Abstract
65.5514 ABDELZADEH, Ali; ZETTERBERG, Pär; EKMAN, Joakim —
The role of “fair” institutions in developing democratic legitimacy has received increased attention. Citizens who perceive — on basis of past experiences — that they are being treated fairly by authorities have been held to have greater trust in political institutions. However, previous studies on the relationship between procedural fairness and political trust have not paid sufficient attention to individuals with limited first-hand experiences of authorities. We examine the relationship on an authority that virtually all individuals meet early in life: the school. Using structural equation-modeling on unique panel data covering 1500 Swedish adolescents, we find a reciprocal relationship: personal encounters with school authorities shape young people's political trust; however, the images that adolescents get of the political system have also consequences on their perceptions about the authorities they encounter in their daily lives. [R, abr.]
65.5515 ADIDA, Claire L. —
Can African politicians play the ethnic card? Ethnicity matters for a host of outcomes in Africa, but debate remains about the extent to which it motivates the African voter. In experimental settings, we know that ethnicity shapes political support for hypothetical candidates. This paper offers an experimental test of the extent to which ethnicity shapes political support for actual, real-world politicians. Relying on Benin's mixed-ethnicity President, this paper proposes a survey experiment that measures the independent effect of co-ethnic cues in boosting support across both co-ethnic groups. The results reveal that co-ethnic cues work: the same political actor can draw support from two different ethnic groups based solely on subtle ethnic cues. [R]
65.5516 ALKAZEMI, Mariam F.; WANTA, Wayne —
Where criticism of a government could be punishable, political cartoons are used to make critical social commentary in a less direct way. This study analyzes political cartoons published in four Kuwaiti newspapers during Arab Spring protests. Most of the 261 cartoons linked negative attributes to Arab Spring and Kuwaiti politics, society and economy despite certain press restrictions. Newspapers established after a change in press regulations in 2006 were remarkably similar to older newspapers. Liberal and conservative papers both published mainly negative messages but provided starkly different issue agendas; of the 89 cartoons depicting the Arab Spring, only 8 appeared in conservative papers. Conservative papers concentrated on topics relating to Kuwaiti society, economy, and politics. [R]
65.5517 ALONSO-FRADEJAS, Alberto —
Sugarcane and oil-palm agribusinesses are in the vanguard of an emergent project of agrarian capitalism in Guatemala, which is defined here as a financialized and flexible type of agrarian extractivism. Meanwhile, residents of the northern lowlands believe that the changes in the labor regime, land relations and the agro-ecosystem that the expansion of these agribusinesses has brought threaten their subsistence in multiple and unfamiliar ways. Indeed, growing difficulties in dealing with (vital) grievances is leading many, even those who initially welcomed the corporate sugarcane and oil-palm plantations, to transform their unrest into a practice of resistance. Elaborating on what is presented here as a multiple politics perspective, this contribution discusses the nature and character of such contemporary political dynamics of agrarian change. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65.5518 AMBROSE, Emma; MUDDE, Cas —
The far right has never been a prominent force in Canadian politics or society. Traditionally, they more resembled the North American than the West European model: ideologically dominated by right-wing populism and white supremacy, organizationally characterized by factionalism and sectarianism. The extreme right seems an almost negligible force today, in part reflecting a similar decline in the US, while the radical right has so far been unable to build upon the recent upsurge of Islamophobia, as in Western Europe. We argue that the failure of the Canadian radical right is primarily the result of Canada's unique multiculturalism policy, which is based on a combination of selective immigration, comprehensive integration, and strong state repression of dissent on these policies. This unique blend of policies has left little legal and political space for far-right politics. [R, abr.]
65.5519 AMMANN, Sky L. —
Does the act of attending religious services “cause” individuals to participate in politics? There is no known literature that examines this question using longitudinal, individual-level data. Therefore, using the Youth Parent Socialization Panel Study, this analysis examines three theoretical possibilities: the indirect, direct, and null relationships. The results show that changes in religious attendance are primarily indirectly linked to political participation through civic activity, a factor highly correlated with political participation. There is also some limited evidence for a direct effect. As individuals increase their political participation over time, they are slightly more likely to participate in political activities and vote. But, the findings also imply that the previous literature has likely overstated the role of religious attendance in generating political participation. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5567]
65.5520 ANNESLEY, Claire; ENGELI, Isabelle; GAINS, Francesca —
This article investigates the factors that drive governments to pay attention to gender-equality issues and place them upon executive agendas. In line with studies of the dynamics of issue-attention, which demonstrate the importance of investigating variability in the attention policy-makers give to issue demands across policy domains, this article argues that policy issues related to gender equality are multidimensional and patterns in executive attention vary across the different types of gender issues. Multidimensionality of gender-equality issues reflects different dynamics in agenda-setting, as different issues invoke contrasting constellations of political representation, institutional friction and veto points. This article proposes a twofold distinction between class-based and status-based gender-equality issues and assesses the validity of three sets of explanations for when gender issues succeed in reaching executive agendas: women in politics, party ideology and economic performance. [R, abr.]
65.5521 ARIELY, Gal —
Adopting a comparative approach, this study examines the way(s) in which trust in the press and political trust are related across dissimilar media environments. Analyzing survey data from 32 European countries, we found that while trust in the press and political trust are positively related, the magnitude of the relation differs across countries. This variation is explained by three structural components within the media environment: media autonomy, journalistic professionalism, and party/press parallelism. The multilevel models indicate that countries with more media autonomy and journalistic professionalism evince a weaker relation between media trust and political trust. A stronger relation obtains in media environments characterized by party/press parallelism. [R, abr.]
65.5522 ARIGA, Kenichi —
Many studies have shown that incumbent candidates have an electoral advantage over non-incumbents under single-member-district systems, but less is known about whether incumbents enjoy the same electoral bonus under other electoral rules. This article focuses on multimember-district systems that allow intraparty competition and contends that incumbents may have little advantage or even a disadvantage over non-incumbents of the same party under these systems, although the incentives to cultivate a personal vote — one of the main sources of incumbency advantage — are greater in these systems. I demonstrate my argument using electoral data from Japan during 1958–1993, when the country used the single nontransferable vote system. Having applied an estimation of incumbency advantage immune to endogeneity bias due to strategic retirement, I find supportive evidence to my argument. [R, abr.]
65.5523 ARNDT, Christoph; VAN KERSBERGEN, Kees —
Given the ill-fated political experience with the Third Way, one would not expect social democratic parties that return to office after long opposition spells to take up again the liberal, supply-side oriented policies that were so typical for the Third Way. A case study of Denmark, however, shows that that is precisely what happens and that it has the same disastrous electoral consequences. Taking a comparative perspective and learning from the Danish experience, we conclude that other future social democratic governments are likely to pursue many elements of the updated Third Way we found in the Danish case. [R]
65.5524 ASAL, Victor H.; NAGAR, Na'ama; RETHEMEYER, R. Karl —
In April 1984, 25 members of the Jewish Underground were arrested by the Israeli General Security Service moments after they had planted explosives in five Palestinian-owned buses. Their arrest and sentencing brought to an end one of the more sophisticated expressions of Jewish terrorism since the birth of Israel. Overall, the group planned four operations, one of which was the conspiracy to bomb the Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount. Social links between the members of the Jewish Underground significantly facilitated the creation of this organization. We demonstrate that social capital, here expressed in terms of networks, trust, and norms — which are widely considered important components of a healthy democracy — can take a negative turn toward participation in terrorism. [R]
65.5525 ASPINALL, Edward —
In 2014, Indonesia faced its most severe threat of authoritarian regression since the transition to democratic rule began in 1998. Prabowo Subianto, a general with a fiercely reactionary record under the Suharto regime, and with a party platform that implied rolling back key democratic reforms, [nearly won] the 9 July presidential election. I examine Subianto's background and the nature of his political appeal, explore how he came so close to winning the presidency, and analyze the implications of his campaign for Indonesian democracy. Prabowo represented a classically authoritarian-populist challenge of a sort that is common in democratic regimes characterized by pervasive patronage politics, weak institutions, and highly decentralized governance. Though familiar tropes of Indonesian political conservatism were part of his appeal, they were not central to it. [R, abr.]
65.5526 AUERBACH, Adam Michael —
This article examines patterns of voter-turnout and electoral competition in India's urban parliamentary constituencies. It places the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in historical context, drawing on constituency-level data from national elections since 1977 to explore broad changes and continuities in electoral competition, party structures, and voter-turnout, with particular focus on comparisons between urban and rural India. This article is descriptive, seeking to fill a gap in the literature on electoral competition in urban India. I find evidence that India's urban constituencies have recently, on average, been less competitive and participatory than non-urban constituencies, though this has not been a consistent trend since the mid-1970s. This article outlines a research agenda on electoral politics in urban India. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5783]
65.5527 AYDOGAN, Abdullah; SLAPIN, Jonathan B. —
Existing analyses of the Turkish party system suggest that it is unique in several respects. Upper-class voters tend to support the Republican People's Party (CHP), the center-left social democratic party, while poorer voters support the right. Unlike party systems in Western democracies, expert surveys find that a religious-secular divide, and not a socio-economic divide, best explains the general left-right dimension. Qualitative literature stresses Turkey's uniqueness due to the long history of the CHP, its close ties to the bureaucracy and military, and the role of the military in politics. Lastly, existing quantitative measures of policy positions disagree about the placement of major parties. We estimate the principal dimension of Turkish party competition using electoral manifestos as data by applying the Wordfish scaling algorithm. [R, abr.]
65.5528 BÄCK, Hann; HELLSTRÖM, Johan —
We discuss government formation after the parliamentary elections in 2014 in a historical and comparative European context, while at the same time connecting our discussion to the research on government formation and duration in parliamentary democracies. The paper [addresses] the following questions: why did the Social Democrats form a minority government with the Green Party after the elections, excluding the Left Party? What can we say about the allocation of ministerial portfolios between the Social Democrats and the Green Party in the new government? And what are the consequences of the so-called December agreement between the new government on its ability to govern and survive until the next regular election in 2018? [R] [See Abstr. 65.5640]
65.5529 BARTAL, Shaul —
Sheikh Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi is one of the most influential Muslim thinkers in the world. Western observers consider him a moderate, a bridge between Muslim conservatives and Islamic activists. This article, through direct translation of Sheikh al-Qaradawi's verbal and written expressions, shows the view of him as a moderate to be wishful thinking when it deals with the Palestinian problem. This article deals with issues preventing reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas and the influence of the Qaradawi era over the struggle between the organizations. [R]
65.5530 BARTH, Erling; FINSERAAS, Henning; MOENE, Karl O. —
We propose a political reinforcement hypothesis, suggesting that rising inequality moves party politics on welfare state issues to the right, strengthening rather than modifying the impact of inequality. We model policy platforms by incorporating ideology and opportunism of party members and interests and sympathies of voters. If welfare spending is a normal good within income classes, a majority of voters moves rightward when inequality increases. As a response, the left, in particular, shift their welfare policy platform toward less generosity. We find support for our arguments using data on the welfare policy platforms of political parties in 22 OECD countries. [R]
65.5531 BATTAGLINO, Jorge —
The goal of this article is to build an explanatory typology of the political-military relations in the governments of the New Left in South America. The main modes of interaction are discussed as well as the factors that explain their variations in the cases of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela. Models are analyzed in the light of the impact of: (1) the political relevance that defense and armed forces have acquired for these governments, and (2) the political power of the military at the beginning of these administrations. The main argument is that the growing political relevance of defense and armed forces has generated a space of convergence of interests between civilian and the military that has favored both the stability of the democratic regimes and the corporate interests of the armed forces. [R]
65.5532 BAUDEWYNS, Pierre; DANDOY, Régis; REUCHAMPS, Min —
In May 2014, regional, federal and European elections were organized simultaneously in Belgium. In the direct follow-up of the sixth state reform, which increased the powers and autonomy of the Belgian Regions and Communities, these elections were crucial for the future of the country and for the multi-level coalition formation at the regional and federal levels. The political campaign was dominated by socio-economic issues and demands for further autonomy, particularly in the Flemish region. Regional electoral results confirmed the success of the regionalist parties in Flanders, but also in Brussels and in the German-speaking Community. These successes allowed regionalist parties to enter all regional and federal governments — often as the dominant party — with the exception of the Walloon and the French-speaking Community cabinets. [R]
65.5533 BAUM, Matthew A.; ZHUKOV, Yuri M. —
We argue that the nature of reporting bias depends on how news organizations navigate the political context in which they are based. Where government pressure on the media is limited — in democratic regimes — the scope of reporting should reflect conventional media preferences toward novel, large-scale, dramatic developments that challenge the conventional wisdom and highlight the unsustainability of the status quo. Where political constraints on reporting are more onerous — in nondemocratic regimes — the more conservative preferences of the state will drive the scope of coverage, emphasizing the legitimacy and inevitability of the prevailing order. We test these propositions using new data on protest and political violence during the 2011 Libyan uprising and daily newspaper coverage of the Arab Spring from 113 countries. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5574]
65.5534 BAUMGARTNER, Frank R.; BONAFONT, Laura Chaqués —
Do the newspapers of the left and right differ in how they cover politics in ways that can be predicted by their partisan leanings? We review theories of issue-ownership, journalistic standards, and information-scarcity and test hypotheses derived from each. We find that the parties converge substantially in virtually every aspect of their coverage. Few differences emerge when we look at what topics are covered or in the dynamics of which topics gain attention over time. However, we confirm important differences across the papers when they make explicit reference to individual political parties. Journalistic norms result in a surprising focus on the faults of one's enemies, however, rather than the virtues of one's allies. Our assessment is based on a comprehensive database of all front-page stories in El País and El Mundo, from 1996 through 2011. [R, abr.]
65.5535 BEACHÁIN, Donnacha Ó.; KEVLIHAN, Rob —
Is an imagined democracy more important than actual democracy for nation-building purposes? After 20 years of independence, Central Asian countries present a mixed bag of strong and weak states, consolidated and fragmented nations. The equation of nation and state and the construction of genuine nation-states remains an elusive goal in all of post-Soviet Central Asia. This paper examines the role that electoral politics has played in nation-state formation. We argue that electoral processes have been central to attempted nation-state building processes as part of efforts to legitimize authoritarian regimes; paradoxically in those few countries where (for brief periods) partial democratization actually occurred, elections contributed, at least in the short term, to nation-state fragmentation. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6187]
65.5536 BELÉN BENITO SÁNCHEZ, Ana —
How do Dominican political parties negotiate and what do they exchange? Analyzing the political agreements, electoral alliances and party shifting in Dominican Republic, this article presents a model of strategic cooperation, his types of interaction based on the principal actors (elites, parties or candidates), in a dual orientation (particularistic versus universalistic) determined by incentives and associate costs. The Dominican experience shows that the negotiate skills not always are used in the name of democratic governance, but reinforce the perverse institutionalization process. [R]
65.5537 BELGE, Ceren; KARAKOÇ, Ekrem —
We examine whether minorities differ in their support for authoritarianism from the majority groups in four Middle Eastern states. We argue that minorities whose status is threatened by a transition to majoritarian decision-making institutions are less likely to be supportive of democratization. We examine how different cleavages affect the preferences of minorities over regime-type and identify three historical legacies in the Middle East that have shaped these cleavages: the Ottoman-Islamic legacy of minority accommodation, the ethnic class structure that emerged as a result of the region's integration to world markets in the 19th c., and a post-independence pattern of authoritarian secularism. [We] compare minorities in Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan. [R, abr.]
65.5538 BELTRÁN, Ulises —
Electoral preferences radically changed between 1994 and 2012. Based on exit surveys, this article analyzes the relationship between the voters' perception of change in the economic situation and preference for the incumbent party. Economic retrospective voting is one feature of voters' behavior widely present, of a small magnitude and almost constant in all elections, except in moments of big economic changes. The effect of economic perceptions on voting for the incumbent party is of limited magnitude, because voters' party identification mediates this relationship between perceptions and voting. [R]
65.5539 BERGBOWER, Matthew L.; McCLURG, Scott D.; HOLBROOK, Thomas M. —
This paper analyzes the partisan messages of US Senate campaign advertisements. Using data from 2000 to 2004, we measure the levels of partisan cues and “owned” issue-mentions in US Senate campaigns. We hypothesize that campaigns are likely to use campaign communications involving partisan cues and owned issues when national and local conditions favor one of the parties. Our results recognize some variation in campaign strategies, providing strong evidence that candidates, political parties, and outside groups respond differently to local and national conditions when cueing party labels and party-owned issues. [R]
65.5540 BISGAARD, Martin —
Partisans often perceive real world conditions in a manner that credits their own party. Yet recent findings suggest that partisans are capable of setting their loyalties aside when confronted with clear evidence, for example, during an economic crisis. This study examines a different possibility. While partisans may acknowledge the same reality, they may find other ways of aligning undeniable realities with their party loyalties. Using monthly survey data collected before and after the unexpected collapse of the British national economy (2004–2010), this study presents one key finding: As partisans came to agree that economic conditions had gotten much worse, they conversely polarized in whether they thought the government was responsible. While the most committed partisans were surprisingly apt in acknowledging the economic collapse, they were also the most eager to attribute responsibility selectively. [R, abr.]
65.5541 BIZBERG, Ilan —
Despite significant social movements, such as the lobor union movement in the 1970s and the Zapatista uprising in the 1990s, civil society had little involvement in the democratization process the country underwent during the 1990s that led to the PRI losing control of the presidential office for the first time. Moreover traditional stakeholders such as trade union movements have lost their central role. This paper analyzes two Mexican social movements of great significance. While it is important to analyze the capacity of social movements to influence the political system, it is even more important to study them on the basis of the meaning they themselves ascribe to their actions. [R, abr.]
65.5542 BLOMBÄCK, Sofie —
This article investigates the Left Party in the Swedish elections of 2014. In the electoral arena, the party faced competition from several other Left-Wing parties, and in particular lost votes to the feminist initiative. The party did not suffer from any large conflicts in the internal arena, despite the party achieving neither the increase in electoral results nor the government participation it had hoped for. In the parliamentary arena, the party was able to gain some influence over the budget, since the new coalition government needed to negotiate with the Left Party in order to gain the necessary votes. The article argues that the party's position in the party system is largely dependent on the attitude that other parties, particularly the Social Democrats, take towards it. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5640]
65.5543 BOLLEYER, Nicole; GAUJA, Anika —
Scholarly studies of resources indirectly available to parties through their functions in the state, how they are used and regulated, are rare. This article presents an analytical framework that identifies and categorizes the range of indirect resources linked to parties' institutional roles. It locates these resources within a four-fold matrix of regulation, distinguishing regimes that vary in their detail and whether compliance is externally monitored. Undertaking comparative case studies of parliamentary resource use in the UK and Australia, we argue that the blurring of party-political and parliamentary roles can impede the effectiveness of regulatory regimes that democracies adopt, regardless of detail and external enforcement. [R, abr.]
65.5544 BOWLER, Shaun —
Critics of direct democracy argue that voters are often overwhelmed by the decisions they are asked to make and — in consequence — dislike the process itself. Using evidence from the “hard” case of California [US], we show that critics over-state these difficulties. Most voters are able to understand most issues and are able to offer reasons for their choices, even without the use of cue-taking. What we also show, however, is that a share of the population has little interest in politics of all kinds and that critics often pick up on this group and muddle this group's disaffection from politics with problems attributable to the information demands of direct democracy. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4987]
65.5545 BRACK, Nathalie; STARTIN, Nicholas —
With the advent of the Eurozone crisis, Euroskepticism has become increasingly mainstreamed. This is discernible across Europe at the level of public opinion, among political parties and civil society groups, within the EU institutions themselves and in terms of changing and more challenging media discourses. Against the backdrop of the 2014 European elections and a potential referendum on UK membership of the EU, this article introduces an evolving debate. It discusses the “state of the art” with regard to the study of Euroskepticism, before focusing on the significance of the latest European elections themselves. It then [examines] the various articles in the collection, explaining their relevance in helping to unravel the complexity and diversity of opposition towards “Europe” and the extent to which Euroskepticism has become part of the mainstream with regard to European political debate. [R, abr.] [Introduction to a thematic issue of the same title, edited by the authors. See Abstr. 65.5622, 5682, 5711, 5742, 5771, 5796, 5841]
65.5546 BRENT, Zoe W. —
This article argues that the logic of territory is particularly important for understanding the processes of capital-accumulation and resistance in Latin America. The analysis focuses on Argentina, but draws on examples from throughout Latin America for a regional perspective and from the provinces of Jujuy, Cordoba and Santiago del Estero for subnational views. I describe the territorial restructuring of meaning, physical “places” and politico-legal “spaces”, as it plays out at multiple scales to facilitate the investment in and sale and export of natural resource commodities. [I then] explore the territorial logic of resistance. In territorial restructuring from below, rural communities are finding their own ways of restructuring places, legal spaces and the meaning of resistance from a peasant struggle for land reform to a peasant-indigenous alliance in defense of territory. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65.5547 BREUER, Anita; LANDMAN, Todd; FARQUHAR, Dorothea —
This article explores how social media acted as a catalyst for protest mobilization during the Tunisian revolution in late 2010 and early 2011. Using evidence from protests, we argue that social media acted as an important resource for popular mobilization against the Ben Ali regime. Drawing on insights from “resource-mobilization theory”, we show that social media (1) allowed a “digital elite” to break the national media blackout through brokering information for mainstream media; (2) provided a basis for intergroup collaboration for a large “cycle of protest”; (3) reported event magnitudes that raised the perception of success for potential free riders, and (4) provided additional “emotional mobilization” through depicting the worst atrocities associated with the regime's response to the protests. [R, abr.]
65.5548 BUNYASI, Tehama Lopez; RIGUEUR, Leah Wright —
This article examines how Black and White Americans create authentic racial identities through the regulation of ideological adherence to colorconsciousness and color-blindness, respectively. The article first theorizes about the relationship between racial ideology and racial authenticity. We then illustrate our hypotheses through an analysis of responses of Black and White racial group members to Black conservatives and White racial justice activists, whose viewpoints and agendas are read as contradictory to the broad goals of the majority of their racial counterparts. We explore, through an examination of empirical instances of chastisement, exclusion, and public de-authentication of individuals who deviate from the dominant ideology of their racial group, some of the ways Black and White Americans attempt to control in-group political behavior and to enforce indigenous standards for group-based public representation. [R]
65.5549 BURGESS, Susan —
How did gays in the military go from being characterized as dangerous perverts threatening the state to potential heroes fighting on behalf of the state? Numerous studies have identified various legal and political conditions that can account for resistance to this change. This article explores popular culture as a contributor to public understanding that, in turn, supported these political developments. Using the James Bond film series to track shifts in public understanding of gender and sexuality norms, I argue that such developments can be seen as a contributing factor leading to lifting the ban on gays in the military, an important step in a classic civil rights narrative in the US in which the interests of a previously excluded minority group and the liberal state gradually converge, leading to greater political inclusion over time. [R, abr.]
65.5550 BUSTOS ABREU, María Isabel —
Electoral events of 1998, 2000 and 2006 in Venezuela are analyzed at the level of individual data and through survey registration, in order to describe the behavior of the electorate regarding the binomial ideologyvoting intention from a diachronic perspective. The results show that, over time, a high percentage of the surveyed population feels able and agrees to place themselves at some position between the left to right extremes. Conclusions are that the electorate is ideologically coherent, according to the first criterion established, that of coherence. With regard to the criterion of coherence, results suggest that in the period of time covering the electoral events studies (1998–2006), voters went from lower ideological coherence (and less polarization) to greater ideological coherence (and greater polarization). [R]
65.5551 BUTCHER, Andrew; SPOONLEY, Paul; GENDALL, Phil —
The geopolitical reorientation of New Zealand from Britain to Asia has occurred over recent decades, and is manifested in the changing mix of New Zealand's trading partners and in an altered demographic profile for the country. The issue explored here is how opinions have changed in response to — or alongside — these changing geopolitical connections and a much more significant Asian presence in terms of a domestic demography. Do public opinion data reflect an enduring or new level of anxiety, or is there evidence of an accommodation and an acceptance? New Zealanders are largely positive about the economic benefits of this realignment, but there are signs of ambivalence to the changed demography of New Zealand, including signs of particular concern among Maori. [R, abr.]
