Reflecting the Nepali Social Forum processes and 2018 event

ABSTRACT

This article reflects on one experiment that grounds the politics of World Social Forum in national and regional struggles. Nepal has now built a dynamic but fragile democratic process after a decade long Maoist insurgency that led to political transformation including secularism, republicanism, etc. The analysis is particularly relevant for political movements seeking ways forward in a political situation marked by sectarian struggles but also by the need to bring unity in the struggle against externally induced forces of oppression and exploitation.     

Sustaining a democratic innovation: a study of three e-participatory budgets in Belo Horizonte

This article explores the transition from democratic innovation to institutionalised political process of e-participatory budgeting in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Applying a multimethod approach (content analysis, interviews and social media monitoring) regarding the last three editions (2008, 2011 and 2013), it considers how the proponents and organisers of ePB conceive its function in relation to the representative mechanisms that surround it; how the citizens of Belo Horizonte have responded to it in relation to their experience of being represented; and how governments seeking to institutionalise democratic innovations with a view to establishing more direct forms of representation might learn from this exercise.     

Theory and Method in Social Impact Assessment *

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) is a method of policy analysis that offers great potential for integrating scientific policy analysis into a democratic political process. This potential has not been realized in large part because there has been no theoretical framework to guide SIA. In this paper I propose such a framework, using Habermas’(1970) pragmatistic approach to policy. The framework suggests heavy emphasis on use of SIA early in the policy process and on methods that emphasize impact identification and portrayal.     

Critical Thoughts on American Social Work and the Crisis of Modernity: Lessons From Theory and Current Events

Social work in America is at a curious junction: continue down the status quo path of professionalization or embrace an antagonistic and critical, political stance toward global institutions and the logics of injustice. This article defines the junction as a crisis of modernity wherein the institutions and logics reflecting modernity’s primary forms—capitalism and democracy—suffer material and affective setbacks. The New Social Work Left movement is advocated as a useful response to the crisis of modernity, and initial strategies are offered for fostering a New Social Work Left in the United States.     

Between deliberation and contestation: the convergence of struggles against austerity and its world in the Nuit Debout movement

ABSTRACT

Nuit debout represents one of the main mobilizations in France in recent years and the most important anti-austerity movement in the country since the financial crisis. Based on document analysis and fieldwork, this paper addresses the development of master frames within the context of free spaces. The introduction of the parliamentarian debate on the French Jobs Act can be understood as a suddenly imposed grievance that triggered the emergence in France of a movement against austerity and the perceived retrenchment of democratic life. This happened as the grievance was framed within the French left-wing movements through the adoption and adaptation of ideas coming from a movement cascade that started in 2008 in Iceland, peaked in 2011 in Spain, Greece and the US and continued in countries as Turkey in 2013. Moving from structure to action, the paper highlights how Nuit debout provided a platform for the convergence of previously disconnected mobilizations. In particular, the movement’s self-characterization as a ‘convergence of struggles’ and as a movement ‘against the Jobs Act and its world’ developed within free spaces in which contentious but also deliberative practices were accommodated.     

Social work—a shifting paradigm

This article explores the changing role of social work in the context of community care legislation, the political era and the resulting care management process, using Kuhn's concept of paradigms. (Kuhn, T. (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd Edition), (Chicago, University of Chicago Press). The article suggests that it is our values, the theories we use and the environment that is impacting on and creating a shift in the social welfare paradigm and social work. It proposes that there is a fundamental conflict between the traditional values and model of social work and the evolving care management role that social workers are assuming, which can, and is resulting in an identity crisis for social work professionals and presents evidence for this. The article concludes that social work is in a state of transition and crisis. In order to re-define itself it needs to consolidate its basis for being. Social work needs to re-align itself with its value base and firm knowledge base. Putting the client first rather than the State or its own professional interests, otherwise it is in danger of becoming simply an agent of the State rather than a service striving for equality and the welfare of its communities. In order to do this the article proposes that social work needs to be clear of its purpose, whom it is serving and how it proposes to move forward.     

Political discontent in South Korea

This paper examines the nature and sources of political discontent in South Korea, one of the most successful third-wave democracies in East Asia. The analysis of a recent national sample survey indicates that ordinary people are able to distinguish among regime principles, regime performance, and regime institutions, which constitute separate targets of political discontent. The analysis also indicates that sources of political discontent vary depending on its targets. Noteworthy is that official corruption is most consistently related to disbelief in democratic principles, democratic dissatisfaction, and institutional distrust. Furthermore, less free and fair elections are related to more democratic dissatisfaction and institutional distrust. The results suggest that the democracy in Korea confronts not only critical citizens but also disloyal citizens suspicious of democracy. The fact that institutional trust declined, democratic satisfaction ceased to grow, the view of democracy as a universal value weakened while desire for democracy remained high suggests that the new democracy in Korea faces considerable difficulty, if not a crisis.     

