Search

The article examines the role of the 'poporală' press, aimed at the illiterate peasant population, in promoting antisemitism and extreme right ideologies in rural areas of interwar Romania. It highlights the lack of comprehensive research on post-1918 'poporală' publications and the need for further investigation into their history and interactions with social actors.

The Cronaca Sovversiva (Subversive Chronicle) was an anarchist newspaper, known today for the views of editor Luigi Galleani, whose ideas are associated with multiple bombings carried out in the United States throughout the 1910s and 1920s, the First Red Scare and the executed anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. A broad reading of the Cronaca Sovversiva, which focusses on more than its connections to controversy, violence and repression, reveals how a periodical produced by a wide range of artists, writers and activists became central to how many Italian immigrants understood and engaged with industrial capitalism. This paper argues that the Cronaca Sovversiva built an audience over time by incorporating a wide range of perspectives, addressing local and global issues and linking readers with other forms of literature as well as community events and projects. Diverse works of radical literature, art and announcements in the periodical, set within the predictable, repetitious framework of a weekly community paper, allowed a germinating militant movement to develop throughout and outside the Cronaca Sovversiva’s pages.

Cassam stresses the need for a detailed intellectual and emotional engagement with the ideology and narratives of extremists by giving them reasons, relative to their own extremist ideologies, to change their views (202). As Cassam notes (29), questions such as what extremism is, what is an extremist mindset, or what defines a common extremist style cannot be answered solely by armchair reflection. Extremism has been a constant presence and threat to the stability of the world in the last few decades. [Extracted from the article]

Education reform is a catchword in academia particularly now that the world is becoming more complex. The Ministry of Education in Malawi revised its primary school curriculum in the early 2000 to address educational challenges. Two key aspects of the reform were a paradigm shift from teacher to learner-centered teaching approaches and the integration of continuous assessment in the teaching and learning process. The obvious anticipation of the primary curriculum and assessment reform (PCAR) was that the education challenges facing the primary school sector would be addressed. This paper argues that the emphasis on the use of CA to address the learning challenges in primary education remains a farfetched dream if there is no radical reform in the system and operating context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note draws attention to the recent discovery of the papers of the Chartist and newspaper editor W. E. Adams (1832–1906), summarizes their contents and explains why they are to be found in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History in Moscow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the challenges of protecting refugees in Sub-Saharan Africa. Reviewing available and relevant literature on refugees and their displacement, it argues that people are compelled to flee their homes and seek refuge across international borders due to poverty, instability, conflict, and climate-related emergencies. They are then placed in overcrowded camps, frequently for extended periods. In theory, African refugees can access one of the most progressive protection schemes in the world. In practice, they confront insurmountable obstacles to their human rights, including coerced return, prejudice, arbitrary detention and arrest, limitations on their freedoms of speech and movement, and violations of their social and economic rights. Refugee law, which was created in the language of human rights and applies to people who are already highly vulnerable, disappears from view amid the poor human rights records of many African countries. From an in-depth argument and reflection on the literature, considering the differing voices and arguments, this paper communicates how, given the rise in extremism and political instability in Sub-Saharan Africa, regional security is at risk if the inadequate protection given to refugee camps is not addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the counter-violent extremism and anti-terrorism measures in Australia, China, France, the United Kingdom and the United States by investigating how governments leveraged internet intermediaries as their surrogate censors. Particular attention is paid to how political rhetoric led to legislation passed or proposed in each of the countries studied, and their respective restrictive measures are compared against the recommendations specified by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression. A typology for international comparison is proposed, which provides further insights into a country's policy focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay establishes the links between a little-known ‘experimental vignette’ by Thomas Bewick (1753–1828) and his work as an engraver of banknotes and anti-forgery devices. Taking these links as its cue, it brings the politics of paper money that emerged in England in the decades around 1800 to bear on a number of Bewick’s more famous wood-engravings – the ‘little whimsies’ that embellished his books of natural history. While seemingly far removed from the realm of banknote engraving, this essay suggests that these prints were informed by, and reflected upon, the problems raised by paper money and contemporary currency debates. Bewick’s