Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2023.2235158
Dan Paget
ABSTRACT Studies analyse what politicians communicate at rallies. Yet most do so to determine what politicians communicate at large. Therefore, they implicitly assume that what they communicate at rallies is what they communicate across media. I ask: what is particular to the meanings that politicians, and indeed audience members, make at rallies? I theorise the rally as a media genre, in which those present are simplified into two entities (“speakers”; and “audience”) and those entities engage in an asymmetric, interactive dialogue. I argue that these two features of rally genre facilitate, but do not necessitate, the making of representative claims. I analyse “speaker”-“audience” discourse at rallies in Tanzania. I find that politicians use their speech to make representative claims and craft dialogues with “audience” which induce them to co-declare those claims. Therefore, I find that there is an affinity between the rally and representative claim-making.
{"title":"The affinity between the rally and representative claim-making: evidence from Tanzania","authors":"Dan Paget","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2235158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2235158","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Studies analyse what politicians communicate at rallies. Yet most do so to determine what politicians communicate at large. Therefore, they implicitly assume that what they communicate at rallies is what they communicate across media. I ask: what is particular to the meanings that politicians, and indeed audience members, make at rallies? I theorise the rally as a media genre, in which those present are simplified into two entities (“speakers”; and “audience”) and those entities engage in an asymmetric, interactive dialogue. I argue that these two features of rally genre facilitate, but do not necessitate, the making of representative claims. I analyse “speaker”-“audience” discourse at rallies in Tanzania. I find that politicians use their speech to make representative claims and craft dialogues with “audience” which induce them to co-declare those claims. Therefore, I find that there is an affinity between the rally and representative claim-making.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"101 1","pages":"376 - 398"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90070571","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2023.2232163
Dan Paget, N. Beardsworth, Gabrielle Lynch
ABSTRACT Prior research determines whether politicians at rallies make programmatic, clientelist or personalist appeals. We argue that this reductive approach obscures the variety of meaning-making at rallies. We offer a vision of rallies as complex communicative events, at which multiple actors co- and counter-produce messages in numerous ways. Nonetheless, we argue that there are patterns in meaning-making at rallies. Rallies are produced in accordance with a genre which guides what components are included in them and how they are interpreted. We argue that rallies produced in that genre fashion and foreground three constructs above others: candidates, collectivities and contests. They fashion them, among other things, through representative claims. Altogether, we show that rallies are significant sites of political communication in Africa and worldwide.
{"title":"Campaign rallies and political meaning-making","authors":"Dan Paget, N. Beardsworth, Gabrielle Lynch","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2232163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2232163","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Prior research determines whether politicians at rallies make programmatic, clientelist or personalist appeals. We argue that this reductive approach obscures the variety of meaning-making at rallies. We offer a vision of rallies as complex communicative events, at which multiple actors co- and counter-produce messages in numerous ways. Nonetheless, we argue that there are patterns in meaning-making at rallies. Rallies are produced in accordance with a genre which guides what components are included in them and how they are interpreted. We argue that rallies produced in that genre fashion and foreground three constructs above others: candidates, collectivities and contests. They fashion them, among other things, through representative claims. Altogether, we show that rallies are significant sites of political communication in Africa and worldwide.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"87 1","pages":"235 - 254"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80801064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2023.2252588
A. Kwayu
ABSTRACT Rally-intensive campaigns have been one of the main characteristics of elections and political parties’ communication and organising practices in Tanzania (Paget, 2019). However, due to a changing political landscape – intensified authoritarianism from 2016 – opposition political parties have had to think of new ways of mobilising and organising. These new ways of political mobilising and organising had an impact on opposition parties’ election ground campaign. In this article, I explore and analyse the campaigns of Chadema, the main opposition party in Tanzania, in the 2020 general election. Through participant observation, personal experiences, interviews, and documentary sources. I examine the new campaigning activity, which I describe as a walking rally, deployed by Chadema’s parliamentary candidates. The article contributes to the studies on electioneering and campaigning in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, the study adds to relatively sparse analyses of African opposition parties’ mobilisation, organising, and campaigning practices.
