An Afrocentric exploration of Jacob Zuma's anti Apartheid stance: The question of Israeli–Palestinian struggle

In this article, the author utilizes interdisciplinary critical discourse analysis to analyse the state of South Africa–Israel relations under the Zuma‐led African National Congress (ANC). The author ground roots this article on Afrocentricity as the alternative theoretical framework to identify the position of the ANC in relation to the unfolding events in Israel and broadly analyse this position in order to make sense of it. This is done within the context of the Zuma‐led ANC in order to tease out major contradictions, which characterizes the administration of Zuma's stance on attested Apartheid Israel. The central question engaged with in this article is to determine whether political and ideological counterstatements to those the ANC communicated, by some of the opposition political parties such as African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), had any major implications on South Africa's foreign policy on the Apartheid Israel. In this article, the author argues extensively that Zuma's foreign policy on Israel can best be understood when located into his entire term as president of South Africa and the NASREC resolution of 2017.     

The creation of ‘real’ spaces: regions and regionalism in the New South Africa

The culmination of a protracted struggle for liberation was crystallised in the debate over a new regional dispensation for South Africa. The aim of this paper is to examine the creation of the new regional geography of South Africa. The nascent regional dispensation was defined at a particular moment and it is the contention of this paper that the creation of the ‘geographical moment’ was not entirely conjunctural, but rather was the product of the different political parties’ understanding of space. The paper attempts to analyse the dynamics of the different political parties’ conceptualisation of the spatial and in so doing provides an explanation of the proposals for a new regional geography for South Africa. This position is derived from a realist theoretical argument which seeks to understand the stratification of reality by attempting to uncover structures and mechanisms responsible for the constitution of a particular historical event. The theory is illustrated by considering the process and the outcome of the new regional geography of South Africa as embodied in the nine‐region map produced by the Commission for the Demarcation/Delimitation of Regions. This paper reveals that the spatial philosophy of the major political parties was based on an incomplete relational concept of space, which contributed to the marginalisation of civil society, and to the artificiality of the process in the regional debate.     

The politics of social assistance in South Africa: How protests and electoral politics shape the Child Support Grant

Since the 1990s, South Africa, like many other countries from the Global South, has provided extensive social assistance for the poor. The literature on these policies, however, is largely dominated by structuralist accounts, and it largely overlooks political factors. We conducted quantitative analyses regarding the South African flagship Child Support Grant (CSG) program and investigated how contentious and electoral political dynamics jointly shape the provision of this program. Based on a logistic regression analysis, we measured the effect of protest participation, voting preference, and their interaction on the likelihood of CSG receipt. Our analysis showed that CSG receipt is much higher among “uncontentious supporters” of ANC and “contentious nonsupporters,” as well as those who join violent protests. This lends support for our argument that CSG is being used as a tool for electoral politics and containment of unrest, providing fresh evidence for political mediation theories of social policy.     

The Electoral Basis of the Icelandic Independence Party, 1929–1944*

This article deals with the electoral basis of the largest political party in Iceland, the Independence Party (IP), in its formation period. Almost all capitalists and white collar workers supported the IP, as well as a little less than half of farmers and a minority of manual workers. Women also favoured the party more than males. The article seeks to explain the IP's electoral support with reference to structural features of Icelandic society, ideology, and the heritage of Iceland's struggle for independence from Denmark.
The IP is furthest to the right on the socioeconomic spectrum of Icelandic politics; in its heterogeneous voting support and ideology of nationalism and class unity, the IP resembles such political parties as the Christian Democratic Union in West Germany and the Conservative Party in Britain rather than the Liberal and Conservative parties in Scandinavia.     

Right-Libertarian Parties and the “New Values”: A Re-examination*

Among the most noted and studied societal tendencies of recent decades have been those associated with structural change in industrial societies becoming postindustrial. Within political science, much attention has been focused on the behavioural and institutional effects of value change accompanying that transition, and especially on the diminishing impact of class and ideology on politics. Among the institutional effects have been (at times and in some places) decline in support for “established” parties and the rise of alternative political organizations, including new parties on both the left and right. Many of the new parties of the left, and especially those labelled “left-libertarian”, are generally viewed as harbingers of things-to-come in the “new” politics - progressive vehicles, driven along by the tides of change. In contrast, the new parties of the right are generally viewed as conservative, authoritarian, materialist reactions to change - representing transitional efforts to stop change and its effects. The latter parties presumably tell more about the past, the present, and efforts to preserve them, than about the “new” in politics. The purpose of this article is to explore the possibility that some of the new right-wing parties - especially those in social democracies - might themselves be viewed more accurately (or at least as justifiably, based on reinterpretation of the available evidence) as reflections of new values and as vehicles of forward-looking change. If so, then those parties, like their left-libertarian counterparts, may tell us something about the future of postindustrial politics.     

