Balance Of Political Power Research Articles

Bringing technology into the balance of power politics: ‘network balancing’ between the United States and China

As the world became increasingly interconnected in the post-Cold War era, the concept of security within the IR field has been extended to include non-military aspects such as economic, demographic and environmental aspects. Yet, the technological aspect has not received much attention within the field until recently. While the importance of technologies has been recognised for their impact on the contours of world politics in existing studies, their conceptualisation within the discipline has remained quite limited; they have been mostly taken as a black-boxed exogenous factor rather than something integral to how international politics are carried out. The lack of clear conceptual and analytical frameworks makes it difficult to incorporate technology as a core component of international relations discussions. Hence, as an attempt to complement the existing IR scholarship by bringing technology into the core discussion of the field, this article investigates the link between network technology and the balancing strategies of great powers by introducing a new analytical framework called the ‘network balancing’ model. The model is then applied to the case of ongoing US-China rivalry over information and communications technologies.

How expected party affiliation influences attitudes toward immigrants? Experimental evidence from the United States

AbstractWhat explains natives' attitudes towards immigrants in host countries? This paper argues that not only economic and cultural but also political threat perceptions influence attitude formation. Natives consider the political balance of power and calculate the potential political benefits of admitting immigrants. This is because expected in‐party members will affect the balance of power in their favour. Leveraging a conjoint experiment in the United States, this study explores whether an immigrant's expected party affiliation shapes native attitudes. The findings indicate that immigrants with defined party affiliations are favoured compared to non‐affiliated ones. Moreover, respondents favoured immigrants perceived as political allies and penalized those seen as rivals. Expected party affiliation is even a strong predictor of attitudes for natives with existing anti‐immigrant attitudes as they curbed their negativities and favoured certain party identities. Overall, results suggest the pivotal role of political considerations as well as the importance of studying unexplored factors in attitude formation on immigration.

Polityczne konsekwencje niedostosowania liczby mandatów w okręgach wyborczych do zmian demograficznych w wyborach do Sejmu RP w 2023 r.

The subject of analysis in this article is the allocation of mandates among electoral districts in the elections to the Sejm of the Republic of Poland 2023 and its political consequences. According to the principle of electoral equality in material aspect, the number of voters per mandate in individual electoral districts should be the same or as close as possible. The National Electoral Commission has pointed out that the current division into electoral districts specified in the annexes to the Electoral Code violates this principle. Shifting mandates between electoral districts would alter the balance of political power in the parliament.

History and Taxation. The Dialectic Relationship between Taxation and the Political Balance of Power, red. P. Essers, „IBFD EATLP International Tax Series”, vol. 20, Amsterdam, ss. 769

History and Taxation. The Dialectic Relationship between Taxation and the Political Balance of Power, red. P. Essers, „IBFD EATLP International Tax Series”, vol. 20, Amsterdam, ss. 769

Faroese self-government: development over time and effects of critical junctures

ABSTRACT The Faroe Islands is receiving increased international attention due to the political changes in the Arctic region. This is causing challenges for the Home Rule model and the Danish Realm. The Faroe Islands have previous experiences with critical junctures that have led to change in self-government settings. Based on historical institutionalism, this article conducts a comparative case study of two previous critical juncture events and time-periods for the Faroe Islands. The first is the Second World War followed by the implementation of the new Home Rule model in 1948, and the second is the severe economic crisis in the 1990s followed by path dependency institutional adaptations to the Home Rule model in 2005. The investigation resembles a different-outcomes comparison and focuses on identifying the contextual political factors of importance and how these factors varied for the two cases. The findings show shifts in the within-case political power balance in opposite directions, changes in the policy space, differences in the Danish state´s position and third-party actor roles as well as differences in terms of international salience of national self-determination norms.

From Constructive Ambiguities to Structural Contradictions: The Twilight of the Good Friday Agreement?

The Good Friday Agreement contained a series of constructive ambiguities which were critical to ensuring that it received broad cross-political support. These ambiguities were reflective of the balance of political power of the time. Once institutionalized, they contained an immanent potential to morph in to structural contradictions as the re-balancing of demographic and political power in Ireland moved from latent to manifest status. As the Agreement reaches its 25th anniversary, three outstanding structural contradictions are manifesting, prompted by Brexit and the re-introduction of the ‘Irish question’ in to Irish-British relations. The constitutional status of the North of Ireland, the raison d’etre of statelet, and the inability of the governing institutions to function representationally or effectively have co-joined with a new balance of political power favoring Irish nationalism over Ulster unionism. Consequently, whether or not we are witnessing the twilight of the Good Friday Agreement will be contingent upon the short-medium term political decisions of key political actors, most notably, Ulster unionism. Three probable future developments will be further stasis, institutional reform, or (r)evolutionary constitutional change.

