Government approval in Italy: Political cycle,economic expectations and TV coverage

This paper analyses government approval in Italy – which has become a key aspect for electoral support in the new party system of the Second Republic – exploring the influence that TV coverage exerts on approval net of traditional accounts of government support. Relying on both aggregate time series and pooled individual-level surveys analyses, it is shown that communication has a sizable impact on government approval. The popularity of Centre-Left and Centre-Right governments is affected evenly by the economy but differently by the news coverage of their activity. People with lower political interest are the most reactive to news coverage of government performance.     

Triggers for protest: Modelling responses to the political context in Britain, 2000–2002

Abstract.  Failing to take into account the impact of the political context on protest has serious empirical and theoretical implications for our understanding of the phenomenon. First, it means that protest is conceptualised in rather general terms, and second, accounts of why people participate are therefore somewhat static, emphasising factors that predispose people to protest over more dynamic factors that stimulate protest. This undermines theoretical explanations of action based on rational choice and privileges more sociological accounts of behaviour. By adopting a novel methodological approach and analysing change over time, this article sheds light on the factors that 'trigger' protest. In doing so, it shows that the dynamics of protest can be expressed successfully within a rational choice framework.     

Pork-Barrel Politics in Postwar Italy, 1953–94

This article analyzes the political determinants of the distribution of infrastructure expenditures by the Italian government to the country's 92 provinces between 1953 and 1994. Extending implications of theories of legislative behavior to the context of open-list proportional representation, we examine whether individually powerful legislators and ruling parties direct spending to core or marginal electoral districts and whether opposition parties share resources via a norm of universalism. We show that when districts elect politically more powerful deputies from the governing parties, they receive more investments. We interpret this as indicating that legislators with political resources reward their core voters by investing in public works in their districts. The governing parties, by contrast, are not able to discipline their own members of parliament sufficiently to target the parties' areas of core electoral strength. Finally, we find no evidence that a norm of universalism operates to steer resources to areas when the main opposition party gains more votes.     

Institutional Inconsistency and Political Instability: Polity Duration, 1800–2000

This article examines how political institutional structures affect political instability. It classifies polities as autocracies or democracies based on three institutional dimensions: election of the executive, constraints on executive decision-making authority, and extent of political participation. It hypothesizes that strongly autocratic and democratic regimes will exhibit the greatest stability resulting from self-enforcing equilibria, whereby the maintenance of a polity's institutional structure is in the interest of political elites, whether through autocratic or democratic control. Institutionally inconsistent regimes (those exhibiting a mix of institutional characteristics of both democracy and autocracy) lack these self-enforcing characteristics and are expected to be shorter-lived. Using a log-logistic duration model, polity survival time ratios are estimated. Institutionally consistent polities are significantly more stable than institutionally inconsistent polities. The least stable political systems are dictatorships with high levels of political participation. The most unstable configuration for polities with an elected executive is one where the executive is highly constrained, but the electorate is very small.     

Political Studies as Narrative and Science, 1880–2000

Today we are often skeptical of the role played by representations of the nation state in constructing and legitimating ways of life and public policies. We portray what once appeared to be neutral, scientific representations of our practices and our heritages as contingent historical objects. How did we become so skeptical? The answer has several parts: developmental historicism dominated the human sciences in the latter half of the nineteenth century; the turn of the century witnessed an epistemic rupture and the rise of a modernist empiricism that came to dominate the social sciences; modernist empiricists reformulated their approach during the latter half of the twentieth century in response to alternative visions of social science; and, finally, the close of the twentieth century also saw the rise of a radical historicism that spread from philosophy and literature to history and even social science. In short, we have become skeptical as we have moved toward a radical historicism that challenges scientism and decenters the grand narratives of yore.     

Cycles of Political Control: the case of the Canton of Zürich, 1880–1983

Abstract. On the basis of data from the Canton of Zurich for the period from 1880 to 1983 this paper tests three models of political control: the 'crime control', 'conflict', and 'economic crises' models. It is suggested that each of the models might be valid for a particular sub-period. The identification of sub-periods is based on the idea of Kondratiev cycles. For each sub-period the effects of crime rates, the frequency of strikes and of bankruptcies on the number of police personnel and the severity of convictions are estimated by means of ARIMA modeling. The results show different patterns for each sub-period. For the period from 1880 to 1933 growth rates of the indicators of political control are best explained by the frequency of strikes. For the second period there is a strong direct effect of economic crises on the extent of political control.     

Political Science Research in Sweden 1960–1975: An Overvie

Swedish research on politics during the fifteen year period 1960–1975 has not been confined to the departments of political science in Sweden. Research of this kind has also occurred in other university departments as well as outside the universities. However, the major portion of the country's political research has taken place within the framework of political science.     

Images Revisited – Postmodern Perceptions of Power and Democracy: Political Empowerment in the Danish Case

This article discusses postmodern perceptions of power and democracy based on a Danish study. Danes appear to have a nuanced perception of societal power and former and well known images of society seem out-faded. Politicians, media, capital, interest organisations and experts are all experienced as powerful. Most people, however, conceptualise power as being blurred, systemic and structural. Nevertheless, the Danes generally do not feel powerless or distant from power. Paradoxically, while experiences of power as 'system' are common, the actors appear to be both resourceful and active – there is a high degree of empowerment. Confidence in indi-vidual capacity to make a difference is considerable. Ordinary Danes seem to believe that it can pay to exercise one's influence – that one is able to make a difference.     

The price of personalizing politics: Political distrust and economic performance in Latin America, 1996–2006

While research has provided evidence that culture and institutional performance shape individual level trust in political institutions, scholars have neglected to adequately estimate the effect of political institutions and macroeconomic conditions on trust. Using data from the World Value Surveys for eleven Latin American cases, we test if countries with “partyizing” electoral systems - those with rules that encourage voters to hold the party, not individuals, accountable for government performance - experience lower levels of distrust in political parties and the legislature in times of poor economic conditions than those countries with “personalizing” electoral rules. Our analysis shows that the macro political and economic context largely conditions the impact of culture and institutional performance on political trust.