Artigos de revistas sobre o tema "Authoritarianism – congresses"

AbstractThis article draws on evidence from loosely structured interviews and data from original surveys of 5,130 delegates in township, county and municipal congresses to argue that congressional representation unfolds as authoritarian parochialism in China. It makes three new arguments. First, popularly elected local congresses that once only mechanically stood in for the Chinese mass public, through demographically descriptive and politically symbolic representation, now work as substantively representative institutions. Chinese local congressmen and women view themselves and act as “delegates,” not Burkean trustees or Leninist party agents. Second, this congressional representation is not commonly expressed in the quintessentially legislative activities familiar in other regime types. Rather, it is an extra-legislative variant of pork-barrel politics: parochial activity by delegates to deliver targeted public goods to the geographic constituency. Third, this authoritarian parochialism is due to institutional arrangements and regime priorities, some common to single-party dictatorships and some distinct to Chinese authoritarianism.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a preliminary overview of the state of research on education as an instrument of domination during the «exceptional» moments assumed by the State throughout the 20th century in Latin America. This is a summary review mainly aimed at recovering part of the knowledge debated in the Ibero-American Congresses on the History of Latin American Education (CIHELA) in the last thirty years. Certainly, the universe of connotations that open up in this call outlined by the concepts «authoritarianism, violence, war, vulnerability and school», forces a limited theoretical-methodological operation and, for instance, affordable. In this sense, this work results from the search, identification, selection and analysis of a broad field of research and reflection on this subject, problems and academic objectives. Following the works presented in the CIHELA, this selection focuses on the transformations of the educational field, in general, and the school, in particular, in periods of restriction or closure of democratic participation. More specifically, it addresses the devices, uses and scope of authoritarian power according to the many variants assumed in each geography and unique history (foreign occupations, military and civil-military dictatorships, etc.).

The research on Russia’s 1993 Constitution by the Chinese constitutional circles mainlyfocuses on constitutional norms and constitutional systems, with rare historical attention. In order tohave a complete and profound understanding of the current Constitution of Russia, it is not enough tofocus solely on the constitutional system, but also to know “where the 1993 Constitution came from”. Russia’s current constitution, which was adopted and entered into force in 1993, was enacted at a special historical time. At that time, Russia’s economic situation was unstable, and a new political order was in the process of forming. During this period, the revision of the 1978 Constitution and the enactment of a new Constitution were carried out simultaneously. According to the amended 1978 Constitution, there are elected presidents and elected people’s congresses, and the government is accountable to both the people’s congresses and the president. This form of regime organization is different from the typical form of political organization in other countries of the world. To some extent, there are two power centers in Russia: the president and parliament.The President and the Parliament were deeply divided on economic policy. As times goes on, the political disputes between the two become more and more intense, affecting not only the revision of the old constitution, but also the formulation of the new constitution. Both the president and parliament want a new constitution that strengthens their position and power. In April 1992, the Sixth People’s Congress adopted the basic provisions of the new draft constitution. However, the President proposed amendments to the Constitutional Council, which is responsible for formulating the draft constitution. In the draft constitution later published by the Constitutional Council, the Powers of the President were expanded. The Parliament was very dissatisfi ed with this. In determining the schedule of the Seventh People’s Congress, only the agenda of the old Constitution had been amended and the draft new Constitution had not been discussed.In December 1992, the Seventh People’s Congress was held and the Parliament weakened the President’s powers by amending the old Constitution. The president believes that the people’s congress attacks the policies of the president and the government, and that the authoritarianism of legislative power is also dangerous. The president proposed holding a referendum in Russia to resolve the power struggle between the president and parliament. After the victory of the President in a general referendum held on 25 April 1993, the President’s side published the draft constitution of the Presidential version and convened a "constitutional assembly". At this point, the parliamentary side also submitted its own draft constitution. In July 1993, the Constitutional Assembly produced a compromise version of the draft constitution, however, did not settle the power struggle between the President and parliament. In September 1993, with the promulgation of Presidential Decree No. 1400, the confl ict between the two sides quickly intensifi ed and eventually turned into an armed confl ict. On 12 December 1993, a draft constitution was adopted by a referendum in Russia, which was formally adopted in 1993.Despite the irreconcilable differences between the President and the Parliament during the 1993 constitution- making process, there are also some commonality in the draft constitutions of the two sides, namely, the recognition and adherence to the concepts of "rule of law" and "civil society". The process of formulating the 1993 Constitution is tortuous, but it may be understood if it is analyzed and examined in such a grand historical context as the transformation of Russian society

Consultative authoritarianism challenges existing conceptions of nondemocratic governance. Citizen participation channels are designed to improve policymaking and increase feelings of regime responsiveness, but how successful are these limited reforms in stemming pressure for broader change? The article develops a new theoretical lens to explain how common citizens perceive the introduction of partially liberalizing reforms and tests the implications using an original survey experiment of Chinese netizens. Respondents randomly exposed to the National People’s Congress’ (NPC) new online participation portals show greater satisfaction with the regime and feelings of government responsiveness, but these effects are limited to less educated, politically excluded citizens.

The present paper has as its central theme the profile and contents or parliamentarians election contents by members of the brazilian Armed Forces and Public Security Agencies elected in 2018. During the 2018 election process, it was possible to identify, at least, 26 congressmen who linked their patents to their nominations and ballot names. After data collection, it was possible to draw a profile of these 26 congressmen regarding the party, gender, ethnicity, occupation and other relevant characteristics. It was also possible to identify, by analyzing the posts on the social networks Facebook and YouTubeof these parliamentarians of the electoral period, two types of content instrumentalized in the campaigns -the programmatic content andideological content. The analysis made it possible to contribute to the debate of the “new” right in the Political Science and to conclude that these candidatures are related to the legacies of authoritarianism in Brazil.

