Democracy Lives in Darkness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Van Duyn
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Building Relationships ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
Confidentiality Agreement ◽  
The Face

Republicans and Democrats increasingly distrust, avoid, and wish harm upon those from the other party. To make matters worse, they also increasingly reside among like-minded others and are part of social groups that share their political beliefs. All of this can make expressing a dissenting political opinion hard. Yet digital and social media have given people new spaces for political discourse and community, and more control over who knows their political beliefs and who does not. With Democracy Lives in Darkness, Van Duyn looks at what these changes in the political and media landscape mean for democracy. She uncovers and follows a secret political organization in rural Texas over the entire Trump presidency. The group, which organized out of fear of their conservative community in 2016, has a confidentiality agreement, an email listserv and secret Facebook group, and meets in secret every month. By building relationships with members, she explores how and why they hide their beliefs and what this does for their own political behavior and for their community. Drawing on research from communication, political science, and sociology along with survey data on secret political expression, Van Duyn finds that polarization has led even average partisans to hide their political beliefs from others. And although intensifying polarization will likely make political secrecy more common, she argues that this secrecy is not just evidence that democracy is hurting, but that it is still alive, that people persist in the face of opposition, and that this matters if democracy is to survive.

Democratic Resilience

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
The Face ◽  
Distinguished Group

Politics in the United States has become increasingly polarized in recent decades. Both political elites and everyday citizens are divided into rival and mutually antagonistic partisan camps, with each camp questioning the political legitimacy and democratic commitments of the other side. Does this polarization pose threats to democracy itself? What can make some democratic institutions resilient in the face of such challenges? Democratic Resilience brings together a distinguished group of specialists to examine how polarization affects the performance of institutional checks and balances as well as the political behavior of voters, civil society actors, and political elites. The volume bridges the conventional divide between institutional and behavioral approaches to the study of American politics and incorporates historical and comparative insights to explain the nature of contemporary challenges to democracy. It also breaks new ground to identify the institutional and societal sources of democratic resilience.

scholarly journals The Transformation of the Crimean Tatars’ Institutions and Discourses After 2014

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-66
Author(s):  
Elmira Muratova
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Great Support ◽  
The Face ◽  
Traditional Institutions ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
Crimean Tatar

Abstract The article deals with the transformation of the Crimean Tatars’ institutions and discourses after the 2014 conflict around Crimea. It shows the change in the balance of power of traditional institutions such as Mejlis and Muftiyat, which for many years represented secular and religious components of Crimean Tatars’ ethnic identity. It tells how the Mejlis was dismissed from the political stage in Crimea, while the Muftiyat has enjoyed a great support by new authorities. This transformation and threats to societal security inevitably led to reassessment of previous views and goals of the main actors in the Crimean Tatar community and the formation of new institutions with hybrid composition and discourse. The article focuses on organization such as ‘Crimean solidarity,’ which was formed in 2016 as a reaction to authorities’ pressure over the Crimean Tatars. Using discourse analysis of statements of activists of this organization and content analysis of social media, the author presents the main topics of its discourse and types of activity. She shows how the traditional Islamic discourse of activists of this organization has been transformed by the incorporation of the main concepts of secular discourse developed by the Mejlis. The author argues that the appearance of ‘Crimean solidarity’ indicates the blurring of lines between secular and religious, and ethnic and Islamic in the Crimean Tatar society. It shows how people with different backgrounds and agendas manage to leave their differences aside to support each other in the face of a common threat.

scholarly journals EVALUATION OF NAWAAT COVERAGE OF THE POLITICAL ASSASSINATIONS IN TUNISIA AFTER THE JASMINE REVOLUTION

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hatem SEBEI
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistics ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Functional Linguistics

This paper adopts a systemic functional linguistics as a paradigm to analyse postings on social media. This paradigmatic relationship is based on a combination of form and meaning. It adopts a Bakhtinian dialogic view of language and discourse. His viewpoint is built on the idea that every’s speaker voice is imbued with traces of previous voices and is in anticipation of other voices. This research shows how bloggers engage readers, how they negotiate and position themselves vis-à-vis the other voices. The current study adopts the Engagement framework as an analytical tool to evaluate the language used in Nawaat to cover the political assassinations in Tunisia. The current research focuses on the writer’s comments, description of the political assassinations. It also focuses on the writer’s comments, description and claims of external voices. Building solidarity and entente with readers who share and hold the same vision is also a matter of concern.

