Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Fabio Wolkenstein

In addition to summarizing the book’s main themes as described, this Introduction places special emphasis on connecting the problem animating the book—the apparent incapacity of contemporary parties to mediate between citizens and the state—to current political developments in established Western democracies, showing that the issues the book addresses are not only of academic interest but also directly relevant to ongoing public debates about the state and health of representative democracy. Chief amongst the themes foregrounded here is the rise of so-called ‘populist’ parties on the left and right of the political spectrum, as well as the re-branding of established political actors as ‘movements’ (think, e.g. of Emmanuel Macron’s La République en Marche). These phenomena are interpreted as part of a larger ‘revolt against intermediary bodies’—meaning first and foremost a rebellion against political parties. The Introduction suggests that this ‘revolt’ brings with it only a temporary shift in how representative politics looks, without actually reversing the disconnect between parties and voters or compelling established political parties to give up their privileges and de-colonize the institutions of the state. This argument sets the stage for the book’s core contention that more thought has to be put into finding ways to reconnect political parties with society.

Author(s):  
Orlando Coutinho ◽  
◽  

The way in which an unknown virus has moved from a local to a global case, taking on a pandemic outline, has caused significant changes in the lives of all human beings. Firstly, for that reason, it is unknown, then because behind the ignorance comes mistrust and fear. Nowadays, these ingredients are - in the political-social space - substance for the biggest factors of action and decision of the actors of the power. Have we been in a war context, as some have said? Was confinement, global and so prolonged, really necessary? Was decreeing a state of emergency essential? Were the exception measures proportional? And are they reversible? This article aims, in the way of the ideas of several authors that thinking about the political philosophical role of health contexts, of exception state, and of political control of the State, in face of public health issues and not only, understand the “state of the art” in the way of governing western democracies, in the firstly, but flying over other geographies and systems as the virus has assumed global contours. And, by means of the concrete measures, politically adopted, by the different political actors, what real impacts they had on the life and the institutions working, and on the psychology of the persons individually or socially considered.


2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
HIROFUMI MIWA

AbstractThe prevailing theory states that either Japanese voters have stopped ideologically distinguishing parties or that the main political parties in Japan have become more centrist in recent years. These arguments are based on survey questions asking citizens to locate parties on an ideological scale. However, these questions may suffer from noise caused by respondents who misinterpret the question wording or answer the questions inappropriately to mask their misunderstanding of the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’. To address this problem by extracting only the views of those who know the meaning of left–right terms, this article develops a mixture model. Applying the model to an opinion poll conducted after the 2012 Japanese general election, I confirm that those who comprehend the left–right terminology – slightly over half of all voters – largely perceived parties’ ideologies in the same way as experts. Additionally, I find that even these voters face difficulties in placing ambiguous or new parties on the political spectrum. This study has implications not only for understanding trends in Japanese political ideology, but also for survey design and analysis of heterogeneous survey responses.


Author(s):  
Keren Sereno ◽  
Azi Lev-On

In the past decade, the Internet has extensively penetrated the political landscape in Israel. A variety of actors, including parties, Knesset members, NGOs, and more, have realized the significance of using the Internet to promote their goals and have established an online presence via a variety of platforms. Consequently, the Internet is becoming a fertile ground to study Israeli society with its multiple cleavages. This chapter analyses how the ideological cleavage in the Israeli society is manifest online, through the linking patterns between political Websites. Link analysis is used to study political visibility and centrality online, to map the channels of information flow between the various political actors, and to identify recognition and discourse networks between the various political actors. From the link analysis of the sites of some 200 political parties, MPs, and NGOs, we found no links between right-wing and left-wing political sites; each side in the political spectrum conducts a different linking strategy. Most of the sites of political parties and MPs received no in-bound links from the other political sites. On the other hand, NGOs have a central role in the online political networks in Israel and maintain a relatively dense linking network.


Author(s):  
Harry Nedelcu

The mid and late 2000s witnessed a proliferation of political parties in European party systems. Marxist, Libertarian, Pirate, and Animal parties, as well as radical-right and populist parties, have become part of an increasingly heterogeneous political spectrum generally dominated by the mainstream centre-left and centre-right. The question this article explores is what led to the surge of these parties during the first decade of the 21st century. While it is tempting to look at structural arguments or the recent late-2000s financial crisis to explain this proliferation, the emergence of these parties predates the debt-crisis and can not be described by structural shifts alone . This paper argues that the proliferation of new radical parties came about not only as a result of changes in the political space, but rather due to the very perceived presence and even strengthening of what Katz and Mair (1995) famously dubbed the "cartelization" of mainstream political parties.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v7i1.210


2021 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-66
Author(s):  
Dominik Feldmann

