Secondary stakeholders as agents of influence: Three essays on political risk, reputation, and multinational performance

Organizational researchers have recently taken an interest in the ways in which social movements, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other secondary stakeholders attempt to influence corporate behavior. Scholars, however, have yet to carefully probe the link between secondary stakeholder legal action and target firm stock market performance. This is puzzling given the sharp rise in NGO-initiated civil lawsuits against corporations in recent years for alleged overseas human rights abuses and environmental misconduct. Furthermore, few studies have considered how such lawsuits impact a target firm’s intangible assets, namely its image and reputation. Structured in the form of three essays, this dissertation examined the antecedents and consequences of secondary stakeholder legal activism in both conceptual and empirical settings. ^ Essay One argued that conventional approaches to understanding political risk fail to account for the reputational risks to multinational enterprises (MNEs) posed by transnational networks of human rights NGOs employing litigation-based strategies. It offered a new framework for understanding this emerging challenge to multinational corporate activity. Essay Two empirically tested the relationship between the filing of human rights-related civil lawsuits and corporate stock market performance using an event study methodology and regression analysis. The statistical analysis performed showed that target firms experience a significant decline in share price upon filing and that both industry and nature of the lawsuit are significantly and negatively related to shareholder wealth. Essay Three drew upon social movement and social identity theories to develop and test a set of hypotheses on how secondary stakeholder groups select their targets for human rights-related civil lawsuits. The results of a logistic regression model offered support for the proposition that MNE targets are chosen based on both interest and identity factors. The results of these essays suggest that legal action initiated by secondary stakeholder groups is a new and salient threat to multinational business and that firms doing business in countries with weak political institutions should factor this into corporate planning and take steps to mitigate their exposure to such risks.^

The American politics of a Jewish Judea and Samaria

This dissertation poses a set of six questions about one of the Israel Lobby's particular components, a Potential Christian Jewish coalition (PCJc) within American politics that advocates for Israeli sovereignty over "Judea and Samaria" ("the West Bank"). The study addresses: the profiles of the individuals of the PCJc; its policy positions, the issues that have divided it, and what has prevented, and continues to prevent, the coalition from being absorbed into one or more of the more formally organized components of the Israel Lobby; the resources and methods this coalition has used to attempt to influence U.S. policy on (a) the Middle East, and (b) the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular; the successes or failures of this coalition's advocacy and why it has not organized; and what this case reveals about interest group politics and social movements in the United States. This dissertation follows the descriptive-analytic case-study tradition that comprises a detailed analysis of a specific interest group and one policy issue, which conforms to my interest in the potential Christian Jewish coalition that supports a Jewish Judea and Samaria. I have employed participant observation, interviewing, content analysis and documentary research. The findings suggest: The PCJc consists of Christian Zionists and mostly Jews of the center religious denominations. Orthodox Jewish traditions of separation from Christians inhibit like-minded Christians and Jews from organizing. The PCJc opposes an Arab state in Judea and Samaria, and is not absorbed into more formally organized interest groups that support that policy. The PCJc's resources consist of support and funding from conservatives. Methods include use of education, debates and media. Members of the PCJc are successful because they persist in their support for a Jewish Judea and Samaria and meet through other organizations around Judeo-Christian values. The PCJc is deterred from advocacy and organization by a mobilization of bias from a subgovernment in Washington, D.C. comprising Congress, the Executive branch and lobby organizations. The study's results raise questions about interest group politics in America and the degree to which the U.S. political system is pluralistic, suggesting that executive power constrains the agenda to "safe" positions it favors.

Rastafarianism and the Nation of Islam as institutions for group-identity formation among blacks in the United States : a case study comparing their approaches

This dissertation explores the Rastafari movement and the Nation of Islam as institutions that provide a group-identity for their adherents. The study seeks to determine the characteristics of the identity that is institutionalized by each movement, and the nature of the institutionalization process. The research was conducted primarily in South Florida where both movements exist. An extensive literature review in conjunction with in-depth field interviews were used as the primary research methodologies. What was of particular interest were the reasons that the members of the movements chose one movement over the other, also the similarities and dissimilarities between the movements in their role as institutions for group-identity formation. The research showed that both movements imbued their members with a sense of pride, high self-esteem and a strong sense of race consciousness. In addition, it showed that there was significant variation in identity orientation within the Rastafari Movement, which contrasted with the Nation of Islam where the identity variations within the movement were negligible. This was due largely to the difference in structure between the movements, the Nation of Islam being a centrally organized movement with one leader while the Rastafari movement is a decentralized polycephalous one. Both movements were found to be millenarian in nature, essentially because of the significant utility of the concept that their members would rise to prominence through God's grace. Additionally, both movements were identified as expressive social movements, since they were determined as being primarily concerned with changing the attitudes of their members rather than effecting structural social change.

