Patriotism,black politics and racial justice in America

Recent decades have seen an upsurge in interest in patriotism among progressive intellectuals and within progressive politics, while recent manifestations of black politics in the era of President Barack Obama have utilized patriotic narratives. We question this turn to patriotism on the grounds that it is a questionable manner in which to pursue racial justice in our post-Civil Rights political landscape. Patriotic appeals to civic virtue always invoke or imply the anti-patriot who lacks that virtue and is therefore less capable of exercising exemplary citizenship. This idea of the anti-patriot, however, easily coalesces with and buttresses the language of cultural pathology used historically to argue that African-Americans are deficient in civic virtue and key for reproducing racial inequality. The idea of the anti-patriot could thus provide another vocabulary for displacing responsibility for addressing racial inequality away from white Americans and onto black Americans. After illuminating this dynamic at work in some of the most successful African-American patriotic thinkers—Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Barack Obama—we conclude by arguing that those concerned with racial justice should reject patriotism in favor of three alternative traditions in African-American political thought: self-examination, prophecy, and rage.     

Varieties of Limited Access Orders: The nexus between politics and economics in hybrid regimes

This article advances our understanding of differences in hybrid stability by going beyond existing regime typologies that separate the study of political institutions from the study of economic institutions. It combines the work of Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast (NWW) on varieties of social orders with the literature on political and economic regime typologies and dynamics to understand hybrid regimes as Limited Access Orders (LAOs) that differ in the way dominant elites limit access to political and economic resources. Based on a measurement of political and economic access applied to seven post‐Soviet states, the article identifies four types of LAOs. Challenging NWW's claim, it shows that hybrid regimes can combine different degrees of political and economic access to sustain stability. Our typology allows to form theoretical expectations about the kinds of political and/or economic changes that will move different types of LAOs toward more openness or closure.     

‘Ireland of the welcomes’? racism and anti-racism in nineteenth-century Ireland

Irish society, North and South, has been slow to develop a social awareness and legal framework in relation to racism. This has resulted, in the main, from an unwillingness to admit to the presence of racism in Irish history and culture. Yet an examination of Irish society at the time of the visits of two black abolitionists to the country Olaudah Equiano in 1791 and Frederick Douglass in 1845—reveals deep currents of racism in both instances. The attempt by Belfast merchant Waddell Cunningham, who had made his fortune through the provisioning of slave plantations in the Caribbean, to establish a slave-trading company in Belfast in 1786 is a case in point. And, in the mid-nineteenth century, the Young Irelanders, a radical and militant nationalist movement, viewed national liberation as more pressing than the abolition of slavery. At the same time, both Equiano and Douglass noted the warm welcome they received, the former from anti-slavery activists, and the latter from such global players in the international abolitionist scene as Daniel O'Connell. Rolston concludes that there is nothing mysterious in contemporary Irish racism and anti-racism. Both have deep historical roots and are ultimately explained by Ireland's complex relationship to colonization: colonized itself, while at the same time intimately involved in colonizing others through the key roles played by Irish people throughout the British empire.     

Legal/illegal: protesting citizenship in Fortress America

This article examines the issue of legality and illegality, focusing on U.S. citizenship, anti-immigrant rage, and pro-immigrant protests. The central case study is an analysis of what I call digital rage, namely, the rhetorical strategies present in anti-immigrant online activism. I argue that online performance of rage invests in acts of bordering (Nyers 2008) which propel a discourse of white supremacist pure nation and neurotic citizenship (Isin 2004). The final part of this article explores No Human Being is Illegal, a protest art exhibition. Imaginatively refusing forms of citizenship grounded in legal/illegal axis, the exhibition exposes U.S. citizenship itself as illegal, rooted in the colonization of indigenous people and in current neocolonizing practices of exploitation.     

