The contemporary governance discourse on Artificial Intelligence often emphasizes catastrophic loss-of-control scenarios. This article suggests that such framing may obscure a more immediate failure mode: chancellorization, or the gradual hollowing out of sovereignty through administrative mediation. In high-throughput, digitally legible organizations, AI-mediated decision support can reduce the probability that failures become publicly legible and politically contestable, even when underlying operational risk does not decline. Drawing on the institutional history of Imperial China, the article formalizes this dynamic as a principal-agent problem characterized by a verification gap, in which formal authority (auctoritas) remains downstream while effective governing capacity (potestas) migrates to intermediary layers that control information routing, drafting defaults, and evaluative signals. Empirical support is provided through a multi-method design combining historical process tracing with a cross-national panel plausibility probe (2016-2024). Using incident-based measures of publicly recorded AI failures and administrative digitization indicators, the analysis finds that higher state capacity and digitalization are systematically associated with lower public visibility of AI failures, holding AI ecosystem expansion constant. The results are consistent with a paradox of competence: governance systems may become more effective at absorbing and resolving failures internally while simultaneously raising the threshold at which those failures become politically visible. Preserving meaningful human sovereignty therefore depends on institutional designs that deliberately reintroduce auditable friction.
PT Wika Beton Tbk., as one of Indonesia’s State-Owned Enterprises, is committed to contributing to social development through its Corporate Social Responsibility programs. One of these initiatives is realized through the “WTON Building the Future” Scholarship Program. Policy evaluation is essential in community development programs to identify, assess, and measure the social impact generated by the program. The evaluation was conducted using the Social Return on Investment (SROI) analysis. This research uses a mixed methods approach with a sequential explanatory design. Quantitative data is collected to provide a general overview, followed by qualitative data to deepen understanding of the initial findings. Quantitative data was obtained through the distribution of questionnaires. Qualitative data was collected through in-depth interviews. Based on the research results, it is concluded that the WTON Building the Future Program has been running with clear conceptualization and design, has program implementation, accountability through proper reporting, and visible usefulness of the program related to impact and efficiency. This is based on the analysis result, which shows that the program has an outcome value greater than the value of the investment provided. Based on the indicators and dimensions mentioned, it can be conclude that the implementation of the WTON Building the Future Scholarship Program Policy Evaluation has been successful by fulfilling all the indicators in the policy evaluation theory according to Rossi dan Freeman and having an outcome value greater than the investment value based on the results of the Social Return on Investment (SROI) calculation.
Political institutions and public administration - Asia (Asian studies only)
Arvindh Arun, Karuna K Chandra, Akshit Sinha
et al.
The detection of controversial content in political discussions on the Internet is a critical challenge in maintaining healthy digital discourse. Unlike much of the existing literature that relies on synthetically balanced data, our work preserves the natural distribution of controversial and non-controversial posts. This real-world imbalance highlights a core challenge that needs to be addressed for practical deployment. Our study re-evaluates well-established methods for detecting controversial content. We curate our own dataset focusing on the Indian political context that preserves the natural distribution of controversial content, with only 12.9% of the posts in our dataset being controversial. This disparity reflects the true imbalance in real-world political discussions and highlights a critical limitation in the existing evaluation methods. Benchmarking on datasets that model data imbalance is vital for ensuring real-world applicability. Thus, in this work, (i) we release our dataset, with an emphasis on class imbalance, that focuses on the Indian political context, (ii) we evaluate existing methods from this domain on this dataset and demonstrate their limitations in the imbalanced setting, (iii) we introduce an intuitive metric to measure a model's robustness to class imbalance, (iv) we also incorporate ideas from the domain of Topological Data Analysis, specifically Persistent Homology, to curate features that provide richer representations of the data. Furthermore, we benchmark models trained with topological features against established baselines.
Frederik J. Zuiderveen Borgesius, Judith Möller, Sanne Kruikemeier
et al.
