scholarly journals Contested Numbers: Census Controversies and the Press in 1960s Nigeria

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Gerardo Serra ◽  
Morten Jerven
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
The State ◽  
Population Census ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Press ◽  
Distribution Of Resources ◽  
The Public Sphere

Abstract This article reconstructs the controversies following the release of the figures from Nigeria's 1963 population census. As the basis for the allocation of seats in the federal parliament and for the distribution of resources, the census is a valuable entry point into postcolonial Nigeria's political culture. After presenting an overview of how the Africanist literature has conceptualized the politics of population counting, the article analyses the role of the press in constructing the meaning and implications of the 1963 count. In contrast with the literature's emphasis on identification, categorization, and enumeration, our focus is on how the census results informed a broader range of visual and textual narratives. It is argued that analysing the multiple ways in which demographic sources shape debates about trust, identity, and the state in the public sphere results in a richer understanding of the politics of counting people and narrows the gap between demographic and cultural history.

scholarly journals A National Public Sphere? Analyzing the Language, Location, and Form of Newspapers in Finland, 1771–1917

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-77
Author(s):  
Jani Marjanen ◽  
Ville Vaara ◽  
Antti Kanner ◽  
Hege Roivainen ◽  
Eetu Mäkelä ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Mass Medium ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
The Public ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Newspaper History

This article uses metadata from serial publications as a means of modelling the historical development of the public sphere. Given that a great deal of historical knowledge is generated through narratives relying on anecdotal evidence, any attempt to rely on newspapers for modeling the past challenges customary approaches in political and cultural history. The focus in this article is on Finland, but our approach is also scalable to other regions. During the period 1771–1917 newspapers developed as a mass medium in the Grand Duchy of Finland within two imperial configurations (Sweden until 1809 and Russia in 1809–1917), and in the two main languages – Swedish and Finnish. Finland is an ideal starting point for conducting comparative studies in that its bilingual profile already includes two linguistically separated public spheres that nonetheless were heavily connected. Our particular interest here is in newspaper metadata, which we use to trace the expansion of public discourse in Finland by statistical means. We coordinate information on publication places, language, number of issues, number of words, newspaper size, and publishers, which we compare with existing scholarship on newspaper history and censorship, and thereby offer a more robust statistical analysis of newspaper publishing in Finland than has previously been possible. We specifically examine the interplay between the Swedish- and Finnish-language newspapers and show that, whereas the public discussions were inherently bilingual, the technological and journalistic developments advanced at different pace in the two language forums. This analysis challenges the perception of a uniform public sphere in the country. In addition, we assess the development of the press in comparison with the production of books and periodicals, which points toward the specialization of newspapers as a medium in the period after 1860. This confirms some earlier findings about Finnish print production. We then show how this specialization came about through the establishment of forums for local debates that other less localized print media such as magazines and books could not provide.

scholarly journals Modelos de Espaço Público em contraste: Imprensa e Modernidade Seletiva nas Províncias da Paraíba e Pernambuco (1870-1880)

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 650
Author(s):  
Matheus Da Cruz e Zica ◽  
Patrícia Barros de Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Press ◽  
De Se ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Opinion Maker ◽  
The Public Sphere

Este artigo procura elucidar o debate que se constituiu pela imprensa ao longo das décadas de 1870 e 1880 nas províncias brasileiras da Paraíba e de Pernambuco em torno do modelo francês de monarquia parlamentar que contrastava com o federalismo republicano dos EUA. Assumindo o lugar de formadora da opinião pública a imprensa procurou trazer destaque para a questão do Espaço Público na medida em que modos distintos de se lidar com ele estavam em jogo em cada um daqueles modelos políticos internacionais idealizados. Também foram mapeadas algumas relações que os jornais analisados indiciaram entre os debates sobre o Espaço Público e as retóricas de modernidade que os acompanhavam. Com frequência a questão da ciência e da técnica pareceu eclipsar a dimensão do conflito que é próprio do universo político e da esfera pública, unificando os olhares em torno de um deslumbramento com as benfeitorias materiais que o século prometia.Palavras chave: Espaço Público, Formação, Imprensa. AbstractThis article seeks to elucidate the debate that was constituted by the press throughout the 1870s and 1880s in the Brazilian provinces of Paraíba and Pernambuco around the French model of parliamentary monarchy that contrasted with the republicanism of the USA. Taking over the role of public opinion maker, the press sought to highlight the issue of the Public Space since that distinct ways of dealing with it was considered in each of those idealized international political models. This article also mapped some relations that the newspapers analyzed betrayed between the debates on the Public Space and the rhetoric of modernity that accompanied them. Often the question of science and technique seemed to eclipse the dimension of conflict that is proper to the political universe and the public sphere, unifying the glances around a dazzle with the material improvements that the century promised.Keywords: Public Space, Formation, Press.  ResumenEste artículo busca esclarecer el debate que se constituyó por la prensa a lo largo de las décadas de 1870 y 1880 en las provincias brasileñas de Paraíba y de Pernambuco en torno al modelo francés de monarquía parlamentaria que contrastaba con el federalismo republicano de EUA. Asumiendo el lugar de formadora de la opinión pública la prensa trató de destacar la cuestión del Espacio Público en la medida en que modos distintos de lidiar con él estaban en juego en cada uno de aquellos modelos políticos internacionales idealizados. También se han mapeado algunas relaciones que los periódicos analizados indiciaron entre los debates sobre el espacio público y las retóricas de modernidad que los acompañaban. Con frecuencia la cuestión de la ciencia y de la técnica parecía eclipsar la dimensión del conflicto que es propio del universo político y de la esfera pública, unificando las miradas en torno a un deslumbramiento con las mejoras materiales que el siglo prometía.Palabras clave: Espacio Público, Formación, Prensa.

