How the Perceived Language Status of Brunca Affects Resource Allocation in Costa Rica

Beginning with the conquest and colonization of the land that now comprises Costa Rica, the Indigenous peoples and their cultures have suffered great losses. One of the greatest losses is to their languages. One language in particularly grave danger is Brunca. While Indigenous languages are being acknowledged worldwide and within Costa Rica, the Costa Rican government has not provided the necessary resources to maintain them. This chapter incorporates recent field research on Brunca's language vitality into a discussion on the disconnect between government rhetoric and the actual linguistic situation of Brunca.

Strategies of non-governmental organizations’ activity in Hungary in terms of the migration crisis

The general purposes of this research are attempts to trace the changes in migration policy and government rhetoric in Hungary, and their impact on the non-governmental organizations’ activities (NGOs) in the sphere of migrants’ integration. As a result of this research work, it is revealed that the initiation of anti-migration state rhetoric, has led to a number of NGOs having to adapt their activities to the new political conditions, while continuing to help migrants, and starting to respond to it with an anti- government information campaign.

“Ask for More Time”: Big Data Chronopolitics in the Australian Welfare Bureaucracy

Since 2016, welfare recipients in Australia have been subject to the Online Compliance Intervention (OCI), implemented through the national income support agency, Centrelink. This is a big data initiative, matching reported income to tax records to recoup welfare overpayments. The OCI proved controversial, notably for a “reverse onus,” requiring that claimants disprove debts, and for data-matching design leading frequently to incorrect debts. As algorithmic governance, the OCI directs attention to the chronopolitics of contemporary welfare bureaucracies. It outsources labor previously conducted by Centrelink to clients, compelling them to submit documentation lest debts be raised against them. It imposes an active wait against a deadline on those issued debt notifications. Belying government rhetoric about the accessibility of the digital state, the OCI demonstrates how automation exacerbates punitive welfare agendas, through transfers of time, money, and labor whose combined effects are such as to occupy the time of people experiencing poverty.

Authoritarian Audiences, Rhetoric, and Propaganda in International Crises: Evidence from China

How do government rhetoric and propaganda affect mass reactions in international crises? Using two scenario-based survey experiments in China, one hypothetical and one that selectively reminds respondents of recent events, we assess how government statements and propaganda impact Chinese citizens’ approval of their government's performance in its territorial and maritime disputes. We find evidence that citizens disapprove more of inaction after explicit threats to use force, suggesting that leaders can face public opinion costs akin to audience costs in an authoritarian setting. However, we also find evidence that citizens approve of bluster—vague and ultimately empty threats—suggesting that talking tough can provide benefits, even in the absence of tough action. In addition, narratives that invoke future success to justify present restraint increase approval, along with frames that emphasize a shared history of injustice at the hands of foreign powers.

Muslim–Christian Conversion in Modern Russia and the Idea of Russia as a Eurasian Islamo-Christian Space

This article examines conversion between Islam and Russian Orthodoxy in contemporary Russia. The author tests the idea that Russia historically constituted an Islamo-Christian Eurasian space, and that this reality has now been revived in the hermeneutic self-perception of government rhetoric as well as in the self-understanding of converts from both religious communities. He concludes that this “hermeneutic space” is real (though not exclusive), and is expressed both in the syncretistic practice of individuals and within communities. However, instead of seeing the Eurasian space as essentialist, the author gives “Eurasianism” a philosophical reconstruction, viewing it as an inter-subjective mental hermeneutic that nonetheless has reality and causality in shaping individual and collective religious identity in Russia today.

Introduction

During the 2008 US presidential campaign, I was in La Habana listening to Cubans of all races tell me a black man could never be elected president of the United States of America. The prediction was no doubt couched in decades of government rhetoric that proclaims the United States to be the prime example of racism and marginalization of blacks. Racism is designated as a problem that resides outside of the island’s borders, thus negating the significance of race in Cuba. Despite the skepticism concerning the United States electing a black president and the dominant discourse that denies the implications of racial identity in Cuba, many ...