Elite Views Research Articles

U.S.-German Relations: Concretization of the Future

The article analyzes the views of the political elites of Germany on relations with the United States under Joe Biden. The author substantiated the objective nature of changes in U.S. - German partnerships in the context of transformational processes in the world and the formation of alternative partnerships. Seven hypotheses are formulated in the article. One notable hypothesis is that of Germany's increasing dependence on the United States. The research is grounded on documentary sources, including the protocols of the Bundestag and Germany's National Security Strategy.

Searching for cyberspace: the colonial pipeline ransomware attack through the lens of search engines

ABSTRACT In this article, I examine a national security incident often associated with substantial ambiguity – a major cyber attack – via the lens of web search engines. Web search engines are the most important arbiter of access to information in the world today but are not flawless products, despite the broad popularity and trust they enjoy. They have been linked to a range of faults in their operation and design. I employ an agent-based online infrastructure and hundreds of computational agents to examine divergent information experiences related to the Colonial Pipeline attack in 2021. The results demonstrate a clear variation across the outputs of the search engines studied. Perhaps most importantly, it appears to be user orientation that plays a disproportionate role in driving personalized information experiences, with search engines more readily varying their outputs based on style and format of inputs than on location or other factors. This confirms that search engines must become a critical focus of security studies research on the media dynamics of conflict. Moreover, there are specific takeaways for the literature on cyber conflict, notably the degree to which assumptions about popular and elite views of cybersecurity issues must be squared against web search preferences.

Elite Perceptions of a China-Led Regional Order in Southeast Asia

How do Southeast Asian states perceive a China-led regional order? To answer this question, we conducted a survey of elites from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, countries that are “least likely” to acquiesce to a China-led regional order. Our survey indicates that although most elites view China as influential and have a cultural affinity with it, they do not perceive China as having the authority to preside over the regional order. They do not identify with China's political values and the normative order it propounds. Our survey also reveals the salience of ASEAN as the region navigates great power rivalry. We explain these views by drawing from the concept of legitimate authority. Our findings are significant; if China cannot persuade its Southeast Asian neighbours of its right to lead, it will be even harder for China to exercise global leadership.

Between Contestation and Support: Explaining Elites’ Confidence in the International Criminal Court

Abstract The International Criminal Court (ICC) has come under challenge in recent years as some countries have decided, or considered, to withdraw from it. Against this backdrop, an emerging literature has begun to examine attitudes toward the court among the general public as a key court constituency. However, little is known about how domestic elites perceive the court. This research gap is particularly surprising given that domestic elites have a considerable impact on both public and state support of the court. This article explains why political and societal elites across world regions have confidence or lack confidence in the ICC. We present the results from a unique survey of 722 elite respondents conducted from 2017 to 2019 across six countries: Brazil, Germany, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, and the United States. We furthermore enrich our analysis by using public opinion data to draw comparisons between elites and the general public. The analyses reveal that the views of elites are most consistently related to their perceptions of other, more well-known international organizations and their country’s relationship with the ICC. Our findings indicate both similarities and differences between how elite and public opinion about the ICC are formed, demonstrating the value of further research on elite opinion on international courts.

Oral Traditions and Local Authority: Viewing the Indonesian Revolution through a Cultural Lens

ABSTRACT Most accounts of the Indonesian revolution in South Sulawesi have focused on the two groups fighting for power: the Republic of Indonesia as a new nation-state and the Dutch, who wanted to regain control. What is absent from this way of viewing history are the views of local elites, who wanted to retain their traditional authority and whose ideas about the nation-state were based on their oral traditions, which have the potential to affect the reconstruction and politicisation of collective memory in the struggle for cultural rights and political authority. This article examines how the Polombangkeng community used oral traditions to justify local input into the cause of the revolution in South Sulawesi. During the Indonesian revolution, the Polombangkeng people drew on their oral tradition to define leadership positions, claims of political authority, and alliance formation. Their narratives about their identity were supported by ritual ceremonies. The article argues that the Indonesian revolution in Polombangkeng was more than just a power struggle between ‘Indonesian’ and ‘Dutch’ groups: it was also a process of negotiating and/or renegotiating identities, driven by the desire to stake traditional authority claims through the justification of oral traditions.

