Political Concepts Research Articles

Conceptualizing United States democracy: insights from government content standards

ABSTRACT Objectives In this Paper, I examine how high school social studies content standards in the United States address fundamental concepts of American governance, particularly the concept of democracy. Methods I conducted a qualitative textual analysis of government/civics content standards from all 50 states, Washington DC, and the Advanced Placement United States Government and Politics (AP Gov) course materials. I applied a framework that distinguishes between 'thick' and 'thin' democracy, drawing on theoretical insights from scholars like Michael Apple and John Dewey. Results My findings reveal how democratic ideals are framed and conceptualized within secondary government and civics education in the United States. I identified significant variations in how democracy is addressed in state academic content standards, with important implications for how democracy is taught in American schools. Conclusion I advocate for curricular approaches that promote a more robust and participatory form of democracy, emphasizing critical engagement and collective well-being. This study underscores the importance of recognizing democracy as both a political and governmental concept in shaping educational discourse and policy as well as a practice and way of seeing society.

Socio-political developments in Greece and Spain in the wake of the grassroots anti-austerity campaign: towards national parliaments and local spaces

This article investigates the socio-political developments in Greece and Spain in the wake of the grassroots anti-austerity campaign from 2011 on, which have unfolded towards national parliaments and local spaces. It does so by analysing the institutionalisation of the populist radical Left as compared with the local-oriented agency of social movements in these two countries. It argues that these alternative approaches to social change and emancipation illustrate the contending paradigms of contemporary political thought reflecting upon collective movements, political action, and social transformation: the vertical politics of hegemony and the horizontal politics of the multitude. It firstly introduces these contending theoretical paradigms and then analyses the political trajectory of Podemos and SYRIZA from the squares to national parliaments vis-à-vis the radical agency of social movements transforming and generating socio-spatial entanglements at the local level. Lastly, the article puts forward theoretical possibilities for an alternative conceptualisation of grassroots radical agency and democratic politics in present times, seeking to reconcile the absolute democratic politics of the multitude with the broad counter-hegemonic revolutionary project.

Reform Practice of College Students’ Employment Guidance Course under the Concept of Curriculum Ideology and Politics

Under the background of “fostering character and civic virtue,” higher education must effectively integrate ideological and political education. The concept of curriculum ideology and politics has become increasingly developed and sophisticated, which can be a guiding concept for the teaching and reform practice of college students’ employment guidance courses. Based on educational observation and logical analysis, this paper elaborates on the connotation of the concept of curriculum ideology and politics, analyzes the key points of the reform of college students’ employment guidance courses under this concept, and affirms the value of course reform. On this basis, this paper specifically analyzes the common problems in the reform of the employment guidance course under the new concept and makes a detailed interpretation of the performance problems such as the vague course objectives and the lack of innovation in the course teaching methods. Combined with the relevant problems, this paper proposes strategies such as building the course objective system by linking the curriculum ideology and politics, and driving the teaching innovation of the course from multiple perspectives, aiming to provide more references for the corresponding course reform.

Sabotaging ordoliberal communitarianism: for a critical discursive political economy of ‘the local community’ in neoliberal Europe

The commentary aims to provoke a discussion in Critical Political Economy (CPE) about local articulations of neoliberalism, proposing the concept of ordoliberal communitarianism as a theoretical practice to sabotage the hegemonic essentialisation of ‘the local community’ within the context of EU neoliberal constitutionalism. This conceptual proposal is a plea to critical scholars who assume a pre-existing local community to instead enquire from whom, how and why the necessity of appealing to ‘the local community’ emerges to strategically essentialise socio-historically contingent political forms. To support this argument, I first discuss the relationship between ‘the community’ and the global political economy by combining sociology of knowledge, CPE and governmentality studies. This discussion leads to a consideration of ordoliberal communitarianism as produced by and through dominant institutions and translating hegemonic concepts in and through local contexts. As an indicative case emerging from research on the interpellation of local communities in the current Italian competitive strategy, I offer some notes for a history of Italian ordoliberal communitarianism as a transnational socio-historical experience to investigate the formation of local developmental coalitions led by EU governance. The commentary concludes by recalling the role of critical scholars in semantically sabotaging the hegemonic essentialisation of ‘the local community’.

