Political Innovation Research Articles

Turning South African History Upside Down: Ivory and Gold Production, the Indian Ocean Trading System and the Shaping of Southern African Society, 600–1900 AD

A focus on the colonial period has created a foreshortened history of South Africa which has been further blinkered by the reification of national boundaries. This perspective has limited the understanding of deeper and wider historical processes that moulded society’s past and present. It gives pride of place to cultural, economic and political influences that spread northward from the southernmost tip of Africa. But it ignores the reality that until the first decades of the 19th century a distinct political economy influenced the northern interior of what became South Africa. This system was the product of ongoing interaction between regional dynamics and ancient and evolving Indian Ocean trading networks. It was for many centuries an important zone of economic and political innovation, but it has been largely overlooked in general accounts of South African history. This article argues that a narrative which starts in the seventh century in the Limpopo Valley and which traces the interactions between trade and political transformation through the emergence of states at Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe, Thulamela and subsequently the rise of the Venda, Pedi and Zulu kingdoms provides helpful and engaging perspectives on the making of South Africa.

Recovering African contestation and innovation in global politics: Francis Deng and sovereignty-as-responsibility

Abstract Against both liberal narratives and postcolonial critiques, this article argues that sovereignty-as-responsibility – the theory of sovereignty embraced in the responsibility to protect (R2P) – is part of a problem space that emerged with decolonization, rather than the end of the Cold War. The internally displaced person (IDP), the vehicle which Francis Deng used to critique Westphalian sovereignty, had to be theorized against the rise of the postcolonial state. In recovering the questions motivating Deng we find a stark politics driving his work on IDPs and sovereignty. Against the claim that the heart of R2P is armed coercive intervention for humanitarian purposes, Deng used sovereignty-as-responsibility to promote a profoundly political critique of the colonial legacy and the postcolonial state, which was taken up by states of the Global South in debates on the ratification of R2P. Recovering Deng's work on IDPs and sovereignty-as-responsibility highlights R2P as itself a site of contestation, and offers a case for how ideas emerge ‘from below’ in global politics.

CIVIC ADVOCACY CAMPAIGNS: DIRECTIONS OF INVOLVEMENT OF POLITICAL ACTIVISTS

The article is devoted to the research of civic engagement processes, which are gaining more and more publicity in world political science. Applying modern professional approaches, the author offers an explanation of the recruitment of civil advocacy through a clear political goal and connection with the current situational context. The article reveals and describes the main components of measuring the involvement of political activists within the framework of modern civil advocacy campaigns. The author reveals the mechanisms of expressing views and positions, protecting one’s rights and influencing decision-making processes at different levels of management. It is emphasized that civil advocacy covers a wide range of activities aimed at participation in political processes. The text examines advocacy campaigns in the political practice of consolidated democracies as organized events aimed at drawing attention to specific problems and achieving policy changes or raising public awareness. In the work, an appeal was also made to the qualification requirements and job duties of the leaders of civil campaigns. The article analyzes the actualization of the issue of civil advocacy in social and political innovations at the current stage. It is noted that in developed democratic countries a tendency to pay attention to social public innovations is outlined. It has been established that the development of civil society in Ukraine involves the development of a national model of engaging citizens in conducting advocacy campaigns. Attention is paid to attracting new active participants, for whom public advocacy campaigns become a factor in forming an environment of collaboration and expanding the circle of social communication. Emphasis is placed on the continuous inclusion of individuals and groups in activities aimed at improving the public environment and forming conscious public leadership and an atmosphere of social success. In the final part of the article, the author emphasizes that effective public involvement involves a variety of approaches. It was concluded that the decisive factor that prompts citizens to take a proactive position and participate in civil advocacy campaigns are pragmatic needs and ideas about achieving a state of satisfaction of requirements.

Opinion: What are the barriers to innovation in medicine?

Opinion: What are the barriers to innovation in medicine? Thomas J. Webster, PhD provides a firsthand account of the obstacles hindering innovation in medicine, covering publishing, conferences, politics, funding, universities, and industry. Innovation is hard. Such a simple word, but so many obstacles exist to innovate and, more importantly, to turn your innovation into a medical product that actually improves human health for ultimate technology validation. As I look back at my almost 25-year career innovating in medicine, I find myself continuously reflecting on how I was able to develop innovative solutions for improving medicine despite constant obstacles. One particular innovation that I am extremely proud of involves my efforts to integrate nanotechnology into orthopedic implants. How did my team and I develop nanotextured orthopedic devices now in over 30,000 patients in which zero implants have failed to date (no infection, no chronic inflammation, and no implant loosening) when the industry average shows orthopedic implant failure rates over 10%, increasing daily (Figure 1)?(1, 2)

