Alternatives最新文献

What Do We Know About People’s Politics? Testing a New Framework for Understanding Different Conceptions of Politics 我们对人民政治了解多少?检验理解不同政治概念的新框架

3区社会学

Alternatives Pub Date : 2023-11-09 DOI: 10.1177/03043754231211725

Carl Görtz

{"title":"What Do We Know About People’s Politics? Testing a New Framework for Understanding Different Conceptions of Politics","authors":"Carl Görtz","doi":"10.1177/03043754231211725","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231211725","url":null,"abstract":"This study aims to increase the understanding of citizens’ different conceptions of politics. This is done by constructing a framework based on Heywood’s seminal works (2002; 2004) on three prominent understandings of politics. Guided by the framework and adopting a factor-analytic approach using the National SOM survey conducted in Sweden in autumn 2020 ( N = 1845), I found two theoretically interesting dimensions: a ‘macro-politics’ dimension that covers content related to government and the welfare state and a ‘micro-politics’ dimension that concerns content associated with everyday life. The largest group of respondents consists of people whose conceptions of politics solely cover ‘macro-politics’ (76.4%). The second largest group are those who do not consider either of these two dimensions to be political (12.9%). The opposite view to this, which combines ‘macro-politics’ and ‘micro-politics’, is held by a slightly smaller group (9.4%). A minor group was also found, consisting of people whose conception of politics only covers ‘micro-politics’ (1.2%). We ran analyses based on previous important findings on people’s conceptions of politics. Contrary to prevailing knowledge, the results show that left-leaners conceptualize (only) ‘micro-politics’ content as political more frequently than right-leaners, older people do not perceive more content as political than younger people (but view different content as political), and women, compared to men, identify more areas as political irrespective of content.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135192322","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Running in Place: “Czeching” out the W/E(a)stern Performative Presidential Geoprostitution 在原地运行:“捷克”出了W/E(a)严厉的表演总统卖淫

3区社会学

Alternatives Pub Date : 2023-09-28 DOI: 10.1177/03043754231202328

Nik Hynek, Václav Moravec

{"title":"Running in Place: “Czeching” out the W/E(a)stern Performative Presidential Geoprostitution","authors":"Nik Hynek, Václav Moravec","doi":"10.1177/03043754231202328","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231202328","url":null,"abstract":"This article attempts to explain the Czech Republic’s geopolitical vacillation between the West and East over the past three and half decades. We tie this behavior, where one orientation never prevails permanently, to the continuity of political elites from the communist to the post-communist periods. In addition to general relevance, we discuss its implications for the country’s recent reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The focal points of this analysis are the geopolitical discourses and practices of three consecutive presidents: Václav Havel, Václav Klaus, and Miloš Zeman, each marking a decade in the Czech presidential office. We provide a historical-structural context to show that the Czech case has been an important example of a small state with its security continuously compromised by the hierarchical penetrations of great powers: Nazi Germany, the USSR/Russia, and most recently, China and the United States. Yet, as we demonstrate, the Czech Republic cannot be considered a stereotypical victim with mixed-sovereignty agreements being imposed on it. We present the three presidents in their active roles of geopolitical architects vis-à-vis the great powers as well as the Czech government. Heuristically, we conceptualize presidential foreign-and-security activities as performative geoprostitution. We show that for Havel, the primary act of geoprostitution was institutionalizing a civilizational client-patron relationship between a small state and a superpower (the United States). In contrast, not only was Klaus and Zeman’s performative geoprostitution different due to its Eastern orientation, but it was motivated by their self-importance and desire to carve out political legacies and greased by corrupted business interests.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135386081","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Discoursive Region Building in Latvia: The Case for a Contemporary Identity Search 拉脱维亚话语区域的建设:当代身份搜索的案例

