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"The Crooked Course of Charles Crowe: A Reconstruction Narrative" is an article that explores the life of Charles C. Crowe, a white southern Republican during the Reconstruction era. The article discusses Crowe's personal journey, including his political advocacy, marriage, and military service, as well as the challenges he faced as a white Republican in the South during this period. It also examines the political landscape in Alabama during Reconstruction and the role of Crowe, a former Confederate captain who became a prominent Republican. The text sheds light on the efforts of southern Republicans to find opportunities in the western territories and contributes to our understanding of Reconstruction and the experiences of scalawags. [Extracted from the article]

A politicization of diplomacy weakens the professionalism of the foreign service and arguably endangers the external relations of states. Yet, this phenomenon has largely escaped scholarly scrutiny. Public administration research on politicization usually overlooks the foreign service, whereas diplomacy scholars have focused almost exclusively on the United States. Our exploratory study of ambassador appointments compares the levels and modes of politicization (through politically connected professionals, or political appointees) of 669 ambassadors in 2019, across seven countries and three administrative traditions. The analysis is guided by three expectations: 1) countries that are more politicized overall appoint more non-career ambassadors; 2) patronage recruitment of political appointees focuses on low-hardship postings; and 3) politically connected professionals are used to control politically important foreign missions. We find that states politicize their foreign services to a varied degree and in different ways. Appointing politically connected professionals instead of political appointees is the most common way of politicization among our cases. In this regard, the US is an outlier, which also points to the need of studying politicization of diplomacy comparatively. This article thus makes an important contribution by setting the agenda for future research on this hitherto underexplored topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid Lebanon's multifaceted economic crisis, this paper explores the intricate dynamics between political patronage networks and financial stability. Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of New Institutional Economics (NIE) and Project Management (PM), the study delves into how entrenched political elites and patronage networks have shaped Lebanon's financial system, exacerbating vulnerabilities and perpetuating the ongoing crisis. Utilizing qualitative methods including in-depth interviews, document analysis, and case studies, the research illuminates the pivotal role of political actors and their vested interests in economic policies and financial institutions. The findings reveal systemic governance failures, crony capitalism, and institutional decay as underlying causes of Lebanon's economic stress. In response, the paper proposes a comprehensive framework for governance reform that integrates insights from NIE and PM, emphasizing structured planning, accountability mechanisms, and institutional strengthening. The purpose of this study is not only to contribute to a nuanced understanding of Lebanon's challenges but also to offer actionable insights for policymakers, academics, and stakeholders to address the root causes of the crisis and pave the way for sustainable economic recovery and revitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-engaged scholarship has largely neglected the potential of sports to construct progressive forms of community and mobilize disparate interests. In this article, we critically reflect on how sports were used for placemaking purposes in the Friendship and Hope Campaign, an annual event that is driven by residents of Thembelihle, a low-income community in South Africa. The Campaign is a participatory and community-based intervention that seeks to strengthen community relations and mobilize resources to build peaceful, nonracial, and nonsexist communities. Although the Campaign hosted several sports tournaments and cultural events, its attempt to strengthen community cohesion for the purposes of making democratically-led change renders it a political approach to placemaking. Yet, as with all community-engaged work, this was far from a simplistic process. The Campaign's deployment of sports as a placemaking practice was complicated by a multitude of political interests that oftentimes contradicted the community-oriented values and aims of the Campaign. We reflect on how patronage politics can assist us in understanding such internal contestations and conflicting interests, and how community campaigns can work to move through and hold complexity in a democratic fashion, rather than attempt to settle such complexity altogether [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In divided-executive patronal systems, legislatures have been sites of resistance to the centralization of power in a single patronal pyramid. Kyrgyzstan is an anomaly among divided-executive patronal systems when between 2010 to 2020, the Kyrgyz parliament was neither a site of opposition nor did it demonstrate legislative agency vis-à-vis the executive. Instead, following another uprising in 2020, a unified single patronal pyramid was re-established. Adopting an approach rooted in the semiotics of meaning making and drawing on a dataset of interviews with parliamentary deputies and a range of documentary sources, this article complements existing institutional approaches to explaining weak legislative agency by revealing a series of dialogical relationships between deputy meaning making and broader institutional and cultural constraints which shaped the Kyrgyz's parliament's overall quality and strength. These relationships pertain to legislative initiative, the protection of private interests and representation, with the interplay between the ascribed meaning and its constitution within broader institutional and cultural context contributing to the diminishment of legislative agency vis-à-vis the presidency. Kyrgyzstan illustrates the value of meaning making as an approach to understanding legislative-executive