Political Opposition Research Articles

The Fraser Government and South Korea: Human Rights in Foreign Policy, 1975–81

This study uses recently declassified documents to analyse the Fraser government's human rights policy towards South Korea. It demonstrates that when the Fraser government made its first human rights representation to the South Korean government in August 1976, it was under limited public pressure to do so, and human rights issues were of limited importance in the bilateral relationship. By late 1980, however, when political opposition figure Kim Dae Jung was sentenced to death, human rights considerations dominated Australian foreign policy towards South Korea, and public pressure on the Fraser government to try and prevent Kim's execution was substantial. The Fraser government's policy response to Kim's case was in part a reaction to public pressure, human rights considerations were also involved, but perhaps the most substantial factor driving the government's policy response was that Kim's execution was sure to sour the bilateral relationship and jeopardise the economic relationship. Overall, South Korea was a place where the Fraser government grappled with key questions about how to pursue human rights in foreign policy and where it had to address a human rights issue that had the capacity to seriously disrupt bilateral relations.

Changing Definitions of Turkish Peasantry in a Century-Long History: A Conceptual Framework

ABSTRACT From the beginning, the peasantry has played a pivotal role in the making of the Turkish national identity. Throughout the century-long history of the Turkish nation-state, the status and significance of the peasantry have shifted in response to strategic and pragmatic changes in national, international, and oppositional politics. This article aims to trace the changing meanings of the peasantry in Turkish politics in accordance with the changing characteristics of the peasantry as a class element in Turkish capitalism. In doing so, we seek to explore how the real and imaginary meanings of the peasantry align or diverge from each other in a century-long period. For the first time, the article presents a comprehensive table that identifies key elements of this interaction across different periods spanning a century of Turkey’s history. By elucidating the criteria that have influenced the peasantry’s development as a social class and its definition within the broader societal framework over this extensive period, provoking new inquiries into the peasantry’s enduring role as a dynamic force in contemporary Turkish society is anticipated.

Anayasa Yapım Sürecinde Muhalefet Olgusunun Meclis Tutanakları Üzerinden Değerlendirilmesi: 1921, 1924 ve 1961 Anayasaları Örneği

Constitutions are texts that regulate the organs of the state, their functioning and the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals vis-à-vis the state. Both these texts themselves and their drafting processes are of particular importance. Especially in constitution-making processes where citizens are indirectly involved in the process through their representatives, the existence and impact of the opposition phenomenon shows the democratic quality of the constitution. In this context, this study aims to examine the phenomenon of opposition in the Turkish constitution-making processes in the 1921 and later periods through parliamentary minutes. According to the results of the analysis conducted from a qualitative perspective with an interpretivist approach, it is determined that there was a functioning and qualified opposition phenomenon in the 1921 and 1924 constitution-making processes, while this determination is controversial in the 1961 constitution-making process. Key Words: Constitution making, political opposition, parliamentary debates.

Seeking Consensus on Confusing and Contentious Issues: Young Norwegians’ Experiences of Environmental Debates

ABSTRACT In this paper, I examine how young people in Norway, an affluent nation in the global north with long traditions of acknowledging the young as citizens, articulate and negotiate agency and norms for practicing environmental citizenship. Combining focus groups and qualitative surveys, I explore how Norwegian youth experience and engage with public environmental debates. Results show that many perceive environmental issues, particularly climate change, as post-political issues beyond rhetorical contestation and debate. Moreover, expectations that environmental challenges are best solved through consensus-oriented debate and cooperation lead many to dismiss political opposition and activism as irrational and destructive forms of civic engagement. Consequently, while harboring doubts about the efficacy of their individual actions in driving change, they tend to restrict their agency to personal responsibilities aimed at advancing sustainability.

Evaluation of the “Street and Abroad” Strategy Implemented by Political Opposition in Poland under the Rule of Law and Justice

After the 2015 parliamentary elections in Poland, the parties that moved to the opposition declared themselves the “total opposition” and adopted the “Street and Abroad” strategy, the aim of which was to organize anti-government protests in the country and to use foreign fora, including above all EU mechanisms, to fight the new right-wing government, criticize its actions and eventually remove it from power. The paper aims to assess the effectiveness of the strategy adopted by the Polish opposition after seven years of right-wing rule. The subject of particular interest is, on the one hand, the evaluation of the “Street” strategy on the example of mass protests concerning courts, abortion, and the media. On the other hand, the “Abroad” strategy was analyzed through the impact of the European Parliament’s resolution on social mobilization, electoral preferences, and the level of support for the ruling party. For this purpose, the leading indicators of support for opposition parties published by opinion polling centers were used in the examples analyzed.

