The ‘Bubbling Up’ of Subterranean Politics in Europe

This article presents the findings of a collaborative research project involving seven field teams across Europe investigating a range of new political phenomena termed ‘subterranean politics’. The article argues that the social mobilizations and collective activities in 2011 and 2012 were probably less joined up, more heterogeneous, and, perhaps, even, smaller, than similar phenomena during the last decade, but what was striking was their ‘resonance’ among mainstream public opinion—the ‘bubbling up’ of subterranean politics. The main findings included:

• ??Subterranean political actors perceive the crisis as a political crisis rather than a reaction to austerity. Subterranean politics is just as much a characteristic of Germany, where there are no austerity policies, as other countries.

• ??Subterranean political actors are concerned about democracy but not as it is currently practised. They experiment with new democratic practises, in the squares, on the Internet, and elsewhere.

• ??This new political generation not only uses social networking to organize but the Internet has profoundly affected the culture of political activism.

• ??In contrast to mainstream public debates, Europe is ‘invisible’ even though many subterranean political actors feel themselves to be European.

The research concludes that the term ‘subterranean politics’ is a useful concept that needs further investigation and that Europe needs to be problematized to seek a way out of the crisis.     

Building ‘Community’: New Strategies of Governance in Urban China

Abstract

Under the planned economy China's urban population was largely immobile and governed through the socialist workunit (danwei). Market reforms begun in the 1980s have culminated in the last decade with a dramatic decline of the state-sector and the emergence of a more mobile, heterogeneous and economically independent urban population. In rendering the old system obsolete, these trends have led the Chinese government to rethink its strategies for urban governance. At the turn of the millennium, a new campaign to ‘build communities’ was launched throughout the nation with the objective of establishing the residential ‘community’ as the new basic unit of urban governance. This paper explores the logic behind this policy innovation and analyzes the techniques adopted to operationalize ‘community governance’.     

‘Stella polaris’ and the secret code battle in postwar Europe

Much has already been written about the September 1944 evacuation of the Finnish intelligence service to Sweden, which was designated Operation ‘Stella Polaris’. Newly declassified intelligence documents found at the US National Archives provide a fresh perspective on the role of the American wartime foreign intelligence service, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and its successor, the Strategic Services Unit, in ‘Stella Polaris’ and its aftermath. The documents reveal that throughout World War II, the OSS secretly obtained sensitive intelligence information concerning America's wartime ally, the Soviet Union, from agents within the Finnish intelligence service. The OSS Stockholm Station purchased Soviet and other foreign government code and cipher materials from the Finns, not realizing until later that the Finns had sold the same material to other states. The Americans responded by recruiting some well-placed agents within the Finnish ‘Stella Polaris’ organization, who provided detailed information about the intelligence activities of the Finns in Sweden, and the work of Finnish intelligence officers in France after the end of the war. Among the key pieces of intelligence obtained was the fact that the French intelligence service was intercepting American radio traffic.     

Regional Mobilization in the ‘New Europe’: A Research Agenda

This Special Issue re-assesses regional mobilization in the ‘New Europe’. We anticipate that enlargement to Central Europe, the entering into force of the Lisbon Treaty and the largest economic and financial crisis since the birth of the European Community have affected how regional governments respond to Europeanization along three different dimensions: (1) the position they take vis-à-vis the process of EU integration more generally, (2) the strategies they adopt in response to Europeanization pressures and (3) their internal structures and dynamics of the EU member states as multi-level states. The article introduces a framework and formulates hypotheses to examine why and how Europeanization pressures in the ‘New Europe’ affect regional mobilization along these three dimensions. In the final section, the article also introduces the various contributions to this Special Issue and relates them to the analytical framework.     

UK Labour and the EU Single Market: ‘Social Europe’ or ‘Capitalist Club’?

