Legal battles and divisions weaken Senegal opposition

Significance A web of legal cases surrounding key opposition figures, as well as rejections of several opposition candidate lists, has turned the pre-election period into a multi-front political battle. These elections will be a key milestone in the run-up to July’s legislative elections and the 2024 presidential contest in which President Macky Sall may seek a third term. Impacts A flawed and violent election would add to growing concerns about Senegal’s democratic trajectory. An opposition victory in Dakar could potentially weaken Sall’s 2024 ambitions. Divisions within the ruling coalition may threaten Sall’s chances in the upcoming legislative and later presidential elections.

How Kant was Never a Wolffian, or Estimating Forces to Enforce Influxus Physicus

This chapter aims to show that Kant has never been a Wolffian but started his career precisely from the core problem of the Pietists to secure the influxus physicus and thereby liberum arbitrium. I will first present the battle of Pietist and other Lutheran theologians against Wolffianism as a theological-political battle, which explains its extension as well as its fierceness. Then I will explain how a metaphysical hypothesis such as Leibniz’s pre-established harmony could become the subject of a theological-political debate in the Protestant area of the Empire lasting for decades. Only in the third section I will situate Kant’s very first, but quite lengthy book in this context and contrast his declared intention to solve the controversy between Leibnizians and Cartesians about the estimation of forces with his actual metaphysical approach to save influxus physicus. It will be shown that Kant’s approach lacks any familiarity with modern mechanics and mathematics. Finally, I will point to the contemporary reception of Kant’s first book which confirms my evaluation.

Vaccine Hesitancy in the Current Landscape of the COVID-19 Pandemic

For a procedure so commonplace in a doctor’s office, so critical to the prevention of disease, and so marred by controversy, it seemed odd that in my third year of medical school, I had yet to perform a vaccination. For that reason, I was very excited for my first rotation in family medicine. One could even say I was a little overzealous to learn about vaccines. To my credit, as someone who studied healthcare economics, there is a lot to love about the social return on investment of vaccines. Two weeks into my rotation I came across my first case of vaccine hesitancy. They were parents who had immigrated to Canada and were skeptical of vaccines. They wanted to pick and choose which vaccines their child would receive. These people are called the ‘vaccine hesitant’ and, unlike the devout ‘vaccine deniers’, they are the crucial swing states in a political battle for the health of our country. [1]

Organizing the precarious: Autonomous work, real democracy and ecological precarity

In 2008, just as the movement of the precarious seemed to be winning one political battle after the next, the fight against precarization suddenly dwindled. The cycle of struggles of the precarious that began in 2000 had seemingly come to an end. Ironically this was also the moment that precarity as a concept became widely known in popular opinion, media commentary and academia. This paper focuses on the movement of the precarious from its inception in the early 2000s to its decline in 2008 and its reappearance in response to the economic crisis through the widespread mobilizations for “real democracy” between 2008 and 2014. Drawing from our experience as participants in the movement of the precarious, and theoretical discussions that have shaped the politics of the movement, the paper adopts a retrospective approach to investigate the metamorphoses of a consciousness of precarity and of the underlying organizing practices that lead to its demise and subsequent incarnations. It reconstructs precarity as theory in action that lives through the organizational ontologies of the movement of the precarious.

Capitalists against financialization: The battle over German pension funds

Despite renewed interest in the role of business in shaping the welfare state, we still know little about how factions of capital adapt their strategies and translate these into political infighting and coalition building. Based on a detailed process tracing analysis of the political battle over German pension funds, this paper shows that cleavages within business do not necessarily run along the lines of finance vs. non-finance. While ‘financial challengers’ (banks and investment companies) advocated financialized pension funds, ‘financial incumbents’ (insurers) defended a conservative understanding of old age provision. Tremendous political momentum towards financialization notwithstanding, challengers remained largely unsuccessful. Incumbents elicited support from the wider business community by adjusting their strategic goals and engaging in discursive reformulations to effectively fight pension financialization from within capital. To accommodate such competition politics and coalition building, the paper argues for a more dynamic understanding of business strategizing and highlights the importance of discursive political strategies. It shows that some capitalists may act as antagonists of elements of financialization and problematizes the actual mechanisms of coalition building through which business plurality affects political outcomes.

