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This book offers a fresh analysis of third wave popular protests in Africa, shedding light on the complex dynamics between political change and continuity in contemporary Africa. The book argues that protests are simultaneously products and generators of change in that they are triggered by micro-and-macrosocial changes, but they also have the capacity to transform the nature of politics. By examining the triggers, actors, political opportunities, resources and framing strategies, the contributors shed light onto tangible (e.g. policy implementation, liberal reforms, political alternation) and intangible (e.g. perceptions, imagination, awareness) forms of change elicited by protests. It reveals the relevant role of African protests as engines of democracy, accountability and collective knowledge. Bringing popular protests in authoritarian and democratic settings into discussion, this book will be of interest to scholars of African politics, democracy and protest movements.

Scholars estimating policy positions from political texts typically code words or sentences and then build left-right policy scales based on the relative frequencies of text units coded into different categories. Here we reexamine such scales and propose a theoretically and linguistically superior alternative based on the logarithm of odds-ratios. We contrast this scale with the current approach of the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP), showing that our proposed logit scale avoids widely acknowledged flaws in previous approaches. We validate the new scale using independent expert surveys. Using existing CMP data, we show how to estimate more distinct policy dimensions, for more years, than has been possible before, and make this dataset publicly available. Finally, we draw some conclusions about the future design of coding schemes for political texts.

Le matériau utilisé pour la rédaction de cet article est issu de l'une des interventions psychosociologiques que nous avons réalisées dans le cadre de projets de rénovation urbaine en Martinique au cours des années 2006-2008. La problématique que nous soulevons est celle du risque de dérive technocratique qui menace l'action publique dès lors qu'elle ne se donne pas les moyens d'associer les individus et les groupes dans la détermination des objectifs qu'elle poursuit. C'est ainsi que nous montrons comment l'analyse des présupposés qui organisent l'action publique dans ces sociétés postcoloniales permet d'illustrer la violence exercée contre certaines catégories de la population martiniquaise.

Focuses on the contributions that social scientists can make to understanding emerging epidemics, their impact, the threats they pose, and their social and political contexts. This book examines emerging epidemics and offers a theoretical analysis of the use of epidemics and epidemiology as frameworks for understanding these phenomena.

Intro -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Opacity, Misrecognition, and Other Complexities of Symbolic Communication -- Part I: Sources of Communicative Opacity: Many Meanings, One Meaning, the Aesthetic -- 1. Japanese Cherry Blossoms: From the Beauty of Life to the Sublimity of Sacrificial Death -- 2. European Roses: From "Bread and Roses" to the Aestheticization of Murderers -- 3. The Subversive Monkey in Japanese Culture: From Scapegoat to Clown -- 4. Rice and the Japanese Collective Self: Purity by Exclusion -- Part II: Collective Identities and Their Symbolic Expression -- 5. The Collective Self and Cultural/Political Nationalisms: Cross-Cultural Perspectives -- Part III: (Non-)Externalization: Religious and Political Authority/P ower -- 6. The Invisible and Inaudible Japanese Emperor -- 7. (Non-)Externalization of Religious and Political Authority/Power: A Cross-Cultural Perspective -- Afterword -- Notes -- References -- Index.

Examines what impact call-in radio shows have on citizens' political participation, some focus on listener demographics and media exposure; based on Times Mirror/Pew Research Center polls, 1993-96; US.

Media reports of environmental science often give equal weight to opposing viewpoints, which can make the science seem more controversial than it actually is. The current study extended the research in this area by examining whether discrediting one expert viewpoint would minimize false perceptions of controversy. Participants ( N = 247) read articles about environmental risks containing one viewpoint, two balanced viewpoints, or two viewpoints with one discredited. Results showed that a discredited opposing viewpoint often influenced risk and uncertainty perceptions in similar ways to a balanced opposing viewpoint, implying that this tactic may not necessarily minimize false perceptions of controversy.

Wing-Nut is a mobile based political magazine/news outlet for millennials. It is one of the first magazines designed specifically for mobile devices in an attempt to better appeal to the tech obsessed, smartphone addicted millennial generation. The magazine was designed to engage 18-to-25-year olds and make them think about political issues and how politics affect their everyday lives. The overall goal of the media outlet is to get the political discussion or conversation started between millennials: get them informed and get them involved.

IN an earlier work I have argued for the need to develop general, empirically oriented theory as the most economical way in the long run to understand political life. Here I propose to indicate a point of view that, at the least, might serve as a springboard for discussion of alternative approaches and, at most, as a small step in the direction of a general political theory. I wish to stress that what I have to say is a mere orientation to the problem of theory; outside of economics and perhaps psychology, it would be presumptuous to call very much in social science "theory," in the strict sense of the term.