Ritual Demonstrations versus Reactive Protests: Participation Across Mobilizing Contexts in Mexico City

Using an innovative survey of protest participants and nonparticipants from five major street demonstrations in Mexico City in 2011 and 2012, this study tests the assumption that influences on protest participation vary across different types of events; namely, ritual demonstrations and reactive protests. The comparison is based on two assumptions: that these are two of the dominant forms of protest in contemporary Latin America, and that specifying the context for different types of social movement participation provides a better understanding of the individual mobilization process for groups seeking to defend their rights or gain new benefits. The comparative analyses reveal some crucial differences. Political interest and previous political experience are more influential in the decision to take part in reactive demonstrations. For ritual demonstrations, the decision to participate tends to be driven more by personal and organizational connections.     

Queensland's Role in the 2019 Australian Federal Election: A case study of regional difference

This article explores the role of Queensland voters in the 2019 Australian federal election. The article identifies five key elements of a Queensland political culture before offering evidence that the Liberal-National Coalition's exceedingly strong performance in Queensland in 2019 was not a single aberration, but one of a long and continuing pattern of electoral nonconformity. The article also argues Queensland's complex regional diversity necessitates analysis across not one or two constituencies but via six geographically, economically and demographically diverse regions. Third, the article argues the unexpectedly large swing against the Australian Labor Party in Queensland in 2019 was fuelled, overwhelmingly, by five factors, each consistent with the five core elements of a Queensland political culture.     

From non-intervention to non-indifference: the origins and development of the African Union's security culture

This article employs the concepts of security culture and normlocalization to explore some of the cultural dimensions of theAfrican Union's (AU) security policies. After providing an overviewof constructivist accounts of norm socialization in internationalrelations, I use these insights to analyse the origins and developmentof the AU's security culture. The final two sections explorethe ongoing process of norm localization in relation to thetwo most recent tenets of the AU's security culture: intoleranceof unconstitutional changes of government and the responsibilityto protect principle. An awareness of the uneven and contestednature of this process helps account for the fact that althoughthese two transnational norms have been institutionalized inthe AU Charter and endorsed by the United Nations, they havebeen internalized unevenly by the AU's member states. Externaladvocates of these two norms would thus do well to help thecontinent's norm entrepreneurs build congruence between thesenorms and the AU's security culture.     

Postmemory and Possession

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - This paper examines the phenomena of ‘postmemory’ as a mode of possession that...     

The Intergenerational Transmission of Values in National and Immigrant Families: The Role of Zeitgeist

Correspondence in value orientation between parents and their offspring may be due to actual transmission processes between generations, but it may also be due to influences from the general value context in society that are common to parents and their offspring. This common value context is referred to as Zeitgeist. The present study deals with one family relationship value (i.e., parents’ and adolescents’ obligations toward the family). Participants were 1,252 immigrant and 726 national adolescent–parent dyads from 10 Western countries. There were significant relationships between the value placed on family obligations among parents and offspring, and these were independent of gender. Zeitgeist effects, both intergenerational and intragenerational, were found. The strength of these Zeitgeist effects depended on the basis for defining Zeitgeist, either a person’s own ethnic group or the wider community including both nationals and immigrants. For explaining national adolescents’ acceptance of their family obligations, both the ethnic and the national Zeitgeist played a role, whereas in the immigrant groups only the ethnic Zeitgeist played a significant role. In short, in an immigration context it makes sense to distinguish the influence of a person’s own ethnic group from the influence of the wider community, including other ethnic groups. Explanations are suggested and implications are discussed.

Beliefs About Corporate America and the Structure of Opinions Toward Privatization

This research analyzes the individual-level factors associated with public support for the private provision of public goods and services. Given that privatization requires the transfer of authority from public to private entities, we argue that beliefs about private companies are an important and overlooked source of heterogeneity in explaining public policy preferences toward privatization. We test this expectation using survey data from the 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study. We find that support for privatization is associated with positive beliefs about the motivation of private companies and with favorable views about corporate accountability relative to the accountability of government. Opposition to privatization is associated with beliefs about corporate influence in politics. Preferences for limited government are also associated with support for privatization. These results highlight the potential for beliefs about private companies to serve as a group heuristic in political reasoning and the ability of citizens to make reasoned choices on complex public policy issues.     

In Praise of <Emphasis Type="Italic">The American Political Tradition</Emphasis>

No book is more exemplary in identifying the continuity of democratic statesmanship in the United States than Richard Hofstadter's second book. Its scope is long—from the Framers through the New Deal. The author's insights are brilliant, expressed with literary brio. No other book manages to convey the basic homogeneity of American politics with such persuasiveness, in blending that tradition with the defense of enterprise and property (and in sprinkling the portraits with such acerbic wit). The unifying thread nevertheless needs to be modified in the light of greater sensitivity to the ordeal of race, and in evaluating how the heritage of the New Deal has tempered the commitment to an unbridled capitalism.     

Civil Society, ‘Traditional Values’ and LGBT Resistance to Heteronormative Rights Hegemony: Analysis of the UN Universal Periodic Review in the Russian Federation

Abstract

This study of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in the Russian Federation uses frame analysis of civil society input into the UN Universal Periodic Review. It reveals a stark state–civil society ‘disconnect’ reflecting oppressive government practices, including Law No. 135-FZ on ‘non-traditional sexual relations’. This raises wider questions about the efficacy of the review system, not least because issues of performativity and legitimation can be seen to facilitate authoritarian resilience. This allows the ruling elite to continue to dissemble by espousing universal rights yet strategically framing them as heteronormative, integral to the protection of ‘traditional values’ and inimical to identity-based rights claims.