Book reviews and notes

Europe’s woes mark a new chapter in the longstanding theory/history nexus in European studies. The euro crisis has brought integration theory back onto the scholarly agenda and highlighted the value of neo-functionalism – and more precisely its key ‘spillover’ mechanism – as a framework for interpreting current politico-institutional dynamics in the European Union. We are, however, at a particular point of the neo-functionalist narration, in which the transition from low to high political integration has opened a phase of political fluidity that makes ideas and political leadership crucial in determining the future course of integration. In this phase, the positive scheme of neo-functionalism and the normative one of federalism come together, bringing the intellectual trajectory begun after WWII to full circle. Whether this new encounter will result in further integration depends primarily on the content of new federalist ideas, the emergence of an effective European leadership, and the presence of a favourable international environment. For all three factors, the record so far has been mixed at best.     

Ambient accountability: intelligence services in Europe and the decline of state secrecy

Abstract

In the 1990s, judgments in the European Court of Human Rights concerning state surveillance forced many West European countries to introduce new parliamentary bodies and formal systems for accountability. Promising both greater transparency and lawful intelligence, these frameworks were then energetically rolled out to Central and Eastern Europe. Although officials boasted about their effectiveness, these formal accountability mechanisms have failed to identify serious abuses over the last decade. Moreover, the security regime in much of Central Europe still remains largely unreconstructed. The article argues that a robust culture of accountability cannot be conjured into existence merely by introducing new laws and regulations, or indeed by the increasing tide of media revelations about intelligence. However, it suggests that we are now seeing the rise of a more complex pattern of ‘ambient accountability’ which is at last challenging the secret state across Europe.     

Can Political Participation Prevent Crime? Results from a Field Experiment About Citizenship,Participation, and Criminality

Democratic theory and prior empirical work support the view that political participation, by promoting social integration and pro-social attitudes, reduces one’s propensity for anti-social behavior, such as committing crimes. Previous investigations examine observational data, which are vulnerable to bias if omitted factors affect both propensity to participate and risk of criminality or their reports. A field experiment encouraging 552,525 subjects aged 18–20 to register and vote confirms previous observational findings of the negative association between participation and subsequent criminality. However, comparing randomly formed treatment and control groups reveals that the intervention increased participation but did not reduce subsequent criminality. Our results suggest that while participation is correlated with criminality, it exerts no causal effect on subsequent criminal behavior.     

Do Means of Program Delivery and Distributional Consequences Affect Policy Support? Experimental Evidence About the Sources of Citizens’ Policy Opinions

Political Behavior - Recent scholarship argues that citizens’ support for specific government programs in the United States is affected by the means through which benefits are delivered as...     

“Without Flinching”: Facing up to Race in Liberal Italy

This article examines the development of racial discourses in Italy during the process of unification and in the following years with respect to some of the fundamental issues experienced by and facing the new nation. Anthropologists and criminologists proselytised the new “science” purporting to have discovered a novel hermeneutic for how Italy should be imagined, moulded and propelled into the future. In this article, the test case provided for how race was engaged within the Italy emerging out of the process of unification is that of the “Assabesi”, six black inhabitants of the small tract of land Italy had acquired in Africa in 1869, who were brought to Italy and displayed at the 1884 National Exhibition held in Turin. As Italy embarked on a period of extended colonial expansion, the questions of race, otherness, citizenship and boundaries became ever more pressing. Through an examination of the vicissitudes and debates surrounding the Assabesi's sojourn in Italy, the article seeks to demonstrate that while racism was one option in how Italy's new black subjects could be categorised and eventually ruled, it always had to contend with powerful and sustained counter‐arguments.     

Experimente in der Politikwissenschaft: Vom Mauerblümchen zum Mainstream

The use of experimental research designs is on the rise. Internationally, experiments are becoming ever more established in the field, as shown by the increasing number of journal articles, books, and conferences. In German political science, however, using experimental methods is still rather uncommon. After a (brief) discussion of the relevance of experiments for political science, we will—in general terms—introduce the logic of experimental research as well as different types of experiments. Then we shall provide a (selective) overview of experimental research in political science that has been conducted: First, we cursorily review the state of (experimental) research done in the fields of elections and public opinion, public goods and collective action, social trust and finally legislative bargaining and decision-making. Following that, we discuss in greater detail the field experimental strand of research studying voter mobilization.