Killing Politics Softly

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 54-73
Author(s):  
Paul Shields
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
Reception Study ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Russian State ◽  
New Hypothesis ◽  
Alternative Theories ◽  
The Way

Early propaganda studies in authoritarian countries argue that state media works to legitimize the regime through indoctrination and persuasion. However, recent scholarship shows that citizens in authoritarian countries—in states like China, Syria, Russia, and Kazakhstan—can be unconvinced by state propaganda. How, then, does the way in which citizens experience unconvincing propaganda shape their political beliefs? How might unpersuasive propaganda contribute to authoritarian stability? Given the lack of alternative theories of propaganda, this article proposes a new hypothesis based on a reception study that interviewed 24 Russian citizens from Krasnoiarsk Krai after they watched items from Russian state television. The article theorizes that unconvincing state propaganda in Russia can reinforce a preexisting cynical attitude toward politics—an attitude that makes the collective action necessary for bottom-up reform hard to contemplate, let alone organize in an authoritarian context.

SIEĆ PARAFIALNA W DIECEZJI EŁCKIEJ

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-88
Author(s):  
Ryszard Skawiński
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Major Change ◽  
The Past ◽  
Russian State ◽  
The Way

The Diocese of Ełk was established in 1992 as a major change in the structure of the Churchin Poland. It connects the land belonging in the past to various forms of the Polish state and theGerman state, as well as the Russian state. As a result of these conditions, the parishes of theRoman Catholic Church in this area have arisen in different circumstances and have distincttraditions. Parishes are currently experiencing similar problems. Within the Diocese of Ełk therewas an increase in the number of parishes and the process of unifying the way they functioned.

Explanation and Understanding in Animal Narratives

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Herman
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Human Behaviors ◽  
Discourse Practices ◽  
Strategic Oscillation ◽  
Experimental Narrative ◽  
The Way

With chapter 6 having described the way norms for mental-state ascriptions operate in a top-down manner in discourse domains, chapter 7 explores how individual narratives can in turn have a bottom-up impact on the ascriptive norms circulating within particular domains. To this end, the chapter discusses how Thalia Field’s 2010 experimental narrative Bird Lovers, Backyard employs a strategic oscillation between two nomenclatures that can be used to profile nonhuman as well as human behaviors: (1) the register of action, which characterizes behavior in terms of motivations, goals, and projects; and (2) the register of events, which characterizes behavior in terms of caused movements that have duration in time and direction in space. In braiding together these two registers, Field’s text suggests not only how discourse practices can be repatterned, but also how such repatterning enables broader paradigm shifts—in this case shifts in ways of understanding cross-species encounters and entanglements.

Indigenous Peoples, Social Movements, and the Legacy of Hugo Chávez’s Governments

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 180-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis F. Angosto-Ferrández
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Population ◽  
Indigenous Movement ◽  
The Way

The unprecedented enfranchisement of Venezuela’s indigenous population is partly a result of the formation of a state-sponsored indigenous movement. This movement prioritizes access to social services, economic development, and political participation in state structures over certain goals of free determination. Other forms of collective action with different priorities are evidence of the existence of diverging interests and goals among indigenous people. These divergences are a reflection of the way in which the indigenous population partakes in the shaping of contemporary Venezuelan politics. La inclusión social de las comunidades indígenas de Venezuela no tiene precedentes y se debe, en parte, a la formación de movimientos indígenas auspiciados por el estado. Estos movimientos le dan prioridad al acceso a los servicios sociales, al desarrollo económico y a la participación política en las estructuras estatales por encima de ciertas metas de libre determinación. Otras formas de acción colectiva con prioridades diferentes revelan la presencia/existencia de intereses y objetivos divergentes entre las comunidades indígenas. Estas diferencias son un reflejo de la manera en que las poblaciones indígenas participan en la formación de la política venezolana contemporánea.

Practical Materialism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliyahu Stern
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Primary Target ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Russian Jews ◽  
Russian State ◽  
Philosophical Texts ◽  
The Way

The discovery of Karl Marx’s writings by Russian Jews in the mid-1870s changed the way they viewed their situation and provided a framework for them to become political actors. The chapter provides a careful reading of Jewish philosophical texts and propaganda literature from the late 1870s. It suggests that Jews who were drawn to Marx viewed Marx in conjunction with, not in opposition to, the Hebrew Bible and the Kabbalah. The early Jewish Marxists’ primary target was the Russian state, not their Jewish parents. The Jewish materialists teased out the messianic universal aspirations and nationalist assumptions that they saw behind Marx’s theories of revolution.

