Political Anthropology - Science topic

S. I. Hayakawa and others studied how high-level abstract words, though representing things not physically present agitate the human nervous system. People feel pulled upon and assaulted by hurtful language or (perhaps in response) those subjected to emotionally-charged speech/texts deploy weaponized speech and texts at others.

People feel a full somatic response to such language. Their bodies get excited and their mind re-apportion memory storage.

See the then-Chicago-based Linguist Hayakawa's _Language in Action_. When published in the 1940s, this was unverifiable linguistic-physiological theory. Now tests are proving the mind-body effect of heated speech on retrofitting our brains. That is, repeated exposure to buzz words, slogans, memes do in fact cause more bypass of the prefrontal analytical lobe and cause speech and text to be cursorily processed by the crudely two-valued amygdala. This results in less synaptic hooks for shades of complexity in thinking. Experimental Psychology has measured excitation levels and induced for getting in repose to the war cries of partisan politicians and pundits.

How can non-Aristotelian rhetoric help to slow responses and also lower the "heat?"

Please share any comments and pointers to studies here.

LANGUAGE IN ACTION:

Holiday wishes for a new year that holds better communication and more peaceful linguistic, rhetorical interactions.

Dear friends.

I have been been involved in journalism for the majority of my adult life, both as a talk radio host, but later also despite my aversion as a child as someone who writes articles, mainly in the sphere of politics and business for different outlets. During my radio days it was almost a natural law that if you covered a political event you had a guest from academia. This is something that has changed.

Today political commentators who are non academics and also not very neutral ( CNN, Fox etc) has taken over the role of the political scientist as the expert in the field.

Academia had a natural place in society for centuries but as of lately political and societal forces has undermined the legitimacy and the authority of academia and science it self as an institution. Former president Donald Trump is often seen as the first "Post truth president", a truth with modification perhaps. In the political arena, far right parties has challenged the very role of science in society and replaced it with spinn. Facts and counter-facts are words many of us have gotten used to as well as alternative facts, reminding us of the scientific streams that claims that there is no objective truth.

Why do you think this is? what are the implications and how can academia make it self relevant again? ( If it is not). Perhaps academia is losing its position as an institution?

Best Wishes Henrik

* Not only right wing parties has a problem with the truth, the same illness has been present also to the left of center.

Does anyone here know scholarship, research, publication, or sources that would be good on the Latin/Roman treatment of "Societas"?

I am reaching out to the community here for some help to understand the use and character of "socius, socii" and "societas" in Roman and Latin customs.  I am very much interested in understanding the difference between what I take "societas" in Latin to mean (the relations among Rome and its Socii) and what the Greeks understood as koinonia.

I am also interested in Roman and Latin practice regarding "socius, socii" and "societas" and what Roman law had to say about the issue. So if can direct me to sources you think I should look at I would be very grateful.

I am trying to start a project on the subject and your help would be appreciated

Conservative political thinking (Trump in the US, Bolsonaro in Brazil) is advancing in many countries. Apparently this has specific characteristics, related to the spirit of time (zeigeist). My research aims to know what types exist.

(I ask you to recommend this question to broaden its scope)

I am interested in research about the operational system of political decision-making and the barriers to good, longterm decisions. As to challenges like climate change, for example, it seems obvious that we would need cross-sectoral, systemic and solution-oriented collaborative processes instead of interested-based, short-term thinking (often along party lines and blocked between different ministries). Before we come up with proposals of institutional design we need to have a good empirical basis for where the barriers of good decision-making really are. Do you know of any? Perhaps research in ethnography or political anthropology?

Many thanks in advance!

It has been said that our contemporary experience is that of the "lived dystopia" of Modernity. This social imaginary directly confronts the narrative of the "imminent threshold", the point of no return set in the near future, beyond which environmental degradation and other social problems are portrayed as definitely intractable. This question bears directly on our understanding of political hope in the present World: Should we hope to avoid the imminent catastrophe, or should the domain of hope rather be focused on coping with a dystopia that is already here?

Undoubtedly Democracy is the best system, but is there any room of improvement?

Does political dominance of one community in a social location define their socio-economic dominance?

A writer had an open invitation to construct counternarratives based on her summary of groups who attended the "Battles of Berkeley"

What I am asking is a similar call for researchers to provide counternarrative extrapolations from these bullet points.

Pick one, or several, or all OR critique this method for its ability to effectively construct counternarratives. If you do critique, however, please provide more fruitful alternatives :)

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), the influential English political philosopher, claimed that the human condition without a government capable of enforcing peace and stability, and able to protect citizens from both internal and external threats to their well-being would be a perpetual "war of all against all". In such a condition, life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short".

It can be inferred from his political thought, that any functioning government would be preferable to the conditions which would prevail without a government.  Hobbes has civil war in mind, specifically, when he thinks of the worst situations possible without intact government.  He would point to the break-up of the former Yugoslavia or to the chaos in Iraq currently, as examples of the conditions which would prevail without government.

On the other hand, many observers would point to the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century., such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union to make the case that some governments are worse than no government at all. 

I would appreciate any suggestion.  Thank you very much.

The focus is on presidents not presidencies/regimes. This is despite the fact that individuals/personalities matter a lot more than regimes in developing countries where they can override institutional checks and balances, in contrast to the case for developed economies where checks and balances are more effective in moderating an individual leader's position.

The terminological borderlines enclosing the very notion of slavery are so shaky and so suspect of voluntary and situationally determined use, and the exact sets of economical, political, anthropological etc circumstances of a 'slave' in different historical contexts are so diverse, that - can one apply to the notion in its most wide sense any other definition then 'a state of one person being looked at by another one as an object having an appearance of a human being but lacking any right to be perceived as one'?

