13 research outputs found

    Scotland divided: poverty, inequality and the Scottish parliament

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    The re-establishment of a Scottish parliament in Edinburgh in May 1999 has promised new and innovative developments in social policy. Focusing on poverty and social exclusion, this article considers the likelihood that the approach by the new Scottish parliament will represent a departure from the approach of the Westminster government. There is some expectation that Scotland's experience will be different given the distinctive political and cultural environment, but instead it is argued that the Scottish parliament is very much in tune with New Labour thinking in relation to poverty. The neglect of wider structural inequalities in wealth and income means that the Scottish parliament is unlikely to develop a radical approach which challenges existing structures of inequality

    Es-tu Charlie?:Doing politics on Wikipedia

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    This chapter examines the representation of the slogan "Je Suis Charlie" (JSC) on Wikipedia. Drawing on corpus tools in addition to purely qualitative analytical tools led to the identification of several themes that recur throughout Wikipedia's article on JSC as well as on the associated discussion pages. The Wikipedia article represents JSC as a globally-used symbol of freedom of speech and solidarity with victims of specific violent events. On the discussion pages, JSC receives a markedly different treatment, e.g. the debates focus on whether JSC - rather than symbolising freedom of speech - symbolises the freedom to discriminate against groups of people. Furthermore, the discussions focus on JSC as uniting the "West" only and not on JSC as a global phenomenon

    Sentimental Utility Theory: Interpreting the Utilization of Collective Emotions by the Political Elite Through the Erdoğan‐Obama Friendship

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    Barack Obama's 2009 visit to Turkey resulted in an Obama‐Mania in Turkish media, followed by a friendship between Obama and Recep Erdoğan, which was widely reported in the media and emphasized in their rhetoric. This article explains the existence of the Erdoğan‐Obama friendship narrative, in spite of no actual political friendship existing. We first interpret their relationship through five key components of political friendship (affect, grand project, altruistic reciprocity, moral obligations, equality) and argue that, despite a strong friendship narrative, their histories, leadership styles, and political goals diverged to such an extent that a friendship never existed. We then introduce sentimental utility theory (SUT) to explain the utility of maintaining the appearance of a friendship. Through SUT, this article illuminates the utility of collective emotions and offers insight into how collective emotions produce ingroup identities and generate stability for a state's population. SUT reveals how Erdoğan utilized the Obama‐mania in Turkey to create a personal bond with Obama which linked himself, and his policies, to Obama and his progressive policies. Future research can deploy SUT to make sense of other claims of friendship and special relationships between states and between state leaders
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