Political Science Research Articles

Not for us? Vocational training in the social and policy space in Sierra Leone

PurposeThis paper explores the attractiveness of TVET in Sierra Leone, a post-conflict West African country. It aims to unpack structural factors which contribute to the low repute of TVET.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses qualitative interviews with employers, government and third sector organisations, focus group discussions with young Sierra Leoneans and analysis of key government policy documents. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data, and the empirical analysis is grounded in Social Learning Theory of Career Decision Making and Social Cognitive Career Theory. The paper is interdisciplinary, drawing on literature from economics, psychology, political science and development studies.FindingsThe paper argues that TVET is in low repute in Sierra Leone owing to low prioritisation by the national government in terms of policy focus, budgetary allocations and provision of training facilities; the proliferation and continuation of a post-war style of TVET programmes by development partners which initially targeted ex-combatants and thus carry reputational baggage; and colonial legacies of preferences for university education and white-collar jobs.Originality/valueThe research contributes to the academic and policy discourse by providing new empirical insights from an under-studied country (and region), and arguably one where evidence-based policy is much needed.

Periodisation and modernity: an introduction

ABSTRACT Dividing time into separate epochs is fundamental to historical research. However, while periodisations reflect particular interpretations of political, economic, social, and cultural developments, they often rely on the concept of ‘modernity’ as a foundation. This nexus between modernity and periodisation is well-established yet deeply problematic. Pre- or non-modern times and spaces are deemed deficient and backward, as not yet modern. This bias extends to colonial and postcolonial regions, where Western historical paradigms were imposed to interpret political and social realities. Confronting these biases unveils how historians conceptualize space and time and highlights the normative assumptions embedded within different forms of periodisation. However, simply expanding the scope or timeframes of research alone does not address the dilemma. Historians do well to historicise this nexus and develop alternative approaches to writing history. The intricate relationship between periodization and modernity forms the intellectual starting point of this special issue. Originating from dialogues between medieval and modern European history, this issue aims to critically reevaluate classical periodisation models and explore alternative paradigms. By integrating contributions from scholars of medieval, early modern, modern, and contemporary European history, this issue bridges previously separated debates, promotes a comprehensive understanding of historical temporalities and challenges established historiographical norms.

Procedural containment vs. substantive entrenchment: two early models of militant democracy

ABSTRACT German lawyer and political scientist Karl Loewenstein is generally regarded as the originator of the militant democracy paradigm. In a series of articles in the mid and late 1930s, he argued that constitutional democracies should pre-emptively defend themselves against movements and parties that were seeking to undermine them. More recently, another father of the paradigm has been identified in the controversial figure of Carl Schmitt. Before his despicable and opportunistic support for the Nazi regime at the end of 1933, he advocated a model of authoritarian democracy based on fundamental constitutional contents that should be made impervious to legislative change. This article examines the different models of disciplined and authoritarian democracy proposed by these authors. While both advocated measures that could inhibit the activity of parliamentary majorities composed mainly of parties opposed to the state constitutional structure, Schmitt, more than Loewenstein, made the point that the defence of democracy requires subscribing to substantive values and principles and entrenching them. The juxtaposition of these models makes it clear that militant democracy not only recommends the protection of certain procedures but also entails a normative standard comprising substantive contents. This helps to highlight the unstated normative burdens of democratic militancy.

Embracing the politics of transformation: Policy action as “battle‐settlement events”

AbstractSocietal transformations for addressing climate change are intensely contested and at risk of resistance and backlash to ambitious policy action. But they are frequently modeled through heuristics such as S‐curves which abstract from such conflicts, assuming increasing returns to scale as a driver of transformations. This is the case even while scholars accept the presence of political conflict in transformation processes. Within political science and allied disciplines, the notions of policy feedback and policy coalitions have been deployed to understand how such political conflicts may be understood. But these approaches risk gravitating toward an instrumental design impulse that inadvertently downplays conflict. We argue that policy action for societal transformations should be re‐conceptualized as an unfolding series of battle‐settlement events whereby heated episodic political struggles over a certain policy object or issue play out and eventually settle in ways that structure future debates while nonetheless remaining indeterminate and open to challenge or reversal. Such an approach reflects the varied empirical experiences of climate policy action to date which include both accumulation and reversal. It also helps explain trajectories of change that are discontinuous and lurching in contrast to common images of transformation as progressive and cumulative. We illustrate this approach through two cases of unfolding societal transformation on climate change: coal phaseout in the United Kingdom and renewable energy uptake in Australia.

