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In policy diffusion research, considerable focus has been placed on the mechanisms and motivations underlying diffusion, yet there is a notable dearth of analysis linking the diffusion process with policy outcomes. This prompts an important inquiry: Who fares better in terms of policy outcomes—the pioneer or the late mover? Our study investigates China's River Chief System policy and classifies cities as either pioneers, followers, or laggards according to their position in the diffusion process. Our quantitative analysis of 142 cities indicates that pioneers achieve the most favorable policy outcomes, while laggards are associated with the least favorable results. Further examination of the political incentives driving pioneer advantage suggests that pioneers are driven by political aspirations, followers are driven by political signaling, and laggards are driven by political pressure. This research deepens understanding of policy diffusion by elucidating the interplay between diffusion sequence and policy outcomes, and offers significant insights for policymakers aiming to formulate effective diffusion strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The object of this study is a new Russian migrant community in Estonia, a relatively small group of Russian citizens who escaped their home country after the resumption of the mass-scale attack against Ukraine. The author seeks to identify major narratives produced the anti-Putin Russian migrants settled in Estonia and unveil their political meanings. The article discusses how these narratives are communicated, what audiences they appeal to, and how the agency of the new Russian community in this Baltic state is discursively constructed. The author explains how Russia-centric narratives of emigrants are transformed and adjusted to Estonian and - in a broader sense - European political agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite new affordances available since the mainstreaming of digital media in countries with high levels of internet connectivity, young actors in teenage years are a group whose involvement in social and political affairs remains constrained by prevailing stereotypes regarding the social role of youth and acceptable forms of civic engagement. This paper explores the discourse on youths' active citizenship found in Czech online media outlets, conceptualised as adult-governed spaces. Considering age as a significant exclusionary category in approaches to citizenship, the discursive construction of young active Czech citizens is studied on six concrete local actors and analysed via two types of relational positioning: (1) intra-generational (youth-to-youth) and (2) inter-generational (youth-to-adult). Media representations reveal normative expectations of youth as political actors that range from a refusal to recognise their participation to acclaiming them for it. Depending on the intersection of the actors' agendas, their personal profiles, and the political orientation of the media outlets, the media depict the actors either negatively as deviant or positively as exceptional, reflecting contemporary ideo-political conflicts in Czechia. The paper concludes that the young age of the actors serves as an amplification factor for discreditation of a counter-attitudinal political agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating the degree motivations and role conceptions of journalism students may shed light on the industry's trajectory. This study analyzes the motivations and perceptions of journalism students from two U.S. universities. Results show that students were motivated to pursue journalism for a mix of reasons, including civic engagement, a prestigious career, creativity in multimedia and writing, and an independent and nonroutine lifestyle. Respondents suggest that students view journalism's role as providing political accountability, delivering content that connects with audiences, telling stories, and setting the political agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mawlid, a sacred holiday commemorating the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, holds immense power in Morocco as a communal prayer event that animates citizens, transcending its religious significance to become a potent sociopolitical tool. This article delves into the multifaceted nature of Mawlid, examining its dynamic role as both a collective expression of faith and a means of governmental control. Through the example of the Qadiri Boutchichiyya Sufi order's annual Mawlid programming, it explores how the Moroccan government has skillfully harnessed Mawlid's enlivening energy to further its political agendas, utilizing it as a vector to transmit the kingdom's particular brand of Islam. However, while the government may seek to manipulate Mawlid for political gains, Moroccans are not mere pawns in this dynamic. On the contrary, the Mawlid's animating quality extends well beyond the public sphere and resonates deeply within the private lives of individuals. By delving into this intricate web of interactions, we can better grasp the vibrant and multivalent nature of religious expression in Morocco and its implications for the broader dynamics of faith-based governance in the country today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While policy termination is usually more difficult than continuity in domestic policymaking, the international process for addressing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) shows that sustaining commitments can be the more difficult path. Addressing persistent crises requires persistent policy responses across multiple countries. Policy coordination among many countries has gained significant scholarly attention whereas analyses of continuing, longer-term commitments of many countries to crisis response are less common. This paper remedies this shortfall by analysing the commitments of different countries to the international policy process against AMR. It triangulates novel evidence in the form of distinct indicators based on global surveys, content analysis of national action plans (NAPs), and publication patterns of second-generation NAPs. The findings suggest that national commitments to the international process initially reached high levels but are now in decline. Countries are effectively 'sunsetting' their NAPs, and thereby ending commitments to the international process for addressing AMR. Many have refrained from renewing their NAPs, and those that do renew rarely show signs of learning or adaptation from previous NAPs. Hence, even in the AMR case, where a global and persistent threat rose high on the international political agenda, long-term commitment to the international response policy process is by no means assured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined agenda-setting relationships across the