Measuring Party System Change: A Systems Perspective

The term ‘party system’, explained Giovanni Sartori, refers to the pattern of interactions among relevant parties. That pattern can be represented as a type and treated as a proper unit of analysis. When ‘party system’ is defined in this way, it becomes clear that the scholarship lacks a direct measure of ‘party system change’. The Sartori approach to party system change is not the only legitimate way to understand this concept, but it does target an undoubtedly important feature of political systems – namely the stability of interactions among relevant parties. This article develops a new indicator, the index of fluidity, which measures the extent of such stability. Applying the index to Africa, we show that there is significant cross-national variation in fluidity and weak correlation between fluidity and (Pedersen) volatility.

Conducting Sentiment Analysis and Post-Sentiment Data Exploration through Automated Means

One new feature in NVivo 11 Plus, a qualitative and mixed methods research suite, is its sentiment analysis tool; this enables the autocoding of unlabeled and unstructured text corpora against a built-in sentiment dictionary. The software labels selected texts into four categories: (1) very negative, (2) moderately negative, (3) moderately positive, and (4) very positive. After the initial coding for sentiment, there are many ways to augment that initial coding, including theme and subtheme extraction, word frequency counts, text searches, sociogram mapping, geolocational mapping, data visualizations, and others. This chapter provides a light overview of how the sentiment analysis feature in NVivo 11 Plus works, proposes some insights about the proper unit of analysis for sentiment analyses (sentence, paragraph, or cell) based on text dataset features, and identifies ways to further explore the textual data post-sentiment analysis—to create coherence and insight.

Study on the Ductility of T-Shaped Short-Limb Shear Walls (I)

In this paper, the author takes on the experiment of low cyclic load and analyzes the tenacity and ductility characteristic of the specimen, and simulates the elastic-plastic failure modes of T-shaped short-limb shear walls by using the finite element software ABAQUS and applying the damage plasticity model to select the proper unit type. Results indicate that the mechanical behavior of T-shaped short-limb shear walls under the condition of horizontal load force may be accurately simulated by the method proposed in this paper.

Dialogism and the psyche: Bakhtin and contemporary psychology

The authors argue that dialogical philosophy, and particularly the work of the Bakhtin circle, offers psychology a way to conceptualize and study human experience such that the notion of psyche is preserved and enriched. The authors first introduce the work of the Bakhtin circle and then briefly outline some of the most influential theories of self and psyche. The implications of dialogism for theories of the self are then discussed, focusing on six basic principles of dialogical thought – namely, the principles of relationality, dynamism, semiotic mediation, alterity, dialogicality, and contextuality. Together, these principles imply a notion of psyche that is neither an isolated homunculus nor a disembodied discourse, but is, rather, a temporally unique, agentive enactment that is sustained within, rather than against, the tensions between individual and social, material and psychological, multiple and unified, stable and dynamic. The authors also discuss what this dialogical conception of psyche implies for research, arguing first that dynamic relations, rather than static entities, are the proper unit of psychological study and, second, that a dialogical research epistemology must conceive of truth as a multi-voiced event, rather than as a singular representation of fact. Finally, the authors introduce this special issue and outline the other contributions.

Cyclical theories of social change: Spengler and Toynbee

This paper is centrally concerned with discussing critically and rethinking the theoretical concepts put forward by Oswald Spengler in Decline of the West and Arnold Toynbee in A Study of History. It focuses on the theoretical, heuristic and epistemological value of these theories in the era of renaissance of philosophic history in some quarters (see for example Graham, 2002) and cooperation between social sciences. Spengler is credited with the idea of historical cycles, rethinking of the progressivist view and discovering a radically different approach to the study of the human past, which is embodied in his idea of culture as the proper unit for historical and sociological study. However, some of his views proved to be intrinsically intellectually dubious, but on the whole, his was a major contribution to the study of social change. Arnold Toynbee on the other hand was more empirically and sociologically oriented, while Spengler?s views are more heavily philosophical. Toynbee partly developed his ideas rather consistently, but at the same time included many unclear and inaccurate points in his theory. Both authors can be rightfully considered to be classical authors in this field and both provided incentive for studies that cross-cut social sciences (philosophy, history, sociology). Moreover, Decline of the West and A Study of History are truly post-disciplinary works.

The Greek War of Independence from the Perspective of Historical Sociology

<p>This is an attempt to place the Greek War of Independence in the wider context of the clash between Tradition and Modernity in the European periphery. It focuses on the ideology and the movement of nationalism - a phenomenon springing up in modernity and bringing forward the concept of the nation as the proper unit of state organisation. Being the undisputed offspring of nationalism (which is viewed here as both the product and the vehicle of modernisation), the Greek War of Independence is discussed not solely in its political dimensions but also in terms of its contribution to a much broader societal change. It is in this sense that the Greek struggle for independence may be interpreted as the specifically "Greek exit" from tradition - as an undoubtedly unique event of momentous importance per se, yet, on the other hand, as one more instance in a prolonged and very intricate process of societal transformations.</p>