National Sentiments in Eastern and Western Europe

In a world of presumed nation-states nation has been, and still is, an intrinsic part of political legitimization. The claim of nationality has played an important role in such legitimization for the last two centuries. More than this, it has also constituted a fundamental collective entity for an individual's understanding of who they are in relation to those who are perceived as not sharing the nationality. This is nothing new, but in an era of globalization we are witnessing the rebirth of nationalism and nationality (Castells, 1997), where the power struggle over the political agenda will increasingly be about the struggle for the right to identity and the risks of exclusion from the national community. Even if this is the case it stands clear that everyday nationalism and nationalist struggles take different forms in different parts of the world. It has often been claimed that there are two types of nationalism prevalent in different parts of Europe, one in the so-called West and one in the so-called East. Kohn (1945) claimed that the rise of nationalism in the West was a political occurrence based on the democratic creation of the modern nation-state whereas the rise of nationalism in Eastern Europe was of a more backward type drawing its power from the struggle for cultural hegemony. The legacy of Kohn is taken up by Smith (1986; 1991) in his classical division of civic and ethnic national identities and nationalism, claiming that the former is a Western product and the latter mainly an Eastern one (see also Ignatieff, 1993). More recently, White (2000) claims that national identities in Eastern Europe have been strongly influenced by romanticism. The emphasis on ethnic nationalism in Eastern Europe not only is related to historical nation formation, but also has been claimed to be of great importance in the postcommunist era (Lovell, 1999). It is widely realized that national identities and nationalism differ within the West as well as within the East, but it is still assumed that there are fundamental differences between Western and Eastern European nation formation and that these have influenced the types of national identity and nationalism prevalent in the different geographical areas. For example, Sugar (1969) claims that there are differences between the Eastern European states; nonetheless, there are also commonalties that make them differ from Western European states.     

Jihadism in Western Europe After the Invasion of Iraq: Tracing Motivational Influences from the Iraq War on Jihadist Terrorism in Western Europe

Abstract

This article investigates the importance of the invasion and occupation of Iraq as motivation for recent acts of jihadist terrorism in Western Europe. It analyses the mass casualty terrorist attack attributed to a group of Islamist militants in Madrid on 11 March 2004, and the killing of a Dutch filmmaker on the streets of Amsterdam by an Al Qaeda–inspired terrorist network. The first case has been assumed to be mainly motivated by the Iraq war, whereas the other case has been perceived as an act by an individual, motivated by domestic factors in Holland. The article situates these acts of terrorism within the theory of so-called spillover effects from armed conflicts to international terrorism. It argues that the Iraq war was a significant motivational factor for the terrorists in both cases, but that the terrorists linked the Iraq issue with perceived injustices against Muslims in Europe and globally.     

An Empirical Typology of Local Government Systems in Eastern Europe

The most widely used typologies of European local government systems are based on research conducted in the 1980s. The most popular are those of Page and Goldsmith (1987), distinguishing between Northern and Southern European systems, and Hesse and Sharpe (1991), distinguishing between Southern, Northern and Anglo-Saxon models. The rare attempts to include the Eastern part of the continent are far from comprehensive or satisfactory. They usually view the whole region as a distinct group, referring to its specific historical background and recent radical decentralisation (Bennett 1993, Heinelt and Hlepas 2006). Disappointingly, the same approach is presented in the most recent comprehensive analysis of European local government systems (Loughlin et al. 2010). This article tries to fill the gap produced by this simplification, by offering a comprehensive picture of the variation within the Eastern European region and suggesting a first attempt at a typology of around 20 countries of the region. The criteria for this typology refers to those used in earlier classifications of the Western European systems and include: (i) territorial organisation and tiers of elected local governments, (ii) scope of functions provided by local governments (functional decentralisation), (iii) financial autonomy, (iv) horizontal power relations within local government institutions (election systems and relationships between mayors and councils).     

西欧国家"中左"力量缘何回升

20世纪90年代,西欧中左政党纷纷执政或参政,曾经形成了一股"粉红色的浪潮".进入新世纪后,欧洲一些国家的左翼力量连续受挫,政治风向标呈右转趋势.在意大利、丹麦和葡萄牙,中左政党纷纷在大选中落败,让位于中右政党.但近一两年来,西欧一些国家执政的中右势力面临诸多困境,而中左政党则在各类选举中或战绩不俗或上台执政,"中左"力量呈回升势头.     

