Exploring the political pulse of a country using data science tools

In this paper we illustrate the use of Data Science techniques to analyse complex human communication. In particular, we consider tweets from leaders of political parties as a dynamical proxy to political programmes and ideas. We also study the temporal evolution of their contents as a reaction to specific events. We analyse levels of positive and negative sentiment in the tweets using new tools adapted to social media. We also train a Fully-Connected Neural Network (FCNN) to recognise the political affiliation of a tweet. The FCNN is able to predict the origin of the tweet with a precision in the range of 71–75%, and the political leaning (left or right) with a precision of around 90%. This study is meant to be viewed as an example of how to use Twitter data and different types of Data Science tools for a political analysis.

Two Nations, Different Regions, Same Challenges: Legal and Political Analysis of Internal Security Threats in Nigeria and Pakistan

This study is a modest but objective comparative evaluation of internal security threats facing two sub-regional large countries of Africa and South Asia-Nigeria and Pakistan. Considering the fact that ethnicity, sectarianism and economic instability are fundamental variables of internal security threats in both countries, the study argued that religious extremism has created an unenviable image of both nations in the eyes of the rest of the world, undoubtedly, this has affected both nations adversely. The study also identified inter-regional grievances as potential causes of damages to both federations. Also identified is ethno-sectarian problem as a major security threat to both nations. This in the opinion of the authors will remain a huge impediment to the goals of economic prosperity to both nations. Consequently, the focus of this study is to examine interdependence of these multifaceted challenges and their overall impact on internal security in both countries. To achieve this, the study employed qualitative research method in which analytical approach was used to examine the similarities in the security challenges in Nigeria and Pakistan. Structural questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection. The employment of thematic analytic approach was adopted to analyse data collected for the study. The study concludes among others, the need for both countries to individually address these national security threats and find viable solutions to the problems of socio-economic and political reforms and unemployment within a reasonable timeframe to mitigate future threats.Keywords: Internal Security; Ethnicity; Sectarianism; Challenges Dua Bangsa Satu Tantangan: Analisis Politik dan Hukum pada Ancaman Keamanan dalam Negeri (Internal Security) di Nigeria dan PakistanAbstrak Penelitian ini merupakan evaluasi komparatif sederhana namun objektif terhadap ancaman keamanan internal yang dihadapi dua negara besar sub-regional Afrika dan Asia Selatan-Nigeria dan Pakistan. Mempertimbangkan fakta bahwa etnisitas, sektarianisme, dan ketidakstabilan ekonomi adalah variabel fundamental dari ancaman keamanan internal di kedua negara. Penelitian ini berpendapat bahwa ekstremisme agama telah menciptakan citra yang tidak baik dari kedua negara di mata dunia. Tidak diragukan lagi, ini telah mempengaruhi kedua negara secara merugikan. Penelitian ini juga mengidentifikasi kasus-kasus antar-regional sebagai penyebab potensial kerusakan pada kedua federasi. Juga diidentifikasi masalah etno-sektarian sebagai ancaman keamanan utama bagi kedua negara, dimana akan tetap menjadi hambatan besar bagi tujuan kemakmuran ekonomi kedua negara. Fokus penelitian ini adalah untuk menguji saling ketergantungan dari tantangan beragam ini dan dampaknya secara keseluruhan terhadap keamanan internal di kedua negara. Untuk mendapatkan data tersebut, penelitian ini menggunakan metode penelitian kualitatif dimana pendekatan analitik digunakan untuk menguji kesamaan dalam tantangan keamanan di Nigeria dan Pakistan. Kuesioner struktural digunakan sebagai instrumen pengumpulan data. Penggunaan pendekatan analitik tematik diadopsi untuk menganalisis data yang dikumpulkan untuk penelitian ini. Studi ini menyimpulkan antara lain, perlunya kedua negara untuk secara individual mengatasi ancaman keamanan nasional ini dan menemukan solusi yang layak untuk masalah reformasi sosial-ekonomi dan politik dan pengangguran dalam jangka waktu yang wajar untuk mengurangi ancaman di masa depan.Kata Kunci: Keamanan dalam Negeri; Etnisitas; Sektarianisme; Tantangan Две нации, разные регионы, одинаковые вызовы: правовой и политический анализ угроз внутренней безопасности в Нигерии и Пакистане АбстрактныйЭто исследование представляет собой скромную, но объективную сравнительную оценку угроз внутренней безопасности, с которыми сталкиваются две субрегиональные крупные страны Африки и Южной Азии - Нигерия и Пакистан. Учитывая тот факт, что этническая принадлежность, сектантство и экономическая нестабильность являются фундаментальными переменными угроз внутренней безопасности в обеих странах, в исследовании утверждается, что религиозный экстремизм создал незавидный имидж обеих стран в глазах остального мира, несомненно, это повлияло на обе нации неблагоприятно. Исследование также определило межрегиональные жалобы как потенциальные причины ущерба для обеих федераций. Также определена этно-сектантская проблема как серьезная угроза безопасности для обеих стран. Это, по мнению авторов, останется огромным препятствием на пути достижения целей экономического процветания обеих стран. Следовательно, целью данного исследования является изучение взаимозависимости этих многогранных вызовов и их общего воздействия на внутреннюю безопасность в обеих странах. Для достижения этой цели в исследовании использовался качественный метод исследования, в котором использовался аналитический подход для изучения сходства проблем безопасности в Нигерии и Пакистане. Структурная анкета использовалась в качестве инструмента для сбора данных. Для анализа данных, собранных для исследования, был использован тематический аналитический подход. В исследовании, среди прочего, делается вывод о необходимости для обеих стран индивидуально противодействовать этим угрозам национальной безопасности и находить жизнеспособные решения проблем социально-экономических и политических реформ и безработицы в разумные сроки для смягчения будущих угроз.Ключевые слова: внутренняя безопасность; Этническая принадлежность; Сектантство; Вызовы