Neoliberal Globalization and Heightened Perceptions of Class Division in Iceland

This article uses the case of Iceland to study how neoliberal globalization impacts class discourse in the political field and broader perceptions of class division. Analyzing a leading newspaper and parliamentary debates from 1986–2012, I show how neoliberal globalization—especially by increasing economic inequality—created a disjuncture between an increasingly differentiated social space and a national habitus cultivated in a small, homogeneous, and egalitarian society. This undermined taken‐for‐granted assumptions of relative classlessness and heightened perceptions of class division during a neoliberal ascendancy period from 1995 to Iceland's economic collapse in September 2008.     

Taking the democratic subject seriously

This article has two objectives. The first is to examine the post‐Marxist concept of the democratic subject, which I argue requires criticism and revision if it is to be coherently integrated into the post‐Marxist theory of democracy itself. The second is to examine the national–democratic project as proposed by the ANC and its allies in terms of this conceptual analysis of the democratic subject. It is argued that a ‘democratic turn’ has occurred in the national democratic project, but that national democratic subjectivity is still caught up in a fantasy of absolute political truth and closure, which interrupts its democratic practice.     

Nationalism, Charisma, and Plebiscitary Leadership: The Problem of Democratization in Max Weber's Political Sociology

Max Weber has typically been regarded as a central thinker in the liberal tradition of social analysis. At the same time, critics have long noted how his democratic commitments were compromised by his nationalism. Drawing on existing criticism, I discuss the importance of charismatic leadership in Weber's thought and its implications for his understanding of the process of democratization. Reconstructing core concepts in Weber's political thought, I analyze how Weber's concept of plebiscitarian leadership unites charismatic domination with nationalism and skepticism concerning effective democratic politics. I show how Weber's concept of plebiscitarian rule grew from deeply held political values and his engagement with German politics. I then generate propositions regarding the problem of democratization in regime transitions and apply them to contemporary charismatic leaders and ethno-nationalist mobilization in post-Communist transitions. I argue that as much as it anticipates the central dilemma of charismatic solutions to political crisis, Weber's thought favors nationalist and plebiscitarian responses to democratization that have been largely discredited by historical experience.     

The logic of social policy expansion in a neoliberal context: health insurance reform in Korea after the 1997 economic crisis

In the aftermath of the economic crisis of the late 1990s, the Korean government reformed health insurance system to enhance social equity and solidarity. This article identifies the institutional features and political dynamics involved in completing the reform. The Korean case suggests a model of counter-movement that differs from the historical experiences of both democratic corporatist and liberal welfare states. Two institutional conditions within the politics of crisis contributed to the reform. A legacy of limited state welfare was critical in providing the impetus for reforming health insurance system. More importantly, the crisis maximized the state’s coordination capacity by mobilizing a coherent bureaucracy under the presidential authority, and by limiting interest politics. The Korean experience has important implications for the study of economic crisis and social policy response. The way in which a crisis provides new contexts for welfare and policy making institutions, rather than the institutions themselves, should be the main focus in analyzing policy responses. The focus on the political dynamics of an economic crisis helps us acknowledge the limit of ideological forces of a crisis in facilitating a particular policy response.     

State‐led transnationalism and migration: reaching out to the Argentine community in Spain

Abstract This article focuses on when and how states develop transnational policies. It presents a case study of a relatively small emigrant community, whose departure was not simply caused by poverty or crisis, but most recently by an economic and political debacle that questioned people's values and expectations. I focus on the state side of the equation and identify a shift in Argentina's policy after 2003, though also show how such policies came out of a long history of state intervention in population and migration and are now related to human rights concerns and the unfinished process of democratic consolidation. I argue that the state initiates political transnationalism, not migrants, and highlight the importance of some relatively unexplored factors in the understanding of the motivation, intensity and impact of the state's involvement, such as the characteristics of the emigrant community, the existence of specific political projects, the role of some domestic actors and processes, and the nature of international agreements.     

The Roma Voice in the European Union: Between National Belonging and Transnational Identity

This article examines the response of Roma activists to the Italian Roma crisis in 2007 and 2008. The Roma community has become targets of discriminatory policies in Italy, such as forced evictions and ethnic profiling by the authorities, which construct Roma as distinct from the Italian nation. Roma activists increasingly circumvent national political structures and instead regard the European Union (EU) as an ally in redressing discriminatory policies in member states. In the absence of a kin state to lobby and advocate on their behalf, Roma activists, working in the transnational political context, articulate their voice and demands to the institutions of the EU. In doing so, they construct a transnational identity which on the one hand reifies Roma to a homogeneous group, whilst on the other hand contributes to the idea that Roma are not a constitutive component of the dominant nation. This article uses the Italian Roma crisis as a particular episode in which transnational Roma activists responded to a nationally based crisis and explores the impact of this on issues of national belonging.     

