From Crisis Management to Realignment of Forces

In 1969, after a series of large-scale border clashes, the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union finally decided to enter negotiations to prevent a wider military confrontation. The de-escalation process that ensued gave Soviet and Chinese leaders two options: either to compromise and reach a settlement or to go back to a strategy of delay. This article shows that the choice between the two options depended on whether either state believed it could improve its relative position in a better political environment or could gain certain political advantage by immediately settling the dispute. Ultimately, both sides chose to return to a strategy of delay. The Chinese decision was influenced by the strategic configuration of U.S. “triangular” diplomacy and the hope that it would enhance the PRC's relative position. For Soviet officials, the outcome stemmed from a lack of trust in their Chinese counterparts.

TOURISM POLICY: POTENTIAL INCREASE OF ORIGINAL LOCAL INCOME

Garut Regency called "Swiss van Java" has very beautiful natural scenery. This rich natural resource potency has not been the largest contributor to local original income. The poor implementation of tourism policy, particularly in exploring, inventorying, and developing tourist objects existing as the main attraction to tourists is one of its causal factor. The objective of research was to find out the effect of tourism policy implementation to local original income in Garut Regency. The research method employed was quantitative one; data collection was carried out by distributing questionnaire to 130 respondents. The data collected was then analyzed using simple regression data analysis with SPSS 23 help. The result of research showed that the implementation of tourism policy measured using standard and target, resource, inter-organization communication, executing organization characteristic, executive’s attitude, and social, economic, and political environment dimensions contributed to local original income by 38%.

Migration and the Gender Impact of Covid-19 on Nepalese Women

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted lives globally, and many have been “stranded” overseas with little if any support in getting home. The stranded include migrant workers whose remittances bolster their household income and home country’s national GDP, and who are often overlooked in COVID-19 responses. This paper focuses on Nepalese women employed in the domestic work sector but last on repatriation flight lists and returnee policies and programmes. The pandemic has made an already precarious working life even more difficult. The study focuses on how women employed in Lebanon in in normal times have been able to exercise their agency in a complex socio‑political environment and how this has been disrupted by COVID-19 and the hostile political and social environment, both at home and abroad. This research is based on literature, contemporary newspaper reports, and key informants’ interviews with people working on migration issues in Nepal.

History and the Future of the Hybrid Party Politics in Neoliberal Age: A Case of Pakistan

The causes of rising populism and collapse of the left-right ideological paradigms termed “death of ideology” is important development on election canvas. This trend in recent decades has been described as hybrid party politics. The neo-liberal discourse in hybrid regime shape party politics with free market values, issues of inequality, denial of social justice, and crises of freedom are rampant. Consequently, hybrid party politics perpetuate systemic deprivation and chronic punishment to marginalized sections. The fast penetration of neoliberal and populist elements quickly fused into multi-layered public pedagogy. The common political discourse propounds for quick solutions to seek legitimacy with expanding corporate power constantly. The socioeconomic inequalities consequence of expanding neo-liberal values in all spheres like education and electoral practices have recently started crucially influencing urban socio-political environment that shape populist narratives in electoral arena. Neoliberal-populists leadership promote free market policies that push forward neoliberal populist rhetoric across political parties of different shades. The combination of neo-liberalism and populism thrives on subjects who perceive it solution to their problems. Thus, fast penetrating market-centric subjectivities consider alternative subjectivities outside perimeters of social dignity therefore political inclusiveness becomes subject to connection with power. The educative public pedagogy has been at the base of rising populism unfolding hybrid party politics

El Fenómeno del votante ucraniano moderno: esencia, peculiaridades y tendencias de su desarrollo

The article reveals the peculiarities of the modern Ukrainian voter as a special phenomenon in political science. The main objective of the research is to form a portrait of the modern voter based on data from some sociological surveys, as well as to address the emergence and formation of the image of a desirable candidate for the voter. Historical and statistical analysis methods as well as the comparison method were used. In the results they emphasize that in the personality of the voter we will understand a subject who makes a conscious choice of that political figure that he (the voter) considers capable of solving urgent problems of life, both State and of his person. In this regard, the focus is on revealing the moods in modern Ukrainian society, to describe the image of "an ideal candidate" in the eyes of a modern voter. Special attention was paid to personality as an integral element of the socio-political space and the worldview of the political and electoral sphere. It is concluded that the historical context is very important in the formation of the Ukrainian political environment, which makes us glimpse analytically the peculiarities of the meaning of the act of suffrage.

