Local Politics Research Articles

Women’s associations in Cotopaxi, Ecuador: from rights to agroecological markets

ABSTRACT Smallholder, indigenous farmers play a key role in the food system in Ecuador, applying traditional farming practices that ensure the sustainability of their food production and meeting the dietary demands of many urban consumers, especially for organic vegetables and dairy products. This study examines the position of six women’s associations in the central Ecuadorian Andes, discussing their evolution from rights-based to market-oriented organizations producing and selling agroecological products. We discuss how the history of these associations has led them to play a role in local politics and national policies around agriculture and highlight how these organizations have succeeded both economically and socially, while also noting the challenges they face, as observed by themselves and outsiders. While the history of women’s agroecological production organizations in Ecuador may be unique, as it is entrenched in indigenous rights movements, our results also point to opportunities and obstacles that are more common across small scale farmers and deserve attention from both policymakers and agricultural organizations.

Independents in local politics – voter turnout, competitiveness, and party-system effects

ABSTRACT Denationalisation and the rise of independent lists are strong trends in the local politics of many European countries, but little is known about their implications. Using the example of Czechia, we examine several effects of this trend, focussing on two questions: 1) What impact does the growing number of independents have on voter turnout? 2) How does this trend affect competitiveness and the party system? Using data on electoral results in Czech municipalities over two consecutive elections, we document mobilisation effects based on the presence of independents. The strongest mobilisation occurred in municipalities in which both types of lists – party-related and independent – were well represented. The study revealed a self-reinforcing mechanism related to the success of independents. In municipalities with many independent councillors, the percentage of party-affiliated candidates decreased in subsequent elections, opening up further opportunities for independents. A side effect of this mechanism is a reduction in electoral competitiveness.

‘Something about Burnley’: Political dynamics in Labour’s ‘most winnable’ target seat

Do reactions to the onslaught on Gaza in a northern English town signal any wider political realignment in ‘red wall’ constituencies? George Galloway’s success in the February 2023 Rochdale by-election generated scores of op-ed articles. Ali Milani of the Labour Muslim Network identified it as ‘evidence of a serious problem Labour has with the trust and support of the Muslim community, who Labour has enjoyed the support of for decades’. This article focuses on another northern English town where half the Labour councillors responded to Starmer’s opposition to a ceasefire in Gaza by resigning from the party. In a granular case-study analysis of relationships and realignments in local politics, it identifies the wider patterns and problems behind the current headlines. Alongside long-term trends of de-alignment between Labour and constituencies which have previously supported it, a managerialist and controlling culture has narrowed discussion and shallowed debate, reducing the party???s ability to engage the energies and represent the views and interests of many people who nevertheless still see themselves as holding to ‘Labour values’.

“Gender wars” and populist politics in South Korea

The 2022 South Korean presidential election campaign saw populist politicians, especially conservative parties, leverage gender conflicts and misogyny to attract young male swing voters. But there has been limited scholarly attention to the connection between gender and populist politics, particularly in South Korea, with research primarily focused on women's voting patterns, their political party representation, and on populist politics in the US, Europe, and Latin America. Existing research identifies that common strategies employed by populist politicians include anti-feminist discourses, reference to crises in masculinity, and appeals to emotion and affect. This paper examines how South Korean populist politics has utilized gender conflicts since democratization, considering the evolution of ‘gender wars’ in the South Korean context. It specifically delves into the strategies employed by conservative populist politicians from the People Power Party (PPP) during the 2022 election campaigns. These strategies, although similar to those of right-wing populists in Europe and the US, emphasized three key issues unique to South Korea: compulsory military service, low fertility rates, and the dismantling of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. This South Korean case contributes significantly to academic discussions about populist politics and gender, contextualized within the local political, social, and cultural context.

Gabriel Hetland, Democracy on the Ground: Local Politics in Latin America's Left Turn Columbia University Press, 2023, pp. 307

Gabriel Hetland, Democracy on the Ground: Local Politics in Latin America's Left Turn Columbia University Press, 2023, pp. 307

