Divided Societies Research Articles

Contesting Consociationalism in Bosnia–Herzegovina and Lebanon: Exploring Differences in Protest Frames

This paper contributes to theorizing how citizens articulate discontent with consociational politics in divided societies by offering a comparative analysis of protest frames across popular movements in Bosnia–Herzegovina and Lebanon. It first detects central differences in how protesters criticize the system, propose alternative politics, and construct collective identities. It then argues that these divergences in frames can be understood with reference to the territorial and political nature of divisions in Bosnia–Herzegovina and Lebanon, which pose different restrictions on framing choices. Simultaneously, it suggests we should be careful not to understand frames as determined by institutional frameworks.

Digital contention in a divided society: Social media, parades, and protests in Northern Ireland

Digital contention in a divided society: Social media, parades, and protests in Northern Ireland

The Critical Role of Perceived Academic Institutional Support among Students in a Divided Society

Abstract Background To promote health equity, nursing schools must foster student diversity and develop future nurses’ abilities to care for patients from different backgrounds. Although academic experiences play an essential role in promoting multiculturalism, in Israel, where the Jewish-Arab divide is deep and central, this could be challenging. This study examined the attitudes of Israeli Jewish and Arab nursing students concerning their interactions across group lines. Methods In December 2022, 362 undergraduate students completed a survey on the association between cultural intelligence (CQ), satisfaction with the college’s support, and intergroup social interaction. Results The findings revealed that (1) Arab students (minority group) demonstrated higher CQ, especially regarding awareness of cultural differences and motivation for intercultural encounters; (2) Arab students perceived the intergroup encounter with Jewish students as closer and warmer than Jewish students; (3) Arab students’ satisfaction with the college’s support was higher than that of Jewish students; (4) Structural Equation Modeling revealed that (χ2/df=1.61, CFI=.970, TLI=.955, NFI=.927, RMSEA=.041) the support provided by the educational academic setting serves as a primary explanatory factor in the association between CQ and social distance. Conclusions Educational institutions should ensure their students feel supported to facilitate closer social interactions. This emphasizes the importance of proactive measures to encourage diversity and cultural competence in nursing education. Such efforts may positively impact the students’ mental health and enhance patient care. Key messages • To foster student social interaction in divided societies, academia must ensure a high sense of support. • Proactive nursing education promoting diversity and cultural competence may benefit student mental health and patient care.

How to Exhibit Competing Narratives: Confronting Legacies of Conflict or Sustaining Social Cleavages?

This contribution explores how museums contribute to or degrade peaceful relations in divided societies in light of ongoing disputes at the cultural-symbolic level. The case concerns the autonomous province of South Tyrol (Italy), which successfully settled a minority conflict. This inquiry into how museums confront historical legacies and persisting conflict-related tensions sheds light on the interplay between cultural expressions, institutions, and the socio-political landscape. Looking at three representative museum/exhibitions, we identify specific elements and strategies that either recontextualize debates or sustain divisive understandings of the minority conflict. We argue that museums/exhibitions play a critical role in the aftermath of conflict in ways that affect social cohesion and stability.

The Effects of Identity Politics on Security in Baringo County, Kenya

Identity politics have been found to create divisions in societies with multiple ethnic communities due to varied cultural and ethnic dynamics leading to insecurity. Baringo County, situated in Kenya's North Rift Valley region, h hosts different ethnic communities and has historically grappled with protracted conflicts. However, there has been limited research exploring the effects of identity politics and the county's security landscape. This study sought to investigate the effect of identity politics on security in Baringo County. This study employed a descriptive survey design utilizing a mixed methods approach for data collection. The target population was comprised residents of Baringo County who had resided there for at least ten years. The findings from the two sets of tools were triangulated to obtain a thick description on the relationship between cultural dynamic and security. This study found that, identity politics had negative effects on security in Baringo County, Kenya manifested four pathways which were: fragmentation and polarization of communities, conflict and violence between communities, radicalization and extremism community members and diversion of resources from the localities. The findings demonstrated that these aspects mutually reinforced each other creating an environment of hostilities that led to violent conflicts. Therefore, rather than unite to fight challenges faced in development, identity politics created fissures whose end result is insecurity thus denying residents peace. To enhance peaceful coexistence there is need to address the underlying issues that that encouraged ethnic diversionary politics and instead embrace inclusivity to enhance unity in the region.

