Ideological Opponents Research Articles

TWO IMAGES OF MAKARENKO'S MAIN OPPONENT: VARIABILITY OF VALENTINA DUCHEN'S LIFE PATH

The article is devoted to the coverage of the eventful life path of A. Makarenko’s main ideological opponent – an active revolutionary, a well-known figure in national education, author of numerous pedagogical publications Valentina Diushen.The nature of V. Diushen's social origin and education, details of her revolutionary and educational-managerial activity, publishing activity are revealed, little-known biographical information about her family members is presented: the first husband – Borys Diushen, the second husband – Volodymyr Aussem, son – Ihor Diushen. The chronology of all known controversial moments of professional dialogue of V. Diushen and A. Makarenko is presented in detail. For the first time in the Makarenko literature, documentary evidence of A. Makarenko's reports on V. Duchen's affiliation with the Trotskyi opposition is presented.The set of found materials presents Valentina Diushen as a large-scale personality of a highly professional, active, able-bodied, and principled figure in the history of national education. However, it is the ambiguity, the contradiction of this figure that determines its opposed assessments by contemporaries.The conflict between Makarenko and Diushen must be viewed in two planes, the objective and the subjective. On the one hand, the tension of their professional relations as representatives of innovative pedagogy is evidence of the struggle that always accompanies the assertion of any new doctrine. On the other hand, both of these figures were extremely bright, original figures and, at the same time, extremely ambitious personalities. At the same time, the ambition and irresistibility of V. Diushen towards the self-confident but non-partisan head of the provincial institution were dictated by its administrative status, membership in the political elite, and metropolitan education and social background.So far, it is difficult to explain whether Diushen's opposition in any way influenced her pedagogical views, but it should be noted that A. Makarenko in his criticism of her makes a special emphasis on this circumstance.

Illegal Literature for the Masses: The Imaginary and Real Reader

ABSTRACT This article is devoted to the illegal literature for the masses published in the 1870s by members of the populist movement known as the Narodniki. Here, we examine this literature as a product of imagination: guided by their own conceptions of the masses, the authors of illegal brochures wrote for readers they imagined to be incapable of comprehending serious scholarly writing and needing socialist ideas to be specially adapted for them. Such preconceptions of the mass reader existed within the context of a debate about literature for the masses involving not just liberal members of the intelligentsia, but also their ideological opponents, including government officials. The article’s second half examines how actual rather than the imagined readers reacted to the socialist literature that had been specially tailored to them. Unless there was a member of the intelligentsia to explain the meaning of these publications, they were unlikely to serve their purpose: they were handed over to children, priests, or rural authorities, or simply used to roll tobacco.

Extending Humanity’s Reach: A Public-Private Framework for Space Exploration

The Cold War initiated not only rapid weaponization campaigns within the United States and the Soviet Union, but launched a space race between the ideological opponents. The Soviet Union claimed an early victory by becoming the first nation to launch a satellite into space. Despite the United States' rough start, the country triumphed during its Apollo Program to become the leader in space. Treaties and international norms emerged throughout this time to prevent these technologically raging nations from weaponizing the expansive environment of outer space, but the resulting protections against national ownership of space limited incentives for future deep space travel. As the U.S. Space Shuttle program came to an end in 2011, the United States forfeit its capabilities to transport humans to the International Space Station. This apparent abandonment of outer space, however, began to reveal the seminal role of the commercial space industry and its revolutionary technologies. This article traces the transition from the Cold War-era space race to today’s robust public-private expansion into space. It highlights the foundational importance of international cooperation to protect the interests of private companies, and presents a model of cooperative succession between space agencies and companies to send humans to Mars.

Exposure to opposing reasons reduces negative impressions of ideological opponents

Americans have become increasingly likely to dislike, distrust, and derogate their ideological opponents on contemporary social and political issues. We hypothesized that a lack of exposure to compelling reasons, arguments, and evidence from ideological opponents might at least partly explain negative views of those opponents. Consistent with this hypothesis, we found that participants assume their ideological opponents, in comparison to their ideological allies, are less likely to have good reasons for their positions. Moreover, we found that the more strongly participants believe their opponents lack good reasons for their positions, the more likely they are to report that those opponents lack both intellectual capabilities and moral character. Critically, exposure to arguments favoring their opponents' position produced more favorable impressions of those opponents. We discuss possible implications of these results for the role of reasons and reasoning in political discourse, and for productive disagreement in a functioning democracy.

