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This article reassesses the emergence of human rights advocacy in 1970s West Germany from the perspective of memory politics. Focusing on the campaigns against political violence in South America, the article first traces the boom and bust of antifascist activism against the Chilean junta in the early 1970s. It then analyzes the displacement of abstract antifascist discourses by a more humanitarian human rights talk closely intertwined with concrete references to National Socialist crimes. Taking the perspective of grassroots advocates, this article explores how and why activists referenced the crimes of Nazism to defend human rights in the present. Finally, the article moves beyond the claim that human rights politics were minimalistic and even anti-antifascist, by showing how some human rights activists continued to think of themselves as antifascists. They infused antifascism with entirely new meanings by recovering the 20 July 1944 assassination attempt against Hitler as an acceptable example of anti-government violence.

The article discusses the consequences for the European political system, and more specifically for its elites, of the great recession of the years after 2008. After having defined the concept of European Elites System (EES) and specified its main components, the article analyses the differential impact of the crisis upon the different elite components. Special attention is paid to the difference between those European elite groups (domestic elites and members of the European Council and of the Council of the European Union), which are directly or indirectly accountable to national electorates and the other elite groups (such as the components of the Commission and of the ECB) who are much more protected against popular protest and dissatisfaction. This has produced a different degree of vulnerability and instability across these groups, but also important differences in the responses they have given to the problems arising from the crisis. These consequences are then analysed from the point of view of the democratic quality of the Union.

More than 50 years after its founding, Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is still going strong. It has become the dominant party within a democratic setting. How did the LDP manage to cling to its dominant position for such a long time? And to what extent has the LDP changed colours under the leadership of Koizumi Jun'ichiro? This survey article attempts to answer these questions by focussing on the three dimensions of LDP dominance: electoral, parliamentary, and executive dominance. It argues that clientelist politics explain a good deal of the success of the LDP in the past. Such an orientation however became decreasingly effective and sustainable in a political environment that has changed significantly since the early 1990s. In the Koizumi era, the LDP managed to rise again to the challenges posed to its dominance by appealing directly to voters, by optimizing electoral cooperation, and by making efforts to centralize policymaking. Whether these more recent approaches to maintaining LDP dominance can be sustained, however, remains an open question.

The North African Barbary States (Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli) and the United States of America maintained various relations in the Early Modern Times. After the War of Independence the relations became rather problematic between the two cultures. In the American mind, relations with the Barbary States have been generally associated with issues of commerce, piracy, captivity, tribute and war. The American merchants and sailors were captured several times by muslim corsairs after the Revolutionary War. The confederation, however, was powerless in foreign matters and there was a need to centralize the government. At the same time, in the early 1800s several sea narratives and captivity narratives were published about the Americans. This had an important impact on American literature. Furthermore, the first foreign war of the United States was against Tripoli between 1801-1805. Historians connect this war with the birth of the US Navy and Marine Corps. After the Tripolitan War, the Americans citizens met an illustrious muslim diplomata as well. Sidi Soliman Mellimelli, the Tunisian envoy was the first Muslim ambassador in the USA between 1805 and 1806.

AbstractThis paper examines the mechanisms of deliberation and conflict resolution in Chinese urban middle-class residential communities. Along with the rise of private home ownership and urban middle-class residential estates, disputes and conflicts have risen between the residents, resident self-elected organization (homeowner associations), real estate developer and property management companies, and the local government. Through the lens of deliberation in middle-class neighborhoods, this paper analyzes (1) how and to what extent deliberation is introduced and employed as an instrumental tool by the local government to achieve their goal of maintaining social stability. (2) In what ways and to what extent deliberation has served as part of governance strategies. And (3) whether and how the state and non-state actors interact with each other during this process to produce more democratic governance under the Party-state's authoritarian rule. This paper adopts a systemic approach to examine authoritarian deliberation as a neighborhood governance strategy. The findings suggest that (1) deliberation has become an instrumental tool for conflict resolution introduced by the local government to middle-class neighborhoods. Residents' Committees, on behalf of the state, has become key coordinator and mediator during the deliberation process. (2) The systemic approach of authoritarian deliberation includes a mix of deliberative elements and other features of political culture, traditions, strategies, and institutions. The dynamic interactions between deliberation and authoritarianism, between deliberative and non-deliberative features, and between formal deliberative meetings and informal deliberative talks all contribute to a functional deliberative system.

