Elite Research Articles

Article: Assessing the Impact of Corruption on Taxpayer Perceptions of Fairness: Insights from SMEs in Uganda

Corruption can undermine taxpayers’ trust in the fairness of how public funds are allocated and tax procedures are carried out. While the relationship between corruption and tax system unfairness is largely unexplored, a significant body of knowledge covers these constructs in isolation. This study assesses the influence of corruption on Ugandan small and medium enterprises (SMEs’) perception of tax fairness. The authors use a thematic analysis on semi-structured interview data to assess the effects of corruption on tax fairness perceptions. The findings reveal four types of corruption: petty corruption, petty tax corruption, political corruption, and grand corruption. These have significant influence on income tax unfairness perceptions among SME firms. Tax and government officers as well as the political elite who demand bribes, embezzle taxpayers’ funds, and discriminate among taxpayers based on tribal sentiments incite taxpayers’ distributive and procedural tax unfairness perceptions. The results demonstrate that the government must strive to create an honest bureaucracy and tax administration to improve tax fairness perceptions. This can be done by allowing anti-corruption agencies to work professionally and independently of political influence.

Trust the People? Populism, Trust, and Support for Direct Democracy

Populism is commonly understood as a response to frustrations with the functioning of modern democracy, while the use of direct democratic mechanisms has been hailed as a remedy for the ailing of representative democracies. Indeed, populism’s emphasis on direct citizen participation in decision-making is tightly linked to its distrust of representative institutions and the political elite as the cornerstone of mediated representation. Trust, however, matters for any functioning democratic institutional arrangement, and we contend that its role warrants more attention when considering the viability of alternative modes of decision-making such as referendums, particularly in the nexus of populism–democracy. Using original public opinion surveys implemented in Argentina, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, we distinguish among different objects of trust—elites, institutions, “the people,” or the society at large. We also explore citizens’ levels of trust in these objects and their association with institutional designs of direct democracy. Our results offer preliminary insights into the importance of horizontal and vertical trust relationships in shaping procedural preferences for different configurations of direct democracy.

Networks rewired: quota enforcement and the unintended mobilization of native place ties

Abstract We explore how institutional designs can have unintended consequences, especially by rewiring social networks. Using archival data on the civil-service examinations in historical China, we argue that the enforcement of a regional quota system in 1427 reshaped group boundaries along native place, turned emotional affinities for one’s hometown into political stakes, and reinforced the influence of native place ties among political elites. Analyzing approximately 30,000 individual records, we confirm this argument by documenting a macro-level shift from a highly unequal to a more balanced provincial distribution of students who passed the examinations following the enforcement of the quota system. As native place became a primary basis for network homophily, elites deliberately cultivated these connections, seizing the opportunity as ad hoc examiners to provide preferential treatment based on shared place of origin. Our micro-level analysis of 12,752 passing students between 1400 and 1580 identifies this in-group favoritism, with examiners often ranking students from their own provinces higher. A mechanism of safeguarding political stakes underscores this baseline effect, which became more pronounced during the quota stage, especially under weaker state capacity, among examiners from disadvantaged provinces, and when examiners had greater vested interest in their hometown. These findings enrich theories of group boundaries and categorization, network homophily and formation, and the unintended consequences of institutional designs while also providing policy insights for affirmative action.

Sanitary segregation imposed by Big Brother – a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of Grzegorz Braun’s radical anti-vaccine rhetoric

ABSTRACT The coronavirus pandemic greatly impacted political communication. Operating within the framework of Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, this paper discusses the discursive strategies of Grzegorz Braun, one of the leaders of the Confederation Liberty and Independence – a Polish coalition of right-wing parties – by investigating 97 YouTube thumbnails and video titles. The present paper offers an in-depth investigation of Braun’s radical and anti-vaccine discourse, focusing on both the verbal and visual components, and how they form a coherent meaning. The findings indicate that Braun’s main strategy was to instill a sense of fear and danger. Similarly to other right-wing populists, Braun created narratives that the pandemic was a conspiracy crafted by global elites and that the vaccines were a tool for controlling society. However, Braun did not just copy the discourse of other politicians, but adjusted his message to the viewers, as he would make frequent references to the People’s Republic of Poland and compared the Polish government to communists. Overall, while Braun’s message was rather straightforward, the politician used a large variety of semiotic choices, focusing on potent cultural symbols, size, color, as well as intensification and predication strategies.

