scholarly journals Assessing (In)security after the Arab Spring: The Case of Egypt

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (04) ◽  
pp. 727-735 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Striking Success ◽  
Democratic Elections ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
The Military ◽  
Islamist Movement

In nearly three years, Egypt has transitioned from a large-scale uprising against one of the region's longest-standing rulers to an even more massive revolt that led to the military ousting the country's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi. Between the two popular uprisings, new pacts and unlikely alliances emerged, deepened, and, in some cases, then disappeared. For its part, the army evolved from being an accomplice of the old regime, to then being an uneasy partner of the ascendant Muslim Brotherhood and, most recently, on to rebranding itself as an ally of non-Islamists and a protector of the popular will. Loosely aligned liberals, leftists, and nationalists, meanwhile, shifted from offering support for democratic elections to backing a “democratic” coup out of fear that the elected Islamists might monopolize and never relinquish power in a conservative new regime. That fear came in response to the Brotherhood's own shifting position, which moved from a commitment to “participation not domination” to a strategy of controlling the legislature and the presidency, although they were ultimately forced back into hiding before they could neutralize the judiciary and the army. And finally, the other Islamist movement, the ultraconservative Salafists, initially displayed no interest in the political process, but then mobilized and ultimately enjoyed striking success in the elections of 2011–12. Surprisingly, however, despite their presumed ideological proximity to the Brotherhood, many Salafists went on to back the military's removal of Morsi in July 2013, but then did not lend support to the interim government that was constructed in wake of Morsi's fall. In this multilayered, fast-paced political environment, mass protests, arrests, and violence have become routine.

Pivotality and Turnout: Evidence from a Field Experiment in the Aftermath of a Tied Election

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan D. Enos ◽  
Anthony Fowler
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiment ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Scale Field ◽  
Large Scale Field ◽  
Political Office ◽  
Small Set ◽  
Rare Opportunity

Many citizens abstain from the political process, and the reasons for this abstention are of great interest and importance. Most scholars and pundits assume that greater electoral competition and the increased chance of pivotality will motivate citizens to participate. We test this hypothesis through a large-scale field experiment that exploits the rare opportunity of a tied election for major political office. Informing citizens that an upcoming election will be close has little mobilizing effect. Any effect that we do detect is concentrated among a small set of frequent voters. The evidence suggests that increased pivotality is not a solution to low turnout and the predominant models of turnout focusing on pivotality are of little practical use.

Tunisia reconciliation law will overcome opposition

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Tax Evasion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Potential ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Financial Crimes ◽  
Justice Process ◽  
Islamist Movement

Subject Reconciliation law prospects Significance Tunisia's parliament is expected to debate a controversial reconciliation law proposed by President Beji Caid Essebsi, which grants amnesty for financial crimes committed during the rule of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (1987-2011). The law aims to recover an estimated 3.5 billion dollars from thousands of former public officials and businessmen acquired through embezzlement, unfair loans and tax evasion. The legislation contradicts and undermines a 2013 transitional justice law intended to uncover past abuses and promote a transitional justice process. Impacts Whitewashing past financial abuses will deepen a sense among many Tunisians that the old regime remains firmly in control. Without addressing authoritarian economic structures and passing economic reforms, Tunisia's economic potential will remain limited. Tensions within the Islamist movement Ennahda will intensify, furthering a push for separating the political party from the movement.

Algerian army will try to guard fiefdom in transition

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Energy Sector ◽  
Military Leadership ◽  
The Political ◽  
Foreign Investors ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
Formal Power ◽  
The Military

Significance The military leadership has seized control of the political process, but has shown little interest in assuming formal power, often demonstrating sympathies with protesters while preserving the constitutional order. Impacts The prime minister and interim president may be pushed to quit as a concession. Elections planned for July 4 may be postponed if unrest grows. The economy may suffer as tourism will decline and foreign investors will hesitate to become involved in an uncertain energy sector.

scholarly journals Revolution of Personality, or the Rise of Personaliat

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (99) ◽  
pp. 68-89
Author(s):  
D.A. Davydov
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Scale Transformation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Economic Changes

The idea of the post-capitalist society has long been associated with the “grassroots” struggle of the exploited classes for the society that is free from all forms of domination and exploitation. D.Davydov does not consider this approach scientific and proposes one should change the lens of research and focus on what is happening at the level of the elites, where the new world is slowly maturing and new relationships are often intertwined with the old ones. The article is devoted to the justification of the argument, according to which the development of the post-capitalist social relations has been going on for a relatively long time — as the rise of people who “possess a personality” (personaliat). The author demonstrates that the unfol ding processes can be explained by the deep economic changes — the transformation of creativity into the predominant source of consumer values. The author elabo rates the idea that the essence of the knowledge economy is not capitalist or even is anti-capitalist, but at the same time he suggests that it is the nature of social relations around creative activity that should be consi dered rather than creative activity per se. From his point of view, despite the fact that the consequences of such activities complicate the functioning of the capitalist economy, the demise of the old economy does not mean that somewhere beyond the horizon we will have a cloudless non-antagonistic future. It is much more relevant to view post-capitalist transformation as the gradual rise to dominance of those who possess power over public attention. The author starts the article with a brief “history of personality” and after that demonstrates how the depersonalized world was gradually “colo nized” by creative public figures. According to his conclusion, today we witness a large-scale transformation of the Political, which is associated with the trend that representatives of personaliat assumed roles of key actors in the political process. Power is transferred from those with money to those with persona lity. However, this shift in itself hardly guarantees the establishment of an egalitarian social order that has overcome all forms of alienation and inequality. Moreover, at the moment such prospect looks doubtful.

scholarly journals A Decade of Political Unrest: An Analysis of General Zia Era in Pakistan

