Political Profile Research Articles

Learning on the Left: Political Profiles of Brandeis University

Learning on the Left: Political Profiles of Brandeis University

444 pedras da réplica amazônica da “Saint Edward’s Crown” - Project 444 Stones: Arte - Ciência - História - Reflexão Política

Project by authorship and idealization of the paraense doctor Wirley Otávio Oliveira de Barros, which involves art, science, history and political reflection, developed in the city of Belém, capital of the State of Pará, in the middle of the Amazon region, registered in a notary through a Notarial Act. This grandiose work was developed with scientific support Museum of Geosciences of the Amazon (MUGEO) of the Institute of Geosciences (IG) of the Federal University of Pará (UFPA) through Prof. Dr. Marcondes Lima da Costa, with a PhD in Mineralogy and Geochemistry from Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (Friedrich-Alexander), in Germany (1982) and with a post-doctorate in mineralogy-geochemistry from IG-USP (2001); chemist Dr. Suyanne Flávia Rodrigues, with a doctorate in Mineralogy and Geochemistry from the Graduate Program in Geology and Geochemistry (PPGG) at IG / UFPA and MsC. geologist Gisele Tavares Marques, also from PPGG. This project, which will soon be presented to the public, was duly informed to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor (Elizabeth II), of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in addition to Head of Commonwealth Realms and Defender of Faith, as it presents as a prominent item the replica work of “Saint Edward's Crown” or “St. Stephen’s Crown ”, as mentioned in the Royal letter received on February 3, 2016, signed by Miss Jennie Vine (Deputy to the Senior Correspondence Officer for Buckingham Palace), who on this occasion conveys the monarch's personal message. This is the official coronation crown of British monarchs, consisting of 444 stones of distinct mineral gems, which inspired the title attributed to the project. Therefore, it is a replica of a symbol of POWER, whose heraldic meaning of CRUZ DE MALTA and FLOR-DE-LIS guide the conduct and political profile of the ruler. In this regard, the author also addresses a message to the "men of power", made through a personal text of his own.

A proposal to compare urban infrastructure using multi-criteria analysis

The decision-making process in the conservation of urban roads relates disciplines with a social, technical and political profile, in most cases entails a conflict at the time of public spending in urban spaces. The aspiration of the public administrations to promote the different quality standards in urban streets, in the face of ever-smaller budgets, suggests the need to devise new formulas and strategies that allow guiding their efforts towards public spending with perspectives of urban sustainability.This study focuses on the evaluation and diagnosis of urban streets through an integrated multi-criteria model of a sustainable nature. The application of the model allows generating guidelines for priority action in public investment in urban infrastructure.The developed methodology defines two fundamental stages: a novel approach to inspection the urban streets and the determination of the Urban Street Condition Index (USCI) through MIVES (Multi-criterion decision-making).The results shows that the Schimmplfeng Avenue present a significant USCI, when 3 avenues presented adequate values ​​and 6 streets requiring actions in public spending. The results in each of the requirements (urban infrastructure, accessibility and mobility) indicate that urban streets with tourist profile have obtained better indices than commercial or neighborhood streets.

Moral Foundations Theory Explains Differences in Appreciation of Slovenian Media

Due to surprising results in the US elections and the Brexit referendum, media bias and quality have been in the spotlight. It has been suggested that the relation between bias and quality has a shape of an arc with high quality unbiased media at its apex. The questions addressed in this paper are: (1) can this relation between quality and bias be confirmed by empirical data and (2) is there a difference between the understanding of media between liberals (left) and the conservatives (right). In Slovenia, a survey was conducted, and people were asked to estimate country’s media according to its political profile and its quality. The results confirmed the arc-like relation between quality and bias very well. We found little difference among left, right and center respondents in how they ranked the media from left to right. However, we have found substantial differences among the quality ranking of the media. Most interestingly, the liberals established a linear relation between quality and bias – left media was automatically considered higher quality and right-wing media was automatically seen as poorer quality. On the other hand, this was much less present with the conservatives. The conservatives preserved the arc-like relation albeit skewed. One of the explanations could be the Moral Foundations Theory. Because of a lack of a wide moral foundation, the liberals find it harder to appreciate conservative media and simply equate conservative with bad. Because the conservatives’ moral foundations are wider, the understanding “the less media’s bias is like mine, less good it is” is not as pronounced. Further studies in other media environments would be needed to confirm this clam since the Slovenian media space has a few peculiarities.