Lived-through Experience, Multi-perspective Methodology, Contentious Polysemy: Challenges in the Study of Vulnerability

AbstractThe article concludes the special section on vulnerability. By reflecting on the arguments in and the convergences between the contributions to the preceding trialogue, it outlines three key challenges in vulnerability research. Across disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological boundaries, the contributions agree in their criticism of negative, individualistic, and/or essentialist conceptualizations of vulnerability; instead, they call for a non-dualist, pluralist, and participative approach to vulnerability that takes the lived-through experience of individuals as its starting point. Based on this decision, the challenges arise of (1) how to conceptualize and identify the structures of lived-through experiences of vulnerability and of (2) how the experiences of individuals and groups in different social positions can be collected, understood, and interpreted. The trialogue texts, we argue, provide important impulses for the development of a multi-perspective methodology, which permits to analyze vulnerability in a way that is theoretically, ethically, and methodologically appropriate. Finally, by taking lived-through experience as a starting point, the articles in this special section (3) contribute to a better understanding of the contentious polysemy of the term vulnerability. By analyzing the constitutive ambivalence and ambiguity of experiences of vulnerability as well as the difficulties of intersubjective communicability, the contributions help to understand why articulations of vulnerability are often vague and why vulnerability can be politically instrumentalized. In this way, the comprehensive understanding of vulnerability (e.g., as positive and negative, enabling and inhibiting), promoted in the trialogue, also becomes a means of moral and political criticism.

Nächster Halt Kohlendioxid-Entnahme? Die deutsche Klimapolitik als riskanter Weg zu negativen Emissionstechnologien

AbstractBoth the global and the German climate targets are ambitious given recent emission reduction rates. In addition to emission reduction measures, carbon dioxide removal has been increasingly discussed recently and initial measures have been developed to potentially scale-up carbon removals in order to meet net zero targets. In this article, we undertake a political economy-based analysis of the historical development and structural conditions of German climate policy measures and their enabling role for the emergence and strengthening of carbon dioxide removal policy options. We refer to regulation theory and the Modell Deutschland approach and argue that within this model the concept of ecological modernization has been established as the dominant approach to regulate society-nature relations. In light of the ambitious climate policy goals, such as net zero by 2045, ecological modernization reaches its current limits and must be recalibrated. Against this background, we conclude by discussing the risk of mitigation deterrence associated with carbon dioxide removals and considering alternative pathways, such as degrowth, to social ecological transformation.

Towards an exclusionary social contract: Narratives of a revanchist city in (post)war Syria

ABSTRACT This article asks to what extent national narratives drive changes in social contracts on both national and local level. Societal and especially state actors can use narratives to underline or omit specific rights and duties in social contracts, or to privilege particular contracting parties. In the Syrian case, repression and foreign intervention triggered changes in the national social contract, yet the exclusionary narrative functioned as a catalyst for these changes and entrenched them on both, the national and the city level. We show that housing, land and property (HLP) policies in (post-)war Damascus have an urban scope but a national impact. Not only wartime destruction but also post-war demolition have been particularly high in selected neighbourhoods and (re-)construction favoured upscale urban mega projects. This approach to urban planning reflects an exclusionary national narrative, which stigmatizes parts of the population as ‘terrorists’ and suspects them of stirring up public disorder. In consequence, these groups are marginalized or even ‘evicted’ from the social contract. For those Syrians still covered by the social contract, the narrative seeks to offer a justification for the large-scale exclusion of fellow citizens. Our analysis is based on an extensive review of literature from human geography, with a focus on the physical and social urban fabric, and political science, on intra-societal power relations.

