Political Voice Research Articles

The Crowing Political Matriarchy in Homa Bay County (1963-2022)

Purpose: Crowing Political matriarchy in Homa Bay describes the female’s political take over as an impact of the prolonged pursuit of gender equality in Kenya. The takeover is due to policy frameworks intended to address gender gap. While these policy frameworks have been instrumental, historical aspects relating to gender egalitarianism has been underscored to providing elaborate intervention on gender inequality. This paper investigated the impact of the pursuit of gender egalitarianism amidst the survival of patriarchy in Kenya with specific reference to Homa-Bay County since 1964.
 Methodology: Study is guided by Patriarchal Theory of Robert Filmer which highlights how patriarchal ideology elevated men to superior positions. In the contrary, policy framework; legislative, institutional, and administrative interventions adopted towards gender egalitarianism appear to bear fruits in Homa Bay. A historical research design was applied together with non-probability sampling methods and procedures to identify informants during the study. Other primary data was gathered from the National Archives while secondary data were collected from theses, journal articles, books, and other publications from the internet, university, and other libraries. The data collected has been thematic analysis based of period. The findings may guide policy makers to review and re-assess the impact of the strategies established in the pursuit of gender egalitarianism. Paper deals with the state of gender and political transformation in Homa-Bay County since 1992.
 Findings: Publication indicates that, legislative, institutional, and administrative interventions adopted in Kenya challenge the patriarchal legitimacy and political entitlement.
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Policy and Practice: This treatise reports that the gender egalitarian policies and practices make political voices of females in Homa Bay to crow louder than men. Female political voices in Homa Bay began with Asiyo and Bondo who were elected Member of Parliament and councilor respectively in 1980’s. Nevertheless, the gender egalitarian policies have been legalized by the Kenya constitution 2010 to the advantage of females leading to the pinnacle of political matriarchy in Homa Bay.

Covering inclusion: Frames, themes, and voice in news about LGBTI topics

This article investigates how LGBTI topics are framed in the news and who is given a voice in this coverage by analysing the Dutch-speaking Belgian press. An inductive framing analysis and quantitative content analysis were applied on 1570 articles about LGBTI topics published in 2021 by 13 Dutch-language news outlets. Seven inclusive and two exclusionary frames were discerned. The study shows that primarily gay men serve as voices of the LGBTI community. The findings also indicate that articles are more likely to be framed inclusively when they cite LGBTI people or organisations. Building on the politics of voice and the concepts of valuable and inclusive journalism, this paper argues for journalists and academics to focus on voices that remain unheard in journalism.

Who will tell the news?

ABSTRACTIn this essay, I draw on my work as an international feminist media activist to explore community radio as a transformative form of political education and a cornerstone of substantive liberation for democratic societies. I detail specific histories of solidarity politics and provide archival evidence to show how community radio public affairs journalists have played an ongoing and vital role in delegitimizing colonialism, authoritarianism, and fascist misinformation and abuse of the mass media. I use careful and nuanced accompaniment, community leadership, scholarship, reporting, alternative publications, and archive founding to extend the lessons of the anti-apartheid liberation movement. As a community radio public affairs journalist, my refusal to accommodate myself to petty tyranny and bourgeois social norms has made me a uniquely trusted political voice. I have coached generations of media makers, scholar activists, and critical interpreters of the politics of representation.

The moral economy of voice within IOM’s awareness-raising industry: Gambian returnees and Migrants as Messengers

ABSTRACT The ‘politics of voice’ of awareness-raising bends returnees’ stories towards moral tropes against illegalised migration. These stories are commodified, bringing awareness-raising within the migration industries. We address this commodification using data from an ethnographic study of the Migrants as Messengers (MaM) project run by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in The Gambia since 2019 and through the concept that we call ‘moral economy of voice’. Its constituting dimensions are outlined in our analysis of vignettes on how the clashes between IOM and the returnees over awareness-raising industry’s capitalist logics are cast in moral terms. We show that the returnees orally complained at IOM’s mis-categorisation, mis-compensation and appropriation of their products. When acting as members of an independent group, however, they rejected IOM’s conditional support for their communication projects altogether. This all engenders an evasive paternalism whereby returnees’ survival partly depends on IOM, but the latter affords them neither full vulnerability nor maturity status. As such, returnee stories’ commodification mechanisms are as contentious as their discursive bending. We therefore hint at returnee groups’ potential for withstanding exploitative dynamics as well as advocate for a fairer engagement of returnees in awareness-raising.

