702 research outputs found

    The politics of local welfare:How local political arenas shape decentralised social policies

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    Reckoning with the digital turn in electoral geography

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    The sub-discipline of electoral geography contains research threads that draw on different theoretical, philosophical, and methodological traditions. I link these threads to the ‘digital turn’ that is occurring in the electoral landscape and in the discipline of geography itself. The use of digital technology is increasingly shaping electioneering and data regimes, providing new conceptual challenges concerning the spatial mediation and subsequent knowledge politics of voting and campaigning. Responding to these challenges requires not only building on the subfield’s tradition of interdisciplinarity but also on strengthening intra-disciplinary dialogue, in particular working across the quantitative–qualitative divide

    Poliarchie/Polyarchies volume 6 n. 1/2023

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    Poliarchie/Polyarchies is multi-disciplinary journal which aims at promoting the encounter of the social sciences and humanities, ranging from sociology and political science to history, economics, law and philosophy. The analysis of political and social change can indeed be investigated from different perspectives and with the help of a variety of methodological tools. Poliarche/Polyarchies embraces a range of contemporary issues: processes of supranational integration and democratization in the world; the transformation of contemporary societies under the pressure of immigration and environmental challenges; the crises of “electoral democracy” in Europe and the development of a deliberative model of democracy; the potential “clash of civilizations” and socio-religious conflict; the resurgence of nationalisms and micro-regionalism in Europe and in the world; the integration of policy processes into networks and of communities into new frameworks and governance systems. The journal has an anonymous referee system and two issues per year are expected

    Extracting and classifying exceptional COVID-19 measures from multilingual legal texts:The merits and limitations of automated approaches

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    This paper contributes to ongoing scholarly debates on the merits and limitations of computational legal text analysis by reflecting on the results of a research project documenting exceptional COVID-19 management measures in Europe. The variety of exceptional measures adopted in countries characterized by different legal systems and natural languages, as well as the rapid evolution of such measures, pose considerable challenges to manual textual analysis methods traditionally used in the social sciences. To address these challenges, we develop a supervised classifier to support the manual coding of exceptional policies by a multinational team of human coders. After presenting the results of various natural language processing (NLP) experiments, we show that human-in-the-loop approaches to computational text analysis outperform unsupervised approaches in accurately extracting policy events from legal texts. We draw lessons from our experience to ensure the successful integration of NLP methods into social science research agendas.</p

    A new framework for assessing the sans serif in nineteenth-century printed ephemera: Birmingham and Bridgnorth case-studies

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    The contemporary revival of Grotesque typefaces highlights the prevailing popularity of sans serif printing types across a 200-year history. This thesis investigates the extent to which early sans serif typography was used in advertising by provincial jobbing printers; and presents a new narrative that reveals the history underpinning its cultural connotations. The literature of ephemera studies informed a new methodology that tracks the ascendancy of the sans serif both in terms of its frequency of use and its position within the typographic hierarchy of printed ephemera. To analyse its usage, the sans serif was aligned to the categories of ‘Commercial Life’, ‘Information’ and ‘Instruction’: to educate the emergent working and middle classes; to communicate through new forms of information design; and to measure its visual impact. In the rapidly expanding industrial towns of the Midlands, the deployment of Grotesque sans serifs was widespread. Contrary to the negative reception the sans serif received from nineteenth-century print historians, such as Thomas Curson Hansard, between 1816 and 1851, it was embraced commercially by Birmingham’s 693 jobbing printers. Surviving printed ephemera was used to build historical case studies based on the industrial towns of Birmingham and Bridgnorth. From analysis of data from the British Book Trade Index (BBTI), these independent case-studies, represented two vibrant print centres in the Midlands. These towns were diverse in their industries and were identified to represent print activity within a primary case-study of an industrial metropolis, and a secondary study of a rural market town built on its river traffic. A Typefounders handlist of sans serif types evidences the scale of production of new display faces, demonstrating the rapid economy in the supply and demand for printing types. In their use of the new display typefaces, local printers contributed to advancement of typographic composition for printed ephemera. The new methodology presented combines three approaches for the interrogation of typography in printed ephemera. Firstly, the class of document type that sans serif printing types were used in, shows if there was a bias towards a particular class of document, and how the sans serif contributed to the development of new forms of printed information and typographic compositions. Secondly, themes and categories were identified based on the textual content of the documents, showing how it was used and what it was used for. Finally, measuring the percentage of sans serif types and their position in the visual hierarchy showed how the sans serif was used within the typographic composition, and how it increased in popularity over time. In combination these approaches form a new methodology for other historians working with typography in printed ephemera. The rise of the sans serif reflected wider changes in society, and forms part of the identity of emergent middle and working classes. These cultural associations being transferred respectively through the progression of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The sans serif was the face of ‘Commercial Life’, ‘Information’ and ‘Instruction’ but most significantly it was a typeface for the people

