Politics and the People: A Study in English Political Culture, c. 1815- 1867. James Vernon

1996 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-180
Author(s):  
Margot Finn
Keyword(s):  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Urbinati

Populism is the name of a global phenomenon whose definitional precariousness is proverbial. It resists generalizations and makes scholars of politics comparativist by necessity, as its language and content are imbued with the political culture of the society in which it arises. A rich body of socio-historical analyses allows us to situate populism within the global phenomenon called democracy, as its ideological core is nourished by the two main entities—the nation and the people—that have fleshed out popular sovereignty in the age of democratization. Populism consists in a transmutation of the democratic principles of the majority and the people in a way that is meant to celebrate one subset of the people as opposed to another, through a leader embodying it and an audience legitimizing it. This may make populism collide with constitutional democracy, even if its main tenets are embedded in the democratic universe of meanings and language. In this article, I illustrate the context-based character of populism and how its cyclical appearances reflect the forms of representative government. I review the main contemporary interpretations of the concept and argue that some basic agreement now exists on populism's rhetorical character and its strategy for achieving power in democratic societies. Finally, I sketch the main characteristics of populism in power and explain how it tends to transform the fundamentals of democracy: the people and the majority, elections, and representation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9s4 ◽  
pp. 58-89
Author(s):  
David Veevers

This article adopts the concept of securitisation to understand the failure of the English East India Company�s attempt to build a territorial empire on the island of Sumatra in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Securitisation formed a key component of European colonialism, involving the creation of fortified and militarised borders both to exclude groups from entering newly defined territorial spaces, but also as a way to control goods, labour and resources within those spaces. Ultimately, this form of imperialism failed on the west coast of Sumatra, where a highly mobile society participated in a shared political culture that made any formal boundary or border between Malay states too difficult to enforce. Trading networks, religious affiliations, transregional kinship ties, and migratory circuits all worked to undermine the Company�s attempt to establish its authority over delineated territory and the people and goods within it.


Author(s):  
Yuri Pines

This chapter explores the reasons for the recurrence of large-scale popular uprisings throughout imperial history. It considers how the idea of rebellion correlates with fundamental principles of Chinese political culture, such as monarchism and intellectual elitism. Moreover, the chapter looks at why the rebellions serve to support rather than disrupt the empire's longevity. These issues are then related to the broader issue of the political role of the “people,” here referring primarily, although not exclusively, to the lower strata, in the Chinese imperial enterprise. In answering these questions, this chapter focuses on ideological and social factors that both legitimated rebellions and also enabled their accommodation within the imperial enterprise.


2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Kranert

Abstract The term populism is omnipresent in current political science and political discourse. This paper discusses how so-called “populist” discourse is linguistically construed in the 2017 election manifestos of the German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the British United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). It does so by operationalising populism concepts from political science, specifically the difference between exclusive and inclusive populism. In order to investigate how “populist” discourses depend on the respective political culture of a discourse community, these categories are employed in a corpus based comparative politico-linguistic analysis. Based on a corpus of German and British election manifestos from 2017, the paper demonstrates that both UKIP and the AfD combine elements of in inclusive populism based on demands of a democratic renewal, and an exclusive populism based on the idea the people as a homogeneous ethnos. The discursive realisation, however, differs because of general historic and political differences such as Britain being a state of four nations and the AfD aiming to avoid a rhetoric known from Germany’s past. Particularly pronounced are differences in the delineation to the enemy “European Union” as both parties link their euro-sceptical discourse to different central signifiers of the German and British political culture.


2020 ◽  
pp. 019251212093120
Author(s):  
Paloma Caravantes

This paper analyzes the interplay of left populist and feminist politics through a case study of Podemos (‘we can’), a Spanish left populist party that reproduces a dominant gendered logic of politics despite its feminist interpretation of democratic renewal. I argue that this is the result of fundamental contradictions between the feminist and populist projects of political transformation that coexist in the party. Even if left populism offers a more productive terrain for gender equality than right populism, central tenets of populism disrupt feminist commitments and goals. Chief among these are the oversimplification of the political field based on a limited diagnosis, the exclusionary appeals to the homeland and to a homogenizing collectivity of the people, the dominant masculine and personalistic logics of charismatic leaders, the prioritization of electoral success over other forms of political transformation, and the resulting gendered political culture that marginalizes empowerment, inclusion, and participatory democratic practices.


1995 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Ellis ◽  
Stephen Kirk

A central paradox of the modern American presidency is that citizens regularly call for strong presidential leadership while at the same time their political culture predisposes them to be reluctant followers.1 One of the ways contemporary presidents resolve this paradox is by invoking an electoral mandate. By persuading others that he possesses a mandate from the voters to pursue a particular policy agenda, a president can disguise his leadership under the pretense of simply carrying out “the will of the people.” The presidential mandate thus enables presidents to lead while seeming to follow, to exercise power over people under the guise of empowering the people.


Slavic Review ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia H. Whittaker

Don't lead the people to expect miracles. It is necessary to expunge from people's minds a belief in the "good tsar," in the assumption that someone at the top will impose order and organize change–Mikhail Gorbachev, 1988The idea of the "good tsar" originated in Muscovite times and obviously has since become a commonplace of Russian political culture. However, Gorbachev's statement does not really define a "good tsar" but what should instead be called a "reforming tsar," a term that more aptly characterizes the changed expectations of a ruler in the Imperial period of Russian history


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Rupiarsieh Rupiarsieh

Since the downfall of the New Order regime, the regional head election is done directly. Before 2005, it was elected by the Local House of Representatives (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah, DPRD). However, since the effectuation of Constitution No. 32 year 2004 said that the regional head was chosen directly by the people and called as Pilkada. It was held in 2010 and 2015. In the 2015 elections in Situbondo, the number of absentia voter is still a problem. It shows that the public has little or no political participation in using their right to vote freely. It is very influential on democracy and acceptance of the elected leaders. The 2015, it showed that the number of registered voters is 509,111. Voters, who using their voting rights only 378,953. The valid votes 372,555, divided to first candidate in number of 18,997 (5%), second candidate in number of 158,934 (43%), and the third candidate in number of 194 624 or 52%. Total absentia voter is 130,058 (25%). By using descriptive qualitative method, the simultaneous elections can be analyzed. The high absentee voter was more due to political factors, lack of political awareness because the majority of education level is still low, and there are patrialism in political culture is. All the leader must have the blessing from the moslem leader (Kiayi). The voters are not in accordance with the existing leader candidate, do not attend the election. The voters will attend the election by following the advice from the Kiayi. They chose their regency leader not in freely condition. If the elected regent unable to accommodate the interests of the opposing party (absentia voter) could become a powerful political opponent. A new factor affecting the absentee voter is political culture. The political culture and democracy education conducted by involving the Kiayi, and directed at women voters and beginner-voter, because the majority of voters are women and the beginner-voter are in the moslem boarding school (called: pasantren), that manage by the Kiayi.


1998 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 249-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Gal

For Decades, Scholars have claimed that “culture” is one important factor in shaping political processes. Individuals and groups hold fundamental values and expectations that contribute to the maintenance or collapse of democracy, nationalism, fascism, communism, and other political systems. Recently, however, the argument has been extended considerably: political culture and ritual, it is now claimed, are not simply the colorful, attitudinal, sometimes manipulative icing on the cake of the real interests and power relations that move history. More fundamentally, “interests,” “power,” “sovereignty,” the “people,” the “nation,” “tradition,” and even the “state” are being studied as ideological devices with logics, rhetorics, and effects specific to particular historical contexts. Political processes operate through such categories, which are culturally constructed and only appear to be unproblematic and self-evident.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document