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Political Engagement (political + engagement)
Selected AbstractsLegal Autonomy as Political Engagement: The Ladakhi Village in the Wider WorldLAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 1 2006Fernanda Pirie Local systems of law are constantly forced to adapt to powerful external legal orders. As well as employing tactics of resistance and accommodation, some communities respond by maintaining boundaries around their legal sphere, safeguarding a measure of judicial autonomy. This article examines one such instance, from the Indian Himalayas. It argues that, much more complex than a case of domination and resistance, this autonomy represents a long history of deference and distance toward external forces. The maintenance of legal autonomy ultimately represents community ontology, but it is also a means of engaging with wider forces within the modern world. [source] Moral Conviction and Political EngagementPOLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2008Linda J. Skitka The 2004 presidential election led to considerable discussion about whether moral values motivated people to vote, and if so, whether it led to a conservative electoral advantage. The results of two studies,one conducted in the context of the 2000 presidential election, the other in the context of the 2004 presidential election,indicated that stronger moral convictions associated with candidates themselves and attitudes on issues of the day uniquely predicted self-reported voting behavior and intentions to vote even when controlling for a host of alternative explanations (e.g., attitude strength, strength of party identification). In addition, we found strong support for the hypothesis that moral convictions equally motivated political engagement for those on the political right and left and little support for the notion that a combination of morality and politics is something more characteristic of the political right than it is of the political left. [source] Waving the Flag: National Symbolism, Social Identity, and Political Engagement*POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2007Robert T. Schatz This research examined the psychological underpinnings of concern for national symbols and ritualistic-ceremonial activities or "symbolic involvement." We propose and test a distinction between symbolic and "instrumental" involvement or concern for the functionality of national institutions and their capability to provide instrumental benefits to citizens. Items comprising the two constructs were found to be empirically distinct, evidenced by statistically reliable and orthogonal dimensions in exploratory factor analysis. Moreover, evidence based on divergent patterns of relations with various forms of national membership indicates that symbolic and instrumental involvement are rooted in distinct motivational concerns related to identity expression and object appraisal, respectively. These findings suggest that national symbolism evokes a psychological attachment to the nation as an abstracted social entity, but not as a concrete functional system. [source] Dilemmas of Counter-Mapping Community Resources in TanzaniaDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 1 2002Dorothy L. Hodgson Recent work has celebrated the political potential of ,counter-mapping', that is, mapping against dominant power structures, to further seemingly progressive goals. This article briefly reviews the counter-mapping literature, and compares four counter-mapping projects from Maasai areas in Tanzania to explore some potential pitfalls in such efforts. The cases, which involve community-based initiatives led by a church-based NGO, ecotourism companies, the Tanzanian National Parks Authority, and grassroots pastoralist rights advocacy groups, illustrate the broad range of activities grouped under the heading of counter-mapping. They also present a series of political dilemmas that are typical of many counter-mapping efforts: conflicts inherent in conservation efforts involving territorialization, privatization, integration and indigenization; problems associated with the theory and practice of ,community-level' political engagement; the need to combine mapping efforts with broader legal and political strategies; and critical questions involving the agency of ,external' actors such as conservation and development donors, the state and private business interests. [source] Meetings Across the Paradigmatic DivideEDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY AND THEORY, Issue 3 2007Peter Moss Abstract The problematique addressed by the article is the growth of a dominant discourse in early childhood education and care, which has a strong effect on policy and practice, paralleled by an increasing number of other discourses which problematise most of the values, assumptions and understandings of the former. Yet there is very little engagement between these discourses, in large part because they are situated within different paradigms,modernity in the former case, postfoundationalism in the latter. The author argues that the absence of dialogue and debate impoverishes early childhood and weakens democratic practice. The article considers whether and in what conditions the concept of agonistic pluralism might provide a framework for political engagement among at least some on either side of the paradigmatic divide, and takes evaluation as one example of a subject for an agonistic politics of early childhood. [source] Segmenting youth voting behaviour through trusting,distrusting relationships: a conceptual approachINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NONPROFIT & VOLUNTARY SECTOR MARKETING, Issue 3 2004Janine Dermody This paper reviews current evidence on the declining political engagement of British youth. What emerges is that causes of their political disaffection are manifold and complex, but trust, distrust and cynicism feature strongly. Traditional approaches to trust and distrust fail to recognise this complexity; consequently this paper offers a more sophisticated conceptual framework that examines trust and distrust as separate but linked dimensions, as advocated by Lewicki, McAllister and Bies.