scholarly journals Power and Taboo: On the Cultural-Psychological Sourcesof Traditionalism

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 109-117
Author(s):  
V.V. Bocharov
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
Intentional Object ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
The West ◽  
Behavioral Norms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Fear ◽  
Deep Layers

Traditionalism as a "return to traditional values" is widely represented today in the world political process, but it is particularly striking in the East. This phenomenon is analyzed from the standpoint of cultural-historical psychology. The revival of "archaic" manifestations is explained by the political elites’ (conscious or unconscious) appeal to deep layers of people's consciousness which provided the legitimacy of the "power of tradition" in the traditional society. The paper reveals the essence of this power embodied in social fear that had emerged together with first behavioral norms. It analyses taboo as a norm which initially labeled the hierarchy in the primary society, prescribing an asymmetry of behavior to the higher and lower strata (the ones in power and the ones in their power). There is a relation between the taboo and the psychophysiological mechanism of the prohibition (I. Pavlov, J. Castro) which transformed the "natural" fear into the "social" one. The paper describes the ambivalent nature of social fear as well as its intentional object: representatives of the higher strata (L. Vygotsky). The archetype of power behavior is illustrated by the political practices of the East where taboos in the shape of «absurd laws», religious and etiquette norms are widely existent in the legal field of this region’s states. This archetype also largely determines the behavior of politicians which often appears in archaic forms. Similar "psychological documents" (L. Vygotsky) are recorded in the behavior of actors in the political process of the West.

scholarly journals The social origins and political uses of popular narratives on Serbian disunity

2005 ◽  
pp. 65-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Slobodan Naumovic
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Party System ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
The Social ◽  
Identity Based

The text offers an examination of socio-political bases, modes of functioning, and of the consequences of political instrumentalisation of popular narratives on Serbian disunity. The first section of the paper deals with what is being expressed and what is being done socially when narratives on Serbian disunity are invoked in everyday discourses. The next section investigates what political actor sty, by publicly replicating them, or by basing their speeches on key words of those narratives. The narratives on Serbian disunity are then related to their historical and social contexts, and to various forms of identity politics with which they share common traits. The nineteenth century wars over political and cultural identity, intensified by the struggle between contesting claims to political authority, further channeled by the development of party politics in Serbia and radicalized by conflicts of interest and ideology together provided the initial reasons for the apparition of modern discourses on Serbian disunity and disaccord. Next, addressed are the uninnally solidifying or misinterpreting really existing social problems (in the case of some popular narratives on disunity), or because of intentionally exploiting popular perceptions of such problems (in the case of most political meta-narratives), the constructive potential related to existing social conflicts and splits can be completely wasted. What results is a deep feeling of frustration, and the diminishing of popular trust in the political elites and the political process in general. The contemporary hyperproduction of narratives on disunity and disaccord in Serbia seems to be directly related to the incapacity of the party system, and of the political system in general, to responsibly address, and eventually resolve historical and contemporary clashes of interest and identity-splits. If this vicious circle in which the consequences of social realities are turned into their causes is to be prevented, conflicts of interest must be discursively disassociated from ideological conflicts, as well as from identity-based conflicts, and all of them have to be disentangled from popular narratives on splits and disunity. Most important of all, the practice of political instrumentalisation of popular narratives on disunity and disaccord has to be gradually abandoned.

International Political Communication: Elite vs. Mass

1952 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Speier
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
The West ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common

In the second half of the seventeenth century, European philosophers began to regard the enlightenment of ignorant and prejudiced people as a means of reducing persecution and of promoting just and reasonable government. In international affairs, the first dramatic application of this doctrine occurred during the wars of the French Revolution when diplomacy, the traditional form of elite communication, was supplemented by missionary appeals to the common man on the enemy side. Since that time, the technology of communication has greatly improved; ever larger literate masses of the population participate in politics and war; the social homogeneity of the political elites in various nations has been lost, and in the West the ideas of liberty and equality have been drained of their revolutionary power.

scholarly journals Returning urban political elites to the research agenda: the case of the Southern Low Countries (c. 1350 – c. 1550)

Urban History ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 568-588
Author(s):  
Frederik Buylaert ◽  
Jelten Baguet ◽  
Janna Everaert
Keyword(s):  
Special Section ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
High Turnover ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

AbstractThis article provides a comparative analysis of four large towns in the Southern Low Countries between c. 1350 and c. 1550. Combining the data on Ghent, Bruges and Antwerp – each of which is discussed in greater detail in the articles in this special section – with recent research on Bruges, the authors argue against the historiographical trend in which the political history of late medieval towns is supposedly dominated by a trend towards oligarchy. Rather than a closure of the ruling class, the four towns show a high turnover in the social composition of the political elite, and a consistent trend towards aristocracy, in which an increasingly large number of aldermen enjoyed noble status. The intensity of these trends differed from town to town, and was tied to different institutional configurations as well as different economic and political developments in each of the four towns.

