Means for control over the activities of public authorities by civic democratic institutions: the conceptual framework analysis

The purpose of the article is to develop the bases of citizen participation in the management of state affairs. The theme of the research is the participation of civil society in the process of integration in its different stages, as well as the conditions and processes of institutionalization of civil society. The objective is to study the forms of participation of civil society in the integration process and the dynamics of institutionalization of the latter. Comparative analysis was a key method. The results show that democratic civic institutions in countries with a high level of socio-economic development show a higher level of political activity than democratic institutions with a low level of socio-economic development. The effectiveness of control over the activities of public authorities is greater in the institutional agents of civil society than in the individual ones. In conclusion, the list of forms of interaction between civic and public institutions was expanded. Moreover, the article identifies new elements of the legislative machine for the control of public authorities by democratic civic institutions that seek to increase social control in thepoliticalsystem.

Transformations of Global Cooperation Processes as a Strategy of Sustainable Social Development in the Context of Research and Education

Globalization involves the merging of societies and economies (and all their institutions – including educational and scientific) of all countries into a single socio-economic system with the prospect of more effective political coordination among them. There is a need for a new type of social contract between society and citizens, which must necessarily be included in modern institutional systems. This contract manifests itself differently on the basis of different national cultures, so the socio-economic development should be based on intercultural dialogue between different countries, social systems and civic institutions. The internationalization and integration of higher education in the global and international aspect raises many new questions for theory and practice: what patterns, forms, methods of management are universal, and which of them are specific. It is assumed that it is necessary to identify and conceptualize the essential interdependence of systemic and functional characteristics of the institutional dimension of global transformations of world development.

The Deportation of Juan: Migration Rhetoric as Decolonial Strategy in Revelation

This article explores John’s Exodus rhetoric as a decolonial strategy and maps its implications for contemporary migrants. Other scholars have convincingly argued that local authorities deported John to Patmos as a vagus, because his message opposed civic institutions, but they do not explain the nature and function of his preaching. Using migrant narratives and decolonial theory, I read John’s call to come out of Babylon and his deployment of Exodus topoi as migration rhetoric. He uses topoi of liberation, wilderness wanderings, and promised land to subvert the colonial situation of the assemblies under Rome. Rather than migrating to a place, believers embody the eschatological Exodus by rejecting food offered to idols and upholding the boundaries of Jewish identity as they wait for the full realization of God’s kingdom in the New Jerusalem. Regarding Latinx migrant communities, John’s Exodus rhetoric informs how migrants legitimate their migration and how they negotiate identity and resist imperialism in the US/Mexico borderlands.

The political economy of and practical policies for inclusive growth—a case study of Scotland

The concept of ‘inclusive growth’ (IG) is discussed in a political economy framework. The article reports comparative analysis of economic and planning policy documents from Scotland, England and the UK and findings from expert workshops held in Scotland, which identify four key policy areas for ‘inclusive growth’: skills, transport and housing for young people; city-regional governance; childcare; and place-making. These policies share with the ‘Foundational Economy’ an emphasis on everyday infrastructure and services, but add an emphasis on inter-generational justice and stress the importance of community empowerment as much as re-municipalisation. Factors enabling IG policy development include: the necessary political powers; a unifying political discourse and civic institutions; and inclusive governance and participatory democracy.

Political and Civic Institutions

The chapter breaks from the main narrative to discuss and explain various key political and civic institutions, shedding light on how different Athens was politically in the Hellenistic period. There is a survey of Classical Athenian radical democracy to show what the constitution used to be like, followed by a consideration of the restrictions on the constitution and political participation under Macedonian hegemony and Roman rule. There is also a discussion of two major civic institutions: the ephebeia and the guilds.