4. The Nation-State

2020 ◽  
pp. 69-85
Author(s):  
Gianfranco Poggi
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Ideal Type ◽  
The State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Public ◽  
State And Society ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Legitimate Violence

This chapter examines how the nation-state came into being and how it became dominant as a political unit. It first presents a general and streamlined portrait of the state—a concept that sociologists inspired by Max Weber might call an ideal type. In particular, it considers some of the characteristics of a nation-state, including monopoly of legitimate violence, territoriality, sovereignty, plurality, and relation to the population. The chapter proceeds by discussing a more expansive concept of the nation-state, taking into account the role of law, centralized organization, the distinction between state and society, religion and the market, the public sphere, the burden of conflict, and citizenship and nation. The chapter also describes five paths in state formation and concludes with an assessment of three main phases which different European states have followed in somewhat varying sequences: consolidation of rule, rationalization of rule, and expansion of rule.

4. The nation-state

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianfranco Poggi
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Ideal Type ◽  
The State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Public ◽  
State And Society ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Legitimate Violence

This chapter examines how the nation-state came into being and how it became dominant as a political unit. It first presents a general and streamlined portrait of the state — a concept that sociologists inspired by Max Weber might call an ideal type. In particular, it considers some of the characteristics of a nation-state, including monopoly of legitimate violence, territoriality, sovereignty, plurality, and relation to the population. The chapter proceeds by discussing a more expansive concept of the nation-state, taking into account the role of law, centralized organization, the distinction between state and society, religion and the market, the public sphere, the burden of conflict, and citizenship and nation. The chapter also describes five paths in state formation and concludes with an assessment of three main phases which different European states have followed in somewhat varying sequences: consolidation of rule, rationalization of rule, and expansion of rule.

scholarly journals THE OPERATICS OF DEATH: GENDER, THE MARKET, AND THE REFORM-ERA PUBLIC SPHERE IN THE DEATH OF ANGIOLINA BOSIO

2021 ◽  
pp. 13-24
Author(s):  
M. Klopfenstein ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Reform Era ◽  
The Public ◽  
Emotional Culture ◽  
Cultural Boundaries ◽  
The Press ◽  
Public Behavior ◽  
The Public Sphere

This article analyzes the development of a gendered culture of celebrity in nineteenth century Russia using the death of the opera singer Angiolina Bosio in 1859. Bosio was one of the leading celebrities of her era, and her death became a major social phenomenon. The article examines reactions to the singer’s death in the capital press to demonstrate that the figure of the celebrity female performer reflected major changes in the public sphere during the era of the Great Reforms. Reactions to Bosio show that female opera stars reflected the growing role of commercial forces in the public sphere and the anxiety about them from the point of view of many commentators. This article demonstrates that female celebrities reveal the dynamics of an expanding public sphere in Russia that was visible in the pages of the press. Bosio embodied both the ambiguous status of opera as both a popular and elite artistic genre, and a distinct emotional culture associated with opera. Her death shows the role of gender in the creation and dynamics of the role of celebrity in the textual public sphere. Analyzing reactions to Bosio’s death clearly demonstrates that gendered tropes and conventions from opera spread widely beyond the theater and influenced public life. Through the prism of her death, we can see the development of a public sphere in the which cultural boundaries blurred and European-wide operatic conventions became a model for public behavior.