MOVIMENTOS REACIONÁRIOS À TEORIA FREIREANA: UM ESTUDO A PARTIR DA ANÁLISE DE PROJETOS DE LEI PROPOSTOS ENTRE 2015 E 2020

Education, Paulo Freire, one of the greatest thinkers in global pedagogy, to be viewed unfavorably by a significant portion of Brazilians. It is necessary, then, to comprehend how reactionary movements are currently forming and how they influence the attack on Freirean thinking. We analyze the intersections between reactionary movements, Paulo Freire, and the "Escola Sem Partido" (School Without Party) movement, which gained significant prominence in 2015 when its first bill was proposed in the National Congress. In the analysis of the bills that deal with the removal of Paulo Freire as the patron of Brazilian education, we observe the repeated use of the argument that Freire is to blame for the low quality of Brazilian education. Additionally, there is a production of discourse asserting that Freire is a left-wing indoctrinator who uses his theory to propagate his political views, as well as claims that he encourages disorder and insubordination. In this way, the attacks against Freire fall within a political opposition, in which these conservative and neo-fascist movements serve neoliberalism and seek to limit the content taught in Brazilian schools, using Freire as a starting point to undermine his work and the model of critical and progressive education that he represents.

SELECTED INSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL ARRANGEMENTS REGARDING THE PROTECTION OF STATES AGAINST RADICALISM AND EXTREMISM. THE CASE OF FRANCE, GERMANY AND THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

The countries that have experienced the phenomenon of terrorism have established appropriate institutional and legal systems to counteract this threat. France, Germany and the Russian Federation all have a history of terrorist attacks on their territory. Each of these countries has proper legal and institutional arrangements. Democratic states use these tools to protect democratic values, while the Russian Federation also uses them to suppress political opposition and as a part of a larger system of armed struggle against Ukraine. Regardless of the political regime, each country has a ‘self-defence’ structure which ensures the stability of the system.

How to Stop India's Authoritatarian Slide

Abstract: Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014, the India's democracy has flagged. Modi's government has been squeezing civic space, attacking the press, political opponents, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and stoking ethnic tensions. The state has also used an array of laws to harass critics of the regime. Yet there is still a chance that the power of the vote will lead to a democratic revival. A regime is most vulnerable at an intermediate level of repression: where the state is undermining the rule of law to an extent that is significantly harmful to the political opposition and civil society, but the electoral door to democratic revival has not yet closed completely. This is precisely where India is today. The most promising avenue of democratic resistance is at the subnational level.

The Punisher's Dilemma: Domestic Opposition and Foreign Policy Crises

Abstract Existing work on the democratic accountability of foreign policy suggests that when an incumbent incurs foreign policy losses, including but not limited to standing down in a crisis, making costly compromises, or accepting defeat abroad, opposition politicians at home weigh criticizing the government with the national interest. But this work has largely been developed with a view to explaining oppositional behavior in consolidated democracies. I argue that while electorally competitive oppositions in weakly institutionalized regimes can and frequently do criticize elected incumbents for costly foreign policy reversals, they are less likely to do so if they believe this criticism may negatively affect democratic stability and potentially invite irregular leadership turnover, as this would prevent the opposition from coming into office. I find support for this hypothesis, which I term oppositional pragmatism, in a survey experiment on 430 political party workers affiliated with Pakistan's biggest political party and directionally consistent effects on a smaller but highly elite sample of 202 Pakistani legislators.

Who should Issue a Permit for the Memorial? Administrative Law as a Platform for the Conflict over the Construction of the Monument to the Victims of the Smoleńsk Tragedy in Warsaw

Circles associated with the ruling Law and Justice party decided to build a monument to the victims of the crash of a Polish government airplane in Smoleńsk on April 10, 2010 in Piłsudski Square in Warsaw. However, the authorities of that city, associated with the political opposition, were not positive about the project. Government bodies instrumentally used (and even abused) existing institutions of administrative law to build the monument despite the opposition of the local self-government. First, control over Piłsudski Square was taken away from the city authorities. Then the square was declared a closed area of military importance so that the city authorities could not make it difficult to obtain permission to build the monument. Finally, the Polish parliament created special legislation to make it more difficult to remove the monument in the future.

