Populist Appeal Research Articles

The global footballer and the local war‐zone: George Weah and transnational networks in Liberia, West Africa

Abstract Elite sport is the vehicle for global interactions via both its shared practices and the relations engendered by its governing bodies and its global tournaments. This capability has attracted the attentions of those seeking both nation‐building and reconciliation in war‐damaged nations. The narrative that follows has global implications, telling as it does the story of George Weah, a Liberian‐born footballer who became a humanitarian ambassador, and later aspired to become his country's president. Weah's story informs debates on globalization, illustrating the transnational career of a man who developed a keen understanding of institutional politics and patronage and who allowed himself to be courted by various global figures. These scenarios took place in Liberia, a war‐devastated African nation. This tale thus provides for reflection on how sport can encourage and undermine practises of nationhood. As a former World Footballer of the Year, Weah was a Liberian success story and well aware of his populist appeal. However, the issue of who a people are and who is to be their national political representative has proven to be a very fraught issue in the Liberian context. Whether global sporting networks have made the world smaller and the people more knowing in the Liberian context is an issue this article raises in considering its most famous citizen.

The Situationist International in American Hardcore Punk, 1982–2002

Electronic and print discussions of the influence of the theories of the Situationist International on punk rock remain unfortunately bound to 1977 and the Sex Pistols. This essay pieces together the neglected history of the interest in the Situationists that has persisted ever since in American hardcore punk, including groups ranging from the Feederz in the '80s to the Dillinger Four and the Panthers in the new millennium. The failure of the left in the US to recognize this ally typifies its inability to generate much populist appeal.

“IT'S OYSTERS, DEAR!” PROFESSOR CARNEGIE'S PRESCRIPTION AND THE SEEMING FATE OF ACCOUNTING HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES

It is always a thrill to find someone who is familiar with one's work. I well recall the time that someone first came up to me at a conference and advised that she/he had read my work during Ph.D. studies, had thought it marvelous, and so on. I will not embarrass the colleague in question by naming names; suffice it to say that he/she is now a well-known academic at an institution not far removed from my own. The question, I suppose, is, who should be more embarrassed in reviewing such a navigation of the tropes of conference life, the then student bent on making a good impression or the lonesome academic who so very much wanted to believe what was being said? It was with a frisson of excitement therefore that I found that our good colleague Carry Carnegie had penned a response to the recent review paper written by Dick Fleischman and myself. I have not had a comment on a paper come quite so soon before, and so there were loud echoes of that first conference encounter and exchange of familiarity in work when I first heard of this note. Unfortunately, the frisson of excitement is gone, and the familiarity with the work in question seems distant. Whether more or less distant than that of my earlier interrogator is for the reader to decide. Carnegie starts well enough with a strong precis of arguments made in the piece regarding the seeming decline of accounting in the He notes a series of factors including the apparent exclusion of accounting from major journals, a failure to renew the accounting professoriate in the U.S., the lack of available doctoral training in the U.S., and the declining membership of the Academy of Accounting Historians. Carnegie lists these factors without apparent disagreement and then wishes to share in the hope that the authors, Dick and I, came to in wanting not to believe that the nineties might become known as ending with the quiet but discernable of accounting in the U.S. Carnegie mentions that he added the emphasis here, but in a way he need not have; the original manuscript used the term death but as with any co-authorship, a more measured colleague (in this case Dick) called on a less measured colleague (in this case me, I admit) to cool it. So rattles might have been too strong, but a sense that the end of the 1990s marked a tipping point in the trajectory of accounting seems to hold true. In a way, I wish I had not cooled it for the sounds of the rattles are, quite honestly, clearly there in each of the gatherings of friends that constitute the Academy of Accounting Historians' annual research conferences and in the lovely ice cream socials held at the annual meetings of the American Accounting Association.1 I say this despite the promising inclusion of accounting in the body of the AAAs annual meeting program even though this comes under the delightful title of History, Integrative and Other.2 So next on to Carnegie and to the other. What is Professor Carnegie's prescription to cure that which ails the accounting academy in the U.S? It is to write popular works of the type he lauds in his text (e.g., Parker, 2005; Brewster, 2003; or Squires et al., 2003). In other words, a blast of populism should show the public interest benefits of a keen understanding of accounting and should allow us all to join friend Carnegie in his belief that answer of whether accounting in the faces should be overwhelmingly negative. Where to begin? An immediate observation would be that a similar prescription of populist appeal is hardly of attraction or interest to capital market researchers, agency theorists, or others who toil in their allotments within the AAAs intellectual array. So in that sense, we are different people with a different lot.3 A further observation, and as a trained field researcher who combined this with historical work that did not quite meet the 30-year rule alluded to by Carnegie (and so had a closer link to practice, or a history of the present, something Carnegie seems to like) I would simply say, there is no substitute for lived experience. …

