What Drives the Swing Voter in Africa?

What makes African voters “up for grabs”? Existing approaches to the swing voter have several liabilities. This article introduces a new measure enabling a more comprehensive assessment of swing voting, including the differentiation between clientelistic and collective goods motivations. The issue of swing voting is then brought to an environment where voters are rarely considered persuadable: Africa. Using a count‐model estimation technique and original survey data from Ghana's critical 2008 elections, the analysis challenges the near consensus in African politics on clientelism as the only electoral strategy. When voters perceive politicians as providing collective, developmental goods, the efficacy of clientelism as a tool to win over voters is reduced. Many persuadable voters can also be won over by both clientelistic and collective goods, thus contradicting the literature presenting these as mutually exclusive. Finally, the analysis shows that incumbents do better when they provide collective goods even in highly clientelistic environments.     

Towards an Analytical Framework for Party Mergers: Operationalising the Cases of the German Left Party and the Dutch Green Left

The theoretical literature on party mergers is thin. This article draws upon organisational behaviour research to create an analytical framework that is suitable for explaining the processes inherent in party mergers. The authors operationalise this framework by examining two cases of party merger: in Germany, between the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the Electoral Alternative for Labour and Social Justice (WASG) in 2006/07, and in the Netherlands, between four small parties to form Groenlinks (Green Left) in 1989–91. They conclude that the two cases demonstrate definable steps and processes that are inherent to mergers, and they welcome further applications of this framework in other settings.     

Institutionalising Gender Equality in Spain: From Party Quotas to Electoral Gender Quotas

This article accounts for the particular steps Spain took to institutionalise gender equality in political representation. While some West European countries, where the ‘incremental track’ was considered too slow or too ineffective, recently shifted to the ‘fast track’ (notably, Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal), Spain adopted a legislative quota in 2007, when women's representation had already reached very high levels. Indeed, 10 years earlier, the quotas adopted by left-wing Spanish parties in the late 1980s had already reached parity and triggered a contagion effect within the party system. Comparatively speaking, Spain has followed the incremental track in a narrow time frame since democracy was restored in 1978. Finally, although the legal quota reform encountered political and juridical opposition, Spain managed to introduce it without the need for constitutional reform.     

Executive power and policy‐making patterns in France: Gauging the impact of fifth republic institutions

This article attempts to gauge the impact that the institutions of the Fifth Republic have had on governmental behaviour and patterns of policy‐making in France. It is argued that the institutional changes introduced in 1958 have produced profound effects largely in line with the founders' intentions. The enhancement of executive power has produced strong governments capable of dominating the legislative process even in face of the most adverse political contingencies. However, the extraordinary powers of the executive have also generated some consequences unintended by the founders. The strong government system, designed to cure the malaise of the Fourth Republic, has combined with the nature of the party system to produce a distinctive Fifth Republic malaise that has proven most difficult to cure.     

Literary methodology

Texts reviewed:

P. N. Medvedev/M. M. Bakhtin (1978) The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship; translated by A. J. Wehrle. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

Pierre Macherey (1978) A Theory of Literary Production; translated by Geoffrey Wall. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.     

Medieval systems of representation

Text Reviewed:

A. J. Gurjewitsch. Das Weltbild des mittelalterlichen Menschen, Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1978.     

Afterthoughts on Kuhn ∗

Is a non-economistic approach to the economic possible? This paper presentsa positive answer to this question through a discussion of the much vauntedRudolf Hilferding. In particular, it examines Hilferding's implicit structuralism in his portrayal of the economic space as organized. The notion of organization is critically analysed from the perspective of recent advances in post-structuralist theory around the concept of discourse. To this effect, the paper attempts to develop a fuller theoretical understanding of the idea of disorganization. finally, it looks at the consequences that this idea might hold for a new conception of democratic politics.     

Training on a Battlefield: Iraq as a Training Ground for Global Jihadis

This article aims to describe and analyze the training that foreign jihadis in Iraq have received, how this may impact on the future of the insurgency in Iraq, and the potential spillover effect from the Iraqi jihad scene. The nature of the training in Iraq has been influenced by the difficult conditions the jihadis were operating under, and much has consisted of on-the-job training inside safe houses. The foreign jihadis were dependent on the support of the local Iraqis in order to conduct training, but the increasing use of suicide attacks has turned their erstwhile allies against them.     

Neo‐revisionism or the emperor's new clothes: Some reflections on Niall Ferguson on the origins of the first world war

Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (London: Allen Lane/The Penguin Press, 1998). xlv + 623 pp., £18.99 (hb), ISBN 0–713–99246–8.

Niall Ferguson (ed.), Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals (London: Picador, 1997). 548 pp., £20 (hb), ISBN 0–330–35132‐X.     

One perspective on “democracy vs. efficiency”: Testing mutuality via the laboratory approach

Much social commentary has fixated on the theme of “democracy vs. efficiency,” but observers have directed attention at modes of decision-making alternative to the usual bipolar foci. Gaenslen takes the latter tack in suggesting a third mode, and this note at once shares in his intent while seeing problems with his approach. Specifically, this note outlines a fourth mode for decision-making, based on the “laboratory approach to organization development”; it sketches some of its underlying theory and practice; and the narrative details a number of ways in which the demands of economic efficiency and political democracy can be met with substantial mutuality by learning designs consistent with the laboratory approach.