Today's Political Research Articles

Going beyond creativity: Primary headteachers as social intrapreneurs?

This article presents the details and findings of a mixed-methods study that explored Scottish primary sector headteachers’ enactment of creativity through a Complexity Leadership Theory lens. Although policymakers emphasise the importance of headteachers and their impact on school improvement, there is a growing need for headteachers to enact and effectively nurture school-wide creativity if they are to overcome complex challenges brought about by today's political, social and economic environments. In response to the research question ‘To what extent do primary headteachers perceive their role as being creative?’, this article reports on 23 surveys and 11 semi-structured interviews undertaken as part of a larger study. Whilst our findings suggest that creativity is enacted to some extent by the headteachers, the evidence goes beyond this and identifies social intrapreneurship emerging. The concept of social intrapreneurship within education appears to be unique to this study. We identify social intrapreneurs as individuals who demonstrate creativity, resourcefulness, collaboration and determination and are growth-oriented within bureaucratic constraints. We conclude by discussing how social intrapreneurship is a valuable concept for headteachers and policymakers alike.

Importance and Solutions for Environmental Protection in the Light of Islamic Teachings

The sacred religion of Islam considers environmental protection as a characteristic of complete faith and regards any assistance in its cleanliness and preservation as ongoing charity and a measure of civil conduct. Quranic verses, prophetic traditions, and jurisprudential guidelines all emphasize the necessity, importance, and benefits of preserving the environment. Furthermore, this topic has gained prominence in today's political and health discussions, and the observance of its rights is considered an international priority. Supportive measures have been taken to protect the health of the environment and ensure that it remains unharmed. The research question focuses on what rules, regulations, and guidelines Islam has taken into account for the protection of the environment and living beings. It appears that Islam considers the environment as a divine gift and has provided religious injunctions and guidance for its health and protection. This article employs an analytical-descriptive method and relies on credible sources to address the issues and translate religious texts. The current article demonstrates that the level of attention given by Islam, as a comprehensive religion, to issues relevant to human society, including environmental preservation, is significant. It presents useful Islamic solutions for maintaining the cleanliness of our surroundings, which is one of the fundamental needs of a clean, healthy, and ideal society, and instructs us to implement them in our daily lives.

Engaging Imam Al-Shatibi's Political Thoughts in Contemporary Contexts

This article describes classical Islamic political theory and explores the context of modern politics. The dramatic transformations to the Middle East's political, legal, and economic systems in the 19th and 20th centuries led to systematic secularization, centralization of authority, and westernization. With a literature review, this article raises again the Islamic political teachings initiated by classical fiqh scholars. This study can inspire changes currently resonating with the majority of the middle class, who are dissatisfied with the political power left over from the past. Likewise, this study can provide for those in power amid a wave of democratization in the Islamic world. With this study, Muslims can call back to Shari’a regarding the must, when, how to regulate, and how to resolve the myriad of questions that define how to implement sharia in today's political and economic context.

Identifying and Characterizing New Expressions of Community Framing during Polarization

Chile experienced a series of important protests between October and December 2019. This social unrest, as it was called, was fueled by social inequity and radically affected the nation's status quo. A large portion of the population demanded a new Constitution and changes to the current government, whereas another part of the population rejected these social demands. This created a highly polarized scenario evidenced through online social media interactions. Analyzing controversial issues that emerge naturally from conversations in online communities can offer a more wide-scale understanding of today's political and societal discussions. Here, we analyze group polarization in social networks by studying the 2019 Chilean social unrest. Specifically, we propose an unsupervised approach for identifying and characterizing community framing (i.e., discovering and understanding polarized concepts). Our approach is based on the sequential application of community detection, topic modeling, and word embedding methods. The novelty of having an unsupervised approach is that it facilitates the performance of scalable and objective framing analyses with minimal human intervention, as it does not require prior domain or network knowledge. Using this methodology, we observe that an apparently similar conversation topic across communities can actually have completely different meanings to each group. We noted, for instance, that while an online community linked the term gente (people) with communism and terrorism, the other associated it with police and military oppression. In this direction, our work can help to contextualize real-world social issues in online platforms, describing how users discuss similar concepts with opposing views.