Aristocratic Faction and Reformist Politics in Eighteenth-Century Hampshire: The Election of December 1779

David Underdown examines the 1779 parliamentary election in the English county of Hampshire. He explores the political context—the rivalry between the two dukes, of Bolton and of Chandos, and how their conflict was transformed in the 1770s by events in America. Bolton’s candidate, Clarke Jervoise, made a populist appeal to middle-class voters who were sympathetic to the Americans, and also demanded reform of the allegedly corrupt political system in England.Worsley, Chandos’candidate, in contrast, supported Prime Minister North’s policies on both counts: tough coercion against the American rebels, and a firm denial that the parliamentary system needed any kind of reform. Through an analysis of newspaper reports, election pamphlets, and ballads, the significance of the reformers’electoral victory is explained, as well as its place in the wider national debate over political reform in Britain. aristocratic faction and reformist politics 629 77. The tracts and songs from 1790 are printed in “Hampshire Whig Garland”[1790]. For the April 1797 county meeting, see Hampshire Repository, 1:11–13. That a recognizable Bolton interest still held together is apparent from the voting in the contested election of a County Treasurer at the Midsummer Quarter Sessions in 1796. Bonham, Russell, Thomas Ridge, and Charles Powlett were all on one side; the Tory m.p.s Heathcote and Chute, John Penton of Winchester, and several of the more conservative clergy on the other; ibid., 2:38–39. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.230 on Tue, 07 Jun 2016 05:34:53 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 157.55.39.230 on Tue, 07 Jun 2016 05:34:53 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Always Famous

Always Famous

Policing Culture, Cultural Policing: Law and Social Order in Postcolonial South Africa

This study transgresses the received distinction between two genres: the scholarly essay and the grant proposal. An extended reflection on a research endeavor still in progress, it interrogates the methodological and conceptual questions raised, ab initio, by the effort to explore and explain an unusually perplexing phenomenon: the dramatic rise, in postapartheid South Africa, of witchcraft killings–and of their policing, both formal and informal, which has produced distinctly hybrid styles of cultural justice. Our objective is to address a number of interrelated questions concerning the description, interpretation, and analysis of (I) occult-related violence, itself legitimized locally by populist appeals to “culture” and (2) its regulation by a secular modernist state committed to, yet challenged by, the constitutional recognition of cultural difference. It is our thesis that this “epidemic” of occult-related violence, and the kinds of cultural policing that accompany it, are stark expressions of a structural contradiction within the “new” South Africa, a contradiction evinced in all postcolonies–and, increasingly, in other nation-states as well

Policing Culture, Cultural Policing: Law and Social Order in Postcolonial South Africa

This study transgresses the received distinction between two genres: the scholarly essay and the grant proposal. An extended reflection on a research endeavor still in progress, it interrogates the methodological and conceptual questions raised, ab initio, by the effort to explore and explain an unusually perplexing phenomenon: the dramatic rise, in postapartheid South Africa, of witchcraft killings–and of their policing, both formal and informal, which has produced distinctly hybrid styles of cultural justice. Our objective is to address a number of interrelated questions concerning the description, interpretation, and analysis of (I) occult-related violence, itself legitimized locally by populist appeals to “culture” and (2) its regulation by a secular modernist state committed to, yet challenged by, the constitutional recognition of cultural difference. It is our thesis that this “epidemic” of occult-related violence, and the kinds of cultural policing that accompany it, are stark expressions of a structural contradiction within the “new” South Africa, a contradiction evinced in all postcolonies–and, increasingly, in other nation-states as well

Explaining the cultural and symbolic resonance of zero tolerance in contemporary criminal justice

Zero tolerance has been described as a "popular slogan for politicians talking tough." It is also a slogan with international advocates. In addition to the US, politicians from Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and South Africa have praised this aggressive policing strategy. While this is a testament to the ease with which ideas diffuse between nations in the contemporary world, it does not explain why this particular idea is so popular. Nor does it explain why zero tolerance animated so many in the mid- to late-1990s. In order to answer these questions adequately, it is important to place zero tolerance in a wider social, political, and economic context. As this article argues, zero tolerance resonates in contemporary culture because it symbolizes a variety of tensions and anxieties found in late modern society. These anxieties are revealed through the often volatile and contradictory politics of law and order; through the routine scrutiny of marginal populations in society; and through the high degree of public tolerance for both of these developments. Recent research suggests that the rise of free market neoliberalism and social conservatism in western industrialized democracies provides an important backdrop against which these anxieties emerge. Imbued with meaning and populist appeal, it is the idea of zero tolerance, along with its cultural and symbolic resonance in contemporary criminal justice, which requires explanation.

