scholarly journals The Political Orientation of the Middle and Lower Classes in Iran (1997-2013)

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Ali Abolali Aghdaci ◽  
Parisa Khorasaniesmaeili
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Independent Variable

It is well-known that there is a positive relationship between class position and the political orientation of citizens. Insuch a way that the class position is considered as an independent variable and political orientations as dependentvariables. In this research, we will try to survey the political orientations of middle and lower classes in Iran in thetwo states of Reformist and Principals, namely, the presidency of Khatami, and Ahmadinejad. The main question isthat the growth of the middle class tends to make progress in countries, but why the quantitative growth of this classin Iran, has not led to proper progress in our country? The hypothesis of this article is as follows: The growth of themiddle class in the advanced countries is linked to their democratic political structures, while in the third worldcountries due to the rentierity, the middle classes are made by governments. Therefore, they cannot actindependently and be effective in the political and cultural development of countries.

Is Democracy Possible in Thailand?

2015 ◽  
pp. 101-110
Author(s):  
N. Rogozhina
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Traditional Elite ◽  
The Military

The political development of Thailand in XXIth century is characterized by a deep split of the society into opponents and supporters of democratization. The latter are consolidated around the figure of Taksin Sinavatra, the former prime minister. He was overthrown by the military in 2006, but still enjoys the support of the popular majority he gained due to his economic policy aimed at improving the life conditions of the poor in periphery regions. The triumph of his parties in elections since 2001 caused the new power balance in politics traditionally viewed as a focal area of the political establishment – the representatives of the Bangkok upper and middle classes only. The marginalization of their position in the political system and the impossibility of coming to power through elections determined their integration into the anti-government movement, for the purpose of cancelling the representative democracy system that doesn’t meet the interests of the traditional political elite finding itself in a “minority” and unwilling to be under the reign of a “majority”. The deepening of the political crisis provoked the military into undertaking the coup d’état in May 2014 and establishing an authoritarian regime, which ensured the accrescency of power for the traditional elite. Nevertheless, as the author concludes, the future political development of Thailand seems unclear. The power of military in cooperation with their civilian followers is unlikely to reconcile the society, split by class differences and political aspirations. The contemporary political development of Thailand reflects the situation when the “populace” doesn’t want just to remain under control any longer, and the “upper strata” refuses to be under the rule of the electoral majority. The main question raised today is not of the Taksin's destiny, but of an alternative for the Thailand's future political development – restricted democracy directed by upper classes, or representative democracy.

Political Socialization in the South American Middle Class

1968 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 506-527 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Stinchcombe
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Political Socialization ◽  
The Political ◽  
South American ◽  
Social Causation ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Events ◽  
And Migration

Political socialization may be thought of as having three aspects: the degree to which people interpret the conditions of their milieu in terms of distant political processes, the ideas of social causation with which they interpret such distant processes, and the interpretation of specific political events and structures of their country. This paper attempts to show that the first is determined mainly by men's educational and migration biography, the second mainly by men's occupational experience, and the third mainly by the history and structure of the political system men live under. The data come from a study of the contrasts between industrial bureaucrats and the traditional middle classes in steel cities in three South American countries, Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela.

Pentecostalism and Democracy in Nigeria

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Burgess
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
The Third ◽  
Religious Competition ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Democratic Revolution ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Common Observation

This article examines the political dimensions of Pentecostalism in Nigeria, beginning with the historical development of Pentecostal political engagement since independence in 1960. A common observation is that much of global Pentecostalism is apolitical, but an assessment of Nigerian Pentecostalism shows a diversity of political orientations in response to inter-religious competition, as well as changing socio-economic contexts and theological orientations. Herein, I focus on the “third democratic revolution” involving the struggle for sustainable democracy (the first two being the anti-colonial struggle that brought independence and the 1980s-1990s challenge to one-party and military rule). As well, I examine different political strategies employed by Nigerian Pentecostals and assess their impact on direct political behavior, civil society practices and political culture.

Marx as the Historical Materialist: Re-reading The Eighteenth Brumaire

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimiliano Tomba
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
The Political ◽  
Second Empire ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
The Third ◽  
Historical Materialist ◽  
History Of ◽  
Good For ◽  
The Revolution

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to re-read Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire by highlighting the political meaning of a materialist historiography. In the first part, I consider Marx’s historiographical and political intention to represent the history of the aftermath of the revolution of ’48 as a farce in order to liquidate ‘any faith in the superstitious past’. In the second part I analyse the theatrical register chosen by Marx in order to represent the Second Empire as a society without a body, a phantasmagoria in which the Constitution, the National Assembly and law – in short, everything that the middle class had put up as essential principles of modern democracy – disappear. In the third part I argue that Marx does not elaborate a theory of revolution that is good for every occasion. What interests him is a historiography capable of grasping, in the various temporalities of the revolution, the chance for a true liberation.

