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The article offers a critique of the 'decentred state' and the working of the devolved Scottish Parliament in its legislative and political relations with the UK Parliament. It argues that analysis of relations between the devolved Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament, requires examination of both the political culture and political narratives surrounding constitutional governance and the future of the domestic UK union. Both play a pivotal role in shaping interparliamentary relations in the devolved UK. The paper draws on empirical research from two projects that used both documentary analysis of parliamentary sources and interviews with 35 parliamentarians and officials as a Commons Academic Fellow 2016–2021 and Scottish Parliament Academic Fellow 2022–2023. Both the political narrative and culture of interparliamentary relations between the UK Parliament and Scottish Parliament have been impacted arguably even more by the outcome of the 2016 UK EU Referendum than by the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the life and significance of Pasvanoǧlu Osman Pasha, an Ottoman notable in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Despite being portrayed negatively by the central government, Pasvanoǧlu had support from both Muslims and Christians in the Vidin region. The article analyzes his depiction in Ottoman archival documents, chronicles, and travelers' accounts, shedding light on the complex relationship between provincial elites and the central government. It also discusses Pasvanoǧlu's successful defense against the siege of Vidin in 1798 and his opposition to the central government's reforms. The article highlights the contrasting European portrayals of Ottoman rebels, with some depicting them as noble figures fighting against tyranny. [Extracted from the article]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, some governments took measures to restrict political liberties, claiming that these restrictions were necessary to contain the spread of the virus. In this study, we scrutinize differences in citizens' willingness to accept three types of political restrictions: restricting the media, banning protests, and introducing extensive state surveillance. We focus on two European countries: Austria and Hungary. While we find that perceived health threats, political values, ideological orientation, and political trust are important predictors of accepting political restrictions, we also find that citizens differ in their willingness to support the three types of restrictions depending on whether the given measure affects them directly. We also find differences between Austria and Hungary concerning the way political trust and political values affect the acceptance of restrictions, which may be rooted in the larger polarization of Hungarian society. Furthermore, we observe that perceived health threats, political values, ideological orientation, and political trust are important predictors of accepting political restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kevin Munger's Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture is the latest addition in a growing collection of analyses that attempt to evaluate the impact of millennials and Generation Z on the body politic. Combining a review of cultural trends, election statistics, news consumption patterns, and unique survey data, Munger argues that baby boomer political dominance is perched to run headlong into younger, tech-savvy cohorts who have the potential—but not yet the power—to replace them. Munger calls attention to the ways in which the political system has favored boomer issues and concerns, highlighting how the ensuing public policies reward the older generation and undermine the collective economic fortune of today's youth. This review discusses the history of generational research as well as recent work about today's younger cohorts to provide context for understanding both the strengths and shortcomings of Generation Gap. The field is richer with Munger's contribution, but many critical questions remain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political psychology has greatly benefited from work that together addresses the enormous variety of political problems faced by people around the world, including those that are universal (e.g., how one gains access to basic needs, how power should be governed) and problems that confront people in particular situations (e.g., transitions of governmental forms, war, group exclusion, rapid economic change, decolonization, external intervention, national dominance). Adopting multiple standpoints and research agendas is necessary for us collectively to make our work useful to publics and to further the work each of us does. Another strength of our discipline is to employ the assumptions of multiple disciplines and of a variety of research methods. I will illustrate these points with research examples from several ISPP members and discuss ways that those in our discipline try to confront the difficulties that lack of commonality in theory, standpoint, methods, and epistemological assumptions can pose. Finally, I will summarize some of the work that various ISPP members have done to promote the development of political psychology and our society this year and invite further suggestions and contributions from members in how we can serve one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on data from a large-scale sample survey conducted in 2016 within the contemporary ethnic Japanese migrant community in Sydney, Australia, this article focuses on demographics and the political culture of this community to determine the context for Japanese migrants' attitudes, with a focus on gender. Findings suggest that the Japanese community is statistically less politically involved than the wider Australian population, possibly reflecting general attitudes towards politics in Japan, and unique social profiles within the Australian community. Superficially, the lack of interest in political commitment appeared to signify less integration into Australian society. However, our triangulation of the data, combined with follow-up interviews found a new form of political engagement within the Japanese community in contemporary Australia. This article contributes to a deeper understanding of the Japanese ethnic community in Australia and overseas, as well as broadening scholarship about the political awareness and activities of ethnic communities in settler societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the history and ongoing transformation of the South Sudanese Sudd marshlands as a buffer zone in a variety of subsequent projects of domination and their subversion. Its argument will be that the contemporary geopolitics of the Sudd cannot be understood properly without unwinding the historical layers of contestation and conflict around these projects of control and their reversal, projects which have sought to shape and have been shaped crucially by the area's specific ecology. For more than a century, different external ventures – colonial, nationalist, secessionist – encountered in the southern Sudanese