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A question asked by some of the great scholars of religion, including Emile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, & Sigmund Freud, is "What is the nature of religion?" This study presents two linked arguments; in fact, one is generated from the other. First, it is assumed that in addition to the institutionalized conventional type of religion, there exists another type of religiosity in contemporary Western democracies -- alternative religiosity. The second argument concerns the question of relationships between religious meaning systems & political belief systems. One of the most long-standing findings in the study of politics is that the more religious people become, the stronger their objections to the democratic way of thinking. Religiosity in many societies (for example, Israel & the US) delegates believers to the spheres of the political Right. Although we have had much research on conventional religions & political attitudes, this is not the case for alternative religions. It would be reasonable to assume that those belief systems that developed as alternatives to the formal religions would be characterized differently; however, their implications for political attitudes are similar. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractConfidence in the scientific community became politically polarized in the United States at the turn of the twenty-first century, with conservatives displaying lower confidence in scientists than liberals. Using data from the General Social Survey from 1984 to 2016, I show that moral and economic conservatives played distinct but complementary roles in producing this divide. I find that moral conservatives exhibited low confidence in scientists before any substantial division existed between self-identified political conservatives and liberals on this issue. However, as moral conservatism increasingly consolidated under the label of political conservatism, a negative association between political conservatism and confidence in the scientific community emerged. Economic conservatives, by contrast, previously held disproportionately high confidence in scientists, but this positive relationship wanes in the beginning of the twenty-first century. These findings suggest that interpreting political polarization requires attention to the multiple dimensions along which political attitudes are organized and ideological coalitions are formed.

The role of the state in providing food subsidies to consumers has a long though sometimes ignoble history. In ancient Egypt, wheat prices were maintained by government storage schemes (chapter 13), and the value of cheap, ample food supplies for political stability was evidenced in the "bread and circus" era of the Roman Empire. However, detailed policy calculations connecting subsidies to production and nutritional status confront contemporary government leaders with ever more complex and confusing policy considerations (chapter 2). ; PR ; IFPRI1 ; DGO

First edition, July, 1945. ; For further reading: p. 32. ; Mode of access: Internet.

Arguing that a complete understanding of the functioning of modern liberal democracies entails analysis of the challenges facing political parties, key findings from empirical political science are reviewed & directions for future theory & research are outlined. Focus is on recent changes within & between Western European polities -- particularly those related to European integration -- & the challenges these pose for political party functioning as purposive organizations, including shifts in political values, national political cultures, socioeconomic transformations, the structures of political communication, & political issues & policy agendas. The mobilization & linkage functions of political parties in relation to the wider society are explored, along with parties' internal structure, organization, & behavior. Figures. K. Hyatt Stewart

This paper discusses the political structures and leadership required in Australia in facing the challenges of the 21st century. It argues that the substance of good policy for the way forward is actually quite clear. It involves better investment in knowledge and innovation to underpin sustainable and fair growth. But four attitudinal conditions are identified as restricting implementation of good policy in Australia. These are: short-termism, divided responsibility, risk aversion and lack of trust. Changes needed in political settings and structures to address these barriers and to facilitate exercise of constructive public leadership are defined. A reform agenda that ranges from a New Deal in federalism to opening up party pre-selection is provided. The paper was commissioned for a "Futures Summit" held in Melbourne in May 2005, convened by the Australian Davos Connection, the Australian affiliate of the World Economic Forum.

This Special Issue seeks to understand the formation and development of Asian political dynasties that extended or continue to extend power through at least two generations by comparing and contrasting the experiences of eight select country cases in the region. The Issue concentrates on "political dynasties" rather than "political families" because we examine the chronological extension of clout by a kinship group over the geographical unit in which it resides rather than simply the nuanced power relations of the political family in stasis. We also focus on dynasties as political families in motion—not political families at one point in time. The study is crucial because it enhances comprehension of the Asian family dynasty's role as a political institution in the age of elections. Such research remains uncommon.

1. Introduction: Philosophy and Social Theory beyond the "Bourgeois Horizon" -- 2. Recognizing Capital: Some Barriers to Public Discourse about Capital -- 3. The Legend of Hegel's Labor Theory of Reason -- 4. Marx, Subjectivism, and Modern Moral Philosophy -- 5. Karl Marx and the Critique of Bourgeois Philosophy -- 6. Reclaiming the Concepts of Value and Capital -- 7. Social Form and the "Purely Social": On the Kind of Sociality Involved in Value -- 8. The Commodity Spectrum -- 9. A Brilliant Failure: Hegel and Marx Assess the Enlightenment -- 10. From Hegel on Enlightenment Terror to Marx on Capital -- 11. The Poetics of Nihilism: Representing Capital's Indifference in Dickens' Hard Times -- 12. Rebel without a Cause: Stanley Kubrick and the Banality of the Good -- 13. Disappearing Act: The Trick Philosophy of Woody Allen. .

Social scientists have long studied international differences in political culture and communication. An influential strand of theory within political science argues that different types of political systems generate different parliamentary cultures: Systems with proportional representation generate cross-party cohesion, whereas majoritarian systems generate division. To contribute to this long-standing discussion, we study parliamentarian retweets across party lines using a database of 2.3 million retweets by 4,018 incumbent parliamentarians across 19 countries during 2018. We find that there is at most a tenuous relationship between democratic systems and cross-party retweeting: Majoritarian systems are not unequivocally more divisive than proportional systems. Moreover, we find important qualitative differences: Countries are not only more or less divisive, but they are cohesive and divisive in different ways. To capture this complexity, we complement our quantitative analysis with Visual Network Analysis to identify four types of network structures: divided, bipolar, fringe party, and cohesive.