Suchergebnisse

Environmental discourse in South Africa has undergone dramatic change in the 1990s. Since the unbanning of the ANC and other anti‐apartheid organizations there has been an important re‐conceptualization of environmental issues and a rapid politicization of environmental debates. Organizations like the Environmental Justice Networking Forum (EJNF) have made the links between poverty and ecology an environmental priority in the country and important gains have been made on a wide range of environmental fronts. Environmental debates in South Africa have shifted from an historically racist and exclusionary discourse to one in which the definition of 'the environment' has expanded to include the working and living environments of black South Africans. This has had a profound impact on the way that environmental policy is prioritized and developed in the country and has contributed to a strong, and growing, environmental justice movement in the country.
The first half of this article examines this shift in environmental discourse by looking briefly at the history of environmental debates in the country and at changes in environmental legislation and policy‐making procedures. The second half is a critical analysis of these environmental reforms ‐specifically as they relate to urban poverty. The delivery of basic services like sewerage and sanitation is arguably the single most important environmental concern in the country ‐ by virtue of the fact that it directly affects the largest number of people ‐ but it is unclear whether current urban upgrading initiatives are going to address this problem in an environmentally just and sustainable manner. It is argued that the interests of large scale capital and the propertied classes in South Africa continue to fundamentally shape ‐ and limit ‐ the environmental policy choices available to the ANC government. Environmental conditions in South African cities will gradually improve over the next five to ten years, but in a way that is intended to benefit urban capital and surreptitiously off‐loads the costs of urban upgrading onto the urban poor themselves.

Although it is widely acknowledged that economic interests influence the politics of trade policy, most research on international relations treats security issues differently. Do conflicting economic interests shape political debate over foreign policy even when security issues are highly salient? To answer this question, I test a range of hypotheses about conflicting interests in the economic stakes of U.S. foreign policy during the early Cold War era. I present evidence that economic interests in their home states were closely related to senators' voting patterns on foreign policy issues. These patterns hold across economic and security issues. I also find that political parties play an important mediating role, making senators more or less receptive to various economic interests.

Der Artikel beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, ob widerstreitende ökonomische Interessen die außenpolitische Diskussion beeinflussen, selbst wenn sicherheitspolitische Belange ganz oben auf der Tagesordnung stehen. der Autor bezieht sich dabei auf das politische Geschehen in den Vereinigten Staaten in der Frühphase des kalten Krieges. er versucht den Nachweis zu führen, daß sich die wirtschaftlichen Interssen der einzelnen Bundesstaaten im Abstimmungsverhalten der jeweiligen Senatoren widerspiegeln. auch wird ausgeführt, daß die politischen parteien eine wichtige rolle dabei spielen, senatoren mehr oder weniger ampfänglich für die verschiedenen wirtschaftlichen Interessen zu machen. (swp-clv)

Analyzes urban environmental reforms benefiting Blacks and the poor, arguing that the interests of large scale capital and the propertied classes shape and limit policy choices of the government.

The influence of partisan and electoral considerations on the monetary policy voting behavior of Federal Reserve Governors is investigated in the context of a model permitting the estimation of reaction functions on the basis of FOMC voting records. The results suggest that once we have controlled for the state of the economy and for the prevailing stance of monetary policy, both partisan ideologies and partisan loyalties appear to play an important role in the Governors'voting calculus.

In the early 1970s the socialist government of Malta embarked on a reform of vocational education. This reform programme had two aims: first, to build up the country's industrial base; second, to bridge the gap between intellectual and manual labour, as advocated by Marx and other socialist thinkers. This article argues that Malta's failure to achieve the second goal holds important lessons for those who continue to advocate socialist ideas. ; peer-reviewed