The digitalization and platformization of pop music (e.g. Tencent Music Entertainment and Netease Cloud Music in China or Spotify) and gentrification of urban space, not to mention political control, have threatened the survival of independent music in global cities. This paper aims to illustrate how musicians attempt to create music space and continue to incubate new bands and sustain a performance economy in order to perpetuate local creativity and music cultures. We argue that all these efforts are owing to the rise of cultural entrepreneurs in China who attempt to strategize to create a music market and withstand political pressure from the authorities.

The potential for citizens to reclaim and reappropriate the physical spaces of their city has garnered a great deal of attention over the past year or so. The Occupy movement, "Arab Spring," and various social protest movements around the world have all reinvigorated debates over the political importance of public space. These movements posit an alternate historical trajectory to the one depicted by urban theorists and sociologists over the past half-century, who lament the steady "decline" of public space. One of the most vocal critics of the detrimental effects of contemporary urban planning for the sanctity of public space and urban life is the New York–based architect, academic, and architectural critic Michael Sorkin. Sorkin is currently Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate Urban Design Program at the City College of New York. He is the author of several books and hundreds of articles on buildings, cities, and urban planning and design. In this interview, Sorkin weighs into these debates over the political and social importance of public space in cities and the challenges to disempowerment and disenfranchisement in urban environments. He discusses his early influences, the ongoing importance of Jane Jacobs to urban planning, sustainable living and "the possibility of New York becoming completely self-sufficient within its political boundaries"; as well as his views on the Occupy movement and post-9/11 surveillance and paranoia.

บทคัดย่อการวิจัยเรื่อง "ความเป็นประชาธิปไตยของนิสิตนักศึกษามหาวิทยาลัยมหาสารคามและมหาวิทยาลัยราชภัฏมหาสารคาม" มีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อศึกษาความเป็นประชาธิปไตยของนิสิตนักศึกษาผ่านตัวแบบและดัชนีชี้วัดในด้านกระบวนการเลือกตั้งและพหุนิยม หน้าที่ของรัฐบาล การมีส่วนร่วมทางการเมือง วัฒนธรรมทางการเมืองแบบประชาธิปไตย และเสรีภาพพลเมือง เพื่อเปรียบเทียบความเป็นประชาธิปไตยที่เกิดขึ้นภายในมหาวิทยาลัยมหาสารคามและมหาวิทยาลัยราชภัฏมหาสารคาม และเพื่อเสนอแนะแนวทางในการพัฒนาความเป็นประชาธิปไตย ซึ่งผลการศึกษาพบว่า ประชาธิปไตยของนิสิต นักศึกษา คือเสรีภาพและอุดมการณ์ที่มีความเท่าเทียมกันของนักศึกษามหาวิทยาลัยมหาสารคามและมหาวิทยาลัยราชภัฏมหาสารคามในการแสดงออกทุกๆด้าน เช่น การใช้สิทธิเลือกตั้ง การวิพากษ์วิจารณ์ การเดินรณรงค์ และการแสดงออกในรูปแบบอื่นๆ เป็นต้นในเรื่องของการเมืองภายในรั้วมหาวิทยาลัยที่มีความสอดคล้องกันและสามารถปฏิบัติรวมกันได้ โดยไม่เกิดข้อโต้แย้งหรือเกิดปัญหาของความไม่สงบได้ อย่างไรก็ตามนิสิตนักศึกษาบางกลุ่มตัวอย่างต้องการให้มีเสรีภาพในการแสดงออกทางความเห็น การพูด การเขียน และการพิมพ์ที่ชัดเจนเพื่อสื่อความหมายของความเป็นประชาธิปไตยของนิสิตนักศึกษาภายในมหาวิทยาลัย ความสำคัญ : นักศึกษา, ประชาธิปไตยของนักศึกษา, การเมืองของนักศึกษาABSTRACTThe purposes of the research were to study the democratization of Mahasarakham University students and Rajabhat 1)MahaSarakham University students through the democratic model and indicators of election process and pluralism, roles of the government, political participation, political culture of democracy and freedom of people, 2) to compare the democratization in Mahasarakham University and Rajabhat MahaSarakham University, and 3) to find useful suggestions for improving the democratization in both Universities. The research findings showed that the democracy of Mahasarakham University students and Rajabhat MahaSarakham university students was indicated by their freedom and ideology of voting rights, criticism, campaign, and political expressions. The political issues in Mahasarakham University were consistent with the issues in Rajabhat MahaSarakham University, and the political issues were carried out in both universities peacefully. However, some students of both universities needs of full democratic freedoms in expressing opinions on writing, speaking and printing political issues.

