Causes of lingering communist movement after Indonesia’s September Thirtieth Movement: the case of border area between Sarawak and West Kalimantan

This article focuses on the communist movement on both sides of the border in Sarawak and West Kalimantan around 1965 when the September Thirtieth Movement (abortive coup) took place in Jakarta. The people in Sarawak were seeking independence and opposed to being integrated into the Federation of Malaysia in the first half of the 1960s. However, after the September Thirtieth Movement, the communist movement in Sarawak started losing support both domestically and internationally (especially support from Indonesia). Nevertheless, even with the persecution by Suharto’s army, the Sarawak guerrillas and the Indonesian Communist Party in West Kalimantan cooperated in their struggle for a few years after 1965. This situation was aided by the remoteness of these areas from the centers of the nation-states (Malaysia and Indonesia) and also by the cooperation between the guerrillas and the local Chinese in West Kalimantan.     

Ethnic mobilization in 2015 local elections in North Sumatra,Indonesia

Since Indonesia implemented the regional decentralization in 2001, ethnic politics attracted increasing scholarly attention. In the regional head elections, ethnic mobilization has become a pervasive phenomenon. Drawing upon the data in the 2015 local elections in the North Sumatra province, the article discusses two related questions, the strategy and the effect of ethnic mobilization. The article argues that, contrary to the minimum winning coalition theory, there is a weak correlation between the ethnic demography and the choice of ethnic mobilization strategy (bonding or bridging). Among all the ethnic mobilization tactics, the support of ethnic organizations may have a weak to moderate and positive impact on the voting results, while other tactics, including pairing with candidates of other ethnic groups and cultural presentations of ethnic identity, do not have much influence on the election results.     

Determinants of the decertification process: Evidence from employer-initiated elections

There have been relatively few studies on why workers choose to decertify a union as their bargaining unit and virtually no empirical studies on the outcomes of employer-initiated representation elections. Using data from the NLRB monthly election reports (1977–1981), we attempt to analyze the factors that seem to influence the outcomes of employer-initiated representation elections with an incumbent union. Variables in our analysis include size of the election unit, region, industrial classification, type of incumbent union, and the state of the local economy. While the data show a concentration of elections on the West Coast, there is no significant difference in the ability of unions there to “win” decertification elections.     

The Contentious Roots of the Egyptian Revolution

Although real socio-economic injustices may have been the justification for the Egyptian revolution of 2011, it was not the cause of Egypt's politicization. Demonstrators peacefully toppled a strong Western ally on the premise of high unemployment, lack of opportunity, lack of free elections, food inflation, corruption, and lack of democracy, among other factors. Why did social mobilization lead to a social movement against a state that is highly dependent on coercion? Considering that access to social networks, high unemployment, systematic corruption, and economic stagnation are all commonplace throughout the world, the Egyptian revolution is an anomaly. This article argues that an analysis of the possible roots of the modern era of contentious politics in Egypt and its subsequent politicization will help demystify and decipher how this anomaly occurred. Focusing on the transnationally inspired dynamics of historically unprecedented protest events in relation to Egypt's political and social context will shed light upon the central question that this article aims analyze: how and when did politics make the shift from internal social relations to contentious street politics?     

Are there electoral cycles of emigration? An empirical investigation based on European data

Economic literature suggests that economic factors and the availability of amenities act as determinants of migration choices together with socio‐demographic factors. Migration has also been found to be the consequence of political instability. This article argues that specific political events, i.e., democratic elections, may be linked to migration flows. By using European data over the 1999‐2012 time period, our system GMM estimations reveal that there is an emigration political cycle across European democracies and across the young democracies of Central and Eastern European countries. We observe that regular elections tend to diminish emigration ratios, whereas endogenous elections have the opposite effect. These results suggest special challenges for governments and oppositions, which are also discussed.     

Observations on the 1994 Mexican National Elections

On January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. Over a period of fifteen years NAFTA will eliminate trade barriers between Mexico, Canada, and the United States. As the economics and politics of the three countries become increasingly interdependent, it is important for social workers in the United States to become better informed about developments in Mexico and Canada which affect the welfare of Mexicans and Canadians and which have implications for social welfare policy and programming in the United States. This report, by a ''United Statesian''1 social worker who participated in the efforts of Alianza Cívica/Observatión '94 to monitor the 1994 Mexican national elections, describes the political context of those elections; the training and credentialing of an ''international visitor;'' election day activities in Tecalapa, Guerrero; and the author's reflections on the electoral process and subsequent events in Mexico.     

