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This article covers the relationship between the National Labour Confederation of Spain and the Comintern and its union adjunct the Profintern, from the Confederation's initial support for the October Revolution to its subsequent outright rejection of communist politics, with reference to the positions adopted by revolutionary syndicalist movements in other countries. During this period a small number of individuals attempted to tie the Confederation to the Communist International, but failed. The article covers an important period in Spanish labour history, and helps to explain the mistrust that would bedevil the Spanish revolutionary working-class movement until the Civil War. Previous research has presented the battle for control of the CNT as a straightforward battle between anarchists and communists. This was not the case. The pro-communists were a miniscule faction, led by men recently affiliated to the CNT and who had no understanding of the depth of rejection of politics by Confederal militants. They only managed to take control of the national committee by chance. Aware of their weakness they were forced to act in a secretive and often underhand manner. Using material not consulted in previous studies this article shows the extent of their subterfuge and of the opposition this created in the Confederation, as well as demonstrating that the CNT was not the only revolutionary organisation to reject the Bolshevik International.

AbstractCapacity building is a frequent tonic prescribed for local governments in poor performance health. Such initiatives purport to get to the heart of governance with technical approaches that are free of partisanship and political controversy. Data from municipal governments newly affected by decentralisation and democratisation indicate that, contrary to expectations, the destiny of capacity building initiatives is dependent upon politics. In the first instance, capacity building initiatives are dependent on the orientation of elected and appointed leaders who choose to invest in or ignore them. Second, capacity building initiatives are significantly affected by electoral cycles that create moments when significant new capacity initiatives can be introduced and abandoned. Third, capacity building initiatives are dependent on the formal and informal institutions that determine how much scope public officials have for introducing change. Thus, while part of the popularity of capacity building programs and projects is their apparent distance from politics, those who wish to see the performance of government improved need to be sensitive to how it is affected—in positive and negative ways—by political preferences, calendars, and institutions. Data on 57 capacity building initiatives carried out in 30 medium sized municipalities in Mexico suggest the ways in which such factors shape the destinies of capacity building initiatives. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract.The traditional class approach to politics maintains that the working class 'naturally' votes for left‐wing parties because they represent its economic interests. Such traditional voting patterns have, however, become less typical, giving rise to the 'Death of Class Debate' in political sociology. Against this background, using data collected in the Netherlands in 1997, this article examines why so many people, working and middle class alike, vote for parties that do not represent their 'real class interests'. Critically elaborating Lipset's work on working‐class authoritarianism and Inglehart's on postmaterialism, the article confirms that 'natural' voting complies with the logic of class analysis. 'Unnatural' voting, however, is not driven by economic cues and class. Right‐wing working‐class voting behaviour is caused by cultural conservatism that stems from limited cultural capital. The pattern of voting for the two small leftist parties in Dutch politics underscores the significance of this cultural explanation: those with limited cultural capital and culturally conservative values vote for the Socialist Party ('Old Left') rather than the Greens ('New Left'). Breaking the traditional monopoly of the one‐sided class approach and using a more eclectic and open theoretical approach enables political sociologists once again to appreciate the explanatory power of the class perspective.

Although legal reform has allowed the gradual & relative assertion of law's independence from politics, it has yet to weaken the repressive nature of the Chinese legal system, especially with respect to criminal law & public liberties. The paradox of the Chinese legal reform during the eighties & the nineties is that its shortcomings generated then more reforms than before 1978, when the Chinese legal system was either widely politicized or inexistent. Since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, Western countries have increased their interactions with that country, but have also diminished their pressure on sensitive issues such as human rights violations. Meanwhile, if economic & people-to-people exchanges between China & the world have multiplied & supported increased cooperation in the legal field, many issues remain unresolved. The reform stands as incomplete & has not favored greater independence from law, while commitments for cooperation on legal matters lack coherence & coordination. These shortcomings & the many failed hopes of reforms are likely to increase conflicts, not only between China & the outside world, but also between Chinese jurists & political leaders. Thus, despite its conservative politics, the Chinese communist regime joins in a global debate on law & human rights from which it cannot extricate itself anymore, but where it tries to reconcile its political goals with the requirements of a necessary legal modernization. Adapted from the source document.

When the World Economic Forum (WEF) met in New York in February 2003, thousands of protesters in New York & a simultaneous gathering of anti-capitalists under the umbrella of the World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, adopted the slogan "Another World is Possible." Since then it has been used to define the spirit of various social causes, from anti-capitalist to anti-war movements. Is this the cyclical expression of utopianism that has appeared during times of disillusionment with the political order throughout history, & if so, how is it manifest in political participation? The slogan is, I would argue, filled with assumptions, reservations, & ambiguities towards the concept of hope & how the political desires of anti-capitalists straddle notions of possibility & impossibility. Nevertheless it represents, as this essay will argue, a direct response to the fatalistic trend in contemporary political life, those discourses that implicitly declare the "end of politics." People who refuse such a vision are exploring discourses of an "outside," the imagination of other worlds. This essay will explore what contribution theological categories of hope, transcendence, & eschatology make to this exploration. In particular, the utopianism of Ernst Bloch acts as a good example of the conceptual tools for a politics of hope that straddle theological notions of the transcendent & immanentist traditions such as Marxism. References. Adapted from the source document.

