| 1. |
- Gustavsson, Gina, 1984-
(författare)
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Romantic Liberalism: An Alternative Perspective on Liberal Disrespect in the Muhammad Cartoons Controversy
- 2014
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Ingår i: Political Studies. - Chichester, West Sussex : Wiley-Blackwell. - 0032-3217 .- 1467-9248. ; 62:1, s. 53-69
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is increasing scholarly concern that liberalism comes into conflict with religious diversity. William Galston blames this tendency on ‘enlightenment liberalism’, which places autonomous self-reflection at the heart of the liberal project. This paper, however, proposes a culprit that is more prone to both disrespect and fundamentalism: romantic liberalism, which idealises authentic self-expression. I develop this concept by re-visiting the Danish cartoon controversy, allegedly a case of enlightenment liberalism. This reveals that Flemming Rose, the editor who commissioned the cartoons, invokes romantic rather than enlightened values in defense of the publication. In contrast to previous research, I show that Rose does not portray the disrespectfulness of the cartoons as a side effect of trying to promote autonomy among Muslims. Rather, he argues in favor of artistic provocation as such, and invokes a distinctly romantic understanding of freedom of speech, which in many ways runs counter to the ideal of autonomy.
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| 2. |
- Moffitt, Benjamin, et al.
(författare)
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Rethinking Populism: Politics, Mediatisation and Political Style
- 2014
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Ingår i: Political Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 0032-3217 .- 1467-9248. ; 62:2, s. 381-397
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- As a key feature of the contemporary political landscape, populism stands as one of the most contentious concepts in political science. This article presents a critique of dominant conceptions of populism – as ideology, logic, discourse and strategy/organisation – and introduces the category of ‘political style’ as a new compelling way of thinking about the phenomenon. We argue that this new category captures an important dimension of contemporary populism that is missed by rival approaches. In doing so, we put forward an inductive model of populism as a political style and contextualise it within the increasingly stylised and mediatised milieu of contemporary politics by focusing on its performative features. We conclude by considering how this concept allows us to understand how populism appears across the political spectrum, how it translates into the political mainstream and its implications for democratic politics.
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| 3. |
- Dahlström, Carl, 1972, et al.
(författare)
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Corruption, Bureaucratic Failure and Social Policy Priorities
- 2013
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Ingår i: Political Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 0032-3217 .- 1467-9248. ; 61:3, s. 523-542
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article argues that bureaucratic capacity - the competence and reliability of the national bureaucracy - matters to the allocation of public spending among welfare state programmes since it is difficult for governments to justify high levels of spending on programmes that require bureaucrats to make case-by-case decisions, on a discretionary basis, if the bureaucracy is incompetent, corrupt or both. We expect bureaucratic capacity to have a positive effect on programmes that involve bureaucratic discretion, but weak or no effects on programmes that are more straightforward to implement. In order to test these hypotheses, we analyse public spending on active labour market programmes (which involve a lot of discretion) and parental leave benefits (which involve less discretion). Relying on data for twenty advanced democracies from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s, we find that high bureaucratic capacity does have a positive effect on active labour market policy spending, but not on parental leave benefits.
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| 4. |
- Davidsson, Johan Bo, et al.
(författare)
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Losing the Issue, Losing the Vote: Issue Competition and the Reform of Unemployment Insurance in Germany and Sweden
- 2013
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Ingår i: Political Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 0032-3217 .- 1467-9248. ; 61:3, s. 505-522
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Welfare state research tends to assume strong and enduring public support for welfare state institutions. We challenge this assumption and show that in times of economic crisis, positive welfare state attitudes are confronted with conflicting preferences for improvement of labour market performance. We argue that such movements in public opinion have led to issue competition among major political parties and subsequent radical reform of unemployment insurance in two least-likely cases. In both Germany and Sweden, incumbent governments were losing voters' confidence as a result of high and persistent unemployment. In Germany, the social democratic government saw falling competence ratings at the same time as the issue of unemployment was highly salient among voters. In order to win back confidence, the party shifted its policy stance and introduced reforms which reshaped the unemployment insurance system. In Sweden, the situation was similar with falling ratings for the social democratic government and high levels of salience for the issue of unemployment among voters. When the government did not introduce reforms, the opposition moved in and won issue ownership, and subsequently the election, on an agenda of radical reform.
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| 5. |
- Friberg-Fernros, Henrik, 1972, et al.
(författare)
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The Consensus Paradox: Does Deliberative Agreement Impede Rational Discourse?
- 2014
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Ingår i: Political Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 0032-3217 .- 1467-9248. ; 62:S1 (suppl.), s. 99-116
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article explores a tension in deliberative democratic theory. The tension consists in that deliberative opinion formation ideally aims to reach consensus, while a consensus, once established, will likely impede the conditions for further rational public discourse. Hence, over time, deliberative democracy might risk undermining itself. While the tension is demonstrable in theory, we also suggest three cognitive and socio-psychological mechanisms by which consensus might hamper the rationality of public discourse: after an agreement, participants cease to develop new arguments, they tend to forget existing arguments and their fear of deviating from the social norm promotes conformism. Existing research has largely neglected to study how consensus in decision making affects future public deliberation. Our article thus serves three purposes: to elaborate the consensus paradox in deliberative democratic theory; to open up a research agenda for examining the paradox empirically; and to assess the theoretical implications of the paradox.