Peran Komunitas Online Dalam Membangun Preferensi Merek Otomotif Jepang (Studi Netnografi Pada Grup Facebook Motuba)

The purpose of this research is to determine the role of online communities in building preferences for Japanese automotive brands (netnographic study of the Motuba Facebook group) (student study at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Singaperbangsa University, Karawang). Japanese popular culture, or what is often called J-pop culture, is a global phenomenon that attracts the attention of many people in various countries, including Indonesia. The qualitative research design used in this study is a netnographic study. This approach allows researchers to understand and analyze interactions, behavior and community dynamics in depth through participant observation in online environments. An interview with Mbah Mikael Bekti revealed that the Motuba group is a relatively new community for him, but members tend to have a preference for Japanese automotive brands due to personal experience and affordable prices. Communication within the group occurs directly through the comments feature, with little use of special terms or symbols.

A critical analysis of TERF politics in South Korea: The contradictory constructions of “Western feminism” and its legitimizing effects

ABSTRACT This paper investigates how the Korean TERF movement constructs and positions itself in relation to “Western feminism” to legitimize its anti-trans ideology. Since 2018, Korean TERF discourses have been shaped by factors including the understanding of Korea’s relationship to the West within the movement and the movement’s self-proclaimed identity as feminist outside the West. This process allows the movement to build a “rational” framework to distinguish the characteristics of various “feminist” movements worldwide from itself. Korean TERFs arbitrarily critique “First World Western feminism” for endorsing “gender theory” based on Western privileges. Simultaneously, they break down the category of Western feminism into “US feminism,” tainted by “gender ideology,” and “UK feminism,” opposing this ideology. Through these contradictory strategies, they assert superiority over “US feminism” while acknowledging “UK feminism” as a reference for possible solidarity. This study highlights that TERFism outside Western societies, which has imported “transgender debates” from Anglophone and European discourses, connects to and defines the West in various ways. By showing how Korean TERFs insert themselves within a global conversation rather than constructing an opinion in isolation, this paper underscores the need for a multi-located global framework to critique TERF and anti-trans movements in the non-West and Korea specifically.

The Opportunities and Challenges of Teaching Political Science in a Small Island Developing State: The Case of Mauritius

Political Science is a relatively new subject in the Mauritian academic context. As a small island developing state located in the Indian Ocean, it has many interesting features from which to draw to teach the discipline. These features include the ethnic and cultural diversity of its population; the island’s political stability in a geographical region known for recurrent political violence; its curious power-sharing model and its strategic location in the Indian Ocean magnified by the vastness of its Exclusive Economic Zone and contested territories. All these provide a uniquely stimulating intellectual context for teaching and researching about politics. However, teaching Political Science in Mauritius involves grappling with several complexities such as developing students’ critical thinking skills and limited academic exchanges with international scholars due to the remoteness of the island itself. Moreover, as other African universities, the question of decolonizing the curriculum is relevant in the Mauritian context as the discipline remains highly western centric.

Ethnic identity centrality across the adult lifespan: Aging, cohort, and period effects among majority and minority group members.

Ethnic identity is a major area of study across many disciplines including psychology, sociology, anthropology, and political science. Yet, little is known about changes in ethnic identity across the adult lifespan, and whether such changes are driven by normal aging processes (aging effects), unique societal influences linked with one's formative years (cohort effects), or social changes during a specific time frame (period effects). We address these key oversights by utilizing 13 annual waves of longitudinal panel data from a nationwide random sample of both ethnic majority (N = 49,660) and Indigenous ethnic minority (N = 8,325) group members in New Zealand to examine changes in ethnic identity centrality using cohort-sequential latent growth modeling. This approach helps to identify changes in mean levels of ethnic identity centrality over time and whether such changes are driven by aging, cohort, and/or period effects. Our data reveal that, among both ethnic majority and ethnic minority individuals, changes in ethnic identity centrality were informed by a combination of normative aging processes, societal circumstances that reflected the unique historical context in which people grew to maturity, and societal changes during the 13 annual assessments of our study. Collectively, these results demonstrate for the first time that ethnic identity centrality in adulthood is subject to lifelong changes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

State co-optation as habitus: Guatemala’s elite-driven pathway to a criminal state

