ABSTRACT Tony Blair’s government set up devolved institutions and abolished most hereditary peers, without attempting to link these reforms. Scottish peers have mostly belonged to the three main British parties. Devoid of any electoral mandate, they have taken a keen interest in debates related to devolution, or with a major impact on it (Brexit). This article contends that while peers from Scotland backed extensions of devolution over its first twenty-five years, they were wary of any move likely to be interpreted as supporting the Scottish National Party (SNP) and its independence plan. In turn, SNP politicians, who have refused to sit in the upper House, occasionally found allies in the House of Lords to defend Scotland’s autonomy.

Abstract While ‘hard-right’ has gained traction in scholarship and newsrooms, its conceptual vagueness and practical effects have remained underexamined. Drawing on Framing Theory and Agenda-Setting Theory, this article offers the first systematic, crosspublication study of how seven leading English-language outlets – The Guardian , the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Politico, The New Statesman, The Economist , Reuters, and The Financial Times – employed the term between 2022 and 2025. A qualitative content analysis of 140 articles demonstrates that ‘hard-right’ functions as an umbrella label that conflates distinct far-right currents, while framing devices selectively highlight certain traits and agenda-setting practices that elevate the term’s prominence in headlines and summaries. Although outlets vary in their use of contextual qualifiers, all exhibit comparable patterns of misclassification, label inflation, and strategic ambiguity. It can be argued that the strategic use of vague terminology can soften the far-right’s image and bolster their electoral appeal. The findings demonstrate the urgency of adopting established political science typologies and clearer editorial guidelines to safeguard analytical precision and democratic accountability in media coverage.

This study explores how persona prompting in AI translation systems, particularly OpenAI’s ChatGPT (GPT-4o), shapes politically sensitive discourse. By assigning translation personas such as “diplomat” and “politician,” the AI produced distinct Arabic renderings of six controversial statements by Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Drawing on Descriptive Translation Studies, Critical Discourse Analysis, and Narrative Theory, the analysis examines tone, word choice, and rhetorical strategies. Findings show that AI translations not only transfer meaning but also reframe ideas: diplomats soften charged language, while politicians balance criticism and formality. These shifts highlight translation as a political and ethical act with implications for global perceptions, policy, and public opinion. The opacity of AI processes further raises concerns over transparency, accountability, and bias. The study contributes to research at the intersection of computational linguistics, translation studies, and political discourse, urging critical scrutiny of how AI translation shapes meaning and ideology in international communication.

ABSTRACT The article argues that dynamics of politicisation and de-politicisation in foreign policy can be fruitfully analysed from a two-level perspective. This perspective highlights the interplay between domestic and international drivers of politicisation and de-politicisation as well as the strategic agency of governments in shaping the two counter-processes. The article illustrates its argument with a case study on the politicisation and (failed) de-politicisation of German military support for Ukraine. The case study demonstrates how the politicisation of the issue in German domestic politics was driven by a diverse range of domestic politicising agents (‘inside-out’ politicisation) who were able to tie in with international sources of politicisation (‘outside-in’ politicisation). In this highly politicised two-level context, the Scholz government tried, but largely failed, to de-politicise its decision-making by securitising Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in German political discourse. These dynamics critically shaped the Scholz government’s often criticised approach to delivering weapons to Ukraine.

Equitable media coverage is essential for informed voter participation; however, persistent disparities between rural and urban election reporting in Tanzania remain underexplored. Existing studies on election coverage largely emphasize national elections and urban-centered political discourse, leaving limited empirical evidence on how local government elections are framed across rural and urban constituencies. This study addresses this gap by analyzing rural–urban differences in media agenda-setting and framing during Tanzania’s 2024 local government elections, using Mwananchi and Habari Leo newspapers as case studies. Guided by Agenda-Setting and Framing theories, the study employed a qualitative–quantitative content analysis of 180 newspaper issues published between July and October 2024. The findings reveal a pronounced imbalance in coverage: urban areas dominated election reporting, with emphasis on political competition, policy debates, and civic participation, while rural areas received limited and less prominent coverage focused mainly on voter registration, infrastructure, and community mobilization. The study innovatively applies rural–urban comparative framing analysis to local elections, highlighting how media narratives shape unequal electoral visibility. The findings imply that unequal coverage may limit rural voters’ access to critical election information, potentially affecting participation and democratic inclusion. The study contributes to media and election studies by providing empirical evidence on rural–urban disparities in local election coverage and offers policy-relevant insights for promoting balanced and inclusive electoral reporting in Tanzania.

