Political Lines Research Articles

COVID-19 Highlights, Fault Lines in China, India and the World

The on going COVID-19 pandemic has succeeded in bringing before us many social, political fault lines which can no longer be ignored and must be addressed urgently. The first is the phenomenon of inequality in power, status, wealth and living conditions which has been growing rapidly in recent decades within countries and between countries. The second is the clear decline of publicness in society, economy and politics. Inspired by capitalism, individual enterprise and private initiative have been eulogised to such an extent that the state’s investment in basic public goods such as health, education, housing and child welfare has remained woefully inadequate. The third fault line is an over-centralisation of power leading to a clear decline of democracy by manipulating institutional mechanisms and making full use of the technology of mass communication to mobilise votes. If these emerging fault lines don’t engage global rulers immediately then the sufferings faced by humanity the world over will explode.

Uncovering a Climate Catastrophe? Media Coverage of Australia’s Black Summer Bushfires and the Revelatory Extent of the Climate Blame Frame

The Black Summer of 2019/2020 saw the forests of southeast Australia go up in flames. The fire season started early, in September 2019, and by March 2020 fires had burned over 12.6 million hectares (Werner and Lyons). The scale and severity of the fires was quickly confirmed by scientists to be "unprecedented globally" (Boer et al.) and attributable to climate change (Nolan et al.). The fires were also a media spectacle, generating months of apocalyptic front-page images and harrowing broadcast footage. Media coverage was particularly preoccupied by the cause of the fires. Media framing of disasters often seeks to attribute blame (Anderson et al.; Ewart and McLean) and, over the course of the fire period, blame for the fires was attributed to climate change in much media coverage. However, as the disaster unfolded, denialist discourses in some media outlets sought to veil this revelation by providing alternative explanations for the fires. Misinformation originating from social media also contributed to this obscuration. In this article, we investigate the extent to which media coverage of the 2019/2020 bushfires functioned both to precipitate a climate change epiphany and also to support refutation of the connection between catastrophic fires and the climate crisis.

The Concept of Russian Federation Foreign and Security Policy by Eugene Primakov

The aim of this article is to analyze the concept of Russian foreign and security policy by Eugene Primakov, one of the most eminent Russian politicians of the twentieth century. The article applies research methods and techniques appropriate to science about politics. These include a comparative analysis and a method of historical analysis that enabled the presentation of political events and factors shaping the foreign and security policy of the Russian Federation. In 1996, President Boris Yeltsin appointed Primakov to the post of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. The goals and assumptions of foreign and security policy have undergone a thorough redefinition, related to the tendencies noticeable in Russia in 1993–1995. Before, foreign policy had been dominated by neoliberal and Euro-Atlantic options, whose representative was predominantly Primakov’s predecessor as the minister of foreign affairs, Andrei Kozyrev. After the fall of Sergei Kirijenka’s government, Primakov assumed the office of Prime Minister on September 11, 1998 and held it until May 12, 1999. It was a cabinet of political compromise, which was supposed to facilitate agreement with the opposition and the continuation of reforms, although not on the same principles as before. Primakov criticized his predecessors for the wrong political line, the lack of effectiveness of the stabilization policy, which resulted in a fall in production. He stressed that his government did not give up market reform, but called for the state’s participation to be increased. Yevgeny Primakov claimed that Russia should strive to formulate a multipolar system of international relations that truly reflects the multifaceted nature of the present world with the diversity of its interests. Primakov exerted a huge influence on the Russian foreign and security policy of Putin’s day. His political line was carried out by his successors, and above all Igor Ivanov and Sergey Lavrov. The main directions and assumptions of his concepts are still repeated in official documents articulating the Russian doctrine of security and defense, and nothing indicates that this state of affairs has changed, and this in turn carries the threat of destabilization in Central and Eastern Europe.

Beliefs about others' global warming beliefs: The role of party affiliation and opinion deviance

People often misperceive other people's beliefs about global warming—for instance, underestimating the percentage of people who think global warming is happening. In the U.S., perceptions of others vary across political lines and interact with the extent to which partisans align or deviate from the views of their political ingroup. With an online sample of U.S. adults (N = 1214), we conduct a partial replication and extension of prior research on the relationship between global warming “opinion deviance” (i.e., taking a stance that conflicts with the prototypical views of one's ingroup) and perceptions of other people's views, using a different methodological approach. We found that, compared with partisans who align with the prototypical views of their ingroup (i.e., political party), opinion-deviant partisans consistently perceive a narrower partisan divide across several views (e.g., belief that global warming is happening, belief that it is human-caused, and support for climate policies), even when statistically controlling for self-reported opinion extremity. Additionally, opinion-deviant Republicans, more than opinion-aligned Republicans, perceive that more Republicans hold pro-climate views. Further, among both Republicans and Democrats, perceptions of pro-climate ingroup consensus correlates with both increased activism intentions and frequency of discussing global warming with family and friends. Our results support theoretical perspectives and research on opinion deviance showing that misperceptions of public opinion about global warming vary based on an interaction between an individual's party affiliation and their individual climate beliefs.