65.5552 BUZIN, Andrej Yu. —
Evolution of an extremely important electoral index — the election commissions' distribution on electoral participation — in all-Russian federal elections during 1996–2012 is analyzed. This index is generally defined by social factors and, in natural conditions, should be close to Gaussian distribution. Such distribution is shown by the elections of in the 1990s; however, the 2000s were marked by a drastic change which can be explained by administrative influence on the election results. The presidential elections of 1996 2012 are also analyzed with application of Sobyanin-Suchovolskiy method. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4768]
65.5553 CAI Shenshen —
Han Han, China's best known blogger, uses his blog to comment on and to reveal the social malaises and injustices within the political, social and cultural contexts of present-day China. His writing combines witty remarks, puns, quips, coded satires, and the sexualization of politics. He merges burning satire and freezing irony with merry laughter and angry cursing, creating a much sought-after, and pleasant relief for his readers. Once seen as a mischievous young man by some conservative and mainstream critics, Han Han is now considered by many social and cultural authorities as a humanist, and one of China's most influential public intellectuals. This paper analyzes the Han Han phenomenon and its social and political significance by utilizing and analyzing his blog entries as supporting evidence. [R, abr.]
65.5554 CAMPBELL, Rosie; CHILDS, Sarah —
The study of conservative women is expanding to compensate for the historic over-emphasis of gender and politics research on left-wing women. We add to this burgeoning literature and assess the extent to which the modern gender gap in political attitudes — where women have moved to the left of men — is evident among supporters of the British Conservative Party. We find that, like women party members, women Conservative supporters are noticeably to the left of men, but only on economic issues. This sex gap cannot simply be accounted for by women's employment in the public sphere, lesser interest in politics or because they are more morally conservative than male Conservatives. These findings are likely to have serious implications for intra-party discipline, [and] the support for the Conservative Party at the next British general election. [R, abr.]
65.5555 CAMPBELL, Rosie; COWLEY, Philip —
Research has explored the impact of politicians holding second jobs, or moonlighting, on their performance and recruitment, but less is known about how citizens respond to such behavior. Citizens may react negatively to MPs moonlighting, viewing outside earnings as a conflict of interest or a distraction, or instead they might view MPs with second incomes positively, seeing them as a connection with the “real world” beyond politics. Utilizing a series of survey experiments, we assess how British citizens respond to MPs moonlighting. We demonstrate preferences more complex than those revealed by traditional survey instruments. Citizens respond to both size and source of income. They do not respond negatively to all second incomes. They are most hostile to politicians who take on part-time company directorships. [R, abr.]
65.5556 CANES-WRONE, Brandice —
This article reviews recent research on how mass opinion affects policymaking in the context of US national institutions. Three themes materialize: (1) Research provides compelling evidence for “responsiveness”, in which change in mass opinion is associated with subsequent policy changes, but not for a high level of “congruence” between the policies favored by a majority of the public and those that are enacted. (2) Although scholarship suggests that both congruence and responsiveness have declined since the 1970s, they are not low by historic standards. (3) The literature rebuts conventional explanations for the post-1970s decline and suggests that standard proposals for how to reverse it would not significantly alter the impact of mass preferences on policy. The article considers the possibility that fundraising developments over the past three decades have changed politicians' electoral incentives. [R, abr.]
65.5557 ÇARKOĞLU, Ali; KENTMEN-ÇIN, Çiğdem —
Are a country's environmental attitudes linked to its level of economic development? In recent decades, rapid industrialization and the use of cheaper but older production technologies have reduced environmental quality in less developed countries (LDCs). Moreover, these countries have been disproportionally affected by global pollution in that they suffer the effects while having emitted less than industrialized countries. To what extent are people in LDCs ready to make sacrifices to improve environmental conditions? International Social Survey Program 2010 data reveal that people in LDCs are less supportive of international agreements forcing their country to take necessary environmental measures than are citizens in the developed world. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5578]
65.5558 CARMINES, Edward G.; D'AMICO, Nicholas J. —
Years of research into American political ideology have left scholars with a contested paradigm. One side argues that the mass public is distinctly non-ideological, the other that ideological thinking is not beyond the public. The way forward does not lie in rehashing this debate but in advancing two new areas of work. The first considers the role that values and principles play in determining the political and ideological thinking of individuals. The second questions the current conception and measurement standards of political ideology. This research argues that ideology among the American mass public is formed by positions along two related but separate dimensions. We summarize the major arguments of and criticisms of current ideology research, [and] discuss recent research on principles and values and the measurement of ideology. [R, abr.]
65.5559 CASTELLANOS-NAVARRETE, Antonio; JANSEN, Kees —
Recent debates on land-grabbing and biofuels tend to link oil-palm expansion to rural dispossession, environmental degradation and rural resistance. We examine to what extent “enclosure”, a central concept in two critiques — “environmentalism of the poor” and “green grabbing” — is intrinsically linked to oil-palm expansion. We argue that where enclosure is absent, poor peasants may seek greater market integration over resistance to modernization processes. We analyze how and why peasants engage in oil-palm cultivation and how their involvement undermines green efforts to curb its expansion in Chiapas, Mexico. Our analysis suggests that an exclusive focus on enclosure as the main driving force behind contestation and agrarian social relationships is unable to explain agrarian dynamics and the multiple uses to which environmental narratives are put. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65.5560 CAVANAGH, Connor Joseph; BENJAMINSEN, Tor A. —
Protected areas now encompass nearly 13 percent of Earth's terrestrial surface. Crucially, such protection often denotes exclusion — of farmers, of pastoralists and of forest-dwelling people. Engaging with the biopolitical implications of these displacements, this paper explores the emergence of an increasingly widespread type of resistance to conservation in the developing world: guerrilla agriculture, or the illicit cultivation of food within spaces zoned exclusively for the preservation of nonhuman life. It comparatively analyzes three groups of farmers at Mount Elgon, Uganda, which support an overarching strategy of illegal cultivation with a variety of nonviolent, militant, discursive and formal-legal tactics. We demonstrate how the struggles of farmers at Mount Elgon are frequently effective at carving out spaces of relative autonomy from both conservationists and the Ugandan state apparatus. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65.5561 CELSO, Anthony N. —
This essay studies the rise, decline, and rebirth of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and its transformation into the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). It first examines AQI's distinctive vision and its defiance of al Qaeda central. A. al-Zarqawi's anti-Shiite jihadist perspective, dramatized by AQI's use of social media, attracted thousands of foreign fighters to Iraq. Second, the essay analyzes AQI's regeneration and metamorphosis into ISIS and its challenge to al Qaeda's central command. Third, the essay examines ISIS's position as it resists attacks by Iraqi regime forces, rebel groups, Kurdish militants, and US-led coalition air strikes. The essay's concluding observations analyze the parallels and differences between the Armed Islamic Group's campaign in Algeria in the 1990s and ISIS's position in Iraq and Syria in 2015. [R, abr.]
65.5562 CHAISTY, Paul; WHITEFIELD, Stephen —
The causal processes that shape the emergence of environmental attitudes in post-Communist Europe are examined. We describe the widening gap in environmental policy orientations between West and East, and then cite two factors to explain the lower support for environmentalism in this region: (1) citizens still evaluate environmental issues through a distinctive ideological lens carried over from the Communist era; and (2) they do not connect environmental issues to other (more salient) economic and political questions in a consistent way. Using the three waves of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) environmental module, these questions are explored with individual-level and multilevel models. We conclude that the post-Communist effect is unlikely to disappear until environmental issues comprise a component of citizens' ideological orientations and the programs of political parties. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5578]
65.5563 CHAPPELL, David —
The French Pacific island of New Caledonia has faced serious challenges in decolonizing since World War II because it is a settler country manqué. Instead of becoming a small minority, the indigenous Melanesian inhabitants (today called Kanak) comprise nearly half the population and hold 46% of the seats in the Congress. Most of them seek independence, whereas most settlers want to remain part of France. In the 1960s, new immigration made the Kanak a minority, which hardened ethno-political polarization and sparked an independence movement that culminated in a Kanak revolt in the 1980s. The May 2014 elections chose a Congress that can hold a referendum on independence, but factionalism within each ethno-political bloc delayed forming a cabinet until April 2015, when some pro-independence leaders chose to cooperate with some loyalists. [R, abr.]
65.5564 CINPOEŞ, Radu —
This article analyzes the widespread phenomenon of party-switching, labeled “political cruising” in Romania, that characterizes that state's electoral politics. First, it considers party-switching to be a dimension of fragmentation (alongside fusions and divisions within the parties themselves), which helps more accurately gauge the level of party-system institutionalization in a given case. Second, it looks at why individuals change parties and why parties accommodate and embrace such switching to explain why the phenomenon has reached endemic levels in Romania. Finally, the author suggests that the pervasive political “cruising” driven by clientelism in Romania has resulted in a lack of public trust in political institutions and a decrease in electoral turnout. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5715]
65.5565 CÍSAŘ, Ondřej; NAVRÁTIL, Jiří —
What impact does EU funding of advocacy organizations have? To address this question our article turns to the post-communist Czech Republic, an ideal laboratory for studying externally dependent NGOs. Employing social network analysis, the article analyzes the effect of EU funding on the cooperation networks of Czech advocacy organizations. Our source of data is a survey of these organizations. We [examine] whether there is an association between the dependency of advocacy organizations on EU resources, and their cooperation with other organizations. Contrary to the prevailing interpretation based on the competition argument, our hypothesis is that the greater the dependency on EU funding, the greater the cooperation capacity on the part of advocacy organizations. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5077]
65.5566 CLAASSEN, Christopher; TUCKER, Patrick; SMITH, Steven S. —
This paper extends Ellis and Stimson's (Ideology in America, New York, 2012) study of the operational-symbolic paradox using issue-level measures of ideological incongruence based on respondent positions and symbolic labels for these positions across 14 issues. Like Ellis and Stimson, we find that substantial numbers — over 30% — of Americans experience conflicted conservatism. Our issue-level data reveal, furthermore, that conflicted conservatism is most common on the issues of education and welfare spending. In addition, we also find that 20% of Americans exhibit conflicted liberalism. We then replicate Ellis and Stimson's finding that conflicted conservatism is associated with low sophistication and religiosity, but also find that it is associated with being socialized in a post-1960s generation and using Fox News as a main news source. [R, abr.]
65.5567 CLARK, April K. —
This study investigates trends in social capital in the US since the 1970s. The literature suggests that variations in social capital are associated with both individual attributes and macro-level economic conditions. Yet, others argue that after controlling for these features, large-scale changes in social capital are evident across birth cohorts and over time. While previous studies have identified a number of individual and societal factors that influence social capital, I note that the common modeling approach used is inappropriate for examining the interaction between national and individual-level data as well as the simultaneous influence of period- and cohort-based effects. I therefore utilize a multilevel model to reassess the different theories of the origins and determinants of social capital. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “Bowling alone at 20”, edited and introduced by Sean RICHEY. See also Abstr. 65.5088, 5519, 5703, 5728, 5774]
65.5568 COE, Anna-Britt; VANDEGRIFT, Darcie —
Youth politics in contemporary Latin America diverge from those of previous generations. Increasingly decoupled from parties, unions, and the state, young people glide seamlessly across previously assumed boundaries: culture and politics, individual and organization, subjectivity and collectivity, virtual and “real”. This article presents findings from a systematic review of research on youth politics and demonstrates the new direction through three main categories: repression, incorporation, and exclusion, relationships between state institutions and youth identities; generational, cultural, and digital lenses, the innovative trends for theorizing current patterns of youth politics; and unsettling politics, the fusion and diffusion of youth political dexterity. The article highlights current strengths and proposing future steps to build on this new direction. [R]
65.5569 CORBETT, Jack —
Political parties are ubiquitous features of contemporary models of representative democracy and are widely believed to be integral to transition, and yet persistently democratic Pacific Island countries tend to have “weakly” institutionalized parties — some have none at all — that have little influence on the mobilization of voters during elections. Party theory largely assumes that politicians form parties to win elections: the author asks why, given the commonly cited irrelevance of party politics in much of the Pacific, politicians join political parties at all. Drawing on 96 biographical accounts — including 72 in-depth interviews — he interprets the explanations politicians give for joining, leaving and changing parties. [R, abr.]
65.5570 CORBETT, Jack; LIKI, Asenati —
Anecdotally, it is assumed that the factors that constrain women from entering parliament spill over into the way they experience holding public office, thus limiting their influence. Drawing on in-depth biographical interviews and other publically available materials, we investigate the experiences of women in parliament in the Pacific Islands, a region famous for its low levels of women's representation. We ask if and how women see their gender as influencing their parliamentary roles. We identify two narratives. The first aligns with the orthodox assumption where prevailing patriarchal norms stymie the influence of women MPs. The second, however, is a counternarrative that defies the conventional reading and instead posits that gender matters little once inside parliament with MPs, highlighting the importance of other identities — family, community, religious, etc. — to their constituent representation and reelection campaigns. [R, abr.]
65.5571 CORCORAN, Sean; ROMER, Thomas; ROSENTHAL, Howard —
This article analyzes election data that permit simple tests of rational voting and agenda-setting. The voting test pertains to aggregate election results. The prediction is that when voters have single-peaked preferences, there will be more opposition to the second of two budget proposals that are voted on simultaneously. Unlike the standard binary choice setting, not all voters have weakly undominated voting strategies, but the game among the voters can be solved simply by iterative application of weak dominance. The agenda-setting prediction tested is that agenda setters should make one proposal rather than two when given the option. The data come from Oregon [US] school district financial elections from 1980–1983, years in which the rules for these elections were abruptly changed. [R]
65.5572 CORDERO, Guillermo; COLLER, Xavier —
Previous literature has argued that MPs selected by party elites in a central and exclusive way are more disciplined than those belonging to parties with more inclusive and participative mechanisms of candidate selection. This hypothesis has been usually tested measuring the existence of voting blocs in parliamentary groups (taking for granted that voting blocs are the result of party discipline) and party rules on candidate selection (ignoring how selection process takes place). By using data from a survey of a representative sample of Spanish MPs, we study the impact of candidate selection on how cohesion in parliamentary groups is built. [R, abr.]
65.5573 COURTNEY, Michael —
This paper assesses whether variation in the social background characteristics of political elites is associated with variation in intra-party attitudes. The skewed distribution of gender, age and social class among political elites may substantively affect the distribution of political attitudes within a legislature compared to society as a whole. Although it is well established that party affiliation is the strongest predictor of attitudes within a legislature, social background may structure attitudes within political parties. This paper tests the extent of intra-party social background effects using a case study of Ireland, where inter-party attitude variance is low. It finds that gender and social class are the strongest social background predictors of intra-party attitudes, thus justifying a wider social focus on demographic rates of political participation. [R]
65.5574 CRABTREE, Charles; DARMOFAL, David; KERN, Holger L. —
Formal models of revolutionary collective action suggest that “informational cascades” play a crucial role in overcoming collective action problems. These models highlight how information about the aggregate level of participation in collective action conveys information about others' political preferences, and how such informational cues allow potential participants to update their beliefs about the value of participating in anti-regime collective action. In authoritarian regimes, foreign mass media are often the only credible source of information about anti-regime protests. However, limited robust evidence exists on whether foreign media can indeed serve as a coordination device for collective action. This article uses detailed dataset on protest events during the 1989 East German revolution and exploit the fact that West German television broadcasts could be received in most but not all parts of East Germany. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue in “Communication, technology, and political conflict”, edited and introduced by Nils B. WEIDMANN. See also Abstr. 65.4783, 4895, 5079, 5096, 5152, 5533, 6135, 6254, and the conclusion, pp. 401–413, Abstr. 65.4844]
65.5575 CUSHION, Stephen; THOMAS, Richard; ELLIS, Oliver —
UK broadcasters came under fire for the amount of airtime UKIP and its leader N. Farage received after the party won the most votes in the 2014 EU election. Our content-analysis of television news during the 2009 and 2014 campaigns found little bias in terms of sound-bites, but in the more recent election Farage visually appeared in coverage to a greater degree than other party leaders. Moreover, two core UKIP policies — being in or out of Europe and immigration — dominated coverage in 2014. We suggest the “UKIP factor” and the media's fascination with Farage help explain why the 2014 campaign was more visible on television news than was the case in 2009 and was largely reported through a Westminster prism. [R, abr.]
65.5576 DAHL, Svend —
In the 2014 parliamentary elections, the People's Party — Sweden's liberal party — received 5.4 percent of the votes, which represents the party's second-worst result ever. For quite some time, the electorate has perceived the People's Party as lacking clarity as to its policy positions and its positioning within the left-right spectrum. Participation in the center-right coalition governments since 2006 has, however, reinforced the popular image of the party as being to the right of center. Government participation has also resulted in significant opportunities to implement its political program; in particular the party's education policies. Prior to the election of 2014, however, this led to the party being associated with problems in the Swedish schooling system, which resulted in the loss of the issue-ownership. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5640]
65.5577 DAHLSTEDT, Magnus —
In recent years, issues concerning the future of multiethnic Sweden and particularly the situation in multiethnic suburbs have become a salient feature in Swedish politics. One important actor in recent years' debates about the challenges facing multiethnic Sweden is the Swedish Liberal Party. Since the general election of 2002, the party has gained both publicity and electoral support by focusing on issues of integration of migrants and urban segregation in terms of assimilation and intensified demands targeted at the migrant others. This article analyzes the party's developments in the early 2000s in the areas of integration and urban policy within the framework of two general processes in contemporary politics: the politics of racialization and the medialization of politics. [R, abr.]
65.5578 DALTON, Russell J. —
Is environmental action waxing or waning? Using the environmental modules of the International Social Survey Program from 1993, 2000, and 2010, two dimensions of environmental activism are described: environmental political activity and conservation behavior. Political activity has generally decreased, but in contrast, conservation behavior has become more common over the same time span. The correlates of these changes suggest that broad societal forces produced these trends, since most social groups follow these same trends, although some evidence was found of increased partisan polarization in Green activism. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on “Environmental concerns during a time of duress”, edited and introduced, pp. 523–530, by Russel DALTON and Robert ROHRSCHNEIDER. See also Abstr. 65.5050, 5557, 5562, 5746]
65.5579 DAVIDOV, Eldad, et al. —
International comparisons of abstract, psychological constructs require the measurements to be equivalent; that is, they should measure the same concept on the same measurement scale. Traditional approaches to assessing measurement equivalence quite often lead to the conclusion that measurements are cross-nationally incomparable, but they have been criticized for being overly strict. We present an alternative Bayesian approach that assesses whether measurements are approximately (rather than exactly) equivalent. This approach allows small variations in measurement parameters across groups. Taking a multiple group confirmatory factor analysis framework as a starting point, this study applies approximate and exact equivalence tests to the anti-immigration attitudes scale that was implemented in the European Social Survey (ESS). Measurement equivalence is tested across the full set of 271,220 individuals in 35 ESS countries over six rounds. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4787]
65.5580 DAWOOD, Yasmin —
This article considers the vast academic literature on campaign finance regulation in the US, drawing on the fields of political theory, American politics, election law, constitutional law, and economics. The scholarly treatment of campaign finance regulation has become increasingly focused on fundamental questions about democratic governance and democratic values, and it has generated profound debates about participation, representation, free speech, political equality, liberty, and the organization and distribution of political power in government and society. This article reviews the original debate about campaign finance regulation and traces its evolution in both political theory and constitutional law, identifying current areas of inquiry and new directions in research. In particular, the article focuses on corruption, political equality and representation, electoral exceptionalism, and the post-Citizens United landscape. It also surveys empirical findings from political science and economics. [R]
65.5581 DEAN, Jonathan —
Since the onset of the 2008 economic crisis and the resurgence of various forms of transnational radical politics (the Arab Spring, Occupy, etc.), several left-wing thinkers have argued that the era of left melancholia is now over. This article examines such claims, paying particular attention to the recent re-engagement with the idea of communism in contemporary critical theory. Foregrounding the recent work of A. Badiou, S. i ek and (especially) J. Dean, I question some of the political and theoretical investments that characterize this (re)turn to communism. In particular, I interrogate the new communists' tendency to contrast a vision of a melancholic and deradicalized left beholden to feminism, anti-racism, single-issue politics and identity politics with an alternative vision of an authentically radical left emboldened by the re-emergence of the idea of communism. [R, abr.]
65.5582 DELLA POSTA, Daniel; SHI Yongren; MACY, Michael —
Popular accounts of “lifestyle politics” and “culture wars” suggest that political and ideological divisions extend also to leisure activities, consumption, aesthetic taste, and personal morality. Drawing on a total of 22,572 pair-wise correlations from the General Social Survey (1972–2010), the authors provide comprehensive empirical support for the anecdotal accounts. Moreover, most ideological differences in lifestyle cannot be explained by demographic covariates alone. The authors propose a surprisingly simple solution to the puzzle of lifestyle politics. Computational experiments show how the self-reinforcing dynamics of homophily and influence dramatically amplify even very small elective affinities between lifestyle and ideology, producing a stereotypical world of “latte liberals” and “bird-hunting conservatives” much like the one in which we live. [R]
65.5583 DEMKER, Marie —
The Christian Democrats kept their parliamentary position after the 2014 national parliamentary election despite a string of disappointing opinion polls. The party has changed its leader since the election. The former leader G. Hägglund was popular among the Christian Democratic voters but he did not manage to prevent the loss of voters since the successful 1998 election. The party has been shaken by several ideological conflicts. Hägglund was challenged from the inside during the last parliamentary term but won the leadership election and was re-elected at the party's Riksting in 2012. The Swedish Christian Democrats have developed from a small Christian protest party with an unclear position regarding Left and Right to a (still) small Conservative party and coalition partner in three Liberal-Conservative governments since 1991. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5640]
65.5584 DINAS, Elias; RIERA, Pedro; ROUSSIAS, Nasos —
Despite the voluminous literature on parties and party families, we have a limited understanding of what explains small party success. We propose a new institutional explanation that treats entering parliament as a key resource for small parties. Parliamentary entrance signals organizational capacity and candidates' appeal, and reduces uncertainty about parties' ideological profile. Taking advantage of the discontinuities generated by thresholds of representation, we estimate the causal effect of entering parliament on the future vote shares of small parties. We use a new data set that covers all post-World War II democracies with a national threshold of representation. Results indicate that presence in parliament increases parties' vote-share in the next election. [R, abr.]
65.5585 DORION-SOULIÉ, Manuel; SANSCHAGRIN, David —
Is there such a thing as Canadian neo-conservatism? Even though many analysts in Canadian foreign policy use this term to describe the S. Harper government and the “Calgary School”, they fail to conceptualize precisely the political object in question. Some [suggest] that this ideology was imported from the US. This paper first shows the “recognition” that American neoconservatives give to their Canadian counterparts and vice-versa, thus illustrating the ideological proximity between these two neo-conservatisms. However, the article [then] proposes a generic definition of neo-conservatism, to show that if it is warranted to speak of a Canadian neo-conservatism to describe the Harper government and the “Calgary School”, it is not a sign of American influence. Rather, Canadian neo-conservatism has its own particularities and tradition. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on “The neoconservative turn in Canadian foreign policy under Stephen Harper: conceptualization and case studies”, edited and introduced by Manuel DORION-SOULIÉ. See also Abstr. 65.5959, 5979, 5998, 6107]
65.5586 DRAGOMAN, Dragoş —
Moldova faces important challenges today for its political transformation. On the one hand, external factors keep Moldova in between successful EU candidates and consolidated democracies, and hybrid, semiauthoritarian and even fully authoritarian regimes that consolidated in the aftermath of the Soviet Union breakdown. On the other hand, on internal grounds, Moldova keeps balancing between those two models of post-communist transition. The article sheds light on the mechanisms and dynamics of citizens' evaluation of competing political regimes and underlines the important factors for democratization following the events of 5 April 2009, which seemed finally to overturn Soviet-era nostalgia. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5419]
65.5587 DRIS, Cherif —
The path taken by the media openness in Algeria since the beginning of the 1990s suggests a high reluctance of the political arena against the media space. Despite the presence of a private press that tries to soften the heaviness of a pervasive state, the semi-democratic political game slows down the transition launched at the end of the 1980s. The media space has not achieved its transformation and is still in a transition phase that concerns regulation and stakeholders. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5997]
65.5588 DUNCAN, Fraser —
The electoral success of many West European Christian Democratic parties as prototypical people's parties has been threatened in recent years by growing secularization and economic trends. In the light of these challenges, this article analyzes the importance of social and attitudinal variables in predicting support for seven Christian Democratic parties at the individual level using data from the European Social Survey. The results highlight the continuing centrality of religion in Christian Democratic voting. Regular attendance at church, particularly among Catholics, raises the probability of supporting Christian Democracy at the ballot box substantially. Class, by contrast, offers a weak guide as to the likelihood of a Christian Democratic vote. The importance of religion is such that expectations about other potentially important independent variables (character of domicile, age) are generally not met. [R, abr.]
