Article
Political Science
Eileen Bohringer, Charlotte Boucher
Summary: This article examines the politicization of judicial perceptions in European democracies and finds that courts are perceived to be less affected by partisan politics compared to the government and parliament. The study also reveals that supporters of populist parties have a larger confidence gap in all three institutions studied - courts, government, and parliament - compared to those supporting mainstream parties.
Article
Political Science
Matthew E. Bergman, Mariyana Angelova, Hanna Back, Wolfgang C. Mueller
Summary: This article examines the role of coalition agreements in the policy-making process of multiparty governments. The findings suggest that coalition agreements can increase policy productivity in minimal winning cabinets and help parties overcome the risk of policy stalemate.
WEST EUROPEAN POLITICS
(2024)
Article
Political Science
Maria Thuerk, Svenja Krauss
Summary: This study aims to analyze the influence of party system, institutional configuration, and bargaining environment on cabinet formation, and test hypotheses through multinomial model estimations. The results show a trend towards more formalization in the formation of formal minority cabinets.
WEST EUROPEAN POLITICS
(2024)
Article
Political Science
Wolfgang C. Mueller, Hanna Back, Johan Hellstrom
Summary: This article introduces research on dynamic approaches to coalition governments, where the electoral stage influences government formation and subsequently shapes the government's tenure. The research utilizes new comparative data from various independent projects to investigate different aspects of coalition politics.
WEST EUROPEAN POLITICS
(2024)
Article
Geography
Deivi Norberg, Karl Patrick Norberg
Summary: This article explores how the three political projects of independent Estonia - creating and maintaining an ethnonationalist citizenship regime, the country's neoliberal transition, and its integration with the West - have converged and become intertwined. The mistreatment of stateless individuals in Estonia is justified through neoliberal rationality, aligned with Orientalist narratives. The Estonian experience after independence demonstrates the compatibility between neoliberalism and ethnonational policies when mediated through Orientalist logics.
POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY
(2024)
Article
Geography
Robert A. Farnan, Jonathan Ensor, Anushiya Shrestha, Dilli Poudel, Bijay Singh, Pakamas Thinphanga, Khanin Hutanuwatr, Yogendra Subedi, Sobina Lama, Sangeeta Singh, Richard Friend
Summary: In an era of rapid urbanisation, understanding how marginalised groups shape and are shaped by planning has become increasingly urgent. This study focuses on the political capabilities of marginalised groups, specifically their control over their livelihoods and environment. Through an analysis of participatory planning in Nepal and Thailand, the study introduces a post-foundational approach to explore the connection between the political capabilities of informal settlers and conflicts. It reveals the discourses, alliances, and expertise involved in urban development, and highlights the role of technocratic knowledge infrastructures in supporting hegemonic encroachment discourses.
POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY
(2024)
Article
Geography
Danny Marks, John Connell
Summary: Thailand's road safety issues stem from the poor design of the road system, lack of enforcement of traffic regulations, and inadequate driving education. These problems highlight the weak governance and lack of cooperation among agencies in Thailand.
POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY
(2024)
Article
Political Science
Gabriella Szabo, Balazs Kiss
Summary: This paper examines politicians' publicly displayed emotional responses to the sex affair and resignation of a Member of the European Parliament, Jozsef Szajer, from Fidesz, Hungary's one ruling party. The results of the qualitative analysis indicate that politicians displayed various combinations of self-conscious moral emotions: shame, guilt, pride, and hubris. Inspired by the MOSS-SASD model and the shame compass concept, the research demonstrates that the representatives of the parliamentary opposition discredit Fidesz with shame, guilt, accusations of hubris, and vicarious shame. The ruling parties, in turn, attempted to salvage their reputation via strategies of shame acknowledgment, empathy appeal, shame detachment, and exhibiting pride/hubris. With this illustrative case study, we provide a deeper understanding of political shame management through communication.
POLITICAL RESEARCH EXCHANGE
(2023)
Article
Political Science
Havard Baekken
Summary: This article examines the exploitation of political war myths within military patriotic youth clubs in Russia, focusing on the use of social media accounts. These clubs use narratives, symbols, imagery, and slogans from the Second World War to support the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The article introduces the concept of 'war merging' to analyze this phenomenon and discuss its characteristics and implications. By merging the wars symbolically, the invasion of Ukraine is framed as a just and heroic continuation of Russia's 'eternal war' narrative.
POLITICAL RESEARCH EXCHANGE
(2023)
Article
Political Science
Juha Ylisalo, Katariina Kulha, Mikko Leino, Rasmus Siren, Lauri Rapeli, Maija Setala
Summary: Mandatory vaccination may not be effective if the public does not perceive it as acceptable. A study in Finland found that the way a mandatory vaccination program is framed, along with the threshold for herd immunity, affects the program's acceptability and individuals' willingness to take the vaccine voluntarily. Health-based justifications were more effective when the herd immunity threshold was high, while the preparedness to refuse a mandatory vaccine was generally low and weakly influenced by experimental treatments.
POLITICAL RESEARCH EXCHANGE
(2023)
Article
Political Science
Kevin Koehler
Summary: This article analyzes the democratic breakdown in Tunisia and argues that the political dynamics in Tunisia differ significantly from the standard model of democratic backsliding. The relative success of Tunisian democratization after the elite compromise in 2014 resulted in a crisis of representation and disengagement from conventional politics. This created a void at the heart of Tunisian democracy, which President Kais Saied's anti-party project aimed to fill, but there are growing indications of authoritarian retrenchment instead of democratic renewal.