Rejecting representation? Party systems and popular support for referendums in Europe

Under what conditions do citizens favor deciding political issues by popular vote? Models of support for popular vote processes usually consider the influence of individual attitudes such as political trust and interest in politics. But much less is known about the effect of institutional variables on support for popular vote processes. This article builds on research showing that disaffection with elected officials shapes support for referendums by considering the influence of the party system. First, an analysis of multilevel data from twenty-four European democracies indicates that individuals are more supportive of referendums in countries with fewer effective political parties. Second, a mediation analysis provides evidence that the number of parties influences referendum support through individual-level political trust and external efficacy. Where there are fewer viable parties, feelings that elected officials are unresponsive tend to increase popular support for referendums. These findings suggest a trade-off between available representation by political parties and support for direct influence over public policy.     

Income inequality and party (de)polarisation

Scholars of US politics report a strong connection between income inequality and party polarisation. This study evaluates this relationship comparatively, and finds that the opposite association holds outside the United States, namely, that increasing inequality depolarises political parties’ economic positions. High levels of inequality change the composition of the core constituencies on the left and depress the participation of low-income voters, leaving left-wing parties with less support when they adopt distinct leftward positions. At the same time, inequality does not create strong incentives for right-wing parties to move further rightward. Therefore, income inequality leads to party systems that are depolarised on economic issues. The results have implications for our understanding of political representation, economic inequality, and political polarisation.     

Three decades of populist radical right parties in Western Europe: So what?

The populist radical right constitutes the most successful party family in postwar Western Europe. Many accounts in both academia and the media warn of the growing influence of populist radical right parties (PRRPs), the so‐called ‘verrechtsing’ (or right turn) of European politics, but few provide empirical evidence of it. This lecture provides a first comprehensive analysis of the alleged effects of the populist radical right on the people, parties, policies and polities of Western Europe. The conclusions are sobering. The effects are largely limited to the broader immigration issue, and even here PRRPs should be seen as catalysts rather than initiators, who are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the introduction of stricter immigration policies. The lecture ends by providing various explanations for the limited impact of PRRPs, but it is also argued that populist parties are not destined for success in opposition and failure in government. In fact, there are at least three reasons why PRRPs might increase their impact in the near future: the tabloidisation of political discourse; the aftermath of the economic crisis; and the learning curve of PRRPs. Even in the unlikely event that PRRPs will become major players in West European politics, it is unlikely that this will lead to a fundamental transformation of the political system. PRRPs are not a normal pathology of European democracy, unrelated to its basic values, but a pathological normalcy, which strives for the radicalisation of mainstream values.     

Political Culture and the Study of Chinese Politics

It is both a truth and a truism that Chinese politics cannot be understood without reference to Chinese culture (a truth and truism that would apply to any other society as well). But within the academic discipline of political science political culture has lost status over the past generation as not conducive to the development of empirical political theory. The usual candidate for replacement is rational choice theory. But properly understood, political culture is compatible with rational choice, inasmuch as there is no single standard of rationality, but, rather, it will vary from society to society and era to era. Considerations of the cultural background are necessary to provide content to rational choice theory, since without consideration of culture context rational choice threatens to reduce to a set of colorless banalities.

An end to “Civil War politics”? The radically reshaped political landscape of post-crash Ireland

The European debt crisis has impacted on electoral politics in most European states, but particularly in the Republic of Ireland. The severe nature of the economic crash and the subsequent application of austerity policies have brought large fluctuations in political support levels, with the three parties that have dominated the state since its foundation – Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour – all being adversely effected. The extent of these changes is highly controlled both by geography and by class, with political allegiances proving to be highly fluid in certain parts of the state. Growing support levels for left wing parties and groupings, but most notably Sinn Fein, appear to be moving Irish politics away from the old “Civil War” style of politics and bringing it more into line with the traditional class cleavage politics of continental Europe.     

