Karamojan politics: extension of state power and formation of a subordinate political elite in northeastern Uganda

State-making processes that occur in peripheral areas and the role that local political elites play in such processes have not been adequately explored by scholars. This article investigates these important phenomena through the lens of the Ugandan state’s presence in Karamoja, in the country’s northeast, which until the early years of the twenty-first century was very limited. Rapid extension of the power of the Ugandan state in the region, upon which the country’s rulers have embarked in the last decade, has radically altered existing governance arrangements in Karamoja and led to the formation of a subordinate Karamojan political elite. This elite has been instrumental in government efforts to establish control over the region’s population and shaped this state-making process in important ways.     

Defenders of Freedom or Perpetrators and Facilitators of Crimes? Beyond Progressive Retreatism in the Trump Era

ABSTRACT

Heavily influenced by broad definitions of crime developed by a few pioneering critical criminologists, the main objective of this article is to provide evidence showing that the current Trump administration is a regime that commits crimes of the powerful and facilitates some types of interpersonal violence in private places. Special attention is devoted to direct and in-direct state-perpetrated violent crimes against women.     

Symbolic Political Communication,and Trust: A Young Voters’ Perspective of the Indonesian Presidential Election

Communication in political marketing plays an important role in political mobilization, building trust both in political actors and the government. Politicians construct their messages through careful branding as the power of the cultural symbols and signs conveyed through the brand are potent heuristic devices. This is particularly important in emerging democracies, where there is limited political knowledge and understanding. Therefore, this research explores how young voters understand the symbolic communication fashioned by political actors in Indonesia and how it relates to their brand. Indonesia is an interesting area for study; it is both secular and the world’s largest Muslim democracy. Using a phenomenological approach, a total of 19 in-depth interviews with young voters were conducted to gain rich insight into perceptions of the complexity of political symbolism, and trust among young voters. This study conceptualized political communication as a dual approach. The political brand promise is intrinsically linked to cultural references and conveyed through symbolic communication combined with a distinctive brand message. This builds trust, which then affects political participation. This conceptual framework provides insights into the importance of culture in branding which has implications for policy makers and actors in emerging and established democracies.     

Intergovernmental Relations in the UK: Time for a Radical Overhaul?

Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic have put relationships between the UK government and its devolved counterparts under growing strain. Tensions generated by both of these developments have exposed the inadequacies of the existing, under-developed system for bringing governments together in the UK. The limitations of the current system include the ad hoc nature of intergovernmental meetings, and their consultative rather than decision-making character. Drawing upon an analysis of how intergovernmental relationships are structured in five other countries, the authors offer a number of suggestions for the reconfiguration of the UK model. They explore different ways of enabling joint decision making by its governments, and argue against the assumption that England can be represented adequately by the UK administration. Without a serious attempt to address this dysfunctional part of the UK’s territorial constitution, there is every prospect that relations between these different governments will continue to deteriorate.     

Peace Pedagogy and Interpretative Frameworks of Distrust: State–Society Relations in the Colombian Peace Process

The Havana Peace Accords of 2016 sought to end five decades of internal conflict in Colombia. As well as disarming the FARC, they promise to bring state institutions to abandoned regions and enable citizen participation. However, there is an obstacle to this which has consistently been overlooked by Juan Manuel Santos' government: a chronic distrust in the state dating back to colonialism. This article draws on ethnographic research with the Colombian government's ‘peace pedagogy’ team, tasked innovatively with educating citizens about the Havana Accords and incorporating them in the co-production of peace. It shows that citizens' learning about state policies, and reception of state efforts to shape that learning, are filtered through pre-existing perceptions of the state: in Colombia, interpretative frameworks of distrust. This ethnography illuminates state–society relations in the Colombian peace process, offering implications for ongoing implementation of the Accords, and posing questions for other countries in transition, arguing that historically-constituted perceptions of the state should be taken into account when communicating government policies to society.     

论人工智能赋值国家治理:方法、视角与维度

赋值是智能政治学的重要研究课题,赋值研究是智能政治学的重要分析方法。人工智能赋值国家治理,从分析视角来看,表现为人工智能科学、人工智能技术、人工智能形态和人工智能体对国家治理的多重赋值和多源性影响作用。从分析维度来讲,表现为人工智能从赋益、赋义、赋能、赋权、赋则和赋责等多维度影响作用或赋值国家治理,甚至推动国家治理从"人工智能+国家治理"的形式赋值质变为"人机智能治理"的实质赋值。选择"赋值"术语工具、赋值理论和赋值分析方法,以分析研究人工智能影响作用国家治理,将有助于探明人工智能赋值国家治理的理论逻辑、历史逻辑和实践逻辑,从而推动智能政治学以及国家智能治理问题的理论研究和学术创新。     

From ‘Green Laggard’ to Regional Leader: Explaining the Recent Development of Environmental Policy in Chile

Environmental policy in Chile has developed rapidly in recent years, and the country has become a regional leader in renewable energy, climate change policy, recycling, and nature conservation. This contrasts with the previous neglect of environmental issues in the country and its depiction as a ‘green laggard’ (Orihuela, 2014: 251) within Latin America. In this article the recent development of environmental policy in Chile is reviewed and five factors affecting this development are analysed: international influences, institutional legacies, a window of opportunity opened by environmental movements, policy entrepreneurship, and business power.     

A New Nationalism for a New Era: The Political Ideology of Mexican Neoliberalism

The structural economic reforms justified by neoliberal ideas that transformed Mexico's statist political economy in the 1980s posed a direct challenge to the nationalism inherited from the revolutionary era that had long served to legitimise the interventions of the social state. This article examines the strategy adopted by the administration of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988–1994) to reconcile the rival ambitions of neoliberalism and nationalism and its reasons for doing so. It does so by examining ideas concerning the state, society and the individual found in writing and speeches published in political organs and the press during this period.     

刑法中的国家工作人员之立法与司法解释评析

刑法中的国家工作人员的界定是长期困扰刑法理论界和司法部门的一个难题。国家立法机关和最高司法机关虽对其作过多次立法解释和司法解释,但却仍然存在内涵不清、外延不明,难予认定的问题。为此,本文对历次刑事立法和司法解释中关于国家工作人员的解释之得失进行了回顾、比较与评析,旨在为准确理解和把握本概念提供有益的思路。     

试论邓小平对政治合法性的维护及其启示

合法性是关系到党和国家政权生死存亡的根本问题。“文革”结束后,维护党和国家政权的合法性问题凸现出来,邓小平正确处理了毛泽东的意识形态遗产,开始重建法理权威,并通过促进经济发展和反腐败树立政府形象的方法维护了政治的合法性。新时期我们仍面临着合法性维护的问题,邓小平的实践为整个现代化进程中的合法性维护提供了诸多有益启示。