Se presentan los resultados de un estudio que aborda las diferencias existentes entre estudiantes universitarios de psicología nicaragüenses, salvadoreños, chilenos y españoles en lo referente a aspectos sociodemográficos, características socioeconómicas, percepción sobre el futuro profesional, actitudes hacia la emigración, utilización y confianza en los medios de comunicación, actitudes hacia la política (ubicación política, grado de interés por la política, participación electoral y pertenencia a partidos o grupos políticos), pertenencia a grupos o asociaciones, confianza en las instituciones y sucesos vitales estresantes. La muestra, que comparte importantes similitudes (género, edad, formación, intereses profesionales, etc.), presenta relevantes diferencias en varios de los aspectos analizados, algunas de las cuales pare-cen relacionarse con el diferente nivel de desarrollo económico y social existente en los cuatro países ; This paper describes the outcomes of a study about the differences among Psychology students from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile and Spain in sociodemographic aspects, attitudes about emigration, use and confidence in mass media, attitudes towards politics (electoral participation, interest in politics, etc), participation in groups and associations, confidence in institutions and stressful life events. Participants have important similarities (gender, age, training, etc.) and also have relevant differences in some aspects; some of those could be linked to the different economic and social development of the four countries

If governing equals foreseeing, it seems normal to make the question of the NATO's future the focus of our preoccupations. This would best be done through critical analysis of the current transformation of the Alliance, based on the basic Treaty of Washington, unchanged since 1949, on the one hand, and a rapidly changing world on the other. An article by the permanent Belgium representative around the North Atlantic council regarding the future of NATO, which mentions the following three internal priorities: 1) completing NATO's enlargement (Treaty of Washington mentioning that each European country can be a member state); 2) ongoing and intensified politics of partnership (promoting its defensive qualities to reassure its neighbors and developing relations of cooperation with them) ; 3) favoring a positive contribution regarding peace maintenance by means of a clearer concept of intervention. The representative concludes in five indispensable conditions as concerned NATO's future on a global scale: 1) an American policy recognizing the NATO's privileged place regarding its foreign policy; 2) a more substantial dialogue of transatlantic politics; 3) NATO respecting the global order described in the Cart of the United Nations; 4) a stricter definition of NATO's future role; and 5) a continuation of NATO's current internal functioning. References. O. van Zijl

This article analyses government popularity in Italy during the post-1992 period. In earlier times public opinion approval of the government had little political & electoral relevance. With the enactment of a new electoral law & the change of the party system, the ensuing alternation in government of different political coalitions makes meaningful a study of what drives government approval. The analysis is grounded in the "reasoning voter/valence politics" paradigm, according to which government performance can reinforce or discount voters' party preference profiles. Two analyses are carried out, one at the aggregate level & one at the individual level. Regarding the former, a time-series model of monthly government ratings is fitted to both Centre-Left (1996-2001) & Centre-Right (2001-2006) governments, with findings showing that economic (consumers') expectations & international events mainly explain government popularity. Such conclusion is confirmed also from the individual level analysis: voters' approval of the government depends on the perception of economic conditions which, in turns, influences the assessment of government competence. Both outgoing Centre-Left (2001) & Centre-Right (2006) political coalitions were then defeated because of the low standing in the popular approval. Finally, the article discusses the importance of government leadership in contemporary Italian politics. Tables, Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

The European Union (EU) is widely seen as a novel kind of actor in international politics. This has been captured succinctly by Ian Manner's term `normative power Europe'. This article reviews the literature on the concept of normative power and relates it to the earlier literature on civilian power. It argues that these concepts of power should be seen as part of the same discourse; a discourse which is not confined to the EU, but includes the cases of other great powers, such as the United States (US). The example of the US leads to a problematisation of `normative power Europe' that does not focus on the discrepancy between rhetoric and concrete policies, or on the inconsistencies of EU policies, but on the political effects of the construction of the EU as a normative power; i.e., on the power of the `normative power Europe' discourse. With illustrations drawn from the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, Turkey-EU relations and the sanctions against Austria, I argue that this discourse establishes a particular identity for the EU through turning third parties into `others' and representing the EU as a positive force in world politics. The article concludes with a call for more reflexivity in the representation of the EU as a normative power.

Both academics and journalists have given increasing attention to the rising importance of prime ministers – a phenomenon often referred to 'presidentialization'. Although many commentators use the term differently, and the term blurs the line between the very different institutional contexts of a parliamentary and presidential system, one careful definition of the term is 'the movement over time away from collective to personalized government, movement away from a pattern of governmental and electoral politics dominated by the political party towards one where the party leader becomes a more autonomous political force.'This phenomenon has been observed primarily in Britain and in West European parliamentary democracies – no one has ever described the Japanese parliamentary system as even remotely 'presidentialized'. In fact, the Japanese prime minister has not been the subject of much academic research, and even the Japanese press often used to ignore the prime minister. Despite being the leader of a majority party in a centralized political system, the Japanese prime minister was almost universally described as weak and uninteresting, with both academic and popular discourse focusing on the powerful bureaucracy and factional politics within the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). However, recent political changes, most prominently the selection and popularity of Junichirō Koizumi as Japan's prime minister in the spring of 2001, have led to a surge of interest in the prime minister.

Almost twenty years old, the constructivist turn in international relations scholarship has succeeded in demonstrating the effects of norms, both in guiding the interactions of states with one another as well as influencing the domestic political debates that give rise to foreign policy outcomes. More recently, scholars have begun to study empirically the interactions between international and domestic normative systems. The origins of many international norms have been located in national understandings of what constitutes appropriate behaviour in a given issue area. The reverse, however, is also held to be true. Many national-level norms have been adopted after first finding their articulation in international institutions.