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In the recent past, social media has become a central channel and means for political and societal mobilization. Mobilization refers to the process by which political parties, politicians, social movements, activists, and other political and social actors induce citizens to participate in politics in order to win elections, convince others of their own positions, influence policies, and modify rulings. While not sufficient on its own for facilitating participation, mobilization is necessary for participation to occur, which justifies examining mobilization specifically to understand how people can be involved in politics. This thematic issue of Media and Communication presents various perspectives on the role of social media in mobilization, embracing both its recruitment side (traditional and non-established political actors, social and protest movements) and its network side (the ways citizens respond to mobilization appeals). Taken together, the thematic issue highlights the multifaceted nature and scholarly fruitfulness of mobilization as an independent concept.

A review essay on a book by Ulf Hannerz, Cultural Complexity: Studies in the Social Organization of Meaning (NY: U of Columbia Press, 1992 [see listing in IRPS No. 81]). Hannerz adopts a cultural anthropological view of postmodern times in attempting to explain why so many individuals have difficulty in making sense of the contemporary world. This difficulty stems from the time-space compression of postmodernism. Greater & more intense contact between different cultures & perspectives has resulted in cultural complexity of contemporary societies both at the core & at the periphery. This phenomenon is illustrated through discussion of three cities of cultural complexity: Vienna, Austria; Calcutta, India, during the Bengal Renaissance; & San Francisco, CA, of the late 1950s. In response to the postmodern shift to greater cultural complexity, anthropologists must shift their focus from the replication of uniformity to the organization of diversity. 1 Reference. D. Generoli

Attempts to respond to "democratic deficits" in modern constitutional republics must contend with the broad scholarly trend of electoral skepticism. While generally casting doubt on periodic competitive elections' suitability as vehicles of accountability, electoral skepticism does not necessarily entail an absolute devaluation of elections. Some normative and empirical research responds to this trend by refocusing attention on values other than popular power, such as civil peace, which might be served by periodic competitive elections. Another response short of abandoning the value of popular power, however, is to draw out possibilities for institutional design from the restricted conditions under which previous study has found electoral accountability to be plausible or likely. This second task requires an empirically informed exercise in political theory. Pursuing it in a programmatic and policy-relevant way requires descending from the grand, systemic level of constitutional structures and electoral formulae to intermediate (or middle-range) institutional conditions of accountability, such as rules about parties, campaigns, and election administration. My analysis reinterprets principal-agent models to develop four general types of crucial condition for electoral accountability, and then ramifies this scheme by reference to recent empirical research. The result is a "top ten" list of specific institutional factors that could be theoretically decisive in helping or hindering electoral accountability. These ten conditions could guide future research designs and reform proposals alike.

Im April 2015 verabschiedete das ukrainische Parlament vier Gesetze zum Umgang mit dem kommunistischen Erbe. Denkmäler werden entfernt, Straßen und Orte umbenannt, die Archive der sowjetischen Sicherheitsorgane geöffnet. Die Erinnerung soll europäisiert werden. Dem widerspricht allerdings ein unkritischer Umgang mit der ukrainischen Nationalbewegung, insbesondere mit der OUN/UPA, die im Zweiten Weltkrieg teilweise mit den Nationalsozialisten kollaboriert und Massaker an der polnischen Bevölkerung verübt hat. Unklar ist, ob die staatliche Geschichtspolitik die offene Auseinandersetzung der Gesellschaft mit den Wegen und Irrwegen, Brüchen und Widersprüchen der Geschichte nur ergänzt und widerspiegelt oder ob sie sie verdrängen soll. (Osteuropa (Berlin) / SWP)

The relation between journalists and politicians in liberal democracies is traditionally conceptualized as highly institutionalized, based on mutual dependence, and grounded in a shared culture of jointly respected role relations. While this conceptualization provides a fruitful framework to understand the relation between mainstream journalists and politicians, it falls short in explaining the way outsider politicians such as Beppe Grillo, Donald Trump, Thierry Baudet, or Nigel Farage address the mainstream media. Thus, this article rethinks the relation between journalists and politicians in the light of the Western political-media environment in the 2010s, where the rise of authoritarian populism, the fragmentation of media audiences, and the fading boundaries around the journalistic profession have substantially changed media–politics relations. This article aims to make a theoretical contribution by conceptualizing the relation between outsider politicians and mainstream journalists as an ongoing negotiation over legitimacy. Central in this conceptualization is a classification of five strategies which outsider politicians use to delegitimize mainstream journalists: attacking their character, connecting them with other institutions which are seen as illegitimate, attacking their ethical standards, challenging the claim that journalists work in the public interest, and questioning the beneficial consequences of their work. The consequences of these delegitimation strategies are discussed.