ABSTRACT Ideas of state co-optation and corruption feature heavily in Latin American debates as scholars examine how elite factions and organized crime networks capture institutional operations. Based on the case of Guatemala I signal shortcomings in this actor-focused literature and propose alternative ways to theorize elite formations and state trajectories. I draw on Bourdieu’s concepts of social field, habitus and capital to illustrate how Guatemalan elites have subsumed the state into an exclusive field of elite interactions that mediates the competition to control institutional processes. By tracing the evolution of electoral politics and the judicial apparatus, I maintain that state co-optation must be understood in line with a historically constituted habitus and the structure of this social field, as elites attempt to preserve dominance following the transition to formal democracy. The ensuing patterns of elite interactions have allowed for emerging illicit groups to decisively influence and ‘criminalize’ the state trajectory.

Portrait of Political Science Students Based on a Questionnaire

Portrait of Political Science Students Based on a Questionnaire

Analysing the content of sport policies: disciplinary approaches and new directions

ABSTRACT Over time, there have been various important contributions that have advanced the application of different conceptual and theoretical approaches to analysing policy processes across the field of sport. On the other hand, there remains a significant gap in relation to appraising different approaches that may be used in analysis of the particular content of sport policies. This article addresses this gap through considering four distinctive disciplinary and conceptual approaches to analysing sport policy content: (i) specific sport-orientated analytic frameworks, such as the Sport Policy Factors Leading to International Sport Success (SPLISS) and the Physical Activity Environment Policy Index (PA-EPI); (ii) discourse analysis approaches; (iii) political science frameworks for analysing policy design; and (iv) theories from political philosophy. Fundamental characteristics of each approach will be considered through the article, derived from a critical appraisal of their differing utilisations in sport policy research to date and the potential contributions that each may make to future analyses of sport policy content. As a result, the article offers concluding recommendations for sport policy research which encompass expanding usage of different approaches where suited to analysis of specific types of sport policies and combining approaches where their synergies would enable more substantive analysis to be undertaken.

Visualization of global research trends and future research directions of financial performance in higher education sector using bibliometric analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to undertake a bibliometric analysis of financial performance research in of higher education sector. The study examines papers over the last 2 decades and performed performance analysis, co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling and scientific mapping.Design/methodology/approachThe study examines 616 documents retrieved from the Scopus database using bibliometric analysis, performance analysis and thematic clustering. The study looked at the scientific productivity of papers, prolific authors, most influencing papers, institutions and nations, keyword cooccurrence, thematic mapping, co-citations and authorship and country collaborations. VOS viewer was employed as a tool in the research to conduct the performance analysis and thematic clustering.FindingsThis study delves into the recent advancements in financial performance research within higher education, focusing particularly on the year 2023, characterized by a peak of productivity with 46 significant articles. Notable institutions contributing substantially to this discourse include the University of Sussex (UK), and Ratio Institute Stockholm (Sweden), each referenced 227 times. The United Kingdom has emerged as a leader in financial performance research, amassing 3,850 citations from 92 publications. Key journals driving this conversation include “Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice” and “The British Journal of Political Science.” The most cited study examines the impact of business-university partnerships on innovation and financial outcomes.”Originality/valueThis is the first study that provides a performance analysis and scientific mapping of the financial performance literature in the higher education sector. In addition, this study is the initial one to do a thorough analysis and organized representation of financial performance in the higher education sector, providing an unparalleled understanding of a hitherto uninvestigated area of academic research.

The use of categories and methods of natural sciences in jurisprudence and political science

