Political Basis Research Articles

The Idea of a Balkan Commonwealth or Confederation. A Realistic Perspective or a Utopia?

<span style="font-family: WarnockPro-Regular; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;">Przez wieki Półwysep Bałkański był wykorzystywany jako droga łącząca wschodnią<span style="font-family: WarnockPro-Regular; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"> część Morza Śródziemnego i Europę. Jest to obszar o wielkim znaczeniu strategicznym, gospodarczym i kulturalnym, a także miejsce wspólnych interesów dla wszystkich żyjących tam narodów. Po ich utworzeniu, jako suwerenne państwa (głównie po upadku Imperium Osmańskiego,<span style="font-family: WarnockPro-Regular; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"> a ostatnio po rozpadzie Jugosławii), nowe państwa bałkańskie próbują znaleźć swoją geopolityczną<span style="font-family: WarnockPro-Regular; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"> pozycję na mapie europejskiej. Wiele pytań pojawia się na myśl o obecnej sytuacji tych krajów.<span style="font-family: WarnockPro-Regular; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"> Czy państwa bałkańskie mogą skutecznie współpracować na płaszczyźnie politycznej, gospodarczej i strategicznej? Czy konieczne jest stworzenie unii częściowo suwerennych państw, takich<span style="font-family: WarnockPro-Regular; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"> jak konfederacja, czy może wystarczy luźniejsza struktura (tj. wspólnota)? I wreszcie czy jest<span style="font-family: WarnockPro-Regular; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"> to sposób na wzmocnienie demokracji i bezpieczeństwa oraz konsolidację pozycji tych państw<span style="font-family: WarnockPro-Regular; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"> w stosunkach międzynarodowych?</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>

Culture, Identity, and Power

In an earlier essay in the Reviewing Policy section of this journal, I documented the importance of the work of Stuart Hall in the development of critical theories in education, in our understanding of “race,” and in the development of much more nuanced analyses of cultural politics. I focused on two books: Familiar Stranger, Hall’s personal memoir of political and cultural commitment; and Cultural Studies 1983, his lectures that provided the conceptual and political basis for a good deal of critical and nonreductive social and cultural analyses of the relationship between economic dynamics and structures and the rest of society. The two new books I discuss in the current essay provide us with a selection of many of the core reasons why he has been so influential in an entire range of critically oriented work in sociology, cultural studies, theories of race, “multiculturalism,” and identity, and increasingly in education.

Reading politics through emotions: ontological ressentiment as the emotional basis of current politics in Turkey

AbstractFor almost sixteen years now, politics in Turkey have been analysed with reference to the theme of victimhood. It is true that the political discourse of Turkey's Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi or AKP) gained its power by the mass response to its victimhood claims. Nevertheless, as this article argues, the legitimacy of the victimhood claim rests mainly on the already‐existing emotions of masses, aroused and triggered by political elites. Thus, Turkish politics during the AKP period cannot be thoroughly understood without taking into consideration the emotions of both political elites and the masses. This article shares insights into the sixteen‐year‐long AKP reign of power based on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's appeals to such emotions as humiliation, envy, disgust, hatred, anxiety, and anger. It further argues that these emotions reveal a much deeper and stronger emotional trait which we identify as ontological ressentiment.

Ethiopia's Refugee Policy Overhaul: Implications on the Out of Camp Regime and Rights to Residence, Movement and Engagement in Gainful Employment

