Renewal and dead souls: the changing Soviet Central Committee

For a Soviet General Secretary presumably committed to the collectivist principles of Marxism-Leninism, Mikhail Gorbachev has been peculiarly insistent upon the decisive importance of individual leadership. In speech after speech it was not only the socioeconomic order that Gorbachev held to be the source of the Soviet Union's problems: the quality and style of its political leadership were also crucial factors

Human rights and south-south development cooperation: Reflections on the "rising powers" as international development actors

The era of Western-dominated international foreign aid, development norms, and institutions is far from dead, but it is starting to rupture. Key to this is the growing visibility, assertiveness, and impact of a wide range of (re) emerging donors and development partners. Foreign aid and development assistance have long been prime sites in the negotiation and projection of human rights internationally, but this has overwhelmingly centered on the Western-dominated development community as the driver of dominant ideologies, practices, and funding. This article concerns the potential roles and impacts of Southern states on human rights in their roles as donors and development partners.Copyright © 2014 The Johns Hopkins University Press. This article first appeared in Human Rights Quarterly 36:3 (2014), 630-652. Reprinted with permission by Johns Hopkins University Press

South–South Cooperation 3.0? Managing the consequences of success in the decade ahead

© 2019, © 2019 Oxford Department of International Development. This paper examines the consequences of the hugely successful expansion of South-South Cooperation since the new millennium. For all the achievements, variations and change over the 1950s-late 1990s, ‘SSC 1.0’ was characterised by relative neglect within the 'international' development community, and by many orthodox and critical scholars. In the chronological schema of the paper, ‘SSC 2.0’ refers to the period of remarkable expansion from the early 2000s to the present. The emergence of ‘SSC 3.0’, I suggest, is currently revealed by a discernible set of shifts driven in large part by the expansionary successes of SSC 2.0, as well as other turns in the global political economy. Three contemporary trends are identified: cooperation narratives that are increasingly ‘muscular’, nationalistic and pragmatic; difficulties sustaining claims to ‘non-interference’ in partner countries; and the further erosion of ideational and operational distinctiveness

Development geography 1: Cooperation, competition and convergence between ‘North’ and ‘South’

In this report I examine two of the most important trends bearing down on the international development regime in 2015, a landmark year. The first is the consolidation of South–South development cooperation (acknowledging the problematic nature of this designation), materially, ontologically and ideationally. The second is the response of the (so-called) ‘traditional’ donors to the opportunities and challenges provided by the ‘rise of the South’, in the context of the uneven reverberations of the post-2007/8 global financial crisis. Together, these interpolated trends have contributed to an unprecedented rupture in the North–South axis that has dominated post-1945 international development norms and structures – an axis that has also provided the focus for radical and critical approaches to the geographies of development. The resulting development landscape is complex and turbulent, bringing stimulating challenges to theorists of aid and development.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE via http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/030913251560177

"Dancing on eggs": Charles H. Bynum, racial politics, and the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, 1938-1954.

In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his law partner Basil O'Connor formed the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) to battle the viral disease poliomyelitis. Although the NFIP program was purported to be available for all Americans irrespective of "race, creed, or color," officials encountered numerous difficulties upholding this pledge in a nation divided by race. In 1944, NFIP officials hired educator Charles H. Bynum to head a new department of "Negro Activities." Between 1944 and 1954, Bynum negotiated the NFIP bureaucracy to educate officials and influence their national health policy. As part of the NFIP team, he helped increase interracial fund-raising in the March of Dimes, improve polio treatment for black Americans, and further the civil rights movement.Financial support for this article was provided by a Ph.D. fellowship from SSHRC as well as by studentships from the U.K. Overseas Research Student Awards Scheme and the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Johns Hopkins University Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/bhm.0.034

Burden of Proof:The Debate Surrounding Aerotoxic Syndrome

Since the 1980s, some commercial airline pilots and flight crews in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia began to report an illness they believed was caused by exposure to contaminated cabin air. Despite a body of scientific research and health activism calling for this condition, termed Aerotoxic Syndrome (AS), to be classified an occupational illness, it has not been accepted as a clinical entity because its causation remains contested. This article contends that debates over the recognition of AS have been shaped by the politics of science and what can be considered evidence of a causal link; the burden of proof lay with survivors and their allies rather than with airlines and manufacturers. The history of AS shows the challenges of reacting to health risks in a global industry that provides an important form of transportation, and enjoys considerable political and economic influence. It also reveals that at the heart of commercial jet air travel remains an unresolved public health issue, and those who claim to be suffering from AS expected prompt recognition, reform and assistance in light of scientific research and personal testimony, as well as a range of chemical, medical, legal and air safety reports

Political leadership and ‘non-traditional’ development cooperation

This article explores the relationships between (so-called) ‘non-traditional’ development cooperation (NTDC) and political leadership. Using the case studies of Brazil and South Korea, we propose that certain emblematic elements of NTDC discourse and practice can act to influence the relationship with political leaders in particular ways. These are (a) elevated language of affect, (b) interleaving of personal biographies with the developmental trajectories of states, (c) the use of NTDC to legitimise domestic policies and promote domestic political leadership, (d) the prominence of presidential diplomacy and (e) the challenges confronting rapidly expanding domestic development cooperation institutions and systems

BRICS, the southern model, and the evolving landscape of development assistance: Toward a new taxonomy

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