The “Great Meme War:” the Alt-Right and its Multifarious Enemies

In this essay, I discuss how the alt-right has brought back into fashion traditional tenets of the reactionary, xenophobic, and often racist far-right, as demonstrated by George Hawley, and how it has managed to make these tenets appear as novel, provocative, and updated to the 21st century U.S. society and digital environment. I argue that to do so, alt-righters relied heavily on the creation, and sometimes reappropriation, of enemy images, with the ultimate goals of provoking outrage, instilling fear and/or hatred towards specific groups, reinforcing a sense of belonging within their own community, or more broadly manipulating collective perceptions and representations, first online then in real life. Indeed, the election of Donald Trump was hailed by the online alt-right as one of their major successes. With the help of irony, subversion, and often carefully engineered propaganda-like messages and images, the alt-right, it boasts, “meme’d into office” the Republican candidate. This paper consequently leads to an analysis of real-life repercussions of such adversarial rhetoric, notably through examples of recent far-right domestic terrorism in the US, and to a reflection on their place in an age of post-truth, fake news, and alternative facts. This contribution focuses on several enemy images. The first is that of the civilizational enemy from the outside, which uses the traditional process of othering. This theme is linked to Trump’s campaign and to his attacks against two major “enemies” of the U.S., namely Hispanics and Muslims. With the alt-right, refugees for example become “rapefugees,” which easily appeals to rampant islamophobia. The second enemy image created by the alt-right consists in its ideological opponents. Here, the function of the enemy image is to discredit opponents and their views (“cuckservative,” “feminazi,” or the sarcastic “Social Justice Warrior”). The third enemy image establishes a link between the first two. It depicts what I would call the “enemy within,” a common thread (or threat) in far-right ideologies. Indeed, cultural Marxism, a widespread conspiracy theory among the alt-right, is what its proponents believe to be the hidden reason for the perceived decline of the Western civilization. According to this worldview, the ideological opponents push a conspiracy against the West and its values. The recurring claims of a liberal bias among the media and academia also belong to this conspiracy theory. It also embraces elements of anti-Semitism, as well as traditional aspects of anti-communism, reminiscent of the historical Red Scares. Such a theory thus provides its believers with a broader narrative, as well as with a common enemy to rally against, and therefore builds a form of intersectionality among various online fringe groups.

Sovyet-Çin Uyuşmazlığında ABD Faktörü

Sovyet-Çin Uyuşmazlığı 1960’ların başında kesinleşti. Kuşkusuz bu durum sosyalist blokun gücüne, birliğine ve prestijine büyük zarar verdi. Bu süreçte Amerika Birleşik Devletleri (ABD) Çin Halk Cumhuriyeti (ÇHC/Çin) ile diplomatik ilişkiler kurdu. Çin de bu yakınlaşmaya “Sovyet tehdidini” dengelemek için olumlu cevap verdi. Bu çalışmada; ABD’nin Sovyetler Birliği (SSCB)-Çin ilişkilerinin bozuk olmasından faydalanarak Soğuk Savaş’ta SSCB’ye karşı avantaj sağlamaya çalıştığını, Çin’in ise SSCB’den tehdit algılaması sonucu ABD’yle ilişkilerini normalleştirdiğini ortaya koymak amaçlandı. Konu, Rusça ve İngilizce resmi, birincil ve ikincil kaynaklar kullanılarak incelendi. 1980’lerin ikinci yarısında Soğuk Savaş’ın gerilimi düştü. Bu süreçten kazançlı çıkan devlet ise ABD oldu. İdeolojik olarak rakibi SSCB’ye üstünlük sağladı. Sovyet-Çin ilişkileri düzeldi ama Soğuk Savaş sona ermiş, SSCB çözülüş sürecine girmişti. Artık ABD yeni uluslararası sistemin tek lideriydi.

Enemies within, Enemies without: the Ideology of a Conservative West-Russianist Newspaper During World War I (1914–1915)

Abstract This paper deals with the topic of conservative West-Russianist ideology and propaganda during World War I. The author analyzes the most prominent newspaper of the movement at the time – Severo-Zapadnaia Zhizn (The North-Western Life). The discourse of the newspaper is analyzed from the perspective of Belarusian nation-building, as well as from the perspective of Russian nationalism in the borderlands. The author explores the ways in which the creators of the periodical tried to use the rise of the Russian patriotic feelings to their advantage. Appealing to the heightened sense of national solidarity which took over parts of Russian society, the periodical tried to attack, delegitimize and discredit its ideological and political opponents. Besides the obvious external enemy – Germans, Severo-Zapadnaia Zhizn condemned socialists, pacifists, Jews, borderland Poles, Belarusian and Ukrainian national activists, Russian progressives and others, accusing them of disloyalty, lack of patriotism and sometimes even treason. Using nationalist loyalist rhetoric, the West-Russianist newspaper urged the imperial government to act more decisively in its campaign to end ‘alien domination’ in Russian Empire, and specifically to create conditions for domination of ‘native Russian element’ – meaning Belarusian peasantry, in the Belarusian provinces of the empire.

