scholarly journals Ethnic Cleavages: The Descendant and Clan Sentiment on Local Executive Election in North Tapanuli, North Sumatera Province

Author(s):  
Erond Litno Damanik

The foundation of this study is political anthropology to see the phenomenon of ethnicity in local politics in the era of democratic decentralization. The study focused on ethnic cleavages in the form of strengthening social units that appear through descendant and clan sentiments at the moment of the Pemilukada (Local Executive Election). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand the phenomenon of ethnic cleavages which highlights descendant and clan sentiments in four districts in north of Tapanuli in the Pemilukada. Local politics at the time of democratic decentralization was not only used to expand the four cultural areas, namely Silindung, Humbang, Toba and Samosir, but also strengthen descent and clan sentiments in the Pemilukada. Although, the population in these four regions is a Toba ethnic group, its members destabilize and negate each other. This phenomenon originated from the domination of Silindung from the colonial era to the Reformation. Through Pemilukada, the descent and clan sentiments are used to blockade other candidates as well as mobilize selecting candidates from similar groups and clans. The promise of Pemilukada is channeled through a monopoly to fill government positions from one lineage group and clan. The approach of this problem is used Dunning and Harrison's theory about Cross-Cutting Cleavages and Ethnic Voting. The data collection was carried out through in-depth interviews with subjects, namely descendants and clans in four districts in north of Tapanuli. The results of the study show that: (i) ethnic cleavages occur because of the utilization and mobilization of social units namely descent and clan groups in the moment of Pemilukada, (ii) the strengthening of descent and clan group sentiments in Pemilukada is the impact of competition and contestation which are packaged as political capital for gained power, and (ii) political actors redefined ethnicity as 'Orang Toba' to smaller identities namely descendants and clans in each cultural region. The Toba ethnic groups are more loyal to their descendants and clan identities than their identities as 'Orang Toba'. Although the political analysis of the flow was considered less relevant as a result of the strengthening of the issue of interest in the Pemilukada, but the strengthening of division in ethnicity became a strong indication of ethnic cleavages and the game of primordialism during the Pemilukada.

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 74
Author(s):  
Khairul Azmi Mohamad ◽  
Nooraini Othman ◽  
Mazlan Ali

This paper intends to describe political psychology and the importance of the subject matter to the Malaysian politics. Political studies in Malaysia are largely based on political science, political sociology and socio-political analysis. It is a high time that political environment and issues in Malaysia to be looked upon from a psychological perspective. It is important because the discipline will allow the understanding of why political leaders think and behave in a certain manner. It will also allow the appreciation of voters’ behaviour. These perspectives will enrich our ability to understand politics from different roots. In the context of Malaysia, studying political psychology will help to enhance the understanding of many variables related to the practice of politics in this country. The interactions between politics and psychology particularly the impact of psychology to politics would be an interesting study. As far as Malaysia is concerned, a deeper understanding on political psychology will help leaders to appreciate the nerves and needs of the people and they should put every effort to fulfil their aspirations. Political psychology should help to unfold the minds of the political actors as well as the voters.


1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Kornberg ◽  
Harold D. Clarke ◽  
Lawrence Leduc

This paper is concerned with the distribution and foundations of public support for the political regime in Canada. Support for the regime historically has been a matter of concern to Canadian elites. The recent provincial electoral victory of the Parti Québécois, a party dedicated to making Quebec an independent nation, has made regime support and maintenance matters of concern to average citizens as well. The analyses that follow are based upon data gathered in a nation-wide survey of the Canadian electorate in 1974. We focus on the following areas: the extent to which socio-demographic and attitudinal variables conventionally employed in studies of political behavior are related to levels of regime support; the relationships between the direction and strength of partisanship and support for the political regime; the relationships between attitudes toward key political institutions and political actors and the level of regime support; and finally, the effects of major structural and cultural factors (i.e. federalism and regionalism) on support for the regime. From the perspective of comparative political analysis, research in these areas allows us an opportunity to comment on and expand the base of the existing empirical research on regime support. From the more particular perspective of Canadian politics, our analysis may help to clarify the impact on regime support of ethnicity, regionalism, federalism and a British-model parliamentary system.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 103-118
Author(s):  
O.A. SIDENKO ◽  
◽  
D.V. SOSUNOV ◽  

