Political Foundations Research Articles

A political foundation of public investment and welfare spending

AbstractThis paper develops a political economy model to examine the implications of political selection under an authoritarian regime. We formalize the fiscal policy choice of local governments, focusing on two political selection mechanisms and their implications for public investment and welfare spending. A growth‐oriented promotion system induces local officials to increase public investment, which may increase output but crowd out welfare transfers. This mimics the recent investment‐driven growth in China and relatively low effort to tackle high inequality. Under a broader incentive structure, we show that it is possible for an authoritarian regime to attain the social welfare of a democracy.

Westminster as Usual? Three Interpretations for the UK Democracy

AbstractThe Brexit process has shattered the foundations of British politics, with prime ministerial resignations, government defeats, continuous rebellions and floor-crossings. These phenomena seem at odds with the usual decisiveness of Westminster systems. However, the aforementioned departures from the British tradition could be interpreted as compatible with the typical distance of any empirical reality from theoretical models, as exceptions to the rule due to the specificity of the European issue, or as the surfacing of some deeper social, economic and cultural tensions. Data alone are insufficient to confirm any of the alternative interpretations, although they seem to confirm the existence of long-term dynamics rather than some short-term exceptionalism. Within this scenario, the article suggests that a series of institutional innovations introduced since the late 1990s have facilitated the political consolidation of those tensions, contributed to the partisan dealignment, and made room for a potential departure from a Westminster model of democracy.

The Reality and Future of Reforms in Morocco 2011-2021: The Question of Authority

The following paper is a study of Morocco’s political experience, which was often described as smooth and reformist in comparison to other more radical and deep-rooted national experiences in the context of the Arab Spring uprisings, be they from the first wave beginning in 2011 (especially Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and Yemen) or be they from the second wave in 2019 (most notably Sudan and Algeria). Seeking to deconstruct the process of constitutional and political reform in Morocco during the decade-long period between 2011 and the current year 2021, the analysis is centred upon the question of authority, and decision-making processes within the framework of authority. The paper deploys a theoretical framework grounded in the tools of institutional analysis and its intersections with the constitutional approach and elite framing in order to deconstruct the structures of authoritarianism while measuring political change and democratisation. The explanation and interpretation of reform in Morocco is conducted through a methodology that weaves together two approaches, the first of which is based on the 2011 constitution. The second departs from the constitutional framework to explore the historical and political foundations that formed political authority in Morocco and steered its continuities. The study concludes by asserting that the failure to frame reform within the question of authority must be addressed; political authority in Morocco is grounded in multileveled decision-making and in the restoration and turnover of elites. This blind spot towards addressing reform within the context of authority was created by the limitation of reform outputs within a narrow field dominated by the monarchy. In turn, the trajectory of reform was conditioned by practices and beliefs of the political regime and its understanding of the many variables comprising Morocco’s current political outlook.

The Associations among Moral Foundations, Political Ideology, and Social Issues: A Study of These Associations in an Asian Sample

Abstract This study examined the relationships among moral foundations, political ideology, and controversial social issues in an Asian culture. The study sample included 835 participants who completed a moral foundations questionnaire and three questions regarding attitudes toward social issues (i.e. nuclear power usage, the death penalty, and euthanasia), and a political ideology questionnaire. Results indicated that binding foundations (i.e. Ingroup, Authority, and Purity) were associated conservative tendencies, and individualizing foundations (i.e. Harm and Fairness) were associated liberal tendencies. Also, participants who scored higher on Authority showed higher approval of the death penalty, and those scored higher on Purity showed lower approval of the euthanasia. These results may provide a better understanding of the underlying differences for variations in opinions on social issues. Results also have implications for cultural differences in the associations among political ideology, social issues, and moral foundations.

