Language Movement and Civil War in West Africa

Author(s):  
Ericka A. Albaugh

This chapter examines how civil war can influence the spread of language. Specifically, it takes Sierra Leone as a case study to demonstrate how Krio grew from being primarily a language of urban areas in the 1960s to one spoken by most of the population in the 2000s. While some of this was due to “normal” factors such as population movement and growing urbanization, the civil war from 1991 to 2002 certainly catalyzed the process of language spread in the 1990s. Using census documents and surveys, the chapter tests the hypothesis at the national, regional, and individual levels. The spread of a language has political consequences, as it allows for citizen participation in the political process. It is an example of political scientists’ approach to uncovering the mechanisms for and evidence of language movement in Africa.

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 167-188
Author(s):  
Abdu Mukhtar Musa

As in most Arab and Third World countries, the tribal structure is an anthropological reality and a sociological particularity in Sudan. Despite development and modernity aspects in many major cities and urban areas in Sudan, the tribe and the tribal structure still maintain their status as a psychological and cultural structure that frames patterns of behavior, including the political behavior, and influence the political process. This situation has largely increased in the last three decades under the rule of the Islamic Movement in Sudan, because of the tribe politicization and the ethnicization of politics, as this research reveals. This research is based on an essential hypothesis that the politicization of tribalism is one of the main reasons for the tribal conflict escalation in Sudan. It discusses a central question: Who is responsible for the tribal conflicts in Sudan?


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 144-157
Author(s):  
Ho-Chun Herbert Chang ◽  
Samar Haider ◽  
Emilio Ferrara

From fact-checking chatbots to community-maintained misinformation databases, Taiwan has emerged as a critical case-study for citizen participation in politics online. Due to Taiwan’s geopolitical history with China, the recent 2020 Taiwanese Presidential Election brought fierce levels of online engagement led by citizens from both sides of the strait. In this article, we study misinformation and digital participation on three platforms, namely Line, Twitter, and Taiwan’s Professional Technology Temple (PTT, Taiwan’s equivalent of Reddit). Each of these platforms presents a different facet of the elections. Results reveal that the greatest level of disagreement occurs in discussion about incumbent president Tsai. Chinese users demonstrate emergent coordination and selective discussion around topics like China, Hong Kong, and President Tsai, whereas topics like Covid-19 are avoided. We discover an imbalance of the political presence of Tsai on Twitter, which suggests partisan practices in disinformation regulation. The cases of Taiwan and China point toward a growing trend where regular citizens, enabled by new media, can both exacerbate and hinder the flow of misinformation. The study highlights an overlooked aspect of misinformation studies, beyond the veracity of information itself, that is the clash of ideologies, practices, and cultural history that matter to democratic ideals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 69-80
Author(s):  
D.G. SELTSER ◽  

The purpose of the article is to clarify the place and role of the decree in the general course of the political process and highlight its direct consequences for the fate of the CPSU and the USSR. The scientific literature on the topic is analyzed. It is concluded that scientists draw a direct connection between the final events of the history of the USSR – Yeltsin's decree about departisation, degradation of the CPSU, resistance to the Emergency Committee and the liquidation of the CPSU / USSR. The author describes the stages of the personnel actions of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. In his opinion, the nomenclature system was expected: «construction» of the elite (1985–1987), elections in the party (1988–1990), elections in the state (1989–1990), decree about departisation (1991). The decree is seen as the final stage in the denationalization of the party. The CPSU, having lost power and property, ceased to be a state. The content of the decree, the behavior of political actors in connection with its adoption and the political consequences of the decree are considered. In conclusion, it is concluded that the decree was a domino effect, a provocation to the instant collapse of the USSR.


Author(s):  
Collen Sabao ◽  
Tendai Owen Chikara

The chapter examines and discusses the role and communicative potential of social media based platforms in citizen political participation and protests in Zimbabwe specifically focusing on the #thisflag movement on Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp. #thisflag is a social media-based platform that rose to challenge the Zimbabwean government over the political and economic decay as well as rampant corruption characterising the country contemporarily. While a new phenomenon to Zimbabwe and Zimbabwean politics, the impact and communicative potential of social media as an alternative public sphere was recently tested in nationwide protest stayaway organised through the Facebook and Twitter movement under the #thisflag handle/brand. This chapter discusses the manners in which such social media platforms impact national politics in Zimbabwe as well as globally, specifically looking at the #thisflag movement as a case study.


