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Tras una referencia relativamente extensa a la tensión histórica entre integrismo y accidentalismo en el catolicismo político, desde León XIII a Pío XI, con especial referencia al caso español, se presenta un cuadro de la relación del catolicismo social y político español con el régimen de Franco; con especial atención a las razones de la quiebra de su relación con el integrismo y el conservadurismo político en los años 60 y 70. Se termina con una breve reflexión sobre la supuesta «involución» de la Iglesia y del catolicismo español, tras la contribución a la transición democrática y la consolidación del Estado aconfesional. ; Following a relatively extensive history of the tension between integralism and accidentalism in political Catholicism from Leo XIII to Pius XI, with special reference to Spain, the author presents a picture of the relationship between social and political Catholicism and Franco's regime. He focuses on the reasons for the breakdown of its relationship with political conservatism and integralism in the sixties and seventies. Finally, he ends with a brief discussion of the alleged «involution» of the Church and of Spanish Roman Catholicism after its contribution to the democratic transition and the consolidation of an a-confessional State.

One by one, the governments of the Gulf Cooperation Council member states have resigned themselves to the fact that a broad political reform process and a general overhaul of their respective political systems are necessary. To what degree the ruling elites of these states feel that it is also desirable is not clear: Yet, the current pressures being exerted upon the existing ruling arrangements, including existing and emerging domestic dynamics (population, education, the spread of IT, etc.) as well as prevailing external determinants (consequences of the Iraq War, the US Greater Middle East Initiative, etc.) make a transition towards a more participatory political order inevitable. These pressures, which are unlikely to relent, make the ability for the governments of the region to respond effectively to the mounting challenges as crucial as ever. The acceptance that some reform measures are necessary does not, however, automatically transfer into a commitment to see reforms enacted. The problem in the Gulf region at present is that the majority agrees on the need for a reform process but nobody really understands the parameters to follow or the systemic factors driving the process itself. (Maghreb-Machrek/GIGA)

Following up on an earlier paper demonstrating statistically significant relationships between measures of recurring political-economic crises (hinterland incursions, trade collapses, economic contractions, and regime transitions) and a measure of climate deterioration (the interaction of falling Tigris-Euphrates river levels and years of warming/ drying), the inter-relationships among these variables are examined more closely for the 3400–1000 bce period. Theoretically focused on a test of Tainter's diminishing marginal return theory of societal collapse, additional indicators are introduced encompassing population (urban population size, urban popula-tion growth rate) as a proxy for diminishing marginal returns, two measures of centralization/ fragmentation (including imperial size), and the indicators used for the climate interaction term in the earlier paper. The multivariate logit outcome for interactions among and between the 11 variables reinforces the earlier findings linking climate deterioration to political-economic crises, extends the climate deterioration linkage to fragmentation and population decline, and finds relatively strong support for the Tainter derived expectation that diminishing marginal returns and fragmentation are closely linked but that both are less closely linked to recurring political-economic crises than might otherwise have been anticipated.

This article describes why the Polish government has pushed for an invocation to Christian traditions in the European Union Constitution. It is ar- gued that this is a rather 'unfortunate' outcome of the political alliance between the Catholic Church and the Polish left, especially between President Alek- sander Kwas ́niewski and the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD). This alliance al- lowed the SLD to legitimize their rule in the post-socialist Poland, and it was a result of a political competition between them and the post-Solidarnos ́c ́ elites. As a result, John Paul II became the central integrative metaphor for the Polish society at large, which brought back in the marginalized as well as allowed the transition establishment to win the EU accession referendum in 2003. The arti- cle (which was written when Leszek Miller was still Prime Minister) demon- strates how this alliance crystallized and presents various elements of the cult of the Pope in Poland that followed. Finally, it argues that the worship of the Pope is not an example of nationalism, but of populism, understood not as a peripheral but as a central political force, and advocates for more research on the 'politics of emotions' at work in the centers and not in peripheries.

