Regional identity formation in Malaysia: Primacy of the political center and its essentialized ethnic identities

This paper is about the ways that citizens perceive their place in the political world around them, through their political identities. Using a combination of comparative and quantitative methodologies, the study traces the pattern of citizens’ political identifications in the European Union and Canada between 1981 and 2003 and explains the mechanisms that shape these political identifications. The results of the paper show that in the EU and Canada identity formation is a process that involves the participation of both individuals and political institutions yet between the two, individuals play a greater role in identity construction than do political institutions. The paper argues that the main agents of political identification in the EU and Canada are citizens themselves: individuals choose their own political identifications, rather than acquiring identities that are pre-determined by historical or cultural precedence. The paper makes the case that this phenomenon is characteristic of a rise of ‘civic’ identities in the EU and Canada. In the European Union, this overarching ‘civic’ identity is in its infancy compared to Canada, yet, both reveal a new form of political identification when compared to the historical and enduring forms of cultural identities firmly entrenched in Europe. The rise of civic identities in both the EU and Canada is attributed to the active role that citizens play in their own identity constructions as they base their identifications on rational assessments of how well political institutions function, and whether their memberships in the community will benefit them, rather than on emotional factors rooted in religion or race. In the absence of strongly held emotional identifications, in the EU and Canada political institutions play a passive role in identity construction by making the community appear more entitative to its citizens. These findings offer new theoretical scope to the concept of civic communities and the political identities that underpin them. The most important finding presented in the paper is that although civic communities and identities are manufactured by institutions and political elites (politicians and bureaucrats), they require thinking citizens, not feeling ones, to be sustained. Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v2i4.179

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Rise and Fall of the Grand Canal in the Ancient Kaifeng City of China: Role of the Grand Canal and Water Supply in Urban and Regional Development

Water ◽

10.3390/w13141932 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (14) ◽

pp. 1932

Author(s):

Wenji Huang ◽

Mingwang Xi ◽

Shibao Lu ◽

Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary

Keyword(s):

Song Dynasty ◽

The Political ◽

The South ◽

Central Plains ◽

Grand Canal ◽

The North ◽

Northern Song Dynasty ◽

Political Center ◽

Northern Song ◽

The Grand Canal

In the long history of the feudal society of China, Kaifeng played a vital role. During the Northern Song Dynasty, Kaifeng became a worldwide metropolis. The important reason was that the Grand Canal, which was excavated during the Sui Dynasty, became the main transportation artery for the political and military center of the north and the economic center of the south. Furthermore, Kaifeng was located at the center of the Grand Canal, which made it the capital of the later Northern Song Dynasty. The Northern Song Dynasty was called “the canal-centered era.” The development of the canal caused a series of major changes in the society of the Northern Song Dynasty that were different from the previous ones, which directly led to the transportation revolution, and in turn, promoted the commercial revolution and the urbanization of Kaifeng. The development of commerce contributed to the agricultural and money revolutions. After the Northern Song Dynasty, the political center moved to the south. During the Yuan Dynasty, the excavation of the Grand Canal made it so that water transport did not have to pass through the Central Plains. The relocation of the political center and the change in the canal route made Kaifeng lose the value of connecting the north and south, resulting in the long-time fall of the Bianhe River. Kaifeng, which had prospered for more than 100 years, declined gradually, and by the end of the Qing Dynasty, it became a common town in the Central Plains. In ancient China, the rise and fall of cities and regions were closely related to the canal, and the relationship between Kaifeng and the Grand Canal was typical. The history may provide some inspiration for the increasingly severe urban and regional sustainable development issues in contemporary times.

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Archives and identity in the context of social media and algorithmic analytics: Towards an understanding of iArchive and predictive retention

New Media & Society ◽

10.1177/1461444817748483 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 20 (9) ◽

pp. 3304-3322 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Holger Pötzsch

Keyword(s):

Social Networking ◽

Identity Formation ◽

Digital Media ◽

Social Networking Sites ◽

The Political ◽

Archival Theory ◽

Digital Archives ◽

Technological Advances ◽

Critical Approaches ◽

And Control

This article reconceptualizes the archive in the context of digital media ecologies. Drawing upon archival theory and critical approaches to the political economy of the Internet, I account for new dynamics and implications afforded by digital archives. Operating at both a user-controlled explicit and a state- and corporate-owned implicit level, the digital archive at once facilitates empowerment and enables unprecedented forms of management and control. Connecting the politics and economy of digital media with issues of identity formation and curation on social networking sites, I coin the terms iArchive and predictive retention to highlight how recent technological advances both provide new means for self-expression, mobilization and resistance and afford an almost ubiquitous tracking, profiling and, indeed, moulding of emergent subjectivities.

