Search results for "POLITICAL ECONOMY"
showing 10 items of 637 documents
Political participation in Latvia 1987–2001
2001
Abstract Political participation is crucial to democracy; we discuss its main features during three stages. The years 1988–91 are marked by anti-regime mobilization and extensive mass activism in support for restoring independence. After a “normalizing” phase between 1992–98 we note contradictory trends in more recent years. Next to conventional political participation one notes increasing protests, referendum initiatives, and corrupt ways of gaining influence.
The rising fear of terrorism and the emergence of a European security governance space: citizen perceptions and EU counterterrorism cooperation
2021
Among a wide range of challenges, EU member states have been facing a growing threat from terrorism in the recent years. The primary responsibility for combating terrorism lies with each individual member state, although the threat is becoming increasingly cross-border and diverse. Regardless of whether terrorism poses a real or perceived threat to the states’ and citizens’ security, public opinion is one important force behind the extensive counterterrorism efforts undertaken in Europe. In this article, we explore the influence of public opinion on EU policy within the security domain in the period 2005–19. We investigate the relationship between the number of attacks carried out on EU ter…
Theorizing religion and media in contemporary societies: An account of religious ‘publicization’
2011
This article argues that a combination of the rapid development and dissemination of media technologies, the liberalization of national media economies and the growth of transnational media spheres is transforming the relationship between religion, popular culture and politics in contemporary societies in ways not adequately accounted for in existing sociological theories of religion (secularization, neo-secularization and rational choice) and still largely neglected in sociological theories of media and culture. In particular, it points to a series of media enabled social processes (de-differentiation, diasporic intensification and re-enchantment) which mirror and counter processes identif…
The nested games of the UK’s EU referendum: ruptures, reconfigurations and lessons for Europe
2021
The 2016 decision by the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union was a seminal one for both parties. In this special issue, we consider the extent to which the inter-penetration of the national and the European arenas produced significant opportunities for recasting political action. The nesting of these two levels matters firstly in allowing for the politicisation and mobilisation of domestic actors around European issues and secondly in explaining why seemingly sub-optimal or counter-productive actions are taken. The tensions this generated reached a critical juncture with the referendum, a rupture that highlights the extent to which a nominally second-order vote can have funda…
Cultural policy regimes and arts councils. Thelongue duréeperspective, birth of the state, religious trajectories and national cultural policies
2021
The cultural policy orientation of European countries has usually been interpreted in the light of political ideological factors or the model of the welfare state. However, while these dimensions e...
Rhetoric of unity and cultural diversity in the making of European cultural identity
2011
The fundamental aim of the cultural policy of the European Union (EU) is to emphasize the obvious cultural diversity of Europe, while looking for some underlying common elements which unify the various cultures in Europe. Through these common elements, the EU policy produces ‘an imagined cultural community’ of Europe which is ‘united in diversity’, as one of the slogans of the Union states. This discourse characterizes various documents which are essential to the EU cultural policy, such as the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Agenda for Culture and the EU’s decision on the European Capital of Culture program. In addition, the discourse is applied to the production of cultural events in Europ…
Introduction: Continuities, Dislocations and Transformations: 50 Years of Independence in Africa
2010
Many sub-Saharan African countries celebrated 50 years of political independence in 2010. This presented an opportunity for scholars, politicians and journalists, both within and outside of Africa, to take stock. The situation on the African continent has changed fundamentally since 1960. Brief general analyses and reviews can scarcely do justice to the complexity of this development process. The processes of consolidation, differentiation and transformation that have caused African societies today to become significantly more complex than they were at the time of independence are simply too multifaceted. Most of the journalistic attempts to take stock of these developments in recent years …
Nordic cultural policy
2008
The rationale for publishing a special Nordic issue of the IJCP might be to throw into relief a specific Nordic model of cultural policy that deserves international academic interest. It might also...
Nazis, Pollution, and no Sex
2004
This article briefly summarizes the German research literature on scandal and then outlines a theory of scandal as a socially constructed communication pattern. The theory distinguishes macro- and micro-level approaches for addressing the question of which malfunctions a society selects for scandal. The manifest and latent functions of scandals are discussed with special emphasis on the role of the mass media. The authors’concept of scandal is linked to the concept of political culture. The article then reviews, from a comparative cross-national point of view, (a) scandals that were formative for the development of democratic political culture in Germany, (b) scandals that are linked to th…
Supporters’ attitudes towards European football governance: structural dimensions and sociodemographic patterns
2020
The role of fans in football governance is a topic of increasing academic and political interest. This article offers a quantitative approach to investigate supporters’ opinions of governance structures in European football. It asks whether fans trust governing bodies, clubs, leagues and other stakeholders currently in charge of football governance. It also investigates the extent to which fans consider they should have a direct say on how football clubs are governed. Drawing on concepts from sports governance literature, an online survey collects opinions of football fans in six European countries (United Kingdom, Spain, Turkey, Poland, France, and Germany). The results indicate a high lev…