Suchergebnisse

Stratagems adopted by democratic leaders to try to insinuate, or anchor, a preferred course of action into the larger collective will have a variety of repercussions. Beyond the apparent success of the venture itself, the long-term integrity of the democratic fabric may be at stake if simmering rancour and discontent is left unheeded. These questions would seem particularly pertinent when studying the national side of the evolution of the European Union. The periodic shunting of competencies to European institutions is highly complex, so much so that popular legitimacy for the momentous changes is in effect something of an ephemeral commodity. The referendum, with its unique potential to determine the prevailing vox populi, has from time to time been employed to offset these problems, and lend continued credence to the relinquishment of sovereign power. The political entities that will be the powerhouses in this contest for the hearts and minds of the public are, inevitably, national political parties. They, too, are likely to pay whatever political price will be exacted as a consequence of this unusual form of battle – including the exposition and potential widening of internal rifts. Noticing a dearth of investigative tools that can help us unravel these processes, the author develops a structured framework of analysis specifically designed to "parse" strategic or tactical action, with the aim to gauge likely party-democratic fallout. She makes a first-level distinction between "convincing" strategies (basically conceptualised as compatible with deli¬berative-democratic tenets), and "persuading" strategies (closely associated with a subset of negotiation theory principles focusing on strategic action). While both strategies may lead to the desired short-term outcome – where leadership preferences are duly propagated – a convince/persuade analysis is shown to yield improved understanding of the concomitant, longer-term effects. The author studies the Swedish Social Democratic Party's internal handling of the debates leading up to two pivotal referenda – the EU membership referendum of 1994, and the EMU referendum of 2003. Reviewing a wealth of secondary sources and conducting more than 40 interviews with high-level party officials and other centrally positioned actors (representing both sides of the two issue divides), she is provided with a unique material, which is parsed through the framework (which at this point also proves to be a sound analytical instrument). The study is primarily qualitative in nature, but an entire chapter is devoted to a complementing quantitative analysis where an existing Discourse Quality Index (DQI) is used to determine the level of deliberation prevalent in four party congresses (two preceding the EU referendum; two preceding the EMU referendum). One "convince" sub-dimension, respect, proved to be the one most easily affected by external events, not to mention deadline imposed by the referendum. The qualitative analysis revealed a generally higher level of justification (another "convince" sub-dimension) in the EMU case than in the EU case, and the reverse was true for the respect dimension. In both instances, the party leadership acted to pacify [persuade] the debate, notably by prohibiting government ministers from being active in the respective no-campaigns. A preliminary hypothesis that "deliberative space" shrinks as the final deadline looms was in part corroborated, as turned out to be valid for the respect dimension.

The thesis of this article is that logic/science does not exclude but requires knowledge of rhetoric. Rhetoric is not merely a technique for persuasion but, more importantly, a science of how we structure our knowledge through language. Logic & science are nothing but instruments that natural language constructs to handle observable factual circumstances, something that became possible with the invention of the alphabet & written language. A positivistic, reductive science is suitable only by research on given facts. Alongside the knowledge of facts, we must also handle the knowledge of action, which is impossible to do only with the positivistic methods of conventional social science. Drawing on his personal experiences of municipal politics & communal planning the author suggests that rhetorical conceptions & methods of research can play a big role in community planning research & in sciences of man, which necessarily brings facts & actions together. The article refers to a rhetorical based theory called 'human-scientific theory of action.' While science helps us to know (knowledge of causes), rhetoric helps us to understand (knowledge of intentions & meanings). 40 References. Adapted from the source document.

