Suchergebnisse

The Last Mountain is a 2011 Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) film. It examines an aggressive form of strip mining in West Virginia known as mountaintop removal (MTR). The Last Mountain was the first of more than 40 MTR films to be distributed nationally and, as such, marks the entry of the issue onto the political scene in the USA. This essay analyses the film's use of environmental melodrama to define the problems related to MTR and create identification between victims of MTR and viewers. However, the latter portion of the film attempts to scale up from the melodramatic depiction of MTR to advocacy on broader issues regarding renewable energy and global climate change. In doing so, the film breaks with melodramatic form, draining its emotional power, foreclosing systemic political action, and limiting its overall effectiveness as a sustainability narrative.

► We investigate care arrangements for children in Vietnamese and Indonesian migrant families. ► Surrogate carers in sending countries are the most disadvantaged in global care chains. ► Care relationships reflect prevailing power hierarchies and norms. ► The study signifies the need to account for local specificities in researching care in the South.

This paper examines the relationship between differences in civil society development under communism and the political, economic and institutional change and transformation after 1989. We collected a unique dataset on nature and intensity of dissident activities in 27 former communist countries during the years immediately preceding the collapse of communism. We use the resulting data to explain the subsequent political, economic and institutional developments in the post-communist countries. Both extent of political opposition and severity of government reaction help explain the choice of political regime after 1989, the concentration of power government and the nature and pace of economic reforms.

The effects of redistricting on candidate entry patterns in contemporary House races has received growing attention in the scholarly literature, yet virtually no consideration has been given to this question in the context of historical elections. This is unfortunate as the wider variation in congressional redistricting during the nineteenth century gives us increased leverage in terms of understanding strategic candidate behavior. Utilizing a new dataset of candidate quality for nineteenth‐century House races, we examine whether candidates with prior electoral experience are more likely to run in districts that are altered during the redistricting process, and provide an account of how differences in the prevalence of redistricting may affect strategic entry decisions of politicians. Our results suggest that entry decisions and electoral outcomes are affected by redistricting in this era. Moreover, our analysis provides an opportunity to use history to test contemporary theories of congressional elections in a broader context.