Ethiopia became the second largest refugee hosting country in Africa – with the count of registered refugees and asylum seekers reaching 905,831 as of 31 August 2018. Displaced from twenty-six countries worldwide, most refugees fled from protracted crisis, famine, instability, forced military conscription and repression in South Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea. Although Ethiopia acceded to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (hereafter called the Refugee Convention) and has furthermore ratified the Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa (hereinafter called the African Refugee Convention), it has, for the most part, pursued a strict encampment policy and adopted restricted service provision approaches in the administration of refugees’ affairs. Compared to a range of international legal obligations it has assumed, some limitations continued to feature nationally – hampering the effective implementation of the rights of refugees in various scales. Since 2016, Ethiopia’s policy drive in relation to refugees started to gravitate from the current ‘camp-based basic services provision’ approach to a more ‘progressive and rights-centered’ model that also considers alternatives to the encampment of refugees. A landmark expression of nine intertwined pledges – proposed on the occasion of the 71st UN Summit on Refugees and Migrants held in New York, kindled a new glimmer of hope for the refugee community and furthermore provided a solid political basis and direction for enhanced protection and provision of civil, political and socio-economic services to refugees. At the Summit, Ethiopia rolled a comprehensive approach – committing, in global solidarity, to provide refugees shelter, rights and improved livelihood opportunities. To carry out the commitments, Ethiopia embarked on the design of a holistic policy frame, legislative actions and strategic response mechanisms fostering peaceful coexistence, greater inclusion and entitlement of refugees. As such, one interwoven policy regime that assists refugees to receive enhanced protection and attain quality livelihood is related to interventions focusing on the regulation of practice relating to the Out of Camp Policy (OCP), legal residency, freedom of movement and engagement in gainful employment. Over the years, positive headways have been recorded in Ethiopia’s policy orientation on refugees. Yet, in many areas including residency, freedom of movement and engagement in gainful employment, refugees’ legal entitlements and experience remained challenged by regulatory gaps and uncertainties. This set of circumstances entailed that the evolving legal frameworks, institutional response mechanisms, challenges and opportunities need to be analyzed in the contemporary context in order to understand the full spectrum of their contents and implications on the rights of refugees and recommend informed interventions. The central objective of this empirical study is to review normative developments, institutional arrangements and experiences in Ethiopia – particularly focusing on rights of refugees to legal residency, freedom of movement and engagement in gainful employment – both within and outside of the OCP setting. More specifically, the study scrutinizes key features of international and national legal frameworks that are pertinent in the context of the rights of refugees in Ethiopia, new changes in policy and regulatory approaches, and the projected effect of the application of such approaches. Furthermore, contours of Ethiopia’s OCP regime – including the processes, eligibility requirements, and rights and obligations of refugees granted such status will be examined in context.

‘We Cover New York’: Protest, Neighborhood, and Street Photography in the (Workers Film and) Photo League

This article considers photographs of New York by two American radical groups, the revolutionary Workers Film and Photo League (WFPL) (1931–1936) and the ensuing Photo League (PL) (1936–1951), a less explicitly political concern, in relation to the adjacent historiographical contexts of street photography and documentary. I contest a historiographical tendency to invoke street photography as a recuperative model from the political basis of the groups, because such accounts tend to reduce WFPL’s work to ideologically motivated propaganda and obscure continuities between the two leagues. Using extensive primary sources, in particular the PL’s magazine Photo Notes, I propose that greater commonalities exist than the literature suggests. I argue that WFPL photographs are a specific form of street photography that engages with urban protest, and accordingly I examine the formal attributes of photographs by its principle photographer Leo Seltzer. Conversely, the PL’s ‘document’ projects, which examined areas such as Chelsea, the Lower East Side, and Harlem in depth, involved collaboration with community organizations that resulted in a form of neighborhood protest. I conclude that a museological framing of ‘street photography’ as the work of an individual artist does not satisfactorily encompass the radicalism of the PL’s complex documents about city neighborhoods.

Romantic Writing and the Determinations of Cultural Property

ABSTRACTThe massive transfer of artworks and antiquities during the Napoleonic era from sites in Greece, Italy, Egypt, and elsewhere in the Middle East to public museums and private collections in Britain and France established the legal and political basis for current discourses of cultural property. This essay—part of a larger project on the ruins of empire—explores writing produced by Byron and by Percy Shelley during their visits to Rome (in 1817 and 1818–1819, respectively) and emphasizes the ways in which they recurrently position themselves at intersections between a resistant desire for aesthetic autonomy on the one hand and a critical recognition of historical and political determinations on the other. That Byron’s and Shelley’s poetic performances and identities themselves acquired the status of cultural property is pivotal to my argument.

