scholarly journals Time, Space, and Rationality: Rethinking Political Action through the Example of Montreal's Student Spring

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-29
Author(s):  
Julie-Anne Boudreau ◽  
Mathieu Labrie
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Spatial Data ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Logic Of Action ◽  
City Space ◽  
Political Actions

Because of a changing relationship with time, space, and affect in a more urbanized world, political actions and social movement practices have transcended the modern, state-oriented logic of action. Following this claim, this paper questions a specifically urban way of acting politically. To answer this question, we need to begin by “looking” for politics in the kinds of places that political scientists generally overlook for political analysis. Understanding the urban logic of political action cannot come solely from an observation of political campaigns, ideologies, political organizations, or interviews with social movement leaders. Using the 2012 student strike in Montreal as our focus, we are taking a different analytical angle that focuses more closely on the personal experience of participation, the personal trajectories of the participating students and the effect of this intense mobilization. This research project uses biometric tools, spatial data and qualitative data to investigate political participation and its relation to the city space.

Return of the Natives: Explaining the Development and Non-Development of Political Action by Indigenous Peoples in Democratic Political Systems

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-480
Author(s):  
Lee E. Dutter
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
North America ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Present Treatment ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
Political Actions

Studies of individuals or groups who might use violence or terrorism in pursuit of political goals often focus on the specific actions which these individuals or groups have taken and on the policies which defenders (that is, governments of states) against such actions may adopt in response. Typically, less attention is devoted to identifying the relevant preconditions of political action and possible escalation to violence and how or why potential actions may be obviated before they occur. In the context of democratic political systems, the present analysis addresses these issues via examination of indigenous peoples, who typically constitute tiny fractions of the population of the states or regions in which they reside, in terms of their past and present treatment by governments and the political actions, whether non-violent or violent, which individuals from these peoples have engaged or may engage. The specific peoples examined are Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders of Australia, Haudenosaunee of North America, Inuit of Canada, Maori of New Zealand, and Saami of Scandinavia.

scholarly journals Situating Politics: Spatial Heterogeneity and the Study of Political History

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Slez
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Data ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Ethnic Composition ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Use Of Time ◽  
Parameter Heterogeneity ◽  
Global Regression ◽  
Party Support

While quantitative methods are routinely used to examine historical materials, critics take issue with the use of global regression models that attach a single parameter to each predictor, thereby ignoring the effects of time and space, which together define the context in which historical events unfold. This problem can be addressed by allowing for parameter heterogeneity, as highlighted by the proliferation of work on the use of time-varying parameter models. In this paper, I show how this approach can be extended to the case of spatial data using spatially-varying coefficient models, with an eye toward the study of electoral politics, where the use of spatial data is especially common in historical settings. Toward this end, I revisit a critical case in the field of quantitative history: the rise of electoral Populism in the American West in the period between 1890 and 1896. Upending popular narratives about the correlates of third- party support in the late nineteenth century, I show that the association between third- party vote share and traditional predictors such as economic hardship and ethnic composition varied considerably from one place to the next, giving rise to distinct varieties of electoral Populism—a finding that is missed by global models, which mistake the mathematically particular for the historically general. These findings have important theoretical and empirical implications for the study of political action in a world where parameter heterogeneity is increasingly recognized as a standard feature of modern social science.

scholarly journals Racionalización y poder La cuestión de la legitimidad en Weber como referente de la acción política

2017 ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
Nicolás Fleet
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legitimacy Theory ◽  
General Will ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Social Interests ◽  
Political Actions