This article looks at the UK Labour Party’s view of the EU single market over the last four decades, focussing on three case study periods when this issue was particularly salient: first, the time of the single market’s introduction under Neil Kinnock’s leadership; second, the A8 accession with Tony Blair as Labour Prime Minister; and third, between the 2016 European referendum and 2019 general election during Jeremy Corbyn’s time as party leader. This historical narrative uses the theoretical approach of Harvard economist Dani Rodrik—of a ‘trilemma’ faced by national policy makers in response to globalisation—as a lens to describe a clear arc in Labour’s policy towards the single market across the three case studies. A position of initial scepticism moved to support under Kinnock’s leadership, and then active encouragement under Blair, before coming back again under Corbyn to uncomfortable non-commitment. This arc directly correlates with the ebb and flow of the party’s overall economic approach—first the Keynesian, national Alternative Economic Strategy at the time of the party’s 1983 general election defeat; then, the deviation under Blair to a policy that actively encouraged cross-border market liberalisation; and finally the return to an Alternative Economic Strategy-style approach under Corbyn.     

The Politics of ‘Third Country Equivalence’ in Post-Crisis Financial Services Regulation in the European Union

After the global financial crisis, the European Union has adopted a new regulatory approach towards foreign countries by making use of equivalence rules in finance. Why? This paper argues that it is the EU’s attempt to restore financial stability in its territory and maintain the competitiveness of its financial industry. However, this ‘old’ dilemma between stability and competition in financial regulation is further complicated in a regional jurisdiction, such as the EU, because different regulatory paradigms play off in the dilemma.     

‘Fraternity in diversity’ or ‘feudal fanatics’? Representations of ethnicity in Rwandan presidential rhetoric

ABSTRACT

Between independence in 1962 and the genocide in 1994, only two presidents ruled Rwanda. In addition to the enormous economic and developmental challenges that faced Presidents Grégoire Kayibanda (1962–73) and Juvénal Habyarimana (1973–94), each had to manage the ethnic divisions that plagued the country. In this paper Mayersen explores how each president discussed the issue of ethnicity in presidential speeches, interviews and key policy documents. Ostensibly, Presidents Kayibanda and Habyarimana both promoted national unity and advocated allegiance to a unified Rwandan identity rather than a focus on ethnicity. President Kayibanda called for ‘tolerance and understanding between the ethnicities’, while Habyarimana entreated Rwandans to ‘love your countrymen without distinction of ethnic or regional origin’. Yet in the allusive and indirect communication style typical of Rwandan discourse, underneath the presidential promotion of unity was a more complex message. Mayersen argues that the way each president addressed the issue served to maintain a high level of consciousness regarding ethnicity, and contributed to ongoing ethnic disharmony.     

Who Gives? Partisan Donations in Europe

Party finance reformers often call for European parties to increase their financial reliance on small donors, but researchers have made few efforts to establish the feasibility of such strategies. This study examines partisan giving in Europe, investigating the potential for parties and policymakers to increase this type of political participation. It also asks whether there are national-level factors that make such efforts more likely to succeed in some countries. The research uses data from the European Social Survey to examine patterns of contributions to political parties in 16 European countries. It finds that the strength of partisanship predicts political giving independent of party membership, which suggests that European political parties may have some scope to increase their number of individual donors. On the other hand, existing tax policies to encourage political giving do not seem to be effective in increasing this type of partisan political participation.     

Building peaceful citizens? Nation-building in divided societies

ABSTRACT

Interventions aimed at citizenship formation and nation-building in divided and post-conflict societies place great emphasis on promoting and entrenching peace as a cornerstone of economic development and statehood. Such efforts are multi-scalar, encompassing interventions to build democratic institutions and responsible citizens with the pursuit and maintenance of peace at the heart of these ideals. Dominant international pedagogies and policies for liberal-peace-building in divided societies can be used to maintain existing power relations and hierarchies, and may prevent the realization of social (and other forms of) justice while stifling dissent and criticism through exhortations to patriotism, unity, civility, and nation-building. Thus, the ‘goodness’ of peace makes this concept particularly useful as a technique of governance. However, ‘peace’ can also be reworked to suit counter-hegemonic political purposes that open up rather than shut down the question of what peace means. Through an exploration of contestations around the notion of ‘peace’ and its deployment in efforts to promote particular foreign policy agendas we highlight the incongruities in civil society actors’ approaches to peace, and their efforts to achieve sometimes conflicting aims, within divided societies.     