The stratification of media usage in Finland, 2007–2018: Signs of socio-political polarization?

Over the last 10–15 years, Western societies have faced two interrelated social changes: the digitalization of media and the increase in socio-political polarization. While their relationship is causally reciprocal, population-level empirical studies focusing on over-time change remain scarce. We adopt the temporal perspective on the socio-political stratification of media usage in the context of Finland, one of the so-called Nordic media welfare states. We ask whether the ways in which media usage is socially stratified has changed from 2007 to 2018 and whether there is political polarization of media consumption. We draw on two nationally representative comparative surveys, collected in 2007 ( N = 1388) and 2018 ( N = 1425), and show that the main media usage patterns—the wide, the narrow, and the Internet-focused media repertoires—differ both in terms of their sociodemographic and political profiles and that the opposition between the wide and the narrow repertoires becomes increasingly polarized.

O poder da bíblia: crenças e organização das igrejas evangélicas na política brasileira

Contando com cerca a 50 milhões de fiéis e uma atuação organizada, os evangélicos se tornaram um ator importante na política brasileira, capaz de eleger representantes, organizar partidos, influenciar ou decidir eleições. Engajados politicamente desde os anos oitenta, após forte crescimento das igrejas neopentecostais, os evangélicos não formam, entretanto, um grupo homogêneo e podem agir de forma conjunta ou não de acordo com seus dogmas ou interesses. Este trabalho busca analisar historicamente o perfil de atuação política dos evangélicos no Brasil e o modo como se organizam e atuam mostrando por uma lado como as crenças servem para justificar e legitimar a participação no jogo eleitoral e, por outro, como o pragmatismo político entra nas igrejas permitindo que elas possam agir como partidos.

Politics and the Federal Court of Malaysia, 1960–2018: An Empirical Investigation

AbstractSince its inception in 1957, Malaysia’s Federal Court (FC) has often been embroiled in high-profile decisions that have dramatically shaped the rule of law and constitutional practice in Malaysia. Recent political change has renewed hope that the FC can reassert its early role as an independent and impartial arbiter of political conflict. This paper investigates determinants of the FC’s behaviour since 1960. It draws on a unique data set of 102 major political cases and socio-biographic profiles of the 73 judges who voted in these cases. After describing patterns of court decisions across time and judges, we test specifically for the impact on their decisions of the 1988 judicial crisis, length of time on the bench, the terms of successive prime ministers, and judges’ personal attributes, such as religion and ethnicity. Ethnicity, appointment after 1988, and the appointing prime minister proved to be closely associated with the direction of voting. We then position the results in the context of Malaysia’s evolving constitutional democracy and discuss their implications for students of comparative judicial politics.

Promoting equity through monitoring inequalities in the semi-rural region of Girona