marshlands a formidable buffer to the realization of their various projects of control. Ambitions of making the Nile water flow, establishing effective state authority, or building lines of communication, get stuck in the Sudd's difficult terrain. Building on the political ecology and wider social theory on terrain, resistance and warfare, we conceptualize the Sudd as a lively political ecology – one characterized by constant struggles and accommodations between the centripetal logics of state-making and the centrifugal propensities of vernacular political culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a case study of the way in which elite women in informal social networks could facilitate political contacts and discourse in a manner that does not accord with existing typologies. Focusing upon exile society in post-Napoleonic Rome, it describes this group of women as political 'facilitators'. After considering the nature of the society and the network of women at the heart of it, it assesses in particular the activities of two—Teresa, Countess Guiccioli and ex-Queen Hortense of Holland—to explore the gendered dimensions of the socio-political culture in which they moved. Taken together, the activities of the group of women examined here illuminate three themes: that exile society offered a breadth of informal political space; that women with no obvious political goals could be important facilitators of political connections within that space; and that some aristocratic women were autonomous actors, independent of male authority. It suggests that more analysis and exploration would illuminate the roles played by such women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to analyse the relationship between democratic quality and excess mortality produced in the year 2020 before COVID-19 vaccinations were generalised. Using cross-sectional data from 80 countries on five continents, multiple linear regression models between excess mortality, the general democracy index and its disaggregation into five categories: electoral process and pluralism, government functioning, political participation, political culture and civil liberties were estimated. The analysis also considered, public health spending per capita, overweight inhabitants, the average temperature of the country, population over 65 years of age, The KOF Globalisation Index, and the Gross National Income per capita as control variables. It was possible to establish a strong inverse association between excess mortality per million inhabitants and the general democracy index and four of its five categories. There was a particularly strong relationship between excess mortality and the political culture dimension (−326.50, p < 0.001). The results suggest that the higher the democratic quality of the political institutions of a State and particularly of their political culture the more improved the response and management of the pandemic was in preventing deaths and protecting their citizens more effectively. Conversely, countries with lower democracy index values have higher excess mortality. Quality democratic political institutions provide more effective public health policies in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a design innovation, the modern university is an institution that unites the advancement of knowledge through research with its dissemination through teaching. Its inception in Germany in the first decade of the nineteenth century inspired an American adaptation that merged the German version with the English undergraduate college to produce a new bundle that would be emulated the world over. The historical view reveals cycles of sustaining innovation in which academic entrepreneurs supplemented the research-teaching synthesis with institutions devoted to one task or the other. Despite these disruptive efforts and continuing evidence of inefficiency, however, the original institutional hybrid remains the dominant model. This essay argues that the university's persistence is best understood as fulfilling a deeper need in American political culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to examine how citizens evaluate the contribution of interest groups to the functioning of representative democracies, focusing on several dimensions related to political representation and democratic governance. Drawing on an original online survey conducted to a representative sample of the population in Portugal, we investigate the correlates of citizens' perceptions regarding interest groups, in particular the impact of individual-level factors related to political involvement, partisanship, party closeness and ideology. We find that associational membership and partisan identities positively impact citizens' views, while higher levels of (perceived) proximity between political parties and groups increasenegative perceptions. Moreover, people displaying greater trust in interest groups are more likely to hold positive views of organised interests. Overall, political features shape citizens' attitudes towards groups to a great extent, as people anchored to the political system are more prone to support the institutional role of organised interests and to evaluate their contribution to the functioning of democracies more positively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the establishment of Presidio San Luis de las Amarillas (Presidio San Sabá) in Texas in 1757 as part of Spain's frontier policy against French interests. It argues that Presidio San Luis was more significant than previously believed and discusses the controversial figure of Captain Felipe de Rábago y Terán, who commanded the presidio. The article also examines the changing relationship between church and state in Spanish colonial policy and the influence of the Enlightenment and regalist agenda on Spanish administration. It provides historical context and sheds light on the motivations behind the establishment of Presidio San Luis. The article also discusses the establishment of Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá and the strategic concerns and motivations behind it. It highlights the French threat, Indian alliances, and Comanche dominance in the region as factors that influenced the Spanish decision to establish the mission and presidio. The text also discusses the biased perspective of early historians and the need for caution when interpreting the friars' testimonies. It concludes by discussing the strategic importance of the San Sabá venture and the shifting priorities of Spain after acquiring Louisiana in 1763. The article suggests that Captain Felipe Rábago deserves reevaluation and recognition for his service and explores the potential reasons behind his interest in commanding the garrisons of San Xavier and San Sabá. [Extracted from the article]

The article focuses on the intersection of personal life and political culture, exploring how writers and artists shape augmented reality through their work. Topics include the author's discovery of Paulus Berensohn's transformative creative life, the challenges of integrating body, soul, mind, and spirit into creative endeavors, and the healing potential of symbolic language through writing.

