Inclusivity and exclusivity in the use of Cantonese ngo5dei6 (‘we’) in evasive replies in Hong Kong political discourse

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 691-715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Lap-ming Wai ◽  
Foong Ha Yap

Politicians frequently face adversarial questions during election time. They often provide evasive replies to veer away from the controversial issues, but such equivocation also distances them from the audience. To deal with this problem, politicians often use the inclusive ‘we’ to identify themselves with the interest of the general public when they equivocate, or they sometimes use the exclusive ‘we’ to shift the responsibility of controversial policies to their political parties. The choice of inclusive versus exclusive ‘we’ in equivocation is not random but is governed by contextual factors, for example, the speech topic, the politician’s affiliation (if any) and the political system within a given culture. In Hong Kong, the Chief Executive Election candidates often do not belong to any political party. In this article, we examine how this unique contextual factor affects the choice of inclusive and exclusive ‘we’ in the evasive replies of politicians in the 2012 Hong Kong Chief Executive Election debates.

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 314-336
Author(s):  
ADEEBA AZIZ KHAN

AbstractIn this article, by studying the candidate-nomination process of the two major political parties, I show how power is distributed within the political party in Bangladesh. I show that the general acceptance by scholars that political power lies in the hands of the innermost circle of the political-party leadership in Bangladesh is too simplistic. A more nuanced observation of power and influence within the party structure shows that, in the context of Bangladesh's clientelistic political system, which is based on reciprocity between patrons and clients and relies on the ability of middlemen to organize and mobilize (in order to disrupt through hartals and strikes), power is often in the hands of those mid-level leaders who are in charge of mobilizing because their demands cannot be ignored by the topmost leadership. Through studying the candidate-nomination process of the major political parties and using the Narayanganj mayoral election of 2011 as a case study, I answer questions such as whose interests political parties are representing, what channels of influence are being used, and why these channels exist.


1994 ◽  
Vol 9 (0) ◽  
pp. 105-116
Author(s):  
Kyung Woo Chang

Korean society is struggling with confusion and pains on the direction to reform our political institution. We should establish the political party and election system that encourages general public to participate in political process freely. This paper reviews the problems in current system and suggests some ideas for the amendment in politics-related laws to achieve political development. The Political Party Act limits the freedom of political activities and access of general public to political parties. It should allow employees in school and mass media and labor union to participate in political parties. Political parties should shift power from central party to district parties. The National Assembly Members Election Act allows major parties to over-represent in national constituency and the disparity between the percentage of votes and seats a party obtains should be reduced. Public management of election affairs should be changed in order to increase the scope of freedom for election campaigns. Most official political funds are distributed to governing party and opposition parties have difficulties in collecting funds. The Political Funds Act should be amended to achieve more equal distribution of political funds among political parties.


Author(s):  
Rudy B. Andeweg ◽  
David M. Farrell

This chapter discusses the decline of political parties as a possible cause of the decline of legitimacy. Political parties constitute a link between the citizens and the political system, and therefore a loss of support could delegitimize the political system. However, the decline of political parties can only cause legitimacy decline if they are indeed in decline and if there is a causal relationship between citizens’ involvement in political parties and political support. The chapter argues that empirical evidence for party decline is limited, as parties may have undergone transformation rather than decline. Using ESS data from 2002 to 2010, the chapter finds only weak relations between political support and party membership and party closeness. However, being close to a particular party is more important than being a member of a political party, and is interpreted as a sign that the party system facilitates citizens in making meaningful political choices.


Author(s):  
Peter Ferdinand

This chapter deals with political parties: why they emerged, how they can be classified, what functions they perform, how they interact, and what challenges they are facing today. One of the paradoxes about democracies is that there is almost a unanimous consensus about the indispensability of political parties. On the other hand, the benefits of being a member of a political party are bound to be minuscule compared to the costs of membership. Thus it is irrational for people to join parties. They should only form (small) interest groups. The chapter first provides a historical background on the development of political parties before discussing their functions, such as legitimation of the political system, structuring the popular vote, and formulation of public policy. It then considers different types of political parties as well as the characteristics of party systems and concludes with an analysis of the problems facing political parties today.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-150
Author(s):  
Andre Pareschi

During the last few years, external crises and endogenous weaknesses have combined to plunge the Italian political system into generalised instability. In particular, the major political parties have experienced rapidly turning tides in a context of intensified electoral volatility. This explorative article sets out to get an insight into the discursive struggles that have pitted these parties one against another, undergirding the ebb and flow in their respective mass support and revolving around the ways of communicating political change. To that end, I collect data from the official Facebook pages of the four main Italian parties, downloading posts they published in the period 2013–2019 via the Netvizz application, and I analyse the four corresponding textual corpora through the technique of Topic Modelling. On such bases, the article finds the overall configuration of the political discourse of Italian parties to be aptly described by a model comprising 16 topics, equally divided into ‘partisan’ and ‘cross-cutting’ ones, with the former having a slight edge in terms of diffusion. The four parties differ among themselves by the topics they focus on and by the quantity of topics they choose to include sizably in their streams of communication.