Teachers' knowledge, awareness, and pedagogy of global education in secondary schools

Professor Mohammed K. Farouk, Major Professor In 1979, the Florida State Board of Education approved the teaching of global education in the state of Florida. The purpose of this study was to examine the factors that contributed to teachers' global knowledge, global mindedness, and pedagogy in global education. The Hanvey model of teaching from a global perspective was the theoretical framework for the study. A total of 90 secondary teachers from Miami-Dade County Public Schools were randomly selected and placed in three groups: Globally Oriented Social Studies Program (GOSSE), Non-Globally Oriented Social Studies Program (non-GOSSE), and Teachers Who Teach Other Subjects (TWTOS). Seven teachers, two of whom team-taught a class, were selected for classroom observations and interviews. A mixed methods design that combined quantitative and qualitative data was used. ANOVA and Chi square techniques were used to determine whether the factors that contributed to teachers' global knowledge and global mindedness differ among groups. Classroom observations and interviews were conducted to determine whether the instructional strategies differ among the seven selected teachers. The findings of the study show that teachers who were trained in teaching from a global perspective differed in their global knowledge and used more appropriate instructional strategies than teachers who were not trained in teaching global perspectives. There was no significant difference in the combined global knowledge of the non-GOSSE and TWTOS groups when compared with the GOSSE group. There was no significant difference in the combined global knowledge of the GOSSE and non- GOSSE groups when compared with the TWTOS group. There was no significant difference among the teachers in their global mindedness. Observation and interview data indicate that current events, role-playing, simulations, open-ended discussion, debates, and projects were the predominant instructional strategies used by globally trained teachers. Cable networks, Internet, magazines, and newspapers were found to be the dominant tools for teaching global education. This study concluded that teachers who were trained in globally oriented programs had more global knowledge than teachers who were not. It is recommended that teacher education programs should incorporate a global perspective in the preparation of social studies teachers, with particular attention to developing their global attitudes.

Rede de atendimento socioeducativo: possibilidades e limites da garantia de direitos

The results of the research systematized on this analysis sought apprehend the linkage of the socio-educational service network, destined to adolescents who comply with socioeducational measure of confinement, in the region of the Seridó of the state of the Rio Grande do Norte, especially in the city of Caicó, central town of this region. The achievement of this study was stimulated by the interest in unraveling the contradictory reality imposed by neoliberal State, sparing the guarantee of rights, especially to these teens, who are seen as authors of violations and are stigmatized by capitalist society. The research was carried in the period July-September 2013, under critical perspective, using the documental analysis and the observational techniques and interviews with professionals of the Educational Center (CEDUC), of the Unified Health System (SUS), of the Social Policies of Social Assistance, and of the State Department of Education, which should make the service network that gravitates around the National System of Socio-educational Services (SINASE). The Statute of Children and Adolescents (ECA) and SINASE define that the application of socioeducational measures cannot occur isolated of the public policies, becoming indispensable the linkages of the system with the social policies of social assistance, education and health. However, it was observed that the neoliberal logic of the capitalist State has developed broken, disconnected, focal and superficial social policies, who fail give effect to the rights acquired beyond the legal sphere. In this perspective, it is possible affirm that the everyday of the Brazilian poor teens is marked by the action of the State, which aims to control those who disturb the order of capital, who threaten the production, the market, the consume and the private property. This way, actions are promoted criminalizing poverty and imprint a legal action over this expression of the social issue to the detriment of social policies that meet the real needs of adolescents. Face of this reality, it becomes necessary to put on the agenda of the here and now to fight for rights, aiming at a broad public debate involving professionals, researchers and social movements in support of the viability of rights, which aims to support reflections and to strengthen ways to confront this social problem. With the approximations of this study, it was learned that the struggle for rights is a fight for another project of society, beyond what is laid.