Online political microtargeting involves monitoring people's online behaviour, and using the collected data, sometimes enriched with other data, to show people-targeted political advertisements. Online political microtargeting is widely used in the US; Europe may not be far behind. This paper maps microtargeting's promises and threats to democracy. For example, microtargeting promises to optimise the match between the electorate's concerns and political campaigns, and to boost campaign engagement and political participation. But online microtargeting could also threaten democracy. For instance, a political party could, misleadingly, present itself as a different one-issue party to different individuals. And data collection for microtargeting raises privacy concerns. We sketch possibilities for policymakers if they seek to regulate online political microtargeting. We discuss which measures would be possible, while complying with the right to freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights.
The political biases of Large Language Models (LLMs) are usually assessed by simulating their answers to English surveys. In this work, we propose an alternative framing of political biases, relying on principles of fairness in multilingual translation. We systematically compare the translation quality of speeches in the European Parliament (EP), observing systematic differences with majority parties from left and right being better translated than outsider parties. This study is made possible by a new, 21-way multiparallel version of EuroParl, the parliamentary proceedings of the EP, which includes the political affiliations of each speaker. The dataset consists of 1.5M sentences for a total of 40M words and 249M characters. It covers three years, 1000+ speakers, 7 countries, 12 EU parties, 25 EU committees, and hundreds of national parties.
Extended AbstractIntroductionIn this article, we try to explore the emergence of the new concept of State in the first decades of Nasere al-Din Shah's reign by using Reinhart Koselleck’s system of concepts. We are not faced with a fixed and frozen concept called the State, because this concept, especially in the threshold period, is accumulated with layers of heterogeneity and the historicity of those themes, Created the historicity and fluidity of the concept of the state, and its controversial nature, Produces conflict between supporters and carriers of concepts. In response to the question of the historical time of the emergence of the new concept of the State in contemporary Iran, it can be claimed that with Amir Kabir, the concept of the State advanced to the threshold of a paradigmatic transformation, but the hardness of the Hard layers of the concept of the State and the forces that carry them prevented The complete emergence of such a new phenomenon at that historical moment. Despite this, the first and fundamental step in the paradigmatic evolution of the concept of the State in that era was taken by Amir Kabir with the language of his statesmanship, and the second and historic step was taken by Mirza Malkam Khan. The result of the research says that the common denominator of these two founders is passing over the myth of the sensory existence and the imaginary "person" of the State, and emphasizing and focusing on the Rational and impersonal existence of the State, which manifests itself in the form of "Absolute Bureaucratic State" and "Regular State".Materials and MethodsOur problem in this research is to track those temporal and linguistic layers of the concept of State in contemporary Iran, which, like many other Basic concepts, in the threshold period of its history, is exposed to anxiety, inflammation, and ambiguity caused by thematic and semantic changing. To investigate this semantic layering and to study the Change of the concept of the State in the contemporary history of Iran, we will take methodological benefits from the system of concepts of the theory of conceptual history of Koselleck (1923-2006). Conceptual history makes concepts especially Basic concepts such as the State as the " History analysis unit" and as the constructive concepts of political discourse and action of an era, the subject of its research.Results and DiscussionThe objective and practical content of what appeared in the governance of Amir Kabir was revealed as a Basic concept that became both a criterion for criticizing the State in Iran and a source of crisis for it. Those new semantic layers that formed the concept of Mirza Taghi Khani's State marked the history of the evolution of the concepts after them and gave shape and identity to the system of concepts of the constitutional State and the first Pahlavi State.It can be said that what Malkam found out about the new concept of the State wrote down in Ghibi's booklet is the basis of every discussion that he has addressed in his treatises and other writings. And this new language and understanding is the beginning of the discourses that have flowed in the language of legalistic writers after him.ConclusionIn this article, we tried to explore the emergence of new layers of meaning and the new concept of State in the mind and language of Amir Kabir and Malkam Khan by using the theory of Koselleck's conceptual history and its interwoven and related categories. With the emergence of historical time on the horizon of Iranians' consciousness and their opening to the threshold period of their history, the unity of time governing different areas of social life broke down and different rhythms prevailed in different areas of life. The intersection of two natural and historical times and the fast tempo of the modern time, created new themes in the form of concepts and words of the slow language of the traditional time and created layers of meaning that are completely different from the old layers of meaning.
