Political Practice Research Articles

Experiencias sensoriales y prácticas políticas en el Imperio español, siglos XV-XVIII

Objective/context: This introduction, mainly of a historiographical nature, has two objectives: first, to present the most relevant contributions of sensory history as an interpretative approach that conceives the senses as conditioned by social and cultural factors in a given time and space, and second, to relate sensory experiences with political practices in the Spanish Empire of the fifteenth-eighteenth centuries, contextualizing the contributions of this dossier in this line of research. Methodology: The study analyzes contributions that have allowed the definition of sensory history as a heuristic approach valid for a plurality of fields and topics, which enjoys enormous popularity in the research agenda. Originality: This dossier includes a valuable collection of essays specifically dedicated to the sensory experience in the Hispanic Empire between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. It is the first thematic issue on this subject. Conclusions: The article places the studies included in this volume within a broader historiographical context while pointing out possible future avenues of research.

Contemporary fellow travellers: Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists and the theory and political practice of Marxism

Within academic discourses of postcolonial theory, much has been written on whether and how Marxism can be drawn on to understand the ‘postcolonial world’ and, in this regard, what the relations between Eurocentrism and Marxism are. In practice, Marxism remains a core analytical framework for many emancipatory movements from the Global South, as is the case for Egyptian organisation of Revolutionary Socialists, whose popularity grew during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. The following paper is based on anthropological research with Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists in exile and the political underground. It showcases that many academic postcolonial debates sideline the agency of Marxist social actors from the Global South, their theoretical and practical endeavours, and their own modes of knowledge production. It is through the agency of Revolutionary Socialist social actors that Marxism travels from below, is translated, (re)read, debated, and materialises itself in given contexts. I highlight how Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists utilise Marxism as a living theory in their contemporary political practice and argue that their practice in exile as fellow travellers can be understood as a reconfiguration of the concept of travelling theory into travelling theory from below. Herein the centrality of social actors’ practice in grasping theory manifests itself.

Reimagining IR’s biomedical foundations: East Asian medicine and the need for cosmological plurality

Critical scholarship has long pointed to the problematic ways in which mainstream International Relations (IR) takes Westphalian state politics to be universally applicable, yet existing analyses fall short of providing an alternative grounding for IR. Departing from the close relationship between medicine and politics, this article advances two arguments. First, Westphalian IR is based on a particular Western conception of biomedicine. Second, biomedicine is treated as the hallmark of modern science, which exacerbates the discipline’s gatekeeping against ‘alternative’ scholarship that does not look like this particular description of science. By mobilising the notion of ‘cosmology’, we suggest that East Asian medicine (EAM), informed by Daoist yin-yang dialectics, can help to rethink the alleged universality of IR’s biomedical metatheoretical foundations. Specifically, we illustrate how the Westphalian state body and its territorial politics are made possible by biomedical knowledge, and how EAM’s relational cosmology and method of employing creative images helps to conceive shared communal bodies and re-evaluate territorial conflicts. Ultimately, this article argues for the necessity of a plurality of cosmological viewpoints in IR to overcome exclusionary oppositions in both the practice and study of global politics.

Hope in crisis: revisiting Erich Fromm’s dialectic of transformation

In this article we explore Erich Fromm’s concept of hope within the context of contemporary social and political crises. We formulate two primary objections to his vision of a revolution of hope: the individualistic moralisation of societal problems, and the accusation that hope is persuasive and manipulative. By embedding Fromm’s ideas within a broader dialectical framework and engaging with Walter Benjamin’s thoughts on history, we reinterpret hope as a liminal, transformative state rather than a concrete, prescriptive notion. This reconceptualisation presents hope as a fundamental prerequisite for transformative political practice, emphasising its role in fostering active citizenship and collective social change. Ultimately, we argue for the critical importance of hope in navigating and overcoming the challenges of modernity.

Towards a more globally inclusive academic discussion on local government: is more attention to Asian countries the answer?

