Comparative Politics Commons^™

"A Comparative Analysis Of Collective Action Frames In Nosamo And The Tea Party", Shyam Sriram

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

No abstract provided.

Traditional, Democratic, Accountable? Navigating Citizen-Subjection In Rural South Africa, Robin L. Turner

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Nearly two decades after South Africa’s democratization, questions of tradition and accountability continue to trouble the polity as more than 14 million black South Africans remain subject to state-recognized, so-called “traditional” leaders – kings, queens, chiefs and regents. This article deepens our understanding of contemporary governance by exploring the agency of these citizen-subjects through close examination of traditional leaders’ strategies and citizen-subjects’ mobilizations in four rural localities. These cases illustrate how citizen-subjects are working with, against and through traditional leaders and councils, hybrid organizations and independent groups to pursue community development and effective, accountable governance, and show how the present …

Media Presentations As A Strategy For Teaching African Politics, Robin L. Turner

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Student media presentations can deepen students’ knowledge of African politics, build their critical thinking and communication skills, and highlight the relevance of course material. This article presents the media assignment I have used in two upper-level courses, African Politics and Politics of Gender and Sexuality in Africa, and three examples of student work.

Review Of "Human Rights In Asia: A Comparative Legal Study Of Twelve Asian Jurisdictions, France And The Usa", Su-Mei Ooi

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This article reviews Human Rights in Asia: A Comparative Legal Study of Twelve Asian Jurisdictions, France and the USA by Randall Peerenboom, Carole J. Petersen, and Albert H.Y. Chen.

Entering A Systemic Revolution, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The collapse of the United States as the global hegemon constitutes a “systemic revolution” that will transform both the U.S. and the rest of the globe. Such a revolution is different from “normal” political revolutions, which entail an overthrow of the government. A systemic revolution ushers in even broader and more enduring changes in economy, society and culture, and it also transcends national boundaries, affecting other countries and the global system itself. It is a global paradigm shift, and we are right smack in the middle of it.

Communities, Wildlife Conservation, And Tourism-Based Development: Can Community-Based Nature Tourism Live Up To Its Promise?, Robin L. Turner

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This paper analyzes the opportunities and tensions generated by efforts to use conservationbased tourism as a catalyst for economic development. By exploring how historical legacies position actors and influence relationships between them, characterizing the nature tourism sector and its logic, and examining how liberalizing states are likely to engage with community-based tourism. I situate community-based nature tourism ventures in a broader political economic context. The paper draws from research on the Makuleke Region of Kruger National Park, South Africa to illustrate how these factors influence prospects for community benefit from protected area tourism. Like many other protected areas in Africa, …

Political Research In Martial Law Poland, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

In early 1981, at the height of the Solidarity revolution, I was accepted by lREX to spend the spring 1982 semester in Warsaw for my project on the development of the workers' movement and the formation of Solidarity. My family and I were to fly to Poland just after Christmas of 1981. But on December 13, martial law was declared, and the Polish borders were sealed. I had taken a leave of absence from Butler University, and we had already rented out our house, so we were stranded.

The Middle Class: Increasingly Fond Memories Of A Grim Past, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Despite seemingly successful reforms in many post-communist countries, increasing numbers of people have been sliding from the middle class into poverty. Nostalgia for the late communist era is on the rise, and a new study warns that the perceived levels of social and economic decline surpass the actual ones-- which could spell trouble for the reformers.

Public Opinion And The 1996 Elections In Russia: Nostalgic And Statist, Yet Pro-Market And Pro-Yeltsin, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Between 1991 and 1996 Russia underwent a precipitous economic and social decline with decreases in production, gross national product, and wages, and increases in inequality, crime, and corruption. Most people experienced a decline in their standard of living, and many fondly recalled the security and stability of the communist era.

Attitudes Toward The Market And Political Participation In The Postcommunist States, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

In the aftermath of the anti-communist revolutions of 1989-1991, the new governments in eastern Europe faced the herculean task of attempting simultaneously to build market economies and democratic political institutions. Though capitalism and democracy are often considered to be natural allies, in the cases of these new states they sometimes pull against each other.

Attitudes Towards The Market And The State In Post-Communist Europe, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This paper examines the level and sources of suppon for the market-oriented reforms in East-Central Europe and the relationship between these attitudes and political trust in the governments. The analysis is based on data collected in a common public opinion survey on social, economic and political justice implemented in the spring and summer of 1991 in eleven countries: Russia. Poland, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Germany (east and west), Holland, the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States.