ABSTRACT John Pocock, Istvan Hont, and scholars of the Scottish Enlightenment have profoundly shaped how historians understand eighteenth-century debates about commerce and ‘commercial society’. Their influential interpretations – ranging from republican anxieties about corruption to the political-economic dynamics of trade and state power – continue to frame the field. This paper takes these positions as analytical starting points and examines them computationally. Using the largest existing corpus of eighteenth-century printed publications, we extract and model large-scale linguistic patterns to test three hypotheses about the discursive relationship of commerce to other topics of political thought. Against the backdrop of overall ‘commercialisation’ of political thought taking place, the evidence aligns most strongly with Hont’s account of ‘jealousy of trade’, in which commerce is entwined with foreign rivalry and power-political concerns. Pocockian republican scepticism receives more limited support, and the broader Scottish Enlightenment narrative is only weakly reflected at scale. By situating early modern authors within these wider discursive structures, the paper demonstrates how computational methods can clarify, modify, and challenge established historiographical interpretations.

ABSTRACT Digital technologies are transforming democratic life in conflicting ways. This article bridges two perspectives to unpack these tensions. First, we present an original survey of software developers in Silicon Valley, interrogating how coders’ worldviews, ethics, and workplace cultures shape the democratic potential and social impact of the technologies they build. Results indicate that while most developers recognize the power of their products to influence civil liberties and political discourse, they often face ethical dilemmas and top-down pressures that can lead to design choices undermining democratic ideals. Second, we critically investigate these findings in the context of an emerging ‘new digital divide’, not of internet access but of information quality. We interrogate the survey findings in the context of the ‘slop economy’, in which billions of users unable to pay for high-quality content experience an internet dominated by low-quality, AI-generated ad-driven content. We find a reinforcing cycle between tech creator beliefs and the digital ecosystems they spawn. We discuss implications for democratic governance, arguing for more ethically informed design and policy interventions to help bridge the digital divide to ensure that technological innovation supports rather than subverts democratic values in the next chapter of the digital age.

The Amazon rainforest is one of the most vital biodiversity reservoirs on the planet, but it faces threats from deforestation, lack of knowledge, and limited capacity for research, innovation, and technological development in the region. In this context, bioeconomy is proposed as a key strategy for valuing and sustainably utilizing biological resources, drawing on modern science and the traditional knowledge of local communities. This article aims to explore the role of bioeconomy in the Colombian Amazon, based on experiences developed by the SINCHI Amazonian Institute for Scientific Research over more than two decades of research and innovation. The methodology relies on the systematization of bioeconomic management models created by the Institute, the analysis of three representative case studies in Amazonian value chains, and a comparison with other experiences in the Pan-Amazon region. This approach helps identify lessons learned, success factors, and limitations. The findings demonstrate that integrating scientific knowledge, technological innovation, and traditional practices is essential for strengthening sustainable value chains, reducing pressure on forests, and creating economic alternatives for communities. Additionally, it is evident that public policy and access and benefit-sharing (ABS) frameworks are crucial in establishing fair and viable bioeconomic processes. The article concludes that the bioeconomy in Amazonia not only offers a sustainable development alternative but also highlights the strategic importance of biodiversity in the Global South. This paper presents the experience of the SINCHI Institute as a practical example of developing Amazonian bioeconomic models, contributing to academic and political discussions on sustainable biodiversity management.

Presidential inauguration speeches are powerful discursive tools that frame political visions, establish legitimacy, and outline future policy trajectories. This study critically examines the discursive strategies employed in Donald Trump’s second inauguration speech, focusing on how he preconfigures the future through ideological and epistemological narratives. Using Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) and the framework of alternative futures in political discourse, this analysis explores Trump’s rhetorical construction of the status quo as a crisis-ridden site that requires a radical departure. The study identifies two key discursive schemas – Local Conflict Schema (LCS) and Global Conflict Schema (GCS) – which shape his critique of past administrations and justify his envisioned policies. Trump’s discourse portrays his leadership as a salvific force, employing populist, nationalistic, and religious rhetoric to legitimise his future-oriented agenda. By examining these discursive constructions, this research contributes to understanding how political figures employ language to shape public perceptions and legitimise future policy directions.

