Popular Coalition Research Articles

The complexity of verifying popularity and strict popularity in altruistic hedonic games

We consider average- and min-based altruistic hedonic games and study the problem of verifying popular and strictly popular coalition structures. While strict popularity verification has been shown to be coNP-complete in min-based altruistic hedonic games, this problem has been open for equal- and altruistic-treatment average-based altruistic hedonic games. We solve these two open cases of strict popularity verification and then provide the first complexity results for popularity verification in (average- and min-based) altruistic hedonic games, where we cover all three degrees of altruism.

Finding and Recognizing Popular Coalition Structures

An important aspect of multi-agent systems concerns the formation of coalitions that are stable or optimal in some well-defined way. The notion of popularity has recently received a lot of attention in this context. A partition is popular if there is no other partition in which more agents are better off than worse off. In this paper, we study popularity, strong popularity, and mixed popularity (which is particularly attractive because existence is guaranteed by the Minimax Theorem) in a variety of coalition formation settings. Extending previous work on marriage games, we show that mixed popular partitions in roommate games can be found efficiently via linear programming and a separation oracle. This approach is quite universal, leading to efficient algorithms for verifying whether a given partition is popular and for finding strongly popular partitions (resolving an open problem). By contrast, we prove that both problems become computationally intractable when moving from coalitions of size 2 to coalitions of size 3, even when preferences are strict and globally ranked. Moreover, we show that finding popular, strongly popular, and mixed popular partitions in symmetric additively separable hedonic games and symmetric fractional hedonic games is NP-hard. Together, these results indicate strong boundaries to the tractability of popularity in both ordinal and cardinal models of hedonic games.

The Politics of Popular Coalitions: Unions and Territorial Social Movements in Post-Neoliberal Latin America (2000–15)

AbstractAt a general level of neoliberal repudiation or expansion of social policies, most post-neoliberal Latin American governments in the 2000s have exhibited similarities. However, coalitions with popular actors have displayed a lot of variation. In order to compare popular-sector coalitions the article constructs a framework with two central dimensions: electoral and organisational/interest; in post-import substitution industrialisation (ISI) Latin America the latter is composed of both unions and territorial social movements (TSMs). It contends that the region witnessed four types of popular coalitions: electoral (Ecuador and Chile), TSM-based (i.e. made up of informal sector-based organisations, Venezuela and Bolivia), dual (i.e. composed of both unions and TSMs, Argentina and Brazil) and union/party-based (Uruguay). The study argues that government–union coalitions are largely accounted for by the relative size of the formal economy, and by the institutional legacies of labour based-parties. Coalitions with informal sector-based organisations are rooted in the political activation of these TSMs during the anti-neoliberal struggles of the 1990s and early 2000s.

Rhythms of the Pachakuti: Indigenous Uprising and State Power in Bolivia

Of the many studies of Bolivia’s popular uprisings of 2000–2005, Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar’s participatory-observer account stands out. In addition to furnishing an innovative framework for understanding the “rhythms” of social struggle during those years, the book grapples with some of the tensions and dilemmas common to diverse emancipatory struggles. This translation of the 2008 original (with a helpful new foreword by Sinclair Thomson) makes the analysis available to English readers.Gutiérrez Aguilar’s first objective is to illuminate the “interior horizon” of the forces that mobilized during this period (xx). She sees two common threads: an anticapitalist quest to recover collective resource wealth and an anti-authoritarian struggle to replace the state with participatory decision-making structures. These two impulses were central to the successful campaign against water privatization in Cochabamba in 2000; the Aymara protests over water, land, and coca cultivation rights starting that same year; Chapare coca farmers’ resistance to forced eradication in 2000–2003; and the popular coalition against neoliberal hydrocarbon policies in 2003–2005.For Gutiérrez Aguilar these dual aims distinguish these movements from the older, “orthodox” left. Whereas a “national-popular,” state-centric perspective guided many struggles in twentieth-century Bolivia, the revolts of 2000–2005 were animated at least as much by a “communitarian-popular” ideal that prioritized participatory democracy. Many recent Bolivian activists sought not to take state power but to replace the institutions of governance themselves. Nor did they merely want to return privatized water or natural gas to state hands, insisting instead that resources “should be self-managed by the citizens themselves” (26). The Quechua concept of pachakuti—“an inversion of the fundamental order of things” (51)—captures this far-reaching desire to supplant existing social relationships with new ones modeled on indigenous and popular communal norms. I think the book oversimplifies the twentieth-century Left just a bit, but its analysis of recent struggles is still compelling.Gutiérrez Aguilar’s second overarching objective is to explain why the resultant changes fell short of popular aspirations. Though the Evo Morales administration (2006–present) has partially fulfilled some popular demands, Morales’s MAS (Movement to Socialism) party represented a relatively conservative current among the resistance. For example, while many demanded renationalization of gas under “social control” (217), the MAS favored only a substantial increase in taxes on private companies. In various ways, it has helped to suppress and domesticate more radical elements.The explanation for this outcome, Gutiérrez Aguilar argues, lies not only in external actors but also in radical movements’ own mistakes and contradictions. A key recurring tension was between “the rejection of the general order” and a desire for integration into that order on different terms (48). Many activists remained wedded to the routine of negotiating with the state, perhaps lured by the prospect of winning concessions. At crucial moments, they seemed to cede decision-making power back to state officials, allowing their demands to be “translated and locked into dominant state conceptual and linguistic codes” (65). Also lacking was detailed movement debate about what new institutions should look like. Developing a longer-term collective vision might have been difficult, but it arguably could have made popular forces more resistant to co-optation.Gutiérrez Aguilar’s analysis raises crucial questions for social movements everywhere: If some sort of engagement with existing state institutions is necessary to achieve reforms, how can movements avoid state co-optation in the process? How can radical, antistate forces avoid being eclipsed by more reformist state-oriented competitors, as happened with the rise of the MAS? Rhythms of the Pachakuti admittedly offers no clear answers. Overcoming capitalism and the state are, in the author’s words, “a challenge and an open agenda for everyone” (188).

