A Matter of Timing? A Study of Regional Election Campaigns in Germany

Unlike national elections, subnational levels of politics have rarely been the subject of research. The small number of investigations stem from the field of psephology. While these have supported the assumption that the national level exerts a time-dependent impact on regional voting behaviour, election campaigning's time-dependency has yet to be investigated. Against this backdrop, this article offers a unique longitudinal and quantitative investigation of election campaigns in Germany's federal states. Using campaign managers' perceptions as a basis, it discusses time-relevant effects on electoral campaigning with regard to the degree of regionalisation, emotionalisation, and personalisation.     

Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses’ Growth Expectations and Financial Performance in Latvia: Does Ethnicity Matter?

Applying regulatory focus theory, this paper investigates the impact of both ‘initial confidence’ and ‘exactness of growth expectations’ on the financial performance of small and medium-sized firms in Latvia. Drawing on a data set based on repeated survey design, we explore the complexity of this relationship empirically. Our overall findings suggest that when controlling for other relevant factors, such as actual growth, entrepreneurs having higher growth expectations perform significantly better in terms of profitability. In addition, education has a strong modifying effect. The impact of high growth expectations on subsequent profit performance is stronger for entrepreneurs with a lower level of education. Moreover, these effects are amplified by ethnicity. They are much stronger for ethnic Russian entrepreneurs compared with ethnic Latvian entrepreneurs.     

The Nexus between National Party Preferences and State Elections – A Long-Term Perspective

State elections are one of the most prominent features of Germany's multi-level political system. The prevailing view is that the standing of the national governing parties has a major influence on the results of state elections. Still, two perspectives on the nexus between national party preferences and state election results have so far received less scholarly attention: First, it remains unclear if short-term changes in the national government's popularity also have an effect on state election results. Second, do results of state elections also influence the standing of the national government? A reason for this might be that short-term factors are becoming more important for government evaluation and vote choices. This paper responds to these two questions by examining the nexus between state elections and the standing of the national government in a long-term perspective from 1977 to 2005 and by means of cross-sectional and time-series analyses.     

Working Overtime in East Asia: Convergence or Divergence?

Working long hours has become a routinised part of life in East Asia. The different patterns of overtime across this region are understudied, however. This study represents a first systematic attempt to analyse overtime and its determinants in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China by testing hypotheses that specify the distinctive influences of employment status and job contracts on work hours. Class exploitation, post-industrialism and flexibility theories are mobilised to identify distinctive but supplementary factors in long working hours. Using data from a recent four-country survey, a Tobit regression analysis of full-time workers’ hours reveals that employers and self-employed people work longer hours than hired workers across this region. Despite this convergence, there is a contrast across occupations. In Japan, overtime is positively associated with occupational prestige, while a reverse pattern operates in China, where low-skilled workers work more overtime. Contract workers in the private sector in South Korea and China also have longer overtime when compared to public sector employees. In sum, this study highlights more divergence than convergence of working conditions within East Asia.     

Great Power War: Historical Inevitability or Deterrable Choice?

Proponents of a wide range of power transition theories suggest that conflict between the United States and China is inevitable. History indicates that is not true and conflict can be deterred. A key element to that deterrence is an effective Alliance strategy. While the Obama Administration has outlined an effective deterrent national strategy, it has not provided any military strategy. Some have proposed Air Sea Battle can be that strategy. For a variety of reasons, ASB will not work. This article proposes the Alliance adopt Offshore Control as a military strategy to deter China and assure allies and friends in the region. It is based on the concept of defending the first island chain, denying China use of the seas inside the first island chain and dominating the seas outside it. Its deterrent power is enhanced because Offshore Control is affordable, politically feasible, and can be executed today.     

Strengthening Authoritarian Rule through Democracy Promotion? Examining the Paradox of the US and EU Security Strategies: The Case of Bin Ali's Tunisia

Since the end of the Cold War, much has been made about the crises that recurrently characterize the transatlantic relationship. Since the attacks of September 11th and the war in Iraq, such a crisis, according to many, has developed into a fully-fledged rift, which is beyond repair. The different views and policies of the US and EU in the Middle East are usually held as a paradigmatic example of the differences that exist between the two actors. The paper challenges this assumption and argues that the transatlantic rift, once the rhetoric is set aside, is not as deep as many suggest. In fact, through an in-depth analysis of how the democracy-promotion policies on the EU and the US are implemented, the paper shows that they are attempting to achieve similar objectives, under similar constraints and suffer from similar contradictions and shortcomings. The paper investigates such policies in the context of Tunisia, a country which, at least theoretically, should be moving forward towards democracy given the pro-democracy environment in which it operates.     

