Strong climate policy is vital to tackling climate change, but even the best proposals can get watered down when lobbying occurs. This article analyses which interest groups lobby on EU climate policies and under which conditions these groups achieve their policy goals. We expect that both economic and political resources are important. Economic resources give groups the capacity to mobilise expertise, but an interest group’s success also depends on its congruence with public opinion, especially in a politicised area such as EU climate policy. To test our hypotheses, we focus on six EU climate policy issues for which we conducted expert surveys with lobbyists and a content analysis of 737 media statements in eight European news outlets, combined with Eurobarometer data. Our results show that interest groups with higher economic resources and with public opinion on their side are more likely to achieve their preferences on EU climate policy issues.

How did governance in Kirchner's Argentina and Chávez's Venezuela interact with popular mobilisation? How have popular sectors engaged with and participated in Left-of-centre governance? Using ethnographic data, we argue that the answers to these questions lie in three social mechanisms that we call recognition, incorporation and selective mobilisation. We analyse how activists and participants interpreted and contested these mechanisms, paying attention to how they informed the everyday life of activism and the situated actions of participants. Underscoring their socially embedded and path-dependent nature, we argue that these mechanisms shaped mobilisation differently in each country.

In Southeast Asia as elsewhere, shifts in global, regional, and domestic politics and economies benefit some and disadvantage others. Overall, those individuals and groups defined by their subordinated position in the emerging political economy are at a disadvantage. Moreover, the decline of ideology, particularly with the seemingly hegemonic advance of neoliberalism, has limited space for challenge along those lines. Rather than assume, however, that it is merely the wealthiest ‘one per cent’ who are advantaged and empowered in this evolving system, we can weigh what resources and alliances are available to whom. Members of newly-formed categories may benefit from the shifting tides, regardless of class or structural position, for instance given their alignment with prevailing norms or frames, or their access to new media and transnational advocacy networks. Some of those most disadvantaged by the shifting economic context, on the other hand, may be doubly disempowered, as they face added hurdles to identity-building and collective action. This article explores new regimes of domination and resistance from below, focusing on why particular collective identities gain salience at particular moments and what determines which movements or claims take off or fail to thrive.

In many sub-Saharan African communities, caring for vulnerable children in the era of HIV/AIDS appears to be creating deep financial, physical and psychological strains for care-givers, the great majority of whom are ageing women or ‘grandmothers’. Yet, limited primary research has been carried out with older women in specific communities, and therefore grandmothers' collective responses, sources of support, complex lived experiences, and diverse family situations are not well understood. This paper presents the findings of research undertaken in four communities in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, between 2006 and 2010. The purpose was to understand the daily stresses, collective responses and mobilisations of older women in these communities. The research involved repeated focus groups, interviews and participant observation involving approximately 100 older women. In the analysis, attention is given to the diversities among participants, the ways in which HIV/AIDS intermingles with other stresses in their lives to drive their mobilisations, and their collective responses, even amidst highly constrained conditions. Through these lenses, the paper illuminates how older women in these communities are organising in response to the combined, devastating and diverse effects of HIV/AIDS, poverty, violence and illness. It also suggests that, counter to some stereotyping of ‘African grandmothers’ as frail or passive, these women are forming associations in order to generate incomes, resist stigma, connect with broader support networks and provide care to hundreds in their communities.

In recent years in Italy there have been numerous conflicts related to locally unwanted land use (‘Lulu’). Some have taken on a political dimension that goes beyond the local, becoming ‘trans-territorial’, as they link with similar conflicts elsewhere. This article analyses the role of various left-wing parties and groups (moderate, radical, antagonist) in these conflicts, examining four specific Lulu movements: those against the high-speed rail line (TAV) in Val di Susa; those against the bridge over the Strait of Messina; those against the extension of the US military base in Vicenza (Dal Molin); and those against the construction of a refuse site in the district of Chiaiano (Naples). Analysis of these cases shows that independent variables related to the well-established ‘political opportunity structure’ (POS) model do not fully explain the role played by the various organisations of the left. Other factors ultimately have greater explanatory power: the policy-making that triggers Lulu conflicts, from which emerge both a new centre/periphery political cleavage (national majoritarian democracy vs. local participatory democracy) and a new economic cleavage (growth/economic development vs. alternative models of development); policies and cleavages in their turn determine the splits between leftist parties nationally and locally and, ultimately, shifts in the Italian party system.