Editorial: human rights protection for labour's voice

2 | International Union Rights | 24/3 EDITORIAL Editorial: freedom of expression Dirk Voorhoof opens this edition, charting the treatment of trade union-related freedom of expression by the European Court of Human Rights, and considers whether the Court has shown a broad enough consideration of the wider implications of its case-by-case reasoning, whether it has applied a too narrow concept of trade union activities, and whether it has correctly upheld the standard under which interference with a protected right is justified only where it is ‘necessary in a democratic society’. Keisuke Fuse informs IUR that the authorities in Japan have now passed a law containing sweeping powers to monitor activist groups, including trade unionists, and discusses a recent case in which a company has won a libel suit against a union based on what would in most contexts be regarded as typical and innocuous trade union campaign slogans. Léonie Guguen describes how an Algerian independent union leader has been harassed after blowing the whistle on widespread overcharging at the state gas and electricity company Sonelgaz, while Bermudian union leader Jason P. Hayward explains how legal challenges, including a libel suit and then criminal charges based on obscure offences that predate the island’s independence, were used against him when he was campaigning at the centre of a popular coalition of civil society organisations. Julius G. Getman argues that claims of this kind are one of employers’ most powerful weapons, observing that in the US issues arise when state – rather than federal – courts apply libel law, and shows that in such cases even relatively innocuous statements have been found defamatory. Looking at how employers have used freedom of speech to their own advantage in the US, Lance Compa shows how employers have also sought to co-opt freedom of expression rights within international forums in order to thwart freedom of association claims by workers. Celia Mather’s report of the libel suit against International Labour Reports reminds us that those bringing libel suits may not need to win in court, and may do little to challenge the accuracy of what is published, but may still have a significant impact on labour advocacy. IUR’s focus on freedom of expression then closes with an update on libel cases against Andy Hall and Wilson Sossion, and a call for greater legal protection for sincere human rights advocacy. Finally, in this edition, Ciaran Cross provides us with further thoughts on the US’s peculiar labour challenge against Guatemala exposing structural faults in the complaint itself, and possible limits of the trade agreement labour protections. Daniel Blackburn Next issue of IUR Articles between 850 and 1800 words should be sent by email (mail@ictur.org) and accompanied by a photograph and short biographical note of the author. Please send by 15 November if they are to be considered for publication in the next issue of IUR. Subscribe to IUR / Affiliate to ICTUR Subscriptions: Print only £25 (individual rate), Print and electronic £75 (individual or institutional), Electronic only £55 (individual or institutional). Affiliations: (includes print and electronic access, and more, see www.ictur.org) Individual £50, Branch / local union £75 (includes 3 subscriptions), National (contact ICTUR for details). Name/Organisation Address Email Payment on invoice / Payment enclosed For discounted rates please contact IUR’s Editor Daniel Blackburn on ictur@ictur.org. All subscription services are available via our website: www.ictur.org/affiliation.htm ...

Enlightenment and Revolution: The Case of Louisiana, 1768

In 1768 the colonists of Louisiana rose up in a bloodless rebellion against the Spanish royal governor. Though almost totally ignored by historians of early America and the Atlantic world, the Louisiana uprising demonstrates the complex relationship between avant-garde philosophy and popular resistance in the eighteenth century. The rebel leaders produced a series of pamphlets justifying their actions, which deployed arguments drawn from the French legal tradition, Renaissance humanism, and Enlightenment radicalism. These arguments not only aimed to persuade audiences abroad, but helped cement a popular coalition within Louisiana society. This popular coalition broke down when, in the absence of imperial authority, colonists openly discussed the notion of founding an independent republic. A comparison between the Louisiana rebellion and the American Revolution illustrates the ways in which the latter event was not unique—and more specifically, how Enlightenment universalism could help paper over class divisions within colonial society, which civic republicanism then reopened.

