Politics

This article examines the relationship between scandal and democracy through the case of sexual assault within the US military. Scandal is routinely seen as hostile to democracy. It signals either the corruption of prominent institutions or the decline of ethical journalism. But scandal may have a positive dimension in forcing tainted institutions to correct their course. To explore this thesis, we examine how the US military responded to news reports of sexual assault over a period of nearly four decades. During the first three decades of this period, news reports of sexual assault were widespread but largely ignored by military leaders. During the last decade, however, the fact that sexual assault was endemic but largely ignored by the armed forces triggered a scandal, one senior military figures were forced to address. In light of this case, the article concludes that scandal can function as a mechanism of democratic governance, where it compels social and ethical norms to be properly enforced.

This article analyses the state of play regarding party funding reform in British Politics through the application of new institutionalism. It then investigates whether the Collins Review of 2014 represents a critical juncture in the evolution of the political finance regime. Utilising elite interview and documentary research, the article argues that the removal of a key institutional stumbling block – the concession of the opt-in for trade union members of the Labour party – has created a situation which may have a very real effect on both British party funding and how we understand party finance reform more generally.

This article draws on secondary historical sources and primary interviews to highlight how the legacy of the creation of local governments in England and Germany has significant implications for policy-making in the present day. By employing an institutionalist perspective to analyse how one municipality in each country tries to promote renewable energy and retrofit private housing, it demonstrates how historical factors have resulted in the German Council having more capacity to act hierarchically in local governance arrangements than its English counterpart. These findings have notable implications for how governments at all levels seek to tackle major challenges such as climate change.

What affects the prospects of candidates in open intra-party elections? This research article examines the determinants of candidate performance in the first open party primaries conducted by LIVRE, a newly emerged Portuguese party, in 2015. This innovative process of candidate selection allowed individuals from outside the party not only to vote but also to run for office. Through the construction of an original dataset and the use of social network analysis, this study shows that centrality in the network of endorsements has a significant impact on the probability to be selected in party lists. Our findings shed additional light on the determinants of success in candidate selection and open new insights into the dynamics behind party primaries.

Turnout rates are in decline in advanced democracies, but the consequences of this trend for inequalities in participation have not yet been investigated in a large, comparative study. In this article, we investigate educational inequalities in six countries. First, we examine whether Tingsten’s law of dispersion holds and whether decreasing turnout rates imply more unequal participation. Subsequently, we examine whether the more gradual over-time process of declining turnout rates leads to biased participation. We show that the participation gap between low- and high-educated citizens is growing. This pattern is strongest in countries where turnout rates have decreased most.

The aim of this study is to investigate the relation between political education in schools and the willingness of students to vote in parliamentary elections. Empirically tested through the case of mock elections at schools in Norway shortly before the 2013 parliamentary election, the multivariate logistic regression analyses of the data show a strong connection between voting in mock elections at school and students’ willingness to vote, even after controlling for background factors. The results strengthen the case for political education in schools while simultaneously acknowledging its limits.

This article discusses the findings of a pilot study that examined the adjustment experience of first-year students to university study. Based on a sample of 51 first-year students at one UK university, the article finds that while the majority of students considered that workloads, nature of assessment, level of independent reading, and learning were broadly in line with their expectations, they were less satisfied with the support provided in terms of contact time with tutors and feedback on performance. These results thus provide a mixed picture, whereby academic workload and content are in line with students’ expectations, but students do not fully comprehend what tutors want in assignments, despite knowing where to go for support.

Higher education has been transformed by technology over the past two decades, and teaching and learning online has become considerably more prominent. We examine the extent to which journals in the discipline mirror the rising use of technology in the classroom in the frequency of articles they publish on teaching and learning with technology, with a major focus on online teaching. We find a relatively small share of articles focus on pedagogical technologies, including online teaching, and their impact on student learning. Our findings indicate that in light of the rapid and broad adoption of technology by college teachers, there is much opportunity to expand research on how large numbers of political science students learn in technology-infused classrooms, including online instruction.