scholarly journals The Relationship of Leadership Quality to the Political Presence of Civic Associations

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hahrie Han ◽  
Kenneth T. Andrews ◽  
Marshall Ganz ◽  
Matthew Baggetta ◽  
Chaeyoon Lim

Member-based civic associations, or citizen groups, have two crucial roles in American democracy. They advocate for members' interests in the public arena, but also operate as Tocquevillian “schools of democracy” linking citizens to politics and equipping them with the skills of democratic citizenship. Yet scant research has examined the interrelationships of these two roles. Does the work that civic associations do in developing democratic participants enhance the work they do advocating for members' interests in the public arena? We bring together two previously disparate strands of research on civic associations by arguing that a key factor affecting the political presence of civic associations is leadership quality. We focus on the relationship of leadership quality to political presence, using data from a unique 2003 study of 226 local entities of the Sierra Club. We show that organizations with more skilled and committed leaders have higher levels of political presence. This contrasts with previous research that has focused primarily on community context and resources as explanatory factors. This study shows that political presence is related to the extent to which leaders develop their skills and demonstrate commitment to the organization.

Author(s):  
Jonathan Preminger

Chapter 15 summarizes the chapters which addressed the third sphere, the relationship of labor to the political community. It reiterates that since Israel was established, the labor market’s borders have become ever more porous, while the borders of the national (Jewish) political community have remained firm: the Jewish nationalism which guides government policy is as strong as ever. NGOs, drawing on a discourse of human rights, are able to assist some non-citizens but this discourse also resonates with the idea of individual responsibility: the State is no longer willing to support “non-productive” populations, who are now being shoehorned into a labor market which offers few opportunities for meaningful employment, and is saturated by cheaper labor intentionally imported by the State in response to powerful employer lobbies. These trends suggest a partial reorientation of organized labor’s “battlefront”, from a face-off with capital to an appeal to the public and state.


2012 ◽  
Vol 106 (3) ◽  
pp. 607-621 ◽  
Author(s):  
NADIA URBINATI

Freedom as non-domination has acquired a leading status in political science. As a consequence of its success, neo-roman republicanism also has achieved great prominence as the political tradition that delivered it. Yet despite the fact that liberty in the Roman mode was forged not only in direct confrontation with monarchy but against democracy as well, the relationship of republicanism to democracy is the great absentee in the contemporary debate on non-domination. This article brings that relationship back into view in both historical and conceptual terms. It illustrates the misrepresentations of democracy in the Roman tradition and shows how these undergirded the theory of liberty as non-domination as a counter to political equality as a claim to taking part inimperium. In so doing it brings to the fore the “liberty side” of democratic citizenship as the equal rights of all citizens to exercise their political rights, in direct or indirect form.


2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 843-863 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNA BECKER

AbstractIn the history of early modern political thought, gender is not well established as a subject. It seems that early modern politics and its philosophical underpinnings are characterized by an exclusion of women from the political sphere. This article shows that it is indeed possible to write a gendered history of early modern political thought that transcends questions of the structural exclusion of women from political participation. Through a nuanced reading of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century commentaries on Aristotle's practical philosophy, it deconstructs notions on the public/political and private/apolitical divide and reconstructs that early modern thinkers saw the relationship of husband and wife as deeply political. The article argues that it is both necessary and possible to write gender in and into the history of political thought in a historically sound and firmly contextual way that avoids anachronisms, and it shows – as Joan Scott has suggested – that gender is indeed a ‘useful category’ in the history of political thought.


2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-259
Author(s):  
Joseph Acquisto

This essay examines a polemic between two Baudelaire critics of the 1930s, Jean Cassou and Benjamin Fondane, which centered on the relationship of poetry to progressive politics and metaphysics. I argue that a return to Baudelaire's poetry can yield insight into what seems like an impasse in Cassou and Fondane. Baudelaire provides the possibility of realigning metaphysics and politics so that poetry has the potential to become the space in which we can begin to think the two of them together, as opposed to seeing them in unresolvable tension. Or rather, the tension that Baudelaire animates between the two allows us a new way of thinking about the role of esthetics in moments of political crisis. We can in some ways see Baudelaire as responding, avant la lettre, to two of his early twentieth-century readers who correctly perceived his work as the space that breathes a new urgency into the questions of how modern poetry relates to the world from which it springs and in which it intervenes.