relations in non-democratic contexts, and its impact in conjunction with cultural and institutional constraints in shaping legislative agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding clientelist practices is one of the core issues to unravel to ensure the proper functioning of electoral institutions. This article focuses on the decision of patrons/brokers on who to target, introducing a new norm into the picture – authoritarianism. Building on the theories of norm-based compliance, I argued that authoritarian individuals should be more frequently targeted, as they should be more likely to comply with brokers demands without external monitoring. I posit that this is true because authoritarian individuals should be more willing to submit to the will and demands of authorities (brokers), and because they are likely to evaluate clientelism as morally acceptable and a legitimate electoral strategy. Furthermore, the rate of authoritarian targeting should be higher in institutional settings that limit the overall reach of clientelism. Utilizing Afrobarometer (2011-2013) data for 34 countries, through multilevel regression modelling I show that authoritarian individuals do have a higher chance of being targeted with the strength of this association increasing as the district magnitude rises. This article opens a new avenue of research that introduces individual level authoritarianism into the literature on clientelist targeting and complements the norm-based compliance approach with a focus on a new and potentially influential norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how negative oil shocks affect military expenditures and the quality of democracy in the oil rentier states of the greater Middle East using annual data from 1990 to 2018, inclusive. The theoretical analysis suggests that a reduction in oil revenues decreases the government spending on patronages and public goods and may challenge the political power of the incumbent leader. The results of the impulse response functions based on the estimated panel vector autoregressive models indicate that the responses of the military burden and non-military expenditures (as a percentage of GDP) to negative oil shocks become negative and statistically significant after three to four years. Reductions in the financial capability of a rentier government and spending on patronages improve the political environment and quality of democracy. However, this political improvement takes some time to develop as the government may resist the reduction in its expenditures during the initial phase of oil shocks. The policy implication of these results is informative for organizations and policymakers interested in the security and political impact of oil sanctions. Restrictions on oil exports decrease the military spending of the oil rentier states and improve their democracy indices in the long run, although the short-run impacts can be negative. These results are not sensitive to different proxies for oil abundance, alternative data on military expenditures, different indicators of democracy, and different groups of oil-dependent countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political interference has been one of the leading factors in inhibiting state-owned entities reach their mandates. Through political patronage, political elites are the gateway to the SOE's thus impacting the efficacy of most state-owned entities. In this regard, South African Airways (SAA) is also one of the entities in the grip of corruption due to political patronage. Therefore, this political patronage has been the difference between the efficacy of SAA in executing its mandate. SAA has been taking center stage due to corruption, maladministration, and failure to execute its mandate as a result of political interference as well as patronage. This paper reviews existing literature on the effect of political patronage on the efficacy of SAA in executing its mandate. In doing so, the paper employed qualitative techniques. Document analysis was utilized to understand the effect of political patronage on SAA's ability to execute its mandate. Eventually, the paper discovered that political patronage affects the ability of SAA to execute its mandate. The paper then closes by making recommending mechanisms for inhibiting political interference in SOE most specifically SAA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local brokers are essential in the implementation of clientelist politics, but their efforts on parties' behalf are not fully observable. A growing literature studies how parties address this agency problem, highlighting two distinct reward schemes: allocating promotions or prizes based on observed vote shares or doing so based on inferred effort allocations. This article develops a formal model to examine the conditions under which one or the other of these reward schemes is optimal for minimizing brokers' rent seeking. Intuitively, the effort-based reward mechanism is optimal when broker effort is inferred with relative precision. Less intuitively, the vote-based mechanism will tend to be optimal when a party's supporters are evenly distributed across regions and when the prize β adopts intermediate values, which together lead to high levels of interbroker competition. When brokers must compete with one another over valued prizes, parties can often minimize rent seeking without directly monitoring broker effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The instrumental use of patronage for political appointments and career advancement can be found across all regime types and historical periods. Despite a pronounced academic interest in the political and economic effects of patron-client relationships, little is known about the nature of interplay between informal networks and formal hierarchies. How are formal powers distributed in personalized bureaucracies? The article addresses this question through a cross-temporal case study of subnational government in one of Russia's regions – Sverdlovsk Oblast. Based on network analysis and negative binomial regression, the article shows that subnational leaders and their clienteles seek to monopolize those formal powers that allow administrative control over other executive agencies, while other coercive, financial, and normative powers are distributed relatively evenly. This