On the Question of Using the Civilian Population of the USSR by German Intelligence in 1941–1944

During 1941–1944 the German occupation and intelligence services created an extensive network of training centers (schools and courses) in the occupied territories of the USSR. Mostly Soviet prisoners of war were involved in reconnaissance and sabotage work, although a significant number of agents were recruited from the civilian (non-military) population. First, people who were in active or passive opposition to the Soviet regime were attracted: former emigrants, those repressed or dispossessed, ideological opponents, criminals, and others. At the same time, a significant number of agents were recruited from the civilian population who remained in the occupied territories, especially from its most vulnerable categories (women and children). The recruited agents were used to carry out reconnaissance and sabotage missions, both in the rear of the USSR and in parts of the Red Army, and against the resistance movement. On the territory of the BSSR occupied by the Germans, sixteen training centers were opened where saboteur children were trained, and more than twenty were opened to train “agents in skirts”. Similar schools and courses were opened in Russia, Ukraine, and the Baltic states. The Soviet secret services and partisan counterintelligence bodies were well informed about such work of the German secret organs. The performance of agents trained from among the civilian population was low. There were some tactical successes and actions by enemy agents (especially on the eve and during the period of punitive operations), but strategically this work by the Germans actually failed.

Die „Fälle“ Wolfgang Holzer und Hans Bertha sowie andere „Personalia“. Kontinuitäten und Diskontinuitäten in der Grazer Psychiatrie 1945–1970

The article deals with the professional biographies of the leading experts in psychiatry (and neurology) working at the University of Graz and the asylum at Feldhof/Graz in the period between the end of national socialist regime and the year 1970, as the approximate end of the post-war-period. A focus is laid upon the outstanding biography of Hans Bertha. A Styrian physician, NSDAP-member, SS-officer since 1937, NS-health politician, “T4-reviewer” 1940/41, and director of Austrias largest mental asylum in Vienna in the years 1944/45 – and in these functions responsible for the deaths of a large number of mental patients –, Bertha somehow managed to evade any serious consequence for his crimes after the end of the Nazi government; only being arrested for inquiry from April to December 1945 and again 1946/47. Strikingly, Bertha was re-awarded his lectureship at the University of Graz in 1953 and even appointed head of the psychiatric-neurological clinic in Graz later (1954 provisional, 1960 regular). Ascending even further and becoming dean of the medical faculty in 1963, Bertha died shortly after from injuries caused by a car accident that had occurred in Yugoslavia under not fully clarified circumstances.Apart from this exceptional negative example, the pre- and post-1945 careers of the other – provisional or definitive – heads of the psychiatric-neurological clinic in Graz within the stated period are dealt with, yet in shorter manner: Heinrich di Gaspero (1945/46), Wolfgang Holzer (1946–54), Erich Pakesch (1964–68), Herbert Reisner (1968–71), as well as those of the directors of the main statal mental asylum in Styria, Feldhof: Peter Korp (1945–54), Ernst Arlt (1954–59), Anton Oswald (1960) and Fritz Mayr (1961–69). Among these physicians, who may be regarded as the professional elite in psychiatry in the post-war province of Styria, there were several former National Socialists, too. Ideological opponents of the Nazi regime and particularly of its policy of mass murder of mental patients obviously were a minority among Styrian psychiatrists of these days. Still, three of the named post-war heads, Holzer, Pakesch and Arlt, have to be regarded as such. In addition Gerald Grinschgl has to be named, still a student of medicine before 1945, but lecturer for psychiatry and neurology from 1959 onwards.

