Political Opportunity Research Articles

ASIA-PACIFIC FREE TRADE AGREEMENT, REGIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION AND MONGOLIA

Mongolia is believed to have great potential for simultaneous integration in many fields. Our natural resources and geographical location, such as having only two neighbours, being in the middle of two large markets, and having no direct border with a third neighbour and landlocked situation, can be considered an opportunity. Mongolia's economy needs an easily accessible market to process and sell its natural resources, which are considered crucial in the near future. Interest in purchasing Mongolia's raw material wealth is not limited to the US and the EU. The most interesting sales market is that in the coming years, economic development growth will be higher than that of the USA and the EU. For us, Japan, South Korea, and ASEAN countries, which are close by road and can be reached just around our "nose fence", and especially is a region that includes China. Another aspect is that Mongolia is geographically located in the centre of Northeast Asia, i.e. in the heart of it, which not only separates Russia's raw material and energy markets from China's production (China is now Russia's largest trade partner and (which is changing) is also geographically positioned as a bridge between China's industrialised northeastern provinces and the relatively less developed northwestern provinces. Of course, at the moment, Mongolia lacks the necessary funds to modernise and expand transportation and energy infrastructure. However, in the end, it leads to the conclusion that only regional integration will create significant real economic and political opportunities in the future of Mongolia.

ТЕНДЕНЦИИ И ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ РАЗВИТИЯ ОТРАСЛИ РАСТЕНИЕВОДСТВА В ПЕРМСКОМ КРАЕ

The scientific article contains a theoretical review of scientific literature on the problems of development of the crop production industry. Attention is drawn to the state of the market for crop products, the competitiveness of agricultural sectors and the presence of consumer purchasing preferences in relation to organic products. The dynamics of reduction in sown areas have been revealed, and natural and climatic factors affecting the range, yield and production efficiency have been noted. A methodology for a comprehensive analysis of the conditions for conducting economic activity in the agricultural sector of the economy is presented. The activities of agricultural producers aimed at providing priority provision of their own feed to the livestock industry by reducing the marketable portion of crop production were noted. Solutions for efficient feed production are presented through the selection of promising varieties of feed crops, planning the yield and nutritional value of feed. The strategic directions for the development of the crop production industry have been determined. The priority of development of the crop production industry is confirmed by the presence of deposits and producers of mineral fertilizers. Weaknesses include natural, climatic and soil conditions that limit the list, yield and efficiency of crop production. There are quite a lot of threats to reduce crop production, but the main ones are of a social nature: the continuing outflow of young people from rural areas; Due to labor shortages, there is an increase in abandoned agricultural land. Political, managerial, production and economic opportunities for the development of the crop production industry have been identified in terms of ensuring a targeted approach to personnel training, the development of social and production infrastructure that makes it possible to promote the rural lifestyle among the younger generation and ensure the investment attractiveness of the industry. Thus, great potential for priority development of the crop production industry has been identified.

Age, Political Participation, and Political Context in Africa.

Political participation differs across the age range, but little is known about these patterns outside of developed countries. Political context is a particularly important consideration for all political behavior in Africa, where only a few countries are fully democratic. Drawing from political opportunity structures theory, we investigate how political freedom conditions the age-based pattern of electoral and nonelectoral political engagement, as well as protesting. This study merges the fifth, sixth, and seventh rounds of the Afrobarometer data sets, spanning 36 African countries, with country-level data on political freedom from Freedom House. Using multilevel regression models, we examine how political freedom shapes the relationship between age and 3 forms of political participation. Africans aged from 18 to 60 years and living in nonfree countries are most engaged in electoral and nonelectoral political activities, though participation begins to drop markedly past age 60. For protest participation, young Africans living in partially and non-free countries are the most engaged in protests; yet limited political freedom again means a sharp age-based decline. The impact of political context on the age-participation association is nuanced in ways not anticipated by mainstream research on the developed West. Repressive regimes, while spurring engagement at younger ages, appear to disproportionately deter older Africans from political engagement, especially its riskiest forms. We conclude by calling for more country-comparative gerontological research with careful attention to contextual heterogeneity, particularly in the understudied Global South.

