Social change and markets for urban credit: political elites as investors in urban annuities in sixteenth-century Ghent

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-367
Author(s):  
Jelten Y. P. Baguet

Financial historians have devoted considerable attention to the investment behaviour of urban politicians in the market for public debt in the Low Countries. They have focused not only on how many urban officials invested in annuities, but also why they did so. On the one hand, it has been suggested that political elites often had political and economic motivations for investing in urban annuities. By contrast, historians from the institutional school defend the thesis that inclusive governance led to broader participation in the market for urban credit. A variable that has gone largely unnoticed in explaining investments by the political elite is the impact of the changing composition and social profile of the ruling elites on their investment behaviour. In this article, I examine the case of sixteenth-century Ghent to argue that changes in the city's power structure resulted in profound changes in attitudes towards public debt management. While the old political elite in the early sixteenth century prioritised selling annuities to individuals who belonged to the political networks of their time, the group of political newcomers that dominated urban politics at the end of the sixteenth century had much more of a market-oriented attitude, giving priority to non-political investors in the free market.

Urban History ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 632-647
Author(s):  
Jelten Baguet

AbstractThe composition of the political elites in sixteenth-century Ghent, one of the political and economic centres of the county of Flanders, changed from a relatively open elite group that included representatives from the craft guilds into a compact, aristocratic class. This article analyses the reasons for this transformation. First, the number of office-holders in the city council declined and power was increasingly concentrated in the hands of a smaller political elite because of interventions in the urban political framework by the Habsburg authorities in the wake of a fiscal rebellion (1537–40) and a Calvinist takeover of power (1578–84). Secondly, the once dominant position of the craft guilds on Ghent's two benches of aldermen was weakened by institutional reforms, a Catholic backlash against Calvinism and an economic recession. Thirdly, the growing wealth gap between rulers and the ruled, coupled with an influx of noblemen into Ghent City Council, gave urban politics a more aristocratic character. Consequently, a series of interconnected changes gave rise to a trend towards oligarchy and aristocracy on the city's benches of aldermen.


Urban History ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 568-588
Author(s):  
Frederik Buylaert ◽  
Jelten Baguet ◽  
Janna Everaert

AbstractThis article provides a comparative analysis of four large towns in the Southern Low Countries between c. 1350 and c. 1550. Combining the data on Ghent, Bruges and Antwerp – each of which is discussed in greater detail in the articles in this special section – with recent research on Bruges, the authors argue against the historiographical trend in which the political history of late medieval towns is supposedly dominated by a trend towards oligarchy. Rather than a closure of the ruling class, the four towns show a high turnover in the social composition of the political elite, and a consistent trend towards aristocracy, in which an increasingly large number of aldermen enjoyed noble status. The intensity of these trends differed from town to town, and was tied to different institutional configurations as well as different economic and political developments in each of the four towns.


Africa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 529-547
Author(s):  
Roger Southall

AbstractThis article focuses on the impact of the policies of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) government on Zimbabwe's black middle class. It does so by exploring three propositions emerging from the academic literature. The first is that during the early years of independence, the middle class transformed into a party-aligned bourgeoisie. The second is that, to the extent that the middle class has not left the country as a result of the economic plunge from the 1990s, it played a formative role in opposition to ZANU-PF and the political elite. The third is that, in the face of ZANU-PF's authoritarianism and economic hardship, the middle class has largely withdrawn from the political arena.


2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 813-833 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yitzhak M. Brudny ◽  
Evgeny Finkel

The article discusses the impact of national identity on democratization and market reforms in Russia and Ukraine. We develop a concept of hegemonic national identity and demonstrate its role in Russian and Ukrainian post-communist political development. The article argues that Russia’s slide toward authoritarianism was to an important degree an outcome of the notions of national identity adopted by the main political players and society at large. In Ukraine, on the other hand, a hegemonic identity failed to emerge and the public discussion of issues of national identity led to the adoption of much more liberal and democratic notions of identity by a considerable part of the political elite. Adoption of this more liberal identity, in turn, was one of the main reasons for the Orange Revolution. The main theoretical implications of this argument are as follows: (a) choices of national identity profoundly affect the prospects for democracy in the newly democratizing states; (b) institutions do shape identities; (c) elites’ preference for (or opposition to) liberal democracy is not simply a consequence of their understanding of their self-interest in gaining and preserving power but also is dependent to a significant extent on their choices of political identity.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 819
Author(s):  
Durmuş Ali Arslan ◽  
Ahmet Çağrıcı ◽  
Mustafa Albayrak

