WorldWideScience

Sample records for political rights reducing

  1. The New Right and family politics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Somerville, J

    1992-05-01

    Political concern for the family has historically been intermittent; the present context is that there are considerable consequences for individuals, families, and personal life. Socioeconomic and cultural changes brought the rise of the New Right; The Thatcher (UK) and Reagan (US) administrations were committed to strengthening the traditional family. The emergence of the family as a social problem and the political agenda are discussed. The costs of liberalism were felt in a recessionary economy. The US political agenda of Carter to hold a White House Conference on the American Family never materialized. Reagan used the restoration of the traditional American family as a way to get the economy back on its feet. Moral crusaders and the new evangelical Christian movement merged with the political right; the "Gang of Four" (Republican Party right) politicians involved morally conservative communities normally outside the political area into the New Right. Grass roots organizations were mobilized on the Right. The British situation is explained; differences existed in that there were no antiabortion and moral lobby groups tied to the Right although their influence was felt. Pressure group politics is relatively novel to Britain. The Moral Majority in the US and right wing pressure groups on the Tory government are but 1 part of the New Right; it is characterized as populist, proclaiming the Radical Conservatism of Adam Smith and Edmund Burke. The approach in this article is to show the complex interactions of theory, biography, and public opinion in the practical politics of the New Right. Policy outcomes are not predictable because of ideological differences in New Right attitudes toward the family. The attitudes of the moral order and the family is exemplified in the work of Roger Scruton's neoconservative stand on social order, Robert Nozick's Kantian proposition that human beings are ends with natural inviolable rights of individual freedom, Hayak and Friedman

  2. Was Mackenbach right? Towards a practical political science of redistribution and health inequalities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schrecker, Ted

    2017-07-01

    In 2010, Mackenbach reflected on England's lack of success in reducing health inequalities between 1997 and 2010, asserting that "it is difficult to imagine a longer window of opportunity for tackling health inequalities"; asking "[i]f this did not work, what will?"; and concluding that reducing health inequalities was not politically feasible at least in that jurisdiction. Exploring the empirics of that observation offers a window into the politics of reducing health inequalities. For purposes of future comparative research, I outline three (not mutually exclusive) perspectives on political feasibility, identify their implications for a political science of health inequalities, and explore what they mean for advocacy in support of reducing those inequalities. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Catalina Mititelu

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available According to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights adopted by the United Nations, in 1966, the human being who enjoy his civil and political rights, enjoy in fact that “humanitas dignitas” (human dignity, since these rights derive from this. That is why this Covenant stipulated that the States parties are obligated to assure both the recognitions of these rights and their exercise and juridical protection.

  4. Territorial Rights, Political Association, and Immigration

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lægaard, Sune

    2013-01-01

    argues that state legitimacy and freedom of political association fail to connect in the way required to justify a right to control immigration. Wellman’s argument conflates the state as an institution and the people as a political collective and elides the difference between territorial jurisdiction...

  5. Political Left and Right: Our Hands-On Logic

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    Frits Bienfait

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available The origins and immediate vitality of the left/right divide which emerged in French revolutionary politics from 1789 can only be understood against the background of a much older classification dynamic based on the primacy of the right hand, first described by Robert Hertz in 1909. This dynamic infused political thinking first in Versailles and since 1815 in democracies throughout the world. In the process, the classical left/right polarity acquired a new dimension: the complementary notions of ‘accepting’ and ‘questioning’ the existing social order. An essential feature of both the age-old classical polarity and the ensuing political polarity is that they are intimately bound up with local and evolving social contexts: there is no single content-based definition of left and right. As long as the majority of us are predisposed to use our right hand when acting in the world, ‘left versus right’ will remain the most important political antithesis in western-type democracies.

  6. Macro- and Micro-Political Vernaculizations of Rights

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bloomer, Fiona

    2017-01-01

    Abstract How abortion is dealt with in law and policy is shaped through the multiple political and societal discourses on the issue within a particular society. Debate on abortion is constantly in flux, with progressive and regressive movements witnessed globally. This paper examines the translation of human rights norms into discourses on abortion in Northern Ireland, a region where abortion is highly restricted, with extensive contemporary public debate into potential liberalization of abortion law. This paper emanates from research examining political debates on abortion in Northern Ireland and contrasts findings with recent civil society developments, identifying competing narratives of human rights with regard to abortion at the macro- and micro-political level. The paper identifies the complexities of using human rights as a lobbying tool, and questions the utility of rights-based arguments in furthering abortion law reform. The paper concludes that a legalistic rights-based approach may have limited efficacy in creating a more nuanced debate and perspective on abortion in Northern Ireland but that it has particular resonance in arguing for limited reform in extreme cases. PMID:28630550

  7. Human rights, politics, and reviews of research ethics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beyrer, Chris; Kass, Nancy E

    2002-07-20

    Although the human rights movement and the sphere of research ethics have overlapping principles and goals, there has been little attempt to incorporate external political and human rights contexts into research ethics codes or ethics reviews. Every element of a research ethics review--the balance of risks and benefits, the assurance of rights for individual participants, and the fair selection of research populations--can be affected by the political and human rights background in which a study is done. Research that at first seems to be low in risk may become high in risk if implemented in a country where the government might breach the confidentiality of study results or where results might be used to deport a refugee group. Researchers should determine whether research could or should be done by consulting human rights organisations and, when possible, a trusted colleague, to learn the background political context and human rights conditions of the settings in which they propose to do research.

  8. Political Left and Right: Our Hands-On Logic

    OpenAIRE

    Frits Bienfait; Walter E. A. van Beek

    2014-01-01

    The origins and immediate vitality of the left/right divide which emerged in French revolutionary politics from 1789 can only be understood against the background of a much older classification dynamic based on the primacy of the right hand, first described by Robert Hertz in 1909. This dynamic infused political thinking first in Versailles and since 1815 in democracies throughout the world. In the process, the classical left/right polarity acquired a new dimension: the complementary notions ...

  9. Human rights, State Violence and Political Resistance

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Signe Larsen

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available This article investigates Hannah Arendt’s and Giorgio Agamben’s critiques of human rights and argues that the two thinkers share a blind spot with regard to the radical potentials of human rights. The problem is that they do not break with two fixed imaginaries which still haunt liberal democracies: (1 the historical essentialist understanding of human rights and (2 nation-states and individuals as the principal loci for political rights, power, and action. Based on the work of Jacques Rancière, Costas Douzinas, and Étienne Balibar this article argues that human rights can be thought of as a constituent part of a radical political praxis and resistance movement. If human rights are thought of as a praxis of “right-ing” (Douzinas or a “dissensus” (Rancière, which both contest the current “distribution of the sensible,” a new “cosmopolitics of human rights” can be imagined where human rights are conceived as a borderline concept (Balibar.

  10. The political constitution of the EU citizen rights regime

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Olsen, Tore Vincents

    2011-01-01

    Reactions to decisions by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) demonstrate that the political institutions in the Union should take responsibility for the development of the structure of the European Union's (EU) citizen rights regime. This article analyses different political views on the EU...... communities and institutions to the good life of citizens, both individually and collectively. Taking the contestation between the different views seriously, the article argues in favour of political constitutionalism, according to which the development of the EU citizen rights regime is the responsibility...... citizen rights regime. It argues that the disagreement between them is largely a disagreement between ‘reasonable views’. The disagreement is mainly based on different views about the levels (European, national) at which individuals are to be seen as equals and about the contribution of different...

  11. In Defense of Language Rights: Rethinking the Rights Orientation from a Political Economy Perspective

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bale, Jeff

    2016-01-01

    This article addresses language rights as a legitimate political tool for language policy scholarship and activism. The article begins by engaging several critiques of language rights. It analyzes Ruiz's language-as-right orientation to language policy, and then reviews recent scholarship challenging language rights from poststructural and…

  12. Macro- and Micro-Political Vernaculizations of Rights: Human Rights and Abortion Discourses in Northern Ireland.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pierson, Claire; Bloomer, Fiona

    2017-06-01

    How abortion is dealt with in law and policy is shaped through the multiple political and societal discourses on the issue within a particular society. Debate on abortion is constantly in flux, with progressive and regressive movements witnessed globally. This paper examines the translation of human rights norms into discourses on abortion in Northern Ireland, a region where abortion is highly restricted, with extensive contemporary public debate into potential liberalization of abortion law. This paper emanates from research examining political debates on abortion in Northern Ireland and contrasts findings with recent civil society developments, identifying competing narratives of human rights with regard to abortion at the macro- and micro-political level. The paper identifies the complexities of using human rights as a lobbying tool, and questions the utility of rights-based arguments in furthering abortion law reform. The paper concludes that a legalistic rights-based approach may have limited efficacy in creating a more nuanced debate and perspective on abortion in Northern Ireland but that it has particular resonance in arguing for limited reform in extreme cases.

  13. Political Ideology and Precautionary Reasoning: Testing the Palliative Function of Right-Wing Ideology on Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Osmundsen, Mathias; Petersen, Michael Bang

    2017-01-01

    Precautionary models of political ideology suggest that people on the right are motivated by needs to neutralize threats in everyday life more than those on the left. This article examines whether this ideological difference extends to a psychological scale that directly captures the need to engage...... in everyday precautionary actions to reduce feelings of threat: a scale of obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Across four samples (including a nationally representative sample), we find that stronger obsessive-compulsive symptoms are associated with more right-wing ideological preferences, particularly for social...... rather than economic issues. Most importantly, we use the scale of obsessive-compulsive symptoms to examine a crucial feature of the precautionary model of political ideology that has been left underexplored: does the promotion of right-wing policies serve a palliative function to reduce feelings...

  14. We Do Not Enjoy Equal Political Rights

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marie-Antoinette Sossou

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available This study explores Ghanaian women’s perception and voices about issues of gender equality in terms of exercising their political and decision-making rights in connection with political participation and governance in Ghana. The study uses demographic survey and six different focus group discussions to capture the views of a total of 68 women with different educational, socioeconomical, and occupational backgrounds, in two regions of the Ghana. The findings indicate that even though theoretically the constitution of Ghana gives women equal rights as their male counterparts to actively participate in the governance of their country, in practice, women face issues of gender-based power imbalance and discrimination in addition to other structural, institutional, cultural, and traditional barriers and roadblocks. These barriers expose women as being inferior and second-class citizens compared with their male counterparts in term of participation and inclusion in the governance of their country. The study discusses the social and policy implications of the issues of gender inequality and social exclusion of women in politics and calls for empowerment and organization of women and structural change in the system.

  15. The political approach of animal rights from the perspective of the rights theory

    OpenAIRE

    José Luis Rey Pérez

    2017-01-01

    Traditionally, discussions about animal rights have focused on defending, in different ways, abolitionist or regulatory approaches. Recently, there has been a political change in the way of understanding these rights, which fits better a legal approach that considers that rights –in addition to having a moral dimension- are also effectiveness-oriented legal institutions. This leads to considering that the range of animal rights must be extended to rights linked to the condition of citizenship...

  16. “Are women’s rights human rights? A view on women’s political participation in Vietnam

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Trung, P.T.

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available This paper tries to examine whether women’s rights are human rights by looking at the case of women’s political participation in Vietnam. Beginning with the concept of private life and public life which are defined separately for women and men by the patriarchal system, then the framework of CEDAW, particularly Article 7, is used to assess how women have been enjoying their rights to participate in the political system of Vietnam both in laws and practice. At the same time, the effectiveness of CEDAW is proven in promoting member states to follow and implement its regulations accordingly. Although the paper is written based on available research and reports, and limited only in the area of women’s political participation but it also points out some rooted causes of seeing women’s rights separately from human rights. Further preliminary is needed to conduct widely in different aspects of women’s rights in order to reaffirm strongly that women should also enjoy their status of human being.

  17. The political approach of animal rights from the perspective of the rights theory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    José Luis Rey Pérez

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available Traditionally, discussions about animal rights have focused on defending, in different ways, abolitionist or regulatory approaches. Recently, there has been a political change in the way of understanding these rights, which fits better a legal approach that considers that rights –in addition to having a moral dimension- are also effectiveness-oriented legal institutions. This leads to considering that the range of animal rights must be extended to rights linked to the condition of citizenship, such as social rights and particularly the right to healthcare and labour rights.

  18. The problem of defining contemporary right-wing extremism in political theory

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    Đorić Marija

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The subject matter of research in this paper is theoretical controversy related to the definition of right-wing extremism. Given the fact that extremism is a variable, amorphous and insufficiently researched phenomenon, largely conditioned by time, space, political and cultural differences, there is a great confusion in the field of political science when defining right-wing extremism. The problem of researching right-wing extremism is additionally complicated by various terms that are being used in the contemporary literature as its synonyms, such as right-wing radicalism, neo-Fascism, ultra-radicalism, etc. In order to provide the most valid theoretical determination of right-wing extremism, the author provides a detailed analysis of all the components constituting this phenomenon and examines their causality. In the political praxis, the term extremism is extensively abused, which additionally complicates its determination. Videlicet, politicians often use term 'extremist' in order to discredit their political opponents. While during the French revolution aristocracy saw the bourgeoisie as extremists, the members of the working class later stated that the bourgeoisie were extremists. The problem lies in the fact that, in politics, extremists are not only the ones who use violence as modus operandi; indeed, it is also used by political opponents who do not belong to the extreme political option. Another aggravating factor in defining right-wing extremism is that many administrative and academic definitions do not make a clear distinction between extremism and related phenomena, such as terrorism, radicalism and populism. Extremism is most often equaled with terrorism, which gives rise to another problem in defining this phenomenon. The relation between extremism and terrorism is the relation of general and specific. Namely, every act of terrorism is concurrently considered to be an act of extremism, but not vice versa, given the fact that

  19. Citizenship beyond politics: the importance of political, civil and social rights and responsibilities among women and men.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bolzendahl, Catherine; Coffé, Hilde

    2009-12-01

    Previous research has suggested that men are more engaged as citizens than are women. Yet, little is known about gender cleavages across a variety of citizenship norms. To what extent do men and women define citizenship differently? To address that question, this study examines the importance men and women assign various citizenship rights and responsibilities using 2004 ISSP data from 18 Western, industrialized nations. Using a disaggregated approach to understanding definitions of citizenship, we examine political, civil, and social rights and responsibilities. After controlling for a variety of demographic and attitudinal influences, we find that men and women are not different in their views regarding the importance of political responsibilities. However, women do view political rights as significantly more important than do men. Further, in comparison to men, women view both civil and social responsibilities and rights domains as significantly more important.

  20. The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina

    OpenAIRE

    Brysk, Alison

    2013-01-01

    Revised edition of 1994 out-of-print Stanford University Press study of human rights protest, social change, and democratization in Argentina.  A symbolic politics analysis of the truth commission, trials, and policy reform in Latin America's most sweeping transition of the 1980's.

  1. The politics of universalism. Strategic uses of human rights discourses in early modernity

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    Karen-Margrethe Simonsen

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available This article investigates the political function of human rights in 16th-century Spain just after the conquest of America. It claims that the study of this period of early globalization is relevant for an understanding of the function of human rights discourses today, at the “end” of globalization. Historically speaking, human rights are closely connected with globalization, but at the same time, they raise the question about the foundation of globalization: is there a universal community or only economic and political power-relations? This article argues that the political use of human rights discourses is split down the middle: it serves both as a critique of power and as an extension of power, and the disclosure of this split helps us understand the inner politics of human rights. The article discusses the trial in Valladolid in 1550 when the rights of the barbarian Indians of America were put on trial. It focuses mainly on the arguments made by Bartolomé de las Casas and on the reasons why the King allowed las Casas’ fierce critique of the conquest to be published in a period of otherwise severe censorship. This article is inspired by Etienne Balibar's idea of “politics of universalism,” “political autonomy,” and “equaliberty.”.

  2. Left or right? Teachers, political options and history didactics.

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    Caroline Pacievitch

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available In this text we discuss the political options of history teachers and its consequences to teaching. We ask if there are relations between political options and didactical choices of the history teacher. The data were obtained from the project “Youth and History in MERCOSUR”, that uses a questionnaire which was responded by a sample of 288 history teacher of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Paraguay. A descriptive and inferential statics treatment was given to the answers, with special attention to political options of the teachers, and crossing general information with stances about didactical aspects.  Norberto Bobbio’s notion about left and right was used. It was noted that the teachers, regardless of political opinion, defend the history teaching importance and care about their own political participation. There are subtle differences about the  teaching objectives evaluation and about professional difficulties among teachers, that also interpret sensitive historical themes coherently to their political stances. These findings invite to think more about the role of those professors who performs history teachers training, as to reinforce the importance of connecting politics and didactics in the making of teaching responsibility.

  3. Political sociology of human rights

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    Mahdi Kazemi

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available The dominant approach in the field of human rights is Legal attitude. Legal attitude more than anything else on the identification and recognition of human rights by the government is focused. At the same time, governments are the biggest violators of human rights norms. Despite the gap between the legal obligations of states and the real world, legal analysis of this gap is not possible. Therefore, in the era of inflation of rights, according to Louis Henkin , transition needs based approach to the protection of human rights is justified. Social sciences, especially political sociology may be, to identify obstacles to the realization of human rights in different societies and operate it is used. Since the main subject of political sociology "explores the relationship between state and society" is, knowledge can be produced in the field of political sociology in understanding the inability of governments establishing human rights norms and effective ways to fix it. Therefore, it can be said that human rights political sociology focus on: how to advance the state of human rights in a society and its institutionalization and consolidation within all relationships and political processes. رهیافت مسلط در حوزه مطالعات حقوق بشر، نگرش حقوقی است.نگرش حقوقی بیش از هرچیز بر شناسایی و به رسمیت شناختن حقوق بشر توسط دولت‌ها متمرکز است.در عین حال، دولت‌ها خود بزرگترین ناقضین هنجارهای حقوق بشری می‌باشند. با وجود شکاف میان تعهدات حقوقی دولت‌ها و جهان واقعی، تحلیل حقوقی از این شکاف ممکن نیست. لذا، در عصر تورم حقوق به تعبیر هنکین، نیازمند گذار از رهیافت مبتنی بر توجیه به حفاظت از حقوق بشر هستیم. علوم اجتماعی بویژه جامعه

  4. Linking Health System Responsiveness to Political Rights and Civil Liberties: A Multilevel Analysis Using Data From 44 Countries.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Witvliet, Margot I; Stronks, Karien; Kunst, Anton E; Mahapatra, Tanmay; Arah, Onyebuchi A

    2015-01-01

    Responsiveness is a dimension of health system functioning and might be dependent upon contextual factors related to politics. Given this, we performed cross-national comparisons with the aim of investigating: 1) the associations of political factors with patients' reports of health system responsiveness and 2) the extent to which health input and output might explain these associations. World Health Survey data were analyzed for 44 countries (n = 103 541). Main outcomes included, respectively, 8 and 7 responsiveness domains for inpatient and outpatient care. Linear multilevel regressions were used to assess the associations of politics (namely, civil liberties and political rights), socioeconomic development, health system input, and health system output (measured by maternal mortality) with responsiveness domains, adjusted for demographic factors. Political rights showed positive associations with dignity (regression coefficient = 0.086 [standard error = 0.039]), quality (0.092 [0.049]), and support (0.113 [0.048]) for inpatient care and with dignity (0.075 [0.040]), confidentiality (0.089 [0.043]), and quality (0.124 [0.053]) for outpatient care. Positive associations were observed for civil liberties as well. Health system input and output reduced observed associations. Results tentatively suggest that strengthening political rights and, to a certain extent, civil liberties might improve health system responsiveness, in part through their effect on health system input and output. © The Author(s) 2015.

  5. Measuring Institutions: Indicators of Political and Property Rights in Malawi

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fedderke, Johannes; Garlick, Julia

    2012-01-01

    This paper constructs a new set of institutional indicators for Malawi. We develop indicators of political rights, of freehold, traditional (communitarian) and intellectual property rights, based on the Malawian legislative framework. In exploring the association between our rights measures and a range of indicators of socio-economic development,…

  6. The Covenant on civil and political rights

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    Aulona HAXHIRAJ

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available The civil and political rights as protected under the Covenant from the core of human rights protection on the international plane. This paper seeks to demonstrate how this goal may be archieved. The genesis of the Covenant will be discussed in the context of the evolution of human rights law. Starting from the normative framework and its development after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the scope of the Covenant rights as well as the duties of the State parties will be discussed. The monitoring role of th Human Rights Committee as major element in the implementation process will be closely examined. The paper will be focused on the status of the State parties and the Status of the Covenant in domestic law. Also will specifically focus on the State reporting system and the individual complaint procedure be carefully selected case studies. In conclusion, will be discussed the legal consequences of violations of rights protected by the Covenant.

  7. Human rights for more than one voice: rethinking political space beyond the global/local divide

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    Rebecca Adami

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper considers political agency and space as found in Cavarero's For More Than One Voice: Toward a Philosophy of Vocal Expression in order to take a critical philosophical approach to human rights education (HRE and the political implications of its increasingly legal discourse. Like Arendt, Cavarero is concerned with a radical rethinking of political space, as not limited to place or legal borders, but bound by our human condition of plurality and relationality. Both Arendt and Cavarero want politics to be coupled with justice, nevertheless, Cavarero provides a notion of politics that lets us think beyond territorial terms of a polis, which opens for exploring an expanded conceptualization of human rights politics, as not bound by national legislative measures, but as concerning political action in-between human beings. In contrast to the dominant discourse on ‘human rights experts’ who frame the content for HRE, the notion of ‘absolute local space’ questions the dichotomy of universal/particular in raising the importance of a plurality of unique voices who create a spectrum for the universality of rights.

  8. Out of the Mainstream. Water Rights, Politics and Identity

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Boelens, R.A.; Getches, D.; Guevara-Gil, A.

    2010-01-01

    Water is not only a source of life and culture. It is also a source of power, conflicting interests and identity battles. Rights to materially access, culturally organize and politically control water resources are poorly understood by mainstream scientific approaches and hardly addressed by current

  9. Gender, health, and human rights in sites of political exclusion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laurie, M; Petchesky, R P

    2008-01-01

    In this paper, we investigate the intersections of gender, health and human rights in sites of political exclusion. We apply the political theory of Giorgio Agamben on 'states of exception', seeking to better understand how the recent 'war on terror', that seemingly knows no limits of time or space, is driving health outcomes in refugee and Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. Reproductive health, militarization, and gender-based violence in camps are explored in depth. The evidence presented reveals a number of contradictions of refugee and IDP camps, further highlighting the need for a more rights based humanitarianism. We conclude that foregrounding states of exception, as a way of understanding current gender dynamics in the social determinants of health, is both epidemiologically necessary and conceptually useful. We find that, in these sites of exclusion, the indispensability of a human rights approach to gender and health equity issues is revealed most directly. Furthermore, we are able to make new connections between the 'crisis of humanitarianism', gender, and health.

  10. Sexual and Reproductive Rights, Social Inequality and Politics in ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    Sexual and Reproductive Rights, Social Inequality and Politics in Latin America. Paradoxically, Latin America has some of the most stringent legal restrictions against and highest rates of abortion in the world. The co-existence of legal restrictions and unsafe abortions affects society unequally. While middle- and upper-class ...

  11. Media framing and political advertising in the Patients' Bill of Rights debate.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rabinowitz, Aaron

    2010-10-01

    The purpose of this article is to assess the influence of interest groups over news content. In particular, I explore the possibility that political advertising campaigns affect the tenor and framing of newspaper coverage in health policy debates. To do so, I compare newspaper coverage of the Patients' Bill of Rights debate in 1999 in five states that were subject to extensive advertising campaigns with coverage in five comparison states that were not directly exposed to the advocacy campaigns. I find significant differences in coverage depending on the presence or absence of paid advertising campaigns, and conclude that readers were exposed to different perspectives and arguments about managed care regulation if the newspapers they read were published in states targeted by political advertisements. Specifically, newspaper coverage was 17 percent less likely to be supportive of managed care reform in states subject to advertising campaigns designed to foment opposition to the Patients' Bill of Rights. Understanding the ability of organized interests and political actors to successfully promote their preferred issue frames in a dynamic political environment is particularly important in light of the proliferation of interest groups, the prevalence of multimillion-dollar political advertising campaigns, and the health care reform debate under President Barack Obama.

  12. The political left rolls with the good and the political right confronts the bad: connecting physiology and cognition to preferences

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dodd, Michael D.; Balzer, Amanda; Jacobs, Carly M.; Gruszczynski, Michael W.; Smith, Kevin B.; Hibbing, John R.

    2012-01-01

    We report evidence that individual-level variation in people's physiological and attentional responses to aversive and appetitive stimuli are correlated with broad political orientations. Specifically, we find that greater orientation to aversive stimuli tends to be associated with right-of-centre and greater orientation to appetitive (pleasing) stimuli with left-of-centre political inclinations. These findings are consistent with recent evidence that political views are connected to physiological predispositions but are unique in incorporating findings on variation in directed attention that make it possible to understand additional aspects of the link between the physiological and the political. PMID:22271780

  13. WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE POLITICAL SPHERE- MACEDONIAN AND INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE

    OpenAIRE

    Dana Nikolov

    2015-01-01

    Gender equality is a key issue that concernsall government entities in the world and the extent of its legal regulation depends on the inclusion of women in the political sphere of a state. Early women's rights movement dates back to the 1830s when women began speaking publicly against slavery. Since then, the performance by women on the legal and political scene is in continuous progression, but it is not sufficient. Currently the country with the largest number of...

  14. Citizenship, rights and justice in Latin America: The citizenisation-judicialisation of politics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pilar Domingo

    2009-05-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this article is to study the phenomena of the judicialisation of politics and the citizenisation of the political discourse in Latin America in recent years. The article begins by presenting a definition of these phenomena, after which the author explains the phenomena through three different areas: the changes in civil society that have led to a discovery of law and the language of law; institutional reforms and specifically the reforms of judicial power in recent years, and the changes in the legitimisation discourse of the political system around the concepts of democracy and citizenship of rights.

  15. How right-wing versus cosmopolitan political actors mobilize and translate images of immigrants in transnational contexts

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Doerr, Nicole

    2017-01-01

    This article examines visual posters and symbols constructed and circulated transnationally by various political actors to mobilize contentious politics on the issues of immigration and citizenship. Following right-wing mobilizations focusing on the Syrian refugee crisis, immigration has become one...... of the most contentious political issues in Western Europe. Right-wing populist political parties have used provocative visual posters depicting immigrants or refugees as ‘criminal foreigners’ or a ‘threat to the nation’, in some countries and contexts conflating the image of the immigrant...... with that of the Islamist terrorist. This article explores the transnational dynamics of visual mobilization by comparing the translation of right-wing nationalist with left-wing, cosmopolitan visual campaigns on the issue of immigration in Western Europe. The author first traces the crosscultural translation and sharing...

  16. Politics in evaluation: Politically responsive evaluation in high stakes environments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Azzam, Tarek; Levine, Bret

    2015-12-01

    The role of politics has often been discussed in evaluation theory and practice. The political influence of the situation can have major effects on the evaluation design, approach and methods. Politics also has the potential to influence the decisions made from the evaluation findings. The current study focuses on the influence of the political context on stakeholder decision making. Utilizing a simulation scenario, this study compares stakeholder decision making in high and low stakes evaluation contexts. Findings suggest that high stakes political environments are more likely than low stakes environments to lead to reduced reliance on technically appropriate measures and increased dependence on measures better reflect the broader political environment. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. Political Ideology and Precautionary Reasoning: Testing the Palliative Function of Right-Wing Ideology on Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Osmundsen, Mathias; Petersen, Michael Bang

    2017-01-01

    Precautionary models of political ideology suggest that people on the right are motivated by needs to neutralize threats in everyday life more than those on the left. This article examines whether this ideological difference extends to a psychological scale that directly captures the need to engage...... of threat in everyday life? Using a communication experiment, we find that exposure to real-world policy assurances from the Republican Party (i.e., the US conservative party) provides a small, most likely short-lived reduction in obsessive-compulsive symptoms among Americans. We discuss how these findings...... shed light on the key paradox about the psychology of right-wing ideology: how right-wing ideology can function to reduce insecurity while people on the right still have higher levels of insecurity....

  18. Human Rights Promotion through Transnational Investment Regimes: An International Political Economy Approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Claire Cutler

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available International investment agreements are foundational instruments in a transnational investment regime that governs how states regulate the foreign-owned assets and the foreign investment activities of private actors. Over 3,000 investment agreements between states govern key governmental powers and form the basis for an emerging transnational investment regime. This transnational regime significantly decentralizes, denationalizes, and privatizes decision-making and policy choices over foreign investment. Investment agreements set limits to state action in a number of areas of vital public concern, including the protection of human and labour rights, the environment, and sustainable development. They determine the distribution of power between foreign investors and host states and their societies. However, the societies in which they operate seldom have any input into the terms or operation of these agreements, raising crucial questions of their democratic legitimacy as mechanisms of governance. This paper draws on political science and law to explore the political economy of international investment agreements and asks whether these agreements are potential vehicles for promoting international human rights. The analysis provides an historical account of the investment regime, while a review of the political economy of international investment agreements identifies what appears to be a paradox at the core of their operation. It then examines contract theory for insight into this apparent paradox and considers whether investment agreements are suitable mechanisms for advancing international human rights.

  19. Medical humanitarianism, human rights and political advocacy: the case of the Israeli Open Clinic.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gottlieb, Nora; Filc, Dani; Davidovitch, Nadav

    2012-03-01

    In the context of neo-liberal retrenchments humanitarian NGOs have become alternative healthcare providers that partially fill the vacuum left by the welfare state's withdrawal from the provision of services to migrants and other marginalized populations. In many cases they thus help to build legitimacy for the state's retreat from social responsibilities. Human rights organizations play an important role in advocating for migrants' rights, but in many cases they represent a legalistic and individualized conceptualization of the right to health that limits their claims for social justice. This paper analyzes the interactions and tensions between the discourses of medical humanitarianism, human rights and political advocacy using the example of an "Open Clinic" run by an Israeli human rights organization as a case-study: In 2007 dramatically increasing patient numbers provoked an intense internal debate concerning the proposal to temporarily close the "Open Clinic" in order to press the government to take action. Based on protocols from internal meetings and parliamentary hearings and in-depth interviews, we have analyzed divergent contextualizations of the Clinic's closure. These reflect conflicting notions regarding the Clinic's variegated spectrum of roles--humanitarian, political, legitimizing, symbolic, empowering and organizational--and underlying conceptualizations of migrants' "deservingness". Our case-study thus helps to illuminate NGOs' role in the realm of migrant healthcare and points out options for a possible fruitful relationship between the divergent paradigms of medical humanitarianism, human rights and political advocacy. Copyright © 2011. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  20. In the absence of private property rights: Political control and state corporatism during Putin's first tenure

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nadia Vanteeva

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available This paper argues that Russia's choice of economic organization, which is based on the renewed role of the state, is a response to the existence of severe transaction costs, and subsequent mitigation of contractual incompleteness in the absence of a strong property rights system. Ill-defined property rights have historically hampered formation of business classes in Russia, reducing the necessity for appropriate market infrastructure. This also implied that if Russia's political and economic system had more than one competing hierarchy, the objective of the elites would not have entailed long-term economic growth, as gains from short-term wealth tunneling would have been much larger. As in the early 2000s Russian investment projects were generally defined by large sunk costs and long-term to maturity, under a weak legal system a new substitute governing mechanism, which took form of the state–private co-partnership system, has arisen in order to reduce hold-up costs leading to high levels of underinvestment.

  1. The tree to the left, the forest to the right: political attitude and perceptual bias.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Caparos, Serge; Fortier-St-Pierre, Simon; Gosselin, Jérémie; Blanchette, Isabelle; Brisson, Benoit

    2015-01-01

    A prominent model suggests that individuals to the right of the political spectrum are more cognitively rigid and less tolerant of ambiguity than individuals to the left. On the basis of this model, we predicted that a psychological mechanism linked to the resolution of visual ambiguity--perceptual bias--would be linked to political attitude. Perceptual bias causes western individuals to favour a global interpretation when scrutinizing ambiguous hierarchical displays (e.g., alignment of trees) that can be perceived either in terms of their local elements (e.g., several trees) or in terms of their global structure (e.g., a forest). Using three tasks (based on Navon-like hierarchical figures or on the Ebbinghaus illusion), we demonstrate (1) that right-oriented Westerners present a stronger bias towards global perception than left-oriented Westerners and (2) that this stronger bias is linked to higher cognitive rigidity. This study establishes for the first time that political ideology, a high-level construct, is directly reflected in low-level perception. Right- and left-oriented individuals actually see the world differently. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  2. Right to Place: A Political Theory of Animal Rights in Harmony with Environmental and Ecological Principles

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eleni Panagiotarakou

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available The focus of this paper is on the “right to place” as a political theory of wild animal rights. Out of the debate between terrestrial cosmopolitans inspired by Kant and Arendt and rooted cosmopolitan animal right theorists, the right to place emerges from the fold of rooted cosmopolitanism in tandem with environmental and ecological principles. Contrary to terrestrial cosmopolitans—who favour extending citizenship rights to wild animals and advocate at the same time large-scale humanitarian interventions and unrestricted geographical mobility—I argue that the well-being of wild animals is best served by the right to place theory on account of its sovereignty model. The right to place theory advocates human non-interference in wildlife communities, opposing even humanitarian interventions, which carry the risk of unintended consequences. The right to place theory, with its emphasis on territorial sovereignty, bases its opposition to unrestricted geographical mobility on two considerations: (a the non-generalist nature of many species and (b the potential for abuse via human encroachment. In a broader context, the advantage of the right to place theory lies in its implicit environmental demands: human population control and sustainable lifestyles.

  3. Legislators' positions on gay and lesbian rights: the personal and political.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Herrick, Rebekah

    2010-01-01

    This article examines state legislators' public position on gay and lesbian rights by using responses to survey data on their positions toward civil unions and inclusion of sexual orientation in anti-job discrimination laws. The research finds that although state legislators are mixed on their positions, they are less supportive of gay and lesbian rights than is the general public. It also finds that their public positions are a product of both their personal beliefs and values as well as their political calculations. The implications of these findings are explored.

  4. Communication as a human right: Citizenship, politics and the role of the speech-language pathologist.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Murphy, Declan; Lyons, Rena; Carroll, Clare; Caulfield, Mari; De Paor, Gráinne

    2018-02-01

    According to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." The purpose of this paper is to elucidate communication as a human right in the life of a young man called Declan who has Down syndrome. This commentary paper is co-written by Declan, his sister who is a speech-language pathologist (SLP) with an advocacy role, his SLP, and academics. Declan discusses, in his own words, what makes communication hard, what helps communication, his experiences of speech-language pathology, and what he knows about human rights. He also discusses his passion for politics, his right to be an active citizen and participate in the political process. This paper also focuses on the role of speech-language pathology in supporting and partnering with people with communication disabilities to have their voices heard and exercise their human rights.

  5. Politics and public health ethics in practice: right and left meet right and wrong.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gollust, Sarah E; Baum, Nancy M; Jacobson, Peter D

    2008-01-01

    As public health practitioners are no doubt aware, public health practice and politics are closely linked. Although theoretical discussion of the emerging field of public health ethics has been rich, scholars have paid little attention to the relationship between ethical issues and politics in public health practice. We conducted semistructured interviews with 45 public health practitioners across a range of occupations (eg, health officers, medical directors, sanitarians, nurses, educators, and commissioners) working at 12 local health departments across Michigan and the state health department. Practitioners were asked to describe the ethical issues they faced in their daily practice. Ethical issues that resulted from the political environment emerged as one major category of ethical issues our interviewees described. This article illustrates how political issues engender ethical challenges in 4 main areas: public health agenda-setting, political pressures, political conflicts with best practices, and the scope of public health practice. The findings suggest that politics and public health ethics intrinsically intersect, because political pressures and priorities often impose ethical challenges that practitioners negotiate in their daily work.

  6. A political dimension of public budget: the councils of rights as a space for collective and plural debate

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Valdir Anhucci

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available The consolidation of the political dimension of the Councils of Rights is linked to its understanding as plural public spaces, divergence and the constant struggle of ideas. The political dimension becomes crucial, especially in the process of defining and managing the public budget for both planning and to expand the debate on the allocation of financial resources for the implementation of public policies. It is this space that the different interests manifest themselves, becoming a field of political struggle for the appropriation of public resources in ensuring the rights and social protection of the most disenfranchised segments of society. The public budget in the spaces of advice gained a political dimension, the prospect of mere instrument accounting

  7. The politics of death in Mexico: dislocating human rights and asylum law through hybrid agents.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ariadna Estévez

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available In 2006 Mexico’s then-president Felipe Calderón declared war on drug trafficking. The human toll was devastating with the loss of over 95,000 lives and the forced disappearance of more than 27,000 people. In addition, two percent of the Mexican population was displaced with families forced to flee their homes in the face of criminal violence. This article offers an explanation of how death, forced disappearances, persecution and exile are in essence the specific effects of governmentalization of the Mexican state. This govern­mentalization includes the shared use, by criminals and authorities, of techniques for dominating the population and controlling the conduct of citizens through the practices of death, that is, by employing the politics of death (necropolitics. The article goes on to discuss how the objectives, rationality and governmentalization of the State serve to dislocate human rights discourse in such a way that its truth politics excludes people suffering serious human rights violations, such as Mexican asylum seekers. This is accompanied by a new mode of subjectivity produced by Mexico's politics of death – the Endriago subject – which operates as a hybrid perpetrator of human rights violations.

  8. WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE POLITICAL SPHERE- MACEDONIAN AND INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dana Nikolov

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Gender equality is a key issue that concernsall government entities in the world and the extent of its legal regulation depends on the inclusion of women in the political sphere of a state. Early women's rights movement dates back to the 1830s when women began speaking publicly against slavery. Since then, the performance by women on the legal and political scene is in continuous progression, but it is not sufficient. Currently the country with the largest number of women in political office is Rwanda, holding the world record with 64% representation. Other countries where women's inclusion in politics is high are the Scandinavian countries, led by Sweden. Contrary to the positive tendency in these two countries concerning this issue, there are those which are first inthe non-participationof women in the political sphere, like Ukraine with 10%, Lebanon and Iran 3% and 0.3% in Yemen. When it comes to gender equality in the Republic of Macedonia, equal opportunities for women and men are guaranteed mainly by the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia as the highest legal act, but also by a large number of laws that prohibit discrimination based on gender. The participation of women in the parliament of Macedonia for the last parliamentary term (2011- 2014 was 34.14%. Raising concern is the women’s under-representation in the executive branch, and the Republic of Macedonia cannot claim to have any significant involvement of women in the diplomatic sphere either. Nevertheless, the efforts for a step closer towards increasing women's participation in the decision-making process will not cease.

  9. Behind the ethnic-civic distinction: Public attitudes towards immigrants' political rights in the Netherlands.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Verkuyten, Maykel; Martinovic, Borja

    2015-09-01

    Public opinion research has sought to distinguish between ethnic and civic conceptions of citizenship and examined the differential associations of these conceptions with policy preferences in the realm of immigration. What has not been examined empirically is why exactly these conceptions are related to people's preferences. In two survey studies conducted among national samples of native Dutch we tested the proposition that the endorsement of ethnic citizenship is related to lower acceptance of Muslim immigrant rights (Study 1) and their political participation (Study 2) because of a weaker normative sense of common national belonging and higher adherence to autochthony (primo-occupancy) beliefs. In contrast, the endorsement of civic citizenship was expected to be associated with higher acceptance of Muslim immigrant rights and their political participation because of a stronger sense of common belonging and lower belief in autochthony. The findings of the two studies are similar and in support of these expectations. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  10. Ruptures, rights, and repair: the political economy of trauma in Haiti.

    Science.gov (United States)

    James, Erica Caple

    2010-01-01

    This article analyzes the unintended consequences of humanitarian and development interventions in Haiti implemented to facilitate its postconflict transition following the period of military rule between 1991 and 1994. International and national governmental and nongovernmental initiatives to provide redress and healing to victims of human rights abuses from this period inadvertently contributed to the growth of a political economy of trauma. I argue that state-sponsored and non-state interventions aimed at truth seeking, acknowledging past ruptures, and reparations have intersected with the politics of local communities in ways that contribute to the commoditization of suffering in the political economy of trauma. The experience of a woman whose bodily integrity and personal sovereignty were violated by members of Haiti's terror apparatus demonstrates the presence of a terror economy. My witnessing of her interactions with the international and national humanitarian and development aid organizations that assisted her in the aftermath of violation revealed the contours of the compassion economy. It is the compassion economy that is the particular focus of this article. I evaluate whether rendering visible or audible the individual and collective suffering of the past truly aid processes of social reconstruction, democratization, and peace building, especially in states plagued with ongoing social, political, and economic insecurity. I argue that the forms of citizenship that these interventions engender are rarely permanent, especially in fragile or failed states, and may exacerbate the societal cleavages that gave rise to conflict.

  11. State Democratic Rights as Current Political Power Limit and a New Culture for Social Promotion of Development and Sustainability

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cátia Rejane Liczbinski Sarreta

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available The proposed study relates to the democracy and political power considering the implementation of sustainability. Presented as theoretical basis the democratic principle itself, as well as the realization of human and fundamental rights. Exploring the possibility of re (construction of the state and own power and political and social culture of democracy through the promotion of development and sustainability. In a democratic state the appropriate political power embodies the rights of the citizen. A key element that should be considered is education for training social actors capable of promoting the transformation of dominant practices and that take important roles in politics and influence the state and society. The method used is deductive.

  12. Inequalities in the Japanese Workplace : Gender, Political Creed, and the Right to Life

    OpenAIRE

    ウィリアムズ, ノエル

    2001-01-01

    Much of my recent research in the area of fundamental rights in the Japanese and comparative contexts has been concerned with the issue of equality. In this paper we look at the issue of equality in the Japanese workplace, concentrating on the company organization. Three aspects in particular are discussed. First, gender inequality ; second, the issue of workers and their political creed ; third, the inequality of the right to life of workers.

  13. The political economy of dignity: monitoring the advancement of socio-economic human rights in a globalized economy

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Biermans, M.

    2005-01-01

    The dichotomy between political and socio-economic rights has been subject to criticism ever since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, almost sixty years ago. The declaration itself leaves little doubt regarding the interconnectedness between both types of human rights.

  14. Civil rights between legal provisions and political reality in Albania

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Doris Koliqi Malaj

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available One of the basic principles of civil rights is that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. The life protection, liberty and property should be equally guaranteed to citizens to exclude discrimination of minorities or other parts of the population. These rights are an important part of civil liberties and are considered as an essential element for effective citizenship. Arbitrary arrest, terror, torture or other serious and unlawful interference, both by state and private actors, significantly affect the well-being of democracy as it affects the very essence of it. In liberal democracies, leaders legitimized by the people must be involved within the norms and principles of the rule of law in order to establish a healthy relationship between the state and the citizen. This relationship is considered to be damaged in non-liberal democracies as it is affected by the suspension of individual freedoms and rights. This paper aims to analyze whether these individual rights are guaranteed and protected in Albania, considering from the perspective of the legal framework as well as in the political reality. This study aims to analyze the development of human rights, judicial rights and their implementation in our country to come to the conclusion, whether our system is that of a liberal democracy or not.

  15. The Use of Drones and Human Rights: Particular Focus on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Articles 2, 6, 12, 17 and 21

    OpenAIRE

    Rizwani, Muhammad Saqib

    2013-01-01

    The topic of this thesis is how the use of drone technology relates to the international human rights law regime. Particular focus is on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Articles 2, 6, 12, 17 and 21.

  16. Political Depression, Cruel Optimism and Pedagogies of Reparation: Questions of Criticality and Affect in Human Rights Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zembylas, Michalinos

    2018-01-01

    This article argues that there is an urgent need to engage with a deeper analysis of the contemporary culture of "political depression" and its affective implications in human rights education (HRE). In particular, the article focuses on the following questions: How might a theorization of political depression be relevant to efforts that…

  17. The Global Politics of Gay Rights: The Straining Relations between the West and Africa

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hakeem Onapajo

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available This article analyses the contemporary global politics of gay rights as it relates to the straining relations between the Western powers and many African states that oppose sexual minorities’ rights. While the West (with emphasis on the United States, EU, and Britain advocates for the protection of gay rights in the world, Africa provides the largest concentration of states opposed to them. Therefore, there has been rising tension between both regions. This became more apparent after Nigeria and Uganda, respectively, signed their anti-gay bills into law in January and February 2014. In response to this, the Western powers decided to take some punitive measures, especially imposition of sanctions, against the countries to pressurise them to repeal their laws. In an unusual manner, the African states are radically determined to go ahead with their anti-gay laws in open defiance to the demands of the Western powers. This development, which is informed by a number of factors, shows a rather new pattern of behaviour by African states in global politics.

  18. Rights of nature and the indigenous Peoples in Bolivia and Ecuador: a Straitjacket for Progressive development Politics?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rickard LALANDER

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available Is it possible to justify resource extractivism to provide progressive welfare politics and still respect the constitutional rights of nature? The Indigenous concept of Sumak Kawsay on human beings living in harmony with each other and the environment is the fundamental framing of the new constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia. These constitutional reforms embrace strengthened proper rights of nature and similarly of ethnic rights. However, the same constitutions grant the State the right to exploit and commercialize natural resources and extractivism has increased. This study revises the tensions between welfare politics, extractivism and the rights of nature and the Indigenous peoples in the new constitutional settings of Bolivia and, particularly, Ecuador. The article argues that Sumak Kawsay challenges dominating understandings of the concepts of welfare, common good and development, and likewise that a pragmatic approach is applied by national governments towards the constitutional rights of nature amidst other human values.

  19. Rights, Free Trade, and Politics: The Strategic Use of a Rights Discourse in the Negotiation of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Angelika Rettberg

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available This article seeks to describe the strategic use of a rights discourse by domestic and international actors involved in the negotiation and ratification processes of free trade agreements between Colombia, the United States, and the European Union. We suggest that some of the differences between both FTAs and the processes leading up to their approval and ratification can be attributed to the ability of relevant actors to build and disseminate rights-based arguments in order to develop like-minded political coalitions, and other institutional and contextual characteristics.

  20. Paradise lost: Sovereign State Interest, Global Resource Exploitation and the Politics of Human Rights

    OpenAIRE

    Augenstein, Daniel

    2016-01-01

    Taking its cue from the US Supreme Court judgment in Kiobel that restricted the extraterritorial reach of the Alien Tort Claims Act, this article explores how sovereignty structures the relationship between global resource exploitation and the localization of human rights in the international order of states. The argument situates international human rights law in an area of tension between national political self-determination and the global economic exploitation of natural resources. Global...