What Motivates the Gatekeepers? Explaining Governing Party Preferences on Immigration

Most scholarship on immigration politics is made up of isolated case studies or cross‐disciplinary work that does not build on existing political science theory. This study attempts to remedy this shortcoming in three ways: (1) we derive theories from the growing body of immigration literature, to hypothesize about why political parties would be more or less open to immigration; (2) we link these theories to the broader political science literature on parties and institutions; and (3) we construct a data set on the determinants of immigration politics, covering 18 developed countries from 1987 to 1999. Our primary hypothesis is that political institutions shape immigration politics by facilitating or constraining majoritarian sentiment (which is generally opposed to liberalizing immigration). Our analysis finds that in political systems where majoritarianism is constrained by institutional “checks,” governing parties support immigration more strongly, even when controlling for a broad range of alternative explanations.     

Attention! The meanings of attention to politics in surveys

This research note explores the role of reported attention to politics in survey overclaiming about politics. Using recognition of real and fictitious political parties in the context of the UK's 2019 European Parliament elections, we find that people who report higher attention to politics are more likely to over-report recognition of fictitious parties, and are also more likely to recognize new real political parties - those that emerged around the issue of ‘Brexit’ in the months before the election. To resolve these patterns, we show that political attention makes little difference to the accuracy of responses for people who have high political knowledge, or if it does so, it increases accuracy. However, for those with lower political knowledge, high reported political attention is a source of potential survey error and bias. These findings are consistent with higher survey satisficing and norm compliance among those who report having greater attention to politics, particularly among those who have lower knowledge. The implications are important for understanding the meaning and consequences of ‘attention to politics’ in surveys.     

Counter-Intelligence for counter-revolutionary warfare: The South African police security branch 1979–1990

In counter-revolutionary warfare strategy, political action forms the overwhelming part; however, also central as an off-shoot of the tenets of counter-revolutionary warfare is the elimination of insurgent structures – generally a euphemism for assassination. In reality, assassination is a subset of covert paramilitary action, implemented as a consequence of counter-intelligence or even counter-terrorism. South Africa's Security Branch presents one of the best recent examples of the use of counter-intelligence techniques for counter-revolutionary warfare. While politico-constitutional intelligence was gathered by the National Intelligence Service to support constitutional efforts to achieve a settlement of the conflict and bring about a new political dispensation in South Africa, the apartheid government relied on the covert operational capabilities of the security forces (especially the Security Branch) to not only halt the ‘Revolutionary Onslaught’ of the liberation movements, but to eliminate them as a viable political and revolutionary force. In attempting to support an unwinnable political objective, the ultimate corruption of the intelligence process and the reliance of individuals overseeing it far and away on the covert operational intelligence capabilities of the state, the apartheid government brought about its own downfall. The Security Branch was at the heart of these efforts.     

A Regional Party in a Centralized Country: The Case of One Osaka in Japan

Among the regional parties that have emerged in Japan against a background of prevalent voter disillusionment with national politics, by far the most prominent and successful example is One Osaka (Osaka Ishin no kai), which won both the 2011 gubernatorial and mayoral elections (‘double elections’) in Osaka against rivals backed by both major national parties before expanding into a national party. The present study attempts to place this party in a comparative context and analyses a voter survey to test the extent to which party support is attributable to political alienation, local factors, policy stances and favourable views of candidates. Results show that backing for One Osaka was based less on issue preferences or general disaffection with national politics, but instead motivated primarily by positive attitudes towards its candidates, particularly the party leader. The article also traces the party's expansion into national politics, compares its leadership with regional parties in other countries and discusses its future prospects.     

Partisanship and public reason

In the large body of literature concerning John Rawls’s Political Liberalism (1993) and his conception of public reason, little attention has been paid to the implications that the constraints of public reason have for partisans, i.e. citizens who participate in politics through political parties. This paper argues that even on the basis of a ‘mild’ understanding of Rawls’s conception of the constraints of public reason, which takes into account the various stipulations Rawls provided throughout his later work, when applied to partisans the constraints of public reason lose none or little of their hindering force. This seriously undermines the contribution that parties and partisans can provide to the change and the varieties of public reason that Rawls himself advocates as a response to social change and, therefore, to political justification and legitimacy. Parties articulate, coordinate and enhance societal demands which, without their support, may remain unheard and fail to change the acceptable terms of public reason and political justification. If the political speech of partisans is restrained, this potential for change (and, therefore, its contribution to political legitimacy) is seriously undermined.     