Między demoliberalizmem a państwem władczym. Wacława Makowskiego pochwała solidaryzmu i krytyka liberalizmu

Between demoliberalism and an imperious state: Wacław Makowski’s praise of solidarism and criticism of liberalismThis article acquaints the reader with notions of Wacław Makowski, eminent professor of criminal and constitutional law and a sanation activist. The article particularly refers to his criticisms of liberalism and praise of solidarism. The constant crisis of the political life of the Second Polish Republic required an essential reform of political bases. According to Makowski one should break with the bases of the March Constitution, that is liberalism and parliamentary democratism in favour of solidarism, being an indirect form between authoritarian dictatorship and liberal democracy.

Potik Hukum Pemerintahan Desa

The State recognizes and respects regional government units that are special or special in nature which are regulated by law. Second, the State recognizes indigenous and tribal peoples' units along with their traditional rights insofar as they are alive and in accordance with the development of society and the principles of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia, which are regulated in law. Politics of village government law, it cannot be separated from 3 (three) main bases, namely philosophical, sociological and juridical basis. The politics of regulatory law above are the basis for legal politics for regulations that are below, so that there should not be any universal inconsistencies. In addition, horizontally the legal politics of legislation must also be consistent

A trajetória recente da educação de pessoas jovens e adultas no Chile: inferências de um estudo comparado

Este artigo é um recorte de uma pesquisa mais abrangente defendida como tese no curso de doutorado latino-americano em educação, políticas públicas e profissão docente da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais intitulada: Formação de professores para a Educação de Pessoas Jovens e Adultas (EPJA), no Brasil e no Chile: Um estudo comparado entre a Região de Valparaíso e o Estado da Bahia. Neste texto, nos limitamos em apresentar os dados que foram produzidos no período de estágio doutoral realizado no Chile. Considerando que a pesquisa acadêmica sobre a EPJA nesse país é incipiente e mantém uma relação direta com a pouca relevância que tem sido dada a essa modalidade enquanto política pública, o estudo em tela possibilitou coletar e sistematizar dados para análise, interpretação e comparação a partir da perspectiva metodológica da educação comparada, numa abordagem panorâmica sobre a trajetória recente da EPJA no país quanto a suas concepções, finalidades e inserção no âmbito da política educacional chilena. Evidenciamos que a perspectiva certificadora da EPJA no Chile acompanha as bases ideológicas da política neoliberal assumida pelo Estado, levando a crer que a modalidade deve cumprir apenas com a finalidade de integrar seus sujeitos ao mundo do trabalho e garantir a empregabilidade.

Puzzling Politics: A Methodology for Turning World-Systems Analysis Inside-Out

Can world-systems analysis illuminate politics? Can it help explain why illiberal regimes, outsider parties, and anti-immigrant rhetoric seem to be on the rise? Can it help explain any such nationalchanges that seem destined to shift how nations relate to world markets? Leading surveys of historical sociology seem to say no. We disagree. While there are problems with Wallerstein’s early mode of analyzing politicsin the capitalist world-system from the outside-in, historical sociologists have been too quick to dismiss world-systems analysis. We propose an alternative inside-out approach anchored in a methodology for selecting what to study: those national political transformations which constitute puzzling instances within a given world-historical political process. We recommend promising theoretical lineages to guide empirical research on the selected puzzle: those that specify the elite social bases of politics. We thereby turn world-systems analysis inside-out. Our inside-out approach advances the project of world-systems analysis as a methodology, rather than a theoretical prescription in several ways. First, it addresses an important but largely overlooked question: how to select what to study. Second, it devises a methodology that can, but does not have to, pair with the methodology of incorporated comparisons. Third, it offers a methodology that stimulates, rather than forecloses, theoretical flexibility and fresh interpretations of politics and the world-economy. We illustrate the strengths of this new approach with three books, two of which won the best book award from ASA’s Political Economy of the World System (PEWS) Section.

