Political Research Articles

Наблюдения върху употребата на клишетата в българската и в румънската публична реч

The article examines the use of clichéd expressions in the political speech in Bulgaria and Romania. Basic theoretical concepts about the essence of the cliché as semantics and as a structure are analyzed. Linguists’ views on the differences and similarities between stamp, cliché and pattern are presented. On the basis of excerpted material from the public speech in the two Balkan countries, conclusions are drawn related to the use of the cliché in the political speech which is more specific than its use in other spheres of communication. In public political speech, the cliché develops some additional specifics, subject to the pragmatics of political communication. The discrepancy between the political speech expressed through clichés and the reality it names and creates is considered a particular problem. The article supports the idea that this is one of the reasons why the cliché has become a convenient speech strategy in political speech, because this is how correct grammatical constructions are created which, however, are often devoid of content power or convey the content of the statement unconvincingly and without stylistic coloring. It is also possible to hypothesize that all these features of the cliché make it a convenient communication strategy and part of the political jargon in both countries.

Assemblages, cosmopolitics and controversies: Capturing the territorial and knowledge dimensions of infrastructural politics in Lebanon

Drawing upon Actor-Network Theory literature and a specific strand of urban assemblage literature, the cosmopolitical ontology offers a fresh and innovative perspective on urban politics. It positions the interactions between human and non-human entities as the central factor shaping politics. In this article, I have adopted this cosmopolitical ontology and proposed to analyze environmental and infrastructural controversies as a crucial methodological approach. This analysis sheds light on how territoriality and knowledge, key elements of urban politics, can be understood from this perspective. I use a diversity of methods including reports and press review, interviews, focus groups and surveys to map and analyze two controversies in Lebanon around the Deir Ammar electricity plant and Saida waste management plant. I show how “rogue” material non-human actants - in the form of fumes and particles, chemical compositions of waste and composts, bacteria, fuel leaks – destabilize the territorial assemblages brought together by these infrastructures. Polluted spaces become focal points for contesting established narratives of territorial solidarity and considerably weaken institutional and political governances. Expert discourses of State institutions and technical firms are put in question. While efforts to build a “localized” knowledge empowers local actors. However, as the case studies show, when controversies become protracted, interest in the complexity of infrastructural politics dwindles and more entrenched political actors are capable of recuperating these controversies to their advantage. This is why maintaining the “territorialization” of controversies through the development of localized knowledge is essential for these cosmopolitics to bring social and political change.

Vacancy as Precarious Property in Dublin's Temporary Urbanism Moment

AbstractThis paper makes a case for viewing vacancy as “precarious property” (Blomley 2020; Antipode 52[1]:36–57), i.e. less a material object defined by absence of use than the property relation (understood as a bundle of social, economic, legal, and political relationships) put under strain by the visibility of non‐use. Focusing on Dublin's temporary urbanism moment (2008–2017), the paper has two aims. Firstly, it gives a critical account of this recent urban history of experimentation, documenting how the possibilities of the period following the crash were (fore)closed through governmental interventions. Secondly, the empirical case is used to make a wider conceptual argument about the conjunctural role that vacancy plays in urbanisation and urban politics, developing three main arguments: that vacancy is a vulnerable axis within the ownership model of property; that claims to vacancy are articulated in conjunctural and contextual ways; and that vacancy epitomises the dual nature of precarity.

The place-new relation in the context of experience and meaning: a bibliometric review (1992-2023)

ABSTRACT The research analyzes the literature by questioning the common denominator between “place and the new” through the concepts of experience and meaning to expand and deepen the existing knowledge on the meaning of place in the production of place. The paper discovers current approaches and notions in the place-new relationship and identifies leading keywords, authors, documents, sources, organizations, and references. It presents a systematic literature review based on bibliometric data in the context of place concept research. The analysis conducted on 27 May 202327 May 2023, with the concepts of place, new, experience, and meaning, covers the bibliometric data of 870 publications which included English articles and book chapters published since 1992 and chosen from specific research categories on the Web of Science. Documents published before 1992 without available content were excluded. Findings show an increasing tendency towards the concepts of sustainability, place-making, place attachment, urban regeneration, architectural design, and cultural heritage. While the number of investigations concentrating on landscape and COVID-19 has increased; concepts like everyday life, emotions, behavior, urban politics, phenomenology, design research, and displacement have been discovered as current research topics. This paper is potentially useful for future theoretical and practical work to create meaningful places and contributes to the further implementation of design and planning studies.