3区社会学

Alternatives Pub Date : 2023-09-23 DOI: 10.1177/03043754231197549

Evija Djatkovica

{"title":"Discoursive Region Building in Latvia: The Case for a Contemporary Identity Search","authors":"Evija Djatkovica","doi":"10.1177/03043754231197549","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231197549","url":null,"abstract":"Three decades into the independence restoration of Latvia and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country has integrated well into the Western community. It is a member of the EU and NATO, the Schengen area, the eurozone, and, since recently, OECD. Turning Westwards, Latvia attempted to abolish the post-Soviet and enter the European spatiality above all to secure the country’s physical existence. But not less importantly, to redefine the collective understanding of the Self. The principal argument I make in this article is that countries with the Soviet past may seek their contemporary identity in self-attribution to the desired political regions. That is, embed their new identities in discursive regionalism. The example of Latvia showcases the argument. However, ambiguous discourses of the Latvian regional belonging persist in the national imaginary. The range varies from the post-Soviet and its milder alternative – Eastern European – to the Northern European and Baltic. The mixed regional affiliations result from inconsistencies in the region-building approach exercised by the political elite of Latvia. They stem from the country’s ontological security search in NATO and the EU accession aftermath and amid the war in Ukraine within the newly acquired regional identities contrasted with the vestiges of the Soviet past.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135966006","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 1

Civil-military Relations in Mexico: From One-Party Dominance to Post-Transitional Insecurity 墨西哥的军民关系:从一党统治到过渡后的不安全

3区社会学

Alternatives Pub Date : 2023-09-22 DOI: 10.1177/03043754231193895

Wil G. Pansters, Mónica Serrano

{"title":"Civil-military Relations in Mexico: From One-Party Dominance to Post-Transitional Insecurity","authors":"Wil G. Pansters, Mónica Serrano","doi":"10.1177/03043754231193895","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231193895","url":null,"abstract":"While far from ideal, civil-military relations in Mexico in the second half of the twentieth century stood apart from the Latin American trend towards military government and dictatorship. Over the course of the last three decades, however, drug-trafficking, organised crime and high levels of violence and insecurity have deeply transformed this historical pattern with Mexico experiencing a clearcut process of militarization and becoming part of a broad Latin American trend. This article investigates the forces behind and the features of the remarkable political and ideological turnaround with respect to Mexico’s military and militarization. To provide proper context, it first examines the evolution of civil-military relations in Mexico during the era of PRI dominance (ca. 1945-ca. 1985) and the subsequent challenges of a democratic recasting of civil-military relations. It then studies how from the 1990s onwards drug trafficking (and its mutation into organised crime) and an escalating security crisis affected civil-military relations. The last section critically examines the unprecedented promotion of military roles and prerogatives during the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024). The conclusion argues that the shifting relations between civilians and soldiers in Mexico are likely to weaken civilian control over the military and hence risk democratic backsliding.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136015487","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Sovereignty, Discipline, Governmentality, and Pastorate: The Ménage à Quatre of Contemporary Authoritarian and Right-Wing Populist Power 主权，纪律，治理和牧师:当代威权主义和右翼民粹主义权力的msamnage四分之一

3区社会学

Alternatives Pub Date : 2023-09-11 DOI: 10.1177/03043754231199785

Andreas Vasilache

引用次数: 0

A Newfound Hub of Global Democracy Promotion: Lithuania Playing to its Strengths 新成立的全球民主促进中心：立陶宛发挥优势

IF 1.3 3区社会学

Alternatives Pub Date : 2023-08-30 DOI: 10.1177/03043754231198398

Žilvinas Švedkauskas

{"title":"A Newfound Hub of Global Democracy Promotion: Lithuania Playing to its Strengths","authors":"Žilvinas Švedkauskas","doi":"10.1177/03043754231198398","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231198398","url":null,"abstract":"After gaining membership in the European Union and NATO, models portraying Lithuania as a bridge between the East and the West, or a networked state uniting in-country nationals and global diaspora were put forth, while others even forecasted inevitable collapse in the face of a lack of a unified geopolitical program. In the light of this plethora of geopolitical visions, in 2000s Lithuania’s approach to its Eastern neighbors could have been described as “multivectoral.” While Lithuanian leaders outspokenly supported pro-democratic protests and European aspirations of the colored revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, attempts to “restart” relations with Eastern European autocrats also ensued. However, the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea really struck a chord, and the new chapter in the Russian war against Ukraine in February 2022 contributed to consolidation of a clear-cut Lithuanian geopolitical positionality. In the face of Russian aggression, squeezed between the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and Russian partner-in-crime Belarus, Lithuania rebranded itself as an outpost of a global democratizing agenda and embraced a discourse of care vis-à-vis repressed Russian and Belarusian civil societies and Ukrainians fighting back for national survival. Echoing historical solidarity narratives of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, new-found Lithuanian agency also aims to reframe Russian aggression as a neo-colonial performance. This piece (1) explores how the unfolding war has constituted a “democratic outpost” identity espoused by the Lithuanian political elite and (2) links these shifts with increased Lithuanian agency in Euro-Atlantic structures and the unexpected attempts to rework itself as a hub of democracy promotion globally. Finally, (3) the contribution problematizes the “outpost Europe” idea by scrutinizing the telling silence on the creeping autocratization in Poland, and the implicit paternalism of the pro-democratic care targeting Russian, Belarusian civil societies, and the Ukrainian state.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49390993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

