Dominant Political System Research Articles

A new geopolitical stalemate: revisiting the EU’s neighbourhood policy in Georgia

ABSTRACT This article examines the EU’s neighbourhood policy, focusing on the extent of its role in instigating democracy promotion and responding to the security challenges in Georgia. It argues that although the EU has a positive impact with its normative undertaking, it remains short of answering the geopolitical expectations of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries. In Georgia, the EU’s constraints arise from the interplay between internal (domestic) and external (strategic) factors that need to be addressed to resolve the persistent challenges related to the democracy-security nexus in the country. While internally the problems emanating from the challenges of the dominant political party system translated into the Georgian political elite’s reluctance to implement necessary reforms, the external dynamics stem from the deteriorating strategic situation in the region and the EU’s ambiguous positioning in responding to the security needs of the country.

Radicalism, identity construction and emotionality in social movements: #BogaziciDireniyor and the challenge to authoritarianism

ABSTRACT Drawing upon recent insights in the social movements literature that have been looking at different facets of radicalisation, this paper explores processes of identity formation and ‘emotion transformation’ happening at the collective level and expressed through forms of non-conventional political participation. The key case study that is taken as an example is that of the recent pacific protests that took place at Boğaziçi University. Similar to recent studies that shed light on the study of radicalism in peaceful protests, we look at the main frames through which demands for social change by young activists participating in the protests are constructed and at the emotional frames that express grievances. In doing so, we focus on the representation of the movement on Twitter. These have the aim of challenging hegemonic discourses promoted by the status quo through forms of ‘radicalism through protest’ rather than ‘radicalism through violence’. In exploring this area, we conduct a qualitative analysis of social media content looking at the use and reproduction of key messages meant to share common frames that construct processes of collective identification but also at the processes of ‘emotion transformation’ that shape radical collective claims and which seek to challenge the dominant political system.

Subhas Chandra Bose with Indian National Congress and His Strategies for Armed Struggle

This study also examines the one-of-a-kind political vision of Bose and the influences of social and political reformers, for example, Swami Vivekananda and Aurobindo Ghos on him. It also talks about the advancement of Bose's political ideology through the 1920's during his political apprenticeship under the All-India Bengali leader Chittaranjan Das whom he considered his political Guru. The study would further examine the assembly of Bose's ideas into a solid political ideology, influenced by Indian traditions and the influences of the dominant political belief systems of Fascism, National Socialism and Marxism on his thinking during his years of forced outcast in Europe in the 1930's. Bose's perspectives and arrangements on issues peculiar to India, the topic of caste and so forth are also talked about. This study examines Bose's dramatic escape from India during his home arrest by the British and his excursion from Kabul to Germany. The study analyses his failure in getting assistance from Germany and Russia for the liberation of India, which was his main aim when he had been estranged abroad in Europe during 1930's.

Binding Trauma

Binding Trauma

Proclamations and Paraphernalia: #Bellwether, Editor’s Notes, and the Art of Remixing the Political Document

In 2016 I created an installation entitled #Bellwether, which was a visual exploration of social media content surrounding the 2016 United States presidential primaries, focused specifically on voters in Ohio. Over the course of a year, I collected more than 14 million public Twitter posts that referenced the candidates by name, and repurposed the design of their campaign merchandise to reflect voter sentiment, replacing the curated messaging that they were pushing into the political sphere. After the election, I collected public data from Trump’s administration—including tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account, executive orders and memoranda and transcripts of interviews and news conferences—and edited the text of the US Constitution from his perspective, using the data to justify changes I made to the original text. I presented the final work in the form of a Presidential Executive Order, mirroring everything from typography to paper choices to the leather holders in which Executive Orders are publicly presented after signing. This creative study explores the lessons learned from these two projects; specifically, I examine the appropriation of political design and its signifiers. I argue that by manipulating and subverting this visual language, the work attempts to counter monolithic narratives perpetuated by dominant political systems, while illuminating the effects of media, technology and the Internet on our perceptions of the government and those who serve in it. By employing alternate historical narratives, the speculative nature of these works also offers a way of imagining a more nuanced approach to current political analysis and meaning-making.

