Local Political Organizations Research Articles

Decentralization and Development: The Missing Link

Decentralization is a basic form of democratic government that transfer power, resources and empowers the local people as the decision makers for the local governing system. Since the inception in the Indian Constitution, decentralization was predicated to strengthen local political organizations, increase their democratic nature, and establish institutions that would cater to the interests and needs of the people. It envisages increasing local government institutions’ accountability and performance which would enhance development and transparency of governance at the grass root level. There are various theoretical benefits associated with decentralization, and already three decades have passed since the introduction of the 73rd and 74th Amendment Act in 1992. However, in many instances, realizing these idealistic decentralization goals has proven to be extremely difficult. The study therefore seeks to examine if decentralization is improving service delivery at the local level as envisioned. Although, efforts were made to facilitate effective and accountable local governance, various factors have hindered decentralization to fully achieve its objectives. The study attempts to identify the ‘missing link’ which has hampered the efficacy of decentralized government in India.

Political Resistance Against Brown V. The Board of Education of Topeka 1954-1960

After the ruling of Brown V. The Board of Education that declared segregated public schools unconstitutional, the American South began to employ political means in order to maintain segregation. This fight to preserve segregation was seen throughout all levels of the American government, from the highest office of the presidency to local political organizations such as the White Citizens' Councils.

Local Political Parties in Austria during the COVID-19 Era: A Comparative Case Analysis

This article examines local political party organization of the SPÖ and its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The practices and initiatives adopted by local political, social, and democratic party groups in two Austrian regions, a rural town in Styria and an urban district in Vienna, during the COVID-19 pandemic were examined. Using Problem-centered interviews (PCI) and group discussions as instruments for data collection, it was investigated how these parties adapted their activities to maintain engagement and support from the population in the face of unprecedented challenges. The results showed that both parties transitioned to online formats for meetings and events. Measures such as telephone assistance for emotional support, projects to support local businesses, and social measures for those in financial need were introduced to meet the urgent needs of people in the communities. Despite some challenges such as fluctuating motivation, difficulties in maintaining online engagement, ICT competencies, and dealing with personal overload, local parties demonstrated resilience and adaptability during the crisis.

South–South Cooperation in Agriculture: Impacts of Brazil’s More Food International Program on Post-Land Reform Social Organizations in Zimbabwe

South–South Cooperation has received significant attention. This article assesses the implications of Brazil’s More Food International on farm-level social organizations in Goromonzi and Mvurwi districts in Zimbabwe. Data was collected using mainly focus group discussions, key-informant interviews, and the application of a questionnaire among 410 farming households. Differentiated implications and outcomes were observed between the two districts. Overall, the Brazilian programs improved access to tractor and irrigation implements. Still, the implements were more suited to the large-scale production systems rather than to those of the small-scale A1 farmers. Furthermore, a top-down approach utilized by the state has adverse consequences. The prerequisite of forming cooperatives before accessing the tractors and irrigation implements disrupted local political and socio-economic organizations already in existence within the two districts. The study concludes that, while farm mechanization is crucial for agricultural production, the exclusion of the farmers during policy conceptualization undermines the success of these programs.

Os forais medievais do burgo velho do Porto. Rutura ou continuidade

The medieval foraisof Gaia and Vila Nova, from 1255 and 1288, respectively, were assigned to the same locality, the “Burgo Velho do Porto”. Theseforaisare the only ones of royal origin attributed to a vast territory located between the Ave river, in the north, and the Mondego river, in the south. A profusely populated and “seignorized” territory. The pertinence of the analysis of these two acts is to understand in what political context they were carried out. What objective did D. Afonso III and D. Dinis have when they granted them? Are they two complementary documents and substitutes for each other or different foundational acts? What powers were confronted in that territory that led those two monarchs to intervene? Our analysis is not about the local political organization or the socioeconomic characterization of the community. But to observe what impact these contracts had as an instrument of the royal affirmation policy in the medieval world

Language documentation and revitalization among the Siona of the Putumayo, Colombia: the potential of digitization for the social life of ethnographic material

This paper discusses an ongoing project of documentation and language revitalization among the Siona of the Putumayo, Colombia, and evaluates the potential of the return of audio recordings from the 1970s in digital format. Recognition of the potential of this material has been mixed and raises complex questions about the limits and benefits of modern technology to preserve the social life of oral literature. Local social and political organization and the politics of cultural survival determine how the material is perceived and possibilities of collaboration. Finally, the paper examines the differences between indigenous expectations of audio recordings and those of the anthropologist, indicating that digitization fixes, decontextualizes and recontextualizes oral literature within the current political context in which indigenous peoples seek to identify cultural patrimony in defense of their rights.

