Anything New Under the Sun? Legal Clarifications as a Polish New Tool for Interpreting Business Law

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - The aim of this article is to critically reflect on the Polish transformation taking place in...     

The Winner Takes It All: Revisiting the Effect of Direct Democracy on Citizens’ Political Support

Despite the strong theoretical expectations about the beneficial effect of direct democratic instruments on citizens’ political support, the empirical evidence is scarce and inconsistent. We add to this literature by studying the effect of the use of a direct democratic process on citizens’ political support and its underlying causal mechanism. Using a unique research design that combines a strong test of causality with a high level of ecological validity, we surveyed inhabitants of a Belgian neighborhood that held a local referendum and a comparison group (i.e. inhabitants of a comparable neighborhood without referendum) before and after the referendum (n = 1049). Using difference-in-differences analysis and first difference regression analysis, we show that in line with our expectations the increase in political support following the referendum is not driven by involvement or procedural fairness perceptions but by an increase in support levels among the winners of the decision. Moreover, despite the contested nature of the issue, losers’ level of political support did not decrease significantly after the result of the referendum was announced.     

Do People Really Lack Knowledge About the Economy? A Reply to Facchini

Facchini uses a behavioural approach to analyse the political beliefs of French people, who he believes are ‘more or less incompetent’ in economics. In this article I focus on his premise that the public are incompetent and that therefore their views, such as being opposed to the market in the case of the French people, should be interpreted as ‘perception bias’. Other economists may echo Facchini, claiming that people who voted Leave in the UK and for Trump in the USA did so because their lack of economic knowledge contributed to an ‘anti‐foreign bias’. However, I argue here that the existing empirical research showing that people lack economic knowledge is flawed. Many economists adopt a questionable approach to the interpretation of public knowledge and the evaluation of what knowledge is important.     

Introducing a New Data Set: Budget Support Suspensions as a Sanctioning Device: An Overview from 1999 to 2014

This article presents a new, publicly available data set covering all budget support (BS) suspensions in the period 1999–2014. The data set covers 239 BS suspensions, involving 18 donors and 40 recipient countries. This article shows an aggregate picture of these suspensions, including the reasons why donors suspended, which donors have been active in suspending their BS, and which countries have been undergoing these aid sanctions. From this aggregate picture some patterns drawn out, substantiate a couple of things that have surfaced in the literature already. With 42% of BS suspensions in the Democracy and Human Rights category, it is clear that democratic governance has been a pertinent reason to legitimize BS suspensions. The large number of suspensions in some countries also indicates the unpredictability of budget support. The data set and the user guide can be downloaded at www.uantwerp.be/budget-support-suspensions .     

Technologies of Displacement and Children’s Right to Asylum in Sweden

Through an analysis of 100 asylum decisions and 10 interviews with 20 asylum officers at the Swedish Migration Agency this article reveals two intricate processes through which children’s rights are displaced in the Swedish asylum process; by overlooking children’s individual claims for asylum through a circle of neglect, and negating children’s best interests. The article demonstrates how the balancing act between migration control on one hand and children’s rights on the other hand plays out in the asylum process, which results in a double displacement; the children are not adult enough to be addressed as asylum seekers and not children enough to deserve qualification as bearer of children’s rights. An in-depth analysis of everyday practices at institutions applying children’s rights is essential both to understand the reproduction of discrepancies between rights on paper and rights in practice, and to explore the potential of rights to disrupt oppressive vehicles of power.     

The Missing Democratic Revolution and Serbia's Anti-European Choice: 1989–2008

In 1989, as the countries of the Soviet bloc took a turn toward democracy and Europe, Yugoslavia and Serbia plunged into a bloody war and moved in the opposite direction. This article argues that the legacy of that era is still strongly felt in postwar and post-Milosevic Serbia. Now, like then, the choice is not simply for or against Europe. By holding on to the nationalism of the Kosovo myth, which territorializes both the Serbian ethnos and the opposition between Christianity and Islam, Serbia is tracing a tortuous path toward democratization and European integration. In the contemporary context, the Kosovo myth impedes Serbia’s recognition of Kosovo as an independent state; it continues to fuel the rhetoric of fractious elites that never cease to tap its capacity for rallying the public; and it provides room for “pro-European” leaders to negotiate EU integration, straddling the fence between Europe’s Atlantic propensities and the resurgent power of Russia. This nationalist myth thus plays a normative and an instrumental role, both domestically and internationally. Outside Serbia, it also engages with a narrow and “thick” notion of Europe, which gained traction within Europe itself in the post-9/11 climate of heightened fear of Islam, where cultural identity trumps the values of liberal democracy.     

Does it pay to break male gender stereotypes in advertising? A comparison of advertisement effectiveness between the United Kingdom,Poland and South Africa

Advertisers shy away from using non-traditional (vs. traditional) male gender portrayals even though theory suggests they may be more effective cross-nationally. Two main hypotheses were tested cross-nationally for the first time. H1: ‘paternalistic’ male stereotypes (e.g. Househusband) would be more effective than ‘envious’ male stereotypes (e.g. Businessman) across countries confirming the stereotype content model (SCM). H2: the match between initial male gender role attitudes and advertisement type would increase advertisement effectiveness only in countries with relatively low egalitarian norms (i.e. Poland and South Africa). A cross-national study was conducted through the use of student samples following a 3(country: United Kingdom, Poland and South Africa) × 2(advertisement type) × (gender attitude) mixed design (N = 373). A three-way multivariate analysis of variance showed support for H1 and partial support for H2 (i.e. the second hypothesis held on purchase intent and for South Africa). The study provides evidence for the cross-national applicability of the SCM to advertising and the limited predictive value of gender attitudes for purchase intent depending on country. Thus, contrary to mainstream advertising practices, breaking male gender stereotypes does appear to pay cross-nationally. Theoretical and practical implications alongside the potential for change in practices are discussed.