ABSTRACT Asian countries’ growing importance in global affairs contrasts with the scant scholarly focus on their political, administrative, and governance practices. Our review of Local Government Studies from 1975 to 2024 shows limited articles on Asian governance. In addition, these studies chiefly concern developed regions in Asia, such as China, Japan, and South Korea, and focus on the public sector at the local government layer. Most of these studies are explanatory, adopting the frameworks derived from Western democracies to analyze political and administrative practices in Asian contexts. We suggest authors should pay more attention to Asian countries with limited scholarly attention, establish frameworks and theories specifically to analyze political and administrative practices in Asian contexts, conduct studies to investigate issues with high complexities and uncertainties, and apply diverse new and innovative research methods in conducting empirical studies.

Zakonšpirované Slovensko 1938 – 1945. Niekoľko úvah nad tvárami neviditeľného spiritus movens ľudáckeho režimu

The paradigm of Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party (HSĽS) regime, as well as the persecutory measures implemented against fabricated “enemies of the nation” during its reign (October 1938 – April 1945), were based on conspiracy theories. This essay identifies the main ones, pointing out their genesis, intentionality, and ways of operating with them in political practice. The analysis shows that although many conspiracy frames used in wartime Slovakia correlated with narratives in other countries of the fascist Axis, they cannot be considered copypastes of rhetoric popularized mostly by Nazi Germany. The text promotes the idea that the conspiratorial thinking of the HSĽS already formed in the late Habsburg monarchy at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the changes in international politics in the 1930s only had an effect on their firmer establishment in the political culture of the party and political preferences of its supporters. The basis of this conspiratorial thinking was the fear of liberalism, of the threat to the Christian faith and the Slovak nation by a group of highly sophisticated interconnected “pests” with destructive intentions. Until 1918, it primarily included the Marxist left, capitalists, freemasons, and liberals in general, and after the creation of Czechoslovakia, Czechs, and Jews to an increased extent. The essay emphasizes that precisely the argumentation of conspiracy theories (“imperialism of Prague against Slovakia/Slovaks”, “Jewish Bolshevism”) provided the legitimizing platform for the repressive policy of the HSĽS regime and authorized violence against entire groups of the population that did not belong to the “ingroup”.

Constructing Disraeli in Twentieth-Century Conservatism

Abstract Since the 1960s, when historians first dethroned the dominant view of Benjamin Disraeli as a Tory democrat and social reformer, his association with an interventionist, socially inclusive Conservatism has largely been considered an exercise in political myth-making. This focus on the Disraeli ‘myth’ has tended to obscure the myriad and substantive ways in which Disraeli’s life and works were interpreted and put to work in Conservative ideological debates and political practice in the twentieth century, reducing them to social policy and state intervention in the economy and overlooking the lineages of his political career in Conservative political economy debates, conceptions of the nation and the constitution, and imperial and foreign policy thinking. This article examines interpretations of Disraeli, and how his legacy was constructed, by conservative biographers, historians and public intellectuals from the decades after his death until the historiography of the 1960s. It traces how Disraeli was memorialised and celebrated in the Conservative movement and popular culture; how his life and works were interpreted for popular audiences by an important group of conservative historians in the inter-war period; and how Disraeli was mobilised in Conservative and Unionist Party debates on tariff reform, social reform, the nation and empire, concluding in the aftermath of the Second World War, when his legacy and statecraft were consistently evoked in Conservative debates on post-war Britain. It demonstrates that Disraeli was interpreted in much more diverse ways, and with more diverse political objectives, than the standard readings of the Disraelian tradition have hitherto appreciated.

The technopolitics of border security R&D: Shaping the EU’s border in the Security Research Programme

Technologies are predominantly understood as ‘solutions’ for policy problems in EU border control. This has prompted increased political attention to research and development (R&D) of ‘innovative’ security technologies. The European Commission has continuously increased its spending on the development of security devices in the Security Research Programme; at the same time, border security institutions such as Frontex or eu-LISA have worked to amplify their influence on shaping security research in the EU’s Research Framework Programmes. Against this backdrop, this article develops the argument that R&D is a political practice of ‘making’ and governing the border through its entanglement with the politics of border security in the EU. By conceptualizing R&D as ‘borderwork’, the article interrogates how practices of security R&D inscribes specific logics into EU border security and control. In doing this, it also problematizes how R&D locks in exclusionary dichotomies and categorizations of mobilities through privileging security actors in the process. Based on qualitative interviews, the article provides an in-depth analysis of political processes through which R&D programmes and projects materialize at policymaking, implementing and operational levels. Through this, the article explores comprehensively how political logics of bordering are constantly shaping and simultaneously renegotiated in R&D.

