Political System Research Articles (Page 1)

In the new era of accelerated digital transformation, cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing are triggering profound changes in the field of education. These changes not only manifest in the modernization of teaching methods but also fundamentally reconstruct the knowledge dissemination system and learning behavior patterns. Currently, ideological and political education is at a historic development opportunity. With the concept of “precise ideological and political education” incorporated into the national education strategic layout, colleges and universities urgently need to build an intelligent ideological and political education system based on digital technology. The construction of this system requires focusing on solving three core issues: how to use digital profiling technology to accurately identify students’ ideological dynamics, how to establish personalized education plans based on intelligent algorithms, and how to enhance the participation and effectiveness of ideological and political education through digital platforms. Especially in the post-pandemic era, the new normal of online and offline integrated teaching poses new challenges to the traditional ideological and political work model. This requires educators to deeply understand the underlying logic of technology-enabled education and, through the construction of a “data-driven - precise policy-making - dynamic feedback” closed-loop system, effectively enhance the contemporaneity and appeal of ideological and political education.

Throughout human history, contagious infectious diseases have significantly impacted societies, shaping the fate of great dynasties and challenging economic and political systems, social relations, and the overall well-being of the human species. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges, emerging in the context of extreme globalization and rapid technological development. The speed of viral spread, the highest absolute mortality rate caused by a viral agent in the last 100 years, and the severe economic and social consequences imposed an urgent need for vaccine development on a previously unimaginable timescale. The proven safety and efficacy of inactivated vaccines enabled the development and large-scale application of the first immunizer against SARS-CoV-2 in less than a year after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the pandemic. In this review, we discuss the importance of inactivated antiviral vaccines and their historical impact in containing highly harmful diseases affecting humanity. We also explore the cellular mechanisms by which inactivated vaccines may induce immunogenic responses against viral pathogens. In addition, we bring to light a discussion about a fast, cost-effective, potentially efficient technology for large-scale immunizer production: High hydrostatic pressure (HHP), a method long supported by decades of preclinical studies and which is especially effective in the context of enveloped viruses. Finally, we discuss the role of inactivated antiviral vaccines in the face of advances in biotechnology and, therefore, the emergence of vaccines that use genetic engineering in their production, such as RNA, DNA and viral vaccines, which have gained special prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Applying the Multiple Streams Framework to climate policy agenda-setting in the five Central Asian countries has strong explanatory power. The study finds that, under their political systems, the problem, policy, and politics streams do not operate independently; rather, the politics stream is dominant. Accordingly, this study offers an appropriate refinement of MSF and proposes a politics-stream-dominant coupling model. In this model, the politics stream comprises the ruling party’s executive will and governing philosophy, the catalytic influence of public sentiment, and the actions of interest groups. The problem stream encompasses climate-change-induced natural disasters and feedback from international climate conferences. The policy stream includes national climate-change plans, policy recommendations from experts and scholars, and lessons from relevant international organizations and other countries’ climate policies. However, within this model, the problem and policy streams must first be recognized, vetted, and absorbed by the politics stream before the policy window for climate-change agenda-setting opens, which gives the process a distinctly top-down character. Moreover, differences in political institutions, economic structures, and resource endowments yield unique interaction patterns among the three streams across country contexts. Looking ahead, agenda-setting for climate policy in these five countries will continue to face the challenge of uneven development among the streams; sustained deepening of their coupling is required to keep the policy window open. This study provides a theoretical touchstone and a practical reference for China and other developing countries as they pursue climate diplomacy.

This study examines the regulatory deficiencies in Indonesia’s political finance system, particularly the absence of laws governing party income sources. Although existing rules address campaign spending and financial reporting, they lack limits on donations and fail to restrict high-risk, foreign-linked, or opaque contributions. Using a normative legal method supported by comparative, statutory, and conceptual analysis, the research draws on experiences from Thailand and the Philippines to identify best practices for reform. It argues that source-based regulation is essential to uphold constitutional equality and electoral integrity. The proposed reform agenda rests on three pillars: introducing statutory ceilings on donations, prohibiting high-risk and anonymous contributions, and institutionalising public financing tied to democratic performance. The findings show that Indonesia’s weak regulatory framework fosters elite capture, erodes internal party democracy, and diminishes public trust. By integrating these reforms, Indonesia can close legal gaps, strengthen constitutional democracy, and contribute to global discourse on political finance reform.

