Search results for "Political authorities"
showing 8 items of 8 documents
Shifting urban namescapes: street name politics and toponymic change in a Romanian(ised) city
2019
Abstract Street names express the spatial materialisation of nominative discourses articulated and deployed by the powerful in their politicisation of the urban landscape with self-legitimising ideological values, political symbols and historical narratives. Using an approach grounded upon the theoretical principles of critical toponymies, this paper sets out a longitudinal perspective on the politics of street nomenclature in Hermannstadt/Sibiu (Romania). For this purpose, a dataset comprising the complete historical record of street names in Sibiu between 1829 and 2018 was constructed. The analysis focuses on capturing the ethnopolitics played out at the level of the city's street names t…
State Control over Religious Peacebuilding
2016
Steen-Johnsen argues that it is necessary not only to consider the political strategies of a state related to the civil sphere, but also to study the enactment of these strategies in state–religious relationships. By drawing upon empirical data from Ethiopia, Steen-Johnsen shows how the political authorities in this context exert subtle and more open strategies to control political mobilization when religious actors engage in peacebuilding. This underscores the possible double nature of political strategies, as some forms of control are open and others more subtle. Steen-Johnsen outlines how the religious actors adapt to these forms of state control and develop an understanding of their own…
Per camins inussitats i sendes molt apartades. Contrabando de seda valenciana hacia Castilla durante la segunda mitad del siglo XVI
2015
Este artículo analiza la intensa corriente de contrabando de seda valenciana hacia Castilla, que se desarrolló durante la segunda mitad del siglo XVI. Entre otros factores, la creación del nou imposit de la seda en 1552 incentivó esta actividad ilícita, que llegó a convertirse en un modo de vida en las principales regiones productoras (especialmente la Ribera del Júcar) y un motivo constante de litigio para las autoridades, incapaces de frenar este tráfico ilícito. La política fiscal valenciana y el auge del contrabando de seda a Toledo lastró la sedería valenciana durante esta centuria, ya que dificultó el abastecimiento de materia prima de los telares de la ciudad de Valencia. Del mismo m…
Is Communism to Blame for Political Disenchantment in Post-Communist Countries? Cohort Analysis of Adults' Political Attitudes
2014
In this article, we apply a new, original technique of cohort analysis to test empirically whether political disenchantment in the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe can be linked to the previous political culture. On the basis of International Social Survey Programme 1996 and 2006 data we find a surprisingly similar and unique cohort effect in all analysed post-communist countries, reflecting persistent generational differences in perceived political competence (interest and understanding of political processes). However, the communist legacy does not seem to be important for explaining low self-efficacy or distrust in political authorities and their responsiveness to c…
The politics of mourning in post-communist Romania: unravelling the thanatopolitics of grievable deaths
2019
National days of mourning are state-sponsored rituals of collective grief enacted in the public sphere by political authorities to symbolically mark and emotionally cope with a socially significant...
The negotiation of rules and state intervention in irrigation management: The Júcar Canal in the mid-19th century
2012
The way the rules for distributing water work in irrigation communities has been the object of numerous studies. Yet, little is known about how the negotiation process that is required to design such rules has developed historically, which is what this article focuses on. Specifically, the case of the Júcar Canal, which was built in the 13th century and went on to become the largest irrigation system in Spain after undergoing an extension in the early 19th century. As a result of said extension, there were many clashes between the old and the new irrigators, the climate of cooperation between users diminished and it became necessary to draw up a new set of regulations. Two crucial factors a…
The Concept of Authority
1995
There is a general agreement that the concept of practical authority can be analysed as a right to impose obligations or commands on its subject and that this right is correlated with a duty to obey. Usually it is also implied that these rights and duties are mutually recognized. Thus authority is considered as a consensus-based notion. But it is important to notice that political authorities can have other functions, too. They can change the normative positions of their subjects by permitting, authorizing, delegating, exercising a veto, by declaring acts valid or invalid, etc. They can create and change definition rules, e.g. determine the values of units of payment. They are often authori…
Norwegian Sociology and the Recognition of the Saami Minority
2014
At a time when the Saami ethnic minority got little attention by the Norwegian public and the political authorities of the country, sociologists did much to raise public awareness about the conditions of this ethnic minority. In the postwar period of the 1950s and 1960s, sociologists of Norway focused to a large degree on social groups that fell outside the emerging welfare state. Norwegian sociology has been characterized by an approach named “problem-oriented empirism” and also by sociologists playing a vital role as public intellectuals. Sociology professor Vilhelm Aubert (1922- 88) coined the term “problem-oriented empirism” to characterize Norwegian sociology from the end of the Second…