Oppositional Voices Research Articles

The Conservative Party and devolved national identities: Scotland and Wales compared

This article focuses on the role of national identity in the behaviour and performance of the Scottish Conservative Party – the main voice of opposition to devolution in the 1990s. In particular, it will address the apparent flat-lining of its popular vote, arguing that this is a direct consequence of the party doggedly adhering to a more traditional form of ‘unionist nationalism’. This can be contrasted with Wales, where the party has adapted well to devolution, and enjoyed a steady improvement in its electoral performances.

Ecofeminism: a Study of Environment Protection Movements of Women in India

Ecofeminism emerged as a product of the peace, feminist and ecology movements of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The term 'ecofeminism', coined by French writer Francoise d' Eaubonne in 1974, and further with the organization, in the same year of the first eco-feminist conference 'Women and Life on Earth: Ecofeminism in the 80s', at Amberst, Massachussetts, USA (Spretnak: 1990). Ecofeminism can be defined as a value system, a social movement and practice also offers a political analysis that explores the links between androcentrism and environmental destruction. It is termed as an awareness that begins with the realization that the exploitation of nature is intimately linked to Man's attitude toward women. Eco-feminist literature portrays the historical exploitation and domination of women and nature as going hand in hand, and both are seen as victims of development. It is taken as self-evident that any harm to nature harms women equality, since women are seen as closer to nature than men. The Chipko movement is particularly known because of its actions to resist the destruction of their lands and livelihoods since 1974. In that year Under the leadership of Gaura Devi, a 50-year old illiterate woman, women rushed from their homes to hug the trees (‘chipko’ means hugging) and prevent them from being cut. In Japan, in the 1950s, the Nakabaru Women’s Society and Sanroku Women’s Society protested loudly against pollution from industries and power plants in the Tobata region. While industrial development had made the society richer, the environmental destruction began to threaten the 6 health of local citizens. Women started to raise their voices in opposition and organized an increasingly powerful movement.

Medicean and Savonarolan Florence: The Interplay of Politics, Humanism, and Religion by Alison Brown (review)

Reviewed by: Medicean and Savonarolan Florence: The Interplay of Politics, Humanism, and Religion by Alison Brown Nicholas Scott Baker Brown, Alison , Medicean and Savonarolan Florence: The Interplay of Politics, Humanism, and Religion (Europa Sacra, 5), Turnhout, Brepols, 2010; hardback; pp. xxx, 325; 4 b/w tables; R.R.P. €70.00; ISBN 9782503528519. Medicean and Savonarolan Florence is the second published collection of Alison Brown's essays. It picks up where the previous volume The Medici in Florence (Olschki, 1992) left off, both conceptually and chronologically. This volume gathers together twelve articles and book chapters published between 1994 and 2010. As the title suggests, the essays all focus on the last two decades of the fifteenth century: the final years of Medici domination and the turbulence that followed the coup d'état of November 1494 which ended the family's regime in Florence. This period of political flux - a crucial moment in the long, slow transformation of the city on the Arno from a civic republic into a principality - Brown notes, remains contested territory in Florentine historiography. 'No single paradigm', she observes, has yet achieved consensus for describing these decades (p. xxi). [End Page 214] Brown does not attempt to offer any such comprehensive, encompassing vision. Instead she adopts John Najemy's concept of 'the dialogue of power' in Florentine politics: the idea that power in Renaissance Florence existed in dialogic relationships, always contested and negotiated rather than simply exercised. It is a concept particularly suited to the protean political landscape of the 1480s and 1490s. Brown traces and uncovers the operation of this dialogue largely outside of the formal sphere of office holding, in private correspondence, diaries, and printed or manuscript treatises. Such sources are crucial for the analysis of Florentine political culture because the official records of the government rarely provide anything that resembles dialogue or debate. Brown is a skilful and careful reader of such sources: teasing out nuances and building perceptive arguments from her analysis. Although the book consists of self-contained essays and (as a result) has no over-arching thesis, two clear contentions emerge from the volume. The first, that the events of November-December 1494 constituted a real revolution in Florentine politics. Brown eschews the predominant opinion that events in the 1490s represented little more than a rearranging of the deck chairs on the ship of state, instead maintaining that 'the Savonarolan republic turned out to be a period of innovation and change' (p. xxiv). The second argument is that one of the key changes of this period was the emergence of the sort of hard-nosed, pragmatic political values and decision-making that commonly bear the label 'Machiavellian'. She identifies such practices first among the Medicean secretaries of the late Laurentian period and then among a strategic coalition of moderates in the Savonarolan years. The various essays are arranged into three parts. The first, addressing the late Medicean period, deals with individuals. The chapters here focus on the attitudes and lives of the Medici secretaries, on the ill-fated and much-maligned Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici (who, Brown suggests, was less to blame than his father for provoking the resentments that exploded in November 1494), and on voices of opposition to Medici rule prior to the revolution. The second part shifts focus to institutions and groups and considers the events of the 1494 revolution, its antecedents, and its effects. Brown analyses the changes that occurred in Florence, the significant place that access to remunerated offices had in provoking resentment toward the Medici and fostering political conflict in the 1490s, the nature of exile as a political punishment in these years, and the factional divisions of the Savonarolan republic. The final section extends its chronological gaze both back into the earlier fifteenth century and forward into the sixteenth, with a focus on ideas. The first two essays consider Florentine use of the language of liberty and of empire in a broad perspective stretching from the early fifteenth century to the beginning of the Medici [End Page 215] principate in 1532. The final two chapters consider the intersections between religion, politics, and learning in Giovanni Pico's controversial Conclusiones Nongentae and in reactions...

