scholarly journals “I’m with her” or “we’re with her”? Personal versus group leader-based identities and types of political participation

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-79
Author(s):  
Emily B. Carty

In a region where personalistic politics and charismatic leaders have long been a characteristic of the political landscape, there has been little research exploring the relationship between individuals’ identification with leaders and its relationship with political participation. Using original survey data from Argentina in 2016, the findings from this study demonstrate a few key points. Firstly, that identities form around political leaders and that identification plays an important role in political participation. Secondly, while personal identification with a leader is related with atomized and collective participation, the relationship between collective identification that is shared with other supporters of the political leader and both types of participation is even stronger. Additionally, these identification measures are more strongly associated with political action in support of a leader than frequently used variables such as partisan identification and ideology. This suggests that the study of political participation, especially in those contexts with more personalized political systems such as are often found in Latin America, should not ignore the role of personal and especially group leader-based identity.

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 90-98
Author(s):  
Pia Rowe ◽  
David Marsh

While Wood and Flinders’ work to broaden the scope of what counts as “politics” in political science is a needed adjustment to conventional theory, it skirts an important relationship between society, the protopolitical sphere, and arena politics. We contend, in particular, that the language of everyday people articulates tensions in society, that such tensions are particularly observable online, and that this language can constitute the beginning of political action. Language can be protopolitical and should, therefore, be included in the authors’ revised theory of what counts as political participation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-155
Author(s):  
Elva Orozco Mendoza ◽  

This article offers an interpretation of anti-feminicide maternal activism as political in northern Mexico by analyzing it alongside Hannah Arendt’s concepts of freedom, natality, and the child in The Human Condition. While feminist theorists often debate whether maternalism strengthens or undermines women’s political participation, the author offers an unconventional interpretation of Arendt’s categories to illustrate that the meaning and practice of maternalism radically changes through the public performance of motherhood. While Arendt does not seem the best candidate to navigate this debate, her concepts of freedom and the child provide a productive perspective to rethink the relationship between maternalism and citizenship. In making this claim, this article challenges feminist political theories that depict motherhood as the chief source of women’s subordination. In the case of northern Mexico, anti-feminicide maternal activism illustrates how the political is also a personal endeavor, thereby complementing the famous feminist motto.


On Universals ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 96-120
Author(s):  
Étienne Balibar

This chapter assesses the new “quarrel of universals” that now occupies philosophy and other overlapping disciplines. In this new quarrel, the question today is not only whether one is for or against the universal; the question is also how one defines the universal—a term whose surprising equivocity has become increasingly clear. Still more fundamentally, the question is how one should articulate the relationship between three related but heterogeneous terms whose widespread use has prompted conflicting claims: the universal, universality, and universalisms. The chapter begins by situating the question of the universal and its variations within the field that seems to constitute the strategic site of intersecting domains: philosophical anthropology, understood as the analysis of the historical differences of the human and of the problem that those differences pose to their bearers. It then outlines the difficulties which can be identified in every philosophical and political usage of the universal and its “doubles” according to three aporias. The first is the aporia of the multiplicity of the “world,” or of the universe as multiversum; the second is that of Allgemeinheit or All(en)gemeinheit, in other words, the irreducible gap between the universal and the common (or community); and, finally, that of co-citizenship, the form of belonging to a political unity to come, a unity whose law of belonging (membership) would be the heterogeneity within equality or the political participation of those foreign to the community.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayca Arkilic ◽  
Ayse Ezgi Gurcan

Abstract This article focuses on the relationship between Alevis and the Turkish and German states. It does so by examining the Turkish Alevi Opening (2009–2010) and the German Islam Conference (2006–present), two unprecedented official platforms aimed at improving Alevis’ political participation. The study asks why such state-sponsored initiatives came into existence in Turkey and Germany, and why the German Islam Conference has proven more successful from the perspective of Alevis. It argues that even though the diffusion of EU norms and pressure from transnational advocacy networks have increased awareness regarding the Alevi issue, domestic factors have been more salient in the emergence and outcome of these initiatives in both countries.


