Abstract
73.7378 ABBOTT, Jared ; TOUCHTON, Michael —
How does the structure of democratic institutions affect citizen engagement? This study employs conjoint analysis to assess the effects of institutional design on political participation in participatory budgeting (PB) programs. We find evidence that PB program design strongly affects citizens’ interest in participation. Participation appeals more to citizens when PB programs offer participants meaningful control over decision-making outcomes, when barriers to participation are low, and when resources allocated through PB are targeted diffusely to communities rather than individual beneficiaries. We also find that focusing PB on issues specific to marginalized communities does not necessarily boost interest in participation among members of those communities. Finally, we observe few systematic differences in preferences for participation between demographic groups traditionally associated with low rates of civic engagement compared to other groups. [R, abr.]
73.7379 AHMED, Saifuddin ; MADRID-MORALES, Dani ; TULLY, Melissa —
This study explores the role of political information seeking on social media and perceived exposure to misinformation in influencing online political engagement. A survey investigation of three Sub-Saharan African countries (Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa) suggests that both information seeking and perceived exposure to misinformation are positively associated with online political engagement. We find that younger citizens are more actively engaged in online political activities. However, we also find that perceived exposure to misinformation has varying effects on political engagement across age groups. More frequent perceived exposure to misinformation is found to be a mobilizer for online political engagement for the older population. We conclude with a discussion of how social media may facilitate greater engagement for the older population. Still, the mobilizing role of misinformation exposure raises concerns about the consequences of such political engagement. Theoretical implications for political engagement research, in general and in the countries under study, are discussed. [R]
73.7380 AKAN, Murat —
One mark of the rising research field of secularism and religion is that the field itself moved from area studies towards mainstream social science. This move can be traced through the increasing significance of Turkey. Turkey’s AKP was presented as a liberal and moderate challenge to radical Kemalist secularism in Turkish Studies, then analytical pillars of research in comparative politics and political theory relied on this presentation. After AKP’s authoritarian turn, how can we reflect on its past narration as liberal and moderate? As opposed to the thesis of rupture between the early and the late AKP, this article develops the thesis of confiscation. First, I resituate Kemalist secularism vis-à-vis French secularism with comparative history. I argue that institutionally it’s a limited, not a radical, secularism. Then, I examine gradual institutional changes during the AKP with statistics, court decisions, legislation and parliamentary discussions, and demonstrate that limited Kemalist secular institutions ease the way for AKP’s will to religionize society and the state. [R, abr.]
73.7381 AL-FADHAT, Faris ; CHOI Jin-Wook —
This article investigates the outcomes and examines the implications of South Korea’s 2022 presidential election on the country’s domestic politics and economics, specifically regarding the new government’s exercise of executive power. While the 2022 election saw the return of the conservatives to power after five years of a progressive government, this article argues that the election won by Yoon Suk-yeol of the People Power Party reflects the growing polarised politics along partisan lines between conservatives and progressives – rooted in the contingency of class formation through the long-standing neo-liberal policy of the South Korean developmental state. Such political divide, which has taken place amid the broader context of the increasing polarising populism across developed and developing countries in recent years, constrains the Yoon administration from addressing domestic issues, notably economic woes such as ongoing income inequality, sluggish job creation, fluctuating housing prices, as well as corruption that links high-profile politicians and chaebol. [R, abr.]
73.7382 ALBRECHT, Holger, et al.—
Popular attitudes in support of authoritarian alternatives and weak party systems constitute important threats to democratic consolidation and the stability of new democracies. This article explores popular alienation from established political actors in Tunisia. Under what conditions do citizens support alternatives to the elites in power and the institutional infrastructure of a new democracy? Drawing on an original, nationally representative survey in Tunisia administered in 2017, this article examines three categories of popular attitudes in support of political outsiders. Military interventionism appears in people’s preferences for anti-system politics — the most immediate challenge to the country’s stability and democratic transition. Anti-political establishment sentiments are shown in people’s preferences for an enhanced role of the country’s main trade union as a civil-society alternative to political party elites. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7751]
73.7383 ALMEIDA, Dimitri —
The article frames current practices of French laïcité in terms of spatial governmentality. It builds upon this notion to explore spatialised representations of religion and secularism in ‘hijab stories’ (narratives of the self that focus on the daily experiences of women who wear a hijab). The analysis of Fatimata Diallo’s Sous mon voile and Nargesse Bibimoune’s Confidence à mon voile reveals an ever-expansive reach of an exclusionary reading of laïcité. This phenomenon has severely restricted the spatial practice of hijabi women in French society favouring adaptive strategies that include the creation of counter-spaces of subjectivation and self-expression. [R]
73.7384 APAYDIN, Fulya ; ÇOBAN, Mehmet Kerem —
Recent debates on financialization in emerging market economies highlight the terms of unequal exchange that they are embedded in, where international capital flows steered by powerful financial actors and transnationalized banks have a major impact on economic growth performance. As a result, many of the small open economies in the Global South have become increasingly sensitive to international market volatilities, as the post-2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) episode has shown. Yet, we know much less about the political implications of these interactions. How do unequal financial relations influence political trajectories in emerging market economies? Using process tracing and based on original evidence from Turkey, we find that when GDP growth is dependent on financial inflows under a credit-led growth model, the constraints on the domestic policy space following an economic crisis allowed the ruling party to instrumentalize monetary and regulatory institutions as financial agents of political repression. [R]
73.7385 ARTER, David —
In the genealogy of the Scandinavian populist-party family, agrarian populism has been largely neglected and, when discussed at all, it is traced back to Finland in the late 1950s. This paper argues: (1) that agrarian populism long predated the 1950s and that it was politically salient from the decade before Finnish independence in 1917; (2) that it is useful to distinguish between an agrarian-class and agrarian-populist party type; (3) that in wider comparative perspective, first-wave Finnish agrarian populism was distinctive; and 4) that during the critical party-building phase, the Finnish Agrarian Party (AP) is best characterised a populist party embodying a diffuse small-farmer antipathy towards socially superior urban elites. The AP did not create this ‘bigwig hatred’ (herraviha), but in perpetuating it and ‘othering it’ within a binary ‘us-and-them’ paradigm, it became the first populist party in both Finland and Scandinavia. [R]
73.7386 ASLAN, Ömer ; ÖZKAN, Mehmet —
When do ordinary civilians mobilise to resist military coup attempts? Existing literature based largely on single case studies puts forward three variables: political culture, popular support for the government, and material (economic) dependency between the government and its supporters. Finding these explanations insufficient, we first utilise existing military coup data sets and identify the universe of cases of civilian resistance (19) to military coups. Taking our next cue from social movement and mobilisation studies, we focus on mobilisation networks and leadership as possible causal conditions. We also follow the approach of searching for the causes-of-effects, working backward from the outcome of interest (civilian resistance) to look for additional causal conditions. A comparative analysis of eight positive (civilian resistance) cases shows that collective yearning for change, transformative leadership, resistance by the leadership and robust mobilisation power in the state capital and largest cities may together carry more explanatory power. [R, abr.]
73.7387 AUERBACH, Kiran Rose ; KARTNER, Jennifer —
Recent democratic backsliding in Eastern Europe challenges the optimism of two decades of scholarship on post-communist democratization. The most severe form of backsliding — state capture by ruling parties — has occurred in countries formerly regarded as paradigms of successful democratic transition. Despite research on different kinds of capture, little is known about the overall process by which political parties capture a state. In response, we develop a conceptual framework that identifies four interconnected strategies and corresponding tactics: (1) exploiting crises to advance political agendas, (2) deactivating controls to constrain oversight, (3) milking cash-cows to generate income, and (4) manipulating the political system to institutionalize rents. To demonstrate the analytical value of the framework, we compare how Fidesz in Hungary and VMRO-DPMNE in North Macedonia achieved a state of capture. [R, abr.]
73.7388 AVIV, Efrat —
In Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian context, which minimizes any serious chance of making political gains, challenging common conceptions of political power may expand our understanding of power dynamics. This article draws upon historical perspectives to track the power dynamics and political relations of religious movements inside and outside the legitimate forms of politics in Turkey. It provides insights into how political power is being reframed through religious movements and vice versa. It also examines the history of Turkey’s religious movements and their relationship with the government since 1925. It also discusses how the state-religion relationship has changed since the rise of the Justice and Development Party (Adaletve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and the 2016 coup attempt. It presents a case study of Furkan Vakfı and its leader, Alparslan Kuytul, who vehemently opposed the government and is now regarded as a threat by Erdoğan and the AKP. [R]
73.7389 BAEKGAARD, Martin —
A voluminous literature documents that citizens’ perceptions of democracy are shaped by electoral victories and defeats, but what reasoning do citizens use to evaluate parties as winners or losers? Drawing on research on partisan-motivated reasoning, I propose an own-party bias in winner-loser evaluations according to which voters evaluate the electoral fate of their party more favourably than that of other parties. Data gathered in the aftermath of the Danish parliamentary election in 2015 support this expectation. Citizens are more inclined to interpret the election outcome as successful for their preferred party, regardless of the actual election result. This is more pronounced the stronger their partisan attachment and among the less politically knowledgeable, who also assign less importance to objective indicators of electoral success. The findings have implications for our understanding of electoral winners and losers and of how electoral results shape party support and polarization. [R]
73.7390 BAILONI, Mark —
This paper analyzes the results of the presidential and legislative elections of 2022 in the Grand Est region, a territory characterized by significant internal disparities. It [examines] the regional and local specificities or the points in common with the rest of the French territory, by studying few exceptional situations at the local scale, and trying to understand the reasons for these votes through several hypotheses. Indeed, a significant rise of the RN could be noticed, since Marine Le Pen came first in the first round of the presidential election in the region and even in the second round in many municipalities, and since the RN candidates were present in the second round of legislative elections in the majority of constituencies in the region, and 9 were elected deputies. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7625]
73.7391 BALAKRISHNAN, Maha —
The inclusion of women ministers in cabinet is vital in redistributing political power and increasing participation. However, increasing the number of women ministers is insufficient; the type of portfolios also matters. In Malaysia, following the 14th general election, the number of women ministers almost doubled; this increase survived government turn-overs between 2020-2022, and the 15th general election. Using cabinet composition and budget data, and a customised typology of portfolio salience, this paper analyses women’s cabinet representation between 2008-2023, finding significant improvements after the 15th general election, and identifying imperatives for cabinet formation if participation is to be increased. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7676]
73.7392 BALDINI, Gianfranco ; TRONCONI, Filippo ; ANGELUCCI, Davide —
From its 2012 beginnings as a marginal radical right splinter group, in the 2022 general election Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy, FdI) was the most voted party and its leader, Giorgia Meloni, became the first Italian female Prime minister. While both leader and party can be classified as belonging to the populist radical right family, we argue that FdI must be understood also as a ‘rooted newcomer’, i.e. a party that can count on pre-existing organisational resources, building its appeal also on symbolic elements already familiar to the electorate when the party was formed. Focusing on the supply side, we tackle some of the main open questions related to the party’s ambivalent nature, often fluctuating between a post-fascist profile and a frequently reiterated support for other European radical right illiberal leaders and more moderate positions. We identify the politics of illiberalism as the key challenge the party faces in its transition from opposition to government. [R]
73.7393 BANDA, Kevin K. ; CLUVERIUS, John —
Citizens’ perceptions of the alt-right are not well explored in political science. We view the alt-right as a successor of the Tea Party movement. While the Tea Party described itself as organized around spending, the size of government, and the American Constitution, examinations of the movement found that the unifying concerns of people who identified with it or viewed it favorably were negative feelings about racial minorities and patriarchal views of gender roles. Using panel survey data, we show that whites with higher levels of hostile sexism, racial resentment, perceptions of discrimination against whites, and who were more favorable towards Donald Trump evaluated the alt-right movement more positively. We find no evidence that self-placed ideology informed these evaluations. On the whole, latent cultural conservatism appears to inform evaluations of the relatively unknown — at the time — alt-right movement. [R]
73.7394 BARON, Daniel ; GÖRTZ, Antonia —
Sociological explanations for interelectoral vote shifting to the Alternative for Germany party (AfD), which for the first time gained seats in the German Bundestag in 2017, have been scarce so far. In this study, we investigated what roles, if any, changing attitudes towards migration and economic situation as well as socioeconomic circumstances played for interelection shifting of Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD) voters towards the AfD. For our two-wave logistic regression analyses spanning the years 2013 to 2017, we used data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Probabilities of switching to the AfD from both coalition parties were significantly increased when employed voters of the coalition parties felt concerned about immigration to Germany and when these concerns strengthened between both measurements. [R, abr.]
73.7395 BARTELS, Jan-Eric —
Second-order election (SOE) theory has been used to explain voting behaviour in European elections. Voters believe that less is at stake in some elections and some voters hence tend to cast a protest vote. However, most studies on the topic have focused on the demand side of SOEs — i.e. on the voters — and have ignored or only partially tackled the supply side — i.e. the strategic behaviour of parties — and excluded small and marginal parties (SMPs). However, SMPs may have greater incentive to seriously compete in SOEs. The 2019 European Parliament elections in Germany were particularly interesting to SMPs as there was no voting threshold, thereby increasing the chances of SMPs. To capture whether SMPs view European elections as first-order elections and therefore expend more resources than parliamentary parties on these elections, I analysed campaign expenditures and manifestos. Results indicate that SMPs act within a rational actor framework, though not unequivocally. [R]
73.7396 BARTELS, Jan-Eric ; REMKE, Max Leonard —
Small and marginal parties are seldom the focus of studies in political science and are usually excluded from analyses altogether. However, an increase in the number of these ‘other’ parties can be observed during federal elections, though their chances of gaining seats are almost non-existent. Moreover, small and marginal parties can have an impact on the party system by diffusing topics and posing a potential electoral threat to established parties, with whom they face the challenging task of competing. One way of increasing their chances of getting votes is by gaining issue ownership over a niche topic. We use a quantitative content-analysis and a dictionary approach to investigate 16 small and marginal German parties in order to determine whether they aim to cater to a niche or act as ‘failed’ mainstream (topic) parties. [R, abr.]
73.7397 BASILE, Linda —
This study investigates how disparities in the distribution of economic, social, and institutional capital across territories affect voter turnout. Analysis of Italian regional elections held from 2003 to 2021 reveals that electoral participation is higher in more economically developed regions than in less developed ones. However, the effect of economic conditions becomes more tangible in territories featuring high levels of social interconnectedness, whilst the institutional capital does not have a significant effect on electoral participation. By showing that voter turnout depends on the interaction between social and economic factors, this study indicates the need for a holistic approach to encouraging political participation, combining long and short-term strategies addressing territories’ societal and economic assets. Another important implication of this article is that ‘context matters’ also at the subnational level. This suggests that future work on turnout should rely more on comparisons across territories within countries. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7620]
73.7398 BELLAMY, Richard ; KRÖGER, Sandra ; LORIMER, Marta —
Both political parties and differentiated integration (DI) play an ambivalent role in regard to democratic backsliding. Parties’ positioning towards democratic backsliding has not always been straightforward, and DI has been seen as facilitating it. We analyse whether party actors view democratic backsliding as a problematic issue for the EU, if they think DI facilitates it, and how they consider the EU should respond to it. Drawing on thirty-five interviews and a survey of forty-two party actors in seven member states, we show that many do view backsliding as problematic. Moreover, around half worried that DI could facilitate backsliding, though others did not link the two. Finally, almost all considered it legitimate for the EU to address democratic backsliding. [R, abr.]
73.7399 BENLI, Ali Emre —
Most refugees residing in the EU do not retain their voting rights in states of origin or lack the means to exercise them effectively. Most member states of the EU do not extend voting rights to refugees. This leaves a large population of refugees residing within the borders of the EU in a unique state of disenfranchisement. In this article, I consider this problem from a democratic perspective. Should refugees in the EU have voting rights? My answer turns on three aspects characterizing the circumstances of refugees: First, refugees reside in member states for an indeterminate, and typically protracted, amount of time without any exit options. Second, the political governance of the EU and its member states significantly shapes the lives of refugees. And third, refugees lack effective voting rights, and consequently, a meaningful political membership, in any political community across the world. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7411]
73.7400 BENSTEAD, Lindsay J. —
Extant literature suggests that public support for peace accords plays a role in their durability. Yet while the Abraham Accords represent significant rapprochement between governments, the region is marked by the conditions of violence and insecurity that harm social trust and reduce the likelihood of conciliatory views among citizens. Using Arab Barometer data from twelve countries (2012-2014), I explore the factors that lead Arab citizens to be more supportive of normalization. I argue that while instability undermines the demand for peace, civil society engagement develops bonding and bridging social capital that supports conciliatory views. I find that perceived insecurity is negatively related to support for Arab-Israeli peace, yet greater social capital, in the form of tolerance, associational membership, and social media use, produced demand for peace. Country of residence and religious identity are important predictors, with Sunni and Shi’a Muslims being less conciliatory towards Israel than Christians. [R, abr.]
73.7401 BENZECRY, Gabriel F. —
Do interest groups lobby their political friends or their foes? This study extends the work of Hall and Deardorff, examining lobbying during Brazil’s National Constituent Assembly to show that lobbying is not a static activity but an adaptable behavior. [R]
73.7402 BERNHARDT, Lea ; DEWENTER, Ralf ; THOMAS, Tobias —
This paper investigates the positioning in political news coverage of the big four US newscasts, ABC News, CBS News, FOX News and NBC News, as well as how they alter their positions when President Barack Obama took over from George W. Bush. Our empirical analysis is based on the tonality of their political coverage using more than 815,000 news items on Democrats and Republicans from 2001 through 2012. Using the Political Coverage Index (PCI), we find evidence for partisan and biased news coverage across all of the newscasts, with a general tendency of ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News to be slightly more critical of the Republicans, and of FOX News with a clear tendency to be more critical of Democrats. We interpret these results as evidence for a watchdog-like anti-government bias on the part of the observed newscasts. [R, abr.]
73.7403 BESLEY, Timothy ; DRAY, Sacha —
This paper studies the role of free media in how governments and the public responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. We first document the presence of policy and behavioural responsiveness during the early phase of the pandemic. Using a panel data of daily COVID-19 deaths, lockdown policies, and mobility changes in 155 countries, we find that governments were more likely to impose a lockdown, and citizens to reduce their mobility, as the initial number of deaths increased. To measure the role of media freedom on responsiveness given endogeneity in death reporting, we simulate deaths from a calibrated SEIR model as an instrument for reported deaths. Using this approach, we find evidence that the presence of free media mattered for the timing of early responses to COVID-19. [R, abr.]
73.7404 BEUTER, Christopher ; KORTMANN, Matthias —
Applying a qualitative framing analysis, this paper examines narratives of the right-wing populist parties Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands on religion. The paper argues that references of these populist parties to religion can be interpreted against the background of specific national context factors such as the respective history of nation building, the traditional role of religion in society and secularization processes. A rigorous examination of parliamentary documents published between 2017 and 2019 shows that whereas the PVV clearly defines Christianity in civilizational and not religious terms, the AfD takes a less clear-cut stance toward the religion framing it both as culture and faith. We contend that this difference can be explained by the lower degree of secularization and the greater role of Christianity as a collective identity marker in post-war Germany. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7674]
73.7405 BJÅNESØY, Lise ; IVARSFLATEN, Elisabeth ; BERNTZEN, Lars Erik —
Political initiatives promoting a far-right agenda have gained significant political influence in Western European democracies. This has occurred despite apparent broad-based public rejection of Europe’s Nazi past. This is a puzzle, since there are affinities between the old and the new far right. This article addresses that puzzle. Theoretically, the article distinguishes between broad and narrow interpretations of what it means to reject Europe’s Nazi past. Empirically, it shows how a well-established survey experimental template reveals substantive variations in public political tolerance of the far right. For citizens in five key Western European democracies, rejecting the Nazi past only means rejecting initiatives explicitly identified as neo-Nazi. For other far-right initiatives, political tolerance is more common and increases in accordance with these initiatives’ institutionalisation in the party system. For far-right parties fully institutionalised in the party system, public political tolerance is at the same level as for other political parties. [R]
73.7406 BLEAKLEY, Paul —
The conspiracy theory known as ‘Pizzagate’ gained a cult following on alt-right forums, ultimately prompting one believer to conduct a shooting on the pizzeria identified by online conspiracists. A thematic analysis of 767 tweets referencing Pizzagate selected from five key intervention points in this timeframe reveals several factors influencing Pizzagate’s continued appeal over a four-year period. The article examines how an online alt-right conspiracy collective, QAnon, weaponized Pizzagate as part of its overarching campaign to attract support for President Donald Trump and worked to establish the theory as a popular (albeit false) narrative within the contemporary political zeitgeist. [R]
73.7407 BOLIN, Niklas ; AYLOTT, Nicholas —
Unlike political parties in many other countries, Swedish ones have not adopted more inclusive methods for choosing their election candidates and party leaders. While the party congress formally selects important party offices, the process is managed, prior to the formal vote, by a selection committee vested with the task of filtering the pool of potential leaders and proposing one of them as the new leader. In this article, we survey the composition of these selection committees over time to investigate the extent to which change has taken place. Specifically, we investigate whether the composition of these powerful committees, which decide who joins the ranks of the country’s political leaders, has developed over time in relation to what prominent theories of intra-party power might lead us to expect. We derive testable expectations from prominent conceptualisations of intra-party power and apply these empirically. [R, abr.]
73.7408 BORDANDINI, Paola ; BACCETTI, Carlo ; SARTORI, Laura —
We examine the middle-level élite of the Italian Democratic Party (Partito democratico, PD) and its founding parties, Democrats of the Left (Democratici di Sinistra, DS) and The Daisy (La Margherita, DL), over fifteen years (2004-2019). Our original dataset on national delegates comes from 2373 questionnaires collected at eight national party congresses. Inspired by Whiteley and Seyd’s concepts of low and high-intensity participation, we evaluate the relative weight of the various types of incentive in the two (internal and external) forms of party activism. Party activism is central to understanding the profound cultural, organisational, and electoral crisis that has put the PD at a crossroad and has led current secretary Letta to call for a ‘Constituent Congress of the New PD’. [R]
73.7409 BOUDOU, Benjamin —
This article defends the normative relevance of the representation of non-citizens in democracies. I argue that representation within nation-states constitutes a realistic institutionalisation of the All-Affected Principle, allowing justificatory practices towards non-citizens and establishing political institutions that can realise the ideal of inclusion of all externally affected individuals. I defend electoral, non-electoral and surrogate forms of representation of affected interests that satisfy both the cosmopolitan concern for the equal consideration of interests and the statist defence of the importance of a territorially and civically bounded demos. I assess piecemeal implementations of representation practices, namely reciprocal representation, ombudspersons, self-appointed representatives and deliberative and advocacy groups. Gradual and pluralised means of representation constitute necessary and feasible first steps to consider affected interests and offer an alternative route to an all-or-nothing defence of inclusion as national enfranchisement. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7411]
73.7410 BOUKOURAS, Aristotelis, et al.—
We introduce a new methodological approach for studying the effect of biased polls on election outcomes and apply it to a set of new experiments with 375 participants. Voters may observe and learn about the bias by playing multiple voting rounds. While in control conditions, polls are unbiased, in treatment conditions, participants view only poll results where a particular candidate’s vote share is the largest. This candidate is consistently elected more often in the treatments than in the controls, because biased polls robustly distort voters’ expectations about vote shares. This effect holds after eighteen election rounds, out of which the first three are practice rounds, but somewhat more weakly in our main treatment where voters are explicitly informed about the bias. [R]
73.7411 BRANDO, Nico —
Children are among the few social groups that are systematically and universally disenfranchised. Although children are citizens worthy of equal moral treatment and rights, their right to vote is restricted in almost all states, and this is seen as legitimate by most democratic theories. What is particular about childhood that justifies the restriction of their right to vote? How can democratic systems legitimise the exclusion of a section of their citizenry? This article provides a critical analysis of the principles that ground child disenfranchisement, and of the allocative mechanisms proposed for restricting the right to vote. It shows that most arguments in favour of child disenfranchisement are unsatisfactory, as they are inconsistently used to target the child population (but not other groups) or are incompatible with a commitment to equality. Among the principles for child disenfranchisement, only those that appeal to political incompetence may be valid for excluding children. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on "Electoral representation revisited". See also Abstr. 73.7399, 7409, 7421, 7525, 7621]
73.7412 BREMNER, Flo —
In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on 25 May 2020, and the international uprisings which followed, racism moved to the forefront of public discourse. Yet, racism has no fixed interpretation and is a term used by different individuals and organisations for various functional and ideological purposes. This study provides an analysis of the ways that racism is discussed in four UK newspapers using a mixed-methods framework incorporating critical race theory, corpus linguistics, and the discourse-historical approach. It is argued that, as the protests were taking place, systemic racism began to be foregrounded over individualised forms of racism in newspaper discourse. However, journalists continued to use strategies of positive self-presentation to place racism outside of themselves and within racist ‘others’, leading them to stand against racism in the abstract, while potentially diminishing possibilities for structural change. [R]
73.7413 BRENNAN, Jason ; FREIMAN, Christopher —
The ‘particularity problem’ is one of the most important objections to the putative duty to vote. The problem holds that the reasons usually given on behalf of a duty to vote fail to show there is a duty specifically to vote, but only at best show that voting is one of the many eligible ways to discharge some underlying duty, such as to exercise civic virtue, to contribute to others’ welfare, to avoid free-riding, or to avoid complicity with injustice. For instance, instead of voting for the purpose of avoiding complicity with injustice, one might engage in activism. Julia Maskivker’s recent work represents the most important and significant attempt to overcome this objection since it appeared. [R, abr.]
73.7414 BROWN, Kerry —
The Xi era can be characterised as an ambitious and nationalistic one. Aims such as rejuvenating the Chinese nation and fulfilling the country’s historic mission to be a great, rich country are often referred to in elite leadership discourse and state produced propaganda. “China Dream” is amongst the most important slogans used in this language. In terms of the context in which this phrase occurs and the actual deployment, it is one that carries broad connotations and implications about an era where, in ways similar to politics in the West, issues around identity are key, and the important thing is to feel, not just to believe. “China Dream” is a form of language that speaks into the public’s deeper instincts and sentiments. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7442]
73.7415 BRULÉ, Rachel E. —
What do we know about women’s negotiation of power in the Global South? The prevailing view tells us that women’s power in the Global North is greater than in the South. Yet across analytic levels, the developing world provides striking models of the assertion of women’s power that challenge established concepts of political and economic development. At the macro level of state development, research identifies how the subordination of women has been central to the creation and modern infrastructure of liberal democratic states or political orders. Data analysis here provides complementary evidence that the most effective alternatives to patriarchal political orders are originating in the developing world. At the meso level of policy-making processes, developing-world states are more likely than developed-world states to recognize and co-opt women’s power. [R, abr.]