{"title":"Walking rallies: opposition party’s new campaigning approach in Tanzania’s 2020 election","authors":"A. Kwayu","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2252588","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2252588","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Rally-intensive campaigns have been one of the main characteristics of elections and political parties’ communication and organising practices in Tanzania (Paget, 2019). However, due to a changing political landscape – intensified authoritarianism from 2016 – opposition political parties have had to think of new ways of mobilising and organising. These new ways of political mobilising and organising had an impact on opposition parties’ election ground campaign. In this article, I explore and analyse the campaigns of Chadema, the main opposition party in Tanzania, in the 2020 general election. Through participant observation, personal experiences, interviews, and documentary sources. I examine the new campaigning activity, which I describe as a walking rally, deployed by Chadema’s parliamentary candidates. The article contributes to the studies on electioneering and campaigning in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, the study adds to relatively sparse analyses of African opposition parties’ mobilisation, organising, and campaigning practices.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"52 1","pages":"255 - 272"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80873522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2023.2242107
G. Bob-Milliar, Jeffrey W. Paller
ABSTRACT Campaign rallies serve as arenas of political communication where candidates present their campaign messages face-to-face in order to gain votes. This article suggests that rallies are one of several forms of campaign visits along with official business stops, courtesy calls to local notables, and personal interactions with constituents. Drawing on an original dataset of campaign visits in Ghana's 2016 and 2020 elections, we find that a significant political learning process took place between the two races for candidates of the two major parties, as candidates diversified their strategies beyond the rally-intensive campaign. Candidates extended the communicative and representative elements of the traditional rally through socially embedded practices by relying on occupational groups like market associations and fisherfolk to mobilise voters. By explaining the meaning behind different forms of campaign visits, we conclude that campaign rallies and other visits are embedded in social realities that shape political mobilisation.
{"title":"The social embeddedness of elections: Ghana’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns","authors":"G. Bob-Milliar, Jeffrey W. Paller","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2242107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2242107","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Campaign rallies serve as arenas of political communication where candidates present their campaign messages face-to-face in order to gain votes. This article suggests that rallies are one of several forms of campaign visits along with official business stops, courtesy calls to local notables, and personal interactions with constituents. Drawing on an original dataset of campaign visits in Ghana's 2016 and 2020 elections, we find that a significant political learning process took place between the two races for candidates of the two major parties, as candidates diversified their strategies beyond the rally-intensive campaign. Candidates extended the communicative and representative elements of the traditional rally through socially embedded practices by relying on occupational groups like market associations and fisherfolk to mobilise voters. By explaining the meaning behind different forms of campaign visits, we conclude that campaign rallies and other visits are embedded in social realities that shape political mobilisation.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"26 1","pages":"293 - 314"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79029445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2023.2250064
M. Lewanika
ABSTRACT In rally-intensive campaigns, the rally is an essential mode of political communication between politicians, parties and citizens. This article moves beyond the exclusive focus, in most literature, on rallies convened for presidents and presidential candidates to include similar rallies convened for others significant enough to act as a proxy but are not themselves presidential candidates. It develops a broader category of what it refers to as ‘bigwig' rallies. In Zimbabwe, the bigwig rally constitutes a distinct sub-genre that occupies a distinct place in election campaigning. I ask: what do parties communicate through bigwig rallies? How do they produce rallies to generate those communications? Little prior research considers what is particular to the rallies convened in electoral-authoritarian regimes. In this article, I ask: what do ruling parties in electoral-authoritarian regimes communicate and how do they achieve this? It answers these questions through studying ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe’s 2008 and 2013 elections.
{"title":"ZANU-PF’s bigwig rallies as performative politics during Zimbabwe’s 2008 and 2013 elections","authors":"M. Lewanika","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2250064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2250064","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In rally-intensive campaigns, the rally is an essential mode of political communication between politicians, parties and citizens. This article moves beyond the exclusive focus, in most literature, on rallies convened for presidents and presidential candidates to include similar rallies convened for others significant enough to act as a proxy but are not themselves presidential candidates. It develops a broader category of what it refers to as ‘bigwig' rallies. In Zimbabwe, the bigwig rally constitutes a distinct sub-genre that occupies a distinct place in election campaigning. I ask: what do parties communicate through bigwig rallies? How do they produce rallies to generate those communications? Little prior research considers what is particular to the rallies convened in electoral-authoritarian regimes. In this article, I ask: what do ruling parties in electoral-authoritarian regimes communicate and how do they achieve this? It answers these questions through studying ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe’s 2008 and 2013 elections.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"40 1","pages":"273 - 292"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76174072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2023.2232160
Gabrielle Lynch
ABSTRACT Scholars tend to present either face-to-face or mediatised audiences as the principal target for election campaign rallies. However, a close eye on the staging of, and popular engagement with, campaign rallies during Kenya's 2022 elections reveals that they constituted a hybrid form of political communication that simultaneously targeted face-to-face and mediatised audiences with tailored messages. Not only were rallies at all levels characterised by such hybridity but also at the presidential level, rallies came to dominate candidates' diaries and the traditional and social media coverage of them leading to what I coin a rally-centric campaign. This paper analyses these empirical realities and the implications for how we should study and conceptualise election rallies and campaigns. It does so by focusing on the relationship between rallies, media coverage and popular engagement with a particular focus on social media.
