The Life and Death of New Political Parties in the Low Countries

Numerous new parties have emerged since voters became less loyal to established political parties. A number of these survived and have been analysed intensely, especially green and radical right parties; many other new parties disappeared and have been neglected by party research. This article analyses the fate of all 30 political parties that entered parliament in the Netherlands or Belgium between 1950 and 2003. Qualitative comparative analysis is used to identify characteristics of both surviving and disappeared new parties. Conditions related to party origin (roots in civil society, organisational newness, initial programmatic profile) are scrutinised, as are conditions pertaining to the party’s developmental process (party organisational strength and the occurrence of defections or party splits). Surviving parties are characterised by strong, rooted organisations that have not suffered defections. Most disappeared parties lacked a strong organisation and roots and have experienced shocks that they could not absorb. Organisational newness makes new parties vulnerable.     

The Effects of Congruence in Policy Priorities on Satisfaction with Democracy

There is widespread agreement that better policy representation increases citizens’ satisfaction with democracy. Previous research on this topic has generally focused on ideological congruence between citizens and representatives. In this article, it is argued that public–elite agreement on policy priorities is another essential aspect of policy representation, but has been largely overlooked in this context. Citizens whose issue concerns are higher on elites’ agendas should be more satisfied with the functioning of democracy. This hypothesis is tested by linking voter survey data to candidate survey and news media content data from the 2009 German Longitudinal Election Study. The results show that citizens whose issue concerns are salient amongst party candidates and in the media campaign coverage are indeed more satisfied with democracy in their country. This effect exists not only for congruence with the party for which individuals voted, but also for agreement with the other parties.     

The Political Consequences of External Economic Shocks: Evidence from Poland

How do external economic shocks influence domestic politics? We argue that those materially exposed to the shock will display systematic differences in policy preferences and voting behavior compared to the unexposed, and political parties can exploit these circumstances. Empirically, we take advantage of the 2015 surprise revaluation of the Swiss franc to identify the Polish citizens with direct economic exposure to this exogenous event. Using an original survey fielded prior to the 2015 elections and an embedded survey experiment, we show that exposed individuals were more likely to demand government support and more likely to desert the government and vote for the largest opposition party, which was able to use the shock to expand its electoral coalition without alienating its core voters. Our article clarifies the connection between international shocks, voters’ policy preferences, partisan policy responses, and, ultimately, voting decisions.     

Imagining Mary in Theology and Visual Culture: Between Constraint and Resistance

This contribution focuses on the Virgin Mary’s continued relevance as a polyvalent signifier that straddles the secular-religious divide. Interlacing feminist theology and visual studies, I trace Mary’s ambiguous significance between oppression and liberation, and between religious and secular realms in texts and images. The extended analysis of the contemporary transformation of the traditional motif of the Guadalupe in the digital collage Our Lady (1999) by Chicana artist Alma López shows that contemporary reimaginations of Mary as a self-confident woman at one with her body and sexuality both echo and reinforce tendencies in feminist theology. Combining religious and cultural dimensions, the work and reactions to it uncover the intricate ways in which religion has shaped and continues to shape cultural views of gender, both in terms of consolidating a binary, hierarchical gender order and providing a source of alternative visions.     

‘We are this hybrid’: Members’ search for organizational identity in an institutionalized public–private partnership

There has been significant scholarly interest in organizational hybridity, the combination of multiple institutional logics in one entity. However, the extant research has mainly studied the implications for organizations and individuals, neglecting the challenges for organizational members as a collective. To mitigate, this article examines how members of a British institutionalized public–private partnership grapple with the question of what their organization may be, highlighting the confusion they are experiencing and their attempts to overcome it. Drawing on the concept of organizational identity (theorized as the outcome of collective sensemaking), the analysis identifies two mechanisms that recursively connect the organization and its members. Relational positioning draws on possible configurations of institutional logics and associated identity resources while discursive framing captures members’ hopes and expectations. The main contribution of this article is a better understanding of collective sensemaking in hybrid organizations in the light of institutional complexity.     

Väter in Elternzeit. Deutungen,Aushandlungen und Bewertungen von Familien- und Erwerbsarbeit im Paar

Berliner Journal für Soziologie - Der Anteil von Vätern, die Elternzeit beanspruchen, ist mittlerweile auf über ein Drittel angestiegen. Der Beitrag analysiert Deutungen...     

Dating ivory by determination of 14C, 90Sr and 228/232Th

A method is described to determine the time of death of elephants. This is accomplished by analysis of the radionuclides 14C, 90Sr and 228/232Th in known samples of ivory, and in samples of unknown age. The reliability of this method is considerably increased by multi nuclide analysis.     

Mind This Gap,Too: Political Orientations of People with Disabilities in Europe

Political Behavior - People with disabilities constitute one of the largest minority groups in Europe, and yet our knowledge about how they relate to the political system remains limited. In...     

German Voters in Times of Crisis: The Impact of Perceptions and Economic Context on Electoral Behaviour

This paper analyses the connection between economic context, voters’ individual assessment of the economy, and party identification, taking the German national elections of 2009 as an example. Based on the results of multinomial and multilevel regression models, the article shows that partisanship moderates how the economy affects the vote. In cases of increasing unemployment in the constituency, voters are less likely to vote for the Social Democrats instead of the CDU and the opposition. This effect is particularly strong amongst voters who report that they identify with the Social Democrats. Regarding the effect of voters’ assessment of the national economy, the results are different. In this case, a better evaluation of the regional economy increases the probability to vote for right-wing parties – notably amongst voters without partisanship. These findings suggest that the moderating effect of partisanship on the economy’s impact on voting behaviour should not be overestimated. What is more, this analysis implies that research on economic voting should always account for both contextual factors and voters’ personal assessment of the economy, as these measures reveal different dimensions of economic voting.