Ideological Mobilization Research Articles

Theatre as alternative media in Zimbabwe: Selected case studies from Matabeleland

Abstract Popular theatre occupies a special space in Matabeleland because it is situated in the everyday lives of ordinary people, and is able to articulate their experiences and to create spaces for them to ‘speak to power’. In the wake of the Gukurahundi massacres and perceived marginalization of Matabeleland in the 1980s, theatre groups used their plays to probe issues that were shunned by mainstream media. We argue that theatre has been used as part of radical citizen media in a context in which mainstream public spheres are restricted. We also demonstrate that theatre groups in Matabeleland have shifted between ‘Matabeleland particularism’ and addressing broader, ‘national’ concerns, reflecting historical context. However, theatre is not always used to express views that support the downtrodden against the establishment. In the Matabeleland case and also Zimbabwe as a whole, theatre has also been employed by the state and other pro-establishment groups for ideological mobilization.

A Total War of the Mind: The French Theory of la guerre révolutionnaire, 1954–1958

French theorists of guerre révolutionnaire conceptualized contemporary conflict in the 1950s as a particular form of total war. Located in the idea of global subversive war which provided intellectual rationalization for the army’s experiences in colonial wars after 1945, the theorists argued that the collapse in the distinction between war and peace rendered war permanent and constant, so that France’s colonial wars were a symptom of a broader conflict necessitating the ideological mobilization of the French people. This article contends that much of the inspiration for these ideas can be found in intellectual developments preceding the Second World War.

“Stability’s” End: The Political Economy of Russia’s Intersecting Crises since 2009

The article explores the mutual determination of crises that replaced the “stability” of the 2000s in Russia. The period since 2009 witnessed a rapid accumulation and condensation of contradictions in different spheres, from the economic crisis of 2009 to the political crisis of 2011-2012, to the “geopolitical” crisis of 2014, and finally, to the new cycle of the economic crisis that started in 2014. The author establishes the connection between these crises and the political-economic order that emerged in Russia in the 2000s. This order is characterized by the reproduction of peripheral capitalism under the aegis of the regime that combines neo-patrimonial practices with the dominance of bureaucratic elites characteristic of Bonapartism. The 2009 economic crisis revealed the vulnerability of this political-economic order. In turn, the mass protests of 2011-2012 changed the terms of the relationship between society and the state, and triggered the transformation of the regime that increasingly relied on ideology and repression. The ideological mobilization characteristic of Putin’s third term was reinforced by Russia’s actions in Ukraine in 2014. This “patriotic” mobilization has taken place against the background of economic stagnation and decline that have testified to the exhaustion of Russia’s model of peripheral capitalism. The article ends with an analysis of the contradictions and potential points of tension in Russian society generated by continuing economic problems.

Street Protests and Affects on YouTube Investigating DIY Videos of Violent Street Protests as an Archive of Affect and Event Desire

This article argues that YouTube, as a platform for sharing DIY videos, is an useful resource for understanding the role of affective processes before, during and after protest events. As a case study the article investigates the documentation on YouTube of two antagonistic demonstrations in Aarhus, Denmark, on 31 March 2012. We argue that the collected material, consisting of 71 YouTube videos, can be analysed to reveal a wish or will to experience the demonstrations affectively through three forms of DIY video production: 1) a form where the videos affectively charge the demonstrations before their actualisation; 2) a form where the affective potential of witnessing political violence is actively engaged, sought out, and enjoyed by the video producers during the event; and 3) a form where the affective intensity of the demonstrations is confirmed and prolonged after-the-fact, and the excessive nature of future confrontations implicitly ‘pre-charged’. The videos as such are not only approached as ideological mobilization propaganda or as documentation of political events, but also as an archive capable of revealing the presence and dynamics of the affective dimension of street protest events.