{"title":"Hybrid rallies and a rally-centric campaign: the case of Kenya’s 2022 elections","authors":"Gabrielle Lynch","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2232160","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2232160","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Scholars tend to present either face-to-face or mediatised audiences as the principal target for election campaign rallies. However, a close eye on the staging of, and popular engagement with, campaign rallies during Kenya's 2022 elections reveals that they constituted a hybrid form of political communication that simultaneously targeted face-to-face and mediatised audiences with tailored messages. Not only were rallies at all levels characterised by such hybridity but also at the presidential level, rallies came to dominate candidates' diaries and the traditional and social media coverage of them leading to what I coin a rally-centric campaign. This paper analyses these empirical realities and the implications for how we should study and conceptualise election rallies and campaigns. It does so by focusing on the relationship between rallies, media coverage and popular engagement with a particular focus on social media.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"121 1","pages":"334 - 356"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86164827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2023.2238380
Sam Wilkins, Richard Vokes
ABSTRACT This article analyses the rally practices of President Yoweri Museveni and opposition presidential candidates Kizza Besigye and Robert Kyagulanyi (better known as ‘Bobi Wine’) in Uganda. Drawing on literatures on political ritual, social drama and rallies, the article illustrates the multiple forms and axes of communication that take place between various actors – both present and absent – who are involved in these rallies. Based on ethnographic research in Uganda over multiple election cycles, the article argues that the meaning and function of various performative, material and rhetorical components of these rallies cannot be understood in isolation from broader political contexts, specifically: local NRM politics for Museveni, and systemic state repression for Besigye and Bobi Wine. By placing rallies within these contexts, the article makes sense of the political rituals undertaken by participants.
{"title":"The presidential rally in Uganda: ritual, drama and multiple axes of communication","authors":"Sam Wilkins, Richard Vokes","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2238380","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2238380","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article analyses the rally practices of President Yoweri Museveni and opposition presidential candidates Kizza Besigye and Robert Kyagulanyi (better known as ‘Bobi Wine’) in Uganda. Drawing on literatures on political ritual, social drama and rallies, the article illustrates the multiple forms and axes of communication that take place between various actors – both present and absent – who are involved in these rallies. Based on ethnographic research in Uganda over multiple election cycles, the article argues that the meaning and function of various performative, material and rhetorical components of these rallies cannot be understood in isolation from broader political contexts, specifically: local NRM politics for Museveni, and systemic state repression for Besigye and Bobi Wine. By placing rallies within these contexts, the article makes sense of the political rituals undertaken by participants.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"15 1","pages":"357 - 375"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139364016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2022.2127826
Oluwaseun Tella
ABSTRACT The global anti-Nigerian sentiment that has engendered the state’s image crisis cannot be denied. This has circumscribed Abuja’s capacity to effectively wield its soft power in Africa and beyond. While successive Nigerian governments have striven to improve the country’s battered image through various initiatives, the state’s image remains negative. There can be no doubt that the diaspora contributes to this image crisis through the activities of Nigerian criminal networks abroad such as drug and human trafficking and advance fee fraud. However, the diaspora has also been critical in counteracting these negative perceptions and so this article examines how the Nigerian diaspora has contributed to soft power by challenging anti-Nigerian sentiment, promoted Nigerian culture, provided remittances, and given technical assistance through the Technical Aid Corps (TAC) scheme.
{"title":"The diaspora’s soft power in an age of global anti-Nigerian sentiment","authors":"Oluwaseun Tella","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2022.2127826","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2022.2127826","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The global anti-Nigerian sentiment that has engendered the state’s image crisis cannot be denied. This has circumscribed Abuja’s capacity to effectively wield its soft power in Africa and beyond. While successive Nigerian governments have striven to improve the country’s battered image through various initiatives, the state’s image remains negative. There can be no doubt that the diaspora contributes to this image crisis through the activities of Nigerian criminal networks abroad such as drug and human trafficking and advance fee fraud. However, the diaspora has also been critical in counteracting these negative perceptions and so this article examines how the Nigerian diaspora has contributed to soft power by challenging anti-Nigerian sentiment, promoted Nigerian culture, provided remittances, and given technical assistance through the Technical Aid Corps (TAC) scheme.","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"34 1","pages":"177 - 196"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86303579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2023.2207807
L. Enria
{"title":"War, women and post-conflict empowerment: lessons from Sierra Leone","authors":"L. Enria","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2207807","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2207807","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"22 1","pages":"219 - 222"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89550430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2023.2207808
R. Southall
{"title":"Navigating the unknown: essays on selected case studies about the rights of minorities","authors":"R. Southall","doi":"10.1080/14662043.2023.2207808","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2023.2207808","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46038,"journal":{"name":"COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS","volume":"47 1","pages":"222 - 224"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79256627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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