Between militants and “mafia”: Interrupting dispossession in rural Pakistan

Ethnography ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 146613812096768
Author(s):  
Shozab Raza

In 2000, one of Pakistan’s largest social movements began: a tenant struggle for land rights on the country’s military farms. Though the military tried to subdue the movement, it eventually succeeded insofar as many tenants stopped paying rent. As a result, villagers experienced a generalized (albeit uneven) prosperity. Certain movement leaders, in particular, became especially wealthy, relocating from their mud houses to big bungalows, replacing their motorbikes with SUVs, and transitioning from tenant farming to lucrative businesses in nearby cities. They also started moving around with armed security, allying with urban elites, and entering Pakistan’s major political parties. Rumors also began spreading that some leaders were using violence or intimidation to accumulate this political-economic power. In the movement’s afterlife, ordinary villagers began to wonder: were their leaders still committed to militantly pursuing villagers’ collective interests? Or were they now using the movement for their own private, even criminal, ambitions?

2008 ◽  
pp. 27-45
Author(s):  
A. Libman

The paper surveys the main directions of political-economic research, i.e. variants of economic and political approaches endogenizing political processes in economic models and applying economic methods to policy studies. It analyses different versions of political-economic research in different segments of scientific community: political economics, evolutionary theory of economic policy, international political economy, formal political science and theory of economic power; main methodological assumptions, content and results of positive studies are described. The author also considers the role of political-economic approach in the normative research in economics.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yukihiko Hamada ◽  
Khushbu Agrawal

Money is a necessary component of any democracy: it enables political participation, campaigning and representation. However, if it is not effectively regulated, it can undermine the integrity of political processes and institutions, and jeopardize the quality of democracy. Therefore, regulations related to the funding of political parties and election campaigns, commonly known as political finance, are a critical way to promote integrity, transparency and accountability in any democracy. Political finance regulations must adapt and adjust to political, economic and societal changes. This report contributes to the discussion of the future of political finance by exploring the following trends, opportunities and challenges related to money in politics that need to be taken into consideration when improving political finance systems: • mainstreaming political finance regulations into an overall anti-corruption framework; • supporting the implementation of existing political finance regulations and monitoring their performance; • harnessing digital technologies to ensure transparency and accountability in political finance; and • designing targeted political finance measures to encourage the inclusion of underrepresented groups in politics.


Author(s):  
Alexander Motsyk

The article is devoted to the study of modern trends of integration processes. We studied the methodological principles and approaches to the study of the integration of subjects. Specifically analyzed integration levels: individual, regional, domestic, interstate, global. Also, isolated and characterized various forms of integration: political, economic, informational, cultural and others. We analyzed the integration process as a result of the relationship, cooperation, convergence and integration into a single unit of any parts, components countries, their economies, social and political structures, cultural, social and political groups, ethnic groups, political parties, movements and organizations. It is proved that integration has several levels of development. Interaction at the level of enterprises and organizations (first level) – directly to producers of goods and services. The integration of the economies of the main links of different countries is complemented by the interaction at the country level (the second level). The third level of development of integration processes – interaction at the level of parties and organizations, social groups and individuals from different countries – can be defined as a social and political one. Fourth level – is the level of the actual integration group as an economic community, with its characteristics and peculiarities. It was noted that today is used by political science approaches to the study of integration. It is important to the following principles: federalism, functionalism, communicative approach, and others. Keywords: Integration, levels, approaches, studies, European integration, politics, economics, features


2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110260
Author(s):  
Ragnhild Brøvig-Hanssen ◽  
Ellis Jones

Many online media platforms currently utilise algorithmically driven content moderation to prevent copyright infringement. This article explores content moderation’s effect on mashup music – a form of remix which relies primarily on the unauthorised combining of pre-existing, recognisable recordings. Drawing on interviews ( n = 30) and an online survey ( n = 92) with mashup producers, we show that content moderation affects producers’ creative decisions and distribution strategies, and has a strong negative effect on their overall motivation to create mashups. The objections that producers hold to this state of affairs often strongly resonate with current copyright exceptions. However, we argue that these exceptions, which form a legal ‘grey zone’, are currently unsatisfactorily accommodated for by platforms. Platforms’ political-economic power allows them, in effect, to ‘occupy’ and control this zone. Consequently, the practical efficacy of copyright law’s exceptions in this setting is significantly reduced.


Author(s):  
Luís Guilherme Nascimento de Araujo ◽  
Claudio Everaldo Dos Santos ◽  
Elizabeth Fontoura Dorneles ◽  
Ionathan Junges ◽  
Nariel Diotto ◽  
...  

