| 1. |
- Goenaga, Agustín
(författare)
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Who cares about the public sphere?
- 2022
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Ingår i: European Journal of Political Research. - : Wiley. - 0304-4130 .- 1475-6765. ; 61:1, s. 230-254
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article offers the first empirical and cross‐national analysis of citizens’ views about the democratic importance of the public sphere. We first identify three normative functions that public spheres are expected to perform in representative democracies: they provide voice to alternative perspectives, they empower citizens to criticise political authorities and they disseminate information on matters of public interest. We then argue that citizens develop differentiated views about the importance of these democratic functions, depending on (1) their ability to influence political decisions through public debate, and (2) the extent to which voice, critique and information address democratic problems they particularly care about. Drawing on Wave 6 of the European Social Survey, the statistical analysis indicates that citizens in most European countries consider the public sphere very important for democracy, especially its role as a supplier of reliable information. However, certain groups tend to care more about different aspects of the public sphere. More educated citizens are more likely to assign greater importance to all three functions. Members of cultural and sexual minorities are more likely to emphasise the importance of giving voice to alternative perspectives, while citizens dissatisfied with the government are more likely to prioritise public criticism and access to reliable information. Finally, in countries with more democratic public spheres, differences based on education and minority status are wider, while differences based on government satisfaction disappear. These findings support the claim that citizens care more about the public sphere when they can effectively influence political decision making through public debate or when the public sphere addresses democratic problems that are especially important to them. Moreover, our results indicate that citizens see some of the functions that public spheres perform as core aspects of democracy, comparable in importance to free and fair elections and the rule of law. The article thus advances an empirically grounded defence of the centrality of public debate for democracy.
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| 2. |
- Rovny, Jan, et al.
(författare)
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Contesting Covid: The ideological bases of partisan responses to the Covid-19 pandemic
- 2022
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Ingår i: European Journal of Political Research. - : Wiley. - 0304-4130 .- 1475-6765. ; 61:4, s. 1155-1164
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- How do political parties respond to external shocks? Using an original survey of political parties across Europe conducted in June 2020 and Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) data on partisan ideological positioning, we argue that the pre-existing ideological stances of Europe’s political parties shaped their response to emerging Covid- 19 policy issues, including the tension between economic normalization and containment, legal versus voluntary enforcement and the role of science in policymaking. We find that party ideology powerfully predicts how parties, both in government and in opposition, responded to the pandemic.
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| 3. |
- Angelova, Mariyana, et al.
(författare)
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Veto player theory and reform making in Western Europe
- 2018
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Ingår i: European Journal of Political Research. - : WILEY. - 0304-4130 .- 1475-6765. ; 57:2, s. 282-307
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Veto player theory generates predictions about governments' capacity for policy change. Due to the difficulty of identifying significant laws needed to change the policy status quo, evidence about governments' ability to change policy has been mostly provided for a limited number of reforms and single-country studies. To evaluate the predictive power of veto player theory for policy making across time, policy areas and countries, a dataset was gathered that incorporates about 5,600 important government reform measures in the areas of social, labour, economic and taxation policy undertaken in 13 Western European countries from the mid-1980s until the mid-2000s. Veto player theory is applied in a combined model with other central theoretical expectations on policy change derived from political economy (crisis-driven policy change) and partisan theory (ideology-driven policy change). Robust support is found that governments introduce more reform measures when economic conditions are poor and when the government is positioned further away from the policy status quo. No empirical support is found for predictions of veto player theory in its pure form, where no differentiation between government types is made. However, the findings provide support for the veto player theory in the special case of minimal winning cabinets, where the support of all government parties is sufficient (in contrast to minority cabinets) and necessary (in contrast to oversized cabinets) for policy change. In particular, it is found that in minimal winning cabinets the ideological distance between the extreme government parties significantly decreases the government's ability to introduce reforms. These findings improve our understanding of reform making in parliamentary democracies and highlight important issues and open questions for future applications and tests of the veto player theory.
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| 4. |
- Fernandes, Jorge M., et al.
(författare)
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Unpacking the politics of legislative debates
- 2021
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Ingår i: European Journal of Political Research. - : Wiley. - 0304-4130 .- 1475-6765. ; 60:4, s. 1032-1045
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Legislative debates are a thriving field in comparative politics. They make representation work by offering legislators the opportunity to take the floor and represent their constituents. In this paper, we review the key theoretical concepts and empirical findings in a maturing field. We begin by addressing what legislative debates are and why we should study them to learn about inter- and intra-party politics. Next, we look at the contributions springing from Proksch and Slapin's ground-breaking model. In so doing, our review suggests that recent work extends the original model to include further dimensions of legislative debates. Third, we examine the role of legislative debates as mechanisms of representation, focusing on gender. Four, we examine the challenges of the comparative analysis of legislative debates. Finally, we map the road ahead by discussing four avenues of future research and some key questions that remain unanswered.
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| 5. |
- Ferrín Pereira, Monica, et al.
