Suchergebnisse

India's 2019 general election returned Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to a second term in office. The BJP increased its parliamentary majority and expanded beyond its core regions. Its victory was all the more impressive given the economy's mediocre performance during Modi's first five years in office and serious signs of political disaffection, including BJP losses in important state-level elections, just months before the national campaign commenced. Modi's ability to turn things around is a testament to his personal popularity as well as the BJP's well-funded and organized political machine. But it also reflects the party's willingness to stoke nationalist passions, target minority groups, harass civil society, politicize national security, and undermine institutions of accountability. Despite the BJP's impressive showing, and some of the methods by which it was achieved, claims that the 2019 election represents a transformation in the nature of Indian politics should be treated with caution. (Pa Aff/GIGA)

This article examines writing as the last link in the epistemology-theory-methodology alignment. Although political scientists dedicate a great deal of their time to writing, conversations on this topic remain scarce within international relations and political science overall. Notably absent are analyses of the actual writing choices scholars make and what these mean for the knowledge they produce. This article uses the tools of literary analysis to take a closer look at the mechanics of three published academic articles in the fields of international relations and comparative politics. It focuses on how qualitative interviews are written, demonstrates how authors can conceal or reveal the dialogical dimension, and examines how they deal with the conundrum of the representation of research participants. This kind of reflexive analysis reveals the epistemological foundations of a given research article and can be used to identify instances of misrepresentation and misalignment. As such, it is an important tool for the improvement of academic writing.

Research into post-independence identity shifts among Kazakhstan's Russian-speaking minorities has outlined a number of possible pathways, such as diasporization, integrated national minority status and ethnic separatism. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with young people in Almaty and Karaganda, I examine how Russian-speaking minorities identify with the state and imagine their place in a 'soft' or 'hybrid' post-Soviet authoritarian system. What is found is that Russian-speaking minorities largely accept their status beneath the Kazakh 'elder brother' and do not wish to identify as a 'national minority'. Furthermore, they affirm passive loyalty to the political status quo while remaining disinterested in political representation. Russian-speaking minorities are also ambivalent towards Kazakh language promotion and anxious about the increasing presence of Kazakh- speakers in urban spaces. This article argues that two factors are central to these stances among Kazakhstan's Russian-speaking minorities: the persistence of Soviet legacies and the effects of state discourse and policy since 1991.

The spectre of overgrazing' looms large in historical and political narratives of ecological degradation in savannah ecosystems. While pastoral exploitation is a conspicuous driver of landscape variability and modification, assumptions that such change is inevitable or necessarily negative deserve to be continuously evaluated and challenged. With reference to three case studies from Kenya - the Laikipia Plateau, the Lake Baringo basin, and the Amboseli ecosystem - we argue that the impacts of pastoralism are contingent on the diachronic interactions of locally specific environmental, political, and cultural conditions. The impacts of the compression of rangelands and restrictions on herd mobility driven by misguided conservation and economic policies are emphasised over outdated notions of pastoralist inefficiency. We review the application of overgrazing' in interpretations of the archaeological record and assess its relevance for how we interpret past socio-environmental dynamics. Any discussion of overgrazing, or any form of human-environment interaction, must acknowledge spatio-temporal context and account for historical variability in landscape ontogenies.

This article proposes an analytical approach to algorithms that stresses operations of folding. The aim of this approach is to broaden the common analytical focus on algorithms as biased and opaque black boxes, and to instead highlight the many relations that algorithms are interwoven with. Our proposed approach thus highlights how algorithms fold heterogeneous things: data, methods and objects with multiple ethical and political effects. We exemplify the utility of our approach by proposing three specific operations of folding-proximation, universalisation and normalisation. The article develops these three operations through four empirical vignettes, drawn from different settings that deal with algorithms in relation to AIDS, Zika and stock markets. In proposing this analytical approach, we wish to highlight the many different attachments and relations that algorithms enfold. The approach thus aims to produce accounts that highlight how algorithms dynamically combine and reconfigure different social and material heterogeneities as well as the ethical, normative and political consequences of these reconfigurations.