ABSTRACT This article tests the concept of regional populism to explain the electoral success of the CSU and the Free Voters in Bavaria, two parties that together have governed the state since 2018. It bridges research on populism and regionalism by presenting a new set of survey items that measure regional populism. The CSU and Free Voters are often accused of ‘being populist’, yet they do not conform to standard definitions of populist parties. However, both pit the interests of their ‘Bavarian Heimat’ against external elites in ‘Berlin’ and ‘Brussels’. This study analyses the extent to which regional populist attitudes resonate with different voter groups. The items are tested in a novel post-election survey conducted for the 2023 Bavarian state election. While regional populist attitudes are widespread among AfD, Free Voters, and CSU supporters, regional populism is a stronger predictor of support for the CSU and Free Voters than general populism. In contrast, the AfD vote is better explained by general (i.e. non-regional) populism than regional populism. The findings underscore the significance of regional populism in explaining the success of regional parties and advocate for future research to thoroughly investigate the populist dimensions of regional political discourse across Europe.

This article discusses the relationship between constitution and colonies in Spain. Since 1837, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines were expressly excluded from the formal constitutions of the metropolis. Differently to the type of constitutionalism from which they were expelled, the colonies, however, seemed to retain a real and material constitution, defined by geographers with geographic criteria, which ultimately served to uphold the whole political discourse concerning the particularities of nations overseas as well as to justify, in constitutional terms, their exclusion from the series of Spanish constitutions until the final crumble of their colonial regime in 1898.

This paper critically examines the marginalisation of veganism within leftist or progressive political discourse, particularly through the lens of Marxist theory, in the context of the Anthropocene. While Marxism has provided incisive critiques of capitalism’s exploitation of labour and nature, it has largely overlooked the ecological and ethical implications of animal agriculture, which is a glaring omission given its central role in driving environmental degradation and climate change. Drawing on Marx’s concepts of metabolic rift, alienation and value, the paper argues veganism is essential to any comprehensive critique of capitalism’s destructive relationship with both human and non-human life. It explores the parallels between the exploitation of humans and animals under capitalist systems and critiques the left’s inconsistent treatment of animal liberation as a peripheral concern, despite its deep entanglement with environmental justice, labour struggles, and anti-capitalist movements. By integrating veganism into Marxist ecological thought, the paper calls for a reimagining of leftist or progressive political frameworks to address the interconnected crises of food production, animal exploitation, and climate catastrophe. The Anthropocene demands an expanded vision of solidarity that transcends species boundaries, recognising veganism as a vital building block in the struggle for a more just, sustainable, and equitable world. A version of this paper was first presented at the Marx in the Anthropocene conference at Università Iuav di Venezia (Iuav University of Venice), Italy, in March 2025.

The rise of social media platforms has essentially reoriented the role of political communication by imposing such a heavy focus on the visual content as a tool of building and supporting the political images. This study will look at how these political players, such as individual politicians, political parties and electoral campaigns, utilize the visual communication techniques available in the social media to shape, sell, and reinforce their images. Within the frame of the review of key case studies, such as the 2008 and 2012 Barack Obama campaigns, the strategic use of social media in the Narendra Modi campaign in India and the current state of affairs in the 2024 electoral campaigns, this paper will examine the theoretical basis of visual political communication, the practical tactics of modern-day political leaders, and the ethical aspects of image-making in the digital environment. The paper will utilize Framing Theory, Agenda Setting Theory, and Visual Communication Theory in order to relate findings against the available academic literature. Findings have shown that visual content such as professionally created imagery, videos, memes, and emotionally engaging graphics can have a vast impact on how the general population views political leaders and can determine the electoral process. Nevertheless, this visual-based politics has significant issues of misinformation, control of the mass consciousness, and corrosion of faith in democratic components. The research paper concludes that although the visual social media strategies have proven to be a fundamental instrument of political discourse in the 21 st century, effective ethical guidelines and media literacy programs are very important aspects of preserving democratic integrity in the digital era.