pattern persists regardless of institutional context, degree of subnational autonomy, or the shape of informal networks, which signifies the importance of controlling functions that the core of informal networks in personalized bureaucracies performs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2010, waves of protest have ebbed and now largely faded across the Arab states of the Middle East, and authoritarian politics there appear to be stronger than ever. Has dissent disappeared, or merely become harder to notice? I argue in this article that clientelism serves as an important locus of latent dissent in the Middle East, one that calls into question the legitimacy of authoritarian regimes, though it often happens away from public view. Employing data from four waves of the Arab Barometer, however, I show that the more citizens perceive clientelism to be prevalent in society, the less likely they are to willingly obey their government when they disagree with it. This finding is most pronounced among those most on the fence about obeying the government in the first place, and during periods in which overt dissent is least apparent. Clientelism beliefs also increase support for democratic alternatives in the most recent data. In addition, while clientelism should increase voting and election-related mobilization, I find inconsistent results across time. This article complicates our current understanding of the role clientelism plays in authoritarian states, and it sheds new light on the "client side" of the patron-client relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study provides an overview of the history of the civil service in South Korea, focusing on political appointments at the upper levels of the bureaucracy. We limit our investigation's scope to presidential appointments of ministers and underscore the necessity for additional scholarly attention to this subject. To empirically assess these appointments, we introduce a novel dataset and conduct an analysis that examines the demographic characteristics and career paths of past ministers, alongside the types of political patronage employed in their appointments. This analysis utilizes the analytical framework of loyalty versus competence as proposed by (Ouyang, Y., Haglund, E. T., & Waterman, R. W. (2017). The missing element: Examining the loyalty-competence nexus in presidential appointments. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 47(1), 62–91.) and the typology of patronage outlined by (Panizza, F., Peters, B. G., & Ramos Larraburu, C. R. (2019). Roles, trust and skills: A typology of patronage appointments. Public Administration, 97(1), 147–161), which is further elaborated by (Peters, B. G. (2023). Patronage in Asian political systems: A framework for research. In B. G. Peters, C. Knox, & B. Kim (Eds.), Political patronage in Asian bureaucracies (pp. 1–21). Cambridge University Press). Our findings reveal that, irrespective of the regime or ministry, programmatic technocrats are the most prevalent type of presidential appointee in South Korea, with nearly half being former bureaucrats. Although most ministers in South Korea align with this category, we also discern significant variations across different regimes and ministries. These findings provide insights into the practices of political appointments in South Korea's civil service and contribute to the literature on public administration and governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the preference of public school teachers for sending their children to private schools has been regarded as a dilemma, and the reasons behind the choices made by public school teachers and the consequences of these preferences have been uncovered through semistructured interviews with public school teachers. The research was limited to the views of 17 teachers working in public schools in Ankara, Turkey, in the 2021-2022 academic year who send their children to private schools. The phenomenological method, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used in this study. The data obtained from the interviews were analysed using content analysis technique. As a result of the analysis, the reasons why public school teachers send their children to private schools can be categorized into two groups. The first category, "push factors away from public schools," comprises four sub-categories: "the physical condition of schools," "lack of school services," "lack of academic offerings" and "school population". The second category, "pull to private schools," includes four sub-categories: "spoils system," "religionization," "allurements of private schools," and "education and training incentives given to private schools." According to the participants, the most important consequences of private school existence are social segregation and the inequalities that arise between students attending private schools who go to private schools and those who cannot. Disparities between public and private schools are also examined in accordance with the participants' views under the codes of disparities related to students, teachers, and administration. Finally, the participants' recommendations for strengthening public education explored across four codes such as "building/physical changes in the school", "changes in school services", "academic changes" and "state policy changes". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, Historia is the property of Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Utilizing an original data set, this paper demonstrates how protectionist industrial policy during the period of hybrid liberalization has shaped the organizational structure of clothing firms in Egypt. It investigates determinants of vertical integration of clothing firms into fabric production. High-end market segments are a critical determinant of integration. Limited access to finance restricts the possibilities for many firms to undertake the investment required to integrate, whilst volatile and uncertain market conditions make firms more likely to rely on the market for their inputs. But there are nuances related to market segment. Producers of higher quality garments rely on imported textiles, so these producers do not integrate even if search and switch costs are high. But the opposite is true of producers relying on domestic suppliers. Foreign institutions are