In this conference presentation, I talk about Swedes leaving The Church of Sweden; i.e., opting out of an ascribed identity as Evangelical Lutherans MAINLY FOR FINANCIAL GAIN (to save on Church membership fees). In other words, this is rational decision-making utilizing a cost-benefits approach. I seriously doubt that the choice to opt out of membership in the Church of Sweden has much to do with religious choice. I could be wrong, but for those leaving “The Church,” I think it is purely an economic choice based on money, not on religious conviction, or lack thereof. By contrast, I do think what has happened with secular Jews in Israel is a matter of conviction. Like Sweden, Israel has a mandatory Burial Tax and a large segment of its population consists of secular Jews (i.e., those who consider being Jewish an ethnicity and not a profession of religious faith). In Israel, these secular Jews became politically active to demand that civil (non-religious) burials be made available; and they succeeded: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/secular-burial-site-approved-in-jerusalem-1.74744

Burial is a significant rite of passage and most people have strong feelings about the burial rituals to be observed upon their passing. I can state this unequivocally as an attorney who specializes in Wills, Estates, and Trusts. I have prepared hundreds of end-of-life decision making documents (Wills, Living Wills, Powers of Attorney, inter vivos burial expense trusts, Donation of Body Parts documents, etc.) and know that clients give considerable thought to the contents of these death-planning documents. In Sweden, the inability to vote in The Church elections results in an inability to elect the leadership of The Church – the 250 odd “national officers” of The Church who determine how The Church’s obligation to provide for non-Lutheran burials in Sweden will be fulfilled. (For more on this, see “The Lives of Different Believers,” pp 62-70 of my dissertation—LEGISLATIVE TERRORISM, uploaded on RG.) It is The Church that administers all of the public graveyards in Sweden (except in Stockholm and the small town of Tranås); in this connection, it also establishes the amount of the Burial Tax, which is imposed on all taxpayers. Since there are practically no private graveyards in Sweden, The Church has a virtual monopoly on burial sites in the country.

Given this state of affairs, would it be unethical to make the rational choice to join The Church so that one has some say in which persons become the elected officials who dole out non-Lutheran burial space? Would it be more or less unethical if the person performing this costs-benefits analysis and joining The Church is a Catholic, Muslim, or Secular Humanist?

I am looking for dataset from a Panel Survey where people regularily do a self-placement on the left-right political scale. At best: a lot of waves and an 11 point scale. The German SOEP and British BHPS don't have it or only in a very limited number of waves. ESS has it but is not a Panel.

It´s very important and urgent so every pic of information will be welcome!

Is there any literature on this? I wonder how and if corruption scandals or greater visibility of political figures associated with corruption influentiate people's decision on everyday ethical/professional dilemmas.

Jirga system in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Panchayat System in India and South Punjab Pakistan

Dera system in Pakistan

Transparency in political decision-making is often proposed as a remedy to failures of the political agency. However, a small number of recent theoretical contributions (e.g. Prat 2005 or Fox 2007) discuss potential negative consequences of transparency in political decision-making on the quality of policy outcomes and representation of voter preferences, particularly when actions of politicians such as individual votes are recorded and made publicly available.

We (Stadelmann et al. 2014) try to identify the impact of transparency in political decision-making on the quality of political representation with a difference-in-difference strategy. The quality of political representation is measured by the observed divergence of parliamentary decisions from revealed voter preferences on identical issues. Full transparency of actions of individual politicians does not decrease divergence from voter preferences.

When can transparency of individual actions of politicians pose problems?

Can transparency alone have a significant effect on the quality of political representation or does it need to be complemented with other institutional reforms?

Cited references:

Fox, J. (2007), 'Government Transparency and Policymaking', Public Choice 131(1-2), 23-44.

Prat, A. (2005), 'The Wrong Kind of Transparency', American Economic Review 95(3), 862-877.

Stadelmann, D.; Portmann, M. & Eichenberger, R. (2014), 'Full Transparency of Politicians' Actions Does Not Increase the Quality of Political Representation', Journal of Experimental Political Science 1, 16-23.

I still don't see any other viable and meaningful alternative to economic liberalism (democracy) except socialist democratic alternative that emerged in parts of Latin America in recent years. Without it, we are permanently damned to discuss the non-politics of the apolitical politicians. Those who disagree will do me a favor.

Conducting preliminary research on the general topic of Sikh soldiers fighting for the British in WW1.

What would be the first references that come to your mind regarding the topic of the political uses of pictures (caricatures, drawings, photographs, engravings) in 19th and 20th centuries mobilizations? As a French researcher, I'd be curious to know your must-reads.

I'd be interested in political "maps" of the (collective) actors/stakeholders/organizations involved in such a project, perhaps through a network analysis.

One of the most interesting questions for me is the one for the explanation of human behavior. How much of our interaction and behavior is socially dominated, how much is biologically determined? As a political scientist I am focussing more on the social and political structures that we are living in, but what are the arguments of biologists or neurologists?

Welcomed papers on conflicts because of mega-infrastructure projects (Latin America, Asia, and Africa).

I am looking for both methods and theories to conduct research on local policy making processes, preferably related to (immigrant) integration policies. I'd also like to know examples of research in this field.

Africa as Region has failed to transform from its current status of being a developing Region to a developed Region. One would conclude that this phenomenon is attributed to political leadership found within the continent. African leaders are educated and have greater exposure to developed nations due to their many travel in the globe but still they have failed to use that advantage for the development of their nations.

The question one may ask is "What is the problem with the political leadership of Africa?" It is against this background that this researcher would want unravel through an in-depth qualitative research