Just a Matter of Timing? Local Electoral Turnout in Germany in the Context of National and European Parliamentary Elections

This article looks at the impact of national and European elections on turnout in German local council elections. The focus is first on effects from the timing of local council elections in between two federal elections and second on turnout effects from the combination of local council elections and European parliamentary elections. Starting from considerations about the relationships between high- and low-stimulus elections the article analyses data from 111 German local council elections held between 1951 and 2008. The analyses show first that upcoming national elections do mobilise voters to cast their ballots in regions where local council turnout traditionally is low. Second, combining European and local elections tends to reinforce turnout as well.     

Political or Financial Benefits? Ideology,Tenure, and Parliamentarians’ Choice of Interest Group Ties

This article develops and tests a parliamentarian‐centred decision model of the collaboration between interest groups (IGs) and parliamentarians. We posit that parliamentarians face a trade‐off when deciding on IG ties that offer them either political (policy support and votes) or financial benefits (additional income). We theorise the balance in this trade‐off to be moderated by ideology and tenure because both introduce variations in IG ties’ utility across politicians. Using Swiss longitudinal data from 1985 to 2015 on 743 parliamentarians and their 5,431 IG board positions, we show that parliamentarians become more financial benefit‐seeking over time. This holds in particular if they belong to right‐leaning parties. We also find self‐imposed restrictions for new and left‐leaning parliamentarians on seeking financial benefits. This highlights that parliamentarians are responsive to their partisan constituents when building their IG tie portfolio.     

Euroscepticism and Right-Wing Extremist Attitudes in Germany: A Result of the ‘Dialectic Nature of Progress’?

Euroscepticism is associated with a new cleavage between the ‘losers’ and the ‘winners’ of globalisation. Current research also indicates that right-wing extremist, racist, and anti-democratic attitudes are more prevalent in lower status groups, particularly those struggling with societal change. These findings are combined with a unique data set covering both topics and thus add to the growing literature on Euroscepticism while also exploring the divide between the ‘losers’ and ‘winners’ of modernisation processes. The article introduces categories of occupational status groups, namely the ‘engaged’, the ‘skilled workers’, and the ‘legworkers’, which represent different levels of involvement in modernisation processes. It explores the differences in attitudes between these groups and how those differences correlate with citizens' professional status. It is concluded that perceived subjective alienation, which manifests in racist and anti-democratic attitudes, best explains EU-scepticism.     

The rise and fall of “respectable” Spanish liberalism, 1808–1923: an explanatory framework

Abstract

The article focuses on the reasons behind both the consolidation of what I have termed “respectable” liberalism between the 1830s and the 1840s and its subsequent decline and fall between 1900 and 1923. In understanding both processes I study the links established between “respectable” liberals and propertied elites, the monarchy, and the Church. In the first phase these links served to consolidate the liberal polity. However, they also meant that many tenets of liberal ideology were compromised. Free elections were undermined by the operation of caciquismo, monarchs established a powerful position, and despite the Church hierarchy working with liberalism, the doctrine espoused by much of the Church was still shaped by the Counter-Reformation. Hence, “respectable” liberalism failed to achieve a popular social base. And the liberal order was increasingly denigrated as part of the corrupt “oligarchy” that ruled Spain. Worse still, between 1916 and 1923 the Church, monarch, and the propertied elite increasingly abandoned the liberal Monarchist Restoration. Hence when General Primo de Rivera launched his coup the rug was pulled from under the liberals’ feet and there was no one to cushion the fall.     

National unity and reconciliation in Rwanda: A flawed approach?

This article examines the Rwandan government's national unity and reconciliation policy and one of its key elements, the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC). It contends that while the NURC potentially represents an innovative model that other post-conflict societies could adapt and use, the central premise on which both the commission and the government's broader national unity and reconciliation policy are based is critically flawed. The unity that they are endeavouring to achieve, as a vehicle for reconciliation, relies upon a negation of ethnicity – a core component of the 1994 genocide – and hence does not allow for an open and honest engagement with the past. The problem is further compounded by the government's attitude towards the prosecution of crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which not only demonstrates that ethnicity remains highly significant but also underscores the incomplete and partial way in which the past is being addressed.     

Further Twenty Years of Pathologies? Is Rational Choice better than it used to be?

Twenty years ago the publication of “Pathologies of rational choice” by Donald Green and Ian Shapiro (1994) stimulated a large debate about the usefulness of rational choice approaches in political science. While the publication of this book has fruitfully led rational choice scholars to be more attentive to links between theoretical models and their empirical implications, some misunderstandings about the theoretical contributions of this approach still affect the discipline. Based on a brief summary about the debate I show the directions in which the rational choice literature has evolved and discuss some recent significant contributions.