POLITICAL OPPOSITION IN ARMENIA: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS FOR DEVELOPMENT / ԸՆԴԴԻՄՈՒԹՅԱՆՆ ՈՒՂՂՎԱԾ ՄԱՐՏԱՀՐԱՎԵՐՆԵՐԸ ԵՎ ԶԱՐԳԱՑՄԱՆ ՀԵՌԱՆԿԱՐՆԵՐԸ ՀՀ-ՈՒՄ

Political opposition plays a key role in the formation and development of a democratic political system. It so happened that the activities of the political opposition in Armenia are constantly assessed as failed especially over the past five years, especially in the last five years, the existence of constructive opposition, and therefore the existence of a constructive opposition, as well as its proposals for a clear and alternative policy have become more relevant. In such a situation, the freedom of speech for all groups of society, the right to freely express their own interests and views on key issues of social development, becomes urgent. Consequently, the imperative of our times is to amend Article 95 of the RA Election Code, which states the distribution of mandates using D'Hondt method. The aim of the proposed change is to eliminate the concept of an absolute majority, which in the countries with a parliamentary system of governance devalues the main principle of the functioning of such a system, namely the parliamentary consensus. The main goal of the presented article is to identify the characteristics of models of interaction between the authorities and the opposition and their manifestations in Armenia, for which the following objectives were set: • identify the place and role of the opposition in the political system of society, • present the patterns of opposition activity within the framework of a multi-party system in Armenia. The study is based on several methodological approaches, in particular structural, functional and comparative methods.

The Fight Against Corruption in Romania: Struggles to Adhere to the Rule of Law and the (De) Legitimization of the ACA.

Romania’s desire to establish an efficient anti-corruption agency (ACA) dates back to its zeal for European Union (EU) membership. The former Prime Minister of Romania, Adrian Năstase (Social Democratic Party), played an important role in establishing the anti-corruption agency (ACA), specifically in the context of the country’s EU accession. In a comprehensive sense, Romania’s legislative and administrative framework for fighting corruption is well established. In this thesis, we will look at the actors involved in delegitimizing the ACA’s success, primarily the political opposition and the media, as well as the actors who have helped legitimize the ACA’s efficacy. Furthermore, the political divisiveness between the political opposition and the ACA has caused multi-level conflict within the Romanian government and will provide us with answers to a variety of questions concerning the delegitimization and legitimization of the ACA. Has the political opposition played a role in the negative impacts of the ACA by tarnishing the National Anticorruption Directorate’s (DNA) credibility? Does the political opposition foment limiting the role of effectiveness in the ACA by raising doubts about the agency’s political motivations?

Institutionalization of Hate Speech as a Daily Media Practice: The Case of “Wiadomości” TVP1

ABSTRACT In the article, I discuss how hate speech becomes institutionalized in the media discourse thanks to the news media and how it is included in the media practice by public television in Poland. Hate speech is based on expressive, conflict-prone, and black-and-white schemes, employing language characterized by emotions, negative stigmatization, and simplifications. As a case study, I analyze the “Wiadomości” (“News”) daily program on Polish public TV. Over eight years “Wiadomości” has become a broadcast presenting ideological political positions, favoring the party in power, being the primary means for propaganda, as hate speech aimed at opposition parties and their leaders has become customary content in broadcasts. It takes various forms, including the biased selection of content in programs, the structure of information, information strips, and comments of speakers and reporters presenting content. According to the media law in Poland, a public broadcaster has to be an impartial informant while performing its mission. However, TVP became a “hate speech factory” aimed towards political opposition. Using democratic principles, the ruling party made public media publish the content following the political program of the rulers, thus institutionalizing the undemocratic practices.

Electric vehicles for climate, a green economy, or independence? Comparing policy discourse in newspapers across three Canadian provinces

In efforts to increase the uptake of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), many regions rely on demand-focused policies such as purchase incentives. Fewer regions also implement strong supply-focused policies such as a zero-emissions vehicle (ZEV) sales mandate. We explore policy discourse regarding implementation of different PEV policies, using as case studies the Canadian provinces of British Columbia (BC), Ontario, and Québec—the latter of which was the first to implement a ZEV mandate. Using a selection of 984 newspaper articles printed in 2008–2018, we analyze statements from governments, industry, and other actors about PEV technology and policy via content and discourse analysis. In all case studies, provincial governments framed PEVs as mixed private-public goods, and framed PEV policy as needed to achieve climate goals, while improving the functional limitations such as price and performance. Otherwise, policy discourses differed widely. BC's discourse included broad support for purchase incentives, while Ontario's discourse was mired in political controversy regarding the economic impacts of all climate policies. Québec was the only case study that demonstrated open support for supply-focused PEV policy by government and advocacy groups, namely the ZEV mandate. The government-led storyline uniquely emphasized two societal goals in the province: climate mitigation and economic independence. Across cases, the successful implementation of PEV policy is associated with storylines that emphasize high priority societal issues, along with an absence of convincing political or industrial opposition. This policy discourse approach can shed light on why policymakers in different regions gravitate towards different policy approaches.

