Political Public Sphere Research Articles

Franz Magnis-Suseno, Dialogue Ethics and Public Reasoning of Religions

Abstract The return of religion in politics is an important issue in a contemporary democracy. Franz Magnis-Suseno, a Jesuit, ethician and interfaith figure in Indonesia, provides a raft of interesting insights for interreligious dialogues in a pluralistic democracy. Through his publications, he seeks to assist Muslims and Christians to build an ethics of citizenship in a pluralistic democracy with the second Vatican theology of religions as his intellectual foundation. In this article, the author attempts to reconstruct the important points of Magnis-Suseno’s thoughts on dialogue ethics and identifies their relationships to the public reasoning of religions in a political public sphere. He comments that Magnis-Suseno demands more of religions than do Rawls and Habermas in terms of moderating their doctrinal positions vis-à-vis other religions.

Gender and Political Leadership in a Time of COVID

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic has undermined the division between the private sphere of the home and the public sphere of politics that has traditionally disadvantaged women political leaders. Whereas male political leaders historically drew on their traditional role as the male head of household to display forms of masculine protectionism toward citizens, women leaders are now able to draw on their traditional motherly role—for example, as the member of the household who traditionally cares for the sick—to display forms of feminine protectionism. As a result, international women leaders have managed to leverage women's role in the home to their advantage in the political sphere. Significantly, an appreciation of traditionally feminine attributes in women political leaders has been displayed in much media coverage, providing more favorable coverage of female political leaders than was previously the case.

Care for the Other: Lessons from the streets of Athens

Austerity in Greece resulted in poverty, political and social turmoil and intense debates about collective identities, citizenship and the future. One of the main arguments has been that the Greeks should re-evaluate their relationship with the past and their over-reliance on national narratives. The task of re-evaluation can only be accomplished in the public spheres of politics and culture, where individual and collective voices gradually transform the imaginary significations that animate the social body. One such voice is Rhea Galanaki, a novelist with a long and distinguished presence in Greek and European literature. The present article draws on her 2015 novel I Akra Tapeinosi (The Utter Humiliation) in order to flesh out a feminist political vision for the future. This vision draws inspiration from women’s struggles against patriarchy in past decades, and resonates with the concepts of vulnerability and care, contributing to thinking a compassionate alternative to the politics of despair within and beyond the Greek borders.

The Dilemma Between Religious Doctrine and Political Pragmatism: Study of Hamas in Palestine

This paper aims to examine how Hamas as an Islamic movement which adheres to the Muslim Brotherhood ideology came into the political public sphere from 2006 until today. Can Hamas maintain the purity of its religious doctrine when the movement engages in a political election in Palestine? This research uses a qualitative method and adopts the theory of political normalization by Antony Bubalo and Greg Feely to analyze how Islamists movement runs into a secular democratic system by participating in the election, establishing political parties, and contributing within a parliamentary and presidential system. From a theological perspective, this research shows that violence involved by an Islamist group in particular due to their theological interpretation. Meanwhile, from a political perspective, Hamas tries to adapt its approach with the political condition and runs with the contextual realm as well as other political groups from different ideological backgrounds.

DECEPTION IN THE LANGUAGE GAME. TRACING THE NATURAL ROOTS OF THE VICE OF LYING

In the public political sphere truth telling is becoming more the exception than the rule. Of all the tendencies to sin, lying is arguably one of the most destructive and most distinctive of human societies. Or is it? Is it, for example, right to exaggerate the importance of keystone species in order to enhance public support for biodiversity conservation? Longstanding philosophical debates exist about the moral legitimacy of lying in certain circumstances where not to do so would lead to harmful social outcomes. What might be the evolutionary roots of tendencies to deceive and how might this map onto human capacities for lying? Is an Augustinian approach to lying as always fundamentally wrong too rigid an approach or is it essential to Christian witness in a world where truth telling is habitually compromised? This paper will explore the fuzzy boundaries between natural and social evils and tease out in a preliminary way their relationships with original sin.

The democracy in a network society: Problems and prospects of development

This article examines the role of the new media and social networks as a factor in the development of deliberative democracy. In the late 1990s, it was thought that the communication revolution would be a way to overcome the crisis of representative democracy. With the development of the Internet, the transition from a hierarchical model of communications to a network was supposed to bring changes to the sphere of politics. New media and social networks should guarantee ac- cess of civil society to the political public sphere and help narrow the gap between the elite and the people. Requirements are being formulated to increase the transparency and accountability of state institutions, and to strengthen policy control. It was believed that the Internet will become a place where the principles of deliberative democracy will be embodied. But now we should admit that the new media development causes disappointment, and a times anxiety. Instead of the growth of public discussions, we may encounter “echo chambers”, a victim of the essence of information for effect, which as a result, leads to the radicalization of citizens. Governments and IT-corporations exploit the increased capabilities of social networks and Big Data to control and manipulate information, which jeopardizes the possibility of free discussion. The impact on emotions and simple slogans turned out to be more acceptable in the Internet age than a reflec- tive discussion on social issues. The communication revolution has led to changes in the public sphere, but at the same time, it can lead to the erosion of democracy.

