scholarly journals Populism, Twitter, and COVID-19: Narrative, Fantasies, and Desires

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 294
Author(s):  
Laura Cervi ◽  
Fernando García ◽  
Carles Marín Lladó

During a global pandemic, the great impact of populist discourse on the construction of social reality is undeniable. This study analyzes the fantasmatic dimension of political discourse from Donald Trump’s and Jair Bolsonaro’s Twitter accounts between 1 March and 31 May. To do so, it applies a Clause-Based Semantic Text Analysis (CBSTA) methodology that categorizes speech in Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) triplets. The study findings show that in spite of the Coronavirus pandemic, the main beatific and horrific subjects remain the core populist signifiers: the people and the elite. While Bolsonaro’s narrative was predominantly beatific, centered on the government, Trump’s was mostly horrific, centered on the elite. Trump signified the pandemic as a subject and an enemy to be defeated, whereas Bolsonaro portrayed it as a circumstance. Finally, both leaders defined the people as working people, therefore their concerns about the pandemic were focused on the people’s ability to work.

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 351-366
Author(s):  
Rajeev Ranjan Kumar ◽  
Muhammad Rizwan

Abstract Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a controversial figure and has polarised public debate for over a decade. He is criticised for the decline in growth rate and increase in unemployment rate. It has been five years since the Modi-led Bhartiya Janata Party (bjp) came to power, so analysing the economic performance and extremist religious behaviour of the Modi-led bjp/rss (Rastriya Sevak Sangh) is interesting. This article discusses the non-conventional views on the economic performance of the government in India, and the ideology of Hindutva and hatred towards religious minorities. This deep-rooted hatred of religious minorities and the lower caste is the core philosophy of Hindutva and is followed by the bjp and rss. Under the shadow of the rss, the Modi government has focused on Hindutva rather than the economy and the people, which has been the most important factor in the economic decline of India.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arun Jacob

The main objective behind the parliamentary practice of Question Period is to ensure that the government is held accountable to the people. Rather than being a political accountability tool and a showcase of public discourse, these deliberations are most often displays of vitriolic political rhetoric. I will be focusing my research on the ways in which incivil political discourse permeates the political mediascape with respect to one instance in Canadian politics - the acquisition of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. I believe that incivility in the political discourse of Question Period must be understood within the mechanics of the contemporary public sphere. By interrogating the complexities of how political discourse is being mediatized, produced and consumed within the prevailing ideological paradigms, I identify some of the contemporary social, cultural and political practices that produce incivility in parliamentary discourse.


Author(s):  
Louis Vos

National identity emerges as an interaction between identity-formationon an individual and a collective level, wherein time (history),space (territory as place of living and as transcendental symbol) andgeneration play a role. An identity manifests itself mainly through action,and is also represented in symbols. Not the core content, which hasto be reinterpreted continuously, but the boundaries towards the outerworld serve as markers of the we-feeling of the community. In the paradigmdebate on nationalism during the last three decades, three mainquestions were at stake. At first the discussion whether an ethnic-culturalor a voluntary dimension is more important. Secondly the questionwhether the nation is a modern phenomenon or goes back to thepre-modern era. And finally the debate between postmodernists consideringthe nation as merely existing in the minds of the people, and othersconsidering the nation as a social reality as well, but to be understoodfrom an ethno-symbolic perspective. This article argues that a nation isboth voluntary and organic, can also exist in pre-modern times, and isalthough imagined at the same time also a social reality. It gives a panoramaof the shifting paradigms of nationalism and their representatives,and suggests that we are already approaching a post-postmodernistsynthesis. Finally it discusses the question of nationalism and democracyin defending even the thesis that, as history doesn’t show examplesof democracies outside a national setting, a living nation is a prerequisitefor a fully fledged democracy.


Author(s):  
Nadia Anuar ◽  
Nurizah Md Ngadiran

The use of politeness strategies has received increasing attention in the political discourse as a powerful persuasion tool. These strategies became critical for the newly appointed prime minister of Malaysia, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, to convince Malaysians that he is qualified to lead the country during a political upheaval and global pandemic. Thus, the objectives of this paper are to identify the types and frequency of the politeness strategies used by Muhyiddin Yassin in his maiden speech as the eighth prime minister of Malaysia. Two categories of politeness strategies based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) were examined, which are negative strategies and positive strategies. The speech text was obtained from the official website of Prime Minister’s Office and was translated to English for analysis. The translated speech was subsequently checked for validity. Document analysis was used to analyse the translated speech text to determine the types and frequency of the politeness strategies. The analysis revealed that positive politeness strategies were significantly used (88%) compared to negative politeness strategies (12%). The most dominantly used positive politeness strategy was “notice and attend to the receiver’s need, interest, or want” while “use of exaggeration”, “seek agreement”, and “avoid disagreement” were the least used strategy. In contrast, “question” and “giving deference” were identified to be the most frequently used negative politeness strategy. The present study extends our knowledge on the use of politeness strategies in a political speech in an Asian setting, which is notably lacking in the literature.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mei Chee Yung

