Pub Date : 2024-01-02DOI: 10.1017/s1537592723002955
Robert M. Fishman
Do demonstrations tend to deepen or endanger democracy? I examine this theme of major debate between scholars and among political actors, analyzing how the United States and other democracies have dealt with—and been shaped by—popular pressure on representative institutions. Cases that are discussed include Martin Luther King’s 1963 March on Washington and the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol, as well as examples drawn from Spain, Portugal, and Italy. I offer clear principles to differentiate between types of protest that deepen democracy, advance the goal of inclusion, and others that endanger democratic principles. Among the issues I take up is whether the location of protest—for example, adjacent to or even inside legislative chambers—is decisive. Rejecting that approach, my argument instead emphasizes the difference between protests intended to influence policy-making or the political agenda and those that use intimidation or violence to replace the primacy of elections in selecting office holders. The discussion argues that conceptualizing demonstrations as complementary to the work of representative institutions can help to promote the difficult to obtain objective of political equality between citizens. The article also asks whether consensus on this matter can be attained and if so how.
{"title":"Deepening or Endangering Democracy: Demonstrations and Institutions under Representative Government","authors":"Robert M. Fishman","doi":"10.1017/s1537592723002955","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1537592723002955","url":null,"abstract":"Do demonstrations tend to deepen or endanger democracy? I examine this theme of major debate between scholars and among political actors, analyzing how the United States and other democracies have dealt with—and been shaped by—popular pressure on representative institutions. Cases that are discussed include Martin Luther King’s 1963 March on Washington and the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol, as well as examples drawn from Spain, Portugal, and Italy. I offer clear principles to differentiate between types of protest that deepen democracy, advance the goal of inclusion, and others that endanger democratic principles. Among the issues I take up is whether the location of protest—for example, adjacent to or even inside legislative chambers—is decisive. Rejecting that approach, my argument instead emphasizes the difference between protests intended to influence policy-making or the political agenda and those that use intimidation or violence to replace the primacy of elections in selecting office holders. The discussion argues that conceptualizing demonstrations as complementary to the work of representative institutions can help to promote the difficult to obtain objective of political equality between citizens. The article also asks whether consensus on this matter can be attained and if so how.","PeriodicalId":48097,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Politics","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2024-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139389843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-11DOI: 10.1017/s1537592723002852
S. Malthaner, Francis O’Connor, Lasse Lindekilde
The proliferation of lone-actor terrorist attacks over the past decade has led to a rapidly expanding literature and a subfield of research. However, this research has only to a limited degree been brought into wider discussions on political violence and social movements. In the present article, we take up this synthetic challenge and argue the need to theorize the social and collective dynamics of lone-actor terrorism. The article proposes a novel analytical framework for understanding lone-actor terrorism. We provide a conceptualization that draws attention to the social embeddedness of terrorist lone-actor radicalization and the collective dynamic of lone-actor attacks. Our point of departure is the recurrent finding that lone-actor terrorists are in fact not that alone, and that their attacks tend to cluster in time and space. First, we propose to conceive of lone-actor radicalization as a relational pathway shaped by social ties and interactions with radical milieus/movements. Second, taking inspiration from Charles Tilly’s notion of “scattered attacks” as a pattern of dispersed, loosely coordinated collective violence, we suggest three complementary ways of analyzing these processes and their temporal and interactive dynamic. We argue that theorizing the social and collective dynamics of lone-actor political violence is not only about addressing an empirical puzzle (the abundance of social ties; the clustered pattern of violent attacks), but about analytically capturing an entirely different and potentially increasingly relevant logic of violent processes. Thereby, and paradoxically, the very notion of “lone actors” can help us to understand the social dynamics of collective political violence more generally.
{"title":"Scattered Attacks: The Collective Dynamics of Lone-Actor Terrorism","authors":"S. Malthaner, Francis O’Connor, Lasse Lindekilde","doi":"10.1017/s1537592723002852","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1537592723002852","url":null,"abstract":"The proliferation of lone-actor terrorist attacks over the past decade has led to a rapidly expanding literature and a subfield of research. However, this research has only to a limited degree been brought into wider discussions on political violence and social movements. In the present article, we take up this synthetic challenge and argue the need to theorize the social and collective dynamics of lone-actor terrorism. The article proposes a novel analytical framework for understanding lone-actor terrorism. We provide a conceptualization that draws attention to the social embeddedness of terrorist lone-actor radicalization and the collective dynamic of lone-actor attacks. Our point of departure is the recurrent finding that lone-actor terrorists are in fact not that alone, and that their attacks tend to cluster in time and space. First, we propose to conceive of lone-actor radicalization as a relational pathway shaped by social ties and interactions with radical milieus/movements. Second, taking inspiration from Charles Tilly’s notion of “scattered attacks” as a pattern of dispersed, loosely coordinated collective violence, we suggest three complementary ways of analyzing these processes and their temporal and interactive dynamic. We argue that theorizing the social and collective dynamics of lone-actor political violence is not only about addressing an empirical puzzle (the abundance of social ties; the clustered pattern of violent attacks), but about analytically capturing an entirely different and potentially increasingly relevant logic of violent processes. Thereby, and paradoxically, the very notion of “lone actors” can help us to understand the social dynamics of collective political violence more generally.","PeriodicalId":48097,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Politics","volume":"26 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139010327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-06DOI: 10.1017/s153759272300289x
Kevin J. Elliott
What is it like to be a partisan? How do individuals experience their relationship to political parties? The most common answer today, both in popular discourse and much political science, is identity, but many individuals do not identify with parties. Rather, they relate to parties in terms of psychological closeness or affinity—they do not say “we” about the party, as do identifiers, but rather “they.” In this article, I argue that both the empirical and normative study of partisanship would be improved by recognizing that these are two fundamentally different ways for individuals to be attached to parties and that these distinct experiences coexist within most democracies today. Acknowledging this basic plurality of partisanships would remedy the current tendency among empirical studies to homogenize partisanship as either identity or closeness and so would avoid falsifying the experience of many citizens who fall into the opposite category. In polarized contexts, moreover, it could help break up dualistic and antagonistic thinking about how to perform partisanship and diversify public understandings of how to be a partisan. Recognizing the plurality of partisanships would also improve the explosion of normative theorizing about partisanship found in the ground-breaking work of scholars like Nancy Rosenblum, Russell Muirhead, and Jonathan White and Lea Ypi. I show how identity and closeness partisanship—and the interaction between them—have transformative consequences for each of these scholars’ theories of partisanship, either furthering or threatening them. The article aims to improve the conceptualization of partisanship and to model a salutary engagement between normative and empirical inquiry within political science.