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Polarization and Electoral Incentives: The End of the Chilean Consensus Democracy, 1990–2014

Latin American Politics and Society ◽

10.1017/lap.2018.41 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 60 (4) ◽

pp. 49-68 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jorge Fábrega ◽

Jorge González ◽

Jaime Lindh

Keyword(s):

Bargaining Power ◽

Electoral System ◽

Political Support ◽

The Political ◽

Parliamentary Elections ◽

Consensus Democracy ◽

Electoral Incentives ◽

Spatial Voting ◽

Political Forces ◽

Political Center

AbstractConsensus democracy among the main Chilean political forces ended abruptly after the 2013 presidential and parliamentary elections, the most polarized elections since the return to democracy in 1990. Relying on spatial voting theory to uncover latent ideological dimensions from survey data between 1990 and 2014, this study finds patterns of gradual polarization starting at least ten years before the collapse of consensus, based on an increasing demobilization of the political center that misaligned politicians from their political platforms (particularly in the center-left parties). That phenomenon changed the political support for the two main political coalitions and the intracoalition bargaining power of their various factions. The pattern also helps to explain the process behind the 2015 reform of the electoral system.

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Konflikt- und Rückzugspotentiale in spätkapitalistischen Gesellschaften / Potentials of Conflict and Withdrawal in Late Capitalist Societies

Zeitschrift für Soziologie ◽

10.1515/zfsoz-1973-0401 ◽

1973 ◽

Vol 2 (4) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Rainer Döbert ◽

Gertrud Nunner-Winkler

Keyword(s):

Phase I ◽

Identity Formation ◽

The Political ◽

Behavior Patterns ◽

Drug Addicts ◽

Cultural Changes ◽

Cultural System ◽

Differential Behavior ◽

Interactionist Approach ◽

Student Revolt

AbstractLate capitalist societies increasingly prove incapable of generating the modal personality that would correspond to the imperatives under which the political and economic subsystems operate. This is due to a process of the sharpening of the crisis of adolescence in which system-dysfunctional solutions are gaining ground. In terms of the interactionist approach the problem specific to the adolescent phase, i. e. the problem of identity formation, becomes one of coming to grips with the cultural system; this in turn, prompted by a series of socio-cultural changes, lays bare the immanent structural difficulties of the bourgeois legitimation system. Differentiated ways of solving this crisis correspond to various processes of a selective thematization of the contents of the cultural system and thereby to differential behavior patterns (e. g. student revolt, hippies, drug-addicts, Jesus-People, withdrawal).

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Conjunctures on “ASEAN Citizenship” 1967-2017: Identities, Ideas, Institutions

International Studies Review ◽

10.1163/2667078x-02001009 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

pp. 63-89

Author(s):

Adonis Elumbre

Keyword(s):

Identity Formation ◽

Regional Identity ◽

Southeast Asian ◽

New Era ◽

The Core ◽

Regional Community ◽

Asian History ◽

Ideas And Institutions

In 2015, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was said to have set in motion a regional community with “peace, prosperity, and people” at the core of its transition towards deeper integration. In 2017, it marked its 50th year - a narrative arc in Southeast Asian history that has arguably defined the region’s contemporary period. What then could be the next for the organization? This paper explores one of those ideas that has been floating around about ASEAN’s future in relation to its people-oriented vision. In particular, it enquires into the abstracted and non-legal notion of “ASEAN citizenship” through identification of conjunctures in the development of the organization. While ASEAN’s lack of a legitimating policy on regional citizenship is understandable given its normative frameworks of intergovernmentalism and non-interference, the paper contends that this notion has already been discursively defined and constructively pursued from within the organization. The resulting narratives on regional identity formation and on ideas and institutions that articulate and generate potential elements of regional citizenship seek to capture aspects of this slippery yet lingering presence of “ASEAN citizenship,” and hopefully contribute to the evolving conversations on the nature and future of ASEAN as it enters a new era.

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Using ground penetrating radar to understand the failure of the Koh Ker Reservoir, Northern Cambodia.

10.31219/osf.io/6xcvu ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ian Moffat ◽

sarah klassen ◽

Tiago Attorre ◽

Damian Evans ◽

Terry Lustig ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Flow Velocity ◽

Ground Penetrating Radar ◽

Rainy Season ◽

The Political ◽

Contour Map ◽

Design Flaw ◽

Political Center ◽

Ground Penetrating

Ground penetrating radar, probing, and excavation were used to create a contour map of the topography of a buried laterite pavement forming the spillway of a large abandoned reservoir at the Angkorian‐period city of Koh Ker in Cambodia. Calculations of the flow velocity of water through the spillway, based on the topography of the laterite surface, demonstrate that this outlet was even less adequate for passing the flow of water from the Stung Rongea catchment than had been estimated previously by Lustig, Klassen, Evans, French, & Moffat (2018). We argue that this design flaw contributed substantially to the failure of the reservoir’s dike, possibly during the first rainy season after construction, which may have contributed to Koh Ker’s remarkably short‐lived tenure as the political center of the Khmer Empire.