65.5589 DURAŠKOVIĆ, Stevo —
This article comprehensively analyzes Tudman's nationalist ideology prior to the 1990s. Using a morphological approach to ideology, it presents three main clusters of concepts regarding Tudman's ideology: the narrative on the nature of humankind as teleological struggle to achieve independent national states; the narrative of supranational ideologies — such as liberalism and communism — acting as a pure geopolitical means used by the great nations to subjugate small ones; and finally the narrative of the Croatian thousand-year long struggle to achieve an independent national state. The article exposes how Tudman by the 1970s created the idea of an all-embracing national movement grounded in the synthesis of [the] teleological concept on Croatian history, which would eventually bring about a national reconciliation in a final struggle for the independent state. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5160]
65.5590 DYE, Daniel T. —
At the Labour Party conference in 2005, T. Blair declared that debating globalization would be like debating “whether autumn should follow summer”. This articulation of the imperatives of a newly-globalized world was central to the creation of “New” Labour. How should we understand this turn from the autonomous socialism promised a generation earlier? I propose that Labour's discourse was produced in response to strategic demands of political competition. Synthesizing W. Riker's concept of heresthetics with insights from discourse-analysis, the article proposes parties as discursive-herestheticians who constructively use rhetorical tropes to achieve concrete ends. This approach is applied to Labour through qualitative textual analysis of speeches and documents, read in the context of electoral strategy. [R, abr.]
65.5591 EKENGREN, Ann-Marie; OSCARSSON, Henrik —
This article contributes with explanations regarding the election result of the Moderate Party in 2014. The Moderate Party received 23.3 percent of the votes compared to 30.1 in the election 2010. We use media coverage, party internal documents and voter surveys to investigate why the Moderate Party suffered such a large election defeat. The analyses are structured to track politically relevant developments in three arenas: the electoral, the party internal and the parliamentary arena. In the electoral arena the Moderate Party list many of its voters to the Sweden Democrats mainly due to the party's positions on immigration issues. There was also a significant voter loss to the Social Democrats. In the party's internal arena we see organizational confusion and bad planning during 2011. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5640]
65.5592 EKSTRÖM, Mats; MOBERG, Ulla —
This article presents a study of Swedish election campaign phone-ins from 1970 and from the last decade (2002–2010), with a focus on how different organizations of the interaction, and the activities of the journalist/host, influence the position and power of the caller. Based on Conversation Analysis, two distinct parts of the conversations are explored: the openings of the call and the third turns following a politician's answer to a caller's question. The study shows that the power of the caller has decreased in recent election campaigns and this is related to changes in the mediation work by the host. Although the idea of the programs is to support citizen participation, the journalist activities tend to make it hard for the caller to establish a direct dialogue with the politician. [R, abr.]
65.5593 ELKINK, Johan A.; SINNOTT, Richard —
This article makes a distinction between the attitude component of campaigns and the knowledge component and argues that a campaign that influences knowledge of a proposal can be quite successful in influencing the vote. On 12 June 2008, Irish voters voted against ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. Perceptions, and especially misperceptions, of the Treaty played an important role in the referendum. The campaign focused in particular on influencing voters' perceptions of, rather than attitudes towards the Treaty. This article examines the interaction between knowledge, campaigns, and perceptions of the Treaty, in the referendum. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4987]
65.5594 ELMELUND-PRAESTEKAER, Christian; KLITGAARD, Michael Baggesen; SCHUMACHER, Gijs —
Conventional wisdom holds that in order to evade electoral punishment governments obfuscate welfare state retrenchment. However, governments do not uniformly lose votes in elections after they cut back on welfare benefits or services. Recent evidence indicates that some of these unpopular reforms are in fact vote-winners for the government. Our study of eight Danish labor-market-related reforms uses insights from experimental framing studies to evaluate the impact of welfare state retrenchment on government popularity. We hypothesize that communicating retrenchment is a better strategy than obfuscating retrenchment measures. In addition, we hypothesize that the opposition's choice between arguing against the retrenchment measure, or staying silent on the issue, affects the government's popularity. Thus, the study presents a novel theoretical model of the popularity effects of welfare state retrenchment. [R, abr.]
65.5595 ENGEL, Stephen M. —
Responding to recent criticism that American political development (APD) has yet to fully engage with both contemporary and historical matters related to lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) politics, I use citizenship to provide one way to do so. Drawing on the central insight of APD scholarship that the polity is a composite of multiple clashing governing orders and by viewing citizenship as a relational dynamic between the individual and the state, I argue that citizenship is fractured across time, space, and policy issue. This claim is illustrated by two case studies: (1) how LGB military participation has been redefined over time by the Department of Defense, with each policy shift toward equality revealing previously unseen and persistent inequities; and (2) how conflicts between marriage and parental recognition have emerged after states recognize same-sex marriage. [R, abr.]
65.5596 ENGELS, Bettina —
Global crises — the financial crisis, the energy crisis, the food crisis — have numerous social, political, and ecological impacts at the local level. This article examines the relationship of global crises and local conflicts using protests against the high cost of living in Burkina Faso as an example. Burkina Faso was among the states that witnessed particularly intense confrontations related to the global food price crisis of 2007/2008. How are global crises mediated so that they lead to conflicts and collective action at the national and local level? This question is dealt with referring to the analytical concepts of scale and framing. Global crises result in political protest, when oppositional actors successfully frame them in a way that links them to existing conflicts and claims, thus mobilizing protest potentials. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4793]
65.5597 ENGLEHART, Neil; GRANT, Patrick —
Critics claim that lack of professionalism among Afghan provincial leaders undermines the government's legitimacy, creating opportunities for the insurgency. Data on provincial governors show that those most effective at deterring insurgent attacks tend to have qualities associated with “warlords” rather than professionalism. Decentralization could harness these characteristics to improve governance. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6012]
65.5598 ERIKSSON, Kimmo; FUNCKE, Alexander —
The “above-average effect” is the phenomenon that people tend to judge themselves above average on desirable traits. Based on social identity theory, we propose that a “below-average effect” may arise when individuals rate themselves and the average in-group member on traits stereotypically associated with the in-group. In two studies, Republican and Democrat participants rated themselves and the average political in-group member on possession of desirable traits related to warmth and competence. Current political stereotypes in America associate the former dimension with Democrats and the latter with Republicans. Consistent with our hypothesis, the above-average effect was moderated by political group and dimension in interaction. In particular, Democrats rated themselves below the average Democrat on warmth and Republicans rated themselves below the average Republican on competence. [R]
65.5599 ERZEEL, Silvia; CALUWAERTS, Didier —
This article examines the role of gender in determining preferential votes for electoral candidates in the 2009 Belgian regional elections. Specifically, we examine how far votes for male or female candidates can be explained through explicit gender-based motives versus being based on other non-gendered grounds. Our findings show that while at least half of the voters express a gender preference and this is typically in favor of male candidates, the determinants of these preferences are not predominantly motivated by gender-based concerns. More important factors are voters' access to political resources and party affiliation. Politically disengaged and right-wing voters display a clear preference for male candidates. The findings show that institutional factors go only part of the way to explaining gender imbalances in parliamentary representation. [R, abr.]
65.5600 FAAS, Thorsten —
This article analyzes exposure to different sources of campaign information, and their effects on citizens' feeling of being informed about referendums. The analysis is based on an innovative rolling panel study that allows for a rigorous tracking of campaign dynamics in the run-up to the referendum. Using a referendum on a large-scale infrastructure project in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, empirical findings show that official information provided by the government had the greatest effect in reaching citizens and also had the strongest impact on their feeling of being informed. The article demonstrates that the state plays a crucial role in providing an appropriate information environment prior to a referendum. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4987]
65.5601 FAIRDOSI, Amir Shawn; ROGOWSKI, Jon C. —
A sizable literature in American politics documents increased levels of voter turnout among black citizens when co-racial candidates are on the ballot or hold office. However, due to a paucity of black Republican candidates, existing research has been unable to identify whether increased participation occurs irrespective of the candidate's partisanship. Using data from the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we find that, while the presence of a black Democratic House candidate was associated with increased black voter turnout, there was no association between black Republican candidates and black turnout. These results are robust to model specification, issues of statistical power, and contextual differences across districts. We report further evidence that black citizens' perceptions of black candidates' ideologies and character traits differed substantially based on the candidate's party. [R, abr.]
65.5602 FAUCHER, Florence —
In the past 30 years, party membership has dropped significantly across Europe, whereas other forms of political participation have developed. I first show how political parties have sought to be more attractive by lowering the cost of membership and creating new selective incentives (such as the right to vote in internal ballots), leading to a convergence of party rules across European parties. To understand the logic behind such reforms, one needs to take into account the broader political context and I focus on the UK to show how competition between and within parties provided the justification for changes that mostly aligned them with organizational myths. The third part argues that such changes in opportunities to participate in political parties contribute to explain why membership has continued to fall. [R, abr.]
65.5603 FAURÉ, Yves-André —
This paper explores the large protest and advocacy movement that shook Brazil between March and June, 2013. Groups of students requesting free public transportation were soon joined by masses of citizens fed up with their living conditions (especially housing) and the very poor state of public services, especially including health and education as well as transportation while at the same time enormous budgets were spent on preparations for the World Cup of football. The shortcomings corruption of the entire political class also was strongly denounced. Stimulated by police brutality against the protesters, together with the mobilization of social media in favor of the social movement, this revolt arose after more than a decade of economic growth and wage increases. Two explanations for this massive mobilization are suggested. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5798]
65.5604 FLEISCHER, Julia; SEYFRIED, Markus —
This article expands our current knowledge about ministerial selection in coalition governments and analyzes why ministerial candidates succeed in acquiring a cabinet position after general elections. It argues that political parties bargain over potential office-holders during government-formation processes, selecting future cabinet ministers from an emerging “bargaining pool”. It draws upon a new dataset comprising all ministrable candidates discussed by political parties during eight government-formation processes in Germany between 1983 and 2009. The conditional logit regression-analysis reveals that temporal dynamics, such as the day she enters the pool, have a significant effect on her success in achieving a cabinet position. The article concludes that scholarship on ministerial selection requires a stronger emphasis for its endogenous nature in government-formation as well as the relevance of temporal dynamics in such processes. [R, abr.]
65.5605 FORTUNATO, David; ADAMS, James —
Recent studies document that voters infer parties' left-right policy agreement based on governing coalition arrangements. This article extends this research to present theoretical and empirical evidence that European citizens update their perceptions of junior coalition partners' left-right policies to reflect the policies of the prime minister's party, but that citizens do not reciprocally project junior coalition partners' policies onto the prime minister's party. These findings illuminate the simple rules that citizens employ to infer parties' policy positions, broaden understanding of how citizens perceive coalition governance and imply that “niche” parties, whose electoral appeal depends upon maintaining a distinctive policy profile, assume electoral risks when they enter government. [R]
65.5606 FOWLER, Anthony —
This article develops a method for comparing the partisan preferences of regular voters to those marginal voters whose turnout decisions are influenced by exogenous factors and applies it to two sources of variation in turnout in the US — weather and election timing. In both cases, marginal voters are over 20 percentage points more supportive of the Democratic Party than regular voters — a significant divide. The findings suggest that the expansion or contraction of the electorate can have important consequences. Moreover, the findings suggest that election results do not always reflect the preferences of the citizenry, because the marginal citizens who may stay home have systematically different preferences than those who participate. [R, abr.]
65.5607 FRANZ, Barbara —
Thousands of young Europeans have joined the jihad. This essay looks at the reasons why the holy war is so popular among this cohort. While failed integration policies and widespread online media recruitment remain crucial for understanding this popularity, these explanations alone are too simplistic. Personal knowledge of other young fighters and fundamentalist imams, a lack of guidance resulting from the absence of fathers, trauma, and a kind of “outsiderism” akin to the one seen among early Nazi recruits in the 1920s are also similarities found in many of the young volunteers' biographies. [R]
65.5608 FRANZOSI, Paolo; MARONE, Francesco; SALVATI, Eugenio —
The Italian Five Star Movement (FSM) is one of the most interesting political phenomena in contemporary Europe. On one hand, this populist anti-establishment party has expressed a critical, albeit ambiguous, position on the EU and the euro. In particular, the FSM's Euroskepticism became apparent during the 2014 EP elections. On the other hand, analysis of the voting behavior in the EP shows that the Movement differs from the “hard” Euroskeptic UKIP, its main ally in the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) grouping, and is often closer to the pro-EU parties, in particular the Green group. Overall, the FSM's Euroskepticism is more strategic than ideological. [R]
65.5609 GASDA, Élio Estanislau —
This article's starting point is the complexity of the current political panorama of religion. In Latin America, religion is present in manifestations of political agents as well as politics are present in religious expressions. Before a diversity of existent models, this article analyzes the Brazilian situation. Religiosity is an indelible characteristic of the Brazilian people. The historic heritage of Catholicism and the growth of Pentecostal Evangelical Churches reveal the laicism of state as an incomplete and fragile process. Civil society presupposes an existence of citizens who are, also, religious. These assumptions raise two fundamental questions: considering that religions are expressions of pluralism of national identities that shape citizenship, how can one give meaning for the presence of religion in politics? [R, abr.]
65.5610 GEOFFRAY, Marie Laure —
This article explores the example of Cuba in order to understand how a contentious politics has evolved since the 2000s and especially after the semi-liberalization of internet access in 2008. I analyze how use of new technologies impact the fragmented arenas of contention that already existed in Cuba. My argument is that they have reinforced existing dynamics, while creating new channels of expression and linkage, between contentious spaces within Cuba and with specific segments of the Cuban diaspora. Those dynamics have in turn allowed for the emergence of a transnational Cuban public arena and a more intricate contentious space in Cuba itself. [R]
65.5611 GERODIMOS, Roman —
The literature on populism in Europe has predominantly focused on the discourse or electoral success of far-right political parties using quantitative analyses. This article presents a qualitative analysis of far-left populism in Greece, focusing on the discourse of anarchists during the riots of December 2008. Through an in-depth examination of 38 communiqués, leaflets and posters produced by groups taking part in the riots, the ideological basis of far-left extremism is dissected, illustrating the links and logical pathways between blame, victimhood and violent revenge. It is argued that the emerging narrative constitutes a coherent populist ideology aiming to appropriate power, but also a distinct populist identity based on victimhood and anger, both of which challenge the notion that populism is compatible with democracy. [R, abr.]
65.5612 GIBSON, Rachel K.; McALLISTER, Ian —
A core question addressed by parties and internet scholars is whether the medium is equalizing or normalizing levels of inter-party competition. Are minor parties better placed to compete for voters' attention online (equalization), or do major parties continue to dominate (normalization)? To date, most research has supported the latter scenario through “supply-side” comparisons of website content in a single election. This article re-examines the debate using Australian surveys of election candidates conducted between 2001 and 2010. As well as providing the first longitudinal study of this question, we link the supply side with voter responses and compare how well the parties recruit support through their web campaigns. Our results confirm that major parties dominate in the adoption of personal websites, although minor parties are stronger users of social media. [R, abr.]
65.5613 GINGEMBRE, Mathilde —
Drawing on a micro-level ethnography, this paper explores the process by which a rural municipality managed to pressure the state into temporarily halting the land-extension of a large-scale biofuel project in an agro-pastoral area of southern Madagascar. It documents how the coalition of local leaders and wealthy cattle owners behind the protest resisted threats to their land access and local domination by finding spaces of expression outside the control of local consultation, and creating alliances with influential activists. By analyzing the environmental, cognitive and relational mechanisms behind the emergence and repercussions of this bottom-up struggle, this paper points to the varied bargaining endowments that exist within agrarian communities as well as to the issues of authority at stake within corporate enclosure of land. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65. 5614a GIURCANU, Magda —
This essay illustrates how a deeper understanding of one post-communist case and a bottom-up perspective on attitudes and political behavior in one locale, Romania, allowed the researcher to delve deeper into the taken-for-granted dynamics that European citizens from the South, East, and West engage in when voting in European Parliamentary elections. The approach of “ethnographic sensibility” mentioned in the workshop's discussions and illustrated in several contributions to this volume constitutes then a useful starting point in deconstructing conventional knowledge. Moreover, during the process of moving up the ladder of generality and building inferences from one case study to a region, Eastern Europe still shares enough characteristics to deserve its own dummy variable, so to speak, in large-N continent-wide analyses covering the 2004 and 2009 EP elections. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6165]
65.5614b GOLOSOV, Grigorii V. —
Political parties or candidates that participate in elections with the primary aim of splitting the vote for other parties or candidates are conventionally referred to as “spoilers”. In electoral authoritarian regimes, this strategy can be used for maintaining political monopoly. This study identifies institutional and political preconditions for instrumental manipulation of political parties under electoral authoritarianism and empirically examines the efficacy of this strategy during regional legislative elections in Russia from 2012 to 2014. The analysis demonstrates that the use of spoiler parties in Russia brings only modest results due to the lack of strong ideological identifications in the electorate. [R]
65.5615 GOMEZ, Brad T.; HANSFORD, Thomas G. —
Despite the plethora of studies demonstrating that economic perceptions affect how a person votes, relatively little is known about how economic perceptions affect whether individuals will vote. Using the calculus of voting as our starting point, we develop a simple, but novel, hypothesis regarding the influence of sociotropic evaluations on voter turnout. We argue that this relationship will be curvilinear, with particularly negative and particularly positive evaluations of the economy increasing the likelihood of voting. Using an instrumental variables approach with individual-level data from eight recent US presidential elections, we find that economic evaluations affect the decision to vote in the curvilinear manner hypothesized, but — counter to existing theory — only when there is not an incumbent president seeking reelection. [R]
65.5616 GÓMEZ BRUERA, Hernán F. —
This article shows how and why the initial attempts of the Lula administration in Brazil to promote innovative counter-hegemonic participatory strategies, such as those put in place by the PT in some of its subnational governments, fell by the wayside. It is argued that the implementation and scope of participatory initiatives under Lula were caught between electoral motivations and the need to secure governability. The need to produce quick results in order to maximize vote-seeking strategies hindered attempts to promote counterhegemonic participation, while Lula and his inner circle opted for policies that would score immediate marks with the poorest sectors or influence public opinion. [However], participation also took a back seat because the PT concentrated most of its energies on reaching agreements with strategic actors, such as opposition parties or powerful economic groups. [R]
65.5617 GORDON, Steven Lawrence; MAHARAJ, Brij —
African states are often characterized as low trust societies. Could a deficiency of social capital explain prejudice towards immigrants in such societies? Using South Africa as a case study, this paper tests the effect of social trust, social bonds with neighbors and a sense of community on attitudes towards foreigners. The results reveal that social capital may be a more important predictor of attitudes than economic status. Social bonds between neighbors and a sense of community were found to be more salient determinants of prejudice than social trust. In African societies it is, therefore, important to invest in programs that promote social cohesion within communities. [R]
65.5618 GOURISSE, Benjamin —
The paper analyzes the transformation of the one-party system [to a] multi-party system in Turkey between 1945 and 1950. It shows that this transformation was not made on the basis of a consensus among political competitors. It consists of successive adaptations of the former single party to deal with the constraints of the postwar period. It was accompanied by no steps to disembed political and state fields. This is then the breaking of collusive transactions that linked the former single party and strategic sectors of the State which has made possible the change in power through the ballot box in 1950. Consequently, the Turkish case allows analyzing the complexity of pluralist political configurations and encourages a multi-sectoral analytical approach attentive to the interactions between actors located in multiple social fields. [R]
65.5619 GRAJALES, Jacobo —
The entanglement of violence and legal institutions in Colombia has led some scholars to argue that this country is characterized by a “law without state”, or that the law has a mere “symbolic function”. This would explain an apparent paradox: high-intensity violence has been accompanied by the preservation of legal institutions and a common belief in their social importance. Yet the mobilization of the legal repertoire against violent land-grabbing by peasant movements shows their belief in the legitimacy of legal institutions. Instead of measuring the efficiency of these actions, this paper analyzes the interaction between local orders and national legal institutions. It argues that legal arenas have served to address land conflict, in a context of egregious violence. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65.5620 GRIBBLE, Rachael, et al. —
Using data from the 2011 British Social Attitudes survey (n = 3,311), this article compares British public opinion of the purposes and successes of the Iraq and Afghanistan missions. Public acceptance of military deaths/injuries, the accuracy of public estimates of military fatalities and how these differ according to opinions of the missions are determined. It is found that the British public is doubtful of the missions' achievements and cynical about their purposes. Perceptions of the campaigns were associated with the accuracy of estimations of UK military fatalities, and the acceptability of military deaths/injuries. Implications for social and political theory and British foreign policy are discussed. [R]
65.5621 GRIGORIADIS, Ioannis N. —
The Turkish presidential elections were the first direct elections in the history of republican Turkey. The election of Prime Minister R.T. Erdogan in the first round illustrated his dominant position in Turkish politics, as well as the inability of opposition parties to provide an alternative candidate who appealed to the Turkish electorate. Growing social polarization and concern about emerging autocratic tendencies, corruption allegations and the multilevel crisis in the Middle East failed to dissuade Turkish voters. Nevertheless, the fulfillment of Erdogan's declared intention of introducing presidentialism in Turkey will depend on the result of the upcoming parliamentary elections, to be held in June 2015 at the latest. [R]
65.5622 GRIMM, Robert —
For some observers, Germany is the biggest beneficiary of the Eurozone and the winner of the crisis. Why [then], at the height of Germany's postwar European influence, have an increasing number of Germans withdrawn their support from the European project? The Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD) is Germany's first Euroskeptic party to attract substantial electoral support in local, national and European elections. The article first briefly summarizes the AfD's European politics. It then traces the party's ideological roots back to ordoliberal critiques of the Maastricht Treaty and argues that there was a deep skepticism towards European integration among Germany's conservative elites well before the introduction of the Euro. The sudden surge in German Euroskepticism has to be understood within the context of broader cultural changes and a lack of political choice. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5545]
65.5623 GRISHIN, Nikolai —
The attention of scholars has to date largely been focused on the regime-sustaining and regime-subverting effects of elections in non-democracies and pseudo-democracies. This article goes beyond these two main trends to analyze the outcomes of elections in Russia's “hybrid” regime. The democratic effect of elections frequently turns out to be secondary with respect to the oligarchic or even autocratic outcomes. In present-day conditions, the prospects for the institution of fair democratic elections are not in the interests of the autocracy and oligarchy. This research examines the evolution of the function of elections in post-Soviet Russia. The author suggests two new functions — stress relief and the expression of public opinion — in addition to the generally accepted typology of functions of elections in Russia. [R, abr.]
65.5624 GROMOGLASOVA, Elizaveta S.; LIBMAN, Aleksandr M. —
The paper studies how the economic situation in the member countries of the EU in 2005–2011 affected the national party systems' attitude towards the EU and the European integration (the EU cleavage). The authors suggest that economic decline could result in growing Euroskepticism. This hypothesis was derived from three main arguments: economic voting theory, suggesting that voters “punish” the ruling parties in case of economic decline; the role the EU plays in determining national economic policy (specifically, strict austerity requirements); the overall international context of global economic crisis. [R, abr.]
65.5625 GRUMBACH, Jacob M. —
Do legislators from upper-class backgrounds behave differently from those from humble beginnings? Scholars of representation have made progress understanding the effects of a legislator's social class on roll-call votes, but ideology is also understood to be shaped during adolescence. Using data from N. Carnes' White-Collar Government [Chicago, 2013], I find that upper-class members of Congress with working-class parents are significantly more liberal than upper-class members with upper-class parents. This trend is particular to the Democrats; Republican voting records do not significantly differ with respect to parental class. Findings are robust to potential confounders, including race, gender, and district characteristics. [R]
65.5626 GUAN Bing; CAI Yongshun —
Authoritarian governments carry out elections to gain legitimacy. However, people in these regimes usually lack confidence in the managed elections and are reluctant to participate. Therefore, state mobilization is necessary for these elections to be implemented. Yet, people in such regimes may participate in the elections without state mobilization. In urban China, some homeowners have actively participated in elections for the residents' committee, although they do not interact directly with the committee. This article, which is based on fieldwork in about 20 communities in Beijing, analyzes the reasons for such participation. [R, abr.]
