Culture suffuses all aspects of human life. It shapes our minds and bodies and has provided a cumulative inheritance of knowledge, skills, institutions, and artifacts that allows us to truly stand on the shoulders of giants. No other species approaches the extent, diversity, and complexity of human culture, but we remain unsure how this came to be. The very uniqueness of human culture is both a...

Political machines (or clientelist parties) mobilize electoral support by trading particularistic benefits to voters in exchange for their votes. But if the secret ballot hides voters’ actions from the machine, voters are able to renege, accepting benefits and then voting as they choose. To explain how machine politics works, I observe that machines use their deep insertion into voters’ social ...

We study a simple model of party formation in which both party discipline and inter-party ideological heterogeneity are jointly determined. Discipline benefits party members because it gives risk-averse voters more confidence in the ideological composition of the party, but this discipline is costly to members who win office. Equilibrium is determined by balancing these forces. We show that thi...

The church has suffered much security challenges from people of opposing religious faith, who felt threatened by the unique presence God, convincing miracles, dominating spirituality, unparalleled missionary spirit, as well her particularistic doctrinal claims. experience Christians in first few centuries Christian was characterized great persecutions. Also, persecution contemporary time is a s...

Drawing on two research projects in China, this article provides three contributions to the literature elite interviews. First, we demonstrate how guanxi (informal, particularistic and personal connections) can help gain access build trust with Chinese interviewees a dynamic rather than static manner. Second, show relational ongoing process of interviewing, combining sensemaking sensegiving eff...

Abstract This article examines the politics of cultural production in Kurdish diaspora Berlin and Stockholm. The paper argues that actors deploy various forms as a strategy to restore collective heritage identities achieve visibility for cause. Furthermore, serves promote universal solidarity particularistic agendas challenges oppressive policies ruling Turkish, Iranian Arab governments. Finall...

Interrelation between religious communities is a challenge faced by the world's religions today. All tend to have claim absolutism, be it Islam, Christianity, Hinduism or Judaism. The particularistic-subjective claims of adherents monotheism will an impact on inter-religious conflicts. differences are only at level exotericism, while esotericism there meeting point. We cannot ignore that exist ...

After the stages of modernization based on great mass parties and ideological cultures twentieth century, in recent decades main factors aggregation politics have largely returned perspective changing personalistic dimension. These are relevant novelties from an analytical point view, but without forgetting ambivalences between "old" "new" that recorded concrete political dynamics: spurious coa...

Translation provides both an analytical tool and conceptual model for feminist legal research. Drawing on translation studies, theory, scholarship gender language, we show how assists in identifying gendered points of difference friction law are articulated communicative practice. The article moves from as the mechanical movement meaning across linguistic boundaries to a sociocultural conceptio...