2020 ◽  
Vol V (III) ◽  
pp. 68-77
Author(s):  
Bakhtiar Khan ◽  
Hassan Shah ◽  
Iltaf Khan
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Military Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Unrest ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
The Military ◽  
Shed Light

The problem with Pakistan's democracy is not that only political institutions are weak but the interference of non-elected forces has also done havoc with it. Apart from the high handedness of civilian bureaucracy the unswerving military adventurism disrepute the political process of the country. The entry of military into the corridors of powers hit hard the final nail into the coffin of democratization in Pakistan. General Zia tactfully maneuvered his plan cashed the extreme polarization political parties proved yet another great hurdle to the survival democratic system. The paper analyzes the decade long unrest caused by the military regime of Gen. Zia. The paper also shed light on how abruptly military managed to gain superior position in the politics of the country. The immaturity that demonstrated by political setup is also the concern of this endeavor. Qualitative approach has been adopted to satisfy the puzzling queries pointed out above.

scholarly journals Issues of the Islamic form of Government in the Works of Abbasi Madani and his Political Activities

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-62
Author(s):  
Marina A. Sapronova
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Dictatorship ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Islamic Golden Age ◽  
Theoretical Issues

Abstract: following the events of the Arab Spring, theoretical issues of government are attracting growing interest in the social and political sphere in the Islamic East. Islamic concepts are being adopted and extensively used in a race for power by various political forces. In this connection, the experience of countries that have passed through the “Islamic boom” is of particular interest. The currently outlawed political party, Islamic Salvation Front, and its founder, Abbassi Madani, the outstanding theoretician of the concept of the Islamic Golden Age, who developed and presented to Algerian society his programme of Islamic reforms, had a great impact on the political process in Algeria during the 1990s. This paper presents the theoretical views of Abbassi Madani on Islamic government, with an analysis of the activities of the Islamic Salvation Front and its influence on society and the political process. The author concludes that the true motivation of the Islamists in Algeria was a desire to overcome the social and economic crisis and emerge from military dictatorship and economic mismanagement by the incumbent government, rather than a desire to reform the state along Islamic lines.

Religious Traditions in Politics: Judaism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth D. Wald
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Political Opportunity Structure ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
Playing Field

Lacking sovereignty, a well-developed theology of politics, and a central organizing mechanism, the Jewish political experience is unique among the three Abrahamic faiths. Apart from research on the political content implicit in Jewish scriptures, there has been little scholarship on what Jews do when they engage in political action. Using a contextual framework, this article examines the politics of Jews by reviewing both single-country studies and the few extant cross-national analyses. In considering why Jewish political behavior differs from one place to another, political process theory and Medding’s theory of Jewish interests guide the analysis. Medding argued that Jewish politics is primarily a response to threats perceived in the political environment. The ability of Jewish communities to resist such threats depends largely on the rules governing the political environment, the political opportunity structure. Where Jews are a majority and control the rules, as in the state of Israel, they have adopted a regime that prioritizes the Jewish character of the state against perceived threats from the country’s Arab citizens. Where Jews are a minority, as in the United States, their ability to control the political environment is limited. However, the political rules of the game embodied in the U.S. Constitution have levelled the playing field to the advantage of religious minorities like Jews. Specifically, by rejecting “blood and soil” citizenship and denying the religious character of the state, those rules provide Jews and other minorities a valuable resource and access to sympathetic allies in the political system. Hence American Jews have been able to counter what they perceive as the major threat to their political interests—a replacement of the secular state by a confessional regime. Focusing on threats, the political opportunity structure, and political context helps to anchor Jewish political studies in research on ethnic political cohesion and to bring such research into the scholarly mainstream.

Corporate Repertoires of Control and Performances of Power in a Contested Land Deal in Senegal

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 675-703
Author(s):  
Marie Gagné
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Land Claims ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
The Past

AbstractFarmland investments have attracted numerous entrepreneurs and companies to Africa in the past two decades. However, acquiring, retaining, and exploiting large-scale landholdings is more complicated than it seems. Investors need to persuade governments and populations of their anticipated benefits and limit dissenting voices when they emerge. Focusing on a contested land project in Senegal, Gagné develops the concept of “repertoires of control” to analyze the different performances of power that companies deploy to assert and legitimize their land claims. She argues that to survive, companies must continually adapt these performances to changes in the political environment of their host countries.

The Political Economy of the Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex in the United States

1985 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Baack ◽  
Edward Ray
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
The Military

Despite the attention given by scholars to the military-industrial complex few studies have attempted to pinpoint and explain its origin. In this paper we argue that the coalescing of business, military, and political interest groups in support of a military build-up in the United States during peacetime occurred in the years between the Civil War and World War I. It was during this period that we observe the roots of institutional arrangements between the military and industry for the purpose of large-scale weapons acquisitions.

Military Institutional Development and Sociopolitical Change: The Bolivian Case

1972 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 399-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles D. Corbett
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sociopolitical Change ◽  
American Military ◽  
The Past ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
Structural Relationships ◽  
The Military

The Latin American military is a complex institution in a complex society. It probably has always been, but in the past the dynamics acting upon the change versus order equation have allowed new structural relationships to be worked out over extended periods of time, relatively free from ideological passions and exogenous influences. That time has passed. Probably in no other region of the world are military establishments undergoing the degree of institutional selfexamination and mission redefinition as are the armies of Latin America today. They have neither the development-oriented self-confidence of the armies of the “new” nations, nor the threat-oriented Weltanschauung of the military in the established countries. Previously acceptable roles—as moderators in the political process or guarantors of their own image of the country's traditions—are under examination not only in the society at large but in the heart of the military institutions.

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