Theorizing Cultures of Political Violence in Times of Austerity

After the multidimensional financial crisis of 2008, the member states of the Eurozone imposed a set of economic policies to save their economies. Socially unpopular cuts contributed to the occurrence of violent movements that both opposed austerity policies and created animosity towards the politicians who implemented them. Combining qualitative and quantitative comparative analyses from anti-austerity movements in 14 Eurozone states from 2007 to 2015, Joanna Rak develops an original typology of patterns of a culture of political violence to explain why some anti-austerity movements turned to violence and others did not, despite having shared goals and political values. She uncovers the very nature of the differences and similarities between cultures of political violence, identifies their sources, and determines their differing results. Simultaneously, she opens a discussion on the exploratory and explanatory utility of the category of a culture of political violence in the Social Sciences. Theorizing Cultures of Political Violence in Times of Austerity casts new light on the scholarly debate on cultures of political violence and anti-austerity violent behavior, making it a compelling read for scholars of political sociology, political behavior, comparative politics, European politics, and sociology

Policing Protest in the Austerity-driven Slovenia

Celem artykułu jest ocena polityki kontroli protestu w Słowenii w okresie wychodzenia z kryzysu ekonomicznego oraz weryfikacja analitycznej efektywności narzędzia do pomiaru kontroli protestu. Tekst prezentuje krytyczną dyskusję nad modelem teoretycznym składającym się z antynomicznych typów idealnych eskalowanej siły i negocjowanego kierowania autorstwa Donatelli della Porty i Herberta Reitera. Następnie, wykorzystuje je w roli narzędzia do zanalizowania słoweńskiego przypadku. W badaniu zastosowano jakościową metodę analizy źródeł opartą na konceptualnej jakościowej analizie zawartości, żeby rozwiązać następujące problemy badawcze: jaki model kontroli protestu wystąpił w Słowenii w okresie implementacji polityki surowości? I dlaczego kontrola przybrała taką formę? Studium pokazuje, że w Słowenii pojawił się model negocjowanego kierowania z elementami eskalowanej siły. Ten typ kontroli protestu wynikał z organizacyjnej dynamiki Słoweńskiej Policji Narodowej, która odznacza się dialektyką decentralizacji i hierarchicznego podporządkowania w oddziałach policji, efektywnym wykorzystywaniem możliwości koordynacji różnych grup działających w obrębie protestujących tłumów oraz pewnością co do celów interwencjiThis article aims to evaluate protest policing in the austerity-driven Slovenia and verify the analytical effectiveness of a tool for measuring protest policing. Therefore, the paper critically discusses and modifies Donatella della Porta and Herbert Reiter’s theoretical framework consisting of the escalated force and negotiated management antinomic ideal types, and then applies it to examine the Slovenian case. The research draws on a qualitative method of sources analysis based on a conceptual qualitative content analysis to solve the problems of what was the Slovenian model of protest policing in times of austerity? And why did it have a particular shape? The study diagnoses Slovenia as having the negotiated management mode of protest policing with the elements of the escalated force model. This mode stems from the organizational dynamics of the Slovenian National Police which typifies with the dialectic of decentralization and hierarchical submission in police units, the effectively used possibilities to coordinate the different groups operating within protesting crowds, and certainty about the purposes of the intervention

Neo-militant Democracy and (Un)fulfilled Destination of Consolidated Democracies? The Inner Six in Comparative Perspective

Drawing upon the methods of qualitative source analysis and process tracing, the study addresses the following research questions: How was the national legislation of consolidated democracies positioned to neo-militant democracy measures during the recovery from the great financial crisis (2007–2009)? To what extent was democracy prone to authoritarian abuse depending on a neo-militant democracy rule implementation? It advances arguments to reject Carlo Invernizzi Accetti’s and Ian Zuckerman’s hypothesis that if the freedom of political actors is restricted through militant democracy measures, democracy becomes more prone to authoritarian abuse in the long run. In the founding states of the EU, neo-militant democracy measures functioned in the legal structures long before the outbreak of the great financial crisis, during the crisis (2007–2009), and in the period of recovery. The states restricted democratic freedoms of speech, the press, association, and assembly. Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany also limited organization in political parties. Moreover, during the recovery from the crisis, that is, a period of particular vulnerability of democracy to authoritarian abuse, the lists of relevant precautions were extended in France, Italy, and Germany. In these states, strengthening neo-militant democracy measures was neither a factor undermining democracy nor making it prone to drift towards a hybrid or authoritarian regime

Precession electron diffraction studies of SrxBa1-xNb2O6 and CaxBa1-xNb2O6 single crystals

Crystal structures of two single crystals SrxBa1xNb2O6 and CaxBa1xNb2O6 have been reinvestigated using automated electron diffraction tomography method with beam precession. 3D reciprocal space has been reconstructed based on recorded tilt series. For both samples the crystal structure was refined and the tetragonal symmetry with space group P4bm was confirmed. The three dimensional reciprocal space allowed to observe and to study satellite reflections in both materials

Autokreacja ról politycznych Komitetu Obrony Demokracji w mitycznym uniwersum polskiej sceny politycznej

