The Neglected Nation: The CSU and the Territorial Cleavage in Bavarian Party Politics

This article examines the continuing salience of the territorial cleavage in Bavarian party politics. It does so through an exploration of the Christian Social Union's (CSU) mobilisation of Bavarian identity as part of its political project, which has forced other parties in Bavaria to strengthen their territorial goals and identities. Parties have articulated different constructions of ‘Bavaria’ to rival the CSU's dominant nation-building project. However, they have been unable to portray themselves as ‘standing up for Bavarian interests’ due to the constraints of the state-wide parties to which they belong. As an exclusively Bavarian party, the CSU has no such constraints. Indeed, the CSU's core aim of strengthening Bavaria's position vis-à-vis the German federation may be viewed as akin to that of the Convergència i Unió in Catalonia, Spirit in Flanders or Plaid Cymru in Wales. Like these parties, the case of the CSU in Bavaria demonstrates that sub-state territorial mobilisation has as much to do with negotiating autonomy within the state as seceding from it. To that end, the CSU provides a valuable case of how a regionalist party operating within a multi-level political system has sought to influence the regional, state and European levels to obtain a comparative territorial advantage.     

Party-Sponsored Protest and the Movement Society: The CDU/CSU Mobilises Against Citizenship Law Reform

In 1999, the CDU/CSU single-handedly launched an extremely successful petition drive against the SPD-Green citizenship law reform (in particular against dual citizenship). This article argues that four developments converged to explain this tactical innovation. First, Germany's political culture had become a 'social movement society', with even conservatives accepting protest as a political means. Second, the issue of immigration pressurised the party to adopt a hard-line stance in order to co-opt the extreme right. Third, the Kohl government had left a legacy of resistance to citizenship liberalisation and of populist exploitation of anti-foreigner sentiment. Fourth, the petition drive reflected the CDU/CSU's new opposition status and its internal struggle over agenda and leadership. The article concludes with a look at the CDU/CSU's subsequent use of plebiscitory tactics and the implications for the future of protest politics.     

The CSU as an Ethno-regional Party

The Christlich Soziale Union in Bayern, despite its dominant position in the Bavarian party system, remains a relatively rare object of enquiry in political science both nationally and internationally. Alf Mintzel noted this research gap back in 1993. Though progress has been made since then, his basic conclusion that the CSU is the least studied German party remains true. This article will review some landmarks of CSU research before establishing the criteria held as essential for an ethno-regional party. It will then assess the CSU against these criteria: first on the supply side (generally based on existing research), then on the demand side (based on the author's own research as the CSU's electorate still remains understudied).     

The three colors of Novorossiya,or the Russian nationalist mythmaking of the Ukrainian crisis

While the annexation of Crimea boosted Putin's popularity at home, the Donbas insurgency shattered the domestic ideological status quo. The Kremlin's position appeared somehow hesitant, fostering the resentment of Russian nationalist circles that were hoping for a second annexation. In this article, I explore the term Novorossiya as a live mythmaking process orchestrated by different Russian nationalist circles to justify the Donbas insurgency. The powerful pull of Novorossiya rests on its dual meaning in announcing the birth of a New Russia geographically and metaphorically. It is both a promised land to be added to Russia and an anticipation of Russia's own transformation. As such, Novorossiya provides for an exceptional convergence of three underlying ideological paradigms – “red” (Soviet), “white” (Orthodox), and “brown” (Fascist). The Novorossiya storyline validates a new kind of geopolitical adventurism and blurs the boundaries, both territorial and imaginary, of the Russian state.     

A Third Term for a Popular Chancellor: An Analysis of Voting Behaviour in the 2013 German Federal Election

The 2013 federal election led to a considerable change in the German party system. Yet Chancellor Merkel secured a third term, once again, as chancellor of a grand coalition. This analysis shows that Angela Merkel was much more popular than her SPD challenger, Peer Steinbrück. Moreover, she was perceived as somewhat more representative of the values and policies of the party she stood for than her competitor. What is more, the candidates' perceived representativeness conditioned the impact of candidate preferences on vote choice in complex ways. As a result, support for Angela Merkel was likely to translate into votes for the CDU/CSU, whereas support for Peer Steinbrück did not easily earn SPD votes. The article thus concludes that, in contrast to her challenger, Angela Merkel was an electoral asset for her party. The CDU/CSU's impressive result in the 2013 federal outcome can thus be interpreted, to some extent, as reflecting its leader's popularity.     

