Authoritarian Regime Stability in Uzbekistan under Patronal President Islam Karimov

This paper investigates the nature of Uzbekistan’s political system under President Islam Karimov through the lenses of patronal presidentialism to explain the factors conducive to the durability of the current regime. The paper argues that the longevity of the authoritarian regime in Uzbekistan can be best understood by a methodology that reconciles the propositions of institutional analysis of authoritarian rule with conventional methods of maintaining power such as coercion and patronage. Revealing the limitation of mainstream literature that overemphasizes neopatrimonialism and informality to understand domestic politics, the paper asserts that patronal president Islam Karimov assumed multiple instruments of power at the intersection of state and economy, which ensured regime stability in Uzbekistan until his death in 2016.

‘Mind the Gap’: Assessing Differences between Brazilian and Mainstream IR Journals in Methodological Approaches

In this article, we assess the methodological approaches employed in articles published in Brazilian and global mainstream IR journals in order to observe the differences between the two. To this end, we compare the methodological tools applied in research articles published in the top two Brazilian journals (Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional and Contexto Internacional) vis-à-vis two other top international influential mainstream publications (International Organization and World Politics), from the year 2009 to 2019. By undertaking a Systematic Literature Review, we surveyed a total of 955 articles. Our research concluded that Brazilian IR scholarship differs from the mainstream literature because (1) most articles do not mention the mobilized methods during their analyses, (2) the field of IR presents more non- and post-positivist approaches, and (3) contrary to the mainstream outlets, quantitative methods are rarely employed in Brazil.

Affective Responses to Image Color Combinations

Responses to colored patterns were collected for a group of 60 naive participants. We explicitly aimed at affective responses, rather than aesthetic judgments, so this is not ‘color harmony’ proper. Patterns were mainly spatially highly structured compositions, the color palettes reminiscent of what is found in generic ‘colorist’ art. Color combinations systematically cover mono-, di-, and trichromatic chromatic chords, whereas there was always an additional achromatic component. This sets the research apart from the bulk of the mainstream literature on ‘color harmony.’ Various ways of analysis are compared. Clustering methods reveal that the responses are highly structured through the teal–orange (cool–warm) dimension. Clustering reveals a large group of mutually concordant participants and various small, idiosyncratic groups. When the data is coarse-grained, retaining only a limited red–blue–yellow palette, the group as a whole appears quite concordant. It is evident that responses are systematic, thus the notion of a universal affective response to color combinations gains some credibility. The precise affective responses are specific because constrained by the seven categories used in the experiment. Thus, the systematic structure is perhaps to be understood as the generic result. We discuss tangencies with various traits found with ‘colorist’ art styles.

Communicative Perspectives on Strategic Organization

While in the past, perspectives that focus on language and communication have perhaps not received the attention they deserve in the mainstream literature in strategy and organization, interest in this area has been growing in recent years. The present essay serves to introduce a collection of insightful papers (independently submitted and reviewed, but brought together in this themed issue) that offer an opportunity to reflect on the contributions of a rich variety of research perspectives on communication to research in strategic organization. Building on the seven contributions featured in this issue, we show how communicative perspectives speak to questions of the who, how, what, and what then, of strategy. We then discuss dualisms that underpin research on strategic organization adopting a communicative lens and propose directions for future work that might bridge these divides.

Yogic Tradition and Well-being

This paper delineates the concept of well-being in modern psychological literature, the variety of pathways studied and its relationship with meaning and spirituality. It further discusses the cultural criticism of modern study of well-being and makes a case for insights from non-western cultures to be included in the mainstream literature. It further discusses the various types of happiness as well as pathways towards them, as discussed in the Indian tradition. These ideas have been substantiated by empirical research and some of the results have been presented in this chapter. It further presents a yogic psycho-spiritual model, based on thematic analysis of core yogic texts, which may be utilized in future for well-being interventions.

