the nature and scale of community, political representation and power, and fostering the public good in the face of "secession of the successful" from the larger polity.

Employers’ Estimates of Market Wages: Implications for Wage Discrimination in the U.S.

In the U.S., public and private employers often survey each other’s wages in order to estimate the prevailing “market wage” for a job. I examine this process to see how it can lead to underpaying women, relying on a 1989 study of government wage-setting in the State of Washington and my own study of government wage-setting in the State of California. Gender biases can appear because numerous decisions are involved in each step of the process, and these decisions are often influenced by the gendered social and political environment, including the different levels of political organization of male and female employees.

Nutrition and Politics in Prehistory

▪ Abstract The interaction of nutritional status with political structure in prehistoric New World societies is examined through bioarchaeological analysis. Overall, a general correlation is seen between political complexity and patterns of morbidity among various subsegments of the population. This relationship is strongest among egalitarian societies, in which few differences exist, and state-level societies, in which differences are readily apparent and appear to widen over time. At intermediate levels of political complexity, a less consistent picture emerges; various explanations are considered as to why the dietary differences predicted by the ethnohistorical and archaeological records are not reflected in the osteological record. Also addressed are patterns of differences in access to nutritional resources by gender at the various levels of political organization, as well as patterns of access between rural and urban centers. Future directions of study are suggested.

PERSPECTIVES ON PANETHNOGENESIS: THE CASE OF THE MONTAGNARDS

A study of Montagnard ethnogenesis in the highlands of Vietnam suggests that panethnicity emerges under certain historic conditions in which separate ethnies , in opposition to a common enemy which is usually another dominant ethnic group , must create a higher level of political organization to preserve both their separate as well as collective identities . Under these conditions panethnic affiliations come to have increasing emotional significance . But in spite of common panethnic sentiments , collective panethnic agencies often develop conflicting internal interests . Moreover , a common panethnic ideology can persist even in the absence of supportive political structures .

Political Participation and the Social Mobilization Hypothesis: Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, and Cuba, 1800-1825

ESIS Men and women have often sought to affect the allocation of values in a society through political participation.' Though there are many kinds of political participation, two ideal types, modern and traditional, summarize observable differences. These are not mutually exclusive; they are poles at the ends of a continuum. People participate in politics, in the final analysis, because they choose to do so. However, modern political participants typically have internal, autonomous psychological sources for such participation. They can turn themselves on or off politically without depending on agents external to themselves. Although they may not be political participants continuously, they are continuously capable of becoming political participants out of their own resources. Traditional political participants, on the other hand, rely more on external agents (leaders or organizations) to turn them on politically. Politically, they are non-autonomous. When the external pressures cease, the political participation ceases. They are neither continuously involved in politics, nor continuously capable of becoming involved out of their own resources. A second dimension of differences in political participation rests on the experience of modernization. Modern political participation points to a break, total or partial, with historical commitments and patterns of past political participation. Traditional political participation, on the other hand, operates in a basic context of continuity with the past. Even when traditional political participants protest, they often seek to restore pre-existing conditions rather than claim new rights; they show low levels of political organization (such as food riots and

THE VISIBLE HAND OF THE MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION A REVIEW

ABSTRACTThis article is a taxonomy of a new field of interest to political scientists, namely the study of multinational corporations as political actors on the local, national and international level. It describes the interests and activities of the four major actors involved: parent companies, subsidiaries, investor countries, and host countries. The article bases itself in part on seven books which represent these various actors'perspectives, and suggests what kind of further research is needed to describe the cooperative and conflictual relations among them. The theoretical challenges presented by the multinationals are related in part to their dual character as economic and political actors, and in part to the fact that they integrate activities among various levels of political organization, thus cutting across traditional divisions of scholarly disciplines such as local, comparative and international politics, as well as economics, international business, and industrial relations.