Space and the US–Japan alliance: reflections on Japan's geopolitical and geoeconomic strategy

AbstractJapan, and its alliance with the USA, is central to the unfolding politics of the new space race. This essay draws attention to the ways the Japanese state has positioned its geopolitical and geoeconomic interests related to space in the context of the US–Japan alliance. It probes the material and ideational elements that are driving the Japanese state to closer alignment with its formal ally in the military, civilian, and commercial space domains. But while all these realities bode well for alliance collaboration, there are reasons to be cautious. While the Japanese state has proactively aligned its space policy and postures with the USA, it is not forever caught in the US orbit. Given the uncertain fate of US domestic politics that bears on great power competition, Japan is also prudently positioning for how the status of its ally may evolve. This is what complicates straightforward projections about alliance cooperation and balance of power politics in the unfolding international space order.

Analysis of Spain’s experience in the organization agricultural production insurance

Food security issues in Russia are becoming a priority in the context of an increase in the level of influence of climate risks on all aspects of the economic and social life of society, as well as changes in the political balance of power. The development of agricultural production requires the use of modern technologies and state support for the agricultural entrepreneur in the conditions of the predominance of risky farming zones, which is typical for the territory of the Russian Federation. Insurance is one of the important tools for ensuring the stability, continuity and payback of agricultural production, which has been used for a long time and effectively in many developed countries.The subject of research in this article is the analysis, generalization and evaluation of the experience of building an agricultural risk insurance system in the EU countries. The object of the study is the territory of Spain, as the country that has achieved the greatest success in using the insurance tool, one of the effective methods of managing agricultural risks. The results of the study are to identify the advantages of the system of organization and interaction of participants in the insurance protection of an agricultural entrepreneur in Spain, which can be adapted for use in Russia.

What made primary English education in Japan different from the global trend? A policy process analysis

This paper aims to examine the policy process of implementing English education in primary schools in Japan, focusing on two reforms: (1) the introduction of a mandatory subject in 2011, emphasising cross-cultural experiences (rather than English skill development) and (2) the introduction of English as a formal subject in 2020. The paper investigates the underlying reasons for these policy changes through the two policy-process theories: windows-of-opportunity theory and historical institutionalism. Analysis of governmental documents revealed that (1) the 2011 reform can be considered a consequence of the path dependence effect accelerated by a peculiar reform in the 1990s, and (2) the 2020 reform can be attributed to a change in the political power balance within the government, originating from the late 1980s. These findings indicate that even some globally orientated policies like English education reform can be determined by historical/political conditions that are largely characterised as domestic, rather than global.

400 million voting records show profound racial and geographic disparities in voter turnout in the United States.

One of the core tenets of a well-functioning representative democracy is that the people who vote to elect government officials are representative of the public. Here we reinforce the idea that reality is far from this lofty ideal. We document the extent and nature of inequities in voter participation in the United States with a level of granularity and precision that previous research has not afforded. To do so, we use a unique nationwide dataset of approximately 400 million validated voting records across multiple election cycles. With this novel dataset, we document large and persistent gaps in voter turnout by race, age, and political affiliation. Minority citizens, young people, and those who support the Democratic Party are much less likely to vote than whites, older citizens, and Republican Party supporters. Minorities, youth, and democrats are also much more likely to live in local communities where fewer individuals vote—areas that we term turnout deserts. Turnout deserts are especially pernicious given that they are self-reinforcing—bolstered by the social dynamics that fundamentally shape citizens’ voting patterns. Our results show just how glaring inequities in political participation are in the US. These patterns threaten the very fabric of our democracy and fundamentally shift the balance of political power in the halls of government towards the interests of whites, older citizens, and republicans. They illustrate that participation in the United States is strikingly unequal—far from the ideals that this country has long aspired to.

Ministering to the Middle: Christian Megachurches and Minoritarian Politics in Southeast Asia

AbstractChristian megachurches have been growing in members, organization, and financial resources in the large cities of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines and in Singapore. However, they remain as religious minorities facing an asymmetrical balance of political power due to the Islamization of politics, strong state secularism, or the close entanglement of the political elites with majority Catholicism. We propose a framework of minoritarian politics to understand the actions adopted by the churches to defend and advance their interests. While the scholarship on religion and politics tends to focus on churches' direct engagement with political elites and the mobilization of grassroots movements, we argue that the megachurches prefer to minister to the middle by forging outreach networks to accumulate social capital with a broad range of intermediaries. This is not just due to theological conservatism, but also because ministering to the middle has been the effective strategy given the political circumstances.

