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The Political Economy of Tank Management in Tamil Nadu

Dik Roth and Linden Vincent

in Controlling the Water: Matching Technology and Institutions in Irrigation Management in India and Nepal

In academic and policy debates, tanks are seen as appropriate alternative irrigation infrastructure to large dams in terms of efficiency, equity, and sustainability. Though partially true, this ... More

In academic and policy debates, tanks are seen as appropriate alternative irrigation infrastructure to large dams in terms of efficiency, equity, and sustainability. Though partially true, this perspective masks several characteristic features of the tank as a resource and fails to look at its historicity and dynamism. This chapter questions this partially inadequate standpoint. It maps social struggles over tank resources in south India in the context of agrarian transformation from the perspectives of political economy and legal anthropology. It employs a comparative approach that examines the character of struggles in two different tank-irrigated agrarian landscapes of Pudukkottai district in Tamil Nadu, both tank cascades. It argues that the tank is a socio-technically constructed landscape and a politically contested resource. The prevailing use and management pattern of tank resources in the region is an outcome of prolonged social struggle, contestation, and negotiation among competing actors with conflicting interests.Less

Contested Notions of Revolution

Jaime M. Pensado

in Rebel Mexico: Student Unrest and Authoritarian Political Culture During the Long Sixties

This chapter examines student unrest and government response in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution. It explores the impact of this defining event on the leftist student political landscape at UNAM ... More

This chapter examines student unrest and government response in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution. It explores the impact of this defining event on the leftist student political landscape at UNAM as evident in at least four significant ways: the radicalization of students throughout the 1960s in response to the proliferation of charrismo estudiantil; the revaluation of the importance of ideology; the creation of innovative spaces of contestation; and the rise of reactionary politics and political violence. The chapter argues that the internationalist spirit of the 1960s gave rise to a new culture of protest inside UNAM. It illustrates the characteristics of Mexico's “New Left” by focusing on the following individuals: the political cartoonist Rius; the participants of the university cine-clubs; the collaborators of Radio Universidad; and the writers of el espectador, Revista de la Universidad, and El Corno Emplumado.Less

Political Field Alignments

Tianna S. Paschel

in Becoming Black Political Subjects: Movements and Ethno-Racial Rights in Colombia and Brazil

This chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to analyze the process through which blackness became legitimated as a category of political contestation in the eyes of the state and other ... More

This chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to analyze the process through which blackness became legitimated as a category of political contestation in the eyes of the state and other powerful political actors in Latin America, specifically Colombia and Brazil. The author does this by examining archives and conducting ethnographic fieldwork over nearly eight years in the style of what scholars across disciplines have called “political ethnography.” The discussions then turn to a comparison of race relations in Latin America and the United States in the twentieth century; the adoption of specific policies for black populations in Latin America; ethno-racial policy in Latin America; and why Colombia and Brazil are obvious choices for an analysis of black rights in Latin America. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less

Politics of Religion: Competing and Coalescing Conceptualizations

in Beyond Sacred and Secular: Politics of Religion in Israel and Turkey

This chapter, which examines the competing and coalescing conceptualizations in politics and religion in Israel and Turkey, lays out the intellectual foundation for this study and the reasoning ... More

This chapter, which examines the competing and coalescing conceptualizations in politics and religion in Israel and Turkey, lays out the intellectual foundation for this study and the reasoning behind its conceptual language, and considers the arguments of several scholars, including Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Peter Berger. It explores the three areas of interaction that affect religious politics, including the political position and capacity of religion, the rules of power sharing and political contestation, and the symbolic capital of religious ideologies.Less

As if: contestation, care and the ‘temper of the country’

Gideon Calder

Hans Schattle and Jeremy Nuttall (eds)

in Making social democrats: Citizens, mindsets, realities: Essays for David Marquand

Gideon Calder’s intersecting themes of political contestation, care and the temper of the country examine the public good less as a fixed entity but rather as an evolving conversation taking place ... More

Gideon Calder’s intersecting themes of political contestation, care and the temper of the country examine the public good less as a fixed entity but rather as an evolving conversation taking place across a wide range of social settings, not least in the flux and informality of everyday life. Drawing on Marquand’s belief that progressivism was as much about process as outcomes, Calder suggests that it is also not just about doctrine, but also, as R.H. Tawney articulated, dependent on a certain ‘temper’ in the country at large. Progress required not just structural or economic change, but good relationships, not just the espousal of social democracy, but the making of social democrats. Consequently, Calder concludes his chapter with ten suggestions for progress not via policy, but through conversation. One is to converse as if listening were as valued an attribute as speaking; another is not to speak as if the status quo tightly defines all available horizons.Less

Youth, Social Justice and Cynicism in Bab el-Oued

Ed McAllister

in Algeria Modern: From Opacity to Complexity

This chapter analyses the ways that young Algerians in Bab el-Oued bypass conventional forms of political engagement and contestation. A new generation of this urban youth perceives Algerian politics ... More

This chapter analyses the ways that young Algerians in Bab el-Oued bypass conventional forms of political engagement and contestation. A new generation of this urban youth perceives Algerian politics as a closed sphere, filled with self-serving individuals who have done little to improve the lot of the average Algerian. The chapter sheds light on how the majority of young people who do not engage in outright political activities are bringing their own, more subtle, challenges to authority by re-negotiating their role as active participants in a society marred by distributive inequality with political agency in their own right. The contradiction facing Algeria today, the chapter argues, lies in the coexistence of two driving forces behind attitudes to politics: the desire for social justice and a knowing cynicism in the ability of revolts and rebellions to bring about lasting political change.Less

Constitutionalism and the Law of the European Economy

Christian Joerges

in Beyond the Crisis: The Governance of Europe's Economic, Political and Legal Transformation

The dominant strands of European law scholarship have failed to take the political dimensions of the economy seriously. This chapter presents assessments on various aspects of constitutionalism and ... More

The dominant strands of European law scholarship have failed to take the political dimensions of the economy seriously. This chapter presents assessments on various aspects of constitutionalism and the law of the European economy. In discussing European ‘economic constitutionalism’, the chapter points out the deficiencies of the ‘integration through law’ project, which has rested on a one-size-fits-all assumption and has thus failed to come to terms with Europe’s diversity. It then highlights the judicial fiction of a ‘stability community’ and introduces the concept of ‘diagonal conflict’ to characterise the basic dilemma resulting from the Maastricht Treaty compromise. Finally, the chapter traces the authoritarian and managerialist style of economic governance that has emerged from the recent crises and pleads for political contestation, rather than normalisation, as a way toward cooperative problem-solving and legitimacy.Less