[Lewicki, R. J., McAllister D. J. and Bies R. J. (1998) ,Trust and distrust: New relationships and realities', Academy of Management Review, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 438,458.] From the analysis four segments of ,voter' types are identified. By segmenting voters in this way, marketers can design strategies to help increase young people's trust and reduce their distrust, thereby increasing their propensity to vote in future elections. A synopsis of marketing aims to stimulate the ,youth vote' is presented along with areas for further research. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications [source] ,Everybody's entitled to their own opinion': ideological dilemmas of liberal individualism and active citizenship,JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2007Susan Condor Abstract Conversational interview accounts were used to explore everyday understandings of political participation on the part of young white adults in England. Analysis focussed on dilemmatic tensions within respondents' accounts between values of active citizenship and norms of liberal individualism. Respondents could represent community membership as engendering rights to political participation, whilst also arguing that identification with local or national community militates against the formulation of genuine personal attitudes and rational political judgement. Respondents could represent political participation as a civic responsibility, whilst also casting political campaigning as an illegitimate attempt to impose personal opinions on to others. Formal citizenship education did not appear to promote norms of political engagement but rather lent substance to the argument that political decision-making should be based on the rational application of technical knowledge rather than on public opinion or moral principle. In conclusion we question whether everyday understandings of responsible citizenship necessarily entail injunctions to political action. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Governance from Below in Bolivia: A Theory of Local Government with Two Empirical TestsLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 4 2009Jean-Paul Faguet ABSTRACT This article examines decentralization through the lens of the local dynamics it unleashed in the much-noted case of Bolivia. It argues that the national effects of decentralization are largely the sum of its local-level effects. To understand decentralization, therefore, we must first understand how local government works. The article explores the deep economic and institutional determinants of government quality in two extremes of municipal performance. From this it derives a model of local government responsiveness as the product of political openness and substantive competition. The quality of local politics, in turn, emerges endogenously as the joint product of the lobbying and political engagement of local firms and interests and the organizational density and ability of civil society. The analysis tests the theory's predictions on a database containing all Bolivian municipalities. The theory proves robust. The combined methodology provides a higher-order empirical rigor than either approach can alone. [source] Religious Activity and Political Participation: The Brazilian and Chilean CasesLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 1 2005Eric Patterson Scholars debate whether the recent conversion of millions of Latin Americans to evangelical Protestantism bodes well for democratic participation or reinforces authoritarian culture and practices. Using a resource model, this study examines the link between participation in religious organizations, political engagement, and political participation in Brazil and Chile. Survey data indicate that religious organizations, particularly Protestant ones, can provide skills that members can transfer to political activity; and that different religions can result in different politics. [source] The Soviet Sausage RenaissanceAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 1 2010Neringa Klumbyt ABSTRACT, In Lithuania, the first country to secede from the Soviet Union, the term Soviet has been used in public space to refer to the vanished Soviet empire and to experiences of colonization and resistance. However, in 1998, the "Soviet" symbol was successfully revived in the Lithuanian consumer food market as a brand name for meat products,primarily sausages. In this article, I argue that the market is a political arena in which values, ideologies, identities, and history are being shaped. The marketing and consumption of "Soviet" sausages is a form of political engagement that negotiates current power relations and inequalities. The meanings and practices surrounding "Soviet" sausages tell an intriguing story about broader processes of change. The "Soviet" sausage renaissance in Lithuania implies a critique of the postsocialist neoliberal state and constitutes an attempt to create an alternative modernity that is both post-Soviet and European. [source] An Experiment in Personalist Politics: The Catholic Worker Movement and Nonviolent ActionPEACE & CHANGE, Issue 1 2001Patrick G. Coy The Catholic Worker movement, co-founded by Dorothy Day in 1933, is well known for its hospitality work with the urban poor. Less examined is the Worker movement's steadfast commitment to nonviolent action as its primary means of political engagement. How has the movement managed to sustain this often costly commitment for nearly seventy years? The answer lies in an analysis of five aspects of Catholic Worker life and thought: Biblical earnestness, personalism, solidarity with the poor through hospitality, living in community, and membership turnover. [source] Moral Conviction and Political EngagementPOLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2008Linda J. Skitka The 2004 presidential election led to considerable discussion about whether moral values motivated people to vote, and if so, whether it led to a conservative electoral advantage. The results of two studies,one conducted in the context of the 2000 presidential election, the other in the context of the 2004 presidential election,indicated that stronger moral convictions associated with candidates themselves and attitudes on issues of the day uniquely predicted self-reported voting behavior and intentions to vote even when controlling for a host of alternative explanations (e.g., attitude strength, strength of party identification). In addition, we found strong support for the hypothesis that moral convictions equally