Resisting “Politics as Usual”: Examining the Rise of Anti‐Establishment Politics by Comparing the Narratives of Opportunity Used Within the Single Payer Movement During Two Presidential Eras

The recent rise of “Medicare for All” in American political discourse was many years in the making. Behind this rise is a movement composed of grassroots activists and organizations focused on the goal of establishing a single‐payer health care system in the United States. I examine the ways in which activists used narrative to interpret opportunity within their historically specific environments to work towards this goal. I find that while the Single Payer Movement's narrative practice during the Clinton era was focused on opportunity within the political sphere, the focus in the Obama era shifted to mobilizing the public sphere, or grassroots opportunity. This was related to the critique that the Obama Administration was engaging in “politics as usual”, which was defined as the “enemy” of “real” health care reform. This narratively produced critique is tied to the anti‐establishment turn that factors into the current era of American politics.     

Political Opportunity and Nested Institutions

Scholars use the concept of 'political opportunity structure' to explain how the political context affects the differential development and influence of ostensibly similar movements. Although the concept promises to become an important analytical tool for comparative studies, to date it is underspecified and undertheorized. It also faces new challenges in this era of increased transnational activism and more extensive scholarly recognition of activist ties across borders. In this paper I argue that assessing opportunity by looking exclusively at national political structures neglects the important role that international factors, such as alliances and transnational movements, play in constraining both states and their challengers. I begin by reviewing the literature on opportunity and drawing a synthesis between it and the literature on domestic influences of international politics. I argue that political institutions are nested in a larger international context, and that the tightness or looseness of that nesting affects the range of possible alliances and policy options available within states. I examine this framework by looking at New Zealand's decision in 1984 to prohibit port visits by nuclear-powered ships or ships that might be carrying nuclear weapons. I conclude by calling for more research that recognizes the interplay of national opportunities and international structures.     

Towards a Political Theory of Migrant Transnationalism

Political transnationalism covers a wide range of phenomena and can be studied using a variety of approaches. In migration research the focus is mostly on migrants' networks and activities that involve them in politics oriented towards their country of origin. The article argues for a wider conception of political transnationalism from a political theory perspective. It proposes a terminological distinction between international, multinational, supranational and transnational relations and phenomena. What is specific about migrant transnationalism is that it creates overlapping memberships between territorially separated and independent polities. In this understanding, political transnationalism is not only about a narrowly conceived set of activities through which migrants become involved in the domestic politics of their home countries; it also affects collective identities and conceptions of citizenship among the native populations in both receiving and sending societies. Within this general framework the article suggests a set of hypotheses for an explanatory and normative analysis of sending country relations to their emigrants, a task that has hitherto been neglected in political theory.     

The Political Lives of Girls

Girls are increasingly being publically celebrated as community leaders, models for ideal citizenship, and central to economic development. Contemporary girlhood is rich with political implications and significance. In this essay, I outline some of the scholarship on the public discourses that idealize girls as model neoliberal citizens and address important findings and contributions from empirical research on the political lives of girls: girls' political beliefs, political socialization, political identities, and their practices of political and civic engagement. There is a growing body of scholarship that suggests that studying the political lives of girls enables and requires a re‐thinking of some key concepts in political sociology, including the meaning of politics, of engagement, and of citizenship for different populations.     

Candidate emergence as movement mobilization: An analysis of Women's post-2016 electoral engagement

Political science scholarship argues that women's underrepresentation in American politics stems from a persistent shortage of female candidates. Women are less likely to run because they often perceive individual and structural obstacles that negatively impact their electoral interest. Such barriers remain intact, yet thousands of women have signaled their interest in running for office since the 2016 election by participating in candidate training programs (CTPs). Though running for office is not commonly defined as an activist activity, this article argues that theories of collective action and movement mobilization, rather than those focusing on the psychological aspects of candidate emergence, are better equipped to explain the recent increase of electoral interest. Using EMILY's List—an elite political entity that began as a grassroots social movement organization—as a case, this article integrates scholarship from sociology and political science to examine how feminist activist organizing can impact women's interest in running for public office. I first review the research on women's candidate emergence and CTPs before discussing the electoral movement strategies and the mobilizing impact of the media and collective action frames. The article reviews recent scholarship on the Women's March and the Resistance, then synthesizes the literature to examine EMILY's List and their electoral movement strategies leading up to the 2018 midterm elections. I conclude by suggesting avenues for future research that can bridge the relationship between movements and electoral politics and advance scholarly understanding of how, when, and why women run for office.     