Even though Islam is the official religion of Brunei Darussalam, more efforts are still needed to bolster functionality and relevance of Islam to the country, and implement an Islamic system of governance. This paper sets out to devise strategies in order to do so, to be implemented by three main stakeholders: Government civil service, the public and the international community. Five specific strategies are devised: formulate a single common understanding of Islamic governance; ensure commitment from top management; train and develop competence; engage the public; and engage the international community. The first three strategies relate to the Government, the fourth to the public, and the fifth to the international community. And at the core, of course, is Tauḥīd, or strong Faith, which would act as a guide to help individuals, the main agents of change, make appropriate decisions in accordance to the teachings of Islam, implement the five strategies to strengthen functional relevance of Islam in Brunei, and be able to work towards achieving the Maqāṣid of the Sharī’ah.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 72
Author(s):  
Muraree Lal Meena

It is well known that Sariska Tiger Reserve is a home to the India’s national animal - the Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris). The crux of this research is to examine the role of local peoples in the conservation of Sariska Tiger project, which was declared a wildlife reserve way back in 1955 and then further raised to a status of a Tiger Reserve in 1978, and a National Park in 1982. According to the Government officials, the people around the reserve are not only responsible for degrading the reserve, it has also emerged as a safe haven for the poachers involved in illegal hunting of the tigers. One of the reasons identified to be the cause of tiger extinction is the human habitation in the core and in the peripheral areas surrounding the tiger reserves. Despite efforts being made to protect, the Sariska Tiger Reserve, located in Alwar (Rajasthan) is seriously facing the problem of tiger extinction. It is estimated that there are around 12 thousand people residing inside the tiger reserve, with 11 villages in the Core Zone-1 area and about 170 villages situated along the peripheries of the reserve. Among the prime measures undertaken are diversions of traffic, relocation of the villages located inside the forest. The Tiger Task Force (2005) has recommended relocation of three key villages surrounding the central area of the Sariska Tiger Reserve. However, this relocation of villages is quite contrary to the life style of the people residing within these villages. Their social and cultural attributes, needs and aspirations have not been given due consideration and the villagers are strongly resenting this move by the government. These displaced villagers have been living in perfect harmony with their environment from time immemorial and it is hard to understand how these villagers can be held responsible for degrading their natural environment, which is their lifeline. The government has failed to take into consideration the role of the neighbouring urban centres that are more responsible for the degradation of the habitat as compared to these simple villagers. In the light of these arguments, this research is an attempt to study and highlight the issues and problems related to the displacement of villages in the core area of the reserve and suggest suitable measures.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-18
Author(s):  
Xiao Li ◽  

The main contents of the ethical norms of public administration are the supremacy of public welfare, harmful inaction, and careful use of power, social responsibility, equal competition and enhancement of trust. Contradiction is a philosophical category reflecting the unity of opposites within and between things, and is the core content of materialist dialectics. The main social contradiction is the one that occupies the core position and dominates the society. Administration itself is not the ultimate goal, it is a series of communication channels to convey people's needs and wishes, and to ensure that these needs and wishes can be reflected and considered through state control. Similarly, these channels also play the role of the government in conveying policies and implementing tasks to the people. Therefore, if these channels are to make positive and significant contributions to people-centered development, the role of administration must adapt to the social-cultural environment and tradition.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 240-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aprista Ristyawati

