Political Agency Research Articles

Categories of ‘Political Actor’ and ‘Political Agency’ as Research Objects of Polish Political Theorists

The aim of the article is to present the history of research on the categories of “political actor” and “political agency” conducted by Polish political scientists. The article shows how they were defined and how the theories of society and politics prevalent at a given time shaped their understanding. Initially, both categories alluded to the collective vision of activity, to finally appreciate the role of individuals in initiating activity. The way researchers viewed the significance of political actors was changing over time as well; at the beginning, social classes and subsequently large groups were seen as crucial, while individuals were only eventually recognised as the source of agency. The article demonstrates that both categories have changed over the years, adapted to new social order, social structure and, in particular, to the ideologies prevalent in society. The article pays special attention to the concepts developed by Mirosław Karwat and Andrzej Czajowski.

Claiming the Erotic and Intimate Self: The Sexual Agency of Adolescent Girls in Trinidad and Tobago

This study explores the sexual agency of adolescent girls in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T). Using Black, Caribbean, and transnational feminist frameworks this work examines the genesis and complexity of adolescent girls' sexual agency, specifically how girls begin to develop ideas of sexual attraction and intimacy, messages they internalize from family and community, and the agentic ways they actualize their feelings and desires. It considers the historical, economic, and political contexts of postcolonial T&T, and implications for future exploration of young women's and girls' sexual agency, not only in T&T, but among Caribbean women in the Diaspora. Themes analyzed in this study demonstrated that girls were knowledgeable about intimacy and sex. They identified specific moments when they are aware of sexual attraction and distinguish from other forms of love. Most girls learn about sex from trusted adult relatives who are not their parents, from peers, biology, sexual and reproductive health and health and family life courses at school, and via the internet. They read the institutionalized environments as unresponsive to their concerns and interpret their parents' lack of communication or admonishments as signals that talk about sex is taboo. Consequently, they seek information outside of the purview of adults to satisfy their needs. They want to understand how to navigate trust and consent; how to choose good partners; how to balance their future goals with a desire to have intimacy and sexual relationships in the long run. By tapping into their personal desires and motivations around sex they manifest early forms of social and political agency.

Comendo nas encruzilhadas: contribuições interseccionais para a Nutrição Clínica Ampliada e Implicada

Abstract This essay, which brings posthumous contributions from the first author, starts from the understanding of intersectionality as a theoretical-methodological tool and analytical offering that shows how multiple systems of subordination and discrimination, their consequences and structural dynamics, relate between two or more axes of social oppression. We propose an epistemological approximation between this understanding and the field of Eating and Nutrition, which contributes to thinking an intersectional eating and nutritional care and an integral praxis. Corroborating the intersection (and crossroads) metaphor, we state that several axes of power - race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, class, body size, (dis)abilities, among others - shape the avenues that structure the field of health care, including eating and nutritional care. Among such avenues and crossroads, we outline an initial proposal of an Extended and Implicated Clinical Nutrition. Among the proposed implications, we highlight reflexivity and action in power and oppression relations, placing the nutritionist as a political agent, involved with emancipatory, participatory, and socially referenced praxis. Intersectionality, therefore, is treated here as a strategy for social justice work, including eating and nutrition. We deal with relationships under construction, constituting reflective practices, the composition of meanings in the act of living eating and nutrition work.

Еволюція інституційної спроможності парламенту України: історико-політологічний аналіз