The Increasing Political Power of Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union in Israel: From Passive Citizenship to Active Citizenship

The immigrants in Israel from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) followed a different pattern of political growth than other immigrant groups. Their increased power began on the national level and moved down to the local level, rather than from the periphery toward the centre – the pattern followed by the Oriental Jewish immigrants. We can trace three stages in the development of their political power.
The first stage was during the 1992 elections when the immigrants attempted to organize their own list. Though they failed, the results of the election strengthened them because they were given credit for the left's victory, giving them a sense of political effectiveness.
The second stage came during the 1996 elections. It was a defining moment for the former Soviet immigrants' political power. In this stage external factors and internal factors reinforced each other. The change in the electoral system made it possible for the immigrants to vote for their community on the one hand and for a national figure on the other, thus resolving their identity dilemma.
The local elections in 1998 marked the third stage in their political strength. They found the immigrant community better organized, with an improved understanding of its local interests, the capacity to put forward a strong local leadership, and a stronger link between the immigrant political centre and the local level.     

Selling art to the world in Chelsea

This paper explores the dynamic interaction that occurs between large-scale social processes, urban development and the production of artistic expression and meaning through an analysis of art and urban change in the West Chelsea district of New York City. I begin my analysis with a discussion of specific works of art and expand to the local and global context to which these works respond and help to construct. Both urban space and artistic production, consumption and the social meaning attached to art by artists, critics, audiences and other art world actors have felt the impact of the turn to free market policies and ideology that have attended global economic restructuring and the rapid pace of globalisation. At the same time, art's new role as an engine of urban commerce and the accompanying expansion of the art market have helped to shape city districts like West Chelsea and have left their mark on the work that is exhibited and sold there. My analysis integrates a close study of two works of art exhibited in West Chelsea, interviews and other ethnographic data and recent literature on the arts and urban restructuring and the perspective of critical theory. I also provide photographic documentation of social interaction and the built environment of West Chelsea as it evolved in response to the expansion of the art worlds there. A secondary aim of this research is to contribute to a larger discussion about the social role and critical capacities of art in today's social, economic and political climate.     

Regional reform and citizen participation in Sweden

Seven years ago the Swedish government launched a Regional Reform Programme with the aim of establishing a new intermediate level of governance alongside the national level and that of the local municipality. The conditions for achieving constructive institutionalization differ considerably in Skåne and Västra Götaland, the two regions participating in the pilot programme. However, the level of citizen participation (i.e. voter turnout in regional elections) in the two regions does not differ—in both regions, citizens have demonstrated tremendous indifference towards the new fora. One reason for this could be that the reform has to a very large degree been built on traditional political structures, which in turn have suffered a loss of credibility in the past decades. There might, however, also be reason to question the often presupposed link between a region's degree of socio‐cultural consolidation and its acceptance as a vital and meaningful political entity.     

Dramatic performances in the play of politics: Egypt,Obama and the works of Jeffrey Alexander

This review article explores Jeffrey Alexander's cultural theory of political transformations. In his two recent works Performative Revolution in Egypt (2011) and The Performance of Politics: Obama's Victory and the Democratic Struggle for Power (2009), Alexander analyses the fall of President Hosni Mubarak and the rise of President Barack Obama, respectively. Alexander challenges the idea that revolutions depend primarily on the material conditions of a population, demographic changes, and the capacity of a group of contenders to gather material support for an overthrow. He also argues that the stagecraft of the political horserace matters for national elections. The strong versus weak dramaturgical performances of presidential candidates (rather than macroeconomic or geopolitical changes) proved consequential for changes in the poll numbers of Obama versus McCain, for example. Macroeconomic conditions had to be filtered, interpreted, and made meaningful; the candidate who could cast these material conditions onto the sacred side of civil discourse improved his likelihood of victory. Curiously, many social scientists and political pundits have largely taken performances for granted in the democratic struggle for power, and have therefore rendered the charismatic speeches and the grand narratives (culture) as epiphenomena, plays in the shadow of large structural shifts – a residual variable, or else as shifting, evanescent meanings produced in local, face‐to‐face settings. In the newer understanding, ‘culture’ is a level of analysis researchers use to investigate symbolic patterns and meaningful practices that structure how people act, how they define identities, even how they define what counts as ‘strategic’ or instrumental. Since the 1980s, sociologists working with this notion of culture have crafted different approaches to political culture, in national, organizational, and informal everyday arenas. Their different culture concepts carry different strengths and liabilities for research and they rely on different assumptions about action and meaning. This article reviews these arguments and asks what the limits to Alexander's performative theory are, how his theory can be reformulated to address settled versus unsettled political regimes, and how disaggregating Alexander's concept of audiences along with their roles in political change would provide the theory with greater predictive power.     

