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55601. Church-State Reciprocity in Contemporary Brazil: The Convening of the International Eucharistic Congress of 1955 in Rio de Janeiro

Author:
Kenneth P. Serbin
Publication Date:
08-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Focusing on government support for the 36th International Eucharistic Congress of 1955 in Rio de Janeiro, this paper explores the reciprocities between church and state in contemporary Brazil. It argues that economic considerations were central to the link between religion and politics. Under the crucial church-state pact fostered under President Getúlio Vargas and nurtured throughout the democratic-populist era (1930-64) public subsidies helped the church expand its social and religious works and created dependence on the state. The International Eucharistic Congress highlighted how finances and faith mingled in Brazil's complex mosaic of religion, politics, and society. The paper discusses the history of the Eucharistic congresses, analyzes the church-state pact in Brazil, and gives an account of the 1955 Congress and its economic ramifications.
Topic:
Development, Religion, History, Governance, Economic Growth, and Society
Political Geography:
South Asia and Brazil

55602. Democracy 'with Adjectives': Conceptual Innovations in Comparative Research

Author:
David Collier and Steven Levitsky
Publication Date:
08-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The recent trend toward democratization in countries throughout the globe has challenged scholars to pursue two potentially contradictory goals: to develop a differentiated conceptualization of democracy that captures the diverse experiences of these countries; and to extend the analysis to this broad range of cases without 'stretching' the concept. This paper argues that this dual challenge has led to a proliferation of conceptual innovations, including hundreds of subtypes of democracy-i.e., democracy 'with adjectives.' The paper explores the strengths and weaknesses of three important strategies of innovation that have emerged: 'precising' the definition of democracy; shifting the overarching concept with which democracy is associated; and generating various forms of subtypes. Given the complex structure of meaning produced by these strategies for refining the concept of democracy, we conclude by offering an old piece of advice with renewed urgency: It is imperative that scholars situate themselves in relation to this structure of meaning by clearly defining and explicating the conception of democracy they are employing.
Topic:
Globalization, Politics, and Democracy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

55603. A New Discipline: Development Ethics

Author:
Denis Goulet
Publication Date:
08-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
'Development' has long been equated with modernization and Westernization and studied as a straightforward economic issue. The discipline of economics has been the main source of policy prescription for development decisionmakers. This view is now widely criticized as ethnocentric and as economically reductionist. Change is occurring: economics itself is reintegrating ethics into its conceptualization, methodology, and analysis; a new paradigm of development is in gestation; and a new discipline, development ethics, has come into being. Development ethics centers its study of development on the value questions posed: What is the relation between having goods and being good in the pursuit of the good life; what are the foundations of a just society; and what stance should societies adopt toward nature? The new discipline emerges from two sources, which are now converging: from engagement in development action to the formulation of ethical theory, and from a critique of mainstream ethical theory to the crafting of normative strategies to guide development practice. Development ethics has a dual mission: to render the economy more human and to keep hope alive in the face of the seeming impossibility of achieving human development for all.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Ethics, Economic Growth, and Modernization
Political Geography:
Global Focus

55604. Mexico's Auto Industry after NAFTA: A Successful Experience in Restructuring?

Author:
Juan Carlos Moreno Brid
Publication Date:
08-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Mexico's motor vehicle sector is viewed as a most successful case in industrial restructuring. In the mid-70s it was an industry characterized by outdated machinery and incapable of competing in the international market. Today its manufacturing plants are competing worldwide in automotive production, exporting more than a million engines and 400,000 vehicles a year. This transformation is explained by changes in Mexico's positioning within the automobile global market as well as by the policies applied by the Mexican government to regulate vehicle production, imports, and sale in the country. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is changing the institutional framework of the Mexican economy and radically liberalizing its highly protected domestic automotive market. In this study we examine the evolution of Mexico's automotive sector in the last fifteen years and the various factors contributing to its transformation. The first section reviews Mexico's overall economic strategy and trade policy. The second focuses on the regulation of vehicle and auto parts production in Mexico. Clearly, trade restrictions have been very important for the development of Mexico's automotive sector. The third section deals with the performance of the Mexican automotive industry up to 1993, before NAFTA was put into effect. It is followed by some comments on the changes that NAFTA is already bringing about. In the final section, we present our view on the industry's outlook.
Topic:
Development, Labor Issues, Economic Growth, NAFTA, and Automotive Industry
Political Geography:
Central America, North America, and Mexico

55605. Accountability for Past Abuses

Author:
Juan E. Méndez
Publication Date:
09-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The transitions to democracy in the 1980s have yielded a wealth of experience regarding the way societies reckon with a recent past of massive human rights violations. This paper looks at the most influential literature produced contemporaneously with those experiences and analyzes its current validity in the light of new contexts in which the issue arises. The author places emphasis first and foremost on the duties that the State owes to the victims of human rights violations and to society and then looks at the objective limitations that most transitions place on governments' ability to satisfy demands for truth and justice. These duties are part of an emerging rule of international law that demands that certain crimes should not go unpunished. But the obligations of the State to the victims and to society are varied and not dependent on each other; even if prosecution and punishment are rendered legally or politically impossible, the duties to disclose all that can be established about each violation, to offer reparations, and to dismiss the culprits from the armed and security forces remain fully in force.
Topic:
Democratization, Human Rights, Social Movement, Democracy, and Public Policy
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, South America, Central America, and Caribbean

