Symbols of Political Participation: Jayalalitha’s Fan Imagery in Tamil Nadu

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-269
Author(s):  
Amy-Ruth Holt
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Tamil Nadu ◽  
Swimming Pool ◽  
The Political ◽  
Visual Narratives ◽  
The Past ◽  
Chief Minister ◽  
Popular Devotion ◽  
Local Traditions ◽  
Hindu Deity

Abstract Contributing to the growing literature on fandom, this study investigates the political fan imagery in Tamil Nadu of the past AIADMK chief-minister J. Jayalalitha (1948–2016) that arouse popular devotion in her followers as if she was a Hindu deity (Hills 2002; Porter 2009; Duffett 2013). During Jayalalitha’s reign, her AIADMK followers, often called bhaktas, pursued her favour by making divine-like icons of her as well as by performing extreme physical acts for her attention that may be reproduced as visual narratives in the local press. The Tamil karate star Shihan Hussaini crucified himself on a cross wearing a t-shirt with Jayalalitha’s political nickname on it, the MLA representative M.V. Karuppaiah floated in a swimming pool holding an AIADMK flag in his mouth for forty-eight hours, and minister Sellur Raju organized huge ritual processions derived from local traditions, repurposed for Jayalalitha’s praise. These bhakti images involve a transactional visuality between iconic depictions of Jayalalitha and supportive narratives featuring her devotees’ unusual actions that serve as defining symbols of their political participation.

Grand Coalition Government: The Case of Lebanon

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Badran
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Grand Coalition ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Government ◽  
Council Of Ministers

AbstractTo maintain political stability and to preserve the plurality and the diversity that characterise its societies, consociational democracies require, more than other states, a grand coalition government. In this type of democracy, the grand coalition is not a model that is used in exceptional cases, as in majoritarian democracies. It is a deliberate and permanent political choice. In Lebanon, following the modifications implemented by the 1989 Ṭā’if Accord, the Constitution instituted a collegial power-sharing within the executive that implies the establishment of a grand coalition which enables the political participation of the main Lebanese religious confessions in the government. On the other hand, the formation of the Lebanese Council of ministers since the spring of 2005 has become increasingly difficult and coalitions are often less stable than in the past. These laborious negotiations for unstable governmental coalitions are especially problematic in what may be called the perversion of the constitutional procedure by leaders of the parliamentary blocs.

From Google Doodles to Facebook: Nostalgia and Visual Reconstructions of the Past in Nigeria

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
James Yékú ◽  
Ayobami Ojebode
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Political Connections ◽  
The Political ◽  
African History ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Visual Narratives ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Photographs ◽  
Google Search ◽  
Commercial Platform

Abstract In June 2019, Google announced plans to connect Africa to Europe through an undersea internet cable project named Equiano. As a techno-commercial platform, Google’s gesture warrants scrutiny and propels this essay’s analyses of the political connections of Internet spaces that also enable a visual turn in the scholarship of African history. Using the Google search engine and Facebook, Yékú and Ojebode stress the embeddedness of digital technologies in cultural meanings that include visual narratives that visibilize government’s ahistoricism. They conclude by foregrounding the digital labors of Nigerian digital subjects who deploy historical photographs on Facebook as expressions of performative nostalgia.

Women’s Political Participation in Bahrain

Women Rising ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 321-329
Author(s):  
Marwa Shalaby ◽  
Ariana Marnicio
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
The Political ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Political Empowerment ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
The Past ◽  
British Occupation ◽  
Recent Developments

Women played a crucial role in the Bahraini political sphere over the past decades—through both formal and informal avenues of political activism. They were remarkably successful in shaping the country's political arena as they participated in the nationalist struggle against the British occupation, and in the innumerable subsequent calls for social and political reforms. Despite the regression of women's presence in the political sphere during the 1980s with the rise of Islamism—exacerbated by the political and social stagnation throughout the region—Bahraini women returned to the spotlight in the 1990s and continued to play a major role in the political sphere until the present time. Marwa Shalaby and Ariana Marnicio explain the paradox of women's political empowerment in Bahrain, with a special focus on recent developments post–Arab Spring.

scholarly journals Political involvement o of citizens of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan on the example of parliamentary elections: comparative analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 135 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-69
Author(s):  
R.А. Nurtazina ◽  
◽  
А.Т. Serikzhanova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Involvement ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
The Past ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic

In the context of globalization, the issue of modernization of the process of transformation of the political systems of the states of the Central Asian region has been updated. The processes of self-identification and modeling of the political courses of development of the Central Asian states, as well as the determination of priorities for the political participation of citizens, which have taken place over the past three decades since independence, make the article relevant. The article deals with topical issues of political involvement of citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Republic of Kyrgyzstan at the present stage. There is considered a brief history of the formation of parliamentarism in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. There has been compiled chronology of the process of elections of deputies of Parliament and protest actions and the consequences of the elections. The authors have carried out an analysis of the political participation of citizens of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, characterized by a certain similarity in the functioning of political systems

The New Right Conception of Citizenship and the Citizen's Charter

1995 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bellamy ◽  
John Greenaway
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
New Right ◽  
The Political ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Mixed Economy ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post War ◽  
Do So