Semantic approaches of ethnic issues in the Balkans: the differentiation of the religious term "muslim" to the ethnic term "Muslim" within the limits of the pro-Titoic Yugoslavia and the after-civil war Yugoslavia. One of the principal characteristics of the course of the ethnic "muslim" definition of the Western Balkans during the end of the 19th century was the issue of the naming of the Muslim people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The multinational Yugoslavia agonized over this issue during the second half of the 20th century and until the end of the political life of this country. The structure of the country gradually converted the term "muslims of Bosnia" into "Muslims" with ethnic-racial content and later -when independent Bosnia and Herzegovina was created in 1993- this term turned into Bosniac (Bošnjak). The differentiations of the content of the above ethnic terms, the political and religious interventions and influences, are some of the aspects discussed in the present paper.

The article explores the role played by interest, which is generally underestimated by critics, in the construction of the «possible society » described by Rousseau in the "Contrat social". Interest, even if it seems at first glance unrelated to the normative plan of the principles of political law, holds a triple relationship with political society. First of all, it is the opposition of particular interests ("intérêts particuliers") that makes the social bond necessary, in order to grant natural justice. Secondly, it is the agreement of particular interests (understood as "intérêt individual" and not simply as "intérêt privé") that makes society possible. Finally, it is the common interest ("intérêt commun") that becomes the only possible object of general will, thus confirming that the social body is definitely formed not against, but through interest. In conclusion, the article suggests that it is precisely the dialectic of interest that sketches the horizon of «possibility» in which the normative project of Rousseau is inscribed.

Over the years, significant amount of money has been invested in public-sector school building construction projects by Ghanaian government, however, several of these buildings' projects have suffered several set-backs such as total abandonment but rarely do researchers focus on these abandonments. This study, therefore, explored the factors that account for abandonment within the Ghanaian public education sector by focusing on Community Day Senior High School Buildings. Using questionnaire survey to solicit the information from contractors, project management practitioners and clients of the selected projects, we identified forty-two factors of abandonment. Employing factor analysis and structural equation modelling, the factors were categorised into five – political leadership, culture, external forces resources/funding and administrative/institutional. All these sets of factors were statistically significant in causing Ghanaian public-sector education building construction infrastructure projects abandonment. However, the most significant sets of factors are political leadership, followed by poor administrative/institutional practices, poor resource/funding, cultural factors and external forces.

The article analyses the importance of the South African Defence Force's attack on a SWAPO base at Cassinga, Angola on 4 May 1978. It was one of the most militarily, politically, and symbolically decisive days of the Border War. Cassinga became a symbol both to Namibia's liberation movement and South African soldiers, and both groups commemorate the event each year.The article explores the tactical and political causes and circumstances of the raid and gives a detailed account of the military operation. Operation Reindeer, as the attack on Cassinga was called, had important military consequences, and very significant political repercussions. This study considers these effects with the help of media responses to the event (South African, British and Polish newspapers) as well as the reactions of politicians on both sides of the conflict. The claim by the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) that Cassinga was a refugee camp raised a storm of controversy. This article addresses the controversy and attempts to clarify who actually inhabited the base at that time.

This is largely a theoretical, speculative essay that takes on the question of what 'care' looks like at a moment when climate change is increasingly taking center stage in public and political discussions. Starting with two new practices, namely, humanitarian care for nonhumans and One Health collaborations, I seek to determine what forms of political care can incorporate the well-being of future generations and future iterations of the earth. After an exploration of One Health as an approach to planetary care, I ask what its parts enable us to think, despite its limitations; I focus on the new human-nonhuman assemblages connected through different biosocial models, such as neuroscience or immunology, to see how these scientific theories might enable new possibilities. I argue that a focus on biological ecologies at different scales – as opposed to ethicomoral categories like humanity – can open the way to a larger imaginary of human and nonhuman flourishing and a space for nonmoralistic politics.

