Political Intervention Research Articles

Power in mixed martial arts (MMA): a case study of the ultimate fighting championship (UFC)

ABSTRACT This study analyses and explains how the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) acquired and retains monopoly and monopsony power over Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) in a complex political, legal, regulatory, and financial context. A qualitative and interpretive approach to research underpins a thematic analysis of social media and journalistic content alongside a review of a limited academic literature. It is found that the UFC has acquired and retained monopoly and monopsony power in a context of weak regulation, limited competition, ineffective legal and political intervention, and an absence of unionisation. The three key strategies employed by the UFC to sustain power over MMA were found to be 1. control of athlete labour via restrictive contracts; 2. acquisition of competitor promotions, expertise, and commercial contracts; and 3. building reputation and legitimacy via public relations and lobbying activities. The UFC has employed a combination of legitimate, referent, reward, expert, informational, and coercive power to become the dominant organisation in MMA.

Political relations and trade cooperation of the Belt and Road initiative: research on trade network based on strategic emerging industries

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the impact of political relations on trade in strategic emerging industries (SEIs) in the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) associated countries. This investigation encompasses not only from the perspective of bilateral political relations but also the political intervention of third parties.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs the temporal exponential random graphmodel to analyze the dynamic structure and influencing factor of SEIs trade network among 150 BRI-associated countries from 2015 to 2020.FindingsThe results indicate that the trade of SEIs in the BRI-associated countries exhibits a pattern of concentrated exporters and decentralized importers. Amicable bilateral political relations foster trade cooperations in SEIs, while political pressure from the United States has the opposite effect. Furthermore, compared with the influence of third parties, the BRI has created a more robust trade environment characterized by political mutual trust.Practical implicationsBRI-associated countries should strengthen their political communication, and endeavor to transform political consensus and shared vision into concrete collaborative projects, while mitigating geopolitical uncertainties through a sound risk evaluation system. Moreover, they should establish a more transparent and consistent consultation mechanism and leverage the BRI trade network to foster balanced and mutually beneficial partnerships that minimize rivalry and dependence on a single market.Originality/valueThis study goes beyond observed trade cost and incorporates the political factor into the determinants of the BRI trade, thereby expanding the theoretical boundaries of existing BRI research. Also, this study employs bilateral trade data to construct SEIs trade networks (SEITNs) along the BRI route. It provides a comprehensive understanding of the dynamic determinates of the SEITNs will provide valuable practical guidance for enhancing and expanding trade and cooperation among BRI-associated countries.

Guère franco-française: the nationalist right, civil war discourse and the 2021 tribunes des militaires

The French Army has not always enjoyed a harmonious relationship with its political leadership. Its sobriquet, the ‘Great Mute’ is something of a misnomer, as it is an institution that has certainly made its voice heard at several junctures in modern French history. Recently, the two Tribunes des Militaires (soldiers’ tribunes) expressed the fear among several retired and active officers and enlisted servicemen and women, that France is headed for ‘ruin’ and civil war. This study represents the first in-depth analysis of the tribunes, its connections to the far right, putschist pretentions and civil war rhetoric. This article positions these tribunes within the historical context of previous French military political interventions, examines its rhetoric and establishes the extent to which it presents a far-right sponsored call to military insurrection. This analysis is of importance, given the seriousness of the claims made in the tribunes and the central significance of civil-military relations for any state.

Shaping citizens: teachers enacting democratic education in the history classroom

AbstractThe work of history teachers in schools is contentious and often heavily scrutinised, characterised by conflicts between professional and ideological perspectives on the purpose of the work they do (Macintyre & Clark, 2003). History curricula in Australia have been the subject of regular, ongoing political intervention, in particular about the role of history education in constructing and maintaining narratives of Australian democracy and citizenship. Against this landscape, this paper explores how history teachers from New South Wales, Australia conceive of the contemporary role of history curriculum in the development of students’ understanding of civics and democracy, and their navigation of the tensions between the written curriculum and the contexts in which they teach. Using both observational and interview data, this paper explores teachers’ perceptions of the gap between curriculum “as intention and as reality” (Stenhouse, 1975, p. 2) illuminating the experiences of teachers who interact with and implement the curriculum in their daily work, and highlighting the role that school context plays in determining how civics and citizenship education is enacted in practice. Contrast is offered between the teachers of history in the context of a privileged, urban school community, to that of an Aboriginal teacher working in a regional context - with an exploration of the impact of these contexts in framing the possibilities for democratic and civic engagement in the history classroom. Using the theoretical framework of practice architectures (Kemmis & Grootenboer, 2008), I explore the role of curriculum as both an enabling and constraining force in the way teachers work to develop student understandings of democracy and civic identity and the complex relationship that emerges from teachers’ interaction with curriculum documents and their decision-making in relation to their students and communities.