Black Neofascism? The Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa

This article argues that twenty‐first century fascism is variegated and shaped by complex socioecological conditions. While enabled by the specific conditions of contemporary capitalist crisis, it is actually different from its antecedents. This requires actual in situ case studies. Hence, this article focuses on the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in South Africa and explores its emergence in the conjuncture of hegemonic crisis faced by the ruling African National Congress. Moreover, the article challenges current liberal classificatory discourses that seek to define the EFF in South Africa's democratic order and also revisits the history of fascism from a decolonial perspective. It is argued there where two moments of fascism in the twentieth century, interwar fascism, and militarized fascism in the peripheries supported by U.S. imperialism. The EFF does not share anything in common with these twentieth century fascisms and therefore has to be analyzed and explained on its own terms.     

Surveying the European Public Space - A Political and Research Agenda

This paper examines the reasons why it is justified to talk about a European 'democratic deficit'. The creation and consolidation of a European public space necessitates conceptual clarification at the normative theoretical level - as liberal democracy is historically closely bound to the nation-state - and action at the policy and political levels. A Union of European Citizens is a step towards, but not equivalent to, a democratic Union based on European citizenship. Formal announcements, normative convictions, or even institutional reforms are not enough to guarantee openness or support contestation. European democracy is de facto a process to be observed but it is also a project to be defined. The article outlines an agenda for European democracy both with regard to political deliberation and empirical research.     

KILLING THE GOOSE THAT LAYS THE GOLDEN EGG: INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN HONG KONG

This article examines how the rule of law and democratic accountability have affected Hong Kong's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate in the past 20 yr. We find that democratic accountability has deteriorated substantially since the changeover of sovereignty in 1997, while the rule of law has remained strong and stable. Empirical results from autoregressive distributed lag bounds tests show a positive long-run relationship between growth and democratic accountability, and Granger causality tests reveal that democratic accountability causes the growth rate of GDP in the short run. These conclusions are robust to control for the effects of investment and the Asian financial crisis in 1997. ( JEL O18, O49, P17)     

Civil society,social movements and Democracy in Southern Africa

The article reviews the theory of civil society and social movements in a general perspective and relates the theoretical argument to recent economic and political changes in Southern African states. Salient aspects of civil society and its role in the democratic process is considered and the role of different key institutions and organizations in the democratic process are analyzed. The role of economic elites is equivocal, both because of the racial dimension in their composition and in the way they avoid addressing problems of living standards of the working class. The most important institutions of civil society seem to be the universities and the church, whereas the role of media is less important than one might have expected, because of widespread state control and state ownership. The article analyzes the particular role of different social movements and offers an interesting comparison of their strengths and weaknesses in democratization processes in various Southern African countries.     

Religious Culture and Political Action

Recent work by political sociologists and social movement theorists extend our understanding of how religious institutions contribute to expanding democracy, but nearly all analyze religious institutions as institutions; few focus directly on what religion qua religion might contribute. This article strives to illuminate the impact of religious culture per se, extending recent work on religion and democratic life by a small group of social movement scholars trained also in the sociology of religion. In examining religion's democratic impact, an explicitly cultural analysis inspired by the new approach to political culture developed by historical sociologists and cultural analysts of democracy is used to show the power of this approach and to provide a fuller theoretical account of how cultural dynamics shape political outcomes. The article examines religious institutions as generators of religious culture, presents a theoretical model of how religious cultural elements are incorporated into social movements and so shape their internal political cultures, and discusses how this in turn shapes their impact in the public realm. This model is then applied to a key site of democratic struggle: four efforts to promote social justice among low-income urban residents of the United States, including the most widespread such effort—faith-based community organizing.     

Chilean Feminism(s) in the 1990s Paradoxes of an Unfinished Transition

This article discusses the changes experienced by the feminist movement in post- transition Chile from the perspective of two specific issues. First, the fundamental "paradox' facing this movement today, that is, its relative success in "gender mainstreaming' together with feminism's increasing weakness as a political actor. And second, the relevance of external and internal factors in transforming feminism and the role each has played in its current situation. The article attempts to answer some of the queries posed by this two-fold process: What explains the feminist movement's absence from public spheres? Why was the movement's previous creative force not translated into renewed political power in the democratic context? What factors have contributed towards the lack of articulation among actors who had been able to form a visible movement for the rest of society in the past? And, to what extent have structural transformations conditioned the changes experienced by feminism? The article is structured in three sections. The first analyses some of the social and political factors relevant for the reconfiguration of the movement in the 1990s through an analysis of the political system. The second concentrates on the object of study itself, that is, the feminist movement. It seeks to reconstruct its trajectory, origins and development, the changes it has undergone throughout the transition process and, especially, its present characteristics. Finally, some concluding remarks are provided.