65.5627 GUBLER, Joshua Ronald; HALPERIN, Eran; HIRSCHBERGER, Gilad —
Current approaches to humanizing members of an out-group in contexts marked by protracted intergroup conflict see mixed success. In both Study 1, conducted on a random sample of Israeli Jews (N = 103), and Study 2, conducted on a nationally diverse sample of Israeli Jews (N = 670), we experimentally test the effect of a unique approach to humanizing the out-group based on empathy. Instead of requiring individuals to express empathy for out-group suffering they might have caused, this approach requires an expression of empathy for suffering unrelated to the conflict between the groups. Results suggest that such an expression of empathy from one group member toward the other group can lead to “reciprocal empathy” which facilitates a greater willingness to accept the humanity of all members of the other group. [R]
65.5628 HAIM, Mario —
Political Stock Markets (PSM) are said to be a reliable forecasting method for elections. Yet, due to a presumed media influence on people's intention to vote, media coverage regularly leads to manipulative attacks on PSMs: participants try to affect prices and, thus, forecasts through tactical trading. However, even without manipulative objectives, previous findings suggest various biases affecting the trader's decisions and, hence, forecast quality. This study assumes trader motivation to be an indicator for their objectives and their market behavior. Therefore, a multi-method design is applied: First, a quantitative survey among PSM participants was conducted. Second, qualitative interviews with PSM managers were carried out. Results indicate a discrepancy between various trading objectives (manipulation v. entertainment). [R, abr.]
65.5629 HAINMUELLER, Jens; HALL, Andrew B.; SNYDER, James M., Jr. —
The regression discontinuity (RD) design is popular because it provides a design-based estimate of the incumbency advantage. However, the RD estimate is “local”: it only identifies the effect in hypothetical elections with a 50–50 tie between the Democratic and Republican candidates. There is significant uncertainty and disagreement over the incumbency effect in safer districts away from this threshold. Indeed, mirroring the competing arguments in the theoretical literature, a survey of political scientists reveals that roughly equal numbers of respondents predict the effect to be either larger, smaller, or the same in less competitive districts. We employ a new method based on a validated conditional independence assumption that allows us to estimate the effect of incumbency in districts in a window around the threshold as large as 15 percentage points. [R, abr.]
65.5630 HAINMUELLER, Jens; HOPKINS, Daniel J. —
We use a conjoint experiment that simultaneously tests the influence of nine immigrant attributes in generating support for admission. Drawing on a two-wave, population-based survey, we demonstrate that Americans view educated immigrants in high-status jobs favorably, whereas they view those who lack plans to work, entered without authorization, are Iraqi, or do not speak English unfavorably. Strikingly, Americans' preferences vary little with their own education, partisanship, labor market position, ethnocentrism, or other attributes. Beneath partisan divisions over immigration lies a broad consensus about who should be admitted to the country. The results are consistent with norms-based and sociotropic explanations of immigration attitudes. This consensus points to limits in both theories emphasizing economic and cultural threats, and sheds new light on an ongoing policy debate. [R, abr.]
65.5631 HALIKIOPOULOU, Daphne; VLANDAS, Tim —
While the 2014 EP elections were marked by the rise of parties on the far right-wing, the different patterns of support that we observe across Europe and across time are not directly related to the economic crisis. Indeed, economic hardship seems neither sufficient nor necessary for the rise of such parties to occur. Using the cross-national results for the 2004, 2009 and 2014 EP elections in order to capture time and country variations, we posit that the economy affects the rise of far right-wing parties in more complex ways. Specifically, we compare the experience of high-debt countries (the “debtors”) and the others (the “creditors”) and explore the relationship between far right-wing party success on the one hand, and unemployment, inequality, immigration, globalization and the welfare state on the other. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5479]
65.5632 HAN Zhang —
65.5634 HARVEY, Malcolm —
The Nordic model has long been admired in Scotland, and has featured prominently in aspects of the Scottish independence referendum debate. This article explores the difficulties in instituting a similar system here, identifying two significant barriers: the institutional setting (the powers available to Scottish politicians) and the partisan nature of competition between the two parties that might be able to deliver upon such a commitment. It concludes that the prospects of moving towards a Nordic-style social investment model are slight, given the political, institutional and attitudinal barriers in place. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5479]
65.5635 HAYS, Richard Allen —
This article explores the relationship between informal networks of interaction and trust among neighbors and political engagement by neighborhood residents. The US lacks mass-based political organizations that directly represent the interests of poor and working-class citizens. Therefore, geographically based neighborhood associations are one of the few mechanisms available to represent these interests. The segregation of urban neighborhoods by class and race presents many disadvantages for lower-income residents, but geographical concentration can have the advantage of facilitating organized political action. Because neighborhood organizations are such an important mechanism by which disadvantaged urban populations assert their needs and perspectives, it is critical to understand which characteristics of residents encourage the formation of such organizations and enable them to be effective in influencing public policies. [R, abr.]
65.5636 HEARTY, Kevin —
This article examines the protest movement that surfaced as a result of the decision taken by Belfast City Council to remove the Union flag from Belfast City Hall in December 2012. It examines why the issue conflagrated as it did and led to a mobilization within working-class Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist (PUL) communities on the issue. Examining the flag protests within the context of more general PUL disaffection with the Good Friday Agreement and its associated peace process, this article looks at the flag protests as an avenue for disaffected PUL communities to assert a new counter-memory that challenges not only the “other” but also those within the leadership of political Unionism who are said to have used PUL communities during the conflict only to abandon them in the post-conflict transition. [R, abr.]
65.5637 HEATH, Oliver —
Using constituency-level data, the article examines the BJP's vote swing at the State and Constituency level in India. Drawing on theories of electoral realignment, I examine the BJP's performance at the constituency level and investigate the extent to which the party drew voters from other parties (particularly Congress), mobilized new voters (via increased turnout), and appealed to the newly enfranchised (via increases in the size of the electoral roll). The results of the analysis show that the key to the BJP's success was its ability to mobilize new voters in places where it had previously not fared so well. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5783]
65.5638 HERNÁNDEZ RODRIGUEZ, Rogelio —
The return of the PRI to the presidency of Mexico in 2012 may be explained by the democratic situation or by the poor performance of the other competing parties, but the behavior of the old party itself played a major role. This paper explores the survival of the PRI during its years out of government, its national presence and its activity in state politics. It reveals the dominance of the party, the training of new generations of militants, the emergence of a new internal leadership and its capacity to adapt to the new conditions of electoral competition. The final section reconstructs the profile of the new governing elite, characterized by its origin in local. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5358]
65.5639 HEWISON, Kevin —
Thailand's politics in the early 21st c. has seen considerable contestation. Underlying the street protests, military interventions and considerable bloodshed has been a struggle over the nature of electoral politics, popular sovereignty and representation. The military and monarchy have maintained a royalist alliance that opposes elections, popular sovereignty and civilian politicians, proposing Thai-style democracy as an alternative. Those who promote elections and popular sovereignty argue that these are a basis for democratization. [R]
65.5640 HINNFORS, Jonas —
Why did the Social Democrats achieve so poorly in the 2014 general election [although] a majority of voters regarded the party as strong on important issues? This article suggests that a key reason was an in July 2015: 644–664.
In order to consolidate its membership basis and maintain its political leadership in the non-state sector of the economy, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been rebuilding its primary party organizations (PPOs) in China's urban business districts. Since residents' committees are either weak or do not exist in many urban business districts, local party authorities create umbrella party organizations to foster and territorially restructure PPOs. Four general models of establishing umbrella party organizations can be found, and the CCP has been building its “service-oriented PPOs” to accommodate the needs of the business world. While such party building strategies demonstrate the resilience and adaptability of the CCP, they might also pose potential risks to the Party. [R]
65.5633 HARE, Christopher, et al. —
Aldrich-McKelvey scaling is a powerful method that corrects for differential-item functioning (DIF) in estimating the positions of political stimuli (e.g., parties and candidates) and survey respondents along a latent policy dimension from issue scale data. DIF arises when respondents interpret issue scales (e.g., the standard liberal-conservative scale) differently and distort their placements of the stimuli and themselves. We develop a Bayesian implementation of the classical maximum likelihood Aldrich-McKelvey scaling method creasingly opaque strategy affecting the electoral as well as the parliamentary arena. The difficulties became acute when the party leadership chose to accept the Alliance government's recently implemented tax cut (December 2013). As a consequence, the party's credibility concerning equality and fairness was drastically damaged and the budgetary means available for welfare reform tightened. Moreover, the party leadership suddenly became hesitant regarding previous sick leave and unemployment benefit commitments. Very late in the day did the benefits pledges re-emerge. [R, abr.] [First article on “Political parties and the 2014 parliamentary elections [in Sweden]”, edited and introduced, pp. 121–135, by the author and Malena Rosén SUNDSTRÖM. See also Abstr. 65.5528, 5542, 5576, 5583, 5591, 5678, 5690, 5776]
65.5641 HOLLAND, Alisha C.; PALMER-RUBIN, Brian —
Organizational membership is one of the strongest, yet overlooked, predictors of vote-buying across Latin America. We argue that this relationship is driven by the fact that politicians outsource some of their vote-buying efforts to interest associations. In contrast to the existing literature that focuses on party brokers, who are loyal to a single political machine, we introduce the concepts of organizational brokers, who represent interest associations and renegotiate ties to political parties between election cycles, and hybrid brokers, who split their loyalties between an interest association and a single political party. We illustrate the operation of these alternative broker types through case studies of street-vending organizations in an uninstitutionalized party system, Colombia, and peasant organizations in an institutionalized party system, Mexico. [R, abr.]
65.5642 HORNUNG, Alfred —
I discuss the emergence of the Mao cult during the Cultural Revolution in China and its appropriation in cultural revolutions in Europe and the US to show how this image resonated with similar cults of popular icons in the West and lent itself to the formulation of theories and practices of postmodernism. The image quality of these cults facilitated the rise of the Mao-craze in the late 1980s and 1990s when political pop productions of Mao by Chinese artists emerged in New York and were then transplanted to China where they met with transfigurations of Mao's legacy in the People's Republic. The final stage of postmodern variations of Mao is reached with the presidency of B. Obama in 2009. [R, abr.]
65.5643 IHL, Olivier —
The right to vote is neither the first nor the only form of political representation. Over the course of the 19th c., disputes over its predominance occur between upholders of bunting flags, illuminations, anthems, and hurrahs. Their density and significance is retrospectively difficult to grasp. Democracy was first and foremost an assembly government. Elections then occulted flags and hurrahs as expressions of political support. This paper offers an understanding of what these “old” forms of political representation can teach us about electoral democracy. With a socio-historical perspective, it shows how the elected representation singled out from political representation in general, and how it gained autonomy by imposing ballots on hurrahs. [R]
65.5644 INDRIDASON, Indrioi H.; KRISTINSSON, Gunnar Helgi —
Are the effects of candidate-selection through party primaries largely disruptive for political parties or do they have some redeeming features? Icelandic parties have used inclusive nomination procedures since the early 1970s on a scale without parallel in other parliamentary democracies. The Icelandic primaries thus offer a unique opportunity to study the effects of primaries in a context that is quite distinct from the most studied primary election system, i.e. the US, which is characterized by federalism, presidential government and two-party competition. Our findings indicate that, despite four decades of primaries, the Icelandic parties remain strong and cohesive organizations, suffering almost none of the ailments predicted by critics of primary elections. We point out, however, that context matters and the way parties have adapted also plays a role. [R]
65.5645 ISHIYAMA, John; DeMERITT, Jacqueline H. R.; WIDMEIER, Michael —
We examine the decline in the “liberal consensus hypothesis” or the proposition that there has been a move away in the West from a partisan consensus that favors commitment to international engagement and multilateralism towards a greater skepticism about international engagement. Using data from the Comparative Manifesto Project, we examine whether changes in consensus were the result of shifts in the international environment or a function of domestic political changes (such as party-systems changes and economic performance). We test these hypotheses using data from 131 parties in 23 OECD countries across 365 elections from 1945 to 2010 and find that mixed support for the decline hypothesis. [R, abr.]
65.5646 ISHIYAMA, John; MARSHALL, Michael —
What kinds of candidates do former rebel groups that transform into political parties recruit to their electoral banner after a civil war? Although there has been a growing literature on the transformation of rebel groups into political parties, there is remarkably little literature on the candidates they recruit to run in elections. Using a unique dataset that codes individual-level candidate characteristics, we examine the kinds of candidates that a former rebel group, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), recruited to run in the single-member plurality districts in the first Constituent Assembly Election in 2008 after the end of the Nepalese civil war. In particular, we examine two key questions: Who did the CPN(M) recruit to run under the banner of the party? Where did they nominate different kinds of candidates? [R, abr.]
65.5647 IYENGAR, Shanto; WESTWOOD, Sean J. —
When defined in terms of social identity and affect toward co-partisans and opposing partisans, the polarization of the American electorate has dramatically increased. We document the scope and consequences of affective polarization of partisans using implicit, explicit, and behavioral indicators. Our evidence demonstrates that hostile feelings for the opposing party are ingrained or automatic in voters' minds, and that affective polarization based on party is just as strong as polarization based on race. We further show that party cues exert powerful effects on nonpolitical judgments and behaviors. Partisans discriminate against opposing partisans, doing so to a degree that exceeds discrimination based on race. [R, abr.]
65.5648 JACOBSON, Gary C. —
The incumbency advantage has diminished in conjunction with an increase in party loyalty, straight-ticket voting, and president-centered electoral nationalization, products of the widening and increasingly coherent partisan divisions in the American electorate. Consequently, House incumbents now have a much harder time retaining districts that lean toward the rival party. Democrats had been the main beneficiaries of the denationalization of electoral politics that had enabled the incumbency advantage to grow, and they have thus been the main victims of the reemergence of a more party-centered electoral process. Republicans enjoy a long-standing structural advantage in the distribution of partisans across districts, so this trend has strengthened their grip on the House even as they have become less competitive in contests for the presidency. [R, abr.]
65.5649 JAFFRELOT, Christophe —
The BJP's 2014 election campaign was unprecedented not only because, for the first time, a Chief Minister was the prime ministerial candidate of one of the national parties and tried to promote his state achievements in terms of development across the nation, but also because the party relied on the personality of its leader more than any other party since the Congress under I. Gandhi. N. Modi broke with the BJP's collegial tradition in several ways. He marginalized party veterans, short-circuited the BJP apparatus to use a parallel support structure, and resorted to new techniques of communication that saturated the public space. However, these innovations were superimposed on older themes which had sometimes not been used by the BJP itself before, but by others — like caste politics or corruption. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5783]
65.5650 JAKOBSEN, Peter Viggo; RINGSMOSE, Jens —
Much to their own surprise, successive Danish governments have succeeded in maintaining the highest level of public support among the nations contributing to the NATO mission in Afghanistan, while suffering the highest number of fatalities per capita. We explain this puzzle in a parsimonious fashion manner using a novel analytical framework derived from elite-competition theory, the event-driven school and the literature on strategic narratives. The Danish government initially built strong political and popular support by making a case for war that resonated with broadly shared pre-existing interests and values (national defense and support for democracy and human/women's rights), and role conceptions (supporting NATO and US-led military operations as a responsible member of international society). Succeeding governments subsequently maintained a high level of political consensus on Afghanistan through a process of continuous consultation and consensus-building. [R, abr.]
65.5651 JANDER, Martin —
The relationship of the three leftist terrorist organizations in Germany to Israel can be summarized as follows: All three groups, the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion; RAF), June 2 Movement (Bewegung 2. Juni), and Revolutionary Cells (Revolutionäre Zellen), and the milieu from which they emerged in West Berlin, Munich, Heidelberg, Hamburg, and Frankfurt, hated America, Americans, Israel, and Jews. They participated in the international terror war against Israel and did not shy away from attacks on Jews and Jewish facilities in Germany. They come out of leftist traditions that conducted anti-Semitic propaganda, supported the war of terror against Israel, and publicly justified and supported those groups and institutions working in the same direction. [R, abr.]
65.5652 JENSSEN, Anders Todal; NYLÉN, Joakim Wold —
In this first academic study of tactical voting in Norway, we identify three tactical situations that generate tactical voting. Two of them are directly linked to the electoral system. The threshold on the second-tier distribution of compensatory seats triggers both support votes and defecting votes. The parties see it as instrumental to win contested district seats and encourage tactical voting in districts were they can benefit from it. Some voters are more interested in constituting the preferred government coalition than supporting the preferred party and cast tactical votes. By introducing a new definition of tactical voting attuned to PR-systems and collecting new data (N=2278), it has been possible to estimate the occurrence of tactical voting in the 2013 election to 18 percent. [R, abr.]
65.5653 JOCHEM, Torsten; MURTAZASHVILI, Ilia; MURTAZASHVILI, Jennifer —
The basis of social identity in Afghanistan is the concept of qawm. As qawm refers to an individual's solidarity group, such as village, tribe, subtribe, or even ethnic group, it captures broad in-group/out-group distinctions. We analyze a survey experiment to explore how qawm affiliation affects individual perceptions of politicians running for a fictitious local election. Contrary to expectations derived from the literatures on Afghanistan and on identity politics, we find qawm affiliation does not influence voter-choice or perceived importance that a fellow qawm member should be elected. Moreover, qawm affiliation actually undermines individual perceptions a candidate will work on behalf of voters if elected. We explore two general mechanisms that may explain these findings, including weakening social ties and salience of the qawm. [R]
65.5654 JONES, Philip Edward —
I explore the types of economic voting that candidates encourage through their campaign appeals. Content-coded advertising data from the 2004 [US] congressional elections show that appeals focus more on policy positions than outcomes and more on the past than the future. Strategic incentives and electoral context shape the exact mix of economic appeals campaigns make. When promoting their own candidacy, politicians ask voters to think about (more unifying) future economic outcomes; when attacking their opponent's candidacy, they ask voters to think about (more divisive) past policy positions. In districts experiencing worsening economic conditions, voters are exposed to more information about policy outcomes; in districts where the incumbent is ideologically “out of step”, they hear more about policy positions. Campaigns in different districts, facing different strategic incentives, encourage significantly different types of economic voting. [R, abr.]
65.5655 JUAN, Alexander De; PIERSKALLA, Jan H.; VÜLLERS, Johannes —
This paper tests whether local religious institutions have a dampening effect on the probability of communal violence. It argues that a dense layer of institutions strengthens horizontal and vertical contacts and networks within religious communities. Horizontal linkages help to bridge social, economic, and ethnic divisions. Vertical contacts enable religious leaders to stay informed about communal grievances among their followers and to coordinate conflict resolution attempts. In our analysis of more than 60,000 villages in Indonesia, we document a statistically significant and substantively meaningful negative effect of the density of local religious institutions on the probability of mass fighting. This effect is robust to the inclusion of an exhaustive list of confounding variables and alternative measures of violence. [R, abr.]
65.5656 KANDEL, Matt —
While processes of land-dispossession — or “land-grabbing” — have garnered significant attention from researchers in recent years, local reactions to instances of land-alienation have received insufficient scrutiny. This paper focuses on small-, mid- and large-scale land-dispossession in the post-conflict Teso region in Uganda, and considers how people assert their agency when their tenure rights are infringed upon. I argue that those who lose tenure rights through small-scale land-dispossession are primarily focused on reacquiring tenure rights and meeting the demands of their basic social reproduction. In these cases, there is little resistance that is definitively “political”. In contrast, a “politics from below” more clearly emerges in the cases of mid- and large-scale land-alienation, which I attribute to particular structural conditions. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65.5657 KAVANAGH, Adrian P. —
The European debt crisis impacted most European electoral politics, but particularly in the Republic of Ireland. The severe nature of the economic crash and the subsequent application of austerity policies have brought large fluctuations in political support levels, with the three parties that have dominated the state since its foundation — Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour — all being adversely effected. The extent of these changes is highly controlled both by geography and by class, with political allegiances proving to be highly fluid in certain parts of the state. Growing support levels for left wing parties and groupings, but most notably Sinn Fein, appear to be moving Irish politics away from the old “Civil War” style of politics and bringing it more into line with the traditional class cleavage politics of continental Europe. [R]
65.5658 KEIL, Soeren; PERRY, Valery —
This paper discusses the results of the recent elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 2014. It engages with the results and what they mean for a number of selected policy areas in the country. The research is based on the statistics of the Electoral Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina and on the experience of [the authors], who have been working on Bosnia for many years. [R]
65.5659 KEMMERS, Roy, et al. —
While it is widely acknowledged that politics and politicians have fallen from grace among large parts of the public in western democracies, it is less clear what the latter's political discontents are about. To find out, we performed an interpretative content-analysis of the letters to the editor of the largest popular Dutch newspaper in the 2000s (2000–2009). It yielded three empirically grounded discourses of political discontents about “the state” — shorthand for the government, its agencies, officials, judges, politicians and political parties — “the incompetent state”, “the alienated state” and “the corrupted state”. The relevance of these findings is subsequently discussed in the light of research on political distrust and contemporary populism. [R]
65.5660 KEREVEL, Yann P. —
To what extent do external actors control the careers of national legislators in federal systems? Although previous research has demonstrated that multiple principals shape legislative behavior in federal systems, prior studies have been much less successful at demonstrating the relative power of each of these actors over the careers of federal legislators. Using an original data-set on the career paths of Mexican federal legislators, this study [examines] the relative importance of governors, presidents, and other party elites in shaping the future career choices of national legislators in federal systems. I find that legislators who share partisanship with the president or their governor are more likely to obtain patronage positions, while party leaders predominantly control access to the ballot. [R, abr.]
65.5661 KETTELL, Steven —
Issues about the relationship between the religious and the secular have become increasingly prominent in recent years. In Britain, one of the central themes around this topic has been the emergence and propagation by leading religious and political figures of a concerted anti-secular discourse. This warns of the dangers posed by a militant, aggressive and intolerant form of secularism which is said to be driven by an ideological desire to force religion out of the public square, representing a clear threat to religious freedoms and social morality. This discourse has been shaped by a number of interrelated causal dynamics, but the religious and political influences involved differ substantially. Respectively, these relate to ongoing processes of secularization and the increasing use of identity politics. [R, abr.]
65.5662 KIM, Minha —
This article speculates on democratic values of the internet in South Korea in the context of inter-Korean relations. For a theoretical clarification, external and internal democratic values are conceptualized. The former represents democratic values that are seen by members of global communities, whereas the latter are the democratic values perceived by national citizens. The article contends that the external democratic value of the internet concerns soft power, in that information and communications technology-driven politics and high connectivity of social network service appear to attract members of global communities with the country's positive image. The internal value of the internet in South Korea is considered to be social capital, as it bridges diverse social groups of the country and fosters altruistic public attitudes to embrace the citizens of North Korea. [R]
65.5663 KIM Youngwan; NUNNENKAMP, Peter —
Apart from altruistic reasons, NGOs may engage in developing countries under conditions of conflict and war in order to secure funding and survive in the “market” of humanitarian relief and development assistance. Applying difference-in-differences approaches, this article analyzes empirically whether the presence of US-based NGOs in Afghanistan and Iraq improved their chances of external funding. While there are some indications that NGOs active in Afghanistan had better access to official funding, the authors do not find statistically compelling evidence that it pays for NGOs to engage where the US intervenes militarily. [R]
65.5664 KIRDIŞ, Esen —
Since the start of its tenure, the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) departure from traditional Turkish foreign policy identity has elicited praise and criticism. This article addresses this development by discussing how the AKP has impacted traditional Turkish foreign policy identity, and how, in return, Turkish foreign policy identity has impacted the party identity of the AKP in domestic politics. In particular, this study examines the domestic politics-foreign policy continuum by exploring how foreign policy has served both as an extension of domestic politics as well as a medium to restructure domestic politics during the AKP's three terms in office. [R]
65.5665 KLAR, Samara; PISTON, Spencer —
Policy scholars and the public alike are concerned not only with the actions policy-makers take in the legislature but also with the money that enables policies to reach the legislative agenda. A significant portion of these funds come from individual donors. We examine how appeals from public policy organizations influence donation behavior. Existing research studies the effectiveness of appeals in isolation, but few studies consider the competitive environment in which these appeals occur. With nearly 1.5 million nonprofit organizations in the US, Americans face many competing appeals for their limited funds. We develop a theoretical account of the effects of competing appeals on donation behavior and test our theory with a large experimental study across two Midwestern states. [R, abr.]