To the question of the formation of a national state identity in the RK: political-legaland cultural foundations

The article is devoted to the actualization of the problems of national-state identity in the modern globalizing world and the basic political, legal and cultural grounds for the formation of national-state identity in Kazakhstan. The purpose of this work is to study the political, legal and culturological foundations of the national-state identity of the Republic of Kazakhstan to determine its (identity) character in the context of the need to solve modernizing super-tasks facing all states of the world wishing to be subjects, not objects in the modern geopolitical space. The author notes the particular importance of preserving the institution of the state as the main guarantor of ensuring and protecting all types of identity from the level of the individual to the level of the state, including human identity in general, in the context of the transition of the world mega-society to a new level of technological development – «Industry-4.0». In the context of modern trends in the formation of integral research methods, this work combines different approaches: a systematic approach to the sphere of politics by the famous American sociologist, founder of the school of structural functionalism Talcott Parsons, the concept of waves of democratization by S. Huntington, the paradigm of late start societies by Alexander Gershenkron. The idea is substantiated that there are no “cultural breaks” in Kazakhstan and, taking into account modern demographic factors, the ethnic composition of the population, we can talk about the national-state identity in the Republic of Kazakhstan as having an integral character and constructive potential for progressive development. The scientific and practical significance of this work lies in the fact that the national-state identity of the Republic of Kazakhstan is considered not only in the context of its integral nature, but also in the critical discourse of the problems of archaization, marginalization, and imitation imperative. The study of the political, legal and culturological foundations of the national-state identity of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the identification of the integral nature of this identity will become the theoretical basis for developing a strategy and tactics for the progressive development of our country to solve the necessary modernization super tasks. Key words: national-state identity, political and legal foundations, cultural grounds, institution of the state, the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The coloniality of infrastructure: Engineering, landscape and modernity in Recife

Geographical scholarship has, since the late 1990s, shown how infrastructure was central to the making of urban modernity and the metabolic transformation of socio-natures. Meanwhile, the work of Latin American scholars including Aníbal Quijano and Maria Lugones has focussed attention on the imbrications between modernity and coloniality, in particular through the international racial division of labour. Moving between these ideas, I argue that there is intellectual and political ground to be gained by specifically accounting for the coloniality of infrastructure, in both its material and epistemic dimensions. I ground the analysis in the history of Recife, Northeast of Brazil, analyzing the role of British engineering in the production of the city's landscape and infrastructure, and address the epistemic dimensions of the coloniality of infrastructural by exploring infrastructural spectacle in 1920s Recife. Finally, I explore how the coloniality of infrastructure directs our attention to race, labour and finance.

DEMOCRATIC CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE ESSENCE OF ITS CONTENT

This article discusses Democratic civil society, its legal, economic, political and spiritual foundations. The stages and features of the formation of civil society in Uzbekistan will be discussed. Citizens' self-government bodies and its types are discussed. Also in the article are Open Civil Society and the Rule of Law. The program of political construction “From a strong state - to a strong civil society” will be considered.

HERBERT SPENCER’S CASE FOR FREE BANKING

Though now almost entirely forgotten, Herbert Spencer was among the most widely read thinkers during the late nineteenth century. As part of his system of synthetic philosophy, Herbert Spencer addressed the topics of money and banking. This philosophic system articulates a concept of justice based on the principle of equal freedom. Invoking this principle, Spencer rejected a government-superintended regime of money and banking as unjust. Instead, he morally favored a system of free banking. Spencer also defended this system on economic grounds. His argument was that banks could be self-regulating in their management of the money supply, on the condition that the government limit its activities in the financial sphere to the enforcement of contracts. While Spencer’s case is not beyond questioning on philosophic and political grounds, he offers a distinctive and forceful analysis.

ASD and Inclusion: Teacher Training and the Use of Alternative and Extended Communication in Inclusive Educational Contexts

In recent decades, there has been a search for a model of education that allows the participation of all students in the same school space, that is, an inclusive school. Inclusion of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been a recurring topic and has posed challenges for teachers, families and school management aiming at the participation of these students in the school environment and its pedagogical practices. ASD is currently classified as a neurodevelopmental disorder marked, mainly, by the difficulty of interaction and social communication (APA, 2014). As a result, it is common for students with ASD to present verbal and/or nonverbal communicative deficits. Given the pivotal role communication has in ensuring the socialization and educational inclusion of students with autism, this research seeks to answer the following questions: How does teacher training prepare teachers to help students with ASD? What resources of alternative and/or extended communication (AEC) can enable students with ASD to better communicate with their teachers? In order to answer these questions, the present paper investigates the theoretical and political foundations that regulate the inclusion of students with ASD in regular school, and analyzes teacher training in its relation to promoting their inclusion. Thus, the present paper discusses teacher training for the use of AEC tools in the regular classroom. It is believed that the great challenge teachers face is continuing education of the pedagogical strategies and practices for assisiting students with ASD in their learning processes in the regular classroom. This paper also addresses relevant public policies and the responsibility of the public power to effectively promote education for all, an education that respects the Other as a true Other.