better able to ensure contract enforcement with respect to quality and timely delivery so that suppliers' opportunistic behaviour is deterred, reducing the necessity of clothing firms to integrate. This may not be the case with respect to domestic suppliers when domestic institutions do not guarantee the same level of enforcement. The adoption of the hybrid liberalization model meant that the transition to a market economy was not preceded by the creation of the necessary regulatory framework. This model resulted in inefficient upstream production and in an institutional setting conducive to agency problems. It also meant that business suffers excessive and inefficient bureaucracy. It is thus not possible for firms to achieve the first best outcome of arm's length relations based on frictionless market transactions. Given these structural constraints firms opt for the second best solution of make rather than buy, i.e. vertical integration. But only some firms are able to use the arbitrary and discretionary decision making system to their favour, negotiating government obstacles to successful business. Those linked to power, prospered, whilst the businesses of others foundered against the wall of patronage, bureaucracy and red tape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do politicians cluster the distribution of benefits in the run‐up to elections? I suggest that credit claiming is an explanation for political budget cycles. Brazilian rules banning credit claiming before elections while allowing the distribution of benefits until Election Day provides an opportunity to differentiate between distribution and credit claiming combined with distribution as an engine that reinforces political budget cycles. Evidence from housing and conditional‐cash‐transfer programs demonstrates that officials expand these programs before the credit‐claiming ban and halt expansion after the ban yet prior to Election Day. Drawing on social media and qualitative data, I show that politicians use credit claiming to convey information about their competence and attribution. Distribution without attribution reduces the likelihood of political budget cycles compared to distribution with attribution, which together reinforces pre‐election expansion of policy benefits. I rule out rival explanations of clientelism and party favoritism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kokang is an ethnic minority group that settled along the Myanmar-China borderland with dual identity as it has long historical ties of nationalism and patronage with various political factions in China while located outside China's border. This article explores how Kokang's Ethnic Revolutionary Organization (ERO), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and their leaders construct Kokang's identity to their benefit. Based on desk research method, the article found that Kokang's dual identity allows them to self-categorize themselves as Chinese or separate-independent ethnic minorities in Myanmar while setting ethnic boundaries with various political entities to protect their interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research article compares the metalworking technique of Bidriware in the Indian subcontinent from the 17th to 19th century with that of the Mosul School of Mesopotamia in Iraq during the 13th century. Although the literature contains vague accounts of how Bidriware emerged in India, there is a significant lack of research highlighting its similarity to and potential origin from the Mosul School of metalwork art. Texts on Bidriware and the Mosul School are used alongside images of diverse works of art from reputable world museums in an attempt to make this initial connection. The paper highlights how political exchange from the 12th and 13th centuries onwards between Mesopotamia and the Indian subcontinent led to the passage of many motifs, rituals and cultural elements that can clearly be seen in the production of Bidriware centuries later.

Patronage is often considered a subtype of clientelism that arises through reciprocal arrangements between a politician and a citizen, where electoral support is rewarded with public employment. In Chile, there is evidence of clientelist practices at the municipal level. However, these studies have mainly had a qualitative focus. To complement these studies, this research aims to provide quantitative evidence using panel data and two-way fixed effects. Thus, we analyse the personnel hiring through the Mercado Público platform between 2009 and 2017 across the country’s 345 municipalities, finding evidence that support two hypotheses: (i) there is a political budget cycle, increasing spending by 14.9% during the election year and (ii) independent politicians spend less on hiring people than mayors who are militants of political parties, being this expenditure -9.8% less for independents than for the latter. These results seek to complement other research on clientelism and patronage in a context of the rise of independent politicians and citizen questioning of traditional political parties, as well as the relevance of public spending in local governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contexts where social cleavages are universally salient, how can political alliances across social identity groups be forged? A wealth of research examines the effects of either electoral rules or social identity on electoral behavior, but the interplay between these two factors is understudied. This article leverages original datasets of tribal voting coalitions, parliamentarian constituent casework logs, and a national survey in Jordan to demonstrate how institutions interact with social identity to shape distributive politics. Within single non-transferable vote districts (SNTV), representatives win their seats based on tribal support and practice tribal favoritism in service provision. On the contrary, elected officials in single member plurality districts (SMDs) cobble together more diverse coalitions to win their seats and distribute state benefits more evenly between in-group and out-group members. Bolstering these findings, data from a 2014 nationwide survey show that a history of having tribal connections with parliamentarians' augments voter turnout in SNTV districts, whereas it has no relationship with voter turnout in SMDs. This article offers an understanding of why politicians build electoral coalitions and distribute clientelistic benefits within or across social identity groups with important implications for the consideration of electoral institutional design in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia represents a contrasting type of mobilization regime, in which individual candidates organize their own I ad hoc campaign teams i , through which they distribute micro-level benefits during electoral campaign periods using mainly private (not public) resources. As the authors illustrate with broker-survey data and anecdotes, distinguishing I local machine i regimes from I ad hoc team i regimes particularly enriches the comparative research by departing from the dichotomy of relational and single-shot clientelism. [Extracted from the article]