73.7416 BRUSAPORCI, Gianfranco ; COHEN, Nissim —
This article investigates the question of how policy entrepreneurs influence the behaviour of social movements. It does so by presenting a new framework for analyzing social movements or collective action that emphasises the important role of individuals. In particular, it offers a systematic study of social movement leaders using the literature of policy entrepreneurship. We identify five areas that should be considered when assessing how policy entrepreneurs can foster policy or political changes in their society: (1) the motivations of policy entrepreneurs, (2) variations in their goals, (3) the characteristics and abilities of policy entrepreneurs, (4) their strategies and (5) the potential outcomes. We then place these changes on a 6-point continuum ranging from least extreme to most extreme. In testing our theoretical framework using the case study of Bulgarian protests against the First Borisov Cabinet, we develop theoretical insights that could be generalised to other social movements worldwide. [R]
73.7417 BUEHLER, Michael —
Government laws and regulations discriminating against religious minorities are on the rise worldwide. Scholars have debated whether or not society-based discrimination is a pre-condition for government-based discrimination. Examining an original dataset of regulations discriminating against the Ahmadiyah community in Indonesia, this article argues that calls from within society to restrict the freedom of religious minorities are neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for the rise of discriminatory government regulations. Instead, governments may emulate other governments and adopt laws and regulations discriminating against religious minorities without any immediate societal pressure preceding it. Hence, future research needs to consider the interdependence between jurisdictions as an important driver of laws and regulations discriminating against religious minorities. [R]
73.7418 CABESTAN, Jean-Pierre —
There has always been a lack of democratic life in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Former CCP Secretary General Hu Jintao attempted in the first decade of the 21st c. to promote reform, including a revision of the party constitution, aimed at enhancing “intra-party democracy” (dangnei minzhu). However, Xi Jinping has put on hold this plan, fully restoring the verticality of the institution where it may have been weakened. This article has three objectives. First, it compares the successive versions or iterations of the CCP constitution in the last 100 years and analyses all the changes related to democratic centralism, elections, and democracy that have been introduced. Then, it assesses Hu’s reforms and their failure. Finally, it explains why the CCP cannot reform and democratise as long as it remains a party-state and China remains a one-party system. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7442]
73.7419 CAI Yongshun —
The Chinese government has effectively adapted to the new environment in which information flow is greatly facilitated by the wide use of social media. This adaptation is aided not only by its resources and learning ability but also by citizens supportive of the regime. Content manipulation and censorship are the two primary approaches used by the Chinese government to manage social media. This paper examines how supportive citizens help the state manage cyberspace by tipping off state agencies. The state encourages tip providers by responding to tips, including political ones, and sometimes by rewarding the provider. Tip providers reduce the cost of monitoring social media, enhance the legitimacy of censorship, and discourage and marginalize regime critics. The presence of tip providers reflects and reinforces the split or ideological polarization among the population. [R]
73.7420 CAMPOLONGO, Francesco ; SCANNI, Francesco Maria —
In light of examples in South America and Eastern Europe, scholarly debate has centered on concerns that populist governments will deform democracy and democratic institutions, limit institutions and reduce both checks and balances and pluralism. Here we argue that in the context of a consolidated western democracy, populist governments identify themselves with government ‘as usual’, and that the populist ascent produces a greater impact on the political system as a vehicle for protest than it does on institutions once in power. We analyze the three examples of populism represented by the 5 Star Movement, Podemos and La République En Marche in order to examine the transformations produced by their successes in their relative political systems and their various effects on institutions once in government. [R, abr.]
73.7421 CARLSEN HÄGGROT, Marcus —
Democracies that appoint legislators through elections in territorially defined, sub-national constituencies and simultaneously enfranchise expatriate citizens must either assign expatriate voters to in-country constituencies (assimilated representation) or group them into distinct overseas constituencies that elect their own legislators (discrete representation). This essay critically reviews extant normative discussions of the two models and develops a normative analysis of its own. This suggests that when expatriates form but a small part of a democracy’s overall demos, discrete representation is the more attractive model of expatriate representation as it overall better satisfies four important standards of evaluation, namely: equal opportunities for political influence, deliberation within the legislature, deliberation among constituents, and partisan voter mobilisation. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7411]
73.7422 CARNES, Nicholas ; LUPU, Noam —
Research on the economic backgrounds of politicians is once again flourishing in political science. In this article, we describe the economic characteristics that scholars have recently studied and the common threads that have emerged in modern work on this topic. This growing literature is largely united by a shared concern about the unequal economic makeup of institutions: Recent studies generally agree that politicians tend to be vastly better off than citizens on every economic measure and that politicians from different economic backgrounds tend to think and behave differently in office. However, the literature is far from a consensus regarding why politicians are so economically advantaged. Going forward, there are numerous opportunities for future work to address this gap; to extend the literature to new countries, institutions, and time periods; and to better understand how economic backgrounds intersect with race, gender, and other social characteristics. [R]
73.7423 CARPENTER, Daniel —
The study of agenda setting has become curiously disconnected from democratic theory and democratization. Following Schattschneider, Dahl, and recent developments in political theory, I call for its reintegration in theoretical and empirical realms. The concept of agenda democracy allows for better understanding of contests over institutions, significant historical-institutional transformations, the study of inequality and its mechanisms of generation and maintenance, and the building and undermining of democracy. Agenda democracy requires a broad understanding of agendas (beyond a mere menu of final policy choices), recognizes that many democratic regimes have institutions that systematically render agendas nondemocratic, and compels us to look at the interstices of institutions and society (party transformation, petition and grievance mechanisms, advocacy campaigns, initiatives to expand what I call the shortlist of the possible) for moments of significant change. Agenda democracy compels the examination of democratizing agenda restrictions, the study of conservative organizations in politics, and the consideration of decomposing the term “movement.” [R]
73.7424 CASTILLO, Isabel ; CONTRERAS-GUZMÁN, Danissa ; HENZI, Camila —
Over the last decade, and throughout the Americas, evangelicals have strongly mobilized in defense of socially conservative agendas or against so-called “gender ideology,” sparking general and academic interest. Much less is known about progressive evangelicals. Using the unique juncture presented by the constitutional process in Chile, we study the politicization of a progressive evangelical identity and ask when these religious groups mobilize. We argue that intra-denominational competition for evangelical identity has played an important role in progressive evangelical mobilization, and more specifically the wish to differentiate themselves from conservative evangelicals, introduce a distance from the political right, and show the internal diversity of the community. This process occurs in response to an initial (conservative) politicization of religion. Drawing on campaign materials, surveys, and interviews, we provide evidence for this argument highlighting that policy preferences and theological interpretations are core differences among both groups, sparking countermobilization. [R]
73.7425 CHAN Tayden Fung ; ZHAO Luna L. —
Current literature on political marketing seldom investigates elections in non-Western regions or countries. The analysis of the Taipei mayoral elections (TMEs) can fill this academic vacuum. This article studies the election campaigns for the TMEs between 1994 and 2018 to understand and analyse the political marketing strategies used by candidates and political parties in Taiwan, an East Asian democracy. While the New Party (NP) stuck to a product-oriented strategy, the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) employed sales-oriented strategies in most TMEs. This article argues that political parties with strong ideologies find it hard to use the market-oriented electoral strategy. The victory of Ko Wen-je in 2014 and 2018 TMEs can be analysed in terms of the successful employment of a market-oriented strategy. However, given the changing environment of local politics, Ko and his party, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), may not follow market-oriented strategies in future TMEs. [R]
73.7426 CHARRON, Nicholas ; SCHWENK, Jana —
High corruption perceptions among voters have been shown to have dire consequences for political participation, trust in institutions and ability to solve collective action problems. Research on corruption focussed on macro- and micro-level explanations to explain persistent corruption in developed countries. This article adds a new meso-level variable to the picture: party primaries. While until recently selection of candidates was the privilege of narrow party elites, many Western European parties have introduced primaries to select candidates for public offices. This study posits that this attempt at increasing intraparty democracy has negative consequences regarding corruption perceptions and suggests three mechanisms through which primaries increase corruption perceptions among supporters of parties that use them. First, primaries can be perceived as a means of ‘window-dressing’, second, primaries can suffer from vote buying, and third, candidates in primaries have incentives to campaign on anti-elitism to distinguish themselves from party elite candidates, increasing corruption salience. [R, abr.]
73.7427 CHENG Chao-Yo ; LIN Yi-Tzu —
Existing studies of ethnic voting mainly focus on democratic elections. In electoral autocracies, politically subordinate ethnicity can help citizens coordinate against the incumbent. However, we argue that collective action will be constrained when the group grows large, as it becomes costly for its members to form common behavioural norms and carry out effective sanctions through shared ethnic ties under authoritarian repression. Drawing on unique historical surveys in Taiwan, we study how Taiwanese ethnicity and local ethnic demography jointly induced voters’ defection against the hegemonic KMT regime. We find that the pro-defection or anti-incumbent effect of Taiwanese ethnicity fell as the share of Taiwanese citizens in a township increased. However, the relative size of the Taiwanese group no longer undermined pro-defection ethnic voting after the KMT lifted the ban on opposition parties. [R, abr.]
73.7428 CHENOWETH, Erica —
Over the past two decades, there has been growing scholarly interest in nonviolent resistance — a method of conflict in which unarmed people mobilize collective protests, strikes, and boycotts in a coordinated way. Mass movements that rely overwhelmingly on nonviolent resistance sometimes feature unarmed collective violence, fringe violence, or even organized armed action. What do we know about the effects of violent flanks on movement outcomes? This article reviews findings on the relationships between nonviolent and unarmed resistance, violence, and the outcomes of mass mobilization, as well as the directionality of these relationships. The balance of empirical evidence suggests that organized armed violence appears to reduce the chances for otherwise nonviolent movements to succeed, whereas unarmed collective violence has more ambiguous effects. The field will benefit from greater analytical precision in comparing the units of analysis, scope, intensity, and media framing of violent flank activity. [R]
73.7429 CHIARAMONTE, Alessandro, et al.—
The 2022 Italian general election marked a new step in the unprecedented instability experienced by the Italian party system over the past 15 years. This article presents and discusses the outcome of the election within the deinstitutionalised Italian party system. The most remarkable results were the unprecedented success of the radical-right FDI (Fratelli d’Italia — Brothers of Italy) led by Giorgia Meloni (who would become the first female prime minister in Italy) and a historic drop in voter turnout. In particular, by employing original individual-level survey data, we investigate the impact of territory on the vote, the individual-level dynamics behind the results, and the overall picture emerging in terms of the Italian party system. [R]
73.7430 CHIU, Albert Shihyi —
The manuscript examines how congressional speech can be used as a tool for agenda-setting during a national crisis, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. The study focuses on the opposition parties’ response to the government’s handling of the pandemic in the Legislative Yuan, examining the “wait and see” hypothesis to understand their behavior. The findings suggest that the opposition parties initially restraining their criticism as the pandemic worsened, but increasing their criticism as cases were somewhat controlled. The study also reveals that KMT and TPP legislators tend to express constituent needs when the pandemic is significantly controlled. Overall, the research helps identify the partisan dynamics in a national crisis in the Legislative Yuan. [R]
73.7431 CLOLÉRY, Héloïse —
When committee members care about their reputation with a principal, making their choices transparent affects the outcome. In Parliaments, legislators care about their reputation with several principals, namely their constituents and Party leaders. It is thus unclear in which direction votes will move when they become observable, and moreover legislators may prefer to opt out of voting entirely in order to avoid conflict. This paper first uses French voting data to show that reputational concerns drive the decision to participate in a vote: in order to avoid blame legislators are less likely to vote when there is disagreement between the constituents and the Party. Second, making legislators’ votes public increases their incentive to use voting for reputation-building, and, therefore, the distortion in group decision-making. [R, abr.]
73.7432 COFFÉ, Hilde ; HELIMÄKI, Theodora ; SCHOULTZ, Åsa von —
While studies investigating gendered ways of campaigning have primarily focused on negative campaign strategies, we explore the extent to which women and men engage in negative and positive campaigning and how they are combined. Our analyses, relying on the 2019 Finnish Parliamentary Candidates Survey, shows that even in the Finnish context, with comparatively high levels of gender equality in society and politics, distinct gender patterns in campaigning occur. Women candidates report having campaigned more positively than men candidates, while men candidates are more likely to report having campaigned negatively than women candidates. We also find that men are more inclined to incorporate a balanced mixture of positive and negative campaign messages, while women predominantly rely on positive campaigning. Based on our findings, we conclude that women and men still do not compete in politics on equal terms. [R]
73.7433 COLEMAN, Stephen ; MOSS, Giles —
Citizens want politicians to demonstrate that they ‘understand people like them’. Yet many citizens believe politicians fail to do this when they communicate and that this signals what appears to be a broken relationship between them and their elected representatives. Through four focus groups with voters in the UK reporting low interest in politics, this article explores what people mean when they state that politicians do not understand them or people like them. Interpreting our findings in relation to political theories of recognition and respect, we suggest that failures of trust in politicians arise from lack of clarity about what democratic representation entails. Repairing this communicative relationship depends upon the nurturance of public respect towards the role that political representatives perform. By respect we do not mean deference or submission, but a capacity to appraise role performance in terms of clear expectations. [R]
73.7434 COSTIL, Mathilde ; GITTUS-POURRIAS, Sylvie ; PAPIN, Delphine —
Eight people of the infographic department of Le Monde work every night to produce ten to twelve maps. A presidential election needs four months of preparation to think about the maps that will help to understand the future result. During this preparation, the collaboration with the journalists of the politic department is essential. The choice of the different colors to depict the different political parties on a map is very important. To show the emergence of something new after a discussion, the choice of the yellow was made to represent the different districts won by Emmanuel Macron. It is essential to draw a simple map that can be easily understood and to associate it with other maps of different scales to get anyone to understand the complexity of the electoral balance of power. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7625]
73.7435 COUPERUS, Stefan ; TORTOLA, Pier Domenico ; RENSMANN, Lars —
In recent years, we have seen a significant increase of memory politics among far-right political actors. In public spheres across Europe, discursive repertoires and historical tropes that mythologize the past have been (re)articulated by far-right actors who construe themselves as the true heirs and bearers of national historical traditions and values. This special issue, comprising six research articles on French, Polish, Italian, Spanish, Serbian and German cases, adds to new scholarship on memory politics among the far right in Europe: empirically, by presenting a wide range of geographically and culturally distinct case studies, and conceptually, by shedding new light on the role of memory politics and the use of historical legacies as factors and context variables in various far-right mobilizations today. In particular, this new research shows how supply and demandside dimensions of far-right memory politics are mediated through discursive performance by parties, leaders, protest movements and social media. Methodologically, these studies demonstrate how mixed-methods approaches can yield remarkable and sometimes counterintuitive findings. [R, abr.]
73.7436 DAOUD, Dalal —
In the past four decades, Islamists have emerged as important actors in the politics of the Middle East and North Africa, seizing power in some cases. In response, scholars of MENA have been investigating Islamists’ behavior and policies relating to a wide range of issues. And yet, despite its real-world and academic salience, empirical research on the relationship between contemporary Islamist rulers and minorities has been sparse. The paper investigates ruling Islamists’ minority treatment in Sudan and Turkey. Observing a variation in treatment, the paper demonstrates that religious affiliation and religious-ideological motivations have little explanatory power in the cases. The paper argues that in effort to secure their power, Islamists will engage in alliance building with or against minority groups. Alliance building itself is affected by the strategic interactions between Islamists, minority groups and other key political actors as well as the regional and international environments. [R]
73.7437 DAUTI, Marsela —
A growing body of scholarly work underscores that the relationship between women’s political representation and quality of government is stronger in democracies than in authoritarian regimes. The relationship, however, is less clear in regimes that are neither fully-fledged democratic nor authoritarian. I investigate the gender gap in representatives’ efforts to push for improvements in the quality of government in the local councils of Albania following the implementation of gender quotas in 2015. Using the transcripts of council meetings, I identify the kind of practices that councilors challenge when holding local government officials to account, and I compare women with men. The study shows that councilors contest practices that concern law enforcement, impartiality, and transparency. Women, compared to men, are more likely to contest practices that concern transparency. The greatest gender gap is observed in councils where the implementation of gender quotas has disrupted male dominance, numerically speaking, the most. [R]
73.7438 DELGADO SOTILLOS, Irene —
This paper analyses the validity of the second-order model in the 2019 municipal elections. We focus, first, on the theoretical evolution that has transformed the model proposed by Reif and Schmitt (1980). Second, it evaluates the explanatory capacity of a model that does not fit with highly fragmented and heterogeneous units of analysis. Finally, a contextual analysis is presented to provide a more robust explanation of the 2019 Spanish municipal election. [R]
73.7439 DINGLER, Sarah C. ; RAMSTETTER, Lena —
It is common wisdom that the increase in the number of women in parliament brought along a new diversity of perspectives presented in legislatures. So far, however, we know little about the implications of women’s presence on party cohesion. Moving towards a more complete understanding of how women affect political processes, this article addresses the question, does gender affect vote defection from party lines, and if so, under what circumstances? We argue that the actual and perceived risk associated with vote defection in roll-call votes is gendered and that this is constraining the leeway of women to rebel. Analysing roll-call vote data of the German Bundestag (1953-2013) provided by Bergmann, et al. (2018), we show that gender exerts a consistent effect only if electoral safety and policy content are considered: it is in feminine policy areas and at high levels of electoral security that women are more likely than men to rebel. This finding implies that taking different incentive structures into account is key if we want to understand gendered legislative behaviour. [R]
73.7440 DOLAN, Emma ; DANILOVA, Nataliya —
Building on Judith Butler’s understanding of visibility as “the object of continuous regulation and contestation,” art/aesthetics studies in international relations, and feminist theater studies, we identify feminist “her-story” theater as a unique site where Western “gender-/sexuality-inclusive” soldiering is visibilized, contested, and subverted. Drawing on ethnographic observations of two award-winning dramas, interviews with artists and military hosts, and findings from a wider research project on contemporary British military culture, we reveal the key role of heteronormative and patriarchal cultural discourses in reproducing the ambivalent positionalities of women/LGBT+ soldiers. We argue that the very visibility of women/LGBT+ soldiers on the stage paradoxically operates to make the complexities of – and struggles against – masculinized heteronormative military cultures invisible. Furthermore, despite artists’ attempts to dissociate empowerment through soldiering from the problematic context of modern conflicts, “her-story” theater ultimately entrenches gendered/racialized hierarchies that normalize Western military interventions. [R, abr.]
73.7441 DOROSHENKO, Larissa ; TU Fangjing —
Investigating the role of emotions in online political engagement, we show that far-right parties receive more amplification online than centrist parties because their messages produce stronger emotional reactions. Using a 2 × 3 mixed design survey experiment (N = 303), which compared far-right and centrist messages about three campaign issues in Ukraine, we demonstrate that nationalist appeals evoked hope and enthusiasm, which resulted in more likes and shares. However, far-rights were only successful when addressing their traditional issues, such as national language policy. We conclude with advice on how other parties can harness emotional appeals to encourage political participation when facing competition from far-right parties. [R]
73.7442 DOYON, Jérôme ; FROISSART, Chloé —
By tracing the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 100 years, this special issue brings to light the organisation’s contradictions, setbacks, and changes in direction, together with its long-term evolution. Taking a step back from the current focus on the historical juncture of the twentieth CCP Congress, and on Xi Jinping himself, our long-term approach contextualises recent developments. Looking at the CCP’s evolution over time shows how the founding structures and objectives of the CCP have had a longlasting impact on its future developments as well as how they have been tweaked and rearranged to adapt to the new economic and social environment the party contributed to creating. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on "The Chinese Communist Party at 100". See also Abstr. 73.7414, 7418, 7443, 7596, 7647]
73.7443 DOYON, Jérôme ; YANG Long —
While changes in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) recruitment are generally described as different phases focused on recruiting either “reds” or “experts,” giving more or less weight to political or technical criteria, we instead stress the importance of changing understandings of political loyalty to examine these evolutions. By tracing these changes throughout the party’s 100 years, we show that how the party understands loyalty is largely strategic, detached from a purely ideological approach. The CCP has alternatively approached loyalty in ascriptive terms, based on class background, and behavioural ones, looking at active displays of loyalty or passive obedience. The level and form of activism expected from party members and cadres have also dramatically changed over time. This article shows that it is paradoxically during periods of party expansion that the CCP becomes more politically demanding with its members. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7442]
73.7444 DURIESMITH, David —
This article focuses on what role masculinities might be playing in Australian war crimes in Afghanistan, and whether it is possible to shift such masculinities after the revelation of scandals. It makes the argument that although masculinities have been central to these war crimes, attempting reform at the moment of scandal is unlikely to lead to necessary structural reform. Rather, this article argues that responses focused on masculinity at the moment of scandal are likely to constitute what Jamie Johnson refers to as ‘line-drawing manoeuvres’, thereby singling out extreme acts of excessive violence to re-legitimise the institution which produced such violence. Therefore, the Brereton Report demonstrates the need for structural changes addressing the foundations of violent masculinities within the Australian Defence Force and not ad hoc efforts to remedy its most extreme excesses. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7788]
73.7445 ELSÄSSER, Lea ; SCHÄFER, Armin —
In this review, we focus on political inequality in rich democracies. In the two main sections, we look at participation and representation, respectively. The former discusses whether rising income inequality and the weakening of trade unions have led to higher levels of inequality in participation. The latter looks at substantive and descriptive representation and asks how they might be linked. Research highlights that people with fewer individual resources participate much less than those with more resources, and collective organizations lose their ability to counter these trends. In terms of representation, the pattern is very similar. Not only are the opinions of decision-makers more congruent with those of the better off but policy choices also reflect their preferences more clearly. As the social distance between rulers and ruled increases, representative democracy gets more biased in favor of higher-status social groups. [R]
73.7446 EMANUELE, Vincenzo ; MARINO, Bruno ; MARTOCCHIA DIODATI, Nicola —
The comparative study of intraparty divisions and their determinants has been a long-debated matter, but some issues remain unresolved. First, the problem of the empirical identification of intraparty groups. Second, the lack of comparative perspective and large-N cross-country and cross-time analyses, given intraparty divisions have been studied mostly through theoretical or, at best, small-N analyses. Third, the underestimation of the potential role exerted by contextual factors because of the emphasis put almost exclusively on intraparty dynamics. To fill these gaps, the article employs a measure of visible intraparty fractionalization allowing for large-N cross-time and cross-country comparison. Moreover, by focusing on about 700 party cases in 11 Western European countries since 1965, the article shows that institutional factors, particularly electoral systems’ characteristics, impact intraparty fractionalization. [R, abr.]
73.7447 EMMERICH, Arndt —
The article investigates the transformation within a specific branch of German Salafism from a publicly-assertive da’wa (proselytizing) to a politically accommodating and legal advocacy movement. In doing so, a process analysis that focuses on internal and reflexive narrations among Salafi leaders and lay members, through a three year-long mosque-based ethnography (2018-2021) and textual analysis (2008-2022), is employed. Previous studies focused predominately on the “Salafi growth phase” (2005-2015) in Germany that is associated with the attraction of exclusive group boundaries, flat hierarchies and informal networks. Less research exists on the current “decline phase”, which has commenced a re-orientation and critical reflection on past strategies and new ways of civic engagement and legal pragmatism. By exploring this new phase, the article integrates a longitudinal dimension into conventional research protocols on contemporary Salafism. The paper concludes with a discussion on the converging struggles for recognition among Muslim and other religious minorities in Europe, while linking these transformations to domestic opportunity structures rather than transnational reconfigurations of so-called “global Salafism”. [R]
73.7448 ENDO, Yuya ; ONO, Yoshikuni —
Women are extremely underrepresented in Japanese political life. One possible reason for this is that voters are biased against women. Compared to American voters, to what extent are Japanese voters opposed to women political leaders? What kinds of stereotypes do they have about women politicians? To answer these questions and probe the external validity of American studies on this topic, we conducted a survey that elicits respondents’ attitudes toward women political leaders. First, our list experiment outcomes revealed that approximately 10% of Japanese, and 20% of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) supporters, oppose a woman becoming prime minister. Second, we also identified respondents’ gender stereotypes by asking them directly about their impressions of politicians, which revealed that Japanese voters have strong stereotypes for men and women politicians regarding their policy areas of expertise and personal characteristics. [R, abr.]
73.7449 ERHARDT, Julian —
Research on political support demonstrates that satisfaction with democracy is higher among electoral winners than losers, and that it is higher for citizens who are ideologically more congruent with the government. In this paper, I analyze how support for the political system is affected by representation by the government. Expanding on previous studies, I leverage long-run panel data from the Dutch LISS panel spanning over several electoral cycles. Drawing on various measures that go beyond the distinction between election winners and losers and also measure how close citizens are to the government coalition as a whole, I show that being well represented by the government has a wide-ranging positive relationship with satisfaction with democracy, external efficacy and trust in political institutions. While this relationship is mostly short-run, political support can decline substantially if non-representation persists in the long-run. This highlights the relevance of long-run panel data for studying the consequences of representation. [R]
73.7450 ESPELAND BERG, Anne ; JUNGBLUT, Jens ; JUPSKÅS, Anders Ravik —
Populist radical right parties (PRRPs) have become more mainstream, increasing their relevance in European politics. While a lot is already known about them, there are still gaps in our knowledge. This article addresses one such gap by studying Western European PRRPs’ positions on education policy. It focuses on the salience of education in election manifestos, substantive positions that parties hold, and in how far these positions reflect their core ideology. Constructing a novel framework based on core ideologies and three dimensions of education policies, including an often-neglected content dimension, the article presents results from a qualitative content analysis of 15 manifestos. The results show that education policy is relevant for PRRPs, albeit to varying degrees, and that their policies are informed by their core ideologies. The findings have important implications for understanding education policy dynamics in liberal democracies as PRRPs fundamentally challenge normative foundations of Western European education systems. [R]
73.7451 ESTEVE-DEL-VALLE, Marc ; COSTA LÓPEZ, Julia —
This paper brings together the literature on far right parties, medievalism and opinion leadership in order to more closely interrogate the memory politics of the far right. We address two broad questions: what does the mobilization of distant-past events do in far right discourse? And how do these memories circulate online? We unpack one specific case study: the mobilization of the topic ‘La Reconquista’ (The Reconquest) among the computer-mediated networks of one Europe’s newest national-populist parties: Spain’s VOX. First, we show three strategies through which the Reconquest trope reproduced a conservative historiography that creates a transhistorical, exclusionary and Catholic Spanish nation: the creation of memory sites, the glorification of heroes and a specifically antagonistic memory. Second, we show that the one-word nature of the historical narrative, through its Twitter circulation, gave it a crucial ability to mobilize in the context of an election. [R, abr.]
73.7452 EVANS, Carys ; SILVA, Raquel da —
This study explores the constructions of gender in social media narratives regarding Shamima Begum, a British born woman who travelled to Syria to join Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Using the Twitter hashtag #ShamimaBegum — developed in response to Begum’s expressed interest in returning to the United Kingdom to give birth to her third child — we employ critical discourse analysis to examine social media users’ responses to Begum’s case across a 3-week period. We portray how the vernacular narratives constructing femininity, gender, and their relation to terrorist activity are built on the expectation that the female actor should express remorse for her actions and is judged according to certain perceptions of maternalism, religion, and victimhood. We also explore the absence of considered agency in the narratives about women engaging in and disengaging from violent activities, demonstrating the weight of race, religion, and gender in shaping narratives surrounding perceived violent women. [R]
73.7453 FASTENRATH, Florian ; MARX, Paul —
Despite an increasing concentration of income and wealth, most democracies refrain from taxing the rich more heavily. This article uses Germany as a case to examine the reasons for this reluctance, as well as conditions under which taxing the rich does appear on the political agenda. An analysis of campaigns since 2005 shows that the Social Democratic Party (SPD) has only reluctantly championed tax increases during this period. Interviews with political actors reveal the main reasons to be a feared countermobilization by business interests, hostile public opinion, and a lack of tax expertise in left-wing parties. The 2021 election campaign deviated from this pattern because the SPD made taxing the rich a priority. This deviation can be explained by the interplay of an unusual taxation focus of the party leadership, the salience of investment needs, and a programmatic weakness of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union and Free Democratic Party with regard to financing these needs. Particularly with a fiscally moderate candidate, the SPD was able to champion taxing the rich without compromising economic competence ratings. In a second step, the article describes survey experiments and focus groups involving low-educated citizens that were used to investigate whether the tax campaign contributed to the SPD’s electoral success. [R, abr.]
73.7454 FERRER, Joshua —
It is widely recognised that politicians are self-interested and desire election rules beneficial to their re-election. Although partisanship in electoral system reform is well-understood, the factors that affect partisan manipulation of other democratic ‘rules of the game’ — including election administration, franchise laws, and campaign finance — has received little attention to date. New Zealand is so far the only established democracy to shift from a non-proportional to a proportional electoral system and thus presents an ideal case to test the effects of electoral system change on the politics of election reform. This article examines partisan and demobilising election reforms passed between 1970 and 1993 under first-past-the-post and between 1997 and 2020 under mixed-member proportional representation. Moving to a proportional system has failed to diminish the amount of partisan election lawmaking, though voting restrictions have become less common. [R, abr.]
