Important Political Phenomena Research Articles

The personalization of government: concept and comparative analysis

ABSTRACT The personalization of politics is one of the most important political phenomena of our time. Following the decline of traditional party government, various political systems have seen a radical shift of power from collective to individual actors. In this context, one of the main forms of the personalization of politics is the personalization of government. Heads of government have become more central to democratic executives due to their direct relationship with citizens, their greater control over government action, and structural changes in the institutional setting in which they operate. Although a large body of comparative evidence seems to support this trend, the existing literature has not yet offered a precise conceptual lens through which to do a detailed analysis of this transformation over time. This article introduces the concept of “monocratic government” as a way to study the personalization of government in terms of the ability of leaders to create consensus and use their powers effectively, and to analyse other contextual factors such as the party-system and executive-legislative relations. The last section analyses the Italian Republic over different time periods, paving the way for further comparative analysis.

Linguistic representation of the concept BERLIN WALL in German eonyms

The article is devoted to the study of linguistic representation of the concept BERLIN WALL in modern German. The main goal of the article is to identify and describe eonyms (key words of the epoch) that preserve the historical memory of the Berlin Wall in modern German. The material of the study was eonyms selected from the rating lists of the linguistic action of the German Language Society (Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache e. V.) «Word of the Year» for the period from 1978 to 2020, verbalizing the concept BERLIN WALL. The application of comparative-historical and descriptive methods made it possible to identify eonyms representing the result of linguistic reflection of the most important political phenomenon in modern German history. The article provides a linguocultural analysis of the selected eonyms in synchronic and diachronic aspects. The author describes the influence of the BERLIN WALL concept on the perception of East and West German citizens of each other, analyses the linguistic reflection of changes in political and social life in Germany in the critical era after German reunification. The description of the socio-historical contexts of the emergence of eonyms as representatives of the BERLIN WALL concept allows us to characterise the existing linguistic stereotypes in the German language. The analysis highlights the eonyms and their derivatives, which appear with certain cyclicity, linking historical events with each other and characterising the dynamic development of society and language. The unfolding of the meanings projected in the eonyms allows us to identify the most significant historical events reflected in the concept of BERLIN WALL, to interpret the differences in communicative behaviour between the inhabitants of East and West Germany.

The origins, characteristics and trends of neo-nationalism in the 21st century.

The rise of neo-nationalism has been an important political phenomenon since the 21st century. Neo-nationalism is not a single form of nationalism. It is not only a generalization of a specific type of nationalism at present, but also a description of a series of new nationalism phenomena. From the point of what it may include, it has at least four forms: far-right nationalism, evangelical nationalism, separatist nationalism, and (the third world) religious nationalism. Compared with traditional nationalism, neo-nationalism has undergone major changes in terms of guiding ideology or values behind, epochal character, propulsion mechanism, function, propagation mode, influence, and field of occurrence. At the same time, neo-nationalism is also a kind of high-intensity identity politics with a sort of quasi-fundamentalist characteristics. It discards the core value principles of traditional nationalism and the basic etiquette of polite society. Some dangerous and even crazy essential factors of nationalism have been developed to extremes in the new era. This means that its destructiveness to specific countries and societies is far greater than that caused by the reactive identity politics of minorities. From the perspective of trends in development, while the neo-nationalism shows the general characteristics of co-advance and retreat in the general trend, its four specific forms also show certain differences in the development direction. With the further setback of the globalization process, neo-nationalism will have a significant impact on the security of relevant countries, regions and even the world.