The political economy of legal titling

The libertarian case for legal titling is that formalization of the economic (de facto) rights of those who own land and buildings improves prospects for capitalism and, ultimately, development. Although all rich countries have private property rights, we argue that the success of legal titling depends on a certain kind of state—what we call a property-protecting state—that is often missing in developing countries. We use insights from Austrian economics, public choice, and institutional economics to clarify the political basis for legal titling to improve land tenure security. Evidence from Afghanistan shows that legal titling has not worked because the country does not have a property-protecting state. We suggest focusing on improving political institutions before investing in legal titling. In the meantime, it makes more sense to register land ownership at the community level, without the state.

The Political Economy of Legal Titling

The libertarian case for legal titling is that formalization of the economic (de facto) rights of those who own land and buildings improves prospects for capitalism and, ultimately, development. Although all rich countries have private property rights, we argue that the success of legal titling depends on a certain kind of state — what we call a property-protecting state — that is often missing in developing countries. We use insights from Austrian economics, public choice, and institutional economics to clarify the political basis for legal titling to improve land tenure security. Evidence from Afghanistan shows that legal titling has not worked because the country does not have a property-protecting state. We suggest focusing on improving political institutions before investing in legal titling. In the meantime, it makes more sense to register land ownership at the community level, without the state.

Exploring the future of the bioeconomy: An expert-based scoping study examining key enabling technology fields with potential to foster the transition toward a bio-based economy

As new technologies based on renewable raw materials and biological principles are becoming available, bioeconomic transformation could help to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, bioeconomic transformation is not necessarily sustainable. To design effective enabling and regulatory governance frameworks for bio-based transformation, policy makers have to identify potentially game-changing future technologies and assess associated sustainability gains and risks. Drawing on the concept of key enabling technologies (KETs) put forward by the European Commission (EC) in 2009, this paper defines KETs for the bioeconomy. Based on an international expert survey, we identified KET criteria for bioeconomic transformation and developed overarching super-categories describing technology pathways and criteria dimensions according to the existing society–environment–economy triangle. In this way, this study contributes not only in providing advice allowing new technologies to foster but also in elucidating relationships between the regional origin and the perceived future of bio-based technology development. Moreover, bioeconomy KET visions from different stakeholders have been analyzed, thus providing a basis for future technology research, evaluation, politics, and management.

Connecting power to protection: The political bases of language commissioners in Canada

AbstractThis article explores the connection between the strength of Canadian federal, provincial and territorial language regimes and the political power of the underlying language group. Although such regimes should ideally be constructed to defend languages that are vulnerable, they are more often based on the ability of a language group to organize politically to win the laws they want. Thus, many small linguistic groups, such as those in Nunavut, benefit from very strong protections given their demographic weight in the territory, while there are weaker protections for the Franco‐Ontarians, who are only a small minority in their province. Ultimately power matters a great deal in Canada when it comes to linguistic protection.

Hydraulic Mission at Home, Hydraulic Mission abroad? Examining Turkey’s Regional ‘Pax-Aquarum’ and Its Limits

Water resource development has always been considered as a strategic tool by the Turkish ruling elites to reach food and energy security, as well as to enhance domestic peace and stability since the foundation of the Republic of Turkey. Therefore, the concept of “hydraulic mission” fits this strategic understanding, and it has become a prevailing paradigm in Turkey’s water resource development. Many academic works have already been conducted to understand how Turkey has waged an ambitious hydraulic mission by securitizing its water resource development primarily on economic and political bases. However, fewer studies have shown how the Turkish ruling elites have also considered Turkey’s extensive hydraulic development, sanctioned by the hydraulic mission, as a foreign policy tool to enhance its influence at the international level. Drawing primarily upon the concept of opportunitisation and the body of literature that looks at, albeit indirectly, the international aspect of the hydraulic mission, this study fills this gap in the literature by looking at three case studies: The Southeastern Anatolian Project (GAP), the Water Export Initiatives to the Middle East, and the Water Transfer Project to Cyprus, namely the Peace Water Project. Being informed by an in-depth investigation of those three case studies, this study argues that ambitious hydraulic development projects conducted by the Turkish government do not only serve to keep peace and stability at the domestic level, but they are also strategic tools to enhance Turkey’s influence abroad. However, this study also shows the limits of Turkey’s hydraulic mission abroad. While Turkey promotes those water initiatives as tools for improving regional peace and stability, they are challenged by the recipient countries on social, economic, and political bases.

