Political Space Research Articles

Towards an agonistic social work: a framework for political action and radical practice

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to envision a way of bringing political dimensions into the mainstream of social work. Departing from a critique of the long-standing inability of conventional social work to address social problems in political terms, the article conceptualises social work as a profoundly political terrain and argues for the need to make space for politics at all levels – from the administrative procedures of statutory social work to advocacy campaigns and community work aimed at political reform. By using the works of Chantal Mouffe, the article brings together radical political theory and the critique of a depoliticised profession to suggest a framework for the politicisation of social work. If social work is to credibly invoke ideals such as social justice and human rights, it must create a space where such aspirations can be politically articulated and claimed as part of an agonistic struggle to radicalise democracy. Given the profoundly political nature of a discipline and profession that deals with human suffering, the article frames social work as an agonistic project with ambitions to take an active part in political conjunctures, as well as in the construction of political visions towards a more just world.

Sosialisasi Politik Bagi Pemilih Pemula Siswa Sekolah Menengah Atas Negeri 1 Palangka Raya

Indonesia is a democratic country that requires elections to serve as a political space for the people to express their political rights. This principle emphasizes the importance of community participation in voting, including groups of first-time voters. Community service is one of the Tri Dharma of higher education through political socialization which can contribute to increasing community participation, including first-time voters. SMA Negeri 1 Palangka Raya students are a partner community for political socialization for first-time voters. They are the younger generation who must be involved in political agendas, including elections and local elections. If they are 17 years old, they can use their right to vote both in elections and local elections and they are categorized as first-time voters. This community service has been carried out in the form of political socialization for beginner voters at SMA Negeri 1 Palangka Raya.

What a Trip

Abstract This essay details the evolution of an interdisciplinary course at a university with proximity to Baltimore, Maryland. The original course relied entirely on experiential learning via field trips. During these trips, students conducted analyses of museums as rhetorical and political spaces. As a result of the pandemic, the course evolved into one that relied entirely on students making virtual field trips for cultural organizations and for those at home. In both courses, students focused on issues of social justice as they pertain to museums: issues of access (who is able/encouraged to visit the museum?), issues of diversity (which artists/works of art are featured and who is offered positions of power within the organization?), and issues of engagement (does the museum offer exhibits/programming that is relevant to the public they serve?). In the revised class, students (1) virtually met with museum representatives to discuss their needs; (2) researched the types of resources, events, and objects that can be found in the different locations; (3) learned how to use technology such as Nearpod as multimodal composing platforms; and (4) created a virtual field trip to be used by that organization for educational and promotional purposes. By creating material for specific audiences, students not only learned the rhetorical skills of composing for diverse groups but also grappled with issues of equity, access, and engagement. While the revisions were made out of necessity, this essay details the transferable methodology that can continue to be employed in online classes and integrated into in-person learning.

The potential politics of the porous city

This article discusses the concept of porosity and what it might offer critical urbanism. It engages recent scholarly and practical writing on the "porous city," outlining three sets of contributions that porosity offers in analyzing contemporary urbanization patterns and in orienting planning, policymaking, and knowledge production. First, the porous city offers a critical epistemological lens focused on flow and relations, which supports mobile and infrastructural ways of viewing and knowing the city. Second, the porous city suggests the ontological features of interpenetrating geographies and temporalities, which take the urban to be a topological space of potential politics. Third, the porous city entails an ideal to which planning practice should aspire, particularly in relation to forms of urbanism and city-building that are open to multifunctionality, difference, and dynamism over time. While each of these represents a promising direction in critical urban praxis, we argue that porosity also has its limits. The porous city is conceptually malleable and normatively ambiguous and it risks overreach as well as recuperation within exclusionary and exploitative urban development agendas. We claim that the porous city should not be treated as a comprehensive global ambition, but rather, is most valuable when used to discern and build discrete architectures of power.

What Ails Dalit Movement: Lessons Learnt from Farmer Movement

The demand for equality and a ‘better’ share is always there for any ‘authoritative allocation of values’ and India is no exception. Farmers and Dalit movements present such demands with an aim to seek transformation in the existing power structure for better in political, social and economic spaces. However, one seems to be more organized and successful despite the existence of a multi-layered class structure, while the other remained fragmented and sporadic. It is, therefore, very pertinent to analyse why a considerable chunk of the citizenry is not able to get their due share and what ails their collective bargaining capacity. The present article is an attempt to draw certain commonalities between the ‘Farmer’ and ‘Dalit’ movements in India and identify the gaps—that the Dalit movement can fill by taking a cue from the farmer movement. Also, it attempts to analyse how with time all the farmers’ organizations collectively mobilized together on the pan-India level on a single platform to bargain for their common interest but why such consciousness is not being developed among Dalits even after 75 years of independence.

