Online clustering,fear and uncertainty in Egypt’s transition

Does the uncertainty associated with post-authoritarian transitions cause political and social polarization? Does ubiquitous social media exacerbate these problems and thus make successful democratic transitions less likely? This article examines these questions in the case of Egypt between the 11 February 2011 fall of President Hosni Mubarak and the 3 July 2013 military coup, which overthrew President Mohamed el-Morsi. The analysis is based on a Twitter dataset including 62 million tweets by 7 million unique users. Using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, we demonstrate how clusters of users form and evolve over time, the density of interactions between them, and the flow of particular types of information through the clustered network structure. We show that the Egyptian Twitter public developed into increasingly isolated clusters of the like-minded which shared information unevenly. We argue that the growing distance between these clusters encouraged political conflict and facilitated the spread of fear and hatred, which ultimately undermined the democratic transition and won popular support for the military coup.     

Electoral competition and democratic decline in Nicaragua: uncovering an electorally viable platform for the right

Between the 1980s and 2006 Nicaragua was a competitive democracy where parties of the left and right won national presidential elections and relinquished power when their terms ended. More recently the quality of Nicaragua’s democracy has deteriorated. This change is due partly to autocratic behaviour by the elected leftist president, Daniel Ortega. But democratic decline is also the result of factional divisions and vague, outmoded policy commitments on the right that have crippled its electoral competitiveness, enabling Ortega’s behaviour. Utilizing an experimental research design, this article identifies two modernized policy platforms that could significantly broaden rightist electoral support in presidential campaigns, aiding democratic resurgence in Nicaragua. At a point when opposition parties are struggling to retain strength and coherence in many other democracies, the study presents a research strategy that could help clarify the ways such parties might reinvigorate their electoral competitiveness.     

The ‘green militarisation’ of development aid: the European Commission and the Virunga National Park,DR Congo

To ‘save’ the Virunga National Park, located in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the European Commission (EC) allocates development aid to the paramilitary training of the park guards, their salaries, and mixed patrols of the guards together with the Congolese army. Moreover, the ‘development’ projects the EC supports around the park have militarising effects as they are based on a soft counter-insurgency approach to conservation and to address dynamics of violent conflict. This amounts to the ‘green militarisation’ of development aid. This article describes how a personalised network of policymakers within the EC renders militarised conservation-related violence and controversy around the Virunga park invisible, by framing contestations and violence in and around the park as solely caused by economic factors and motivations. Moreover, by ‘hiding’ the fact that the EC aid is used to fund armed conservation practices, policymakers circumvent political debate about the use of development funds for (para)military expenditures. While the existing literature focuses on the importance of securitised discourses to explain the militarisation of conservation, this article indicates that in addition, it is important to focus on these more mundane practices of securitisation within international organisations that ultimately fund the militarisation of conservation.     

Permanent precarity: capital and labour in the Central African copperbelt

Abstract

This article provides a new history of mine capital and labour in the ‘Central African Copperbelt’ – the cross-border mining region of the Zambian copperbelt and Haut Katanga in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It doing so, it seeks to overcome the limitations of earlier structurally minded analysis rooted in modernist notions regarding the transformative capacity of mining capital and a ‘new’ African working class. Building on post-structuralist challenges to such assumptions, the article demonstrates the precarity, unevenness and uncertainty of the actually existing copperbelt economy and society. The comparison of the two copperbelt regions enables consideration of differential outcomes as a way of rethinking apparent inevitabilities. Analysis of how ideas about these mining societies were generated and circulated helps explain how dominant ways of understanding copperbelt capital and labour relations became established and continue to inform nostalgia for a ‘golden age’ of mining-fuelled prosperity at odds with historical reality.     

State terror in the Philippines: the Alston Report,human rights and counter-insurgency under the Arroyo administration

The human rights agenda of the United Nations has faltered over recent years. An examination of conditions in a country such as the Philippines highlights some of the reasons. The appallingly high number of political killings in that country was investigated by Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, early in 2007. Following a well-defined process of review, he spent a short but difficult time examining the situation. His report condemned repressive elements of the Philippine state and directed specific criticisms at the armed forces, noting the omnipresent role of counter-insurgency. He found that a culture of impunity prevailed within the military and that the Arroyo administration had not done enough to address the problem or to protect the rights of its citizens. Alston's visit provided an insight into both the Philippine government's inadequate human rights record and the failure of UN mechanisms established to redress such poor performance.     

Is There an Emerging Age Gap in US Politics?

There is evidence of a realignment among voters entering the electorate in recent years, with younger voters deviating from older voters in their ideological and partisan preferences. Younger voters today tend to be more liberal and more supportive of Democratic candidates than other age groups. Younger Americans are generally favor a more activist government, as demonstrated by their views on equality, the role of government, health care, and spending for public schools and child care. The leftward movement of younger Americans ideologically is also the result of the increasing political emphasis on cultural issues. Younger Americans as a group are less religious and less conservative on social issues than other age cohorts. They put less emphasis on traditional values and are more tolerant than other age groups on social issues such as gay rights. Older voters, on the other hand, tend to be more conservative on policy issues and less supportive of Democrats than they used to be. At the state level, the partisan polarization in the United States is even greater among younger Americans than it is for the nation as a whole. This suggests that if younger Americans follow other generations in keeping the same partisan voting patterns throughout their life, the blue states will become bluer and the red states redder.

加拿大高等教育的突出特色

加拿大各级政府在高等教育方面颇具战略眼光,对教育质量特别重视。加拿大高等院校具有鲜明的民主思想和强烈的人文关怀意识,其灵活的办学体制提高了教育效益,高度的学生自治培养了学生的创新能力。     

完善公安信访制度促进政治文明建设

公安信访工作是保障人民民主权利的重要形式,为促进改革开放、经济发展和社会稳定发挥了极为重要的作用.但是,随着我国民主政治的发展,公安信访工作运作体系暴露出了一些问题和薄弱环节.在新形势下,完善公安信访规范,进一步畅通信访渠道,对促进社会主义政治文明有着重要的意义.     

民主党派监督的现实考量

中国共产党与各民主党派之间的相互监督,是中国特色社会主义政治的一个重要特征,对于中国共产党的建设以及各民主党派的自身建设、促进社会和谐都有着极其重要的意义。在认识中国共产党的多党合作制度的基本方针以及民主党派监督在中国的特定性的同时,也要看到民主党派监督在一定程度上的虚位性,并严肃地对待这一客观存在的现实问题。     

试论制定中国人民武装警察部队法的必要性和可行性

武警部队是党领导下担任保卫国家安全、维护社会稳定任务的武装力量的重要组成部分。依法打击犯罪、保护广大人民群众根本利益和维护社会稳定是武警部队的根本职责。为适应国家和军队法制建设发展的需要，结合武警部队的领导体制和职能任务，制定一部中国人民武装警察部队法，具有重大而深远的意义。通过国内相关法律的指引，借鉴国外相关的立法经验，运用不断完善的立法技术，加强立法规范，中国人民武装警察部队法的制定具有极大的可行性。