Digital transformation: Starting over

The NHS has had an unexpected reset with the coronavirus, but is there enough commitment at all levels – political, management and front line – to embed that reset and deliver tangible change?

Campaigning for the Labour Party but from the Outside and with Different Objectives: the Stance of the Socialist Party in the UK 2019 General Election

The UK 2019 general election was ultimately the one which brought Jeremy Corbyn’s downfall and a shift back from the radical to the soft left in the political line of the Labour Party. This election presents a singular character for one of the two oldest Trotskyist parties in the United-Kingdom: the Socialist Party. Indeed, the Trotskyist party, heir to the Militant Tendency of the 1980s, decided not to stand any candidates at this election and to officially support Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign. This paper will retrace the history linking the Socialist Party to the Labour Party. It will also explore the modalities of the Socialist Party’s support for the Labour Party in both its material and ideological aspects. From this, it will show how this campaign was ultimately more a campaign to serve revolutionary objectives, than a genuine campaign for the victory of the party led by Jeremy Corbyn. This paper will then proceed to examine the comparison often drawn by the media and the political opponents of Jeremy Corbyn between the elections of 1983 and 2019 by examining the role played by the Trotskyists then and Momentum now, the reasons of their support to Labour an the results obtained by each.

Activities of Non-Governmental Organisations Aimed at Conflict Settlement in Post-Soviet States

This article analyses the peace-making activities of Soviet/Russian nongovernmental public organisations (NGOs) with reference to the Federation for Peace and Conciliation, the successor of the Soviet Peace Committee. NGOs were formed at the initiative of the state and party organs of the Soviet system but were transformed into independent NGOs after the collapse of the USSR with their own active strategy of assistance in conflict resolution. This study is based upon unique archive materials and the personal experience of one of the authors, who used to work for such organisations. The study focuses on the ethnopolitical conflicts which took place between the collapse of the USSR and the mid‑1990s. There is a widespread opinion in academic literature that so-called non-governmental organisations set up by the government do not have their own identity, especially during social crises, and passively follow the government’s political line. However, the study of their activities demonstrates that during the first years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, these organisations initiated a significant number of practical and political projects with the participation of high-ranked representatives of the governments, parliaments, and political parties of both post-Soviet and foreign states and international organisations, including the UN, OSCE, NATO, CIS, etc. This, in turn, played a role as a substantial supplement to classical interstate diplomacy and practically promoted the settlement of certain ethnopolitical conflicts. The archive materials analysed prove that in the early post-Soviet period, a certain inversion in the direction of political and ideological impulses took place, and a number of non-governmental organisations that used to transmit the interests of the Communist Party and state organs to the international environment were able to create new international projects and consultations in the form of “track one-and-a-half” diplomacy, i. e. the informal interaction of officials in the capacity of unofficial experts. And in such cases, it was NGOs which shaped the agenda and transmitted public interests to the state structures of Russia and the CIS states, mediating between fighting sides and amongst representatives of various states, practically assisting the settlement of ethnopolitical conflicts.

To Defeat Him by Quoting Lenin and Facts: Practices of the Political Cult in Discussions of the 1920s

This article analyses practices related to the cult of Lenin in the confines of the Leningrad party organisation of the RCP(b) and its influence on innerparty discussions and political disagreements. The author aims to examine how appeal to the cult and Leninism helped shape the position of the Leningrad Bolsheviks led by G. E. Zinoviev. To achieve this goal, the author refers to a variety of sources, i. e. the works of the leaders of the Leningrad party organisation, such pamphlets by G. I. Safarov and G. E. Evdokimov, minutes of district party conferences, etc. The sources listed above suggest that the terms “testament,” “heritage,” and “task” used in party discourse symbolise a set of actions and principles, following and being faithful to which allowed party members to comply with the correct political line. For representatives of the Leningrad opposition, this meant relying on the poor and middle strata of the village. The category of practice mentioned in the title of this article means that attention was paid not so much to the function of quotations or clichéd phrases but rather to what party groups implied when quoting Lenin’s statements. The term “cult”, which historiography usually employs to describe the veneration of V. I. Lenin as the leader of the party, does not reflect the entirety of this process or take into account its productive component, namely, the fact that, because of its heterogeneity, Leninism allowed members of the Communist Party to pay attention to diverse aspects of Lenin’s heritage. In the course of the polemic surrounding issues facing the party (politics in the countryside, the possibility of building socialism in a single country, etc.), the Leningrad Bolsheviks turned to Leninism as a range of ideas legitimising their political position and as a tool for identifying the Bolsheviks who, in contrast to the Leningraders, “deviated” from the correct political line.