The shadows of economic growth: AI automation and globalisation

Today's political and economic framework is marked significantly by globalisation and AI automation exponential expansion. Their advancements ensure development and prosperity – which is often not equally distributed across nations. A study showed that U.S. citizens experienced a decrease in the medium household income although their productivity increased, making the problem of distribution visible. Why is this digital era disbalancing the key drivers that used to grow in union? A possible explanation is presented in this article through variables as total factor productivity and Globalisation Index. Investment in human capital, in the form of education, is discussed.

KHAIR’IN CİHADIN GELİNLERİ ROMANINDA SÖMÜRGECİLİK SONRASI DÖNEM İSLAMOFOBİ VE GÖÇMEN KRİZİ

Islamophobia is frequently encountered as an inevitable reality in today's political and social life. Especially, Islamophobia-based hate crimes witnessed in the media deeply affect Muslim immigrants living in Western society and even lead them to be seen as potential terrorists. In particular, it can be easily said that the relationship between the West and Islam bears the traces of colonialism. The clear similarities between Western imperialism and radical Islam testify to this common legacy. This post-colonial Islamophobia affects immigrants as mentioned above, but the real blow strikes Muslim women immigrants. In Western society, the dress of Islam for women attracts enough attention and Muslim women are mostly targeted by hate crimes because they cannot integrate into society in this way. This situation accelerates the process of exclusion and marginalization of Muslim women immigrants and strengthens the hand of radical Islamic terrorist organizations in recruiting militants. This is one of the biggest obstacles to the creation of a multicultural environment, a source of problems stemming from Western imperialism and radical Islam. At this point, the works and discourses of Muslim-origin authors are of great importance in terms of digging into the depths of this problem and finding solutions. The works of these authors, who address immigration issues as an insider and identify the root sources of the problem, have the potential to play a key role in overcoming today's political and social impasse.
 In this context, the aim of this study is to put the reality of Islamophobia in Western society on a theoretical ground, to clarify the colonial connection of this fear and to discuss the problem with quotations and examples from Tabish Khair's novel Jihadi Jane.

Using International Trade Data to Inform the Plant Health and Biosecurity Response in the UK

Plants are essential for supporting human life, providing food, oxygen and medicine as well as benefits to health from interacting with nature. Plants also play a crucial role in ecosystems and in mitigating the effects of climate change. The importance of plants to humans and to the environment is gaining a higher level of attention in today's political and social landscape. The Great Britain Plant Health and Biosecurity Strategy will be updated this year to reflect upcoming challenges for maintaining high biosecurity standards while the Tree Health Resilience Strategy protects our trees going forward, allowing for adaption to environmental change and building resilience to future threats. Additionally, 2020 is the FAO's International Year of Plant Health providing a unique opportunity to raise the profile of plant heath further on a global scale. Critical to biosecurity is the global trade in plants and plant commodities which may offer us the option to grow plants that are more suited to a future, warmer climate and thus more resilient to climate change, but which brings with it an increased risk of invasive pests and diseases. It is important that we protect our native species and minimise the risks of introducing new pests and diseases. The UK's plant health regime aims to manage that risk to protect the value of plants and trees, both as crops and forestry products, as well as ecosystem services and societal benefits. The UK is a net importer of plants and plant commodities and it is the role of the Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate (PHSI) and the Forestry Commission (FC) to carry out checks on imported material. Given that there are over 1,000 pests on the UK Plant Health Risk Register the challenge cannot be understated. It is unrealistic to expect that we can provide effective protection from all pests and diseases so potentially serious pests which are identified by the UK Plant Health Risk Group are subject to a detailed pest risk analysis (PRA) following internationally agreed methodologies. Import inspections are risk-based and use the outcomes of the PRA as the basis for focusing resource to the highest threats. The experimental statistics released by Defra in March 2020 'Plant Health – international trade and controlled consignments, 2014–2018' were developed to address some of the evidence gaps around plant health related trade and the value of plant health, and to provide users with information on the work of import inspectors.