73.7455 FITZGERALD, Ian ; SMOCZYŃSKI, Rafał —
The UK 2016 EU Referendum has introduced a period of uncertainty for both the indigenous population and for non-British citizens. This uncertainty is considered within a framework of the recent revisions in the sociology of moral panics through an analysis of interviews with Polish migrant workers. This analysis reveals two main discursive framing logics. The first logic refers to a self-reported anti-Polish migrant moral panic discourse that — according to respondents — was exploited by British anti-migrant campaigners. The second type of articulation illustrates the good moral panic logic, namely, a panicking discourse appearing among respondents about the vulnerability of their community in post-Referendum Britain. This article, however, problematises the good moral panic logic by eliciting competing narratives found in the interview data. The latter did not aim merely at stimulating caring attitudes but referred also to moral regulation techniques to manage Brexit-oriented risks and avoid the trap of becoming a vulnerable migrant. [R]
73.7456 FOURQUET, Jérôme ; MANTERNACH, Sylvain —
As a new figure in the political landscape, Éric Zemmour had to build an electorate by bringing together voters with different sociological and ideological convictions. A geographical analysis shows the outlines of this composite electorate. While he clearly attracted some Le Pen voters, this was mainly the case along the Mediterranean coast, while Le Pen traditional strongholds in the north and east of France remained relatively immune to Zemmour’s policies. Alongside traditional Le Pen voters from the south, the polemist managed to gain some conservative upper middle class voters, which gave him good results in western Paris and some resort towns. Overall, the election results show that the Reconquête! party leader achieved a kind of union of right wing voters, but on a small scale, and among the most radical segments. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7625]
73.7457 FREY, Bruno S. ; BRIVIBA, Andre ; GULLO, Anthony —
The citizen assembly of the Swiss canton Glarus in 2006 decided to radically reduce the historical number of communes from 25 to three. Studies show that the financial and economic consequences are surprisingly small. This paper analyzes the effects on citizens’ vote participation as an indicator of their political involvement. Using the difference-in-difference and the synthetic control methods, we empirically show that vote participation dropped significantly, also compared to neighboring cantons and the rest of Switzerland. [R]
73.7458 FRIBERG, Anna —
The relationship between time and politics is complex and multilayered, especially in issues such as global warming. This facilitates political playing with and about time; political actors use and frame time in various ways. Drawing upon the work of Reinhart Koselleck, this article examines temporal statements about the environment and the climate in Swedish election campaigns 1988 to 2018 and shows how political rhetoric has been constituted by several competing modalities of time. However, these modalities can become problematic for political thinking about the future. To resolve the climate crisis, we need a politics that acknowledges both historical and political contingency. Engaging with the past, without seeking to extrapolate a unified narrative of historical progress, explores the past from various perspectives and shows how the present is contingent. This could enable a renegotiation of possible futures and a politics for the future that facilitates both understanding and action. [R]
73.7459 FRINAULT, Thomas —
If the historical representation of Brittany as a conservative region was as much a reality as a simplifying representation, the same is true today with the image of a Macronian region. There is an obvious empirical reality here, as evidenced by the electoral results when compared to the whole of France. But it is appropriate to simultaneously report on all the indicators likely to relativize this apparent power of Macronism (exclusion from local power, declining results in 2022 with a rebound of the left) and to pay attention to other types of political reconfigurations such as the surge of the Rassemblement national, as real as it has gone relatively unnoticed. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7625]
73.7460 FUEST, Clemens, et al.—
Information provided by experts is believed to play a key role in shaping attitudes towards policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper uses a survey experiment to assess whether providing citizens with expert information about the health risk of COVID-19 and the economic costs of lockdown measures affects their attitudes towards these policies. Our findings show that providing respondents with information about COVID-19 fatalities among the elderly raises support for lockdown measures, while information about their economic costs decreases support. However, different population subgroups react differently. Men and younger respondents react more sensitively to information about lockdown costs, while women and older respondents are more susceptible towards information regarding fatality rates. Strikingly, our results are entirely driven by respondents who underestimate the fatality of COVID-19, who represent a majority. [R]
73.7461 GALAIS, Carol ; GUINJOAN, Marc —
What makes believers in COVID-19-related conspiratorial stories different from the usual conspiracy theorists? To date, evidence on conspiratorial beliefs about COVID-19 is scant and it focuses on only a few countries. Moreover, it overlooks political and ideological factors, which might well help in the endeavour of halting misperceptions about the pandemic and understanding their political consequences. This research note examines the role of these explanatory factors (placement on the left-right scale, authoritarianism, freedom, and support for the incumbent party) in relation to conspiracy theories in general and COVID-19-related conspiratorial beliefs in particular. To do so, it uses a new case study: Spain. Relying on a large online survey (N = 3760), we find that right-wing individuals are more prone to embrace COVID-19-specific than general conspiracies. We also find that people that value security over freedom are more prone to falling for pandemic misbeliefs. Those holding more general conspiratorial beliefs stand out for their defence of freedom above anything else, as well as for their rebellion against authority, including the ruling party. [R, abr.]
73.7462 GALLINA, Marta —
This article investigates how mass issue attitudes are structured and constrained across different levels of political sophistication. To do so, it replicates the analysis of Lupton, et al. (Journal of Politics 77(2), 2015: 368-380; Abstr. 65.4441) in the European context, relying on the 2014 and 2019 European Election Studies (EES). First, it tests seven models of issue dimensionality on each European country by means of CFA. Then, it investigates whether connections among issue dimensions become stronger at increasing levels of sophistication. Finally, it checks correlations between factors and ideology. Results show that voters’ issue dimensionality considerably changes between the two EES waves, switching from a heterogeneous configuration in 2014 to a predominant GAL/TAN model in 2019. Analyses find evidence that sophisticated voters constrain their attitudes to one single underlying dimension only in some cases. Therefore, the constraining role of sophistication cannot be generalized to all European countries. [R, abr.]
73.7463 GERAS, Matthew J. —
This paper considers whether the rules governing state political parties help to explain primary election outcomes. I theorize political parties will see lower levels of competition during primary elections when they have bylaws that centralize power within the state central committee. To test this expectation, I created a dataset of state-level party rules by collecting and coding provisions within the bylaws of all 100 state-level Republican and Democratic parties. I operationalize party centralization of power as whether or not elected officials are represented within each party’s formal membership, their state central committee, and whether or not each party has an endorsement or neutrality policy when it comes to contested primaries. I find the centralization of party power does correlate with lower levels of competition in primary elections for the House of Representatives in 2018 and 2020. [R, abr.]
73.7464 GHERGHINA, Sergiu ; JACQUET, Vincent —
The development of deliberative procedures raises a series of challenges for political parties. Despite the recent development of fruitful theoretical insights and empirical research, to date, the analytical dimensions have not been put together to facilitate the study of the interaction between parties and deliberation. This paper seeks to address this gap in the literature and proposes a framework that can explain why parties use deliberative democracy. It connects three bodies of literature: intra-party democracy, parliamentary activity, and connection with the citizenry. The article proposes an analytical framework that differentiates between issues (people and policies) and the goals (strategic objectives and normative goals). This framework brings relevant theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions to the broader field of the study. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7466]
73.7465 GHERGHINA, Sergiu ; SOARE, Sorina —
Non-resident voters can be an important share of the electorate. To compete for their votes, parties in the country of origin establish organisations abroad. This article analyses the organisations established by Romanian parliamentary parties in the countries hosting large numbers of Romanian migrants. The analysis relies on qualitative content analysis of party statutes and semi-structured interviews. The results indicate that parties differ in their degree of formalisation, territorial coverage and division of power when establishing their organisations abroad. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7656]
73.7466 GHERGHINA, Sergiu ; SOARE, Sorina ; JACQUET, Vincent —
This special issue contributes to the bourgeoning literature that connects political parties and deliberative practices. It answers two related research questions: why do parties engage in deliberation? and what are the ways in which the deliberative practices can address the challenges faced by political parties in responding to a changing internal and external environment? Its articles cover both theoretical concepts and practical aspects that emerged in different political settings. The results illustrate how different forms of deliberation can contribute to reshaping parties as instruments to represent the people by allowing them to express their demands in a non-mediated form. As such, deliberation in party politics — within and outside party organization — can positively contribute to citizens’ attitudes towards politics and to democratic life. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on "Political parties and deliberative practices: use and abuse", edited by the authors. See also Abstr. 73.7464, 7467, 7479, 7490, 7523, 7545, 7550, 7586, 7607, 7657]
73.7467 GHERGHINA, Sergiu ; TAP, Paul ; SOARE, Sorina —
Participatory budgeting gains momentum around the world, and increasing evidence provides mixed results about its effects. Under these circumstances, it is unclear if citizens consider it a source of empowerment and an avenue for effective decision-making in the life of their local community. We know very little about how participants in participatory budgeting perceive the collective empowerment. This article seeks to identify the factors that shape these perceptions about the empowerment potential of participatory budgeting. It focuses on the critical case of Cluj-Napoca and uses 25 semi-structured interviews conducted in October–November 2020 with three categories of participants. Our findings indicate that participants acknowledge the potential for collective empowerment and praise the limited political involvement but identify design issues and resource allocation as weakening the empowerment potential. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7466]
73.7468 GIBAND, David —
This paper examines the strategic scope of the RN’s Perpignan laboratory in the light of the RN wave in the presidential and legislative elections in the former Languedoc-Roussillon. We follow the hypothesis formulated by E. Négrier and J. Audemard (2022) that, in the former Languedoc-Roussillon, the RN’s strategy now consists less in consolidating territories of rooting than in structuring territories of establishment. This strategy raises many questions about the effective scope of the so-called Perpignan laboratory, the forms of adhesion within the different territories (urban, suburban, rural), the trivialization of the RN on the local and regional institutional and political scenes, the compromises of LR and centrist elected officials, but also the capacities and limits of the RN to act (weak militant base, political apparatus with little presence on the territory). [R] [See Abstr. 73.7625]
73.7469 GIESING, Yvonne ; SCHIKORA, Felicitas —
What are the causal effects of emigration on election outcomes in the country of origin? Large emigration of high-skilled emigrants can lead to changes in the distribution of political preferences, which affect voting outcomes. Using administrative migration and voting data, we show that emigration from Poland following its accession to the EU in 2004 caused an increase in vote shares for right-wing parties, while decreasing the vote share for left-wing parties due to emigrants’ missing left-leaning votes. To account for endogenous migration patterns, we construct an innovative instrument that measures the distance to the closest open EU border. Our results highlight that emigration enhances stayers’ trust in right-wing governments and increases stayers’ voting for parties with pro-European positions. Exploiting a change in voting rules over time allows to disentangle different mechanisms. [R, abr.]
73.7470 GIULIANI, Marco —
The article analyses the 15 elections that took place between 2010 and 2019 in four South European countries — Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain — through the lenses of the retrospective vote theory. The large within-country variation of economic conditions justifies the adoption of an original subnational perspective, while the explicit test of alternative economic quantities and horizons provides a more credible assessment of voters’ behaviours. Besides offering a taxonomy of local retrospective voting, the research found that citizens assessed the incumbents against regional unemployment levels and national growth dynamics, further bench-marking the local economic conditions against their past performances. These results give credit to the idea that the South European electorate shares similar references in assessing the economic competences of incumbent governments. [R]
73.7471 GLAURDIĆ, Josip ; FEL, Leo —
The 2021 county elections in Croatia were the perfect example of political change amidst continuity. Relatively new parties and independent candidates made significant inroads against the dominant players of the centerright and the center-left, most notably in the capital city of Zagreb, where a novel leftist political platform won the elections conclusively. The rise of new and credible alternatives resulted in increased fragmentation of the county assemblies and likely more unstable regional governments in the near future. On the other hand, the party that has dominated Croatian politics since independence, Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), continued that dominance on the county-level by winning 15 out of 21 offices of county prefects. More important, the determinants of electoral support for the principal political blocs have remained unchanged from the pattern observed in all national elections since the end of Croatia’s War of Independence more than two and a half decades ago. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7620]
73.7472 GOH, Daniel P. S. —
The bowing out of the designated successor to the leadership of the longruling People’s Action Party, Heng Swee Keat, and thus the prime ministership of Singapore in April 2021 led to a sense of political crisis in the illiberal state. This article argues that this troubled third leadership transition was preceded and conditioned by the similarly troubled protracted first leadership transition in the 1980s and 1990s. The technocratic statecraft that framed the first transition is ill-adapted to tackle the new contentious politics that have gathered pace since the 2011 general election, thus engendering the sense of crisis. [R]
73.7473 GÓMEZ CORREAL, Diana ; BUENO-HANSEN, Pascha ; MANTILLA FALCÓN, Julissa —
International human rights law has long ignored women’s realities, reproducing an epistemological blind spot that has impacted transitional justice mechanisms such as truth commissions. In the early 2000s, this blind spot was challenged by Peru’s Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (CVR; Truth and Reconciliation Commission). The lessons learned in Peru about including gender in transitional justice processes have nourished the application of transitional justice in Colombia. This article examines the inclusion of a gender perspective in Peru’s CVR and highlights the advances and lessons that inform Colombia’s Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad, la Convivencia y la No Repetición (CEV; Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence, and Non-Repetition). Furthermore, it underscores the innovative contributions of Latin American decolonial and communitarian feminisms to reframing the inclusion of gender in the context of Colombia’s CEV. We argue that these feminisms allow the recognition that “woman” is a plural subject intersected by race and class. [R, abr.]
73.7474 GOREN, Talia ; BEERI, Itai ; VASHDI, Dana R. —
Popularity metrics, such as “likes” are key features in social media (SM). In the political sphere, politicians use popularity metrics as indicators of the extent to which opinions and agendas are widely held by the public. However, popularity metrics have an inherent potential to increase rapidly, making today’s not-so-popular content tomorrow’s potential hit. Hence the lack of popularity indices or their low values may not indicate the full popularity potential of any specific SM content. This is crucial for politicians as they aim to identify and respond to popular public opinions in their constant effort to boost and maintain public support. Considering SM’s ever-growing role in politics, and the significant portion of SM content with no popularity metrics, exploring politicians’ responsiveness to public opinion in SM with and without popularity metrics may shed light on contemporary democratic process and their impact on representation and policy making. [R, abr.]
73.7475 GOUGOU, Florent —
Re-election of all incumbent Presidents, most of them from the Socialist Party (PS) or the Republicans (LR), was the main feature of the French regional elections of 20 and 27 June 2021. As a result, regional government remained controlled by the two parties that have dominated French politics since the early 1980s, even though both lost the 2017 presidential and legislative elections to newcomer Emmanuel Macron. The secondorder elections model captures part of these dynamics, but the candidate-centered politics model provides a more appropriate framework to understand the general pattern of these regional elections. In a context of increasing split-ticket voting between regional and departmental elections, which were held at the same time, an era of divided government seems to have emerged since 2017. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7620]
73.7476 GRECHYNA, Daryna —
This paper evaluates the political polarization in the UK and analyzes its socioeconomic correlates based on detailed county-level panel data constructed from the British Household Panel Survey. Three different polarization measures, computed following different strands of the literature, are highly correlated and characterized by similar statistical properties, which implies they can be used interchangeably in the quantitative analysis. The empirical evaluation of the determinants of political polarization suggests that regional political polarization in the UK is positively associated with the variability of job status and negatively associated with an increase in the employment rate and an increase in the share of natives in the region. The findings fill the gaps in understanding the political polarization in the UK by clarifying its measurement, correlates, and trends. [R]
73.7477 GRIFFINI, Marianna —
This paper draws attention to the role of colonial memory in the Italian populist radical right. Italy’s colonial past has been long confined on the fringes of memory in Italian politics and in the Italian public debate. While recent academic attention has been devoted to the selective colonial memory transpiring from Italian cultural products, scarce attention has been paid to colonial memory in contemporary Italian political parties’ discourse. Therefore, by applying Critical Discourse Analysis to semi-structured interviews with Italian populist radical right representatives from the Lega and Fratelli d’Italia (FdI), this paper aims at investigating which role colonial memory plays in these parties’ discourse. This paper argues that the Lega and FdI reproduce colonial discourse in constructing the image of the contemporary immigrant Other. At the same time, they forge a selective memory of Italy’s colonial past, cleansed from its most controversial aspects. [R]
73.7478 GRIFFITHS, J., et al.—
Despite an extraordinary degree of political turbulence in the UK, the 2021 Scottish and Welsh election results were remarkably similar to those recorded at the previous elections in 2016. While this period spanned the 2016 EU referendum, Britain’s exit from the EU, and the coronavirus pandemic, these upheavals appear to have had little impact on devolved election results. From a comparative perspective, however, such continuity only underlines the extent to which these nations’ political trajectories have diverged since the establishment of devolution in 1999. Using individual-level survey data from twelve election studies over two decades, we show how changing patterns in the relationship between national identity and party support have driven these differing trajectories. In doing so, we provide the first comparative analysis of voting over time in both countries. Additionally, we show how national identity helps to sustain single-party dominance in Scotland and Wales. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7620]
73.7479 GROOTHUIS, Sanne —
Counter-radicalisation measures have been criticised for stigmatising Muslim communities. However, little research exists on racialisation in policy frameworks found in counter-radicalisation policy documents themselves. Analysis of these documents can reveal whether and how racialising patterns emerge in bureaucracy at the national level, because policy documents circulate and institutionalise regulatory, administrative power. This paper presents a study of counter-radicalisation policy documents developed by the Dutch government, a pioneer in counter-radicalisation policy. A computer-assisted qualitative content-analysis of policy documents was conducted and then contextualised using interviews with policy-makers and executives. Using a theoretical framework that takes racialisation to be a particular essentialised construction of group membership, the analysis presents a nuanced answer to the question if counter-radicalisation policy frameworks racialise Muslims. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7466]
73.7480 GROTE, Nora ; KLAUSMANN, Tim ; SCHARFBILLIG, Mario —
Social identity greatly affects behavior. However, less is known about an individual’s investment in identification, i.e., in belonging to a social group. Using a language-learning platform utilized by refugees to learn the host country’s language, we design a field experiment that allows us to make effort as an investment in a new group identity salient. The social identity in our treatment is a refugee’s identification with the host society. We modified a mailing to 5600 refugees who use an online language-learning platform to learn the host country’s language. These treatment emails make salient that improving the host country’s language ability increases the belonging to the host society. [R, abr.]
73.7481 GUASTI, Petra ; GEISSEL, Brigitte —
This article fills a gap in existing research by focusing on the political representation of denizens — legal residents not holding citizenship of the country and thus generally excluded from legislative politics. The empirical research on the effects of the presence of under-represented groups in representative bodies indicates that “who represents” (descriptive) is as important as “what is being represented” (substantive). In this article, we analyze the extent to which an elected body of denizens (KAV) in the German city of Frankfurt provides a descriptive and substantive representation. We find that in Frankfurt, the body elected by denizens to represent denizens does not represent denizens. In providing inference about the descriptive and substantive representation of denizens in KAV, our research contributes to broadening the study of representation by focusing on an understudied group, non-traditional venues, and claim-making as a form of representative politics. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7520]
73.7482 GUO Jing —
Using a representative Taiwan sample from the 2019 Asia Barometer Survey, this study investigated the effect of political interest on two types of political participation (i.e., participation in electoral campaigns and political advocacy) based on the communication mediation model. Findings showed that three communication channels (i.e., news involvement, online political expression, and off-line political discussion) mediate the positive relationship between political interest and participation through different paths. When people are more interested in politics, they will be more likely to read political news, leading to more on-line political expression, which then motivates higher level of political participation. In parallel, political interest could also increase political participation first through news involvement and then through off-line political discussion. More importantly, compared with the total indirect effects on participation in electoral campaigns, political interest could exert stronger indirect effect on participation in political advocacy through the three communication channels under study. In addition, the mediating effect of on-line political expression is more powerful than off-line political discussion in mobilizing participation in political advocacy. [R, abr.]
73.7483 GUSTAVSSON, Gina ; TAGHIZADEH, Jonas Larsson —
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Sweden soon found itself alone and heavily criticised for its internationally deviant strategy. Why did this approach nevertheless receive widespread public support in Sweden? This article develops and tests a novel rally around the flag (RRTF) theory, which places national identity centre stage. In contrast to previous work, the article differentiates between national pride, national chauvinism, uncritical patriotism, national attachment, and ethnic nationhood conception — expecting only the first three of these to be related to supporting the Swedish Covid approach. Survey data from a politically representative sample of Swedes support the expectations. It is concluded that the popular support for the ‘Swedish experiment’ is to be understood as an RRTF — although in this case the flag was ‘unwaved’. This suggests that even national identities that draw their pride from institutional rather than cultural superiority lend themselves to RRTF processes. [R]
73.7484 HACKEMANN, Phil —
This paper seeks to answer the question how congruent the policy positions of the four main Europarties were compared with their respective national member parties, as well as how they influenced each other in the drafting process, using the comparative example of German parties in the EU election 2019. It finds that the programmatic congruence of Euro- and their German member parties is small, with only insignificant coherences in issue salience and policy prioritization. In fact, some parties are even revealed to have higher programmatic congruence with other German parties than with their own Europarty. Nevertheless, cases of up- and downloading of policy positions as well as general political reconciliation processes are reported for all parties. [R]
73.7485 HAMAN, Michael ; ŠKOLNÍK, Milan —
This report focuses on Peru’s 2018 regional elections. It analyzes the election results from two perspectives. First, it examines how these elections fit the characteristics of second-order elections. Second, it discusses regional movements and their institutionalization. Although the concept of second-order elections expects these elections to have lower turnout and more invalid votes, this has not happened in Peru’s regional elections: the number of invalid votes in the regional elections is considerably lower than in national congressional elections. However, the assumption that voters punish the ruling parties and vote for smaller parties in these elections was fulfilled. In the elections, the major national parties completely failed, and regional movements celebrated significant successes, winning 15 of the 25 regions. However, the report shows that successful regional movements are not strongly institutionalized in the regional party systems. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7620]
73.7486 HAN Kyung Joon —
Using an original survey experiment in South Korea, we find that the introduction of a progressive welfare policy by a right-wing political party makes people more favorable in their perceptions of legitimacy, credibility, and agreement on the policy. We also find that such a support-increasing effect is stronger among people who feel attached to the right-wing party. The results imply that partisan cues are extended to cases where political parties implement policies that do not correspond to their long-established ideology. [R]
73.7487 HANIMANN, Anina —
Scholars have claimed that right-wing citizens are more skeptical about experts than left-wing citizens. This article, however, argues that depending on their party affiliation, citizens prefer certain kinds of expertise over others. I confronted Swiss adults (N = 2,465) with individual risk advice on either flu vaccination or colorectal cancer screening. The quote varied regarding the expert providing the advice (e.g., academic, administration, or corporation) and the degree of policy advocacy. The citizens then assessed the experts’ credibility and their own behavioral intention (e.g., get a flu shot). Citizens across the political spectrum are more likely to positively evaluate experts who represent institutions aligned with their beliefs. Moreover, right-wing citizens are more skeptical about experts who advocate for specific policies than their left-wing counterparts. This study underscores the need for a better understanding of how partisanship affects expert perceptions to manage health policy problems and other sciencebased issues. [R]
73.7488 HANKLA, Charles, et al.—
What factors influence women’s political success in ethnically divided societies? Using an original survey experiment in the Indian state of Bihar, supplemented with qualitative interviews, we explore the impact of two factors — intersecting gender and caste identity, and the interaction of campaign appeal with voter experiences of caste discrimination — on women candidates’ success in state-level elections. We find, first, that women voters prefer women candidates, and that Scheduled Caste and Muslim voters also prefer candidates from their in-groups. At the same time, we identify evidence of intersectional effects, namely, that Muslim women candidates suffer from a disadvantage vis-a-vis women candidates from other backgrounds. We also show that women voters prefer candidates who offer security, especially when the candidates are women. Finally, we demonstrate that personal experience with caste discrimination increases support for women candidates. [R, abr.]
73.7489 HATAB, Shimaa —
The article engages critically with the literature on the relationship between social movements and political parties. It traces the representation crisis in Chile with a dual focus on the meso-institutional supply side of partisan politics and the microfoundational demand side of protest activity (2006-2019). I argue that the dialectical relationship between political parties’ programmatic dealignment and realignment and social actors’ framing politics determined the magnitude, intensity, and ideational content of protest mobilization. Social actors’ perception of their position in polity structure determined the content of their demands. Savvy actors started with a realignment frame in 2006 to push through socioeconomic reforms from within the parameters of the existing system. They, however, afforded an anti-establishment frame with the ‘social outbreak’ in 2019 to weed out the vestiges of Pinochet’s regime. Social forces pushed political parties to reposition their policy programs, reset agenda priorities, and recast their linkages to society. I draw on interview data, archival works, and Observatory of Conflicts-Cumulative Dataset to substantiate my argument. [R]
73.7490 HEDEGAARD, Troels Fage —
Is there a cultural component to attitudes towards the distribution of the tax burden? In this article, I draw on the literature around tax culture to argue that this might be the case. This idea is tested using data from the “Migrants’ Attitudes towards Welfare” (MIFARE) survey of eight migrant groups in the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. The results demonstrate that a part of attitudes towards the distribution of the tax burden can be explained by attitudes towards the same subject in the origin country. The results further show that this effect is stronger for migrants who were older when they migrated. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7466]
73.7491 HEFEKER, Carsten ; NEUGART, Michael —
We analyze the consequences of political polarization between domestic policymakers for international policy coordination or delegation to a common agency. Coordination is preferred under political polarization if it allows to constrain the policy of policymakers with different policy targets, while delegation allows to determine policies in the future by selecting the appropriate agent. Policymakers have different preferences concerning international coordination and which form it should take. These differences are increasing in political polarization. They agree on delegation if election outcomes are close to being random. [R]
73.7492 HEIKKILÄ, Riie ; LINDBLOM, Taru —
There is a fervent belief that culture is, among other desirable ideals, “good for you.” This has been the baseline of the cultural policies in many countries. Through cultural policies, some forms of cultural participation over others are subvented through public funding, which makes it yet more important to ask which groups intentionally withdraw — or are left out — from which forms of it. We address the debate on cultural non-participation by scrutinizing nationally representative and longitudinal survey data from Finland, a Nordic welfare country with allegedly low social and cultural hierarchies, for years 2007 and 2018. We explore the changes in cultural non-participation by asking whether the main frequencies of cultural nonparticipation have changed between 2007 and 2018, what forms of different cultural non-participation patterns can be distinguished, and which socioeconomic factors best predict which form of cultural non-participation most in both years. Finally, we ask whether certain everyday forms of participation would compensate or complement non-existing cultural participation. We find three main cultural non-participation patterns: highbrow avoidance, mainstream avoidance, and nightlife avoidance. While the changes in non-participation look small from the macro level, their internal dynamics face a steep change between 2007 and 2018. [R, abr.]
73.7493 HELMS, Ludger —
This article seeks to contribute to the bourgeoning debate about technocratic, non-political and non-partisan ministers in party government regimes. At the centre of this study is the identification and analysis of a major paradox — a sizeable number and share of non-partisan ministers operating at the core of an otherwise exceptionally party-centered regime, the Second Austrian Republic, which has widely been considered to mark the epitome of the party state in Europe. The discussion of this phenomenon highlights the importance of particular strategic considerations among political decision-makers that have been largely ignored in the extant literature on ministerial selection and de-selection. We argue that in contexts marked by advanced levels of anti-party sentiment, non-partisan ministers can bring major benefit to the government in terms of legitimacy, popularity and support, and at a rather low cost or risk. As they tend to have few if any party resources of their own, non-partisan ministers can be easily removed whenever deemed politically expedient. [R]
73.7494 HENSHAW, Alexis —
Decentralized finance, including cryptocurrency and other blockchain-based applications, promises participants benefits such as financial freedom, security, privacy, and wealth accumulation. More recently, it has also offered the promise of participation, lowering financial barriers, and empowerment — especially to women, the poor, and those residing in the Global South. I argue that the rise of decentralized finance as an alternative development platform is explicitly gendered and calls for feminist analysis. I discuss how cryptocurrency-based approaches to development rest on foundations that are gendered, interacting with hierarchies of race/ethnicity and class. I also explore how they are part of a lineage of neoliberalism, leveraging neoliberal beliefs about entrepreneurialism, financial inclusion, and gender roles. The discussion further introduces the concept of neolibertarianism as an extension of neoliberal logics that advocates for bypassing states entirely in favor of private actors. [R, abr.]