The purpose of the article is to reveal the contradictions of the Russian transitional constitutionalism of the 2020 model as perceived by experts. It is achieved by presenting a palette of experts' views on the phenomenon of constitutionalism, expert assessments of the impact of the 2020 constitutional reform on constitutional principles, the distance between citizens and authorities, as well as expert opinions on the existence of value consolidation between the state and civil society in modern Russia. It is extremely important that the constitutional amendments, contributing to adaptation to changing realities, remain within the framework of the system of constitutionalism. There is no relevant developed methodology for political and legal assessment in the Russian-language scientific literature. The research group, having resorted to an expert survey, proposed their own version. The results obtained indicate not only the importance of value connotations in the perception of constitutionalism by experts, the weakening of all groups of constitutional principles (negative assessments prevail over positive ones), the manipulative nature of the process, but also a potential increase in the distance between the governors and the governed. Nevertheless, the threshold values that could indicate the interpretation of constitutional novels by experts as leading to going beyond the framework of constitutionalism are not identified. Since the project is pilot and generalizations are based on expert estimates, the conclusions are debatable.


Author(s):  
Roniger Luis

This book has explored how the transformed cultural domains of Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay have been affected by postexilic relocations and transnational migrant displacements. By analyzing the role, work, public standing, and institutional insertion of those intellectuals, cultural, and political actors, and by incorporating their direct testimonial statements, the book drew attention to the relevance of studying postauthoritarian developments through the lens of individual and collective participation in public life. It empirically documented the impact of many intellectuals, academics, artists, and political and social activists who left primarily due to political circumstances and the different trajectories they followed. The analysis also stressed the development of the new diasporas as bridges, reflecting the irreversibility of historical events that opened these societies, at varying degrees, to global forces and networks to an extent unknown in the not-too-distant past.


Author(s):  
Hazel Gray

This chapter contrasts the way that the political settlement in both countries shaped the pattern of redistribution, reform, and corruption within public finance and the implications that this had for economic transformation. Differences in the impact of corruption on economic transformation can be explained by the way that their political settlements generated distinct patterns of competition and collaboration between economic and political actors. In Vietnam corrupt activities led to investments that were frequently not productive; however, the greater financial discipline imposed by lower-level organizations led to a higher degree of investment overall in Vietnam that supported a more rapid economic transformation under liberalization than in Tanzania. Individuals or small factional networks within the VCP at the local level were, therefore, probably less able to engage in forms of corruption that simply led to capital flight as happened in Tanzania, where local level organizations were significantly weaker.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-318
Author(s):  
Eva Kowalská

AbstractStructural problems of communities affected by the “Slovak Reformation,” issues with accepting the situation or simply the relationships among various cultural phenomena, like literacy or language policies, are key aspects in studying the impact of the Reformation in Hungary, especially with respect to Slovaks. Information gathered from the Reformation had a direct and long-lasting impact on the formation of vernacular language, as well as on the search for and the construction of an ethnic identity. Searching for evidence left by the Slovak presence in the Reformation movement thus presents challenging though notable problems for Slovak historiography. The confessional division and its political as well as cultural implications have evoked long-lasting discussions among historians as well as politicians. This study focuses on the most relevant issues within these processes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos Amaku ◽  
Dimas Tadeu Covas ◽  
Francisco Antonio Bezerra Coutinho ◽  
Raymundo Soares Azevedo ◽  
Eduardo Massad