printmaking can productively be compared to the critical work of early nineteenth-century currency radicals such as William Cobbett, who sought to expose the fictions of representation underpinning the British credit economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2015, UNESCO has developed a variety of programmes for preventing violent extremism through education (PVE-E), under the framework of Global Citizenship Education and Target 4.7 of Agenda 2030. There have been formal board decisions to promote PVE-E, regional and international conferences and three key publications: a Teacher's Guide (2016), a Guide for Policy-makers (2017), and a Youth-Led Guide (2017 and 2018). Through a discourse analysis of these key documents and a critical engagement with the institutional politics of UNESCO, the paper delineates the discursive constructs of PVE-E that are mobilised and sheds light on the under-researched politics of production that affect the nature of these texts. Taking a comparative perspective, the paper shows how PVE-E is represented within and between these different texts, exposes the normative values and ideological assumptions underpinning these representations and argues that we are ultimately witnessing a declining legitimacy of UNESCO's normative power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I am concerned with the socio-material practice of engaging with voice-enabled machines. Far from 'talking' to a smart speaker, a user must master the skill of composing a command while routinely engaging with the machine. While the practice relies on practical understanding and intelligibility, attention must be paid to the trans-situational aspects that enable the situated enactment of socio-material practices. By conceptualizing engagement with the smart speaker as an enlanguaged practice, I trace the ability to engage in a seemingly individualistic practice to a person's history of engagement in and with the world. Specifically, I consider how a pre-literate child relies on instances of recursive bodily coordination with her caregiver to learn how to engage with a smart speaker. Informed by the languaging perspective which treats language as multiscalar bodily verbal activity, I trace enlanguaging to the intricate interplay of dialogicality, temporality, and embodiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper investigates Psychoanalytic, Cognitive, Behaviorist, and Socio-cultural theories and critiques how they have (or might have) contributed to the study of radicalization. The paper asserts two arguments that lack emphasis in the current radicalization research: 1) radicalization refers to a process, and does not always refer to violent behavior; 2) radicalization research needs to pay tribute to socio-cultural, political, and historical context while designing research and discussing findings. These two points are essential to extend the concept of radicalization and to be sensitive to different research contexts and populations. Currently, the conceptualization of radicalization appears to be generalized to violent action among minority groups (mainly Muslims) in limited contexts (mostly Western countries). The article claims that Psychology can better contribute to this diverse field of interest with its well-established theoretical contributions to the understanding of human beings and its compassion to seek differences amongst people across different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the historical and political rise and decline of the University of Washington (UW) Chicana/o Studies Movement (CSM) between the years of 1968 and 1980. It argues that the CSM emerged in part due to the growth of local Chicana / o community radicalism and activism throughout the Pacific Northwest. Section one investigates student activism and radicalism on the UW campus. The second section critically analyzes the political struggles and academic landscape of the CSM on the Seattle campus. Finally, it examines the political and ideological struggles that forced UW's Chicana/o studies and other ethnic studies disciplines to merge into a single American ethnic studies department. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, there have been numerous studies on the rise, characteristics, and consequences of the emergence of populist parties in Western liberal democracies. However, most analyses of European populist parties have focused on the right-wing populist parties. Although some scholars have made valuable efforts to understand left-wing populism in Europe, these studies have paid attention to their ideological-organizational idiosyncrasies or the characteristics of their electoral bases. This paper aims to fill the gap in the economic and political contexts in which Radical Left Populist Parties have achieved significant electoral results putting into practice a fsQCA analysis and examining their uneven electoral performance in Europe. Following some previous work applying QCA techniques, this paper tests the theory on the importance of economic and political factors. Findings indicate that the electoral performance of radical left populism cannot be explained in a univocal way, highlighting the crucial role of equifinality in understanding this political phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions the opportunities that Yellow Vests as a Networked Social Movement (NETSM) created for politically underrepresented groups. Without a clear authority structure and a formal organisation, NETSMs challenge traditional leadership understandings. Nonetheless, their ability to determine precision in setting goals, demands, and strategies is disputed in the NETSM literature. Considering both aspects, the paper evaluates Yellow Vests' success in bridging two underrepresented