Search results for " Political Culture"
showing 10 items of 17 documents
How representative are referendums? Evidence from 20 years of Swiss referendums
2017
Direct democracy allows citizens to reverse decisions made by legislatures and even initiate new laws which parliaments are unwilling to pass, thereby, as its proponents argue, leading to more representative policies than would have obtained under a purely representative democracy. Yet, turnout in referendums is usually lower than in parliamentary elections and tends to be skewed towards citizens of high socio-economic status. Consequently, critics of direct democracy argue that referendum outcomes may not be representative of the preferences of the population at large. We test this assertion using a compilation of post-referendum surveys encompassing 148 national referendums held in Switze…
Journalists’ Associations as Political Instruments in Central and Eastern Europe
2017
This editorial provides the overall context for the five cases—three national and two international—covered in this thematic issue. While the cases are from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), they highlight fundamental questions of journalism everywhere, including contradictions between freedom and control, professionalism and politics, individual and collective. The associations of journalists serve as very useful platforms to study these questions, especially at historical turning points when the whole political system changed, as happened twice in CEE after World War II.
Debating Europe: Effects of the “Eurovision Debate” on EU Attitudes of Young German Voters and the Moderating Role Played by Political Involvement
2016
In the run-up to the elections to the European Parliament in 2014, EU citizens had the unprecedented opportunity to watch televised debates between the candidates running for president of the European Commission. The most important debate was the so-called "Eurovision debate", which was broadcasted in almost all EU member states. In this study we explore the responses of a sample of 110 young German voters, who watched this debate, to the candidates' messages and whether exposure to the debate caused a shift in the respondents' attitudes towards the EU. Combining data from a quasi-experiment, real-time response data, and data from a content analysis of the debate, we find that respondents' …
Identity, Instrumental Self-Interest and Institutional Evaluations: Explaining Public Opinion on Common European Policies in Foreign Affairs and Defe…
2008
This paper addresses public opinion on common European policies in foreign affairs and defence. It proposes three models of support for common policies in these fields. Drawing on Eurobarometer data, the analysis shows that instrumental self-interest and territorial identities contribute considerably to explaining support for common foreign affairs and defence policies. Moreover, support for common policies is strongly driven by domain-specific evaluations of the European Union's performance. These findings suggest that popular support for common European policies in foreign affairs and defence has an experiential base. Thus, elites have an incentive to respond to public opinion when makin…
Participación política, partidos y nuevos movimientos sociales
2005
En estas páginas se presenta un recorrido por diversas cuestiones relacionadas con la participación y la representación políticas en los sistemas políticos contemporáneos, tratando de recoger las aportaciones clásicas así como las más recientes que puedan resultar relevantes para la reflexión sobre la evolución de los modos y los mecanismos a disposición de los ciudadanos para integrar, articular, canalizar, movilizar y representar su participación política. La conclusión es un esperanzador saludo a las nuevas formas y mecanismos de participación diferenciados, así como a la diversificación de espacios y ámbitos para la acción política, cuya concurrencia no supone un cuestionamiento ni un r…
La sociedad multicultural. Democracia y derechos
1997
En este artículo, el autor parte de un hecho sustancial: las sociedades multiculturales constituyen un fenómeno característico de nuestro tiempo. Es decir, en las sociedades actuales conviven códigos e identidades culturales diversos como consecuencia de diferencias étnicas, lingüísticas, religiosas o nacionales. En Europa, este fenómeno responde a la fragmentación de sociedades altamente homogéneas, a la crisis de consensos internos y del modelo del Estado social, a los flujos migratorios, etcétera. Ciertamente, la complejidad de las sociedades multiculturales plantea desafíos a la democracia: ¿cómo conciliar la unidad política con la diversidad social? El autor analiza el debate generado …
Representative Bureaucracy and the Role of Expertise in Politics
2015
This is an open access journal from Cogitatio http://www.cogitatiopress.com The vast majority of existing studies on bureaucratic representation focus on bureaucracies’ permanent and internal staff. Yet, the rising sophistication of modern democracies and the technocratization of political life are gradually inducing an increased reliance on external experts to assist in the development and implementation of policy decisions. This trend, we argue, raises the need to extend studies of bureaucratic representation to such external and non-permanent experts in governmental affairs. In this article, we take a first step in this direction using seconded national experts (SNEs) in the European Com…
Subjetivación y Feminismo: Análisis de un manifiesto político
2004
The theme of this article is the the Italian feminist movement of the 1980s. That movement was characterised by political transformation and a crtitique of identity. The article takes as its point of departure the inaugural speech of the movement, the manifesto "Piu donne che uomini" (1983). The analysis that we present is inspired in the work of Michel Foucault. It aims to show to that the production of new feministic subjectivities, when fighting the symbolic dimension of masculine domination, has an intrinsically political character. In the 1980s, in the Italian context and particularly in the feminist movement, the rules of the political game set up by the events of 1968 materialized. T…
VOX Spain: The Organisational Challenges of a New Radical Right Party
2021
This article examines the organisation of VOX, a new radical right party in Spain. It shows that the party has taken early and uneven steps to build a mass organisation and initially opted for open membership recruitment with participatory organisational elements. Also, the party’s rapid growth and quick entrance into political institutions at different state levels led the party leadership to establish more centralised control and limit members’ prerogatives, though recruitment continued. Centralisation in part responds to organisational needs given the party’s quickly acquired political relevance, but also to the desire of the central party leadership to forestall the articulation of terr…
¿Se han hecho más democráticos los partidos en España? La evolución en las reglas de elección del líder (1977-2008)
2011
En este trabajo, los autores verifican si, entre 1977 y 2008, ha habido un aumento de la democracia interna en los principales partidos políticos españoles. Para ello, analizan el proceso de selección del líder, al tiempo que cuestionan si ha habido un incremento de la igualdad en la participación para elegirlo, favoreciendo sistemas representativos o de elección directa. El artículo plantea también la hipótesis de si el grado de igualdad en las reglas de la elección influye en el grado de competencia en la lucha por el liderazgo del partido. Para comprobar tal supuesto, los autores examinan las condiciones de elegibilidad así como la representatividad del cuerpo electoral que escoge al líd…