政治文化与政治体制改革的关系

政治文化是在长期的社会历史文化传统的影响下形成的某种特定的政治价值观念、政治心理和政治行为模式。它主要包括政治主体对政治体系、政治过程等政治现象以及自身在政治过程中所处的地位和作用的一种态度和价值倾向。政治文化对一个社会的政治有重要影响 ,政治系统也影响政治文化的形成 ,本文试图从两个方面分析政治文化和中国政治体制改革的互动影响。     

成长中的磨砺——解析乔伊斯·卡罗尔·欧茨的《狐火:一个少女帮的自白》中“狐火”的象征意义

乔伊斯·卡罗尔·欧茨的《狐火:一个少女帮的自白》是一部美国少女的《哈克贝利.费恩历险记》,"狐火"是女孩们立志结盟的纹身,它象征着解脱,怒火与毁灭,它伴随了主人公成长的艰辛历程。这部成长小说深刻探索了女性面对现实问题时的解决方法,为女性成长小说的研究提供了最佳素材,了解"狐火"的象征意义对理解小说非常有益。     

Evolution of Political Branding: Typologies,Diverse Settings and Future Research

Political branding has developed into an established and vibrant sub-discipline of political marketing. Indeed, political branding research continues to push boundaries by critically applying consumer based branding theories, concepts and frameworks to the political environment. Recently, political branding scholars have segmented research into different categories such as corporate, candidate, leader, local-regional, internal or external in orientation. Despite this development, there continues to be limited research on alternative or different typologies of political brands. This study reaffirms political branding as a distinct area of research and discusses how political brands can be conceptualised and operationalised. Further, drawing on seven empirical and conceptual papers, which focus on different typologies of political brands from a range of international contexts including Canada, USA, Iceland, Indonesia and India, we reflect on the current political branding environment. We conclude that there are multiple relationships and numerous interconnected political brands, which represent an intricate environment or ecosystem. This study offers academics and political actors guidance on how to conceptualise political brands and provides a starting point to map out the ecosystems of political brands. Finally, this study provides explicit calls for further research in political branding.     

The macro and micro views of political marketing: the underpinnings of a theory of political marketing

The multi‐disciplinary nature of political marketing lends itself to a micro/macro analysis. The goal of the article is to present the theoretical frames allowing one to develop an approach to political marketing, which may become the foundations of a general theory of political marketing. Like microeconomics and macroeconomics are the two major categories within the field of economics, so are micro and macro approach to political marketing the two major perspectives that allow one to better understand the workings of modern democracies and the processes taking place there. Such an approach can integrate various theories of particular political behavior considered as part of an external macrostructure, understood as broad social, political, legal, economic, and technological context, with the theories of political behavior of individuals and institutions considered as internal microstructure. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measuring Political Competence: An Analysis with Reference to the Gender Gap*

Political alienation has been an important concept in theories of participation and democratic policies. Subjective political competence (‘internal political efficacy’) is considered to be a main element within the broader concept of political alienation, and an important determinant of political participation. The main purpose of this article is to test statistically the assumption of similarity in model structure for men and women, i. e. the relation between political competence and voting turnout. Our findings, generated on the basis of a common survey questionnaire item, show that subjective competence has different significance for men and women. For men, it has an expected substantive meaning. For women, it seems to be irrelevant with respect to expected sources and consequences. Given this apparent incomparability in measurement, we conclude that it is inappropriate to use identical models for men and women. It is also argued that political competence should be conceived of as containing a cognitive element, ‘objective political competence’. Empirical analysis shows that this concept is gender neutral with respect to political involvement.     

New Citizens and Old Politics in Peru

The article presents an analysis of the disjunction between civil and political society in Perú and its consequences in the collapse of the political parties and the rise of an authoritarian regime. It explains how citizenship developed as social rights in the realm of Peruvian civil society before the population gained access to full civil and political rights. This situation diminished the capacity of Peruvian citizens to have their own political representation and created a distance between Peru's civil and political societies, making it difficult for the population to hold politicians accountable for their actions in government and the opposition. This situation proved particularly serious when the country went through a period of deep economic crisis and extended political violence during the 1980s. The breach between civil and political society destroyed the prestige of politicians and democracy, paving the way for an authoritarian cuadillo who dismissed representation with promises of "direct communication with the people" and harsh solutions to the problems of economic crisis and political violence.     