Political cultures and transnational social fields: Chileans,Colombians and Canadian activists in Toronto

We offer an institutional analysis of Chilean and Colombian transnational politics in Toronto to account for cross‐group variation in transnational political practices and the formation of different types of transnational social fields of political action. The article is based on interviews conducted with Chilean and Colombian community activists and Canadian refugee rights and social justice activists. We use the concept of political culture to account for differences in Chilean and Colombian transnational politics and to explain the different kinds of relationships the two groups have developed with non‐migrants. We introduce the concept of activist dialogues, understood as patterns of strategic political interaction between groups, to characterize how migrants and non‐migrants read and navigate their interlocutors' ways of doing politics. We argue that variation in the character of activist dialogues results in different types of transnational social fields of political action. Chilean–Canadian activist dialogues reflect a convergence of political cultures and strategies of action; Colombian–Canadian activist dialogues are marked by a relationship in which there is a divergence of strategies of action. Convergent dialogues produce thicker and more stable transnational social fields. Divergent dialogues are associated with a series of ad hoc initiatives, the absence of stable and strongly institutionalized partnerships, and a thinner transnational social field of political action.     

ON BEING BOUND TO EQUIVALENTIAL CHAINS

Taking up the test case of radical anti-globalization protest, this essay addresses Ernesto Laclau's theory of the democratic demand, reading it against Lacan's and Freud's conceptions of demand. I argue, largely drawing from Lacan's conception of enjoyment that a theory of the democratic demand must take into account the risk that a subject's enjoyment in positing a demand can overwhelm the potential political of the demand itself. In response to this risk, I argue that a theory of democracy should shift from a demand-driven politics centred around enjoying a specific subject position tied to ‘resistance’ towards a desire-driven politics that productively incorporates the ‘no’ as a means of articulating collective political aspirations.     

Women in Politics in Post-Transitional Democracies: the chilean case

This article looks at women's participation in formal political institutions in posttransition politics. Employing the case of post-dictatorship Chile, it outlines the barriers to women's participation in the formal political arena; discusses the various strategies that Chilean women are currently employing to overcome their exclusion; and finally, examines the challenges that political women confront in promoting 'women's interests' in political institutions. Throughout the article two main arguments are advanced. First, where women's movements do not demand institutional reforms during the transition period - a time when movements enjoy influence and parties are in flux - then the barriers to women in political institutions re-emerge. In Chile, the fact that women did not demand institutional reforms, such as quotas for women in decision-making positions, is linked tothe broader strategy of the movement tomake citizenship demands based on women's 'difference'. This strategy inhibited women from demanding power (i.e. access to institutions as individuals) because this conformed to a masculine-defined notion of politics inconsistent with women's 'different' style of practising politics. A second,related argument is that a strategy based on women's 'difference' hinders women in politics frompromoting feminist goals,especially in the climate ofsocial conservatism that characterizes post-transition Chilean politics. Despite these constraints and the many challenges Chilean women in politics confront, gains are being made, as women recognize the need for, and begin to demand, institutional reforms to expand their presence in formal politics.     

FINDING POLITICS IN THE SILLY AND THE SACRED: ANTI-RAPE ACTIVISM ON CAMPUS

Volunteers often describe what they do as nonpolitical. That is, they tend to construct their efforts as simultaneously above and below politics but rarely as explicitly within the realm of politics. Using data from field research at a campus antirape organization, I analyze these aspects of participants' efforts and consider how they are linked to politics. I argue that even actions which appear at first glace to be nonpolitical have political consequences for movements and movement participants. Constructing volunteers' efforts as apolitical, either above or below politics, has the consequence of limiting the transformative potential of volunteer and activist work. I conclude by discussing this and other consequences of avoiding politics.     