The Disabled People Virtual Communities in Social Media from The Perspective of Public Sphere Theory

Many researches view the internet as a virtual public sphere or forum potential that provides a space for minority groups to voice their opinions. This article identifies the role of social media in creating political public sphere for voters with disabilities in Indonesia during Presidential Election in 2019. By applying the normative values provided by Public Sphere Theory and Sphere Public Subaltern Theory, this article determines various potentials as well as stumbling blocks of the internet as a virtual public sphere for internet users. Virtual ethnography method is used to determine the identity of virtual communities of disabled people on three most active social media platforms in Indonesia, namely Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Virtual Ethnography enables researchers to conduct an online observation on virtual communities three months prior to the 2019 Presidential Election. The data findings help the researchers draw conclusion that social media has technically advocated the endeavor of the disabled people’s political rights equality, proven by the existence of disabled people’s virtual communities and the narratives of struggle for their political rights equality. However, the data has shown an inadequacy of disabled people’s virtual community to create dynamic inter-activities between its members as this community has not been able to reflect a public sphere that is able to build public opinion which effectively influences public policy.

YESUS DAN MACHIAVELLI: MORALITAS, RELIGIUSITAS DAN KOMPETENSI POLITISI DI RUANG POLITIK

This research was conducted to answer the question of what competent politicians are and the relationship between the strategies they use in the public sphere with moral and religious principles. The research rests on the thesis that the competence of politicians cannot be separated from morality and religiosity. The goal is achieved through asymmetrical comparison of the teachings of Jesus with Machiavelli's political thoughts. The teachings of Jesus and Machiavelli's thoughts–about the situation of public sphere, the strategy used to overcome the situation and the role of moral and religious principles in the public sphere–will be compared to understand and answer the questions asked. It shows that competencies have relations with effective strategies to overcome the unideal situations in political public sphere and the application of value systems that limit the use of political strategies. Thus, political strategy has a strong relationship with religiosity and morality.

Democratic Agnosia: The Reduction of the Political Public Sphere to Elections and Polls in Russia

The article addresses the extent to which current developments in the political public sphere in contemporary Russia might be seen as manifestations and maybe condensations of developments in representative democracies in a more general sense. These developments concern the ways that elections and other practices of voting achieve a hegemonic significance as processes of symbolization in the political public sphere. The first section outlines the role of voting practices for the legitimation and stability of Russia’s current super-presidentialism. The second section connects these findings to a theoretical framework that capitalizes on the symbolic effects of elections and polling practices in democratic political and societal orders. Here critics of representative democracy and of majority rule, which highlight the contradictory role of majority decisions in democratic institutional and imaginary orders, will be discussed and related to the mass protests against election fraud in 2011 and 2012. The third section reconceptualizes the current problematics of the political public sphere in contemporary Russia. The overall aim is thus not to measure political-public developments in Russia against the normative yardstick of allegedly uncontested democratic development in western societies, but rather to situate Russia on a conceptual map of a generic crisis of majority rule.

Political Resistance and Citizenship Agency: Exploring the Experiences of Black African Zimbabwean and South African Women

This article addresses how marginalised black African women in South Africa and Zimbabwe understand themselves as citizens, express agency and practise political resistance. Little research has been done on this topic in Southern Africa, especially in Zimbabwe, making this study particularly relevant. Literature relating to citizenship, agency and the political resistance of women in non-Western society is also discussed. Focus is placed on a case study analysis of women who live in Zimbabwean and South African townships and who self-identify as members of the Ndebele and Zulu ethnic groups respectively. In-depth interviews, which consisted of closed and open-ended questions, were conducted with these women, and each participant also completed a form requiring them to provide socio-demographic information. Content and relational analysis was used to analyse the responses of the participants. The results indicated that these black African women participated politically in invented spaces that typically exist outside of the public political sphere. The women use everyday resistance strategies to negotiate their relationship with the state. These resistance strategies were found to be framed in terms of the women’s daily economic struggles and the structural challenges they faced.