Weak and Ineffective? Reassessing the Party Political Leadership of John Major

Interpretations on the party political leadership of John Major are dominated by perceptions of weakness and ineffectiveness. This article examines his party political leadership by considering the relationship between, first, his political ambitions, and, second, his style of political leadership. When evaluating the political ambitions of Major, the article will demonstrate that he was ideologically agnostic and a political pragmatist. When examining his party political leadership style, the article will demonstrate, via an examination of his management of the European policy divide and his Cabinet management, that he was politically indecisive and an avoider of political confrontation. The article concludes, however, that perceptions of his weakness and ineffectiveness should be contextualised due to the following two factors: first, the constraints of inheriting an ideologically divided parliamentary Conservative party; and, second, the contrasting circumstances that ensured that his predecessor and successor appeared strong and effective, which have magnified perceptions of his weakness and ineffectiveness.     

„Politische Führung“ als politikwissenschaftliches Problem

‘Political leadership’ is one of the classic subjects of political science research on an international scale. Recently, in modern western democracies, ‘leadership’ has gained additional importance as a political function to evaluate governments and political leaders and is seen as rather independent of the policy dimension of leadership. Despite this increased relevance of ‘political leadership’, it has remained among the most neglected major issues in political science, particularly within research in the German-speaking world. This article discusses a wide range of recent approaches to studying ‘political leadership’. It then argues in favour of an ‘interactionist’ approach which takes into account both of the crucial empirical variables which influence the leadership process, the institutional, societal, and personal factors as well as political circumstances, and the normative expectations towards political leadership in modern established democracies.     

试析政治文明的属性

政治文明作为人类社会文明的重要组成部分具有自己独特的性质。探讨政治文明的属性,有利于正确地理解政治文明的内涵,加深对政治文明的认识,更好地为我国社会主义政治文明建设服务。     

论转型社会廉洁政治文化的构建

政治文化属于社会意识形态的范畴,它决定着人们政治行为的内在动机和价值取向。我国传统政治文化在推动社会进步与发展的同时,也衍生出包括臣民式政治文化、伦常式政治文化和人治式政治文化在内的一些落后的腐败的政治文化,它们对我国当前出现的"家长制"、"一言堂"、"人情网"、"裙带风"、"重人治轻法治"等社会现象产生了重要影响。改革开放三十多年来,我国逐步形成了具有中国特色的廉洁政治文化,对推动中国特色社会主义政治文化建设发挥了重要作用,但由于转型社会的急剧变化以及多元文化的影响,我国当前的廉洁政治文化建设还面临着诸多问题和困难。加强理想信念教育,加快法制化进程,铲除封建社会政治文化糟粕,是构建新型的社会主义廉洁政治文化的重要路径选择。     

Political Accountability in Hong Kong: Myth or Reality?

This article assesses the practice of political accountability in Hong Kong: whether it has largely been realised in practice, or whether it is merely a political slogan for the government to justify its executive-led governance. The analysis begins with a review of the theoretical concepts of political accountability and ministerial accountability, and then establishes an operational framework to analyse the current practice of political accountability in Hong Kong's political system. It concludes by addressing the degree of political accountability overall.     

