From the provinces to the parliament: How the Ukrainian radical right mobilized in Galicia

This article traces the on-the-ground mobilization and recruitment strategies of Ukraine's radical right party, Svoboda (Freedom) in the years prior to its 2012 electoral breakthrough. Ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews with Svoboda party leaders and activists in Galicia show how party leaders strategically created an organizational structure aimed at recruiting young people, making linkages with pre-existing nationalist groups, and shifting the ideological focus away from cultural and toward economic issues. Interviews with party activists reveal how personal networks were key in the recruitment and radicalization process, showing that radical right activists were radicalized, or “made,” through political participation. Consequently, Svoboda's organizational capacity allowed the party to take advantage of a political opportunity – Yanukovych's unpopularity and weakened national democratic parties – in the 2012 parliamentary elections.     

Economic sanctions and the rhetorical responses of totalitarian regimes: Examining North Korean rhetorical strategies, 1949–2010

This study investigates the impact of economic statecraft on the North Korean Government. As a totalitarian regime, which is characterized by a controlled mass media, the North Korean Government tries to contain potential problems caused by sanctions by using three types of political rhetoric: appeasement, backlash, and surveillance. Using time-series data from 1949 to 2010 derived from a content analysis of the New Year's Day addresses by Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un, the empirical results suggests that the North Korean Government does alter its rhetorical strategies in response to external economic sanctions. Negative sanctions cause the regime to use appeasement strategies (or calls for reforms and internal changes). It tends to use backlash rhetoric (or blaming the sanctioning powers) in response to, interestingly, positive sanctions. Surveillance rhetoric, or the call for internal vigilance against enemies, on the other hand, does not have any statistical connection with sanctions, rather driven by other factors, such as the Korean War, external instability, and so on.     

Rebel music: Appeals to rebellion in Zimbabwe

This paper presents a typology that is used to classify the appeals that are issued by rebel groups to mobilize mass publics to take up arms against the state. This typology is developed by building a bridge between relative deprivation and resource mobilization theory. Secondly, this paper reports the findings of a pilot study that analyzes the Chimurenga songs from Zimbabwe's rebellion.     

Al-Qaida as a Muslim (Religio-Political) Movement Remarks on James L. Gelvin's “Al-Qaeda and Anarchism: A Historian's Reply to Terrorology”

Hizbut Tahrir (HT) is a transnational Islamic movement operating in over forty-five countries. Literature on HT has focused mainly on its activities in Central Asia and Europe. As such, when the HT chapter in Indonesia organized the largest-ever political gathering staged by HT, many observers were caught by surprise. Yet despite the importance of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), little is known about the organization in the English-speaking world. This paper is an attempt to present empirical data on this group. The paper argues that HTI's usage of different mobilization strategies has resulted in its ability to effect policy changes in Indonesia.     

突发自然灾害背景下政治动员与社会动员的关系演进

动员是应对突发自然灾害的一种内在需要，确立一种有效的动员模式极为重要。回顾应对突发自然灾害的历史，动员方式随着社会经济发展变化也发生了转变，从政治动员的为主导转向政治动员与社会动员的融合，这种融合具有一定的政治价值和管理价值，为了实现有效的融合，需要建立相应的组织机制和沟通机制。     

Mind the (Mobilization) Gap: Comparing Climate Activism in the United States and European Union

The barriers to concerted political action on climate change mitigation are steep, especially in multilevel systems where power is diffused and authority contested. This article seeks to explain how mobilization—galvanizing resources and people to participate actively—occurs in complex multilevel systems. It compares two different polities—the United States and the European Union—to tease out the key features of multilevel systems and how they affect climate activism and mobilization. To capture this dynamic, it proposes a three‐staged model of mobilization: awareness building, alliance building, and network creation. The latter stage features “mobilization networks”—stakeholder networks able to transcend levels and institutional inertia and steer polities toward particular climate goals. The article demonstrates how each stage of mobilization is highly contingent on stakeholders' ability to exploit—or at least navigate—multilevel institutional barriers.     

革命动员视角下的苏区民主政治建设

土地革命战争时期,中国共产党在各苏维埃区域进行了声势浩大的民主政治建设。在这一建设中,中华苏维埃共和国临时中央政府不仅从制度上和程序上进行了有利于工农群众享有民主的设计,而且从宪法和其他法律上对苏区群众的各项民主权利给予充分的保障,希望藉此来建设一个有利于革命动员的政治新秩序。广泛的民主政治建设,不仅满足了残酷战争环境下革命动员的需要,而且促使苏区民众的精神面貌产生了质的变化,并逐渐形成了执政为民、廉洁奉公、民主平等以及无私奉献等苏区人所特有的精神气质。     

Life-cycle effects on social pressure to vote

Recent scholarship reveals social pressure can compel citizens to conform to social norms like voting in elections. In this study, we investigate heterogeneity in the impact of social pressure to vote. We find that age, a key demographic characteristic, moderates the impact of social pressure. Using evidence from a large-scale randomized field experiment conducted in August 2006, we show that older voters are significantly more responsive to social pressure compared to younger voters. Given the emerging consensus that social pressure can be marshaled effectively to stimulate voting in elections, such investigations yield critical insights of both practical and theoretical significance.     

ACTING OUT REFORM: THEATER AND VILLAGE IN THE REPUBLICAN RURAL RECONSTRUCTION MOVEMENT

Abstract

Rural theater reform was a component of the Republican Rural Reconstruction Movement from its mid-1920s beginnings in mass literacy efforts. Amid the economic and political upheaval of the 1920s and 1930s, reformers argued that national salvation depended on the unity and continued relevance of village communities, and they believed that rural theater could contribute to bringing village communities together. One important example, the Mass Education Movement project in Dingxian, illustrates how reformers used the theater to reinforce the village as the unit of reform and national reconstruction. Reformers hoped rural theater would transmit to villagers ideas about citizenship and the new responsibilities this political role entailed. However, it was equally important that the reform theater — a group activity performed for a village audience — enable and sustain a reconstitution of the village community. In this way, the Rural Reconstruction Movement demonstrates an alternative to the top-down rule that characterized most Guomindang state-making efforts.     

The PKK and its evolution in Britain (1984–present)

ABSTRACT

As of today, a highly mobilized Kurdish diaspora and its most prominent representative, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has become so influential in the European political arena that it might tip the balance of the European Union’s policies on Turkey in its favor. Since too much attention has been given to the PKK’s activities in Germany, the organization’s actions in Britain remain understudied, despite the fact that Britain has been a vital place in Kurdish politics and political lobbying activities. Drawing on fieldwork findings, this article attempts to explore both the evolution and the political activities of the PKK in Britain across three different timeframes, from 1984 until the present time. Our findings suggest that in Britain, the PKK has departed in recent years from its conventional terrorist activities and transformed into a lobbying power that is likely to gain full legitimacy (i.e., being de-listed from terrorist organization lists) in the near future.