Problem statement. In contemporary cultural and political discourse, the phenomenon of cultural usurpation has gained renewed significance, as societies increasingly confront ideological conflicts, identity reconfigurations, and asymmetrical power relations. Literature, functioning as a medium of symbolic expression and social reflection, plays a crucial role in representing and contesting mechanisms of domination, resistance, and coexistence. Across different historical periods, literary narratives have served not only as artistic creations but also as ideological instruments that shape collective memory and articulate responses to cultural pressure. Themes of self-existence, loyalty, emotional affiliation, and communal belonging become especially prominent in contexts where cultural usurpation challenges the balance between individual identity and social coexistence. These circumstances highlight the necessity of reassessing the role of literature as a transformative tool capable of negotiating ethical, political, and cultural tensions within societies undergoing upheaval. Purpose of the article. The aim of this study is to analyze how literary texts interpret and negotiate cultural usurpation in the dynamic relationship between self-existence and coexistence. The research focuses on identifying narrative strategies that reflect structures of power and resistance, exploring how literature constructs ethical perspectives, articulates cultural identity, and mediates tensions between individual survival and collective cohesion. Research methodology and methods. The study employed a comprehensive methodological framework that included analytical methods (to synthesize theoretical perspectives on cultural usurpation and literary representation), interpretive methods (to examine symbolic and emotional layers of the texts), comparative analysis (to identify shared narrative patterns across different literary traditions), and contextual methods (to correlate literary material with socio-political environments). Elements of discourse analysis and hermeneutic interpretation were also utilized to investigate ideological, structural, and emotive components of the selected works. Results. The findings indicate that literature assumes a dual function: it mirrors ideological pressures, cultural domination, and political instability, while simultaneously providing a space for symbolic resistance and the affirmation of identity. Narrative structures—exemplified particularly in Dickens’s works—display a complex interplay between individual agency and hegemonic forces, offering insight into ethical choices, collective memory, and cultural resilience. The analysis demonstrates that literary texts not only reflect socio-political realities but also propose models of coexistence, solidarity, and community-building that counteract hegemonic narratives and support cultural continuity. Conclusions and prospects. The results confirm that the study of cultural usurpation through literature requires the integration of sociological, cultural, and textual approaches. The effectiveness of such analysis lies in literature’s ability to encapsulate collective experience, reflect ideological transformations, and shape ethical strategies of coexistence under conditions of cultural and political pressure. Future research should expand on the examination of literary resistance, intercultural models of coexistence, and the role of narrative representation in preserving cultural identity within globally transforming contexts.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has increased the threat of disinformation and deepfakes, significantly affecting public trust, political stability, and media credibility. Despite growing academic interest in AI’s benefits, a research gap remains in analyzing its manipulative potential in modern public relations. This study examines how AI-generated content contributes to the spread of fake news and deepfakes and evaluates the effectiveness of existing legal, technological, and educational countermeasures. It also aims to examine the extent to which AI-generated content impacts public trust, political discourse, and media credibility. The research questions include: How does AI contribute to disinformation in PR? What legal and technical solutions exist across different countries? The analysis reveals that AI is intensifying information manipulation, while detection tools and regulations remain fragmented. A multi-level approach combining legal frameworks, education, and international cooperation is essential to address AI-driven disinformation effectively and protect public communication.

This paper examines how mediatization processes in digital environments fundamentally transform political authority construction and democratic knowledge production. Drawing on mediatization theory and platform studies, the research analyzes how different media logics create divergent information ecosystems, enabling non-traditional actors to construct alternative forms of epistemic authority that can influence mainstream institutions while operating outside traditional gatekeeping mechanisms. Using UAP (unexplained anomalous phenomena) discourse as a critical case study, systematic analysis of media platforms from 2017-2025 demonstrates the migration of political discourse from institutional to algorithmic curation, facilitating the formation of “paranormal counter-public” that transcend conventional left-right divisions. The study reveals how platform-specific factors – especially algorithmic amplification and parasocial relationships – alter epistemological frameworks through which audiences evaluate evidence and expertise. These findings illuminate broader democratic transformations in how societies negotiate boundaries between legitimate and illegitimate knowledge claims, allocate speaking authority, and legitimate political action in an increasingly mediatized world.

ABSTRACT In the face of the purported nationalization of political discourse in the United States, to what extent do congressional representatives still engage locally through their public communications? Based on a comprehensive dataset of over nine million tweets and Facebook posts sent by Members of Congress between 2011 and 2023, analyzed through a first-of-its-kind fine-tuned machine learning classifier of local content combined with a hand-coded list of over 4000 news web domains, this paper assesses how often Members use localized messaging, which Members are most inclined to use locally-focused communications, and whether a local communications strategy is associated with electoral or political advantages for Members. The results suggest, first, that congressional communications still contain a substantial and consistent focus on local content. The use of local messaging is also dynamic and strategic, with Members in a position of congressional and presidential control being most prone to focusing on local content. However, across a range of measures, localized messaging is not associated with increased constituent approval, campaign fundraising, or electoral performance for Members. These results, collectively, highlight how even in a nationalized online communications environment, local factors still play a significant role in guiding Member messaging strategies, even in the absence of tangible political benefits.