73.7495 HERRERA, Joel Salvador —
In many developing countries where formal institutions fail to guarantee rule of law, criminal organisations have emerged as intermediaries between citizens and the state. In some cases, these armed non-state actors adopt repressive strategies to govern their territories and local populations. This study asks under what circumstances local actors mobilise against criminal governance. Focusing on the case of Michoacán, Mexico, I argue that the emergence of vigilante groups, known as autodefensas, was prompted by the breaching of a social contract — a set of formal and informal agreements and obligations — between organised crime and civil society. As criminal governance spread in Michoacán, so did predatory behaviour against local communities, which gave way to an elite-organised social movement structured by rural inequalities. [R]
73.7496 HIERRO, María ; MAZA, Adolfo ; VILLAVERDE, José —
The refugee crisis evidenced a myriad of flaws in the EU common asylum policy, especially the lack of fairness in asylum burden-sharing. This paper reveals that, despite some progress in terms of inequality, a bi-polarised distribution gained ground. Moreover, two novel convergence approaches in this field reveal that the message of previous articles on disparity reduction is incomplete; there was no pure convergence, as it was achieved due to frontrunners, with no role for laggards. Consequently, urgent political action and greater leadership by European institutions are required to pave the way for distributive justice between states in asylum burdens. [R]
73.7497 HODWITZ, Omi ; MASSINGALE, Kelley —
The former Trump Administration introduced policies focused on tightening national borders and limiting migration. These policies were often prefaced with strong rhetoric designed to disparage or derogate international racial, ethnic, and spiritual communities seeking entrance to the United States. In response, the media and members of the general public suggested that Trump’s words and actions resulted in a backlash effect by significantly influencing domestic hate crimes; however, these sources are missing the empirical evidence to support such a claim. Using the UCR and multiple analytical techniques, this study aims to explore this relationship further by examining the influence of the former Trump Administration’s rhetoric on hate crimes in the United States. Results indicate that, in support of public assumptions, Trump’s narrative may promote violence targeting select communities. [R]
73.7498 HOFHANSEL, Claus —
This paper analyses the waxing and waning of loyalty in German citizenship. It focuses on three areas where loyalty historically played a role: military service, requirements that naturalisation candidates commit to support and uphold constitutional values, and debates over exclusive loyalty and dual citizenship. There is an asymmetry between loyalty and disloyalty. Germany no longer requires young male citizens to demonstrate their loyalty through military service. Nonetheless, perceived disloyalty, such as military service for a foreign state or terrorist militia, can result in loss of citizenship. Citizens are not required to show loyalty to the constitutional order but engaging in activities to undermine the constitutional order is incompatible with becoming a naturalised German citizen. Debates over political loyalty as well as dual citizenship show distinct partisan differences. [R, abr.]
73.7499 HÖHNE, Benjamin —
Does the demand for more direct democracy by populist parties have any implications for their internal decision-making? To answer this question, a novel large-scale research project analyses the 2017 candidate selection of all Bundestag parties, including the populist Alternative for Germany. Some 1,334 individual nominations of seven parties are compared using quantitative indicators along three dimensions of intra-party democracy (IPD): competition between aspirants for candidacy, inclusion of members and nomination-related communication. It shows that the AfD is living up to its promise of practising grassroots democracy: in all results it ranks at the top by a wide margin. A new populist organizational model seems to have emerged following neither the classic hierarchical and leader-oriented mode of many other European right-wing populist parties nor the delegate assembly mode typical of German parties. Our further development of IPD concepts, newly elaborated measuring methods and surprising empirical evidence improve the understanding of democratic decision-making in populist parties. [R]
73.7500 HOLESCH, Adam ; ZAGÓRSKI, Piotr —
Following the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the ‘democratic backslider’ parties in Hungary (Fidesz) and Poland (Law and Justice) took differing stances on Russia, bringing their positions on the Rule of Law (RoL) conflict and within the broader alliance of Populist Radical Right (PRR) parties into question. Building on and advancing the theoretical framework of democratic backsliding and PRR party cooperation, this article assesses the impact of exogenous shocks triggered by external authoritarian actors on these types of collaborations. A detailed examination of the voting patterns of Fidesz, Law and Justice and other PRR parties in the European Parliament (EP) is undertaken, and their stances towards Russia and the RoL conflict before and after the invasion are weighed. The findings show that the invasion did not influence the dynamics of democratic backsliding. [R, abr.]
73.7501 HOLMQVIST, Mikael ; WIESEL, Ilan —
‘Elite communities’ are the areas where the wealthy, and even ‘superrich’, live, socialize and raise their children as future economic and financial elites; they are the places where a few lead socially and economically privileged lives. Earlier studies have concentrated on the inner dynamics of these settings, focusing on the way residents are constructed and socialized as elites through their social, communicative and aesthetic abilities that are perceived as exemplary in contemporary neoliberal society. In this paper, we broaden the perspective, by exploring how these areas contribute to polarization, that is, how they generate distinctions based on money, morals and manners that are peculiar to neoliberalism’s idealization of ‘entrepreneurship’, ‘self-management’, ‘leadership’ and the pursuit of an ‘active lifestyle’. Our data come from two major ethnographic studies: one conducted between 2010 and 2015 of Sweden’s wealthiest community, Djursholm, that is populated by the country’s business and financial elites; the other conducted between 2016 and 2019 of three of Australia’s most prestigious and economically privileged suburbs, Toorak (Melbourne), Mosman (Sydney) and Cottesloe (Perth). [R]
73.7502 HOPE, David ; LIMBERG, Julian ; WEBER, Nina —
Why do (some) ordinary citizens support tax cuts for the rich? We test four prominent explanations — unenlightened self-interest, fairness considerations, prospect of upward mobility, and trickle-down beliefs — using a randomised, online information provision experiment, embedded in a representative survey of around 3000 US Americans. The results show that preferences for taxing the rich are fundamentally affected by information that shifts citizens’ core fairness beliefs, as well as information on the past trajectory of top tax rates. In contrast, we find no evidence in support of the unenlightened self-interest or prospect of upward mobility explanations. Overall, our results align with theories of tax policy preferences that emphasise the importance of fairness perceptions and reference points. [R]
73.7503 HUR Jaeyoung ; Choi Hyun Jin —
Do natural disasters affect presidential approval ratings? In this study, we argue that in South Korea this relationship is conditional on regional partisan cleavages. Since partisanship induces perceptual biases among distinct social groups, we expect that (1) the president’s co-partisans will not blame their president even if the government fails to prevent or mitigate damage from natural disasters, and (2) human and economic losses from disasters, or delivery of disaster relief aid, may boost approval ratings in partisan strongholds. We test these hypotheses using South Korea’s Park Geun-hye and Moon Jae-in administrations. The results of vector autoregressions show that regional partisanship toward the incumbent significantly influences job approval ratings in the wake of natural disasters. While public opinion in metropolitan areas was not affected by disaster losses, both presidents’ approval rose after disasters — typhoons and windstorms, in particular — struck their strongholds in the southeastern part of the country. [R]
73.7504 HUTCHINSON, Jade, et al.—
Right-wing extremist groups harness popular social media platforms to accrue and mobilize followers. In recent years, researchers have examined the various themes and narratives espoused by extremist groups in the United States and Europe, and how these themes and narratives are employed to mobilize their followings on social media. Little, however, is comparatively known about how such efforts unfold within and between right-wing extremist groups in Australia and Canada. In this study, we conducted a cross-national comparative analysis of over eight years of online content found on 59 Australian and Canadian right-wing group pages on Facebook. Here we assessed the level of active and passive user engagement with posts and identified certain themes and narratives that generated the most user engagement. Overall, a number of ideological and behavioral commonalities and differences emerged in regard to patterns of active and passive user engagement, and the character of three prevailing themes: methods of violence, and references to national and racial identities. [R, abr.]
73.7505 JAHN, Detlef —
The extent to which the left-right dimension still structures party systems in highly developed, industrialized democracies is a contested field in comparative politics. Although country-specific studies focusing on voters’ left-right self-placement discover different meanings of left and right that vary between countries and change over time, few macro-comparative studies focusing on parties or governments take this aspect into account. Using a left-right concept for party politics from the PIP project on Parties, Institutions and Preferences that distinguishes an ideological core derived from political theory, as well as country- and time-specific issues uncovered through empirical analysis, the article demonstrates fundamental differences in the relevance and meaning of left and right by analyzing 34 party systems from 1945 to 2020. [R, abr.]
73.7506 JAIN, Shree ; CHAKRABARTI, Sukalpa —
The People’s Republic of China has invited both fascination and fear, admiration and contempt in the last few years. Various public opinion surveys’ data findings reveal a nuanced and conflicted phenomenon of ‘Sinophobia’ and ‘Sinophillia’ across the world nations. One view of China is that of an ‘autocratic,’ ‘anti-democratic’ regime provoking anxiety and suspicion reflected in a trending wave of anti-China sentiments evolving into ‘Sinophobia,’ with its prevalence and intensity highlighted in increasing cases of racism and violence towards immigrant Chinese after the novel coronavirus outbreak. The growing intensity of Sinophobia is noticed in countries witnessing a barging influx of Chinese investment with Chinese land grabs and the loss of native jobs. However, another view is of a nation that inspires vast admiration for its economic ascent and traditional culture. Today, China has an increasing appeal and attraction not just for its economic engagement but also for its culture, language and tourism. Public perceptions and opinions are critical factors in determining a state’s foreign policy preferences and choices. [R, abr.]
73.7507 JAKIMOW, Tanya, et al.—
This article seeks to explain why so few women make the journey from social activism and community work to standing for election. Comparative research in Indonesia and Sri Lanka reveals four operations critical to mending the broken pathway to politics for non-elite women. Transference entails the recognition and valuing of women’s preexisting skills, knowledge and experiences gained through grassroots activity for the political field. Amplification is required of women’s symbolic capital so that it impresses upon a larger public. Women’s political constituency and social networks need to be extended to be commensurate with electoral boundaries and campaign needs, and to extend limited financial resources. Women’s sense of self (who they are and desire to be) needs to fit the ethical terrain and “feel” of the political field, requiring an operation of translation. This analytical heuristic can help identify strategies to mend the broken pathway from grassroots to representative politics. [R]
73.7508 JAKIMOW, Tanya —
‘Politics is dirty’ is a truism, a taken-for-granted reality in much of the world, particularly in India. Its implications are likewise seen as inescapable. Scholarship examining women’s political underrepresentation often cites the ‘dirty’ nature of democratic politics as a key disincentive for women to participate. While not disputing that politics is, in some respects, ‘dirty’, I question the mechanisms through which it is said to hinder women’s political representation. Drawing upon ethnographic research with female party workers and elected municipal councillors in Dehradun, North India, I analyse how ‘dirty politics’ positions women as ‘out of place’ within the political realm. While both men and women engage in acts of political care, men can more easily transgress the boundaries between them, straddling both ‘dirty politics’ and a ‘politics of care’. This production of the ‘political’ as a realm unsuitable for women or mismatched with their activities, is one factor contributing to the underrepresentation of women in politics in South Asia, and beyond. [R]
73.7509 JANG Sou Hyun —
Political transnationalism, compared with other forms of immigrant transnationalism, and its relationship with assimilation into American society, remains largely unexplored. Using immigrants’ voting in their home countries as an example, New Immigrant Survey data, including that of immigrants who became permanent residents in 2003-2004, were analyzed. The dependent variable was immigrants’ voting in their home country elections, and the independent variables included assimilation, human capital, past political behavior, and their region of origin. Based on the bivariate analysis, transnational voting rates differ by immigrants’ age, race/ethnicity, region of origin, educational level, English proficiency, assimilation, and previous voting behavior. The findings of logistic regression confirmed that assimilation is negatively associated with immigrants’ voting in the home country elections, whereas human capital is positively related to transnational voting among immigrants. [R, abr.]
73.7510 JANKOWSKI, Michael —
Although strategic voting is common in the first tier of the German electoral system, large-scale campaigns designed to foster strategic voting have rarely been observed in Germany. This changed in the General Election of 2021 when the left-wing organization Campact ran campaigns in several electoral districts supporting the most promising left-wing candidate in order to impede the election of a more right-wing candidate. Especially, Campact’s campaign in favor of the SPD candidate Frank Ullrich, with the goal of impeding the election of the controversial CDU candidate Hans-Georg Maassen, received much public attention. Drawing on this case as an example, I address the question of how Green voters evaluate such campaigns. To do so, I conducted a survey experiment in which different information about the campaign of Campact is provided to Green voters. [R, abr.]
73.7511 JANKOWSKI, Michael ; JUEN, Christina-Marie ; LEWANDOWSKY, Marcel —
When do voters turn a blind eye on corrupt politicians? Recent research suggests that voters might be willing to support corrupt politicians due to a lack of a ‘viable and clean alternative,’ i.e., voters prefer supporting a corrupt politician when the alternative is to support a politician who takes a fundamentally different policy stance. Following this argument, it has also been argued that especially corrupt politicians from radical parties are less likely to be punished by their voters as these voters are more hostile toward other parties. In other words, voters of radical parties are more likely to lack viable alternatives. Based on a survey experiment conducted in Germany, we put these hypotheses to an empirical test. We find evidence for the expected patterns. Supporters of radical parties are indeed less likely to switch their vote to a different party. However, our experiment also shows that this is because voters of radical parties are more likely to lack a viable alternative. [R, abr.]
73.7512 JARDINA, Ashley ; PISTON, Spencer —
The concept of racist dehumanization is essential for political scientists who seek to understand the nature, scope, and consequences of white racial prejudice in the United States today. Racist dehumanization consists of a variety of processes that construct, refashion, and maintain race by coding some people as white and therefore fully human and others as other than white and therefore less than fully human. In this review, we focus on the racist dehumanization of Indigenous people and Black people, arguing that processes of dehumanization have long been implicated in both the practice of race-making and concurrent efforts to exploit and dominate racialized groups. We posit that contemporary white racial prejudice can be understood, in part, as the residue of these processes, and we conclude by describing how accounting for racist dehumanization can transform the study of white racial prejudice. [R]
73.7513 JASKULOWSKI, Krzysztof ; MAJEWSKI, Piotr —
The article aims to analyse the mobilisation of a collective memory for political purposes by the Law and Justice party in Poland. PiS is often presented as a populist party, which came to power thanks to an anti-elite rhetoric and social programme. The party portrayed itself as a representative of socially excluded groups as well as a defender of ‘normal’ people against corrupted elites. At the same time, PiS mobilised its supporters by referring to a certain construction of the national past. We analyse the tension between populist rhetoric accompanying social reforms aimed at social inclusion and the practice of mobilising exclusive historical memory and strengthening exclusionary Polish national identity. In the selected examples of education reform, museum policy and the cult of the Cursed Soldiers, we demonstrate the traditional and nationalist approach of the party to history, which is reduced to heroic struggles for national freedom. In the image of the past evoked by PiS, the sharp division between ‘we, the simple people’ and ‘elites’ weakens; instead, the dichotomy between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is constructed in the national terms ‘Poles’ vs. ‘Others’. [R]
73.7514 JASTRAMSKIS, Mažvydas —
I focus on Lithuania: a country that is a stable liberal democracy, but has re-elected none of its governments (in the same party composition) since the restoration of independence. Survey data from the Lithuanian National Election Study reveal that Lithuanian voters are constantly dissatisfied with the economy and retrospectively evaluate it worse than the objective indicators would suggest. This partially explains why the Lithuanian voters constantly turn away from the government parties at parliamentary elections. However, their subsequent choice between parliamentary and new (previously marginal) parties is another puzzle. Using the 2016 Lithuanian post-election survey, I test how retrospective voting (economic and corruption issues) and political factors (trust and satisfaction with democracy) explain vote choice between the three types of parties (governmental, oppositional, and successful new party). [R, abr.]
73.7515 JEFTIĆ, Ljerka —
The notion of shameless normalization is applied in the paper to argue that the Serbian ruling party’s press releases introduce shameless normalization of expressing sycophancy toward the leader. Within the framework of critical (political) discourse analysis postulating that social actors’ use of language is vested with interests that need to be linguistically managed, the paper focuses on how the proposed strategies in political discourse — coercion, legitimisation and (mis)representation — manage the interest of the authors of press releases in realization of sycophancy. The analysis shows that the shameless normalization of sycophancy is realized by coercing the recipients to accept the exclusive right of the leader to represent the homogenized people of Serbia (the ingroup). This exclusive right is legitimized through positive representation of the leader as the self of the ingroup. Such legitimisation is enabled by misrepresentation both in terms of quality and quantity of the information conveyed. [R]
73.7516 JENKINS, David —
Politics and friendship connect to one another in complex and often conflicting ways. Some theorists, following a particular reading of Aristotle, regard civic friendship between citizens as necessary for, even prior to, justice. By contrast, those political friendships that are grounded in shared party affiliations are often taken as signs of partiality and factionalism, as evidence of a lack of amity between those in and those out of the party. In this paper, I explain and argue for productive compatibility between these two forms of political friendship: Trying to rid politics of partisanship is not only not a prerequisite for civic friendship, but serves to undermine one of the mechanisms through which different meanings of civic friendship are articulated. At its best, partisanship provides an associational space within which different meanings of civic friendship can be given concrete, programmatic form. These programmes then compete with other programmes — understood as expressing, amongst other things, different articulations of civic friendship — in wider democratic arenas. Partisanship then, correctly understood and practiced, offers means whereby contests over different meanings of civic friendship can be navigated and given a determinate form. [R]
73.7517 JIANG Jiying —
Leading small groups are widely presumed to be the most important mechanisms for coordinating policy among the various government and Party bureaucracies in the Chinese political system. This article evaluates this assumption through a combination of statistical and case-study analyses of LSGs operating under the State Council. Using information on 26 groups formed between 2004 and 2015, I estimate the effect of LSG participation on joint policy making. I demonstrate that some LSGs coordinate more effectively than others and argue that the reason for variation can be found in two factors: bureaucratic policy conflict and group leader authority. I argue that leader authority can spur agency coordination and move policy forward, while bureaucratic conflict can otherwise hinder coordination and create policy delays. Interaction between the two factors shapes the effectiveness of an LSG. [R, abr.]
73.7518 JIMÉNEZ-JIMÉNEZ, Natalia ; MOLIS, Elena ; SOLANO-GARCÍA, Ángel —
This paper reports results from a laboratory experiment that investigates the Meltzer-Richard model of equilibrium tax rates in which individuals are either low- or high-skilled workers and face a real-effort task that includes leisure at the work place. We find that a large proportion of low-skilled workers vote for the lowest tax rate (the one that gives them the lowest payoff), especially when the alternative tax rate is very high. However, this proportion is significantly reduced in treatments in which the subjects are given extra information about how the tax operates in redistributing income. This result suggests that the lack of information about the role of taxes in income redistribution may be an important factor in explaining the counter-intuitive voting behavior of low-income voters over income redistribution. [R, abr.]
73.7519 JONES, Calvert W. ; MITCHELL, Jocelyn Sage —
Research on gender and issue competency stereotypes frequently deems security affairs a “stereotypically masculine” domain. Traditionally, men are seen as more credible authorities in arenas such as crime and the military, while women are assumed to be more credible in “stereotypically feminine” ones like childcare and health. But women’s roles in politics, media, and other influential sectors are rapidly changing in the Mediterranean and MENA region. To test the conventional wisdom, we conducted an original, nationally representative survey in Jordan (n=885) focused on the media sector, using an embedded experiment assessing beliefs about the suitability of men versus women to report and offer commentary on national security affair — pecifically, an internal security threat (a high-profile bank robbery). Strong patriarchal norms suggest that the country should be an “easy case” for theories positing bias against women as experts in stereotypically masculine issue areas. Our results, however, do not support this conventional wisdom, instead suggesting egalitarianism and even a modest credibility advantage for women on assumptions about expertise. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7751]
73.7520 JONG, Judith Charlotte de ; MÜGGE, Liza —
How do minoritized citizens think about the politicians that represent them? How should they act and be? Drawing on 19 focus group interviews with 98 participants with a migration background in Germany and the Netherlands, we find that citizens’ evaluation of politicians depends on several factors. Politicians should be responsive, accessible, inclusive, and empathetic. Some participants consider empathy an essential quality for nondescriptive politicians in particular, since they do not have a descriptive or experiential connection with ethnically minoritized communities. Whether participants evaluate descriptive political actors positively or negatively depends on their sociopolitical identification, ideological preference, and the representative’s perceived assimilation within the party. Finally, political systems and histories of diversity in representation influence what ethnically minoritized citizens consider to be a good representative. But, the super politicians of their dreams are scarce. [R] [First article of a symposium on “The substantive representation of disadvantaged groups — Taking stock and moving forward”, introduced by Silvia ERZEEL and Ekaterina R. RASHKOVA. See also Abstr. 73.7351, 7353, 7481, 7608]
73.7521 JUEN, Christina-Marie, et al.—
Vaccine hesitancy is one of the major obstacles for successfully combating the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve a sufficiently high vaccination rate, calls for compulsory vaccinations have been discussed controversially. This study analyses what drives citizens’ attitudes towards compulsory vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we are interested in the impact of party- and expert cues on public attitudes. We further expect populist attitudes to be an important indicator of the rejection of compulsory vaccination due to their scepticism towards science. To test these expectations, we rely on a cueing experiment conducted on a sample of 2265 German citizens. We test for the effects of in-party and outparty cues as well as public health expert cues. We find evidence for inparty cues, meaning that respondents adjust their position on this issue in the direction of their most preferred party. Similar results can be found for public health expert cues. However, there is no evidence for out-party cues. Further analyses reveal that support for compulsory vaccinations is not affected by left-right placement directly. Instead, only the combination of right-wing attitudes and populism negatively affects support for compulsory vaccination. [R]
73.7522 JUNGBLUT, Jens ; KAVLI, Tuva Marie ; VALGERMO, Jon Bøe —
Norwegian politics have undergone significant changes since 1945. This paper analyzes over seven decades of policy agendas outlined in Norwegian executive speeches focusing on the composition and development of the agenda using categories from the Comparative Agendas Project. The analysis focuses on (1) the dynamics of agenda changes over time, (2) the diversity and distribution of attention, and (3) in how far external shocks or partisan factors drive major agenda shifts. Our results show that the Norwegian executive agenda has become more encompassing over time, that it is comparatively diverse, and that diversity increases as Norwegian politics becomes more complex. While there is generally a high degree of stability in the agenda, sudden punctuations also occur. Partisan factors only play a limited role in explaining these attention shifts, while external shocks seem to be more relevant. [R]
73.7523 JUNIUS, Nino, et al.—
Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a variety of deliberative practices in the organization and activities of political parties. What remains unclear, however, is how parties can promote deliberative democracy in an environment that remains predominantly representative. To investigate this tension, we study the Agora party in Brussels. Agora competed for the first time in the 2019 regional elections in Brussels with the aim of institutionalizing a permanent, randomly selected Citizen’s Assembly with legislative power in the Brussels Capital Region and immediately gained a seat in the Brussels Regional Parliament. Based on an in-depth qualitative study including 20 semi-structured interviews with a broad range of party members and document analysis, we study whether and how Agora’s organizational structure allow it to promote deliberative democracy in a representative context. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7466]
73.7524 KALTENEGGER, Matthias —
In parliamentary democracies, the logic of delegation from voters to government requires that political parties control government actions. Recruiting government personnel through the party organisation is the primary mechanism for parties to retain such a dominance over the government. Existing research has examined secular trends and cross-sectional variance in ministers’ party ties, mostly focussing on appointments of party members to government office. By contrast, this article centres on the appointment of members of the party elite as a yardstick for party control over government. It explores short-term variance in the ‘partyness’ of appointments, arguing that performance-related shifts in the intra-party power balance condition party elites’ access to ministerial office. Utilising data on ministerial appointments in Austria (1945-2017; n = 603), the article demonstrates that successful party leaders can relax party control by minimising appointments of party elite members, while relatively unsuccessful leaders have to compensate party elites with government jobs. [R]
73.7525 KARNEIN, Anja —
What is the wrong behind the widely criticized presentist bias of democracies? In this paper I argue that it is not that future generations are excluded from present-day democratic decision-making quite generally. Rather, I claim that due to the unique risks associated with representing future generations and the limitations on affecting future generations both institutionally and causally, the focus ought to be on including them on a more specific, narrower, set of issues, namely only those that threaten to lead to their domination. I identify such issues as those that may end up being purpose-determining: that may subject future generations to previous generations’ will by forcing them to exert a substantial amount of their energies on dealing with problems caused by their predecessors. I conclude by reflecting on the extent to which political representation together with providing avenues of contestation can minimize the risk of intergenerational domination. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7411]
73.7526 KASUYA, Yuko ; REILLY, Benjamin —
A ‘majoritarian turn’ identified by scholars of Asian democracy in the 1990s saw the rise of mixed-member majoritarian electoral systems and more centripetal party competition across both Northeast and Southeast Asia. In this paper, we argue that since the 2000s, the institutional pendulum has shifted, with more consensual approaches to democracy appearing to better represent key identity cleavages of gender, ethnicity, and territory — a trend evident not just in East Asia but South Asia as well. This new ‘Asian model’ typically involves increasing the proportional components of existing electoral formulas and grafting gender quotas, multiethnic party lists, and quasi-federal elements onto ostensibly majoritarian state structures. We show that these reforms have, as intended, mostly increased female and ethnic minority representation and decentralized governance structures. At the same time, however, these de jure changes are not associated with de facto political development in terms of greater democratic quality, counter to theoretical expectations. Indeed, democracy has declined across most of Asia at the same time as its democratic institutions have become more consensual. [R]
73.7527 KERNALEGENN, Tudi ; PELLEN, Cédric ; SMITH, Étienne —
Through the analysis of French parties campaigning abroad during the 2017 French parliamentary elections, the paper offers a better understanding of the conduct of electoral campaigns abroad, with an emphasis on their local dimension. With its comparative focus on three very different constituencies abroad — Northern America, North-West Africa and Switzerland — it shows how differentiated campaign strategies, rather than mere duplication of national or centralised strategies, attuned to local political dynamics and the diverse sociology of French electorates abroad are critical for electoral success. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7656]
73.7528 KIM Yong Jae ; PATTERSON, Dennis —
The literature of electoral reform explains politicians’ preferences and social forces such as working-class power or expansions of the suffrage are the major factors that bring about a change in electoral rules. However, we argue that generational replacement and electoral issue effects lead politicians to introduce a new electoral system for their electoral survival in future. By examining Japan’s surveys for pre- and postreform elections, we show that the entrance of new generation and salient issue concerns dissolve electoral bases of political parties and finally give rise to a change in the rules of the game for the greater electoral stability that political elites desire. [R]
73.7529 KIPPIN, Sean —
The Co-operative Party, which represents the interests and ideas of the co-operative movement in British politics, has been the sister party of UK Labour since 1927. Largely ignored by scholarship, it has been on occasion the third-largest party grouping in the House of Commons and represents a social movement with formal members numbering in the millions. The unusual Labour/Co-operative relationship was tested during the New Labour period, with the Co-operative Party gradually establishing itself as a trusted sidekick and a source of policy ideas, despite some initial tensions. This article examines two historical instances where the party proved decisive in influencing public policy; the “Thomas Bill” in 2001– 2002, and the creation of Co-operative Schools during the 2007–2010 Brown premiership. [R, abr.]
73.7530 KOH Hoyoun ; BAEK Kyungmin —
This study explores the changing nature of public confidence and its formation in non-democratic societies. The existing literature suggests that public confidence in democratic societies is understood as citizens’ support for democratic values, while in a non-democratic context citizens’ confidence is often equated to an assessment of government competence. However, heavy use of social media weakens the link between government competence and public confidence in non-democracies. Using World Values Survey data for Kazakhstan, we find that performance-based confidence no longer holds in a non-democratic state when social media become the main source of information. These findings suggest that social media promote the diffusion of global standards among citizens of authoritarian societies. [R]
73.7531 KOLLTVEIT, Kristoffer —
Political parties face hard choices when balancing desires to influence public policy, to gain executive office and to win votes. The existing literature examining such party preferences has traditionally focused on rather static aspects of the parties, such as size, policy positions and the level of intraparty democracy. This article argues that party actors’ sophisticated estimations of whether to enter into coalition can be affected by fluctuating public opinion, thereby having a more dynamic aspect. Drawing on a survey experiment on youth politicians in Norway, we test how perceived standing in the polls affects how politicians weigh up policy versus office and votes versus office. The experimental effect of perceived standings was investigated in addition to the respondents’ positions within the party, as well as their parties’ former governing history, political orientation and size. Results show that, in the presence of the treatment condition (party is perceived to do well in the polls), the preference for policy over office is lessened. [R, abr.]
73.7532 KOSIARA-PEDERSEN, Karina —
During the Covid-19 crisis, there was a high level of rallying around the flag for the Social Democratic government. However, support waned with the sense of crisis, and some ‘scandals’ surfaced. The ‘mink scandal’ caused an early election to be called. A high number of parties, 14, competed in the election, and after the election 12 parties are now represented in parliament — a new record number. When comparing the election results of 2019 and 2022, two overall results stand out. First, only one of the two traditional large parties has maintained this status and fragmentation is increased. Second, two new parties made it into the ‘top-5’ in 2022, both formed by former prominent Liberals. The election yielded a narrow victory to the red bloc. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was able to stay in office after the election but exchanged her red bloc parliamentary majority for a coalition government with the Liberals and Moderates. [R, abr.]