Popular Control of Taxation, Accountability, and the Redefinition of Political Subordination (Germany, Seventeenth–Eighteenth Centuries)

Abstract Taxation is a well-known major instrument in the control of populations by powers, and in the collection of information about them. Starting from early modern Germany (Thuringia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), I would like to show how it was also, conversely, an instrument of non-institutionalized control of the authorities by the taxpayers. By refusing to pay taxes to the Emperor, ordinary taxpayers constructed a means of negotiating political and social domination, creating a form of ordinary intelligence about the authorities’ practices, tax figures, and amounts and by making both of them public. What was at stake in those protest was indeed not only the burden of taxation, but also the transparency of its collection, the fairness (Billigkeit) of its distribution, and the delicate issue of tax consent. Transparency, equity, and consent were central, but debated political concepts, so that popular control also consisted of influencing the definition of those concepts and having a part in the definition of their concrete content. This also implies that popular control was neither marginal nor transitory, nor did build some kind of linear evolution towards modernity. While examining the specificities of the entangled configuration of power in Germany, which created specific forms of popular agency, this article would like to show how Empire taxation, as a regalian tool involving the definition of common good and the question of political representation, was a powerful vector for a demand for accountability from below, which aimed to redefine the conditions of subjection.

Beyond the Digital Public Sphere: Towards a Political Ontology of Algorithmic Technologies

The following paper offers a political and philosophical reading of ethically informed technological design practices to critically tackle the implicit regulative ideal in the design of social media as a means to digitally represent the liberal public sphere. The paper proposes that, when it comes to the case of social media platforms, understood along with the machine learning algorithms embedded in them as algorithmic technologies, ethically informed design has an implicit conception of democracy that parallels that of Jürgen Habermas’ procedural democracy (Habermas, J. (1994). THREE NORMATIVE MODELS OF DEMOCRACY. Jurgen Habermas, 1(1).). That is, that democratic practices are encodable as procedures that produce valid discussion forums. Opposed to this, this paper suggests a turn to philosopher Jacques Rancière’s conception of politics as a guiding attitude towards technological design. This is done by, on the one side, using Rancière’s notions of “disagreement” and “distribution of the sensible” as the political starting point for the practice of design of algorithmic technologies. And, on the other, inspired by Karen Barad’s theories on agential realism (Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28(3), 801–831. https://doi.org/10.1086/345321), by putting forward a political ontology of algorithmic technologies that reconceptualizes them in terms of how they assemble open-ended practices between human bodies and technological devices.

Doing place through data: Proliferation, profiling and the perils of portrayal in local climate action

Building on work which has shown the role of digital technologies in reframing environmental relations, this paper explores ethnographically how environmental data is reconfiguring the concept of place. The paper takes as its focus an action-research project within a UK based, citizen-oriented initiative called Newtown Energy Futures, in which we sought to enfold climate and energy data into a social-justice informed attempt at climate action. By exploring how the project used data as an invitation for citizens to engage with and participate in local infrastructural and environmental dynamics, the paper sheds light on how environmental data came to participate in the making of place and in doing so raised questions about how to rebuild the socio-material relations through which ‘a sense of place’ might be reproduced. As climate and energy data increasingly demand that places become enrolled into environmental projects our findings suggest that data enables place to emerge as a ‘socio-technical potentiality’ an observation that has implications both for both engagement with, and the study of data and place. In practical terms, we suggest that this refiguration of place has the effect of creating hopeful trajectories for change, whilst also posing difficult questions about the limits of participation in a data-infused form of place-based politics.