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| 6. |
- Maltais, Aaron
(författare)
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Failing international climate politics and the fairness of going first
- 2014
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Ingår i: Political Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 0032-3217 .- 1467-9248. ; 62:3, s. 618-633
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There appear to be few ways available to improve the prospects for international cooperation to address the threat of global warming within the very short time frame for action. I argue that the most effective and plausible way to break the ongoing pattern of delay in the international climate regime is for economically powerful states to take the lead domestically and demonstrate that economic welfare is compatible with rapidly decreasing GHG emissions. However, the costs and risks of acting first can be very large. This raises the question of whether it is fair to expect some states to go far ahead of others in an effort to improve the conditions for cooperation. I argue that a costly obligation to act unilaterally and to accept weak initial reciprocity can be justified and does not violate standards of fair burden sharing. Rather, the costs of creating the underlying conditions within which we can hope to achieve meaningful international cooperation are non-ideal burdens for which we can appropriately assign fair shares.
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| 7. |
- Duit, Andreas
(författare)
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Patterns of Environmental Collective Action : Some Cross-National Findings
- 2011
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Ingår i: Political Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 0032-3217 .- 1467-9248. ; 59:4, s. 900-920
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many environmental problems such as global warming, biodiversity loss and waste accumulation can be described as large-scale collective action dilemmas. Previous research on collective action in Common Pool Resource settings has demonstrated that institutional structures and social capital are important for successful management of natural resources. The objective of this article is to investigate the effect of such factors on large-scale environmental collective action. The analysis employs survey data and indicators of institutional quality for 22 countries. Two measurements of environmental collective action are used: (1) intermediate group collective action; and (2) latent group environmental action. Findings point to a dominating role for two factors - institutional quality and membership in voluntary organisations - as key determinants of participation in both latent and intermediate group environmental collective action. These results are interpreted as indications of a possible decoupling between trust and participation in large-scale collective action.
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| 8. |
- Friedner Parrat, Charlotta, 1980-
(författare)
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The Politics of Reporting : A Study of States' Strategies for Reporting to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
- 2010
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Ingår i: Political Studies. - Chichester, West Sussex : Wiley-Blackwell. - 0032-3217 .- 1467-9248. ; 58:3, s. 472-496
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article is concerned with the obligation of State Parties to report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and discusses the politics involved in the reporting process, showing what strategy each state chooses to employ. An empirical study shows that the reported improvements in children's rights depend not only on the State Party's economic means, but also on its will to report truthfully. Based on John Rawls' ‘The Law of the Peoples’, I develop four ideal types of state with regard to the reporting process, and present game-theoretical explanations for their chosen strategies. The outcome is that a burdened state, illustrated by Burkina Faso, will tell the truth about children's rights in the state; a high-risk state, illustrated by Guatemala, will conceal or avoid eliciting sensitive information for its reports; a quasi-established liberal democracy, illustrated by Estonia, will also conceal information that shows its child rights record is not as clean as that of a liberal democracy; and a liberal democracy, illustrated by New Zealand, will tell the truth, provide all available information and point out existing problems. The article ends with a discussion about how to take the political factor out of the reporting process.
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| 9. |
- Näsström, Sofia
(författare)
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The Challenge of the All-Affected Principle
- 2011
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Ingår i: Political Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 0032-3217 .- 1467-9248. ; 59:1, s. 116-134
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article examines the recent turn to the all-affected principle as a means to determine the proper boundaries of the people. The popularity of the principle notwithstanding, it argues that many of its proponents are prone to underestimating the challenge it raises to contemporary political theory. More specifically, two claims are made. Firstly, it argues that we must distinguish between two principles which, while both relating to the question of people-making, do so under radically different conditions: the all-subjected principle and the all-affected principle. Secondly, it argues that while the all-affected principle is a popular device in debates on cosmopolitan democracy it does not have a singular meaning. The all-affected principle in fact has three distinct roles to play, those of diagnosing, generating and justifying the boundaries of the people. The latter is the most difficult to account for in so far as it draws proponents of the all-affected principle into the very conflict that they set out to assess. It is concluded that this circumstance calls for a reorientation of the current debate, both with regard to the characterisation of the conflict under consideration and the challenge it raises to contemporary political theory.
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| 10. |
- Valentini, Laura
(författare)
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Canine Justice : An Associative Account
- 2014
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Ingår i: Political Studies. - : Wiley. - 0032-3217 .- 1467-9248. ; 62:1, s. 37-52
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A prominent view in contemporary political theory, the ‘associative view’, says that duties of justice are triggered by particular cooperative relations between morally significant agents, and that ‘therefore’ principles of justice apply only among fellow citizens. This view has been challenged by advocates of global justice, who point to the existence of a worldwide cooperative network to which principles of justice apply. Call this the challenge from geographical extension. In this article, I pose a structurally similar challenge to the associative view: the challenge from species extension. This says that the existing network of cooperation extends beyond the human species, to encompass some non-human animals, particularly domesticated dogs. In light of this, if one believes that (1) certain non-human animals are morally significant (i.e. objects of moral concern), and that (2) justice applies to fellow cooperators, one should also hold that domesticated dogs are owed justice in much the same way that our human fellow citizens are. I conclude by considering the implications of this argument for the associative view, and animal rights theory.
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