Le pacificazione della conflittualità privata tra esperienza storica e attualità

Le pacificazione della conflittualità privata tra esperienza storica e attualità

Policy on refugee education: Textual discourse and educational structures

This paper is an attempt to illustrate the education policy having been developed since the time period prior to the economic crisis until today. The reason for choosing this time period is that it reflects major events relevant to the continuation of the local society. In this respect, reference is made to the migrants’ presence in Greece prior to the economic crisis migrants’ conditions throughout the economic crisis and the refugees’ advent in recent years. At the same time, the corresponding legislative texts and the political discourse developed throughout this period are critically analysed. The socio-political and economic conditions of this time period have been crucial to generating political discourse, social meaning and, eventually, shaping new identities, especially regarding migrants and refugees. Based on critical discourse analysis, it can be argued that the legislative administrative regulations serve the dominant political system, while on-going conservative attitudes and emerging far right anti-democratic trends operate in a segregating, rather than a unifying, manner for the entire population. Besides, education seems unable to operate in a similarly unifying pattern, leading to limited opportunity structures, exclusion and marginalisation for specific population groups, namely migrants and refugees. Therefore, given the socio-political and cultural challenges emanating from expanded migrant and refugee communities, the education policy must definitely be revisited. A renewed and updated educational discourse should be developed and put forward towards harmonising and unifying models, embracing all citizens, namely natives, migrants and refugees. This way, humanism and democracy will be perceived in their true dimension, while intercultural education will acquire its substantial dimension within the expanded multicultural societies.

LEARNING FROM THE SUBALTERN: WHAT DOES MARIA LINDALVA TEACH US ABOUT HEGEMONIC-COMMON-SENSE-IDEOLOGY AND TEXT SELECTION FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING MATERIALS?

ABSTRACT In the scope of vocational critical language teaching materials, designing lessons that meet professional requirements at public technical high schools committed with the agenda of critical education for citizenship is something that deserves attention. If, on the one hand, the Critical Literacy framework substantiates practices that engage us with social changes (LUKE; FREEBODY, 1997), promote opportunities for developing critical views over dominant ideologies, cultures, economies, institutions and political systems (TILIO, 2013, 2017), and examine our loci of enunciation in order that we unlearn our privileges and learn from the subaltern (ANDREOTTI, 2007); on the other, the lesson materials available for technical high-school courses seem not to take these premises into account, especially the latter. In order to bridge this gap, I designed a lesson unit (Society Matters?), aimed at technical high-school 3rd graders, wherein Maria Lindalva’s autobiography, a subaltern ex-landless activist, creates opportunities for discussions over the ideals of work, effort and success that challenge hegemonic-common-sense ideology. Resorting to constructivist bricolage (DENZIN; LINCOLN, 2005) involving her video-autobiography, the language teaching unit, the memories of my pedagogic encounters with learners from 2015 to 2018, and two different lines of interpretation that were recurrently raised throughout, I examined to what extent the interpretations over Maria Lindalva’s narrative reflect and refract neoliberal capitalist ideologies, thus contributing to developing critical posture, as well as to the selection of texts for critical language teaching materials. The results showed the analysis that validates Maria Lindalva’s achievements may be confronted by the viewpoint of her relationship with scarcity (SANTOS, 2017), which favored learners’ developing critical posture; and, finally, that it was possible to take her narrative a step further showing what Maria Lindalva teaches us about selecting texts for critical language teaching materials.

Социальная база и перспективы популизма в странах Запада

The paper examines the reasons, mechanisms and prospects of the populist surge in Western countries. The cross-country analysis shows that both structural and sociocultural explanations of the populist surge are valid and complementary. Evidences suggest that support for the populist parties is the highest among blue-collar workers, low paid employees and less educated persons. It proves that the present-day rise of populism is a reincarnation of dissatisfaction with the ruling elites and dominant political system at low tiers of social hierarchy. While formerly such dissatisfaction led to voting for communists or social democrats, now it increasingly manifests itself in voting for populist parties and programmes. At the same time, horizontal diffusion and intergenerational transmission of attitudes contribute to a steady growth of support for write-wing populist parties in certain areas of France, Germany and Poland. While the young British, unlike older ones, usually eager to remain in the EU, a wider cross-country analysis does not allow to prognosticate a “natural death” of populism. Thus, the data from 1995 to 2017 reveals that in France, people in their thirties and forties vote for the National Front even more often than earlier. Support for populist parties is also the highest among middle-age voters in Italy, Germany and Sweden. This fact along with the higher prevalence of the populist support in certain social strata allows to expect relatively successful outcomes of populist parties and movements in the upcoming elections. Nevertheless, the rise of populism is limited by persistent disinclination of many well educated and middle-class voters to support populist parties and candidates. Given this, the political future of populist parties will depend on their ability to form coalitions and find allies both domestically and internationally.

