Political Divisions Research Articles

Sectarian, religious and political divisions in a professional accounting body: The case of Lebanon

This article explores how political, religious and sectarian divisions influence the functioning of the exclusive professional accounting body in Lebanon. This article shows that this body is characterised by significant divisions among different groups of members, which has ultimately politicised the electoral processes as well as the functioning of its boards, over the years. In turn, this has drawn this body into broader divisions that are historically inherent to the Lebanese society. This article illustrates that the functioning of professional accounting associations in diverse contexts entails establishing conditions under which the coexistence of different groups is protected. Whether the difference is based on religion, sect, class or gender, confrontation should not be eliminated because it organises coexistence under potentially conflicting conditions.

How natural disasters and environmental fears shape American climate attitudes across political orientation

Climate change remains a polarizing issue in the United States, with conservatives expressing greater skepticism regarding its risks. We investigate how fear shapes climate attitudes across political orientations. Utilizing data from a 2023 online survey, results support hypotheses that conservatives demonstrate lower climate concern and that fear of natural and environmental disasters increases climate concern. Interaction results show that fear of anthropogenic environmental disasters elicits greater climate concern amongst conservatives. At high levels of ecological fear, the political divisions diminish as all orientations converge on higher levels of acknowledging climate risks and causes. Practically, this relationship highlights messaging opportunities by focusing on relevant environmental threats that aid in influencing conservatives to build collective support across political divides. Theoretically, these findings challenge expectations of dominant paradigms related to threat perception and political orientation, contributing to the ongoing development of new models that more thoroughly represent the relationship between these multifaceted constructs.

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Election Postponements: Trends, Socio-Economic Effects and the Future of Nigeria’s Electoral Process

Election postponement has gradually crept into the political lexicon and is fast becoming a tradition in Nigeria’s electoral process that has sequentially marred the conduct of elections in the country as evident in 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2023 general elections among others. This has raised serious concerns as to the integrity of the electoral process and the preparedness of INEC to conduct free, fair and credible elections in the country. The essence of this paper was to assess the trends and socio-economic effects of election postponements and its impacts on Nigeria’s electoral process. The paper is historical and descriptive in nature and utilized relevant data obtained wholly from documentary sources which were analysed within the context of structural functional theory. From the analysis, it was gleaned that the electoral umpire has not learned from its previous sloppy preparations and mistakes, despite significant condemnation from Nigerians across political divides. Moreover, the paper established that security challenges, logistics inadequacies and court verdicts contributed to the postponement of elections, which resulted in severe socio-economic losses for the voting public, electoral commission, political parties, security agencies, election observers, and media outlets. Accordingly, the paper recommended, among others, that the government and other stakeholders in Nigeria’s electoral process should work to ensure that adequate pre-emptive measures are put in place in advance of future elections. Again, the Electoral Act 2022 should be amended to provide for electronic registration and voting, to accommodate Nigerians in diaspora.

Why Civilizations Collapse: The Cruciality of Social Solidarity and the Dangers of Its Absence

This essay examines the complexities of civilizational collapse, proposing that it is not a singular event but a prolonged process driven by internal conflicts and external threats. It begins by defining the concept of collapse and uses historian Jared Diamond’s perspective to analyze how internal strife, such as loss of cultural identity, conflicting ideologies, and political division, can initiate the decline of a civilization due to a fragmentation of social solidarity. The essay then uses historical examples of the Islamic and Roman Empires to illustrate the importance of social solidarity for the survival of civilizations. It also discusses the internal challenges faced by modern civilization, including issues brought about by globalization, political polarization, East-West conflicts, global supply chain shortages, and how these factors can erode solidarity, posing a risk of collapse to the contemporary “world civilization.” The essay concludes by highlighting that internal conflicts and the absence of social solidarity are the primary causes of civilizational collapse, a theory that remains relevant for understanding the challenges faced by the global civilization today.

