scholarly journals Pro-Biafran Activists and the call for a Referendum: A Sentiment Analysis of ‘Biafraexit’ on Twitter after UK’s vote to leave the European Union

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Sunday Nwofe ◽  
Mark Goodall
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Search Term ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
The People ◽  
Building Project

In a society bonded by a concatenation of diverse ethno-nationalism, the struggle for inclusion and exclusion becomes particularly unavoidable. Common among the findings of researchers of ethnic identities is the potential for conflicts when inequalities and injustices, rooted in ethnicity and religious identities are the basis for allocation of powers and resources. This is more threatening when a particular ethnic group is signposted as a threat to other group and targeted for ill-treatment. In Nigeria, the Igbo ethnic group is characterized as an endangered group and has risen at one point to challenge inequalities, injustices and state-orchestrated violence against the ethnic society that led to Nigeria-Biafra war between 1967 and 1970. Fifty years after the war, the Igbo ethnic society is still grappling to be included in the Nigeria nation-building project. The implication is a deep-rooted grievance among the Igbo ethnic group that the wave of campaigns and social movement for the restoration of Biafra continued to reverberate in recent times. After the UK’s ‘Brexit’ vote, the pro-Biafra activists launched ‘Biafraexit’ on Twitter in the style of ‘Brexit’ for a referendum to exit Nigeria. The purpose of this paper is to examine the major sentiment of the people about the Biafra restoration 50 years after the Biafran war. Through a sentiment analysis of ‘Biafraexit’, ‘free Biafra’ hashtags and the ‘Biafra’ search term on Twitter, the paper examines to what extent the perception of insecurity of lives of the Igbos constitute major concern of proponents of Biafran independent on Twitter? How have the human right abuses of pro-Biafra activists under President Buhari’s rule facilitated feelings of insecurity, religious cleansing and Islamization among pro-Biafra activists? The implications of this for cohesive nation-building are discussed.

scholarly journals Editorial Welcome: Special Issue on Ethnocracy

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. i-iii
Author(s):  
James Goodman ◽  
James Anderson
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
The People ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The Usa

This Special Issue of Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal focuses on the domination of social and political relations by Ethnocracy – rule or would-be rule by an ethnic group or ethnos, as distinct from Democracy or rule by the demos of all the people. Ethnocracy encompasses state regimes and associated political movements and parties that discriminate systematically in favour of a particular ethnic group (or groups) and against others. When we proposed the Special Issue in late 2014 ethnocratic practices were as prevalent as they had ever been; and now two years later they appear to be on the increase with an ethno-populist upsurge and the election or threatened election of governments pursuing ethnocratic agendas. From India to the USA, from Russia to Hungary, leading politicians openly discriminate against ethnic ‘others’ to attract support from ‘their own’ ethnic groups; across the European Union and in other liberal democracies they increasingly scapegoat ‘immigrants’ to hide their own inadequacies and further their political objectives. Now, more than ever, it is critical that the dynamics of ethnocracy are more clearly understood. This Issue documents the logics of ethnocracy in a variety of different contexts, posing questions about how it develops and how it can be challenged.

Europeanization and minority policies in post-conflict Kosovo. Genuine inclusion or window dressing?

Südosteuropa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Potter
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Member State ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
State Building ◽  
The State ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Minority Policies ◽  
Building Project

AbstractThis paper examines the position of minorities in Kosovo in the light of Kosovo’s potential candidacy as a member state of the European Union (EU). The paper contends that although the international community has constructed a comprehensive suite of protections and guarantees for minorities, nation-building by internal actors in Kosovo has followed an exclusively ethnocentric dominant narrative, running counter to the state-building project, which promotes a multiethnic Kosovo. The paper considers this dichotomy in the context of Kosovo’s Europeanization. It is concluded that the conditionality principle is not sufficiently defined or measurable in order to set criteria relating to the inclusion or exclusion of minorities in Kosovo to significantly influence decisions on EU membership.

Finding a Home on Stage: A Place for Romania in Europe?

2003 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-210
Author(s):  
IOANA SZEMAN
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Young People ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Theatrical Production ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Historical Relationship ◽  
Youth Theatre

Home, a pioneering theatrical production in post-communist Romania, cast homeless/orphaned youth in the Youth Theatre in Bucharest. The ‘orphan problem’ has been one of the most covered topics on Romania in western media, and one of the signs of Romania's ‘backwardness’, while neglect and indifference have characterized local press coverage. The significance of the production in changing the Romanian public's perception of these young people, many of whom are from the Roma ethnic group, is analysed, as are much wider political implications. Emma Nicholson, the European Parliament rapporteur for Romania, saw Home and afterwards expressed her support for Romania's acceptance into the European Union. The production and its reception permit a tracing of the historical relationship between the performance of Romanian marginality and national identity in relation to Europe.

scholarly journals The geography of Brexit – What geography? Modelling and predicting the outcome across 380 local authorities

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 183-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Manley ◽  
Kelvyn Jones ◽  
Ron Johnston
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Predictive Value ◽  
Regional Variation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Opinion Polling ◽  
The People ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
Levels Of Support