groups inclined to radicalisation. The study rests on 77 interviews with young-adult French citizens who support Radical Right movements (n=40) or self-identify as Muslim in the public sphere of Paris and Lyon (n=37). I argue that Yellow Vests' baseline arguments (e.g., against the pension reform and tax hikes) were precise enough to be shared by our interlocutors. Meanwhile, our interlocutors left the group boundaries sufficiently imprecise so that the movement could reach beyond their parochial identities. Bringing the two features together, the movement opened up new (e.g., class-based) radicalisation possibilities other than those relying on the Islamist and nativist vocabularies. After analysing this combination of precision and imprecision in the context of several unresolved problems, I conclude that the movement's vulnerability emanates from its failure to refine the combination that initially symbolised a shared future imagination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In Sweden, local authorities are encouraged to cooperate with civil society to promote resilience to violent extremism. However, some (mostly Muslim) organisations are approached with suspicion and sometimes accused of not subscribing to basic democratic principles. Along with cooperation and resilience, suspicion seems to be a recurrent and global theme in the relationship between the prevention of violent and hateful extremism (VHE) and civil society. This paper builds on empirical research by the author and others, which examined how NGOs and FBOs operating within Sweden conducted and were challenged by preventive work. The paper compares results from the Swedish study against findings from international humanitarian-development NGOs via a scoping study to examine the similar and different dynamics around cooperation, resilience, and suspicion in prevention of VHE. Results will help progress the discussion on the challenges that civil society faces in its attempts to promote resilience to VHE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys the state of knowledge regarding development and humanitarian non-government organisation (NGO) responses to preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE). As well as delineating the nexus and shared objectives between P/CVE and development/humanitarian NGO frameworks, it outlines a reframing of the concept of VE into violent and hateful extremism (VHE), as a shift to a more nuanced understanding which addresses inherent complexities and entanglements more deeply. The Special Issue that this paper introduces is the product of a roundtable symposium held on this topic, with conceptual and empirical papers submitted by practitioners and academics who were invited to contribute due to their expertise in this area. The diversity of case studies, datasets, and author perspectives serves to advance knowledge on this topic and provide useful evidence and insights to inform policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the links between socioeconomic concerns and one of the most significant conflicts in the world, the Boko Haram-led insurgency in Northeastern Nigeria. In doing so it centers group dynamics for analysis of how women and youth constituencies intersect with vulnerability to violent extremism. It offers sophisticated quantitative analysis of new and original gender- and age-disaggregated survey data, with over 80% female respondents. The paper finds that while poverty can influence vulnerability to violent extremism, women and youth constituencies interact in particular ways with structural factors and certain youth constituencies exhibit lower propensities to violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political philosophy of radical democracy has made innumerable invaluable contributions to theories of democracy. However, while radical democrats tend to focus on the political, a cogent and comprehensive framework of law appropriate to radical democracy has only recently been begun to be developed. Interpreting the vast tradition of radical democracy to be based at least on the fundamental tenets of radical equality, anti-foundationalism, and to a lesser extent conflict, this paper argues that the oft-forgotten work of the American legal philosopher Robert Cover may provide critical resources for a radical democratic theory of law. According to Cover, every agent living under law is embedded, or embeds themselves, within a nomos or normative universe. From this nomos legal texts become imbued with widely different meanings, many of which will be mutually incompatible. Cover's legal anarchism, moreover, gives way to the argument that no agent or institution has a particularly privileged view of the 'correct' law. Accordingly, every legal texts gives rise to a proliferation of normative universes which due to their mutual incompatibility will eventually come into conflict with one another. This paper shows that Cover's normative commitments are highly congruent with those professed by many radical democrats, and that therefore Cover's legal philosophy furnishes a fruitful basis on which to further theorise a framework of radical democratic or agonistic law that incorporates struggle while remaining committed to equality and disavowing of any determinate foundations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do leaders of social movements leverage resonance and radicalism to achieve movement goals? As eugenics gained prominence from the end of the 19th century through World War II, feminist leaders of contraceptive access movements pushed for the acceptance of birth control simultaneously as a right for women and as a tool to further racist, ableist and ethnonationalist eugenic interventions. This paper analyzes the trajectories of two feminist birth