Political Subjects Research Articles

Solarpunk and Alternative Social Imaginaries: Sarena Ulibarri’s Narratives of Radical Hope

ABSTRACT In the global climate crisis context, it is imperative to engage with the potentialities offered by hope as a critical category to invigorate the climate change discourse. Hope, as an affect, can mobilise collective imagination to effectuate alternatives to neoliberal hegemony. This paper explores the radical potential of hope, drawing on Laclau’s notion of emancipation, which reconceptualises hope as integral to envisioning a liberatory social imaginary in opposition to capitalist frameworks. Similarly, Mouffe’s articulation of the social imaginary underscores the role of hope as a passion that drives practices and discourses of identification, constituting political subjects distinct from those shaped by capitalism. Through an analysis of two Solarpunk narratives by Sarena Ulibarri, this paper examines how hope is mobilised through a collective will towards emancipation. The narratives under consideration, ‘The Spiral Ranch’ and ‘The Mushroom Farmer’s Network,’ depict characters trying to transcend the constraints of capitalism and an undesirable social order through practices of hope. These practices are initated through the passionate commitment of community members, as depicted in these narratives, to a collective ethos that eschews individualistic or profit-driven motives and aligns with the principles of a sustainable Solarpunk society. The ecologically sustainable farm and the ranch depicted in these texts represent pluralist collectivities that resist the individualising and totalising impulses characteristic of capitalist systems.

Selected aspects of ideological content in the decoration of the Chapel of St. Francis Xavier at the Church of the Most Sacred Name of Jesus in Wrocław

The university church, together with the Collegium Maximum, was the most important foundation of the Wrocław Jesuits, which was reflected in the rich ideological programme of the decoration of this building complex. The aim of this article is to analyse selected aspects of the ideological content contained in the decoration of the chapel of St. Francis Xavier in the Church of the Most Sacred Name of Jesus in Wrocław, which has not yet received a mono­graphic study. The literature on the subject emphasises how much attention the Jesuits paid to the message in­scribed in the decoration of their buildings, and how they used the power of art to this end. Within this context, religious and political themes have been read and their authors identified. The source material for the analysis of the content of the chapel’s decoration consisted of fragmentary preserved Jesuitica, including Litterae annuae and an inventory of the Jesuit library in Wrocław from 1707. Indirect evidence suggests that the ideological programme and artistic expression of this interior was heavily influenced by the college rector Friedrich Wolff von Lüdinghausen (1643–1708) and prince bishop Franz Ludwig von Pfalz-Neuburg (1664–1732). The article also identifies the formal patterns of these ornaments.

Иррациональные начала политики в зеркале общественнополитической мысли (От Древней Греции к современности и дальше)

This article attempts to study the problem of the influence of irrational factors on politics and its reflection in the space of socio-political thought. Having started by identifying theoretical models of understanding the irrational in politics, the author fixes the theoretical and methodological framework, which is used by default when mastering the subject, and subsequently wonders: how else can the irrational be included in the sphere of political analysis and modelling? The author uses the texts of ancient Greek thinkers as the starting point. On their basis she reconstructs the basic set of approaches that form a conventional model to understand the role of the irrational in politics, and then highlights several features of the ancient discourse about the irrational. Firstly, this is the generative and teleological function of the irrational in connection with political reality: ancient thinkers primarily associated with irrational principles such matters as the origin of wars, power, law and the state, as well as the goals of political development. Secondly, the irrational factor limits the space of political subjectivity and, more specifically, free choice for a person and a citizen, because it is in the irrational field that the “last argument” is located. Thirdly, this is the trend towards the transition from metaphysics to psychology. Further analysis shows that this theoretical trajectory is preserved and consolidated within the framework of Western European political science discourse. Having established that the ancient Greek model of understanding the irrational is reproduced not only in discourse but also in practice, the author formulates an important question for political science: how productive are reflections that derive recommendations for socio-political coexistence from certain psychological human qualities or arbitrarily interpreted divine revelations? — and thereby invites the scientific community to revise classical approaches and to have an active dialogue within the topic. She proposes the concept of parallel discourses — verbal and non-verbal — as an alternative theoretical and methodological framework for the scientific study of irrational factors in politics.