motivated political engagement for those on the political right and left and little support for the notion that a combination of morality and politics is something more characteristic of the political right than it is of the political left. [source] Alone in the World: The Existential Socrates in the Apology and CritoPOLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 3 2007Emanuele Saccarelli The story of Socrates' life, and in particular the circumstances of his death, has been a nearly obligatory referent for the development of Western political thought. Contemporary political theorists such as Hannah Arendt and, more recently, Gerald Mara and Dana Villa have presented Socrates as a model of political engagement for our times. Against the background of these accounts, I develop an existential interpretation of Socrates as he appears in the Apology and Crito, focusing on the singular, private, experiential and incommunicable character of Socrates' truth. In doing so, I discuss some important and contentious issues in Socratic studies, such as his disavowal of knowledge, his allegiance to the Athenian polis and the apparent tension between his defiance during the trial and his willingness to submit to the resulting death sentence. My interpretation reveals a Socrates that we should not strive to understand, let alone emulate politically, particularly if we wish to respect his own sensibilities. [source] Trauma as a metaphor: the politics of psychotherapy after September 11PSYCHOTHERAPY AND POLITICS INTERNATIONAL, Issue 1 2005Karen SeeleyArticle first published online: 9 JAN 200 Abstract This paper explores the links between mental health practice and politics by examining the implications of turning persons harmed by an act of mass violence into patients with psychiatric disorders, and of prescribing psychotherapy to treat reactions to terrorism. It first considers the interpretative aspects of diagnosis, the social and political implications of particular diagnostic categories, the history of PTSD, and the phenomenon of medicalization. It then looks at the ways psychotherapists privatize social and political experience by emphasizing the personal consequences of community catastrophes, and by helping individuals transform collective history into personal narratives. In closing, it asks whether mental health discourses depoliticize experience, thereby discouraging political engagement and the development of political consciousness. Copyright © 2005 Whurr Publishers Ltd. [source] Democracy and decentralisation: local politics, marginalisation and political accountability in Uganda and South AfricaPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT, Issue 4 2006Carol L. Dauda Abstract While democratic decentralisation is viewed as an important vehicle for development in sub-Saharan Africa, its viability in practice is often doubted. Lack of resources, expertise, marginalised populations and the inexperience of local electors are all barriers to successful decentralisation. However, often overlooked are the diverse ways in which local people use the opportunities provided by democratic decentralisation to engage local authorities and demand accountability. Using examples from Uganda and South Africa,1 this article demonstrates how local people use democratic openings to meet the challenges of marginalisation and demand accountability. While the data is from the mid to late 1990s, the evidence presented here is relevant to the continuing debate over democratic decentralisation for it reveals something that is not always recognised: lack of resources is not necessarily the problem; developing political capacity for demanding accountability for existing resources is what is important. The implication is that for decentralisation to be effective, practitioners must develop a better understanding of local political engagement so that their efforts may strengthen rather than thwart emerging political relations of accountability. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Towards a feminist geopoliticsTHE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER/LE GEOGRAPHE CANADIEN, Issue 2 2001JENNIFER HYNDMAN The intersections and conversations between feminist geography and political geography have been surprisingly few. The notion of a feminist geopolitics remains undeveloped in geography. This paper aims to create a theoretical and practical space in which to articulate a feminist geopolitics. Feminist geopolitics is not an alternative theory of geopolitics, nor the ushering in of a new spatial order, but is an approach to global issues with feminist politics in mind. ,Feminist' in this context refers to analyses and political interventions that address the unequal and often violent relationships among people based on real or perceived differences. Building upon the literature from critical geopolitics, feminist international relations, and transnational feminist studies, I develop a framework for feminist political engagement. The paper interrogates concepts of human security and juxtaposes them with state security, arguing for a more accountable, embodied, and responsive notion of geopolitics. A feminist geopolitics is sought by examining politics at scales other than that of the nation-state; by challenging the public/private divide at a global scale; and by analyzing the politics of mobility for perpetrators of crimes against humanity. As such, feminist geopolitics is a critical approach and a contingent set of political practices operating at scales finer and coarser than the nation-state. [source] "A World where Action is the Sister of Dream": Surrealism and Anti-capitalism in Contemporary ParisANTIPODE, Issue 5 2004Jill Fenton In discussing the lifestyle and practices of the Paris group of the contemporary surrealist movement, this paper contributes to debates within economic and political geography that seek to develop the imagining of alternatives to neoliberal globalisation through practices of resistance, and spaces of political and policy engagement. The everyday life of the surrealist movement, in combining creativity with progressive choices and radical economic practices that oppose capitalism, while intellectually investigating ideas of revolution, a different society and utopia, suggests a perspective that contributes to the imagining of such alternatives. This paper outlines the deeply embedded nature