Factors of Ethnic Politicization in the Context of Threats to National Security in Ukraine

Ethnic mosaicism of Ukraine and the ethnonational factor are the phenomena that affect all spheres of the society. The ethnic factor has a special role in the emergence of contradictions in polyethnic states. On the one hand, “ethnicity is a form of social organization of cultural differences” (F. Bart), and on the other, ethnicity is instrumental and can be used as a means to achieve political goals (A. Cohen). Ethnicity has been and is a political resource that has been played out by political players for centuries. An important political phenomenon of our time is politicized ethnicity. The article analyzes some factors of politicization of ethnicity. The factors of politicization of ethnicity were: dissemination of unreliable information about the radical demands of territorial autonomy on behalf of “national minorities”; the destructive role of politicians who positioned themselves as lobbyists for the interests of national minorities; ethnic entrepreneurship, ethnic political parties; presence of dual citizenship, fake news, false information, and more. It is proved that certain factors of politicization of ethnicity pose a threat to the national security of the country.It is determined that ethnic identity is an effective tool for both consolidation and deconsolidation of ethnic groups and has its own political subjectivity. It is proved that in the process of decentralization, representatives of all ethnonational communities perceive each other well, and conflicts on ethnic grounds do not arise. However, due to people's low awareness of the peculiarities and prospects of the local government reform, politicians, especially local ones, are playing the “ethnic card” in their own interests.

What Was It? (Preliminary Reflection on Khabarovsk Rallies)

The Khabarovsk protest has been going on for months: first, it suddenly made headlines of the world media and then it was pushed to the periphery of the information space. The predictions about the protest fading away stubbornly refuse to come true. Maybe not tens of thousands as it was earlier, but thousands of city residents still take to the streets. Moreover, tension, uncertainty, and discontent persist in the air. Dozens of articles and many reports have been written about Khabarovsk, and even a full-length docu mentary has been released. Nevertheless, the question remains: why did the population of the city, who for decades preferred to distance themselves from any government’s initiatives, all of a sudden switched to a strategy of protest? What part of this situation is unique to Khabarovsk, and where do we observe more general patterns? This article is devoted to finding answers to these questions. Having examined the main facets of the events unfolding in Khabarovsk, L.Bliakher and A.Kovalevsky come to the conclusion that these events are about the most important political phenomenon — formation of the political agency of the population that for many years has been reduced to the position of an object. In the case of Khabarovsk, residents started to perceive themselves as a political agent after the 2018 protest voting. In this situation, people began to view the ex-governor of the Khabarovsk region not so much as a good — or not very good — leader, but rather as a symbol of acquiring political agency, which became a key element of regional identification, formation of the local community. That is why his arrest was perceived by the residents of the region as a personal insult. And it is their identity that they defend on the streets of Khabarovsk.

Dopo la Grande Guerra Violenza, Stati e Società Tra Adriatico Orientale e Balcani

Dopo la Grande Guerra Violenza, Stati e Società Tra Adriatico Orientale e Balcani

A Family Affair: Populism, Technocracy, and Political Epistemology

ABSTRACT Jeffrey Friedman’s Power Without Knowledge provides not only a critique of technocracy but a compelling story about the intimate relationship between three of today’s most important political phenomena: populism, technocracy, and democracy. In contrast to many recent accounts that treat populism as a backlash against technocracy, Friedman’s theory suggests that populism is a lineal descendent of technocracy, with which it shares substantial intellectual DNA. Friedman’s implicit theory of populism helps to explain many of its core features, including its political stances, emotionality, and hostility to mediating institutions, in interpretively charitable ways. Central to Friedman’s analysis is the importance of political epistemology, which supplies key connective tissue between the three phenomena. The relations between technocracy, democracy, and populism revealed by Friedman’s theory generate both enlightening and disturbing implications for democratic theory.

