Ethnographic Approaches to Contentious Politics: The What, How, and Why

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402110255
Author(s):  
Diana Fu ◽  
Erica S. Simmons
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Ethnographic Methods ◽  
Political Ethnography ◽  
Units Of Analysis ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
Methodological Tool ◽  
Why Questions

How should we study contentious politics in an era rife with new forms of contention, both in the United States and abroad? The introduction to this special issue draws attention to one particularly crucial methodological tool in the study of contention: political ethnography. It showcases the ways in which ethnographic approaches can contribute to the study of contentious politics. Specifically, it argues that “what,” “how,” and “why” questions are central to the study of contention and that ethnographic methods are particularly well-suited to answering them. It also demonstrates how ethnographic methods push scholars to both expand the objects of inquiry and rethink what the relevant units of analysis might be. By uncovering hidden processes, exploring social meanings, and giving voice to unheard stories, ethnography and “ethnography-plus” approaches contribute to the study of contention and to comparative politics, writ large.

Progress outside of paradise: Old and new comparative approaches to contentious politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402110242
Author(s):  
Sidney Tarrow
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Ethnographic Methods ◽  
Ethnographic Studies ◽  
Real Progress ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Dramatic Growth

Descriptive or ethnographic studies were once the stock-in-trade of the comparative politics of non-Western areas and illiberal states. The last few decades have seen a dramatic growth in quantitative—or at least systematic—studies of these systems. This marks real progress, but, in the process, some of the advantages of ethnographic and “unit-contextual” studies have been lost. The contributors to this symposium have used ethnographic methods—often in combination with other methods—to examine and compare episodes of contentious politics in a number of these countries. Drawing on some of the “classics” of comparative politics, this article emphasizes both the continuities and the departures of the new generation of “ethnography plus” research efforts represented in this symposium.

scholarly journals Conceptualising backlash politics: Introduction to a special issue on backlash politics in comparison

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 563-584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen J Alter ◽  
Michael Zürn
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Threshold Condition ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Emotional Appeals ◽  
Distinct Category

Despite the widespread sense that backlash is an important feature of contemporary national and world politics, there is remarkably little scholarly work on the politics of backlash. This special issue conceptualises backlash politics as a distinct form of contentious politics. Backlash politics includes the following three necessary elements: (1) a retrograde objective of returning to a prior social condition, (2) extraordinary goals and tactics that challenge dominant scripts, and (3) a threshold condition of entering mainstream public discourse. When backlash politics combines with frequent companion accelerants – nostalgia, emotional appeals, taboo breaking and institutional reshaping – the results can be unpredictable, contagious, transformative and enduring. Contributions to this special issue engage this definition to advance our understanding of backlash politics. The special issue’s conclusion draws insights about the causes and dynamics of backlash politics that lead to the following three potential outcomes: a petering out of the politics, the construction of new cleavages, or a retrograde transformation. Creating a distinct category of backlash politics brings debates in American politics, comparative politics, and international relations together with studies of specific topics, facilitating comparisons across time, space, and issue areas and generating new questions that can hopefully promote lesson drawing.

Multilevel Analyses of Comparative Data: A Comment

2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel Beck
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Multilevel Methods ◽  
Good Thing ◽  
Multilevel Analyses ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Macro Variables ◽  
Comparative Political Behavior

The articles in this special issue all use multilevel methods to study comparative political behavior. This is obviously a good thing, for both methodology and comparative politics. Clearly comparative politics means comparing things and not just studying nations other than the United States. This is equally true of micropolitical studies. These articles all do a very nice job of showing how one can do comparative micropolitics (and tie together micro and macro variables).

EDITORIAL: Migration and competitiveness: Japan and the United States

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-124
Author(s):  
Philip L. Martin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Variable Cost ◽  
Fixed Cost ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Science And Engineering ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Key Sectors ◽  
Past Half

Japan and the United States, the world’s largest economies for most of the past half century, have very different immigration policies. Japan is the G7 economy most closed to immigrants, while the United States is the large economy most open to immigrants. Both Japan and the United States are debating how immigrants are and can con-tribute to the competitiveness of their economies in the 21st centuries. The papers in this special issue review the employment of and impacts of immigrants in some of the key sectors of the Japanese and US economies, including agriculture, health care, science and engineering, and construction and manufacturing. For example, in Japanese agriculture migrant trainees are a fixed cost to farmers during the three years they are in Japan, while US farmers who hire mostly unauthorized migrants hire and lay off workers as needed, making labour a variable cost.