From a Hashtag to a Movement: Black Women Movement Actors’ Challenges to Leading a Radical Movement in a “Postracial America”

There is limited literature on the connections of local political organizations affiliated with M4BL, led and facilitated by black women movement actors (BWMA). To address this gap in the literature, I conducted five focus groups in Maryland and the District of Colombia in 2016 to identify the challenges facing BWMA (i.e., leaders, organizers, and protestors) in local organizations connected to the Movement for Black Lives. Theoretically grounded in intersectionality and Black radical social movement theories, themes emerging from these focus groups identify a deep racial capital, but challenges a broader vision for movement work rooted in a global analysis. Findings also reveal the challenges presented to BWMA are the following: social media activism as a dominant participation mode, participants’ goals toward colorblind reform policies, and challenges to class-consciousness and coalition-building that signal a racial consciousness among these focus groups and healthy skepticism toward national and global coalitions. This research provides a nuanced discussion of the struggle to build a global working-class movement in local anti-racist organizations which would outline the schism from theory to action. The disconnection between global and local goals is a persistent theme. Implications for future research are discussed.

Desperately seeking happy chickens: producer dynamics and consumer politics in quality agricultural supply chains

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand why the quality markets are expanding in some areas of food production, while struggling in others. Across agricultural markets in advanced industrialized economies, there are movements toward quality production and consumption. The author argues that the quality turn in beer, coffee, wine and other transformed artisanal food production are fundamentally different from the quality movements in primary food products. The heart of that difference lies in the nature of the supply chain advantages of transformed versus primary agricultural products.Design/methodology/approachThe author applies convention theory to explain the dynamics within transformed agricultural quality markets. In these producer-dominant markets, networks of branded producers shape consumer notions of product quality, creating competitive quality feedback loops. The author contrasts this with the consumer-dominant markets for perishable foods such as produce, eggs, dairy and meat. Here, politically constructed short supply chains play a central role in building quality food systems.FindingsThe emergence of quality in primary food products is linked to the strength of local political organization, and consumers have a greater role in shaping quality in these markets.Originality/valueQuality beer, coffee, wine and other transformed products can emerge without active political intervention, whereas quality markets for perishable foods are the outcome of political action.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2020-0001.

ТЕХНОПОЛИТИКА В СТРАНАХ ИБЕРОАМЕРИКАНСКОГО РЕГИОНА

In recent decades, the active interaction of innovative technologies and politics has given a rise to a new specific phenomenon –technopolitics. It is acquiring clearer outlines and seeks to obtain the status of a separate applied discipline. Technopolitics includes the whole range of tools used by politicians, political organizations and political strategists within the Internet space in order to collect information about the potential electorate, form a strategy and influence the mood of voters. The main elements of technopolitics are social networks, mobile applications and specialized sites. They become an ideal platform for understanding the mood in society, forming a roadmap on key issues, which allows solving both internal and foreign policy tasks. The authors of this research set the aim to analyze examples of technopolitics functioning in the countries of the Ibero-American region, which includes countries with an impressive number of Internet users and one of the highest levels of political participation. As a result of the research, the authors come to the conclusion that Spain and the countries of Latin America are actively involved in technopolitics, which is proved by the activities of local political organizations that develop their activity in the framework of Internet communications. The creation of social media accounts and own websites is aimed at an active interaction with citizens without the participation of traditional media as an intermediary. Operative response to changes in shades of public opinion allows political parties to timely change the vector of their movement. Citizens’ general engagement in technopolitics led to truly revolutionary changes in the hierarchy of the “candidatevoter”, endowing the voter with truly democratic instruments of influencing the government, and thereby increasing the percentage of political participation of citizens disenchanted with the former relations between the institution of power and the people. The Internet has allowed an ordinary person to turn into a real political actor organizing transparent discussions, easily involving a large number of people in solving political issues. People are no longer required to vote within the framework of the proposed alternative, but asked for their opinion. Much of this change is due to the creation of Twitter, a platform opened to discussion of various issues and free from censorship, very popular in the countries of the Ibero-American region.

Distopia do desenvolvimento no semiárido nordestino brasileiro

Uma análise sobre a formação sócio histórica do semiárido nordestino revela os processos de estabelecimento das relações de poder nas organizações políticas e econômicas locais. Estas relações, a partir das transformações vivenciadas nos territórios da região, através das políticas públicas, apresentam-se de maneira naturalizada, fragmentada, e fazem parte dos elementos constitutivos de reprodução da problemática da seca a partir do “fenômeno da estiagem”. Neste texto, a partir de uma revisão de literatura sobre a construção socioeconômica do semiárido nordestino, e de uma análise documental acerca das ações estatais em torno da questão hídrica atualmente nesta realidade, temos como objetivo refletir a respeito da constituição da política hídrica, mais especificamente, como as ações estatais quanto ao abastecimento de água historicamente vieram contribuindo para o chamado Desenvolvimento do Semiárido Nordestino. Consideramos que o chamado desenvolvimento socioeconômico no Semiárido contempla historicamente exclusivamente os interesses dos detentores do poder, portanto os interesses do capital local, sendo a água um elemento da natureza apropriado desigualmente a favor de tais interesses. Assim, como resultado e proposição desta análise, consideramos a possibilidade de mitigação das desigualdades no acesso à água no Semiárido através da construção de um processo democrático à implementação das políticas hídricas, o que significa a busca pela participação social das populações e a organização dos territórios na estruturação dos comitês de bacia hidrográfica, buscando-se a construção integrada do planejamento hídrico, valorizando as particularidades daquela realidade.
 Palavras-chave: Nordeste Semiárido. Ações Estatais. Política Hídrica. Desenvolvimento. Democratização do Acesso.