65.5666 KLOFSTAD, Casey A. —
While individuals who are exposed to political discussion are more politically active, analytical biases make it difficult to show evidence of causation. It is also uncertain how long the relationship between discussion and participation lasts. Here both questions are addressed with panel data collected from individuals who were randomly assigned to their college dormitories. The data show that exposure to political discussion in college leads to higher levels of participation, immediately while still in college and years into the future after graduation. As political behavior is habitual, the initial increase in participation after being exposed to political discussion is a mechanism underlying the long-run relationship between discussion and participation. [R]
65.5667 KNUCKEY, Jonathan —
This article updates and expands on one of the few pieces of scholarship to probe the reasons for the survival of the Democratic Party outside of the [US] South. Using data from the American National Election Studies, the article concurs with these findings, that the Democratic Party has been successful in maintaining support among low-income whites outside the South. However, a class-based explanation offers a partial explanation for the Democratic advantage in party identification. Ideological realignment has also expanded the Democratic base among middle- and high-income liberals and moderates. Overall, the findings suggest that the electoral prospects of the Democratic Party outside of the South should be favorable for some time to come. The Democratic Party has prospered outside of the South, and this provides a decided advantage for the party in national elections. [R, abr.]
65.5668 KODDENBROCK, Kai —
The need for interventions like UN-peacekeeping, development aid and humanitarian aid in the DRC seems self-evident. This article asks how analysis itself can be resistant. Building on field research in the DRC, the article argues that it matters how one describes and criticizes the practice of intervention if one aims to resist it. Against the backdrop of a structuralist and an empiricist conception of critique, I discuss two important strands of current intervention debate in order to highlight what they render visible and what escapes from their view. Interview reflections by a former UN Under-Secretary-General and a conflict between Western interveners and the Ministry of Planning in the Congolese province of North Kivu serve to illustrate my main argument: interventions are complex and auto-critical and dependent on a neo-colonial discursive structure. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4793]
65.5669 KOEV, Dan —
I examine the factors contributing to right-wing populist party success in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). I argue that the success of such parties is best explained by the presence of salient ethnic minority parties. I propose that successful ethnic minority parties heighten the salience of ethno-nationalist divisions within a state, creating electoral demand for parties of the populist right. Political elites capitalize on the fear generated by the presence of strong minority parties and channel it into electoral support for the populist right. Performing statistical analysis on an original dataset of 108 CEE elections, I find evidence that the electoral performance of right-wing populist parties is influenced by the performance of ethnic minority parties and their participation in government. [R, abr.]
65.5670 KOOP, Royce; SHARMAN, Campbell —
National parties in the Canadian and Australian parliamentary federations, despite the differences in their federal systems, are dependent for their success in mobilizing electoral support on a similar network of local and subnational partisan activity over which they have, at best, only limited control. We find that, over the last 100 years, national parties in both federations have moved through a similar sequence of structural changes, none of which has altered their reliance on subnational agencies for mobilizing local support. We argue that these regularities flow from the nature of parliamentary government in these two federations, their origins as federations by aggregation, and the use of single member districts for electing the lower house of their national legislatures. [R]
65.5671 KOROTAEV, Andrej V.; ISAEV, Leonid M. —
In May 2014, presidential elections were held in Egypt. The majority of voters (96.91%) voted [for] ex-Defense Minister Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi, whereas only 3% of the votes were cast for the leader of H. Sabahi. The main opponent to the election of a new president was the banned Muslim Brotherhood, whose de facto leader M. Morsi was ousted as a result of the 30 June Revolution, and tthe constitution (adopted in December 2012) was suspended. The Muslim Brotherhood urged their supporters to boycott the presidential elections. Our mathematical analysis of the results shows that the level of support [for] the Muslim Brotherhood in the first five months of 2014 grew very noticeably. [R, abr.]
65.5672 KOSKIMAA, Vesa; RAPELI, Lauri —
There is a growing concern about the lack of political interest and engagement among Western youth. This has led to a revival of political socialization studies. One recent finding is that (late) adolescence is key to understanding the development of interest for politics. This study builds on this finding by examining political interest among Finnish 16- to 18-year-olds. The intended contributions are twofold. First, unlike most others, this study assesses the fundamental agents of socialization — the home, the school, and the friends — in the same analysis. Second, it focuses on the relative impact of the school in a high civic literacy environment. [R, abr.]
65.5673 KOSTADINOVA, Petia —
Growing up in Bulgaria during the “transition” years, I spent the summer of 1990 queuing up at the neighborhood newsstand waiting for the daily delivery of freshly printed newspapers. Twenty or so years later, I spent another summer among newspapers, in the archives of the National Library in Sofia, poring through the pages and — with no digitization of archives — collecting photographs of news articles published before each of the national legislative elections since 1990. Much has changed in the media environment since then, yet the study of media in post-communist societies and especially its relations to voters, parties, and politics in general is still in its infancy. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6165]
65.5674 KREBS, Timothy B.; TURNER, Fraser S. —
We study the effect of recently enacted campaign contribution limits in Illinois via an examination of the 2011 Chicago mayoral election. Because contribution limits for [US] state and local campaigns were implemented in the middle of the race for mayor, we are uniquely positioned to test the efficacy of the new law. In theory, we expect contribution limits to cause candidates to rely on more contributors making smaller donations. Our results indicate that the reform measure did not prompt candidates to broaden their fundraising base, and only when R. Emanuel's campaign is considered alongside his opponents' did the fundraising law reduce average contributions. We address the issue of whether the contribution limits established under the law are too high to produce meaningful reform. [R]
65.5675 KREISS, Daniel; MEADOWS, Laura; REMENSPERGER, John —
We present the results of a 5-day, observation and interview-based, multi-sited field study of the 2012 Democratic National Convention. We combine literatures on journalistic and political fields with scholarship on performance theory to provide a framework for understanding conventions as contemporary media events. Through analysis of field notes, photographic documentation, and interview data, we detail the layered production of performance in the journalistic and political fields, revealing how performances were directed both internally and across fields for strategic advantage, as well as for co-present spectators and the public at-large. We argue that conventions provide “boundary spaces” where actors from different fields gather and perform distinct democratic roles, as well as mediated, integrative spaces for the polity. [R]
65.5676 KRUPNIKOV, Yanna; PISTON, Spencer —
How does racial prejudice affect White turnout in elections with Black candidates? Previous research, which largely focuses on the relationship between prejudice and vote-choice, rarely examines the relationship between prejudice and turnout, leading to an incomplete picture of the impact of prejudice on the fate of Black candidates. We examine a key condition under which partisanship and partisan strength moderate the effect of prejudice on electoral behavior. Specifically, we argue that when a prejudiced strong partisan shares the partisanship of a Black candidate, she is likely to experience a decision conflict — prejudice and partisanship point in opposing directions — increasing the likelihood that she stays home on Election Day. We test this argument through observational analyses of the 2008 [US] presidential election. [R, abr.]
65.5677 LACHAT, Romain; BLAIS, André; LAGO, Ignacio —
District magnitude is a central aspect of the institutional context in PR elections, and it influences parties' and voters' strategies. The incentives for strategic behavior are stronger in smaller districts, as only large parties are likely to be viable. This article investigates how much the vote is affected by this characteristic of the electoral context, focusing on the 2005 and 2009 Portuguese elections. Portugal is one of the countries with the largest degree of variation in district magnitude and represents thus an ideal case for analyzing district magnitude effects. Relying on data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, this study shows a strong mechanical effect of district magnitude and a limited psychological effect. [R]
65.5678 LAGERGREN, Frederika; OSKARSON, Maria —
In the 2014 national election, the Green Party (MP) lost voter support from 7.3 to 6.9 percent, but still ended up in government. The analysis departs from the party's background as a new and alternative party based in the new divisions that have emerged due to globalization and the post-industrial society. We argue that this characterizes both the party's inner workings and its electoral base, as its ability to act in the parliamentary arena. At the same time, the party voters still mainly associate the party with environmental policy, which link the election results to the saliency of environmental issues on the political agenda. We note that the Green Party can be seen as a very modern party well adapted to the multi-level democracy which today characterizes Sweden. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5640]
65.5679 LAM, Jermain T. M. —
This article examines the political crises of Hong Kong after the mass sit-in of the Occupy Central Movement. The Movement was organized to force the governments of China and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to adopt a genuine democratic process for electing the chief executive of Hong Kong in year 2017. The end of the Occupy Central Movement did not solve the disagreements between the government and the supporters from the pan-democratic camp on the issue of democratization. Hong Kong is suffering a certain degree of political decay with declining political strength in consolidating a democratic model, maintaining legitimacy, running an effective government, cementing social cohesion, and preserving high degree of autonomy. Consequently, the political capability of the Hong Kong government to govern is weakening and its political strength is deteriorating. [R, abr.]
65.5680 LARDER, Nicolette —
This contribution draws on fieldwork undertaken in Mali during 2011 to examine a well-known land deal, the Malibya project, which involved a contract for the transfer of control of 100,000 hectares of land within the Office du Niger. Locally and globally, the deal was denounced following the destruction of homes and gardens as a result of a canal development associated with project. In contrast, the Malian government has argued such projects are vital for expanded irrigation infrastructure and thus securing food self-sufficiency for Mali. Somewhere in between are the farmers of the Office du Niger, some of whom argue for the cessation of the project and others of whom argue the expansion of irrigation in the zone could benefit farmers, particularly those without sufficient access to land. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65.5681 LAWLESS, Jennifer L. —
For decades, scholars have uncovered evidence that male and female legislators' priorities and preferences differ and that women's inclusion brings to elite-level politics a more cooperative leadership style. They also point to the symbolic benefits associated with more diversity among candidates and office-holders. Although these effects are not uniform, there is no question among political scientists that women's presence in US political institutions bears directly on issues of substantive and symbolic representation. Accordingly, it is important to understand why we have so few women in politics, whether they are willing to run for office, what happens when they do, and the extent to which their presence systematically affects the legislative process. I cover each of these topics in this review, emphasizing the latest and most interesting research that speaks to these questions. [R]
65.5682 LECONTE, Cécile —
One cannot but notice the often deeply normative character of much of the academic research on Euroskepticism. This article argues that it is as a result of the pro-integration bias in mainstream EC/EU studies that Euroskepticism has been conceptualized as a “phenomenon of the periphery” — the periphery of party systems, the periphery of domestic societies or the geographical periphery of the EU, epitomized by the UK and the Nordic countries. However, since the early 2000s, the spread of Euroskepticism at public opinion and party levels across the EU has contributed to changing academic understandings of Euroskepticism, from a quasi-pathology to a mainstream and enduring phenomenon in European domestic societies and democracies. The article [offers] some theoretical and methodological proposals for future research on Euroskepticism. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5545]
65.5683 LEE, Frances E. —
This review [examines] how party polarization affects governance in the US. It defines polarization and discusses [how] it can be measured. Some evidence suggests that the substantive policy preferences of liberals and conservatives diverge more widely, but the case for ideological polarization in the spatial sense is not definitive. Effects on the institutional processes of US government have entailed a hardening of party divisions and a tendency toward centralization of power. Nevertheless, these more cohesive parties are not more effective than their predecessors at enacting policies or managing routine governing responsibilities. The consequences for public policy seem best characterized as “drift” [J.S. Hacker, “Privatizing risk without privatizing the welfare state: the hidden politics of social policy retrenchment in the United States”, American Political Science Review 98(2), May 2004: 243–260; Abstr. 54.7351]. There is little evidence that party polarization has promoted ideologically extreme policy outcomes or has systematically advantaged either liberalism or conservatism. [R, abr.]
65.5684 LEITER, Debra; CLARK, Michael —
In recent studies, scholars have highlighted factors that influence citizen satisfaction with democracy, with particular emphasis on the role played by the institutional features of political systems, and ideology. This article presents the first empirical study of whether changes in important party characteristics can affect individuals' satisfaction with democracy. Using a measure of parties' character-valence derived from content-analysis of news reports, evidence is presented that when governing parties' images decline with respect to important valence-related attributes such as competence, unity and integrity, then citizen satisfaction with democracy similarly declines. However, this relationship is conditional on the performance of opposition parties. These findings are relevant to studies of regime support, political representation, democratic accountability and voter behavior. [R]
65.5685 LI Fan; CHENG, Joseph Yu-shek; SHI Xuelian —
Observations reveal that People's Congress elections at the county/district and town/township levels in China in 2003, 2006–2007 and 2011–2012 were not entirely free and just. There are many loopholes, and they had been fully exploited by the Chinese authorities to control the elections. The problem does not lie in the specific provisions of the Election Law; the fundamental question is that the Chinese leadership has no intention to conduct free and just elections at the grassroots level. Its most important consideration is to control, or to maintain political stability, and this consideration became even stronger in 2011–2012 because of the domestic political difficulties. [R]
65.5686 LIÑEIRA, Robert; CETRÀ, Daniel —
We compare the drivers, arguments and popular support for secession in Scotland, the Basque Country, Catalonia and Flanders. We argue that national identity, party politics and the economy are behind the independence requests, and the exact articulation of these elements varies from case to case. Currently, the most salient of these demands are the ones from Catalonia; Basque demands for self-determination are less prominent than in the past, whereas the demand for a vote on independence is much less articulated in Flanders. Although the Scottish independence referendum has set a precedent for solving independence disputes, we argue that the possibilities of exporting the Scottish referendum experience to other realities are limited. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5479]
65.5687 LIPSHITS, Hadar —
Funding for ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) education has become a major political topic in Israel. This article examines the conventional notion that funding for Haredi pupils increases as Haredi political strength rises. A study was conducted examining the correlation between budget changes and the political strength of the Haredi parties at three levels: parliamentary representation, extent of coalition partnership, and a government headed by their political ally, the Likud. The correlation was checked against the Budget Law and against actual budget expenditures during 1996–2006. Findings show the opposite of the widespread perception. [R, abr.]
65.5688 LISI, Marco —
The formation of partisan identities has been widely studied in advanced democracies, but little is known about the origin and development of partisanship in recent democracies. This article analyzes the relationship between age and partisan identities in new democratic regimes by considering the cases of new Southern European countries. In particular, we examine generational, life-cycle and period effects using longitudinal data from 1985 to 2010. Our results show that the position in the age structure has a significant impact on partisanship, while attitudes towards parties displayed by “post-democracy” generations are different from those of previous cohorts. We also find a negative period effect on partisanship, especially in the last decade. The final section discusses these findings and their implications for the evolution of partisan identities in contemporary European democracies. [R]
65.5689 LOWERY, David; GRAY, Virginia; CLUVERIUS, John —
Two very different kinds of models — cross-sectional models based on the logic of island bio-geography and time-series models of density dependence — are used to understand interest system density. While they share much in common, it is not at all clear how results derived from cross-sectional models are to be understood in terms of the temporal focus of the time series approach. Thus, this article first more thoroughly thinks through how these two modeling strategies and their empirical findings are related to each other. We empirically assess several theoretical conjectures about the relationship of the two modeling strategies by adding a temporal element to the typical cross-sectional analysis of state interest systems via modeling density dependence pooled across four cross-sections from 1980, 1990, 1997, and 2007. [R, abr.]
65.5690 LOXBO, Karl —
In the 2014 election, the Sweden Democrats (SD) established itself as the third biggest party in Sweden. To explain this unexpected electoral breakthrough, I argue that stigmatized parties like the SD ultimately shape their own fates by choosing how to exploit political opportunities that face them in different arenas. I present evidence indicating that the vast mobilization SD voters in 2014 largely is a product of strategies by the SD-leadership to exploit a perceived political vacuum in the wake of convergence between mainstream parties. The article suggests, moreover, that the very high degree of stigmatization surrounding the SD, in fact, has facilitated internal strategies to normalize the ideological appeal of the party. The current actions of Swedish mainstream parties are bound to further strengthen the SD. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5640]
65.5691 LUPIEN, Pascal —
The author addresses the presumption of irrationality of the poor and the resurgence of populism in Latin America. He considers the perspectives of supporters of the late H. Chávez and his “Bolivarian Revolution”. He finds that their support is based on concrete, tangible benefits and that they view political developments with a more critical eye than they are generally given credit for. [R]
65.5692 LUPU, Noam —
Scholars view polarization with trepidation. But polarization may clarify voters' choices and generate stronger party attachments. The link between party polarization and mass partisanship remains unclear. I look to theories of partisanship to derive implications about the relationships among polarization, citizens' perceptions of polarization, and mass partisanship. I test those implications using cross-national and longitudinal survey data. My results confirm that polarization correlates with individual partisanship across space and time. Citizens in polarized systems also perceive their parties to be more polarized. And perceiving party polarization makes people more likely to be partisan. That relationship appears to be causal: using a long-term panel survey from the US, I find that citizens become more partisan as they perceive polarization increasing. [R]
65.5693 LYLE, Monique L. —
This study examines how anti-Black political rhetoric affects race-specific collective self-esteem (R-CSE) and internal political efficacy among African-Americans and Whites. Results from an experiment in which subjects received an anti-Black stereotype-accentuating message attributed to either a political figure or an “ordinary American”, or no message at all, demonstrate that the political message undermined how African-Americans regard their own racial group, activated beliefs about how others regard African-Americans as a predictor of how African-Americans regard their own racial group, and undermined internal political efficacy. For Whites, the results demonstrate that the political message moderated the relationship between how they regard their own racial group and beliefs about how others regard their racial group, though the political message did not significantly increase or decrease racial group-regard or political efficacy overall. [R, abr.]
65.5694 MA Ngok —
For decades, Hong Kong has been struggling to deal with the China factor. The “One Country, Two Systems” formula sought to insert mechanisms of separation between mainland and Hong Kong after 1997. Increased mainland Hong Kong economic and social integration in recent years made this separation difficult, bringing resistance and hostility against the Chinese government and mainlanders. Political and social movements led to a new Hong Kong identity and new narratives about Hong Kong's political role in China. Deteriorating human rights records and tightened political control from Beijing since 2008 aggravated the “anti-China” sentiments in Hong Kong, which reached a peak during the 2012 Legislative Council election. The strong showing of candidates that adopted strong “anti-China” positions in the 2012 election implied more polarization and confrontation. [R, abr.]
65.5695 MACÍAS-AMORETTI, Juan A. —
This article uses the “opposition” parameter to analyze the political discourse and practice of the main Islamist political actors in Morocco: the “officialist” political Islam represented by the Harakat al-Tawhid wa-l-Islah (Unicity and Reform Movement, MUR) through its political alter ego, the Hizb al-'Adala wa-l-Tanmiyya (Justice and Development Party, PJD) in which it is included, tries to reach the power in order to reform the political system in moral terms from the inside, by establishing a dialectical opposition based on Islamic concepts against the rest of the primary elites. The outsider Jama'at al-'Adl wa-l-Ihsan (Community of Justice and Spirituality, CJS) keeps a firm opposition role against the Moroccan regime, denying both moral and political legitimacy to the 'Alawi monarchy and trying to change the social and political system from outside of the party system. [R, abr.]
65.5696 MAMONOVA, Natalia —
While globally it is reported that peasants are fighting against land-grabbing, Ukrainian rural dwellers show tolerance and peaceful acceptance of land grab-related changes. This paper analyzes the “exceptional” case of non-resistance of Ukrainian peasants and argues that it is not as exceptional as it seems at first glance. By studying various rural responses to the large-scale agricultural development in Ukraine and the resulting socio-economic transformations within rural communities, this research demonstrates that: the politics of dispossessed groups depend on the terms of inclusion in land deals; adaptive response strategies are common and can be advantageous for rural people; and peasants are more concerned with personal gains from land grabs than with benefits for the whole community, which often leads to their acceptance of large-scale land acquisitions. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65.5697 MANOR, James —
In May 2014, a regional party in Odisha, the Biju Janata Dal, defied national trends by thrashing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress Party at both parliamentary and state elections. It offered voters a high-profile regional leader who had radically centralized power and retained the capacity to govern somewhat effectively, even forcefully. It thus countered the appeal of BJP leader N. Modi to offer those same things. This analysis examines how this state government — like a few others — was able to withstand the national swing towards the BJP and Modi. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5783]
65.5698 MARCH, Andrew F. —
This essay focuses on questions that pertain to the ideological, normative, symbolic, and epochal aspects of political Islam. Political theorists, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists have disagreed on whether political Islam is an exclusively modern political phenomenon or is indebted to long-standing Islamic religious commitments. More specifically, they have also disagreed on whether the shape and ambitions of political Islam are entirely determined by the powers and institutions of the modern, bureaucratic state, particularly its secular desire to control, regulate, and reshape religion. These interpretive debates have often sat uneasily with ongoing normative debates about what kind of secularism democracy requires and whether democracy has priority over liberal rights and freedoms. [R]
65.5699 MARCINKIEWICZ, Kamil; STEGMAIER, Mary —
How do voters in preferential-list proportional representation (PLPR) systems make their candidate choices after selecting their party? We study this question in Poland and the Czech Republic, which use PLPR with different rules to elect the lower house of their national parliaments. In Poland, the system obligates voters to select one candidate from their preferred party, while in the Czech Republic voters have the option of casting up to four preference votes for candidates on the party list. Drawing on the ballot cues literature, we test for ballot position and rank effects in candidate preference vote shares. Further, we exploit the difference in voting rules to test whether ballot position effects are stronger in Poland where voters must cast a preference vote compared to the Czech Republic where preference voting is optional. [R, abr.]
65.5700 MARCINKIEWICZ, Kamil; TOSUN, Jale —
We examine the effectiveness of norm diffusion by the EU using the example of the climate debate in Poland. To explore the relationship between the salience of an issue and the internalization of the externally initiated debate, we analyze both quantitatively and qualitatively votes and speeches in the Polish parliament. We find that the Members of Parliament regardless of their placement on the right-left dimension or their participation in government have paid growing but still little attention to climate change. Furthermore, when climate change is concerned the political debate is mostly characterized by negative assessments of the EU's initiatives. [R]
65.5701 MARINOVA, Dani M. —
Recent scholarship has identified problems in the measurement of party system instability. To limit the conflation of different sources of instability in party systems (e.g., electoral shifts between stable parties and instability in parties, such as mergers, splinters or new parties), this article introduces a new indicator of electoral instability in parties, tests its robustness and construct validity and demonstrates its usefulness empirically. The indicators of party instability and the accompanying data of 27 European democracies, 1987–2011, will be valuable resources in comparative research on the interplay between elite and mass behavior, party and electoral systems, and democratic consolidation. [R]
65.5702 MARSH, Michael —
This article analyzes voting behavior in the many referendums that have taken place in Ireland, [especially] the five referendums since 2001, as this allows the use of the same measurement of EU support and the use of post-referendum surveys. Most attention is paid to attitude to the EU, party support and satisfaction with the incumbent government, reflecting the main debates in the literature on the issues and party cues. The relative importance of each is said to depend on contextual factors such as campaign intensity and economic strength. The major finding is that variations in the factors driving voting behavior in different Irish polls on Europe are slight and barely significant. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4987]
65.5703 MARTIN, David C.; NEWMAN, Benjamin J. —
Despite the importance of social capital to political science research, conventional means of measuring it are subject to a range of problems, including nonresponse bias, declining validity over time, and/or a lack of conceptual coherence. We argue that, in the case of the US, rates of response to the decennial census represent a powerful yet overlooked measure for aggregate social capital. We elaborate a theoretical rationale for the measure and empirically validate it, showing across multiple data sets and levels of geographic aggregation that census response rates (CRR) strongly predict various dimensions of social capital. Our findings highlight an important opportunity for social capital scholars to use existing governmental data to better measure geospatial variation in a key social science construct. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5567]
65.5704 MARTINIELLO, Giuliano —
In April 2012, women from Amuru District in northern Uganda protested their eviction from land they claim is rightfully theirs, in front of representatives of the Local District Board and surveyors of the sugar company Madhvani Group, the firm seeking land in the area for sugarcanegrowing. By resisting dispossession and challenging state violence, small-scale poor peasants reiterated the political salience of rural social struggles and highlighted the significance of land and agrarian questions. By placing social struggles over control, access and use of land and existing social relations — property and labor regimes — at the core of social analysis, this papers [helps] understand both the character of contemporary land-grabs and the nature of peasant resistance. These struggles cumulatively embody claims of land sovereignty and autonomy vis-à-vis capitalist markets and state. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65.5705 MATTHEWS, Felicity; FLINDERS, Matthew —
The role of legislatures in scrutinizing executive patronage has received scant attention in the context of parliamentary democracy. This article addresses this lacuna by focusing on the parliamentary scrutiny of public appointments in the UK. Presenting the results of an extensive program of research, it reveals how select committees have accrued increasing powers to challenge ministerial appointments, and how this has resulted in a series of unintended consequences that raise critical concerns regarding the overall added-value of pre-appointment scrutiny. The article is therefore of comparative significance for theories of legislative scrutiny in particular and executive-legislature dynamics more broadly. [R]
65.5706 McALLISTER, Ian; SHEPPARD, Jill; BEAN, Clive —
This article examines the 2013 Australian federal election to test two competing models of vote-choice: spatial politics and valence issues. Using data from the 2013 Australian Election Study, the analysis finds that spatial politics (measured by party identification and self-placement on the left-right spectrum) and valence issues both have significant effects on vote choice. Spatial measures are more important than valence issues in explaining vote-choice, however, in contrast with recent studies from Britain, Canada and the US. Explanations for these differences are speculative, but may relate to Australia's stable party and electoral system, including compulsory voting and the frequency of elections. The consequently high information burden faced by Australian voters may lead to a greater reliance on spatial heuristics than is found elsewhere. [R]
65.5707 McALLISTER, Karen E. —
This contribution examines the evolution of various forms of resistance by a small, ethnic-minority Khmu community against a Chinese-owned rubber concession awarded on over half of their territory. Villagers combined different tactics of resistance to undermine the concession, including anonymous acts of sabotage, refusal to work for the company, identification of powerful allies in the government and civil society, and recourse to law and state institutions. They also appropriated the dominant state development ideology as a strategic representation to assert their territorial claims. By working within state structures rather than by open confrontation, the Khmu have stalled the establishment of the plantation on their lands. Khmu resistance is one of many examples of resistance that are erupting in response to land deals across Laos. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65.5708 McDERMOTT, Monika L.; PANAGOPOULOS, Costas —
Former military service has long been considered a plus for the résumé of a political candidate, presumably because voters may rely on this information as a shortcut by which to make inferences about the candidates and cast ballots accordingly. We conduct an original survey experiment imbedded in a national [US] survey in 2008 to test the effects of labeling a candidate an Iraq War veteran. Formulating our hypotheses from known issue- and trait-stereotypes of the military, we demonstrate that military experience can be helpful to some candidates under some conditions. The experimental evidence we present shows that stereotypes based on both issue-position (military intervention) and issue-ownership (Republican ties) matter to voters facing a military candidate, but only when that candidate is a Democrat. [R, abr.]
