Oligarchic Elites Research Articles

Incredible commitment: Influence accumulation, consensus-making, and the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

I aim to explain the petrification of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's parliament due to the veto in the 17th and 18th centuries. I study genealogical data on senatorial ancestors and identify the formation of an oligarchic elite. I propose that the accumulation of influence by powerful individuals undermined their vested interest in the state's continuation. This weakened the elite's ability to credibly commit to political agreements, reach consensus, and sustain the extractive regime. I argue that the overly limited king failed to act as an arbiter in oligarchic disputes. This challenges the conventional view regarding the benefits of limited royal authority.

The Taliban Are Coming! How Intra-Oligarchic Conflict Proliferates Computational Propaganda in Indonesia

ABSTRACT This study examines online propaganda against fifty-seven former employees of the Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi, KPK). This propaganda, which centered on false allegations that these employees were radical Muslims similar to the Taliban, was used as a pretext to fire them after they had failed a controversial compulsory civics test. Using Gramscian concepts of civil society and the political economy of communication, this study argues that the rise of computational propaganda in Indonesia reflects fundamental conflicts over state power and economic resources within the spheres of civil and political society. The campaign to portray KPK employees as Taliban members was the digital corollary of a political struggle among oligarchic elites over control of the anti-corruption agency as an instrument to advance their political aims. This article showcases how intra-oligarchic struggles have shaped the formation of public opinion about the KPK, a key aspect of reform, and examines their longstanding attempt to enforce oligarchic hegemony. It challenges existing studies on computational propaganda that foreground the nature of the state, or regime type, and the state’s adaptability to information technology.

Mediating Coalitions and the Politics of Civil Rights in the Philippines under Duterte

ABSTRACT The Duterte administration in the Philippines displayed broad hostility towards civil rights. Yet its approach to specific civil rights issues varied significantly. This paper analyses this variation by focusing on two cases: the lowering of the minimum age of criminal responsibility and extra-judicial killings in the war on drugs. In both cases, Duterte and his allies sought to enact and implement policies that infringed civil rights, yet they only succeeded in the latter. The nature and role of mediating coalitions — configurations of actors that opposed, supported, or disengaged from efforts by Duterte and his allies to undermine civil rights — were the key determinants of this variation. The government backed down on lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility because unified rights groups were supported by sections of the oligarchic elite. But it conducted, incited, and persisted with extra-judicial killings in the war on drugs due to fragmentation among rights groups and an absence of significant support for these groups from oligarchic elites. This variation has significant implications for how scholars understand the politics of civil rights in the Philippines, particularly during the Duterte presidency, as well as strategies to better protect civil rights in the country.

Under family control: The trend of sole candidate elections in Indonesia

The rise of sole candidates in various local head elections in Indonesia has been the subject of many scholarly critical analyses. Most of the analyses perceive the phenomenon as a symptom of incumbency advantages, weak electoral systems, and poor institutionalization of political parties. This article proposes a new argument with the family-based elite perspective controlling the sole candidates’ emergence process. We compared two regions in South Sulawesi province, explaining the political family networks that dominate the political competition by limiting candidature. The sole candidate elections can be understood by looking at family-based elite networks scattered in business networks, bureaucracy, political parties, aristocrats, and grassroots mass organizations. The families use an oligarchic elite network at the national level or a plural elite network at the grassroots level. The two types of family institutions are centralized and dispersed structures: Makassar has an oligarchy, while Gowa has relatively equal elite power. The family network’s power has closed or hijacked the electoral political competition, establishing control over local elections by creating monopolistic political networks. Political family control is essential in understanding the rise of sole candidate elections in political practices.

