Empowering Labor

Empowering Labor
Author: Juan A. Bogliaccini
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2024-03-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1009433539

Empowering Labor uses a comparative study of Chile, Portugal, and Uruguay to analyze the underlying political dynamics that shape the use of wage policy as a pre-distributive instrument of leftist parties in power in unequal democracies. The book theorizes that the unity of the Left and labor's political legitimacy are two main drivers for relating on wage policy as a pre-distributive instrument for promoting inclusion. These factors are shaped by elite long-term strategies towards labor. Such strategies, when dominant for long-enough periods, create path dependency, shaping differential opportunities for further options down the road. The book integrates large-scale historical processes with frequently analyzed short-term and agency-based factors to elucidate variation in the crafting of wage policies and reshapes the debate on the politics of pre-distribution in unequal democracies by situating the cases in a longer historical arc.

Resisting Extortion

Resisting Extortion
Author: Eduardo Moncada
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2022-01-06
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108843387

New ethnographic data leads to insights into the widespread yet understudied phenomenon of criminal extortion in Latin America.

A Chinese Bureaucracy for Innovation-Driven Development?

A Chinese Bureaucracy for Innovation-Driven Development?
Author: Alexandre De Podestá Gomes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2023-08-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108983154

This Element scrutinizes the attempts by the Chinese party-state bureaucracy since the 2000s to advance innovation and technological upgrading. It examines insights from the developmental state debate-the need for a bureaucracy to achieve internal coherence, and the capacity of that bureaucracy both to forge coalitions between bureaucrats, businessmen, and scientists, and to discipline domestic companies. Moreover, it assesses efforts to foster technological upgrading in semiconductors and electric vehicles. While there are significant differences between China and earlier successful developmental states, with the former facing problems such as the legacies of short-termism, limited monitoring capabilities, and flawed discipline over business, the authors find that, compared with other emerging capitalist economies, the Chinese bureaucracy has developed relatively strong capabilities to advance 'innovation-driven development'. This Element seeks to provide avenues for comparing it with other late developers.

Claim-Making in Comparative Perspective

Claim-Making in Comparative Perspective
Author: Janice K. Gallagher
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 155
Release: 2024-03-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1009033395

This Element focuses on everyday claim-making by drawing together bodies of research in and with different communities. The authors argue that claim-making is a form of citizenship practice, that is prevalent in uneven and unequal settings, and it is of critical consequence.

Repertoires of Terrorism

Repertoires of Terrorism
Author: Andreas E. Feldmann
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2024-06-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0231560001

Why do armed groups employ terrorism in markedly different ways during civil wars? Drawing on more than a decade of fieldwork, Andreas E. Feldmann examines the disparate behavior of actors including guerrilla groups, state security forces, and paramilitaries during Colombia’s long and bloody civil war. Analyzing the varieties of violence in this conflict, he develops a new theory of the dynamics of terrorism in civil wars. Feldmann argues that armed groups’ distinct uses—repertoires—of terrorism arise from their particular organizational identities, the central and enduring attributes that distinguish one faction from other warring parties. He investigates a range of groups that took part in the Colombian conflict over the course of its evolution from ideological to criminal warfare, demonstrating that organizational identity plays a critical role in producing and rationalizing violence. Armed parties employ their unique repertoires as a means of communication to assert their relevance and territorial presence and to differentiate themselves from enemies and rivals. Repertoires of Terrorism is based on an extensive data set covering thousands of incidents, as well as interviews, archival research, and testimony. It sheds new light on both armed groups’ use of violence in Colombia’s civil war and the factors that shape terrorist activity in other conflicts.

Bribes, Bullets, and Intimidation

Bribes, Bullets, and Intimidation
Author: Julie Marie Bunck
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 445
Release: 2015-06-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0271059451

Bribes, Bullets, and Intimidation is the first book to examine drug trafficking through Central America and the efforts of foreign and domestic law enforcement officials to counter it. Drawing on interviews, legal cases, and an array of Central American sources, Julie Bunck and Michael Fowler track the changing routes, methods, and networks involved, while comparing the evolution and consequences of the drug trade through Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama over a span of more than three decades. Bunck and Fowler argue that while certain similar factors have been present in each of the Central American states, the distinctions among these countries have been equally important in determining the speed with which extensive drug trafficking has taken hold, the manner in which it has evolved, the amounts of different drugs that have been transshipped, and the effectiveness of antidrug efforts.

Developmental States

Developmental States
Author: Stephan Haggard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 122
Release: 2018-02-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108605303

The concept of the developmental state emerged to explain the rapid growth of a number of countries in East Asia in the postwar period. Yet the developmental state literature also offered a theoretical approach to growth that was heterodox with respect to prevailing approaches in both economics and political science. Arguing for the distinctive features of developmental states, its proponents emphasized the role of government intervention and industrial policy as well as the significance of strong states and particular social coalitions. This literature blossomed into a wider approach, firmly planted in a much longer heterodox tradition, that explored comparisons with states that were decidedly not developmentalist, thus contributing to our historical understanding of long-run growth. This Element provides a critical but sympathetic overview of this literature and ends with its revival and a look forward at the possibility for developmentalist approaches, both in the advanced and developing world.

History of Modern Latin America

History of Modern Latin America
Author: Teresa A. Meade
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2016-01-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1118772482

Now available in a fully-revised and updated second edition, A History of Modern Latin America offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the rich cultural and political history of this vibrant region from the onset of independence to the present day. Includes coverage of the recent opening of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba as well as a new chapter exploring economic growth and environmental sustainability Balances accounts of the lives of prominent figures with those of ordinary people from a diverse array of social, racial, and ethnic backgrounds Features first-hand accounts, documents, and excerpts from fiction interspersed throughout the narrative to provide tangible examples of historical ideas Examines gender and its influence on political and economic change and the important role of popular culture, including music, art, sports, and movies, in the formation of Latin American cultural identity Includes all-new study questions and topics for discussion at the end of each chapter, plus comprehensive updates to the suggested readings

Prisons and Crime in Latin America

Prisons and Crime in Latin America
Author: Marcelo Bergman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2021-03-11
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108487882

Rather than reducing criminality, prisons in Latin America drive crime by creating the conditions for its growth.