Conflicting Modernities: Militarization and Islands

This chapter mainly points out how militarization as a bureaucratic and discursive “apparatus” results in a colonial modernization. Furthermore, the chapter establishes a direct link between military settlements – by various occupations – and a narrative of modernization and modernity. Both military protocols and the scope of the military activities contribute to a form of colonization and dependence, economically as well as culturally. Militarization is a wider concept involving at least two dimensions: the economic and political factors sustaining the expansion of military spending; and the social, cultural, and ideological dimension. However, the master narrative of modernization clashes with rising claims to autonomy in the local population that assert an alternative modernity.

Constrained Citizens? Ideological Structure and Conflict Extension in the US Electorate, 1980–2016

Past the half-century mark of Converse's (1964) field-defining essay, the nature of political ideology in the mass public and how it has changed in response to partisan polarization remains enigmatic. To test the ideological structure of US public opinion, I develop and implement a Bayesian dynamic ordinal item response theory model. In contrast to static scaling procedures, this method allows for changes in the mappings between issue attitudes and the underlying ideological dimension over time. The results indicate that over the last forty years, mass attitudes on a range of long-standing policy controversies better fit a unidimensional ideological structure. As among elites, the left–right dimension has come to encompass a wide range of policy, partisan, and value divides in the mass public. Further, these trends hold for voters at all levels of political sophistication. Widespread conflict extension appears to be a defining feature of mass polarization in contemporary US politics.

Taking ideology seriously in the time of plague: insights versus distractions

This article argues that insights from ideology theory shed valuable light on the political aspects of COVID-19 and help understand and categorise policy responses to it. Much of the debate on the politics of COVID-19 has been dominated by questions concerning populism, but this article contends that this is not a fruitful direction for understanding current developments. The argument advanced here is that populism is a hollow and incoherent ideological category and so does not provide a suitable departure point to explore the ideological dimension of the pandemic. On the other hand, a critical engagement with the dominant ideology of neoliberalism goes a long way to explain different kinds of political fallout from COVID-19. While neoliberalism is unfit for the challenge posed by the virus, identifying the ideological underpinnings of the neoliberal approach may help to grasp its implications and formulate urgently needed alternatives.

FORMULĂRI STILISTICE ÎN ARHITECTURA TIMIȘOAREI ȘI VÂRȘEȚULUI (SEC. XVIII-XX). STUDIU DE CAZ: PALATELE PRELAȚILOR ORTODOCȘI SÂRBI

Being monuments endowed with ideological dimension, the Orthodox Bishopric Serbijan palaces from Vârșeț and Timișoara present interesting stylistical evolutions, from 18th century’s late Baroque to 20th Century Viennese Secession. Symbolizing the power of Orthodox Church rulers, these constructions adopted the Catholic Baroque style, crossed through the Romantic period with the rebirth of neoclassical values and ended in what was configured at the beginning of the 20th century as the closure with the academic dimension and the introduction of the Secession style. The hypothesis of the paper states the importance of European artistic values in defining identity, as the case of these two palaces with their evolution, an evolution that culminated in synthesis. Art patronage from this perspective has implications for the evolution, as such, the two monuments illustrate Serbian religious authority and its reaction to the modern art. In this case the palaces stand as hallmarks for the ecclesiastical architecture of the Banat, a focal point in the general phenomenon.

RELIGIUSITAS PEREMPUAN MILENIAL BERCADAR DI TENGAH FENOMENA RADIKALISME-TERORISME

The appearance of veiled women in terrorist groups and acts of terrorism creates a negative stigma on other groups of veiled women. The trend of millennial women who are involved in acts of terror or suicide bombings and how to dress is in the pros and cons. The veil is still debated in the public. However, there are still many young women who wear the veil. This study aims to find and explain the motives, experiences and meanings of religiosity for veiled millennial women in the midst of the radicalism-terrorism phenomenon. This research method uses a phenomenological approach. The methods of data collection are interviews, observation and literature study. The subjects of this study were veiled women who were represented by a purposive sampling technique, namely based on certain criteria including: younger millennial (22-29 years old), they has used or is currently using the veil, they has read or heard studies about radicalism-terrorism, and they have negative stigma related to the use of the veil. The informants of this study found 5 people in the city of Mataram. Data obtained in the field by qualitative analysis and compared with several appropriate previous studies. The results show that the meaning of religiosity for millennial women with veils explains three dimensions, namely the intellectual dimension (religious knowledge), the experiential dimension (religious feeling), and the consequence dimension (religious effect). Meanwhile, veiled motivation comes from internal and external factors. The motivation can strengthen and change the decision to veil in the midst of the phenomenon of radicalism and terrorism. So there is no ideological dimension to the veiled decision.