Grounding the Ground of Politics

Grounding the Ground of Politics

New Localism in the Neoliberal Era: Local District Response to Voluntary Open-School Markets in Ohio

Local education governance has allowed neighborhood schools to offer community-oriented curricula and activities, and public schools have been operated to serve only residents’ children within the defined areas. The rise of neoliberalism may, however, undermine political foundations of the traditional political systems. This article explores how self-governed local education authorities function and evolve under neoliberalism by revisiting core values in localism and neoliberalism. By looking into the voluntary open-enrollment policy in Ohio, this study finds that the local governments surrounded by dissimilar neighborhoods are more likely to depend on the mechanism of localism to protect local authorities and locational privileges. This research argues that neoliberal policies safeguard community interests by deeply engaging with interchanging resources across their borders in regional market environments.

Debating (Post-)Coloniality in Southeast Europe: A Minority Oriented Perspective in Bulgaria

Despite the fact that its scholarly application has been considered highly problematic in the former Eastern Bloc and barely employed due to the Marxist background, post-colonialism has been recently introduced by a large number of scholars and academics. Yet, theoretical experiments, research, and projection of post-colonialism in Central and Eastern Europe have come to compose an abundant field of reference. Drawing on this theoretical approach, this paper aims to debate the category of post-coloniality in postcommunist Bulgaria in order to better venture the parapet of the post-1989 transition. Employing a ‘minority perspective’, which will reveal minority positionality in the contemporary Bulgarian cultural and political ground, this paper traces potential power actions of (dis)possession of knowledge among subaltern groups, which actions continue to negate, disavow, distort, and deny access to different forms of minority cultures and life visions represented by non-majoritarian segments of the Bulgarian society. In general, this paper digs into the historical experience of the ethnic Turks and Muslim minority groups in Bulgaria prior to the communist experience, throughout and after the collapse of communism, and in the contemporary Republic of Bulgaria. In particular, post-coloniality – understood in terms of ‘coloniality of being’ – shall offer a better and critical angle of investigation over the issues of human marginalisation, cultural subordination, and knowledge exploitation in Bulgaria and Southeast Europe.

From the Cancer Stage of Capitalism to the Political Principle of the Common: The Social Immune Response of "Food as Commons".

Background: Critical scholars agree that contemporary globalised and industrialised food systems are in profound and deepening crises; and that these systems are generative of accelerating multiple crises in the earth’s life systems. Why and how did we arrive at this point? This paper argues that, conceiving each individual human as one cell in the greater human body, we are afflicted by what John McMurtry termed ‘the cancer stage of capitalism.’ This provocative framing is adopted here in response to growing calls by climate, earth and physical scientists not to ‘mince words’ in the description and analysis of humanity’s current predicament, but rather ‘tell it like it is.’ Methods: Proceeding from McMurtry’s application of the seven defining medical properties of a ‘cancer invasion [of] an individual organism’ to the broader body politic and the earth’s life system, this paper draws on literature from diverse disciplines to investigate the fundamental cause of food systems crises. The paper references several empirical studies and meta-reviews that indicate the hastening decline in the integrity of human and ecological health, with a particular focus on the grain-oilseed-livestock complex and the accompanying social and ecological impacts on the southern cone countries of South America. Results: The cause of food system crises is to be found in the core logic of capital accumulation, the profit imperative, and the relentless and expanding processes of commodification and financialization. The key metric of ‘economic growth’ is problematised and discussed. An embryonic ‘social immune response’ is now observable, in the diverse practices of de-commodification, proposals for de-growth and commoning that together constitute an emerging ‘food as a commons’ movement. Conclusion: As currently framed, the Food as Commons proposal lacks coherence, rigour and a viable strategy to move beyond the current crisis. Its transformative potential can be strengthened through a more explicitly political grounding based on appeals to and support of anti- and post-capitalist movements and initiatives.