{"title":"What Is It Like To Be a Partisan? Measures of Partisanship and Its Value for Democracy","authors":"Kevin J. Elliott","doi":"10.1017/s153759272300289x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s153759272300289x","url":null,"abstract":"What is it like to be a partisan? How do individuals experience their relationship to political parties? The most common answer today, both in popular discourse and much political science, is identity, but many individuals do not identify with parties. Rather, they relate to parties in terms of psychological closeness or affinity—they do not say “we” about the party, as do identifiers, but rather “they.” In this article, I argue that both the empirical and normative study of partisanship would be improved by recognizing that these are two fundamentally different ways for individuals to be attached to parties and that these distinct experiences coexist within most democracies today. Acknowledging this basic plurality of partisanships would remedy the current tendency among empirical studies to homogenize partisanship as either identity or closeness and so would avoid falsifying the experience of many citizens who fall into the opposite category. In polarized contexts, moreover, it could help break up dualistic and antagonistic thinking about how to perform partisanship and diversify public understandings of how to be a partisan. Recognizing the plurality of partisanships would also improve the explosion of normative theorizing about partisanship found in the ground-breaking work of scholars like Nancy Rosenblum, Russell Muirhead, and Jonathan White and Lea Ypi. I show how identity and closeness partisanship—and the interaction between them—have transformative consequences for each of these scholars’ theories of partisanship, either furthering or threatening them. The article aims to improve the conceptualization of partisanship and to model a salutary engagement between normative and empirical inquiry within political science.","PeriodicalId":48097,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Politics","volume":"66 44","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138594560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-01DOI: 10.1017/s1537592723002323
Meina Cai
{"title":"Localized Bargaining: The Political Economy of China’s High-Speed Railway Program. By Xiao Ma. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. 248p. $99.00 cloth, $29.95 paper.","authors":"Meina Cai","doi":"10.1017/s1537592723002323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1537592723002323","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48097,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Politics","volume":"106 20","pages":"1498 - 1499"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138608511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-01DOI: 10.1017/S1537592723002190
Patrik Johansson
{"title":"Bargaining in the Security Council: Setting the Global Agenda. By Susan Hannah Allen and Amy Yuen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. 224p. $85.00 cloth.","authors":"Patrik Johansson","doi":"10.1017/S1537592723002190","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592723002190","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48097,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Politics","volume":" 104","pages":"1527 - 1528"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138613547","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-01DOI: 10.1017/s153759272300258x
Florian Weigand
{"title":"Bridging State and Civil Society: Informal Organizations in Tajik/Afghan Badakhshan. By Suzanne Levi-Sanchez. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2021. 362p. $85.00 cloth.","authors":"Florian Weigand","doi":"10.1017/s153759272300258x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s153759272300258x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48097,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Politics","volume":"123 3","pages":"1518 - 1520"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138622443","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-01DOI: 10.1017/s153759272300227x
Casey B. K. Dominguez
{"title":"Fundraiser in Chief: Presidents and the Politics of Campaign Cash. By Brendan J. Doherty. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2023. 208p. $44.95 cloth, $24.95 paper.","authors":"Casey B. K. Dominguez","doi":"10.1017/s153759272300227x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s153759272300227x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48097,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Politics","volume":"45 1","pages":"1481 - 1482"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138623442","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-01DOI: 10.1017/S1537592723002669
Oren Kroll-Zeldin
{"title":"Jewish Self-Determination beyond Zionism: Lessons from Hannah Arendt and Other Pariahs. By Jonathan Graubart. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2023. 218p. $29.95 paper, $104.50 cloth.","authors":"Oren Kroll-Zeldin","doi":"10.1017/S1537592723002669","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592723002669","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48097,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Politics","volume":"352 11‐12","pages":"1536 - 1537"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138625915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-01DOI: 10.1017/s1537592723002840
{"title":"PPS volume 21 issue 4 Cover and Back matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/s1537592723002840","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1537592723002840","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48097,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Politics","volume":"68 7","pages":"b1 - b7"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138627226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-01DOI: 10.1017/S1537592723002165
Justin H. Gross
{"title":"Voicing Politics: How Language Shapes Public Opinion. By Efrén Pérez and Margit Tavits. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022. 232p. $120.00 cloth, $35.00 paper.","authors":"Justin H. Gross","doi":"10.1017/S1537592723002165","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592723002165","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48097,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Politics","volume":" 651","pages":"1491 - 1493"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138610630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}