Abstract Problem Girona's region is a semi-rural territory with 750,000 h located in the northeast of Spain. There is no system to monitor health, well-being and health inequalities. This causes a lack of local public health equity policies. Description Design, implementation and results of participatory process, carried out over 6 months, to identify the information and data needs to be monitored locally for social determinants and health inequalities. Process has 4 phases: Selection of technical and political profiles representing coastal and inland, rural and urban municipalities linked to the fields of social determinants of health.Diagnosis: 2.1. Systematic collection of information through: i) Self-administered online questionnaire, sent to 250 policy makers and 580 technicians. ii) 6 focus groups 2.2. Data analysis to prioritize data and information needs.Evaluation and conclusions.Dissemination of results and transfer of knowledge. Results Involve actors in the identification of health information needs and their determinants permit to build a shared model of indicators. Spread the model of social determinants and their effects on health and well-being, increasing awareness of inequalities and health strategy in all policies. Identify the need to adjust some state and international indicators locally to be useful in local proximity policies. Lessons Involving local stakeholders has enabled the Girona's Observatory of Social Determinants of Health and Well-being to respond more efficiently to the information needs of technical and political decision makers. Indicators for monitoring health and inequality at the state and international levels need to be lowered at the local level so that they can be heard in the decision-making process of actors at the local level. Key messages It is necessary to adjust international health indicators to territorial realities in order to adjust local health and wellness policies. Local policies need health and wellness monitoring indicators to guide their policies.

Delivering an enabling environment and multiple benefits for land degradation neutrality: Stakeholder perceptions and progress

Achieving land degradation neutrality (LDN) was adopted by countries in 2015 as one of the targets of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As LDN is a relatively new concept there is an increasing need for evidence on the potential socio-economic and environmental benefits of LDN as well as how an enabling environment for implementing LDN measures can be developed. This paper summarises the results from a global survey of LDN stakeholders, and a review of national progress in target setting that was commissioned by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in 2018. The study presents the perceptions of relevant stakeholders on the key components of an enabling environment for achieving and maintaining LDN (institutional, financial, policy/regulatory, and science-policy) as well as expectations of multiple benefits from its implementation. We also highlight key challenges and gaps in progress to date that are emerging from ongoing national target setting programs to implement LDN. The study finds that progress in implementing LDN has been widespread across countries. However there remains a lack of awareness of LDN and its key concepts along with high-level political buy-in. This may be impeding the integration of LDN into national development planning and budgeting processes where progress was assessed as limited. National capacities for securing land tenure and governance arrangements and integrated land use planning were perceived as comparatively low, further hampering the implementation of LDN. Despite these gaps, most stakeholders (>90 %) who participated in the global survey expected LDN to deliver a broad range of multiple benefits for human wellbeing, livelihoods and the natural environment. We argue that greater efforts are needed to raise awareness of LDN, educate core stakeholders in its concepts, enablers and benefits, raise its political profile, and provide evidence on national measures that will support implementation of LDN.

The Role of Think Tanks in the Swedish Political Landscape

The term ‘think tank’ represents a heterogeneous concept and is used to characterise a diverse group of organisations. This diversity also characterises the Swedish organisations and institutions that currently fall under the think tank umbrella. In the Swedish political context, most organisations known by the public and news media as think tanks are advocacy organisations with an unambiguous ideological and political profile. Further, during the last decade, we have seen a proliferation of independent, self‐declared think tanks with more specific policy agendas, such as the environment and health care. However, according to the broader understanding used in global rankings, the Swedish think tank landscape includes a range of research institutions in different policy areas. Some receive funding from the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, corporations and private donors; others are government‐funded, with Stockholm's International Peace Research Institute as a prominent example. The aim of this article is to map the Swedish think tank landscape and its borders and analyse the roles of different types of think tanks in consensual or confrontational policymaking. Strategic differences among these types are related to historical background and funding. While government‐funded and some policy‐sector think tanks typically represent a tradition of consensual policymaking, those funded by the Corporation of Swedish Enterprise and other business interests represent a post‐corporatist development advocating neoliberal ideas and assuming a confrontational role in the expansion of private ownership and market solutions.

A multi-agent system to predict the outcome of a two-round election

Abstract Here, an agent-based model is developed to forecast the outcome of a three-party election in a two-round voting system. The vote of each agent is determined from four variables related to economic indicators, quality of public services, ethical conduct of the current administration, and political profile of the voting population. In addition, each agent can be influenced by the opinion of the nearest neighbors. Numerical simulations are performed to investigate how these variables affect the elected candidate. The proposed model is also used to reproduce the presidential elections held in Brazil in 2010 and in Uruguay in 2019.

