The Politics of the Haratin Social Movement in Mauritania, 1978–2014

Author(s):  
Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem

The Haratin have sought equality and justice primarily through fighting the stigmas attached to slavery and by challenging the political marginalization that has secured their subordination. This chapter explores the context in which the Haratin movement began, the evolution of the rhetoric it has used to articulate dissent, its politics, and the growing diversity of the organizations that have devoted themselves to the Haratin cause. It outlines the ways in which the generational divide among activists has shaped the movement’s actions without changing its core demands. It devotes to analyzing the patterns of conflict and cooperation over time, not only within the movement, but also in its rather ambiguous relationships with other social and political actors. It seeks to explain how the complex intersectionality of ethnic and cultural identities has made it difficult at times for non-Haratin communities to accept the legitimacy of the Haratin cause. The chapter then argues that not only has the Haratin movement been an important player in Mauritania’s various attempts at democratization, but also that so-called “political liberalization” has allowed the movement the opportunity to advance its social and political agendas.

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (9) ◽  
pp. 1271-1298
Author(s):  
Olga Zelinska

This article employs a contentious politics framework to examine the mobilization–repression nexus as it occurred in Ukraine from the 1990 Revolution on Granite, through the 2000-2001 Ukraine without Kuchma campaign and the 2004 Orange Revolution, to the 2013-2014 Euromaidan movement. Comparative analysis of these four cases suggests that developments in both the contentious and repressive repertoires resembled spirals: each campaign became more complex and of longer duration than the last, and each was driven by the repeated protester–government interactions and by the political, economic, and technological environment that changed over time. In the transit from autocracy to democracy, Ukrainian activists adopted and “normalized” political protest much more quickly than did the authorities. The activists creatively innovated as they borrowed from earlier dissent traditions and from other social movements abroad. For the government, the process of learning how to manage contention with means other than their usual repression tactics was much longer, and it is not over. As it slowly transits from Soviet past to democracy, Ukraine continues its development into a “social movement society.”


2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Albæk ◽  
Christian Elmelund-Præstekær ◽  
David Nicolas Hopmann ◽  
Robert Klemmensen

Abstract Previous studies have shown that experts appearing in the media are increasingly speculating about trends and developments rather than presenting their own research. With respect to political journalism, this raises the question of whether increased use of expert sources has also led to an increased focus on process relative to substance in election news coverage. The study, conducted in 1998 and 2007, surveys what types of experts are referred to in the election coverage, what topics the experts comment on (in particular whether they focus on substance or process), and whether the number and types of experts as well as topics have changed over time. As expected, there is an increase in newspapers’ references to experts in their election campaign coverage. However, contrary to our expectations, in both 1998 and 2007, there is an equal number of articles referring to the election campaign’s political content (i.e., they mentioned the topics promoted by the political actors during the campaign) and to the political process. And extremely few articles included meta-discussions.


Author(s):  
Ben Epstein

The Only Constant Is Change presents and tests the political communication cycle (PCC), a model describing how political actors and organizations make decisions about if, how, and when to innovate their political communication practices. Generally speaking, political communication goals have remained largely stable over time, but the strategies used to accomplish these goals have changed a great deal. The PCC describes the recurring process of political communication innovation through American political history. This model incorporates the technological, political, and behavioral factors influencing how and when changes in political communication activity take place. The PCC is made up of three phases that also serve as an organizational structure for the book. First is the technological imperative, which focuses on how new information and communications technologies (ICT) are developed and what types of ICTs may be more or less likely to be used to innovate political communication. Next, the political choice phase incorporates the behavioral processes embedded in how different types of actors choose whether to innovate or not. This phase is the most critical and is analyzed through case studies evaluating how campaigns, social movements, and interest groups have or have not changed their political communication activities over time. Finally, the stabilization phase encompasses the process of how once innovative techniques become the new status quo though the establishment of new norms, regulations, and institutions. The book explores these changes through historical and contemporary analysis, which offers important context and tools to understand political communication through history and today.


2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Nagle

This paper provides an analysis of the origins, development and decline of the ‘Ulster Unionist victims movement’, a protest-based social movement that has developed since the inauguration of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The social movement, which represents a dense network of Protestant Unionist organisations, originated as a protest against what it viewed as discrimination meted out to Protestant Unionists during the political dispensation following the Northern Irish peace process. Utilising social movement theory to analyse the social movement, it assesses how political opportunities and cultural framing processes interact in the evolution of social movements to provide a richer and more dynamic analysis of how social movement actors change over time.


Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-200
Author(s):  
Natalie Kouri-Towe

In 2015, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Toronto (QuAIA Toronto) announced that it was retiring. This article examines the challenges of queer solidarity through a reflection on the dynamics between desire, attachment and adaptation in political activism. Tracing the origins and sites of contestation over QuAIA Toronto's participation in the Toronto Pride parade, I ask: what does it mean for a group to fashion its own end? Throughout, I interrogate how gestures of solidarity risk reinforcing the very systems that activists desire to resist. I begin by situating contemporary queer activism in the ideological and temporal frameworks of neoliberalism and homonationalism. Next, I turn to the attempts to ban QuAIA Toronto and the term ‘Israeli apartheid’ from the Pride parade to examine the relationship between nationalism and sexual citizenship. Lastly, I examine how the terms of sexual rights discourse require visible sexual subjects to make individual rights claims, and weighing this risk against political strategy, I highlight how queer solidarities are caught in a paradox symptomatic of our times: neoliberalism has commodified human rights discourses and instrumentalised sexualities to serve the interests of hegemonic power and obfuscate state violence. Thinking through the strategies that worked and failed in QuAIA Toronto's seven years of organising, I frame the paper though a proposal to consider political death as a productive possibility for social movement survival in the 21stcentury.


Author(s):  
Avi Max Spiegel

This chapter seeks to understand how Islamist movements have evolved over time, and, in the process, provide important background on the political and religious contexts of the movements in question. In particular, it shows that Islamist movements coevolve. Focusing on the histories of Morocco's two main Islamist movements—the Justice and Spirituality Organization, or Al Adl wal Ihsan (Al Adl) and the Party of Justice and Development (PJD)—it suggests that their evolutions can only be fully appreciated if they are relayed in unison. These movements mirror one another depending on the competitive context, sometimes reflecting, sometimes refracting, sometimes borrowing, sometimes adapting or even reorganizing in order to keep up with the other.


2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (7) ◽  
pp. 110-123
Author(s):  
Vladimir Y. Bystrov ◽  
Vladimir M. Kamnev

The article discusses the attitude of Georg Lukács and his adherents who formed a circle “Techeniye” (lit. “current”) toward the phenomenon of Stalinism. Despite the political nature of the topic, the authors are aspired to provide an unbiased research. G. Lukács’ views on the theory and practice of Stalinism evolved over time. In the 1920s Lukács welcomes the idea of creation of socialism in one country and abandons the former revolutionary ideas expressed in his book History and Class Consciousness. This turn is grounded by new interpretation of Hegel as “realistic” thinker whose “realism” was shown in the aspiration to find “reconciliation” with reality (of the Prussian state) and in denial of any utopias. The philosophical evolution leading to “realism” assumes integration of revolutionaries into the hierarchy of existing society. The article “Hölderlin’s Hyperion” represents attempt to justify Stalinism as a necessary and “progressive” phase of revolutionary development of the proletariat. Nevertheless, events of the second half of the 1930s (mass repressions, the peace treaty with Nazi Germany) force Lukács to realize the catastrophic nature of political strategy of Stalinism. In his works, Lukács ceases to analyze political topics and concentrates on problems of aesthetics and literary criticism. However, his aesthetic position allows to reconstruct the changed political views and to understand why he had earned the reputation of the “internal opponent” to Stalinism. After 1956, Lukács turns to political criticism of Stalinism, which nevertheless remains unilateral. He sees in Stalinism a kind of the left sectarianism, the theory and practice of the implementation of civil war measures in the era of peaceful co-existence of two systems.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-104
Author(s):  
Dima Kortukov

Abstract The concept of sovereign democracy dominated the political discourse in Russia in 2006–8 but lost much of its significance since. In this article, I argue that sovereign democracy is best understood as the response of Russia’s authorities to the threats of democratization, following Eurasian color revolutions. I distinguish between three conceptually distinct aspects of sovereign democracy: (1) a social contract (2) a legitimation discourse; and (3) a counter-revolutionary praxis. These dimensions allow us to understand what functions sovereign democracy fulfilled within the framework of Russia’s authoritarian regime and why it lost its prominence over time.


Author(s):  
Vasyl Karpo ◽  
Nataliia Nechaieva-Yuriichuk

From ancient times till nowadays information plays a key role in the political processes. The beginning of XXI century demonstrated the transformation of global security from military to information, social etc. aspects. The widening of pandemic demonstrated the weaknesses of contemporary authoritarian states and the power of human-oriented states. During the World War I the theoretical and practical interest toward political manipulation and political propaganda grew definitely. After 1918 the situation developed very fast and political propaganda became the part of political influence. XX century entered into the political history as the millennium of propaganda. The collapse of the USSR and socialist system brought power to new political actors. The global architecture of the world has changed. Former Soviet republic got independence and tried to separate from Russia. And Ukraine was between them. The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine was the start point for a number of processes in world politics. But the most important was the fact that the role and the place of information as the challenge to world security was reevaluated. The further annexation of Crimea, the attempt to legitimize it by the comparing with the referendums in Scotland and Catalonia demonstrated the willingness of Russian Federation to keep its domination in the world. The main difference between the referendums in Scotland and in Catalonia was the way of Russian interference. In 2014 (Scotland) tried to delegitimised the results of Scottish referendum because they were unacceptable for it. But in 2017 we witness the huge interference of Russian powers in Spain internal affairs, first of all in spreading the independence moods in Catalonia. The main conclusion is that the world has to learn some lessons from Scottish and Catalonia cases and to be ready to new challenges in world politics in a format of information threats.


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