Political Struggle Research Articles

Who do we mobilise? Applied transformative mobilities research in a real-world laboratory

ABSTRACT In this paper we reflect on insights concerning participation in and effects of a real-world laboratory designed to disrupt car dependency in everyday practices in an urban setting. After outlining the project and key findings, we critically reflect on design and achievements of this real-world laboratory more generally. In particular, we discuss the following questions: Who is it that we can address through transformative mobilities research in real-world laboratories? Who are the participants and what are their motives for taking part in the research? To contextualize the research findings within a real-world setting and research paradigm we extend the scope to a second set of questions: How can we conceptualise the relationship between participants and researchers and how do we account for opposing rationalities of interruption (research) and maintenance (participants) of the organisation of everyday life? How does this research enable transformative mobilities? And, finally, what can we say about the scope of our findings and reflections? In the thicket of doing transformative research encouraging and accompanying volunteers to become active in transformative mobility research becomes questions of language, educational background and time resources from the involved, but also being aware of institutionalized change actor networks, unchallenged hierarchies of superior “academic” research and being part of political struggles that require to look closely within and outside of the actual real-world-experiment especially in times of multiple crises. To design and research with those who want to contribute to change is legitimate. However, it is necessary to keep this selectivity in mind.

Military Goals and Plans of the “Pan-German League” in the Memories of Heinrich Claß (1868–1953)

The recently published second part of the memoirs of Heinrich Claß, chairman of the Pan-German League, who made a personal contribution to the dissemination and public acceptance of anti-Semitic, racist and expansionist views, and who also played an essential role in establishing and developing the communication of right-wing forces that sought to exert background influence on public policy, are of great scholarly interest and broaden the source base for studies of radical nationalism on the eve and during the Great War. In addition to the Pan-Germans’ own military aims related to the annexation of European territories that have already been studied in historiography, the memoirs illustrate the internal tense struggle for their approval within the Pan-German League as well as Claß’s various attempts to forge co-operation with high-ranking civil servants and the Reichswehr leadership. Claß made the resignation of Reich Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg his goal, for the sake of which he established contacts at the highest level. Under wartime conditions, the Pan-German leader’s previously cautious attempts to hint at the need to change the national system of government took concrete shape and became the subject of public and political struggle. Claß’s ideas were associated with the establishment of a dictatorship in the form of the unlimited power of an emperor-appointed official who would, under war conditions, be allowed to act bypassing constitutional norms and established mechanisms of power. The war, in his opinion, was to bring to power a dictator capable of looking after the national interests. The memoirs of Claß show how, against the background of the struggle for the resignation of the Reich Chancellor and a series of military failures, the imperial civilian and military elite evaluated the idea of dictatorship and coup d’état, which allows one to assess in a new way the effectiveness of the Pan-German actions and, consequently, the potential of the Pan-German League.

The logic of China–US rivalry

Behind the struggle and game between China and the United States are four sets of overlapping and mutually causal logics, namely the growth and decline of the two countries’ strength, ideological differences, changes in the international environment, and domestic political influence. Sino–US relations will not be able to return to the depth of exchanges and level of cooperation at the beginning of the twenty-first century for a long time. However, the long-term interests and strategic considerations of the two countries determine that the two countries must avoid war with each other and maintain a certain degree of economic cooperation and social exchanges. The biggest uncertainty in Sino–US relations in 2024 is the chaos that may be caused by domestic political struggles in the United States. However, the official and non-governmental contacts between China and the United States since 2023 have made the upper limit of the development of bilateral relations and the bottom line of conflict clearer. Sino–US relations are difficult to improve, but they are expected to be basically stable.

PERCEPTION OF RUSSIAN PANSLAVISM IN THE BRITISH PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES N THE BEGINNING OF THE EASTERN CRISIS OF THE 1870S