Traditional theories of intercultural communication often overlook the multiplicity of interpretations and the influence of power, materiality, and institutional structures on everyday interactions. In high-stakes environments such as asylum reception, communication is shaped by broader political, economic, and social systems that structure both professional practices and interpersonal relations. This study examines how intercultural communication unfolds within a Finnish asylum centre (AC), focusing on how “threat” and “threatening” are constructed, interpreted, and managed by practitioners. It also demonstrates how Institutional Ethnography (IE) can serve as a theoretical and methodological tool for analysing the institutional and material conditions that shape communication in such settings. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork (2017–2020), the study analyses Reports from Reception, ethnographic fieldnotes, and institutional texts using IE to trace how power, material conditions, and bureaucratic discourse shape meaning-making around “threat.” Professional communication in the AC is profoundly influenced by institutional frameworks, limited resources, and spatial confinement. Material scarcity and emotional strain often trigger situations interpreted as “threats,” which are then circulated through institutional reporting systems, reinforcing control-oriented discourses and overshadowing their structural origins. Institutional Ethnography reveals that professional practices are mediated through textual and institutional power relations rather than purely cultural differences. The study calls for context-sensitive, socially just models of intercultural competence that foreground power, materiality, and institutional constraints to promote more humane and equitable professional practices in asylum reception.

Identifying the weaknesses of the current justice and political system is a first step toward building a system based on guarantees. This framework is based on a structure that aims to mitigate the weaknesses of existing legal and political systems through protective mechanisms. In the book, Ferrajoli develops a framework that explores and challenges the main problems of his theory of guarantees, comparing them to contemporary issues.

There is consensus that health outcomes are shaped to a considerable extent by social determinants or non-medical factors (Marmot 2005). The World Health Organization (WHO) describes these social determinants as the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life. These forces and systems include economic policies and systems, development agendas, social norms, social policies and political systems (WHO 2023).

Abstract Shang Yang and Han Feizi advocated performance-based law and excessive punishments, which they believed would prevent people from deceiving the lord and violating the law, thereby creating a crime-free utopia. However, by examining the archaeologically excavated materials and the transmitted sources, the author demonstrates that this brutal instrumentalism and idealism generated a monstrous legal system in real politics that distorted justice. The author argues that the Qin-Han legal system excessively punished administrative mistakes as crimes. Intended to promote efficiency, performance-oriented legislation prescribed rigid, detailed, and high-standard job objectives with absolute liability. A large number of officials, including those industriously devoted to their jobs, violated the law. Excessive punishments caused officials guilty of administrative errors to suffer the same bodily pain and economic loss as those who inflicted serious harm on society through intentional violence. When the punishment was neither deserved nor just, resentment arose against the law, and sympathy for the condemned emerged. This unjust practice triggered heated criticism among scholars, officials, and sometimes emperors, but no efficient legal reforms ever occurred. This article is intended to provoke thought about the dangerous application of perfectionism in the real world and to explain historical roots of the long-standing Confucian tradition against rule by law.

ABSTRACT The paper draws on the “politics of the belly” framework to locate procurement of government contracts within a kind of governing in which often conflicting dynamics are closely intertwined and shape accountability practices differently. By taking a historical view, we show how neoliberal reforms evolved new organizational forms, embedded in the traditional way of doing business in Africa, and “succeeded” in promoting political elite interests in Ghana. Contrary to the neoliberal reforms ideology of promoting accountability, the paper shows how the socialization of individuals through informal political networks and the “politics of the belly culture” incubates corrupt practices and inevitably constrains accountability in public procurement. The paper contributes to scholarship on public sector reform, corruption, and accountability by showing how neoliberal accountability regimes, when introduced into political systems structured by informal power, are reconstituted to serve rather than challenge elite interests. It also offers practical implications for reform agendas that seek to engage with African states on more contextually appropriate terms. The paper argues that accountability in public procurement in Africa reflects the complex interplay of local political practices and informal networks, consistent with the logic of the politics of the belly. The question for policy actors is no longer just “how do we strengthen procurement systems?”—but “whose accountability do these systems serve, and how might reforms be co‐designed to account for, and counteract, embedded political interests?”