The Indispensable Metaphor of War:

The hegemonic use of the war metaphor, especially in the field of `crime and punishment', is explained by its usefulness for the `populist structure' of politics. Warfare, punishment and policing are three different forms of the state monopoly of force with different logics and restrictions. The universalization of the experience of war is examined historically. Military basic training is a training in helplessness and authoritarianism. The `process of civilization' has led to war as mass destruction of population and infrastructure in the 20th century. In the populist appeal, value orientations such as `(patriarchal) family/community' and `warrior/masculinity' are mobilized. Populist politics connects these social values to `warfare' as well as to `crime and punishment'.

Out of the Red: Building Capitalism and Democracy in Postcommunist Europe. By Mitchell A. Orenstein. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. 184p. $54.50 cloth, $22.95 paper.

Nowadays, it is easy to forget just how pessimistic observers were in 1990 about the possibility of simultaneously introducing capitalism and competitive politics to the ex-socialist states of Eastern Europe. Often, debates seemed to hinge simply on which would subvert which, that is, whether the economic shocks of reform would destabilize democratic governments or whether populist appeals to the losers of economic adjustment would derail economic reform. That popularly elected government and systemic economic change could mutually reinforce each other seemed, at the time, to describe a fool's paradise. Yet now that the dust has begun to settle, this appears to have been exactly what happened.

Developmentalism and its Environmental Legacy: The Western Australia Wheatbelt, 1900 – 1990s

The Western Australia Wheatbelt contains the largest area of dry‐land salinity in Australia with major economic, social and environmental consequences. In recent years salinity has been widely recognised as the State's worst environmental problem. Yet, the historical record shows that this crisis, which has taken half a century to fully materialise, was largely foreseen by contemporary agricultural scientists. In examining the origins of the salinity crisis, the article examines the reasons why this scientific advice was ignored. It locates the schemes to open up the area for agriculture in the period 1900‐1980s within the ideology of developmentalism which became the major plank in the policy of successive governments. The article identifies the key elements in the way developmentalism was applied to agriculture and discusses its populist appeal; the separation of science from policy; and the institutionalisation of the developmentalist ethos in the administrative arms of government.

Populist Perceptions and Perceptions of Populism in Indonesia

The populist rise of Megawati Soekarnoputri – Vice-President of Indonesia since the 1999 elections – is commonly explained in terms of Indonesia's ‘traditional political culture’ or ‘Javanese ideas of power’. In contrast, this paper establishes that Megawati emerged as an opposition figure in the course of the 1980s and 1990s through a series of highly contingent political events and manoeuvres that can be understood only in the context of the internal workings and tensions of the Suharto regime. Moreover, popular support for Megawati involved much more active popular mobilization on the part of her followers than suggestions of passive belief in her inherent charisma or notions of traditional political culture could possibly explain. The paper argues that Megawati's popularity, her alleged charisma, and her populist appeal must be understood as a relationship – a relationship which, like that between her father, Soekarno, and his supporters, has been characterized by an abiding tension, a tension that has been at the core of modern Indonesian politics. Seen in these terms, the populist rise of Megawati Soekarnoputri rode on a long pent-up mix of popular energies and aspirations, pitted against the Suharto regime and the military and civilian leaders of the New Order establishment.

The Spectre of Populism in Philippine Politics and Society: Artista, Masa, Eraption!