Development of national economic systems in the context of transformation of globalization and regionalization processes

Relevance. In the context of the formation of a multipolar world and the increasing sanctions pressure from unfriendly countries, Russia needs to adjust the models of integration into the system of world economic relations. In this context, an in-depth analysis of the mechanisms of internationalization, globalization and regionalization is required.The purpose is to consider the peculiarities of the impact of globalization and regionalization processes on national economies, taking into account the transformation of their internationalization models.Objectives: to consider the concepts of internationalization, regionalization and globalization, to identify their relationship; to identify the advantages and disadvantages of globalization, on the basis of which to describe the directions of transformation of forms of internationalization of economies; based on the analysis of available statistical data, to identify promising areas of integration of the national economy into the system of world economic relations.Methodology. The methods of quantitative and qualitative analysis, monographic and retrospective analysis, methods of comparing economic phenomena and processes, methods of abstraction, generalization of analyzed economic information are used.Results. The internationalization of national economies is a long-term sustainable trend. Their development is confirmed by sufficiently convincing quantitative data. Recently, the dynamics of the corresponding time series has become unstable, volatile and turbulent, with a tendency to decrease the level of indicators. There are transformations of the processes of globalization and regionalization, they acquire not only a new quality, but also institutional consolidation.Conclusions. The traditional model of globalization has exhausted itself. Due to the formation of a multipolar political and economic global space, in addition to the "center" and "periphery", countries of the "semi-periphery" stand out in it. They have sufficient economic sovereignty to refuse to participate in globalization projects, the balance of effects of which for these countries becomes negative. Russia is one of these countries. An additional incentive for reconfiguring the Russian model of internationalization of the economy is the anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the countries of the "center". In this regard, it is necessary to open up new opportunities for the national economy to integrate into the global economic space based on models of regionalization and glocalization.

Future Envisioning of Hybrid Political Order

Hybrid political order is a relatively new political concept for explaining a state-building reality observed in some new post-conflict states. Hybrid political orders and hybridity have evolved as a result of the emergence of fragile states that hardly function in the international system. The fragile states began to be characterized by post-modernity and did not fit in the classical model of the state. Thus, this paper explores the literature to demonstrate how hybrid political order functions within domestic governance than in the interaction with other states and in the international system. The purpose of this study is to examine a hybrid political order in the international system by exploring the determinants of legitimacy and recognition. Such exploration and analysis are in addition grounded on peace-building and state-building theories. This paper envisions the hybrid political order as a possible alternative for better functioning of the international system.

Mapping as a collective and southern practice

AbstractThis reflective paper describes a relationship to mapping as a collective and southern practice. Using examples from the author's own involvement in collective map‐making practices based in New Delhi, the paper roots mapping in the context of southern urbanisms, taking examples of informal housing, work, and workplaces to debate the role of mapping vis‐à‐vis the desire for either more or less visibility. It then argues that mapping must reflect prevailing rationalities of governance and power, thinking about both why we make maps and who makes maps. Finally, it suggests that mapping as a process must extend from the making of a map to an active engagement in how it circulates and is read. The paper suggests the author's own experience with collective political formations as a possible institutional form that can hold such an approach to mapping.

Climate-conscious archaeology: contextualizing drought and history in the Chesapeake

This paper adopts a climate-conscious approach to archaeology, integrating environmental scientists’ definitions of extended droughts and megadroughts into the analysis of historical processes in the Chesapeake region of North America. We explore the relationship between drought conditions and historical processes through three case studies: Ancestral Monacans’ migration, the settlement dynamics in the Middle Potomac, and the emergence of the Powhatan chiefdom. Employing the Palmer Modified Drought Index as a paleoclimatic proxy, the research assesses how variations in rainfall and drought influenced migration, agriculture, and political formations. The findings underscore the complex interplay between Native history and environmental conditions, suggesting that the impact of climate on historical processes ranged from negligible to substantial, particularly with the adoption of maize-based agriculture. This study highlights the benefits of a climate-informed archaeological inquiry that recognizes the historically contingent ways in which climatic variability has shaped and is entangled with social change.

