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This article traces the development of political polarization in Bangladesh since its 1971 war of independence. I show how polarization is elite-driven, hinging mostly on competing views of the foundation myth of the nation. One major political bloc has emerged that ties national identity tightly to religion (Islam), where the other bloc prefers a national identity tied to ethnicity and use of the Bengali language. I show how an underdeveloped party system has contributed to the resulting political and societal polarization that stems from this ideological divide, which was created by elites as they attempted to consolidate party power. Further, I make a case that the activities of the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT)—established in 2010 to prosecute those who aided the Pakistani army in committing war crimes during the 1971 war—actually increased polarization and made it pernicious. Instead of healing the nation, the ICT exacerbated old political cleavages and instigated violence and social tension, making Bangladesh's young democracy more unstable and careening.

While scholars and pundits alike have expressed concern regarding the increasingly "tribal" nature of political identities, there has been little analysis of how this social polarization impacts political selection. In this paper, we incorporate social identity into a principal-agent model of political representation and characterize the impact of social polarization on voting behavior. We show that identity has an instrumental impact on voting, as voters anticipate that political representatives' ex post policy decisions have an in-group bias. We also conduct a laboratory experiment to test the main predictions of the theory. In contrast to existing work that suggests social polarization may have a positive impact by increasing participation, we show that social polarization causes political representatives to take policy decisions that diverge from the social optimum, and voters to select candidates with lower average quality.

Between science and politics. The first social science.
Dominique Dammame [5-30].
This article turns back to the often unnoticed invention in the late 18th century of a new category, used by physiocrats, «economists» and «royal high-ranging officials : the social science. It questions also the new political uses that this category has allowed during the 19th century.

The Bhopal School of Social Sciences was founded in the year 1972-at the initiative of Most Rev Dr. Eugene D' Souza, the then Archbishop of Bhopal-in response to the need of the time for a broadbased, job-oriented curriculum with an initial focus on social service and entrepreneurship. The institution is supported and managed by the Archdiocese of Bhopal through the BSSS Foundation Society chaired by the Archbishop of Bhopal. Since its inception, the College has adopted an integrated and comprehensive approach to learningin order to achieve academic excellence. This vision has been the cornerstone of our growth in the last 49 years as we gradually adopted new programs, initiated innovative learner strategies, and took bold steps to go beyond the prescribed curriculum with a view to transform knowledge into affirmative action. Initially known for its Social Sciences and Management courses, the College grew and diversified with the introduction of courses in Commerce, Information & Technology, Science and Physical Education. Catering to the high demand for Commerce subjects, the College offers a wide range of options including an honours course as well as specializations in Foreign Trade, Travel and Tourism, Banking and Insurance, Taxation, Computer Applications, Advertising, Sales Promotion & Sales Management. Subsequently, post graduate courses in Social work, English Literature, Commerce, Economics, Computer Applications, Sociology, Political Science, Psychology and Business Administration followed. Presently, our Humanities portfolio includes 4 undergraduate honours programs in Social Work, Economics, English literature and Psychology. The College also runs two international MBAs through collaboration with Assumption University, Bangkok and Under Graduate Courses in collaboration with Concordia College, USA. We also have tie-up with IMA, US and ACCA, UK. With the objective of widening the educational experience of our students as well as to encourage inter-disciplinary learning, the College offers 41 ...

Farrell reviews 'Finding Philosophy in Social Science' by Mario Bunge.

There seems to be a mismatch between the societal demand for social-science knowledge and the supply of knowledge from the social sciences. The need for a reassessment of the way the social sciences operate and their role and status in society, is the main raison d'etre of the World Social Science Initiative (WSSI), promoted by the International Social Science Council. The WSSI, which emerged as a follow-up to an OECD International Conference Series on "Re-thinking the Social Sciences" supported by the European Commission's Research Directorate-General and UNESCO's Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme, offers a flexible framework for enhancing both the scientific quality and the social relevance of the social sciences. (Original abstract)

▪ Abstract  Recent commentary points to clear increases in ideological polarization between the major American political parties. We review the theoretical and empirical literature on party polarization and partisan change. We begin by comparing the current period both to earlier political eras and to theories of partisan change. We argue that in the current period the parties have grown increasingly divided on all the major policy dimensions in American politics—a process that we term conflict extension. We discuss various perspectives on increases in polarization between the parties in government, the parties in the electorate, and the parties' activists, and we consider the causal links between polarization at each of these levels. We consider whether American society itself, and not just the parties and their identifiers, has become increasingly polarized. Finally, we discuss the consequences of growing party polarization for American political life.

The contemporary literature on political parties has identified their gradual but consistent shift away from civil society and towards the state. As parties are becoming ever increasingly dependent on state resources and exclusively interested in governing, as Mair (Ruling the void: The hollowing of western democracy [Verso Books, 2013]) suggested, and patronage is a fundamental to that relationship, the degree and modes of party patronage becomes pivotal to understanding their performance, and the ways they organize and govern. In this paper we argue that party patronage is likely to be structured by the nature of political competition and explore the effects of political polarization, which is a feature of political competition relatively independent from the precise format of a party system, on patronage practices. We advance a theoretical argument which systematically links different types of political polarization with different patterns of party patronage, arguing that extreme polarization incentivizes political parties to develop heavily partisan strategies of party patronage which, in turn, further fuel political polarization. Thus, we also contribute to burgeoning literature on political polarization and its negative effects on the functioning of both political parties and overall political systems.