media, politics, and the public, while accounting for contextual boundaries from 1978 to 2018 in the United States. Our findings indicate that (1) for the overall model, the media and the public influence the prominence of economic concerns on the political agenda, but the political agenda has no agenda-setting power; (2) under a Republican president, the prominence of economic topics in the media and political agendas influence each other, the media and the public agendas influence each other, and the public influences the political agenda; and (3) under a Democrat president, attention paid toward economic topics in the media and political agendas influence each other, as do the political and public agendas. Of particular note for agenda-setting theorists is our finding that the media significantly sets the agenda for the public under a Republican presidential condition and not under other conditions. Additionally, these relationships differ longitudinally; for example, the media responds to economic changes quicker and for more prolonged periods under a Republican than a Democrat. This study advances the agenda-setting theory by presenting novel findings about agenda-setters in action and by demonstrating the unique complexities of modeling longitudinal nonlinear relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both material and symbolic issues were on the national political agenda in 2023. While education, the economy and health care were the most contested policy areas, the Fidesz government continued its campaigns against LGBTQ rights, migration and liberal values. Crucially, the government and its left‐liberal opposition vehemently criticised each other for their uncritical pro‐Eastern and pro‐Western stance, respectively. Fidesz maintained its massive lead in polls, the share of undecided voters rapidly increased, while three new parties appeared in the political arena. The Hungarian government reached an agreement with the European Commission to release the largest part of the funds (€10 billion) blocked due to rule of law concerns. Additionally, the government successfully blocked the Finnish and Swedish NATO membership for the better part of the year, inviting fierce international criticism. New local election rules further accentuated the major weakness of the Hungarian opposition ahead of the 2024 local elections—fragmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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It is not only political actors but also the contexts, which make a text political discourse. This nuanced understanding turns political functions and implications into defining features of political discourse. Using the Chinese revolutionary work The White-Haired Girl as a case study, this paper argues that the constant adaptations of the work, in its various literary and artistic forms, are intrinsically political. Born out of a folktale, the work first assumed the form of literary non-fiction in 1940. Aligning with Chinese Communist Party's evolving political agendas in the next few decades, The White-Haired Girl migrated across medial borders to take the form of a movie in the 1950s and a ballet in the 1960s. The highly ideological adaptations transformed the work into political discourse, with its life sustained not primarily by artistic merits but by political functions. The adaptation history of The White-Haired Girl reveals that intersemiotic translations of a work tend to complement their source text(s), and they also bear (intertextual) traces of their sociohistorical contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines the intricate relationship between religion and politics in South Kalimantan, highlighting its impact on public policy and social stability. In a province where the majority of the population is Muslim, religious influence heavily sways political preferences and decision-making. Religious leaders, organizations, and the broader Muslim community often dictate the political agenda, resulting in policies that are deeply infused with Islamic values. These policies can marginalize minority groups such as Christians, Catholics, Hindus, and Buddhists, thereby posing a significant challenge to the region's social cohesion. The research investigates this dynamic through the analysis of open policy documents, case studies of religion-based policy implementations, and in-depth interviews with religious leaders, prominent community figures, and local politicians. The gathered data provide a comprehensive understanding of how the interplay between religion and politics shapes social and political life in South Kalimantan. The findings reveal that while religious influence can help maintain political legitimacy, it simultaneously raises serious concerns about social justice and religious freedom. To address these challenges, the study recommends inclusive policies, active interfaith dialogue, and enhanced community participation in decision-making processes to ensure a harmonious and just society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stillwater McCarthy (2021) brings together Matt Damon, a Hollywood star with cosmopolitan credentials, and Marseille, a crucible of civilizations often described as a cosmopolitan city. Damon plays Bill Baker, an Oklahoman redneck who must travel regularly to Marseille to visit his daughter in jail. For Bill, a character from a small, quiet mid-U.S. town, Marseille is all excess and opacity, almost impossible to navigate. Large parts of the film are spoken in French, a language that the protagonist neither speaks nor understands.This article uses a cosmopolitan perspective to explore the consequences of the encounter between the Hollywood star and the European city. As will be argued, the ambivalent cosmopolitanism of both Damon's star persona and Marseille converge in an irresistible but ultimately impossible way. This article explores the dynamics between these two drives by means of a spatial perspective that sheds some light on the multiplying facets of cosmopolitanism in contemporary cinema, including mainstream cinema, and highlights the fraught interface between cosmopolitanism as a utopian ethical aspiration and political agenda, on the one hand, and an everyday reality, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the development of urban transport political agendas in three Nordic capital cities, Helsinki, Oslo, and Stockholm, that strive towards urban sustainability. Utilising the Multiple Streams framework as a basis for analysis, an overview of local problems, policy solutions, and politics that have characterised transport systems and the related policy development processes over time is constructed. The attention is then drawn towards the points in time where the streams connect, and policy windows occur, to detect formative changes and their enablers towards sustainability. The data consists of 18 semi‐structured