73.7533 LAKE, James ; NIE Jun —
The trade war initiated by the Trump administration is the largest since the US imposed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs in the 1930s and was still raging when he left office. We analyze how the trade war impacted the 2020 US Presidential election. Our results highlight the political salience of the trade war: US trade war tariffs boosted Trump’s support but foreign retaliation hurt Trump. In particular, the pro-Trump effects of US trade war tariffs were crucial for Trump crossing the recount thresholds in Georgia and Wisconsin. These effects of the trade war and health insurance coverage expansion cross political and racial lines, suggesting the mechanism operates through the impact on local economies rather than political polarization. [R, abr.]
73.7534 LAMBACH, Daniel ; OPPERMANN, Kai —
How digital sovereignty is being understood in German politics is highly relevant for broader policy debates on the European level. The article maps out the different meanings that are attributed to digital sovereignty in German political discourse. Specifically, it adopts a narrative framework to reconstruct the narratives through which these meanings are constructed. The analysis identifies seven different but overlapping narratives of digital sovereignty in the German discourse that serve to promote partly contradictory political agendas. We argue that this diversity is not a bug, but a feature. Specifically, it supports rich internarrative linkages which benefit the broader resonance of each individual narrative. It also enables a broad set of political actors to enlist digital sovereignty for their specific priorities. [R, abr.]
73.7535 LAMS, Lutgard ; MAEKELBERGHE, Charlotte —
Democracy has been a consistent public diplomacy tool for the Taiwanese government to establish ideological connection with and obtain international acceptance by democratic nations. But as a catchword of contemporary political discourse, what exactly does it mean? The present paper assesses the meaning and usage of the signifier “democracy” in the opeds of the Taiwanese English-language press. To examine whether electoral period and poll results condition attention and use of the term “democracy,” the selected periods of investigation (Dec 2007- June 2008; October 2015- April 2016) include two key moments in recent Taiwan history when national elections democratically resulted in a power transfer. Two ideologically divergent newspapers, the China Post and the Taipei Times, are selected as units of analysis for a corpus- linguistic study, exploring the collocational profile of the term “democracy.” Additionally, a content analysis maps thematic hierarchies and constitutive components of the “democracy” to understand the notion’s conceptualization. This is complemented with a discourse analysis probing into argumentation patterns and framing processes. Findings show that the assessments of the overall democratic functioning largely depend on the political context of the electoral times. [R, abr.]
73.7536 LARUELLE, Marlene ; GREK, Ivan ; DAVYDOV, Sergey —
While the differences and overlaps between the two terms used to describe Russia’s national identity, rossiiskii and russkii, have been well studied, very little research has tried to quantify the balance between them and to identify the semantic space in which they are deployed. Many Western observers have claimed that russkii is now prevailing over rossiiskii and that the multiethnic character of Russia’s identity is gradually disappearing. Our pioneering research quantifies the deployment of both terms in three datasets — Presidential Administration, Putin’s speeches, and Duma debates — offering the first quantitative study of the evolution of the two notions over two decades. We conclude that the current culturalization of political national identity is not necessarily synonymous with ethnonationalism so much as with the growing authoritarian trend of the Russian regime. [R, abr.]
73.7537 LEE, Francis L. F. —
Scholars have noted that the Chinese government has been grooming a range of grass-roots social organizations in Hong Kong since the handover. Hometown associations (HTAs), in particular, are seen as an important cultural nexus capable of integrating patron-client relationships based on material benefits with social relationships rooted in common culture and identity. Few studies, however, have documented the mobilizing power of HTAs quantitatively. This article examines the mobilizing power of HTAs in the 2021 Legislative Council elections, where the state attempted to promote voter participation to protect the legitimacy of the “reformed” electoral system. Analysis at the level of District Council constituencies shows that the presence of HTAs was indeed related to higher voter turnout. I also test whether the impact of HTAs was conditioned by population characteristics. General implications of the findings are discussed. [R]
73.7538 LEE Myunghee —
Are authoritarian successor party (ASP) supporters more likely to protest? I propose that ASP supporters are less likely to protest in general. The post-democratization mobilization environment is shaped upon the predemocratization mobilization basis. During the pre-democratization period, protest was organized around the democracy movement. Thus, protest tactics and networks were accumulated through it. As former authoritarian ruling party supporters, ASP supporters are less likely to have legacies of participating in the democracy movement, which prevents them from accessing the accumulated protest resources from the democracy movement. However, I argue that this negative association varies based on the ASP qualities and supporters’ age. Supporters of ASPs that maintain strong pre-democratization legacies are more likely to participate in protests than supporters of ASPs that do not strongly highlight their authoritarian legacies. Also, when the ASPs’ characteristics are considered, older ASP supporters are more likely to participate in protests than younger supporters. [R, abr.]
73.7539 LEE Young-Im —
When the first female president of a country is impeached, how does the disgraceful exit shape people’s memory of her? Does sexism play a role in such retrospective evaluations? Do the voters who supported her remain loyal, or do they withdraw their support due to disappointment? This article utilizes the impeachment of Park Geun-hye of South Korea as a case to answer these questions. Using a public opinion survey conducted three years after the 2016 impeachment, I demonstrate that hostile sexism played a role in the negative retrospective evaluations of Park, while benevolent sexism did not. Moreover, those who voted for Park in the 2012 presidential election expressed more negative retrospective evaluations of Park than those who did not vote for her, suggesting a backlash effect. Voters who had high expectations of the first female president could experience deep disappointment when the historic first failed to meet their expectations. [R]
73.7540 LEÓN, Margarita ; ALVARIÑO, Manuel ; SOLER-BUADES, Llorenç —
In this article we empirically explore the impact of the state-Church conflict on progressive moral policies. Taking Spain as a case study, we analyse the parliamentary interaction of political parties in a number of policy domains that provoke a moral conflict. We examine the principal legislative acts relating to abortion, divorce, same-sex marriage, euthanasia and gender equality from the early 1980s to 2021. We look beyond the religious divide and argue that its interaction with territorial politics, which is in turn shaped by specific institutional features, explains the formation of political coalitions that are conducive to moral legislation. Furthermore, we show that political coalitions vary depending on how explicit or implicit a given morality conflict is. [R]
73.7541 LESSCHAEVE, Christophe ; PADMOS, Lars —
The extent to which voters and parties agree on policies is an important way through which political scientists have empirically studied political representation. This opinion congruence is most often measured by comparing preferences on a number of policy statements. While the selection of policy statements has not escaped scholarly attention, its impact on the reliability of congruence scores, i.e. the degree to which similar levels of opinion congruence are found when different samples of policy statements are used, has been less investigated. This article looks at which factors of statements samples and voters affect the reliability of congruence measures. It does so by simulating over 5 million opinion congruence scores on the basis of a dataset containing 134 voter and party policy preferences. It finds that both the number of statements and their topic diversity positively affect the reliability of congruence estimates. In addition, the congruence estimates of politically less sophisticated voters are more reliable but only when many left-right policy statements are included in the statement selection. Finally, explorative analyses suggest that increasing topic diversity also increases the validity of congruence measures. [R]
73.7542 LEWANDOWSKY, Marcel ; WAGNER, Aiko —
This study examines the availability of populist radical right voters for mainstream parties. Are there segments within the electorate of PRRPs that can be regained by (specific) established non-populist parties? Focusing on the German context, the paper analyzes the availability of AfD voters on the electoral market. We demonstrate that relatively low availability can be traced back to the voters’ distance in issue positions, the strength of populist attitudes and the interplay of distance and populist attitudes. Strong populist attitudes decrease the role of issue proximity for the likelihood of winning (back) AfD voters. Accordingly, simple repositioning towards stricter immigration laws is not a substantively profitable strategy. Our results indicate that an AfD voter’s willingness to vote for an established party varies across parties. Generally, the German populist radical right voter’s availability for the mainstream parties are rather low, and we shall thus discuss the strategic implication of our findings. [R]
73.7543 LIKA, Idlir —
Why do interethnic tensions in some multiethnic countries escalate into violence while in other cases, the tensions exist but they are contained? Most theories focus on the nation-state model’s exclusionary logic, different forms of institutional design, and external intervention by third-party actors. My argument centres around political divisions among the ethnic majority elites over conceptions of nationhood. Elites divided by a nationhood cleavage create an opportunity space for violence through a process of double ethnic outbidding. Majority nationhood cohesion, on the other hand, facilitates cooperation on ethnic issues among majority elites, prevents outbidding, and thus preserves interethnic peace. I develop these arguments building on outcome variation among three otherwise similar Southeast European countries and on conducting 33 semi-structured elite interviews. Post-communist Bulgaria and Montenegro built enduringly peaceful interethnic relations despite dark shadows of an assimilationist past in the former and the threat posed by greater Serbian ideology in the latter. [R, abr.]
73.7544 LIM Taegyun —
How does the influx of foreign direct investment (FDI) affect labor protests in China? Building on the framework of fragmented authoritarianism, I argue that the regional competition to attract foreign investment causes labor protests in China due to its deregulatory effects on labor regulation. Each actor, including the central and local governments, foreign investors, and workers, has different cost–benefit considerations, which provide an explanation for the link between foreign investment and labor protests. By theorizing each actor’s preferences, this article explains how FDI induces labor deregulation and workers’ protests in China. Analyzing China’s prefecture-level city data from 2012 to 2018, I find that the influx of FDI is positively associated with labor protests. The result remains robust to alternative model specifications and instrumental variable estimation. I also provide empirical evidence for the deregulatory effect of FDI on labor standards with an analysis at the firm level using the World Bank Enterprise Survey. These findings deepen our understanding of how FDI shapes labor regulation and induces workers’ protests in the context of China. [R]
73.7545 LINSI, Lukas ; MÜGGE, Daniel ; CARILLO-LÓPEZ, Ana —
Economic knowledge plays a central role in many theories of political behavior. But empirical studies have found many citizens to be poorly informed about the official state of the economy. Analyzing two waves of the Eurobarometer database, we re-examine the distribution of public knowledge of three macroeconomic indicators in two dozen European countries. Respondents with high income and education give more accurate estimates than others, in line with previous studies. As we show, however, such differences in knowledge do not only reflect varying levels of information. People’s estimates are also shaped by affective dynamics, in particular a more pessimistic outlook that leads to overestimation of official unemployment and inflation (but not growth) figures. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7466]
73.7546 LOEWENTHAL, Amit ; MIAARI, Sami H. ; ABRAHAMS, Alexei —
States, in their conflicts with militant groups embedded in civilian populations, often resort to policies of collective punishment to erode civilian support for the militants. We attempt to evaluate the efficacy of such policies in the context of the Gaza Strip, where Israel’s blockade and military interventions, purportedly intended to erode support for Hamas, have inflicted hardship on the civilian population. We combine Palestinian public opinion data, Palestinian labor force surveys, and Palestinian fatalities data, to understand the relationship between exposure to Israeli policies and Palestinian support for militant factions. Our baseline strategy is a difference-indifferences specification that compares the gap in public opinion between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank during periods of intense punishment with the gap during periods when punishment is eased. Consistent with previous research, we find that Palestinian fatalities are associated with Palestinian support for more militant political factions. The effect is short-lived, however, dissipating after merely one quarter. Moreover, the blockade of Gaza itself appears to be only weakly associated with support for militant factions. [R, abr.]
73.7547 LÓPEZ, Matias —
What motivated right-wing and conservative parties to endorse a policy of land expropriation and redistribution in Brazil? I argue that urban-dominated right-wing parties endorsed agrarian reform in order to: (1) reduce crime in wealthier metropolises by reversing rural-urban migration; and (2) gain competitive advantage against left-wing challengers. To test this argument I conduct process tracing, analysing over 500 elite statements about agrarian reform, drawn from archival, interview and survey data. In addition, I model land expropriations at the municipal level and show how right-wing administrations disproportionately expropriated land in the states of origin of migrants and, within those, in localities where the Left was more competitive. My results portray how two externalities of inequality — crime and competition with the Left — motivated conservative support for agrarian reform in Brazil. [R]
73.7548 LOVE, Gary —
This article explores the links between the British and Scandinavian Conservative parties in Europe between the late-1940s and the late- 1970s. Its findings show that these parties were closer to each other than has been assumed. The British and Scandinavian Conservative parties built up significant relationships with each other at the organisational level throughout the 1950s, which led to transfers of political knowledge and information mostly from Britain to Scandinavia. From the 1960s the circulation of knowledge started to flow in both directions, but it was strongest in the Swedish case. The British Conservative Party then bridged the gap between the Scandinavian Conservative parties and the West German CDU/ CSU and the Austrian ÖVP in Europe, helping to cement the parties into a new centre-right international known as European Democrat Union. This gave the British and Scandinavian Conservative parties more contacts abroad and reinforced the view that British Conservatism was not an ideological outlier in Europe. [R, abr.]
73.7549 LUCCIOLA, Natalia —
Do voters rely on gendered stereotypes when evaluating candidates in Brazil? The literature shows that gendered stereotypes about politicians can result in women being consistently judged as unfit for office. This article investigates the influence of gendered stereotypes on voters’ preferences in a context that combines severe female underrepresentation and incentives for voters to rely on politicians’ personal attributes. In two survey experiments, I identify the gendered stereotypes of politicians in Brazil and estimate how they influence voters’ behavior toward hypothetical candidates who do or do not comply with those stereotypes. The findings suggest that voters hold positive stereotypes of women and a broad pro-female bias. [R]
73.7550 MAIER, Michaela, et al.—
Based on the assumption that disclosing explicit populist radical-right (PRR) attitudes and voting intentions for PRR parties may be inhibited by a social desirability bias, this paper aims at developing a measure for implicit populist attitudes (IAT) and at assessing its explanatory power for the prediction of PRR party support. Using data from a German online survey (N = 898), the populism-IAT is tested against corresponding direct measures of populist attitudes and anti-immigrant attitudes to predict voting propensity for the German PRR party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Results reveal that social desirability concerns indeed restrict the likelihood of reporting a high propensity of PRR vote; however, direct measures turn out as best predictors for self-reported voting intentions. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7466]
73.7551 MANTERNACH, Sylvain —
In Marseille, Jean-Luc Mélenchon clearly dominated the competition during the first round of the presidential election with 31.1 % of the vote. Emmanuel Macron saw left-wing voters turn away from him, but he was able to count on the votes of right-wing voters to rank in 2nd position (22.6 %). Marine Le Pen finished third (20.9 %), down slightly but largely won her duel with Éric Zemmour (11.1 %). The clear domination of the left (38.4 % of the vote against 25.6 % for the liberal right and 32 % for the extreme right) however only resulted in victory in 3 out of 7 constituencies in Marseille despite the union (Nupes) carried out on the initiative of France Insoumise. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7625]
73.7552 MARTIN, Lenore G. —
Turkey’s numerous issues with its main minority groups, Kurds, Alevis, Christians, and Jews, continue to disrupt its domestic peace and complicate its foreign relations. In building a nation the founders of the Republic and successive governments have sought to compel minority assimilation with harsh measures such as expulsion, deprivation of property, resettlement, and discrimination, while ignoring anti-minority violence. As a result, most Christians and Jews have emigrated, though Alevis and Kurds more actively continue to demand recognition and equality. To address these issues Turkey might look to other members of the Council of Europe for examples the Republic could adopt to balance minority rights with national loyalty. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7894]
73.7553 MARTINETTI, Joseph —
The electoral cycle of the year 2022 consolidates once again since 2015 the hegemony of nationalist parties in the island political landscape. The absolute majority obtained by Femu a Corsica in the territorial elections of 2021 around the charismatic Gilles Siméoni allows the executive and the Assembly of Corsica to now negotiate an institutional autonomy with the central power, led by the Minister of the Interior. However, this “triumphant autonomy”, anxious to negotiate a status close to that of the other islands of the western Mediterranean, does not hide the deep weaknesses of this stabilization of the Corsican political system. Corsica is one of the most protesting outskirts of French territory where the vote in favor of the Rassemblement national and abstentionism are particularly high. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7625]
73.7554 MATFESS, Hilary ; KISHI, Roudabeh ; BERRY, Marie E. —
Although quotas and other efforts to increase women’s political participation can ensure that the descriptive representation of women changes dramatically over a short period of time, it is not clear that social norms and political interests can shift as quickly as the distribution of legislative seats. Rather than being interpreted as a move toward a more pluralistic and representative form of government, the increased number of women in office may represent a threat to those who benefit from the status quo, and their resistance to losing their privilege may manifest in myriad forms of discrimination and violence. The relationship between political violence targeting women and increasing numbers of women in politics is often overlooked, despite the recognized potential for “backlash” against women’s empowerment initiatives. This article leverages data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) to explore the impact of increasing numbers of women in government on violence targeting women in Kenya. [R, abr.]
73.7555 MAZZOLENI, Oscar ; PILOTTI, Andrea ; ANSELMI, Manuel —
Are the sociological profiles of radical right-wing populist parties’ (RRPPs) representatives really unlike those of their counterparts in mainstream parties? Once RRPPs occupy positions of legislative power for an extended period, do their MPs’ profiles increasingly converge with those of more mainstream parties? This paper examines three right-wing parties in Austria, Italy, and Switzerland (FPÖ, LEGA, and SVP), and shows how RRPPs’ MPs persistently contrast the “diploma democracy”, that is the increasingly dominant high-educated trend in political representation. Inspired by the current scholarship’s diachronic and comparative perspectives of political elites and MPs, the analysis focuses trends since the 1980s. [R]
73.7556 McLEAY, Angus ; POULOS, Elenie ; RICHARDSON-SELF, Louise —
Political debates over religious freedom in Australia became prominent in the context of marriage equality, achieved in 2017. The Australian Christian Right (ACR) has driven these debates, but there is little research focusing on its discourse of religious freedom. This article examines a range of texts from ACR actors. Using discourse and theoretical analyses, we identify three key turns in the religious freedom rhetoric of the ACR: “ontological security,” “existential stress,” and “meaning vertigo.” We also explore how mimetic ACR discourse is compared to the United States’ Christian Right (USCR). As with the USCR, this research demonstrates how the ACR — suffering meaning vertigo and aiming to re-secure its previously taken-for-granted worldview — has successfully reframed the discourse of religious freedom by positioning itself as a besieged minority. [R]
73.7557 MEIERRIEKS, Daniel ; RENNER, Laura —
We investigate the effect of Islamist terrorist activity on women’s legal position in society, using data for 171 countries between 1970 and 2016. To identify causal effects, we exploit the prevalence of Islamist terrorism in neighboring countries as an exogenous source of variation, arguing that regional terrorism affects local terrorism through contagion effects. We show that increased activity by Islamist terrorist groups is linked to lower legal status of women. By contrast, we find that neither Islam per se nor other types of terrorism have comparable effects. This reinforces the notion that Islamist terrorism is singularly interested and effective in weakening women’s rights. [R, abr.]
73.7558 MEIJERS, Maurits J. ; VAN DRUNEN, Yaël ; JACOBS, Kristof —
Many citizens are sceptical of policies implemented to mitigate climate change. Existing research shows that citizens’ populist beliefs are significant determinants of climate scepticism. However, little is known about the underlying factors driving populist opposition to climate policies. To address this gap in the literature, this study develops structural equation models with new ideological measures using a high-quality probability sample of Dutch citizens (2019). The findings show that the relationship between populist attitudes and climate policy opposition is mediated through two anti-elite dispositions: the idea that climate science is unreliable and the belief that politicians exploit climate change for political gain. This relationship holds for left- and right-wing individuals alike. Moreover, a replication of a recent study shows that these findings hold alongside mechanisms rooted in institutional trust. These findings provide important evidence that populists’ opposition to climate policy is principally rooted in distrust in political and scientific elites. [R]
73.7559 MELONI, Marco ; LUPATO, Fabio G. —
While the digitalisation of political parties is increasingly analysed, less attention has been paid to the evolution of digital procedures and their consequences on intra-party democracy and party change. We propose a typology for identifying different types of evolution processes (consolidation, reconfiguration, mutation, and elimination) using the Spanish party Podemos paradigmatic case. Our analysis points out the centrality of hard and soft setbacks in the evolution of the digital procedures of the party. Findings indicate the relevance of different dynamics, such as institutionalisation, personalisation, and factionalism, jointly with other internal and external factors. Studying the evolution of digital party procedures is relevant for tracing party change in digital parties and other parties that are experiencing digitalisation processes. [R]
73.7560 MENNES, H. I., et al.—
Across countries, social inequalities exist in citizens’ democratic engagement. One potential channel through which these gaps are formed concerns schools, yet little research has yet considered the relation between schools’ supply of democratic education and social inequalities in students’ democratic outcomes. This study examines whether schools’ supply of democratic activities moderates the relation between students’ social background and their intended political participation, civic knowledge, and civic self-efficacy. Based on multilevel path analyses using ICCS 2016 data from 15 European countries, results confirm social inequalities in students’ democratic outcomes, and a positive indirect role for schools’ supply of democratic activities, via students’ participation in them. Schools’ supply does not depend on their social student composition, nor do we find strong support for a moderating role of supply for the relation between students’ social background and their democratic outcomes. Students with advantaged social backgrounds report higher participation in democratic activities as offered by schools, and the social stratification of some democratic outcomes is stronger among students who participate more in democratic school activities. [R, abr.]
73.7561 METTANG, Olivia ; EUCHNER, Eva-Maria —
We study the extent and nature of Christian engagement in morality policy implementation by means of a comparative case study in Germany. In particular, we observe that the nature of engagement varies between unconnected and corresponding types of activities, and we explain this variation with the policy-specific goal congruence between religious organizations (ROs) and the state. Goal congruence, in turn, can be linked to Catholic and Protestant moral doctrines that tell us about ROs’ position on morality issues. The study contributes to the literature on faith-based welfare by highlighting the role of moral doctrines as drivers of ROs’ social engagement. [R]
73.7562 MILLER, Joanne M., et al.—
Given that political interest is one of the best predictors of political participation, it remains curious that the causes of interest are undertheorized and understudied. Notably absent from much of the research on political interest is an exploration of how variations in the nature of politics itself might have an impact on individual-level political interest. We develop a theory and a set of testable predictions about how partisanship interacts with the presence of a presidential (vs. midterm) election, the party of the sitting president, and elite polarization, to affect political interest. We report multilevel models that use ANES measures of political interest and partisanship and the DW-NOMINATE Senate polarization measure (from 1960 to 2008) and discuss the implications of our findings for the long-term prospects of an interested electorate. [R]
73.7563 MIRSHAK, Nadim —
Regarded as Egypt’s most influential oppositional force, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) was analysed from a Gramscian lens that projected it as a counterhegemonic force par excellence. Its all-sufficient Islam, cohesive organisational structure and ability to wage a war of position were considered to represent parallels to Gramsci’s revolutionary methodology. This article contests this narrative by focusing on the MB’s inability to deal with state coercion, its intellectual inertia and failure in governance, and its passive revolutionary and neoliberal tendencies. Against the backdrop of resurgent authoritarianism and the MB’s downfall, it has become imperative to rethink our dominant understandings of (counter)hegemony and resistance. The article concludes by arguing that the MB’s failure to fundamentally challenge the hegemonic order and instigate social change should not deter other movements from continuing to do so. Instead, lessons from the MB’s limitations must be heeded with Gramsci remaining key in aiding such endeavours. [R]
73.7564 MITCHELL, David M. —
The status of the economy and the country in an election year can be a very important factor in election success for an incumbent. This is especially true in [US] ‘battleground states’ due to the presence of the Electoral College system. However, the 2020 Presidential election was vastly different from past election cycles in that an additional variable, COVID-19, was added to the decision calculus of voters. Eventually, the 2020 election came down to the extremely slim margins in three states (Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin) and thin margins in two others (Pennsylvania and Michigan). This paper shows that deaths from COVID-19 at the county level played a small role in demotivating voters to turnout in 2020 to cast their vote for Joe Biden as President. [R, abr.]
73.7565 MITCHELL, Paul ; RANE, Halim ; DUDERIJA, Adis —
Over the past few decades, interest in and conversion to Islam among non-Muslims in the West has been on the rise. There is a view in the scholarly literature that Western converts to Islam are overrepresented in regard to politicized interpretations of the religion, commonly referred to as political Islam or Islamism, and even militancy or jihadism. This article presents the findings of a national survey of Muslim Australians. It focuses on views amongst Australian converts to Islam concerning political Islam, including views and understandings of such concepts as the caliphate, shariah, and jihad, and the relationship between Islam and politics, democracy, and conflict. The findings suggest that in the Australian context, converts to Islam are not more likely, and in some cases less likely, than the broader born-Muslim population, to understand and interpret Islam in accordance with political Islamist ideology. [R]
73.7566 MIYAKE, Esperanza —
By focussing on Imma — a virtual influencer from Japan – this article provides a critical examination of Japanese raciality and gender within the context of virtuality, (im)materiality and digital consumption. This piece has two key concerns. Firstly, the article proposes the idea of semiotic immaterialism as a way to theorise the ‘virtual influencer’, a relatively new phenomenon in ‘the West’ to emerge from the consumer-driven world of social media and online influencers. Here, the discussion will focus predominantly on the various racialised and gendered (im)materialities involved in the digital consumption of virtuality, and its relationship to prosumerist practices online. Secondly, this study also problematises the ways in which ‘Western’ popular media texts present Japanese virtuality to consumers. It is argued that these constitute digital-Orientalist discourses of racialised and gendered Japanese Otherness. How does virtuality complicate the idea of (im)material consumption? How do virtual influencers challenge and/or reinforce normative ideologies of race and gender? Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the study addresses these questions through textual analyses conducted on Imma’s Instagram images and captions, alongside ‘Western’ popular media texts about Imma. [R, abr.]
73.7567 MOLAND, Martin —
Public opinion regarding EU integration has become increasingly important in light of both increasing public scepticism to integration and the EU’s gradual shift towards integration of core state powers (CSPs). This article contributes to an emerging literature studying support for integration of core state powers by investigating whether such integration, given its greater potential for polarisation and activation of nationalist identities, is more likely to be opposed than regulatory integration. The results show that some CSP integration may meet greater support than regulatory integration. They also show that a larger number of exclusively national citizens support externally, rather than internally, oriented CSP integration. This suggests that what policy area a policy belongs to may be more important for predicting contestation of its integration than whether it is a core state or regulatory power. [R]
73.7568 MONDON, Aurelien —
Research on the far right has been a booming field for decades now, with far-right parties generally being much more researched than their right, centre and left counterparts, even when they are marginal in terms of politics or electoral support. Yet, for a field that is notorious for its lively definitional debates and tendency to evolve and reinvent itself terminologically, it has appeared unwilling to engage with the concepts of race, racism and whiteness, or with its very positioning in political structures. Through a mixed-methods discursive approach, this article analyses the titles and abstracts of all articles published in peer-reviewed journal in the sub-field of far right studies between 2016 and 2021 (n = 2543) to highlight which terms and concepts are primed and which are obscured. This article highlights a tendency to prime euphemising terms and concepts such as ‘populism’ and avoid those which engage with systemic and structural forms of oppression such as racism and whiteness. [R, abr.]