Climate change and the politicization of ESG in the US

ESG, or environmental, social, and governance, is seen by some as an instrument to tackle climate change, and by others as a tool to allow investors to assess climate change risks and opportunities. It has been widely politicized in the US, where Republican critics have characterized it as an attempt by the liberal financial elite to impose a leftist decarbonizing mission on the US economy through an investment risk back door. The current paper explores the way in which ESG has become a, perhaps unlikely, object of politicization by the political right. In doing so, it analyses the meaning of politicization in an ESG context and the various forms it has taken, both discursive and substantive. The paper also seeks to explain why it is that ESG politicization has occurred at particular junctures and draws on political opportunity theory from social movement studies to account for this. It further examines various reactions to the politicization of ESG that have sought to depoliticize it.

Colonial Redress and the Unintended Consequences of Global Opportunities

Abstract Research shows that the rise of political and discursive opportunities enabled by the diffusion of progressive global norms has empowered many aggrieved local actors. Drawing on colonial victims’ transnational redress movements, I add to this literature in two ways. First, rejecting the common association between global opportunities and local movement facilitation and success, I make a counterintuitive argument that the early availability of opportunities can inadvertently hamper a movement’s efficacy in achieving its goals in the long run. Second, contrary to the implicit assumption that large-scale, high-profile transnational movements should fare better than smaller, little-known ones, I demonstrate that the latter can sometimes achieve their goals more easily than the former. In making these arguments, I show that an increasing focus in the norm literature on backlash in target states against norm promotion risks neglecting the flip side of the same coin: Global normative support inadvertently undermining the efficacy of local causes it otherwise helps publicize. Empirically, I look at three Korean colonial victim groups and their divergent paths to transnational redress.

Examining the formation of legal guarantees for equal acces to civil service: historical origins and modern application

The aim of the work is to demonstrate the historical progression of access to civil service across different historical epochs – Ancient World, Middle Ages, New Era, and Modern Times. The developmental phases of equal access to civil service mirror the primary trends in shaping the relationship between individuals and the state. The article demonstrates the peculiarities of legal guarantees, which are closely intertwined with the complex global political, economic, social, and cultural transformations of humanity, giving scholars the space to go far beyond modern history. Employing a theoretical research model focused on a human-centered perspective, it scrutinizes the essence of legal assurances. The historical method is employed to comprehend the retrospective formation and progression of the civil service. Additionally, the axiological method forms the basis for considering equal access to the civil service as a value category.
 Results of the research highlight that the legal guarantees of the right to equal access to the civil service have evolved over time, dating back to the Ancient World. This evolution is attributed to the formation of the civil service institution. The legal guarantees for equal access to the civil service are not only recognized at the national level but are also enshrined in international legal standards aimed at protecting human and civil rights. The study acknowledges that restrictions on the right to equal access during periods of special legal regimes can limit citizens’ political opportunities for contributing to good governance. Author concluded that from the time of the Ancient World to the present, as a product of the evolutionary formation of the civil service institution, legal guarantees of the right to equal access to the civil service have been formed, including legality and fairness of selection procedures, equality, and non-discrimination of applicants for civil service positions, requirements for professionalism and competence, remuneration, etc.

Wages and Labor Relations during Francoist Developmentalism: The Role of the New Unionism

AbstractThe relation between wage growth and the reconstruction of the labor movement in Spain, during the developmentalist Francoist regime (1957-1975), has been controversial. Applying the power resources theory in order to explain wage growth, this paper argues that the rise of the labor share was the result of the increased bargaining power of workers in spite of repressive policies of the Francoist government. The action of new trade unionism mobilized the following power resources. First, the structural power increased as a consequence of techno-economics transformations of Fordism and a generational change of the labor force. Second, the associational power increased due to new organizational forms, with more democratic modes of collective action and combining clandestine and legal actions, and the reappearance of collective bargaining with the Law of Collective Bargaining Agreements of 1958. These political opportunities opened up the possibility to the new trade unionist of developing the strategy of entryism that served as the driving force for worker mobilization.Consequently, the new trade unionists could mobilize their power resources in the three spheres, exchange, production, and politics, as a strategy by accelerating collaborative action, establishing a discursive and cultural framework, and allowing the articulation of the different trade union actions. In this way, internal solidarity was favored when a collective agreement was negotiated at the company or sector level (and not an individual contract, as it has been to date), due to the links with the social activities characteristic of the paternalistic management of labor relations and the presence of anti-Francoist organizations, the “network embeddedness” was strengthened. In turn, the successes in the consequence of wage increases and solidarity with other workers who were suffering repression increased the narrative resources that frame union actions. All this made it possible to counterbalance in part for the restrictions imposed by the dictatorship, which weakened the structural power of workers in the political sphere.The main contribution to the existing knowledge on the issue consists in explaining the apparent paradox between the wage policy of the Francoist government (oriented towards wage restriction) and the increase in labor share. This also serves to understand how labor markets and the wage-setting mechanism worked from a historical point of view. As a corollary, the previous analysis implies that the most important factor was the ability to mobilize workers successfully. The union strategy that combined democratic instruments of representation (assemblies) with clandestine and legal actions served as a catalyst for other productive and social changes. This reflects the primacy of the action of social actors for the worker mobilization theory.

