scholarly journals An ethnopolitical conflict in Russia's Republic of Mari El in the 2000s: The study of ethnic politics under the authoritarian turn

2019 ◽  
Vol 2016 (63) ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantin Zamyatin
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Management ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Ethnic Politics ◽  
Diversity Management ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Opposition ◽  
Ethnopolitical Conflict ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Republic

The paper presents an analysis of the political confrontation between the new ruling group and the political opposition in the Republic of Mari El, which began in the early 2000s and subsequently erupted into an open ethnopolitical conflict. Based on some theoretical perspectives on conflict and diversity management, the paper analyzes the structural characteristics and the dynamics of the conflict in Mari El. The analysis reveals that authoritarian tendencies in the republic largely contributed to the eruption of the conflict and predetermined the choice of methods of conflict management.

scholarly journals Minority political participation under majority domination: a case study of Russia’s Republic of Mari El

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (95) ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantin Zamyatin
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Ethnic Politics ◽  
Diversity Management ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Post Soviet Period

The paper will study ethnic politics in the Republic of Mari El throughout the post-Soviet period in order to explore the phenomenon of ethnic political participation in the republics of Russia. The paper will start with examining the patterns of ethnic political participation in regions in their connection to methods of diversity management. Next, the paper will present a case study on ethnic aspects of politics in the Republic of Mari El with a focus on party politics and personalized politics. Finally, the paper will analyse the developments that contributed to the establishment of the system of ethnic domination and backed some ethnic political participation in this republic. 

scholarly journals ‘The new but lonely voice against the authoritarianism’: humor and irony in Turkish political discourse after the Taksim Gezi Park Protests

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Gunes Ekin Aksan
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Ethnic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Political Opposition ◽  
Major Party ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Square ◽  
Turkish Politics

This study investigates the diffusion of a new political language based on humour and irony into Turkish politics. The Taksim Gezi Park Protests, in addition to introducing a new subject to Turkish politics, led to a new language that places humour at the centre. The Government’s neoliberal and authoritarian policies and tight control over traditional media shaped the resistance to be humoristic and indirect. People used alternative media to voice their dissent, mainly in the form of social media messages in addition to street performances, graffiti, videos and murals. This new wave of humour, which I prefer to call the “public square humour” emphasised creativity, improvisation and pluralism via the usage of traditional conversational humour mechanisms of the Turkish folk narratives. I investigate the effect of this new wave of humour on the professional politicians over the course of following years after the protests in an increasingly authoritarian political climate. I analyse the Twitter messages of four major party leaders and politicians who are active in Twitter, both qualitatively and quantitatively. With the methods of the discourse analysis I identify the political parties that embrace the new language of the political opposition. Finally, I conclude that Demirtas embraces the public square humour better and makes use of it to underline the transformation of HDP (People’s Democratic Party) from a defendant of ethnic politics to the representative of the new voice of Turkish political opposition.

Reconsideration of the Research Trajectory on the Carceral State

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-207
Author(s):  
Juliette Barbera
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Carceral State ◽  
Research Framework ◽  
Research Production ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
And Control

For decades, both incarceration and research on the topic have proliferated. Disciplines within the Western sciences have studied the topic of incarceration through their respective lenses. Decades of data reflect trends and consequences of the carceral state, and based on that data the various disciplines have put forth arguments as to how the trends and consequences are of relevance to their respective fields of study. The research trajectory of incarceration research, however, overlooks the assumptions behind punishment and control and their institutionalization that produce and maintain the carceral state and its study. This omission of assumptions facilitates a focus on outcomes that serve to reinforce Western perspectives, and it contributes to the overall stagnation in the incarceration research produced in Western disciplines. An assessment of the study of the carceral state within the mainstream of American Political Development in the political science discipline provides an example of how the research framework contributes to the overall stagnation, even though the framework of the subfield allows for an historical institutionalization perspective. The theoretical perspectives of Cedric J. Robinson reveal the limits of Western lenses to critically assess the state. The alternative framework he provides to challenge the limits imposed on research production by Western perspectives applies to the argument presented here concerning the limitations that hamper the study of the carceral state.

Land Reform in Zimbabwe: a Balance of Political Expediency and Economic Inevitability?