(författare)
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Terrorist Attacks and Europeans’ Attitudes towards Immigrants: An Experiment Approach
- 2020
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Ingår i: European Journal of Political Research. - : Wiley. - 1475-6765 .- 0304-4130. ; 59:3, s. 491-516
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Over the past several years an increasing number of terrorist attacks committed in the name of Islam and targeting civilians have taken place in many Western democracies, calling for more research on the impact of these exogenous events on citizens’ attitudes towards immigrants. Using a quasi‐experimental design, this study examines the short‐term effect of the Paris attacks of the night of 13 November 2015 on the attitudes towards European Union (EU) and non‐EU immigrants across 28 EU countries. Employing Eurobarometer 84.3 survey data collected in 28 European countries between 7 and 17 November 2015, the design allows the testing of individual attitudes before and after the Paris attacks and the spillover effects of this event in all European countries. It is found that the Paris attacks had a significant negative effect on attitudes towards immigrants, especially among educated and left‐wing individuals. Moreover, the negative effect was stronger in countries where the national political‐ideological climate was more positive towards immigrants. These findings are explained by theorising that first emotional reactions to the attack are the results of coping mechanisms whereby individuals are confronted with disconfirmation/confirmation of their previous beliefs: individuals who experience stronger stereotype disconfirmation are the most negatively affected by the terrorist attack. Overall, the study holds important implications for understanding the short‐term impact of terrorist attacks on public attitudes towards immigrants.
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| 6. |
- Knutsen, Carl Henrik, et al.
(författare)
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Economic development and democracy : An electoral connection
- 2019
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Ingår i: European Journal of Political Research. - : Wiley. - 0304-4130 .- 1475-6765. ; 58:1, s. 292-314
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Scholars continue to debate whether economic development affects regime type. This article argues that a clear relationship exists between development and the electoral component of democracy, but not – or at least less so – between development and other components of broader understandings of democracy. This is so because development enhances the power resources of citizens and elections provide a focal point for collective action. The theory is tested with two new datasets – Varieties of Democracy and Lexical Index of Electoral Democracy – that allow us to disaggregate the concept of democracy into meso- and micro-level indicators. Results of these tests corroborate the theory: only election-centred indicators are robustly associated with economic development. This may help to account for apparent inconsistencies across extant studies and shed light on the mechanisms at work in a much-studied relationship. Further analysis shows that development affects electoral democracy by reducing electoral fraud, election violence and vote buying.
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| 7. |
- Povitkina, Marina, et al.
(författare)
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Fresh pipes with dirty water: How quality of government shapes the provision of public goods in democracies
- 2019
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Ingår i: European Journal of Political Research. - : Wiley. - 0304-4130 .- 1475-6765. ; 58:4, s. 1191-1212
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A large strand of research holds that democracy with its broad representation and electoral accountability is beneficial for the provision of public goods. Yet, there is a large variation in how democracies perform, indicating that democratic institutions alone do not suffice for securing citizens' wellbeing. Recent studies have stressed the equal importance of state capacity for public goods delivery. These studies, however, rarely investigate how the lack of state capacity mutes the effects of democratic institutions on public goods provision. This article addresses this gap by using a mixed methods design. First, the conditional effects of democracy and quality of government (QoG) are tested on the previously under-researched domain of the provision of clean water. The results show that democracy is associated with higher water quality only in countries where QoG is high. If QoG is low, more democracy is even related to lower water quality. The second stage of the analysis proceeds by examining how poor QoG disrupts the effects of democracy on public access to safe drinking water using interview data from a typical case of Moldova. The analysis illustrates that democracy has a number of positive effects and incentivises politicians to focus on the visible aspects of water provision, including the expansion of the water pipe network. However, low QoG hampers adoption and implementation of long-term policies necessary for securing an aspect of water provision that is harder to achieve - namely water quality. This leaves the fresh pipes with dirty water.
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| 8. |
- Rauh, Christian, et al.
(författare)
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Undermining, defusing or defending European integration? Assessing public communication of European executives in times of EU politicisation
- 2020
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Ingår i: European Journal of Political Research. - : Wiley. - 0304-4130 .- 1475-6765. ; 59:2, s. 397-423
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- How do mainstream political executives cue their politicised constituencies on European integration? Moving beyond static expectations that EU politicisation induces executives to either undermine, defuse or defend integration, this article theorises executives’ incentives under different configurations of public and partisan Euroscepticism in their home countries. Expectations are tested on the sentiment and complexity that executives attach to European integration in almost 9,000 public speeches delivered throughout the Euro Crisis. It is found that national leaders faced with sceptical public opinion and low levels of partisan Euroscepticism rhetorically undermine integration, whereas European Commissioners faced with similar conditions are prone to defend it. These responses intensify disproportionally with growing public Euroscepticism, but are moderated by Eurosceptic party strength in surprising ways. When such challenger parties come closer to absorbing the Eurosceptic potential in public opinion, executive communication turns more positive again but also involves less clear rhetorical signals. These findings move beyond existing uniform expectations on mainstream responses to Eurosceptic challenges and highlight the relevance of different domestic configurations of EU politicisation.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Bakker, B. N., et al.
(författare)
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Personality traits and party identification over time
- 2015
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Ingår i: European Journal of Political Research. - : Wiley. - 0304-4130 .- 1475-6765. ; 54:2, s. 197-215
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Why do some people stably identify with a party while others do not? This study tests whether and how the direction, stability and strength of party identification are associated with big five personality traits, using panel data from a representative sample of German citizens. First, the study confirms that personality traits are related to identification with different political parties. Second, it moves beyond previous research by showing that personality traits are related to the strength and variation in party identification over time. The implications of the study for the classical perspectives on party identification, as well as the personality and politics literature, are discussed.
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