Structural Bias in Cross-National Perspective

The battle for media attention is an integral part of political conflicts. Because of structural bias in the news, government generally dominates this battle for media attention. This article argues, first, that the attention for government and parliament in the news reflects the power balance in the political system and, second, that this relation is moderated by cross-national differences in journalistic cultures, in particular the importance of conflict framing. Content analysis of newspaper and television coverage in Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain ( N = 1,306 stories) shows that because of the universal news value of political power, attention for government and parliament reinforces differences of political power of these institutions, both within countries and cross-nationally. However, in pragmatic journalistic cultures, the dominance of government is weakened by journalists’ search for conflict. In countries where the news value of conflict is more important (Denmark and the United Kingdom), stories about government more often include oppositional voices than in countries where conflict is a less important news value (Spain).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works , Vol. 12: Berlin: 1932–1933 (review)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 12: Berlin: 1932-1933. English Edition, edited by Larry L. Rasmussen and translated by Isabel Best and David Higgins; supplementary material translated by Douglas W Stott. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2009. Pp. xxii, 680. $55.00. ISBN 978-0-800-68312-2.) Dietrich Bonhoeffer occupies a rare place in history. For example, he was one of the few Christians in Germany never charmed by any portion of what Hitler offered to the beleaguered German people. He, along with the rest of his family, recognized from the start what is acknowleged today- that this regime did not protect but violated moral values. He also occupies a rare place in history as a martyr, executed in April 1945 and now remembered, for example, at Westminster Abbey, where his statue is one of ten in a row of modern martyrs newly placed over the west entrance. Bonhoeffer also occupies a relatively rare place in publishing, with sixteen thick volumes of his complete works offered to readers of English, thirteen of them now complete. This represents a project of the International Bonhoeffer Society, undertaken to make available in English the sixteen volumes completed in German by 1998. Bonhoeffer is well worth the trouble, on two counts. His life story is one of Christian courage and ethical acumen in response to Hitler and the Holocaust. Nazi horrors were perpetrated by a Christian nation with an extraordinary list of cultural accomplishments. Bonhoeffer's rare voice in opposition- including, finally, participation in the failed plot to assassinate Hitler- has an important place in the history of that period. Additionally, Bonhoeffer's writings increasingly became available and grew in stature during the postwar period, so that he now ranks among the most influential Protestant theologians of the twentieth century. Volume 12 is of special interest, since it represents a crucial year, starting three months before the rise of Hitler. Born in 1906, Bonhoeffer was only in his mid-twenties at the time, but he had packed many accomplishments into his tender years. He completed his doctorate by age twenty-one and his second dissertation, the German Habilitation, at age twenty-four. He then spent 1930-31 at Union Theological Seminary in New York, befriending Reinhold Niebuhr and learning to know and respect the African American experience of worship at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in neighboring Harlem. Bonhoeffer began lecturing at the University of Berlin in 1931 at age twenty-five; this volume tells us much about his ideas, his students, and his unique approach to the trade of the German professor. …