Ecology, Politics, and the Crisis of Marxism

This essay examines the Marxist humanism of two recent essays published in leading Marxist journals, by Sunyoung Ahn and Matthew Flisfeder, who argue that posthumanism within social science and philosophy has produced an apolitical response to the question of ecological crisis, removing the human subject from the center of theoretical enquiry and leaving theory without a political motor, whereas Marxist theoretical responses to ecological catastrophe must contain a political and ethical injunction upon the human subject to act. This essay argues that posthumanism’s apoliticism stems from its ideological structure shared with theoretical humanism, and any insistence on a Marxist humanism will reproduce this very apoliticism. However, the renewal of this discussion realizes what Louis Althusser called a crisis of Marxism, and this gestures toward a theoretical antihumanism, reconstructed through a Spinozist-Marxist political anthropology, for developing an effective knowledge of political intervention in the face of ecological catastrophe.

The Truth About Africa's Coups

Abstract: The recent coups in Africa do not portend a return to praetorian politics in the region. They are the outcomes of country-specific historical processes associated with the underdevelopment of state capacity, the decay of political institutions, and the failures of electoral politics to improve citizens' material conditions. At the same time, the coups are an important warning regarding the state of democracy in Africa. Surveys show that majorities of Africans harbor both a deep dissatisfaction with democracy and an openness to military interventions to address civilian political dysfunction. While coup contagion is a remote possibility due to strong norms against military rule in much of the region, popular dissatisfaction with democracy and permissiveness towards military interventions in politics present a real risk of autocratization through elections.

Reframing Informal Institutional Voids as the Attempted Remaking of Contested Social Spaces: Evidence from England

The conventional perspective on institutional voids as mere absences has recently faced criticism. Recent research suggests that voids are instead sites of contestation between institutions. However, understanding the specifics of this and how informal voids function in such contestations requires deeper investigation. We combine insights from the institutional voids and political theory literatures to reconceptualise informal voids as spaces of attempted institutional remaking which occurs through three key activities - developing new norms, devising legitimate political interventions and negotiating new rules. We present data from 123 interviews to demonstrate these three activities. This evidence enables us to challenge two assumptions in the voids literature and to demonstrate how an informal void (as reconceptualised) functions at the nexus of health and urban development in England. This study has implications for investigating informal voids as active social spaces, where actors attempt to remake contested social spaces through three core types of activity.

The ideational robustness of liberal democracy in the wake of the pandemic: comparing the Danish and Swedish cases

Abstract The Covid-19 pandemic sparked unprecedented political responses dramatically affecting societies, markets, and the lives of individuals. Under great uncertainty and turbulent conditions, governments adopted far-reaching political interventions to curb the pandemic. These interventions might therefore be expected to challenge key ideas underpinning liberal democracy. We analyze and compare how the political interventions seeking to curb the spread of the coronavirus in Denmark and Sweden challenged and possibly adapted three key ideas underpinning liberal democracy, namely, constitutionality, parliamentarism, and public responsiveness. When ideas are adapted in ways that advance their ability to stay relevant when faced with turbulence, we understand them as robust. Our study found both similarities and differences between the two countries. The idea of constitutionality was challenged in Denmark but remained robust in Sweden. The idea of parliamentarism appeared robust in both countries, whereas the idea of public responsiveness was adapted in neither country but challenged further in Sweden than in Denmark. Paradoxically, Denmark saw fewer adaptations to the liberal democratic ideas than Sweden yet appeared better prepared to protect lives during turbulent times. Our study suggests that liberal democracies must very carefully balance trade-offs between individual liberties and the protection of public health to preserve the core public ideas of constitutionality, parliamentarism, and public responsiveness.