of surrealist activity in opposing capitalism and illustrates, as one member of the surrealist group suggests, in quoting Baudelaire, surrealism's insistence for a world in which "action is the sister of dream". The paper further contributes to discussion on the role of academics in facilitating spaces of political engagement. [source] Alternative Spaces of the "Argentinazo"ANTIPODE, Issue 5 2004Peter North The ongoing instability in Argentina that emerged from the December 2001 uprising in Buenos Aires (the "Argentinazo") has been one of the highest profile examples in recent years of reaction to the economic "disciplining" of a country. For enthusiasts, this reaction has been resistance, an upsurge against neoliberalisation by people conscious of what was happening and with alternative conceptions of how things should be (Aufheben 2003; Carrera and Cotarelo 2003; Dinerstein 2002; Galeano 2002; Harman 2002; "IM" 2002; Klein 2003a, 2003b; MAS 2002; Ollier 2003). Subaltern resistances such as those developed by Argentines have been the subject of much geographical writing on resistance in recent years (Castells 1997; Leyshon, Lee and Williams 2003; Pile and Keith 1997; Sharp et al 2000). This paper addresses the range of actions, or "action repertoire"(Tarrow 1998:20,21), of the Argentinazo to examine the extent to which alternative material and discursive "convergence spaces"(Routledge 2003) of political engagement emerged both as resistance to, and articulating a coherent alternative to, neoliberalism. [source] FROM WOMEN'S WORK TO THE UMBILICAL LENS: MARY KELLY'S EARLY FILMSART HISTORY, Issue 1 2008SIONA WILSON This essay presents a historical and theoretical account of Mary Kelly's formative involvement in experimental filmmaking in Britain during the early- to mid-1970s. The argument develops by tracing the complex interconnections between Kelly's political engagement with Marxist-feminism and her theoretical involvement with psychoanalysis and film theory. After discussing Kelly's participation in the Berwick Street Film Collective's Night Cleaners (1975) and the London Women's Film Group's Women of the Rhondda (1973), I present a sustained close reading of the artist's first solo work, the film loop installation Antepartum (1974). I argue that Antepartum interpellates the spectator into a feminine subject position. This reading of the film draws upon recent post-Lacanian feminist scholarship in philosophical ethics that focuses on the intrauterine relation. Antepartum offers a politically informed aesthetic experiment that prefigures some of these insights. [source] Conducting fieldwork with Tarieng communities in southern Laos: Negotiating discursive spaces between neoliberal dogmas and Lao socialist ideologyASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 2 2010Steeve Daviau Abstract Based on research with ethnic minorities in Laos aimed at understanding how they cope with and negotiate political and economic ,double domination', this article examines the experiences of prolonged fieldwork in a remote Tarieng area in the Annam Range, southern Laos. After briefly reviewing Lao ethnographical policy and practice regarding ethnic minorities, I introduce the Tarieng people. I detail how I initially gained access to these local communities via long-term engagement with a range of development project initiatives. Then, after eight years of conducting such fieldwork in a Tarieng area ,below the radar of the state', I managed to obtain official authorisations to continue research as a graduate student. In this new position, I accessed the field via different negotiations with central, provincial and local official bureaucracies. After detailing this process, back in the field I reveal my strategies to create a discursive space that has allowed me to access dissident Tarieng voices and agency. Finally, I highlight four central elements that have continued to shape my field research: language proficiency, working with research assistants, awareness of political relations and cultural sensitivity, and ethical concerns. These have emerged while the possibilities and constraints of political engagement with the Tarieng people are explored. [source] Digital Rank-and-file: Party Activists' Perceptions and Use of the InternetBRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Issue 4 2004Wainer Lusoli Political parties are in a transitional phase. A declining, socially restricted membership, decreasing levels of activism and a shift towards more individualistic modes of political engagement threaten the linkage role that parties have played in modern democracy. The development of the Internet in a period of change has meant that it quickly became intertwined with debates about reviving representative political organisations. Using data from a survey of party activists in the UK (N = 4,770), this article answers questions about the perception and use of new media by party activists, the Internet's potential for members' participation and engagement and the penetration of the Internet in pre-existing political careers. In general, the article asks which role new media are playing in the transition of political parties. [source] Framing Justice: Using the Concept of Procedural Justice to Advance Political Communication ResearchCOMMUNICATION THEORY, Issue 4 2005John C. Besley Efforts aimed at increasing civic-mindedness must consider both what encourages and what discourages political engagement. Procedural justice argues that individuals care about the fairness of decision-making or deliberative procedures beyond whether the outcome of any future decision goes in their preferred direction. In turn, perceptions of procedural fairness influence participant satisfaction, commitment to the organization, perceived legitimacy of authorities, and willingness to volunteer on an organization's behalf. The concept of procedural justice holds significant promise for addressing questions in political communication research, particularly those examining the impacts of public engagement. Thus, we offer a synthesis of procedural justice research to support a model for studying procedural justice as a type of framing to which individuals are exposed during participation in civic life and, in so doing, try to make more explicit the previously implicit communicative aspects of procedural justice. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||