A ‘data realm’ for the Global South? Evidence from Indonesia

This article examines the international and domestic pressures that shape the governance of personal data in the Global South. As developing countries become new terrain for the expansion of US Big Tech and develop their own digital economies, international policy discourses urge the adoption of data governance as self-evidently ‘good policy’ moving into existing regulatory vacuums. However, like any valuable resource, the competition to govern personal data is subject to existing power relations, political interests, institutional pathways and ideologies. With evidence from Indonesia, this article shows how the governance of personal data in the digital economy is influenced by international and national commercial interests, and instrumentalised by domestic state and political elite. In doing so, it adapts the North American ‘information-security complex’ for developing countries with their post-colonial economies, self-interested oligarchic elites and hybrid state-commercial data firms. The significance of this approach lies in its realistic understanding of the challenges and opportunities for supporting data governance reform around the world.

OS PARADIGMAS DA ESTRUTURA CURRICULAR DAS PRIMEIRAS FACULDADES DE DIREITO NO BRASIL

Este artigo analisa o surgimento das primeiras faculdades de Direito no Brasil, em 1827, em Olinda e São Paulo. Os novos cursos pouco significaram em termos de produção científica na primeira metade do século XIX, sendo observado, apenas na segunda metade daquele século, um aumento de sua expressividade acadêmica, sobretudo em Pernambuco, com a transferência da faculdade de Olinda para Recife, em 1854. Influenciadas por paradigmas liberais, o objetivo das faculdades era formar um corpo qualificado para atender aos interesses administrativos do Estado que se desenvolvia após a Independência. Se por um lado, em Recife, havia a preponderância de pressupostos influenciados pelo evolucionismo, cientificismo e culturalismo – sobretudo em razão de Tobias Barreto – por outro lado, em São Paulo, preponderava o pragmatismo e o ensino do Direito Civil, atendendo às necessidades das elites oligárquicas no que diz respeito a direitos contratuais e de propriedade. Ainda na segunda metade do século XIX, algumas reformas foram implementadas nos currículos acadêmicos. Nesse período, ainda, a Igreja perdeu influência na educação e no Estado e passou a não mais ter o poder de intervir no ensino, tornando-se esse “livre”.

A redemocratização investigada por meio de cartilhas do movimento Pró-participação Popular na Constituinte: Educação Política e Cultura

Trata da ditadura militar de 1964, período que representa uma das facetas da cultura política autoritária da sociedade brasileira. Até a saída dos militares do governo central em 1985 se deu a partir de diversas frentes de embates, acomodações e cessões entre a elite parlamentar de oposição, a sociedade civil e o governo ditatorial. Aponta textos normativos, atores políticos e práticas do regime de 1964 persistiram no cenário político. Descreve a história político-institucional brasileira e como foi recorrente que os textos constitucionais fossem expressões da disputa político-institucional entre elites oligárquicas locais e projetos normativos centralizadores. Atenta-se especialmente no período entre 1985 e 1988, nas atuações coletivas de movimentos sociais, como o Movimento pró-Participação Popular na Constituinte (MPPC), que mobilizaram milhões de pessoas e fizeram centenas de eventos e coletaram milhões de assinaturas em emendas populares com propostas para a Assembleia Nacional Constituinte (ANC). Conclui apresentando resultados parciais de pesquisa descrevendo como essa mobilização foi possível e quais instrumentos foram mobilizados.

KAJIAN TEORITIS RELASI DAN KEPENTINGAN ELIT LOKAL PARTAI DI ERA OTONOMI

The era of regional autonomy not only gave birth to a new government system, but also gave birth to the dynamics of elite circulation in an increasingly complicated area, especially for political party elites. The emergence of the term strongmen or Bossism put forward by scholars is the result of the study of regional autonomy practices that need to be studied in depth. Political party elites, can be in the form of individuals such as strong party or in the form of groups such as oligarchic elites. They play an important role in relation to the allocation of sources of power and to exert influence over party control. Their presence at political parties at the local level can be observed from three political dimensions: (1) How do they get power; (2) How they exercise power; (3) How do they maintain power.