Who speaks and who is heard on Facebook? Political mobilization and engagement patterns of partisanship and gender in Switzerland’s direct democracy

This descriptive study investigates political mobilization and user engagement patterns on Facebook and associated partisan and gender discrepancies. It focuses on Switzerland, where political actors frequently seek to mobilize and shape citizens’ opinions before direct-democratic voting on wide-ranging policy issues. Using digital trace data from CrowdTangle, the analysis focuses on the posting frequency and received user interactions of 770 Swiss political actors’ Facebook pages. The analysis period covers 20 months, from November 2019 to July 2021, during which five popular votes occurred, and the sampled FB pages published more than 226,000 posts and received more than 18,000,000 user interactions. A descriptive quantitative analysis and a multiple regression analysis revealed an overall skewed pattern: Mobilization and user engagement are driven by small subsets of highly active and interacted-with FB pages. A few FB pages of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party and male politicians receive highly disproportionate user engagement – relative to more centrist parties and female politicians – but also relative to their electoral share in the national parliament. The results show that only a few dominant political voices are widely heard on Facebook, even if many speak. These insights are of interest beyond Switzerland, as Facebook and other social media platforms shape political discourse across liberal democracies.

“The World Stretched and Contracted Before Me:” Race, Reconciliation, and Resistance in Jim Terry’s Come Home, Indio

This examination of Jim Terry’s 2020 graphic memoir, Come Home, Indio, places the comic within conversations about what Kate Polak has identified as comics potential to operate as access generators to complex political conversations regarding the inequities faced by Indigenous peoples in the United States. Making use of what comics scholar Barbara Postema has identified as “narrative weaving” in comics, Come Home, Indio explores complexity of racial and social injustice on both a micro and macro scale as well as how those who are confronted with such inequities might reconcile with others and form deeper bonds with their own communities through spiritual and political activism. Although much critical energy has been spent on graphic memoirs, this article emphasizes how Terry’s comic might be considered within the complexities of twenty-first century American life, adding to recent conversations, like Frederic Aldama’s 2020 edited collection, Graphic Indigeneity. To date, scholarly engagement with comics by Indigenous creators has been limited, which situates this article as part of an important step forward, moving beyond mere acknowledgement of Native creators and toward prioritizing the role of their political voices and experiences in comics.

Exploring the Masquerade of Equality: A Preliminary Study of Pink Politics in Maldives

The female voice in Maldives politics is devolving into a feeble mumble. A seemingly progressive society shows their implicit disdain for the female voice in politics with their votes. Despite years of observations by national or international organisations, a satisfactory answer why this remains recurrent is yet to be discovered. A democracy survey by Transparency Maldives indicates that the public seems to be aware of the falling numbers of Maldivian women elected in politics and have a variety of their own opinions regarding its causes. Exploring this subject is a measure to find out the in-depth reasons why the Maldivian society is indirectly rejecting women in politics. Hence, this study sought out responses that go beyond the surface to find clarity on what needs to change according to the voters themselves in the light of examining even one possibility that would make society more accepting and prepared to elect female politicians. To uncover the truth, this study utilised a focused ethnography approach using a social constructivist paradigm to study the narratives of a selected group of women over a period to ascertain why there is a deceptive treatment of equality when it comes to women and how this pretence impacts women’s role in society.

Social origin and political participation: does education compensate for or reinforce family advantages and disadvantages?

Whether educational attainment compensates for or reinforces family disadvantages in political participation is currently a debated topic. Previous research has shown a consistent relationship between social origin and political participation in Western societies: individuals originating from low-socioeconomic-status families participate in politics less than those from high-socioeconomic-status families, which violates the democratic requirement of equality of political voice. In this paper, we investigate whether secondary education compensates for or reinforces the political inequality shaped by social origin. We used a German representative sample of 1012 identical twins aged 21–25 and applied family fixed effects regression models, which allowed us to control for measured and unmeasured social and genetic confounding. We found a positive effect of educational attainment on participation, which is most likely causal. Family disadvantage resulting from low parental education is compensated for by children finishing the academic track (Gymnasium) as opposed to the lower vocational track (Hauptschule). At the same time, family advantage originating from high parental occupational status is reinforced for children completing the academic track. We found no advantage nor disadvantage, compensation nor reinforcement, related to parental income. We conclude that compensation and reinforcement of family disadvantage may remain unnoticed if components of parental SES are not distinguished.