Environmental vulnerability as a public priority: The view of local economic elites

AbstractThe study explains the factors leading local economic elites (LEEs) to consider vulnerability to natural hazards (VNH) a priority public problem. An Optimal Scaling Regression model was estimated based on information from 57 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) cities. The estimation included variables related to risk exposure, social conditions, and disaster management instruments. The central factors that explain why LEEs consider VNH a priority problem are the level of real exposure to natural risks and a high proportion of the local population living in poverty. LEEs seem to assume that the social deprivations that accentuate environmental vulnerability should be treated independently of the problem of equity; LEEs seem to relativize the VNH problem as the size of the city increases by assuming that VNH does not affect the whole city; government instruments for the management of natural hazards do not exert any influence on the perception of LEEs on environmental vulnerability. The findings help us to understand the low collective effectiveness of emergency management instruments in the LAC region.

Keep the Peace at Home to Shape the Peace Abroad: A Study of Elite Influence on Winston Churchill and British Foreign Policy at the Yalta Conference, 1945

ABSTRACT As the end of World War II and a parliamentary election approached, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s wartime authority diminished. The erosion of influence at home could not have come at a worse time for Churchill abroad, who sought to rebuild a postwar world order at the February 1945 Yalta Conference to resurrect Britain’s global influence. Exploiting the erosion of Churchill’s unprecedented wartime powers, formal and fringe political elites pressured Churchill to align his postwar preferences at Yalta with prevailing elite views on major geopolitical issues. In doing so, these elites – which included senior government officials, newspaper editorialists, and members of Parliament – ultimately compelled Churchill to advocate for the United Nations and a free and democratic Poland at Yalta, despite his belief that both plans would undermine Britain’s postwar influence. In examining the critical role elite-leader relations played in shaping Cold War history, this paper seeks to improve the study of democratic foreign policy analysis by emphasizing Kenneth Waltz’s “first image” (the role of a leader’s motivations and intentions) and the role of non-government (or “fringe”) elites. Finally, it concludes that parliamentary democracies are more receptive to elite influence because elites have greater opportunities to drive policy debates and challenge political authority.

Narratives of democracy: Educated elites’ responses to democratic erosion in Indonesia

Conventional wisdom maintains that a robust educated middle class is an important factor for a healthy democracy. Recent empirical evidence, however, has shown that there is a significant variation in middle class support for democracy. How do educated elites respond to declines in democracy? To date, we know relatively little about how the educated elites view, talk, and respond as democracy erodes in their country. We address this gap by conducting a discourse analysis of government and educated elites texts in Indonesia from 2010 through 2020. We find that government and educated elites’ discourses on democracy as democracy backslides tend to diverge significantly: While official texts boast of the Indonesia's identity as a Muslim-majority democracy, materials produced by the country's educated middle class express increasing disenchantment with weak political parties, restrictions on freedom of speech, repressive measures toward government critics, and limited checks on executive overreach. Our results suggest that as democracy erodes, government officials’ narratives continue to present the country as a robust democracy, and as such, official narratives alone would not reveal the cracks in democracy in the early stages of decline. Instead, traces of decline are more visible in everyday discourses, where informed citizens express their concerns and criticisms with less fear of reprisals. Rather than standing with the ruling elites, the educated elite authors and producers in our data respond to democratic erosion by resisting and criticizing illiberal measures and demanding greater protection of rights. Our work highlights the importance of an engaged educated middle class who can perceive the subtle erosion in democratic practices and challenge it, both in Indonesia and beyond.

Elite Agenda, Media Framing, and Public Perception of European Integration in Estonia

Abstract The following desk research was conducted in the framework of the Horizon 2020 project Mediatized EU to study how media discourses have been constructed to foster or hamper the European project and how they resonated among the public, by focusing on the elite–media–public triangle. This is an in-depth longitudinal review of the existing academic literature, policy developments, and available data on the transformation of media discourses, elite views, and public opinion on the EU and Europeanization in Estonia, Estonia’s path towards European integration, and the ways in which the media has influenced public opinion throughout the last twenty years since Estonia joined the European Union.

Building Political Hashtag Communities: A Multiplex Network Analysis of U.S. Senators on Twitter during the 2022 Midterm Elections

This study examines how U.S. senators strategically used hashtags to create political communities on Twitter during the 2022 Midterm Elections. We propose a way to model topic-based implicit interactions among Twitter users and introduce the concept of Building Political Hashtag Communities (BPHC). Using multiplex network analysis, we provide a comprehensive view of elites’ behavior. Through AI-driven topic modeling on real-world data, we observe that, at a general level, Democrats heavily rely on BPHC. Yet, when disaggregating the network across layers, this trend does not uniformly persist. Specifically, while Republicans engage more intensively in BPHC discussions related to immigration, Democrats heavily rely on BPHC in topics related to identity and women. However, only a select group of Democratic actors engage in BPHC for topics on labor and the environment—domains where Republicans scarcely, if at all, participate in BPHC efforts. This research contributes to the understanding of digital political communication, offering new insights into echo chamber dynamics and the role of politicians in polarization.

