Dominant Political Actors Research Articles

Guardians or disrupters? Peace discourses and politics in Tanzania

ABSTRACT The African Union declared 2010 the “African Year of Peace and Security,” with its famous slogan “Make Peace Happen.” However, the meaning of peace is contested depending on particular discursive contexts and the purpose that the peace narratives of the dominant political actors serve. This paper interrogates peace discourses in Tanzania. Drawing from desk reviews and key informant interviews, it reveals how Tanzania’s political opposition and civil society actors contest the ruling party’s rhetoric of peace and tranquility. The paper unravels critical perspectives about national peace, particularly how it can be achieved and maintained. The findings reinforce previous research on language, ideology and politics that shows how dominant political parties in Africa reproduce and maintain power through peace narratives. Specifically, the paper adds to the emerging literature on peaceocracy, where political stability and order are prioritized at the expense of democracy.

Presidents, Ministers and Governors: Ethnic Quotas and the Evolution of Power-Sharing at Critical Junctures in Burundi

Building on an original dataset, this paper explores the evolution of the consociational power- sharing at critical junctures in Burundi. Covering almost two decades of power-sharing practice (2001–2020), this paper analyzes the allocation of high salience ministerial portfolios and of provincial governor positions along ethnic lines. The paper shows how quotas matter and how a changing political context affects the real life implementation of Burundi’s negotiated power-sharing arrangements. We argue that dominant political actors take advantage of loopholes in the design of power-sharing institutions in order to enhance their access to important political positions.

Asymmetric power in Malaysian politics: Muhyiddin’s domination

Muhyiddin’s appointment as Malaysia’s prime minister in February 2020 came as a surprise to many. What is even more surprising is that he was able to defend his position despite having a dubious majority. His ability to dominate politics is something that needs to be explored. This article unfolds the factors of this domination and provides a theoretical explanation. It argues that the asymmetrical power stipulated by the constitution resulted in the domination of the prime minister in Malaysia, thus creating an imbalance of power for the prime minister to be the dominant political actor. Although Muhyiddin was seen as a weak political player, his position as prime minister has allowed him to dominate the political process and centralise his powers from the nature of asymmetrical power. This paper concludes that the prime minister will forever be the dominant actor if centralisation becomes the fundamental governing element.

Narodowe w formie, autorytarne w treści. Budowanie państwa w Azji Centralnej

National in Form, Authoritarian in Content: State Building in Central AsiaAfter the collapse of the Soviet Union the new states of Central Asia faced a challenging task of building a new country, its symbols, relations between institutional power and the sovereign and imaginary geopolitical landscape. The grassroots processes of national awakening were coupled with deliberate activities of the dominant political actors striving to shape them in a way conducive to their power claims. Thus the monuments of great ancestors and the billboards presenting the image of incumbent presidents became a very common element of the symbolic landscape of Central Asia's new republics. The official speeches of the governing presidents have frequently referred to great historical figures, constructed historical analogies, praised the thousand years old traditions of the fatherland and adduced historical evidence testifying ancient roots of the countries.This article is focused on the mechanisms of ethnocentric reinterpretation of the past. For the newly constituted republics of Central Asia, the evidence of the past power status and glorious moments or, conversely, the past tragedies has been an equally strong legitimizing factor both internally and externally. No matter whether invented or constructed, the propagated national values have played a key role in justifying the power claims and international position of the new countries. Additionally, the paper’s objective is to analyze how state structures and institutions implement national solutions and how the authoritarian logic of the state institutions performed its power under the guise of national forms.

The political economy of mobility justice. Experiences from Germany

ABSTRACT Recently, there has been an intense debate around the concept of mobility justice, which has been developed from approaches in political theory in articulation with social struggles. In this paper, I argue that a political–economic foundation of the concept is helpful to determine the constitutive meaning of inequality within the framework of capitalist societies and, based on this, to elicit the possibilities and limits of implementing the concept in practice. The analysis focuses on the debate concerning the ongoing sustainable transformation of transportation and mobility (the Verkehrswende) in Germany. I contend that issues of justice are fundamental to such a transition and, in practice, are implicitly negotiated; nevertheless, at present, narrow interpretations of the Verkehrswende (as shaped and constrained by dominant political and economic actors) effectively marginalise considerations of mobility justice. Aspects of justice (climate justice, just transition) that are compatible with straightforward automotive electrification are taken up, whereas aspects that go beyond this, such as resource justice or questions of access to mobility, remain marginalised.