ABSTRACT This study addresses the underexplored interplay between educational leadership and political context by synthesizing two decades of international research. Drawing on 115 qualitative case studies across 18 countries within the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP), this meta-synthesis investigates how principals navigate complex political environments to achieve and sustain school success over time. Informed by Easton’s political system theory and Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems model, we analyzed leadership practices across five nested political layers (micro, meso, exo, macro, and chrono). Using meta-ethnographic techniques, we reveal how political contexts influence leadership, with micro- (school level) and macrosystem (national level) forces exerting the most substantial influence, while meso- (community level) and chronosystem remain understudied. This article sheds light on the role of politics in shaping, enabling, or constraining school leadership. Rather than treating politics as a barrier, successful principals leveraged it as a tool for long-term school improvement. This study provides global, longitudinal insights into how educational leadership evolves amid changing political landscapes and offers implications for principal preparation, policy, and future research.

Historical and contemporary evidence shows that sortition (political lottery) can be used in very different political systems with various functions (not only the ‘sanitizing’ one). But we must likewise acknowledge that it has specific important characteristics – wherever the lot may be situated in a system, it affirms at this point a specific kind of equality: the ‘blind equality’, different from equality of opportunity, intersectional equality, and other (less simple) forms of equality. The article stresses various aspects and correlates of ‘blind equality’. This kind of equality is the basis of sortition, but also of majority voting, and this link may explain how majoritarian rule and political lottery could join historically in the democratic model of classical Greece.

In The Keys to Democracy: Sortition as a New Model for Citizen Power, Maurice Pope advocates government by sortition. He castigates electoral representation as oligarchic, promising popular consent and control but nothing more. As an alternative, Pope harkens back to Ancient Athens, which relied upon government by popular assembly plus selection of officials by sortition. But in contrast to Athens, Pope supports assigning all government responsibilities to an assortment of randomly-selected panels of various sizes. Pope rejects reliance upon direct democracy, including both face-to-face assembly and referenda, due to the perils of crowd behaviour (in the former case) and rational ignorance (in both cases). He sees in public opinion polling a means of identifying what the people want, but poll-driven government would simply reproduce mass ignorance – arguably democratic but hardly desirable. A sortition panel combines the advantages of polling with the benefits of deliberation and discussion. Such panels can be expected to decide as the people as a whole would decide under ideal conditions. But for Pope, such decision making must result in consensus in order to achieve legitimacy. This demand may be realistic in a 12-person jury for a criminal or civil trial, but it seems utopian as a method of running entire political systems. Pope’s vision of democracy by sortition may be unrealistic, but it effectively foreshadows many of the ongoing debates in the contemporary sortition literature.

The Czechoslovak Socialist Party (ČSS) emerged during the political coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948 as the successor to the Czech National Social Party, whose roots date back to 1897. At that time, it defined itself in opposition to internationalist social democracy, and alongside the working class, its membership base included members of the middle strata – craftsmen, small business owners, tradesmen, employees, clerks, and the intelligentsia. Until February 1948, its programmatic focus pursued the idea of building Czech national socialism, by which it meant the creation of a socially-oriented and democratic state through social reforms. After the communist coup, when the party faced possible dissolution, it was forced to abandon this program line and, as a satellite of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) – a so-called «shadow party» – it took part in building socialism. The party's transformation naturally affected the composition of its membership base. From a mass political party, it became a selective and small organization, whose size was determined by the ruling communists through a permitted membership quota. The core of the party’s members in the 1950s and 1960s consisted of former members of the national socialist party, who accepted not only its new program and role within the political system of the country, but also the radical transformation of internal party life. The party's daily activity lay in the ideological re-education of its members in the spirit of Marxism-Leninism and within the framework set by the KSČ. As part of this socialist upbringing, members were obliged to participate in socialist competition at work and in their communities. They accepted so-called socialist commitments, took part in voluntary work activities in agriculture, in collecting waste materials, and in developing civic infrastructure (such as building kindergartens, maintaining parks, protecting the environment, etc.), especially in areas where state administration failed and was unable to fulfill its role. Besides this work-related contribution to building socialism, the core of internal party life were meetings and organizing celebrations and commemorations motivated by communist traditions. Along its relatively small size, the ČSS membership base was characterized by a certain degree of stability. Over the years, it underwent a natural turnover of its members. The party leadership mostly parted ways with older and passive members, who were gradually replaced by more pragmatically oriented individuals – those who wished to be politically active but did not want to do so within the ranks of the Communist Party. The development of the party’s membership base (its growth and decline) was closely tied to changes in politics during the building of socialism in the country. People responded to the appearance or disappearance of hope for a change in the political regime and the entire system.