Political parties and political elites are the basic elements of the democratic system. These two political and social phenomena play a decisive role in shaping the political and social structure of the country as well as in the shaping of individual political attitudes and behaviour. The most common forms of social political organization in contemporary societies are political parties. In this respect, political parties can be shortly defined as political organizations organized around the ideal of playing a decisive role in political and social life and whose ultimate goals are to reach power. In democratic societies, political parties are the most important means of political socialization and participation in the political process.In the western societies, the elite word that has been used in daily life since the 17th century. Its sociological meaning is rather different than daily life meaning. In essence, the elite can be defined as individuals who have institutional power, are in a position to control social resources, have the ability to directly or indirectly influence the decision-making process, and can fulfill their wishes and objectives in spite of their opponents. There are many elite groups in society. Political elites also form one of the most active elite groups in the social structure. Deputies and political leaders are also the most basic components of this elite group.The Democratic Party is one of the most important political parties of Turkish political life. This party holds the privilege of being the most important representative of the right of center-right politics in Turkey; Adnan Menderes also has a privileged political identity in Turkey as being the most important leader of the center-right politics tradition. Even the Democratic Party is regarded as a representative of the transition to multi-party political life in Turkey. The Democratic Party, legendary leader Adnan Menderes and the Democratic Party MPs, identified with the name party, have not only remained the pioneers of multi-party democratic life in the country; With the transition to multi-party life, they have played a decisive role in Turkey's change process and in the social and political life of the country.The Democratic Party as a political institution and Adnan Menderes, a political elite-leader have to be well known in order to understand and explain the political-social change and transformation that Turkey has experienced since about three quarters of a century. It was aimed to sociologically examine Adnan Menderes as an important political leader and political elite, and the Democratic Party, one of the most important political institutions of Turkish political life, from a historical perspective. The research is mainly designed as a descriptive sociological study type. ÖzetSiyasi partiler ve siyasi elitler, demokratik sistemin en temel unsurlarındandır. Bu iki siyasal ve toplumsal olgu, bireylerin siyasi tutum ve davranışlarının şekillenmesinde de olduğu kadar ülkenin siyasi ve toplumsal yapısının şekillenmesinde de belirleyici rol oynar. Günümüz toplumlarında en yaygın toplumsal siyasal örgütlenme biçimi siyasi partilerdir. Bu yönüyle siyasi partiler kısaca, siyasal ve toplumsal hayatta belirleyici rol oynamak ideali etrafında örgütlenmiş ve nihai hedefleri iktidara ulaşmak olan siyasi örgütler olarak tanımlanabilir. Demokratik toplumlarda siyasi partiler, en önemli siyasi sosyalizasyon ve siyasal sürece katılım araçlarıdır.Batı toplumlarında, 17. yüzyıldan bu yana günlük dilde kullanılmaya başlanan elit sözcüğü ise sosyolojik olarak günlük dilde kullanıldığında daha farklı anlam ifade eder. Çok öz olarak elit, kurumsal iktidara sahip, toplumsal kaynakları kontrol edebilecek konumda bulunan, karar verme sürecini doğrudan veya dolayı olarak ciddi bir şekilde etkileme yeteneğine sahip, karşıtlarına rağmen istek ve amaçlarını gerçekleştirebilen birey(ler) olarak tanımlanabilir. Toplumda çok sayıda elit grubu vardır. Siyasi elitler de toplumsal yapı içindeki, en etkin elit gruplarından birini oluştururlar. Milletvekilleri ve siyasi liderler de bu elit grubunun en temel bileşenlerini oluştururlar.Demokrat Parti (DP), Türk siyasal hayatının en önemli siyasi partilerinden biri konumundadır. Bu parti Türkiye’de merkez sağ siyaset geleneğinin, Cumhuriyet döneminde ilk ve önemli temsilcisi olma ayrıcalığını elinden tutarken; lideri Türkiye’de merkez sağ siyaset geleneğini temsil eden önemli bir siyasal elittir. Dahası Demokrat Parti, Türkiye’de çok partili siyasi yaşama geçişin temsilcisi olarak da kabul edilir. Demokrat Parti, ismi partisi ile özdeşleşmiş efsanevi lideri Adnan Menderes ve Demokrat Parti milletvekilleri, yalnızca ülkede çok partili demokratik hayatın öncü isimleri olmakla kalmamışlar; çok partili yaşama geçişle birlikte Türkiye’nin değişim sürecine yön vermiş ve ülkenin toplumsal-siyasal hayatında belirleyici rol oynamışlardır.Bir siyasal kurum olarak Demokrat Parti’yi ve bir siyasi elit-lider olarak Adnan Menderes’i iyi anlamadan, Türkiye’nin yaklaşık üççeyrek asırdan beridir yaşadığı siyasal - toplumsal değişim ve dönüşümü anlamlandırmak ve açıklamak mümkün değildir. Bu realiteden yola çıkarak çalışmada, önemli bir siyasi lider ve bir siyasi elit olarak Adnan Menderes ile Türk siyasal yaşamının önemli siyasi kurumlarından biri olan Demokrat Parti’nin, tarihsel bir perspektiften, sosyolojik olarak incelenmesi hedeflenmiştir. Araştırma ağırlıklı olarak betimleyici - deskriptif bir sosyolojik çalışma türünde tasarlanmıştır.