ТРАНСФОРМАЦІЯ РАДЯНСЬКОГО НАРАТИВУ ЗАПЕРЕЧЕННЯ ГОЛОДОМОРУ НА РУБЕЖІ 1980-X – 1990-X PP.

In the latter half of the 1980s, the communist regime in Moscow found itself compelled to revise its propaganda narrative concerning the denial of the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. This necessitated a deep examination of the famine of 1932-1933 on an international scale, taking into account the activities of various political opposition groups such as the Ukrainska Helsynska Groupa, Narodnyj Ruch Ukrainy, and Spilka Nezalerznoji Ukrainskoji Molody, which had emerged in Ukraine during 1988-1989. In response to these developments, the Soviet leadership opted to construct a new official perspective on the events that unfolded in the early 1930s in Soviet Ukraine. Under these transformed circumstances, it became untenable for Soviet authorities to continue disregarding or refuting the factual occurrence of the 1932-1933 famine. Consequently, the Soviet leadership acknowledged that a famine had indeed transpired in Ukraine at the outset of the 1930s. However, the communist regime sought to explain this famine as an outcome of an unfortunate convergence of various objective and subjective factors, a "deviation from the Leninist principles of cooperative policy," and as a distortion of true socialism. While conceding that Joseph Stalin, who wielded dictatorial authority over the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953, had made errors during the transition from the 1920s to the 1930s, the Communist Party of the USSR continued to dispute the notion of malicious intent in his decision-making. This revision in the official narrative marked a significant shift in the historical perspective on the Holodomor, reflecting the changing political landscape and the increasing awareness of the famine's reality, while retaining a commitment to maintaining the legitimacy of the communist regime in the USSR.

Verbal Means Expressing a Negative Assessment Used to Create a Negative Image of J. Biden in the US Oppositional Political Discourse

The article is devoted to the study of verbal means expressing a negative assessment used to create a negative image of J. Biden in the US oppositional political discourse. The definition of assessment and assessment act is given, its structure is
 determined. The main signs and features of the oppositional political discourse are described. The evaluative structures of the negative assessment type used by the leading US opposition journalists M. Kelly and T. Carlson are analyzed. In the course of
 the analysis, it was found out that a negative assessment in the oppositional political discourse is expressed by multi-level linguistic means, which are either accurately
 explicated in the language or contextually conditioned, that is, they are rendered mainly connotatively. With the help of these means, one of the main strategies of the oppositional political discourse is implemented - the strategy of downgrading, that
 is, the creation of an anti-image of a political figure. The speech tactics that ensure the success of the implementation of this strategy include the tactics of negative analysis, accusations, denunciations, discrediting, mockery, and others. The explicit
 means creating a negative assessment include the use of expressive vocabulary with a pronounced seme of a negative assessment, the use of amplifying discursive elements (expressives), the use of morphemes, lexemes and syntactic structures with negative semantics, the use of various invective verbal means. Implicit means, where a negative assessment is generated under the influence of the context, include the use of expressive syntax (interrogative and exclamatory sentences, short sentences, sentences built on the principle of antithesis), the use of metaphors, including extended ones, irony and sarcasm, lexical units subjected to pejoratization in a certain context, depersonification (reverse personification). The combination of these verbal means enhances the illocutionary and perlocutionary effects and leads to the creation of an anti-image of a political figure, which is one of the main goals of the oppositional political discourse.

The american factor in the activities of the modern syrian political opposition

The difficult situation in Syria creates conditions for maintaining the activity of the political opposition, whose activities are considered in the context of its coordination by the leading states (Russia, the United States, Turkey and Qatar), ensuring their own national interests. As the participants of the Syrian political process come to a compromise, the opposition forces under their control will reduce their activity and political influence. Washington's national interests preclude reaching agreements with other interested states, primarily on the issue of the political status of territories uncontrolled by Damascus. It is predicted that with the loss of the protectorate of the patron states, the current main Syrian opposition movements will direct the vector of cooperation towards the United States or cease to exist.

