Hallucinogens, alcohol and shifting leadership strategies in the ancient Peruvian Andes

In the pre-Columbian Andes, the use of hallucinogens during the Formative period (900–300 BC) often supported exclusionary political strategies, whereas, during the Late Horizon (AD 1450–1532), Inca leaders emphasised corporate strategies via the mass consumption of alcohol. Using data from Quilcapampa, the authors argue that a shift occurred during the Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000), when beer made from Schinus molle was combined with the hallucinogen Anadenanthera colubrina. The resulting psychotropic experience reinforced the power of the Wari state, and represents an intermediate step between exclusionary and corporate political strategies. This Andean example adds to the global catalogue documenting the close relationship between hallucinogens and social power.

Middle Castes Against Hill High Caste Political Domination in Nepal: Can Indian Experience Be A Lesson?

This study examines the problems and prospects of middle caste politics in Nepal based on similar political developments in north India. It investigates the processes of middle caste and class formation in the two countries and goes on to examine demography and upper-caste political strategies. Taking the Federal Socialist Forum Nepal (FSFN) and its trajectory as an example of middle caste political formation, it shows that the middle castes are at a disadvantage in Nepal than their brethren have been in north India. FSFN’s new merger with two political parties recently further shows the difficulty of mobilizing a middle caste political force and mounting a sustained challenge against the political domination of the hill upper castes. This paper also analyzes emerging caste relations in contemporary Nepal.

Kabore's latest moves in Burkina Faso may buy time

Significance This forms part of a broader reform of government and the security sector begun in recent months and accelerated by the military’s worst single loss so far in its six-year battle against jihadist insurgents. Kabore seems for the moment to have weathered the resulting wave of street protests and opposition mobilisation. Impacts Kabore’s vulnerabilities will spur both allied and opposition parties to reassess their political strategies. Anti-French sentiment will rise and fall with general insecurity, partly due to disinformation campaigns. Insecurity will persist and perhaps worsen in the short term, despite sweeping military personnel changes.

Foreign States in Domestic Markets

Comparison of the four countries shows that internationalized statism has developed in the UK, France, and Germany in ways that appear surprising given both popular and academic writings, although there are important cross-national differences in its forms. The US has seen the lowest level of internationalized statism, whereas the UK has pursued extensive and undirected internationalized statism. France and Germany occupy intermediate and more directed forms of internationalized statism. The findings cannot be fully explained by the Sovereign Wealth Funds’ (SWFs’) countries of origin and their choice of investments and also run counter to several expectations about the role of the state and general economic openness. Instead, the chapter offers a political and statist analysis of the growth of internationalized statism by looking within the state, notably at its structure, and the political strategies of policy makers. It also develops wider implications for political economy debates. The findings add to new statist arguments that the state is an active participant in internationalized and liberalized financial markets. Policy makers can use overseas state investors to pursue their domestic political strategies and adapt traditional forms of ‘industrial policies’. Internationalized statism shows that states can use developments in financial markets to find new resources and allies from overseas states to govern their domestic economies. By bringing in the state as an international investor, it shows how liberalization and internationalization can offer novel opportunities for states.

Minority Actorness Through a Non-Europeanised Policy Area

By bringing together the literatures on Europeanisation and minority studies, this article illustrates the centrality of actors representing national minorities as a key to understand Europeanisation of minority politics today. Minority politics is becoming Europeanised indeed, however, not in the ways commonly expected. And although the EU repeatedly fails to develop a clear minority policy, an actor-centred approach adopted in this study helps to reveal how minority actors extend their political strategies to the European level through different channels and how they exploit various opportunities stemming from European-level politics. Jacquot and Woll’s concept of ‘usages of Europe’ not only enables us to trace how actors multiply channels and arenas of participation, but it also helps to spot the emergence of tactics of experimentation with European-level norms and rules, contributing to an acquisition of new roles among minority actors and supporting an actorness formation among those active. As the actors engage in criticising EU institutions, they develop tactics of responsibilising which in turn affects their minority agendas and the actors themselves. In this respect, this study contributes to developing the weakly studied literature about minority agency and Europeanisation.

Breastfeeding, first-food systems and corporate power: a case study on the market and political practices of the transnational baby food industry and public health resistance in the Philippines

Background The aggressive marketing of breastmilk substitutes (BMS) reduces breastfeeding, and harms child and maternal health globally. Yet forty years after the World Health Assembly adopted the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes (The Code), many countries are still to fully implement its provisions into national law. Furthermore, despite The Code, commercial milk formula (CMF) markets have markedly expanded. In this paper, we adopt the Philippines as a case study to understand the battle for national Code implementation. In particular, we investigate the market and political strategies used by the baby food industry to shape the country’s ‘first-food system’, and in doing so, promote and sustain CMF consumption. We further investigate how breastfeeding coalitions and advocates have resisted these strategies, and generated political commitment for a world-leading breastfeeding policy framework and protection law (the ‘Milk Code’). We used a case study design and process tracing method, drawing from documentary and interview data. Results The decline in breastfeeding in the Philippines in the mid-twentieth Century associated with intensive BMS marketing via health systems and consumer advertising. As regulations tightened, the industry more aggressively promoted CMFs for older infants and young children, thereby ‘marketing around’ the Milk Code. It established front groups to implement political strategies intended to weaken the country’s breastfeeding policy framework while also fostering a favourable image. This included lobbying government officials and international organizations, emphasising its economic importance and threats to foreign investment and trade, direct litigation against the government, messaging that framed marketing in terms of women’s choice and empowerment, and forging partnerships. A resurgence in breastfeeding from the mid-1980s onwards reflected strengthening political commitment for a national breastfeeding policy framework and Milk Code, resulting in-turn, from collective actions by breastfeeding coalitions, advocates and mothers. Conclusion The Philippines illustrates the continuing battle for worldwide Code implementation, and in particular, how the baby food industry uses and adapts its market and political practices to promote and sustain CMF markets. Our results demonstrate that this industry’s political practices require much greater scrutiny. Furthermore, that mobilizing breastfeeding coalitions, advocacy groups and mothers is crucial to continually strengthen and protect national breastfeeding policy frameworks and Code implementation.

Social and Political Strategies of Young People: Across D.I.Y. and Institutional Patterns

Today’s youth are characterized by the diversification and turnover of collective actors claiming their interests, rights, and needs. ‘Dispersed’ politicization of youth is also manifested in the extending range of socio-political activities, which at the moment may take place not only in the vertical structure of official state institutions, but also in the horizontal plane of autonomous ‘grassroots’ initiatives according to D.I.Y pattern (Do It Yourself), which raises the issue of describing and systematizing these phenomena. The objective of this paper is to compile the outcomes of 2019 studies aimed at creating and testing the tools to describe the current phenomena of institutional and self-organized politicization of youth, namely, to develop the concept of sociological and political strategy and to determine the range of such strategies in the youth milieu. The paper presents the concept of the sociological and political strategy, including a methodological framework, a model and typology of sociological and political strategies of the Russian youth, comprising 10 main types with the focus on the institutional and self-organized patterns of political activities along with the main risks identified. The research methods: the content analysis of statements on the Internet (on thematic resources and social networks), the analysis of essays by students and school pupils (n = 21) regarding the issue of self-determination with respect to politics, interviews comprising the elements of case studies (n = 10) conducted in 2019 as well as the analysis of interview findings for 2017—2018 (n = 17). The diagnostic method – ‘Determination of the youth political strategy type’ was appraised (n = 55). The Delphi approach and brainstorming with elements of technology foresight were used at the phase of developing recommendations to work with the young.