Political Change Research Articles

Innovative Technologies in Countering Extremism and Terrorism

Terrorism and extremism are distinct concepts often interconnected in discussions about political, religious, or ideological violence. Terrorism mentions to the use of vehemence, pressure, or force to attain party-political, spiritual, or conceptual areas, disrupting normal life and exerting pressure on governments or societies. Extremism, characterized by extreme political or religious views, often involves radical ideologies and intolerance towards opposing beliefs, often seeking dramatic changes in society or politics, rejecting moderation. Extremist ideologies can sometimes lead to terrorist acts, but not all extremists resort to violence. It's crucial to differentiate between extreme beliefs and violent actions, as not all terrorists are driven by extremism. Recommendations to safeguard against security threats are proposed.

Local Governments’ Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change in Ghana: Evidence From Bongo District

Global environmental policies require strong local actions to make an impact. However, the capacity for local action and impact are often taken for granted. This paper examines the institutional capacity of the Bongo district assembly to support the livelihood adaptation capacity of rural smallholder farmers. Twenty key informant interviews were done, and five focus group discussions were also conducted in five communities. The paper finds that the local government is too weak to facilitate climate change adaptation at the local level due to four institutional barriers: politics of climate change, barriers relating to centralized planning, limited funding stream, and absence of skilled manpower.

Gender and Expertise in the Mixed Economy of Mental Welfare in Greece

The late 1970s and the 1980s were a time of political and social change in Greece, following the collapse of the seven-year military dictatorship, as well as a time of rupture in mental healthcare: new approaches were being developed, including those implemented by the Society of Social Psychiatry and Mental Health, a voluntary, nonprofit scientific association, founded in 1981 (officially in 1986). This article places the initiatives undertaken by the society within the international context of postwar mental healthcare, and within the national postdictatorship framework. It uses the analytical concept of the “mixed economy of welfare”, demonstrating that the society’s work was based on the synergy between the private and the public. Furthermore, the article discusses how concepts of gender were embedded in and shaped by the work of the society in the 1980s, arguing that the society reproduced the traditional gender hierarchies of the mental health field while reworking the hierarchies within its personnel – psychiatrists and other professionals, experts and nonexperts, and, by extension, to some degree at least, men and women mental healthcare providers.

Childhood in foster care institutions in Central Pomerania between 1945 and 1975

The study provides an overview of the situation of children, victims of the war nightmare, who found themselves in foster care institutions in Central Pomerania after the end of the Second World War. The post-war period of development of these institutions was very diverse. It was associated with the social, political, administrative and economic changes that were taking place in Poland at the time. In the difficult conditions of life in the Recovered Territories, care activities for abandoned children were carried out by childcare and educational institutions, health care, daycare, and aid institutions of different natures. The aim of the study is to show the theoretical assumptions and practical contexts concerning the child and childhood in the space of foster care institutions in Central Pomerania in the years 1945–1975 and the transformations taking place in these institutions, which had an impact on the quality of childhood of the pupils/foster children.The main research problem of this study is contained in the question: How did the areas of childhood (economic, social-emotional, learning, preparation for independent living) change in foster care institutions in Central Pomerania in the context of the State’s welfare policy between 1945 and 1975?Verifying the research assumption was mainly done using archival document analysis and interviews. The study fills a gap in the regional literature in this scope and provides a basis for further in-depth research.

Activists and activism success: towards a grounded conceptualisation

AbstractSuccess is an important aspect of evaluating activism because the latter is a vehicle for political change. However, the idea of ‘success’ has proved difficult to capture in easily measurable ways. This has led some analysts to overlook its complexities and others to avoid the idea altogether, instead focusing on impacts, consequences and other seemingly less loaded terms. The definition of activism success therefore remains unsettled and under-studied. This article argues that an important perspective in evaluating activism is that of the activists themselves. What constitutes success (or not) for them must be an important consideration in defining and analysing it because it underpins the sense of purpose and value they put on what they do and helps to sustain them in the longer term. A workshop conducted with grass-roots activists in Liverpool provides useful insights towards this. The analysis of their reflections on successful activism suggests that it is still an important idea, but a complex and nuanced one that is multi-dimensional, political and contested. It reflects attitudes to a wider range of outcomes, the value of participation and attitudes to power, factors that analysts should consider incorporating into future studies.