The authors of the present article demonstrate the inaccuracy of the idea proposed by the Vienna Circle positivists that it is necessary to extend the terminology and methods of natural sciences to political and legal studies in order for these studies to produce truly scientific knowledge, which, as suggested by these positivists, should present a set of statements formalized through the usage of mathematics. The authors contend that this theoretical approach opposes natural sciences to jurisprudence and political science and therefore are incorrect. It is the authors’ stance that social sciences, including jurisprudence and political science, as well as other areas of scientific research, explore the nature. Thus, jurisprudence and political science belong to natural sciences. Accordingly, in every area of scientific research the qualities of its results are controlled by the specifics of the sphere of nature under examination. It is this sphere that dictates a choice of categories and methods employed for this examination. These categories and methods are determined by the aforesaid specifics and, as a result, are also specific. For example, this is true not only for mathematics and physics but also for jurisprudence and political science. It is worth noting that every area of research has its own, distinctive findings or scientific results produced by means of the unique system of notions and methods, utilized in the course of the research. Spheres of nature examined within separate areas of research overlap with each other. Consequently, a given area of research may adopt categories and methods of cognition that were initially devised within another area of research. However, such an adoption should be undertaken only if it leads to the achievement of original scientific results.

Network social capital as a subject of research in education

The article contains the results of a comparative analysis of the main approaches, directions and methods for studying network social capital in the social sciences and humanities in order to identify the latest and promising scientific areas in specific scientific disciplines. The article notes the growing interest of scientists from various fields – philosophers, sociologists, political scientists, economists and lawyers, teachers and psychologists in the study of the phenomenon of network social capital as a complex and multifaceted category that generates a plurality of approaches and methods for studying its genesis, types, formation mechanisms and measurement parameters. To achieve this goal, multidisciplinary and integrated approaches to research, methods of comparative analysis and classification of information, bibliographic analysis are used. On the basis of the analysis, the essential methodological foundations of the study of network social capital are revealed, the relationship of the methods used (quantitative, qualitative and mixed) with the profile of the scientific discipline that studies network social capital is shown. It is indicated that each scientific discipline brings unique ideas and methods to the study of social capital, including qualitative and quantitative, mixed methods, network analysis, experiment, etc. The author reveals the urgent need for the integration of methodological approaches and research methods of network social capital as an independent field of research based on the synthesis of ideas, concepts and principles of polydisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity.

Synthesizing perspectives: Crafting an Interdisciplinary view of social media's impact on young people's mental health.

This study explores the intricate relationship between social media usage and the mental health of young individuals by leveraging the insights of 492 UK school headteachers. It adopts a novel multidisciplinary approach, integrating perspectives from psychology, sociology, education studies, political science, philosophy, media studies, linguistics, social work, anthropology, and health sciences. The application of thematic analysis, powered by ChatGPT-4, identifies a predominantly negative perspective on the impact of social media on young people, focusing on key themes across various disciplines, including mental health, identity formation, social interaction and comparison, bullying, digital literacy, and governance policies. These findings culminated in the development of the five-factor Comprehensive Digital Influence Model, suggesting five key themes (Self-Identity and Perception Formation, Social Interaction Skills and Peer Communication, Mental and Emotional Well-Being, Digital Literacy, Critical Thinking, and Information Perception, and Governance, Policy, and Cultural Influence in Digital Spaces) to focus the impacts of social media on young peoples' mental health across primary and secondary educational stages. This study not only advances academic discourse across multiple disciplines but also provides practical insights for educators, policymakers, and mental health professionals, seeking to navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by social media in the digital era.

Extended producer responsibility in e‐waste recycling: A secure path to a sustainable future for UAE

AbstractThe effective waste management of electrical and electronic equipment gains increasing importance in the modern world. This issue is particularly relevant for the countries of the Middle East region, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE). According to the research objectives, this study employs the method of political and legal analysis. The paper investigates the features of legal regulation and implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policies in the waste management of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in the UAE. At the same time, the study aims to analyze the current environmental protection policy and assess the prospects for its development. The research also determines the development directions for the profile environmental policy regarding general priorities in the field of economic development of the country. The results of the study indicate that the country's current policy and legislative regulation in the implementation of EPR are complex and meet modern challenges.

Historical Forms and Principles of Democracy

Examines the political view and historical forms of democracy, democratic values and the democratic regime. It is impossible to give a one-sided definition of democracy - one can observe its versatility in a full reflection of its essence. If we understand it from the point of view of political science, then it manifests itself as a form of state in all its manifestations. This tradition originates from ancient political thought. The methodological basis of the study is relativity, systematicity, scientific objectivity, historical, social and other principles.