Access Under Duress

This paper examines the rapid turn to remote public meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on a mix of archival materials, participant observation, and interviews within and around two mid- to large cities in the Rust Belt and Midwest regions of the United States, we consider how public officials introduced digital meeting platforms and surveys in place of traditional forms of in-person public consultation. We also examine emergent strategies of residents as they worked to have their voices heard and concerns met during a time of compounding crises (e.g., pandemic, economic recession, racial violence). Drawing from this case study, we articulate the concept of disruptive testimony, forms of public witnessing that trouble established hierarchies of power, surface conflict, and open opportunities for social change. We argue consideration for collective counter-power is increasingly important to GROUP scholarship as it attends to civic engagement beyond participation in formal, sanctioned government processes.

The Working Week in the Long Nineteenth Century: Evidence from the Timings of Political Events in Britain

Debates about patterns of time use in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain go back to the seminal work of E. P. Thompson in the 1960s. But the lack of systematic evidence means that many of these questions remain unresolved. In an attempt to advance those debates, this essay uses three catalogs of political events to reconstruct the working week in Britain over the long nineteenth century. Three patterns emerge. First, observance of Saint Monday appears to have been widespread in the early nineteenth century before declining slowly in the mid-1800s, a process that happened faster in factory towns than elsewhere. This finding supports the orthodox narrative about Saint Monday against its recent challengers (in particular Hans-Joachim Voth). Second, I find that political organizers in the early nineteenth century were reluctant to profane the Sabbath by arranging public meetings on Sundays, but that this came to an end during the heyday of Chartism. Third, these catalogs also provide some, more speculative, evidence that the working day and the working week became more ordered as the nineteenth century wore on.

Analysis of the Influence of Local Politics on Implementation SDGs 4 Policy for Quality Education

SDGs-4, the quality education is one of the factors in achieving the goals of the SDGs. The problem is that the SDGs look ambitious in integrating local level policies that are responsive to political interests. The research used a mixed method of exploration, searching for interview data and questionnaires. The results showed that the implementation of the SDGs was strongly influenced by local democracy. The implementation of the promotion of SDGs requires strengthening local politics and democracy, including; the quality of the Pilkada, the role of the community, political parties, media control, and public meetings. The influence of local democracy on policy implementation is 51.5%. Policy implementation has a positive effect on the implementation of the SDGs with a value of 0.187. The influence of local democracy and policy implementation on the promotion of SDGs-4 is 64.2% and the remaining 35.8% is influenced by other factors.

The spectre of the thing: The construction of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Holocaust memorial

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Holocaust Memorial is situated on the western side of Green Park in Darlinghurst, in Sydney, Australia. Darlinghurst is considered the heart of Sydney's gay and lesbian population, having been the site of demonstrations, public meetings, Gay Fair Days, and the starting point for the AIDS Memorial Candlelight Rally. It is also very close to both the Sydney Jewish Museum and the Jewish War Memorial. The planning and construction of the Memorial between 1991 and 2001 was a process framed by two competing imperatives. Balancing the commemoration of a subset of victims of the Holocaust with a positioning of the event as a universal symbol of the continuing persecution of gays and lesbians was a challenge that came to define the ten year struggle to have the memorial built.

Na autorytarnym kursie

An Authoritarian Course: The Restriction of Civil Rights in Russia after 2012 This article regards the issue of Russian civil rights legislation, which has become very repressive after 2012. It focuses on legal restriction of all political and social activities that are beyond the control of the authorities, in particular the freedom of public meetings. Another goal of the Kremlin's repressive policy is the Internet, which has become the only space for freedom of speech in Russia. The new legislation tries to prevent this by two mechanisms: censorship and self-censorship. The consistent restriction of freedom of speech in Russia proves the growing anxiety of the ruling group, which fears that in the conditions of the deteriorating economic situation, it may lose control over public mood. The analysis of the legislation against civil rights in Russia shows that in recent years the scope of these rights has been constantly reduced. This leads to the conclusion that the main goal of the discussed changes in the law is the complete elimination of independent civic activity perceived as one of the main threats to the authorities.

Measuring Effectiveness of Project Communication Channels in Affected Communities in Nepal

This study is identifying the most appropriate communication medium to communicate with local people by Arun-3 Hydropower Project (AHPP) especially focusing on the project construction phase. Since, the study is focused on the construction period when chances of misunderstanding, miscommunication, and other conflicts between project-affected people and the project, will be high due to higher incidences of social and environmental issues. This study was completed by applying mix method of research where quantitative research was conducted through a survey among local people of Makalu Rural Municipality (MRM) of Sankhuwasabha and a case interview was done with the chairman of the same Rural Municipality. The study has revealed that local radios and public meetings are the most recommended mediums that participants expected to support the project in properly disseminating project-related information to local people. This article suggests that AHPP should disseminate information about project activities mainly through local radios and public meetings. This study also concludes that the project developer is not providing sufficient information about project activities to local people, which is also a source of misunderstanding between the two sides.