Where Is Putinism Leading Russia?

Where Is Putinism Leading Russia? Mark N. Katz (bio) Brian Taylor's The Code of Putinism is an insightful book that examines the motivations of Vladimir Putin and his associates, describes the means by which they have ruled, assesses how successfully Putinism has been in both the domestic and the foreign policy realms, and analyzes the sustainability of Putinism. Unlike Marxism-Leninism, which was an explicit ideology, Taylor describes Putinism as a mentality, or code, consisting of not just ideas (such as great-power statism, anti-Westernism and anti-Americanism, and conservatism or anti-liberalism) but also habits (such as control, order, unity or anti-pluralism, loyalty, and hypermasculinity) and even emotions (including desiring respect but feeling humiliated by the West, resentment, and vulnerability or fear) (pp. 10–11, 20, 30, 35). Taylor emphasizes that Putinism is a mentality held by both Putin himself and the ruling elites who support him. Putinism also has a broad following among the Russian public. Putin, though, is very much at the center of it all through his control of the formal mechanisms of government, the often competing informal clans and networks, and the petroleum- and mineral-extraction enterprises that provide the bulk of Russia's—and the elites'—income. The pursuit of Putinism, along with rising oil prices, helped Russia achieve impressive economic growth during Putin's first two terms in office (2000–2008), but it has since produced economic stagnation (p. 128). Even so, Russia has punched above its weight in the foreign policy realm (especially since Putin's return to the presidency in 2012), as shown by Moscow's successes in annexing Crimea in 2014, supporting secessionism in eastern Ukraine beginning in 2014, intervening in Syria since 2015, and contributing to domestic doubt and uncertainty in the United States through interference in the 2016 presidential elections (see chap. 6). The book argues that with economic growth increasingly difficult to obtain due to sanctions, lower oil prices, and corruption, Putin has become more and more reliant on the foreign policy realm to achieve the successes that Putinism needs to sustain public support and its own self-image. Putin may be preparing the ground for [End Page 90] another such foreign policy "success" in Belarus. However, Taylor casts doubt on Moscow's ability to continue punching above its weight in the face of likely continued economic stagnation, poor relations with the West, and a rising China. Throughout the book, Taylor emphasizes that Putinism is not just how Putin himself thinks but also the mentality of the government, security service, and economic elites that support him. The question that arises, then, is whether Putinism will outlast Putin. The pervasiveness of the Putinist mindset within the ruling elite suggests that it will, but past experience with leadership changes in Tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia suggests that it might not. This is because each new leader who has lasted for any significant period has reversed important aspects of the previous leader's policies. Alexander III put a complete stop to the liberalization efforts pursued by Alexander II. Unlike Alexander III, Nicholas II allowed for some liberalization after 1905, although more out of necessity than choice. Lenin eliminated the tsarist elite and dramatically reoriented the basis of politics and economics in Russia. Stalin ended Lenin's New Economic Policy. Khrushchev pulled back from and denounced Stalin's use of terror. Brezhnev ended Khrushchev's "reforms." Gorbachev sought to reform Brezhnev's "stagnation." Yeltsin pursued more thoroughgoing reforms than did Gorbachev. Putin halted Yeltsin's liberalization and pursued his own brand of authoritarian modernization. Given this pattern, it would not be surprising if the leader who eventually replaces Putin dramatically alters Putin's policies as well. (One of the ways we knew that Medvedev was not really supplanting Putin during his 2008–12 presidency was that he did not alter Putin's policies much.) And just as a shared Marxist-Leninist ideology did not prevent policy changes from one leader to the next during the Soviet era, continuing to share a Putinist mentality might not prevent a successor from altering Putin's policies either. Of course, Putin might not actually be replaced until his current term expires...

