Suchergebnisse

The article analyzes how the problems of democratic transition are presented in modern textbooks on the history of Russia. The relevance of the problem under study is determined primarily by the importance of history textbooks for constructing a memory policy. At the same time, attention is drawn to insufficient coverage in the modern historiography of the transformations of the 1990s that is an important period of historical development. Presentation of Russian history in 1992-1999 in textbooks has been analyzed in comparison with expert evaluations of economists, sociologists and political scientists.
The authors conclude that there are different interpretations of the problems of post-Soviet democratic transition in textbooks for the 10th grade on the history of Russia. In particular, in one textbook 1990s completely correspond to the current image of the "likhie 90s" (the hard 90s). In another one it is not only a time of great difficulties, but also an era of hopes and opportunities. But these differences are leveled, when economic and political development of the country at this time is appeared mainly in negative interpretation in the frame of the subsequent 2000s, which are presented as a time of success.

AbstractIn the literature, it has been common to use credit risk scores to investigate impacts of external sources of risk and political institutions on foreign investment location choice-decisions. However, only a few studies have specifically examined the relationship between importing country's credit risk scores and exports. Side stepping the limited availability of statistics on ECAs activities in the Arab countries, this paper investigates empirically the relationship between merchandise exports and credit scores of importing countries. Based on a gravity equation augmented with the risks of default on international payments, measured by intra-country risk ratings, the principal contribution of the present research is to scrutinize the impact of commercial and political risks on merchandise trade in the Arab region. The findings suggest that in the absence of insurance contracts against the risk of defaulting payments, firms are more likely to export to countries with higher prior probabilities to secure payments. It logically follows that provisions of export credit guarantees well targeted towards reducing buyer risks are likely to boost-up exports.

AbstractResearch on meanings and understandings of democracy is growing. But besides useful theoretical and empirical insights, this research produces open questions concerning the conceptualization and the measurement of meanings of democracy. This special section—and especially this introductory paper and the different contributions—reflect on several key challenges and thereby go beyond the debate about advantages and disadvantages of open and closed questions measuring meanings of democracy in surveys. Both conceptualization and measurement have different challenges which researchers should take into account when developing research designs, specifically by doing cross-cultural comparisons. Other challenges are connected to the debate on universalism versus relativism and the usage of various terms, which are often not clearly defined. This paper offers an analytical framework to distinguish between meanings and understandings of democracy, thereby integrating comparative political theory and empirical democracy research through inductive and deductive approaches. And it gives an overview of the contributions of this special section. In sum, research on meanings and understandings of democracy is needed to gain a better picture of political cultures around the world.

This paper elaborates on a restorative justice approach to cow vigilante violence in India, intending to develop specific arguments put forward in previous works. It covers the historical, political, and economic aspects of cow vigilante violence against Muslim and Dalit minorities in India, where majority Hindus believe in the cow as a mother to be protected from harm or slaughter. A comparative analysis approach is used to relate the past and present context of cow vigilantism in India. Schematic diagrams are used to discuss the trends, legislation, and restorative governmentalities in terms of building peace among the communities. The key findings suggest that to influence violent and oppressor ideologies of Hindu nationalists in today's India, Muslims should rationally acknowledge the historic harm Muslim rulers have caused to Hindus. This paper recommends adopting an emergent system for change and triangulating the response to violence to overcome the cow vigilante violence in India. To transform the violent ideologies against Muslims and Dalits over cow protection, the government of India needs to adopt a holistic approach to transform violence and restrict political misuse of the notion of cow protection.

Since the consolidation of democracy and the inception of reforms thereof in Ghana, one raging subject matter that has over time come under intense scrutiny, and persistently, altogether eminently preoccupied the attention of political scientists, pollsters, marketers and strategists in particular, has been one bordering on voter's behavior. Understanding voter's behavior is crucially indispensable to reshaping the democratic process and devising political strategies. In spite of this, there is however a paucity of research focus targeted at unraveling the distinct behavior patterns and underpinnings relative to voters' choices. Against this backdrop, the main idea of this research is to explore the antecedents of voters' choice. The theory of consumer behavior has been used as the theoretical framework. Using the survey approach, data was elicited from card bearing registered voters and analyzed with the aid of the structural equation modeling technique. Results of data (n = 363) analysis revealed a confluence of voters' choice antecedents anchored on; quality, trust, attractiveness, expertise and image. Based on the results, study implications are discussed, and suggestions for future research are subsequently delineated.