سیمیائیة الصورة فی الخطاب الصحفی لقضایا التنمیة فی مصر:

تنطوي مشکلة الدراسة على محاولة التعرف على المضامين الاتصالية للأنساق البصرية في إطار تحليل سيميولوجي مواز للنص، لهذا تتشکل مشکلة الدراسة في تفکيک الرموز الدلالية البصرية حول قضايا التنمية في مصر کواحدة من أهم الظواهر السياسية علي أجندة صانع القرار المصري والتي انعکست علي أساليب الممارسة السياسية في المجلتين الاقتصاديتين عينة الدراسة، متضمنة العلاقات المصرية الدبلوماسية والاقتصادية الاستثمارية وتطوير البنية التحية، حيث حرص الرئيس عبد الفتاح السيسي علي الانخراط المصري الإفريقي وإعادة الدور الريادي المصري في القارة الإفريقية، من هنا أزداد تأثير وسائل الإعلام علي الصورة المقدمة عن قضايا التنمية في مصر، والتي تتأثر بالتوجهات السياسية المصرية نحو استراتيجيات الاستثمار ورصدها إعلاميا، الأمر الذي يدفع لدراسة الصورة المقدمة عن قضايا التنمية في مصر بالتطبيق على المجلتين الاقتصاديتين إفريقيا بيزنس البريطانية وجلوبال فاينانس الأمريکية، طبقا لرؤية المتلقي لفهم المضمون الاتصالي البصري وليس لرؤية صانع الخطاب، سيما في ظل التحديات التي تواجه عمليات التنمية في مصر، فنقل الصورة عن التنمية في مصر يشهد تطورا لا بأس به يعکس ما نادت به مؤسسة الرئاسة من مشروعات تنموية استثمارية وتم تطبيقها خلال وقت وجيز. Semiological study for visual messages as a sample from the websites of two magazines: Africa business and global finance Ekram Mahmoud Sayed Abdel Razek Summary: The study aimed to identify to the communicative contents for the visual formats in the semeological analysis frame parallel to the text. Therefore , the problem of the study formed in taking apart the visual semantic symbols about development issues in Egypt as one of the important political phenomenon’s on the Egyptian decision maker agenda's, which reflecting on the political practicing ways on the economic magazines study sample , including the Egyptian diplomatic , economic and investment relations and infrastructure developments . The study results emphasizes that the idea of some of the study sample images collects the symbolic images as an indicator to the trend to the digital economy and investment the infrastructure with foreign investments is growing .

Strategic partnership: characterizing an important political phenomenon

This is an article on the phenomenon of strategic partnership, which is understood to be a special type of geopolitical and geo-economic cooperation, which, in the author’s opinion, might become a fundamental element of the current globalized world’s composition in the very near future. A general characteristic is given to the theoretical underpinnings of the issue, which brings us to the fact that there are no concrete definitions for the term “strategic partnership”, as well as no criteria that would allow for separating the scientific perception of the term from its purely decorative application in political discourse. The author insists that each and every specific strategic partnership is developed and sustained based on a unique combination of supporting factors, and as a result the study of such processes requires using the appropriate individualized (ideographical) methods. The article offers an example in the form of analyzing one of the most telling cases of this sort – the genesis and development of strategic partnership relations between Russia and India. This study examines the emergence of “special relations” between the two nations, which have deep historical roots, while analyzing the specific profile of this relationship during the time of British dominion, and looking into the process of establishing contacts between intellectual circles. Considerable focus is dedicated to these relations turning into bilateral political cooperation after India declaring its independence, and to the dynamic of said cooperation. Based on the experience of Russia and India, certain general conditions for building strategic partnerships are formulated. While analyzing the future prospects of the strategic partnership between the Russian Federation and India, the author considers the geopolitical significance of the “Moscow-Deli- Peking” triangle, as well as the potential it bears in terms of transforming Eurasia into a territorial entity tied together by large-scale infrastructural and environmental protection projects.