This paper seeks to explore the origins of the populist appeal of President Joseph Ejercito Estrada, and to recapture some of its peculiar workings in the broader context of Philippine post-colonial politics and society. To that end, the paper provides a brief glimpse of the rapidly changing urban landscape which first saw the rise of Estrada as the superstar of the moviescreen and the mayor of San Juan municipality in Metropolitan Manila during the 1960s. In the following section of the paper, key developments in the Philippine film industry are identified, and an attempt is made to demonstrate the emerging possibility of a new kind of social imaginary, or mass consciousness, reflective of cinema's power to reveal to an audience entirely new structural formations of the subject. Here, the notion of Tagalog movies as a ‘visualized lingua franca’ – unburdened by tradition, hierarchy, and easily accessible to a wide spectrum of the population – suggests one possible link between the expanding cinema audience at lower-class theatres and the new forms of recognition implied by the rise of artista politicians in Manila in the 1960s. Finally, a closer look at narrative and character in some Estrada films from the peak years of his movie stardom in the 1960s and 1970s points to the kind of familiarity and appropriation Estrada may inspire among his fans and followers. The paper was completed as (former) President Estrada faced, first, an unprecedented impeachment trial in the Philippine Senate and, eventually, an unceremonious end to his presidency in the parliament of the streets (ie ‘People Power’ at ‘EDSA’).

Rethinking sustainable development. Indigenous peoples and resource use relations in the Philippines

In recent years, indigenous peoples have been the focus of interest in the sus tainable development agenda. This interest has been spurred by widespread advocacy of alternative models of development that strive for more social justice, equity and environmental protection. Made popular by the United Nations' World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) in the late 1980s, the phrase 'sustainable development' was born of two signific ant concerns: recognition of seriously escalating environmental problems and an increased emphasis on community as the context of development. The phrase's populist appeal comes from its rhetoric: an unstable amalgam of populist thinking (participatory and community-based approach), struc tural and political focus (equitable access to resources and decision-making), the visibility of women and indigenous peoples, and environmentalism that is deeply anchored to ethics and moral principles (Escobar 1995). Sustainable development, as the new strategy, has a future orientation, since it professes protection of the rights of the unborn and their share in the benefits of present natural resources. Consequently, agriculture and rural development have generally emphazised these issues, hence the phrase 'sus tainable agriculture'. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in par ticular, has recognized that the world agriculture system will increasingly be confronted with environmental and sustainability questions. Such recogni tion has resulted in FAO's framework in assessing the prospects for world agriculture within the context of 'safeguarding the productive potential and broader environmental functions of agricultural resources for future genera tions, the very essence of sustainability, while satisfying food and other needs' (Alexandratos 1995:1). The essential conditions of sustainable development set by the WCED found a link with indigenous peoples. Sustainable development, with its pre cepts of ecological capitalization and community-based resource manage ment strategies, has an interpretation that is appealing to indigenous

From Village Artisans to Industrial Clusters: Agendas and Policy Gaps in Indian Rural Industrialization

This paper offers a broad strategic assessment of the experience of rural industrialization in India. It does so from a policy perspective with the aim eventually of highlighting speci?c outstanding policy issues. Rural and small‐scale industrialization (RSSI) has held a special place in Indian development thinking and policy formulation from the outset. This privileged position, however, does not derive from a universal consensus with regard to the rationale and policy framework applicable to this sub‐sector.However, such has been the symbolic power and populist appeal of RSSI that it has retained its special status within diverse strategic and ideological frameworks. But how has the sub‐sector performed? Is the infant industry still in need of paternalistic protection at the age of ?fty? Are there any credible indications of a strategic break with longstanding policy frameworks inherited from the past? Can any crucial policy gaps be identi ?ed? How well does rural small‐scale industry satisfy the extensive developmental claims made by its proponents? These are the general questions addressed.

Populist Redemption and the Unfinished Democratization of Latin America

The re-elections of Carlos Menem in Argentina and Alberto Fujimori in Peru, and the unstable and corrupt presidencies of Fernando Collor in Brazil and Abdala Bucaram in Ecuador, have brought back the discussion on Latin American populism. Contrary to the dominant views of populism as a phase in the region’s history, understood either as a transitory stage towards modernization, or as a political phenomenon linked to import substitution industrialization, the re-emergence of populist leaders poses again fundamental political problems. Continuing the unresolved issues raised by debates on classical populism, the questions that need to be addressed from an empirical and normative standpoint are: What is the relationship between Latin American populism and democracy? What is the pattern of incorporation of the popular sectors into the national political community, and how do they differ from the Western experience? And what are the specificities of really existing Latin American democracies? Differently from the Western pattern of inclusion through the progressive extension and deepening of citizenship rights, the Latin American masses were incorporated by populist appeals to “el pueblo” and weak citizenship rights. Citizenship is not the only, or the main, relationship between individuals and the state. The poor and the excluded have been incorporated through charismatic political movements. These movements have used clientelism and corporatism to give resources to the poor, not as citizenship rights, but as personal favors of politicians, or as corporatist concessions to privileged groups. The institutionalization of these two mediations between state and society – weak and incomplete citizenship and strong appeals to el pueblo – have produced a specific version of democracy. Guillermo O’Donnell has characterized these electoral regimes, which transform electoral winners into the nation’s savior, and which do not respect democratic procedures and civil rights, as “delegative democracies.” This essay is divided into two sections. The first reviews existent theories of Latin American populism, and presents a new approach to its study. This research strategy analyzes the institutionalization of different mediations between the state and society at the time of the transition from “the politics of notables” to “mass politics.” The second section studies recently re-established democracies in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru. These democracies do not respect civil rights, and/or liberal democratic procedures. Differently from the West,