This article uses a theoretical and methodological framework derived from the political theorist Quentin Skinner and the conceptual historian Reinhart Koselleck to examine ideational and conceptual tensions and shifts related to the transparency of algorithmic and other automatic governmental decision-making in Finland. Most of the research material comprises national and international official documents and semi-structured expert interviews. In Finland, the concepts of 'algorithmic transparency' and other 'transparency of automatic decision-making' are situated amongst a complex array of legal, ethical, political, policy-oriented, managerial, and technical semantic fields. From 2016 to 2019 Finland's Deputy Ombudsman of Parliament and the Constitutional Committee of Parliament pinpointed issues in algorithmic and other automatic decision-making with the consequence that at the turn of 2019 and 2020, the Ministry of Justice started moving towards the preparation of new legislation to resolve these issues. In conclusion and as expected, Finland's version of the Nordic tradition of the public sphere with established legal guarantees of public access to government documents indeed has both important enabling and constraining effects upon resolving the transparency issues.

Abstract
This article engages with the centrality that the push–pull theory regained in the context of border deaths in the Mediterranean Sea and particularly as part of the debate against the criminalization of nongovernment organizations (NGOs') rescue missions at sea. The article opens by illustrating the context in which the push–pull theory re-emerged—after having been part of migration studies' history books for over a decade—as part of an effort to defend non-state actors engaged in rescue missions in the Mediterranean Sea against an aggressive campaign of illegalilzation conducted by European states. We then take a step back to trace the history of the push–pull theory and its role as a foil for critical migration studies in the past 20 years. Building on this history, the article then turns to interrogating the epistemic and political outcomes that result from bringing evidence against the NGOs' role as pull factors for migrants. The article closes by advocating for a transformative, rather than evidencing, role of critical knowledge in the current political context where migrants and actors who fight against border deaths are increasingly criminalized.

The aim of the article is to analyze the draft amendment to the constitution of Ukraine from December 2019, in the context of completion of the local government reform. The basic research question is: do Ukrainian political leaders have a real will to decentralize the public authority, or is it forced by external factors, mainly by the Minsk agreements? Sources include official documents and press releases, which were subject to institutional and legal analysis. The comparative approach was applied, referring to Polish experience. It was established, that a draft amendment to the constitution from December 2019, consists of two documents: dated on 13 and 27 December. Both drafts were proposed by the Office of the President of Ukraine in a nontransparent way. It caused protests of local government and expert communities, together with Western partners. Eventually, on 16 January 2020, president Volodymyr Zelensky gave in to pressure and withdrew the proposal. The fate of the prolonged local government reform proves that Ukrainian political agenda is created largely not by internal environment, but by external actors.

The principle of equal electoral opportunities is implemented, inter alia, by allocating free airtime to political entities. In Poland, like in many other countries, the authorized committees have the right to use the public media's airtime free of charge during election campaigns. The present article's objective is to show the Polish solutions in this domain compared with the regulations in other countries and to present the research results and their analysis concerning Poles' attitude to free election broadcasts – including their assessment of the broadcasts as a source of knowledge about candidates and parties taking part in the election campaign. The studies were carried out based on the survey questionnaire, which was compiled using the five-level Likert scale. The sample was selected by the stratifiedquota method (N = 971). The conclusions resulting from the survey suggest the need to retain the regulation that enables political entities in Poland to use free election broadcasts during election campaigns. At the same time, they point out that it is necessary to seek more advantageous forms and content to put airtime to appropriate use during the campaign period.

Abstract
Street names are mundane spatial markers that besides providing a sense of orientation inscribe onto the landscape the ideological ethos and political symbols of hegemonic discourses. This review article takes stock of the existing scholarship done on the politics of street naming practices in human (political, cultural, and social) geography and rethinks these insights from sociological perspectives. Drawing on Randall Collins' taxonomy of sociological theory, the paper interprets urban street nomenclatures along functionalist, conflictualist, constructionist, and utilitarian lines. The analysis is delivered in two installments: Part I addresses urban nomenclatures from functionalist and conflictualist perspectives, while Part II (published in the next issue of this journal) approaches street names as social constructions and examines their utilitarian value. In doing so, the paper advances the argument that urban namescapes in general and street names in particular should make an important object of sociological reflection and empirical analysis. It is one of the key arguments developed in this paper that toponymy encapsulates broader and intersecting issues of power, memory, identity, language, and space which can be rendered visible through sociological analysis.