  1. Between Civil Rights and Property Rights: Debating the Selective ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    What is framed as political contestation today is a culmination of abuses of human rights, including political, civil, social and economic rights. Using a historical analysis, this article points out that there has been selective amnesia in Zimbabwe's human rights discourse, and argues for the equal treatment of civil and political ...

  2. Getting beyond the context of French revolution in post-modern age: Striking off the partitioning of the political field on the left and right

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cvetićanin Neven

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available The essay is dealing with the new post-modern political context that will softly get beyond, nowadays old context set by the French Revolution with all its opposites (revolution/restauration, the left/the right, republic/monarchy, red/black etc.. This new post-modern context will, instead of opposites of revolution and restoration i.e. opposites of classic left and classic right, mark opposites of extreme margin and central synthesis i.e. opposites of margin and centre, becoming the point of rotation of the political field nowadays. These new developments in political philosophy and political sociology will come on scene with series of philosophers, sociologists, politiciologies and lawthinkers who will resist to any alignment on the left, the right or the centre in its classical meaning, and the most distinctive among them will be Georges Sorel and Robert Michels, as well as, lately god deal mentioned Carl Schmitt, wherefore in this essay the attention is applied to their contribution in getting beyond the old context of French Revolution. Their opus is witnessing on how much has the era got 'beyond Left and Right' in its classical meaning, as for beyond revolution and restauration. That is also visible from some segments of the political practice after The World War II, wherefore the essay suggests model from French modern politics which got beyond the opposite of classic Left and classic Right. At the very end of the essay, controversy with tendencies of Norberto Bobbio is taken over, trying to stand up the point of view that is considering the Left and the Right essential invariables of the political life and political speech generally, that way, the final conclusion of getting beyond this classical partition of political field, is made.

  3. Political Experiences and Social Imagery Regarding Reelection in Mexico, 1928-1964. The Transformation of a Civil Right into a Political Principle and Social Taboo

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luis Anaya Merchant

    2004-10-01

    Full Text Available This article reviews both the political circumstances that guided constitutional  reforms regarding  the  reelection of legislators (1933 and the  ones  that  led to the  couter-refórm (1964 but were, however, lost in historical oblivion. It is very interesting to observe the process through which a civil right (reelection transforms into a political. principle (nonreelection and then into a taboo that impregnated  social imagery well into the twentieth century.  Although restablishing  the right to reelection in itself contributes only  fragmentarily to a better functioning of legislative power, it implies the possible emergence of both old and new institutional risks and costs, so in Mexico —during the twentieth century- this issue could not be discussed soberly and responsibly in all its complexities.

  4. PROBLEMATIC APPLICATION OF CRIMINAL REVOCATION OF POLITICAL RIGHTS IN PERSPECTIVE OF CORRUPTION LAW

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Edi As’Adi

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available The spirit of fighting corruption in Indonesia based on the spirit of the Declaration of the 8th International Conference against Corruption and Indonesia United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC UN 58/ 4 dated October 31, 2003, and Law No. 7 of 2006 on the Ratification of the UN Convention on Anti-Corruption of 2003 and Act No. 20 of 2001. The implementation of the Law on Corruption tends not optimal. As a new breakthrough reached the imposition of criminal sanctions in the form of revocation of political rights for the accused of corruption. Although in practice the criminal is considered unconstitutional. Given the enormous impact of corruption, namely the loss suffered by the people and the state, the current criminal disenfranchisement for perpetrators of political corruption has been duly applied.

  5. The right to practice medicine without repercussions: ethical issues in times of political strife

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hathout Leith

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available Abstract This commentary examines the incursion on the neutrality of medical personnel now taking place as part of the human rights crises in Bahrain and Syria, and the ethical dilemmas which these incursions place not only in front of physicians practicing in those nations, but in front of the international community as a whole. In Bahrain, physicians have recently received harsh prison terms, apparently for treating demonstrators who clashed with government forces. In Syria, physicians are under the same political pressure to avoid treating political demonstrators or to act as informants against their own patients, turning them in to government authorities. This pressure has been severe, to the point that some physicians have become complicit in the abuse of patients who were also political demonstrators. This paper posits that physicians in certain countries in the Middle East during the “Arab Spring,” specifically Syria and Bahrain, are being used as both political pawns and political weapons in clear violation of Geneva Convention and World Medical Association guidelines, and that this puts them into the most extreme sort of “dual loyalty” dilemma. They are being forced to choose between their own safety and well-being and that of their patients – a negative sum scenario wherein there is no optimal choice. As such, an international call for a United Nations inquiry must be made in order to protect the neutrality of medical care and personnel during times of armed conflict.

  6. Some Citizens Are Ill Informed and Lack Basic Knowledge of Politics. Should We Limit Their Right to Vote?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maria CERNAT

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available This article tries to examine some of the anti-democratic messages that appeared in social media during the Romanian presidential campaign of 2014. My hypothesis is that the idea of limiting the right to vote gained the sympathy of the middle class – highly trained and remunerated individuals as a result of those messages disseminated during the 2014 presidential campaign. Namely, for the first time the electoral messages did not targeted only a political candidate but also his voters who were supposedly old, poor, ill-informed, dependent of social aid and prone to sacrifice their political power for material benefits. In the first part of my article I shall focus on the way the new media are shaping the political competition trying to find out whether these media are indeed alternative media fostering rational political debate and encouraging political engagement. In the second part of my article I shall focus on some of the onlineanti-democratic messages that were distributed during the first and the second round of the presidential elections. In the third part of the article I shall present the result of an empirical research composed of the semi-structured interviews I conducted having as subjects people working in the IT field. The theme of my interviews was the possibility of limitation of the right to vote.

  7. Political Economy of Right to Education in Rural China: Unpacking the Black Box of State

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hong, Y.

    2011-01-01

    This dissertation approaches the inequality of basic education between urban and rural China from a human rights perspective and positions this issue in the context of Chinese political economy. It demonstrates the slackness of the Chinese state in the 1990s and its insufficient efforts in the 2000s

  8. From political opportunities to niche-openings: the dilemmas of mobilizing for immigrant rights in inhospitable environments

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nicholls, W.J.

    2014-01-01

    This article examines how undocumented immigrants mobilize for greater rights in inhospitable political and discursive environments. We would expect that such environments would dissuade this particularly vulnerable group of immigrants from mobilizing in high profile campaigns because such campaigns

  9. How right-wing versus cosmopolitan political actors mobilize and translate images of immigrants in transnational contexts

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Doerr, Nicole

    2017-01-01

    stereotypes of immigrants. While right-wing political activists create a shared stereotypical image of immigrants as foes of an imaginary ethnonationalist citizenship, left-wing counter-images construct a more complex and nuanced imagery of citizenship and cultural diversity in Europe. The findings show...

  10. SOCIOECONOMIC, INSTITUTIONAL & POLITICAL DETERMINANTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: A SUBNATIONAL STUDY OF INDIA, 1993 – 2002

    OpenAIRE

    Vadlamannati, Krishna Chaitanya

    2008-01-01

    We conduct an econometric analysis of socioeconomic, institutional and political factors determining government respect for human rights within India. Using time series cross-sectional data for 28 Indian states for the period 1993 – 2002, we find that internal threat poised by number of social violence events, presence of civil war and riot hit disturbed areas are strongly associated with human rights abuses. Amongst socioeconomic factors, ‘exclusive’ economic growth, ‘uneven’ development, po...

  11. Implementing the 1989 United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child in sub-Saharan Africa: the overlooked socioeconomic and political dilemmas.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mulinge, Munyae M

    2002-11-01

    The aim of this article is to identify and profile some often overlooked socioeconomic and political factors that render the protection of the rights of the child, as guaranteed through the 1989 United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child, a distant dream in most African countries. It is argued that, in most African countries, there are other major impediments to the protection of the child's rights in addition to the frequently cited lack of adequate legislation and of political will. The paper is a review essay and utilizes existing literature from varied sources to advance its main arguments. It draws from such documents to profile the socioeconomic and political barriers to the protection of children's rights in Africa both at the family and at the national levels. CORE ARGUMENT: The ratification of the United Nation's 1989 Convention and the passing of supportive legislation by most state governments, has not resulted in major improvements in the well-being of children. This is as a result of prevailing socioeconomic and political conditions such as social transformations within the family unit, poverty, and rampant corruption. The emergence of HIV/AIDS, civil wars and armed conflicts is a major impediment to the protection of children's rights across most of Africa. The effective implementation of the 1989 United Nations' Convention by African governments requires more than the ratification of the Convention. Governments require the political will to implement its prescriptions by passing supportive legislation. To create the necessary enabling environments, equal emphasis should be placed on the eradication of poverty, corruption and disease; and to ending armed conflicts where they exist.

  12. Effects of Political Knowledge on Political Tolerance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hall, John Powell

    2018-01-01

    Sexual orientation continues to be an explosive issue in American classrooms. Increasing the political knowledge of students can reduce the volatility of this explosive issue by increasing tolerance toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. This relationship between political knowledge and political tolerance has been…

  13. Exploring Women's Understanding of Politics, Political Contestation ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    Exploring Women's Understanding of Politics, Political Contestation and Gender Transformation in the Caribbean. IDRC's Democratic Governance, Women's Rights and Gender Equality initiative is supporting a body of comparative research on whether and how democratic processes and institutions are responding to ...

  14. Right Face: Understanding German Political Developments

    Science.gov (United States)

    1994-06-16

    years passed, invested Germancarliamentary life , and politics in general, with ar increasing amount of friction and frustra-ton. The new German state...Wranslated by William C. Kirby, Cambridge: .arvaro ° Uiversity Press, 1981. George F. Kennan, The Decline of Bismarck’s European Order, .7anco-Russian...continental Empire, free from the economic pressure of Britain, America, and France. The costs of the war in human life and resources fed procressively more

  15. The Role of Secularism of State on the Relationship Between Catholic Identity, Political Orientation, and Gay Rights Issues.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hichy, Zira; Gerges, Mina Halim Helmy; Platania, Silvia; Santisi, Giuseppe

    2015-01-01

    In discussions of regulations governing same-sex marriage and adoption by gays and lesbians, the issue of state secularism is often called into question. This study aims to test the mediating effects of state secularism on the relationship between Catholic identity, political orientation, and gay civil rights. Participants were Catholic Italians who completed a questionnaire measuring the constructs under investigation. Results showed that state secularism mediates the effects of Catholic identity and political orientation on attitudes toward same-sex marriage and adoption by gays and lesbians.

  16. Civic and political rights of the Batwa ethnic minority in local governance at village level: The case of Kanungu District

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Martha Kibukamusoke

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Since the 1970s, the Batwa ethnic minority group has been considered as a less superior group of human beings. They were forcefully evicted from the forest around Echuya Forest Reserve in Kisoro and Kabale districts of South-Western Uganda. The Batwa in Uganda are one of the most defenceless (vulnerable, marginalised, voiceless (powerless and endangered ethnic minority group in the districts they live in. In turn, their civic and political rights (the right to vote and the right to be voted in local council (LC elections have been ignored partly because of poor sensitisation to and awareness of the Batwa people by all stakeholders. The purpose of this study was to investigate the civic and political rights of the Batwa people in Uganda. The key questions to be addressed include:   1. Is the Batwa ethnic minority group aware of the right to vote in Local Council 1 elections in the communities? 2. Is the Batwa ethnic minority group aware of the right to be voted for in Local Council 1 elections in their communities?

  17. the right of minorities to political participation under the ethiopian

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    MLR

    culture rather than any abstract consideration into the relative merits of different ... political organization gained momentum and reached its political maturity in ... in Theory and Practice, (Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group), p. 160. ..... Ethiopia: A Comparative Study, (Rev.edn, Addis Ababa Artistic Printing Enterprise), p. 16.

  18. Denouncing Divinity: Blasphemy, Human Rights, and the Struggle of Political Leaders to defend Freedom of Speech in the Case of Innocence of Muslims

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tom Herrenberg

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available This article is about freedom of speech and the political responses to the blasphemous Innocence of Muslims video, which sparked international controversy in the fall of 2012. Politicians from multiple corners of the world spoke out on freedom of speech and its relation to blasphemy. Whereas one might expect that those politicians would abide by international human rights law, many of them issued Statements that unequivocally undermined the principle of free speech enshrined in those human rights instruments. This article discusses a number of these political statements against the background of human rights standards.

  19. Ideology: Its Resurgence in Social, Personality, and Political Psychology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jost, John T; Nosek, Brian A; Gosling, Samuel D

    2008-03-01

    We trace the rise, fall, and resurgence of political ideology as a topic of research in social, personality, and political psychology. For over 200 years, political belief systems have been classified usefully according to a single left-right (or liberal-conservative) dimension that, we believe, possesses two core aspects: (a) advocating versus resisting social change and (b) rejecting versus accepting inequality. There have been many skeptics of the notion that most people are ideologically inclined, but recent psychological evidence suggests that left-right differences are pronounced in many life domains. Implicit as well as explicit preferences for tradition, conformity, order, stability, traditional values, and hierarchy-versus those for progress, rebelliousness, chaos, flexibility, feminism, and equality-are associated with conservatism and liberalism, respectively. Conservatives score consistently higher than liberals on measures of system justification. Furthermore, there are personality and lifestyle differences between liberals and conservatives as well as situational variables that induce either liberal or conservative shifts in political opinions. Our thesis is that ideological belief systems may be structured according to a left-right dimension for largely psychological reasons linked to variability in the needs to reduce uncertainty and threat. © 2008 Association for Psychological Science.

  20. The Maqāṣid approach and rethinking political rights in modern society

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Louay Safi

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper examines political rights in Islam by focusing on freedom of religion and the extent to which the state is empowered to enforce faith and religious law on society. It starts by comparing the notion of law in both Western and Islamic traditions, and then analyzes the difference between the ethical and legal within Sharī‘ah. The paper illustrates how Islamic law grew historically by working to limit the power of the state, and points out the need to maintain the distinction between the state and civil society for the proper implementation of Sharī‘ah. The paper also contends that those who call on the state to enforce all rules of Sharī‘ah on society rely on a faulty theory of right and concludes that Islamic law fully recognizes the right of individuals to adopt and practice their faith freely. Freedom of religion, it stresses, is an intrinsic aspect of Islamic law and all efforts to limit this freedom is bound to violate its purpose and dictates.

  1. Rights of Minors and Constitutional Politics in the German Länder. Legal Framework, Party Strategies, and Constitutional Amendments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lorenz Astrid

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available The article analyses constitutional politics in the German Länder in the field of minors’ rights. Since this issue seems a purely legal matter dealt with at the federal, European and international level, we should expect similar, almost identically shaped policies at the Länder level. However, the analysis brings considerable variations of constitutional activities in this field to the fore: time, frequency, and contents of respective initiatives vary significantly in the period from 1999 to 2014. These variations were due to different party strategies, diverging party platforms and majority constellations in the Länder. The analysis also shows that the public arguments brought forward in favour of constitutional amendments refer only weakly and randomly to legal provisions and processes at other levels. The political debate supporting extended children's rights rather refers to general observations, to the specific regional context, and constitutional provisions in other Länder. At least with regard to this issue, the multi-level system did not systematically impact on constitutional politics in the Länder. It rather can be understood as an opportunity structure providing parties with multiple realms in which they can pursue their goals. Thus the study shows that federal and regional party strategies are key factors in explaining policy diffusion in multilevel systems.

  2. Many behavioral tendencies associated with right-leaning (conservative) political ideologies are malleable and unrelated to negativity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Olivola, Christopher Y; Sussman, Abigail B

    2014-06-01

    Recent research has identified several judgment and decision making tendencies associated with right-leaning political ideologies that are difficult (if not impossible) to explain in terms of stable, negative affective appraisals because they (1) are uncorrelated with the negativity of the stimuli being considered, (2) do not reflect divergent affective evaluations, and (3) can be eliminated by superficial manipulations and interventions.

  3. A Neurology of the Conservative-Liberal Dimension of Political Ideology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mendez, Mario F

    2017-01-01

    Differences in political ideology are a major source of human disagreement and conflict. There is increasing evidence that neurobiological mechanisms mediate individual differences in political ideology through effects on a conservative-liberal axis. This review summarizes personality, evolutionary and genetic, cognitive, neuroimaging, and neurological studies of conservatism-liberalism and discusses how they might affect political ideology. What emerges from this highly variable literature is evidence for a normal right-sided "conservative-complex" involving structures sensitive to negativity bias, threat, disgust, and avoidance. This conservative-complex may be damaged with brain disease, sometimes leading to a pathological "liberal shift" or a reduced tendency to conservatism in political ideology. Although not deterministic, these findings recommend further research on politics and the brain.

  4. Harmonization of the conditions for reversionary rights and concession periods: tax and business political aspects

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sunnevaag, Kjell J.; Rusten, Grete; Soergard, Lars

    2002-01-01

    In Norway, the right of reversion was introduced at a time of national upheaval with regained independence and increasing understanding of the importance of hydropower in the industrialization process. Reversion became an important political instrument for securing public control over a resource of great socio-economic importance. After one hundred years, this arrangement is now set under pressure. This report discusses various aspects involved in creating regulations that are neutral with respect to ownership

  5. Political intersections between HIV/AIDS, sexuality and human rights: a history of resistance to the anti-sodomy law in India.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramasubban, R

    2008-01-01

    The HIV/AIDS epidemic in India has posed unprecedented challenges to both state and society, to question prevailing constructions of patriarchal gender relations and heteronormativity. Response to the challenge has come not from the political and social mainstream but from the criminalised "margins": people of alternative sexualities, who have launched a struggle for reform of the anti-sodomy law, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. This article documents the history of this movement, and identifies the multiple national and global-level cultural, political, and economic strands, shaping it. The legal reform movement has been invaluable as a tool to mobilise disparate alternative sexualities groups around a common strategy, thereby forging them into a tenuous national-level "community". Going beyond legal reform in the direction of sexual rights, however, requires a broader coalition of groups, and a broad-based political agenda of sexual rights for all. This agenda must critique patriarchy, dominant masculinity, and sexual violence; forces that together govern both the subordination of women and repression of alternative sexualities.

  6. Citizenship rights for immigrants: national political processes and cross-national convergence in western Europe, 1980-2008.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koopmans, Ruud; Michalowski, Ines; Waibel, Stine

    2012-01-01

    Immigrant citizenship rights in the nation-state reference both theories of cross-national convergence and the resilience of national political processes. This article investigates European countries' attribution of rights to immigrants: Have these rights become more inclusive and more similar across countries? Are they affected by EU membership, the role of the judiciary, the party in power, the size of the immigrant electorate, or pressure exerted by anti-immigrant parties? Original data on 10 European countries, 1980-2008, reveal no evidence for cross-national convergence. Rights tended to become more inclusive until 2002, but stagnated afterward. Electoral changes drive these trends: growth of the immigrant electorate led to expansion, but countermobilization by right-wing parties slowed or reversed liberalizations. These electoral mechanisms are in turn shaped by long-standing policy traditions, leading to strong path dependence and the reproduction of preexisting cross-national differences.

  7. Political Participation of Mexican Americans in California. A Report of the California State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

    Science.gov (United States)

    California State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

    The California State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights met on January 21-22, 1971, to discuss the political participation of Mexican Americans. This paper presents the committee's discussion and recommendations. Matters that are pertinent to the participation of Mexican Americans in the Political life of California are…

  8. Politics, the Media, and the Right to Know.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berry, John; And Others

    1992-01-01

    Report on the 1992 American Library Association (ALA) conference discusses featured speakers, political actions of the ALA Council, guidelines on patron behavior, the resignation of ALA Executive Director Linda Crismond, and conference exhibits. Excerpts from an address by new ALA president Marilyn Miller on empowering people through libraries are…

  9. Redistributive Politics in a Political Union

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Citi, Manuele; Justesen, Mogens Kamp

    One of the main functions of centralized budgets in federal and political unions is to act as an equalizing mechanism to support economic cohesion. This is also the case with the European Union’s budget, which operates as a redistributive mechanism that counteracts the cross-national and cross...... remarkably over the last decades. In this paper, we investigate how and why the net fiscal position of each member state towards the rest of the EU changes over time. Using a novel panel dataset (1979-2014), we study how some key national and EU-level political and economic variables affect the EU...... find that the political orientation of national governments does not per se influence redistributive politics with in the EU. However, when the unemployment rate is rising, right-wing governments are able to extract significantly larger budgetary benefits....

  10. The social consequences of conspiracism: Exposure to conspiracy theories decreases intentions to engage in politics and to reduce one's carbon footprint.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jolley, Daniel; Douglas, Karen M

    2014-02-01

    The current studies explored the social consequences of exposure to conspiracy theories. In Study 1, participants were exposed to a range of conspiracy theories concerning government involvement in significant events such as the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Results revealed that exposure to information supporting conspiracy theories reduced participants' intentions to engage in politics, relative to participants who were given information refuting conspiracy theories. This effect was mediated by feelings of political powerlessness. In Study 2, participants were exposed to conspiracy theories concerning the issue of climate change. Results revealed that exposure to information supporting the conspiracy theories reduced participants' intentions to reduce their carbon footprint, relative to participants who were given refuting information, or those in a control condition. This effect was mediated by powerlessness with respect to climate change, uncertainty, and disillusionment. Exposure to climate change conspiracy theories also influenced political intentions, an effect mediated by political powerlessness. The current findings suggest that conspiracy theories may have potentially significant social consequences, and highlight the need for further research on the social psychology of conspiracism. © 2012 The British Psychological Society.

  11. Political party affiliation, political ideology and mortality.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pabayo, Roman; Kawachi, Ichiro; Muennig, Peter

    2015-05-01

    Ecological and cross-sectional studies have indicated that conservative political ideology is associated with better health. Longitudinal analyses of mortality are needed because subjective assessments of ideology may confound subjective assessments of health, particularly in cross-sectional analyses. Data were derived from the 2008 General Social Survey-National Death Index data set. Cox proportional analysis models were used to determine whether political party affiliation or political ideology was associated with time to death. Also, we attempted to identify whether self-reported happiness and self-rated health acted as mediators between political beliefs and time to death. In this analysis of 32,830 participants and a total follow-up time of 498,845 person-years, we find that political party affiliation and political ideology are associated with mortality. However, with the exception of independents (adjusted HR (AHR)=0.93, 95% CI 0.90 to 0.97), political party differences are explained by the participants' underlying sociodemographic characteristics. With respect to ideology, conservatives (AHR=1.06, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.12) and moderates (AHR=1.06, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.11) are at greater risk for mortality during follow-up than liberals. Political party affiliation and political ideology appear to be different predictors of mortality. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

  12. The selective avoidance of threat appeals in right-wing populist political ads: An implicit cognition approach using eye-tracking methodology

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Matthes, J.; Marquart, F.; Arendt, F.; Wonneberger, A.; Verlegh, P.; Voorveld, H.; Eisend, M.

    2016-01-01

    Right-wing populist parties increasingly use political poster advertisements depicting negative and threatening images of foreigners, especially framing Muslims as a threat to Western European countries and culture (e.g. Betz, 2013; Marquart, 2013). For instance, parties such as the SVP in

  13. The Political Sociology of Human Rights

    OpenAIRE

    Nash, Kate

    2015-01-01

    The language of human rights is the most prominent 'people-centred' language of global justice today. This textbook looks at how human rights are constructed at local, national, international and transnational levels and considers commonalities and differences around the world. Through discussions of key debates in the interdisciplinary study of human rights, the book develops its themes by considering examples of human rights advocacy in international organisations, national states and local...

  14. The Erosion of Rights to Abortion Care in the United States: A Call for a Renewed Anthropological Engagement with the Politics of Abortion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Andaya, Elise; Mishtal, Joanna

    2017-03-01

    Women's rights to legal abortion in the United States are now facing their greatest social and legislative challenges since its 1973 legalization. Legislation restricting rights and access to abortion care has been passed at state and federal levels at an unprecedented rate. Given the renewed vigor of anti-abortion movements, we call on anthropologists to engage with this shifting landscape of reproductive politics. This article examines recent legislation that has severely limited abortion access and maps possible directions for future anthropological analysis. We argue that anthropology can provide unique contributions to broader abortion research. The study of abortion politics in the United States today is not only a rich opportunity for applied and policy-oriented ethnographic research. It also provides a sharply focused lens onto broader theoretical concerns in anthropology and new social formations across moral, medical, political, and scientific fields in 21st-century America. © 2016 by the American Anthropological Association.

  15. Moral foundations and political attitudes: The moderating role of political sophistication.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Milesi, Patrizia

    2016-08-01

    Political attitudes can be associated with moral concerns. This research investigated whether people's level of political sophistication moderates this association. Based on the Moral Foundations Theory, this article examined whether political sophistication moderates the extent to which reliance on moral foundations, as categories of moral concerns, predicts judgements about policy positions. With this aim, two studies examined four policy positions shown by previous research to be best predicted by the endorsement of Sanctity, that is, the category of moral concerns focused on the preservation of physical and spiritual purity. The results showed that reliance on Sanctity predicted political sophisticates' judgements, as opposed to those of unsophisticates, on policy positions dealing with equal rights for same-sex and unmarried couples and with euthanasia. Political sophistication also interacted with Fairness endorsement, which includes moral concerns for equal treatment of everybody and reciprocity, in predicting judgements about equal rights for unmarried couples, and interacted with reliance on Authority, which includes moral concerns for obedience and respect for traditional authorities, in predicting opposition to stem cell research. Those findings suggest that, at least for these particular issues, endorsement of moral foundations can be associated with political attitudes more strongly among sophisticates than unsophisticates. © 2015 International Union of Psychological Science.

  16. Politics for cities, cities for the political. About possibility (and necessity of radical urban politics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wiktor Marzec

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available Essay faces the problem of determinacy of global capitalism processes for the reality of urban political life. The city is naturally communitarian form of human life and seems to be the place where radical pro-community politics could be undertaken. Already existing and operating forms of power could fruitfully influence the city social relations. Values and norms of conduct are broadly delegated on the urban space and materiality, thus conscious shaping of city space has severe consequences for community life. If a crisis of the political partly has its roots in metamorphoses of the cities, then also remedies, rising from the urban materiality and reestablishing political subjects, could be thought. City, as most real place of political life could be either reduced to the aggregate of consumers or reestablished as a political community. Due to this is the place where undesired course of action could be stopped, hence precisely here the radical democratic politics can emerge.

  17. The Ideal Concept of Presidential Threshold Arrangement to Achieve Constitutional Rights of New Political Parties in a simultaneous general election in Indonesia

    OpenAIRE

    Muhammad Mukhtarrija; I gusti Ayu Ketut Rachmi Handayani; Agus Riwanto

    2018-01-01

    This study raises the legal issue against the enactment of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections in Indonesia. The law has violated the constitutional rights of new political parties of the simultaneous general election participants that began in 2017. The injustice is seen in article 222 which requires the provision of presidential threshold for political parties nominating the president and vice-presidential pairs based on the results of general elections in 2014. If this provision is appl...

  18. Gender, religion and democratic politics in India.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hasan, Zoya

    2010-01-01

    This article examines the impact of identity politics on gender equality. More specifically it explores the paradoxical and complex relationship of religion and politics in a multi-religious society and the complicated ways in which women's activism has both reinforced and challenged their gender identities. Contrary to the argument that religious politics does not always negate gender equality, the article argues that the Hindu religious politics and women's activism associated with it provides a compelling example of the instrumentalisation of women to accomplish the political goals of the Hindu right. It also examines the approach and strategies of influential political parties, women's organisations and Muslim women's groups towards legal reform and the contested issue of a uniform civil code. Against those who argue that, in the current communal conjuncture, reform within Muslim personal laws or Islamic feminism is the best strategy for enhancing the scope of Muslim women's rights, the article argues that such an approach tends to freeze identities within religious boundaries. It shows how women's and minority rights are used within the politics of religion to sideline the agenda of women's rights.

  19. European Union: Gender and politics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Žunić Natalija

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Political representation is the central issue in contemporary debates on the level of democracy in political institutions and processes in the European Union. Underrepresentation of particular groups in political institutions, decision-making and policy-making processes is perceived as the problem of justice, legitimacy and effectiveness in democratic societies. In this paper, the author analyzes the gender aspects of democratic decision-making processes and political representation of women in the EU member states. The social, historical and political dimension of women's efforts to obtain and promote their civil status and political rights have been the framework for developing the principle of gender equality as one of the founding EU principles. In the past hundred years, one of the most significant trends in politics has been the expansion of formal political representation of women. Yet, even though it has been more than a hundered years since women won their political rights in the 19th and the 20th century (the right to vote and the right to be voted, gender differences in political rights are still a substantial part of debate. Today, women's political representation is still inadequate and their political capacity and power have not been exercised to a sufficient extent (or proportionally through their actual representation in parliament. In March 2012, the European Commisision published a report on gender equality in different areas of social life; the Eurobarometer survey shows that women are generally underrepresented in politics. In national parliaments, only one out of four MPs is a woman. In the European Parliament, three out of ten parliamentarians are women. The statistics shows a huge discrepancy among the EU Member States in terms of women's representation in parliament (44.7% in Sweden as contrasted to 13.3% in Romania. The prevailing view in many studies is that post-industrial democracies are deficient as they have failed

  20. The Politics of Universalism

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Simonsen, Karen-Margrethe

    2013-01-01

    This article investigates the political function of human rights in the 16th Century in Spain just after the conquest of America. It claims that the study of this period of early globalization is relevant for the understanding of the function of human rights discourses to day, at the ‘end...... discourses is split down the middle: it serves both as a critique of power and as an extension of power, and the disclosure of this split helps us understand the inner politics of human rights. The article discusses the trial in Valladolid in 1550 when the rights of the barbarian Indians of America were put...... on trial. It focuses mainly on the arguments made by Bartolomé de las Casas and on the reasons why the King allowed las Casas’ fierce critique of the conquest to be published in a period of otherwise severe censorship. The article is inspired by Etienne Balibar’s idea of ‘politics of universalism...

  1. Do prisoners in South Africa have a constitutional right to a holistic ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Political Rights (ICCPR)[16] and the International Covenant on Social,. Economic and Cultural ... including measures that can reduce the spread of epidemics.[17] ..... in Africa. Johannesburg: African HIV in Prisons Partnership Network, 2009.

  2. 'Adventurous' judgments
    A comparative exploration into human rights as a moral-political force in judicial law development

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bas de Gaay Fortman

    2006-12-01

    Full Text Available This article looks at the development of law by the judiciary in the sense of judgments taking the law beyond the point of what was hitherto regarded as ius positivum. Its main perspective, however, is not the creation of law by the courts as such, but rather the ways and means in which the human rights idea has encouraged judges to deliver decisions that imply an overturning of 'settled' law. In the comparative exploration of 'adventurous' judgments that we shall embark on, our focus will be on the political morality of human rights as a driving force in judicial activism. It is assumed, in other words, that where the judiciary is 'active', human rights may play a part as general principles of law as distinct from rules already incorporated in positive law. Notably then, human rights in this way affect positive law in a manner other than through processes of international, regional and national standard setting connected with the establishment of new supervisory institutions and mechanisms. For this reason, the article does not so much consider typical human rights cases; instead the focus is on major decisions by national courts that were not in the first place regarded as human rights cases at all. In this endeavour, the article aims to be no more than an initial comparative exploration, intended to illustrate a function of human rights that is not normally highlighted, namely its function as an inspirational force towards 'adventurous' judgments. Yet, the judicial potential illustrated here is of great significance, as it may lead to law development inspired by the two principal pillars underpinning the international quest for the realization of human rights: universality and human dignity. After reviewing a variety of characteristic cases from such diverse legal backgrounds as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the United States of America, India, South Africa and Nigeria, some conclusions are drawn as to the ways in which human rights

  3. Contemporary Political Paranoia, a Case of Political Gnosticism

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antonio Rivera García

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available This article puts forward the concept of political paranoia as a useful category to understand some contemporary manifestations of the pathologies of power. For this aim an interdisciplinary approach has been used, namely, the knowledge provided by psychoanalysis, political philosophy, theology and literary or aesthetic studies. Freud’s and Lacan’s psychoanalysis allows us to understand why the paranoid subject is a megalomaniac and hyperrational subject who wants to be in control of everything. It is a sovereign subject, who has adapted not only to the Society of Control initially defined by Deleuze, but also to a conception of philosophy that aims for totality. After dealing with the close relationship between paranoia and conspiratorial political theory, the article explains the reason why contemporary political paranoia represents a case of the most radical political theology: political Gnosticism. This term stands for a conception of politics that reduces the Other to the condition of an absolute enemy that needs to be eliminated. Lastly, the article establishes a close link between the cure for political paranoia and the assumption of an ontology of incompleteness

  4. Relative deprivation and political protest

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    R. M. Kliuchnyk

    2017-03-01

    Examples of anti-system political parties and movements have been given. Many of them have changed the political disposition in Europe. Lega Nord (Italy, PEGIDA (Germany, Movimento 5 Stelle (Italy, Front National (France, Ataka (Bulgaria, etc are between them. These parties and movements influence increasingly on the European political process. Nativism and populism are marked as main peculiarities of such right parties. According to the author, Anti-Trump protests in the USA are the examples of the relative deprivation of numerous groups of people that feel their rights and freedoms being threatened.

  5. What do human rights bring to discussions of power and politics in health policy and systems?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Forman, Lisa

    2017-12-13

    Scholarly interrogations of power and politics are not endemic to the disciplines primarily tasked with exploring health policy and planning in the domestic or global domains. Scholars in these domains have come late to investigating power, prompted in part by the growing focus in domestic and global health research on the intersections between governance, globalization and health inequities. Recent prominent reports in this area increasingly point to human rights as important norms capable of responding in part to power differentials that sustain and exacerbate health inequities. Yet human rights law is not traditionally incorporated into health policy scholarship or education, despite offering important normative and strategic frameworks for public and global health, with distinctive contributions in relation to identifying and challenging certain forms of power disparity. This paper overviews two of these reports and how they see power functioning to sustain health inequities. It then turns to investigate what human rights and the right to health in particular may offer in addressing and challenging power in the health policy context.

  6. Hybrid carbon incentive mechanisms and political acceptability

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Vollebergh, H.R.J.; De Vries, J.L.; Koutstaal, P.R.

    1997-01-01

    In this paper it is analyzed how hybrid systems of carbon taxes and tradeable permits optimize some conflicting dimensions of political acceptability related to the design of these instruments. Pure systems like taxes without exemptions or auctioned tradeable permits cause problems for political acceptability in open economies due to high overall costs (abatement cost plus payments on the tax or auctions) for current polluters. Unfortunately, pure systems based on grandfathering of emission rights across the board do not provide a feasible alternative because of monitoring and enforcement problems. In contrast, consciously designed hybrid systems employ grandfathering of emission rights together with either carbon taxes or auctioned carbon permits in order to overcome acceptability problems of pure systems, while leaving incentives to reduce emissions at the margin untouched. Moreover, monitoring and enforcement costs of the hybrid systems are less due to the lower number of participating agents compared with the pure systems, while opportunities for cost- or burden-sharing exist as well. 3 figs., 4 tabs., 23 refs

  7. Fundamental rights and the EU internal market: just how fundamental are the EU treaty freedoms? A normative enquiry based on John Rawls' political philosophy

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Boer, N.J.

    2013-01-01

    This article assesses whether the EU Treaty freedoms - the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital - should be considered as fundamental rights which are hierarchically equal to other fundamental rights. It uses the political philosophy of John Rawls to assess why we should attach

  8. Patients as Rights Holders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brännmark, Johan

    2017-07-01

    Autonomy and consent have been central values in Western moral and political thought for centuries. One way of understanding the bioethical models that started to develop, especially in the 1970s, is that they were about the fusion of a long-standing professional ethics with the core values underpinning modern political institutions. That there was a need for this kind of fusion is difficult to dispute, especially since the provision of health care has in most developed countries become an ever more important concern of our political institutions, with governments playing a significant role in regulating and facilitating the provision of health care and in many countries even largely organizing it. There is, nevertheless, still room for dispute about how best to achieve this fusion and how to best think about autonomy and consent in a biomedical context. The simplest model we can have is probably about how being a person is largely about having the capacity of autonomous choice and that the main mode through which we exercise autonomy is by providing informed consent. Yet, liberal democracy's core idea that human beings have a high and equal value is also found in other accounts of the person. The human-rights framework provides an alternative model for thinking about personhood and about patient care. The human-rights approach is grounded, not in an account of autonomy (although it has something to say about autonomy), but in an account of the moral and political personhood that people possess merely by being human beings. In this approach, values like dignity and integrity, both highly relevant in a bioethical context, are identified as distinct values rather than being derived from and therefore reduced to respect for autonomous choice. The human-rights approach can supplement the problematic notion of autonomy that has been central to bioethics by placing this notion in a broader, strongly pluralistic framework. © 2017 The Hastings Center.

  9. A trauma-like model of political extremism: psycho-political fault lines in Israel.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laor, Nathaniel; Yanay-Shani, Alma; Wolmer, Leo; Khoury, Oula

    2010-10-01

    This study examines a trauma-like model of potentially violent political extremism among Jewish Israelis. We study the psychosocial characteristics of political extremists that may lie at the root of sociopolitical instability and assess personal (gender, stressful life events, Holocaust family background, and political activism) and psychological parameters (self- and political transcendence, perceived political threats, in/out-group identification ratio) that may predict readiness to engage in destructive political behavior. We examine the ideological zeal of various political groups, the relationship between the latter and perceived political threats, and the predictors of extreme political activism. Results showed that the extreme political poles displayed high level of ideological and morbid transcendence. Right extremists displayed higher perceived threats to physical existence and national identity. Left extremists scored highest on perceived moral integrity threat. Higher perceived threats to national identity and moral integrity, risk, and self-transcendence statistically explain morbid transcendence. When fear conjures up extremely skewed sociopolitical identifications across political boundaries, morbid transcendence may manifest itself in destructive political activity. © 2010 Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease.

  10. Framing Political Change: Can a Left Populism Disrupt the Rise of the Reactionary Right?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Labonté, Ronald

    2017-01-01

    Solomon Benatar offers an important critique of the limited frame that sets the boundaries of much of what is referred to as ‘global health.’ In placing his comments within a criticism of increasing poverty (or certainly income and wealth inequalities) and the decline in our environmental commons, he locates our health inequities within the pathology of our present global economy. In that respect it is a companion piece to an editorial I published around the same time. Both Benatar’s and my paralleling arguments take on a new urgency in the wake of the US presidential election. Although not a uniquely American event (the xenophobic right has been making inroads in many parts of the world), the degree of vitriol expressed by the President-elect of the world’s (still) most powerful and militarized country is being used to further legitimate the policies of right-extremist parties in Europe while providing additional justification for the increasingly autocratic politics of leaders (elected or otherwise) in many other of the world’s nations. To challenge right-populism’s rejection of the predatory inequalities that 4 years of (neo)-liberal globalization have created demands strong and sustained left populism built, in part, on the ecocentric frame advocated by Benatar PMID:28949469

  11. Democracy, Political Competition and Public Debt

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lucian CROITORU

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available There are two major preferences shaping political choices: one, regarding who should play the leading role in running the economy (mar-kets or politicians and the other, concerning social spending. According to reputation, leftist parties assign the leading role to politicians (i.e. the state, whereas rightist parties entrust mar-kets with the central role in running the econo-my. Right-wing parties’ reputation of not favoring social spending is not backed by facts. Since both the left and the right display similar behav-iors vis-à-vis social spending, it is preferable that markets play the central role in running the econ-omy. Flexible markets help economic growth and employment, reducing the need for high social spending. The freedom of property and freedom from corruption indexes show that, in Romania, the market has never played the central role in running the economy. People’s prevailing con-cern over their wellbeing ‘now’ rather than ‘to-morrow’ generates competition among political right and left for higher social spending, leading to high public debt. Neither left, nor right can guarantee sustainable limits for social benef ts and public debt. Capping the share of public debt in GDP by means of the Constitution provides no guarantee for public debt sustainability, but is worth a try.

  12. Tackling inequalities in political socialisation: A systematic analysis of access to and mitigation effects of learning citizenship at school.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoskins, Bryony; Janmaat, Jan Germen; Melis, Gabriella

    2017-11-01

    This article tackles the issue of social inequalities in voting and identifies how and when differences in learning political engagement are influenced by social background in the school environment between the ages of 11-16 in England. Using Latent Growth Curve Modelling and Regression Analysis on the Citizenship Education Longitudinal (CELS) data this research identifies two elements that influence the political socialisation process: access to political learning and effectiveness in the form of learning in reducing inequalities in political engagement. The results show that there is unequal access by social background to learning political engagement through political activities in school and through an open classroom climate for discussion. However, there is equal access by social background to Citizenship Education in schools and this method of learning political engagement is effective at the age of 15-16 in reducing inequalities in political engagement. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  13. Human rights and political crisis in Brazil: Public health impacts and challenges.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Malta, Monica

    2018-01-25

    In 31 August 2016, Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff was impeached and replaced by her vice president Michel Temer. Herein, we examine how the conservative agenda of Mr Temer and his supporters is influencing key decisions in the human rights and public health arena in Brazil. The government's austerity agenda includes severe cuts in critical areas such as health, education and science, jeopardising well-known strategies such as the Brazilian Public Health System (SUS) and nationwide cash transfer program, 'Bolsa Familia' - both benefited millions and were the largest of their kind in the world. Mr Temer's decisions show not only severe cuts in critical areas but also a political agenda that clearly demonstrates a broad shift away from the progressivism and social agenda presented and supported by its predecessors. Most vulnerable groups such as the LGBTQ community, women, people who use drugs and disenfranchised communities have been severely affected. Mr Temer's administration is putting Brazil far from its once nationwide goal to foster free and universal health care access and social equity for all its citizens. The near future for Brazil is unknown, but both national and international communities anticipate severe problems within the national human rights arena, if nothing changes. CCT: Conditional Cash Transfer; LGBTQ: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (and/or Questioning); SUS: Brazilian Public Health System.

  14. CSR as Corporate Political Activity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Morsing, Mette; Roepstorff, Anne

    2015-01-01

    –image dynamics of political CSR’. Concretely, we describe in two vignettes how IKEA’s declared ‘apolitical and neutral’ CSR identity becomes entangled with national and international socio-political events that critically challenge the corporate engagement prior national understandings of citizenship rights....... In this process, IKEA’s CSR identity becomes defined as a political and non-neutral activity. Our article contributes by bringing attention to the organizational level dynamics of political CSR by offering a conceptualization of how global and local socio-political events may disturb the alignment between CSR...

  15. Politics and health in eight European countries: a comparative study of mortality decline under social democracies and right-wing governments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Granados, José A Tapia

    2010-09-01

    Recent publications have argued that the welfare state is an important determinant of population health, and that social democracy in office and higher levels of health expenditure promote health progress. In the period 1950-2000, Greece, Portugal, and Spain were the poorest market economies in Europe, with a fragmented system of welfare provision, and many years of military or authoritarian right-wing regimes. In contrast, the five Nordic countries were the richest market economies in Europe, governed mostly by center or center-left coalitions often including the social democratic parties, and having a generous and universal welfare state. In spite of the socioeconomic and political differences, and a large gap between the five Nordic and the three southern nations in levels of health in 1950, population health indicators converged among these eight countries. Mean decadal gains in longevity of Portugal and Spain between 1950 and 2000 were almost three times greater than gains in Denmark, and about twice as great as those in Iceland, Norway and Sweden during the same period. All this raises serious doubts regarding the hypothesis that the political regime, the political party in office, the level of health care spending, and the type of welfare state exert major influences on population health. Either these factors are not major determinants of mortality decline, or their impact on population health in Nordic countries was more than offset by other health-promoting factors present in Southern Europe. Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Notes on the idea of a right to education: from political philosophy to today’s Chile

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carlos Ruiz Schneider

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available This article examines the idea of a right to education, particularly focused on determining to what extent the idea of a right to education is related to the idea of the public sphere, and the consequences that come from this relationship when thinking of educational public policies in today’s Chile, at the primary, secondary and university levels. To this end, the author reviews political philosophy, from the French Revolution up to the twentieth century –from Condorcet, including Kant and Hegel and finishing with Michael Walzer– resuscitating a school of thought that ties education to the public sphere and which recognizes that citizens have a right to educate themselves and that the State has certain obligations in this field. The author then applies this perspective to analyze the Chilean educational system imposed by the military dictatorship and still in place today. This allows the author to question ideas such as the school vouchers system and to evaluate the possibility of extending the model of free public education to the university level.

  17. 28 CFR 51.6 - Political subunits.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 28 Judicial Administration 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Political subunits. 51.6 Section 51.6 Judicial Administration DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE (CONTINUED) PROCEDURES FOR THE ADMINISTRATION OF SECTION 5 OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965, AS AMENDED General Provisions § 51.6 Political subunits. All political...

  18. Political Communication with Animals

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Meijer, E.

    2013-01-01

    In this article I sketch the outlines of a theory of political human-animal conversations, based on ideas about language that I borrow from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later work, in particular his notion of language-games. I present this theory as a supplement to the political theory of animal rights Sue

  19. The Right to Mothertongue Education

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Horst, Christian

    2005-01-01

    The article examines how the right to mothertongue education is situated between political pluralism and cultural monism related to different value systems within the construction of the nation state......The article examines how the right to mothertongue education is situated between political pluralism and cultural monism related to different value systems within the construction of the nation state...

  20. 28 CFR 51.7 - Political parties.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965, AS AMENDED General Provisions § 51.7 Political parties. Certain activities of political parties are subject to the preclearance requirement of section 5. A change affecting... 28 Judicial Administration 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Political parties. 51.7 Section 51.7...

  1. Righting wrongs and reforming rights.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ivey, Laurie C

    2014-03-01

    Discusses issues faced by LGBT people, such as a lack of equal civil rights and the need for extra legal and financial protection for families because partners cannot be married. The author notes that, in our society, it is no longer acceptable to be racist, but it is still okay to be homophobic. The many campaigns against gay marriage and efforts in the legislature to prevent change toward equal civil rights and protections are prime examples. In our current political climate, two things are very clear: (a) homophobia is freely tolerated and (b) the times are changing as we inch closer to equal rights every day. We are "righting wrongs and reforming rights."