The nature, foundations, and objects of both state-owned and privately-owned entities are to meet the commercial mandate of being profitable. Be that as it may, state-owned entities (SOEs) are established to generate extra revenue for the government other than tax-based revenue. To this end, the government in South Africa and elsewhere has various SOEs established for the latter mentioned fact, and as such, the government maintains dominant control over these entities. Using South African Airways (SAA), which is a South African SOE, and Comair, a Privately-Owned Entity (POE) operating alongside SAA, we examine the effects of political patronage on the competitiveness of SOEs against POEs. We use qualitative research methods to narrate these effects, relying on multiple existing scientific and official reports as our data sources. We argue that SOEs such as SAA are not competitive like POEs such as Comair. This is due to the fact that, while SAA has been relying on the government for bailouts since 1994 to date, Comair has had to sustain its operations without relying on the government like SAA. We further maintain that SAA's existence is based on patronage. The bailouts by the government for SAA sustain the patronage network of ministers in charge of entities, CEOs, and board members. We conclude that POEs such as Comair are focused on commercial mandates, while SOEs such as SAA are focused on non-commercial mandates based on political and patronage networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides evidence on the effects of US and Chinese trade policies on the 2020 US presidential election. In response to a series of US tariffs imposed on Chinese goods, China imposed retaliatory tariffs, especially on US agricultural products, which largely affected Republican‐leaning counties. The US government then subsidized US farmers by providing direct payments through the Market Facilitation Program (MFP) to mitigate the Chinese retaliatory tariffs. Using the universe of actual county‐level MFP disbursement data, we document that MFP payments relative to the Chinese retaliatory tariff exposure were higher in solidly Republican counties, implying that the Trump administration allocated rents in exchange for political patronage. We also find that MFP payments outweighed the estimated impact of Chinese retaliatory tariffs and led to an increase in the Republican vote share in the 2020 presidential election. Finally, we uncover evidence that China's retaliatory trade policy and the corresponding US agricultural policy exacerbated political polarization in the US, especially the rural–urban divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the life and political career of Isaiah D. Clawson, a physician and politician from Salem County during the antebellum era. Topics include his shifts in political affiliation, including his association with the Whig, American (Know-Nothing), and Republican Parties, as well as his strategies to gain and retain political support amidst changing political dynamics.

"Mobilizing for Elections: Patronage and Political Machines in Southeast Asia" is a book that explores the role of patronage in politics and elections in Southeast Asia. The authors provide a conceptual framework to understand patronage and examine its mechanics and patterns in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, with additional evidence from Singapore, Thailand, and Timor Leste. The book is based on extensive fieldwork, interviews, and surveys conducted over a decade, involving a network of local scholars and researchers. The authors highlight the differences in patronage methods and channels in the three countries and discuss the implications of patronage on governance and democracy. Overall, the book offers valuable insights into the complex dynamics of patronage in Southeast Asia. [Extracted from the article]

Effective democratic governance rests on the executive's ability to forge coalitions that can advance policy and sustain the government against challengers. Scholars have long focused on cabinet appointments to understand how executives build coalitions with their legislative allies. In many democracies, however, cabinet appointments at the ministerial level may only represent the tip of the iceberg. We show that administrative political appointees (APAs) beneath the ministerial level constitute one of the most important ways that cooperation between legislative and executive is forged. Leveraging a unique and comprehensive database of an average 2600 Brazilian APAs per year over two decades, we evaluate their effect on coalition unity in critical legislative votes. We demonstrate that these APAs, which we collectively term the "patronage coalition," have a significant effect on legislative support and thus are a critical tool for presidents. Our results are particularly relevant to a new emphasis in the political science literature on the "toolbox" that presidents utilize to address the challenges of simultaneously maintaining legislative support while implementing policy. These results demonstrate that the patronage coalition is a fundamental tool that should be more widely integrated into models of legislative-executive bargaining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Secondary School Leaving Examination, which is administered at the completion of grade 12 is the only criterion that determines admittance of students into the University. Students from Amhara Region; who have been under pressure of the Northern Ethiopian Armed