MANY COMMENTATORS HAVE VIEWED THE CITIZEN'S CHARTER programme as a cynical exercise, having little to do with either the political participation one associates with citizenship or the establishment of a general bill of rights in the manner of the great Charters of the past. Although these criticisms possess some force, they fail to recognize that a distinctive conception of citizenship and rights underlies the initiative. In section one, we give an outline of this view of the citizen and trace its origins in the New Right critique of the social-democratic theory that predominated during the post-war period. This exercise forms a necessary preliminary both for understanding the objectives of the policy, the task of section two, and for assessing its coherence and plausibility, the aim of section three. We shall conclude that the scheme fails because it either substitutes the market for the state where it is inappropriate or omits to do so where it might provejustified. In these respects, the combination of politics and markets from the mixed-economy perspective of the social democratic conception of citizenship may well be superior.

Women in Power and Decision making Positions : Conditions and Restraints

1970 ◽  
pp. 53-57
Author(s):  
Azza Charara Baydoun
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Policies And Procedures ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Slow Progress

Women today are considered to be outside the political and administrative power structures and their participation in the decision-making process is non-existent. As far as their participation in the political life is concerned they are still on the margins. The existence of patriarchal society in Lebanon as well as the absence of governmental policies and procedures that aim at helping women and enhancing their political participation has made it very difficult for women to be accepted as leaders and to be granted votes in elections (UNIFEM, 2002).This above quote is taken from a report that was prepared to assess the progress made regarding the status of Lebanese women both on the social and governmental levels in light of the Beijing Platform for Action – the name given to the provisions of the Fourth Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. The above quote describes the slow progress achieved by Lebanese women in view of the ambitious goal that requires that the proportion of women occupying administrative or political positions in Lebanon should reach 30 percent of thetotal by the year 2005!

The Political Economy of Local Governance in Yemen

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 45-69
Author(s):  
Benoit Challand ◽  
Joshua Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Local Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
Strong State ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Local Initiatives ◽  
Self Rule

This paper provides an historical exploration of local governance in Yemen across the past sixty years. It highlights the presence of a strong tradition of local self-rule, self-help, and participation “from below” as well as the presence of a rival, official, political culture upheld by central elites that celebrates centralization and the strong state. Shifts in the predominance of one or the other tendency have coincided with shifts in the political economy of the Yemeni state(s). When it favored the local, central rulers were compelled to give space to local initiatives and Yemen experienced moments of political participation and local development.

Facing the Challenge of Democracy

2011 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Party Polarization

Citizens are political simpletons—that is only a modest exaggeration of a common characterization of voters. Certainly, there is no shortage of evidence of citizens' limited political knowledge, even about matters of the highest importance, along with inconsistencies in their thinking, some glaring by any standard. But this picture of citizens all too often approaches caricature. This book brings together leading political scientists who offer new insights into the political thinking of the public, the causes of party polarization, the motivations for political participation, and the paradoxical relationship between turnout and democratic representation. These studies propel a foundational argument about democracy. Voters can only do as well as the alternatives on offer. These alternatives are constrained by third players, in particular activists, interest groups, and financial contributors. The result: voters often appear to be shortsighted, extreme, and inconsistent because the alternatives they must choose between are shortsighted, extreme, and inconsistent.

PRACTICAL BASE OF FORMULATING RETRAINING PROGRAMS ON ETHNIC MINORITY AFFAIRS KNOWLEDGE FOR CADRES, CIVIL SERVANTS UP TO 2030

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nguyen Van Dung ◽  
Giang Khac Binh
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Training Program ◽  
Political System ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Training Programs ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
The Political ◽  
Target Groups ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past

As developing programs is the core in fostering knowledge on ethnic work for cadres and civil servants under Decision No. 402/QD-TTg dated 14/3/2016 of the Prime Minister, it is urgent to build training program on ethnic minority affairs for 04 target groups in the political system from central to local by 2020 with a vision to 2030. The article highlighted basic issues of practical basis to design training program of ethnic minority affairs in the past years; suggested solutions to build the training programs in integration and globalization period.

Perempuan dalam Kungkungan Budaya Politik Patriarkhis

MUWAZAH ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Nurbaity Prastyananda Yuwono
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Awareness ◽  
Cultural Reconstruction ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
The Government ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Women's Networks ◽  
Women's Political Participation

Women's political participation in Indonesia can be categorized as low, even though the government has provided special policies for women. Patriarchal political culture is a major obstacle in increasing women's political participation, because it builds perceptions that women are inappropriate, unsuitable and unfit to engage in the political domain. The notion that women are more appropriate in the domestic area; identified politics are masculine, so women are not suitable for acting in the political domain; Weak women and not having the ability to become leaders, are the result of the construction of a patriarchal political culture. Efforts must be doing to increase women's participation, i.e: women's political awareness, gender-based political education; building and strengthening relationships between women's networks and organizations; attract qualified women  political party cadres; cultural reconstruction and reinterpretation of religious understanding that is gender biased; movement to change the organizational structure of political parties and; the implementation of legislation effectively.

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