DISTRIBUTITY OF THE MODERN POLITICAL DISCOURSE: COMPARABLE ASPECT (ON THE GROUND OF VECTOR MODEL WORD2VEC WORD EMBEDDINGS ARM NDK)

Today's political advertising is as an integral part of the media, it forms and corrects the consciousness of mass. The concentration of political advertising increases with intervals every five years when Ukrainians elect the President. A nuanced analysis of election slogans is relevant for determining the techniques of influencing collective consciousness, their results, preventing negative consequences and avoiding undesirable results.The task of the research is to determine the semantic similarity of candidates' election programs, their slogans and associations, which slogans trigger in a conscious audience. The goal is to carry out a comparative analysis of indicators of semantic similarity and to determine the formula for developing a successful election campaign, to find out what needs to be focused on: emotion or rationality.An object of the study is election programs and the slogan of candidates for the presidency of the 2014/2019 political campaign. A subject of the study is the semantic similarity of the election programme and the slogans of the candidate and associative incentives representing the language trends of the political campaign in Ukraine. The main methods for research were the distributive method, to determine semantic similarity, and a comparative analysis to compare the obtained indices.An associative experiment was carried out, 180 people were involved. Recipients were given 50 slogans (five units for each candidate in 2014 and 2019). They had to give 5 reactions to each slogan. The next step was to analyze the semantic similarity of slogans and associations, slogans and election programs of each candidate with the help of ARM NDK service. Obeyed results were compared. Thus, in 2014, the emphasis is put on the incentives "to be liked by", "to stick in memory". The analysis of the 2014 political campaign shows that political technologists appealed to emotions of people. To conclude, in 2019 year political technologists are focusing on election programs, real actions and appeals not to emotions, but to rational thinking of recipients. But a strategy, in which candidates focus on appealing to the emotions through slogans, to "be liked by" people, becomes twice winning.

Polityka historyczna Węgier. Współczesne oblicze

Teza. Polityka historyczna na Węgrzech jest oparta na pamięci o największej tragedii narodowej, jaką był traktat z Trianon, a także na upamiętnieniu bohaterskiej rewolucji z 1956 roku. Polityka w tym zakresie obejmuje także pamięć historyczną związaną z zagadnieniem holokaustu.
 Omówione koncepcje. Podstawą interpretacji są sposoby upamiętania wydarzeń historycznych przez dzisiejszą klasę polityczną. Do obszarów badawczych zalicza się zapisy konstytucyjne odnoszące się do historii, organizacje obchodów narodowych, a także powoływanie do życia instytucji państwowych i muzeów odpowiedzialnych za kreowanie świadomości historycznej.
 Wnioski. Polityka pamięci na Węgrzech jest obecnie tematem bardzo popularnym, mającym wpływ na kształt węgierskiej sceny politycznej. Tekst porusza temat niedostatecznie zbadany. Na polskim gruncie brakuje literatury wyczerpującej owe zagadnienie.

Labour Market Regulation and Its Commercial and Economic Impact A Preindustrial Case Study

This paper addresses urgent questions from today's political and scientific discourse, such as whether the established economic doctrines of free trade and comparative advantages will retain their validity in the face of the current anti-globalisation movement. In doing so, the author analyses an early modern, small-scale example of globalisation-induced economic and societal transformation. To make the impact of job relocation on various stakeholders describable in a holistic manner, the author introduces a multi-criteria impact analysis (MCIA). The outcome of the study reveals the way in which relocation-induced effects can stabilise or destabilise cross-border production networks.

Tough Reading:

Tough Reading:

The Need for a 7-day Therapy Service on an Emergency Assessment Unit

This practice analysis acknowledges the changing nature of healthcare, recognizing the need for a 7-day therapy service on an Emergency Assessment Unit within the acute sector. A critical reflection on practice is offered to share the experiences of trialling a 7-day therapy service as a solution to managing today's political, economic, and demographic challenges. A 12-month pilot of 4-hour therapy shifts at the weekend demonstrated therapists could discharge 40% of patients assessed on the Emergency Assessment Unit; thus evidencing the need for a permanently funded 7-day service to sustain these results long term. Improved access to therapy on a Saturday and Sunday enhances equality of service provision, patient outcomes and weekend discharge rates. The findings are relevant to all occupational therapists and physiotherapists working in the acute sector.

Her Hymen Goes to Washington: Review of The Purity Myth DVD

Sociosexual journalist Lara Riscol, who has followed the abstinence-only movement for 14 years, reviews feminist author Jessica Valenti's first DVD, The Purity Myth: The Virginity Movement's War Against Women. With humor and ferocity, Valenti demonstrates the sweeping damage of the “purity myth,” which she defines as “the lie that women's sexuality has some bearing on who we are and how good we are.” The film connects the antiquated dots from one's personal choices around sexual expression to today's conservative political movement to reinstate a patriarchal social order. The Purity Myth can help sex educators and students wade through today's political, cultural, and commercial messaging of normative absolutes and define one's own story of healthy sexuality.