Inclusive and resilient shelter guide: accounting for the needs of informal settlements in Solomon Islands

PurposeThis paper aims to highlight the localised shelter solutions to fulfil adequate and disaster resilient housing needs of urban informal settlers of Honiara, the capital city of Solomon Islands, in a way that is sensitive to their unique challenges, values and aspirations, is gender- and disability-inclusive, and considers housing from the complete lifecycle of a disaster (pre-, during- and post-).Design/methodology/approachQualitative data was gathered through empirical research through five community workshops at five hotspot settlements, two stakeholder workshops and a stakeholder interview. Semi-structured questions as well as photographs of housing and settlement were used for data collection. With an emphasis on self-recovery, the identified shelter needs were then matched with the roles and responsibilities of the Government to support a process of “assisted” self-preparedness and recovery.FindingsThe output of the research was the Solomon Islands Shelter Guide. This paper draws from the Guide to present some of the findings. One of the key findings was an emphasis on shelter self-preparedness and self-recovery. However, in order for them to do that, they needed a combination of assistance – technical knowledge, materials and financial support – which is tailored to their settlement’s specific needs and based on hazard damage assessment. While the Guide provides one form of the assistance (i.e. technical), this paper is a call for action from the Solomon Islands Government and shelter responders to fulfil the rest of the community needs for shelter adequacy.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper contributes to existing scholarship on shelter after disasters by adding “assisted” in front of self-recovery, in line with the limited access to resources by the most vulnerable to recover, despite housing being” a human right and definition of adequate housing (UN-Habitat, 2015, 2021), which includes freedom of choice, entitlements and meeting minimum adequacy criteria.Practical implicationsThere are many implications of this research. Since the publication of the Shelter Guide, there is excitement among most humanitarian and development agencies, government authorities and the local communities in Honiara. The Guide forms the first step in contributing to identified needs and strengthening community capacities to self-build, self-recover or self-retrofit one’s house based on their own choice of materials, design, social and economic circumstance. However, it provides one of the three elements identified as needs by the communities, as i) technical guidance, and a kit-of parts for multi-hazard safe housing, ii) financial and economic assistance and iii) a political voice or being supported and heard by the government. The research team are working with the same five urban informal communities in 2022–2023 to develop and operationalise local disaster plans (in partnership with local non-government organisations), capacity-building activities and translation of the Shelter Guide into technical posters (for local builders) and graphic novel in local pidgin language, as part of the Climate Resilient Honiara project (funded by the United Nations framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) Adaptation fund and administered by UN-Habitat). In the longer term it would be worth evaluating the practical implications of the Guide or to examine whether the proposed socio-technical and governance guidance will find roots in the local culture.Originality/valueWhile the Guide adhered to internationally agreed concepts of self-recovery, incremental shelter and core space, it contributes to existing scholarship on shelter after disasters by adding “assisted” in front of self-recovery, in line with housing as a human right and adequate housing (UN-Habitat, 2015, 2021), including freedom of choice, entitlements and meet minimum adequacy criteria, all of which require materials and financial assistance by the relevant in-country authorities.

Cute politics!: articulating the kawaii aesthetic, fandom and political participation

ABSTRACT This article explores the affective power of the kawaii (“cute” in Japanese) aesthetic in politics by drawing from the successful “cute” campaign in Taiwan’s vital presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. Based on field participation, interviews, and secondary sources, this study offers a historical-textual analysis of the ways in which cute aesthetics and fan participation alter the political communication process in postauthoritarian Taiwan. This study suggests that the prevalence of kawaii in protests and political campaigns, most salient in East and Southeast Asia today, indicates an ideological shift from masculine communication styles to an “effeminate” voice in politics. This study also exemplifies the significance of the “minor aesthetics” such as cute, zany, glamorous, and whimsical because they give voice to weak, silenced and marginalized groups. These minor aesthetic categories deserve the same level of serious attention that academics have given to the grand, the beautiful and the sublime.

Potentials and pitfalls of social capital ties to climate change adaptation: an exploratory study of Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines

Climate change’s impacts vary across different geographical regions and societies, thus, underpinning the value of context-specific adaptation strategies grounded in local knowledge, social cohesion and community dynamics. This paper explores the potentials and pitfalls of social capital to climate change adaptation – an underexplored area of inquiry on climate change and Indigenous development literature. A qualitative case study design was used to conduct interviews and a focus group discussion with 14 Mamanwas and two government social workers in Eastern Visayas, the Philippines, from 2018 to mid-2019. Our findings suggest that while Mamanwas’ substantial bonding social capital ties contribute to their communal safety from weather extremes and adaptation to climate change, it has also unintentionally resulted in potentially adverse conditions, as can be deduced from their fragile bridging and linking capital ties with the broader community and government institutions. This research argues that social capital constitutes a vital social aspect of adaptation; therefore, policymakers and development workers must account for multiple scales and forms of adaptation, as well as acknowledge the importance of engaging, empowering and incorporating the political voice of Indigenous Peoples in crafting solutions on issues they consider relevant and urgent to their human development.

Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era

Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era

TÜRKİYE’DE DİJİTAL AKTİVİZM: KADIN HAREKETİNİN BİR SEMBOLÜ OLARAK İSTANBUL SÖZLEŞMESİ

ABSTRACT
 Digital platforms that allow individuals to interact and offer a public space where people can share the content they produce and seek their rights play a crucial role in organizing activist protests, promoting new representations, and presenting adversary political voices. New activism, called 'digital activism,' is the activities by individuals or organizations in the digital environment to create the social change they desire. Social movements that started on these platforms with the claim of a better world while expressing social discomforts that are unsuitable for the flow of life may also offer new solutions.
 This study reveals the social and political dimensions of how digital activism is shaped in Turkey through the Istanbul Convention, which appears to be the symbol where women, and non-governmental organizations, have struggled for years. The social struggle for both the existence and the implementation of the protection mechanisms of the Istanbul convention, was terminated by the Presidential decree, was analyzed with the content analysis method. Twitter posts under the hashtags "#İstanbulSözleşmesiYaşatır," (IstanbulConventionGivesLife), "#İstanbulSözleşmesindenVazgeçmiyoruz," (WeWon'tAbandonTheIstanbulConvention), "#İstanbulSözleşmesi" (IstanbulConvention) and explored categories related to the reflections of digital activism in Turkey was interpreted. According to the results, while the categories such as informing the public, not yielding, acting together for the benefit of society, and not giving up in the online struggle come to the fore, it is seen that digital is actively used in transferring activism offline. Another important finding of the research is that the main opposition party, individual activists, bar associations, and lawyers, especially women's non-governmental organizations, come to the fore as the most active groups and play an active role outside of digital platforms by directing the society.
 Keywords: Digital activism, Istanbul convention, Right-wing populism, Twitter hashtag, Women’s movements

Frames of war and welfare

Frames of war and welfare

Sustenance, Social Bonds, and Politics: A Food History of the South Dakota Suffrage Movement

Sustenance, Social Bonds, and PoliticsA Food History of the South Dakota Suffrage Movement Liz Almlie (bio) On July 21, 1890, Emma Smith DeVoe traveled about eighty miles from her home in Huron, South Dakota, to the town of Warner, to hold an afternoon suffrage meeting at the home of Margaret J. Cook. Cook gave a banquet for the fifty women who attended. According to news reports, the women "all said it was the very first time in all their lives that a banquet had been prepared for them. They had prepared many banquets for men, but this was a new order of business."1 Looking at the intersection of food and equal suffrage in South Dakota brings forward stories that speak to the lived experience of the suffrage movement, as well as changes and continuities in women's roles as they claimed expanded political voice. The experiences of South Dakota suffragists also reflect the unique situation of women who functioned within the agricultural economy of the Great Plains Midwest. In long travel across the drought-prone plains between newly settled towns and rural schoolhouses, South Dakota suffragists used local food products for sustenance, socialization, direct appeals to voters, and fundraising. Food also featured in commentary about gender roles and, in the 1910s, became a subject for political action. The suffrage movement had a dramatic history in South Dakota, with the state going through six organized public campaigns between 1890 and 1918 for a state amendment to remove the word "male" from voting qualifications.2 Though few South Dakota suffragists sought to overturn traditional gender roles and activities, they nonetheless did significant work to claim public space and become active in political and civic affairs. In the course of this work, a fundamental use of food was sustenance, with the accompanying benefit of building social relationships. By 1890, homesteaders and town-builders had begun forming communities, but [End Page 65] as suffragist Marietta Bones of Webster reflected in her 1884 report to the National Woman Suffrage Association, "the country being so sparsely settled, and such wide distances between towns, … the settlers are comparatively strangers to each other."3 For long or distant events, having hosts schedule time for food was a practical necessity but also an incentive that made attendance more feasible or more appealing. Supporters of suffrage had to invest time to travel to and attend meetings, lectures, or conventions. In most South Dakota homes, women of the household had responsibility for preparing meals. Incorporating meals into a suffrage event facilitated the participation of women and their families. In September 1890, suffragists in Jerauld County held a convention in Wessington Springs with a keynote address by Matilda Hindman—a suffrage organizer from Pennsylvania. The invitation in the paper included: "Come early tomorrow morning; bring your lunch basket and dinner in the park, and leave things at home in such a condition that you can stay all day, and to the lecture in the evening."4 In February 1890, Emma Smith DeVoe and other suffragists in Huron held a local convention for Beadle County. The invitation urged attendees to come early enough to eat lunch together if they brought their own provisions, noting that their Huron hosts would provide coffee. It suggested attendees stay for dinner as well. Afterwards, the newspaper reported that "many were there from the outside townships who came early with baskets well filled with provisions."5 The Beadle County convention was the culmination of weeks of daily speeches and meetings at rural churches and schoolhouses. Having convention attendees bring picnic baskets filled a logistical need but also provided an opportunity for socialization, getting to know one another, and building confidence to work better together for equal suffrage. Suffragists commonly offered receptions, social hours, and hors d'oeuvres for higher-profile events with national speakers. While on her way to the state convention in Pierre in 1895, Carrie Chapman Catt of New York was scheduled to speak at the opera hall in Hurley, and locals served "refreshments after the lecture, giving a short time to social chat."6 In November 1909, the Ladies History Club in Sioux Falls hosted a reception and "dainty luncheon" for Anna Howard...

