Suchergebnisse

Sultan Tepe is assistant professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The Mexican state of Oaxaca was brought to a standstill by mass mobilizations in summer 2006. The media & government officials blamed external agents for the uprising -- Mexico City trouble-makers, urban guerrillas, or political operatives. More knowledgeable political commentators & some left-wing intellectuals saw the event as a spontaneous outburst of impoverished masses. Extreme-left analysts predicted that the movement would fail because it no revolutionary proletarian direction. None of these commentators gave serious thought to the experiences, needs, & aspirations of Oaxaca's subaltern classes or recognized the mobilization as part of a genuine insurgency. While the Oaxaca rebellion is similar to other popular movements in Latin America, its roots lie in Oaxaca's right traditions of resistance & rebelliousness, & its strength derives from a broad-based, non-hierarchical, & communitarian approach to organizing. The four articles in this section on the Oaxaca uprising are introduced. J. Stanton

The coalition government formed by Ehud Glmert has committed an escalating number of major errors & is leading Israel towards disaster-such is the conviction of Binyamin Netanyahu, a former prime minister & current leader of the leading right-wing party Likud. His criticisms of the current administration are multiple: the war against Hizbollah last July was badly managed; Israel's attitude towards Hamas, which currently leads the Palestinian government, has been much too timid; & it has been suicidally lax in controlling arms smuggled into Gaza across the Egyptian border, since if the smuggling doesn't stop, Gaza will sooner or later be once more engulfed in war. In short, Israel must only negotiate with Palestinian leaders who are resolutely committed to a peaceful solution. In the meantime, it must take a very strong stand against terrorist organizations & the countries that support them, in particular Syria & Iran. Adapted from the source document.

Ergebnis der Parlamentswahlen 2003 in der Schweiz ist eine erkennbare Polarisierung an den politischen Rändern bei geschwächter Mitte. Als Hauptgewinner der Wahlen und nunmehr klar stärkste Partei forderte die rechtsbürgerliche, nationalkonservative Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP) bei den sich anschließenden Gesamterneuerungswahlen des Bundesrates (Regierung) mit Nachdruck - und letztlich erfolgreich - einen zusätzlichen Sitz in diesem seit 1959 zahlenmäßig unverändert zusammengesetzten Kollegialorgan. Als Alternative drohte die SVP mit dem Gang in die Opposition und somit dem Ende der traditionellen Konkordanz. Vor dem Hintergrund der verfassungsmäßigen Besonderheiten des direktdemokratisch geprägten politischen Systems der Schweiz können die Wahlergebnisse für beide Parlamentskammern (National- und Ständerat) analysiert und am Beispiel der Wahl 2003 die Zukunftstauglichkeit des schweizerischen "Konkordanzsystems" untersucht werden. (Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen / FUB)

In February 2000, the Austrian Christian conservative People's Party ÖVP and the right wing nationalist Freedom Party (under its notorious leader Jörg Haider) formed a new government in Austria. This political change resulted not only in heavy political protests in Austria, but also caused bilateral sanctions of the other 14 EU member states against the new government. In March 2000, Austria's public broadcasting company organised a media discussion between representatives of the then government, opposition politicians, representatives of the Austrian civil society and 'ordinary people' to establish a 'national consent' towards the sanctions. Drawing upon insights from appraisal theory, social semiotics and critical discourse analysis, this paper demonstrates how non-verbal situational aspects as well as discursive features of this program are used by the programme makers to create an overall impression of 'Austria as a victim' and how dissenting voices are silenced.

This study used longitudinal data from the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) to examine links between mothers' nonauthoritarian child-rearing attitudes, assessed when children were aged 5, and children's values at age 30 (antiracism, right-wing beliefs, support for authority, support for traditional marital values, support for working mothers, political cynicism, environmentalism, and support for the work ethic). Mothers' nonauthoritarian child-rearing attitudes were positively related to cohort members' antiracism and environmentalism, and were negatively related to cohort members' support for authority, support for traditional marital values, and support for the work ethic even after mothers' values (liberalism and support for working mothers) and known early (parental social class, socioeconomic disadvantage, family structure, general ability, and emotional and behavioral problems) and concurrent (social class, partner status, religiosity, self-reported physical health, and depressed mood) confounding factors were controlled for.

In February 2000, the Austrian Christian conservative People's Party OVP & the right wing nationalist Freedom Party (under its notorious leader Jorg Haider) formed a new government in Austria. This political change resulted not only in heavy political protests in Austria, but also caused bilateral sanctions of the other 14 EU member states against the new government. In March 2000, Austria's public broadcasting company organized a media discussion between representatives of the then government, opposition politicians, representatives of the Austrian civil society, & "ordinary people" to establish a "national consent" towards the sanctions. Drawing upon insights from appraisal theory, social semiotics, & critical discourse analysis, this paper demonstrates how non-verbal situational aspects as well as discursive features of this program are used by the program makers to create an overall impression of "Austria as a victim" & how dissenting voices are silenced. 2 Figures, 2 Appendixes, 23 References. Adapted from the source document.

This article continues the debate over Terence Zuber's thesis that 'there never was a "Schlieffen plan" ', with particular emphasis on showing that the manpower requirements of the Schlieffen plan were consistent with the resources of the German army. It also provides further evidence for the conditional status of the march around Paris, and for Schlieffen's view of Russia's military incapacity in 1905. The Generalstabsreisen of 1904 are revisited in order to explain the reasons why Schlieffen was inclining towards the concept of a strong right-wing offensive, as opposed to a counter-offensive strategy. The new documentation that Zuber has adduced for the Kriegsspiel of late 1905 is analysed to demonstrate that this two-front counter-offensive exercise was not relevant to Schlieffen's real concern at the time, which was to plan for a west-front offensive by the whole of the German army.

In 1950 Adorno et al .'s The Authoritarian Personality study warned that American society contained a minority of individuals whose characters made them prone to become fascists in certain circumstances and that this was a danger common to contemporary industrial society. After early acclaim critics argued that the main threat came from left-wing authoritarian individuals. But research in several countries failed to establish their existence. We trace and evaluate this debate, largely defending the original research. Subsequent argument suggested that the concept of authoritarianism was becoming outdated in post-industrial society, a view that we strongly challenge. While defending the diagnosis and purpose of the original research, we conclude by endorsing the argument that authoritarianism is better described in terms of attitude rather than personality. This gives a clearer psychological description of political movements of the far right and offers more direct measures for their reduction.