День защитника Отечества в зеркале ярославской прессы (к вопросу об исторических акцентах праздника)

The article is devoted to the history of the formation of the mod-ern Russian holiday «Defender of the Fatherland Day» (formerly «Day of the Soviet Army and Navy», «Red Army Day»). Throughout the XX century, «February 23» changed its position in the politi-cal and socio-cultural space of the country. Having arisen as a professional holiday of the military over time, «Defender of the Fatherland Day» acquired the character of a nationwide celebra-tion. At the same time, at each stage of its historical path, the holiday invariably reflected the ideological message of the current government. The materials of central and local periodicals allow us to analyze the significance of the holiday in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, the peculiarities of its perception by citizens of the country.

UPAYA PARTAI POLITIK DALAM MEMANFAATKAN DEMOKRASI VIRTUAL DI ERA DIGITAL

The use of public opinion space through the digitalization of virtual democracy has been widely relied on by political parties in conducting political marekting and political communication, especially online-based campaigns. This study aims to find out how political parties' efforts in utilizing virtual democracies in increasing the quantity of potential voters. Descriptive qualitative research method to examine certain events as a new phenomenon in order to answer precisely about the object being observed, assessed and intervened in a complex multi-component using secondary data and literature studies. The results showed that the practices for running a digital democracy are no longer conventional, but through digital media and virtual political spaces. So that digital democracy shows the central position and role of digital parties in Indonesia. The use of virtual democracy provides a strong potential by seeing the large number of people who have begun to participate in online social media, so that virtual democracy feels great benefits as a new channel in the public opinion space to find political news, discuss, organize and to mobilize supporters of one of the political parties it likes

Влияние новых геополитических условий на многовекторную внешнюю политику Казахстана

he relevance of the topic of this article is determined by the need to study the multi-vector foreign policy of Kazakhstan in the face of new challenges and risks for the foreign policy of the state. The scientific novelty of the research results is that the theory and practice of conducting foreign policy in transit and in the posttransit period is a little-studied problem in the field of international relations and related scientific disciplines. The article conducted research on modern geo–economic and geopolitical realities and analyzed the adaptability of the theory and practice of the main principle of Kazakhstan's foreign policy - multi-vector approach to the new geopolitical agenda. The multilateral foreign policy of Kazakhstan at the present stage is analyzed through the prism of the theories of geopolitics, rational choice and dependence/interdependence. To study the adaptability of the main principle of the foreign policy strategy of the Republic of Kazakhstan at the present stage, criteria, theoretical approaches were determined in the study of multi-vector, its effectiveness in modern international relations. An analysis of foreign policy risks showed that they are all related to the interdependence of the Kazakh economy and diplomacy with its closest neighbors, in relation to which a multivector approach developed in the conditions of the formation of a multipolar world. New geopolitical realities indicate the expansion of the range of opportunities and at the same time the complication of the political space along the perimeter of the borders of Kazakhstan. A clearly built and conceptually substantiated multivector foreign policy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in practice needs constant adjustment. This is due to the more complex global realities, constant turbulence and the transformation of modern international relations

CRISIS OF IDEOLOGY IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

The article analyzes the geopolitical situation at the end of the twentieth century associated with the problem of the end of history and ideology. It is noted that modern society is defined as "post-ideological", in which ideas and ideas have ceased to have significant significance in the political space. There is a crisis of traditional political ideologies in politics. It is noted that the foundation of the ideological crisis is the presence of a fragmented society, the obviousness of scepticism in ideological politics, cynicism and the complete lack of social trust in the "political establishment", the use of populist methods in politics.

The Politics of Silence: Hannah Arendt and Future Generations’ Fight for the Climate

Abstract Silence, a political category in democratic theory, has proven starkly unjust toward future generations, who are practically voiceless in intergovernmental fora, a notable feature of the international climate regime. This article first explores the status of future generations’ fight for the climate by articulating the solidarity implications of climate change as a common concern of humankind. Second, the analysis offers a brief overview of the recent constitutionalization trend concerning future generations’ interests in the environment as a meaningful counterweight to the politics of silence. Third, the article discusses climate change litigation as a catalyst of the constitutionalization trend and a proxy for political participation. Throughout the analysis, the article turns to the thought of political theorist Hannah Arendt to illustrate the potential of legally protecting future generations’ role in fighting for a stable climate through post-sovereign constitutionalism. By way of a case study, the analysis argues that in Neubauer et al v Germany Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court offered practical ways to offset the politics of silence and increase the political space for future freedoms. Conclusively, the article offers a snapshot of open and fluid post-sovereign constitutional institutions and participative practices that could advance freedoms for future generations.

