What is Chinese hip-hop? How is its authenticity negotiated and contested in China? Instead of seeing Chinese hip-hop as a given cultural form that follows a singular trajectory, this chapter conceptualizes it as a precarious cultural formation suspended by competing claims to authenticity and overdetermined by divergent forces, such as the hip-hop communities, the state, and commercial forces. The broadcast of The Rap of China in 2017 was a decisive moment in the massification of hip-hop in China, in which the subcultural genre was domesticated, commercialized, and re-infused with hegemonic ideology. Focusing on the televisual remediation of hip-hop in China, this chapter illuminates how battles for authenticity have been fought out among different actors or groups, how tensions between the ethos and the techne of hip-hop unfold, and how censorship and propaganda imperatives delimit the contours of the genre’s representation to the mass audience. It problematizes the line between “the underground” and the mainstream, while foregrounding the process in which different horizons of hip-hip negotiate with one another, co-shaping what is visible, audible, and commendable. The issues discussed in this chapter will likely remain central to the development and dilemma of Chinese hip–hop in the years to come.

In this chapter, we lay out the basic frame for studying innovation management. To do so, we are going to try to understand why innovation is important for society, for companies, and for individuals, and to do that we take our point of departure in the “urtext” of innovation research, namely Schumpeter’s work on Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy and especially the notion of Creative Destruction. To follow that up, we are going to untangle how innovation management fits within a broader context of capitalism as an economic system, within a particular ideology, and within the operations of the modern corporation.

Religious ideas have been largely absent in the literature on the welfare state. Instead, class-interest based, rational efficiency, and institutional explanations have dominated. The absence of religious ideas is not a peculiarity of welfare state research but is paralleled by a treatment of ideas as ephemeral to politics in general. The introductory chapter reviews the literature on ideas and politics and the literature on the influence of ideas on welfare policy in particular. It shows why ideas could not play a role in the welfare state literature till today and proposes a solution: to integrate ideas into the study of welfare state evolution. The chapter creates an analytical framework for the study of evolving religious ideas and their impact on welfare state formation and reform in Italy and Germany. It engages with the weaknesses and strengths of both welfare state theory and the new ideational turn literature and introduces a theory of ideational competition. The chapter concludes with a short descriptive outline of the book and the following chapters.

In the context of the appalling inter-communal violence and killings of Northern Ireland during the 1970s, Seamus Deane felt dismayed by those who found parallels between that situation and O’Casey’s Dublin trilogy. For Deane, O’Casey’s most famous works subject political ideologies to hostile scrutiny, whilst offering a form of sentimental humanism as the norm of the ‘ordinary’ people. This chapter examines how the views that Deane expressed about O’Casey fitted with Deane’s broader thinking about politics and society, and shows how Deane provided a telling critique that proved influential for O’Casey’s reputation, as well as for Irish literary and cultural studies more widely.

This chapter begins with a critical view of what defines a “cult,” highlighting the subjectivity and often pejorative use of that term. It then reviews the history of the term “cult of personality” while defining it broadly as any cult whose members are held in thrall by an identifiable leader and offering a case example of Sherry Shriner and her “alien reptile cult.” Characteristics of leaders of “personality cults” are then reviewed including charisma, personality traits such as narcissism or psychopathy, and the use of “brainwashing,” “mind control,” or “coercive persuasion” while evidence of psychopathology and personality traits such as the “authoritarian personality” is likewise reviewed for followers. Due to the cross-sectional evidence regarding such characteristics, it remains unclear whether they represent premorbid traits or sequelae of cult involvement. Additionally, it is argued that cult affiliation is more about “match” and “fit” between leaders and followers along with the relevant group dynamics and social conditions that bind them together.

This chapter explores the keju system – the imperial examination system, and Confucianism as essential components of imperial governance and societal structure in China, examining their origins, evolution, and impact on the development of China's imperial system. The keju system, which persisted from 124 bce to 1905 ce, served as an institutional gene that fused Confucian ideology with state governance, thereby solidifying the emperor’s absolute ideological dominance. It established a societal hierarchy and unconditional obedience that suppressed individual rights and paved the way for the introduction of totalitarianism. In contrast, the Church in Western Europe, while influential, preserved a clear separation from state functions.

The chapter opens with the challenge of connecting fascism to explanations of the Holocaust, given the many distinctive, or purportedly distinctive, elements of National Socialism, not least the radical character of its antisemitism. The chapter argues, however, that thinking about fascism in relation to the Holocaust has three main virtues. First, it prompts us to reconsider the boundaries and distinctiveness of both fascism and Holocaust. Secondly, it suggests that fascist ideology made some critical moves that helped make the Holocaust conceivable and possible. Finally, fascist taboo-breaking helped to create receptive audiences and collaborators across Europe, “catalysing, and radicalising a nexus of local eliminationist agencies.”