Lulism, Populism, and Bonapartism

Lulism is one of the most important political phenomena of twenty-first-century Brazil. It can be compared to the Varguism that dominated Brazilian politics between 1930 and 1964 in its broad popular but politically unorganized base and its policy of state intervention in the economy to stimulate economic growth, increase the state’s room for maneuver against the imperialist countries, and promote a moderate income distribution. These two variants of populism differ, however, in that Varguism was based on the working class while Lulism, which may be called “neopopulism,” is based on the marginal mass of workers and has less potential to destabilize the political process. Bonapartism, to which Lulism has also been compared, is distinct from it in that what links its leadership to its base is the fetish of the state based on order rather than the fetish based on protection. O lulismo é um dos fenômenos políticos mais importantes do Brasil do século XXI. Pode ser comparado ao varguismo que dominou a política brasileira entre 1930 e 1964 em relação à sua ampla, mas politicamente desorganizada, base popular, e sua política de intervenção estatal na economia para estimular o crescimento econômico, aumentar a margem de manobra do Estado contra os países imperialistas e promover uma distribuição de renda moderada. Essas duas variantes do populismo diferem, no entanto, no sentido de que o varguismo era baseado na classe trabalhadora, enquanto o lulismo, que pode ser chamado de “neopopulismo”, é baseado na massa marginal de trabalhadores e tem menos potencial para desestabilizar o processo político. O bonapartismo, ao qual o lulismo também foi comparado, é distinto dele, pois o que liga sua liderança à sua base é o fetiche do estado baseado na ordem, e não o fetiche baseado na proteção.

Engaged Political Science

Political scientists are wary of engaging with ‘the public’ on mainstream and social media because they fear those mediums fail to get across the deep and nuanced argument they develop in their own research. This article suggests a way of justifying public engagement that begins not with debates about the ethical and political concerns of doing this in practice (of which there are many), but how we as political scientists justify public media engagement to ourselves on the basis of the ethical and political process of ‘doing’ political science. As such, this article identifies the disciplinary basis upon which we may justify media-driven public engagement as an integral part of political science as an academic enterprise. Drawing on current epistemological debates in political science, the article characterises moments of political research as impressionistic exercises, which require public engagement. This means making the public aware of the deep and valuable insights of political science, in a way that sketches out how the discipline can shed light on important social and political phenomena, thereby informing our own scholarly thinking, and that of those we engage with.

Politička participacija i stranačke preferencije ratnih veterana u Hrvatskoj

The paper examines distinctiveness of war veterans compared to general population in Croatia according to three important political phenomena: political participation, party preferences and ideological self-identification. Analysis of sociological survey conducted in 2015 shows that there is no difference in the level of political participation measured by voting turnout in 2011 and 2015 parliamentary and 2015 presidential level between Croatian war veterans and the rest of the public. On the other side, war veterans differ from the rest of the electorate, with other variables held constant, in terms of party preferences and ideological self-identification. Compared to non-veterans, war veterans are more inclined to vote for the right and center-right parties and position themselves to the right side of the political spectrum. The paper discusses these differences, as well as its roots and consequences.

Conflicting Religious Identities: Blaspheming Islam and the Future of Democracy in Indonesia

The paper explores the phenomena of conflicting religious identities among Indonesian politicians in Jakarta’s regional election (pilkada) in 2017. The 2017 most dramatized Jakarta regional election has been seen as a very important political phenomenon in recent time as it revealed the conflicting social-political identity construction across religious and ethnic groups in the region. This work attempts to provide explanation from the perspective of religious studies on the roles of religious identities in the political realm as well as religious and political symbols as tools to achieve political supports. The case of Ahok mentioning one of the Quranic verses of al-Maidah 51 in Kepulauan Seribu exposes the fundamental question of wheter it is apart of blaspheming Islam and insulting ulama. It also shows how the Islamist groups respond to it by using the case of the politicizing al-Maidah 51 to reduce Ahok electability and disqualify him from political contestation by accusing him to blaspheme Islam. The complexity of applying Quranic texts to the modern political platform brings this article to outline how Muslim scholars interpret all-Maidah 51 and how they situate the text into the context of modern politics in Indonesia as well as how it influences the future of Indonesian democracy.