Китайский путь реформ в условиях глобализации

The article is focused on theoretical debates on experience of reforms in China in the context of adaptation to new external and internal challenges. The specific features of Chinese reforms include the combination of benefiting from markets with preserving the regulatory role of the government. Skillful use of the advantages of backwardness assisted the processes of rapid assimilation of foreign experience and technologies. At the present stage, the PRC needs to upgrade national innovation capacities to counterbalance the risks brought by the technological blockade imposed by the West. Trade tensions with the United States revived the ideas of limiting private business and expanding government intervention in the economy. In 2018, a brief discussion about the role of private enterprise in China demonstrated that strengthening of centralized Party leadership is not equal to curtailing market reforms. The mainstream in Chinese economics calls for deepening reforms and expanding openness for the sake of national development. Beijing plans to continue industrialization and also to use the opportunities of the fourth industrial revolution to gain foothold in high technologies. Smooth functioning of multilateral mechanisms of global governance is the key prerequisite for achieving long-term goals of China’s modernization. Beijing claims the roles of ideological opponent of anti-globalization and cheerleader of new globalization movement. In early 2020, the coronavirus epidemic was a major test of the Chinese system’s resilience and its ability to sustain economic growth. Extra strengthening of centralized leadership and the concentration of resources in the “people’s war” against the epidemic brought positive results. Chinese experts are optimistic about long-term economic growth, citing a wealth of macroeconomic experience in dealing with crisis situations. The biggest concern is the possibility of switching to economic stimulus policy that accelerates growth by accumulating significant financial risks. After the epidemic, the importance of foreign markets for China’s economic growth has increased. This situation highlighted practical relevance of Chinese plans of supporting economic globalization.

Social Determinants of Crime and Hatred Incidents at Mass Sports Events in Poland

Crime and hatred have been a permanent part of mass events organized in Poland. The situation is the most difficult in the case of football matches, especially at the national level. Despite legal changes and many measures adopted by sports clubs, the police and other institutions, not only has the situation not changed but there are symptoms of its deterioration. It is extremely worrying that these informal groups form structures that operate following the principles characteristic of organized crime. The subject of study in this article are the phenomena of crime and hatred occurring at mass events organized in Poland; its purpose is to identify the causes and present conclusions regarding necessary actions, based on an analysis of statistics and reports. Methods characteristic of theoretical studies have been employed developing this study, as well as the results of surveys conducted in 2014. The basic research problems involve finding answers to the following questions:
 
 – Did the determination of police in ensuring the safety of the EURO 2012 final tournament calm the mood and improve security of mass events?
 – What is the current scale of crime, hooligan acts and collective violations of security and public order in relation to mass events organized in Poland today?
 – Are the solutions in this area systemic, durable and consistent?The hypothesis was that, although public security authorities have been implementing
 
 a wide range of measures, crime and deep-rooted hatred towards enemy clubs and ideological opponents continue to be a hallmark of football fan circles and thus of some mass events organized in Poland. The inconsistent continuation of good practices adopted in the past, perceiving the problem only in terms of isolated incidents, and the lack of statistics that would help to prepare precise scientific analyses, all require moderation in predicting positive changes in this narrow area of public security.

Understanding Nonbelievers’ Prejudice toward Ideological Opponents: The Role of Self-Expression Values and Other-Oriented Dispositions

ABSTRACT Research adopting the ideological-conflict hypothesis indicates that low religiosity, nonbelief, and antireligious sentiments predict prejudice toward ideological opponents. How to understand this, from an individual differences perspective, given that nonbelievers are typically open-minded and low in authoritarianism? We investigated, among 422 UK adults, social distance from antiliberals (antigay activists), fundamentalists, and religionists of major world religions (Catholicism, Islam, and Buddhism). Nonbelievers showed prejudice toward all religious targets – but not toward an ethnic outgroup (Chinese). Furthermore, antireligious sentiment implied (1) valuing rationality and, in turn, social distance from fundamentalists and (2) low empathy and low belief in the benevolence of others and the world and, in turn, social distance from religionists. Finally, (3) valuing liberty predicted social distance from antiliberals but failed to mediate the effect of antireligious sentiment. Though general processes (e.g., perceived threat) explain all prejudices, specific individual differences seem to distinguish nonbelievers’ and believers’ prejudice toward each other.