An Empire of Development: American Political Thought in Transnational Perspective

This article offers a reconceptualization of US empire by foregrounding a central concept of its theory and practice: development, an ideology and attendant set of material practices that purport to uplift a defined population through political, economic, and social interventions. Because developmental ideology promises benefits and allocates specific roles to different groups, it has worked as a racializing technology, not only defining and assigning clusters of people to hierarchies of different stages but also establishing possibilities, however limited, for movement between these stages. The article demonstrates how developmental ideas and practices have been persistent, if flexible, features across the racialized government of formerly enslaved persons and Native Americans after the Civil War, overseas expansion to the Philippines at the turn of the nineteenth century, and US participation in transnational debates about empire in the early twentieth century and its pursuit of global hegemony after World War II.

Financial leverage, state ownership, and firm value: the case of non-financial firms listed in Vietnam

Numerous empirical studies have confirmed the impact of financial leverage on firm value. Nevertheless, these conclusions are inconsistent due to the influence of other factors. In the context of a transition economy such as Vietnam, the state can own a certain percentage of equity capital in companies after equitization. Accordingly, this study aims to evaluate the moderating role of state ownership on the impact of financial leverage on the value of non-financial firms listed in Vietnam. The generalized method of moments was employed to analyze a sample of 481 companies from 2015 to 2021. The findings show that financial leverage has a positive effect on firm value, but this relationship is negatively moderated by state ownership. In addition, financial leverage decreases the firm value of state-owned companies. The paper suggests that the government should focus on assessing financial performance rather than political intervention in using companies’ financial leverage. The results also have implications for accelerating the equitization and divestment of state capital in Vietnamese listed non-financial firms.

Reimagining the municipal economy: The emancipatory politics of the people’s budget movement

Budgets are often thought of as boring, invoking the tedium of bookkeeping. The summer of 2020 suggested otherwise. As America’s plague of police brutality combined with the death-dealing blows of the COVID-19 pandemic and a wave of urban uprising gripped US cities, activists turned their organising attention to municipal budgeting. From Seattle to Atlanta, demands rang out for cities to #defund the police, rethink public safety and adopt budgets for the people. Since then, the people’s budget movement has grown in strength at the municipal level, including in Los Angeles, Chicago, Louisville, Jacksonville, Minneapolis and Nashville, among other cities. What should urban studies scholars make of these struggles and from the aspirations and visions that impel them? This paper uses a case study of the Nashville People’s Budget Coalition (NPBC) to examine how municipal budgeting processes and public financing have become new sites of theorisation, debate and political intervention. We demonstrate how the people’s budget movement offers a new calculus for municipal budgeting that radically reconceptualises the logics of value and care that underpin economic thought and public accounting practices. We conclude by considering avenues through which a scholarly agenda for economic democracy in solidarity with movement organisers could be expanded.

Politicisation Persists and Is Increasing in European Public Service Media in the Digital Society

The open conclusions with which Hallin and Mancini (2004, 2011) approached their comparative study of Western media systems, initiated in 1998, retain their empirical, revisionist, and prospective value—even from critical perspectives—after a quarter of a century of profound historical, social, and technological changes. The names given to the three traditional media models in those authors’ first publication are used in this article to compare the evolution of funding, audience shares, governance, structure, and political intervention in European countries’ public service media on the one hand, and to contrast the operational hypothesis that politicisation persists and is increasing in European public service media in their adaptation to the digital society, on the other hand. Based on the variables from Hallin and Mancini’s empirical model, five crucial questions about the evolution of public service media in the EU are addressed: intervention and development of regulation by states and by the European Commission in the area of shared powers; a comparative analysis of the funding systems and consumer audiences of each European country’s public service media; the changes in the governance and management structures of said public service media; the variation in the professional culture and the rational-legal authority of their organisations; and the evolution and legitimation of public service media’s public value in the internet society, as well as the persistence or mutability of the national media systems’ fit within Hallin and Mancini’s three original models.

Factors Affecting Private Sector Partnerships with Non-Governmental Organizations in Zambia: A Case Study of Musokotwane Compassion Mission Zambia

The objective of the study was to determine how NGO-private sector partnerships can be forged to raise resources and funding for their activities that supplement government efforts. Data was collected from a purposive sample of 83 staff. The study utilized a questionnaire with both closed-ended and open-ended questions for data collection from the respondents. The study adopted a mixed-methods approach. Correlation and regression analyses were used to establish the relationship among the variables of the study, and qualitative textual data was analyzed. The results of the study show that governance, transparency, political intervention, and decision-making processes are key determinants of partnership performance between the private sector and non-governmental organizations in Zambia. The study further established that lack of transparency in donor fund administration and management, corruption, poor governance, and decision-making hugely contribute to the poor performance and sustenance of these partnerships. The study recommends that NGOs should possess the highest professional and ethical standards and exercise responsible resource management to obtain funding from donors. It is also recommended that NGOs be as accountable and transparent as possible to establish confidence-driven partnerships with the private sector, as these are key issues affecting these partnerships.