Max Skjönsberg's book, "The Persistence of Party," explores the dominance of the idea of party in eighteenth-century Britain. The book fills a gap in the history of political thought by examining the value of party itself, rather than just party ideology. Skjönsberg analyzes the historical and sociological context of the Whig-Tory divide and the creation of political organizations based on ideological principles. The book also discusses the perspectives of various writers, such as Rapin, Bolingbroke, Hume, and Burke, on the role of party in British politics. Skjönsberg's analysis highlights the importance of understanding the political circumstances and promoting a more civil and humane political culture. [Extracted from the article]

This article is part of a continuing discourse in the Caribbean about the exercise of sovereignty and the need to hold steadfast to the concept as a bulwark against imperial erasure of cultural identity. The essay argues against such conventional wisdom. It is intended to move beyond popular notions of sovereignty to unmask the reality of conflict, subordination and violence embedded in the idea of sovereignty. The article also looks at the way sovereignty is deployed in the Caribbean as part of popular, political discourses, and provides examples of how the concept is made unsustainable in its practice. It is an approach which allows for a materialist reading of the political development of the role the state plays in shaping the consciousness of the nation into an understanding of the idea of sovereignty. In conclusion, the paper returns to the specifically cultural logic of sovereignty, engaging the notion of "the sovereignty of the imagination," articulated by the eminent Caribbean novelist, George Lamming, as a way of reconceptualizing this political concept. The paper ends with the notion that sovereignty in the Caribbean is a myth and should be abandoned for a more realistic understanding of the actual power of the postcolonial state in the global political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the book "Politics and the Arts in Lisbon and Rome: The Roman Dream of John V of Portugal" edited by Pilar Diez del Corral Corredoira. The book explores the reign of John V of Portugal and his relationship with Rome and eighteenth-century culture. It examines how John V's admiration for Italian arts influenced his efforts to transform Lisbon into a new Rome. The book challenges previous interpretations of John V's reign and offers new insights into this period of Portuguese history. [Extracted from the article]

Women are under‐represented in Indonesian legislatures, and those women who are elected are disproportionately from 'elite' backgrounds. This research sought to understand the conditions for women to succeed in politics in conditions of patriarchy and clientelist politics. Research in North Sumatera, Indonesia, revealed that many women did not make the conscious decision not to enter politics, but rather found that they had not established the required preconditions earlier enough in life. Patriarchal social norms and a transactional political culture frustrate women's ability to acquire these conditions, yet they are also subject to change. Interviews with women elected representatives and women who had never contested an election revealed three sites that are critical to women either acquiring the preconditions to contest elections, or frustrating that pathway: the household, the 'community' and religious/ethnic associations. We demonstrate how women's actions in these sites transform the conditions to make them more conducive to women's political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/context: The decade of the 1920s witnessed a significant transformation in Peruvian political culture with the widespread recognition of the indigenous problem as a socioeconomic phenomenon, which paved the way for new political languages. This article aims to recover the role of myth in the Peruvian indigenista debate during this period. Specifically, it delves into the literary polemic of indigenismo in 1927, focusing on how intellectuals from Lima, Cusco, and Puno bestowed their arguments with legitimacy, effectively intertwining literature and history through the incorporation of mythical elements. Methodology: The study proposes an examination of the arguments put forth by indigenista intellectuals using the tools of conceptual history, drawing heavily from Hans Blumenberg's work on myth. This theoretical framework helps uncover the semantic foundations of Peruvian indigenist's language and sheds light on the historical temporalities of their political projects. Originality: This article advances a novel analysis of the intellectual field by reinterpreting primary sources related to the 1927 indigenismo polemic, reconstructing synchronic languages on national identity, and highlighting the role of myth as a significant rhetorical device. By exploring how supporters of indigenismo creatively employed myth to imagine the past and mobilize politically, this study uncovers previously overlooked conceptual shifts and their mythical underpinnings. Conclusions: The study argues that myth played a crucial role in shaping the political language of a new generation of Peruvian intellectuals. Indigenismo facilitated the emergence of novel conceptual frameworks that interrogated national identity, accelerated expectations of change, and incorporated mythical elements from indigenous experiences, including rebellions in the south and the activities of the Comité Pro-Derecho Indígena Tahuantinsuyo. Concepts such as nation and socialism were democratized and imbued with mythical significance, reflecting the diverse temporalities within the indigenista movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of service in Castilian political culture between 1250 and 1350. Many interactions between different elements of political society were discussed and understood in terms of service, from holding office to military service, grants and royal taxation. The study traces the development of phrases which harnessed the discursive power of service through royal documents, Cortes records, political writings and letters. I argue that service was sufficiently resonant that it ought to be considered the central ethic of political interaction between the king and the kingdom. Moreover, by regularly