Author(s):  
V. Makohon

The article describes the essence of budget policy. Determined its role in ensuring macroeconomic stability and accelerating economic growth. The quantitative and qualitative impact of the budget regulation system on the economic environment has been characterized. It is substantiated that purposeful budget regulation allows accelerating or slowing social and economic processes, ensuring achievement of certain strategic goals and objectives. An estimation of the impact of budget policy on economic growth, in particular, on the justification of the interrelation of the share in the GDP of income, including direct and indirect taxes; expenses, including social protection and social security, economic activity; direct state and guaranteed debt with real GDP in Ukraine. For 2009—2019, the share of gross income and expenditure, deficit and debt in the countries of the European Union in the GDP was determined; income, expenses, deficit of the consolidated budget, direct state and guaranteed debt in Ukraine. The substantiation of the provision on the development of institutional foundations for fiscal policy-making based on the necessity of adapting the set of mechanisms of functioning of the budget regulation system to the conditions of development of the financial and economic environment and the cyclical nature of economic processes; the position regarding the formation of budget policy based on a forecast assessment of budgetary parameters, based on the projected macroeconomic indicators of socio-economic development of the country, tools and levers of tax policy. The priority directions of budget policy in the conditions of economic transformations are determined, in particular, to strengthen the investment and innovation budget component, to improve the structure of tax revenues, to maintain a safe level of public debt and budget deficit, to improve the quality of public debt management and to determine strategic guidelines for the structure of the debt portfolio.


Communicology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-77
Author(s):  
V. V. Stetsenko

The article represents the topical trends in contemporary Russian political discourse. The author proceeds from the thesis about the strengthening of the importance of the cultural component of state policy in relation to the education of young people, the reproduction of the political elite, as well as the building of communicative influences between the elite and the people. The article provides an overview of the legal framework of sources within the framework of the research area under consideration. In particular, the article analyzes changes in the field of constitutional legislation, as well as new law-making initiatives in the context of the discussion and adoption of the Laws on Culture and Youth Policy. Significant research platforms are highlighted that accentuate the problems of cultural policy, in the aspects of forming the foundations of the traditional cultural and civilizational identity of youth, as well as the reproduction and improvement of the quality of human capital in the field of training management personnel. Within the framework of the article, the phenomenon of cultural enlightenment is positioned as a promising direction of cultural policy, which is very relevant from the point of view of solving the problems being analyzed. The concept of «cultural imperative» is put forward, designed to become one of the «catalysts» of the process of value-semantic formation of the political elite. The methodological basis of the study was interpretive and empirical methods of studying the impact of state cultural policy, including cultural enlightenment, on the political outlook and socialization of young people, as well as the study of youth as a subject of political relations, its place and role in the political processes of the Russian state, development strategies civic and patriotic activity of young people in a modern society subject to globalization and informatization. In our research, we turned to an interdisciplinary method, in particular, we use the research techniques of sociology in the framework of monitoring on key research issues. As the results of the research, the author proposes projects of optional courses and retraining courses aimed at enriching the system of training the future political elite with value-semantic content through the tools of cultural enlightenment.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Siti Mahmudah

