The Political Use of Social Capital in New Zealand

Author(s):  
Richard Davis
2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-480
Author(s):  
Lee E. Dutter

Studies of individuals or groups who might use violence or terrorism in pursuit of political goals often focus on the specific actions which these individuals or groups have taken and on the policies which defenders (that is, governments of states) against such actions may adopt in response. Typically, less attention is devoted to identifying the relevant preconditions of political action and possible escalation to violence and how or why potential actions may be obviated before they occur. In the context of democratic political systems, the present analysis addresses these issues via examination of indigenous peoples, who typically constitute tiny fractions of the population of the states or regions in which they reside, in terms of their past and present treatment by governments and the political actions, whether non-violent or violent, which individuals from these peoples have engaged or may engage. The specific peoples examined are Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders of Australia, Haudenosaunee of North America, Inuit of Canada, Maori of New Zealand, and Saami of Scandinavia.


2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bill Ryan

Something intriguing is going on within the political executive. In response to emerging conditions of governing in the late 20th and early 21st century in countries like New Zealand, some public servants are acting in new ways that are quite different from certain key prescriptions of the traditional, Westminster-derived constitutional framework on which our polity is based. This paper identifies some of these changes and considers their implications.


Author(s):  
Grant Duncan ◽  
James H Liu ◽  
Sarah Y Choi

Leading up to the 2017 New Zealand general election, Stuff.co.nz and Massey University collaborated in two online surveys of public opinion to test the mood of the nation and seek opinions about a range of relevant political and social issues. Given their success, two more surveys were conducted in 2020. This article summarises results from the 2020 data, and reflects on the methodological advantages, disadvantages and challenges of conducting people-driven online surveys that need to meet the differing needs of academic researchers, journalists and the public. While the surveys produced very large samples, they were not representative. Moreover, the choices of items were influenced by what happened to be newsworthy at the time. Naturally, Covid-19 was a significant theme during the 2020 surveys. The results reveal predictable left–right polarization of opinions, a minority support for conspiracy theories, some areas of wide agreement across the political spectrum, and some unexpected nuances of opinions within and across ethnic groups.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Galina Viktorovna Morozova ◽  
Artur Romanovich Gavrilov ◽  
Bulat Ildarovich Yakupov

If we sum up the tasks facing the Russian state in relation to the young generation, then all of them are associated with its harmonious inclusion in the social and political development of the country. At the normative level, the current need is declared for young people to form active citizenship and democratic political culture, which is possible only in a constant and equal dialogue between the authorities and young people. Ensuring the interaction of the younger generation with the political elite presupposes the existence of certain conditions - the creation and effective functioning of the information infrastructure of youth policy, as well as the conduct of an open active information policy. The article describes the results of a study of the political status of students of the capital of Tatarstan - Kazan, in particular, such parameters as youth interest in political information, trust in the sources of this information, and political participation. Together with the data of secondary studies, this made it possible to characterize the youth sector of political communication, identify the existing difficulties in the interaction of the government and youth, in particular, identify some difficulties in receiving and disseminating political information among the youth, which impede the development of a democratic political culture and the accumulation of social capital of the young generation.


Tempo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 72 (283) ◽  
pp. 56-79
Author(s):  
James Gardner ◽  
Christopher Fox

ABSTRACTIn 2002 Christian Wolff was a guest composer at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and during the course of the festival he was interviewed by Christopher Fox and by James Gardner. Fox's interview took place before an audience in the Lawrence Batley Theatre on 25 November; Gardner's interview was recorded in private in the George Hotel, Huddersfield on 27 November, and edited excerpts from that recording were subsequently used in a programme produced by Radio New Zealand. The conversation presented here has been compiled by James Gardner from his transcriptions of the two interviews and presents a wide-ranging discussion of Wolff's musical preoccupations across every phase of his compositional career, from the early piano pieces of the 1950s, to his involvement with indeterminacy in the 1960s, to the political concerns evident in his music after 1970, to the works of the last three decades in which indeterminate and determinate methods of composition are combined.


2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-248
Author(s):  
Marcos Cardoso dos Santos

Abstract This article examines the complementarities among Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and field, and Huysmans’s conception of discursive security strategy as a mediator of people’s relation to death. The interplay among these theories explains how hegemonic security discourses emerge. The self-referential aspect of the Copenhagen School’s Securitisation Theory (ST) does not contradict the existence of a relation of forces among securitising actors and audiences in given security fields, based on the ownership of social capital. This article rejects the theoretical positions adopted by Bigo, Tsoukala and Balzacq in terms of which ST is regarded as intersubjective. Utilising the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe, it is possible to verify how hegemonic security discourses are determined. Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and field and Huysmans’s premises about security strategy also have implications for ST, mainly for the discussions about whether it has an intersubjective or self-referential aspect. As discourses of danger construct the political identities of states, the study of their influence on foreign policy is relevant to international relations. This article concludes that when the degree of otherness gets closer to the radical Other, extraordinary measures are easily tolerated by the agents involved in the securitisation process.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 250-273
Author(s):  
Abamfo Ofori Atiemo

Despite the considerable volume of material produced by scholars in recent times on the political and social relevance of Africa’s religious revival, policy makers and development workers continue to pay only scanty attention to religion in their work. In cases, where some attention is paid to religion, the focus has been on institutions and public-spirited religious personalities. Most policy makers and development workers seem more comfortable to deal with these than the core religious elements such as rituals. Based on discussion of data drawn from a study of the Corinthian Church of South Africa (CCSA), this paper argues that aspects of religion such as beliefs and rituals, which are often ignored in development work constitute an important “spiritual capital” that can enrich social capital; and that if these are taken account of in social policy crafting, they will provide a new vista to some of the developmental challenges of Africa.


Author(s):  
Raquel Campos Franco ◽  
Lili Wang ◽  
Pauric O’Rourke ◽  
Beth Breeze ◽  
Jan Künzl ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Dominic O'Sullivan

Recognising difference does not undermine liberalism’s protection of individual rights. Indigenous identity must come from somewhere. It is heavily shaped by culture and derives meaning from communal relationships. However, the degree to which difference and diversity ought to co-exist is contested. Public attitudes to differentiation and diversity influence the opportunities and practices of indigenous civil society. The tension as an intellectual contest between liberal democracy’s capacity for inclusion and its practical tendency to exclude. The chapter assesses examples of democratic inclusion and exclusion in Australia and New Zealand for the political values they reflect, before proposing the concept as one that might contribute stability and coherence to Fijian politics as foundational conditions for the greater self-determination that indigenous Fijians seek.


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