Editor's Note

European Journal of Political Research -     

Developments in European political science journal and electronic literature during 1997

Abstract. This article continues the annual review of developments in European political science periodical literature. The review covers not just traditional print media but also electronic publishing, and therefore begins with an overview of a pilot project in integrated electronic publishing, the lsquo;SuperJournal' project, which links a range of British–published political science journals in an electronic cluster that facilitates ease of access by individual users. We continue with a summary of developments in political science journal publishing in central and eastern Europe in the aftermath of the political upheavals after 1989. The article concludes with a listing of the contents of the 1997 issues of selected European political science journals from a range of European countries (normally, those published by national political science associations) and comments on their content.     

The Strange Revival of Bicameralism

The turn of the twenty-first century witnessed a surprising reversal of the long-observed trend towards the disappearance of second chambers in unitary states, with 28 countries – all but one of them unitary – adopting the bicameral system. This article explores this development by first setting it in the context of the historical evolution of second chambers and the arguments that support bicameralism, and then exploring the characteristics that distinguish today's second chambers from first chambers. A ‘census’ of second chambers in 2014 is used to provide data on second chambers in federal and unitary states, to facilitate comparison with earlier data, and to distinguish between ‘new’ and longer-established second chambers. The article concludes that newly established second chambers are concentrated predominantly in political systems where liberal democratic principles are not established, suggesting that the debate over their role in democratic states is set to continue.     

Developments in West European political science journal and electronic literature during 1996

Abstract. One of the most effective mechanisms for obtaining an overview of the general direction of political science in a particular country is an examination of the output of its journal literature. This article lists the contents of the 1996 issues of selected European political science journals from a range of European countries (normally, those published by national political science associations) and comments on their content. Recent developments in three types of publishing on the world wide web are also reviewed and the relevant addresses are supplied. First, print journals increasingly maintain a minimal presence on the web, but in certain cases this extends a good deal further, to include abstracts or even the full texts of selected articles and links to related resources. Second, European governments are now all represented on the web in one form or another, though they vary greatly in terms of the range of governmental institutions covered and in the volume of documentation available. Third, the huge increase in political coverage on the web makes the indexing of this material all the more important, and we offer a listing of the major guides to national political science resources.     

Editor's introduction

European Journal of Political Research -     

Moral consensus in a secularising society: The Irish divorce referendum of 1986

The research reported here constitutes a part of a major project on democratic transition in Southern Europe. The article seeks to bring Southern Europe within the ambit of comparative welfare state analysis by (1) developing time‐series models of social insurance growth in Greece, Portugal and Spain and (2) for the first time, incorporating these nations’ social insurance experience into a model of social security development for the advanced nations. The time‐series analysis centres on the formative interaction of democratic transition with socio‐economic, demographic and policy influences. The cross‐national analysis points to the crucial role of both democratisation processes and cultural differences; as well as the standard repertoire of explanations in this field of research.