Debates on intuition about transformed humankind in the future have led to the conception of transhumanism. It is a new philosophical movement to express the ideology that humanism will evolve by employing science and technology. Supporters of transhumanism believe that scientific aid in the evolution of humans will take them beyond the bounds of physical and mental limitations; eventually, it will make them immortals. The influence of transhumanism in literature has given birth to seminal works of art, particularly science fiction. Anil Menon's The Beast with Nine Billion Feet is one such novel which sprang out the moral issues due to the rapid growth of science and technology affecting social, cultural, and political scenarios in India. The story is about genetic engineering and its impact on the socio-political problems. In addition to unfolding the threats and opportunities of transhumanism, the novel also touches on the issues of young adults like acquiring autonomy and finding their true identity. This study attempts to bring out the trepidation and chaos resultant of the period of transition and the multiple challenges and threats to the human race.

Few scholars have studied gentrification in older industrial cities across different national contexts. A review of the literature suggests that gentrification in older industrial cities will look different in systematic ways from gentrification in global, magnet cities that most research has focused on. The literature also suggests that the political and institutional differences in cities located in different national contexts can shape gentrification processes. Our research shows that Dortmund and St. Louis are both undergoing deep processes of economic restructuring with new knowledge workers moving in to neighborhoods adjacent to expanding tech clusters. The speed and magnitude of gentrification, however, is significantly less than reported in strong market cities. Unlike in hot market, global cities, many areas within Dortmund and St. Louis are experiencing little or no gentrification, and the neighborhoods that are experiencing gentrification-like processes vary significantly along important dimensions. Despite important differences in political institutions, the basic pattern of gentrification in St. Louis and Dortmund is similar. In these two older industrial cities, at least, gentrification is a complex and variegated phenomenon that requires more research to be fully understood.

Purpose
Rapid urbanization and the influx of rural residents to urban cities has led to the growth of informal settlements globally. Drawing on institutional theory, this paper aims to examine institutional actors' legitimacy seeking behaviour to housing issues and their responses to regulative, normative and cultural pressures.


Design/methodology/approach
The qualitative case-study research approach is adopted by conducting 25 in-depth interviews that involved purposefully chosen institutional actors in the housing sector. Online observations and documents are used to support the interview data.


Findings
Thematic analysis of data gathered suggests that these actors, guided by sensemaking, invest in relationship-building to attain market, social, relational and political legitimacy. The relationship-building also leads to the legitimation of institutional actors' existence via an eclectic mix of economic, social and political actions.


Originality/value
The results not only guide policymakers faced with potentially conflicting demands to legitimize sustainable housing developments policy that could benefit the urban poor's shelter needs but also to consider the interactive and dynamic processes of stakeholders' pressures, in a highly regulated housing environment.

This article explores the twin phenomena of anti-fascism and transnational war volunteering through a case study of the International Group of the Durruti Column in the Spanish Civil War. This anarchist-led unit comprised approximately 368 volunteers with a variety of political views from at least 25 different countries. The article examines the relationship between these foreign volunteers and their Spanish hosts (both anarchist and non-anarchist), through, firstly, the militarization of the militias in the winter of 1936, and, secondly, the group's role in the May Days of 1937 and its aftermath. These episodes show the often hostile attitude of Spaniards to foreigners within Spain and challenge the characterization of the conflict as distinctively internationalist. The lives of these volunteers also highlight the continuity of anti-fascism between the interwar and wartime period, with Spain acting as an 'anti-fascist melting pot' where volunteers of different backgrounds and political leanings came together in a common cause. This commitment, however, was not unconditional, and was frequently challenged due to circumstances within Spain. Through studying these transnational fighters, we have a more comprehensive understanding of the complex nature of twentieth century anti-fascism.

The convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and social/political protest concerning structural anti-Black racism marks a moment for deep reflection and revision of many taken-for-granted assumptions about our research and academic lives as social work scholars. In this reflexive essay we, as two non-Black qualitative social work scholars, explore some of the questions and considerations for social work research that have surfaced since the emergence of these complex social, political, and economic crises. We organize our reflection around what we study, why, and how we go about studying it. We then offer a discussion of various constraints and challenges that emerge in this type of reflective scholarly practice, including an analysis of how contexts of white supremacy culture and neoliberalism shape social work scholarship. We close the essay with a number of recommendations for further reflection for social work scholars, such as reviewing research practices, seeking external research funding, practicing reflexivity, interrogating assumptions about knowledge production, self and community care, and integrating scholarly work into social work curriculum.