Place, Non-Place, Multi-Place and the (Non)Possibilities of Identity: Philosophical, Social, and Communicational Aspects

Michel Foucault in the text “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias” wrote that “the present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space”. Space, place, and territories are social productions. Territory is a polysemic concept. Place is “events” created by territories, fluid areas of control produced by territorial negotiation (horizontal dynamics) and negotiations between places (vertical dynamics). Space produces places and is produced by places. Moreover, space, place and territories can be seen as the waves of territorialization and deterritorialization in an endless process. It is a form of seizure in the world, an a priori for Immanuel Kant, an ontological need for Martin Heidegger. Territory is a space, governed by a set of rules, named “code”. Territorialization is then synonymous of a certain codification, or the symbolical organization of space. Places are created by territorializational dynamics. They are the sum of “events”. The place and its territory is not “natural”, but it is a cultural artifact, a social product linked to desire, power and identity. The changes of the functions of places (what Foucault called heterotopy) are an important subject of contemporary studies. There are also many new temporary uses of these spaces and different emerging functions, including new forms of control, access, surveillance, new forms of openness and closeness (passwords, access profiles, etc.). Informational territory creates new heterotopias, new functions for places and a redefinition of social and communicational practices. It is not the end of a concrete place and its territory, but rather, a new meaning, sense, and a function for these spaces. The contemporary meaning of place and space has a visible tendency in creating ambivalence of sacrum and profanum, which means the secularization of the sacred and the sacralization of the secular. One of the sides of this tendency is sacralizing market and marketing the sacral. At the same time space has become a powerful tool of the ideological mobilization of people. The case which is analyzed in some articles in this issue of non-places (factories, department stores, sport complexes, etc.) is an example of absence of cultural references, its denial of a place. Also, the cases of textile factory Drobė and supermarket Prisma which are found in the above-mentioned papers are good examples of a situation when one version of the non-place was changed by another. Place is an essential dimension of human activity and existence. The place and territory are requirements for such a kind of human activity as subsidiarity, struggle for human rights, relation to Others, public experiences, personal and collective identification (“subjective” aspects of the object of identification) including some new aspects of gender, arts, performance in various contexts, the images and dreams about planning environment, borders disappearance and strengthening, the realization of the biopolitical mechanism. At the same time, the borders of a place are particularly revealing a line and a space for a social research, especially in the present era of a growing globalization. Border is a place where “past” and “future” are permanently clashed. On the borders of different places there is no inherently determinated relationship between the past, the present, and the future. Foucault’s idea corresponds with our understanding of space over time and contests the traditional notion of linear time, asserting that concepts of time have been understood in various ways, under varying historical circumstances. A closer analysis of the concept of space and all form of human activity there, is a central focus for contemporary social and humanitarian studies.

Ideologies of Motherhood in Contemporary Israeli TV Commercials

This article is the first to scrutinize representations of motherhood and mothering practices in contemporary Israeli TV commercials in an attempt to shed light on the ideological constructs that these representations reflect and promote. I employ critical discourse analysis to identify the major recurring features in commercials that represent mothers and mothering. These features indicate advertising's ability to mobilize the patriarchal ideology of motherhood while using different thematic motifs, and such a mobilization of ideology occurs in the case of both antiessentialist and essentialist messages on motherhood. These different messages complete and complement each other, while in the end they enable advertising to exploit cultural norms and expectations in the service of the marketing and promotion of commodities.

Positive and negative aspects of social capital: The case of postcommunist societies

The paper analyzes social capital's properties in relation with the level at which it is generated, as a type of social capital. The second part of the paper is dedicated to examining of possibilities for implementation of the concept of social capital in various social and political circumstances. Analysis of the Putnam's concept of social capital in reviewing of the process of democratization of post-communist societies has shown that assessment of the social capital?s role in democratic transition of these societies must take into account specific social and political circumstances which influenced social capital's trends and forms. In contrast to economically developed societies with long democratic traditions, it turned out that social capital in former communist societies developed and moved in almost opposite directions. It is characterized by competitiveness, non-community spirit and exclusivity. This may be explained by predominant informal associating forms as a survival strategy in conditions of deprivation and ideological mobilization at the time of communist party states which during transition turned into suspicious conversions of various capital types. It is an open issue how much the social capital concept is applicable in post-communist societies of Eastern and Central Europe and how it should be designed for the purpose of adequate implementation in creating of social policies.

