Agrarian Conflict Reconsidered: Popular Mobilization and Peasant Politics in Mexico and Central America
In: Latin American research review, Band 26, Heft 1, S. 216-238
ISSN: 1542-4278
57 Ergebnisse
Sortierung:
In: Latin American research review, Band 26, Heft 1, S. 216-238
ISSN: 1542-4278
In: Latin American research review: LARR, Band 26, Heft 2, S. 39-74
ISSN: 1542-4278
Mexican politics has long been regarded as a closed system, with policy-making dominated by the reigning president and his circle and presidential succession (with all its possibilities for change of course) managed by an only slightly larger "Revolutionary Family" of top figures in the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). So intertwined are the Mexican state and the dominant party that scholars and opposition leaders alike have begun to speak of the "PRI state." E. E. Schattschneider observed that in the U.S. system, 90 percent of the population never has access to the "pressure system" that directs policy choice. The percentage of the excluded is undoubtedly even larger in Mexico because the system is more decidedly "closed." Yet in both countries, policy innovation is not uncommon. Marked changes of course have occurred at times, and opposition forces external to the system have occasionally managed to block presidential decisions and force reevaluation and sometimes painful adjustments. This article will examine the "agrarian question" in Mexico and will argue that its persistence and the ways in which it has been framed have constrained policymakers while encouraging and sustaining the development of an independent peasant movement during the 1970s and 1980s.
In: Comparative studies in society and history, Band 32, Heft 3, S. 455-487
ISSN: 1475-2999
Recent scholarship on peasant protest has shifted from the speculative analysis of large-scale historical trends to the limited testing of hypotheses to a preoccupation with micro-level analysis of peasant consciousness and decision making. That shift has been salutary, sharpening our attention to the role of people's perceptions in shaping behavior and to the subtle ways in which people act out their discontent; but we still understand too little about the origins of these perceptions and about the ways in which everyday discontent gets transformed into politically viable action. The present paper argues that, while people's perceptions are grounded in their material and social situation and in past experience, they are continuously reshaped in interaction with new experience and with the claims of others. Understanding the role of political discourse in such interactions is essential to understanding popular mobilization.
In: The journal of politics: JOP, Band 51, Heft 4, S. 1046-1048
ISSN: 1468-2508
In: Latin American research review: LARR ; the journal of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), Band 24, Heft 1, S. 233
ISSN: 0023-8791
In: Latin American research review, Band 24, Heft 1, S. 233-249
ISSN: 1542-4278
In: The journal of politics: JOP, Band 51, Heft 4, S. 1046-1048
ISSN: 0022-3816
In: Strengthening Peace in Post-Civil War States, S. 163-187
In: Civil Society: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
In: Administrative theory & praxis: ATP ; a quarterly journal of dialogue in public administration theory, Band 21, Heft 4, S. 523-531
ISSN: 1949-0461
In: Journal of public policy, Band 19, Heft 2, S. 141-173
ISSN: 1469-7815
In an effort at theoretical clarification, the authors reviewed 45 recent articles reporting empirical research employing the concept of 'social capital'. The literature is roughly equally divided between those who treat social capital as an independent variable and those who consider it as a dependent variable, and between those who operationalize the concept principally in terms of norms, values and attitudes and those who choose a more social structural operationalization, invoking social networks, organizations and linkages. Work on social capital as a mainly normative variable is dominated by political scientists and economists, while sociologists and a wide range of applied social scientists utilize more social structural understandings of the term. We find little to recommend in the use of 'social capital' to represent the norms, values and attitudes of the civic culture argument. We present empirical, methodological and theoretical arguments for the irrelevance of 'generalized social trust', in particular, as a significant factor in the health of democracies or economic development. Social structural interpretations of social capital, on the other hand, have demonstrated considerable capacity to draw attention to, and illuminate, the many ways in which social resources are made available to individuals and groups for individual or group benefit, which we take to be the prime focus and central attraction of the social capital concept. The paper concludes by elaborating a context-dependent conceptualization of social capital as access plus resources, and cautions against 'over-networked' conceptualizations that equate social capital with access alone.
In: Journal of public policy, Band 19, Heft 2, S. 141-173
ISSN: 0143-814X
A review of 45 recent articles reporting empirical research employing the concept of "social capital" shows that the literature is roughly equally divided between those viewing it as an independent, vs as a dependent, variable, & also between those who operationalize the concept principally in terms of norms, values, & attitudes vs those who choose a more social structural operationalization, invoking social networks, organizations, & linkages. Work on social capital as a mainly normative variable is dominated by political scientists & economists, while sociologists & a wide range of applied social scientists utilize more social structural understandings. Here, little is found to recommend a view of social capital as representing the norms, values, & attitudes of the civic culture argument. Social structural interpretations of social capital, on the other hand, have demonstrated considerable capacity to illuminate how social resources are made available to individuals & groups for individual or group benefit, which is taken to be the prime focus & central attraction of the social capital concept. A context-dependent conceptualization of social capital as access plus resources is elaborated, with cautions against over-networked conceptualizations that equate social capital with access alone. 1 Figure, 81 References. Adapted from the source document.
In: Administrative theory & praxis: ATP ; a quarterly journal of dialogue in public administration theory, Band 21, Heft 4, S. 521-529
ISSN: 1084-1806
In: American behavioral scientist: ABS, Band 42, Heft 1, S. 5-20
ISSN: 1552-3381
In: American behavioral scientist: ABS, Band 42, Heft 1, S. 124-139
ISSN: 1552-3381
Both civil society and social capital have proven useful heuristics for drawing attention to neglected nonmarket aspects of social reality and constitute a needed corrective to narrowly economistic models. However, both break down, although in different ways, when treated as the basis for elaborating testable hypotheses and further theory. Civil society is most useful in polemical or normative contexts, but attempts to distinguish it from other sectors of society typically break down in unresolvable boundary disputes over just what constitutes civil society and what differentiates it from "state" and "market." Work by Robert Putnam and others has assimilated social capital to the civic culture model, using it as just another label for the norms and values of the empirical democratic theory of the 1950s. This strategy undermines the empirical value of James Coleman and Pierre Bourdieu's useful social relational concept.