Elite Theory, Media Regulation, and 'Fake News'

Democratic institutions rely upon the Rule of Law, and the Rule of Law depends upon rational analysis of public matters. “Fake news” undermines the Rule of Law as it derives its strength from appetitive and emotional responses in a manner that threatens both the Rule of Law and a political culture’s willingness to trust in democratic institutions. Even worse, however, the phenomenon of “fake news” creates an atmosphere in which political, media, and cultural elites can exploit fear about fake news in order to forward their own agenda and undermine democratic institutions in favor of political control by a dominant oligarchic elite. In this essay, we place the “fake news” concern in the context of media regulation in the United States. Looking to so-called elite theory, we suggest that the “fake news” cause celebre may simply be an elite power grab that United States media regulation would allow. We argue that concerns about “fake news” can best be ameliorated by more speech and improved public digital literacy and access to mechanisms to express and learn about new ideas.

What Motivates an Oligarchic Elite to Democratize? Evidence from the Roll Call Vote on the Great Reform Act of 1832

AbstractThe Great Reform Act of 1832 was a watershed for democracy in Great Britain. We study the vote on 22 March 1831 in the House of Commons to test three competing theories of democratization: public opinion, political expedience, and threat of revolution. Peaceful agitation and mass-support for reform played an important role. Political expedience also motivated some members of Parliament to support the reform, especially if they were elected in constituencies located in counties that would gain seats. Violent unrest in urban but not in rural areas had some influence on the members of Parliament. Counterfactual scenarios suggest that the reform bill would not have obtained a majority in the House of Commons in the absence of these factors.

1950년대 후반 이승만정권의 ‘권력복합체’ 형성과 운영

Examined in this article is a core power group which supported and sustained Rhee Syngman’s one-man ruling of the country in the late 1950s. So far, this issue was mostly examined within studies that focused on the ruling party Jayu-dang(Liberal Party). According to those studies, coming into the late 1950s an oligarchy-type elite group -composed of several officials including Yi Ki-bung was formed within the Liberal Party, and from 1959 till the next year(when the regime collapsed), the party practically run the country from a dominant status, even sidelining the executive(administrative) branch.BR This kind of approach allowed us to view the Liberal Party which had only been considered as a tool for Rhee Syngman’s governing so far as yet another political entity that composed the very structure of governance. Yet at the same time, such studies -which also tended to ‘narrow’ the examination to the Liberal Party itself- ended up only discussing whether the party was able to serve as an actual ruling party or not, or emphasizing the existence of oligarchic elite group connecting the party and the cabinet and the expansion of the party

Geographies of Indigenous Identity: Spatial Imaginaries and Racialised Power Struggles in Bolivia

AbstractThis article examines racial power struggles in Bolivia through a spatial lens. It analyses the process of resistance to the oligarchic elites mounted by indigenous‐popular sectors in Bolivia in the first decade of the 21st century as well as the subsequent eruption of conflicts between different indigenous sectors, and argues that political conflicts in Bolivia in the 21st century are, among other things, also conflicts over spatial imaginaries and the different territorialising and (re)territorialising projects corresponding to them. Social movements against racial neoliberalism challenged the colonial spatial imaginary. The partial success of those struggles brought into relief two distinct indigenous spatial imaginaries, one rooted in the defence of ancestral territory and indigenous autonomy, and the other based on a redefinition of territoriality as centrality within the state and society at large. The article reads contemporary inter‐indigenous conflicts as manifestations of the differences between these two spatial imaginaries.