Təbliğat, Təşviqat, Təlqin və Propaqanda: Müqayisəli Konseptual Təhlil

The study aims to conduct a conceptual analysis of the terms persuasion, advocacy, propaganda, and propagation within the field of political science in Azerbaijan. Each term is examined individually to explore their usage areas and specific functions, highlighting the differences and similarities. In this context, propaganda is defined as the systematic and biased communication activity that manipulates the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of masses to serve the interests of a particular political subject. Propagation refers to verbal or written activities aimed at disseminating and deepening any theory, idea, or knowledge among the masses. Agitation involves verbal or written activities aimed at influencing and motivating people to perform a specific task and exerting political influence over large populations. Persuasion, on the other hand, is the activity of influencing an individual's will and psyche to accept a certain idea, belief, or emotion. The article demonstrates that propaganda encompasses a broader and more complex scope, integrating the components of persuasion, propagation, and agitation. Consequently, in the field of political science in Azerbaijan, each of these terms has its unique functions and areas of usage. However, propaganda is a more comprehensive term that includes these concepts and combines manipulative strategies and methods to influence masses. Therefore, it is crucial to accurately and conceptually articulate the term propaganda in the field of political science in Azerbaijan. This is essential for expressing complex political technologies and ensuring the proper use of the term propaganda in international academic and practical applications.

EU as a Trade Power: Adjusting Instruments of Foreign Economic Policy

The focus of this study is aimed at the foreign economic policy of the European Union and the areas of its implementation. The article is based on a comprehensive approach to the concept of EU foreign economic policy as a set of instruments combining trade and investment policies of the EU. The study evaluates the communitarization of the main directions of the EU’s foreign economic policy. As a result, it is concluded that the exclusive competence of the supranational bodies of the Union is partially extended to investment policy. Considering that the paradigm of realism is taken as the basis for the study, the subject of the article is to assess the role of the EU’s foreign economic policy in the realization of the Union’s foreign policy interests. The authors believe that the European Union as a “trade power”, seeks not only to achieve economic benefits, but also to ensure that its trading partners meet a number of regulatory and value requirements. Taking into account the transformation of the world order, the need for the European Union to strengthen its own political subjectivity and economic competitiveness is increasing. This leads to the expansion of “defensive” measures in trade policy (sanctions mechanism for non-compliance with the provisions on sustainable development in trade agreements) and investment policy (mechanism for controlling foreign direct investments). As a result, it strengthens the normative and value content of EU foreign economic policy on one hand and make it more protectionist on the other hand. The authors of the article conclude that by means of foreign economic policy, the European Union, as a “trading force”, seeks to create and maintain an international trade order based on rules that are beneficial to the EU.

Critical observations on neoliberal capitalism, the political subject and the socio-political crises of the 21st century. A general cartography of the present and future of Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

El presente texto tiene por objetivo rastrear, a través de la filosofía moral de Adorno, la posibilidad de actuar éticamente en un mundo falso, injusto y lleno de contradicciones. Con miras a ello, analizaremos primeramente las características de dicho mundo; acto seguido, presentaremos la necesidad de los individuos de proyectar sus actos en un mundo indeterminado para poder subjetivarse a través del acierto. Posteriormente, plantearemos que en una sociedad administrada con todas las variables fijadas no es posible que el individuo se subjetive. Por último, trazaremos las coordenadas para la emergencia del sujeto moral en un contexto de inmoralidad.