Aftermath of the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis: Media Discourse Analysis of Taiwan and India’s Perception of China’s Threat

This study examines Taiwan and India’s media discourse and political elite statements from 1 July 2022 to 1 October 2023, starting from the fourth Taiwan Strait crisis in 2022. We conducted a discourse analysis of over 121,901 news texts using extensive data analysis and text-mining software. Additionally, our research team conducted expert focus group discussions with renowned think tanks and research centres in New Delhi, India. Building upon the data text analysis findings, we further explored India’s stance on the Taiwan Strait conflict, its perception of the Chinese threat and the impact of the ongoing ‘new normal’ crisis on India’s Indo-Pacific strategic layout. The aim was to uncover common security needs and intersecting interests between the two countries, considering their different national interests and geopolitical considerations. Based on the analysis of textual mining and expert discussions, this study reveals the following: First, India is concerned about the current situation in the Taiwan Strait. Second, the current tensions in the Taiwan Strait will influence India’s strategic layout. Third, there is a growing consensus within India regarding the Chinese threat. In light of these findings, this study suggests that Taiwan and India share interests in democratic values, maritime traffic security and high-tech industry supply chains. Taiwan possesses expertise in China studies and a deep understanding of China’s military threat, while Taiwan and India possess specific technological capabilities. Based on these foundations, there are potential opportunities for further dialogue, exchange and cooperation in relevant fields between India and Taiwan.

“There, seated upon the toilet, apparently in the midst of defecation, was the president of the United States”: Toilets and elite politics in the USA and UK

What can we learn about elite politics from the humble toilet? How do the relations between toilets, bodies, and waste materially and discursively reveal, and become enrolled within, the summits of state political power? While there has been a growth in research on the political geographies of the body, including work on toilets, and a long history of research on elite politics, the two intellectual concerns and debates have not been brought together. Yet the toilet and the bathroom, in both their material and discursive reproduction, provide intriguing insights into the seemingly sanitised, even disembodied domain of elite politics. We explore the space, use, and meaning of the toilet in two powerful contexts: the White House in the United States, and Downing Street in the United Kingdom. Shaped by differences in cultural and political context, we study the ways in which toilets feature in the working of elite power, and how that connects to gender, sexuality, race, nakedness, humour, and space in the (re)making of the political. By making the toilet an object of study we aim to shed light on this often forgotten and silenced, yet inevitable geography of elite politics.

Who is the Blame for the Russia-Ukraine war? Feminist and Postcolonial Perspectives on 'Real Politics'

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has widely been narrated as having epochal significance with far-reaching implications. For leading historians of Eastern Europe, such as Timothy Snyder (2022) and Serhii Plokhy (2015), what we are seeing is an existential threat to democratic norms. While discussing phenomena of the political world, drawing on a variety of lenses is advantageous; in the case of the Russian-Ukrainian war it is a necessity. This article engages with a combination of lenses provided by feminist and postcolonial theories to critically reflect on the logic, as articulated by Russia's political elites, behind the invasion of Ukraine. It focuses on the role of gender and racialisation in normalising one’s place in the social hierarchy and its ‘appropriate’ behaviour, excusing occupational, violent and genocidal policies under the abstract term of ‘real politics’. This article attempts to trace the way social structures empower gendered and racialised politics, allowing invasions to be justified. Russia-led wars in Ukraine will be discussed as an example of the consequences of such a structure and ideology. This article will firstly underline a feminist and postcolonial approach that addresses the necessity of social hierarchy analysis to reveal the causes of war. Further sections will focus on unpacking Russia’s claims of the legitimacy of its colonial/great-power state project to incorporate Ukraine. I will conclude with a reflection on how the notion of the nation-state, rooted in the ideologies of social hierarchy and colonial domination, can be seen as having fuelled the ongoing war.