The Polycrisis and the Centaur: Hegemony, Masculinity and Racialisation

The multiplicity of crises that mark the contemporary era, the polycrisis, also constitutes a crisis of hegemony. This article explores the functions of gendered racialisation in elite management of this hegemonic crisis, with reference to Gramsci’s use of the figure of the Centaur, a hybrid of humanity and animality. It discusses the ways in which this hybrid evokes racialising tropes of human bestiality to express the dynamic interplay of consent and coercion through which hegemony is maintained. Moral panics in relation to the threat of the racialised male Other, variously figured as migrant, terrorist and/or criminal, draw on a bestialised humanisation of racialised masculinities in order to elicit consent to the exercise of coercive authority. Such authority in turn invokes a plasticity of excess/deficiency of the racialised male Other to sanction exclusionary and exterminatory violence. To seize the political opportunity of the current moment to reimagine gender justice and social justice together requires a deeper engagement with the deployment of racialised masculinities in securing consent to coercive authority amid the deepening polycrisis.

International Political Contexts, Digital Technologies, and Political Outcomes in Nigeria’s #EndSARS Movement

Abstract When do social movements achieve political outcomes? Extant literature has identified two broad factors that can explain the political outcomes of social movements: movements’ infrastructure, and political opportunities. Focusing on the 2020 #EndSARS protest in Nigeria, I build on this literature to understand how and why social movements may achieve policy outcomes when social movements’ infrastructure and domestic political opportunities are relatively absent. I analyzed the Twitter activities of protesters during the 2020 #EndSARS Movement in Nigeria. I argue that the #EndSARS Movement transformed from online campaigns to offline demonstrations against police brutality because of favourable international political contexts (Black Lives Matter or blm protests in the US, covid-19 induced economic hardships). Further analysis shows that the protest achieved significant political outcomes and responses from both federal and state governments in Nigeria because the protesters were able to successfully leverage digital technologies (like social media, blockchain technology), international media and global personalities to their advantage.

Kajian Alih Fungsi Lahan Pertanian Menjadi Sektor Pariwisata di Nagari Tarantang Kecamatan Harau Kabupaten Lima Puluh Kota

This research aims to determine changes in the conversion of agricultural land into the tourism sector in Nagari Tarantang, Harau District, Limapuluh Kota Regency. This type of research is quantitative descriptive. The subjects in this research were agricultural land owners who converted to tourism in Nagari Tarantang, Harau District, Limapuluh Kota Regency. Data collection techniques in this research were observation, questionnaires and documentation. The sampling technique used a total sampling of 10 agricultural land owners who had converted to tourism in Nagari Tarantang, Harau District, Limapuluh Kota Regency. The results of this research conclude: 1) Agricultural land that was converted into tourism land covering an area of 16.7 Ha, the change in land was caused by several factors, namely economic, cultural, political, environmental and new job opportunities.

When do Teachers Strike: Between Strong Unions, Divergent Preferences and Political Opportunity in Tunisia

ABSTRACT Unions have played a decisive role in promoting democracy and social justice in Tunisia. In 2023, two teacher unions led a yearlong ‘silent strike’ of withholding student marks from administration. Based on interviews with 60 teachers, this article analyses teacher views on the unions and on ongoing protests. While unions are still considered the main defenders of public education and grievances about salaries were shared among teachers, their views on strike participation diverged based on perceived political opportunity and differences in moral and political preferences, amidst a local political and financial crisis and global pressures towards austerity and privatisation.

Pathways to Authoritarian Adaptation: How State–Society Interactions Push the Window of Policy Change in China

Under what conditions might authoritarian states adapt public policies to social preferences? How could social actors push the window for policy change? How might state–society interactions induce policy change as the practice of authoritarian adaptation? This article utilizes a new database of case evidence and the qualitative comparative analysis method to explore the relationship between state–society interaction and policy change as the practical manifestation of authoritarian adaptation in China. The study presents three approaches to policy change: state–society interactive strategies, policy entrepreneurs and the political opportunity structure. The empirical results reveal three patterns of state–society interaction leading to policy change, while submission is not a viable option for society under state suppression. Media presence may impede policy change, and the diverse functions of social organizations should be related to interactive strategies. In addition, social actors may identify political opportunities through multiround interaction, while the role of joint administration in effecting policy change remains unclear. This study offers a novel understanding of authoritarian adaptation.