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Theobroma bicolor Humb. & Bonpl. (Sterculiaceae, "Cuapataxtle") en el Municipio de Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero. Composición Florística de los huertos y aspectos etnobotánicos

Botanical Sciences ◽

10.17129/botsci.1569 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 75

Author(s):

Beatriz Rendón-Aguilar ◽

Graciela González Soto ◽

María Isabel Oble-Delgadillo ◽

Virginia Ojeda-Cornejo ◽

Rosa Elvira Parra-Padilla ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Relative Density ◽

Floristic Composition ◽

The Political ◽

Indigenous Species ◽

Commercial Activity ◽

Traditional Management ◽

Fruit Species ◽

Political Center ◽

Almost All ◽

Number Of Individuals

This research had the next objectives: 1] to describe the floristic composition of the orchards where T. bicolor is growing on, in the municipio of Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero; 2] to describe ethnobotanical aspects related with the uses of T. bicolor and 3] to report the presence of T. bicolor in the state of Guerrero, specifically in the municipio of Ayutla de los Libres. Nine orchards located in different communities and associated to different ethnical composition were sampled. Number of species per sampled area, number of individuals per species and relative density of each species were obtaind. Description of uses of T. bicolor was obtained through interviews applied to farmers (mestizos and indigenous). Species richness, kind of species and relative density show high heterogenity among orchards. Those near the cabecera municipal show variable floristic composition and relative densities of man y fruit species and cuapataxtle are high. Orchards far from the cabecera municipal also show variable floristic composition but relative densities of almost all the species present there are low. The conclusion is that the variability in floristic composition, as well as the differences in relative densities of many species reflect the idea of traditional management, location of orchards respect to the political center of Ayutla and the importance of nearness to places of commercial activity.

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CUSTOM-MADE PATCHWORK LANDSCAPE: ENTREPRENEURIAL AND PRIVATE REGIONALISM / PAGAL UŽSAKYMĄ PAGAMINTA MOZAIKA: VERSLO IR PRIVATUS REGIONALIZMAS

Mokslas - Lietuvos ateitis ◽

10.3846/mla.2014.41 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 6 (3) ◽

pp. 290-302

Author(s):

Ilze Miķelsone

Keyword(s):

Identity Formation ◽

Transition Economy ◽

Regional Identity ◽

State Intervention ◽

Urban Morphology ◽

Problem Definition ◽

Strong Impact ◽

Custom Made ◽

Invented Tradition ◽

Neoliberal Ideology

Regional identity as a subject of invented tradition is continuously updated in whole Europe; this process is especially regular in cultures of small populations, such as Latvia. It is a multilayered term, which involves a continuously changing main value-focus and numerous disciplines, including architecture. One of the ways to look at it realistically is to analyze the visually represented main hegemonic values and processes in society. Appropriate platform for this is provided by agglomeration expansion – fusion spots of the urban and the rural, thus creating a characteristic local landscape. The aim of this article is to clarify core impacts on the regional identity formation of the landscape of Riga region as observed today. Methodology is based on the case study of Mārupe County, using RES (residential) landscape inventory, urban-morphology, photo-analytical and rhetoric problem-definition methodology. Major findings lead to a conclusion of unbalanced role between the state intervention and free trade system, based on the neoliberal ideology intensified in the transition – economy zone. Thus regional spatial identity has mostly failed following any professional standards, but has rather developed as clusters with residential function, mostly under the strong impact of the market economy and entrepreneurship. Regioninis identitetas kaip naujai išrastos tradicijos samprata yra nuolatos atnaujinama visoje Europoje; šis procesas yra ypač dėsningas tokių nedidelių šalių, kaip Latvija, kultūrose. Tai daugiasluoksnis reiškinys, apimantis besikeičiančias, į vertybes orientuotas disciplinas, taip pat ir architektūrą. Vienas iš būdų į tai žiūrėti realistiškai – analizuoti vizualiai reprezentuotas pagrindines hegemonines vertybes ir procesus visuomenėje. Tam tikrą platformą šiam reiškiniui teikia aglomeracijos plėtra – miestietiškumo ir kaimiškumo sintezė, kurianti charakteringą vietinį kraštovaizdį. Šio straipsnio tikslas – išsiaiškinti nūdienos Rygos regiono kraštovaizdžio esminį poveikį regioninio identiteto formavimui. Metodologija yra pagrįsta Mārupe apygardos tyrimu, kuriam naudotas RES (gyvenamojo) kraštovaizdžio aprašo, miestų morfologijos, fotoanalitinis ir retorinis problemos įvardijimo metodai. Tyrimo rezultatai veda prie išvados, kad valstybės įsikišimo vaidmuo ir laisvoji prekybos sistema, pagrįsta neoliberalia ideologija, nėra subalansuoti ir tai sustiprėja pereinamosios ekonomikos zonoje. Taigi regioninis erdvinis identitetas ne tikslingai grindžiamas profesionaliais standartais, o vystosi daugiau kaip gyvenamosios paskirties zonos, stipriai veikiamos rinkos ekonomikos ir verslo.

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