The concept of performative national identity: the theoretical methodological framework

Modern social and political changes emphasize the particular relevance of the problem of forming national identity in the context of often contradictory sociocultural processes. Leveling out negative social phenomena that exploit the category of national identity and developing its potential for the formation of civic values and harmonization of interethnic relations in Russian society necessitates a deep understanding of this phenomenon, which is considered primarily as a result of its construction by social institutions. However, this process also takes the form of assimilation of elements of nation-building, passed through the filters of personal attitudes, representation of individual national identity in various social situations, which constitutes the problem of this research. Based on the study of theoretical data, the author proposed a category of performative national identity based on the application of the approaches of social constructivism and symbolic interactionism. The methods of theoretical research were theoretical analysis and synthesis, induction and modeling. As a result, the category of performative national identity has been developed, which includes technologies, features, resources for construction and conscious and unconscious representation of national identity in everyday practices. The results of the research develop the theory and methodology of constructing national identity, expand the understanding of the process of formation of national identity as a result of the assimilation of collective memory through the prism of personal attitudes, and also allow us to study the features of the representation of national identity in various situations from the point of view of the dramaturgical approach.

Global Climate Change Politics: Critical Appraisal of India’s Changing Role

Global warming and consequent climate change have emerged as serious issues and have started featuring on almost all multilateral forums with statements warning the global leadership to get increasingly proactive about addressing the issues. In world politics, countries are viewing climate change as an issue to gain influence in international politics. India is no exception to this rule and has been shaping its role as a rule-shaper and policy advocate and is an active participant in climate change negotiations. This article traces India’s role since the talks on climate change began as part of wider environmental concerns. It also enumerates the way global leadership viewed and addressed this pressing issue from time to time. The article provides a brief but critical account of India’s policy interventions at global and national levels to appraise India’s growing role and relevance.

Progress in Access and Oral Polio Vaccine Coverage Among Children Aged

Warfare has long impeded vaccination programs in polio-endemic Afghanistan. We aimed to describe progress in access to children under 5, oral polio vaccine (OPV) coverage among children under 5 in nationwide polio campaigns, and polio surveillance performance indicators after the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan collapsed to Taliban forces in August 2021. Trends in the number of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) and circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) cases and surveillance indicators from 2015 to 2023, and trends in the OPV coverage in the November 2020-June 2022 polio campaigns, were described. From 2015 to mid-July 2020, 74 of 126 (58.7%) WPV1 cases were reported from inaccessible areas. In November 2020, 34.1% of target children under 5 were inaccessible; in November 2021 (the first postchange polio campaign), all were accessible. From November 2020, under-5 OPV coverage of 69.9% rose steadily to 99.9% in the May 2022 campaign. The number of cVDPV cases fell from 308 (2020) to zero (2022). June 2022's house-to-house OPV coverage was 34.2% higher than non-house-to-house modalities. Nonpolio acute flaccid paralysis and stool adequacy rates rose from 18.5/100 000 and 92.6% in 2020 to 24.3/100 000 and 94.4% in 2022, respectively. Children's inaccessibility no longer vitiates polio eradication; polio surveillance systems are less likely to miss any poliovirus circulation.

ICTs for Afghan women's empowerment in the pre‐ and new‐Taliban era: Roles of gender, education, and crises

AbstractIn this paper, we explore women's use of ICTs in urban Afghanistan in the period between 2015 and 2022 to examine the changing gender dynamics of ICT access and usage in the context of expanding opportunities for women's education and employment (2015–2020) and different forms of crises, including the COVID19 pandemic (2020–2021) and political takeover by the fundamentalist and violent Taliban regime (2021–2022). Drawing on feminist theorization of empowerment and using a mixed methods study of 817 questionnaires (2015) and observation data (2015–2022) allows us to make visible the contingent and unintended dynamics of the relationship between women's empowerment and ICTs, especially in conflict zones. These findings contribute to ongoing debates on gender, empowerment and ICTs by emphasizing the multifaceted nature of technology adoption and usage, the significance of education in overcoming barriers, and the evolving role of ICTs, especially for women, in the face of radical political changes and crises.

Two Counties in Crisis: Measuring Political Change in Reconstruction Texas

Robert Dillard’s Two Counties in Crisis explores three decades of political culture in two divergent Texas counties. Collin County, a frontier county largely home to emigrants from other Southern states, is contrasted against Harrison County, a cotton growing county with 145 planters who each owned more than 20 enslaved peoples. Dillard claims that these counties, and Texas more broadly, did not neatly align with the political culture of the rest of the Confederacy. In a combination of political science and history, Dillard argues that a culture of backlash and resistance to federal authority defined Texas state politics in the Civil War era. While the author’s claims of exceptionalism are unconvincing and unsubstantiated, Two Counties in Crisis demonstrates the contentious state level politics of Reconstruction.

Field Hockey in China: An Exploration of Socioeconomic and Political Changes, 1900–2024

Field hockey’s development in China, mirroring its socio-political shifts over a century, unfolds in four phases. The first phase began in 1900; field hockey was introduced into China because Westerners played in Foreign Concession in Shanghai. With the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, field hockey gained official recognition, marking the second phase. Following the Cultural Revolution, field hockey gained significant prominence in the third phase, particularly women’s field hockey, peaking with a 2008 Beijing Olympics silver medal, reflecting China’s strategic Olympic ambitions. The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games led the development of field hockey into the fourth phase. Youth field hockey received more and more attention. While this has elevated China’s field hockey population, it also underscores potential imbalances between promoting elite sports and grassroots development. The professionalisation of field hockey remains in its nascent stages, with state-driven growth overshadowing broader public participation. The development of field hockey in China reflects the intricate interplay between China’s sports policies, national identity, and international ambitions and offers researchers a window to develop critical perspectives on the power dynamics and policy-making processes in sports.