Tourism infrastructures

Tourism is both infrastructured and infrastructuring. Such a claim speaks to a much wider infrastructural turn unfolding within the humanities and social sciences that has sought to take seriously both the material and social strata that undergird our ways of life, what Berlant has called the ‘living mediation of what organises life: the lifeworld of structure’ (2016, p. 393). Conventional understandings of infrastructure often rely upon physical and biological metaphors to contemplate the roads, systems, pipes, cables, connections, buildings, routes, regulations and signs that act as grounds, supports, foundations and substrates that facilitate movement and exchange. Certainly, tourism and infrastructure should be easy bedfellows given that infrastructure is primarily understood as the material networks that connect places – that facilitate the mobility of bodies, goods, ideas, data, capital and much more. This paper examines the relationship between tourism and infrastructure as it intersects with predominant geopolitical circulations such as war, security and migration. In considering how the field has addressed this relationship, and where it is going, we contemplate, literally, the roads and verges and other infrastructural formations which are bound up in tourism, but which also signal its more leaky and uncertain boundaries and its contamination with other social and political practices.

Fenomena Relawan Demokrasi pada Pesta Politik di Kabupaten Pasaman Barat

This research aims to explore the phenomenon of democracy volunteers in Pasaman Barat Regency. The phenomenon of democracy volunteers in the 2024 elections in Pasaman Barat Regency shows an increase in political participation among the community. However, there are challenges associated with potential clientelism practices and limited volunteer resources that can affect the integrity of elections. The purpose of this research is to analyze the role and impact of democracy volunteers in the 2024 elections in Pasaman Barat, as well as to understand the challenges they face and how they influence the electoral process. This research employs a phenomenological type of study with a qualitative approach, focusing on political volunteers in Pasaman Barat Regency. The results of the democracy volunteers in Pasaman Barat Regency play an important role in expanding the voter base and increasing political participation. They also face challenges such as limited resources and the influence of political money. Volunteers tend to come from the general public with personal interests and often serve as a shortcut for political elites. Although it has a positive impact on participation and transparency, the presence of volunteers also reveals the potential for transactional political practices. The working mechanism of volunteers, including socialization and direct support to the community, demonstrates their efforts in enhancing political literacy and supporting candidates, despite the risks of a shift towards mass leadership.

To participate or not to participate? Influence mechanism of artificial intelligence on Chinese college students’ willingness to participate in online politics

This study probes the mechanism of artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) influence on Chinese college students’ willingness to participate in online politics and constructs a theoretical model based on the theory of planned behavior. Through the analysis of questionnaire data acquired from up to 317 Chinese college students in total, it turns out that the use of AI affects Chinese college students’ willingness to the participation of online political practice significantly and positively, and such online political participation cognition of Chinese college students plays a mediating role, three aspects of which included as the followings on behavioral attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Additionly, media literacy level plays a moderating role in online political participation cognition and willingness to participate. All the findings highlight the importance of optimizing the online political participation environment, enhancing college students’ cognition of political participation, and improving media literacy in the context of the digital era, which provides practical guidance for promoting healthy and positive online political participation among college students.

The Role of the State Civil Apparatus (ASN) in Preventing and Suppressing the Practice of Money Politics

This study aimed to analyze the constrained role of the State Civil Apparatus (ASN) in suppressing the practice of money politics which contributes to high-cost elections during general elections. ASN’s political activities are heavily restricted, limiting its ability to actively and directly engage in the electoral process. However, statutory provisions also mandate that ASN serve as both the implementer of public policy—an inherently political product—and as a unifying force for the nation. In its role as a unifier, ASN must actively contribute to ensuring that elections are conducted fairly and appropriately for the future of the nation. The object of this study was to examine the limited authority and role of ASN in suppressing the practice of money politics. The study employed a qualitative descriptive analysis to explore the issue from the ASN’s perspective, focusing on the potential contributions of its authority and role in enhancing the quality of elections. The findings indicated that ASN can leverage its authority and role both individually and institutionally to suppress money politics practices. Individually, ASN members can contribute through socialization, advocacy, political education, information dissemination, and anti-money politics campaigns. Institutionally, contributions can be made by strengthening regulatory and policy frameworks, enhancing the integrity and capabilities of ASN personnel, conducting studies, analyses, and discussions to improve electoral process quality, and enforcing strict sanctions against perpetrators of money politics.