Election preferences of the inhabitants of West Pomerania in local elections in the Third Republic of Poland

Western Pomerania was said to be called as a stronghold of the left, for the Democratic Left Alliance both in the 1990s and at the beginning of the 21st century achieved some of the best results in the country. Only after the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2005 and the local government elections in 2006, the electoral preferences changed towards the center of the political scene. The Civic Platform of the Republic of Poland turned out to be the change, Law and Justice to a lesser extent. The article presents a political analysis of the voting preferences of the inhabitants of West Pomerania in the local government elections with regard to the three mentioned parties. The aim of the research was to analyze the direction in which the electorate goes. It was checked whether the SLD was permanently eliminated and how strong the dominance of the PO was. Furthermore it was examined whether PiS is a real threat to the PO RP and whether the SLD has a chance to regain its lost position. It seems that regardless of the attempts made, the position of the SLD after the 2006 elections is stable and there are no indications that the Alliance could dominate the analyzed region again. However, in spite of the fact that since 2006 the PO enjoys high support, since 2014 PiS has been achieving better and better results, depriving the PO RP hegemon in its position in 2006–2014.

Entropy Balancing for Continuous Treatments

Interest in evaluating the effects of continuous treatments has been on the rise recently. To facilitate the estimation of causal effects in this setting, the present paper introduces entropy balancing for continuous treatments (EBCT) – an intuitive and user-friendly automated covariate balancing scheme – by extending the original entropy balancing methodology of Hainmueller, J. 2012. “Entropy Balancing for Causal Effects: A Multivariate Reweighting Method to Produce Balanced Samples in Observational Studies.” Political Analysis 20 (1): 25–46. In order to estimate balancing weights, the proposed approach solves a globally convex constrained optimization problem, allowing for computationally efficient software implementation. EBCT weights reliably eradicate Pearson correlations between covariates (and their transformations) and the continuous treatment variable. As uncorrelatedness may not be sufficient to guarantee consistent estimates of dose–response functions, EBCT also allows to render higher moments of the treatment variable uncorrelated with covariates to mitigate this issue. Empirical Monte-Carlo simulations suggest that treatment effect estimates using EBCT display favorable properties in terms of bias and root mean squared error, especially when balance on higher moments of the treatment variable is sought. These properties make EBCT an attractive method for the evaluation of continuous treatments. Software implementation is available for Stata and R.