2009年中东大选述评

2009年,以色列、伊朗和阿富汗等中东国家相继举行大选。以色列"利库德集团"时隔四年重执权柄,伊朗保守派竞选连任成功,阿富汗普什图族则再掌政权。中东大选表现出社会政治发展的转型性和国家安全的现实威胁性两大共性特征,而不同的历史文化又使其表现出政治发展道路的多样性和政治发展水平的不平衡性等个性特征。一系列大选将对"巴以和平进程"、"伊朗核问题"和"阿富汗重建"产生一定的影响。     

Voluntary Associations Within the Local Political Context: How Characteristics of the Organizations and the Local Governments Influence Perceptions of Success

A cornerstone of democracy is the capacity of citizens to influence political decisions either through elections or by making their will known in the periods between elections. The aim of the present study is twofold: (1) to explore what factors inherent of the voluntary associations that determine the perceived success in their attempts to influence policy and (2) to investigate what role the composition of the local government have on the perceived success. This study is based on a survey conducted among 404 local voluntary associations in four different municipalities in Sweden. The results show that the frequency contacts influence perceived success positively, while the level of civic engagement of the voluntary associations affected the perceived success negatively. Having a heterogeneous local government also contributed positively to the perceived success to influence policy.     

Twitter publics: how online political communities signaled electoral outcomes in the 2010 US house election

Online social networks are an important setting for understanding the intersection of online communities and offline political processes. This paper analyzes the different ways that people discuss elections on Twitter. Using data from a random sample totaling 113,985 tweets and 30,995 users, we examine the differences between users who employ various strategies to talk about US 2010 Congressional candidates. We show that users who simply include the text of a candidate's name in a message exhibit different behaviors than those who use platform-specific mechanisms. Users who employ free-text tend to have younger accounts, are less likely to be ‘verified’, and generate fewer messages about candidates. Furthermore, candidates’ share of the free-text Twitter public has a larger correlation with their vote tallies than @mentions or hashtags. This research has methodological implications for studying the dynamics between online discourse and offline behavior. Overall, our findings support the view that forms of communication that are more accessible are more indicative of broader social trends.     

2009年中东大选述评

2009年,以色列、伊朗和阿富汗等中东国家相继举行大选。以色列利库德集团时隔四年重执权柄,伊朗保守派竞选连任成功,阿富汗普什图族则再掌政权。中东大选表现出社会政治发展的转型性和国家安全的现实威胁性两大共性特征,而不同的历史文化又使其表现出政治发展道路的多样性和政治发展水平的不平衡性等个性特征。一系列大选将对巴以和平进程、伊朗核问题和阿富汗重建产生一定的影响。     

Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the 1998 House Elections

The outcome of the 1998 congressional elections was an exceptionto the rule that the president's party loses seats in midtermHouse elections. This article reviews and draws together theoreticallythe distinctive characteristics of the political context in1998 and assesses the effects of the public's evaluations ofBill Clinton (as president and as a person) and Speaker of theHouse Newt Gingrich. The findings suggest that voters' viewsof Bill Clinton as president exerted a sizable effect on theelections. A substantial influence of public opinion towardNewt Gingrich is also revealed. The estimated effects of voters'opinions of Bill Clinton as a person were much smaller. Twoestimates of the combined effects indicate that if public opiniontoward Clinton and Gingrich had been evenly balanced, the Democraticparty would have lost seats in the 1998 House elections as thepresident's party traditionally has. In addition to providinginsight into the 1998 elections, the findings answer broaderquestions about congressional elections. They also bear on importantquestions regarding the extent to which the determinants ofpolitical judgments are subject to influence ("priming") bythe political environment.     

District elections and the power of municipal employee unions

Very little prior research has been devoted to the effects of the institutional structure of local government on public sector labor markets. This study addresses the differential effects of the two main systems used to elect city council members — district versus citywide (at-large) elections. The study hypothesizes that, in district-election cities, municipal employees, especially those who are unionized, face a lower cost of influencing city council candidates and, consequently, will have greater power to influence employment conditions. To test this hypothesis, data on U.S. cities over 25,000 population are used to estimate both reduced form and structural wage and employment equations. The results are consistent with the basic hypothesis: district elections provide a more fertile ground for municipal employees, especially those organized in unions, to affect their employment conditions. The authors acknowledge the helpful comments of Tim Sass, Tom Means, and participants in a session at the 1991 Public Choice Society meetings.     