expert interviews, conducted amongst municipal policymakers and planners. The results reveal several policy windows that have transformed the local transport systems towards sustainability and an increasingly people‐oriented approach. The relevance of global climate change awareness, international planning trends for liveability and cycling, public pressure, individual political decisions, and establishment of modal hierarchy is evident across the case cities, while car traffic regulation is politically challenging and addressed through very different means at very different times. The findings of this paper outline diverse ways for advancing sustainability in local policy development but also detect methods for politically halting the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion can often be very influential in the political system and political actors frequently take advantage of the leverage that it provides. In the Zambian case, Christianity in particular plays a crucial role in politics and policymaking, dating from the pre- to post-colonial era. Around 1880, Zambia, then Northern Rhodesia, became a British colony and, at the same time, Christianity was introduced within the context of the European culture. Later, 27 years after independence, Zambia was declared a Christian nation, and all Zambian political leaders have embraced Christianity as the nation's identity. Thus, Christianity plays a critical function in Zambia's political sphere. The main aim of this paper is to critically examine how Christianity seeks to direct the political agenda in Zambia's national politics. It demonstrates the interplay between church and state relations linked to how the state seeks to govern the nation in a Godly manner and the implications on public policymaking in Zambia. This paper explores a multifaceted analysis of the existing literature and the ideas around the politics of the state and religion. It argues that (i) Christianity in Zambia is often used as a political weapon to gain political mileage and (ii) Christianity as a religion has been traditionalised in Zambia. It serves as a "national moral campus", which compromises the nation's position as a so-called "democratic" state and suppresses individual freedoms. Thus, it corrupts the very nature of fundamental practices of the religion itself, as it has simply blossomed into more of a norm than a religion. Understanding these dynamics is very crucial, especially in the context of how religion is perceived, experienced and exercised in the political arena to circumvent limited policy options for broader problem solving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-Mao reforms ranging from de-collectivization to the abolition of agricultural taxes have eroded the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) control over the rural periphery. However, with an agenda to strengthen the CCP's all-around control over the economy and society, the Xi Jinping era saw a reversal of the long-term trend. We argue that Xi's high-profile anti-poverty campaign from 2015 to 2020 consisted of massive Party building attempts and served as an important strategy for the Party to repenetrate the rural periphery. Based on in-depth fieldwork, archival research, and secondary information sources, we show that by injecting human and financial resources into poverty regions, the CCP reinvigorated its previously underfunded and demoralized grassroots organs, expanded rural Party member recruitment, and enhanced the Party's intervention in village affairs. Therefore, despite its seemingly economic nature, Xi's anti-poverty campaign may lead to the long-lasting effect of Party power consolidation in the countryside. This finding suggests that authoritarian regimes can use campaigns with appealing policy goals to advance broader political agendas and enhance authoritarian resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The European Academy of Neurology (EAN) is a member of the European Brain Council (EBC), a coalition of neurologists, psychiatrists, neurosurgeons, neuroscientists, patient organizations and industry with an interest in the brain and its diseases. It was founded by the present author. Here, its formation, early history and the results of its advocacy are described. Method: Eyewitness report and relevant literature were considered. Results: After a long and difficult inception, the European Brain Council (EBC) brought all major players with an interest in the brain and its diseases to work closely together. Important data on the cost of brain diseases, lack of funding and fantastic research possibilities were generated and effectively used in advocacy. During the early years of the collaborative effort, the funding of brain research increased from €85 million in framework program (FP) 5 to €260 million in FP6 and to more than €2000 million in FP7. Conclusion: The EBC has been extremely successful. It is essential that advocacy in the European Union continues to be united so that those involved in brain research are able to speak with one voice to policy makers. An even bigger task, still insufficiently pursued, is for national brain councils to achieve prioritization of brain research in their national political agenda to bring about improved provision of care to those living with a brain disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal personhood has been recognized for several ecosystems worldwide, garnering significant attention from the scholarly community. This attention translated with the mobilization of approaches anchored into legal, institutional, or ethnographic perspectives. On-going calls for the recognition of Rhone River's legal personhood provides us the opportunity to analyze on-going processes in a transboundary river located in the middle of Europe. This paper focuses on how such a concept gets promoted and intends to make its way on the political agenda. Specifically, we examine two current promoters of the legal personhood of the Rhone River: the International Commission for the Protection of Lake Geneva (CIPEL) and ID-Eau. We identify five key lessons: (1) the request for recognition of legal personhood derives from actors' willingness to change current governance practices and to shift the productivist paradigm towards more decentralized and inclusive governance system; (2) legal personhood is presented as a solution to problems that have not yet been clearly framed nor identified, opening up thinking on how such concept may be instrumentalized; (3) the discussion remains limited to a small number of experts; (4) the legitimacy of this debate requires scrutiny; (5) the legal personhood concept should be reinterpreted to fit within Western ontologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the use of cinema by the Young Turk Movement, which played a significant role in transforming the Ottoman Empire from an