Urban communist politics of the everyday in Graz, Austria

The everyday communist politics of local politicians in Graz offers a potential way forward for the left more broadly In September 2021, the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) won the municipal elections in Austria’s second-largest city, Graz, and Elke Kahr became the city’s mayor. Kahr has governed in a coalition with the Green Party and the Social Democrats, replacing the former conservative and far-right coalition that had lasted for eighteen years. A different kind of local politics has since then proved possible, even in conservative Austria. Graz local communists practise a politics that is sensitive to class injustice and engaged in the local community. Its slogan for the last thirty years has been ‘A party for everyday life’. The party’s success is based on its focus on everyday concerns such as housing, tenants’ rights, public health, education and mobility issues, as well as its battles against austerity and neoliberal privatisation. Its community-oriented approach, strongly committed to social infrastructure at the scale of people’s everyday experiences is explicitly critical of top-down state solutions ‐ and thus stands in stark contrast both to the previous neoliberal and profit-oriented policies in Graz, and to the centralist ways of governing of the socialist states. KPÖ politicians voluntarily cap their salaries at the level of the average worker, with the surplus going into a social fund for emergency help for those on low incomes. This has been criticised by some as a charity commitment rather structural change, but it can also be read as an attempt at lived solidarity. Drawing from local media coverage as well as interviews with politicians and local residents, the article discusses the everyday politics of Graz communists through the lens of relational care ethics, and discusses the potential international movements that could be built on this approach to communist municipal politics. The focus is on alternative social norms in urban cultures of care: solidarity among all members of society, and a recognition of people’s everyday practices and needs.

Working Mothers and Political Daughters: Intergenerational Dynamics of Women's Political Officeholding

Abstract We study a new driving factor of women's inclusion in politics: the economic empowerment of their mothers. We evaluate Swedish microdata on politicians and their parents over fifty years. The results demonstrate a strong intergenerational dynamic from mothers to daughters. Female politicians come from households where their mother is more likely to be employed, earns more in the labour market, and earns a larger share of household earnings. This pattern was strong among parliamentarians in the 1970s and 1980s when female numerical representation increased rapidly in Sweden but is not present in national politics after the introduction of gender quotas in the early 1990s or in local politics.

Does decentralisation promote learning? Local political settlements and education policies in Indonesia

ABSTRACT This article examines the effect of local political settlements on education policies in a decentralised political system. Under what conditions does decentralisation promote learning-enhancing policies? Despite the numerous works on decentralisation and education, little is known about how local politics influences student learning. We develop a novel approach to the politics of education policies by looking at the effect of local political settlements on education policymaking. Using a heuristic case study method comparing three districts in Indonesia, we found that constraints on the discretionary power of the district head over employment decisions in the bureaucracy matter for the development of learning-enhancing policies. Such a constraint can pave the way for the development of the bureaucratic capacity required for local governments to pursue quality-promoting reforms. In the absence of such a constraint, the extent to which district governments will implement learning-enhancing policies depends on district heads’ commitment to learning.

Beyond Displacement: Political-Gentefiers Planning Their Barrio and Claiming Space Ownership

This study underscores the impact of Latino-led commercial gentrification on the political and cultural empowerment of the Latino community. The study is based on interviews, observations, and document analysis in Barrio Logan, San Diego. I propose the concept of “ political Gentefiers” and map activism patterns through which Latino gentrifiers engage in urban politics and planning. Although Latino gentrifiers enhance the community’s political and cultural power, their activity generates ambivalence among residents and gives rise to controversial local politics. The research findings shed light on Latino gentrifiers’ conflicting positionalities and roles in the processes of gentrification and the multiple inequalities in the Barrio.

The Rise and Fall of the Popular Front of Moldova: The Activities of Local Branches of the Popular Front of Moldova from 1989 to 1992

The Popular Front of Moldova (PFM) was a sociopolitical movement in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic that spearheaded several initiatives that helped dismantle Soviet power in Moldova. However, the group’s pan-Romanian position created deep divisions within Moldovan society. Drawing on extensive archival research, this article explores how local branches of the PFM, officially known as coordination committees, sought to reshape local politics between 1989–1992. I examine the composition of these coordination committees, their policy initiatives, and their relationship with local authorities, which varied according to geographic and demographic factors. I argue that the group’s hard-line position eventually caused it to lose support across Moldova, including in regions where the PFM had initially been immensely popular.

A century of the SACP: national democracy and revolution in the Global South

This paper argues that Tom Lodge’s Red Road to Freedom is a milestone in South African history and a model of historical writing. The author reconstructs the history of an underground revolutionary movement in all its complexity mobilizing a huge array of sources. He details the role the protagonists played, provides a wealth of information, and delves into local politics without ever losing sight of the bigger picture. Lodge demonstrates that the South African Communist Party (SACP) made “national democracy” and the alliance with ANC its cause and rallying cry effectively taking ownership of post-Stalinist Soviet political theory. Thus, he compels historians to delve into the actual materialization of international ideological currents in the global South.