control activists in the United States and Germany to trace the development and divergence of their movements alongside eugenics through three general framings over the first half of the 20th century: advocating the individual, advancing humanity, and augmenting the state. This research uses personal papers and social movement records to show that these cases present a kind of double resonance through which movement leaders could reframe reproductive control as a solution not only to the problems of their audiences, but also legitimize their politics and identities. By contextualizing eugenics alongside neo‐Malthusianism, birth control, abortion, and reproductive governance, this analysis helps to map reproductive control as a device historically wielded by white feminists to organize broader political support to fit varying and contradictory ideological projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violence against women is a global problem that has affected the lives of millions of women physically, mentally, socially, and economically. Within this paper, violence against women will be defined from a radical feminist approach as any act of violence rooted in multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and inequalities that result in or are likely to result in physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to women. Under the pillars of due diligence outlined in the Declaration of Violence Against Women (DEVAW), namely, prevention, protection, prosecution, and remedy, a country must fulfill its obligation to residing women regarding all four aspects. However, upon theoretical and factual analysis of the geopolitical, cultural, and religious factors that influence the legal system in Pakistani society, it can be concluded that the State is unable to uphold the due diligence standard for violence against women effectively, and consequently, unable to provide effective redress to victims of self, interpersonal or communal violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes two episodes of Foucault's reading(s) of Hume's philosophy. In both cases Hume is important to Foucault's overall argument and aims. In particular, in both Foucault takes a fairly conventional philosophical description of Hume--as a 'skeptic' and 'empiricist'--for granted and shows that these disguise a worldhistorical significance. In section 1, the paper explores Hume's role in Foucault's (1966) The Order of Things. The paper argues Hume stands in for the hidden role of similarity in the human sciences of the so-called 'classical period.' The paper examines Hume's account of relations which do not fully support Foucault's claims about Hume. It is proposed that Foucault's reading is motivated by the role Hume plays in Husserl's philosophy. In section 2, Foucault's treatment of Hume on March 28, 1979, during the eleventh lecture of the series known as Birth of Biopolitics, is analyzed. There Foucault ascribes to Hume's account of the subject the key building blocks that allowed for the development of Benthamite radicalism and homo economicus. The paper situates Foucault's later analysis of Hume in Foucault's larger account of the development of the so-called radical (Benthamite) strain of liberalism that, on Foucault's telling, runs through Chicago economics. While Foucault's account of Hume is anachronistic, this anachronism illuminates the building blocks of modern liberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine the theory of Radical Flank Effects (RFEs) reflecting on the case of al-Nusra Front and specifically its oscillation between ‘moderation’ and ‘radicalism’ in the period between its official establishment in early 2012 and the formation of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in January 2017. The main contribution in this paper originates from revisiting Haines’ premise that RFEs happen ‘unintendedly’. Reflecting on the discourse and behaviour of al-Nusra, I propose that RFEs can be managed purposefully by collective actors in ways that serve their strategic goals. In this sense, claims to moderation may serve as a strategic tool in the hands of collective actors, including militant Islamist organizations. In this regard, the research reveals that al-Nusra’s oscillation between moderation and radicalism was by and large purposeful, or at least carefully managed by the organization’s ideologues and strategists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an explanation for how the PKK, Kurdish Hezbollah, and ISIS, representing distinct ethno-nationalist, Islamist and ideologically motivated political movements, radicalize and recruit supporters in the regions of Eastern and Southeastern Turkey. In doing so, this paper contributes to ongoing theoretical debates about radicalization and recruitment. This study reveals how various regionally specific structural factors encourage radicalization and recruitment into violent politico-ideological movements. In particular, state oppression of ethnic minorities, economic inequalities, geography, and local demographics. While existing literature on radicalization focuses on push factors (structural) combined with pull factors (ideology), this research demonstrates that structural factors in Eastern and Southeastern Turkey are both push and pull factors in processes of radicalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies the need for a pedagogical re-orientation in UK higher education to prepare graduates to overcome wicked problems. In addition to key knowledge sets, graduates need attributes of critical self-reflection, risk-awareness and management, collaboration, creativity, agility, reflexivity – enabling the ability to manage the unknown. In response, researchers have acknowledged the importance of pedagogies that are