Introduction to Special Issue ‘Rethinking Decolonisation in Papua New Guinea’

ABSTRACTThis article is an introduction to a special issue entitled ‘Rethinking Decolonisation in Papua New Guinea’. This introduction suggests that we view ‘decolonisation’ or ‘independence’ not only as a historical period, but as an event that has been imagined by many people both during and after it occurred. Drawing on the work of Adom Getachew, we argue that it is fruitful to examine decolonisation in this extended sense. Doing so, this article argues, allows us to see that decolonisation often involves more than just the two actors of the ‘coloniser’ and the ‘colonised’. It also helps us better understand forms of political innovation in which the goal is not the creation of a nation‐state. By broadening our awareness of a range of decolonising processes, we can expand our understanding of this important political process.

Exploration and Practice of Curriculum Ideological and Political Innovation in Local Colleges and Universities from the Perspective of "Three Histories Integration"

Exploration and Practice of Curriculum Ideological and Political Innovation in Local Colleges and Universities from the Perspective of "Three Histories Integration"

Feminist democratic innovations in policy and politics

This article examines the potential of feminist democratic innovations in policy and institutional politics. It examines how feminist democratic innovations can be conceptualised and articulated in local institutions. Combining theories on democratic governance, feminist democracy, social movements, municipalism, decentralisation, gender equality policies and state feminism, it conceptualises feminist democratic innovations in policy and politics as innovations oriented at (a) transforming knowledge, (b) transforming policymaking and public funding, (c) transforming institutions, and (d) transforming actors’ coalitions. Through analysis of municipal plans and interviews with key actors, the article examines feminist democratic innovations in the policy and politics of Barcelona’s local government from 2015 to 2023. Emerging from the mobilisation of progressive social movements after the 2008 economic crisis, the findings uncover a laboratory of feminist municipal politics, following the election of a new government and self-proclaimed feminist mayor. Critical actors and an enabling political context play a pivotal role in the adoption of this feminist institutional politics. The article concludes by arguing that feminist institutional politics at the local level contribute to democratising policy and politics in innovative ways, in particular encouraging inclusive intersectionality and participatory discourses and practices.

Enlightened and Counter-Revolutionary: Revisiting the Origins of Galician Ruthenian Nation-Building

Abstract This article offers an alternative focus for the study of the Ruthenian (Ukrainian) nation-building in early Austrian Galicia. It portrays elite Greek Catholic churchmen who made political claims about a self-standing Ruthenian nation already in the first decade of the nineteenth century. It argues that their political innovations were enabled by the ambitious state-building projects implemented in the second half of the eighteenth century by the Austrian government, most importantly new seminaries that cultivated an ethos of state service among Catholic clergymen. The early Ruthenian nationalism espoused by Greek Catholic prelates neither aspired to mobilize masses nor ascribed much importance to language rights, the kernel of nationalist struggles in later periods. It was rather a polemical device deployed to legitimize their rejection of the Polish national allegiance, associated with dynamically evolving republican traditions. By locating the Galician Ruthenian case in a regional comparative perspective, the article outlines the broader significance of this interpretation, interrogating some received wisdoms about the so-called non-historical nationalisms of Central and Eastern Europe.

Integrating the “Spirit of the Westward Relocation” into Research on Ideological and Political Innovations in Medical Technology Graduate Courses

Integrating the “Spirit of the Westward Relocation” into Research on Ideological and Political Innovations in Medical Technology Graduate Courses

DA CRIMINALIZAÇÃO DE SUBSTÂNCIAS À POLÍTICA DE “GUERRA ÀS DROGAS”: UM SÉCULO DE PROIBICIONISMO NO BRASIL

Abstract In 1921, Decree 4,294 defined prohibitionism as the referential model of state response to drugs in Brazil. One century later, not only is the approach still enshrined in national legislation but also materialized in a complex institutional and bureaucratic network of governance and public policies. This paper examines the evolution of drug policies in Brazil over the past century, exploring how a web of normative, political, and institutional devices converged to entrench the hegemony of the prohibitionist approach in public responses to drugs. A systematic analysis of national and international legislation reveals that the prohibitionist enterprise was successful in Brazil due to two factors: i) as an ideational set, it was integrated into structuring discursive fields of Brazilian political culture, dialoguing with the stigmatization of marginalized populations and criminalization of their practices; and ii) as an ordering principle of public policy, it has demonstrated remarkable resilience and adaptability, incorporating elements of alternative models into its framework without compromising its fundamental structures. Political innovations implemented in Brazil since the 1990s (especially decriminalization and damage reduction models) have been able to neither shake the definition of drugs as a moral and criminal problem, nor prevent its instrumentalization as a policy of socio-spatial control of lower classes.