Demystifying the Chinese local state: Planning and contesting urban growth at Hexi New Town, Nanjing

Taking note of the limitations of previously dominant political economy perspectives on China’s urban transformation, and inspired by recent works calling for “beyond-growth” and “micro-level” studies of the Chinese state, as well as ethnographic approaches to the state, this paper aims to explore the often-untold everyday politics of decision-making processes in China’s state-led urban development. Using an urban design project at Hexi New Town in Nanjing, China, as an empirical lens, the article makes three main contributions. Firstly, it reveals how the Chinese local state is constitutive of and lived through intense negotiations and contestations over urban visions, subjectivities, and rules of practices in everyday life. Secondly, building upon existing ethnographic approaches to the state, which focus primarily on state-society dynamics, this paper develops a framework to re-conceptualize the power topology within the Chinese local state as a field of relational modalities (ruling power relations (re)enacted in everyday practices) and relational embeddedness (situated positionalities and subjectivities of state actors). Thirdly, it further shows how the power modalities (the interplay of political-economy power vs technical-power, territorial power vs trans-territorial power) of the Chinese local state are constantly reworked, sometimes re-enacted, sometimes challenged, through both formal and tacit rules in the state’s everyday life. As such, the article provides a new set of entry points to open the black-box of the Chinese local state and to explore the relational nature and an ethnographic perspective of the local state and urban politics in China and beyond.

The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the district medical officer's role - a qualitative study.

We wished to examine the role of the district medical officer in five Norwegian municipalities to provide new knowledge of how the experience from the pandemic might have led to changes to the district medical officer's role. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 persons who had held key positions in local crisis management teams during and after the pandemic. The informants were recruited from five municipalities within the same county, and they all held leadership roles in health care (district medical officers), local politics or administration. The investigation followed up a study undertaken during the pandemic on an approximately identical study sample. After the pandemic, the function of the district medical officer had been expanded in terms of a greater full-time equivalent percentage, while their organisational placement had remained unchanged in the local administrations that were studied. Political and administrative leaders stated that as a result of their collaboration during the pandemic, they had become more familiar with the district medical officer as a professional and as a resource person in the organisation. The district medical officers reported a higher demand for their expertise in community health. Close and frequent collaboration between the district medical officers and the local administration has helped enhance their mutual knowledge. The expertise of the district medical officers has become better recognised in the organisations, and the parties find it easier to contact each other to draw on each other's competence.

The Political Geography of the January 6 Insurrectionists

ABSTRACTWhat are the local political, economic, and social conditions of the communities that sent insurrectionists to the US Capitol in support of Donald Trump? Using a new dataset of the home counties of individuals charged for the Capitol insurrection, we tested two prominent theories of electoral populism and support for populist leaders like Donald Trump—demographic change and manufacturing decline—and whether they also explain violent populism. We also examined the effects of local political conditions. We find that white population decline is a stronger predictor of violent populism and that counties that voted for Trump were less likely to fight for Trump. The effect of white population decline is even greater in counties whose US House Representative rejected the 2020 election results. These findings suggest scholars should resist assuming violent populism is merely an extension of electoral populism, and solutions to one will not necessarily remedy the other.

Gender and Social Construction in Local Government: A Experience from Regent of Lebak Regency, Indonesia

This article dissects how socially constructed society views women in politics as regional heads. Amid the minimal existence of women in politics, women still dare to enter politics to become regional heads. The research results in this article will first explain how social construction translates social roles between women and men, including in the political sphere. Second, this article highlights gender analysis of the leadership style of Iti Octavia Jayabaya as Regent of Lebak from a social construction perspective. With their myriad of problems, women are challenged to enter politics without solid support and political capital. Likewise with Iti Octavia Jayabaya, although her leadership cannot be separated from the existence of a political dynasty, Iti Octavia Jayabaya broke the social construction, which assumes that it is difficult for women to be involved in politics and even become regional leaders. Iti Octavia Jayabaya has proven this through various achievements related to the development of the region he leads to escape it as a disadvantaged region. This research contribution enriches approaches and references regarding the study of women's leadership, to gender issues in government and local politics.