Linguocultural Organization of the International Broadcasting in Russia Today

In modern political and socio-cultural realities, a special role and importance are assigned to international broadcasting as a technology for positioning a content-producing country in the external environment, i. e. the global media space. The subject of this study is the explication of the specifics of the linguocultural organization of international broadcasting. The experience of Russia Today was taken as the flagship of international broadcasting in the Russian segment of the media space, through its activities influencing the formation of the geopolitical situation in the modern globalizing world. A complex of methods was used: historical and political analysis, structural analysis, contextual analysis, secondary analysis of sociological and statistical data. The empirical base was made up of four editions of the Sputnik Agency (Sputnik International, Sputnik Polska, Sputnik Trkiye, and Sputnik Belarus), representing various linguocultures - with differentiated ethnic and religious characteristics that have not only linguistic but also cultural manifestations in general. Based on the results of the study, it is concluded that the linguocultural organization of international broadcasting is considered as a means of implementing the diplomatic mission of the state-broadcaster with soft power tools in the globalizing world. It is based on the representation of positioning content, taking into account ethnicity, religion together with the linguistic and cultural characteristics of the audience. Both the effectiveness of promoting program statements and ideas and strengthening the countrys geopolitics depend on the degree of linguocultural orientation of international broadcasting activities.

Civic Identity: Diversity of Meanings and Achievement of Solidarity

The concept of identity reflects the ongoing shifts in political theories when external parameters that did not previously fall into the optics of political research become a part of political reflection and political analysis. Emphasizing sociocultural issues captures not only the departure from the linear normativity of political theory and pragmatics but also the search for modern explanatory models that cannot be reduced merely to institutional determinism. The controversy and ambiguity of the civic identity concept are imposed on the need for interpreting the formation of civic communities in the newly emerged independent countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union (on the example of Russia and Armenia), including the possibilities of protest and project identity. Methodologically the article is based on the perception that the construction of civic identity cannot be reduced to the normative understanding only. The authors bring out the causal complexes that predetermine the construction of civic identity, while also highlighting the differences in how civic communities and their value focuses are perceived and constructed in Russia and Armenia. The authors also define the general features of civic identity, which can be described as a common basis of solidarity, the removal of particularity and a shared vision of the future.

Regional Complex of Southeast Asia: A Case of Applied Analysis Focused on the Situation in Myanmar

This paper uses the method of applied analysis of regional complexes developed at the Centre for Comprehensive Chinese Studies and Regional Projects, MGIMO University (Moscow, Russia). Its scientific relevance is defined by the importance of understanding the international and political situation in and around Myanmar. The aim of this study is a scientific exploration of the Rohingya crisis by means of applied methods of regional analysis, designed by the author. This methodology aims to trace scenarios of the development of international and political situations in the region based on the types of interactions within the Southeast Asian regional complex. The article offers the authors own definition of regional complex that builds on the works of Alexei D. Voskressenski, introduces an algorithm of scenario analysis, outlines six ideal types of regional complexes, and defines stable and unstable types of regional complexes. The first part of the article is devoted to current approaches in the study of regional problems in International Relations and World Regional Studies; the second part describes the authors conception of applied international political analysis of regional complexes; and the third part contains an example of the application of scenario analysis to specific regional and domestic affairs - in this case, the contemporary situation in Myanmars Rakhine State. The research yields the following results: 1) by using a combination of the methods of news monitoring and event analysis, the author collected information on political processes in Rakhine over the last five years; 2) this information was arranged according to the matrix compiled by the author, which characterized the situation development according to the negative (-5-1) and positive (+1+5) scenarios; 3) based on the results of the aforesaid analysis, the author comes to a conclusion on the character and intensity of the Rohingya crisis and describes possible ways of its settlement.

A Micro-Political Analysis of Local Governance in Nigeria: The Case of Irepodun Local Government Authority

The study examined local government autonomy and local government service delivery in Nigeria. the study discovered that, Nigerian local government needs to be autonomous in the discharge of its statutory responsibility, if ongoing agitation for local government autonomy from different quarters in Nigeria is given an approval, this will strengthen local government’s service delivery. The study discovered that some states in Nigeria oppose local government autonomy due to political and economic considerations. The study further revealed that Irepodun local government (the micro-case study) in Nigeria is not totally autonomous. Although, local governance is transparent and accountable in Irepodun Local Government, especially in the identification, formulation and execution of its projects, Irepodun local government authority has a huge financial challenge in carrying out service delivery. The study therefore recommends that; the state joint local government account should be abolished from the Nigerian constitution to enable allocation of funds directly to the local governments from Federation account. they should also put a stop to the persistence deduction from the monthly allocation of local governments. Again, states should henceforth be made to remit regularly the constitutional 10% of their internally generated revenue to the local government authorities. Irepodun local government and other local government authorities in Nigeria emplace more efforts on sustainable wealth creation rather than depending solely on the grants from the federal and state governments.