„Bukvalistide kukutamise“ alguse juurde: 1934. aasta / Towards the Description of the Beginning of “the Overthrow of the Literalists”

„Bukvalistide kukutamise“ alguse juurde: 1934. aasta / Towards the Description of the Beginning of “the Overthrow of the Literalists”

Jemok eopseum: the repurposing of Tumblr for gay South Korean DIY pornography

ABSTRACT This article examines how an online community of gay South Korean porn producers, consumers, and distributors used Tumblr to co-construct a porn platform under government censorship of porn. Utilizing assemblage theory, the article traces the cultural and political lines that not only shape Korea’s internet ecology but also prompted gay Korean men to adopt Tumblr as their go-to aggregate porn website. Tumblr offered a space in which gay Korean porn consumers desiring ‘sameness’ could see and hear themselves sexually represented. Ultimately, in examining the specificities of the South Korean context, I also seek to encourage porn studies scholarship to continually consider the cultural, social, geopolitical, and temporal contexts of porn consumption, production, and circulation, so as to avoid the indiscriminate application of the Western perspective to other sociocultural contexts.

Pluralistic Collapse: The “Oil Spill” Model of Mass Opinion Polarization

Despite widespread feeling that public opinion in the United States has become dramatically polarized along political lines, empirical support for such a pattern is surprisingly elusive. Reporting little evidence of mass polarization, previous studies assume polarization is evidenced via the amplification of existing political alignments. This article considers a different pathway: polarization occurring via social, cultural, and political alignments coming to encompass an increasingly diverse array of opinions and attitudes. The study uses 44 years of data from the General Social Survey representing opinions and attitudes across a wide array of domains as elements in an evolving belief network. Analyses of this network produce evidence that mass polarization has increased via a process of belief consolidation, entailing the collapse of previously cross-cutting alignments, thus creating increasingly broad and encompassing clusters organized around cohesive packages of beliefs. Further, the increasing salience of political ideology and partisanship only partly explains this trend. The structure of U.S. opinion has shifted in ways suggesting troubling implications for proponents of political and social pluralism.

News, Programs, Publications, and Awards

News, Programs, Publications, and Awards

Finding common ground: agreement on increasing wildfire risk crosses political lines

Wildfire is a growing threat in the western US, driven by high fuel loads, a warming climate, and rising human activity in the wildland urban interface. Diverse stakeholders must collaborate to mitigate risk and adapt to changing conditions. Communication strategies in collaborative efforts may be most effective if they align with local perspectives on wildfire and climate change. We investigate drivers of residents’ subjective perceptions regarding both issues in eastern Oregon using 2018 survey data, and examine objective evidence regarding local fuel loads, climate, and wildfire to identify trends and contextualize residents’ perceptions. We find that sociopolitical identity strongly predicts climate change beliefs, and that identity and climate beliefs predict both perceptions of recent past climate and likely future trends. Political influences on climate perceptions are strongest among people whose friends mostly belong to the same party. In contrast, perceptions about future wildfire risks are largely independent of climate-change beliefs, and of individual or peer-group politics. Most people accurately perceive the rising frequency of large wildfires, and expect this trend to continue. Decision makers have an opportunity to engage diverse stakeholders in developing policies to mitigate increasing wildfire risk without invoking climate change, which remains politically polarizing in some communities.

