Right-wing Euroscepticism and populism: investigating the concept of ‘the people’

ABSTRACT

Right-wing Eurosceptic political groups gained ground in the elections for the European Parliament in May 2014. The electoral victory of right-wing Euroscepticism was accompanied by a concern that populism is (once again) spreading in Europe. Associating right-wing Eurosceptics with populism raises the question of whether critiques of populism can be directly extended to right-wing Euroscepticism. By reconstructing the right-wing Eurosceptic concept of ‘the people,’ this article demonstrates that the Eurosceptic concept of the people has a dual meaning that encompasses both a transnational and a national concept of the people. The article concludes that while Euroscepticism shares ideological features with populism, it is problematic, due to the internal structure of the promoted concept of the people and the European political environment, directly to extend recent critiques of populism to right-wing Euroscepticism.     

Trust and verification: balancing agency and stewardship theory in the governance of agencies

ABSTRACT

Many government services are delivered by (partially) autonomous agencies. Governments need effective measures for contracting, steering, and monitoring agencies and to balance control and trust. In the literature, control-based agency theory and trust-based stewardship theory have often been portrayed as alternative and competing approaches. In empirical studies in public administration, however, these approaches often find mixed and contradictory results. Against this background, this article analyzes how a combination of trust- and control-based approaches, explicitly founded on agency and stewardship theory, can help explain when participants find a given governance regime to be most satisfactory. A survey instrument is developed which, for the first time, fully measures the rich concept of stewardship theory in conjunction with agency theory. The analysis of the governance of Dutch agencies shows that government indeed combines governance solutions from both theoretical camps and illuminates under which conditions this combination is most satisfactory.     

Is social media intelligence private? Privacy in public and the nature of social media intelligence

ABSTRACT

SOCMINT (SOCial Media INTelligence) is increasingly considered relevant and cost efficient information, and the exploitation of social media information in the name of security and public safety is generally regarded as unproblematic. We will critically scrutinize this claim and argue that the exploitation of such information by Intelligence and Security Services raises new ethical concerns. Drawing on recent moral discussions about privacy, we will argue that individuals have an interest in privacy in public spaces, including online spaces. We will discuss the role of such public privacy interests and argue that the systematic surveillance of social media platforms by security authorities potentially entail a negative chilling effect.     

Trusting the State,Trusting Each Other? The Effect of Institutional Trust on Social Trust

Trust in state institutions is a prominent explanation of social trust. However, previous—mainly cross-sectional—analyses provide limited causal evidence regarding the relationship between institutional trust and social trust and it is thus essentially unknown whether an observed relationship reflects reverse causality (social trust forming institutional trust), or both forms of trust reflecting deep-seated dispositions (common confounding). Against the backdrop of the shortcomings of previous cross-sectional analyses, this paper utilizes two Danish panel surveys containing measures of both types of trust for the same individuals surveyed at multiple points in time over a long time-span (up to 18 years) to address the potentially reverse and/or spurious relationship. Using individual fixed effects and cross-lagged panel models, the results provide strong evidence of trust in state institutions exercising a causal impact on social trust, whereas the evidence for a reverse relationship is limited.     

Networks and campaigns but not movements: collective action in the disciplining Chinese State

Popular protest, civil society organizing, and non-governmental organizations have become notable features in China’s socio-political development. A mounting body of research has documented both opening opportunity structures and remaining restrictions when it comes to collective action within the authoritarian state. However, given the wide range of definitions and interpretations that are at play in the literature, it can be difficult to distinguish between different forms of collective action and determine which actions represent actual movements. This article argues that a refocus towards the basic components that constitute movement action can provide more clarity and help explain the limitations, as well as the opportunities, that surround collective action within authoritarian states. To illustrate, the article studies the organizational growth, networking, and collective action that have occurred in connection with AIDS in China. It finds that political restrictions and other coordination challenges prevent the mobilization of actual social movements.     

Petechial Hemorrhages and Ethanol in Deaths from Intoxication

Petechiae in conjunctivae and in the palpebrae/skin of the eyelids are of particular interest for the forensic pathologist, because of their association with pressure on the neck. They have been described in the eyelids of intoxicated persons both in case reports and in text books of forensic pathology. We studied 590 deaths caused by intoxication, and 75 had petechiae either in the conjunctivae, the eyelids, or in both locations. We examined the influence of drugs and ethanol on the location of the petechial hemorrhages in these deaths. Deaths with ethanol in blood and in urine/vitreous humor more often had petechiae in both locations than those without. This association was statistically significant, independent of body position and livor mortis. No association between the location of petechiae, medicinal drugs, or narcotics was found. These results suggest that ethanol may contribute to the development of petechial hemorrhages in deaths from intoxication.     

Resilience Factors Among Police Investigators: Hardiness-commitment a Unique Contributor

The aim of this study was to explore the role of individual and contextual buffers against the effects of work stress among police investigators. 156 Norwegian police investigators were assessed on the predictor variables psychological hardiness, work engagement, social support, and meaningfulness, and on the outcome variables of burnout, subjective health complaints, and self-reported sick leave. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that psychological hardiness predicted the variance in burnout beyond that of work engagement, social support, and meaningfulness. When the investigators were divided into two groups based on their field, investigators of assault crime showed higher scores than the group consisting of forensics and investigators of fire, financial, and environmental crime on the variables psychological hardiness, social support, meaningfulness, and subjective health complaints. No differences between the groups were found on burnout, sickness absence, and work engagement. The findings show the importance of resilience factors for coping with work stress, with the commitment dimension of hardiness being particularly important.     

Delegation and accountability in parliamentary democracies

Abstract. Parliamentary democracy has been widely embraced by politicians and especially by the scholarly community but remains less widely understood. In this essay, I identify the institutional features that define parliamentary democracy and suggest how they can be understood as delegation relationships. I propose two definitions: one minimal and one maximal (or ideal–typical). In the latter sense, parliamentary democracy is a particular regime of delegation and accountability that can be understood with the help of agency theory, which allows us to identify the conditions under which democratic agency problems may occur. Parliamentarism is simple, indirect, and relies on lessons gradually acquired in the past. Compared to presidentialism, parliamentarism has certain advantages, such as decisional efficiency and the inducements it creates toward effort. On the other hand, parliamentarism also implies disadvantages such as ineffective accountability and a lack of transparency, which may cause informational inefficiencies. And whereas parliamentarism may be particularly suitable for problems of adverse selection, it is a less certain cure for moral hazard. In contemporary advanced societies, parliamentarism is facing the challenges of decaying screening devices and diverted accountabilities.