New Trends of Indonesia’s Foreign Policy Under President Joko Widodo in The First Period

President Joko Widodo inherited many domestic and foreign political problems and opportunities inherited from the previous President. This article aims to analyze Indonesia's foreign policy during the first term of President Joko Widodo. This research is qualitative research that utilizes data to find solutions to problems based on existing social realities using scientific methods. The findings are that the Indonesian government under President Joko Widodo has carried out foreign cooperation, especially focusing on the pillars of security and peace, economic and maritime diplomacy, protection of Indonesian citizens and legal entities abroad as well as ASEAN cooperation to strengthen Indonesia as the world's maritime axis. Apart from that, cooperation with various countries in East Asia focuses on economic opportunities and infrastructure development, especially from China and South Korea. This tendency will give rise to rivalry in the East Asia region, making it difficult to build a strong regional organization that is needed for harmonious ASEAN-East Asia cooperation because these two regions are close together.

Migrants’ Political Participation and Representation in Poland: What Do Political Parties Have to Offer?

Since 2018, Poland has been a net migration country, yet public debates on migrants and migration remain scarce and have been defined by a reactionary nature. This article, adopting a political opportunity structure perspective, focuses on political parties as the main actors shaping opportunities and constraints for migrant political participation and representation in Polish society. Based on a qualitative content analysis of party manifestos and parliamentary debates, and using the deductive thematic analysis framework, this study analysed three types of arguments parties have adopted regarding the admission of migrants. The findings revealed that Polish political parties, failing to see non-voting migrants as promising electoral targets, have weaponised the migrant issue and used it as an element of the partisan battle to attack opponents, especially during the election campaign period, instead of stimulating migrants’ political participation and offering them channels for representation.

“Something Was Going to Change”

The subject of the article is a critical presentation of aspects of the Democratic Transition period (Metapolitefsi) in Greece through interviews and e-mails exchanged by subscribers to the mailing list of the magazine Disability Now, collected from April to July 2000. At the heart of these dialogues lies the discourse about the lifting of accessibility barriers for disabled people in Greece during the 1990s. Through the use of contemporary political theories on populism, the author explains that the discourse on accessibility barriers becomes “a place of political opportunity.” The participants develop a kind of populist discourse inspired by the ideology of the political theory of Modernization, as well as by the possibilities and disadvantages of Greece within the politico- economic framework of the EU. These elements imbue the meaning of the disabled self with a dual content: They connect and unite disabled individuals by producing the expression of an emancipatory discourse which, however and at the same time, is maintained through traces of an ablenationalistic rhetoric, activated by notions of Greekness and Europeanness.

Revisiting the Formation and Radicalisation of Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) through Social Movement Theory

This paper uses social movement theory to examine the rise and development of Boko Haram and AQIM into radical groups. Boko Haram and AQIM were initially established as moderate and conservative Islamist groups in Nigeria and Algeria respectively. AQIM was originally a political party – the FIS but changed names to the GIA, the GSPC, and AQIM each with a different modus operandi. Boko Haram was a local organization that has been espousing an anti-system frame alongside violent tactics since 2009. Relying on secondary data, this paper found that the emergence and eventual transformation of Boko Haram and AQIM into radical movements signify the existence of social movement factors of political opportunity structures, mobilizing structures, and framing processes in Nigeria and Algeria. Results from content analysis of the data show that while the two movements emerged in two distinct socio-economic and political environments, they were rational actors who continued to utilize the available political structures opportunity, mobilizing structures and framing processes to mobilize and sustain collective actions. It is evident that government repression only made the two groups change tactics and strategies when what they regarded as free spaces diminished at times they gathered material and non-material resources. That coincided with the radical views of some of the groups’ members, the presence of mobilizing structures, and a frame resonance that ensured recruitment into the two movements.