Cross‐class Coalitions and the Making of the Arab Revolts of 2011

Theorists of social movements and revolutions have given great attention to the factors creating vulnerability for the state – including elite divisions, loss of foreign support, and economic problems. Substantial attention has also been given to factors facilitating the mobilization of protest actors, including framing, prior network ties, social and public media, and political openings. Somewhat less evident has been the role of cross-class coalitions, which play a vital role in affecting both the strength of the state and mobilization, and in shaping the outcomes of protest and revolutionary change. If a protest draws support mainly from just one class or group (peasants, workers, students, urban shopkeepers, professionals), the state can confront that group as a disruptive force, and seek to unify elites from other sectors against that threat. However, if protestors represent many different groups, it is much harder for the state to find allies against them. Moreover, while a state can claim to be preserving society by acting against isolated disruptive elements, it is far more difficult to maintain legitimacy when acting against a broad cross-class coalition. Elites are more likely to desert the state, creating crippling elite divisions, if protestors represent a broad spectrum of society. In addition, a broad cross-class coalition facilitates further mobilization by creating ‘meganetworks’ linking prior, tightly-linked within-group networks to each other. The impact of public media in favor of the protestors is also greater if media representation shows protestors as representative of the whole society, rather than as one particular group seeking partisan advantages for itself. For these reasons, virtually all successful revolutions were forged by cross-class coalitions that bridged the diverse goals and interests of different groups, thus pitting society as a whole against the regime and its loyalist supporters. Conversely, revolts rooted in the needs and organization of one particular class or group – peasant revolts, urban uprisings, student protests, regional rebellions – have usually been effectively repressed by regimes able to draw on other groups for support. The three successful revolutions in the Arab world in 2011, in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, all demonstrate the crucial role of cross-class coalitions.

The Politics of Organic Farming: Populists, Evangelicals, and the Agriculture of the Middle

This article examines the political allegiances of the organic food and farming movement, asking whether the widespread media assumption that organic agriculture is a leftist cause is correct. Despite the enthusiasm with which organic food advocates welcomed the election of President Obama in 2008—and despite the fact that the geographical distribution of certified organic farms in the United States maps closely against states and counties voting Democratic in the 2008 Presidential elections—a wide range of historical and contemporary evidence suggests that political and social conservatives have long formed an important element within the organic movement's ranks. A distinction is drawn between the politics of organic consumers and the politics of organic farmers, although both groups are shown to include vocal supporters from both ends of the political spectrum. Ultimately, organic farming's political shape-shifting is linked to its mobilization of agrarian ideology, which can be seen as both a strength and a weakness for the movement. On the one hand, organic agriculture shows signs of capturing a political authority and authenticity long associated with America's heartland; on the other hand, a hard-line conservative approach to food and farm policy leaves major social and environmental issues associated with agriculture unaddressed.

Writing about the Cinema of the Stalin Years: The State of the Art

Scholars of the first decades of Soviet cinema have conventionally broken their study down into sub-periods marked both by developments in the film industry and by political change. The year 1924 saw both Lenin's death and the restoration of the film industry after the dislocation caused by revolution and civil war. The late New Economic Policy (NEP) years would produce both the first depictions of the revolutionary process by Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and Dovzhenko and the social comedies of everyday life of Kuleshov, Barnet, Ermler, and Room. The end of the decade saw collectivization and the First Five-Year Plan--and cultural revolution, which had a direct effect on the film industry. This second period also coincided with the start of the Soviet cinematic debate about sound film. The introduction of sound technology in the 1930s brought a new genre, the musical, but it also made it easier to use film for ideological ends, so filmmakers experienced increasing state intervention and censorship, and the number of shelved films grew. The third sub-period dates from June 1941 to May 1945 and is marked by the evacuation of the industry to Central Asia and its total ideological mobilization. The fourth, lasting from the end of the war to the Great Leader's death, saw a drive to re-impose orthodoxy and a dearth of films, the so-called malokartin e, the two phenomena connected by Stalin's famous dictum that we should make fewer films, but each of them should be a masterpiece. There have been, broadly, four approaches to writing about the film industry of these years. The first was to study individual films and the careers of individual filmmakers, and here a conservative canon was observed, with most attention paid to the great directors, to Eisenstein and Pudovkin, Vertov and Dovzhenko, and then, later, to the musicals of Aleksandrov and Pyr'ev. But the singular achievements of many other filmmakers and, more important, the links of these directors to their colleagues through the shared experience of cinematic education, professional organizations, and work in studios were insufficiently explored. (1) The other approaches were the publication, re-publication, and translation of documents, exemplified by The Film Factory, (2) still the most important single volume on the cinema of the period; contributions to the history of the industry in its political context, the approach taken in Richard Taylor's Film Propaganda: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany and The Politics of the Soviet Cinema 1917-1929; (3) and overviews of the cinematic process in historical context, as in Peter Kenez's Cinema and Soviet Society, 1917-1953 and Denise Youngblood's Movies for the Masses) These five pioneering books set the agenda for the development of the study of Stalin period cinema in the West in the late 20th century. It is notable that they concentrated their gaze on the 1920s and early 1930s, which are the years that saw the greatest artistic and political debate about the direction of the industry, and arguably the years of its greatest achievement. The fate and achievements of the industry during wartime and later attracted far less attention, in part because of the inaccessibility of the films of this period. The approaches outlined above have not changed fundamentally in recent years, but a number of factors have led to a considerable expansion of the study of the subject. First and perhaps most important is that the video and DVD revolution has vastly increased the primary material which is accessible to scholars. Many of these films are re-issued in low-quality editions, poorly framed and with bad sound, and few attempts have been made by Russian publishers to re-issue the original versions of the many films that were de-Stalinized in the Khrushchev years, but it is now possible (indeed essential) to look at the achievements of the cinematic masters in the context from which they sprang. This context is now being examined in many ambitious documentary films being made by Russian companies, the most innovative and thoughtful of which, Zvezdnye gody Lentil'ma (The Star-Studded Years of Lenfilm), made for the Kul'tura channel, regularly includes footage from extremely rare films of the period. …