73.7569 MONZA, Rosan —
In Guadeloupe, the question of the evolution of its status and so, of its emancipation from French supervision is an old song. Due to poor popular mobilization, local leaders procrastinate on the matter. This reveals the contradictions existing across the territory but, more importantly, the lack of a shared and ambitious geopolitical project that could help understand the relationship between the so-called “rebellious Guadeloupe” and France. Like the other French departments of America, Guadeloupe is indeed torn between the need of a location affirming both power and identity, while hoping to maintain the comfortable standard of living generated by the State financial and social transfers. This article deals with the apparent unrealistic political behavior. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7625]
73.7570 MORGAN-JONES, Edward ; LOVELESS, Mathew —
Many countries have constitutional rules, granted to prime ministers, presidents or cabinets, that govern early parliamentary dissolution. Although there are sharply divergent theoretical expectations about the consequences of such powers for both democratic representation and accountability, there have been no empirical examinations of these arguments. Using data from the European Social Survey (2002-2016) in 26 European countries, we test whether such provisions for early election calling affect citizens’ satisfaction with democracy, and if so, which rules and how. While it appears that no form of constitutional rules for early election is directly related to citizen satisfaction with democracy, when early elections are called by prime ministers or presidents, democratic satisfaction drops significantly, and this effect is more pronounced the later in the term the early election is called. These findings have important implications for academic and policy debates about the desirability of constitutional change designed to limit early election calling for opportunistic purposes. [R]
73.7571 MOSCA, Lorenzo ; VITTORI, Davide —
One of the main ‘promises’ that populist parties seek to deliver is to bring politics closer to the ‘people’. While the literature focused mainly on the relationship between voters and those parties, less attention has been given to the role of members’ priorities in shaping parties’ legislative activity. In this paper, we focus on a paradigmatic technopopulist case, the Italian Five Star Movement (FSM): one of the founding trademarks of the party was the involvement of the members in the party activities via a digital platform. FSM’s digital platform included participative digital law-making features, which matched member priorities and élite policymaking. We built an original dataset which comprises the law-making activities of members and parliamentarians from 2013 to 2019. We analysed 2000 law proposals and found that FSM elected representatives’ agenda, albeit partly diverging from that of members, still changed in the direction of member priorities through time. [R]
73.7572 MOUTSELOS, Michalis —
The 2015 refugee ‘crisis’ posed a dilemma for European radical-right parties (RRPs). On the one hand, it provided a rallying point against immigration, an issue for which these parties have traditionally claimed ownership. On the other hand, it forced them to propose European solutions, in particular by toughening EU border control and asylum policy. This paper argues that following the 2015 events RRPs distanced themselves from hard Euroscepticism on border control and asylum policy and participated in the political production of exclusionary Europeanness. I perform a theory-testing analysis of campaign pledges, between-election rhetoric and — when in government — policy positions of the French Rassemblement National, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the Italian Lega. I demonstrate that these three RRPs are engaged in the political production of exclusionary Europeanness along three dimensions: political representation, institutionalisation, and collective identity. [R]
73.7573 MYCOCK, Andrew J. ; LOUGHRAN, Thomas I. ; TONGE, Jonathan —
This article utilises the developing research literatures on policy learning and memory, with particular focus on the interconnections between institutional amnesia and policy myopia, to analyse the lowering of the age of enfranchisement to 18 for all elections in the UK in 1969 and its resonance, or otherwise, in contemporary debates concerning ‘Votes-at-16’. Political and public interest in voting age reform has intensified in recent years. There has, however, been a noticeable lack of interest from either advocates or those opposed to ‘Votes-at-16’ in the ground-breaking decision taken by the UK government in 1969 to lower the voting age to 18 and policy lessons resulting in this radical reform. The article provides an overview of the policy debates linked to the lowering of the voting age to 18 in the UK in 1969. [R, abr.]
73.7574 NADZRI, Muhamad M. N. ; AZLAN, Ariff Aizuddin —
The ‘green wave theory’ has haunted the explanation of the rise of the Malay-Muslim coalition – the National Alliance (Perikatan Nasional, PN) – in the 15th Malaysian general election held in November 2022. PN mainly consists of two political parties, the Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS) and the Malaysian United Indigenous Party (Bersatu), a splinter of the former dominant party – the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). Although PN was not able to form a national government after the election, it has more than doubled the number of seats won by PAS and Bersatu in the last election in 2018. Expressing caution over the general belief that the ‘green wave’ reflected entirely the Malays’ positive support to PN, this article offers another side of the story: PN’s gain was UMNO’s further decline due to factionalism and elite break-up, manifested in disengagement, sabotage and party switching among its estranged leaders. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7676]
73.7575 NAI, Alessandro ; YOUNG, Elizabeth L. ; BOS, Linda —
We test the somewhat counter-intuitive expectation that support for populist radical right (PRR) parties at the national level is associated with public support for ethno-traditional cues — a frequent feature in PRR imagery and nativist discourse — abroad. We do so by leveraging a large-scale comparative dataset that covers voting patterns during the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) between 1999 and 2019. Looking at voting patterns for more than 30,000 country dyads (i.e., ESC points given by country A to country B in a given contest), we show that countries with stronger national support for PRR parties tend to vote more clearly for songs showcasing ethno-traditional cues (ethnic imagery and, in particular, the use of non-English national languages), even when accounting for cultural and regional ties and song characteristics. These results provide novel insights into the relationship between nativism, radical right populism, and perceptions of foreign ethno-traditionalism. [R]
73.7576 NATHAN, Noah L. ; SANDS, Melissa L. —
A growing literature explores how local environments, or contexts, affect political behavior, especially by shaping interpersonal contact with social out-groups. While many studies still draw directly on long-standing hypotheses from contact theory, this research agenda increasingly focuses on new research questions, beyond the classic social psychology literature, and new empirical cases, including from across the lower- and middle-income world. We develop a typology of forms of context and contact to aid the aggregation of findings across disparate cases and demonstrate that the mechanisms that may account for the political effects of intergroup context and contact are broader than those typically explored in psychologically oriented research. We propose future directions for research in this area, including greater focus on the intersection of ethnic and class-based contact and greater attention to how built or computer-based environments may mediate or mirror the effects of demographic contexts. [R]
73.7577 NEWMAN, Martin Peter —
This article examines the 1974-79 Labour Government’s attempt to introduce comprehensive education in Northern Ireland. The policy found support in, and drew criticism from, different elements within both Protestant and Catholic groups which, although transcending the usual community divide, hardly made the Government’s task any easier. In fact, it carried the risk of antagonising elements from both sides. Claims that the Labour Government acted with ‘fiery zeal’ over the introduction of comprehensive education, in contrast with its efforts on integrated schooling, are misplaced. Proceeding cautiously, but initially with the intention of introducing legislation before the next general election, Labour never even reached the stage of issuing a White Paper. Its caution developed into near stasis, as its policy of local consultation superseded the need to act within the electoral cycle. [R, abr.]
73.7578 NGU Ik Tien —
Compared to Sarawak state elections, in the 2022 general election (GE15) the incumbent Sarawak Parties Alliance (Gabungan Parti Sarawak, GPS) and Sarawak-based opposition parties’ campaigns demonstrated a tendency toward a moderate rather than radical autonomy discourse. In GE15, these candidates attempted to reconcile their regionalism with nationalism to stay relevant in the national political landscape. Meanwhile, opposition parties performed better in certain Chinese- and Dayak-majority seats, exposing the limits of the Sarawak autonomy discourse. To explain these patterns, this article locates Sarawak against the backdrop of a centralized Malaysian federal government to clarify the salience of both structural and cultural factors in shaping autonomy claims. It shows the importance of inclusive and democratic institutions, like a general election, in integrating peripheral communities and checking radical regionalism. Further, preceding the general election, the readiness of the federal government to delegate power to the state government effectively secured the state ruling elite’s commitment to remain in the national government. [R, abr.]
73.7579 NOVOVIC, Gloria —
Global governance frameworks have been largely ineffective at advancing gender equality through development cooperation. Gender mainstreaming, understood as a dual strategy comprising initiatives directly targeting gender equality objectives and integrating gender equality agendas across all other areas of policy and practice, remains limited. Based on insight from over 180 development specialists across the multilateral and national contexts of Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda, this article situates the unachieved agenda of gender mainstreaming in the broader legitimacy crisis of global development. Traditional gender mainstreaming approaches are critiqued as insufficiently oriented towards the broader paradigm shift of global development that gender equality agendas require. Gender equality advocates are, therefore, increasingly leveraging the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Agenda 2030) as a tool for their broader sector contestation. [R, abr.]
73.7580 NUGENT, Elizabeth R. ; BROOKE, Steven —
More than half of leaders who come to power through military coups hold elections to legitimate their regimes, yet there is extensive subnational variation in how citizens accept or reject this process. In this paper, we examine district-by-district voting patterns in Egyptian presidential elections a few months following the July 2013 military coup to identify the ecological correlates of three district-level measures of citizen engagement with the electoral process: voter turnout, valid (non-spoilt) ballots, and votes cast for the regime-affiliated candidate. Controlling for baseline measures of these outcomes from the free and fair presidential elections prior to the coup, we find support for the enduring effect of partisanship: districts with higher support for the deposed candidate in pre-coup elections featured systematically lower turnout and rates of valid voting in post-coup elections. [R]
73.7581 O’BRIEN, Mark —
The transition from economic protectionism to free trade in the late-1950s saw the Irish government embark on a project to improve the state’s image abroad. Up to that point, the state had endured a tempestuous relationship with British newspapers and the adoption of free trade necessitated a new rapport to encourage positive coverage of the industrialisation project. The key components of this strategy were the courting of British newspapers through state sponsorship of special supplements, facilitating visits by British journalists to industrial sites, and providing interview access to senior ministers. Such actions constituted the state’s first exercise in nation branding and represented a sea change in how it interacted with British media. This article offers an analysis of this project to project an image of a modern, industrial Ireland for overseas consumption. [R, abr.]
73.7582 OBERMAIER, Magdalena ; STEINDL, Nina ; FAWZI, Nayla —
Journalistic autonomy is a prerequisite for the public function of journalism. Although most journalists in Western democracies indicate particularly low political or economic influences on their work, there is evidence that recipients assume that journalism is driven primarily by political and economic interests. These perceptual discrepancies can be problematic as perceived influences on journalistic work are known to reduce recipients’ media trust. Hence, this study addresses the extent to which recipients perceive influences on journalistic work, how their perceptions differ from that of journalists, and which variables explain recipients’ perceptions. A representative online survey of German recipients (n = 1000) and the representative sample of German journalists of the Worlds of Journalism Study (n = 775) demonstrate that recipients perceive stronger influences on journalistic work than journalists do, especially in regard to politics and economics. [R, abr.]
73.7583 OGNIBENE, Marco ; PAULIS, Emilien —
Based on 20 years of election data gathered for 6 European countries, this article analyses how the non-resident citizens vote from abroad in the elections of their origin country. Our mediation model demonstrates that the external vote share of a party is dependent on the support for this party in the home-country before the election and the support registered for ideologically close parties in the new country of residence at the same moment. Our results put thus forward that external voting choices are hybrid: they mostly reflect the political context of their ‘home’ origin country, but also mirror politics in the ‘new’ country of residence. Furthermore, the article shows that the link between incumbency and the share taken by a party among the external community is not direct but mediated by how much is this party supported in the home-country, and how much ideologically similar parties are supported in the host-country. This finding further confirms that the flow of public opinion in the home and the new country both shape the choices that are made by external voters. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7656]
73.7584 ÖHBERG, Patrik ; CASSEL, Felix —
Do politicians get emotional during an election campaign? We examine the existence of changes in partisan in-group favoritism and partisan out-group hostility among political elites by evaluating the degree to which they fluctuate before, during and after election campaigns. The lack of elite level panel data has prevented scholars from studying the dynamics of politicians’ emotions around the most emotionally intense political event in democracies: elections. We focus on Sweden around the 2014 election and follow more than 700 Swedish politicians before, during and after a national election campaign using a unique three-wave panel survey. The results reveal that politicians’ emotions towards other parties are affected during the election, but less so for their own party. Our study adds to the body of recent evidence that campaigns mobilize partisan identities and increase partisan animus. [R]
73.7585 OHMURA, Tamaki ; WILLUMSEN, David M. —
The literature on legislative voting either explicitly excludes free votes from its analysis, does not distinguish them from other recorded votes, or analyses only topic-specific subsets of them. This research note shows all three approaches to be problematic, and argues for a reconsideration of how free votes are approached in the literature. Drawing on a dataset covering all recorded votes in the German Bundestag (1949-2021), and analysing the topics, initiators and voting behaviour on all free votes held, it is shown that free votes are frequent, address a broad range of issues, and display substantial variation in legislative behaviour. Most importantly, there is a strong indication that free votes are held on topics on which parties refrain from taking a position. The findings have substantial implications for the study of parliamentary floor voting. [R]
73.7586 OROSS, Dániel ; KISS, Gabriella —
As deliberative and participatory practices play a greater role in political decision-making of democratic political systems in many parts of the world, political parties must adapt to demands of an increasingly more cognitively mobilized citizenry. While there is a growing body of literature about the functioning of such procedures in different social and political contexts, little is known about politicians’ reasons behind introducing them. Based on qualitative data collected among Hungarian politicians, this paper brings evidence to empirically assess why local politicians introduced Participatory Budgeting in Budapest, Hungary. Our findings suggest that politicians accept theoretical arguments for promoting citizens’ participation, newly elected local politicians expect to increase their party’s local embeddedness by creating new contact opportunities and emphasize that the introduction of Participatory Budgeting is a ground for experimentation. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7466]
73.7587 ORTEGA, Carmen ; OÑATE, Pablo ; CAZORLA MARTÍN, Ángel —
Intraparty preference voting systems offer different incentives for candidates to cultivate a personal vote, but little is known about how the candidates’ policy positions affect their electoral success in intraparty competition. This article analyses the effect of candidates’ ideological positions and personal attributes on their preference vote share in the 2015 and 2019 Swiss Lower House elections. We used candidate survey data combined with official election statistics. Our findings demonstrate that the ideological distance between candidates’ positions and their party’s median position is of minor importance for their electoral success when compared to their personal attributes. However, ideological distance between candidates and their party’s median position reduce their preference vote share. [R]
73.7588 OSGOOD, Iain —
Left-wing opposition to globalization lives, among voters and interest groups, both labor and progressive. But have left-wing opponents of trade successfully cultivated representation? Using the US Congress as a case, I show that two distinct groups of Democrats vote in characteristically progressive and protectionist ways on trade bills. These groups, especially progressives, are rewarded with excess campaign contributions from publicly anti-trade groups. A dyadic research design shows that interest group/representative relationships degrade noticeably when members of Congress vote for trade bills that interest groups have opposed. While recent events have highlighted business interests and right-wing economic populism, left-wing opposition to globalization remains a vibrant third face of contemporary domestic contestation over trade that will be especially important where populists fade. [R]
73.7589 OSTWALD, Kai ; NADZRI, Muhamad M. N. —
Malaysia held a general election in 2022 that was expected to resolve ongoing political instability. Instead, it produced a hung parliament, reflecting a deeply divided electorate and growing support for Islamist politics. Following a royal intervention, Anwar Ibrahim’s progressive coalition formed a unity government with the long-dominant UMNO and East Malaysian parties; this unprecedented arrangement faces evolving social, political, and economic challenges that will test its stability and the very nature of Malaysian politics. [R]
73.7590 OWUSU-MENSAH, Isaac ; IJON, Frank Bitafir —
Zongo communities — comprising migrants from the northern savannah of Ghana and neighbouring Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Northern Nigeria — are keenly involved in Ghanaian politics, especially leading up to national elections. Representing an important constituency, zongo residents expect their fair share of representation in government to compensate their diverse contributions to political activities. This article examines this expectation and how zongo residents perceive government policies and actions – including the creation of the Ministry of Inner Cities and Zongo Development – seeking to address their feelings of disengagement. Primary data were gathered during 2018 through a survey, focus group discussions and interviews and analysed from a social exclusion theory perspective. Most participants reported that there was no representation of the zongos at national or local government level. [R, abr.]
73.7591 PAARLBERG, Michael Ahn —
Despite accounting for a tenth of Mexico’s population, the Mexican diaspora has relatively little impact in Mexican elections, with single digit voter turnout and legal restrictions to campaigning. Outreach by Mexican parties is limited and ad hoc in nature, failing to build permanent diaspora party networks. Instead, Hometown Associations (HTAs) are the primary vehicle for migrant political engagement. This paper examines the relationship of Mexican parties, HTAs, and Mexican migrants, using public records of international travel by Mexican party officials. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7656]
73.7592 PEREZ-VINCENT, Santiago M. —
This paper examines the causal effect of signature requirements — a widespread ballot access regulation — and finds that their impact goes beyond this goal. I use data on Italian local elections and apply a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to estimate the effects of these requirements on electoral competition, candidates’ selection, voter participation and administrative efficiency. I find that signature requirements reduce the number of candidates running for office, decrease electoral competition, lead to a more experienced pool of candidates, and reduce voter turnout. The positive effects of this policy are observed in municipalities with fragmented political systems, where signature requirements lead to fewer wasted votes and fewer spoiler candidates. The downside is observed in municipalities with concentrated political systems: signature requirements increase the frequency of uncontested races and reduce voter participation. [R, abr.]
73.7593 PERFEITO DA SILVA, Pedro —
This article aims to discuss to what extent populist parties with opposite ideological backgrounds have differed in their policies towards inherited external financial liberalization (EFL). Building upon a comparative case study centred on Argentina under Kirchnerism (2003-2015) and Hungary under Viktor Orbán (since 2010), I conclude that both experiences led to a partial EFL reversal. However, reflecting their opposite ideological underpinnings, each subtype of populism opted to restrict a different dimension of EFL. Argentina’s left-wing populism re-regulated cross-border capital flows, harming financial operators, foreign investors and primary exporters through capital controls and export surrenders. These interventionist capital account regulations were needed to shield expansionary macroeconomic policies that attended the interests of subordinate socioeconomic strata, fuelling the tension with financial markets and domestic economic elites. [R, abr.]
73.7594 PERINI, Pietro de —
Drawing from the National Role Conceptions (NRCs) framework, this paper seeks to assess whether, beneath the ideological, structural or discursive differences exposed in the literature, a pattern of convergence among the foreign policies of populist parties in Europe can be identified in how these conceive the orientation and tasks that their countries should follow in the international system. Comparing the NRCs which emerge from the foreign policy discourse of three populist parties of diverse persuasions — Front National/Rassemblement National in France, Movimento 5 Stelle in Italy, Podemos in Spain — the paper argues that these parties share the underlying conception of a decisively pro-active, transformative and valuebased role for their countries in both European and global perspectives, which the different articulations of the people/other dichotomy in their foreign policy discourse affect and differentiate in terms of goals and preferences. [R]
73.7595 PETROVSKY, Nicolai ; XIN Ge ; YU Jinhai —
It is often argued that employees satisfied with their jobs perform better, which in turn will lead customers to be more satisfied. Private sector studies have found support for this “satisfaction mirror” hypothesis. Our study is the first to provide direct, individual-level evidence of its existence in the public sector. We conducted an original survey of village officials in small, rural Chinese villages, and local citizens interacting with them. Village officials are charged with delivering nearly all types of public services to citizens. They are typical street-level bureaucrats, directly interacting with citizens with a degree of discretion. We focus on the senior village official, known as village director. We link the responses of 949 citizens to their corresponding 96 village directors to test the connection between job satisfaction and individual citizens’ satisfaction with these village officials’ work. [R, abr.]
73.7596 PIEKE, Frank N. —
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is currently in the throes of redefining itself as not just China’s ruling party, but also as the dominant political force of global China. Following the path of Chinese globalisation, this project overlaps with — but is different from — China’s much maligned strategy of influencing and interfering in the society and politics of other countries. The principal aim of the CCP’s global extension is not to meddle in the affairs of other countries, but tying Chinese people, goods, money, business, and institutions that have ventured abroad back into the strategy and domestic system of China and the CCP. The article shows that China’s emerging superpower is informed both by China’s unique pattern of globalisation and the CCP’s own understanding of the nature, aims, and modalities of its rule. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7442]
73.7597 PITTI, Ilaria ; MENGILLI, Yagmur ; WALTHER, Andreas —
Existing understandings of youth participation often imply clear distinctions from non-participation and thus boundaries between “recognized” and “non-recognized” practices of engagement. This article aims at questioning these boundaries. It analyzes young people’s practices in the public sphere that are characterized by both recognition as participation and misrecognition or stigmatization as deviant and it is suggested to conceptualize such practices as “liminal participation.” The concept of liminality has been developed to describe transitory situations “in-between” — between defined and recognized status positions — and seems helpful for better understanding the blurring boundaries of youth participation. Drawing on qualitative case studies conducted within a European research project, the analysis focuses on how young people whose practices evolve at the margins of the respective societies position themselves with regard to the challenges of liminality and on the potential of this for democratic innovation and change. [R]
73.7598 PLESS, Anna ; TROMP, Paul ; HOUTMAN, Dick —
This article tests two contrasting hypotheses about changes in the electoral relevance of moral traditionalism–progressiveness, which pertains to attitudes toward matters of procreation, sexuality, and family and gender roles. While the “cultural turn” literature expects the electoral relevance of moral traditionalism to increase over time alongside that of all other cultural issues, studies inspired by secularization theory rather predict a decrease in its relevance — due to religious decline. Analyzing the data from the European Values Study (1981-2017) for 20 West European countries, we find empirical evidence for a decrease and no indication of an increase in the electoral relevance of moral traditionalism. Religious decline weakened the effect of moral traditionalism on religious and conservative voting over time due to the most traditionalist voters shifting away from these parties. Our findings, therefore, highlight the need to differentiate between different types of cultural motives behind voting choice in Western Europe. [R]
73.7599 PRÖMEL, Christopher —
This study examines the impact of the 2015 European Refugee Crisis on the ethnic identity of resident migrants in Germany. To derive plausibly causal estimates, I exploit the quasi-experimental setting in Germany, by which refugees are allocated to different counties by state authorities without being able to choose their locations themselves. This study finds that higher shares of refugees in a county increased migrants’ attachment to their home countries, while not affecting their perceived belonging to Germany. Further analyses uncover strong heterogeneities with respect to country of origin and suggest that concerns about xenophobia, experiences of discrimination, and the consumption of foreign media contributed to these effects. Lastly, I find that changes in ethnic identity coincide with the political polarization of migrants. [R]
73.7600 PULEO, Leonardo ; PICCOLINO, Gianluca —
Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) is the new rising star of Italian politics. Scholars and pundits briskly categorised it as a (new) populist radical right (PRR) party. Still, FdI’s newness needs to be properly framed. A splinter party of the Popolo della Libertà, it claims a direct lineage with the Alleanza Nazionale – two cases not easily agglutinated into the PRR family. The article analyses the (dis)continuity associated with FdI, examining ideology, organisation, and the continuity of elites. It demonstrates that FdI’s organisation and political elites largely overlap with its predecessor parties. However, FdI accomplished a major ideological rebranding, positioning itself as radically different from both the mainstream centre-right and the post-fascist tradition of the Italian right. [R]
73.7601 PUYOK, Arnold ; NAIM, Hafizan Mohamad —
This article examines the resurgence of regional coalitions in Sarawak and Sabah following the 14th and 15th General Elections, respectively. It shows how federal-level government changes in Malaysia can result in the realignment of regional parties in Sarawak and Sabah, which had significantly shaped Malaysia’s political landscape as BN’s frontline states. The resurgence of the regional coalitions, Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) and Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS), demonstrates not only the fragmentation of national politics and the rise of regionalism but also the ease with which regional parties dominated by strongmen and aided by patronage can realign, enter and exit coalitions. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7676]
73.7602 RADOJEVIC, Marco —
This study investigates the subjective effects of gender quotas by examining how quotas affect party elites’ perceptions of quota beneficiaries. Furthermore, it proposes to distinguish between objective and subjective quota effects. Subjective effects were studied by randomizing information on whether politicians got into office through a gender quota. Elites then were asked to rate politicians based on an audio clip and an experimental vignette. Whereas the two treatment groups were told that gender quotas or ceiling quotas for men were employed during a politician’s election, the control group did not receive this information. This experiment was conducted in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. More than 1,000 party elites participated overall. Contrary to expectations, being framed as a “quota woman” only has a negative impact among elites of the radical right. In contrast with the center right, the radical right is opposed not only to quotas but to quota beneficiaries as well. [R]
73.7603 RAFAŁOWSKI, Wojciech —
During the eight months preceding the 2019 parliamentary election in Poland, resolutions aimed against the LGBTQIAP minority were adopted by over 60 out of 2,477 municipalities. They were proposed by a local right-wing organization called Ordo Iuris. Based on the prerequisites from the political opportunity structure approach, I test two sets of explanations as to why certain municipalities were targeted by the organization, while others were not. One set of hypotheses is associated with social demand; municipalities chosen by Ordo Iuris are expected to be more religious and supportive of the political right. The other approach assumes that the activity of the organization was determined by the resources available in the community, such as high percentage of members of the local council representing the right-wing Law and Justice party, electoral turnout, membership in religious organizations, and population density. [R, abr.]
73.7604 RAGAZZONI, David —
This essay weaves together the history of political and legal thought, contemporary democratic theory, and recent debates in legal scholarship to examine the ambivalent relationship between political parties and democracy. Celebrated as a structural necessity for the mechanics of democratic government, political parties are also handled with suspicion for their hybrid nature — neither entirely public nor completely private — and for their always-possible regression into factions. Anti-factionalism, I show, has been a powerful ideal driving constitutional imagination and practice over the centuries, from antiquity (with its emphasis on parts and its horror over factions), to the age of democratic revolutions (with its signature anxieties about divisions), up through the present. However, this long historical process has not extinguished the long-lived concern with the nature and implications of party spirit, nor has it made party democracy completely safe from revamped forms of factionalism. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7227]
73.7605 RAMAEKERS, Marlou —
The classic gap between lower and higher social classes in their likelihood to vote for radical left parties (RLPs) persists to this day. Prior studies showed that economic and political grievances predict support for the radical left, but they largely neglected to address whether the working class is more likely to vote for RLPs because they are economically and politically dissatisfied. This study, therefore, examines the explanatory role of economic and political grievances. It also examines whether the class cleavage in RLP support depends on a country’s economic performance in terms of wealth, unemployment and income inequality. European Social Survey data on 19 countries between 2002 and 2018 are analysed using three-level logistic regression models. The results replicate that people in lower social classes are more likely to vote for RLPs than those in higher ones. They do so because they are more dissatisfied with the economy, democracy and, particularly, income inequality. [R, abr.]
73.7606 RAMONAITE, Ainė —
Why are people in Central and Eastern Europe more hesitant towards COVID-19 vaccination and more prone to believe in COVID-19 related conspiracy theories than other Europeans? The article claims that the spread of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs in the post-communist region might be fostered by communist nostalgia. Drawing on the survey data from Lithuania, I show that communist nostalgia is one of the best predictors of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, controlling for other related factors such as populist attitudes, trust in political institutions, confidence in media and scientists and pro-Western attitudes. The paper claims that communist nostalgia in Central and Eastern Europe is conducive to conspiracy beliefs in a similar vein as nostalgic narratives employed by populist radical right in Western countries. [R]
73.7607 RANGONI, Sacha ; BEDOCK, Camille ; TALUKDER, David —
MPs face a dilemma when it comes to deliberative mini-publics (DMPs): in a context of distrust, they may see it as an opportunity to re-legitimize themselves and solve complex policy issues. But it could also challenge the quasi-monopoly they used to have on political decisions and undermine the role of the Parliament and the primacy of elections. The article is found on 91 face-to-face interviews with French-speaking Belgian MPs sitting in federal or regional parliaments. First, we describe the profile of supporters of DMPs. We then identify three ideal-typical discourses: the power-sharing discourse, the consultative discourse, and the elitist discourse. This article analyzes the argumentative frames used by MPs to assess deliberative mini-publics using a large number of interviews. Second, it demonstrates that their discourses depend on their evaluation of ordinary citizens’ competence to participate. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7466]
73.7608 RASHKOVA, Ekaterina R. ; ERZEEL, Silvia —
Recent scholarship on women’s substantive representation has expanded from its initial focus on gender inequalities in parliaments and now studies (1) various group interests, (2) in different venues, (3) across different contexts and (4) using different methods and approaches. Building on these advances, we present a new comparative measure of women’s substantive representation. This ‘Substantive Representation Index’ combines eight indicators, linked to two key dimensions of women’s substantive representation, in one composite quantitative index. As such, we offer a consistent modality that allows scholars to measure women’s substantive representation systematically and comparatively across and within democratic countries and over time. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7520]
73.7609 REGALIA, Marta ; LEGNANTE, Guido —
In 2018, the Italian Parliament was elected with a new electoral law introducing gender quotas. However, results in terms of gender representation were not as positive as one could expect. What went wrong? Why are women still under-represented? The literature has sometimes reached diverging conclusions on the effects of quotas on gender representation. The present article traces the process from candidate selection to taking office, showing how inequalities interact and compound along the way, and advances our understanding of the elements hindering women representation even in an electoral system providing for mandatory gender quotas. [R]
73.7610 REGASSA, Asebe ; TADESSE, Getachew —
This article analyses aspects of representation and legitimacy of Caffee Oromia (the legislative council of the Oromia National Regional State) within Ethiopia’s electoral authoritarian political landscape. The article sheds light on the interplay between the Caffee, elected representatives and constituencies in Ethiopia’s ‘democratisation’ experiment within the post-1991 federal system. The empirical data for this research were collected from five zones in Oromia, namely East and West Guji, Borana, West Wallaga and Oromia Special zone surrounding Finfinne between February 2019 and June 2020 through qualitative research methodology. Leaders of indigenous institution (Gadaa system), community members, elders, members of the Caffee and local government authorities were interviewed. Ten Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and 30 key informant interviews were conducted with purposively selected informants. The research findings show that there is a big rift between the elected representatives and their constituencies in terms of representation, accountability and communication whereby party loyalty overrides representatives’ accountability to the constitution, constituencies and conscience. [R, abr.]