55606. Ethnicity and Identity in the Caribbean: Decentering a Myth

Author:
Ralph R. Premdas
Publication Date:
12-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This discussion of a Caribbean identity begins by embarking on a discourse about where and what is the Caribbean, followed by some brief remarks about the need for identity. The author presents an analytic scheme for understanding the construction of Caribbean identities. In the larger body of the paper that follows next, he examines individually the constituent elements that have featured in the formation of claims to a Caribbean identity at all levels of its expression and shows how difficult it is to maintain the arguments that are made for them. Finally, the paper offers a topology of identities that best describe the Caribbean situation.
Topic:
Democratization, Social Movement, Ethnicity, and Identity
Political Geography:
Central America and Caribbean

55607. Organizing Diversity: Evolutionary Theory, Network Analysis, & Postsocialist Transformations

Author:
Gernot Grabher and David Stark
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
In contrast to the dominant transition framework that examines organizational forms in Eastern Europe according to the degree to which they conform to or depart from the blueprints of already existing capitalisms, this essay exam ines the innovative character. born of necessity. in whicb actors in the postsocialist setting are restructured by re defining and recombining resources. Instead of conceiving these recombinations as accidental aberrations. it explores their evolutionary potentials. Its starting premise is that the actual unit of entrepreneurshp is not the isolated indi vidual personality but the social networks that link firms and the actors within them. Drawing on recent develop ments in evolutionary theory. it cautions that although all-encompassing privatization and marketization might fos ter adaptation in the short run. the consequent loss of organizational diversity will impede adaptability in the long run. *This essay was written while David Stark was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences sup­ported by grants from the National Science Foundation #SES-9022192 and from the U.S. Department of State Title VIII Funds Grant #1006-304101. Our thanks to Bill Barnett, Pascal Boyer, Geoff Fougere, Istvan Gabor, Szabolcs Kemeny, Ger ald McDermott, and Monique Djokic Stark for their criticisms of an earlier draft. Address correspondence to David Stark Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 202 Junipero Serra Blvd., Stanford CA 94305 (or to stark@casbs. stanford.edu).
Topic:
Diversity, Network Analysis, Post-Communism, and Democratic Transitions
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe

55608. The Break-Up of Czechoslovakia: The Impact of Party Development on the Separation of the State

Author:
Abby Innes
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
When Czechoslovakia separated into two independent republics on January 1, 1993, it was hailed as the "velvet divorce." Relief that a European "ethnic" conflict had been resolved without physical aggression was apparently so deep as to have blunted curiosity about the real issues underlying the conflict. This paper looks back into the file and, in particular, explores the impact of party political developments on efforts to mediate some form of constitutional compromise. The analysis is not intended as an account of the separation (which would necessarily delve deep into historical, cultural, and economic questions). The more specific aim is to consider the issues and institutional pressures that dominated party development between 1989 and 1993, and to evaluate their contribution to the split. The article concludes that the profoundly unpopular decision to separate the country emanated from irreconcilable views on the correct "transition" path rather than a deeply rooted nationalism on either side. Moreover, both Czech and Slovak electorates were, to a striking degree, "held hostage" to party choices of economic policy and a common state, presented as mutually exclusive possibilities.
Topic:
Politics, Ethnicity, Political Parties, and Post-Communism
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Czechoslovakia

55609. Gross Human Rights Violations in 1994

Author:
Brigitte Hamm
Publication Date:
12-1996
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:
Leaving theoretical questions aside, the measurement of human rights is often considered to be appropriate in evaluating a country's human rights situation. Such data are used as an auxiliary tool of exogenous pressure, which is known as political conditionality whereby aid is related to specific political practices. Often human rights organizations of the South ask for the instrument of political conditionality against repressive regimes. However, exogenous pressure directed mainly towards elections and the respect for political human rights may be criticized as a kind of imperialistic attitude, trying to implement Western values in Non-Western societies.
Topic:
Development, Human Rights, Politics, Terrorism, and Conditionality
Political Geography:
Global Focus

55610. Disintegration and Consolidation: National Separatism and the Evolution of Center-Periphery Relations in the Russian Federation

Author:
John W. Slocum
Publication Date:
07-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
Abstract:
Practitioners of the late lamented science of Sovietology have been roundly criticized for failing to predict one of the most momentous events of the twentieth century—the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Anxious to avoid a repetition of past mistakes, post-Sovietologists have in turn devoted a good deal of attention to the question of whether the USSR's largest successor state, the Russian Federation, is itself in danger of breaking apart. Like the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation is a multinational state with ethnically-defined territorial subunits; political elites in these subunits, faced with massive political, economic and social uncertainty, may be attracted by the idea of political independence. During the first half of the 1990s, post-Soviet Russia has indeed experienced more than one crisis of center-periphery relations. The present study, however, suggests that the likelihood of a general disintegration of the Russian Federation peaked in the early 1990s and is now decreasing. In view of this analysis, the war in Chechnya is an exception to an overall trend toward consolidation, rather than an indicator of a general breakdown in center-periphery relations.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, and Nationalism
Political Geography:
Russia, Soviet Union, and Chechnya