The Role of Hydrocarbons in the Global Energy Agenda: The Focus on Liquefied Natural Gas

Presently, there is a paradoxical situation in the global energy market related to a gap between the image of hydrocarbon resources (HCR) and their real value for the economy. On the one hand, we face an increase in expected HCR production and consumption volumes, both in the short and long term. On the other hand, we see the formation of the image of HCR and associated technologies as an unacceptable option, without enough attention to the differences in fuels and the ways of their usage. Due to this, it seems necessary to take a step back to review the vitality of such a political line. This article highlights an alternative point of view with regard to energy development prospects. The purpose of this article is to analyse the consistency of criticism towards HCR based on exploration of scientific literature, analytical documents of international corporations and energy companies as well as critical assessment of technologies offered for the HCR substitution. The analysis showed that: (1) it is impossible to substitute the majority of HCR with alternative power resources in the near term, (2) it is essential that the criticism of energy companies with regard to their responsibility for climate change should lead not to destruction of the industry but to the search of sustainable means for its development, (3) the strategic benchmarks of oil and coal industries should shift towards chemical production, but their significance should not be downgraded for the energy sector, (4) liquified natural gas (LNG) is an independent industry with the highest expansion potential in global markets in the coming years as compared to alternative energy options, and (5) Russia possesses a huge potential for the development of the gas industry, and particularly LNG, that will be unlocked if timely measures on higher efficiency of the state regulation system are implemented.

Schmitt Fever: The use and abuse of Carl Schmitt in contemporary China

Abstract This article examines “Schmitt Fever,” the reception and influence in contemporary China of the thought of Carl Schmitt, the German legal, constitutional, and political theorist notorious for his endorsement of National Socialism. It argues that an understanding of Schmitt Fever provides new insights into contested terrain and fracture lines of contemporary Chinese law and politics. It also shows how Western concepts are taken up in China, both philosophically and politically, and how their reception reveals valuable insights into the character of the major political contests in contemporary China. By examining the way Schmittian concepts such as “friend-enemy,” “sovereignty,” and “decisionism” are deployed by three contending groups of scholars—the “China Path,” “New Left,” and “Liberal” schools of thought—it shows the limitations of socialist and Marxist thought in contemporary debates, and a crisis in legitimacy regarding the foundational ideas that sustain and inform contemporary debates regarding the future direction of China.

Visual Stereotypes of Tatars in the Finnish Press from the 1880s to the 1910s

Visual stereotypes constitute a set of tropes through which the Other is described and depicted to anaudience, who perhaps never will encounter the individuals that those tropes purport to represent.Upon the arrival of Muslim Tatar traders in Finland in the late nineteenth century, newspapers andsatirical journals utilized visual stereotypes to identify the new arrivals and draw demarcation linesbetween them and what was considered “Finnish”. The Tatars arrived during a time of tension inthe relationship between the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland and the Russian Empire, withthe Finnish intelligentsia divided along political and language lines. Stereotypical images of Tatarpedlars were used as insults against political opponents within Finland and as covert criticism ofthe policies of the Russian Empire. Stereotypes about ethnic and religious minorities like the Tatarsfulfilled a political need for substitute enemy images; after Finland became independent in 1917,these visual stereotypes almost disappeared.

РАЗВИТИЕ И СТАНОВЛЕНИЕ АРХИТЕКТУРЫ ЭЛЛИНСКОГО ТЕАТРА ОТ НАРОДНОГО ТАНЦА ДО ТЕАТРАЛЬНОГО СООРУЖЕНИЯ, VII-IIвв. до н.э.

The tradition of the holidayswhich dedicatedtotheendof the grape harvest, was born in Hellada in ancient times, in the countryside and gradually moved to the cities. This process began in the VIII century BC. Holidays were dedicated to God Dionysus, he was responsible about the natural forces of the earth and vegetation, the mastery of viticulture and winemaking. The holiday started to name Dionysuy. One of the most important action –dance around a circle. Then it becamenational, it conducted in cities, where was taken the new forms. Actors or other free citizens of the city performed on the level of the round plan as a symbol (similar to the village dance in a circle) citywide holiday, the audience were also residents of the city, seats for which came down to the playground of actors in the form of a semicircular funnel. Initially, such places were arranged on artificial sub-constructions of wood. Such structures were prefabricated and were used many times. There have been cases of their collapse. Only after being in Athens to the second part of VI century BC such structures collapsed during the performance, it was decided more of this type of sub-exercise not to be used. From the end of the VI century BC, places for spectators were cut downin the natural hills. And the theaters themselves turned into stationary facilities, which contributed to many spectacular innovations and conveniences of actors -all this increased the visual efficiency of performances. From a simple place of national celebration gradually theaters turned into city-wide centers of state-political information (where the words of the actors conveyed to the audience the general provisions of state policy). For example, in the time of Pericles (444-429 BC), the poor free citizens of Athens were given theatrical money from the state treasury, which they had the right to spend solely on watching theatrical productions. Taking into account the fact that the theaters gathered several thousand spectators at the same time, the performances contributed to the dissemination of state information at a time for a large number of residents of the city. The Theatre of Deonis in Athens under the acropolis of the Acropolis accommodated 17,000 spectators from the total number of citizens in the heyday of 100,000. In addition, it was noticed that certain performances contribute to the optimistic mood of the ISSN 2519–4208. ПРОБЛЕМЫ ТЕОРИИ И ИСТОРИИ АРХИТЕКТУРЫ УКРАИНЫ.2020. No 20142audience, and this has a beneficial effect on their health. Therefore, it is no coincidence that theatrical productions (late classics of Hellas) were provided among the medical and recreational procedures in the “Asclepius” treatment and health procedures at VI C. in B.C.). The “Asclepius” architectural ensemble has a theatre as part of a medical and recreational center.Theatrical actions carried to the masses the state lines of ideology and politics, increased the general culture of the population while influencing the audience as wellness procedures. Theatrical performances were more effective than temple services. This is the need for the construction of theaters throughout Hellenism, where there was no city within Hellenistic borders, where there would be no theater. By the end of the III century BC, when the entire East Mediterranean world was subordinated to the Roman Republic, the type of theatrical construction of Hellas was completely formed. This was accepted by the Romans for their theatrical productions, gradually adapting it to the features of their mass-entertainment culture.