Women and the Italian general election of 2018: selection, constraints and resources in the definition of candidate profiles

ABSTRACT Based on public databases hosted by the Ministry of the Interior and drawing on data collected by the OpenPolis Foundation on parliamentarians, the study analyses the socio-demographic and political profiles of female candidates for the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies in the single- and multi-member constituencies after adoption of the ‘Rosato Law’ and the introduction of ‘gender quotas’. The new rules enhance the presence of women in politics, but candidate selection and candidates’ positions in constituencies also depend on the regulatory frameworks of individual political parties and on informal rules and practices in the secret garden of politics. For this reason, the research takes into account the parties’ internal rules (as revealed by statutes, regulations and other documents) but also the concrete processes to which the selected women were subject. These refer to their social and political profiles, including their political allegiances and previous political careers in local government and Parliament; their statuses as newcomers or incumbents; the types of constituency for which they are chosen. For outgoing MPs only, the study also takes into account other indicators such as level of productivity, ‘changing political colours’ and rebel votes. The study throws light, on the one hand, on the way in which electoral mechanisms explain the under representation of women in Parliament, on the other hand, on the determinants of women’s political careers in individual parties.

Comparing local transitions in Southern Europe: center-periphery relations and governors in the South of Spain and Portugal, 1970-1980

This article focuses on a comparative history of civil governors in Spain and Portugal, particularly on the role played by governors in the transitional processesin the South of each country. Two databases of governors have been made available, one for Portugal and another for Spain. Our research pays special attention to governors’ political profiles and their relations with the central government and local powers. Eight Spanish provinces (Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga and Sevilla) and five Portuguese districts (Beja, Évora, Faro, Portalegre and Setúbal) were analysed. Our conclusions emphasise the need to consider the local dimension to better understand democratisation processes.

An inevitable pandemic: geographic insights into the COVID-19 global health emergency

ABSTRACT The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and the resulting disease, COVID-19, in China in late 2019 provides unique and sometimes overwhelming challenges to global public health and to the health and well-being of populations. The World Health Organization’s subsequent declaration of this outbreak as a public health emergency of international importance was, if anything, an understatement. The emergence of this pathogen is best seen as the latest and globally one of the most important examples of emerging infectious diseases – a phenomenon that has been at the forefront of global health for several decades. We trace the initial experience with COVID-19, highlighting experiences in Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. We emphasize selected countries, with varied demographic, socioeconomic, and political profiles, and identify instructive lessons from these national and regional experiences in terms of the efficacy of responses. Previous experience with serious epidemics of emerging infectious disease, well developed public health infrastructure, early, well-coordinated and transparent communication, rapidly established surveillance, case ascertainment, contact tracing, and containment are all vitally important in the control of this disease.

A Twitter-based approach of news media impartiality in multipartite political scenes

News dissemination in the modern world deploys online social networks (OSNs) to instantly and freely convey facts and opinions to Internet users worldwide. Recent research studies the structure of the graph formed by the relationships between news readers and media outlets in OSNs to investigate the profile of the media and derive their political leanings. In this work, we focus on the notion of political impartiality in multipartite political scenes. Our aim is to describe the graph-theoretic attributes of the ideal outlet that exhibits an impartial stance towards all political groups and propose a methodology based on Twitter, an OSN with profound informative and political profile, to algorithmically approximate this ideal medium and evaluate the deviation of popular outlets from it. The magnitude of deviation is used to rank the existing outlets based on their political impartiality and, hence, tackle the bewildering question: Which are the most impartial news media in a political scene?. We utilize our techniques on a snapshot of the Twitter subgraph concerning the Greek political and news media scene in April 2018. The results of our approach are juxtaposed with the findings of a survey provided to a group of political scientists and the efficiency of our proposed methodology is soundly confirmed.