1981 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miles Kahler

The relationship between economic system and political regime has recently reemerged as a central issue in social science. An examination of the political perceptions and actions of individual firms and of sectors during the uncertainties of decolonization permits a new approach to this question, using the concept of political exposure. The firm or sector characteristics that are associated with greater political exposure are assessed. Political preferences cannot be equated with either political action or outcomes, however. The links between capitalism and political regime require further refinement and qualification.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Osnat Akirav

The research asks two questions related to each other. First, why do people who are successful in fields other than politics not want to become more active in politics? Second, what are the preferred characteristics of a political leader? In order to address these questions we conducted an action research involving changes in the patterns of political participation and used Dror’s (2008) model to determine the preferred characteristics of a political leader. The research, the first in its kind in the field of local government field, tried to create professional change and system change. Today, a year after the action research began; it deepens our understanding about how local council members work and allows us to implement changes based on an evaluation process in order to improve the decision-making process in the local government. Eventually, perhaps this process will attract talented people who have previously avoided political participation to engage more with the political process.


Author(s):  
Melissa R. Gotlieb ◽  
Chris Wells

Young citizens are increasingly seeking fulfillment in expressive modes of political participation, and scholars have begun to examine the implications of this trend for engagement in formal politics. While some argue that expressive practices are “crowding out” participation in more conventional civic activities, others more optimistically contend that they have expanded the political repertoires of young citizens, affording them with more opportunities to be engaged. The authors add clarity to this debate by specifying the conditions under which engagement in one particular form of expressive politics, political consumerism, is associated with conventional participation. An analysis of survey data shows that identification with other political consumers significantly enhances the relationship between political consumerism and traditional political engagement, particularly among younger generations of Americans. The authors argue that engaging in political consumerism alongside others provides an important opportunity for young citizens to develop the civic competencies necessary for engagement in the formal political sphere.


Author(s):  
Frank Weij ◽  
Pauwke Berkers

Various scholars have studied the relationship between music and politics. Most, however, focus on how governments and political parties on the one hand and movements and activists on the other use music for political outcomes and in doing so they often ignore the more latent forms of political participation music can lead to. This article, therefore, focuses on how people give meaning to political music in informal conversational settings by exploring the reception of Pussy Riot on YouTube. New media platforms like YouTube are ubiquitous in the West and as ‘third spaces’ they allow audiences to publicly reflect on everyday newsworthy events and activism. We combine the computerized methods of topic modelling and semantic network analysis to study both quantitatively and qualitatively how Pussy Riot’s punk protests afford political participation by (Western) YouTube users. Results show that the comments mostly address (1) the geopolitical boundaries of activism, (2) the legitimacy and commitment of the activists, (3) the political content of the protests and (4) the relationship between the protests and religion. For the YouTube users in our study, the political music of Pussy Riot thereby serves as a vehicle to discuss politics beyond the protests themselves.


1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. P. Salt

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the relationship between constitutional ideas and political action during the 1630s by comparing the privately expressed ideas of Sir Simonds D'Ewes regarding ship money with his conduct regarding the levy, especially while he was sheriff of Suffolk in 1639–40. The first section investigates the constitutionalist views expressed in D'Ewes's ‘autobiography’, unpublished during his lifetime, and their relationship to D'Ewes's attitude to the political role of the levy. The second section studies D'Ewes's conduct as sheriff, in which he gave almost no expression to constitutionalist ideas, and suggests that he struck a middle course between neglect and zeal, while finding means to oppose the levy through his connections at court. The third section seeks to establish the reasons for the inconsistencies between D'Ewes's privately expressed ideas and his public conduct, which may have lain in a belief that, in the prevailing political situation, criticism of the levy had, in order to be effective, to be expressed in terms acceptable to potentially sympathetic courtiers; D'Ewes adapted the tone of his comments on ship money to his audience in order to achieve political ends, but had also to act in ways which would make that tone convincing. Participation in the collection of ship money was therefore not inconsistent with opposition to it.


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