A multiplex network approach to the self-organizing bonding and bridging social capital fostered among local residents: A case study of community currency in Korea under the Hanbat LETS

A variety of community currency systems have been adopted, implemented, and terminated among the local communities of Korea over the last two decades. Despite its volatility due to the economic, social, and political environmental changes occurring in Korean society, the Hanbat local exchange trading system (LETS) is regarded as an innovative practice in grassroots community currency schemes based on trust and cooperation among local residents and plays a critical role in promoting community rebuilding and the formation of a sharing economy in this area. This study is aimed at empirically investigating the microprocesses underlying the formation of multiple types of social capital—bonding, bridging, and linking social capital—that were observed in the transactions among the Hanbat LETS members through inferential network analysis. The findings show that bonding and bridging social capital coexist in both a singular (or uniplex) type and in distinct (or multiplex) types of transactional tie developments among the participants through this community currency system. By examining the ways in which these multiple types of social capital are fostered through a bottom-up approach focused on a community currency system, the results of this study suggest the potential roles played by peer-to-peer support exchanges and the sharing economy in a local community.

Effectiveness of Billion Trees Tsunami Afforestation Projects in restoration of forests in Pakistan

AbstractThe history of forest cover dynamics in Pakistan reveals an unsatisfactory environmental situation. In the past 5 decades, particularly during the period between 1990 and 2010, the country lost an average of 41,100 hectares of green cover with a deforestation rate of 1.6% per year. The factors behind that this high deforestation rate is numerous including socio-economic transformation after the major political change during the 1970s in the mountainous areas of Pakistan, demographic changes, accessibility improvements, and land use changes. Several social forestry campaigns have been launched over time to cope with this socioecological and environmental issue. However, most of them have not been very effective due to certain shortcomings. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the most recent and history’s biggest forest restoration program initiated by the government of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province called the Billion Trees Tsunami Afforestation Project (BTTAP). This project was announced in 2013 when a new political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, came into power. The study is focused on one of the main forest hubs of the country in the Hindukush Mountains spanning five districts. Forest cover in this study area decreased from 20 to 2% between 1990 and 2010. After the launch of the BTTAP, the forest cover increased considerably from 2 to 35% by the year 2021. This growth was achieved through planting new trees, banning forest cutting, practicing surveillance, and enhancing community participation. If the project continues and the protection measures are not suspended, it can play a historical role in forest restoration.

Reframing Difficult Heritage? The Holocaust Monuments in Croatia

ABSTRACT The article focuses on two monuments in Croatia that commemorate the Second World War and the Holocaust. The first is the Stone Flower monument (Kameni cvet/cvijet) located at the Jasenovac Memorial Site, designed by Bogdan Bogdanović and unveiled in 1966. The second is the Tangible Absence monument (Prisutna odsutnost/Memorial to Victims of the Holocaust and the Ustasha Regime), unveiled 77 years after the war’s end. It is located in the centre of Zagreb and was created by sculptor Dalibor Stošić and architect Krešimir Rogina. Both of these monuments are representative of how the official memory regarding the events of the Second World War is changing in Croatia. They reflect the internal social and political changes occurring within the territory of former Yugoslavia (now in this case Croatia). The main objectives of this text are to provide a comprehensive description of the monument creation process, highlight the meanings conveyed by these monuments, and to address the question of how new official forms of commemoration in Croatia respond to the global processes of reimagining Holocaust memory.

Methodological Approaches to the Study of Indigenous Peoples: Russian Practice

From the very beginning of its rule, the Soviet Government paid attention to the development of the peoples living in the border areas. In 1926, the “Temporary Regulations on the Administration of Native Peoples and Tribes of the Northern Outskirts of the RSFSR” was adopted; it identified 36 ethnonyms and the territories of their original residence, to which particular preferences were distributed. The purpose of this article is to analyze the current situation and future prospects of the indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and the Russian Far East against the background of socio-economic, political and cultural changes. It separates the indigenous peoples of the North from the ethnic diversity of Russia’s transformation from “aboriginal peoples” to “northern indigenous minorities” and further examines the problems associated with the growth of the “Siberian and Far Eastern” peoples. Attention is drawn to the fact that despite the compiled List of Northern Ethnic Groups, different numbers were considered in the ongoing population censuses. The ethnic self-determination of aboriginal peoples also changed from adopting the father’s nationality and, subsequently, the transition to the mother’s nationality, and vice versa, which led to “fluctuations” in the number of individual ethnic groups. Based on population census data (1926-2021), the dynamics of the number of indigenous peoples in the North, Siberia, and the Far East were analyzed, and it was noted that, in general, there is a positive increase in all northern ethnic groups. The dynamics of the population of the indigenous peoples were studied in more detail (1989-2021), making it possible to compare the demographic trends from the last population census of the USSR (1989) to those of the newborn Russia (2021). Grouped according to indigenous demographics, five groups were identified that represent different demographic directions. It is concluded that the growth in the number of indigenous peoples in the North, Siberia, and the Far East is primarily determined by non-demographic factors.

