Search Results (185)

This article examines how the role of digital platforms is reshaping political communication and consensus-building in contemporary societies. It questions how algorithmic architectures are transforming the relationship between leadership, audiences, and power. Drawing on an empirical analysis of online interaction data, the study analyses Donald Trump’s political communication during the August 2025 summit with Putin in Alaska, presenting it as a paradigmatic example of networked leadership. The study focuses on the dynamics of mobilisation, polarisation, and identity construction within digital ecologies. The findings show that the leader’s centrality derives not only from traditional party structures, but also from the ability to coordinate heterogeneous communication flows as well as activate processes of affective and symbolic resonance. The article proposes a theoretical model that conceptualises Trump’s audience as a cognitive and emotional power device, highlighting the convergence of post-organisational populism, algorithmic mediatisation, and communicative governance. This leadership expresses forms of “algorithmic charisma” that redefine the modalities of political legitimacy. Methodologically, the study highlights the value of data-driven interpretive approaches, while also addressing their limitations related to algorithmic transparency and replicability. In conclusion, the article offers a critical reflection on emerging ecologies of consensus and the democratic implications of the ongoing “platformisation” of the public sphere. Full article

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in China has evolved from reproducing Western-centric frameworks to engaging with the institutional and political particularities that shape how CSR is reconfigured and practiced. Yet few studies have critically reviewed this growing body of literature to capture the core characteristics and mechanisms of state-corporate coordination in China. This paper fills this gap by reviewing 112 peer-reviewed English-language studies published between 2007 and 2025, synthesizing how CSR in China is conceptualized, embedded, and operationalized across cultural, economic, political, and global dimensions. This review identifies three institutional logics structuring Chinese CSR: (1) moral–cultural framing rooted in Confucian ethics and socialist collectivism; (2) economic coordination under state-led capitalism and selective neoliberalism; and (3) political signaling through Party-state governance and legitimacy negotiation. It also outlines six major research themes—CSR as a legitimacy strategy, CSR reporting, CSR in Chinese multinational enterprises, CSR’s link to financial performance, environmental CSR, and civil CSR—highlighting the mechanisms underlying each. Findings show that CSR in China is different from the managerial-stakeholder framework (e.g., explicit/implicit CSR, pyramid model or integrative model). Instead, it operates as an adaptive political technology within state-led capitalism, reinforcing moral legitimacy and political conformity as firms—especially SOEs and politically connected private enterprises—align with state-defined priorities. Through a comparative perspective, this review demonstrates how China’s CSR model fundamentally recalibrates corporate agency toward political negotiation rather than stakeholder responsiveness, offering a distinct configuration that challenges the presumed universality of Western CSR theories. Full article

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors have become central to international trade, transforming how firms, industries, and governments engage in global markets. This study conducts a systematic literature review to synthesize current knowledge on the ESG–trade nexus. Using content analysis, three key thematic clusters were identified: (i) ESG in supply chains and logistics, (ii) ESG in export performance and international competitiveness, and (iii) ESG and trade within geopolitics, energy, and resource security. The synthesis reveals that ESG has evolved from a voluntary corporate initiative into a structural determinant of global competitiveness, resilience, and legitimacy. Building on these findings, the study proposes an integrative ESG–Trade framework, which conceptualizes ESG as a multidimensional governance ecosystem comprising (i) institutional and regulatory, (ii) technological and operational, and (iii) geopolitical and strategic dimensions. This framework explains how sustainability regulations, digital transformation, and global political economy dynamics co-evolve to shape trade flows and industrial upgrading. The study highlights the need for greater regulatory coherence and strategic ESG integration while offering a foundation for future interdisciplinary and empirical research on sustainable trade governance. Full article