VLADIMIR SOLOVIEV'S WAY TO “THE HISTORY AND THE FUTURE OF THEOCRACY”: CONTROVERSY ABOUT THE DOGMATIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH ON THE PAGES OF “FAITH AND REASON” MAGAZINE (1884-1891)

The main article is devoted to the historical and philosophical reconstruction of controversy between Vladimir Solovyov and the authors of the “Faith and Reason” - a magazine of the Kharkov Theological Seminary. This controversy took its place in the “theological and journalistic” or the “theocratic” period of Solovyov’s works (1880s). Particular attention is paid to the disputes of Solovyov and T. Stoyanov (Konstantin Istomin), A.P. Shost'in and the French Orthodox priest Fr. Vladimir Gette on the theory of dogmatic development in the church. In the context of this controversy, the arguments for the “defense” of Solovyov's position, cited in the magazine “Orthodox Review” by a theologian and Konstantin Leontyev's follower Ivan Kristi are also analyzed. The reception of Solovyov's theocratic ideas and reaction to his ecclesiastical views in both the Catholic and Orthodox circles of Russian and Western society is shown. Especially it concerns the criticism of Solovyov’s ideas in the pages of the French magazines “L’Univers”, “L'Union Chrétienne”, “Revue d’Eglise greque-unie”, etc. The evolution of Solovyov's views on the problem of the union of Eastern and Western churches, the renewal of church communication between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, the main result of which was his fundamental but unfinished work “The History and Future of the Theocracy” (Zagreb, 1887) was demonstrated. A conclusion about the “superficiality” of the judgments of the majority of Vladimir Solovyov's ideological opponents, as well as later interpreters of his legacy, following the French Jesuit Michel d'Erbigny, who tried to present him as a “Russian Newman” who converted from Orthodoxy into the Catholic faith is drawn. It is shown that Solovyov’s projects of the “religion of the Holy Spirit” and the “Universal Church”, created on its basis, should be considered primarily in the context of his own philosophical quest, and not in connection with the confessional and ideological divergences of his time.

Rejecting Opposite Ideologies without Discriminating against Ideological Opponents? Understanding Nonbelievers’ Outgroup Attitudes

Several people fail to reject opposite ideologies without discriminating against opponents. Do nonbelievers make this distinction? Across two experiments in three cultures (total N = 2064), we investigated participants’ willingness to help a religious target involved in religious anti-liberalism (antiabortion), activism (promoting Christian ideas), or devotion (religious service); or a neutral cause (copying syllabus or visiting family). In comparison to a control condition (neutral target, neutral cause), nonbelievers–except French atheists, to some extent–made this distinction: they were unwilling to help the religious target when acting for any of the three religious causes, but not when acting for a neutral cause. Groups with opposite ideologies, here believers and nonbelievers, seem both similar and qualitatively dissimilar in their outgroup attitudes.

An emigrant, a repatriate, a foreigner in the Ukrainian and Bulgarian detectives in the fifth-eighth decades of the 20th century

The article is a part of the study of colonial strategy creating by the Soviet Union by means of the mass literature ideologems. The cognitive and emotional images of emigrants, repatriates and foreigners are considered in the context of ideologization of the “insider” / “stranger” opposition and these images are endowed with a complex of guilt. Chronologically, emigration in a Ukrainian detective story is associated with two events sacralized by social realism — the Bolshevik revolution and the Second World War (themythologems of “the Great October Revolution” and “the Great Patriotic War”). Respectively, the reasons for emigration in detectives are escape from the Soviet justice (uenerovitses, “banderovitses”, collaborators) and export by deception (ostarbeiters) which forms two types of characters. The first type was considered as ideological opponents therefore their images are dehumanized by hypertrophied sadism, focusing on profit, lack of feelings that turns enemies of the Soviet system into enemies of humanity. The second type is the image of the victim, which is punished all his life, since he did not return to his homeland. A characteristic component of the emigrant image is his inferiority.The Bulgarian detective story of this period has the same mythological structure which was transferredready and was adjusted, that is shown by time structure of texts (the sacralization of September, 1944 is complemented with fragments of “the October myth”). Images of emigrants, repatriates, and foreigners in the Bulgarian detective story demonstrate as reproduction of the Soviet pattern (immoral enemies of humanity; emigrant = spy) so withdrawal from it.The novelty is representation of attempts to cross the border of socialist Bulgaria (passport regime violation and “non-return”); and the social and age list of the fugitives: among them there are young citizens of the socialist country suffering from the lack of realization of their ambitions and even children of the “revolution legends”, which undermine the main myth.Thus, it is shown that the Ukrainian and Bulgarian detective stories adopt the mythologems of social realism, which are transformed in the national context, as well as the crisis of mythologism is observed in the Bulgarian detective story.

Does Our Vision of Diversity Include Social Conservatives?

Achieving our goals of advancing science and benefitting society depends on ideological diversity. Cultivating relationships and dialogue with ideological opponents creates compassion and progress.