Political institutions and public administration (General), Political institutions and public administration - Asia (Asian studies only)
This article examines the shifts in discourse surrounding Korean dramas in Malaysia, a core market for the Korean Wave (Hallyu), to understand the evolving perceptions and reception of Hallyu as a role model. Employing a discourse analysis of 14 Malaysian newspapers available online from 2016 to 2022, a period marked by the rise of over-the-top (OTT) media, the study reveals a significant transition in the prevailing narrative. From 2016 to 2019, the dominant discourse was characterized by conservatism and "cultural protectionism," reflecting a tension in attitudes towards the Korean Wave. However, from 2020 onwards, there was a gradual change in perceptions and attitudes, with an increasing emphasis on the economic and cultural value of Hallyu. This shift towards an "economic discourse" illustrates a growing perception of Korean dramas as an opportunity and catalyst for regional economic development in the Malaysian context, rather than a crisis. The study highlights the dynamic nature of the Korean Wave discourse in Malaysia and its evolution in response to the changing media landscape and socio-economic factors.
Political science (General), Political institutions and public administration - Asia (Asian studies only)
In this paper, we explored the role of intercultural competence programs in internationalization efforts as a means to move universities beyond traditional performative aspects of increasing international enrollments, exchanges, and competitiveness toward more transformative aspects of developing faculty and students’ intercultural capabilities as a goal that is more proximal to global governance. Intercultural competence is increasingly recognized as essential for navigating the complexities of global issues and global governance. Yet its absence in cultivation within higher education internationalization agendas remains underexplored at East Asian universities, including Japan. As an exploratory case study, we used a convenient sample of three universities that are participating in the Japanese government-supported Top Global University internationalization project and who are also known to conduct intercultural competence programs. Each university reveals creative and diverse approaches to fostering intercultural competence, including curriculum internationalization, intercultural role modeling, student exchange programs, faculty and student development, and institutional partnerships with primary and secondary schools. Using the American Council on Education (2024) model of comprehensive internationalization, we discuss the insights gained from these three universities’ connections of intercultural competence and internationalization according to the six target areas and three focus lenses. These case studies demonstrate preliminary but promising outcomes for the development of intercultural competence that can translate into global governance capabilities for sustainable development goals. Moreover, the findings underscore the importance of intercultural competence programs in preparing individuals for leadership roles in global governance and the role of higher education institutions who are pursuing internationalization to foster this critical capability.
Political institutions and public administration - Asia (Asian studies only), Social sciences and state - Asia (Asian studies only)
Title: Sentiment Analysis of Spanish Political Party Communications on Twitter Using Pre-trained Language Models Authors: Chuqiao Song, Shunzhang Chen, Xinyi Cai, Hao Chen Comments: 21 pages, 6 figures Abstract: This study investigates sentiment patterns within Spanish political party communications on Twitter by leveraging BETO and RoBERTuito, two pre-trained language models optimized for Spanish text. Using a dataset of tweets from major Spanish political parties: PSOE, PP, Vox, Podemos, and Ciudadanos, spanning 2019 to 2024, this research analyzes sentiment distributions and explores the relationship between sentiment expression and party ideology. The findings indicate that both models consistently identify a predominant Neutral sentiment across all parties, with significant variations in Negative and Positive sentiments that align with ideological distinctions. Specifically, Vox exhibits higher levels of Negative sentiment, while PSOE demonstrates relatively high Positive sentiment, supporting the hypothesis that emotional appeals in political messaging reflect ideological stances. This study underscores the potential of pre-trained language models for non-English sentiment analysis on social media, providing insights into sentiment dynamics that shape public discourse within Spain's multi-party political system. Keywords: Spanish politics, sentiment analysis, pre-trained language models, Twitter, BETO, RoBERTuito, political ideology, multi-party system
Social media users express their political preferences via interaction with other users, by spontaneous declarations or by participation in communities within the network. This makes a social network such as Twitter a valuable data source to study computational science approaches to political learning inference. In this work we focus on three diverse regions in Spain (Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia) to explore various methods for multi-party categorization, required to analyze evolving and complex political landscapes, and compare it with binary left-right approaches. We use a two-step method involving unsupervised user representations obtained from the retweets and their subsequent use for political leaning detection. Comprehensive experimentation on a newly collected and curated dataset comprising labeled users and their interactions demonstrate the effectiveness of using Relational Embeddings as representation method for political ideology detection in both binary and multi-party frameworks, even with limited training data. Finally, data visualization illustrates the ability of the Relational Embeddings to capture intricate intra-group and inter-group political affinities.