Sustainable development: perspectives from Canadian jurisprudence on First Nations' Aboriginal rights and title

First Nations across Canada have been in the courts for generations to protect their lands and societies. It will be argued in this paper that the resulting sui generis instantiation of Aboriginal title formulated in the courts reflects some of the more challenging aspects of sustainable development discourse. In this paper key Canadian court decisions will be examined to illustrate how the courts have addressed aspects of sustainable development in Aboriginal rights and title litigation, which are traditionally difficult to measure and implement. Indeed, these cases provide a window into how courts may implement sustainable development goals if these considerations become integrated into broader legal determinations, and provide insight what may become expected if deep sustainable development becomes accepted into dominant domestic legal and political systems.

„THE SILK ROAD“, ТHE EURASIAN PROJECT AND „GREAT EURASIA“ (GEOPOLITICAL READING)

The research is carried out through the prism of geopolitics and reveals the "logic" and the essence of „The Belt and Road Initiative“. It outlines its basic ideas and goals. The study justifies and proves the (hypo)thesis that despite the apparent "leadership" of the economic events, the political and geopolitical aspects (vectors) of the project are linked to the economy. The economy does not function on its own way, but is formulated, supported by policy and used for political purposes, i.e., the project in its deep essence is political. The political nature of „The Belt and Road Initiative“ is expressed in the following: it is an attempt to find in internal policy a mechanism to preserve the political power of the Communist Party and to continue the existence of the dominant political system - the totalitarian (one-party) political system in the PRC. The geopolitical task is to find the „place“ of modern China in the global world. The goal is to restore the central ("middle") location of China in the 21st century world. „The Silk Road“ is one of the directions for its realization and the means for its achievement are complex - the „most obvious“ are the actions in the economic sphere, but equally important are the military, diplomatic, cultural factors and impacts. In conclusion, it is argued that „The Belt and Road Initiative“ will be realized as an optimal, reasonable balancebetween the „desired“ and the „possible“ and will be specified in the adoption of the formula „Great Eurasia“, i.e., in the transformation of China into a regional (regional-global, global-regional) center, the „middle empire“ of the Eurasian super-continent, the largest and most powerful geopolitical and geo-economic power center in the future „multipolar“ or more likely „bipolar“ („West-Sea“ - „East-Еarth“) world from the middle and the end of the 21st century.

Japan’s 2019 upper house election: Solidifying Abe, the LDP, and return to a one-party dominant political system

Japan’s upper house, the House of Councillors, is a less powerful body than the House of Representatives, the lower house of the national Diet. Yet, electoral results of the upper house can have a significant impact on the government of the day, both for legislative purposes and for judging the credibility of the ruling party and its leader. This article analyses the July 2019 election and its likely impact on the Abe administration, and implications for Japan’s parliamentary democracy and party politics. The article argues that opposition forces are highly fragmented and weak, sustaining the LDP’s dominance in Japanese politics. Such a political landscape is welcomed by the ruling party and its leader, but continuing to entrench the hold on national governance by one dominant party is unhealthy for Japanese democracy.

Resisting Fragmentation: An Exploration of South Asian Muslim Women’s Resistance as Resilience in the ‘War on Terror’ in Britain Under the Lens of Hegemony

In Britain, the ‘war on terror’ exposes fissures, breaks and dislocations in the inter-relationship/inter-connection of South Asian Muslim women with dominant political and social systems. This paper uses Antonio Gramsci’s conception ‘hegemony’ to elucidate South Asian Muslim women’s struggle to retain, and extend identity formations in conditions of harm and political and social environs of hostility. It departs from conventional studies by using hegemony as struggle for domination as the theoretical frame to explore the psychological effects of political harm to self and identity. Gramsci’s notion of ‘the war of position’ locates the ‘war on terror’ as historic/temporal, a prolonged struggle for domination/hegemony in British/South Asian Muslim relations. This paper employs findings from ethnographic research to make the case that, in this hostile environment, South Asian Muslim women in Britain are engaged in counter-hegemonic resistance in the generation of hybrid identities. Securing new identities requires considerable psychological and cultural flexibility; it involves repositioning fragments of self to reformulate, to create, identity in a climate of hatred and fear.

