Blondejokes.com: The New Generation

The ‘sexy dumb blonde’ stereotype, which emerged in American popular culture during the Twentieth century, is one of the most salient themes of contemporary Internet humor. In this paper, we analyze the new generation of online blonde jokes, claiming that they incorporate three main features. First, in relation to the blonde image itself, we find that stupidity has superseded promiscuity as the main theme of Internet-based blonde jokes. Second, in relation to the spread of the jokes, we describe the globalization of the blonde joke on the Internet, and its translation into numerous languages. Finally, we portray the emergence of “Meta blonde” jokes—texts that build on the popularity and familiarity of the audience with the blonde joke genre in order to comment and reflect on it, yet in so doing, cunningly reinforce old stereotypes.     

The legal environment of planned urban growth

The part that law as a skill and as a discipline can and should play in urban development and in the work of an urban development agency is discussed on the basis of recent experience in three countries. Emphasis is given to the importance of involving lawyers from the start of any programme for planned urban growth, and the disadvantage of bringing lawyers in only for specific legal jobs is stressed. The article surveys the range of work in which a lawyer is necessarily involved where planned urban development proceeds within a framework of law.     

Debating rape jokes vs. rape culture: framing and counter-framing misogynistic comedy

ABSTRACT

Humor controversies can simultaneously reveal and obscure relations of power, as well as the rhetorical/political nature of jokes. US comedian Daniel Tosh ignited one such controversy in July 2012 when he directed a rape joke toward a female audience member during a live performance in Hollywood, CA. This paper consists of a two-part analysis of this humor controversy. First, we examine a televised debate following this incident, between a comedian and feminist, to map the dominant framing and counter-framing of rape jokes. We contend these positions are representative of two frames that repeatedly surface in response to controversial sexist humor: a dominant patriarchal frame and an oppositional feminist counter-frame. Second, we analyze the saliency of these two frames among college students to observe the way individual interpretations resonate with, challenge, and complicate those frames. In light of our findings, we argue the dominant framing/interpretation of rape jokes reinforce patriarchal and free-market ideologies, and deny real-world implications of misogynistic humor, particularly when comedians/audiences defend such jokes as harmless fun.     

Use of voices in legal opening statements

A powerful determinant of the outcome of a trial, the opening statement is the first opportunity for lawyers from each side to construct a factual narrative of events that makes sense and sounds plausible to the jury. Although it is created entirely by a lawyer and delivered in monologic speech, the genre shows traces of other voices. Regarding voice as a semiotic resource that allows reanimators to incorporate multiple perspectives, the study explores lawyers’ strategic orchestration of various voices in this initial phase of a trial, focusing on the source, function, and frequency of such voices. Based on a high-profile case, the findings suggest that the opening statement is a highly heteroglossic genre, and the two sides differ in terms of whose voices they choose to reanimate and what purposes those voices may be used to serve, including verbal–action representation, (re)contextualization, legitimation, and deconstruction. These voices not only serve to create and negotiate different realities but also contribute to making the opening statement essentially argumentative, rather than merely factual.     

The critical problem of cynical irony meaning what you say and ideologies of class and gender

ABSTRACT

Critical theorists such as Slavoj ?i?ek have for some years discussed the ideological significance of cynical or “blank” irony in fairly general terms. Less attention has been paid to the practical implications of such irony for critical semiotic analysis. With this in mind, this paper discusses the problems that sexist and “classist” jokes – specifically jokes about “chavs” – pose for the critical analyst. On the one hand, they seem to be saying deeply ideological things. On the other, their ironic nature means that they evade the claim that they are really saying, asserting, meaning anything. Theirs is a kind of blank irony which can be identified in all kinds of contemporary semiotic practice and is therefore an important phenomenon for critical analysts to get to grips with. The paper attempts to get to grips with it by outlining some semiotic clues to blank irony, and, more importantly, by suggesting some ways in which we might try to bring a critical perspective to bear in cases of cynical irony.     