Breaking from the past? Environmental narratives, logics of power, and the (re)production of food insecurity in South Sudan.

Skyrocketing commodity prices and conflict-induced mass hunger in recent years have resuscitated discussions about why famines frequently reoccur in specific spaces of vulnerability. Intervention efforts still too often isolate food (in)security from its interwovenness in the political economy of water and energy and from the role of ideas in forging these interconnections across long time periods. Using (South) Sudanese history to rethink the causes of recurrent food insecurity, we underscore the need to analyse how political elites imagine the role of the water-energy-food nexus and associated environmental narratives in consolidating power. South Sudan's 2011 secession (from Sudan) marked the culmination of a struggle against a state that insurgents regarded as having starved its citizens. However, since independence, its leaders have replicated the nostrum they once combatted: Sudanese resources must 'feed the world'. A fixation with inserting water, energy, and food resources into global markets infuses their strategy, even if such an approach will not engender food abundance.

Institutional and Regulatory Compliance Gaps in Natural Resource Governance: Empirical Evidence and Lessons from the Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry

Institutional governance has traditionally been frequently undermined by developing countries, but this behaviour has immensely impacted economic growth and development outcome with long term implications. More fundamentally, the Nigeria oil and gas industry governance are beset with various challenges including regulatory compliance, monitoring capacity, enforcement mechanism, politics and very frequently plagued with blame games. Consequently, the study conducted primary and secondary data to problematized gaps in institutional governance from the standpoint of development discourse to establish a convergence of evidences within the context of the quality of state institutions that unarguably reflects the Nigeria scenario. Institutional and regulatory compliance gaps permeate the gamut of the oil and gas industry so resolutely in the global South like Nigeria, orchestrated by the political elites who are so perverse, rent seeking, inept and greed driven with no clear sense of patriotism compare to the global North like Norway that is more effective and nationalistic. The findings of the study highlight weaknesses in policy framework, corrupt practices, poor contract management, compromised professional integrity, inadequate funding, poor contract management and systemic gap in revenue management as a consequence of gaps in natural resources governance in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria. It explains this on the basis of existing mechanisms and empirical evidences. These evidently exemplify that Nigeria has struggled for several decades from lethargic institutional and regulatory compliance capacity as the presence of oil and gas does not translate or appear to systematically support development outcome in many developing countries.

History Politics in Kosovo: Elites’ Memory and Victims’ Counter-Memory in Public Spaces of the De Facto State (Contradictions of Collective Memory and Memorial Culture)

The article examines the development of collective historical memory in Kosovo, a region with contested international political status. The study aims to analyze the memorial policies pursued by Kosovo’s regional political elites, which contribute to the consolidation of the region’s political identity. Additionally, the role and significance of history and perceptions of the past in the discourse shaped by the elites of modern Pristina are explored. Methodologically, the article draws on the interdisciplinary contributions of historiography, particularly the memorial turn, as well as studies that analyze nationalism as a factor in the evolution and transformation of memorial cultures. The novelty of the study lies in its examination of the current stage of historical policy development in Kosovo, a region that is striving for institutionalization and recognition as a nationstate. The article demonstrates that: 1) Kosovo's political elites actively leverage both the real and symbolic potential of collective memory, 2) the region’s historical policy and memorial culture are marked by a high degree of ideologization, and 3) nationalism plays a pivotal role in shaping the main vectors and trajectories of historical policy and memorial culture. The study suggests that the memory policies enacted by the elites tend to blend ethnic and civic Albanian nationalism, characterized by a high level of politicization and ideologization of history. This active use and instrumentalization of historical narratives in public and social spaces transforms collective memory into a tool for memorial confrontation and memory wars.