Opinion, In Focus and Knowledge Exchange published exclusively online

Abstract:OPINIONLANGUAGE AND CULTURE | Politics Discussion I |“Revisiting Obama's “You didn't build that: When Gesture is a Part of Speech”” by Rich SandovalLeila Monaghan, Jacqueline Messing, and Richard Senghas are contributing editors of the Language and Culture column in Anthropology News.LANGUAGE AND CULTURE | Politics Discussion II |“From Victims to Accusers: Redefining Rape in Today's Political Climate”” by Robin ConleyLeila Monaghan, Jacqueline Messing, and Richard Senghas are contributing editors of the Language and Culture column in Anthropology News.ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR |““Doing” Anthropology in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: Being Mindful of the Cultural Landscape” by Jeff SolomonSarah Ono, Heather Schacht Reisinger and Samantha Solimeo are contributing editors of the Anthropology in the Public Sector column in Anthropology News.NOTES FROM THE FIELD |“Mutual Beneficience with Research Assistants” by douglas carl reeserGLOBAL HEALTH |“Healthcare Inter‐culturally and Inter‐linguistically” by Jim Harries and Jeffery L DealINEQUALITY IN AMERICA |“The Great Gatsby Curve Debate” by Kathryn Marie DudleyCOUNTERPOINTS |“Populist Peasant Studies: The Life and Legacy of Ernest Feder” by Eric B RossARCHEOLOGY IN NORTH AMERICA |“The Most Wasteful People Anywhere Anytime, and Archaeology” by Robert MuckleUNDER THE HUMAN RIGHTS UMBRELLA |“The Exile” by Linda RabbenMIDDLE EAST MUDDLE |“No Olive Branch in Gaza” by Daniel Martin VariscoWHERE THE SOUL MEETS GENOME |“DNA Shall Set You Free” by Jason SilversteinTHE WORLD IS CURVED |“The Progressive Grotesque” by Michael E HarkinIN FOCUS: POWER“After Aceh's Peace” by Leslie Dwyer“When Having “Rights” is not Right: Inequality in Inheritance for Muslim Women in Bangladesh” by ATM Shaifullah Mehedi and Nehraz MahmudKNOWLEDGE EXCHANGECHANGING THE ATMOSPHERE |“A Snapshot of Climate Change in Rural Tanzania, 2010–2011” by L Jen ShafferSarah Strauss is the contributing editor of Changing the Atmosphere, the AN column of the AAA Global Climate Change Task Force.SECTION NEWSASSOCIATION FOR FEMINIST ANTHROPOLOGY | Damla Isik and Jessica Smith Rolston, eds. “Preserving the Past and Preparing for the Future” by Jane HenriciKeywords:human rights, public anthropology, applied anthropology, fieldwork, archaeology, climate change, linguistic anthropology, biological anthropology, power

One Man's Planet: Earth in Today's Political Culture

We practitioners of the applied geosciences typically are far too reticent to routinely offer informed public commentary on issues of the day, and thus we have to live with the fallout of natural-science–related political decisions made by our elected leaders on the basis of input, discussions, and advice from the arena of junk science, celebrities, and various talking-head pundits. This de facto situation drives many of us to frustration. Now we have Stephen Testa out there, in print, with the Geo-Pick cudgel, and he has set about to prick the hot-air balloons of the false prophets. In this book, we now have not only a pleasant “read,” but, more importantly, we have a manual of instruction for how we geoscientists can gather and form our individual opinions about the way in which our science affects the human existence. Furthermore, after reading …

The developmental state in the era of globalization: beyond the Northeast Asian model of political economy

Criticism of the developmental state can be divided into two categories. One is the neoliberal position that criticizes the efficacy of the developmental state model itself. According to this view, the developmental state was not an important factor in East Asian development and the adoption of industrial policy would in fact be detrimental to developing countries. A second critical position concedes that a degree of achievement was indeed attained by the developmental state in the past, but argues that the developmental state model is no longer a viable option today. This position holds that the high level of government intervention in successful East Asian countries more or less contributed to their economic development, but that this policy is no longer feasible. While deepening globalization in the world economy is regarded as inimical to the developmental state, some also argue that the developmental state model could only have worked during the Cold War and could not function in today's international political and economic climate. Despite these negative observations, the purpose of this article is to demonstrate the viability of the developmental state model. First, the article supports the statist position by broadening the scope of the argument: developmental states exist not only in Northeast Asia, but also in Southeast Asia, and the East Asian authoritarian regimes had a role in economic development. Second, this article directly counters new criticism of the developmental state. It argues that the developmental state model is still an effective development strategy in the post-Cold War period and even in the era of globalization: the model was useful in East Asia, and could be useful beyond East Asia.