Antecedents of political market orientation in Britain and Sweden: analysis and future research propositions

• During the last 20 years, political marketing has become a widespread phenomenon around the world. However, most of the research concerning political marketing has been carried out in countries such as the United States and Britain. Thus, in order to understand the antecedents of political marketing, as well as its effectiveness as an electoral strategy, there is a need for comparative research including countries that differ significantly from the U.S. and Britain.
• One such country is Sweden. Thus, the purpose of this article is to compare and analyze Sweden and Britain with regard to two analytical research questions: (1) What differences are there between Britain and Sweden that might be relevant in understanding why parties choose to be sales‐ or market‐oriented? (2) What are the implications with regards to differences between countries and between parties within countries that might help to explain why some parties in some countries are more likely than others to be market‐oriented?

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The History of Political Science

The history of political science serves as a context within which we make sense of the nature and role of our discipline. Narratives about the past development of British and American political science help to frame debates, choices, and identities within the contemporary discipline in Britain. What do recent studies on the history of political science tell us about the character of political science in Britain and America? What do they suggest about the relation of the British study of politics to British identities more generally? Our review of recent work concentrates on three issues: (1) how historical studies of political science relate to approaches and identities within the contemporary discipline; (2) how they relate to the past, i.e. whether their historical vision is marred by presentism; (3) whether they look beyond the boundaries of the discipline.     

Berlusconi,Boehner and the Brink: Lessons for Political Reform in Britain

In the early autumn of 2013 large minorities in Italy and the United States fermented crises that badly disrupted the government of the two countries. These cases were widely understood as instances of dysfunction in established democracies that would rarely be replicated elsewhere. However, while all the conditions that generated the crises are unlikely to be evident in other established democracies three important factors that caused the disruptions in the American and Italian political processes are also sources of political conflict in Britain. They are the powers of the second legislative chamber, the weakening links between parties and social groups, and the redrawing of electoral boundaries. All of them present problems for political reform in Britain, and understanding the role they played in the two political crises of 2013 is important for future reform in Britain.     

Does it matter whether people will know that I did not vote? The role of social norms and visibility

People behave in accordance with social norms when they feel observed or when they know their behaviour is monitored or could be disclosed. Get-Out-The-Vote experiments show that individuals are more likely to vote when told that their behaviour will be disclosed. In everyday life, however, there is much uncertainty about whether people will indeed know if one turns out to vote. I argue that fear of disapproval should only mobilize citizens to vote when they expect that their (non-)voting will be visible to others. Using original survey data from Canada, I measure expectations about whether others will vote, would disapprove if the person abstains, and will know whether they have voted or not. Furthermore, I distinguish between expectations concerning the partner, family, friends, and neighbours. Results suggest that respondents who expect others to vote are themselves more likely to vote, but I find no evidence that disapproval and visibility are related to turnout in everyday life.     

Is gender on the 'new agenda'?

Abstract. This paper examines the politicization of gender inequality through a cross-national analysis of attitudes towards inequality between men and women. The data were obtained from national surveys in the United States, Britain, West Germany, Australia and Italy. In all of these countries, attitudes towards gender inequality were found to be associated with the 'left-right' cleavage over economic inequality and redistribution, but they were unrelated to 'new politics' issues. It was also found that attitudes towards gender inequality were more closely integrated into the left-right cleavage in those countries where there was greater awareness of gender issues, and that they had very little net impact on partisanship. Thus high levels of awareness of gender inequality are not associated with the emergence of a new cross-cutting political cleavage. It is concluded that inequality of opportunity between men and women does not constitute part of a new politics agenda, nor does it cross-cut other sources of political interests. It is more plausibly seen as a new element of the well-established left-right cleavage. Consequently, it leaves the structure of political divisions relatively intact.     

Issues,parties and attitudinal stability: A comparative study of Sweden and the United States

Though Converse's work has generated considerable debate about attitudes vs. nonattitudes, there has been surprisingly little new evidence concerning attitude stability in national electorates. We present data from three panel studies that show that the Swedish electorate is consistently more stable than its American counterpart. More importantly, the pattern of continuity levels across types of issues differs from that in the American electorate, with the highest continuity rates for abstract, ‘ideological’ issues. An explanation that accounts for the differences in continuity levels within as well as between countries is found in a structural factor, as suggested by Converse. That factor is the party system. In both countries there is variation in the relationship between party preferences and issue positions, but on the whole the parties in Sweden give clearer, more consistent cues about where to stand on issues.     

