Search results for "Political sociology"
showing 9 items of 29 documents
A Historical Analysis of Media Practices and Technologies in Protest Movements : A Review of Crisis and Critique by Anne Kaun
2017
Dr. Anne Kaun’s book, <em>Crisis and Critique: A Brief History of Media Participation in Times of Crisis</em> (London: Zed Books, 2016, 131 pp., ISBN: 978-1-78360-736-5), is a concise but comprehensive analysis of the changing media practices and technologies in protest movements. The book overviews the topic within the context of major economic crises and scrutinises three richly detailed case studies in the United States: (a) the unemployed workers’ movement during the Great Depression in the 1930s, (b) the tenants’ rent strike movement of the early 1970s, and (c) the Occupy Wall Street movement following the Great Recession of 2008. Kaun begins her book with an introduction t…
VOX Spain: The Organisational Challenges of a New Radical Right Party
2021
This article examines the organisation of VOX, a new radical right party in Spain. It shows that the party has taken early and uneven steps to build a mass organisation and initially opted for open membership recruitment with participatory organisational elements. Also, the party’s rapid growth and quick entrance into political institutions at different state levels led the party leadership to establish more centralised control and limit members’ prerogatives, though recruitment continued. Centralisation in part responds to organisational needs given the party’s quickly acquired political relevance, but also to the desire of the central party leadership to forestall the articulation of terr…
L’organisation des circuits courts par les intermédiaires.
2016
The dissertation deals with the institutionalisation of proximity in agri-food markets and the place occupied in this process by non-economic intermediaries (employees of associations, researchers, members of staff from the ministry of Agriculture, advisers of the chambers of agriculture). By varying the scales of investigation, from the national to the departmental level, and by articulating qualitative and quantitative methods, this work points out the paradox that constitute the development of those intermediary agents, as proximity is progressively defined and objectified as a virtuous component of the merchant relationship. On the basis of a sociology of merchant institutions attentive…
Interest Representation Preconditions in Illiberal Poland and Hungary
2022
Poland and Hungary have been widely recognised as countries affected by illiberalism. This has undoubtedly created a challenging environment for interest groups; groups which are a touchstone for the quality of democratic processes. In this article, we aim to understand how preconditions for interest representation have changed due to illiberal drift through the eyes of interest groups operating in these two selected post-communist countries. In order to examine their perception of opportunity structures, interaction infrastructure as well as the level of political coordination under the new circumstances, we rely on quantitative research in the form of a survey carried out among interest g…
La sociedad multicultural. Democracia y derechos
1997
En este artículo, el autor parte de un hecho sustancial: las sociedades multiculturales constituyen un fenómeno característico de nuestro tiempo. Es decir, en las sociedades actuales conviven códigos e identidades culturales diversos como consecuencia de diferencias étnicas, lingüísticas, religiosas o nacionales. En Europa, este fenómeno responde a la fragmentación de sociedades altamente homogéneas, a la crisis de consensos internos y del modelo del Estado social, a los flujos migratorios, etcétera. Ciertamente, la complejidad de las sociedades multiculturales plantea desafíos a la democracia: ¿cómo conciliar la unidad política con la diversidad social? El autor analiza el debate generado …
How representative are referendums? Evidence from 20 years of Swiss referendums
2017
Direct democracy allows citizens to reverse decisions made by legislatures and even initiate new laws which parliaments are unwilling to pass, thereby, as its proponents argue, leading to more representative policies than would have obtained under a purely representative democracy. Yet, turnout in referendums is usually lower than in parliamentary elections and tends to be skewed towards citizens of high socio-economic status. Consequently, critics of direct democracy argue that referendum outcomes may not be representative of the preferences of the population at large. We test this assertion using a compilation of post-referendum surveys encompassing 148 national referendums held in Switze…
The Institutions of Authoritarian Neoliberalism in Malaysia: A Critical Review of the Development Agendas Under the Regimes of Mahathir, Abdullah, an…
2018
After toppling the 61-year dominant Barisan Nasional through a historic election victory in May 2018, expectations are high for the new ruling government led by Mahathir Mohamad and the Pakatan Harapan to fulfil their promises for socio-economic reforms and regime change in Malaysia. But what have been the institutions of the prevailing regime that need to be reformed and changed? This article offers a critical review of the evolving development agendas since the 1990s of the successive governments of Mahathir Mohamad, Abdullah Badawi, and Najib Razak, each couched in different catchphrases: Wawasan 2020, Islam Hadhari, and 1Malaysia. A close reading of these programs suggests that their su…
To Show, But Not to Disclose. The Willingness of Polish Political Parties to Disclose Information On their Structures
2018
Abstract Constituting the key element of a democratic system, political parties are among entities obliged by the Polish legislator to comply with the principle of disclosure by providing public information. The main objective of this paper is to determine the level of Polish political parties’ disclosure, understood here as their willingness to disclose information on their own structures. It seems that the practice of disclosing such basic organizational data may constitute a specific measure of Polish political parties’ respect for the idea of disclosure. The subject matter of the conducted research was particular parties’ sites in the Public Information Bulletin as well as their officia…
Formation of Professional Ethos of Executive Public Officials in Latvia, Denmark and Finland
2013
Doktora darba priekšmets ir valsts pārvaldes amatpersonu profesionālā ētosa veidošanās Latvijā, Dānijā un Somijā. Valsts pārvaldes amatpersonu ētoss ir definēts kā šai profesionālai lomai specifiskas normatīvas orientācijas, kas tiek brīvprātīgi pieņemtas kā uzvedības imperatīvi. Valsts amatpersonu profesionālā ētosa veidošanās izpēte ir svarīga, jo tādā veidā var izskaidrot valsts sektora pakļautību korupcijas riskam vai imunitāti pret to. Izpētes mērķis ir bijis identificēt profesionālā ētosa veidošanās sociālos mehānismus uz trīs valstu – Latvijas, Dānijas un Somijas – piemēriem. Darbā tiek pielietota vēsturiskās socioloģijas pieeja un kvalitatīvo pētījumu metode. Pētījuma rezultātu anal…