Research on the Ideological and Political Innovation Path of Microeconomics Course

In order to fully implement the spirit of the National Conference on Ideological and Political Work in Colleges and Universities and the "Opinions of the Ministry of Education on Deepening the Reform of Undergraduate Education and Teaching and Comprehensively Improving the Quality of Talent Training", focus on the fundamental task of cultivating morality, use Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to cast the soul and educate people, adhere to the open door to run microeconomics and ideological and political theory courses in the same direction, strengthen the awareness of problems, highlight the practical orientation, fully mobilize the forces and resources of the whole society, and use the Marxist position, The methods and socialist core values run through the whole process of microeconomics teaching, and a scientific ideological and political teaching system of microeconomics is established.

Późnowestfalskie innowacje w polityce zewnętrznej Unii Europejskiej

The purpose of this article is to take a closer look at the European Union’s (EU) external policy and its diplomatic apparatus, i.e. the European External Action Service (EEAS). as a post-Westphalian political innovation specific only to the EU. The article assumes that the EU’s post-Westphalian external policy is based on multilateralism, hybridism and normative plasticity. All the features of the EU’s external policy became apparent in the EEAS, which, originally constructed as a ‘service’, gradually turned into an ‘interstitial organisation’. Trying to find its place between standardisation and adaptation to the structures and practices typical of classical Westphalian diplomacy, and the emergence of transformative structures and new diplomatic practice, it has become a source of innovation related to the changing dynamics in diplomacy.

How a left-wing political party fails to keep up with the times

ABSTRACT How can a political party, especially a progressive one, fail to understand and embrace the major changes of its time? The article examines the experience of the Italian Partito Democratico (Democratic Party [P.D.]). Since its foundation in 2007, the party has failed to achieve satisfactory results with regard to its explicit objective of creating a ‘new national party’. Although the party has often joined coalition governments, there has been a marked decline in its electoral support and in the active participation of citizens in its activities. The main thesis of the article is that the current crisis of the P.D. is due to a lack of understanding – almost a rejection – of the two main political changes that have occurred in recent decades: the personalization of politics and the digitalization of society. The party’s refusal to embrace possible political innovations in these areas has been very clear. There is an important paradox here: the fact that a political force which, given its position on the political spectrum, should be looking to the future, instead views the present with great suspicion. This is a position that has become typical of many European left-wing parties, which are well rooted in long-standing political traditions, but are finding it increasingly difficult to understand how societies are changing.

Is Denmark a green entrepreneurial state?


 This article is based on digital methods research using the tools Hyphe, Gephi and CorText to map the relations between public Danish actors – from informal civil society groups and NGO’s to business and state actors - and their “matters of concern” (cf. Latour 2004) in the heated political situation around the development of green transition policies following the enactment of the Climate Act in 2019. The Act was, according to the newly elected social democratic government, the “most ambitious Climate Act in the world”. It included such political innovations as the Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change, a group of 99 randomly selected citizens mandated to give recommendations to parliament, and a series of Climate Partnerships, business and industry collaborations tasked with developing recommendations and frameworks for the business community’s engagement in the green transition. The Climate Act was passed after massive popular pressure from the civic climate movement leading up to the election. Despite these efforts and the apparent political will to engage with multiple voices and interests, our network mapping shows that the business community, with an emphasis on “innovative and technological solutions”, were soon to become dominant in the network and align themselves more closely with the political system than the civil society actors were able to with their repeated calls for more radical and political action on climate change. 

The Ideological Origins of “Written” Constitutionalism

ABSTRACT: Americans have long argued that during the Age of Revolutions, the “early modern” world became “modern” thanks to a set of political innovations in the nature of government. Paramount among these was the creation of nation-states founded on the “invention” of written constitutions—beginning with the new United States, whose form of written constitutionalism served as a model for other polities. This article challenges that narrative. Building on recent scholarship on the coproduction of writing practices and state formation, it argues that the mode of constitution-making inaugurated in the aftermath of the American Revolution represented less a moment of origin than an ideological project of revising the relationship between document and statecraft characteristic of the early modern British Empire. Early American elites sought to portray the written constitution of empire as archaic as they defined their own species of written constitutionalism as an innovation, one they posited as the template for a normative form of the “modern” state.

Политические инновации: от институционального анализа к исследованию ценностно-мотивационной и поведенческой сферы трансфера и рецепции инноваций

Since the value-target component of innovation becomes decisive in the study and solution of problems of legitimacy of power, consensus of power and society, consolidation of elites and society, national and general civil identity, the article substantiates that the institutional approach should be compensated by the devel-opment of research on value-motivational and behavioral spheres of transfer and reception of innovations. In the latter case, the emphasis should be placed on models of inter-elite interaction, the value-motivational component of the demand of elites and the population for innovation, as well as on research and purposeful formation of a political culture, a culture of active civic participation, which plays an essential role in the reception and implementation of political innovations.