Progress,power, and violent accumulation in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's recent travails have challenged the concept of progress as it is popularly conceived, as they have forced social scientists to revisit many of the verities of nationalist history and the initial euphoria of Zimbabwean ‘liberation’. Critics of ‘fast-track’ land reform and patriotism, however, have been as simplistic as the regime's academic praise singers, and often simply turn celebratory scholarship upside down. Historically rooted and specifically applied concepts of primitive accumulation can assist the understanding of the development of Zimbabwe's coercive networks of accumulation and their more recent manifestations, but they do not solve the problems of how to lessen violence and deepen democracy in the short term.     

Kirchheimer Revisited: Party Polarisation,Party Convergence,or Party Decline in the German Party System

The 2005 German parliamentary elections produced two parties claiming victory, the inability to form a government, and Germany's second post-war grand coalition government. This article explores the peculiarities in the contemporary dynamic of the German party system. It considers the strategy and motivation of parties and the effect of party competition. A key focus is to revisit and evaluate the predictive power of Otto Kirchheimer's ‘end of ideology’ proposition in the German case. On the one hand, mainstream parties seem to be converging at the ideological centre across Western Europe. At the same time, some party polarisation within the party system is evident as more marginal parties such as those of the far left and far right have gained votes at the expense of the mainstream parties in recent elections. A third possibility is that both of these circumstances have produced a political void with voters becoming increasingly apathetic and non-ideological. This paper argues that in the aggregate, trends do not reflect the predictions of Kirchheimer.     

The Iraqi Ba‘th Party Preparatory School and the ‘Cultural’ Courses of the Branches

Political indoctrination of the Ba’th party cadre in Iraq was critical for the durability of the regime for 35 years. The party preparatory school was the vehicle for the ideological training of the party elite, while special courses, provided by the party branches, focused on the ‘cultural’ education of the party's lower echelons to prepare them for becoming active members. Using the Ba’th's own archives, the article examines how the party's school, the branches’ cultural courses, and the Ba’th cultural activities, combined to create an ideologically educated cadre which paved the way for the party's domination of Iraq's culture and ideology.     

Contradiction Without Paradox: Evangelical Political Culture in the 1998 Venezuelan Elections

Venezuelan Evangelicals' responses to candidates in that country's 1998 presidential election seem to confirm the view that their political culture is inconsistent, contradictory, and paradoxical. Not only were they just as likely to support nationalist ex–coup leader Hugo Chávez as was the larger population, they also rejected Venezuela's one Evangelical party when it made a clientelist pact with the infamous candidate of Venezuela's discredited Social Democratic party. This article uses concepts from recent cultural theory to analyze qualitative data from these two cases and make sense of the contradictory nature of Evangelical politics.     

The catch‐all party thesis and the Austrian social democrats

This article examines Kirchheimer's catch‐all party thesis systematically, using the example of the Austrian Socialist Party (SPÖ). First, five central elements of the Kirchheimer catch‐all party are identified and possibilities for empirical research are explored. Then the empirical evidence on these five dimensions is analysed. As Kirchheimer has expected, the SPÖ's ‘ideological baggage’ has been drastically reduced, its top leadership groups and its electoral leader in particular have been further strengthened, the working‐class clientele has been de‐emphasised, and the party's function in the political system has been substantially reduced. Concerning the SPÖ's link to interest groups, however, Kirchheimer's thesis is only valid when looking at the most recent period. In view of the cumulative effect of the changes in the direction of a catch‐all party the SPÖ of the 1990s can definitely be classified as a catch‐all party.     

Federalism,Party Organization and the Australian Greens

The influence of federalism on the organizational arrangements adopted by Australia's parties endures. This study examines the organizational structure of the State and Territory divisions of the Australian Greens through an analysis of their local party constitutions. It shows that there are important areas of difference in the organizations of state and territory Greens, despite their shared ideological commitment to inclusive internal party structures. These variations are a function of institutional and political factors, especially those induced by the Australian federal system. It is argued that differences in the organizational formats of state and territory party divisions reflect the historical circumstances in which they emerged and variations in the institutional (regional) setting in which they are located.     