Inverting questions: an invitation to take a stroll on another side of questions

This paper has two objectives: to explore how inverting questions in the Community of Philosophical Inquiry (Kennedy, 2004) can be a useful tool for triggering thought processes; and, more generally, to explore the importance of inverting the role traditionally given to children as bystanders to their own education and thought processes. On this basis, we will assume that children have an epistemic and political voice and that this voicing, placed on equal standing with the adult voice, is long overdue. It is undeniable that questions have a central role in P4C sessions (Costa-Carvalho E Mendonça, 2020; Costa-Carvalho E Kohan, 2020) and that, in the context of any given community of philosophical inquiry, they can trigger (Kennedy, 2004) a wide range of thought processes. Some questions may be too vague and require sharpening to adequately address the problem at hand, while others may promote a metacognitive approach to the issue under discussion, and to the entire thought process that sustains it. We will explore how inverting questions may be useful in this context. Moreover, we will consider how this thought anastrophé may emerge in concrete philosophical discussions with children. Our argument will, therefore, navigate the intersection between language and thought, logic and semantics, and theory and practice. Assuming that the term “inversion” may offer different understandings, we will try to outline this rhizomatic approach (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) to the concept. We will focus primarily on the child’s point of view, which we hold to be epistemologically privileged (Kennedy, 2020). It is our core belief that children´s voices should be granted scientific and political standing and that an epistemic inversion between adulthood and childhood in education must be explored.

“Elista Is Our City”: Kalmykia’s 2019 Protests and Politics in Russia’s Republics

Abstract Russia’s republics – regions in the larger federation that are territorially defined and represent areas where non-Russian ethnic populations are concentrated – have been generally quiescent during the two decades of Vladimir Putin’s leadership. However, in 2019 Kalmykia was the site of protests against leadership changes in which locals had scant political voice. This paper focuses on the demonstrations in Kalmykia and provides a detailed account of the associated causes, motivations, and outcomes. The protests augur an increased awareness of the double marginalization of Russia’s minority groups, both politically and on the basis of nationality, in the country’s governance. This condition has notable implications given Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

Environmental Change and Inclusive Finance: Does Governance Quality Matter for African Countries?

This paper examines the effect of environmental change on inclusive finance in African countries during the period 1996–2020. It also investigates the moderating role of government quality on the association between environmental change and inclusive finance. We collected five-year average data from various sources such as the World Development Indicators, the World Governance Indicators, and the International Monetary Fund. Government quality is measured by six dimensions: political stability, voice and accountability, government effectiveness, regulation quality, the rule of law, and corruption control. Environmental change is measured by CO2 emissions. Inclusive finance is measured by the financial development index through depth, access, and efficiency ratios. These variables represent the most used in prior studies as they are published by international organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which represent a reputable source of timely information related to the business environment in which business executives operate in several countries. The results show a significant impact of environmental change on inclusive finance. Including economic governance induces a significant and positive effect on financial inclusion in all instances. Our results also show that the coefficients of the interaction between environmental change and governance dimensions are positive and significant. The moderator role of governance is improved when taking into account political, institutional, and economic governance. Our findings offer more motivation for regulators and governments to develop environmental policies that integrate inclusive finance to meet sustainable development goals. Our results are important as they can help regulators, investors, and policymakers to assess and better understand the potential moderation role of governance quality in the relationship between inclusive finance and environmental change.

