From occupational involvement to political participation: An exploratory analysis

Since Mill and Tocqueville, theorists have speculated that local participation, particularly involvement in workplace decision making, contributes to participation in wider politics. Theory suggests there should be two types of relationships between work and politics. First, there should be a correspondence between similarly formal or authoritative occupational and political involvements. Second, occupational participation should generate political participation. Thus, both authority patterns and actual participation connect work to politics.This paper hypothesizes that, other things being equal, occupational involvement, such as authority and participation at work, generates wider political participation, and that this influence occurs most strongly across levels of similar formality between the occupational and political spheres. The study finds that work participation, in fact, generates political participation, and that the connection is strongest along a hierarchy of formality connecting participation from the workplace to politics.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Panel on Innovations in the 1985 National Election Study Pilot Survey, American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, August 1986.     

From ballots to bullets: an empirical assessment of how national elections influence state uses of political repression

This paper explores the complex relationship between national elections and repression (specifically instances of censorship and political restrictions). I do this while controlling for different contextual effects (various system types), different units of analysis (yearly as well as monthly data), and different types of relationships (lagged as well as immediate). Results indicate that within the yearly aggregated data (N = 1715), elections are only statistically significant in non-democracies, where they effect repressive behavior immediately as well as negatively. Monthly aggregated data (N = 5460), investigating only full democracies, did not reveal any significant relationships between national elections and repression. The degree/level of suffrage restrictions does have an effect however. I conclude with numerous suggestions for future research.     

From nation-building to building identification with political communities: Consequences of political decentralisation in Spain, the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia, 1978–2001

Abstract. Many multiethnic polities suffer from a deficit of citizens' support for their political communities. Hence, their governments may think of political decentralisation as a solution. This article analyses the effects of that policy on citizens' identification with their political communities in Spain: on identification with the Basque Country, Catalonia or Galicia (its most conspicuous 'nationalities') once they have become 'autonomous communities', and on identification with the overall Spanish political community. To study the processes of transformation of such attitudes, nation-building theories are interpreted from the political socialisation approach and applied to the autonomous institutions. It is also suggested that the state strictu senso , by contrast, may be developing an alternative method of forging identification with its own political community. Survey time-series evidence shows that although those autonomous communities are engaged successfully in a local but standard nation-building, the whole political system may be fostering its own diffuse support by recognising and institutionalising cultural diversity and self-government.     

Polytheism,Monotheism and Public Space: Between Levinas and Arendt

Abstract

In this paper I argue that the Levinasian opposition between the violence of the production of identity and self-presence and its undermining in a charitable disburdening of the self for the sake of the monotheistic ethical other, is unable to provide all the resources required for a politically motivated critique of the present. As a critique of Levinas' almost Manichean opposition between identity and difference, I argue, by appealing to the Arendtian model of public space, that Levinas underestimates our capacity to build and open up societal spaces within which a non-violent polytheistic political difference can proliferate. The identity of the built and legislated can constitute a non-violent stage upon which discursive political differences are played out.     

Correction to: Economic growth and political extremism

Public Choice - We provide the first parcel-level, time-series empirical analysis of municipal annexation behavior. We also exploit a unique natural experiment created by the incorporation and...     

From voter ID to party ID: How political parties affect perceptions of election fraud in the U.S.

This paper uses a survey experiment to assess what individuals understand about election fraud and under what circumstances they see it as a problem. I argue that political parties are central to answering both these questions. Results from the 2011 CCES survey suggest respondents are able to differentiate between the relative incentives of Democrats and Republicans where fraud tactics are concerned, but whether voters see these tactics as problematic is heavily influenced by partisan bias. The results show little support for the notion that partisan ideology drives fraud assessments, and suggest support for the idea that individual concerns for fraud are shaped a desire for their preferred candidate to win. These results offer insights that might be applied more broadly to questions of perceptions of electoral integrity and procedural fairness in democracies.     

Commitment to political tolerance: Situational and activity-based differences

Survey research on political tolerance has consistently found situational and activity-based differences in levels of support for the rights of political opposition. The present inquiry is based on three studies that explore these differences. These studies reveal two distinct factors related to situational and activity-based variation in tolerance. First, attitudinal tolerance tends to be less when the activity in question may affect a respondent's loved ones or home community, particularly in situations where there is relatively little consensus on whether an activity should be allowed. Second, attitudinal tolerance is less in situations where greater threat is associated with the consequences of the activity in question.     