Evolving Rasūlid Narratives of Opposition to Sultan al-Manṣūr Nūr al-Dīn ʿUmar (d. 647/1250) in Yemen

Abstract The Rasūlid chronicles of the reign of al-Manṣūr Nūr al-Dīn ʿUmar b. ʿAlī b. Rasūl depict its first ruler as steadily consolidating the political foundation of the sultanate. Most of these reports clearly portray the dominance of the sultan in Yemen during this period. But a few reveal the limitations of his power in a more complex political landscape, such as an aborted military campaign against a local tribe, an insurrection by a Zaydi sharīf, and the sultan’s assassination by his own military. These specific narratives of opposition to the sultan, however, progressively change over the course of their production from the late 13th century until the first half of the 15th century, as the strength of the sultanate initially peaks and then slowly declines. As a result, the ambiguity of al-Manṣūr ʿUmar’s authority in these narratives is largely reduced, and the historical memory of the sovereignty of the emergent Rasūlid sultanate solidifies in increasingly ideological ways.

Constitutional Law: Principles and Practices

The law and its political foundations are constantly changing. These include, for example, immigration, asylum, and prisoners’ rights, the eviction of tenants, pawnbrokers’ rights, and access to adoption records, victims’ rights, press freedom and euthanasia. The Alcon bury Case in particular involved the relationship between political decisions taken by a minister and the rule of law. On the one hand, the Strasburg case law seems to have been systematically applied and a moderate approach adopted. On the other hand also, significant differences of approach are emerging between individual judges. Other developments have been influenced by the ‘’Nolan Principles of Public Life’’ which have pervaded several areas of law, including bringing political parties within a legal regime. There have been also changes in electoral law and developments in the law of judicial review, notably in relation to the doctrines of ‘’unreasonableness’’ and legitimate expectations and the bias rule. There has also been important new literature including extra judicial writings from senior judges and dealing with the influence of the common law on the constitution. The main stand point of this book is that constitutional law pre-eminently concerns the management of disagreement about the exercise of power. As Holmes J remarked, ’the Constitution is made for people of fundamentally different views’’ (Lochner v. New York (1905), 19 US 45 at 767). Hence, in a democracy, the task of constitutional law is to provide mechanisms that prevent one set of values from being permanently dominant while at the same time trying to keep order and to adjudicate fairly between competing pretenders to power. Constitutionalism form the core of good government in the modern democratic world to check on the powers of the different organs of government and the protection of liberty and fundamental rights of individuals within that sovereign territory. All efforts are made by the developed and the developing countries in upholding the rule of law, which are guaranteed through the constitution, to promote democracy for a just and fair society. However good the notion of the constitution is, there are different definitions applied by different stakeholders on the notion of what forms a good democratic polity and good constitution and constitutionalism. It is against this background that an elaborate research has been conducted by the author of the subject matter. At the very basic constitutional law can be described simply as the law relating to the constitution. A constitution represents a set of basic rules and principles which govern the government or the state. H. Barnett identifies constitutional law as concerned with the role and powers of institutions within the state and with the relationship between the citizen and the state. In other words, constitutional law concerns, among others, the following elements: i) The principal institutions of the state, viz, Parliament, the government, the courts and devolved/decentralized state bodies; ii) The specific roles and functions conferred on these institutions, together with the nature and extent of their powers; iii) The procedures and mechanisms used to oversee, regulate and check these powers(parliamentary control over the government and legal controls; iv) The ways in which these institutions relate to one another; v) The ways in which these institutions related to the individual; vi) The basic fundamental rights of the individual( for example, the right to life and free speech and how- and to what extent- these rights and freedoms can be protected from infringement by the state. Hence, constitutional law is the law relating to the constitution, the state institutions, their powers, together with how they relate to the individual.

Medicine Without Humanity – Chemical Warfare Agents Tests on Concentration Camps in Germany in 1933–1945