Religion, Political Contestation and Democracy: Kiai's Role as Vote Broker in Madurese Local Political Battle

This study aimed to know how the kiai as religious figures who had the highest social status in Pamekasan Regency carried out their work as vote brokers. This study was a qualitative research with a case study method. The research depended on verbal data and information of vote raising done by public figures in a Madurese local election. Intensive interview with some kiai as the key informants was done to get the intended information. They were chosen as primary data sources because they were public religious figures whom the people adhere to. The result showed that kiai with their social capital as vote brokers mobilizing the masses properly attracted political bosses who competed in the local election. Kiai with their religiosity played as an intermediary in delivering material for intended voters. However, it was unethical when the kiai as a religious figure provided material for voters. As a local figure who has a good image in a community, kiai became a major element in the progress of the democratic process. It can be concluded that the kiai as a highly respected religious figure contributed to the democracy to be well organized in the future.

Kelsen’s Style of Political Thinking

What is political realism other than a form of political analysis and speaking truth to power? What is the national interest other than an ideological fiction of political idealism? The concluding chapter ties two intellectual halves together: there is Kelsen the gentle liberal and champion of open society ideals, and there is Kelsen the no-nonsense realist of political and international life. The synthesised progressive realist doesn’t believe in magic bullets or easy formulas: when it comes to the question of progress, there is the real You and the real Me, and in between, in some intimate place, is the twilight zone where the real political battle rages. What real realists do is take this struggle for power and peace to the international arena and work unceasingly towards global reform.

A batalha política pela cidade: rupturas e continuidades nos trajetos de protestos em junho de 2013 na cidade de São Paulo / The political battle for the city: Ruptures and continuities in itineraries of protests of June 2013 in the city of São Paulo

O artigo investiga a variedade de trajetos das manifestações percorridos por uma gama de atores coletivos presentes no ciclo de confrontos de 2013, apresentando os mecanismos responsáveis pela ocupação, concentração e dispersão de protestos no espaço urbano. Quais foram os obstáculos e constrangimentos para a execução dos trajetos de protesto em junho de 2013? Através da análise espacial dos protestos, foi possível elencar os mecanismos pelos quais os diferentes usos situacionais do espaço urbano produzem e disseminam os trajetos de protesto. O argumento principal é de que a dispersão dos trajetos no cenário urbano paulistano resultou de dois fatores: 1) a morfologia espacial da cidade; 2) as disputas entre atores políticos (polícia vs. manifestantes; e ativistas com diferentes agendas) pelo controle de espaços da cidade visando objetivos específicos.AbstractThe article explores the variety of paths taken by a range of collective actors in the 2013 cycle of confrontations, presenting the mechanisms responsible for the occupation, concentration and dispersion of protests in urban space. What were the obstacles and constraints to the execution of the protest routes in June 2013? Through the spatial analysis of the protests, it was possible to list the mechanisms by which the different situational uses of urban space produce and disseminate the protest routes. The main argument is that the dispersion of routes in the urban scenario of São Paulo resulted from two factors: 1) the spatial morphology of the city; 2) disputes between political actors (police vs. demonstrators; and activists with different agendas) for the control of city spaces aiming at specific objectives.

Bench over Ballot: The Fight for Judicial Supremacy and the New Constitutional Politics, 1910–1916

The nature of American constitutional politics was forever changed during the Progressive Era. In the nineteenth century, the process of constitutional interpretation was a vague and decentralized enterprise balanced between the courts and the public square. The meaning of the Constitution was decided as much at the polls or on the battlefield as in court opinions. This balance started to give way at the turn of the century as federal courts began asserting greater authority in the definition of constitutional bounds. “Bench over Ballot” illustrates how the assertion of judicial supremacy in the Progressive Era precipitated a fight that upended the traditional dynamic of American politics. Populist-progressives championed the people's ultimate right to correct judicial decisions while traditionalist-conservatives stood for judicial supremacy to ensure a “government of laws.” The outcome of the political battle in 1912 was a consensus between Wilsonian progressives and Taftian conservatives in favor of judicial supremacy that banished the notion of popular supremacy and transformed the nature of constitutional politics from a popular, decentralized process to a vicious battle over the personal composition of the bench—a phenomenon deeply familiar over a century later.

US political battle over social media will grow

Significance The boycott is the most coordinated yet against Facebook over hate speech and misinformation on its platforms. Facebook and Twitter have become lightning rods for challenges to social media platforms and their Section 230 exemption from liability for content they carry. Impacts Revision of Section 230 protections is likely, although not without legal challenge. Social media’s pervasiveness and profitability make structural reform or extensive regulation unlikely. Many small direct-to-consumer businesses built on Facebook will have to stay loyal, risking consumer backlash. Influencer advertising will come under stricter scrutiny from brands and regulators. US regulation of social media will not diminish Washington’s opposition to international digital taxes on US tech companies.