During the Eastern Crisis of the 1870s, the British political elites followed with particular attention the Panslavic ideas expressed in Russia and often perceived them as a threat of the Russian Empire’s expansion into the Balkan Peninsula. However, at the very beginning of the Eastern Crisis, the British Parliament’s attitude to the Russian Panslavism was neutral or even positive and it had a considerable impact on British-Russian relations. Britain’s perception of Russian Panslavism during this short but significant period has not been researched yet. This article uses the materials of parliamentary debates to trace the transformation of images of Russian Panslavism in the British political discourse in 1876 and to analyze the mechanisms of their construction. The author identifies three models of interpretation of Russia’s “Slavic interests”, first, as “Slavic sympathies” of the Russian population, second, as Russia’s “territorial ambitions”, and third, as “Russian intrigues”, which allegedly instigated Slav uprisings against the Ottoman Empire. In the summer of 1876, the interpretation of Panslavism as sincere sympathies of Russian society for its Slavic brothers received the greatest weight in the British political discourse. This interpretation contributed to the formation of a more positive image of Russia and even a temporary change in the pro-Turkish policy of the British government. However, by the late 1876, British politicians increasingly began to suspect the Russian government of “subversive Panslavism”. The formation of images of Russian Panslavism in the political discourse of Great Britain was influenced not only the traditional patterns of British foreign policy, but also by the internal political struggle that escalated during the “Bulgarian agitation”. Panslavism was also interpreted ambiguously due to the lack of information, so politicians often based their judgments on stereotypes about Russia, the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan peoples. Finally, parliamentarians’ views were also affected by a rethinking of their own British identity. British politicians revisited issues of relevance to Britain’s own attitudes to the sovereignty of empires, the uprisings of colonized peoples, moral responsibility and Britain’s international mission.

Introduction

The authors in this special issue present case studies of socio-cultural responses to technologies in terms of their relationships with ‘ethics’ and ‘politics,’ to ecologies, and to the ways in which those technological processes are framed as empowering, alienating, dispossessing, transformative or destructive. This introduction elaborates some connections between the papers, focusing on the ways that technology both creates, and becomes part of, ethical and political struggles over visions of the future. Technology is frequently used to increase the extent and range of control, and to impose a politicised order upon others in villages, towns, environments and landscapes, although this control cannot be guaranteed. Technology can also become part of the rhetoric used to persuade people of the inevitability, validity and desirability of imagined futures, while leaving other factors to be ignored. Technology, ethics and politics are not always separable, and the results of their interaction may not always be predictable.

Упорство в истине: индийский путь к независимости

The article is based on the works by M. Gandhi to describe the key conditions for obtainment of independence that he singled out: swaraj (self-governance), swadeshi (self-reliance) and satyagraha (civil disobedience and non-cooperation as a method of non-violent political struggle).

Legal Counterrevolution: Property and Judicial Power in the Weimar Republic

This article offers a new account of the rise of judicial power in modern Germany. Strong judicial control of the government is often associated with the constitutional ethos that emerged in postwar West Germany as a reaction to Nazi rule. This article locates the origins of German judicialization in the political struggles of the Weimar era. It shows how the assumption of a power to judicial review by Germany's highest court, the Reichsgericht, was the product of the successful cooperation of the judiciary with conservative political parties on the issue of property rights in the young republic. These were at the centre of two controversies examined in the article: the expropriation of princes of former ruling houses and the consequences of the hyperinflation of 1923. In both cases the Reichsgericht used an understanding of property as an inalienable right to radically reinterpret Germany's first democratic constitution, which had in fact granted the legislature extensive power to modify property relations. This suited the judiciary's own objective of assuming stronger controls over legislative action and bolstered the political position of conservative forces in Weimar politics. What emerged was a supra-positive constitutionalism that sought to supersede the written constitution. These political realities were an essential context for theoretical debates on the extent and limits of judicial power between theorists such as Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen, Hermann Heller, Franz Neumann, and Ernst Fraenkel. An examination of the complex interaction of parliamentary, judicial, and popular politics concerning the issue of property reveals that German judicial empowerment amounted to an attempt to rewrite the Weimar Constitution and limit the scope of Germany's democratic revolution.

COVID-19 violence and the re-making of urban space through solidarity networks among transgender women in Lima, Peru

ABSTRACT Extreme instances of COVID-19 policy-related violence against transgender (trans) communities in Latin America highlight the imperative to better understand how gender, power, and rights are entwined within public spaces. Peru is a useful vantage point to explore the intersections between gendered power asymmetries, violence, and access to safe public spaces, given the brief COVID-19 public health policy that restricted the mobility of its citizens based on binary understandings of sex and associated cisheteronormativity. These policies restricted access to public spaces and essential services to women on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and to men on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and were enforced based on sex assigned at birth reported via identity documents. Drawing on 25 in-depth interviews with Peruvian trans women, this paper examines the impacts of these COVID-19 policies on trans communities and documents grassroots activism efforts to navigate public space that ultimately demand and assert human rights both during and post-COVID-19. Findings illustrate that while short-lived, the sex-based policies and associated policing in urban public space significantly impacted the well-being of Peruvian trans women. Participants illustrated numerous community-enacted strategies to navigate COVID-19 inequities, including information sharing, crowd-sourcing funds to secure food, pay rent and/or secure housing, and grocery shopping provided by trans people for trans people. Further, community mutual aid efforts have continued and evolved years into the pandemic. Jointly, findings advance understandings of the critical role of public spaces as arenas of political struggles that reveal and challenge a wider spectrum of intersecting oppressions and power structures that trans women continually navigate and resist.