The history of the emergence of the idea of multi-story housing construction is described, starting with the project of the experimental settlement of Spandau-Haselhorst by Walter Gropius and the subsequent report of Gropius to the third CIAM congress. The conditions under which the IV CIAM Congress met are shown - the world economic crisis, the strengthening of authoritarianism in the world, the absence of German, American and Soviet architects, as well as opponents of Le Corbusier in other delegations. The history of the IV Congress and the appearance, ten years after it, of two versions of the Athens Charter are described. The differences between José Luis Sert's version and Le Corbusier's version are presented, as well as some results of its implementation. The implementation of ideas, both different from the Athens Charter and its followers, in Great Britain and the place that the construction of multi-storey housing eventually took in the country is described. An example of construction regulation in Germany is given, which makes the construction of multi-story housing economically unprofitable.

ThThe 25th anniversary of the Department of Educational Studies is an inspiration for the author to return to the pedagogical events of 1993. The article by Mikołaj Kozakiewicz published this year contains warnings that the chances of Polish education after a major educational change after 1989 (democracy, pluralism, europeization) are lost, and anticipates their reversal. centralism, authoritarianism, ideological monism, the closing of Poland to Europe are coming back. These anxieties also appeared at the First National Pedagogical Congress in Rembertów in 1993, although the prevailing concern was whether pedagogy as science kept up with the great changes. At the same time, a new formation and a generation of academic pedagogues emerged at this Congress, undertaking new challenges of this time. Unfortunately, sociologists and intercultural psychologists studies have shown that the chances of great change have been educationally wasted, which is manifested in the low culture of everyday life of Poles and in the persistence of Polish perennial, negative social stereotypes. The author, however, finds and presents reasons for the pedagogy of possibilities, supporting the development of people to autonomy and humanity.e 25th anniversary of the Department of Educational Studies is an inspiration for the author to return to the pedagogical events of 1993. The article by Mikołaj Kozakiewicz published this year contains warnings that the chances of Polish education after a major educational change after 1989 (democracy, pluralism, europeization) are lost, and anticipates their reversal. centralism, authoritarianism, ideological monism, the closing of Poland to Europe are coming back. These anxieties also appeared at the First National Pedagogical Congress in Rembertów in 1993, although the prevailing concern was whether pedagogy as science kept up with the great changes. At the same time, a new formation and a generation of academic pedagogues emerged at this Congress, undertaking new challenges of this time. Unfortunately, sociologists and intercultural psychologists studies have shown that the chances of great change have been educationally wasted, which is manifested in the low culture of everyday life of Poles and in the persistence of Polish perennial, negative social stereotypes. The author, however, finds and presents reasons for the pedagogy of possibilities, supporting the development of people to autonomy and humanity.

The Hungarian transition from socialism stands out from other examples of political change in the region, in that the ruling Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSZMP) suffered an erosion of political power generated largely from within the party itself. The study shows how the Communist Party, after its destruction in the revolution of 1956, sought to institutionalize its rule through a course of limited liberalization and the broad co-optation of the populace. This policy helped create a tacit social compact with society, particularly in co-opting younger intellectuals who identified with the goals of reform socialism. However, the party eventually marginalized this group, creating an internal party opposition that supported socialism but opposed the MSZMP. Consequently, when the limits of Hungarian reform socialism became evident in the mid-1980s, rank-and-file intellectuals within the party began to mobilize against the party hierarchy, seeking to transform the MSZMP into a democratic socialist party. These “reform circles,” drawing their strength primarily from the countryside, spread to all parts of the party and helped undermine central party power and expand the political space for opposition groups to organize. Eventually, the reform circles were able to force an early party congress in which the MSZMP was transformed into a Western-style socialist party prior to open elections in 1990.The case is significant in that it indicates that the forms of transition in Eastern Europe were not simply the specific outcome of elite interaction. Rather, they were shaped in large part by the patterns of socialist institutionalization found in each country. Therefore, studies of political transition can be enriched with an explicit focus on the institutional characteristics of each case, linking the forms of transitions and their posttransition legacies to the institutional matrix from which they emerged. In short, the study argues that the way in which an autocratic order perpetuates itself affects the manner in which that system declines and the shape of the new system that takes its place.

Politically, the region of Balochistan has always remained under the volatile situation. Scholars have different opinions regarding the political conditioning of Balochistan. The paper finds what type of political struggle was followed by the political authoritarians of Balochistan that brought political instability in Balochistan. In this regard, the main political actors have been dealt with. Such as the first and foremost was Khan of Kalat along with other nationalist leaders. On the other hand, there would be a discussion on the role and politics of the Muslim League. Apart from these two political actors, there would be a debate on the politics of Congress and the British in Balochistan. It has been tried to make the picture clear that political misery in Balochistan was brought by the main political elite of Balochistan.

BETWEEN THE RULE OF LAW AND AUTHORITARIANISM.POLISH CONSIDERATIONS ON SEEKING THE OPTIMAL STATE SYSTEM AFTER REGAINING INDEPENDENCE IN THE THIRD REPUBLIC The article presents an analysis of selected considerations of Polish political discussions about the shortcomings of the parliamentary system and their antidote in the form of an authoritarian system. The point of departure is an analysis of the idea of a legal state Rechtsstaat, well known in Congress Kingdom even before Poland regained its independence in 1918. It is also worthwhile to research the attempt of the integration the head of state into the parliamentary system, which was successfully applied between 1918 and 1922 when the Head of State institution was personali­zed by Józef Pilsudski. The analysis of the authoritarian thinking of Piłsudskis movement between 1926–1939 did not turn out as it had been declared, the sanation of state, and ideologically — also experienced — numerous social failures. Piłsudski’s legacy is present to some extent in contempo­rary Poland, with few exceptions e.g. the concept of the common good, but one cannot speak of the legacy of authoritarianism. The idea of authoritarianism, however, remains less or more attrac­tive as the solution to the social pains of the Third Republic. As between 1918–1922 in Poland, it has now been possible to incorporate the president’s powers into the parliamentary system, where the head of state is not a purely decorative body to a certain extent as a moderator of the empire. The list of constitutional values is also important. The underserved party system before the war and now is undoubtedly a negative political tendency, although such a system is not a developed state legal system. Paradoxically, however, it fosters anti-authoritarian tendencies.