65.5709 McGREGOR, R. Michael; CARUANA, Nicholas J.; STEPHENSON, Laura B. —
The origins and implications of partisan identification are well studied, but negative partisan attitudes — dislike for a particular party — have escaped such scrutiny. We argue that the concept of partisanship, especially in a multi-party system, is incomplete until negative sentiments are considered. We refine the concept of negative partisanship (NPID) by providing an improved method of operationalizing it, examine its incidence and relationship with positive party identification in a multi-party system, and propose two theories of its origins. Our results, based upon data from five Canadian federal elections, indicate that studying NPID in a multi-party system requires a broader understanding of the mechanisms that lead to negative party attitudes than in a two-party system. [R]
65.5710 MEER, Nasar —
At a time when all the political parties of Scotland are trying to establish a persuasive vision of the nation, inquiry into where ethnic and racial minorities fit into these debates provides one understudied means of bridging literatures on multinationalism and multiculturalism. Focusing especially on the lesser known question of how elite political actors are positioning minorities within projects of nation-building, this article draws upon original empirical data. The article illustrates how elite political actors can play a vital role in ensuring that appeals to nationhood in Scotland can be meaningfully calibrated to include minorities too. [R, abr.]
65.5711 MICHAILIDOU, Asimina —
The participation of the public in framing and debating the news has added a new layer in the making of EU contestation and the European public sphere, traditionally driven by journalists and political elites. Drawing on news coverage of the ongoing Euro-crisis (2010–2013) and the 2009 EP elections, this article examines the structure and content of EU contestation in mainstream online news media over time and across several EU member states. The cross-national patterns that emerge from this analysis strongly suggest that, despite the differences between the observed online news spheres, the EU is rather uniformly contested: national politics firmly remain the key defining “frame”; Euroskeptic claims are very much focused on the present rather than the future; and contributors often appeal to the public's emotions rather than reason. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5545]
65.5712 MILGROOM, Jessica —
The creation and enforcement of policies have been proposed as necessary to protect rural dwellers from dispossession by land grabs. Failing to consider the influence of the micro-politics of the policy-implementation phase, these policies are insufficient. Based on an in-depth case study from southern Mozambique of a collision between a green grab and a land grab, this paper describes how two policies were used, first to facilitate a land grab and then to rescind the land concession. At a shifting intersection between politics “in the air” and politics “on the ground”, convergence and later divergence among powerful groups shaped the space for policy enactment. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65.5713 MILLER, Patrick R., et al. —
This study examines the relationship between political discussion on Facebook and social network location. It uses a survey name-generator to map friendship ties between students at a university and to calculate their centralities in that network. Social connectedness in the university network positively predicts more frequent political discussion on Facebook. But in political discussions, better connected individuals do not capitalize equally on the potential influence that stems from their more central network locations. [Our] novel findings on social connectedness extend research on offline political discussion into the social media sphere, and suggest that as social network research proliferates, analysts should consider how various types of network location shape political behavior. [R, abr.]
65.5714 MILLER, Patrick R.; CONOVER, Pamela Johnston —
Based on social comparison and social identity theory, we argue that average partisans in contemporary US politics view elections as group competitions in which partisan identities are at stake. Using nationally representative survey data, we demonstrate that stronger partisan identities, more than ideological identities or issue preferences, are associated with a greater sense of partisan hostility —
65.5715 MIŞCOIU, Sergiu —
Using the methodology of discourse theory, this chapter analyzes how Romanian society evolved after 1989 with special regard to the tension between direct and representative democracy. [I argue] that in time the absence of the demos from the actual decision-making process fuelled a rhetoric based on direct democracy, and that beginning in 2004 that rhetoric succeeded in establishing itself as a hegemonic discourse. To test the hypothesis, I use the logical framework of discourse theory, analyzing the constitutive modalities of the rhetoric about democracy and the people, [focusing on] the tensions between direct and representative democracy and charting the sociocultural background of those tensions. I use the methodological arsenal of discourse theory, focusing on its five key arguments. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “The Romanian political system after 1989”, edited and introduced by Sergiu GHERGHINA. See also Abstr. 65.5241, 5254, 5411, 5564, 6162, 6192]
65.5716 MKANDAWIRE, Thandika —
While neopatrimonialism has long been a focus of development studies, in recent times it has assumed politically and economically exigent status. The school identifies causal links between neopatrimonialism and economic performance, and makes predictions drawing from what is referred to as the “logic of neopatrimonialism”. Neopatrimonialism is said to account for trade policies, hyperinflation, economic stagnation, low investment in infrastructure, urban bias, and ultimately, the lack of economic development in Africa. This article examines the empirical basis of predictions and policy prescriptions. It argues that while descriptive of the social practices of the states and individuals that occupy different positions within African societies, the concept of neopatrimonialism has little analytical content and no predictive value with respect to economic policy and performance. [R, abr.]
65.5717 MOLL, Nicolas —
The text analyzes the discourses and memories of the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics in contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). After examining the discourses around the Games in 1984, it analyzes the practices and narratives around the official anniversaries of the Games which took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1994, 1992, 2004, 2009 and 2014. It furthermore explores how Olympic symbols are used today in the public urban space in Sarajevo and in East Sarajevo, and how ordinary people from different parts of BiH perceive the Sarajevo Olympics today. The analysis shows that the Sarajevo Olympics, a symbol of a united Yugoslavia in 1984, and a symbol of destruction and division within BiH in 1994, have again become a more integrative symbol in 2014. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5160]
65.5718 MONDON, Aurelien —
The 2014 European elections confirmed the prominence in the media of the far right. While parties such as the Front National and UKIP [UK Independent Party] were successful, their performance has since been exaggerated and they have benefited from a disproportionate coverage. Their normalization was greatly facilitated by their description as “populist” parties. However, while this term “populism” has been almost universally accepted in the media, it remains a hotly debated concept on the academic circuit, and its careless use could in fact prove counterproductive in the assessment of the current state of democracy in Europe. This article hypothesizes that a skewed and disproportionate coverage of the European elections in particular, and the “rise” of “right-wing populism” in general, have prevented a thorough democratic discussion and impeded the possibility of other political alternatives. [R, abr.]
65.5719 MOREDA, Tsegaye —
In Ethiopia, large-scale land acquisitions have been growing ever larger over the last few years. A substantial amount of land has already been acquired by both domestic and foreign investors in the Benishangul-Gumuz region. The land acquisitions pose apparent threats to the economic, cultural and ecological survival of local indigenous communities. In particular, Gumuz ethnic groups, who depend on customary forms of land access and control, and whose livelihoods are based heavily on access to natural resources, are being differentially affected. Through a case study in some selected administrative districts of the Benishangul-Gumuz region, this paper examines how local indigenous communities are engaging with or challenging the recent land acquisitions. It shows how the apparent silence of the Gumuz people regarding the land acquisitions is misleading. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65.5720 NAGEL, Caroline; STAEHELI, Lynn —
This article, in examining the production of citizenship as a geopolitical practice, brings critical-geography scholarship into conversation with the critical literature on Western-funded civil society in “transitional” societies. We focus on the case of Lebanon, which has been targeted by Western donors due to its strategic importance in deepening regional geopolitical rivalries. We highlight the pervasiveness of Western democracy discourses in the work of local NGOs, and especially the tendency to view sectarian politics as a source of instability that must be sublimated by new forms of societal consensus. But our account also highlights the skepticism that NGO directors feel toward their own efficacy and toward the influence of Western donors in Lebanese society. [R, abr.]
65.5721 NEGRINE, Ralph; BULL, Peter —
This article explores British television news coverage of the 2009 MPs' expenses scandal as part of a broader analysis of television coverage of politics. Drawing on an analysis of the content of the coverage and examples of interviews aired, it argues that routine journalistic practices closed down the space available for a thorough and open-ended exploration of the claims made by MPs. Instead, coverage concentrated on the moral and financial laxity of MPs and the allegations made against them. [R]
65.5722 NIKOLAYENKO, Olena —
This article offers a contribution to the comparative democratization literature by analyzing the use of non-violent methods of resistance in a repressive political regime. It focuses on the role of youth movements in elections in Belarus. Elections present an opportunity for the engagement of youth in politics. The study examines how the youth movements Malady Front, Zubr and Belarusian Patriotic Youth Union sought to mobilize young people during the 2001 election. It analyzes movement tactics and state action in response to youth mobilization. [R]
65.5723 NYHAN, Brendan; REIFLER, Jason —
Fact-checking might help improve political discourse by increasing the reputational costs or risks of spreading misinformation for political elites. To evaluate this deterrent hypothesis, we conducted a field experiment on a diverse group of state legislators from nine US states in the months before the November 2012 election. In the experiment, a randomly assigned subset of state legislators was sent a series of letters about the risks to their reputation and electoral security if they were caught making questionable statements. The legislators who were sent these letters were substantially less likely to receive a negative fact-checking rating or to have their accuracy questioned publicly, suggesting that fact-checking can reduce inaccuracy when it poses a salient threat. [R, abr.]
65.5724 O'BRIEN, Thomas —
Although a relationship between established democratic political systems and environmental capacity has been described, the impact of the democratization process on environmental capacity is not clear. This article [examines] the effect of both prior regime type and mode of transition on environmental capacity, through consideration of the cases of Bulgaria, Portugal, Romania and Spain. In addition, the importance of the EU as an external actor shaping environmental capacity building is assessed. Findings indicate that variations in prior regime type and mode of transition had limited impact on environmental capacity development. Of greater importance were the persistent non-democratic legacies that influenced behaviors and actions during the democratization period. The requirements of the EU were fundamental in ensuring that environmental issues remained on the domestic political agenda in such a context. [R]
65.5725 ÖNIŞ, Ziya —
The loss of reform momentum and rising authoritarianism during the most recent phase of AKP government indicate that Turkish democracy is in crisis. Although the Gezi protests emerged as a movement from below reacting to the rising authoritarianism of the AKP government, it did not turn into an organized and sustainable movement. Similarly, external anchors or reputational effects are failing to reverse the backsliding of Turkish democracy. The notion of “bounded communities” is a key concept in accounting for the continued dominance of Erdogan and the AKP in the face of significant pressure for change. Erdogan's victory in the August 2014 presidential elections generates both benign and pessimistic scenarios for the future of Turkish democracy. [R]
65.5726 OSBORNE, Danny; SIBLEY, Chris G. —
Research demonstrates that the Big-Five's Openness to Experience is inversely associated with political conservatism. This literature, however, implicitly assumes that the strength of this relationship is invariant across the electorate. We argue that education — an institution designed to increase civic competence — affects the degree to which personality predicts various political attitudes. Specifically, we posit that education facilitates people's ability to identify issue positions that (theoretically) resonate with their personality. Using a national probability sample of New Zealand voters (n = 6,518), we show that education consistently moderates the relationship between personality and a host of political attitudes. Whereas Openness to Experience is inversely associated with politically conservative issue positions among the highly educated, it is often uncorrelated with the same attitudes among those with low levels of educational attainment. [R, abr.]
65.5727 OZZANO, Luca —
sues related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights have long been taboo in Catholic Italy, and they began to be debated in the mainstream media only after the organization of a gay-pride march in Rome during the 2000 jubilee. In the years since, the subject has become a bone of contention between the center-left and the center-right parties. In particular, a heated debate developed before and immediately after the 2006 parliamentary elections. After that discussion, the issue was revived only during the campaign for the 2013 elections. This article analyzes the frames adopted by the various political actors to address the issue in the two campaigns, trying to understand the peculiarities of the two phases of the debate. [R, abr.]
65.5728 PARSONS, Bryan M. —
Building on recent studies of social pressure and group conformity in peer groups, I apply a social identity framework from social psychology to the study of political networks. Using the American National Election Studies (ANES) 2008–2009 Panel Study, I test several hypotheses regarding the relationship between peer networks, the salience of partisan identity, and the consequences for intergroup attitudinal and affective polarization. The findings suggest that peer network homogeneity produces the strongest association with more salient partisan identities across several network characteristics, including cohesiveness, sophistication, and density. Both the salience of partisan identities and network homogeneity are also linked to significant intergroup polarization, that is, differences in in-group and out-group partisan affect. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5567]
65.5729 PATHÉ DUARTE, Felipe —
Islamism is not an abstract formula of Islamic faith, or even an excess of Islam. It comes from that context, yet in another level. This article will analyze it as a movement that, like any other social and political movement, has a certain doctrine and look for inspiration in a secular ideology that uses specific forms of political action to be succeeded. However, there is a difference: it is an ideology with religious precepts that become an immediate praxis, i.e. these precepts are reduced to instruments of analysis of social and political conflicts, thus justifying the dynamics political hostile political takeover. Islamism is a political ideology when forges governing formulas, based on the Quran, that demand the establishment of an Islamic state. It remains to determine the influence of religion in this political ideology. [R]
65.5730 PERESIN, Anita; CERVONE, Alberto —
An unprecedented number of Western women have recently joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The group has envisaged strictly non-combat roles for them, but violence is an essential part of their embraced ideology and several signs suggest that they could claim a more militant role. Their marginalization, however, is essential for the preservation of ISIS's power system, and it is consequently unlikely that it would accommodate such aspiration, at least in the areas of the proclaimed caliphate. It could be different in the West, where women returning from conflict areas or those, even more numerous, anxious to join but unable to travel, could engage in violent acts. [R]
65.5731 PÉREZ, Efrén O. —
I study the connection between xenophobic rhetoric and Latino politics. I claim that xenophobic rhetoric raises the salience of ethnic identity and impugns its worth. This identity threat leads high-identifying group members to engage in political efforts that assert their group's positive value, whereas low identifiers shun political opportunities to bolster their group's devaluation. I test these claims with an experiment embedded in a nationally representative opinion survey of Latino adults. In light of xenophobic rhetoric, I find that relative to low identifiers, high-identifying Latinos become less politically trusting, more ethnocentric, and increasingly supportive of policies that emphasize in-group pride. These results clarify xenophobic rhetoric's role in amplifying the influence of ethnic identity on immigrant politics. [R, abr.]
65.5732 PERSICO, Simon —
The politicization of environmental issues and the development of green parties since the early 1970s have challenged the position of big governing parties: how have they reacted to this challenge? Have they tried to dodge the new environmental questions, or have they rather fought the Greens on their own turf, by emphasizing these issues in their campaigns? To answer those questions, this article studies the salience of the environment in the electoral manifestos of 58 parties in 20 OECD countries since the early 1960s. This work shows that the salience of the environment has strongly increased over the considered period; it also sheds light on the role of the Left-Right positions and of the threat posed by green parties in explaining big governing parties' reactions. [R]
65.5733 PINTO, Luca —
Political competition is more realistically described as a dynamic process rather than as a series of static stages in which parties compete over policy and government-formation. This paper focuses on legislative party-switching as the main manifestation of this endogenously evolving process, linking individual switching behavior to policy and office incentives that are assumed to evolve throughout the life of the entire legislature. Using a new data-set tracking the timing of MPs' changes in party affiliations between 1996 and 2011 in Italy, it is found that switching is mainly motivated by policy reasons and that it is more likely during government formation periods and budget negotiations. These results are a consequence of the interplay between MPs' ambition and the alternation of key phases in the legislative cycle. [R]
65.5734 PREECE, Jessica Robinson; STODDARD, Olga Bogach —
Do men and women respond to various party recruitment messages similarly? Working with the Utah County [US] Republican Party, we designed a field experiment in which we invited over 11,600 male and female party activists to attend a free, party-sponsored “Prospective Candidate Information Seminar” by randomizing different invitation messages. We found that women were half as likely as men to respond to recruitment — log on to the seminar website for more information, register for the seminar, and attend the seminar. While we found some suggestive evidence about what recruitment messages may particularly motivate women or men vis-à-vis a control message, our findings are inconclusive because of a low response rate. This first attempt to experimentally test gendered reactions to recruitment in a sample of active party supporters provides a valuable baseline for future research. [R]
65.5735 PRUD'HOMME, Jean-François —
Towards the end of the President Calderón administration, several opinion polls revealed the low level of satisfaction with democracy in Mexico. The aim of this paper is to explain this “mood” that still prevails in Mexican public opinion twelve years after the first democratic change of ruling party in power. The principal argument concerns the weakness of the Mexican democratic state when measured in terms of macroeconomic management and control of violence. It also takes into consideration the efficacy of the political system, the character of pluralism, social inequality and political culture. The conclusions advance arguments in favor of a state that is democratic in both its form and informal aspects. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5358]
65.5736 QUARANTA, Mario; DOTTI SANI, Giulia M. —
By using the multiscopo survey Aspetti della vita quotidiana (Istat), this article investigates the association between parents and children's political and social participation, with particular attention to gender and regional differences. Multilevel models indicate, first, the presence of regional differences in the levels of participation and, second, a strong tendency of intra-familiar political and social co-participation. In other words, sons and daughters have higher probabilities of being politically and socially active when both parents are active as well, regardless of their region of residence. Moreover, analyzing the children's behavior compared to their mothers and fathers' separately we find that mothers' participation has a stronger effect than fathers'. This difference in the effect of parents' participation is indeed small, yet geographically homogeneous. [R, abr.]
65.5737 QUINLAN, Stephen; SHEPHARD, Mark; PATERSON, Lindsay —
Referendums often fail to live up to a deliberative standard, with many characterized by low levels of knowledge, disinterest and misinformation, negativity, and a focus on extraneous issues to which voters are voting. But social media offer new avenues for referendums to incorporate a greater deliberative dimension. Through a content-analysis of BBC discussion forums, we test whether online discussion of the Scottish independence referendum has deliberative characteristics. Results suggest a mixed picture, with conversation displaying some deliberative features (low incidences of flaming/discussion of referendum issues). However, low levels of discussion intensity, dominance by a few, little knowledge-exchange, and high gender-inequality illustrate that online referendum discussion lacks deliberative characteristics, implying that social media are not a panacea for referendum deliberation. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4987]
65.5738 QUINTELIER, Ellen —
Although the intergenerational transmission of political attitudes has been studied quite intensively, the transmission of the political participation intention has been neglected. This study explores the effect of both [parents'] political activity on their offspring's intention to participate. Using a data-set from 2085 Belgian parent-child triads, we tested the direct and indirect transmission of political participation intention. We found that although there is a direct transmission of political participation intention, after controlling for political discussion, political interest and socio-economic status, this effect is completely mediated. Therefore, we conclude that intergenerational transmission is an indirect process, supported by a high socio-economic status, more political interest and a more politicized family environment in which politics is clearly perceived as salient. [R, abr.]
65.5739 RAMIREZ, Mark D. —
A growing body of research recognizes that people's policy opinions are not simply positive or negative, but instead derive from a variety of positive and negative beliefs related to a political issue. This research expands this insight by explaining the variability in support for punitive anti-crime policies among black Americans. Data from a nationally representative survey of black Americans are used to show that a majority of blacks are conflicted between a strong desire to reduce crime and perceptions of widespread racial discrimination within the criminal justice system. Using a heteroskedastic item-response theory model, I demonstrate that conflict between these beliefs results in far greater variability around their support for punitive, but not preventative policies. [R, abr.]
65.5740 RAMTOHUL, Ramola —
This paper analyzes the impact of intersectionality and multiple identities on women's political citizenship in Mauritius. Mauritius is commonly known as a “rainbow nation” with its multi-ethnic population marked by ethnic or communal divisions. Communalism dominates the Mauritian political system and institutions, intensifying during elections when the different communal groups compete for representation in parliament. The paper argues that the strong emphasis attributed to ethnic and communal representation by the Mauritian political system and structures marginalizes women's political citizenship. Political candidates are often sponsored by religious and sociocultural organizations that are male dominated whereas the women's lobby is weak in comparison to the communal lobby. The paper thus contends that the communal dimension in Mauritian politics carries a significant gendered dimension. [R, abr.]
65.5741 RELLY, Jeannine E.; ZANGER, Margaret; FAHMY, Shahira —
Gatekeeping theory and the hierarchy of influences model were used as a framework to analyze democratic norm-development in Iraq. The study developed three watchdog gatekeeping models that could be adapted for other conflict or post-dictatorship environments or modified for longtime democracies. It uses hierarchical regression to analyze forces that influenced attitudes of 588 Iraqi journalists in their gatekeeping role. Individual-level forces, followed by ideological-level forces, contribute the most toward watchdog gatekeeping attitudes toward access to government meetings, and news media routine forces contribute the most toward influencing attitudes toward access to government records. [R]
65.5742 REUNGOAT, Emmanuelle —
This study of the uses of Europe by Front National [FN] leaders shows how the opening of a new European political space can have indirect effects, supporting political parties at the domestic level and strengthening specific actors within political organizations. The theme of Europe, together with European elections, are transformed by FN leaders into material as well as symbolic resources, which they mobilize in the national political space at both inter- and intra-party level. These uses of Europe help FN actors to widen their electoral support and allow party presidents to strengthen their position. The article reveals the specificity of the FN relationship to the European arena and underlines the strong continuity of the practices developed by the new leadership. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5545]
65.5743 RIEDY, Chris; KENT, Jennifer —
A systemic approach to deliberative democracy de-emphasizes the role of discrete deliberative experiments involving minipublics. Instead, this systemic perspective focuses attention on the quality of deliberation achieved throughout distributed governance systems. It opens up the possibility that institutions that do not appear deliberative in isolation may have a positive impact on deliberation at a system scale. This systemic perspective is drawn on here to assess the role of climate action groups (CAGs) within Australia's deliberative system on climate-change response. [R, abr.]