Mapping Strategic Engagements: WOMEN'S MOVEMENTS AND THE STATE

Abstract

Given that all women's movements share a unique relationship to the State – their exclusion from political power, often legally and occasionally constitutionally underpinned, has this exclusion shaped women's movements' strategies, which have had as their general goal women's political inclusion? Some similarities are evident across types of women's movements and across nations. In this article, I discuss the ‘strategic dilemmas’ that women's movements are likely to face, and I attempt to identify the range of strategic responses employed by feminist movements. I begin with a definitional distinction between women's movements and feminist movements, followed by a discussion of women's relationship to the State. I identify similarities across feminist movements in four strategic dimensions: (1) movement autonomy vs state involvement; (2) insider vs outsider positioning; (3) separatist vs coalitional stances; and (4) discursive and influence-seeking politics. These strategic dimensions shape different opportunities for women's movements across different state configurations, offering openings for some types of women's movements that may be unrecognized or unexploited by others. The article concludes with speculations concerning women's movements' strategic action in the context of state reconfiguration.     

The Willingness to State an Opinion: Inequality,Don't Know Responses,and Political Participation

Most explanations of inequality in political participation focus on costs or other barriers for those with fewer economic, educational, and “cognitive” resources. I argue, drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's work on “political competence,” that social position in the form of income also structures political participation through differences in the sense that one is a legitimate producer of political opinions. I test whether income differences in participation persist net of costs by examining nonparticipation in a setting in which barriers to participation are low: answering political survey questions. Lower‐income people are more likely than others to withhold political opinions by saying “don't know” net of differences in education, “cognitive ability,” or engagement with the survey exercise. Further, political “don't know” rates predict voting rates, net of other predictors. Efforts to democratize participation in American politics must attend not only to the costs of involvement but also to class‐based differences in individuals' relationship to political expression itself.     

Women's Suffrage and Political Culture:

This article addresses a recent Swiss example of the lengthy process by which women were included in state politics. It is argued that this inclusion was delayed through a complex array of sociopolitical factors, including federal pressure and hesitation, changes in the state's demography and political culture, and an issue displacement from what should have been a case of women's rights to a threat to an old, male-dominated sovereign political institution. The case illustrates successful conservative political activism among women and, hence, challenges the assumption that change can only be accomplished through radical social transformation.     

Internal migration and the politics of place: a comparative analysis of China and Indonesia

Spontaneous and organized population movements have long been used as a means of promoting a country's goals of development and national integration. At the local level, on the other hand, these movements have frequently done the opposite, fueling local grievances, sharpening group distinctions, and at times creating ‘sons-of-the-soil’ conflicts. In this paper, I explore this apparent tension between the national political rationale for internal migration and the political impact such migration has had locally, in four minority regions of China and Indonesia. I argue that the specific manner in which migration affects local politics is influenced by a country's political regime. In Indonesia, the impact of migration is observed in electoral politics, where ‘politics of place’ have been allowed to emerge. In China, it is perceived in the curbing of national minorities’ territorial autonomy. The role played by local elites and group competition between indigenous people and migrants are also reviewed.     

The Political Subject of Self-immolation

Abstract

This article examines the political practice of protest by self-burning. Focussing on Mohammed Bouazizi's self-burning in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid in 2010, I explore the intellectual background for, and implications of, conceptualising such acts as ‘self-sacrifices’ or ‘self-immolations’. I argue that the use of the concept of sacrifice to define the politics of the act, given the difficulties in determining intentionality, is to focus only on its retrospective interpretation or semiotic capture. The result is that the self-annihilating subject is bypassed altogether, and his or her distinctively suicidal politicality is ignored. I argue that these subjects do not occupy political space due to a myth-making appeal to transcendence, heroic urge to sovereignty or assumed desire for community. Rather, drawing on Walter Benjamin, I argue that in such acts we bear witness to the shattering of sovereign order by a reminder to a politically constitutive excess.     

The Social Imaginaries of Women's Peace Activism in Northern Uganda

The metanarrative of global feminism is often constructed as a progressive and emancipatory movement emanating from the West and fostering radical politics elsewhere in the world. Such a view is not only ethnocentric but, critically, it fails to engage with the complex ways in which feminist politics travel and are evinced in specific localities. In this article, I seek to understand how marginalized women in the “Global South” – particularly in Africa – interpret, experience and negotiate feminist ideas to wield political power within the context of their social and moral worlds. I focus on women's organized resistance to violence and armed conflict, known as “women's peace activism.” Using a case study of a women's peace movement in Uganda mediated by an international feminist organization called Isis Women's International Cross-Cultural Exchange, I conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with a wide range of activists in the organization and in its network in postconflict areas in Northern Uganda. I argue that the feminist peace discourse is most meaningful when its universal values of equity and securing the dignity of women are appropriated and re-signified through the cultural institutions and the collective memory of activists in their local settings.     

