German parties and internet campaigning in the 2002 federal election

This article examines German national parties' use of the Internet in the 2002 federal election. Its main goals are to determine what the parties were doing in their online campaigns and how far their use of the Internet can be understood in terms of two party-specific variables – organisational size and primary goal. These questions are of significance given the relatively limited study of parties' use of the net in Germany in the comparative literature on this topic. Also, research on parties' use of the Web across countries has suggested that while context does produce differences in approach, partyspecific factors also play a major role in determining online strategy. The article attempts to investigate these questions systematically by examining nine German parties' use of the Internet (specifically websites, e-mail, and intra-nets) using questionnaire data from national party personnel and content analysis of web pages. Our findings show that while the divide between major and minor parties can be seen quite clearly in the German context in terms of website quality and visibility, evidence to support the impact of party outlook in shaping parties' online strategy can also be found. In addition, the study reveals that major parties are now beginning to take the Internet very seriously as a communication tool, particularly in terms of election campaigning.     

The impact of disability on partnership formation in Sweden during 1990-2009

ABSTRACT

Evidence suggests that disability negatively affects people’s propensity to find a partner. Persons with disabilities that eventually find a partner do so later in life compared to the average population. There is a lack of studies on the differences in partnership opportunities for persons with disabilities compared to those without disabilities in Sweden. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of disability on partnership formation and to assess whether partnership formation varies as a function of individual demographic and socio-economic factors. We use nationwide data available in the Swedish Initiative for Research on Microdata in Social and Medical Sciences (Umeå SIMSAM Lab). We follow persons born from 1973 to 1977 when they were from 16 to 37 years of age and analyze their data using logistic regression. Our findings indicate that regardless of whether a person started to receive a disability pension at an early age or later, it was associated with lower odds for partnership formation. For persons who started receiving disability pension from 16 to 20 years of age, chances for partnership formation reduced with increase in age of partnership. Individuals that started to receive disability pension later were more likely to form partnership prior to receiving disability pension. Partnership formation was less likely among persons born outside Sweden, in persons with mothers born outside Sweden, in individuals born by unmarried mothers and in persons, whose mothers had a high level of education. Partnership was high among women and among persons who had many maternal siblings. In conclusion, receiving disability pension was associated with reduced chances for partnership formation. Receiving disability pension might imply financial constraints that negatively influence partnership formation supporting Oppenheimer’s theory on the economic cost of marriage and the uncertainty hypothesis.     

An Ontology of Global Order? Heidegger,Laclau, and Political Difference

The question of ontology in thinking about global order(s) remains largely unexplored in International Relations (IR) theory. By reviewing the Heideggerian ontological difference and Laclauian postfoundational outlook, this article reconstructs how to conceive of global order(s) from an ontological perspective. The logical conjunction of the strictly philosophical and the political in Heideggerian-Laclauian postfoundational thought leads to two central claims:

1. An ontology of order is impossible because order has not per se a factual side or an essence. Rather, order is always only a contingent manifestation of the historically specific investment of its ordering function.

2. There can be no ontologically prior universal order. Yet an always already failing structuration is not necessarily a failure in its negative connotation. Going beyond the confines of ontological fixity, the failing global order(s) come(s) to terms with challenges of politicization, decision, responsibility, and the need for political contestation.

     

Patterns of intra-election volatility: the impact of political knowledge*

One key trend changing political environments across advanced industrial democracies is increasing electoral volatility. Despite extensive research, at the individual level we still know relatively little about the mechanisms behind electoral volatility during election campaigns, including the impact of political knowledge. Against this background and based on a four-wave panel study in the context of the 2014 Swedish national election, the purpose of this paper is to investigate (a) patterns of intra-election volatility and the impact of (b) political knowledge on patterns of electoral volatility. Distinguishing between party alienation, crystallization, wavering, reinforcement, and conversion, among other things, findings show some effects from political knowledge on patterns of electoral volatility but only for acquired political knowledge.     

Australian Labor as a Federal Organisation: State Uniformity or Distinctiveness?

Is the Australian Labor Party (ALP) one party, or eight? Academic accounts of the ALP throughout its history have emphasised the importance of state-based policy-making and organisation as evidence that the “life of the party” occurs within state and territory branches. However, over the last three decades, changes to the national conference and constitution, the increasing prominence of national leaders and the professionalisation of campaigning practices have arguably created the conditions for a far more centralised organisation, raising the question of whether, in 2019, there is anything distinctive about the ALP state and territory branches beyond the jurisdictions in which they operate. In this article, we investigate the distinctiveness of state Labor branches in terms of their formal organisational diversity and the characteristics and attitudes of their supporters. Using data from an original survey of Australian party supporters conducted in 2016, as well as undertaking an analysis of formal party rules, we show that the ALP exhibits a high degree of organisational uniformity across its branches, and supporters of the party in all states and territories very closely resemble each other. We conclude that even though the party maintains a federal structure it is possible to study its supportership and formal structure as a national organisation.     

Liang Tang,China’s Authoritarian Path to Development: Is Democratization Possible?

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

More Bang for the Buck: Media Freedom and Organizational Strategies in the Agenda-Setting of Human Rights Groups

Studies investigating the agenda-setting of human rights groups disagree on both their prospects of garnering political attention, and the factors that help them in that quest. This study makes the argument that we need to take account of both macro-institutional opportunity structures and actor-level strategies in order to gain a more complete understanding of the group-media interface. Specifically, it posits that the urgency of social problems only drives media attention toward groups if a country’s media landscape is sufficiently free, and that within these institutional constraints, groups themselves can enhance their media access by providing newsmakers with information subsidies. These claims are substantiated by way of a novel cross-nationally comparative data set of more than 1,000 domestic election monitoring and advocacy organizations. Findings show that media attention is structurally limited by the degree to which the news media serve as an open arena, and that even in countries with a free press, few groups achieve media access. At the same time, the most successful groups are not necessarily the most resourceful ones. Rather, strategic choices to invest in media effort, narrow policy engagement, and professionalization substitute for scarce resources, thereby giving groups “more bang for their buck.” The results clarify the causal mechanisms behind the dominance of resource-rich groups on the media agenda and reinforce calls for more globally comparative research into media agenda-setting.