The article aims to identify the myths of political roles that were used by the Committee for the Defence of Democracy (CDD) to create the language image of its creation and to explain the importance of these semantic structures’ configuration for the self-creation of political roles, which proved to be an effective incentive for the grassroots mobilization of the opponents of the Law and Justice party. They will be performed with the source analysis, qualitative relational content analysis, and a typology of myths. The secondary objective of the article is to verify the analytical usefulness of the theoretical tool in the form of a typology of myths created by the criterion of political roles. The research examines the theoretical framework that consists of four pairs of ideal types of myths: anthropolatrizing and diabolizing, theophanic and demonizing, divine and devilish mesistes, katechon and antichrist. The use of these theoretical categories to identify and distinguish the discursive creations and self-creations of the social movement has shown that they divide the semantic field of the political role myth in such a way that its ideal types are separable and allow us to recognize the basic semantic constructs of political roles. It has also revealed that the CDD did not use the extreme positive and negative valuation of itself and its political opponents. The movement used theophanic, divine mesistes, and katechon myths to self-legitimize discursively in the political system. It employed demonizing and antichrist myths to delegitimize the ruling political subjects. The image of the movement’s creation was the expression of the sense of necessity for the emergence and activities of a good katechon which would stop the antichrist from destroying the democratic system in Poland and contribute to the protection and preservation of its constitutive values.Głównymi celami tego artykułu są identyfikacja mitów ról politycznych, które zostały wykorzystane przez Komitet Obrony Demokracji (KOD) do stworzenia językowego obrazu jego powstania, a także wyjaśnienie znaczenia konfiguracji tych struktur semantycznych dla autokreacji ról politycznych, które okazały się efektywnym bodźcem dla oddolnej mobilizacji przeciwników Prawa i Sprawiedliwości. Zostaną one zrealizowane przy wykorzystaniu analizy źródeł, jakościowej relacyjnej analizy zawartości i typologii mitów. Z kolei cel poboczny artykułu stanowi weryfikacja użyteczności analitycznej narzędzia teoretycznego w postaci typologii mitów, których przedmiotem są role polityczne. Testowi poddano siatkę kategorii teoretycznych obejmującą cztery pary typów idealnych mitów: antropolatryzującego i diabolizującego, teofanijnego i demonizującego, boskiego i diabelskiego mesistesu oraz katechonu i antychrysta. Wykorzystanie tych kategorii teoretycznych do zidentyfikowania i rozróżnienia dyskursywnych kreacji oraz autokreacji ruchu społecznego pokazało, że dzielą one pole semantyczne mitu roli politycznej w taki sposób, że jego typy idealne są rozłączne i umożliwiają rozpoznanie podstawowych konstruktów semantycznych ról politycznych. Uwidoczniło również, że KOD zaniechał skrajnie pozytywnego i negatywnego wartościowania siebie i swoich oponentów politycznych. Do dyskursywnej autolegitymizacji w systemie politycznym wykorzystał mity teofanijny, boskiego mesistesu i katechonu. Do delegitymizacji rządzących podmiotów politycznych zastosował mity demonizujący i antychrysta. Obraz powstania ruchu był wyrazem poczucia konieczności powstania i działania dobrego katechonu, który powstrzyma antychrysta przed zniszczeniem systemu demokratycznego w Polsce i przyczyni się do ochrony i zachowania jego konstytutywnych wartości

From Mobilization to Demobilization: Dynamics of Contention in the Austerity-driven Slovenia

The article aims to trace the dynamics of contention in austerity-driven Slovenia, explain why it ended, through the processes of demobilization, despite the protest movement’s initial successes, and verify the explanatory power of Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow’s theoretical framework of demobilization. The analysis applies the method of source analysis, conceptual qualitative content analysis, and the conceptual framework of contentious politics. In doing so, it addresses the research problems of the dynamics of contention in Slovenia and why the contention resulted in demobilization. The article argues that after mass mobilization an upward scale shift appeared. The shift moved the contention beyond its local origins in Maribor, touched on the interests and values of new subjects, and involved a shift of venue to sites where the demands might have been met by state institutions. The dynamics of contention was a cycle of active and passive contentious episodes. The movement identity shift and successful recognition of its claims influenced the performances and episode sequence. The processes of demobilization started when people stopped attending protests, organizing particular performances, and implementing innovations to modular performances instead. Demobilization occurred when most of the protesters became discouraged from protest through boredom and a desire to return to everyday routines

Agata W. Ziętek Bezpieczeństwo kulturowe w Europie Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej Lublin 2013, ss. 323

Recenzj

The Change of Russian Political Regime from the “White Revolution” To Presidential Elect ion (2012–2018)

How did Russian political regime change after the “White Revolution”? The article makes a methodological, theoretical, and empirical contribution to the field of studies on the dynamics of non-democratic regimes, and especially the nature of the alterations within Putin’s Russia. The research field is the Russian political system determined by its three aspects: structure of political institutions, political awareness of public issues, and political mobilization between the “White Revolution” and the beginning of Putin’s fourth term. The paper solves the research problems by employing the qualitative analysis of sources and drawing on the critical analysis of the recent news. The analysis benefits from the use of Roman Bäcker’s analytical device, a theoretical framework made of the three continua whose extreme points are the indicators of authoritarianism and totalitarianism respectively. The research tool is to identify the essential features of Putin’s political regime. According to this model, bureaucracy or siloviki, emotional mentality, and social apathy are typical of authoritarianism. In turn, state-party apparatus, totalitarian gnosis, and controlled mass mobilization are the symptoms of totalitarianism. This article researches how the Russian political regime evolved from the “White Revolution” to the beginning of Putin’s fourth term. It tests the hypothesis that the system most likely evolved from a soft to hard military authoritarianism. The regime might have moved towards a hybrid regime made of the elements of authoritarianism and totalitarianism. It formulates the conclusion the Russian political regime is a hard military authoritarianism. After the fall of the “White Revolution”, most notably after the annexation of Crimea, few totalitarian elements were visible, mostly in the sphere of social awareness in the form of totalitarian political gnosis. In addition, the indicators of totalitarianism started to disappear from September 2014, especially the elements of totalitarian gnosis in the political discourse