A reflection on Hong Kong’s yellow economic circle

ABSTRACT Emerged from the anti-extradition law amendment bill movement in 2019, the yellow economic circle (YEC) is the first ever widely adopted political consumerism in post-handover Hong Kong, where people buycott yellow (pro-movement) and boycott blue (anti-movement/ pro-Beijing/ pro-HKSAR-government) businesses. The reflection’s prominence lies in the popular engagement in YEC, and the political consumerism still lingers in the city even after the abrupt end of the 2019 movement. Existing research lacks the exploration of the meanings YEC entailed in relation to the context of Hong Kong and the lessons YEC can impart to the city’s civil society development. By classifying YEC into “sign” and “process,” the article first examines the particular juncture at which YEC emerged to show how Beijing has tried to govern Hong Kong through the market. It subsequently delves into a discourse analysis, scrutinizing how Beijing has constructed a civility for the market, which is later reshaped by YEC. Drawing on Chantal Mouffe’s theorization of “politics” as well as Hardt and Negri’s discussion of “identitarian love,” the article continues by shedding light on the identity politics and oxymoron of liberal democracy inherent in the political consumerism. It also addresses the narrow democratic imagination reflected in different incidents arising from YEC, which may be symptomatic of Hong Kong’s current political struggle. The exploration concludes with suggestions on how the YEC can strengthen Hong Kong’s civil society after Beijing’s crackdown.

Lessons for Israel's Gaza War In America's Strategic Blunders

AbstractLessons learned from counterterrorism operations indicate that purely military solutions are doomed to fail, and Israel is primed to repeat many of these mistakes. The comparison between America's post‐9/11 wars and the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict is not perfect: Al‐Qaeda was in Afghanistan but was not native to the country, and the transnational ISIS emerged out of the chaos in Iraq and Syria. Hamas, by contrast, represents a resistance movement indigenous to Gaza. The militant group is deeply rooted in the political and social struggle for Palestinian self‐determination, and its activities and support are motivated by desperate conditions on the ground. If Israel's assaults on Gaza in retaliation for the October 2023 Hamas bloodbath are to achieve enduring security, key questions arise, including whether the conflict will end with military occupation or political settlement. I argue that Israel should learn from the US strategic blunders in Afghanistan and Iraq. Absent a political solution, Israelis are likely to face terrorist assaults in the future. The military campaign may weaken or impair Hamas's infrastructure and power bases in Gaza, but without a plan for governance and development, Israel is likely to face the re‐emergence of a broadly based resistance movement.

Natasha Soobramanien's Aesthetic of Archipelagic Memory: A Literary Methodology of Political Solidarity

In May 2022 the novel Diego Garcia, coauthored by Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams, was published, to immediate critical acclaim. As its title suggests, the text reflects on the violent history of the annexation of the Chagos archipelago. However, the novel's aim is not simply to raise awareness on this issue but also to engage in an in-depth consideration on how to care for and write about other people's political struggles. Indeed, in Diego Garcia, literary experimentations actively express the text's political concerns and reflections on solidarity. This article argues that some of the clues for understanding Diego Garcia's aesthetic innovations as a methodology for social justice can be found in Soobramanien's debut novel, Genie and Paul (2012), a postcolonial rewriting of Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's famous novel Paul et Virginie (1789). The two novels share a profound interest in denouncing inequality as a consequence of capitalism and colonialisation, and importantly also share a geographical location within the Mascarene archipelago. The article turns to the archipelagic thought and its Glissantian filiation to explicate these correspondences and develop the concept of archipelagic memory as a reading methodology for grasping together both the texts’ political intentions and aesthetic innovations. In doing so, it argues that archipelagic memory is an aesthetic of memorialization, which cultivates equality by drawing connections between local events and global systems, and demonstrates that the text's considerations of Indian Ocean geopolitics illuminate the archipelago's potential as a methodology of political solidarity.