On the polito-linguistic analysis of a text

The article presents theoretical questions of political linguistics, their role and their importance in the development of modern linguistics. After the theoretical introduction, the determination and function of a political text type, namely the New Year's speech, are examined. In 2021, the balance of political power changed in Germany. Due to this fact, a new coalition formed the federal government. After 16 years, Olaf Scholz (SPD) took over the Federal Chancellery. The New Year's speech is dedicated to current issues and, to a certain extent, combines various events over time. Accordingly, the focus of research attention is Olaf Scholz's New Year's speech, which is analyzed using quantitative and qualitative research methods. It is worth noting that in the digital age, the need for multimodal text analytics is increasing. This article tries to take current linguistic trends into account.

Hegemonic stability in the Indo-Pacific: US-India relations and induced balancing

The United States has improved relations with no other country during the Trump administration as much as it advanced its relationship with India. US-India relations have arguably marked their historical high points since Trump entered office and India seems to be overcoming its suspicion of closer cooperation with the US. Given these developments, this article aims to theorize the relationship through the hegemonic stability theory and explain US strategy toward India. We first demonstrate why India is accepting the hegemonic standing of the US in the Indo-Pacific and then – since balance of power politics are still a staple of policymakers’ approach to stability in the Indo-Pacific – we introduce the notion of induced balancing to show what approach the United States has adopted to empower India to expand its balancing capacity vis-à-vis China. The last section of the article empirically maps the various incentives that Washington offers to New Delhi in order to situate it in the desired position of a proxy China-balancer.

Judas Iscariot: Between Betrayer and Betrayed: On Igal Mossinsohn’s Novel, Judas

This article attempts to explore the role of betrayer and betrayal as a literary, political, and critical position in Israeli author Yigal Mossinsohn's (1917–94) novel Judas (1962). Mossinsohn situates Judas Iscariot at the heart of the Jewish national project and presents him not as a betrayer but as an obedient man ordered by his commander to turn Jesus in as a means of changing the balance of political power in occupied Canaan. The presentation of the Christian betrayal narrative in the framework of a plot revolving around political intrigue associated with the aspiration for autonomous Jewish sovereignty enables a reading of Mossinsohn's novel as an exploration of the meanings and ramifications of betrayal against the context of the Israeli political and ideological reality in which it was written. Mossinsohn's novel fosters an unresolvable tension between the desire to present an active and effective model of political betrayal and its failure—the failure to burrow an escape route out of what this article refers to as "the Israeli industry of saints." This industry renders betrayal an inherent part of a prescribed Zionist redemption narrative. In the novel, the failure of betrayal is rooted in the fact that it does not have a world-changing effect and does not constitute a point of departure for the imagining of alternative forms of political and social relations. Therefore, what may seem in Mossinsohn's novel to be a necessary position of betrayal, which harshly criticizes the political underpinnings of Israeli sovereignty, is eventually replaced by a less treacherous impasse into which the betrayer is sucked against his will.

From a hard nuclear state towards a soft nuclear repository state – participation, co-designing, learning and reversibility in the site selection process for a nuclear waste repository

Abstract. Since 2013 the site search for a repository for highly radioactive waste has been taking place in Germany within the framework of a new governance architecture and under new political guidelines. Based on experiences with nuclear politics in the past, Jungk (1977) coined the term hard nuclear state, characterized by decisions made in a top-down manner. The Decide-Announce-Defend (DAD) strategy, which branded the nuclear state at that time, led to conflicts, mistrust of authorities and blockages. In particular, massive resistance developed against the planned final repository site at Gorleben. Nowadays, after more than 60 years deploying nuclear energy, the (energy) political balance of power has fundamentally changed. Parts of the anti-nuclear movement have been integrated into the political party system and have contributed significantly to the nuclear phase-out. In the course of this, the unfinished task of final disposal has been readdressed: with the Repository Site Selection Act (StandAG, 2017), which was passed in 2013 and amended in 2017, an ongoing process of public participation is stated. The site selection process is required to be learning, self-questioning, science-based, reversible, and participatory. The StandAG § 5 not only provides a basis for a fundamental dialogue between the regulator, the operator, and the public, but also for „co-design“ by common citizens. The StandAG considers various elements from different participation-friendly theories of democracy as well as specific governance concepts, which we refer to collectively as the soft nuclear repository state (cf. Brunnengräber, 2021). Its characteristics need to be worked out, as the StandAG only provides some indications, but no criteria, for what good and sufficient participation in the site selection process means and what its conditions for success should be. Based on preliminary considerations on democratic theory and governance aspects (part 1), we present what good participation could mean in the current procedure and what the framework conditions for good participation could be (part 2). Additionally, we present main findings from participatory observations from the ongoing site search process and identify conditions and indications of a successful future participation process based on the ongoing process (part 3). In the résumé, we turn to the question of which of the democracy-theoretical elements of the soft repository state are already recognizable in the present procedure, but also whether the current procedure provides additional indications towards the soft nuclear repository state (part 4).