65.5744 ROCHELEAU, Dianne E. —
Land-grabbing has been characterized by large-scale commercial land deals or green grabs of large conservation tracts. In Chiapas, Mexico, green grabs employ a networked strategy across state, corporate and civil society lines to evict peasant and indigenous communities, and facilitate entry of extractive industries, plantations and industrial “ecotourism”. The resistance is rooted in place(s) and in a coalition of civil society organizations and autonomous communities. Network illustrations and field reports show that several environmental organizations occupy pivotal positions in grabbing and/or resistance networks, with large powerful groups linked to state and corporate interests. The experience in Agua Azul, a key node in a planned tourism megaproject, illustrates the deployment of networked and dispersed power to unmake and remake territories across scales. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65.5745 RODON, Toni —
Why do people locate themselves on the center? Despite being the most popular position of the left-right axis and playing an important role in party competition, centrist location is still a mystery. This article groups together and investigates the hypotheses behind this crucial position and reveals the motives of centrist self-location in 21 European countries. The empirical analysis reveals a novel insight of importance to ideological self-placement: Centrist self-placement is mainly a product of individuals' voting patterns and their lack of political sophistication. Results also show that the importance of these factors varies across countries. Findings in this article have implications for our understanding of the left-right axis and its role in party competition. [R]
65.5746 ROHRSCHNEIDER, Robert; MILES, Matthew R. —
Public demand for environmental policies can influence policies only when political parties incorporate environmentalism into their platforms. The economic downturn [since] 2009 may have caused European parties to abandon their commitment to environmentalism as they focused on solutions. Particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, where commitment to the environment is not as central to party competition, public environmental concerns may have been placed on the periphery of the policy agenda. This study finds that political parties, especially mainstream parties, in Western Europe represented economic and environmental preferences of voters about equally as well in 2013 as they did prior to the economic crisis. However, in Central and Eastern Europe, parties tended to be less responsive to environmental preferences, presumably because economic differences dominate political divisions in newer democracies. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5578]
65.5747 ROSS, Cameron; TUROVSKY, Rostilav —
We provide a detailed analysis of the recruitment of the secretaries of United Russia's 83 regional political councils and the patronage ties of the secretaries with their regional governor's. A study of the recruitment of regional secretaries provides important insights into: (1) the balance of federal and regional forces, and (2) the balance of regional elite groups in the recruitment of local party leaders. By analyzing these appointments we can detect which party branches have been captured by regional governors or other influential regional groups. The conclusions throw new light on the degree of centralization within United Russia and the consolidation of the party at the regional level. [R, abr.]
65.5748 ROWE, Kelly T.; LAGO, Ignacio; LAGO, Santiago —
The relationship between turnout and electoral results has been well studied but with contradictory findings. Thus far, an academic consensus on the relationship between turnout and electoral results does not exist, and the conditions under which this relationship can be observed are still unknown. This article argues for the need to focus on three elements: class voting, the mechanisms behind whether the correlation is observed over the short or long term, and the use of more rigorous model specifications. By looking at the cases of Spain and Portugal, we find a correlation in the short and long term for Spain but not for Portugal, and this is due to the prominence of class voting in the former. [R]
65.5749 RUIBAL, Alba M. —
In the context of new political and legal conditions, social actors in Latin America have recently developed new forms of collective action, including in particular legal mobilization. This paper intends to contribute to the study of this development, through the incorporation of elements of three scholarly traditions that have generally developed separately from each other: social movement theory, legal mobilization studies and constitutional theory. It points out in particular the contribution of democratic constitutionalism to the analysis of the role of social movements in legal change. It also proposes the use of the terms counter-movement and counter-legal mobilization for the study of collective action and legal strategies developed by conservative sectors that oppose the advancement of social movements in Latin America. [R]
65.5750 RYAN, John Barry; MILAZZO, Caitlin —
This paper explains changes in partisanship among [US] Catholics in the last quarter of the 20th c. using a theory of partisan change centered on the contexts in which Catholics lived. Catholics were part of the post-New Deal Democratic coalition, but they have become a swing demographic group. We argue that these changes in partisanship are best explained by changes in elite messages that are filtered through an individual's social network. Those Catholics who lived or moved into the increasingly Republican suburbs and South were the Catholics who were most likely to adopt a non-Democratic partisan identity. Changes in context better explain Catholic partisanship than party abortion policy post Roe v. Wade or ideological sorting. We demonstrate evidence in support of our argument using the ANES cumulative file from 1972 through 2000. [R]
65.5751 SAARTS, Tõnis —
The article explores the factors contributing to the decline and persistence of the political parties in Estonia, while proposing a more systematic framework for tackling the problem. The case study is focused on three Estonian parties (Res Publica, People's Union, and the Center Party). The article puts forward an empirical framework in which three central dimensions are explored: (1) system-level variables; (2) external-dynamic variables; and (3) internal-organizational-level variables. The results of the analysis indicate that the quality of party leadership and the parties' attachment with the major cleavages in a given society are crucial factors in explaining the parties' persistence or demise. [R]
65.5752 SAIKIA, Smitana —
The 2014 Lok Sabha elections in the state of Assam were marked by interethnic violence, fuelled by issues of indigeneity and “illegal” migration. This paper primarily discusses the electoral result from the Kokra-jhar constituency in lower Assam, the heart of Bodo politics and a hotbed for ethnic conflict. Two decades of armed struggle resulted in concessions granted to the Bodos, the largest plains tribe in Assam, in the form of a territorial council, under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian constitution. In the 2014 election, for the first time in the history of the constituency, a non-Bodo candidate won, with an impressive 51% of the vote share. The electoral outcome may be seen as a further polarization of the existing ethnic cleavage between Bodos and non-Bodos in the region. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5783]
65.5753 SAMPAT, Preeti —
Conflicts over land-grabs for industry, infrastructure and urbanization are on the rise in emerging economies. A slew of policy measures undergird such land deals in India but have encountered successful resistance from peasants and citizens groups. In Goa, resistance led to the revocation of the state's special economic zone (SEZ) policy and cancellation of all approved SEZs, many developed by prominent realty firms. As battle over three SEZs continues in the Supreme Court of India, there is hope that commons will be returned to local communities. There is, however, an impasse on the ground that begs resolution if the gains over SEZs are to be secured. The Goan Impasse can be resolved with egalitarian and ecologically appropriate rights to land- and resource-use for all that counter existing inequalities. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65.5754 SANBONMATSU, Kira —
The increasing racial diversity of women in the US makes the underrepresentation of women of color in politics an important area for research. To better understand the reasons for the underrepresentation of women of color and how more women of color might be elected in the future, this article presents a case study of a unique campaign training program designed for women of color. The program is the Center for American Women and Politics' (CAWP) New Jersey Ready to Run® Diversity Initiative. Campaign trainings have proliferated in recent years and seem to play a disproportionate role in women's election to office. This article examines perceptions of the barriers facing women of color and identifies the mechanisms by which the Diversity Initiative seeks to help women. [R, abr.]
65.5755 SATYBALDIEVA, Elmira —
Using the Bourdieusian framework to analyze the nature of social stratification in rural Kyrgyzstan, this article examines how local politics is strategized by different groups in the social field. It suggests two modifications to the Bourdieusian framework to reflect better the nature of local politics: (1) despite lacking significant capital holdings, poor groups undertake everyday resistance and mediated politics; (2) intellectual and traditional elites engage in the politics of “doing the right thing”, motivated by a sense of moral obligation. The article provides a critical challenge to the concept of clan and elite-led politics which is often used to explain events in Central Asia. [R]
65.5756 SCHAFFER, Joby; BAKER, Andy —
In distributing clientelist payoffs to citizens, the best strategy a party machine can pursue, we argue, is to target citizens who are opinionleading epicenters in informal conversation networks. This persuasion-buying strategy carries the highest potential yield for the party because the payoff can create a social multiplier: The effect of the clientelist gift can be magnified via the conversion of multiple voters within a payoff recipient's personal networks. Using cross-sectional survey data from 22 Latin American countries and a panel survey from Mexico, we confirm that individuals who engage in frequent political persuasion and who are located in large political discussion networks are the most likely recipients of clientelist payoffs. [R, abr.]
65.5757 SCHAKEL, Arjan H. —
Territory is a salient issue in post-communist countries in Europe, yet subnational elections have received surprisingly little attention. This article analyzes congruence between national and regional elections in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Slovak Republic held between 1993 and 2010. The findings suggest that election incongruence can be partly explained by approaches which work well in the West European context — territorial cleavages, regional authority and the second-order election model — but in order to fully grasp regional election outcomes in post-communist countries one also needs to take into account electoral alliance strategies and party supply change. [R]
65.5758 SCHERMAN, Andrés; ARRIAGADA, Arturo; VALENZUELA, Sebastián —
In 2011, Chile experienced two massive protest movements — one against the cost and quality of public education and another against the construction of power plants in Patagonia. This represented a unique opportunity to analyze and compare how Facebook and Twitter use were related to street demonstrations. Using a probabilistic face-to-face survey among urban youth (18–29 years old) conducted shortly after the protests, this study revealed a positive relationship between the use of social media and participation in both social movements, even controlling for other relevant variables (e.g. political interest, ideology and trust). The theoretical and methodological implications of these findings are discussed. [R]
65.5759 SCHEUERMAN, William E. —
This essay tentatively buttresses A. Somek's view that H. Heller's 1933 essay, “Authoritarian Liberalism”, provides a useful starting point for thinking about the ongoing European crisis, in which European authorities are favoring rigid austerity and pro-business policies while undermining basic liberal and democratic rights. Heller's unfortunate neglect, especially in Anglophone scholarship, is discussed. Nonetheless, Somek and other recent scholars who have turned to Heller to make sense of the European crisis downplay some of the tough questions raised by any attempt to apply Heller's analysis of the Weimar crisis to the contemporary setting. In particular, Heller's theory relied on a robust social democratic statism which has become increasingly unpopular even among theorists on the political left. [R] [First of a series of articles on “Hermann Heller's authoritarian liberalism”, introduced by Hermann HELLER, pp. 295–301. See also Abstr. 65.5770a, 5773, 5808]
65.5760 SCHUCK, Andreas R.T.; DE VREESE, Claes H. —
Previous research is unclear about who supports the use of referendums and why. One line of research suggests that people with greater cognitive resources are more supportive of referendums. Another line claims that referendums are supported by citizens who feel disconnected from the political process. We integrate both perspectives, include civic duty and political cynicism as key explanatory variables, and offer a model explaining referendum support across Europe drawing on both individual and contextual factors. Our study is based on a survey conducted in 21 EU member states (N = 22,806). Results show support for both perspectives and for our new indicators, suggesting that referendum support is highest among citizens who are critical of traditional party politics but committed to democratic practices. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4987]
65.5761 SE Hwa Lee —
Previous studies have found that political, socio-economic, and ideological factors are critical determinants of gender equality in political representation. However, these studies have not explained the combined effects of these factors over time in each country. Furthermore, because they focus primarily on Western, developed countries, the experiences of non-Western developing countries have been overlooked. To fill this gap, this article uses data on South Korea from 1948 to 2008 to examine the effects of political, socio-economic, and ideological factors on the level of women's political representation. Results indicate that, compared to socio-economic factors, political and ideological factors are more critical determinants of gender equality in political leadership. [R]
65.5762 SEABROOK, Nicholas R.; DYCK, Joshua J.; LASCHER, Edward L., Jr. —
Some studies indicate that a greater number of state ballot initiatives raise Americans' knowledge through increases in motivation and supply of political information. By contrast, we contend that political psychology theory and findings indicate that, at best, more ballot measures will have no effect on knowledge. At worst, greater use of direct democracy should make it more costly to learn about institutions of representative government and lessen motivation by overwhelming voters with choices. To test this proposition, we develop a new research design and draw upon data more appropriate to assessing the question at hand. We also make use of a propensity score matching algorithm to assess the balance in the data between initiative state and non-initiative state voters. [R, abr.]
65.5763 ŠESTOPAL, Elena B. —
The article describes transformation of citizens' psychology in the changing political context of a twenty-five-year period. Changes of political concepts, images and values are chosen for analysis from a huge number of psychological phenomena. The author gives a periodization of political changes in the course of political transformation in Russia. She concludes that currently Russians became witnesses of the end of this twenty-five-year period and the emergence of a clearly new condition of psychological state of Russian society that will definitely influence political process in nearest future. [R]
65.5764 SIMONOV, Konstantin V. —
Evolution of Russian political system on its current stage is characterized by search for a model capable of preserving and maintaining stability of its institutions, as well as achieving higher levels of political competition. This problem could be solved by forming a two-party model under which, on one side, the winning party gains the full authority for implementation of its policy; on the other side, strong opposition serves as a factor containing authoritarian tendencies. In the author's opinion, despite the stereotypes, a two-party system can be formed in Russia. The author analyzes the key challenges of the Russian political system, the advantages of a two-party system, the Western experience of bipartisanship. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6013]
65.5765 SINGH, Rajesh Kumar; MISHRA, Aparna —
The ascendency of religion and religious forces in public arena in last several decades has most devastating impact on the lives and democratic rights of the people generally and of women particularly. Women are primary targets of these forces. The paper explores how religion and politics have interfaced in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, four important countries of the region with populations belonging to three diverse and major religions of the region as well as the implications of this interplay on status and position of women. [R, abr.]
65.5766 SMITH, Graeme —
This article outlines the politics and pathways of promotion among government officials working in a rural county in Anhui province and their attitudes towards elite status. It analyzes the implications these processes and pathways have for the operation of local government in rural China. Drawing on interviews and relationships spanning 2004–2013, this article primarily relies upon the personal experiences of colleagues and friends who have attempted to rise through the ranks of government and business in Benghai County, with varying degrees of success. While the article focuses on political elites, in Benghai, it is impossible to separate business from politics. This article delineates strategies adopted for career advancement and attaining elite political status, and the effects these strategies have on the relationship between political elites and ordinary cadres. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5484]
65.5767 SNYDER, James M., Jr.; FOLKE, Olle; HIRANO, Shigeo —
One of the most important types of diagnostic tests in a regression discontinuity design (RDD) is checking for balance in observable variables within the window on either side of the threshold. This article shows that imbalance in RDDs exploiting close elections are likely to arise even in the absence of any type of strategic sorting. Imbalance may arise simply due to variation in the underlying distribution of partisanship in the electorate across constituencies. Using both simulated and actual election data, the study demonstrates that the imbalances driven by partisanship can be large in practice. It then shows that although this causes a bias for the most naive RDDs, the problem can be corrected with commonly-used RDDs such as the inclusion of a local linear control function. [R, abr.]
65.5768 SOKOL, Anida —
This article gives an overview of the three main mutually exclusive ethno-national narratives developed during and after the war (1992–1995) in Bosnia and Herzegovina through one of the main instruments of memory politics, i.e., monuments, which have been erected in large numbers in the last two decades. Through the analysis of symbols, shapes and inscriptions, I show how war monuments in Bosnia and Herzegovina serve as instruments of nation-building processes, i.e., strategies of identity consolidation and how they function as “containers of symbolism”. Unlike in the other Yugoslav successor states, in Bosnia and Herzegovina there are three nation-building projects: two related to the “outside motherlands”, Serbia and Croatia, and one to the state. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5160]
65.5769 SOKOLOV, Alexander V. —
Aleksey Navalny launched crowdfunding in Russia as a way to fund opposition activities. This article provides short analysis of this technique, examining case studies of Navalny's RosPil project, Boris Nemtsov's pamphlets about President V. Putin, Moscow's 2011 protest demonstrations, the Moscow Helsinki Group, Pussy Riot and local electoral campaigns. Even as the Kremlin steps up measures to control the internet, crowdfunding is a useful tool for raising money to support civil society and opposition activities. [R]
65.5770a SOMEK, Alexander —
In light of the reforms undertaken for the sake of the Euro, the article revisits the concept authoritarian liberalism introduced in 1933 by H. Heller. This notion seeks to capture the liaison between the “strong state” and economic liberalism. The article suggests that this notion can be fruitfully used to designate the new governance of economic and monetary union. It argues, particularly, that it makes sense to speak of an authoritarian style of governance even if the latter does not wear vestiges of outright repression. Two different faces of authoritarian liberalism can be distinguished: one that looks more towards authoritarianism and another one that views authoritarian rule as a managerial strategy that is good for the economy. The article then speculates whether the EU has been, indeed, successful because it shifts between the two. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5759]
65. 5770b SPIER, Tim —
Factionalism in political parties is mostly seen as a result of macro-level influences. The individual-level determinants of the membership in intraparty wings and currents have been neglected by empirical research so far. This study addresses this research gap by transferring the explanatory approaches of research on participation in general to the subject and putting them to an empirical test using data from the German Party Membership Study 2009. It is shown that membership in factions is explained in particular by political interest, internal political efficacy, an ideological motivation and the perceived ideological distance to one's own party. [R]
65.5771 STARTIN, Nicholas —
Recent developments have propelled the issue of UK membership to the center stage of British politics. By analyzing some of the key historic variables which have contributed to the UK's ambivalence and hostility towards the EU as well as more recent factors such as Conservative Party splits over “Europe” and the rise of UKIP, the article focuses on the role and influence of the tabloid press, and in particular the Daily Express, to demonstrate how the debate surrounding UK membership of the EU has completed its journey from the margins to the mainstream of British politics. The [diverse quality] of EU coverage among the UK tabloid press has led to a situation where its citizens are unable to [evaluate] the costs/benefits of EU membership in a rational and informed fashion. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5545]
65.5772 STEPHENSON, Scott —
Scholars have long recognized a propensity towards oligarchy within political parties. I explore this tendency through an examination of the New South Wales (NSW) Labor Party's 1927 Rules. These reforms are important because, by significantly decentralizing power within the party, they demonstrate how the inclination towards oligarchy can be resisted. The adoption of the 1927 Rules, however, also coincided with the increasing centralization of power in the hands of NSW Labor leader J. Lang and his allies. This occurred largely despite the new rules, not because of them. It was able to happen, however, because the reforms sustained a crucial democratic flaw in the party constitution in that they continued to give excessive power to the leaders of affiliated trade unions. [R]
65.5773 STREECK, Wolfgang —
H. Heller understood that C. Schmitt's “authoritarian state” was in fact the liberal state in its pure form, weak in relation to the capitalist economy but strong in fending off democratic interventions in its operation. Had he lived, Heller would not have been surprised by the close affinities between Schmittian economic authoritarianism and postwar German ordoliberalism, as mediated by a figure like A. Rüstow. Neoliberalism as today we know it drew heavily on ordoliberal doctrine, in particular through Fr von Hayek, who managed to merge it with Austrian economics into a powerful ideological force to replace Keynesianism after the 1970s. Today, the EU, especially in its incorporation as monetary union, closely follows the liberal-authoritarian template as devised by Schmitt and others in the final years of the Weimar Republic. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5759]
65.5774 SUHAY, Elizabeth, et al. —
R. Putnam warned over a decade ago that the urge to associate with similar others online may lead to “cyberbalkanization”, fostering bonding capital at the expense of bridging capital. This study examines balkanization with respect to political blogs, investigating to what extent opinions in posts and comment sections on blogs associated with the left and right are ideologically polarized. We also investigate whether extreme opinions tend to co-occur with uncivil discourse aimed at political opponents. Finally, this study compares political blogs with a newer information source that bridges the gap between old and new media — newspaper blogs — asking whether polarization and incivility are reduced on that platform. A content-analysis was conducted of blog discussions about a salient political event — Occupy Wall Street. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5567]
65.5775 SUITER, Jane —
This report documents the 2013 Meath East by-election through the lens of social media. It makes the point that social media can be used as a tool to examine political campaigns. Candidates use social media including Twitter and Facebook to market, to mobilize and to engage with their supporters and the general public. Utilizing all the major party candidates' Twitter and Facebook activity during the 2013 Meath East by-election campaign, this report finds that candidates vary greatly in their use of social media but almost all place a greater emphasis on marketing and mobilizing over engaging. In addition, it examines the extent to which social media can deliver a preference vote bonus, finding a significant (but small) effect. [R]
65.5776 SUNDSTRÖM, Mikael; SUNDSTRÖM, Malena Rosén —
The Center Party weathered what amounted to an almost existential midterm public opinion crisis, to end up outperforming its coalition partners in the 2014 general election. Although it too fell back, it shed a notable proportion of tactical support voters, and actually increased its share of genuine, first-preference, voters. The Center Party has revisited and refreshed its ideological foundation, which, after a stormy interval, appears to have knitted party factions closer together. This process, like the one leading up to the election of party leader A. Lööf in 2011, was characterized by unprecedented transparency and deliberation opportunities, and we argue that this has favorably impacted the party-internal arena. In the parliamentary arena, the Center Party has been overshadowed by the much larger government coalition partner, the Moderate Party. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5640]
65.5777 SUTTNER, Raymond —
The intricate strands of N. Mandela's evolving masculinity introduce a complexity that may contribute towards boys and men exploring ways of “being men” which are not only strong but also gentle. Mandela's identity as a man cannot be reduced to one quality that endured over time, whether in his early life or later, because of changes initiated by shifting conditions and influences, or more directly through his own agency. For much of Mandela's life he is self-conscious of what manhood entails and constantly probes whether he measures up to what he sees as its qualities, though over time he enriches his understanding of what it means. Mandela depicts his life as embracing a series of journeys, with both changes of physical environment and also in his self-understanding. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6258]
65.5778 TAKENS, Janet, et al. —
The prominence of party leaders in the media is one of the presumed causes of leader effects. Yet there is scant knowledge of the relationship between attention for party leaders in the news and the weight of party leader evaluations in the voting decision. This study examines the effect of exposure to personalized coverage on the weight of party leader evaluations in the voting decision. Based on priming theory, exposure to personalized coverage is expected to make voters weigh leader evaluations more heavily in their vote decision. The study is based on a content-analysis of the coverage of the 2010 Dutch election campaign and an 11-wave panel survey. Therewith the hypotheses are tested in a dynamic natural media environment. The analyses demonstrate that leader effects do occur. [R, abr.]
65.5779 TAN, Lena —
Recent ideational accounts of 20th c. decolonization have highlighted the significance of mechanisms like principled beliefs and ethical arguments for explaining the triumph of norms and ideas like racial equality, human rights and self-determination and their role in ending colonialism. I engage with this body of literature and highlight, through a discussion of Britain and its reaction to Indian calls for self-determination from 1929 to 1935, that explanations that rely on the importance of the adoption of these norms and ideas by the colonizer and their subsequent extension to the colonized may miss certain critical elements. I argue that metropolitan identities had a significant role in constraining and shaping the approaches of elite British policy-makers when they were forced to respond to challenges to their colonial rule in India. [R, abr.]
65.5780 TAPSELL, Ross —
Indonesia has elected a new president, Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”), who catapulted from being mayor of Solo in 2005 to Jakarta's governor in 2012 to president in 2014. Not part of the established former New Order hierarchy, Jokowi's ascendance to the presidency undoubtedly raises questions for the oligarchy thesis. This article examines neither the political machinations by which Jokowi was nominated for governor, nor his personal alliances with various oligarchs in Indonesian politics throughout the campaign. Rather, it examines the ways in which Jokowi became a media phenomenon and the most popular candidate for president as measured by most if not all of the polls during 2013 and 2014, despite his not being part of the oligarchic elite. [R, abr.]
