Prime Minister Research Articles

Between regional cooperation and strategic reorganization: An examination of the change in perceptions in Japanese security policy

ABSTRACT With Japan’s new connectivity initiative, the Free and Open Indo-Pacific, alongside several previous doctrines, Tokyo has started to shift its regional security policy focus towards democratic states in the Asia-Pacific. Qualitative case studies on bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific assess these changes as reflecting a more proactive security policy initiated under the Abe administration (2012–2020). While Tokyo’s security policy towards Southeast Asia has certainly changed both qualitatively and quantitatively since 2012/2013, explaining this change by referring solely to Prime Minister Abe’s foreign policy agenda falls short. Rather, Japan’s new strategy is the result of a change in perceptions among executive officials in the foreign and defense ministries that had already been initiated in the 2000s. This study looks at this development and examines the role of the Prime Minister’s Office of Japan (Kantei), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), and the Ministry of Defense (MOD) in initiating the change and assesses Japan’s Pacific strategy through an interview-based qualitative case study. Using the concept of “foreign policy analysis” and based on official publications and interviews with representatives of the MOD, the MOFA, and Kantei advisors, this study expands the qualitative aspect of existing research and shows that the origins of this new regionalism are found primarily in the changing perceptions of executive officials. It also points to the importance of analyzing administrative executives at the interface among Kantei, the MOFA, and the MOD, which can shed new light on the reasons behind Japan’s regional strategy shift.

Miguel Primo de Rivera y Urquijo: A Forgotten Protagonist of Spain's Transition to Democracy, 1964–1978

Historians have traditionally studied Spain's transition to democracy (1975–8) through the point of view of its protagonists, especially King Juan Carlos I and Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez. The figure of Miguel Primo de Rivera y Urquijo (1934–2018), who despite being José Antonio's nephew and Franco's protégé defended the Political Reform Act which restored democracy, is one that however has barely received attention from historians. This is mainly due to the lack of sources on him, apart from his memoirs, published in 2002. The unprecedented access to his personal archive reveals that Primo de Rivera had a crucial role in the transition: although apparently an outright Francoist, he dedicated all of his efforts to accomplishing the succession of Juan Carlos and the eventual restoration of democracy. This paper rediscovers his figure, revealing him to be a convinced democrat and a crucial member of the strategy that brought down Francoism.

Microcredit Clients’ Financial Literacy Towards Financial Inclusion and Sustainability

According to the recent Malaysian MADANI Budget 2023 which has been declared by Prime Minister, it is notable that 7 billion was allocated to help micro-entrepreneurs, women and youth. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that the clients have appropriate financial literacy to ensure that the loans can be repaid accordingly. For microcredit clients to have this ability, they should have sound financial literacy to be able to manage their money, make wise decisions, and maintain vigorous spending. Thus, to promote sustainable financial sustainability, the objective of this study is to assess the level of microcredit financial literacy of microcredit clients in enhancing their knowledge, skills and transparency that can lead to financial sustainability. Further, it will also test empirically whether microcredit financial literacy can integrate the cognitive comprehension of financial knowledge, skills and responsibility with respect to financial sustainability. This study will use an exploratory sequential mixed-method research design that combines quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (interviews) data. The data-gathering method then continues with concentrated group interviews on selected microcredit clients. This covers clients from TEKUN Nasional Melaka to deliberate on related problems. Data analysis in qualitative research focuses on the systematic search and arrangement of interview transcripts. Interviews are necessary to gain a thorough understanding of issues with financial knowledge and skills among clients. It is expected that the study will benefit the policy maker, microcredit clients and the government in enhancing financial inclusion and sustainability. Thus, the government's slogan "Developing Malaysia MADANI" can be achieved.

