Ecological and Political Landscapes

2021 ◽  
pp. 37-83
Keyword(s):  
Political Landscapes

Justifying Islamophobia

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Allen
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
European Level ◽  
Grassroots Politics ◽  
Monitoring Centre ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
New Development ◽  
The Media ◽  
Political Landscapes

Immediately prior to the events of 9/11, the United Nations (UN) officially recognized the proliferating climate of anti- Muslim and anti-Islamic prejudice, discrimination, and hatred –Islamophobia – as being as equally repellent and unwanted as anti-Semitism and other global discriminatory phenomena. The 9/11 tragedy, however, somewhat overshadowed this recognition, resulting in the continued proliferation of anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic sentiment and expression. This study explores how and why Islamophobia was manifested following 9/11, contextualizes how elite voices across British and European societies have considered Islamophobia to be fair and justified. In considering the wider findings of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia’s monitoring of Islamophobia, this study explores how “visual identifiers” have underpinned changes in attitude and reactions to Muslims across the fifteen European Union (EU) member nations at a largely pan-European level. The second section develops these ideas, analyzing three of the report’s primary themes – Muslim visuality, political landscapes (incorporating institutional political elites as well as grassroots politics), and the media – each one approached from the perspective of the United Kingdom. This study concludes by suggesting that 9/11 has made Islamophobia more acceptable, which has enabled its expressions, inferences, and manifestations to locate a newer and possibly more prevalent societal resonance and acceptability. Ultimately, this new development goes some way to justifying Islamophobia and negating the UN’s recognition of this problem.

scholarly journals Shadow Committees: On “Drug User Voice,” Representation, and Mobilization in a Norwegian Drug Policy Reform

2021 ◽  
pp. 009145092110037
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Bartoszko
Keyword(s):  
Drug User ◽  
Drug Policy ◽  
Drug Users ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Illegal Drug Use ◽  
Conservative Policy ◽  
Political Landscapes ◽  
Alternative Organization ◽  
Drug Policy Reform

Until recently, Norway remained immovable on its conservative policy that illegal drug use is a crime. In 2018, the Health Minister appointed an inquiry commission to design a less restrictive drug policy, which included two “drug user representatives.” But the Minister’s choices for these posts met massive dissatisfaction from some drug users who contended that the representatives “are not real drug users” and do not “speak for” nor “act on the behalf” of their experiences and opinions. They mobilized to establish an alternative organization, the Shadow Committee, to propose a drug policy reform shaped by “the user voices” and “not polluted by political compromises.” Yet, while performing a labor of difference, this committee, too, became caught in conflicting landscapes of representation with some members contesting strategic solidarity. Based on this case, and an ethnographic fieldwork among the protesters, this article investigates the concept of representation as understood, contested and applied by “drug users.” Exploring how they relate to “user voices” and question the authenticity of some of “user representatives,” I highlight how changing political landscapes affect understandings of representation and shape political, individual and collective forms of involvement. I draw on Pitkin’s political philosophy and apply the classical categorization of political representation to suggest reconsidering the governing assumptions regarding “user representatives” that increasingly inform drug and treatment policies in Norway. I ask if the concept of representation itself may be a barrier to meaningful involvement.

Using Viewshed Analysis to Explore Settlement Choice: A Case Study of the Onondaga Iroquois

2006 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric E. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Information System ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Past Behavior ◽  
Viewshed Analysis ◽  
Settlement Location ◽  
Political Landscapes ◽  
And Control ◽  
Statistical Results ◽  
Critical Resources

A multitude of factors, ranging from environmental to ideological, determine where human settlements are placed on the landscape. In archaeological contexts, finding the reasons behind settlement choice can be very difficult and often requires the use of ethnographic analogies and/or modeling in a geographic information system (GIS). Archaeologists have used one particular GIS-based method, viewshed analysis, to examine site features such as defensibility and control over economic hinterlands. I use viewshed analysis in this case study to determine how the natural and political landscapes affected the settlement location choices of the Late Woodland and early Historic Onondaga Iroquois. Proximity to critical resources and defensibility both factored into the decision of where communities would place villages. Although this study shows that resources, such as productive soils, had a more significant effect on settlement choice, Iroquois communities were also taking measures to maintain the defensibility of their villages. This examination displays how GIS analyses in archaeology can go beyond the statistical results and help us understand past behavior.

The “laborless fuel”: Landscape, energy transitions and natural gas in the postwar U.S.