Traveling Outside of Time: Speculative Futurism and Environmental Justice

Subash Limbu’s recent science fiction film Ningwasum (2022) interrogates the contours of memory and futurity in relation to pressing concerns of climate change and indigenous rights. The experimental mode of the film provides a platform to question the linearity of time and its association with a teleological model of history that leads to a seemingly inevitable future. What happens, the film asks, when different ways of imagining the future lead to alternative trajectories. In this paper, I am interested in how the film responds to some of the foundational principles of colonial law and governance. For example, I examine how using the Limbu language in the film challenges Thomas Macaulay’s claims in his “Minute on Indian Education” that the English language is uniquely capable of conveying ideas of science and modernity. At the same time, I also consider the film’s representation of the Adivasi (first people) Yakthung community and its relationship to the postcolonial state. Drawing on theories of Afrofuturism that Limbu identifies as providing inspiration for the film, I frame the film’s political, artistic, and legal interventions within a global movement to interrupt predictable futurities.

Self-Defense and the Surround in Finally Got the News (1970)

Abstract: Drums and DRUM, percussion and organization: these are prominent motifs in Finally Got the News (1970), the documentary that chronicles the activities of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and their struggle against the exploitative labor practices of the Big Three automakers in late 1960s Detroit. One hears the drums immediately in Finally Got the News , playing over a montage of images that trace the history of exploitation and oppression of Black workers in the United States from the plantation to the factory floor. While Finally Got the News explicates the calculable dimensions of the history of racial capitalism in Detroit, positioning the DRUM and the League at the intersection of revolutionary Black nationalism and revolutionary Marxism, the beat of the drums during the film's opening montage signals another dimension of resistance against or over which these intersecting trajectories of social struggle play out, one that defines the limit of the dialectical narrativization of resistance and progress articulated in the film. Drawing on the work of Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, this essay argues that the beat of the goblet drums in the film's opening montage signals the presence of the blackness that surrounds the structures of racial capitalism in US-American society. It is against this backdrop, the essay argues, that Finally Got the News improvises and stages its own political intervention.

Prefigurative Politics at Bread and Puppet Theater

Abstract Bread and Puppet (B&P) Theater is one of the oldest, most influential, and well-known puppet theaters both in the United States and abroad and has been at the forefront of puppetry, performance, and political protest for more than half a century. B&P also functions as a site of tension in prefigurative political theory, between creative world building and alternative decision-making structures. B&P fosters a powerful lived experience of prefigurative politics. The political process of envisioning alternative realities took place through performance, puppets, and the shifting sense of temporality in an isolated location. At the same time, B&P operates in a state of flux, at the center of a constant stream of apprentices, volunteers, and audience members. They rely on hierarchical decision-making to facilitate order, which challenges the prefigurative ideal of a democratic community. B&P models a mediated form of prefigurative politics in which a hierarchical governance structure and creative world building exist in tension with one another. The theater has worked within this tension to survive and even flourish. B&P complicates prefigurative politics in social movement theory and practice, as the hierarchy helps preserve some sense of order but conflicts with the more egalitarian vision of the world represented in their performances. B&P's intervention in prefigurative politics offers lessons to social movements and artistic practices in the contemporary resurgence of prefigurative politics.