India: The Emerging Superpower of the World

At present, India is counted among the emerging superpowers of the world. Mainly two stages can be seen in the journey of India’s economic development. The first can be considered as the period from the country’s attainment of independence on August 15, 1947 till the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991) and the second from 1991 till the present time. The beginning of liberalization initiated in India was a bold decision which was taken in view of the then circumstances. In the National Democratic Alliance government, the then Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee government once again made the entire world aware of India’s military capabilities by conducting nuclear tests (Pokhran-2) for the second time in the year 1998. During the United Progressive Alliance government, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh with great wisdom and tact gave a new direction to India’s relations with America, Russia, China, European Union, ASEAN etc. India’s civil nuclear agreement with America (123) can be considered a historic decision. In the year 2014, the (BJP-NDA) government was formed at the Center under the leadership of Shri Narendra Modi with a clear majority. After the Lok Sabha elections in the year 2019, Shri Narendra Modi again became the Prime Minister of the country. In the last decade, India has made unprecedented progress in many fields. At present India is the fifth largest economy in the world. The economies of all countries of the world were negatively affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. From the perspective of India as an emerging superpower, its large size, economic strength, military power, human capital and strategic advantages can be considered as its strengths. India is the largest democratic country in the world. India can become a bridge of peace in the present world divided into two opposing camps. India has won the trust of the countries of the world by presenting an example of human service through vaccine diplomacy in the Covid-19 pandemic. India has moved towards continuous progress and self-reliance in the fields of economic, military, food dependence, space, tourism, education, health etc. Positive results of Make-in-India and Bharat Self-reliant campaign are visible. There has been a continuous increase in foreign exchange reserves.

Behavioural evidence to inform the COVID-19 pandemic response: Ireland's Social Activity Measure (SAM)

Abstract Humankind's main defence against the virus that cuases COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), besides vaccine development, was co-ordinated behaviour change. In many countries, co-ordination was assisted by tracking surveys designed to measure self-reported behaviour and attitudes. This paper describes an alternative, complementary approach, which was undertaken in close collaboration with officials in the Department of the Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister). We adapted the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) to develop the ‘Social Activity Measure’ (SAM). The study was conducted fortnightly for 18 months, with findings delivered directly to the Department. This paper describes the method and shows how SAM generated a detailed picture of where and why transmission risk occurred. By using the DRM, we built aggregate measures from narrative accounts of how individuals spent their previous day. SAM recorded the amount, location and type of social activity, including the incidence of close contact and mask-wearing, as well as compliance with public health restrictions by shops and businesses. The method also permitted a detailed analysis of how public perceptions and comprehension are related to behaviour. The results informed government communications and strategies for lifting public health restrictions. The method could be applied to other future situations that might require co-ordinated public behaviour over an extended period.

Prorogation in Commonwealth Caribbean countries: an analysis of the relevance of the Miller decision

ABSTRACT The judgment in the Miller case in the UK in September 2019 which overturned the decision of Prime Minister Boris Johnson to advise the Queen to prorogue Parliament is not applicable in the Commonwealth Caribbean. The view of Derek O’Brien in the Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics in January 2022, which suggests otherwise, is challenged. The article addresses the use of the prorogation of Parliament as a means of avoiding adverse political circumstances in the Commonwealth Caribbean by Prime Ministers and Presidents to ensure political survival in the following cases: 1989 – Prime Minister Herbert Blaize in Grenada. 2002 – Prime Minister Patrick Manning in Trinidad and Tobago. 2012 – Prime Minister Tillman Thomas in Grenada. 2014 – President Donald Ramotar in Guyana. In the Commonwealth Caribbean, all of the constitutions are written, unlike the United Kingdom. The constitutional dissimilarities on prorogation between the Westminster-Whitehall model in the Commonwealth Caribbean and the Westminster model in the UK will confirm the inapplicability of the Miller case to the Commonwealth Caribbean.

Protecting the people: populism and masculine security in India and Hungary

ABSTRACT The article contributes to a comparative understanding of populism, securitization, and ontological security by demonstrating how masculinity plays a central role in invocations of insecurity. We argue that masculinity, understood as a set of gendered relations that helps in forging affective communities between populist leaders, the people, and objects of securitization, can provide useful insights into the political practice of populism and securitization. Building upon an analysis of the speeches of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, this article shows how right-wing populist constructions of security function by accommodating objects of securitization within an imaginary of family and kinship and invoking a familial bond between the populist leader and the objects of securitization. These constructions of security and terrorism are built upon similar gendered relations and influences across national contexts. In their constructions of security, both populist leaders invoke love and pride in gendered ways to create a familial bond between the populist leader and the people, even as they engage in acts of violence toward objects of securitization within a familial order by deploying idioms of kinship and the family.

