Suchergebnisse

"Around the world, established parties are weakening, and new parties are failing to take root. In many cases, outsiders have risen and filled the void, posing a threat to democracy. Why do most new parties fail? Under what conditions do they survive and become long-term electoral fixtures? Brandon Van Dyck investigates these questions in the context of the contemporary Latin American left. He argues that stable parties are not an outgrowth of democracy. On the contrary, contemporary democracy impedes successful party building. To construct a durable party, elites must invest time and labor, and they must share power with activists. Because today's elites have access to party substitutes like mass media, they can win votes without making such sacrifices in time, labor, and autonomy. Only under conditions of soft authoritarianism do office-seeking elites have a strong electoral incentive to invest in party building. Van Dyck illustrates this argument through a comparative analysis of four new left parties in Latin America: two that collapsed and two that survived"--

This article examined how social media content has shaped the representation of countries for publics around the world. Based on world system theory, the study investigated the underlying predictors of country mentions on X (formerly Twitter) in 2018. It confirmed that countries with greater economic power – or higher status in the world system – received more mentions. Furthermore, countries with larger populations were mentioned more frequently as were countries that experienced major conflicts. The findings from structural equation modeling shed new light on the interrelationships that drive the social media representation of individual countries and delineated an integrated Model of Country Mentions on X. These findings have implications for global leaders, policymakers, and social media firms.

In the ongoing struggle between Falun Gong and the Chinese state, Li Hongzhi's reactionary social teachings are often mentioned in passing, but not examined in a systematic fashion. The present paper makes a preliminary effort in that direction, surveying Li's homophobic, anti-miscegenist, anti-feminist et cetera pronouncements. On the one hand, these teachings often work at cross purposes with the movement's efforts to garner support and to portray itself as the innocent victim of the Chinese state. On the other hand, the harshness of Li Hongzhi's frequent pronouncements against gays, race-mixing and the like turn away potential supporters and provide critics with an abundant reservoir from which to fashion anti-Falun Gong discourse.

Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic research in Senegal, this article focuses on the sociality of migrant facilitation. Although it has become relatively common in media and policy reports to suggest that irregular migrants are manipulated by greedy and unscrupulous human smugglers, this article shows how migrants in Senegal are often familiar with their handlers and are more likely to call them a friend ( ami) than a criminal. Also, most migrants do not see themselves as "smuggled," which implies victimhood. Rather, they see themselves as making calculated choices to migrate based on a host of social factors. By exploring the relationships between handlers and migrants, this article reveals the social worlds of negotiation, assistance, and protection that feature prominently in West African migrant narratives and practices.

International audience ; In the postmodern information era the conflicts between the states often deviate from the traditional military format and have a completely different form and content, such as economic, information, psychological, virtual warfare and competition. Therefore, the traditional perceptions and approaches to the national security have changed, too. The modern forms, means, and methods of influence that come to replace the traditional military interventions create new threats and challenges for the national security of the states. The study attempts to present the external threats the Republic of Armenia faces, including various forms of terrorism, particularly cyberterrorism and the hybrid warfare tactics deployed by Azerbaijan against Armenia and Artsakh in the context Karabakh conflict. The importance of a powerful security system to be established by the government in order to resist and counter these threats is emphasized. ; Հետարդիական տեղեկատվական դարաշրջանում պետությունների միջև տեղի ունեցող հակամարտությունները հաճախ շեղվում են ավանդական ռազմական բնույթից` կրելով բոլորովին նոր ձև ու բովանդակություն՝ տնտեսական, տեղեկատվական, հոգեբանական, վիրտուալ պատերազմների և մրցակցության տեսքով: Հետևաբար, փոփոխվել են նաև ազգային անվտանգության ավանդական ընկալումներն ու մոտեցումները:Դասական ռազմական գործողություններին փոխարինող ներազդման արդի ձևերի, միջոցների, մեթոդների կիրառումը նոր սպառնալիքներ ու մարտահրավերներ է առաջացնում պետությունների անվտանգության համար:Հետազոտության մեջ փորձ է արվում ներկայացնել Հայաստանի Հանրապետության անվտանգային համակարգի առջև ծառացած արտաքին սպառնալիքները, որոնցից են ահաբեկչության տարբեր դրսևորումները, հատկապեսկիբեռահաբեկչությունը, ղարաբաղյան հակամարտության համատեքստում Հայաստանի ու Արցախի դեմ Ադրբեջանի վարած հիբրիդային պատերազմի մարտավարությունը: Նշվում է պետության կողմից դրանց դիմակայելու և հակազդելու համար հզոր անվտանգային համակարգ ստեղծելու կարևորությունը:

The Government of India has recently announced a dramatic expansion of social pension schemes both in terms of coverage and benefit levels. Yet relatively little is known about how these programs are administered or how well they achieve their objectives. This paper assesses the performance of a social pension scheme in the Indian state of Rajasthan. In particular, the authors review the experience with respect to program awareness, coverage, targeting, and leakage as well as delivery mechanisms. The overall assessment is positive and holds broader lessons for social assistance in India. Thus, transaction costs once pensions are sanctioned are low, disbursements are largely as per schedule, leakage in the form of shortfalls in benefits is generally low, and satisfaction levels with the social pension scheme are high. At the same time there are clear areas for improvement on both the policy and administration side. There is evidence of under coverage and high transaction costs associated with the application process. Though targeting is generally progressive, especially for old age and widow pensions though less so for disability pensions, targeting is far from perfect and the eligibility criteria are not strictly enforced. There is a strong case for relaxing, rationalizing, and clarifying some of the existing criteria. On the administration front, several basic issues relating to implementation need to be addressed, particularly with respect to transaction costs in the sanction of pensions, wide inter-district variations in performance within the state, and inadequate record-keeping and monitoring.

Following a ruling by the Constitutional Court of Italy that the country's much criticised electoral law was 'unconstitutional', Italian political parties are now in the process of agreeing a new law to cover Italian elections. The latest proposal was passed in Italy's Chamber of Deputies on 12 March and will now pass to the Senate. Matteo Garavoglia outlines the new law and its likely impact on future elections. He notes that while it is an improvement on the previous arrangement, there are still important deficiencies that fall short of European democratic standards.

Following a ruling by the Constitutional Court of Italy that the country's much criticised electoral law was 'unconstitutional', Italian political parties are now in the process of agreeing a new law to cover Italian elections. The latest proposal was passed in Italy's Chamber of Deputies on 12 March and will now pass to the Senate. Matteo Garavoglia outlines the new law and its likely impact on future elections. He notes that while it is an improvement on the previous arrangement, there are still important deficiencies that fall short of European democratic standards.

The new and more conscious sensibility towards the environmental sphere supports the idea of &ldquo ; green city&rdquo ; promotes initiatives of structural integration of the green with the built environment and involves a considerable number of disciplines in a cultural and social debate. The literature reports different experiences of collaborative governance, between administrations and citizens, which tend to enhance the interaction between the different social actors involved in the investments of Green Infrastructures, to share objectives and management methods and to assess the extent of ecosystem services. The objective of this article is to propose a methodological approach to assessing green investments in the urban area, which is able to internalize the social perception of citizens regarding this important component for the urban landscape, with a view to guiding the city&rsquo ; s government towards a new urban eco-social-green planning and evaluation model. It presents a concise framework of the scientific debate on climate change and on the effects of urban planning issues ; some relevant experiences of Green Infrastructures ; and the proposed methodology, applied to the reality of the &ldquo ; urban green system&rdquo ; of Catania, based on an integrated approach between participatory planning and the method NAIADE (Novel Approach to Imprecise Assessment and Decision Environments).

AbstractAlthough diverse European welfare states have institutionalized an extensive infrastructure of public welfare services to redistribute resources, governments have been confronted with barriers in realizing the social rights of certain groups of citizens. Decentralization and increasingly local welfare provision has been promoted as a strategy to substantially realize social rights. In that sense, the vital role of frontline social work has been stressed in local welfare systems, being considered as dynamic arrangements in which local policymakers and professional social work actors are involved in the substantial realization of social rights. These trends have been frequently studied from a social policy perspective, but the role of professional social work on the frontline level has received much less attention. In this study, we accordingly rely on neo‐institutional theory to explore how frontline social workers employ their professional discretion during processes of local social policy implementation, related to the broader circumstances in which they operate. Our qualitative study aims to tease out whether their strategic actions might transform and/or change the rules of the local institutional game. The qualitative analysis is based on policy documents and qualitative interviews with key actors in two municipalities in Belgium. Our research findings reveal three central fields of tension: (1) Rescaling of responsibilities to the local welfare system and community level versus in‐built spatial concentrations of social problems and inequalities, (2) Efficient local welfare system organization versus wicked social problems, and (3) Fast local welfare system logics versus slow realities.