1989 and the Reshaping of Europe's Ideological Geography

The geo-political opening that was triggered by the anti-communist revolutions in 1989-1990 in Eastern Europe made trans-national economic and political integration a highly salient factor in ideological orientation and political mobilization. Thus, new ideological fault-lines have emerged over the past two decades in Europe, on both sides of the former iron curtain. Shaped by 'opportunity' and 'risk' attitudes to globalization and European unification, these new fault-lines are opting to replace the capital-labor dynamics of conflict that had shaped Europe’s ideological landscape over the twentieth century. This new logic and structure of political competition is one of the sources of pressure on coordinated market economies in the early 21st century. These pressures, however, lead not to transition from the coordinated to a liberal type of market economy but to a likely transformation from conservative to social-democratic welfare regime.

The Privatized City

This article discusses the founding of the Manhattan Institute as part of a wider mobilization of conservative ideology and activism in 1970s New York. Important to the success of this mobilization was the concerted effort to reframe the “urban crisis” as a problem of values and culture and to construct a narrative of moral decline—and ultimately of conservative redemption—based in liberal New York.

Chapter 1 The Idea of ‘Sun cities’ in the Context of Globalising Processes

This chapter discusses the ways in which the ideological imposition of the Utopian Socialist vision of the city was fundamental to the Communist project of ‘moulding’ the new man for the new political system. It is suggested that the idea of this kind of city flourished in situations of economic, environmental and ecological crises. Starting from an analysis of Campanella's ‘Sun City’, it shows how in the twentieth century a romanticised conception of the Utopian city translated, in reality, into a system of cruelty, violence and infringement of moral norms. Firmly convinced of their pedagogic mission, the authorities ultimately denied people's (the proletariat's) participation in the political process through the implementation of such a devious project. The human resources involved were either recruited by means of ideological mobilization or came from the forced labour of the imprisoned dissidents who did not believe in such a mission.

“People’s Houses” as a nationwide project for ideological mobilization in early Republican Turkey1

The republican regime of Turkey started a comprehensive program in its early years for civic training and ideological mobilization in the country. Institutions such as the Turkish Language Society, the Turkish Historical Society and People’s Houses were created in order to undertake this program. These institutions were basically engaged in building a new political culture in order to support the ideals of the new regime. Of these institutions, the People’s Houses are of special interest due to their nationwide popularity and multi‐purpose character. People’s Houses were intended as a means of political communication between state and society, the intelligentsia and ordinary people in the absence of mass media and other intermediary elements.

The Inconveniences of Nationality: German Bohemians, The Disintegration of the Habsburg Monarchy, and the Attempt to Create a “Sudeten German” Identity

In much of the already vast and expanding literature on nationalism there is an understandable emphasis on its political dimensions. It is generally seen as the ideological mobilization of an essentially cultural national identity—which may or may not be considered pre-existing—for the purposes of attaining sovereign state power, or in some other way influencing and affecting state power, for example attaining greater rights or autonomy within the state. Where there are no such demands directed at the state, such an understanding implies that either we are not dealing with a nation, or we are dealing with one that is still unconscious of its nationhood or that is satisfied without any political expression of that nationhood. None of these cases, in any event, would normally be considered examples of nationalism, since nationalism by definition must demand, indeed is the demand for such state expression or recognition of nationality. As John Breuilly puts it: nationalism is “above and beyond all else, about politics, and … politics is about power.”