International Migration in the Middle East

� International migration is one of the current most important socio-economic and political phenomena in the Middle East. Its importance increased in the early 1970s as a result of the huge increase in oil prices and the adoption of ambitious development plans, especially in the GCC (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain). International migration provided solutions not only to many countries of the region, but also to countries from outside the region. It helped the sending countries deal with the problem of unemployment and secured successive flows of foreign currencies needed for investment and development. It also helped the receiving countries by producing the necessary labor force to meet the requirements of development plans. The historical classification of the countries of the region as immigrant-sending or immigrant-receiving countries does not adequately describe the current situation of international migration in the region. From the early twenty-first century, the region faced many complicated political and economic circumstances, represented in the outbreak of the second Gulf War against Iraq in 2003, the revolutions in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Syria, and Yemen beginning in 2011, the outbreak of civil wars in some of these countries, and the global financial crisis of 2008. As a result of these circumstances, new patterns of international migration in the region have appeared and consequently many of these countries have multiple classifications according to their relationship with international migration.� This paper aims to explain the current patterns of international migration in the Middle East; to lay out a new classification of international migration streams in view of the changing socio- economic circumstances of the region; and to highlight the main reasons for international migration and future of international migration in the Middle East.�

2014 Fiftieth anniversary of the group of 77 From unity diversity celebrating

The emergence of the Group of 77 (G-77) is now recognized as one of the most important political phenomena of the post-Second World War era especially within the evolution of the United Nations system. However, this statement still underestimates the significance of that enduring compact of the 77 developing countries in 1964 in terms of a singular achievement of our humanity that was to influence and reshape multilateral diplomacy and consequently the economic, social and ecological management of the relationship of the human race with our blue planet.

International Migration and Its Determinants Evidence from Albania

This paper gives an overview of migration with specific evidence on the case of Albania. Albania is a country on the move, both internally and internationally. This mobility plays a crucial role in household-level strategies to face with economic hardship and it is the most important social, economic and political phenomenon in Albania. About one half of all Albanian households have an exposure to migration case, either through temporary migration of a household member or through their children living abroad. This study will provide a step towards understanding the potential of international migration of Albanians and analyses the determinants that influence more the intentions to migrate like unemployment and average monthly wage. For the preparation of this paper a lot of available data for Albania have been used. Mainly, the data are gathered from the publishing of World Bank and Albanian Institute of Statistics. The data were taken for a period of 16 years, from 1998 to 2013 by implementing the Johansen Cointegration Test. The cointegration results provide evidence of a unique cointegrating vector. In other words, a long-run stable relationship between migration, unemployment and wage exists. This indicates that migration, unemployment and wage move together in the long run in Albania. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2014.v3n3p379

PROFILE: Henry Brady, Big Scientist

Henry Brady's career is a testament to the virtues of big social science—big questions, big datasets, big toolkits, big institutions. While much of political science still functions as a cottage industry, he has played a leading role in the second generation of our discipline's post-war industrial revolution. Building on the varied contributions of such earlier stalwarts as Warren Miller, David Truman, Gabriel Almond, and Paul Lazarsfeld, Brady has contributed significantly to the theoretical, empirical, methodological, and institutional development of the field. With intelligence, energy, and good will, he has instigated and nurtured a remarkable variety of projects, partnerships, and programs to advance our understanding of important political phenomena.

Hermeneutics, Political Inquiry, and Practical Reason: An Evolving Challenge to Political Science