Generally, Nigerian political parties in the present republic have been hampered by crisis of internal democracy thus undermining their political leadership recruitment function. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is a good example of one of these Nigerian political parties that lacks internal democracy. In fact, PDP was a leviathan. The 2015 Election symbolised a contest between David and Goliath. The electoral outcome is that PDP has transformed from a ruling party to an opposition party. The study, by relying on the theory of relative autonomy of the state and secondary sources, concludes that lack of internal democracy was a necessary condition for PDP’s poor performance in the 2015 General Elections, and thus, there is a relationship between crisis of internal democracy and 2015 electoral outcomes. Also, the article noted that PDP authoritarianism deepened crisis of internal democracy in Nigeria and that this authoritarian character of the former ruling PDP was a reflection of the authoritarian character of the Nigerian state, which is currently shaping the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). The study is essentially qualitative, historical and inductive.

This article encourages a reevaluation of the role of Anatolian Muslim merchants and notability in the Turkish nationalist movement after World War I. It offers the political career of Gümüşhane merchant Kadirbeyoğlu Zeki Bey (1884–1952) as one step toward such a reevaluation. Zeki is known to historians of Turkey for his seemingly unusual opposition: For a time, he was the only independent member of parliament under the Turkish single-party regime. Zeki was also one of the few outspoken opponents in parliament of abolishing the caliphate. But an examination of the reasons for Zeki’s persistent opposition shows that his background and platform were far from unique. This article first pinpoints the origins of Zeki’s political mobilization in the polarized environment of post-World-War-I Anatolia and explains his initial success in the Turkish nationalist movement. It then charts Zeki’s step-by-step alienation from this movement, from the Erzurum Congress to the last Ottoman parliament. Finally, it details Zeki’s “last hurrah”, the second Turkish parliament, where he championed causes dear to Anatolian Muslim merchants and notability: economic liberalism, social conservatism, civilian rule, and anti-authoritarianism. Zeki owed his initial success to his partisan neutrality and ties to the Ottoman social system, but the quickly changing dynamics of the Turkish nationalist movement soon made his opposition, and that of nationalists with a similar background, untenable.

The article analyzes the internal crises experienced by the Soviet bloc countries during the Cold War. It is noted that the crises of society in Eastern Europe, in which in the early 1950s the model of the state system of the totalitarian type of the Soviet model was finally established, they arose constantly and over time unfolded and deepened. The social order imposed on the states under the influence of the USSR proved to be foreign completely and the population of these countries was unprepared and refused to accept it, which was one of the main causes of permanent outbursts of social discontent. The crisis of governance in the Soviet Union that arose after Stalin’s death, uncertainty, and some hope for the liberalization of public life gave the socialist camp hope for democratic reforms that could begin with a new leadership in the USSR. An extraordinary surge in social activity in the Soviet bloc led to the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, which decided on a variety of forms of transition to socialism and could create the conditions for a peaceful and radical political and economic transformation. However, subsequent events showed the inability of the Soviet leadership to manage effectively the socialist camp in times of crisis, the use of military force as the only possible method of resolving conflicts, unwillingness to reform the system in the face of the challenges of the time, indomitable authoritarianism. It is noted that the internal crises that erupted in the Soviet bloc, along with the casualties of the population and the threat to the stability of European security, nevertheless showed the readiness of these countries to change and internal resistance to the system, which were able at any time, if possible, lead the states on the path of reforms and democratization.

Political parties are the major agents of a political process. In the democratic system of governance, political parties are thought to be the inevitable factors. Political parties are said to be as the lubricant oil of democracy, engine of democracy, fuel of democracy, life line of democracy and energy of democracy in the democratic system. Democracy is the political system which is regulated and performed by the political parties. For the well functioning of a democratic system, the political parties should follow perform the democratic values and norms properly. All the parties but mainly the ruling party or parties should be always committed towards the achievement of democratic values. Party may be polarized but they should not be polarized for and against the democratic norms and values. When political get parties polarized going for and against constitutional guidelines then it may be proved disastrous for democracy. Now in Nepal political parties have been polarized making their own alliance during the election time. Left alliance has declared that they will make the unified single communist party for political stability and economic prosperity. Democratic alliance mainly Nepali congress has claimed that left alliance is not for nation but for imposing totalitarianism and authoritarianism in the country. Polarization of political party will bring both the positive and negative impacts in the democratic polity. To make success the democratic system of governance, party may be polarized and unified but they must not to be polarized to make weaken the democracy. The major objectives of this article are to show the major values of democracy, to show the patterns of polarization of political parties and to analyze the impacts of polarization of political parties. To meet these objectives descriptive-analytical methodology of study has been applied. To draw the conclusion, both qualitative and quantitative information have been taken from secondary method.Journal of Political Science, Volume XVIII, 2018, page: 62-81

