On referendum voting in Italy: YES, NO or non–vote? How Italian parties learned to control referendums

Abstract. National referendums progressively became a part of Italian political life in the last three decades of the twentieth century. The increased use made of them came as a genuine surprise. Some 53 issues were put before the electorate between 1970 and 2000, the majority following citizen petitions, with a smaller number promoted by regional councils. The so–called 'abrogative referendum,' conceived as a sort of modern–day veto, proved to be a multi–use political tool wielded predominantly by the Radical Party, a political movement largely outside the Italian party system. Parties were the main actors in referendums as far as the mobilisation of voters was concerned. Indeed, the parties gave birth to a variety of alignments, some supporting mobilisation and competition, while others encouraged abstension and effective demobilisation. By virtue mainly of the constitutional rule that requires 50 per cent turnout for the result to be valid, the vote on 18 issues was declared void. Many lessons can be learned from the Italian experience, and one in particular is of special interest to all who value the survival of liberal democracies: all electors are equal, but in referendums non–voters are more equal than the voters.     

Institutional trustworthiness and national security governance: Evidence from six European countries

This article examines the relationship between the institutional trustworthiness of security agencies in the context of data‐intensive security practices. It focuses on the public's acceptance of the way digital surveillance technologies feed into large‐scale security data analytics. Using the case of deep packet inspection (DPI), survey data gathered in six European countries (n = 1,202) demonstrates that security agencies' institutional trustworthiness directly and indirectly influences public acceptance of DPI. Against a backdrop of declining public trust in government and a climate of intense international terrorist threat, governments around the world are appealing to citizens to trade privacy for enhanced security. This article supports calls for security agencies and their respective governments to engage with the democratic process to enrich security and privacy at all levels of public security governance and for the common good.     

Bear attack--A unique fatality in Finland

Fatalities due to animal bites, the vast majority of which are associated with dogs and big cats, are relatively uncommon and rarely described in the literature. Especially rare are fatal bear attacks on humans. We herein present a forensic investigation of a fatal assault, involving numerous bites on a 42-year-old man in Finland by an European brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos).     

Explaining the impact of new parties in the Western European party systems

ABSTRACT

In recent years, and particularly following the impact of the “great recession”, Western European party systems have undergone profound change. New parties have emerged and been successful, thus radically changing the structure of inter-party competition. So far, research on new parties has been mainly conducted from party-level and election-centred perspectives. Here, instead, we focus on party system innovation (PSInn), meaning the impact of new parties on Western European party systems, and on the factors that explain such impact, by adopting a systemic perspective and taking into account all the arenas where inter-party competition takes place (i.e. elections, parliaments and governments). For this purpose, this article relies on an original dataset on the performances of new parties in terms of votes, seats, and ministerial posts, covering about 350 elections and 670 governments in 20 countries, over the period 1945–2017. The results of the analysis show a notable increase in PSInn over the last decade, in particular with regard to the electoral and parliamentary arenas. Moreover, data show that PSInn in the electoral and the parliamentary arenas is mainly predicted by turnout change, while in the governmental arena is instead driven by the country’s economic performance.     

Elite Co-optation,Repression, and Coups in Autocracies

This article provides an explanation for the significant variation in coups in autocracies. The existing theoretical literature focuses on the strategies that leaders use to thwart mass mobilization and survive in power. However, most autocratic leaders lose power through a coup, indicating that the main threats to political survival in autocracies emerge from insiders and not from outside the incumbent coalition. This article focuses on leaders’ strategies to mitigate elite threats and argues that autocrats’ strategies of co-optation and repression within the ruling elite and the armed forces affect the risk of coups in opposite ways. Elected authoritarian legislatures are instruments that leaders employ to co-opt members of the incumbent coalition and are expected to decrease the likelihood of coups. In contrast, purges of insider actors constitute a repressive strategy that depletes bases of support and increases the risk of coups. We find empirical support for these hypotheses from a sample of all authoritarian regimes from 1950 to 2004.     

From intergovernmental to global: UNESCO’s response to globalization

Whilst there is an ever-growing literature on the economic and political aspects of ‘globalization,’ at present there are few studies analyzing how intergovernmental organizations have reacted to this phenomenon. This article aims to fill this gap by analyzing the response to globalization of UNESCO, one of the least studied organizations of the UN constellation. Addressing the global orientation of some of the current programs, this article shows how a recent re-evaluation of scientific humanism—the main philosophical framework contributing to the creation of UNESCO—has influenced both UNESCO’s self-understanding and its understanding of globalization. Scientific humanism is a philosophical utopia that couples the advance of scientific knowledge with the diffusion of a common philosophical framework and promotes a universal system of education in order to establish a global community. Based on the philosophical appeal of a culture of peace based on science, humanism and human rights, UNESCO’s representation of globalization represents an intriguing example of how our global future may be conceived and, to some extent, realized.

The contract theory of patents

Two distinct theories of patents, the “reward theory” and the “contract theory,” are customarily adopted by the courts to justify the patent system. The reward theory maintains that the function of the patent system is to remunerate successful innovators so as to encourage R&D effort. In contrast, the contract theory holds that the function of the patent system is to promote the diffusion of innovative knowledge. Assuming that in the absence of patent protection innovators would rely on trade secrecy, it views patents as a contract between innovators and society whereby a property right is granted in exchange for disclosure.This paper develops an economic analysis of the contract theory of patents. To disentangle the disclosure from the reward motive for granting patents, we assume that the innovation process is entirely serendipitous, so that R&D effort is not a concern. Our main finding is that the disclosure motive alone suffices to justify the grant of patents. The optimal patent duration should strike a balance between the incentive to induce disclosure and the aim of limiting the monopoly distortion induced by patents.