Enforcing consensus? The hidden bias in EU democracy promotion in Central and Eastern Europe

Democracy is a primary export norm of the European Union (EU). It has also played a key role in the conditionalities that have governed the accession processes of new member states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The EU has often been accused of offering little guidance regarding the specifics of desirable democracy models and the means of their consolidation. But are these accusations justified? In the first part of this article a detailed examination of European Commission opinions and reports reveals that it has consistently promoted a specific model of democracy in future member states. It shows a strong bias in favour of Lijphart's model of consensus democracy, which is indiscriminately advocated for prospective member states. The second part of the article draws attention to the serious obstacles which exist in the region to the realization of this model. We question the wisdom of the Commission's one-size-fits-all democratic model given these obstacles and the real-life diversity of political contexts in the region.     

When government fails us: trust in post-socialist civil organizations

The research for this article was motivated by a noticeable discrepancy between levels of participation and trust in post-socialist civil organizations. While civic participation in Central and Eastern Europe is almost nonexistent, levels of trust in post-socialist civil organizations compare favourably to those in Western Europe. The first aim of this article is to understand why citizens place relatively high trust in post-socialist civil organizations. The political context, within which civil organizations operate, reveals one explanation for the high levels of trust in civil organizations: government corruption dissuades citizens from relying on state institutions and creates a void that is filled by informal networks of association and civil organizations. Empirical evidence demonstrates that trust in civil organizations focused on socioeconomic and political development is higher among citizens who express concern about corruption in their country. The second aim of this article is to understand the discrepancy between levels of trust and civic participation. A novel interpretation of past findings suggests that civil organizations' effectiveness, professionalization, transactional capacity and orientation toward service provision may garner citizens' trust while parallel neglect of grassroots mobilization leaves civil organizations short of capitalizing on that trust. Civil organizations' limited focus on interest aggregation, mobilization and representation raises doubts as to whether observers of civil society in the region should look to these organizations as its core component.     

Shifting borders: Islamophobia as common ground for building pan-European right-wing unity

ABSTRACT

In recent years, Islamophobia has become a useful tool for right-wing parties to mobilize electors in many European nation-states. The general xenophobic campaigns of the 1980s have given way to Islamophobia as a specific expression of racism. It is not only the new incarnations of right-wing populist parties that are making use of Islamophobic populism, but also right-wing extremist parties, whose traditions hark back to fascist or Nazi parties. This development appears unsurprising, as Islamophobia has somehow become a kind of ‘accepted racism’, found not only on the margins of European societies but also at the centre. Another interesting concomitant shift is the attempt by such parties to gain wider acceptance in mainstream societies by distancing themselves from a former antisemitic profile. While the main focus on an exclusive identity politics in the frame of nation-states previously divided the far right and complicated transnational cooperation, a shared Islamophobia has the potential to be a common ground for strengthening the transnational links of right-wing parties. This shift from antisemitism to Islamophobia goes beyond European borders and enables Europe's far right to connect to Israeli parties and the far right in the United States. Hafez's article explores this thesis by analysing the European Alliance for Freedom, a pan-European alliance of far-right members of the European parliament that has brought various formerly antagonistic parties together through a common anti-Muslim programme, and is trying to become a formal European parliamentary fraction in the wake of its victory in the European elections in May 2014.     

Economic strain and perceptions of social cohesion in Europe: Does institutional trust matter?

The degree to which different social groups get along is a key indicator of the cohesiveness of a society. This study examines perceptions of social cohesion among Europeans and explains variations in those perceptions by considering the separate and combined effects of economic strain and institutional trust. Analyses were conducted with the 27 member countries of the EU based on the Eurobarometer 74.1 on poverty and social exclusion conducted in 2010. Results show that individuals living in households experiencing economic strain perceive social cohesion to be weaker than their less economically hard‐pressed counterparts. By contrast, individuals trusting their political institutions perceived there to be higher levels of cohesion. Furthermore, institutional trust substantially moderates the negative relationship between economic strain and perceptions of cohesion. These results are robust to various model specifications. Moreover, extending the analysis revealed that this moderating effect held when considering social relations between the poor and rich and between different racial and ethnic groups. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.     

Civil society

The idea of civil society has proved very elusive, escaping conceptual grasps and evading sure-footed negotiation of the concept itself. Resurrected in a very definite historical setting, that of authoritarian states, the concept of civil society came to signify a set of social and political practices that sought to engage with state power. The close connection with the re-emergence of the concept and the collapse of dictatorial states made civil society attractive to a variety of political agents pursuing different agendas: expanding the market at the expense of the state, transiting from mass politics to single-issue and localised campaigns, undermining confidence in accepted modes of representation such as political parties, and in general shrinking the domain of the state and that of accepted modes of politics. That the concept of civil society could suit such a variety of different political projects is cause for some alarm, for it might well mean that civil society has come to mean everything to everyone remotely interested in it.     

Committee strength in parliamentary democracies: A new index

Much recent research on coalitions and policy-making in parliamentary democracies requires high-quality data on the strength of legislative institutions. In this article, I introduce a new index of committee policing strength which improves on existing measures in important ways. I specify key index parameters using a binary rooted tree model and engage human coders to score formal rules. I obtain a novel time series of committee policing strength in 17 western and eastern European democracies since 1945. I validate the new estimates through convergent validation and discuss ways in which the new index contributes to future work.     

Online protection of the child within Europe

This article discusses the online protection available to children and young people within Europe. Children and young people are significant users of information technology and they must be able and comfortable to safely use this technology. The European Union and the Council of Europe have been at the vanguard of attempts to regulate the information society in order to protect young netizens.     

Where is public affairs going?

This paper suggests the future direction in which public affairs practice is developing and advances a number of propositions about public affairs and political systems which provide the context in which public affairs practitioners operate. The paper examines the changing nature of the political systems in which public affairs functions and argues that, by inference, public affairs practice is culturally specific. The paper explores these contextual issues from both a European and a global perspective. The paper argues that an understanding of public affairs should be recognised as an essential element on management teaching syllabi and laments the fact that this is far from the case. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

Who would vote NOTA? Explaining a ‘none of the above’ choice in eight countries

In this study, we investigate who would vote ‘none of the above’ (NOTA) if this were available on the ballot paper using original data from eight European countries. In particular, we examine whether NOTA would be used by abstainers and voters to protest within the electoral process. We also test whether socioeconomic factors and specific and diffuse support for democracy and its institutions correlate with a NOTA vote. We find that having NOTA on the ballot would reduce invalid balloting more than abstention and much more than protest party voting. Our results also suggest that NOTA is related to socioeconomic status, political interest, political knowledge and distrust in political institutions and authorities, but not to broadly undemocratic attitudes. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the increasingly large amounts of abstention and invalid voting, as well as the growing distrust of political institutions, in democratic countries. They also hold lessons for electoral reformers.     

论欧洲理事会的人权保护制度对建立和完善国际人权保护制度的影响

欧洲理事会采取集体办法促进和保护人权的理论和实践对建立和完善国际人权保护制度产生了深远的影响 :区域性人权保护办法是在区域层面上施行《世界人权宣言》的有效途径 ;国际人权机构应通过改革不断提高人权的可司法性 ;主权国家应在采取集体办法保护区域人权方面积极行使主权权利 ;人权国际保护内在地要求增强个人的权利主体意识 ;国际人权保护机构应不断提高其工作效率。随着欧洲理事会的人权保护制度的不断完善 ,它在人权国际保护中的“领跑者”的形象和影响将得以继续显现。