Political Ideology

This chapter aims to concisely examine the current relationship between violent extremism and the tools offered by digital communication technologies, particularly the Web.
As is well-known, the internet has become a crucial environment for violent extremism and for terrorism across the ideological spectrum.
The Web can perform different functions in this field. This chapter presents and discusses six areas of application, in decreasing order of proximity to the actual
use of violence: 1) cyberattacks; 2) dissemination of operational instructions; 3) hacking and “doxing”; 4) recruitment and terrorist “virtual entrepreneurship”; 5) propaganda; 6) financing.

In recent decades, and especially since the economic crisis, young people have been finding it more difficult to maintain or exceed the living standards of their parents. As a result, they increasingly expect socioeconomic downward mobility. We study the influence of such a pessimistic view on political attitudes, assuming that it is not so much young adults' current economic status, but rather their anxiety concerning a prospective socioeconomic decline that affects their ideological positions. Drawing on data from a survey among young adults aged 18-35 in eleven European countries , we explore to what extent expected intergenerational downward mobility correlates with right-wing and left-wing self-placement. We find that young adults who expect to do worse than their parents in the future are indeed more likely to locate themselves at the extreme ends of the ideological scale.

Conservadorisme, neoconservadorisme i ‘neocons’
El neoconservadorisme1 s’ha configurat en un discurs i
unes pràctiques que han definit i condicionat la política internacional
i nacional de la majoria d’estats durant la major
part de la primera dècada del mil·lenni. El balanç d’aquestes
polítiques neoconservadores podria quedar resumit en una
paraula: Crisi. Una crisi que ha anat desplegant els seus efectes
al dret, a la política i finalment a l’econòmica, i que tindrà
greus efectes socials. Aquest escrit tracta del discurs neoconservador,
de la retòrica legitimadora, que va defensar les polítiques
que finalment ens han conduït a aquestes crisis.

威权政体通常寻求经济发展和再分配政策来获得民众的支持，中国也不例外。经济发展对威权政体合法性的支撑比我们想的要复杂得多。除了物质上的满足，民众也关注国家在经济领域所扮演的其他角色以及国家干预的公平性。在2015年底以及2016年初的一次问卷调查当中，我们搜集了关于中国民众对于政府在经济领域最主要也是目前最热门的两个角色的看法：国家所有制及市场监管。通过这次问卷调查，我们发现民众对政府在这两个领域的表现都比较满意。但是，进一步的分析也发现，民众的满意来源于他们相信政府应该在这两个领域进行干预。但民众对政府实际的表现却褒贬不一。具体来说，城市的年轻人更具有批判性，这也说明中国共产党获得合法性的策略可能会因为代际更替而受到挑战。

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51724-3_3
This chapter addresses the Italian regional divide to show how ideologically biased economic policies have not only generated inequalities among cities but also adverse conditions that in the long term have affected the country as a whole. It expands on previous analysis on the economic policies for the South showing how the ‘new’ political debate is replicating past mistakes. Once again, vested political interests are influencing the destiny of this area, resulting in new forms of inequalities, environmental degradation, competition among cities and further economic downturn. I draw on Carlo Cipolla’s laws on human stupidity to unravel what would otherwise appear to be the obscure behaviour of several decision-makers. Cipolla’s Laws are also most stimulating for an analysis of the implications that the latter’s actions have on the broader society in terms of the relative gains or losses that they cause, and thus either adding to or detracting from the general welfare.

In the recent sessions of Heterodox accounting research, carried out by the
Fundación Universitaria Los Libertadores and the Universidad Autónoma
Latinoamericana, important questions arose about how radical or flexible
should be the heterodox perspective. A professor who participated in this
event pointed out that the Colombian accounting academy has lost the rigor
and the link with the ideology that was common in the past, indicating
that probably the heterodox has become in a fashion. This view, also shared
by other scholars, highlights the idea that we must define an ideology
(especially in a political sense) and to stick to it, without moving from one
perspective to the other because this would involve a lack of commitment,
in this case, with the heterodox view.