The political and economic crises faced today, evidenced by the manifestos of political parties and the texts published in social networks and in the press, point to Brazilian society the possibility of different directions, including that of an autocratic regime, with the return of the military to the public sphere. This article discusses the movements of acceptance and resistance to the military regime that was implemented in Brazil with the coup of 1964. It is observed that the military uprising received at that time the support of a large part of the Brazilian population, which sought ways to maintain its socioeconomic status to the detriment of a majority that perceived itself vulnerable in view of the forms of maintenance and expansion of power used by the regime. In this context, Tropicalism emerges as an example of a contesting movement. This text approaches the song "Culture and civilization" by Gilberto Gil, performed by Gal Costa, relating the ideas present in this composition with the understandings of politics and culture, in a multidisciplinary proposal, seeking to understand the resistance and counter-resistance movements that emerged in Brazil at the time.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-143
Author(s):  
Vania Markarian

This paper – focused on a deep analysis of the student movement that occupied the streets of Montevideo in 1968 – aims at proposing some analytical lines to understand this and other contemporary cycles of protest in different places of the world. After locating these events in a wide geography characterized both by political acceleration and the dramatic display of cultural change, four relevant themes in the growing body of literature on the «global Sixties» are raised. First, it is addressed the relationship between social movements and groups or political parties in these «short cycles» of protest. Second, the idea that violence was rather a catalyzer of political innovation rather than the result of political polarization is proposed. Third, it breaks down the diversity of possible links between culture, in a broad sense, and the forms of political participation in youth mobilizations. Finally, it can be more rewarding to look at different scales of analysis of these processes, from the strictly national to the transnational circulation of ideas and people.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003802292110510
Author(s):  
Hassan Javid

Historically, despite the tremendous influence exerted by Islam on public life, religious parties and organisations have historically failed to do well at the ballot box, receiving an average of only 6% of votes cast in elections since the 1980s. Focusing on the case of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a new Barelvi political party and social movement that has campaigned on the emotive issue of blasphemy since being formed in 2015, this article argues that the clientelistic, patronage-based nature of democratic politics in Punjab, coupled with factionalism and competition within the religious right, continues to play a role in limiting the electoral prospects of religious parties. Nonetheless, as was seen in the General Elections of 2018 in which the TLP outperformed expectations, there are particular circumstances in which the religious parties are able to make electoral breakthroughs. While the TLP was able to make effective use of populist rhetoric to garner some genuine support for itself, this article argues that the organisations sustained campaign of protests over the issue of blasphemy fed into broader efforts by the military establishment and opposition political parties to destabilise and weaken the government of the PML-N prior to the 2018 elections.


2020 ◽  
Vol V (III) ◽  
pp. 142-149
Author(s):  
Naushad Khan ◽  
Syed Ali Shah

The weak political organization of nearly all political parties is another contributing factor in political instability. No democratic culture prevails inside all political parties; all political parties, with the exception of very few, has been ruling by one family, and mostly are dominated by one family or person; their party of the election has been mostly blamed as selection and not an election. The scope of all parties has been limited to certain areas, religion and nationalities. .As a result of weak organizations of political parties and dominant rule of the military do not allow any government to form a government alone; all political parties rely on other political parties to form government in centre as well as province.


Author(s):  
Cristiano Gianolla

Representative democracy is currenty facing strong social criticism for its incapacity to envolve people in a way that makes them part of the decision-making process. An existing gap between the representatives and the represented is hereby emphasized. In this space, the role of political parties is central in order to bridge society with institutions. How much are parties concerned about this issue? How and in which context do they interact more with their electorate and the wider society? Participatory democracy is emerging throughout the world in different forms and with different results, but the dominant pattern of democracy remains the liberal western democratic paradigm in which people can contribute barely through electing candidates. In order to achieve what Boaventura de Sousa Santos calls ‘democratisation of democracy’ the role of political parties is therefore fundamental in particular to achieve a more participative democracy within the representative model. This article approaches this theme through a bibliographic review comparing social movements and political parties with a focus on the innovation of the Five Star Movement in Italy. Finally, it provides a reading of the relationship between political parties andparticipation, including good practice and perspectives.KEYWORDS: Participation, political parties, social movements, political movements, representative democracy, participatory democracy.


1992 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Diani

Recent developments in social movement research have evidenced a greater underlying consensus in the field than one might have assumed. Efforts have been made to bridge different perspectives and merge them into a new synthesis. Yet, comparative discussion of the concept of ‘social movement’ has been largely neglected so far. This article reviews and contrasts systematically the definitions of ‘social movement’ formulated by some of the most influential authors in the field. A substantial convergence may be detected between otherwise very different approaches on three points at least. Social movements are defined as networks of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/or organizations, engaged in political or cultural conflicts, on the basis of shared collective identities. It is argued that the concept is sharp enough a) to differentiate social movements from related concepts such as interest groups, political parties, protest events and coalitions; b) to identify a specific area of investigation and theorising for social movement research.


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