NGOs and Their Vulnerabilities During the Time of Transition: The Case of Poland

This paper focuses on the development of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Poland, as a case study of the sector's development in the Central and Eastern European countries of transition. It is argued that, in this situation, the development and growth of the NGO sector though shaped, as in the West, by a set of legislative, political, economic, cultural, and historical forces, nevertheless is circumscribed by the specific conditions of political transformation. The nature of and the power with which legislative, fiscal, or organizational forces condition the development of the sector varies according to the scale at which they operate (local, national, or international). Moreover, it is argued that the position of NGOs is significantly regulated by the state's political ideology, and the formative and evolving character of the latter translates into instability in states' actions vis-à-vis the nonprofit sector.     

Deras as sites of electoral mobilisation in Indian Punjab: examining the reasons that political parties flock to the deras

Mushrooming of the deras in Indian Punjab, and the role of some of these deras in influencing the political choices of their followers, most of whom belong to the socially and economically marginal groups, is being recognised and apparently encouraged by the political parties. This is evident in the fact that political leaders/candidates cutting across party divides flocked to various deras in the run-up to the recent elections. This phenomenon can be attributed primarily to the fact that the social basis of political power of state has remained unaltered in favour of the upper castes/communities. Unwilling to share power, yet compelled to seek the crucial support of numerically strong and economically mobile dalit and other backward castes voters in a closely contested bi-polar polity, the upper-caste political leadership takes recourse to the ‘softer’ option of cultivating the deras to ‘deliver’ en bloc the marginal-castes votes. With one form of the identity politics based on ethno-regional communal divide having receded to background, it is the turn of the caste-based identity politics through the ‘dera route’ that is prevailing in post-militancy Punjab.     

New cultural economies of marginality: revisiting the West Coast,South Island,New Zealand

Marginal regions have been the subject of political concern and remedial action in western states for several decades now. The West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand is an interesting case study in this regard, for recent economic growth has confounded earlier expectations of post-restructuring decline, while also contradicting several of the nostrums of new regionalism. In an effort to understand this trajectory, this paper draws on documents from public and private sector organisations, newspaper articles and field visits to examine developments in four key sectors of the West Coast's economy: mining, dairy farming, forestry and tourism. Economic growth is found to be closely linked to the cultivation of new markets for primary products, but efforts to rework the cultural dimensions of marginality have also been important. Value has been added to specific products through the insertion of references to the region's alpine and forested landscapes. Isolation and peripherality have been recast in more positive terms, echoing the broader reframing of New Zealand as a scenic, unspoiled destination. In adopting a cultural economic perspective on marginal regions, the paper illustrates the significance of symbolic forms of value, the potentially flexible nature of marginality as a discursive category, and the importance of the networks which connect regions to national and international flows of capital and tourists.     

Voting rights for alien residents--who wants it?

Foreign nationals permanently domiciled in Sweden have been entitled since 1975 to vote and to municipal and county council elections. This article examines some of the major issues associated with international migration and disenfranchisement of migrants created by a contradiction between economic and political rationale. The alien population of Sweden remained small for a long time, but during the 1960s it rose 1st to 300,000 and later to 400,000 persons. Since 1970, aliens have constituted roughly 5% of the total national population of 8.3 million. Surveys following the 3 elections held in Sweden so far have shown immigrants to be quite well informed concerning election procedures and the parties. In contrast to single males, women with children tend to be highly stable, because of favorable social security for women, particularly for women with children. Participation elections among women (55%) is higher than among men (49%), and married women (58%) are usually the highest participants. Class-voting is still rather strong in Sweden; the percentage difference in preference for Socialist parties between working-class and middle-class was as high 55% in 1960. Long term trends in the distribution of party-preference among immigrants are determined to a large extent by the policy on immigration regulation and political asylum for refugees and exiles. Another selectivity is due to the differential remigration rate. A 1976 study showed that although local franchise of immigrants is now the law of the land, some Swedes are still against the granting of voting rights and electability to immigrants. On the whole, there is clearly a psychological environment conducive, at least in Stockholm, to the task of putting local franchise reform into real practice.