Postantropocentryczny demos i porządek obywatelski

THE POST-ANTHROPOCENTRIC DEMOS AND CIVIC ORDER The aim of this article is to hermeneutically analyse the narratives associated with the post-anthropocentric turn and their implications for the transformation of political and civic order. These issues can be situated within a framework of broad political thought and theory based on the work of Rosi Braidotti, Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, or Michel Serres. Emphasising multispecies justice, the demands of post-humanist positions and adjustments to social theory refer to a concern for a stable future of human and non-human collectivities. They concern the expansion of the public sphere and the political emancipation of hitherto marginalised peripheral actors, reclaiming as they do their voice. This non-anthropocentric point of view refers to elements of nature as well as the technological world gaining legal status. This raises the question of its political consequences for society and the civil order. It involves the restoration or granting of legal and moral subjectivity to non-human entities. Will the next step, therefore, also be to give them political subjectivity and a revolution to match the new social contract? The structure of the text addresses issues such as the evolution of civil society, the possibilities and consequences of moving beyond the category of anthropos, the proposal of monism as ontological egalitarianism, the presentation of examples of non-human actors in the public sphere and Latour’s project of a parliament of things – the pluriversum.

Language, Script and Enemies of the State: Bengali Language and Nation-Building in Pakistan, 1947–53

The question of why the Pakistani state was so ardent in its support of Urdu despite popular protest across the country, specifically in East Bengal, has been answered in a multitude of ways. Was the issue of language a hegemonic issue for the Pakistani ruling elite, or an example of the political subjugation of Bengalis in Pakistan? Or was the insistence on Urdu as an official language connected with ‘fears of a Bengali-Hindu conspiracy to undermine the new state by retaining linguistic and cultural connections with India’? This article argues that the Pakistani state’s responses and policies were not part of a grander strategy or an attempt to subjugate the Bengali population, but a confused and undirected Pakistani state trying to implement its vision of the nation, while simultaneously increasing its state-building capacity.

Cultura y transformación política en Jesús Martín-Barbero y Fredric Jameson

This paper explores the approaches regarding culture and political transformation in the works of Jesús Martín-Barbero and Fredric Jameson. Both authors, from different contexts and theoretical perspectives, offer analytical frameworks to understand the dynamics of domination and social struggles in the context of late modernity. In this regard, the present article examines their positions on the relationship between the social dynamics of the local and the global, the role of political subjects in late capitalism, and the function of culture in the processes of hegemony and counter-hegemony. Particularly, it analyzes how Martín-Barbero, from a Latin American perspective, emphasizes the importance of local cultural struggles and the construction of popular identities, while Jameson, from a more global perspective influenced by his analysis situated in the United States, examines the dynamics of late capitalism and its impact on culture. Special attention is given to how both authors approach the Marxist conception of totality and the possibilities for transformation that each stance allows to envision. This analysis seeks to contribute to the philosophical and sociological debate on the relationship between culture and politics, offering a comparative reading that identifies both the points of convergence, and the tensions present between the two theorists.

Representation of Feminism in Russian Media Space: Authors and Narratives

The authors examine the features of media representation of feminism as a topical phenomenon and study related stories in Russian news and mass media over recent years. The aim of the study is to determine the dynamics of authors’ publications and the feminist topic’s development in the Russian media space since 2017, as well as to identify trends in the development of the feminist topic. The materials used for the work were online publications with key words “feminism” from eight Russian mass media: Wonderzine*, Meduza*, Afi sha Daily, Takiye Dela, Novaya Gazeta*, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Argumenty i Fakty, The Voice (Cosmopolitan). The main patterns that are observed among key authors of feminist publications are activism and professional feminist interests. Content analysis which was conducted during the research presented the main communicative practices of feminist discourse and thematic priorities. Moreover, the work presents characteristics of the main authors and assesses their potential for constructive / destructive infl uence on the audience. The increasing number of publications established in the framework of the research confi rms the rising journalists’ interest in the feminism topic in the Russian media space. The research has proved that the representation of the feminism theme goes beyond traditional mass media and is being actively discussed on social networks. The following patterns were found – authors of feminism publications, who are not active participants of feminist actions/events, most often represent such thematic areas as history, literature, art, and others; the largest number of publications belongs to journalists participating in actions or promoting “feminist” agenda. Activity monitoring of the studied authors revealed a lack of systematicity in the feminist publications, but some fi nd a newsworthy occurrence to return to the topic in their materials. We revealed that feminist texts are tended to acquire political color, and the appeal to political subjects refl ects worsening social dynamics of feminist movement in the context of important world and Russian events.