The Dilemma of Care: A Theory and Praxis of Citizenship-Based Care for China's Rural Migrant Youth

2016 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Yiu
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Opposite Effect ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Migrant Students ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Rural Migrant ◽  
Migrant Youth ◽  
Children's Schooling ◽  
The Way

In this article, Lisa Yiu examines how migrant students attending public schools in Shanghai perceive teachers as uncaring and how the majority of teachers claim they are disempowered from caring. She contends that recent Shanghai reforms, which aim to “care” for migrant youth through inclusion into public schools, may be having the opposite effect, arguing that the nature of contact between educators and migrant youth is structured by conflicting state policies on citizenship, which constrain teachers from caring in the way migrant students desire. Yiu's findings problematize recent scholarship on migrant children's schooling which presumes that the dynamics of exclusion are primarily rooted in teacher prejudices. Importantly, this study advances caring theory by reconceptualizing care within the institutional context of the state's citizenship policies and contributes to a citizenship-based care praxis that is relevant to Chinese migrant youth who attend public schools.

Local Infrastructures for Peace

2021 ◽  
pp. 626-640
Author(s):  
Andries Odendaal
Keyword(s):  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Local Agency ◽  
The Core ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
The Way

The way “the local” had been interpreted led to contrasting top-down or bottom-up understandings of local infrastructures for peace. This chapter presents a reinterpretation of the relevance of infrastructures for peace from a practitioner’s perspective, considering past experiences and current theoretical debates. It argues for an appreciation of the complex, interlinked nature of global, national, and local conflicts and the necessity of flexible yet sustained and productive dialogue platforms at the points of frictional interactions at and between all these levels. The capacity to initiate and support such dialogue platforms where, crucially, local agency is respected is at the core of the approach that became known as “infrastructures for peace.”

Laissez-Faire Activism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Colander ◽  
Roland Kupers
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Environment ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Social Goals ◽  
Embryonic Stage ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Small Change ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Policy Solutions ◽  
The Way

This chapter reconsiders the structure and governance issues of corporations and enterprises more generally as a concrete example of how a complexity approach changes the way we think about policy. It shows how a small change in the ecostructure, especially when applied at the formative embryonic stage of emerging institutions, can fundamentally change society from the bottom up, without massive state intervention. It argues that over time in some important sectors of the economy where social goals are important, existing for-profit and nonprofit enterprises can be replaced by socially friendly for-benefit enterprises, which are designed to allow social goals to be achieved in a sustainable way from the bottom up. The goal of the policy being advocated is to encourage the development of an institutional environment that is friendly to bottom-up policy solutions so that new socially focused enterprises can emerge and develop.

Participatory Social Policies: Diverging Patterns in Brazil and Bolivia

2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Niedzwiecki ◽  
Santiago Anria
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Healthcare Systems ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Popular Participation

ABSTRACTBolivia and Brazil have universalized their pension and healthcare systems, respectively. Civil society organizations participated actively in social policy expansion, yet they have done so in starkly different ways, reflecting general patterns in each country. Whereas in Brazil, popular participation in social policies takes place through “inside” formal channels, such as conferences and councils, in Bolivia, bottom-up influence occurs mostly via “outside” channels, by coordinating collective action in the streets. Understanding forms of popular participation matters because policies that allow for popular input are potentially more representative, universal, and nondiscretionary. This article argues that differences in the forms of popular participation in social policy expansion can be explained by the characteristics of the institutional context and differences in the types of movements engaged in the policymaking process. By focusing on patterns of participation, these findings add nuance to the literature on Latin America’s welfare states.

Agency at Play for Collective Impact in Human Services Systems

2022 ◽  
pp. 159-181
Author(s):  
Prithi Yadav ◽  
Manuela B Taboada ◽  
Nicole Vickery
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Human Services ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Collective Impact ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Policy Level

Responses to urban human services issues such as housing and unemployment often overlook lived experiences through these systems and are formulated from a top-down (systems, services, or policy-level) perspective. This study integrates systems thinking and design justice principles for centering the voices of those experiencing these issues towards exploring ‘agency'—the capacity to act—from the bottom-up and top-down in responding to these issues. An agency typology encompassing various bottom-up and top-down agencies is developed through an analysis of Digital Games for Change (DG4C) for the various agencies they can initiate. The agency typology's contributions are threefold—in research (as a method and analytical tool), in practice (as design principles) and in education (for teaching collective action, impact). The agency typology can drive ‘concerted agency' or collective action, where top-down and bottom-up agencies work together, enabling multipronged targeted approaches to complex social issues and maximizing social justice efforts through collective impact.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document