Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Florin Leonte
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
Prolific Author ◽  
Imperial Authority ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Written Sources

This book is equally about people and their texts. It seeks to explore how a Byzantine emperor negotiated his authority in the troubled waters of late Byzantium where churchmen and court-based interest groups vied for the attention of wider audiences. And it is about the construction of discursive strategies by adapting the rules of rhetorical genres to historical circumstances. The focus of the book is Manuel II Palaiologos, both emperor of Byzantium (r. 1391–1425) and prolific author of a range of oratorical and theological texts. The argument is that the emperor maintained his position of authority not only by direct political agency but also by rhetorically advertising his ideas about the imperial office. Throughout his reign, Manuel II created a parallel literary court where he presided over a group of peer literati who supported his position and did not contest his imperial prerogatives. It was within this group that his texts were copied and subsequently disseminated in order to promote a renewed version of the idea of imperial authority. His ideological commitments valued education and the use of rhetorical skills as instruments of social and political change. His vision evolved and changed according to the opportunities and conditions of his reign. In order to understand it one needs to attend not only to his texts but to other contemporary written sources. This will allow us to further scrutinise the late Byzantine understanding(s) of the imperial office as well as the extent to which Manuel II’s writings mirrored or obliterated contemporary concerns....

scholarly journals Monuments and Monumentality in a Changing Socio-Political Landscape: A View from Udaypura

Histories ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 289-296
Author(s):  
Rafia Khan
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
Indian History ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Historical Periods

This work intends to explore the nature of socio-political change in historical periods usually referred to as interregnal which, for the purposes of this paper, is defined as a period of discontinuity or gap in political and social organization. It traces the survival of a historical monument through two interregnal centuries of medieval Indian sub-continental history (11th–12th and 14th) to argue that modern historiographical templates which study these periods as precursors or remnants of succeeding and preceding centuries, respectively, do not sufficiently explore the socio-political possibilities innate in these periods of distributed political agency. In the context of Indian history, while historians have focused on the confrontational aspect of Hindu-Muslim polities or communities in interregnal centuries, I suggest that these periods provided fertile ground for political innovation and negotiation, thus breaking the confrontational stasis usually associated with regnal centuries.

Interest Groups and Political Change

2018 ◽  
pp. 93-108
Author(s):  
Frank R. Baumgartner ◽  
Jeffery C. Talbert
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Change

L'Etat et ses trois niveaux: le régime, la gouverne et la politie

1982 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gérard Bergeron
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Multiple State ◽  
New Formulation ◽  
Action Groups

The State and Its Three Levels: Regime, Governance and PolityThis article is not simply a summary of the analytical framework already presented in the earlier, principal theoretical works of the author. It goes beyond the simple exercise of schematic brevity by adding some new elements: the notion of collective action groups between those of social classes and interest groups; a first transposition of a schema conceived for the classical unitary state to one applicable to the federal, or “multiple,” state; and a new formulation of the three analytical levels, specifically those characterizing this theoretical framework, which go by the labels of “regime,” “governance,” and “polity.”The article is divided into three parts corresponding to the study of the three levels and connected by an equal number of “thresholds” of levels. The conclusion points out the lines of transposition for the study of a federal state and the directions of research for the analysis of political change.

scholarly journals Political Agency and Legislative Subsidies with Imperfect Monitoring

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Blumenthal
Keyword(s):  
Moral Hazard ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Adverse Selection ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
Imperfect Monitoring ◽  
Agency Model ◽  
Policy Making Process

Politicians are expected to implement projects that benefit their constituents. These projects’ benefits sometimes partially accrue to interest groups and not entirely to voters. Since these projects are costly to implement, this provides an incentive for interest groups to intervene in the policy-making process by offering legislative subsidies to politicians. In addition, voters are frequently ill-equipped to scrutinise politicians’ actions and can often only imperfectly monitor them. This paper shows how these considerations interact in a stylised two-periods political agency model with moral hazard and adverse selection. I show how and when voters benefit from the existence of self-interested interest groups and of their involvement in the policy-making process. I also consider how voters monitor politicians in the presence of interest groups that might capture projects’ benefits.

Fish Trade in Medieval North Atlantic Societies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Val Dufeu
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic ◽  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Environmental Models ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
Fish Trade ◽  
Written Sources

Val Dufeu here reconstructs settlement patterns of fishing communities in Viking Age Iceland and proposes socio-economic and environmental models relevant to any study of the Vikings or the North Atlantic. She integrates written sources, geoarchaeological data, and zooarchaeological data to examine how fishing propelled political change in the North Atlantic. The evolution of survival fishing to internal fish markets to overseas fish trade mirrors wider social changes in the Vikings’ world.

Media, Democracy, and Political Change in Developing Countries

2018 ◽  
pp. 165-175
Author(s):  
Lynete Lusike Mukhongo ◽  
Juliet Wambui Macharia
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Political Interest ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Media ◽  
Political Journalists

The introductory chapter undertakes a detailed discussion of the political influence of media in developing countries. Communication scholars and researchers often discuss what the media needs to do in the process of driving political change, however, this is often done without a real consideration of the challenges facing the media and political journalists in developing countries. There is therefore need to lay emphasis on drawing reference from experiences as narrated by the media, researchers and political interest groups based in developing countries. This book seeks to document research carried out by communication researchers, scholars and media practitioners based in various developing countries. The authors draw from their varied experiences in developing countries to undertake interesting discussions on how the media operates in the developing world, and the subsequent challenges facing the media and political journalists.

When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change

1993 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 595-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Pierson
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Political Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Illustrative Case ◽  
Policy Feedback ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political World ◽  
Mass Publics

As governmental activity has expanded, scholars have been increasingly inclined to suggest that the structure of public policies has an important influence on patterns of political change. Yet research on policy feedback is mostly anecdotal, and there has so far been little attempt to develop more general hypotheses about the conditions under which policies produce politics. Drawing on recent research, this article suggests that feedback occurs through two main mechanisms. Policies generate resources and incentives for political actors, and they provide those actors with information and cues that encourage particular interpretations of the political world. These mechanisms operate in a variety of ways, but have significant effects on government elites, interest groups, and mass publics. By investigating how policies influence different actors through these distinctive mechanisms, the article outlines a research agenda for moving from the current focus on illustrative case studies to the investigation of broader propositions about how and when policies are likely to be politically consequential.

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