Urban Political Ecology in Mexico: Metabolism, conflicts, and the need for transformational pathways in the Valley of Mexico, Guadalajara, and Monterrey

This article analyzes urban socio-ecological conflicts in the Mexican metropolitan areas of the Valley of Mexico, Guadalajara and Monterrey from an Urban Political Ecology (UPE) approach. We identify the main triggers of such urban socio-ecological conflicts and the causal links between actors, resources and spaces which make up the uneven production of urban space. This focus includes unequal access to resources, uneven distribution of environmental impacts, and the rise of contestation. We outline UPE theoretically and conceptually, and delineate what is meant by urban socio-ecological conflict. UPE is then contextualized within Mexico's contemporary urbanization process as a prelude for characterizing case studies (including their metabolic profiles) and the analysis of prevailing socio-ecological conflicts. For the latter, we identify the main urban conflicts in the years 2012 and 2022, highlighting some of the main characteristics, similarities, and discontinuities across three metropolitan areas. In the face of an increasing metabolism of contemporary urbanization, we conclude with a brief consideration of the potential role of socio-ecological conflicts for enabling alternative forms of urban space production, particularly through the agency of social movements, including their capacity to propose and build "urban spaces of hope."

Bringing Ecological Urbanism and Urban Political Ecology to transformative visions of water sensitivity in cities

Ecological Urbanism and Water Sensitive Urban Design have a central contribution to make in protecting and caring for people, nature and water in cities but readings of Urban Political Ecology evidence how ecological metaphors in urban design can easily translate into discriminatory urban development processes. This paper posits that for UPE to become meaningful for urban design practice, it is necessary to move beyond a critique. Instead, the insights of UPE should be pro-actively mobilized to develop a new vision of water sensitivity. The paper therefore identifies ways in which the key learnings of the critical social sciences, namely UPE, can be mobilized to support Water Sensitive Urban Design practice. How can ecological urbanists imagine new, more politically astute, forms of water sensitive living, charting design processes that not just recognize but also actively question and challenge uneven socio-ecological dynamics? In answering this question, the goal of this article is to make use of critique from UPE to influence Ecological Urbanists' goals and activate their political alignment with agendas that prioritize social equity. In imagining a new form of WSUD, we tried as much as possible not to over-instrumentalize UPE by rejecting the suggestion that some UPE ‘lessons’ or ‘insights’ could simply be inserted into ecological urbanism. On a different direction, we argue for a different emphasis in WSUD that does not deny the causes of current environmental degradation, pollution and depletion but, on the contrary, actively takes issue with and challenges the extractive and exploitative roots of contemporary urbanization processes.

Evangelicals and Presidential Politics: From Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump. Edited by Andrew S. Moore. Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, 2021. 208 pp. $40.00 hardcover.

Evangelicals and Presidential Politics: From Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump. Edited by Andrew S. Moore. Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, 2021. 208 pp. $40.00 hardcover.

The Urban Voter: Emerging Trend and Changing Pattern

The recent phenomenon of growing urbanization in India has shifted the focus from rural vote to urban vote in electoral politics. The discussion on urban politics and urban vote revolves largely around two issues—first the issue of turnout and second, a somewhat different political choice among the urban voters compared to the rural voters. The two issues have been highlighted by the fact that urban constituencies have registered lower turnout compared to the turnout in rural constituencies. Among the former, the constituencies of big metropolitan cities register much lower turnout compared to the constituencies of small and medium towns. Results of various elections in the past indicate that the backbone of electoral support of the BJP during the late 1990s is its strong support among the urban voters. The BJP’s strong support base among the urban voters enabled it to emerge as the single largest party in the Lok Sabha during the 1998 and 1999 Lok Sabha elections enabling it to form a coalition government along with other regional parties. This article tries to seek answers to the question, why do we see this distinct difference in voting patterns among rural and urban voters, especially till 2009 Lok Sabha elections, though it has changed somewhat during the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections? Is it because the rural India and Urban India represent two different kinds of voters, or is it because the issues and concerns of rural and urban voters are vastly different from each other which make them vote differently?

A Multimodal Discourse Analysis on Subtitle Translation of the Knockout: A Chinese Political-Themed TV Drama

In recent days, more and more Chinese films and TV series including political-themed TV series are aired internationally and have received extensive attention with the improvement of the quality of Chinese audiovisual works. Such political-themed TV works are produced to reflect social realities and include the bulk of political terminology such as official titles and institution names as well as concepts related to newly-mentioned political terms and slogans, which may be quite unfamiliar to foreign audience. Therefore, audiovisual translation and subtitling play an important role in avoiding misunderstanding. Although a striking number of studies on subtitle translation have been made, these analyses appear to emphasize more on the verbal mode instead of different multimodal contexts. Guided by the theory of multimodal discourse analysis, this paper is aimed to analyze the characteristics of the subtitle translation of China’s politicalthemed TV series in terms of content, conversation and social semiotic levels by building a micro-corpus based on the research materials of the knockout. This paper will discuss not only the translation of interlingual subtitles for dialogues or monologues, but also that of other captions shown on the screen such as voiceover and images of shop signboards, in order to point out the shortcomings and provide reference for further relevant studies.