Subaltern citizenship: naturalization and belonging for New Russian citizens from Central Asia

ABSTRACT This article explores the perils of belonging among recently naturalized citizens in Russia from Tajikistan. As citizenship in Russia becomes accessible to ethnicized migrant workers, it becomes subalternized, a process broader than citizenship’s neoliberalization. A racialized understanding of ethnicity, itself a legacy of the Soviet empire, shapes understandings of political membership in Russia. This has influenced both Russian migration legislation, as well as Russian citizenship, as former migrant workers become Russian citizens en masse. This article also explores how recently naturalized citizens embrace the ambiguity of new political forms of belonging within the deeply charged politics of new citizens’ inclusion. Former migrant workers construe their belonging in both Russia and Tajikistan, claiming their transnational lives and rights to motherland/s as active political agents. Ideas of ‘motherland’, however, are not strictly national or territorial: motherland is understood through localized and spatial experiences and memories. At the same time, former migrant workers’ inclusion as political subjects in Russia has heightened the fragility of Russian citizenship itself, whereby citizenship can now be revoked and annulled with as little as a court order.

The Recovery of the Communal Lands: Territorial Struggle and Political Subjectivation in San Miguel Chimalapa, Mexico

This article addresses the struggle for the recovery of communal lands by groups inhabiting the Chimalapas region in the municipality of San Miguel Chimalapa, Oaxaca, between the 1970s and 1990s. I focus on the process of political subjectivation (or political subject formation), understood here as the sphere of politicization under which these sectors articulated discourses and practices of insubordination that allowed them to materialize their collective demand for access to communal lands. I begin with a historical overview of the private appropriation of land in the Chimalapas during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the emergence of agrarian problems in the region. I subsequently analyze the elements that allowed for the cohesion of this subject formation process and the deployment of land recovery strategies in eastern San Miguel. Finally, I address the internalization of the struggle experience among new sectors, and how land recovery has extended to the municipality’s southern border. El presente texto ofrece una aproximación a la lucha por la recuperación de tierras comunales emprendida por sectores chimalapas en el municipio de San Miguel Chimalapa, Oaxaca, entre las décadas de 1970 y 1990. Para ello, nos centramos en el proceso de subjetivación política, entendido como el ámbito de politización bajo el cual estos sectores articularon discursos y prácticas de insubordinación que les permitieron materializar su demanda colectiva de acceso a las tierras comunales. Iniciamos con un panorama histórico sobre la apropiación privada de la tierra en los Chimalapas durante los siglos XIX-XX y el surgimiento de la problemática agraria en esta región. Posteriormente, analizamos los elementos que cohesionaron el proceso de subjetivación y el despliegue de la recuperación de tierras de la zona oriente de San Miguel, para finalmente observar la interiorización de la experiencia de lucha en nuevos sectores y la expansión de la recuperación a la frontera sur del municipio.

Authenticity and its Discontents: Abdallah Laroui on the Moroccan and Arab Subject

This article examines the topic of postcolonial subject formation in the work of Moroccan historian and theorist Abdallah Laroui (1933–) by analyzing his evaluation of the notion of authenticity. I trace understandings of self-identity for Moroccans and other Arab populations that Laroui articulates in his work from the 1960s through the 2000s, and situate his interventions in relation both to relevant political developments and to contributions of other Arab intellectuals on this question, across this time period. Rather than interpret Laroui as a proponent of undifferentiated universalism in his reading of modern history, as many of his critics and commentators do, I demonstrate how he departs from such an approach by calling attention to the notion of particularism, which he defends as a counterpoint to authenticity. The article concludes with a discussion of Laroui's abandonment of a positive, alternative conception of cultural and political subjectivity by the late twentieth century, and considers what the implications of this shift in his thought are.