Este artículo tiene por objeto reflexionar acerca de las lecturas que juristas argentinos realizaron sobre la emergencia de instituciones políticas en algunos europeos en el contexto de entreguerras. El cuerpo de profesores y académicos aquí trabajados alternaron sus clases en la universidad con intervenciones intelectuales más amplias, mediante artículos y libros académicos de circulación especializada.Mediante un corpus de fuentes poco exploradas, como las revistas de la Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad de Buenos Aires y de la Universidad de La Plata, y del Boletín de la Biblioteca del Congreso, el artículo pretende primero demarcar cierta agenda de producción académica que estos juristas desarrollaron en el período 1920-1940, y luego, dilucidar cómo estas intervenciones sobre el contexto europeo fueron clave para desarrollar nuevos vocabularios y modelar conceptos nuevos. En la ponderación de un enfoque jurídico-científico, estos profesores y juristas complejizaron los lenguajes jurídico-políticos sobre los fenómenos que estaban percibiendo.AbstractThis article aims to reflect on readings that Argentine lawyers made about the emergence of political institutions in some Interwar Europeans countries. The body of professors and scholars analyzed in this article delivered classes in the Law School of the University of Buenos Aires, in the National University of La Plata and in the National University of Córdoba. Through an unexplored corpus of sources, such as the Journal of the University of Buenos Aires’ School of Law, the Annals of the University of La Plata’ School of Legal and Social Sciences and the Bulletin of the Library of Congress, the article intends to describe the existence of an academic agenda that these scholars developed during 1920 and 1940, and then, to elucidate how these intellectual interventions on the European context sought to be read with a local perspective. In the formation and translation of a scientific and legal approach, these professors assessed the necessity to adapt these new European mechanisms to the local reality and to form more complex vocabularies and concepts about the phenomena they were perceiving.

e3828021The text is an essay based on theoretical reflections on institutional and symbolic violence in higher education which seeks to analyze the interface as evasion in exclusion processes. This is an exploratory study with a qualitative approach, which uses theoretical and documentary sources in order to elicit different investigations. The debate focuses on the contradictory elements of the university institution in the context of expanding access, it is assumed that the logic of its function, organization, and functioning contribute to the multiplication of inequalities and evasion mechanisms; Between opposites and contradictions, the analysis indicates the university institution as a space of criticism and combat to violence, fight and production of critical knowledge.ResumoO texto é um ensaio a partir de reflexões teóricas sobre a violência institucional e simbólica na educação superior em que se busca analisar a interface como a evasão em processos de exclusão. Trata-se de um estudo exploratório e de abordagem qualitativa, que utiliza fontes teóricas e documentais a fim de suscitar diferentes investigações. O debate centra-se nos elementos contraditórios da instituição universitária no contexto de expansão do acesso, parte-se do princípio que a lógica de sua função, organização e funcionamento contribuem para a multiplicação das desigualdades e mecanismos de evasão. Entre opostos e contradições a análise indica a instituição universitária como um espaço de crítica e combate à violência, de luta e produção de conhecimento crítico.Palavras-chave: Educação superior, Violência, Evasão.Keywords: Higher education, Violence, Evasion.ReferencesARENDT, H. Da violência. Trad. Maria Cláudia Drummond Trindade. Brasília, Universidade de Brasília, 1985.BAUMAN. Z. Comunidade: a busca por segurança no mundo atual. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 2003.BELTRÁN, J. L. Ser para aprender. Los beneficios sociales de la educación a lo largo de la vida. 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Survey data suggest that a high proportion of Chinese congress delegates sit concurrently in two or more congresses. While dual mandates are not unusual in democracies, the literature has failed to notice their existence in China, let alone theorize or analyze them. We turn to the political science literature on assemblies under authoritarianism to guide our analysis of survey data for 3,008 county congress delegates, half of whom are concurrent ones. We show that dual mandates amplify some voices and not others in ways consistent with two perspectives in the literature. Dual mandates amplify information from citizens at the grassroots upward toward governments: More delegates with deep community roots representing poor, rural, remote districts sit concurrently in county and lower-level congresses. Dual mandates also coopt influential groups posing a potential challenge to ruling party power: They amplify the influence of private entrepreneurs, more of whom sit concurrently in county and prestigious higher-level congresses.

Much early public choice theory focused on alleged pathologies of democratic legislatures, portraying them as irrational, manipulable, or subject to capture. Recent years have seen the emergence of a new strand of argument, reaffirming the old skepticism of legislatures but suggesting that transferring power from legislatures to chief executives offers a solution. Just as the earlier prescriptions ignored the pathologies of the agencies empowered to check and constrain legislatures, so the new scholarship overlooks the pathologies of executive power. The primary sources of congressional dysfunction call for reforms that would strengthen Congress instead of hobbling it in new ways that exacerbate the drift toward authoritarian presidentialism in the American system. Executive aggrandizement is a consequence of decades of institutional malfunction, worsened by right-wing attacks on legislative capacity. This has been the enduring impact of the public choice movement since the 1950s, but its twenty-first century offshoot is especially malign.

The hierarchical organisation of society and the lack of distinction between the public and private sphere in Islam and Hinduism are cultural features of India and Pakistan that seem inconsistent with democracy. Reservation policy and the recognition of the most popular regional languages both demonstrate the adjustment of India’s democratic framework to the caste system and the arithmetic of ethnic groups respectively. These measures have helped to pave the way for India's smooth political transition. In contrast to the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League refused to introduce similar solutions in Pakistan. The public presence of Hinduism in India and Islam in Pakistan have barely affected the countries overall political trajectories. However, the recent radicalisation, marked by the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party in India and the emergence of the Islamist political movements, including the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Party in Pakistan, have triggered tendencies towards authoritarianism. This paper concludes by reconsidering the similarities between the impact of the majority religion’s public presence on the post-2014 Indian and Pakistani regime trajectories. By the comparative analysis of the two countries, this study contributes to the contemporary debates in political sciences about the rise of authoritarianism and the demand for identity.