Political sophitication and the perception of power in International Relations. A semiotic approach

The aim of this paper is to create a comprehensive image of power at the beginning of the XXI-st century. The research objectives are related to: i. the radiography of the perception of the political power regarding the main actors: USA, Russian Federation and China; ii. the identification of the relationship between global economy conditions, terrorist attacks and the dynamics of the political power in international arena; iii. the estimation of the magnitude of the statistical correlation between economic development, democratic order and the perception of the political power in international sphere. The research design is obviously quantitative, being based on descriptive statistics and linear and non-linear equations of regressions for estimating the main predictors and vectors which could influence the perception of the power. We use comparative case studies between USA, Russian Federation and China for exploring several associations between independent factors and the perception of the power and influence in the international context. Regarding the empirical findings, we have to stress that China’s power and influence are related with cyber-attacks from other countries (r = 0.707, p < 0.01) and USA’s power and influence are related with the conditions of the global economy ( r = 0.594, p = 0.01). Regarding the perception of the Russian Federation’s power and influence, we can observe linear associations with cyber-attacks (r = 0.605, p = 0.01) and flawed democratic order (r = 0.429, p= 0.02). Empirical findings reflect a new political geometry in the international arena, where the classical system is replaced by a multipolar model with two dominant political actors: USA and China. Synthesising, this article reflects the importance of the political perception and the political psychology in the sphere of international relations, where we can make the distinction between real and potential (or perceived) political power. This new geometry implies a new level of significance and a new semiotic strategy for interpreting both subjective and objective facts of the political world.

Catholics and Communists in Twentieth-Century Italy: Between Conflict and Dialogue

Catholics and Communists in Twentieth-Century Italy: Between Conflict and Dialogue

Constitutional Rights as Bribes

Constitutions worldwide protect an increasingly long list of rights. Constitutional scholars point to a variety of top-down and bottom-up explanations for this pattern of rights expansion. This Article, however, identifies an additional, underexplored dynamic underpinning this pattern in certain countries: the pairing of constitutional rights with various forms of structural constitutional change as part of a trade between civil society and dominant political actors in their aspirations, or support, for constitutional change. This form of trade, the Article further suggests, has potential troubling consequences for democracy: it can pave the way for the consolidation of dominant-party or presidential rule in ways that limit the effectiveness of rights-based constitutional changes themselves and pose a major threat to the institutional “minimum core” necessary for a true democracy. This, the Article argues, suggests a greater need for caution on the part of civil society before accepting rights as a form of “bribe,” or inducement, to support certain forms of structural constitutional change. For democratic constitutional designers, it also points to the advantages of “unbundling” different forms of constitutional change. The Article explores these arguments by reference to two recent examples of constitutional change, in Ecuador and Fiji, involving the combination of rights-based change with increasingly noncompetitive forms of democratic rule.

The Prohibition of Communist Symbols in Post-Communist Countries

The article focuses on communist symbols bans in post-communist countries. The author highlights the influence of various conditions such as existence as a part of USSR or Russian empire, the experience of independent state-building in XX century, membership in European Union, lack of dominant political actor and resources for his long domination, the popularity of successor parties, the radicalism of institutional reforms. The analysis also accounts associated impacts of international environment and relations of post-communist countries with Russia. Based on a combination of various conditions, the author develops a typology of post-communist states where communist symbols have been banned.

TRUSTING TWITTERSPHERE AS A GENUINE POLITICAL DEBATE? THE CASE OF INDONESIAN ELECTION HASTAGS

This research in progress explores how political discussion on Indonesian Twittersphere could provide a genuine conversation on debates related to the upcoming 2019 national election in Indonesia. Taking the case of the presidential and parliamentary election in the upcoming April 2019, the author uses social media data on Twitter to investigate whether the discussions are heavily lean into digital public sphere or more dominated by political buzzer and bots. The author examines this by creating Twitter network maps based on hashtags related to the election. Modularity tests are employed to identify the extent of online community developed during the conversations. Most of the hashtags analyzed could attract hundreds of small communities, created mini-publics, which in turn shows the degree of willingness of the Indonesian social media users to participate in this practice of digital citizenship. Qualitative observations on the selection of the most significant actors within the network and the words they posted are employed to understand if the conversations were not led by either dominant political actors or political buzzers/bots, and thus, suggest the citizens’ genuine form of political communication. Despite the limitations of studying Twitter data, the author suggests that by taking a closer attention to how political conversation in non-English/Western political environment, this study might provide valuable insights on the development of genuine utilization of (and trust on) the social media platforms for political engagement.

