SYRIZA's Electoral Victory in Greek Thrace: Impact of Muslim Minority Vote in the Changing Political System

This article, based on the link between institutional changes and voter behavior, focusing mainly on the 2015 parliamentary elections in Greece and the SYRIZA party's success in Greek Thrace, aims to understand why the Muslim minority voted significantly for SYRIZA and how they managed to send four Muslim representatives to the Greek Parliament, three of them from the same party. The article argues that, although there is massive support for radical-left SYRIZA due to its electoral promises to improve social services in addition to the party's rational candidate nomination, this support reflects a mixture of sociological and issue-voting behavior of the Muslim minority related to their motivation for political representation rather than an ideological shift. The changing political system in Greece since 2012, from a two-party to a multiparty system with decreasing voter turnout, increased the impact of the Muslim vote on electoral results in the September and January 2015 elections; however, it also increased social tension between the majority and the minority.     

The importance of input and output legitimacy in democratic governance: Evidence from a population-based survey experiment in four West European countries

The study of subjective democratic legitimacy from a citizens’ perspective has become an important strand of research in political science. Echoing the well-known distinction between ‘input-oriented’ and ‘output-oriented’ legitimacy, the scientific debate on this topic has coined two opposed views. Some scholars find that citizens have a strong and intrinsic preference for meaningful participation in collective decision making. But others argue, to the contrary, that citizens prefer ‘stealth democracy’ because they care mainly about the substance of decisions, but much less about the procedures leading to them. In this article, citizens’ preferences regarding democratic governance are explored, focusing on their evaluations of a public policy according to criteria related to various legitimacy dimensions, as well as on the (tense) relationship among them. Data from a population-based conjoint experiment conducted in eight metropolitan areas in France, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom is used. By analysing 5,000 respondents’ preferences for different governance arrangements, which were randomly varied with respect to their input, throughput and output quality as well as their scope of authority, light is shed on the relative importance of different aspects of democratic governance. It is found, first, that output evaluations are the most important driver for citizens’ choice of a governance arrangement; second, consistent positive effects of criteria of input and throughput legitimacy that operate largely independent of output evaluations can be discerned; and third, democratic input, but not democratic throughput, is considered somewhat more important when a governance body holds a high level of formal authority. These findings run counter to a central tenet of the ‘stealth democracy’ argument. While they indeed suggest that political actors and institutions can gain legitimacy primarily through the provision of ‘good output’, citizens’ demand for input and throughput do not seem to be conditioned by the quality of output as advocates of stealth democratic theory suggest. Democratic input and throughput remain important secondary features of democratic governance.     

Constitutional Debates and Nationalist Visions

This article looks at the role of competing nationalist visions in shaping the course and content of constitution-making processes. Using Turkey as its case study and focusing on a recent attempt at constitution writing (2011–2013), the examination demonstrates that engagements with and the framing of competing narratives of nationhood during constitutional negotiations go to the heart of societal reconstruction. Hence, such engagements should not be treated as an afterthought to institution building. The Turkish case also demonstrates how in deeply divided societies constitutional debates can acquire an ontological significance for the parties that in turn can work to deepen the existing ideological cleavages.     

The curious case of Ali Cenani Bey: the story of a génocidaire during and after the 1915 Armenian genocide

While there exists an extensive body of literature addressing the Armenian genocide, certain gaps persist. The processes and events of the genocide have been unearthed and examined, but genocide is not a phenomenon set in motion by a force of nature. On the contrary, the systematic destruction of Ottoman Armenians was designed and executed by a cadre of individuals, most of whom are little known today. Kurt’s aim here is to recover the story of one such actor from a particular town, Aintab, modern-day Gaziantep—situated on the boundaries of Cilicia (today the southern part of Anatolia) and Syria, near both the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Alexandretta—thereby revealing the perpetrators and their active involvement in the destruction of Armenians at the local/provincial level. Kurt’s article seeks to shed light on such a perpetrator by analysing the objective features of his background and career. Highlighting the human dimension of the genocide allows for an examination of the actors—their motives and their acts—that ultimately bore responsibility for the catastrophic loss of life. Kurt focuses on the life story of Ali Cenani (1872–1934): his background and involvement in the 1915 Armenian deportation and genocide as well as his career in post-genocide Turkey.     

Pathways to power: Women's representation in the 2014 European Parliament elections

The 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections produced a record proportion of women MEPs overall (37 per cent). Yet, these results vary widely across countries and parties. This article aims to explain these variations, evaluating not only who the elected representatives of the 8^th EP are, but also how they got there. Are the paths to the EP the same for women and men? Are there gender differences in terms of MEPs’ political experience? A unique dataset listing more than 700 elected MEPs and their background, party and country characteristics is used to empirically examine who makes it to the EP and through which route. The results of the analysis suggest no significant gender differences in the pathways to the EP. Yet, parties matter: more women were elected to the 8^th EP from left‐wing than from right‐wing or ‘new’ parties, and both men and (especially) women representing right‐wing parties tend to be politically more experienced than their fellow MEPs from other types of parties. Furthermore, it is found that men are more likely than women to be promoted straight from party office to the EP, suggesting that some pathways to the EP are less open to women than others.     

Fostering Dialogue or Monologue? Estonian Party Websites During the 2009 European Parliament Elections

This paper presents data from the analyses of political party web pages during the 2009 European Parliament elections in Estonia. It examines the presence and absence of web 2.0 features on the sites and aims to find out whether interactivity-based applications are used by parties to increase participation and to foster deliberative politics. Estonia as a small ex-Soviet country has emerged after the Soviet Union collapse as one of the most advanced e-societies in the world. Therefore, Estonia is chosen as a case study to explore whether and how decision makers use web 2.0 elements for fostering Habermasian dialogue between the citizens and the power holders in the society where technical obstacles for deliberative politics do not exist any longer. The results show that the Estonian parties still focus on the one-sided or top-down model of communication, based on web 1.0 features, even though all conditions for deliberation from the technical and infrastructural side in Estonia are fulfilled. The paper concludes with a discussion on the possible reasons parties might not be interested in using web 2.0 elements in their web campaign and how it might be linked to the conditions where citizens’ participation and interest in politics is low. There is also emphasis on the need for further systematic comparative research in order to draw conclusions on the changes in the online campaigning and political communication process in the era of cyber-democracy.     

Evaluation of Postmortem Cerebrospinal Fluid S100B Protein and Serotonin Levels: Comparison of Suicidal Versus Nonsuicidal Deaths in Konya,Turkey

Although suicide is a preventable public health problem, objective assays for suicide risk are limited. In this study, it was aimed to determine levels of S100B protein and serotonin as a marker for risk of suicide. S100B protein and serotonin levels were investigated with ELISA method in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in medicolegal autopsy cases, including those of suicide cases (n = 32) and nonsuicide cases (n = 56). The CSF S100B levels were higher (9.3 ± 2.9 ng/mL vs. 5.4 ± 2.0 ng/mL), and serotonin levels were lower (10.4 ± 4.9 ng/mL vs. 19.0 ± 5.7 ng/mL) in suicide group than nonsuicide group (p < 0.05). There was no correlation between S100B protein and serotonin levels with gender, age groups, postmortem interval, and cause of death. It is concluded that both S100B protein and serotonin in CSF may be useful for determination of suicide risk.