‘Let's Win this Game Together’: Children's Rights Violations,Macro‐Securitisation and the Transformative Potential of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil

Sport's transformative potential is known to support marginalised children, to deal with traumatic experiences and instil positive values; yet hosting mega sporting events (MSEs) can have negative impacts. Drawing on participatory research with favela‐based children during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, this article argues that MSEs bring a macro‐securitisation of urban life, which causes considerable harm. This paper also suggests that the inclusion of children's voices in advocacy debates can challenge top‐down securitisation and might allow MSEs to foster further positive social transformation. Therefore, juxtaposed with causing harm, macro‐securitisations can open opportunities for children to take action and have their voices heard.     

THE MWANZA TRIAL AS A SEARCH FOR A USABLE MALAWIAN POLITICAL PAST

The main thesis of this papier is that nations need memoriesand that there is in many contemporary African states a needto create a memory of the period between independence and thereintroduction of multipartyism. That process often takes theform of inquests into human rights abuses which can result intrials. The trial in Malawi of six people—including theformer president Kamuzu Banda and his most loyal follower J.Z.U.Tembo—on the accusation of conspiring to murder four politiciansin 1983 and to destroy relevant evidence is an example. Thisarticle discusses how the reactions of the present ruling party(UDF) and government and the previous ruling party (MCP) andtheir leadership to this trial differ. The trial is seen asa struggle about the interpretation of the past which is putin the context of the actual events in 1983 as these came outin the trial. The fundamental question which arose is whetherresponsibility for whatever happened in Malawi in that periodcan squarely be put in the hands of a trimuvirate which wasin total control of what happened or whether decision making—includingthose concerning human rights abuses—was much more diffusedthroughout society. The first version of events lacks evidenceto substantiate it. The result of the trial was therefore anacquittal which was held up in an appeal by the state. The secondversion portrays Kamuzu Banda as a leader who could be deceivedby his environment, which is at variance with the way many Malawians,not exclusively MCP supporters, saw his role.     

Keeping the rascals in: Anti‐political‐establishment parties and their cost of governing in established democracies

Coalition governments in established democracies incur, on average, an electoral ‘cost of governing’. This cost varies across coalition partners, and is higher for anti‐political‐establishment parties. This is because, if such a party participates in a coalition, it loses the purity of its message by being seen to cooperate with the political establishment. In order to demonstrate that anti‐political‐establishment parties suffer an additional cost of governing, this article builds on the work by Van der Brug et al. and refines the standard cost of governing theory by ‘bringing the party back in’. The results of the analyses, based on 594 observations concerning 51 parties in seven Western European countries, cast doubt on the conventional concept of a cost of governing that pertains to all parties equally. The findings call for a major revision of the standard cost of governing literature, while adding a significant contribution to the debate on strategies against parties that may constitute a danger to democracy.     

Tony Blair's 'Media' Speech: The Commentators

Tony Blair's speech challenged the media over its standards in his valedictory lecture. Many of his charges about the absence of balance, attacks on motive and a pack mentality stand up, even if some are exaggerated and also applied well before his arrival in 10 Downing Street. Mr Blair's solutions did ot match his critique. What is required is a more self‐questioning media, being held to account on the internet and on specialist blogging sites. Vigorous criticism, requiring justification, is a more credible rout than tighter regulation. Tony Blair's speech on the changing pressures on the media is both interesting and convincing in its diagnosis (although generally reported in ways that did not reveal this). It is less convincing in suggestions for change: the fact that on‐line media will fall under Of‐com, and so under its minimal ‘content regulation’ will have little impact. Effective change could begin with other types of (self or other regulation). Some steps towards change might include minimal requirements for journalists and editors to accept elementary forms of accountability, such as disclosing conflicts of interest and payments made for ‘stories’. The scale of media coverage may be crucial in determining the allocation of aid, yet the attention the media pays to particular causes is arbitrary. Many serious disasters are not reported and as a consequence do not receive adequate aid, so that the victims of the crisis will lose out. Chronic long term problems, like famine, are ignored in favour of ‘sudden emergencies’. Reporting seeks sensation and simple stories which influences the way that aid agencies respond to the media. The complex background to a faraway disaster is often overlooked and not properly reported. Tony Blair's speech describing some of the news media as ‘feral beasts’ contained one paragraph which contained an insight into his views on new media. It was known that the outgoing Prime Minister was uncomfortable with some aspects of new technology but his remarks reveal a wider disappointment with how new media has failed to deliver changes which he had hoped for in political communications.This paper records Mr Blair's problems with new media and argues that by focusing on how the new technologies might provide a better way for politicians to by‐pass the traditional media he has missed the point of their wider benefits.     