    Landscape Mapping of Civil Society Digital Security in West Africa

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    In today's digital age, organisations are constantly exposed to various digital security threats. For civil society organisations (CSOs) in West Africa, the threat of cyber-attacks and data breaches is a real and growing concern. This study aims to shed light on the digital security challenges facing CSOs in West Africa, and to provide recommendations on how they can better protect themselves against digital security threats. By examining the most common threats, the exposure of CSOs to these threats, their preparedness to respond, and the effectiveness of national and organisational level policies, the study provides an in-depth analysis of the digital security landscape in West Africa

    Language in public participation: Understanding and overcoming language and culture barriers in the political participation of people of migrant origin

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    As is the case in any other social domain, political life is constituted in and by language. In the political sphere, language crucially serves as a medium of communication, encompassing the dissemination of political messages, the presentation of agendas, the discussion of ideas and the negotiation of policies. However, language is not only a neutral tool for communication. Research in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics has shown the multifaceted nature of language, which is inherently entangled with culture and identity and it is indexed to the social, cultural and economic status of speakers. Language, along with other factors such as nationality, ethnicity and race, influences how individuals are perceived by the public and how they perceive themselves in social contexts. Understanding the intricate relationship between language, culture and identity in the symbolic field of politics, a neglected area of inquiry, is essential for a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and opportunities faced by migrant candidates standing for election to local council. This task is even more important in the Irish context where migrant people are vastly underrepresented in politics. Drawing on interviews with 13 people of migrant origin, this project documents in their own words their perceptions and experiences about the language and culture challenges they encounter in the course of their political activity at the local level in Ireland. More precisely, this study delves into the nature of linguistic and cultural barriers and their influence on the political pursuits of migrant candidates, while also exploring potential strategies that will allow greater access to public participation. The main findings of the study are: - Most of the migrant participants in this study do not consider language as a barrier to their particular political involvement. A few participants with English as an additional language (EAL) encounter minor communication issues, but believe that these have minimal political impact. However, the pressure to meet high English proficiency standards may deter other migrant individuals from entering mainstream politics. - Listener expectations regarding migrant candidates’ language, combined with factors like cultural background and ethnicity, can lead to prejudice and micro-aggressions during initial encounters, affecting perceptions of trustworthiness. These negative experiences occur primarily in informal interactions with the public, not within institutional settings like city councils or political parties. - The response of candidates to instances of language-related discrimination highlights the significance of strategies such as building the resilience and self-confidence of candidates, promoting diversity awareness among constituencies and fostering inclusive spaces for civic engagement within communities. Participants consider language-related biases and other prejudices as potential obstacles to both the electoral success of migrant candidates and the active engagement of migrant individuals in politics. Overall, the report highlights that political bias often arises from perceptions of foreignness, and that these are triggered by language and culture-related factors such as non-Irish accents and other identity markers not typically associated with Ireland. In short, migrant candidates may face prejudice irrespective of their language skills. Therefore, the report strongly recommends that legal protections and integration initiatives, such as strategies and action plans by institutions, political parties and civic organisations, should incorporate a broader perspective on language, moving beyond an understanding of the notion of the language barrier in integration being solely related to a lack of English proficiency (see Section 11 for a complete list of recommendations and proposals). This perspective entails acknowledging derogatory comments and abusive behaviours tied to accents, English varieties, speech patterns, and other distinctive linguistic features as manifestations of racism and xenophobia

    2022 Global Review of Constitutional Law

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    When we created the Global Review of Constitutional Law in 2016, our aspiration was tomake the world smaller and more familiar, by making the high court case law of the jurisdictions of the world available in English. Seven years later, we continue to make the world smaller, and hope to make it ever more in the years ahead. This edition of the Global Review is special for two reasons. First, it marks the second year of our new relationship with our publisher, Edizioni UniversitĂ  di Trieste (EUT), an outstanding academic press that has partnered with us to produce this magnificent resource for constitutional scholars around the world. Second, we have a new co-editor on the team: Giulia Andrade, a scholar and attorney in Brazil. Giulia brings an abundance of academic experience, complemented by her practical experience as a lawyer. We are grateful to have her on the team, and we look forward to many years together with her in this global collaboration. As always, the principal purpose of the Global Review remains the same this year: to offer readers systemic knowledge about jurisdiction-specific constitutional law that has previously been limited mainly to local networks rather than a broader readership. The Global Review has been useful to judges, academics, elected and appointed officials, and also to laypersons and beyond

    POLITICS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA

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    Proceedings of the 2023 International Conference of the Association for the Promotion of African Studies
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