A política nacional de educação ambiental: limites e desafios para a sua efetivação na Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte

The Environmental Education is a plural and diversified knowledge field, composed by a group of social agents of specific State, government and civil society sectors, with different world views and theoretical matrices that exercised and influenced its genealogy and constitutive dynamic. The Environmental Education – while specific knowledge field – has been produced, systematized and diffused in Brazil in the last decades by official State organisms, through public policies, as well as by social movements of popular education, and constitutes a large and historical movement about the environmental question, that was worldwide projected in the 1960 decade (the environmentalist movement). Concerning the creation of public policies and specific programs to the Environmental Education, in the scope of the governmental initiative, the approval of the National Policy of Environmental Education, by means of the Law n. 9.795/99 – together with its regulatory decree, the Decree nº 4.281 – represents the consolidation of a inclusion process of the environmental dimension in the educational field. These normative acts, beyond charging the public power with the incumbency to define public policies that incorporate the environmental dimension and to promote the Environmental Education in all education levels, also charge the educational institution with the duty of promoting this component in an integrated and articulated way with the educational programs that such institutions develop. In this context, it is aimed to identify and analyze under the light of the dialectical and historical materialism, the practices and concepts developed under the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), with regard to its institutional policy on Environmental Education, relating it to establishing the Pnea. The analysis by means specific legislation on the subject and institutional documents UFRN. The research showed that, in general, the National Environmental Education Policy has limits to its effectiveness given the absence of specific funding for this purpose and the little government involvement in that the Brazilian State assumes, by through effective policies, the material conditions of financing actions with respect to this field of education. The fragmented and disjointed way the analyzed actions are developed constitutes a limit to the challenge for the UFRN implement, consistently and objectively, an Environmental Education policy, which can be monitored and evaluated as an effective public policy, both landmarks major goal of own Pnea as the demands of development whose agenda a critical environmental perspective.

O nascimento de uma política pública: das articulações à formulação do PRONERA

This work aims at reconstructing the formulation process of PRONERA (National Program of Education in Agrarian Reform). A public policy that had its first ideas conceived within social movements and afterwards, made possible by diligences of then government. Therefore, the Program was rendered in a partnership among State, social movement, public institutions, and non-governmental organizations. As a goal, we intend to grasp both what motivated the choice for this proposal as a strategy to face educational problems in rural areas and how the actors, entities involved in this enterprise and the social-political context have influenced its formulation and entry in the governmental agenda as Public Policy. Thus, we reconstruct the history and education policy of and in rural areas. Besides, we seek to understand the context of PRONERA's conception, the factors that have influenced its creation and the actors' performances in the process. It is assumed that under the 1988 Constitution, civil society was provided with legal conditions for the active participation in political process and, consequently, in the public policy-making. We conclude, then, that PRONERA was the result of the crossing of three different flows (problems, solutions and policies) advocated by the Kingdon model. As a result, this analytical repertoire was useful to explain PRONERA’s entry in the government agenda, helping to understand how the chances of this social demand increased with an action from the politic community. It allowed its way in the government agenda as well as its becoming a public policy.

A crise de legitimidade na democracia representativa e o desatendimento aos direitos fundamentais: um enfoque participativo-educacional