This article explores the political-administrative interface in the context of South Africa’s coalition-led metropolitan municipalities. The political and administrative office bearers in a dominant political party system in South Africa have enjoyed center stage for the past 30 years. However, as the country gradually moves toward coalition politics in a multiparty democracy, the political-administrative discourse is unable to account for coalition politics in most of South Africa’s metropolitan municipalities. More importantly, political and administrative instability has become common in most of South Africa’s coalition-led metropolitan municipalities. This article transcends the dichotomous design by focusing on the lived experiences of political office bearers in the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) and officials from the South African Local Government Association (SALGA). It offers a multifaceted contextual account of how coalition governments affect the political-administrative interface in the CoJ. This article recommends that scholars incorporate coalition politics into the overly simplistic two-dimensional political-administrative dichotomy design to improve coalition governance.

This work intends to explore the effectiveness of a dual-track cultivation model for ideological and political literacy in vocational colleges driven by artificial intelligence deep learning models. This work compares the performance of different models on several key indicators of ideological and political education. Through analysis of experimental results across varying data volumes, the optimized model demonstrates significant advantages in four areas: mastery of ideological and political knowledge, ideological and political consciousness, ideological and political practical ability, and student satisfaction. The highest score for political belief reaches 4.8, while the scores for theoretical knowledge mastery, social practice participation, and activity satisfaction all reach 4.7, far surpassing traditional models. This indicates that the optimized model can more effectively help students understand and retain course content. Additionally, the optimized model significantly enhances students’ recognition and trust in the national political system and core values. It also improves students’ ability to apply ideological and political knowledge to real-world problems. Lastly, in terms of student satisfaction, the optimized model performs exceptionally well in both course and activity satisfaction. Therefore, this work contributes to the field of ideological and political education in vocational colleges.

This book explores one of the central issues in contemporary international relations and, simultaneously, the confrontation between Russia and the West: the eastward expansion of the EU. Globally, the eastward expansion of the EU holds the potential for the EU to emerge as a new pole of global politics, capable of significantly influencing the balance of power in the modern world. Regionally, the latest wave of EU enlargement, which has included post-socialist European states, could be decisive in establishing a new type of interstate relations on the continent and in determining the extent to which Eastern European and Baltic countries adapt to EU standards and norms. In other words, it could have a direct impact on reform processes in post-Soviet and post-communist countries. For Eastern European countries, analyzing this process is important not only for determining prospects for further development within the EU political system or for the Eastern Partnership countries. This book analyzes the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe following the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s ongoing, aggressive, full-scale war against Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022. In this context, the authors of various chapters in this book examine the economic, social, institutional, and political instability in the countries of the eastern part of the EU.