Engineering care in pandemic technogovernance: The politics of care in China and South Korea’s COVID-19 tracking apps

This article critically examines South Korea and China’s COVID-19 tracking apps by bridging surveillance studies with feminist technoscience’s understanding of the “politics of care”. Conducting critical readings of the apps and textual analysis of discursive materials, we demonstrate how the ideological, relational, and material practices of the apps strategically deployed “care” to normalize a particular form of pandemic technogovernance in these two countries. In the ideological dimension, media and state discourse utilized a combination of vilifying and nationalist rhetoric that framed one’s acquiescence to surveillance as a demonstration of national belonging. Meanwhile, the apps also performed ambivalent roles in facilitating essential care services and mobilizing self-tracking activities, which contributed to the manufacturing of pseudonormality in these societies. In the end, we argue that the Chinese and South Korean governments managed to frame their aggressive surveillance infrastructure during COVID-19 as a form of paternalistic care by finessing the blurred boundaries between care and control.

5. Voting Decisions

This chapter analyses how citizens in Europe vote across elections. Elections are an integral part of democracy as they allow citizens to shape collective decision-making. The chapter addresses the issue of trying to explain why people vote in the first place. It also looks at the inequality of turnout between citizens: why do some people just not bother to vote at all? The chapter also looks at different explanations of vote choice. This is achieved by introducing the proximity model of voting which assumes that voters and parties can be aligned on one ideological dimension. It presupposes that voters will vote for the party that most closely resembles their own ideological position. Complications can be added to this model, however, that consider the role of retrospective performance evaluations and affective attachments to social groups and political parties. The institutional context also needs to be considered, though, as this can influence voters’s decision-making.

Membangun Keharmonisan Antar Etnis Lokal Gorontalo dengan Etnis Bali dalam Mewujudkan Negara Multikulturalisme di Desa Tri Rukun Kecamatan Wonosari Kabupaten Boalemo Provinsi Gorontalo dan Implikasinya terhadap Ketahanan Wilayah

The research objective is expected to find out how the Tri Rukun village government efforts in building harmony between Gorontalo local ethnicities and Balinese ethnicity in realizing a multiculturalism state and its implications for regional resilience. The research was conducted using a qualitative approach. Based on the results of the study, it shows that the harmonious relationship between the local ethnic Gorontalo and the Balinese is in a very strong qualitative position in realizing a multiculturalism country, because the indicators of competition, acculturation, cooperation, accommodation, assimilation, conflict are not found in Tri Rukun village. Likewise with the indicators of regional resilience, the ideological dimension, the political dimension, the economic dimension, the socio-cultural dimension and the defense and security dimension, there are no threats and obstacles in realizing a multiculturalism state. Thus the results of research in Tri Rukun village show that the condition of regional resilience has a very strong index in building a multiculturalism country where the Tri Rukun village community highly upholds egalitarian attitudes, tolerance, cooperation, autonomy and accommodative attitudes as the principles of a multiculturalism state. Hopefully the achievements of the Boalemo district government will succeed in maintaining the harmonious relationship that has been achieved by the Tri Rukun village government in realizing a multiculturalism country can be maintained.Tujuan penelitian diharapkan dapat mengetahui bagaimana upaya pemerintah desa Tri Rukun dalam membangun keharmonisan antar etnis lokal Gorontalo dengan etnis Bali dalam mewujudkan negara multikulturalisme dan implikasinya terhadap ketahanan wilayah. Penelitian dilakukan dengan menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian menunjukan hubungan harmonis antar etnis lokal Gorontalo dengan etnis Bali berada pada posisi kualitatif sangat tangguh didalam mewujudkan negara multikulturalisme, karena indikator kompetisi, akulturasi, kerjasama, akomodasi, asimilasi, konflik tidak ditemukan di desa Tri Rukun. Demikian halnya dengan indikator ketahanan wilayah dimensi ideologi, dimensi politik, dimensi ekonomi, dimensi sosial budaya dan dimensi pertahanan dan keamanan tidak ditemukan gangguan ancaman dan hambatan dalam mewujudkan negara multikulturalisme. Dengan demikian hasil penelitian di desa Tri Rukun menunjukan kondisi ketahanan wilayah memiliki indeks sangat tangguh dalam membangun negara multikulturalisme dimana masyarakat desa Tri Rukun sangat menjunjung tinggi sikap egalitarian, sikap toleransi, sikap kerjasama, sikap otonom dan sikap akomodatif sebagai prinsip dari negara multikulturalisme. Semoga prestasi pemerintah kabupaten Boalemo berhasil menjaga hubungan harmonis yang telah dicapai oleh pemerintah desa Tri Rukun dalam mewujudkan negara multikulturalisme dapat dipertahankan.

