Menem’s Argentina

1990 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torcuato S. Di Tella

On 14 May, 1989, Argentinians Elected The Peronist Carlos Menem as president, causing the first constitutional transfer of power to the opposition since 1916. The situation is so unfamiliar that quite a few Peronists are behaving in their newly acquired positions, particularly in some cultural and mass communication spheres, as though the change had been the result of a violent takeover. After all, the first Peronism was heralded by the nationalist military coup of 1943, and its second coming, in 1973, was the result of a combined strategy of electioneering and guerrilla tactics. Those were the days when many Peronists repeated Mao Tse-tung's dictum that ‘power comes from the barrel of a gun’, and such intellectual habits die hard. Culturally the authoritarian components are still strong in Peronism, partly because most of the progressive, liberal or left-of-centre intelligentsia have flocked to the Radicales or to small leftist parties, renouncing their sympathies of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when they thought Peronism was the harbinger of revolution, owing to its working-class composition. This, of course, creates a cultural vacuum in Peronism, which has to be filled by whoever comes or remains from the old days. However, many things have changed in the Argentine political climate, and despite the many stragglers the country is becoming accustomed to a pluralist institutional structure.

Author(s):  
Tina Pippin

The Rapture is the sudden and hoped for event of the second coming of Jesus Christ in the clouds to raise true Christian believers to heaven. American popular culture has played with this scenario in a variety of genres (e.g., television, film, novels), most often in a satirical way. From the faith perspective, the Rapture is a major theme in Christian fiction (the Left Behind series) and follows a timeline of political and historical events. Representations of the Rapture in popular culture often reflect the current political climate and the psychological anxiety, isolation, and sense of persecution of believers.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 323-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Ellis ◽  
Jerry Rawicki

This article extends the research of Jerry Rawicki and Carolyn Ellis who have collaborated for more than eight years on memories and consequences of the Holocaust. Focusing on Jerry’s memories of his experience during the Holocaust, they present dialogues that took place during five recorded interviews and follow-up conversations that reflect on the similarity of Hitler’s seizing of power in the 1930s to the meteoric rise of Donald Trump. Noting how issues of class and race were taking an increasingly prominent role in their conversations and collaborative writing, they also begin to examine discontent in the rural, White working class and Carolyn’s socialization within that community. These dialogues and reflections seek to shed light on the current political climate in America as Carolyn and Jerry struggle to cope with their fears and envision a hopeful path forward for their country.


Author(s):  
David Menconi

This book is a love letter to the artists, scenes, and sounds defining North Carolina’s extraordinary contributions to American popular music. David Menconi spent three decades immersed in the state’s music, where traditions run deep but the energy expands in countless directions. Menconi shows how working-class roots and rebellion tie North Carolina’s Piedmont blues, jazz, and bluegrass to beach music, rock, hip-hop, and more. From mill towns and mountain coves to college-town clubs and the stage of American Idol, Blind Boy Fuller and Doc Watson to Nina Simone and Superchunk, Step It Up and Go celebrates homegrown music just as essential to the state as barbecue and basketball. Spanning a century of history from the dawn of recorded music to the present, and with sidebars and photos that help reveal the many-splendored glory of North Carolina’s sonic landscape, this is a must-read for every music lover.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 105-124
Author(s):  
Jamal Wakim

This article argues that the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90) was in essence a terror of state directed by mercantile economic and political elites (the comprador class) controlling the Lebanese state and society against the middle and poorer classes (the working class). The aim of this terror or organized violence was to subdue the subordinate classes, which in the late 1960s and early 1970s rebelled against the confessional system that operated for the benefit of the comprador class. The rebellion was expressed by members of the working-class joining cross-confessional nationalist and leftist parties. Hence, violence was aimed at reestablishing the confessional order as a means to restore a hegemonic system that served the interests of the comprador class at a time when this class was rehabilitating its economic role by resurrecting the financial system, which had received a severe blow in the late 1960s. It effected this rehabilitation through the Taif Agreement signed between Lebanese parliamentarians in 1989, under the auspices of Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, to favor the new mercantile elite led by Rafiq Hariri.


