Losing the connection: party-voter linkages in Pakistan

How do political parties in Pakistan aggregate votes and connect to voters, especially in rural areas? Most explanations for party-voter linkages in rural Pakistan can be grouped into four broad categories: (a) political parties are made up of powerful landlords who use economic power to collect votes from dependent voters; (b) parties are conglomerations of clientelist networks; (c) parties are large aggregations of kinship networks; and (d) parties function by building links with specific types of constituencies across large parts of the country, and voters forge links with political parties based on ideology and party identification. These are, at best, only partial explanations. How is it that they can all co-exist? The answer lies in the level of analysis employed. I argue that when viewed in aggregated form at a macro-level of analysis, such as that of national politics, these varied explanations of party-voter linkages appear to be distinct and sometimes mutually exclusive. However, when disaggregated and examined at a micro-level of analysis, that of village-level politics, it becomes obvious how it is possible for all of these linkages to not only co-exist but often even work together. I adopt this micro-level of analysis through a longitudinal study of one village in Pakistan's most populous and politically most important province, Punjab. Using the case study of Sahiwal, I argue that the reason for the varied explanations is that the link between political parties and their voters is rarely direct. Instead, it is mediated by different types of local actors. As the national political arena changes, different actors gain precedence, leading to multiple explanations of what is really going on in rural Pakistan between political parties and their voters.     

A note on persistence and polarisation

Increased opportunity of productive employment in the market due to the process of polarisation is unlikely to be an important reason for the stability of land ownership of the small holders in Bangladesh. It is argued that the stability is achieved by destabilising the ‘household’ itself. The relative stability of small owners is also due to the fact that in Bangladesh a larger proportion of them belong to the young household category than the households in the rich groups. In fact, a comparison between land ownership at the inception of the households with their land ownership at a fixed point in time may not be useful in understanding either the stability of households or the process of polarisation.     

The paradoxical meanings of the artifact owls (Athene noctua) at the University of South Africa: An impediment to transformation,decolonization, and Africanization discourse

This paper interprets the expressions embedded in the artifact Owls displayed at the Theo Van Wijk building of the University of South Africa (Unisa) in relation to the university's transformation, decolonization, and Africanization discourse. These artifacts are said to depict Unisa as a space of wisdom; this in terms of Greek mythology and philosophy. The use of Greek mythology and philosophy in a university meant to be promoting African values, systems, and beliefs contradicts the university's transformation, decolonization, and Africanization discourse. Philosophical inquiry was adopted to intellectually interpret what these artifact Owls expressed. The paper found that these Owls are a point of contestation and conflict between Western and African cultures. The perpetual display of these Owls upholds and sustains tendencies of colonialism and apartheid although discarding Africannes. Unisa is reduced into a Western‐centric space of little and irrelevant significance for the postapartheid democratic state. These artifact Owls must be removed and replaced by an African‐friendly symbolism of wisdom. Sankambe could be the best option.     

Afghanistan since the revolution

Buddhism under Mao. By Holmes Welch. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1972. Pp. 666. Illus.     

Technology‐Driven Alteration of Nonverbal Cues and its Effects on Negotiation

A person’s appearance, identity, and other nonverbal cues can substantially influence how one is perceived by a negotiation counterpart, potentially impacting the outcome of the negotiation. With recent advances in technology, it is now possible to alter such cues through real‐time video communication. In many cases, a person’s physical presence can explicitly be replaced by 2D/3D representations in live interactive media. In other cases, technologies such as deepfake can subtly and implicitly alter many nonverbal cues—including a person’s appearance and identity—in real time. In this article, we look at some state‐of‐the‐art technological advances that can enable such explicit and implicit alterations of nonverbal cues. We also discuss the implications of such technology for the negotiation landscape and highlight ethical considerations that warrant deep, ongoing attention from stakeholders.