Al analizar la historia de Estados Unidos, se puede observar una tendencia a instaurar hegemonías consistentes en el uso de la persuasión o la influencia económica y cultural más que en la fuerza bruta, dinámica que repercutió directamente en sus relaciones con Hispanoamérica y el mundo. Para definir la hegemonía se analizaron autores como Antonio Gramsci, Alfonso Klauer, Carlos Pérez Morales e Immanuel Wallerstein, en un intento de explicar la forma en que se articularon las teorías políticas y económicas estadounidenses del siglo XIX e inicios del XX. Cabría decir que dada la amplitud del tema, se hizo énfasis en lo sucedido entre la firma del Tratado de Versalles y el inicio de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Además, debido a los pocos trabajos que vinculan la política exterior estadounidense relacionando sus acciones en Europa y Latinoamérica, ambos temas se trataron por separado, aunque siguiendo como hilo conductor la tesis de que Estados Unidos vivió apenas un aislacionismo relativo muy reducido a sus relaciones con Europa. Por último, se enfatiza en las posibilidades de Latinoamérica para aprovechar el multilateralismo planteado por las instancias internacionales modernas, con las que puede defenderse de abusos, exigir participación y crear derroteros políticos propios.

How do governments cope with lurking crises that call for behavioral change among a wider citizenry? The global warming threat is a topical case in point. In this article, we explore the Swedish government response to the 1973 oil crisis, from which we draw lessons. In terms of policy instruments, Swedish policymakers deployed a twopronged, strategy. The government simultaneously initiated a package of quick/ soft as well as slow/hard instruments in the hope that the first package with information campaigns would be successful enough to make the second package with formal rationings redundant. The substantive goal was that the Swedes must save in homes, offices, and premises so that the large exporting industry should get the oil it needed to continue with full employment. The strategy worked. All pertinent actors, households as well as foreign oil concerns, heeded government persuasion efforts (sermons, a negotiated agreement) and took measures voluntarily. Why? One explanatory factor is the creative organization of the national crisis authorities. To a large extent, the strategy was implemented by organs stacked with a mixture of public agencies, private oil distributors and all kinds of organized non-governmental energy-use stakeholders to promote outreach, transversal co-creation, and collaborative governance. The government succeeded in its meaning-making efforts and created a strong narrative (sermon), which clearly pointed out the serious anticipated effects of the crisis in Sweden, according to which it became obvious that households and commerce needed to save energy in order to secure oil supply for industry to protect jobs and impede mass unemployment.

The thesis concentrates on Hofors and a local trade union environment between 1917 and 1946, where important parts of the trade union's power were held by parties to the left of the social democrats. The overall aim is to problemize and discuss the issue of what characterised and made possible this deviation from the usual picture of a trade union movement dominated by social democracy. What characterised the conditions in such a local trade union environment and to what extent can local norms and political culture be linked to the conditions and the development in the trade union movement in Hofors? The factors behind the radicalism in Hofors can be found in the local union and political context. The investigation points out the following main reasons: the left-wing local council of the Social Democratic Party and its successors' organisational lead, the local labour council's working method being close to what has been considered "social democratic", their representatives being highly trusted in the local community, and the growth of a local radical tradition. The political culture and the norms that gradually developed were based on a left-wing social democratic tradition. The local council of the Social Democratic Party that left the party in 1917 to join the left-wing social democratic faction was the same local council, despite their names and change of parties in the 1920s and 1930s. It became the local labour movement's bearer of traditions and represented the continuity in the local trade union environment, which contributed to the leftwing socialist project being long-lived in Hofors. The central aspects were the trade union work and the practical-concrete tradition that developed. Primarily through successful trade union work, the local labour council and its trade union representatives gained strong and long-term support from a large proportion of the local trade union movement's members and the population of Hofors. Against this background it may be stated that, even though it was often impossible for the parties to the left of social democracy to maintain a local trade union and political power position that was stronger than that of the social democrats for a lengthy period of time, it was not entirely impossible. It may also be stated that for the trade union member as such, a communist or socialist party affiliation was not a real obstacle in the election of shop stewards. Their focus was primarily put on the would-be representatives' personal qualities and ability to live up to the demands and expectations placed on them by the members, and not so much on their ideological persuasion.