The aim of this article is to discuss the notion of vulnerability and suffering as an aspect of animal bodily existence that, despite its negative connotations, is a highly interesting point of convergence for human-animal studies and the branch of aesthetics concerned with the interplay of individual and collective affectivities in the works of art. Arguing for the existence of a cross-species community of affect, the author bases her analyses on Judith Butler's ontology of precariousness and seeks to establish a vital connection be-tween the political and social experience of vulnerability on the one hand, and rituals of mourning inspired by compassion on the other. The argument points to the possibility of charting new trajectories of affect in political praxis and art which do not only establish a cross-species community of suffering, but also bridge the gap between humans and animals as religious subjects, which is conceived here as a profoundly emancipatory ges-ture.

The present article is an attempt to examine the metaphoric models of ironic assessment employed in politicized public discourse in Lithuania. The examination follows the implications of the Blending theory (Fauconnier & Turner 2002), and discusses the topicality of the dominant metaphoric patterns in online newspaper headlines and commentaries, as well as in a number of posters the political parties of Lithuania prepared for the electoral campaign. The database of 200 newspaper headlines, comments, and posters allowed to identify dominant references to political issues in terms of sport, miracles, family, business and crime. Furthermore, the analysis has shown that attention should be drawn to aspects of social cognition and culture as they appear to be an integral part of the blending structure and are crucial in successful transmission of both the intended message and the evaluative attitude. Metaphors in the mode of irony follow a double-scope conceptual integration network, as the final blend comprises not only the elements of the two input spaces of the employed metaphor but also the elements of our background knowledge.

The present article is an attempt to examine the metaphoric models of ironic assessment employed in politicized public discourse in Lithuania. The examination follows the implications of the Blending theory (Fauconnier & Turner 2002), and discusses the topicality of the dominant metaphoric patterns in online newspaper headlines and commentaries, as well as in a number of posters the political parties of Lithuania prepared for the electoral campaign. The database of 200 newspaper headlines, comments, and posters allowed to identify dominant references to political issues in terms of sport, miracles, family, business and crime. Furthermore, the analysis has shown that attention should be drawn to aspects of social cognition and culture as they appear to be an integral part of the blending structure and are crucial in successful transmission of both the intended message and the evaluative attitude. Metaphors in the mode of irony follow a double-scope conceptual integration network, as the final blend comprises not only the elements of the two input spaces of the employed metaphor but also the elements of our background knowledge.

MRP is a cultural representation institution of indigenous Papuans that was formed since the enactment of Special Autonomy for Papua province. The MRP is expected to act as a protective body, tongue-tongue and fight for the basic rights of indigenous Papuans. This article is the result of research on the role of MRP in fighting for indigenous people of Papua. This study used a descriptive qualitative approach with data collection using literature study and interviews on selected informants from academics and MRP members. The results show that MRP as a cultural institution has a strategic role as an institution of aspiration of indigenous Papuans. MRP as a formal political institution is based on the cultural role to uphold and fight for the rights of indigenous Papuans. The MRP's role and efforts are also not only dimensionless in enhancing the fulfillment of basic rights and the giving of justice, but supporting the political and democratic arrangements for Indonesia, especially in Papua

This article analyses the new Danish Access to Information Act, specifically how it has controversially reduced public access to information when it comes to the most central political decisions. These changes represent an interesting development in a state usually considered an exponent for a high level of transparency in the public sector. We analyse how the Act has made it possible to reject applications for information to be used for ministerial advice and pertaining to documents exchanged between ministers and MPs, and we discuss the introduction of an article enabling the rejection of applications solely on the grounds that they will use considerable administrative resources. A remarkable shift in the approach to access to information has taken place, resulting in diminished public access to the background material for significant political decisions. Pointing out the need for further investigation, we compare this Danish tendency to international standards and pose the question of whether the Danish case is an example of a more general trend towards a reversal in the level of transparency in liberal democracies.