Confronting extractivism – the role of local struggles in the (un)making of place

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the politics involved in local struggles against forestry extractivism. The forestry sector is dependent on vast areas of land for tree plantations. This creates deep-rooted conflicts between global corporations that seek access to natural resources and locals whose way of life requires the use of the same land.Design/methodology/approachThis study draws on a political ontology frame of reference and storytelling methodology to build on testimonies of three small-scale farmers who actively seek to resist forestry plantations next to their land in rural Uruguay. The stories reveal the impossibilities they face when raising claims in the public political sphere and how they lack the means to organise strong collective resistance.FindingsOne of the testimonies reveals how the farmers engage in a form of “politics of place” (Escobar, 2001, 2008) to counter the power of the proponents of forestry and the further expansion of plantations. This form of politics strengthens and politicises the ontological difference between extractive and non-extractive worlds. The farmers seek to build new imaginations of rural living and sustainable futures without the presence of extractive corporations. They fulfil this aim by designing community projects that aim to revitalise ancient indigenous legends, set up agro-ecological farms, and teach schoolchildren about the environment.Originality/valueThe struggles of the farmers indicate the territorial transformations involved in (un)making (non)extractive places and the need to expand the analysis of the politics involved in struggles against extractivism beyond social struggles.

Producing Political Knowledge: Students as Podcasters in the Political Science Classroom

Given the increasing prevalence of podcast listening, especially among young adults with college education, it is important to consider how student-produced podcasts can impact the student experience in the classroom, contribute to a more participatory course, and help achieve learning objectives. To engage these issues, this article reflects on the podcast assignment completed by five courses of students, three introductory American Politics classes and two Political Ideologies classes. This article seeks to examine how podcasts can work as a tool for students to research, analyze, synthesize, and present political information in a specific pedagogical and rhetorical setting; in the course of doing so, students become actively engaged with the audio public political sphere. I focus on assignment design, learning objectives, and my own pedagogical reflections in order to reach some tentative ideas about the pedagogical potential of podcasts in the political science classroom.

НАЦІОНАЛІЗМ У ГЛОБАЛЬНОМУ ПОЛІТИЧНОМУ ДИСКУРСІ:

Розглядаються ідейні дискусії щодо «прагматичного націоналізму», з великою самооцінкою, але й розумним ставленням до інших національностей. Вивчається громадянське суспільство як чинник глобального обговорення націоналізму та параметри, якими воно характеризується. Розкриваються особливості відродження політичних ідеологій, які відбуваються на основі розробки нової економічної стратегії альтерглобалізму та ідентифікації нових еволюційних соціальних груп. Встановлюються особливості нелінійних зворотних зв'язків, жорсткі причинно-наслідкові залежності (жорсткий детермінізм) у політичному процесі. Обговорюється вплив поширення у політичному процесі форм прямої демократії. Вивчаються властивості критики сучасного націоналізму стосовно поняття «нація» та за критеріїв визначення національності людини. Досліджується досягнення прагматичного громадянського націоналізму, який має об’єднати етнічні спільноти навколо спільного успішного політичного майбутнього.

Political communication in Social Networks Election campaigns and Digital Data Analysis: A Bibliographic Review

The outcomes of a bibliographic review on political communication, in particular electoral communication in social networks, are presented here. The electoral campaigning are a crucial test to verify the transformations of the media system and of the forms and uses of the linguistic acts by dominant actors in public sphere – candidates, parties, journalists and Gatekeepers. The aim is to reconstruct the first elements of an analytical model on the transformations of the political public sphere, with which to systematize the results of the main empirical research carried out in recent years, in particular those conducted with a promising methodology: Digital Trace Data Analysis.

Cultural Public Sphere: Tracking the Yogyakarta City Policy Agenda through the #JogjaOraDidol Hashtag on Twitter

Instead of studying the virtual space using the Political Public Sphere concept, this study adopts the Literary Public Sphere point of view to examine and narrate the nature of a Cultural Public Sphere in social media. The researchers see interactivity in social media as an articulation of expression involving emotions and aesthetics (affective communication). Using the mixed method of Topic Modelling, Social Network Analysis (SNA), and Discourse Analysis in the case of the presence of the #JogjaOraDidol hashtag in Twitter, this study conclude that the Cultural Public Sphere has three dimensions of Public Sphere as introduced by Dahlgren (2005). The dynamic of inclusivity for anyone to express themselves and to engage in public issues discussions indicates that space is inclusive not only because of the technical support of the media but also because of the commitment of its users (structural dimension). The emergence of three virtual communities (fans, artists and activists) that develop a collective identity represents a subset of the real local population and demonstrates the ideal role taking of the representational aspect of Public Sphere. The interactional one is indicated by the discourse constructed using reflexive but straightforward symbols represent the interaction between users and the meaning that users do to the contents of the media used. Meanwhile, the real action show of the discourse develops virtually does not entrap the user in pseudo-empowerment. As an implication, using specific parameter, notably the hashtag identifies a social movement, policymakers can use data from social media in the agenda-setting process. Additionally, in the context of #JogjaOraDidol, soft data can also be used to evaluate the moratorium policy of granting the hotel's construction permit.