Winds of change: Legitimacy, withdrawal, and interdependency from a decentralized wind-to-hydrogen regime in Orkney, Scotland

Community-owned renewable energy facilities support decentralized low-carbon energy and community development by empowering local political organizations; however, the consequences of community empowerment on local politics are not always anticipated or, in some cases, desired. While there is no shortage of research on the factors for or barriers against energy project outcomes, community renewable energy research lacks engagement with such projects’ effects on local governance post-implementation. ‘Community benefit’ is not a natural product of renewable energy technology implementation, but of accompanying complex socio-political processes, organizations, and arrangements. Drawing from governance perspectives and field research, this ethnographic study describes governance implications associated with a shift to a community wind and hydrogen energy facility on the island of Shapinsay, Scotland. Specifically, it pulls from local perspectives to illuminate pathways in which a particular community renewable energy political group considerably reshaped local power relations. The findings indicate that wind energy income and hydrogen production control created new political opportunities that have transformed governance on the island in novel ways: community legitimacy, state withdrawal, and private interdependence. The study concludes by applying these empirical insights to community renewable energy policy recommendations.

A matrilineal and matrilocal Muslim society in flux: negotiating gender and family relations in the Comoros

AbstractNgazidja Island in the Comoros archipelago (in the south-western region of the Indian Ocean) is an example of a matrilineal and matrilocal Muslim society. This article addresses the various ways in which the Ngazidja people negotiate gender and family relations by referring to matrilineal or Islamic norms and values, and the influence of Islamic reforms and Western norms. Matriliny is linked to a local political organization based on an age system and a male political assembly. This link explains the specific way in which matrilineal and Islamic ideologies are linked. Marriage is ruled by Islamic law, but alliances between matrilineal descent groups follow other rationales. The existence of two matrimonial regimes illustrates this distinction. The conceptions of fatherhood produced in Ngazidja shed light on the key issue of male authority in matrilineal and Muslim contexts.

Doris Taylor: All Heart.

There’s an undeniable warmth to Doris Taylor, Director of Regenerative Medicine Research and of the Center for Cell and Organ Biotechnology at the Texas Heart Institute and Texas A&M University in Houston. Professionally, she may be most famous for engineering the first bioartificial mammalian heart.1 But, on a personal level, her own heart is compassionate, generous, and not remotely artificial. Taylor went through great turmoil in early childhood, but rather than mentally closing herself off to pain and difficulty, she’s endeavored throughout life to ease the pain and suffering of others. In a recent interview with Circulation Research , she explained that she does this in two ways. At a community-level, she’s an ardent advocate for social justice, spending her spare time promoting local political organizations and spearheading worthy causes, while at the global-level, her scientific research adds to the body of medical knowledge that enables innovations, improves treatments, and saves lives. Doris Taylor Her research has certainly, and consistently, broken new ground. Her pioneering stem cell research, regenerative medicine strategies, and investigations of sex-specific physiological differences have driven new lines of enquiry in cardiovascular disease research and have also challenged established attitudes toward how such diseases might be treated.2–6 I was born in San Francisco and I had a twin brother. We were born very prematurely and, in those days, premature twins didn’t live, so neither of us were supposed to survive. My mother told us that the doctor came in and told her, if she was religious and believed in doing something for the end of life, she should do it for us. So, she called the hospital chaplain and he came, but then, according to my mother, the minute he left the room, my brother and I rallied. It was as if we’d …

TRANSFORMATIONS IN COMMUNITY ASSOCIATIONS AND POLITICAL PROCESSES IN A RIO DE JANEIRO “FAVELA”

Abstract The result of field research conducted in a Rio de Janeiro favela, the article discusses transformations in the organization of community associations. In particular, it describes the weakening of local associations that are traditionally regarded as representative of the community and the rise of new forms of association, indicating their distinctive characteristics in terms of relations with external agents (from the state and other spheres) and forms of organization and action. We place these processes in a long timeframe, prior to the installation of the Police Pacification Units in 2009 and to the following entrance of new state and private agents. We review critical events in the history of the local political organization, to discuss the multiple assemblages that affect the organization of the favela residents.