X-raying Human Rights Violations by Government Agencies in Nigeria's Democratic System of Government

Respect for human rights is diminishing within Nigeria's democracy, with the political elite often acting with impunity and ignoring the rule of law. Gender discrimination and exclusion of marginalized citizens persist in politics. This study investigated human rights violations by government agencies in Nigeria, with the aim of enhancing understanding of the situation and proposing policy recommendations for promoting human rights. The study employed a descriptive survey research design, with 150 individuals randomly selected from government agencies in Lagos state. Data was collected through in-depth interviews, with the analysis focusing on patterns in conversations, text, and activities. The findings reveal the emotional and systemic impacts of government agencies' human rights violations, calling for sweeping reforms and enhanced accountability. Respondents also stress the complexity of accountability challenges and advocate for a collaborative approach. They offer valuable strategies, including government reforms, civil society involvement, education and awareness, learning from successful examples, and using media and digital platforms to promote human rights and accountability. The study concluded that the findings underscore the urgent need for comprehensive and collaborative efforts to address the multifaceted challenges of human rights violations in Nigeria. This requires the involvement of all stakeholders, including the government, civil society organizations, and the media. Sweeping reforms and enhanced accountability mechanisms are essential to ensure justice and the protection of human rights for all Nigerians. This study provides a valuable overview of human rights violations by government agencies in Nigeria's democratic system of government. The findings highlight the need for urgent action to address the root causes of these violations and to ensure accountability for perpetrators. The study's recommendations offer a roadmap for promoting human rights and strengthening democracy in Nigeria.

Ethnicity: A Trojan Horse for the Perpetuation of Armed Civil Conflicts in Africa

Abstract Purpose: The prevalence of armed conflicts in Africa seems commonplace, with little possibility to their end. This study aims to challenge a narrative that seem to consider ethnicity, or ethnic differences as the main causes of armed civil conflicts in Africa. This study argues that while ethnicity might play a role in conflict formation, ethnicity is simply a Trojan horse that is impishly presented as the main cause of armed conflicts in Africa. Design/Methodology: Data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. To evaluate the ethnicity vs. conflict nexus more conscientiously, this study provided two case examples: Ethiopia and Kenya, each providing distinct political trajectories. Findings: The study finds that ethnicity is not the main cause of armed conflicts in Africa; rather, the main causal factors are embedded in bad governance practices by political elites and their cronies. Notable is the practice of politics of power grab and marginalisation of certain groups to achieve Machiavellian ends. The additional causal factor is tied to external imperial exploitative motives of looting Africa’s natural resources, often using African puppets, bagmen and traitors of their own homeland. Thus, a combination of bad local governance practices and external economic interests is mainly what has led to a surge in armed civil conflicts in Africa. Originality/Value: The novelty of this study is that it challenges conventional political standpoints on the causes of ethnic-related conflicts and the solutions needed to end/reduce them. The study has achieved this by pushing the cloak of appreciating the scope and scale of Africa’s armed conflicts by advancing the argument that conflict management solutions lie inward rather than outward through the utilisation of local or homegrown conflict resolution mechanisms. Such local mechanisms must focus on addressing bad governance practices. The current penchant of relying on international or foreign mediatory systems as solutions is done merely at the behest of global politicking and, as such, only provides cosmetic solutions, hence themselves responsible for those protracted ethnic-related conflicts.

Institutional Logic of Fragile States: Afghanistan and South Sudan in Comparative Perspective

ABSTRACT In the violence trap framework, ruling elites use rents to control contending elites who pose a violent threat. Political development results in transitions from a fragile state, wherein rents are tentative and personalized, to a basic natural state, and then a mature natural state, through standardization of elite privileges, consolidated state control of the political-military apparatus, and the enactment of a credible contracts regime. Accordingly, the institutional logic of fragile states is rooted in the incentives that undergird elite bounded rationality, transacting under highly personalized, tentative patronage networks. The paper addresses the question of why fragile states fail to develop into basic natural states. In doing so, it applies the violence trap analytical framework to illustrate the logic of the fragile state through a most different systems (MDS) comparison of Afghanistan and South Sudan. The main finding is that the institutional logic of the fragile state in the two cases is rooted in a lack of three necessary conditions: institutional incentives for broadening elite consensus, credible patronage agreements among different elite groups, and a consolidated state with specialized political and military functions.