Vietnam's participation in political innovation and international integration

Political renewal and international integration are two strategic tasks, two issues with reciprocal dialectical relationship, promote each other in the process of realizing the common goal of building and developing the country according to the socialist orientation in Vietnam. The purpose of the article is to clarify the relationship between political reform and international integration in Vietnam over the past time. Highlight achievements in the process of political reform and international integration in Vietnam; thereby presenting the problem that Vietnam faces in resolving the relationship between political reform and international integration today. Based on the analyzed results, solutions are proposed for resolving the relationship between political reform and international integration in Vietnam, including meeting the requirements of ensuring political stability in Vietnam in the coming period according to the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam. The relationship between political innovation and international integration is a dialectical one; is a major relationship that needs to be addressed synchronously and systematically in Vietnam. With the achievements of the Doi Moi in the process of political reform and international integration over the past time, it has been confirmed that the leadership line of the Communist Party of Vietnam is correct and suitable for the times. In the coming period, Vietnam will continue to offer solutions to enhance its position in the international arena, creating new positions and forces for this country.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND DISSENT FOR POSTCOLONIAL URBAN SUSTAINABILITY TRANSITIONS

AbstractEnvironmental justice principles are widespread at national and global levels of transition discourse, but this is sometimes irrelevant to marginalized communities. To address this issue, we apply environmental justice theory to a participatory postcolonial urban case study where poverty, unemployment and inequality continue to incentivize unregulated exploitation of vulnerable environments and people. It is unclear how national legislation can provide for indiscriminate access to environments that promote wellbeing in complex postcolonial communities, where xenophobic and economic discrimination reproduces colonial‐style inequalities. To resist this injustice, the combination of academic and ordinary expressions of critique that confront regressive praxis and orthodoxies becomes a valuable and constructive political innovation for transitions. Empirical results suggest that enfranchising the most vulnerable proponents of transformation could advance their political capital to advocate for themselves, formulate and enculturate decolonized visions of urban sustainability, demand governmental and commercial accountability and foster urban reform that is relevant to them.

Политико-идеологические предпосылки интронизации казахского султана Ураз Мухаммеда в Касимовском ханстве

Research objectives: The Kazakh sultan Uraz-Muhammad, who happened to find himself in the territory of the Moscow Tsardom in 1588, was elevated to the throne of the declining Kasimov Khanate in 1600. His arrival in this Turkic enclave yurt, which had been ruled by the Greater Horde dynasty (Sheikh-Avliyar, Shah-Ali, Sain-Bulat, Mustafa-Ali) for a considerable period since 1516, was a political innovation by the Kazakh sultan that remains not fully explained. At that time, representatives of other branches of the Chingisids, such as the significant group of Kuchumoviches (Shibanids), who were likely no less prominent than the Kazakh khans tracing their lineage to the Ordaids or Tukay-Timurids (more recently, primarily to the former), existed in the Moscow Tsardom. The general assessment expressed in the literature that Uraz-Muhammad’s enthronement in Kasimov was an action related to “the further implementation of the eastern policy of the Moscow Tsardom,” according to A.V. Belyakov’s words, lacks sufficient specificity. Therefore, the authors of this article considered it necessary to conduct a more detailed analysis of this issue. Research materials: The authors examined the historiography of the issue of Uraz-Muhammad’s appearance in the Moscow Tsardom, as well as the political situation at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries in both the state and the Kazakh Khanate. Sources such as Kadyr Ali-bek’s “Jami al-tawarikh,” Siberian chronicles, as well as folk legends and traditions found in G.F. Miller’s work “History of Siberia” and Siberian Tatar local history writings were utilized. Results and novelty of the research: The conducted research allowed us to conclude that Moscow’s choice of a candidate like the Kazakh sultan Uraz-Muhammad for the Kasimov throne in 1600 was dictated by the politico-ideological considerations of the ruling elite of the Moscow Tsardom. These considerations were explained by the new challenges in the field of eastern policy that emerged on the eve of the 16th and 17th centuries, which were of great importance to the Moscow Tsardom.

Tolerance in political ideology of Ho Chi Minh and its present value

During the process of leading the war for national independence and progress to socialism, Ho Chi Minh inevitably became a political strategist, who united the whole nation, built and constructed the country. As an authentic humanist, Ho Chi Minh's humanist ideology permeates in all his ideologies, including political ideology and creates deep tolerance in Ho Chi Minh's political ideology. Understanding the spirit of tolerance in Ho Chi Minh's political ideology will help to deepen the understanding of his noble personality and draw profound lessons about the cause of political innovation and international integration in the current stage.