justifying actions because they were "God's service and mine, and the profit and safeguard of all my land," Castilian kings made a discursive link between service and the common good. By contrast with England, where parliament considered "the profit of the king and the kingdom," the Castilian formulation left service more closed off in political discourse: it was only for the king to decide what contributed to his service. Concluding that the moral discourse of service acted as a powerful force for integration in Castilian politics, this article contributes to a broader debate about the role of political language in shaping the development of late medieval polities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Salah Ben Youssef et les youssefistes: Au tournant de l'indépendance tunisienne, 1955–1956" by M'hamed Oualdi explores the rise and fall of the Youssefist movement in the Tunisian national movement. The author focuses on Salah Ben Youssef's leadership position in the Neo-Destour party, his expulsion from the party, and the support he garnered across Tunisia. The book also delves into the violent suppression of the movement after its official ban in 1956. The author draws on French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and French military archives for information. The book offers insights into Ben Youssef's background and his vision for Tunisia as a constitutional monarchy. The author questions why Tunisia did not evolve into a multiparty state like Morocco. However, the book could have benefited from further analysis of the rivalry between Bourguiba and Ben Youssef and the perspectives of other key figures. The book provides a useful chronology of events but lacks an index. [Extracted from the article]

Understanding the history of the political right in 20th-century Canada requires analyzing the most visible political expression of right-of-center policies and views of the post-Second World War period: the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party of Canada. For its first five decades, it was the de facto government-in-waiting when the Liberals were in office. It won six federal elections, governing 1957–1963, 1979–1980, and 1984–1993. While sometimes derided as centrist by commentators on the far right, its members defined themselves as conservatives, and their beliefs and policies incorporated elements of this ideology. The party had a more progressive wing—sometimes referred to as Red Tories—who believed the better off in society had responsibilities to care for the less fortunate. This article considers the role that progressive values and policies played within the PC Party, and how the party and its leadership responded to changing understandings of what it meant to be progressive in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have been conducted on the link between Confucianism and democratic values in East Asia, but they have failed to account for the complex character of Confucianism and the possible impact of political systems. This study re-measures Confucian values into four dimensions—authoritarianism, familialism, collectivism, and harmoniousness—based on data from the fourth wave of the Asian Barometer survey. It then uses a multi-layer linear regression model to examine the relationship between the Confucian cultural values and the democratic values held by people in six East Asian societies at both the macro and micro levels. The findings demonstrate an asymmetrical pattern in the relationship between the various dimensions of Confucian cultural values and the democratic values of East Asia, collectivist values do not affect democratic values, while familial and authoritarian values have a significant and negative correlation with democratic values. Harmonious values have a significant and positive correlation with democratic values. In addition, there is a significant positive correlation between democratic institutions and the democratic values, and the relationship between the values of harmoniousness and collectivism and democratic values varies across countries with different political systems. This offers insightful material for reflection as we reconsider the connection between Confucianism and democracy in East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The patriarchal nature of Turkish society reflects itself in Turkish political culture, within which various social mechanisms have reproduced patriarchal relations. This study is designed as a retrospective one. Personal stories and experiences of female party leaders are presented to analyze the prevailing patriarchy in Turkish politics. The analysis is based on biographical sources of life stories and public statements of female party leaders from four consecutive periods: (1) Nezihe Muhiddin – Early Republican period; (2) Behice Boran – Multi-party period; (3) Tansu Çiller – Post-1980 Coup Period; and (4) Meral Akşener – The AKP period. The conceptualization of political masculinities is employed to analyze their encounters with the politically-embedded patriarchy. The aim of this article is to contribute to the literature by exploring the ways in which political masculinities play out in the context of female party leaders in Turkish politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Augustine's position on civic spectacles should be evaluated in connection with his fears about a resurgence of paganism in late Roman North Africa. Notwithstanding contemporary claims that those fears were cover for early fifth-century prelatical efforts to manage commercial and political culture, evidence suggests that paganism in North Africa survived and was seductive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democracy has not yet been institutionalized in Afghanistan, and this nation has a significant journey ahead before the establishment of a fully institutionalized democracy. One of the major internal obstacles on the way to the realization and institutionalization of democracy in this country is the presence of tribal and ethnic political culture of some of its residents. In this country, the attitudes, values, beliefs, feelings, beliefs, looking at the past, orientations, social traditions and some social structures of a number of the inhabitants of this land are ethnic and tribal. Of course, it should not be denied and ignored that many of the young generations of Afghanistan