Interparty and Intraparty Factionalism in Cambodian Politics

Cambodia’s hegemonic party system that emerged after the violent removal of First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh early in July 1997 has now given way to a one-party state, which still remains prone to tension and instability. The party system has become less factionalised and can be characterised as moving from high to medium factionalism. This development resulted from the growing domination of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and the weakening of the opposition parties, such as National United Front for an Independent, Netural, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia, which splintered and become almost irrelevant in Cambodian politics. The Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) emerged as the main opposition party after the 2013 election but was then banned from competing in the 2018 election. Although the CNRP remains united by its anti-CPP position, it is still fractured along political lines between two former opposition parties – the Sam Rainsy Party and the Human Rights Party. Historical institutionalism sheds some new light on the variation of political developments among political parties and within them, but does not supplant the fact that party leaders are rational to the extent that they select strategies in pursuit of their interests defined as power or security under specific institutional constraints or the lack thereof.

Deliberative Mini-Publics as a Response to Populist Democratic Backsliding

Populisms come in different forms, but all involve a political rhetoric that invokes the will of a unitary people to combat perceived constraints, whether economic, legal, or technocratic. In this chapter, our focus is democratic backsliding aided by populist rhetoric. Some have suggested deliberative democracy as a means to combat this form of populism. Deliberative democracy encourages and facilitates both consultation and contestation, emphasizing plurality of voices, the legitimacy of disagreement, and the imperative of reasoned persuasion. Its participatory and inclusive character has the potential to undermine the credibility of populists’ claims to speak for a unitary people. Ireland has been widely referenced in constitutionalism’s deliberative turn, given its recent integration of deliberative mini-publics into the constitutional amendment process. Reviewing the Irish experience, we suggest that deliberative mini-publics are unlikely to reverse democratic backsliding. Populist rhetoric is fueled by the very measures intended to combat democratic backsliding: enhanced constitutional constraints merely illustrate how the will of the people is being thwarted. The virtues of Ireland’s experiment in deliberative democracy — citizen participation, integration with representative democracy, deliberation, balanced information, expertise — have all been criticized in ways that are at least consistent with populist narratives. The failure of such narratives to take hold in Ireland, we suggest, may be due to a political system that is already resistant to populist rhetoric, as well as a tradition of participatory constitutionalism. The experiment with deliberative mini-publics may have strengthened Ireland’s constitutional culture by reinforcing anti-populist features. But it cannot be assumed that this experience would be replicated in larger countries polarized along political, ethnic, or religious lines.

Fascism and how to eradicate it in Germany from the perspective of George Lukacs

During the period between the two world wars, and among the socialists who are not Marxists in particular, the topic of re-reading and reviewing Marx's writings intellectually and building intellectual and political lines against fascism and extremism in general and Nazi in particular emerged, so that the star of a group of thinkers in this regard, and perhaps most prominent among them George Lukacs and Georg Luck Cyrus, Karl Mannheim, Walter Benjamin, and others. In such an intellectual milieu, the angle of view of the fascist phenomenon varied in terms of it being a general phenomenon or a group of special cases. There are those who believe that the term fascism should be restricted to Mussolini's case only. That is, we should call the Nazi regime Hitler, and fascism a Mussolini system, and all similar movements have their own names, given that each of them is a phenomenon that is independent and separate from the other cases.