This article examines India's evolving stance on digital sovereignty within the broader context of international public policy and global digital governance. Although much of the current literature has concentrated on the United States, the European Union, and China as leading models, India is progressively establishing itself as an alternative player. The article utilizes a qualitative interpretive policy analysis to evaluate India's domestic initiatives, such as Aadhaar, the Unified Payments Interface, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, while also considering its participation in global forums like the G20, the World Trade Organization, and the United Nations Internet Governance Forum. It posits that India is positioning itself as a norm entrepreneur, promoting a model of digital sovereignty that integrates inclusivity, innovation, and strategic autonomy, which aligns with the developmental goals of the Global South. Concurrently, the article underscores the contradictions that complicate this ambition, including conflicts between democratic principles and surveillance practices, openness and protectionism, as well as dependence on foreign technology. By placing India within these dynamics, the study enriches academic discussions on digital sovereignty by recontextualizing India not merely as a passive recipient of global norms but as a potential architect of a more pluralistic and inclusive digital landscape.

This article examines how Indonesia's presidents have managed Civil–Military Relations (CMR) from the final decade of Suharto's authoritarian rule (1988) to the democratic consolidation of the Joko Widodo era (2024). It argues that presidential strategy – rather than institutional inertia or external pressure – has been the principal driver of the country's evolving civil–military balance. Six distinct strategies are identified across the period: authoritarian absorption (Suharto), disengagement (Bacharuddin Jusuf (BJ) Habibie), confrontation (Abdurrahman Wahid-Gus Dur), neutrality (Megawati Sukarnoputri), institutional balancing (Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono-SBY) and technocratic containment (Joko Widodo-Jokowi). The analysis integrates Huntington's concept of subjective control with Schiff's concordance theory to explain why presidential actions varied in their effectiveness. Drawing on 45 elite interviews, legal and policy documents and triangulation with quantitative indices (Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem), Freedom House and Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC) - Global Militarization Index (GMI)), the study demonstrates that Indonesia's CMR evolved through negotiated adaptation rather than linear reform. The findings contribute to comparative debates on democratic control of the armed forces in post-authoritarian contexts.

This article qualitatively compares the processes that led to women's suffrage in Japan, France, and Italy after the Second World War, identifying both commonalities and differences. In all three cases, existing regimes collapsed due to the war, and new political systems allowed women to gain the vote. To explain cross-country variation, the analysis focuses on three factors: the direct influence of occupying powers, women's suffrage movement and parliament, and the partisanship of decision makers. The comparison highlights the central role of war and regime collapse, showing that while both were important, regime collapse played a more decisive role in enabling women's suffrage. The study uses quantitative analysis, covering 1850–1950, to examine broader conditions for suffrage establishment, confirming the key role of regime collapse.

This study examines whether economic policy ideologies or economic threat perceptions predict Indonesian Muslim voters’ support for non-Muslim political leaders. Using 2018 World Values Survey data from 1877 employed Muslim respondents, the analysis tests two competing mechanisms. Traditional economic ideologies —preferences for income distribution, government ownership, welfare policies, and success determinants—show no relationship with support for non-Muslim leaders across presidential, mayoral, and parliamentary positions, confirming that left–right economic cleavages do not structure Indonesian political competition. However, perceptions of competition as threatening significantly reduce support for non-Muslim candidates, with effects strongest at local legislative levels characterized by direct patron–client relationships. Inter-religious trust buffers against competition-based exclusion, while competition anxiety manifests through eroded neighborhood trust and labor market concerns rather than explicit outgroup rejection. Moderate institutional trust correlates with viewing competition as harmful, suggesting partial confidence heightens awareness of competitive risks. These findings demonstrate that economic factors relate to religious-political attitudes through psychological mechanisms of perceived threat rather than ideological alignment, extending post-Ahok scholarship on religious mobilization by specifying individual-level pathways linking economic anxieties to political exclusion.