Conflict, have scored unusual low entry marks which have yet given acceptable reply. This article aimed at exploring the nature of appeal system in Ethiopia, the issues of accountability and legitimacy of the Ministry of Education. Situational analysis of qualitative research approach is employed in this study. The study found out that there is no clear and trusted appeal system which inclusively and effectively provides response to the complaints. Besides, the ethnic politics of the country sadly spoils the education system and not everyone stands for the right of students, but only those who do have ethnic affiliations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the resurgence of regional coalitions in Sarawak and Sabah following the 14th and 15th General Elections, respectively. It shows how federal-level government changes in Malaysia can result in the realignment of regional parties in Sarawak and Sabah, which had significantly shaped Malaysia's political landscape as BN's frontline states. The resurgence of the regional coalitions, Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) and Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS), demonstrates not only the fragmentation of national politics and the rise of regionalism but also the ease with which regional parties dominated by strongmen and aided by patronage can realign, enter and exit coalitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia's 15th general election (GE15) in November 2022 took place on the back of a tumultuous period in which the country experienced government alternation several times at federal and state levels from 2018. This article primarily addresses whether incumbency advantages were prevalent, and if so, how and when? Based on interviews and documentary data, the article concludes that, especially in a post-pandemic setting, incumbency mattered. However, Barisan Nasional (BN) experienced a form of 'unrealised incumbency'. Without institutional reforms, trends in GE15 indicate that patronage and dependence on politicians for welfare gains seem to be a mainstay of Malaysian politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

B HOLLYWOOD COULD NOT WRITE A BETTER SCRIPT b than the real-life story of Bertha Duppler Baur. During her career at the post office, Bertha found time to ride a bicycle, considered a very progressive act for a woman at that time, and teach Sunday School at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church.[29] She raised money for cancer treatment by giving a speech on a table in the "pit" of the Board of Trade.[30] Later in life, she used her connections in politics and business, as well as her social circle, which included some of the wealthiest Chicagoans, to raise money for a variety of causes, including the Republican National Committee.[31] Bertha also made time to attend Chicago Kent College of Law at night. Bertha's mother Mary died when she was just six years old, leaving her father with four children, two boys and two girls, with Bertha being the youngest. [Extracted from the article]

This paper discusses the tendency of new voters to vote for the first time in the 15th General Election (GE15). Based on the statistics released by the Election Commission (SPR), the number of new voters who voted for the first time is around 6.2 million, of which 1.3 million are between 18 and 20 years old. Since they are a group of first-time voters, the tendency of their political support could be unclearer. Many parties wonder where their political support is headed, especially in the manycornered competition involving extensive political cooperation such as Perikatan Nasional, Pakatan Harapan, Barisan Nasional, and Gerakan Tanah Air. Accordingly, this paper aims to examine the tendency of new voters during the last GE15 campaign period through an online survey. The survey was conducted openly with the target of eligible voters, and 1438 respondents have given feedback. The study results show that 91 percent of the total number of respondents will go out to vote, and they tend to choose elected representatives who have integrity and are free of corruption, do not break promises, and are highly educated. Most of the group of respondents also tend to support national political trends. From that, new voters who vote for the first time have a good intensity of political literacy. Therefore, they become the determinants of changes in the current political support unrelated to political patronage elements like previous generations. They can also be catalysts for change in society in general and the country's leadership in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

" "Elista is our city": Kalmykia's 2019 protests and politics in Russia's republics. Internal migration from republics like Kalmykia is an important if understudied aspect of the migration regime in Russia, with signal importance for the economies of peripheral, migrant-sending regions. Kalmykia is located in southwest Russia, a few hundred kilometers to the north of the Caucasus mountains. [Extracted from the article]

This work aims to define the structural elements of aristocratic rule, noble lords in Álava and Parientes Mayores (heads of household) in Guipúzcoa and Biscay, over their lordships and church patronages; the fiscal and political opposition presented by hidalgos (petty nobility), peasants, ferrones (metal-industry workers) and townspeople; and the evolution of the resulting conflict over time. We also outline the discourses elaborated to legitimise lordly authority or to reject it, and those mobilised to denounce the arbitrary fiscal demands of the nobility and conditions of political exclusion. In order to illustrate this, we examine the rule of the Rojas and the Hurtado de Mendoza families over the small towns of Antoñana and Santa Cruz de Campezo, and the steadfast opposition to this rule from the towns' residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article offers information on Shakman v. Pritzker, court case. It discusses the Seventh Circuit determined that the Governor of Illinois, U.S. had satisfied the requirements of a fifty-year-old consent decree related to political patronage in employment decisions; the background of consent decrees and their role in institutional reform; and how the Seventh Circuit's decision reflects broader trends in addressing federalism.