西欧社会党的组织改革及政党现代化进程

西欧社会党曾在二战后多次执政 ,兴盛一时。然而 ,近年来随着单一目标的社会运动和社团的出现 ,非政治化或政治冷淡主义的滋生、蔓延以及媒体政治的发展 ,使西欧社会党面临着巨大的政治危机。而且 ,竞选的失败更加深了西欧社会党的危机意识 ,迫使这些政党不断适应社会变化 ,进行组织改革     

冷战时期西欧共产党的兴衰及启示

冷战时期,西欧各国的共产党经历了一个由兴到衰的发展过程.这一方面是由于它不适应当代资本主义的新发展,另一方面是它自身在理论建设方面存在严重不足.另外,同一时期社会民主党力量的不断发展壮大也是一个重要因素.     

Unravelling clientelism in the Zambian electoral campaigns

Based on reports on selected parliamentary by-elections from 2009 to 2015 and two presidential elections in 2011 and 2015 in Zambia, this paper examines the political rhetoric to determine the presence and nature of clientelism in Zambian electoral campaigns. Zambia’s three leading newspapers, The Post, Times of Zambia and Zambia Daily Mail, were searched for reports of electoral campaigns. In total, 605 issues of each of the three newspapers spanning a period of 20 months were used. The paper concludes that a blend of vote buying and turnout buying were more evident in the campaign rhetoric in parliamentary by-elections than the presidential elections. Further, the ruling parties extended their clientelistic rhetoric to include perverse accountability.     

Women’s empowerment and democratization: The effects of electoral systems,participation, and experience in Africa

This article investigates three hypotheses suggested in the literature on women’s political empowerment, operationalized here as increased legislative representation. These hypotheses are that (1) electoral systems manipulate women’s political empowernment; (2) increased popular participation empowers women in particular; and (3) accumulated experience gained over several electoral cycles facilitates increased political empowerment of women. In Africa, as well as in other parts of the world, majoritarian systems discriminate against women, while the effect of large parties in proportional representation systems is more ambiguous, and popular participation and repetitive electoral cycles are increasing women’s legislative representation. This article demonstrates the value of studying gender relations under democratization, even with a narrow institutionalist focus using an elitist perspective. Finally, it shows that institutions can travel over diverse contexts with constant effects. Staffan I. Lindberg is a Ph.D. candidate at Lund University. He has published on state building, democratization, and clientilism. From 1999 to 2001, he worked as an international consultant to Parliament in Ghana. His dissertation is on elections and the stabilization of polyarchy in sub-Saharan Africa. I would like to acknowledge the helpful comments from Goran Hyden, Andreas Schedler, Wynie Pankani, two anonymous reviewers, and the editors of the journal. The content, of course, is the author’s sole responsibility. This research has been made possible by Sida Grant No. SWE-1999-231.     

National and regional technology policies in the USA,Japan and Western Europe

State Policies and Techno‐Industrial Innovation. Edited by Ulrich Hilpert. Routledge, 1991. Pp. 372. £40 hb.

Regional Innovation and Decentralisation: high tech industry and government policy. Edited by Ulrich Hilpert. Routledge, 1991. Pp. 331. £40 hb.     

International diffusion and postcommunist electoral revolutions

Over the past decade, a number of elections in postcommunist regimes perched between democracy and dictatorship have led to the triumph of liberal oppositions over illiberal incumbents or their anointed successors. The international diffusion of these electoral revolutions reflects the interaction among five factors: the long term development of civil society, expanded opportunities for democratic political change, the rise of collaborative networks among international democracy promoters, regional exporters of democracy and local oppositions, and, finally, careful application of an electoral approach to regime transition. The cross-national diffusion of the electoral model in this region, however, may have run its course, largely because of less supportive local and international conditions.     

How electoral incentives shape performance measurement efforts

Although scholars have assessed how the electoral connection of legislators and chief executives affects their support for performance measurement, we know less about how electoral considerations might influence agency administrators’ focus on performance measurement. I suggest that independently elected administrators’ attention to their agency's performance measurement system may be conditional on the likelihood that their efforts in this area will help them realize their electoral goals. Because there is a greater electoral incentive to focus on performance issues when government performance is deficient, elected administrators should be as likely as, if not more likely than, their non‐elected counterparts to focus on performance measurement when the government is performing poorly and less likely to do so when the government is performing well. I find evidence that supports this expectation. This article provides insight into the implications of electoral incentives for management decisions.