This article explores the discourse construction of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as represented within Chinese and US mainstream media. The study uses a corpus-based discourse-historical approach to compare the nomination and predicative strategies employed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict discourse. In doing so, we used a self-built corpus of Chinese media reports on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a corpus of US media reports. The findings of the study indicate that Chinese and US media prioritize distinct primary social actors. Chinese media often portray Israel as the “out-group” and Palestine as the “in-group,” emphasizing China's dedication to peace, justice, and the pursuit of a comprehensive, equitable, and nonviolent resolution to the Palestinian issue. In contrast, US media present a more nuanced portrayal of Israel and Palestine as both “in-group” and “out-group” entities; however, they accord greater prominence to Israel's “in-group” image and Palestine's “out-group” image, thereby mirroring the United States’ explicit pro-Israel position and its diplomatic commitments to counterterrorism and the promotion of international humanitarian principles. The study makes a substantial contribution by elucidating the linguistic variations in the discourse construction of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within Chinese and US mainstream media.

Campaign-style enforcement has been increasingly adopted by local governments in China. In this article, we analyze 282 case cities in China using crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis (csQCA) to investigate which combinations of diverse conditions lead to the occurrence of local campaign-style enforcement. Our findings suggest that different combinations of eight conditions involving institutional, organizational, and individual factors could stimulate the occurrence of local campaign-style enforcement. We also find that local campaign-style enforcement significantly reduced PM2.5 and SO2. These findings increase our understanding of the mechanisms of local campaign-style enforcement and provide multiple paths through which local governments’ environmental policy implementations can be effectively improved.

This article explores the paradoxical dynamics of Confucian meritocracy and democratic legitimacy in contemporary South Korea. Despite democratic consolidation through the Candlelight Revolution (2016–2017), Korea's political landscape remains marked by hierarchical cultural norms rooted in Confucian traditions. Drawing on Jürgen Habermas's discourse ethics and Stephen Angle's Progressive Confucianism, this study examines how meritocratic discourses shape civic attitudes and institutional practices in ways that both support and undermine democratic legitimacy. The article demonstrates that contemporary Confucian meritocracy often produces systematically distorted communication, excluding citizens from participatory deliberation. The analysis interrogates Confucian values’ role in recent democratic crises, including President Yoon Suk-yeol's 2024 martial law declaration, showing how meritocratic rhetoric justified anti-democratic measures. However, the study reveals potential for Confucian ethical resources to reinforce democratic values when critically reconstructed through communicative action. The Korean case illustrates the struggle to reconcile inherited cultural traditions with democratic ideals, highlighting the importance of institutional frameworks balancing moral excellence with political equality. This contributes to debates on post-Confucian democracy by emphasizing that legitimacy hinges not on rejecting tradition but on subjecting all political claims to rational scrutiny through inclusive democratic discourse.

The transition of Bangladesh from an electoral democracy to an authoritarian state, while undergoing visible economic and social development, is a paradox. What factors, from home and abroad, are responsible for the emergence and persistence of Sheikh Hasina's authoritarian rule in Bangladesh? This article aims to answer the above question based on secondary data sources using several theoretical frameworks related to the rise of authoritarianism. It argues that several social, political, economic, and cultural factors are responsible for the emergence and persistence of authoritarianism under the Sheikh Hasina regime. These factors include fracturing political institutions, India's intervention, the culture of fear, and collective action problems. Besides, internal political culture, say confused democrats, is also a contributory cause of the emergence of Hasina's autocratic regime. This study contributes to comparative politics by offering insights into how authoritarianism emerged and persisted in developing countries. Its findings will enhance our understanding of the structural and contextual factors driving authoritarian trends, offering comparative perspectives relevant to comparativists.

This article examines South Korea's 2024 martial law as a critical moment in the ongoing struggle between constitutional democracy and authoritarian legacy. When President Yoon Suk Yeol invoked emergency powers amid legislative deadlock, he exposed longstanding structural vulnerabilities in South Korea's democratic framework, particularly in the areas of executive discretion, civil-military relations, and polarized political discourse. Informed by comparative research on democratic erosion and authoritarian persistence, this analysis situates the episode within South Korea's institutional and historical context. While the crisis revealed the fragility of institutional safeguards, it also demonstrated the capacity of coordinated legislative, judicial, and civic action to reverse constitutional transgression. This study suggests that this democratic rupture offers not only a warning but an opportunity: a chance to recalibrate legal constraints, depoliticize emergency powers, and confront the ideological continuities that shape Korean political life. The implications extend beyond South Korea, offering broader insights into democratic resilience.