Administrative burden has been growing in organizations despite many counterproductive effects. We develop a system dynamics model to explain why this phenomenon occurs and to explore potential remedies. Prior literature has identified behavioral mechanisms leading to process creation, obsolescence, and removal, but typically examines them individually. Here, we integrate these mechanisms in the context of an organization allocating limited resources to competing priorities. We show that their interaction -- via accumulation and feedback loops -- leads to two possible outcomes: a sustainable equilibrium, where administrative costs stabilizes, and runaway administrative bloat, where administrative costs and waste accumulate in a self-reinforcing cycle. The two outcomes are separated by a critical threshold in management behavioral parameters -- the propensity to create processes in response to problems, and the propensity to prune obsolete processes in response to administrative burden. Rapid environmental change worsens the threshold, making bloat more likely. We evaluate several intervention strategies using simulation and find that lasting reductions in administrative costs and waste require two key commitments: a permanent shift in organizational priorities, and investment in discerning obsolete processes from useful ones. In contrast, temporary shifts and indiscriminate process cuts offer only short-lived relief. Counterintuitively, we find that prioritizing direct production can increase administrative waste. Our findings suggest that while dynamic environments make administrative bloat more likely, administrative bloat is not inevitable -- managers play a critical role in preventing or reversing it.
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly shaping citizens' information ecosystems. Products incorporating LLMs, such as chatbots and AI Companions, are now widely used for decision support and information retrieval, including in sensitive domains, raising concerns about hidden biases and growing potential to shape individual decisions and public opinion. This paper introduces GermanPartiesQA, a benchmark of 418 political statements from German Voting Advice Applications across 11 elections to evaluate six commercial LLMs. We evaluate their political alignment based on role-playing experiments with political personas. Our evaluation reveals three specific findings: (1) Factual limitations: LLMs show limited ability to accurately generate factual party positions, particularly for centrist parties. (2) Model-specific ideological alignment: We identify consistent alignment patterns and the degree of political steerability for each model across temperature settings and experiments. (3) Claim of sycophancy: While models adjust to political personas during role-play, we find this reflects persona-based steerability rather than the increasingly popular, yet contested concept of sycophancy. Our study contributes to evaluating the political alignment of closed-source LLMs that are increasingly embedded in electoral decision support tools and AI Companion chatbots.
Lisa Gutwenger, Stephan Keller, Martin Dolezal
et al.
The representation of politics in media influences societal perceptions and attitudes. Video games, as a pervasive form of media, contribute significantly to this phenomenon. In this work, we explore political themes within video games by analyzing politically-themed games on game distribution platforms including Steam. We conducted a statistical examination of games with political context to identify patterns and use this as a basis to introduce a first taxonomy to categorize and better understand the interplay between politics and video games. This taxonomy offers a first framework for analyzing political content in games and also sets a foundation for future research in this field.
As modern large language models (LLMs) become integral to everyday tasks, concerns about their inherent biases and their potential impact on human decision-making have emerged. While bias in models are well-documented, less is known about how these biases influence human decisions. This paper presents two interactive experiments investigating the effects of partisan bias in LLMs on political opinions and decision-making. Participants interacted freely with either a biased liberal, biased conservative, or unbiased control model while completing these tasks. We found that participants exposed to partisan biased models were significantly more likely to adopt opinions and make decisions which matched the LLM's bias. Even more surprising, this influence was seen when the model bias and personal political partisanship of the participant were opposite. However, we also discovered that prior knowledge of AI was weakly correlated with a reduction of the impact of the bias, highlighting the possible importance of AI education for robust mitigation of bias effects. Our findings not only highlight the critical effects of interacting with biased LLMs and its ability to impact public discourse and political conduct, but also highlights potential techniques for mitigating these risks in the future.