From Panthers to Political Dalits: Revisiting the Legacy of Dalit Panthers in India

The Panthers had created a rupture from the earlier pattern that Ambedkar has strategized to integrate the Dalits as one of the important political subjects of the modern nation state. The Panthers deviated and invested in two radical ideological traits; the Civil Right Movement in the US (including the Black Panthers’ Party) and radical Marxism (Indian Naxalite movement) to transform Ambedkar’s social theory into an aggressive brand of transformative politics. The Panthers showed open discomfort with the given liberal model of democratic politics and attempted to shift the traditional Dalit political ideology into a revolutionary force. Though the Panthers’ innovations have impressed the urban Dalit youths and intelligentsia, it failed miserably in forming a concrete political alternative at the regional or the national level. I have concluded that, with the rise of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Dalits were introduced to an improvised liberal political agenda, different from the earlier variants of Ambedkar’s participatory politics and the Panthers’ militant rhetoric. It shows that the Dalits are more convinced and engaged with the liberal-democratic model and consciously refute the militant and radical methods for political actions.

Decoding Edward Said: A critical review of the genesis of ‘Orient’, ‘Occident’, and ‘Other’.

Purpose: This paper critically examines Edward Said’s seminal concepts of the "Orient," "Occident," and the "Other" within postcolonial discourse, focusing on how these constructs have shaped Western perceptions of Eastern societies. By analyzing Said’s influential ideas, this study explores how Orientalism fostered an intellectual hegemony that underpinned Western dominance over the East. Methodology: The methodology comprises an in-depth literary analysis of Said’s foundational texts, Orientalism (1978) and Culture and Imperialism (1993), alongside a critical review of secondary sources in postcolonial studies, including contributions from Foucault, Gramsci, and Spivak. Findings: Findings reveal that Said’s framework exposes the cultural and political subjugation enforced by the West while uncovering the power-knowledge mechanisms sustaining these inequalities. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The unique contribution of this paper lies in its synthesis of Said’s discourse with contemporary theories of cultural hegemony, providing fresh insights into the enduring impact of Orientalist thought on modern geopolitics and epistemology. This study underscores the ongoing relevance of Said's critique for understanding present-day cultural and intellectual dominance in the postcolonial context.

Can participatory democracy become “inclusive”? Class, mobilization and voice in participatory institutions

Abstract This article discusses reproductionist perspectives that assume there is little local participatory institutions can do to address the underrepresentation and the domination of some social groups. While there is also empirical basis to be skeptical, the evidence suggests that, occasionally, the reproduction of class inequalities can be counteracted. This encourages us to consider the conditions that favor greater participation of working-class, economically and culturally disadvantaged people. Comparing evidence from various studies in a range of countries, the article argues that certain contextual factors and inclusion tools produce higher rates of mobilization and more egalitarian deliberations. Specifically, the article focuses on the effects of three conditions: a) special mobilization efforts; b) design choices and inclusion tools; and c) the broadening of the political subject through cultural mobilization. As well as reflecting on the shortcomings of these factors, a new research agenda for social equality in participation is also proposed.

Measuring Epistemic Trust: Towards a New Lens for Democratic Legitimacy, Misinformation, and Echo Chambers

Trust is crucial for the functioning of complex societies, and an important concern for CSCW. Our purpose is to use research from philosophy, social science, and CSCW to provide a novel account of trust in the 'post-truth' era. Testimony, from one speaker to another, underlies many social systems. Epistemic trust, or testimonial credibility, is the likelihood to accept a speaker's claim due to beliefs about their competence or sincerity. Epistemic trust is closely related to several 'pathological epistemic phenomena': democratic (il)legitimacy, the spread of misinformation, and echo chambers. To the best of our knowledge, this theoretical contribution is novel in the field of social computing. We further argue that epistemic trust is no philosophical novelty: it is measurable. Weakly supervised text classification approaches achieve F_1 scores of around 80 to 85 per cent on detecting epistemic distrust. This is also, to the best of our knowledge, a novel task in natural language processing. We measure expressions of epistemic distrust across 954 political communities on Reddit. We find that expressions of epistemic distrust are relatively rare, although there are substantial differences between communities. Conspiratorial communities and those focused on controversial political topics tend to express more distrust. Communities with strong epistemic norms enforced by moderation are likely to express low levels. While we find users to be an important potential source of contagion of epistemic distrust, community norms appear to dominate. It is likely that epistemic trust is more useful as an aggregated risk factor. Finally, we argue that policymakers should be aware of epistemic trust considering their reliance on legitimacy underwritten by testimony.