Revisiting narratives of Meiji ‘progress’: Seiji Shōsetsu as sexual and political opposition

In 1890, as Japan celebrated national unity through the opening of the Imperial Diet, Hara Hōitsuan's Secret Politician (Anchū seijika, 1890) spotlighted the government's violent suppression of opposition voices in the Freedom and Popular Rights Movement of the 1880s. Much more than just a notable embodiment of the contestatory nature of the creation of the modern Japanese nation-state, Secret Politician also punctuates the end of the period of political novels (seiji shōsetsu) with a provocative evocation of male-male sexuality (nanshoku). Loyal bonds among government-declared criminals on trial at the end of the novel are framed within the sexualized language and associations of love-pacts between warriors, while the state is depicted as a deplorable villain lacking fidelity to its male citizenry. Secret Politician's oppositional stance nevertheless reinforced a growing trend that envisioned the Japanese nation as overwhelmingly masculine, a trend that not only bolstered the very state Hara sought to challenge but also had far-reaching consequences for women. This article argues that Secret Politician's significance lies in its representation of the Meiji period's shifting boundaries of literature and politics and contentious struggle to define sexuality and gender that are obfuscated by grand narratives of Japan's smooth and natural ‘progress’ towards ‘civilization’.

Howard's War on Terror: A Conceivable, Communicable and Coercive Foreign Policy Discourse

This article explores the relationship between language and political possibility. It is argued that John Howard's language from 11 September 2001 to mid 2003 helped to enable the ‘War on Terror’ in an Australian context in three principal ways. Firstly, through contingent and contestable constructions of Australia, the world and their relationship, Howard's language made interventionism conceivable. Secondly, emphasising shared values, mateship and mutual sacrifice in war, Howard embedded his foreign policy discourse in the cultural terrain of ‘mainstream Australia’, specifically framing a foreign policy discourse that was communicable to ‘battlers’ and disillusioned ‘Hansonites’. Thirdly, positioning alternatives as ‘un-Australian’, Howard's language was particularly coercive, silencing potential oppositional voices.

Freeing speech: the constitutional war over national security

The United States is in the midst of a heated conversation over how the Constitution impacts national security. In a traditional reading of the document, America uses military force only after a full and informed national debate. However, modern presidents have had unparalleled access to the media as well as control over the information most relevant to these debates, which jeopardizes the abilities of a democracy's citizens to fully participate in the discussion. In Freeing Speech, John Denvir targets this issue of presidential dominance and proposes an ambitious solution: a First Amendment that makes sure the voices of opposition are heard. Denvir argues that the First Amendment's goal is to protect the entire structure of democratic debate, even including activities ancillary to the dissemination of speech itself. Assessing the right of political association, the use of public streets and parks for political demonstrations, the press' ability to comment on public issues, and presidential speech on national security, Denvir examines why this democratic model of free speech is essential at all times, but especially during the War on Terror.

Milton and The Restoration

Despite the fact that Milton’s Paradise Lost was published in the Restoration, the epic has been often considered as a literary work representing English civil war literature. The conventional reading of Milton’s epic as a legacy of English civil war and its religious and political conflicts tends to overlook the dialogic and oppositional voice in the poem that Milton, both covertly and openly, used to challenge the moral and social status of King Charles II and his court in the early Restoration. Inspired with the revisionist views supported by the literary historians, such as N. H. Keeble and Jonathan Scott, this paper suggests an alternative way of reading Paradise Lost as a literary piece perfectly in tune with the Restoration as an age riddled with diverse conflicts and tensions. In the first half, the paper surveys the popular understanding of the Restoration Milton to reveal how it serves to support and, in turn, is supported by the conventional historiography of the Restoration. The latter half of the paper revisits a couple of places in Paradise Lost in order to illustrate how Milton positions himself in opposition to King Charles II and his court followers, especially through the critical engagement of gluttony and drunkenness.

