European Culture and the European Union's ‘Turkey Question’

This article attempts to discern whether Turkey belongs to Europe's emerging pan-European cosmopolitan culture and investigates the political implications of Turkish cultural ‘otherness’. The article revisits Laitin's (2002 Laitin, David D. 2002. ‘Culture and National Identity: “The East” and European Integration’. West European Politics, 25(2): 56–80. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) suggestion that social mobility in contemporary Europe requires individuals to possess 2 ± 1 cultural repertoires. Then, drawing on analysis of Eurobarometer, World Values Survey, European Values Survey, and original datasets, it compares the cultural repertoires of citizens from four groups of European countries – the EU's founding members, countries that joined the Communities between 1973 and 1995, countries of the 2004/2007 enlargement wave, and Turkey itself. The data support the conventional wisdom that Turkey is culturally quite different from EU norms. Still, the article concludes by interrogating the political implications of this difference and suggesting that Turkey's cultural alterity does not necessarily preclude the possibility of smooth Turkish integration into the EU.     

The Life and Death of Public Organizations: A Question of Institutional Design?

Why do some public organizations grow old and others die young? Since Herbert Kaufman first posed this question, considerable research has been devoted to answering it. The findings of that research suggest that the design of new public organizations affects, to a significant degree, their survival chances. In this article, we test whether and how “design factors” affected the durability of the so‐called New Deal organizations initiated under FDR's first term. Our findings confirm that design factors do matter, but their effects change over time. We draw out some potential implications for institutional design and sketch a renewed research agenda to determine why some public organizations survive environmental pressure whereas others succumb to it.     

A Question of Culture or Economics? Public Attitudes to the European Union in Britain

Previous research has suggested that attitudes towards the European Union (EU) are shaped by two sets of considerations—economic and cultural. Using data from the 2015 British Social Attitudes survey, this article assesses which matters more in shaping attitudes in Britain towards the EU as the country prepares to vote in a referendum on whether it should remain in or leave the European Union. It shows that while concern about the cultural consequences of EU membership is widespread, voters are inclined to think that membership is economically beneficial. This cultural concern underpins a widespread scepticism about Europe, but voters are only likely to want to leave the EU if they are also convinced of the economic case for doing so.     

Who Receives Electoral Gifts? It Depends on Question Wording: Experimental Evidence from Mexico

Political Behavior - This research shows that prior studies have been based on a survey methodology that systematically underestimates vote buying. Survey questions that rely on filter questions...