Alternatives: Global, Local, Political articles

Recent articles from Alternatives: Global, Local, Political

The politics of activation: technologies of mobilizing "multiethnic suburbs" in Sweden.
October 1, 2008... Since the 1990s, the idea of "mobilization from below" has become a salient feature in Swedish debates on "multiethnic suburbs." In this article, the idea of "mobilization from below" is analyzed in three different policy areas--democracy, urban, and education policy. Following Michel...

Is consensus a genuine democratic value? The case of Spain's political pacts against terrorism.
July 1, 2008... This article considers the history of the Spanish political pacts against terrorism and the political contexts in which they have been implemented since the beginning of the 1980s. This sociohistorical approach is necessary in order to understand the current Spanish unanimous repudiation...

Forget equality? Security and liberty in the "war on terror".
July 1, 2008... The "war on terror" has triggered intense debates about the role of security and liberty, the trade-off between security and liberty, the meaning of security and the power of civil liberties. Nonetheless, while security has been closely dissected either as a governmental or exceptional...

Citizenship as capital: the distinction of migrant labor.
July 1, 2008... As subordinate workers, migrants and foreigners are an essential labor force for industrialized economies. The author extends Pierre Bourdieu's ideas of capital to suggest that citizenship constitutes a key mechanism of distinction between migrant and nonmigrant workers. From this...

Diagnosis, intervention, and cure: the illness narrative in the discourse of the failed state.
July 1, 2008... Failed-states discourse rests on an illness narrative. As the failing state battles against invasion by the terrorism "virus," the United States serves as physician, diagnosing, treating, and sometimes "curing" the patient. The well state exists in a dominant power relationship vis-a-vis the...