Abstract Background At the moment we have more than 177 million cases and 3.8 million deaths (as of June 2021) around the world and vaccination represents the only hope to control the pandemic. Imperfections in planning vaccine acquisition and difficulties in implementing distribution among the population, however, have hampered the control of the virus so far. Methods We propose a new mathematical model to estimate the impact of vaccination delay against the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on the number of cases and deaths due to the disease in Brazil. We apply the model to Brazil as a whole and to the State of Sao Paulo, the most affected by COVID-19 in Brazil. We simulated the model for the populations of the State of Sao Paulo and Brazil as a whole, varying the scenarios related to vaccine efficacy and compliance from the populations. Results The model projects that, in the absence of vaccination, almost 170 thousand deaths and more than 350 thousand deaths will occur by the end of 2021 for Sao Paulo and Brazil, respectively. If in contrast, Sao Paulo and Brazil had enough vaccine supply and so started a vaccination campaign in January with the maximum vaccination rate, compliance and efficacy, they could have averted more than 112 thousand deaths and 127 thousand deaths, respectively. In addition, for each month of delay the number of deaths increases monotonically in a logarithmic fashion, for both the State of Sao Paulo and Brazil as a whole. Conclusions Our model shows that the current delay in the vaccination schedules that is observed in many countries has serious consequences in terms of mortality by the disease and should serve as an alert to health authorities to speed the process up such that the highest number of people to be immunized is reached in the shortest period of time.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
William G. Dzekashu ◽  
Julius N. Anyu

The West, chiefly Europe, left political footmarks in Africa from the Colonial Era, along with varying economic footprints and surviving engagements in the immediate Post-colonial Era. However, the relationships between Africa and her former colonial masters have hardly yielded much to the former following the wave of independence, leading to the perception of failed relationships. This perception of failure to deliver on their undertakings has left Africa with only one option—China. The latter has been addressing some of Africa’s urgent infrastructure needs in return for natural resources and agricultural products. These engagements on the surface appear to be good business, but on further examination seem questionable notably as it relates to debt distress on vulnerable economies. To increase her footprint within the continent, China extended her Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to most African nations who have signed a memorandum of understanding for future development projects. Though the commitments usually are unspecified, China’s investments have seen rapid growth since the early 2000s, largely owing to the implementation of the BRI. The memoranda have had the potential to strengthen ties with partner nations. The expansion to include Africa in its economic participation in the BRI has left the West questioning China’s motives while reinforcing suspicions about possible future US-China conflict. The impact of BRI on the African continent is quite visible in all the subregions, especially in their improved gross domestic products. A burning question has been whether these partnerships represent win-win relationships for sustainable growth or debt-growth dynamics.


1981 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 487-518
Author(s):  
Gérald Bernier

The study of social classes in the nineteenth century requires the development of conceptual tools able to explain the impact of the Conquest on the pre-existant social structures in determining transformations of the class structure during the subsequent decades.This article examines the work done on this question by Marxist writers. The author criticizes certain conclusions which have been drawn and which suggest deficiencies at a theoretical level. The objections relate to the marked tendency of these conclusions to perceive the structural effects of the Conquest in terms of the formation of a double-class structure characterized by “ethnic origins.” Specifically, the author challenges the notion of the division itself, as well as the criterion on which the division is based.The author proposes that an analysis centred upon the concepts relating to a problem of the transition and linkage of different modes of production permits a more satisfying interpretation, if accompanied by a certain number of considerations of the “upside” and “downside” of the Conquest. To this end, the argument is based on a characterization of New France in terms of the domination of the relations of production of the feudal type and on an analysis of metropolitan centres with intent to evaluate their level of capitalist development at the moment of their respective colonial penetration in Canada. The results of this approach permit one to posit the existence of a single-class structure, characterized principally by the existence of elements connecting diverse modes and forms of production, whose origin reflects the unequal state of economic development in the two metropolitan centres.The empirical demonstration rests on the census data of 1851–1852 and on the complementary information drawn from the works of historians.


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