A conjunctural account of upper- and middle-class support for Rodrigo Duterte

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 651-673
Author(s):  
Marco Garrido
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The Political ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Political Scene ◽  
Over Time

Philippine scholars have largely interpreted Duterte’s support among the upper and middle class as a rejection of the previous administration’s incremental reformism. They also point to the growing appeal of a politics of discipline. These explanations are insufficient. They cannot tell us why the upper and middle class supported Duterte when they did in 2016. The Aquino administration was not the first to disappoint and Duterte hardly the first avatar of discipline to appear on the political scene. In this article the author argues that we need to understand support for Duterte as having crystallized over time with respect to a series of events. Specifically, we need to account for the trajectory of democracy in the Philippines and the contingency of support for him. By placing this support in conjunctural context, we are better able to understand the upper and middle classes’ predisposition to ‘strong leaders’ and their turn to Duterte in 2016.

Democracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 75-90
Author(s):  
Charles Devellennes
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
The Political ◽  
French Society ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Political Body ◽  
Positive Freedom ◽  
Peasant Revolt ◽  
Important Notion

This chapter deals with democracy and Rousseau's participative polity. The demands of positive freedom are also those of the political body, constituted of citizens, to organize itself. The chapter explores this ever-important notion. No freedom can be complete without a fully democratized state — and this includes the subjection of the economy to public rule. The national dimension of the movement is clearly established. Although it is largely working class, it has involved many other segments of society and can best be described as a movement of the small-middle stratum of citizens — either lower-middle class or upper-working class — what is described as 'the small-mean class'. It has been foreshadowed by police tactics against the banlieues; it has involved the most modest parts of French society directly, who have largely contributed to the movement, the middle classes, who have been commenting on it and trying to portray it as a jacquerie, or peasant revolt, and the upper classes, who have seen their iconic boulevards closed off and vandalized.

scholarly journals Left- and Right-Leaning News Organizations' Negative Tweets are More Likely to be Shared

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Bellovary ◽  
Nathaniel A. Young ◽  
Amit Goldenberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Negative Affect ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Political ◽  
News Content ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Left And Right

Negativity has historically dominated news content; however, little research has examined how news organizations use affect on social media, where content is generally positive. In the current project we ask a few questions: Do news organizations on Twitter use negative or positive language and which type of affect garners more engagement on social media? Does the political orientation of new organizations impact the affect expressed and engagement tweets receive on social media? The goal of this project is to examine these questions by investigating tweets of 24 left- and 20 right-leaning news organizations (140,358 tweets). Results indicated that negative affect was expressed more than positive affect. Additionally, negativity predicted engagement with news organizations’ tweets, but positivity did not. Finally, there were no differences in affect between left- and right-leaning political orientations. Overall, it appears that for news organizations, negativity is more frequent and more impactful than positivity.

scholarly journals Rationalising Racial Inequality: Ideology, Hegemony and Post-Racialism among the Black and South Asian Middle-Classes

Sociology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 671-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Meghji ◽  
Rima Saini
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Racial Prejudice ◽  
The Political ◽  
False Consciousness ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Racial Progress

Drawing upon 38 qualitative interviews with Black and South Asian middle-class individuals we theorise post-racialism as a hegemonic ideology. While research tends to focus on how racialised people experience racial inequality, some of our participants rationalised such inequality through a post-racial understanding. This post-racial understanding involves commitments to racial progress and transcendence, the view that racism is no longer a societal issue; race-neutral universalism, the belief that we live in a colourblind meritocracy; and a moral equivalence between anti-racism and anti-racialism, allowing for forms of ‘cultural’ racial prejudice. We examine how these components of post-racialism travel from the political macro-ideological level, to the micro-phenomenological level. Through this analysis we argue that these post-racial rationalisations are not the result of false consciousness, but reflect how post-racialism, as a hegemonic ideology, can manifest itself as common-sense and consistent with particular individuals’ histories of mobility and success.

Revolution, Democratic Retrenchment, and the Middle Class

2020 ◽  
pp. 155-192
Author(s):  
Bryn Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Orange Revolution

This chapter provides a background on Ukraine when it was struggling to consolidate democracy. It examines existing theories that expect human capital formation and a growing middle-class to enhance the autocratic middle-class prospects for democratization. By focusing on the case of Ukraine, it also explores whether dependence on the state for economic opportunities and life chances moderates middle-class demands for democratic institutions. The chapter uses a panel survey spanning the Orange Revolution, which assesses how the distinctive political orientations of different groups within the middle-class affected the nature of protest coalitions during Ukraine's 2004 democratic breakthrough. It makes use of a difference-in-differences design to demonstrate that reliance on the state for economic opportunity caused the political preferences of new labor market entrants to diverge.

The Autocratic Middle Class

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Bryn Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Development Strategies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Support For Democracy ◽  
Popular Pressure ◽  
Communist Countries

This chapter seeks to expand the grasp of authoritarian resilience and bottom-up pressures for democratization in states where economic growth is increasing the size of the middle-class. It explains why and under what conditions growth of the middle-class may not increase popular pressure on regimes to democratize. It also looks at a wide array of survey data on the political preferences and behaviors of the middle-classes in the post-communist countries. The chapter emphasizes that a variety of development strategies can drive an expansion of the middle-class, which differ in their effect on the formation of democratic constituencies. It examines multiple pathways to expansion of the middle-class that lead to greater support for democracy.

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