Modern Universities and Establishment: The Interactions of Islamic Azad University and Iran’s Power Centers

To examine the ways in which the Islamic Azad University interacts with the power centers in order to cooperate, constructivist school and power-knowledge theory have been used as a theoretical framework. In this research, scientific cooperation is emphasized instead of commercialization of scientific researches in Iran and in the Islamic Azad University. The role of the university is to organize cultural frameworks and to introduce them to the system for planning. Islamic Azad University pursues the interests of power centers to strengthen the system, expand knowledge and promote cultural values. The power centers combine the activity and the type of sovereignty with the prevailing culture in the universities and seminaries, where the scientific and religious teachings are involved in the process of legitimizing the dominant political system. The interaction of the Islamic Azad University with power centers through mutual and shared understanding, identifying the potentials and capacities of each other, in general, would meet the needs of both parties, improve functions of the organizations, maintain scientific independence and develop the university’s financial resources and, in particular, lead to the participation of members of university in the development of the country and the preservation of the political system in large-scale decision-making, assisting socialization and urban management and ultimately maintaining the human and physical assets of the Islamic Azad University.

Uniwersytet socjalistyczny i jego współczesne neoliberalne analogie

While referring to Agata Zysiak’s book Punkty za pochodzenie. Powojenna modernizacja i uniwersytet w robotniczym mieście [Points for Class Origin: Post-War Modernization and the University in a Working-Class City] (2016) the author’s intention is to provide an independent voice in the debate on plans to modernize the institution of the university, both in PPR times and at present. She describes the role of the university in Poland’s ideologically created socio-economic modernization. Both the communist and post-transformation reforms of the social system can be treated as being defined by the modernization imperative and a similarly legitimated attempt to overcome backwardness. The following points are raised: (1) the significance of the institution of higher learning in the modernization of the country; (2) the vision of a higher-learning institution guiding two outstanding academics of those times; (3) the university in the public discourse of the communist era; (4) the career paths of the recipients of university educations, that is, the students and graduates of the socialist university; (5) and the career paths of academics in the Polish People’s Republic. Consideration of these questions through the communist and capitalist prisms of modernization changes in Poland makes it possible to advance theses about the function of a higher-learning institution, regardless of the dominant political system.

Authoritarian regimes in democratic regional organisations? Exploring regional dimensions of authoritarianism in an increasingly democratic West Africa

ABSTRACTResearch suggests that regional organisations ‘lock in’ their dominant political systems. Democratic regionalism stabilises transitioning democracies whilst regionalism in autocratic regions is associated with boosts in authoritarianism. Little research, however, has examined the regional-level trends and tactics that authoritarian leaders have sought to exploit in democratising regions. This article focuses on increasingly democratic West Africa, examining how authoritarian leaders have at times benefitted from regional dynamics in an otherwise democratising region. It suggests that both formal and informal regional interactions can provide benefits that support authoritarianism and suggests a typology of the mechanisms through which this can happen. It serves as a potential guide for other regions in Africa yet to democratise to the level of West Africa, and as warning regarding the types of regional authoritarianism-enhancing processes that could be used to support backsliding in (West) Africa and elsewhere.