Vigilantism A 'Twilight Institution': Islamic Vigilante Groups and the State in Post-Suharto Yogyakarta

The paper attempts to comprehend the nexus between identity politics, vigilantism, and citizenship within Islamist groups in Yogyakarta in the post-Suharto era. As numerous studies have revealed, post-Suharto era’s democracy in Indonesia has been marked by the persistence of militias, gangs, vigilantism, and street politics. These groups have largely embraced ethnicity, religion, and localism as their symbolism that represents a community that they claim they are defending. The widespread of identity-based groups that frequently breaking the law and public order have been portrayed either as the emergence of ‘uncivil society’ elements that challenging the state authority and threatening the very foundations of civil society and democratic values (see Beittenger, 2009, Jones, 2015, Hefner, 2016) or as the criminals that defend the political and economic interest of the oligarchic elites (Hadiz, 2003:607). Without rejecting certain degree of fact within these studies, the article suggests that these explanations failed to understand the complexity of such groups and what constitutes their persistence in the local political landscape. This article argues that such groups have exercised a form of citizenship that is characterised by the mobilisation of local support, patronage politics and discourse of localised ‘Islamic populism’. In this regard, it suggests that the prominence of Islamist-vigilante groups in Yogyakarta lies in their role as ‘Twilight institution’ that can channel the citizens into the state institutions not just to negotiating their basic rights such as employment and public service through exploiting violence, patronage, and security business but also to defending their imagined and localised Ummah community. In doing so, it embraces the notions that boundary between state and non-state is far more complex and often blurred; therefore, it will be fruitful to recognize that the state authority should be regarded as mingled result of the exercise of power by a variety of local institutions and the imposition of external institutions rather than a coherent and fixed institution (Migdal, 2004, Lunds, 2006).In making such arguments, the paper takes the role of Islamist groups in Yogyakarta particularly groups that loosely associated with the Development United Party (PPP) such as Gerakan Pemuda Kaaba (Kaaba Youth Movement), Gerakan Anti Maksiat (Anti-Vice Movement), and Laskar Hizbullah (Hizbullah troops) as the exemplar for elucidating the intersection between identity politics, vigilantism, and citizenship in localized political landscape. The primary data was conducted through in-depth interviews as well as participatory observations during 2014-2016.

POLITISI PEREMPUAN DAN KORUPSI : MENCARI SOLUSI ATAS DILEMA POLITIK KESETARAAN GENDER DI ERA REFORMASI

Theoretically and empirically, the presence of women in politics is believed to reduce corruption behaviour. Unfortunately, in Indonesia, such essential categorization is not proven to reduce corrupt behavior considering that women can also be an executor, connoisseur, and even intermediaries of corrupt behavior. Women, as one category of sex, is not sufficient to analyze the role of women in corruption act, because woman is bounded by culture, religion, ethnicity and social class. Based on this background, this study attempts to find the root of the problem and the solution for woman politician in corruption act. By using electoral system theory and political party as theoretical analysis and literature study as the method, this study identifies that behavior of women corruptor cannot be separated from the power of elites in political parties and parliaments. The strong power of the oligarchic elite in political parties and parliaments itself is the result of an open proportional election system which has an impact on the high competitiveness of parties, so that led to high cost of political to be beared by women. Ultimately, to improve such conditions, the engineering of electoral and party systems is most likely to be a solution, as both are easy to intervene by state actors and civil society groups. In conclusion, this paper shows that political parties have to be responsible in promoting gender equality, and willing to review the quota and zipper system in relation to the proportional systems

Is There Any Hope for the Balkans?