Freedom's Course: Hegel's Concept of World History and the Greek War for Independence (1821–1831)

Abstract: A little-remarked aspect of Hegel's lecture courses on the philosophy of world history is that he delivered them five times during a nine-year period (1822–1831) that aligns almost perfectly with the years of the Greek War for Independence. If Hegel was tracking the French and Haitian Revolutions while writing The Phenomenology of Spirit , then he may have been similarly tracking the Greek Revolution when delivering these lectures. What Hegel had done conceptually in 1807 in his Phenomenology of Spirit , he now intended to do historically in this lecture course: namely, to theorize the historical course of human freedom. Since these lectures represent the first text of Hegel's to be translated into English (in 1857), and since they had been translated into Italian even earlier (1840), Hegel's contention that freedom from domination was the moral aim of world history would provide philosophical support for abolitionist and other emancipatory freedom movements in Europe and the Americas. Equating domination by tyrants with slavery would also inspire national independence movements from Greece to Italy and New Spain. Hegel's romantic account of Greece's emancipation from domination, in antiquity and the present, seemed to speak in favor of such nationalist uprisings. At the same time, his concern with the devolution of the French Revolution left him ambivalent about revolution as a political praxis. His lectures would strike both notes as the Greek Revolution unfolded.

Money Politics in a Democratic Political System: A Case study of South Korea and European Countries

The issue of money politics in Indonesia has severely undermined democratic integrity, affecting equality in political participation, increasing the risk of corruption, creating disparities in political access, influencing public policy-making, and damaging public perceptions of the political system’s credibility. This study aimed to explore how other countries address the challenges of money politics and offered concrete solutions to strengthen democratic integrity. Using a comparative approach, the study examined money politics policies and practices, as well as assessed the effectiveness of anti-corruption and transparency measures in South Korea and Europe. The findings revealed that strict regulations on campaign financing and oversight by independent bodies have effectively mitigated money politics practices in these countries. Consequently, Indonesia is encouraged to adopt a similar approach by establishing an independent oversight body and fostering active public participation to address the challenges of money politics and high political costs, promote equitable political participation, and strengthen democratic integrity.

Transformation of Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah Values: Between Spiritual Sustainability and the Risk of Commodification

This research aims to look for differences and gaps to find research gaps with previous research. To achieve this goal, the researcher asked the following research questions: first, competition for truth claims and the spread of Ahlusunah wal Jamaah, NU elites and Salafi elites to compete for influence in their preaching to Pasuruan society; secondly, Santri and the community became a source of struggle for influence for the commodification of NU elites. and Salafi elites in the political, economic and educational areas. Questions in the research will be asked of those who really understand and comprehend the themes raised in this research. This type of research uses qualitative research, with Alfred Schutz's phenomenological approach. The data used is primary data or main data. The data obtained comes from interviews with NU and Salafi elites, as well as city residents, as well as information taken from NU and Salafi books. Plus, field notes resulting from the observation process. The main data source is individual interview transcripts with NU and Salafi elites. The results of the research show that the form of commodification of Ahlusunah wal Jamaah Salafi ideology focuses on da'wah, namely returning Islam to the Koran and Hadith and an Islam that is free from heresy, superstition and superstition. The Salafi preaching model is not oriented towards practical politics; it collaborates with the Pasuruan city government.

Research prACTivisms – a methodology for a-more-than-educational-academic knowledge production

ABSTRACT This article aims to problematize knowledge production as merely an academic researcher endeavour by investigating how research can invite preschool-aged children to activate knowledge in situ. Informed by Isabelle Stengers’ theoretical framework, we developed the research methodology of Research prACTivisms through three propositions: activating an ecology of practices, engaging a direct democracy, and emerging situation ethics and values as means for change and transformations in continuous processes and activations. We argue that Research prACTivisms may produce and activate marginalized actors and knowledge in order to produce contemporary and situated political research practices and approaches.