Evolution of Conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa, by Tom PORTEOUS
The evolution of conflicts in Africa is inséparable from the political processes of transition and transformation that have been taking place in African societies since decolonisation. In the 1990s, the withdrawal of Cold War super-power patronage and international pressure on Africa to libéralise both economically and politically led to a spate of new conflicts which were above ail symptomatic of the weaknesses of African states now exposed to fresh shocks and pressures. The principle characteristics of these wars include the extraordinary regionalization of conflicts, the multiplicity of belligerents and other actors, the range and mutability of political and economie motivations, and the brutal strategies employed. But conflict resolution has not been helped by a tendency to see conflict in the narrow context of development and humanitarian goals. A broader political perspective is required. There are signs of a reduction of conflict in Africa over the past couple of years, a consequence of a new détermination by some African and Western leaders to take a more holistic approach. But real challenges lie ahead, including the impact of HIV/AIDS, and shifting Western policy in the wake of 9/11 and the war in Iraq.

The era culminating in World War I saw a transition from multinational empires to

nation-states. Large empires such as the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman searched for ways to

cope with the decline of their political control, while peoples in these empires shifted their political

loyalties to nation-states. The Ottoman Empire offers a favorable canvas for studying new

nationalisms that resulted in many successful and unsuccessful attempts to form nation-states. As

an example of successful attempts, Arab nationalism has received the attention that it deserves in

the field of Middle Eastern studies.1 Students have engaged in many complex

debates on different aspects of Arab nationalism, enjoying a wealth of hard data. Studies on

Kurdish nationalism, however, are still in their infancy. Only a very few scholars have addressed

the issue in a scholarly manner.2 We still have an inadequate understanding of the

nature of early Kurdish nationalism and its consequences for the Middle East in general and

Turkish studies in particular. Partly because of the subject's political sensitivity, many

scholars shy away from it. However, a consideration of Kurdish nationalism as an example of

unsuccessful attempts to form a nation-state can contribute greatly to the study of nationalism in

the Middle East.

East-Central Europe (Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia—ECE) is one of the least known parts of the world in English-language geography. In spite of its proximity to Western Europe and the European Community (EC) it has received a very modest amount of attention from English-speaking geographers compared with that from German-speaking and French-speaking colleagues. Studies of political and economic geography of the ECE are also hampered by the lack of appropriate methodology and theory. Some of the most important issues involved lie in the economic sphere of transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. In the current paper, an attempt is made to survey and evaluate the size and character of existing debt stocks owed to the West by ECE and then to assess their likely impact on the political and economic geography of Europe and the EC. It is concluded that the international financial community is making it politically difficult for the countries in the region to persist with their structural reforms and stabilization policies. The future political and economic geography of ECE and EC depends, to a large extent, on the ability of the Western financial system to respond to the long-term needs of the region.

During the 1980s, a transition to democratic politics occurred in two very different parts of the world: state socialist Eastern Europe and dependent capitalist Latin America. This paper asks, "why'? Why did regime change occur in the 1980s and why in the semiperipheral zone of the world system? Why, for instance, was there no regime instability on a similar scale in the core or the periphery? This paper proposes an answer that links convulsive political restructuring to the downturn phase of long Kondratieff-like economic cycles of the world-economy. Specifically, the generalized downturn that the world-economy entered in the 1970s is seen as the beginning of a Kondratieff B-Phase of economic difficulty, the political response to which is mediated by a state's zonal position in the larger world system. More powerful core nations respond by acting outwardly, in an effort to control the external environment through mechanisms such as the formation of economic blocs, like moves toward Europe an economic cooperation in 1992, and North American free-trade negotiations. Semiperipheral nations, being more constrained and weaker, act inwardly, changing their regimes to better deal with economic hardships. Finally, peripheral nations, weakest and most constrained, take little or no political action.

Economic development requires choices among a broad spectrum of alternative strategies and, as the recent experience of Mexico suggests, those choices are not easy. A complex politics is involved in the transition from one development strategy to another. The international political economy and domestic social coalitions both influence the costs and benefits associated with various development policies; they rule out some choices, but numerous options still remain. How can one explain actual outcomes? Observers may significantly increase their ability to explain outcomes by incorporating a statist component into their analyses. Within the very broad parameters set by the international political economy the state influences (but does not determine) the creation and the demands of the social coalition itself. In addition, the state may use policy instruments and advantages from the domestic and international arenas to implement policy even in the face of domestic opposition. The structure of the domestic political economy determines the space within which the statist perspective contributes to explanatory power. Eventually, it is in a historically based ideology that the chief explanation for the state's choice of policy and the construction of particular domestic coalitions is to be found.