ResumenEste artículo desarrolla, en tres pasos, una perspectiva original de la teoría de la dominación de Max Weber. El primer paso establece un vínculo necesario entre las formas típicas de dominación política y los intereses sociales, de modo que toda acción política debe legitimarse ante el interés general. El segundo paso explica las crisis de legitimación como una respuesta a cambios de identidad en la base social de la dominación política, de tal forma que se introduce un concepto dinámico de legitimidad. El tercer paso establece que los valores que habitan en las formas legitimas de dominación política son usados como orientaciones simbólicas por parte de intereses sociales y acciones políticas particulares, de manera que toda forma de legitimación de la autoridad encierra, en sus propias premisas, los argumentos que justifican luchas políticas hacia la modificación de los esquemas de dominación.Palabras clave: legitimidad, dominación, acción política, democratización.Abstract This article develops, in three steps, an orignal perspective of Weber’s legitimacy theory. The first one, establishes a necessary link that exists between the typical forms of legitimate domination and the social interests, in such a way that every political action that purse the realization of its interests has to legitimate itself before the general will. The second explains the legitimation crises as a response to indentity changes at the social base of the political domination and, in so doing, it introduces a dinamic concept of legitimacy. The third step states that the values that dwell in legitimate forms of political domination are used as symbolic orientations by particular social intersts and political actions, in a way that each form of authority legitimation encapsulate, in its own premises, the arguments that justify political struggles aiming toward the modification of the domination schemes.Key words: legitimacy, domination, political action, democratization.

Bridging Between Cyber Politics and Collective Dynamics of Social Movement

2019 ◽  
pp. 160-172
Author(s):  
Kazuhiko Shibuya
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Real World ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Collective Dynamics ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Systemic Risks ◽  
Political Actions

The author argued that the advent of social media summoned the collective dynamics of democracy of the citizens, by the citizens, and for the citizens. Such patterns using social media can readily alter the form of social movements, allowing their mutual interconnection and shaping the enclaves of networked clustering. Social media offer a new paradigm of democracy that encourages engagement and participation in both cyber and actual political actions for ordinary citizens. Nevertheless, little is known about co-occurrence and linkages between cyber and real-world actions by numerous participants. Consequently, this issue should be investigated with open questions related to the following points: 1) social institutional matters related to legitimation crises caused by social movements, 2) co-occurrence and linkages of collective dynamics between cyber and actual political actions, 3) enlargement of participants in social movement, and 4) systemic risks from local to international affairs.

scholarly journals Can Sustainable Consumption Trigger Political Activism? An Empirical Investigation of the Crowding-in Hypothesis

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 9082
Author(s):  
Frédéric Vandermoere ◽  
Robbe Geerts ◽  
Raf Vanderstraeten
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Sustainable Consumption ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Media Activism ◽  
Online Forms ◽  
Political Act ◽  
Political Actions

In this article, we address the question whether political activism can be triggered by sustainable consumption. Specific attention is given to the crowding-out and crowding-in hypotheses. The first hypothesis is driven by a conflict view as it assumes that sustainable consumerism displaces the willingness to act collectively. In contrast, the latter hypothesis—crowding-in—frames conscious consumption as a potential political act whereby individual sustainable consumption may trigger political acts such as signing a petition, demonstrating, and voting. To address this issue, German survey data were analyzed (n = 936). Our analysis appears to confirm the crowding-in hypothesis. However, the results of multiple logistic regression analyses also show that the relation between sustainable consumption and political activism depends on the type of political action. Particularly, sustainable consumption does not relate to traditional political actions such as voting, but it does relate positively to less conventional (e.g., attending a demonstration) and online forms of political engagement (e.g., social media activism). Our findings also indicate that the positive association between sustainable consumption and less conventional politics may be moderated by educational attainment, suggesting that it is weakest among less educated groups. The paper ends with the empirical and theoretical conclusions that can be drawn from this study, and indicates some directions for future research.

scholarly journals Citizens’ Spatial Footprint on Twitter—Anomaly, Trend and Bias Investigation in Istanbul

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayse Giz Gulnerman ◽  
Himmet Karaman ◽  
Direnc Pekaslan ◽  
Serdar Bilgi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Spatial Data ◽  
Central Area ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Time Of Day ◽  
Activity Levels ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Time Space ◽  
The City ◽  
Media Data