The ethnic dimension to social relations can be distinguished from dimensions based on neighbourliness, national origin, race and religion etc., but ethnic conflicts are not a special class of conflicts. The significance of a shared ethnic origin varies with the location and scale of social relations. In local communities relations are multidimensional; ties based on different attributes are balanced against one another and against individual interests. Outside the range of personal acquaintance a shared ethnic origin may be a basis on which individuals are mobilised for collective action and for bargaining with other groups, though some individuals will seek to be free-riders. Mobilisers from elsewhere may induce individuals to change their relative preference for ethnic association, destroy local methods of dispute regulation, and so polarise relations that the participants treat their relations with members of an opposed ethnic group as unidimensional. Outside institutions, including foreign governments, can help resolve ethnic conflicts by providing guarantees that facilitate ethnic bargaining.

Total contents of 21 trace elements were determined in particle size separates from the horizons of four profiles, two freely drained and two very poorly drained, of Scottish soils on drifts of basic igneous and granitic origin. Trace elements, including Co, Cu, Li, Mn, Ni, V, Zn and also Fe contained in the more easily weathered ferromagnesian minerals, tend to accumulate in the clay and silt. Elements such as Ti and Zr and also La and Y contained in resistant minerals accumulate in the silt or fine sand. Ti and Zr are mobilised to some extent, however, as these elements are present in the clay separates and in some cases show enrichment therein.

The alkali metals Li and Rb accumulate in the silt and clay particularly in the granitic soils, while the alkaline earth metals Ba and Sr occur in greatest concentrations in the sands due to their being held largely in resistant feldspar minerals. On release these elements are not strongly adsorbed by the clay.

Very poor pedological drainage leads to increased weathering and release of such elements as Co, Cu, Ni, V and Zn from the coarse or fine sands with correspondingly greater enrichment of the associated silt and clay. Weathering and enrichment of the fine fractions takes place largely in situ, there being little evidence of downward translocation due to leaching.

The massive pyrite-pyrrhotite-chalcopyrite-sphalerite deposit of Outokumpu, comprising the Keretti and Vuonos orebodies, is a deformed and metamorphosed strata-bound mass associated with mineralised stockworks. Mobilisation of much of the ore followed formation of large recumbent isoclinal folds that are the major structures of the surrounding rocks and associated with the modification of originally flat saucer-shaped ore lenses into elongate ruler-shaped masses. Further modification of shape took place at the mobilisation stage with much of the pyrrhotitic ore, particularly, now occupying the thickest parts of the orebodies in the form of breccia or microbreccia. In many parts gross original characters still exist and the pyritic and pyrrhotitic constituents of the ore have survived as separate entities while locally the pyritic ore retains pre-deformational characteristics and consistent stratigraphic position within a thin horizon.

Both ore and country rocks show evidence of extensive polyphase deformation with the effects of six fold phases shown in the ore. Mineral assemblages in the country rocks indicate a middle amphibolite facies peak of metamorphism. The serpentinite-black schist-carbonate-quartzite rock assemblage, with which the ore is associated, was tectonically incorporated within the regionally extensive mica schist by even earlier subhorizontal thrusting. This is related to the movement of a thrust nappe with the interdigitation of an ocean-floor ophiolite assemblage and flysch deposited during ocean closure associated with Svecokarelian tectonism.

The original formation of the Keretti and Vuonos sulphide masses took place in a marine exhalative environment with a pyritic layer overlying a pyrrhotitic layer in each of the two c. 4 km diameter irregularly oval-shaped depressions whose centres were c. 8 km apart. The mineralised stockwork below each mass represents the upper parts of the conduit for metalbearing fluids in a convective system.