Liberalism, nationalism and federalism: Reflections on the life and work of Meïr Goldschmidt

AbstractThe Danish‐Jewish publisher Meïr Aron Goldschmidt was an active political voice in Denmark in the 1840s and 1850s during the crisis of the Danish Oldenburg monarchy, when the ‘Danish Empire’ was troubled by territorial defragmentation, succession crisis, foreign military threats, Danish–German ethnic tensions and calls for democratic reforms by National Liberals.This article reflects on Goldschmidt's life and works as he attempted to syncretise the inherent dualities of nationalism and liberalism. His vision became a Swiss‐inspired federalism that should create a shared national identity based on liberal democracy to reunite the ethnic groups of the ‘Danish Empire’.Ultimately, history took another course, and the nationalist path was taken with disastrous results for Denmark. However, Goldschmidt has left a legacy in his writings as a microcosm of the ideas of his time by trying to syncretise nationalism and liberalism, cosmopolitanism and nationalism and a Danish and Jewish national identity.

The Union League and Biracial Politics in Reconstruction Texas by Carl H. Moneyhon

Reviewed by: The Union League and Biracial Politics in Reconstruction Texas by Carl H. Moneyhon Derrick D. McKisick The Union League and Biracial Politics in Reconstruction Texas. By Carl H. Moneyhon. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2021. Pp. xii, 401. $45.00, ISBN 978-1-62349-956-3.) Carl H. Moneyhon returns to his usual scholarly territory—Texas after the Civil War—in The Union League and Biracial Politics in Reconstruction Texas. This critical study concentrates on the twin developments of the [End Page 162] Republican Party and the Union League in Texas. Moneyhon relays a transformative story that details the first steps African Americans took toward developing a distinctive political voice in Texas and describes how Black Texans used the Union League as the base of their political activity during Reconstruction. Although the rise and fall of the Union League is not a new area of historical inquiry, Moneyhon’s focus on the interconnected development of the Texas Republican Party, the Union League, and African American political agency constitutes a break from earlier Reconstruction studies that have been more concerned with the national narrative. In Texas, unlike other southern states, the Union League and the Republican Party were formed through an uneasy alliance between native white Unionists and Black Texans, rather than by northern “carpetbaggers” and educated free people of color who moved south after the Civil War. According to Moneyhon, Texas presents an interesting lens through which to view the state Republican Party apparatus, the Union League, and African American political engagement. The Union League in Texas indicated the growth of a dynamic biracial coalition despite limited federal protection, Klan opposition, and a lack of support from various Republican factions. In this account, Moneyhon highlights the differences between Texas and other southern states. In Texas, the small antebellum free Black population, Union military policies requiring soldiers to muster out of service in the same state where they enlisted, and the late establishment of the Freedmen’s Bureau combined to limit the number of possible Black political leaders. In other southern states, educated free Black populations and former soldiers collaborated to provide a significant portion of political leadership. These constraints created an entirely different context for Black political leadership in Texas. Moneyhon merges this narrative with a narrowly focused inquiry into the political machinations surrounding the “ab initio controversy,” a period of political infighting centered on “the legality of the constitutions of 1861 and 1866 and any legislation or government action taken following secession” (p. 97). His examination of this debate shows how this thorny political issue ripped away at the underpinnings of Republican solidarity in Reconstruction Texas. Moneyhon uses a wide variety of primary sources and provides two appendixes listing the charter members of the Union League in 1870 and 1871. These sources bolster his argument about how the league developed in Texas and why Republicans viewed it as a critical component in their plans for Texas Unionists to gain political power after Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts of 1867. After the election of 1869, the Union League faced increasing political pressure within the state Republican Party to broaden its membership and create public clubs, outside resistance from a resurgent Democratic Party, and increased Klan violence. Moneyhon has created a significant volume in the study of Reconstruction that will give both scholars and history enthusiasts a clearer understanding of Reconstruction Texas. In this study, Moneyhon captures the developing tensions between native white Unionists in Texas, who supported the Republican Party and organized the Union League, and the increasing assertiveness of African American political leaders, who sought to use the Union League to further their political goals. His focus on this troubled relationship forms the basis of a balanced [End Page 163] historical narrative that offers a compelling analysis of Reconstruction politics in Texas. Derrick D. McKisick Texas A&M University–Commerce Copyright © 2023 The Southern Historical Association