Local Political Groups Research Articles

Political Situation and Ideological Background in Bavaria on the Eve of the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923

The purpose of the article is to determinate the ideological platforms of various political forces in Bavaria in 1923 before the Hitler putsch. The study considers movements of an all-German nature, rooted in the situation of 1918/1919, and local South German initiatives related to the peculiarities of the geographical location of the region and contradictions with the federal center. The novelty of this study lies in a clear categorization of various political groups with the creation of conditions for a thorough study of the process of participation of military circles in the vicissitudes of the state crisis of 1923. The complex of existing contradictions manifested itself most clearly in Bavaria, which became a refuge for a large number of paramilitary organizations, the legitimacy of which was in question. Tensions were also observed in relations between the regional and all-German Reichswehr, which were formally a single structure. The involvement of archival materials allows us to make a conclusion about the strong regional isolation of Bavaria and the orientation of local political groups towards neighboring countries.

Notas para el análisis de los perfiles y trayectorias políticas. El estudio de los elencos dirigentes de una provincia del interior argentino (Mendoza, 1852-1900)

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo presentar algunos ejes de análisis que contribuyan a enriquecer los estudios en torno de la conformación y caracterización de los grupos dirigentes decimonónicos argentinos. Para ello, el artículo toma como objeto de análisis a los elencos políticos de la provincia de Mendoza surgidos durante la segunda mitad del siglo XIX y presenta una sólida evidencia empírica que identifica 725 actores políticos encargados de encarnar y dinamizar el Estado provincial. Dicho corpus ha sido analizado a través de metodologías cuantitativas y de la combinación de herramientas y perspectivas metodológicas tales como la prosopografía, los análisis sociológicos y los análisis de la sociabilidad, los cuales permiten distinguir varios rasgos de las dirigencias locales. Estas cuestiones fueron indagadas a partir del exhaustivo análisis de un amplio corpus documental —registros oficiales, partes departamentales, periódicos de la época— los cuales posibilitan el examen de una serie de variables que intervienen en el desarrollo de los periplos políticos de estos actores: su perfil socioprofesional; su continuidad o permanencia en los cargos públicos; y la proyección de sus itinerarios. En su conjunto el artículo constituye un aporte a los debates historiográficos actuales acerca de la relativa complejidad del sistema político decimonónico y del protagonismo de los grupos políticos provinciales y locales en el proceso de conformación del Estado nacional argentino. Asimismo, el estudio representa un avance sustantivo respecto de la literatura existente sobre las élites y las nóminas dirigentes, la cual se ha basado en datos exiguos y poco sistemáticos produciendo apresuradas generalizaciones que, no obstante, han sido tomadas como indicadores válidos para definir un amplio espectro político.

Quando o projeto disfarça o plano: concepções de planejamento e suas metamorfoses em Belém (PA)

Resumo Uma recente iniciativa da Prefeitura Municipal de Belém de reformar a feira do Ver-o-Peso, principal símbolo do centro histórico da capital é tomada, neste artigo, como referência para discussão sobre as concepções de cidade e intervenções, conduzidas por grupos políticos locais, a partir de coalizões com o setor privado e a mídia local. Abordam-se, particularmente, as contradições presentes na tentativa de internacionalização da cidade e o caráter seletivo que o planejamento estratégico oferece, quando a esfera política não considera o ambiente urbano amazônico em sua complexidade. O texto alerta que seria possível criar mediações para as concepções exógenas de planejamento para propor uma base filosófica para a modernização de Belém atenta à participação popular, à festa inclusiva e à sociobiodiversidade local.