In the first quarter of the twenty-first century, the entangled pathologies of late modernity are increasingly revealing themselves in a simultaneous: (1) emergence of authoritarianism in the South and Right populism in the North that is gaining momentum year after year; (2) rising trends of inequality, precarity, and exclusion; and (3) hierarchical social polarizations are emerging in more and more societies. How do, and how should, the social sciences, and particularly sociology, react to these pathologies of late modernity? I would argue that the bulk of the responses of the social sciences and/or sociology to these pathologies are defined as being classically liberal but politically illiberal – I call this peculiar combination ‘Symbolic Liberalism’. To address the inherent problems with Symbolic Liberalism and as an alternative to it, I propose Dialogical Sociology as a form of balance between collective and individual political liberal project.

Across the post-World War II western liberal order, antidemocratic leaders have ascended to power through the ballot box and then engaged in an assault on prodemocratic norms. Commentators have worried that counter-normative behaviors will bring into existence a “new normal,” constructing an antidemocratic regimen in which future leaders will be freed to operate beyond either long-standing or newly created democratic expectations. In this article, I explore the matter of how and when incumbent leaders establish norms for future leaders. Normative leadership is typically presented as the capacity of leaders to set norms for the social units they are heading. Less examined but vital to the understanding of how leadership is enacted is the question of how prevailing norms create opportunities and limitations on the exercise of leadership. Leaders set norms not only just for their followers but also for future leaders. With particular attention to the norm breaking of Donald Trump in the United States, I examine a pattern of norm setting, norm breaking, and norm resetting that has unfolded at the presidential level. Whatever norms Trump, or any authoritarian leaders, may break during their incumbency, the setting of new norms will rely on a network of actors: not only just future leaders but also representatives of institutions (the courts, military, press, congress, etc.) as well as voters.

When Xi Jinping had just come to power in 2012, the world expected that he would continue the development trajectory of economic liberalization and political institutionalization set in motion by Deng Xiaoping. However, when the National People’s Congress abolished the presidential term limit in the Chinese Constitution in March of 2018, it suddenly became clear that Xi had chosen to “roll back” from Deng’s policy line in nearly every aspect of the Chinese Party-state system. How does one explain Xi’s sudden departure from Deng’s policy line? In comparison with the resurgence of other authoritarian regimes of the 1960s and 1970s in Latin America and East Asia, this paper argues that the cause of Xi’s political rollback lies in the exhaustion of the previous development model. More specifically, the exhaustion of export-led growth in the mid-2000s had made the existing distributive coalition unsustainable. The power struggle within the political coalition therefore intensified and finally led to Xi’s monopoly over political power. The argument of this paper will proceed through four parts. It will begin with a literature review of comparative authoritarianism with a particular focus on the impact of a development crisis on the survival of political coalitions. It is followed by an analysis of the contributions of China’s export-led growth to the sustainability of the political coalition during the eras of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. Then, it will explain how the exhaustion of export-led growth led to a power struggle within the political coalition and how through a re-orientation of the development model, Xi has gradually concentrated power into his own hands. Finally, it will discuss the theoretical implications of China’s case.

Abstract Recent military coups in West Africa have put the continent’s democratisation itself into question. In some places, for the moment, these coups appear to have popular backing. Nigeria, where radicalism is firmly rooted in democratic values and a human-rights framework, the radical grassroots opposition to the Buhari government’s creeping authoritarianism lies drenched in blood. The roots of this development go back to the history of Nigeria’s radicalism in the twentieth century. Much has appeared on the global 1968 recently, including that of Africa. 1970s/1980s-style radicalism is reappearing today with Omoyele Sowore’s 2018 presidential candidacy, with the African Action Congress party, the #EndSARS protests and the tragic Lekki Toll Gate massacre (2020) in Nigeria. The shift towards radicalism is palpable with protest music such as Falz’s This is Nigeria, and Burna Boy’s Monsters you Made, both explicitly targeting neocolonialism and police brutality. Contrary to Achille Mbembe’s sweeping dismissal of African radicalism, the movement with very deep roots under study is meaningful once again, and is gathering momentum in West Africa’s giant polity. This article applies Walter Benjamin’s and also Nigerian radical thinkers’ conceptualisation of political, social and artistic radicalism, while it frames the Nigerian version via the movement’s history, in which marxisant theory and praxis, feminism, human rights and pro-democracy movements interact with emancipatory strands of Islam, Christianity, Igbo Judaism, and animism. In the context of Nigerian radicalism, even expressly pro-capitalist art theory performs a radical social function by stressing the African’s right to make universal statements (Olu Oguibe) in its de facto defiance of the neo-colony. As these different strands of protest meet, ethnic uprisings (amongst them IPOB) find ways to establish common cause with social radicalism, posing a composite threat to the prebendalist oligarchy that rules and oppresses the country via a militarised neoliberalism.