Analysis of the Ideological and Political Concepts and Teaching Strategies for Quality Improvement in Physical Education Courses in Colleges and Universities

In today’s higher education system, the physical education program is not only for teaching sports skills and exercising physical fitness but also an important position for cultivating students’ character, emotions, and values. With the in-depth development of the concept of ideological education, the ideology of college physical education courses has become an important direction of educational reform. In this paper, we will discuss the connotation of the concept of ideology and politics in college physical education courses, analyze the methods to effectively integrate the ideology and politics elements while guaranteeing the quality of teaching, and put forward the corresponding strategies to improve the quality, with a view to providing new ideas and methods for the construction of ideology and politics in college physical education courses.

Research on the Practice Path of Public Physical Education Courses in Private Universities under the Concept of Ideological and Political Education in the New Era Curriculum

With the continuous improvement of China’s education system, private higher education has also entered a period of rapid development. The number and quality of private universities are significantly increasing. This article explores the development of physical education in private universities against the background of their rapid development. This article first explores the policy documents of physical education in universities, analyzes the key points of public physical education curriculum reform in universities, and finally analyzes the effective paths of physical education curriculum reform in universities. It is hoped that through text analysis and research, some reference can be provided for the reform of public physical education curriculum in private universities under the new era of curriculum ideological and political concepts.

Theistic Democracy Studies Hadith Analysis Deliberations in Contemporary Islamic Political Ethics

Islam is a religion that exists as a religion today, where many universal questions are discussed, one of the main topics of today's big questions is democracy in politics. Although Islam talks about democracy, ironically, Islam itself does not specifically mention the ideal form of a political system. In this context, the discussion about the ideal political formula becomes clearly important among Muslims in modern times, especially against the backdrop of Western civilization which can be said to have destroyed Muslims with its culture. In the midst of this chaotic situation, contemporary Muslim intellectuals present as Muslim thinkers who seek to present the "ideal" concept of modern Islamic politics. In this study, the author tries to emphasize that the substantive principles of Islam must be applied in the country's political system, in this case theistic democracy exists as a legacy from the problematic modern state. Democracy, or deliberation in Islamic nomenclature, is one of the ethical values ​​of constitutional politics in current political life.

Bernard Williams’ legitimate authority between universalism and relativism

ABSTRACT This paper is divided into two main parts. In the first half, I identify a tension within Bernard Williams’ political realist conception of political legitimacy. On the one hand, he was committed to a peculiar universalist criterion of political legitimacy – what is politically unacceptable is summed up in the old Catholic saying quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est. On the other, he supported the idea that what counts as political legitimacy depends on what we, in the here and now, deem to be politically legitimate – thus suggesting some kind of relativist criterion for political legitimacy. In order to eliminate this tension, I propose a two-step reconstruction of Williams’ works on political philosophy. The second half of the article assesses three criticisms to Willliams’ conception of political legitimacy levied by contemporary political realists. I use my two-step reconstruction of Williams to reject two of these three objections. In addressing the third, I sketch a reading of Williams’ notion of political legitimacy in the context of his ethical project as a whole and, in so doing, overcome the difficulty.

Iran’s Foreign Policy from Non-Alignment to ‘Look to the East’: Between Ideology and Pragmatism

In the wake of the 1979 Revolution, the newly established Islamic Republic of Iran aimed to chart an autonomous foreign policy distinct from the Cold War’s binary dynamics, proclaiming a stance of ‘neither East, nor West’. From the outset, this non-alignment aspiration exposed the many diverse interpretations of this political concept, which served to accentuate Iranian particularism and factionalism. Despite the Islamic Republic’s commitment to the principles of non-alignment over decades, shifts in the global landscape and domestic economic imperatives have gradually pushed Tehran toward more conciliatory approaches with nations beyond the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), leading it to increasingly align itself with ‘the East’, particularly Russia and China. Since the latter half of the 1980s, Tehran has actively sought to bolster its foreign relations with countries beyond the NAM, culminating in recent developments such as the 2015 multilateral agreement on Iran’s nuclear program and the forging of the respective 20-year cooperation pacts with Russia and China. This article explores the transformation of Iranian non-alignment, examining the various political and economic factors that have compelled the Islamic Republic to uphold its revolutionary ideology of self-determination and independence, while at the same time pursuing more pragmatic policies seemingly at odds with the principles of non-alignment.