  2. What is Beyond Right/Left?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dyrberg, Torben Bech

    2009-01-01

    The article looks at New Labour's move beyond right/left in the mid/late 1990s, which is an occasion to spell out the nature of right/left and what it means for democracy. In contrast to both defenders and critics of this move I argue in the first part that right/left is not an empty label bound up...... with the cleavage-lines of industrial society, but that it is an orientational metaphor which is articulated with others-in/out, up/down and front/back-and that we are in the process of moving beyond the industrial society right/left prototype. The second part looks at where New Labour is heading when moving beyond...... right/left. I argue that the new hegemonic orientation is that of front/back, which designs political renewal as a response to the social changes cutting across the outdated lines of contestation of partisan politics. The democratic problem of this move lies in squeezing politics between technocratic...

  3. The Discourse on Human Rights and the International Regime of Human Rights

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eyassu Gayim

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available The international regime of human rights governs the kinds of freedoms, liberties, benefits, autonomy and protection which human beings are entitled to, what kind of obligations we have in this connection and what the roles of states are in recognizing and protecting these rights. Yet, the sources, foundation and justifications for these rights and who we are by nature to deserve some rights has been contentious over the centuries, not least because we live in social context, which requires balancing rights by meeting the broader community interests: political order, stability, and satisfying the general welfare. This paper re-visits the major contentious positions in the discourse on human rights for purposes of explaining how the international community has navigated when shaping the contours of the international regime of human rights. Has this regime endorsed, rejected or avoided some of these positions? Does it follow a clear political ideology?

  4. Funding for tuberculosis research-an urgent crisis of political will, human rights, and global solidarity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frick, Mike

    2017-03-01

    Tuberculosis (TB) killed more people in 2015 than any other single infectious agent, but funding for research to develop better prevention, diagnosis, and treatment methods for TB declined to its lowest level in 7 years. TB research and development (R&D) is woefully underfunded, a situation best viewed as a crisis of political will and a failure on the part of governments to see unmet innovation needs in the TB response as a human rights issue requiring immediate action. Over 60% of available money for TB R&D comes from public sources, and 67% of public money comes from a single country: the USA. The election of Donald Trump to the US presidency in November 2016 has introduced great uncertainty into the support that science generally, and TB research in particular, will receive in the coming years. Advocacy on the part of all actors-from civil society to TB-affected communities to scientists themselves-is urgently needed to increase US government support for TB research moving forward. Copyright © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  5. Gender Equality, Citizenship and Human Rights

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    reflect upon challenges to gender equality, citizenship, and human rights in their respective societies; it combines theoretical insights with empirically grounded studies. The volume contextualises feminist political theory in China and the Nordic countries and subsequently puts it into a global......This comparative volume examines the ways in which current controversies and political, legal, and social struggles for gender equality raise conceptual questions and challenge our thinking on political theories of equality, citizenship and human rights. Bringing together scholars and activists who...

  6. Democracy in the country but not in the home? Religion, politics and women's rights in Chile.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guzmán, Virginia; Seibert, Ute; Staab, Silke

    2010-01-01

    This article explores the influence of religious actors on the elaboration of two public policies that are key to the advancement of women's rights and have long formed part of the women's movement's agenda in Chile: the introduction of sexual education in secondary schools in the 1990s and the distribution of emergency contraception in the 2000s. Our analysis of how different actors-from a variety of ideological and power positions-have influenced the two policy debates suggests that their discourses and strategies are highly contingent on the political environment. While conservative religious forces retain an enormous capacity to hinder policy making and implementation in the arena of family and sexuality, the government's determination to confront such interference seems to have grown in a context of fewer authoritarian enclaves, a more pluralist society and a strong sexual and reproductive rights movement. The diversification of religious positions on issues of family and sexuality has also affected the room for manoeuvre in the policy arena.

  7. Imagining the Political : Young Women, Participation and the ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    Imagining the Political : Young Women, Participation and the Crafting of the Political in Egypt. IDRC's Women's Rights and Citizenship (WRC) program initiative is supporting a body of comparative research on whether and how democracy and governance institutions are responding to women's rights and gender equality.

  8. The multidimensional politics of inequality: taking stock of identity politics in the U.S. Presidential election of 2016.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McCall, Leslie; Orloff, Ann Shola

    2017-11-01

    Many Democrats hoped that a particular kind of identity politics - women's - would help Hillary Clinton win the White House. In the aftermath of the election, some commentators bemoaned the fact that a majority of white women had voted for Trump, and called it a kind of betrayal, underlining their expectation that women would naturally, on the basis of their gender identity, support a woman with women-friendly politics. Indeed, this kind of thinking about identity politics has been widespread with reference to a number of demographic groups. Meanwhile, identity politics is lamented from the right and left by those who favour a greater emphasis on class-based inequalities, or a greater national identity, some of whom blame identity politics for spawning or justifying a backlash of right-leaning populism in the US. We argue for a turn to a more robust definition of identity as multidimensional and politically mediated for understanding political alignments over the past several decades. The multidimensionality of inequality - intersectionality or complex inequality - is widely accepted in the study of gender and race across the social science disciplines but has yet to be as successfully integrated into studies of electoral politics. Thinking about women's positioning in systems of complex inequality, and how the political parties have or have not articulated the concerns of different groups of women, helps us to understand the 2016 election, as well as past and potentially future political developments. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2017.

  9. Theorizing Women's Political Leadership: Cross-National Comparison

    OpenAIRE

    Minjeoung Kim

    2014-01-01

    Since women obtained the right to vote in 1893 for the first time in New Zealand, they have tried to participate actively into politics but still the world has a few women in political leadership. The article asks which factors might influence the appearance of women leadership in politics. The article investigates two factors such as political context, personal factors. Countries where economic development is stable and political democracy is consolidated have a tendency of appearance of wom...

  10. Hidden consequences of political efficacy: Testing an efficacy-apathy model of political mobilization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Osborne, Danny; Yogeeswaran, Kumar; Sibley, Chris G

    2015-10-01

    Political efficacy-the belief that one can influence politics-is a key predictor of people's involvement in social movements. Political institutions that are open to change should, however, be seen as just. Thus, political efficacy may ironically undermine minority group members' support for collective action by simultaneously increasing their belief in the fairness of the system. The current study aims to examine this possibility in a national sample of Māori-New Zealand's indigenous minority population. Participants (N = 399) were Māori (Mage = 44.22; SD = 13.30) women (n = 272) and men (n = 115; unreported = 12) who completed a survey assessing their levels of (a) political efficacy, (b) system justification, and (c) support for the political mobilization of their group, as well as relevant demographic covariates. Consistent with past research, political efficacy had a positive direct effect on participants' support for the political mobilization of Māori. Nevertheless, political efficacy also had a negative indirect effect on political mobilization support via increases in system justification. These results held after controlling for participants' ethnic identification, self-efficacy, and conservatism. Our findings uncover a hidden consequence of political efficacy and show that, while believing that the political system is receptive to change predicts political mobilization, it can also undermine minorities' support for the mobilization of their group. Thus, our results uncover a previously unknown process that maintains inequality between ethnic minority and majority group members. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

  11. Past-focused temporal communication overcomes conservatives' resistance to liberal political ideas.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lammers, Joris; Baldwin, Matt

    2018-04-01

    Nine studies and a meta-analysis test the role of past-focused temporal communication in reducing conservatives' disagreement with liberal political ideas. We propose that conservatives are more prone to warm, affectionate, and nostalgic feelings for past society. Therefore, they are more likely to support political ideas-including those expressing liberal values-that can be linked to a desirable past state (past focus), rather than a desirable future state (future focus) of society. Study 1 supports our prediction that political conservatives are more nostalgic for the past than liberals. Building on this association, we demonstrate that communicating liberal ideas with a past focus increases conservatives' support for leniency in criminal justice (Studies 2a and 2b), gun control (Study 3), immigration (Study 4), social diversity (Study 5), and social justice (Study 6). Communicating messages with a past focus reduced political disagreement (compared with a future focus) between liberals and conservatives by between 30 and 100% across studies. Studies 5 and 6 identify the mediating role of state and trait nostalgia, respectively. Study 7 shows that the temporal communication effect only occurs under peripheral (and not central) information processing. Study 8 shows that the effect is asymmetric; a future focus did not increase liberals' support for conservative ideas. A mixed-effects meta-analysis across all studies confirms that appealing to conservatives' nostalgia with a past-focused temporal focus increases support for liberal political messages (Study 9). A large portion of the political disagreement between conservatives and liberals appears to be disagreement over style, and not content of political issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

  12. Transitional justice as social control: political transitions, human rights norms and the reclassification of the past.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dudai, Ron

    2017-09-12

    This article offers an interpretation of transitional justice policies - the efforts of post-conflict and post-dictatorship societies to address the legacy of past abuses - as a form of social control. While transitional justice is commonly conceptualized as responding to a core problem of impunity, this article argues that such formulation is too narrow and leads to lack of coherence in the analysis of the diverse array of transitional mechanisms, which include among others trials, truth commissions, reparations for victims and apologies. Building on the work of Stanley Cohen, the article contends that the core transitional problem is the denial of human rights violations, and consequently that the common purpose of all transitional justice mechanisms is to reclassify the past: redefining as deviant some acts and individuals which prior to the transition were considered 'normal'. The article identifies and analyses three themes in the application of a social control framework to transitional justice: (1) truth, memory and retroactive social control, pertains to the way truth-seeking transitional justice mechanisms reclassify past events by engaging in social control of and through memory; (2) censure, celebration and transitional social control refers to the reclassification of categories of individuals through expressions of both social disapproval and praise; and (3) civil society and social control from below concerns the role of social movements, organizations and groups as informal agents of social control during transitions. The concluding section recaps and briefly explores the concept of 'good moral panic' in the context of political transitions. While the concept of social control tends to have negative connotations for critical sociologists, this work suggests that efforts to categorize, punish and disapprove certain behaviours as deviant may not only be viewed as supporting a conservative status-quo, but also as promoting fledging human rights norms.

  13. Autonomy and minority rights

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Barten, Ulrike

    2008-01-01

    on the content of the syllabus. When autonomy is understood in the literal sense, of giving oneself one's own laws, then there is a clear connection. Autonomy is usually connected to politics and a geographically limited territory. Special political rights of minorities - e.g. is the Danish minority party SSW...

  14. The Pros and Cons of Using Joint Ventures as a Tool to Mitigate Political Risks in Developing Countries

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Violeta Iftinchi

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available As part of their political risk management strategy, multinational corporations (MNCs can use joint ventures as a tool to reduce their exposure to political risks in international activities. The aim of this article is to present the main benefits for MNCs in using joint ventures with a local partner to mitigate political risks in developing countries and to put forward three risks that MNCs have to consider when choosing the local partner (the risk of opportunistic expropriation, the risk associated with transferring of intellectual property rights and reputational risk.

  15. Policy, politics and public health.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Greer, Scott L; Bekker, Marleen; de Leeuw, Evelyne; Wismar, Matthias; Helderman, Jan-Kees; Ribeiro, Sofia; Stuckler, David

    2017-10-01

    If public health is the field that diagnoses and strives to cure social ills, then understanding political causes and cures for health problems should be an intrinsic part of the field. In this article, we argue that there is no support for the simple and common, implicit model of politics in which scientific evidence plus political will produces healthy policies. Efforts to improve the translation of evidence into policy such as knowledge transfer work only under certain circumstances. These circumstances are frequently political, and to be understood through systematic inquiry into basic features of the political economy such as institutions, partisanship and the organization of labour markets. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. All rights reserved.

  16. The human factor: enhancing women's rights.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Steinzor, N

    1995-01-01

    The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN in 1948, declares that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, and that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person. In practice, however, far from everyone has these rights, especially women. Many women worldwide have neither the awareness of nor access to family planning methods with which they could regulate their fertility and childbearing. Thus deprived of their reproductive freedom, these women cannot pursue education, employment, and other life options which would otherwise be readily available to them were they not saddled with poor reproductive health and too many children. Expanded choices enhance the status of women, which in turn helps them to reduce fertility rates and stabilize population growth. The author discusses how the wide range of cultural and social norms, and economic and political systems worldwide make it very difficult and complex to actually implement universal human rights.

  17. Educating Voters: Political Education in Norwegian Upper-Secondary Schools

    Science.gov (United States)

    Borhaug, Kjetil

    2008-01-01

    Research on political education in schools suggests that an emphasis on formal structure, constitutional principles, formal citizen rights, and debates on current issues is common. The Norwegian national curriculum on political education envisions a different political education emphasizing that students should be critical of political life and…

  18. Political Ideology and Psychological Symptoms Following Terror

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laufer, Avital; Solomon, Zahava

    2010-01-01

    The article examines the associations between political ideology and level of psychological symptoms in youth exposed to terror attacks. The study included 2,999 7th to 10th graders from various parts of Israel. Political ideology was examined in two ways: (a) as a content dimension: "political stand"--holding right, centrist, or left…

  19. Feminization of Romanian Politics – A Desideratum?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Claudia Gilia

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Women’s battle for political rights was fierce and it has taken place for the past two centuries. Despite the efforts made by the feminist movements and even by politicians, the battle towards an effective exercise of these rights continues. Although the representation of women in politics is a complex topic, delicate and comprehensive, in our research we only focused on an analysis of European and national parliamentary elections that took place over the 25 years of post-revolutionary elections. The evolution of women’s representation in the two legislative bodies (the national one and the European one showed us that the steps that have been made are still very few, manifesting themselves more as intentions rather than as a political and legal reality. The causes are multiple, solutions exist, nevertheless political will is what is required. And how to transform political will into an increased representation of women in politics, since still men are those who express themselves (as they form a majority in decision-making forums?

  20. Young Women's Political Participation in Malawi | IDRC ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    IDRC's Democratic Governance, Women's Rights and Gender Equality initiative is ... They continue to be underrepresented in positions of power. ... social, economic, cultural and political situation of rural women in Malawi affects the political ...

  1. Discursive Framings of Human Rights

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    What does it mean to be a subject of human rights? The status of the subject is closely connected with the form and rhetoric of the framing discourse, and this book investigates the relationship between the status of the subject and the form of human rights discourse, in differing aesthetic...... and social contexts. Historical as well as contemporary declarations of rights have stressed both the protective and political aspects of human rights. But in concrete situations and conflictual moments, the high moral legitimacy of human rights rhetoric has often clouded the actual character of specific...... interventions, and so made it difficult to differentiate between the objects of humanitarian intervention and the subjects of politics. Critically re-examining this opposition – between victims and agents of human rights – through a focus on the ways in which discourses of rights are formed and circulated...

  2. Placing perceptions of politics in the context of the feedback environment, employee attitudes, and job performance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rosen, Christopher C; Levy, Paul E; Hall, Rosalie J

    2006-01-01

    The authors proposed a model suggesting that organizational environments supporting high levels of informal supervisor and coworker feedback are associated with lower employee perceptions of organizational politics. Furthermore, these lowered perceptions of politics were proposed to result in higher employee morale (as reflected in job satisfaction and affective commitment) and, through morale, to higher levels of task performance and organizational citizenship. The proposed mediational model was supported with empirical results from 150 subordinate-supervisor dyads sampled across a variety of organizations. Higher quality feedback environments were associated with lower perceptions of organizational politics, and morale mediated the relationships between organizational politics and various aspects of work performance. These findings suggest that when employees have greater access to information regarding behaviors that are acceptable and desired at work, perceptions of politics are reduced and work outcomes are enhanced. (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved.

  3. Elite Cohesion in Political Communication

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mayerhöffer, Eva

    communication studies that allows us to view high-ranking journalists and editors as elites in their own right, entering into enduring relations with political elites. Based on the combination of these two otherwise separated disciplines, the dissertation develops an integrated and comprehensive model of elite......The dissertation presents the first comprehensive analysis of the political communication elite– high-ranking journalists, editors, politicians and their communication advisors – that shapes the content and form of political messages, news, debate and decisions in modern democracies. Although...... there is no shortage of research on the changing nature of politics due to the increasing influence of the media, the relations between the key elites in the age of ‘mediated politics’ have yet to be analyzed thoroughly. Theoretically, the dissertation provides a new bridge between elite theory and political...

  4. The Populism of the Political Discourse. Metamorphoses of Political Rhetoric and Populism

    OpenAIRE

    Veton LATIFI

    2014-01-01

    While historically populism has been tended to be an attribute of the right oriented political parties, since the ideological shifting of ideological orientation of the parties and its disrupted relevance in the last few decades across Europe, today at some segments populism is more and more present in the political discourse of parties attempting to achieve their goals regardless of their ideological orientation or heritage. Populism seems to be a new-old means for the conquest of hearts of ...

  5. Fear among the extremes: how political ideology predicts negative emotions and outgroup derogation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Prooijen, Jan-Willem; Krouwel, André P M; Boiten, Max; Eendebak, Lennart

    2015-04-01

    The "rigidity of the right" hypothesis predicts that particularly the political right experiences fear and derogates outgroups. We propose that above and beyond that, the political extremes (at both sides of the spectrum) are more likely to display these responses than political moderates. Results of a large-scale sample reveal the predicted quadratic term on socio-economic fear. Moreover, although the political right is more likely to derogate the specific category of immigrants, we find a quadratic effect on derogation of a broad range of societal categories. Both extremes also experience stronger negative emotions about politics than politically moderate respondents. Finally, the quadratic effects on derogation of societal groups and negative political emotions were mediated by socio-economic fear, particularly among left- and right-wing extremists. It is concluded that negative emotions and outgroup derogation flourish among the extremes. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

  6. "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right": Politics and psychotherapy, 2018.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farber, Barry A

    2018-05-01

    The election and postelection policies of Donald Trump have seeped into the psychotherapy sessions of many clients, in ways that are somewhat unique but also somewhat reminiscent of the ways that other dramatic social-political events, including 9/11 and the social divisions that were characteristic of the 1960s, were brought into the treatment room. The nine articles within this issue-seven papers from practicing psychotherapists, one from an executive coach, and one empirical paper-suggest strongly that the political events surrounding the election of 2016 have become a significant part of psychotherapeutic discourse for many clients, that many therapists have been willing participants in such discussions, and that a focus on political issues (broadly speaking) can have important clinical benefits, facilitating the therapeutic alliance and leading to greater understanding of long-standing client problems and interpersonal functioning. Taken together, these papers lead to the conclusion that, at a minimum, clinicians need to be sensitive to the very real possibility that their clients are acutely aware of and affected by the political events surrounding the 2016 presidential election and may welcome open discussion of these events and their consequences. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  7. Cooperation, framing and political attitudes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fosgaard, Toke Reinholt; Hansen, Lars Gårn; Wengström, Erik Roland

    This paper shows that political attitudes are linked to cooperative behavior in an incentivized experiment with a large sample randomly drawn from the Danish population. However, this relationship depends on the way the experiment is framed. In the standard game in which subjects give to a public...... good, contributions are the same regardless of political attitudes. In an economically equivalent version, in which subjects take from a public good, left-wingers cooperate significantly more than subjects in the middle or to the right of the political spectrum. Through simulation techniques we find...

  8. Constituents of political cognition: Race, party politics, and the alliance detection system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pietraszewski, David; Curry, Oliver Scott; Petersen, Michael Bang; Cosmides, Leda; Tooby, John

    2015-07-01

    information and (2) that political contexts can reduce the degree to which individuals are represented in terms of their race. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. How Internal Political Efficacy Translates Political Knowledge Into Political Participation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reichert, Frank

    2016-01-01

    This study presents evidence for the mediation effect of political knowledge through political self-efficacy (i.e. internal political efficacy) in the prediction of political participation. It employs an action theoretic approach—by and large grounded on the Theory of Planned Behaviour—and uses data from the German Longitudinal Election Study to examine whether political knowledge has distinct direct effects on voting, conventional, and/or unconventional political participation. It argues that political knowledge raises internal political efficacy and thereby indirectly increases the chance that a citizen will participate in politics. The results of mediated multiple regression analyses yield evidence that political knowledge indeed translates into internal political efficacy, thus it affects political participation of various kinds indirectly. However, internal political efficacy and intentions to participate politically yield simultaneous direct effects only on conventional political participation. Sequentially mediated effects appear for voting and conventional political participation, with political knowledge being mediated by internal political efficacy and subsequently also by behavioural intentions. The mediation patterns for unconventional political participation are less clear though. The discussion accounts for restrictions of this study and points to questions for answer by future research. PMID:27298633

  10. A NATUREZA COMO FATO POLITICAMENTE DECISÓRIO: POLÊMICAS SOBRE OS DIREITOS HUMANOS THE NATURE AS POLITICALLY DECISIVE FACT: POLEMICS ON HUMAN RIGHTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sertório de Amorim e Silva Neto

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available The paper investigates the context of origin and some controversy about human rights. Its intent is to present the paradox of these rights, the fact that they nevertheless serve to modern political emancipation and the defence of equality and freedom, involving also the bourgeois selfishness and totalitarian political regimes of the century XX assuming both the metaphysical and sublime form as of thing, nature crude and corruptible, gross and corruptible nature. What we want to discuss in this article are the reflections of the political assimilation of an abstract concept such human nature.O artigo investiga o contexto de origem e algumas polêmicas acerca dos direitos humanos. Seu intento é apresentar o paradoxo destes direitos, o fato de que eles, não obstante sirvam à emancipação política moderna e à defesa da igualdade e da liberdade, impliquem ainda o egoísmo burguês e os regimes totalitários.Objeto da especulação dos filósofos e mais atualmente das ciências positivistas, o conceito de natureza é bastante ambíguo, assumindo tanto a forma metafísica e sublime, quanto a forma de coisa, natureza bruta e corruptível. O que se deseja discutir neste artigo são os reflexos pol��ticos da assimilação de um conceito tão abstrato e indeterminado como o de natureza humana.

  11. Gendering transnational party politics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kantola, Johanna; Rolandsen-Agustín, Lise

    2016-01-01

    research traditions, we build toward an analytical framework to study gender and transnational party politics. Our empirical analysis focuses on two policy issues, the economic crisis and the sexual and reproductive health and rights, analyzing European Parliament reports, debates and voting on the issues...... from 2009 to 2014. By focusing on gender equality constructions and the way in which consensus and contestation are built around them within and between party groups, we argue that shared constructions about gender equality are issue specific and change over time. Consensus breaks down along the left......In this article, we analyze transnational party politics in the European Union from a gender perspective. This is a subject that has been neglected both by mainstream European studies on party politics and by gender scholars who work on political parties. Drawing on the insights of these two...

  12. Mixing politics and crime - The prevalence and decline of political discourse on the cryptomarket.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Munksgaard, Rasmus; Demant, Jakob

    2016-09-01

    Dread Pirate Roberts, founder of the first cryptomarket for illicit drugs named Silk Road, articulated libertarian political motives for his ventures. Previous research argues that there is a significant political component present or involved in cryptomarket drug dealing which is specifically libertarian. The aim of the paper is to investigate the prevalence of political discourses within discussions of cryptomarket drug dealing, and further to research the potential changes of these over the timespan of the study. We develop a novel operationalization of discourse analytic concepts which we combine with topic modelling enabling us to study how politics are articulated on cryptomarket forums. We apply the Structural Topic Model on a corpus extracted from crawls of cryptomarket forums encompassing posts dating from 2011 to 2015. The topics discussed on cryptomarket forums are primarily centered around the distribution of drugs including discussions of shipping and receiving, product advertisements, and reviews as well as aspects of drug consumption such as testing and consumption. However, on forums whose primary function is aiding operations on a black market, we still observe political matter. We identified one topic which expresses a libertarian discourse that emphasizes the individual's right to non-interference. Over time we observe an increasing prevalence of the libertarian discourse from 2011 to the end of 2013. In the end of 2013 - when Silk Road was seized - we observe an abrupt change in the prevalence of the libertarian discourse. The libertarian political discourse has historically been prevalent on cryptomarket forums. The closure of Silk Road has affected the prevalence of libertarian discourse suggesting that while the closure did not succeed in curtailing the cryptomarket economy, it dampened political sentiments. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  13. Framing Political Change: Can a Left Populism Disrupt the Rise of the Reactionary Right?; Comment on “Politics, Power, Poverty and Global Health: Systems and Frames”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ronald Labonté

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Solomon Benatar offers an important critique of the limited frame that sets the boundaries of much of what is referred to as ‘global health.’ In placing his comments within a criticism of increasing poverty (or certainly income and wealth inequalities and the decline in our environmental commons, he locates our health inequities within the pathology of our present global economy. In that respect it is a companion piece to an editorial I published around the same time. Both Benatar’s and my paralleling arguments take on a new urgency in the wake of the US presidential election. Although not a uniquely American event (the xenophobic right has been making inroads in many parts of the world, the degree of vitriol expressed by the President-elect of the world’s (still most powerful and militarized country is being used to further legitimate the policies of right-extremist parties in Europe while providing additional justification for the increasingly autocratic politics of leaders (elected or otherwise in many other of the world’s nations. To challenge right-populism’s rejection of the predatory inequalities that 4 years of (neo-liberal globalization have created demands strong and sustained left populism built, in part, on the ecocentric frame advocated by Benatar.

  14. Development of Democratic Processes in the People’s Republic of China: Prospects of Transformation of the Political Regime

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexey Alexandrovich Semenov

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available Rapid economic growth of the PRC has brought new challenges and promoted social transformation in Chinese society. China suffers profound changes involving fundamental principles of public relations. The political regime in China is in a changeable condition, and continues to transform. Some decisions of the Chinese government affect not only the economy and public administration, but also in some ways human rights and political changes. Chinese political regime takes on the pending social problems and begins to gently lift old political bans. There is development of processes which at least by the formal features can be attributed to be democratic or quasi-democratic. However, despite a number of political changes and improving of human rights situation in last decades, China is still an illiberal state. Moreover, the level of repression in China has increased in the last few years. All of these actions raise questions about the political future of China. The scale of the socio-economic changes that have occurred in the PRC is so significant, that the maintaining of the existing governance structure is not possible. Rapid economic growth reduced public discontent at the disregard to fundamental human rights. Yet the “economic miracle” is coming to an end, and the country desperately needs economic and political reforms. Lack of reforms or its incorrect implementation can put the existing system out of balance, which will lead to adverse effects not only in China but also in the world. Depending on the reforms we can assume several scenarios for further development of the PRC.

  15. Neoliberalism and the Unfolding Patterns of Young People’s Political Engagement and Political Participation in Contemporary Britain

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    James Hart

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Recent trends suggest that young people in Britain are increasingly rejecting electoral politics. However, evidence suggests that British youth are not apolitical, but are becoming ever more sceptical of the ability of electoral politics to make a meaningful contribution to their lives. Why young people are adopting new political behaviour and values, however, is still a point of contention. Some authors have suggested that neoliberalism has influenced these new patterns of political engagement. This article will advance this critique of neoliberalism, giving attention to three different facets of neoliberalism and demonstrate how they combine to reduce young people’s expectations of political participation and their perceptions of the legitimacy of political actors. We combine ideational and material critiques to demonstrate how young people’s political engagement has been restricted by neoliberalism. Neoliberalism has influenced youth political participation through its critiques of collective democracy, by the subsequent transformations in political practice that it has contributed to, and through the economic marginalisation that has resulted from its shaping of governments’ monetary policy. This approach will be conceptually predicated on a definition of neoliberalism which acknowledges both its focus on reducing interventions in the economy, and also its productive capacity to modify society to construct market relations and galvanise competition amongst agents. From this definition, we develop the argument that neoliberal critiques of democracy, the subsequent changes in political practices which respond to these criticisms and the transformation in socioeconomic conditions caused by neoliberalism have coalesced to negatively influence young people’s electoral participation.

  16. The Extreme Right in Eastern Europe and Territorial Issues

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miroslav Mareš

    2009-08-01

    Full Text Available This article analyses and compares the different territorial conceptions of the extreme right in Eastern Europe and their political impact, with a view to explaining how important the historical legacy of the supposed territorial and border claims and injustices is for the identity of the extreme right (or their parts in contemporary Eastern Europe. It analyses the historical roots of the territorial claims of the extreme right in the area, the current situation regarding their territorial claims and disputes, and the impact of these territorial claims on domestic politics, on the politics of the extreme right at the European level and on regional security in this area.

  17. Basic personal values and the meaning of left-right political orientations in 20 countries

    OpenAIRE

    Piurko, Yuval; Schwartz, Shalom H; Davidov, Eldad

    2011-01-01

    This study used basic personal values to elucidate the motivational meanings of ‘left’ and ‘right’ political orientations in 20 representative national samples from the European Social Survey (2002-3). It also compared the importance of personal values and socio-demographic variables as determinants of political orientation. Hypotheses drew on the different histories, prevailing culture, and socio-economic level of 3 sets of countries—liberal, traditional and post-communist. As hy...

  18. Political determinants of Health: Lessons for Pakistan.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jooma, Rashid; Sabatinelli, Guido

    2014-05-01

    There is much concern about the capacity of the health system of Pakistan to meet its goals and obligations. Historically, the political thrust has been absent from the health policy formulation and this is reflected in the low and stagnant public allocations to health. Successive political leaderships have averred from considering healthcare is a common good rather than a market commodity and health has not been recognized as a constitutional right. Over 120 of world's nation states have accepted health as a constitutional right but the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan does not mandate health or education as a fundamental right and the recently adopted 18th constitutional amendment missed the opportunity to extend access to primary health care as an obligation of the State. It is argued in this communication that missing from the calculations of policy formulation and agenda setting is the political benefits of providing health and other social services to underserved populations. Across the developing world, many examples are presented of governments undertaking progressive health reforms that bring services where none existed and subsequently reaping electoral benefit. The political determinant of healthcare will be realized when the political leaders of poorly performing countries can be convinced that embracing distributive policies and successfully bringing healthcare to the poor can be major factors in their re-elections.

  19. Political oil import diversification by financial and commercial traders

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kashcheeva, Mila; Tsui, Kevin K.

    2015-01-01

    International politics affects the oil trade. But do financial and commercial traders who participate in spot oil trading also respond to changes in international politics? We construct a firm-level dataset for all U.S. oil-importing companies over 1986–2008 to examine how these firms respond to increases in “political distance” between the U.S. and her trading partners, measured by divergence in their UN General Assembly voting patterns. Consistent with previous macro evidence, we first show that individual firms diversify their oil imports politically, even after controlling for unobserved firm heterogeneity. However, the political pattern of oil imports is not entirely driven by the concerns of hold-up risks, which exist when oil transactions via term contracts are associated with backward vertical FDI that is subject to expropriation. In particular, our results indicate that even financial and commercial traders significantly reduce their oil imports from U.S. political enemies. Interestingly, while these traders diversify their oil imports politically immediately after changes in international politics, other oil companies reduce their oil imports with a significant time lag. Our findings suggest that in designing regulations to avoid harmful repercussions on commodity and financial assets, policymakers need to understand the nature of political risk. -- Highlights: •American firms diversify their oil imports politically. •Financial and commercial traders diversify their oil imports politically immediately. •Other oil companies reduce their oil imports with a significant time lag. •Policymakers need to understand the nature of political risk

  20. Foucault's Political Challenge

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bang, Henrik

    2014-01-01

    If one reads Michel Foucault "backward," so to speak, one can sense the contours of a "big narrative" of "the political" which is founded on the claim that "Where there is obedience there cannot be parrhesia" (Foucault, 2011, p. 336). What Foucault is doing with this sentence is breaking the circle...... from showing how obedience is incompatible with a politics of truth. The unity created by centralized domination, he holds, is democratically "false," however legitimate it may be. There can be no real democracy where laypeople are commanded to hand over their capacity and right to govern themselves...

  1. Rights of Identity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniel Kofman

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available A person’s identity is their sense of who and what they are, of who stands in significant relations to them, and of what is valuable to them. This is inevitably very broad, an immediate implication of which is that the concept of identity taken alone cannot do significant normative work. In some cases a person’s identity is bound up with the evil that they do or wish to do, and cannot thereby give them any right to do it. In other cases very powerful elements of a person’s identity – such as their attachment to loved ones – is certainly related to important rights, but it is not entirely clear that one needs the concept of identity to explicate or justify these rights; the deep involvement of their identity is arguably a byproduct of other important values in these cases (such as love, and those values can do the grounding work of the rights by themselves and more simply and clearly. Nevertheless, when suitably qualified, a person’s identity is central to accounting for important political rights. These ranges from rights to participate in cultural practices of one’s group, which sometimes implies duties on governments to support minorities threatened with extinction, to – at the outer limit – rights to arrange political administration. These rights are connected to both autonomy and fairness. Cultural rights are often taken either to be opposed to autonomy, or at best instrumental to personal autonomy (by providing ‘options’, but in fact, the ideal of autonomy, expressed by Mill as being the author of one’s life, requires that one be in control of significant aspects of one’s identity. Significant aspects of one’s identity are collectively determined within a culture. Cultures are not static, and their development is particularly affected by political boundaries. A fundamental right of autonomy implies, therefore, that groups be allowed, within reasonable constraints of general feasibility and stability, to arrange

  2. Challenges in Swedish hydropower – politics, economics and rights

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kristina Ek

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Two systems working in parallel have contributed to implementation difficulties in Swedish water governance. While the old system is designed to be predictable and stable over time, the new system is intended to be transparent and holistic, guided by the principles of Integrated Water Resource Management. The paper disentangles the challenges in Swedish water governance and proposes a blueprint for future research. The proposed research project is unique in the sense that it explores the imbalances between the new and the old water governance systems from a multi-disciplinary perspective, elaborating upon the clashes between the traditional, nationally based regulatory system and the new holistic water governance system from legal, political and economic perspectives.

  3. 75 FR 70344 - Bureau of Political-Military Affairs: Directorate of Defense Trade Controls; Notifications to the...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-11-17

    ... taken into account political, military, economic, human rights, and arms control considerations. More... taken into account political, military, economic, human rights, and arms control considerations. More... account political, military, economic, human rights, and arms control considerations. More detailed...

  4. Foucault and Human Rights: Seeking the Renewal of Human Rights Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zembylas, Michalinos

    2016-01-01

    This article takes up Foucault's politics of human rights and suggests that it may constitute a point of departure for the renewal of HRE, not only because it rejects the moral superiority of humanism--the grounding for the dominant liberal framework of international human rights--but also because it makes visible the complexities of human rights…

  5. Deconstructing Rights

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    Karen Kershaw

    Kerala, India. Parallel Sessions II ... limits of a coming political community ... economies on women's rights & decentralization. Deconstructing ... resorts around all water sources inland and coastal, high-rise buildings ... None work in fishing industry (they have family links) ... ACCESS TO POWER gained by individual women ...

  6. Urbanization and human rights

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Mihr, A.

    Urban governance on the basis of human rights can help to set up problem solving mechanisms to guarantee social peace, economic growth and political participation.If states both integrate more in international or regional human rights regime and give more autonomy to urban governments and local

  7. The international politics of geoengineering:

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Corry, Olaf

    2017-01-01

    the politics of climate change dramatically, yet in evaluating whether they might ultimately reduce climate risks, their political and security implications have so far not been given adequate prominence. This article puts forward what it calls the ‘security hazard’ and argues that this could be a crucial...... factor in determining whether a technology is able, ultimately, to reduce climate risks. Ideas about global governance of geoengineering rely on heroic assumptions about state rationality and a generally pacific international system. Moreover, if in a climate engineered world weather events become...

  8. Political Economies Come Home: On the Political Economies of Housing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Alexander, Catherine; Bruun, Maja Hojer; Koch, Insa

    2018-01-01

    to assert rights or engage with authorities. Two final characteristics are the loss of a perceived moral right to a secure home and a sense of betrayal. In some places, housing conflicts lead to protests and resistance as people perform this sense that political and economic elites have violated or reneged...... obligations at multiple levels. Second, several actors appear, or are invoked as authorities to be appealed or performed to for satisfaction of rights, from state bodies and individuals to banks, third sector and collective organisations and social movements. Third there is often lack of clarity over how...

  9. 75 FR 50791 - Bureau of Political-Military Affairs: Directorate of Defense Trade Controls; Notifications to the...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-08-17

    ... political, military, economic, human rights, and arms control considerations. More detailed information is... having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights, and arms control considerations... having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights and arms control considerations...

  10. 75 FR 62173 - Bureau of Political-Military Affairs: Directorate of Defense Trade Controls; Notifications to the...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-07

    ... of these items having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights, and arms... account political, military, economic, human rights, and arms control considerations. More detailed... taken into account political, military, economic, human rights, and arms control considerations. More...

  11. 76 FR 58332 - Bureau of Political-Military Affairs: Directorate of Defense Trade Controls; Notifications to the...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-09-20

    ... items having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights, and arms control... account political, military, economic, human rights and arms control considerations. More detailed... of these items having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights, and arms...

  12. Constructions of identity through music in extreme-right subcultures

    OpenAIRE

    Stroud, Joseph James Iain

    2014-01-01

    This thesis examines the musical cultures associated with extreme-right politics, considering not only what this music projects about extreme-right ideology, but also the various ways in which music functions as part of a political subculture. This analysis extends beyond the stereotypical extreme-right music associated with the skinhead subculture, often referred to as Oi!, to incorporate extreme-right engagement with genres such as metal, folk, country and classical music. Th...

  13. 76 FR 20800 - Bureau of Political-Military Affairs: Directorate of Defense Trade Controls; Notifications to the...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-04-13

    ... items having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights and arms control... license the export of these items having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights... taken into account political, military, economic, human rights and arms control considerations. More...

  14. 75 FR 50793 - Bureau of Political-Military Affairs: Directorate of Defense Trade Controls; Notifications to the...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-08-17

    ... political, military, economic, human rights, and arms control considerations. More detailed information is... items having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights and arms control... license the export of these items having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights...

  15. 75 FR 18937 - Bureau of Political-Military Affairs: Directorate of Defense Trade Controls; Notifications to the...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-13

    ... having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights and arms control considerations... the transfer of these items having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights and... political, military, economic, human rights and arms control considerations. More detailed information is...

  16. 76 FR 30751 - Bureau of Political-Military Affairs: Directorate of Defense Trade Controls; Notifications to the...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-05-26

    ... having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights and arms control considerations... account political, military, economic, human rights and arms control considerations. More detailed... license the export of these items having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights...

  17. DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN NIGERIA: THE ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    FBL

    The study revealed that many people within the voting age did not vote and were ... known American political scientist, as quoted in Cayne (1993:777) as “an implicit bargain ..... Functional democracy requires strong/effective political institutions and basic rights ... Experience” African Journal of Social Science and Humanity.

  18. Aesthetics and Political Culture in Modern Society

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Henrik Kaare

    Do aesthetic appeals to senses and emotions in political debate necessarily marginalise political reason and reduce citizens to consumers – thus dangerously undermining democracy? Or is sensuous-emotional engagement, on the contrary, a basic fact of the political process and a crucial precondition...... in the political process do not by definition undermine politics’ content of reason. Instead, a differentiation must be made between a multiplicity of aesthetic forms of intervention – some of which tend to weaken the political judgement of citizens while other forms tend to stimulate competent judgement....... This book will be of interest to scholars in the fields of political science, sociology, media studies, and cultural studies....

  19. Political Risk and Foreign Direct Investments in Kosovo

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    MSc. Neshat Podvorica

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of this paper is to present the importance of political risk and its impact on attracting investments, also to analyse policies made by the Kosovo institutions to reduce political risk and increase the FDIs. Attracting of the FDIs is complex because they depend on many factors, and one of the methods that measure political risk is the model used by the PRS Group that includes the flow of the economy through 12 components. Measuring political risk plays an important role in transitional countries, because these are countries that have problems in various fields and also the trust on by the investors is low. As a finding of this study is that Kosovo is estimated to have moderate political risk, and is close to joining the group of countries with low political risk. Challenges faced by Kosovo in reducing political risk are concentrated in several components, which are: socioeconomic, corruption and rule of law components. Kosovo has taken significant steps in improving the conditions for investment, government stability and positioning of the country facing internal and external conflicts.

  20. Addressing the Right to Self-Determination: The Okinawans’ Claims from the Group-Based Rights Perspective

    OpenAIRE

    Tamura, Momoka

    2016-01-01

    This paper discusses the Japanese society from the group-based rights perspective. International human rights law provides the rights mostly in an individualistic form. But there is also a development of the international standards of rights with group-dimensions. The right to self-determination under the common article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provide a collective right to...

  1. Morality and politics: Comparing alternate theories.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miles, Andrew; Vaisey, Stephen

    2015-09-01

    Debates about the American "culture wars" have led scholars to develop several theories relating morality to political attitudes and behaviors. However, researchers have not adequately compared these theories, nor have they examined the overall contribution of morality to explaining political variation. This study uses nationally representative data to compare the utility of 19 moral constructs from four research traditions - associated with the work of Hunter, Lakoff, Haidt, and Schwartz - for predicting political orientation (liberalism/conservatism). Results indicate that morality explains a third of the variation in political orientation - more than basic demographic and religious predictors - but that no one theory provides a fully adequate explanation of this phenomenon. Instead, political orientation is best predicted by selected moral constructs that are unique to each of the four traditions, and by two moral constructs that crosscut them. Future work should investigate how these moral constructs can be synthesized to create a more comprehensive theory of morality and politics. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  2. Ingroup friendship and political mobilization among the disadvantaged.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sengupta, Nikhil K; Milojev, Petar; Barlow, Fiona K; Sibley, Chris G

    2015-07-01

    This study investigated the effects of ingroup contact in a large, national sample of Māori (a disadvantaged ethnic group; N = 940) on political attitudes relevant to decreasing ethnic inequality in New Zealand. We tested the role of 2 mediating mechanisms-ethnic identification and system justification-to explain the effects of ingroup contact on the dependent variables. Time spent with ingroup friends predicted increased support for the Māori Party and support for symbolic and resource-specific reparative policies benefiting Māori. These effects were partially mediated by increased ethnic identification. Although ingroup contact also reduced levels of system justification among Māori, its effects on policy attitudes and party preference were not mediated by system justification. This suggests that a key antecedent to system challenging political attitudes is an increased sense of identification with a disadvantaged group resulting, in part, from interactions with ingroup friends. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

  3. What Political Framework Is Necessary to Reduce Malnutrition? A Civil Society Perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walter, Bernhard

    2016-01-01

    Around 800 million people worldwide are still starving. Around 2 billion are somehow able to allay their hunger yet remain malnourished because their food does not contain sufficient nutrients. There are many reasons for this: for people living in poverty and precarious conditions, the priority is to fill their stomach, and the quality of food seems less important. Since the 1960s, global food production has been focused on increasing yield, not food quality. Mass-produced convenience food with high fat and carbohydrate contents but containing few nutrients is on the rise and - as a result of price wars - often replaces healthier locally grown products. To overcome global hunger and malnutrition, civil society organizations urge governments to turn towards sustainable and human rights-based development, including sustainable agricultural and fishing policies, to contribute to the eradication of poverty. This development is first and foremost guided by the right to food. In a policy that enables farmers to produce enough food that is healthy and rich in nutrients, the following principles should be fulfilled. Governments should assume responsibility for the international impacts of their agricultural policy decisions. The food sovereignty of other countries should be respected. Policies should enable self-supply of the population with healthy food and should promote the protection of resources, the climate, biodiversity and animal welfare. Strengthening rural structures, local economies, labor rights and small-scale food producers, establishing public programs that provide locally produced food, applying stringent standards for food labeling and the regulation of unhealthy products and paying special attention to the first 1,000 days of life as the starting point of a good and healthy well-being are core elements of such a political framework. © 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel.

  4. Private political archives

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Waldemar Chorążyczewski

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available "Private political archives" are understood by me as all acts collected intently by a private person. These acts are connected with the person's participation in political life and gathered in order to be used in public activity as the source of argumentation and information about factors and mechanisms of political processes. Private political archives of the first half of the XVI century were mainly created by royal servants, often with reference to their job duties. These duties could inspire to collect political acts for private purposes. During the reign of Sigismund Augustus, archives of gentry activists were developed to small extent and they mainly focused on parliamentary life. Private political archives were created outside the executionist movement, namely in the community gathered around the royal court. After 1572, Crown and Lithuanian magnates greatly influenced the creation of political archives. Archives of lesser gentry, scarce and poor, did not disappear completely. However, they became difficult for identification. Therefore, developmental process concerned exclusively documentary "treasure troves" created by magnates. They had the financial means and possibilities to create truly valuable political archives. The same as in the previous period the dynamisms of executionist movement was reflected in political archival documentation, now the creation of patronage system and clientele, or traditionally understood magnate oligarchy, (depending on the point of view corresponded best to archives development. The heritage of previous generations was the treasure trove of patterns and solutions. However, this trove was used selectively, on one hand giving up patterns and rights that were uncomfortable, and, on the other, giving the value of precedence to unexpected acts that gained more importance or even new content in changed political conditions. The application of interpretation principle raised interest in old acts and patterns

  5. Terrorism and Political Parties

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bourne, Angela

    In the paper I address the empirical puzzle arising from different responses by political authorities in Spain and the UK to the existence of political parties integrated in the terrorist groups Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, Basque Homeland and Freedom) and the Irish Republican Army (IRA). More...... for realization of free speech rights and representation is also emphasized, and where proscription is seen as inimical to resolution of conflict underpinning violence. In the context of party competition, a winning coalition is required for one discourse to predominate. However, I also argued that both ideas...

  6. Political Psychopathy : Fujimori case

    OpenAIRE

    Nizama Valladolid, Martin

    2014-01-01

    Seven years after his political fall, Alberto Fujimori Fujimori was extradited from Chile on September 22 of 2007, in order to judge him by two cases of human rights violations and five corruption cases. The mega-trial begun on december 10 of 2007. According to the mediate authorship theory, having led the command in charge of the counterterrorist actions involves him in crimes related to human rights. The Supreme court special penal division judges him by six cases related to human rights, c...

  7. The genetics of politics: discovery, challenges, and progress.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hatemi, Peter K; McDermott, Rose

    2012-10-01

    For the greater part of human history, political behaviors, values, preferences, and institutions have been viewed as socially determined. Discoveries during the 1970s that identified genetic influences on political orientations remained unaddressed. However, over the past decade, an unprecedented amount of scholarship utilizing genetic models to expand the understanding of political traits has emerged. Here, we review the 'genetics of politics', focusing on the topics that have received the most attention: attitudes, ideologies, and pro-social political traits, including voting behavior and participation. The emergence of this research has sparked a broad paradigm shift in the study of political behaviors toward the inclusion of biological influences and recognition of the mutual co-dependence between genes and environment in forming political behaviors. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Protest Demonstrations, Political Partici

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    DR Nneka

    2015-04-14

    Apr 14, 2015 ... the Era of Terrorism: Nigeria's Public Order Act and the ... Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and other international laws. But owing to the .... little sense to limit analysis of political participation to voting and electoral.