The article analyses the evolution of the institutions of the organization of the power system in Ukraine in general and the institution of parliamentary system in particular. The problems that, in the opinion of the author, determine the vulnerability of the institutional capacity of the political system are singled out. The attention is focused on the instability of the regulatory and legal framework - the repeated introduction of constitutional changes regarding the models of the organization of power, the transformation of certain norms of the Constitution of Ukraine, which determined the place and role of the parliament in the political field of the country. It has been proven that such variability of the "rules of the political game" has acquired signs of a threat to the institutional capacity of the Ukrainian parliament. It is emphasized that, despite the amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine, a number of legal conflicts remain. Among them is the unsettled nature of the institution of the imperative mandate, which gives rise to disagreements in the interpretation of the rules for depriving a people's deputy of his powers; inconsistency of the norms of the Constitution of Ukraine with relevant laws, etc. The author draws attention to the fact that many provisions of the Basic Law are adopted "advance" and regulation of certain norms is foreseen by special laws. At the same time, the adoption of these laws is either delayed, or they are not adopted at all. The author draws special attention to the problem of non-compliance with legally defined procedures in the process of adopting constitutional amendments. The thesis about the presence in Ukraine of the practice of instrumentalizing the Constitution by some political agents, whose activities are not aimed at optimizing the state administration system in the interests of the main source of power - the people, but in order to satisfy their own political and economic interests, is substantiated. The conclusions of the study are the identification of possible directions for strengthening the institutional capacity of the Ukrainian parliament, harmonization of constitutional norms and overcoming challenges along the way.

Features of the Activities of Political Agents in the Tribal Area of the North-West Frontier Province of British India (1919–1939)

The special form of government of the North-West Frontier Province, analyzed in the article, was established through the interaction of British political agents with local tribes. The territory under consideration was characterized by a high level of instability, which they tried to neutralize by creating a multi-level management system, as well as establishing parity among local elites with British mediation as an arbiter. The administrative system formed by agents has survived, territorially related to modern Pakistan, with its characteristic problems, which is presented as the historical experience of British India in controlling its northwestern border. The main task of the British officers was to establish a controlled system of checks and balances in the border zone, aimed at resolving issues of ensuring the reliable protection of British India from external threats. At the same time, the possibility of a foothold for the territory under consideration was created for further geopolitical competition in Asia. The presented hierarchy of subordination removed this region from the general system of colony management and prevented reforms. The tribal area was under the territorial jurisdiction of British India, had full autonomy with limited agents who had representation in local jirgas and coordinated the actions of the militias, self-defense units, scouts. The implementation of the set installations was carried out using a number of mechanisms for the management of the province, concluded in diplomatic agreements, supported by financial payments in favor of the local elite, as well as by engaging the Indian army in particularly unstable areas.

Историческая политика и мемориальная культура современного румынского общества

The aim of the research is to analyze the contemporary politics of memory in Romania in the early 2020s. The author examines the role and place of intellectual communities as key spaces of memory genesis and the functioning of memorial culture and collective historical memory in the contemporary social and political thought of Romania. The novelty of the study lies in exploring the current stage in the development of the historical politics of Roma­nian society in the context of an objective deficit of interdisciplinary research focused on the analysis of memorial cultures. The article demonstrates that: 1) the intellectual community, as one of the systemic segments of modern Romanian society, significantly contributes to the development and transformation of memorial culture; 2) the spectrum of memorial practices of Romanian intellectuals, as agents of historical memory politics and shapers of various ver­sions of memorial culture, varies from historical revisionism to attempts to form a liberal me­morial canon; 3) the memorial practices of the contemporary intellectual community are in­terconnected with the development of civil and ethnic nationalist discourse; 4) the participa­tion of intellectuals in memory politics actualizes the political and ideological heterogeneity of modern society, contributing to the simultaneous coexistence and competition of different forms of historical memory. It is assumed that the role of Romanian civil society in the histor­ical politics of contemporary Romania will increase, and the intellectual community will re­main one of the active participants in the politics of collective memory.