Populist attitudes are generally measured in surveys through three necessary and non-compensatory elements of populism, namely anti-elitism, people-centrism, and Manicheanism. Using Comparative Study of Electoral Systems Module 5 (2016-2020) data for 30 countries, we evaluate whether this approach explains voting for populist parties across countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas. We show that the existing scales of populist attitudes effectively explain voting for populists in countries where populist leaders and parties are in opposition but fail to explain voting for populist parties in countries where they are in power. We argue that current approaches assume "the elite" to mean "politicians", thus failing to capture attitudes towards "non-political elites" often targeted by populists in office - in particular, journalists, academics/experts, bureaucrats, and corporate business leaders. The results reveal limits to the usefulness of existing survey batteries in cross-national studies of populism and emphasize the need to develop approaches that are more generalizable across political and national contexts.

This presentation is a review of the roles of Nigerian academics in relation to national integration. At the background is the perception of the troubling times in Nigeria occasioned by socio-economic and political turmoil. It is thus premise that, academics in higher institutions of learning have been an integral part of nation integration drives and attempts in Africa and Nigeria in particular. However, it is noted with greater concern such the momentous of the academics to critically participate in the drive for national integration especially in this crucial time of Nigeria's national development have been subdued by serious political and administrative mismanagements in the nations and the contagious effectives such have on the ivory towers. This ugly development has depleted the quality and quantity of the academics, often reducing its impact to campuses. Secondary data were used to described and justify this revelations. The presentation holds that the academics world over and in Nigeria with significance motivation and improved and robust working environment remains the government best bet to institutionalizing and sustaining national integration.

This article proposes a set of arguments about the strategic use of cabinet appointments by executives in presidential systems. Although recent work has greatly improved our understanding of government formation in presidential countries, most changes to presidential cabinets happen throughout the lifetime of a government and remain poorly understood. I argue that presidents use cabinet changes in response to unexpected shocks and to adjust their governments to changing political and policy circumstances. Weak presidents are more likely to use this strategic resource, which means that ministerial turnover should be higher when a president's formal authority is weak and he or she has low political support and popularity. To test these claims, I have assembled an original dataset that records individual cabinet changes in 12 Latin American countries between 1982 and 2012. The data provides strong support for the theory. (GIGA)

In early 2011, widespread protests ousted dictatorial regimes in both Tunisia and Egypt. Within a few years, Tunisia successfully held parliamentary and presidential elections and witnessed a peaceful transition of power, while the Egyptian military went on to seize power and institute authoritarian control. What explains the success and failure of transitions to democracy in these two countries, and how might they speak to democratic transition attempts in other Muslim-majority countries?Democratic Transition in the Muslim World convenes leading scholars to consider the implications of democratic success in Tunisia and failure in Egypt in comparative perspective. Alongside case studies of Indonesia, Senegal, and India, contributors analyze similarities and differences among democratizing countries with large Muslim populations, considering universal challenges as well as each nation's particular obstacles. A central theme is the need to understand the conditions under which it becomes possible to craft pro-democratic coalitions among secularists and Islamists. Essays discuss the dynamics of secularist fears of Islamist electoral success, the role of secular constituencies in authoritarian regimes' resilience, and the prospects for moderation among both secularist and Islamist political actors. They delve into topics such as the role of the army and foreign military aid, Middle Eastern constitutions, and the role of the Muslim Brotherhood. The book also includes an essay by the founder and president of Tunisia's Ennadha Party, Rachid Ghannouchi, who discusses the political strategies his party chose to pursue.

Analyzes the historical accuracy & predictions of Max Weber's The Russian Revolutions (1995 [1906]) in the context of current scholarship & debates. Weber's account of Russian society pits a despotic & insensitive czarist state against a budding capitalist liberalism. It has been criticized by recent Western historiography for its overreliance on liberal Russian publications & contacts in 1905/06. These sources led him to attribute too much power to the Russian bureaucracy, to overlook important developments in the budding public sphere (eg, the rise of volunteer associations), & more generally to a premature pessimism concerning the possibility of middle-class leadership in Russia's transition to a liberal constitutional democracy. However, it is maintained that Weber's analyses might still be useful in evaluating the prospects for democratic government in post-Soviet Russia, especially in his emphasis on the indispensability of the state bureaucracy's support for constitutional democratic reform. D. M. Smith