Communication with the public of the Ukrainian SSR KGB in the conditions of glasnost policy (1987–1989)

The article analyzes the main directions and forms of external open communications of the Soviet secret services at the second stage of their reorganization in the Gorbachev Era. It shows the general tendencies of the state security bodies’ implementation of the principle of openness. It highlights the peculiarities of “publicity and democratization” expansion in the operational and service activities of the USSR KGB in the Perestroika period. It is substantiated that in the second half of the 1980s in the USSR there was a transformation of the “repressive-communicative” system with a gradual transition from monologic communication to dialogic communication. At the same time, it is shown that the publicity of the Soviet secret services in this transitional period was influenced by both the specifics of their work and the prevailing propaganda model of communication in the USSR. It is emphasized that at that time the public contacts of the state security bodies with the population had a pronounced propaganda character.It is proven that the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR considered open communications as an important tool for influencing and manipulating public opinion. At the same time, they were provided through public (work with the media, creative unions, public organizations, meetings with employees of enterprises, institutions, organizations, etc.) and personal channels (consideration of applications and reception of citizens).Among the main areas of the communicative interaction of the Soviet secret services in Ukraine, the article deals with the following: public discrediting of national liberation movement members; popularization of state security bodies through mass media and creative unions, in particular the role of press groups in information and propaganda support of state security bodies; participation in rehabilitation processes; work with citizens’ appeals.The leading forms of such activities were as follow: meetings with labor collectives, roundtable discussions, thematic evenings, public meetings, organization of excursions to departmental rooms-museums; participation of representatives of state security bodies in public events; publications in the press, release of TV and radio programs, feature and documentary films dedicated to the Soviet secret services, organization of press conferences; conducting a personal reception of citizens, and correspondence based on the results of consideration of appeals.

Withholding consent

This paper examines public meetings in the Netherlands where experts and officials interact with local residents on the human health effects of livestock farming. Using Conversation Analysis, we reveal a ‘weapon of the weak’: a practice by which the residents resist experts’ head start in information meetings. It is shown how residents draw on the given question-answer format to challenge experts and pursue an admission of, for example, methodological shortcomings. We show how the residents’ first question functions as a ‘foot-in-the-door’, providing them with a strong basis for skepticism. By systematically challenging the expert responses, the residents exploit the interaction’s sequential organization, with the effect that the goal becomes them being convinced rather than being informed. Consequently, the withholding of consent becomes the residents’ ‘weapon’. Finally, we argue that in an age where expertise is increasingly contested, it is crucial to understand how, and to what end, this contestation may occur.

Volný mandát člena parlamentu v ústavním vývoji Československa a České republiky

This article deals with the issue of the matter of the mandate of members of parliament in the constitutional history of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. Namely the article is dedicated to the problem, whether and when in the years 1918–2020 the mandate of the members of parliament was free or imperative. The detailed description shows, that in Czechoslovakia strongly prevailed the imperative mandate, irrespective of character of the political regime. The pre-war Czechoslovak constitution adopted in 1920 expressly declared the mandate as a free one and members of parliament should use them regardless of any instructions or commands. Nonetheless very quickly, in 1923, through the decision of the Election Court, the first deputies were deprived of their functions as a sanction for leaving their party policy. Thus, even in the democratic regime the mandate was transformed into the imperative form. After the WWII, the political circumstances in Czechoslovakia changed and the regime turned into a totalitarian form under the hegemony of the communist party. In these circumstances the deputies should serve as servants of the voters, to follow their instructions and they could be recalled, if not fulfilling the will of the (working) people. Nonetheless the recall system based on the public meetings of the voters was not very practical and it could fulfil the estimations only when the communist party has the situation fully under its control. In some critical moments other tools for recall had to be adopted, as it happened in the year 1969, when the political situation after the Prague Spring suppression needed to be consolidated and the will of the voters was different of the will of the conservative communist leaders. The last recalls appeared after the Velvet Revolution when democracy was re-established in Czechoslovakia. Thus, the free parliamentary mandate existed hardly in 8 years from 75 years of existence of Czechoslovakia. The last 30 years of its existence in the constitution of the Czech Republic and political practice is still quite an uncommon period in the Czechoslovak constitutional tradition.

Private ordering of public processes: How contracts structure participatory processes in urban development in Amsterdam and Hamburg

The use of contracts to achieve public goals has been gaining traction since the 1980s. In this article, I investigate the implications of the increased use of private law instruments for participatory democracy. This study starts with problematising the notion of contracts and proposes a conceptual model to study contractual relations in participatory processes. Next, through a detailed description of two case studies in Amsterdam and Hamburg, I show the consequences of contractual governance for participatory democracy in urban development. Namely, the interests of commercial parties and government agencies are incorporated in contracts, whereas the interests of residents are incorporated in non-legal agreements. This has four implications for our understanding of participatory democracy and urban politics. First, the arena of public decision making has shifted from public meetings to contractual negotiations. Second, contracts are not set in stone. Mobilisation by residents can influence, adjust and politicise agreements. However, third, residents need to be able to mobilise and negotiate. This creates new boundaries between residents who are able to make deals and those who are excluded. Lastly, investigating how contracts transform urban politics should take a broad view on how contractual relations are formed and focus on both non-legal and contractual agreements.