Studying the Implementation of Equity Projects in Science Education in Divisive Political Contexts

ABSTRACTThe implementation of equity‐oriented reforms is never simply a technical matter: it involves directly engaging with the norms and politics responsible for reproducing inequitable opportunities and outcomes, and with efforts to promote educational justice. To date, there has been little research on how leaders in science education navigate the political environments of schooling to engage in equity work in their local contexts. The current political divisions within and among states regarding teaching about racial equity provide an important and timely context for such study. This study examines equity projects that science education leaders engage in and how these relate to recently passed legislation in several states regarding teaching about race and its ongoing role in shaping American society and institutions. It relies on survey data from science education leaders in 33 states, focusing on their familiarity with and involvement in different kinds of equity projects in science education, along with their perceptions of what supports and what hinders their equity‐focused work. Employing a mixed methods approach, including descriptive analysis, hierarchical linear modeling, and thematic analysis, we found that engagement in equity projects varied widely across and within states. However, in states with laws promoting equity, leaders were engaged in more racial equity‐related projects than in states with legislation that restrict discussion of matters of race, so‐called “gag orders”. These findings underscore the significance of the broader political environments in shaping science education leadership and present opportunities for researchers in the field to support leaders in navigating them.

An Efficient Fusion Network for Fake News Classification

Nowadays, it is very tough to differentiate between real news and fake news due to fast-growing social networks and technological progress. Manipulative news is defined as calculated misinformation with the aim of creating false beliefs. This kind of fake news is highly detrimental to society since it deepens political division and weakens trust in authorities and institutions. Therefore, the identification of fake news has emerged as a major field of research that seeks to validate content. The proposed model operates in two stages: First, TF-IDF is applied to an entire document to obtain its global features, and its spatial and temporal features are simultaneously obtained by employing Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers and Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory with a Gated Recurrent Unit. The Fast Learning Network efficiently classifies the extracted features. Comparative experiments were conducted on three easily and publicly obtainable large-scale datasets for the purposes of analyzing the efficiency of the approach proposed. The results also show how well the model performs compared with past methods of classification.

Countering Political Polarization Through Conscious and Unconscious Integrative Complexity

Political polarization has been growing in many countries, including the United States, within recent years. Scholars note how, if not addressed, growing trends can compromise fundamental pillars of a functioning democratic society. While efforts have grown in researching how integrative complexity can successfully mitigate polarizing tensions in political divides, there is a lack of scholarly attention on how conscious and unconscious dimensions of integrative complexity affect such processes. This article proposes a framework to ground future research in this direction as well as inform depolarizing interventions on this topic.

Effects of Armed Conflicts on The National Security of Post Conflicts States, A Case Study of Juba County in Central Equatorial State, South Sudan

This paper assessed the nature of existing armed conflicts and their effect on security management, established the influence of the local and regional dynamics of conflicts on security management and finally examined the effect of the emerging security threats on security management strategies in Juba County, South Sudan. The study was guided by two theories; Conflict Transformation and National Security theories. The study used descriptive survey research design and Purposive sampling technique to enlist 210 respondents for this study. The main method of data collection was the interview. Content analysis was used to analyze qualitative data and reported in narrative form. The study established a dichotomy of existing armed conflicts; external and internal conflicts in Central Equatorial State, South Sudan that had serious implication on both Security Management and National security. The second objective established the influence of local and regional dynamics that affected security management that included; Interlocking political and tribal division aspects of conflict, the influence of insurgents and armed cross border militia groups; greed for livestock by political elites that saw them arm their tribal militia with modern guns and military hardware for ease of livestock theft, amongst others. The third objective established the effect of several emerging security threats on Security Management strategies in Juba County, which included migrant migration for domestic and international child soldiering recruitment in the context of the on-going civil war and also for soldiering elsewhere outside the country. This paper establishes a regional policy concern that South Sudan is largely unsafe, and by implication the whole region is unlikely to be safe. This calls for an immediate action by all security stakeholders, UN agencies, Non State Actors, security pundits and think tanks to brainstorm and chart a way forward for South Sudan and the entire region.

The Moderating Role of Affective Polarization on Party Cues: The Case of the Prostitution Ban

Affective polarization is a recent yet widespread phenomenon in democracies that significantly impacts various aspects of politics. In this paper, we argue that it can also shape citizens’ political beliefs through party cues. Using a panel survey experiment in Spain, we examine the extent to which partisan signals influence citizens’ attitudes toward a non-party- branded issue, specifically the ban on prostitution, and how affective polarization moderates this effect. Our results underscore the role of affective polarization in moderating the influence of partisan cues, particularly among highly polarized individuals. These findings highlight the capacity of affective polarization not only to deepen political divisions but also to expand the scope of partisan influence to non-politicized and neutral issues, offering new insights into its potential impact on attitude formation and decision-making.

Testing the social pressure hypothesis: Does in-party social pressure reduce out-party empathy?