  9. Green politics: dictatorship or democracy?

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Radcliffe, J

    2000-03-01

    At the heart of the green debate are a set of basic contradictions concerning beliefs and actions. This book reveals the problems associated with these contradictions, including adherence to decentralized political forms while accepting authoritarian intervention on behalf of the environment; a belief that this is the politics of the new age but in practice split between left and right; a rejection of the rationalist scientific project and a reliance on the lessons of the science of ecology. (author)

  10. Association between political ideology and health in Europe.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Subramanian, S V; Huijts, Tim; Perkins, Jessica M

    2009-10-01

    Studies have largely examined the association between political ideology and health at the aggregate/ecological level. Using individual-level data from 29 European countries, we investigated whether self-reports of political ideology and health are associated. In adjusted models, we found an inverse association between political ideology and self-rated poor health; for a unit increase in the political ideology scale (towards right) the odds ratio (OR) for reporting poor health decreased (OR 0.95, 95% confidence interval 0.94-0.96). Although political ideology per se is unlikely to have a causal link to health, it could be a marker for health-promoting latent attitudes, values and beliefs.

  11. Multiple political identities: revisiting the 'maximum standard'

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Besselink, L.F.M.; Silveira, A.; Canotilho, M.; Madeira Froufe, P.

    2013-01-01

    This paper discusses the meaning of Art. 53 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights - which would seem to give priority to those fundamental rights which provide higher protection - from the perspective of fundamental rights as the expression of political and constitutional identity. In doing so, it

  12. Iraq: Politics, Governance, and Human Rights

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-09-15

    devoting significant resources to that plan. On April 30, 2012, the COR enacted a law to facilitate elimination of trafficking in persons, both sexual ...human rights reports have noted continuing instances of harassment and intimidation of journalists who write about corruption and the lack of government...extradite him to the United States, but Iraq released him in November 2012 and he returned to Lebanon , despite U.S. efforts to persuade Iraq to keep

  13. Human rights and reproductive health: political realities and pragmatic choices for married adolescent women living in urban slums, Bangladesh.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rashid, Sabina Faiz

    2011-12-16

    In Bangladesh, particularly in urban slums, married adolescent women's human rights to life, health, and reproductive and sexual health remain adversely affected because of the structural inequalities and political economic, social and cultural conditions which shape how rights are understood, negotiated and lived. The focus of the research and methods was anthropological. An initial survey of 153 married adolescent women was carried out and from this group, 50 in-depth interviews were conducted with selected participants and, from the in-depth interviews, a further eight case studies of women and their families were selected for in-depth repeated interviews and case histories. This paper speaks of the unanticipated complexities when writing on reproductive rights for poor adolescent women living in the slums, where the discourses on 'universal human rights' are often removed from the reality of adolescent women's everyday lives. Married adolescent women and their families remain extremely vulnerable in the unpredictable, crime-prone and insecure urban slum landscape because of their age, gender and poverty. Adolescent women's understanding of their rights such as the decision to marry early, have children, terminate pregnancies and engage in risky sexual behaviour, are different from the widely accepted discourse on rights globally, which assumes a particular kind of individual thinking and discourse on rights and a certain autonomy women have over their bodies and their lives. This does not necessarily exist in urban slum populations. The lived experiences and decisions made pertaining to sexual and reproductive health and 'rights' exercised by married adolescent women, their families and slum communities, allow us to reflect on the disconnect between the international legal human rights frameworks as applied to sexual and reproductive health rights, and how these are played out on the ground. These notions are far more complex in environments where married

  14. Framing Political Change: Can a Left Populism Disrupt the Rise of the Reactionary Right? Comment on "Politics, Power, Poverty and Global Health: Systems and Frames".

    Science.gov (United States)

    Labonté, Ronald

    2017-01-17

    Solomon Benatar offers an important critique of the limited frame that sets the boundaries of much of what is referred to as 'global health.' In placing his comments within a criticism of increasing poverty (or certainly income and wealth inequalities) and the decline in our environmental commons, he locates our health inequities within the pathology of our present global economy. In that respect it is a companion piece to an editorial I published around the same time. Both Benatar's and my paralleling arguments take on a new urgency in the wake of the US presidential election. Although not a uniquely American event (the xenophobic right has been making inroads in many parts of the world), the degree of vitriol expressed by the President-elect of the world's (still) most powerful and militarized country is being used to further legitimate the policies of right-extremist parties in Europe while providing additional justification for the increasingly autocratic politics of leaders (elected or otherwise) in many other of the world's nations. To challenge right-populism's rejection of the predatory inequalities that 4 years of (neo)-liberal globalization have created demands strong and sustained left populism built, in part, on the ecocentric frame advocated by Benatar. © 2017 The Author(s); Published by Kerman University of Medical Sciences. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

  15. Politics sans economics: commentary on the political economy of demonetization in India

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zaad Mahmood

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available Between 8th November and 31st December 2016 the Indian government instituted one of the biggest demonetisation exercises in the world by withdrawing 86 percent of all currency in the form of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. This paper looks at the debate surrounding the demonetisation exercise and attempts to provide a political economy logic. Interrogating the various arguments around demonetisation, it argues that demonetisation has been reduced to a political posturing as the economic consequences remain highly debated.

  16. Social participation within a context of political violence: implications for the promotion and exercise of the right to health in Guatemala.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Flores, Walter; Ruano, Ana Lorena; Funchal, Denise Phe

    2009-01-01

    Social participation has been understood in many different ways, and there are even typologies classifying participation by the degree of a population's control in decision making. Participation can vary from a symbolic act, which does not involve decision making, to processes in which it constitutes the principal tool for redistributing power within a population. This article argues that analyzing social participation from a perspective of power relations requires knowledge of the historical, social, and economic processes that have characterized the social relations in a specific context. Applying such an analysis to Guatemala reveals asymmetrical power relations characterized by a long history of repression and political violence. The armed conflict during the second half of the 20th century had devastating consequences for a large portion of the population as well as the country's social leadership. The ongoing violence resulted in negative psychosocial effects among the population, including mistrust toward institutions and low levels of social and political participation. Although Guatemala made progress in creating spaces for social participation in public policy after signing the Peace Accords in 1996, the country still faces after-effects of the conflict. One important task for the organizations that work in the field of health and the right to health is to help regenerate the social fabric and to rebuild trust between the state and its citizens. Such regeneration involves helping the population gain the skills, knowledge, and information needed in order to participate in and affect formal political processes that are decided and promoted by various public entities, such as the legislative and executive branches, municipal governments, and political parties. This process also applies to other groups that build citizenship through participation, such as neighborhood organizations and school and health committees.

  17. Participation and the right to health: lessons from Indonesia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Halabi, Sam Foster

    2009-01-01

    The right to participation is the "the right of rights"--the basic right of people to have a say in how decisions that affect their lives are made. All legally binding international human rights treaties explicitly recognize the essential role of participation in realizing fundamental human rights. While the substance of the human right to health has been extensively developed, the right to participation as one of its components has remained largely unexplored. Should rights-based health advocacy focus on participation because there is a relationship between an individual's or a community's active involvement in health care decision-making and the highest attainable standard of health? In the context of the human right to health, does participation mean primarily political participation, or should we take the right to participation to mean more specifically the right of persons, individually and as a group, to shape health care policy for society and for themselves as patients? Decentralization of health care decision-making promises greater participation through citizen involvement in setting priorities, monitoring service provision, and finding new and creative ways to finance public health programs. Between 1999 and 2008, Indonesia decentralized health care funding and delivery to regional governments, resulting in substantial exclusion of its poor and uneducated citizens from the health care system while simultaneously expanding the opportunities for political participation for educated elites. This article explores the tension between the right to participation as an underlying determinant of health and as a political right by reviewing the experience of Indonesia ten years after its decision to decentralize health care provision. It is ultimately argued that rights-based advocates must be vigilant in retaining a unified perspective on human rights, resisting the persistent tendency to separate and prioritize the civil and political aspects of participation

  18. Economic Growth and the Rise of Political Extremism

    OpenAIRE

    Markus Bruckner; Hans Peter Gruner

    2011-01-01

    In many western democracies, political parties with extreme platforms challenge more moderate incumbents. This paper analyses the impact of economic growth on the support for extreme political platforms. We provide a theoretical argument in favor of growth effects (as opposed to level effects) on the support for extreme political parties and we empirically investigate the relationship between growth and extremist votes. Lower growth rates benefit right-wing and nationalist parties, but do not...

  19. Politics drives human functioning, dignity, and quality of life.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barber, Brian K; Spellings, Carolyn; McNeely, Clea; Page, Paul D; Giacaman, Rita; Arafat, Cairo; Daher, Mahmoud; El Sarraj, Eyad; Mallouh, Mohammed Abu

    2014-12-01

    Too little is known about human functioning amidst chronic adversity. We addressed that need by studying adult Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), a population that has experienced longstanding economic and political hardships. Fourteen group interviews were conducted in February, 2010 in Arabic by local fieldworkers with 68 participants representing the main stratifications of Palestinian society: gender, region, refugee status, and political affiliation. Interview tasks included each participant: describing someone doing well and not well, free listing domains of functioning, and prioritizing domains to the three most important. Thematic analyses highlighted the dominating role of the political domain of functioning (e.g., political structures, constraints, effects, identity, and activism) and the degree to which political conditions impacted all other realms of functioning (economic, education, family, psychological, etc.). The discussion links the findings to relevant theory and empirical work that has called attention to the need to include the political in frameworks of quality of life. It also emphasized that values, such as justice, rights, dignity and self-determination, that underlie political structures and policies, are key elements of human functioning. This is the case not only in the oPt, but in any society where power imbalances marginalize segments of the population. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  20. 77 FR 28476 - Political Contributions by Certain Investment Advisers

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-05-15

    ...] Political Contributions by Certain Investment Advisers AGENCY: Securities and Exchange Commission. ACTION... the definition of ``covered associate.'' \\4\\ \\1\\ Political Contributions by Certain Investment... agency organization, procedure or practice that does not substantially affect the rights or obligations...

  1. Tweeting From Left to Right: Is Online Political Communication More Than an Echo Chamber?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barberá, Pablo; Jost, John T; Nagler, Jonathan; Tucker, Joshua A; Bonneau, Richard

    2015-10-01

    We estimated ideological preferences of 3.8 million Twitter users and, using a data set of nearly 150 million tweets concerning 12 political and nonpolitical issues, explored whether online communication resembles an "echo chamber" (as a result of selective exposure and ideological segregation) or a "national conversation." We observed that information was exchanged primarily among individuals with similar ideological preferences in the case of political issues (e.g., 2012 presidential election, 2013 government shutdown) but not many other current events (e.g., 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, 2014 Super Bowl). Discussion of the Newtown shootings in 2012 reflected a dynamic process, beginning as a national conversation before transforming into a polarized exchange. With respect to both political and nonpolitical issues, liberals were more likely than conservatives to engage in cross-ideological dissemination; this is an important asymmetry with respect to the structure of communication that is consistent with psychological theory and research bearing on ideological differences in epistemic, existential, and relational motivation. Overall, we conclude that previous work may have overestimated the degree of ideological segregation in social-media usage. © The Author(s) 2015.

  2. The right to health in Paraguay.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Torales, Julio; Villalba-Arias, Jorge; Ruiz-Díaz, César; Chávez, Emilia; Riego, Viviana

    2014-08-01

    Access to facilities, services and opportunities designed to meet the needs of health is a fundamental human right and is the key for people to enjoy other human rights. However, in Paraguay, this right is still far from becoming reality. The status of the country is the most disadvantaged when compared to the average condition of the Mercosur (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela). Health, as a human right, expands as a social, economic, and political matter. Inequality, poverty, exploitation, violence and injustice are at the root of its poor quality and the consequent shortcomings that emerge from it. Access to health in Paraguay must be further developed using a human rights framework linking it with improving quality of life for all citizens. Such an approach means that potentially powerful barriers and interests must be questioned and contested wherever appropriate and that political and economic priorities must change drastically.

  3. The Form of Property Rights: Oligarchic vs. Democratic Societies

    OpenAIRE

    Daron Acemoglu

    2003-01-01

    This paper develops a model where this is a trade-off between the enforcement of the property rights of different groups. An oligarchic' society, where political power is in the hands of major producers, protects their property rights, but also tends to erect significant entry barriers, violating the property rights of future producers. Democracy, where political power is more widely diffuesed, imposes redistributive taxes on the producers, but tends to avoid entry barriers. When taxes in dem...

  4. Funding for tuberculosis research—an urgent crisis of political will, human rights, and global solidarity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mike Frick

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Tuberculosis (TB killed more people in 2015 than any other single infectious agent, but funding for research to develop better prevention, diagnosis, and treatment methods for TB declined to its lowest level in 7 years. TB research and development (R&D is woefully underfunded, a situation best viewed as a crisis of political will and a failure on the part of governments to see unmet innovation needs in the TB response as a human rights issue requiring immediate action. Over 60% of available money for TB R&D comes from public sources, and 67% of public money comes from a single country: the USA. The election of Donald Trump to the US presidency in November 2016 has introduced great uncertainty into the support that science generally, and TB research in particular, will receive in the coming years. Advocacy on the part of all actors—from civil society to TB-affected communities to scientists themselves—is urgently needed to increase US government support for TB research moving forward.

  5. 75 FR 51327 - Bureau of Political-Military Affairs: Directorate of Defense Trade Controls; Notifications to the...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-08-19

    ... items having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights and arms control... the export of these items having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights and... DEPARTMENT OF STATE [Public Notice 7125] Bureau of Political-Military Affairs: Directorate of...

  6. Human Rights, Fundamental Freedoms and Universal Values in International Relations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lev S. Voronkov

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The author analyzes the evolution of human rights and fundamental freedoms in domestic political life of individual states and in international relations as well over the latest two centuries. The article traces the role of struggle for liberal political human rights and civilian freedoms in the dismantling of the feudal-absolutist regimes as well as the challenges of radical left-wing (communist and far right-wing (national-socialistic threats to be met by the supporters of liberal political rights and civil freedoms in the interwar period. The list of human rights and fundamental freedoms had constantly been updating in the postwar period, including by the efforts of the UNO and other international organizations, and fixing in different international documents. The author emphasizes the import role of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE in transforming the issues of human rights and fundamental freedoms into the essential element of public diplomacy of contemporary states. He traces the process of the increasing utilization of liberal political rights and civilian freedoms, which are usually the effective tools for domestic democratic transformation, within the framework of diplomatic practice of European and North-American states, aimed at ensuring their political and economic interests on the world stage. In this regard the author addresses the attempts of Western countries to legalize "humanitarian"interventions in circumvention of the UN Security Council. The article emphasizes the necessity to replenish the understanding of universal human rights and freedoms by the values, developed both by the international community within the framework of implementing the Millennium Development Goals and by various countries and peoples, which in sum constitute the modern international civilizational baggage.

  7. Introduction: Righting Feminism

    OpenAIRE

    Farris, Sara R.

    2017-01-01

    This is the introduction to a special issue on Righting Feminism. In recent years, we have witnessed the multifarious ways in which feminism as an emancipatory project dedicated to women's liberation has increasingly “converged” with non-emancipatory/racist, conservative, and neo-liberal economic and political agendas. Today, feminist themes are not only being "mainstreamed" but are also increasingly being mobilized to bolster existing power hierarchies as well as neo-liberal and right-wing x...

  8. Left or right? Sources of political orientation: the roles of genetic factors, cultural transmission, assortative mating, and personality.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kandler, Christian; Bleidorn, Wiebke; Riemann, Rainer

    2012-03-01

    In this study, we used an extended twin family design to investigate the influences of genetic and cultural transmission as well as different sources of nonrandom mating on 2 core aspects of political orientation: acceptance of inequality and rejecting system change. In addition, we studied the sources of phenotypic links between Big Five personality traits and political beliefs using self- and other reports. Data of 1,992 individuals (224 monozygotic and 166 dizygotic twin pairs, 92 unmatched twins, 530 spouses of twins, 268 fathers, and 322 mothers) were analyzed. Genetically informative analyses showed that political attitudes are genetically but not environmentally transmitted from parents to offspring and that a substantial proportion of this genetic variance can be accounted for by genetic variance in personality traits. Beyond genetic effects and genotypic assortative mating, generation-specific environmental sources act to increase twins' and spouses' resemblance in political beliefs. The results suggest multiple sources of political orientations in a modern democracy.

  9. Positive politics: playing corporate games with personal integrity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ogborn, S E

    1992-12-01

    The desire for power is personal. Competence and political intelligence are the prerequisites for handling power in a healthy manner. Politics is not a nasty word or a set of behaviors that inevitably turns you into a shady character of whom your mother would be ashamed. You need never divorce your own morality from the situation. The choice to improve your political functioning is yours. You always retain the right to play, and you retain the right to decide when to play. But you are a better manager, a better professional, and a more educated person if you can identify what others are doing and how their behavior will impact you. It is not just for success, it is for survival--success and survival on your own terms.

  10. 4 CFR 83.10 - First Amendment rights.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... enforcement activity. These rights include, but are not limited to, free exercise of religious and political... 4 Accounts 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false First Amendment rights. 83.10 Section 83.10 Accounts... rights. Personnel records or entries thereon describing how individuals exercise rights guaranteed by the...

  11. Human rights and democracy in a global context: decoupling and recoupling

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Samantha Besson

    2011-03-01

    Full Text Available Human rights and democracy have been regarded as a mutually reinforcing couple by many political theorists to date. The internationalisation of human rights post-1945 is often said to have severed those links, however. Accounting for the legitimacy of international human rights requires exploring how human rights and democracy, once they have been decoupled or disconnected, can be recoupled or reunited across governance levels (vertically and maybe even at the same governance level (horizontally albeit beyond the state. The article does so in three steps. The first prong of the argument is dedicated to presenting the moral-political nature of human rights and their relationship to political equality and, hence, their inherent legal nature from a democratic theory perspective. The second section of the article then draws some implications for the domestic or international levels of legal recognition and specification of human rights by reference to their legitimation within the domestic democratic community. It explains the mutual relationship between human rights and citizens’ rights and where international human rights draw their democratic legitimacy from. In the third and final section, the author discusses potential changes in the nature and legitimacy of international human rights once political structures beyond the state become more democratic, and human rights and democracy are being recoupled again at various levels of governance. The European Union being one of the most advanced examples of post-national political integration, recent developments in the regime of human rights protection within the EU are discussed in this new light. In a final step, the transposition to the global level of the argument developed in the European case is assessed and the author flags issues for further research on what democratic theorists should hope for in the new global order.

  12. Western Political Consulting Techniques and Post-Soviet Political Technology in Political Campaigns in Latvia

    OpenAIRE

    Bērziņa, Ieva

    2012-01-01

    Western Political Consulting Techniques and Post-Soviet Political Technology in Political Campaigns in Latvia Ieva Dmitričenko Keywords: political campaignsm political consulting, political technology, parties, marketing, media Political campaigning is an international phenomenon, because there is a free flow of information, knowledge and human resource among practitioners of political campaigning in various countries. As a result political campaigning techniques that have proven to ...

  13. Political ideology and health in Japan: a disaggregated analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Subramanian, S V; Hamano, Tsuyoshi; Perkins, Jessica M; Koyabu, Akio; Fujisawa, Yoshikazu

    2010-09-01

    Recent studies from the USA and Europe suggest an association between an individual's political ideology and their health status, with those claiming to be conservatives reporting better health. The presence of this association is examined in Japan. Individual-level data from the 2000-3, 2005 and 2006 Japan General Social Survey were analysed. The outcomes of interest were self-rated poor health and smoking status. The independent variable of interest was reported political beliefs on a 5-point 'left'-to-'right' scale. Covariates included age, sex, education, income, occupational status and fixed effects for survey periods. Logistic regression models were estimated. There was an inverse association between political ideology (left to right) and self-rated poor health as well as between ideology and smoking status even after adjusting for age, sex, socioeconomic status and fixed effects for survey periods. Compared with those who identified as 'left', the OR for reporting poor health and smoking among those who identified as 'right' was 0.86 (95% CI 0.74 to 0.99) and 0.80 (95% CI 0.70 to 0.91), respectively. Health differences by political ideology have typically been interpreted as reflecting socioeconomic differences. The results from Japan corroborate the previous findings from the USA and Europe that socioeconomic differences do not account for health differences by political ideologies. Political ideology is likely to be a marker of several latent values and attitudes (eg, religiosity, individual responsibility and/or community participation) that might be beneficial for health at the individual level.

  14. [Everyday practice in psychiatry and the politics of civilisation].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Touzet, Patrick

    2015-01-01

    Daily clinical practice confronts us not only with the clinical aspect but also with the political. Political orientation has a direct impact on the way in which we carry out this clinical practice, as well as on the place of those who are outside the system. The politics of civilisation are therefore an option in the face of neoliberalism. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  15. Translating Politeness in Bilingual English-Spanish Business Correspondence

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Sandro; Fuertes Olivera, Pedro

    2008-01-01

    which pragmatic information types are needed when translating business letters. The analysis focuses on a Spanish-English business dictionary and its treatment of politeness in special sections dealing with business correspondence. The findings show that the treatment is insufficient, because users......Politeness is an important element in interlingual business communication. Translators uae bilingual dictionaries as tools helping them in business discourse across cultures, but dictionaries do not contain the relevant pragmatic information. The functions of dictionaries are used to determine......' business-language competence does not enable them to express the right level of politeness. Bilingual dictionaries should offer a systematic treatment of cultural and genre-specific means of expressing politeness in contrastive, informative texts showing the specific uses of politeness in business...

  16. The politics of nuclear power

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Elliott, D.

    1978-01-01

    The contents of the book are: introduction; (part 1, the economy of nuclear power) nuclear power and the growth of state corporatism, ownership and control - the power of the multi-nationals, economic and political goals - profit or control, trade union policy and nuclear power; (part 2, nuclear power and employment) nuclear power and workers' health and safety, employment and trade union rights, jobs, energy and industrial strategy, the alternative energy option; (part 3, political strategies) the anti-nuclear movement, trade unions and nuclear power; further reading; UK organisations. (U.K.)

  17. Web Resources for Teaching about Human Rights

    Science.gov (United States)

    Merryfield, Merry M.; Badang, Germain; Bragg, Christina; Kvasov, Aleksandr; Taylor, Nathan; Waliaula, Anne; Yamaguchi, Misato

    2012-01-01

    The study of human rights is inseparable from social studies. Beyond the basic political, economic, and social freedoms and rights spelled out in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, hundreds of specialized topics have developed that demonstrate the complex nature of human rights in the twenty-first-century world--environmental exploitation…

  18. Realization of political and administrative leadership by the Presidential Ombudsman for children’s rights

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. L. Derzhanovska

    2016-08-01

    Further researches should be focused on the development and implementation of scientifically based efficiency indicators of political and administrative leadership in the sphere of safeness and wellbeing of children.

  19. The Prediction of Political Competencies by Political Action and Political Media Consumption

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reichert, Frank

    2014-01-01

    Political competencies are often considered a precondition for political action; however, they are not independent of previous political participation, which may also include the frequency and the kind of political media consumption. My research aims at finding out the importance of participation in political activities in the past, as well as…

  20. Does political ideology moderate stress: the special case of soldiers conducting forced evacuation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shechner, Tomer; Slone, Michelle; Bialik, Gadi

    2007-04-01

    This study examined the moderating role of political ideology on psychological outcomes for Israeli soldiers participating in the forced evacuation of Jewish settlements from Gaza. Change in psychopathology and well-being was assessed for 3 concurrent mission groups differing in their political ideological contentiousness--forced evacuation, Gaza security, and Northern border security. After soldiers in each mission group were classified on the basis of relatively left- or right-wing political ideological tendencies, the authors examined differential impact of each mission on soldiers of differing political ideology. Results confirmed strong moderation effects of political ideology on psychological outcomes in these extreme contexts. Implications for research, prevention, and treatment are discussed. 2007 APA, all rights reserved

  1. LGBT rights versus Asian values: de/re-constructing the universality of human rights

    OpenAIRE

    Lee, Po-Han

    2016-01-01

    Law, especially from the international human rights regime, is a direct reference on which minority groups rely when it comes to ‘non-discrimination’. Drawing upon LGBT rights in Taiwan, as well as Hong Kong and Singapore, this article – through an application of K.H. Chen’s (2010) Asia as Method – critically reviews how global LGBT politics interact with local societies influenced by Confucianism. Along a perpetual competition between the universalism and cultural relativism of human rights,...

  2. Perceived discrimination predicts increased support for political rights and life satisfaction mediated by ethnic identity: A longitudinal analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stronge, Samantha; Sengupta, Nikhil K; Barlow, Fiona Kate; Osborne, Danny; Houkamau, Carla A; Sibley, Chris G

    2016-07-01

    The aim of the current research is to test predictions derived from the rejection-identification model and research on collective action using cross-sectional (Study 1) and longitudinal (Study 2) methods. Specifically, an integration of these 2 literatures suggests that recognition of discrimination can have simultaneous positive relationships with well-being and engagement in collective action via the formation of a strong ingroup identity. We test these predictions in 2 studies using data from a large national probability sample of Māori (the indigenous peoples of New Zealand), collected as part of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (Ns for Study 1 and 2 were 1,981 and 1,373, respectively). Consistent with the extant research, Study 1 showed that perceived discrimination was directly linked with decreased life satisfaction, but indirectly linked with increased life satisfaction through higher levels of ethnic identification. Perceived discrimination was also directly linked with increased support for Māori rights and indirectly linked with increased support for Māori rights through higher levels of ethnic identification. Study 2 replicated these findings using longitudinal data and identified multiple bidirectional paths between perceived discrimination, ethnic identity, well-being, and support for collective action. These findings replicate and extend the rejection-identification model in a novel cultural context by demonstrating via cross-sectional (Study 1) and longitudinal (Study 2) analyses that the recognition of discrimination can both motivate support for political rights and increase well-being by strengthening ingroup identity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

  3. The Politics of European Human Rights Culture

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Agha, Petr

    2017-01-01

    Roč. 7, č. 3 (2017), s. 200-215 ISSN 1805-8396 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA13-30299S Institutional support: RVO:68378122 Keywords : Court of Justice of the European Union * European Court of Human Rights * religious symbols Subject RIV: AG - Legal Sciences OBOR OECD: Law

  4. The 2013 Elections in Zimbabwe: End of an Era for Human Rights Discourse?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cornelias Ncube

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper examines the implications of Zimbabwe’s 2013 harmonised elections on the opposition’s continued deployment of the rights-based discourse to make moral and political claims against and demands of the state. Since 2000, two polarising strands of the human rights discourse – 1 the right to self-determination and 2 civil and political rights – were deployed by the state and the opposition, respectively, in order to challenge extant relations and structures of power. The acutely strained state–society relations in post-2000 Zimbabwe emanated from human rights violations by the state as it responded to challenges to its political power and legitimacy. However, the relative improvement in the human rights situation in the country since the 2009 coalition government came into office, and during and since the recently concluded peaceful 2013 elections – the flawed electoral process itself notwithstanding – suggests a need for alternative new ways to make moral and political demands of the state in the future.

  5. Is political behavior a viable coping strategy to perceived organizational politics? Unveiling the underlying resource dynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, Shuhua; Chen, Huaizhong

    2017-10-01

    [Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 102(10) of Journal of Applied Psychology (see record 2017-34254-001). In the article, Table 1 contained a formatting error. Correlation coefficient values in the last four cells of column 6 were misplaced with correlation coefficient values in the last four cells of column 7. All versions of this article have been corrected.] We conduct a theory-driven empirical investigation on whether political behavior, as a coping strategy to perceived organizational politics, creates resource trade-offs in moderating the relationship between perceived organizational politics and task performance. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we hypothesize that political behavior mitigates the adverse effect of perceived organizational politics on task performance via psychological empowerment, yet exacerbates its adverse effect on task performance via emotional exhaustion. Three-wave multisource data from a sample of 222 employees and their 75 supervisors were collected for hypothesis testing. Findings supported our hypotheses. Our study enhances understandings of the complex resource dynamics of using political behavior to cope with perceived organizational politics and highlights the need to move stress-coping research from a focus on the stress-buffering effect of coping on outcomes to a focus on the underlying competing resource dynamics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  6. „Bio-politics Reflexes” or something about what happens with Bio-politics today

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Viorella Manolache

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available Under the pressure dictated by Western modernity movements, life finally enters within strategic (long term relationships circuit. The present study establishes that, bio-politics and bio-power denounces the paradigm of politicization of the biological life. Foucault’s late writings confirm the subordination of bio-politics to the technologies of power, which integrate / reduce life to biological continuity of the species, to the objectification of individual body or investigation of self-techniques, that would allow (beyond the corset of the institutional, the (re affirmation of subjectivity as a force or a form of resistance. The present reactivation of the bio model establishes that we cannot evade Foucault’s view, in which, the biology- meeting – politics confirms that, none of the terms no longer retains its original meaning.

  7. 28 CFR 55.9 - Coverage of political units within a county.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 28 Judicial Administration 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Coverage of political units within a... PROVISIONS OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT REGARDING LANGUAGE MINORITY GROUPS Nature of Coverage § 55.9 Coverage of political units within a county. Where a political subdivision (e.g., a county) is determined to be subject...

  8. The impact of dark tetrad traits on political orientation and extremism: an analysis in the course of a presidential election

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Boris Duspara

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Previous research on personality and political attitudes has been conducted in countries where political parties from the center dominate the political system. In the present research (N = 675, we focus on the relationship between the dark side of human personality and political orientation and extremism, respectively, in the course of a presidential election where the two candidates represent either left-wing or right-wing political policies. Narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and everyday sadism were associated with right-wing political orientation, whereas narcissism and psychopathy were associated with political extremism. Moreover, the relationships between personality and right-wing political orientation and extremism, respectively, were relatively independent from each other. Keywords: Political science, Sociology, Psychology

  9. The impact of dark tetrad traits on political orientation and extremism: an analysis in the course of a presidential election.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duspara, Boris; Greitemeyer, Tobias

    2017-10-01

    Previous research on personality and political attitudes has been conducted in countries where political parties from the center dominate the political system. In the present research ( N = 675), we focus on the relationship between the dark side of human personality and political orientation and extremism, respectively, in the course of a presidential election where the two candidates represent either left-wing or right-wing political policies. Narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and everyday sadism were associated with right-wing political orientation, whereas narcissism and psychopathy were associated with political extremism. Moreover, the relationships between personality and right-wing political orientation and extremism, respectively, were relatively independent from each other.

  10. Paideia and Cosmopolitan Education: On Subjectification, Politics and Justice

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rebecca Adami

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Can human rights in education enhance students and teachers capacity to reimagine their local community and to rethink the rules and laws that support such a social community? This paper is a political philosophical inquiry into human rights in education, drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, Cornelius Castoriadis and Adriana Cavarero. By placing learning at the center of political philosophy through the notion of paideia, we need to ask how such an education can look like. According to Castoriadis, society exists only insofar as it is embodied in its social individuals. Society and its individuals are in a constant process of becoming toward relational autonomy that implies a moral self-limitation. At the core of my philosophical inquiry into moral subjectification is the need to re-think human rights and the pedagogical subject in relational terms that imply self-limitation and political engagement in a wider cosmopolitan community

  11. Harmonization of the conditions for reversionary rights and concession periods: tax and business political aspects; Harmonisering av hjemfallsvilkaar og konsesjonslengde : skattemessige og naeringspolitiske aspekter

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sunnevaag, Kjell J.; Rusten, Grete; Soergard, Lars

    2002-07-01

    In Norway, the right of reversion was introduced at a time of national upheaval with regained independence and increasing understanding of the importance of hydropower in the industrialization process. Reversion became an important political instrument for securing public control over a resource of great socio-economic importance. After one hundred years, this arrangement is now set under pressure. This report discusses various aspects involved in creating regulations that are neutral with respect to ownership.

  12. Persuasive and Politeness Strategies in Chinese Foreign Trade

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    张芳芳

    2013-01-01

    During international trade negotiations Chinese salespersons tend to employ a variety of persuasive and politeness strat⁃egies in marketing their products. Persuasion involves face-threatening acts (FTAs), thus politeness strategies which are applied to reduce face-threatening are combined with persuasive communication. This paper, taking Brown and Levinson’s model of po⁃liteness as a reference, makes an analysis on politeness strategies used in persuasive communication of the salespersons.

  13. The party political make-up of EU legislative bodies.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Warntjen, Andreas; Hix, Simon; Crombez, Christophe

    2008-01-01

    This research note provides an overview of the party political make-up of EU legislative bodies for the period 1979-2004 (Commission: 1979-2007) in terms of the left-right and pro-/anti-Europe dimensions. The various methods of measuring political positions are discussed and compared. Measures for

  14. Does sociability predict civic involvement and political participation?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Foschi, Renato; Lauriola, Marco

    2014-02-01

    In contemporary history as well as in political science, a strong associational life known as sociability is thought to explain the roots of modern democracy by establishing a link between the increasing availability of free time to the middle classes, increasing willingness to gather with others in circles or associations, and increasing social capital. In personality psychology, sociability is related to prosocial behavior (i.e., the need for affiliation, agreeableness, openness, and extraversion), whose importance in different political behaviors is increasingly recognized. In the present article, we carried out 5 studies (N = 1,429) that showed that political and associative sociability (a) can be reliably assessed, can have cross-cultural validity, and are properly associated with general social interest measures and personality domains and facets in the five-factor model; (b) do not overlap with similar concepts used in political psychology to account for political participation (political expertise, political interest, political self-efficacy); and (c) predicted political and nonpolitical group membership as well as observable choices in decision-making tasks with political and nonpolitical outcomes. The results are discussed, taking into consideration the extent to which specific facets of sociability can mediate between general personality traits and measures of civic involvement and political participation in a holistic model of political behavior. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

  15. How body balance influences political party evaluations. A Wii balance board study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Katinka eDijkstra

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Embodied cognition research has shown how actions or body positions may affect cognitive processes, such as autobiographical memory retrieval or judgments. The present study examined the role of body balance (to the left or the right in participants on their attributions to political parties. Participants thought they stood upright on a Wii™ Balance Board, while they were actually slightly tilted to the left or the right. Participants then ascribed fairly general political statements to one of ten political parties that are represented in the Dutch House of Representatives. Results showed a significant interaction of congruent leaning direction with left- or right wing party attribution. When the same analyses were performed with the political parties being divided into affiliations to the right, center, and left based on participants’ personal opinions rather than a ruling classification, no effects were found. The study provides evidence that conceptual metaphors are activated by manipulating body balance implicitly. Moreover, people’s judgments may be colored by seemingly trivial circumstances such as standing slightly out of balance.

  16. How body balance influences political party evaluations: a wii balance board study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dijkstra, Katinka; Eerland, Anita; Zijlmans, Josjan; Post, Lysanne S

    2012-01-01

    Embodied cognition research has shown how actions or body positions may affect cognitive processes, such as autobiographical memory retrieval or judgments. The present study examined the role of body balance (to the left or the right) in participants on their attributions to political parties. Participants thought they stood upright on a Wii(™) Balance Board, while they were actually slightly tilted to the left or the right. Participants then ascribed fairly general political statements to one of 10 political parties that are represented in the Dutch House of Representatives. Results showed a significant interaction of congruent leaning direction with left- or right-wing party attribution. When the same analyses were performed with the political parties being divided into affiliations to the right, center, and left based on participants' personal opinions rather than a ruling classification, no effects were found. The study provides evidence that conceptual metaphors are activated by manipulating body balance implicitly. Moreover, people's judgments may be colored by seemingly trivial circumstances such as standing slightly out of balance.

  17. The political downside of dual identity: group identifications and religious political mobilization of Muslim minorities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martinovic, Borja; Verkuyten, Maykel

    2014-12-01

    Research on the political mobilization of ethnic minorities has shown that dual ethno-national identification facilitates involvement in political action on behalf of the ethnic group. This study extends this research by proposing that a dual identity can impede political mobilization on behalf of another relevant in-group--the religious community - especially if this in-group is not accepted by the wider society. Using a sample of 641 Muslims of Turkish origin living in Germany and the Netherlands, dual ethno-national identity (Turkish-German/Turkish-Dutch) was examined in relation to religious Muslim identification and religious political mobilization. Dual identity was expected to be indirectly related to lower mobilization via decreased religious group identification. Further, this mediating process was predicted to be stronger for Turkish Muslims who perceived relatively high religious group discrimination. In both countries we found support for the mediating hypothesis, however, the moderating role of discrimination was confirmed only for the Netherlands. Turkish-Dutch identification was associated with lower support for religious political mobilization because of lower Muslim identification only for Turkish-Dutch participants who perceived high levels of discrimination. These findings indicate that a strong dual (ethno-national) identity can undermine minority members' support for political rights and actions on behalf of a third relevant in-group, and therefore qualify the social psychological benefits of the dual identity model. © 2014 The British Psychological Society.

  18. Voting rights for older children and civic education

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Merry, Michael; Schinkel, Anders

    2016-01-01

    The issue of voting rights for older children has been high on the political and philosophical agenda for quite some time now, and not without reason. Aside from principled moral and philosophical reasons why it is an important matter, many economic, environmental, and political issues are currently

  19. ``Political'' Science

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berzak Hopkins, Laura

    2013-03-01

    Politics and policy affect all of us, both as scientists and as citizens, and issues ranging from laboratory budgets to arms control treaties clearly require research problem-solving skills and technical expertise. There is a critical role for scientists in each aspect of the political system, and in fact, we as a society need more scientists to take part in politics. Furthermore, the research we pursue has important societal applications and is fascinating! We have a right and a responsibility to share our scientific knowledge not only with each other, but with the general public as well. So, why are we as a community of scientists reticent in the public arena, hesitant to enter politics, and even at times unsupportive of our peers who transition into governmental roles? In this time of fiscal constraint, when difficult research funding (and de-funding) choices are regularly being made, we as scientists must step up to the plate, reach across the aisle, and explain why what we do is fascinating, inspiring, and important, not just to us, but to society as a whole. A range of policy-relevant roles exists inside and outside the laboratory, such as Congressional Fellowships. Each year the Congressional Fellowships program brings together approximately thirty scientists at all stages of their careers to serve as scientific advisors in a variety of offices in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Although the jump from lab to lobbying meetings can be frustrating, the transition can also be intriguing. Firsthand experience with the ``how'' and ``why'' (or lack thereof) of politics and policy is invaluable and provides a unique opportunity to expand and broaden one's background. The opportunity to work on Capitol Hill is unparalleled, particularly because our nation has a definite need for scientists with the inclination and interest to inform and develop policy. But, whatever role you decide to take, from contributing scientific news to local publications to

  20. Political Regimes in Central Asia: Crisis of Legitimacy, Political Violence and Uncertain Prospects

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohammad-Reza Djalili

    2005-10-01

    Full Text Available This article analyses the present-day transition and political context of each of the states that comprise the former Soviet region of Central Asia since their independence: the internal changes they have undergone, the creation of their own institutions and regional and international relations. This evolution, especially with regard to the deficiencies in democracy and legitimacy of the majority of the current governments, based, in many cases, on personalist, authoritarian regimes, points to an uncertain future for a region in which, too frequently, its rulers have used all the means at their disposal (persecution of political opposition, disregard for human rights, constraint of the mass media and NGOs, etc. to guarantee their continuance in power. This article also includes an analysis of the most recent events, such as the Andijan (Uzbekistan massacre, the‘revolution’ without changes in Kyrgyzstan, and the authoritarian drift of Turkmenistan, which leads to conclusions filled with uncertainties for future political scenarios.

  1. New voters, new outlook? Predispositions, social networks, and the changing politics of gay civil rights.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Becker, Amy B; Scheufele, Dietram A

    2011-01-01

    Objectives. This study examines the factors that shape public acceptance of homosexuality and support for same-sex marriage across age cohorts.Methods. We analyzed data from two national surveys. We constructed hierarchical logistic and hierarchical ordinary least squares regressions for relevant age cohorts in order to test our hypotheses and explore our research questions.Results. Our models suggest that personal contact has a greater impact on the attitudes of younger respondents, positively influencing public acceptance of homosexuality. Alternatively, religious and ideological predispositions have a greater impact on the attitudes of older individuals. When examining public support for gay marriage, we find that younger individuals have higher levels of deliberative engagement with the issue debate, while older individuals rely more heavily on their predispositions when determining issue stance. Interestingly, measures of media exposure are not significantly related to either public acceptance of homosexuality or support for same-sex marriage, suggesting that other factors may have a greater impact on public attitudes at this point in time.Conclusion. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of the emergence of a new political generation and the continuing struggle for gay civil rights.

  2. Thoughts on the Roots and Evolution of the Bill of Rights.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robinson, Donald; And Others

    1991-01-01

    Considers how the Bill of Rights originated and has evolved. Reviews the political views of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison and the nature of their support for the Bill of Rights. Explains nineteenth-century classical liberalism and its revolutionary view that political power inhered in the individual rather than in property ownership. (CH)

  3. Making and Breaking Property Rights

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Justesen, Mogens Kamp

    2015-01-01

    This paper analyzes why some governments protect property rights while others do not. Although institutional constraints may affect government incentives to protect property rights, the paper emphasizes that different political institutions have dissimilar effects. Coalition institutions that make...... governments accountable to large groups in society are particularly important, whereas division of powers between veto players is hypothesized to have more ambiguous effects on property rights. Empirical analyses of panel data support the proposition that coalition institutions matter for property-rights...

  4. Integrated human rights and poverty eradication strategy: the case of civil registration rights in Zimbabwe.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Musarandega, Reuben

    2009-01-01

    High poverty levels characterise sub-Saharan Africa, Zimbabwe included. Over 80 per cent of Zimbabwe's population lived below the total consumption poverty line and 70 per cent below the food poverty line in 2003. This plummeting of social indicators resulted from the freefall suffered by the country's economy from the 1990s, after unsuccessful attempts to implement structural adjustment programmes prescribed by international financial institutions. The ensuing socioeconomic decay, political crisis and international isolation of the country from the late 1990s reversed gains made in social indicators during the 1980s. Development theories attribute poverty to unchecked population growth, political, economic and environmental mismanagement, while developing countries' leaders attribute it to historical imbalances and global political and economic injustices. Despite this debate, poverty continues to evolve, expand and deepen and the need to eradicate it has become urgent. The complex question of what causes and what drives poverty is perpetually addressed and new ideas are emerging to answer the question. One recent view is that failure to centre development on people and to declare poverty a violation of human rights has allowed poverty to grow the world over. This study uses a hypothesised cause of poverty - civil registration - to exemplify the human right nature of poverty, and how a human rights' policy can be used as an instrument to eradicate poverty. The study demonstrates that civil registration is a right of instrumental relevance to poverty; and achieving civil registration grants people access to numerous other rights, some of which will lift them out of poverty, while the failure of civil registration deprives people of access to livelihoods, thereby entrenching them in poverty.

  5. "Right tool," wrong "job": Manual vacuum aspiration, post-abortion care and transnational population politics in Senegal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suh, Siri

    2015-06-01

    The "rightness" of a technology for completing a particular task is negotiated by medical professionals, patients, state institutions, manufacturing companies, and non-governmental organizations. This paper shows how certain technologies may challenge the meaning of the "job" they are designed to accomplish. Manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) is a syringe device for uterine evacuation that can be used to treat complications of incomplete abortion, known as post-abortion care (PAC), or to terminate pregnancy. I explore how negotiations over the rightness of MVA as well as PAC unfold at the intersection of national and global reproductive politics during the daily treatment of abortion complications at three hospitals in Senegal, where PAC is permitted but induced abortion is legally prohibited. Although state health authorities have championed MVA as the "preferred" PAC technology, the primary donor for PAC, the United States Agency for International Development, does not support the purchase of abortifacient technologies. I conducted an ethnography of Senegal's PAC program between 2010 and 2011. Data collection methods included interviews with 49 health professionals, observation of PAC treatment and review of abortion records at three hospitals, and a review of transnational literature on MVA and PAC. While MVA was the most frequently employed form of uterine evacuation in hospitals, concerns about off-label MVA practices contributed to the persistence of less effective methods such as dilation and curettage (D&C) and digital curettage. Anxieties about MVA's capacity to induce abortion have constrained its integration into routine obstetric care. This capacity also raises questions about what the "job," PAC, represents in Senegalese hospitals. The prioritization of MVA's security over women's access to the preferred technology reinforces gendered inequalities in health care. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. Political Crowdfunding as concept of political technologies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Valeria GOLKA

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Political crowdfunding is analyzed as a new concept of political science. The justification of use of crowdfunding technologies not only in business but also in the political sphere is argued. The efficiency, availability, low cost of the new forms of political investment through the development of information and communication technologies are noted. The typology of political crowdfunding is proposed. Political projects promoting domestic crowdfunding platforms are analyzed. Attention is drawn to the problem of legal gaps in the regulation of crowdfunding is studied. The foreign experience of organizing public support (mikroinvestment political projects. It is emphasized that in terms of political theory crowdfunding is based on solidarity. The crowdfunding properties of transforming social capital accumulated by social networks into financial capital are mentioned.

  7. What's Left of the Left-Right Dimension? Why the Economic Policy Positions of Europeans Do Not Fit the Left-Right Dimension.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Otjes, Simon

    2018-01-01

    In political science the economic left-right dimension plays a central role. A growing body of evidence shows that the economic policy preferences of a large segment of citizens do not scale sufficiently. Using Mokken scale analysis, this study determines the causes of this phenomenon. Differences in the extent to which the economic policy preferences of citizens fit the left-right dimension can be explained in terms of the interaction between individual level and political system-level variables: citizens who spend more attention to politicians with views that conform to the left-right dimension, have views that conform to the left-right dimension. There is also a role for the legacy of communist dictatorship: citizens who were socialised in democratic countries have views that fit the left-right dimension better than those socialised during communism.

  8. Space, politics, and the political

    OpenAIRE

    dikec , mustafa

    1987-01-01

    International audience; Introduction Geography and politics'', Gottmann wrote in 1980, ``have long been in search of each other'' (page 11). Debates in the literature suggest not only that they have found each other, but also that the encounter has instigated, notably in the last decade or so, a body of literature seeking to think space politically, and to think politics spatially. This is not to suggest that previous work on space was apolitical, nor to suggest that previous work on politics...