Ecosystem restoration is increasingly recognised as part of the global solution for building a resilient, low-emissions economy, with its associated employment opportunities helping to provide political legitimacy for government investment. In Aotearoa New Zealand, however, little is known about the employment effects of government-funded ecosystem restoration initiatives. This study addresses that gap by analysing project-level data from 359 “Jobs for Nature” projects to examine how funding levels and contextual factors influence direct employment outcomes. Multiple regression analyses build on one-way ANOVA tests to quantify the contribution of funding and contextual factors to employment outcomes and to assess their differential impacts across various settings (regions, agencies, project types, and durations). The analysis reveals that while funding is the primary driver of employment—with each additional NZD 100,000 creating approximately 0.7 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs—contextual factors call for a more dynamic, targeted policy approach to maximise marginal employment returns. Three key policy implications are accordingly drawn: (1) direct more funding to regions with higher socio-economic deprivation; (2) preferentially support projects of medium-term duration; and (3) evaluate and replicate the practices of high-performing funding agencies. Full article

A growing body of literature recognises media narratives’ influence in shaping public perceptions of leadership and governance. Studies suggest that women presidential aspirants are often framed within symbolic constraints, where they are perceived as capable leaders in supportive roles but not as legitimate rulers. This study systematically reviews news coverage of Malawi’s first female president, Joyce Banda, examining how the media differentiates women’s ability to “lead” and their perceived inability to “rule”. Specifically, the study seeks to answer two key questions: How does the media in Malawi frame women’s political leadership in terms of governance and executive power? And what recurring gendered narratives emerge in media portrayals of women seeking the presidency? This investigation employs a content analysis of Malawi24, utilising Framing Theory and Feminist Theory to examine the dominant themes in political reporting. Analysis showed that media coverage reinforces a symbolic barrier to power, portraying women as leaders within limits while positioning men as natural rulers. Various perspectives on women’s legitimacy in executive positions were expressed, with narratives frequently questioning their authority and decision-making capabilities. The findings of this study suggest that gendered media framing constrains women’s political ambitions by reinforcing patriarchal expectations of leadership. Addressing this bias requires greater media accountability and equitable portrayals of women in executive political roles. Full article

Online hate speech poses a growing socio-technological threat that undermines democratic resilience and obstructs progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG 16). This study examines the regulatory and behavioral dimensions of this phenomenon through a combined legal analysis of platform governance and an empirical survey conducted on Meta platforms, based on a sample of young Hungarians (N = 301, aged 14–34). This study focuses on Hungary as a relevant case study of a Central and Eastern European (CEE) state. Countries in this region, due to their shared historical development, face similar societal challenges that are also reflected in the online sphere. The combination of high social media penetration, a highly polarized political discourse, and the tensions between platform governance and EU law (the DSA) makes the Hungarian context particularly suitable for examining digital resilience and the legal awareness of young users. The results reveal a significant “awareness gap”: While a majority of young users can intuitively identify overt hate speech, their formal understanding of platform rules is minimal. Furthermore, their sanctioning preferences often diverge from Meta’s actual policies, indicating a lack of clarity and predictability in platform governance. This gap signals a structural weakness that erodes user trust. The legal analysis highlights the limited enforceability and opacity of content moderation mechanisms, even under the Digital Services Act (DSA) framework. The empirical findings show that current self-regulation models fail to empower users with the necessary knowledge. The contribution of this study is to empirically identify and critically reframe this ‘awareness gap’. Moving beyond a simple knowledge deficit, we argue that the gap is a symptom of a deeper legitimacy crisis in platform governance. It reflects a rational user response—manifesting as digital resignation—to opaque, commercially driven, and unaccountable moderation systems. By integrating legal and behavioral insights with critical platform studies, this paper argues that achieving SDG 16 requires a dual strategy: (1) fundamentally increasing transparency and accountability in content governance to rebuild user trust, and (2) enhancing user-centered digital and legal literacy through a shared responsibility model. Such a strategy must involve both public and private actors in a coordinated, rights-based approach. Ultimately, this study calls for policy frameworks that strengthen democratic resilience not only through better regulation, but by empowering citizens to become active participants—rather than passive subjects—in the governance of online spaces. Full article