Varying Understandings of Democracy in the Contemporary World

This chapter presents systematic descriptive evidence on the status of popular conceptions of democracy in today’s world, using GBS II data from seventy-one societies. To make the descriptive analysis more informative, we have included comparable information from the United States and relied on different psychometric models to uncover people’s latent characteristics that shape their responses to the PUD instruments. We have consistently found that the PUD instruments are sufficiently sensitive to the socioeconomic and political environment, thus revealing significant and substantial variation in popular conceptions of democracies across regions, between societies, and among individuals. To ensure that the variation documented in the PUD instruments is not something transient or idiosyncratic, we further explore the longitudinal dynamics of this critical attitude using the ABS two-wave rolling-cross-sectional surveys from thirteen East Asian societies.

6. The Media and Agenda-Setting

This chapter addresses media in politics, including newspapers, television, the internet, and social media. It seeks to answer the question of how influential the media is over politics, in areas such as voting behaviour. This discussion gives a broad overview of politics and the media, about the agenda of politics and its framing, and what shapes it. The chapter then covers the classic question of the influence of the media in British politics. It also considers the importance of social media, and how it is now part of all media today, especially in relation to elections and referendums. Finally, the chapter looks at media and social media campaigning in elections. It introduces the concept of chaotic pluralism as a way of characterizing today's social media-dominated and fluid political environment.

From Scientific Communism to Political Science: The Development of the Profession in Selected Former Soviet European States

The chapter explores the trajectories of the evolution of political science (PS) in four former Soviet Socialist Republics (Estonia and Lithuania, the Republics of Moldova and Belarus) after the USSR collapse. Departing from the premise that PS is appreciated as the science of democracy, the authors claim that its identity and autonomy are particularly important. Research shows that PS in these countries started from the same impoverished basis (“scientific communism”), but it soon took diverse trajectories and currently faces specific challenges. Democracy, pro-Western geopolitical settings and the shorter period of Sovietization contributed to the faster and more sustainable development of PS in two Baltic States. However, in Estonia, political developments have led to the retrenchment of PS and to downsize of universities’ departments and study programmes. In Lithuania, political scientists are very visible in the public sphere. In Moldova, its uncertain geopolitical orientation and a series of internal political conflicts have led to the weak identity of PS and questionable prospects for its further institutionalization. In authoritarian Belarus, PS as an academic discipline exists within a hostile political environment and under a hierarchical system of governance offering practically no degree of academic freedom.

Concluding Remarks

This chapter provides some brief concluding remarks.This study contributes to existing research in the sociology of religion and development studies fields by demonstrating the effect of the mutually reinforcing configuration of multiple prosperity triggers (religion–political–environment). Historical Protestantism largely influenced prosperity by promoting education, by secularising institutions, and by stabilising democracy. Protestantism has also proven highly influential in the successive historical law revolutions that gradually mitigated the power of pervasive feudal institutions and of papalist medieval canon law. In contrast, traditionally Roman Catholic countries have generally upheld a medieval model of extractivist institutions until anti-clerical (non-communist) movements were able to weaken this influence in some countries.

Modernity through syncretism and eclecticism: Wu Guanzhong's artistic practice in the cultural and political environment of the PRC (1949-1989)

<p>This thesis examines Wu Guanzhong’s 吴冠中 (1919-2010) art and art theory in the context of socialist and post-socialist China. Wu’s art came to maturation through a sophisticated syncretism of Chinese and Western painting styles and techniques. Aesthetic considerations notwithstanding, each of Wu’s artistic breakthroughs was also a direct response to the cultural policies of the Chinese Communist Party or to the larger cultural and political currents at important junctures of twentieth-century China. Mirroring the syncretistic style and political nature of his artwork, Wu’s art theory is characterised by an eclecticism that mediates between Chinese and Western artistic concepts and walks a thin line between creative agency and political correctness. By identifying the particular qualities of Wu’s art practice that captured the spirit of the 1980s and contributed to his phenomenal success during the ‘Culture Fever’ at the time, this thesis seeks to demonstrate how Wu’s unique blend of syncretism may exemplify an alternative path of Chinese artistic modernity, one that is forged by ‘official artists’ working within the system and shaped by the artists’ strategies of cultural politics as much as their aesthetic choices.</p>