Studying the state

A lo largo del siglo XX los asuntos centrales para los politólogos dedicados a la política comparada han cambiado muy poco. Desde Weber y Gramsci hasta Almond, Verba o Skocpol, sus preocupaciones se han centrado en por qué la gente obedece y qué tipo de estructuras y culturas facilitan la obediencia y el comportamiento conformista. Los elementos que los politólogos han singularizado en sus investigaciones como las claves para comprender la obediencia y la conformidad han incluido a los sospechosos habituales: los parlamentos, las burocracias, el liderazgo gubernamental, los tribunales y las leyes, y la policía y los militares. Estos forman las partes constitutivas y los parámetros de la estructura compleja y de alguna manera escurridiza a la que llamamos estado moderno —la montaña que tarde o temprano todos los politólogos tienen que escalarOver the course of the twentieth century, comparative political scientists’ core questions have changed very little. From Weber and Gramsci to Almond, Verba and Skocpol, their concerns have centred on why people obey and on what sorts of structures and cultures facilitates obedience and conformist behaviour. The elements that political scientists have singled out for investigation as the key to understanding obedience and conformity have included the usual suspects: parliaments, Bureaucracies, governmental leadership, courts and law, and police and military. These form the constituent part and parameters of that complex and somewhat elusive structure called the modern state —the mountain that all political scientists sooner or later must climb

State-building, war and violence : evidence from Latin America

In European history, war has played a major role in state‐building and the state monopoly on violence. But war is a very specific form of organized political violence, and it is decreasing on a global scale. Other patterns of armed violence now dominate, ones that seem to undermine state‐building, thus preventing the replication of European experiences. As a consequence, the main focus of the current state‐building debate is on fragility and a lack of violence control inside these states. Evidence from Latin American history shows that the specific patterns of the termination of both war and violence are more important than the specific patterns of their organization. Hence these patterns can be conceptualized as a critical juncture for state‐building. While military victories in war, the subordination of competing armed actors and the prosecution of perpetrators are conducive for state‐building, negotiated settlements, coexistence, and impunity produce instability due to competing patterns of authority, legitimacy, and social cohesion

(Re-)Emergent Orders: Understanding the Negotiation(s) of Rebel Governance

The concept of order is often neglected in the study of conflict – seemingly such a ‘disordering’ process. With the recent increase in the examination of rebel governance however, bringing order back into our understanding of rebel and insurgent groups has much to offer in exploring the everyday politics which connect authorities, rebel movements and the population itself, in a complex mass of intersubjective and power-based interactions and negotiations. Rebels both shape and are shaped by existing forms of order in complex and ongoing ways. This article explores how varying elements interact in the negotiation, framing and enforcement of order and develops an original analytical framework to examine the perpetual negotiations of rebel movements in their attempts to cement their control

Partners No More: Relational Transformation and the Turn to Litigation in Two Conservationist Organizations

The rise in litigation against administrative bodies by environmental and other political interest groups worldwide has been explained predominantly through the liberalization of standing doctrines. Under this explanation, termed here the floodgate model, restrictive standing rules have dammed the flow of suits that groups were otherwise ready and eager to pursue. I examine this hypothesis by analyzing processes of institutional transformation in two conservationist organizations: the Sierra Club in the United States and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI). Rather than an eagerness to embrace newly available litigation opportunities, as the floodgate model would predict, the groups\u27 history reveals a gradual process of transformation marked by internal, largely intergenerational divisions between those who abhorred conflict with state institutions and those who saw such conflict as not only appropriate but necessary to the mission of the group. Furthermore, in contrast to the pluralist interactions that the floodgate model imagines, both groups\u27 relations with pertinent agencies in earlier eras better accorded with the partnership-based corporatist paradigm. Sociolegal research has long indicated the importance of relational distance to the transformation of interpersonal disputes. I argue that, at the group level as well, the presence or absence of a (national) partnership-centered relationship determines propensities to bring political issues to court. As such, well beyond change in groups\u27 legal capacity and resources, current increases in levels of political litigation suggest more fundamental transformations in the structure and meaning of relations between citizen groups and the state

A Personal Reminescence for the Washington Law Review

I came to know Ted first and foremost as a friend, before either of us was aware of our strongly shared intellectual interests. The images that recur before my eyes, still making him almost tangible, come as much from our times together with families as from our life in the university. He wore his hat as father and husband with grace and ease. Once he confided to Vicky, his wife, that he was taken by suprise at how comfortable and content he felt in his role as father. But it came as no surprise to his friends and colleagues. The same infinite patience and appreciation of others that permeated his personal and professional relationships made him such an adoring father and husband. I remember any number of times, while he was still sitting at the table after dinner, Ted interrupting the adult conversation to focus our attention on the children\u27s accomplishments in the next room

Finding the meeting ground of fact and fiction : some reflections on Turkish modernization

Donated by Klaus KreiserReprinted from in : Rethinking modernity and national identity in Turkey : University of Washington Press, 1997