Political Interests Research Articles

The mathematics pipeline in England: inclusion and the excellence stream

Abstract In England, there is currently heightened political interest in increasing mathematics attainment and maximizing post-16 participation. The latter is not merely an issue for upper secondary but requires a long-view of students’ mathematical progress. This paper reports such a system-level overview of the mathematics education pipeline in England based on analysis of linked data from the National Pupil Database (NPD) and Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). A sequence of mixed-effect logistic regression models at each phase of the education pipeline are developed to predict attainment in General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), A level and undergraduate mathematics and participation in post-16 and university mathematics. In particular, we focus on the impact of prior attainment and student demographics: gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status. The analysis identifies four important findings. Firstly, female participation and attainment in A level Mathematics and Further Mathematics is lower than that of male students, which impacts their representation in undergraduate mathematics, despite them marginally outperforming male students at both GCSE and degree level. Secondly, the attainment and participation of students of Asian ethnicity in GCSE and A level Mathematics is striking in its positive divergence from the trends of other ethnic groups, whereas White students have higher attainment than other ethnic groups at university. Thirdly, many students from poorer backgrounds fall behind their peers during years 7 to 11, and their participation and attainment in A level Mathematics is also reduced compared to their more affluent peers. Lastly, students who study A level Further Mathematics are more likely to study undergraduate mathematics, but they are no more likely to achieve a first-class degree, compared to those who haven’t studied Further Mathematics. The findings should be informative to policymakers and other stakeholders who can put in place enhancements and interventions to improve the outcomes for underrepresented groups.

The Impact of Political Involvement on Firms’ Financial Performance

The Impact of Political Involvement on Firms’ Financial Performance

Accounting for the association between socioeconomic status and youth political participation: A twin family study

AbstractPolitical participation (PP) has been found to be associated with socioeconomic status (SES) indicators, most strongly with educational attainment. At the same time, previous research has been inconclusive regarding potentially biasing effects of personality and cognitive characteristics on this association. In the present study, we investigated the association between different forms of youth PP and attained SES, taking youth's and parents' individual characteristics into account. We used data from 983 German twin families with same‐sex twin pairs of emerging adults (aged 21–25) that provided information on electoral, nonelectoral individual and collective political participation as well as on youth's and their parents relevant personality and cognitive characteristics. After adjusting for youth's and parents' individual characteristics, regression analyses showed educational attainment and household income to be solely significantly associated with emerging adults' electoral political participation. Genetically informative analyses revealed confoundedness due to shared environmental factors for electoral PP and due to genetic factors for individual and collective PP. Depending on the form of PP, the covariance between attained SES indicators and youth's PP mostly or fully overlapped with variance in political interest, general cognitive ability, and/or openness to experience. Findings are discussed against the backdrop of genotype‐environment interplay.

Developments of the Romanian State and Law in the Period of Communism

The establishment of the communist regime in Romania began in the immediate aftermath of World War II, with the seizure of power by the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) and the elimination of political opposition. The communist regime imposed a totalitarian ideology based on full state control over all aspects of social, economic and political life. During the communist period, the Romanian state was transformed into a totalitarian state with an authoritarian and centralized regime. Political power was concentrated in the hands of the Communist Party and the state became an instrument of its control. State institutions were subordinated to the party, and the separation of powers in the state was abolished in favour of an executive power dominated by Communist leaders. As far as the legal system is concerned, the communist period brought significant changes in legislation and judicial procedures. The law was used as a tool to control and suppress political opposition and all forms of dissent. Judicial proceedings were politicised and the independence of the judiciary was undermined in favour of the political interests of the communist regime.

Refleksi Eksistensi Petani dalam Panggung Sejarah Indonesia

This article raises issues related to the overall exploitation of farmers in various regions in Indonesia. This paper uses historical methods. The existence of farmers was underestimated because they were merely extras, or more precisely, material for Dutch and Japanese colonial exploitation, both for economic and political interests. This fate then suddenly changed because farmers had joined political party groups and become organizations, such as Pertanu, STTI, BTI, and so on. Unfortunately, the euphoria to support the peasants did not run smoothly because there were clashes with civil society and with those who did not share the same ideology. The result is bloodshed between members of the nation; this is truly ironic. Until then, the New Order was born, and all forms of organizations related to farmers were communized.