This study aims to bring reflection on the legitimacy crisis of the Brazilian representative democracy, which results in non-attendance of fundamental rights, regarding legal and social facts in light of the existing constitutional order and seeking solutions in more democratic procedures and in a more humane, critical, democratic and collaborative education. It has been an issue for some time the understanding that the authorities do not meet the basic needs of Brazilian citizens - the only way to make them autonomous and sufficiently able to conduct their lives in a competitive and globalized labor market. Such situation only worsened - as illustrated by the social movements in mid-2013 - when people took to the streets, showing a noticeable dissatisfaction with public services in general, and some other groups presenting specific complaints in those events. To find solutions or at least suggestions for the reflection of the problem found, a current approach to public authorities was necessary attempting to reveal how the constitutional order authorizes their operation and how - in fact - they act. In this endeavour, the legitimacy of power was discussed, involving the analysis of its origin, to whom it belongs and the legitimacy of deficit situations, concluding that it is only justified as it gets more democratic influence, with greater participation of people in its deliberations and decisions, with its plurality and complexity. Research carried out by official institutions was necessary to have evidence of the low level of social development of the country and the nonattendance of minimum basic rights, as well as exposure to various acts and omissions which show that all public authorities do not legitimately represent the people's interests. The competence of the Supreme Court to establish the broader scope of the remuneration policy in the public service received proper attention, presenting itself as an effective means to promote the reduction of the remuneration and structural inequality in public service and contributing to better care of fundamental rights. Also, considerations were made about the Decree 8243/2014, which established the National Policy for Social Participation (NPSP) and the National System of Social Participation (NSSP) and took other measures with the suggestion of its expansion into the legislative and judiciary powers as a way to legitimize the Brazilian democracy, considering its current stage. In conclusion, it is presented the idea expressed by the most influential and modern pedagogical trends for the creation of a participatory, solidary, non-hierarchical and critical culture since the childhood stage. This idea focuses on the resolution of questions addressed to the common good, which considers the complexity and the existing pluralism in society with a view to constant knowledge update. Knowledge update is in turn dynamic and requires such action, instilling - for the future generations - the idea that the creation of a more participatory and collaborative democracy is needed to reduce social inequality as a way to legitimize and promote social welfare, with the implementation of a policy devoted to meet the minimum fundamental rights to ensure dignity to the population.

Emoções, documentos e subjetivação na construção de transexualidades em João Pessoa/PB

This research aims to understand how the affective components involved in transgender relations with documents constitute specific ways in which these people recognize themselves and build their bodies and their paths, their life projects and their relationship with others. We understand that the documents, if the personal identification or those produced by social movements, legal actors and health and the State, are experienced by trans people beyond administrative functions that are initially thought, but also involve a series of emotional experiences mark their subjective processes, in how these people produce themselves and design in the world their sociality networks. We elected as research field two institutions located in the city of João Pessoa (Paraíba State), noting the intense institutional movement, political, social in favor of the rights of transexuals that have occurred in that city in recent years. Thus, the Rights Reference Centre for LGBT and Fight Against Homophobia (Espaço LGBT) and Health Clinic of Transvestites and Transexuals (Ambulatório de Saúde de Travestis e Transexuais) were the spaces where we find our interlocutors and analyze their experiences with the documents noting two key aspects: the search for first name change in the civil registry and the relationship of trans people with documents produced by the health policies and services such as protocols, records, receipts and psychiatric reports. We realized that although there is disagreement about the perception that our interlocutors have on the documentation that regulates health services, all reported experiencing embarrassment in social situations when you have those who make use of a document that is not consistent with the performance and “social face” taken. In addition to the reports of embarrassment, we saw that the discussion of social distress and trauma has grounded the platforms of social movements, public policy, legal processes and become “narratives of pains” that present strong potential micro-political on demand for rights to “trans people”.

Mídia à luz do desejo: cartografias dos processos da mídia livre contemporânea brasileira

This paper aims to understand the specifics of the network communication and the logic of articulation of social insurgencies in contemporary inferred from the rizome concept coined by Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze and the multitude as preach Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. To do so, it raises the processes and practices of political bodies, reaching lines and common strategies of operation. Unless the specifics, it is possible to draw a continuous and rizomatic communication that traverses both bodies enrolled in institutionalized democracy, as the spanish movement-party Podemos and the greek coalition Syriza, as the autonomous collectives, such as the Movimento Passe Livre, fighting for universal public, free and quality transport, and the free media initiatives Media Ninja and Catarina Santos, willing to understand the social movements. The constitutional amendment of this model of communication networking seems to be the desire to radicalization of democracy, the bias of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, as a strategic and common struggle. Indeed, speaking specifically of free media, they are built from here processes that take place in understanding the agency of the bodies as relevant to political action toward the radical democracy project, and the use of free softwares, the communicator-protester agency, the performance, the collective experience.