Analyzing Türkiye’s policies towards the Balkans in the historical process will also help to understand the reasons for today's foreign policy approach. The importance of the region for Türkiye stems from its geographical position as a gateway between Eastern, Central, and Western Europe, as well as its cultural values, which Türkiye can name as the Ottoman heritage. The economic potential of the Balkans and its transit route features are of particular importance. Because it is the main transit route for the 3.5 million Turkish population living in Central and Western Europe, the influence of a regional power like Türkiye in the Balkans cannot be underestimated, especially in an environment where the world is in an international political system oriented toward a multipolar structure, and there is still no clear answer to the question of where Türkiye will position itself. Bosnia and Herzegovina is still a cultural outpost of Türkiye extending into central Europe. The future of the Bosnians is the key to the Balkans, both geo-culturally and geopolitically. This is the most important condition for Türkiye to establish an influence area in the Balkans. The belt that stretches from northwest to southeast through Bihac, Central Bosnia-Sanjak, is the lifeblood of Türkiye's Balkan geopolitics and geostrategy. The new developments that emerged with the end of the Cold War and the authority vacuum in the region are a process parallel to the historical development. The continuation of this process will show the extent to which the reality defined as micro-nationalism in international relations literature can be perceived. The importance of the region for Turkey stems from its position as a gateway between Eastern, Central, and Western Europe and Türkiye, its cultural values that can be called Ottoman heritage, and the Turkish and Muslim elements that still look towards Türkiye.

Abstract The article is a critical-philosophical reflection of some economic–political and technological–political trends triggered by the process of digitalization and enhanced by AI technologies. From the perspective of environmental political philosophy, it points out that the rapid emergence of AI technologies is neither politically nor environmentally neutral. It deepens several contradictions of democratic political and constitutional systems, thereby undermining democratic institutions and processes. This paper understands contemporary constitutional democracies as normative systems of limits aimed at limiting the possibility of abuse of power. However, the economic and political reality of nominally democratic states differs in many ways from normative constitutional documents. Even constitutionally democratic states are thus unable to adequately respond to environmental devastation caused by technological and economic power. Based on the critique of this techno-political constellation, the article introduces the concept of environmental democracy as a normative theory, which seeks to reconcile the concept of constitutional democracy with the knowledge of Earth System Science. From this perspective, the paper critically assesses some phenomena associated with digitalization and the development of AI technologies, which threaten the existing constitutional democracies and practically make their socio-environmental transformation impossible. The concept of environmental democracy assumes the possibility of extending equal access to public functions to equal access to basic life resources as prerequisites of survival for all in the New Climate Regime. It relies on several UN documents and declarations. The article points out that the AI revolution is occurring simultaneously with an unprecedented disruption of the planetary system that is changing the environmental preconditions for the existence of organized human society to an extent that threatens both the survival of existing political systems and civil and human rights, and brings a new perspective on how AI technologies undermine democratic institutions and processes of socio-environmental transformation.

This article explores the notion of European consensus on selected socially sensitive issues – same-sex relationships, abortion, euthanasia, and assisted suicide. It investigates how these topics are addressed in Western and Central-Eastern Europe, with particular attention to the interplay between EU law and national legal and political frameworks. The research focuses on how customary change is negotiated through legal norms, political debate, and social values. It asks how EU integration and European case law influence national policymaking, and how differing historical and political contexts shape policy divergence. The study is based on a qualitative and comparative methodology, combining legal analysis of European case law, comparative review of national legislation and case law, and discourse analysis of EU institutional debates. Findings suggest that Western European countries generally implement more progressive reforms, while Central-Eastern European states proceed more cautiously, constrained by conservative traditions. The article concludes that while EU legal standards exert integrative pressure, local contexts continue to define the limits of normative convergence. A balance between liberal and conservative approaches is necessary to maintain both legal coherence and cultural pluralism within the EU.

Since the beginning of Trump's first presidency in 2017, his foreign policy has been characterized by scholars and journalists as “transactional.” According to this view, he has prioritized short-term economic gains over promoting principles and has been indifferent to other countries’ political systems when dealing with them. This paper argues, however, that since becoming president in 2025, Trump's foreign policy has shifted from a transactional approach to a tributary one—an attempt to create an international system that harkens back to the historic East Asian international system, when other countries had to come to China's capital and pay tribute to the emperor. This paper shows that Trump's tariffs lack a sound economic logic, and that, in contrast to the indifference that characterizes a transactional foreign policy, Trump's approach has favoured autocratic states over democratic ones. It concludes by suggesting that Canada and other traditional allies need to recognize this tributary nature and stiffen their resistance to Trump.