Scholars of civil conflicts are quick to dismiss the importance of ideology in civil wars. In this survey of emerging empirical research, we argue that ideology is a framing mechanism that articulates the complexity of national crises and collective grievances into simple narratives about ingroups and outgroups, alternative sociopolitical institutions, and belonging to the state. We call these three dimensions of ideology conflict framing, ideal polity, and territorial aspirations. Conflict framing helps establish a common understanding of the social categories in conflict, which in turn defines who is the main enemy and who are possible allies in the civil war. Ideal polity envisions the desired post-conflict order and defines who qualifies as a legitimate participant in this political system. Territorial aspirations specify the physical boundaries of this desired state, which can range from maintaining the territorial integrity of the country to abrogating its existing borders through secessionism or irredentism. These three components of ideology help conceptualize the degree of political homophily between armed actors and incumbent regimes; rebel organizations and their factional counterparts; and combatants and their external state sponsors. Political homophily is an important microfoundation for ideology in collective action. It helps structure social networks prior to conflict onset, and shapes the composition of conflict networks during civil wars. We illustrate how our disaggregation of ideology into three components can help explain key dynamics in civil war, such as legitimating violence, factional fragmentation, rebel alliances, and external sponsorship-.

In the past 20 years, a wave of right-wing populist movements has swept over Europe, changing the face of European politics. The Netherlands has been one of the more iconic countries to partake in this shift. Known internationally as an emblem of progressivism and tolerance, the country soon became a frontrunner in the revival of nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiment. This is the first study to offer an extensive engagement with the ideas behind the Dutch swing to the right.

The emergence of Dutch populism, this book shows, formed an integral part of a broader conservative tendency, identified as the Dutch New Right. In the US and the UK, the term New Right has been used to describe conservative backlash movements that arose in opposition to the progressive movements of the 1960s. The Dutch swing to the right, this book argues, formed a belated iteration of the New Right backlash that occurred overseas.

McDougall also observed: “Participation in group life degrades the individual, assimilating his mental processes to those of the crowd, whose brutality, inconstancy, and unreasoning impulsiveness have been the theme of many writers; yet only by participation in groups life does man become fully man, only does he rise above the savage.” (1921, p.20) (Soc Psych Handbook, p.899)

What is historically Ironic is that McDougall’s theory would have put perspective on the current political events in which the Death Wish No Mask Madness and the Attack on the Capital by right wing Christians and right-wing white supremacist extremists. As it is, there really isn’t any really relevant theories in social psychology that truly shed light on the radicalization and extremism in Americans politics! 

However, Floyd Allport with the help of his influential brother Gordon Allport, in 1927 unequivocally stated: “Only within the individual can we find the behavior mechanisms and the consciousness which are fundamental in the interactions between people ………There is no psychology of groups which is not essentially and entirely a psychology of individuals.” The Materialist Doctrine adopted – and magnified that argument. Mossbridge and Baruss highlight and emphasize the limited and restricted understanding of the "materialist" viewpoint of consciousness as being solely and entirely – and only - a “byproduct of the neurology and biochemistry of the brain” (p. 24) The major point of the essay is that – as a scientific concept or model – the model of human consciousness restricted to the firing of neurons in the brain – as a scientific a model is completely inadequate to the task of explaining the consciousness of human beings whose most salient and over-riding characteristic would be the social aspect as well as the connectivity and relationships on their lives!

The authors of the chapter Culture and “Basic” Psychological Principles,  state unequivocally that “Psychologists who study groups approach the idea of a group as an entity only very gingerly."  They go on to point out that, in 1986, in an article, “Graumann (1986 contends that Allport forced a conceptual separation between “individual” and “society” and fostered the that they were separate entities. And this view, according to Graumann, continues to function as a conceptual stumbling block to a productive conceptualization of the person or an interactant in a society or community.”

In a recent review article in The Constitutionalist, Prof. Auerian Craiutu introduced Edmund Fawcett’s Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition (Princeton University Press, 2020) together with Ferenc Hörcher’s A Political Philosophy of Conservatism: Prudence, Moderation, and Tradition (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020), in the context of the recent US political crisis.