Mess up the empire: Deploying and disrupting homonationalism

Sexualities ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 136346072096129
Author(s):  
John Andrew G Evangelista
Keyword(s):  
Social Conditions ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
Sexual Liberation ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Lgbtq Rights

Homonationalism refers to how the West folded LGBTQ rights into the nation through neoliberal economies, intervention, and surveillance of racialized communities. This shift relied on the exceptionalist narrative that reveres Western sexual liberation—liberal, bureaucratic, visible, and consumerist—while silencing queer narratives from Southern, racialized, and migrant communities. The literature found that some LGBTQ (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and queers) organizations deployed this imperial narrative, yet accounts on the social conditions facilitating such deployments remain scant. To expand the current discussions, my paper situates the Philippine LGBTQ movement’s affinity with homonationalism within the political, material, and ideological exigencies that confronted activists.

scholarly journals The Political Knowledge of University Students (A Comparative Study between Jordan and Libya)

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Alfeetouri Salih Mohammed Alsati ◽  
Al-Sayed Abd ulmutallab Ghanem
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The University

The current research aims at identifying and measuring the political knowledge of the students of the two universities of Al- Balqaa in Jordan and Omar Al- Mokhtar in Libya. The two communities are almost similar in terms of the social formation, Arab customs and traditions, the Bedouin values, the difference in the institutional age and the political stability.The study attempts to measure and compare the political knowledge in the communities of the two universities using the descriptive and comparative analytical method. The study uses a 400 random questionnaire of 30 paragraphs to measure eight indicators divided into internal and external political knowledge, and other aspects of knowledge: general political knowledge, knowledge of the political institutions and leaders, the political interest, the geographical and historical knowledge, and knowledge of the methods of exercising the political process. The study also attempts to identifying the most important sources and the role of the university in university students’ political knowledge.The results show that the level of the political knowledge is medium while its level in the sample of the Jordanian students is high. According to the samples, the internal political knowledge is more than the external knowledge with a lack of interest in the political matters. The samples do not consider the political matters as their priorities. The political knowledge as a whole needs to much effort to be exerted to confront the current circumstances. The variables of the place of resident, age and the educational level make big difference in the political knowledge. In contrast, the level of the parental education does not create big differences.

The King's Affinity in the Polity of Yorkist England

1973 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. L. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Formal Group ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Strict Sense ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Scene

The rise and fall of the house of York is a story which sits uneasily towards both revolutionary and evolutionary interpretations of fifteenth-century England. Indeed, in general, attempts to tidy away the political process of Lancastrian and Yorkist times into the displacement of one type of régime by another always fail to convince. They do so because as a régime neither Lancaster nor York kept still long enough to be impaled on a categorical definition. The political life and death of both dynasties composes the pattern, changing yet constant, of a set of variations on the theme of an aristocratic society pre-dominantly kingship-focused and centripetal rather than locality-focused and centrifugal. In so far as the political process conformed to the social order, the households of the great were the nodal connections in which relationships of mutual dependence cohered. Those retinues, fellowships, affinities (for the vocabulary of the time was rich in terms overlapping but with nuances of descriptive emphasis) have now been studied both in their general conformation and in several particular instances; I have here attempted for the central affinity of the king over one generation not a formal group portrait but a sketch focused on the middle distance of figures in a landscape. The meagreness of household records in the strict sense is a problem we must learn to live with. But it would seem sensible to make a virtue of necessity and follow the life-line of what evidence there is to the conclusion that if an understanding of the household is only possible by attending to its wider context, so an understanding of that wider political scene requires some attention to the household.

Moving against Disappearance

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Richard Giersdorf
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The West ◽  
Pedestrian Movement ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Social ◽  
East German

Nearly a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany was subsumed into the West German national structure. As a result, the distinct political systems, institutions, and cultures that characterized East Germany have nearly completely vanished. In some instances, this history was actively—and physically—eradicated by the unified Germany. This chapter works against the disappearance of East German culture by reconstructing the physicality of the walk across the border on the day of the opening of the Berlin Wall and two choreographic works depicting East German identities on stage. The initial re-creation of the choreography of a pedestrian movement provides a social, political, and methodological context that relates the two dance productions to the social movement of East German citizens. Both works take stances on the political situation in East Germany during and after the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989, although one is by a West German artist, Sasha Waltz, and the other by East German choreographer Jo Fabian.

The Problem of Morality and Power in the Politics of West Germany

1981 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Dyson
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
West Germany ◽  
General Character ◽  
The Political ◽  
British Politics ◽  
The West ◽  
Dramatic Character ◽  
Executive Politics ◽  
Political Value

ELECTIONS HAVE ALWAYS CONSTITUTED A PARTICULARLY sharp rupture to the general character of the West German political process, which depends heavily on accommodation by elite negotiation. In the arenas of parliamentary and executive politics a pervasive style of amicable agreement exists at elite levels, and the political value of Sachlichkeit (objectivity) remains important. Hence, in the legislative period 1976–80 over 90 per cent of legislation passed the Bundestag unanimously. An inquisitorial, as opposed to adversary, style of politics plays an important role in the work of the powerful committees of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, the two legislative chambers in Bonn. Accordingly, and by contrast, elections tend to take on a remarkably dramatic character, even if, as in 1980, there appears to be little polarization of opinion about concrete issues of policy. British politics is, of course, characterized by the influence of the arena of electoral politics, of the ‘cut-and-thrust’ of competitive adversary politics, on other arenas of politics.

Le Lions Clubs au Bénin : un club caritatif qui pratique une liturgie à dessein politique

2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-219
Author(s):  
Jean-Frédéric De Hasque
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Religion ◽  
The Social ◽  
Pan Africanism ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
New Form

The comparison of meetings and protocol of the Lions Clubs in a ritual, offers an opportunity to measure the political impact of this community and the effect the meetings have outside the circle. The study also allows us to understand the importance of the Lions Clubs in Africa, where it cannot be reduced to a meeting of wealthy people seduced by the opulence and the opportunity to find new sources of profit. Lions are compared by population to diplomats because of their appearance, wearing uniforms and medals and are received by the highest political authorities from other nations. In the West this behaviour is seen as a caricature of governance but for members the meetings offer occasions for work and friendship. This appears like political religion because of the hidden goal: to conquer the independence of Africa in the Lions Clubs. This objective is facilitated by the explosion in the number of African members showing the social movement that rages at the top levels of society. The African elite, by its transformation of charity into political rally, proposes a new form of pan-Africanism.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document