Zusammenfassung: Der Antiextremismus geht davon aus, dass die Gefahren der Demokratie an den Rändern des politischen Spektrums zu finden sind, und hat damit große Wirkmächtigkeit. Dies betrifft die innere Sicherheit ebenso wie Bildungsdebatten. Allerdings ernten der Antiextremismus in öffentlichen Debatten und die Extremismustheorie in der Wissenschaft immer wieder Kritik: Dient der Extremismusansatz tatsächlich dem Demokratieschutz oder schützt er bestehende Macht- und Herrschaftsverhältnisse, indem er Politikangebote, die von der politischen Mitte abweichen, diskreditiert? Für ein Verständnis des Antiextremismus fragt der Beitrag nach seinen Ursprüngen, Grundannahmen und Defiziten. Außerdem werden seine Einflüsse auf bildungspolitische Entscheidungen und Inhalte politischer Bildung betrachtet. Schließlich wird diskutiert, inwiefern der Antiextremismus sinnvoller Bestandteil von Bildung in einer und für eine Demokratie sein kann.Abstract: The anti-extremism discourse assumes that the dangers posed to democracy are to be found only at the edges of the political spectrum, and has thus become very influential both in relation to domestic security issues and to debates concerning education. However, this dicourse is repeatedly criticized in academia and public debates: Does its approach to “extremism” indeed serve to protect democracy, or does it, rather, protect existing power relationships by discrediting policies that deviate from the political centre? In order to understand the anti-extremism discourse, this article investigates its origins, basic assumptions and deficits. It also examines its influences on educational policy decisions and the content of political education. Finally, it discusses to what extent engagement with this discourse can contribute towards sound political education in a democratic context.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Ahmad El-Sharif

The Late King Hussein’s last Speech from the Throne in 1997 was given amidst public outcry over the outcomes of the parliamentary elections which resulted the triumph tribal figures with regional affiliations after the boycott of most political parties. This brought to public debate the questions of maintain the long-established balance between the several socio-political structures in the political life in Jordan. While the speech can be perceived as a reflection of King Hussein’s vision about ‘Jordanian democracy’, it can also be interpreted as an elaborate scheme to construct the conventional understanding of the exceptionality of Jordan and its socio-political institutions; including democracy. This article discusses the representation of ‘Jordanian democracy’, the state, and the socio-political structures in Jordan as reflected in the Late King’s last speech from the throne (1997). The analytical framework follows a critical metaphor analysis perspective in which all instances of metaphors used to epitomise these issues are primarily acknowledged from there sociocultural context. Herein, the article focuses on revealing the aspect of metaphorical language by which the Late King Hussein legitimizes and, hence, constructs, the prevailing ideology pf the ‘exceptionality’ of Jordan.


2018 ◽  
pp. 8-15
Author(s):  
Іvan Pobochiy

The level of social harmony in society and the development of democracy depends to a large extent on the level of development of parties, their ideological and political orientation, methods and means of action. The purpose of the article is to study the party system of Ukraine and directions of its development, which is extremely complex and controversial. The methods. The research has led to the use of such scientific search methods as a system that allowed the party system of Ukraine to be considered as a holistic organism, and the historical and political method proved to be very effective in analyzing the historical preconditions and peculiarities of the formation of the party system. The results. The incompetent, colonial past and the associated cruel national oppression, terror, famine, and violent Russification caused the contradictory and dramatic nature of modernization, the actual absence of social groups and their leaders interested in it, and the relatively passive reaction of society to the challenges of history. Officials have been nominated by mafia clans, who were supposed to protect their interests and pursue their policies. Political struggle in the state took place not between influential political parties, but between territorial-regional clans. The party system of Ukraine after the Maidan and the beginning of the war on the Donbass were undergoing significant changes. On the political scene, new parties emerged in the course of the protests and after their completion — «Petro Poroshenko Bloc», «People’s Front», «Self-help»), which to some extent became spokespeople for not regional, but national interests. Pro-European direction is the main feature of the leading political parties that have formed a coalition in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Conclusion. The party system of Ukraine as a result of social processes is at the beginning of a new stage in its development, an important feature of which is the increase in the influence of society (direct and indirect) on the political life of the state. Obviously, there is a demand from the public for the emergence of new politicians, new leaders and new political forces that citizens would like to see first and foremost speakers and defenders of their interests.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21
Author(s):  
Iswandi Iswadi