65.5781 TATE, John William —
This article discusses the introduction of digital television to Australia, and the competing interests, and conflicts of power, surrounding this. It explains the primary outcomes of the digital settlement in terms of these interests and these processes of power. It points out how this settlement was very much at odds with the pro-market, deregulatory and competition-oriented reform advanced by the J. Howard government (and prior to it, the R. Hawke and P. Keating governments) in other industry sectors. The digital settlement introduced in 2001 entirely determined what Australians watched on their television screens for the first decade of the 21st c. This article unpacks the processes that led to this outcome. [R]
65.5782 TEMKIN YEDWAB, Benjamín; CISNEROS YESCAS, Gerardo Isaac —
The determinant factors of partisan independence are analyzed using the case of Mexico and the variation between its 32 federal entities. From an instrumental probit model, it transpires that when controlling for possible inverse causality between partisan independence and a negative evaluation of government performance, then last variable, provides, by far, the strongest prediction of lack of identification with any political party rather than cultural, modernization or political-institutional variables. [R]
65.5783 TILLIN, Louise —
This special issue examines the patterns, causes and consequences of India's 16th parliamentary elections. The outcome marked a break from the past 30 years of India's electoral history with a single party — the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party led by N. Modi — achieving a parliamentary majority on its own, without depending on coalition partners. Yet not all was new: there were strong continuities amid the change. In this collection, scholars present explanations for the BJP's success, analyze the extent to which urbanization has acted as a disruptive force for electoral politics, look at the significance of a focus on leaders over political parties in the election campaign, assess the implications of the election result for the Indian party system and examine state-level contests in which regional parties held out against the BJP wave. [R, abr.] [Introduction to a thematic issue of the same title, edited by the author and Gilles VERNIERS. See Abstr. 65.5526, 5637, 5649, 5697, 5752, 5784, 5816]
65.5784 TILLIN, Louise —
It is too soon to pronounce the decline or marginalization of regional parties in India's national political life. The aggregate performance of regional parties remained resilient in the 2014 elections, even marginally improving over 2009. This article considers whether the 2014 elections mark a critical break in the position of regional parties at the national level. [It] argues that the 2014 elections do not reflect a fundamental alteration in the dynamics of political regionalization. Rather they suggest a new phase in the impact of regionalization on the party system at the national level. In a landscape of continually increasing voter choice, electoral outcomes at the national level have begun to narrow to favor a smaller range of parties since 2004. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5783]
65.5785 TOROS, Emre —
Despite major differences among political systems, one can conduct new research on pledge-fulfillment by examining previously ignored cases. Accordingly, this article develops a new analysis for the Turkish context. Its main contribution is the introduction of explicit models, which evaluate political pledges and their fulfillment by using an original data set. In particular, it reveals the following facts: (1) in a comparative perspective, pledge-fulfillment is low in Turkey and (2) its governmental forms and economic performance have an impact on pledge-fulfillment. [R]
65.5786 TORRI, Michelguglielmo —
N. Modi's spectacular victory over Congress in the 2014 Indian general elections was made possible by many factors. However, the main and overarching cause of Modi's victory was the process which, starting in 2009 with the backing of the Indian corporate sector, built up the image of Modi as a kind of fearless and unblemished hero who, having raised his home state, Gujarat, to an extraordinary level of economic development, was now in a position to replicate the same feat at the all-India level. “Modi's legend” first conquered the middle class's imagination and, then, was spread among the masses and, transversally, among first-time voters by that same middle class, with the help of RSS volunteers. [R, abr.]
65.5787 TOUQUET, Heleen —
How do groups mobilize around non-ethnic issues in deeply divided societies and cities? This article [addresses] this question by offering a close reading of one particular exemplary episode in the recent history of post-conflict Bosnia & Herzegovina: the 2008 Sarajevo protests. Sarajevans took to the streets to demand more security in the wake of the murder of a young boy on a tram. The article analyses the framings used by the mobilizing social movements in depth, exploring in detail the connections with the local cultural environment, as well as the demobilizing authorities' counter-frames. [R]
65.5788 TREMINIO SÁNCHEZ, Ilka —
Central America countries entered the new century seeking to change the rules governing presidential re-election. All of the attempts studies have sought to relax the presidential term limits. In accordance with this behavior, this study seeks to understand the conditions that led to the success of presidential reform. For this purpose, we have developed a comparative qualitative analysis method that aims to determine the circumstances that shaped the experiences of those leaders who took steps towards achieving re-election modification. [R]
65.5789 TROMBLE, Rebekah K.; WOUTERS, Miriam —
In a time of rapid, globalized communication, what are the possibilities for truly meaningful cross-cultural political dialogue? Optimists contend that we may now speak of transnational public spheres — of spaces in which people reach across national boundaries to engage one another on issues of common concern. Skeptics, on the other hand, maintain that political, cultural, and linguistic barriers continue to preclude truly meaningful transnational discourse. And in the wake of 9/11 [2001] and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, many express specific skepticism about the potential for Western and Muslim societies to bridge such divides. Using an original dataset produced via content-analysis of British and Pakistani newspapers, we examine the discursive links formed during a quintessential transnational media event: the 2005–2006 Danish Muhammad cartoon controversy. [R, abr.]
65.5790 TUCKER, Joshua A. —
This article outlines how comparative studies of political behavior involving East-Central European countries have evolved in the author's own research from comparative studies including Russia along with four East European countries, to more broadly-based comparative studies including multiple East European countries and former Soviet Republics, to studies where behavior is analyzed in both East European countries and more established democracies, and finally to large cross-national studies focused on questions related to post-communist politics (namely, the legacy of communism on post-communist attitudes and behavior) but relying on the comparative analysis of survey data from countries around the world. In a way, the research has come full circle, to the most extensive comparative studies that are designed once again to better understand East European political attitudes and behavior. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.6165]
65.5791 VAN DE WARDT, Marc —
This study introduces a measure of framing distance, capturing the degree of frame overlap among parties. Additionally, it provides a causal mechanism explaining differences between parties in framing distance. Parties within PR systems have to take coalition considerations in their stride, and therefore mainstream opposition parties, which have previously governed, are unlikely to adopt large framing distances. Alternatively, challenger parties, those that have never governed, are likely to frame important issues differently. Nonetheless, challengers are expected to reduce their framing distance when performing well in election polls. Electoral success acts as a trigger for these parties to reconsider their goals (policy, office, or votes) and to become more office-seeking. These theoretical propositions are confirmed on the basis of the European integration issue, using a mixed methods approach. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4813]
65.5792 VAN DER BRUG, Wouter; BERKHOUT, Joost —
Some studies suggest that challenger parties push new issues onto the agenda, especially when they “own” these issues. Others claim that established parties largely determine how prominent issues appear on the agenda. This article focuses on an issue on which challenger parties have most “ownership”: immigration. Political claims on this issue made by political parties in newspapers in seven West European countries after three events that could potentially trigger attention to immigration were studied. Large and government parties appear most prominent in the news. However, findings show a significant, positive effect of associative issue-ownership on claims-making in the news, while controlling for party size and government status. So, when challengers have issue ownership they appear as claim-makers on the issue. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4813]
65.5793 VAN ELSAS, Erika; VAN DER BRUG, Wouter —
How is Euroskepticism related to left-right ideology in Western European public opinion? We argue that inconsistent findings on this relationship result from the changing nature of European integration over time. Initially, EU market integration mainly sparked left-wing opposition; after Maastricht the intensification of political integration additionally produced nationalist Euroskepticism among the political right. Hence, we hypothesize that the relationship between citizens' left-right ideology and Euroskepticism evolved from linear to U-shaped. We test this hypothesis by means of multilevel logistic regression on 74 waves of the Eurobarometer (1973–2010) in 12 EU member states. The results demonstrate an increase of right-wing Euroskepticism across countries, whereas the developments on the left are mixed. In the concluding section, we discuss the theoretical and political implications of these findings. [R]
65.5794 VASCONCELOS ROMÃO, Filipe —
This paper seeks to analyze the Spanish party system established and consolidated in the current democratic period, as well as to shed light on the reasons from the foreseeable success of Podemos and Cuidadanos in the coming legislative elections. The analysis relies on a combination of historical elements with electoral data and recently published polls that may be read as clues to a possible electoral future. [R] [See Abstr. 65.6204]
65.5795 VASILOPOULOS, Pavlos; BEAUDONNET, Laurie; CAUTRÈS, Bruno —
This article extends the current literature on European far-left parties by investigating the socio-demographic, ideological and attitudinal profile of the French far-left voter in the 2012 presidential elections. Particular emphasis is placed on the impact of the economic crisis on the sudden electoral rise of the French far left and factors such as economic hardship, change of economic conditions, attitudes toward economic inequality and Euroskepticism. Results suggest that explanations based purely on economic factors fall short of explaining the totality of the French far-left vote, especially if compared with the other parties of the French far left. Instead, attitudes toward Europe and post-materialism are central in the understanding of the renaissance of the French far left. We reach a number of conclusions regarding the future of far-left parties in France and Europe. [R]
65.5796 VERNEY, Susannah —
The surge in support for Euroskeptic parties in the 2014 EP is investigated through a case study of Greece, a country which suffered a dramatic dealignment of its party system after the onset of the Eurozone crisis. The extent to which crisis-era developments represent a rupture is assessed by setting the recent rise of party Euroskepticism in its historical context. Eurobarometer data is used to investigate the relationship between party and popular Euroskepticism and an alternative domestically-driven explanation of causality. The conclusion is that the crisis era has been a game-changer in attitudes towards European integration. The rising vote for Euroskeptic parties is not simply a side-effect of domestic protest. Instead the EU has become a significant electoral target. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5545]
65.5797 VICENTINI, Giulia —
This article examines the path to power of the current Italian Prime Minister, M. Renzi, by assessing the evolution of his voters' characteristics between the 2012 and 2013 national primaries. The socio-demographic and political characteristics of participants in the primaries are described, while the characteristics of Renzi's voters (RVs) are compared to those of non-Renzi voters (NRVs) and to the averages for the primaries' participants generally. In 2013, RVs became much more similar to the traditional left-wing and aged electorate used to voting in primary elections organized by the Democratic Party (PD) or the center-left coalition as a whole. The analysis testifies that Renzi faced a kind of “normalization” in the eyes of the center-left's sympathizers. [R]
65.5798 VIDAL, Dominique —
This article shows that the re-election of D. Rousseff as President of the Republic, in October 2014, is based on a solid foundation, as it contains hotspots which, far from prohibiting the possibility of a victory PT in 2018, make its future uncertain in power. First, we underline the balance of Rousseff's first term which, according to the perspective one adopts, can be analyzed in different ways. Second, we show the weakening of social positions provoked by more or less recent social transformations. Third, we discuss the results, strictly speaking, of the October 2014 general elections and the increasing difficulty in governing the President is expected to face. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on “Dilma Rousseff's reelection. Make-believe Brazil”, edited and introduced by the author, pp. 7–10. See also Abstr. 65.5372, 5603, 6115]
65.5799 VÖSSING, Konstantin —
This article shows that political elites can use political explanations to transform public opinion about European integration. It also finds that concentric group affiliation based on self-categorization as a member of the nation and Europe impedes elite influence, while individuals with exclusive affiliations are more easily persuaded to change their opinions on European integration. I conduct a laboratory experiment to test my theoretical expectations. By investigating elite influence and its interaction with identity, the article addresses conflicting perspectives on the transformation of public opinion in prior research: one approach proposes that integration attitudes are anchored in individual dispositions and thus relatively stable, while another argument emphasizes the capacity of elites to induce attitude change. [R, abr.]
65.5800 VOWLES, Jack —
Accountability of representatives to electors is a key indicator of democratic health. In mixed-member systems, the coexistence of two kinds of representation provides the opportunity to test competing claims with minimal confounding factors. There is debate about the relative accountability of constituency and list MPs, and in particular, concerning dual candidacy, where individuals can stand for both constituency and list seats. Analyzing New Zealand elections since 1999, with comparisons back to the previous single-member plurality system, this article examines the effects of dual candidacy, legislative turnover and the cases where constituency or electorate MPs have lost their seats, but remained in Parliament as list members. [R]
65.5801 WAGNER, Markus; MEYER, Thomas M. —
Existing research considers issue-ownership to be a positive attribute of political parties, which are seen as “owning” those policy areas where they are particularly competent and engaged. However, for some citizens, a party may also be a negative issue-owner if it has a particularly bad reputation for its handling of an issue. This article describes and explains aggregate and individual-level patterns of negative issue-ownership using a survey-based measure of handling perceptions from the 2013 Austrian National Election Study. Naming a particular party as a negative issue-owner is affected by partisanship, but also by policy preferences and government performance evaluations. The effects of issue-importance vary across issues. These findings lay the groundwork for more research on negative attributions of issue-ownership and their empirical consequences on vote-choice. [R] [See Abstr. 65.4813]
65.5802 WALLACE, Jeremy L.; WEISS, Jessica Chen —
Why do some Chinese cities take part in waves of nationalist protest but not others? Nationalist protest remains an important but understudied topic within the study of contentious politics in China, particularly at the subnational level. Relative to other protests, nationalist mobilization is more clustered in time and geographically widespread, uniting citizens in different cities against a common target. Although the literature has debated the degree of state-led and grassroots influence on Chinese nationalism, we argue that it is important to consider both the propensity of citizens to mobilize and local government fears of instability. Analyzing an original dataset of 377 anti-Japanese protests across 208 of 287 Chinese prefectural cities, we find that both state-led patriotism and the availability of collective action resources were positively associated with nationalist protest. [R, abr.]
65.5803 WARD, Ian —
The J. Gillard government's decision to reverse an election promise to not introduce a carbon tax prompted protest rallies around Australia during 2011–2012. Beneath the hyperbole of critics who dismissed these protests as imitating US Tea Party extremism lies an intriguing possibility: that these are each examples of a new form of right-wing political expression enabled by structural changes in the media. This article considers the nature of the anti-carbon tax “people's revolt” and its resemblance to the Tea Party. Both are a hybrid mix of top-down control and bottom-up grassroots populism whose emergence “outrage media” facilitated. In a manner that echoes the support Fox News gave Tea Partiers, talkback radio in Sydney appears to have played a particular role shaping the identity, agenda and uncivil tone of the campaign against the carbon tax. [R]
65.5804 WEAVER, Russell C. —
A great deal of interdisciplinary literature suggests that although the general motivation to vote is complex, it can be partially explained by a multitude of psychological and contextual factors, including local geographic patterns. I extend this observation to one particular type of voting behavior: sincere crossover voting, or voting for a candidate outside of one's own political affiliation, in a general election. Using a replicable methodological approach that incorporates partisan spatial segregation and exposure as predictors into statistical models of crossover voting behavior for a selected US election, I produce evidence to suggest that the spatial arrangement of partisans influences crossover behavior in the study area, although not uniformly for members of the two major American political parties. [R]
65.5805 WEINBLUM, Sharon —
Drawing on discourse theory, [this article] starts from the premise that democracy is not solely an ensemble of laws, mechanisms, and principles, but also a social reality shaped through discourse. In other words, it argues that democracy is a contingent construction whose meaning varies according to discursive practices. The object of this analysis is thus not the often-asked question of how to “balance liberal and democratic values against the need to defend democracy” or how legitimate the limitation of democratic rights is, but rather: how do political actors discursively construct the limitation of political participation and what impact does it have on the meaning of democracy? [R]
65.5806 WEN Xiaoyi; LIN Kevin —
Intensifying labor conflict in China has posed a serious challenge to the industrial relations system. Under growing pressure, the Chinese government has sought to reform the system but the results are meager. Among the supposedly successful cases, the development of collective bargaining in Wenling, Zhejiang province, has been hailed as a model of labor relations to be replicated elsewhere. Based on a detailed case-study of Wenling, this study analyzes the process whereby local government reconstructs the industrial relations system by organizing and incorporating the interest of employers and workers, leading to regularized wage-growth and reduced labor dispute. [Although] this restructuring is designed to expand union representation and institute tripartite collective bargaining, the tensions in the state corporatist structure may still undermine any attempt by the government to reconstruct industrial relations. [R, abr.]
65.5807 WERNER, Alban —
The electoral success of Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) is due mainly to the attractiveness and novelty that it represents for outraged citizens with different political backgrounds. This Euroskeptic, conservative party was founded in 2013 and already has a significant representation at the regional, federal and European levels. The Green Party, for its part, is stagnating and losing representatives. Despite their many visible divergences, these two German parties are not so different from each other when analyzed closely. At its origins, the Greens also gathered voters of diverse ideologies and today, both parties have reconfigured the political landscape in Germany and have similar approaches to actual conflicts.
65.5808 WILKINSON, Michael A. —
The current crisis in Europe recalls the theory and practice of authoritarian liberalism, the idea that in order to protect economic liberalism and respect for fiscal discipline, representative democracy must be curtailed. This configuration was first identified by H. Heller in late Weimar as a response to the imperative to maintain the ideological separation of state and economy and presented by K. Polanyi as conditioned by broader geo-political pressure to maintain the gold standard in the inter-war period. Authoritarian liberalism is now conditioned by conflicting imperatives to maintain the project of the single currency, respect ordo-liberal concerns of moral hazard, and protect “militant democracy” but only in one country. Does this reflect a broader geo-political disequilibrium, due to tensions between market integration, constitutionalism and democracy? [R] [See Abstr. 65.5759]
65.5809 WILLIAMS, Christopher —
Do parties respond to voters' preferences on European integration in elections to the EP? We argue that political parties do respond to voters' Euroskeptic attitudes, but that party type conditions responsiveness. In particular, we posit that larger parties are more responsive and that governing parties are less responsive to aggregate Euroskepticism. To test our theoretical expectations, we use data from the Euromanifestos Project and European Election Study from 1989 to 2009 for 252 parties across 26 EU Member States. Our findings have important implications for understanding democratic representation in the EU and the second-order nature of elections to the EP. [R]
65.5810 WILSON, Bradley R. —
I explore a land-grabbing resistance movement composed of unemployed coffee workers in Central Nicaragua. Between 1996 and 2000, a private agro-export conglomerate appropriated worker-owned coffee estates previously designated as the Worker's Property. Following mass protests between 2001 and 2004, worker representatives from the Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (ATC) and government officials negotiated the Las Tunas Accords, which provided redistributed land from 18 of those coffee estates to 2500 families. I argue that the roots of the control grab and the resistance movement can be traced to the contradictions of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)-led agrarian reform in the 1980s, the conflicts over property in the post-war period and the failed consensus on how rural labor should organize and be represented in the face of land re-concentration and capitalist consolidation. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.4911]
65.5812 WONG Stan Hok-wui —
Business interests have been overrepresented in key political institutions of postcolonial Hong Kong. An increasingly popular view holds that business interests, spearheaded by the real estate elite, have become politically powerful enough as to capture the government. I critically examine this thesis. I find that a number of high-profile mega projects considered manifestations of the so-called real estate hegemony actually met resistance from within the real estate elite, while cases where the real estate elite jointly promoted their sector interests have yielded distributive benefits to the low-income class. My findings qualify the “real estate hegemony” thesis by unraveling (1) collective action problems confronted by the special interest group and (2) positive externalities generated from special interest politics, and their political consequences. [R]
65.5813 WRIGHT, Matthew —
Although researchers have demonstrated that economic inequality and social capital are inversely related in an aggregate sense across time and space, to date, little is known about the relationship between inequality and the socio-economic disparity in social capital outcomes. Using yearly cross-sectional surveys of American twelfth-graders fielded during 1976–2009, I show that social capital is strongly related to parental socio-economic status, and that this relationship grows in strength as economic inequality increases. This relationship is confirmed both over time and cross-sectionally. Finally, I argue that, between resource-based and psychological accounts of why this relationship exists, the former appears more promising. [R]
65.5814 WU Shufang —
I examine the state-supported “modernization” (xiandaihua) of Confucianism in China and argue that behind this revival is an intention to institutionalize Confucianism in order to consolidate the leadership and ideological control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). However, while the CCP-led government has pragmatically adopted Confucianism to maintain the current power structure, there is no evidence that Confucianism will become the theoretical heart of the party. Confucianism has not acquired, nor will it acquire, a political position equal to Marxism. Many Chinese intellectuals have confirmed this tendency. [R]
65.5815 WU Zhang —
How does protest spread in contemporary China? This paper analyzes one case of cross-firm protest and two cases of cross-village protest in order to demonstrate a mechanism for protest diffusion, a topic rarely studied in the existing literature. It argues that central policies, protest leadership and a connective structure that links protest leaders and followers enable people with shared economic interests to protest together. Protests emerged when protest leaders, who were trained politically by the state and enjoyed moral standing in a small community, started popularizing policy documents among followers. Protest diffusion occurred when representatives from each participating unit coordinated with one another and coalesced around the core leaders, who decided tactics for the entire protest. [R, abr.]
65.5816 WYATT, Andrew —
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) made its national debut in 2014. A. Kejriwal, the National Convener and a founding leader of the AAP, had a decisive impact on the character of the party. This paper reflects on the significance of Kejriwal's leadership in relation to the literature on party systems and political leadership. In 2014, he attempted to open up a new political cleavage and add a new party to the national party system. His entrepreneurial activity drew attention to the issues of corruption and governance. Kejriwal's political leadership is assessed in terms of his ability to set objectives for the party, his interaction with followers, his efforts to represent those followers and the development of party institutions. Kejriwal's performance as a party leader in 2014 was uneven. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 65.5783]
65.5817 YAIR, Omer; SULITZEANU-KENAN, Raanan —
Accusations of political bias in the mass media, academia, the courts and various other institutions are common in many democracies. However, despite the prevalence of these accusations and the public attention they have received, research on the effects of perceived ideological distance on perceptions of political bias is lacking. Focusing on perceptions of political bias in academia, and drawing on a survey of 1,257 students in social science and law faculties in five Israeli universities, we show that the perceived ideological distance between a student and her set of professors increases perceptions of politically biased behavior of professors, and that the effects of “left-wing” and “right-wing” ideological distances are not symmetric. Possible implications and directions for further research are then suggested. [R]
65.5818 YANG Song, et al. —
Scholars have long been examining the presidential nomination process in the US. In addition to studies considering the selection mechanism itself, there has been a movement towards analyzing the contest even before voting begins. Campaign finance allows for a reliable and valid means to examine the year prior to the nomination with data that are not just vast in quantity but also consistent across time. Donors who gave to multiple campaigns represent a particularly important subset of elite participants in elections whose behavior shed light on phenomena of parties functioning as a network. We find only rare instances of multiple donors giving across party and that Democratic contributors function as a far more cohesive unit. [R, abr.]
65.5819 YARDIMCI-GEYIKÇI, Şebnem —
The literature on democratic consolidation emphasizes the importance of effective parties for the functioning of democracy. Specifically, the institutional resilience of democracy and the consolidation of broad-based representative government require the institutionalization of major political factions. I reassess this thesis and apply it to the political parties in Turkey and Southern Europe by employing the comparative method of difference. Two major conclusions are reached: (1) party institutionalization does not constitute a sufficient condition for democratic consolidation. Moreover, several institutional rules that may challenge the very idea of democracy tend to support party institutionalization. (2) Party institutionalization reinforced by partisan polarization may result in tenser relations among political parties — a situation that does not contribute to democratic consolidation. [R]
65.5820 YATES, Luke —
The relations between everyday life and political participation are of interest for much contemporary social science. Yet studies of social movement protest still pay disproportionate attention to moments of mobilization, and to movements with clear organizational boundaries, tactics and goals. Exceptions have explored collective identity, “free spaces” and prefigurative politics, but such processes are framed as important only in accounting for movements in abeyance, or in explaining movement persistence. This article focuses on the social practices taking place in and around social movement spaces, showing that political meanings, knowledge and alternative forms of social organization are continually being developed and cultivated. Social centers in Barcelona, autonomous political spaces hosting cultural and educational events, protest campaigns and alternative living arrangements, are used as empirical case studies. [R, abr.]
65.5821 ZANG Xiaowei; CHEN Nabo —
Many scholars have shown that cadre status is associated with cadre earnings advantages in rural China. What is less clear from the published research is how political power is used by rural elites to generate personal gains. We narrow this knowledge gap by studying three main mechanisms whereby cadre privileges are reproduced in rural China. Using ethnographic data from three rural townships in Guangdong province, we show that local economies have been differentiated in the post-1978 era, leading to three different mechanisms with which village leaders in each of the three townships have maintained their earnings advantages respectively, i.e., local corporatism, informal bargaining and opportunistic parasitism. We predict that local corporatism will be the dominant model of the reproduction of cadre privileges in rural China. [R] [See Abstr. 65.5484]
65.5822 ZILLER, Conrad; SCHÜBEL, Thomas —
Contrasting “the pure people” with “the corrupt elite” is a prominent rhetorical figure of populist radical-right parties and their proponents. However, scholars rarely consider political corruption as an explanatory factor for the electoral success of this party family. This study investigates the role of individual corruption experience in dealing with public officials for radical-right party support in 12 European countries. We contend that the relationship between corruption experience and voting radical-right is essentially mediated by citizens' trust in public officials and political institutions. The empirical results support this argument, showing that exposure to corruption diminishes political trust which in turn leads to a higher propensity to vote for a radical-right party. [R, abr.]
65.5823 ZUBEK, Radoslaw; KLÜVER, Heike —
When do coalitions do what they promise? We examine how coalition cabinets fulfill post-electoral legislative agendas. Many coalitions announce programs identifying bills that they plan to introduce to parliament in the months ahead. Even though coalition parties publicly signal commitment to all such proposals, there is variation in the extent to which cabinets meet their own deadlines. We argue that pledge-fulfillment is driven by differences in the divisiveness and salience of legislative initiatives. We test our theoretical expectations based on an empirical analysis of over 500 legislative pledges made by the Polish cabinet between 2008 and 2011. Our results confirm that pledges dealing with less divisive and more salient issues are likely to be fulfilled with less delay than those dealing with more divisive and less important issues. [R, abr.]