2020 ◽  
pp. 266-286
Author(s):  
Peter Ferdinand

This chapter deals with political parties: why they emerged, how they can be classified, what functions they perform, how they interact, and what challenges they are facing today. One of the paradoxes about democracies is that there is almost a unanimous consensus about the indispensability of political parties. On the other hand, the benefits of being a member of a political party are bound to be minuscule compared to the costs of membership. Thus it is irrational for people to join parties. They should only form (small) interest groups. The chapter first provides a historical background on the development of political parties before discussing their functions, such as legitimation of the political system, structuring the popular vote, and formulation of public policy. It then considers different types of political parties as well as the characteristics of party systems and concludes with an analysis of the problems facing political parties today.


Politics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Ferdinand ◽  
Robert Garner ◽  
Stephanie Lawson

This chapter deals with political parties, focusing on why they emerged, how they can be classified, what functions they perform, and how they interact. It identifies two phases in the development of political parties. The first parties were intended to structure the work of legislatures, and later evolved into mass parties to structure the votes of electors, catch-all parties to win more votes irrespective of ideological appeal, and cartel parties more dominated by party professionals. The chapter also considers seven functions typically carried out by a political party, irrespective of whether they operate in democracies or authoritarian regimes: legitimation of the political system, integration and mobilization of citizens, representation, structuring the popular vote, aggregation of diverse interests, recruitment of leaders for public office, and formulation of public policy. Finally, it discusses various types of party outside the West, party systems, and some of the challenges facing political parties today.


1964 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 947-950 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Hess ◽  
Gerhard Loewenberg

The emergence of political parties performing important functions in the political system has characterized the recent history of much of the African continent. The new party systems have taken various forms, including single parties with a narrow ruling elite, as in Liberia, or with mass support, as in Guinea; two-party systems where one mass party is dominant, as is the case in Kenya; and multi-party systems, as in Nigeria and Somalia. In two states, Libya and Sudan, once-flourishing political parties have been banned. Only in Ethiopia (Etritrea excluded) have there never been political parties. The Empire of the Conquering Lion of Judah can well be termed a no-party state. In Ethiopia today no organization exists that would or could describe itself as a political party.


2020 ◽  
pp. 002190962094154
Author(s):  
Hawre Hasan Hama ◽  
Farhad hassan abdullah

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq has a multi-party system which has been held up as a model for democratic pluralism in the whole region. The nature of Kurdistan’s political parties is strongly related to the position of Kurds in Iraq. From the mid-twentieth century, the dominant Kurdish political party in Iraq was the Kurdistan Democratic Party; in a later partisan split the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan was born. Moreover, in the last three decades other political parties have come into being, which have all influenced the characteristics of Iraqi Kurdistan’s political system. This paper’s main argument is that Iraqi Kurdistan shares many of the characteristics of its main political parties, including reliance on charismatic leadership, a focus on nationalism, and the lack of transparency. This paper analyzes the primary characteristics of the Kurdish political parties and their influence on the institutional functions of the political system in the Kurdistan Region.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitesh M. Jayswal

Nowadays, in Indian political system, it is common for the political parties to use the negative political advertisements to denigrate the opponent political party. Normally, such attacks are responded with the use of similar media either by retaliating or with putting fresh charges on the attacker. In this article, an experiment has been conducted in an Indian state ‘Gujarat’ to compare the effect of attack and rebuttal types of political television campaigns. After considering the literature pertaining to negative political advertisement, this research addresses four related issues. The first and second objectives of this study are to compare the effect of attack and rebuttal type of advertisements on attitude towards advertisement and political party subsequently. The third objective is to compare attack and rebuttal type of advertisements on the basis of intrusiveness effect. The final objective is to compare impact of both types of negative advertisements on intention to vote for sponsoring political party. The results indicate that the ‘attack advertisements’ prove effective in changing the attitude of citizens and intention to vote. The results of the study have practical implications for practitioners of political advertising and consultants of political campaigns. It will help them to create a link between voters’ attitudinal responses and creation of effective campaign strategies.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document