In its evolution over the past century, mainstream political science has failed to take account of changes in the development of interpretive approaches to politics. Adherents of the dominant approaches to political inquiry have misunderstood the nature of meaning of social and political action and the import of that meaning for the explanation of political life. Or, to put it more sharply, its understanding of the nature and importance the meaning of political life and of interpretive political inquiry have stagnated, not evolved. As a consequence, although conventional empirical and rationalist modes of explanation capture many aspects of political life, they misunderstand or ignore other important political phenomena or important dimensions to politics. Hermeneutic modes of interpretative theory offer the prospect of a competing and/or complementary perspective on the explanation of politics. The prospects for a modern version of practical reason that would allow for a more engaged political science are available but not widely recognizedIt is appropriate here to make several points concerning terminology. The literal English translation of the German word “hermeneutics” is interpretation. In the modern world, the term was first applied in the human sciences in attempts to offer explanations of ambiguous and allegorical passages of the Bible and the Torah. In the twentieth century, the term has come to mean something more than that. The German term has been widely adopted for English use and refers to a specific approach to understanding and explaining in the social sciences and humanities. For present purposes, it refers to the attempt to explain social and political life in terms of the language and complex meaning of that political action for social and political actors. I elaborate on the nature of hermeneutic-interpretive explanation later in this essay. For the remainder of the essay, I use hermeneutic-interpretation to refer to those modes of interpretation that see distinctively human behavior and understanding as linguistically mediated. I use interpretation and interpretive theory in a more general sense, referring to any form of social science that emphasizes understanding the meaning that social behavior has for actors, whether or not that perspective emphasizes the centrality of language. I hope to make these distinctions clear in my account of the evolution of this perspective. The term “practical reason” borrows from, but is not identical with, Aristotle's discussion of phronesis in Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics. There, Aristotle distinguishes between theoria, knowledge about those things that are not open to deliberation and human decision (e.g., the structure of the solar system) and phronesis, knowledge about those things that are subject to deliberation and intersubjective agreement, for example, how ought one to live one's life or what kind of constitution a society ought to have. In this respect, interpretive accounts, and hermeneutic interpretation in particular, emphasize the importance of public engagement with the political life under examination. For an argument from a somewhat different perspective that political science needs to become more publicly engaged, see Putnam (2003). The German term verstehen also found its way into Anglo-American social science lexicon. It refers to the interpretive understanding of the intended meaning and significance that an action has for an actor performing it..

Jon C. Pevehouse, Democracy from Above: Regional organizations and democratization (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005)

Democracy from Above addresses the intersection of two important political phenomena: the influence and proliferation of regional international organizations (IOs), and the sources of democratization. The central finding is that regional organizations both facilitate transitions to democracy and enhance the survivability of young democracies. With respect to the democratization literature, the book’s message is that external factors must be considered alongside domestic-level variables, the primary focus of scholars in this area. For students of international relations, Pevehouse expands our understanding of how IOs matter—including their ability to penetrate domestic politics—and shows that variation among them must be taken seriously. He also provides one of the most convincing empirical refutations to date of the Realist view that institutions merely reflect the forces of power politics. Alongside its contribution to these academic debates, the book is timely from a policy standpoint. By showing that membership in regional fora can help induce and nurture democracy, the findings highlight a type of international political engagement capable of promoting liberal reform. At a time when external imposition of democracy in Iraq is proving arduous at best, the promise of alternative pathways is especially welcome. Pevehouse suggests a number of causal mechanisms—too many to summarize here—by which the salutary effects of regional IOs on democracy occur. While some of the hypothesized mechanisms are international (e.g., states can use these organizations to pressure or offer incentives to authoritarian members or would-be members), the majority transpire in the domestic realm. The most important effects come from the conditionality associated with membership in regional organizations. By accepting these conditions, reforming governments can bind themselves and enhance their legitimacy during both the transition and consolidation phases. This minimizes opposition from publics and competing elites, especially business groups

Introduction to Symposium

In the winter of 2005 I invited an array of scholars to respond to a variant of the same question: What do you predict about some important political phenomenon or process over the next decade, and why? What leverage do political scientists' theories, evidence, or concepts give us in understanding a given situation, such that you have grounds for prediction beyond those of an informed journalist or political actor? I urged authors to “really go out on a limb and make a clear prediction that can be analyzed, argued with, and supported (or falsified!) after a decade.” I then wrote a specific query to each of the people invited, beginning “Ten years from now …”