In many new democracies, the police continue to be a political tool of the ruling elites, and governments are reluctant to reform the police to be a democratic police force. This article examines why these problems occur by analyzing how the police relate to ruling elites and how this relationship affects police practices and police reforms based on a case study on Thailand. By adopting the institutionalist approach concerning the impacts of informal institutions on formal institutions, this study finds that political patronage between politicians and police officers made the police a political tool of politicians in power and led to the failure to reform the police to develop democratic policing during democratisation in Thailand in the period of 1992–2006. After the 1992 uprising, businessman-politicians replaced military leaders to be patrons of police officers by manipulating police reshuffles in Thailand. Through these relationships, police officers abused their powers to aid politicians and political parties to suppress political opponents and dissent through selective law enforcement and criminal investigations. Political patronage affected police reforms through 'constraining' policies that were designed to increase the accountability of the police and prevent abuse of police powers, while, at the same time, 'reinforcing' the restructuring of police organisation and administration to strengthen the relationship of political patronage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critiques the study of Gibson, Hoffman, and Jablonski (2015) on the relationship between technical assistance and patronage spending in sub-Saharan Africa after the Cold War. It identifies errors in the authors' methods, including severe collinearity, exclusion of available data, undue use of the logarithm transformation, and missing values in key variables. After making the necessary corrections, the paper finds that technical assistance was positively and significantly related to political concession, as originally claimed by the authors, but negatively and insignificantly associated with the proxies for political patronage. This suggests that while technical assistance may have promoted political concession, it cannot be confidently held that it reduced patronage spending in the region post-Cold War. This raises concerns as the authors' conclusion in this regard is central to the belief, in both literature and aid projects, that technical assistance from donors and institutions contributed to reducing political patronage in sub-Saharan Africa post-Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of TÜBA-AR: Turkish Academy of Sciences, Journal of Archaeology is the property of Turkish Academy of Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the last three decades, most governments, have adopted decentralization of economic development programmes at the local sphere of government to propel efficiency, effectiveness, productivity and greater competitiveness in service delivery. In the light of this, most South African municipalities have established departments of local economic development (LED). The Thaba Chweu Local Municipality in Mpumalanga province also established an autonomous agency known as the Thaba Chweu Local Economic Development Agency (Private) Limited. (THALEDA) inorder for it to build up the economic capacity of the local area to improve its economic future and the quality of life for all. The study used the Agencification theory in conceptualising and exploring the operationalisation of LED programmes at the Thaba Chweu Municipality. Using the case study approach, the paper explored the operationalisation of the LED through the Agencification programmes at the Thaba Chweu Municipality. The study established that Thaleda as an LED agency is preferred because it is efficient, effective, competitive, politically neutral and productive. However, Thaleda has been affected by political patronage and lack of proper municipal bylaws among others. The study therefore recommends that Thaleda must generate wealth rather than simply being clients of the national government through grants and annual budget allocations. To be financially autonomous, Thaleda must purchase sizable shares in the local citrus, mining, forestry and game industries and make profitable investments globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature of tenure 'contracts' that exist within the low-income settlements involves more than title deeds. Accordingly, 'tenure security' manifests itself beyond legal or de jure construction as it also involves de facto forms of tenure and dweller's perception of security. The perceived tenure security is in turn a function of people's lived experiences which shape the trust they may grant to the future effectiveness of land tenure arrangements. Contextual and historical factors, ranging from political patronage to market pressure to policy provisions, govern the perception of tenure security which usually gets overlooked in policy formulations. With a focus on Mumbai and Jaipur in India, this paper aims to generate and examine the viability of a list of indicators that influence perceptions of land and housing tenure security. The intention is to engender a method towards housing solutions beyond the unidirectional aim of titling and in favour of incremental approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing primarily on Frederick II of Prussia's correspondence, which was filtered through his cabinet secretaries, this article explores how the king used his army in constructing patronage networks that reached beyond the limits of Brandenburg-Prussia. He not only appointed members of German families as officers but also expected them to train with and command their men. Frederick II's army was certainly a vital means of exercising power, but it also proved a viable tool for integrating and discipling client families within the Holy Roman Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spoil