  9. Adjudicating socioeconomic rights

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Christo Heunis

    It is trite to say that the adjudication of socio-economic rights is a new enterprise in South African jurisprudence, as it is to the jurisprudence of many other jurisdictions. Professor van Rensburg's paper seeks to analyse the influence of political, socio-economic and cultural considerations on the interpretation and application ...

  10. Gender-based political harassment and violence: effects on the political work and public roles of women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Valverde, María Eugenia Rojas

    2010-01-01

    This article shows the significance of the problems of political harassment and violence against women in positions of political responsibility in Bolivia. This phenomenon is seen in both rural and urban areas and transcends borders. It has been shown that these attacks constitute a violation of women's civil and political rights and a threat to the physical and mental health of women leaders in Bolivia. Furthermore, there is no punishment of guilty parties, reparation, or moral or material compensation for the women who are affected. In Bolivia, gender-based harassment and violence is a fundamental barrier to women's political participation. However, this phenomenon is still not addressed by government programs and is not part of the public discourse and debate. In spite of the measures taken to promote women's political participation, several different administrations have been unable to guarantee women the capacity to occupy positions of responsibility without being threatened or harassed. The results of our research led to a bill addressing this problem. Subsequently, Ecuador took this bill as an example and replicated it in a legislative initiative. These results show the importance of research by organizations that represent women in preventing unjust situations and health problems.

  11. Does extreme political ideology predict conspiracy beliefs, economic evaluations and political trust? Evidence from Sweden

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Krouwel, Andre; Kutiyski, Yordan; van Prooijena, Jan Willem; Martinsson, Johan; Markstedt, Elias

    2018-01-01

    A large volume of academic research has demonstrated that individuals who profess radical political ideology, both left- and right-wing, tend to share similar underlying psychological patterns. By utilizing data collected through a voting advice application in Sweden, this study aims to assess

  12. Discrimination, policies, and sexual rights in Brazil.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carrara, Sergio

    2012-01-01

    This article focuses on a politics arena that has been articulated through the impact of ideals of sexual rights on Brazilian sexual politics, namely the affirmation of "LGBT rights". These rights have been constructed both through attempts to extend civil and social rights to the LGBT population that were previously restricted to heterosexuals, and by the enactment of provisions directly banning homophobic discrimination and violence. The focus will be on some of the principal social actors in this process, especially those situated in the three branches of government, since the most decisive clashes are now being waged at this level. Without intending to offer an exhaustive description of what has occurred in the Brazilian courts, Congress, and Administration, we point to the complexity of a situation which shows numerous innovations and breaks in its different dimensions, while simultaneously revealing contradictions, gaps, and ambiguities.

  13. Me, us, or them: who is more conformist? Perception of conformity and political orientation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cavazza, Nicoletta; Mucchi-Faina, Angelica

    2008-06-01

    Research has shown that people perceive others as more vulnerable than themselves to media communication, and their political out-group as more vulnerable than their political in-group. In the present study, the authors predicted that the same two biases would appear with respect to another kind of influence--conformity--but that participants' judgments would display a different pattern according to their political orientations. Right-wing and left-wing university students were asked to evaluate conformity and to estimate how conformist they, their political in-group, their political out-group, and other groups are. As hypothesized, right-wingers expressed more ambivalence toward conformity and viewed it less negatively than did left-wingers. Political orientation had no impact on the discrepancy between self and others, but it did moderate the in-group-out-group discrepancy.

  14. Privatization, political risk and stock market development in emerging economies

    OpenAIRE

    Perotti, E.C.; van Oijen, P.H.

    1999-01-01

    This paper investigates whether privatization in emerging economies has a significant indirect effect on local stock market development through the resolution of political risk. We argue that a sustained privatization program represents a major political test that gradually resolves uncertainty over political commitment to a market-oriented policy as well as to regulatory and private property rights. We present evidence suggesting that progress in privatization is indeed correlated with impro...

  15. Gender, risk assessment, and political ambition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sweet-Cushman, Jennie

    2016-01-01

    In the United States, women have long held the right to vote and can participate fully in the political process, and yet they are underrepresented at all levels of elected office. Worldwide, men's dominance in the realm of politics has also been the norm. To date, scholars have focused on supply-side and demand-side explanations of women's underrepresentation but differences in how men and women assess electoral risk (the risk involved in seeking political office) are not fully explained. To fill this gap, I explore how evolutionary theory offers insights into gendered differences in political ambition and the evaluation of electoral risk. Using the framework of life-history theory, I hypothesize that both cognitive and environmental factors in human evolution, particularly as they relate to sexual selection and social roles, have shaped the psychology of ambition in gendered ways affecting contemporary politics. Cognitive risk-assessment mechanisms evolving in the hominid line came to be expressed differently in females and males, in women and men. These gendered expressions plausibly reflect differentiable environmental pressures in the past and may help explain behaviors in and barriers to women's electoral political activity in the present. If so, then the success of efforts to increase such activity - or, regressively, to suppress it - may be better understood.

  16. Human rights and reproductive health: political realities and pragmatic choices for married adolescent women living in urban slums, Bangladesh

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-01

    Background In Bangladesh, particularly in urban slums, married adolescent women’s human rights to life, health, and reproductive and sexual health remain adversely affected because of the structural inequalities and political economic, social and cultural conditions which shape how rights are understood, negotiated and lived. Methods The focus of the research and methods was anthropological. An initial survey of 153 married adolescent women was carried out and from this group, 50 in-depth interviews were conducted with selected participants and, from the in-depth interviews, a further eight case studies of women and their families were selected for in-depth repeated interviews and case histories. Results This paper speaks of the unanticipated complexities when writing on reproductive rights for poor adolescent women living in the slums, where the discourses on ‘universal human rights’ are often removed from the reality of adolescent women’s everyday lives. Married adolescent women and their families remain extremely vulnerable in the unpredictable, crime-prone and insecure urban slum landscape because of their age, gender and poverty. Adolescent women’s understanding of their rights such as the decision to marry early, have children, terminate pregnancies and engage in risky sexual behaviour, are different from the widely accepted discourse on rights globally, which assumes a particular kind of individual thinking and discourse on rights and a certain autonomy women have over their bodies and their lives. This does not necessarily exist in urban slum populations. Conclusions The lived experiences and decisions made pertaining to sexual and reproductive health and ‘rights’ exercised by married adolescent women, their families and slum communities, allow us to reflect on the disconnect between the international legal human rights frameworks as applied to sexual and reproductive health rights, and how these are played out on the ground. These notions are

  17. Human rights and reproductive health: political realities and pragmatic choices for married adolescent women living in urban slums, Bangladesh

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rashid Sabina

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background In Bangladesh, particularly in urban slums, married adolescent women’s human rights to life, health, and reproductive and sexual health remain adversely affected because of the structural inequalities and political economic, social and cultural conditions which shape how rights are understood, negotiated and lived. Methods The focus of the research and methods was anthropological. An initial survey of 153 married adolescent women was carried out and from this group, 50 in-depth interviews were conducted with selected participants and, from the in-depth interviews, a further eight case studies of women and their families were selected for in-depth repeated interviews and case histories. Results This paper speaks of the unanticipated complexities when writing on reproductive rights for poor adolescent women living in the slums, where the discourses on ‘universal human rights’ are often removed from the reality of adolescent women’s everyday lives. Married adolescent women and their families remain extremely vulnerable in the unpredictable, crime-prone and insecure urban slum landscape because of their age, gender and poverty. Adolescent women’s understanding of their rights such as the decision to marry early, have children, terminate pregnancies and engage in risky sexual behaviour, are different from the widely accepted discourse on rights globally, which assumes a particular kind of individual thinking and discourse on rights and a certain autonomy women have over their bodies and their lives. This does not necessarily exist in urban slum populations. Conclusions The lived experiences and decisions made pertaining to sexual and reproductive health and ‘rights’ exercised by married adolescent women, their families and slum communities, allow us to reflect on the disconnect between the international legal human rights frameworks as applied to sexual and reproductive health rights, and how these are played out on

  18. Are proactive personalities always beneficial? Political skill as a moderator.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, Shuhua; van Emmerik, Hetty I J

    2015-05-01

    Does proactive personality always enhance job success? The authors of this study draw on socioanalytic theory of personality and organizational political perspectives to study employees' political skill in moderating the effects of proactive personality on supervisory ratings of employee task performance, helping behaviors, and learning behaviors. Multisource data from 225 subordinates and their 75 immediate supervisors reveal that proactive personality is associated negatively with supervisory evaluations when political skill is low, and the negative relationship disappears when political skill is high. Implications and future research directions are discussed. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved.

  19. Science, democracy, and the right to research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, Mark B; Guston, David H

    2009-09-01

    Debates over the politicization of science have led some to claim that scientists have or should have a "right to research." This article examines the political meaning and implications of the right to research with respect to different historical conceptions of rights. The more common "liberal" view sees rights as protections against social and political interference. The "republican" view, in contrast, conceives rights as claims to civic membership. Building on the republican view of rights, this article conceives the right to research as embedding science more firmly and explicitly within society, rather than sheltering science from society. From this perspective, all citizens should enjoy a general right to free inquiry, but this right to inquiry does not necessarily encompass all scientific research. Because rights are most reliably protected when embedded within democratic culture and institutions, claims for a right to research should be considered in light of how the research in question contributes to democracy. By putting both research and rights in a social context, this article shows that the claim for a right to research is best understood, not as a guarantee for public support of science, but as a way to initiate public deliberation and debate about which sorts of inquiry deserve public support.

  20. Political Transmigrants: Rethinking Hmong Political Activism in America

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nengher N. Vang, Ph.D

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Since the initial resettlement of the Hmong in the United States in the mid-1970s, they have maintained strong political and military relationships with the Lao People‘s Democratic Republic (LPDR. Yet, there is little research on that relationship and the involvement of the Hmong in the United States in political developments in Laos. Most works on Hmong political activism have focused on the electoral participation and representation of Hmong Americans in relation to American domestic politics. In this article, using archival, ethnographic, and interview data that I have collected between 2006 and 2009 in Laos, Thailand, and the United States, I describe and analyze the non-domestic or transnational form of Hmong American political expression and participation. I argue that Hmong political activism in America not only was transnational from the outset, but that their transnational involvement in political developments in Laos and their relations with the Lao PDR government also had a significant impact on their ethnic politics. Many Hmong political activists made their entry into ethnic politics through the door of transnational politics, and many were motivated by transnational political issues to participate in domestic American politics. By exploring their transnational involvement in political developments in Laos and their relations with the Lao PDR government, we get a more complete and dynamic understanding of Hmong political activism in the United States than is possible by focusing exclusively on domestic and electoral participation. Examining their transnational politics also allows us to see the transnationality of not only their culture, identity, and community but also that of their political activities and aspirations.

  1. Contextualizing Intergroup Contact: Do Political Party Cues Enhance Contact Effects?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sønderskov, Kim Mannemar; Thomsen, Jens Peter Frølund

    2015-01-01

    This article examines intergroup contact effects in different political contexts. We expand on previous efforts of social psychologists by incorporating the messages of political parties as a contextual trigger of group membership awareness in contact situations. We argue that the focus among...... political parties on us-them categorizations heightens the awareness of group memberships. This focus in turn enhances the positive intergroup contact effect by stimulating majority members to perceive contacted persons as prototypical outgroup members. A multilevel analysis of 22 countries and almost 37......,000 individuals confirms that the ability of intergroup contact to reduce antiforeigner sentiment increases when political parties focus intensively on immigration issues and cultural differences. Specifically, both workplace contact and interethnic friendship become more effective in reducing antiforeigner...

  2. Right to Basic Education and State Responsibility

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singh, Kishore

    2010-01-01

    The right to education is an internationally recognized right. As part of the global movement for Education for All in the past two decades, the right to basic education has emerged in international law, and it carries international obligations--political and legal--on account of collective commitments by the international community for its…

  3. Gentrification and Occupancy Rights

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Huber, Jakob; Wolkenstein, Gregor Fabio

    2018-01-01

    What, if anything, is wrong with gentrification? This paper addresses this question from the perspective of normative political theory. We argue that gentrification is a wrong insofar as it involves a violation of city-dwellers occupancy rights. We distinguish these rights from other forms...... of territorial rights, and discuss the different implications of the argument for urban governance. If we agree on the ultimate importance of being able to pursue one’s located life-plans, the argument goes, we must also agree on limiting the impact on gentrification on people’s lives. Limiting gentrification...

  4. Political demography: Powerful trends under-attended by demographic science.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teitelbaum, Michael S

    2015-01-01

    The interconnections between politics and the dramatic demographic changes under way around the world have been neglected by the two research disciplines that could contribute most to their understanding: demography and political science. Instead, this area of 'political demography' has largely been ceded to political activists, pundits, and journalists, leading often to exaggerated or garbled interpretation. The terrain includes some of the most politically sensitive and contested issues: alleged demographically determined shifts in the international balance of power; low fertility, population decline, and demographic ageing; international migration; change in national identity; and compositional shifts in politically sensitive social categories and human rights. Meanwhile many governments and non-governmental actors have actively pursued varieties of 'strategic demography', deploying fertility, mortality, or migration as instruments of domestic or international policy. Political scientists and demographers could and should use their knowledge and analytic techniques to improve understanding and to moderate excessive claims and fears on these topics.

  5. Political transition of Albania 1985-1991

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Brunilda Duriçi

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Political transition of Albania is a phenomenon that started since the death of Enver Hoxha, the dictator of communist regime in Albania. After the death of Enver Hoxha on 11 April 1985, Ramiz Alia was appointed as his successor, who for 40 years had been at Enver Hoxha’s side as his most trusted man. He succeeded Hoxha for nearly 6 years believing that he would maintain the communist system. Ramiz Alia came on duty as the head of the Albanian state when the economic situation was very precarious. Political and economic legacy led by Hoxha was almost miserable. The country had the severest political system throughout the communist bloc. In a political point of view, the country’s new leader was elected precisely to continue the political legacy of former leader Hoxha. Ramiz Alia was forced to take immediate measures to change the degraded situation. He undertook several reforms to improve the situation in the country. Among other things, Alia expressed the equality of Albanian citizens, freedoms and human rights. Events were passing each other, marking a great historical importance. Among other things, Alia approved the political pluralism giving way to significant social changes. Echoes of these events and the positive developments in the country do not remain outside the attention of internationals. The arrival of political pluralism and the establishment of Democratic Party, the first opposition party in the country and other political entities exposed the European dream of Albanians. Massive movements in the form of protests and rallies, aimed at overturning the communist regime in the country Main objective of this paper is the analysis of the Political transition of Albania 1985-1991.

  6. The Politics of EPSDT Policy in the 1990s: Policy Entrepreneurs, Political Streams, and Children's Health Benefits

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sardell, Alice; Johnson, Kay

    1998-01-01

    The Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) program, which was designed to ensure that Medicaid-eligible children receive comprehensive health services, is the only national attempt to provide a right to these services. The political factors that have shaped national EPSDT policy during the past decade are described, based on a conceptual framework developed by John W. Kingdon. The analysis focuses on the roles of two distinct sets of policy entrepreneurs: child health advocates and fiscally conservative governors. Their activities are described in relation to the larger political environment, or “political stream,” from the period of the expansion of Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women and children in the late 1980s to the enactment of a new State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 1997. The relative saliency of eligibility and benefit issues in children’s health policies had a major influence on the politics and outcomes. PMID:9614420

  7. "What's Positive about Positive Rights?" Students' Everyday Understandings and the Challenges of Teaching Political Science

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ekström, Linda; Lundholm, Cecilia

    2018-01-01

    A review of research into teaching and learning in political science education concludes that this literature emphasizes student outcomes and "show and tell" descriptions of pedagogical interventions (Craig 2014). The present study instead aims to open the "black box" of conceptual learning in political science, illustrating…

  8. Nationalism, territory and extremism in party politics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bourne, Angela

    In the paper I address the empirical puzzle arising from different responses by political authorities in Spain and the UK to the existence of political parties integrated in the terrorist groups Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, Basque Homeland and Freedom) and the Irish Republican Army. More specifica......In the paper I address the empirical puzzle arising from different responses by political authorities in Spain and the UK to the existence of political parties integrated in the terrorist groups Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, Basque Homeland and Freedom) and the Irish Republican Army. More...... for realization of free speech rights and representation is also emphasized, and where proscription is seen as inimical to resolution of conflict underpinning violence. In the context of party competition, a winning coalition is required for one discourse to predominate. However, I also argued that both ideas...

  9. Openness as a predictor of political orientation and conventional and unconventional political activism in Western and Eastern Europe.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roets, Arne; Cornelis, Ilse; Van Hiel, Alain

    2014-01-01

    This study provides a comprehensive investigation of the relationship between Openness and political orientation and activism in Europe. Analyses were conducted on the 4 waves of the European Social Survey, including large representative samples in up to 26 European countries (total N > 175,000). In line with previous studies, a robust, positive relationship between Openness and left-wing political orientation was obtained in Western Europe. However, in Eastern Europe, the relationship between Openness and political orientation was weaker, and reversed in 3 out of 4 waves. Moreover, Openness yielded significant positive relationships with unconventional activism and to a lesser degree with conventional activism. The magnitude of the relationship between Openness and activism was dependent on political orientation and region. Stronger associations between Openness and activism were found for those having a left-wing orientation in Western Europe, whereas in Eastern Europe, Openness was somewhat stronger related to activism for those having a right-wing orientation. In the discussion we elaborate on the role of the geopolitical context in the relationship between Openness and political variables.

  10. Human Rights Law for Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific: The Need for a Disability Rights Tribunal

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perlin, Michael L.

    2013-01-01

    Human rights are arguably the most significant political force shaping the life experience of people with disability. The "United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities" sets the standard at an international level, creating both positive and negative rights, and calls upon member states of the United Nations (UN)…

  11. Islam, religiosity, and immigrant political action in Western Europe.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Just, Aida; Sandovici, Maria Elena; Listhaug, Ola

    2014-01-01

    The issues of migration and immigrant political integration in western democracies have become increasingly intertwined with debates on religion, particularly Islam. To date, however, we have surprisingly little systematic research on how religious beliefs are related to immigrants' political engagement. In this study, we argue that religion has a capacity to mobilize immigrants politically but the strength of this relationship depends on immigrant generation, religiosity, and the type of religion. Using survey data collected as part of the European Social Survey (ESS) 2002-2010 in 18 West European democracies, our analyses reveal that religion is indeed linked to political engagement of immigrants in a complex way: while belonging to a religion is generally associated with less political participation, exposure to religious institutions appears to have the opposite effect. Moreover, we find that, compared to foreign-born Muslims, second-generation Muslim immigrants are not only more religious and more politically dissatisfied with their host countries, but also that religiosity is more strongly linked to their political engagement. This relationship, however, is limited to uninstitutionalized political action. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  12. “Some of the Best Movement People Are Political Ecologists at Heart”: An Interview About Political Ecology With Nancy Peluso

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Melanie Pichler

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Nancy Peluso pioneered political ecology research in Southeast Asia with her book on Rich Forest, Poor People (1992 that untangles peasant resistance and state control in Indonesian forest politics. Since then, the professor of political ecology at UC Berkeley, California, has done extensive ethnographic research on the effects of social difference (ethnic identity, class, gender on resource access and control, dealing with forests, land, mining, and water conflicts in Indonesia and Malaysia. Her recent work investigates the relationships between migration and environmental change. Melanie Pichler spoke with her during the International Conference of the European Network of Political Ecology (ENTITLE from 20 to 24 March in Stockholm where she delivered a keynote lecture on the unexpected impacts of women’s migration on the environment in a forest village in East Java. During the interview, Nancy reflected on current trends in political ecology research, the potential pitfalls of indigenous peoples’ rights, the contradictory role of NGOs in socio-ecological conflicts, and the potential of political ecology research beyond academia.

  13. Human Rights in Sino-American Relations

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Day, Jana

    2002-01-01

    .... Key among these has been human rights, which both countries view differently. Whereas the United States emphasizes individual civil and political liberties, the People's Republic of China (PRC...

  14. The Political Psychology of European Integration

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Manners, Ian James

    2015-01-01

    express for the EU and fellow Europeans, and the passion with which supporters of the EU argue for greater integration and enlargement are today central to understanding European integration. Being mindful of Europe - reflecting on the ways in which psychology and politics are deeply implicated in under......In an era of European crises over political legitimacy, economic austerity, and collapse of confidence in the EU the topic of European integration has be-come a very emotional subject. The anger which protestors demonstrate against economic austerity, the hate which nationalist far-right parties...

  15. Getting Multiculturalism Right: Deontology and the Concern for Neutrality

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Johnson Matthew

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available In recent years, the notion of pluralism or, as it is often termed, “multiculturalism,” has been subject to critique by a range of public figures on the right of the political spectrum, such as David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Donald Trump. While “multiculturalism” is presented as being antithetical to the traditions of Western societies, it is, in fact, grounded in the same liberal tradition of individual rights as that invoked by those on the right. This article aims to outline the intellectual tradition of deontological or rights-based pluralism, demonstrating that it is an inherent part of the liberal political tradition upon which modern liberal democracies are formed. By tracing ideas derived from John Locke and Immanuel Kant and developed in the modern world by Will Kymlicka, John Rawls and Chandran Kukathas, this article seeks to enable those beyond the discipline of political philosophy to understand the ways in which rejecting pluralism means rejecting core commitments to equality, neutrality, respect and fairness.

  16. Rents in property rights creation and implementation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Žarković Jelena

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available The institution of property rights is increasingly being recognized as an essential building block of an economically prosperous society. The question that remains unanswered however, is how do we develop effective property rights institutions? The literature dealing with the development of property rights tends to be, in general, overly optimistic since there is a tendency to view the design of property rights institutions as optimizing decisions to economize on transaction costs and to facilitate new economic activities. On the other hand, since property rights define the distribution of wealth and political power in a society changes in property rights structures are likely to be influenced by more than pure efficiency considerations. Therefore, in order to achieve a balanced analysis of the evolution of property rights institutions our article introduces the state in the whole process. Following the propositions of the interest group theory of government we show an important relationship between rent seeking and state involvement in property rights creation. The state with a coercive power to establish and enforce property rights can also use that power, through the process of economic regulation, to redistribute property rights to politically influential interest groups. Herein lies the state failure in property rights creation.

  17. The Ebola Virus and Human Rights Concerns in Africa

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    AJRH Managing Editor

    2015-09-03

    Sep 3, 2015 ... Keywords: Ebola, Public Health, human right. Résumé ... Mots clé : Ebola, de santé publique, droit humain. Introduction ... public health and human rights. This article .... Political Rights (ICCPR)21 and the International.

  18. Discrimination, policies, and sexual rights in Brazil

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sergio Carrara

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available This article focuses on a politics arena that has been articulated through the impact of ideals of sexual rights on Brazilian sexual politics, namely the affirmation of "LGBT rights". These rights have been constructed both through attempts to extend civil and social rights to the LGBT population that were previously restricted to heterosexuals, and by the enactment of provisions directly banning homophobic discrimination and violence. The focus will be on some of the principal social actors in this process, especially those situated in the three branches of government, since the most decisive clashes are now being waged at this level. Without intending to offer an exhaustive description of what has occurred in the Brazilian courts, Congress, and Administration, we point to the complexity of a situation which shows numerous innovations and breaks in its different dimensions, while simultaneously revealing contradictions, gaps, and ambiguities.

  19. Women, Gender, and Politics in Morocco

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Moha Ennaji

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available This article analyzes the intersection of gender, women’s activism, and political participation in Morocco in a socio-political approach. The emergence of women’s activism is an answer to the gender-based discrimination in the country. Women’s non-government organizations (NGOs struggle for women’s rights and participate actively in the feminization and democratization of the public sphere to ensure sustainable development. They create progressive social change through the mobilization and participation of women. The role of women’s NGO’s (liberal and Islamic alike in the struggle against gender inequalities is remarkable in regard of their efforts to consolidate democracy and social justice and to challenge traditional thinking and inequitable, oppressive, undemocratic, sexist practices of governance. Despite the different approaches, they act together to achieve women’s rights in a variety of places.

  20. Political Economies Come Home: On the Political Economies of Housing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Alexander, Catherine; Bruun, Maja Hojer; Koch, Insa

    2018-01-01

    The concept of moral economies of housing centres and links the Introduction and contributions to the Special issue. A number of themes emerge. First, a variety of moral communities exist, sometimes rivalrous, sometimes internally riven, sometimes with expectations of reciprocal obligations. We...... obligations at multiple levels. Second, several actors appear, or are invoked as authorities to be appealed or performed to for satisfaction of rights, from state bodies and individuals to banks, third sector and collective organisations and social movements. Third there is often lack of clarity over how...... to assert rights or engage with authorities. Two final characteristics are the loss of a perceived moral right to a secure home and a sense of betrayal. In some places, housing conflicts lead to protests and resistance as people perform this sense that political and economic elites have violated or reneged...

  1. Managing Political Information: A Malaysian Perspective

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jamilah Ahmad

    2010-07-01

    Full Text Available In the development of democratization and the expression of civil and political rights of Malaysian citizens, the pattern of control developed by the regime that is currently in power (Barisan Nasional for the last 50 years in the mass media began to reap the resistance and tend to be ineffective. Malaysian citizens began to demand the Malaysian government to change the pattern of political information management. In addition, the mass media alone is expected to play a more significant role as an intermediary agent in supporting the process of transparency and accountability of government policy. This article shows that the openness of public information is a prerequisite for political democracy in Malaysia to help the government minimize the mis-management of governance policies, especially in finance and resource management.

  2. Cultural Capital. On the Right to Cultural Identity

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Maris, C.

    2012-01-01

    According to article 1 of the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966, All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. This

  3. Syndemic vulnerability and the right to health.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Willen, Sarah S; Knipper, Michael; Abadía-Barrero, César E; Davidovitch, Nadav

    2017-03-04

    Investigators working both in syndemics, a field of applied health research with roots in medical anthropology, and in the field of health and human rights recognise that upstream social, political, and structural determinants contribute more to health inequities than do biological factors or personal choices. Syndemics investigates synergistic, often deleterious interactions among comorbid health conditions, especially under circumstances of structural and political adversity. Health and human rights research draws on international law to argue that all people deserve access not only to health care, but also to the underlying determinants of good health. Taking the urgent matter of migrant health as an empirical focus, we juxtapose the fields of syndemics and health and human rights, identify their complementarities, and advocate for a combined approach. By melding insights from these fields, the combined syndemics/health and human rights approach advanced here can provide clinicians and other key stakeholders with concrete insights, tools, and strategies to tackle the health inequities that affect migrants and other vulnerable groups by: (1) mapping the effect of social, political, and structural determinants on health; (2) identifying opportunities for upstream intervention; and (3) working collaboratively to tackle the structures, institutions, and processes that cause and exacerbate health inequities. Undergirding this approach is an egalitarian interpretation of the right to health that differs from narrow legalistic and individual interpretations by insisting that all people are equal in worth and, as a result, equally deserving of protection from syndemic vulnerability. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Positive rights, negative rights and health care.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bradley, Andrew

    2010-12-01

    In the current debate about healthcare reform in the USA, advocates for government-ensured universal coverage assume that health care is a right. Although this position is politically popular, it is sometimes challenged by a restricted view of rights popular with libertarians and individualists. The restricted view of rights only accepts 'negative' rights as legitimate rights. Negative rights, the argument goes, place no obligations on you to provide goods to other people and thus respect your right to keep the fruits of your labour. A classic enumeration of negative rights includes life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Positive rights, by contrast, obligate you either to provide goods to others, or pay taxes that are used for redistributive purposes. Health care falls into the category of positive rights since its provision by the government requires taxation and therefore redistribution. Therefore, the libertarian or individualist might argue that health care cannot be a true right. This paper rejects the distinction between positive and negative rights. In fact, the protection of both positive and negative rights can place obligations on others. Furthermore, because of its role in helping protect equality of opportunity, health care can be tied to the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There is, therefore, good reason to believe that health care is a human right and that universal access should be guaranteed. The practical application, by governments and non-governmental organisations, of several of the arguments presented in this paper is also discussed.

  5. The Persistence of Gender Differences in Political Interest

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    TÀNIA VERGE MESTRE

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available This article explores the role of individual resources, situational factors, and the socialization process in the persistence of a gender gap in political dispositions, principally in political interest. We pay special attention to situational factors, especially those related to the time devoted to housework and caring responsibilities. Despite the growing participation of women in the labor market and increasingly comparable levels of male and female educational attainment, the enduring unequal sexual division of household tasks reduces women?s time availability as well as the pool of skills, resources and social networks which could foster their political engagement, thus helping to sustain the gender gap in political interest.

  6. Immanent Politics, Participatory Democracy, and the Pursuit of Eudaimonia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Geoffrey Allan Plauché

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available This paper builds on the burgeoning tradition of Aristotelian liberalism. It identifies and critiques a fundamental inequality inherent in the nature of the state and, in particular, the liberal representative-democratic state: namely, an institutionalized inequality in authority. The analysis draws on and synthesizes disparate philosophical and political traditions: Aristotle’s virtue ethics and politics, Locke’s natural rights and idea of equality in authority in the state of nature (sans state of nature, the New Left’s conception of participatory democracy (particularly as described in a number of under-utilized essays by Murray Rothbard and Don Lavoie, and philosophical anarchism. The deleterious consequences of this fundamental institutionalized inequality are explored, including on social justice and economic progress, on individual autonomy, on direct and meaningful civic and political participation, and the creation and maintenance of other artificial inequalities as well as the exacerbation of natural inequalities (economic and others. In the process, the paper briefly sketches a neo-Aristotelian theory of virtue ethics and natural individual rights, for which the principle of equal and total liberty for all is of fundamental political importance. And, finally, a non-statist conception of politics is developed, with politics defined as discourse and deliberation between equals (in authority in joint pursuit of eudaimonia (flourishing, well-being.[Note: The following font file may be useful for viewing the Greek characters in the Word file above: SPIONIC_.TTF.

  7. Claims of Need in Property Law and Politics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Cockburn, Patrick Joseph

    2016-01-01

    between the claims of the needy and the rights of property owners. Against this backdrop this article compares three theoretical accounts of how the fact of human need should impact upon our thinking about property rights: the rights-based arguments of Jeremy Waldron, the radical democratic theory...... of Lawrence Hamilton, and the anarchist commentary of Colin Ward. While ‘theories’ of need have paid much attention to the nature of need ‘itself’, the paper argues that this comparison reveals another issue that is just as important: where and how should claims of need be registered in legal and political......Both courts of law and political theorists have grappled with the problem of giving the concept of ‘need’ a place in our reasoning about the rights and wrongs of property regimes. But in the UK, legal changes in the last 15 years have eroded the legal possibilities for striking some compromise...

  8. Citizenship Education as a Panacea for Political Stability in Nigeria

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Nneka Umera-Okeke

    inevitably generate conflicts that engender political instability in the political system of the country. In order to restore ... voting and paying taxes and also the benefits or entitlements that they have right to demand from the government ... public affairs, human conflict and its resolution and the sources and exercise of power”.

  9. Processes of Political Influence In the Field of Heath and Sexual and Reproductive Rights

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana Cristina González Velez

    2000-01-01

    Full Text Available This essay explores a particular farm of understanding the political influence exercised by women's groups. Especially in the field of sexual and reproductive health, based on their advocacy experiences aimed at impacting the national and international agendas. If presents different definitions of advocacy and relates them to political concept, proposing a definition that covers several forms of influence in the public world. The author argues that advocacy leads to the exercise of citizenship and empowerment and suggests it must be based on a long-term strategic focus with concrete objectives and targets. Four types of elements are said to be essential to advocacy: tools; abilities; circumstances and maps. The latter is considered a core issue for advocacy, and therefore the text outlines a map of the various players and resources in the health sector in Colombia. Lastly, strategies for carrying out advocacy are presented with warnings about its risks and dangers.

  10. The Current Attack on Women's Rights: A Political-Economic Perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kress, June

    The right-wing attack on women's rights in the United States manifests itself in the regulation of reproductive rights, the family, and the workplace and corresponds to the changing needs of capital in an era of social and economic crises. Against this background, anti-abortion legislation, the Family Protection Act, and discrimination in the…

  11. Political freedom and the response to economic incentives: labor migration in Africa, 1972-1987.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barkley, A P; Mcmillan, J

    1994-12-01

    This study examines the thesis that political institutions and the freedoms and civil rights generated by these institutions affect migration decisions. The hypothesis is based on one stated by Adam Smith in 1776, that economic conditions that reflect greater political freedoms and civil liberties harbor higher levels of resource mobility in response to economic incentives. Pooled cross-sectional and time-series analysis is based on data from the World Bank for 32 African countries during 1972-87. Findings support the hypothesis that migration rate is more affected by the expected returns ratio to labor in countries where civil liberties are greater than in nations with fewer civil liberties. The implication, from the inclusion of institutional factors in the model, is that civil liberties have an indirect impact on the rate of labor migration out of agriculture in Africa. The impact is a mix of economic incentives and civil liberties. In the political rights model, the most free countries had the largest migration elasticity. The findings on political rights impacts support findings by Friedman and McMillan that civil liberties are a more important determinant of economic growth than political rights. Further testing for measurement error confirmed that the data were flawed, but not so greatly that the basic findings were overturned. The migration out of African agriculture was found to be sensitive to the effect of price signals, which were conditioned by the degree of political rights and civil liberties. Policy makers are urged to consider both changes in pricing and institutions.

  12. Economic and social rights in the Constitution of Serbia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rapajić Milan M.

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available The work is an attempt of the author to, in a relatively systematic way, presents the norms of Economic and Social Rights in the Constitution of Serbia from 2006. Before that, in the introduction the author refers to the commonplace with regard to human rights and their institutionalization, constitutionalization and internationalization. The process of institutionalization of human rights was started in England by adoption of the Great Charter of Freedoms (Magna Carta Libertatum in 1215. Constitutionalization of human rights begins with the adoption of the first ten amendments to the US Constitution in 1791. French writers of the Constitution unlike the American in Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen proclaimed certain new rights such as freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, the right to free expression of thought, right to petition or freedom of culture. At first human rights were an asset to limit state power, but with new theories by which the state can not be seen only as a political organization, but as a community that has a socio-economic content, the state must guarantee to the citizens a certain corpus of economic and social rights by Constitution. Economic, social and cultural rights are classified as second generation of rights. Economic and social rights are directed to the fact that individuals are brought to the position that they can enjoy their civil and political rights. These rights, known as social welfare, are rights based on the principles of equality and solidarity, and their purpose is, inter alia, to help to the socially vulnerable members of the community. Constitutional act, which is important for the world the constitutional recognition of these rights is the Weimar Constitution from 1919. which predicted legislative measures to implement these rights. For the internationalization of these rights very important is Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948 and the International Covenant on

  13. Presentation of political Alliances in the Romanian audiovisual media

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Flaviu Calin RUS

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available This material wishes to highlight the way in which the main political alliances have been formed in Romania in the last 20 years, as well as the way they have been reflected in the media. Moreover, we have tried to analyze the involvement of journalists and political analysts in explaining these political events. The study will focus on four political alliances, namely: CDR (the Romanian Democratic Convention, D.A. (Y.E.S. - Justice and Truth between PNL – the National Liberal Party and PD - the Democratic Party, ACD (the Centre-Right Alliance between PNL and PC – the Conservative Party and USL (the Social-Liberal Union between PSD – the Social Democrat Party, PNL and PC.

  14. Collective rights in a modernizing North - on institutionalizing Sámi and local rights to land and water in northern Norway

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Sandberg, Audun

    2008-01-01

    The struggle by indigenous groups to have their rights acknowledged does not only take place through the action arenas of national political and constitutional processes, but also through active work through international bodies. Thus indigenous rights will often become arguments for

  15. Indian politics encourages durgas, snubs women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kishwar, M

    1999-01-01

    This article talks about four Indian women--Sonia Gandhi, Jayalitha, Mayawati, and Mamta Banerjee--in contrast with India's stereotypes in the political realm. India is a land of mind-boggling diversity. Yet stereotypes about India, which reduce the Indian reality to a unidimensional monolith, hold powerful sway. One such powerful stereotype is that Indian women are brutally oppressed, denied a voice in their family and community, and marginalized in politics as in other power structures. Without doubt, there is much truth in this stereotype; but how can the current political scene be explained? A few women are holding the entire political establishment of India at ransom. The machinations of Sonia Gandhi, Jayalalitha, Mayawati, and Mamta Banerjee have caused enormous upheavals in the polity and recently brought about the fall of the BJP government. Powerful politicians dance to the erratic tunes of these women and are shamefully submissive to them.

  16. Social class, politics, and the spirit level: why income inequality remains unexplained and unsolved.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Muntaner, Caries; Rai, Nanky; Ng, Edwin; Chung, Haejoo

    2012-01-01

    Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's latest book, The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Best for Everyone, has caught the attention of academics and policymakers and stimulated debate across the left-right political spectrum. Interest in income inequality has remained unabated since the publication of Wilkinson's previous volume, Unhealthy Societies: The Afflictions of Inequality. While both books detail the negative health effects of income inequality, The Spirit Level expands the scope of its argument to also include social issues. The book, however, deals extensively with the explanation of how income inequality affects individual health. Little attention is given to political and economic explanations on how income inequality is generated in the first place. The volume ends with political solutions that carefully avoid state interventions such as limiting the private sector's role in the production of goods and services (e.g., non-profit sector, employee-ownership schemes). Although well-intentioned, these alternatives are insufficient to significantly reduce the health inequalities generated by contemporary capitalism in wealthy countries, let alone around the world.

  17. Retrospective of the human rights situation in Croatia through legislation and judicial practice, with emphasis on minority rights

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lončar Semina

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available Since the establishment of new states of former Yugoslavia, the Republic of Croatia led discriminatory legislative and judicial policies towards minorities, politically 'unsuitable' and families of mixed ethnic structure, with the aim of creating ethnically pure Croatian. For this purpose, brought a series of racist and discriminatory laws, some of which had a retroactive effect and apply, all to existing state: deportation of over 350,000 citizens, the confiscation of over 30,000 apartments, the suspension of payments of pensions over 33,000 users, mining and destruction of over 78,000 residential and farm buildings in private ownership, and other damages... caused solely due to ethnicity - legalized. In addition to the illegal seizure of property, are members of minority status and the laws reduced civil rights, and which further worsened their position in Croatia. The legislative policy is followed synchromesh and jurisprudence, so that damaged and disenfranchised people are not even legal way was able to obtain their material status and rights were before the war, as well as Croatian citizens, and had made in Croatia. Unfortunately, the institutions of the European Court of Human Rights, which many believed, proved a failure, because it is generally rejected all claims for refund compensation or restoration - not believing that the Croatian courts violate any law, or that the damage caused prior to November 1997th, ie, until the signing of the Convention, Croatia is not responsible. Since Croatian independence until today, discrimination against minorities (mostly by Serbian, although under pressure from the international community an improved law - in practice, remained present in almost all spheres of life. In addition to Serbian, has problems and the Albanian minority, which Croatia is denied issuance of work permits, and thus the right to stay, and deportation orders from the economic crisis, the structure of human rights extended to all

  18. Politically Active Home Economists: Their Socialization to Politics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ley, Connie J.

    1980-01-01

    A nationwide study identified a pattern of political socialization for home economists who were politically active. The most outstanding feature of the politically active subjects was their perception that political activity is a professional role. (SK)

  19. The diffusion of constitutional rights

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Goderis, B.V.G.; Versteeg, M.

    Constitutions are commonly regarded as uniquely national products, shaped by domestic ideals and politics. This paper develops and empirically investigates a novel hypothesis, which is that constitutions are also shaped by transnational influence, or “diffusion.” Constitutional rights can diffuse

  20. The Greatest Right of Them All: The Debate on the Right to Petition in the Netherlands from the Dutch Republic to the Kingdom (c. 1750-1830).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oddens, Joris

    2017-10-01

    Between 1750 and 1830 the Dutch state developed from an oligarchic republic into an enlightened autocratic monarchy via a brief experiment with representative democracy. During this period, there was an ongoing debate about the right to petition. Political actors and opinion-makers addressed the questions to what and to whom this right extended, and what it meant to have such a right. While theorists of the different types of government had sharply contrasting views on the place of the people in the political process, ideas about petitioning, which throughout the period under discussion remained the principal instrument for popular involvement in politics, stayed remarkably stable. Through an investigation of the debate on the right to petition in the crucial transitional phase from the Dutch Republic to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, this article contributes to bridging the divide between petition research of the early modern period and that of the modern era.

  1. The right of self-determination and multiparty democracy: two sides of the same coin?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vidmar, J.

    2010-01-01

    This article is concerned with the relationship between the right of self-determination and the political system of multiparty democracy. It considers whether international law supports the view that operation of the right of self-determination requires a multiparty political system. It also

  2. Awakening to the politics of food: Politicized diet as social identity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chuck, Chelsea; Fernandes, Samantha A; Hyers, Lauri L

    2016-12-01

    In this qualitative study, the process of developing a politicized identity around diet was explored through a social psychological lens. Applying one of the most influencial models of group identity development proposed by Cross (1978) in which an "encounter" experience spurs an awakening into a politicized identity, we asked 36 participants who followed alternative diets due to political reasons to describe their unique encounter experiences that brought them to their politicized awakening. Their self-identified diets included pescetarian, vegetarian, vegan, raw, non-GMO/organic, and reduced meat consumption. Participants described the rationale for their diets, their "encounter" or awakening to their politicized diets, and whether they viewed their diet as a part of their identity. Using thematic analysis, we identified four key types of encounters that sparked their politicization: a series of integrated events, exposure to educational materials, a direct visceral emotional experience, and guidance from a role model. We discuss the results with regard to the politics of food, the nature of the politicized dieter's identity as part of a minority food culture, and the difficulties of engaging in political action through one's diet. The underexplored benefits of applying social psychological theories of identity to research on dietary subcultures is also discussed. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. The Cultural Politics of Language in Sudan: Against the Racialising Logic of Language Rights

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abdelhay, Ashraf; Eljak, Nada; Mugaddam, AbdelRahim; Makoni, Sinfree

    2017-01-01

    The sociolinguistic repertoires of individuals in Sudan are products of institutionalised orders of normalisation. The visibility of language in popular and official discourses in Sudan is always linked with wider cultural and political projects. This paper intends to engage with and explicate this observation by, first, examining how the dominant…

  4. The Effect of Direct Democratic Participation on Citizens’ Political Attitudes in Switzerland: The Difference between Availability and Use

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna Kern

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available According to advocates of direct democracy, it is important to involve citizens more directly in political decision-making processes in order to create a democratic linkage between citizens and the political system. Indeed, some studies have demonstrated that citizens who live in direct democracies have higher levels of trust in political institutions and a higher sense of political efficacy. However, not all empirical evidence confirms this relationship. In a recent article on Switzerland, it was shown that, while the availability of direct democratic rights enhances trust in political institutions, using those rights actually initiates distrust. In this paper I expand the analysis of Bauer and Fatke (2014 and test whether the different effects of availability of direct democratic rights and the frequency of their use also hold for broader measures of trust in political institutions and political efficacy. I find that, even though an increased use of direct democratic measures is associated with lower levels of confidence in authorities on the cantonal level, this relationship is no longer apparent when applying a more comprehensive measurement of trust in political institutions.

  5. [What hinders the political participation of women?].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramirez, S

    1994-06-01

    Forty years after gaining the right to vote, Colombian women comprise scarcely 8% of persons recently elected to the Colombian Congress. At the municipal and departmental level, women occupy even fewer of the positions. Explanations of women's marginal political participation in terms of stereotypes such as their presumed disinterest or emotionalism reflect androcentric prejudices. Their lack of preparation and social conditioning is also a suspect argument, given that there are no objective forms of measuring preparation for political office, such as examinations or specific requirements. Centers for women's studies have sought explanation in terms of aspects of the social and political organization of society that impede access by women to positions of power. Laws assuring women their political rights have not been sufficient to allow them to participate under equal conditions. The assignment of responsibility for domestic labor exclusively to women is a powerful handicap to their full participation. Moreover, public life has become a costly career in terms of resources, time, and energy. The problem is not that women do not participate in politics, but that they are underrepresented in the centers of power. They comprise half of voters and the majority of members of community and civic associations dealing with problems of everyday life. But the number of women declines as the scale of power increases. Feminists suggest that the problem will not be solved by women assuming the behavior patterns of men. Rather, the governmental and civil elites must overcome norms and practices that perpetuate the subordination of women. Women achieving positions of power should maintain a gender perspective and assist in transforming conditions.

  6. Godfatherism in the Politics of Nigeria: An Exposé | Ishaku ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    There is a new political phenomenon that is becoming a thing of concern to all and sundry; this emergent phenomenon is the concept of “godfatherism.” It is an ideology which deprives the people of their fundamental human rights of not benefiting from the dividends of democracy. This practice is rapidly converting politics ...

  7. Learning through Doing: Suggesting a Deliberative Approach to Children's Political Participation and Citizenship

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bentley, Kristina

    2011-01-01

    The paper focuses on the issue of children's political participation and considers the idea of political participation understood as a human right. Contingently it considers the question of children as agents or potential political actors, as well as the assumed limitations of their role. The paper begins by offering an outline of how children's…

  8. Strategic political postures and political market orientation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ormrod, Robert P.; Henneberg, Stephan C.

    2010-01-01

    by developing an integrated concept of political marketing strategy using two complementary frameworks, namely Strategic Political Postures (SPP) and Political Market Orientation (PMO). We introduce the two main concepts and derive for each of the strategic posture-specific PMO profiles as well as inter......Recently, the areas of strategic political marketing and political market orientation have been the subject of several conceptual articles which have provided the theoretical foundations for further empirical work. However, despite the close conceptual relatedness of the proposed concepts......, these have yet to be integrated to provide a more nuanced framework which both researchers and political marketing practitioners can utilise in the development of strategies and offerings with which to achieve their organizational goals. The aim of this conceptual paper is to address this deficit...