2020 ◽  
pp. 772-786
Author(s):  
Collen Sabao ◽  
Tendai Owen Chikara

The chapter examines and discusses the role and communicative potential of social media based platforms in citizen political participation and protests in Zimbabwe specifically focusing on the #thisflag movement on Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp. #thisflag is a social media-based platform that rose to challenge the Zimbabwean government over the political and economic decay as well as rampant corruption characterising the country contemporarily. While a new phenomenon to Zimbabwe and Zimbabwean politics, the impact and communicative potential of social media as an alternative public sphere was recently tested in nationwide protest stayaway organised through the Facebook and Twitter movement under the #thisflag handle/brand. This chapter discusses the manners in which such social media platforms impact national politics in Zimbabwe as well as globally, specifically looking at the #thisflag movement as a case study.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Fariha Khalid Khan ◽  
Razia Musarrat

Elections make a fundamental contribution to democratic governance. In democracies political decisions are made directly by the citizens of the country. Elections serve as forum for the discussion of public issues and facilitate the expression of public opinion. Electoral politics is a figurative form of political participation. Success and failure of political institutions depends upon the political awareness of people and the process of electoral politics is the subject of free, fair and transparent elections. Like her counterparts Pakistan has election process defined by constitution. The electoral process in Pakistan was not regular and transparent but last three elections 2002, 2008 and 2013 were held according to the constitution.  In Pakistan elections and political process are dominated by the political personalities. Although there are multiparty system but people mostly preferred two main parties like PPP and PML-N but it is positive that third party PTI was emerged in country as third largest party of Pakistan. The study focuses on the 2013 elections and behavior of people of district Muzaffar Garh of Punjab. The purpose of this study is to observe the electoral politics at micro level in Pakistan.


2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 410-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Keels ◽  
J Michael Greig

In this article, we argue that because governments fear that accepting mediation and reaching agreements with opponents may signal weakness to other potential challengers, civil war governments tend to resist mediation as a means of demonstrating their resolve. Building on current theories of reputation in civil war, we argue that the threat of future challenges from other groups is likely to be particularly acute in states with multiple ethnic groups, especially states with high levels of ethnic exclusion. We therefore expect that civil wars in these states will be less likely to see mediation and to produce agreements when they do. By examining all instances of mediation in intrastate conflict from 1990 to 2008, we test this argument empirically and find that mediation is more likely to emerge in civil wars where there are a large number of ethnic groups, but is less likely to occur when many of those ethnic groups are excluded from the political process. Once mediation is underway, however, it is less likely to yield a negotiated settlement when there are a large number of ethnic groups, but more likely to end in a negotiated settlement when many of the ethnic groups are excluded from the political process.


Author(s):  
Bruce Rocheleau

This chapter provides examples of the politics of managing information in public organizations by studying both its internal and external aspects. Within the organization, politics is involved in structuring decision making, struggles over purchases of hardware and software, interdepartmental sharing of information, and the flow of communications such as e-mail among employees. The chapter analyzes examples of each of these internal aspects of politics. The chapter also discusses evidence concerning whether political appointees or career administrators are more effective as information managers. Externally, the chapter discusses how information management has been used to attempt to achieve greater political accountability through e-reporting and examples of cases where purchasing problems spill over into the realm of external politics such as through attempts to privatize governmental information management function. Certain topics such as municipal broadband systems and information management disasters are highly likely to involve information managers in politics. The attempts to use governmental Web sites as mechanisms to achieve e-governance and greater citizen participation in the political process also make it impossible for information managers to insulate themselves against politics.


Author(s):  
Zoe Marks

A key objective for the women, peace, and security agenda going forward is to disaggregate the experiences of women as a group, and to understand how gender functions in conflict contexts. This chapter focuses on the diverse roles of female combatants in rebel groups to gain insight into how power is distributed, not only between men and women, or combatants and civilians, but within groups. Rebel groups are characterized by military and political apparatuses that are built side by side and often entangled. Organizational power structures are often dominated by men, but not exclusively so. Using interviews and archival data from the Sierra Leone Civil War case study, this chapter delivers an analysis of women’s experiences in rebel movements. It explores the individual trajectories of mobilization and victimization in Sierra Leone. Next, it examines the unique experiences of female combatants, before situating them in the broader political context. Finally, the chapter considers cases of sexual violence, intimate partnerships, conflict among women, and the political entrepreneurship of elite women to understand female participation in rebellion in its entirety.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 511-533
Author(s):  
Aaron Rosenthal

AbstractDoes political distrust generate a desire to engage in the political process or does it foster demobilization? Utilizing a theoretical framework rooted in government experiences and a mixed-methods research design, this article highlights the racially contingent meaning of political distrust to show that both relationships exist. For Whites, distrust is tied to a perception of tax dollars being poorly spent, leading to increased political involvement as Whites to try to gain control over “their” investment in government. For People of Color, distrust of government is grounded in a fear of the criminal justice system, and thus drives disengagement by motivating a desire for invisibility in relation to the state. Ultimately, this finding highlights a previously unseen racial heterogeneity in the political consequences of distrust. Further, it demonstrates how the state perpetuates racially patterned political inequality in a time when many of the formal laws engendering this dynamic have fallen away.


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