Kurdish Politics in the Global Context

Kurds are considered to be one of the largest ethnic groups in the world—with a population of more than 30 million people—who do not have their own independent state. In the Middle East, they are the fourth largest ethnic group after Arabs, Persians, and Turks. The statelessness of such a major group with an increasing ethnic and national consciousness in the post-Ottoman world led to their traumatic insecurities in the hands of majority-led nation-states that used modern technologies of social engineering including displacement, dehumanization, assimilation, and genocidal acts throughout the 20th century. With the memory of such traumatic insecurities, the driving force of contemporary Kurdish nationalism in the Middle East has primarily been the question of state or state-like entities. Yet, Kurds are not a homogeneous group with a collective understanding of security and self-government. Rather, there are political-organizational rivalries within Kurds across Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran. Thus, it is important to understand the multifaceted Kurdish politics in the Middle East within a global-historical perspective where global power rivalries, regional geopolitics, and intra-Kurdish organizational competition are interwoven together. While the opportunities for Kurdish self-determination were missed in the early 20th century, resilient Kurdish political organizations emerged within the bipolar international context of the Cold War. The American hegemony in the post–Cold War era transformed the Kurdish political status in the geopolitics of the Middle East, where the 1991 Gulf War, the 2003 Iraq War, and the broader war on terror provided the Kurds with many political opportunities. Finally, the shifting regional and global alliances in the post–Arab Spring era—where the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has become the global nemesis—created new political opportunities as well as significant threats for the Kurds.

Politics of alliance in the farmers’ march to Parliament in India

On 30 November 2018 tens of thousands of Indian farmers marched to Parliament and demanded a special session to discuss the deepening agrarian crisis. The protest march to Parliament was only the latest in a series of protest marches which had been organized by an umbrella group of over 200 farmers’ organizations from all over India. Moreover, for the first time, an alliance of different activist groups, political parties, trade unions and students had cohered to support the farmers and their cause. Despite its political, empirical and theoretical significance, research on the formation of alliances has gained scant attention in sociological research. Based on original research, this article suggests alliance building should be understood with reference to political opportunities, processes of meaning attribution and framing, and as a strategy, which facilitates worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment (WUNC displays, as outlined by Charles Tilly).

Exit-With-Autonomy or Autonomy-Without-Exit? Divergent Political Trajectories in Rojava and the Kurdish Regional Government

This paper argues that sociological analysis of social movements has undertheorized non/anti-state social movements. It is argued that an alternative modality of resistance to that of movements seeking reform through the state or the capture of state power through revolution is to exit the world-system and set up parallel structures of governance and production. A conjunctural inter-regional comparison is taken up in order to map the inter-scalar and historical causal factors that led to exit-with-autonomy in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) and autonomy-without-exit in Iraqi Kurdistan (Kurdish Regional Government). The paper shows that in order to exit the world-system social movement actors in Rojava used strategic loyalty bargains and political voice at specific historical conjunctures in order to maintain their movement and seize on non-state political opportunities. These same non-state political opportunities were not available for the social movement actors hoping to exit the world-system in the Kurdish Regional Government.

Politicization of sports as a phenomenon and problem

The aim of the study is a political analysis of the relationship between sports and politics based on an institutional approach using SWOT analysis. The author's hypothesis is based on the understanding that the interpenetration of politics and sports in the modern world is becoming global and comprehensive and will increase: the politicization of sports as a social institution and the entire sports sphere is acquiring a new political normality. The paper highlights the basic trends and the main socio-political opportunities, as well as the risks and threats associated with the use of high-performance sports for political and instrumental purposes. It is revealed that in the modern world, sport is not only an instrument of big politics, but also produces politics, ideology and political meanings. Sport in the world is increasingly becoming not only the arena of tough political confrontations and ideological battles, but also forms a new political reality that influences the social behavior of the broadest masses, as well as individual social groups and political actors. In the context of Russia's growing political confrontation in the international arena, a deep, including scientifically based, understanding of the role of sports in the new realities is necessary. The conclusions reached by the authors of the work can be used as a scientific and methodological basis for political science studies of the interdependence of politics and sports, as well as for making political decisions in the field of sports.