risk-oriented, creative, and reflective to remedy modernist banking methods. This paper acknowledges that while such pedagogies are underutilised, an antagonistic dichotomy between modernist banking methods (bad) and enquiry and risk-oriented approaches (good) is unhelpful as both approaches are necessary. This paper develops a metamodern framework to guide pedagogic practices to facilitate a disposition among learning strategists and practitioners which embraces oscillation between banking and radical pedagogic approaches. In turn this enables the development of student sensibilities, empowering them to challenge the growing wickedness with which they must do battle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers reading a hermeneutical co-respondence with understanding's becoming. It describes how understanding's plurality is caught up in the dialogical interplay of reading, rhetoric, and rhythm characteristic of hermeneutic engagement. Reading positions a reader in relationship with a text1 seeking participation in the matter under consideration. As such, its potential for creating new understanding lies in a reader's ability to attend to unfamiliar forms of expression and engage with the speculative nature of sense and sense-making. Rather than reduce hermeneutic practice to an unmoored relativism, reading hermeneutically fosters a radical responsibility that comes with the uncertain and difficult labor of speculative thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Estudios Internacionales Mediterraneos is the property of Taller de Estudios Internacionales Mediterraneos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Taliban 2.0 in Afghanistan took the world by surprise. This article investigates how this event was seen differently in varied contexts, such as neighboring Pakistan. Our research shows epistemological pluralism in Pakistan, i.e. how different groups use different ways of knowing (epistemology), being (ontology), and valuing (axiology) to explain and analyze Taliban 2.0. Conceptually, the paper draws on insights from the relationality theory to demonstrate the reasons behind such epistemological pluralism. The theory of relationality provides the grounds for epistemological pluralism, i.e. the mixed sentiments and feelings among respondents about the Taliban 2.0 in Afghanistan. Our research reports the perspectives of nine selected civil society activists about Taliban 2.0 in Afghanistan and its implications for Pakistan. The respondents were interviewed during the second quarter of the Taliban administering Afghanistan. Some called it the victory of Islam, the freedom of Afghans from foreign occupation, and the protection of the Pakistani border from Indian proxies. Others were worried about the risks of increased extremism and terrorism in Pakistan, including the rise of banned organizations like Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. This study intends to document the interviewee civil society activists' suggestions to the State of Pakistan for dealing with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National approaches to prevent terrorism, extremism, and radicalisation have changed considerably over the last decades. Previous studies mapping these changes have primarily relied on empirical analyses of formal policy and political processes. This case-study of Sweden takes an alternative route, and analyses a dataset of 1405 Swedish newspaper articles (1985–2019) using a new institutional theory and social movement theory framework. Therethrough, the paper is able to provide new insights into the emergence and development of an institutional issue field concerned with the prevention of terrorism, extremism, and radicalisation. More specifically, the paper highlights the unstable, fragmented, dynamic and contested character of the field's development. Frames containing the problems and solutions considered most important during each of the field's five stages are identified, and the subsequent institutional and organisational consequences are discussed. The paper also considers how terror attacks and other extremism-related events impact the institutionalisation and alternation of dominant frames, and identifies the translation and development of an inclusive vocabulary as pivotal to mobilising a broad and diverse set of actors to co-produce preventive efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how practices of counter-terrorism (CT) have been perceived by legally-operating groups labelled 'extremist'. Taking the cases of Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain (HTB) and Hizb ut-Tahrir Scandinavia (HTS), the paper explores how two branches of the same Islamic activist organisation have experienced CT through interviews with party members and activists. Using existing models of repression, the paper maps how counter-terrorism is perceived by activist groups, revealing new information on Hizb ut-Tahrir and providing a framework for understanding the interaction of security with groups problematised as 'extremist' within a widening 'securitised lens'. The paper finds that, whilst there are similarities in how CT has been articulated in Britain and Denmark, it has impacted on HTB and HTS differently, creating different strategies of response. In tracking these, we highlight the prominent role played by civil society actors in the UK in creating a hostile environment for Islamic activist groups. By using mechanistic models of repression, we conceptualise the impact of counter-terrorism and newer patterns of countering violent extremism (CVE) on contentious activist organisations at a moment when the so-called 'risk' of extremism is increasingly being conceptualised and responded to throughout Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]