Проблемы Македонской Православной Церкви в современной греческой политике памяти

Introduction. The purpose of the article is to analyse the perception of the problems of the history of the status of the Macedonian Orthodox Church in the politics of memory of modern Greece. Materials and Methods. The study is based on the analysis of texts that form the perception of the Macedonian church problem in the politics of memory in Greece. Analysis. The article analyses the perception of the Macedonian ecclesiastical problems in modern Greek memorial culture. The article also shows that the politics of memory forming the perception of the history of the Macedonian Church in modern Greek society simultaneously depends on the development of civic and ethnic nationalism, burdened by ties with the Orthodox Church. It is assumed that the mass media and political elites of modern Greece, as the main agents of historical politics, use the problems of the history of the Church in the territory of Macedonia to consolidate their own national identity and conduct a policy of memory aimed at promoting the narrative of territorial unity and the exclusively Greek character of the territory of Macedonia in modern Greece. Results. The results of the study suggest that the memorial culture of modern Greek society in contexts of the perception of the history of the Church on the territory of Macedonia is distinguished by a nationalistic character, and the perception of church history in the collective memory of Greece develops in contexts of moderate memorial contradictions with Macedonia. It is shown that the transformation of the viewpoint of the Greek memorial culture emerged as the result of consultations with the Macedonian elites and an agreement to change the name of the modern Macedonian state. It is assumed that the policy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the settlement of the formal status of the Macedonian Church significantly reduced the level of the memorial confrontation between Skopje and Athens.

ИСТОРИЧЕСКАЯ ПОЛИТИКА И МЕМОРИАЛЬНАЯ КУЛЬТУРА СОВРЕМЕННОГО ВЕНГЕРСКОГО ОБЩЕСТВА

This study analyzes the current memory policy in modern-day Hungary during the early 2020s. The author studies the role and place of intellectual communities as the main spaces of the genesis of memory and the functioning of memorial cultures and collective historical memory in modern social and political thought of Hungary. The article demonstrates that the intellectual community, as a systemic component of contemporary Hungarian society, plays a vital role in developing and transforming memorial culture. Additionally, Hungarian intellectual agents of historical memory politics and shapers of various memorial cultures engage in a spectrum of memorial practices that range from historical revisionism to attempts to create a liberal memorial canon. Thirdly, the memorial practices of the modern intellectual community are linked to the development of nationalist discourse, represented by ethnic and civic nationalisms. Besides, the participation of intellectuals in memorial politics actualizes the political and ideological heterogeneity of modern Hungarian society, contributing to the simultaneous development and competition of various forms of historical memories, stimulating memorial confrontations and memory wars. It is assumed that the role of society in the historical politics of modern Hungary will increase, and intellectuals as memory activists will remain among the main active participants of memorial politics.

Politics, Power, and Prestige in Female Conventual Communities of Medieval Latium: The Exemplary Case of Santa Maria in Viano (Frosinone)

Abstract: The renewed academic interest in religious women has not resulted in any overarching or detailed study of Latium. A thorough historiography is still lacking for the region's late medieval convents. This is surprising as the region was densely populated by female monastic settlements between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. An emblematic case in this regard is the convent of Santa Maria in Viano in Sgurgola (Frosinone). By the fourteenth century, almost half of the Conti family estate in Sgurgola was owned by the nunnery of Santa Maria in Viano. The convent played a pivotal role in shifting the delicate power balance between feudal lords in the region. What emerges is the prominent and strategic role of female monastic communities whose political agency casts a new light on an overlooked but historically dynamic period. Rural monastic settlements functioned as strategic frontiers, which were crucial to regional baronial land interests during the earlier period. Unsurprisingly, the presence of innovative architectural and artistic elements inside the church of Santa Maria in Viano also showcases the synthesis of Cistercian architectural models and local building traditions.

Recognition as a counter hegemonic strategy

Building on the analyses of cultural hegemony in the works of Nancy Fraser and Wendy Brown, I argue in the paper that the historic bloc (order of cultural hegemony) of post-Fordist capitalism is characterized by a particular dynamic between several ?axes? of hegemony that gives rise to the ?paradox of engagement/disengagement?. The ?progressive-expertocratic? axis of hegemony creates a subject-position of the ?engaged self?, a figure embodying a certain promise of political agency that is simultaneously obstructed by other, depoliticizing axes of hegemony. This dynamic is conducive to the rise of contemporary right-wing authoritarianism, which purports to fulfill this promise of political agency through a series of displacements - the counterhegemonic left, I argue, has so far not formulated an effective alternative to this strategy. In the second part, I explore the potential of Axel Honneth?s theory of recognition, in particular his concept of ?interpersonal respect?, for grounding a left strategy of connecting (mutually articulating) the hegemonic figure of the ?engaged self? with a progressive politics of social transformation. To that end, I elaborate Honneth?s perspective by means of an argument about the role of trust in the context of societal crises that Igor Cvejic, Srdjan Prodanovic and I have recently formulated.