The Populist Name Game: About Populism and Naming

For populist leaders, naming is an important political tool, helping them to consolidate their leadership while harming the legitimacy of their opponents. The article offers a theoretical framework explaining populist tactical uses of naming; how they name and misname their opponents. The explanation locates the naming tactics within the overall populist framework as a thin-centered ideology. The following three naming tactics are described and analyzed: (1) coining ridiculing nicknames, (2) appropriating existing nicknames, and (3) avoiding the opponent’s name. To substantiate the theoretical arguments, we discursively analyze these three tactics, as were employed by the former US president, Donald Trump, the prime minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.

The undersecuritization of COVID-19 in Japan: Voluntary behavioral change as self-defense?

Facing the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), leaders of many countries attempted to securitize the COVID-19 issue. The Japanese government, however, neither attempted to securitize it nor implemented strong measures to control its circulation. Yet the behavior of Japanese citizens changed significantly to prevent the spread of COVID-19. What were the mechanisms that drove them to voluntarily change their behavior? By introducing the analytical concept of ‘undersecuritization’, this article tries to answer this question, as well as to broaden the scope of the securitization argument. It first analyzes why Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did not attempt to securitize COVID-19. It then examines the mechanism behind citizens’ behavioral change. When Japanese citizens perceived the measures taken by their government as too weak to address the life-threatening COVID-19 issue, they started to feel that it was undersecuritized. This article argues that such awareness was the reason behind the voluntary behavioral changes that the Japanese people made in self-defense. It also shows that such self-defense measures can be more formidable than the measures taken by the government in a situation of oversecuritization.

The ‘US Factor’ in the Satō Administration’s Diplomacy in the Indonesia-Malaysia Conflict, 1964-1966

ABSTRACT Peace efforts to resolve the Indonesia-Malaysia conflict (1963–1966) became an important agenda in Japan’s Southeast Asia policy under Prime Minister (PM) Eisaku Satō. After a cautious start, the Satō government sought to create conditions for the Indonesians and Malaysians to end their armed confrontation (confrontation), which had become a source of destabilisation in Southeast Asia. Japan’s peace efforts began under PM Hayato Ikeda (1960–1964), marking the first time after World War II that Tokyo became involved in attempts to mediate a conflict. These endeavours were carried out in a region where mixed feelings lingered towards Japan for its wartime occupation. This paper investigates the factors that shaped the Satō administration’s engagement in efforts to resolve the confrontation and sheds light on how Japan’s relations with the United States (US) influenced its peace-making role – an aspect on which little has been written in previous studies. The findings indicate that considerations related to Japanese relations with the US were an important driver, although not the only one, of the Satō administration’s diplomatic initiatives to resolve the Indonesia-Malaysia armed confrontation. Furthermore, Japan’s peace efforts contributed to the US policy in Asia.

Press charges: renegotiating free speech and citizenship in post-partition Delhi

ABSTRACT This article examines the conflict between press censorship and free speech in post-partition Delhi, focusing on the Urdu press. It demonstrates how conflicts over free speech became a focal point for the intersection of two fundamental tensions underlying postcolonial state formation—between civil liberties and the authoritarian legacy of colonial rule, and between a secular democracy and a religion-based partition. The article explores the Urdu refugee dailies that relocated from Lahore to Delhi amid the partition upheaval and emerged as significant media voicing refugees’ interests, often at the expense of Muslim residents. Their provocative writings simultaneously challenged the boundaries of free speech and advanced an exclusionary notion of citizenship based on blood-based descent (jus sanguinis). This narrow conception of citizenship, underlying the partition migrations themselves, challenged the secularist vision of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. In response, the Delhi administration took actions against the refugee papers, making them central to contemporary struggles over press censorship. By taking the state to court, refugee editors promoted citizens’ right to free speech, but simultaneously advanced a circumscribed notion of ethno-religious citizenship. Navigating this dual role, the article unveils the exclusions and contradictions that marked citizenship formation in the early postcolonial period.