Legitimacy and Deeply Embedded Core Normative Values in Different Social Groups

Core normative value theory asserts that perceptions of the legitimacy of law enforcement authorities are not just a product of these agencies’ conduct and performance, but are also based on deeply embedded ideological worldviews. This study further tests the theory, exploring the diverse relationships between values and legitimacy in multicultural societies. We use Israel’s highly divided society as a case study. Our data were derived from a survey among a representative sample of more than 1,600 Israelis from seven social groups—mainstream Jews, ultra-Orthodox Jews, Jewish residents of the occupied territories, immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Druze, Muslims, and Arab Christians. The results point to significant differences in levels of the core normative values and legitimacy across the seven groups, and differences between the groups in associations between the values and legitimacy, controlling for socio-demographic variables. The findings support the main premises of the theory.

The Longitudinal Relationship Between Youth Intergroup Contact and Social Cohesion Outcomes in Two Divided Societies

ABSTRACTIntergroup contact has long been established as a prejudice‐reduction tool in divided societies, with contact being particularly effective during adolescence. A large proportion of evidence, however, draws on cross‐sectional surveys or analytical approaches that do not distinguish between‐ and within‐person effects. In the present research, we address this by exploring the potential of intergroup contact longitudinally on social cohesion–related outcomes amongst youth (aged 14–19) in Belfast (Study 1, N = 231) and Bradford (Study 2, N = 159). Measures included intergroup contact, outgroup attitudes, intergroup anxiety, outgroup empathy and outgroup prosocial behaviour across three time points. Using random‐intercept cross‐lagged panel models, results demonstrate between‐person associations of contact with our outcomes, but limited within‐person changes. Our findings demonstrate the potential and limitations of intergroup contact for social cohesion–related outcomes for youth growing up in divided societies, pointing to the need for developmental‐focused future research.

When Our History Meets Their History: Strategies Young People in Serbia Use to Coordinate Conflicting Group Narratives

ABSTRACTWhen a multiethnic state, such as the former Yugoslavia, dissolves in a violent ethnic‐based conflict, new generations grow up on one‐sided historical narratives. While there is plenty of evidence of how appropriating such narratives delegitimises outgroups, studies on how young people coordinate diverse group narratives are lacking. To address this issue, we explored promotive strategies young majority group members use in building a more inclusive historical understanding of two conflicting (majority and minority) narratives. The sample consisted of ten pairs of ethnic Serb high school seniors with a task to jointly build one common narrative of two one‐sided narratives adapted from post‐conflict textbooks of majority (Serb) and minority (Bosniak) ethnic groups. We used step‐by‐step dialogical analysis of semantic promoters in participants' interactions to capture how ingroup and outgroup perspectives are collaboratively positioned. Our results suggest that participants use various cognitive, affective, identity and value‐based strategies to coordinate conflicting perspectives. The identified promotive strategies can help in developing evidence‐based educational materials and teaching environments, especially in post‐conflict and divided societies.

Mourning and orienting to the future in a liminal occasion: (Re)defining British national identity after Queen Elizabeth II's death.

In this paper, we conceptualize the days of mourning that followed the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. as constituting a liminal occasion, a moment of in-betweenness through which we can explore sense-making in times of transition. How do people navigate through liminal occasions, and are they always transformative? Through a rapid response ethnography (Ninterviews = 64, Nparticipants = 122), we were able to capture the raw moments within which a collective comes together, as part of a national ritual, to transition from 'here' to 'there'. In our data, liminality prompted participants to strategically define British national identity and its future by positioning the Queen as representative of Britishness, her loss as a national identity loss. No longer taken for granted, participants reasserted the value of the monarchy as an apolitical and unifying feature in an otherwise divided society, characterizing the continuity of the institution as an essential part of British identity and society. The analysis illustrates how liminality offers a useful conceptual tool for addressing how temporality and change are negotiated in relation to a shared identity, and how navigating transitional moments brings with it political implications for the future.

Charged-particle transport in high energy density plasmas

This Special Topic Collection grew out of two gatherings of researchers active in the high energy density (HED) physics community: a mini-conference on charged-particle transport in HED plasma held during the 64th annual meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Plasma Physics (Spokane, WA, November 2022) and a dedicated charged-particle transport coefficient code comparison workshop (Livermore, CA, July 2023). These gatherings provided opportunities for theoretical, computational, and experimental researchers to discuss the state of the field, including current capabilities and methods, needs of hydrodynamic simulations, and frontiers for future research. This special issue collects a total of 13 research and review articles on charged-particle transport in HED plasmas.