De patriotas y traidores: la odisea ideológica de José Fernando Ramírez (1804–1871) y su relevancia para reflexionar sobre el México contemporáneo

When in contemporary Mexico terms like “patriots” or “traitors,” more fitting for other eras, are used in a banal, dangerous, and irresponsible manner, it is history that must provide perspective on the dynamic events of the present. With this objective, aiming to distance itself from the dichotomies in which current Mexican society seems to be sinking, this article delves into the complex figure of José Fernando Ramírez, who lived and participated in the turbulent times of Mexico’s nation-building during the 19th century. As a historian, jurist, and politician, Ramírez had a distinguished public career, serving multiple times as a minister and even as a justice of the Supreme Court. However, his political trajectory paralleled a complex ideological journey that took José Fernando Ramírez from radical liberalism to more moderate positions, eventually leading him to collaborate with the Second Mexican Empire. Thus, this article seeks to analyze the particular circumstances of Ramírez, with the primary aim of providing an explanatory answer to the ideological odyssey undertaken by numerous Mexican liberals of his generation, which led them from being considered patriots to being labeled as traitors. Additionally, from a historical perspective and through the analysis of Ramírez’s case, it aims to contribute to a reflection that reduces the exclusionary dichotomous political practices present today, where self-proclaimed immaculate patriots deny this status to former political rivals, classifying them as enemies to be defeated or simply as traitors to the homeland.

Конституционные преобразования политических систем постсоветских государств Центральной Азии

The article examines the constitutional transformations of the political systems of the Central Asian states, which had an impact on the structure, powers and competence of the key power actors that make up the apparatus of public power, the political practice of their functioning and interaction with each other, which in turn affected the choice of the form of government and the configuration of political forces in the post-Soviet states under consideration. The authors trace the relationship between the constitutional reforms carried out in the post-Soviet states and the choice of the form (i.e. model) of government. As a result, the authors concluded that the two Central Asian countries under consideration, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, have chosen a presidential (presidential-centric) model of government, with strict autocratic tendencies in public administration, which is explained by the type of political leadership and the mentality of the majority of the country's electoral corps. Whereas Kazakhstan, which has long adhered to the same formula as the two above-mentioned countries, since the constitutional reforms of 2017. There is a transformation from a super-presidential to a presidential, and subsequently a mixed republic, while retaining key powers of the head of state.

Massive Development of Nusantara Capital City in the Perspective of Ecological Politics

The development of the Capital City of Nusantara (IKN) in East Kalimantan is one of the most ambitious projects in Indonesia's modern history. Through a Political Ecology approach, this paper highlights how power and political dynamics shape interactions between humans and the environment and influence policies and practices that impact the exploitation of natural resources. The research method used is descriptive qualitative, with data collection through literature study. The development of IKN is not only influenced by political decisions that often ignore environmental aspects but also by the constellation of government that tends to be authoritarian and unconstitutional. This is reflected in the process of drafting the IKN law, which invited various polemics and questioned its legality. In the end, IKN development has the potential to damage the environment and deepen social injustice due to political practices that are not inclusive and democratic.

Present Scenario of Post-poll Alliance in India

India is one of the greatest democracies in the World, however, the 2021 Economic Intelligence Unit ranked India at 46th position on Democracy Index with a score of 6.91. Such low ranking of in Democracy Index shows the mirror to changing opportunistic political culture prevailing in India. Free and fair election is the basis of any democracy where the government is formed as per the mandate of the voters. However, recent years in Indian polity has seen the increase in the trend of post poll alliance which provides the opportunity to form government by bypassing the public mandate. This left voters in a state of confusion where they are left uncertain of their role in democracy. The increasing trend of post poll alliances is a severe challenge to democracy which cannot be dealt with existing election laws. The present scenario of Indian politics demands the formulation of new laws to put a stop to this unethical practice of opportunistic politics