have trampled many beliefs, red lines and ethnic taboos. In the third presidential election in Afghanistan, observations indicate that the political culture among some of the youth in this country is characterized by active participation. Hence, the primary objective of this article is to ascertain how effective the political culture has been in the political development of Afghanistan. Since the Afghan society is a traditional and tribal society, its political culture is also a tribal political culture. The research method in this article is descriptive-analytical and the method of collecting information is library. The results indicate a clear correlation between elections and the political culture in each respective country. Elections mirror the prevailing political culture within the country. If the political culture is moving towards democratization, it is evident that the elections in Afghanistan are also moving towards democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During World War I, mass migration to military manufacturing centers and the suspension of most private construction placed immense pressure on urban rental housing markets. Seeking to address the wartime housing "emergency," Congress established the nation's first public housing programs and federal agents based in major cities implemented informal policies to control rents. After the war, national policy shifted away from assisting struggling tenants to promoting homeownership for those who could afford it. However, empowered by the assistance they had received during the war, Philadelphia tenants continued to insist on the need for government action to curtail evictions and rising rents. Though divided by race, ethnicity, income, and political affiliation, struggling tenants shared the belief that the city's housing problems required collective solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article questions the persisting notion that the European Union's memory is fractured between East and West, a notion that contributes to the reification of states as legitimately embodying national collective memories. It does so by building on actor-centered examinations of the EU memory divide, which is manifested in a challenge to the EU's Holocaust-centered narrative by an antitotalitarian memory regime, defined as an institutionalized network of politically driven historiographic expertise. The article shows that the antitotalitarian memory regime reflects a political culture of remembrance centered on a "politics of certainty" that disregards open historiographic disputes and contests the EU's hitherto prevailing "politics of regret." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To curb the COVID-19 pandemic, governments took exceptional measures impacting citizens' daily lives, the economy, and democratic institutions. The literature has already discussed the various measures and their short-term consequences for institutions and decision-making, highlighting the risk of democratic backsliding. However, little is known about how and why consolidated democracies survived the pandemic without substantial damage to their democratic institutions and practices. Drawing on the flourishing literature on democratic resilience, we contribute to theory-building through a novel analytical framework consisting of three interrelated and complementary dimensions that make a country resilient to crisis: institutions, instruments, and actors. The accumulation of unperfect layers offers adequate protection against backsliding. Examining the case of Finland, this article shows how institutional design, legal rules, and political culture combined to confer a high level of protection against the weakening of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the nationalist rhetoric of Biden and Trump in the 2020 presidential election, focusing on how the candidates represented, and contested, the meaning of American national identity. To do so, we construct a novel analytical framework to undertake a contextual content analysis of Biden and Trump's campaign tweets (n = 4,321). We demonstrate that the meaning of national identity was a key source of contestation in the election, and that the parameters of this contestation closely tracked a longstanding cleavage in American political culture between civic and ethnic nationalist traditions. Biden largely drew upon the civic nationalist tradition to defend a conception of American national identity that is grounded in liberal myths and symbols. By contrast, Trump largely drew upon the ethnic nationalist tradition to defend a conception of American national identity that is grounded in white American myths and symbols. Critically, both candidates used these opposing nationalist traditions to frame each other as a grave threat to the nation's "true" identity and, ultimately, as un-American. This "nationalist polarization" of presidential politics is a troubling development for the future of American democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article analyses the strategy used by the sultans of Sulu over two centuries (19th-21st) to affirm their status and authority, from their costumes to the symbols used. By doing so, it highlights how tradition makes use of old materials, symbols and rites from the southern Philippines, while it incorporates others which belong to the European heraldic language to extend the symbolic vocabulary of authority and power. The article uses written and visual sources to demonstrate how the royal house adapts to the changing local and international political situations. The comparison cases from the 19th and the 21st centuries shed light on the evolving diplomatic usage and contribute to a better understanding of the political culture of the Sultanate of Sulu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, the marriage-equality plebiscite of 2017 prompted significant debate over appropriate limits to free speech in the context of expressions of religious belief. This article reports on the results of a political discourse analysis of media coverage in prominent national newspapers from 2017 to 2021. Findings show the debate was dominated by three representations: discrimination against Christians, disagreement as rights abrogation, and the meaning of 'free speech' as unbridled and unlimited. These representations were deployed in an (ultimately