Given the ongoing processes of global integration, questions about policy diffusion have attracted much scholarly attention. Various studies stress the influence of international financial institutions (IFIs), global norms, or foreign models in domestic policymaking. Kurt Weyland's book brings a largely new perspective to this discussion, drawing on insights from psychology to stress the importance of cognitive factors as causal mechanisms in diffusion of policy innovations. Through a deeply researched study of pension and health care reforms in five Latin American states during the 1990s, Weyland shows that cognitive limitations, especially "bounded rationality," heavily influenced the ways in which policymakers chose, evaluated, and implemented social reforms. Weyland makes a strong case for the role of cognitive heuristics in explaining policy diffusion and draws important methodological conclusions about the limitations of rational choice approaches and the advantages of process tracing for studies of policymaking.Weyland's book, which is based on extensive field work and interviews with policymakers and detailed process tracing for Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Peru, stresses three central cognitive processes. First is availability, the proximity of vivid reform models; second is representation, a tendency to overinterpret initial positive results of reform; third is anchoring, a propensity to import a foreign model wholesale, without adapting it to local conditions. According to Weyland's argument, Latin American pension reformers, overwhelmed by information and facing cognitive limitations, focused only on the nearby, bold, and coherent Chilean pension privatization model to solve the problems of their overburdened pension systems, ignoring potentially better European reform models. They viewed the apparent early success of Chilean privatization uncritically and overexpectantly, and adopted it wholesale to produce a "wave of reform" in the region, before becoming disillusioned by more and better information. In health care there was no consensus reform model, rather diffusion of principles of efficiency and equity enhancement, which produced more disparate and piecemeal reforms. Here cognitive heuristics also mattered, with policymakers focusing selective attention on reform models that were readily available to them, their

No abstract

The quality of contemporary democracies hinges on the breadth and depth of the citizenship regimes on which democracy ultimately rests. This article argues that, to assess citizenship, two important dimensions are of crucial interest, namely to what extent formal citizens are able to live and practice substantive citizenship roles and, secondly, how access to citizenship rights is used by different societal groups in order to defend privilege. Having conducted a comparative case study of Portugal and France, I then argue that political elites are contributing to a framing of non-whites as foreigners and immigrants because it serves their purpose and that of the majority of their electorate. I also demonstrate how academia contributes to this framing, as many scholars seem unable to free themselves from biased academic traditions, some of which are clearly racist.

Portugal’s journey, from a minor colonising power to a member of the European Union, transformed its sense of national belonging and citizenship. African colonial possessions, which under the Salazar-Caetano regime had been formally incorporated into the nation as a ruse to offset international criticism of Portugal’s prolonged imperialism, were later disavowed, along with those Africans who had become Portuguese citizens under the earlier arrangement. As a result, Portugal has failed to recognise the existence within its borders of a black community, its history and its exclusion, which continues to the present day.

English This article demonstrates that artistic activity is an important tool for deepening democracy, because it provides a vehicle for the excluded to reach the public sphere, thus making it more heterogeneous. As artists, they become active citizens and step out of the invisibility into which racism and exclusion has forced them. French Cet article montre que l’activité artistique est un important outil d’enracinement de la démocratie, parce qu’elle offre aux exclus un moyen de joindre la sphère publique, la rendant ainsi plus hétérogène. En qualité d’artistes, les exclus deviennent des citoyens actifs et ils émergent de l’invisibilité où le racisme et l’exclusion les avaient confinés. Spanish Este artículo demuestra que la actividad artística es una herramienta importante para la profundización de la democracia porque la expresión artística constituye un vehículo para que los excluidos lleguen a la esfera pública, con lo que ésta se enriquece y se hace más heterogénea. Como artistas, se convierten en ciudadanos activos y salen de la invisibilidad a la que el racismo y la exclusión los ha empujado.