Panggung ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Sahid

ABSTRACTRevolutionary struggle in order to compete for the independence of Indonesia has been a source of inspiration Indonesian artists, including Bambang Soelarto who wrote drama Domba-domba Re- volusi (DDR). DDR studied drama is quite interesting because it tries to criticize the freedom fight- ers. This study aims to: first to know the theme and the problem plays DDR; second to determine the relationship of the socio - historical struggle in 1948 with the sociological elements of drama DDR themes and issues. This study uses sociological theory of art. The basic principles of the sociology of art is the fact that the creation of works of art influenced by the historical social conditions where the work was created. Research using content analysis of Krippendorf, the methods used to examine the symbolic phenomena with the aim to explore and express the observed phenomenon which is the content, meaning, and an essential element of the literary work. Based results of this research is that Bambang Soelarto as the author tries to capture di?erence between fighters during the struggle for the political aspirations for 1948 are expressed in a work of drama. Historical events inspired the creation of drama DDR. Soelarto want to respond to the political aspirations of the di?erence between historical figures and wanted to provide an assessment and outlook through DDR.Keywords: themes, drama, sociology of art, social historical ABSTRAKRevolusi perjuangan dalam rangka memperebutkan kemerdekaan Indonesia telah men- jadi sumber inspirasi para seniman Indonesia, termasuk Bambang Soelarto yang menulis drama Domba-domba Revolusi (DDR). Drama DDR cukup menarik diteliti karena mencoba mengkritisi para pejuang kemerdekaan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk: pertama, mengeta- hui tema dan permasalah drama DDR; kedua, mengetahui hubungan kondisi sosio-histo- ris perjuangan pada tahun 1948 dengan unsur-unsur sosiologis terimplisir pada unsur tema dan masalah drama DDR. Penelitian ini menggunakan teori sosiologi seni. Prinsip dasar dari sosiologi seni adalah adanya fakta bahwa penciptaan karya seni dipengaruhi oleh kon- disi sosial historis tempat karya itu diciptakan. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode con- tent analysis dari Krippendorf, yakni metode yang dipergunakan untuk meneliti fenome- na-fenomena simbolik dengan tujuan untuk menggali dan mengungkapkan fenomena yang teramati yang merupakan isi, makna, dan unsur esensial karya sastra. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian dapat diketahui bahwa Bambang Soelarto sebagai penulis mencoba un- tuk menangkap perbedaan antara pejuang aspirasi politik selama perjuangan tahun 1948 untuk diekspresikan dalam sebuah karya drama. Peristiwa sejarah mengilhami penciptaan drama DDR. Soelarto ingin menanggapi aspirasi politik perbedaan antara tokoh-tokoh se- jarah dan ingin memberikan penilaian dan pandangan pandangannnya melalui DDR.Kata kunci: tema, drama, sosiologi seni, sosial historis


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-66
Author(s):  
Christine Adams

The relationship of the French king and royal mistress, complementary but unequal, embodied the Gallic singularity; the royal mistress exercised a civilizing manner and the soft power of women on the king’s behalf. However, both her contemporaries and nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians were uncomfortable with the mistress’s political power. Furthermore, paradoxical attitudes about French womanhood have led to analyses of her role that are often contradictory. Royal mistresses have simultaneously been celebrated for their civilizing effect in the realm of culture, chided for their frivolous expenditures on clothing and jewelry, and excoriated for their dangerous meddling in politics. Their increasing visibility in the political realm by the eighteenth century led many to blame Louis XV’s mistresses—along with Queen Marie-Antoinette, who exercised a similar influence over her husband, Louis XVI—for the degradation and eventual fall of the monarchy. This article reexamines the historiography of the royal mistress.


Author(s):  
David Holland

This chapter considers the complex relationship between secularization and the emergence of new religious movements. Drawing from countervailing research, some of which insists that new religious movements abet secularizing processes and some of which sees these movements as disproving the secularization thesis, the chapter presents the relationship as inherently unstable. To the extent that new religious movements maintain a precarious balance of familiarity and foreignness—remaining familiar enough to stretch the definitional boundaries of religion—they contribute to secularization. However, new religious movements frequently lean to one side or other of that median, either promoting religious power in the public square by identifying with the interests of existing religious groups, or emphasizing their distinctiveness from these groups and thus provoking aggressive public action by the antagonized religious mainstream. This chapter centres on an illustrative case from Christian Science history.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
C Rinaldi ◽  
M P M Bekker

Abstract Background The political system is an important influencing factor for population health but is often neglected in the public health literature. This scoping review uses insights from political science to explore the possible public health consequences of the rise of populist radical right (PRR) parties in Europe, with welfare state policy as a proxy. The aim is to generate hypotheses about the relationship between the PRR, political systems and public health. Methods A literature search on PubMed, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar resulted in 110 original research articles addressing 1) the relationship between the political system and welfare state policy/population health outcomes or 2) the relationship between PRR parties and welfare state policy/population health outcomes in Europe. Results The influence of political parties on population health seems to be mediated by welfare state policies. Early symptoms point towards possible negative effects of the PRR on public health, by taking a welfare chauvinist position. Despite limited literature, there are preliminary indications that the effect of PRR parties on health and welfare policy depends on vote-seeking or office-seeking strategies and may be mediated by the political system in which they act. Compromises with coalition partners, electoral institutions and the type of healthcare system can either restrain or exacerbate the effects of the PRR policy agenda. EU laws and regulations can to some extent restrict the nativist policy agenda of PRR parties. Conclusions The relationship between the PRR and welfare state policy seems to be mediated by the political system, meaning that the public health consequences will differ by country. Considering the increased popularity of populist parties in Europe and the possibly harmful consequences for public health, there is a need for further research on the link between the PRR and public health.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-38
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Rosow

Contestation over war memorialization can help democratic theory respond to the current attenuation of citizenship in war in liberal democratic states, especially the United States. As war involves more advanced technologies and fewer soldiers, the relation of citizenship to war changes. In this context war memorialization plays a particular role in refiguring the relation. Current practices of remembering and memorializing war in contemporary neoliberal states respond to a dilemma: the state needs to justify and garner support for continual wars while distancing citizenship from participation. The result is a consumer culture of memorialization that seeks to effect a unity of the political community while it fights wars with few citizens and devalues the public. Neoliberal wars fought with few soldiers and an economic logic reveals the vulnerability to otherness that leads to more active and critical democratic citizenship.


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