Brandon Baca
Biographic Data
| ID | 185244 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Brandon Baca |
| GIVEN NAMES | Brandon |
| FAMILY NAME | Baca |
| SIGNATURE | BACA B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Montenegro |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9844-0941 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 33 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
One client, four votes
Drawing on insights from political sociology and political economy, this article examines the socioeconomic consequences of entrenched ethnopolitical clientelism in postsocialist Montenegro. As a country that experienced its first electoral transfer of power in 2020, Montenegro's political transition was marked by state capture by the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), a dominant party that structured the national economy to serve its politica…
Three stages of civil society development in the Global East
Despite the growing body of scholarly work on the Global East, there has been a surprising lack of research that systematically explores the “civil society building” during postsocialist transformation, particularly in terms of identifying and explicating its distinct developmental stages. Seeking to address this gap, this article utilizes contemporary Montenegro as a case study for investigating the form and content, sites and scales, and dynami…
QAnon and the Epistemic Communities of the Unreal
The messy politics of combating the COVID-19 pandemic, compounded by the confusion caused by the global (dis)infodemic, have propelled conspiracism from the fringes of society into the public mainstream. Despite the growing political impact of digitally enabled conspiracy theories, they are predominantly delegitimized on three fronts - as psychopathology, pseudoscience, and/or parapolitics. In contrast, this article employs three non-pathologizin…
Enacting Resistance, Performing Citizenship
Dominated by the 'weak postsocialist civil society' thesis, Central and Eastern Europe has generally been uninspiring for social movement scholars. In recent years, a growing body of scholarship has challenged this pessimistic notion, highlighting the emergence of grassroots activism. What remains under-researched, however, is the process of political subjectification of society's apolitical segments through contentious practices. Informed by pra…
Practice Theory and Postsocialist Civil Society
When discussing postsocialist civil societies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), scholars have predominantly focused on the nonparticipatory and advocacy-oriented activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), effectively narrowing the concept of 'civil society' to that of the 'civic sector.' This actor-focused and normative approach has resulted in a systematic obfuscation of less structured forms of everyday resistance, civic engagement,…
Randomized Controlled Trial of a Multilevel Intervention to Address Social Determinants of Refugee Mental Health
Highlights Multilevel strengths‐based intervention decreases refugee distress and improves protective factors. Holistic focus on psychological, material, social, educational, and cultural needs is effective. High recruitment/retention rates support importance of non‐stigmatizing universal interventions. Refugee Well‐being Project (RWP) intervention reaches refugees unlikely to access formal mental health services. RWP circumvents typical barriers…
Refugee Mental Health and Healing
Forging civic bonds ‘from below’
The chapter investigates a group of young activists – #Građanski – who temporarily transcended the prevailing ethnopolitical constraints on mobilization and collective action in Montenegro. They momentarily forged civic bonds between hitherto divided and antagonized members of the Montenegrin political community, advocating the defence of universal civil liberties and political rights. Drawing on interviews with 15 members of #Građanski, as well …
We Are All Beranselo’
Drawing on Jacques Rancière and Engin F. Isin, this essay discusses the success of a citizen-led mobilisation in rural Montenegro that eschewed the country’s predominant ethnopolitical identity cleavages by using innovative repertoires of contention. As a result, this grassroots movement unintentionally brought into being a transcendent political subjectivity that was based on civic principles rather than ethnic values. The essay explores how the…
The Student's Two Bodies
Student activism in Montenegro has remained largely unaccounted for in the growing body of literature on civic engagement and popular politics in the post‐Yugoslav space. When students took their discontent to the streets of the Montenegrin capital in November 2011, the dual nature of the student body was rendered visible and audible: while the official student organizations framed their activity as an a political expression of discontent over st…
We Are All Beranselo’
Drawing on Jacques Rancière and Engin F. Isin, this essay discusses the success of a citizen-led mobilisation in rural Montenegro that eschewed the country’s predominant ethnopolitical identity cleavages by using innovative repertoires of contention. As a result, this grassroots movement unintentionally brought into being a transcendent political subjectivity that was based on civic principles rather than ethnic values. The essay explores how the…
Practice Theory and Postsocialist Civil Society
When discussing postsocialist civil societies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), scholars have predominantly focused on the nonparticipatory and advocacy-oriented activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), effectively narrowing the concept of 'civil society' to that of the 'civic sector.' This actor-focused and normative approach has resulted in a systematic obfuscation of less structured forms of everyday resistance, civic engagement,…
Randomized Controlled Trial of a Multilevel Intervention to Address Social Determinants of Refugee Mental Health
Highlights Multilevel strengths‐based intervention decreases refugee distress and improves protective factors. Holistic focus on psychological, material, social, educational, and cultural needs is effective. High recruitment/retention rates support importance of non‐stigmatizing universal interventions. Refugee Well‐being Project (RWP) intervention reaches refugees unlikely to access formal mental health services. RWP circumvents typical barriers…
Enacting Resistance, Performing Citizenship