  9. Human Rights and the Political Economy of Universal Health Care

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-01-01

    Abstract Health system financing is a critical factor in securing universal health care and achieving equity in access and payment. The human rights framework offers valuable guidance for designing a financing strategy that meets these goals. This article presents a rights-based approach to health care financing developed by the human right to health care movement in the United States. Grounded in a human rights analysis of private, market-based health insurance, advocates make the case for public financing through progressive taxation. Financing mechanisms are measured against the twin goals of guaranteeing access to care and advancing economic equity. The added focus on the redistributive potential of health care financing recasts health reform as an economic policy intervention that can help fulfill broader economic and social rights obligations. Based on a review of recent universal health care reform efforts in the state of Vermont, this article reports on a rights-based public financing plan and model, which includes a new business tax directed against wage disparities. The modeling results suggest that a health system financed through equitable taxation could produce significant redistributive effects, thus increasing economic equity while generating sufficient funds to provide comprehensive health care as a universal public good. PMID:28559677

  10. The Political Economy of Recent Economic Growth in India

    OpenAIRE

    Raghbendra Jha

    2004-01-01

    The political economy of India’s economic growth is an issue of abiding interest. Higher and sustained economic growth has, all over the world, been the surest and most time tested means of raising living standards and reducing poverty. Further, given that it is a functioning democracy, economic policy in India can often be dictated by political expediency as political parties indulge in competitive populism in the face of improvements in social indicators such as literacy, infant mortality a...

  11. AIDS and human rights.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tarantola, D; Mann, J

    1995-01-01

    HIV/AIDS is a health problem that is inseparable from individual and collective behavior and social forces, particularly linked with societal respect for human rights and dignity. In its second decade, the HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to thrive. Where organized communities have access to adequate information, education, and services, the incidence of infection has begun to decline. Elsewhere, HIV continues to reach new populations and new geographic areas. Lessons learned in more than a decade of prevention work point to new directions for expanding national responses, at a time when the UNAIDS program, to be launched in January 1996, offers opportunities for innovative, broad-based, coordinated, and expanded global action. Prevention activities have shown that the spread of HIV can be effectively reduced. Public health interventions, including providing information and applying prevention methods, reduce the probability of infection, the risk of transmission, and the chances of not accessing appropriate care or support once infection has set in. These are proximal interventions that yield the short-term benefits of the decline of incidence and improved quality and duration of life for those infected. Societal vulnerability translates today into the focus the pandemic has on individuals, communities, and nations that are disadvantaged, marginalized, or discriminated against for reasons of gender, age, race, sexual orientation, economic status, or cultural, religious, or political affiliation. A fully expanded response to HIV/AIDS requires a combination of risk-reduction (proximal) and contextual interventions--those directed at reducing vulnerability through social change to enable people to exert control over their own health. Contextual actions can be implemented in the short term (changing laws, policies, practices that discriminate, promoting human rights, developing the most vulnerable communities) and in the long term (cultural changes, gender equality in

  12. Exploring Women's Understanding of Politics, Political Contestation ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    Exploring Women's Understanding of Politics, Political Contestation and Gender ... First, researchers will explore women's political leadership and the extent to ... Sign up now for IDRC news and views sent directly to your inbox each month.

  13. Political symbols and political transitions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Herrero de Miñón, Miguel

    2006-11-01

    Full Text Available Politics, Law and Psychology are fields that come together in the symbolic. This text takes evidence from those three areas to develop an analysis of political symbols and political transitions. The development of the analysis goes through three stages. The first succinctly describes the concept of transition and its meaning. The second closely examines the notion of the symbol, in terms of its definition, to explain aspects that allow us to understand it, characterise it and make its functions clear. Finally, from the author's experience as a witness and as an actor, I suggest three ways of understanding symbols in the processes of political transition: as symbols of change, as symbols of acknowledgment, and as symbols of support.

  14. The treatment of sex offenders: evidence, ethics, and human rights.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Birgden, Astrid; Cucolo, Heather

    2011-09-01

    Public policy is necessarily a political process with the law and order issue high on the political agenda. Consequently, working with sex offenders is fraught with legal and ethical minefields, including the mandate that community protection automatically outweighs offender rights. In addressing community protection, contemporary sex offender treatment is based on management rather than rehabilitation. We argue that treatment-as-management violates offender rights because it is ineffective and unethical. The suggested alternative is to deliver treatment-as-rehabilitation underpinned by international human rights law and universal professional ethics. An effective and ethical community-offender balance is more likely when sex offenders are treated with respect and dignity that, as human beings, they have a right to claim.

  15. Political Education as a Means of Political Socialization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grabe, Weronika; Knobelsdorf, Wodzimierz

    1980-01-01

    This essay describes the dimensions of political socialization with systematic political education as a major component. Both promote individual acceptance of political norms--particularly where government and school systems are tightly linked. The authors argue that political socialization should promote effective citizenship rather than simply…

  16. Political gender inequality and infant mortality in the United States, 1990-2012.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Homan, Patricia

    2017-06-01

    Although gender inequality has been recognized as a crucial factor influencing population health in the developing world, research has not yet thoroughly documented the role it may play in shaping U.S. infant mortality rates (IMRs). This study uses administrative data with fixed-effects and random-effects models to (1) investigate the relationship between political gender inequality in state legislatures and state infant mortality rates in the United States from 1990 to 2012, and (2) project the population level costs associated with women's underrepresentation in 2012. Results indicate that higher percentages of women in state legislatures are associated with reduced IMRs, both between states and within-states over time. According to model predictions, if women were at parity with men in state legislatures, the expected number of infant deaths in the U.S. in 2012 would have been lower by approximately 14.6% (3,478 infant deaths). These findings underscore the importance of women's political representation for population health. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. FENOMENA, FEMINISME DAN POLITICAL SELF SELECTION BAGI PEREMPUAN

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nurwani Idris - -

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Democracy needs all participation people in the country, women and men.  The political right for women, as we know was feminism hard and long time struggled, therefore now the women have the high quality live in politic, the economic and social.  All the country in the world have ratificated the PBB of law for political freedom for women as the same as men. Especially in Indonesia now there’s no formal barriers for women leadership, if they select to participate in politics but it was the phenomenon for the women among self selection in politics, the freedom to be participating and children, husband, housing, that still stronger; from which one barrier “self selection” or “culture and religion” responsibility where significantly. Minangkabau women, forward analysis we can aim self selection or children, husband and family responsibility.  It is indisputable that the women’s awareness and struggle in the politics are debt to the feminists’ endless efforts. The feminists have fostered the women to empower themselves by which they reach equal position compared with their counterparts, in nearly all aspects of the social life.   Keywords:  phenomenon, feminism, and political self selection.

  18. The Functions of Selected Human Rights Institutions and Related Role-Players in the Protection of Human Rights in Zimbabwe

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Howard Chitimira

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Various violations of the human rights of ordinary people and human rights defenders have been reported in Zimbabwe since the late 1980s. It is widely acknowledged that such violations have been perpetrated mostly by the government through its different organs for political and other related reasons. Human rights violations were also easily committed against ordinary people and human rights defenders because there was no Constitution that adequately protected such people's fundamental human rights (including their civil and political rights and their socio-economic rights in Zimbabwe. Given this background, the article discusses the protection of human rights in Zimbabwe, in the light of the Zimbabwe Constitution Amendment Act 20 of 2013 (Zimbabwe Constitution 2013. This is done in order to investigate whether the promotion, protection, enforcement and respect for human rights in Zimbabwe has now improved. To this end, the functions of selected national human rights institutions and other related role-players, namely civil society, the judiciary, the law enforcement organs and the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, are briefly discussed first. Secondly, the functions of selected regional and international institutions, namely the Southern African Development Community, the African Union and the United Nations are discussed in relation to the protection of human rights in Zimbabwe. Thereafter, concluding remarks and possible recommendations that could be utilised to combat human rights violations and enhance the protection of human rights in Zimbabwe are provided.

  19. Politics Backstage - Television Documentaries, Politics and Politicians

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ib Bondebjerg

    2006-09-01

    Full Text Available This article deals with "the transformation of visibility" in political discourse on and representation of politics and politicians in resent Dansih television documentaries. Drawing on the theories of Habermas, Meyrowitz and John B. Thompson, it is argued that the political persona on television is moved closer to the individual citizen, creating a sort "mediated quasi-inter- action" giving mediated communication a stronger element of face-to-face interaction. Together with the more pervasive "live" coverage of politics and politicians, this expands media coverage to both the backstage of political processes and the private and personal backstage of politicians, changing the form of democracy and public debate.

  20. African Hrts Regime on the Rights of Minorities

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Beza_D

    accounting for more than half of the total population size of a given state. Many of ... As Appiagyei-Atua rightly notes, the policy of divide and rule by the colonial .... political decision making process, which govern the protection of its rights.34.

  1. 75 FR 31505 - Bureau of Political-Military Affairs: Directorate of Defense Trade Controls; Notifications to the...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-06-03

    ... Netherlands, Thailand, Chile, and Malaysia for the manufacture and sale of the Goalkeeper Gun Mount. The... political, military, economic, human rights, and arms control considerations. More detailed information is... the export of these items having taken into account political, military, economic, human rights, and...

  2. Globalization, human rights, and the social determinants of health.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chapman, Audrey R

    2009-02-01

    Globalization, a process characterized by the growing interdependence of the world's people, impacts health systems and the social determinants of health in ways that are detrimental to health equity. In a world in which there are few countervailing normative and policy approaches to the dominant neoliberal regime underpinning globalization, the human rights paradigm constitutes a widely shared foundation for challenging globalization's effects. The substantive rights enumerated in human rights instruments include the right to the highest attainable level of physical and mental health and others that are relevant to the determinants of health. The rights stipulated in these documents impose extensive legal obligations on states that have ratified these documents and confer health entitlements on their residents. Human rights norms have also inspired civil society efforts to improve access to essential medicines and medical services, particularly for HIV/AIDS. Nevertheless, many factors reduce the potential counterweight human rights might exert, including and specifically the nature of the human rights approach, weak political commitments to promoting and protecting health rights on the part of some states and their lack of institutional and economic resources to do so. Global economic markets and the relative power of global economic institutions are also shrinking national policy space. This article reviews the potential contributions and limitations of human rights to achieving greater equity in shaping the social determinants of health.

  3. Business and Human Rights

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Buhmann, Karin

    2015-01-01

    This article analyses the United Nations (UN) Guidelines on Business and Human Rights adopted in 2011 by the UN Human Rights Council from the perspective of transnational business governance interactions (TBGI) analytical framework.1 The article identifies and discusses dimensions of interaction...... and components of regulatory governance which characterize the Guiding Principles, focusing in particular on rule formation and implementation. The article notes that the Guiding Principles actively enrolled other actors for the rule-making process, ensuring support in a politically and legally volatile field...

  4. Rethinking Some Cultural Practices that Affect the Rights of Women ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Human Rights have been identified as encompassing and embracing the rights of all humans which are entitled to. These rights, amongst others, include civil and political rights such as the right to life and liberty, dignity, equality before the law and freedom of expression. Others are those of the right to work, the right to ...

  5. The Intersections of the CEDAW and CRPD: Putting Women's Rights and Disability Rights into Action in Four Asian Countries

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Alwis, Rangita de Silva

    2010-01-01

    This report examines a new model built on advancing an intersectional human rights platform of action. The four country project in the Asian region provided a powerful locus for an innovative human rights praxis which integrated a dialectical interaction between different social movements, analytical insights and concrete political strategies and…

  6. Human rights and political transition in South Africa: the case of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cristina Buarque de Hollanda

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available This article is dedicated to recounting the main initiative of Nelson Mandela’s government to manage the social resentment inherited from the segregationist regime. I conducted interviews with South African intellectuals committed to the theme of transitional justice and with key personalities who played a critical role in this process. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is presented as the primary institutional mechanism envisioned for the delicate exercise of redefining social relations inherited from the apartheid regime in South Africa. Its founders declared grandiose political intentions to the detriment of localized more palpable objectives. Thus, there was a marked disparity between the ambitious mandate and the political discourse about the commission, and its actual achievements.

  7. Political diversity will improve social psychological science.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duarte, José L; Crawford, Jarret T; Stern, Charlotta; Haidt, Jonathan; Jussim, Lee; Tetlock, Philip E

    2015-01-01

    Psychologists have demonstrated the value of diversity--particularly diversity of viewpoints--for enhancing creativity, discovery, and problem solving. But one key type of viewpoint diversity is lacking in academic psychology in general and social psychology in particular: political diversity. This article reviews the available evidence and finds support for four claims: (1) Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years. (2) This lack of political diversity can undermine the validity of social psychological science via mechanisms such as the embedding of liberal values into research questions and methods, steering researchers away from important but politically unpalatable research topics, and producing conclusions that mischaracterize liberals and conservatives alike. (3) Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias mechanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority's thinking. (4) The underrepresentation of non-liberals in social psychology is most likely due to a combination of self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination. We close with recommendations for increasing political diversity in social psychology.

  8. The political use and abuse of the "pedophile".

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hunter, James

    2008-01-01

    The cognitive/affective construct designated by the term pedophile is delineated on the basis of how he is presented in the popular media. His salient characteristics are listed and then examined in the light of scientific and historical data. The pedophile is discovered to be a social construct that floats in the thin air of fantasy. Since the truth-value of the construct pedophile approaches zero, we are confronted with the question of why he continues to be such a central and emotionally fraught aspect of American culture. The answer to this question is found in his political usefulness. Specifically, the religious right uses him to further its agenda of sexual repression, and the political right uses him to dismantle the machinery of a free society.

  9. Gentrification and Occupancy Rights

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Huber, Jakob; Wolkenstein, Fabio

    2018-01-01

    What, if anything, is wrong with gentrification? This paper addresses this question from the perspective of normative political theory. We argue that gentrification is a wrong insofar as it involves a violation of city-dwellers occupancy rights. We distinguish these rights from other forms...... of territorial rights, and discuss the different implications of the argument for urban governance. If we agree on the ultimate importance of being able to pursue one’s located life-plans, the argument goes, we must also agree on limiting the impact on gentrification on people’s lives. Limiting gentrification’s...... impact, however, does not entail halting processes of gentrification once and for all....

  10. Pulmonary arterial hypertension reduces energy efficiency of right, but not left, rat ventricular trabeculae.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pham, Toan; Nisbet, Linley; Taberner, Andrew; Loiselle, Denis; Han, June-Chiew

    2018-04-01

    Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) triggers right ventricle (RV) hypertrophy and left ventricle (LV) atrophy, which progressively leads to heart failure. We designed experiments under conditions mimicking those encountered by the heart in vivo that allowed us to investigate whether consequent structural and functional remodelling of the ventricles affects their respective energy efficiencies. We found that peak work output was lower in RV trabeculae from PAH rats due to reduced extent and velocity of shortening. However, their suprabasal enthalpy was unaffected due to increased activation heat, resulting in reduced suprabasal efficiency. There was no effect of PAH on LV suprabasal efficiency. We conclude that the mechanism underlying the reduced energy efficiency of hypertrophied RV tissues is attributable to the increased energy cost of Ca 2+ cycling, whereas atrophied LV tissues still maintain normal mechano-energetic performance. Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) greatly increases the afterload on the right ventricle (RV), triggering RV hypertrophy, which progressively leads to RV failure. In contrast, the disease reduces the passive filling pressure of the left ventricle (LV), resulting in LV atrophy. We investigated whether these distinct structural and functional consequences to the ventricles affect their respective energy efficiencies. We studied trabeculae isolated from both ventricles of Wistar rats with monocrotaline-induced PAH and their respective Control groups. Trabeculae were mounted in a calorimeter at 37°C. While contracting at 5 Hz, they were subjected to stress-length work-loops over a wide range of afterloads. They were subsequently required to undergo a series of isometric contractions at various muscle lengths. In both protocols, stress production, length change and suprabasal heat output were simultaneously measured. We found that RV trabeculae from PAH rats generated higher activation heat, but developed normal active stress. Their

  11. South Africa and the Korean War, the politics of involvement | Van ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    South Africa and the Korean War, the politics of involvement. ... Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies ... The Union of South Africa's military involvement in the Korean War was an exercise in political maneuvering as opposed to one of any great military significance.1 South Africa's new right wing ...

  12. Sovereignty transformed: a sociology of human rights.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levy, Daniel; Sznaider, Natan

    2006-12-01

    This paper examines how global interdependencies and the consolidation of a human rights discourse are transforming national sovereignty. Social researchers frequently address the supremacy of state sovereignty and the absoluteness of human rights as mutually exclusive categories. However, rather than presupposing that a universal rights discourse is necessarily leading to the demise of sovereignty, we suggest that an increasingly de-nationalized conception of legitimacy is contributing to a reconfiguration of sovereignty itself. Through the analytic prism of historical memories - which refers to shared understandings specific pasts carry for present concerns of a political community - we provide an explanatory factor for the salience of human rights norms as a globally available repertoire of legitimate claim making. While states retain most of their sovereign functions, their legitimacy is no longer exclusively conditioned by a contract with the nation, but also by their adherence to a set of nation-transcending human rights ideals. Legitimacy is mediated by how willing states are to engage with 'judicial memories' of human rights abuses and their articulation in cosmopolitan legal frames. Empirically, we focus on war crime trials and how legal inscriptions of memories of human rights abuses are recasting the jurisdiction of International Law. The readiness of states to engage with rights abuses is becoming politically and culturally consequential, as adherence to global human rights norms confers legitimacy.

  13. Political determinants of progress in the MDGs in Sub-Saharan Africa

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Atti, Emma; Gulis, Gabriel

    2017-01-01

    suggest a significant main effect of eco-political and geo-political groups on some of the health variables. Political conflict as measured by FSI and political participation as measured by CLS were stronger predictors of slow progress in reducing under-five mortality rates and maternal mortality ratios......Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) lagged furthest behind in achieving targets for the millennium development goals (MDG). We investigate the hypothesis that its slow progress is influenced by political factors. Longitudinal data on three health MDG indicators: under-five mortality, maternal mortality....... Our findings highlight the need for further research on political determinants of mortality in SSA. Cohesive effort should focus on strengthening countries' political, economic and social capacities in order to achieve sustainable goals beyond 2015....

  14. URBAN POLITICS: KEY APPROACHES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ledyaeva Ol'ga Mikhaylovna

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available Several approaches that underlie urban politics are discussed in the paper. They include neo-liberalism, political economy discourse, elitist/pluralist debates, and postmodernism. The neoliberal approach focuses on the limited role of the state and individual responsibility. The legal framework protects both the rights and responsibilities of individuals and regulates the operation of the market. It is the market that fosters individual choices and provides goods and services by virtue of the processes which are flexible, efficient and transparent. The political economy approaches (regulation theory, public choice theory, neo-Marxism explain urban politics via the analysis of national and international economic processes and changes in contemporary capitalism. Changes in national and international economies determine what solutions are possible. The discourse has been influenced by the debate on globalization of capital and labour markets. Modern elitism and neopluralism are represented by theories of "growth machines" and "urban regimes". The former focuses on bargaining alliances between political and business leaders in order to manage the urban system and to promote its growth. The latter develops neopluralist explanations of power within local communities with an emphasis on the fragmented nature of the government where local authorities lack comprehensive governing powers. Postmodernism views the city as the site of the crisis of late capitalism which leads to segregation of neighbourhoods onto prosperous areas and ghettoes. In contrast to the modern city, the postmodern city is not defined by its industrial base; rather, it is determined by its consumerist environment of malls and museums, characterized by revivalist architecture. At the same time, the suburban shopping mall and a motorway network make nonsense of the idea of the city as a unique and well-defined space. These and other approaches encompass a wide spectrum of possibilities

  15. Political Diversity in Social and Personality Psychology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Inbar, Yoel; Lammers, Joris

    2012-09-01

    A lack of political diversity in psychology is said to lead to a number of pernicious outcomes, including biased research and active discrimination against conservatives. We surveyed a large number (combined N = 800) of social and personality psychologists and discovered several interesting facts. First, although only 6% described themselves as conservative "overall," there was more diversity of political opinion on economic issues and foreign policy. Second, respondents significantly underestimated the proportion of conservatives among their colleagues. Third, conservatives fear negative consequences of revealing their political beliefs to their colleagues. Finally, they are right to do so: In decisions ranging from paper reviews to hiring, many social and personality psychologists said that they would discriminate against openly conservative colleagues. The more liberal respondents were, the more they said they would discriminate. © The Author(s) 2012.

  16. Reproductive Rights: A Political, Professional, and Personal Issue.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Business and Professional Women's Foundation, Washington, DC.

    Reproductive rights are essential to a woman's full participation in the workplace. Procreative decisions are private ones, and once the door is open to government restrictions it will be hard to close. Prior to 1850, abortion was legal in most states. Not until the professionalization of the medical field did physicians and others seek to…

  17. From left to right: Processing acronyms referring to names of political parties activates spatial associations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Elk, M. van; Schie, H.T. van; Bekkering, H.

    2010-01-01

    In line with previous studies, showing that abstract concepts like opowero or ogodo implicitly activate spatial associations, in the present study we hypothesized that spatial associations are coactivated during the processing of acronyms referring to names of political parties as well. In four

  18. Political Science and Political Geography: Neglected Areas, Areas for Development.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laponce, J. A.

    1983-01-01

    Since at least the 1950s, political scientists have tended to ignore the possible contributions of political geography to political science because of a move away from considering spatial factors on political structure. Political scientists need to use more information from geography to enhance their understanding of political power and conflict.…

  19. What Inverted U Can Do for Your Country: A Curvilinear Relationship Between Confidence in the Social System and Political Engagement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cichocka, Aleksandra; Górska, Paulina; Jost, John T; Sutton, Robbie M; Bilewicz, Michał

    2017-08-24

    We examined the link between political engagement and the tendency to justify the sociopolitical system. On one hand, confidence in the system should be negatively related to political engagement, insofar as it entails reduced desire for social change; on the other hand, system confidence should also be positively related to political engagement to the extent that it carries an assumption that the system is responsive to citizens' political efforts. Because of the combination of these 2 opposing forces, the motivation for political engagement should be highest at intermediate levels of system confidence. Five studies revealed a negative quadratic relationship between system confidence and normative political engagement. In 2 representative surveys, Polish participants with moderate levels of system confidence were more likely to vote in political elections (Study 1) and to participate in solidarity-based collective action (Study 2). Two field studies demonstrated a negative quadratic relationship between system confidence and actual participation in political demonstrations (gender equality and teachers' protests in Poland; Studies 3 and 4). This pattern of results was further corroborated by analyses of data from 50 countries drawn from the World Value Survey: we observed negative quadratic relationships between system confidence and collective action as well as voting. These relationships were stronger in democratic (vs. nondemocratic) regimes (Study 5). Our results suggest that some degree of system confidence might be useful to stimulate political engagement within the norms of the system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  20. Democracy, Citizenship and Youth: Towards Social and Political ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    2009-10-12

    Oct 12, 2009 ... Democracy, Citizenship and Youth: Towards Social and Political ... the successful media-relations strategy, and the rewarding partnerships ... Birth registration is the basis for advancing gender equality and children's rights.

  1. Political Socialization, Tolerance, and Sexual Identity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Avery, Patricia G.

    2002-01-01

    Key concepts in political socialization, tolerance, groups, rights and responsibilities can be used to understand the way in which young people struggle with sexual identity issues. Educators may promote greater tolerance for homosexuality among heterosexuals by situating sexual identity issues within a broader discussion of democratic principles.…

  2. Public service and politics in contemporary Ukraine: the stages of search for the model of interaction and delimitation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    O. O. Ratsyk

    2014-02-01

    The author concludes that three main approaches were formed and fixed in the political and legal documents: de­politicization, political neutrality and political impartiality. For the first time the principle of de­politicization was mentioned in official documents from the beginning of the modern independent Ukrainian state. It means the prohibition for political parties to create its offices in government bodies and organizations. The principle of political neutrality was mentioned in «The Conception of Administrative Reform in Ukraine» (1996.  It means the need to restrict some political rights and freedoms for civil servants, that interfere perform their professional duties. The principle of political impartiality mentioned in official documents in 2000. It means the need to restrict, above all, the right to freedom of speech and information for civil servants.

  3. Greenland and the international politics of a changing arctic

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Greenland and the International Politics of a Changing Arctic examines the international politics of semi-independent Greenland in a changing and increasingly globalised Arctic. Without sovereign statehood, but with increased geopolitical importance, independent foreign policy ambitions......, and a solidified self-image as a trailblazer for Arctic indigenous peoples’ rights, Greenland is making its mark on the Arctic and is in turn affected – and empowered – by Arctic developments. The chapters in this collection analyse how a distinct Greenlandic foreign policy identity shapes political ends and means...... for regional change in the Arctic. This is the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary examination of Greenland’s international relations and how they are connected to wider Arctic politics. It will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in Arctic governance and security, international...

  4. Politics and population health: Testing the impact of electoral democracy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Patterson, Andrew C; Veenstra, Gerry

    2016-07-01

    This study addresses questions of whether and why electoral democracies have better health than other nations. After devising a replicable approach to missing data, we compare political, economic, and health-related data for 168 nations collected annually from 1960 through 2010. Regression models estimate that electoral democracies have 11 years of longer life expectancy on average and 62.5% lower rates of infant mortality. The association with life expectancy reduces markedly after controlling for GDP, while a combination of factors may explain the democratic advantage in infant health. Results suggest that income inequality associates independently with both health outcomes but does not mediate their associations with democracy. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Applying human rights to improve access to reproductive health services.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shaw, Dorothy; Cook, Rebecca J

    2012-10-01

    Universal access to reproductive health is a target of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5B, and along with MDG 5A to reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters, progress is currently too slow for most countries to achieve these targets by 2015. Critical to success are increased and sustainable numbers of skilled healthcare workers and financing of essential medicines by governments, who have made political commitments in United Nations forums to renew their efforts to reduce maternal mortality. National essential medicine lists are not reflective of medicines available free or at cost in facilities or in the community. The WHO Essential Medicines List indicates medicines required for maternal and newborn health including the full range of contraceptives and emergency contraception, but there is no consistent monitoring of implementation of national lists through procurement and supply even for basic essential drugs. Health advocates are using human rights mechanisms to ensure governments honor their legal commitments to ensure access to services essential for reproductive health. Maternal mortality is recognized as a human rights violation by the United Nations and constitutional and human rights are being used, and could be used more effectively, to improve maternity services and to ensure access to drugs essential for reproductive health. Copyright © 2012 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. Transformative combinations: women's health and human rights.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yamin, A E

    1997-01-01

    From the human rights perspective proposed in this article, a woman's good or ill health reflects more than biology or individual behaviors; it reflects her enjoyment (or lack thereof) of fundamental human rights that enable her to exercise basic power over the course and quality of her life. The "structural" view of health that such a human rights perspective suggests is concerned first with identifying the effects of social, economic, and political relations on women's health and then with promoting "interventions" aimed at transforming the laws, institutions, and structures that deny women's rights and well-being. Yet, traditional human rights law and practice have been limited to narrowly defined abuses by public officials against individuals that fail to capture the most pervasive denials of women's rights, which, though rooted in systematic discrimination, are frequently played out in so-called "private" institutions, primarily within the family. The experiences of women's health advocates in addressing complex women's health issues makes it clear that women's lack of access to economic and political power in the public sphere creates the conditions under which they are discriminated against and physically and sexually abused in the private sphere. Combining the pragmatic understanding of women's health professionals with an expansive conception of human rights norms has the potential to transform the fields of women's health and human rights.

  7. European welfare regimes: Political orientations versus poverty

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Josifidis Kosta

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available This inquiry analyzes how political orientations shape welfare states and labour market institutions when seeking to reduce poverty. In order to identify effects of these two key variables, we conduct a panel regression analysis that includes two poverty measures: poverty rates before and after social spending. This inquiry considers 14 EU countries, and in the period from 1995 to 2008, which are grouped according to welfare state regimes. We consider Social Democratic, Corporatist, Mediterranean and Liberal welfare state regimes. Panel regression results indicate that political orientation engenders no significant statistically measurable effects on poverty rates before social spending. Effects register, however, as significant when considering poverty rates after social spending. With respect to the first set of results, we advance two key explanations. First, we note a longer period of time is necessary in order to observe actual effects of political orientation on market generated poverty. Second, political parties with their respective programs do not register as influential enough to solve social problems related to income distribution when taken alone. Influences register as indirect and are expressed through changes in employment rates and social spending. The second set of results support the hypothesis that a selected political regime does indeed contribute to poverty reduction. In sum, political orientation and political regime does indeed affect poverty through welfare state institutions, as well as through labour market institutions.

  8. "Is political behavior a viable coping strategy to perceived organizational politics? Unveiling the underlying resource dynamics": Correction to Sun and Chen (2017).

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-10-01

    Reports an error in "Is Political Behavior a Viable Coping Strategy to Perceived Organizational Politics? Unveiling the Underlying Resource Dynamics" by Shuhua Sun and Huaizhong Chen ( Journal of Applied Psychology , Advanced Online Publication, May 22, 2017, np). In the article, Table 1 contained a formatting error. Correlation coefficient values in the last four cells of column 6 were misplaced with correlation coefficient values in the last four cells of column 7. All versions of this article have been corrected. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2017-22542-001.) We conduct a theory-driven empirical investigation on whether political behavior, as a coping strategy to perceived organizational politics, creates resource trade-offs in moderating the relationship between perceived organizational politics and task performance. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we hypothesize that political behavior mitigates the adverse effect of perceived organizational politics on task performance via psychological empowerment, yet exacerbates its adverse effect on task performance via emotional exhaustion. Three-wave multisource data from a sample of 222 employees and their 75 supervisors were collected for hypothesis testing. Findings supported our hypotheses. Our study enhances understandings of the complex resource dynamics of using political behavior to cope with perceived organizational politics and highlights the need to move stress-coping research from a focus on the stress-buffering effect of coping on outcomes to a focus on the underlying competing resource dynamics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  9. Diversity of resource use and property rights in Tam Giang Lagoon, Vietnam

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ta Thi Thanh Huong

    2011-02-01

    Full Text Available Since the early 1990s, aquaculture has become the most important livelihood activity in Tam Giang Lagoon, Vietnam. The aquaculture boom has reduced the available water area for mobile gear fishers, polarized different user-groups, created resource conflicts, and increased pressures on the lagoon systems. Aquaculture in the lagoon is governed by both customary and legal rights. The objective of this paper is to explore the diversity of resource use and the complexity of property rights in one of the villages located in the lagoon. The paper emphasizes the linkages between changes in commons institutions and changes in resource use and property rights. First, the political and socio-economic changes in Vietnam are examined as well as how they have influenced traditional commons institutions and lagoon resource management in the village. Second, the linkages between common institutions and the diversity of property rights are analyzed. Particular attention is given to the analysis of different types of resource use associated with "bundle of rights" and the diversity of property rights regimes in the village.

  10. THE BASIC OBJECTIVES OF DEMECRACY  AND FUNDAMENTAL INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS  FOR THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

    OpenAIRE

    ILGAZ , Dr.Nesrin DEMİR  Assist.Prof.Dr.Deniz

    2007-01-01

    The basic objectives of democracy, as they take place openly in the definition of the concept and are lead primarily by freedom and equality, are listed as political representation, political participation and rights. The first important document created in the international arena concerning human rights is the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, an instrument of the United Nations. A regional agreement which has great significance is the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental...

  11. Implementation of School Uniform Policy and the Violation of Students’ Human Rights in Schools

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vimbi Petrus Mahlangu

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available The paper highlights the violations of students’ human rights in schools. The problem is the incident that took place at a school in Pretoria in 2016 where Black girls protested against the School’s Code of Conduct relating to hairstyle. Qualitative approach was used to collect information through a literature review and desk-top research methods. Black girls claimed they were discriminated against and the protest serves as an example to demonstrate students’ human rights violations when schools implement school uniform policies. Inequality in schools is rife in South Africa. School uniform policies with regard to dress codes are expected to reduce school violence, prevent discipline issues, and improve in school safety. Students have rights and their rights can include issues regarding cultural, economic, and political freedoms. Students, especially adolescents, respond very negatively to school uniforms.

  12. Equal rights as the center of democratization

    OpenAIRE

    Alan Gilbert

    2010-01-01

    Well-stated modern political or democratic theory is rights-based. Meaningful democracy rests as a precondition on the equal rights of citizens. This idea stems from Rousseau’s distinction between a general will*one which is impersonal and tends toward equality, that is, the equal basic rights of citizens*and a transitory will of all. For instance, absent equal basic rights, one might imagine a possible world in which what I have called a self-undermining series of wills of all, or the ...

  13. A judicial review of political questions under Islamic law

    OpenAIRE

    Abdulfatai O. Sambo; Hunud Abia Kadouf

    2014-01-01

    The contemporary Arab world has witnessed uprisings and turmoil as a result of alleged power-overreaching by political elites. Consequently, people call for democracy with emphasis on constitutionalism, accountability and protection of human rights. Yet, the voice of the judiciary seems not to be heard in championing these values in many Muslim nations despite the clear roles Islam places on the judiciary regarding political matters. This paper therefore analyses the power of judicial review ...

  14. The dark side of online activism: Swedish right-wing extremist video activism on YouTube

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mattias Ekman

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available In recent years, an emerging body of work, centred on specific communicative forms used in facilitating collective and connective action, have contributed to greater understanding of how digital communication relates to social mobilisation. Plenty of these studies highlight the progressive potentiality of digital communication. However, undemocratic actors also utilise the rapid advancement in digital technology. This article explores the online video activism of extreme right-wing groups in Sweden. It analyses more than 200 clips on YouTube, produced by five right-wing extremist organisations. The study shows that the extreme right deploy video activism as a strategy of visibility to mobilise and strengthen activists. Moreover, the groups attempt to alter the perception of (historically-rooted socio-political identities of the extreme right. Furthermore, YouTube becomes a political arena in which action repertoires and street politics are adapted to the specific characteristics of online video activism. Finally, video activism could be understood as an aestheticisation of politics.

  15. The dark side of online activism: Swedish right-wing extremist video activism on YouTube

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mattias Ekman

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available In recent years, an emerging body of work, centred on specific communicative forms used in facilitating collective and connective action, have contributed to greater understanding of how digital communication relates to social mobilisation. Plenty of these studies highlight the progressive potentiality of digital communication. However, undemocratic actors also utilise the rapid advancement in digital technology. This article explores the online video activism of extreme right-wing groups in Sweden. It analyses more than 200 clips on YouTube, produced by five right-wing extremist organisations. The study shows that the extreme right deploy video activism as a strategy of visibility to mobilise and strengthen activists. Moreover, the groups attempt to alter the perception of (historically-rooted socio-political identities of the extreme right. Furthermore, YouTube becomes a political arena in which action repertoires and street politics are adapted to the specific characteristics of online video activism. Finally, video activism could be understood as an aestheticisation of politics.

  16. Is the political animal politically ignorant? Applying evolutionary psychology to the study of political attitudes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Petersen, Michael Bang; Aarøe, Lene

    2012-12-20

    As evidenced by research in evolutionary psychology, humans have evolved sophisticated psychological mechanisms tailored to solve enduring adaptive problems of social life. Many of these social problems are political in nature and relate to the distribution of costs and benefits within and between groups. In that sense, evolutionary psychology suggests that humans are, by nature, political animals. By implication, a straightforward application of evolutionary psychology to the study of public opinion seems to entail that modern individuals find politics intrinsically interesting. Yet, as documented by more than fifty years of research in political science, people lack knowledge of basic features of the political process and the ability to form consistent political attitudes. By reviewing and integrating research in evolutionary psychology and public opinion, we describe (1) why modern mass politics often fail to activate evolved mechanisms and (2) the conditions in which these mechanisms are in fact triggered.

  17. Political culture of civil society within synergetic paradigm context

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    I. Z. Derzhko

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Political culture relates to the development and improvement of human abilities for social life within a community and creates conditions for the realization of these abilities. Typically, it is a state or a particular cultural region within the state. Despite the fact that the political culture of a society cannot and should not be subject to a management, it should be regulated and coordinated through a policy - national, which must be state policy. This paradoxical situation requires the use of specific management approaches. There is some configuration management knowledge, training or life, to work effectively, it is necessary to act at the right time and in the right place. Synergetic paradigm creates a methodological basis for a rather broad and full use of all the cultural, regional and individual diversity. Such use may be appropriate and successful implementa­tion provided competent management and, above all, self, which in turn requires a developed political culture in both the public and the private sector. It is important to understand that social system like any complex system, with not one single and multiple alternative paths of evolution. It should be clearly aware of the existence of different trends of evolution, the ambiguity of the transition to the future. Future states of complex social systems do not just open and predict­able, there are range of possible forms of the future, the field of possible ways forward. Value under the tran­sitional regime elements authoritarian and democratic organization of society is one of the most controversial issues. Between these two forms of political domination exists a close relationship than it may seem at first glance. To determine the influence of civil society in the process of becoming a democratic political regime and democratic political culture, it is necessary to outline the main characteristics of this concept. Without dwelling on the analysis of understanding of civil

  18. Defining Political Marketing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ormrod, Robert P.

    ’ and ‘narrow’ interpretations of political marketing, the nature of the political marketing exchange, political relationship marketing and how one can integrate the stakeholder concept into an understanding of political marketing. Finally, we propose a definition of political marketing that differs from......The aim of this working paper is to develop a definition of political marketing that builds on the political rather than commercial marketing literature. This aim is motivated by the need to make explicit our understanding of what political marketing is, a necessary exercise when discussing theory......, concepts and empirical methods in political marketing. We first present five existing definitions of political marketing that have been selected to represent advances in research from the origins of academic research into political marketing in the mid-1970’s to the present day. After this we discuss ‘wide...

  19. Alteration of political belief by non- invasive brain stimulation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Caroline eChawke

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available People generally have imperfect introspective access to the mechanisms underlying their political beliefs, yet can confidently communicate the reasoning that goes into their decision making process. An innate desire for certainty and security in ones beliefs may play an important and somewhat automatic role in motivating the maintenance or rejection of partisan support. The aim of the current study was to clarify the role of the DLPFC in the alteration of political beliefs. Recent neuroimaging studies have focused on the association between the DLPFC (a region involved in the regulation of cognitive conflict and error feedback processing and reduced affiliation with opposing political candidates. As such, this study used a method of non- invasive brain simulation (tRNS to enhance activity of the bilateral DLPFC during the incorporation of political campaign information. These findings indicate a crucial role for this region in political belief formation. However, enhanced activation of DLPFC does not necessarily result in the specific rejection of political beliefs. In contrast to the hypothesis the results appear to indicate a significant increase in conservative values regardless of participant’s initial political orientation and the political campaign advertisement they were exposed to.

  20. Alteration of Political Belief by Non-invasive Brain Stimulation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chawke, Caroline; Kanai, Ryota

    2016-01-01

    People generally have imperfect introspective access to the mechanisms underlying their political beliefs, yet can confidently communicate the reasoning that goes into their decision making process. An innate desire for certainty and security in ones beliefs may play an important and somewhat automatic role in motivating the maintenance or rejection of partisan support. The aim of the current study was to clarify the role of the DLPFC in the alteration of political beliefs. Recent neuroimaging studies have focused on the association between the DLPFC (a region involved in the regulation of cognitive conflict and error feedback processing) and reduced affiliation with opposing political candidates. As such, this study used a method of non-invasive brain simulation (tRNS) to enhance activity of the bilateral DLPFC during the incorporation of political campaign information. These findings indicate a crucial role for this region in political belief formation. However, enhanced activation of DLPFC does not necessarily result in the specific rejection of political beliefs. In contrast to the hypothesis the results appear to indicate a significant increase in conservative values regardless of participant's initial political orientation and the political campaign advertisement they were exposed to. PMID:26834603

  1. Venezuela: Political Conditions and U.S. Policy

    Science.gov (United States)

    2008-08-01

    constitution and unicameral legislature, and a new name for the country, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. U.S. officials and human rights...revamped political institutions, eliminating the Senate and establishing a unicameral National Assembly, and expanded the presidential term of office from

  2. New Zimbabwe Constitution and the Right to Health Campaign 2010

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    In September 2008 the three main political parties in Zimbabwe signed a Global Political Agreement (GPA), undertaking to engage in the development of a new democratic constitution of over the next 24 months. This project will feed into that process by promoting the inclusion of right to health in the new constitution.

  3. New Zimbabwe Constitution and the Right to Health Campaign 2010

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    New Zimbabwe Constitution and the Right to Health Campaign 2010. In September 2008 the three main political parties in Zimbabwe signed a Global Political Agreement (GPA), undertaking to engage in the development of a new democratic constitution of over the next 24 months. This project will feed into that process by ...

  4. Performing Politics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Troy R. E. Paddock

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Walter Benjamin’s observation that fascism turns politics into aesthetics is, by now, a well-worn idea. This article argues that Benjamin’s critique of politics can apply just as much to the modern democratic politics of the United States. Borrowing from Benjamin, Jürgen Habermas, and Carl Schmitt, this article suggests that modern political discourse in the United States does not follow the classical liberal ideal of rational discourse in the marketplace of ideas within the public sphere. Instead, contemporary politics has become spectacle where images and slogans replace thought and debate in a 24/7 news cycle and political infotainment programs. The result is that progressives and conservatives have their own political “ecospheres” which enable them to have their own perspective reinforced, and debate is replaced by straw man arguments and personal attacks.

  5. Politics as Culture: Contribution of Political Science to Democratic Maturity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ivan Padjen

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The article discusses the contribution of Croatian political science to the development of democracy in Croatia. The focus of the analysis is the concept of culture which author talks about in five steps. In the first step it is understood in the modern key, in the second step as different for nature and in the third as different from society. In the fourth step author differentiates political culture from political economy and political institutions, but in the fifth part there is an attempt to show culture as a fundamental part of politics, policy and polity. On the basis of these insights author shows that the matrix of Croatian political science is more and more devoted to scientific investigation of politics as culture as both study of political culture and as a source of development as politics as culture.

  6. Human Rights and Religion in the English Secondary RE Curriculum

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bowie, Robert

    2011-01-01

    The relationship between religion and human rights is an ambiguous and complex one, but there are academic, moral and political arguments for the inclusion of human rights in religious education (RE). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights advocates education in human rights and the English school curriculum aims to encourage a commitment to…

  7. Connected Activism: Indigenous Uses of Social Media for Shaping Political Change

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marisa Elena Duarte

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Prior studies describe digital tactics as specific strategies actors apply within broader repertoires of contention, specifically in social and political contexts. A comparison of EZLN, Idle No More, and the ongoing Rio Yaqui water rights movement reveals the kinds of community knowledge work that has to happen prior to and around activating digital tactics in Indigenous rights movements, including choices in messaging and discourses of Indigeneity, targeting of movement opponents, and selection of digital tools and techniques. Activists harness these communicative affordances to practice a politics of visibility, cultivate solidarity, diffuse an Indigenous consciousness, enforce dominant governments’ trust and treaty responsibilities, and remind many of the irrevocable injustice of colonialism. Designing methodologies that account for specific Indigenous social and political contexts as well as the affordances of various digital environments is part of the future work of Indigenous media theorists.

  8. Political psychology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stone, Susanna; Johnson, Kate M; Beall, Erica; Meindl, Peter; Smith, Benjamin; Graham, Jesse

    2014-07-01

    Political psychology is a dynamic field of research that offers a unique blend of approaches and methods in the social and cognitive sciences. Political psychologists explore the interactions between macrolevel political structures and microlevel factors such as decision-making processes, motivations, and perceptions. In this article, we provide a broad overview of the field, beginning with a brief history of political psychology research and a summary of the primary methodological approaches in the field. We then give a more detailed account of research on ideology and social justice, two topics experiencing a resurgence of interest in current political psychology. Finally, we cover research on political persuasion and voting behavior. By summarizing these major areas of political psychology research, we hope to highlight the wide variety of theoretical and methodological approaches of cognitive scientists working at the intersection of psychology and political science. WIREs Cogn Sci 2014, 5:373-385. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1293 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  9. Reproductive Rights or Reproductive Justice? Lessons from Argentina.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morgan, Lynn

    2015-06-11

    Argentine sexual and reproductive rights activists insist on using the language and framework of "human rights," even when many reproductive rights activists in the US and elsewhere now prefer the framework of "reproductive justice." Reflecting on conversations with Argentine feminist anthropologists, social scientists, and reproductive rights activists, this paper analyzes why the Argentine movement to legalize abortion relies on the contested concept of human rights. Its conclusion that "women's rights are human rights" is a powerful claim in post-dictatorship politics where abortion is not yet legal and the full scope of women's rights has yet to be included in the government's human rights agenda. Argentine feminist human rights activists have long been attentive to the ways that social class, gender, migration, and racism intersect with reproduction. Because their government respects and responds to a human rights framework, however, they have not felt it necessary--as U.S. feminists have--to invent a new notion of reproductive justice in order to be heard. Given the increasing popularity of reproductive justice in health and human rights, the Argentine case shows that rights-based claims can still be politically useful when a State values the concept of human rights. Copyright 2015 Morgan. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

  10. Philosophical foundations of human rights

    CERN Document Server

    Liao, Matthew S

    2015-01-01

    What makes something a human right? What is the relationship between the moral foundations of human rights and human rights law? What are the difficulties of appealing to human rights? This book offers the first comprehensive survey of current thinking on the philosophical foundations of human rights. Divided into four parts, this book focusses firstly on the moral grounds of human rights, for example in our dignity, agency, interests or needs. 'Secondly, it looks at the implications that different moral perspectives on human rights bear for human rights law and politics. Thirdly, it discusses specific and topical human rights including freedom of expression and religion, security, health and more controversial rights such as a human right to subsistence. The final part discusses nuanced critical and reformative views on human rights from feminist, Kantian and relativist perspectives among others. The essays represent new and canonical research by leading scholars in the field. Each part is comprised of a set...

  11. Politics, religion and gender equality in contemporary Mexico: women's sexuality and reproductive rights in a contested secular state.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Amuchástegui, Ana; Cruz, Guadalupe; Aldaz, Evelyn; Mejía, María Consuelo

    2010-01-01

    This article explores the complexities of the interaction between politics, religion and gender equality in contemporary Mexico, by analysing recent developments in public debate, legal changes and implementation of government policies in two areas: 1) the inclusion of emergency contraception in public health services in 2004; and 2) the decriminalisation of abortion in Mexico City in 2008, which was followed by a massive campaign to re-criminalise abortion in the federal states. Three main findings emerge from our analysis: first, that women's sexual and reproductive autonomy has become an issue of intense public debate that is being addressed by both state-public policy and society; second, that the gradual democratisation of the Mexican political system and society is forcing the Catholic Church to play by the rules of democracy; and third, that the character and nature of the Mexican (secular) state has become an arena of intense struggle within which traditional political boundaries and ideologies are being reconfigured.