Тематика советского прошлого в избирательных кампаниях постсоветской России

The article is devoted to the analysis of the place of the Soviet past in the inter-party discussion and the influence of this theme on the choice of the Russian electorate in the electoral campaigns of 1993—2021. According to the author’s conclusion, despite the moderate number of issues related to this topic, and their rather modest share in the general agenda of the campaigns, they formed confrontations that strongly correlated with the divisions within the major political dimensions and issue domain divisions and resonated in the mass political consciousness. The 1993—2011 campaigns were about one confrontation — “communists vs. anti-communists (liberals)”. In 2016—2021 this confrontation was supplemented by a cleavage along the “conservatives — liberals” line, which manifested in the special position of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, that adjoined the liberals on some aspects of the Soviet past theme, and communists — on other aspects. In 1993 and 1995 the confrontation between communists and anti-communists (liberals) on the issues of the Soviet past successfully competed with political dimensions and issue domain divisions for the role of the “political face” of the first, or the main, electoral cleavage. In 1999, this confrontation moved from the first electoral cleavage to the second, within which it continued to successfully contend with the cleavage between Soviet traditionalists and modernists in the systemic issue domain. In 2003, it also withstood competition with the divisions between adherents of market and supporters of planned economy in the socio-economic issue domain and Soviet traditionalists and modernists in the systemic one, but in 2007— 2016 it lost such ability, although it retained a background presence in the political space. In 2021, the theme of the Soviet past experienced some sort of renaissance, with not only communists and liberals, but also other political forces, including the “party of power”, starting to actively appeal to this topic. The influence of the confrontations around the theme of the Soviet past on electoral divisions also increased, however, only when regions with a voter turnout of more than 60% were excluded from the analysis. In this case, the confrontation between communists and liberals on the subject of the Soviet past determined “the face” of the second electoral cleavage, and the special position of the Liberal Democratic Party — of the third one.

The Key Role of Social Movements in Protecting the Health of People and the Planet Comment on "Ensuring Global Health Equity in a Post-pandemic Economy".

In his recent article, titled "Ensuring Global Health Equity in a Post-pandemic Economy," Ronald Labonté addresses a key challenge the world is facing, trying to 'build back' after the global crisis related to the COVID-19 pandemic. He explores and critically examines different policy options, from a more inclusive 'stakeholder model' of capitalism, to a greater role of states in shaping markets and investing in the protection of health and the environment, to more radical options that propose to reframe the capitalist mantra of growth and look at different ways to value and center our societies around what really matters most to protect life. Social movements are key players in such transformation, however the political space they move in is progressively shrinking.

The Rise of Right-Wing Extremism in Brazil

The starting point of this text is the 2016 coup d’état, which removed Dilma Roussef from the Presidency of the Republic and increased the political space for the rise of the extreme right in Brazil. Thus, we analyze the Michel Temer government and the series of measures adopted to satisfy the most immediate interests of the bourgeoisie, which deepened austerity policies and the dismantling of the state apparatus. We continue with the rise of Bolsonaro, who represented not only a shock to the fragile Brazilian bourgeois democracy but also a president identified with the extreme right. His policies intended to deepen the neoliberal reforms in all aspects of economic and social life and acted in a decisive way to destroy the progress Brazil had made in the field of diversity and inclusion, among others. To this end, he has assembled a team of never before-seen extreme right-wingers..

Brazil's Amazon Fund: A “Green Fix” between Offset Pressures and Deforestation Crisis

AbstractEmissions trading and nature‐based solutions, particularly REDD+, have lent themselves to the critical literature on the “socioecological fix” in neoliberal capital accumulation and state regulation. Prone to reversals, land conflict, and leakage, these mechanisms displace the burden of carbon emissions reductions to global South countries, promote new green commodities, and thus increase rather than curb the chance of capital accumulations by big polluters. Studies of existing REDD+ projects register the privatisation of forest management on the one hand and “aidification” on the other, suggesting impediments to fully commodifying forest carbon ranging from social movement resistance to technical issues. This case study of Brazil's national Amazon Fund points to global South protagonism in constructing and negotiating REDD+, challenging Northern and market hegemonies. Progressive Southern actors use the political space of the fix to defend rural communities' territorial rights and demand resources in line with historic responsibilities and climate justice.

The political space in the European parliament: Measuring MEPs' preferences amid the rise of Euroscepticism

AbstractThe 2014–2019 European Parliament (EP) contained an unprecedented number of Eurosceptic Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). These changes reflected a growing politicisation of European integration in which conflicts between those opposing the process and those favouring it became more pronounced. Using a unique time series of surveys of the European parliamentarians, we examine how far the policy preferences of the MEPs responded to this politicisation. MEPs' preferences over general policy questions as well as European Union (EU)‐specific issues have traditionally been described by a multi‐dimensional space: with a left‐right dimension, incorporating both economic and socio‐cultural issues, distinct from a pro‐/anti‐Europe dimension. We find that the political space in the EP evolved in the 2014–2019 parliament, with MEPs' preferences more strongly aligned along a single dimension, which captures economic, socio‐cultural, and EU integration issues.