Hajj Amin al-Husayni and the Haram al-Sharif: A Pan-Islamic or Palestinian Nationalist Cause?

The World Islamic Conference, held in Jerusalem in 1931 under the auspices of Hajj Amin al-Husayni and the Supreme Muslim Council, marked a turning point in the Palestinian nationalist struggle as well as in the struggle between the two main factions—the more extremist one led by Hajj Amin and the more moderate Opposition—for control of the Palestinian leadership. The Conference, though co-sponsored by Shawkat ‘Ali and the Muslim Indian Congress, and ostensibly representative of the worldwide community of Muslims, was effectively dominated by Hajj Amin and his Palestinian supporters. Through his control of its proceedings, Hajj Amin was able to redefine the Palestinian nationalist cause as essentially a pan-Islamic one, in connection with the perceived need to defend the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem against Zionist encroachment. Contrasted here with the World Islamic Conference (and held concurrently with it) is the Second Arab Orthodox Congress. Whereas the World Islamic Conference sought to redefine an issue arguably specific to Palestine as pan-Islamic, the local Christian Orthodox community, in keeping with its desire to Arabise Palestine's Greek Orthodox Church (hence their self-designation as the Arab Orthodox Church in Palestine), sought to redefine what was essentially a religious matter—concerning the succession of the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem—in nationalist terms. It was not simply a matter of differing ideological perspectives; defining the cause of the Haram al-Sharif as a pan-Islamic one also served a political objective, namely the enhancement of Hajj Amin's position vis-à-vis his political rivals. Nonetheless, whatever the motivations involved, this development was a factor in the marginalisation of the Christian Arab component of the Palestinian nationalist movement. Whereas at the start of the British Mandate they had played a role disproportionately large relative to their actual numbers, by its end, their role in the nationalist movement had diminished almost to the point of near inconsequence, as evidenced, for instance, by their marginal involvement in the Arab Revolt (1936–1939).     

A failed 'nationalist' endeavor: Egyptian-Sudanese textile trade, 1935-1945

This article examines the attempts of Egypt's nationalist elite to develop economic ties with the Sudan in the hope of strengthening their argument for sovereignty over Sudanese regions. While reviewing Egyptian 'claims' of a culturally, historically, linguistically, and religiously united Nile valley, I examine what scholars of nationalism have theorized are essential conditions and objectives in successful nationalist movements--emphasizing the virtually irrelevant position accorded economic bonds typically. The bulk of the article is an analysis of Egyptian-Sudanese textile trade between 1935 and 1945. This analysis includes an examination of the institutional means established to foster trade with the Sudan, a brief statistical assessment of the textile trade, and an explanation of the causes of failure in these endeavors. Finally, the conclusion links this case study to the question of whether or not economic development, as a nationalist activity binding regions together, can occur prior to state formation.     

The Rise of Golden Dawn: The New Face of the Far Right in Greece

The article examines the rise of the one of the most extremist political parties in Europe, Golden Dawn. It sketches the historical trajectory of the Greek far right, examines the ideological, organisational and voter profile of Golden Dawn, and offers possible explanations for its breakthrough in the 2012 elections. The article shows how the economic crisis has brought a massive realignment of the Greek electorate away from mainstream parties, giving rise to anti-system and anti-immigrant sentiments. Golden Dawn's violent tactics have allowed the party to establish an anti-system and anti-immigrant profile and capitalise on these sentiments. The party's future will depend on its capacity to absorb organisationally any future tensions between party pragmatists and idealists.     

Rituals of Commemoration – Identity and Conflict: The Case of Die Linke in Germany

For social groups, as for individuals, memory is an important part of their identity. Therefore political parties usually have an instrumental relation to their own party's history whose function is to enhance party identity. The ‘official’ party history normally is inclusive, designed as a composition of party heroes and villains as well as of party achievements which all members and ideological wings can agree upon or, at least, where they can find themselves represented. But sometimes it is hard to agree on history. All wings and currents of Die Linke can agree on Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht as symbols; their assassination in January 1919 is commemorated by a demonstration every year. Unexpected intra-party conflicts arose when in December 2006 a stone was placed at the cemetery Friedrichsfelde in Berlin near the graves of Luxemburg and Liebknecht commemorating the ‘victims of Stalinism’.     