Long-Run Effects of Earlier Voting Eligibility on Turnout and Political Involvement

Long-Run Effects of Earlier Voting Eligibility on Turnout and Political Involvement

Interplay of Corporate Sector, Politics, and Media in Shaping News Contents in Nepal

This paper examines the intricate implications arising from the symbiotic relationship among the corporate sector, politics, and media in shaping news content in Nepal. This study analyzes the dynamics and interplay between politics, corporate sectors and the influence they can have on the media content largely within the privately run for-profit media outlets in Nepal. The theoretical foundation for this study has been rooted in Habermas’ public sphere model of mass media (1989). The study revealed that vested corporate and political interests are hugely influential both in shaping the opinion and performance of the news media. Besides, the corporate influence, the ideological division of media outlets and journalists not only raises ethical concerns but also the quality of discourse. Taken together, they only undermine the very credibility of the media institutions which does not allow them to become what Habermas calls the public sphere.

How to study political parties: from civil society to the state and back. The Peter Mair lecture 2023

ABSTRACT Cartel party theory has put the study of party-state relations high on the research agenda, deliberately shifting the focus of researchers away from an understanding of political parties on the basis of their relationship with civil society or, indeed, as part of civil society itself. As fruitful as this reorientation has been, this essay argues that the resulting emphasis on ‘parties as governors’ has produced downsides of its own. Cartel party theory reinforced a separation of the study of parties from the study of other membership organizations considered the very fabric of civil societies. While their governing role makes parties distinct from the latter, I argue that what parties do and how they function should be also assessed against other organizations such as interest groups or associations through which citizens engage in joint activities including but not restricted to political interest representation. The contention is that bringing the study of party back to civil society will generate a broader understanding of the possible roles political parties can (or cannot) play in contemporary democracy than an exclusive study of party as a separate genus.

Women Reservation Bill in Lok Sabha: A Century Long Struggle for Gender Equality

Women in India have been granted various rights over the years to establish gender equality and to improve their number in decision making. Efforts were started when the demand for separate political reservation for women was made in 1920 during the national movement for Independence. It was the Government of India Act, 1935 by which reservation of seats for women was given. The issue was debated at length during the debates of Constituent Assembly. Committee on the Status of Women in India (CSWI) 1971, recommended reservation for women in local bodies. National Perspective Plan for Women 1988-2000 recommended reservation for women in all elected bodies from Panchayats to Parliament that resulted in 73rd and 74th Amendment. To ensure their presence in national and state legislatures, a Bill seeking to reserve seats for women was introduced in 1996 in the Parliament. But due to narrow political interests of different political parties and lack of consensus among them, it could not succeed to get the approval of the Parliament. Finally, the passage of Women Reservation Bill in September 2023 with conditions is a golden moment in Indian Parliamentary history.

The Impact of Online Competition on Local Newspapers: Evidence from the Introduction of Craigslist

Abstract How does competition from online platforms affect the organization, performance, and editorial choices of newspapers? What are the implications of these changes for the information voters are exposed to and for their political choices? We study these questions using the staggered introduction of Craigslist — the world’s largest online platform for classified advertising — across US counties between 1995 and 2009. This setting allows us to separate the effect of competition for classified advertising from other changes brought about by the Internet, and to compare newspapers that relied more or less heavily on classified ads ex ante. We find that, following the entry of Craigslist, local newspapers reliant on classified ads experienced a significant decline in the number of management and newsroom staff, including in the number of editors covering politics. These organizational changes led to a reduction in news coverage of politics and resulted in a decline in newspaper readership, particularly among readers with high political interest. Finally, we document that reduced exposure to local political news was associated with an increase in partisan voting and increased entry and success of ideologically extreme candidates in congressional elections. Taken together, our findings shed light on the determinants of the decline of print media and on its broader implications for democratic politics.

Young People’s Interaction with Political Information in Japan

This paper investigated how Japanese young people’s attitudes toward politics and the social environments they are in affect their interaction with political information in their daily life. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty people to gather data about their experiences with political information and their attitudes toward politics. The results show that they have mixed feelings about political information, which arise from personal factors but are interrelated with broader social factors. Their attitude, which comprises their sense of remoteness to politics, low political efficacy, and difficulty understanding politics, reduces their interest in knowing political information. Social factors that limit opportunities for political participation and conversation diminish the utility of information and the motivation for seeking information. The habit of monitoring political information, often facilitated by experience watching television news with family, emerges as a factor that can maintain young people’s exposure to political information, regardless of their level of political interest.