unsuccessful) endeavour to override long-held views about the appropriate place of freedom of speech in Australian political culture and law, and to misrepresent the meaning and purpose of vilification laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It is now commonplace to say that democracy is in crisis. What exactly does that diagnosis mean? Analysis: Examining an archive of Google Alerts over the past three years, this commentary addresses themes and contradictions in the public debate about the so-called crisis of democracy. Conclusions and implications: The analysis shows that debate is characterized by significant disagreement on the nature of the crisis--how it started, its main symptoms, and its potential resolution. While this commentary rejects the assumption that liberal democracy is in crisis, it argues that there is radical insight and potential in this misguided view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how the adoption and use of digital technologies shape political culture and practice in grassroots political groups, particularly focusing on how VOIP technologies enable and/or constrain groups to work across physical space and form political relationships among participants. While this article is grounded in a case study of one broad-based coalition in Sydney, Australia, the findings expand our understanding of how digital technology shapes political culture and practice in grassroots spaces by (a) analysing an organisation both before and after the adoption of VOIP technology and (b) focusing on a case study where the organisation attempted to maintain rather than transform their political culture and practice with the adoption of new digital organising methods. The article argues that the instrumental benefits of digital technologies come at a cost: VOIP technologies may constrain the formation of deep relationships and flatten distinctive political practices within grassroots political organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the nature of Ethiopian modernity will be explored through the usage of concepts like coloniality, entangled modernities and uneven histories that are borrowed from decolonial and postcolonial perspectives. Through such an analysis, the Ethiopian discourse on modernity will be presented as a conception of social progress that developed in a dialectical relationship with liberal, Marxist, indigenous and religiously inspired conceptions of modernity. It will be argued that resisting the attempts to romanticize the past as a foundation of cultural revival and also the attempt to confine the discussion of Ethiopian modernity to the introduction of western modernization, Ethiopian modernity should be alternatively conceptualized as a discourse that is co-constituted in an active confrontation with alternative visions of progress. The article argues that the diagnosis of the multiple and interconnected discourses that shaped the Ethiopian discourse on modernity serves as a foundation of an Ethiopian critical theory. Such a theory creatively synthesizes cultural values, hosts an inclusive political culture that furnishes the culture of public criticism and introduces a world of knowledge production that overcomes Eurocentrism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After Franco’s death, Spanish trade unionism was completely transformed. These changes took place between 1977–1988 during a period that some refer to as the Trade Union Transition. The change in trade unionism required both institutional changes and changes in the trade union culture of the main trade unions at the time. This article outlines the main events of the Trade Union Transition and specifically investigates the transformation of the culture of Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) as the main trade union force of the time at various levels: organisational form, conflictivity, degree of participation, etc. The article attempts to demonstrate how the changes in CCOO’s culture reduced trade union conflict, a factor that contributed to reducing opposition to the economic changes promoted by the different governments, mainly those led by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Venezuela - Dimensions of a Crisis: A Perspective on Democratic Backsliding" edited by Miguel Angel Latouche, Wolfgang Muno, and Alexandra Gericke provides a multidimensional analysis of the crisis in Venezuela. The book is divided into three sections, covering theoretical perspectives, domestic factors, and international interactions. It explores the rise of Chavismo and the decline of liberal democracy in Venezuela, examining ideological factors, the role of political parties, and the impact on public administration and the military. The book also discusses the international dimension of the crisis, including the positions of the European Union and the United States, as well as the relationship with neighboring Colombia. While the book does not extensively explore the role of China and Russia, it offers valuable insights into the limits of democracy in Venezuela. [Extracted from the article]

This paper seeks to explore the cultural politics of the November Uprising through the lens of popularity. It investigates both the idea of popularity that pervaded the discourse of the time and the social practice of using popular reputations to shape the politics of the Uprising. Instead of treating popularity as just another manifestation of the ideological conflicts typical of the age of revolutions, this paper posits that the discourse surrounding popularity became a crucial axis of conceptualizing public individuality during the uprising. The debates surrounding popularity, including those concerning the dangers of hasty political ambitions, the increasing importance of personality in public life and the search for alternative sources of legitimacy, fostered an evolving political landscape in which it became possible to envision a different way of being a public figure and to reconsider the tools available for shaping public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of political systems in the post-Soviet region remains a relevant topic even thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Due to social, economic, and cultural factors, the political regimes continue to move from the general communist in the past towards different political futures dominated by either