Party attachments and political fragmentation in Europe

Abstract. Values and ideologies seem to be changing rapidly in many countries of Western Europe. These developments imply a shift among the adherents of political parties. On the one hand, we expect to see a process of deideologization weakening the traditional ties between parties and their adherents. On the other hand, increasing pluralization is suggested by the ongoing process of individualization. In this study we analyze the orientations of the adherents of the main political parties in 12 Western European countries in the last two decades. We expect to find clear traces of ongoing deideologization as well as pluralization, but this expectation proves to be inaccurate. Neither deideologization nor pluralization can be accepted as a common feature of party adherents in advanced industrial societies. On the contrary. Each of these processes seems to follow a different path of development in distinct countries and in distinct party families. A general 'decline-of-the-party' or an 'end-of-ideology' is not to be found among the adherents of the main parties in Western Europe in the last decades. The processes appear to be more complicated, with divergent developments in different countries.     

European Community politics and electoral representation: Evidence from the 1989 European Elections Study

Abstract: In spite of the fact that the European elections were, in most countries, not fought over the issue of Community building and European integration, this article shows that only a few parties take positions towards the Community which are clearly out of line with the average position of their voters. The parties involved are the orthodox-Protestant combination in the Netherlands, the Workers Party in Ireland, the Italian MSI, and the greens in Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Luxembourg. The discrepancies between these parties'positions and the attitudes of their electorates - in combination with their generally successful electoral performance - underscores what is known from other analyses: Parties do not acquire votes on the basis of European issue concerns, but on the basis of national political concerns. The result of the European elections may still, however, be considered as an ex post facto , endorsement and legitimation of parties'policies towards European integration.     

European parties' performance in electoral competition

Abstract: This article focuses on competition for votes between parties, as it existed in Western Europe in the period of the direct election to the European Parliament in 1989. Following earlier research by Van der Eijk and Niemöller, an instrument is introduced to measure the probability of party choice of EC citizens which establishes the likelihood of respondents to vote for any of the nationally relevant options/parties. A number of substantive conclusions about political parties'competitive performance result from this research. First, a single mechanism seems to structure electoral competition in all EC member-countries. Second, the competitive performance of political parties is not affected by their governmental status, their ideological position, and the degree of politicisation of the electoral environment. And third, parties'competitive performance is strongly affected by the degree of uniqueness of their electoral potential, their mobilising capacities, their ideological extremity and their sheer size.     

Political-economic aspects of public employment

Abstract. An examination of public employment and expenditure data for 17 OECD countries for the period 1963–1983 reveals decelerating growth in public employment after 1970, whereas expenditure growth rates have been accelerating. Two contrary tendencies in public sector employment since the early 1970s are apparent: a general decline in goods and market services, and a significant increase in communal and social services. Comparative empirical analysis, using a pooled cross section-time series technique, confirms the important contribution of increasing wealth to public employment growth. Similarly, a strong societal position for organised labour and increasing unemployment rates contribute to public employment growth, thereby suggesting the presence of a discretionary stabilization policy. Contrary to expectations, however, increased trade dependence exerts a negative impact. With regard to the relationship between expenditure and employment, a general increase in the employment creation efficiency of spending can be discerned. Empirical estimates again suggest that the importance of labour in political-economic decision-making has intensified the employment creation effect of public spending.