Human or Not?: An Experiment With Chatbot Manipulations to Test Machine Heuristics and Political Self-Concepts

Chatbots have a growing role to play in political discourse, including in political campaigns, voter mobilization ventures, and dissemination of political news, though chatbots in the political domain are relatively understudied. While testing the machine heuristics and political self-concepts frameworks, we carried out a 2 × 2 experiment where both perceived conversational partner (i.e., bot, human) and topic (i.e., political, casual) were manipulated ( N = 126). During the experiment, participants exchanged chat messages with trained research confederates for 30 min. In support of the machine heuristics and political self-concepts frameworks, participants assigned to human partners reported more positive relationships and higher political interest. Through moderation analysis, liking the partner was found to differ between the perceived partner conditions, with perceived political knowledge varying more in the human conditions. Thus, the experimental findings add nuance to interpersonal (i.e., impression management and social identity theory) and human-computer interaction theories (i.e., machine heuristics and Computers Are Social Actors), and have broader implications for online political interactions and for decisionmakers of online political discourse spaces.

Behind the scenes: facilitators and barriers to developing state scarce resource allocation plans for the COVID-19 pandemic.

In response to COVID-19, many states revised, developed, or attempted to develop plans to allocate scarce critical care resources in the event crisis standards of care were triggered. No prior analysis has assessed this plan development process, including whether plans were successfully adopted. How did states develop or revise scarce resource allocation plans during the COVID-19 pandemic and what were the barriers and facilitators to their development and adoption at the state level? Plan authors and state leaders completed a semi-structured interview February to September 2022. Interview transcripts were qualitatively analyzed for themes related to plan development and adoption according to the principles of grounded theory. Thirty-six participants from 34 states completed an interview, from states distributed across all U.S. regions. Among participants' states with plans that existed prior to 2020 (n=24), 17 were revised and adopted in response to COVID-19. Six states wrote a plan de novo, with the remaining states failing to develop or adopt a plan. Thirteen states continued to revise their plans in response to disability or aging bias complaints or to respond to evolving needs. Many participants expressed that urgency in the early days of the pandemic prevented an ideal development process. Facilitators of successful plan development and adoption include: coordination or support from the state department of health and existing relationships with key community partners, including aging and disability rights groups and minoritized communities. Barriers include: lack of perceived political interest in a plan and development during a public health emergency. To avoid repeating mistakes from the early days of the COVID response, states should develop or revise plans with community engagement and consider maintaining a standing committee with diverse membership and content expertise to periodically review plans and advise state officials on pandemic preparedness.

Who Took the Fall in 1408, and Why? Vienna's Elites in Alliances and Conflicts with Habsburg Dukes

Abstract This article focuses on the involvement of Viennese elites in wide-reaching political conflicts around 1400. Central European princes often held positions as city lords, which resulted in ambivalent relations between them and urban elites, as well as with their kin residing in the countryside. Setting aside grand categories of institutional history in favor of the interactions and relations of concrete actors, their social networks, and their involvement in shaping politics, the article follows six urban actors through a major conflict that involved the city lords, urban authorities, and individual actors and eventually resulted in the beheading of three of them. The article adopts a prosopographical approach to find out more about patterns of social costs and benefits in these conflicts. It argues that considering polyvalent and relational dimensions of belonging can help us better understand constellations of conflict and alliance and the modes and mechanisms of late medieval politics. It eventually establishes the boundaries of social network approaches when it comes to assessing individual motives and their alleged resonance in contemporary narratives of community.

SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW: POLITICAL PATRONAGE VERSUS MERIT SYSTEM ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT ANALYSIS VOSVIEWER

It is important to improve the public sector with recruitment rules that aim to improve public services by minimising political interests and patronage practices. The purpose of this study is to examine the development of the application of the merit system in the prevention of patronage practices in local government. Bibliometric analysis using VOSViewer. The literature review in this study provides an overview of the improvement of the public sector from the perspective of the merit system, taking articles in the period 2013-2023. The results obtained in this study are the prevention of patronage practices with the merit system in local government administration successfully implemented in Indonesia, namely in the cities of Medan, Deli Serdang and DIY, while in other countries it was successfully implemented in the African state of Nigeria, the merit system is used to prevent political patronage in the public sector by ensuring the acceptance of competent employee candidates, and reducing the influence of political patronage that previously hindered the development of public services and justice.