The Principle of Righteousness and the Chosŏn–Ming and ROK–ROC Security Commitments*

This study addresses the question of why some decision‐makers and political elites in Chosŏn and the Republic of Korea (ROK) remained committed to the Ming Dynasty and the Republic of China (ROC) when the latter had declined in power. Based on the social psychological literature on righteousness, we explore this relationship through the lens of spontaneous and binding mechanisms. The former refers to voluntary help after reciprocity has been internalized as a duty, and the latter suggests that although individuals are reluctant to help, the fear of violating righteousness motivates continued commitment. Using the most‐different case design, this study finds supporting evidence from both the Chosŏn and the ROK periods. Specifically, Chosŏn loyalist officials insisted on aiding the weakened Ming and dethroned the rationalist King, Gwanghaegun. Moreover, those Korean elites who lived through the Korean Independence Movement and the Korean War emphasized diplomatic ties with the ROC even after the ROC lost its UN seat in 1971. By integrating social psychology and constructivism literature, the findings illuminate how the norms of righteousness shape decision‐makers' foreign policy and alliance commitment preferences.

The dialectics of intergroup relations between the Alago and Eggon peoples of Central Nigeria

ABSTRACT This study dwells on Alago-Eggon relations within the discursive remit of the dialectics of intergroup relations in Nasarawa State, Central Nigeria. Historicizing the patterns, dynamics, shifts and trajectories of their relations over the years, the study found that the two groups have engaged in diverse forms of mutually beneficial and supportive relationships as close geographical and cultural neighbours. The study revealed that the relationship between the groups witnessed a dramatic setback in the 2010s, following primordial contestations for power by their political elites, which plunged the two groups into inter-communal animosity. The study noted that the relationship between the two groups has been largely tense and hostile since the onset of their communal crises, and that has had significant implications for their peaceful coexistence and social cohesion.

How the political elite make decisions

AbstractThe political elite make policy decisions in noisy environments and under time pressure, and so are prone to using heuristics. There are conflicting schools of thought as to whether it is appropriate for them to do so. Experienced decision‐makers are thought to be more effective at using heuristics, so it is possible that for the political elite with experience in a particular context, heuristic decision‐making is appropriate. Yet, many politicians are asked to make decisions on matters about which they are not experts. To add to the debate, we facilitated a discussion with a highly experienced cohort of 21 current and former senior politicians, former advisers, and current and former senior bureaucrats. When presented with a carefully considered and innovative new transport network pricing policy, we sought to identify whether and, if so, how they used heuristics to make a decision. We found that they used heuristics (1) to decide whether to engage with the issue at all and (2) how to act, having made the decision to engage. We describe how these heuristics were used and discuss the implications for theory and public administration practice.Points for practitioners There is a growing body of evidence that the political elite use heuristics for decision‐making and that the use of heuristics is influenced by seven factors. We gained rare access to the political elite deciding on a politically risky issue and observed not only which heuristics they used, but how they used them. We observed a three‐step decision tree, incorporating the ‘wait‐and‐see’ heuristic being used to decide whether to act, and political empathy, or intuiting voter heuristics to help decide how to act. We outline five options for public administrators who think that the political elite are using heuristics inappropriately for decision‐making.