Introduction The highly contagious COVID-19 virus has presented particularly difficult public policy challenges. The relatively late emergence of an effective treatments and vaccines, the structural stresses on health care systems, the lockdowns and the economic dislocations, the evident structural inequalities in effected societies, as well as the difficulty of prevention have tested social and political cohesion. Moreover, the intrusive nature of many prophylactic measures have led to individual liberty and human rights concerns. As noted by the Victorian (Australia) Ombudsman Report on the COVID-19 lockdown in Melbourne, we may be tempted, during a crisis, to view human rights as expendable in the pursuit of saving human lives. This thinking can lead to dangerous territory. It is not unlawful to curtail fundamental rights and freedoms when there are compelling reasons for doing so; human rights are inherently and inseparably a consideration of human lives. (5) These difficulties have raised issues about the importance of social or community capital in fighting the pandemic. This article discusses the impacts of social and community capital and other factors on the governmental efforts to combat the spread of infectious disease through the maintenance of social distancing and household ‘bubbles’. It argues that the beneficial effects of social and community capital towards fighting the pandemic, such as mutual respect and empathy, which underpins such public health measures as social distancing, the use of personal protective equipment, and lockdowns in the USA, have been undermined as preventive measures because they have been transmogrified to become a salient aspect of the “culture wars” (Peters). In contrast, states that have relatively lower social capital such a China have been able to more effectively arrest transmission of the disease because the government was been able to generate and personify a nationalist response to the virus and thus generate a more robust social consensus regarding the efforts to combat the disease. Social Capital and Culture Wars The response to COVID-19 required individuals, families, communities, and other types of groups to refrain from extensive interaction – to stay in their bubble. In these situations, especially given the asymptomatic nature of many COVID-19 infections and the serious imposition lockdowns and social distancing and isolation, the temptation for individuals to breach public health rules in high. From the perspective of policymakers, the response to fighting COVID-19 is a collective action problem. In studying collective action problems, scholars have paid much attention on the role of social and community capital (Ostrom and Ahn 17-35). Ostrom and Ahn comment that social capital “provides a synthesizing approach to how cultural, social, and institutional aspects of communities of various sizes jointly affect their capacity of dealing with collective-action problems” (24). Social capital is regarded as an evolving social type of cultural trait (Fukuyama; Guiso et al.). Adger argues that social capital “captures the nature of social relations” and “provides an explanation for how individuals use their relationships to other actors in societies for their own and for the collective good” (387). The most frequently used definition of social capital is the one proffered by Putnam who regards it as “features of social organization, such as networks, norms and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit” (Putnam, “Bowling Alone” 65). All these studies suggest that social and community capital has at least two elements: “objective associations” and subjective ties among individuals. Objective associations, or social networks, refer to both formal and informal associations that are formed and engaged in on a voluntary basis by individuals and social groups. Subjective ties or norms, on the other hand, primarily stand for trust and reciprocity (Paxton). High levels of social capital have generally been associated with democratic politics and civil societies whose institutional performance benefits from the coordinated actions and civic culture that has been facilitated by high levels of social capital (Putnam, Democracy 167-9). Alternatively, a “good and fair” state and impartial institutions are important factors in generating and preserving high levels of social capital (Offe 42-87). Yet social capital is not limited to democratic civil societies and research is mixed on whether rising social capital manifests itself in a more vigorous civil society that in turn leads to democratising impulses. Castillo argues that various trust levels for institutions that reinforce submission, hierarchy, and cultural conservatism can be high in authoritarian governments, indicating that high levels of social capital do not necessarily lead to democratic civic societies (Castillo et al.). Roßteutscher concludes after a survey of social capita indicators in authoritarian states that social capital has little effect of democratisation and may in fact reinforce authoritarian rule: in nondemocratic contexts, however, it appears to throw a spanner in the works of democratization. Trust increases the stability of nondemocratic leaderships by generating popular support, by suppressing regime threatening forms of protest activity, and by nourishing undemocratic ideals concerning governance (752). In China, there has been ongoing debate concerning the presence of civil society and the level of social capital found across Chinese society. If one defines civil society as an intermediate associational realm between the state and the family, populated by autonomous organisations which are separate from the state that are formed voluntarily by members of society to protect or extend their interests or values, it is arguable that the PRC had a significant civil society or social capital in the first few decades after its establishment (White). However, most scholars agree that nascent civil society as well as a more salient social and community capital has emerged in China’s reform era. This was evident after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, where the government welcomed community organising and community-driven donation campaigns for a limited period of time, giving the NGO sector and bottom-up social activism a boost, as evidenced in various policy areas such as disaster relief and rural community development (F. Wu 126; Xu 9). Nevertheless, the CCP and the Chinese state have been effective in maintaining significant control over civil society and autonomous groups without attempting to completely eliminate their autonomy or existence. The dramatic economic and social changes that have occurred since the 1978 Opening have unsurprisingly engendered numerous conflicts across the society. In response, the CCP and State have adjusted political economic policies to meet the changing demands of workers, migrants, the unemployed, minorities, farmers, local artisans, entrepreneurs, and the growing middle class. Often the demands arising from these groups have resulted in policy changes, including compensation. In other circumstances, where these groups remain dissatisfied, the government will tolerate them (ignore them but allow them to continue in the advocacy), or, when the need arises, supress the disaffected groups (F. Wu 2). At the same time, social organisations and other groups in civil society have often “refrained from open and broad contestation against the regime”, thereby gaining the space and autonomy to achieve the objectives (F. Wu 2). Studies of Chinese social or community capital suggest that a form of modern social capital has gradually emerged as Chinese society has become increasingly modernised and liberalised (despite being non-democratic), and that this social capital has begun to play an important role in shaping social and economic lives at the local level. However, this more modern form of social capital, arising from developmental and social changes, competes with traditional social values and social capital, which stresses parochial and particularistic feelings among known individuals while modern social capital emphasises general trust and reciprocal feelings among both known and unknown individuals. The objective