authoritarian or democratic frames. This study aims to investigate the patterns of political culture and participation, focusing on the binary categorization of political regimes prevalent across post-Soviet countries and the application of media trust and the freedom index to outline the patterns of political participation. It focuses on eight post-Soviet countries, four authoritarian and four hybrid political regimes, using WVS/EVS 2017–2020 survey data. The findings specify the importance of media trust in the formation of political participation habits across countries with unconsolidated democracy. It shows that the levels of media trust exert diverging impacts depending on the type of political participation. The freedom index has also been integrated as a moderator due to the importance of freedom for the media to mobilize society. The moderation analysis revealed the distinctive patterns of political participation in countries with lower and higher levels of freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abortion is a highly contested issue and one where the fault lines are often drawn along religious lines. In the United States, the most famous and timely example, anti-abortion attitudes and activism are strongly identified with conservative Christian values. But what is the role of religion in abortion debates in a more secularised context? Does religion 'work' as a justification for opposing abortion rights in such contexts? We analyse debates in the Finnish parliament regarding two Citizen's Initiatives concerning abortion. Using discourse analysis and descriptive statistics of speech patterns and voting behaviour, we draw three conclusions from the parliamentary material: (1) religious discourse is rarely used; (2) it is not effective, and its use is considered inappropriate; and (3) voting patterns in abortion cases are better explained by instrumental than religious concerns. Although the Finnish political system is not particularly secularist, the secularisation of political culture means that religion is marginalised as a source for justifying politics. In other words, religion is a troublesome resource for political legitimation in the Finnish context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some characteristics of the Colombian political culture are traced, through the categories of myth, authoritarianism, alienation, and elitism, from an approach to the urban narrative of Álvaro Salom Becerra. The concept of political culture is addressed and its reception and development in Latin America, especially in Colombia, is exposed. Then the reflective potential of the confluences between philosophy and literature is discussed to study political culture, through an interpretive approach to his novels. It is concluded that literature allows exploring new ways of understanding the tensions between power and culture, also promotes a disruptive nature that dislocates the naturalization of the social order and favors the establishment of instituting actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is a review of a book that examines the importance of sociability spaces in the formation of collective identities in the Basque Country between 1876 and 1936. Different aspects of republican, fuerista, socialist, conservative, and Catholic sociability are analyzed, as well as conservative women's associations and the batzokis of the PNV. The study offers a comparative view of different political cultures and sociability spaces, highlighting the careful selection of archival images that accompany each chapter. It reflects on the changes and continuities in political experience and the complex roots of contemporary political reality in the Basque Country. [Extracted from the article]

Ukrainians' resilience in the face of Russia's 2022 invasion can be explained by cumulative identity change through successive revolutions: the Orange Revolution in 2004, the Maidan Revolution or Revolution of Dignity in 2013–2014 and the current as yet unnamed war. The two phases of the war, from 2014 and 2022, have accelerated both the civic and the social construction of Ukrainian identity. Post‐post‐Soviet Ukraine is now a consolidated civic and political nation. But there is also an increased consensus on traditional nationalist mythology, defined by opposition to Russia's aggressive reimperialisation and autocratic political culture and by Ukraine's hyper‐Europeanisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis examines the repercussions of Operation "Al-Aqsa Flood" on the Palestinian internal front. This was studied through three axes: implications for the conflict with the Israeli occupation, repercussions on the Palestinian political culture, and repercussions on the Palestinians' orientations and the weights of the Palestinian powers The analysis concluded with a set of results, the most important of which are: This battle brought about a change in the view of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a conflict that cannot be jumped upon and that it is with a brutal military occupation that is 75 years old. It constituted a nuclear shift in the culture of resistance and the view on the enemy, his time, and his capabilities, which made the operation successful. The "Al-Aqsa Flood" shook Israel and broke its military and intelligence reputation. The operation also caused the development of the perception of the Hamas movement and its great relative weight in the Palestinian political system to the extent that it is a determining factor for the Palestinian future. It also succeeded in influencing Israel's ongoing strategy to reengineer Palestinian society in the West Bank, which was working to change the Palestinian thought in the conflict with the Israeli occupation towards relative coexistence by describing the prevailing resistance thought in the Gaza Strip as nihilistic and unproductive. However, the operation proved that the opposite is accurate and that the resistance in the Gaza Strip, Hamas, is the most capable of confronting the occupation, raising the Palestinian cause, and perhaps achieving the Palestinian goals of national liberation. On the other hand, the Al-Aqsa Flood operation energized international awareness of the Palestinian cause under the Israeli unjust military occupation for 75 years. It also shattered the Israeli ideology of cheap occupation, the self defense right, as