absolutist regime into a constitutional monarchy in 1908. Upon gaining power, the Young Turks faced various external and internal political challenges, such as imperialist ambitions over Ottoman territory, Balkan states' efforts to reclaim lost lands, and separatist movements within the empire. This article explores how they used cinema to promote their political agenda and address these challenges. It argues that cinema was employed not only to display power and spread propaganda but also to project an image of governance aligned with constitutional ideals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging endeavors from Asia on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) are attracting growing academic and analytical attention. However, few have touched on China’s engagement with the WPS agenda, despite the country’s status as a veto-holding power on the UNSC and an important global peace and security actor avidly promoting a development and non-intervention-based path to peacebuilding. How China’s identity and agenda in the global political order shape the role(s) that it could play in engaging with the WPS agenda warrants due inquiry for the potential impacts on the further development of WPS norms. This article examines such dynamics by setting China’s ambivalent normative engagement with the WPS agenda in the context of the country’s overarching political goals to establish itself as a responsible and powerful actor in peace and security governance with propositions different from Western-constructed liberal prescriptions. It does so by examining key policy texts including official statements, remarks, and speeches at the UNSC. Speaking to existing scholarship on WPS norms and politics, the article is intended to illuminate the implications of China’s “developmental peace” and non-intervention theses in the WPS normative space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a particular trajectory of Latin American and Caribbean intellectual practices as a contribution to the effort of pluralizing the various genealogies of Cultural Studies conversations, projects, and research and political agendas from a global perspective. It departs from what could be thought as a strategic port encompassing both the analytic of the complex, dynamic, and intertwined relation between culture and power and the recognition of intellectual practices as key elements not only for the diagnosis of the present conjuncture; but also for imagining and enabling other futures. From this vantage point, different intellectual traditions interpellated or not with the cultural studies label are described to historize the Cultural Studies project as one produced from the peripheries of the World System. The article argues that this was the pool of intellectual practices that inspired the institutionalization of Cultural Studies in Colombia in the 1990s. Finally, it describes some of the most pressing and relevant research agendas in the present while arguing that today Cultural Studies in the country is not only an academic project inside universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration policy reached the fore of the political agenda during the 109th Congress of 2005–2006, achieving near‐record levels of congressional committee attention. Literature on agenda setting typically portrays such attention spikes as evidence that the inertial forces of a status quo policy regime are losing the ability to keep the issue off the political agenda. Change may not necessarily follow, but from this perspective, opponents to change are in a vulnerable position. Yet, as this paper shows, opponents of immigration reform were the ones driving the flurry of committee activity. By demonstrating that opponents of policy change wielding agenda control can also leverage attention as a means of obstruction, the paper identifies a potential limit to using certain attention indicators as evidence of policy momentum. In the second part of the paper, I hypothesize conditions under which status quo defenders in Congress might abandon their negative agenda power. I argue that it is most likely when policy entrepreneurs elevate an issue with two or more unstable policy images that divide the majority party. The findings here offer further evidence of the congressional committee system's declining role in policy development and the intractability of immigration reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Speech acts and the reader in En la luna by Vicente Huidobro" analyzes the intersection between aesthetics and politics in Huidobro's late work. The political agenda of the work is highlighted, which depends on political, cultural, and literary references to exist. Through characters and speech acts, the work reflects socio-political problems similar to those of Chile in the 20th century, such as corruption and lack of justice. Huidobro seeks to ironize politics through performativity, although the work does not completely separate itself from its references. [Extracted from the article]

In the context of limited state capacity and a politicized public administration, democratic backsliding tends to exploit preexisting deficiencies in the functioning of the public sector. Whereas staffing managerial positions with regime supporters is well‐documented, less attention has been paid to the structuring and staffing of street‐level bureaucracies under a spoils system. In this article, we use document analysis and in‐depth interviews to analyze the case of Mexico's "Servants of the Nation" —a group of more than 19,000 former party members and sympathizers hired by the government to perform street‐level tasks— as an example of "parabureaucracy": an auxiliary street‐level organization designed to perform a wide variety of tasks directly related to the executive's political agenda. We argue that parabureaucracies are designed to sideline formal administrative command structures for the benefit of the government in power but may also serve as a means to bypass stifled and dysfunctional traditional bureaucracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the history and significance of Casablanca's Habous district, a unique colonial urban experiment blending traditional Islamic and early 20th-century European principles. Built between 1917 and 1926 to house large influxes of migrants, it represented a deviation from initial French plans to simply preserve existing medinas. It even supplanted Casablanca's medina as the nucleus of Muslim life. Through extensive archival research from the National Moroccan Archives (Rabat) and the Chaillot Archives (Paris) this article argues that while initially an exception, the Habous proved central to colonial visions of ordering urban space and society in Morocco's growing economic capital. It reflected core aspects of Resident-General Lyautey's strategy, showcasing French power and paternalism while