Agency and Political Action. The Main Theoretical Trends in Polish Political Sciences

In this article I discuss the views of contemporary Polish political scientists concerning the subject of political agency. I stress the diversity of research perspectives adopted in the Polish literature on the subject and no less diverse conceptions of agency. I also emphasise differences in the understanding of the qualities of agency, especially the capacity for political action and participation in political processes. The analysis demonstrates the pluralism of the accepted concepts of political ontology. I also argue that it is important for Polish political scientists to preserve the autonomy and specificity of the political science research on agency, in particular the independence of this discipline from philosophical perspectives.

Rethinking the ‘Barren’ Decades of Women’s Movement in Turkey: Collective Memory and Intergenerational Conflicts

Feminist historiography in Turkey has long dismissed the period between the 1930s and 1980s as the ‘barren period’ of the women’s movement. To understand the diverse and conflicted genealogies of Turkey’s feminism(s), we argue, it is necessary to critically engage with the notion of the ‘barren period.’ In the 1950s, ‘the discourse of indebtedness’ to Atatürk and the gender project of Kemalism became hegemonic through production of collective memory in which the women’s movement participated. Haunted by the radical struggles of Ottoman and early Republican feminists for equality, the mid-twentieth century women’s movement selectively remembered them in shaping this memory. Beginning in the second half of the 1960s, younger generations of women began to question women’s movement’s agendas and actions. This article focuses on two issues where the intergenerational conflict was particularly evident: (Anti-)veiling and (anti-)communism. These themes reveal that the discourse of indebtedness was unsustainable by the second half of the 1960s, when new political agencies emerged that did not assume the privileged saviour role of the women’s movement or positioned themselves as victims to be rescued. While the established women’s movement gradually acknowledged the history of radical autonomous struggle of Ottoman and early Republican feminists and their suppression by the early Republican regime, deep political and ideological rifts hindered the communication and transmission of this history to a new generation of women in the mid-1960s.

Политическая субъектность науки как тема философии науки

Is the science capable to act as the subject of political action? This question is considered as one of themes of the modern philosophy of science. It could not be posed within the framework of the philosophy of science concentrated only on the analysis of logical structures of scientific knowledge or on problems of its dynamics defined by procedures of rational reconstruction of history of science. In this framework, influence of factors of a sociо-cultural context on the formal and substantive aspects of scientific processes was not a subject of the philosophical analysis. However, the internal logic in development of philosophy of science led to expansion of a circle of its interests. This circle included processes of interfluence of science and the cultural environment in its historical development. It affected sense of the major epistemic values: truth, objectivity, rationality. Their interpretation as variable dependent on a sociо-cultural context led to relativism which, in fact, devaluated the philosophical analysis of science. In attempts to counteract relativism the idea of political agency of science had to be rejected, which contradicted the obvious realities. The philosophy of science became in need of reform. Its initiator was historical and socio-cultural epistemology. The central thesis of reform is recognition of equal rights, continuity and interdependence of the principles of truth, ob­jectivity and historicism forming triple complementarity (by analogy with the well-known principle of N. Bohr). In the reformed philosophy of science political agency of science is a fact and a factor in the development of both the science itself, and the socio-cultural context.

