Concepts of Fascism in Contemporary Russia and the West

During the 1990s, Western comparative fascist studies underwent a process of consolidation. A growing number of scholars agreed to and now use various forms of a more or less consensual definition of fascism as an extremely nationalistic and revolutionary ideology. In contrast, the conceptualisations and applications of 'fascism' in post-Soviet Russia are contradictory continuing Soviet misuse of the term. Increasing anti-democratic tendencies in Russian politics and society suggest closer attention by Western scholars to putative post-Soviet fascisms.     

A Predictive Test of Voters' Economic Benchmarking: The 2013 German Bundestag Election

Do voters judge their national economy relative to economic performance abroad? In 2013 we took advantage of the German Bundestag election to test this hypothesis predictively. Nearly two months prior to the election, we published an election forecast relying on a theory-driven empirical model of election outcomes that draws on previous election outcomes; characteristics of the government and of voters; and, most originally, the relative economic performance of Germany (‘benchmarked' growth) in comparison to the three other most important economies in Europe – France, the UK and Italy. Our forecast put the outgoing coalition government of CDU/CSU and FDP at 47.05 per cent of the popular vote deviating from the actual outcome of 46.3 by 0.75 points. This makes our forecast one of the most accurate in this election cycle. Despite one-and-a-half months of lead time, our forecast performed on par or slightly better than the last poll results issued only two days before the election.     

EU issue voting and the 2014 European Parliament elections: a dynamic perspective

EU issue voting in European Parliament elections has been shown to be highly conditional upon levels of EU politicization. The present study analyzes this conditionality over time, hypothesizing that the effect of EU attitudes on EP vote preferences is catalyzed as EP elections draw closer. In contrast to extant cross-sectional post-election studies, we use a four-wave panel study covering the six months leading up to the Dutch EP elections of 2014, differentiating between party groups (pro, anti, mixed) and five EU attitude dimensions. We find that EU issue voting occurs for both anti- and pro-EU parties, but only increases for the latter. For mixed parties we find no effect of EU attitudes, yet their support base shifts in the anti-EU direction as the elections draw closer. The overarching image, however, is one of surprising stability: EU attitudes form a consistent part of EP voting motivations even outside EP election times.     

Testing the west: Consumerism and national identity in eastern Germany

With unification, Western‐style consumerism washed over East Germany in a gigantic wave that stood in marked contrast to the socialist reality of limited supply and suppressed demands. This article examines the impact of consumerism as a repository of national identities in the new Länder in the aftermath of 1989. It argues that from a quantitative perspective East Germans firmly internalised consumerism by approximating to the consumption levels of their Western compatriots. Easterners also filled consumerism with political meaning. By buying certain products they expressed emerging regional pride, defiance against the sweeping transformation processes and a nostalgic and romanticised reference to the GDR past. These mass‐cultural expressions of national identity serve as telling indicators for the continued separation of the publics’ psyche in east and west.     

Does collusive advertising facilitate collusive pricing? Evidence from experimental duopolies

This article analyzes experimentally whether the degree of collusion for one dimension of duopolists?? interactions influences the degree of collusion for another dimension. More precisely, I will explore whether a high degree of collusion for advertisement expenditures facilitates tacit price collusion. Two environments are tested, in which the size of the spillover between advertising expenditures is varied. The results indicate that both degrees of collusion are correlated: a high degree of collusion on advertising functions as a signalling device triggering a significantly higher degree of price collusion by the opponent. Thus advertising expenditures seem to be a useful indicator for market regulators to detect non-competitive pricing.     

Die Schweizer Lokalparteien im Wandel. Aktuelle Entwicklungstendenzen gefährden die politische Stabilität

Den Lokalparteien kommt in der Schweiz nicht nur eine grosse Bedeu-tung zu, sondern sie haben auch entscheidend zur politischen Stabilität des Landes beigetragen. Nicht zuletzt dank den direktdemokratischen Einrichtungen haben sie sich bereits relativ früh herausgebildet und ei-ne grosse Verbreitung gefunden. In den letzten Jahren macht sich der politischen Wandel jedoch auch bei den Lokalparteien bemerkbar. In den kleineren Gemeinden verlieren die Lokalparteien an Bedeutung und immer mehr Parteilose nehmen Einsitz in die Gemeindeexekuti-ven. In den mittleren und grösseren Gemeinden finden sich demgegen-über vor allem gemeindespezifische Gruppierungen und kleinere Par-teien, welchen den traditionellen Parteien Konkurrenz machen, wobei die Vormachtstellung der vier Bundesratsparteien noch kaum gefährdetist. Im Hinblick auf die Zukunft der Parteien werden die Entwicklun-gen auf kommunaler Ebene nicht unwichtig sein. Ein Bedeutungsver-lust der Lokalparteien und eine Lockerung des Verhältnisses zwischen den Lokalparteien und ihren übergeordneten Parteiorganisationen wird die politische Stabilität der Schweiz wesentlich beeinträchtigen.     

Parental criticism and young adolescent self-disclosure: A cross-cultural study

Criticism by mothers and fathers, as well as young adolescents' perceptions of parental criticism and their self-disclosure to parents, was assessed for a sample of 80 families. Of these, 40 were resident in Australia (20 Anglo-Australian and 20 Greek-Australian) and 40 were resident in Greece (20 professional and 20 working-class). There were no differences between the groups in amount of criticism by parents nor in adolescents' perceptions of criticism. Greek- and Anglo-Australian adolescents disclosed significantly less to parents than did the Greek adolescents. For Greek-Australian adolescents there was an inverse relationship between self-disclosure on a number of topics and perceived levels of parental criticism. The results were interpreted in terms of cultural differences between the groups and adaptive behaviors of the Greek-Australian adolescents.This research was supported by a University of Melbourne grant to the first author.Received Ph.D. from University of Melbourne. Research interests include the social context of adolescent development.Received Ph.D. from Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. Research interest is in cognitive development through the life span.Received Ph.D. from Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. Research interest is in cognitive development through the life span.