Critical raw materials have become central in policy debates due to their importance for economic growth and national security, as well as the vulnerabilities arising from the geographic concentration of their supply chains. Alongside intensifying geopolitical tensions, these factors have prompted many countries to adopt national strategies aimed at mitigating supply-chain risks or securing a position in the expanding global market. Although these strategies tend to share similar objectives, they differ across several important dimensions, depending on the priorities emphasized by policymakers during their formulation. In this article, we introduce an analytical framework to map and explain such divergences. We apply this framework to examine national strategies on critical raw materials developed in 23 jurisdictions worldwide since 2008. Combining qualitative content analysis with descriptive statistics, we investigate the evolution of these strategies over time and identify the main drivers behind variation in national approaches to critical raw materials governance.
This article examines how party organisation shapes the construction of federal narratives during electoral competition, drawing on fieldwork from the 2024 parliamentary elections in Assam, India. Using interviews, campaign speeches, and party materials, it compares four parties across two constituencies, Dhubri and Guwahati: the Indian National Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Asom Gana Parishad, and the All-India United Democratic Front. The findings show that parties construct representations of their relationship with the Centre within campaign discourse. These vary systematically with organisational form and constituency context, particularly across settings shaped by citizenship anxieties and urban governance concerns. The article argues that federalism functions as a conditional rhetorical resource, highlighting how party communication in multi-level systems is shaped by organisational capacity and local political conditions.
Since the early 2000s, immigration to the UK has become increasingly salient, anti-immigration sentiment has been mobilised, and successive governments have promised to reduce numbers. Yet over this period, immigration policies have enabled net migration to increase to historic highs. This paper examines the role of business in driving expansive immigration policies. Contrary to theories that depict business as an interest group whose main channel of influence is lobbying, the paper argues that in a capitalist democracy such as the UK, business enjoys structural power, generated by mutual dependencies between capital and the state. The paper examines three moments of policy change to trace how electoral logics and business interests interact to shape immigration policies: the Labour Government’s liberalisation of the early 2000s; the Coalition Government’s net migration target; and the Conservative’s post-Brexit immigration regime. The analysis shows how immigration policies are forged by both the noisy politics of elections and a quieter politics of economic interests, which unfolds through technocratic institutions and collaborative relations between political and business elites. The empirical analysis is based on original interviews with politicians, officials, and business representatives, as well as analysis of policy documents, speeches, parliamentary debates, and official minutes.
The Manchester Arena bombing occurred at a moment of heightened anxiety and uncertainty in the United Kingdom. One of several attacks over a matter of months in 2017, it was the deadliest and most politically affronting. The bombing brought the consequences of liberal interventionism into focus and triggered a contest to define the moment, producing competing visions of Britishness. Drawing on insights from Lacanian international relations and visual politics, the article analyses responses to the bombing through a multimodal discourse analysis of national newspaper coverage and political speeches. It shows that Jeremy Corbyn challenged the elite liberal-interventionist consensus by linking foreign intervention to terrorism at home and advocating policies of restraint, sovereign equality and democratic multilateralism. Resonating with sections of the public, Corbyn’s response generated acute anxiety among elites and elicited an affectively charged defence of the status quo. In response, politicians and legacy media sought to construct ideological equivalences between Corbyn and hostile Others, mobilising multimodal presentations which recast him as anti-British and a threat to national security. This article contributes to debates on continuity and change in British foreign policy and the role of images in managing dissent.
How is charismatic authority constructed and rewarded in digital political communication? This article develops a multidimensional framework for analysing digital charismatic signalling and applies it to P & eacute;ter Magyar's rapid political rise in Hungary. Drawing on leadership studies, social psychology and political communication, we conceptualise charisma as a relational, signalling-based process enacted through exceptional personal qualities, community construction, visionary appeals and collective challenges. Using quantitative content analysis of 486 Facebook posts published between February and June 2024, we examine how specific signals predict likes, love reactions, shares and comments. The findings show that digital charisma does not operate as a uniform engagement engine. Relational, emotional and identity-based cues generate the strongest affective engagement, especially similarity to followers, cultural-historical references, emotional mobilisation and normative-symbolic signals. Competence-oriented cues and visionary appeals have limited independent effects, while blame attribution stimulates comments. The article advances a fine-grained account of digitally mediated charismatic followership.