Parliamentary Dress

Parliamentary Dress

Partisan difference in social desirability bias on anti‐immigrant sentiments: Covert and overt expression among French voters

AbstractVarious types of anti‐immigrant sentiments have been taken as the characteristic independent variable to explain specific support for radical right parties. However, some survey respondents tend to conceal their attitudes towards socially sensitive issues. To overcome this challenge, the present study used a list experiment method (item count technique) to reveal respondents' covert attitudes towards immigrants (and compared these with overt expressions) based on party support in France. Results indicated similar levels of anti‐immigrant sentiments among radical right National Front supporters and other centre‐rightist parties. In addition, comparison with the direct question method revealed that while supporters of centre‐right parties were reluctant to express their anti‐immigrant sentiment in overt expressions, National Front supporters willingly expressed it overtly more than in covert expressions. Using regression analysis, this paper demonstrates the diversity of anti‐immigrant norms and the social desirability bias gap in the French political space.

EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMY AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING: COMMON AND DIFFERENT

The last 30-50 years of the development of economic science were marked by the rapid development of new directions of research, and interdisciplinary, which today is increasingly entering the social sciences, only strengthened this trend. Behavioral economics, global political economy, experimental economics, social engineering, information economics, post-industrial economics, etc. In particular, global institutional changes, the Covid-19 pandemic and the war with Russia led to the actualization of the concept of "social engineering" in the domestic socio-economic and political space, and the results of experimental economics research are actively used not only in fundamental and theoretical research, but also in real economic practice. which unfolds the status of economic science in a completely different way - economics becomes a truly empirical science. The article examines theoretical and methodological aspects of experimental economics and social engineering. The content of the "social engineering" category was clarified, a comparative analysis of approaches was carried out, and the methodological principles of theimplementation of social engineering were determined. Thus, it was found that the vast majority of domestic scientists consider social engineering from the standpoint of a system of constructing a new social reality, a specific social practice of managing industrial objects, and an experimental technology for changing social life. Experimental economics, as one of the newest directions of economic science, is analyzed in the context of key studies of Nobel laureates, representatives of experimental economics. Despite certain similarities between social engineering and experimental economics, the authors conducted a critical analysis of these two directions, identified fundamental differences in approaches, limits, and opportunities of each.

Reassessing Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy: Does it Really Work?

The research purpose of this article is to explore and analyze the reason and impact of Taiwan's "New Southbound Policy". The results of the study show that although Tsai Ing-wen has always insisted on promoting the development of the "New Southbound Policy" since she came to power in 2016 and hopes to use it to reduce the high economic dependence on mainland China and expand Taiwan's political survival space on the international stage, but in essence, the "New Southbound Policy" did not achieve Tsai Ing-wen's original goal. On the contrary, the economic ties between Taiwan and the mainland are still deepening and consolidating. From a certain perspective, the implementation of the "New Southbound Policy" has indeed promoted Taiwan's economy toward diversification and has achieved multi-level economic development. However, based on the huge economic volume of mainland China, as mainland China releases the control of the Covid-19 epidemic, many companies in Taiwan will not be able to ignore the re-communication and connection with the mainland economy. The economic ties between the two sides will remain close for a long time to come.

The Catholic church and regional governance in west Africa

Abstract ‘Catholic regionalism’ in west Africa exemplifies the capacity of theological claims and theologically informed actors to influence regional governance and international affairs. It is driven by four mutually reinforcing factors: interfaith competition for policy influence and followership, shrinking domestic political space for civil society organizations (CSOs), and de-secularization/counter-secularization pressures (all of which have substantially diminished the church's erstwhile influence); as well as Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) reforms granting ‘access’ to CSOs in regional policy. Through a strategy of ‘fateful compromise’ with regional states, the church has, more than its counterparts, developed substantial capacity to influence how regional integration organizations frame and implement policy in Africa. The empirical evidence is derived from fieldwork interviews on the activities of church leaders, namely the bishops represented by the Regional Catholic Episcopal Conference of West Africa (RECOWA); the Catholic bishops’ conferences in Ghana and Nigeria, where interfaith hegemonic competition is most intense; and ECOWAS Commission bureaucrats. The article enriches the ‘new regionalism’ framework with a template to better understand the regional governance activities of Africa's faith-based actors; and contributes to the literature by introducing the concept of ‘fateful compromise’ suggesting multiple trajectories in church-state relations, contrary to the presumption of inevitable ‘elite cooptation’ of social forces as the only option for inclusive or collaborative governance in societies experiencing regression in democracy.