Political Hearts of Darkness: The Dark Triad as Predictors of Political Orientations and Interest in Politics

Background: This study investigated the relationships between the Dark Triad of personality (sub-clinical psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism) and four political variables: socio-religious conservatism, support for greater economic equality, overall liberal–conservative orientation, and interest in politics. A theoretical approach that focused on the influence of the Dark Triad in large groups was provided to interpret those relationships. Methodological issues found in previous research that related to the use of abbreviated scales to measure the dark traits and the use of unidimensional indicators of political orientations were addressed. Methods: A hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to determine whether any of the three dark traits could explain variance in the aforementioned political attributes over and above that accounted for by the Big Five, sex, age, and nationality, using the full personality scales and measures of political orientation that captured both social and economic liberalism–conservatism. Results: Machiavellianism uniquely predicted lower levels of socio-religious conservatism, and both Machiavellianism and narcissism uniquely predicted lower levels of overall conservatism. Conclusions: There were important links between the Dark Triad and politics.

Ambivalent fatherland: The Chinese National Salvation Movement in Malaya and Java, 1937–41

China's resistance to Japanese aggression escalated into a full-scale war in 1937. The continuously deteriorating situation stimulated the rise of Chinese nationalism in the diaspora communities worldwide. The Japanese invasion of China, accompanied by the emergence of the National Salvation Movement (NSM) in Southeast Asia, provided the overseas Chinese with a rare opportunity to re-examine their ‘Chineseness’, as well as their relationships with the colonial states and the increasingly self-aware indigenous populations. This research problematises traditional approaches that tend to regard the NSM as primarily driven by Chinese patriotism. Juxtaposing Malaya and Java at the same historical moment, the article argues that the emergence of the NSM was more than just a natural result of the rising Chinese nationalism. Local politics and the shifting political orientations of overseas Chinese communities also profoundly shaped how the NSM played out in different colonial states.

"friend-foe" opposition in Ukrainian linguoculture

The friend – foe dichotomy, as a special way of categorising reality, is at the heart of ethnic self-consciousness, building the world around a person. The interpretation "friend" and "foe" is invariably axiological. "Friend" refers to a personal possessor, a socio-cultural group that is identified based on various types of similarity, where "correct", "native", "close", "safe" is perceived as positive. The conceptual model "foe" is the opposition: everything "other", "strange", "unusual", "wrong" is perceived negative. The axiologiness of this opposition is relative and depends on the ethical attitudes of an ethnic group based on the conceptualisation of the friend – foe dichotomy from the standpoint of the binary opposition I – Other; the factors, mechanisms, and results of interaction between the components of the opposition are clarified; the content transformations of the friend – foe dichotomy are traced; the identification function of the latter is updated in the context of modernity. For Ukraine, where the identity development has happened to be incredibly complicated by the incongruity of value, foreign, and political orientations, the issue of borderline, "border strategies", the presence of the "friend" / "foe" dichotomy in the socio-cultural space is extremely relevant.

“Lifestyle, finitude, or inequality?”: Illness explanation in Kathlyn Conway’s and Arthur Frank’s cancer memoirs

The lifestyle model, which attributes etiological power and moral responsibility to the individual, is dominant in health promotion discourse. While sociologists rightly critique this model’s individualistic outlook, there has been insufficient distinction between the two anti-individualistic models that commonly inform their work: the well-known “sociological model” and the culturally influential but under-conceptualized model tentatively called the “finitude model.” Not only is there insufficient awareness of the different etiological causes (inequality and human fragility) and political orientations (redistribution and recognition) underlying the sociological and finitude models, but there is also insufficient recognition of how the finitude model may inform illness explanation. To raise awareness about the existence and analytical utility of the finitude model, I elucidate its core assumptions through a brief review of some influential texts in late-modern health politics. Further, I illustrate the empirical utility of the notion of the finitude model by analyzing how it is used to explain illness in Arthur Frank’s and Kathlyn Conway’s influential cancer memoirs. Thematic analysis of the memoirs produces two major findings. First, Frank and Conway rely on the finitude model to claim victimhood and blame the blamers. Second, they seem unaware of the double-edged character of such a model, which tends to downplay how social inequality shapes health. My analysis reveals the one-sidedness of both the finitude and sociological models, and that any illness explanation therefore needs to integrate both anti-individualistic models to challenge the lifestyle model successfully.

‘Disfigurations’ of Democracy? Pareto, Mosca and the Challenge of ‘Elite Theory’

Considering recent re-assessments of Pareto and Mosca, I discuss whether these thinkers’ socio-political orientations contribute to the ‘disfiguration’ of democracy (in: Urbinati, Democracy disfigured: opinion, truth, and the people, Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 2014) or provide a resource for the renewal of democratic institutions. Femia (Pareto and political theory, Routledge, Abingdon, 2006) presents Pareto as being in the “Machiavellian tradition of sceptical liberalism,” revealing the liberal potential of Pareto’s realist political theory. Finocchiaro (Beyond right and left, Yale, New Haven, London, 1999) ameliorates the conservative consequences of Mosca’s thought by reinterpreting him as a ‘democratic elitist,’ who holds a conception of political liberty “as a relationship such that authority flows from the masses to the elites.” Highlighting the significance of internal tensions within each thinker’s work foregrounded by these readings, between the causal primacy of psychic states and the ‘mutual dependence’ of social factors (Pareto), and between the elite principle and ‘balanced pluralism’ (Mosca), I ask whether the ‘sceptical liberal’ Pareto or the ‘democratic elitist’ Mosca elude Urbinati’s unpolitical, populist and plebiscitarian ‘disfigurations’ of democracy.

The Literary History of the Sahel

This chapter examines the singular relation between literature and politics as developed in the Sahel, and traces the specific literary configurations and cultural developments that derived from this relationship. In the wake of decolonization, and perhaps in contrast to other regions of the continent, the literary has dominated the cultural and political milieus of the Sahel, determined the political orientations of the newly emancipated territories at independence, and defined their cultural and social evolution. This relation to the literary has translated into the multiplication of solid literary networks, noticeable literary affinities and communities, and stimulated distinctive literary practices with the ambition of creating spaces in which literary dynamics and practices served social and political developments.

Democracy on the basis of Belarusian media (mid 2020 – early 2021)

The article in concerned with the stereotype of democracy in Belarusian journalism from mid-2020 to early 2021. The data come from printed and online sources, in Russian and Belarusian, of various political orientations. It is concluded that the stereotype has acquired a new profile in Belarusian public sphere.