(Re)manufacturing consent in English

Abstract Unlike the use of force or coercion, the articulation of ideological discourse constitutes a softer approach in the legitimation and hegemonic rule of dominant political actors, achieved through manufacturing consent (Gramsci 1971). As a major site of ideology, the televised premier’s press conferences in China represent such a discursive event, enabling the Chinese government to convey its discursive formations or “regime of truth” (Foucault 1984) and in doing so to manufacture consent. Benefitting from a corpus containing 20 years of China’s Premier-Meets-the-Press conference data (1998–2017), this corpus-based critical discourse analysis (CDA) study explores the government-affiliated interpreters’ mediation and (re)construction of China’s discourse on PEOPLE. The interpreters are found to reinforce China’s discourse on PEOPLE (e.g., increased mentions of PEOPLE-related items) and (re)construct a more positive image of Beijing being people-oriented and concerned with its people in English (e.g., the repeated employment of ‘our people’). An examination of the collocational patterns relating to the item ‘people’ (e.g., people’s, of/to/for/by*people) (re)presented in the English discourse sheds light on the government‒people ties in China. This article highlights the government interpreters’ vital agency role in image (re)construction and in contributing to the government’s political legitimation and hegemonic rule, particularly given the increasingly mediat(is)ed world we live in.

The military and the state in Egypt: class formation in the post-Arab uprisings

ABSTRACT Since the revolution of 2011, the Egyptian military has emerged as agent of capital accumulation, engaging with international financial institutions and global investors, and simultaneously reorganizing the various fractions of the ruling class inside Egypt. While the military had established a significant degree of influence in the economy prior to the revolution, it has become increasingly active in the political realm raising alarms about the democratic possibilities in Egypt. While these concerns have been highlighted in the literature, there is still a lack of research that examines how the military has evolved into a dominant economic and political actor in the context of the current global economy. Using class analysis, I reinterpret the military’s role as an emerging dominant fraction of the ruling class under the contemporary phase of neoliberal development. As such, its ascension to power does not signify a threat to economic liberalization, but is rather an attempt to secure the conditions of its further expansion.

Global Forces and Regime Change: Guatemala in the Central American Context

Drawing on theories of regime change, revolution, and democratization, this paper proposes a process theory to account for the 12 major regime transformations that have occurred in Central America since 1970. Political regimes, coherent systems of rule established among a coalition of dominant political actors, change when their prevailing political rules and their ruling coalitions undergo transformation. External forces are important to this process. The focal case is Guatemala and its prospects for democratic consolidation.

An Interdiscursive Analysis of Post-The Innocence of Muslims Political Discourse at UN Forum

This research focusses the interdiscursive analysis of political discourse to expose the hegemonic relations in the world politics. It is backgrounded in the issue of blasphemy that emerged after the release of the movie trailer The Innocence of Muslims. The researcher restricted the context of the study to the UN General Assembly meeting September 2012 where the issue was discussed in the presence of world political leaders. The data of the study contains the speech of the US president Barak Obama and is analyzed by using Fairclough’s (1992) concept of interdiscursivity and hegemony. The analysis is focused on the discourse of the dominant political actor to find out the power relations and hegemony as exposed through the interdiscursive references present in his discourse. The study concludes that the dominant political leader uses different discursive strategies to construct and sustain power relations and hegemony. Interdiscursivity helps him to construct powerful self-image and to marginalise the subordinate group by highlighting its negative aspects and suppressing its ideologies.

Creating Suspicion and Vigilance

In recent years, many theoretical and empirical analyses about the changing regimes of Central and Eastern Europe have been written, pointing out the authoritarian tendencies and radicalization in the region. Hungary is a significant case in the changing landscape of Central and Eastern Europe. The right-wing government rules the country with incontestable force, despising and disrespecting the norms of liberal democracies. Although the general impression is that the government has such a strong grip on power that resisting it is futile, in fact, it only enjoys only the support of 30 per cent of Hungarian citizens. Thus, it would be reasonable to expect the opposition to be able to effectively mobilize against the regime. In reality, no political opponent seems to stand a chance of defeating it. In order to explain why this is so, we focus on the way Orbán constantly creates images of ‘the enemy’ that keep alive an atmosphere of vigilance that blocks the efforts of critical actors to efficiently mobilize citizens. Since the political system in Hungary is highly centralized, the prime-minister’s speeches epitomize the logic and ideology of the regime. Our aim is to understand the mechanism through which the dominant political actors frame the enemy in a system of images, thereby creating an environment where critical actors are stripped of the resources needed to mobilize against them.