providing locals with symbolic cultural continuity amidst modernization. Unearthing the unusual history of the Habous holds significance for comprehending the history of colonial political agendas and their materialization in colonial planning and housing, and also of architecture experimentation and innovation. After all, it earned the reputation of being the most surprising and impactful colonial creation in Morocco, which served as an inspiration for subsequent architectural projects. But its level of refinement remained unmatched by subsequent mass housing districts. The conclusion ponders whether its status warrants greater international recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most sophisticated monetary and banking policy advice available in the decades after 1776 was found in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Smith recommended free competition among nationwide banks of issue with minimal legal restrictions and no legal privileges. Yet neither Alexander Hamilton nor Thomas Jefferson accepted Smith's recommendation, despite their familiarity with his arguments, and despite Scotland's positive experience while following it. We spell out Hamilton's and Jefferson's theoretical disagreements, and explain how Smith's advice did not serve either founder's political agenda. For Hamilton, competitive banking without a single privileged national bank would not do enough to strengthen the federal government. For Jefferson, any federal chartering of banks would strengthen the federal government too much at the expense of the states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Games are valuable cultural phenomena — they might indicate social, cultural, and even political trends and agendas. Moreover, they might bare an accurate representation of a common structure of a feeling. Conversely, video games might be studied and understood based on up-to-date cultural trends, one of which is metamodernism. This paper contributes to determining what metamodern games in terms of synopsis and gameplay are. After considering the methodological features of studying video games from a metamodern perspective, it presents a metamodern study case of Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding. Examining oscillation, empathy, constructionism, and object-oriented relations in Kojima's game, the paper proves it to be a shining example of metamodern gaming. Furthermore, analyzing Death Stranding gameplay features from a metamodern perspective determines metamodern-related gameplay elements and strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rising inequality has brought redistribution back on the political agenda. In theory, inequality aversion drives people's support for redistribution. People can dislike both advantageous inequality (comparison relative to those worse off) and disadvantageous inequality (comparison relative to those better off). Existing experimental evidence reveals substantial variation across people in these preferences. However, evidence is scarce on the broader role of these two distinct forms of inequality aversion for redistribution in society. We provide evidence by exploiting a unique combination of data. We use an incentivized experiment to measure inequality aversion in a large population sample (~9,000 among 20-to 64-y-old Danes). We link the elicited inequality aversion to survey information on individuals' support for public redistribution (policies that reduce income differences) and administrative records revealing their private redistribution (real-life donations to charity). In addition, the link to administrative data enables us to include a large battery of controls in the empirical analysis. Theory predicts that support for public redistribution increases with both types of inequality aversion, while private redistribution should increase with advantageous inequality aversion, but decrease with disadvantageous inequality aversion. A strong dislike for disadvantageous inequality makes people willing to sacrifice own income to reduce the income of people who are better off, thereby reducing the distance to people with more income than themselves. Public redistribution schemes achieve this but private donations to charity do not. Our empirical results provide strong support for these predictions and with quantitatively large effects compared to other predictors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a qualitative approach, this paper aims to analyse the articulation and communication policies of the provincial educational administration of Cambiemos (2015-2019) with the actors of the educational community of Buenos Aires. Specifically, we intend to investigate the place occupied by families as actors of the educational community in the political agenda of Cambiemos, in a scenario of dispute with trade unions on the forms of regulation of education. The Buenos Aires education government of Cambiemos found in families, as actors of the educational community, a potential ally to reorient the educational administration from the supply of the State towards the demand of the beneficiaries of the policies. At the same time, families were presented as a strategic management actor for the construction of new territorial alliances that could displace and weaken the historical weight of other organised actors in the community, such as teachers' unions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been seven decades since the six founding member states of what would become the European Union (EU) sought to integrate their armies into a common defence force through the European Defence Community. Today, while ever more European decision makers allude to the need to create such a force, it remains a distant prospect. What is it that is really hampering progress towards a common European defence model based on a shared army? What is the position of the main EU actors - society, political parties and institutions - on the subject? Using a variety of methodological approaches, this paper seeks to provide empirical evidence of the social, political party and institutional complexities hindering its realisation. Although the EU is not currently working on the creation of a common, single army, events such as the invasion of Ukraine could put it on the political agenda, and neither society, nor the elites, nor the major parties would be opposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses two recent scholarly books that analyze the political and economic transformations in Bolivia over the past two decades. Angus McNelly's book explores the concept of passive revolution in Bolivia, focusing on the Morales administration and the challenges of development. Kate Maclean's book delves into the gendered aspects of the Bolivian economy, particularly the pluri-economy and the roles of Indigenous women. Both books provide valuable insights into the complex social, political, and economic landscape of Bolivia, offering a nuanced understanding of the country's recent history and future prospects. [Extracted from the article]