The survey results suggest some measure of caution and concern regarding the possibilities for a successful transition to market democracy in the former …

Public Opinion In Poland's Transition To Market Economy, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Public opinion research has changed dramatically in the last ten years in Poland, in terms of its methodology, scope, and role in political change. During the "first" Solidarity era (1980–81), the genie of public opinion was let out of the bottle, and even martial law could not entirely put it back. Public opinion polling in the 1980s became more sophisticated and more common, and began to tackle increasingly sensitive political issues. Public opinion came to play a role in the political process, and to give the Polish population a sense of its own purpose and values. It also revealed the …

Apathy And The Birth Of Democracy: The Polish Struggle, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Apathy, from the Greek words meaning "w ithout feeling," is at once a term denoting an individual's impassivity or indifference and a form of collective political behavior. Our concern is the la tter form of apathy in Poland from the Solidarity period of 1980-81 to the present.

The Polish Parliament And Labor Legislation During Solidarity, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Parliaments in communist party states are usually treated in Western literature as "rubber stamp" institutions that simply approve policies made elsewhere. As such, these bodies do not perform functions of interest articulation, representation, or policy-making that are characteristic of many Western legislatures.

Perestroyka, Social Justice And Soviet Public Opinion, David S. Mason, Svetlana Sydorenko

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Examines Mikhail Gorbachev's perspective of social justice that points to the unfairness of slothful workers' receiving the same pay as productive fellow workers. Focus on egalitarian version of social justice; Large number of people at bottom of social ladder; Justice in communist ideology; Aspects of the debate; Public opinion and social justice; Political justice or market justice?

Public Opinion Reform In China, David S. Mason, Ken Colburn

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

As the People's Republic of China shifts toward a more market-oriented economic system, it has also begun exploring another Western institution: scientific public opinion polling. As Yang Guansan, one of China's leading pollsters, said recently in the Beijing Review: "Only five or six years ago, the public opinion poll was considered to be a 'bourgeois' or 'capitalist' method of social survey ... Now the taboo has been swept away in the strong tide of reform, which is challenging all of China's traditions, stereotypes and prejudices."

Political Apathy In Poland, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Strikes in Poland during April and May 1988 demonstrate once again the stalemate confronting regime and populace. Although Jaruzelski cannot mobilize support for economic reforms, Solidarity also lacks the power to force the regime toward the political reforms it deems necessary for Poland's salvation.

Poland's New Trade Unions, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

With the declaration of martial law in December 1981 and the formal banning of Solidarity in October 1982, the Polish regime created for itself a dilemma: how to provide a channel for participation by the workers without reactivating Solidarity and without allowing that participation to assume political dimensions. The Jaruzelski leadership professed a desire to achieve reconciliation and understanding in the aftermath of the heady days of Solidarity and the depressing denouement of martial law. One of the principal means to do this was through the creation of new institutions, allegedly independent, which would absorb some of the creative and …

Stalemate And Apathy In Poland, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Focuses on the leadership of Polish Prime Minister General Wojciech Jaruzelski during the 1980s. Claims made by the leader's camp of the degree of stability and normalization achieved by the country in 1981; Issues of democracy, political participation and justice raised by the Solidarity party.

The Polish Party In Crisis, 1980-1982, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Over the last three years, the Polish United Workers' Party has suffered a major crisis, the most substantial crisis of any Communist party in any Communist party state. The disintegration of the party was at least partly responsible for both the development of Solidarity in the summer of 1980 and the imposition of martial law in December 1981. The lack of trust in the party and its authoritarian and unrepresentative character led the workers to demand an institution more responsive to their own needs. But the growth of Solidarity during 1981 and the continuing disintegration and fragmentation of the party …

Solidarity, The Regime And The Public, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This paper examines the extent to which Solidarity acted as a link between the population and the regime and as a representative of the interests of the workers. It looks first at the reasons for the emergence of Solidarity, and Solidarity's subsequent embodiment of the society's desire for a political and economic order more in line with the ideals of socialism, and more genuinely representative of the workers' interests. It concludes by assessing the charges against Solidarity made by the martial law authorities, the extent of current support for the union and the regime, and the possibilities for a resolution …

Policy Dilemmas And Political Unrest In Poland, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The recent unrest in Poland is not simply a struggle between the workers and the regime over political freedom and economic reform. A basic cause of the unrest, as in past years, is the failure of the regime to balance adequately the conflicting policies of promoting long-term investment in industry, raising the standard of living, and reducing social class inequalities. Each of these policies represents a major goal of the regime, and of socialist ideology. The regime has not been able to emphasize all three goals simultaneously, and has shifted resources and attention from one to the other over the …

Membership Of The Polish United Workers Party, David S. Mason

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The Polish United Workers' Party, like the CPSU, has faced a dilemma in its attempts to control its growth. The problem is in maintaining its leading, elite role while remaining fairly representative of the population, or at least of the working class. The difficulty in maintaining this balance has been compounded by the Party's changing image of itself and its role.