More ‘Europe’, less Democracy? European integration does not erode satisfaction with democracy

The process of European integration, through institutions such as the European Union, the Eurozone, or Schengen, implies a shift in political decision-making away from the national governments and towards international institutions. This gradual shift in the balance of power, furthermore, is increasingly debated by citizens. As a result, European integration might lead to an erosion of satisfaction with democracy in European countries. By means of a longitudinal analysis of the determinants of satisfaction with democracy in European countries, we test this expectation. We find no indication that the shift in the balance of power, and the trend towards more European integration indeed have eroded satisfaction with the functioning of (national) democracy.     

Is long-term food insecurity inevitable in Asia?

Abstract

This article questions two widely accepted claims on long-term food insecurity in Asia, the world's (heterogeneous) region with the largest number of undernourished individuals. The first claim is that food production may not grow as fast as the pace of population growth in Asia, which will reach 5 billion by 2050. The second claim is that an unstoppable emergence of a middle class in Asia will dramatically change the composition of food demand. On the first claim, the region's contribution to high and volatile international food prices is well known, but Asia's potentially positive contributions toward future price uncertainty and productivity growth are much less cited. On the second claim, the changing composition of future food demand in the region will depend on the extent that poverty reduction effectively leads to middle class expansion, which it is not an automatic process, and its extent still remains to be seen. Past evidence teaches us that poverty reduction on its own will not do the job of eradicating hunger, nor will only increasing food production. The jury is still out, but doomsday predictions are not necessarily justified.     

Clinching the ‘Return to Europe’: The Referendums on EU Accession in Estonia and Latvia

There are two salient features of the referendums on EU membership in Estonia and Latvia. Firstly, the results with decisive pro-EU majorities went easily beyond expectations based on previous opinion poll trends, where these two Baltic states had shown less public enthusiasm for integration than other Central and East European countries. This fact owed much to convincing arguments about abandoning international isolation and about geopolitical choice, with strong historical overtones. The anti-accession cause in both countries suffered from various weaknesses even though, in Estonia though not in Latvia, Eurosceptical attitudes were in evidence. Secondly, there was much less support for EU entry among the strong Russian minorities in both countries. This difference was partly due to the higher incidence of economic circumstances in determining voting behaviour but also to the fact that pro-EU (hence, pro-West) arguments were implicitly and sometimes explicitly unfriendly to Russia. In turn, this also showed that the Soviet legacy was particular to these Baltic countries compared with other accession states from CEE.     

‘Fear and loathing across party lines’ (also) in Europe: Affective polarisation in European party systems

Several scholars in the United States have recently addressed an increased partisan animosity between Democrats and Republicans, and have termed this phenomenon ‘affective polarisation’. This surge in partisan affective polarisation is perceived to be highly problematic, as it has been found to have a negative impact on the functioning of the party system and even society at large. The aim of this article is to study the concept of affective polarisation in European party systems. It introduces the Affective Polarisation Index (API) that allows for measuring and comparing levels of affective polarisation also in multiparty systems. This novel measure is applied to 22 European democracies and the United States between 2005 and 2016. The results indicate that affective polarisation is acutely present in European party systems, as partisans are often extremely hostile towards competing parties. The most affectively polarised countries are in Central Eastern and Southern Europe where the degree of affective polarisation is notably higher than it is in the United States, while Northwestern European countries are more moderate in terms of partisan feelings. Further analysis reveals that affective polarisation is significantly correlated with ideological polarisation, but the relationship between the two appears to be conditional: in some Western European political systems ideological polarisation does not lead itself to strong interparty hostility, while in Central Eastern Europe a high degree of affective polarisation can be present even in ideologically centrist party structures. These findings validate the claim that ideological and affective polarisation are two distinct aspects of polarisation, and that the latter also merits additional attention.     

A crisis of public affairs in Europe?