Imperialism and Contemporary Transnational Capitalism

Imperialism was closely studied by Marxists in the early twentieth century. Lenin’s work had the greatest impact, but while some elements remain, important changes have occurred. The specific national character of finance capital has transformed to integrated global capital, as has production. These changes were structured by reengineering the state and rewriting the rules for trade and cross-border capital flows, while at the same time deconstructing the Keynesian social contract. The economic and political changes were led by the emergence of a transnational capitalist class. The resulting social upheavals caused by greater inequality have been accelerated by the crisis of COVID-19, which created new contradictions between and within China and the United States. Technological changes have only added to the problems of global capitalism. Massive speculation was made possible by the speed and reach of the new information and communication technologies, resulting in repeated economic crises. A planetary Green New Deal may offer the best hope to rebuild the economy around productive capital and lay the basis for greater social justice.

Border penality as antagonistic politics

This article examines the socio-political implications of using criminal law to address migration issues in Italy. It delves into the polarised political debate characterised by crimmigration, on the one hand, and calls to criminalise border violence to protect migrants, on the other hand. It argues that both uses of penality reflect and foster penal antagonism, whereby both sides of the debate seek to impose their views using punishment. Penal antagonism leads to more migrants being incarcerated and forecloses possibilities for more political changes to the prevailing anti-immigration paradigm. Drawing on Chantal Mouffe's work, the article proposes agonistic politics as an alternative approach: a political confrontation to assert one's vision about migration, but where the opponent is an adversary to engage politically rather than an enemy to be delegitimised through penality. Moving from penal antagonism to political agonism could help decouple migration from penality and remove a central source of harm for migrants.

Fixing things from the outside? Diaspora politicians and transnational political engagement

ABSTRACT Scholarship on diaspora political engagement is unfolding in novel ways exploring the participation of second-generation diaspora individuals and engagement patters of authoritarian and hybrid regimes. Focusing on the unique role of diaspora politicians, I contend that these individuals adeptly leverage their identity to impact politics and advocate for change. The article demonstrates their adaptability in different settings and evolving advocacy strategies. The article employs a multilingual analysis of social media, public interviews, and public appearances in Germany and Bosnia and Herzegovina using an exploratory case study of a German-Bosnian politician. This exploration underscores their flexibility and evolving advocacy dynamics. Furthermore, it illustrates the way these politicians enhance their profiles within the countries where they’ve been elected and in countries of their descent. This serves to strengthen their chances of re-election on one hand while also drawing attention to authoritarian tendencies, potentially clearing a path for democratic advancement on the other.

Apples and Grapes: Thoreau, Latour, and the Land

After decades of studying technoscience as practiced across many disciplines, Bruno Latour turned his attention late in his career almost exclusively to the articulation of critical zones and politics during what he calls the “New Climactic Regime.” Using the same tools he honed throughout his career, the works from Facing Gaia onward try to lay out in clear terms the politics of climate change along with brief forays into possible forms of action. In his last books he presses the specific problem of how to live and attempt to know a specific geographical region without succumbing to isolationism and xenophobia. Many years previous, another irascible and humorous thinker worked similar soils. While Latour’s family has long labored in the Louis Latour vineyards, on the other side of the Atlantic, Henry David Thoreau was seeking wild apples for the long walk home. This essay examines how both thinkers produce a particular vision of a local understanding of place without the oversimplifications of the local/global binary.

It’s the political economy after all: Implications of the case of Israel’s media system transition on the theory of media systems

Abstract This study examines the theory of media systems and the models offered by Hallin and Mancini (2004) by focusing on critical junctures in which changes occur. Based on critical political economy and historical institutionalism, we analyzed the Israeli media system transition in the 1980s and early 1990s, seeking to understand the nature of this change and its theoretical implications. Our findings show a combination of government, market, and public forces in a unique situation where political, economic, and social circumstances change. Accordingly, we conclude that a distinction between politics and economy, as the media system theory and, specifically, the liberal model suggests, is invalid under neoliberalism. We argue that research attention should be paid to critical junctions, and that a closer analysis of government and market interrelations can enrich theories of media systems.