Individual Payoffs and the Effect of Homeownership on Social Capital Investment

We revisit the relation between homeownership and social capital investment with confidential individual-level panel data from Los Angeles County. Using anticipated real wage change as an instrument for ownership, we find strong evidence that homeownership increases participation in block meetings, and find no homeownership effect on three other activities: volunteerism, participation in a local political organization, and participation in a civic group. These results are confirmed in fixed effects models. Our results support a pecuniary motive: that homeownership increases social capital investment when such investments are perceived to generate gains solely for homeowners.

All Politics Is Organizational: An Analysis of Candidate Recruitment and Political Influence in Pennsylvania School Board Elections

This article seeks to enhance the limited research dedicated to local school board elections by investigating whether Pennsylvania school board members are recruited candidates or are self-starters. The article also investigates which kinds of organizations are the most active sources of candidate recruitment and engagement in Pennsylvania school board races and which organizations are the most and least influential in local school board politics. Using a unique dataset obtained through the statewide Pennsylvania School Board Survey and interviews with current state legislators who began their political careers as local school board members, this article finds that local political party organizations play a larger than expected role in influencing local school board elections and recruiting candidates. Board members themselves are also found to be highly engaged in political party activity within their communities before ever seeking office. Also explored are the implications of these findings for school board politics and the discipline’s view of local party organizations.

Women's Talk about Mentoring and Socialization in Local Policies

Research on mentoring and socialization in organizations determined that there are benefits to mentors, protégés, and organizations derived from these relationships (Burlew, 1991; Kram, 1983). However, previous research largely ignores mentoring and socialization at all levels of politics and political organizations and this study attempts to address this oversight. I pose questions about the extent to which women are mentored in local politics and political organizations. If they are being mentored, who is doing the mentoring? Are they being socialized into politics and political organizations and, if so, by whom? A total of nine women were interviewed and shared their experiences of mentoring and socialization in local politics. Interviewees ranged in age from the early 30s to the late 70s and from School Board to Mayor.

Cockburn, Cynthia (1977)The Local State: Management of Cities and People, London, Pluto PressThe Local State: Community Development's invisible elephant

To a predominantly conservative literature on community development and local government, The Local State brought a radical and provocative interpretation of the intersection of these domains. With several contemporaneous texts, its analysis helped pioneer a distinct and lasting critical tradition in community development. However, the attention it drew to local government has been stubbornly resisted. This aversion in community development is peculiar and unfortunate and should be redressed. Three years after The Local State appeared I joined an advisory committee for a community building project on a new housing estate. The aim of the project was to model participatory processes for the settlement and integration of residents. The programme focussed on integrative self-help/mutual support type activity with families, particularly mothers (e.g. activity and play groups). Neither the workers concerned, nor the government sponsor, saw local political engagement of the new residents as integral to the task. They had slight interest in local political organization or action. The make-up and policy of municipal government were considered extraneous matters.

Local Village Workers, Foreign Factories and Village Politics in Coastal China: A Clientelist Approach

AbstractIn market reform China, contentious and unfair labour relations between vulnerable migrant workers and exploitative foreign factory owners are one of the most critical issues of the political economy. This article analyses another group of workers – non-migrant local village workers – who protect themselves from foreign employers using two political resources: collective land-use rights and local political organizations, such as village governments, affective networks and physical forces, during their suburban village's industrialization. Based on intensive ethnographic fieldwork in Shandong (Qingdao) and other coastal regions in 2007, 2008 and 2011–2013, this article attempts to answer the questions of how local village workers protect their labour rights without reliable trade unions or rigorous governmental protection. How can villagers protect, if not maximize, their interests in their relations with the foreign factories in their villages? It also contrasts local labour relations in Qingdao with migrant labour relations in other coastal regions.

Revisiting the Effect of Homeownership on Social Capital

Are all social capital investments equal in the eyes of homeowners and renters? Presumably, social capital investments that lead to increases in home values provide stronger incentives for homeowners than renters. In contrast, for social capital investments that do not directly impact home values, one would not expect homeowners and renters to differ in their investment rates. In this paper, we test this hypothesis using confidential and detailed individual-level panel data from Los Angeles county. We estimate the effect of homeownership on social capital investment, i.e., participation in social-capital creating activities, using a bivariate probit model and fixed effects models that control for individual-specific, time-constant heterogeneity that would otherwise cause omitted variable bias. Each model addresses the endogeneity of homeownership differently with identification arising from different sources. We find strong evidence that homeownership increases the rate of participation in block meetings, a social capital investment that should affect property values, and find no homeownership effect on three other social capital creating activities that likely do not: volunteerism, participation in a local political organization, and participation in a civic group. The results suggest that the effect of homeownership on social capital investment depends on whether the returns to such investments accrue solely to homeowners.