2020 ◽  
pp. 14-29
Author(s):  
Lyubov Prokopenko
Keyword(s):  
Land Reform ◽  
Union Leader ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
African Region ◽  
Political Aspect ◽  
National Union ◽  
Reform Program ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government

The article considers the political aspect of land reform in the Republic of Zimbabwe. The problem of land reform has been one of the crucial ones in the history of this African country, which celebrated 40 years of independence on April 18, 2020. In recent decades, it has been constantly in the spotlight of political and electoral processes. The land issue was one of the key points of the political program from the very beginning of Robert Mugabe’s reign in 1980. The political aspect of land reform began to manifest itself clearly with the growth of the opposition movement in the late 1990s. In 2000–2002 the country implemented the Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP), the essence of which was the compulsory acquisition of land from white owners without compensation. The expropriation of white farmers’ lands in the 2000s led to a serious reconfiguration of land ownership, which helped to maintain in power the ruling party, the African National Union of Zimbabwe – Patriotic Front (ZANU – PF). The government was carrying out its land reform in the context of a sharp confrontation with the opposition, especially with the Party for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by trade union leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The land issue was on the agenda of all the election campaigns (including the elections in July 2018); this fact denotes its politicization, hence the timeliness of this article. The economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe in the 2000–2010s was the most noticeable phenomenon in the South African region. The analysis of foreign and domestic sources allows us to conclude that the accelerated land reform served as one of its main triggers. The practical steps of the new Zimbabwean president, Mr. Emmerson Mnangagwa, indicate that he is aware of the importance of resolving land reform-related issues for further economic recovery. At the beginning of March 2020, the government adopted new regulations defining the conditions for compensation to farmers. On April 18, 2020, speaking on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the independence of Zimbabwe, Mr. E. Mnangagwa stated that the land reform program remains the cornerstone of the country’s independence and sovereignty.

DEMOCRACY AT THE SERVICE OF FOREIGN POLICY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. FREDDIE
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Foreign Policy Change ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Apartheid Regime

The article examines the place and role of democracy and human rights in South Africas foreign policy. The author analyzes the process of South Africas foreign policy change after the fall of the apartheid regime and transition to democracy. He gives characteristics of the foreign policy under different presidents of South Africa from 1994 to 2018 and analyzes the political activities of South Africa in the area of peacekeeping and human rights on the African continent.

Reading Politics with Machiavelli

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald J. Schmidt, Jr
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Family Farm ◽  
Louis Althusser ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
White Nationalism ◽  
The Republic

Reading Politics with Machiavelli is an anachronistic reading of certain key concepts in Machiavelli’s The Prince and The Discourses (as well as some of his correspondence). In 1513, soon after the Medici returned to power in Florence, Machiavelli lost his position as First Secretary to the Republic, and he was exiled. On his family farm, he began a self-consciously anachronistic reading of great political figures of antiquity, and, in combination with his own experience as a diplomat, crafted a unique perspective on the political crises of his time. At our own moment of democratic crisis, as the democratic imagination, as well as democratic habits and institutions face multiple attacks from neoliberalism, white nationalism, and authoritarianism, I argue that a similar method, in which we read Machiavelli’s work as he read Livy’s and Plutarch’s, can help us see the contingency, and the increasingly forgotten radical potential, of our politics. Louis Althusser argued that Machiavelli functions for us as an uncanny authority, one whose apparent familiarity is dispelled as we examine his epistolary yet opaque account of history, politics, and authority. This makes his readings a potentially rich resource for a time of democratic crisis. With that challenge in mind, we will examine the problems of conspiracy, prophecy, torture, and exile and use a close reading of Machiavelli’s work to make out new perspectives on the politics of our time.

Pax and the Politics of Peace

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Cornwell
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Roman Imperialism ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
Pax Romana ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Insight Into

This book examines the two generations that spanned the collapse of the Republic and the Augustan period to understand how the concept of pax Romana, as a central ideology of Roman imperialism, evolved. The author argues for the integral nature of pax in understanding the changing dynamics of the Roman state through civil war to the creation of a new political system and world-rule. The period of the late Republic to the early Principate involved changes in the notion of imperialism. This is the story of how peace acquired a central role within imperial discourse over the course of the collapse of the Republican framework to become deployed in the legitimization of the Augustan regime. It is an examination of the movement from the debates over the content of the concept, in the dying Republic, to the creation of an authorized version controlled by the princeps, through an examination of a series of conceptions about peace, culminating with the pax augusta as the first crystallization of an imperial concept of peace. Just as there existed not one but a series of ideas concerning Roman imperialism, so too were there numerous different meanings, applications, and contexts within which Romans talked about ‘peace’. Examining these different nuances allows us insight into the ways they understood power dynamics, and how these were contingent on the political structures of the day. Roman discourses on peace were part of the wider discussion on the way in which Rome conceptualized her Empire and ideas of imperialism.

Materialities of Political Commitment?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Fearn
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Lyric Poetry ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives

Eschewing historicist certainties, this chapter reassesses the political salience of Alcaeus’ lyric poetry by investigating his literary contribution to sympotic culture. Placing Alcaeus’ politically engaged voices within recent theoretical perspectives on deixis, ecphrasis, and the distinctiveness of lyric as a literary mode, the chapter argues that Alcaeus makes a systematic issue of the question of the accessibility of the contexts gestured towards, and in so doing opens up as an alluring prospect the idea of political engagement through literature. The literary and cultural significance of proverbial statements in Alcaeus is also discussed. Alcaeus’ lyric claims are felt across time and space via their special foregrounding of both material culture and political engagement, through performance and reception.

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