This study examines the application of the concepts of "unwilling" and "unable" in understanding gross human rights violations in Indonesia. The purpose is to delineate the nuanced dynamics behind such atrocities, exploring whether violations stem from the government's unwillingness or inability to protect human rights. Employing a qualitative research approach, data was collected through document analysis, interviews, and case studies. The findings suggest that gross human rights violations in Indonesia often result from a combination of both factors: state actors may be unwilling to uphold human rights due to political agendas or systemic corruption, while systemic weaknesses and resource constraints render them unable to effectively prevent or address violations. The study underscores the importance of addressing both dimensions to effectively tackle human rights abuses, advocating for institutional reforms, accountability mechanisms, and international pressure to compel the Indonesian government to fulfill its obligations to protect human rights. In conclusion, understanding the interplay between unwillingness and inability is crucial for devising comprehensive strategies to combat gross human rights violations in Indonesia and similar contexts worldwide, emphasizing the imperative of fostering a culture of respect for human dignity and justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors offer an original dataset of 4,909 protests across Russia in 2018–2021. The study shows that political and pro-democratic protests do not constitute the majority of protests in Russia, their agenda being mainly concentrated on social and economic issues at the local level. Second, the agenda, not geographic proximity, determines the spread of protests, and a political agenda results in faster dissemination. Third, the main organizer of protests is the Communist Party and not non-systemic parties. Fourth, Moscow and Saint Petersburg lag behind at least three other Russian regions in terms of the strength of local protest activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this short paper, I contend that the history and philosophy of geography should be considered as an indispensable scholarly field to nourish both theoretical speculations about geography and ongoing scholars' political and social engagement towards critical, radical, decolonial, feminist and antiracist geographies. I argue that rediscovering 'other geographical traditions' is paramount to these scholarly and political agendas. After briefly summarising my political and theoretical references, I discuss the example of the work of anarchist, feminist and anticolonial activist Louise Michel (1830–1905) to make the case for the inclusion of new figures and ideas in the field of new decolonial, multilingual and pluralist histories of geography. • Performs a militant plea for the History and Philosophy of Geography. • Discusses recent works on alternative geographical traditions and decoloniality. • Makes the case for reading geographically the work of anarchist, feminist and anti-colonial activist Louise Michel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the successful consolidation of the Islamic State movement within the Sunni insurgency in Iraq from 2003 to 2014. We rely on insurgent media releases, captured documents, and a declassified U.S. military study of the Sunni insurgency in Anbar to evaluate the Islamic State movement's complex relationship with its Sunni Arab rivals. We found the group moved through sequential stages of cooperative, competitive, and coercive consolidation to achieve hegemony in the insurgent field. Each phase of transition entailed organizational changes, including mergers, re-branding, and new structures. The movement's well-developed ideology and state-building project distinguished it from peers whose political agendas were too diffuse to establish lasting coalitions. The tribal Awakening that worked with the Americans to temporarily defeat the Islamic State of Iraq also badly splintered its rivals and failed to prevent the revitalization of the Islamic State movement, setting the foundation for its short-lived caliphate project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When scholars address presidential agenda setting, they focus on how presidents go about getting what they want. We know far less about the prior step: how presidents decide what they want (agenda construction). Moreover, prior work that has dealt with this topic has focused on the external constraints imposed on presidential choice by Congress and public opinion. I contend, by contrast, that presidents have considerable agency in determining their domestic policy priorities. They rely on it to establish who they are and where they want to take the nation, putting forward their own "political projects." I situate this agency in the selection of agenda items and the manner and sequence in which presidents pursue them. Failing to account for this "power of initiative and origination" leaves us with an underspecified understanding of presidential decision making that obscures the consequentiality of leadership in driving important policy outcomes. I develop this argument by exploring three presidential administrations that pose a hard test for my agency thesis: Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. These case studies draw from archival records obtained at the associated presidential libraries and interviews with senior administration personnel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study adds to the existing literature on the history of the Ghanaian press from pre-colonial times to 1992, focusing on language: its choice and ideological, socio-cultural, and political ramifications. While the history of the press has received massive scholarly attention, the same cannot be said of language and its use in historical accounts. Thus, from a historical research perspective, employing an analytical and interpretive study of secondary data sources, and underpinned by cultural theories such as linguistic imperialism and hegemony, this study analyses how language was featured in the press during the research period and the implications thereof. This analysis shows that various institutions and individuals exploited language to foster narrow socio-cultural, ideological, and political agendas in the Gold Coast, later Ghana. This study also revealed that language use and its ideological forces during the pre- and immediate post-independence periods contributed immensely to Ghanaian media's current state and Ghanaians' general language attitudes. This study's significance lies in the realisation that language, as a cultural artifact, and its choice, use, and consumption