The subject of insurgency explores how and why armed groups confront the state, their political and ideological claims, their links to society – including the support they have and their recruitment practices – and their political and military tactics. Rebel governance explores the behavior of non-state armed insurgencies in the territories they control – or partially control – and their attempts to provide public services, gain the support of the population, recruit members, manage economic policy, and gain legitimacy. Counterinsurgency involves efforts by state actors – sometimes with international assistance – to challenge and defeat rebel groups by military and political means and reassert the authority of the state in areas where rebel groups have influence. This chapter explores the relationship between insurgency and civil war, and the main theories of why insurgencies emerge and grow, their endurance, and their impact. As a part of this, it considers the provision of “governance” by some rebel groups in the territories in which they have some control, the services they attempt to provide, and the objectives that motivate this on the part of rebel leaders. Based on this, the chapter then explores the lessons of “rebel governance” for counterinsurgency campaigns and for peacebuilding after conflict.

Chapter 2 demonstrates that Russian modernist conservatism was first formed in the late Soviet Union as an attempt to confront the convergence horizon predicted by Western liberal modernization theories. From 1970 to 1985, theorizers of modernist conservatism aimed to reenchant Soviet modernity through the deconfliction of the relationship between technological modernity and spirituality. As they viewed it, this new ideological language should serve to reinvigorate the Soviet state ideology and maintain it as an alternative to the Western model of modernity. The chapter shows that, in contrast to the description of the Soviet state ideology as a rigid monolith, modernist conservatism’s ideas were selectively dispersed in official sites of ideology production such as the Komsomol.

Chapter 6 shows that Russian hawks entered the regime’s market for ideology in the years 2005–12. Transactional relations were established between modernist conservatives and the ruling party, whereby the former’s ideological discourse was sponsored as a strategic resource for the regime’s legitimation against oppositional forces and for its distinction against the Western model of liberal democracy. In 2012, the creation of the Izborskii Klub provided institutional form to this interelite network aimed at gaining policy influence over more liberal-inclined elite networks.

Chapter 8 discusses how the Russian regime’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 concretely enacted Russian hawks’ conception of Russia as an imperial great power that should rely on its technological and military might to assert its civilizational distinction from the West. The chapter argues that the Russian regime has restored elements reminiscent of the Soviet-style “vertical,” facilitating the propagation of norms and principles through a bureaucratic chain of command. However, it has not completely reconstructed a cohesive institutionalized state apparatus. Its doctrinal framework remains adaptable. In addition to official state-led initiatives, the regime continued to oversee ideology formation through interactions and transactions with a variety of nonstate ideological entrepreneurs. This involvement of diverse actors across state and nonstate realms fostered a certain degree of polarization within policy circles. Moreover, the hawks’ production of narratives justifying Russia’s imperialism and war violence encountered resistance from recent intellectual emigrants who have established organizations in exile dedicated to fostering critical thinking and dissent in intellectual circles.

Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the book’s definition of the Russian hawks. It provides a brief review of the current literature on Russian conservatism and the gaps in it. It presents the two distinctive features of the book: the historical scope that spans across the 1991 regime change and the sociohistorical analysis of the career of the Russian hawks from ideological fringes to policy prominence. It builds the main argument of the book around the concept of idea network. Finally, it discusses the outline of the book.

This conclusion highlights that the Russian regime, from the mid-1990s onwards, has revived Soviet practices of sponsorship of ideology production. Instead of the Soviet institutionalization of an ideological apparatus, however, the current regime has outsourced it to clubs and think tanks outside the administration or party institutions. This challenges the common narrative that identifies a distinct conservative turning point in the Russian regime from 2012 onward. Instead, the book argues that this shift should be viewed within a broader and more gradual evolution of the relationship between decision-makers and “ideas networks.” The second implication is that regime support for ideology production aimed not at consolidating a unique state ideology but at cultivating and authoritatively controlling a certain degree of ideological pluralism. While an ideological core consolidated over the years in official discourse around key concepts such as strong state power and the multipolarity of the world order, additional ideological content remained fluid. This practice of “managed ideological pluralism” through the promotion or demotion of different idea networks maintained a range of lines and narratives available to justify various policy courses.

This chapter explores the commodification process through which Peronist brokers started to demand payment for their political services, downplaying party loyalties and ideological preferences. Qualitative evidence and descriptive statistics are used to demonstrate how three factors influence this process in the municipalities of the Conurbano Bonaerense in Argentina: Poverty makes brokers crucial channels for politicians to meet the demands of the territory; the brokers themselves are affected by poverty and informality; and party leaders are increasingly detached from party ideology, weakening the party’s traditional structures. The chapter argues that this commodification has exposed the Peronist Party to competition from other parties willing to recruit its brokers. It also outlines the average fees brokers charge for various political services, illustrating this process.