What is democratic reliability? Epistemic theories of democracy and the problem of reasonable disagreement

It has proven difficult to reconcile epistemic justifications of political authority, especially epistemic theories of democracy, with a basic liberal commitment to respecting reasonable value pluralism. The latter seems to imply that there can be no universally acceptable substantive outcome standard to evaluate the epistemic reliability of different political procedures. This paper shows that this objection rests on an implausible interpretation of political competence. In particular, the paper defends two claims: first, that epistemic theories of political authority are in fact compatible with a liberal commitment to respecting reasonable pluralism; but second, that if we take reasonable pluralism seriously, the standard of competence we should use is a pragmatic one. Good political decision procedures reliably fix practical problems of social coordination and adapt to new demands and developments; we need not demand that their decisions are all-things-considered just or optimal. This pragmatic account of political competence is compatible with reasonable pluralism, since on this basis we can comparatively evaluate political procedures without controversially asserting a single standard of ‘truth’ in politics. Hence, it is possible to give an epistemic account of political authority that works within a liberal theory of political justification.     

Does political connection influence corporate financial decisions in unstable political environment?

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of political connection on the cost of debt, the cost of equity and the investment level in an unstable political environment. We use a sample of 55 Tunisian listed firms during the post-revolution period (2011–2018) and we apply a generalized least square (GLS) approach to test our hypotheses. Findings highlight that political connections increase the corporate financial costs and reduce the investment level. Furthermore, in an additional analysis, we show on the one hand that political instability negatively affects the investment and affects positively the cost of debt and the cost of equity. On the other hand, we make evidence that the political instability level negatively affects the relation between the political connection and the cost of debt. The contribution is, to the best of our knowledge, the absence of studies conducted in Tunisia countries examining the impact of political connection on the financial cost and investment level in an unstable political environment such as Tunisia.     

An Organization of the Theoretical Perspectives in the Field of Civic and Political Participation: Contributions to Citizenship Education

This article provides a review of the theoretical perspectives on civic and political participation. Four distinct views were identified in the literature: (a) The orthodox view: “Civic and political participation are always positive”; (b) The broad view: “Civic and political participation are multidimensional”; (c) The qualitative view: “Civic and political participation are not always good”; and (d) The nonconformist view: “The need to redeem the political dimension of participation.” This article intends to sophisticate simplistic assumptions about civic and political participation and to provide an original organization of the theoretical perspectives in this field. Based on this analysis, this article presents suggestions for an alternative approach to citizenship education.     

Commentary: The Third Wave of McCarthyism: Co-opting the Language of Inclusivity

In 1967, the burgeoning discontent of many political scientists culminated in the establishment of the Caucus for a New Political Science. The Caucus included political scientists of many diverse viewpoints, but it was united methodologically by a critique of behavioralism and by the idea that political science should abandon the myth of a value-free science. In recent years, political scientists have authored numerous commentaries on “the tragedy” of political science, “the crisis” in political science, and “the flight from reality in political science,” while in 2000 these discontents resurfaced in the “perestroika” rebellion, which again denounced the American Political Science Association as an organization that promotes a “narrow parochialism and methodological bias toward the quantitative, behavioral, rational choice, statistical, and formal modeling approaches.” This paper reviews the intellectual origins of New Political Science by examining some of the major works of the late 1960s and early 1970s purporting to establish the foundations of a new political science. It concludes that new political science offers a methodological critique of behaviorialism and a sociological critique of the relationship between political science and political power, but there is no consensus on what constitutes a new political science beyond its critical stance toward the existing discipline.     

Priming the Parish Pump

Abstract

In this article we argue that the almost exclusive focus of political communications research on national political actors and agencies has led to an inadequate understanding of the functioning, the relevance, and the influence of local political communications strategies. This paper seeks to redress this neglect through exploring political marketing strategies of national political actors and agencies which have implications for local political communications; and political marketing strategies of local political actors and agencies and their implications for local political communications, with specific reference to the local newspaper coverage of the local campaign in the 2001 UK General Election. Drawing on a unique and extensive analysis of local newspapers' election reporting, combined with detailed interviews with journalists, editors, politicians and their agents, we argue that news management strategies enacted at a local level were characterised by an exchange relationship in which, although parties traded information for editorial space, the local news media retained a dominant role. Thus, although parties were, to differing degrees, successful in securing coverage of their candidates and policies, this success was always achieved in the context of local newspapers setting the broader agenda.