From The Club Stage to the National Scene: How Mass Media Interpreted Two Comedians as Important Immigrant Voices

This article investigates how comedians with an immigrant background gain political relevance, taking two contemporary comedians from Norway and Sweden as cases. The study uses media's interpretive power as a way to explore Habermas’ ([1996]. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) claim that the borders between the cultural and the political public spheres are porous. A reading of the press coverage of the comedians is used to discover patterns in how media interpreted the comedians as immigrant voices and as humourists. It is demonstrated how the comedians get moulded into certain positions through mass media interpretations, as well as explained where these interpretations come from historically. Furthermore, it is shown that the coverage of the two comedians to a large degree conformed to existing immigration discourse, challenging the view of comedy as a subversive force.

Dissident and dissenting republicanism: From the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement to Brexit

The 1998 Good Friday/Belfast Peace Agreement was almost universally supported by nationalists in Northern Ireland, and Sinn Féin’s high-profile role in the discussions was the foundation upon which it would transform itself from the political wing of the Provisional Irish Republican Army to second biggest party at Stormont. However, dissidents pointed out that the compromises made by Sinn Féin during the Peace Process were a sell-out of the political and ideological aspirations held by republicans for at least a century. New dissident groups emerged in opposition to the course taken by Sinn Féin, and the period since 1998 has been one of the most dynamic in republican history since the Irish Civil War. New political parties and organisations like the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, éirígí, Republican Network for Unity and Saoradh emerged reflecting this state of flux and the existential fears felt by those for whom the Good Friday Agreement fell far short of delivering the republican aspiration of a united Ireland. Although Brexit provided a curious and fortunate opportunity for momentary public attention, these groups have remained peripheral actors in the Irish and British political public spheres.

The Languages of Petitioning in Early Colonial India

With relatively few exceptions, personal petitions from individuals have received much less attention from historians than those from groups in the public political sphere. In one sense, personal petitions adopted many of the same rhetorical strategies as those delivered by a group. However, they also offer unique insights into the quotidian relationship between the people and their rulers. This article examines surviving personal petitions to various administrators at different levels of government in western India during the decades surrounding the East India Company’s conquests. The analysis of these petitions helps to refine our understanding of the place of the new judicial system in the social world of early-nineteenth-century India, especially by illuminating the discourse of justice that petitioners brought to the presentation of their cases to their new governors. The conclusion of this article seeks to place the rhetoric of personal petitioning within the larger context of mass political petitioning in India during the early nineteenth century.

Attitudes and the Stalled Gender Revolution: Egalitarianism, Traditionalism, and Ambivalence from 1977 through 2016

Empirical studies show that though there is more room for improvement, much progress has been made toward gender equality since the second wave of feminism. Evidence also suggests that women’s advancements have been more dramatic in the public sphere of work and politics than in the private sphere of family life. We argue that this lopsided gender progress may be traced to uneven changes in gender attitudes. Using data from more than 27,000 respondents who participated in the General Social Survey from 1977 through 2016, we show that gender attitudes have more than one underlying dimension and that these dimensions have changed at different rates over time. Using latent class analysis, we find that the distribution of respondents’ attitudes toward gender equality has changed over the past 40 years. There has been an increase in the number of egalitarians who support equality in public and private spheres, while the traditionals who historically opposed equality in both domains have been replaced by ambivalents who feel differently about gender equality in the public and private spheres. Meanwhile, successive birth cohorts are becoming more egalitarian, with Generation-Xers and Millennials being the most likely to hold strong egalitarian views. The feminist revolution has succeeded in promoting egalitarian views and decreasing the influence of gender traditionalism, but has yet to convince a substantial minority that gender equality should extend to both public and private spheres of social life

Slacktivist USA and Authoritarian China? Comparing Two Political Public Spheres With a Random Sample of Social Media Users

The rise of social media has put back on the agenda questions about the Internet's potential as an online public sphere, particularly in authoritarian states. However, random samples have never been employed to investigate political speech on social media, necessarily limiting knowledge. This article presents an analysis of political speech based on a random sample of more than 1,000 active U.S. Twitter users and Chinese Weibo users collected in late 2014. Political speech by ordinary users was found to be more frequent on both platforms than expected—9.4 percent on Weibo and 6.8 percent on Twitter—lending support to hopes of an online public sphere. However, existing powerholders make up around a fifth of U.S. Twitter accounts, and political speech acts by ordinary U.S. Twitter users are largely “slacktivist” in nature. In contrast, 98 percent of active accounts on Weibo belong to ordinary users, with active political speech making up more than 1 in 50 posts by these users. Although they largely fall within the bounds of what is permitted by the Chinese state, these findings point to the potential of the Internet as a (limited) public sphere in China, while raising questions about its contribution to political processes in the United States.