The Role of Affect in Theology and Public Life: A Review of Joshua Hordern's Political Affections: Civic Participation and Moral Theology

The Role of Affect in Theology and Public Life: A Review of Joshua Hordern's <i>Political Affections: Civic Participation and Moral Theology</i>

Les Élites Politiques et la Ville: Le réseau urbain du Goiás dans les domaines portugais de l’Amérique

Dans cet article nous proposons d´analiser les mecanismes utilisés pour les élites politiques de Vila Boaqui ont comme but élargir leurs pouvoirs à l'intérieur de laville. Envisageant cet objectif, la stratégie mise en scène pour les officiers municipaux considère sourtout les mécanismes de pression sur les économies des autres noyaux urbains, éparpillés sur le territoire du Goias pendant le XVIIIe siècle. Autour de cette configuration, il est indispensable élargir notre champ d’observation afin de comprendre les événements et les relations tissées dans le champ politique du Goiás. En fait, un vrai réseau urbain s'ouvrait avec toutes les possibilités virtuelles de domination économique, s'ajoutant aux autres activités qui agissaient en tant qu’éléments attractifs pour les groupes politiques locaux...Mots-Clés: Élites Politiques; Réseau Urbain du Goiás; Portugais de l’Amérique.

Superheroes in Hong Kong's Political Resistance: Icons, Images, and Opposition

In June 2013, explosive claims and illicit revelations of domestic and global American intelligence surveillance operations, hacking, and collaboration with US Internet and information technology behemoths rocked the world. Simultaneously, the mysterious emergence in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of runaway American intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden at the heart of the intrigue shoved the small enclave to the fore of global geopolitics. Claiming to rely on Hong Kong's respect for the rule of law and tradition of dissent to shield him against American retaliation and extradition, the dubious protagonist's statements ingratiated himself to local political groups who petitioned Hong Kong and central Chinese governments not to send him back to the United States. During “Defend Snowden” demonstrations at the US consulate in Hong Kong involving hundreds of supporters, placards bearing the image of US President Barack Obama parodied, mocked, and ridiculed the leader of the free world using iconic adaptations of Captain America, George Orwell's “Big Brother,” and Shepard Fairey's Obama “Hope” visuals. Instead of an icon of “American freedom and ideology” (Serwer 2008) and an “idealized American nation” (Dittmer 2005, 627) Captain America, American president Barack Obama, and the United States of America were symbolically transformed into a signified Orwellian caped crusader threatening the world.

The Nature of the Beast

Goshka Macuga's installation The Nature of the Beast was on view at London's Whitechapel Gallery April 5, 2009–April 18, 2010. The first in a series of yearlong artists' commissions, the work responded to the Whitechapel's 1939 exhibition of Pablo Picasso's Guernica in support of the Republican forces fighting in the Spanish civil war. It incorporated Picasso's tapestry version of Guernica, which was commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller and which since the 1980s has hung outside the Security Council chamber at United Nations Headquarters in New York. Exhibited as a deterrent to war, in 2003 the tapestry was covered by a blue curtain in front of which Colin Powell delivered his speech on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Macuga designed her installation to accommodate meetings, discussions, and debates around a central table, with the Guernica tapestry as a backdrop. Local political groups, university classes, and other community organizations came to use the conference table and the assembled reading materials. Near the end of the exhibition, the artist designed her own tapestry, based on press photographs of the Guernica tapestry while on display at the Whitechapel. Woven in Flanders, it depicts Prince William giving a speech and questions the political efficacy of her own work, as well as placing Guernica in a longer history of social image-making.

Building Democracy with Equality: The Participatory Experience in the Rural Province of Anta, Cusco, Peru

The province of Anta, in the region of Cusco, has been the site of an important process of political and social participation which has involved the increasing articulation of rural communities, traditionally excluded from the state political dynamics, with urban organisations and local governments. The process began in the district of Limatambo, where participatory governance measures were developed to engage small farmers and members of rural communities in a significant socialisation of power. The success of this experience led to the victory of the local political group in the provincial elections, the next level of government. Among the many different actors involved were political organisations, farm communities, neighbourhood associations, grass roots organisations and non‐governmental organisations (NGOs).

Cultural Performance, Resource Flows and Passion in Politics: A Situational Analysis of an Election Rally in Western Mexico

AbstractThis article contributes to a growing body of literature that questions state-centred approaches to analysing politics, adopting a more de-centred and cultural perspective. It does so by presenting a situational analysis and detailed ethnography of a local election rally in Western Mexico. The analysis of this event as a cultural performance highlights the dramatic enactment of culturally significant acts as a central part of electoral behaviour and shows how everyday organisational life, resource flows, public ritual and passion play a part in politics. That such acts are not merely symbolic is demonstrated by what occurs behind the scenes of political ritual: a local political group appropriates a Water Users' Association and draws on its staff, facilities, resources and wider power relations for its political campaign. Such practices also indicate the unanticipated outcomes of recent administrative decentralisation reforms. New producer organisations created by these reforms to administer former government tasks more efficiently are appropriated politically, not simply in an instrumental, but also in a culturally specific manner.