Challenges of Spreading the Culture of Peace in Iraq from the point of view of Leaders and Intellectuals Elites

The research problem lies in identifying the challenges facing spreading the culture of peace in Iraq, and the most important factors of its instability from the point of view of leaders and intellectual elites.The research derives its importance from the fact that the peace imposed by justice leads to a stable Iraq and a prosperous future.
 The study aims to identify the most prominent challenges and obstacles created by wars and faced the process of spreading the culture of peace and instability in Iraq, and to shed light on the reasons leading to the employment of the capabilities of community leaders in spreading the culture of peace.The objective of the current research is to identify the challenges of spreading the culture of peace in Iraq, the point of view of the leaders and intellectual elites, the statement of the conceptual framework for the culture of peace, the factors facing the culture of peace, the study was presented.

THE NEW POLITICAL GOVERNANCE OF TIN MANAGEMENT IN BANGKA BELITUNG ISLANDS, INDONESIA: LOCAL ELITES’ PERSPECTIVE

The management of tin mining in the Bangka Belitung Islands, which is the world’s second largest producer of the mineral, is a complex issue, and has divided the community into two factions. One side is concerned about the ecological impact and other social implications of tin mining, while the other side is concerned with the island’s economic dependence on tin, overlapping policies and law sub-optimal enforcement. This study discussed how local elites view ideal tin mining governance. The researchers found that the elite in Bangka Belitung wanted a change in governance by changing national tin mining policies and proportional distribution of authority between the central and regional governments. This showed that there is a gap between the desire for change in the tin mining industry, and to remain passive in an established order.

Moderate Muslim in Indonesia: Views of Muslim Elite toward Religious and Socio-political Issues

This article explores the views of Muslim elites regarding religious and socio-political issues as a means of explaining moderate Islam in Indonesia. Specifically, its aim is to shed light on this matter by mapping the ideological spectrum of Muslim elites’ perspectives on significant religious and political issues. A solid understanding of the socio-political context and the viewpoints of the elite is a crucial step towards comprehending the development of religious and political attitudes among the general population and the resulting impact on the social and political progress of the country. Based on fieldwork, this article argues that the majority of Muslim elites lean towards a moderate stance when it comes to perceiving ideological matters. Nevertheless, some still exhibit a tendency towards conservatism. It is important to note that this study is limited in its geographical scope. Consequently, further research should encompass various regions of Indonesia to provide a more comprehensive and holistic perspective.

“Socially Conservative, But Politically Liberal:” A New Trend in Muslim Political Elites’ View in Indonesia

A substantial amount of literature on conservative, liberal, and moderate views in Indonesia has been flooded with qualitative case studies. In contrast, this article discusses how Muslim political elites view Islam, democracy, and modernization in Indonesia by dichotomizing their socio-religious and political views divergently. Socio-religiously, it could be attributed to how they respond and practice their religious beliefs, such as prayer, performing five-time worship, reading the holy Qur'an, rejecting homosexuality, and interfaith marriage. Politically, it can be observed by how they respond to democratic citizenship equality, minority leadership, economic liberalism, Israeli-Palestinian issues, interfaith marriage rights, and the protection of LGBT. This article employed a qualitative study and conducted in-depth interviews with five Muslim political elites in Indonesia and consulted secondary data sources. In light of the convergence of Islam, democracy, and modernization, Muslim political elites in Indonesia hold a socially conservative but politically liberal viewpoint since they have to moderate their positions to please Islamic and nationalist voters within political liberalization. It causes them to rely not only on religious issues but also on good governance matters. This new trend in Muslim political elites’ views could impact people's perceptions by constructing a culture of liberal democratic models that are constantly changing and modifying, particularly in the Muslim world. This article could be beneficial for further research at the local and national levels or even be advanced to a quantitative study to contribute to the development of the modernization theory thesis in the Muslim world.

La réforme politique en Birmanie pendant le premier moment colonial (1819–1878) by Aurore Candier