In the 1970s, the Soviet journalist and writer Aleksandr Prokhanov (born 1938) sought to initiate a new literary aesthetic based on a syncretic vision of technology and spirituality. While he represented an isolated position in conservative circles during the Soviet Union, his enthusiasm for technological modernity is now commonplace among contemporary Russian conservatives. Prokhanov has managed to evolve from the position of a fringe ideologue at the margins of the public sphere in the 1990s to a public figure whose ideas are circulated on state mass media and co-opted by political authorities since the late 2000s. This article studies the formation and circulation of Prokhanov’s reactionary modernism across the transition from the Soviet Union to post-Soviet Russia. It claims that Prokhanov’s hybrid ideology stems from his dual commitment to an anticonformist intellectual background and a loyalist state patriotism. It argues that, on top of his ability to popularize extremist ideas through their literary aestheticization, Prokhanov has successfully developed the resources of an ideological entrepreneur with leadership capacity and charismatic authority among anti-liberal milieus. In the 2000s, his discourse gained legitimacy, strategic utility and public visibility when these capacities matched a shift in the cultural and political contexts brought about by Vladimir Putin’s presidency.

Political opposition in Russia plays since years a marginal role as witnessed by the results of the past elections and the 2018 presidential race looks like a one-man show (Semenov 2018).  Even if the systemic political opposition is silent, the society is evolving and we chose to report as an example the demand for change within young people, the so-called first post-Soviet unimplicated generation (definition of the publicist Dmitry Oreshkin). The first part of the paper presents how the regime has created a complex and centralized system of power, in which the opposition could not fit. The second part analyzes the systemic opposition parties in the frame of the 2018 presidential elections. The third part is dedicated to young people, who represent one of the sources (and hope) for future political evolution. Due to the unfair system implemented by the hegemonic party, the political arena is still blocked on past schemes; opposition does not represent today an alternative to the regime. Anyway, new forces are rising in Russian society, a sign that in the future we can probably expect more and more bottom-up dynamics that will foster the renewal of the political panorama.

In China, 'Big Character' posters have represented public discourse for centuries, now updated as billboards, posters, and banners. This study analyzes public discourse on development and politics to understand representations of tradition, globalization and modernization in Yunnan Province, China. Signage by authorities, corporations, and community groups ranges from paper calligraphy to Internet dissent. The authors used Social Semiotics to investigate explicit and implicit codes, both verbal and visual on three levels. Government signage aligns citizens with governmental values, actions, and politics. Commercial signage strengthens community acceptance of development. Community signage gently criticizes local government and requests help. Results indicated that community members enjoyed unusual, if circumscribed, freedom to comment and criticize. The authors theorize various functions of public discourses on development in a region that is experiencing dramatic change and resistance. The study also suggests a framework for analyzing public discourse.

This article aims to trace the interpretation of the theme of Wisdom in the Vita of St. Simeon by St. Sava, and its connections with other biblical themes and motifs, with references to various literary sources, models, and patterns employed by the earliest Slavic literary tradition. By analyzing the biblical quotations in the text, the study tries to show why Wisdom occupies such an important place in the first Vita of St. Simeon and what this reveals about the message of the text in its historical and cultural context.

[The introduction of Despot Stephan Lazarevich into the Sacred History and the Hesitations concerning the Genre of his Life. - Medieval Bulgarian Literature 41-42 (Festschrift in honor of Krassimir Stanchev and Alexander Naumov)]
The article analyzes the Life of Despot Stephan Lazarević, using two different strategies, based upon the concepts of Alexander Naumow and Krassimir Stantchev concerning medieval Orthodox Slavic literature and its texts. The first part studies the usage of Biblical elements (citations and comparisons) in the Life’s Preface through which “the introduction of the described realities in the Sacred History of the world” was performed (A. Naumow). The second part traces the meaning of the “genre's” choices, according to which the text of Constantine of Kostenec was constructed (K. Stantchev). Finally, the results are compared, both revealing the author’s ideas about Despot Stephan Lazarević and the main events in his life and in the Balkan history of the period. The conclusion is that the approach chosen by Constantine of Kostenec had evidenced his professionalism and acquaintance with the Byzantine models of the so-called highbrow literature and had defined the way Life was perceived by the contemporaneous.