Spatial Planning, Devolution, and New Planning Spaces

In this paper we put forward the case for viewing ‘spatial planning’ as a political resource, one which has been largely supportive of the rollout neoliberal approach of New Labour. Drawing on work on postpolitics, we argue that ironically the progressive credentials of spatial planning in terms of consensus building, policy integration, and the search for ‘win – win – win’ solutions may have helped script out oppositional voices. We then outline how the combination of changes to planning systems, devolution, and local government reform has not generated a ‘double dividend’ of greater planning powers devolving from new territorial administrations to local planning authorities. Instead a more complex process of creating new planning spaces has emerged after devolution. Five types of new planning spaces and spatial practices are identified, including new soft space forms of governance.

Hunghom Peninsula in Hong Kong (A), (B) & (C): A Realistic Call for Corporate Social Responsibilities

The residential building complex of Hunghom Peninsula was built under the Hong Kong government's Private Sector Participation Scheme (PSPS) program that was intended to provide housing for middle-class residents at a discounted price. Due to an economic downturn and a shrinking real estate market threatening property values, Hunghom was later sold to the private property developers who originally built the complex. The developers, New World Development Company Limited (NWD) and Sun Hung Kai Properties Limited (SHKP) came up with a reconstruction proposal for Hunghom Peninsula: demolish and redevelop the area into a luxurious private estate. However, the intention to demolish the never-occupied Hunghom Peninsula came under heavy criticism from the public in large part because the demolition process would produce extensive pollution to the environment, which violated both social parties and the companies' corporate mission of being responsible to the society. Under these circumstances, the management team had to withdraw the demolition plan and reconsider their decision. After the developers thought twice about all the relevant parties' interests and took corporate social responsibility into account, they gave up the demolition plan and decided to conduct an extensive internal reconfiguration and renovation to upgrade the property to medium-grade private housing estate standard. Case (A) describes the backgrounds of Hunghom Peninsular Project and its developers, describes Hong Kong's business environment and introduces the three options faced by decision makers. Case (B) reveals NWD and SHKP's choice of the options and the opposition voices against their initial choice. In Case (C) developers give in to pressure from protestors and change their initial decision, in favor of a more environmental option. Case (C) brings the story to a close.

The United States and Myanmar: a ‘boutique issue’?

Myanmar has been one of a number of countries that the new American Executive branch selected for policy reconsideration. The Obama administration's review of relations with Myanmar, characterized as a ‘boutique issue’ during the presidential campaign, has received considerable attention in 2009, and in part was prompted by quiet signals sent by both sides that improved relations were desirable. Begun as an intense policy review by various agencies, it has been supplemented by the first visits in 15 years to the country by senior US officials. The policy conclusion, that sanctions must remain in place but will be supplemented by dialogue, is a politically realistic compromise given the strong congressional and public antipathy to the military regime and the admiration for Aung San Suu Kyi, whose purported views have shaped US policies. US claims of the importance of Myanmar as a security and foreign policy concern have also been a product of internal US considerations as well as regional realities. US—Burmese relations since independence have been strongly influenced by the Cold War and China, whose strategic interests in Myanmar have been ignored in the public dialogue on policy until recently, with US policy focused on political and human rights concerns. Attention is now concentrated on parliamentary and local elections to be held in 2010, after which the new constitution will come into effect and provide the military with a taut reign on critical national policies while allowing opposition voices. Future relations will be strongly influenced by the transparency and freedom both of the campaigning and vote counting, and the role—if any—of the opposition National League for Democracy. Strong scepticism exists in the US on prospects unless the Burmese institute extensive reforms. The Burmese military, presently controlling all avenues of social mobility, will have a major role in society for decades. The article initially evaluates US policies towards Myanmar prior to 1988, when a military coup marked a negative shift in US—Myanmar relations, from cooperation to a US sanctions regime. It looks at the influence China's involvement in Myanmar and the role Aung San Suu Kyi have had on the formulation of US policy towards the country and assesses the prospects for the US-Myanmar relationship under the Obama administration.