could have far-reaching consequences for the self-realisation, actualisation, and general progress of a society. Thus, African societies should be mindful of the ideological implications of language choices not just in the press but also in other societal contexts. This study, therefore, invites further studies on language and its use in the media, especially from 1992, for a more comprehensive appreciation of the issues raised in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has shown that sexual and/or gender minority voters are prone to mobilizing when LGBT+ issues are on the political agenda. This increased level of political engagement is attributed to the experience of discrimination, understood both in legal and social terms, which spurs LGBT+ individuals to participate with the aim of advancing their rights. However, a crucial question remains unanswered: do these gaps in participation persist in contexts where core LGBT+ rights are protected? Drawing from comprehensive and verified data on the population of Sweden, this study finds evidence of a positive and sustained sexuality‐driven voter turnout gap across multiple elections. This gap manifests itself both shortly and a decade after the enactment of same‐sex marriage and shows no tangible signs of abating. In addition to improving our knowledge of political participation patterns among sexual minorities, these findings underscore the potential role of minority rights protection as a mechanism to ensure enduring inclusion of social minority groups within democratic processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Affective polarization – that is, antipathy towards political opponents – sits high on the academic and political agenda. This is because it is thought to have a multitude of damaging consequences, both for how citizens view and approach each other and for how they relate to the political system. This study investigates some of the most mentioned and worrying potential consequences of affective polarization at the individual level. Zooming in on Europe, it sheds light on the substantive relationship between partisan antipathy and three kinds of norm‐breaking escalation in the form of avoidance, intolerance and support for violence against party supporters. Methodologically, it unpacks the affective component of polarization, testing to what extent the traditional feeling thermometer performs as a predictor of these three potential outcomes. It then tests alternative expectations of the antecedents of such escalation derived from the intergroup emotions' literature and the study of political radicalization. This is done using a broad range of both established and new survey items fielded in nationally representative panels between May and November 2020 in two contexts that score relatively low (Norway) and high (the United Kingdom) on affective polarization. They reveal that avoidance, intolerance and support for political violence can be validly measured, and are manifest, in these two European countries, but that they are only weakly correlated to mere dislike of the outgroup. Instead, more severe forms of norm‐breaking escalation depend on the specific nature of the discrete emotions induced beyond dislike (anger, fear or disgust) and are rooted in factors such as relative deprivation, Manicheanism, and dark personality traits (psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism). We discuss the implications for the way polarization is theorized and measured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

E. F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful is one of the most succinct elaborations of Catholic social teaching (CST) and 'distributism' – construed as an alternative to both capitalism and socialism. Extending the logic of Polanyi, both market and state, and their right- and left-wing ideological expressions, are shown to be contending forms of collectivism – in that both aggregate the agency of disembedded 'billiard ball' individuals. Schumacher's socio-economic vision is rooted in Livelihood and is orthogonal to both left and right, creating an opportunity for an alternative to modernity involving patterns of embedded production, consumption and reproduction (family, household and place-bound community). 'Smallness' and 'localness' speak to forms of embedded social capital that are 'sticky', viscous and relational, more ascriptive and less fluid. But for precisely this reason, the political agenda implicit in Schumacher's vision is not only post-liberal, but explicitly both covenantal and Christian. It requires the ontology of sovereign, self-actualizing individuals to be reconnected and constrained through a transcendent relationality with God. Small is Beautiful is shown to be diametrically opposed to the eco-modernist, gnostic and sometimes even transhumanist worldview of global environmentalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a special issue of the Hague Journal on the Rule of Law focusing on populism, democracy, and the rule of law in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The issue originated from a conference on Democratic Constitutionalism in the Age of Populism, where scholars and graduate students gathered to discuss the impact of populist movements on democracy and the rule of law. The special issue includes articles that examine the rise of populism in CEE countries, particularly Hungary and Poland, and its implications for constitutionalism and the rule of law. The articles explore topics such as constitutional justice, the operation of constitutional courts, electoral law, informal checks on political authority, eternity clauses, and the relationship between democracy and the rule of law. The issue aims to contribute to the understanding of the challenges faced by constitutional democracy and provide insights into ways of addressing these challenges. [Extracted from the article]