Magic and Politics

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Sabina Magliocco
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
Spirit World

This essay introduces a special issue of Nova Religio on magic and politics in the United States in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. The articles in this issue address a gap in the literature examining intersections of religion, magic, and politics in contemporary North America. They approach political magic as an essentially religious phenomenon, in that it deals with the spirit world and attempts to motivate human behavior through the use of symbols. Covering a range of practices from the far right to the far left, the articles argue against prevailing scholarly treatments of the use of esoteric technologies as a predominantly right-wing phenomenon, showing how they have also been operationalized by the left in recent history. They showcase the creativity of magic as a form of human cultural expression, and demonstrate how magic coexists with rationality in contemporary western settings.

After Victory

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. John Ikenberry
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Politics ◽  
World Order ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Napoleonic Wars ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Cold War

The end of the Cold War was a “big bang” reminiscent of earlier moments after major wars, such as the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the end of the world wars in 1919 and 1945. But what do states that win wars do with their newfound power, and how do they use it to build order? This book examines postwar settlements in modern history, arguing that powerful countries do seek to build stable and cooperative relations, but the type of order that emerges hinges on their ability to make commitments and restrain power. The book explains that only with the spread of democracy in the twentieth century and the innovative use of international institutions—both linked to the emergence of the United States as a world power—has order been created that goes beyond balance of power politics to exhibit “constitutional” characteristics. Blending comparative politics with international relations, and history with theory, the book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the organization of world order, the role of institutions in world politics, and the lessons of past postwar settlements for today.

scholarly journals Environmental justice, settler colonialism, and more-than-humans in the occupied West Bank: An introduction

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27
Author(s):  
Irus Braverman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The West ◽  
The Core ◽  
Waste Concrete

Our special issue provides a first-of-its kind attempt to examine environmental injustices in the occupied West Bank through interdisciplinary perspectives, pointing to the broader settler colonial and neoliberal contexts within which they occur and to their more-than-human implications. Specifically, we seek to understand what environmental justice—a movement originating from, and rooted in, the United States—means in the context of Palestine/Israel. Moving beyond the settler-native dialectic, we draw attention to the more-than-human flows that occur in the region—which include water, air, waste, cement, trees, donkeys, watermelons, and insects—to consider the dynamic, and often gradational, meanings of frontier, enclosure, and Indigeneity in the West Bank, challenging the all-too-binary assumptions at the core of settler colonialism. Against the backdrop of the settler colonial project of territorial dispossession and elimination, we illuminate the infrastructural connections and disruptions among lives and matter in the West Bank, interpreting these through the lens of environmental justice. We finally ask what forms of ecological decolonization might emerge from this landscape of accumulating waste, concrete, and ruin. Such alternative visions that move beyond the single axis of settler-native enable the emergence of more nuanced, and even hopeful, ecological imaginaries that focus on sumud, dignity, and recognition.

Political Competition and Right-Wing Terrorism: A County-Level Analysis of the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110067
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Nemeth ◽  
Holley E. Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
The United States ◽  
County Level ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Economic Anxiety ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Level Analysis

While many previous studies on U.S. right-wing violence center on factors such as racial threat and economic anxiety, we draw from comparative politics research linking electoral dynamics to anti-minority violence. Furthermore, we argue that the causes of right-wing terrorism do not solely rest on political, economic, or social changes individually, but on their interaction. Using a geocoded, U.S. county-level analysis of right-wing terrorist incidents from 1970 to 2016, we find no evidence that poorer or more diverse counties are targets of right-wing terrorism. Rather, right-wing violence is more common in areas where “playing the ethnic card” makes strategic sense for elites looking to shift electoral outcomes: counties that are in electorally competitive areas and that are predominantly white.

scholarly journals Analyzing Failed Institutional Change Attempts

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292198944
Author(s):  
Sukriti Issar ◽  
Matthias Dilling
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Change ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
The United States ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Strategic Action ◽  
Formal Stability ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
Analytical Strategies ◽  
Empirical Regularity

Theoretical advances in the study of institutional change center around a productive paradox. While change agents can take strategic action to change institutions, institutions display a remarkable level of formal stability. From this paradox, we expect that attempts to change institutions are an empirical regularity and that many formal change attempts will fail. This article contributes to historical institutionalism by analyzing the political effects of failed formal institutional change attempts on institutional sequences. Failed institutional change attempts could be mere blips, having little effect on subsequent institutional trajectories, or even inoculate against future attempts. Failed attempts could also lay the ideational groundwork, aid in coalition building, and garner concessions for subsequent institutional change, or convince change agents to alter their strategy. The article suggests analytical strategies to assess the effects of failed institutional change attempts, drawing on examples from comparative politics and two extended case illustrations from Italian party politics and the Affordable Care Act in the United States.

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