Haifa City profile: Emergent binationalism in a settler colonial city

Haifa, a major seaport in the Eastern Mediterranean, is one of Israel's “mixed cities” where Palestinians and Jews live together. Yet, unlike other mixed localities, which witness rising tensions due to relentless settler colonization, Haifa maintains a relative modus vivendi. In this city profile, we seek to explicate the causes and consequences of this outstanding situation and pose the notion of a binational city as a path to urban decolonization. Drawing on historical records, city plans, and interviews with residents, we trace Haifa's binational urbanism from its modern beginnings to the present. We show how Palestinian and Jewish urbanism developed in Haifa from the early 20th century, and how the city was transformed into an ethnically homogenous settler colonial space in the wake of ethnic cleansing. We then explain how the legacies of colonial planning, deindustrialization, and globalization led to Haifa's urban decline in recent decades, thereby making room for indigenous urban revival, and for urban relations based on more egalitarian foundations. Examining contemporary plans and urban developments, we claim Haifa presents hopeful possibilities for binational decolonization. However, realizing this potential requires redistributive efforts and instituting the principle of parity across all domains of urban politics and planning.

Celebrating Sixty Years of Urban Affairs Review With Reflections on Race, Riots, and the Study of Urban Politics

Celebrating Sixty Years of <i>Urban Affairs Review</i> With Reflections on Race, Riots, and the Study of Urban Politics

Dünden Bugüne Fuhuş Mekânları

Prostitution is considered the oldest profession in the world. Although the culture and date of its inception is not clear, there are various myths. It has different meanings and reflections in every culture and civilization. This situation causes it to take on different places. The beginning of prostitution is thought to derive from phenomenon of war; therefore, it relates to the settlement of the occupation forces in the cities. Economic reasons accompany the phenomenon of war. According to the type of prostitution, the phenomenon of religion also shapes prostitution. Social and cultural meanings attributed to prostitution, types of prostitution and sex workers, accessibility, urban politics and technology can be counted among the dynamics in the selection of spaces of prostitution. All these factors transform and diversify the places of prostitution. We will examine the changing places of prostitution from the past to the present including what these types of places are, both chronologically and thematically on the basis of countries. It is possible to collect types of spaces of protitution under eight different headings from design (planned and organic), settlement (urban and rural), religion (holy and non-religious), law (legal and illegal), and location in urban space (centre and periphery – scattered or combined), to access (virtual and real – mobile or fixed), continuity (legal and illegal) and front spaces (night club, pavilion, residence, hotel, massage parlor, Turkish bath and tourism). In this study, it is aimed to discuss the dynamics of choosing a place for prostitution, its concentration in the region where prostitution occurs, and the formation of prostitution in a region with activities of no prostitution. For this purpose, spaces of prostitution will be categorized. For the classification of spaces of prostitution, the phenomenon of prostitution in different countries will be analyzed. Key Words: Prostitution, Spacial, Red Light District, Sex Worker, Brothel.

Enclaves of Exception: Reaping the Advantages of Colonialism Through Free Trade in the Scandinavian Caribbean, 1672–1815

ABSTRACT The mercantile history of Charlotte Amalie and Gustavia, free ports in the Danish (1672–1917) and Swedish (1784–1878) Caribbean, have existed outside of the standard purview of both national and transnational historiographies, despite the considerable attention they received by eighteenth century political and economic thought. Due to their unique legislative character, they cannot be situated easily within available historical frameworks. In contemporary politico-economic opinion and eyewitness accounts, the Scandinavian free ports were equated to other free trade regimes insofar as they were conceived as a means of commercial rivalry against other nations. The liberal laws of free ports were styled as consistent with Enlightenment theories of equality and industry, even though they did not represent anything novel in the permeable commercial world of early modern colonialism. Interloping, as the practice of trespassing commercial privilege was commonly referred to, was a key feature of the transit trade operating out of these free ports. The utility of the free port trade was highly contingent upon shifting alliances and patterns of conflict. Operating across the peripheries of other empires, Scandinavian free trade designs in the Caribbean were beneficial for various actors, including but not limited to the parent states themselves.