73.7611 REINHARDT, Peter —
Under the impression of increasing dissatisfaction with the political system and distrust in elected representatives, the demand for direct-democratic forms of participation is currently particularly associated with right-wing populism. However, the specific relationship between populism and procedural preferences at an individual level, and the question of how exactly populist attitudes are related to procedural preferences, still remains open. This paper proposes a social psychological explanation of identity loss and formation as an addition to the debate on procedural preferences and provides a theoretical argument on the role of national identity in capturing the relationship between right-wing populism and procedural preferences. This is followed by an empirical analysis addressing the question to what extent populist attitudes and national identification can explain preferences for direct-democratic decision-making procedures. The findings suggest that right-wing populist attitudes on the one hand and national identification on the other are associated with preferences for direct democratic procedures. [R, abr.]
73.7612 RIEDL, Martin Johannes —
Journalistic professionalism serves as a semantic tool for journalists to draw boundaries and to demarcate their profession. This research builds on Andrew Abbott’s book The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor, and his assessment of journalism as a ‘permeable occupation’. By way of a strategic case study of a German-language news organization, it puts forth the notion of journalism as a profession of conditional permeability in certain participatory online settings. This research traces how journalists at a case organization used professionalism to delineate their own job from two groups of interlopers in online news spaces: Community managers tasked to moderate user comments, as well as audience members who participate by way of commenting on the news. The study draws on a case study of a market leader and early adopter in community management and comment moderation — with evident limitations as far as generalization to other contexts. Journalists used concepts deeply entrenched with journalistic professionalism, such as writing skills, gatekeeping and the application of news judgment to invoke boundaries between professionals and nonprofessionals, but also acknowledged unboundedness within particular subdomains of their work. While journalists asserted control over a journalistic epistemology, practice was partly open for other professionals, such as community managers, but closed for nonprofessionals. [R, abr.]
73.7613 RONAI, Simon —
The electoral cycle of 2022 seemed to oppose the cities and the countryside. This form of opposition between two France erase their interdependences and the scope of the flows of goods, ideas, people, public and personal funds, all this reinforcing the conception of isolated and forgotten territories even if they are not neglected. To avoid this apparent opposition between the cities and the countryside, is a new redistribution of the different powers and resources is necessary to rebalance and give a cohesion to the territorial needs? Is it the right time for a new decentralization? [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7625]
73.7614 ROSO, Joseph ; CHAVES, Mark —
We use data from the new and nationally representative National Survey of Religious Leaders, supplemented with the 2018 General Social Survey, to examine the extent to which clergy are politically aligned with people in their congregations. Two assessments of alignment — clergy reports of how their political views compare to the political views held by most people in their congregations, and comparisons between clergy and lay voting preferences in the 2016 election — yield the same findings. Clergy in Black Protestant and predominantly white evangelical churches are much more likely to be politically aligned with their people than are Catholic or, especially, white mainline Protestant clergy, who often are more liberal than their people. Contrary to media reports suggesting that evangelical clergy are now likely to be less conservative than their people, the vast majority are either politically aligned with, or more conservative than, their members. [R]
73.7615 RUEDA, Daniel —
Contrary to what common sense suggests, the meaning of historical figures and events is not fixed once and for ever. Instead, the battle over history plays an important role at an identity-building and political competition level, thus becoming what post-structuralist literature refers to as ‘a site of struggle’. This article intends to study such aspects of history through the analysis of Rassemblement National and its leader, Marine Le Pen. It shows how French history is not only of interest to historians and educated citizens but also of political parties. Moreover, the article aims to be a study of the relationship between the contemporary far-right and the past. [R]
73.7616 RUSSELL, Annelise ; MACDONALD, Maggie ; HUA, Whitney —
Women running for Congress make different choices from men about how to connect with constituents on social media, and the increasing number of women running for Congress from both parties suggests that further assessment of the gendered patterns of emotional appeals is needed. We use this opportunity to assess the joint influence of gender and partisanship on patterns of emotional appeals, showing how party moderates the distinct appeals women candidates make on social media. We use a dictionary-based computational approach to catalog congressional candidates’ emotional rhetoric on Twitter during the 2020 election year, finding Republican women use more joyful appeals and fewer angry appeals compared to both Republican men and Democratic women, suggesting a gap in emotive appeals and differing expectations for how women communicate that varies with party. Our results underscore the importance of accounting for relative partisanship in developing a more nuanced explanation of how and when women adopt stereotypical styles of campaign communication as the number of Republican women running for Congress continues to increase. [R]
73.7617 SADEGHI-BOROUJERDI, Eskandar —
This article explores the manifold lineages of crisis and revolt currently afflicting the Islamic Republic of Iran, most recently bursting forth in the 2022/2023 national uprisings where women-led mass protests and forceful rejection of mandatory veiling laws captured global attention. This interdisciplinary piece of research, bringing together several different theoretical approaches and historical literatures, interrogates and reflects upon what I call following Stuart Hall a ‘conjunctural crisis’ along the four major axes of (1) gender oppression and social reproduction; (2) the ethnocentric, dominative, and centralising nation-state and the still unresolved ‘ethno-national question’; (3) ‘religious democracy’ and the impasse of the Reform movement; and (4) authoritarian neoliberalism and the Islamic Republic’s political economy of predation. The article aims to show not only how these distinct crises have longer and more complicated lineages than might initially appear to be the case but also demonstrate how they have mutually constituted and shaped one another over the course of several decades, constituting part of a larger political and social system. [R, abr.]
73.7618 SANTANA-PEREIRA, José ; GIORGI, Elisabetta De —
In the 2022 Portuguese legislative elections, held nearly two years after the pandemic hit the country, the incumbent Socialists improved their position, being now able to govern with an absolute majority, while populist radical right Chega experienced considerable growth. Was the pandemic a relevant factor for vote choice in these elections? The main goal of this article is to shed light on this matter. In addition to portraying this election’s background and results, we describe the degree of COVID-19-related polarisation in Portugal, analyse the salience of the pandemic in the campaign and measure the relative impact of pandemic-related perceptions vs other variables on voting behaviour. Our findings reveal that, although there was little politicisation of the pandemic and the incumbent enjoyed high levels of support among both political elites and public opinion, Chega, which was less involved in rallying around the flag, arguably sent signals that made COVID-19-related assessments relevant in terms of voting behaviour. [R]
73.7619 SAVAGE, Lee —
Why do supporters of radical right parties in Central and Eastern Europe hold economically left-wing policy preferences? The author argues that this can be explained by welfare chauvinism. First, in ethnically heterogeneous societies, minority groups provide a plausible scapegoat for the grievances emphasized by radical right parties. Therefore, the majority population is sensitive to shifts in the status quo which accrue from policy changes that give minorities greater benefits. Support for redistribution will therefore be lower in more ethnically diverse countries. The salience of shifts in the ethnic group hierarchy also means that objective economic insecurity is less likely to intersect with redistributive preferences. Second, radical right supporters will prefer welfare policies that restrict eligibility to the majority population. This allows radical right parties to combine leftist economic policies with more authoritarian values. [R, abr.]
73.7620 SCHAKEL, Arjan H. ; ROMANOVA, Valentyna —
We identify three generations of regional election studies that have applied the second-order election (SOE) model. First-generation literature finds that regional authority, territorial cleavages, and election (non-)simultaneity explain territorial heterogeneity in SOE-effects because they affect ‘what is at stake’ in a regional election. A ‘stake-based’ approach also underlies a second-generation literature that finds that voters with strong regional identities and who find regional government important are more likely to make distinct party choices in the regional electoral arena. Thirdgeneration research adopts a multilevel electoral system perspective and considers the impact of political-institutional variables on the extent of horizontal and vertical top-down and bottom-up spill-over between regional and national electoral arenas. Four election articles and four election reports make important contributions to the three generations of literature and thereby reveal that these generations of regional election scholarship remain highly relevant. [R] [Introduction to a thematic issue on "Sixth annual review of regional elections". See Abstr. 73.7397, 7471, 7475, 7478, 7485, 7632, 7635, 7641]
73.7621 SCHIDEL, Regina —
The social and cultural model of disability has challenged the historically powerful perception of disability as a deficiency. Disability is no longer conceived of solely in terms of an individual lack of capacities but also considered as a structural effect of disabling social institutions and normalizing thinking. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) from 2006 marks a decisive step towards the recognition of humans with (cognitive) disabilities as legal subjects who are entitled to enjoy all human rights on equal terms with others. A central claim of the CRPD refers to full political participation of persons with (cognitive) disabilities. This paper argues for strengthening the political participation of persons with severe cognitive disabilities. The normative starting point is the claim that they are our equals, both morally and socially. In spelling out this status equality for the realm of the political, I focus on what political equality and inclusivity means concerning franchise. I will argue that the disenfranchisement of persons with cognitive disabilities, as practiced in many countries, cannot be justified. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7411]
73.7622 SCHROEDER, Theresa ; BEST, Rebecca ; TEIGEN, Jeremy M. —
Veteran women are better represented in Congress than non-veteran women, but the reasons for this are unclear. Veteran women may be better represented because they run at higher rates and in more winnable races or because their military service leaves them uniquely qualified to overcome gender and partisan stereotypes. Voters often perceive women as lacking leadership ability and ill-suited to handling national security. However, female veterans have experience that may help them overcome gendered beliefs about their abilities. Using election data from the 2012-2020 US congressional elections, we test whether veteran women gain greater voter support compared to non-veteran candidates and whether veteran women running as Democrats outperform male veteran Democrats. We find only limited evidence that military service wins more votes for candidates of either gender. [R, abr.]
73.7623 SCHWÖRER, Jakob ; FERNÁNDEZ-GARCÍA, Belén —
Politics and religion are usually considered to be strongly interlinked in Latin America. Despite the fact that discourses about religion, Christianity, and God are assumed to play an important role in political competition, we are still confronted with a gap of systematic comparative large N analyses. This work attempts to map the religious discourses of 87 parties and presidential candidates in 15 Latin American countries based on quantitative content analyses of 14,379 posts on Facebook. We found that religious references serve to emphasise one’s own closeness to God and Christianity, to promote traditional morality, and to portray competitors as immoral and corrupt. Religious discourses mainly occur in Central America and Brazil, where evangelical groups are on the rise and where societies are particularly religious. The evangelical rise may therefore have a substantial impact on society and political campaigning. Religious discourses in society without relevant evangelical groups can be explained by strongly conservative parties and an extremely religious population. [R]
73.7624 SCOTTO DI CARLO, Giuseppina —
Online activism can be expressed through many forms. While advocates claim that it is a fully-fledged form of activism, opponents state that it is no more than vain ‘slacktivism’. Against this background, this work analyses the ‘#ChallengeAccepted’ movement, which went ‘viral’ in July 2020 to raise awareness about femi(ni)cides in Turkey, in the aftermath of the murder of the female student Pinar Gültekin. Focusing on the use of the hashtag via Twitter, the work embraces the perspective of online activism as a “continuum of participation”, composed of several levels. The results show how hashtag activism has worked as a means of knowledge dissemination and action, and that also slacktivism has contributed to the cause, thanks to the “oxygen of amplification” effect, which made users inform and get informed, refocus the campaign towards its original purpose when it digressed, and distribute its message. [R]
73.7625 SERISIER, Wilfried —
In Seine-Saint-Denis, at the end of the presidential/legislative sequence 2022, the hegemony of the Left is more than confirmed with scores rarely achieved for the left candidates in the 1st round of the presidential election in France, confirmed by the “grand slam” of the legislative elections. The national results confirm a reconfiguration of the power relations installed for years and can question the future of the red suburbs. These political dynamics are part of the still strong rise of abstention and a post-colonial issue that is still so worrying. The territorial reality is gradually changing with the construction of the Grand Paris Express and the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, without the social and territorial inequalities holding back and without a strong metropolitan power emerging despite twenty years of debate. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on "France 2022: new electoral geopolitics?". See also Abstr. 73.7390, 7434, 7456, 7459, 7468, 7551, 7553, 7569, 7613, 7861, 7937]
73.7626 SHANAAH, Sadi —
Both academic and public policy accounts often draw a link between perceived anti-Muslim discrimination and support for violent Islamist extremism. However, robust empirical evidence is lacking. Such a link would be particularly worrying, given that anti-Muslim discrimination has been on the rise in the West. Are Muslims living in the West who experience or perceive anti-Muslim discrimination more likely to support violent Islamist extremism? This article tests this association with the help of five large-N nationally representative surveys of Muslims living in the US and the UK. In addition, the article also tests whether Muslims’ support for violent extremism increases when the experience or perception of anti-Muslim discrimination combines with (1) young age and (2) low identification with the majority population. The results are inconclusive, indicating that the link between anti-Muslim discrimination and support for violent Islamist extremism is likely more complicated. [R]
73.7627 SHARMA, Harshwardhani ; PEGU, Uttam Kumar —
This paper presents a study of Indian media. Utilizing the Propaganda Model formulated by Herman and Chomsky in the book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media (1988), the paper aims to critically assess the news patterns and media performance of the mainstream Indian media. The contribution of the paper will be the application of the propaganda model in the context of Indian media. For this study, we have analyzed the media coverage of two events — India’s ban on Chinese apps and the Pulwama attack. We focus on how Indian Media has helped the Government to establish the propaganda of nationalism during both events, which is explained by Herman and Chomsky in the five filters of news production. [R, abr.]
73.7628 SHAVIT, Uriya —
On June 13, 2021, the United Arab List, representing the Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel (SIM), became the first independent Arab party to join a Zionist governmental coalition. The article analyzes why the move hardly stirred opposition within the leadership and the popular base of a movement rooted in the Muslim Brothers. It demonstrates that the SIM’s coalition-oriented agenda responded to the firm and consistent demand for greater political impact voiced by a majority of the Arab public in Israel, and was commensurate with the religio-legal arguments introduced by the movement over two and a half decades of defending its decision to run for the Knesset. These arguments include stressing the importance of pragmatism in Islam and drawing analogies to religious narratives about cooperation with and service in infidel governments, such as the conduct of Muslims in Abyssinia and the conduct of Prophet Joseph in Egypt. Ironically, rather than limit its options, the Islamic premise upon which the United Arab List has operated turned out to allow it flexibility other Arab parties in Israel could not afford. [R]
73.7629 SINGH, Bilveer —
The 2020 Singapore General Election stood out on a number of counts, the most important being the decline in national votes for the ruling party, the People’s Action Party, and its historic loss of three wards, one single member seat and two group representation constituencies. Of its 27 new candidates, there were no Indian candidates. This article analyses the representation of Indians in Singapore’s politics, tracing this since the onset of general elections in 1948. Indian political presence in the ruling and opposition political parties will be looked at, and what this means for Singapore’s politics discussed in this article. [R]
73.7630 SIOBHAN ATZPODIEN, Dana —
This article analyses parliamentary debates on marriage equality in Germany to understand what factors shape how parties deal with morality politics argumentatively. I argue that the internal divisions of parties and their coalition parties are crucial for the argumentation strategies used in parliamentary debates on morally charged wedge issues. Internally divided parties and parties that must be loyal to coalition partners confronted with internal divisions are likely to employ a discursive avoidance strategy to mitigate the potential for intra-party and intra-coalition polarization. To test this empirically, I examine the speeches of the German Bundestag on the Life Partnership Act in 2000 and Marriage for All in 2016 and 2017. [R, abr.]
73.7631 SMETHURST, James —
In recent years, considerable scholarly attention has been paid to the Black Communist Claudia Jones as a progenitor of Black radical feminist notions of intersectionality. In Britain, Jones has also been hailed as an important part of the Black British political and cultural radical tradition. Less studied is how Jones brought a US Black Left institution-building sensibility to the UK, particularly as embodied in the West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian-Caribbean News (WIG) newspaper, helping to lay the foundation for the growth of Black Power and Black Arts in the UK. In turn, Jones and WIG brought to Black radicals in the US a renewed sense of Black internationalism inspired by Africa’s crossroads and its diaspora in London and other major British cities. [R]
73.7632 SMITH, Rodney ; MANSILLO, Luke ; BROWN, A. J. —
Recent research is ambiguous about the status of Australian regional elections, seeing them as conforming to the second-order election model but also as affected by regional politics. We clarify this ambiguity, drawing on aggregate and individual level data to explore the variable impact of national and regional incumbents on regional elections. Although national incumbents seem to affect Australian regional elections, under some circumstances regional incumbent parties are able to electorally outperform their national incumbent counterparts. We suggest that Australia’s uncoordinated national and regional election cycles and federal distribution of policy responsibilities both help to focus voter attention on the performance of regional incumbents. The way that regional incumbents manage key policy issues, including Covid-19 in recent years, appears to matter for their electoral support, making Australian regional elections more than second-order events. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7620]
73.7633 STADELMANN-STEFFEN, Isabelle ; RAJSKI, Hannah ; RUPRECHT, Sophie —
In an increasingly digitized world, vote advice applications (VAAs) seem to be effective in providing voters with personalized information about their own positions vis-à-vis parties’ positions and specific policies. Even though electoral research has increasingly paid attention to the role VAAs play in voter’s opinion formation, very few studies have examined VAAs in the context of direct-democratic decisions. This article fills this gap by providing new insights into how VAAs affect individual decision-making in popular votes theoretically and empirically. We use novel data from the referendum campaign on the 2017 new energy law in Switzerland: a VAA experiment carried out in the framework of a three-wave panel survey. In the third wave, which took place a week before the referendum, respondents were randomly assigned to a treatment group and a control group; only the former was shown the VAA and made to use it. The results indicate two main takeaways. [R, abr.]
73.7634 STAUFFER, Katelyn E., et al.—
There is optimism that the growing number of women in political office will reorient the focus of international politics toward more social and humanitarian issues. One basis for this optimism is the argument that women legislators hold distinct foreign policy preferences and act on them to affect changes in policy. However, we know little about gender differences in the behavior of individual legislators on these issues. This study investigates the behavior of individual legislators of the United States, one of the most important actors in international politics, in the context of development aid. Analyzing a diverse set of legislative behaviors in the US Congress, we find no evidence that women legislators behave any differently than men with regard to these issues. Beyond its contribution to our understanding of the making and future of American foreign policy, this study contributes to broader debates about women’s representation and foreign policy. [R]
73.7635 STEPHENSON, Laura B. ; HARELL, Allison —
The COVID-19 pandemic has created yet another dimension of performance on which governments can be judged during elections. This article focuses on how the pandemic and its management factored into vote choices in provincial elections in Canada. Did pandemic considerations overwhelm other factors, or was it a tangential consideration? We address this question with data from a series of two-wave election surveys that were conducted by the Consortium on Electoral Democracy (C-Dem) using online samples of citizens. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7620]
73.7636 STOCKER, Simon —
This study presents new empirical evidence for the arguments of feminist theorists that underline the need for descriptive representation of women. Using a novel data set, this paper examines the effect of women’s presence in local political office on turnout in council elections in Baden-Württemberg. The analysis of longitudinal data between 1999 and 2019 shows that the presence of female mayors has a positive effect on the participation rate in council elections. Furthermore, the openness of voters to women in political office also plays a role. Especially for parties on the left of the political spectrum, emancipatory and solidarity-based politics, and thus gender balance, play important roles. In municipalities where the Greens and the Left Party achieve higher vote shares in federal elections, the positive effect of descriptive representation of women on voter turnout is greater. [R, abr.]
73.7637 SUKALA, Cory —
With their integration into the global political world, the historically Buddhist countries of Southeast Asia have begun to augment, sometimes to the point of replacement, their traditional political structures with Westernized political institutions. Despite these formal changes, far less development has been made as a matter of underlying political theory. Though the language of contemporary Buddhist political thought and action is colored with talk of rights, it remains unclear how firmly this new orientation is founded. The consequences of this mixture of Western democratic political forms built upon an underlying foundation of Buddhist political theory can be seen in the developing human rights crisis in Myanmar. On the subject of the Muslim Rohingya, advocates of Burmese democracy, such as Aung San Suu Kyi, have seemingly found common cause with the military junta, with the country’s newly-minted democratic institutions proving themselves to be inadequate as a means of sustaining rights protections for the religious minority group. This paper examines the standing of rights-language in Buddhist political thought and how these concepts have thus far proven insufficient as a surrogate to similar conceptions in the liberal tradition as a foundation for political protections. [R]
73.7638 SUKARTINI, Ni Made ; SOLIHIN, Achmad ; SJAFII, Achmad —
This study investigated the determinants of voters’ trust level regarding official candidates at presidential, legislative, and governor levels in the 2014 general election in Indonesia. Data from the 2014 National Socioeconomic Survey was utilized in this study. The data was analyzed using two-stage regression analysis. The first stage regression analyzed the determinants of individual trust in official candidates, while the second stage analyzed probabilities of individuals to vote. This study found that voters’ experiences in vote buying reduced their trust in official candidates in the 2014 election. The second-stage regression results indicated that voters’ experiences in disasters reduced their intention to vote at all. [R]
73.7639 SULLIVAN, Kathleen —
The lawsuits challenging the 2020 election tried and failed to overturn the results of the election. This article positions their contribution to constitutional decay by considering the affidavits filed by Republican election challengers who observed the processing of absentee ballots in Detroit. Using the concepts of legal consciousness and legal mobilization, this article traces the mechanisms that carried doubts about the election processes from politics to law, returning that doubt as legally acknowledged truth that could be deployed in ongoing politics. Features of the affidavits allowed the voter fraud narrative to borrow a legal concept seemingly detached from politics. Given that constitutional theories recognize strict legality as a tool of authoritarians, this article considers the affidavits’ use as a legal and political tool, indicating particular ways that it can be wielded for antidemocratic purposes. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7312]
73.7640 SUPACHALASAI, Chyatat —
This article argues that the 2020-2022 youth liberation movement in Thailand represents a crucial politico-economic force calling for an alternative version of Thai capitalism. In contrast to existing literature that views the contest between young protesters and the military-backed government as a generation division and national polarisation, this article argues that the movement is a catalyst for the rearticulation and restructuring of Thai capitalism. The movement has prioritised democracy but has also targeted Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha’s economic policy that exacerbates economic disparity. This emphasis urges us to revisit the history of Thailand’s capitalism. While some in Thailand had benefited spectacularly during periods of capitalist expansion, facilitated by links between capitalists and the state, the movement’s political agenda seeks a capitalism that is less oppressive and more egalitarian. This has caused generational tensions, even among members of the same family. [R, abr.]
73.7641 SZÉKELY, István Gergő —
The report discusses the main features of Romania’s county councils, the context and results of their election in 2020, and addresses some theoretical questions raised earlier in the annual reviews of regional elections. It confirms the argument that Romania’s subnational elections have a significant forecasting (barometer) potential: in 2020 their results correctly indicated that no facile right-wing victory was to be expected at the parliamentary elections. The nationalization of the main parties and of the party system is also assessed. Analyzing electoral results in a longer time perspective reveals that most (though not all) counties are strongholds of one of the main political camps, which brings Romania close to an aggregated (as opposed to a replicated) party system at the national level. While this sets limits to party system nationalization, of the other sources formerly contributing to the regionalization of the vote only the Hungarian ethnic parties maintained their relevance in 2020. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7620]
73.7642 TAMAS, Bernard —
Two key threats facing American democracy today are gerrymandering and voter suppression. In this article, I argue that both of these threats are a direct consequence of the US using a single-member district (SMD) electoral system. This is because SMD creates significant asymmetrical disproportionality, which is a type of electoral bias that can benefit larger parties over smaller parties. This bias leads to the two largest parties in the US winning more seats than their popular vote, which in turn leads to these parties gaining significant resource advantages over smaller parties. This sets off a self-reinforcing system that keeps these larger parties in power and squeezes out the smaller parties, a process that is especially potent when this dynamic is not offset by public funding of electoral campaigns. The resource advantages that result from such bias include control over government policy, which makes it easier for the larger parties to manipulate election laws to their advantage, including through gerrymandering and voter suppression. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7312]
73.7643 TAPSELL, Ross —
This article argues that Malaysia’s 2022 General Election (GE15) amplified negative campaigning via new techniques associated with platform and technological advancements, led by creative innovations in campaign tactics, including livestreaming and video content. GE15 was the freest election campaign in Malaysia’s history. All political parties and coalitions enjoyed access to a wide range of mainstream and online media to disseminate content, and new platforms like TikTok emerged as influential conduits of campaign messages. Yet serious problems in this digital public sphere remain a feature of the country’s media landscape. These include cybertroopers, fake news peddlers, and those creating polarizing content around race and religious issues. This article explains how social media campaigning in Malaysia is becoming more professionalized and better resourced, inspiring some diversity and creativity, while at the same time enabling groups who spread narratives intended to incite and enrage, particularly via video content. [R, abr.]
73.7644 TATARCZYK, Dawid ; WOJTASIK, Waldemar —
This article analyzes how the 2020 Polish Presidential election was affected by the recent COVID-19 pandemic in the context of global democratic backsliding. Specifically, this article examines how the incumbency advantage of President Andrzej Duda was bolstered during the pandemic by the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS). Although PiS was unable to carry out every planned electoral manipulation, the party nonetheless helped Duda secure a second term in office in a historically close election. While many of the tactics undertaken by PiS were within the limits of the letter of the law, its actions still undermined the spirit of Polish democracy. This article contributes to the literature on democratic backsliding by underscoring the fact that the election in Poland was free and fair, which makes this regime qualitatively different from other cases in the region. [R, abr.]