Sociocultural perspectives on neurodiversity—An analysis, interpretation and synthesis of the basic terms, discourses and theoretical positions

AbstractThe neurodiversity concept can now be found in many places. However, it is often misunderstood and many people are not aware of its complexity. The aim of this paper is to highlight the different facets of the term neurodiversity as well as the discourses around the neurodiversity movement in order to bring together the interconnections around identity politics, diversity and social disadvantage. This article is intended as a contribution to the advancement of neurodiversity studies, which could be understood as a branch of disability studies. Finally, it will be argued that neurodiversity can be understood (1) as a natural and equal diversity of neuronal structures, (2) as a concept of identity politics, (3) as social critique of hegemonic structures and practices, and (4) as a subject that can be examined systematically on the basis of a praxeological research methodology that integrates neurodiversity in the concept of performativity of embodied thought and action.

‘Being free’: Indigenous youth and future making in the wake of forced migration

Abstract Taking migration discourse (Dick 2010, 2013; Dick and Arnold 2017) as a starting point, this paper examines how Indigenous youth in Guatemala navigate and understand complex migratory contexts at home before they decide, or are compelled, to migrate. Using methods of discourse analysis, I illuminate how talk about migration becomes a key site for young people to challenge transnational migration as an opportunity and thereby create alternate spatiotemoral renderings of the future for themselves and their communities. I argue that through their migration discourse young people are engaging in a form of everyday politics that helps complicate our understandings of the migratory contexts they are part of. As such, this work contributes to how we conceptualize migratory contexts that do not fall neatly into categories of ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’ and instead argues for an attentiveness to migratory decision-making as a complex negotiation—a complexity which is often lost when we position ‘deciding to leave’ and ‘fleeing’ as incommensurate and analytically distinct categories.

Practicing the hegemony of non-hegemony: the pluriversal politics of the Neapolitan commons movement

ABSTRACT The concept of pluriversal politics, which encompasses the vast array of alternatives to ecologically destructive and colonial capitalism, is crucial for envisioning emancipatory futures. However, the diversity of the initiatives composing the pluriverse poses obstacles to the unity necessary to dismantle interconnected systems of oppression, thus creating an intrinsic dilemma between diversity and unity. This paper explores the navigation of this challenge within emancipatory and pluriversal projects, drawing on material from ethnographic research on the Neapolitan Commons movement. The case study illuminates how social movement actors achieve simultaneous unity and diversity through the grassroots-developed concept of ‘hegemony of non-hegemony.’ In the Neapolitan context, this framework allows diversity to thrive while maintaining essential unity, crucial for confronting economic and political powers. The findings underscore how grassroots, autonomous, and pluriversal degrowth practices can challenge capitalist growth dynamics through unity in diversity, hence suggesting the unnecessary nature of state-led, top-down, or uniformizing approaches.

Democracy and defections

Abstract Within comparative constitutional law, there is an emerging consensus that political fragmentation has weakened political parties and hindered the functioning of legislative bodies. This article examines legal efforts to curb fragmentation in parliamentary systems by prohibiting floor crossing, or “defections”—a constitutional approach that concentrates power within party leaders. It conducts a detailed case study of India, exploring what is arguably the most extensive experiment in anti-defection law and its impact on accountability and representation. The article goes on to analyze similar laws in Israel and South Africa, highlighting the challenges of self-regulation. After evaluating the limitations of narrow anti-defection laws—such as the one in Pakistan—it proposes that the drawbacks of legislating party unity through formal defection regulation may prompt a reconsideration not only of legislatures but also political parties and political polarization. While some scholars have viewed attempts to stem fragmentation as a solution for limiting polarization, this article suggests the opposite: sharpening polarization, when coupled with norm-based internal party controls, may well tame the excesses of fragmentation, especially in non-programmatic multiparty systems. Although there are difficult tradeoffs here, as polarization can have independent (adverse) effects, the broader lessons of anti-defection laws deserve to be reckoned with. Ultimately, however, what the widespread adoption of anti-defection laws might primarily reveal is the nature of our faith—or lack thereof—in the promise of a certain form of parliamentary politics.