Political Clientelism in Presidential Elections and Political History in Madura

This research was conducted to reveal clientelism political data and to analyze why clientelism politics has not worked in the presidential election in Indonesia. This study uses a descriptive qualitative method and a case study approach. The selected cases are voters in the Madura region, East Java. Data collection techniques were carried out by conducting in-depth interviews with many informants from various backgrounds, ranging from religious leaders, community leaders, entrepreneurs, media figures, and others. In addition, data collection was also carried out by searching documents on published online media during the presidential election process. The research that has been conducted reveals data that the incumbent presidential candidate, Joko Widodo, and his winning team practiced clientelism politics, through various government programs he led, ranging from social assistance (grants) to programs originating from official ministries and state-owned enterprises. However, the political clientelism exercised by presidential candidate Jokowi is not working in the Madura region. Moreover, in the 2019 presidential election, Jokowi still lost to his rival, Prabowo Subianto. From the analysis conducted, the dysfunctional clientelism politics run by presidential candidate Jokowi is due to three factors that lead to local politics of voters in Madura.
 Keywords: presidential election, clientelism politics, political history in Madura

(Non)governing machine: Seized activism and NGOization as forms of governance in Indonesia

AbstractNGOization is argued as a key process to the expansion of neoliberalized development, feminist movement, and authentic democratization. Anthropologists have challenged neoliberal assumptions behind NGOization. This article extends the debate by investigating how a nongovernmental organization (NGO) project that initially claimed to buttress egalitarian grassroots activism has undergone NGOization with its public discourse and practice integrated into state work, encapsulating what I theorize as “(non)governing machine”—the apparent nongovernment entity that possesses a systematic power and authority to regulate knowledge and population. Drawing from an ethnographic study of an NGO and local politics in Mollo, Indonesia, my argument is threefold. First, I argue that NGOization enables a specific form of governmentality that has allowed the state to increase its surveillance of, and power over, the population. Second, this article proposes that local politics can be a strong impetus to the establishment of NGOization. Finally, by coining the (non)governing machine, I theorize NGOization as a form of governance, pointing at the productivity and vulnerability of NGO form as a “hybrid formation” that grapples between local politics and transnational networks of power and capital.

Implementations Of Eco-Literacy in English Language Teaching for Smart Society Era: A Critical Review

Language and environment are related to one another. Languages affect how people perceive the world, how they behave, and how they interact with their local political, social, and ecological settings (Meighan, 2023). According to the new ideas, eco-literate students prepared to be an effective member of a sustainable society. ELT scholars and teachers must create, assess, and put into practice pedagogical techniques that promote ecological sustainability. However, no previous study has investigated implementations of Eco literacy in ELT in any systematic way. This review aimed to describe a general overview of implementations and opportunities of eco-literacy in ELT to help students facing Smart Society. Specific research studies were located using the predetermined criteria in Google Scholar databases, where the study was conducted. The outcomes include the following implementations, Eco-literacy benefits students in a smart society, requiring skill development and innovation, promoting creativity, encourages critical thinking about environmental issues and language use, fostering a shared understanding of alternative, attracting educators and curriculum developers interested in incorporating it into teaching materials.

Limited Power-Sharing in a Personalized Regime: Xi Jinping’s Strategic Retreat from Local Politics

ABSTRACT In an authoritarian regime, the ruler faces a fundamental dilemma whereby the concentration of power increases the likelihood of subordinates distrusting the ruler. This study examines how Xi Jinping in China addresses this dilemma by sharing access-to-power positions with his central subordinates. By analyzing the promotion patterns of provincial officials from 1992 to 2021, this paper identifies Xi’s attempts to personalize provincial leadership by prioritizing his personal connections over conventional promotion criteria when selecting provincial party secretaries and governors. To mitigate the elite’s distrust resulting from this consolidation, Xi granted the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) members influence over appointments for mid-ranking officials in provinces, such as provincial standing committee members. However, this power-sharing mechanism is limited as Xi Jinping grants these privileges exclusively to PSC members who have close ties with him, leaving those without such connections unable to cultivate patronage networks within provinces.

From the Three Rs to the “Culture Wars”? How Australians Perceive Local Government Action on Climate Change, Indigenous Reconciliation, and LGBTQIA + Advocacy

Australian local government has rarely been the domain where entrenched and polarising cultural disputes play out, and is instead most often associated with the “3Rs”: roads, rates, and rubbish. However, in recent years, a growing number of local councils from across Australia have taken exceptional and unprecedented steps, sometimes in defiance of state and federal governments, to address some of the country's most ideologically contentious issues. Drawing on long-established American urban politics literature on local politics and culture war conflicts, this research note offers an empirical account of the public understandings and perceptions of local government roles in the realm of contentious politics, an area that has not yet been addressed in the emerging Australian literature. Our findings from a representative nation-wide survey (n = 1,350) indicate that a majority of Australians believe that local governments should be involved in matters relating to climate change, Indigenous reconciliation, and LGBTQIA + advocacy.