Catholic Christians reject Protestants’ criticism and retaliate in their prayers

Christianity pledges the peaceful acceptance of attacks but elicited numerous intergroup conflicts. This contradiction may arise from basic group-processes, including the rejection of intergroup criticism. Catholic Christians (Experiment 1, N = 322, online; Experiment 2, N = 252 in-person survey during Church activities) responded to criticism of their faith that was either attributed to a fellow Catholic or a Protestant commenter. Criticism from a Protestant (vs. Catholic) source was rated to be less constructive, more threatening, and ascribed worse commenter characteristics. Outgroup criticism did not change support for the unity of Christians (ecumenism, Experiment 1) but increased the likelihood of praying for the commenter (Experiment 2). The content of outgroup-directed prayers was hostile. Effects emerged independent of reported fundamentalism and in a context highly conducive to inter-denomination debate. These findings demonstrate that religious group processes can evoke counter-normative defenses, thus spurring conflict. Understanding these processes may help mend divided societies.

Cleavages and identities in the changing landscape of world politics

The article advocates updating the research concerning divided societies and complexly organized states. It addresses the genesis and advancement of complex identities of social actors and political agency. The discussion focuses on the correlation between the structuration and content saturation of identities. The use of operational interfaces from fundamental distinctions to various kinds of divides, demarcations and polarizations leaves still unresolved the problem of qualitative parameters of identities, and ways to represent and analyze them. Innovative approaches developed by Russian political scientists take into account the relationship between the processes of world development and the identity of its development drivers and agency from individual political actors to complex social movements. The article shows that the effective deployment of the respective research program requires not only external accounting of the temporal parameters, but full integration of modern evolutionary approaches into their methodology. It is necessary to overcome the usual interpretations of identity in the singular as an abstract universal idea. Equally it is necessary to move to the study of the complex interaction of the acting forces of development and the formation of a dynamic flow of individual and mutual identifications in the plural. To this end, it is suggested not only to update the Rokkanian paradigm of demarcations by expanding the set of distinctions and making the whole structure more dynamic, but also to use the possibilities of extended evolutionary synthesis.

Prospects of Artificial Intelligence in the Annihilation of Caste

The masquerading effect of caste has engulfed the social structure in such a way that the myth associated with it has perked up in the ideas of existence, making it a reality regulating day-to-day affairs of interaction. Most of the time, it is considered a functional prerequisite. The stratification associated with it has conformity emanating from the acceptance of the identity, which is not evading even after migrating to foreign countries to participate and be part of the capitalist mode of production. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a creation of the human mind. Caste is also a creation of the human mind. Technology has always paved the way for the betterment of society if used properly. Caste practices have always divided society and contaminated the public sphere with divisive manifestations of their stronghold in influencing social processes and policies. Annihilation of caste was the published work of Dr B. R. Ambedkar in the year 1936, and still the content and the context are seen in society. In the backdrop of this, the article engages with the role (if any) of AI in mitigating the divisions in society. The readers are already aware of the repercussions of the caste system since time immemorial. The diffusion of technology has always been trying to be inclusive, depending on the socio-economic aspect of any society. Industrialization along with the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution has rendered several avenues and opportunities for the so-called lower caste people to come forward and amalgamate themselves with the so-called upper caste people in the socio- economic process. The article discusses the prospect of the annihilation of caste by the influence of AI. It also engages in discussing caste as a main component of individual and community identity, which has become immune to any form of change in society. The article is based on available secondary sources.

Social Identity and Voting Behavior in a Deeply Divided Society: The Case of Israel

This paper examines what best explains political behavior in a deeply divided society. Despite the democratic nature of the Israeli political system, we suggest that Israel’s society is characterized by social affiliations mainly defined by social identity that include race, ethnicity, and religion and amount to tribalism. Based on the results of the 2020 election, we examined whether these social affiliations or other socioeconomic characteristics better explain voting behavior. First, we found a significant correlation between tribalism and voting behavior in Israel and socioeconomic characteristics and voting behavior in Israel. When comparing tribalism’s correlation versus other socioeconomic characteristics, we found that the correlation between tribalism and voting behavior in Israel trumps the correlation between socioeconomic characteristics and voting behavior in Israel, except for the Ashkenazi Jews. In other words, voting behavior is better explained by affiliation to the social group, that is, by kinship, race, ethnicity, and religion, than by other socioeconomic characteristics such as education level, economic status, or geographic location. This extends the idea of “in-group favoritism”.

