Recent ucias_breslauer items

Representation of Oppositional Political Actors in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Implications of PAGAD, TAC, and COPE for Democratic Government

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Political opposition in South Africa carries hope for the inclusion of issues that have been underrepresented in the post-apartheid: the rampant rise of crime has instigated targeted community responses in the absence of adequate government security services, activist litigation has forced inclusion of socioeconomic entitlements in the state programs, and national-level dissent presents the possibility of more inclusive political representation and improved legislative discussion. In the ANC government’s response to each of these novel challenges there exist formative consequences, and the articulation of the possibilities and limits of political action post-apartheid is ongoing. The state’s balancing of the pressing demands of coercive/regulatory government with ideal democratic systems of representation of and discussion with oppositional elements like PAGAD, TAC, and COPE carries immediate implications for the democratic project.

Nuclear Energy Governance and the Politics of Social Justice: Technology, Public Goods, and Redistribution in Russia and France

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The paper analyzes the political economy of nuclear power in Russia and France from a social justice perspective. While Russia prioritizes national security over environmental safety, France follows the inverse order of policy priorities. Nuclear innovation defines the ability of any state to provide efficiently public goods and implement redistributive policies, based on its nuclear potential. The distinction between hierarchical and multilevel regulation of the nuclear sector in Russia and France is critical for my argument; because hierarchical regulation is less likely to facilitate innovation, emerging nuclear-intensive economies are less inclined to approximate energy-induced redistributive justice. Explaining the four possible outcomes of the French-Russian nuclear cooperation, I maintain a high degree of optimism that technology can serve the needs of the poor without hampering global sustainability, growth and international investment relations.

Program for the 2009 Breslauer Graduate Student Symposium, "The Public Interest"

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Program for the 2009 Breslauer Graduate Student Symposium, "The Public Interest"

Cape Town: Negotiating the Public in the Neoliberal City

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Since the end of apartheid, South Africa’s economic policies and governance models have become increasingly neoliberal. The concern of this paper is how those policies and governmental modalities play out and shape the city of Cape Town. The paper utilizes the analytic of ‘public’ to examine how a formerly apartheid city has been remade – and contested – as a neoliberal city. The analytic of public is employed as a ‘terrain’, across which neoliberal policies, privatizing practices, calls for redistributive programs, and negotiations for citizenship and the right to the city are negotiated. Examining the fields of service provision, housing, and privatization, it is demonstrated that the analytic of ‘public’ provides an entry into the task of theorizing and locating the post-apartheid project in South African cities such as Cape Town.

The People Know Best: Developing Civic Participation in Urban Planning

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Urban planning impacts a broad public, but does not engage the public broadly. Drawing on planning and feminist theory, philosophy and case study, this paper discusses promoting participatory practices in planning for equity, better policy, and the public good. The public interest is promoted through building relationships and social networks as well as education and community organizing of all, but especially marginalized and oppressed groups. Collaboration empowers individuals and broadens the information and decision-making possibilities for all parties. Participation based strategies develop engagement and equalize power differentials. Gathering together disparate interests enables effective discourse, deliberation, and education. Public engagement and feedback builds direct governance, creates new forms of power, and helps level the hegemonic playing field. Both institutional, top-down and grassroots, bottom-up activism engage citizens as active stakeholders in their community...

Mobilizing the Grassroots from Above: Political Engagement among AIDS Associations in Democratic Brazil

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This paper investigates efforts to engage grassroots groups in the political arena from the perspective of the state. Whereas most of the current literature conceptualizes grassroots mobilization as a bottom-up phenomenon, in Brazil the state has taken an active role in mobilizing new groups that simultaneously provide social services and make policy demands on government. This paper describes the exemplary case of mobilization around AIDS in Brazil to suggest that under certain conditions the state may take an active role in breaking down socioeconomic barriers toward accessing the political arena.

Specifically, I suggest that government bureaucrats in Brazil are engaging a wide array of associations in AIDS policy as organized interests, due to a strong dependence on collaboration with grassroots associations to further their policy goals. Moreover, I highlight three principal strategies through which the Brazilian state is targeting associations for mobilization: by...

Neoliberalization and Conflicted Sustainability in Argentina: Overlain Landscapes of Buenos Aires Urban Environmental Plan

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Neoliberalization and Conflicted Sustainability in Argentina: Overlain Landscapes of Buenos Aires Urban Environmental Plan

Constructing Sustainability: Emerging Spaces in Bogotá's Search for a New Identity

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Constructing Sustainability: Emerging Spaces in Bogotá's Search for a New Identity

"It’s Illegal to be Ugly and Do Anything That Isn’t Profitable": Policing Public Space in Contemporary Barcelona

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

"It’s Illegal to be Ugly and Do Anything That Isn’t Profitable": Policing Public Space in Contemporary Barcelona

Understanding the Link between Tenure and Services for the Peri-Urban Poor: Case Studies from Senegal and India

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Understanding the Link between Tenure and Services for the Peri-Urban Poor: Case Studies from Senegal and India

Producing Globalization in the Public Space of Mexico City

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

According to Davies (2000) the distopian “‘cold’ frozen geometries” of US cities are being countered by Latino populations offering “a ‘hotter’, more exuberant urbanism” that is “tropicalizing” the city with colors, smells and new public spaces. Complimentary hopes, with fewer romantic and ethnic overtones, are being expressed for a resurgent civics as Latinos recast the discursive content of the public sphere (Valle & Torres, 2000). Yet, in Mexico, debates about public space draw deeply pessimistic observations of a growing commodification and ‘globalization’ diluting the representation of national, religious and indigenous spatial identities, and concerns around crime prompting gated communities and private security measures. In the public sphere, many consider that deeper institutional democracy has afforded less space to social movements and nongovernmental organizations, and an apathy to an active civics.

This paper takes a different perspective. I draw from...

Entrepreneurial Urban Politics and Urban Social Movements in Los Angeles: The Struggle for Urban Farmland in South Central

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Entrepreneurial Urban Politics and Urban Social Movements in Los Angeles: The Struggle for Urban Farmland in South Central

The Power of Giving: Investigating the Shape of Private Philanthropy, a California Case Study

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This paper concerns the relationship between private philanthropy and social movements. At a time when the unions, social service and legal aide agencies, and other structures that supported social movements of the past are suffering declining resources and public legitimacy or are failing to move with the needs of the new working poor, privately funded non-profit organizations have become the primary vehicle for organizing poor and marginalized communities. Relatively few scholars have investigated the opportunities and consequences of the new model of philanthropic organizing. Drawing on post-Marxist Gramscian theory, studies in governmentality, and feminist materialism this paper outlines a theoretical framework and research agenda for investigating large philanthropic initiatives. It is proposed that California’s Central Valley, a place sharply defined by the production of poverty through industrial agriculture, provides a useful lens for looking at how philanthropic initiatives...

The Myth and Reality of Housing in Hong Kong: The Controversy over the Demolition of the Hunghom Estate

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The Myth and Reality of Housing in Hong Kong: The Controversy over the Demolition of the Hunghom Estate

Conflict In Copenhagen: Urban Reconfigurations, Disciplining the Unruly