Alexandr N. Komandzhaev, Baatr V. Ochirov, Nikolay B. Bovaev
Introduction. The article focuses on the figure of Noyon (Prince) Tseren-David Tundutov, a most renowned Kalmyk nobleman whose multifaceted efforts were derived from the dramatic social upheavals and disturbances of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The topic still remains understudied since earlier works contained only insufficient data which made it virtually impossible to describe his personality in greater detail. Furthermore, the bulk of the former were published in the Soviet era, and the evaluations of Kalmyk noblemen’s endeavors are definitely to be revised. Goals. So, the paper aims to — wherever possible — extensively outline sociopolitical, economic, and household aspects of Noyon Ts.-D. Tundutov’s life. Materials and methods. The study basically employs both general scientific and special historical methods, with particular roles to be played by that of systems analysis and the principle of historicism that have proved instrumental in examining Noyon Ts.-D. Tundutov’s deeds contextually. The principle of objectivity has been secured by specially selected and compared sources of diverse origin, including some newly introduced material pertaining to records management. Results. Noyon Ts.-D. Tundutov was taking a most active part in solving social and political issues that arose from facts of the early twentieth-century Kalmyk life, namely: land and nationality questions, religious problems, economic affairs, and his endeavors as a deputy of the Imperial Duma. Special attention should be paid to the complete data on the Noyon’s real and personal property uniquely published herein. Conclusions. Despite the 1892 Reform had virtually deprived him of any subject commoners he succeeded in gaining opportunities for a successful development of his gardens and farms reported to have became diversified enough. In social and political life, he did achieve a status of somewhat ethnos-wide leader capable of demonstrating personal qualities required by the community in the early twentieth century.
History of Asia, Political institutions and public administration - Asia (Asian studies only)
In Indonesia, child marriage is a time-honored custom, particularly among the poor. This tendency mixes with solid traditions and religions that are difficult to eradicate. The fight to eliminate child marriage must be continued even though it intersects with numerous problems, particularly for the children (women) involved. Inequality in the distribution of work, exploitation, and discrimination against offenders of child marriage are primarily caused by ideas that place children and women in subordinate positions as human beings. This study then discusses how patriarchy and its hegemony arose as an extension of power, giving rise to a dominant viewpoint that supports the maintenance of child marriage. An excerpt from ethnographic notes gathered by the author from the results of in-depth interviews with various subjects who have married before 18 and have a history of poverty in Bandung also becomes quite significant in this article. This research concludes, "When child marriage occurs within the context of poverty, then, rather than being a solution, this will lead perpetrators to the possibility of poverty reproduction, both structurally and culturally".
Political institutions and public administration - Asia (Asian studies only)
Anurag Kanaujia, Prashasti Singh, Abhirup Nandy
et al.
India is now among the major knowledge producers of the world, ranking among the top 5 countries in total research output, as per some recent reports. The institutional setup for Research & Development (R&D) in India comprises a diverse set of Institutions, including Universities, government departments, research laboratories, and private sector institutions etc. It may be noted that more than 45% share of India's Gross Expenditure on Research and Development (GERD) comes from the central government. In this context, this article attempts to explore the quantum of research contribution of centrally funded institutions and institution systems of India. The volume, proportionate share and growth patterns of research publications from the major centrally funded institutions, organised in 16 groups, is analysed. These institutions taken together account for 67.54% of Indian research output during 2001 to 2020. The research output of the centrally funded institutions in India has increased steadily since 2001 with a good value for CAGR. The paper presents noteworthy insights about scientific research production of India that may be useful to policymakers, researchers and science practitioners in India. It presents a case for increased activity by the state governments and private sector to further the cause of sustainable and inclusive research and development in the country.
Malaysia has not invited International Election Monitoring Organisations (IEMOs) for any of its general elections (GEs) since 1990 and so is numbered among those states that defy this international norm. Although the elections under the Barisan Nasional (BN) regime displayed a wide variety of manipulative practices, the BN was able, due to its position as a semi-authoritarian nature, its strategic importance and its lack of dependence on foreign aid, to successfully resist demands for the presence of IEMOs. The prospects for IEMOs has been further reduced, since the GE 2013, by the Election Commission’s “election visit programme” (EVP), adopted to compensate for the absence of IEMOs. Following Malaysia’s historic GE 2018, a widespread consensus has developed that though Malaysia should not abandon its own EVP programme, it should readopt this international norm by inviting IEMOs. This is especially needed considering the amateurish state of domestic election monitoring in Malaysia.
International relations, Political institutions and public administration - Asia (Asian studies only)