International democracy promotion and democratization in the Middle East and North Africa

This article offers an overview of the literature on international democracy promotion in relation to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It draws on the criteria of process tracing to evaluate the mechanisms, processes and episodes of democratization associated with international democracy promotion in the region. It finds that the literature lacks a clear account of how international democracy promotion relates to conditions for democratization and could pay greater attention to the role of media in either supporting or counteracting democracy promotion activities which impact democratization processes in the region.     

Rethinking the Tunisian miracle: a party politics view

Five years on from the Tunisian revolution, Tunisia stands as the sole success story of the Arab Spring. The country since then has managed to adopt a pluralist and democratic constitution, and held three free and fair elections. Accordingly, in the eyes of several observers, Tunisia is now in the process of consolidating its new democracy. However, the reality on the ground seems much gloomier, as most recent opinion surveys suggest that there is a significant degree of dissatisfaction, not only with political parties and Parliament but also with the very institution of democracy. Nevertheless, what accounts for this change? After the collapse of the long-lasting and oppressive Ben Ali regime, how, just in five years, has Tunisians’ confidence in the democratic process changed? This article accounts for this state of affairs from a party politics view, arguing that political parties, which are the main protagonists of the consolidation process, fail to fulfill their role of acquiring legitimacy for the new regime. While party–state relations seem to be stabilized due to the inclusiveness of the constitution-making process, both inter-party relationships and the relationship between parties and society suffer from numerous flaws which, in turn, hamper the democratic consolidation process.     

Changing Owners,Changing Content: Does Who Owns the News Matter for the News?

The press is essential for creating an informed citizenry, but its existence depends on attracting and maintaining an audience. It is unclear whether supply-side effects—including those dictated by the owners of the media—influence how the media cover politics, yet this question is essential given their abilities to set the agenda and frame issues that are covered. We examine how ownership influences media behavior by investigating the impact of Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in August 2007. We collect data on every front-page story and editorial for 27 months, and we compare the difference in political coverage between the New York Times (NYT) and WSJ using a difference-in-differences design. We show that the amount of political content in the opinion pages of the two papers were unchanged by the sale, but the WSJ’s front-page coverage of politics increased markedly relative to the NYT. Similar patterns emerge when comparing the WSJ’s content to USA Today and the Washington Post. Our finding highlights potential limits to journalists’ ability to fulfill their supposed watchdog role in democracies without interference from owners in the boardroom.     

Consequences of Forced Residential Relocation: Early Impacts of Urban Renewal Strategies on Forced Relocatees’ Housing Opportunities and Socioeconomic Outcomes

Policymakers have actively pursued urban renewal and dispersal programs to deconcentrate poverty in urban neighborhoods. Relocation strategies lead to new housing opportunities and may encourage employment opportunities for relocated residents if resourceful contacts and job information become more easily available after the move. This study provides an innovative evaluation of the early impacts of involuntary relocation programs in the Netherlands on the housing careers, earnings and employment rates of forced relocatees. It establishes a quasi-experimental design by employing unique longitudinal individual-level population registry data from Statistics Netherlands: forced relocatees are tracked and matched to a control group consisting of similar residents that were not forced to move. A difference-in-difference design shows that forced relocatees are living in less deprived neighborhoods after the move. However, we find no conclusive evidence that this upgrade in housing leads to more socioeconomic opportunities for the forced relocatees.     

Introduction: Ideology,Propaganda, and Political Discourse in the Xi Jinping Era

The ideology, propaganda, and political discourse of the Communist Party of China (CPC) have continued to function as key elements of the political system of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the post-Maoist period since 1978. In the first term of the Xi Jinping leadership (2012–2017), the CPC, for instance, elaborated on its guiding ideological concepts, devised inventive ideational framings of phenomena usually perceived as tangible (such as the “New Normal”), engaged in complex intellectual debates on crucial topics (such as “eco-civilization”), intensified and diversified its argumentation patterns and discursive strategies, and consolidated ideational governance over some citizens’ individual values, beliefs, and loyalties. Furthermore, it is often no longer possible to differentiate between the CPC’s internal and external propaganda, as seemingly exclusively domestic ideational and discursive issues increasingly correlate with international phenomena. However, the trends in the Xi era do not present paradigmatic shifts, but rather an overall reassertion-cum-innovation of previous Maoist and post-Maoist uses of ideology, propaganda, and political discourse, primarily aiming at strengthening one-party rule.     

Whose New Normal? Framing the Economic Slowdown Under Xi Jinping

After decades of double-digit economic growth, China experienced a significant drop in GDP growth rates in the wake of the global financial crisis. For the new Chinese leadership under Xi Jinping, who had assumed power in the fall of 2012, analysts predicted a looming crisis due to the alleged decline in the regime’s performance legitimacy. This article argues against a mechanistic application of the notion of performance legitimacy. Instead, it proposes to take into account the role of ideology in mediating public perceptions of regime performance. By tracking the career of the concept of “new normal” in Chinese public discourse over a period of three years – from late 2013 to late 2016 – it shows how the economic slowdown has been framed in ways conducive to the reproduction of regime legitimacy. The findings suggest an intense process of ideological contestation and decontestation, in which the domestic reflection of foreign audiences and their recognition of the Chinese regime’s performance have gained in importance.