Atatürk : founding father, realist, and visionary / Andrew Mango -- Ismet Inönü : a rationalistic democrat / Metin Heper -- Celal Bayar : conspiratorial democrat / George Harris -- Adnan Menderes : between democratic and authoritarian populism / Sabri Sayari -- Süleyman Demirel : national will and beyond / Yesim Arat -- Bülent Ecevit : from idealist to pragmatist / Frank Tachau -- Necmettin Erbakan : democracy for the sake of power / Elizabeth Özdalga -- Alparslan Türkes : a colonel turned politician / Jacob M. Landau -- Turgut Özal : pious agent of liberal transformation / Feride Acar -- Mesut Yilmaz : from Ozal's shadow to mediator / Alev Çinar and Ergun Özbudun -- Tansu Çiller : lusting for power and undermining democracy / Ümit Cizre
Arthur James Balfour.--Lord Salisbury.--Lord Rosebery.--Joseph Chamberlain.--Henry Labouchere.--John Morley.--Lord Aberdeen.--John Burns.--Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.--John E. Redmond.--Sir William Harcourt.--James Bryce.--Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. ; Mode of access: Internet.
This article analyzes the process of symbolic and critical-discursive construction of applications developed for mobile devices for some of the world's most important heads of state through their manifestation in the ecosystem of mobile applications for iOS and Android. The sample includes 233 applications of 45 politicians from 37 countries. A content analysis-based method was applied to the discourse of these apps and users' comments. The results reveal the dominant discourses in this scenario and identify the characteristics that influence their popularity, the influence of viral content and their reception in the connection between the mobile ecosystem and the political sphere. The discourse on the apps reveals a commercial interest and the existence of a diffuse diffusion of political commitment in terms of entertainment, parody and virality.
This paper presents nine proposition: (1) humanity is cascading through a rupture in its history into an epoch of "anthropo-transmutation"; (2) to prevent self-destruction and facilitate pluralistic thriving, many counter-conventional radical innovations in human values, institutions and policies are essential; (3) enlightened voluntarism cannot be relied upon; (4) human enhancement possibilities require strict control and regulation, based on clarified value judgments; (5) novel decisive global governance norms and structures are urgently needed; (6) the future-shaping stratum must be mobilized; (7) spiritual leaders advancing raison d'humanité are essential; (8) political leaders are critical, but to meet existential needs of humanity they need much improvement; and (9) priming political leaders to cope with the fateful issues posed by science and technology is a top priority. Recognizing the need to upgrade political leaders, adding it to public discourse and working out concrete improvement proposals should be among the main tasks of the World Academy of Art and Science, the Club of Rome, the Club of Madrid and similar knowledge-intense humanity-serving epistemic communities.
The relation between institutions and political leadership has been the central theme of the research project "Local political leadership in a time of constitutional transition" at the School of Public Administration, University of Gothenburg. The project, which started in 2006 was funded by the Swedish Research Council and led by Professor Henry Bäck. Results from the project have contributed with new knowledge in the field of local political leadership in a number of aspects. For example, the project has shown how formal positions affects the priorities of local political leaders (David Karlsson & Erikson, 2009), how de-sectoralisation (Karlsson, Rommel, & Svensson, 2009) and parliamentary situations (Gilljam & Karlsson, 2012) affect Swedish local democracy, how informal institutions influence the role perceptions of local leaders (Karlsson, 2012) and how representation principles have changed over time in Swedish local government without any formal constitutional reforms (Gilljam, Karlsson, & Sundell, 2010; Skoog, 2011). It has also been shown how the degree of political discretion varies between sectors and over time in Swedish local government (Bengtsson & Karlsson, 2012). Under the duration of the project, Swedish regional reform has been on top of the political agenda in Sweden – even though few reforms have yet been implemented. Democratic aspects of regional reform and the neglected perspective of political geography have been studied within the project (Gustafsson & Karlsson, 2010; Karlsson, 2010; Karlsson & Norén Bretzer, 2012). This special issue of Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration marks the end of this project. Each of the three included articles represents essential aspects of how political institutions affect local political leadership. The first article has been written within the project, while the two others are written by internationally renowned local government scholars and provide comparative perspectives on the importance of institutions for political leadership.