The Dynamics of International Norms Diffusion: The Study of Women Activists in Bali

Artikel ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis pendekatan aktivis-aktivis perempuan di Bali dalam mendifusikan norma global kesetaraan gender. Aktivitas mereka berhadapan dengan adat budaya Bali yang patriarki. Dengan menggunakan metode kualitatif berjenis fenomenologi, penelitian menggambarkan pengalaman aktivis perempuan di Bali dalam ruang transnasionalisme. Penelitian ini menemukan bahwa upaya untuk mendifusikan norma dari ranah global ke ranah domestik dan lokal, tidak terjadi secara linear. Ratifikasi Konvensi mengenai Penghapusan segala Bentuk Diskriminasi terhadap Perempuan oleh Pemerintah Indonesia pada tahun 1984, tidak berarti bahwa norma kesetaraan gender dapat menyebar dan terinternalisasi dalam masyarakat secara otomatis. Aktivis dalam gerakan perempuan memiliki peran yang penting dalam mempromosikan pentingnya hak-hak perempuan. Mereka melakukan adaptasi agar norma kesetaraan gender pada level global, mendapatkan penerimaan di segmen tertentu dari budaya Bali. Pilihan strategi dalam difusi norma oleh para aktivis perempuan di Bali adalah hasil interaksi antara identitas pemahaman mereka terhadap budaya lokal, interaksi dalam jaringan advokasi internasional serta penggunaan kesempatan politik baik yang berasal dari ranah internasional maupun domestik. Pengalaman berinteraksi langsung dengan aktivis gender di negara Barat menimbulkan gagasan kreatif untuk mengadopsi praktik perjuangan gender yang telah berhasil di luar negeri untuk diterapkan di level lokal.Kata-kata kunci: norma global, difusi, glokalisasi, gerakan gender, transnasionalismeThis article aims to analyze the approach of women activists in Bali in diffusing global norms of gender equality. Their activities deal with patriarchal Balinese cultural tradition. Using a qualitative method of phenomenology, the study describes the experiences of women activists in Bali in the space of transnationalism. This study finds that efforts to diffuse norms from the global to the domestic and local domains do not occur in a linear fashion. Ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women by the Government of Indonesia in 1984 does not mean that gender equality norms can spread and be internalized in society automatically. Activists in the women’s movement have an important role in promoting the importance of women’s rights. They make adaptations so that the norms of gender equality at the global level gain acceptance in certain segments of Balinese culture. The strategy choices in the diffusion of norms by women activists in Bali are the result of the interaction between their identity and understanding of local culture, interaction in international advocacy networks and the use of political opportunities both from the international and domestic spheres. The experiences of interacting directly with gender activists in Western countries give rise to creative ideas to adopt the practice of gender movement that has been successful abroad to be applied at the local level.Keywords: global norms, diffusion, glocalization, gender movement, transnationalism

Protest During a Pandemic: How COVID-19 Affected Social Movements in the U.S.

This paper explores how a global health crisis affects the causes and consequences of social movements. Drawing on media coverage, press releases, emails, and other available primary data sources, we examine how the pandemic changed the opportunities and conditions for activists on the right and left and those they challenge. We begin by considering the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and the concomitant government response, which alters the structure of political opportunities activists face. We then look at the development of a range of protest campaigns that have emerged in response, assessing changes in opportunities for activists to reach and mobilize target constituencies, the construction of grievances, nature of alliances, as well as innovation in tactics and organization. Finally, we consider the potential outcomes of these protests during the pandemic and extending afterward.

Authoritarian Populism, Environmentalism and Exceptional Governance in Hungary

This paper analyzes how the incumbent authoritarian populist Orbán government started to navi­gate itself from an anti-climate to a conservative green position. First, the theoretical background of environmentalism and democracy/autocracy will be investigated. It is to say that the relationship between democracy and the environment is quite contradictory, although democracy has a demonstrable effect on the quality of the environment and sustainability, it is not worth absolutizing. That is why we should put an emphasis on the environmental approach of authoritarian regimes, here as a case study of the Hungarian regime. From 2010, the Orbán regime elaborated an ambiguous attitude toward the environment and green politics; on the on hand, it was characterized by climate denialism and demolition of environmental institutions, on the other hand, the super-majority behind the regime accepted the Fundamental Law with several green elements. In the second half of 2019 and early 2020, the regime started to create a new conservative green agenda. This authoritarian populist greening is not based on eco-authoritarian traditions. This paper challenges the notion that authoritarian populist actors are hostile to environmental policies. The Orbán regime proved adaptive in the case of the climate emergency and is about to elaborate its own climate agenda. At the same time, the regime is unable to face the real nature of the climate and ecological emergencies. The crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has been used by the regime to rule by decree based on exceptional powers. In fact, the regime relied on exceptional governance before the COVID-19 crisis, ever since the migration crisis of 2015. The authoritarian populist regime recognized the political opportunities of exceptional governance in terms of overlapping crises and that is why it is characterized by authoritarian climate populism.