Cyclical Evolution of the Global Right

An understanding of the current right‐wing national and transnational social movements can benefit from comparing them to the global and national conditions operating during their last appearance in the first half of the twentieth century and by carefully comparing twentieth‐century fascism with the neofascist and right‐wing populist movements that have been emerging in the twenty‐first century. This allows us to assess the similarities and differences, and to gain insights about what could be the consequences of the reemergence of populist nationalism and fascist movements. Our study uses the comparative evolutionary world‐systems perspective to study the Global Right from 1800 to the present. We see fascism as a form of capitalism that emerges when the capitalist project is in crisis. World historical waves of right‐wing populism and fascism are caused by the cycles of globalization and deglobalization, the rise and fall of hegemonic core powers, long business cycles (the Kondratieff wave), and interactions with both Centrist Liberalism and the Global Left. We consider how crises of the global capitalist system have produced right‐wing backlashes in the past, and how a future terminal crisis of capitalism could lead to a reemergence of a new form of authoritarian global governance or a reorganized global democracy in the future.     

Stigma, HIV/AIDS and prevention of mother-to-child transmission in Zambia

This report evaluates the extent of perceived and enacted HIV/AIDS-related stigma in a rural setting in Zambia. Stigmatisation is abundant, ranging from subtle actions to the most extreme degradation, rejection and abandonment. Women with HIV and pregnant women assumed to be HIV positive are repeatedly subjected to extensive forms of stigma, particularly once they become sick or if their child dies. Despite increasing access to prevention of mother to child transmission initiatives, including anti-retroviral drugs, the perceived disincentives of HIV testing, particularly for women, largely outweigh the potential gains from available treatments. HIV/AIDS related stigma drives the epidemic underground and is one of the main reasons that people do not wish to know their HIV status. Unless efforts to reduce stigma are, as one peer educator put it, “written in large letters in any HIV/AIDS campaign rather than small”, stigma will remain a major barrier to curbing the HIV/AIDS pandemic.     

Transnational religion: Hindu and Muslim movements

In this article I deal with transnational Hindu and Muslim movements. I reject the common assertion that migrant communities are conservative in religious and social matters by arguing that ‘traditionalism’ requires considerable ideological creativity and that this significantly transforms previous practices and discourses. I suggest that religious movements, active among migrants, develop cosmopolitan projects that can be viewed as alternatives to the cosmopolitanism of the European Enlightenment. This raises a number of challenges concerning citizenship, integration and political loyalty for governmentality in the nation‐states in which these cosmopolitan projects are carried out. I suggest that rather than looking at religious migrants as at best conservative and at worst terrorist one should perhaps pay some attention to the creative moments in human responses to new challenges and new environments.     

The quality of sustainability: Agroecological partnerships and the geographic branding of California winegrapes

Quality and sustainability are both socially constructed, ambiguous terms, but they have not been heretofore linked in the rural studies literature. The “quality turn” has received particular attention from researchers for its potential to organize linkages among various forces in agrofood systems, providing more income to producers by appealing to affluent, reflexive consumers. A distinct line of rural research has attended to the challenge of agro-environmental pollution and regulation, but this research trajectory has been subsumed under the broader paradigm of sustainability. This article seeks to contribute to discussions about quality in the agrofood sector by analyzing the potential of fusing rural resource protection practices with place-based marketing of enhanced quality, drawing from an empirical study of the California winegrape industry. In several California commodities, agroecological partnerships are becoming the chief vehicle for extending sustainable agricultural practices. California's winegrape farmers have undertaken more partnerships to greater effect than those of any other US crop, and they are now discursively linking their sustainable farming practices, environmental quality, and wine quality. This marks a new linkage of two heretofore discrete social imaginaries. This article argues that “quality” is a term that can conceptually link increasing consumer demand for differentiated product taste with increasing regulatory pressure for environmental protection. Synergistic benefits from such a linkage have the potential to strengthen rural development initiatives. Making progress toward sustainability requires collective action on the part of producers, and in some commodities, may mesh well with efforts to enhance foodstuff quality.     

The Forgotten Million Unemployed

In July 1985 the National Council for Voluntary Organisations launched a campaign for "action for the forgotten million"— the four out of every five long-term unemployed people who receive no practical support from the public services, apart from their benefits. The author of the National Council discussion document outlines some of the major issues which will need to be faced. In particular, he argues that public debate tends to concentrate too narrowly on specific initiatives and individual programmes. Instead, there is a need to consider the rights of all long-term unemployed people, and the needs of the group as a whole.