Is There Any Hope for the Balkans? Branislav Radeljić (bio) Balázs Vizi, Norbert Tóth and Edgár Dobos, eds. Beyond International Conditionality: Local Variations of Minority Representation in Central and South-Eastern Europe. 272 pp. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2017. ISBN 9783848730674. Patrice C. McMahon. The NGO Game: Post-Conflict Peacebuilding in the Balkans and Beyond. xiv + 221 pp. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2017. ISBN 9781501709241. Jasmin Mujanović. Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans. xii + 229 pp. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2018. ISBN 9781849048927. So much has been said and written about the Balkans or, more specifically, the collapse of the Yugoslav Federation and the post-Yugoslav states. Since the early 1990s, academics, journalists, and policy experts have tried to figure out what went wrong and whom to blame, and to identify lessons learned so they could propose recommendations, the purpose of which is to help the region make progress and hopefully come closer to the rest of Europe, if admittedly not capable of catching up with it fully. But, figuring out what the region itself really wants has been extremely difficult. Back in 2013, while completing a volume on the post-Yugoslav space, I observed that it has been the EU that is more interested in providing the Western Balkans with a European perspective than the respective states themselves. As often outlined, actors involved in transnational organized crime and monopolistic businesses, although seriously affecting the development and stability of the Balkans, have shown no interest whatsoever in European integration. Indeed, some of them have tried to establish close links with political elites, so that their position could be even more protected.1 [End Page 125] In such a complicated setting, corruption flourishes, institutions are rarely independent, and development of civil society is stuck. As a result, decisions of vital importance are too often pursued under unclear circumstances, aimed at strengthening the position of the ruling elites at the cost of ordinary citizens. Accordingly, this review article looks at three important books, carefully exposing a whole range of dilemmas and wrongdoings, some deep-rooted and probably never-ending. Jasmin Mujanović has every right to insist that democracy has never had an easy time in the Balkans. He examined a long period of time and produced a good overview of the decisions adopted by the local oligarchic elites whose corrupt practices and clientelistic modus operandi have prevented the region's development. His disappointment is obvious: "The region is today, as it was at the end of the nineteenth century, overwhelmingly rural, economically backward, and politically dominated by a handful of socio-economic (and criminal) clans of supposedly mutually incompatible ethno-national persuasions."2 In an environment of coercive control, with highly problematic distribution of resources and accumulation of wealth, the development of capitalist structure or political culture has never properly materialized. Looking back, the Ottoman authorities welcomed the Balkan gangsters since they served the imperial order and its military machine, so when the empire started to face dissolution problems and eventually collapsed, functioning political and economic institutions were not in place. By employing ethnonationalist rhetoric, the new elite consolidated its power and continued to accumulate wealth through dispossession, not trade and commerce. At the same time, criticism of the post-Ottoman order was marginalized; as correctly observed, "[t]he system was virtually designed to prevent the kinds of class and social conflicts that had necessitated the emergence of complex representative and democratic bodies in the West."3 Later on, during the Austro-Hungarian presence, the situation did not change substantially, and the Obrenović and Karadjordjević dynasties focused on militarization and irredentism, both prerequisite for consolidation of power and future expansionist aspirations, while democratic reforms lagged behind. In addition, prominent nationalists successfully manipulated local populations (largely peasant and undereducated) and used the good us vs. bad you/them narrative to spread fear and simultaneously offer protection, altogether aimed at furthering their own agenda. In the 20th century, Yugoslavia experienced a brief period of parliamentarianism, royal dictatorship, and then, in the post-1945 context, a communist regime with workers' councils and self-management as a backbone: "In theory, it was a kind of federalist direct democracy writ...

Investigation of advantages of outsourcing of independent fiscal institutions in the countries of peripheral capitalism

The article shows that the periphery of Ukraine's development is determined by the imperfection of state institutions, including fiscal ones. It is established that the defects of fiscal institutions are related to the fact that the process of institutional transformation in Ukraine is under the excessive influence of the oligarchic and political elite and reflects primarily its interests. This creates a deficit of effective institutions serving the entire society, and not just its privileged part.In order to find ways to overcome this situation, the work summarized the world theory and practical experience of introducing fiscal institutions in developed countries and assessed the possibilities of their adaptation to the conditions of Ukraine.As a result of the research, it is found that outsourcing has advantages over other methods of implementing independent fiscal institutions in the economy of a peripheral country. It can become one of the tools to strengthen the economic soundness and transparency of fiscal policy, its reorientation to the interests of society.This is important for overcoming the periphery and direction of the vector of economic development of Ukraine towards the center. The introduction of independent financial institutions can contribute to the development of Ukraine in the dialogue field of European integration, strengthening of Ukraine's competitiveness and economic security of the European economy.