The rise of post-imperial populism: The case of right-wing Euroscepticism in Britain

Abstract.  Recent approaches to contemporary Euroscepticism have explained it in terms of the politics of opposition and peripherality characteristic of competitive party systems. Euroscepticism becomes a central strategy by which non-mainstream parties or factions within mainstream parties attempt to gain political advantage. In the British case, there has been a focus on the influence Eurosceptic factionalism can have within a first-past-the-post parliamentary system. This article challenges explanations of British Euroscepticism in terms of the politics of opposition and the workings of the party system. Instead, it is proposed that a structural crisis of British party politics has allowed Euroscepticism to enter the political mainstream. The author conceives of Euroscepticism as a distinct and powerful national movement asserting conceptions of Britain's exceptional national identity. This is viewed as part of a post-imperial crisis that shifts parties, and factions within parties, towards populist forms of legitimation that have weakened possibilities for stable and coherent political leadership over European integration. Consequently, mainstream parties have struggled to protect themselves against the ideological influence of this populist Euroscepticism. This is particularly evident during periods of Eurosceptic mobilization, and is demonstrated in this article through the examination of the extensive role played by right-wing Eurosceptic forces during the attempt by the Major Government to ratify the Maastricht Treaty.     

Conserving the Constitution? The Conservative Party and Democratic Renewal

In 2008 David Cameron declared that the Conservative party was 'ready for government' and suggested that 'the change we need is not just from Labour's old policies to our new policies… It's about a change from old politics to new politics'. This 'new politics' narrative is something of a cliché: British constitutional history reveals a regular pattern whereby opposition parties renege upon implementing far-reaching constitutional and democratic reforms once they win power. It is in this context that this article draws upon documentary analysis and a number of interviews to examine the Conservative party's position on constitutional reform and democratic renewal. It concludes that although the Conservative party has spent the last decade decrying the 'destruction' of the constitution it has undertaken little detailed preparatory work in relation to how it might seek to alter the governance of Britain. As a result the research presented in this article provides a number of insights into elite politics, strategic game-playing and executive veto capacities within a context of growing political disengagement from politics and falling levels of trust in politics.     

Herbert’s Herbivore: One-Dimensional Society and the Possibility of Radical Vegetarianism

Abstract

Careful reading of Herbert Marcuse’s texts, including Counterrevolution and Revolt, One-Dimensional Man, An Essay on Liberation, and Eros and Civilization, reveals his subtle attention to the human–animal dialectic and its role in human liberation. More specifically, animals mark the irrationality of advanced industrialized society for Marcuse, and his subtle but keen treatment of the animal question in politics provides an opening to radically rethink politics for animals and humans. Working from Marcuse’s critical theory, I explore the contemporary one-dimensional animal, which I argue imbricates both animals and humans in the violence and destruction that characterizes advanced industrial society. Using Marcuse’s concept of one-dimensional society and his discussion of animals as my theoretical framework, I specifically consider vegetarianism in its capacity to militate against the contemporary political economy of meat. I conclude that Marcuse’s insights point to a radical vegetarianism aligned with anti-capitalist politics that offers the development of sensuous, pleasurable, life-affirming sensibilities that support true liberation for both animals and humans.     

Where Do We Go from Here?

The left needs a fundamental rethinking of its politics for a new era. The first task is to understand the contemporary conjuncture: the dynamic combination of events and circumstances which structure a political settlement. Two such conjunctures have occurred in recent history. The first produced the postwar welfare settlement of 1945, which broke down in the economic crisis of the 1970s. The second took shape in the 1980s around the revival of liberal market economics and what became known as Thatcherism. It failed following the 2008 financial crash, and has begun to break apart with the vote to leave the EU. New political and cultural faultlines are confounding the orthodoxies of the governing class and cutting across the partisan loyalties of the main political parties. They herald the renewal of politics. But Labour is on the edge of an abyss. This article considers what the left can learn from Labour's previous periods of defeat and revisionism, and suggests where—if it survives—it should go next.