Objective: This article examines the legacy of Ünal Tekeli v. Türkiye and its impact on women’s right to retain their own surnames upon marriage in Türkiye. It aims to trace long term effects of Tekeli and analyze how judicial interventions at the supranational and domestic levels have shaped legal reform processes concerning gender equality and personal autonomy. Methods: The study adopts a qualitative legal analysis based on European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) jurisprudence, Turkish Constitutional Court decisions, legislative developments, and strategic human rights litigation. Relevant legal texts, court judgments, and policy debates are examined through a socio-legal and feminist lens to assess both normative change and implementation practices. Results: The findings demonstrate that while the Ünal Tekeli judgment constituted a landmark international victory for gender equality in Türkiye, its domestic implementation remained delayed and inconsistent for many years. Persistent patriarchal norms, legislative inertia, and administrative resistance limited the transformative potential of the ruling. Although the annulment of Article 187 of the Turkish Civil Code in 2023 marked a significant advancement, subsequent legislative proposals and political discourse reveal continuing resistance and uncertainty in fully recognizing women’s independent legal identity. Conclusion: The article concludes that judicial victories alone are insufficient to secure substantive gender equality. The Turkish experience illustrates the complex interaction between supranational courts, domestic institutions, and political power in translating legal norms into structural and societal change. The legacy of Ünal Tekeli underscores the importance of sustained legal mobilization and political will in achieving meaningful and lasting reform.

This paper presents a hybrid architecture for automatic sentiment analysis of Kazakh-language political discourse. The Kazakh language is characterized by an agglutinative structure, a complex word-formation system, and the limited availability of digital resources, which significantly complicates the application of standard neural network approaches. To account for these characteristics, a multi-level system was developed that combines morphological and syntactic analysis rules, ontological relationships between political concepts, and multilingual representations of the XLM-R model, used in zero-shot mode. A corpus of 12,000 sentences was annotated for sentiment polarity and used for training and evaluation, while Universal Dependencies annotation was applied for morpho-syntactic analysis. Rule-based components compensate for errors related to affixation variability, modality, and directive constructions. An ontology comprising over 300 domain concepts ensures the correct interpretation of set expressions, terms, and political actors. Experimental results show that the proposed hybrid architecture outperforms both neural network baseline models and purely rule-based solutions, achieving Macro-F1 = 0.81. Ablation revealed that the contribution of modules is unevenly distributed: the ontology provides +0.04 to Macro-F1, the UD syntax +0.08, and the rule-based module +0.11. The developed system forms an interpretable and robust assessment of tonality, emotions, and discursive strategies in political discourse, and also creates a basis for further expansion of the corpus, additional training of models, and the application of hybrid methods to other tasks of analyzing low-resource languages.

In Nigeria, there is a concubinage relationship between religion, state and politicians. The structural dynamic is such that ‘purely’ religious calculations must contend with ethno-regional and sectional preferences. Previous studies on religion and political mobilization have shown the struggle for state power by religious leaders in the pre and post-independent years as well as a detailed study in the fourth republic. However, there remains a gap in the literature regarding the active involvement of religious clerics speaking as Divine agents of God with a particular message for the masses as to who they should vote. The aim of this paper is to investigate the active role religious clerics played in the 2023 general elections in Nigeria by assessing their messages in favour of their choice aspirant. How was religion weaponized in the articulation of campaign messages and what was the role of religious Clerics in Nigeria during the last presidential elections? How did presidential aspirants resort to religion for political mobilization? Religious Clerics charged their members to vote their faith and thus, the direction of this paper suits the appropriation and mobilization of religious messages by clerics with their strategies in the Nigerian political terrain in 2023. This will be explored through qualitative research methods. This study applies a socio-religious approach in its methodology. It relies on surveys and content analysis of political discourses and religious teachings found in books, audio sermons/ messages, published books, articles and newspapers. The study concludes that religious devotion and messaging is a major determinants of electoral outcomes in Nigeria.