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For more than a decade, trade union responses to the unfolding climate and ecological crisis have mainly focused on the idea of "just transition." This idea has brought much-needed attention to the serious disruptions facing many workers, and the need to minimize those disruptions where possible, or provide alternatives where necessary. Unions have generally affirmed the findings of climate science and recognized the urgent need for dramatic transformation of our societies, but this affirmation has mostly found expression in echoing broader social calls for "more ambition" from governments. At the international level, and especially in Europe, union discourse and engagement around the need for a "just transition" has been shaped profoundly by the fate of social democracy, and the related ideas of "social partnership" and "social dialogue." However despite their origins in what could be seen as a true "social contract" between roughly equal partners, the erosion of political power for unions in recent decades has largely hollowed out these terms, leaving unions and workers increasingly dependent on appeals to governments and private companies to "do the right thing" for workers and the planet. This state of affairs calls for critical reflection. It is vital that unions ask not only whether existing approaches to the crisis are sufficiently ambitious, but whether they are even aimed correctly at the target.

"Assessing the Dynamics of Democratization" grows out of attempts by academics and activists to contribute to transformative politics by building up more and better evidence, and analysing the processes of democratisation in a way that is theoretically more inclusive than in the mainstream assessments that have come to parallel the industry of measuring economic growth. The book summarises the critique of these mainstream assessments, proposes an alternative framework, and shows how the alternative works through a case study of the largest of the new democracies, Indonesia. It is a book for critical scholars, students and practitioners.

In official and unofficial histories, and in cultural memorializations of the 1971 war for Bangladeshi independence, the treatment of women's experiences—more specifically the unresolved question of acknowledgment of and accountability to birangonas, "war heroines" (or rape survivors)—has met with stunning silence or erasure, on the one hand, or with narratives of abject victimhood, on the other. By contrast, the film Meherjaan (2011) revolves around the stories of four women during and after the war, and most centrally the relationship between a Bengali woman and a Pakistani soldier. In this article, I investigate the anxieties underlying the responses to Meherjaan, particularly in association with themes of trauma—its absence or omnipresence—to nonnormative gender frames of national sexuality, and the notion of loving the Other. Drawing from feminist theories of vulnerability, ethics, and love, I want to explore these themes at two levels: the political message the film transmits, and its aesthetic choices and affects. Finally, I want to comment on the potential of this film, as feminist art, in furthering a dialogue around healing and ethical memorialization in relation to 1971 in Bangladesh.

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552 ; Why and how do alternative economies emerge, how do they develop and what is their contribution, if any, to transformative politics? Alternative economies proliferate in the countries worse hit by economic crisis and austerity, such as Spain or Greece. Yet the existing literature is stuck in a counter-productive division between celebration and critique. We move beyond this division applying philosopher Daniel Bensaïd's understanding of politics to two alternative food economies, one in the Basque Country and one in Greece. We illuminate the activist strategies and specific conjunctures within which the two alternatives emerged and explain how they develop in the face of political-economic barriers. Alternative economies, we conclude, can be transformational when they are inserted in activist strategies directed to extend conflict, social struggles and challenge the capital-state nexus. ; ¿Por qué y cómo emergen las economías alternativas, cómo se desarrollan y de que manera contribuyen, si es que lo hacen, a la política transformadora? En los países más afectados por la crisis económica y las políticas de austeridad, como España o Grecia, proliferan experiencias de economías alternativas. Sin embargo, la literatura no ha discutido más allá de las visiones o bien celebradoras o bien críticas de las economías alternativas, generando una división contra-productiva para la análisis. En este artículo vamos más allá de esta división, aplicando la comprensión de política de Bensaïd a dos economías alimentarias alternativas, una en el País Vasco y una en Grecia. Mostramos las estrategias de activismo y coyunturas específicas dentro de la cuales surgieron ambas alternativas y explicamos cómo se desarrollan frente a barreras institucionales y económicas. De esta manera, concluimos que las economías alternativas pueden ser transformadoras cuando se insertan en estrategias activistas dirigidas a ampliar los conflictos y las luchas sociales desafiando el nexo entre capital y estado.

The Jakarta Gubernatorial Election 2017 is an important momentum for improving and evaluating the quality of democracy at the local level. Various issues of religion, ethnicity, as well as differences in political support, colored both in the first and second round. Anies-Sandi's victory in this local election is interesting to study further by using the political representation approach by Olle Törnquist. The results of this study showed that voters have been polarized through strengthening religious and ethnic sentiments so it can be ignored the factor of achievement, capacity, and track record of candidates. Extensive efforts to spread identity politics were carried out through various movements and actors. The quality of political participation among DKI Jakarta residents can also be seen from the extent of voter autonomy and literacy in determining positions. Based on those results, a critical discussion of the Jakarta Gubernatorial Election 2017 will be a reflection of useful learning to observe the political climate, which transform relation to connect or disconnect relations between constituent and their representative.

This study analyses transformative politics in the context of local environmental struggles. It advances an understanding of local environmental struggles as a space that contains possibilities for the transformation of the political subjectivities of the social actors that participate in them, and sets out to examine the factors and processes that facilitate or hinder such transformation. The analysis is conducted through a comparison of two local struggles around large-scale mining developments, respectively in the Intag valley of Ecuador and the Mount Ida region of Turkey, which differ with respect to how transformative they have been. To understand and explain the differences between the two struggles, the study draws on a Gramscian reading of state-society relations and social struggles. Deploying the Gramscian perspective, the analysis starts by examining the historical state-society relations within the context of which peasant subjectivities have been moulded. Following this, the actual dynamics of the struggles are examined, with an emphasis on the relationships between the peasants, local civil society and community organizations, and the local governments. The study employs a comparative approach as a methodological entry point to identify the processes within state-society relations, and the building of the struggles that shape the political subjectivities of those peasants participating in them. The research is based on field studies conducted intermittently over ten months from October 2007 to July 2008 and continuously d ; This study analyses transformative politics in the context of local environmental struggles. It advances an understanding of local environmental struggles as a space that contains possibilities for the transformation of the political subjectivities of the social actors that participate in them, and sets out to examine the factors and processes that facilitate or hinder such transformation. The analysis is conducted through a comparison of two local struggles around large-scale mining developments, respectively in the Intag valley of Ecuador and the Mount Ida region of Turkey, which differ with respect to how transformative they have been.