Public affairs, in relation to European governance system, checks and balances between country interests and public affairs operations at different levels of governance. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘The dead are coming’: acts of citizenship at Europe’s borders

This article combines the research agenda of the acts of citizenship literature with reflections on emancipatory theatre. I examine the Centre for Political Beauty’s activity-based artwork ‘The dead are coming’ which problematizes the cruelties of the European border regime in symbolically charged spaces in the German public. Focusing particularly on the roles available to ‘actors’ and ‘spectators’, and the directionality of the message conveyed through the artwork, I examine how the performance subverts the ‘sites’ and ‘scales’ of citizenship. My analysis indicates that the artwork’s subversive potential emerges not only from the political vision conveyed by the artist collective, but also from the way in which others become involved in the performance. Acts of political beauty thus most extensively challenge instituted citizenship’s orientalist anchoring, reverse status-based role allocations and subvert the structural violence of borders when the performance enables the enactment of novel forms of political agency and solidarity.     

‘The most ardent pro-Israel party’: pro-Israel attitudes and anti-antisemitism among populist radical-right parties in Europe

Since the turn of the millennium a growing number of European populist radical-right parties have taken to criticizing antisemitism and embracing Israel's cause in its conflict with the Palestinians. This development raises the question of whether, for the first time in European history, we are confronting radical-right politics that is not antisemitic. Kahmann’s article approaches this recent development on the extreme right-wing spectrum of European parties from an empirical perspective: he analyses the manner in which leading representatives of the Belgian Vlaams Belang (VB), the Sweden Democrats (SD) and the (now-defunct) German party Die Freiheit have articulated their anti-antisemitism and their solidarity with Israel, and the conclusions that are thereby suggested with regard to the underlying image of Jews and Israel. Kahmann's analysis shows that the pro-Israel and anti-antisemitic turn serves primarily as a pretext for fending off Muslim immigrants, which is claimed as a contribution to the security of the Jewish population. Furthermore, it shows that the right-wing ideal of an ethnically homogeneous nation results in the perception of Jews as members of a foreign nation and in the cultivation of stereotyped images of Jews. For these parties, the status of the Jewish population in the respective European states remains therefore precarious: Jews are merely granted the status of a tolerated minority as long as they are not considered to pose any threat to the ‘native’ culture. The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians serves in this context as a convenient screen on which to project the popular right-wing narrative of a battle between the Judaeo-Christian Occident and the Muslim world.     

Still a ‘Male Business’? Explaining Women’s Presence in Executive Office

This article aims to account for cross-national and over-time variation in women’s participation in cabinets. Specifically, it focuses on some key political factors which have not been tested yet, such as the effectiveness of party gender quotas. Previous literature has mainly centred on structural variables, such as the degree of democratisation and economic development. Using an original longitudinal cross-sectional sample of 23 advanced industrial democracies, this article provides new evidence that some important political factors should be considered. It finds that countries with a specialist system have a higher percentage of women in cabinet than generalist systems, left-wing parties in government appoint more women, women are more likely to receive a ministerial post when the governing party has adopted gender quotas, and an increasing number of women in parliament boosts women in cabinet. Furthermore, the article shows that these political variables perform differently through time, and that political factors have become more relevant in recent decades.     

Was there a ‘Youthquake’ in the 2017 general election?

Studies using data from the British Election Study and the British Social Attitudes survey have concluded that the case for a significant rise in turnout amongst young people at the 2017 general election remains unproven. A limitation of these data sets for assessing the so-called Youthquake thesis is the small number of younger voters they contain. In this research note we use data from the UK Household Longitudinal Survey to produce more robust estimates of turnout amongst people aged under thirty between the 2010, 2015, and 2017 general elections. Our findings support the claim that turnout increased markedly among voters in this age group in 2017. They also demonstrate that the increase in youth turnout was not specific to 2017 but, rather, represented a continuation of a change between 2010 and 2015. Our analysis confirms the heightened importance of age as a predictor of vote choice in 2017, with younger voters significantly more likely to vote Labour compared to 2010 and 2015.