This study presents a sociotechnical framework for mitigating ethnic violent conflicts by integrating information and communication technologies (ICTs) with community-based social capital. Drawing on longitudinal case studies from three conflict-prone regions in Kenya, Mt. Elgon, Muhoroni, and the Turkana–West Pokot borderlands, the research examines how ICT-enabled peace networks, particularly the Early Warning and Early Response System (EWERS), mobilize bonding, bridging, and linking social capital to reduce violence. The study employs a multi-phase qualitative design, combining retrospective analysis, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, action participation, and thematic coding of EWERS data collected between 2009 and 2021. This approach enabled the reconstruction of system evolution, stakeholder dynamics, and community responses across diverse socio-political contexts. Findings demonstrate that embedding ICTs within trusted social structures fosters inter-ethnic collaboration, inclusive decision-making, and trust-building. EWERS facilitated confidential reporting, timely alerts, and coordinated interventions, leading to reductions in livestock theft, improved leadership accountability, emergence of inter-ethnic business networks, and enhanced visibility and response to gender-based violence. The system’s effectiveness was amplified by faith-based legitimacy, local governance integration, and adaptive training strategies. The study argues that ICTs can become effective enablers of peace when sensitively contextualized within local norms, relationships, and community trust. Operationalizing social capital through digital infrastructure strengthens community resilience and supports inclusive, sustainale peacebuilding. These insights offer a scalable model for ICT-integrated violence mitigation in low- and middle-income countries. This is among the first studies to operationalize bonding, bridging, and linking social capital within ICT-enabled peace networks in rural African contexts. By embedding digital infrastructure into trusted community relationships, the framework offers an analytical approach that can inform inclusive violence mitigation strategies across low- and middle-income settings. While the framework demonstrates potential for scalability, its outcomes depend on contextual adaptation and cannot be assumed to replicate uniformly across all environments. Full article

Ceremonial deployed with the aim of displaying and perpetuating power was a shared practice across the medieval Mediterranean. Processions, ceremonies, and ritual acts created solidarity and consensus, naturalized dominion, and conveyed legitimacy while minimizing dissent and threats to social and political hierarchies. Such ceremonial acts were carried out in the public spaces of Mediterranean cities, connecting people, objects, and places in multisensory displays. This paper will explore the relationship between urban spaces and ritual and focus on the architectural contexts where ceremonies and rituals were performed. Three cosmopolitan Mediterranean cities—Cairo, Constantinople, and Venice—will serve as case studies for analyzing how richly ornamented architectural structures were employed as the staging areas for spectacle. Their prominent placement and ornamentation highlighted the theatricality of ceremony and defined a multisensory cityscape that was meant to overwhelm the senses and impress participants and spectators alike. Full article

In the context of early modern Catholic global missions, the Jesuit strategies for proselytizing Protestant heretics within Europe exhibited operational mechanisms distinct from those employed in overseas non-Christian populations. Focusing on the seventeenth-century Jesuit drama Pietas Victrix, this article examines the process by which drama was forged into an ideological weapon serving the project of constructing legitimacy during the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Research demonstrates that Jesuit drama transcended the purely esthetic sphere of literature and art, becoming a propaganda tool that integrated Tridentine dogma, anti-Protestant polemics, and the sacralizing narratives of the Habsburg dynasty. In the play, the Jesuit Nicolaus von Avancini (1611–1686) converts abstract politico-theological ideas into tangible political loyalty through narrative strategies and the coordinated use of multiple art forms, mobilizing sensory spectacle and the affective force of total work of art within the Habsburg court—the empire’s core political arena—to reconfigure confessional identity, contest ideological leadership, and accumulate crucial social legitimacy for both the Habsburgs and the Society of Jesus. This paper contends that Jesuit drama, exemplified by Pietas Victrix, represents a missionary form rooted in Thomistic theology yet highly politicized. By situating the play within the context of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, it demonstrates how drama was forged into a potent ideological weapon for legitimacy contestation. This study provides a case for interpreting how the Jesuits utilized cultural media to participate in power construction and self-representation, thereby refining our understanding of the mechanisms of cultural politics in early modern Europe. Full article