We cross-fertilize insights from corporate political activity and open-strategy literature to propose a research agenda on open political strategy—or greater participation and visibility in firms' actions aimed at shaping public policy. Incorporating ideas from open-strategy research, corporate political activity scholars can upgrade knowledge about firms' political actions, and ensure their theorizing keeps pace with contemporary practice. Considering the specificities of corporate political activity, open-strategy scholars can extend the boundaries of their field, and generate fresh insights into how firms open up strategy in contexts previously unexplored. Through a more critical reading of open political strategy, we also raise broader questions—addressing its repercussions for broader society—that should chime more generally with scholars of strategy and organization, especially those interested in firms' strategic responses to institutional pressures, and the "dark sides" of strategizing and organizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key aim of this article is to reflect on the potential impacts of various types of historical counter accounts, used by civil society to promote resistance and conservation. For this purpose, the High Ross Dam controversy (in the 1970s) represents an important and unique historical case of social–political biodiversity conservation action, by civil society. A detailed case study is presented that includes an analysis of civil society opposition through counter accounts. Technical and non-technical counter accounts of resistance by civil society are investigated, using Escobar's theoretical framework. Examples of historical counter accounts serve as outstanding precedents of civil society activism for biodiversity against business and political agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our understanding of history reveals far more about ourselves than the subjects analyzed. Within this Viewpoint, the six wives of King Henry VIII become a case study for each generation’s identities and how it plays a role in the interpretations of women’s histories. Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard, and Katherine Parr are some of the most instantly recognizable historical British women, and yet primary sources are mainly void of their personal voices, lost to history amongst a wave of political agendas, misogyny, and religious vendettas. At different periods, they have been victims, sluts, saints, and feminist icons. This article attempts to analyze some of those most iconic interpretations of these women and what influences from that specific era played a role in the depiction. In the end, the practice of history itself is fallible, meaning that the real identities of the six wives of Henry VIII have been lost to us. However, the act of analyzing them, no matter how imperfect, ensures that their memories live on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The student movement as we know it today was born after the 1930s, with the creation of national student organisations. As a result of mobilisations around political agendas, the student movement stands out in Brazilian social life. In 2007, the Municipal Union of Secondary School Students (UMES) was founded in São José dos Pinhais, a municipality in the Curitiba metropolitan region, with the aim of representing the student community before the local government. Based on bibliographical, documentary and field research, supported by oral history, this article discusses the ways of acting and thinking practiced by students within the UMES from 2007 to 2015. It is noteworthy that the interviews were conducted with former participants of the entity, young students, mostly from public schools. This study uses the notions of Bourdieu's political field, Certeau's tactics and Foucault's power in order to understand the students' practices, carried out within the framework of this organisation, where they tried to achieve, from the field of politics, their flags. It seems, therefore, that most of the students introduced to UMES saw their organisation as an instrument of struggle for their rights, although it was also a place of reflection on the quality of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is devoted to the analysis of Russian Muslims’ communications in social networks. I show a unique mode of interdependence of online and offline, which takes shape in the special context of the dominant discourse of traditional Islam and the securitization of Islamic activism. The construction of “right” and “wrong” Islam determines the special structure of media consumption of Russian Muslims and the content of the political agenda. In addition to verbalized political agendas, I describe the phenomenon of an “unspoken” political agenda hidden beyond religious messages and identified precisely only through background by actors transmitting it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amazonian studies in Peru have traditionally focused on anthropological and linguistic issues, often neglecting the question of resilience, particularly in the context of indigenous education and its transmission traditional narratives. This article aims to highlight the role of school in fostering socio-ecological resilience by analyzing the manual Lo que nos pertenece. Patrimonios culturales de los pueblos amazónicos from Formabiap (the Intercultural Bilingual Education Training Center of the Peruvian Amazon), which operates under the interference of the AIDESEP (Inter-ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle). Drawing on contemporary theory and criticism, I argue that the manual introduces new ways of transmitting narratives and traditional knowledge to younger generations, emphasizing humansnon-humans alliances as a strategy for the self-determination and promoting "Buen vivir" as an alternative to conventional development. Formabiap 's educational vision, as well as the discourses presented in its manuals, promote Amazonian resilience by fostering critical thinking and a shared Amazonian indigenous identity across various peoples. In conclusion, Formabiap implements AIDESEP's political agenda for indigenous self-determination in education, making the study of its manuals central not only to pedagogy but also to understanding contemporary Amazonian resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, traditional and digital-native media brands have competed with a diverse array of actors, challenging their journalistic leadership, authority, and public legitimacy. Simultaneously, the current media system, both hybrid and disruptive, offers these brands various opportunities to reclaim their centrality as reference media and provide safeguards against disinformation threats. This context is of particular interest for investigating the presence and conversational leadership of these reference media on X (Twitter), through an empirical approach combining qualitative and quantitative methods supported by Social Network Analysis (SNA). This article, therefore, examines the activity metrics, thematic agenda, engagement capacity, and follower dynamics exhibited over one year by twenty-two Spanish media outlets on the mentioned social network. The results provide the first scientific evidence of the extent to which these reference media brands capitalize on the digital public debate on current events. The conclusions distinguish the conversational weight or leadership of these media in the political agenda and topics related to entertainment at both the national and global levels. Thus, the article contributes to highlighting and understanding the strategies and leadership of major media brands on social networks regarding the main topics of public interest and their ability to mediate and influence hyperconnected sources and audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]