73.7645 TEO, Terri-Anne ; VASU, Norman —
The principle of consent is an essential factor for Gramsci’s conception of ideological hegemony. For Gramsci, there must be consensus between the dominant and subordinated groups for the successful maintenance of ideological hegemony. Of note, consensus for Gramsci is a dynamic and continuous process of readjustment to altering conditions. Hence, an exchange is required between rulers and ruled as norm-making for hegemony, rather than coercion alone or at all. This article argues that the ideological hegemony necessary for continued PAP dominance of politics and governance in Singapore may be fraying as the General Elections of 2020 show how the consensus required between the hegemonic class and polity may be weakening. However, the article concludes by holding that these results while challenging may not herald the end of its hegemony as consensus may be retrieved among the broad electorate by addressing several key issues that arose during the elections. [R]
73.7646 THAMES, Frank C. ; BLOOM, Stephen —
Many studies have investigated why countries adopt gender quotas for their elections. In this article, we answer a different question: why do political parties comply with gender quotas when the costs of noncompliance are absent or minimal? To answer this question, we analyze data from 1,600 party lists and 106 parties competing across 121 cities in the 2015 municipal elections in Ukraine. Our subnational approach tests whether contextual factors flagged by the broader gender literature explain variation in compliance across localities. The results of our models support our contention that Ukrainian political parties behaved strategically in terms of nominations and quota compliance. We find that urbanization and female incumbency fueled quota compliance. Parties, however, were less likely to comply with quotas in cities with more Ukrainian speakers. We suggest that the politics of memory explain this outcome, as Ukrainian speakers are more likely to remember of the costs of Soviet rule. [R]
73.7647 THORNTON, Patricia M. —
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrated its centenary, its expanding role in penetrating, regulating, and reshaping social organisations (shehui zuzhi) seemed to signal a decisive shift in not only the arrangement, but also the balance of power between the state, the voluntary sector, and the party in favour of the latter. Beginning with the recent reform “decoupling” professional associations and chambers of commerce (hangye xiehui shanghui) from state management, which has been cited in official documents as a model for “separating the state from society” and an initial step in further reducing the state management in other realms of activity, this article considers broad trends in the CCP’s historical relationship with social organisations, particularly alongside its shifting relationship with the state apparatus after 1949, over time. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7442]
73.7648 TOLLEY, Erin —
Election to office is shaped by a series of decisions made by prospective candidates, parties, and voters. These choices determine who emerges and is ultimately selected to run, and each decision point either expands or limits the possibilities for more diverse representation. Studies of women candidates have established an important theoretical and empirical basis for understanding legislative recruitment. This study asks how these patterns differ when race and intersectionality are integrated into the analyses. Focusing on more than 800 political aspirants in Canada, I show that although white and racialized women aspire to political office at roughly the same rates, their experiences diverge at the point of party selection. White men remain the preferred candidates, and parties’ efforts to diversify politics have mostly benefited white women. I argue that a greater emphasis on the electoral trajectories of racialized women and men is needed. [R]
73.7649 TSAI Chia-hung —
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a new challenge for governance, as urgent and large-scale measures are implemented by the government that may require greater legislative oversight. This study aims to evaluate public perceptions of legislative oversight in relation to the pandemic, and to explore the impact of such oversight on satisfaction with democracy. The research reveals that trust in government, economic evaluation, and partisanship are key factors that drive demand for legislative oversight. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that satisfaction with democracy is linked to evaluations of government performance, trust in government, economic evaluation, and legislative oversight. These findings have significant implications, as they underscore the importance of government performance and legislative oversight in supporting democracy during times of crisis. Additionally, the study confirms the influence of trust in government and economic evaluation on both legislative oversight and satisfaction with democracy, highlighting the need for further research on issues of accountability. [R]
73.7650 TÜRKOĞLU, Didem, et al.—
Heightened political polarisation threatens democratic stability. While prior studies find polarisation in competing groups’ deployment of different terminologies to describe the same topic, we emphasise that it can also be evident in groups’ attachment of different meanings to the same terminology. Competition for dominance in the public sphere is reflected in social media which become sites of contestation, showcasing antagonistic claims of legitimacy. In a case-study of the June 2019 rerun Istanbul elections in Turkey, we used qualitative and computational methods to analyse approximately 116,000 tweets, focusing on discussions around the themes of ‘democracy’, ‘elections’, and ‘public service’. Twitter users associated the act of casting a vote not only with electing the candidate, but also with a competition over the future of Turkish democracy. [R]
73.7651 TURNER, Tom ; RYAN, Lorraine —
Using data from the European Social Survey we test whether a period of unemployment in Ireland shapes individuals’ core political ideological beliefs towards the left of the political spectrum and whether the experience of unemployment prompts people to vote for left-leaning parties. Results indicate that unemployment is linked with more leftward core political ideological beliefs and is associated with a tendency to vote for left-leaning parties. A central implication of our findings is that the sizeable increase in the extent of unemployment, as a consequence of the restrictions due to the COVID pandemic, may well have fundamental political ramifications influencing the political ideology and values of an unprecedented number of people. Right and centre-right parties in order to remain popular in recent times have tended to shift their policies leftward. The potential implications of the high unemployment during the recent pandemic may reinforce this trend. [R]
73.7652 UGUR-CINAR, Meral ; ACIKGOZ, Ali —
This article assesses the prospects of social democracy in Turkey in light of two prominent debates regarding social democracy: the challenge of populism and the proper balance between a politics of redistribution and a politics of recognition. By focusing on the Republican People’s Party (CHP), it shows that the main problem the party faces is to find ways of addressing the issues of recognition and redistribution. Success in addressing these issues would provide an effective alternative to the populist agenda of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and build channels for participatory democracy and institutions of accountability. We argue that social democracy, with its legacy of democratic rule and institutions, can serve as a significant anchoring point in such an effort. We point out, however, why current social, institutional, political, and cultural factors make the CHP’s task of pursuing a social democratic agenda in Turkey particularly difficult. [R]
73.7653 UMPIERREZ DE REGUERO, Sebastián ; DANDOY, Régis —
The literature on external voting overlooks why some political parties campaign abroad while others remain focused on the national territory. This article investigates the determinants of the strategic entry of political parties in overseas districts through analysing legislative elections in Ecuador (2007-2017). Based on a study of the incentives and constraints of political party presence abroad, we find that parties are more likely to compete for elections in overseas districts displaying a weaker party competition as well as when they account for previous electoral experience in these districts. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7656]
73.7654 VAN DER MEER, Tom ; STEENVOORDEN, Eefje ; OUATTARA, Ebe —
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic boosted political trust in many countries. This article tests the relevance of fear of infection as the micro-level mechanism behind this rally round the flag. This study employs three-wave panel data in the Netherlands, collected days before the first lockdown (early March 2020), during that lockdown (April/May 2020), and after that lockdown (October 2020). Growth curve models isolate the rally effect and its determinants. The article reaches three main conclusions. First, fear of infection is a constituting element of the rally effect: the rise in political trust is more pronounced among people who fear infection. Second, the rise occurs in response to the direct, external threat (health concerns), not in response to the secondary threats (social isolation, economic stagnation). Third, adherents of the radical right are particularly sensitive to the external threat, but only in the short run. [R]
73.7655 VAN DER VEEN, Olaf —
Political polarisation is a pressing political issue, as it can worsen democracy and has been rising in many countries in the past two decades. However, the exact scope of the problem is unclear, because conflicting measurements and conceptualisations have created disagreement about which countries are polarised. Scholars usually only measure one type of polarisation, even though multiple types are salient to the concept. Furthermore, little comparative data are available that measure multiple types of political polarisation simultaneously. This article introduces the comparative political polarisation index (CPPI), which provides a comparative measure of political polarisation that incorporates multiple dimensions of polarisation. This article conceptualises political polarisation as a four-dimensional concept, operating through ideological and affective aspects and at the mass and elite levels. [R, abr.]
73.7656 VAN HAUTE, Emilie ; KERNALEGENN, Tudi —
This Special Issue contributes to the growing literature on parties abroad. Expansive citizenship has transformed and reinforced the civic and political links between emigrants and their home country. Political parties face the dilemma of engaging or not in this new arena for electoral politics and must consider how. However, until recently the literature on transnationalism and on party politics has surprisingly largely overlooked this issue. This introduction identifies the existing gaps in the literature, and stresses two main questions that remains largely unanswered, namely (1) why and how parties decide to campaign abroad, and (2) how voters abroad are receptive to these campaigns and operate their party choice in this specific context. The five articles offer a mix of case studies and comparative perspective, and quantitative and qualitative analyses. This case selection allows to explore the diversity of strategies adopted by political parties abroad in different settings, with different tools. [R, abr.] [First of a series of articles. See also Abstr. 73.7465, 7527, 7583, 7591, 7653]
73.7657 VAN HOOTEGEM, Arno ; LAENEN, Tijs —
Although a basic income (BI) has already been widely debated, the COVID-19 crisis further intensified the discussion about this periodic cash payment that is unconditionally delivered to all. However, it remains unclear whether the crisis spurred a wave of public support for its introduction. To investigate this, we answer two research questions: (1) How did support for a BI evolve in reaction to the COVID-19 crisis? and (2) To what extent did the evolution in support differ across regional contexts and social groups with varying levels of deprivation? We rely on a natural experiment by analysing data from the Belgian National Elections Study that was collected both before and during the pandemic. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.7466]
73.7658 VARIGONDA, Kesava Chandra —
This paper studies the impact of social movements on the Indian state’s developmental paradigm. Adopting from Varigonda’s (2020) framework, the paper argues that the impact of social movements on state policy and its implementation is primarily determined by three key factors: the collective action repertoires of social movements; the politicization of the Indian state’s developmental paradigm; and the openness of state input structures. This framework is tested through a comparative study of two movements that have emerged against two examples of the Indian state’s developmental paradigm: a proposed nuclear plant at Kovvada and a proposed thermal plant at Sompeta, both in Andhra Pradesh. The Sompeta agitation was successful in impeding the thermal plant’s inception while the movement in Kovvada eventually petered out. [R, abr.]
73.7659 VÄYRYNEN, Tarja —
Women’s participation in auxiliary military organizations is a little-studied subject in the field of international relations. This article examines women’s war agency – or, rather, agentic capacity — in the Finnish women’s auxiliary organization Lotta Svärd during the Second World War. I discuss how war agency emerges from the embodied capacity to act through the primacy of corporeal, relational, and material practices by which experiences, meaning, and matter create reciprocally agentic capacities. The war agency of these women was not based on particular subject positions within the organization; instead, it came about as a result of the capacity of the material and the relational to enact the world anew. My analysis of the life-story data reveals that the ideological work of participating in an auxiliary military organization played only a minor role in the lives of the members. The finding calls into question the presumed distinction between the political and the apolitical and generates a broader view of what counts as political experience and agency during war. [R]
73.7660 VEGTER, Abigail ; LEWIS, Andrew R. ; BOLIN, Cammie Jo —
Civil religion has been described as the “common elements of religious orientation that the great majority of Americans share”. In an age of partisan division, there have been calls for a revitalized civil religion, but the idea that civil religion can be unifying has been debated. In this paper, we investigate whether civil religion can be unifying, or is it fractured by partisanship? To address this, we use two strategies. First, we created a civil religion battery and deployed it on two different cross-sectional surveys. The results indicate that there are two dimensions to civil religion. These dimensions are distinct from Christian nationalism and structured along partisan lines. Second, we developed two survey experiments to understand the dimensions of civil religion and improve on the causal mechanisms that link civil religion to political behavior. Results indicate that, rather than promoting unity, civil religion is interpreted through partisan lenses. [R]
73.7661 VENIZELOS, Giorgos —
Donald Trump’s style is often described as provocative and his administration as catastrophic. Despite this, his popularity remained high throughout his term in office, and in the 2020 US elections, he received 10 million votes more than in 2016. This paper investigates the paradox of political identification through a discursive, performative and stylistic framework. It argues that policy outcomes and rhetorical consistency do not suffice in understanding identification. Rather, transgression — which is typical of populist performativity — plays a pivotal role in interpellating affective collective subjectivities. This article investigates the case of Donald Trump, from his emergence in 2015 until the 2021 Capitol insurgence. It employs discourse and visual analysis to study Trump’s rhetoric and performativity, integrating this with in-depth interviews and ethnographic research to examine the ways his style resonated with his supporters. [R, abr.]
73.7662 VERHEYEN, Pieter ; THIJSSEN, Peter —
Recent studies suggest that solidarity frames are a fruitful instrument to characterise the programmatic supply of political parties and to dimensionalize the political sphere. However, although it makes sense to look at the party supply in terms of different solidarity frames, it is still an open question whether these solidarity frames also make sense to voters and whether the favourite frames of the parties are also popular among their electorates. We concretely test the congruence of the partisan solidarity frames (supply) with the solidarity preferences of their electorates (demand) in the context of Belgium (Flanders) with a fragmented party system challenged by increasing economic and cultural openness. Our analyses suggest that voters distinguish solidarity frames and electorates tend to prefer those solidarity frames that are primarily used by their favourite party. [R]
73.7663 VICARI, Stefania —
Health access and care among the most regulated, policed and often politicized, hence contested, issues in contemporary societies. And yet, little do we know about how mundane digital practices shape these dynamics, with research just starting to explore how extremely heterogeneous forms of participation are developing through the digital. This note, drawing on digital media research, reflects on the notion of "digital health citizenship", an umbrella term used to label contemporary instances of digital citizenship emerging in relation to health and illness. It specifically draws on work interested in the values emerging in contemporary "bio-societies", critical studies exploring the political economy of digital health and research investigating digital platforms as technological agents of citizenship. [R]
73.7664 VRIEZE, Paul —
This article examines Myanmar ethnic minorities’ diverse responses to the 2021 military coup. The coup prompted widespread mobilization for a national alliance that aims to replace the junta with a federal democracy. For minority actors this resistance could offer a unique opportunity to advance their demands for political autonomy, yet their responses diverged. Some joined the alliance; others declined, or accepted junta offers. Based on original interviews, this analysis unpacks the positions of ethnic rebels, civil society organizations, and parties. It suggests rebels’ strategies were influenced by their relations with civil society and military strength. Most ethnic parties avoided resistance, as they feared junta retaliation and distrusted the ousted National League for Democracy. Ethnic civil society organizations played a key coordinating role during alliance formation, enabled by its campaign experience and networks. [R, abr.]
73.7665 VUKADINOVIC, Igor —
This paper attempts to answer some questions about the Yugoslav communist regime’s identity policy in Kosovo: did the authorities encourage Turkification of Albanians or Albanisation of Turks, and how was the issue of Turkish emigration from Yugoslavia to Turkey handled in the 1950s? Answers to these questions may also prove useful in discussing the question of the determinants of the nationality policy of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito. The study is based on the analysis of state documents kept in different archives in Belgrade, Pristina, and Tirana, and the relevant literature in Serbian, Albanian, Turkish, and English. It is my contention that the Turkish minority in Kosovo was in the first post-war years denied the recognition of its national identity and minority rights, and that its status largely depended on the Yugoslav communist leadership’s strategy of subordinating Yugoslavia’s national interests to the particular interests of the six federal and two autonomous units into which it was divided. [R, abr.]
73.7666 VULOVIĆ, Marina —
This article focuses on the re-articulation of the Kosovo myth, specifically Serbia’s claim to the territory of Kosovo, within the so-called internal dialogue on Kosovo initiated in 2017 by Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić. It asks what elements are re-articulated and through which practices, in an effort to institute a counter-hegemonic project of partitioning Northern Kosovo from the rest of the territory. This is mainly achieved through demythologizing, de-emotionalizing/rationalizing and economizing Serbia’s approach to Kosovo. Within this counter-hegemonic project, Vučić is constituted as an empty signifier, incarnating a solution to the Kosovo-Serbia dispute, whatever content it might take on. Re-articulation of the Kosovo myth involves both transposing Serbia’s claim to the territory from Southern and Central to Northern Kosovo, and dis-articulating the Kosovo discourse from the sedimented affects of love and pride that constitute it. The article offers a deconstructive reading of the Kosovo myth, conceptualizing it as a discourse in poststructuralist terms and focusing on citationality and re-articulation of its elements in other discursive constellations. [R, abr.]
73.7667 WALTER, André ; EMMENEGGER, Patrick —
Do ethnic majorities and minorities have diverging preferences for fiscal capacity? Do these preferences converge during national emergencies such as interstate war? In this paper, we provide evidence from a natural experiment to demonstrate that politically salient minority-majority divisions undermine the development of fiscal capacity. In addition, we show that the pressure of interstate war is insufficient to supersede differences in support for the expansion of state’s capacity for taxation between majority and minority groups. More specifically, we employ a regression discontinuity design using a natural border that separates linguistic groups and municipality outcomes of a popular vote on the introduction of direct taxation at federal level in Switzerland during the First World War. [R, abr.]
73.7668 WANG Hongying ; COOPER, Andrew F. —
The expanding profile of Chinese international development aid has generated strong academic and policy interests. A growing literature has emerged on Chinese foreign aid’s motivations, modalities, and impact. However, a significant lacuna remains in the domestic politics relating to this phenomenon. This gap is especially glaring in public opinion concerning China’s growing foreign aid programs. By analyzing empirical data gathered from a variety of sources, including a well-established online forum, social media sites of two influential media organizations, and multiyear surveys of residents of Beijing, this paper presents a nuanced picture of what the Chinese public thinks of Chinese foreign aid and tests two popular explanations of public opposition to foreign aid — perceived budgetary trade-offs and more general dissatisfaction with government policies. [R]
73.7669 WANG, Howard —
Between 2014 and 2019, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders conducted an internal debate over whether to continue prioritizing economic development as the Party’s most important policy priority or whether to consider security equally as important. The debate has concluded as of 2020, and the CCP has embraced a new guiding principle that elevates security alongside development as a key policy focus. The CCP appears to have determined it can assert itself on a broad range of issues beyond those permitted by the ‘development-first’ approach it maintained since 2002, even at cost to economic growth. Following its new policy determination, the Chinese government’s behavior will be harder to shape using only tools that primarily threaten Chinese economic performance. [R]
73.7670 WANG Rui ; XU Weiai Wayne —
Social media platforms such as Twitter provide opportunities for governments to connect to foreign publics and influence global public opinion. In the current study, we used social and semantic network analysis to investigate China’s digital public diplomacy campaign during COVID-19. Our results show that Chinese state-affiliated media and diplomatic accounts created hashtag frames and targeted stakeholders to challenge the United States or to cooperate with other countries and international organizations, especially the World Health Organization. Telling China’s stories was the central theme of the digital campaign. From the perspective of social media platform affordance, we addressed the lack of attention paid to hashtag framing and stakeholder targeting in the public diplomacy literature. [R]
73.7671 WARING, Dabney —
The recent renaissance of uneven and combined development (UCD) has generally followed Justin Rosenberg’s formulation of the ‘international’, conceived as the inter-societal dimension of sociohistorical development. But Rosenberg’s ‘international’ rests on the conflation of distinct concepts, thus occluding other consequential registers of multiplicity. This paper (1) disentangles the concepts ‘social’, ‘societal’ and ‘political’; (2) demonstrates, using recent archaeological research, that complex social definedness preceded the sedentarisation of human groups; and (3) argues that social multiplicity constitutes a distinct dimension of causality that is interrelated with but irreducible to the territorial logics of societal and political multiplicity. In order to do this, it examines the role of the social (as non-territorial group identification) in the rise of Hellenic nationalism in colonial Cyprus. [R, abr.]
73.7672 WASHIDA, Hidekuni —
The rise of an Islamist party (PAS) in the 2022 general election caused concern that a massive shift towards an ethno-religious backlash was under way in Malaysia. This paper argues that this is not necessarily the case. First, the number of PAS’s seats was inflated by malapportionment. More important, analyses of original surveys reveal that PAS benefitted from the last-minute, pro-PN swing of undecided voters, who were mainly motivated by economic concerns. This paper illustrates how economic, distributive, and governance grievances affected voting behaviour and discusses how to balance competing demands after the collapse of a dominant party regime. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7676]
73.7673 WEGSCHEIDER, Carsten ; KALTWASSER, Cristóbal Rovira ; VAN HAUWAERT, Steven M. —
Although scholars emphasise the contentious relationship of populist forces to (liberal) democracy, less attention has been paid to whether this extends to those who support or oppose populist parties. This article utilises a public opinion dataset from ten Western European countries to analyse how citizens’ conceptions of democracy relate to the behavioural intention to vote for or against populist parties. The empirical analysis shows that positive and negative identification with populist parties is driven by different understandings of democracy: While individuals who are less inclined to liberal democracy but more to direct democracy and authoritarian forms of rule are more likely to sympathise with populist parties, the opposite understanding of democracy predicts opposition to both left-wing and right-wing populists. These findings demonstrate that citizens with positive and negative partisanship towards populist parties are divided in their interpretations about both the conceptual meaning and the normative functioning of democracy. [R]
73.7674 WIDIAN, Rizky ; SATYA, Putu A. N. I. P. ; YAZID, Sylvia —
In Indonesia’s political strategic environment, Islamic narratives have been among the main narratives, but have not always been dominant. The 2014 presidential election displayed the beginning of a rising trend of Islamic narratives within the political context in Indonesia. Since then Islamic narratives influenced the strategy of Indonesia’s populist leaders, as particularly seen during the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election and 2019 presidential election. This paper analyzes how populism as a strategy was used in recent Indonesian elections. For this purpose, it uses the conception of populism as a political strategy proposed by Weyland. Building on this approach, the paper explains the strategic adjustments made in the use of populism from 2014, 2017, and 2019 in Indonesian political events. It argues that the strategic environment faced by populist actors in Indonesia’s 2019 election affected their decision to choose Islamic narratives as an instrument for mass mobilization. [R] [First of two articles on "Populism and religion: an intricate and varying relationship", introduced by Christopher BEUTER,, et al.. See Abstr. 7404]
73.7675 WINTER, Nicholas J. G. —
Analyzing unique, nationally representative data, I show that two faces of sexism — hostile and benevolent — operate in systematically different ways to shape Americans’ electoral decisions and evaluations of their leaders. In the 2016 presidential election, both fostered support for Donald Trump and opposition to Hillary Clinton. They operated differently at the congressional level, however. In analyses of actual congressional candidates and in a conjoint experiment, the impact of hostile sexism is moderated by candidate sex: those high in hostile sexism oppose (and those low in hostile sexism favor) female candidates. Benevolent sexism is moderated by candidates’ symbolically gendered leadership styles: those high in benevolent sexism oppose candidates with feminine styles and favor candidates with masculine styles, regardless of whether the candidate is male or female. I conclude with discussion of the implications of the two faces of sexism for the role of gender and power in American elections. [R]
73.7676 WONG Chin-Huat —
Malaysia’s 15th general election in November 2022 has produced a hung parliament and the second coalition government led by the multiethnic Alliance of Hope (Pakatan Harapan, PH) party. Self-styled as the ‘Unity Government’, the new government also contains the National Front (Barisan Nasional, BN) coalition which led the outgoing government, the Sarawak Parties Alliance (GPS), the Sabah People’s Alliance (GRS) and the Heritage Party (Warisan). Holding one-third of federal seats, the predominantly Malay-Muslim National Alliance (Pakatan Nasional, PN) coalition challenges the new government from an ethnic flank position. This article aims to put in context the evolution of coalition politics in Malaysia, as national coalitions proliferate and Borneo politics denationalise, and to revisit issues like consociationalism, party-hopping, policy competition, patronage and identity politics. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on "Malaysia: the 15th general election and its implications". See also Abstr. 73.7391, 7574, 7601, 7672, 7682]
73.7677 WONG, Janelle S. ; RAMAKRISHNAN, Karthick —
We begin our review with research related to the racial formation and racial position of Asian Americans. How we define this fast-growing group and how it is situated in the broader racial landscape are critical to understanding its politics. We then turn to research on the history of Asian American civic engagement. These two research areas provide important context for the rest of the review, which covers three additional themes: (1) political participation; (2) partisanship, vote choice, and issue orientations; and (3) political representation. The last section returns to the theme of racial position, including its role in contemporary Asian American activism and its centrality to future research in the field. [R]
73.7678 WUTTKE, Alexander ; SCHIMPF, Christian ; SCHOEN, Harald —
Are populist citizens a threat to democracy? Some philosophers view populism and democracy as irreconcilable conceptions of governing. Another line of thought describes populism as useful democratic corrective. Drawing on nationally representative surveys from four European countries, this study investigates how European populist citizens think about democracy. Descriptive analyses reveal that populist worldviews only weakly predict how people think about democracy. On average, populist and non-populist citizens aspire to similar kinds of political systems and both endorse liberal-democratic institutions. Yet, populists and non-populists differ in the degree to which they hold inconsistent beliefs. Citizens with populist outlook more frequently express contradictory demands that political institutions cannot possibly deliver. Based on these findings, we conclude that most populist citizens do not pursue an elaborate anti-democratic conception of governing. Rather, the widespread dissatisfaction among populists may create an indeterminate openness for institutional change that political elites could steer in different directions. [R]
73.7679 YAN Jian ; YANG Xuedong —
This article puts the power centralization drive of the CPC since 2012 into perspective by going back to the Party’s history. By employing the retrospective governance studies approach, it singles out three cases in the CPC’s history in which top Party leaders chose to reinforce the CPC’s centralized system even when the Party had made strides in the previous stage, including creating the Instruction Request and Work Report System in 1948, adjusting Party-government Relations in 1953 and prioritizing toplevel design since the 18th Party Congress in 2012. Based on a detailed analysis and comparison of the background, process and repercussions of furthering the CPC’s centralized system in the three cases, this article concludes that top Party leaders chose to further strengthen the CPC’s centralized system even when the Party was making strides in its cause primarily because of their concerns about the negative influences, real or imaginary, of the changing environment on the organizational integrity of the Party. [R, abr.]
73.7680 YAO Qingjiang —
Using the five waves of Russian data in the World Value Survey, this study compares the late USSR with the Russian Federation from Russian people’s perceptions against several key social indicators and explores factors predicting Russian people’s commitment to the new nation. The transformation from the USSR to the Russian Federation is found enhancing Russian people’s social well-being, although beginning with bitterness. Social trust, confidence in the press and television, and personal political discourses have not been revived yet. Television news consumption appears to build people’s national pride and willingness to fight for the country. Russian peoples’ identification with, and pride of, the new federation are positively associated with their awareness of being a part of the CIS or the world. Their national identity, national pride, and willingness to fight for the country also show a form of the traditional cognitive-affective-conative hierarchy. [R]
73.7681 YAT To Yeung —
Are American elected officials equally responsive to all Asian subgroups? Asian-American is one of the major racial/ethnic groups in the US and is currently the fastest-growing racial group. However, studies on the representation of Asian-Americans are limited. Studies also commonly view Asian-Americans as a single, homogenous group and omit the heterogeneity within this unique population. I argue that to understand any racial/ethnic group better, we should look into the ethnic subgroups and examine them as separate populations. I conducted an audit experiment in this study and sent emails to more than 2000 state legislators, manipulating senders’ names to represent different Asian subgroups. I find that none of the subgroups received a lower response rate than white constituents, regardless of the officials’ racial group and partisan affiliation. [R, abr.]
73.7682 YEOH, Tricia —
Malaysia’s 15th general election (GE15) in November 2022 took place on the back of a tumultuous period in which the country experienced government alternation several times at federal and state levels from 2018. This article primarily addresses whether incumbency advantages were prevalent, and if so, how and when? Based on interviews and documentary data, the article concludes that, especially in a post-pandemic setting, incumbency mattered. However, Barisan Nasional (BN) experienced a form of ‘unrealised incumbency’. Without institutional reforms, trends in GE15 indicate that patronage and dependence on politicians for welfare gains seem to be a mainstay of Malaysian politics. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7676]
73.7683 YEŞILADA, Birol A. —
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002 with the promise of reforms to further democratic consolidation in Turkey. At that time, the AKP represented a rainbow coalition of individuals from the previous Islamist parties and many liberal democrats who were fed up with the failures of old secular political parties. The Turkish public shared their frustrations and overwhelmingly supported the AKP. Unfortunately, these reforms did not last. Today, it is indisputable that under the rule of the AKP, and more specifically, President Recep T. Erdoğan, Turkey has become an authoritarian state defined and shaped by one person. This article explores what these developments mean for the future of Turkish democracy as the country celebrates its centenary, and it includes an examination of whether Turkish political culture is supportive of such changes. [R] [See Abstr. 73.7894]
73.7684 YU,Xiaohong ; WANG Xiang —
One of the most noteworthy recent trends in judicial reforms worldwide has been the resurgence of lay participation. Several jurisdictions, including Russia, Spain and Japan, have introduced laypersons into their judicial processes. With more than 70 percent of ordinary procedural cases handled by lay assessors, China is a notable, yet severely understudied, example of this global trend. Drawing on descriptive big-data analysis of 23 million court decisions from 2014-2016, this article offers one of the first systematic examinations of the People’s Assessor System in China. It identifies a tendency for lay assessors to be used for routine cases without political significance, and the coexistence of an expert model and layman model in everyday justice. Resorting to historical and comparative analysis, we devise a novel typology to explain the China case. [R, abr.]
73.7685 ZHAI Yida —
China’s involvement in the world and its economic modernization are expected to lead to its democratization and adherence to the liberal international order. However, after several decades of development, the authoritarian system remains resilient, and China’s foreign policy appears to be more assertive. The limited nature of scholarship on the public opinion in a rising power has prevented a better understanding of China’s domestic changes and foreign policy. This study seeks to unveil the micro-foundations of the unexpected trajectory of China’s rise by investigating the public’s national and international orientations using nationwide representative survey data. The results show that international orientations had a very limited effect on Chinese popular attitudes toward domestic politics and foreign relations, while national orientations strengthened public support for the authoritarian system and China’s assertive foreign policy. Intergenerational variations existed in public opinion in China, with the Xi generation showing a different pattern of political values than the preceding generations. [R]
73.7686 ZINGHER, Joshua N. —
Partisanship and policy attitudes are two foundational political dispositions. While scholars recognize both as important, there is a longstanding debate about how these dispositions influence each other. One camp argues that partisanship shapes policy attitudes much more strongly than the reverse, the other claims policy attitudes exert a powerful influence on partisanship. In this paper, I take up this debate and test these claims. I assess whether individuals bring their partisanship in line with their policy orientations with an analysis of 14 ANES and GSS panels. The highly educated have more stable attitudes and are more likely to bring their partisanship and policy attitudes in line with each other. The relationship is weaker among those with only a high school diploma. These results show that policy attitudes exert an underappreciated influence on partisanship. [R, abr.]
73.7687 ZUGRAVU, Anca ; MEDEIROS, Mike ; NAI, Alessandro —
Since the 9/11 [2001] terrorist attacks, research on attitudes towards the use of torture on suspected terrorists has become common. However, despite acknowledging the identity-rooted relationship between threat and out-group hostility, the possible relationship between identity attachment and attitudes towards torture has been under-explored. Using data from the 2016 American National Election Study, the results of the present study further the understanding of the relationship between identity and support for torture. Two main findings are supported: (1) greater attachment to American Identity increases support for the torture of suspected terrorists, and (2) the perceived threat of terrorism partially mediates the relationship between attachment to the American Identity and attitudes towards torture. [R, abr.]