The right to vote and nomadic voter enrolment

What model of voter enrolment is appropriate for states with nomadic minority populations? The present paper examines this question with reference to an equality-based, moral right to vote and considers four models that track some of the different institutional strategies that have been developed by states with transient populations. The paper shows that the right to vote is compatible neither with a model that makes permanent residence in a constituency an absolute condition for voter enrolment and so excludes nomads from the electoral process, nor with a model that enables nomadic voter enrolment but restricts the number of nomads that can enrol in a single constituency. But the right is, subject to certain caveats, consistent with a model that enables nomads to enrol in a constituency of their choice and, as well, with a model that enables nomads to enrol and vote in a distinct, non-territorial constituency.     

Town twinning and political support

Does town twinning foster citizens’ political support of the European Union? This study investigates the relation, which is maintained in politics and academics but still calls for empirical evidence. We distinguish between two levels of analysis, namely individual and context level, and differentiate in accordance with David Easton’s modes of political support specific from diffuse support. The corresponding hypotheses are tested with a unique dataset, which embraces survey findings of more than 12,000 respondents from 28 randomly selected municipalities in Germany. The main conclusions that emerge from the analysis are: First, town twinning does promote political support of the European Union on the individual level. Second, there are positive effects on specific and diffuse support. Thirdly, there is no relationship between local activity in twinning affairs and political support.     

Negotiating justice: legal pluralism and gender-based violence in Liberia

The plural legal system in post-conflict Liberia expresses tensions between modern and customary institutions. This article seeks to understand how Liberians navigate choices in the plural legal system to address gender-based violence cases. By asking how and why people make the choices they do, we highlight how Liberians solve tensions between institutions, by creating flexible categories that allow them to pursue a course of action that does not compromise their ability to access social networks and resources.     

Dealing with Austerity: a case of local resilience in Southern Europe

Southern countries are undergoing a severe economic crisis that has renewed debates about the available strategies to economise their public resources. Political leaders have launched a wide range of different strategies aimed at reducing spending. According to generally accepted political discourse, drastic actions should be taken to guarantee economic and financial sustainability in times of austerity. We explore the main measures adopted by Spanish municipalities in order to examine their impact in budgetary terms. First of all, we identify the most frequently implemented mechanisms including organisational structure, public services and operational economic restructuration. After their quantification, we monitor the presence and impact of each set of policies to analyse the relationship between concrete measures and effective economic impact. The effective reduction of budgets is being implemented but data show that local governments are resilient to non-compulsory changes. The ‘government at a distance’ policy pursued by the central state administration has effectively reduced budgets but has not affected the institutional core of Spanish local governments.     

Gender and Vernaculars in Digital Humanities and World Literature

Abstract

This article discusses the large-scale and world-encompassing aspirations of digital humanities and world literature and their methodological accordance with the analysis of literature in smaller languages and of texts understood in social, transnational, and gendered contexts. Are Digital Humanities and World Literature establishing themselves as fields utilizing analytical tools that are at odds with the aims and perspectives of feminist literary history and reception history as a part of literary history? We argue that gender research and theory is insufficiently developed in both computational literary history and World Literature. An unproblematic understanding of translations, canonization, English as a global language, and the use of large-scale computational methods and formalized interpretive models is in many cases not beneficial for the understanding of texts by women writers or from feminist perspectives. Drawing on feminist criticism of computational methods and arguments for specialized rather than generalized knowledge about literary history, we propose that digitization in some form, be it a bibliographical database or digitization of a corpus of texts, may be thought of as part of the research process in projects oriented towards gender and cultural exchange.     

Elektorale Responsivität als Kriterium zur Beurteilung des deutschen Bundestagswahlrechts

We argue that plurality systems strengthen the accountability of governments towards the electorate while proportional systems lead to a broad representation of voter interests in parliament and coalition governments. We demonstrate these effects in an analysis of all German federal elections from 1949 to 2017 using first-tier votes and directly elected deputies as reflecting the plurality segment and second-tier votes and the seat shares of parties as reflecting the proportional representation segment. We show that the percentages of directly elected deputies react more to differences in perceived party competences (party valences) than the percentages of all party deputies. Electoral system reforms should take into account the effects of both parts of the German electoral system.     

The Challenges to Cooperation Posed by the Nexus of Terrorism and Organized Crime: Comparing the Situations Between the Andean and the Sahel Regions

The recent conflict in the Sahel area is another case where the nexus of terrorism and organized crime causes challenges to the international community. Comparing the situation with that of the Andean region brings forth the challenges faced when dealing with this type of conflict: the states’ weak presence in the remote regions, the insurgents’ ability to offer income and “security” to the people, immediate threat to international investments, unresolved political/regional issues, the marriage of convenience of insurgents/terrorists and organized crime, internal divisions of the insurgent groups and also ideologies surviving or suffering after the elimination of their leaders.     

Drilling Deeper: A Systematic,Context-Sensitive Investigation of Causal Mechanisms in the Oil–Conflict Link

Abstract

This article employs an innovative methodology to study causal mechanisms in the oil–conflict link by combining a systematic approach with taking into account country details. Engaging in a deductive test of causal mechanisms in a controlled comparison of four major oil exporters, results show that no oil-related causal mechanism can fully explain the differences in violence. A more inductive analysis complemented by process tracing suggests a more comprehensive mechanism: oil contributes to the formation of opposition through grievances. Levels of violence, however, vary largely according to non-oil conditions – particularly the cohesiveness of opposition and the reaction of government to challengers.