Empathy is considered one of the most critical components for bridging political divides and reducing animosity between political groups. Yet, empathy between political opponents is rare. There is a growing concern that partisans do not empathize with out-partisans because they feel social pressure from fellow in-partisans not to do so. This article examines this social pressure hypothesis and draws two conclusions. First, on the surface, the hypothesis seems plausible: citizens perceive fellow in-partisans as comparatively disapproving of and reluctant to engage in out-party empathy, and naïve cross-sectional analyses suggest that this perception translates into lower empathy towards out-partisans. Second, however, experimental data suggest that this relationship is not causal. Expecting disapproval from fellow in-party members for empathizing with out-partisans does not lead to a significant reduction in intentions to empathize with out-partisans. Rather, exploratory analyses suggest that social pressure by the in-party increases empathy toward out-partisans and triggers disappointment toward in-partisans. This implies that partisans can resist social pressure from the in-party and might even compensate for in-partisans' lack of out-party empathy. The results are supported by original cross-sectional and experimental survey data ( ) collected in the United States, an arguably most likely case for in-party social pressure to shape partisans' intentions. The results have important implications for understanding the causes of and viable strategies for building empathy across political divides.

Fractured Patriotism: General Tsai Ting-kai and the Divided Allegiances of Chinese Australians in the Early 1930s

Most studies of nationalism among Chinese Australians in the 1930s have focused on China or on diasporic community politics. By studying the visit of General Tsai Ting-kai to Australia in 1934–35, this article highlights the impact of China’s war with Japan on the development of Chinese diasporic nationalism. The planning of Tsai’s visit sparked political divisions among Chinese Australians that different political factions exploited for their own agendas.

Exploring key determinants of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among individuals: An exploratory study globally.

SARS-CoV-2 virus gave rise to COVID-19 in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, and it quickly spread over the world to become a pandemic. The virus, which is mostly carried by respiratory droplets, spread at an unprecedented rate, causing a large number of deaths and extensive illness, necessitating lockdowns, travel bans, and social distancing policies by governments across the globe in an attempt to stop the spread, which severely disrupted daily life, the healthcare system, and economies.COVID-19 vaccines are biological materials designed to offer protection against the organism that causes the COVID-19 pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 virus, played a crucial role in stopping the virus's spread and lowering the burden on healthcare systems around the globe. Although Covid-19 vaccines offers benefits which includes the prevention of severe illness and death through the reduction of the chance of COVID-19-related serious illness, hospital stays, and death, it was met with hesitancy by some population on the basis of a complex web of interrelated causes, such as political division, misinformation, socioeconomic inequities, and past mistrust of healthcare systems.Vaccine hesitancy contributed to lower-than-expected vaccination coverage in many regions, preventing the achievement of herd immunity and allowing the virus to continue spreading. Exploring this key determinants of Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy among individuals all over the world and possible solutions, is the focus of this research.

Civic Organizations and the Political Participation of Cross-Pressured Americans: The Case of the Labor Movement

Civic associations underpin American democracy. How can politically cross-cutting associations engage members who hold divergent viewpoints amidst increasing partisan polarization and nationalization of politics? I examine this question in the context of labor unions, studying how unions engage members who hold conservative views at odds with some of the union’s political actions. Using original surveys of local union presidents, members, and non-members along with in-depth interviews in selected local unions, I show how local union leaders can foster norms of participation among politically cross-pressured members. Norms of participation increase conservative members’ perceptions of political representation and engagement in politics, including participation in the union’s political action committee and support for union political mobilization. These findings have implications for understanding civic associations and participation in an era of political division, as well as the role unions continue to play in politics.

Separated by Degrees: Social Closure by Education Levels Strengthens Contemporary Political Divides

Separated by Degrees: Social Closure by Education Levels Strengthens Contemporary Political Divides

Polityka Białoruskiej Autokefalicznej Cerkwi Prawosławnej na uchodźctwie wobec Patriarchatu Konstantynopolskiego po 1948 roku

The article discusses the attempts of the Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (BAOC) in exile to establish relations with the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the second half of the 20th century. BAOC’s intentions and policy towards the Constantinople Patriarchate were analysed, which included the implementation of the following goals: 1) confirmation/recognition of the canonical status of the BAOC by the Patriarchate of Constantinople; 2) unification of all Belarusian Orthodox parishes in the democratic West under the jurisdiction of BAOC; 3) overcoming the political division of the Belarusian diaspora in the West and reducing its role in the functioning of parishes; 4) independence of the Belarusian Orthodox Church in exile from the influence of the Russian Foreign Orthodox Church.