Water shutoffs, social reproduction, and the carceral state: Policing life's work through the weaponization of water

Water service shutoffs have emerged as a vital “tool” in the arsenal of neoliberal utility governance in the USA. Against the backdrop of a restructured US welfare state—from a Keynesian model to the anti-state—this article introduces the water shutoff as a prism to examine the deep extension of carceral power into the sphere of social reproduction. Through an investigation of shutoff practices in US cities, the article finds that access to safe and secure running water is increasingly weaponized as a “police structure” to preserve a model of debt-driven water management, in ways that also produce a spatial and racial division of nature. The study finds that water shutoffs function as the evictions of the water world: a displacement and dispossession of basic needs masquerading under a “neutral” market logic. Policing water debt through shutoffs maintains powerful leverage over households; its ubiquity in US water management allows shutoffs to hide as a technical necessity even as it ticks over the human revenue stream. In spite of a temporary ban of water shutoffs by US states and cities, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic and government efforts to support household reproduction, this article notes the return of shutoffs and their improved capacity to create inroads for accumulation on the back of life's work (and debts). The article concludes by discussing the conundrum of the welfare state and social infrastructures that sits at the heart of our political struggles over social reproduction.

Refracted: Mohammad Mosaddeq and Iranian National Identity

A long history of political power struggles has shaped Iranian national identity. Each successive regime has sought to take control of Iranian political currents to reach its own objectives, and in the process has influenced Iranian identity in important ways. Few political figures in Iranian history have been as significant as Mohammad Mosaddeq in the shaping of Iranian identity, which he represents in ways that other political figures have failed to capture. His power to shape Iran's relationship with Western powers and his ability to project the image of Iran onto the world stage have enabled the endurance of his significance in the Iranian national psyche, which continues to show itself with his symbolic appearance in a range of political activities, including student rallies and public demonstrations.

Humour scandals in the Finnish political public sphere in 1990–2020

Humour is a part of contemporary mediated political struggles. At times, humour itself becomes politicised, turning into public controversies or humour scandals. This study explores how humour scandals have become intertwined with the Finnish political public sphere during the last three decades. Quantitative mapping, based on journalistic articles retrieved from two nationwide media, reveals that between 1990 and 2020, 26 national humour scandals in Finland were reported in the national public sphere for at least five days. The number of scandals increased exponentially, from just two such scandals in the 1990s to 15 in the 2010s. Our qualitative analysis of three humour scandals from different decades demonstrates how humour controversies relate to the changes in political and media environments and moral order. While in the 1990s and early 2000s humour scandals often dealt with clashes between popular TV satires and leading politicians, from the 2010s onwards the topics of humour scandals diversified, including issues related to political campaigning, artistic performances, and racism.

The Symbolic Capital of the Neoliberal University

The paper examines the concerns about the enduring value of liberal education in the broader context of a shift from a liberal to a neoliberal society. While so much literature on "the neoliberal university" tends to characterize neoliberalism as a hostile force invading the sacred space of the university, the knowledge comprising neoliberalism is in large part the product of research coming out of universities. Using the concept of symbolic capital to explore the role of university researchers in developing and consecrating neoliberal ideas, the paper argues that even in this era of heightened skepticism toward experts and expertise, university researchers play a key role in shaping both formal policy and popular common sense. The paper ultimately characterizes the university as a key site of struggle over what gets to be considered knowledge, and academic workers as central to this ongoing and urgent political struggle.

Energy (in)justice in the green energy transition. The case of Fosen wind farms in Norway

In 2021, the Norwegian Supreme Court ruled that wind power licences issued in 2010 for two wind farms in the Fosen area near Trondheim violated the cultural rights of the local Sámi herders. The Fosen case is of interest as it demonstrates how policy intervention to honour the human rights of citizens to a healthy environment came into conflict with the indigenous human rights. Our study explores why this wind power project became a policy failure and what the Sámi achieved in terms of green energy justice through their legal and political struggles as well as settlement agreements. The green energy justice framework fails to address longstanding indigenous injustices and inequalities. Hence, it needs to recognise traditional knowledge, assess the historical context of the intervention, and include a veto right to indigenous minorities to ensure that their rights protected by Article 27 of the ICCPR are respected. The policy failure involved opposition among the Sámi herders to the intervention. The failure occurred as politics shaped the decision and decision-making process underestimated the impact on reindeer husbandry and ignored the objections raised by the Sámi herders. The Supreme Court ruling addressed the reasons for the policy failure and strengthened the indigenous dimensions of the green energy justice. The Sámi herders and their supports were unable to mobilise public media support for the removal of the windmills to undo the human rights violation. Hence, the settlement agreements included distributional justice in the form of monetary compensation and the recognition of their need for new land for winter grazing as well as strengthening of their procedural justice with granting of a veto right on future licenses of the two wind farms.

