{"title":"Arrested development: the Soviet Union in Ghana, Guinea, and Mali, 1955–1968","authors":"Jeffrey S. Ahlman","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2176996","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2176996","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"32 1","pages":"117 - 118"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74916133","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Working at becoming a communist’: institutional belonging and political self-making of women in the Communist Party of India (Marxist)","authors":"Proma Raychaudhury","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2169364","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2169364","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Gendered relations of power contribute to the signification inherent in political parties. The formal rules and informal processes through which hegemonic gender regimes are reproduced and contested in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) are subjected to Feminist Institutionalist analysis here. In addition, the institutional belonging and political self-making of women party members are also assessed in the state of West Bengal. The experiential concepts of institutional belonging and self-making can enhance Feminist institutionalist research by identifying the processes that shape gendered behaviour of actors in institutions. The idealised revolutionary communist subjectivity that represents the institutional standard of appropriateness of gendered behaviour in the CPI(M) is explored. The co-constitutive relationship between institutions and political subjectivities is elaborated. The paper argues that the institutional belonging and political self-making of women in the CPI(M) are characterised by a politics of boundary-creation from as well as horizontal solidarities with fellow women colleagues.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"308 1","pages":"36 - 64"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76501673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The local roots of communist support in Kerala","authors":"B. Sunilraj","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2177038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2177038","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Studies have noted geographical variations in support for the communist parties in Kerala. However, practices adopted by communists in Kerala to maintain their dominance in these geographical regions and how residents of these places relate to these practices have not been sufficiently explored. This article, based on field insights from a panchayat in North Kannur investigates party-society links. It is argued that while material factors help link party and voter, these links are complex and do not conform to clientelism or patronage, as conventionally understood. These links are embedded in a local social context which adds elements of mutuality and non-hierarchical interaction between citizens and party. Ideology also conditions party-society linkages.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"8 1","pages":"65 - 89"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88557542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ripe for revolution: building socialism in the Third World","authors":"Q. Slobodian","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2176994","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2176994","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"139 1","pages":"115 - 116"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85365372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Candidate selection in India: municipal elections and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)","authors":"Rashmi Singh","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2172792","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2172792","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article analyses the theoretical and methodological challenges of researching candidate selection and party nomination practices in Indian politics using a case study of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India. It focuses on the nature of informal politics and institutions that over-write and complicate the candidate selection process, and on the challenges of identifying the hidden effects of these parallel processes on the competition for official party nominations. The article discusses the complex and protracted nature of internal party negotiations over candidate short-lists and how these layered and unseen strains at the final stages of selection impact the openness and transparency of the process in the BJP. The findings indicate that unofficial lobbying for party tickets is an important but overlooked informal institution that impacts the process in significant ways and deters inclusion in the party selection processes.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"29 1","pages":"90 - 114"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86103749","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Until we have won our liberty: South Africa after Apartheid","authors":"Michael Braun","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2176997","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2176997","url":null,"abstract":"attempts to transform its non-capitalist theory of development into a reality via everything from trade policy and investment to attempted agricultural mechanisation to the sharing of Soviet expertise, among other initiatives. What drives these chapters, though, is a powerful comparative framework that not only takes seriously the intricacies of each of the three West African states’ individual histories and political and economic ambitions, but at the same time also centres the states’ various actors as key players in a broader dialogue about the structure and nature of non-capitalist development. As Iandolo clearly lays out for an audience that might not be overly familiar with these cases and their pasts, each country—due to their respective colonial histories and the ambitions of their political leaders (Kwame Nkrumah, Sékou Touré, and Modibo Kieta), along with a cascading array of internal and external political and economic pressures—read their relationships to the Soviet Union in distinct, yet congruous ways. In all, Alessandro Iandolo offers a rich and engaging analysis of the Soviet-West African relationship during the 1950s and 1960s. Iandolo’s lucid writing style adds a level of accessibility that promises to be an easily teachable book in courses on topics including world history, Soviet history, African history, and the Cold War. Moreover, like much of the recent work on the Cold War in Africa, including that of Mazov and Osei-Opare, Arrested development pushes students of this period to develop increasingly more sophisticated narratives detailing the theories, objectives, and perspectives of the wide variety of actors involved in the Cold War, particularly those of groups that do not easily fit into the standard East-West binary.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"7 1","pages":"118 - 120"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78762354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}