Determinants of Judicial Institutionalization: A Study of the Post-Communist Constitutional Courts

This study argues that institutional development of the courts is shaped primarily by the strategies of dominant political actors who attempt to maximize the congruence of the judiciary with their interests and its responsiveness to their priorities. To test this argument, this study identifies five factors – legislative fragmentation, the distribution of executive-legislative power, the transparency of the political environment, participation in the EU accession program, and direct foreign aid – which are hypothesized to affect the process of judicial reforms by altering the politicians’ interests, bargaining power, and the degree of electoral uncertainty. As an empirical test of these hypotheses, this paper examines institutionalization of 22 post-communist constitutional courts, from the beginning of the transition period through 2005. The findings suggest that there is a non-linear relationship between legislative fragmentation and judicial empowerment. In addition, this study finds that the participation in the EU accession program and executive power have an important impact on the development of viable constitutional courts. Transparent environment and foreign direct aid, on the other hand, do not exert a significant impact on the development of post-communist courts.

Welfare Regimes in China and Vietnam

This essay investigates how the degeneration of state socialist regimes and the transition to market-Leninist political economies in China and Vietnam have shaped institutional arrangements governing welfare and its stratification effects. Engaging recent theoretical literature one welfare regimes, the article explores how the evolution of specific combinations of political and economic institutions in China and Vietnam has affected the production and reproduction of welfare and stratification. The common assumption that welfare regimes reflect the structured interests of dominant political and economic actors and thus serve to reproduce that regime is found to invite an excessively static perspective. Instead this essay argues that welfare regimes and stratification in contemporary China and Vietnam require an appreciation of their properties under state-socialism and how specific paths of extrication affected their degeneration and subsequent development under a new form of political economy. The essay also probes the significance of observed differences in China and Vietnam’s political structure in light of suggestions that Vietnam’s more pluralistic political system has made its welfare regime more redistributive than China’s. An alternative perspective suggests China’s wealth obviates the significance of such differences.

Of Mancessions and Hecoveries: Race, Gender, and the Political Construction of Economic Crises and Recoveries

Through a discussion of the 2008 mortgage crisis and its similarities to the Great Depression of the 1930's and the Great Recession of 2007–09, I argue that the very notions of economic “crisis” and “recovery” are politically and ideologically constructed, and that conditions of vulnerability, often simply taken for granted as part of the normal social landscape when they affect marginalized populations, become regarded as crises when they affect dominant groups. Each of these crises, I argue, reveals different facets of the ways in which the power, normativity, and privilege of those perceived to be affected by economic hard times serve (1) to construct some economic troubles as “normal” and others as “crises;' (2) to prevent economic problems related to structural inequalities from being treated as crises by dominant political actors and institutions; and (3) to shape ideas about the ostensible solutions and ends to economic crises. By calling attention to these features of economic “crisis,” I aim to demonstrate the relevance of scholarship on race, class, gender, and intersectionality to the understanding of fundamental questions of contemporary political economy not often viewed from this perspective.

Historical legacies, clientelism and the capacity to fight: exploring pathways to regime tenure in Tanzania

While regimes in countries like Cameroon, Guinea, Togo and Tanzania have survived the transition from single to multiparty rule, this article suggests two unique characteristics for the case of regime tenure in Tanzania. First, while transitions in other cases were characterized by widespread protests and/or popular opposition movements, opposition in Tanzania's transition environment was minuscule by comparison. Secondly, while repression is still widespread in Tanzania, overt repression appears to be less prevalent in Tanzania when compared to most other strong tenure cases. This study first explores the comparative role of overt repression as a viable explanation for the strong tenure of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). Upon closer examination, however, the article argues that accounting for the structures and processes that shape the capacities of political actors to engage in political battles might provide for a more complete appreciation of the CCM's ability to remain the country's dominant political actor, despite the multiparty transition.

From the wrath of Allah to divine judgment: natural disasters in the Islamist press in Turkey

This study is designed to analyze the discursive strategies through which the Islamist dailies (re)construct meaning of natural disasters in Turkey, including two massive earthquakes and a drought. The news narratives and columns were gathered from five Islamist dailies and were textually analyzed. The earthquake in 1999 was represented as a warning against those who did not obey the divine rules, while the earthquake in 1976 and the drought in 2007 were divine judgment. During the drought the national–local governments were Islamist. This has caused a significant (re)turn in the discourses of the dailies. The Islamist press did not represent the drought as an event rooted in cause–effect relation in the social/political sphere, while the 1999 earthquake was represented as a divine ‘answer’ to the dominant political actors. Although all the Islamist dailies employ a religious frame of reference to explain the natural disasters, the representation strategies vary. Two major factors are vital in diversification of Islamic/Islamist discourses: (1) historical, periodical, and political factors; and (2) heterogeneous-look structure of Islamist press, irrespective of periodical variables. One function of the discursive strategies is to disguise mismanagement which was the principle agent of the loss lives of thousands of people.