Public Financial Management Reforms: The Role of Ipsas in Latin‐America

During the last 30 years, many public administration reforms promoted by New Public Management have been undertaken. These reforms have spread to Latin‐American countries and include changes in governmental accounting systems, where the implementation of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs) has been a stimulus for modernization. This article aims to clarify the situation of IPSASs implementation in the Latin‐American context as well as the stimuli for and effects of their implementation. The analysis shows that there is an emerging international trend to adopt IPSASs in Latin‐American countries although at the same time, there are evident obstacles to achieving reform goals. In Colombia, reforms are still underway, and the usefulness of IPSASs to improve decision‐making at an organisational level cannot be evaluated. Meanwhile, in Peru, the modernization is more rhetorical than real, and many efforts remain to be made for the effective implementation. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Special Issue 2019: European and American Political Parties: Becoming More Similar?

ABSTRACT

For theories to be useful across systems requires a fundamental similarity of the things theorized about. In the 1980s, it was easy to question whether European and American political parties were sufficiently of the same “genus” for a single theory of parties to be relevant in both contexts. This paper asks whether that is still the case, identifying several respects in which European and American parties have become more comparable, but also a dimension on which they have become more different.     

Party Politics and the Common Good in Swedish Local Government

Local government in Sweden is usually classified as the northwest European type of local government, together with the local government systems of the other Nordic countries and Britain. In the 1990s and the early years of the new millennium, Swedish local government has been especially susceptible to the ideas of 'new public management' (NPM). At the same time there has been a long-ongoing trend of increasing party-politicisation of local councils. In this paper a selection of five local authorities are examined in order to see how party politics and party-politicisation are confronted by the new organisational doctrines. It is concluded that in this respect the doctrines guiding local government organisation can be characterised by three common traits: the legitimacy of particular interests is denied in favour of the common good of the locality; it is denied that conflict and competition between political parties perform any democratic function; finally, when it comes to the relation between politics and administration there is a common confession of the management-by-objectives doctrine. Somewhat surprisingly, these three principles guide organisation and politics not only in those authorities most enthusiastically adopting NPM but also in the authorities implementing organisational reforms based on more communitarian principles and even organisationally conservative municipalities not even considering any organisational change. One interpretation of this contradictory observation may be that NPM concepts and ideas have also found their way into local doctrines that are based on quite different principles. Another interpretation is that there is a consensus tradition in Swedish political culture that can also account for similar results in municipalities not explicitly introducing an apolitical organisation doctrine.     

Whitehall and the Refugees: The 1930s and the 1990s

Abstract

In this paper, originally presented on the occasion of the launch of her book concerning British immigration policy towards Jewish refugees from 1933 to 1948, London compares that past with present British immigration policy and attitudes towards it. She argues, above all, that the same worry about the long-term effects of immigration—that is, that refugees would settle in the country and not return home or move on—that very much influenced the tendency to inhibit aid to Jewish refugees in the 1930s and 1940s, is still very much alive today. While the legal situation of refugees and the kinds of persecution from which they seek refuge are different in the two periods in question, the 1930s and the 1990s—there are now, for instance, international conventions on refugees to which Britain is a signatory—British immigration policies of both periods are marked by many of the same priorities and many of the same attitudes towards and perceptions of refugees. In closing, she sounds a warning that an understanding of the past, crucial as it is, should not be mistakenly used to justify a lack of humanity in the present.     

Democratic accountability and central bank independence: Historical and contemporary,national and European perspectives

Recently there has been a general move towards greater central bank independence in Europe. Countries such as Belgium, Britain, France and Spain have all increased the autonomy of their respective central banks. In this context, some people have argued that the prospects for democratic, representative government have been weakened. In these countries, democratically elected governments can no longer control the process of monetary policy making. By constructing an index of central banks’ independence, this article shows that the recent moves towards central bank independence in Britain and France have not challenged the basic foundations of indirect political accountability. However, it also shows that the proposed institutional architecture of the European Central Bank is a departure from the norms of political accountability and that, in this case, there is a distinct ‘democratic deficit’ which needs to be addressed.     