The publication presents documents related to the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial ("United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al."), Held in Nuremberg from December 9, 1946 to August 20, 1947. Documents are kept in the library of Harvard Law School (Harvard Law School , Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA). From the testimony of witnesses and the accused, it follows that in Germany, after the withdrawal from the Treaty of Versailles and the transition of military chemical research under the control of military structures and the SS, and especially during the Second World War, research on chemical warfare agents (CWA) went beyond scientific and industrial laboratories. , university and academic structures, and moved to concentration camps, where doctors from the SS performed experiments on prisoners. The goals and objectives of these tests are shown - the physiological and toxicological properties of CWA were studied. Plans for offensive chemical warfare in Germany were not systematically developed, considering their chemical weapons as a means of retaliatory use. However, the possibility of such a war was taken seriously. In addition, doctors were looking for the most effective means and treatment regimens for lesions caused by the use of BWA by a potential enemy, as well as dangerous, especially dangerous and widespread diseases. The documents show how important this research was. They were watched at the highest level, the test programs were coordinated with the SS Reichsfuehrer G. Himmler, A. Hitler was personally interested in them. At the same time, the documents show the barbaric methods of carrying out these tests, for which the doctors and leaders of medicine in Germany in the 1930-1940s. were convicted by tribunals for war crimes and crimes against humanity (“atrocities and hostile acts, including (but not limited to): murder, extermination, enslavement, expulsion, imprisonment, torture, rape or other inhuman acts committed against any civilian population, persecution on political, racial or religious grounds, regardless of whether these crimes were committed in violation of the laws of the country or not ”), and by the scientific community - for gross violations of medical and scientific ethics. Although at one time it was Germany (Prussia) at the end of the nineteenth century. was the first European country where, long before the Nuremberg Code of 1947, at the levels of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government, they began to raise and decide the need to obtain informed consent of the patient for medical intervention, and also unconditionally prohibit experimental research with any purpose in humans without them consent. With this publication we open a series of materials and articles on chemical weapons in Germany in 1933-1945. Not Germany to accuse Russia of using chemical weapons.

Reality Bites: Rhetoric and the Circulation of Truth Claims in U.S. Political Culture

Reality Bites: Rhetoric and the Circulation of Truth Claims in U.S. Political Culture

Be Happy: Navigating Normative Issues in Behavioral and Well-Being Public Policy

Psychological science is increasingly influencing public policy. Behavioral public policy (BPP) was a milestone in this regard because it influenced many areas of policy in a general way. Well-being public policy (WPP) is emerging as a second domain of psychological science with general applicability. However, advocacy for WPP is criticized on ethical and political grounds. These criticisms are reminiscent of those directed at BPP over the past decade. This déjà vu suggests the need for interdisciplinary work that establishes normative principles for applying psychological science in public policy. We try to distill such principles for WPP from the normative debates over BPP. We argue that the uptake of BPP by governments was a function of its relatively strong normative and epistemic foundations in libertarian paternalism, or nudging, for short. We explain why the nudge framework is inappropriate for WPP. We then analyze how boosts offer a strict but feasible alternative framework for substantiating the legitimacy of well-being and behavioral policies. We illuminate how some WPPs could be fruitfully promoted as boosts and how they might fall short of the associated criteria.

The Political Economy of Governance Quality

This paper develops a dynamic theory of the social and political foundations of governance quality. In the model, groups of citizens have different expected needs for a public service, and citizens choose whether to demand service when the need arises. Politicians representing these groups can determine policy benefits and delegate to bureaucrats the ability to invest in long-run service quality. The main feature of the theory is its foundation for citizen–government interactions, which draws from well-known queueing models of organizational service provision. The model provides a framework for characterizing the effectiveness and durability of government programs. A main implication is that politicized bureaucracies improve program survivability and increase the frequency of investment, while insulated bureaucracies increase the intensity of investment; overall service quality trades off between these two factors. Other results examine the implications of cross-group inequality, electoral conditions, and decentralization.

Emergency politics and the middlebrow novel: A comparative analysis of Han Suyin’s … and the Rain my Drink and Mary McMinnies’s The Flying Fox

ABSTRACT In July 1956, Han Suyin’s novel of the Malayan Emergency was published in London and Singapore. … and the Rain my Drink is a fictional account of the communist insurgency and the British counter-insurgency campaign. What is often overlooked is that earlier that year the British author Mary McMinnies had published her “Emergency” novel The Flying Fox, which covers much of the same political ground as Han’s. This article views Han’s and McMinnies’s work as exemplars of middlebrow fiction. To narrate the end of empire, both texts employ literary devices associated with the middlebrow, alongside exotic imagery familiar from an earlier imperial tradition. Han’s narrative choices acquire, however, distinctive meanings in the Malayan context, associating the exotic with Malaya’s multi-ethnic political landscape, and the domestic tropes of the middlebrow with societal tensions and a newfound Asian confidence, whilst also revealing Asian sensitivities and imported western values.