Communication Strategy for Deliberalization of Islamic Thought at UNIDA Gontor

Liberalism, when viewed from its development, has two main streams that mutually use the term liberal. Classical liberalism or economic liberalism emphasizes individual freedom in carrying out activities in the economic field, and social liberalism, emphasizes the state's role in defending individual rights, usually formed as anti-discrimination laws. In addition to the trend of liberalization which emphasizes economic, political, and social rights, liberalism is also found in the field of religious thought. Indeed, liberalism in Western civilization's social and political fields has slowly separated religion from social and political affairs. Religion has no place in social and political interests. Concepts such as pluralism, multiculturalism, feminism, gender equality, democratization, humanism, freedom, and human rights are several layers of elements in the liberalization movement. Even theses and dissertations in Islamic universities are written to seek Islamic justification for these concepts. To stem this massive liberalization movement, researchers take the example of preventing the liberalization of Islamic thought in Islamic tertiary institutions, namely at the University of Darussalam (UNIDA) Gontor. This type of research is qualitative, with in-depth interview data collection techniques, and data analysis techniques namely triangulation of data sources (results of interviews and previous research). The result of this research is that UNIDA Gontor uses a curriculum based on the Islamization of Science. In addition, Islamization activities are also carried out through weekly student discussions guided by mentors, bi-weekly studies for lecturers and staff, scientific papers written by students and lecturers, and community service activities.

Youth – Agents of Change? German Views on a Possible Paradigm Shift

Abstract Young people are traditionally seen as the future of church and society, as “agents of change.”1 In Europe one might be reminded of the fundamental change during the late 1960s, when mainly students formed demonstrations induced by the Vietnam war and the downsides of the bourgeois structures of society during the post ww ii-period. These experiences formed an image of youth that grounded research in sociology, psychology, and pedagogy for a long period of time and still seem to influence actual thinking and talking about youth. But is this view still appropriate? Are young people of today still “agents of change”? In the following, this image shall be contrasted with recent findings from Germany which indicate a change, a possible paradigm shift, regarding political interest, relations between generations and finally the role of youth ministry as a possible companion for young people in the middle of a changing society – and even the entire world – facing fundamental tasks.

Simultaneous Politicization of Identities to Increase Candidates' Electability: A Case Study of the 2020 Regional Head Election of East Sumba Regency

Identity politicization became popular in areas of Indonesia after the 1998 reform. Political candidates use this practice to increase electability and acquire power in electoral political contestation. This condition also occurred at the 2020 Regional Head Election (Pilkada) in the East Sumba Regency. The study aims to investigate identity politicization in various forms and its impact on the 2020 Pilkada in the East Sumba Regency. This research used a qualitative method with a case study approach. The findings indicate politicized identities during the Pilkada, including candidates' religious and ethnic identities, areas of origin, social stratification, and government bureaucracy. An interesting finding in this study is the politicization of the various identities existing in society and was carried out simultaneously to gain voter support to increase the candidates' electability. The academic contribution of this research is to exploit the full potential of identity simultaneously, including kabihu identity, to respond to the candidates' practical political interests to gain power despite the impact on segregation and polarization in society and diluting Sumba cultural values. Furthermore, this study advises the government on how to improve the quality of future Pilkada.

The "Creuseurs" ("Diggers"), at the Center of the World's Push for EVs, are in Peril: Part Two-Obstacles and Opportunities to Improve Conditions for Miners.

In part one, we reported on some of the shocking working conditions that the Electronics Watch team found on our visit to cobalt mines in the DRC. Now, we look at the vested interests in Congolese politics, the mining industry, the Congolese government's desire to regulate the cobalt supply chain, and what else might be done to improve conditions.

From global trends to local realities: understanding women's political involvement for Indonesia's democratic progress

The urgency of this research lies in the need to understand the trends, contributions, and dynamics of women's political participation globally. This article aims to map studies that focus on women's political participation. Research methods include bibliometric analysis with data sources from the Scopus database. The study's findings reflect significant growth in women's political participation research, especially in recent years, with distribution varying by country and research theme. The research findings also show that although there are themes that have received attention, there are still areas that need to be explored further, such as intersectionality, gender equality, gender, and the impact of social media that provide insight into the complexity of women's political participation issues. This study recommends the need for increased research and local understanding of the factors influencing women's political participation in Indonesia to strengthen women's role in politics by learning from other countries that have successfully implemented inclusive policies. In addition, by involving various parties, including the government, research institutions, and civil society, Indonesia can create an environment that supports, empowers, and encourages women's political participation optimally. The implications of these findings not only help shape academic discourse, but also lay the foundation for concrete efforts to achieve gender equality and women's empowerment in the wider political sphere.