element of these traditional values are those government-sanctioned, formal mass organisations such as Communist Youth and the All-China Federation of Women's Associations, where members are obliged to obey the organisation leadership. The predominant subjective values are parochial and particularistic feelings among individuals who know one another, such as guanxi and zongzu (Chen and Lu, 426). The concept of social capital emphasises that the underlying cooperative values found in individuals and groups within a culture are an important factor in solving collective problems. In contrast, the notion of “culture war” focusses on those values and differences that divide social and cultural groups. Barry defines culture wars as increases in volatility, expansion of polarisation, and conflict between those who are passionate about religiously motivated politics, traditional morality, and anti-intellectualism, and…those who embrace progressive politics, cultural openness, and scientific and modernist orientations. (90) The contemporary culture wars across the world manifest opposition by various groups in society who hold divergent worldviews and ideological positions. Proponents of culture war understand various issues as part of a broader set of religious, political, and moral/normative positions invoked in opposition to “elite”, “liberal”, or “left” ideologies. Within this Manichean universe opposition to such issues as climate change, Black Lives Matter, same sex rights, prison reform, gun control, and immigration becomes framed in binary terms, and infused with a moral sensibility (Chapman 8-10). In many disputes, the culture war often devolves into an epistemological dispute about the efficacy of scientific knowledge and authority, or a dispute between “practical” and theoretical knowledge. In this environment, even facts can become partisan narratives. For these “cultural” disputes are often how electoral prospects (generally right-wing) are advanced; “not through policies or promises of a better life, but by fostering a sense of threat, a fantasy that something profoundly pure … is constantly at risk of extinction” (Malik). This “zero-sum” social and policy environment that makes it difficult to compromise and has serious consequences for social stability or government policy, especially in a liberal democratic society. Of course, from the perspective of cultural materialism such a reductionist approach to culture and political and social values is not unexpected. “Culture” is one of the many arenas in which dominant social groups seek to express and reproduce their interests and preferences. “Culture” from this sense is “material” and is ultimately connected to the distribution of power, wealth, and resources in society. As such, the various policy areas that are understood as part of the “culture wars” are another domain where various dominant and subordinate groups and interests engaged in conflict express their values and goals. Yet it is unexpected that despite the pervasiveness of information available to individuals the pool of information consumed by individuals who view the “culture wars” as a touchstone for political behaviour and a narrative to categorise events and facts is relatively closed. This lack of balance has been magnified by social media algorithms, conspiracy-laced talk radio, and a media ecosystem that frames and discusses issues in a manner that elides into an easily understood “culture war” narrative. From this perspective, the groups (generally right-wing or traditionalist) exist within an information bubble that reinforces political, social, and cultural predilections. American and Chinese Reponses to COVID-19 The COVID-19 pandemic first broke out in Wuhan in December 2019. Initially unprepared and unwilling to accept the seriousness of the infection, the Chinese government regrouped from early mistakes and essentially controlled transmission in about three months. This positive outcome has been messaged as an exposition of the superiority of the Chinese governmental system and society both domestically and internationally; a positive, even heroic performance that evidences the populist credentials of the Chinese political leadership and demonstrates national excellence. The recently published White Paper entitled “Fighting COVID-19: China in Action” also summarises China’s “strategic achievement” in the simple language of numbers: in a month, the rising spread was contained; in two months, the daily case increase fell to single digits; and in three months, a “decisive victory” was secured in Wuhan City and Hubei Province (Xinhua). This clear articulation of the positive results has rallied political support. Indeed, a recent survey shows that 89 percent of citizens are satisfied with the government’s information dissemination during the pandemic (C Wu). As part of the effort, the government extensively promoted the provision of “political goods”, such as law and order, national unity and pride, and shared values. For example, severe publishments were introduced for violence against medical professionals and police, producing and selling counterfeit medications, raising commodity prices, spreading ‘rumours’, and being uncooperative with quarantine measures (Xu). Additionally, as an extension the popular anti-corruption campaign, many local political leaders were disciplined or received criminal charges for inappropriate behaviour, abuse of power, and corruption during the pandemic (People.cn, 2 Feb. 2020). Chinese state media also described fighting the virus as a global “competition”. In this competition a nation’s “material power” as well as “mental strength”, that calls for the highest level of nation unity and patriotism, is put to the test. This discourse recalled the global competition in light of the national mythology related to the formation of Chinese nation, the historical “hardship”, and the “heroic Chinese people” (People.cn, 7 Apr. 2020). Moreover, as the threat of infection receded, it was emphasised that China “won this competition” and the Chinese people have demonstrated the “great spirit of China” to the world: a result built upon the “heroism of the whole Party, Army, and Chinese people from all ethnic groups” (People.cn, 7 Apr. 2020). In contrast to the Chinese approach of emphasising national public goods as a justification for fighting the virus, the U.S. Trump Administration used nationalism, deflection, and “culture war” discourse to undermine health responses — an unprecedented response in American public health policy. The seriousness of the disease as well as the statistical evidence of its course through the American population was disputed. The President and various supporters raged against the COVID-19 “hoax”, social distancing, and lockdowns, disparaged public health institutions and advice, and encouraged protesters to “liberate” locked-down states (Russonello). “Our federal overlords say ‘no singing’ and ‘no shouting’ on Thanksgiving”, Representative Paul Gosar, a Republican of Arizona, wrote as he retweeted a Centers for Disease Control list of Thanksgiving safety tips (Weiner). People were encouraged, by way of the White House and Republican leadership, to ignore health regulations and not to comply with social distancing measures and the wearing of masks (Tracy). This encouragement led to threats against proponents of face masks such as Dr Anthony Fauci, one of the nation’s foremost experts on infectious diseases, who required bodyguards because of the many threats on his life. Fauci’s critics — including President Trump — countered Fauci’s promotion of mask wearing by stating accusingly that he once said mask-wearing was not necessary for ordinary people (Kelly). Conspiracy theories as to the safety of vaccinations also grew across the course of the year. As the 2020 election approached, the Administration ramped up efforts to downplay the serious of the virus by identifying it with “the media” and illegitimate “partisan” efforts to undermine the Trump presidency. It also ramped up its criticism of China as the source of the infection. This political self-centeredness undermined state and federal efforts to slow transmission (Shear et al.). At the same time, Trump chided health officials for moving too slowly on vaccine