The First Political Memorandum of Francis Bacon

The outstanding English thinker of the late 16th — the first quarter of the 17th centuries Francis Bacon (1561—1626) in scientific research and teaching materials is represented mainly as a philosopher, the founder of empiricism, etc. At the same time F. Bacon was not only a philosopher, but the largest political theorist and figure of the new European period, whose ideas are still relevant. The first evidence of F. Bacon's entry into politics is his remarkable political Memorandum — “Letter of advice to Queen Elizabeth”, written by him in the mid-1580s at the age of about twenty-three years. This document presents a detailed and reasonable assessment of both domestic political, ideological and socio-economic relations in the English society, and a thorough analysis of external threats to the English state, outlined ways to strengthen the security of England. As the analysis of the letter shows, already in his youth F. Bacon considered the achievement of peace, harmony and stability as the ideological and political basis of the state. It is not a coincidence that later the concept of social harmony has become a key element of all its theoretical and practical political activities that serve the sustainable development of English society.

Rent, Interest, Profit


 This paper advances the case for the abolition of rent, interest, and profit. Rent, interest, and profit often appear perfectly normal for those living and working in capitalist economies, and are made to look normal in capitalist economics, the media, the capitalist state, and more generally by those who benefit from these forms of income without working. Because of the basic systemic violence on which they rest, however, rent, interest, and profit also produce resentment, criticism, refusal, and, at times, organised resistance. Systematic political organisation against the practices of rent, interest, and profit has been and should still be at the basis of Left politics. By this same measure, almost all so-called ‘Left’ parliamentary parties in Aotearoa New Zealand and elsewhere have given up the game. What is developed here is not another lament about what has been lost. Rather, this paper seeks to give some conceptual clarity to the need to organise politically, with a clear intent of victory, against rent, interest, and profit.

Современная политическая основа российско-бразильских отношений

The main purpose of the article is the analysis of the modern political basis of Russia-Brazil relations. In this context, the authors analyze the most important aspects of bilateral Russia-Brazil visits at the highest level and working visits, as well as their contribution to the strengthening of the political basis of relations between the two states. First off, these visits concern the strategic dialogue between Russia and Brazil on the fundamental foreign policy issues, such as joint struggle against new challenges and threats; coordination of efforts to maintain international security; establishing a system of international relations based on the principles of international law and the coordinating role of the United Nations. Moreover, this article aims to define the main aspects of meetings of political leaders of Russia and Brazil within international organizations and associations (the United Nations, Group of Twenty, BRICS). Thus bilateral Russia-Brazil visits at the highest and high levels, working visits, as well as meetings within international organizations and associations contribute to the strengthening and further development of the strategic partnership between the two states and intensify cooperation in all areas of inter-state interaction: politics, economy, the sphere of culture and so on. In addition, the authors note that modern Russia-Brazil political relations have multivector perspectives. The article contains summary that conforms to the purpose of the study.

Frank Ankersmit and Hayden White on the Politics of Historical Representation

AbstractWe do not learn from the past nor from possible analogies between the past and the present. Rather we learn from representations of the past and the insights they offer, for those insights allow us to adopt the political and moral values that we need to plan a future course of action. It follows, so Frank Ankersmit argues, that aesthetics in its sense as a general theory of representation precedes ethics. This essay is concerned with this bold and important thesis. It will do so in the context of the politics of historical representation and the fact–value and subjectivity–objectivity distinctions. The subject was also dear to the heart of Ankersmit’s late American colleague Hayden White. Ankersmit is concerned with how historical representations support a future course of action. White, by contrast, was (also) concerned with how historical representations limit a future course of action since they cannot serve as a basis for utopian politics.