The New Populism, Presidentialism and Market‐Orientated Reform in Spanish South America

A SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENT IN RECENT SOUTH AMERICAN POLITICS has been the re-emergence of populism. More interesting still has been the unexpected combination – in some countries – of traditional populist appeals (successfully made), the determined application of free market policies, and the successful re-election of the market-reforming populists. This does not mean that populist politicians can succeed to order. Many populist candidates have sought election and only a few have secured it. Of those elected as (essentially) independent candidates, only some have succeeded. Presidents Bucaram in Ecuador and Collor in Brazil were removed from office by Congress and subjected to legal proceedings for corruption. However, where populists have succeeded, they have done so on a far more impressive scale than most people originally predicted.

Nationalism and the ‘idiocy’ of the countryside: The case of Serbia

Abstract The mobilization of the countryside has direct consequences for political discourse about national values and in times of social crisis, the ‘conservatism’ of the countryside has the potential to assume an aggressive, offensive posture. When rural mobilization is accompanied by religious revival, group loyalty and so‐called ‘traditional’ values are sacralized. When rural mobilization, ethnic mobilization, and religious revival occur simultaneously, it signifies that the society is undergoing profound destabilization. Examining the case of Serbia, this article argues that while Serbia is, in cultural and social terms, predominantly rural in character, Titoist Communism imposed the values of the city on that culture, while the 1987 coup by Slobodan Milosevic represented, among other things, the triumph of the countryside over the city in Serbia. This article begins by characterizing the countryside in cultural terms, provides documentation of the importance of rural traditions in Serbian society, documents the rural character of the Serbian national movement, connecting its ideology and behaviour with populist appeals, and examines the contribution made by the Serbian Orthodox Church to the mobilization of the Serbian countryside.

The Family and the New Right

The ideas of the New Right on the family have a populist appeal. Governments in Britain and the USA have introduced measures influenced by New Right thinking. Abbott and Wallace trace and critically evaluate the writers, intellectuals and moral movements (anti-abortion, Christian pro-family) who have contributed to these philosophical, political and economic attitudes towards the family. Particular attention is paid to the arguments that women should return to the home and to the homophobic tendencies within the New Right. The authors situate their research in an international context with a particular focus on the USA and Britain including the effects on the family of government policy. Essential reading for students and teachers of social policy, women's studies, sociology and social work.

Democracy and Its Discontents

How should one make sense of the malaise that currently sours public opinion in the countries of Europe, in Japan and North Amer ica? It reveals itself most saliently in tremendous electoral volatility as political parties are deserted for new formations and leaders. Con sider the disintegration of Japan's Liberal Democrats; the obliteration of Canada's Progressive Conservatives; the populist appeal of Ross Perot; the attrition of the mainstream German parties for Greens on the left and x?nophobes on the right; the willingness of voters in Poland and former East Bloc countries to vote for recycled commu nists; the Zhirinovsky phenomenon in Russia. Most recently Italian voters turned sharply toward the unconventional electoral formations of the Italian Freedom Alliance: the refurbished neo-fascists, the plebiscitary fan clubs of television magnate Silvio Berlusconi, and the pugnacious regionalists of the Northern Leagues. Elections provide only the most spectacular index of public impa tience. Political leaders have found it difficult to follow through on laboriously negotiated national pledges such as Meech Lake, Maas tricht or the North American Free Trade Agreement. Great break throughs become mired in complexity: How many outside Brussels still retain the 1992 vision of the European Community as a trans forming venture? And social cohesion apparently frays at a level even