Memory of politics: The Chilean left in Melbourne and the ‘other’ September 11

For Chilean exiles in Melbourne, the commemoration of an earlier September 11 tragedy continues to shape their political adaptation experiences in Australia. The military coup in 1973 against Chilean Socialist President Salvador Allende of the Unidad Popular coalition began Chile's seventeen-year period of military dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet and triggered the out-migration of over one million Chileans (the population was 10 million at the time). This research, based on observations and interviews which began in 2003 of the 30th anniversary activities of ‘The Other September 11’ revealed that, whilst remembering and mourning the dead and horrific experiences of the past, many from this exile group continue to raise awareness to the public about atrocities committed under the Pinochet regime. The extension of exiles' politics impacts upon the younger generation's cultural memory of the coup, providing anthropologists and historians with fresh insight into the political adaptation experience of the Chilean Left in Melbourne.1

The rise of an administrative elite in medieval Bologna: notaries and popular government, 1282–1292

The impact of popular movements on medieval Italian towns from c. 1200 to c. 1500 remains open for debate. Scholars taking a broad perspective on Italian city-states conclude that progress occurred chiefly within the aristocratic sphere. Others have instead singled out Florence as a model for Italian popular movements, and consider the popular regimes of 1293–95, 1343–48 and 1378–82. Bologna’s guild-based popular government of the 1280s has been largely overlooked. Rolandino Passaggeri, renowned Bolognese master of notarial arts, authored the Sacred Ordinances, launching the popular government, and reorganised the notaries’ guild as part of the reform initiative. He provided the guild with a strong leadership hierarchy, advanced professionalism in notarial practice, and institutionalised checks on the loyalty of the members of the notaries’ guild to the popular government. As a result of Rolandino’s efforts in the 1280s, an administrative elite emerged within the popular coalition that had been previously dominated by an elite of wealthy merchants and bankers.

The Empire within: The Colonial Popular Front in France, 1934–1938

James E. Genova [*] In April 1937, anticolonial activists from throughout France's overseas empire met in Paris to form Rassemblement Colonial, described by one of its founders as Popular for colonies. [1] Unlike Popular coalition then governing France, which was created through an alignment of ideologically distinct parties, Popular Front was forged on a territorial basis, bringing together extraparliamentary groups representing interests of Indochinese, North Africans, Caribbeans, West Africans, Madagascans, and others. According to their statutes, Rassemblement Colonial (RC) was formed to more effectively resist and to force new left-wing government to engage in a substantial overhaul of colonial governance, which included a rethinking of relationship between colonies and metropole. [2] Rassemblement Colonial, however, was not merely an adversarial association. Rather, it shared French Popular Front's antifascist politics and identified with anticapitalist elements of coalition, describing imperialism [as], in effect, direct product of capitalist regime. RC expressed solidarity with French working class, explaining that the same capitalist class that exploits and oppresses metropolitan workers also super-exploits and treats 'colonial' natives as slaves. [3] In other words, elements united in Colonial Popular viewed themselves as participating in struggles unfolding in Europe during late 1930s and presented themselves as natural allies of leftist government in Paris. However, RC insisted that French Popular become their allies in contests that shaped life in colonies, and in so doing they helped to reconfigure new government's colonial policy, pushing it in decisively more radical directions than originally imagined by new administration headed by socialist Leon Blum. Despite paucity of colonial reforms accomplished during Popular Front's brief tenure in government, relationships forged between anticolonialists from colonies and antifascist government, at once contentious and cooperative, contributed to development of a that accelerated decolonization process and circumscribed its nature, for those from colonies as well as French government. [4] This article explores extraparliamentary activity of anticolonialists from colonies contributed to shaping of Popular era in France as well as that context influenced development of anticolonialism among those elements from overseas territories resident in France during 1930s. Lynn Hunt defines political culture as the values, expectations, and implicit rules that expressed and shaped collective intentions and actions in a given period. [5] However, I suggest that those values, expectations, and rules are themselves result of struggle and are even contested by historical agents engaged in a of production. According to Pierre Bourdieu, The field is locus of relations of force--and not only of meaning--and of struggles aimed at transforming it, and therefore of endless change. coherence that may be observed in a given state of field... [is] born of conflict and competition, not some kind of immanent self-development of structure. [6] Consequently, one of tasks of this article, using words of Mahmood Mamdani, is to demonstrate how [elements of] subject population [were] incorporated into--and not excluded from--the arena of colonial power. [7] That incorporation, while it enhanced position of a section of French-educated elite within colonial field, pushed decolonization process in a direction that limited its liberatory capacity and undermined potential for meaningful unity of an ticolonialist forces from throughout empire. …