Executive Assaults and the Social Foundations of Democracy in Ecuador

Abstract Although Ecuadorian presidents tolerate most opposition voices most of the time, they routinely try to restrict the basic political liberties of particular critics. In doing so, they initiate executive assaults. Why do some of these executive assaults succeed while others fail? This article analyzes patterns of support for and opposition to publicly contested assaults in Ecuador between 1979 and 2004. Using a combination of statistical tests and a case study, it develops an argument based on the relative power of different types of organizations and associations to influence the outcomes of assault conflicts. The analysis demonstrates that executive assaults fail only when neither the state security forces nor the business sector supports them. In this situation, particular business organizations are able to force presidents to back down. The analysis provides new insights into the social foundations of democratic practice in Ecuador, and Latin America more broadly.

SUBSTANTIVE AND PROCEDURAL ISSUES RAISED BY THE ACCESSION OF THE EU TO THE ECHR

Human rights courts often behave as constitutional courts especially when they have the ability to control the “separation of powers” in States in accordance with human rights conventions (“conventionality control”). This study comments on the latest “abuse of power” jurisprudence of the European and Inter-American courts of human rights, which embraces rich implications for re-evaluating general and specific provisions that place democratic limitations on human rights violations. The first section confirms that the courts have recently implemented conventionality control of “abuse of power” against judicial independence, voices of political opposition and media pluralism, in all such unfair exercises of authority adverse influences are exerted on individual (human rights) and collective (democracy) aspects. The next section justifies or criticises the courts’ decisions on the pro-democratic fair balance tests (legality, legitimacy and proportionality) embodied in human rights conventions’ general and specific limitation clauses, which have rarely been scrutinised until recent cases of “abuse of power”. In essence, this study shows that value-oriented momenta in their practical decisions can contribute to a future mapping of constitutionalism beyond the State (ius constitutionale commune), limiting domestic abuse of kratos (power) of the demos (people) in terms of international human rights sources.

Codificación versus jurisprudencia: el debate sobre la codificación en España en las cortes de mediados del siglo XIX

In the late eighteenth century it was commonplace the need for a general theory of creation and establishment of laws that would destroy the anarchic previous system, the general theory that began to be called science of legislation. Rationalism aimed at the unification of law, there is the legal positivism which consists in transforming the principies of positive law provisions in rules. Thus presented the Consolidation as a system for conducting laws that present a certain homogeneity among themselves according to the subject matter. The spread of the Napoleonic Civil Code in Europe raised voices of opposition to the technique with which the codes were made. This raises the Historical School of Law in reaction to the rationalist natural law and the codification of law advocated by the School of Exegesis from France. The debate came to the Spanish Parliament, making not only lawyers but also the politicians line up at either school.

The Battle over Digital Rights Management: A Multi-Method Study of the Politics of Copyright Management Technologies

Digital rights management (DRM) refers to various technological systems by which copyright holders seek to exert control over the use and circulation of their works. This dissertation explores the policy debate over copyright law as a potential vehicle for regulating DRM technologies. It examines this debate in three separate time periods, between 1989 and 2006, as it took place in Congress, in The New York Times and Washington Post, and online. It answers the question: Which policy actors communicate most regularly in which media about DRM and copyright law, and how has this changed over time? Methods used include quantitative content analysis of documents from all three media, qualitative historical policy analysis, and web graph analysis tools that quantify and map the hyperlinks between websites. This work builds upon and extends the methodology of using web graphs as a tool for identifying the most central actors within a topical cluster of websites. Results illustrate the birth and growth of a fairly unified multi-sector strong fair use coalition. Voices of opposition to the regulation of DRM via copyright have moved from profound underrepresentation to approximate parity in congressional access, successfully moved press coverage in a more favorable direction, and dominated the online debate. Policy outcomes reflect this shift; while the strong copyright coalition successfully pushed through two major laws expanding copyright in the 1990's, by the mid-2000's, the strong fair use coalition had fought them to a draw, stopping proposed expansions of copyright and winning key congressional allies for a proposal to reduce DRM regulations. This dissertation's results suggest the substantial power of online issue advocacy. In particular, the web benefits policy coalitions that have a disadvantage in financial capital but a comparatively large base of support. Coalitions still need regular interpersonal communication with policymakers, but online coalition building and advocacy appear to be of substantial help, legitimizing and amplifying the message of under-resourced coalitions.