Institutional Incentives and Informal Local Political Groups (Phuak) in Thailand: Comments on Allen Hicken and Paul Chambers

Post-1997 Thai politics have been shaped by the effects of two momentous events that occurred almost at the same time: the introduction of far-reaching structural changes by the 1997 constitution, and the appearance of a singularly overbearing and centralizing political leader—Thaksin Shinawatra. To political analysts, this situation has provided uniquely rich opportunities to observe over a number of years whether constitutional engineering had the envisaged effect of restricting the politicians' “undesirable” actions, and whether the intended institutional change was realized. However, the coincidence of constitutional change and the occurrence of Thaksin has also made it necessary to distinguish the effects of structural changes from the effects of the new form of political leadership.

Omitted Variables, Intent, and Counterfactuals: A Response to Michael H. Nelson

I have written elsewhere: “Where there exists a critical mass of scholars working on similar sets of questions—critiquing and building on one another's work—knowledge accumulation is more likely to occur.”1 It is with this statement in mind that I proceed with my response to Michael Nelson's thoughtful critique on my previous article (see Allen Hicken, “Party Fabrication: Constitutional Reform and the Rise of Thai Rack Thai,” Journal of East Asian Studies 6, no. 3 [2006]: 381–407). Rather than a point-by-point rebuttal, I will focus on three of the most interesting and challenging of Nelson's theoretical critiques. The first substantive issue concerns the charge of omitted variable bias—specifically, in reference to the omission of local political groups from a macro-institutional account. The second and third criticisms are more methodological. First, can we or should we ascribe motives to political actors? Second, how can we use counterfactuals to solve problems of observational equivalence?

Political Conflict and Land Tenure in the Mexican Isthmus of Tehuantepec

From March 1981, when a radical local administration took office, the municipality of Juchitán, Oaxaca, located in the Southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec, has been in the national (and more recently the international) spotlight. The newly elected officials were from the COCEI, the Coalición de Obreros, Campesinos y Estudiantes del Istmo (Coalition of Workers, Peasants and Students of the Isthmus), a radical local political group which had, for tactical reasons, formed an electoral alliance with the Mexican Communist Party (since August 1981 the leading component of the PSUM or Unified Socialist Party of Mexico, organized to contest the 5982 presidential election). Land reform was one of the major issues — along with municipal corruption and the paucity of educational, health and other services — mobilized substantial proportions of a largely agricultural-based population to support the COCEI against the PRI, the Revolutionary Institutional Party which has ruled Mexico without serious challenge since 1929.

The Membership of the Independent Labour Party, 1904–10: A Spatial and Occupational Analysis

E. P. Thompson expressed succinctly the prevailing orthodoxy about the origins of the Independent Labour Party when he wrote, in his homage to Tom Maguire, that “the ILP grew from bottom up”. From what little evidence has been available, it has been argued that the ILP was essentially a provincial party, which was created from the fusion of local political groups concentrated mainly on an axis lying across the North of England. An early report from the General Secretary of the party described Lancashire and Yorkshire as the strongholds of the movement, and subsequent historical accounts have supported this view.

Political Change in Israel: The Case of a New Town

This study examines the social and political changes which took place during the development of a new town in Israel's Negev desert.' It explores the expanding sets of sociopolitical relationships in this town as well as the interdependence between these local relationships and the external environment of national Israeli culture, law, and, particularly, political institutions. The latter significantly determine the direction in which the local sociopolitical relationships develop. There are two main themes in this study. First, there are extreme differences between the strong centralized national political parties and the much weaker local political groups with regard to access to and control over resources. Thus the latter, in their quest for resources and support, are almost inevitably forced into some sort of affiliation with or subservience to the national parties. It follows that one can trace the transformation of these political relationships from informal local factions to formal local branches of the national political parties. The disproportionate monopolization of resources by the central government is not unique to Israel, and is particularly characteristic of de-