Death of a Prime Minister: The Assassination of Boutros Ghali and Mediating Sectarianism in Egypt, 1906–1911

ABSTRACT When Egypt’s first Coptic Christian prime minister, Boutros Ghali, was assassinated by a Muslim affiliate of the Nationalist Party (al-Ḥizb al-Waṭanī) in 1910, it triggered a nationwide debate over more than just the spectre of political violence. The assassination, the first of a prominent politician in twentieth-century Egypt, exposed latent sectarian tensions that consumed public discourse and private speculation through the press, conferences, and demonstrations. While Ghali’s killing has been analysed more commonly in reference to its implications for the British occupation or the Egyptian nationalist movement, it has yet to receive equal attention for its role in generating discourses about sectarianism in Egypt. This article argues that the death of the prime minister highlighted national anxieties about inter-religious relations during a period of contestation over the parameters of Egyptian identity and belonging. Ghali’s death, the politics of his commemoration, and a recourse to charitable citizenship are crucial nodes for understanding the historical development of sectarianism in twentieth-century Egypt.

Reinforcing partition through fiscal policy

ABSTRACT On 1 April 1923, a ‘temporary frontier’ on imported goods was placed on the boundary line between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State. This temporary frontier lasted for over 70 years, only being rescinded due to the introduction of the Single Market throughout the European Union in 1993. It was the Irish Free State government that introduced the measure that in essence created a hard land border on the island, and not the Northern Ireland government, with its prime minister Sir James Craig claiming that ‘Those in the South who proposed to erect that barrier wall, and not the North, would be responsible for partition. There was no such thing as partition if they had not a Customs barrier between the North and the South’ (Irish Times, 10 March 1923). Despite the Free State government’s public utterances opposing partition, its decision to erect customs barriers helped to cement partition. This article looks at why the fledgling Irish Free State government chose to erect customs barriers, why the Northern Ireland government opposed the move, and how it drove a further wedge between both jurisdictions, politically, economically and socially.

Das literarische Schaffen Manfred Winklers – Werkübersicht, Genese und Textpraktiken

Abstract Though awarded the Israeli Prime Minister’s Prize for Hebrew Literature in 1999, the multifaceted Manfred Winkler (1922–2014), encompassing roles as a German and Hebrew poet, survivor-writer, translator, painter, and sculptor, has only recently garnered sustained scholarly attention. This delayed recognition can be attributed, in part, to Winkler’s lifelong commitment to traversing geographical, national, ideological, and linguistic boundaries throughout his extensive career. It is only in the wake of a burgeoning interest in the life narratives of German-language refugees and immigrants to Israel, alongside their transcultural literary contributions, that the cultural and historical significance of Winkler’s poetry has come to light. This article delves into Winkler’s literary corpus and its inception, drawing upon the latest insights and research findings obtained through the author’s archival and editorial work since 2014. It provides an overview of the predominant themes, writing practices, and tendencies within the works of this multilingual author and (self-)translator. Winkler, through his poignant portrayal of the traumas of war and the memories of the Holocaust and the Jewish-Arab conflict – with a sense of grief rather than from a position of judgment – delineates the fault lines and pivotal moments of nearly the entire 20th century.

Parliamentary standards under attack: an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the Westminster Parliament

ABSTRACT Healthy democracies require ethical leadership and respect for rules, but since the 2000s we have witnessed serious attacks on standards in the UK Parliament. Two narratives about scandals will reveal cultural and social aspects that are often ignored by the public, journalists and parliamentary scholars. A slow development of conditions led to a scandal over misuse of expenses in 2009, while rule-breaking in Parliament during Prime Minister Johnson’s term in office emerged more suddenly, in part out of the rupture of Brexit. Making sense of these cases about standards, and the connections between them, requires a theoretical approach that goes beyond looking at the bad behaviour of individuals or rotten cultures within a malfunctioning system. In the gap between the two, you find relationships. I make an argument for a relational, cultural and historical approach within which people act in complex configurations of interdependence as both individuals and socialised actors.