Citizen Representation and Electoral Systems

One common way to think about citizen representation is in terms of the ideological distance between citizens and their representatives. Are political elites ideologically congruent with citizen preferences? Electoral systems are an especially important political institution to consider when studying citizen representation because they influence the size and ideological composition of party systems, how votes are translated into legislative seats, the types of governments that form after elections, and the types of policies that get implemented. In effect, electoral institutions affect each stage of the representation process as one moves from citizen preferences to policy outcomes. Research on ideological congruence indicates that electoral rules can cause distortions in citizen-elite congruence to emerge and disappear as one moves through the representation process. In this regard, studies show that proportional electoral systems enjoy a representational advantage over majoritarian systems when it comes to legislative congruence (the ideological distance between the median legislative party and the median citizen) but that this advantage disappears when it comes to government congruence (the ideological distance between the government and the median citizen). Although research on citizen-elite ideological congruence has made significant progress over the last two decades, several new lines of inquiry are still worth pursuing. One is to move beyond the traditional focus on the left–right ideological dimension to evaluate citizen representation in a truly multidimensional framework. Another is to develop a unified theoretical framework for thinking about ideological congruence and ideological responsiveness. For too long, scholars have conducted studies of citizen-elite congruence and responsiveness in relative isolation, even though they address fundamentally related issues. In terms of measurement issues, progress can be made by developing better instruments to help locate citizens and elites on a common metric and paying more attention to the policymaking dynamics associated with minority and coalition governments. Existing studies of ideological congruence focus on the United States and the parliamentary democracies of Western Europe. Scholars might fruitfully extend the study of citizen representation to presidential democracies, other regions of the world, and even authoritarian regimes. Among other things, this may require that scholars think about how to conceptualize and measure citizen representation in countries where parties are not programmatic or where elites are not necessarily elected.

Two Strands of Nationalism: A Narrative on the Mizo War of Independence

The Mizo War of Independence, also labelled as the Mizo Insurgency Movement, spanned over a period of nearly 20 years, during which significant events and developments occurred, which greatly shaped and moulded the socio-political landscape of the state. Accounts and narratives of what took place during those turbulent years are aplenty. However, not much literature or narrative could be found about the ideological dimension of the movement and its ramifications. Hence, the main aim of the article is to emphasize on the underlying two strands of nationalism, that is, the nationalistic ideals pursued by the Mizo National Front (MNF) as an organization, on the one hand, and the strand of nationalism championed by its president and leader, Laldenga, on the other hand. The first part of the article examines the strand of nationalism of the MNF, the main perpetrator of the independence movement and the role of its founding president, Laldenga, in formulating that ideology. The second section of the article traces and analyses the so-called ‘Laldenga’s nationalism’. Finally, the article attempts to draw conclusion on how the two strands of nationalism impacted the outcome of the Mizo War of Independence as a whole.