POLITICAL RESEARCH EXCHANGE
(2023)
Article
Political Science
Diogo Teixeira Pereira, Catherine Moury, Pedro Pita Barros
Summary: This article assumes that the pharmaceutical industry has accumulated various forms of power, making it difficult for governments to reduce pharmaceutical company profits in the long-term. By examining the Portuguese economic adjustment program (2011-2014) through a qualitative analysis, the study finds that despite efforts to decrease public pharmaceutical spending during an international bailout, industry representatives successfully limited the scope and duration of profit reduction, allowing the industry to regain its profits once the bailout ended.
POLITICAL RESEARCH EXCHANGE
(2023)
Article
Political Science
Luana Russo, Mark Franklin, Stefenie Beyens
Summary: The impact of party polarization on voter satisfaction is debated. While it is expected to have a direct negative effect, polarization has also been found to clarify party policies and have an indirect positive impact. This study proposes that polarization can have direct positive effects through its interaction with congruence. Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, we find that higher polarization, although detrimental to satisfaction with democracy, enhances the positive effect of congruence. We utilize the concept of leverage to characterize this interaction.
POLITICAL RESEARCH EXCHANGE
(2023)
Article
Political Science
Kenddrick Chan, Chris Alden
Summary: In recent years, concerns have been raised about the loyalty of ethnic Chinese residing outside of China and their potential as agents of foreign influence. China, on the other hand, has expressed its desire to become an 'Internet superpower' and exploit the internet for political purposes. This article aims to examine how China engages with its diaspora on the internet, the extent of this engagement, and the implications it carries. Through an IT-informed approach, it was found that China employs a "dual-track messaging" strategy on Chinese-language websites outside of China, where non-political news coexists with overtly political messages. This indicates that the Chinese Communist Party's efforts to co-opt the diaspora are active not only through traditional media but also in cyberspace.
POLITICAL RESEARCH EXCHANGE
(2023)
Article
Political Science
Wouter Wolfs, Jan Jaap Veldhuis
Summary: This paper examines the process of self-regulation of social media platforms, focusing on the case of political advertisements on Facebook during the 2019 European elections. The study finds that the European Commission chose self-regulation due to both media-centric and politics-centric factors, and identifies the reasons why the Commission was unable to address Facebook's deviating policy on online political advertisements.
POLITICAL RESEARCH EXCHANGE
(2023)
Article
Political Science
Claudia Wiesner
Summary: This paper introduces a research methodology called "Conceptual Politics" which focuses on analyzing key concepts in political controversies. It provides theoretical and methodological backgrounds, analytical tools and empirical applications for this approach. It is argued that this methodology is especially beneficial in analyzing European integration.
POLITICAL RESEARCH EXCHANGE
(2023)
Article
Political Science
Anton Ahlen
Summary: This study examines the tension between comprehensive welfare states and large-scale immigration, particularly in the context of family immigration. The results show that policy restrictions on family immigration are influenced by increasing immigration and rising unemployment in Basic Security welfare states, but the impact of these factors is less clear in State Corporatist and Universal welfare states. Contrary to the notion of a 'progressive dilemma', Basic Security welfare states with weaker universal and redistributive features are more likely to impose stricter restrictions on family migrants when faced with increasing immigration and rising unemployment.
POLITICAL RESEARCH EXCHANGE
(2023)
Article
Political Science
Nina Schlager, Karsten Donnay, Hyunjung Kim, Ravi Bhavnani
Summary: Anti-government protests in response to COVID-19 countermeasures have occurred globally. This study examines the key drivers of these pandemic-related protests and compares them to non-COVID protests, using Israel as a case study. The analysis finds that all protests, whether related to the pandemic or not, are driven by the same set of key indicators, with differences in ranking for COVID-related and non-COVID protests. Local infection rates and government responses were more significant for COVID-related protests, while factors such as property taxes, affordable housing, education quality, and demographics were more important for non-COVID protests.
POLITICAL RESEARCH EXCHANGE
(2023)
Article
Political Science
Jose Javier Olivas Osuna, Guillermo Jorge-Botana, Jose Angel Martinez-Huertas, Ricardo Olmos Albacete, Alejandro Martinez-Mingo
Summary: This article presents a quantitative method for mapping semantic spaces and tracing the trajectories of political frames, allowing the analysis of the relationship between changes in ideas and socio-political phenomena. The study focuses on Spain and examines the Catalan conflict, which led to a competition in redefining the meanings of key political concepts. Through unsupervised machine learning, the research tracks the salience, level of semantic fragmentation, and fluctuations in meanings of 216 frames in the two major Spanish newspapers over an 8-year period. The findings suggest that the evolution of many nationalism-related frames follows a punctuated equilibrium model, with political events in Catalonia acting as critical junctures that shape the meanings portrayed in the Spanish press.
POLITICAL RESEARCH EXCHANGE
(2023)
Article
Political Science
Shiri Cohen Kaminitz
Summary: In recent times, there has been a call for political theory to become more involved and relevant in political science and practice. Using the example of social progress indices, it is observed that political theory is already somewhat involved in both areas. In some cases, political theories inspire well-reasoned and systematic construction of measurements, although the conception of social progress in an index is not always explicit. Moreover, social progress indicators and concepts provide a valuable context for political theorists' self-reflection.
POLITICAL RESEARCH EXCHANGE
(2023)