Transformer-Based Quantification of the Echo Chamber Effect in Online Communities

An Echo Chamber on social media refers to the environment where like-minded people hear the echo of each others' voices, opinions, or beliefs, which reinforce their own. Echo Chambers can turn social media platforms into collaborative venues that polarize and radicalize users rather than broadening their exposure to diverse information. Having a quantified metric for measuring the Echo Chamber effect can aid moderators and policymakers in tracking and mitigating online polarization and radicalization. Existing methods for Echo Chamber detection are either one-dimensional, only considering the network behavior of users while ignoring their semantic behavior, or require demanding supervised labeling, which is both expensive and less generalizable. This paper proposes a new metric to quantify the Echo Chamber effect using Transformer models for context-sensitive processing of natural language (NLP). Our metric quantifies (1) the effect of an Echo Chamber through the inverse effect of user diversity , and (2) polarization by means of user separability between two Echo Chambers in a topic. Leveraging this metric, we further propose an NLP-based embedding that represents the users' activity. Our model is simultaneously effective, computationally cheap, and unsupervised. As our method is unsupervised, it makes existing collaborative moderation efforts to thwart Echo Chamber effects more efficient by addressing the problem of identifying narrow information bases for algorithmic biases and misinformation detection. We run our analysis on three recent highly controversial political topics and a non-controversial topic: Russo-Ukrainian War, Abortion, Gun-Control, and SXSW music festival. Our results offer data-driven findings such as a higher Echo Chamber effect among Republicans over Democrats and diverse explicit support for Ukraine, especially among Democrats. We also observe a direct relationship between the Echo Chamber effect and polarization while observing that the low Echo Chamber effect for the Russo-Ukraine war is accompanied by a low polarization; and vice versa for Gun-Control.

Introduction to the BASAS 2023 special section

ABSTRACT This special section of Contemporary South Asia brings together a curated selection of papers presented at the 2023 British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS) Annual Conference, held at the University of Leeds. These papers explore enduring themes of memory politics, state power, and socio-spatial exclusion in South Asia, examining how colonial legacies shape contemporary dynamics. Collectively, the studies underscore the persistence of colonial pasts in modern India’s socio-political landscape and illuminate the creative strategies of resistance employed by marginalized groups. This section contributes to critical discussions on South Asia's politics of memory, space, and resistance, offering fresh insights into the ways power is exercised and contested.

Through The Looking-Glass: The Representation of Jordan and Portugal in Online-Media of Both Countries

Objectives: This article examines the media coverage in Jordan and Portugal about each other over four years (2018-21) to find out what are the subjects that the media of each country focus on, the most published stories, and the sources of these stories. Methods: A descriptive analysis method was used to evaluate 628 stories published in three online news outlets of both countries. Results: The study found that the Jordanian media published more stories about Portugal than the Portuguese media and the Jordanian media focused on sports subjects, especially football. On the other side, the Portuguese media focused on political subjects, but news about the Middle East referred to Jordan more than news related to Jordan, in particular. The dispute within the Jordanian royal family received the attention of the Portuguese press in its coverage of news from inside Jordan. In both countries, news agencies are the first source of stories. Conclusions: The results showed that the Jordanian media focused heavily on sports news related to the Portuguese national team and the player Cristiano Ronaldo, while political, economic, and even health news during the Covid-19 epidemic were few compared to sports. The Portuguese media focused more on political news than others, and the news related to the Middle East referred to Jordan more than the news about Jordan in particular, and this is linked to Jordan’s geographical location as a country located in the Middle East that shares its history and borders with Iraq, Syria, and Palestine.