A COMUNICAÇÃO POPULAR NA CONSTRUÇÃO E PRESERVAÇÃO DA MEMÓRIA DAS LUTAS POPULARES NO BRASIL (décadas de 1970 e 1980)

Nas décadas de 1970 e 1980 houve a eclosão de experiências comunicacionais populares, em todo Brasil, com vasta produção de materiais, especialmente arquivados pelos centros de documentação. Em sua maioria, criados e financiados por setores progressistas da Igreja Católica e Protestante. Entre eles, o Centro de Pastoral Vergueiro (CPV) e o Centro de Comunicação e Educação Popular de São Miguel Paulista (CEMI) que também tiveram importante papel na construção e preservação da memória das lutas populares no período de reorganização social, no contexto de distensão da ditadura militar. No entanto, tais acervos estão em iminente risco, por falta de investimento e vontade política. O que seria um prejuízo histórico e científico para movimentos sociais atuais e à pesquisa acadêmica. O objetivo do estudo é identificar a que se deve este desinteresse. A abordagem se dá pelo método da história oral e como técnicas de investigação adotamos a pesquisa bibliográfica, documental e a pesquisa de campo, por meio da entrevista em profundidade. A falta de uma política pública que garanta a preservação dos documentos é sinal de que no Brasil predomina uma cultura que não privilegia a memória, sobretudo das camadas empobrecidas da população. Além do que, a memória pode ser subversiva. Afinal tais documentos expressam a força da participação popular no processo de transformação social e podem despertar novas ações, o que não interessa aos grupos que estão no poder.

Peace demonstration

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

The transition movement and food sovereignty: from local resilience to global engagement in food system transformation

The emergence of grassroots social movements variously preoccupied with a range of external threats, such as diminishing supplies of fossil energy or climate change, has led to increased interest in the production of local food. Drawing upon the notion of cognitive praxis, this article utilises transition as a trajectory guided by an overarching cosmology that brings together a broad social movement seeking a more resilient future. This ‘grand narrative’ is reinforced by ‘transition movement intellectuals’ who serve to shape an agenda of local preparedness in the face of uncertainty, rather than structural analysis of the global system. In this context, growing and producing food offers important multi-functional synergies by reconnecting people to place and its ecological endowments and serves to provide a vital element in civic mobilisation. Yet, local food could also become a means to build international solidarity in defence of food sovereignty and establish a global coalition opposed to the corporate agri-food agenda of biotechnologies, land grabbing and nutritional impoverishment.

We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting for: Pan-African Consciousness Raising and Organizing in the United States and Venezuela

We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting for: Pan-African Consciousness Raising and Organizing in the United States and Venezuela, draws on fifteen months of field research accompanying organizers, participating in protests, planning/strategy meetings, state-run programs, academic conferences and everyday life in these two countries. Through comparative examination of the processes by which African Diaspora youth become radically politicized, this work deconstructs tendencies to deify political s/heroes of eras past by historicizing their ascent to political acclaim and centering the narratives of present youth leading movements for Black/African liberation across the Diaspora. I employ Manuel Callahan’s description of “encuentros”, “the disruption of despotic democracy and related white middle-class hegemony through the reconstruction of the collective subject”; “dialogue, insurgent learning, and convivial research that allows for a collective analysis and vision to emerge while affirming local struggles” to theorize the moments of encounter, specifically, the moments (in which) Black/African youth find themselves becoming politically radicalized and by what. I examine the ways in which Black/African youth organizing differs when responding to their perpetual victimization by neoliberal, genocidal state-politics in the US, and a Venezuelan state that has charged itself with the responsibility of radically improving the quality of life of all its citizens. Through comparative analysis, I suggest the vertical structures of “representative democracy” dominating the U.S. political climate remain unyielding to critical analyses of social stratification based on race, gender, and class as articulated by Black youth. Conversely, I contend that present Venezuelan attempts to construct and fortify more horizontal structures of “popular democracy” under what Hugo Chavez termed 21st Century Socialism, have resulted in social fissures, allowing for a more dynamic and hopeful negation between Afro-Venezuelan youth and the state.

La reforma agraria, la tierra y el territorio : evolución del pensamiento de La Vía Campesina

Se analiza, como participante-observador, la evolución durante las últimas dos décadas del pensamiento del movimiento social rural transnacional, La Vía Campesina, sobre los temas de reforma agraria y la defensa de tierra y territorio. El mundo rural ha cambiado y los cambios externos a los movimientos, junto con sus diálogos internos e intercambios de experiencias, han generado nuevas posiciones, estrategias de lucha, consensos y dilemas. Se destacan diversos temas, como el concepto del territorio, el "quehacer" en la tierra, las relaciones entre actores que comparten territorios, las ocupaciones, la titulación, el Estado y nuevos derechos.