Flowering at Sunset

Through an examination of remarriage and repartnering among the elderly, this chapter explores the occurrence of later-life cohabitation, the issues it raises for participants, and the intergenerational considerations it generates. Whereas the mainstream literature tends to treat remarriage or cohabitation among older persons as a private matter between the couples, the Chinese cases discussed in the chapter provide a contrasting perspective, in which the attitudes and expectations of adult children, especially regarding inheritance, but also in terms of the provision of eldercare, impact the cohabitation and remarriage decisions of the elderly. The chapter also identifies otherwise neglected aspects of social relationships, including concerns about the face of the persons directly involved, as well as more distant others.

Implementation Imperilment and Imperatives of Integrated eIQA of HEI

Teay expounded the eIQA as key backbone infrastructure for the HEI's quality and accreditation management for stakeholders at all levels in the institution. The eIQA links the PMS-IMS-QMS trilogy as integrated units of the HEIs' performance management. The eIQA implementation illustrates the case study university's QA management from 2016-2019. The poor 2009-2019 national accreditation performance shows the resistance/rejections mindsets/attitudes of the “complicated, costly ever-changing accreditation business case requirements” and not the eIQA platform per say. It demonstrates mainstream literature on eIQA implementation challenges to include the stakeholders' negative “resistance/rejection” mindsets as key obstacles. Better understanding of the “human” psychological-behavioral-beliefs-attitudinal, personified of self-power clique actions, skills/capacities/capabilities, and structural/managerial elements as key deterrents to eIQA implementation as essential research agenda.

CREATING STUDENTS’ ALGORITHMIC SELVES: SHEDDING LIGHT ON SOCIAL MEDIA’S REPRESENTATIONAL AFFORDANCES

This article presents and analyses the results of focus group studies conducted with students at an international university in Lithuania, interpreting the results in light of the extant literature on social media’s impact on the creation and performance of the self. The authors reveal a mixed picture whereby the respondents seem to demonstrate an unexpectedly casual and cynical attitude towards social media while, upon closer inspection, still remaining part of social media’s productive exchanges, contributing their data and attention in return for satisfaction. Hence, while by no means rejecting the standard interpretation provided in mainstream literature, the authors are able to present a more complex and nuanced picture of young people’s attitudes towards and interaction with social media and the self-creation affordances thereof, ultimately a close, constitutive, and creative interrelationship between humans and code.

Introduction

This chapter examines the historiography of the post-war British Army. It demonstrates that the Army’s nuclear mission in Germany is underrepresented in the mainstream literature, in spite of this being its most important commitment after 1945. The chapter explains how the Army became a potential agent of nuclear warfare and its role in national and alliance strategy. It argues that the Army was largely successful in overcoming the conceptual difficulties of planning for future war, but that it displayed a cognitive dissonance when faced with uncomfortable realities about the nature of nuclear warfare.

Mending the Scars of Colonialism: Expounding Klamath Tribe‟s Efforts to Evolve Back through Theresa May‟s Community Based Play Salmon is everything (2014)

Barry Wayne McCovey, a Yurok member of the Tribal Fisheries Department writes “civilization will come and go, but the river will remain” (Barry, 2018) adding to the many voices that surged against the rotting images of Salmon on the Klamath river - the fish kills of 2002. The Klamath River forms an indispensable part of the native life, and for McCovey and all others in his community, the Klamath defines their origin, identity, sustenance and a spiritual connection. The tragedy of 2002 fish kills not only killed thousands of Salmons but also marked an inconceivable damage to the indigenous lives. Theresa May, a theatre artist and scholar, along with a group of committed collaborators created a community-based play named Salmon is Everything. This issue-engaged play speaks from the perspective of natives, the ones often overlooked in mainstream literature. Salmon is Everything (2014) is an attempt to create an alternative written documentation in order to preserve the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). This study also focuses on how far the genre of community theatre awakens Eco-consciousness. This would also address the question whether this artistic form becomes a tool to reclaim a neo-indigenous narrative? Lastly, this paper also encompasses ways in which community theatre becomes a strategy to secure Indigenous Futurity.