Face Political Challenges Research Articles

Kontekstualisasi Undang-Undang Dasar Negara Republik Indonesia Tahun 1945 Dalam Perspektif Islam

Constitutional amendments in Muslim-majority countries, including Indonesia, often face political challenges, constitutional conflicts, and harmonisation between sharia principles and democratic values and civil liberties. This process reflects the complex socio-political dynamics of achieving a balance between tradition and modernity. This research aims to understand these challenges from an Islamic perspective, identify factors that influenced the amendment process, and explore the integration of Islamic principles with democratic values within a reformist constitutional framework. Using a qualitative approach and analysing relevant documents and literature studies, as well as conducting interviews with legal, political and religious experts, this research highlights the political tensions and conflicts related to human rights, governance structures, minority rights and religion. Despite challenges, there are opportunities to mediate sharia principles with democracy through constructive dialogue and compromise. The research also offers strategies to support constitutional reforms that take into account public welfare and democratic principles. Keywords:Constitution, Contextualization, Islam.

Maqashid’s Lens on Checks and Balances of Simultaneous Elections In Indonesia

This study aimed to explore the principle of checks and balances using the results of simultaneous elections from the perspective of Maqashid al-Syariah. This study is legal research with a normative, comparative, and conceptual approach. According to the findings of this study, the scope of maqashid al-sharia has been considered in the control of state life (maqashid al-siyasah) as part of the development of current maqashid studies. In implementing checks and balances, the nation's interests (hifdz al-ummah) are the main objective of consolidating executive and legislative institutions after simultaneous elections. A government will function effectively if the elected president receives support from a broad coalition in parliament; if he receives just minority support in parliament, the government will face political challenges and become unstable. As a result, institutional ties must be strengthened to offer checks and balances based on maqashid siyasi. This study adds to the implementation of checks and balances based on performance and the interests of the people, rather than political sentiment, to develop friendly governance following the simultaneous elections.

The StoryMapper: Piloting a Traveling Placemaking Interface for Inclusion and Emplacement

As aresponse to traditional (top‐down) urban planning processes, placemaking engages local citizens in the process of shaping the form, social activity, and meaning of places around them. However, placemaking practices similarly face political challenges regarding inclusion and emplacement. These challenges relate to who participates, facilitation through linguistic discourse, and place engagement itself. Attempting to address these challenges, this article (based on a pilot study) reports on the design and deployment of the StoryMapper, a traveling placemaking interface that uses a participant‐driven “chain of engagement” recruiting process to invite participants to create emplaced “morphings” (i.e., visually produced stories superimposed on public space) to spark dialogue on a digitally facilitated living map. This pilot study took place within a larger placemaking project that engages citizens to share their ideas regarding the reconversion of a community church. Plugging the Storymapper into this larger project, we discuss preliminary findings relating to the role of placemaking facilitators in citizen‐driven recruitment and the role of multimodality in placemaking processes. This pilot study suggests that inclusion should not only be evaluated based on who participates and who does not, but also on how the tool itself, in its capacity to engage participants to visualize complex emplaced ideas, may facilitate inclusion of different publics.

Political battles in suburbia

Media reports have shown suburban school officials being threatened and school board meetings erupting into chaos. Rachel S. White, Michael P. Evans, and Joel R. Malin examine whether these politically contentious experiences are occurring everywhere, or if there is something distinct about the contentiousness suburban superintendents face. Drawing on a national survey of superintendents, they asked: How do political experiences of rural, suburban, and urban superintendents differ? The results paint a bleak picture about the stresses of the superintendency, and the direct toll they have on some superintendents’ well-being. However, they also identify ways to support suburban superintendents as they face political challenges.