"The 'heute show' (broadcast on ZDF, a public-service television broadcaster) is a satirical news show that has gained great attention within the political public sphere of Germany over the last couple of years. The show reaches a broad public and especially appeals to a younger audience. It has successfully established a new kind of discourse in German political culture. This article focuses on the show's characteristics, lying between the genres of comedy and political satire. On the one hand the studio interviews offer politicians a stage for presenting themselves as sympathetic, self-ironical and popular individuals. On the other hand, the main strategy of the show is to criticize political actors for individual weaknesses while political issues and discussions receive less attention. There is some empirical evidence that watching the 'heute show' may be responsible for developing a negative attitude concerning politicians. But there is no evidence that the show's impact accounts for a general disenchantment with politics. Instead, it can improve political interest especially with the younger people." (author's abstract)

Статья посвящена анализу паттерна государственности в политической культуре имперской России конца XVIII – начала XIX в. Проведена своеобразная разметка политического пространства, позволившая его структурировать и выявить особенности, контуры и пределы политической модернизации. Предпринята попытка отойти от стереотипных, традиционных исследовательских подходов к изучению политической сферы, предложена многовекторная система координат, на которую спроецированы разные аспекты политической системы. Это позволило выявить в политическом процессе различные смысловые оттенки, разнообразные, разновекторные тенденции развития изучаемого объекта. ; The article is devoted to the analysis of statehood pattern in the political culture of imperial Russia of the end of the XVIII th – the beginning of the XIX th century. Original marking-out of political space is conducted that allowed structuring it and revealing the peculiarities, contours and limits of political modernization. Attempt is undertaken to keep away from stereotype, traditional research approaches to political sphere studying, multi-vectorial coordinate system is suggested, on which different aspects of political system are projected. It allowed revealing different sense nuances in political process, various, different-vector tendencies of the studied object development.

The advent of civil society in the Arab world, the proliferation of nongovernmental advocacy organizations, and the expansion of civil society activism have been heralded as promising developments with significant implications on the region's immutable political environment. While noting the vibrancy of civil society, Zayani's article questions its ability to affect the existing political culture of the region. It argues that the proclivity of civil society activism and associational life to generate political change in the Middle East and North Africa is limited. This is so not so much because the Middle East does not have a strong tradition for supporting civil society or because the concept of civil society is anathema to the region, but because the development of an effective civil society is contingent on a set of political realities, social dispositions, and economic conditions that are missing in the Arab world. In spite of the increasing popularity of civil society activism founded on religious beliefs and the West's vigorous promotion of associational life as a policy tool to induce political change, the social, political, and legal conditions for a potentially consequential civil society are not fully developed.

Does Islam as a system of beliefs or as a political force have something positive to contribute to the hoped-for democratisation of Indonesia, or will it largely be an impediment and a threat to the emergence of an open society? Many participants in the political process have strong opinions on these questions. There are those who argue — and not without some justification — that reformist political Islam represents the only significant alternative to the patrimonial, authoritarian and corrupt political culture pervading almost all parties and thereby is the country's only hope for democracy. Others — and these include many committed Muslims besides secular nationalists and non-Muslims — fear that the Muslim ambition of turning Indonesia into an Islamic state is perhaps the most serious threat the country is presently facing, the more so since radical Muslim groups appear to be courted by powergreedy military and civilian elite factions. There is a widespread and understandable fear of resurgent political Islam — but this resurgent political Islam is itself in large measure a response to another perceived threat, the fear that Islam's very presence in Indonesia is being threatened.