  12. Political Values or the Value of Politics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Simoska, Emilija

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available This essay was motivated by the gap between proclaimed democratic principles and the perceptions of politics which are exhibited by the citizens in transitional countries -more specifically in the Republic of Macedonia. It is based on research data collected in the past few decades, which illustrate that, in their political actions, the citizens are highly motivated by personal benefits and profits, rather than by their internalized values and ideologies. Non-democratic, authoritarian values prevail, while politics is perceived as a value itself, in the most materialistic meaning of the word. It creates a suitable milieu for growth of corruption, nepotism and clientelism. The authors conclude that such a circulus vitsiosus is a corner stone of the Macedonian political regime, and an enormous obstacle for the advancement of the participative, democratic political culture in reality, in spite of its formal acceptance.

  13. Defining Political Extremism in the Balkans. The Case of Serbia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Babić Marko

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Political extremism (and particularly right wing political extremism remains relatively insufficiently explored due to the fact that the phenomenon is controversial and hard to define. Its ambiguity and variability depending on time and spatial point of view further complicates its definition. Its structure is amorphous and eclectic as it often includes elements from different ideologies and connects incompatible ideas. A multidimensional conceptualization and an interdisciplinary approach - sociological, social, psychological and historical, are the Author’s tools in explaining the phenomenon of political extremism in Serbia, hopefully contributing to its clarification and laying a foundation for its further explanatory theoretical studies.

  14. From Disability Rights to the Rights of the Dying (and Back Again

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Harold Braswell

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available This article argues for civil rights for dying people. The creation of such rights should be understood as complementary to, but distinct from, existing initiatives to provide dying people with social benefits. A basis for rights for terminally ill people can be found in the disability rights movement. Through an ethnographic case study of two dying individuals, I argue that terminally ill people can be subjected to disability discrimination as it is understood within the dominant theoretical framework of disability rights: the social model of disability. Nevertheless, while disability rights provides a theoretical basis for understanding discrimination against people who are dying, existing U.S. disability rights legislation largely does not recognize, nor address this discrimination. For this reason, it is necessary to develop a separate set of rights of the dying. I conclude by arguing that such “dying rights” are a logical extension of disability rights, and will bring ancillary benefits to both disabled people and the disability rights movement itself. There is thus a strong foundation for a legal and political alliance between disability rights advocates and advocates for people who are dying.

  15. Polarizing Political Participation Frames in a Nordic Gay Community

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jakob Svensson

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available This article is based on a research project studying political discussions in the Swedish LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-, Transsexual community Qruiser. These discussions were very antagonistic and rude. The aim is therefore to understand what motivated participation in these heated discussions. The focus is on Qruiser political forum threads. The research is nethnographic through online interviews, participant observations in, and content analyses of, political discussions threads during the month of November 2012. By using framing theory as an analytical tool, the paper seeks to answer which frames attracted and mobilized participation and how this was done. In the article I find that polarizing frames of the left vs the right, the xenophobic vs the political correct, together with a truth and a game frame was used to motivated participation in the Qruiser forum threads.

  16. A Political Philosophy Approach to Teaching American Politics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bailey, Kevin E.

    1982-01-01

    Suggests an alternative to the civic training, political indoctrination, and descriptive presentation approaches used to teaching American government courses. Recommends a political philosophy approach within a framework of elite theory to help students develop a critical perspective on American politics. (DMM)

  17. Grassroots responsiveness to human rights abuse: history of the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sanders, Laura; Martinez, Ramiro; Harner, Margaret; Harner, Melanie; Horner, Pilar; Delva, Jorge

    2013-04-01

    The purpose of this article is to discuss how a community agency based in Washtenaw County, the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigration Rights (WICIR), emerged in response to increasing punitive immigration practices and human rights abuses toward the Latino community. The article discusses how WICIR is engaged in advocacy, community education on immigration issues, and political action toward a more humane immigration reform. Detailed examples of human rights abuses and the WICIR activities described in response to the abuses serve as illustrations of social work advocacy, education, and policy formulation that affect the general public, policymakers, and law enforcement officials.

  18. Political “genotype” as a structural element of political culture

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    N. V. Karpova

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The article is devoted to the issue of genetic foundations of political culture in the context of the socio-political system changes. The author elaborates the concept of “political genotype” as a sustainable structural element of political culture that determines its content and the possibility of permissible variation. In this paper the main forms of existence of political genotype and its functions are also investigated; and “genetic” mechanism of political culture succession is explored.

  19. [Political psychology].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Resch, Mária; Bella, Tamás

    2013-04-21

    In Hungary one can mostly find references to the psychological processes of politics in the writings of publicists, public opinion pollsters, philosophers, social psychologists, and political analysts. It would be still important if not only legal scientists focusing on political institutions or sociologist-politologists concentrating on social structures could analyse the psychological aspects of political processes; but one could also do so through the application of the methods of political psychology. The authors review the history of political psychology, its position vis-à-vis other fields of science and the essential interfaces through which this field of science, which is still to be discovered in Hungary, connects to other social sciences. As far as its methodology comprising psycho-biographical analyses, questionnaire-based queries, cognitive mapping of interviews and statements are concerned, it is identical with the psychiatric tools of medical sciences. In the next part of this paper, the focus is shifted to the essence and contents of political psychology. Group dynamics properties, voters' attitudes, leaders' personalities and the behavioural patterns demonstrated by them in different political situations, authoritativeness, games, and charisma are all essential components of political psychology, which mostly analyses psychological-psychiatric processes and also involves medical sciences by relying on cognitive and behavioural sciences. This paper describes political psychology, which is basically part of social sciences, still, being an interdisciplinary science, has several ties to medical sciences through psychological and psychiatric aspects.

  20. The Pragmatics of Political Apology in Ghana's Contemporary Politics

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The paper discusses political apology in the 4th republic of Ghanaian contemporary politics from 2013 to 2015. It taps its data from apologetic speeches by political officials and from apologies rendered to politicians. The paper discusses the semantics and pragmatics of political apology. It examines the use of the language ...

  1. Mapuche Institutions in Chile: from sovereign rights to indigenous consultation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ronny Alejandro Leiva

    2014-07-01

    The conclusion argues that the Mapuche people, beyond responding to the intervention of external agents, should fully exercise their political rights in order to implement effective control over their own development. Because of this, identifying the institutions and actors that express the political determination of the Mapuche population locally emerges as an urgent task.

  2. The Political Agency of Victims in Atrocity Tales by Bartolomé de las Casas

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Simonsen, Karen-Margrethe

    2016-01-01

    de las Casas, who is very often regarded as a precursor of modern human rights. I will argue that this atrocity tale is split between ethical universalism and international politics and that the image of the ‘victims’, that is, the American Indians, shifts like in a puzzle picture. The victims...... are both helpless, universalized bodies that are slaughtered by the Spanish, and in this way expose what Judith Butler has called a ‘primary vulnerability’ (Butler ) and they are potential political agents: inhabitants of defined political communities in the New World who have the right to protest against...... publication of this book in 1598....

  3. Political News and Political Consciousness

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schertges, Claudia

    2007-01-01

    This article deals with mass media in modern democratic societies, using the example of Israeli news reports in German television (TV) news. Central to this interest are processes of mediating politics: political socialisation and education; that is to say, empowering citizens via TV news to participate in democratic processes. The article…

  4. The emergence, growth and decline of political priority for newborn survival in Bolivia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Stephanie L

    2014-12-01

    Bolivia is expected to achieve United Nations Millennium Development Goal Four, reducing under-five child mortality by two-thirds between 2021 and 2025. However, progress on child mortality reduction masks a disproportionately slow decline in newborn deaths during the 2000s. Bolivia's neonatal mortality problem emerged on the policy agenda in the mid-1990s and grew through 2004 in relationship to political commitments to international development goals and the support of a strong policy network. Network status declined later in the decade. This study draws upon a framework for analysing determinants of political priority for global health initiatives to understand the trajectory of newborn survival policy in Bolivia from the early 1990s. A process-tracing case study methodology is used, informed by interviews with 26 individuals with close knowledge of newborn survival policy in the country and extensive document analysis. The case of newborn survival in Bolivia highlights the significance of political commitments to international development goals, health policy network characteristics (cohesion, composition, status and key actor support) and political transitions and instability in shaping agenda status, especially decline-an understudied phenomenon considering the transitory nature of policy priorities. The study suggests that the sustainability of issue attention therefore become a focal point for health policy networks and analyses. Published by Oxford University Press in association with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine © The Author 2013; all rights reserved.

  5. Explaining the Swing to the Right : the Dutch Debate on the Rise of Right-wing Populism

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Oudenampsen, M.; Wodak, Ruth; Mral, Brigitte; Khosravinik, Mral

    2013-01-01

    In these last ten years the Netherlands has experienced a dramatic swing to the Right. Long considered the epitome of tolerance and liberalism, the country now finds itself at the forefront of the political revival of nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiments in Europe. The motor behind this

  6. Political risk and export promotion: evidence from Germany

    OpenAIRE

    Moser, Christoph; Nestmann, Thorsten; Wedow, Michael

    2006-01-01

    Political risk represents an important hidden transaction cost that reduces international trade. This paper investigates the claim that German public export credit guarantees (Hermes guarantees) mitigate this friction to trade flows and hence promote exports. We employ an empirical trade gravity model, where we explicitly control for political risk in the importing country in order to evaluate the effect of export guarantees. The idea behind export promotion through public export credit agenc...

  7. The political reference point: How geography shapes political identity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Feinberg, Matthew; Tullett, Alexa M; Mensch, Zachary; Hart, William; Gottlieb, Sara

    2017-01-01

    It is commonly assumed that how individuals identify on the political spectrum-whether liberal, conservative, or moderate-has a universal meaning when it comes to policy stances and voting behavior. But, does political identity mean the same thing from place to place? Using data collected from across the U.S. we find that even when people share the same political identity, those in "bluer" locations are more likely to support left-leaning policies and vote for Democratic candidates than those in "redder" locations. Because the meaning of political identity is inconsistent across locations, individuals who share the same political identity sometimes espouse opposing policy stances. Meanwhile, those with opposing identities sometimes endorse identical policy stances. Such findings suggest that researchers, campaigners, and pollsters must use caution when extrapolating policy preferences and voting behavior from political identity, and that animosity toward the other end of the political spectrum is sometimes misplaced.

  8. Destructiveness in Political Discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Яна Александровна Волкова

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Destructiveness is among the fundamental discourse categories that play a significant role in the organization of communicative interaction and define the pragmatics of discourse; its study helps to understand some mechanisms and principles of communication, identify strategies and tactics used by a destructive communicative personality. The relevance of this study is determined by the increasing aggressiveness in various types of discourse, and, accordingly, by the need to extend the knowledge of destructive behavior of a communicative personality. The study is based on the theory of discourse-analysis and theory of destructiveness (Z. Harris, T. van Dijk, A. Buss, E. Fromm, D. Ponton, K. Hacker, R. Wodak. N. Arutyunova, V. Karasik, M. Makarov, E. Sheigal et al. Developing the theory of destructiveness and relying on Erich Fromm’s research (1973, we specify the concept of “destructiveness” in relation to the political discourse and compare it with the related concept of aggressiveness. The paper analyses the category of destructiveness in modern US political discourse, using excerpts from the speeches of the candidates for presidency of 2016. Particular attention is paid to the dominant destructive intention - to harm the reputation of the opponent and reduce his political chances, as well as to the functions of verbal aggression: on the one hand - to discredit the opponent, bring accusations, on the other hand - to poison the audience mind against him/her and arouse the feeling of danger posed by a political opponent. The analysis of verbal and nonverbal means of destructiveness in the US political discourse is carried out. The article concludes that abusive remarks of politicians do not result from spontaneous emotional outburst, but from an elaborated destructive strategy where the agonistic nature of political discourse stipulates the use of instrumental aggression (Buss, 1971 for the sake of the conquest of power, lowering the

  9. Trauma in war and political persecution: expanding the concept.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hernández, Pilar

    2002-01-01

    A contextual understanding of the concept of trauma is proposed through a study of its meaning in a Latin American context facing war and political repression. This article explores the contributions of narrative and liberation psychology to understanding politically based trauma. It critiques the relationship between the concept of trauma and the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder. It analyzes how Colombian human rights activists make sense of the political persecution and trauma in their work. The author argues that the kind of experiences that these activists have endured go beyond the category of stress and can best be understood as traumatic within the context of the current medium-intensity war in Colombia.

  10. Long-term exposure to political violence: The particular injury of persistent humiliation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barber, Brian K; McNeely, Clea; Olsen, Joseph A; Belli, Robert F; Doty, Samuel Benjamin

    2016-05-01

    This study assessed the association between exposure to political violence over a 25-year period and adult functioning among a population that has experienced protracted and severe political conflict. Instead of aggregating exposure to political violence across time and type of exposure, as is commonly done, the event history calendar pioneered in this study assessed exposure to five forms of political violence annually from 1987 to 2011 in a representative sample of 1788 adults, aged 37 on average, in the occupied Palestinian territories (West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip). This method allowed for the identification of trajectories of exposure to political violence from childhood to adulthood using latent profile analysis. We then correlated the trajectories of exposure to measures of economic, political, community, family, psychological, and health functioning. As expected, being shot at, having one's home raided, being hit or kicked, being verbally abused, and witnessing someone close being humiliated were all elevated during periods of heightened political conflict (the first intifada (1987-1993) and, less so, the second intifada (2000-2005)). In addition, 12% of women and men reported high and persistent levels of exposure to humiliation (being verbally abused and/or witnessing someone close being humiliated) across the entire 25-year period. These individuals lived predominantly in neighborhoods with a high Israeli military presence. Compared to those who experienced periodic exposure to political violence, persistently humiliated men and women reported significantly lower health, economic, political, and psychological functioning, as well as higher social cohesion and political expression. Relevant literatures are reviewed when concluding that persistent humiliation is a neglected form of political violence that is best represented as a direct (versus structural), acute (versus chronic), macro (versus micro), and high-grade (versus low

  11. Human Rights and the Excess of Identity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Al Tamimi, Yussef

    2017-01-01

    Identity is a central theme in contemporary politics, but legal academia lacks a rigorous analysis of this concept. The aim of this article is twofold: (i) firstly, it aims to reveal presumptions on identity in human rights law by mapping how the European Court of Human Rights approaches identity and (ii) secondly, it seeks to analyse these presumptions using theoretical insights on identity. By merging legal and theoretical analysis, this article contributes a reading of the Court’s case law which suggests that the tension between the political and apolitical is visible as a common thread in the Court’s use of identity. In case law concerning paternity, the Court appears to hold a specific view of what is presented as an unquestionable part of identity. This ostensibly pre-political notion of identity becomes untenable in cases where the nature of an identity feature, such as the headscarf, is contended or a minority has adopted a national identity that conflicts with the majoritarian national identity. The Court’s approach to identity in such cases reflects a paradox that is inherent to identity; identity is personal while simultaneously constituted and shaped by overarching power mechanisms. PMID:29881144

  12. Uncovering the political in non-political young muslim immigrant identities

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Niels Nørgaard Kristensen

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available The theme of this paper is political identity and participation amongMuslim migrant young people in Denmark. Political identity is analysedby examining students’ political interests and perception of themselves as participants in politics, as well as their rationalities for politics. In order to address the research question ‘What characterizes political identities among Muslim immigrant young people in schools?’ we interviewed eight Muslim students from a Danish upper secondary school and from different national origins. The students’ political orientations seemed quite contradictory, even among those who might readily have been identified as a-political. Despite moderate political interest, all students showed some inclinations to participate in elections or in particular issues. However, they emphasized that their social studies classes primarily provided them with factual knowledge experience, and some students found this knowledge useful. None of the students seemed to experience school as an arena for participation. Consequently, there is first a need to emphasize the significance of a dynamic perspective on the phenomenon of political identity, and second, we need to know how students in school should be regarded as citizens in ‘the making’ or as equal citizens in a participatory arena.

  13. Security Reasoning, Spatial Politics, Patriarchy and the Economic ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    Security Reasoning, Spatial Politics, Patriarchy and the Economic Rights of ... find a job, start a business, and participate in the formal or informal economy. ... and engage in public policy dialogue will be an important aspect of this project.

  14. Electoral Politics in Zimbabwe: Authoritarianism Versus the People

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    sulaiman.adebowale

    2006-08-31

    Aug 31, 2006 ... ZANU-PF party. Human rights groups in Zimbabwe report that the majority of .... both the Zimbabwe Constitution and the Electoral Act (1990) have been ... The political environment did not accord the eligible voters their basic.

  15. Nonpolitical images evoke neural predictors of political ideology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahn, Woo-Young; Kishida, Kenneth T; Gu, Xiaosi; Lohrenz, Terry; Harvey, Ann; Alford, John R; Smith, Kevin B; Yaffe, Gideon; Hibbing, John R; Dayan, Peter; Montague, P Read

    2014-11-17

    Political ideologies summarize dimensions of life that define how a person organizes their public and private behavior, including their attitudes associated with sex, family, education, and personal autonomy. Despite the abstract nature of such sensibilities, fundamental features of political ideology have been found to be deeply connected to basic biological mechanisms that may serve to defend against environmental challenges like contamination and physical threat. These results invite the provocative claim that neural responses to nonpolitical stimuli (like contaminated food or physical threats) should be highly predictive of abstract political opinions (like attitudes toward gun control and abortion). We applied a machine-learning method to fMRI data to test the hypotheses that brain responses to emotionally evocative images predict individual scores on a standard political ideology assay. Disgusting images, especially those related to animal-reminder disgust (e.g., mutilated body), generate neural responses that are highly predictive of political orientation even though these neural predictors do not agree with participants' conscious rating of the stimuli. Images from other affective categories do not support such predictions. Remarkably, brain responses to a single disgusting stimulus were sufficient to make accurate predictions about an individual subject's political ideology. These results provide strong support for the idea that fundamental neural processing differences that emerge under the challenge of emotionally evocative stimuli may serve to structure political beliefs in ways formerly unappreciated. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. Political Culture and the Nature of Political Participation in Egypt.

    Science.gov (United States)

    1980-06-01

    political socialization . Political-cultural values are gradually internalized within the society and political behavior is largely reflective of...the extent to which the regime used education as a means of political socialization : Socialism is articulated as a Muslim theory of socialism. The head... political socialization except for a brief period during the mobilization program of Ali Sabri. Egypt’s party system has been more relevant for

  17. The Personal Foundations of Political Tolerance towards Immigrants

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Freitag, Markus; Rapp, Carolin

    2015-01-01

    In this paper, we expand previous research on the psychological foundations of attitudes towards immigrants by evaluating the role of the Big Five personality traits with regard to the formation of political tolerance. Following the literature, we elaborate tolerance as a sequential concept...... of rejection and acceptance to uncover differentiating effects of personality on both immigrant-specific prejudices as well as on the assignment of the right to vote as a pivotal political privilege to this group. Using a representative sample of the Swiss population, with its distinctive history related...... to the immigration issue, our two-step Heckman selection models reveal that extroverts and people who score low in agreeableness exhibit negative attitudes towards immigrants. At the same time, only openness to experience is significantly connected to the likeliness of granting immigrants the right to vote....

  18. The neoliberal political economy and erosion of retirement security.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Polivka, Larry; Luo, Baozhen

    2015-04-01

    The origins and trajectory of the crisis in the United States retirement security system have slowly become part of the discussion about the social, political, and economic impacts of population aging. Private sources of retirement security have weakened significantly since 1980 as employers have converted defined benefits precisions to defined contribution plans. The Center for Retirement Research (CRR) now estimates that over half of boomer generation retirees will not receive 70-80% of their wages while working. This erosion of the private retirement security system will likely increase reliance on the public system, mainly Social Security and Medicare. These programs, however, have increasingly become the targets of critics who claim that they are not financially sustainable in their current form and must be significantly modified. This article will focus on an analysis of these trends in the erosion of the United States retirement security system and their connection to changes in the United States political economy as neoliberal, promarket ideology, and policies (low taxes, reduced spending, and deregulation) have become dominant in the private and public sectors. The neoliberal priority on reducing labor costs and achieving maximum shareholder value has created an environment inimical to maintain the traditional system of pension and health care benefits in both the private and public sectors. This article explores the implications of these neoliberal trends in the United States economy for the future of retirement security. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  19. Political Party Funding in Romania - One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Iulian Georgel Savenco

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Within political life, the determining role is given to political parties in their capacity as actors in the electoral campaign and in the race for political power. This is the reason for which we believe that the means of financing political parties and the electoral campaigns in which they partake is an important aspect within the electoral reform, as without an adequate funding their chances of winning the electoral race are drastically reduced. On the other hand, funding of political parties is of great interest as the lack of transparency which usually encircles this process can lead to a dangerous phenomenon, namely corruption. Throughout this article we present the current situation and critically analyze the changes which the Romanian legislature plans to apply to the political party financing law.

  20. The Changing Political Economy of Migration in the 2000s

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Neerup, Stine

    faced by migrants and policymakers since the onset of the 2007 global financial crisis. The dissertation applied a socio-political analysis to three net migrant receiving countries: Australia, Denmark and the United States. Parallel to this, it applied a normative approach and reflected on what rights...... and responsibilities migrants and states could be said to hold towards each other in a temporary migration scenario. The findings demonstrate how migrants’ and states’ outcomes from the temporary migration process are linked to inclusion as much as to admission policies in receiving states. Here the analysis found...... that inclusionary policies are strongly pathdependent on the immigration history and the welfare policy tradition in the receiving country. It also uncovered an increased rights gap leading to a significant democratic deficit as well as a clear inequality of social and political rights. Finally it identified...

  1. The political reference point: How geography shapes political identity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Feinberg, Matthew; Tullett, Alexa M.; Mensch, Zachary; Hart, William; Gottlieb, Sara

    2017-01-01

    It is commonly assumed that how individuals identify on the political spectrum–whether liberal, conservative, or moderate–has a universal meaning when it comes to policy stances and voting behavior. But, does political identity mean the same thing from place to place? Using data collected from across the U.S. we find that even when people share the same political identity, those in “bluer” locations are more likely to support left-leaning policies and vote for Democratic candidates than those in “redder” locations. Because the meaning of political identity is inconsistent across locations, individuals who share the same political identity sometimes espouse opposing policy stances. Meanwhile, those with opposing identities sometimes endorse identical policy stances. Such findings suggest that researchers, campaigners, and pollsters must use caution when extrapolating policy preferences and voting behavior from political identity, and that animosity toward the other end of the political spectrum is sometimes misplaced. PMID:28207906

  2. The political reference point: How geography shapes political identity.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Matthew Feinberg

    Full Text Available It is commonly assumed that how individuals identify on the political spectrum-whether liberal, conservative, or moderate-has a universal meaning when it comes to policy stances and voting behavior. But, does political identity mean the same thing from place to place? Using data collected from across the U.S. we find that even when people share the same political identity, those in "bluer" locations are more likely to support left-leaning policies and vote for Democratic candidates than those in "redder" locations. Because the meaning of political identity is inconsistent across locations, individuals who share the same political identity sometimes espouse opposing policy stances. Meanwhile, those with opposing identities sometimes endorse identical policy stances. Such findings suggest that researchers, campaigners, and pollsters must use caution when extrapolating policy preferences and voting behavior from political identity, and that animosity toward the other end of the political spectrum is sometimes misplaced.

  3. How the European debt crisis reshaped national political space : The case of Greece

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Katsanidou, Alexia; Otjes, Simon

    2016-01-01

    Where some authors saw a limited impact of Europeanisation on national party politics, others proposed that in addition to the pre-existing economic left-right dimension a separate European Union dimension structures the national political space. This article looks at the Greek bail-out during the

  4. Feyerabend on politics, education, and scientific culture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kidd, Ian James

    2016-06-01

    The purpose of this paper is to offer a sympathetic reconstruction of the political thought of Paul Feyerabend. Using a critical discussion of the idea of the 'free society' it is suggested that his political thought is best understood in terms of three thematic concerns-liberation, hegemony, and the authority of science-and that the political significance of those claims become clear when they are considered in the context of his educational views. It emerges that Feyerabend is best understood as calling for the grounding of cognitive and cultural authorities-like the sciences-in informed deliberation, rather than the uncritical embrace of prevailing convictions. It therefore emerges that a free society is best understood as one of epistemically responsible citizenship rather than epistemically anarchistic relativism of the 'anything goes' sort-a striking anticipation of current debates about philosophy of science in society. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Malala and the politics of global iconicity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Olesen, Thomas

    2016-06-01

    The article presents a case analysis of Malala Yousafzai's transformation into a global injustice icon after she was shot in 2012 by the Pakistani Taliban for advocating for girls' right to education. The analysis focuses on the political aspects of this process and is divided into three parts. The first looks at factors that facilitated Malala's iconization as she was undergoing medical treatment and was unable to participate in her iconization. The second part starts when Malala enters the global public sphere and begins to actively contribute to the iconization process. The third part identifies de-iconizing resistance to Malala from Pakistani actors who see her iconization as a symbolic colonization in which Malala has become a vehicle of the West. Theoretically, the article is located within cultural sociology, but expands it in a political and global direction. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2016.

  6. The Public Protector as a mechanism of political accountability: the ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The paper, however, cautions that the Public Protector is not an alternative dispute resolution institution parallel to courts. But that the Public Protector complements the role played by courts by offering another medium through which such right may be realised. Keywords: Right to access to adequate housing; political ...

  7. Politics Backstage - Television Documentaries, Politics and Politicians

    OpenAIRE

    Ib Bondebjerg

    2006-01-01

    This article deals with "the transformation of visibility" in political discourse on and representation of politics and politicians in resent Dansih television documentaries. Drawing on the theories of Habermas, Meyrowitz and John B. Thompson, it is argued that the political persona on television is moved closer to the individual citizen, creating a sort "mediated quasi-inter- action" giving mediated communication a stronger element of face-to-face interaction. Together...

  8. Resource Windfalls, Political Regimes, and Political Stability

    OpenAIRE

    Francesco Caselli; Andrea Tesei

    2011-01-01

    We study theoretically and empirically whether natural resource windfalls affect political regimes. We document the following regularities. Natural resource windfalls have no effect on the political system when they occur in democracies. However, windfalls have significant political consequences in autocracies. In particular, when an autocratic country receives a positive shock to its flow of resource rents it responds by becoming even more autocratic. Furthermore, there is heterogeneity in t...

  9. Party Political Panthers: Hegemonic Tamil Politics and the Dalit Challenge

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hugo Gorringe

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available The Viduthalai Ciruthaigal Katchi (VCK, Liberation Panther Party has successfully transformed from the largest Dalit movement in Tamil Nadu into a recognised political organisation. Social movement theorists like Gamson (1990 view political recognition and engagement as one of the main aims and successes of social mobilisation. Despite the obvious achievements of the VCK, however, activists and commentators express disappointment or disillusionment with its performance. The Panthers clearly reject the caste hierarchy, but they increasingly adopt hegemonic forms of politics which can undermine their aims. This paper, thus, engages with the questions of movement institutionalisation by tracing the political trajectory of the VCK and charting its resistance to and compliance with Dravidian hegemony. It argues that institutionalisation needs to be understood within particular socio-political contexts and notes how the hegemony of Dravidian politics partly explains the disjuncture between activist and political perceptions. It portrays how the dominant political parties have set the template for what it means to ‘do’ politics in Tamil Nadu which serves as both an opportunity and a constraint for potential challengers.

  10. The role of political affiliation in employment decisions: A model and research agenda.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roth, Philip L; Goldberg, Caren B; Thatcher, Jason B

    2017-09-01

    Organizational researchers have studied how individuals identify with groups and organizations and how this affiliation influences behavior for decades (e.g., Tajfel, 1982). Interestingly, investigation into political affiliation and political affiliation similarity in the organizational sciences is extremely rare. This is striking, given the deep political divides that exist between groups of individuals described in the political science literature. We draw from theories based on similarity, organizational identification, and person-environment fit, as well as theoretical notions related to individuating information, to develop a model, the political affiliation model (PAM), which describes the implications of political affiliation and political similarity for employment decisions. We set forth a number of propositions based on PAM, to spur future research in the organizational sciences for a timely topic which has received little attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  11. The Political Context of Judicial Review in Indonesia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fritz Edward Siregar

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Indonesia Constitutional Court will celebrate 12th birthday this August 2015, and it cannot be denied that the Court play significant role in securing democracy in Indonesia. In exercising their authorities, including the election result dispute and judicial review, the Court continue to affirm institutional judicial legitimacy and pursue their role to guard 1945 Constitution and continue to do so. The first Chief Justice Jimly showed how within five years of the Court’s creation, he could strategically maximise its momentum and build up the Court as a respectful institution. The Chief Justice Mahfud MD was then elected to reduce the judicial activism started by Jimly’s bench. However, against promises and expectations, Mahfud MD brought the Court to a level far beyond the imagination of the Constitution drafters. Parliament and President tried to limit Court’s authority, not ones, and the Court able to overcome those constrain. Current various available studies observed only how the Court issued their decision and solely focus to the impact of the decision. Scholars slightly ignore that study about the Court, by reducing other constitutional actor in Indonesia, produce study about the Court itself isn’t complete. In fact, political environment in which the Court operated at that time is one of utmost importance the strengthen of the Court institutional legitimacy. This paper is trying to discover the rise of the Indonesia Constitutional Court, not from what the Court did, but from political environment outside the court. Political parties realize that the Court is the only institution that act as political dispute resolution among them. Political parties maturity and political constraint are the key factor that support the development of the Court’s institutional power.

  12. Protecting digital rights in Pakistan | IDRC - International ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    2017-02-13

    Feb 13, 2017 ... The annual prize is awarded by the Dutch government to human rights ... a growing social conservatism that prizes whatever form of stability is promised. ... is difficult, made worse by increasing social and political instability.

  13. The politics and anti-politics of social movements

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Burchardt, Marian; Patterson, Amy S.; Mubanda Rasmussen, Louise

    2013-01-01

    's poverty. Religious HIV/AIDS activities must be analysed in a conceptual space between a civil society/politics approach and a service-provider/anti-politics framework. That is, religious mobilisation may at times seek to engage the public realm to shape policies, while at other times it may shun politics...

  14. THE POLITICS OF MULTICULTURALISM OF THE TOWANI TOLOTANG MINORITY IN SOUTH SULAWESI

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zuly Qodir

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available This article provides a description of the ethnographical and political issues of the minority group located in South Sulawesi, i.e. the believers of Towani Tolotang that still exist there even in the national political scene as they have representatives in the legislature. The community seems to be playing the politics of Towani Tolotang accommodating and making use of the will of the political regime of Muslims and Hindus, where both of them are scrambling for mutual acknowledgment and entering into the tradition of the religion: Islam or Hinduism. As a minority group, the Towani Tolotang community has a variety of strategies to survive and fight in various kinds of interest. Economic and political gain, and commodification of ethnicity and religion are rampant in the area due to decentralization. This article is based on field library and research on the minority people who have been dealing with political suppression and discriminatory treatment. Keywords: Towani, Tolotang and minority, political rights.

  15. The politics of researching global health politics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rushton, Simon

    2015-01-01

    In this comment, I build on Shiffman’s call for the global health community to more deeply investigate structural and productive power. I highlight two challenges we must grapple with as social scientists carrying out the types of investigation that Shiffman proposes: the politics of challenging the powerful; and the need to investigate types of expertise that have traditionally been thought of as ‘outside’ global health. In doing so, I argue that moving forward with the agenda Shiffman sets out requires social scientists interested in the global politics of health to be reflexive about our own exercise of structural and productive power and the fact that researching global health politics is itself a political undertaking. PMID:25905482

  16. Religion, Human Rights and Constitutional-Contract Politics in Malaysia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marzuki Mohamad

    2008-12-01

    Full Text Available Normal 0 false false false EN-MY X-NONE AR-SA MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Abstract: The debate about human rights in Malaysia took a new turn in the early twenty-first century when it started to focus on the issue of religious freedom. The proponents of secular-liberal notion of religious freedom argued that religious and racial harmony would be better achieved if Malaysians of all races and religions enjoy absolute religious freedom, which includes the right to renounce Islam. However, the secular-liberal approach to religious freedom, contrary to the expectation of its proponents, accentuates religious and racial division in Muslim-majority Malaysia.

  17. Facebook, Political Narrative, and Political Change: A Case Study of Palestinian Youth

    OpenAIRE

    Kenderes, Amanda

    2012-01-01

    In this dissertation I aim to advance political narrative theory by exploring the use of political narrative on Facebook and the possibility for Facebook to be used among Palestinian youth for political change. To examine the concepts of political narrative and political change, I developed a model for political change based on the changing political narratives which in part prompted the 2011 Egyptian revolution. The model, Political Narrative Perspectives (PNPs), identifies individual and re...

  18. Human Rights Degradations Related to Natural Law: Philosophical-Juridic Self-Legitimation of Franquism

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    César López Rodríguez

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available This essay identifies the problematic theoretical nature of human rights under Franco's regime, in the light of either a traditionalist or a totalitarian objective natural right's discursive hegemony. This contradictory theoretical alternative was already present in Ramiro de Maeztu's legal-political doctrine, which as the theoretical seed of the regime, led to those contradictions as embodied in two authors: F. Elías de Tejada and L. Legaz Lacambra. Drawing on a political critique of the text itself, the conclusion evinces the doctrinal state of human rights in the current Spanish constitutional system, exposing its contradictions as derived not from a traditionalist or a totalitarian objective natural right but from a subjective natural right.

  19. Contemporary debates on social-environmental conflicts, extractivism and human rights in Latin America

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Raftopoulos, Malayna

    2017-01-01

    This opening contribution to ‘Social-Environmental Conflicts, Extractivism and Human Rights’ analyses how human rights have emerged as a weapon in the political battleground over the environment as natural resource extraction has become an increasingly contested and politicised form of development....... It examines the link between human rights abuses and extractivism, arguing that this new cycle of protests has opened up new political spaces for human rights based resistance. Furthermore, the explosion of socio-environmental conflicts that have accompanied the expansion and politicisation of natural...... resources has highlighted the different conceptualisations of nature, development and human rights that exist within Latin America. While new human rights perspectives are emerging in the region, mainstream human rights discourses are providing social movements and activists with the legal power...

  20. How Have Political Incentives for Local Officials Reduced Environmental Pollution in Resource-Depleted Cities?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huiming Zhang

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Chinese resource-exhausted cities face more severe environmental pollution problems than other cities. In addressing these problems, the way local officials (usually senior party and government leaders operate is very important, as their focus on political achievements may complicate how they manage environmental pollution in these cities. On the one hand, the traditional Gross Domestic Product-based quest for political achievement may lead top leaders to de-emphasize environmental pollution. On the other hand, changes made in 2003 to the way the performance of Chinese officials is evaluated have encouraged some local senior party and government leaders to pay more attention to environmental problems. Based on this, we analyze the relationship between political incentives and environmental pollution by applying the 2004–2014 panel data from 37 resource-exhausted cities. The findings reveal that firstly, among the factors which impact the environmental pollution of resource-exhausted cities, investment in fixed assets, foreign direct investment, industrial structure, per-capita education expenditure, and population density do not have a significant impact, thus indicating that local openness levels, the degree of industrial upgrading, and local investment in fixed assets are not the key variables in environmental pollution control. Secondly, the extent to which officials vie for political achievement affects environmental pollution in resource-exhausted cities. This depends upon whether the officials are municipal party secretaries or mayors; the former play a greater dynamic role in environmental pollution and have stronger robustness than the latter. The conclusion verifies both the existing authority structure of China and its effectiveness in the control of environmental pollution of resource-exhausted cities. That is to say, in contrast to the principles of the party committees, the mayors are in a subordinate position and often fail to

  1. Transformation of Rights to Education

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ali Tarik GÜMÜŞ

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available Everyone has the right to education from birth, and this right should be available equally to everyone by the state. Basically, the state imposes important responsibilities in regard to providing education services in respect to the right to life in a manner worthy of human dignity towards individuals directly connected to the right to education.The right to education in the classification of fundamental rights and freedoms found in the second generation or the social and economic rights. After World War II, this right significantly institutionalized andmany new constitutions were enacted. Social and economic rights in constitutions of these states had important responsibilities installed as a constitutional assignment.Usually social and economic rights in constitutions in respect to the criteria "the means of economic dependence" is limited. Yet during this period the states were strongly willing to spend strongly in order to implement the right to education. However, since the mid-1970s, states have fallen into economic crisis. In order to adopt a solution to solve this crisis, there has been an emphasis on neo-liberal ideas. So that states a different approach from that period have led to enter into. In the new era that has survived from this, the process of globalization has accelerated and world-wide, neo-liberal shaped ideas, within the framework have led to the establishment of a new order.During this period globalization is taking shape as a process of international exchange that is characterized by a growing interconnectedness between political, social, cultural and economic systems beyond national borders. Thus in this process, important changes are taking place regarding the right to education. This change process is especially the case with respect to economic globalization. In this context economic globalization refers to a related process: the integration of world financial markets. In this process, as national economies open to

  2. Drumul politic pentru nominalizarea lui Klaus Iohannis la Președinție (The Political road to presidential candidacy nomination of Klaus Iohannis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Florin GRECU

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available The article analyses the process which led to the nominalization of Klaus Iohannis as candidate in the presidential election campaign representing the Christian Liberal Alliance. The adhesion of the National Liberal Party to the European popular party, the retreat of PNL’s president Crin Antonescu from the presidential race and the ascent of the mayor of Sibiu on the political stage, represent the analytical aim of this study, trough statements and media articles. The causes and the stakes of the change of the political affiliation of the Liberal National Party and the reasons of the adhesion to PPE which led locally to the fusion with the Liberal Democrat Party, will be shown by analyzing the statements of the political actors involved in the negotiation and in the political compromise that named Iohannis as the candidate of the right wing, who was already convinced since fall 2014 of winning the elections. The political actors, the PPE members trough their statements and actions, they sustained their candidate during the campaign and through congratulation letters after winning the elections.

  3. 'Grounded' Politics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schmidt, Garbi

    2012-01-01

    play within one particular neighbourhood: Nørrebro in the Danish capital, Copenhagen. The article introduces the concept of grounded politics to analyse how groups of Muslim immigrants in Nørrebro use the space, relationships and history of the neighbourhood for identity political statements....... The article further describes how national political debates over the Muslim presence in Denmark affect identity political manifestations within Nørrebro. By using Duncan Bell’s concept of mythscape (Bell, 2003), the article shows how some political actors idealize Nørrebro’s past to contest the present...... ethnic and religious diversity of the neighbourhood and, further, to frame what they see as the deterioration of genuine Danish identity....

  4. Globalizing queer? AIDS, homophobia and the politics of sexual identity in India.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kole, Subir K

    2007-07-11

    Queerness is now global. Many emerging economies of the global South are experiencing queer mobilization and sexual identity politics raising fundamental questions of citizenship and human rights on the one hand; and discourses of nationalism, cultural identity, imperialism, tradition and family-values on the other. While some researchers argue that with economic globalization in the developing world, a Western, hegemonic notion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) identity has been exported to traditional societies thereby destroying indigenous sexual cultures and diversities, other scholars do not consider globalization as a significant factor in global queer mobilization and sexual identity politics. This paper aims at exploring the debate around globalization and contemporary queer politics in developing world with special reference to India. After briefly tracing the history of sexual identity politics, this paper examines the process of queer mobilization in relation to emergence of HIV/AIDS epidemic and forces of neoliberal globalization. I argue that the twin-process of globalization and AIDS epidemic has significantly influenced the mobilization of queer communities, while simultaneously strengthening right wing "homophobic" discourses of heterosexist nationalism in India.

  5. Accommodating the Right to Development in Kosovo: A Human Rights Perspective

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Remzije Istrefi

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available The right to development is the right of individuals and peoples to an enabling environment for development that is equitable, sustainable, and participatory and in accordance with the full range of human rights and fundamental freedoms. A wide range of international law on development exists, and numerous Declarations and Programs of Action from the UN World Conferences have been proclaimed. Nevertheless, due to its nature and its legal status the right to development continues to be one of the most contested rights in academic and political circles. The conflicting interpretation of the right to development and its contested legal status affects realization of development to which every human person is entitled by virtue of the right to development. But, if the right to development is read through the human rights “lenses”, it can result in an interpretation that can be most helpful for its realization in practice. The relevance of interpretation of the right to development as a human right becomes imperative in transitional society such as the one in Kosovo where the environment continues to encounter legal and structural obstacles to development. In light of this situation the present paper analyses the relationship between human rights and development, the relevance of development in post conflict society and its impact on overcoming the transition and securing a lasting peace.

  6. Strengthening ethical political leadership for sustainable peace and ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Strengthening ethical political leadership: Uganda as a case study meaningful .... needed are short and long-term strategies for inculcating ethical leadership .... Ethics comprises principles and concepts that guide humans between right ... Virtues of kindness, generosity, hospitality, honesty, compassion, forgiveness, and.

  7. Political entrepreneurship and bidding for political monopoly

    OpenAIRE

    Michael Wohlgemuth

    2000-01-01

    An analytical framework for dealing with political entrepreneurship and reform is proposed which is based on some new combinations of Schumpeterian political economy, an extended version of Tullock's model of democracy as franchise-bidding for natural monopoly and some basic elements of New Institutional Economics. It is shown that problems of insufficient award criteria and incomplete contracts which may arise in economic bidding schemes, also - and even more so - characterise political comp...

  8. Pirate political parties: New democracy or political utopia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Karanović Bojana

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Modern society is changing under the influence of IT technologies, more and more we talk about 'digital revolution', and political and economic developments are shaped by computer networks. Undeniably, the Internet has opened new possibilities for socio-political expansion, networking and mobilization. Besides the political establishment, many social movements found their chance in cyberspace recognizing the IT technology as a platform for the development and improvement of their internal and external communication. In this article we will focus on the Pirate Party, movement that has been seriously growing on the European political stage for last several years. Following the example of German Pirate Party we will try to explain the characteristics of the movement, its goals and communication strategies, and political dilemmas which it brings.

  9. Lifelong Political Socialization, Consciousness and Political Agency in Israel Today

    Science.gov (United States)

    Michel, Dirk

    2007-01-01

    This article deals with the nexus between biographical experiences in political extraordinary times of crisis, disaster and terror and their influence on political orientations. At the centre of interest is the reconstruction of political orientations related to two different historical-political groups of Jewish Germans who had immigrated or…

  10. Safe Abortion and the Global Political Economy of Reproductive Rights

    OpenAIRE

    Barbara B Crane

    2005-01-01

    Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) advocates are joining the call for global economic justice, while drawing attention to the neglect of SRHR in the Millennium Development Goals. At the same time, abortion and other core SRHR issues are coming to the fore in specialized and influential arenas concerned with HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, humanitarian response, and human rights. A strategic response is required from the SRHR movement. Development (2005) 48, 85–91. doi:10.10...

  11. Politics, Security, Theory

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wæver, Ole

    2011-01-01

    theory is found to ‘act politically’ through three structural features that systematically shape the political effects of using the theory. The article further discusses – on the basis of the preceding articles in the special issue – three emerging debates around securitization theory: ethics......This article outlines three ways of analysing the ‘politics of securitization’, emphasizing an often-overlooked form of politics practised through theory design. The structure and nature of a theory can have systematic political implications. Analysis of this ‘politics of securitization......’ is distinct from both the study of political practices of securitization and explorations of competing concepts of politics among security theories. It means tracking what kinds of analysis the theory can produce and whether such analysis systematically impacts real-life political struggles. Securitization...

  12. The more friends, the less political talk? Predictors of Facebook discussions among college students.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jang, S Mo; Lee, Hoon; Park, Yong Jin

    2014-05-01

    Although previous research has indicated that Facebook users, especially young adults, can cultivate their civic values by talking about public matters with their Facebook friends, little research has examined the predictors of political discussion on Facebook. Using survey data from 442 college students in the United States, this study finds that individual characteristics and network size influence college students' expressive behavior on Facebook related to two controversial topics: gay rights issues and politics. In line with previous studies about offline political discussion, the results show that conflict avoidance and ambivalence about target issues are negatively associated with Facebook discussions. Perhaps the most interesting finding is that users who have a large number of Facebook friends are less likely to talk about politics and gay rights issues on Facebook despite having access to increasing human and information resources. Theoretical implications of these findings and future directions are addressed.

  13. Obama cares about visuo-spatial attention: perception of political figures moves attention and determines gaze direction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mills, Mark; Smith, Kevin B; Hibbing, John R; Dodd, Michael D

    2015-02-01

    Processing an abstract concept such as political ideology by itself is difficult but becomes easier when a background situation contextualizes it. Political ideology within American politics, for example, is commonly processed using space metaphorically, i.e., the political "left" and "right" (referring to Democrat and Republican views, respectively), presumably to provide a common metric to which abstract features of ideology can be grounded and understood. Commonplace use of space as metaphor raises the question of whether an inherently non-spatial stimulus (e.g., picture of the political "left" leader, Barack Obama) can trigger a spatially-specific response (e.g., attentional bias toward "left" regions of the visual field). Accordingly, pictures of well-known Democrats and Republicans were presented as central cues in peripheral target detection (Experiment 1) and saccadic free-choice (Experiment 2) tasks to determine whether perception of stimuli lacking a direct association with physical space nonetheless induce attentional and oculomotor biases in the direction compatible with the ideological category of the cue (i.e., Democrat/left and Republican/right). In Experiment 1, target detection following presentation of a Democrat (Republican) was facilitated for targets appearing to the left (right). In Experiment 2, participants were more likely to look left (right) following presentation of a Democrat (Republican). Thus, activating an internal representation of political ideology induced a shift of attention and biased choice of gaze direction in a spatially-specific manner. These findings demonstrate that the link between conceptual processing and spatial attention can be totally arbitrary, with no reference to physical or symbolic spatial information. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  14. Argentines abroad: contemporary challenges posed by political inclusion in their country of origin

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana MARGHERITIS

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available This paper explores the politics of intermittent and selective inclusion of Argentines abroad in home politics. It accounts for franchise reform initiatives and explains which factors influenced Argentine citizens in the exercising of their right to vote from abroad. It traces the unfolding and stalemate of an incipient diaspora engagement policy to explain the limits to effective political inclusion of Argentine citizens living abroad today. Thus, it contributes to our understanding of the politics and institutional dynamics of the process of reforming the franchise and citizenship in one of the least explored examples within the literature.