The current global pandemic clearly raises public concern. Therefore, the Government must provide protection to the community in the prevention and handling of COVID-19 cases in accordance with the mandate of UUD NRI Tahun 1945. during the effective Pandemic period according to UUD NRI Tahun 1945. The method of approach used in this research is normative juridical and analytical descriptive that is describing the object that is the subject of the problem, from the depiction taken an analysis adapted to existing legal theories and putting the law as a norm building system. The results of this study indicate that if it is associated with the mandate of UUD NRI Tahun 1945, many PSBB policies are less effective because surely the community feels that they have not fully received legal protection over the existing policies made by the current government. To avoid other levels of infertility, the following efforts were made so that the PSBB policies provided during the effective pandemic period in accordance with UUD NRI Tahun 1945 include (1) the Central Government and Regional Governments ensuring the disclosure of public information in a real way to be able to know the chain of spread of the virus, (2 ) must be able to guarantee and ensure especially to the lower middle class are able to meet their needs to guarantee the right to life of their people and not diminish any dignity of the people (in accordance with the mandate of UUD NRI Tahun 1945 and the need for public roles in terms of mutual care, mutual reminding, and help each other.            Keywords:  Effectiveness, PSBB, UUD NRI Tahun 1945  Abstrak Pandemi global yang terjadi saat ini jelas menimbulkan kekhawatiran masyarakat. Oleh karena itu, Pemerintah harus memberikan perlindungan kepada masyarakat dalam pencegahan maupun penanganan kasus COVID-19 sesuai amanat Undang-Undang Dasar Negara Republik Indonesia Tahun 1945. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui efektifitas kebijakan  pemerintah pada masa pandemi dan bagaimana upaya yang dilakukan agar kebijakan yang diberikan selama masa Pandemi efektif sesuai UUD NRI Tahun 1945. Metode pendekatan yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah yuridis normatif dan bersifat deskriptif analitis yaitu menggambarkan objek yang menjadi pokok permasalahan, dari penggambaran tersebut diambil suatu analisa yang disesuaikan dengan teori-teori hukum yang ada dan meletakan hukum sebagai sebuah bangunan sistem norma. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa jika dikaitkan dengan amanat Undang-Undang Dasar Negara Republik Indonesia Tahun 1945, kebijakan PSBB banyak yang kurang efektif karena pasti masyarakat merasa bahwa belum sepenuhnya mendapatkan perlindungan hukum atas kebijakan yang ada yang dibuat oleh pemerintah saat ini. Untuk menghindari tingkat kefatalan lainnya, berikut upaya yang dilakukan agar kebijakan PSBB yang diberikan selama masa pandemi efektif sesuai UUD NRI Tahun 1945 antara lain (1) Pemerintah Pusat dan Pemerintah Daerah memastikan keterbukaan informasi publik secara nyata untuk dapat mengetahui rantai penyebaran virus tersebut, (2) harus dapat menjamin dan memastikan terutama kepada kaum menengah ke bawah mampu memenuhi kebutuhannya untuk menjamin hak atas hidup masyarakatnya dan tidak terkurangi suatu apapun harkat martabat masyarakatnya (sesuai amanat UUD NRI Tahun 1945) dan perlunya peran publik dalam hal saling menjaga, saling mengingatkan, dan saling membantu satu sama lain.            Kata Kunci : Efektifitas, PSBB, UUD NRI Tahun 1945


Author(s):  
Ana Ramdani Sari

Kampung Kota has been associated with slums due to its substandard living condition despite having different characteristics to slums. To improve the quality of life of Kampung Kota community; it is important to actively involve the community itself to transform Kampung Kota to better direction and to exercise the democracy within urban development. The research aims to understand in what ways the community has been involved, how the community perceived their involvement, how the community wish to be involved and in what ways community participation could be improved in transforming Mekarjaya and maximizing its social capital. The research was conducted using qualitative methodology and case study strategy. Interviews, observation and documentary evidences are used to collect the data and to validate the date by cross-checking every information using triangulation technique. The research finds that the community has not been actively involved in many programs and projects due to the nature of the government programs that support the funding. However, most of the people; whose voice are generally represented by the head of RT/RW (Community unit/neighbourhood unit); are far more eager and willingly contribute to the development if they have the platform to do so.


Author(s):  
M. Sohidullah ◽  
Shahidur R. Khan ◽  
Ashiqul Alam ◽  
Nahid Rahman ◽  
Swarup K. Kundu ◽  
...  

Background: 2019-nCoV has been declared by WHO as a global pandemic in March 2020. The present study was undertaken to find out the global as well as local prevalence, and death rate of COVID-19.Methods: A developed questionnaire was used in Khulna division of Bangladesh to record the percentages of people who were mask user, involved with different risk groups, harmed by socio-economic impacts of COVID-19, involved with the issue of government taking measures for controlling COVID-19. Some of the highly risk countries of the world were selected for recording the data.Results: As of October 20, 2020, we found USA, and Bangladesh at 1st and 17th position respectively in terms of global prevalence of COVID-19. We found Dhaka at 1st position in terms of division wise prevalence in Bangladesh. In terms of death rate of COVID-19, Mexico reported 10.10% death rate by securing 1st position. We recorded the data related with percentages of people who were involved with mask using and risk groups like hypertension, diabetes, respiratory illness, smoking; harmed by socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 that changed their lives, believers of different levels on government taking measures for controlling the spread of COVID-19 from Khulna division.Conclusions: The findings of this research work would certainly help the government of highly risk countries as well as Bangladesh to take appropriate measures to control COVID-19. Moreover, it will be helpful for the government of Bangladesh to take necessary steps to mitigate the socio-economic crises existing among the people.


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