Small winners and big losers: strategic party behaviour in the 2017 Dutch general election

Abstract

This article analyses party strategies during the campaign for the Dutch general election of March 2017, making use of issue-yield theory. It investigates whether parties strategically emphasise high-yield issues, by juxtaposing the issue opportunities provided by voters with parties’ issue emphasis during the campaign. More specifically, it asks whether parties strategically emphasised issues that were expected to reward them electorally. Analysing voter preferences and party campaign data, it is found that parties and most of their constituencies show high ideological consistency, that parties emphasise mostly positional issues and thus choose a conflict-mobilising strategy, and that most parties emphasise high-yield issues rather than following the general political agenda. Four small parties that won significantly behaved strategically while the social democrats – who severely lost – hardly did. The findings imply that the issue-yield framework can help to explain the election result in the fragmented Dutch multi-party context.     

Public servants’ appreciation for themes in public administration scholarship

One of the defining characteristics of Canadian Public Administration is its singular coverage of topics. In this research, we extend Wake Carroll and Kpessa’s (2007) work to see if the themes found in Canadian Public Administration (CPA) for the 2008‐2016 period are in line with the topics published for the 2000‐2006 period. We also compare the contemporary topics published in CPA to the Australian Journal of Public Administration (AJPA). We then surveyed Canadian public servants about their interests. Our results show that they express more interest towards the themes published in CPA in the last decade than during 2001‐2006, and more interest than the ones published in AJPA in the last decade.     

Federalism and university governance in Canada

There is increasing interest in how universities are governed, externally and internally (Austin and Jones 2016). Drawing on a comparative case study of the governance of six major Canadian universities and the literature, this article describes the impact of federal research and innovation policy and programs on universities and reflects on Ottawa's role. We suggest that the federal government participates in the external governance of universities, but in a way that differs significantly from provincial governments. Canadian federalism appears to be generally beneficial for university autonomy and examination of its operation sheds light on factors that enable universities to sustain their autonomy.     

The Role of Stressful Parenting and Mineralocorticoid Receptor Haplotypes on Social Development During Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - The development of social behavior could be affected by stressful parenting. The mineralocorticoid receptor, one of the two main receptors for the stress hormone...     

EU referendums in context: What can we learn from the Swiss case?

The rising number of referendums on EU matters, such as the Brexit and the Catalonian independence votes, highlight the increasing importance of referendums as a problem‐solving mechanism in the EU. We argue that the Swiss case provides essential insights into understanding the dynamics behind referendums, which are often lacking when referendums are called for in the EU. Referendums in EU member states on EU matters differ substantially from those in the Swiss context. Nevertheless, proponents of more direct democratic decision‐making regularly cite the Swiss example. Our systematic analysis of why referendums are called, how they unfold and their effects in the EU and Switzerland reveals that the EU polity lacks the crucial conditions that embed direct democracy within the wider political and institutional system. The comparative perspective offers fundamental insights into the preconditions required for direct democracy to function and its limitations in the EU.     

Adding rooms onto a house we love: Central banking after the global financial crisis

This article examines the extent to which central bankers have been willing and able to rethink their beliefs about monetary policy in the wake of the global financial crisis. We show that despite the upheaval, the core pre‐crisis monetary policy paradigm remains relatively intact: central bankers believe that they should primarily pursue price stability through targeting a low inflation rate in a transparent manner, and that they need operational independence in order to achieve this goal. In a bid to address post‐crisis conditions and maintain their credibility, however, central bankers have also layered new elements onto this paradigmatic core. We document both the resilience of pre‐crisis beliefs and the process of layering using computer‐assisted text analysis and qualitative analysis of 13,586 speeches given between 1997 and 2017 by central bankers from around the world.     

How empowering leadership reduces employee silence in public organizations

The intentional withholding of critical work‐related information can have serious negative consequences in public organizations. Yet, few studies have examined why public employees intentionally remain silent about problems and how to prevent such behaviour. This article provides insights into how managers may lower employee silence in government organizations. We develop a model that suggests that empowering leadership by frontline supervisors reduces public employee silence, by improving employee trust in their supervisors, granting employees control over their jobs, and strengthening identification with the organization. We test the model in two cross‐sectional studies with data collected from all employees working in two local governments in the United States. We find empirical support for the model in both studies. We discuss the implications of the research results for public management scholarship and practice.