“Servants not Soldiers”: The Origins of Slavery in the United States Army, 1797–1816

Abstract: This article illuminates a lesser-explored aspect of the United States as a “slaveholding republic.” Between 1816–1861, the U.S. Army relied on thousands of enslaved persons who served as officers' servants. In 1816, Congress authorized allowances, rations, and bonuses for officers' private servants while putting an end to the practice of soldiers serving as servants. This legislative move effectively subsidized and incentivized military slaveholding. The paper delves into the political circumstances and legislative maneuvers that led Congress to institutionalize military slavery, establishing mechanisms to sustain, fund, and expand the number of enslaved servants. Military slavery developed gradually with the foundation, bureaucratization, and professionalization of an American military peace establishment. It evolved from 1797 to 1816 through competing policy objectives, resulting in a long-lasting bureaucratic workaround euphemistically termed "servants not soldiers." Facing public criticism over officers’ abuse of soldiers’ labor, the army “outsourced” officers’ servants through a dual process of privatization and racialization, differentiating between “public” and “private” service, between free, white soldiers and enslaved, black servants. Though serving slaveholders’ interests, the adopted solution was a product of bureaucratic contingencies and ad-hoc decision-making and not a policy orchestrated by a cabal of enslavers. Interestingly, a basic question of reimbursement led somewhere unanticipated, ending in government-sponsored enslaved servitude. Acknowledging this contingency does not excuse the actions but underscores how slavery was often "solved" through institutional accommodation rather than political or moral opposition. Thus, slavery directly impacted the U.S. Army, a central national institution, altering the military system at its pivotal, formative moments.

India’s Democracy: The Competitive Authoritarian Propensity? Rahul Mukherji and Seyed Hossein Zarhani

This paper explains and corroborates the mechanisms by which civic and political spaces opposed to Hindu nationalism have been attacked, especially after the arrival of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in 2014. Three mechanisms are discerned for replacing pluralistic values with Hindu majoritarian ones. Sometimes institutions are just allowed to drift by interpreting old rules in new ways. For example, no formal rules for media control have changed but the government???s control over media has increased substantially. At other times, incremental legal and policy changes are executed to make the change explicit, often building on a new moral purpose. To give another example, the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) was amended and weaponized against NGOs in a layered way in 2020. Finally, when political opposition is weak, institutions that have provided guarantees for protecting diversity have simply been displaced by new and radically different ones. This was the case with abrogating Article 370, which converted the special status of the subnational state of Jammu and Kashmir to the status of two federally administered union territories–Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. These mechanisms place India in a competitive authoritarian frame, where those in power deploy electoral majorities to systematically attack the political opposition, making it more di(cult for it to rise. Despite these propensities, opposition parties have won elections in some of India’s subnational states. The challenges facing the world’s most populous democracy are significant, even though competitive elements co-exist. These elements in a competitive authoritarian regime, however, are under severe stress. India’s democratic credentials can be revived only if the competitive elements of India’s democracy stand united against ethno-nationalist Hindu majoritarianism.

The phenomenon of the Z-Telegram in the coverage of events in Ukraine

The purpose of the study is to identify and describe the phenomenon of Z-Telegram channels against the background of the general state of the information field with the theme of a special military operation. The subject of the study is the image of a politician or authority formed by Z-channels. The authors focus on the concept of Z-channels, the features of their content, as well as the factors of the appearance of these channels. The key features of the Z-channels were the concentration on combat operations, the assessment of the politician through the prism of combat operations and criticism of the command and authorities. The differences between Z-channels and traditional media are studied in detail. The prospects for the formation of political communities based on Z-channels are considered. The article analyzes the reasons for the popularity of Z-channels and their role in covering a special military operation. The article examines the influence of the personality of the author of the channel on the attitude towards the key actors of the special military operation. Special attention is paid to the differences in the subject of the channels. The method used was the method of content analysis of the collected material, which includes posts in these most famous Z-channels during the winter of 2022-2023. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the study of the phenomenon of Z-channels in the Telegram as an alternative to traditional media, as well as the consideration of Z-channels as a prototype for the formation of a new type of political opposition to the current political system. The results of the study, presented as conclusions, showed that Z-channels can form a common agenda independently of each other, while having similar views. So, all channels broadcast a negative image to the official representatives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, and at the same time broadcast a moderately positive image to Prigozhin. This allows us to conclude that for a number of reasons discussed in the study, Z-channels on the Telegram social network can form and broadcast their own agenda, including one that differs from the official one, and also have a very large audience.