Most of the analysis before the 2016 referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the European Union based on opinion polling data focused on which groups were more likely to support each of the two options, with less attention to the geography of that support – although some regions, especially London and Scotland, were expected to provide substantial support for Remain. Using a recently developed procedure for detailed exploration of large tables derived from survey data, this paper presents the result of a prediction of the outcome across local authorities in Great Britain using just two variables – age and qualifications. In relative terms, that prediction was reasonably accurate – although, reflecting the polls’ overestimate of support for Remain it underestimated the number of places where Leave gained a majority, as was also the case within local authorities where data were published by ward. The model’s predictive value was enhanced by post hoc incorporation of information on turnout and the number of registered electors, and taking these into account there was little evidence of substantial, additional regional variation in levels of support for Leave. Overall, regions were relatively unimportant as influences on the referendum outcome once the characteristics of the people living there were taken into account.

My Click is My Bond

Gamification ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 1734-1750
Author(s):  
Jonathan Bishop
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Internet Use ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
The People ◽  
Computer Mediated

The growth in Internet use is not only placing pressure on service providers to maintain adequate bandwidth but also the people who run the Websites that operate through them. Called systems operators, or sysops, these people face a number of different obligations arising out of the use of their computer-mediated communication platforms. Most notable are contracts, which nearly all Websites have, and in the case of e-commerce sites in the European Union, there are contractual terms they must have. This chapter sets out to investigate how the role contract law can both help and hinder sysops and their users. Sysop powers are limited by sysop prerogative, which is everything they can do which has not been taken away by statute or given away by contract. The chapter finds that there are a number of special considerations for sysops in how they use contracts in order that they are not open to obligations through disabled or vulnerable users being abused by others.

Falling on Deaf Ears? Exploring the Effects of Newspaper Coverage of the European Parliament on Public Support for it

2018 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 186-210
Author(s):  
Olga Eisele
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Public Support ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Political Information ◽  
Newspaper Coverage ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The People ◽  
The Uk

Abstract The European Parliament (EP) is the only directly elected institution at the European Union (EU) level, and its empowerment was long regarded to quasi-automatically lead to greater legitimacy of EU politics. The strength of the EP has grown continuously. However, this has not translated into greater appreciation of a crisis-ridden EU which seems more fundamentally questioned than ever before. Starting from the assumption that mass media serve as the most important source of political information and therefore as a crucial connective interface, we explore newspaper contents about the EP and their effects on public support for it to assess the actual link between the people’s representation at EU level and the people at home. The analysis is conducted for EP elections of 2009 and 2014 in Finland, Germany and the UK. Results suggest that effects of coverage on public support of the EP became stronger and more direct in 2014, which is explained by the increased salience of EU politics in times of crisis. However, expectations of what the EP is or should be may have to be adapted to the reality of a second-order parliament.

The Community Courts and Openness Within the European Union

1999 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 19-30
Author(s):  
Hans Ragnemalm
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Public Power ◽  
The People ◽  
The Right ◽  
Community Courts

Government by the people presupposes that citizens are fully aware of public matters and properly informed. Nowadays, this is well understood and increasingly accepted. However, there is still disagreement as to how citizens are to check their government and what the limits of such control should be. In my view, it is essential that this scrutiny is generally available to all citizens and that it is provided in binding legal terms, the application of which is subject to legal appeal. However, a less stringent standard of scrutiny is often provided. Indeed, confusion between concepts is patent in this field and overshadows what is really at issue—the recognition of a fundamental right for citizens, which forms a basis for the exercise of several other rights. The right of citizens to review the exercise of public power is ultimately the foundation of both the principle of democracy and popular sovereignty.

National-European Theology

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 519-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Smolenski
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Cultural Influence ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Catholic Clergy ◽  
Historical Outline ◽  
Building Project ◽  
The Eu

An influential contingent of Catholic clergy in Poland reacted to Poland’s entry into the European Union by developing a narrative positing the Catholic foundation and ownership of Europe and all its constituent “nations.” This narrative, which I call national-European theology, identifies the Catholic Church as the progenitor of both European and Polish existence and guarantor of their continuity of identity. In this way, it remedies some Catholics’ anxieties about both the integrity of Poland’s national sovereignty and the allegedly secularizing and liberalizing cultural influence of other EU member countries. I argue that national-European theology can be fruitfully conceived as a hereditary ownership narrative, framed by moments of spiritual foundation and subsequent inheritance from spiritual founders, and that this narrative structure characterizes both nationalism writ large and Europeanization as an analogous modern identitarian project. I suggest that taking heredity as a lens through which to understand nationalism and its attendant notions of legitimation allows us to move past debates about the “content” of nationalist claims (ethnic, religious, linguistic, etc.) and toward the mechanism by which group reproduction is culturally defined and sanctioned. To do this, I first sketch a theory of nationalism as a hereditary ownership narrative, drawing upon the Polish case, and liken it to the “Europe-building” project of the EU. Second, I present a brief historical outline of Poland’s accession to the EU and the anxieties generated thereby. Finally, I turn to the rhetoric of the Polish clergy who best represent the national-European current in contemporary Catholic political theology.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document