The Catholic Church, moral education and citizenship in Latin America

The Catholic Church, with deep roots in the history of Latin America, exercises considerable influence on all levels of society. Especially after the Second Vatican Council and the bishops’ conference at Medellín (1968) the Church took up the banner of human rights and the cause of the poor. During the dictatorships and in the midst of the different guerrilla movements the Church became the principle voice of opposition and mediator between the parties in conflict. At the same time, the Church helped organise the poor in their own defence. The Base Ecclesial Communities, which spread from Brazil to the rest of Latin America, combined biblical awareness with social consciousness. Paulo Freire’s concept of ‘conscientisation’ complemented the liberation theology movement, which inspired Christians to mobilise against dictatorships and death squads from Central America to Chile. On a formal educational level, the Church runs private schools for the wealthy, the middle class and the poor. In some schools for the wealthy, such as those run by Opus Dei, a pre‐Vatican II mindset prevails and emphasis is placed on individual advancement. But in others, especially those run by the Jesuits, solidarity with the poor is emphasised. On the popular level, the Fe y Alegría schools for the poor stress civic participation and commitment to building the local community. The same divisions may be found in Catholic universities: some incorporate the ideals of social responsibility in their programs, but others simply foster an individualism that is more in tune with neo‐liberalism.

Om Regner Birkelunds Grundtvig-disputats

Regner Birkelund defended his thesis “Freedom for the Common – An oppositional voice from the past” for the philosophical doctoral degree at Aarhus University on October 31, 2008. The thesis explores N.F.S. Grundtvig’s concept of freedom from an interdisciplinary perspective. Birkelund rejects simplistic interpretations in case they associate Grundtvig with either liberalistic or socialist ideologies. At the same time Birkelund examines a range of areas within Grundtvig’s writings such as his historical and philosophical essays on modern and contemporary society, his articles about education and school reform, his political writings and his contributions on the emancipation of women and female values and their relationship with the biblical sources of Christianity. Birkelund sets out to investigate the inspiration which Grundtvig gained from classical Greek culture. Adding to Grundtvig’s rootedness in ancient ideas Birkelund also wants to demonstrate that Grundtvig was a forerunner for a balanced interaction in contemporary society between the struggle for freedom and the concern for justice and the common good. The article presents a summary of the lectures of opposition held during the defense by Harry Haue, Dag Thorkildsen, Ole Vind and Jens Holger Schjørring.

Writing like a Guy in Textville

This narrative explores the idea of “narrative seduction.” Though an autoethnographic account the author shows how he learned to read and think about the masculine qualities of prose associated with “writing like a man” in the academy, and how this insight led him to locate his ethnographic voice in opposition to it. The narrative includes some stylistic observations about the author's own “seductive” prose and its relationship to intimate listening.

Party Systems and Oppositional Voices in the News Media

This study explores those factors that raise the level of access for oppositional voices in the news media. The Politics—Media—Politics principle argues that cross-national differences in the role of the news media in most political processes can be best understood by examining how variations in political environments affect media performance, which in turn leads to different types of effects on politics. Based on this principle, it is argued that the news media operating in polarized multiparty democracies will allow greater access to oppositional voices than those in two-party democracies. This thesis is examined by comparing the news coverage of major news stories in the United States and Israel in 1984, 1990, and 2000. These two countries provide a useful comparison because they have similar media systems but polar opposite political systems. The results provide strong support for the thesis.