Social media (SM) can be an invaluable resource in terms of understanding and managing the effects of catastrophic disasters. In order to use SM platforms for public participatory (PP) mapping of emergency management activities, a bias investigation should be undertaken with regard to the data related to the study area (urban, regional or national, etc.) to determine the spatial data dynamics. Thus, such determinations can be made on how SM can be used and interpreted in terms of PP. In this study, the city of Istanbul was chosen for social media data research area, as it is one of the most crowded cities in the world and expecting a major earthquake. The methodology for the data investigation is: 1. Obtain data and engage sampling, 2. Identify the representation and temporal biases in the data and normalize it in response to representation bias, 3. Identify general anomalies and spatial anomalies, 4. Manipulate the trend of the dataset with the discretization of anomalies and 5. Examine the spatiotemporal bias. Using this bias investigation methodology, citizen footprint dynamics in the city were determined and reference maps (most likely regional anomaly maps, representation maps, time-space bias maps, etc.) were produced. The outcomes of the study can be summarized in four steps. First, highly active users generate the majority of the data and removing this data as a general approach within a pseudo-cleaning process means concealing a large amount of data. Second, data normalization in terms of activity levels, changes the anomaly outcome resulting from diverse representation levels of users. Third, spatiotemporally normalized data present strong spatial anomaly tendency in some parts of the central area. Fourth, trend data is dense in the central area and the spatiotemporal bias assessments show the data density varies in terms of the time of day, day of week and season of the year. The methodology proposed in this study can be used to extract the unbiased daily routines of the social media data of the regions for the normal days and this can be referred for the emergency or unexpected event cases to detect the change or impacts.

Sigmund Freud and the Politics of Marginality

1974 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Rothman ◽  
Phillip Isenberg
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Scientific Success ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Liberal Position

Relying heavily upon Freud's greatest work, The Interpretation of Dreams, Professors Carl Schorske and William McGrath have attempted to increase our understanding of the origins of psychoanalysis. Both authors feel that the key to Freud's discoveries lies in his reaction to the sociopolitical realities of late nineteenth-century Vienna, and while the articles differ somewhat in emphasis their arguments are sufficiently similar so that they can be treated together. To Schorske and McGrath psychoanalysis had its origins in Freud's decision to give up his initial desire to mount a direct political (even revolutionary) attack on the inequities of the existing society for a “counter-political” psychology which enabled him to adjust to the existing political situation and even achieve a measure of scientific success. As a youth Freud had radical political aspirations and was even active in radical political organizations. However, the hopelessness of the liberal position in Vienna and the rise of anti-Semitic popular movements led Freud to believe that direct political action would not be successful. By reducing political conflict to father-son conflict Freud, like other liberals, would ignore the reality of the political and learn to live (albeit imperfectly) in a world which he could not influence. A career in science could bring recognition and at least partial acceptance, and thus a minimum of satisfaction at least.

scholarly journals ‘To Act upon one's Time …’ From the impulse to resist to global political strategy

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgit Müller
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Strategic Action ◽  
Political Actions

This article reflects on the possibilities for political action emerging out of quotidian engagements. Following controversies on the patenting of seeds in Canada and globally within the Committee for Food Security I explore what gave the impulse for political resistance in these different arenas. How did collective action emerge and how did it sustain itself? Three political concepts are important for understanding the political actions that I observed: Eigen-Sinn, empathy and strategy. These allowed me to follow and theorize political engagements. I first reflect on the potential to resist as a capacity of all human beings, because they have Eigen-Sinn: the capacity to attribute their own meanings to things, and act in their own self-interested way according to the meaning given. Self-interested action can only become political, however, when humans go beyond their strictly individual interests and empathize with others (humans and nonhumans), what Adorno described as getting into ‘live contact with the warmth of things’. Finally, I discuss how collective action can become not only possible, but also effective, by building and defending a space for strategic action.

The constant mediation of resentment and retaliation

2012 ◽  
Vol 38 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 351-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naͨim
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Human Value ◽  
Moral Choices ◽  
Globalized World ◽  
Political Actions

This article calls for moral choices and political action to escape the trap of the duality of aggression and resistance, of domination and liberation. Conflict is a permanent feature of human relationships, but violence is not only unproductive in resolving conflict, but can be rendered unnecessary by developing normative resources and institutional mechanisms for mediating conflict. Taking self-determination as a core human value and political reality in today’s globalized world, this article argues that we should reconceive realpolitik to escape the trap by acknowledging the moral choices of others, and striving to be persuasive about our moral choices and political actions. Persuasion, and not violence, provides sustainable mediation of conflict. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the possibilities of mediation of the trap of resentment and retaliation in Dar Fur, Sudan, through multilayered strategies from immediate and short- to long-term action by local, regional and global actors.

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