Thomas R. Rochon

Are All Associations Alike? Member Diversity, Associational Type, and the Creation of Social Capital

Associational memberships have become the indicator of choice for examining the formation and destruction of social capital. Memberships in associations are believed to create generalized interpersonal trust, which can be used as a lubricant that makes possible a variety of forms of social interaction and cooperation. Clearly, not all types of associations will be equally effective in their relative capacity to create generalized, or public, social capital. Each indicator of social capital that we examine is positively related to associational membership. However, some association memberships, particularly in cultural groups, are correlated with a wide range of forms of social capital. The diversity of an association also has an effect on the connection between social capital and association memberships. Homogeneous associations are less likely to inculcate high levels of generalized trust and community reciprocity among their members. These results indicate the need for further specification of the social capital theory.

Social Bases of the Transition to Democracy in Brazil

The election of a civilian president in Brazil in 1985 was a landmark event in the democratic transition begun more than a decade earlier, when President Ernesto Geisel began to relax the repressive measures on which the authoritarian government had relied before then. The militarys gradual retreat to the barracks was a response to the erosion of authoritarian legitimation which became evident in the rising levels of public opposition to the regime in the late 1970s.1 Union members, particularly in the Saio Paulo area, staged a wave of illegal strikes to protest government wage policy. As the government accepted IMF recommendations of recession-inducing policies in 1981, business sectors intensified their calls for democratization. Professional groups such as the Lawyers Guild, the National Academy of Science, and the Association of Journalists also played important roles in formulating proposals for an end to political repression and the redemocratization of the political process. Student strikes and the willingness of the Catholic church to give sanctuary to illegally striking workers helped create a charged political atmosphere not unlike that of 1964 in the final months before the coup. The most dramatic protests occurred in 1984, when the authoritarian regime was barely able to face down a national tide of demonstrations involving millions of citizens calling for direct presidential elections. It has been argued forcefully that the authoritarian regime had never been able to develop legitimacy among Brazilians. Support for the regime hinged instead on its economic performance and its ability to suppress political violence. By the early 1980s even this contingent support for the authoritarian regime was slipping away. Although redemocratization was discussed more and more openly, however, it remained unclear exactly what the alternative to rule under military sponsorship was to be. The catch-all phrase used in Brazil for the process of democratization, the abertura democrdtica or democratic opening, obscured exactly what democracy meant to various groups in Brazilian society. This lengthy and ambiguous period of transition to democracy offers an opportunity to examine the process by which dispositions toward democracy take root within civil society. In this article we will show that the mass political culture of Brazil has, during the course of the abertura democrdtica, not only become disaffected from the authoritarian regime, but has also developed two distinct patterns of democratic attachment that presage fundamental conflicts in the functioning of Brazilian democracy. The last decade has not simply seen one more swing of the cycle between authoritarian and democratic regimes. Rather, there is in Brazil an emerging democratic political culture that parallels the experience of Europe, in which advocacy of democratic institutions and of universal suffrage had distinctive class bases before becoming a consensual element of the national political culture. The history of conflict over the establishment of democracy in Europe suggests that the social and ideological bases of democracy were multidimensional. We find the same phenomenon in

Political Movements and State Authority in Liberal Democracies

Political movements are an increasingly common form of mass political mobilization, and the legitimacy and authority of democratic states depends to a growing extent on the relationship between movements and states. Existing case studies of political movements neglect that relationship in favor of issues of mobilization, organization, and societal impact. These studies can nonetheless be used to show that political movements employ a mixture of confrontation and collaboration in their relationship to the state. More centralized states, which offer fewer institutional channels for movement influence, face more confrontational movements. However, political movements in all democratic settings use confrontation primarily as a strategic device to enhance their leverage in negotiations with state authorities. Movements are not a challenge to state authority so much as they are a force for change within democratic society.

Attitudinal Change and Elite Circulation: French Socialist Candidates in 1967 and 1978

The effects of elite circulation on attitudinal change in the French Socialist Party between 1967 and 1978 are examined using interview data to estimate aggregate party change, which is decomposed into change due to conversion of old elites and change due to the replacement of old elites by new ones. A typology of net party change is constructed, and the degree of stability of elite opinion is investigated at the district level. It is found that elite circulation can be a force for organizational continuity as well as for organizational change, and that there is stability of elite opinion at the district level only on issues pertaining to traditional local party orientations or constant district interests.

Constancy of Legislative Perceptions of Constituency Opinion French Socialist Candidates in 1967 and 1978

This article develops the dynamic implications of the Miller-Stokes model of constituency representation by exploring the extent to which there was constancy between two “generations” of French Socialist party candidates for the National Assembly from the same constituencies, in their perceptions of the opinions of their constituents. The data derive from personal interviews conducted with the candidates shortly after the legislative elections of 1967 and 1978. The phenomena discussed include the relationship between constancy of candidate perceptions and accuracy of candidate perceptions. The authors also examine the extent to which the candidates base their perceptions of district opinion on the political composition of their constituencies. That practice has daunting implications both for the comparative study of representation and for the representative process itself.

From Protest to Policy: Beyond the Freeze to Common Security@@@Against the Bomb: The British Peace Movement, 1958-1965@@@Mobilizing for Peace. The Antinuclear Movements in Western Europe

If you get the printed book in on-line book store, you may also find the same problem. So, you must move store to store and search for the available there. But, it will not happen here. The book that we will offer right here is the soft file concept. This is what make you can easily find and get this mobilizing for peace the antinuclear movements in western europe by reading this site. We offer you the best product, always and always.