Giochi di significato, visibilità e infomediazione: i sentieri interrotti della comunicazione oggi

The article proposes the notion of infomediation as an useful tool for empirical sociological research on the role that new social subjects play today in web communication. After a brief illustration of the contribution of the social sciences for the analysis of the effects and practices of media technologies, especially about the agenda building of the public sphere, the paper describes some examples of the infomediation phenomenon. It assumes from the literature the hypothesis that new technological oligarchic elites are constituting, with strong relationships with other types of elites. Finally, it shows some results and methodological suggestions of a few first empirical researches on the role of Google or Twitter for the newsmaking practices of information.

Indonesia’s Media Oligarchy and the “Jokowi Phenomenon”

In post-New Order Indonesian politics, two distinct viewpoints concern the nature and influence of oligarchy. The first argues that while an authoritarian government no longer controls power or sets the agenda, post-1988 Indonesia is dominated by oligarchs. The second view focuses on the process of Indonesia’s democratic transition being a populace movement, and the result of the people’s struggles against power, class, and political forces. In 2014, Indonesians elected a new president, Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”). Relatively unknown and not part of the establishment, Jokowi’s ascendance to the presidency undoubtedly raises questions for the oligarchy thesis. This article examines the ways in which Jokowi became a media phenomenon and the most popular candidate despite his seeming not to be part of the oligarchic elite. In fact, Jokowi masterfully manipulated to his advantage the oligarchical powers of Indonesia’s media as well as individual citizens and community groups.

Indonesia's Media Oligarchy and the “Jokowi Phenomenon”

In post-New Order Indonesian politics, two distinct viewpoints concern the nature and influence of oligarchy. The first argues that while an authoritarian government no longer controls power or sets the agenda, post-1988 Indonesia is dominated by oligarchs. The second view focuses on the process of Indonesia’s democratic transition being a populace movement, and the result of the people’s struggles against power, class, and political forces. In 2014, Indonesians elected a new president, Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”). Relatively unknown and not part of the establishment, Jokowi’s ascendance to the presidency undoubtedly raises questions for the oligarchy thesis. This article examines the ways in which Jokowi became a media phenomenon and the most popular candidate despite his seeming not to be part of the oligarchic elite. In fact, Jokowi masterfully manipulated to his advantage the oligarchical powers of Indonesia’s media as well as individual citizens and community groups.

Populism and Redistribution in Latin America. Conceptualizing a Threshold of Acceptance

Populism cannot be defined by an ideology or a set of policies, but rather by a style of governing. In Latin America, a longstanding tradition of populism has existed, which has adopted various discourses and policies, and has allied with different power-based sectors. However, an important strand of that tradition has consisted in movements and leaders that present themselves as outsider leftist political options, and argue that the ordinary operation of democracy inhibits the promotion of excluded sectors to the benefit of oligarchic elites. This type of Latin American populism posits a difficult challenge to liberal and social democrats committed to the value of equality. While populism may be criticized for its threats to pluralism, interest representation, checks and balances, and civil and political rights, the question remains whether it is worth defending for the redistribution and social incorporation that it allegedly delivers. In this paper we address this challenge by placing this form of populism’s arguments in the best possible light. We engage with the normative and positive question of whether and under what conditions a political arrangement that weakens some democratic traits for the purpose of promoting redistribution can be justified. We posit that, if populism wishes to be faithful to the democratic pedigree that it claims to have, it should tie its own hands by respecting certain conditions. As long as those conditions are met, it may be admissible for some democratic rules to be relaxed in order to achieve greater equality. Only by doing this would populism be true to its promise of strengthening democracy via social incorporation. Those conditions are thus the threshold of acceptance of populist redistributive projects. Very few populist governments, if any, comply with them.