Palestinians attacked Israel for no reason except terrorizing civilians. Many Israelis have come to know the reality of frustrating the Palestinian nation under occupation by Israeli soldiers and ignoring their fundamental rights as humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates why anti-democratic laws persist in democratic societies, focusing on South Korea's National Security Act (NSA). Enacted in 1948, the NSA restricts freedom of expression and movement to deter pro-North Korea behaviour. Despite being at odds with the tenets of liberal democracy, the act remains in place. Existing public opinion data indicates modest to strong support for the law, but measurement concerns leave much to be desired. Using a choice-based conjoint, we test the impact of democratic norms and national security rationales on various policy propositions related to the NSA, including its abolition. Results show widespread support for the Act, driven by both democratic norms and security concerns. Progressives are more likely to support revisions limiting the scope of the Act on the basis that it safeguards democracy, but they agree with conservatives that it should not be abolished. This research contributes to understanding South Korea's post-democratic transition and the balance between national security and democracy more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first section of this chapter illustrates that the pogrom in Rostock-Lichtenhagen in 1992 has not been categorized sufficiently as a substantial milestone of right-wing violence in postwar Germany. This pogrom led to historically significant limitations in the right to asylum, ultimately resulting in a change to the German constitution. We propose to look at Rostock-Lichtenhagen as an example to explain that practices of remembering right-wing violence, a process that we describe with the term 'Doing Memory on right-wing violence', is a central part of creating a society's basic story. This basic story, in turn, contributes to how a society understands itself. In this chapter's second section, we argue first that analyzing practices of memory of right-wing violence, be they acknowledging, forgetting or suppressing those practices, actually make it possible to even expose the persistence of the basic story as a central element of political culture. Second, we want to uncover how potential and publicly effective interventions of and changes to the basic story might look like. Here, we build on Habermas' model of democracy, utilize Susan Bickford's work on listening as an important element in her political philosophy and refer to Benjamin Barber, who articulates that a participatory democracy requires political listening. As a result, our chapter's third section demonstrates how listening can be conceptualized from a supra-individual perspective and how questions that are critical of existing hegemonic structures can prioritize a focus on hegemonic (non)listening. Lastly, we will sketch out strategies to intervene in hegemonic (non)listening. These strategies connect theoretically with concepts of 'counter publics' and 'opinion forming publics' and reference, among others, the work of Seyla Benhabib and Iris Marion Young, thus enabling the creation and execution of resistance practices of Doing Memory on right-wing violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article thus argues that we should interpret Witherspoon's relationship to slavery through the lens of his philosophical commitments. Perhaps John Witherspoon's most lasting contribution to American political culture was his introduction of Scottish Common Sense philosophy into American life. This body of philosophical thought that Witherspoon brought over from Scotland soon became dominant in American seminaries and universities. It helped shape the language of the Patriot cause during the American Revolution and seems to have, in concrete ways, influenced the Constitution. Scottish Common Sense philosophy helped to undergird much of the early anti-slavery movement. In this sense Witherspoon contributed significantly to the foundations of early American abolitionism. As the anti-slavery movement radicalized, though, decades after Witherspoon's death, Common Sense philosophy proved less useful, and generally faded as a source of anti-slavery commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Existing cross-cultural research on animal welfare often overlooks the way that policy and law are not the exclusive domain of central government. This can result in an over-simplification or misrepresentation of the true situation. The political culture and institutional arrangements for governing the modern state are more complex than a "one-size-fits-all" approach. It is argued that cross-cultural research needs to give greater attention to differences within as well as between unitary states. Specifically, it needs to examine developments in constituent nations and territories. Here we illustrate this by drawing on new research in the United Kingdom, and examine how 'devolution'—or decentralized government for Wales and Scotland—is providing contrasting opportunities for NGOs, campaigners, and the public to lobby to improve animal welfare policy based on local practices, beliefs, and demands (collectively known as the "political culture"). Our findings show how this is important because it results in contrasting animal welfare policies and laws in the constituent nations of the UK. It is argued that extant cross-cultural research on animal welfare often overlooks or gives insufficient attention to new governance theory, civil society, politics, and the realities of devolved or (quasi-)federal, multi-level governance in the modern state. This paper synthesizes relevant social theory and draws on new empirical findings of civil society accounts of campaigning on animal welfare policies and law in the United Kingdom. It is presented as a corrective to arguably reductive, earlier unitary state-based analyses. Our core, evidence-based argument is that cognizance of civil society activism and the contrasting institutional governance structures and political cultures of constituent nations in unitary states—such as the UK—are providing opportunities for the territorialization of legally grounded animal welfare regimes, and culturally distinctive practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]