Late-Liberalism and Righteousness: Affective Reflexes and Experiments in Retraining

Elizabeth Povinelli describes late liberalism as the ‘governance of social difference in the wake of the anticolonial movements and the emergence of new social movements’. Taking museums and the impact of the turn towards participatory practice as a focus, I draw on both Povinelli’s ‘cunning of recognition’ and Brian Massumi’s diagnosing of Abraham Lincoln’s phrase ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’ to understand late liberalism as a loop or circuit where impossible to realise ideals, and ‘part-concept’ tensions create ongoing problematics which require daily negotiation in ways that draw political energy centripetally towards reform. Righteousness is proposed as an affective reflex ‐ a kind of starter fuel ‐ that works to kick into life the late liberal loop of museum constitution. Reflex ‐ holding the sense of an in-the-moment reaction ‐ is approached through activating two trajectories within theorisations of affect. The first trajectory is that of the relationship between affect, intuition and attachment as developed by Lauren Berlant. The second trajectory explores affect and intensities as taken up in different ways through Lawrence Grossberg and Brian Massumi’s engagements with Deleuze and Guattari. Methodologically, the article proceeds through specifying a contribution that experimental academic writing might make to conjunctural analysis ‐ working with Patricia Clough’s suggestion that experimental writing offers ‘methods … for cutting out an apparatus of knowing and observation from a single plane … with the aim of eliciting exposure or escaping it, intensifying engagement or lessening it’. In particular it is suggested that experimental writing might offer methods not only for generating political analysis, but also for retraining reflexes to enable political interventions. In the case of the righteous reflex of late liberalism it is suggested that retraining might be supported by turning the types of analytical attention offered by attachment and intensities into political techniques of detachment (following Berlant) and modulation (following Massumi). If the changing nature of museum workers’ reflexes can be amplified and then cultivated to suspend the righteous reflex, then different kinds of practice (not defined by inclusion and representation) might be given new space to emerge.

Training on election process dispute resolution between participants in Baubau City

Bawaslu has been granted the authority to resolve disputes that arise among participants through PerBawaslu Number 9 of 2022, which concerns Procedures for Resolving General Election Process Disputes. Panwascam will play a crucial role in resolving election process disputes, particularly those between election participants. The aim of this activity is to ensure the effectiveness of Panwascam in resolving disputes, maintaining election integrity, and building public trust in the democratic system in Baubau City. The method used in this service involves providing material through technical work meetings. The technical working meeting for implementing dispute resolution during the 2024 general election campaign process resulted in increased understanding for Panwascam in resolving election disputes, especially those between election participants. This includes enhancing the capacity of Panwascam members, ensuring their independence from political intervention, and facilitating a quick resolution of election disputes through collaborative efforts with relevant stakeholders such as community leaders.

THE IMPORTANCE OF IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL EDUCATION TO ENHANCE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' ABILITY TO COPE WITH PSYCHOLOGICAL CRISIS

This paper combines ideological and political education and mental health education in universities and universities innovates the psychological crisis intervention methods for university students, enriches the teaching content of ideological and political education, and provides new work perspectives and ideas for university students psychological crisis intervention. This paper defines the concepts of university students' psychological crisis and intervention and summarises the relevant connotations of university ideological and political education intervention in university students' psychological crisis. Taking the questionnaire data as the research basis, this paper analyses the current mental health status of university students, the status of psychological crisis intervention and the status of psychological crisis intervention involving ideological and political education. Its summaries the problems existing in the emergence stage. Finally, put forward psychological crisis intervention countermeasures for university Students Based on ideological and Political Education perspectives. According to the questionnaire results and the problems summarized, constructive and feasible implementation paths and countermeasures are put forward for ideological and political education to intervene in the psychological crisis of university students.

Speculative frictions: writing civic futures after AI

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine how young people imagine civic futures through speculative fiction writing about artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The authors argue that young people’s speculative fiction writing about AI not only helps make visible the ways they imagine the impacts of emerging technologies and the modes of collective action available for leveraging, resisting or countering them but also the frictions and fissures between the two.Design/methodology/approachThis practitioner research study used data from student artifacts (speculative fiction stories, prewriting and relevant unit work) as well as classroom fieldnotes. The authors used inductive coding to identify emergent patterns in the ways young people wrote about AI and civics, as well as deductive coding using digital civic ecologies framework.FindingsThe findings of this study spotlight both the breadth of intractable civic concerns that young people associate with AI, as well as the limitations of the civic frameworks for imagining political interventions to these challenges. Importantly, they also indicate that the process of speculative writing itself can help reconcile this disjuncture by opening space to dwell in, rather than resolve, the tensions between “the speculative” and the “civic.”Practical implicationsTeachers might use speculative fiction writing and the digital civic ecologies framework to support students in critically examining possible AI futures and effective civic actions within them.Originality/valueSpeculative fiction writing offers an avenue for students to analyze the growing civic concerns posed by emerging platform technologies like AI.