scholarly journals Sincerely Fake: Exploring User-Generated Political Fakes and Networked Publics

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 205630512096382
Author(s):  
Elisabetta Ferrari
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Network Sites ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Political Satire ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Networked Publics

This article investigates user-generated political satire, focusing in particular on one genre: fake political accounts. Such fakes, created as social media profiles, satirize politicians or political organizations by impersonating them. Through interviews with a sample of Italian fake accounts creators, I explore how the fakes navigate their fakeness vis-à-vis the affordances of social network sites and their publics. First, I map how the publics of the fake accounts react to the satire along two axes: one referring to the public’s understanding of the satire and the other to the uses that the public makes of the satire. Second, I show how fakeness is part of everyday interactions in networked publics. Third, I argue for fakeness as a playful, powerful, and sincere critique of the political and its pretense to authenticity. By focusing on fake political accounts, this article provides insights on the place of fakeness in online communication beyond the debate around “fake news.”

The Labor Party in Ulster: Opposition by Cartel

1967 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 526-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard F. Rutan
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Socialization ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Society ◽  
Political Beliefs

Almost thirty years ago Nicholas Mansergh concluded that the political parties in Northern Ireland did not fulfill the needs of the political system: that (to put his statement in more contemporary terms) the input functions, particularly that of political socialization, were enfeebled to the extent that one party constituted a permanent government while the other became an equally permanent opposition. What is more, underlying the party system and within the political society itself there existed no consensus on fundamentals: “There is no residue of political beliefs—as in Great Britain and the Free State—acceptable to both parties.”

Segmentary State Formation and the Ritual Control of Water Under the Incas

1993 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 480-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Gose
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Structure ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Plant Life ◽  
Kinship Relations ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
The One ◽  
Divine Kingship

There is a strange and unacknowledged paradox in the historiography of the Incas. On the one hand, few would deny that theirs was a typically theocratic archaic state, a divine kingship in which the Inca was thought to.be the son of the Sun. On the other hand, the standard descriptions of Inca political structure barely mention religion and seem to assume a formal separation between state and cult.1I believe that these secularizing accounts are misguided and will show in this essay that the political structure of the pre-Columbian Andes took form primarily around a system of sacred ancestral relics and origin points known generically ashuacas. Each huaca defined a level of political organization that might nest into units of a higher order or subdivide into smaller groupings. Collectively they formed a segmentary hierarchy that transcended the boundaries of local ethnic polities and provided the basis for empires like that of the Incas. However, these huacas were also the focus of local kinship relations and agrarian fertility rituals. The political structure that they articulated therefore had a built-in concern for the metaphysical reproduction of human, animal, and plant life. Political power in the pre-Columbian Andes was particularly bound up with attempts to control the flow of water across the frontier of life and death, resulting in no clear distinction between ritual and administration.

Sovereignty and Territory: Stakes and Perspectives

2014 ◽  
Vol 69 (02) ◽  
pp. 179-185
Author(s):  
Nicolas Barreyre ◽  
Geneviève Verdo
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Political Control ◽  
The Political ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Homogeneous Block ◽  
The One

Over the course of the last twenty years, two historiographical movements have challenged the notion of sovereignty, particularly that of the “natural” anchoring of an absolute, statal form of sovereignty in a uniform territory as its perfected model. On the one hand, the experience of globalization that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall—and which fed talk of the “end of nation-states”—led to a new examination of the political organization of the contemporary world, which in part “deterritorialized” the issue of political control. On the other hand, the extraordinary rise in studies of colonial empires has established that sovereignty, far from being the homogeneous block of the jurist’s refined concept, could be exercised in varying degrees and even be conceived as multiple and “layered.”

scholarly journals REDESENHANDO IDEOLOGIAS: CULTURA E POLÍTICA EM TEMPOS DE GOLPE

2004 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Czajka
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Brazilian Society ◽  
Artistic Activity ◽  
Cultural Movements ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Sphere ◽  
The Military