Reviewed by: La réforme politique en Birmanie pendant le premier moment colonial (1819–1878) by Aurore Candier Penny Edwards Aurore Candier. 2020. La réforme politique en Birmanie pendant le premier moment colonial (1819–1878). Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient. 430 pages. ISBN 978-2-85539-135-9 This impressive study throws a gauntlet at prevailing British and European schemas of nineteenth century Burma as a trifecta of colonial conquest (1824, 1852, and 1885) and Burmese collapse. Focusing on the period between 1819 and1878, historian Aurore Candier resets both the clock and the lens, shifting the perspective to success through the prism of political reform. Across these six decades, Candier reminds us, the Burmese court managed to maintain its sovereignty in the north and center, even as its western and coastal territories were being nibbled away and absorbed into British India. The riddle of this central resilience is at the heart of this book. The book’s title, with its postcolonial gesture to the “moment,” would have confused key actors from the period, whose thought-worlds and administrative antics Candier so deftly illuminates. For as Candier demonstrates through meticulous research and innovative analysis, this was no “moment” but an extended period of transition and adaptation. As tensions arose between the notions of “cyclical reform” embedded in scriptural traditions, enshrined in prophecies, and reinforced by ritual calendars and alternative agendas of “social reform” [End Page 187] as a linear progression, Burma’s royal, intellectual, and monastic leaders and seers engaged in an extended wrestling match with time and notions of it. Stretching the contours of “political reform” to encompass cultural, religious, social, and spiritual concerns, Candier draws on four key types of literature: historical, administrative, normative, and prophetic, across several Burmese linguistic registers, and demonstrates an extensive command of Burmese intellectual history and spiritual geography. Her keen eye for cultural nuance and sociopolitical contexts is shaped in part by the author’s long-standing lived experience of political transition across several turbulent and for the most part tyrannical decades in Myanmar. The book’s structure is thematic and partly anachronic. Part I sets a conceptual and historical and regional context for precolonial reform (réforme precoloniale). Part II (1819–1879) examines the adaptation of cyclical reform (réformes cycliques) to transformation of historical context, Part III (1830–1860s) looks at the “réformes conjuncturelles: ajustées à l’expérience coloniale,” and Part IV (1820s–1870s) at sociopolitical conceptions in transformation. Candier brings coherence to the whole by focusing on three different “Stages” of reform that cut across all four parts of the book. Candier’s methodology is spellbinding. She intertwines Burmese vernacular sources including normative literature and prophecy, Burmese and European chronicles, royal and colonial archives, and writes history from prescriptions for moral and behavioral norms and interpretations of omens. Engaging with normative or didactic vernacular texts such as the Jataka tales (stories of the Buddha’s lives before he became the Buddha) alongside highbrow court chronicles such as yazawun, literary texts, and prophecy, Candier provides rare insights into [End Page 188] the “l’univers des pensées birmanes” and extends the parameters of that “universe” from elite views to popular perceptions. As the century wears on and colonial influence thickens with the appointment of European advisors to the court, so do European chronicles, and Candier makes judicious use of such sources. Wielding this web of source materials, Candier argues for a distinct understanding of “la réforme politique” in Burma. She demonstrates that there was a specifically Burman conceptualization of both “political” and of “reform,” that was dynamic and responsive, and shines a light on the acumen and impact of court advisors over time. In the 1810s, four rigid “tiers” regulated life in the kingdom and shaped roles at court: King (Min), Advisors (Ponna), wealthy (Vessa), and poor’; the king’s sovereignty was supreme and the role of appointed court advisors was to interpret the vedas rather than tinker with structures. By the late 1870s, there was far more fluidity, and the role of ponna, or appointed court advisors, had shifted from interpreting the vedas to normalizing, synthesizing, and codifying a diverse body of texts. These...

Stigmatisation as a threat to national identity (lessons for the present from the past)

The author explores the discourses of stigmatisation using the experience of the Soviet "perestroika", Soviet, Russian and foreign materials, documents of the CPSU, Soviet bodies, public organisations and movements, eyewitness memoirs, media testimonies, personal memories. The content and mechanisms of stigmatisation as a process and means of struggle against the USSR and Russia are revealed, external and internal components of the stigmatisation process are highlighted. The state of mass consciousness in society and the views of elites, that are opposed to the national identity of the people and the state, are considered being a result of stigmatisation. The novelty of the study lies in the consideration of the mechanism of stigmatisation, that includes the formation of negative counter-identities and the state of mass consciousness, called "self-stigmatisation". Counter-identities can accompany the social differentiation of society, the formation of various social (professional, ethnic, territorial) differences. But in the process of stigmatisation of state power, they acquire a negative character and can turn into a destructive force directed against national-state identity. Such strength, as documents and other evidence show, is achieved at the “extreme” stage of stigmatisation, when there is a “resonance” of its external and internal components, and the mass consciousness of society, the views of the elites go into a state of “self-stigmatisation”. As a result, the discourse of rejection of society's values, its historical narrative (the achievements of the people, heroes of war and labour), the achievements of the present prevails, and historical traumas, insults, abuses, and mistakes of state power come to the forefront of mass consciousness. This is how the historical experience of society generations is depreciated. For millions of people, the meaning of the concepts of “service”, “heroism”, “oath”, “duty”, “citizenship” is lost, and at the same time the national-state identity is damaged. The conglomerate of negative counter-identities, united by a temporary ideological platform justifying the victory of the discourse of "new" values, takes priority. The article considers approaches to the socio-political and political-psychological study of the "extreme" stage of stigmatisation: linguistic terms-markers of "self-stigmatisation", belittling the role of patriotism, orientation of stigma to certain spiritual and material objects (monuments of history and culture, domestic flagship enterprises, memory about the heroical deeds, labour achievements). The state of "self-stigmatisation" provides "breaks" in the national-state identity and can predetermine the victory of forces that are turning the political course into a "new" direction, that to some extent satisfies the "stigmatisers". In conclusion, the tasks of stigmatisation as a means of "hybrid war" on the modern "round" of confrontation between Russia and NATO are considered.