The relationship between Nile flood variability and Egyptian political stability has been studied since Barbara Bell’s pioneering work in the 1970s, yet precise causal mechanisms linking environmental stress to societal crisis have remained elusive due to chronological limitations. This paper presents a methodological framework achieving annual to decadal resolution through volcanic forcing of the East African Monsoon. Large volcanic eruptions disrupt atmospheric circulation, suppressing monsoon rainfall over the Ethiopian Highlands and reducing Nile summer floods with impacts precisely dated through ice core chronologies (±1–2 years). Applied to Ptolemaic Egypt (305–30 BCE), this methodology demonstrates that volcanic-induced flood failures significantly increased revolt probability (p < 0.02) and correlated with land sales, warfare cessations, and economic stress indicators. Statistical validation distinguishes causal relationships from chance correlations, while comparative analysis of early versus late Ptolemaic responses reveals how political legitimacy, fiscal capacity, and institutional strength determined societal resilience versus vulnerability to environmental shocks. This approach achieves temporal resolution beyond the century-scale resolution of previous studies, determining temporal sequence essential for establishing causation. The methodology is replicable across historical contexts where documentary sources overlap with ice core volcanic chronologies, offering a template for integrating paleoclimatic precision with historical analysis to understand human–environment interactions in past societies. Full article

Motivated by the ethical implications of gender diversity on boards, this study examines the effect of female directors on symbolic green innovation disclosure and substantive green innovation disclosure. The study defines substantive green innovation disclosure as environmentally oriented innovation that produces tangible value creation, evidenced through its positive effect on firm value, distinguishing it from symbolic green innovation that serves rent-seeking or legitimacy purposes. Using a sample of Indonesian manufacturing firms from 2021 to 2023, the research tests the model separately for politically and nonpolitically connected firms to capture the moderating role of political embeddedness. The results reveal that in nonpolitically connected firms, female directors do not significantly affect green innovation disclosure; however, substantive green innovation positively influences firm value, confirming its genuine strategic and ethical impact. In contrast, in politically connected firms, female directors negatively affect green innovation disclosure, and green innovation fails to improve firm value—indicating that political influence turns sustainability efforts into symbolic compliance rather than authentic environmental innovation. These findings extend upper-echelon and legitimacy theories by showing that in patriarchal cultural background, female directors’ ethical orientation negatively affects symbolic green innovation disclosure but do not affect substantive green innovation disclosure. Full article

This paper critically explores Kṛṣṇanāṭṭam, a Sanskrit ritual dance-theater tradition from Kerala, as a product of socio-political and religious transformations in early modern South India. Conceived in the mid-17th century by the Zamorin King Mānavēda, author of the Sanskrit text Kṛṣṇagīti, Kṛṣṇanāṭṭam was both a devotional offering to Lord Kṛṣṇa and a strategic expression of ritual sovereignty. Rooted in Kṛṣṇa bhakti (devotion), the tradition reflects how religious performance was mobilized to assert political legitimacy, particularly amid rivalry with regional powers such as Travancore. The Guruvayur Sri Krishna Temple, situated in the Malabar region of northern Kerala and central to the performance of Kṛṣṇanāṭṭam, emerged as a vital sacred space where royal patronage, ritual authority, and caste hierarchy intersected. The performance’s exclusivity restricted to Hindu audiences within temple premises reinforced patterns of spatial control and caste-based exclusion. Institutional support codified the tradition, sustaining it across generations within a narrow sociocultural framework. With the decline of Zamorin rule and the onset of colonialism, Kṛṣṇanāṭṭam faced structural disruptions. Colonial interventions in temple administration, landholding, and religious patronage weakened its ritual foundations. Guruvayur’s transformation into a public devotional center reflected wider shifts in ritual ecology and sacred geography under colonial modernity. In both the colonial and postcolonial periods, Kṛṣṇanāṭṭam struggled to survive, nearly facing extinction before its revival under the Guruvayur temple’s custodianship. By examining Kṛṣṇa devotion, royal ambition, caste dynamics, and colonial transformation, this paper offers a critical lens on Kerala’s evolving religious and cultural landscapes. Full article