Money Talks: Corporate PACs and Political Influence, by Dan Clawson, Alan Neustadtl and Denise Scott

Part 1 Money changes everything: why does the air stink? - the candidates perspective, the current law, corporate PACS our research - the interviews overview and background - what is power? business is different, the limits to business power. Part 2 Raising money and running the PAC: establishing the rules - a brief history of compaign finances, SUN-PAC - the hidden face of power raising money - campaigns to raise money, coercion to contribute, untapped material running the PAC - the PACs internal structure, increasing managers' political participation, democracy in action?, Congress approves. Part 3 Gifts - networks of obligations: understanding gifts - deciding on contributions, requests and member pressure, the decision process, pragmatic criteria, ideological contributions, controversy - why and how often? giving more than a campaign contribution - PAC contributions build networks, conclusion. Part 4 Access - I can get to waxman for $250: myth one - key notes are the issue - high visibility issue, low-visibility issues and non-issues, what a typical bill is like, the bottom line, business hegemony myth two - money is explicitly exchanged for votes - are these loopholes available to everyone?, keeping track and knowing the players, getting access and shaping a solution, defending the changer and getting it through, the PAC is only a part of the process, why corporations can do what others can't myth three - political party matters - myth four - business wins without effort - language and euphemism, policy implications. Part 5 Ideology - defending free enterprise: characteristics of an ideological orientation - relation to lobbying, candidates and races, a formula for self-destruction the rise and fall of ideological behaviour - the ideological mobilization of the 1970s, the PAC contribution to this ideological mobilization, did this mobilization make a difference, the Democrats - taking care of business assessing corporate ideological donations. Part 6 Business unity, business power: building business unity - learning about issues, asking each other for money, can industry competitors work together?, business unity beyond the industry, how campaign finance laws coerce business to unity control of the economy - levels of inequality, business decisions, the pinto gas tank, spending the money, confronting business power. Part 7 They might start running it strictly for the votes: PAC directors on PACs - A Tool and Nothing Else, reforms aren't imminent, By the Time they change It, It's Too Late piecememal reform won't work - the purpose of the current system, economy and policy - contradictory principles, what should campaign reform aim to do? public financing - objections and arguments against, arguments for, new rules for primaries be realistic. Consequences: the character of congress, political change, business power.

Professional Ideology and Marketing Implementation

Argues that the widespread weakness of marketing implementation stems from the marketing discipline′s neglect of ideology in the organizational change process. By contrast with accountancy, marketing has failed to appreciate and develop its own “professional ideology”. Two short case studies demonstrate the various ways in which the mobilization of ideology can be important to achieving marketing‐led change. Concludes by suggesting some directions for the marketing profession′s development, especially for strengthening the credibility and exclusivity of its ideological claims.

Capitalists vs. the media: an analysis of an ideological mobilization among business leaders

Capitalists vs. the media: an analysis of an ideological mobilization among business leaders

Electoral Reforms — National Integration, Mobilization, New Blood — in Document No. 5 on the Move-to-the-Left Strategy in Uganda

Document No. 5 on the Move-to-the-Left strategy in Uganda was presented by Presi dent Obote in July 1970, and contained proposals for new methods of electing mem bers to the National Assembly and the President of the Republic. In this article the description and analysis of these electoral proposals focus on their content as well as on their implications. It seems that the electoral reforms should be evaluated as regards their contribution towards national integration, legitimacy of the regime, and political mobilization. They were, however, never put to a real test because the military coup intervened. Only some tentative suggestions may be put forward. The contribution towards national integration across tribal differences seems to have been the foremost concern. The expectations of increased legitimacy of the regime were probably moderate. Stronger ideological commitment and wider mobilization were regarded as desirable by some groups. However, whether these would have ensued remains an open question.

Traditionalism and the Idea of Progress: A Case for Ideological Mobilization in Communist China

Traditionalism and the Idea of Progress: A Case for Ideological Mobilization in Communist China