Dominated by the 'weak postsocialist civil society' thesis, Central and Eastern Europe has generally been uninspiring for social movement scholars. In recent years, a growing body of scholarship has challenged this pessimistic notion, highlighting the emergence of grassroots activism. What remains under-researched, however, is the process of political subjectification of society's apolitical segments through contentious practices. Informed by pra…
Refugee Mental Health and Healing
The Student's Two Bodies
Student activism in Montenegro has remained largely unaccounted for in the growing body of literature on civic engagement and popular politics in the post‐Yugoslav space. When students took their discontent to the streets of the Montenegrin capital in November 2011, the dual nature of the student body was rendered visible and audible: while the official student organizations framed their activity as an a political expression of discontent over st…
QAnon and the Epistemic Communities of the Unreal
The messy politics of combating the COVID-19 pandemic, compounded by the confusion caused by the global (dis)infodemic, have propelled conspiracism from the fringes of society into the public mainstream. Despite the growing political impact of digitally enabled conspiracy theories, they are predominantly delegitimized on three fronts - as psychopathology, pseudoscience, and/or parapolitics. In contrast, this article employs three non-pathologizin…
Three stages of civil society development in the Global East
Despite the growing body of scholarly work on the Global East, there has been a surprising lack of research that systematically explores the “civil society building” during postsocialist transformation, particularly in terms of identifying and explicating its distinct developmental stages. Seeking to address this gap, this article utilizes contemporary Montenegro as a case study for investigating the form and content, sites and scales, and dynami…
Forging civic bonds ‘from below’
The chapter investigates a group of young activists – #Građanski – who temporarily transcended the prevailing ethnopolitical constraints on mobilization and collective action in Montenegro. They momentarily forged civic bonds between hitherto divided and antagonized members of the Montenegrin political community, advocating the defence of universal civil liberties and political rights. Drawing on interviews with 15 members of #Građanski, as well …
We Are All Beranselo’
Drawing on Jacques Rancière and Engin F. Isin, this essay discusses the success of a citizen-led mobilisation in rural Montenegro that eschewed the country’s predominant ethnopolitical identity cleavages by using innovative repertoires of contention. As a result, this grassroots movement unintentionally brought into being a transcendent political subjectivity that was based on civic principles rather than ethnic values. The essay explores how the…
The Student's Two Bodies
Student activism in Montenegro has remained largely unaccounted for in the growing body of literature on civic engagement and popular politics in the post‐Yugoslav space. When students took their discontent to the streets of the Montenegrin capital in November 2011, the dual nature of the student body was rendered visible and audible: while the official student organizations framed their activity as an a political expression of discontent over st…
Refugee Mental Health and Healing
Randomized Controlled Trial of a Multilevel Intervention to Address Social Determinants of Refugee Mental Health
Highlights Multilevel strengths‐based intervention decreases refugee distress and improves protective factors. Holistic focus on psychological, material, social, educational, and cultural needs is effective. High recruitment/retention rates support importance of non‐stigmatizing universal interventions. Refugee Well‐being Project (RWP) intervention reaches refugees unlikely to access formal mental health services. RWP circumvents typical barriers…
Practice Theory and Postsocialist Civil Society
When discussing postsocialist civil societies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), scholars have predominantly focused on the nonparticipatory and advocacy-oriented activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), effectively narrowing the concept of 'civil society' to that of the 'civic sector.' This actor-focused and normative approach has resulted in a systematic obfuscation of less structured forms of everyday resistance, civic engagement,…
Enacting Resistance, Performing Citizenship
Dominated by the 'weak postsocialist civil society' thesis, Central and Eastern Europe has generally been uninspiring for social movement scholars. In recent years, a growing body of scholarship has challenged this pessimistic notion, highlighting the emergence of grassroots activism. What remains under-researched, however, is the process of political subjectification of society's apolitical segments through contentious practices. Informed by pra…
Three stages of civil society development in the Global East
Despite the growing body of scholarly work on the Global East, there has been a surprising lack of research that systematically explores the “civil society building” during postsocialist transformation, particularly in terms of identifying and explicating its distinct developmental stages. Seeking to address this gap, this article utilizes contemporary Montenegro as a case study for investigating the form and content, sites and scales, and dynami…
QAnon and the Epistemic Communities of the Unreal
The messy politics of combating the COVID-19 pandemic, compounded by the confusion caused by the global (dis)infodemic, have propelled conspiracism from the fringes of society into the public mainstream. Despite the growing political impact of digitally enabled conspiracy theories, they are predominantly delegitimized on three fronts - as psychopathology, pseudoscience, and/or parapolitics. In contrast, this article employs three non-pathologizin…
One client, four votes
Drawing on insights from political sociology and political economy, this article examines the socioeconomic consequences of entrenched ethnopolitical clientelism in postsocialist Montenegro. As a country that experienced its first electoral transfer of power in 2020, Montenegro's political transition was marked by state capture by the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), a dominant party that structured the national economy to serve its politica…
Political science (10 works) · Politics (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Citizenship (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Political economy (4 works) · Civil society (3 works) · Democracy (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works)