The world is far from meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement of limiting the rise of global temperature to below 1.5 °C, with dire consequences for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in particular. If SIDS are to address their climate vulnerabilities through policy-induced resilience building, they need to have a robust governance framework in place that coherently addresses climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. What would such a governance framework look like? To address this question, we carried out a systematic literature review of papers published between 1992 and 2023. Our review reveals that the governance around climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction is relatively weak in SIDS. However, the analysis of barriers and enablers unveils the contours of a proposed three-tiered governance framework, the application of which needs to be contextualised: Tier 1 comprises three key pillars: Policy Planning, Institutional Arrangements, and Laws and Regulations; Tier 2 identifies the principles of transparency, accountability, equity, legitimacy, and subsidiarity; the core pillars and the principles are nested within a broader Tier 3 comprising democratic processes (rule of law), religious and cultural values, and political commitment. In order for SIDS to fight the existential threat of climate change, the proposed framework will allow SIDS to better understand their climate governance framework and deliver low-carbon, climate resilient development within the broader ambit of sustainable development. This framework also addresses the weakness in previous studies, which consider dimensions, principles, and enabling an environment of good governance on equal footing. We illustrate this framework using the analogy of the lotus flower. Full article

Electoral abstention has emerged as a critical challenge to democratic legitimacy, with rising rates observed globally. For example, in Portugal, the turnout declined from 91.5% in 1975 to 51.4% in 2022. This systematic review synthesizes multidisciplinary literature to identify key determinants of voter nonparticipation and their interactions, aiming to inform adaptive strategies to enhance civic engagement amid social, organizational, and technological changes. Following PRISMA guidelines, we searched five databases (Academic Search Complete, MEDLINE, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, PsycINFO, and Web of Science) from 2000 to August 2025 using terms such as “electoral abstention” and “non-voting.” Inclusion criteria prioritized quantitative empirical studies in peer-reviewed journals in English, Portuguese, Spanish, or French, yielding 23 high-quality studies (assessed via MMAT, with scores ≥ 60%) from 13 countries, predominantly the USA and France. Results reveal abstention as a multidimensional phenomenon driven by three interconnected categories: individual factors (e.g., health issues like smoking and mental health trajectories, institutional distrust); institutional factors (e.g., electoral reforms such as biometric registration reducing abstention by up to 50% in local contexts, but with mixed outcomes in voluntary voting systems); and contextual factors (e.g., economic inequalities and urbanization correlating with lower turnout, exacerbated by events like COVID-19). This review underscores the need for integrated public policies addressing these factors to boost participation, particularly among youth and marginalized groups. By framing abstention as an adaptive response to contemporary challenges, this work contributes to the political psychology and democratic reform literature, advocating interdisciplinary approaches to resilient electoral systems. Full article

This essay argues that Hamlet should be read not merely as a domestic or dynastic tragedy, but as a political–philosophical ALLEGORY in which language itself becomes a site of crisis. Beginning with Hamlet’s contemptuous reply to Polonius—”Words, words, words” (2.2.191)—the play dramatizes the death of philosophy in the state, where speech is emptied of wisdom and reduced to surveillance, platitude, or performance. Had events unfolded differently, Prince Hamlet might have become a philosopher-king in the Platonic sense, ruling through reflection and justice. Instead, succession ambiguity, Claudius’s manipulative election, and the corruption of logos foreclose that possibility. The Mousetrap, often interpreted as a test of guilt, can also be read as a thought experiment about succession itself: a theatrical attempt to expose the fragility of legitimacy in an elective monarchy. Hamlet’s wager that words and representation can secure truth collapses, leaving only suspicion and violence. Polonius parodies philosophy’s degeneration into bureaucratic rhetoric, while Horatio inherits the burden of words as memory—tasked with telling a story that remains undecidable. Drawing on Plato, Foucault, Kewes, and recent scholarship, the essay contends that Shakespeare stages the foreclosure of philosophical sovereignty: a tragedy for Denmark and, symbolically, for the world. Full article