Review of Cian O’Callaghan and Cesare Di Feliciantonio (eds.) 2023: The New Urban Ruins: Vacancy, Urban Politics and International Experiments in the Post-Crisis City. Bristol: Policy Press

Review of Cian O’Callaghan and Cesare Di Feliciantonio (eds.) 2023: The New Urban Ruins: Vacancy, Urban Politics and International Experiments in the Post-Crisis City. Bristol: Policy Press

Spatial grammars and the urban political

Spatial grammars and the urban political

Public transport as public space: Introduction

Introducing this special issue on public transport as public space, we discuss challenges in approaching public transport as public space and outline how incorporating approaches from different disciplines associated with urban studies is essential for this ambition. We offer an account of the multi-dimensional aspects of public transport as public space, including concepts of public space, questions of encounters and conviviality, linkages between micro- and macro-practices, regulations, discrepancies, conflicts and associated negative encounters, historicised experiences and political perspectives. We stress the need to expand existing perspectives on public space by embracing mobile spaces such as public transport. This entails scrutinising spaces inside public transport vehicles and stations as well as analysing the various ways across the sometimes physical and sometimes invisible barriers defined in written rules, separating public transport space from the remainder of the city’s public spaces, notably that of the street. Thus, the special issue: explores questions about the spatiality of publicness; attends to public space as a normative ideal; considers critical aspects of passengering as related to conviviality and contested encounters; and, addresses how the publicness of public transport is affected by modernisation, post-colonialism and urban politics. As we strongly feel that these questions require learning from across disciplines, the special issue includes contributions from diverse fields across the realm of urban studies and humanities alike.

Urban inequality – methods, flows and state processes

As DeVerteuil asserts, urban studies should engage anew with matters of inequality and social justice. In this commentary piece, additional perspectives on this task are offered, drawing on research on community action and austerity. These include the importance of paying attention to the importance of ‘small’ practices, feelings and affects as constitutive of urban politics, which can be accessed via ethnography; attending to the digital as it remakes city fabrics and communities; and new explorations of state processes drawing on feminist and psycho-social approaches.

¿Quién es gentrificación (‘who is gentrificación’)? urban change, conceptual chimerae, and the challenge of blanqueamiento (‘whitening’) in mexico city

In this article, we outline the central tenets of an endogenous theory of neighborhood change in Mexico City known as blanqueamiento (‘whitening'). Drawing on longstanding research and intellectual exchange with local scholars and activists, we illustrate the promise this concept holds for transcending the many limitations of ‘gentrification', and its metaphrase translation, gentrificació n, in this and other contexts. We argue that while blanqueamiento and similar theories from outside the Global North often face extreme difficulties in emergence, their value to both critical scholarship and urban politics can be profound, and should be more fully explored and recognized. We demonstrate this value in Mexico City through an exploration of this concept’s core meanings and expressions, specifically in the areas of: 1) belonging, displacement, and racialized aesthetics; 2) architecture, design, and globalizing aesthetics; and 3) finance, money laundering, and the insidious complicity of aestheticized consumption. In support of our overall argument about the need for more productive urban exchanges and the critical co-production of knowledge on the topic of urban change through translation, we bring together insights from ongoing debates on the nature and uses of gentrification in contemporary cities and the politics of theory-making and conceptualization in geography and urban studies across the globe.

How does the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ change urbanisation patterns in Southeast Asia?

This paper examines how Chinese transnational investments, as (re)framed in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), contribute to changes in urbanisation processes in Southeast Asia. On the ground, the BRI becomes contextualised and intersects with local and national development trajectories. The growing presence of Chinese actors in the region intensifies urban dynamics, especially in secondary cities and emerging urban sites, where the BRI is used as a lever for local internationalisation strategies. The heterogeneous nature of the links between the BRI and various large urban projects is demonstrated on the basis of case studies involving changing consortia of private and public Chinese and Southeast Asian actors. A regional approach allows us to identify connections and shared processes across Southeast Asian countries. It provides a historically grounded understanding of how the BRI incorporates long‐term interactions with China and more recent partnerships in Southeast Asian countries. The paper paves the way for a research agenda that contests the image of China as a monolithic actor implementing the BRI uniformly and consistently. Further analyses are needed to examine systems and networks of actors as well as the local urban politics that affect the BRI on the ground.

Study of Chinese Political Terminology Translation and National Image Shaping

China has entered a new chapter after the Reform and Opening-up Policy initiated in 1978, and all walks of life have shown a steady improvement. In recent years, China’s comprehensive national power has been rising, its international status has been significantly improved, and many political terms have sprung up. These political terms reflect the country’s image and the trend of national policy-making, which affects the shaping of the country’s image. Starting from national image and the process of translating political discourse with Chinese characteristics, this paper selects three representative political terms of “Chinese Dream” “Harmony without Uniformity” and “New Model Major-Country Relations” that have appeared in government work reports, regular press conferences of spokesmen of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and diplomatic parlance as the research objects. It means to discusses the relationship between Chinese political term translation and national image building and studies the influence of political term translation to build a peaceful, inclusive and win-win national image. Thus, improving China’s national discourse power on the world stage.