Resilient climate urbanism and the politics of experimentation for adaptation

ABSTRACT Cities are increasingly pursuing actions to become more resilient in the face of climate change and to seize related economic growth opportunities. Recent contributions have argued that “climate urbanism” is emerging as a hegemonic trend that is structuring climate adaptation with a focus on the selective securing of vital infrastructure for growth, promoting an apolitical vision of resilience and exacerbating inequalities. Developing situated understandings of these dynamics and their contestation seems key. We analyse this trend of climate urbanism in a specific setting of climate adaptation experiment: living labs. We investigate and intervene on two key processes of the politics of climate experimentation – making for compelling urban projects and focusing on infrastructure reconfiguration – whereby living labs could challenge or, conversely, amplify negative trends of climate urbanism. Our research in Montreal shows the value of understanding the subjectivities of the practitioners involved and the fields of political struggles where adaptation lands. Although the negative trends of climate urbanism appear very resilient and living labs have important limitations, we believe they can be used to muddle through pathways for more debates, equity and justice in climate adaptation.

Contemporary Islamic Politics in Tunisia: The Journey of Islamic Democracy Post-Arab Spring

This study aimed to examine contemporary Islamic politics in Tunisia, specifically the democratic system Post-Arab Spring. The political struggle of Muslim countries triggered the Arab Spring movement, with Tunisia pioneering a Jasmine Revolution from 2010-2011 to obtain global attention. Furthermore, the investigation constitutes a literature review to analyze contemporary Islamic politics in Tunisia, specifically Post-Arab Spring. The influence of Islamic politics is an important issue, specifically in strengthening demands for democracy by analyzing the struggle in Tunisia. Therefore, this study provides the main focus of state democracy, which is a phenomenon of historical studies and political struggles. The analysis process is carried out in four stages, namely source finding, criticism, interpretation, and writing. The results show that there is a harmonious coexistence between Islam and democracy in Tunisia compared to other countries in the Middle East. The principles of democracy are evident in the organization of elections, freedom of speech, religious tolerance, and recognition of gender equality.

The Future of the Philosophy of Work

ABSTRACTWork has always been a significant source of ethical questions, philosophical reflection, and political struggle. Although the future of work in a sense is always at stake, the issue is particularly relevant right now, in light of the advent of advanced AI systems and the collective experience of the COVID‐19 pandemic. This has reinvigorated philosophical discussion and interest in the study of the future of work. The purpose of this survey article is to provide an overview of the emerging philosophical field that engages with the future of work, with a special focus on equality and justice, and to outline a research agenda that can help the field to develop further. Section 2 provides some historical context for the current surge in interest in the topic. Then, we discuss what work is and whether there is a philosophy of work (Section 3). The four main sub‐debates we then turn to concern the value of work (Section 4), distributive justice and work (Section 5), productive justice (Section 6), and institutional reforms prompted by changes in how work is organized (Section 7). The final section discusses the importance of the distinction between ideal and non‐ideal theory in philosophical investigations into the future of work.

The Dualistic Nature of the Competence of Civil-Military Administrations: On the Formulation of the Problem

The article highlights the controversial issues of executive branch dualism in Ukraine and highlights the problems of the dualistic nature of the competence of civil-military administrations. It is noted that since the proclamation of Ukraine’s independence and up to now, political and legal discussions have been taking place around the problems of executive power organization. It is emphasized that the origins of the problem of executive dualism should be sought from the formation of the system of public authorities in Ukraine in the 90s of the twentieth century. During this period, there was a rather complicated political struggle and a search for the most optimal model of building a system of state authorities, which certainly affected the construction of the executive branch, and gave rise to a number of problems related to the dualism of power. The author emphasizes that the problems of dualism in the sphere of higher authorities have caused the same problems in the system of executive authorities and their relations with other types of public authorities, in particular, with local self-government bodies. The author analyzes and summarizes the problems in the field of relations between local public authorities (local executive authorities and local self-government bodies) and identifies the following: conceptual problems of delimitation of powers between certain executive authorities and local self-government bodies, legal problems of delimitation of powers between certain executive authorities and local self-government bodies; institutional problems. It is emphasized that dualism was also observed in the course of functioning of civil-military administrations, although in this case it was of a slightly different nature, which is due to the special legal status of the latter. The author identifies the peculiarities of such dualism. The author emphasizes the need to improve the legal framework for the functioning of civil-military administrations, to carry out institutional changes (search for a model, structure, etc.), to organize work, to apply new forms and methods of management, and to conduct further scientific research.