Political history of Spain (2016–2020): overcoming the crisis

In this article the author analyses the development of political process in Spain between the two crises of 2015–2016 and 2019–2020, highlighting the strong suits and problem issues of the domestic political debate, including the Catalan issue, as well as the problem related to the migration aspect. An overview of the evolution of the country’s foreign policy agenda is presented, including the foreign policy course towards the Russian Federation. The author analyzes political and economic aspects after the general parliamentary elections of June 26, 2016, which resulted in overcoming the governmental crisis that began in Spain in December 2015 and establishing Mariano Rajoy the head of the Popular Party (PP) government. The latest cabinet of the PP government was approved in November 2016. Rajoy himself had been serving as a Prime Minister of Spain from December 2011 to June 2018. Soon, a new stage in the political history of the Spanish state began, which was associated with the rise to power of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) led by Pedro Sánchez since 2018. PSOE thus won the parliamentary elections in Spain on April 28, 2019. The next elections in 2019 were held on November 10 and turned out to be much more complex and unpredictable than the previous one. PSOE stroke a similar political balance of power to that of April. Confirmation of Pedro Sánchez as a Prime Minister of Spain in January 2020 ended a protracted political crisis in the country, when the Spanish government had been in an acting status for some eight months.

Financial institution IPOs and regulatory environments

We examine underpricing and long term performance of financial institution IPOs around major regulatory changes and during the balance of political power in the United States. We find higher underpricing and lower long term performance post Riegle-Neal Interstate banking, Financial Services Modernization, and Dodd-Frank Acts, supporting the Regulatory Burden hypothesis that investors account for incremental regulation-related costs in their investment decisions. We document less underpricing and better long-term performance during the Democratic balance of power, but more underpricing and lower long-term performance during the Republican balance of power. This study provides important insights for investors, financial institutions, and regulators.

When the Big House Freaked Out: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Brazil in a Single Lifetime

When the Big House Freaked Out: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Brazil in a Single Lifetime

Latin America and the Caribbean within the new world order: a perspective from Cuba

In examining Cuba’s positioning in Latin America and the Caribbean and in the world at large, the author identifies several relevant factors, including the US foreign policy, the Venezuela issue, as well as the balance of political power in the region and Cuba’s domestic policy. In view of this, it is also worth considering global trends that are projected onto regional dynamics. The configuration of integration entities in South America is of importance in this context: the realities are such that the political orientation of these entities, as well as the foreign policy aspirations of the key players, predetermine the participation prospects for specific countries in the region. Amid the present Sino-American disagreements, the political strivings of the Latin American leaders in the wake of the United States limits the opportunities that the cooperation with China offers to the region. As for Cuba, it is becoming involved into the regional disposition, mainly through diplomatic, economic, cultural and migration channels, but also through political dialogue and cooperation in specific areas. For instance, health care is considered a promising area, although the US has attempted to block Cuban ambitions in this regard. The current political balance of power, exacerbated by the decisions of the Trump administration, has not provided a favourable scenario for Cuba. Nevertheless, such circumstances serve as a test of the ability of the Cuban national diplomacy to maintain the delicate balance of such components as defending national sovereignty, supporting the closest allies and maintaining diplomatic and economic relations with the governments in the region, in the face of a crisis and weakening regional integration mechanisms that are a priority for Cuba.

India’s Other Religious Freedom Problems

There is no doubt that India is far from perfect when it comes to religious freedom. Indeed, India’s religious freedom problems have become an increasing focus of scholarly and policy attention. However, almost all of this attention is directed at one particular subset of religious freedom problems—i.e., restrictions imposed on the religious freedom of India’s minority communities, and particularly Muslims and Christians. Meanwhile, serious religious freedom challenges experienced by members of India’s Hindu majority population tend to be ignored. In this article: (1) I first describe the religious freedom situation in India as a complex terrain that requires a multi-dimensional mapping. (2) I then survey existing, influential studies of the religious freedom situation in India and identify their tendency to generate flat, one-dimensional mappings, and their consequent failure to analyze restrictions on the religious freedom of India’s Hindus, including both Hindu individuals and institutions. (3) I briefly analyze India’s regime of “Hindu Erastianism”—i.e., its extensive system of state regulation and control of Hindu institutions—and suggest how and why this regime amounts to a direct attack on core features of institutional religious freedom. (4) I conclude by briefly suggesting that the whole range of India’s religious freedom problems—including its “other”, less discussed problems—can be traced to a longstanding and destructive pattern of ideological polarization that owes as much to an uncompromising statist secularism as to Hindu nationalism. The existence of this now deeply ingrained pattern bodes ill for improvements in India’s religious freedom situation in the short term, and suggests that it is the country’s public culture, rather than its political balance of power, that must change if the world’s largest democracy is to enjoy greater religious freedom and tolerance in the future.