  The ideology contestation is basically a classic polemic, where after independence the ideology of Islam was confronted with nationalism and took root until now (reform). However, the momentum of the 2019 election political contestation was again marked by the struggle of ideology namely ideology of Islamism and nationalism. The polemic began with the emergence of religious issues that were raised on the surface of political actors as a hegemony in taking the sympathy of voters. The existence of religion as a central issue began in 2016-2017 related to the prosecution of Ahok who insulted religious values ​​(Islam), and among the political parties involved in the demonstrations namely PPP, PKS, PBB, and PKB. In that momentum the beginning of the revival of Islamic ideology as the power in defending Islamic sovereignty. Judging from the ideology of political parties in Indonesia in the 2019 election political contestation, the ideology of political parties based on the statutes and bylaws (AD / ART) that the ideology applied can be classified into three parts namely ideology Nationalism, Islamism, and Nationalist-Religious, and the three ideologies. This can be proven based on the results of a survey from Australia 2017-2018 based on the voters. However, political parties based on multiple ideologies, PAN, PKB and Democrats, each have priority orientation. PAN and PKB tend to polarize the values ​​of Islamism (religious), while Democrats are more dominated by nationalist issues. The concept of Islamic political ideology, in the context of political contestation in political party elections, is basically a necessity to implement the values ​​of ri'ayah, taqwin, irshad and ta'dib through political education, or campaign in elections to achieve mutual benefit, both parties whose ideology Islamism, nationalism and nationalist-religious, so as to build the moralistic side of society, and intelligence in responding to the issues that exist in the election apart from that, political parties in confronting political contestation the emphasis of the movement must reflect the value of poverty, the three ideologies have been packaged in the values ​​of Pancasila in the third principles of Indonesian unity.         Asbtak Kontestasi ideology pada dasarnya polemik klasik, dimana pasca kemerdekaan ideologi islam dihadapkan dengan nasionalisme dan mengakar sampai sampai saat ini (reformasi). Akan tetapi momentum pemilu 2019 kontestasi politik kembali diwarnai pergulatan ideology yakni ideology islamisme dan nasionalisme. Polemik tersebut berawal dengan mencuatnya isu keagamaan yang dimunculkan dipermukaan pelaku politik sebagai hegemoni dalam mengambil simpati  pemilih. Eksistensi agama sebagai sentral isu berawal tahun 2016-2017 terkait penuntutan terhadap ahok yang melecehkan nilai-nilai agama (islam), dan diantara partai politik yang terlibat dalam demonstrasi yakni PPP, PKS, PBB, dan PKB. Dalam momentum tersebut awal mencuatnya kembali ideologi islam sebagai of the power dalam mempertahan kedaulatan Islam. Menilik ideologis partai politik di Indonesia pada konstestasi politik pemilu 2019, ideology partai politik berdasarkan anggaran dasar dan anggaran rumah tangga (AD/ART) bahwa ideologi yang diterapkan dapat diklasifikasikan menjadi tiga bagian yakni ideology Nasionalisme, Islamisme, dan Nasionalis-Religius, dan ketiga ideology tersebut dapat dibuktikan dengan berdasarkan hasil survey dari asutralia 2017-2018 berdasarkan pemilih. Namun demikian partai poltik yang berasaskan ideologi ganda, PAN, PKB dan Demokrat, masing-masing memiliki kiblat prioritas. PAN dan PKB condong polarisasi nilai-nilai islamisme (religious), sedangkan Demokrat lebih didominasi oleh isu-isu nasionalis. Konsep ideology politik islam, dalam konsteks kontestasi politik dalam pemilu partai politik pada dasarnya sebuah keharusan mengimplementasikan nilai-nilai ri’ayah, taqwin, irsyad dan ta’dib melalui pendidikan politik, ataupun kampanye dalam pemilu guna mencapai kemaslahatan bersama, baik partai yang berideologi islamisme, nasionalisme dan nasionalis-religius, sehingga terbangun sisi moralistik masyarakat, dan kecerdasan dalam menanggapi isu-isu yang ada dalam pemilu. selain dari itu partai politik dalam menghadapi konstestasi politik penekanan gerakannya harus mencermikan nilai kemaslahan, ketiga ideology tersebut telah kemas dalam nilai-nilai pancasila pada sila ketiga persatuan Indonesia. 


2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Formisano

During the 1980s and 1990s in countries across the globe, new populist protest movements and radical political organizations emerged to challenge traditional parties, ruling elites, and professional politicians, and even long-standing social norms. The revolts against politics-as-usual have arisen from many kinds of social groupings and from diverse points on the political spectrum. Through the 1980s, in Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and North America, populist discontent erupted intermittently. But the end of the Cold War, particularly in Europe, unleashed a torrent of popular movements and political parties opposed to what the discontented perceived as the corruption and deceitfulness of the political classes and their corporate patrons. Some protest movements promoted more democracy, pluralism, and economic opportunity; some expressed intolerance, bigotry, and xenophobic nationalism.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Teo Ballvé

This introductory chapter briefly explores the ways in which imaginaries of statelessness have structured the political life of Urabá, Colombia. It argues that Colombia's violent conflicts have produced surprisingly coherent and resilient regimes of accumulation and rule—yet this is not to say they are benevolent. In order to do so, this chapter approaches the state as a dynamic ensemble of relations that is both an effect and an instrument of competing political strategies and relations of power. In Urabá, groups from across the political spectrum, armed and otherwise, all end up trying to give concrete coherence to the inherently unwieldy abstraction of the state in a space where it supposedly does not exist. The way this absence exerts a generative political influence is what this chapter establishes as the “frontier effect.” The frontier effect describes how the imaginary of statelessness in these spaces compels all kinds of actors to get into the business of state formation; it thrusts groups into the role of would-be state builders.


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