  15. Militarized humanitarianism meets carceral feminism: the politics of sex, rights, and freedom in contemporary antitrafficking campaigns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bernstein, Elizabeth

    2010-01-01

    Over the past decade, abolitionist feminist and evangelical Christian activists have directed increasing attention toward the “traffic in women” as a dangerous manifestation of global gender inequalities. Despite renowned disagreements around the politics of sex and gender, these groups have come together to advocate for harsher penalties against traffickers, prostitutes’ customers, and nations deemed to be taking insufficient steps to stem the flow of trafficked women. In this essay, I argue that what has served to unite this coalition of "strange bedfellows" is not simply an underlying commitment to conservative ideals of sexuality, as previous commentators have offered, but an equally significant commitment to carceral paradigms of justice and to militarized humanitarianism as the preeminent mode of engagement by the state. I draw upon my ongoing ethnographic research with feminist and evangelical antitrafficking movement leaders to argue that the alliance that has been so efficacious in framing contemporary antitrafficking politics is the product of two historically unique and intersecting trends: a rightward shift on the part of many mainstream feminists and other secular liberals away from a redistributive model of justice and toward a politics of incarceration, coincident with a leftward sweep on the part of many younger evangelicals toward a globally oriented social justice theology. In the final section of this essay, I consider the resilience of these trends given a newly installed and more progressive Obama administration, positing that they are likely to continue even as the terrain of militarized humanitarian action shifts in accordance with new sets of geopolitical interests.

  16. The Political Parties and Political Participation in Rivers State, Nigeria

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The Political Parties and Political Participation in Rivers State, Nigeria: A Case Study of 2015 General Elections. Goddey Wilson. Abstract. The study reviewed the activities of the political parties and its impact on voters' participation in the political activities in Rivers State. In pursuit of this objective, the study generated ...

  17. Estimating the effects of regional political climate on Russian tourists to Spain

    OpenAIRE

    ALVAREZ DIAZ MARCOS; MANUEL GONZÁLEZ-GÓMEZ; OTERO-GIRÁLDEZ MARÍA SOLEDAD

    2017-01-01

    Regional political climate has become an increasingly significant force influencing travel behaviour in many tourist destinations. This paper attempts to address impacts of regional political stability on Russian inbound tourism into Spain within a demand model framework and using a cointegration approach. The results show that visa openness as well as political instability and civil unrest in substitute destinations attract more Russian tourists boosting economic growth and reducing unemploy...

  18. Approach to migration rights and the transnational citizenship. The case of the Mexican migrants and theirs political rights Acercamiento al derecho de la migración y la ciudadanía transnacional. El caso de los emigrantes mexicanos y sus derechos políticos

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    José Francisco PARRA

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available The traditional concept of citizenship (linked to the nation-State expressed in the theoretical works of T. H. Marshall and defined as an array of rights (civil, political and social is not enough to help us understand the migration and political rights phenomenon. Several works have surpassed the theoretical understandings of Marshall, as a result, concepts such as «cosmopolitan citizenship», «differentied citizenship», «democratic citizenship», multicultural citizenship » and «postnational citizenship», have emerged to help us understand in liberal perspectivs citizenship in a context of globalization (migration being an important part of it. At the same time, the latter concepts have been translated into public policies of inclusion, however, both the concepts and the policies were built in terms of only the migration-receiving countries. In an effort to fill this theoretical vacuum, the concept of «transnational citizenship» has recently emerged in the works of some authors. This new approach to citizenship, which stresses cultural and economic links to justify why emigrants living in a country different to their own still retain their right to be a citizen in their countries of origin, can help us understand cases as Mexico and its 8,5 million nationals who currently live outside its boundaries: Mexico has denied political citizenship to these people for they have no Mexican political rights, for example, they can not vote abroad. The purpose of this paper is to try to explain how the transnationalism help us to understand why the Mexican State (partisan and political elites, promotes or limits the rights of mexican migrants depending either on restrictic notion of citizenship or on particular political calculations. El concepto tradicional de ciudadanía (ligado al Estado-nación y expresado teóricamente en los trabajos de T. H. Marshall y definidos como una serie de derechos agregados –civiles, políticos y sociales– es

  19. Political innovations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sørensen, Eva

    2017-01-01

    are mainly interested in assessing and promoting innovations in public service delivery, but have paid little or no attention to the need for innovations in polity, politics and policy. This article develops a research agenda for studying innovations in political institutions, in the political process...... and in policy outputs. It proposes a number of research themes related to political innovations that call for scholarly attention, and identifies push and pull factors influencing the likelihood that these themes will be addressed in future research....

  20. Putting politics first.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hacker, Jacob S

    2008-01-01

    The greatest lesson of the failure of comprehensive health reform in the early 1990s is that politics comes first. Even the best-laid policy plans are worthless if they lack the political support to pass. Putting politics first means avoiding the overarching mistake of the Clinton reformers: envisioning a grand policy compromise rather than hammering out a real political compromise. It also means addressing the inevitable fears of those who believe that they are well protected by our eroding employment-based system. And it means formulating political strategies that are premised on the contemporary realities of the hyperpolarized U.S. political environment, rather than wistfully recalled images of the bipartisan politics of old.

  1. Religion and Politics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bandak, Andreas

    2018-01-01

    Religion and politics provide an interesting juxtaposition. On the one hand, both may initially come across as rather self-evident categories, with religion dealing with human perceptions and what people hold as sacred, and politics addressing the control and governance of fellow human beings....... Nonetheless, such a simple opposition should only work as a starting point for an interrogation of both terms and how they have come to look and function as empirical and analytical categories. Focusing on the ways that religion is played out in relation to politics reveals different historical and cultural...... constellations and positions, which can be highlighted as variations of religion as politics, religion in politics, religion out of politics, and religion not politics....

  2. Facebook, Political Narrative, and Political Change: A Case Study of Palestinian Youth

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kenderes, Amanda M.

    2012-01-01

    In this dissertation I aim to advance political narrative theory by exploring the use of political narrative on Facebook and the possibility for Facebook to be used among Palestinian youth for political change. To examine the concepts of political narrative and political change, I developed a model for political change based on the changing…

  3. Political Socialization and Political Interest: The Role of School Reassessed

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koskimaa, Vesa; Rapeli, Lauri

    2015-01-01

    There is a growing concern about the lack of political interest and engagement among Western youth. This has led to a revival of political socialization studies. One recent finding is that (late) adolescence is key to understanding the development of interest for politics. This study builds on this finding by examining political interest among…

  4. Global health governance - the next political revolution.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kickbusch, I; Reddy, K S

    2015-07-01

    The recent Ebola crisis has re-opened the debate on global health governance and the role of the World Health Organization. In order to analyze what is at stake, we apply two conceptual approaches from the social sciences - the work on gridlock and the concept of cosmopolitan moments - to assess the ability of the multilateral governance system to reform. We find that gridlock can be broken open by a health crisis which in turn generates a political drive for change. We show that a set of cosmopolitan moments have led to the introduction of the imperative of health in a range of policy arenas and moved health into 'high politics' - this has been called a political revolution. We contend that this revolution has entered a second phase with increasing interest of heads of state in global health issues. Here lies the window of opportunity to reform global health governance. Copyright © 2015 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. A paradise for LGBT rights? The paradox of Belgium.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eeckhout, Bart; Paternotte, David

    2011-01-01

    How is it that a small country such as Belgium, with its reputation of relative conservatism, has jumped to the forefront of LGBT-friendly nations when it comes to the extension of rights to, and implementation of government policies for, its LGBT population? The analysis offered here focuses on a combination of six causes: the impact of wider secularization processes; the political history and culture of the country; the organization of especially the Flemish LGBT movement and reasons for its political effectiveness; mainstream social trends in national scapegoating hierarchies; the overall media environment; and the window of opportunity opened by the political landslide of 1999.

  6. Exploring Political Alternatives

    Science.gov (United States)

    Denhardt, Robert B.

    1975-01-01

    The author distinguishes between the concepts of political socialization and political education. He argues that political socialization has come to dominate both our thinking and our teaching in the area of civic education. Suggestions for promoting political education are included. (DE)

  7. The Pragmatics of Political Apology in Ghana’s Contemporary Politics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kofi Agyekum

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available The paper discusses political apology in the 4 the republic of Ghanaian contemporary politics from 2013 to 2015. It taps its data from apologetic speeches by political officials and from apologies rendered to politicians. The paper discusses the semantics and pragmatics of political apology. It examines the use of the language of apology, paying attention to expressives, commissives and persuasion, by drawing on the speech act of apology and political discourse analysis (PDA. It concludes that the obligation on the part of the offender to apologise and for the offended to accept the apology and to forgive for socio-political harmony is driven by both the social pact and the Ghanaian communalistic context.

  8. Teachers, School Boards, and the Power of Money: How the Right Wins at the Local Level

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schirmer, Eleni B.; Apple, Michael W.

    2016-01-01

    This article examines national conservative political advocacy groups' growing interest in local politics, and analyzes how they form alliances and gain political power. Following efforts to restrict collective bargaining for Wisconsin public employees, Kenosha school board members' attempts to legally protect teachers' rights provoked concern…

  9. Fundamental Right to Property and Right to Housing in Nigeria: a Discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Akintunde OTUBU

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available Housing is one of the basic needs of human kind. Given its quintessential relevance to the overall development of man and the State; the question is posed: whether there is a right to adequate housing in the citizen to warrant a demand from the State to fulfill this right; and whether there should be such a right? This paper sets out to examine the concept of Right as it relates to housing and enters into a discourse as to whether there is a fundamental right to housing under Nigeria law. A corollary to the above is to answer the question whether such a right should be cognizable under Nigerian law. In a doctrinal research approach, the paper concedes that housing is a prerequisite to optimal utility of man and the state. Unfortunately, right to housing does not enjoy the same ranking with civil and political rights for obvious reasons enunciated in the paper. The implication is that there is no enforceable right to housing under our law. Notwithstanding, the paper posits that it is desirable for the State to create an enabling environment for the realization of this right because of its multiplier effect on the individual and the State.

  10. The Effects of Majoring in Political Science on Political Efficacy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dominguez, Casey B. K.; Smith, Keith W.; Williams, J. Michael

    2017-01-01

    This study tests, and finds support, for the hypotheses that a student who majors in political science will have stronger feelings of political competence and will be more willing to engage in hypothetical political actions than two peer groups: (a) those who major in other fields and (b) those who show an interest in politics but have not studied…

  11. Gender Panics about Transgender Children in Religious Right Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stone, Amy L.

    2018-01-01

    This paper is a content analysis of political flyers and messages developed by Religious Right campaigns between 1974 and 2013 to fight legislation supportive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals. The analysis focuses on 16 campaigns in which Religious Right groups made claims about transgender adults and children. In…

  12. Cosmopolitan political science.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grande, Edgar

    2006-03-01

    Until recently, the term cosmopolitism could rarely be found in modern political science literature. It was only in the 1990s that the term was rediscovered by political scientists in the critical discourse on globalization. In this article, I will explore the full potential of cosmopolitism as an analytical concept for empirical political science. I will argue that the concept of cosmopolitism should not be restricted to the analysis of global politics. Indeed, cosmopolitism has much more to offer for political scientists. Properly understood, it enables--and necessitates--a re-invention of political science in the age of globalization, comparable to the behavioural revolution in political science in the 1950s. Such a paradigmatic shift should be based on a twofold transformation of existing disciplinary boundaries: A removal of the boundary between national (and comparative) and international politics on the one hand; and a re-definition of the boundaries between empirical and normative approaches on the other. As a result, cosmopolitism may serve as a new, critical theory of politics based on the integration of hitherto separated fields and sub-fields.

  13. Japan's 2014 General Election: Political Bots, Right-Wing Internet Activism, and Prime Minister Shinzō Abe's Hidden Nationalist Agenda.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schäfer, Fabian; Evert, Stefan; Heinrich, Philipp

    2017-12-01

    In this article, we present results on the identification and behavioral analysis of social bots in a sample of 542,584 Tweets, collected before and after Japan's 2014 general election. Typical forms of bot activity include massive Retweeting and repeated posting of (nearly) the same message, sometimes used in combination. We focus on the second method and present (1) a case study on several patterns of bot activity, (2) methodological considerations on the automatic identification of such patterns and the prerequisite near-duplicate detection, and (3) we give qualitative insights into the purposes behind the usage of social/political bots. We argue that it was in the latency of the semi-public sphere of social media-and not in the visible or manifest public sphere (official campaign platform, mass media)-where Shinzō Abe's hidden nationalist agenda interlocked and overlapped with the one propagated by organizations such as Nippon Kaigi and Internet right-wingers (netto uyo) during the election campaign, the latter potentially forming an enormous online support army of Abe's agenda.

  14. When I equals we: exploring the relation between social and personal identity of extreme right-wing political party members.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baray, Gamze; Postmes, Tom; Jetten, Jolanda

    2009-12-01

    This paper introduces the concept of self-defining groups to explain how personal and social aspects of identity relate to each other among members of an extreme right-wing political party. Two studies were conducted. Study 1 examined how affiliation with a social group that has clear-cut, rigid norms and values affects the personal and social self-concept. Participants were members of a (self-defining) Turkish nationalist organisation (N=66) and a control group of Turkish university students (N=58). Paradoxically, high levels of national identification were associated with stronger personal identity. Study 2 used the same participant population (N=177) and manipulated self-focused attention by means of a mirror. Self-aware members reported the highest levels of identification with the nationalist organisation. Results suggest that members of this groups show no signs of 'vanishing individuality': although boundaries between personal and social identities are blurred, extremist group members retain a distinct and strengthened sense of personal identity. This raises some interesting questions for the concept of personal identity and how it can be informed by the content of one's social identity.

  15. Democracy, property rights, income equality, and corruption

    OpenAIRE

    Dong, Bin; Torgler, Benno

    2011-01-01

    This paper presents theoretical and empirical evidence on the nexus between corruption and democracy. We establish a political economy model where the effect of democracy on corruption is conditional on income distribution and property rights protection. Our empirical analysis with cross-national panel data provides evidence that is consistent with the theoretical prediction. Moreover, the effect of democratization on corruption depends on the protection of property rights and income equality...

  16. Enhancing Political Will for Universal Health Coverage in Nigeria.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aregbeshola, Bolaji S

    2017-01-01

    Universal health coverage aims to increase equity in access to quality health care services and to reduce financial risk due to health care costs. It is a key component of international health agenda and has been a subject of worldwide debate. Despite differing views on its scope and pathways to reach it, there is a global consensus that all countries should work toward universal health coverage. The goal remains distant for many African countries, including Nigeria. This is mostly due to lack of political will and commitment among political actors and policymakers. Evidence from countries such as Ghana, Chile, Mexico, China, Thailand, Turkey, Rwanda, Vietnam and Indonesia, which have introduced at least some form of universal health coverage scheme, shows that political will and commitment are key to the adoption of new laws and regulations for reforming coverage. For Nigeria to improve people's health, reduce poverty and achieve prosperity, universal health coverage must be vigorously pursued at all levels. Political will and commitment to these goals must be expressed in legal mandates and be translated into policies that ensure increased public health care financing for the benefit of all Nigerians. Nigeria, as part of a global system, cannot afford to lag behind in striving for this overarching health goal.

  17. Political Anthropology and Anthropology of Politics: An Overview

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Suresh Dhakal

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available In this short review, I have tried to sketch an overview of historical development of political anthropology and its recent trends. I was enthused to prepare this review article as there does not exist any of such simplified introduction of one of the prominent sub-fields in cultural anthropology for the Nepalis readers, in particular. I believe this particular sub-field has to offer much to understand and explain the recent trends and current turmoil of the political transition in the country. Political anthropologists than any other could better explain how the politics is socially and culturally embedded and intertwined, therefore, separation of the two – politics from social and cultural processes – is not only impossible but methodologically wrong, too. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/dsaj.v5i0.6365 Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol. 5, 2011: 217-34

  18. Teaching gender and politics: Feminist methods in political science

    OpenAIRE

    Krook, Mona Lena

    2009-01-01

    Feminist research in political science is marked by two major contributions: (1) introducing the concept of “gender” and (2) expanding the definition of “politics.” Given its origins in feminist theory and activism, it is guided by scholarly and political aims to transform the study and the practice of politics (cf. Hawkesworth 2006). These commitments enable feminist scholars to identify new research questions, as well as to approach traditional topics in novel ways, using a variety of resea...

  19. The political spectacle phenomenon on the political scene of Bosnia and Herzegovina

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vučetić Vuk

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper will examine the phenomenon of political spectacle in BiH. Our goal is to recognize the structure of political spectacle in BiH political scene and point out the functions and objectives of this relatively new term in the media and the political sphere. In this regard, we have observed a political spectacle as a method of political communication of the rulers to the ruled. A very important element of the political spectacle is the media. With the media promotion of this method of political communication achieves its full capacity. The final outcome of the political spectacle is reflected in manipulating the public. In this way the politicians try to remain in power as long as they can.

  20. Office Politics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Storm, Paula; Kelly, Robert; deVries, Susann

    2008-01-01

    People and organizations are inherently political. Library workplace environments have zones of tension and dynamics just like any corporation, often leading to the formation of political camps. These different cliques influence productivity and work-related issues and, at worst, give meetings the feel of the Camp David negotiations. Politics are…

  1. Citizenship, National Identity and Political Education: Some Disputable Questions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vladimir Gutorov

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available The article seeks to elucidate some controversial problems of the formation of both civic and national selfconsciousness through analysing the politics of identity and citizenship, which has assumed increasing importance in Western and Eastern European countries. Citizenship is considered as a dynamic construct that should be viewed as a ‘process’ through which specific rights and obligations are exercised. The central task, therefore, is to analyse the evolution of various conceptions of citizenship in the light of historical experience, continuity and change, as well as the process of transformation of the model of political education that has emerged within the framework of the liberal political culture of the 19th century and has continued to exert a great impact on the development of political discourse in the modern world. Special attention is given to the comparative analysis of the models of civic and national identity in the USA, Western and Eastern Europe, including post-communist Russia. The author argues that the conception of identity as well, as the criteria for its defi nition, have become crucial in the discussion of problems of citizenship and political education. The issue remains whether an effective model of political education alone, i.e. without active citizens’ involvement and support, can have the potential not only to transform a political culture, but also influence the whole system of both secondary and university education. The final aim of the article is to prove the idea that a new conception of citizenship and political education could, in conditions of a deepening crisis, become the most important link binding civil society and the new content of the political making its way through corporative interests.

  2. Hegel’s justification of the human right to non-domination

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Westphal Kenneth R.

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available ‘Hegel’ and ‘human rights’ are rarely conjoined, and the designation ‘human rights’ appears rarely in his works. Indeed, Hegel has been criticised for omitting civil and political rights all together. My surmise is that readers have looked for a modern Decalogue, and have neglected how Hegel justifies his views, and hence just what views he does justify. Philip Pettit (1997 has refocused attention on republican liberty. Hegel and I agree with Pettit that republican liberty is a supremely important value, but appealing to its value, or justifying it by appeal to reflective equilibrium, are insufficient both in theory and in practice. By reconstructing Kant’s Critical methodology and explicating the social character of rational justification in non-formal domains, Hegel shows that the republican right to non-domination is constitutive of the equally republican right to justification (Forst 2007 - both of which are necessary requirements for sufficient rational justification in all non-formal domains, including both claims to rights or imputations of duties or responsibilities. That is the direct moral, political and juridical implication of Hegel’s analysis of mutual recognition, and its fundamental, constitutive role in rational justification. Specific corollaries to the fundamental republican right to non-domination must be determined by considering what forms of illicit domination are possible or probable within any specific society, in view of its social, political and economic structures and functioning.

  3. Language and Politics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chimombo, Moira

    1999-01-01

    Surveys the interrelationship between language and politics. Touches on the context of political discourse, or political culture and ideology in new and old democracies and the reemerging manifestations of totalitarianism, censorship, and linguistic imperialism; then examines selected linguistic features of political discourse and their…

  4. "Women's studies is in a lot of ways--consciousness raising": the educational origins of identity politics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Loss, Christopher P

    2011-08-01

    The second-wave feminist movement crystallized a new politics of personal identity that was fueled by and became inextricably linked to the modern university. On and off campus women organized into groups to press for political and educational rights. Along the way, women discovered that politics and education were both personal and that the achievement of "identity" offered the most direct path to true selfhood and liberation. This conclusion helped forge an enduring bond between higher education and identity group politics that continues to shape American higher education and politics to this day.

  5. Fundamental Rights and the EU Internal Market: Just how Fundamental are the EU Treaty Freedoms?
    A Normative Enquiry Based on John Rawls’ Political Philosophy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nik J. de Boer

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available This article assesses whether the EU Treaty freedoms - the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital - should be considered as fundamental rights which are hierarchically equal to other fundamental rights. It uses the political philosophy of John Rawls to assess why we should attach priority to certain rights and which rights should therefore be considered fundamental rights. On this basis it is argued that we should recognise two main types of fundamental rights, namely basic rights and liberties associated with Rawls' first principle of justice and the rights associated with the principle of fair equality of opportunity. This is followed by an analysis of the interpretation that the European Court of Justice (CJEU gives to the Treaty freedoms. On the basis of the normative framework, it is argued that the Treaty freedoms can be seen as fundamental rights insofar as they embody the value of equality of opportunity. Nonetheless, the CJEU increasingly seems to rely on a broader market access approach rather than an equal treatment approach in interpreting the Treaty freedoms. It is argued that where equal treatment is not at stake, the Treaty freedoms should not be seen as fundamental rights. Therefore, in cases where there is a conflict between a fundamental right and a Treaty freedom the CJEU should carefully distinguish between these two different interpretations of the Treaty freedoms. In cases where it is merely market access that is at stake, the CJEU should regard the protection of fundamental rights as more important, and be very careful in allowing a restriction of fundamental rights in order to protect the exercise of the Treaty freedom. On the other hand, in cases where the Treaty freedoms can be seen as protecting equality of opportunity and where they conflict with other fundamental rights, the Court is justified in construing the conflict as a right-right conflict in which a fair balance has to be sought.

  6. Political legitimacy and approval of political protest and violence among children and adolescents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Funderburk, C

    1975-06-01

    A question of general theoretical relevance for political socialization research concerns the role played by basic political orientations in structuring specific political opinions. This report investigates the relationship between beliefs in the legitimacy of political objects and approval of political protest and violence among a sample of children and adolescents. The setting for the research was a Florida town. Four aspects of political legitimacy are defined and measured. Measures of approval of political protest and political violence are distinguished conceptually and empirically. Beliefs in political legitimacy are shown to be of considerable importance in structuring opinions about political violence but have little impact on opinions about protest.

  7. Political determinants of progress in the MDGs in Sub-Saharan Africa.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Atti, Emma; Gulis, Gabriel

    2017-11-01

    Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) lagged furthest behind in achieving targets for the millennium development goals (MDG). We investigate the hypothesis that its slow progress is influenced by political factors. Longitudinal data on three health MDG indicators: under-five mortality, maternal mortality and HIV prevalence rates were collated from 1990 to 2012 in 48 countries. Countries were grouped into geo-political and eco-political groups. Groupings were based on conflict trends in geographical regions and the International Monetary Fund's classification of SSA countries based on gross national income and development assistance respectively. Cumulative progress in each group was derived and main effects tested using ANOVA. Correlation analysis was conducted between political variables - POLITY 2, fragile state index (FSI), voter turnout rates, civil liberty scores (CLS) and the health variables. Our results suggest a significant main effect of eco-political and geo-political groups on some of the health variables. Political conflict as measured by FSI and political participation as measured by CLS were stronger predictors of slow progress in reducing under-five mortality rates and maternal mortality ratios. Our findings highlight the need for further research on political determinants of mortality in SSA. Cohesive effort should focus on strengthening countries' political, economic and social capacities in order to achieve sustainable goals beyond 2015.

  8. Political Budget Cycles

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Aaskoven, Lasse; Lassen, David Dreyer

    2017-01-01

    The political budget cycle—how elections affect government fiscal policy—is one of the most studied subjects in political economy and political science. The key theoretical question is whether incumbent governments can time or structure public finances in ways that improve their chances of reelec......The political budget cycle—how elections affect government fiscal policy—is one of the most studied subjects in political economy and political science. The key theoretical question is whether incumbent governments can time or structure public finances in ways that improve their chances...... on political budget cycles have recently focused on conditions under which such cycles are likely to obtain. Much recent research focuses on subnational settings, allowing comparisons of governments in similar institutional environments, and a consensus on the presences of cycles in public finances...

  9. Political Concepts for the Ethical Debate on Dilemmas on Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roberto Israel Rodríguez Soriano

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available This essay is a reflection on some of the political elements embedded in the ethical problems of medically assisted suicide and euthanasia. The thesis work is that political theoretical founda­tions of modern nations are aimed to protect the lives of people, a fact that responds to a series of historical processes of the very development of modern political theory. These fundamentals directly affect the cultural and political positions for the refusal to accept the legalization or regulation of the two practices in question, thus denying the right of self-determination in human decision making on the own life and death.

  10. SUBJECTIVE RIGHTS ACTIVITY AS A FACTOR OF FORMATION AND OPERATION OF PUBLIC OPINION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arkadiy Evgenevich Peskov

    2016-02-01

    Practical implications: public opinion is realized above all in the social and political sphere, so a basic knowledge of the genesis of public opinion creates the conditions for social inclusion and design rights in the socio-political sphere with the lowest degree of alienation.

  11. The issue of political behaviour in contemporary bio-political discourse

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. Y. Kravets

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available The main topic of the article is the political. During the study it has been found tested that political behaviour is the difficult question to analyse as in bio-politics there are a lot of discussions about genetics and social origins of political behaviour. An integration model of bio-political view of political behaviour has been suggested at the article, which includes both genetics (adaptation, domination and subordination and social factors (education, socialization, the evolution of consciousness. «Homo Politicus» is genetically related with another biological Wight and this definitely influences his behavior in social and political spheres. For instance, every human being as any social primates has genetic inclination to adaptation, domination, subjugation. In case with «Homo Sapiens» this has a form of genetic and social adaptation, political domination and subjugation. The inclination to the domination from one side and to the subjugation to another side is genetically «imprinted» into the nature of the «Homo Politicus». Particularly this two features lie is the basis of his political behavior. However, it is important to mention that, nevertheless the «Homo Sapiens» shares inclination of social primates for hierarchical social organization at the same time he has developed the following capabilities, which are unique in animal world, such as: language, culture and morale. Thus, ideas and values created by the human being have commenced changing of his behavior in social and political sphere. It is important to underline that in above mentioned dichotomy «genetic – culture/morale» such very core analysis element as human brain is absent. According to this, it is has to be mentioned that we keep in mind that the human brain participates in formation of every act or idea, what is fulfilled in the process of the political supervision of subject of management, as well as in the process of social action of management object

  12. Mobilization and Counter-mobilization Against LGBT Rights. Conservative Responses to the Recognition of Human Rights

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jairo Antonio López Pacheco

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available This article analyzes the counter-mobilization against the institutionalization of lgbt rights in Colombia and Mexico. From an analytical framework that integrates the dimension of mobilization and counter-mobilization in the conflicts for rights, we show that the conservative reaction in Colombia and Mexico is a coordinated and active response against the conquests of sexual minorities, led by the churches, which has slowed the progress of effective recognition of human rights. We have identified similar strategies of mobilization of demand frameworks, mobilization structures and collective action repertories in both cases that have raised the political costs of institutional changes through two mechanisms of conflict: street and electoral activism and institutional activism.

  13. The United States and the universality of human rights.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chomsky, N

    1999-01-01

    The United States takes a highly relativistic stance toward the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It regards the socio-economic rights and the right to development as without status; exempts itself from all provisions of the Declaration by failing to sign the conventions designed to implement these provisions; and unilaterally qualifies its support of civil and political rights. Leading recipients of U.S. aid have traditionally included regimes with atrocious human rights records. Those struggling for human rights should have no illusions about the systems of power and their servants.

  14. The Political Economy of Financial Systems : Evidence from Suffrage Reforms in the Last Two Centuries

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Degryse, H.A.; Lambert, T.; Schwienbacher, A.

    2013-01-01

    Abstract: Initially, voting rights were limited to wealthy elites providing political support for stock markets. The franchise expansion induces the median voter to provide political support for banking development as this new electorate has lower financial holdings and benefits less from the

  15. Perceived Organisational Politics, Political Behaviour and Employee ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    facing both private and public sector organisations (Nidhi & Prerna, 2015;. Gotsis & Kortezi ... These studies suggest that organisational politics often interfere with normal ..... Rawls's (1971) theory of justice provides a theoretical foundation for the relationship between ..... Ethical considerations in organisational politics: ...

  16. Moral politics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rapp, Carolin; Traunmüller, Richard; Freitag, Markus

    2014-01-01

    This article combines the research strands of moral politics and political behavior by focusing on the effect of individual and contextual religiosity on individual vote decisions in popular initiatives and public referenda concerning morally charged issues. We rely on a total of 13 surveys with 1...... American research on moral politics, direct democracies, and the public role of religion....

  17. What Does It Mean to Understand Human Rights as Essentially ‘Triggers for Intervention’?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hawre Hasan Hama

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Traditional theories of human rights regard human rights to be equivalent to universal moral rights. They also claim that human rights are justified by an appeal to some valuable aspect of human nature. These approaches, however, have been strongly challenged by the political theory of human rights. The latter derived from John Rawls’s conception of human rights in his famous work, Law of Peoples, argues that human rights are not equivalent to our universal moral rights, but are a subset of those rights: they are those rights that once violated lead to an erosion of state sovereignty, thus acting as ‘triggers for intervention’. This article mainly discusses the political conception of human rights to explain this question; what does it mean to understand human rights in the ways that their violations lead to intervention? Furthermore, the article strongly argues that such understanding of human rights is neither accurate nor helpful for reasons that will be mentioned in chapter two.

  18. Andrei Sakharov Prize: Human Rights and Peace - A Personal Odyssey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lerman, Zafra

    2016-03-01

    For more than 30 years, I have devoted my life to promoting scientific freedom and human rights around the world. This devotion led me to put pressure on the American Chemical Society (ACS) to become active in the fight for human rights. Due to this pressure, in 1986, ACS established the Subcommittee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights, which I chaired since its' inception for over 25 years. In 1988, I met with Andrei Sakharov who advised me to never stop pressuring governments or organizations that abuse human rights. Based on his council, I took a crash course in Russian before traveling to the Soviet Union several times to meet with dissidents, despite the risk to my own safety. After the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, I worked diligently on the issue of human rights in China. Traveling often to work on the release of pro-democracy prisoners, I met with several dissidents of China, including physicist Xu Liangying who was under house arrest. In my lecture, I will discuss additional cases of my fight for human rights. After 9/11/2001, I expanded my work on scientific freedom and human rights to the Middle East by organizing the Malta Conferences, which use science for diplomacy and as a bridge to peace. These conferences bring together scientists from 15 Middle East countries including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, etc. with 6 Nobel Laureates to work for 5 days on solving regional problems. Although acts of war and terrorism have destabilized the political and economic climate in the Middle East, the Malta Conferences have made it possible for scientists from countries that are on the opposing sides of political and cultural conflicts to meet in a politically neutral environment. There they can work to forge relationships that bridge the deep chasms of mistrust and intolerance. Scientists who normally don't have the opportunity to speak with one another are able to discuss their research and issues of mutual concern. In a time when the

  19. Globalizing queer? AIDS, homophobia and the politics of sexual identity in India

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kole Subir K

    2007-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Queerness is now global. Many emerging economies of the global South are experiencing queer mobilization and sexual identity politics raising fundamental questions of citizenship and human rights on the one hand; and discourses of nationalism, cultural identity, imperialism, tradition and family-values on the other. While some researchers argue that with economic globalization in the developing world, a Western, hegemonic notion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT identity has been exported to traditional societies thereby destroying indigenous sexual cultures and diversities, other scholars do not consider globalization as a significant factor in global queer mobilization and sexual identity politics. This paper aims at exploring the debate around globalization and contemporary queer politics in developing world with special reference to India. After briefly tracing the history of sexual identity politics, this paper examines the process of queer mobilization in relation to emergence of HIV/AIDS epidemic and forces of neoliberal globalization. I argue that the twin-process of globalization and AIDS epidemic has significantly influenced the mobilization of queer communities, while simultaneously strengthening right wing "homophobic" discourses of heterosexist nationalism in India.

  20. Patient rights, risk, and responsibilities in the genetic era – a right to know, a right not to know, or a duty to know?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jan Domaradzki

    2015-02-01

    The paper suggests that the developments in genetics result in the emergence of new molecular ethics which stress that individuals have a moral and political duty to undergo the test, know the risk, and disclose that information to others. Consequently, it may transform the right to know into a duty and poses the question whether in the genetic context individuals should have the right to remain ignorant. Finally, the paper argues that genetic literacy becomes a source of biological citizenship.

  1. Union Underground: Political Issues. Comparing Political Experiences, Experimental Edition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gillespie, Judith A.; Lazarus, Stuart

    This is the third unit to the second-semester "Comparing Political Experiences" course which focuses on a specific, controversial, political issue. The unit analyzes the concept of political maintenance by studying the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) between 1918 and 1975 and its fight to secure mine safety standards. A documentary…

  2. REDD+ in West Africa: Politics of Design and Implementation in Ghana and Nigeria

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adeniyi P. Asiyanbi

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available This paper analyses the design and implementation of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, conserving and enhancing forest carbon stocks, and sustainably managing forests (REDD+ in the West African region, an important global biodiversity area. Drawing on in-depth interviews, analysis of policy documents and observation of everyday activities, we sought to understand how REDD+ has been designed and implemented in Nigeria and Ghana. We draw on political ecology to examine how, and why REDD+ takes the form it does in these countries. We structure our discussion around three key dimensions that emerged as strong areas of common emphasis in our case studies—capacity building, carbon visibility, and property rights. First, we show that while REDD+ design generally foregrounds an ostensible inclusionary politics, its implementation is driven through various forms of exclusion. This contradictory inclusion–exclusion politics, which is partly emblematic of the neoliberal provenance of the REDD+ policy, is also a contingent reality and a strategy for navigating complexities and pursuing certain interests. Second, we show that though the emergent foci of REDD+ implementation in our case studies align with global REDD+ expectations, they still manifest as historically and geographically contingent processes that reflect negotiated and contested relations among actors that constitute the specific national circumstance of each country. We conclude by reflecting on the importance of our findings for understanding REDD+ projects in other tropical countries.

  3. Positive Politeness & Social Harmony in Literary Discourse

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    Nawal F. Abbas

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available The strategies of politeness are not arbitrarily chosen by speakers in interaction. Instead, the choice of a strategy is constrained by a number of contextual features (socio-cultural variables, such as the relative power of the speakers, the social distance of the speakers and what the speakers happen to be negotiating at the time of speaking. This study focuses on the linguistic strategies of politeness, and more specifically on the positive politeness, as represented in fiction. The novel chosen is that of Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables- a novel in which the main character Anne Shirley tries her best to establish common grounds with others until she achieves friendly and social harmonious relationships with nearly everybody. To show the above point, Brown and Levinson’s (1987 theory of politeness is adopted to account for the linguistic strategies, in addition to some subsequent contribution provided by Spencer-Oatey (2002 to account for sociality rights and obligations. This model is chosen to explore the relation between language use and the social relationship of the speakers. A point of departure, and according to O’Driscoll (1996, Brown and Levinson’s hierarchy of politeness strategies allows attention to positive to cover more ground than that subsumed under positive politeness (super-strategy 2. That is why baldly on-record (super-strategy 1 is used to pay positive face. The analysis shows that most of Anne’s directives in this speech event, which are linguistic realizations of both super-strategy 1 and 2, are meant to establish common grounds to achieve friendly and harmonious relationships with others.

  4. Political Culture and Covalent Bonding. A Conceptual Model of Political Culture Change

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Camelia Florela Voinea

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Our class of models aims at explaining the dynamics of political attitude change by means of the dynamic changes in values, beliefs, norms and knowledge with which it is associated. The model constructs a political culture perspective over the relationship between macro and micro levels of a society and polity. The model defines the bonding mechanism as a basic mechanism of the political culture change by taking inspiration from the valence bonding theory in Chemistry, which has inspired the elaboration of the mechanisms and processes underlying the political culture emergence and the political culture control over the relationship between macro-level political entities and the micro-level individual agents. The model introduces operational definitions of the individual agent in political culture terms. The simulation model is used for the study of emergent political culture change phenomena based on individual interactions (emergent or upward causation as well as the ways in which the macro entities and emergent phenomena influence in turn the behaviors of individual agents (downward causation. The model is used in the ongoing research concerning the quality of democracy and political participation of the citizens in the Eastern European societies after the Fall of Berlin Wall. It is particularly aimed at explaining the long-term effect of the communist legacy and of the communist polity concept and organization onto the political mentalities and behaviors of the citizens with respect to democratic institutions and political power. The model has major implications in political socialization, political involvement, political behavior, corruption and polity modeling.

  5. Parenting and Politics: Exploring Early Moral Bases of Political Orientation

    OpenAIRE

    Janoff-Bulman, Ronnie; Carnes, Nate C.; Sheikh, Sana

    2014-01-01

    Based on Lakoff’s (2002) Strict Father and Nurturant Parent metaphors for political conservatism and liberalism respectively, two studies explored parenting styles, political ideology, and the moral orientations that might link the two. Restrictive parenting (by both mother and father) predicted political conservatism, and this path was mediated by a strong Social Order orientation (Study 1) reflecting, more broadly, an inhibition-based proscriptive morality (Study 2). Political liberalism wa...

  6. Hugo Grotius, Privileges, Fundamental Laws and Rights

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Nifterik, G.

    2011-01-01

    As a result of the political developments in the young and struggling Dutch Republic, Grotius experienced the lack of, and the need for juridical protection of some basic rights against infringements by the government. The privileges, taken for fundamental laws, did not provide this protection

  7. Human Rights and Peace Audit on Partition in South Asia - Phase II ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    3 févr. 2009 ... Human Rights and Peace Audit on Partition in South Asia - Phase II. In South Asia, people's social, political and cultural aspirations often get articulated as movements for territorially defined political change. Very often, these movements find resolution in partition or in an ethnic group/nationality getting ...

  8. Resistance to the political representation of alien populations: the European paradox.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moulier-boutang, Y

    1985-01-01

    This article addresses the issue of the resistance of European nations to granting unnaturalized citizens the right to vote in local, regional, and national elections. It argues that this political inflexibility contrasts with the economic flexibility these nations demonstrated when they made a call for labor to overseas populations, former colonies, and other countries, and which they exhibit now as they work to modernize production systems in their industries. Because of this lack of political representation, local authorities have proven disinterested in migrants' concerns and migrants have become subjects of the labor market, rather than of the law. Overall "political underdevelopment" will only intensify the turbulence projected for Europe's economy.

  9. Education and Political Development

    Science.gov (United States)

    Massialas, Byron G.

    1977-01-01

    Considers how education is related to politics with the focus on political socialization, political recruitment, i.e., the selection and training of political elites, and political integration or nation building of groups of people. (Author/RK)

  10. Political and Legal Doctrine of Simon Bolivar

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    Mixail V. Fedorov

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available Present article is devoted to the legal, political and constitutional ideas of the outstanding leader of war of independence in Latin America Simon Bolivar that was called by his countrymen and contemporaries to be a LIBERATOR. In the present article author discusses complex genesis and evolution of the political and legal doctrine of Simon Bolivar. Review is conducted by author in the context of developing theory and practice of Latin American constitutionalism in the XIX century. Author conceptualized and revealed basic historical patterns of formation and development of Latin American countries during the War of Independence (1810-1826 period. Author conducted comprehensive analysis of the draft constitution which was developed by Simon Bolivar for the newly independent states of Latin America and reveals theoretical and practical problem of choosing Simon Bolivar republican form of government, such as a peculiar institution in the form of principle of the separation of powers, containing the fourth power. Author focuses on the questions of Simon Bolivar’s relationship to the constitutional institute of human rights, idea of relationship between state and church. Article also researches many other political, legal and constitutional ideas of Simon Bolivar, present views of historians, lawyers, political scientists, statesmen and public activists.

  11. Re-Thinking Relations in Human Rights Education: The Politics of Narratives

    Science.gov (United States)

    Adami, Rebecca

    2014-01-01

    Human Rights Education (HRE) has traditionally been articulated in terms of cultivating better citizens or world citizens. The main preoccupation in this strand of HRE has been that of bridging a gap between universal notions of a human rights subject and the actual locality and particular narratives in which students are enmeshed. This…

  12. Homeschooling in Brazil: A Matter of Rights or a Political Debate?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barbosa, Luciane Muniz Ribeiro

    2016-01-01

    This article presents an analysis of the right to education in Brazil in light of the growing number of Brazilian families practicing homeschooling. The debate is recent in Brazil. Here we present an analysis of international literature on homeschooling, Brazilian literature on the right to education, and an appraisal of lawsuits against Brazilian…

  13. Arguments for the Normative Validity of Human Rights

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, Esther Oluffa

    2016-01-01

    . The philosophical conceptions of law, justice and right stated by Hobbes and Rousseau and in the Declaration will be discussed in connection with two seminal criticisms. By excluding women from politics, Olympe de Gouge objected, the Declaration contradicted the universal understanding of human rights. Jeremy......The paper highlights clashes between different conceptions of right, law and justice crystalizing in the French Declaration of Human and Civic Rights from 1789 and the criticisms it aroused. Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651) and Rousseau’s Social Contract (1762) are discussed as important predecessors...... Bentham protested against the Declaration’s core idea of inalienable human rights....

  14. Physicians and abortion: provision, political participation and conflicts on the ground--the cases of Brazil and Poland.

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Zordo, Silvia; Mishtal, Joanna

    2011-01-01

    Two qualitative studies have been conducted between 2002 and 2009 in Poland and Brazil, two different geopolitical settings in which the Catholic Church has had a significant political influence and where abortion is highly restricted. In both countries, struggles for abortion rights have played an important role in challenging the current restrictive policies and bringing attention to the plight of women unable to obtain abortions. This article examines the political role that physicians play in these contestations, drawing on some findings of two larger qualitative studies. In Poland semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 physicians in Warsaw and Krakow and with 55 women aged 18 to 45 in Gdańsk. In Brazil questionnaires were administered and semi-structured interviews conducted with 22 obstetrician-gynecologists and 23 health professionals in two public maternity hospitals in Salvador da Bahia. This article argues that gynecologists' perspectives and practices not only reflect or heed religious precepts on reproductive rights, but are also deeply influenced by inadequate medical training and by the fear of being prosecuted or stigmatized, especially in Brazil. The political non-engagement of physicians in Poland is driven by the lack of abortion rights discourse in the public arena, poor links with women's rights groups, and the lack of political unity within the medical community. Comparisons between Brazil and Poland ultimately suggest that strong liaisons between physicians and the feminist movement influence physicians' attitudes and political engagement and are most promising in abortion rights advocacy efforts. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  15. Celebrity politics: the politics of late modernity?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Marsh, D.; t Hart, P.; Tindall, K.

    2010-01-01

    The academic literature on celebrity politics is rarely systematic; more often it is superficial and anecdotal. In addition, most of the literature focuses either upon classifying different types/categories of celebrity politicians and their roles in politics, or upon the question of whether the

  16. Amerykańska filozofia polityczna. Niedokończona debata (AMERICAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. AN UNFINISHED DEBATE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Piotr Bołtuć

    2007-06-01

    Full Text Available The author begins by drawing a distinction between an earlier stage of contemporary American political philosophy, informed by the Rawls-Nozick-Walzer debate, and a later stage geared towards social issues such as multiculturalism. His point is that the earlier debate was incomplete because an important group of views went underrepresented. This becomes clear when one use two variables to classify the main political theories: higher taxes and more social services versus lower taxes and fewer social services (economic left and right and the level of individualism versus collectivism (liberals and communitarians. This gives us four positions: left-wing liberalism, left-wing communitarianism, right-wing liberalism and right-wing communitarianism. The author claims that right-wing communitarianism is barely represented in the debate that grounded today's political philosophy. He sketches a version of conservatism, relying mostly on Nisbet and Kirk, to illustrate the missing position of right wing communitarianism. Although he does not endorse many aspects of conservatism as right-wing communitarianism, he argues that it is a theoretically viable option and suggest that sociological reasons may explain why it is underrepresented among professional philosophers. As a part of the argument he also outlines a position called equality without egalitarianism.

  17. The right to life movement: sources, development, and strategies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cassidy, K

    1995-01-01

    This article considers the history of the anti-abortion movement by first reviewing and assessing current images and interpretations of the movement, including the negative images used by the mass media as well as the interpretation which categorizes the movement as one of moral and political conservatism and that set out by Kristin Luker which sees the conflict between anti-abortion and pro-choice women as being between women who have lived radically different lives. The second section of the essay sets forth an explanation of the social sources and context of the pro-life movement, which is diverse and complex because it is embraced by those who see abortion as a civil rights question, as a family values issues, as a class/cultural issue, as a Church-related issue, as a gender issue, as a right-to-life issue embracing euthanasia, or as a movement of political conservatives. The institutional origins and development of the movement are explored in the next section. The next two section are devoted to two phases of the movement's search for a strategy. The first phase involved an attempt to use educational materials designed to reveal the reality rather than the abstract aspects of abortion. After Roe vs. Wade, attaching a "Human Life Amendment" to the constitution became a strategic goal. The second phase involved attempting to reverse the Roe decision by gaining the appointment of pro-life jurists to the Supreme Court. The pro-life movement entered national politics through the efforts of Catholic Bishops, the emergence of the New Right, and its own increasing political sophistication. The final section of the essay considers the situation after the Supreme Court's decision in Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services, which allowed states to restrict abortion. This decision precipitated a decline in support for the anti-abortion forces because the American public would rather have completely free access to abortion than a complete ban. The movement continues to

  18. Solidarity and the right to health in the era of healthcare commercialization

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Arenas Catalan, E.S.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/369494059

    2018-01-01

    Taking a cross-disciplinary approach to international human rights law that combines public health, legal, political and social theory, this thesis analyses the right of access to healthcare and the ways in which commercialization has limited this human right. In doing so, the study develops a

  19. Dalit Women's Rights and Citizenship in India - Phase I | CRDI ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    Dalit Women's Rights and Citizenship in India - Phase I. Dalits - the Scheduled Castes - constitute more than 16% of India's population. In the caste-based social order, Dalits have experienced untouchability and faced social exclusion from economic, civil, cultural and political rights. By any indicator of development, the ...

  20. Spaghetti Politics: Local Electoral Systems and Alliance Structure in Italy, 1984-2001

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parigi, Paolo; Bearman, Peter S.

    2008-01-01

    This article describes the impact of the Italian electoral reforms of 1993 on the structure of local political alliances. The reform, which moved Italy from a purely proportional representation system to a mixed, largely majoritarian system, was designed to increase transparency, reduce corruption, limit the number of political parties, and create…