Defending democracy: Reactions to political extremism in inter-war Europe

Abstract. While the strategies of political actors and institutions have been largely analyzed with reference to cases of democratic breakdown, democratic survival has often been viewed as a consequence of socio–economic and cultural 'preconditions'. The analysis of successful reactions to strong extremist challenges in three cases of democratic survival (Czechoslovakia, Finland and Belgium in the inter–war period) against the background of two cases of breakdown in the same historical context (Italy and the Weimar Republic) is a useful complement to this view. The analysis of the selected cases shows how a stable coalition of democratic forces can effectively protect the democratic system from dangerous extremist attacks by pursuing both repressive and inclusive strategies.     

解读政治艺术:一种尝试性的政治艺术理论阐释

解读政治艺术首先需要解决其研究必要性、研究方法、历史背景和特质呈现等问题。对于研究必要性,则大致可以从“历史-疏理”、“文化-觉解”、“社会-致用”、“理论-建构”四个角度进行说明。针对研究现状上的孱弱状态,本文则主张采取“理想类型”研究法和“多元-整合”的研究进路。对于其历史背景,则可以从艺术向政治转化、政治向艺术生成、政治与艺术相互涵摄三层关系来展现。而对于其特质呈现,则可以从致思前提、问题意识、思想资源、多维审视四个角度来凸现。     

From Policy to Practice: From Ideas to Results,From Results to Trust

Few areas of public administration have been more discouraging, over a longer period of time, than the struggle to build public trust in government's work. However, new research suggests that public administrators can build trust by improving the results they produce for citizens. Practical, practicable steps can produce big improvements: improving government's focus on citizens' needs; engaging employees; focusing on fairness; and, especially, concentrating on the delivery of public services at the “retail” level. Citizens, research shows, can discriminate among levels of government, the administration of different programs in different functional areas, and the work of individual administrators. That provides strong hope for improving trust, in an era when too often government appears too untrustworthy.     

Achieving optimal fines for political bribery: A suggested political reform

Allowing appropriately high fines for political bribery would eliminate: (1) the large and allocatively arbitrary bribes paid to our most senior, retiring, politicians (2) the more moderate, but ubiquitous and still allocatively arbitrary bribes paid to less senior, but strategically successful, politicians, and (3) the permanent loss, through censure or expulsion, of some highly proficient, but strategically less successful, legislative representatives. Moreover, with fines appropriately set, the incentives theoretically describing the entire political system would be elevated from allocative arbitrariness to approximately Pareto optimal levels. However, to create legislatures generally willing to support these wholesale political-economic improvements, legally trained individuals must be exorcized from the legislatures.     

A contribution to the conceptualization of political resources utilized in corporate political action

• This paper is an attempt at improving existing conceptualizations of corporate political resources. I contend that existing typologies are too vague, simplistic and incomplete on several points. This is why I firstly suggest a new typology and then offer some thoughts on the main characteristics of these resources. Lastly, I apply the idea of resource combination (or bundle) to political resources, showing that they can play three different roles in implementing two generic political strategies.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lobbying and uncertainty: Lobbying's varying response to different political events

Does political uncertainty affect whether lobbyists contact government officials? We suggest that the answer depends on the type of uncertainty introduced. Distinguishing between policy objective uncertainty—where organized interests and lobbyists are uncertain about the policy intentions of decision makers—and issue information uncertainty—where policymakers are uncertain about the technical details of issues—we hypothesize that whereas an increase in policy objective uncertainty leads to a decrease in lobbying, a rise in issue information uncertainty leads to more lobbying. We test the hypotheses with longitudinal data from the Canadian Lobbyists Registry measuring change in the number of times lobbyists have contacted government ministries each month from 2008 to 2018. The results suggest that lobbying intensity does respond differently to these types of uncertainty. Whereas events introducing issue information uncertainty have a statistically significant positive relationship with lobbying, events introducing policy objective uncertainty do not.