Abstract. This study examines the origin,  existence, and development of Islamism group in Indonesia since pre-independence until now. Islamism is a group of Muslims who are obedient to the teachings of Islam, but they are very extreme, literal,  static and rigid in understanding the teachings of Islam (Alquran), and reject to the other Muslims who disagree with Islamic ideology that they have embraced. The group of Islamism existed and emerged in Indonesia, it was not apart from the influence of the spread of Islamic teachings from al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun that was founded by Hasan al-Banna in Egypt in 1928. The group of Islamism was the first Muslim group before the other Muslim groups in Indonesia; such as the Pos-Islamism group, the Liberal Islam Group, the Moderate Islamic Group, the Progressive Islam Group. The group of Islamism in Indonesia—as al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun in Egypt who aspires to spread the ideology of Islam for all of the world—seeks  to spread  their ideology with the movement of "creeping up" for all of the area in Indonesian, since before independence until now. Islamist groups succeeded in spreading Islam and Sharia through mosques, schools, ta'lim majlis. The existence and development of Islamist groups in Indonesia today are flattered. They have very much support from the political elite. However, they are not aware that their hands are being borrowed or exploited by political elites to seize or get the  power in irrational ways. Keywords: Islamism, Emergence, Existence, Development, Indonesia. Abstrak. Studi ini membahas tentang asal usul, eksistensi dan perkembangan kelompok Islamisme di Indonesia sejak pra-kemerdekaan sampai sekarang. Kelompok Islamisme adalah kumpulan Muslim yang patuh terhadap ajaran Islam, namun mereka sangat ekstrem, literal, statis dan kaku dalam memahami ajaran Islam (Alquran), serta menolak golongan Muslim lain yang berbeda dengan faham Islam yang sudah mereka anut. Kelompok Islamisme ada dan muncul di Indonesia tidak terlepas dari pengaruh penyebaran ajaran Islam ala  al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun yang didirikan oleh Hasan al-Banna di Mesir pada tahun 1928. Kelompok Islamisme merupakan kelompok Muslim yang pertama ada sebelum adanya kelompok-kelompok Muslim lain di Indonesia; seperti kelompok Pos-Islamisme, Kelompok Islam Liberal, Kelompok Islam Moderat, Kelompok Islam Progresif. Kelompok Islamisme di Indonesia –sebagaimana al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun di Mesir yang bercita-cita menyebarkan faham berislam ke seluruh dunia—berupaya menyebarkan paham Islamisme dengan gerakan “merayap” ke seluruh bumi Indonesia sejak sebelum Indonesia merdeka sampai sekarang. Kelompok Islamisme berhasil menyebarkan faham Islam dan Syariah melalui, antara lain:  masjid-masjid, sekolah-sekolah, majelis-majelis taklim. Eksistensi dan perkembangan kelompok-kelompok Islamisme di Indonesia zaman ini sedang merasa tersanjung, karena banyak mendapat dukungan dari para elit politik. Namun sebaliknya, mereka tidak sadar bahwa tangan-tangan mereka sedang dipinjam atau pun dimanfaatkan oleh para elit politik untuk merebut atau pun mendapatkan sebuah kekuasaan dengan cara-cara yang tidak rasional. Kata Kunci: Islamisme, Eksistensi, Kemunculan,  Perkembangan, Indonesia.


Author(s):  
A. I. Podberezkin ◽  
M. V. Kharkevich

Abstract: The article discusses the trend of securitization of the political elite as a reaction to strengthening of coercive influence upon these elites in terms of consolidation and strengthening of confrontation between different civilizations. The authors argue that the main object of the coercive influence in world politics, which ensures stable control of regime change and a managed transit is the political elite rather than civil society. The assumption then is that the main object of the security and the securitization in world politics is to be political elite. Securitization of the political elite can be seen as a necessary condition for ensuring the sovereignty at the level of local human civilization. The conclusion of this paper is, first, the assessment of the political elite as the main object of securitization in a clash of civilizations. Secondly, the removal of contradictions between the securitization of political elites and democracy at the scale of human civilizations; third, underlining the need to take into account the vital importance of the political elite in the strategic planning and development of long-term forecasting of international relations development.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley Simmonds

This paper follows on from earlier work in which I discussed the potential impacts of the local commissioning of victim services by Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales. The introduction of this elected role and the devolution of responsibility to local PCCs was said to raise a range of issues for both victims and the voluntary sector, given that agencies within this sector are major providers of support for those affected by crime. Before 2014 the approach to the funding of victim services was not particularly of concern, save for questions being asked in the ‘audit culture’ of the early 2000s, around the extent to which the government-funded agency Victim Support could be said to be providing ‘value for money’. However, these concerns gained momentum with the incoming Coalition government of 2010, and by 2014 local commissioning by PCCs had been implemented. This meant the previous mixed economy of victim services provision via the largely centrally funded organisation ‘Victim Support’ as a ‘national victims’ service’, and an array of smaller and more financially independent victim agencies who had to bid for pots of funding much more competitively, has given way to the political appeal of a free market for all. In order then to explore the reality of this shift, a piece of empirical research was undertaken with voluntary-sector agencies in the far southwest of England. Essentially the research provides evidence that the issues raised in my earlier work have indeed come to fruition.


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