This World and the “Other”: Muslim Identity and Politics on the Indo-Bangladesh Border 这个世界与“他者”:印孟边境的穆斯林身份与政治

IF 1.3 3区社会学

Alternatives Pub Date : 2023-08-26 DOI: 10.1177/03043754231196587

Å. Kolås

{"title":"This World and the “Other”: Muslim Identity and Politics on the Indo-Bangladesh Border","authors":"Å. Kolås","doi":"10.1177/03043754231196587","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231196587","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates the “othering” of Muslims in two Northeast Indian states: Assam and Tripura, in a region known for its ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity, and long history of militancy and civil unrest. Northeast Indian politics thrives on disagreement between “Us” and “Them” and tensions over illegal migration, drawing on overlapping or intersecting frames of “othering.” This study asks why and how the political “othering” of Muslims persists, and why the religious frame, or the Hindu–Muslim divide, is more salient in some parts of the region than in others. Drawing on fieldwork on the Indian side of the Indo-Bangladesh border in Tripura and southern Assam, historical records and contemporary print media archives, this study compares the role of Hindu–Muslim contention in the politics of the two neighboring states and finds reproduction of the Hindu–Muslim divide in Assam and resistance to Muslim “othering” in Tripura. The theoretical contribution of this article is to confront the concept of “othering” with colonial and post-colonial frameworks of representation to understand how contemporary non-Western “worlds of difference” capitalize on, reproduce and resist vestiges of colonial representations.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"65104495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

“To Whom the Sirens Wail.” Poland’s Post-2022 Geopolitical Debates on Central and Eastern Europe 波兰2022年后关于中欧和东欧的地缘政治辩论

IF 1.3 3区社会学

Alternatives Pub Date : 2023-08-26 DOI: 10.1177/03043754231193612

Aliaksei Kazharski

引用次数: 0

Queer Experiences Within the Bounds of International Relations 国际关系中的奇妙体验

IF 1.3 3区社会学

Alternatives Pub Date : 2023-08-24 DOI: 10.1177/03043754231183560

Jamie J. Hagen, Alex Edney-Browne

引用次数: 0

Geopoetics: A Visual Language of Peace in Wim Wenders’ Films 地学:温德斯电影中的和平视觉语言

IF 1.3 3区社会学

Alternatives Pub Date : 2023-08-17 DOI: 10.1177/03043754231196025

G. Oliveira

{"title":"Geopoetics: A Visual Language of Peace in Wim Wenders’ Films","authors":"G. Oliveira","doi":"10.1177/03043754231196025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03043754231196025","url":null,"abstract":"In line with the critical movement that in the last two decades has led to an ‘aesthetic turn’ in the International Relations (IR) field, this article introduces the notion of geopoetics as a useful conceptual category for the analysis of peace, security, and politics. Conceiving geopoetics as an operative concept that helps to understand the political and social experience of geographical space through the most varied forms of artistic expression, this article investigates the work of the German filmmaker Wim Wenders, seeking to show how his filmography, when examined as a whole, constitutes a kind of geopoetic discourse of peace that offers an aesthetic critique, immanent to the very formal possibilities of cinematic technique that challenges dominant geopolitical and geostrategic approaches that continue to naturalise war and violence as necessary instruments of international politics. Relying on the concept of geopoetics and on the political relevance of cinema within the aesthetic turn observed in the IR field, the article argues that geopoetics contributes to expand the epistemological and methodological boundaries of the IR field and to developing a broader conception of peace in the discipline.","PeriodicalId":46677,"journal":{"name":"Alternatives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"65104466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0