Conceptual Metaphors and Image Schemas in the conceptualization of Neoliberalism and Socialism in Presidential Inauguration Speeches. An infometric approach

Introduction: This study explores how neoliberalism and socialism are conceptualized through image schemas in political discourse. These conceptual frameworks are best analyzed using the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, specifically its analytical tool of image schemas. The metaphorical structures identified in the analyzed texts reflect a polarized stance, particularly opposing right-wing ideologies. Neoliberalism is metaphorically framed as something negative, associated with darkness, evil, and positioned downward. Objective: To analyze how neoliberalism and socialism are conceptualized in political discourse using image schemas. Methods: The study employed a bibliographic review to collect and analyze political texts, focusing on metaphorical language. Articles were selected based on relevance and discarded if they lacked clear metaphorical usage or did not align with the research focus. The analysis utilized the Conceptual Metaphor Theory to identify image schemas in the discourse. Development: The study highlights that the conceptual metaphors present in political discourse shape public perception by framing neoliberalism as inherently negative, using metaphors of darkness and downward movement. Conversely, socialism is portrayed through positive metaphors, symbolizing light and upward movement. This metaphorical polarization reflects broader societal and political divisions, where language reinforces ideological opposition. Conclusions: The study concludes that political discourse consistently uses conceptual metaphors to portray neoliberalism negatively and socialism positively. These metaphors contribute to reinforcing ideological divisions, emphasizing the role of language in shaping political perspectives. The objective of understanding these conceptualizations was met through the identification of recurring metaphorical patterns

Political Divisions in Large Cities: The Socio-Spatial Basis of Legislative Behavior in Chicago and Toronto

Political Divisions in Large Cities: The Socio-Spatial Basis of Legislative Behavior in Chicago and Toronto

Exposure to anti-refugee hate crimes and support for refugees in Germany

Abstract In recent years, anti-refugee hate crimes have soared across Europe. We know this violence has spread fear among refugees, but we know less about its effects on the non-refugee population. This is an oversight, as research suggests political violence often has effects on the broader population. Those effects can range from increased solidarity with the targets of the violence to reduced pro-social behavior and less support for the targets of the violence. In this research note, we examine the effects of exposure to anti-refugee hate crimes in Germany. Our results suggest no direct effect of exposure to anti-refugee hate crimes on support for refugees. These results have several implications for our understanding of political divides over refugees in Europe.

Chortkiv Deanery of the Stanislaviv Greek Catholic Eparchy in 1939-1946

The purpose of the article is an objective study of the historical development of the Chortkiv Deanery of the Stanislaviv Diocese of the Galician Metropolis of the Greek Catholic Church during the Second World War of 1939-1945 and the establishment of Soviet power in Galicia in 1945-1946, which led to the forced liquidation of the UGCC and its transformation into a “catacomb” church. Research methodology: the basic methods are microhistorical, biographical and prosopographic. The scientific novelty is that for the first time the peculiarities of the historical development of the Chortkiv Deanery of the Stanislaviv Eparchy of the UGCC during the Second World War and the “second Sovietization” of Galicia (1939-1946) are analyzed. Conclusions: The authors show the specifics of church-state relations, the mutual influence of political and ecclesiastical administrative-territorial divisions in the process of liquidation of the UGCC, and the role of individual priests in the events of this time.

Political discontent in Spain, diagnosis and solutions

The starting point is the presence of a widespread feeling of political confrontation and division among Spanish citizens. This is compounded by dissatisfaction with and distrust in a system that is perceived by many as elitist and out of touch with real needs. Several factors related to this perception of politics are explained and quantified. On the one hand, there are economic elements, such as the stagnation of GDP per capita, the persistence of a relatively high at-risk-of-poverty rate, and the rates of material deprivation. And in all these elements, a significant territorial inequality can be observed. There are significant differences between Spain, France and Germany over the period considered. On the other hand, political factors determine much of the public debate in Spain: Historical memory and the Spanish Civil War, as well as the terrorism of ETA and other terrorist groups. The emergence of new parties is analyzed, especially VOX. Finally, the enormous difficulty of finding a territorial structure of political power that would bring together the consensus of most political forces. It is necessary to find formulas for fiscal federalism that will make it possible to move away from the current decentralization of spending without the Autonomous Communities having their own tax capacity. This study concludes by pointing out the relevance of all these problems and the need to find solutions through democratic debate and deliberation with agreements.