Political budget cycles in the European Union and the impact of political pressures

This paper investigates the presence of political budget cycles (PBCs) in the European Union using data from all 27 member states over the period 1997?C2008, and explores their variability across countries and over time. Three basic results emerge: First, incumbent governments across the EU tend to engineer PBCs in order to enhance their re-election prospects. Second, PBCs are much larger and statistically more robust in the Eurozone countries than in the countries that have not yet adopted the euro. Third, the degree to which governments manipulate fiscal policy is negatively correlated with non-economic voting and positively correlated with electoral competitiveness.     

Sources of tolerance towards corrupted politicians in Greece: the role of trade offs and individual benefits

Reelection of corrupted politicians points to a problem of democratic accountability. Voters do have the chance to ‘throw the rascals out’, but they do not take it. Employing a survey experiment, we test two popular explanations of why Greek voters fail to effectively sanction corrupt politicians. One is related to the distorting effects of psychological attachment to parties and the second to tradeoffs that seem to come into play when voters weigh the prevalence of corruption against other tangible benefits that they receive from governments and parties, such as lower taxes or clientelistic exchanges. Our findings suggest that collective benefits, such as cutting taxes, outweigh the costs of tolerating political corruption. On the contrary, exclusive provision of goods to specific voters, such as in the case of clientelistic exchanges, seems to be negatively related to support for a corrupt politician and therefore should rather not be regarded as a source of tolerance to corruption, at least not in present time Greece.     

The Dragon’s shadow: an introduction to the special issue on ‘Chinese organized crime’

This paper provides an introduction to the articles submitted to the special issue of Trends in Organized Crime bringing forward numerous empirical research findings and theoretical accounts on Chinese organized crime in China and beyond.     

Party contestation and Europe on the news agenda: The 2009 European Parliamentary Elections

In this article we analyse the news coverage of the 2009 EP elections in all 27 EU member states (N = 52,009). We propose that the extent to which these second-order elections are salient to the media depends on political parties contesting the elections. Consistent with expectations, the findings suggest that the saliency of EP elections is increasing and that the degree of political contestation over Europe contributes to this development in a non-linear fashion so that only when contestation develops beyond a certain point, does media coverage increase.     

Asterix and Obelix in Drugland: an introduction to the special issue on ‘drug markets’

This paper provides an introduction to the articles bringing forward empirical research findings and theoretical accounts on drug markets, raising questions about the nature of the relationship between the organization of drug markets and the official frameworks surrounding them, and, importantly, about the complexity of this relationship.     

An introduction to the special issue on ‘counterfeiting’

This paper provides an introduction to the articles and report excerpts included in the special issue of Trends in Organized Crime on ‘Counterfeiting’. The aim of this special issue is to add to the relatively sparse literature currently available that addresses this expansive and complex criminological phenomenon. In particular, the special issue draws together empirical research findings and theoretical accounts on the organization of the counterfeit trade across a broad spectrum of goods, and highlights a number of issues associated with researching counterfeiting.     

An introduction to the special issue on ‘Organised crime and illegal markets in the UK and Ireland’

This paper provides an introduction to the articles and report excerpt submitted to the special issue of Trends in Organized Crime on ‘Organised crime and illegal markets in the UK and Ireland’. The aim of the special issue is to draw together empirical research findings and theoretical accounts on various manifestations of organised crime in the particular geographic context(s), the evolution of organised crime, the links between organised crime, the legal sphere and paramilitary groups, as well as an account of the demographic profile and attitudes of citizens in areas in which organised crime groups thrive.