O golpe militar de abril de 1964 determinou-se como um marco decisivo na história política e cultural da sociedade brasileira. A proposição tem sido aceita não somente pela forma como ficou conhecida a estrutura do Estado após o advento das forças militares na cena política, mas pela intensa atividade cultural e artística por parte de intelectuais e artistas na década de 1960. Em geral, essa condição procura incutir uma certa unidade referencial nos movimentos artístico-culturais, que tinham como espelho a conduta política do Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB) – partido proeminente no período em questão. Embora o PCB tivesse adesão de inúmeros artistas e intelectuais, que procuravam firmar oposição ao regime e à política exercida pelos militares. Havia, por outro lado, um contingente de professores, escritores, jornalistas, poetas, diretores, atores e atrizes, entre outros, que faziam resistência sem efetivamente vincularem-se ao PCB. O chamado “pecebismo” era um elemento presente entre esse grupos, mas nunca respondeu necessariamente pela unidade (como numa “frente única”) ou articulação dos mesmos. Assim pode ser caracterizada, por exemplo, a ação do Comando dos Trabalhadores Intelectuais e da Revista Civilização Brasileira entre 1963-1968, nos quais constata-se a formação de um campo heterogêneo com disputas de projetos e debate de idéias que favoreceram a formação de uma esfera cultural crítica e abrangente. Redesigning ideologies: culture and politics at the time of a coup Abstract The military blow of April of 1964 was determined as a decisive landmark in the political and cultural history of the Brazilian society. The proposal has been accepted not only for the form as the advent of the military forces in the scene was known the structures of the State after politics, but for the intense cultural and artistic activity on the part of intellectuals and artists in the decade of 1960. In general, this condition looks for to infuse a certain referencial unit in the artistic-cultural movements, that had as mirror the political behavior of Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB) – broken prominent in the period in question. Although the PCB had adhesion of innumerable artists and intellectuals, who worked to firm opposition to the regimen and the politics exerted for the military. There was, on the other hand, a contingent of professors, writers, journalists, poets, directors, actors and actresses, among others, that made resistance without associating the PCB effectively to it. The called “pecebismo” was a present element among these groups, but it never answered necessarily for the union (as in a “frente única”) or joint of the same ones. Thus it can be characterized, for example, the action of the Comando dos Trabalhadores Intelectuais and the Revista Civilização Brasileira between 1963-1968, in which the formation of a heterogeneous field with disputes of projects is established, with debate of ideas that had favored the formation of a critical and including cultural sphere.

The Obama Effect

2012 ◽  
pp. 524-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Kaun ◽  
Carina Guyard
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Divide ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
National Election ◽  
The Other ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Campaigning ◽  
Other Hand

This chapter presents a survey study on attitudes towards political campaigning in social media. During the national election in Sweden in 2010, a considerable amount of resources was invested in online communication with the constituency, not least in social media. Whereas several studies have focused on e-democracy at a macro level, there is a lack of studies examining the phenomenon of campaigning 2.0 as it is perceived by the actual voters. This chapter, therefore, asks the question whether the voters noticed the political campaigning in social media at all, and if so, how they perceived it. The main findings are that respondents who were already interested and politically engaged considered campaigning 2.0, in line with the politicians’ rhetoric, as a way to enhance democracy. Respondents who were neither interested nor engaged in politics, on the other hand, showed little interest in this kind of communication. Consequently, the study confirms assumptions about digital divide and continued fragmentation of the citizenry.

Engaging Young Voters in the Political Process

2022 ◽  
pp. 1476-1493
Author(s):  
Stephane Bignoux
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Media Marketing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Young Voters ◽  
Western Democracies

The aim of this chapter is to analyse young voter engagement in modern Western democracies. Why young voters? Young voters are disengaged from the political process. In order to complete the analysis, the author adapts an engagement model from social media marketing. The adapted model consists of three parts: consumption, contribution, and (co) creation of brand related materials. The author hypothesises that each aspect of the model is related to the other and that all three aspects of the model are positively related to loyalty to the political party brand. The aim of this conceptual adaptation is to investigate a new way to re-engage young voters with the political party brand, thereby strengthening one pillar of modern democracy.

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