approvals, repeated charges that high infection rates were due to increased testing, and argued that COVID-19 deaths were exaggerated by medical providers for political and financial reasons. These claims were amplified by various conservative media personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham of Fox News. The result of this “COVID-19 Denialism” and the alternative narrative of COVID-19 policy told through the lens of culture war has resulted in the United States having the highest number of COVID-19 cases, and the highest number of COVID-19 deaths. At the same time, the underlying social consensus and social capital that have historically assisted in generating positive public health outcomes has been significantly eroded. According to the Pew Research Center, the share of U.S. adults who say public health officials such as those at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are doing an excellent or good job responding to the outbreak decreased from 79% in March to 63% in August, with an especially sharp decrease among Republicans (Pew Research Center 2020). Social Capital and COVID-19 From the perspective of social or community capital, it could be expected that the American response to the Pandemic would be more effective than the Chinese response. Historically, the United States has had high levels of social capital, a highly developed public health system, and strong governmental capacity. In contrast, China has a relatively high level of governmental and public health capacity, but the level of social capital has been lower and there is a significant presence of traditional values which emphasise parochial and particularistic values. Moreover, the antecedent institutions of social capital, such as weak and inefficient formal institutions (Batjargal et al.), environmental turbulence and resource scarcity along with the transactional nature of guanxi (gift-giving and information exchange and relationship dependence) militate against finding a more effective social and community response to the public health emergency. Yet China’s response has been significantly more successful than the Unites States’. Paradoxically, the American response under the Trump Administration and the Chinese response both relied on an externalisation of the both the threat and the justifications for their particular response. In the American case, President Trump, while downplaying the seriousness of the virus, consistently called it the “China virus” in an effort to deflect responsibly as well as a means to avert attention away from the public health impacts. As recently as 3 January 2021, Trump tweeted that the number of “China Virus” cases and deaths in the U.S. were “far exaggerated”, while critically citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's methodology: “When in doubt, call it COVID-19. Fake News!” (Bacon). The Chinese Government, meanwhile, has pursued a more aggressive foreign policy across the South China Sea, on the frontier in the Indian sub-continent, and against states such as Australia who have criticised the initial Chinese response to COVID-19. To this international criticism, the government reiterated its sovereign rights and emphasised its “victimhood” in the face of “anti-China” foreign forces. Chinese state media also highlighted China as “victim” of the coronavirus, but also as a target of Western “political manoeuvres” when investigating the beginning stages of the pandemic. The major difference, however, is that public health policy in the United States was superimposed on other more fundamental political and cultural cleavages, and part of this externalisation process included the assignation of “otherness” and demonisation of internal political opponents or characterising political opponents as bent on destroying the United States. This assignation of “otherness” to various internal groups is a crucial element in the culture wars. While this may have been inevitable given the increasingly frayed nature of American society post-2008, such a characterisation has been activity pushed by local, state, and national leadership in the Republican Party and the Trump Administration (Vogel et al.). In such circumstances, minimising health risks and highlighting civil rights concerns due to public health measures, along with assigning blame to the democratic opposition and foreign states such as China, can have a major impact of public health responses. The result has been that social trust beyond the bubble of one’s immediate circle or those who share similar beliefs is seriously compromised — and the collective action problem presented by COVID-19 remains unsolved. Daniel Aldrich’s study of disasters in Japan, India, and US demonstrates that pre-existing high levels of social capital would lead to stronger resilience and better recovery (Aldrich). Social capital helps coordinate resources and facilitate the reconstruction collectively and therefore would lead to better recovery (Alesch et al.). Yet there has not been much research on how the pool of social capital first came about and how a disaster may affect the creation and store of social capital. Rebecca Solnit has examined five major disasters and describes that after these events, survivors would reach out and work together to confront the challenges they face, therefore increasing the social capital in the community (Solnit). However, there are studies that have concluded that major disasters can damage the social fabric in local communities (Peacock et al.). The COVID-19 epidemic does not have the intensity and suddenness of other disasters but has had significant knock-on effects in increasing or decreasing social capital, depending on the institutional and social responses to the pandemic. In China, it appears that the positive social capital effects have been partially subsumed into a more generalised patriotic or nationalist affirmation of the government’s policy response. Unlike civil society responses to earlier crises, such as the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, there is less evidence of widespread community organisation and response to combat the epidemic at its initial stages. This suggests better institutional responses to the crisis by the government, but also a high degree of porosity between civil society and a national “imagined community” represented by the national state. The result has been an increased legitimacy for the Chinese government. Alternatively, in the United States the transformation of COVID-19 public health policy into a culture war issue has seriously impeded efforts to combat the epidemic in the short term by undermining the social consensus and social capital necessary to fight such a pandemic. Trust in American institutions is historically low, and President Trump’s untrue contention that President Biden’s election was due to “fraud” has further undermined the legitimacy of the American government, as evidenced by the attacks directed at Congress in the U.S. capital on 6 January 2021. As such, the lingering effects the pandemic will have on social, economic, and political institutions will likely reinforce the deep cultural and political cleavages and weaken interpersonal networks in American society. Conclusion The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated global public health and impacted deeply on the world economy. Unsurprisingly, given the serious economic, social, and political consequences, different government responses have been highly politicised. Various quarantine and infection case tracking methods have caused concern over state power intruding into private spheres. The usage of face masks, social distancing rules, and intra-state travel restrictions have aroused passionate debate over public health restrictions, individual liberty, and human rights. Yet underlying public health responses grounded in higher levels of social capital enhance the effectiveness of public health measures. In China, a country that has generally been associated with lower social capital, it is likely that the relatively strong policy response to COVID-19 will both enhance feelings of nationalism and Chinese exceptionalism and help create and increase the store of social capital. 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