State violence and target group adaptation: Maintaining social status in the face of repressions in Soviet Russia

How does state-led repression targeting communities influence the social reproduction of victimized groups? Although several excellent studies have explored the sociopolitical consequences of a broad set of conflict-trauma legacies, notably, communal, religious and kinship drivers of responses to state violence, few researchers have explored the mechanisms of social status preservation under violence. The omission of class and social status from conflict research is puzzling considering that millions of people from Cambodia to China and from Russia to Hungary have suffered from state-led violence that targeted entire social groups and communities – from monks and priests with privileged positions in the social hierarchies, to the aristocracy and bourgeoisie. To generate theory about the mechanisms of social submission, adaptation or resistance in the face of group-based repressions, we explored the effects of Soviet repressions on the survival choices and reproduction of the Tzarist educated strata. For our analysis, we deployed subnational data on repressions and social structure and combined this with novel survey evidence and archival sources. We found that, contrary to conventional wisdom, repressions did not prevent the Imperial educated estates from engaging in habitual status- and identity-enhancing pursuits. Throughout the Soviet period, these groups continued to aspire to higher education and professional achievement. What is more, we show that continuity in pursuits was more common in places with more extensive repressions and a larger ‘stock’ of pre-Revolutionary middle classes. We propose that in-group social bonding and permissive political opportunities facilitated social adaptation. Our findings contribute to conflict and social resilience literature.

Policy Dialogue: The Meaning and Purpose of Public Education

AbstractPublic education, at least as it has been known for the past several generations in the US, is under threat. Conservative state legislatures from Arizona to Florida have enacted sweeping voucher legislation, channeling taxpayer dollars to private schools. At the same time, a vicious culture war has engulfed the public education system in controversy, creating new political opportunities for ideologues and opponents. In this context, the editorial team at HEQ felt it important to reflect on why we have public schools in the first place. What are they good for and what should be taught? Whom should they serve, and who should govern them?For this policy dialogue, we asked Carol Burris and Johann Neem to discuss the past, present, and future of open-enrollment, taxpayer-supported public schools. Carol Burris is the executive director of the Network for Public Education Foundation and the author of several books. Prior to that role, Dr. Burris was a classroom teacher and a high school principal, earning educator of the year and principal of the year awards. Johann Neem is a professor at Western Washington University and a historian of the early American republic. The author of several books, including Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America, Dr. Neem is also a member of HEQ’s editorial board.HEQ policy dialogues are, by design, intended to promote an informal, free exchange of ideas between scholars. At the end of the exchange, we offer a list of references for readers who wish to follow up on sources relevant to the discussion.

Female Leadership Roles: Subjectivity and Self-Representation

Abstract This article delves into the impact of digital activism on the leadership style of female-led non-governmental organisations operating under restricted access to opportunities. The focus is on Muslim sisterhood activism, examining the shift from offline to online activism led by the younger generation. The article analyses the barriers that have historically prevented Muslim sisterhood activists from playing leadership roles within the Muslim Brotherhood group and compares offline and online leadership roles using the case study of the Revolutionary Coalition for Egyptian Women from 2014 to 2023, with a focus on 2014. The study reveals that the younger generation of Muslim women has adopted a language that prioritises self-representation and body politics over religious discourse, indicating a heightened awareness of gender politics during the period between 2014 and 2023. To overcome state-imposed restrictions, the younger generation of the Muslim sisterhood has contradicted their well-established values on women’s roles and focused their political agendas on regaining popularity in Egyptian society. By exploring the impact of different political opportunities on women’s leadership roles through the political process paradigm, this article bridges a gap in the literature on resistant politics, feminism, leadership, and digital activism. The study shows that the younger generation of Muslim women is spearheading a strategic change in the resistant activist discourse, utilising the new digital space for activism to promote their cause.

Solutions in search of a problem: Opening policy windows for Business Improvement Districts in the Nordic countries

Policy mobility literature invites us to consider the power-laden processes of how urban policies are exported, mimicked, and transformed in different urban contexts. However, recent critique has highlighted the need for a fuller understanding of urban policy context to understand where and when policies come to be implemented in new settings and how they are transformed. The purpose of this study is to explore understandings of urban policy context in a comparative study of policy mobility, and specifically relations between internationally packaged concepts, local pilot projects and national level actors. We develop a framework for understanding these relations in policy mobility based on case studies of BID policy development in Sweden and Denmark drawing on both Policy Mobility literature and a Multiple Streams Approach. The main finding is that local pilots play a key role in translating packaged policy concepts but also serve as ‘proof of concept’ for further institutionalization. The way these pilots are discursively situated in relation to ‘problems’ is therefore of central importance for further implementation. Furthermore, the study highlights the role of policy entrepreneurs that connect local pilots (and discursive problems) with national level actors, and political opportunities.