English Nationalism and the Study of the History of Anglo-Saxon England

The author in the presented article analyses the features and directions of development of English academic historiography, focused on the history of England before 1066, as a form of political memory. It is assumed that UK political elites do not pursue memorial politics in its classical forms. Therefore, the author notes that the role of a similar historical policy in Europe and in England is played by academic historiography.The purpose of the study is to analyse the role, place and significance of research focused on the history of Anglo-Saxon England in the context of the development of memory policy and memorial culture. The novelty of the research lies in the study of academic historiography as a form of historical policy in a society where there are institutions of memory and memorial laws.The article shows that 1) Anglo-Saxon narratives in modern memorial culture have become a form of nationalist historical interaction, 2) actors and agents of English politics are both historians and the intellectual community in general, since the ruling elites distance themselves from participation in the politics of collective historical memory, 3) Anglo-Saxon narratives in the historical general began to show interest in English cultural nationalism, since its political forms and dimensions are undeveloped.It is suggested that academic historians in modern England have become both important and forced participants in the politics of history, nationalizing history before 1066, drawing attention to the significance of the past in modern identity.The article shows that modern English historiography in the field of memory and memorial culture actually plays the role of a political expert and agent who shapes and promotes ideas about the past, instrumentalizing history as a political resource.

Where Did the Global Elite Go to School? Hierarchy, Harvard, Home and Hegemony

ABSTRACTWe examine the educational backgrounds of the global elite, using new data on a diversity of organizational leadership roles as well as the population of the super‐rich across the world. Four trends emerge when examining the university education of the global elite. First, we find a small number of globally prestigious universities to take on super prominent roles, suggesting a strongly hierarchical distribution of credentials among the global elite. Second, we find a consistent and unique place for Harvard University within this system. Third, we find evidence for a significant yet variable ‘home‐bias’ in the education of the global elite. This is moderated by the fourth regularity, the hegemony of Anglo‐American credentials. These four global regularities can enhance ongoing research on global elite populations. Our findings are robust to both the removal of all American elites in the sample, to dynamic stratified sampling of the network boundary and to disaggregating the sample into different elite roles. The analysis of this article is the first of its kind to offer a large‐scale descriptive mapping of central tendencies in global elite university education.

Partisan (A) Symmetries in Hardball: Mass Level Support of Hardball Equivalent Across Party and Race

Constitutional hardball is when partisan actors engage in legal tactics that violate democratic norms for political advantage. The Republican Party seems to have engaged in hardball more than the Democratic Party in recent years, which is surprising as both parties should be similarly incentivized to use hardball. This asymmetry in elite behavior could reflect differences in what each parties’ coalitions tolerate. For example, non-white voters might oppose hardball tactics more than white voters for reasons such as hardball historically being used to enforce racial hierarchies. If true, that could constrain on Democratic elites’ actions more Republican elites due to Democrats’ more racially diverse base. I draw on a long line of research on partisanship and group interest to argue instead that both white and non-white voters of both parties should be similarly disposed towards hardball. This article then marshals data from the American National Election Survey (ANES) and original surveys to test that argument. In support of my hypotheses, I find white and non-white members of both parties have similar levels of support and similar motivations for hardball. Political elites are likely free to engage in undemocratic acts such as hardball with little fear of backlash from their supporters.

Political identity and risk politics: Evidence from a pandemic.

The way political identity serves as a foundation for political polarization in the United States permits elites to extend conflict rapidly to new issue areas. Further, the types of cognitive mechanisms and shortcuts used in the politically polarized information environment are similar to some of those used in risk perception. Consequently, political elites may easily create partisan risk positions, largely through politically focused social amplification of risk. The COVID-19 pandemic provided a natural experiment for testing predictions about such risk politics. We asked questions about pandemic-related views, behaviors, and policies at the outset of the pandemic in April 2020 and again in September 2020 via public opinion surveys. Our data and analyses focus primarily on a single state, with some analysis extended to four states. We begin by demonstrating strong linkages between political partisan identification on the one hand and support for co-partisan elites, use of partisan information sources, and support for co-partisan policies on the other hand. We then find evidence that pandemic risk positions correspond with partisan information sources and find support for a mechanism involving partisan-tinted evaluation of elite cues. Partisan risk positions quickly became part of the larger polarized structure of political support and views. Finally, our evidence shows on the balance that partisan risk positions related to the pandemic coalesced and strengthened over time. Overall, while self-identified Democrats consistently viewed the coronavirus as the primary threat, self-identified Republicans quickly pivoted toward threats to their freedoms and to the economy.