Seis cartas cruzadas entre Jorge Guillén y Guillermo de Torre. Autobiografía, estética e ideología a través de Federico García Lorca, Pablo Picasso y Juan Ramón Jiménez

Las seis cartas intercambiadas entre Jorge Guillén y Guillermo de Torre que ofrecemos en el presente artículo son una muestra de la diversidad de modos de relación personal en el panorama literario y artístico anterior y posterior a la guerra civil española. Junto a su valor documental, nos permiten observar el perfil estético, político y autobiográfico de sus corresponsales a través de tres protagonistas de igual talla: Federico García Lorca, Pablo Picasso y Juan Ramón Jiménez, que son en ellas objeto de reflexión y recuerdo.

Using Latent Class Analysis to Identify Political Behavior of Moroccan Citizens on Social Media

The high use of social media has led to a new form of political involvement and participation. In this paper, we use Latent Class Analysis to identify participants’ behavior regarding political participation and engagement based on the nature of their interaction on social media. The LCA findings reveal three statistically distinct and behavioral classes regarding political interaction on social media. The profiles were ranged from ‘Activist’ that show more engagement in political activity, such as following candidates and political parties, posting and participating in discussions related to economic, social or political issues or, encouraging others to debate their point of view, to ‘Agitator’ and ‘Outsider’ profiles that show a low probability of interacting on social media and engaging in political actions. The LCA technique has provided meaningful and distinct information on the participants’ political profile than clustering classical techniques.

Sección Femenina. La Falange Católica

Our hypothesis about the causes of the permanence of the Sección Femenina of Falange throughout the Franco dictatorship focuses on the low political profile of the Sección Femenina; the uniformity of all the political-social sectors - including the opposition to Francoism - around the role of women in society, disregarding any proposal or debate about the liberation of; and thirdly, the cause that occupies the most attention, the identification of the Sección Femenina with the ideology of the Catholic Church, which assumes as its ideological-moral guide.

Who Runs the Firm? A Long-Term Analysis of Gender Inequality on Swiss Corporate Boards

The recent arrival of women on corporate boards has been extensively discussed in the literature. However, most of the studies focus on very recent times. This article analyzes the presence of women on the corporate boards of the largest firms in Switzerland across the past hundred years. It shows that until the beginning of the 1970s, the very few women sitting on the boardrooms belonged to the families owning the firms. Two main factors contributed then to the progressive opening of the corporate elites to women. First, the extending in 1971 of “universal suffrage” to women led to a feminization of the political elites, and women with a political profile entered the boardrooms of firms in the distribution and retailing sector. Second, the increasing globalization of the economy at the end of the twentieth century contributed to weaken the cohesion of the very male and Swiss corporate elite. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, the presence of women remained low in international comparison, and they were still hitting the “glass ceiling” regarding the top positions in the firm.

Democracia e representação local: perfis de carreira e percepções políticas de vereadores da Grande Vitória (ES)

O objetivo deste artigo é analisar os perfis de carreira e as percepções políticas dos vereadores dos municípios de Vitória, Vila Velha, Serra e Cariacica, Estado do Espírito Santo. O recorte temporal foi o ano de 2015 e a técnica de coleta e análise dos dados foi baseada nos principais métodos de pesquisa nas Ciências Sociais. O artigo é dividido em quarto dimensões: I) Pesquisa e metodologia, II) Atributos adscritos e adquiridos dos vereadores, III) Perfis de carreira e partidário dos parlamentares e IV) Percepções políticas dos vereadores. Na dimensão I apresentamos aspectos metodológicos da pesquisa.Com as dimensões II e III mostramos a existência de diversos filtros, possibilitando traçar sociologicamente a imagem do parlamentar municipal. Na dimensão IV constatamos, entre outras coisas, que o centro da escala ideológica é o que mais agrega os vereadores entrevistados, que a democracia brasileira é muito ou bastante estável e é preferível a formas não democráticas de governo.