The Reproduction of Urban Capitalism: Street Food and the Working Day in Colonial Mombasa

AbstractThis article argues that street food was an essential part of the social reproduction of Mombasa's working class during the colonial period. Like in other expanding capitalist cities, as Mombasa grew, urban workers lived further from their place of employment, which meant they could not return home for their midday meal. Street-food vendors provided them lunch at low prices in convenient locations, and therefore reproduced the working day by provisioning the calories that bridged morning to afternoon. However, postwar municipal authorities also wanted to create a particular kind of urban society in which the ‘informal’ activities of street-food vendors did not fit, and tried to expel them from the city's streets. As these campaigns unfolded, an unresolved contradiction emerged between this elite view of Mombasa, and the reality that the services vendors provided were necessary for the reproduction of the city's economy.

Understanding Cypriot youth views on peace: bottom-up experiences of everyday peace

ABSTRACT Youth views and their engagement within practices of everyday peace(building) are paramount to fostering peace, despite the deadlocks at the elite level negotiations. This article provides a bottom-up approach that recognizes the agency and potency of youth in ‘everyday peace’ by providing a voice to marginalized Cypriot youth. The semi-structured interview findings highlight that the views that Cypriot youth harbour on peace diverge from elite views and focus on societal and practical needs. Accordingly, Cypriot youth’s understanding of peace converges around three interrelated main themes – social cohesion, no discrimination and hatred, and unrestricted freedom of movement – based on frequency in expansive series of youth interviews. This article argues that youth’s priorities and responses bespeak their meaningful contributions to peace through their everyday actions.

South African tabloid coverage of Covid19: The Daily Sun.

Around the world, tabloid newspapers are routinely surrounded by a moral and cultural panic. They are criticised for lowering standards of journalism and privileging sensation above substance, diverting readers from serious news to entertainment, or foregoing ethical principles. However, scholarship about tabloids have also highlighted the ways in which these papers are frequently better attuned to their readers' everyday lived experience. In South Africa, tabloid newspapers have also received much criticism in the past for their perceived superficial treatment of important news. This article examines South African tabloid newspapers' coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic, focussing specifically on a case study of the national newspaper the Daily Sun. The national Daily Sun newspaper boasts the country's largest circulation figures. Through a quantitative content analysis of 1050 online news stories in the Daily Sun, we found that unlike mainstream front-page news reporting which was largely episodic, negative and alarmist, the majority of Daily Sun coverage was thematic and neutral. Daily Sun news coverage countered Covid-19 related misinformation and provided contextual coverage, with a large focus on the social impacts of Covid-19. The analysis concludes that despite the popular discourse of the reporting, Daily Sun reporting on Covid-19 provided readers with access to information and a focus on the micro aspects of the pandemic versus broader political issues and the views of political or scientific elites.

The Foreign Policy of Poland and the Problem of Political Rationale

The aim of the paper is to use international relations theories to explain the views of Polish elites in the field of foreign policy. The concept of political rationale in foreign policy, introduced by Fred Chernoff, is utilized to achieve this goal. The structure of the text is threefold. The first part introduces the theoretical approach. It is believed that it is possible to derive foreign policy mental maps from leading international relations theories such as realism, liberalism, and constructivism. The second part describes how foreign policy is understood by three groups of Polish elites. The third part compares decision-makers views identified in the second part with the theoretical models developed in the first part. In conclusion, the theory’s usefulness in explaining Poland’s foreign policy concepts is evaluated. The text presents an attempt to connect the issues of theory with observable political practice on the example of Poland’s foreign policy after the end of the Cold War. As a result, the paper shows the linkages between chosen International Relations (IR) theories and the state’s foreign policy. In this way, it incorporates the mainstream IR theories into the reflection conducted primarily in the Foreign Policy Analysis field.