Stories from No Land: The Women of Srebrenica Speak Out

It is argued that the stories of the survivors of the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 have been neglected by the memorial culture of Bosnia and by the various national reports that investigated how the massacre could have taken place. The author argues that a satisfactory history of the genocide has to include the voices of the survivors, in this case, the women. These are stories of trauma that are hard to listen to. She compares listening to them to the difficulty historians experience in listening to the stories of other genocides like the Shoah/Holocaust, they are stories based on silence about what cannot be told. The argument relies on the oral history literature on listening to trauma as personal and subjective accounts of survival. They are not straightforward referential narratives. One narrative, the narrative of Sabaheta who lost her child and husband, is central to the piece. She is one of the women interviewed by the author. The interview expresses sorrow about loss and rage about the international community; these stories are interwoven. The narrative also describes through the eyes of the victim what she felt happened. The author is Dutch, so is part of the one nation – more than any other – that is accused of “doing nothing.” It was the Dutch army that was supposed to protect the civilian population of Srebrenica. The government of The Netherlands has halted any negotiation on financial support for the research as “the project does not help to overcome trauma.” She argues that giving a voice to the victim is a necessary step toward closure.     

Regulating digital broadcasting in Europe: The limits of policy convergence

In 1996–67 France, Germany and Britain overhauled their broadcasting legislation, at least in part in response to the impact of digital technology. The fact that these countries felt it necessary to reform their broadcasting systems at the same time, that they were all facing the common challenge of digital broadcasting, and that they had all recently liberalised their telecommunications industries in the face of technological change and EU policy leadership, led to the expectation that their broadcasting policies might also converge in a similar direction; an expectation supported by much of the literature on policy convergence. This article examines the broadcasting reforms that were undertaken and finds that there was very little evidence of policy convergence and attributes this largely to the strong, national institutional structures and intense politicisation that characterise the broadcasting sector.     

Subnational Taxes in Developing Countries: The Way Forward

Both theory and experience in a variety of circumstances around the world suggest strongly that if fiscal decentralization is to produce sustainable net benefits in developing countries, subnational governments require much more real taxing power than they now have. Students of public finance have studied the subject, and practitioners in developing countries have installed many different versions of subnational government tax. In most developing countries there are potentially sound and productive taxes that subnational governments could use: personal income tax surcharges, property taxes, taxes on the use of motor vehicles, payroll taxes, and even subnational value‐added taxes and local “business value” taxes may all be viable options in particular countries. Still, there is no general consensus about what works and what does not. In this review paper, we try and pull together enough evidence to suggest the way forward. We also develop the argument that given political realities one cannot usually decentralize significant revenues to subnational governments without having in place an intergovernmental transfer system to offset at least some of the disequalizing effects that would otherwise occur. Nor does it make sense to think of decentralizing exactly the same package of tax choices to all subnational governments regardless of their scale and scope of operations.     

Has Television Personalized Voting Behavior?

Scholars and political observers have suggested that television has “personalized” voting behavior in American presidential elections by encouraging citizens to cast ballots on the basis of candidate image and personality. Though an oft-heard assertion, little solid evidence exists that this is true, and the reinvigoration of partisanship and the persistence of ideological conflict suggest personalization may be less pervasive than supposed. In this paper, I use National Election Studies data to examine whether voters are more concerned with candidates’ personal characteristics now than they were at the outset of the television era. I find, however, that voters are no more likely today to mention candidate personality as a reason for their vote choice than they were in the 1950s and 1960s. Moreover, while personality affects voting behavior, its influence on candidate choice is not significantly larger than it was a half-century ago. The results are not contingent on exposure to television or political awareness and are insensitive to different measures of perceptions of candidate image. The findings are consistent with the resurgence of partisan voting in American elections and suggest that some concerns about TV’s effects on political judgment are exaggerated.