Author(s):  
Viktor F. Isaychikov

Тhe peasant revolts, wars, and revolutions known in history had both revolutionary and reactionary sides. A particularly complex interweaving was observed in Russia (USSR) in the first third of the 20th century due to the maximum number of economic structures and classes in the country and four revolutions. The main reason for the struggle of the peasant classes, including re-volts, was poverty, caused by both agrarian overpopulation and social causes, among which the main one before the October revolution was the remnants of feudalism. All four revolutions in Russia were largely peasant revolutions, but they differed in class composition and class leader-ship. As a result of the Great October socialist revolution, a joint dictatorship of the working class and the peasantry (the petty bourgeoisie) was established in the country, not predicted by K. Marx, but foreseen by V.I. Lenin. However, the small working class after V.I. Lenin’s death could not hold on to power, and as a result of the “Stalinist” counter-revolution, an internally unstable dictatorship of the petty bourgeoisie (peasantry) was established in the country. We reveal the class processes in the peasantry that led to revolts and revolutions.


Author(s):  
Dana M. Williams

The goal of this chapter is to explore the micro-level characteristics of anarchists. How do anarchists today identify socially and politically? What is the class composition of anarchist movements? In recent decades, some observers have claimed that anarchist movements have changed to focus less on economic issues and are more divorced from the working class. Through the analysis of survey responses, this chapter demonstrates that the union membership of anarchists is related to subjective working-class status, age, residence, economic anarchist ideology, anarchist movement participation, and activist identity. While not conclusive or uncomplicated, these findings call into question the claims that all modern movements (including anarchism) are postmaterialist, and emphasize collective cultural identity to the neglect of economic identity and class.


Author(s):  
Celeste Atkins

In the current political climate, racial, gender, and sexual differences are controversial topics, particularly on college campuses. This illuminates the need for increased focus on these issues in college classes. Although the literature on teaching about privilege is small, it is dominated by the voices of White faculty and almost completely focuses on racial issues. Marginalized faculty are rarely heard in this literature for our intersectional understanding of teaching about oppression and inequality. This chapter explores how female faculty (who also identify as working-class, queer, or as racial minorities) experience teaching about privilege. It builds an understanding of issues surrounding teaching about inequity from an intersectional perspective and moves the focus beyond tenure-track faculty. It expands an understanding of the experiences of faculty within the classroom and provides ways to support marginalized faculty in their teaching. Although the faculty interviewed here are sociologists, there are broad implications for teaching across disciplines.


Author(s):  
Honoré De Balzac

Among the many admirable organizations founded by Catholic charity in Paris, there is one, founded by Madame de la Chanterie, whose aim is to arrange civil and religious marriages for working-class couples who are living together. Our legislators, anxious to have the registration fees, and...


Worldview ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 12-14
Author(s):  
Lawrence Nevins

Among the many curious questions raised by the Portuguese revolution is: Why did so many career officers, proudly wearing the decorations of a colonialist fascist state, emerge as such passionate militants of the left? Three explanations are commonly offered. First, it is said, the social origins of the younger officers are closer to the working class than to the aristocracy; second, contact with African freedom fighters convinced them that they too should be Third World revolutionaries; and third, social intercourse with educated draftees drew them into the contemporary climate of opinion.


1957 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. L. Guttsman

A study of parliamentary elections in a certain area must be preceded by the attempt to describe the character of the electorate. This is the more necessary as it is often little recognised to what a large extent the size and composition of the new electorate created by the £ 10 franchise varied from borough to borough. This was due to some extent to the strength of local registration societies and the different interpretation which the revising barristers gave to the term ratepayer, but its main cause was the character of the housing in the constituencies. Land values, custom and, of course, the wage structure of the community determined the quality and standard of building and in consequence rent and rates. While the urban middle classes were probably everywhere in possession of the vote the above mentioned factors clearly determine the proportion of the working-class who enjoyed the franchise. It seems useful therefore to compare the Yorkshire figures with those for other parts of the country. To do this it is best to disregard York and Hull with their large number of freemen voters and to concentrate on the newly enfranchised boroughs.The electorates in the five new boroughs were all of a fair size; the smallest, Halifax, had 1,491 electors and Sheffield over 7,000. Yet with the exception of the latter, where as the result of the many skilled workmen and small masters we expect to find a large democratic electorate, the proportion of voters, whether measured in terms of inhabitants or houses, is almost inversely related to the size of the town.


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