Suchergebnisse

The main purpose of this article is to present the results of a research project on the political participation of Latin American migrants in Andalusia (mainly in the cities of Seville and Huelva). The project uses a broad concept of what political participation constitutes, including both civic practices and activities associated with conventional politics, and adopts a transnational perspective. It is based on 45 semi-structured interviews with politically active migrants and members of political parties and other institutions. The article highlights some of the main findings of the research, including the importance of taking into account migrants' previous political experiences, as well as the role played by migrant associations in order to better understand their political practices. ; El objetivo de este artículo es presentar los resultados de un proyecto sobre la participación política de los migrantes latinoamericanos en Andalucía (fundamentalmente en las ciudades de Sevilla y Huelva). Partiendo de una concepción amplia de lo político que incluye tanto prácticas consideradas cívicas como las asociadas a la participación política más convencional, el estudio adopta una perspectiva transnacional y se basa en el análisis de 45 entrevistas semiestructuradas a migrantes con algún grado de implicación, así como a miembros y representantes de partidos políticos y otras instituciones. Entre los resultados principales se destaca la importancia de las experiencias políticas previas de los migrantes, así como el papel que juegan las asociaciones que los agrupan a la hora de analizar la participación política de éstos.

Focusing on social movement organizations (SMOs) in the Czech Republic, this article explores the level of transnational activism of these actors. Although knowledge exists on domestic interest groups' choice of European Union (EU) venues for lobbying, the influence of EU funding on protest and public campaigning by actors such as SMOs remains under-studied. We show what the level of transnationalization of SMOs is, what types of transnational strategies SMOs employ, and what explains these choices. Specifically, the article examines the effect the EU has had on Czech SMOs. We are interested in whether EU funding contributed to their de-radicalization and co-optation by the political elite, or rather empowered them to engage in transnational protest. The results of our analysis support the empowerment hypothesis. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

From 1968 to 1997, wealthy, advanced democracies generally did not suffer from high levels of chronic terrorism, with two exceptions: (a) advanced democracies that interfered in other countries' affairs through military intervention or occupations were frequent targets of transnational terrorism, and (b) poor democracies with territorial conflicts often experienced related domestic terrorist attacks. Intermediately wealthy and transitioning democracies with internally inconsistent institutions were more likely to experience domestic terrorism than advanced democracies and authoritarian regimes. There is very little agreement about why these trends persist. I identify the competing explanations that have emerged within the literature as well as remaining controversies. I also present preliminary evidence suggesting that since 9/11, terrorism persists in the usual pattern but may be increasingly prevalent in nondemocratic countries. I offer five speculative explanations for this and four suggestions for how the field should proceed. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractIn the early twentieth century, like many of their European counterparts, labour unions in the Netherlands established mutual unemployment insurance funds for their members. Various funds made agreements with labour unions in a number of European countries to recognize each other's insurance schemes, enabling union members to work in the Netherlands without losing their entitlement to benefits accumulated in their home countries, and vice versa. Whereas up until the 1930s some of the alliances between Dutch and foreign funds had flourished, in the 1930s the number of non-Dutch workers in the Netherlands making use of such agreements decreased drastically. This article analyses those transnational alliances and explores various causes for their demise, concluding that in the 1930s formal regulation of foreign labour by the Dutch government substantially reduced the number of potential foreign members of insurance funds while government interference in unemployment insurance abroad, and especially in Germany, made the transnational agreements effectively void.

The permanent settlement of immigrants of foreignorigin, and the subsequent formation of the second and thirdgenerations, has long contributed to re-launching the debate onthe content and limits of the institution of citizenship, bringinginto question the close connection with the national States. The increasing number and the growing diversity of the legal statusof foreigners residing in the territory of sovereign States blurs thedividing lines between insiders and outsiders. Therefore this raisesquestions about the criteria and ways of participation of residents inthe community of citizens, with all the obligations and benefi ts thatderive from it. In parallel, various forms of political participationof migrants across borders are developing, especially in terms ofthe countries of origin. The article examines the implications andmeanings that derive, in the current context, from what can bedefi ned as transnational reconfi gurations in the democratic sphere. After having considered the citizenship «from above», that is interms of the type of rights granted to foreign residents, their extent,timing and modes of access, the article presents a more recent branch of studies that start «from below», i.e. from the point ofview of actual practices to access and use, reinterpretations andnegotiations of the contents of citizenship: processes in which migrants and refugees take active roles at various levels and indifferent ways, both individual and collective. ; El asentamiento permanente de inmigrantes de origen extranjero y la formación de segundas y terceras generaciones, ha contribuido mucho a relanzar el debate sobre el contenido y los límites de la institución de la ciudadanía, poniendo en tela de juicio la estrecha relación con los Estados nacionales. El aumento del número y la creciente diversidad de la condición jurídica de los extranjeros que residen en el territorio de los Estados soberanos difuminan las líneas divisorias entre los de adentro y los de afuera. Por tanto, emergen interrogantes acerca de los criterios y formas de participación de los residentes extranjeros como ciudadanos, con las obligaciones y beneficios que de ello se derivan. En paralelo, diversas formas de participación política de los migrantes se están desarrollando a través de las fronteras, especialmente con los paísesde origen. El artículo examina las implicaciones y significados que se derivan, en el contexto actual, de lo que puede definirse como reconfiguraciones transnacionales en las sociedades democráticas.Tras haber examinado la ciudadanía "desde arriba", en términos del tipo de derechos concedidos a los residentes extranjeros, su alcance, tiempos y modos de acceso, el artículo presenta una perspectiva más reciente de los estudios, que mira "desde abajo",es decir, desde el punto de vista de las prácticas reales de acceso y uso, reinterpretaciones y renegociaciones de los contenidos de ciudadanía: procesos en que los migrantes y los refugiados participanactivamente en diversos niveles tanto de forma individual como colectiva.

In 2006, the European Union launched its new free trade strategy Global Europe with the explicit goal of increasing European competitiveness. This article explores the positions of trade unions and other social movements on Global Europe. Importantly, while Northern social movements and trade unions from the Global South reject Global Europe due to its impact of deindustrialisation on developing countries, European trade unions support it in so far as it opens up new markets for the export of European manufactured goods. It will be argued that this has to be understood against the background of the dynamics underlying the global economy and here in particular uneven and combined development. Due to the uneven integration of different parts of the world into the global economy, workers in developed countries may actually benefit from free trade, while workers in the Global South are more likely to lose out. It will, however, also be argued that while these different positions within the social relations of production are shaping the position of trade unions, they do not determine them. Over time, through direct engagement, trade unions in the North and South may be able to establish relations of transnational solidarity. Adapted from the source document.

In the past five years, the Chinese state has made great effort to implement its 'going-out' strategy, i.e., the geographical expansion of Chinese capital and labor overseas. This paper explores how the Chinese state rescales to implement this going-out strategy and produce new spaces of development. Particularly, this paper examines how the Chinese state reconfigures its institutional ensemble to integrate landlocked Yunnan Province into the transnational economy embodied in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). The paper finds that the Chinese state deploys two spatial strategies -- upward coordination with international organizations and GMS national governments, and downward implementation throughout Yunnan Province -- to establish an interscalar regulatory regime. Through this regime the Chinese state aims to assemble capital, labor, and political clout to expand Chinese capital and labor in the GMS, and to develop Yunnan's economy to ease uneven domestic geographical development. This paper contributes to the booming literature on the political-economic restructuring of national states and to the limited scholarship on the institutional arrangement for cross-border regions in a non-Western context. It also sheds light on how the rescaling of the Chinese state potentially shapes the international political economy. Adapted from the source document.