2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862098712
Author(s):  
Carlo Sica
Keyword(s):  
Natural Gas ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Business Owners ◽  
Energy Landscapes ◽  
Technological Systems ◽  
Energy Transitions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Landscapes

The dire need for an energy transition to mitigate and reverse global warming is inspiring scholars to reexamine political influences on technological systems. The multi-level perspective of the socio-technical transitions framework acknowledges how technological systems are affected by the social and political landscapes where they are built. Energy landscapes literatures elaborate on the socio-technical transitions framework by explaining how the boundaries of landscapes are negotiated in the context of energy transitions. Energy scholars have found that negotiations over the form and purpose of energy landscapes frequently skew in favor of capital accumulation instead of social reproduction. Studies of landscapes in human geography and labor history have shown how the power imbalance energy scholars observed can be corrected by workers and their communities struggling against business owners and the state. Using archival data, I show how U.S. natural gas legislation in the postwar period was intended to limit coalminers’ demands for landscapes of social reproduction. This point matters because the vulnerabilities of industrial capitalism to energy worker organization could be exploited to push for a just and sustainable energy transition like the Green New Deal.

scholarly journals The Political Asceticism of Mamata Banerjee: Female Populist Leadership in Contemporary India

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Proma Ray Chaudhury
Keyword(s):  
West Bengal ◽  
The State ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Political ◽  
Leadership Models ◽  
Interpretive Analysis ◽  
Semistructured Interviews ◽  
Political Landscapes ◽  
Religious Iconography

Abstract Operating within the androcentric premises that support idealized models of populist leadership, self-representations cultivated by female populist leaders often involve precarious balancing acts, compelling them to appropriate contextualized traditionalist discourses and modes of power to qualify for conventional leadership models. This article engages with the stylistic performance of populist leadership by Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress in the state of West Bengal, India, focusing on her adoption of the discursive mode of political asceticism, nativist rhetoric, and religious iconography. Through an interpretive analysis of selected party documents, autobiography, and semistructured interviews with Banerjee's followers and critics, the article delineates Banerjee's populist self-fashioning as a political ascetic and explores perceptions of her leadership. The article argues that while the self-makings of female populist leaders remain fraught and contested, they contribute substantially toward redrawing the boundaries of both conventional leadership models and the broader political landscapes they inhabit.

scholarly journals Across Regions: Are Most COVID-19 Deaths Above or Below Life Expectancy?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rondy Malik
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ◽  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Hospital Capacity ◽  
Percent Difference ◽  
Political Landscapes ◽  
Made In

Abstract Life expectancy varies across geographical and political landscapes for a multitude of reasons. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus responsible for the 2020 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and pandemic, is present in 215 countries, and is described as a pathogen that is most deadly to individuals 65 years and older. However, it is unclear if the majority of COVID-19-related deaths are targeting individuals above or below life expectancy. Through seven months of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, an association between life expectancy and COVID-19 related deaths were assessed. The reported age of those suffering from COVID-19-related death was evaluated across seven countries (United States, Germany, Hungary, Poland, South Africa, Sweden, and Switzerland), and placed into one of two categories depending on whether the death occurred above or below the country’s life expectancy. Among the seven countries included in this survey, it was observed that there was greater proportion of deaths above life expectancy (M = 65.35%, SD= 6.58) versus death below life expectancy (M = 34.65% , SD= 6.58), and these difference were significant (95%CI [18.51876, 42.88199], p = 0.0008349). Across countries, the disparity, or percent difference in deaths occurring above versus below life expectancy, was greatest in the countries with life expectancies of 80+ (Sweden, Switzerland, Germany). Given priorities that may need to be made in terms of hospital capacity, considering life expectancy may be an appropriate approach for reporting COVID-19-related deaths.

Global civil society and the test of Kyoto: A theoretical extension

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 179-211
Author(s):  
Emma Anderson ◽  
Marina Zaloznaya
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Global Civil Society ◽  
International Governance ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Civil Action ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Political Landscapes

What determines how successful global civil society is in promoting international governance norms within nation-states? Studies attribute the varied effectiveness of civil action to the capacity of non-governmental groups and organizations, the nature of global regimes that generate such norms, domestic political landscapes, or combinations of these factors. Yet, empirical cases, analyzed in this article, suggest that global civil society may lose or gain in domestic effectiveness even when these determinants remain stable. Using primary and secondary data on Kyoto Protocol negotiations in Japan, Canada, and Australia, we argue that changes in the Kyoto stances of these three countries between 2005 and 2012 stemmed from the realignment of domestic political actors engaged in the contestation of the protocol alongside civil society. Our data reveal that exogenous natural and political events led to shifts in the positions of local political elites, media, and the energy industry. As a result, the pro-Kyoto coalition, headed by global civil society, either lost or gained in bargaining power vis-à-vis the counter-coalition. We, therefore, theorize realignment as a mechanism that connects exogenous events to the changing effectiveness of global civil society. Theoretically, our study emphasizes the importance of embedding civil action into its concrete socio-historical contexts and advocates for a process-oriented study of agentic social change.

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