The Lubrani Connection: Revisiting Israeli-Druze Relations in Lebanon’s 1983 War of the Mountain

ABSTRACT This article ponders Israeli-Druze relations during Lebanon’s 1983 War of the Mountain in light of derestricted sources pertaining to the Robert C. McFarlane mission in Lebanon. After the assassination of the Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel in September 1982 and the rise to the presidency of his brother Amine, Israel’s relations with Lebanon’s Christians soured. By contrast, Israel’s connections with the Lebanese Druze intensified, and the Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin threatened to establish a “Druze Canton/Israeli Protectorate” in the Shuf-Aley region. Ostensibly, Walid Jumblatt, the leader of the Druze community, allied himself during the Lebanese Civil War with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Syria. Untapped diplomatic documents show, however, that Jumblatt also courted Israel and developed ties with the Menachem Begin administration. Uri Lubrani, an Israeli official who recruited members of Israel’s Druze community to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the 1950s, played an important role in developing Israel’s ties with Jumblatt. In this paper, I flesh out the dynamics of Israel’s discrete relations with Lebanon’s Druze community and their implications on the trajectory of the Lebanese conflict.

Pronoun shifts in political discourse

Abstract This article examines the English translations of former Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s statements on the international stage and the shifts in the first-person pronoun. Looking at interpersonal positioning through a systemic functional linguistic lens, we found that the translations underline the explicitness of agency, highlighting the variation of stylistic choices and interplay with source-text politics. The shifts come with a modified degree of willingness, a more active agency, an increase in the modality of inclination, and more force in attitude. These interpersonal overtones largely contribute to recasting the image of the Thai government to ensure its legitimacy, promote national unity, and appeal to the international community. These crafted translated texts seem to hone the leader’s public persona in front of global audiences by continuing to enhance the country’s reputation, thereby maintaining the speaker’s dignity and prestige–an essential for the national leader’s image.

“We will not be lectured”: understanding political fandom on TikTok

ABSTRACT In 2020, the Misogyny Speech resurfaced and went viral on the social media platform TikTok, almost a decade after former Prime Minister Julia Gillard first presented it in Australian Parliament. This research aims to comprehend the speech’s virality through a lens of fandom theory using qualitative content analysis, to explore how users foster community and perform elements of political fandom. It considers the influence of the platform’s affordances and architecture on the formation and productivity of this fandom community. The speech’s resurgence in popularity can be characterised as a manifestation of political fandom, shaped by the platform in which it thrives. The way users embody the elements that typify political fandoms – productivity and consumption, affect, community, and contestation – is profoundly influenced by the affordances and structures of TikTok.

Visualizing crisis leadership: Prime ministers on Instagram during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study sheds light on how political leaders engage in visual meaning-making on social media during a major crisis. In addition, it explores which kinds of visual messages by political leaders on social media drive high popular engagement in times of crisis. The study employs content analysis, including automatic facial expression analysis, to investigate visual communication on the Instagram accounts of three Nordic prime ministers (PMs) during the critical initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis covers visual personalization, depicted individuals, national symbols and facial expressions. Furthermore, the study explores the visual elements within the posts that garnered the highest public engagement, as measured by the number of likes and comments. The findings indicate that the PMs primarily projected an image of professional, capable and credible crisis leadership through their visual content. However, the potential for leaders to convey compassion, empathy and authenticity through visual imagery is also evident, particularly exemplified by the Danish PM. The visual content that generated the most significant public engagement predominantly consisted of videos featuring the PMs in formal professional settings, directly addressing the audience about serious matters.

United Kingdom: Political Developments and Data in 2023

AbstractThe year 2023 saw more stability in British politics, with new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak seeking to make his mark on the policy agenda with the announcement of five key policy pledges in January. As part of seeking to address these, the government placed an increased emphasis on immigration over the year, particularly in tackling illegal crossings over the English Channel. The government also moved away from its net zero agenda. Despite this, the party's poll position did not improve. New peers were introduced by departing Prime Ministers Johnson and Truss. Boris Johnson also stepped down as a Member of Parliament, and a November Cabinet reshuffle saw former Prime Minister David Cameron re‐enter politics as Foreign Secretary.