dumps are the main sediment sources in the open-pit mining area. The erosion control is of great significance to the high-quality development of the energy zone. This article aims to analyze the gully development and sediment process of spoil dumps. The plot construction of platform-steep slope system and field scouring experiments were also carried out, where the flow rate was ranged from 60 to 80 L/min, and the duration was 45 mins each run. The results showed that: 1) The gully was developed by the combination of different erosion progresses, including the headcut migration, bed incision, and lateral erosion on the platform-steep slope system. Notably, there were the stage differences in the topographic characteristics of gully, due to the variation of dominant process. A three-stage development was experienced for the gully on the platform, including the headcut formation, migration-expansion, and stable stage. In the gully on the steep slope, four developmental processes were divided into the incision of sandy loam layer, expansion of sandy loam layer, incision of clay loam layer, and deceleration of erosion. No significant differences were found between the various flow rates of gully development speed on the platform. Whereas, the transformed time increased with the flow rate between adjacent gully development stages on the steep slope. 2) In terms of sediment process, the migration - expansion stage was the main erosion period on the platform. The incision of sandy and clay loam layer were the main erosion stages on the steep slope, particularly with the accumulated sediment yields accounting for 29.72%~53.36% and 19.06%~48.88%, respectively. Spatially, the runoff shear force and stream power increased by 7.11-120.86 times, and 7.59-239.59 times after the runoff flowed from the platform into the steep slope, and the erosion rate increased by -0.84-66.20 times. Correspondingly, the steep slope was the main sediment source of the platform and steep slope system. The cumulative sediment yield was accounted for 88.15 %-90.16 % of the total amount of platform and steep slope system. Hence, the separation and control of runoff on the platform was a vital way to control the gully erosion in the platform-steep slope system of spoil dumps. 3) In terms of the flow hydraulics, the platform velocity decreased first and then increased with the gully development. Conversely, the slope velocity decreased gradually. Meanwhile, the runoff shear stress and the runoff stream power increased gradually with the gully development on the platform, but increased first, finally decreased on the steep slope. 4) Comparatively, the erosion rate presented a more sensitive response to the stream power than the runoff shear force, where the response regularity was different among the gully development stages. The erosion rate was linearly responded to the stream power in the migration-expansion stage and stable stage of platform. On the steep slope, the responses were still linear in the expansion of sandy loam layer and deceleration of erosion, but the exponential in the incision of sandy and clay loam layer. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the difference of responses in the various gully development stages, in order to improve the applicability of sediment transport model for the gully erosion. As such, the results revealed the staged development of gully and sediment process on the platform-steep slope system of spoil dumps. The finding can also offer the strong reference for the gully process, further to implement the soil and water conservation measures in the spoil dump. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to the literature on the political consequences of smallness, focusing on the case of Saint Lucia. Interviews with 19 MPs and senators reveal a political reality of patronage and corruption that occurs in daily encounters with constituents, but also within formal institutions. The study shows that politicians who habitually grant personal favours to constituents, most times do so because there is a genuine need due to economic hardship. Thus, though it is not their intent to get involved in patronage practices, their actions nevertheless create exactly such practices. When it comes to patronage and corruption within formal institutions, however, MPs and senators are fully aware of its existence. Regardless of political affiliation, they also acknowledge that there is no interest in coming to terms with these occurrences, since the shared sentiment is that keeping the status quo is politically convenient for all parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While little research has been done to examine the mobilities of current Vietnamese professional migrants, this paper sought to address this gap by reporting on a qualitative study on the mobilities of Australia-educated and domiciled professional migrants from Vietnam.It examined their decisions to migrate through specific ways of everyday lives as being-in-the-world. By analysing the reasons for migration among 15 participants, this study found that migrants' decisions are informed by both spiritual and materialistic concerns, variously framed by an attempt to escape from their perceived lack of political patronage, a remedy for personal upheavals and ideological conflicts, an expectation for adventure and social status, pursuit of knowledge and income, or a search for intergenerational security. Skilled migrants do not experience one of these reasons in isolation but rather, a set of interrelated motives. The respondents' decisions to leave are influenced by the micro-politics of everyday life under the influence of Vietnam's socio-political transformations. The theoretical concept of being-in-the-world has the potential to conceptualize transnational mobilities of skilled migration in at least 5 related manners: ambiguity in mobilities, equipment, possibilities, (in)authenticity and care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]