Art History, ‘National Art’ and Iranian Intellectuals in the 1960s

The 1960s were undoubtedly the most culturally productive period in the contemporary history of Iran. During these years, artistic trends as well as art historical practices attempted to present the idea of national art, while the intellectual atmosphere was charged with the conflicting ideologies of the Cold War. The Pahlavi state's cultural policies, based on its pro-Western and at the same time nationalist visions, were in contrast with most intellectuals' attitudes towards art, which mainly followed leftist ideologies. Within such an ideologically charged space, the idea of combining Euro-American modernism and traditional views formed the dominant discourse of modern Iranian art. This article maps the interconnections among artists, art historians and cultural custodians in 1960s Iran, and explores the ways in which nationalist, nativist, modernist and communist-Marxist ideologies influenced the artistic trends as well as art historical narratives. After focusing on the ways art history was introduced through Orientalist viewpoints in Iran, the article will shed light on the role of visual artists within the intellectual community of the 1960s. The idea of ‘national art’, epitomised in the movements of Saqqa khanih and Talar-i Iran, will then be analysed. Finally, the article will evaluate these artistic activities within their ideological framework.     

The Challenges of Transitioning from Opposition to Government: Liberal Party Planning for Government 1983 – 1996

Studies examining opposition transition to government processes and planning usually emphasise the responsibility of oppositions as a legislative institution and the role of party leaders. However, such approaches place too much emphasis on notions of responsible opposition and party leaders. They de‐emphasise the importance of partisan considerations that shape transition planning or how party organisations have attempted to assert control over parliamentary parties. Drawing on archival materials, policy documents, and elite interviews, this study examines both public and internal transition to government strategies undertaken by the Liberal Party of Australia during their opposition years (1983–1996). The paper finds that while party leaders became more important over time, the party organisation's involvement remained significant. The Liberal Party transition planning focused primarily on cabinet processes, Australian Public Service (APS) organisation, particularly the senior bureaucratic level, and selecting political staff. In so doing, the Liberal Party anticipated many of the Hawke government's 1987 reforms to the APS. The Liberal Party was motivated by its desire to restructure the machinery and culture of government and to allocate sufficient political staff resources to government. Its aim was to better equip the party to achieve its political and ideological goals when next in government.     

Recent Education Policy and School Reform in Bavaria: A Critical Overview

This paper gives a critical overview of school reform measures in the German state of Bavaria in the aftermath of the OECD's PISA 2000 and 2003 studies. While the highly selective Bavarian school system has provided the best test results among the German federal states, its overall performance in an international context has been less impressive. In order to improve the Bavarian education system a range of initiatives has been introduced in recent years. While following pedagogically sound ideas in most cases, however, the projects have been hampered by fiscal restraints, ideological reservations against breaking up the traditional three-tier system of secondary education, prevailing bureaucratic restrictions, and a lack of improvements in incentives for teachers' involvement in reform. As a consequence, genuine, fundamental changes in the traditional system have not so far been initiated.     

Local Elections and the Turkish Voter: Looking for the Determinants of Party Choice

On 30 March 2014 Turkish voters elected their local (city) councillors. Their party preferences seem to indicate considerable correspondence with the national vote choices. So, do voters' choices in local elections differ from voters' party preferences at the national legislative elections? Based on previous research findings on Turkish voting behaviour, a list of hypotheses was compiled and tested, using binary logistic regression analyses and survey data collected immediately prior to the 2009 and 2014 local elections. The main findings are that the party lists are supported at the ballot boxes on the basis of the voters' party identification, ideological positions, and economic (dis)satisfaction, whether in national or local elections.     

Understanding Political Knowledge and its Influence on Voting Preferences in the 2007 Federal Election

In this article we propose a model to explain how voters’ perceptions of their ideological proximity to a party affect their propensity to vote for that party. We argue that political knowledge plays a crucial moderating role in the relationship between party proximity and voting propensity. It is necessary, however, to distinguish between institutional knowledge (information about the political system) and party knowledge (information about the parties’ left–right positions). An analysis of survey data from the 2007 Swiss federal elections supports our main hypothesis that party knowledge enhances the link between party proximity and voting propensity. Institutional knowledge may have additional influence, but clear evidence for this effect was obtained only for propensities to vote for the Swiss People's Party (SVP). Overall, the impact of political knowledge was found to be substantial, even after controlling for the outstanding influence of party identification and other predictors of voting propensities.