Women in Urban Local Government in Bangladesh: A Study on Narayanganj City Corporation

Women's equal participation in politics is critical to women's advancement. This determination, however, is not to be made uniformly across the globe. Yet, in contemporary periods, it has witnessed a significant shift in women's political participation globally. The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of women's overall participation, their socioeconomic status, and their valuable role in urban policy formulation and implementation in Bangladesh. In this analysis, primary and secondary data are integrated. Primary sources are referenced to substantiate theories and arguments asserted in the secondary literature, which are based on the case study of Narayanganj City Corporation. It is completed with the assistance of theories and contentions gleaned from secondary sources. Additionally, this study concludes with an examination of Bangladeshi women's position in the decision-making process. Another pressing need is to broaden the participation of women in political culture at the grassroots level. In urban areas, the City Corporation must interact with various government, autonomous, and semi-autonomous bodies. The situation of female ward councillors has deteriorated to the point where there is some ambiguity. Women's involvement in politics has been limited by a decline in financial capital and family support. Women can appeal to low-level politics thanks to a patriarchal viewpoint. In Bangladesh, women continue to struggle for equal rights and face political challenges. Societal norms enforce gender stereotypes. Religious restrictions are the most severe concern among Bangladesh's status issues, which have a complicated structure. Women are not politically socialized enough to participate in the political life of their country. The City Corporation's institutional rules and responsibilities are of little concern to women, and the existing regulations are insufficient. Therefore, the paper can reveal the actual scenario of women's representation and obstacles in the urban level of Bangladesh.

How do decision-makers use evidence in community health policy and financing decisions? A qualitative study and conceptual framework in four African countries.

Various investments could help countries deliver on the universal health coverage (UHC) goals set by the global community; community health is a pillar of many national strategies towards UHC. Yet despite resource mobilization towards this end, little is known about the potential costs and value of these investments, as well as how evidence on the same would be used in related decisions. This qualitative study was conducted to understand the use of evidence in policy and financing decisions for large-scale community health programmes in low- and middle-income countries. Through key informant interviews with 43 respondents in countries with community health embedded in national UHC strategies (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique) and at global institutions, we investigated evidence use in community health financing and policy decision-making, as well as evidentiary needs related to community health data for decision-making. We found that evidence use is limited at all levels, in part due to a perceived lack of high-quality, relevant evidence. This perception stems from two main areas: first, desire for local evidence that reflects the context, and second, much existing economic evidence does not deal with what decision-makers value when it comes to community health systems—i.e. coverage and (to a lesser extent) quality. Beyond the evidence gap, there is limited capacity to assess and use the evidence. Elected officials also face political challenges to disinvestment as well as structural obstacles to evidence use, including the outsized influence of donor priorities. Evaluation data must to speak to decision-maker interests and constraints more directly, alongside financiers of community health providing explicit guidance and support on the role of evidence use in decision-making, empowering national decision-makers. Improved data quality, increased relevance of evidence and capacity for evidence use can drive improved efficiency of financing and evidence-based policymaking.

A Matter of Framing: Explaining the Failure of Post‐Islamist Social Movements in the Arab Spring

AbstractShortly after the Arab Spring began in 2010, multiple scholars noted that the dominant discursive trend present within these protests was that of post‐Islamism. Post‐Islamism is broadly defined as an ideology seeking to establish a democratic state within a distinctly Islamic society. Despite the presence of post‐Islamist opportunity structures, social movements embodying post‐Islamist principles have had little success consolidating power. The theoretical argument presented here is that the failure of these movements is the result of inherent flaws within post‐Islamist frames. Specifically, this study posits that unlike traditional Islamist frames (i.e., frames emphasizing the creation of a state governed by Shari‘a) post‐Islamist frames limit the ability of movements’ to monopolize religion as a cultural asset. As such, when post‐Islamist movements face political challenges during contentious periods they cannot rely on nontemporal legitimacy to retain power. Additionally, the challenging task of integrating Islamic and democratic frames in contentious moments renders post‐Islamist movements susceptible to counterframing. The preceding claims will be tested through a comparative analysis of the Iranian Hierocracy (1977–1979), and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (2011–2014). Comparing the experiences of a post‐Islamist movement (Brotherhood) with that of an Islamist movement (Hierocracy) will explicate the flaws within post‐Islamist frames.

Localisation in the 2004 Presidential Election Campaign in Taiwan

The 2004 presidential election campaign in Taiwan brought head to head the political alliance of the Kuomintang (KMT), the People’s First Party (PFP) and the New Party (NP) on one side, and of the Democracy Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) on the other. Adopting an iconographic approach, this article looks at four aspects of “Taiwanisation”: a stronger Taiwan identity, the island’s ability to face political challenges arising from democratisation and political unrest, Chen Shui-bian as the symbol of Taiwan, and the Taiwanese hostility towards and distrust of mainland China.