A paper presented by a Minister of Lands & Agriculture on Zimbabwe's land policy during the aftermath of independence. ; This paper which focuses on the determinants of land policy will consist of two sections. The first section will attempt to desribe the background or context in which Zimbabwe's land policy has evolved since independence in 1980. It will try to show that the formulation of a land policy1 has been more of a process rather than a political event. The ensuing policy has been a result of the interplay of several factors, such as the inherited natural resources, opposed political class interests and economic imperatives. It will be shown that, in trying to meet its political and economic objectives, the Government has had to grapple with several existing constraints, some of which were inherited as part of the previous socio-economic system, while others such as shortage of suitable agricultural land, climate and population were more or less naturally given. The evolving policy can, therefore, be regarded as a pragmatic and reconciliatory attempt to resolve contradictions and conflict in a transition of continuing social and economic struggle. The second section is a brief outline of the actual policy as it has evolved so far in Zimbabwe.

International audience Influential recent scholarship assumes that authoritarian rulers act as perfect agents of economic elites, foreclosing the possibility that economic elites may at times prefer democracy absent a popular threat from below. Motivated by a puzzling set of democratic transitions, we relax this assumption and examine how elite uncertainty about dictatorship-a novel and generalizable causal mechanism impacting democratization-can induce elite support for democracy. We construct a noisy signaling model in which a potential autocrat attempts to convince economic elites that he will be a faithful partner should elites install him in power. The model generates clear predictions about how two major types of elite uncertainty-uncertainty in a potential autocratic successor's policies produced by variance in the pool of would-be dictator types, and uncertainty in the truthfulness of policy promises made by potential autocratic successors-impact the likelihood of elite-driven democratization. We demonstrate the model's plausibility in a series of cases of democratic transition.

Intro -- Series Preface for Post-Capitalist Futures -- Contents -- Notes on Contributors -- List of Figures -- 1: Introduction -- Covid Contradictions -- Capitalism and Its Discontents -- Future Imaginaries and Imaginary Futures -- Beyond Capitalist Realism -- Contemplating a Crisis-Ridden Exit from Capitalism -- Post-Capitalist Futures -- Part I: Alternative Paradigms for Post-Capitalist Futures -- Part II: Governing for Post-Capitalist Futures -- Part III: Post-Capitalist Geographies and Resistance -- References -- Part I: Alternative Paradigms for Post-Capitalist Futures -- 2: The Race to Replace a Dying Neoliberalism -- This Time Really Is Different -- Who Will Ride the Tiger? -- Advantage: Far Right -- …But Don't Count Out the Left -- References -- 3: Ecosocialism from a Post-Development Perspective -- Post-Development -- The State in Devolution -- The Market Disappears -- Conclusion -- References -- 4: Post-Capitalism Now: A Community Economies Approach -- Post-Capitalism Is Already Here -- Making Economic Diversity More Visible -- Strengthening Post-Capitalist Worlds -- Conclusion -- References -- 5: Collective Sufficiency: Degrowth as a Political Project -- What is Degrowth? -- Prerequisites for a Degrowth Transition -- Capitalism Is Not in Crisis: Capitalism Is the Crisis -- An Alternative Political Project -- Support from a Comprehensive Coalition of Social Forces -- Cultural Consent: The Sufficiency Imperative -- References -- 6: China: Capitalism and Change? -- References -- Part II: Governing for Post-Capitalist Futures -- 7: From Technological Utopianism to Universal Basic Services -- References -- 8: Ecofeminist Political Economy: Critical Reflections on the Green New Deal -- Ecofeminist Political Economy of Capitalism -- Ecofeminist Political Economy of the Green New Deal -- Ecofeminist Political Economy Beyond Green Growth.