scholarly journals The contemporary contradictions of egalitarianism: an empirical analysis of the relationship between the old and new left/right alignments

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Elchardus ◽  
Bram Spruyt

This paper deals with the often-observed complex relationship between the so-called old, ‘economic’ left/right alignment (egalitarianism) and the new, ‘cultural’ alignment. Many authors have observed that the less educated members of society occupy an apparently contradictory position, combining a leftist stand in favor of more equality and government intervention, with a rightist stand on minority rights, the treatment of criminals, and other aspects of democratic citizenship. Various explanations have been offered for this paradox. This paper proposes an explanation in terms of vulnerability and the way in which it is culturally processed. Less educated people are often vulnerable and long for more equality. The stronger their desire for equality, the greater their frustration when feeling vulnerable, and the greater the need to cope with that vulnerability. They do so, using particular narrative-coping strategies that create an affinity with the attitudes that form the new left/right alignment. One such coping strategy is based on feelings of relative deprivation. In the empirical part of the paper it is shown that relative deprivation completely explains the paradoxical position of the less educated, and that, when taking feelings of deprivation into account, the two left/right dimensions are in fact independent of each other at all levels of education, creating a situation that leads to tensions within parties that pursue egalitarian policies. The mechanism uncovered in this analysis reveals a tension at the heart of egalitarianism: the stronger the longing for equality among the vulnerable members of society, the more likely they are to opt for right wing positions on the new left/right dimension.

Author(s):  
Karen A. Rasler ◽  
William R. Thompson

A central cleavage in the war making-state making literature is between advocates of the notion that warfare has been the principal path to developing stronger states and critics who argue that the relationship no longer holds, especially in non-European contexts. It is suggested that the problem is simply one of theoretical specification. Increasingly intensive warfare, as manifested in European combat, made states stronger. Less intensive warfare, particularly common after 1945, is less likely to do so. Empirical analysis of a more representative data set on state capacity (revenues as a proportion of gross domestic product [GDP]), focusing on cases since 1870, strongly supports this point of view. The intensiveness of war is not the only factor at work—regime type and win/loss outcomes matter as well—but the relationship does not appear to be constrained by the level of development.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 146-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Huber ◽  
Christian H. Schimpf

This study examines the differences and commonalities of how populist parties of the left and right relate to democracy. The focus is narrowed to the relationship between these parties and two aspects of democratic quality, minority rights and mutual constraints. Our argument is twofold: first, we contend that populist parties can exert distinct influences on minority rights, depending on whether they are left-wing or right-wing populist parties. Second, by contrast, we propose that the association between populist parties and mutual constraints is a consequence of the populist element and thus, we expect no differences between the left-wing and right-wing parties. We test our expectations against data from 30 European countries between 1990 and 2012. Our empirical findings support the argument for the proposed differences regarding minority rights and, to a lesser extent, the proposed similarities regarding mutual constraints. Therefore we conclude that, when examining the relationship between populism and democracy, populism should not be considered in isolation from its host ideology.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Rafiullah Khan

Abstract Since its inception, Pakistan has faced challenges of ethnic-nationalism from her ethnicities. State efforts to mold these diverse identities into one communal Muslim identity have been continually resisted by the different nationalities comprising Pakistan. The demands of ethno-national movements have fluctuated between independence and autonomy, depending upon the relation between the state and the respective ethnic group. Sometimes the demand for autonomy has expanded into a desire for independence, as was the case with Bengali ethnic nationalism. At other times, the desire for independence has shrunk to a demand for autonomy, as manifested by Pashtun nationalism. This shift is explicated through the relationship between the state and ethnic groups. The author analyzes this shift through the prism of Paul Brass’s instrumental theory of elite competition. The factors that contributed to the success of Bengali nationalism in achieving statehood and the failure of Baloch nationalism to do so are viewed through Ted Gurr’s concept of relative deprivation. The integration of Sindhi and Pashtun ethnic groups into the state structure is explained via Andreas Wimmer’s notion of ownership of the state.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 843-860 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Ost

This article is part of the special cluster titled Generation ’68 in Poland (with a Czechoslovak Comparative Perspective). Whereas much of the European right greeted the fiftieth anniversary of 1968 with a critique of its legacy, Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party was largely silent, both because 1968 did not usher in a counterculture and because the protests were directed against the communist party. And yet the Law and Justice party detests the legacy of 1968, for three reasons: 1968 was shaped by the left, ’68 activists and their values played a key role in the ensuing opposition, and because the right actually sympathizes with the communists of 1968, then dominated by nationalists. The right thus traditionally attacks the legacy of 1968 by attacking 1989 instead, when ’68’ ers played a central role and new left progressivism could finally emerge. That began changing early in 2018 when Poland’s parliament passed its Holocaust-speech law banning calumny against the “Polish Nation.” The resulting criticism brought 1968 back with a vengeance, with the right openly inhabiting the role of the national-communists, and beginning to attack Poland’s 1968 directly. Shedding new light on the diverse meanings of 1968 and the relationship of the right to national communism, the piece ends by looking at developments through Bernhard and Kubik’s theory of the politics of memory.


