'Ideal Types' of Referendum Behaviour

Referendums represent a special variant of political elections. Although it must be assumed that the behaviour of voting in referendums is determined by a range of factors identical to those that are operative in other contests, it can be asked to what extent referendum voting behaviour is sensitive to active campaigning on the part of political parties and organized groups. It may add to our understanding of referendums, therefore, to analyze them in terms of three 'ideal types': party-structured, group-structured, and unstructured contests. Illustrations taken from certain recent referendums support the argument that it is useful to consider the extent to which these ideal types are in evidence - alone or in combination - when explaining referendum voting behaviour.     

The discursive micro-politics of blame avoidance: unpacking the language of government blame games

Policymakers often engage in blame avoidance behaviour that affects the ways in which they structure their organisations, adopt policies and operating routines, and present their work to the public. The linguistic aspects of such behaviour have received relatively little academic attention. In this paper, I seek to advance blame avoidance scholarship by introducing to its analytical toolbox useful conceptual instruments from linguistically informed discourse studies. Based on a multidisciplinary literature review, I show how the discursive study of policy-related blame games is situated within the wider scholarship dealing with a variety of blame phenomena. I provide an inventory of the micro-level building blocks of blame games: discursive strategies of persuasion, and narratives of cause, failure, and scandal. I suggest that by treating government blame games as mediated ‘language games’, policy scholars can complement the analysis of various political variables traditionally discussed in policy literature with detailed understanding of the micro-politics of presentational blame avoidance.     

Elections, Referendums, and Public Goods

In this article the question of misrepresentation of preferences on the part of politicians is discussed. Some examples of such misrepresentation are given, and it is asked whether the effect was counterproductive or not for the party concerned. The effect on society as a whole is touched upon briefly in the final section.     

Accountability and psychiatric disorders: How do forensic psychiatric professionals think?

Swedish penal law does not exculpate on the grounds of diminished accountability; persons judged to suffer from severe mental disorder are sentenced to forensic psychiatric care instead of prison. Re-introduction of accountability as a condition for legal responsibility has been advocated, not least by forensic psychiatric professionals. To investigate how professionals in forensic psychiatry would assess degree of accountability based on psychiatric diagnoses and case vignettes, 30 psychiatrists, 30 psychologists, 45 nurses, and 45 ward attendants from five forensic psychiatric clinics were interviewed. They were asked (i) to judge to which degree (on a dimensional scale from 1 to 5) each of 12 psychiatric diagnoses might affect accountability, (ii) to assess accountability from five case vignettes, and (iii) to list further factors they regarded as relevant for their assessment of accountability. All informants accepted to provide a dimensional assessment of accountability on this basis and consistently found most types of mental disorders to reduce accountability, especially psychotic disorders and dementia. Other factors thought to be relevant were substance abuse, social network, personality traits, social stress, and level of education.     

Peripheral or Powerful? The European Union's Strategy to Combat the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

Abstract

The European Union has since 2003 developed both a security and a Weapons of Mass Destruction strategy, and it has become the primary interlocutor of Iran in the dispute related to Iran's nuclear development. These are signs of significant policy progress. However, the fact that four years of nuclear diplomacy have brought few results invites a critical appraisal of EU strategy. This essay undertakes this appraisal, arguing that the EU is notably ambivalent regarding its underlying conception of international order. The EU wishes to be pluralist (in the tradition of sovereign equality), but is also anti-pluralist (in the liberal–democratic tradition). The essay lays out how the EU has coped with pressures for reform—arising notably from the United States—within the current international nuclear non-proliferation regime, and how this has made the EU problem apparent. The essay finally suggests that to salvage its policy of effective multilateralism the EU must acknowledge its anti-pluralist bias and promote a common transatlantic approach to nuclear non-proliferation.     

Elections presidential and parliamentary: Contrasts and connections

Different systems have been adopted for the popular election of a President. A comparison shows that the workings of parliamentary electoral systems and the behaviour of voters in legislative elections will be influenced by the fact that the head of state is chosen by the people. Certain aspects of this influence can be seen with particular clarity when a military hero steps forward as presidential candidate. The three cases of Hindenburg in Weimar Germany, Eisenhower in the United States and de Gaulle in France are compared.