Revista Mexicana de Literatura. Autonomía literaria y crítica de la sociedad

Este artigo tem como objetivo o estudo do momento inicial da Revista Mexicana de Literatura (1955-1957), dirigida por Carlos Fuentes e Emmanuel Carballo, as figuras mais notáveis do grupo habitualmente conhecido como a Generación de Medio Siglo: uma nova geração determinada por diferentes raízes socioculturais com relação aos escritores dos anos de 1920 e 1940. A aparição desta revista no campo cultural mexicano representa a articulação de uma nova ordem social daliteratura, que substituiu a anterior, a qual resultara do nacionalismo revolucionário cultural. A crítica da inserção do escritor no domínio simbólico do Estado mexicano, a ação independente e o caráter crítico do escritor, assim como a formulação de uma identidade autônoma, constituem as ideias-chave dessa nova situação. A identidade autônoma do escritor implica a construção de um discurso no qual o sujeito letrado é o possuidor exclusivo de um patrimônio simbólico excepcionalmente elaborado. A Revista Mexicana de Literatura representou o primeiro esforço coletivo das novas orientações e é a única publicação do período que reúne a agenda social de índole crítica e a autonomia artística do novo sujeito letrado.

Community renewable energy at a crossroads: A think piece on degrowth, technology, and the democratization of the German energy system

Degrowth activists and scholars have questioned society's current levels of material throughput and energy use. The energy sector is at the core of any modern economy, and Germany serves as an international showcase for the transition of a large industrialized economy to a low-carbon energy system. Diverse actors, organizational models, and technologies have contributed to the initiation of Germany's energy transition through a wide range of community renewable energy projects. The think piece investigates how far these diverse actors embrace the aims of the Degrowth movement. It also provides a critical account of on-the-ground realities through six hypotheses and contrasts them with claims made by the Degrowth movement. It is suggested that community renewable energy projects are at a crossroads. While many projects have familiarized thousands of people with alternative economic models, there is little evidence of a general change in attitudes towards technology, consumption, or equity. In conclusion, a major effort is needed to open initiatives to less affluent actors, oppose recent trends of commodification, and prevent community renewable energy projects from being engrossed by the dominant political and economic system.

Territory, politics of power, and physical spatial networks: The case of Baghdad, Iraq

Despite our commonsense understanding of territory as a bounded region, some political aspects of territory can be better described as effects of physical spatial networks. To illustrate the point, we study territorial practices of power in Baghdad before and during the Iraq War that started in 2003. We use various techniques and measures of spatial networks provided by ‘space syntax’, because they have proven useful for describing the spatiality of social processes. We use Baghdad as a case study, because the territorial practices of power by the Ba'th regime favoring a Sunni minority and undermining a Shiite majority had existed in this city for decades before the Iraq war. These practices were upset and significant territorial changes occurred during the sectarian war in 2006 and 2007 at the time of US-led occupation of Iraq. We study the relationships between territorial practices and physical spatial networks before the war and during the war. Based on our findings, we conclude that spatial network dependency of territory and territoriality may exist under a dominant political system or even during a war when a dominant political system remains unclear. However, more studies are needed to generalize the findings of our study.

Challenges to the development of carbon markets in China

China has introduced several pilot emission trading schemes to build the basis for a national scheme. The potential scale of this initiative raises prospects for a regional carbon trading network as a way to further engage other major Asian economies. However, the Chinese carbon markets rest upon a unique political-economic context and institutional environment that are likely to limit their development and viability. This article offers an overview of such structural economic and political constraints. Four main challenges are identified, namely, inadequate domestic demand, limited financial involvement, incomplete regulatory infrastructure, and excessive government intervention. The first two challenges concern economic dimensions and may be partially addressed by the incentives created by the newly introduced emission trading schemes. The other two are more deeply entrenched in the dominant political system and governing practice. They require fundamental changes to the ways in which the state and the market interact. The success of China's carbon market reform depends crucially on the ability of the ongoing efforts to transform the distorted state–market relationship.Policy relevanceThe burgeoning carbon markets offer opportunities for emissions mitigation at lower costs and enable circulation of a new form of capital, i.e. carbon credits, across borders. China accounts for a gigantic share of global GHG emissions and has the potential to significantly scale up these opportunities. There are clear implications for market developers and participants worldwide, including climate policy makers who attempt to link their emission trading schemes to other schemes, firms who seek to take advantage of the inexpensive carbon offsets generated in developing countries, international financial institutions who endeavour to establish their business in an emerging major carbon market, etc. This article can inform their decisions by identifying key issues that may undermine their ability to achieve these goals. Policy makers and stakeholders will benefit from this analysis, which shows how the Chinese carbon markets operate in ways that may be different from their experience elsewhere.