“Tsensuuri töö on väga vastutusrikas.” Dokumentaalne pilguheit Eesti NSV Glavliti tegevusele aastatel 1941–1948 [Abstract: “The work of censorship carries a great deal of responsibility”. A documentary glimpse of the activity of the Estonian SSR Glavlit

Abstract: “The work of censorship carries a great deal of responsibility”. A documentary glimpse of the activity of them Estonian SSR Glavlit in 1941–1948"
 Censorship was one of the important social control mechanisms of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Main Administration for Literary and Publishing Affairs, or Glavlit (in Russian Glavnoe upravlenie po delam literaturȳ i izdatel’stv), was established under the jurisdiction of the People’s Commissariat for Education on 6 June 1922 by decree of the Russian SFSR Council of People’s Commissars. Its task was to combat the ideological opponents of the Soviet regime. The censorship of essentially all printed works published in the Soviet Union was gradually placed under Glavlit’s jurisdiction. By the end of the 1930s, Glavlit was transferred to the jurisdiction of the USSR Council of People’s Commissars (starting in 1946 the Council of Ministers), but substantially, censorship officials were placed under the direction of subordinate institutions and officials of the Communist Party, and of the state security organs. The same kind of institutions in the Soviet republics and oblasts were subordinated to the central Glavlit of the USSR. The Glavlit of the Estonian SSR was established by decree of the Estonian SSR Council of People’s Commissars on 23 October 1940.
 The task of Glavlit was to prevent the disclosure in print and in the media of Soviet military, state and economic secrets with the overall objective of banning the publication of all manner of ideas and information that was unacceptable to the regime. It was also to prevent such ideas and information from reaching libraries. To this end, both pre-publication censorship (the review of control copies of printed works before their publication) and post-publication censorship (review of published printed works, the physical destruction or obstruction of access to works that have proven to be unsuitable) were implemented. In order to carry out censorship, lists of banned literature were drawn up in cooperation with the state security organs, along with enumerations of information that was forbidden to publish in print. These formed the basis for the everyday work of Glavlit’s censors, in other words commissioners. Not a single printed work or media publication could be published during the Soviet era without Glavlit’s permission (departmental publishing houses practiced self-censorship). In addition to scrutinising printed works, the monitoring of art exhibitions, theatre productions and concert repertoires, the review of cinema newsreels, and provision of guidelines for publishing houses and libraries also fell within Glavlit’s jurisdiction. Censors also read mail sent by post and checked the content of parcels (first and foremost the exchange of postal parcels with foreign countries).
 In the latter half of the 1980s, when Mikhail Gorbachev rose to lead the Soviet Union, Glavlit’s control functions in society gradually started receding. State censorship was done away with in the Soviet Union on 12 June 1990, depriving the former censorship office of its substantial functions. Glavlit was disbanded in Estonia on 1 October 1990.
 The Estonian SSR Glavlit activity overview for the years 1940–1948 is published below. This is a report dated 20 October 1948 from Leonida Päll, the head of the Estonian SSR Glavlit (in office in 1946–1950), to Nikolai Karotamm, the Estonian SSR party boss of that time. This document provides a brief departmental insight into the initial years of the activity of the Estonian SSR Glavlit. It outlines the censorship agency’s main fields of activity, highlights the key figures of that time, and describes the agency’s concrete achievements, including recording the more important works and authors that had been caught between the gearwheels of censorship.

Supplemental Material for Awe, Ideological Conviction, and Perceptions of Ideological Opponents

Supplemental Material for Awe, Ideological Conviction, and Perceptions of Ideological Opponents

Extracting Inter-Community Conflicts in Reddit

Anti-social behaviors in social media can happen both at user and community levels. While a great deal of attention is on the individual as an ‘aggressor,’ the banning of entire Reddit subcommunities (i.e., subreddits) demonstrates that this is a multi-layer concern. Existing research on inter-community conflict has largely focused on specific subcommunities or ideological opponents. However, antagonistic behaviors may be more pervasive and integrate into the broader network. In this work, we study the landscape of conflicts among subreddits by deriving higher-level (community) behaviors from the way individuals are sanctioned and rewarded. By constructing a conflict network, we characterize different patterns in subreddit-to-subreddit conflicts as well as communities of ‘co-targeted’ subreddits .The dynamics of these interactions also reveals a shift in conflict focus over time.

Jihadi Culture: The Art and Social Practices of Militant Islamists

Jihadi Culture: The Art and Social Practices of Militant Islamists