scholarly journals Getting the Story Right: A Constructivist Interpretation of Storytelling in the Context of UK Parliamentary Engagement

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 83-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Michael Prior
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Visual Analogy

This article examines Parliament’s use of storytelling techniques as a means of representing itself to citizens, and representing citizens to themselves. It does so with reference to the ‘constructivist turn’ in representation literature—particularly its emphasis on co-constitutive meaning-making—which, as this article shows, is also applicable to studies of engagement and narrative. Storytelling constitutes a vital means of engagement, yet has hitherto received insufficient scholarly attention within a parliamentary context. This lacuna is all the more significant when considering the emotional and often informal means of participation that increasingly characterise the UK’s political landscape. In relating storytelling to parliamentary engagement (and emphasising the co-constitutive qualities of both), an innovative visual analogy (based on fractals) will illustrate the conductivity of storytelling to two pursuits: Parliament’s attempts to represent itself within the political sphere, and its claims to be relevant to citizens. Both of these pursuits represent key tenets of Parliament’s responsibility to engage, and to mediate between citizens and governance. Through the theoretical lens presented here, Parliament’s attempts to engage through storytelling will be examined according to the techniques used, and their likelihood of reaching an audience that, in constructivist terms, is created through this act of representation.

scholarly journals Mind the Gap! On the Discursive Construction of Collective Political Identities

2021 ◽  
Vol 06 (02) ◽  
pp. 11-27
Author(s):  
Sebastian Moreno Barreneche
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
The Political ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Political Identities ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
General Mapping ◽  
Semiotic Perspective

This article explores, from a theoretical perspective, the dynamics underlying the discursive construction of collective identities within the political domain. Specifically, it: (1) presents a general mapping of political sphere studies carried out from a semiotic perspective; (2) attempts to bridge different paradigms within the semiotic tradition; and (3) establishes a dialogue between political theory and semiotics through the analysis of certain ideas belonging to the former whose semiotic nature has not yet been adequately examined, even if they are of a discursive nature. The article pays particular attention to the role that the ‘political gap’ – i.e., the space of indetermination between the various collective political identities that compete against each other in the ‘contest over meaning’ of politics – plays in the discursive construction of those identities. Arguing from a constructivist premise, establishing relational differences is a constitutive feature of the meaning-making, dynamic, and gaps between collective identities, a necessary precondition for their discursive emergence and the political sphere’s existence.

Mary, Countess of Derby, and the Politics of Victorian Britain

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Davey
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Benjamin Disraeli ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
William Gladstone ◽  
Victorian Britain ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Key Events

Lady Mary Derby (1824–1900) occupied a pivotal position in Victorian politics, yet her activities have largely been overlooked or ignored. A Female Politician places Mary back into the political position she occupied and offers the first dedicated account of her career. Based on extensive archival research, including hitherto neglected or lost sources, this study reconstructs the political worlds Mary inhabited. Her political landscape was dominated by the machinations and intrigues of high politics and diplomacy. As this book uncovers, her political skill and acumen were highly valued by leading politicians of the day, including Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone, and she played a significant role in many of the key events of the mid-Victorian era. This included the passing of the Second Reform Act, the formation of Disraeli’s 1874 government, the Eastern Crisis of 1875–1878, and Gladstone’s 1880–1885 government. By exploring how one woman was able to exercise influence at the heart of Victorian politics, this book considers what Mary’s career tells us about the nature of political life in the mid nineteenth century. It sheds new light on the connections between informal and formal political culture, incorporating the politics of the home, letter-writing, and social relations into a consideration of the politics of Parliament and government. A Female Politician is a rich investigation of how a woman, with few legal or constitutional rights, was able to become a significant figure in mid-Victorian political life.

Coalitional Presidentialism in Cross-Regional Perspective

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Chaisty ◽  
Nic Cheeseman ◽  
Timothy J. Power
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Case Selection ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Empirical Material ◽  
Regional Perspective

This chapter introduces the three regions—sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Former Soviet Union—and the nine countries—Armenia, Benin, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Kenya, Malawi, Russia, and Ukraine—that provide the empirical material for the book. It introduces the two criteria used for case selection: 1) democratic competitiveness; 2) de jure and de facto constitutional provisions that empower presidents to be coalitional formateurs. It also introduces a variable that measures the salience of cross-party cooperation: the Index of Coalitional Necessity. Finally, it sketches the political landscape that has shaped the dynamics of coalitional presidentialism within each region, and it draws attention to important contextual differences between the nine country cases.

The Political Economy of Debt

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg Menz
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Models ◽  
The Political ◽  
Private Debt ◽  
Credit Access ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Scholarly Attention

The explosive rise in not just public, but also private debt has recently attracted more scholarly attention. This is a novel development and might expose politico-economic models of governance to instability from an angle previously underappreciated. The liberalization of credit access in the Anglo-American countries, and, somewhat later, beyond those, might be seen as liberating for some, but they also create the potential for entrapment in debt. The term ‘privatized Keynesianism’ has been proposed to suggest a systematic agenda behind the facilitated access to lending. In this chapter, the broader access to investment vehicles is also being scrutinized, although upon closer inspection any claims of mass ownership of shares turn out not to be tenable.

Democracy in the Plural?

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-35
Author(s):  
Anna Friberg
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Universal Suffrage ◽  
The Social ◽  
Concepts Of Democracy ◽  
Positive Concept

The article explores some of the composite concepts of democracy that were used in Sweden, primarily by the Social Democrats during the interwar years. Should these be seen as pluralizations of the collective singular democracy or as something qualitatively new? By showing how these concepts relate to each other and to democracy as a whole, the article argues that they should be considered statements about democracy as one entity, that democracy did not only concern the political sphere, but was generally important throughout the whole of society. The article also examines the Swedish parliamentarians' attitudes toward democracy after the realization of universal suffrage, and argues that democracy was eventually perceived as such a positive concept that opponents of what was labeled democratic reforms had to reformulate the political issues into different words in order to avoid coming across as undemocratic.

Reevaluating the Role of Ideology in Chile

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Giancarlo Visconti
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Electoral Strategies ◽  
Crisis Of Representation

ABSTRACTVoters’ ideological stances have long been considered one of the most important factors for understanding electoral choices in Chile. In recent years, however, the literature has begun to call this premise into question, due to several changes in the Chilean political landscape: the current crisis of representation, the high programmatic congruence between the two main coalitions, the decline in the political relevance of the dictatorship, and the rise of nonprogrammatic electoral strategies. In addition to these transformations, Chile switched to voluntary voting in 2012. This article studies whether ideology still informs electoral choices in Chile in an era of voluntary voting. It implements a conjoint survey experiment in low-to-middle-income neighborhoods in Santiago, where voters would be expected to be less ideological. It shows that candidates’ ideological labels are crucial for understanding the electoral decisions of a large part of the sample, particularly among likely voters.

scholarly journals An ethic of care? Academic administration and pandemic policy

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 632-638
Author(s):  
Stephanie A Bryson
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Ethic Of Care ◽  
The Political ◽  
Academic Administration ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Impact

This reflexive essay examines the adoption of an intentional ‘ethic of care’ by social work administrators in a large social work school located in the Pacific Northwest. An ethic of care foregrounds networks of human interdependence that collapse the public/private divide. Moreover, rooted in the political theory of recognition, a care ethic responds to crisis by attending to individuals’ uniqueness and ‘whole particularity.’ Foremost, it rejects indifference. Through the personal recollections of one academic administrator, the impact of rejecting indifference in spring term 2020 is described. The essay concludes by linking the rejection of indifference to the national political landscape.

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