1995 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Durrheim ◽  
Don Foster ◽  
Colin Tredoux

The role of relative deprivation and authoritarianism in predicting militancy and the potential for political protest form the backdrop of this study. The influence of conceptions of regime legitimacy as a variable mediating this relationship was investigated by means of a factorial design, employing a white student sample ( N = 135). Conceptions of legitimacy were manipulated by dividing the sample into left- and right-wing subsamples. The left- and right-wing samples were found to demonstrate different conceptions of relative intergroup status between blacks and whites under the regimes which they considered to be their ‘least legitimate political parties’. The left-wing associated illegitimacy with increased status advantages, and were prepared to employ militant strategies under this hypothesized regime in response to these unfair status advantages. Anti-authoritarianism was associated with potential militancy for the whole sample. Results are discussed in terms of the possibility of non-violent social transformation.


2003 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gisli H. Gudjonsson ◽  
Jon Fridrik Sigurdsson

Summary: The Gudjonsson Compliance Scale (GCS), the COPE Scale, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale were administered to 212 men and 212 women. Multiple regression of the test scores showed that low self-esteem and denial coping were the best predictors of compliance in both men and women. Significant sex differences emerged on all three scales, with women having lower self-esteem than men, being more compliant, and using different coping strategies when confronted with a stressful situation. The sex difference in compliance was mediated by differences in self-esteem between men and women.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-204
Author(s):  
Asirotul Ma’rifah ◽  
Naning Puji Suryantini Suryantini ◽  
Rina Mardiyana

Autism is still a nightmare for most parents. Parents with autism can be very stressful when dealing with a hyperactive child's behavior, aggressive and passive. Stress experienced by parents of children with autism will affect the ability of parents in the parenting role, especially in relation to coping strategies have in dealing with problems of children. The participation of parents is crucial the success of socializing with children with autism in the general population. This study aims to determine the relationship of coping strategies parents of autistic children and parenting parents. This type of research is an analytic correlation with cross sectional approach. The population in this study were all parents of autistic children in SLB Muhammadiyah Mojokerto numbering 15 people. Samples in this study were all parents of autistic children in SLB Muhammadiyah Mojokerto which totaled 15 people by using total sampling technique. Collecting data using questionnaires. Data analized use cross tabulation, presented in a frequency distribution. On cross-tabulation obtained results tend to use maladaptive coping strategies permissive parenting that is 8 (53.3%), there are also respondents who use adaptive coping strategies using authoritarian parenting as much as one person (16.7%), and adaptive coping strategies tend using democratic parenting style as much as 5 people (33.3%). Expected parents still seeking information to broaden their parents on coping strategies of parents of autistic children and parenting parents as well as parents to give special attention for children with autism to the development and advancement of their lives because they have the same rights as any other normal child.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 374-395
Author(s):  
Rafael Ignacio Estrada Mejia ◽  
Carla Guerrón Guerron Montero

This article aims to decrease the cultural invisibility of the wealthy by exploring the Brazilian emergent elites and their preferred living arrangement: elitist closed condominiums (BECCs) from a micropolitical perspective.  We answer the question: What is the relationship between intimacy and subjectivity that is produced in the collective mode of existence of BECCs? To do so, we trace the history of the elite home, from the master’s house (casa grande) to contemporary closed condominiums. Following, we discuss the features of closed condominiums as spaces of segregation, fragmentation and social distinction, characterized by minimal public life and an internalized sociability. Finally, based on ethnographic research conducted in the mid-size city of Londrina (state of Paraná) between 2015 and 2017, we concentrate on four members of the emergent elite who live in BECCs, addressing their collective production of subjectivity. 


2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-133
Author(s):  
Hamid Mavani

The polyvalent Qur’anic text lends itself to multiple interpretations, dependingupon one’s presuppositions and premises. In fact, Q. 3:7 distinguishesbetween muḥkam (explicit, categorical) and mutashābih (metaphorical, allegorical,symbolic) verses. As such, this device provides a way for reinterpretingverses that outwardly appear to be problematic – be it in the area ofgender equality, minority rights, religious freedom, or war. However, manyof the verses dealing with legal provisions in such areas as devotional matters,marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance and bequest, and specific punishmentsappear to be unequivocal, categorical, and explicit. As such, scholarshave devised certain hermeneutical strategies to situate and contextualizethese verses in a particular socio-historical context, as well as to emphasizethat they were in conversation with the society to which the Qur’an was revealedand thereby underlining the “performative” (p.15) nature of the relationshipbetween the Qur’an and the society.No verse is more problematic, in the sense that it offends contemporarysensibilities and is quite difficult to reconcile with an egalitarian worldviewwhen dealing with gender issues, than Q. 4:34, which allows the husband todiscipline his wife if he deems her guilty of nushūz (e.g., disobedience, intransigence,sexual lewdness, aloofness, dislike or hatred of himself). AyeshaChaudhry undertakes a study of this challenging verse by engaging the corpusof literature in Arabic from the classical period to the seventeenth century; shealso includes Urdu and English sources for the post-colonial period.She starts off by relating her personal journey from a state of discomfortand puzzlement when she first came across this verse in middle school to adefensive posture in trying to convince herself by invoking the Prophet’scompassion toward his wives and in cherishing the idea that the Qur’an gavemore rights to women than either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament.She began a more rigorous and nuanced study of this verse after equippingherself with the necessary academic tools and analytic skills during her universitystudies. Frustrated with the shallow responses and the scholars’ circumspectionas regards any creative and novel reading of the verse for fearof losing their status in the community, she decided to do so herself with thehope of discovering views that would promote an egalitarian reading ...


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document