“Cheating” as Good Pedagogy: Bilingual Teachers Defying English-Only to Foster Student Achievement

“Cheating” is a form of resistance in pedagogy for bilingual educators. Bilingual educators “cheat” in classes where English as the only language of instruction is strictly imposed by school or district officials, but these teachers “cheat” by using the native language of their English language learners because they know they must. But, for many teachers in today's political and antagonistic anti-Mexican, anti-foreign language climate, not using a student's native language for instruction is the equivalent to injustice.

"Un-American" Hollywood: politics and film in the blacklist era

concept of un-Americanism, so vital to the HUAC crusade of the 1940s and 1950s, was resoundingly revived in the emotional rhetoric that followed the September 11th terrorist attacks. Today's political and cultural climate makes it more crucial than ever to come to terms with the consequences of this earlier period of repression and with the contested claims of Americanism that it generated.Un-American Hollywood reopens the intense critical debate on the blacklist era and on the aesthetic and political work of the Hollywood Left. In a series of fresh case studies focusing on contexts of production and reception, the contributors offer exciting and original perspectives on the role of progressive politics within a capitalist media industry.Original essays scrutinize the work of individual practitioners, such as Robert Rossen, Joseph Losey, Jules Dassin, and Edward Dmytryk, and examine key films, including The Robe, Christ in Concrete, The House I Live In, The Lawless, The Naked City, The Prowler, Body and Soul, and FTA.

The body

“The body” is in trouble. The category that we used to accept as certain has become exceedingly problematic, at least among academics. Along with “soul” and “mind”, it is now couched in inverted commas or hyphenated by a range of specialisms focusing on its use and performance throughout history. Such notions as body-politics, body-theory, and body-fascism reflect increased awareness of the body as a cultural construct, rather than a biological constant. Yet while body concepts have exploded in scholarly discourse, the functional use of the term has arguably narrowed in medical practice. In the early modern medical tradition derived from Galen and Hippocrates, a physician's response to illness was centred on the patient rather than the disease. Sickness was a product of an individual's humoral imbalance. Since this condition could derive from material, spiritual, or psychological influence, cures were effected through the mutual treatment of mind and body. In the dualistic age of modern medicine, mind and body are less frequently regarded in such holistic terms. In conventional western medicine, the body (living or dead) has instead come to denote the physical structure that serves as a tangible marker of individual identity. As a composite of bones, flesh, and organs, the body of the patient no longer carries the spiritual or psychological weighting that it did in the 17th and 18th centuries. While philosophers and clerics wrestle over our souls, physicians and surgeons deal with the body as a material unit in need of alteration, repair, or healing. This does not mean that the material medical body carries no ethical loading. Ownership of bodies alive or dead has become a heated political issue, as shown by the debates over abortion, female circumcision, artificial feeding, childbirth, tissue transplantation, and organ donation. Although in western nations a patient's right to autonomy is usually assured, events such as the scandal about retained organs at the UK's Alder Hey Children's Hospital or the creation of hybrid embryos remind us that the body is not a given, but an active space for conflicts over the rights and responsibilities of individuals and the medical profession. Today's political and ethical disputes over ownership and control of the body render it as troublesome now as it ever was.

The Book of Leviticus: What are This Book's Implications for Today's (Political) Thinking

To begin with, I would like to ask some questions. Can you understand how someone could think that a war will bring peace? Do you understand the thinking that is behind the decision to deliver weapons to regions where that region's own people will then fight against other human beings with those same weapons? (Not to mention the question of principle where the thinking behind the production and trade with weapons is concerned ...) Do you understand how it is possible to have qualified German people train the military and the police of countries that are officially branded as terrorist or dictatorial? While I was working on this paper, there were daily samples of the inconsistency of politics, of its cowardice and its conformism or to coin a word, its 'unthinking'. Every day I tried to find examples that would testify to recognizable thinking in politics, and I constantly had to change my approach because there was one disaster after the other.