scholarly journals Internationale Transformationen des Staates

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (147) ◽  
pp. 251-272
Author(s):  
Sol Picciotto
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Regulatory Networks ◽  
The State ◽  
Soft Law ◽  
Private Regulation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
The Public Sphere

The privatization of state-owned assets and the reduction of direct state economic intervention have not led to a reduced role of the state but to changes in its form, involving new types of formalized regulation, the fragmentation of the public sphere, the decentring of the state and the emergence of multi-level governance. This has been complemented by the increased salience of ‘private’ regulation. Despite talk of deregulation there has been extensive reregulation, and the emergence of global regulatory networks, intermingling the public and the private. The transition from government to governance means a lack of a clear hierarchy of norms, a blurring of distinctions between hard and soft law, and a fragmentation of public functions entailing a resurgence of technocracy.

scholarly journals About the Place of Ideology in the Work of Soviet Gardens and Parks of the 1920s — Early 1930s (on the Example of Sverdlovsk)

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 101-112
Author(s):  
M. V. Vorobyova ◽  
◽  
E. I. Rabinovich ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
The State ◽  
The Public ◽  
Material Environment ◽  
The Public Sphere

The authors consider the issue of the place of ideology in the work of Soviet gardens and parks on the example of Sverdlovsk in this article. The state of the infrastructure and material environment is established, the key problems of the functioning of the gardens are identified, the content of the cultural program of the gardens is revealed based on the analysis of the local press of the 1920s-early 1930s. The authors question the popular ideas about the dominant role of ideology in the public sphere of the 1920s, and also trace the dynamics of changes in the weight of ideology in the work of Sverdlovsk gardens of the 1920s — early 1930s.

‘Party in the street’: The partisan politics of space

2021 ◽  
pp. 239965442110338
Author(s):  
David Jenkins ◽  
Lipin Ram
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
State Power ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

Public space is often understood as an important ‘node’ of the public sphere. Typically, theorists of public space argue that it is through the trust, civility and openness to others which citizens cultivate within a democracy’s public spaces, that they learn how to relate to one another as fellow members of a shared polity. However, such theorizing fails to articulate how these democratic comportments learned within public spaces relate to the public sphere’s purported role in holding state power to account. In this paper, we examine the ways in which what we call ‘partisan interventions’ into public space can correct for this gap. Using the example of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM), we argue that the ways in which CPIM partisans actively cultivate sites of historical regional importance – such as in the village of Kayyur – should be understood as an aspect of the party’s more general concern to present itself to citizens as an agent both capable and worthy of wielding state power. Drawing on histories of supreme partisan contribution and sacrifice, the party influences the ideational background – in competition with other parties – against which it stakes its claims to democratic legitimacy. In contrast to those theorizations of public space that celebrate its separateness from the institutions of formal democratic politics and the state more broadly, the CPIM’s partisan interventions demonstrate how parties’ locations at the intersections of the state and civil society can connect the public sphere to its task of holding state power to account, thereby bringing the explicitly political questions of democratic legitimacy into the everyday spaces of a political community.

The gender dimension of the 2020 Belarusian protest: Does female engagement contribute to the establishment of gender equality?

2021 ◽  
pp. 2336825X2110291
Author(s):  
Vasil Navumau ◽  
Olga Matveieva
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Depth Interviews

One of the distinctive traits of the Belarusian ‘revolution-in-the-making’, sparked by alleged falsifications during the presidential elections and brutal repressions of protest afterwards, has been a highly visible gender dimension. This article is devoted to the analysis of this gender-related consequences of protest activism in Belarus. Within this research, the authors analyse the role of the female movement in the Belarusian uprising and examine, and to which extent this involvement expands the public sphere and contributes to the changes in gender-related policies. To do this, the authors conducted seven semi-structured in-depth interviews with the gender experts and activists – four before and four after the protests.

The NGOization of Space: Dilemmas of Social Change, Planning Policy, and the Israeli Public Sphere

10.1068/d459t ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 745-758 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haim Yacobi
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
The Public ◽  
Planning Policy ◽  
Strategic Goals ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper offers a critical analysis of the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that deal with planning policy in general and in Israel in particular. The inherent dilemmas of the different NGOs' tactics and strategies in reshaping the public sphere are examined, based on a critical reading of Habermas's conceptualization of the public sphere. The main objective of this paper is to investigate to what extent, and under which conditions, the NGOization of space—that is, the growing number of nongovernmental actors that deal with the production of space both politically and tangibly—has been able to achieve strategic goals which may lead towards social change.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document