The Epigraphy of the ‘Greek Cities’

The inscriptions of the Ptolemaic period from the three ‘Greek cities’ of Naukratis and Alexandria in the Delta and Ptolemais in Upper Egypt illustrate the distinctive character of these foundations which contrasts with the indigenous towns of the Delta and the Nile Valley. They show some of the major instruments of Hellenization being introduced quite deliberately and explicitly in the form of civic administrative and governmental institutions. In particular, there is the opportunity in the epigraphic record to juxtapose these civic institutions with the progress of Hellenization and urbanization in the other Egyptian towns. There is also a significant number of important papyri which substantively complement the picture to be drawn from the epigraphic sources. This chapter discusses the evidence for the institutions of each of the three cities separately; the existence of citizen assemblies, councils, magistrates, and religious cults of Greek deities illuminates the broader picture of institutional Hellenization in the Ptolemaic period.

Akbar or Aurangzeb? Ethics, Empire, and Print Publics in Colonial India

In the 1870s, Indian news editors warned their readers of a series of crises threatening India. They saw the famines, wars, and poverty that they were describing as symptoms of the same illness: Colonial governors had failed to implement an ethical system of governance, and had therefore failed to create a healthy body politic, choosing to expend energy in punishing or censoring dissent when they should have been constructing more durable civic institutions. In North India, earlier Mughal traditions of political philosophy and governance offered a template to critique the current state. In drawing on these traditions, editors linked multiple registers of dissent, from simple ‘fables’ about emperors to more sophisticated arguments drawn from newly reinterpreted akhlaq texts, creating a print record of the multilingual, multivalent literary and oral worlds of Indian political thought. The figures of the Mughal emperors Akbar and Aurangzeb, representing the zenith and nadir of Mughal sovereignty, in turn linked popular and learned discussions on statecraft, good governance, and personal responsibility in an age of crisis. The press itself became a meeting point for multivalent discourses connecting South Asian publics, oral and literate, in their exploration of the nature of just rule in the context of empire, calling, in the process, new ‘publics’ into being.

Measuring Realistic and Symbolic Threats of COVID-19 and Their Unique Impacts on Well-Being and Adherence to Public Health Behaviors

COVID-19 threatens lives, livelihoods, and civic institutions. Although restrictive public health behaviors such as social distancing help manage its impact, these behaviors can further sever our connections to people and institutions that affirm our identities. Three studies ( N = 1,195) validated a brief 10-item COVID-19 Threat Scale that assesses (1) realistic threats to physical or financial safety and (2) symbolic threats to one’s sociocultural identity. Studies reveal that both realistic and symbolic threats predict higher distress and lower well-being and demonstrate convergent validity with other measures of threat sensitivity. Importantly, the two kinds of threats diverge in their relationship to restrictive public health behaviors: Realistic threat predicted greater self-reported adherence, whereas symbolic threat predicted less self-reported adherence to social disconnection behaviors. Symbolic threat also predicted using creative ways to affirm identity even in isolation. Our findings highlight how social psychological theory can be leveraged to understand and predict people’s behavior in pandemics.

When Poor Students Attend Rich Schools: Do Affluent Social Environments Increase or Decrease Participation?

College is a key pathway to political participation, and lower-income individuals especially stand to benefit from it given their lower political participation. However, rising inequality makes college disproportionately more accessible to high-income students. One consequence of inequality is a prevalence of predominantly affluent campuses. Colleges are thus not insulated from the growing concentration of affluence in American social spaces. We ask how affluent campus spaces affect college’s ability to equalize political participation. Predominantly affluent campuses may create participatory norms that especially elevate low-income students’ participation. Alternatively, they may create affluence-centered social norms that marginalize these students, depressing their participation. A third possibility is equal effects, leaving the initial gap unchanged. Using a large panel survey (201,011 students), controls on many characteristics, and tests for selection bias, we find that predominantly affluent campuses increase political participation to a similar extent for all income groups, thus leaving the gap unchanged. We test psychological, academic, social, political, financial, and institutional mechanisms for the effects. The results carry implications for the self-reinforcing link between inequality and civic institutions.