DEVELOPING CRITICAL THINKING AND CYBERSECURITY LITERACY SKILLS AHEAD OF THE 2024 ELECTION FOR STUDENTS AT VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL OF AL BADAR IN TULUNGAGUNG

The spread of information in the digital media tends to include fake news. Ahead of the 2024 election, hoax is distributed for the certain political interests and can affect divided societies. As the novice voters who are familiar with social media, high school students become the hoax target. Therefore, a training for developing chritical thinking skill and cybersecurity literacy is required by the novice voters. The target of this training is students of Al Badar Vocational High School in Tulungagung. It aims at giving the students a skill for thinking critically towards any information. The authors organized this activity by analyzing the training needs for students, giving a critical thinking training and evaluating the training result. The authors found that the students’ level of critical thinking skill is still low. Therefore, the authors suggest the novice voters to critically check and cross-check all information.

Self-Realisation in the Awakening by Kate Chopin

Racism took a different turn in the 16th century, impacting this generation's society. Through racist beliefs and thoughts, people divided society into divisions. This study was based on racism and white people's historical oppression of black people. In this study, we examined two novels that help to analyze racism in society, and the impact of these novels on culture was also addressed. The study described slavery in the 19th century and the colonial times of Nigerian tribes. Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn offered an American perspective on racism vs. the African setting of Things Fall Apart. During the 19th century, Nigerian people faced colonization that impacted the culture and behaviour of indigenous people. In this study, different aspects of racism and the effects of racism on black people were examined. This study also showed that the British invasion forced marginalization in every element of Igbo society, ranging from traditional values to religious and gender roles; this study aims to discuss the differences in the perspective of racism by analyzing Things Fall Apart and The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn. These two pieces of literature helped to develop better concepts and aspects of racism in the social setting and highlighted the racism between white and black people.

The constitution as a law of lawmaking: Comments on Frank Michelman’s Constitutional Essentials

A crucial insight in Michelman’s ‘Constitutional Essentials’ is that constitutions may serve a justificatory or proceduralizing aim in modern liberal democracies. Yet the pervasiveness of moral disagreement – all-the-way-up; all-the-way-down – suggests, as I will argue, a democratic-experimentalist turn, which focuses on a non-hierarchical process of stakeholder deliberation and the court’s role in instigating and overseeing that process, ensuring non-domination. I believe that Frank is exactly right in arguing that a liberally justification-worthy political framework-law-in-place is normatively necessary for democratic politics to succeed in divided societies. But I want to suggest that democratic experimentalism can offer further support to this claim.

Norms prioritizing positive assessments are likely to maintain cooperation in private indirect reciprocity

Exploring the evolutionary mechanisms of cooperation in societies where reputational consensus cannot be assumed, as in divided societies, is important for understanding the basic principles of human behavior in modern societies. Indirect reciprocity provides a major explanatory mechanism, but most studies have focused on how donors, i.e., one who decides whether to donate (cooperate or help) to a recipient or do nothing, are assessed. It is natural to think that there is no consensus among assessors in our society, and there is no reason to update only donor assessments when updating assessments. We constructed an agent-based model that enables updating of both donors’ and recipients’ images. Our exhaustive simulations showed that the well analyzed assessment rules updating donors’ images are only second best to an assessment rule updating bad images in most likely for maintaining cooperative regimes. Such a social norm that prioritizes a positive assessment is considered tolerant, which is also consistent with previous studies arguing that tolerant evaluation is important in private-assessment schemes.

Rethinking Power-Sharing in Post-War Lebanon: The Case for a Pluralist and Multi-Level Research Agenda

Abstract To what extent is power-sharing theory, used as one of the key conceptual frameworks for Lebanon’s political system, still relevant for charting a way forward amid the country’s cumulative crises? This article heeds the call to position research on Lebanon’s power-sharing in a pluralist research agenda that speaks to a wider knowledge base and to a broader set of everyday policy problems. This agenda articulates itself around three axes: first, building on interdisciplinary research perspectives; second, looking at post-war Lebanon through multi-level and relational perspectives beyond the focus on power-sharing theory and “deeply divided societies” as focal paradigms for exploring conflict mitigation; and third, feeding into critical policy perspectives that probe people’s everyday struggles.

Protesting Power-Sharing: Placing the Thawra in Recent Waves of Contentious Politics

Abstract This article places the Thawra within recent waves of protest politics in so-called divided societies, particularly the Plenum (Bosnia 2014) and Tishreen (Iraq 2019) protests. It examines the thematic connections between protest waves in relation to contesting consociational power-sharing governance, which has been deployed in Lebanon, Iraq, and Bosnia in the aftermath of civil war or political violence. While protests have addressed a range of issues – corruption, weak and failing public services, and rising unemployment levels – these various strands have been successfully distilled into powerful critiques of the ethnosectarian elites who perpetuate polarization and of the system itself. Towards this, I identify three significant frames developed by protestors in relation to power-sharing: The “People” versus the “Elites”, Trans-sectarian Belonging, and Participatory Citizenship.