Strategy for Improving the Performance of Government Apparatuses in the National Unity and Politics Agency of West Java Province

Employee performance at the National Unity and Politics Agency of West Java Province is not optimal as indicated by several performance achievements that have not been achieved, and the lack of employee responsibility for their duties and obligations as state apparatus which results in less effective service, so this study aims to find out and analyze how the strategy which is effective in improving the performance of government apparatus in the National Unity and Politics Agency of West Java Province. This research method uses qualitative methods. The data analysis technique used is SWOT analysis. The results showed that the selected strategy that was feasible to be implemented by the National Unity and Politics Agency of West Java Province in improving the performance of Government Apparatuses in the National Unity and Political Agency of West Java Province was the institutional strategy by increasing employee performance which focused on efforts to develop human resources, namely through through assessing the potential of apparatus resources and increasing self-capacity so that they are creative and innovative.  

Mesoaesthetics: Xenofeminist Writing in Mars and Sweetlust

The paper explores Asja Bakić’s short stories (collected in Mars and Sweetlust) as examples of highly politically charged xenofeminist speculative fiction, merging the regional feminist heritage with contemporary theoretical articulations. It undertakes a threefold approach to Bakić’s work, analysing its resistance to cultural stereotyping and its quest for political agency beyond the confines of the Balkans/Europe binary; its conceptual links to new materialisms, most prominent in Bakić’s non-anthropocentric approach to sexuality and technology; and its evaluation of a writer’s position in the literary field of contemporary capitalism, closely related to questions of writing, style and genre.

Her ‘Love Laws’: Political Reterritorialization of Sexuality in The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The article attempts to showcase the performativity of gender and nationality as elements of a subject’s identity in a heterosexual matrix. Applying Judith Butler’s theories regarding sex and gender to the novel The God of Small Things clarifies how Ammu, the most rebellious female character of the novel, subverts the expected performative desire of heterosexual respectability and is able to go beyond the limits of sexuality and thereby beyond the ideologies and performativity of national inclusion. Her subversion of imperatives reveals the gaps in the law and, thus, turns her act into a political one as well. She demonstrates political agency through re-territorializing ‘phallus’ and further through re-signifying her sexual desire.

Understanding youths’ concerns about climate change: a binational qualitative study of ecological burden and resilience

BackgroundClimate change has been shown to have long-term effects on mental health, yet, to date, there have been few studies on how children and adolescents experience and respond to ecological changes and how and why they engage in climate action. We explored empirically young people’s views about climate change and how distinct cultural contexts influence individual climate action.MethodsWe invited children and adolescents (ages 7 to 18) and their caregivers from the general population in the United States and France to participate in semi-structured focus groups. We recruited 74 participants, 39 in the U.S. (33 children and adolescents, 6 parents) and 35 in France (32 children and adolescents, 3 parents). Focus groups with participants centered on their emotions, beliefs, and actions around climate change. We analyzed the focus group data and developed themes via grounded theory and symbolic interactionist approaches.ResultsMany participants described experiencing anger, hopelessness, guilt, and sadness in response to climate change, and a smaller number endorsed significant anxiety symptoms; many described frustration about needing to fix the mistakes of earlier generations. Younger participants frequently misunderstood the purpose of their parents’ eco-conscious behaviors unless they were provided with age-appropriate explanations. Participants described a spectrum of experiences when trying to discuss climate change with peers and family, ranging from genuine support to apathy to hostility. Between the two samples, U.S. participants experienced more conflict with adults about climate change than French participants, but French participants described a greater lack of political agency compared to U.S. participants. Participants in both samples expressed a relatively balanced view of climate action, recognizing the significance of individual actions while acknowledging the limits of their power in the face of systemic issues. Some found hope and empowerment through climate action and building communities around it.ConclusionDiscussing with children and adolescents what adults are doing to mitigate climate change can provide reassurance, model prosocial behaviors, and inspire their own investment in climate action. Adults seeking to support the psychological well-being of young people should both support their concerns and actions around climate change and create avenues for young people to meaningfully engage in climate action.

Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: A Network-Text

Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric (2014) uniquely dramatizes the threat (or promise) of the obsolescence of the poetry collection in the age of postcapitalism. Through its unlikely appearance at a Donald Trump rally in Illinois in 2015, the book went on to experience a viral media life, connecting to networks and interpretative communities far beyond its presumptive field. What is more unlikely than the idea of a poetry book disrupting the media stream of a presidential campaign? And yet, in doing so, Citizen fulfilled the role of disruptive political agent that Bifo Berardi envisioned for poetry in The Uprising: Poetry and Finance (2012). To create such disruption, however, an image must be allowed to join the media stream, so that the poetry collection can no longer remain a zone of internalization, defined solely by what lies inside. Arguably, all the book needs to be allowed to circulate is a cover. While Rankine’s book evidently provides more than that, still the reception of Citizen makes it clear that processing a poetry book is both a visual and literary experience. Rankine’s previous collections already gestured towards the book as material object, but in Citizen it dominates her practice, as she acknowledges how digital technologies have, for better or worse, rewired everybody into conceptualizing on sight, reinforcing – rather than extinguishing – the look-first racism of contemporary culture. Citizen’s impact is not just a matter of its internal literary dynamics, therefore. To the disinterested viewer, it exists primarily through its external visual impact, a thing to be looked at rather than read. Drawing on Paul Mason’s opposition between hierarchy and network, this essay demonstrates that the poetry book, a traditionally hierarchical object, is reinventing itself as a network in the digital age.

Radical Decomposition: Unravelling Agencies in the Art of Zanele Muholi, Jean Brundrit, and Nolan Oswald Dennis

For understandable reasons, global discourses around queer, feminist, and decolonial activism are unified by an emphasis on action, the agential, and the productive. Doing is what matters most, hence the critical focus of this special issue on how the doing gets done, or the forms that most effectively transmit action. However, these discourses risk reproducing the hard binaries by which political activity has historically been assessed, including success/ failure and resistance/passivity - in other words, they can unintentionally reinforce a racialized and gendered dichotomy between those who do things in the world and those who are simply undone by it. Such binaries further scaffold progress narratives that have long been weaponized against populations in the global South, founding good subjects, proper objects, legitimate politics, and viable futures in line with agendas set elsewhere. In this article, I turn to contemporary South African art to ask a different question: what might we learn from scenes of undoing instead? What expanded repertoire of actions, affects, alliances, and options emerges when we are sensitive to how decompositions, not just compositions, reroute agency, mediate relations, and make worlds? My article explores decomposition as a literal and figurative method in recent works by Zanele Muholi, Jean Brundrit, and Nolan Oswald Dennis, three South African artists who do not all align with notions of visual activism proper. But by placing pressure on the unruliness, vulnerabilities, and expressive limits of form and material, I argue that each artist usefully troubles the figure in whom normative notions of political agency are supposed to reside. In so doing, they sensitise their audiences to how vectors of precaritization and (in)capacity intersect today, unravelling the linear means-ends logics that conventionally underwrite theories of both art and activism.

Ioannes III Batatzes’s Italian Venture: Byzantine Imperial Revival in Mediterranean Diplomacy

Three Greek letters by the Holy Roman emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen to the Eastern Roman emperor Ioannes III Batatzes, dating from the year 1250, cast light on the Laskarid involvement in Italian politics outside of the Balkan Peninsula, the traditional sphere of Byzantine influence. In two of the letters, the Holy Roman Emperor informs his son-in-law and ally Ioannes III about the war he is waging against the papal forces in Italy; in the third, Frederick II openly appeals to his Byzantine counterpart not to engage in unionist negotiations with the Holy See. Examining the content of these three letters, I suggest, helps us to redefine the role that the Laskarid polity played in the wider Mediterranean world of the mid-13th century. In this paper, I focus on the Italian case in order to illustrate that the Laskarid Roman Empire was an active political agent that sought to influence the politics of polities well outside its assumed political sphere of interest. The Italian example allows us to understand that the Byzantine Empire of Ioannes III Batatzes and his successors had enough vigor and resilience from the 1240s to the 1280s to project an image of itself as a dominant power invested in determining international affairs throughout Christendom.