One of a Kind,or All of One Kind? Groups of Political Participants and Their Distinctive Outlook on Society

Political participation can take shape in many types of participation, between which the overlap is low. However, the similarities and differences between various types of participants are surprisingly understudied. In this article, I propose to differentiate between four types of participants: institutional political participants, non-institutional political participants, civic participants, and political consumers. These types differ from each other on two dimensions: whether they are political or publicly oriented and whether they are formally or informally organized. Building on the matching hypothesis, I argue that we should differentiate those four types of participants by their outlook on society (societal pessimism, political trust, and social trust). Using data from the European Social Survey 2006, including participants from 19 countries, logistic regressions show that institutional political participants trust politics rather than people, non-institutional political participants are societal pessimists who trust other people, civic participants are societal optimists who trust other people, and political consumers are pessimists who do not trust politics.     

Mobilizing Affect for Collective War Memory

Taking a cue from recent works that assert the importance of affect in politics and critical theory, this paper examines affective strategies employed at Yūshūkan, a war museum attached to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. Although its revisionist historiography has been generally discredited by historians, over the last decade Yūshūkan has established itself as a key public site for neo-nationalist war memory in Japan. This paper argues that to understand Yūshūkan's appeal we need to address the affective economy it produces around the stories and images of the fallen soldiers. In particular, I analyse the image of kamikaze as a ‘sticky object of emotion’ and ‘somatic marker’ that is both emotionally charged and culturally mobilized. I examine several factors that contribute to its affective capacity: the culturally specific trope of the tragic hero and the aesthetics of self-sacrifice; an emphasis on their ‘ordinariness’ as fathers and sons; and the naturalized, almost moral expectation of the current generations' indebtedness and gratitude to the war dead. A close reading of the museum exhibits, catalogue, website and visitor books suggests that Yūshūkan's rhetorical force relies on the kamikaze icon's ability to arouse visceral and intense emotions. Produced at the intersection of affect and discourse, history and memory, kamikaze is a heavily loaded sign central to Yūshūkan's affective and sub-discursive mode of communication. By illustrating how Yūshūkan mobilizes subjects into its patriotic history and identity via emotional authenticity, I hope to add an alternative approach to the current scholarship that predominantly focuses on the discursive content of Yūshūkan's historiography or religious-spiritual function of mourning. More generally it is also hoped that this study will contribute to thinking through the role of affect in collective war memory by offering a culturally and historically specific case study.     

Homonationalism

This article tracks Jasbir Puar's term “homonationalism” as its meaning has transformed in her scholarly work as well that of Maya Mikdashi. I argue that homonationalism has evolved from its original formulation as, in part, a critique of politics, into, in its current guise, a diagnostic of international political relations. Although this transition offers insight into the international scene, I argue that homonationalism also loses its distinctiveness as a political formation in its own right as well as its critical capacity in the process. In particular, I argue that homonationalism becomes incapable of critically evaluating activist strategies, practices and discourses of political resistance.     

Buying a Voice: Gendered Contribution Careers among Affluent Political Donors to Federal Elections, 1980–2008

Early work in feminist theory hypothesized that differences in women and men's social and institutional roles might be reflected in the ways they participate in the political sphere. However, past empirical research has found scant evidence of a gender gap in the participatory strategies or motivations of women and men who become active in politics. But significantly less is known about the gender gap among a more select and increasingly significant player in American politics—political donors. In this article, we utilize a novel big data set—called the Longitudinal Elite Contributor Database (LECD)—that contains the population of all itemized donations made in federal elections between 1980 and 2008. Using this novel big data set supplemented with Social Security Administration (SSA) data on the gender of first names, we provide original estimates of the long‐term evolution of gender representation in the donor pool, vis‐à‐vis when, how often, and to whom affluent men and women have made political contributions over nearly 30 years. We find that large and persistent gendered inequalities of political voice continue to characterize this significant form of political influence. We theorize the potential implications of these findings for the representation of women's interests in the political sphere.